#stray kids reading list
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STRAY KIDS
Please note stories that are 18+ will be marked with [🌙] so keep that in mind
ot8/more members
just say it (that girl is mine) - @haechanhues
series, completed, lee know x fem!reader x han
hello stranger - @tasteleeknow [🌙]
series, ongoing, minho ft. hyunjin x fem!reader
undercover jyp-u - @starrgaziinggg [🌙]
series, ongoing
skz and the lipstick stain trend - @seungisms
stray kids and their sneaky love antics - @amelee23
stray kids and.. things they only share with you - @gimmeurtmi
stray kids as academic rivals to lovers - @mazeinthemiroh
stray kids realizing they are in love with you - @odxrilove
stray kids with a 'black cat' s/o - @mazeinthemiroh
thirsting over best friend skz - @zoe8stay
bangchan
christopher calhoun - @thevampywolf
“online friends“ - @caseiloveu
lee know
accidental kidnapping - @kpop-in-new-albion
bad idea - @setsugekka [🌙]
jealousy, jealousy - @candlewaxandp0lar0ids
summer nights - @dreamescapeswriting
the cat huy from 143 - @blue-jisungs
winter wind - @soobnny
changbin
come back later…
hyunjin
the boy is bad news - @milkandhyunnie [🌙]
series, ongoing
chit chat! - @sugrlamb
series, ongoing
twin flame - @hwajin [🌙]
series, ongoing
jisung
espresso - @hanjisick
felix
one of a kind - @seospicybin [🌙]
seungmin
interrupted - @yongbokkari
lipgloss - @hanjisick
jeongin
come back later...
click to return to:
main page (other reading lists)
#tinie recommends#i’m still just starting with skz fics#that's why there isn't that many stories#have lot more to read#but i wanted to share these#will add more recs later#stray kids reading list#stray kids#stray kids fluff#stray kids smut#stray kids angst#stray kids recs#stray kids reactions#reading list#stray kids bang chan#stray kids minho#stray kids changbin#stray kids hyunjin#stray kids jisung#stray kids felix#stray kids seungmin#stray kids jeongin#bang chan fic#minho fic#changbin fic#hyunjin fic#jisung fic#felix fic#seungmin fanfic#jeongin fanfic
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Kpop Exposé Reading
⚠️DISCLAIMER! TAROT CARDS ARE NOT 100% ACCURATE! TAKE EVERYTHING WITH A GRAIN OF SALT! IF MY INTERPRETATIONS ARE INCORRECT FEEL FREE TO CORRECT ME!⚠️
There have been some posts going around about how kpop could possibly lose its fame a few years down the line due to music quality and possible scandals taking place. So… I wanted to do a quick deep dive as to what could possibly be exposed in the Kpop industry.
‼️PLEASE TAKE THIS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT! I BEGGG!‼️
What will be getting exposed? : QoS, The Magician rx, 9oS rx, 4oP, AoW rx, 8oP rx, The Emperor rx, 8oW rx, 10oW, PoP, 9oW, AoS, KoC, KNoC, 2oS rx, The Chariot, KoW
Idols will come out and expose the industry for its constant overworking of the idols. Some contestants from group shows and possible ghostwriters,singers and rappers will come out and talk about how they were not given the opportunity to establish their career because of their looks and rigged group shows.
Idols will come out and talk about the mental illnesses they’ve gained during their idol years, and how the company did not care. They would be pleading for a break but they weren’t given one. They’ll talk about their greedy ceos and industry people who only care about money and will constantly overwork idols while they don’t have to lift a single finger.
Idols will talk about how much they hated being an idol… all of the “luxuries”, brand sponsors, stage outfits, m/v’s and etc meant nothing to them. Other than trauma and exhaustion. The idols will talk about how fed up they are with having to act all innocent and well behaved in order to avoid negative reputations. They’ll talk about the overworking and underpayment. As well as exposing the disharmony within their groups too.
Idols will come out and expose either a ceo/manager/staff member and even their own members of being bullies. They’ll talk about the abuse and tormenting they faced thanks to that bully under their companies. Idols will talk about being tricked into overworking by the company and being told if they work hard they’ll be successful… which is true but that led to the company taking majority of the income from the idols work.
This whole expose will be making its rounds all over social media, but there will be one male figure in particular who will avoid this whole fiasco.
Overall, the idols who decided to expose the industry will be feeling really victorious and are happy to finally expose. They got tired of hiding, being forced to keep quiet, hiding secrets no… they just want to be free. This will also allow them to escape the K-pop industry for good.
Who will be exposing the Kpop industry? : KNoW, 7oP rx, The Star, KoC
An extroverted idol or just an idol who is like genuinely fed up will start exposing. Nugu idols/ idols with stagnant careers will also begin exposing. A really well known idol/songwriter will also expose the industry.
Possible Astrological Signs?! : PoS, KoW & 3oC
Idols with Earth placements, Fire placements and Mercury in Cancer
(Card placements are like a domino effect. One courages idol will start exposing, then a 2nd idol/figure who’s known will participate and then there will be an influx of emotionally drained and fed up idols exposing everything and everyone.)
Aftermath : 7oP, 7oW rx, KNoS rx, 4oS rx
The industry could take a while to get back up on its feet, but they will really push to regain its image again. They’ll be unable to try coverup and defend people anymore. The industry will definitely be judged and looked down upon. They’ll try debut more groups and some industry people will come out and talk but they should be careful as they’re words will be used against them. They will get back on their feet… but it could be a really slow process.
General publics thoughts: 4oW, 2oP, Hanged man rx, The Magician, 9oS, QoS, KoC rx
People will be happy?!😭 I think other music industries could start establishing their own things thanks to kpop going into shambles. Some could also not really care tbh… and people will try divert the attention from the exposé? There will be a lot of talk on social media, and more artists could be glad that their creativity will be shown? Some people will be heartbroken, they could just be in utter shock tbh. People will be happy that ppl are getting exposed now. Overall, just a lot of talk on social media, different sides and opinions as per usual…
Kpop stans thoughts : KNoC rx, 3oS rx, KoW rx, QoP, Death & AoP
They will think idols are lying and are jealous of their faves. They will not believe any of the news coming out and will attack the idols still and say they fake. Some kpop stans will definitely be leaving the fandom, and never come back. It will just be a mess tbh, a lot of death threats and doxxing will happen. People will definitely defend and some will applaud the idols who exposed to industry.
Woke Kpop stans will possibly leave this whole kpop industry and this will also lead to the declining finances in the industry.
i hope we will all be prepared for when this day comes because it’s going to be one longgggg bumpy ride 😵💫
Thank you for reading 📦
(24/02/2024)
#black tarot readers#tarot reading#tarot#kpop tarot#celeb tarot#tarotcommunity#tarot master list#kpop#kpop industry#pluto in aquarius#kpopstan#predictions#kpop aesthetic#aespa#NEWJEANS#stray kids#bts#blackpink#twice#exo#nct#red velvet#ive#le sserafim#seventeen#ATEEZ#stayc#cravity#nmixx#Spotify
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♡ Mila ⊹ ࣪ ˖ 1998 ˖ ࣪ ⊹ infp. This is my side blog for reblogging fics.
Mainly Stray Kids, but I read other groups sometimes.
⊹ ࣪ ˖ TAGS:
♡ Favorites
♡ Minho
♡ Hyunjin
♡ Chan
♡ OT8
#stray kids#stray kids fic rec#skz fic rec list#stray kids fic#lee know fic rec#bc 85% of what i read is him tbh#fic rec list#idk how to tag
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Can't decide if I should laugh or cry about Changbin in the Billboard photoshoot. Like... cry because he Looks❗️So❗️Good❗️ or laugh because everyone else has vertical pictures and the photographer got to Binnie and went "Well this isn't going to work with those shoulders"
- reluctantly reading omegaverse anon
I am literally dead. Deceased.
"THIS ISN'T GOING TO WORK WITH THOSE SHOULDERS"
OH MY GOD YOU'RE RIGHT 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Listen.
I don't wanna be hard stan on main. But I'm gonna be a hard stan on main. 👀
Seo Changbin could literally put my head between his thighs and pop me like a pimple and I would say thank you. 🙈
Because if given that opportunity, you seize it. With both hands.
Or both cheeks, I guess is more accurate. 😏
Just for everyone's reference:
Don't even TRY to tell me you look at that☝🏼 and don't instantly want to get down on your knees and ask that man where and how, mkay?
SEO CHANGBIN WAS WRITTEN BY AND FOR WOMEN. GOD.
#skz#stray kids#billboard#seo changbin#changbin#inbox#moots#mutuals#reply#ask#jess talks#daddy? sorry. daddy? sorry. daddy? sorry.#spearb#anon#anonymous#sweet nonnie#reluctantly reading omegaverse anon#anon list#my anons#my submissions#submission#stay#hard stan on main#i'm not sorry#sue me#LOOK AT HIM
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SUNNI'S [ reading ] LIST !!
all of these fics are on going, this list is so that i can find them easier and so you can see what i'm currently reading (if you want!!). i hope you enjoy and support the writers - remember that tumblr works on reblogs!! some of these works are nsfw and therefore please go by writers' guidelines and mdni.
updated 20 november 2023
STRAY KIDS !!
social media aus
yellow @burningupp
me gustas means i like you @seungbinbin
waiting for us @kkami-writes
drabbles
skz!pack universe @leviackermanscleaningbuddy
written series
devil's advocate full house @kkami-writes
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Little Love Notes | Bang Chan
Pairing: Bang Chan x Fem!Reader
Summary: Chan's girlfriend likes to leave him little notes.
Warnings: It just fluffy. I have written a little drabble similar to this but wanted to switch it around so it's reader leaving him little love notes. This is a repost from my now deactivated blog. More of an explanation in my pinned post.
Word Count: 482
Stray Kids Masterlist | Tag List Sign-Up | Requesting Guidelines
Chan's heart swelled with warmth as he read the little note once again. The words are written on a bright yellow post-it note which was stuck to his laptop lid. It was a simple sentence, but it meant so much to him.
"Have a great day, my love. Don’t be too hard on yourself."
The last couple day’s he’d been a little hard on himself because he couldn’t get a part of the latest song they’ve been working on right. No matter how he mixed it, with and without Changbin and Jisung’s help, he couldn’t seem to get it sounding like he envisioned in his mind.
Taking a moment before he goes back to the song that’s becoming a headache, he remembers back to when Y/N left him the first note she ever left him. They had just moved in together when he found a post-it note stuck to the screen of his phone, with ‘I love you’ written on it. From that day on, Y/N made it her mission to leave him little love notes around their apartment. Some days they just said I love you and other days they’d be a small paragraph reminding him how loved he is, or how lucky she is to have him. Sometimes they would be sweet little reminders for him to take breaks, or to go easy on the guys and stuff like that. When he went away, whether it be in South Korea or overseas, the little notes would continue. He’d find them on in his bag, in the pocket of a random hoodie or pair of pants, and on his electronics. He even found one wrapped around his toothbrush, one time.
The guys often tease him about the notes, but he doesn't care. He loves these notes more than anything because they are a physical representation of her love for him. It’s his and Y/N’s little thing they have that doesn’t involve anyone else. He loves it and would be sad if she ever stopped writing them.
As he opens his laptop, he chuckles to himself when he finds another note in his girlfriend's handwriting. ‘Can we please have McDonald’s for dinner?’
He puts the notes somewhere safe so he can add them to the growing collection, filling his desk drawer at him. Grabbing his phone, he pulls up his messages with Y/N, and types out his reply to her notes.
‘You have a good day too. I’ll pick up McDonald’s on my way home tonight. I love you so much x.’
He puts his phone to the side and boots up his laptop to get started working on the newest 3racha song.
It doesn’t take long before his phone buzzes, notifying him that he has a new message. When he checks it, he smiles, seeing it’s from Y/N.
‘I’ll message you my order later. I love you so much too, baby xxxxx.’
Likes, Comments & Reblogs are welcomed and appreciated.
©️ 2024 CRAZYFORMFICS. NO ONE HAS PERMISSION TO COPY, TRANSLATE AND/OR POST MY FICS ON HERE OR ANY OTHER SITE.
TAGGED: @staytiny2000 - @dancelikebutterflywings - @kpopmenace143 - @treehouse-mouse - @alexxavicry - @jedi-dreea - @rainydayteacups
#bang chan#stray kids#skz#bang chan x reader#stray kids x reader#skz x reader#bang chan x y/n#stray kids x y/n#skz x y/n#stray kids imagines#bang chan imagines#skz imagines#skz scenarios#stray kids scenarios#stray kids fluff#bang christopher chan
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“just leave me alone!”
megumi storms off towards his room as gojo’s easygoing expression falls away instantly, leaving you conflicted as to who you should check on first. (which is difficult to do when you remember that thirteen year old boys hate talking about their emotions almost as much as twenty-five year old ones do.)
you decide that megumi needs a few minutes to cool down, so you step into the kitchen first, where your fiancé is tearing open a new bag of candy a little more harshly than necessary. you lean your hip against the counter as he murmurs a greeting.
“what was that about?” you ask.
“he hates me,” he shrugs.
“he’s a thirteen year old boy. he hates everybody,” you point out, but it fails to make him laugh like you’d intended. instead, his frown only deepens and he mutters,
“he doesn’t hate you.”
you tilt your head slightly. “is that what this is about? me being his favourite?”
“i don’t know,” he sighs. “i…i just can’t seem to connect with him the way you’ve always been able to.”
“that’s not true,” you say quickly, unsure of what exactly you can say to make him feel better. it’s not like him to be so insecure. “you guys have had your moments.”
“not lately. i just keep pissing him off,” he huffs, unwrapping and popping a piece of candy into his mouth. “did i do something?”
you open up the fridge to pull some ingredients for lunch, sighing. “i don’t think so, but nanami, shoko, and i were texting about it the other day—”
“wait, you’re in a group chat with nanami and shoko?”
“oh yeah,” you nod, setting your vegetables on the counter. “it’s mostly memes, but sometimes we talk about how messed up you are.”
he blinks at you a few times before muttering that you’d get back to that later. “what’d they say?”
“they quoted a lot of freud, but the gist of it was that it’s normal for fathers and sons to butt heads.”
he frowns deeply at that. “so what should i do?”
“be patient. he’ll come around eventually.”
“easy for you to say,” he huffs. “you’re the only mother figure he’s ever known. he’s already had a dad.”
“satoru, he’s thirteen. he’s officially been with us longer than he was with toji.”
you study his conflicted expression as he turns that information over in his mind. “okay, how about this? i was going to take him to the mall to buy new clothes after lunch, but why don’t you go with him instead?”
“that’s a great idea!” he exclaims, pressing his hands together excitedly. “i’ll take him to the bookstore too! can you find out what’s on his reading list?”
“he’s not a little kid anymore,” you remind him. “you can’t just buy his affection with a new book.”
“i’ll buy him two, then.”
“i love where your heart is at,” you start slowly. “but you just…have to give him space to let him come to you.”
he groans loudly, coming up behind you to press his forehead into the crook of your neck. you smile, tilting your head to the side and reaching up to pat his hair.
“i guess this is good practice for when we have our own kid,” he mutters, stiffening when he feels your hand still in his hair.
“our own kid, huh? so does that mean you’re done bringing home strays?”
“you three are all i need,” he tells you, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “whatever happens next…is just a bonus.”
BONUS:
[you] [1 attachment]
[nanami] Why is he dressed like Gojo?
[shoko]: like father like son huh
[you] satoru had a quarter-life crisis yesterday. just a small one.
[shoko] i’m not surprised. his life is like a shakespearean tragedy.
[nanami] That is accurate.
[you] he’s trying to bond with megumi.
[shoko] by dressing him like he’s emotionally unavailable?
[you] what does that even mean?
[shoko] the sunglasses
[you] ?
[nanami] Elaborate further, please.
[shoko] eyes are the windows to the soul.
[nanami] (the more you know gif)
#gojo x reader#gojo satoru x reader#jjk x reader#jjk fluff#jjk drabbles#keeping up with the fushigojos
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Stray Kids Kinktober Day 5
Stray Kids Kinktober Masterlist
Cockwarming - Felix
Word Count: 5.7k
Summary: End of the quarter reports are due and somehow one of the calculations got messed up; it’s nothing you can’t do by hand. And luckily you have a preppy secretary who will stop at nothing to make sure you’re relaxed.
————————————————————
“Felix, can you bring in my incoming forms, please?” you say into the intercom on your desk.
“Right away, ma’am.” His deep voice answers you immediately through the speaker.
Leaning back in your large office chair, you cross one leg over the other and look out of the floor to ceiling windows that line the wall behind your desk.
Your arms cross over your chest and your bottom lip pulls between your teeth in deep thought.
Various different items on your to-do list for the day fly through your mind as you stare out over the Seoul skyline.
Partnership approvals, tax forms, time sheets.
Being the CFO for a large cooperation like this one was never easy. There was never a single day in the office that you weren’t busy. When you think about it, you can’t even remember the last time you took a vacation day.
Once you get this high in the corporate ladder, it’s supposed to get easier, that’s what you thought. It’s what you were told your entire life. But, now that you’re here, you see that it’s the exact opposite.
Every single day is filled to the brim with meetings, phone calls, and business lunches. It’s all chock full of fake smiles and forced laughter.
You worked your ass off to get to where you were now, and nothing was ever going to change that. Sleep be damned..
A gentle knock sounded through the room.
“Come in,” you call out, turning your chair to face the door.
The door opens and Felix walks in with a large stack of papers in his hands. His crisp white dress shirt is tucked into his navy blue dress pants, a matching tie around his neck. A pair of thick black glasses sat perched on his nose, face framed by long, perfectly kempt, blond hair.
“Your inbox, ma’am,” he says warmly, walking closer to your desk.
“Thank you, Felix.” You motion down to the empty desk in front of you. “You can just place them anywhere.”
He nods and gently places them on an empty spot on the wood.
“Do I have any more meetings for the day?” you ask him, flipping through the papers.
“No, ma’am.”
You run one hand through your hair tiredly. “Good, good.” A beat. “What time is my first meeting tomorrow?”
Felix reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He taps on the screen a few times before speaking up. “Ten o’clock.”
“Really? That’s the best news I’ve gotten all day.”
“Your 8:30 was rescheduled to the afternoon.”
“Now that makes sense.”
Your eyes tiredly flick over to the time on your desktop. “Jesus, Felix. Weren’t you supposed to leave an hour ago?”
He shifts his weight on his feet. “Yes, but I don’t leave until you do.”
“I told you that you don’t need to do that.”
“It’s just in case you need me, you know?” A soft blush covers his cheeks, but you pay no mind to it.
“You’re putting these hours on your timesheet, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” You sigh again. “Tomorrow is the day, isn’t it?”
“If you’re referring to the quarterly rebalance, then yes, it is.”
At the end of every quarter, you were in charge of verifying each analyst’s calculations and reading their predictions for the next one before presenting them to the board of directors.
Every single time you end up staying at the office until the wee hours of the morning.
Last quarter, you didn’t leave the office until two in the morning. And, like every quarter, Felix stayed with you.
“Well, then,” You put the forms back down on your desk and push your chair away to stand up. “I’m not going to bother with these tonight when I’ll be here until sunrise on Saturday.”
“Should I have your car brought around?”
“If you could, please.”
“Right away, ma’am.”
Felix briskly leaves the room and you roll your head around your sore neck.
“Fuck quarterly rebalances.”
----------------------------------------
Your hand runs over your face for the millionth time in the last four hours. The numbers are starting to blend together at this point.
The analyses started coming in around 11 AM and since then you just haven’t stopped.
Line chart after line chart, spreadsheet after spreadsheet, everything looks the same now.
You’ve been hung up on one single data set. There’s a random spike in it for no reason at all. Why is there a spike in this calculation?
You cannot move on to the rest of the data until you get over this spike.
Blindly, you reach over to the phone on your desk and press the intercom button. “Felix,” you say after the beep.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Can you please patch me through to Seo Changbin? There’s no way this spike is correct.”
The sound of typing on a keyboard echoes over the line.
“Seo Changbin clocked out three hours ago, ma’am. Would you like me to ring his personal phone?”
“Three hours?” you ask incredulously and look down at the time. “Holy shit.” you murmur under your breath.
8:00 PM. It’s 8:00 PM.
“Ma’am?” Felix grabs your attention after a second of waiting.
You throw your glasses down onto the desk and pinch the bridge of your nose in frustration. A headache has been resting behind your eyes all day.
“No,” you say after a few moments. “No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll just run the numbers myself.”
“Is there anything else I can help you with for now, ma’am?”
You look around the room, the sun is setting over the skyline. A sigh leaves your chest.
It’s hard to believe you were working for nine straight hours on this. When was the last time you looked up?
“Have you eaten yet, Felix?” you ask, keeping your eyes outside.
“No, ma’am.”
“Order whatever you want, make it double. Put it on the corporate card.”
Felix’s deep laugh comes through the intercom. “Right away, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Felix.”
“My pleasure, ma’am.”
----------------------------------------
Two plus two is four, right? Yes, of course it is. Two plus two has always been four. They wouldn’t just change that suddenly, right?
But you’re so delirious that you still punch it in your calculator.
“Two plus two...” When the calculator says four, you stare at it. “To be honest, I was expecting something else with how tonight is going.”
Laughing at your own joke, you continue to re-input the numbers into the spreadsheet on your desktop.
A knock at your door pulls your attention.
“Come in!” you call out without looking up.
The door clicks open. “Delivery!” Felix’s cheery voice calls into your office.
You look up at your secretary with weary eyes. His mouth pulls into a sympathetic smile.
“That bad, huh?”
“You have no idea.” you groan and lean back in your chair. Your muscles scream from the movement and you grunt. “I just verified two plus two on the calculator.”
“Still four?���
“Surprisingly.”
“I think it’s time for a break, then.”
Peeking at the clock, it says it’s around 9:00 PM now.
With an apologetic smile, you look up at Felix. His white collared shirt is undone at the top, no tie around his neck. A plain pair of tight black slacks hugging his legs. He’s looking at you with nothing but pity in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Felix,” you say while taking the takeout container from him. He just laughs.
“Don’t apologize, it’s all part of the job.” He shifts in place for a moment and turns and looks at the door.
“Where’s your food?”
“Oh, at my desk.”
“Why don’t you bring it in here? I’d love the company. Wayne can only do so much for my sanity.” You point at the house plant on your windowsill.
A little nametag on the front of the pot says ‘Wayne’ in cursive.
Felix’s eyes widen and his cheeks turn a bit pink. “Oh! Yeah! I’ll um… I’ll go grab it and be right back.”
You follow his lithe body as he rushes out of your office with one eyebrow raised.
Strange.
True, this was the first time you invited him to eat in your office with you. But it’s not like you ever had the opportunity to do so.
Typically, you ate in your office by yourself while still working. Truth be told, you had no idea when Felix’s lunch break was. He was always available when you needed him. Did he work through his lunch too?
Your secretary re-enters your office slightly out of breath.
“By the way,” he pants. “I had forgotten to order us drinks, so I got this out of the vending machine for you.”
He comes up to your desk holding out your favorite drink.
“Ugh, what would I do without you?” You smile and take the drink. “Pull a chair closer, you can eat on my desk too. It’ll get all over you if you try to balance it like that on your lap.”
Eagerly, he places his food on your desk and scoots forward. The redness in his cheeks deepened.
Soft lo-fi music is coming through your computer and filling the silence in the air. You crack open the takeout container and dig in.
It’s a stir fry. And stir fry has never looked this good in your life.
“This is so good,” you basically moan after taking your first bite.
“O-Oh, yeah? I’m glad you like it,” Felix stutters back and takes his own bite.
“It’s definitely much needed after today.” You whine and look back at your desktop.
“What’s going on with the numbers?”
“Based on what Changbin gave me, it says our internal earnings spiked massively this quarter. And yes, while this is great, it’s extremely abnormal. If this is true, I need to verify it before I can present it; otherwise, I’ll look like a fool.”
Felix listens intently to your explanation. “I don’t think you could ever look like a fool, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Felix.” You smile at him. He grins back and suddenly it’s like the sun is back up. His pearly white teeth shine in the office light.
“You have such a pretty smile,” you compliment him. “I don’t think I ever told you that.”
Felix squirms in his seat and looks down bashfully. The blush spreads all over his face. One of his hands comes up and rubs the back of his neck.
“Ah, thank you, ma’am. I appreciate that.”
Chuckling softly, you turn back to your calculations.
The gentle, twinkling sounds of lo-fi beats do nothing to help calm the swirling confusion in your head.
Minutes pass and you’re staring at the same algorithm.
Your shoulders are slowly coming towards your ears with all the tension in your body. When you lean forward to use your keyboard, a burning pain runs through your back.
“Fuck.” Your hand flies up to grab where your shoulder meets your neck to massage it and roll your head around.
“Everything alright?” Felix asks.
“Yeah, I just get so stiff sitting at my desk while I work on the end of quarter stuff. Feels like my shoulders are on fire.”
No amount of massaging your own shoulders seems to be working, though.
Felix looks down at his food for a moment, then back up to you. His eyes shift away from you nervously.
“Before this job, I had gone to massage school for a few months. Would you like me to see if I can work those kinks out?”
Normally, you would say no. It would be so wildly inappropriate to have your secretary massage your shoulders while you work. Imagine if someone decided to walk in?
But now? When no one else is here and there’s no end in sight with these analyses?
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” you ask, unsure.
He seems to perk up a bit. “Not at all!”
Another moment passes while you weigh it in your mind, your lip pulls between your teeth before looking at him a bit sheepishly. “If you don’t mind…”
Felix is up on his feet, food immediately forgotten. It almost startles you how fast he’s up and around the back of your chair.
You had shucked off your blazer a few hours ago. Just your button up on, the top few buttons undone and sleeves rolled up to your elbows.
Felix stands behind you for a moment, his hands hovering over your shoulders. “Do you have any lotion?”
“Yes, actually.” Reaching down into your desk drawer, you pulled out an herbal lotion that your one friend had gotten you as a gift.
“‘Stress Relief’, huh?” Felix teases when you set it on the desk.
“A friend thought it would make a great gag gift with everything going on,” you laugh to yourself and stare back at your computer. “She didn’t realize how appropriate it was.”
Once more, Felix moves his hands around your back, his lithe fingers sweeping your hair off the back of your neck. Instead of keeping it down, you lean forward and grab a long pencil out of the cup and twirl it around your hair to then pin it up.
It’s a trick you learned back in college.
Felix watches behind you silently, his breath hitches slightly when he sees your hair settle all pinned up. Strands fall out of the bundle and frame your face and neck a bit.
It’s the most perfect messy hairstyle he’s ever seen.
Felix’s jaw clenches and he gulps, pulling himself together.
“Do you mind if I, ah– lower the back of your shirt a bit?”
“Yeah, here.” You’re already back in word mode; after looking at the sheer number of raw data littering the spreadsheet on your desktop, you were no longer focused on your secretary.
You unbutton more of the buttons and let your shirt slide off your shoulders a bit. Your cleavage was still covered– mostly.
Felix’s brain whites out for a split second and he has to physically force his brain to reboot. There’s a slight twitch in his pants at the sight of your naked shoulders. You’re always in those high-collared shirts, blazers, sweaters, so ungodly professional.
But your clothes are always so skin tight. Or you’ll wear a blouse like this one and a tiny little pencil skirt.
Felix leans down and pumps some lotion on his hands, rubbing it together to warm it up before setting his hands on your wonderfully smooth skin. It takes every fiber of his being not to let out a moan at the feeling.
His breathing picks up as he digs his thumbs into your muscles.
Immediately, you groan at the feeling. “God, that already feels so good, Felix.”
His name, you said his name, moaning nonetheless.
He can only make a noise of acknowledgement while he continues to work out the high strung muscles in your neck and shoulders.
Meanwhile, your brain is completely focused on your calculations. It’s so much easier to focus on everything when it doesn’t feel like your back is on fire.
Felix’s hands are absolutely magical. Everywhere he rubs loosens up underneath his strong, yet gentle, grip. He kneads right at the base of your neck and every knot slowly releases.
Small moans slip past your lips without realizing it.
And just because you don’t realize you’re moaning does not mean that your secretary hasn’t. Every single sound that comes out of your mouth goes straight to his dick. His slacks have tightened significantly, a tent pitching higher and higher each second.
He scolds himself internally. He knows he needs to pull it together, you’re his boss. You sign his paychecks. But fuck, knowing that you’re making those noises because of just his fingers is messing with his brain, he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to.
Felix runs over a particularly tight knot and you jump with a yelp.
“Sorry! Sorry!” he apologizes profusely, keeping his hands on your shoulders.
“It’s okay,” you soothe his worry. “God, I already feel better. It felt like someone was stabbing flaming daggers into my shoulders.”
Your voice sounds somewhere else. Even though Felix has been your secretary for almost two years now, you’ve never spoken this casually with him. You were always professional, always so put together.
The work in front of you has you so consumed that you don’t realize how much your tongue is slipping.
It’s been like this the entire night. You’re too distracted to care.
“I can’t believe you chose to pursue this instead of continuing with massage school.” you continue.
“Well, I had originally gotten this job to pay for massage school. Then, when I got this position, I realized it paid more than being a masseuse ever would.”
You move your head around your shoulders, “Still.” you write down a string of numbers, click around on your keyboard, punch a formula into the calculator, then write something else down. “God, your fingers are fucking magical.”
Hearing you curse sent a lightning bolt down his back and Felix’s head is shot into the clouds. And you were complimenting him!
“I can’t imagine what else those fingers can do.”
Now he knows he’s dreaming. Did you really just say that? Did he hallucinate it? His fingers pause on your muscles.
Your own words must have sunken into your brain; your entire body goes rigid and you gasp, one hand flying over your mouth. Your heart drops to your stomach.
“Oh my god, Felix.” you say quietly, your tone is horrified. “Felix, I am so sorry, please. Oh, god.”
You can’t even turn around to look at him. It’s like ice water was injected to your veins. How could you have said that? He’s going to report you to HR! Who wouldn’t? You quite literally just harassed him in the workplace.
“I have no idea why I said that.” you sputter.
Say goodbye to everything you worked for. You threw it out the window by accidentally letting your tongue slip while he massaged your bare shoulders.
While you were apologizing profusely, you didn't feel him lean down until you heard his baritone voice was right next to your ear.
“I could show you.”
Like a zipper, pleasure shoots right up your spine. It makes you sit up straighter in your desk chair. Your mouth is suddenly so dry.
“W-What?” you stutter out, still looking down at your desk.
Felix is so close behind you that you can smell his cologne wrapping around your nose. It’s so fresh. It has a cotton-like musky smell to it. You’ve always caught whiffs of it when he came breezing through your office.
So many times you’ve found yourself leaning into the smell, and now here you have it so close to you.
“I could show you what these fingers can do, ma’am.” he purrs in your ear. Goosebumps raise all along the back of your neck, the hairs stand on end and a shiver creeps up on you.
His warm, slippery hands slide from your shoulders down your bare arms to grip them for a second before sliding back up. Felix reapers the motion a few times, letting his hot breath fan over your exposed skin.
“But,” the gravel of his voice makes your insides flutter. “You need to finish these calculations, ma’am.”
You hum in response, allowing your eyes to flutter closed and you lean back into his touch.
Felix chuckles under his breath. “I have an idea.”
----------------------------------------
Oh, it was a sinful fucking idea. Did he really think you were going to get any work done like this?
Felix had sat down on your desk chair, the tent in his pants so painfully obvious. At the same time, you can’t deny the wetness in your panties. It was getting worse and worse during that massage.
It’s only natural.
He grabs your hips and pulls your body towards him, his face level with your lower stomach. He looks directly up at you, his fingers curling into the fabric of your pencil skirt.
Those deep brown eyes staring up at you with a lustful haze covering them. Every freckle was highlighted on his face due to the blush covering his skin.
You bring one of your hands up to his face and softly caress his cheek, letting your fingertips dance over his skin. Felix leans into your touch; he turns his head and presses a kiss to your palm.
“This is crazy,” you whisper down to him.
“The secretary sleeping with the boss is not a new concept, ma’am.”
You roll your eyes. “Yes, but it’s usually the other way around.”
One of your knees comes up and rests on the chair right in front of his crotch. Felix bites his lip and his eyes squint shut for a moment.
His hips stutter, you can tell he’s trying not to roll them to rub against your bare skin.
Your head cocks to the side and you smirk. “Come on then, I need you to be fully hard if I’m going to sit on your cock.”
One of the deepest moans you’ve ever heard pulls from deep within his chest. Felix’s head tilts back and his grip on your hips tightens. In a fluid motion, he gyrates his hips and you feel his cock press right against your leg.
A devious smile crosses your face, you move your hand down to grip his face tightly to bring his clouded gaze back to you.
“Come on then, Felix. You can do better than that.”
He whines and closes his eyes again, his hips stuttering and moving faster, harder. He parts his lips to begin panting. Each breath is hot and heavy, you can barely hear your music over it. The heat from his exhales goes right through your shirt.
Further and further, he descends into a subspace.
“Good boy,” you praise and it goes straight to his head.
Felix gulps and moves his hands around to grip your ass a bit.
In a quick movement, you rip your leg away from his hips.
Felix cries out and his eyes fly open to look at you with astonishment.
“Did I say you could touch me like that?” you hiss down at him.
“No, ma’am.”
Your head cocks to the side and you stare for a few seconds. “I need to get back to work already. Take your cock out.”
His eyes widen and he hesitates, not used to hearing such filth tumble from your lips. You tighten your grip on his face.
“I’m waiting, Felix.”
He’s then fumbling with his pants trying to fulfill your wishes. He’s practically scrambling. Why isn’t the zipper fucking working? Come on, come on.
Meanwhile, you drop his face and pull your skirt up around your waist, revealing your black lace thong. While still fumbling with his own pants, Felix moans, staring at the beautiful sight in front of him. It sounds like it’s punched out of him.
Teasingly, you hook your thumbs around the elastic band and drag it down your legs slowly.
Another whine comes out from Felix’s throat. His tongue practically falls out of his mouth at the sight of your pussy, acting like a starved dog.
“Please,” he pants, not able to tear his eyes away from it. “Just a taste. Just one. Please, ma’am, please.”
Smirking, you lightly slap his cheek twice. “You get three licks, honey.”
He can’t get his mouth on you fast enough. Felix wraps his lips around your glistening folds and runs his tongue up through your juices, collecting whatever he could on his tongue.
You both moan at the same time at the sensation.
“One…” you moan out.
Another lick pulls another moan. “Two!”
After the third lick, he swirls his tongue around your clit, making your knees feel weak. “Fuck! Three!”
You roughly grab his hair and yank his mouth away from you. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes half lidded. It looks like you took a puppy away from its bowl.
His full lips glisten with your arousal.
“Sit back on the chair, hands to yourself.”
Felix reluctantly leans back in your chair, his cock at full mast and dripping with precum. His head is flushed red. He is painfully hard.
He rests both of his hands on the arm rests of the chair and keeps his lustful eyes on you.
A smirk pulls at your lips as you kick your panties off, heels staying on.
You turn around and grab Felix’s cock tightly. His hands tighten around the armrests with a gasp.
“Remember what I said, Felix. No touching.”
“Yes,” he pants.
“Say it, then.” you demand, hovering your pussy over his cock. You both can feel the heat of each other radiating off.
“No touchinggg—!” While he was talking you dropped down onto his length.
Both of you moan out loud, your head kicks back at the delicious stretch. God, it’s been too fucking long since you’ve gotten laid. This job takes everything from you.
You roll your hips a few times, getting adjusted. With each movement, Felix lets out a noise: a whine, a grunt, a moan, a whimper, everything in between. He’s singing a chorus of pleasure in your ear.
“We have to get a little closer to the desk, Felix.”
It takes every ounce of strength, but your voice comes out even and Felix clocks that it’s your professional voice. You feel his cock twitch inside you.
Slowly, he rolls the chair towards the desk and you immediately return to your work. You snap back to it so fast it makes Felix whimper again.
Your heat is wrapped around him in the fucking best way. There’s no way he’s alive right now. For months he’s touched himself thinking about what you looked like underneath all those professional clothes.
You’re always so uptight, what if you just let loose for once? What would it be like?
Your pussy clenched down on him and Felix whines, throwing his head back. Oh, this was going to be torture.
Just until you finish verifying the calculation, that’s what you said. As soon as you verify the numbers, then you would let him have you.
“You just need to behave.” You told him.
How is he supposed to behave when you’re so fucking tight and wet around him? He can feel each breath you take.
Besides the fact that you’re surrounding his cock, your naked thighs are right there on top of his. He wants to grab them so hard it’ll leave his fingerprints in your skin, maybe it’ll bruise in the shape of his handprint.
Felix can’t help his hips bucking at the thought.
You clench again and moan. “Felix,” you warn.
“S-Sorry.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Sorry, ma’am!”
Oh, you love that. You absolutely throb around him. Huh.
The soft hairs on the back of your neck tickle against his nose, he can still smell the lotion that he rubbed into your shoulders.
Felix is grabbing the armrests so tight his knuckles are turning white. His nails dig into the leather painfully.
He licks his lips nervously and he gets another taste of your arousal that was still on his skin. It makes his eyes roll back.
You adjust on his lap. The movement of your heat around him makes his head spin. The drag of your hot, soaking wet walls over his length is the most consuming feeling he’s ever felt.
“Fuck,” he murmurs under his breath.
“Stop moving.”
A small sheen of sweat breaks out on his forehead.
Why no touching? Why couldn’t he snake his hand around and up your blouse? He could cup your tit and pinch and pull your nipples until you’re clenching around him so tight that he could scream. He could lick all the way up your neck and pull your earlobe into his mouth while he listens to you panting his name.
Why can’t he touch you? God, he just wants to touch you.
Here he was, living out his wildest wet dream, and he couldn't feel your soft, supple skin underneath his fingers.
Why can’t he turn your head and consume your lips with his own? Shove his tongue down your throat and suck on yours like it’s a piece of candy.
He should’ve taken his pants off. This way he would’ve been able to feel your juices drip down and soak his thighs. You’re so fucking wet he thinks he might die.
Felix’s eyes travel to the desk. He could absolutely bend you over the top. He could pull your hair and make you scream. He could make you forget all about–
“Aha!” When you scream, he jumps in surprise. His hips buck up and your pussy clenches around him. You both moan.
“Did you get it?” he pants out. His voice sounds so much weaker than he wanted it to; he sounds like he just ran two miles.
“Yes! He used net earnings instead of gross in one formula! Oh I am going to kill him.”
Thank the fucking lord. You figured it out. You did it, can he please please please–
Felix must’ve started thrusting up into you before he could even register the movements. His mind is so cloudly with lust that he can barely think straight.
“Easy, Felix.” you whine out through moans. He can just tell you didn’t want him to stop either. “Let me just finalize the chart and then–”
Felix cries out and then slumps his head forward to rest between your shoulder blades. “Ma’am, please, I’ve been so good for you, haven’t I? Haven’t I been such a good boy for you, ma’am?”
You hum and roll your hips ever so slightly. Just this slight amount of movement drives Felix insane. He whimpers loudly and his legs begin to shake underneath you.
“You have been a good boy, Felix. Why don’t I give you a reward?”
“Please.”
“Why don’t you let those pretty little hands roam until I’m done?”
“Thank you!” he cries out with a hoarse voice.
Immediately, his hands fly to your thighs and he grips the flesh tightly. His nails dig into your skin and you cry out under your breath, your walls clamping down on him tightly.
“Can I use my mouth, ma’am? Please please please please–”
“Yesss…” you hissed at him.
Felix attaches his lips to your neck and begins to suck on the soft skin while his hands wander up your body.
One hand goes right under your shirt and pulls your bra down. Those magic fingers pinch your nipple.
Every reaction your body has envelopes him in the most amazing way. He can feel everything your body likes. He can feel how you like when he rubs around your nipple rather than pinching it. He can feel how much you love when he uses his thumb to play with your tit while his mouth bites at your neck and hit other hand teases your soaking wet folds.
“Felix…” you warn. It’s all empty, though. Your typing has completely stopped, work has been forgotten.
“Fuck, you feel so fucking good, ma’am.” He moans when you tighten. “Let me make you feel good, ma’am. Let me be such a good secretary.”
With the gentlest of touches, Felix plays with your clit. Just with that soft touch, your body spasms around him.
“I can make your body sing, ma’am. Let me be of service to you.”
Another gentle pinch of your nipple. It’s going straight to his head how he can feel how much you’re fighting him.
“Don’t you want to cum around my cock, ma’am?”
You break. “Please.” you whine out.
It’s enough for him.
Both of his arms tighten around your body, his feet plant firmly on the floor and he begins fucking up into you like his fucking life depends on it.
He turns into something of a fucking animal with how he’s rutting his cock into your sopping wet heat. He thrusts so hard and so fast, you think he might go through you.
His teeth bare for a moment from the exertion, but he bites down where your shoulder meets your neck.
Your head throws back onto his shoulder. Felix grabs your entire tit to anchor his hold, his thumb brushing over the nipple over and over, each one sends a ripple of pleasure through you.
His other hand rubs harder at your clit, you clamp even tighter over him. Both of you grunt and groan. There is no silence in your office; is the music even playing anymore?
You turn your head to look at him. “Kiss me, Felix.”
He captures your lips without a second thought. It all feels so fucking deliciously good. He sucks on your tongue just like he always wanted to.
Your mouths glide over one another sloppily, spit getting everywhere on your mouths.
With each thrust, each flick, each rub, your orgasm gets closer and closer.
Felix shifts his hips a bit and hits your g-spot so hard you cry out into his mouth, he swallows the noise.
“You’re so fucking tight, ma’am. I can feel you clenching so hard. You’re close, aren’t you?”
All you’re able to do is nod. He’s stimulating you so much that you can’t find your voice.
“Fuck!” he cries out, “Fuck fuck, give it to me, please. Please cum for me, ma’am.” His voice is so low, it's so hoarse from arousal.
A particularly hard thrust launches you over the edge, your orgasm seizes every inch of your body. Felix keeps going, fucking you right through your orgasm.
Deep, guttural moans come from his chest as your body begins to shake in overstimulation. His thrusts grow sloppy and uncoordinated as he gets closer to his own peak.
“Cumming, cumming, cumming!” he shouts and bites your neck again.
Felix spills within you, his hips sputter and he continues to talk through it.
“So good, fuck, thank you, thank you. So fucking good, fuck, oh my god.”
The room begins to settle, both of your pants becoming softer than the music. Felix holds you close to his chest still, not letting you go.
Your eyes flicker to your desktop.
“... I’m only halfway done. Your cock isn’t going anywhere.”
#stray kids smut#skz smut#stray kids x reader#skz x reader#stray kids kinktober#skz kinktober#lee felix smut#felix smut#lee felix x reader#felix x reader
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Rodeo | lmh (m)
𓆩⟡𓆪 Pairing: hitman!Minho x arms dealer! F. reader
𓆩⟡𓆪 Summary: Minho’s relationship with you is like a good weapon - uncomplicated, refined, and trustworthy. He likes it that way. When you appear on his target list, his relationship with you becomes quite the opposite - complicated, rough, and unreliable.
𓆩⟡𓆪 Word Count: 18,249
𓆩⟡𓆪 Genre: Cyberpunk | Smut | Angst | Peers to Something
𓆩⟡𓆪 Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.
𓆩⟡𓆪 Warnings: Violence, world building, murder, discussion of murder, depictions of blood and fight sequences, brief mentions of drugs, depictions of wounds and treating them with syringes if you don’t like needles, explicit language, depiction of an anxiety attack, angst and self-doubt, Minho being an idiot, gun fights and scenes with weapons, some vague terms and references specific to the world building, sexually explicit content featuring oral (f. receiving), vaginal fingering, unprotected sex, cum eating, bodily fluids, and mentions of spit in several places. I think that covers everything, for the most part.
𓆩⟡𓆪 A/N: This is what happens when writers just write what they're inspired for. After almost two months of being unable to write, I got this random idea and I just went with it and took advantage of the moment and... genuinely had so much fun writing this. It got so much longer and more complex than I meant to, but I hope you enjoy.
𓆩⟡𓆪 A/N 2: This work is heavily inspired by Fallout 4, Blade Runner, Altered Carbon and the lovely song Rodeo by WayV. I imagine Rodeo playing during the shootout scene at the bar. Additionally, a fun fact: I use the nato alphabet to communicate Minho's targets and reader's target in this spells out 'reader' in the nato alphabet :)
𓆩⟡𓆪 Posted: Sunday, March 3 2024
𓆩⟡𓆪 Disclaimer: All members of Stray Kids are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.
| Masterlist | Ask | Tag List Request Form | Song Inspiration
Any work is good work.
Minho isn’t so sure that his father would say that as he crouches down next to the body on the living room floor. His thigh muscles protest, aching and tight from hours of sitting crouched across the street in the chill of a high-rise building waiting for his prey to enter this very building.
Neon light bleeds through the foggy window behind him. The room is awash in watery pink as he pulls out his scanner with one hand and leans forward with the other, pressing his gloved fingers to the man's chin to push his head to the side. It rolls easily, giving a fleshy sound that might make someone squeamish as the man’s cheek hits the floor.
Any work is good work, Minho thinks as he scans the man's non-existent pulse with his watch. He sees the blue ring of the biochip flash beneath cooling flesh, his watch flashing green with a soft buzz. The man’s entire life flashes on the screen - full name, date of birth, ID number, blood type, and place of work. Everything about him casts a sickly green glow on Minho’s sharp face.
Tapping a few buttons on the watch face, he waits, holding his wrist near his mouth as the sound of a dial tone chimes once. It’s silent in the apartment, though he can hear the hum of airborne traffic a few blocks off as the roar of adrenaline winds down.
“Receiving,” a male voice answers. Minho doesn’t know who it is - he just knows he’s one of any of the Delegators who work for Collect Co.
“Collection request number alpha-echo-tango-delta complete, served by Collector 102598.”
“Collected alpha-echo-tango-delta confirmed. Please place a beacon before you leave. All credits for this Collection have been transferred to your account. Please wait five to seven business days before funds are available for use. Your next collection is in four hours, seven minutes, and eight United Seconds.”
The line goes dead. The glow of the watch makes him squint before he can lower his brightness, scrolling to his bank account. He sees the credits added with a transaction pending. When he was a kid, the number glowing at the bottom of the screen to indicate his balance might have excited him. Now, it’s just a number on a screen that confirms the power won’t go out at his apartment and that he won’t go hungry.
Minho’s knees crack as he stands. He groans and leans backward, pressing his hands into the small of his back. A series of cracks slither up his spine, making his eyes roll back as he shuts them for a moment and shivers.
He’s so goddamn sore.
Leaving the body on the carpet of the living area, he goes over to pick up the handgun resting on the counter. The energy weapon glows at his touch, syncing with his interface briefly before he holsters it inside his jacket.
While he is technically within the law to eliminate targets for Collect Co., Minho finds that most people find it unsettling when Collectors walk around with weapons. He hasn’t given much thought to what people think about him, but it certainly causes a lot less trouble when he looks like an average businessman going to and from work instead of a licensed killer.
The gun isn’t technically legal, either. He would probably get away with it if a United Enforcer stopped him. The hitmen of the privately funded but government-sanctioned Collect Co., do not technically outrank the government’s militia, but no one with a badge is going to tell a Collector no. Not if they can help it, anyway.
Tossing a beacon on the counter for the cleanup crew to track to the apartment and get rid of the body and clean, Minho heads outside into the rain. He ducks his head down against it, water sliding off the slicker jacket he hugs a little tighter. He feels warmth kick in and his mouth twitches at the sign of the heating system in the body armor on his chest is doing its job. A nifty little upgrade from you, he knows.
At the thought of you, Minho turns north toward the speed train, remembering that he needs an adjustment on his armor that is out of sync with his watch, and JumpPacks. He already used the last one about five hours ago and he feels the numbness of exhaustion buzzing at his edges, a warning sign that if he doesn’t get a jump or sleep he’s going to pass out.
Whichever comes first.
Smears of color splash across the wet sidewalk as he jogs down the steps to the train. It smells wet and foul, making him tuck his chin to his chest as he rushes to the fast-closing door of the train. He steps over the threshold just as the doors clang shut, the hissing of an airlock barely finishing before it launches forward.
He tenses to avoid being pitched forward into one of the standing railings. As the train rocks, the fluorescents above nearly blinding him, he finds a seat toward the back of an empty car. This late at night, there are only two other people in sight, both of them curled heaps of clothes on a seat, fast asleep.
Sleep tugs at him the moment Minho sits down. He has a twenty-minute ride to North Ward Three, dropping his head against the back of the seat and closing his eyes.
The light still hums behind his closed lids, making a splash of colors. There’s no sound save for the whine of the magnetic rail beneath his feet and the occasional mechanical creek as the vehicle sways.
He melts into the seat a little, limbs loose. Fuck he needs a JumpPack. The last forty-eight hours awake are wearing him thin at the edges, stretching him like fabric over a surface far too wide. The forty-eight-hour mark is when he starts to decline, and as soon as he starts to creep toward seventy, he knows it’ll get messy.
Minho is a lot of things, but he is ultimately human. The JumpPack can help him push beyond shaky hands, imagining things that aren’t there and the foggy thinking, but they won’t keep him sharp forever.
As if proving his point, Minho hangs somewhere between awake and asleep, suspended in a dreamy space where he can still feel the rocking of the train but doesn’t feel the ache in his limbs or the pressure growing behind his eyes.
He flinches when the chime echoes above him at the next stop, eyes flying wide for a moment as his gaze sweeps the train car, his hand on the inside of his jacket where he grips the handle of a very nice knife.
No one enters the car. It’s just him and the other two sleeping people - he isn’t sure they’re even alive, really - and he relaxes, cursing at himself. This time when he drifts, he does so with a little more awareness, hand tucked warm against his chest and wrapped firmly around the blade.
It’s a unique little knife, snug in the sheath that’s buckled to the leather harness under his jacket. The handle is firm and made from non-conductive material that fits his exact grip from the meticulous measurements you took of his hand. You crafted the blade from a metal alloy you’d been playing around with and lined it with a highly conductive silver alloy you’d perfected.
When the button on the end of the handle is pressed, 5,000 volts of lethal electricity pulses through the sliver, finishing off a victim if he manages to fuck up a killing blow. It’s saved his life a few times in situations like now when he’s exhausted and his guard is blurry, or when someone has decided to make him the target for robbery.
A lot of your little gadgets have saved his life. You like to remind him every time he visits you. He doesn’t mind, though. You’re an easy enough arms dealer - easier than anyone else in the city, really. You don’t ask the kind of questions that he doesn’t want to answer, and you’re always two steps ahead of him. Even your prices are fair, which he used to find suspicious.
But Changbin and Jisung both swear by your tech and your business, and Minho is just happy that he doesn’t have to worry about you trying to give him a shitty deal or fuck him over.
The Collection industry is made for fucking over. He knows the system can be fucked with, especially the closer to the top you get.
Almost everyone tries to fuck Minho over. More than once he’s shown up as a Collection Request. He doesn’t know if it’s the system trying to clean up after itself or someone pulling strings to get him out of their way. It’s probably both, but every time it happens, he’s managed to evade it.
A Reverse Collection, those in his industry call it. In a way, it’s sort of like a pop quiz. He gets attacked or shot at, and if he wins, he passes the test and reverses the Collection, earning him more time without any coworkers trying to murder him. The Delegators don’t seem to care which Collector murders the other, and he’s never suffered for coming out on top.
Any work is good work.
Minho snorts at the thought, feeling the deep twinge in his extremities as he rouses himself, the train coming to his stop.
Rain sluices the streets in North Ward Three. Here, the streets are busier with an assault of people, smells, and sounds. LED umbrellas float along like jellyfish as people walk from pleasure house to food stand to fight arena. The hologram advertisements and neon signs are louder here, inescapable.
“The United Republic stands for justice, equality, prosperity and freedom, bought by the noble sacrifice of the United Church. Join us today-” Minho presses the ad blocker on his watch.
Immediately the holograms vanish and there’s just the neon watercolor reflecting off the umbrellas as he walks down the stairs of Neon Rodeo, the orange lights making his eyes throb as he reaches the door manned by two guards.
They know him immediately but they scan the biochip in his neck anyway. When they’re pleased, they step aside and the door slides automatically, the base vibrating his ribcage as he steps into the dingy light, hesitating to let his eyes adjust.
True to the name, there is neon fucking everywhere. The servers are dressed in chaps with LED lights and glittering tassels, their cowboy hats flashing smiling faces on top of their head. The neon here is low-grade and covered in layers of dust, giving the air a dusky, burning sort of glow as he walks around tables.
Eyes follow him as he goes. The regulars are familiar with him, tipping their head in greeting though he doesn’t do more than watch them from the corner of his eyes. The servers all slow-smile at him, teeth too white and too glittering. He finds them more unsettling than attractive, and he quickens his step to the unmarked door at the back where Hyunjin sits on a stool.
Hyunjin is perhaps the most unsettling thing in the Neon Rodeo. His eyes are a strange grey, looking at Minho as he approaches. There is a predatory gaze in Hyunjin’s eyes that never fades, a sort of knowing in them that Minho can’t shake. Minho knows Hyunjin is entirely human, but every time he approaches the man, Minho is suddenly unsure.
Nightcrawler.
Minho has heard the whispers about Hyunjin. He believes them, too. Everything about Hyunjin is like a carefully balanced blade, ready to tip in either direction. His senses are honed to perfection and he has a habit of both blending in and standing out depending on his mood.
And he can kill. Minho has seen the lethal man in action a single time when someone tried to push past him into the Builder’s sanctuary. Hyunjin had been so fast that even Minho had a hard time keeping up, struck by how efficiently and quickly the former assassin moved.
Unnatural. Everything about him is uncanny, which is in line with everything Minho has heard about the underground sect of killers. What Minho does is legally sanctioned murder. The Nightcrawlers do something far more sinister, their skills going beyond the natural desire for order in the United Republic.
Agents of disorder and chaos. That’s what some say. Minho isn’t sure where his opinion lands on the spectrum, but he gives them a healthy distance and respect either way.
Even the way Hyunjin sits on the barstool is unnatural, one foot kicked up on the bar between his legs, the other stretched out in front of him as he leans forward, his hand on the front lip of the seat.
“Hello, Cowboy,” Hyunjin greets, voice deep and smooth.
His hair is blonde today, slicked back out of his face, the ends touching his shoulders. He’s dressed in a black button-up with a cow print pattern across the shoulders and white, beaded tassels outlining the pattern. His dark pants are tight and he makes no effort to hide the gun on his waist or the knife handle peeking out the top of his cowboy boot.
“I don’t like when you call me that.”
Hyunjin’s smile makes the hair on Minho’s arms stand on end. “I know, but I like it.”
The guard makes no move to let Minho in and he tries not to show he’s irritated. By the way the grin spreads on Hyunjin’s face, Minho can safely assume he isn’t doing a great job. “Is the Builder in or not?”
“Who is to say?”
“Just tell her I’m here.”
“If she’s in, she already knows.” Hyunjin nods toward an empty stool at the bar. “You can wait, Cowboy.”
Gritting his teeth, Minho turns on his heel to sit on the stool a few feet away. Hyunjin’s uncanny eyes follow him, never leaving him once. Minho ignores him in favor of asking for water at the bar, the headache pressing behind his eyes growing more intense with the loud music and the choking smell of cigars.
When the water comes back, it’s warm without ice. He glares at the bartender who has already moved on to paying customers. The water is tepid and a little sour, making him cringe. He’s pretty sure it came from the faucet, but he sips on it anyway, eying the grimy fingerprints on the glass.
A cowgirl slides up next to him, her pink vest pulled tight across her chest, showing sweat-slick skin. She smells like vanilla, the scent overpowering as she leans in, lacquered lips grinning.
“Don’t,” Minho grunts, sipping the water. “Not interested.”
“But you’re so pretty.”
A severe reprimand dies on his tongue as Hyunjin appears like a wraith, leaning in close to murmur, “Builder is ready for you, Cowboy.”
The cowgirl cowers away from the Nightcrawler, pressing up against the counter and fleeing as soon as he slinks away. If Hyunjin is offended, he doesn’t show it. He slips back onto the stool with that same eager lean, watching Minho through narrowed eyes as the Collector gets up and walks briskly to the now-open door.
Minho doesn’t turn around when the door shuts behind him, immediately cutting off all sound. The door leads to a step of steps, mirrored walls on either side with glowing orange light strips above them. He climbs the stairs as quickly as he can, his head swimming a little as he gets to the top.
The entire second floor is a massive, open-concept workshop. Tables covered with papers and instruments are placed in a chaotic maze, glowing screens with slow-spinning schematics and drawings giving the space a clinical, blue light. Workbenches with user interfaces hum along the corners of the room. Closed metal doors and offices stretch down a hall toward the pack, all under high-tech padlocks and surely protected with some sort of weapon system, if Minho had to guess.
Amid the organized chaos is you. The Builder.
Minho hates calling you that. He thinks it’s a little ridiculous of a title, but it suits you. There is nothing in this room you haven’t built and no weapon on his person that was not carefully crafted by you. He hesitates to watch you, standing at the edge of your luminescent domain as you lean over something, a small welding tool in your hand.
“Do you need a formal invitation, Cowboy?”
He doesn’t mind the name from you. He tells himself that it’s because, despite his predisposition to not liking people, he doesn’t dislike you. You’re easy to deal with, sort of like the weapons you make. You make his life functional and you’re to the point. He admires that, and he’s willing to take a little bit of prodding and joking from you as a trade-off.
Wordlessly, he floats toward you. You don’t look up to greet him, but you kick your foot out and hook the toe of your boot underneath the leg of a stool to pull it out for him to sit on. He can smell a hint of jasmine and amber wafting from where you sit, making him clench his jaw as he fights a shiver.
“I don’t have long,” he says, forgoing the seat. “Just need JumpPacks and wanted to drop off my armor. It’s having trouble connecting with the interface of the watch. I hit it pretty hard last night and I think I damaged the receiver.”
That gets your attention, drawing your sharp gaze up to him. But instead of dropping your eyes to his chest where the flexible armor stretches across his chest, you zero in on Minho’s face.
Your silence is uncomfortable, but he remains unmoving, willing himself to stay in place under your calculating gaze. You lean forward, eyes drinking him in, examining him the way you would a schematic for a weapon or a complicated piece of data.
Minho busies himself with looking at you in return. There’s a crease growing deeper in your brow and your pretty mouth - he doesn’t remember when he started thinking it was pretty - begins to dip, displeased at something you find in his face.
“When is the last time you slept?”
“Are you psychoanalyzing me?” You level a stare at him and he feels his mouth twitch. Minho thinks besides the occasional joke from Jisung - which he defines as Jisung accidentally hurting himself - you might be the only person who makes him want to smile. “Fifty-two hours, eighteen minutes and forty United Seconds.”
“No to the JumpPack,” you say finally. “Sleep.”
“I have another target in three hours, twenty-eight minutes and fifteen United Seconds.”
“Down the hall and second door on the right. Sleep for two hours. It won’t kill you.” He opens his mouth to protest you cut him off, “I’ll be done by the time you’re up. Take off your armor.”
His hands open and close. You’ve never declined a JumpPack before. You’ve definitely never offered sleep before. He stands buoyed by his confusion before he reluctantly sheds the jacket. It crinkles in the silence as he shucks it from his shoulder and neatly folds it, placing it on the stool you had intended for him to sit on.
Next, he sheds the holster, his gun, and a few knives clanking as he does. You seem amused by the amount of weapons he’s managed to shove in the leather straps and he shrugs a little at your arched brow.
Minho’s shirt is more armor than a shirt. It’s made from highly coveted synthetic material with hard but flexible geometric pieces stitched in that sync with his watch to turn on a light energy shield, pulse when there’s an energy weapon aimed at him, and generally keep anyone from being able to stab him. You’ve also added little things like warming sensors and anti-theft.
Delicately, Minho peels off the shirt. He marvels as it moves, surprised at the give and flex of the material every time. He hands it over and you snatch it, tossing it on your work counter as if it’s not the most expensive piece of technology he owns.
Immediately he’s covered in goosebumps. Your studio is bitter cold and you always wear sweaters and jackets with sleeves pulled over your hands. You’re dressed as such now, the too-long sleeves on your arms pooling over your hands as he stands there, trying not to shiver.
You pay no mind to his armor, instead standing up and twisting your mouth in a frown as your gaze skirts his chest and stomach. For a second he feels self-conscious, which he thinks is a little ridiculous as he glances down his chest. He realizes there is bruising blooming across him, spider webbing across to show when the armor unsynced and he took a few hard punches.
Minho holds his breath when you lift your hands, as though you’re going to brush the tips of your fingers over each wound. Your hands are smaller than his and far more delicate, nimble fingers reminding him of artists. His mother was an artist. Her slim hands and careful brushstrokes are one of the few things he remembers about her.
That, and that she chose to leave him.
Minho finds himself so hypnotized by your hands that your voice startles him when you say, “Three hours, twenty-seven minutes and five seconds, Cowboy.”
You drop your hands and step away. He nods and sheds his watch as well, handing it over. “Alright.”
With heavy footsteps, he follows the directions to the appointed room. He’s a little off balance, his hip catching the corner of a table as he goes. He curses loudly, hands shooting to his hip where pain blooms from the jab. Your laughter trills behind him and he scowls over his shoulder at you, but you’re unfolding his armored shirt.
Muttering under his breath, he goes to the hall to the second door on the right. He’s never been in the hall before, but there are several doors lining each side. He carefully tries the handle, glancing up at the ceiling where a camera stares at him.
The handle gives under his hand easily and he swings the door open to what looks like a very small and well-kept medical room. He raises his brows as he steps in and closes the door behind him. There’s no lock on the door, his finger brushing across the handle to find one. He thinks about grabbing the chair tucked into the desk and sticking it under the handle, but the thought evaporates as quickly as it forms.
He’s not in danger here.
Slowly, he trods to the cot. It’s a standard size with a thin mattress and scratchy blankets. Carefully, he sits down and immediately his body sighs. Minho’s eyelids flutter as he sags for a second, shoulders rolling inward as he curves in on himself, exhaustion pressing in.
He needs to take off his boots, but his arms feel heavy. He promises himself that he’ll do it in five more minutes before he gives up and lays down on his side, kicking his feet up boots and all onto the cot. The room is cool so he reaches for the blankets, uncaring that they scrape against his bumps and bruises.
The last fifty-some-odd hours begin to press in on Minho, a physical force that squeezes everything out of him until he’s fading fast into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
-
A gentle knock pulls Minho from a heavy sleep. He feels the dregs of it like a weighted shadow he can’t shake off, groaning and blinking at the ceiling a few times. His limbs feel heavier than ever and his neck cracks as he rolls it to the side to look at the room he’s in.
He suddenly remembers where he is, flinching a little as he sits up, movements jerky with nervousness. The room is still dark and cool, the itchy blanket falling to the floor as he sits and stares toward the door where there’s another knock.
“Come in,” he rasps, voice deep and rough with sleep.
A crack of light appears in the doorway as you slip in. You’ve got your arms full of stuff, using your elbow to smack the touchpad near the door. Dark orange light fills the room, gentle enough that it doesn’t hurt his vision but bright enough to see that the stuff you’ve brought in is food and several bottles of water and some sort of blue liquid.
Minho eyes all of it warily, straightening as you stand in front of him, holding it out. He doesn’t move to take it and your mouth presses in a flat, firm line. “I know Collectors don’t have to be smart, but I do assume you know how to utilize the main food groups of the pyramid.”
He can smell the jasmine and amber again, soothing. “Why did you bring me food?”
“Because you look like shit, Cowboy. Don’t go losing your mind over a small gesture of goodwill.”
Chagrined, he snatches the items from your hand. He immediately realizes that there are energy bars, protein bars, and packs of gel that will replenish immediate levels of hormones and vitamins. He eyes you curiously as he sets the pile on the bed next to him, ripping a foil back open with his teeth.
You cross the room to lean against the medical table in the corner, crossing your arms over your chest. When he doesn’t eat right away, you raise your brows, waiting. He pops the end of a gel back in his mouth and squeezes, immediately tasting blueberry and lemonade. It’s not half bad, making him hum in fascination.
That gets a grin from you, his mouth twitching at the corner again as he works the gel in his mouth to break it apart.
“Fixed your armor. How hard did you knock the watch?” His guilty expression tells all and you scowl. “It’s made with durast carbonate. It’s pretty shockproof.”
“Didn’t mean to. Some guy’s goons jumped me when I was calling in the Collection. It um… took a bullet.”
“How did they get the jump on you, hmm?” He stares. “Were you tired?”
Instead of answering, he tosses the empty gel back on the bed and picks up a protein bar. He looks at it, squinting his eyes in the dim light. It’s peanut butter flavored, which he enjoys. He rips it open with his teeth and tears into it, realizing just how hungry he is.
Minho has no idea when his last meal was. He thinks you know his line of thinking, but you don’t say anything more. You’ve already gotten your barbs in and you don’t intend to poke until he’s truly annoyed or embarrassed, which he appreciates.
Without another word, you push off the desk and head to the door, slipping back through to leave him alone while he chews absently.
Alone, Minho realizes the importance of accepting food from you without second-guessing it. He slows his chewing, contemplating about that.
Minho’s relationship with you is like a good weapon - uncomplicated, refined, and trustworthy. Your tech has never failed him, you’ve always been reliable for a fast turnaround time or understanding of what he’s asking for, and you’ve never sold information about him.
Ever. He had tried to buy information from you on himself through multiple channels and pseudonyms just to see if you would, but he’d been met with steely silence each time.
He eats with a little more enthusiasm as he realizes he does trust you. You’re as steadfast as the guns you build, and there is a confidence in that that he can at least resonate with.
Examining the contents of the blue liquid, he realizes it’s electrolytes and mineral compounds. As he takes long gulps, he realizes he feels infinitely better already, senses sharp, aches a little less terrible, and his headache is gone entirely. He’s not at a hundred percent, but he’s a hell of a lot better than if he had waited around for his next Collection.
When he finishes, he crumbles the trash together and tosses it into the incinerator. He hears the fire hiss as it destroys the waste and sends the fumes somewhere to be turned into energy.
In the main part of your lab, Minho spots you. He hesitates in the hall for a moment, watching you play with his watch. Movement in the corner of the room makes him tense up, hand going to the knife in his boot. He realizes it’s just Jeongin sliding across the room on a rolling chair, pushing away from his computer to examine what you’re doing.
Minho only relaxes marginally. He’s still getting used to seeing your apprentice in your workspace, and though the youth is excitable and intelligent, Minho refuses to let Jeongin near any of his builds. The trust he’s established with you over the last three years does not extend to apprentices he’s only known for a few months, no matter how much you trust them.
You trust the Nightcrawler too, and Minho cannot fathom why.
As though sensing you on the edge of the room, you turn and look at him over your shoulder. The corner of your mouth lifts up and you beckon him eagerly before hunching over whatever you’re working on again. He strolls over, crossing his arms over his chest to lean against your worktable on the other side of you, eyeing Jeongin on your other side.
“Hello, Collector. How are you today?” Jeongin asks politely, giving Minho a smile that touches his eyes.
Minho says nothing. You elbow him sharply in the ribs and he coughs, clutching his stomach as he mumbles, “Fine, you?”
“Doing great, thanks! This piece of tech is a marvel.”
“My watch?”
It is his watch. A green light flashes on the underside of the face, the bio scanner that connects with the one with his neck to monitor his nervous system. You push the watch toward him and he carefully picks it up, brushing his thumb across the cool, glass screen.
An interface lights up again. He can’t figure out what’s so special until you gesture for him to put it on. It fits nicely, the perfect size. As he slides it into place and looks at the watch face, a diagram of thin body armor comes up, spinning. Except it looks different than the diagram that he’s used to, giving you a questioning look. You point to the corner of the room at a mannequin.
He walks over to it, cocking his head to the side as he stops in front of it. It’s far different from the armored shirt he wears. The contraption is equal parts ribcage and the thorax of a spider. The material looks like leather but feels hard to the touch like metal.
Skirting his fingers to the hem, he bends the bottom of the shirt, watching as it flexes easily. It makes no sense to him how something could be so hard and flex immediately. If he were to guess, whatever the cloth is made from is a newer technology than he has access to. Perhaps more bio-engineered spider web.
Minho’s fingers skirt inside of it, brushing across a strange, prickling fabric. It doesn’t hurt, but he brushes his fingers back and forth, rubbing the material between his fingers. It’s abrasive, but he can’t imagine what it is.
Blue flashes on the diagram on the watch. He pauses and presses his fingers to the needle-thin fabric. The watch flashes again and lines of color light up on the diagram, showing his nervous system in different, complex colors. He raises his brows. It’s far more sophisticated than what he came in with.
“The needles,” he calls, not taking his eyes off the contraption. “Do they connect with me?”
“Yes. When you put it on, it syncs with your biochemistry.” You get up and walk toward him. “You won’t even feel them. They’re the smallest on the market right now, and incredibly accurate. They use them in military armor to report back live health reports and status during enfighting. They’re more accurate than the sensors lined in your last one.”
“What’s the point, though?”
You reach out and tap the watch. He watches curiously as a series of icons pop up, each a different color. “Inside of this,” you instruct, tapping the hard shell, “Is a series of chemical compounds. When you have on the armor underneath your shirt, you can tap to inject what you need. The needles don’t push deep, but they’re high-grade enough to break the barrier needed to disperse the compounds.”
Minho looks up at you, silent. You don’t notice his trepidation, carrying on as you go into salesperson mode, explaining everything. “Blue is elektrolytes,” you instruct, pointing to it. “Green is a chemical compound of cortisol and adrenaline. Yellow is endorphins and an incredibly high-dose painkiller.”
“And purple?”
“Jump,” you deadpan. “But a compounded version Jeongin and I have worked on that lasts longer with less damaging effect. You should be able to sleep easier after using it. And you won’t need several JumpPacks a day to keep going. I can give you refills too, since it’s non-addictive.”
Minho stares. “What?”
“What part didn’t you get?”
“This is for me?” You scowl but he immediately notices the way you divert your eyes. You glance up at the ceiling, shifting from foot to food. “This is worth a million United Credits at least. I can’t afford it.”
“Do you see a price tag?”
“You can’t give me this for free.”
“Of course I can. It’s just a prototype, so if it accidentally malfunctions and sends all injection options to your body at once and kills you, well…” You shrug. “At least you didn’t pay me. Consider yourself a test subject. I’ve never integrated the needle network into armor before. I don’t have the builds the military uses, just intel. I had to do it from scratch, so it might not work. Your current armor doesn’t protect you from plasma. This does.”
Minho doesn’t buy your bullshit for two seconds. He knows you wouldn’t give him this if it would risk killing him. For all your jesting and affectation, Minho has learned how to read you pretty well, and the way you blow him off and scoff tells him everything he needs to know.
It is a favor and a gift, and a new sort of olive branch that he is unsure how to accept or take from you. Taking this gift worth more than his entire salary complicates things.
Did you make this specifically for him? He’s not sure. But the fact that he wants the answer to be yes is worse than anything else he can think of.
Minho has peers. You’re a peer. Always have been. Anything else would complicate the simplicity of the relationship, and Minho immediately steps back and removes the watch. You watch him with razor-sharp intelligence, drinking him in as he holds out the watch to you.
“The one I have is sufficient enough, Builder.”
You snatch the watch from him, pivoting on your heel and walking with a ramrod-straight spine back to the table. For a second he thinks you’re going to kick him out but then you take a breath and melt into a smile, though a little sharp at the edges and not reaching your eyes.
“Fixed the connection. I also reinforced it again. Give me a moment to sync to your old armor.”
Old armor. As if the new one is still his. His stomach flips and he grimaces.
The affectation in your voice makes Minho uncomfortable. He doesn’t move, watching you tap viciously against the screen on your work desk. Jeongin spins a pen in his hand, glancing between the two of you nervously. When he notices Minho glaring at him, he grins awkwardly and pushes his chair behind one of the clear screens, his face distorted by blue lettering and diagram.
Wordlessly, you hand him the watch and turn away when he takes it. You say nothing else, moving on to a different project as Minho delicately picks up the shirt. He slides it over, feeling the warmth seep into his cool skin. He meticulously pulls the hardness with weapons on, followed by his jacket.
Fully dressed, he waits for you to say something. He doesn’t know what he expects - or wants - you to say. But he pauses anyway, eyes on your bent shape. His gaze flits to your hands, delicate fingers typing wildly, tense as you wait for him to leave.
It feels like a stone has sunk to the bottom of Minho’s stomach. He doesn’t move for a few minutes, torn between walking out and preparing for his next Collection and staying to… what? He doesn’t know. He has no idea what to say or do, but he feels the palpable shift in your mood.
So Minho chooses the easiest option. He nods to himself and heads toward the exit. You don’t spare him a second glance but he certainly looks at you out of the corner of his eye. Your jaw is clenched and you tap with a ferocity that thinks might shatter your desktop interface.
As soon as the door opens, Minho is drowning in thumping base and synth again. Hyunjin leans on the stool, this time with his back against the wall and his glittering eyes focused on Minho. Though the former Nightcrawler wasn’t in the room, Minho has a sneaking suspicion that Hyunjin knows everything that happens in the Builder’s workshop.
Hyunjin’s smirk is all-knowing and Minho storms by him, hating him for it.
Rain no longer falls from a dark sky. Opaque, charcoal skies stretch above him, lines of moving air traffic creating layers of latticework. Looking at the watch - which shows his normal armor once more - tells him it's in the early morning hours now.
The streets are not as busy as the night before. There are still glaring advertisements and he spots a group of cloaked United Church members walking around to accept alms and recruit, but the energy is muted outside of the clubs and pleasure houses.
Morning commuters fill the speed train tunnels. United Travel Agents lurk in the crowd, watchful eyes on anyone causing trouble or trying to double up on the scanners as travelers pass through, machines charging their United Credits as they go.
Minho falls into the dull buzz of morning travel. Glancing at his watch, he knows he has enough time to go home and change. He likes to receive his calls while he’s at home anyway. He tries not to replay the last conversation between the two of you. The offer you’d made him. The meaning behind it, whatever it may be.
It’s nearly impossible, but he manages. Especially once he gets into his apartment, sinking into the routine of showering, changing, and sliding back into his clothes like a second skin. As soon as he reties his boots, his watch begins to ring.
“Receiving,” he answers, straightening up.
“Collection echo-tango-foxtrot-bravo has been assigned to Collector 102598. You have five United Hours to complete your Collection.”
“Collection accepted.”
The line goes dead. Minho slides his weapons into their holsters, then pulls on his rain jacket. It always rains in the city, like God is weeping for what he has become.
Any work is good work.
Minho leaves the apartment to take another life.
-
The water runs red in Minho’s shower. He stares it for a while, hot water rushing down his neck, shoulders and back in rivulets. It turns pink the longer he stares, the wound on his leg bleeding less and less.
The irony is not lost on him that if he had accepted your gift, he might not have taken a gnarly hunting knife to the thigh. He was lucky that it was an energy weapon, the blade cauterizing the wound immediately. He’d had to pick the wound back open to flush out the dead, burned skin and pour burning antiseptic on it.
Shifting, Minho examines the wound. Pain blooms in his thigh as he turns, making him suck in a sharp hiss. The wound is to the bone. He knows he’s lucky it was not a well-made weapon, the ion pulse too weak to sever his limb. Still, it’s a deep wound and it would surely fuck him up if he didn’t have the next twenty-four hours to himself.
If the knife had been one of yours…
A pulse of frustration echoes through him. He presses his closed fist to the old tile of the shower wall, feeling the dissonance between the scalding water and cool tile steady him. His knuckles are sore from the last Collection - which had gone wrong in every way possible - and he’s brutally aware of just how much everything hurts.
Yet the ache isn’t what bothers him. His Collection target getting the jump on him from inside intel isn’t what bothers him. Minho has had that happen enough times that he no longer feels surprised when a Collection knows he’s coming.
What fucking bothers him is the ripple effect of his rejection of your offer made.
Minho shuts off the water and steps out the water carefully. He can barely put weight on the leg, gritting his teeth as he grabs a towel and hobbles out of the bathroom, the steam billowing out into the tiny apartment and dissipating.
Blue neon lights from the shop across the way burn in his window. He hardly needs to turn the lights on in his own home to see in the dark, the ever-present glow of blue guiding the way.
Carefully, he sits on his bed. Another pulse of pain from the wound makes him shiver and take several deep, steadying breaths. He peels back the towel at the waist, revealing a single, thick thigh with a horrible cut right in the meat of it.
“Fuck,” he whispers. Walking around has made it bleed again, scarlet trickling toward the towel.
Trying not to disturb the wound, he reaches for the medical kit under the bed. The metal is cool to the touch as he flips the latches, rummaging around the bandages, antiseptics, and gels until he finds what he’s looking for.
Minho takes the single, long syringe and uncaps it with his teeth, spitting the cap on the floor somewhere. He flicks his hand a few times, holding it up to make sure there are no bubbles in the vial. Holding his wound carefully with one hand and with the syringe in the other, he inserts the needle deep into the flesh, the sting minor compared to the throbbing ache the cut itself emanates.
The compound burns as he injects himself. He clenches his teeth, pushing down on the plunger with steady pressure. He can already feel the numbness spreading in his leg as the local anesthesia takes root. He knows he’ll be itching when it wears off, the tiny nanobots working to stitch the muscle and tissue back together already making his skin crawl.
DeepStitch is an expensive thing to have. He pulls the syringe out carefully, glancing at the medical kit. It only came with one, meaning he was going to have to replace the vile. Medical compounds made for healing abnormal wounds cost a fortune, especially the type with micro-technology to assist the process.
Tossing out the empty syringe, Mingo lays on his bed, uncaring if he’s damp and in a towel. The numbness in his thigh spreads, making him shiver. He tries not to think about the fact that there are thousands of microscopic bots working on internally stitching his muscles an tendons as quickly as they can before the blood in his body deteriorates them.
The medical advancement of this world is beyond Minho, but he’s grateful for it as he drifts in a half-sleep. He finds it harder to sleep after using JumpPacks, his body unable to adjust from the constant state of false energy and adrenaline.
It makes him think about your stupid fucking offer again. A piece of armor that could sync with him and balance his hormones and chemical compounds at the tap of a wrist. Something that high caliber for a low-level contract killer was beyond him.
There was crazy, and then there was that.
Minho wonders if you’ve been charging him fairly, suddenly. He’s always thought the weapons and tech you provide him with were good prices. They were well-made but always within his budget, albeit he stopped looking at what you were billing him a long time ago. Now that he knows you’re willing to offer something that he’d only find on a United Praetor in the military, he wonders if you’ve been cutting him deals.
He’s never asked the others. Changbin and Jisung seem friendly with you, enough to make Minho wary about asking them questions. Though they’re the closest things that Minho has to friends, he doesn’t trust them whenever it comes to you.
Jisung already thinks it’s sweet that Minho is nice to you, and he hates that. Even if it’s true.
Time fades away as Minho circles his conversation with you over and over again. He examines every moment of it. When he can surmise nothing else of the interaction but you offering an olive branch of friendship, something a step beyond peers, he goes back to all of his other interactions.
He remembers almost every one of them.
Minho’s memory is fine-tuned. It has to be in his line of work. But the memories of you are particularly sharp. He’s able to recall the way you always poke fun at him to the exact line of his tolerance, the way you always know how to get in a good jibe without actually pissing him off. The way that you let Jisung and Changbin have it in front of him for his benefit, especially after they’ve irritated him, like you’re giving him a gift or saying I’m on your team.
Thoughts of you ultimately lead to other things like the way your eyes reflect the blue light of your many screens. Or the way you always smell like jasmine and amber. The way you pull your sleeves over your hands in sweater paws because it’s bitter cold in your studio to avoid explosions and corrosion of items. The way the nickname Cowboy runs so smooth off your tongue, making his toes curl.
Minho’s fingers twitch when he thinks about brushing the backs of his knuckles against your soft skin. He’s thought about it before and immediately cringed at the fantasy. Now, between exhaustion clinging to him and the numb limb, he doesn’t jerk away at the idea.
He finally falls asleep thinking of you and what it would be like to accept that olive branch.
-
The ringing of Minho’s watch wrenches him from sleep. He sits up straight in bed, gasping and hand shooting toward the nightstand where there’s a draw with one of his guns. He realizes that his wrist is vibrating and when he looks at the screen, he sighs with equal parts tension and regret as he realizes it’s work calling.
Fuck. He slept for almost twenty hours straight.
Clearing his throat, he answers. “Receiving.”
“Collection romeo-echo-alpha-delta-echo-romeo has been assigned to Collector 102598. You have five United Hours to complete your Collection.”
Information flashes on Minho’s watch and he feels the world disappear from underneath his feet. Your name, age, permanent place of residency address, and anything the government has both legally and illegally obtained flashes before him. He’s never even seen your full name before and there it is, glowing on his watch as he stares at the information.
It feels obscene to know any of this. He flicks his wrist, turning off the display. He doesn’t want to see any of it, doesn’t want to see when you were born, doesn’t want to see what ward you pay taxes in, doesn’t want to know your criminal history.
Minho’s ears are ringing. The Delegator does not confirm that Minho has heard or received the assigned target for Collection. Minho stares at the wall, his vision blurring at the edges as the name - your name - echoes in his mind over and over again. He hears it at the same rhythm as his pounding heart, pumping blood through his system as his watch flashes a high heart rate warning.
Your name. Your full government name and ID number. He’s only ever known your first name, but you’ve always been Builder to him anyway. Minho can’t remember if he’s ever said your name, and suddenly he wants to. He wants to know what it sounds like shaped by his mouth, what it tastes like on his tongue. Wants to say it so many different ways, laughing, smirking, sighing–
Three years and he can’t believe he’s never so much as said your name, and now that very name is on his list to kill.
Indecision roots his feet to the spot. This isn’t like a Reverse Collection where other hitmen try to kill him and he can get away with killing them instead, clearing his name for a little longer. This is a direct and finite order to eliminate you. There is no alternative to this Collection.
Irreversible.
Running his hands through his hair, he looks around his apartment. It looks unlived-in and completely impersonal. Just like the impersonal way he calls you Builder, as though not using your fucking name makes it more sterile. As if it keeps you further away from earning his trust.
Which you have earned. Implicitly. Minho can think of no one else he would let take care of him. That he would sleep or eat in the presence of. That he trusts not to kill him in his sleep while he’s unarmed.
Now he’s supposed to murder you?
Bile turns in his stomach. He hears the ticking of the clock on the wall. Every second inches closer to the decision he has to make.
Will he or won’t he?
Minho grabs his gun from the nightstand and walks toward the door.
He’s only a few steps toward it when he realizes he’s not dressed or prepared for whatever he is about to do - what is he about to do? He has no idea. All he knows is that he is dazed and his hands are starting to shake and his heart rate is climbing, his watch flashing a warning.
The room begins to tilt as his breathing comes out in haggard breaths. He stumbles a little bit, the blood pumping through him roaring in his ears. He belatedly realizes he’s having a panic attack, blindly trying to get back to his bed where he can sit.
What does one do during a panic attack? He has no idea, he’s never had one. He thinks of the last time he saw someone panic and immediately bends over to put his head between his knees, gulping air through his nose and out through his mouth.
What was it that Jisung said about panic?
It’s hard to remember. He thinks maybe there was counting involved, so he breathes in for seven seconds and then out for seven seconds. Does it again. And again.
Slowly, the world swims back into focus. He can feel the twinge in his thigh as he comes down from the momentary lapse of panic and judgment. When he trusts that he’s not going to vomit on his bare feet, he slowly sits upright, looking around the neon-blue room.
Quiet blankets the apartment. The world outside is faint. He can hear the clock on the wall as the minute hand moves, each marking the passing of a United Second. With a deep breath, he moves.
There are no thoughts as he goes. His mind is a single list of action items, marketing them off as he goes. Get dressed. Check his weapons. Arm himself to the teeth with things you’ve made him. Message Jisung a cryptic, one-word text that only the other Collector will understand. Arm a bomb. Leave.
It’s clinical.
Minho had always understood with absolute clarity the reality of his line of work. He’s always had a failsafe - or a killswitch, so to speak. From the first day of work, Minho’s only purpose was to kill until he died. He was always meant to die. And he tells himself that the single, little safe space he has in the world he started saving for… well. If you ever needed it.
Any work is good work.
Clouds hold in their rain. The night feels ominous. Minho glances up at the choked clouds, wondering what they’re up to. The Ministry of Weather controls the atmosphere in some parts of the city. Minho does not travel in those parts of the city - those assassinations are beyond the abilities of a Collector and reserved for Nightcrawlers.
Paranoia is imminent, but Minho tries not to look over his shoulder every five seconds. The mysterious nature of Collect Co. is still something he doesn’t understand, so it’s difficult to unravel the nature of his assignment. Without a doubt, whoever placed Minho as the Collector knows you supply his weapons.
That simple fact branches out into multiple possibilities. Perhaps the person who wants you gone simply thinks Minho is the best person for the job because he’s in your tentative circle of trust and a familiar enough face to slip through you’re defenses. Or perhaps the problem is him and they know he won’t complete the Collection, earning a job termination and his name showing up on the Collection list.
Either way, it’s on purpose. Of that, he knows for sure.
From his years working for Collect Co., there are only a few things that Minho is sure about. Delegators do exactly what their title suggests - they delegate kills. Callers are a tier above Delegators, calling the shots working the network of requests that come in for contracted kills. Legals do all of the paperwork and research before agreeing to a contract, and at the very top of the chain is the Floorman.
Beyond that, Minho has no concept of the hierarchy or who is hiring Collect Co. for jobs. There are obvious manipulations to the system and it’s impossible to work objectively within a private company that works with but not for the government, and Minho has little doubt that the financial benefactors are who really control assignments.
Which leads him back to the root of the question: why you? Is Minho the problem, or do you have enemies so large that they hold sway in Collect Co. He doesn’t consider that your deeds are nefarious enough to warrant a hit. What you do is illegal but you sell to the military, too.
So it begs the question: is it you or him who they really want gone?
Maybe it’s even a combination.
Still, he attempts not to seem paranoid. It’s easier than it should be, Minho’s mind so singularly focused on getting to you as he takes the train and traves to North Ward Three that he doesn’t have time to look around every corner or see if he’s being followed. There are other ways of keeping tabs on him, anyway.
The rain still holds as Minho gets off the speed train and ducks into the street. He keeps to the sides, activating his ad blocker as he’s immediately slammed by a screaming neon world. His gaze and gait must be sharper than he realizes, because people veer away from him, his energy repelling them.
From the corner of his eye, he notes Watchers - people responsible for keeping an eye on what’s going on in the street for their employer - take note of him. Some melt into the doorway of their workplace, and others call for runners.
Trouble. Minho looks like trouble and he can sense the shift as they catch wind of him.
The Watchers are no threat to him. Their entire purpose is to close the doors and pull back when they catch a sense of danger in the air. They’ll stay out of his way and won’t engage with him unless he threatens their clubs and shops.
Minho has little intention of doing that. He wants to make this as painless as possible.
Neon Rodeo burns like a dying sun. The orange falls over him as he jogs down the steps and lets the guards scan him. If they notice anything is off, they say and do nothing. Neon Rodeo is perhaps the only business without a Watcher, and it’s only because no one would dare interrupt the business with the Nightcrawler inside.
Synth rattles Minho from the ground up as he steps inside. The cowboy hats and their little smiling faces float like phantoms in the night. He only has a singular goal and he looks at no one else as he heads towards the back, sidestepping sweaty bodies and perfumed hair.
It’s full tonight, the weekend crowd packing the bar from corner to corner. It’s no matter. He cuts his way to the back where Hyunjin sits on a stool. Today, Hyunjin’s hair is blood red and his eyes are sharp, unnatural green. For a moment, Minho thinks of a chameleon before Hyunjin kicks a leg out and blocks the hall leading to the door.
“Your patronage has been terminated, Cowboy.”
Minho’s heart flips. Are you that angry with him? He drinks in Hyunjin’s dress and slowly his anxiety turns to understanding. Hyunjin is dressed in all black today. His shirt is armored and in place of pants with tassels are tactical trousers with pockets and weapons strapped to his thighs.
An assessment of the Nightcrawler tells Minho that there are weapons he doesn’t see. There’s a plasma pistol on his hip, a bandolier of small knives strapped across his chest, knives in his boot, and another plasma pistol on this calf.
Hyunjin’s fingers drum against his thigh as he watches Minho with those unsettling eyes. “Want to try, Cowboy?”
“I need to speak with her.”
“No.”
“I’m not-” Minho grits his teeth. “I’m not Collecting.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
Hyunjin knows. He doesn’t know how the Nightcrawler knows you’re a Collection on Minho’s list, but it’s clear in the way Hyunjin leers.
“Look, you can go in with me. Let me get her to safety.”
“And what do you think safety is, Cowboy? Even if you’re not lying, they’ll come after you too.”
“Listne, Nightcrawler-”
Hyunjin grins. It’s unnerving, and there isn’t much that unnerves Minho. “No, you listen. I tolerate you because I am ordered to. Now, I don’t have to. My only orders were to say no and to not harm you.” He leans back and spreads his hands and shrugs. The neon lights catch his blood red hair. “I’m always within my right to make a judgment call.”
“I’d never hurt her.”
“You’re not friends, last I checked.” Hyunjin cocks his head to the side. “You don’t have friends, right? That’s why you reject acts of faith?”
“What do you know of acts of faith, Nightcrawler?”
“You’d be surprised, Collector.”
Hyunjin is unmoving. Minho’s fingers twitch and Hyunjin’s eyes follow the movement. For a second, Minho wonders if he could beat his adversary to the draw. They could do it like an old fashioned movie, the bar the perfect setting for it. Hyunjin is totally unmoving and relaxed, not moving his hand toward his weapons.
He’s that confident in beating me.
United Seconds are ticking by. Every minute Minho doesn’t make his collection is time lost. He licks his lips ready to mount another argument when Hyunjin’s eyes flicker and look over Minho’s shoulders. His eyes narrow a fraction as they dart back to Minho.
“Here’s an act of faith. Let’s see what you do this time.”
The energy in the bar shifts. He feels the tremor go through the air and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end. Minho turns his head to the side, not enough to fully look back over his shoulder but enough to see the group of Collectors disperse in the crowd.
Both, Minho realizes. The Collection had been for them both, and it was a good excuse to get them in the same place. He grits his teeth as he realizes how predictable he is. They might have come even if he didn’t arrive, but they might have sent a smaller force.
Glancing at Hyunjin, Minho watches as the Nightcrawler does nothing. He waits for Minho, raising his brows and smirking.
Act of faith.
Normally, Minho doesn't believe in public acts of violence. Collectors are mostly prohibited from killing in public or endangering the lives of United Republic Citizens unless entirely unavoidable.
Now, though, he causes a scene and pulls his gun, swiveling around and leveling it at the nearest Collector he has a clean line of sight on. He feels the hum of the weapon and the click of the safety as he squeezes the trigger, the pulse of the weapon barely perceptible as it fires.
Plasma weapons are bright when they fire. It’s nearly blinding in the dark as he shoots, screams shattering the bar as the world turns into pops of energy and sizzling air. He ducks down as someone shoots at him, instincts kicking in as he grabs the leg of a table and yanks it toward him.
Behind him, Hyunjin lets out a manic laugh and stands from the stool. He drops a small device next to Minho, drawing his attention for a second. Minho watches as it expands with a shimmer of translucent energy - a shield. He looks at the Nightcrawler who crouches with him, grinning as he peers over the table and shields with his green eyes.
“There are eight. They’re just going to pin us here and shoot at us like fish in a barrel.”
“Is there a way through that door?”
“Sure there is. If they want to melt it down, I’m sure they have plasma blades, judging from the look of their very nice weapons. They can’t blow it without leveling the street.”
“Does she have a way out the back?”
“No, then I would have two doors to watch.”
A spray of metal and plasma ricochets off the shield that has molded to the shape of the table. Hyunjin gestures as if to showcase his point and Minho grits his teeth. Peeking around the table, he can see patrons hiding under tables and covering their heads. Collectors stand spread out, fanning the entrance and blocking the way, but they don’t come any closer.
They want to make the Collection, but they don’t want to face a Collector and a Nightcrawler together.
“Aren’t you some sort of unmatched assassin, Nightcrawler?” Minho asks, checking the mag on his plasma gun. “Can you just take them all out? That should be light work for you.”
“I’m good at not being seen, Cowboy. I’m not inhuman.”
“Oh good, so you’re actually useless when visible?”
Hyunjin’s face darkens. “You’d be surprised how often you don’t see me.”
The threat isn’t lost on Minho but it doesn’t have time to sink into its full effect as bullets rain down on them. They cringe together to ensure they’re behind the shield, which whines under the plasma assault and flickers. Minho thinks it will hold, but it’s only as wide as the table it molds to and the table isn’t very large.
Hyunjin reaches into his pocket and pulls out a grenade. Minho grabs it, looking at him with wild eyes. Hyunjin pulls his hand away. “It’s a flash grenade,” he snaps. “I’m not going to kill everyone.” He pauses and smirks. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“That’s hardly less settling.”
“You know,” Hyunjin muses, pulling the ring from the grenad. Green light pulses on it slowly, counting down until it starts to release blinding white flashes. “One day you and I are going to have a talk about why you think your profession is so much different than mine.”
“One is legal, for starters.”
Hyunjin lobs the grenade. “Right, so what you’re doing right now? This is legal?”
Minho is spared from having to answer as the world explodes in white. He and Hyunjin move at the same time, letting the memory of where the Collectors stand as they close their eyes and shoot. Minho’s shot blind thousands of times and it usually pays off.
It does for the most part now, the pair of them dropping Collectors as they shoot. The white light fades and there’s only a single Collector left standing by the door, his gun aimed at Minho. He swivels to shoot, but a bullet hits the Collector in the shoulder, twisting him backward from impact as he squeezes the trigger of his gun.
The shot catches Minho in the shoulder, knocking him back a step. He curses but keeps his weapon trained on the fallen Collector until he hears high-pitched screaming. It stops his heart, the sound of the Collector’s voice reaching a level of madness that echoes even after he gargles and goes silent.
Minho looks at Hyunjin with an accusatory glare but Hyunjin juts his thumb behind him in answer, pointing to where you stand at the door with a heavy pistol in your and. Minho blinks a few times in surprise.
“I think the nano-tips work, Jeongin.” You glance over your shoulder where the younger boy stands on the stairs behind you, armed to the teeth. “Remind me to write that down.”
Silence stretches in Neon Rodeo, save the soft quivering crying and sparking sign that’s been shot over the bar. From the corner of his eye, Minho sees it flash between Rodeo and Odeo over and over again, bouncing between the two words as the ‘R’ tries to fight for its life.
Then there’s you.
You stare at him with a guarded expression, drinking him in. Your gaze lingers on his arm, reminding him that it does in fact burn where the plasma bullet graze his shoulder. Next to him, Hyunjin shifts. The Nightcrawler barely moves forward, sliding part of his body between Minho and where you stand in the doorway to your studio, Hyunjin’s hand resting on top of his gun.
“You gonna kill me, Cowboy?” Your voice wavers when you ask. By the twitch in your lip, Minho can tell you’re upset that it does.
“No. I want to help.” Hyunjin snorts and Minho is reminded of his earlier question. What do you think safety is? “Consider it an act of faith,” Minho offers and Hyunjin’s snickering turns to curiosity. “I’ve rejected yours in the past. Let me off you the only one I have.”
No one moves. Minho slowly lifts his wrist toward Hyunjin, displaying the information. The Nightcrawler looks it over and raises his brows, looking back at Minho. “What strange turn of events, Minho.”
It’s the first time Hyunjin has ever used his name. He says nothing as the Nightcrawler heads over to you, murmuring quietly. Your face is inscrutable as you nod and look over your shoulder, saying something to Jeongin. He nods fiercely, face set in determination that makes Minho’s mouth twitch a little.
The three of them join Minho wordlessly as he turns on his heels and heads up the stares. Hyunjin’s watch flashes and lets them know that the United Enforcers are three minutes out and they need to get where they’re going.
You take the lead then, hurrying out the door but not out into the street, ducking into a noodle shop three doors down from Neon Rodeo. You shout in United New Mandarin at the woman behind the counter, shocking him - not that Minho knows anything about you at all - and the woman waves you off.
Through the shop and into the stock room you lead everyone, hoping over bags of flower and starch until you reach a table that you climb up on and pull a vent from a ceiling. It’s far too large to be a normal vent, and his questions are answered when he realizes it leads to a small garage that faces the next street over.
Once into the garage, Hyunjin takes the lead out into the street, weapon up. Minho brings up the rear, falling into a defensive unit as you go. Jeongin walks closely behind Hyunjin, his steps a little clumsy but his head on a swivel.
Good, Minho thinks. Jeongin is alert.
“Decided not to kill me?” you whisper as you skirt out into the street and hug the building face.
Minho can barely hear you over the fabric you’ve pulled up over your face. He blinks and thinks to do the same, pulling the hood up on his jacket and sliding up a black gaitor over the lower half of his face.
“I was never going to kill you.”
“Hard to tell with you.”
“I… don’t have an argument.”
And he doesn’t. He realizes that he’s kept you at arm's length despite your best attempts to spark some sort of friendship. What reason could he do that other than sparing himself if he had to kill you one day? It makes the most logical sense.
“I thought we were friends.” That makes him pause. You notice a few steps ahead of him that he’s stopped, looking at you. “We stopped being just business acquaintances over a year ago, Collector. My normal clients don’t get to test my new hardware or request as many JumpPacks as you do on the house.”
“They’re on the house?”
“Of course they are!” you snap at him. “Do you not look at your billing, Collector? How do you know I’m not overcharging you?”
“I stopped looking once I trusted you weren’t robbing me.”
“See, that’s a funny word coming from you. Trust.”
A whistle catches Minho’s attention. You both turn to see that Hyunjin and Jeongin are nearly three-blocks away at the entrance of a nondescript shop. Color floods Minho’s face when he realizes the pair of you had stopped walking to have your argument and he curses himself as you start moving again.
“I do trust you.” You say nothing to his comment. “I’m sorry I didn’t accept the armor.”
“It wasn’t about rejecting the armor, Collector.” The world Collector sounds dirty in your mouth. He suddenly wants to hear you call him Cowboy again. “It was about rejecting me when I thought we were already friends. I was wrong.”
Hyunjin leads them down into an alleyway that is void of anything besides dumpsters and murky puddles. The smell turns Minho’s stomach but he resists the urge to gag as Hyunjin bends down to pull up a sewer grate. He flashes his flashlight inside and nods before jumping down and vanishing. There’s a light splash as he lands and calls up for Jeongin.
Minho crouches close to you as Jeongjin adjusts to follow Hyunjin down.
“You weren’t,” he says as Jeongin jumps. You turn to look at him, confused. “Wrong. You weren’t wrong.”
You look him up and down, hesitating. Hyunjin calls your name and you turn away from Minho, checking your legs and arms to make sure your pockets are zipped. Minho watches as you jump. He realizes his holding his breath until he hears your feet splash.
Quickly, he scrambles to the grate, pulling the top with him. Looking through the hole, he sees the orange light of glowsticks as you and Jeongin crack and shake them, lighting up the tunnel in a very small ring of light. Hyunjin has turned off his flashlight and looks up at Minho, gesturing for him to hurry.
Minho holsters his weapon and jumps down, bending at the knee as he lands to absorb the fall. His boots splash loudly in the tunnel, echoing for a few seconds. His shoulder wound aches as he straightens up. Hyunjin is already lifting Jeongin up to pull the great back over the hole. The scrape of metal on the concrete sounds much louder in the watery tunnel, making Minho cringe.
Looking both ways, he sees the sewer is less of a sewer and more of a tunnel. The cloth pulled over his face does little to keep out the rancid smell, and he winces when he sees fat, black rats scattering on the edges of the orange light.
Something touches his arm and he jerks, hand going to his gun. You lean back and apologize, holding out a glowstick. He relaxes and takes it, fingers brushing yours as he does. He instantly gets a chill down his spine, though his fingers are warm where they brushed yours.
Minho clears his throat and holds the glowstick up, looking around the tunnel. He can hear the faint echoes of dripping water and every movement of the group feels loud in the pressing silence of the dark.
“What is this?” he asks, looking at you.
It’s Hyunjin who answers, “Nightcrawler shit. You’re welcome.”
“Should we expect any of your former coworkers, then?”
“They’re not so bad.” Hyunjin unholsters his weapon as he begins walking south down the tunnel, throwing Minho a sharp grin. “It’s the Darklings I worry about.”
You fall into step behind Hyunjin immediately, ducking your head to murmur something to him as you go. The glow of your light gets farther away as Minho stands staring at Hyunjin, unsure if he’s serious or not.
Jeongin steps up next to Minho. “He was joking about Darklings, right? The People Underneath are a myth?”
“Have you ever heard Hyunjin tell a joke?”
Minho leaves Jeongin thinking about it before the younger rushes to keep up with him, feet splashing wildly.
-
Whether Hyunjin was joking about the Darklings or not, they don’t run into anything except rats and roaches in the underground tunnels. Minho finds himself itching to ask the Nightcrawler questions and demand where they’re going, but he doesn’t,
An act of faith.
It was an act of faith when Minho showed Hyunjin the safehouse on his watch. It was one of the few things that Minho protected more fiercely than his life, and he was hoping that when Hyunjin saw the coordinates, title of ownership, and Minho’s information, he’d gain a little trust.
Minho had been right. Hyunjin, though still sharp at the edges, has become unnervingly benign with Minho, addressing him by his name. It’s not much to most, but he knows among killers it’s a huge step. One that means a little more trust, if not at least peers.
You remain quiet for the most part. Your eyes stray toward Minho often and when he catches you looking, you don’t look away. Your gaze is hesitant and questioning, as though you’re trying to figure him out like one of the schematics on your screens.
Biting into a protein bar, he quickens his pace to fall into step with you. “What will you do with your lab?”
Your lips twitch. “Chemical fire. There’s a stop-line in the frame of the building so it should be controlled. I promised not to burn down Neon Rodeo when I established my office there.”
“Who owns that place, anyway?”
“Bangchan.” The name sounds familiar. “Reformed Nightcrawler.”
“You keep unusual company.”
“Better than none.”
That gets a little bit of a laugh from him. You smile when he does and he swears it’s brighter than the glowsticks you carry. “I deserved that one. I’m working on it, alright.”
“How do Jisung and Changbin deal with you?”
“The same way I deal with them.” You hum, nodding in understanding. For a few minutes, it’s just wet steps echoing in the tunnels. “What made you decide to come with me? I assume you have your own fallback plans.”
“I do, but I don’t know. I wanted to accept your olive branch.” You look at him. “I wanted to trust you.”
He nods. His gut twists a little at that, both anxious and pleased. He’d been right about offering an act of faith in return for the one he scorned. Now, he just has to keep you alive, which he grows more confident in doing.
“Where are we going?”
He looks up at you. “Hyunjin didn’t tell you?”
“No, just said to trust you.” Minho’s brows shoot up and you snort. “I know. Whatever you showed him convinced him.”
“It’s a safe house on Isla de Suenos.” You look up at him sharply and he gives a soft grin. “My mother belonged to a very well-off family. I’m not supposed to exist, and she had to decide at a young age whether or not I was worth throwing away her family and their power. A single safehouse purchased with offshore accounts and through a network of money-changing and bought secrecy is the only thing she could give me.”
“She didn’t choose you?” He shakes his head. You think about that for a second and he lets the words sink in, waiting for the pity, which he hates. Instead, you hum. “No wonder you don’t choose people either.”
Your candor is a relief. You don’t tell him sorry or try to comfort him. You accept this as a fact of life, a normalcy that a mother would choose wealth and power over a child. “There are no records tying us together, but the title of the house is under what my name would have been if she’d taken me. Lee. My family name would be Lee.”
“What is it now?”
“I don’t have one. My father was servant-class. We don’t have family names.”
“He worked for your mother’s family?” Minho nods. “Lee. I like it. Will you keep it?”
“Maybe. It’s who I have to be, now.”
“No longer the Collector?” He shakes his head. “Good. Perhaps I like you more as just Lee Minho.”
Minho bites back a grin.
By the time they get to the surface again, they’re just outside of the city-proper on the northeast shore. Here, the night is bitter cold as the salty air blasts off the ocean, dark waves rushing and receding against the shoreline.
They take a brief break once their topside, Minho gasping deep breaths of fresh air in as he gulps down water. Now that they can see without the glowsticks, they toss them into the trash and breathe in silence.
Carefully, Minho peers at the wound on his shoulder. It’s caterized from the heat of the plasma, but the burn hurts something vicious. He has no medical supplies on him, and he examines the chawed flesh with mild concern.
Seeing the injury, you get up wordleslly from the rock where you sit and come over. Your hand digs in one of your pockets and you produce a packet of burn gel and antiseptic, wordlessly gesturing to the wound. He nods and you offer a tentative grin before ripping the antiseptic open with your teeth, spitting the crinkling material on the ground.
With steady hands, you squeeze out the translucent gel on the tips of your fingers and peel the damaged parts of Minho’s shirt away from the flesh. He sucks in a breath when you apply the cool gel to the wound, the stinging of the antibiotic catching him off guard. You shoot him an apologetic wince before continuing to press it lightly into the burned flesh.
You smell like jasmine and amber. Minho breathes it in deep, a soothing scent mixed with the salty air of the seat just a few yards away. His eyes flutter shut as your fingers work his shoulder, deft and skilled like an artist.
“My mom liked to paint,” Minho says automatically, unsure where the comment comes from. “That’s one of the few things I know about her. She had artists hands. You have hands like hers. Graceful.”
“Hmm, I wouldn’t say I’m an artist but I do draw designs for weapons a lot.”
“It’s a kind of art.”
“I suppose it is.”
Your closeness makes Minho dizzy. Instead of chasing you away in the past, he lets you linger and spread the burn gel on his shoulder. He doesn’t open his eyes, letting the sound of the ocean and the press of your steady fingers lull him into a moment of relaxation.
He can almost pretend you both haven’t thrown your life away to head to some house he’s never been to with little to no plan but to arrive there alive.
“Does it hurt?” he shakes his head at your question. You voice is soft and raspy, rising the hairs on the back of his neck. You’re so close he can feel the heat radiating from you, making him lean in on instinct, seeking the warmth. “If you let me give you better armor, plasma won’t hurt you.”
Minho’s eyes flutter open. “You brought it with you?”
“Of course I did.” Your face is inches from his, eyelashes fanning your bright, glittering eyes as you look up at him. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Hyunjin’s voice shatters the moment before Minho can respond. “Hello, yes, the child and I are still here.”
“I’m not a child!”
“The child and I need to leave, however. Seungmin and Felix are waiting to escort us. I believe your friend left transportation for you, Minho.”
You whirl around. “You’re leaving? What do you mean you’re leaving?”
“I have some Nightcrawling to do with Bangchan and Seungmin. I’m taking the child to stay with Swan.”
Minho has no idea who Swan is. He sees the uncertainty color your face as you regard your guard - your friend. “You would do that? Take him to stay with her?”
“Of course. Swan likes strays.”
“I am right here,” Jeongin reminds everyone, crossing his arms over his chest. “And I’m not a child.”
Hyunjin grins at him. It’s real and not a leer, something that Minho doesn’t think he’s ever seen. Hyunjin grabs Jeongin by the shoulder, pulling him along before flicking his poison-green eyes toward Minho and you. “Enjoy your evening. I’ll be around, Minho.”
“Wait!” you bolt over to them, catching everyone by surprise as you throw your arms around the two of them and squeeze. The smile on Hyunjin’s face is so soft that Minho has to look away, equal parts something like jealousy and feeling like he’s intruding. “Here.”
You divest several items from your pockets, shoving them into their hands. Medical gels, a few gadgets, and a little Scorpion figurine that you shove into Hyunjin’s hands. He raises a single brow in amusement but you say nothing to the Nightcrawler, rushing back to stand at Minho’s side.
Hyunjin and Jeongin lift their hand in waves to Minho before turning and heading down the beach at a slow pace, their feet sinking into the sand. Cold wind whips at Minho as he stands watching with you silent by his side, waiting.
Without a word, he turns and beckons you, heading up the rocky coast before heading back down precariously to a tiny cove with a boat buoyed between the rocks. It’s hardly a safe-looking boat and he realizes it probably wouldn’t have carried them all, but it’s something.
Minho climbs into the boat carefully before helping you step down into it. The rocking water throws you off balance and he steadies you, hands tight on your waist. You mutter an apology but he doesn’t let go until he’s sure you’re okay, eyes searching.
A moment of tension passes, his fingers pressed into the fabric of your hips, your closeness overpowering the sea air again. You clear your throat and it passes. Minho lets you go as he finds the key and plugs it in to turn on the engine.
You busy yourself with untying ropes, your steps unsteady as the vessel moves unpredictably beneath your feet. Once you manage to get rid of all the lines, he begins to navigate out the cove backward, turning the wheel violently from side to side as he fights the tide.
Thankfully with every swell that pushes the boat into the cove, it drags it back out. It takes about three swells before the craft is pulled into the ocean proper and he throws the throttle in reverse, water rooster tailing for a moment as he does.
You join him at the helm and stand close as he turns it around and drives. Wind rips at his jacket, blowing back the hood. He’s thankful for the face cover fighting the icy wind, squinting as he drives in the late hours of the night across a rippling black ocean.
The water gets rough as he turns to the east, glancing at the coordinates on his watch every once in a while. Your hand shoots out to grab his forearm on a particularly violent dip. He curses, pain radiating from his shoulder as you do. You immediately shout an apology and let go, but Minho snakes an arm around your waist, pulling you tight.
For a second, you stiffen, looking up at him uncertain. He remains steadfast in his hold, willing his heart to slowdown as he drives, determined to keep you from falling off the boat and into the water before you can even make it to the safehouse.
You relax into him after a second, pressing closer and letting him hold on as you go. He relaxes when you accept his help, breathing out a slow breath that he didn’t know he was holding.
It takes almost forty five minutes, but the dark shadow of Isla de Suenos materializes in the night. The city is a spec of light on the misty horizon as the waves begin to slow down until he can let down on the throttle, bringing the boat to a troll instead of a plane.
The collection of islands that surround the massive, man-made mountain in the middle of the seat are all only about seven acres in size and are privately owned. The level of exclusivity is something Minho is incredibly unfamiliar with, and he gets nervous as they approach the barely visible shield surrounding the collection of islands.
“Minho, there’s a-”
“It’ll let us through.” He squeezes your waist on instinct, hoping it’s true. As the boat passes, he holds his breath. He feels the biochip in his neck flicker and then they’re through the shield. The water is falt calm on the other side of the energy wall, tapping gently against the hull. “It’s biometric.”
“And you were sure that was going to work?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly is not a great attitude in the invention field, Minho.”
It takes a second, but he realizes you’re calling him by his name and not Cowboy. He likes the sound of it on your tongue, though he doesn’t mind the diminutive.
Even in still waters, he doesn’t remove his arm around your waist, the protective instinct still high as he steers the boat according to his watch. Islands with lights hidden behind thick jungle and rockface slide past them.
The beacon on his watch flashes and he turns the boat, trolling to a long, empty dock ahead of them. The island is no different from the rest, covered in sprawling jungle and foliage that look monstrous in the ominous night.
Quickly, you tie off the boat and disembark. Your steps on the dock feel loud in the quiet night, the two of you hurrying along and up the shore until you hit the stone stairway that leads through the trees. Though he isn’t holding you close to him anymore, you still keep yourself pressed close, the back of your hands brushing as you begin the climb up the island.
Minho has no idea what the house looks like. He only knows that it’s coded to his biochip and that it’s always been there if he needs it. He doesn’t know if it’s stocked or if the electricity is on, or if it’s been raided and taken over. He doesn’t even know if there are codes to get access.
It is the most unprepared he has ever been.
A large estate springs up among the trees. The entire building is constructed on a platform with foliage and trees brushing along the foundations. It’s made up of windows and metal framing, the windows dark and hiding whatever exists within.
It is exquisit. Minho has never seen an estate or a luxury home before in person, but he knows that’s what this is. The thought seems a little silly as he leads you toward the modular home, steps quiet as he glances around. He cannot imagine that anyone but he and his could enter the grounds, but he’s still on edge.
At the door, there’s a single bioscanner. He leans his neck toward it, letting it flash over his biochip. The scanner turns green and he hears the hiss of an airlock. Glancing at you and shrugging, he tries the handle and pulls the door open toward him.
Inside, the air is cool. He steps in first, hand on his gun as he looks around the interior. It’s sparkling clean and decorated with dark wood furniture and greenery. He takes a few steps inside, flinching when automatic lights come on and cast a warm, gold glow in the house.
“You’ve been living as a fucking Collector when this existed the entire time?” you deadpan from the door.
No kidding, he thinks, turning to look at the multi-story wonder that is the home. It’s three levels of tropical opulence, making his head spin at all of the possibilities.
“I didn’t know what was here, honestly.” He turns to look at you and nods. You step inside and pull the door shut, tapping the screen beside it. The locks click in place again and with another tap, he sees the windows darken to privacy mode. “I assumed she didn’t leave me something grand.”
“It’s a good start on an apology. She’s still a bitch for leaving you and I think you should let me fight her.”
A ripple of fondness goes through him and he smiles at you, uncontrolled and large. You shoot a shy one back before looking away at the wonder of the home.
Unlike him, you seem to relax immediately, kicking your shoes off to wander around the house. He follows suit after a moment of hesitation, peeling the cover off of his face and kicking of his shoes. He leaves his holster open on his weapons, hands hovering near them as he follows you.
The house is extravagent. Smaller than he originally thought, with only three bedrooms and two bathrooms, but the spaces for each are massive and sprawling with greenery. It feels like the jungle is a part of the house - and he realizes it is, at least in the atrium. There’s a large pool and something that looks like a hot spring behind the house, hidden from the world by think palms and palmetto.
Each room is richly designed and cleaned, as though it has been kept for him all this time. He’ll have to worry about that at some point, unsure who has kept the house in such a presentable state while it’s existed.
After you’ve fed your curiosity, you drift to one of the rooms with a private bathroom. He takes the room across from you, feet dragging as the exhaustion hits him. His limbs feel heavy and peeling off his shirt with the injure arm makes him curse and hiss. He doesn’t bother looking in the mirror, knowing the old bruises from a few days ago are still there.
Steam fills the bathroom. He’s a little put out when he realizes that the stone shower has a wall of glass to reveal the jungle on the other side, but he realizes there’s no one to watch him. He shakes the uneasiness and steps under the scalding water, moaning as he closes his eyes and lets it run down him.
A screen with a dozen or more settings sits in the rockface of the shower, but he doesn’t know how to use them. He hits another button hoping for what is more water pressure and instead gets a heavenly waft of eucalyptus. He leaves the settings alone, settling for tranquility over scrubbing himself.
Minho doesn’t know how long he stays in the shower. His fingers prune and the crust and blood eventually peel away. He spends a short amount of time scrubbing his own skin, eager to get out of the shower and check on you.
Now that he has you, a new sort of stream of conscious has made itself permanent, always wondering where you are and if you’re okay.
Steam clouds the bathroom as he steps out, wrapping a towel around his waist. Water clings to him as he ruffles his wet hair, strolling out into the bedroom. He walks toward the table by the door, rifling through his things looking for medical gel.
A knock draws his attention and you open the door a crack, making a sound of surprise when you don’t expect to see him standing right in front of you. Your eyes dip down to where the towel is on his waist and back up, immediately opting to look at the ceiling.
Minho’s lips pressed into a firm line, trying to eat the smirk threatening to take over.
“Sorry, I assumed you were still in the shower. I - um - brought more gel for your shoulder.”
He steps away from the door, leaving drips of water as he does. “Come on in.”
“Are you sure?”
He shrugs and then winces, the burn pulling taught as he does. You enter immediately, shutting the door behind you and ripping the top off the packet as you do, eyes focused on the wound. You’ve got your fingers slathered in gel and pressing to his shoulder before you realize the forwardness, pausing to glance up at him.
Now, Minho does smirk. “I’m at your mercy.”
“Sorry. I know it’s hurting you and…”
“You don’t want me to hurt,” he fills in, remembering your words from earlier.
You nod and chew your bottom lip as you work. He studies you closely. He doesn’t know if it’s his acceptance that you’re more than just someone he buys weapons from, the exhaustion or the little sliver of feeling he’s always pretended wasn’t there, but Minho suddenly feels a little bolder.
A little braver.
“I never had a chance to thank you.”
“For what?” You throw the antiseptic on the table and rip open the burn gel. “Anything. Everything. I don’t think I’ve ever said thank you.”
“There’s a lot of things you haven’t said.”
“So let me.” You dart a look at him, nervous. When you don’t interrupt he continues, “You were right. We stopped being industry peers a long time ago, and I’ve purposefully ignored multiple favors from you to keep the illusion that simple relationships meant I couldn’t be hurt. Or hurt others.”
“And now?”
“I realize it was silly.”
“Hmm. At least you admit your faults, Cowboy.”
He smiles. You finish applying the gel, but you don’t move away from him. You linger, looking up through silky lashes at him. Your face takes on a dreamy look, mouth parted a little and he feels heat coil in his stomach at that look.
“Why’d you offer me that armor?”
“I was afraid of how often you were working. I knew you were getting hurt and I wanted to help. Why’d you reject it?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
There’s a long pause. Your gaze drops to his mouth. You’re only a few inches away, the ghost of your breath against his neck. “What if I want you to?”
Minho needs no other permission. It’s like a dam giving way, the past few days able to wedge their way in and open him up to let the rawness spill out of him. He surges forward, catching your mouth against his as he does so, hands shooting to your waist.
You don’t push him away. Worse, you melt into him like it’s natural, hands skating up his arms and around the back of his neck to pull him in closer to you. Your mouth is warm and minty and addicting, scattering his thoughts to the stars as your lips move against his.
Heat is trapped between your bodies. He feels like he’s burning up from the inside, squeezing your hips as his tongue brushes against your bottom lip. You open up for him easily, like you were always made to and he groans.
Every time he has ever held back from you fuels him forward. He presses into you, turning you to push you on the mattress. You go willingly, opening your legs to let him slot between them. He leaves over you, mouth hungry. Devouring. Ravenous.
You gasp between kisses, nails grazing down his flexing arms. He wants to fucking drown in you as he bites the edge of your jaw, tasting the soap on your skin. You smell like jasmine and amber, though now he can smell the eucalyptus too, driving him insane.
You.
The one thing he’s let himself trust. The one person he’s let in, even when he didn’t want to admit it. The one person he wants to have more than anything else.
Greedy hands scrape up his chest. Your fingers are warm and searching as he nips the tender flesh of your neck, tongue laving over the bite to soothe it. The sounds dripping from your mouth are so pretty, driving him inside as he traces his desire with tongue and teeth.
The fabric of your shirt scrapes against his skin, itchy and in the way. His hands pull at the hem and he hesitates, looking down at you through a heavy-lidded gaze and panting. You not frantically, hands pulling at his to guide the shirt upwards and off, revealing warm skin.
Minho wants to taste every part of you. You create art with your schematics and your weapons, but you are art. He worships you with tongue and teeth, hands brushing up your stomach to cup your chest. His tongue pulls a languid moan from you as he flicks it over the peak of your nipple.
Fuck.
He’s greedy, sucking gentle on your pert bud, ensuring to scrap his teeth along the sensitive flesh. You writhe underneath him, unable to remain still. His other hand works you too, tweaking your stiff peak as he trails spit-slick kisses across your chest to wrap his lips around that nipple too.
Minho looks up at you through his lashes. You’re a rendering of pleasure, head pressing into the bed, chest pushed up, a sheen of sweat on your collarbones and neck. It drives him wild, cock throbbing heavily as he trails his mouth toward, fingers pulling your pants as he goes.
Your fingers twist in the sheets. Everything he does affects you and he’s drunk on it, heart thudding in his chest as he drops down to his knees. His towel falls and the cool air makes him shiver. He feels the sticky tip of his cock brush against his leg but he ignores the ache between his thighs, fixing his eyes on what’s between yours instead.
Pretty and wet, all for him. For him. He gets to have you. But he doesn’t yet, making you wait and feel the personal hell it’s been for him to pretend he wasn’t yours as he kisses up your thighs, licking warm skin and digging his teeth in.
“Minho,” you half gasp, half wine. He smiles against your knee, giving it a gentle peck. “Please.”
“Yeah?” he switches legs, biting your calf. “Want it that bad?”
“Need it.”
He brings a hand up to your dripping cunt, dragging a curled knuckle through your wetness. You let out a keen and he grins against your leg even more, hypnotized by the way your petty little hole clenches at the contact.
Minho drags it out. Plays with you, dragging that knuckle slow-soft through your folds, avoiding your clit. You let out a sound that’s almost a sob and he chuckles, bringing his hand up to suck at the stickiness on his finger.
“Hmm. Sweet.”
“Bet it’s better from the source,” you shoot back, trying to make a jab and failing with how weak your voice is.
“True,” he agrees, leaning forward.
Your taste blooms on his tongue as he licks up your center, slow and patient. He savors the taste, humming as he does. You buck under his mouth and he grips your thighs, pulling you open. You’re warm and wet and perfect, and he listens to your breath hitch as he licks you slowly, making sure to circle around your clit each time.
One of your hands shoots to his hair. He doesn’t mind as you pull. The sting feels good and spurs him on, eating you out properly. He loves the sounds you make for him, loves the way your thighs twitch as he sucks your click into his mouth, tongue flicking over it.
It’s wet and messy and just the way he likes it, slick dripping down his chin as he presses himself in further, desperate to fuck you into sanity with just his mouth.
He doesn’t have a problem doing it. You buck against his face and he lets you, holding his tongue flat for you to grind against. Your fingers in his hair have him in a vice grip and he moans, a steady stream of mhmmm dripping sweet from his mouth into your heat.
“Fuck,” you gasp. “Fuck fuck fuck.”
“Come on,” he mouths against you. “Take what you want, baby.”
The endearment slips from him more natural than anything he’s ever done. His fingers squeeze your thighs as you undulate against him, his entire attention fixated on you as the begin to shake. Your hand twists in his hair and he groans, equal parts pain and pleasure as you come apart.
He hums in satisfaction, keeping his mouth working on you, drinking you in as you continue to tremble. The power trip that comes with seeing you come is unmatched, lighting a fire in him as he licks you to oversensitivity.
“Minho,” you beg, voice squeaking. He grins, kissing your cunt before he mouths his way back up to you, capturing your mouth with his. You’re eager to taste yourself, tongue licking at him more than anything, smearing your slick on his lips. He feels his eyes roll back. You’re going to kill him. “More.”
Minho would conquer the world and call it yours if you wanted him to. There’s nothing he wouldn’t give you. Pretending otherwise was the great folly of man, he realizes, as he shuffles you up the bed and climbs between your legs, standing up on his knees.
You watch him, pupils blown and fucked out as he heaves. He can hardly catch his breath as he reaches down to take his cock in his hand, pumping leisurely as he watches you. The way you look at him like you’ll consume him whole makes him shiver. He wants you to. Want you to burn him up until there’s nothing left.
Leaning down, he drops his cock out of his hand in favor of sliding a hand between you’re legs. You’re a mess of spit and cum, making the glide easy as he slips a finger into your heat to work you open. Your head falls to the side, giving him access to suck at your jawline as he fucks you open with his finger, adding a second when he knows you can take it.
Your hips roll up to meet his thrusts as he scissors his fingers open, pressing against your warm walls to push the stretch further. You’re putty in his hands but he’s a mess in yours, too. He’s shaking by the time he slips his hand from between your legs to press the crown of his cock at your entrance, hesitating.
Minho looks up at you. He already knows there’s no going back for him, three years of his own stubborn delusions robbing him of what could have been. But he asks, anyway. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve been sure for a long time. It was you who needed convincing.”
“What a stuipd man I am.”
“Yes,” you agree. “But mine.”
That drives him wild. Simple words and yet the very action of you claiming him erodes the last bit of resistance. He pushes into you and goes slow with a considerable amount of effort, shaking and panting as he tries to keep it together.
You’re warm and tight and twitches of pleasure ripple through him from cock to stomach. Minho swears he comes alive for the first time as he seats himself in your cunt to the hilt, barely able to catch his breath as he ducks down to press his mouth against yours.
It’s not delicate, but it isn’t the same ferocity as earlier. It’s something else that lingers between madness and relief. He only begins to move when he feels your hips wiggle. He smiles into the kiss, retracting his hips before surging forward again.
Delirious. That is the only word that comes to mind as he starts to fuck you slow and deep. Your mouths bump together but you’re both breathing raggedly, shaking together. Your hands card through his hair, soothing and soft. His lashes flutter as he drops his head further. You press your lips against his forehead as he picks up the pace, letting your hands worship him as he fucks you.
How could he ever think he was sparing you from him? How could he ever make the mistake that if he kept on the fringes, you wouldn’t leave him ruined like this? It seems unimaginative now. Like something that was always meant to happen.
No wonder Collect Co. knew he would go running to you like a dog when they assigned you to him. Everyone else could admit it except him, an egregious error on his part.
But Minho has you now. Gasping his name and moving in his arms. Rolling your hips to meet his, your cunt clenching on his cock as he fucks you harder. He wants to dig into you and never let go. Wants to sink in to the very core and live there.
“Mine,” you growl as though you can read his thoughts. “Even though you tried not to be. You are mine, Lee Minho.”
When you say his full name like that, voicing the boy who could have been and now who is, he starts to come apart. His pace quickens as he chases your second release, holding you tight to him as he feels you clench longer and longer around him until you’re sobbing his name and spilling down his shaft.
Minho all but growls your name as he comes. Never again will you be Builder. You’re his. First and last name his to say. The acknowledgment almost makes him cry as he slows his thrusts, gasping for air as he tosses his head back, heat escaping between the two of you.
Finally, he stops fucking you, hands linked with yours as he leans up to catch his breath. He’s still seated in you, feeling the cum drip between where your ass is pressed against his thighs. He doesn’t care, feeling the sweat and the water from his shoulder drip down his back.
His arm burns where he’s used it. He’d been unaware of the pain while lost in you, but he feels it now, throbbing. He doesn’t care. He’d do it again a thousand times.
Slowly, he unravels from you. Your hands don’t let him go far, pulling him down next to you to roll toward. He smiles, tired and dreamy at the edges as he lets you. The bed is soft against his balmy skin, the cool air helping calm him down.
Finally, both of you can breathe. He knows that he needs to shower again, but he doesn’t want to get up. He wants to keep you near. Now that he’s all in, he wants to stay all in.
“We should call this place the Jungle Rodeo.” He cracks an eye open at you to realize you’re hiding a grin as you look up at him. “You know, since we can’t go back to Neon Rodeo.”
“What is it with you and rodeos?”
“You find Cowboys at the rodeo.”
“Oh?”
“And you’re here… so… it’s a rodeo.”
He blinks at you. “Your intellect is astounding.”
You laugh and it’s like taking a JumpPack straight to his bloodstream, a rush of energy and euphoria driving him upward and toward you. He smothers you with kisses, driving by the need to taste you again. You let him, giggling.
“What do you say then, hmm?” he growls, nipping your bottom lip. “Want to go for another ride?”
“That joke was terrible.”
“You know what they say. When at the rodeo.”
You laugh again and Minho is a goner once more, just like he was the first day he met you at Neon Rodeo.
-
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the sweetest con
cowboy like me chapter fifteen
well. this is it. we made it, kids.
thank you so, so much for reading for all this time. for all your patience, and kindness, and loyalty. i will carry this pair, their story, and all of your love for them with me forever. love you guys. xx
pairing: dbf!joel miller x fem!reader
summary: every cowboy deserves his ride off into the sunset.
warnings: age gap (reader is 23, joel is 48), lotsa guilt from reader, dreamy love sequence & mention of unprotected piv/creampie, more greys anatomy spoilers, reader's dad is either Bald or has a Receding Hairline (you choose), more sex - this time reader and joel sixty-nine, face sitting, oral (f and m receiving), more (inferred) unprotected piv, making dirty, hot love ALLAT, cursing, a little smut n a lotta fluff n a droplet of angst at the end
word count: 10.8k
series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🧡
“How the fuck did this take you three minutes? Three?”
“I’m telling you. I’m a genius.”
You snort. “Shut up. You only passed Math ‘cause you were fooling around with that nerd – Thomas? Was it Thomas?”
“Timothy. And you don’t need math to do a sudoku puzzle, loser. You just need brains. Logic.” Anna taps two fingers against her temple, tilting her head.
“Logic,” you murmur, shaking your head.
Sal’s is quiet today. He’s out of town for his father-in-law’s funeral and made the genius decision to leave the two of you in charge. Since opening at nine, you’ve had four customers. The to-do list left for you was completed by ten, and since then, you’ve been hunched over your phone at the cash register, messing around on some puzzle app Anna made you download.
It's a Wednesday. Nothing exciting ever happens on Wednesdays.
Anna’s behind you, tearing apart and flattening the cardboard boxes you spent all morning emptying. “That level,” she clicks her chewing gum wetly between her teeth, scent of mint over your shoulder, “that ain’t even the hardest one. Ooh, no, babe. Three goes –”
“Shh!” You bat her arm away, curving your hand over your phone screen. She snorts and wanders off through the back, wad of cardboard under her arm.
Anna wasn’t your closest friend in high school, and you sure didn’t stay much in touch past the odd Facebook post update when you left. But working with her, and her dad being your dad’s buddy – she’s sort of become one of those people you just can’t shake.
Like a stray puppy. Or…an annoying hangnail.
She’s nice enough – talks a lot of crap sometimes, but she cares for you. You’d go as far as saying you two have grown pretty close since you came home. Still, the acidic sting of resentment sits on your tongue, anytime you think of her involvement in the unravelling of your little lie. Think of your dad calling hers, Hank asking her where you were.
Think of the fact that, if she hadn’t been honest with him – I don’t know where she is, Dad – nothing would’ve gone wrong.
That’s not fair. If you’d never touched Joel in the first place, nothing would’ve gone wrong.
It’s just – she had a hand in pushing the first domino.
The bell above the door jingles and you lift your eyes from tiny numbers and blank squares to meet a familiar pair of hazel. An Alanis Morissette T-shirt under a denim jacket. She tucks her thick, soft hair behind her ears and smiles, then skips around the counter and links her hands at your tummy; her ear flat against the nape of your neck.
“Why so clingy?” you ask, and Sarah straightens up.
“Just excited to spend some time with my favorite person. That allowed?”
Your eyes scan her up and down as she leans against the counter, stealing a gummy from a jar beside the register. “Been staying with you for nearly three weeks now, you ain’t sick of me yet?”
She shakes her head, jaw chewing, cheeks swollen with a grin. “Are you done yet? I wanna make sure we get good seats.”
“We will,” you assure her. “It’s only, like, three p.m.”
“But it’s Barbie,” she says, “and I wanna get some snacks before we head in.” She holds the decapitated gummy worm up, eyebrows high, before pulling it between her teeth until it snaps. She drags the withered red tail over her tongue.
“That thing you just mauled,” you gesture to the masticated shape in her fingers, “candy. Snacks. Just take some of that.”
“You won’t even buy your date movie theater candy? Damn. Mom’s a cheapskate. Wish I could say my dad’s a lucky guy.”
You shove her off, disguising your laugh with a shake of your head. “You are on thin ice, I’m not even kidding.”
Sarah’s laughing, reaching for another worm. “You know what that sounds like?”
“Hm?”
“What you just said.”
“What’s it sound like, Sarah Miller?”
“Something a mom would say.”
“Alright,” you stand, “get out. Get outta my store.”
The door opens when you point to it, Texan heat sweeping in to swarm the one rickety fan you have in here. The brass bell trembles, and beneath it, a man in a tucked shirt and jeans, glum face and tired eyes.
You blink at him and he blinks back, and no words are spoken between you, but your dad understands to move, to keep walking – and you understand to let him.
“Shoot,” Sarah whispers, twisting her gummy around her finger. “That was awkward.”
Three weeks of staying with them – Sarah and Joel – also means three weeks of zero contact with your dad. The most you’ve heard from – or, rather, about him is that, last week, Joel bumped into Hank at the gas station, and the old man mentioned that he and your dad had grabbed a beer the night before.
What’d he say? you asked Joel, dragging a dish towel around the rim of a glass.
He shrugged, flicking his hands dry over the sink. Said the Rangers aren’t doin’ too good. I said, Yeah, that’s cause a’ –
No, Joel. What did he say about me ‘n my dad?
He waited a second to let the offense of your interruption soak in. Took the towel from your hand, replaced the glass on the draining board. Nothing, he said, I don’t think he knows.
It sat with you the entire night. The three of you watched a movie, occupying either side of Joel’s couch, though you’re sure you don’t remember a word of it. The image of him sat center-stage in your mind until you pulled yourself against Joel’s body in bed that night. Sat in his recliner, flicking through TV channels, the only sounds in the house that of Ice Road Truckers, the ticking of the kitchen clock, and his own fucking breathing.
Alone. Not even Hank to talk to about – well.
You’ve done your best not to think about him. And it works, most days, when you’re with Joel. Helps to go do stuff: ride shotgun while he picks up supplies for work or grabs groceries. Helps to play pretend like his house is yours, too. Tidying when he’s not home, lighting candles and sinking into a bubble bath for him to find you in when he finishes. Helps to be at Sal’s, with Anna. Sudoku and her fucking Tinder account to keep you both occupied.
Most days, you forget to consider the lonely shape of your dad at all – but that seems to hurt all the more. Like forgetting to tend to an open wound; instead, letting the infection blister and bubble so that, when you do bump it again, the pain feels sharper. Hissing at you, poison seeping from flesh.
His showing up, waltzing straight into the store – feels less like a bump, and more like a pair of hands diving straight into the gash, tearing it wide open again. Blood and poison gushing all over the checkered floor.
Anna materializes between two aisles, hands on her hips when she stands behind you. “Y’all still not really talkin’?” she asks.
You and Sarah shake your heads. The three of you watch the shape of your dad’s skull over the shelves, bobbing from bay to bay. Door hinges to fence paint. He painted the fence last summer. He doesn’t need fucking fence paint.
“Nope,” you reply. “’s been, what, two and a half weeks now?”
“Yeah,” Anna mutters, the slope of sympathy in her voice. “My dad’s been talkin’ to him about it. They’ve spoken, like, almost every night on the phone.”
“Oh, fuck,” you hiss, head falling into your hands. “Are you serious?”
“Not about you and Joel. Just about the fight.”
Your jaw slowly slackens, eyes thinning as your gaze slides over to your friend, a saddened expression on her face.
Sarah nods, like an accessory sat on the dash of a car. Bobbing bobbing bobbing, until her brows drop and she turns to you, finally realizing. “Wait, what?”
Anna blinks between the two of you. “What?” she asks, lips pressing together.
“You know?” Sarah asks, glaring at her.
Anna snorts. Neither of you break. She quickly quietens and clears her throat, bending to stuff more cardboard under her arm. “Well…” She sucks in a deep breath. “At rodeo night, when you left your phone on the table, me ‘n Kara wanted to leave a bunch of selfies for you to find later. But when I went to grab your phone, you had a text from him. Joel. Something about someone winning you over like he did, or something. I can’t remember. But that was the first thing.”
Sarah’s face sours at the mention of her dad’s flirty text, scoffing as she swipes another gummy from the jar. “Real fuckin’ subtle, Dad,” she murmurs.
You sharpen your gaze at Anna, blurring the brown curls and low brows from your peripheral. “Uhuh…?”
“Then, there was the lying to your dad about where you were. That Monday – you said you were at mine. You weren’t. Your dad called my dad to ask, ‘n my dad asked me why the hell you’d lie. I figured, What a weird coincidence, right?”
You slip off your stool, legs feeling more liquid than bone. “Oh, Jesus…”
“But then…then, I saw how you were when he called on the way to Frank’s. In the car. You were…fucking weird. And then Joel punched that dude – that basically confirmed it. I don’t think either of your dads would do that for me. It felt…it felt personal. He took your hand ‘n dragged you outta there, and it felt like…somethin’ else.”
You’re leaning against the counter, head in your hands. Struggling to even listen to her piece it all together. Were you this fucking obvious, the whole time?
Anna answers for you. “Yeah,” she says, nodding, “I didn’t catch two fucking boyfriends cheating on me, and not pick up some detective skills, babe.”
You stand straight, composure slowly building over shame. “And your dad doesn’t know? My –” you flick your head across the store, lowering your voice, “– my dad hasn’t told him?”
A laugh spurts from somewhere deep in her chest. “Hell, no. Are you tryna give him a second heart attack? No. He just thinks you were somewhere you didn’t want your dad to know – a boy’s or something. Which – well, I guess you were.”
You nod, half-appreciation, half-resignation. Alright. Now shut up about it, would you?
“But listen,” Anna says, apparently not as good at mindreading as she is at secret-revealing, “y’all gotta work on being sneaky. You’re, like, really bad at it.”
“Yeah,” you sniff, “thanks, Anna.”
You grip the edge of the counter and try to draw your eye away from your dad; a little angry that he’s here, and yet, a little more thankful that you’ve had at least a tiny glimpse of him. Desperate for him to come over, to acknowledge your mutual existence in the same room, and yet – petrified that he does.
He keeps his back to you, though you notice him turning every so often, looking at you from his peripheral. Nope – your black shirt and blue jeans are still behind the counter. He turns back to the shelf.
“Hi, sweetie.” A woman in a pink blouse approaches the counter. She lays down a couple pairs of plyers and you ring her up, asking if she found everything okay. Choking a little when you inhale the scent of her perfume.
“Beautiful day for you to be in here workin’, huh?” Her rosy cheeks fill as she hands you the cash.
Oh, yeah. It’s a beautiful day to be stuck selling plyers to pink women in pink blouses smelling of pink perfume, while my dad – still reeling from the revelation that I’ve been sleeping with his best friend, by the way – pretends to peruse the store.
“I’m almost done,” you reply, blunt enough to deflate her expression only a little, sliding the paper bag stamped Sal’s back across the counter.
She nods in thanks and slinks off, suffocating aroma following her. And like a magician, when she disappears off to the side, your dad stands in her wake. A few feet from you, keeping his distance, watching carefully before he dares to move. Waiting for your go-ahead.
When you lift your chin, beckoning him forward, Anna takes Sarah’s arm and yanks her away, shoving some shredded boxes into her arms. “You wanna help me?” she asks the nosy Miller, tossing something of an alarmed glance back at you and your dad.
There’s a funny feeling behind your eyes when he steps up, empty hand resting hesitantly on the counter. “She coverin’ up the smell of a dead body or som’?” he asks.
The air pushes from your lungs, a laugh barreling with it. Your hands clasp on the surface opposite his. A scorch of white heat at the nape of your neck. “Very vibrant, huh?”
“Very.” He clears his throat, shakes his head a little, and takes a deep breath. “I figured this might be as good a place as any to find you. I didn’t want you to think I was…cornering you, or anything, if I showed up at Joel’s.”
“I wouldn’t – I mean, maybe. But, y’know…this is fine.” Your arms cross defensively, the baggy material of Joel’s shirt wrapping snug around you.
Your dad seems to know. Evidence being that it’s you, in a shirt all too big – a shirt he’d likely see his best friend in, too. It forces your arms tighter, sucking in the scent of Joel to combat the dizzying feeling of nerves.
“I’m glad to see you’re alright,” he says eventually, fingers drumming awkwardly. “I just wanted to know you were fine.”
“I am fine. I promise. Just – working a lot.”
He nods, looking down to his feet. Twists the toe of his boot into the linoleum.
“I’m glad to see you’re alright, too,” you offer, the words fluid and spilling from one to the next – something forceful in their nature.
Your dad’s eyes lift at the same time that his cheeks do. Relief. “Thanks, kiddo. I actually – I was hopin’ that maybe we could talk. If you’re free. I don’t know what time you get off today.”
“I finish in ten minutes,” you say, and hope seems to paint across his face – washing away instantly when you add, “but I’m going to the movies with Sarah.”
He’s nodding again, eyes fixed back on his boots. “Right, right.”
“…But maybe once we’re done I can swing by?”
“Oh, well – I’m workin’ late again. I’ll be out by the time…Yeah. Sorry, hon.”
“That’s okay.”
“Late one again tonight.”
“This, uh – what’s his name again? Kel–?”
“Kelman, yeah. Yeah. How ‘bout I call you tomorrow ‘n we can work somethin’ out? You and Sarah, you enjoy your night.”
You lean back from the counter, slowly more confident in your ability to hold yourself upright. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Dad.”
His lips press together in a flat attempt at a smile. “I’ll leave you to it. You mind if I…give you a hug?”
And then you’re the one awkwardly, forcedly smiling. Your teeth gritting behind taut lips. “Not at all,” you whisper, and wander carefully around the counter to where he stands.
He opens his arms and pulls you against his chest, your head tilting to rest your ear on his shoulder. You hook your arms under his, feeling his wrists crossing at your spine. Like two statues, two figures of stone fixing their crumbling bodies in an embrace, suddenly disjointed and ill-fitting. Your heart hurts beneath layers of rock, swelling in attempt to reach for his, shrinking back crestfallen when he feels too far.
He kisses the side of your head, pulls away, and taps your cheek once. “You know,” he says, letting you withdraw from his grasp, “I really miss you.”
You nod. “Miss you, too.”
“Let’s talk soon, alright?”
“Yeah.”
And then he’s leaving, drifting back out into the summer sun, rock disintegrating as the light catches him again. More human, less monster-under-your-bed. He’s just your dad again, just that swaying, bumbling man who used to sprinkle rainbow flakes over your ice cream and double-knot your laces.
The shadows of Sarah and Anna appear at your elbows, the three of you watching your dad sink into his car. You still feel made of rock, splitting somewhere down the middle as you stare at his figure.
“Well?” Sarah asks.
He turns right out of the parking lot, disappears behind a hedgerow.
“Yeah,” you reply, turning in a daze. “We’re gonna…gonna talk.”
“That’s good, right? That sounds…promising.”
You shrug. “I guess.”
Sarah places a gentle hand on your arm, drawing your attention to her kind eyes and infectious smile. “We should probably get goin’,” she says, and you agree.
“What movie are you seeing?” Anna asks, filling your spot behind the counter as you turn, making for the back of the store.
“Barbie,” Sarah tells her.
“Nice. She paying?”
“Obviously. Mom duties.”
You kick the door closed on their giggles.
Two days pass without a word from your dad. No text, no call, no visit to Sal’s when you’re on shift the following day. By Monday, you’ve convinced yourself that the entire thing was a dream, a hallucination conjured up by your imagination in attempt to rid you of some of the guilt still chewing at your heart. Bat it out of your brain, like swatting the rear end of a wild animal let loose indoors.
Guilt which is only remedied, only soothed by Joel. By the feeling which overcomes your chest when you look at him – lungs faltering, heart leaping. The peace of falling asleep in his safe embrace, the heat from his body enough to keep you comfortable all night, and then waking up tangled in his sheets – the smell of bacon and eggs twirling through the house, the distant sound of his humming drawing you downstairs to his side.
Late nights on the porch, watching the sun bleed heavily into the sky. Your ankles in his lap, a guitar over his thigh. Thumb gentle on the strings, soft timbre of song lulling you to some place far from reality: the same rosy, dreamlike state you’ve mostly occupied since he dragged you through his front door, kicked your shoes and all of your worries to the side, and made you forget that anything bad had ever happened.
The most comfortable you’ve ever felt in your life, the most loved – a world where your every word is heard and weighed, rolling around Joel’s palms and slotting carefully into his back pocket. A world where his lips on your neck as you make dinner, where the crook of his arm catching you as you pass by, is all normal. Where I love you and I love you, too become the last words your sleepy ears hear at night, right before you sink into a shared sleep.
All of it becoming as natural as the pale moon switching for her golden sister at dawn. As instinctive as breathing.
“Have you ever made love to anyone?” you ask him one night, the aftershock of an orgasm still soaking into your skin.
Joel pauses, hips slowing between yours. “Yeah,” after a couple beats, “sure.”
“What’s it feel like?” you ask, honestly. Combing his dark hair through your fingers. “I’ve never…No one’s ever…”
“Baby,” he says. “We’ve done it. I’ve done it to you.”
Your body tenses and then melts around him. One blink and suddenly the world softens, seems to bow into the background – the only sharp object Joel, the twinkle in his eye piercing through the haze like blinking white stars in thick, dark clouds.
You whisper, “Can you do it again? So I can feel what it’s like?”
He pushes himself up, one elbow planted by your ear, the other hand lifting your thigh. Hooking it over his waist, lowering his arm again to cage you under his body. He nudges your chin with his nose, lifting it to line your lips with his, hold every part of your body as close to his as he can.
Deeper, in every sense of the word. Slow, hard. Eyes on you the entire time, watching the way your face contorts and your jaw slackens, holding the shape of your head in his hands, swallowing his own moans and grunts to make space between you for yours.
“Look at me, baby, eyes on me,” he says, and by instinct, your eyes roll forward, focusing or half-focusing on the slick hair at his forehead, the red flush climbing his neck, seeping into the skin under his beard. “You feel it? Feel where I’m goin’?”
And yeah, you whine, you do feel it. Feel him dragging you further away from this world and into the next – somewhere a plain away, somewhere new and different to anything you’ve ever known before. Where physicality is a language, a fluid conversation between the melding of his body and yours; where there are a million words swirling around his pupils, hypnotizing and entrancing and drawing you in until you’re tumbling headfirst into the inky pools.
Where I love you sounds like the groan Joel can’t hold back, feels like the pulsing flood as he snaps between your legs. Where making love is as simple as the squeeze of his hand around yours; the shove of his plate over the kitchen table, offering you the last bite of grilled cheese or simply admitting that it was yours before he’d even taken the first. That addictive laugh of his when you stall the fucking truck for the fifth time: You asked me to teach you, baby, I’m tryna teach you. Foot on the gas, c’mon. You got it. That’s it – now, slow. Slower. Try to feel it. No, really feel it.
Feel it. Really, try to feel it. Can you feel it? Do you know the difference yet? The difference between everyone who was before, and the one who is now? Do you finally get it?
“I feel it,” you cry out, and his frame holds yours together as you fall apart.
It feels like – you.
How did I ever know anything before I knew you?
“That one’s nice,” Joel says, his voice jumping the short distance between his lips and your ear.
You tilt your head, body moving with his when he lifts his hand to swipe through some more of the images. The spacious living room, newly refurbed kitchen, the view of downtown Los Angeles.
He adjusts the blanket draped over your legs. “Washer dryer, walk-in closet,” and then, leaning in closer, whispers, “a balcony. That’s cool.”
“Hm,” you turn to face him, your body shelled by his in the corner of his couch, “I bet you like the balcony, cowboy.”
He smiles plainly in response, squeezing your nose between two knuckles. Yeah. Lots you can do with a balcony.
A sharp gasp from across the room pierces the sweet moment. You and Joel turn in its direction, its owner wide-eyed and blinking at the TV.
“Wait a second,” Sarah yelps. “George is the John Doe?” She gasps again when Meredith announces the same news to her friends onscreen. “Shut – the fuck – up!”
“Language,” Joel clips, chest rumbling between your shoulder blades.
“Oh, like you didn’t have the exact same reaction. George is the…Oh, that sucks. Are you kidding me?” She fishes her phone from the waves of blanket surrounding her, thumbs rapidly typing, eyes shooting from screen to screen.
You snort, turning back to your own phone in your hand, when a text appears at the top of the screen.
Dad: Hey kiddo. Sorry to keep you waiting, work been hectic. Off the rest of today if you’re free to come over.
Your thumb latches onto the message, holding it for Joel to read, too, before letting it disappear off into your notifications.
He tightens his hold on you, burying his nose into the cotton of his own hoodie over your shoulders. His breath pushes heavy and thoughtful across the material. “Still seems as calm as the other day.”
“Too calm,” you admit, “it’s freaking me out.”
“What can he do, you know? You’re here, he’s there. Your dad ain’t an idiot, baby. He knows stayin’ angry about it’s only gonna push you further away.”
“Sure made ‘im feel like an idiot…”
Joel catches the comment and pockets it before it gathers enough weight to bruise. “Well,” he clears his throat, “it’s up to you. I ain’t letting you do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
“Mhm,” you reply, and wait for more words to fall to your tongue. An answer, a response. A decision that you know you don’t feel equipped or even rightful to make.
“Do you want to go talk to him?” Joel asks.
“I…I want to make things right. I wanna fix it.”
“Okay. And will talking to him do that?”
You turn to face him, frowning. “I don’t fucking know,” you mutter. “Will it?”
He smiles sympathetically. “Wish I knew, darlin’. Would it help if I came? Sat outside in the truck, waited for you? It gets too much, you decide you wanna leave – we leave.”
“You ain’t scared to be near him again?”
He gulps back a laugh, Adam’s apple bobbing awkwardly before he allows himself to answer. “Only thing scary about your dad is the sunlight reflectin’ off his damn head. No, I ain’t scared.”
You study him a minute longer, eyes roaming from the lips you could sketch every score of from memory, the beard you’re sure has forever altered your prints from the number of times you’ve run your fingers over the bristles. The eyes which know every secret, every whisper, every thought behind your own.
You sigh, smiling dumbly as he wraps his arms tighter around you. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Joel pulls up by the curb, parking politely at the end of your driveway rather than alongside your dad’s car, like he usually would. Like he used to.
You crane your head, looking past the shape of him to survey the unassuming house. Quiet, still. No sign of hurricane or earthquake, no tremors of rage or words like rocks raining down on the truck roof. Your thumb plunges into the buckle of your seatbelt, the webbing whipping over your shoulder.
“Sure you’re okay?” Joel asks, watching your fingers lift to the door handle.
“Mhm,” you reply, distant. “’s just my dad, right? What’s the worst that could happen?”
His eyebrows lift, agreeing. He takes your hand in his and holds it to his lips. “Whatever it is,” he mumbles into your fingers, “if it happens, you come straight back out here, you hear? I ain’t moving.”
The urge to stay exactly where you are and let him carry you off back to his place overwhelms you for a brief second. To stay in the safety of the truck cabin, stay within touching distance of Joel. And as quickly as it’s there, it’s gone. Overcome by the memory of that stony hug in Sal’s, the vacant, lonely eyes boring into late-night TV.
A sharp chap over your shoulder shocks you back to life. You twist in your seat, looking down at a face wrinkled by curiosity and wisdom, sheen of lipstick curved in a mischievous grin. You roll the window down, mirroring her smile.
“Joel Miller,” Rita calls, lowering her ring-adorned fist and pointing over to her car. “Help me with these groceries.”
“Afternoon to you, too, Rita,” he calls back, and she raises two thin, penciled eyebrows. His sigh trickles into a chuckle as he snaps the door open, leaning into you. “I ain’t moving,” he mutters, swinging out of the truck.
“Sure looks like you’re movin’,” you call back, letting Rita pull on your door to let you out.
“How are you, darlin’?” she asks. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”
You hop down beside her, helping her tug the shawl around her arms back over her shoulders. “Yeah, I’ve, uh…I’ve been busy.”
She nods, and then her eyes drift to somewhere behind you. “They go in the kitchen, son.” She points to her house. “I’ll come help you unpack ‘em.”
Joel’s face twists, eyes wide, hands outstretched. You swallow back a laugh when he looks to you, an almost teenage expression which asks, You seein’ this? as he turns back to the Nissan.
“I better go,” Rita says then, giving your arms one last squeeze. “You take care, now. Tell your dad I’m askin’ after ‘im.”
“I will, Rita.” You turn on your heel and saunter around Joel’s truck, giving him one last twirl as he hoists two bags under his muscled arms, rolling his eyes as you spin.
You pull the weight of yourself up your drive, passing past versions of yourself as you near the front door. She’s stumbling towards her dad’s car, a bucket of soapy water sloshing around between her knees. She’s sat on the curb, waiting for Joel’s truck to roll up, praying she never hears another Marty Robbins song again.
She’s naïve, still. Knows no better, knows no worse. Chasing a high, chasing the thrill of being caught and the thrill of nobody ever knowing. A relationship built entirely on lies and deceit. A love woven with dark threads of shame and anger, a tattered mess in one corner where the edges fray and loosen.
And you think: you’ve never felt more jealous of anybody your whole life.
The front door clicks open easily, like the building welcomes you home with a relieved sigh. You follow sunlight into the hallway, feeling it easier to walk through than before – less dense, less suffocating. Less guilty. An honest thief, back to return the bleeding heart she dragged out the door with her.
Secrets like shards of broken glass on the floor, debris from that day. And as if he hears the crunch of your footsteps, your dad appears at the bottom of the hall.
“Hi, hon.”
Eyes wide with a misplaced shock, you say, “Hey.”
“You okay?”
“’m good.”
“Good. Come in, come through.” He beckons you forward, a smile only half-forced on his lips. “You want a drink or anything?”
You follow him into the kitchen, politely accepting a glass of water when he offers it.
He turns with two steady palms on the island, watching as you drag a chair free and sit at the table. “How’s Joel?” he asks, swallowing roughly.
The words come delayed, your open mouth lying in wait. Your body selfishly trying to hoard the information, protective the second the image of that six-foot, two-hundred-pound man crosses your mind. “He’s fine. He’s out front.”
It sounds like a warning, though you don’t mean for it to. Just conversation. He’s helping Rita with her groceries. She’s asking after you, by the way. But your dad seems to sense the natural amber tone of it – the sparking of a flame, daring to catch. He’s waiting for this to go south.
He nods, accepting the fact of it. His own failed attempt to separate the two of you only drove you closer together. Only made you want Joel more.
But then he’s nearing you again, pulling out the chair opposite yours. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says, settling with a sigh. “Glad we’re…we’re talkin’ again, at least.”
Your head angles. “Are we?”
His body jerks, flinching from the sting of the question. “Well,” his head wobbles, jowls quivering, “I sure hope so. I was takin’ it as a good sign that you’re here.”
“I’m here,” you repeat, “but that doesn’t mean I’m staying.”
“No, I know. I know. Joel’s out front, ‘n all that.” He looks down at his hands, clasped in his lap. Holds his tongue behind his front teeth, waiting for the next turn of conversation.
You lean forward, elbows on the table, softening your voice. “Dad?” you say, and he looks up. “This whole entire thing – I think…I think we oughta try and understand each other, a little better. Hear each other out.”
“I am tryin’, hon. I’m really tryin’. You dealt me an awful lot to hear out ‘n understand.”
You rock back, sinking against the hard chair. Tracing the wood grains in the table, nails digging between. Shame coiling like a snake beneath your tongue, taking up too much space in your mouth. Its venom dripping between your teeth, acrid and sour; tendons in your neck jumping with the bitterness of your dad’s tone.
He sighs. “Be honest with me a second.”
“Huh?”
He waits a beat, watching you carefully. Opens his mouth, pauses, and then speaks. “Who instigated it?”
Your finger pushes harder into the surface. Digging new divots. “Um…kinda both of us. Was sort of a two-way thing from the get-go.”
His lips twist, almost imperceptible. He looks behind you to the patio outside. You can’t read what’s in his eyes. It makes you say more, say things you reckon you’ll regret later – but something to fill the silence between you. Something to let him sink his teeth into.
“There was flirting. Lotta flirting. And then it…it just sort of snowballed.”
“Snowballed.” He looks uncomfortable, lifting his hands to cup over his face. “I just didn’t take him as the type,” he says, muffled into his palms.
“As what type?”
He drops his hands, hitting his thighs with a slap, and looks you dead in the eye. Sad, almost. “Arthur Kennedy type.”
“He’s not.”
You say it instinctively. Your ears hear it at the same time your dad does. He looks at you blankly.
“He’s not,” you repeat, a little looser. Less hasty. “Look,” you sigh, “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but…everything that we ever did, I wanted to do. I already told you. There ain’t nothing we did that I didn’t ask him to. I swear to you.”
You think back to the cookout, how angry Joel was at the thought of Arthur Kennedy hanging over you. How pissed he’d be, hearing your dad line him up against that old leather boot of a man. Comparing, contrasting. Here’s how you measure up, son. How much of a phantom Arthur Kennedy has been, your whole life, and how much of a sanctuary Joel is in comparison.
Your stomach twists at the thought. A tight knot, wound by a desperation to clear the name of a man whose worst offense was doing exactly what your dad would’ve told him to: leave.
“This whole thing,” you go on, “it’s a mess, alright? It’s – totally fucked. And we shouldn’t’ve lied, shouldn’t’ve been keeping things from you, but then…what did you expect?”
Your dad cuts in like a bullet: “I expect the two of you not to do what you were doin’.”
“No, I know that. But we did it, right? It’s done now. I meant, did you really want us to sit you down in the living room ‘n say, Hey, Dad – guess what?”
He grimaces at the thought.
“Didn’t think so. We didn’t even know what it was. We had no idea what it’d turn into. But you gotta hear me out: it wasn’t just…some fling, or whatever you’re thinkin’. I swear, Dad, it wasn’t.”
He still doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t lift his stare from the table. You feel like a little kid, desperate to make him love you again. Desperate to make him listen. The space between you fills with the bored tick tick tick of the kitchen clock. Each second hurting a little more than the last.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I’m sorry that I hurt you. I’m sorry I let you down, but…I’m not sorry that I did it. If I could go back, knowing everything I know – I’d do it all over again.”
The words roll across the table to him like billiards. You lean back again, watching them as they rattle from his side to yours – your sentence delivered back into your ears. You nod, a sure thought in your mind.
I’d do it all over again. All the covering, all the hiding. The aching, the wishing and wanting. Staring at Joel’s empty hand, dying to slot yours into it. Dying to put any part of yourself near him; your head under his chin, your arms linked around his waist. Knowing you two would feel, knowing everyone else would see, just how perfectly you fit together.
The chasing your own tails: Did you lie well enough? Do they suspect anything? Did we leave any evidence? Disturbed sheets, a collar still upturned. Can they hear us? Have they noticed we’re missing? We’re always fucking missing.
You’d do it all over again. You know what it cost, now, sat directly opposite the price. His polite smiles like veneers over rotten teeth. The tremble in his lip when he opens his mouth to speak.
And it was worth it. Joel. He was worth it all, in the end.
All over again.
“Do you know that every time I look at you, there are…probably four versions that I see?”
You frown. Did he hear what you just said? All ov–? “What?”
Your dad laughs to himself. “When you walk outta that door, I see a little pink backpack over your shoulders. Gym bag in your hand, maybe. I see missin’ front teeth, I see those little clip-on earrings you used to love so much.
“And – and when you’re mad at me, when we fight, I see you at fourteen. Growing pains, y’know? I still remember you slamming your bedroom door in my face, all ‘cause I wouldn’t let you go to that girl Molly’s birthday party.” He looks up, smiling at your perplexed expression.
“I don’t even…remember that, hardly.”
“Long time ago now. My point is,” he continues, “you’re twenty-three. You’re grown. And I just can’t figure out how to make those other versions…grow with you. You still feel like my kid. Still that little girl with the pink backpack.”
“But,” you clear your throat, trying to swipe her from your own memory, “I’m not. I’m not her anymore, Dad. And I think maybe you gotta give me the space to be someone different, now.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose, nodding. “I know, I know. I just didn’t think this new version of you would…y’know. Be with Joel, ‘n all. That is something I did not see comin’.”
“You think I did?” You spit a laugh. “If you told me when I came home that this is what was waiting for me…that I was gonna fall…”
Your teeth close around the sentence, dropping your dad’s eye. But it’s too late.
He stares back at you like the sun. “…Fall in love with ‘im?”
And you cower. You wince, almost. The last secret. The last thing he doesn’t know. “I don’t…I don’t know, I –”
“You love him. You do, don’t you?”
Your thumbs run circles around one another, fingers locking until your knuckles hurt. “I don’t know,” you mumble, wishing for the tenth time since you sat down that Joel was beside you, in front of you, around you.
“’s what Anna seems to reckon.”
Your eyes flit up. “Anna?”
He hums. “She is her father’s daughter. A damn meddler. She called here, last night.”
“Oh, Jesus,” you groan, head falling into your hands. “Ignore her, please. Ignore all of it. She doesn’t –”
He holds a palm up. “Now, hold on. You don’t even know what it was she said.”
You huff a sigh, twisting your hand in the air. Go on.
“She reckons you do love him. Reckons he loves you back. More, if that’s even possible, she said. Told me all about the way he stepped in front a’ that boy at Frank’s. About your face when he picked you up from rodeo night, how ecstatic you were. The difference she sees in you.”
“Difference,” you scoff, glancing out to the backyard. “What difference?”
“Same difference I see, probably. Same difference Bill said he saw, too: you’re happier. Even I can’t deny it, hon. It’s damn hard – you never make nothin’ easy on your old man – but…but I am willing to try.”
The hurt begins to slowly fizzle away. Cooling, washing from your skin like foamy waves. Curiosity left to shine through.
“You may not understand this ‘til you have kids of your own – if you have kids of your own – but there ain’t a thing in this world that I love more than I love you. And when you love somethin’ that much, you’ll do anything to stop it from getting hurt. Anything. That’s all I want you to know.”
A silence falls between you, thoughtful and waiting. The clock’s ticking grows sharper again. It seems to consider the same as you: there should be more to this. More to be said, to be convinced. More yelling, even.
But you arrive at the same conclusion, at near enough the same time: there is nothing more. Cards flat on the table, eyes pouring all over them. To question it, to second-guess any of it, would be to tempt fate.
“Anyway,” your dad sits forward, clasping his hands on the table, “tell me what’s goin’ on. What’s been happening in your world?”
You shrug. A little, shy thing. “Work. Been hanging with Sarah a lot. And I, uh, I had a job interview last week.”
“Oh, yeah? Where?”
You shift awkwardly in your chair. “For, uh…that one in LA. They called to offer it a couple days ago.”
A smile pulls across his lips. Growing, growing, growing until he’s grinning back at you. Pride, little bit of surprise. Whole lot of amusement and joy. “You take it?” he asks, figuring he knows the answer already.
“Not yet,” you reply. “Think I’m going to, though. ‘s too good to say no.”
He lifts his eyebrows in agreement, looking down at his hands. Shoulders lurch some under the weight of your news. “There goes that little backpack,” he mutters to himself, and you smirk.
“Can’t hold her back forever.”
“I never had a hold on her in the first place. You were walkin’ on outta that door the minute you found your own two feet.”
You snort. “Good! Good for me. Let me go out into the big ol’ world; let me go fuck it all up ‘n come home for dinner once I’m done.”
“I intend to,” your dad says, nodding along to every passionate word you say. And then he asks, “How’s Joel feelin’ about it all? About LA?”
Your shoulder jerks in a half-shrug. “He’s fine, I guess. Says he’ll miss me, but then – we haven’t exactly had the most typical relationship up until now. Survived a lot I reckon would break any normal couple…”
It’s the first time you think you’ve ever said it. Couple. You’ve thought of it – flicked through the words you might use to describe him. Your boyfriend, your partner. None of them seem to fit exactly who he is to you. None of them strong enough to carry the weight of what’s shared between you. He’s Joel. He’s your Joel. Nothing will ever come close.
Your dad hears it, too. The newness of it. The crisp shape of the word, not yet thawed to this new world. Your tongue still learning how to pronounce it, how to pair it with the image of Joel.
“Guess he can fly out ‘n visit whenever, right?”
“Yeah,” you swallow, “and I’ll be back here, too. Christmas ‘n all.”
Your dad smiles. Relieved, assured. Light slowly returning to his eyes.
“We’ll be fine,” your chest swells, “so Joel says. I trust ‘im.”
You both quieten, sitting back in your chairs. What once felt like a room ablaze, flames tearing the skin from your body as you dragged your heels through it – now feels like a gentle warmth. Waves wrought with enough power and force to destroy you, now seeping off with the change of the tide. Bumps on the horizon.
“Speaking of,” you say, making to stand, “I should probably get goin’.”
“Yeah. Yeah, hon.” Your dad follows, arm on your shoulder as he walks you down the hall.
The sun intrudes, tosses herself into your arms as you pull the front door open. In her golden-rayed wake sits that dark truck, same as always. The same dark tee, the same dark-speckled-gray hair. Arms folded, stood against the body, waiting. Eyes on the house, on your figure as you step down onto the doormat. Joel straightens when your dad follows you out, chest sucking in a ragged breath.
They look at one another, and that’s about it. Something of a nod from Joel – not quite returned by your dad. You figure that might take some time to come back around. And that’s okay. You can make peace with it.
You turn back. Your dad’s looking down at you, hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun.
“You know,” you take a deep breath, “the only times he’s ever hurt me, are the times he’s left. The times I haven’t had him around.”
And then you step back, the magnet in your chest telling you it’s time to return to its partner.
In high school, your English teacher tasked the class with writing a short story. Any genre you wanted, any word count up to two thousand. The boys mostly dicked around, wrote action-packed, blood-and-guts garbage. One girl wrote something you’re sure you’d seen in a Hallmark movie before.
But you – you spent two weeks straight, writing. Awake until all hours of the night, hunched over your laptop, sunbathing in the blue hue of an open document. Fingers hammering rapidly into your keyboard.
A man and a woman meet in Central Park. She – hair the color of rust, spilling down her shoulders and lifting at the ends, twisting around the fingers of the blustery wind. A red glow around her third finger where gold once lived. Sat on a bench, alone. Hiding, perhaps. And he – sharp suit and tie, clean-shaven, a steel-blue gaze that might cut glass. Missing the city traffic by taking a walk through the park on his way home. Fleeing, perhaps.
He notices her trench coat first. Bright red, a poppy swaying in the breeze. A little hopeless, a solemn wilt to it. The quickly dampening fire of her hair in the rain, the opaque sheen of polish chipping from her nails. And he thinks he recognizes the constellation of freckles painted across her cheeks. Thinks he might’ve mapped them, once, in some kind of past-life.
She looks up and realizes she recognizes the cut of his gaze. Piercing through her, splitting her in two. Thinks she might’ve felt it before, the opening of her soul to someone who looked just like him – a little more baby-faced, a little more spirited. In some kind of past-life, too.
She stands, and he slows, and they meet somewhere in the middle. Words exchanged; body heat transferred through hugs. Is that really you? You look so different. It’s been years. He doesn’t ask about the lack of jewelry on her third finger. She doesn’t ask about the gray circles beneath his eyes. Just, You wanna grab a coffee? and, Yeah. Yeah, I do.
They sit at the window, watch the yellow taxis and the black umbrellas and the trembling traffic lights. They talk about life then, life now, and silently agree to forget about the part in the middle. They look at each other the same way they must have before they lost one another, before life and love and everything else got between them.
They agree to meet again in a week. They swear that they will not fall back in love.
They know as well as each other that they’re really promising to do just that.
Love – twisted and turned over and over, until it’s a different shape altogether. We started as one thing, and we watched it shift into something completely different. Clay in the potter’s hands. Didn’t you think it might fall apart? There was a moment I thought the heat of the kiln might break us. I’m glad it didn’t. I’m glad we’re made of tough stuff.
I’m glad I found you again, in that park. The pissing rain and the wind so strong I felt it lifting the sense from my mind. In that hardware store, in that bar filled with weed and bad intentions. I’m glad you split me open, glad you could see the good that was still inside. I thought I’d lost her for a minute. Thought she’d forgotten her way home.
Let’s go get a coffee. Let’s pretend it’s always been this way.
Let’s fall in love. The rest will take care of itself.
It takes three weeks in total to properly pack up your things. Two days after you accepted the job, you bought boxes and tape, and began to dismantle the identity you’d spent twenty-three years creating for yourself, a little bit at a time. Taking apart the pink-walled museum of your life, artefact by artefact.
Joel has helped as much as you’ve let him. Laid back on your bed when you’ve dismissed him one too many times, raised his eyebrows and laughed with you whenever you come across some old, forgotten piece of memorabilia. Something ceremonial to it, something innocent and fun. Like a little graduation for all the parts of yourself.
Soon, as the last of the summer sun dampens outside, your room lies vacant. Empty of any real evidence of your being here. Bedsheets and pillows folded, packed away; framed photos and posters unpinned from the wall and wrapped up safely. Drawers and closets barren, left with a selection of your less-loved, less-worn clothes. A wardrobe built from stuff you’ll only ever wear when you come back home to visit, if even then.
Joel’s sat on the bare mattress, looking around your room. You’re stood opposite, leaning against your half-empty dresser. The sun filters feebly through your turned shades, averting her eyes.
You look over at him. Golden, like the sunlight outside. Warm, like the breeze through the trees. Yours. Yours yours yours.
“What?” Joel asks, his eyes having finally found their way back to you. He smiles at your focused expression.
“Nothing. I don’t know. Just…”
“Talk to me. Tell me.”
“You are – this is…” You sigh. “This is good. I think it’s good. Not just all the stuff we did. But you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” you tell him. “You’re good for me.” You grip the wooden lip tighter, swaying nervously when you add, “But I think it was always gonna go this way, wasn’t it?”
He sniffs. Shoulders jerk in a weak shrug. “Yeah, I think so, baby.”
Your eyelashes flutter, soothing the prickling feeling of tears forming. “I don’t – I don’t know if I want it to.”
“Yeah,” Joel says through a groan, pushing himself up, “you do.”
You shake your head as he approaches, and his hands cup your cheeks.
“Hey,” he whispers, pulling your body tight against his. Your face buries in his chest; your tears wet on his shirt. He shushes you, rocks you gently back and forth with a hand on the back of your head. “Listen to me.”
“Joel –”
“Listen to me.” He pulls you back, swipes the tears from your cheeks as quickly as they fall. “We’re fine. We are going to be fine.”
“I don’t want to leave you –”
“I know, I know. But you want to go do this. And that’s okay. Both of ‘em, at once.”
Your head shakes again. Like an instinctive reaction to the thought of being separated from him.
Joel smiles softly. “I am going to miss you like hell. You got no idea. But,” he pulls your head back to face his, tucks your hair behind your ear, “I want you to go. You gotta go after this. Right?”
“I know,” you whisper, lungs lurching for breath. “I just – wish it didn’t mean leavin’ you.”
“Darlin’…” Joel coos, pulling you in again. “You know how much I love you? What do I keep tellin’ you? We’ll be alright. It’s you ‘n me, right?”
You nod, salty tears slipping between your lips onto your tongue. When you look up, you notice the same expression on Joel’s face. He blinks his own away before they fall.
“’s you ‘n me,” you repeat, and he pulls your lips together.
You roll your tongue onto his, letting him taste you – all of you. Your mouth, and your thoughts, and your tears, and your pain. You let him take it all, let him hold it for this moment as you breathe him in, let his body fill yours in every way.
Your hands are in his hair, your chest pressed against his; he’s every thought on your mind and every beat in your heart. He’s the blood thrumming through your veins, he’s the oxygen filling your lungs; he’s the words between your teeth and the flesh around your bones.
And he pulls you, and you follow, his shirt in your fist, over to the bed where he lays you gently and falls on top.
“When’s he get back?” he asks, taking your bottom lip between his teeth.
“Later,” you mumble, your fingers picking at the hem of his shirt.
He pushes back, letting you tug it up up up over his shoulders at the same rate he peels your tee from yours, both tossing each other’s clothes to somewhere else in the room. Jeans undone, shorts dragged from your hips, underwear discarded until you’re naked under him, and he’s naked over you, and there’s nothing and no one between.
Joel cradles you, holds you close as he presses a palm roughly against the underside of your thigh, opening your body to him in a way only he’s mastered. In a way you only would, for him.
His hand cups your sex, fingers nudging between your folds, pushing in when your jaw slackens and a wanton moan echoes from your throat across Joel’s tongue.
“Yeah,” he coos, wrist jacking between your legs, “’s my girl. Gotta get you warmed up, huh? Get you nice ‘n wet.”
Your back arches, arms linking around his neck to pull him closer, pull him deeper. Hold him tight enough to you that your bodies feel one, feel connected at the meeting of Joel’s hand and the most intimate part of you; the meeting of your tongues between teeth.
And you gasp, the nudging of his fingers against the deepest part of your body, the messy circles of his thumb on your clit. The shape of him, solid and warm against the seam of your thigh.
You reach down for him, wrapping your fingers around his cock, and his breath hitches. Teeth bump into yours. You’re fucking irresistible to him.
“Darlin’,” his voice is low, daring you to keep going, “you wanna cut this short ‘fore we’re even started?”
You breathe a laugh into his jaw, hot and needy. “You get to play with me,” you whine, “I wanna play with you, too.”
Joel growls, seizing his movements, leaning back in what you take as him granting full access to his body. But then he says, “Turn around,” in a strict voice you’ve come to know as meaning one thing, and you pause.
You peel your eyes from his dick to blink up at him. “Turn –?”
“– around, now.” He takes your waist, hoisting you up until you’re straddling him, holding you inches above his body. “Turn.”
“What the fuck are you –?”
“Many times do I gotta tell you? You said you wanted to play.” He twists your waist until you follow his movements, swinging one leg over the other. He grabs your hips, tugging you back towards his face. “So, play,” he mutters, lowering your cunt down to his lips.
You gasp, falling forward and hitting the mattress between his legs. “J– fuck me. Are you s-serious?” You moan, hips rocking against the feeling of his bearded chin at your clit. “You’re like – a fucking – horny teenager. Oh, fuck.”
Your head falls forward, hands splaying out over his thighs, before your eyes refocus and you notice the hardened shape of him, tip oozing precome all over the hair-spattered plain of his groin. Your hand lifts, shakily taking hold of him again, and you lean down.
Elbows hooked over his thighs, you bring his tip to your lips, letting a thick bead of saliva fall and drip down the length of him, meeting your closed fist to be dragged up and down.
Joel’s hips almost buck. He holds it, manages to catch it, but you spot it. You’ve done this too many fucking times not to notice the reaction you draw from him.
“’s good,” you whisper, circling your hips on his face, tongue slipping across his cherry-red tip. “Feels so good.”
He responds in the form of a deep groan, rattling from his chest through your clit, shocking like lightning up your spine until the very same noise is thrown from your lips. You push down, tongue molding around every vein and the slow curve of his cock until your lips meet the thick brush of hair at his base, his tip kissing the very back of your throat.
Your throat which jumps, jolts at the feeling of something intruding – before you’re retreating again, pulling him from your body, warm, wet spit linking the two of you when you come up for air. And then you sink back down, head moving up down up down up down as his stomach tenses beneath your chest.
Joel’s palms keep a heavy hold on your ass, his tongue lapping between your folds like they’re the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted – like he might die if he doesn’t get his fix of you. And you think, they are, and he might, as your cheeks hollow and you bow down over him again.
You establish a rhythm, two waves swirling between one another: your hips rocking, Joel’s lifting ever so slightly as you suckle on one another. Your hand fisting the parts of him you can’t quite reach, not without choking; Joel holding you fixed to his jaw, letting the tip of his tongue hook around your swollen clit, then dragging it down until he’s letting you ride the wet muscle.
The approach of your first orgasm, a tiny spark catching to life in the pit of your belly, incites you with a need to open up further for him. Your throat taking more of him, your thighs slackening as you drive your cunt harder against his mouth.
“’m so close,” you whimper, lips curving around his cock. “So – fucking – ah, keep doin’ that. Right th-there.”
His hands hook around your thighs, tongue darting across your clit. His nose nudges somewhere between your folds, quickly becoming coated in the slick you’re leaking all over him.
“Joel,” you say, fists pumping his cock. Your voice a warning: it’s coming. You’re gonna – Fuck, you’re gonna come.
His voice is looser, more of a shrug of the shoulders when he pulls away from you. He inserts two fingers, curls them like before, like he knows drives you fucking insane. “Let go, babygirl,” he murmurs, lips immediately returning to position. And then, muffled and rough: “Come all over me.”
“Fuckfuckfuck,” you pant, hands squeezing around his cock, feeling that same spark ignite into flame, your entire body bursting with heat.
Your high rips through you, battering through each vein in your system, each nerve electrified. You collapse between his legs, his rough pubic hair sticking to the sweat on your chest, hips rutting wildly against the sharp cut of his jaw.
The mattress absorbs most of the desperate moan which streaks across your tongue, nails digging hard into the flesh of Joel’s thighs. And you hear the deep sound of his voice, the thud thud thud of a chuckle against your clit: the cocky fucker laughing to himself as he unravels you for what feels like the thousandth time.
“Alright,” Joel says, more to himself than to the fucked-out shape of you between his legs. He sits up and shifts you carefully down the bed, settling you face-down on the mattress and lifting your ass to meet his hips. “Okay?” he asks, kneeling behind you.
You feel his tip between your legs, slotting happily somewhere in your opening. Waiting for your response. A response you don’t feel able to give, as much as you’d like to; your lips puffy and confused, words jumbling behind them in a tangle of bliss and love.
“Baby,” Joel says, hand slinking down your back, pressing gentle circles into the nape of your neck. “You okay?”
Your head lifts, glancing over your shoulder to see his hairy torso, his thick arms caging over you. He lifts your chin with two fingers, cranes your neck up until you’re looking into his eyes, heavy lids blinking dumbly.
“Just fuck me,” you whisper, and Joel slips his tongue into your mouth.
You used to dream of coming back home. A few years away, doing whatever you wanted, wherever you wanted. Dreaming things up and then chasing them until they happened. Tiring yourself out, lungs gasping for breath and eyes always searching, always looking for a new target to pin up. But always coming back.
Austin, Texas. Its jagged skyline, the streets lined with a vibrant glow and star-spangled bunting. The river like a silver-bellied snake slithering through. Home.
You dreamt of living out your days here, once your blood had slowed and your mind settled. A quiet life in the country, a big wooden house with a wraparound porch. Two little rocking chairs, so you and whoever your husband turned out to be could sit and watch the sky fade from red into orange into white and then dull gray into deep blue.
Breeze kissing your cheek, his lips kissing your knuckles.
Joel.
Home.
You tell him, and he smirks. “That so?” he asks, wrapping his arms a little tighter around your naked body.
You nuzzle your cheek into the palm of his hand, breathing in the sweet scent of sweat and sex sitting in the air. “Mhm. You could play guitar until the stars come out.”
He hums in agreement. “Sounds like a pretty good dream. Tell you what: you go to LA, do what you gotta do. By the time you come back, there’ll be a big ol’ farmhouse, wraparound porch, rollin’ fields for the dogs. Coffee ‘n sunsets. How’s that sound?”
“And you’ll be there?”
He smiles. Scoops you in one arm and rolls you onto your front, chest to chest with him. His fingers ghost down the curve of your shoulder. “Baby,” he whispers, “I built the damn thing.”
It forces a laugh from your chest, something you’ve gotten used to by now. Joel and his ability to steal a giggle from you, the dumbest moments seeming the funniest. “You’re gonna build me a damn house?” you ask, chin resting between his pecs.
“That what you want?”
Your head rocks left to right, considering. “I just want you. That’s all.”
“Then you got me. I’m all yours.”
In his hazel eyes lives every moment you’ve ever shared. Every conversation, every kiss, every fight. Every minute he’s spent looking for you or at you, every minute you’ve spent looking back at him. It’s all in there. You see it like a movie reel, frame by frame.
It lands like a slot machine on that first night. Cleaning up after pizza. Shoulder to shoulder by your kitchen sink. You wish you’d just kissed him. Even with your dad right there. Wish you’d lifted your heels and put your lips on his, just for the fucking hell of it. Just to condense all of it, every second of longing and hurt and pain into one fleeting moment.
Wish you’d pulled him into you, against you, the weight of his body like an old friend. Welcomed it with open arms, like you’d spent your entire life missing it, waiting for it to come back to you. Let yourself feel your own heart, peeling between the cage of your ribs, reaching out for his. Always reaching for him.
Wish you’d looked him in the eye, tears softening the tufts of graying hair, vignetting the smirk only you can tell is there. Looked at him in that knowing way, that language only you two know; the glint in your eyes translating a thousand messy words into three. Just three – the simplest, lightest words you’ve ever known.
I love you. Let’s skip to the good part.
#welp i didn't cry when i hit post. me? no. no way#joel miller#joel miller fic#joel miller x reader#the last of us#tlou#tlou fic#dbf!joel miller#dbf!joel#joel miller smut#cowboy like me
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fanfiction recommendations/my favourite reads in 2023
ot8/multiple members
♤ in the same class as ateez by @essenteez
◇ murphy's law by @atzfilm
alien!ateez, soulmate au
♧ into the aurora by @honeyhotteoks
idol!ateez x non-idol!reader
☆ inception by @remedyx
dragon!ateez, kings!ateez
♤ hotel california + paradise gardens by @mint-yooxgi
demon!ateez, yandere, supernatural au
◇ morning mist by @mint-yooxgi
dragon au, fated lovers
♧ deep down. by @seventhcallisto
a/b/o, idol au, 9th member au
☆ in love and lore by @shadowynn
demon!ateez, soulmates au, supernatural au
♤ dew drops at dawn by @sunmoonjune
demon!ateez, soulmates
◇ breed by @sanjoongie
alien!ateez, sexual experiments
♧ oh my *** by @ohmyamor
guardian angel!ateez
☆ first flight to hong kong by @byuntrash101
flight attendant!reader, kind of sex work, since reader gets paid
♤ circus by @lani-heart
hybrid!ateez, writer!journalist!reader
◇ wider by @seventhcallisto
9th member au, bf!ateez
♧ the best friend's code by @tenelkadjowrites
hongjoong, seonghwa x reader, best friends to lovers
☆ we ransacked the city by @tenelkadjowrites
hongjoong, seonghwa x reader, rich kids au, menaces to society united
♤ be the light by @written-in-flowers
seonghwa, hongjoong x reader, historical au, royalty au
◇ sex and embers and frost by @sanjoongie
dragon!seonghwa, san x bunny!reader
♧ between friends by @anyamaris
seonghwa, hongjoong x reader, best friends au
☆ my filthy boy by @potatomountain
bf!woo x reader x witch/hybrid!ateez, coven shenanigans
♤ compromise by @cyberpxnk
bf!seonghwa x reader x footballer!yunho, infidelity with a twist
◇ it's you by @holybibly
best friends to lovers, threesome
♧ sharing is caring by @ja3hwa
seonghwa, hongjoong, san x reader
☆ ateez as royals who fall for you (hyung line) + (maknae line) by @eightmakesonebraincell
♤ five for five by @bh-archive
hongjoong x san x chan x hyunjin x juyeon x reader
kim hongjoong
◇ red by @nateezfics
established relationship, public sex, bathroom sex
♧ forbidden fruit by @nateezfics
greek mythology au, hades!hongjoong
☆ deal by @hongism
roommates to lovers, sassy joong
♤ marigold by @yoongiseesawmp3
frat boy!hongjoong, best friends to lovers
◇ tell me to stop by @tenelkadjowrites
best friends to lovers
♧ declaration by @tenelkadjowrites
virgin!hongjoong, roommates to lovers
☆ shells by @last-words-ofashootingstar
mermaid!hongjoong, yandere
♤ project d by @setsugekka
exes to lovers, infidelity, racing au
◇ off the table by @setsugekka
established relationship, morning sex
♧ the dressing room by @imaginidol
idol!hongjoong, best friends to fucking (?) for "stress relief"
☆ paint me yours by @moonseonghwa
artist!hongjoong, fwb au
♤ ohmami by @bambikisss
bad boy!hongjoong, racer au (mentioned), best friends to lovers
◇ hideaway by @minisugakoobies
stoner!frat boy!hongjoong, strangers to lovers
♧ what lies beneath by @noramoons
siren!hongjoong, a little angsty but wholesome
park seonghwa
☆ better check twice by @essenteez
accidental nude au, brother's best friend!seonghwa
♤ attention by @tenelkadjowrites
camboy!seonghwa x inexperienced reader
◇ essence by @whatudowhennooneseesyou
siren!seonghwa, dark, yandere, mommy!seonghwa
♧ the thing about pretty boys by @wonusite
friends to lovers, seonghwa proving he got it
ATEEZ rec list pt.2
BTS, TxT, Stray Kids, Seventeen, NCT rec list
#ateez fic recs#kpop fic recs#ateez fic#ot8 x reader#hongjoong fic#hongjoong smut#hongjoong fluff#seonghwa fic#seonghwa smut#seonghwa fluff#yunho fic#yunho smut#yunho fluff#yeosang fic#yeosang smut#yeosang fluff#yeosang angst#san fic#san smut#san fluff#mingi fic#mingi smut#mingi fluff#wooyoung x reader#wooyoung fic#wooyoung smut#poly ateez
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Just friends: stray kids smau.
Part one: "there are no flaws in ghibli."
paring: lee minho x f!reader - roommate!skz
genre: fluff, angst, future smut, roommates au.
warnings for this chapter: mild sexual jokes. alcohol mention.
PLEASE read character intros/story set up: here
You had the large sofa set up with a few fluffy blankets and pillows, streaming service pulled up on the big TV when Minho emerged from his room. You were still wrapped up in the group chat when he silently leaned over the back of the grey couch, head next to yours, smiling mischievously before asking lowly in your ear, "so, which ghibli movie are we watching?", making you jump in surprise with a screech as he laughed at your reaction.
"JESUS, TWINKLETOES. WEAR A BELL OR SOMETHING!" you exclaimed, hand over your chest.
A playful chuckle escaped his lips as he plopped onto the cozy sofa beside you.
A sly grin spread across his face as he mused aloud, "yeah you'd like that, huh? a nice collar with a little bell fastened around my neck?" he winked.
You rolled your eyes "I'm gonna hose you down". you said, looking him up and down in an attempt to be threatening, but the more you thought about it, it did sound.. no. You shook off the thought, looking back at the TV.
Minho laughed and raised an eyebrow, his sharp features still amused as he asked again, "You gonna answer or what? Which movie are we doing?"
You huffed, rolling your eyes once again, this time with a subtle smile on your face. You leaned back into the cushions "I don't know, I was gonna let you choose", you responded, scrolling through the list of Ghibli movies on the screen.
"Oh, well then obviously The Cat Returns." he replied immediately. You perked up "Sweet, I love that one! Popcorn?". Minho nodded "obviously. I'll make drinks if you make the popcorn?" he asked. "deal." you said, standing up and heading towards the kitchen.
Your bare feet were chilly on the cold tiles as you walked into the large spacious kitchen. White marble countertops sat in contrast to the many black cabinets and their handles with gold detailing.
You opened the pantry and grabbed a bag of popcorn, then popped it into the microwave before turning around and hopping up to sit on the counter to watch Minho make the drinks. The marble countertop was cold on your pajama short clad legs as you kicked your dangling feet, feeling excited for movie night. "you want drinks or do you want drinks?" he asked, pausing what he was doing. "Hmm, drinks" you answered. He spun around, opening the glass liquor cabinet with a flourish "pick your poison, princess." he gestured at the dozens of bottles and raised his arms to emphasize the amount, making his shirt ride up and expose a line of soft skin above his sweatpants. You forcibly drag your eyes away to look at the extensive alcohol collection.
"do we have limoncello?"
"duh" Minho responded, grabbing the bright yellow liqueur. "what do you want it in?"
"sprite. add a bit of maraschino cherry juice?"
"you got it, princess." He meticulously prepared the drinks in tall, clear glasses, crafting a similar beverage for himself out of convenience, though likely not out of desire for the taste. The popcorn in the microwave emitted a high-pitched beep, prompting you to stand up and carefully remove it before pouring its contents into a glass bowl.
"ready?" you asked
he nodded "yeah. don't trip and spill the popcorn this time though." he chuckled.
"that was once!"
Minho looked at you pointedly, head cocked to the side.
"okay, twice. shut up." you grumbled quickly.
A grin spread across his face as he trailed behind you, heading back towards the plush couch.
As you prepared to enjoy the film, Minho placed the icy beverages within easy reach, arranging them neatly beside the heap of fluffy popcorn on the polished wooden coffee table. You cozied up into Minho as he sat down, the promise of cuddles being fulfilled.
You and Minho had been close friends since college, though it wasn't always that way. The first time you met him, freshman year, he was so unimpressed by your existence that you could barely get more than one word at a time out of him. He seemed disinterested in getting to know you better, and his curt responses made you feel like an inconvenience more than anything.
||flashback||
You were running late again. Of course you were, what was new? You sighed dramatically as you walked to your class, not even bothering to rush yourself at this point. Taking a deep breath of the crisp autumn air, you attempted to calm yourself. You knew you were starting a project today and the professor probably had already assigned you a partner since you were late. Most likely whichever poor soul it was that didn't get chosen by another classmate.
You entered the lecture hall, coffee in hand, sitting in your usual seat. You had just rested your forehead on the cool surface of the table when you felt a tap on your shoulder. Looking up with a pout you made eye contact with probably the most beautiful man you had ever seen.
"y/n, right? I'm your partner for the project." he said, his tone mildly annoyed.
"That's me. Sorry I'm late, I uh, overslept." you said with a nervous laugh and a warm smile.
"Don't care. You know what the project is even about?" he asked condescendingly, glower on his face.
Your smile dropped as you scoffed. The attitude on this guy. "Of course I do, why wouldn't I? It's been talked about for weeks." you responded, matching his tone.
"Well, you missed the opening lecture today because you were late, I don't know if that's a consistent problem for you or not." he rolled his eyes.
You narrowed your eyes at him. It definitely was a consistent problem, but he didn't need to know that. "Whatever. Let's just get started."
Throughout the next few weeks, you and Minho collaborated on the project, constantly disagreeing over every minor detail. It wasn't until your mutual friends, Chan and Changbin, intervened that you began to tolerate each other.
"You two are so similar it hurts." Changbin said as he watched you and Minho bicker over something as simple as which font to use.
"Don't compare me to him!" You said in offense.
"We may not see eye-to-eye on anything else, but our shared disdain for each other is undeniable." Minho said, arms crossed over his chest.
"what, you got a word of the day calendar or something? or are you just trying to meet your word count for the day." you spat out with disdain.
"Please, you're both getting on my nerves. Sit down and work on your project before I lecture you in the middle of this library." Chan huffed, frustration clear in his voice as he tried to work on his own homework.
"Yes, dad." Minho uttered sarcastically. "Wouldn't want to get myself grounded from the Nintendo for a week."
Your attempt to suppress your giggle failed as you laughed at his witty remark. You brought your hand up to conceal the wide grin spreading across your face while Minho observed your reaction intently, furrowing his brows with a tilt of his head.
"What?" You ask defensively.
"Nothing. Just never seen you laugh. The smile looks better than the scowl you're usually wearing"
You turn your head back to your laptop in an attempt to hide how flustered his comment made you. "Be funnier then." you mumbled.
He rolled his eyes, huffing out a small laugh of his own as he sat back down in the seat beside you. "I'll keep that in mind." he noted with a hint of sarcasm. Chan and Changbin shared a knowing look, smirks on their faces.
From then on, your interactions with Minho took on a playful edge. The back-and-forth banter and witty remarks became a Hallmark of your relationship, bringing you closer together.
As you continued to hang out frequently, Chan and Bin were always part of the crew. On occasion, Chan's cousin Felix would tag along, and before long he began inviting his own friends to join in on the fun as well. Your close-knit clique soon swelled up to an impressive total of nine members, marking the start of countless memorable adventures that are still talked about today.
The decision to drop out was made collectively about two years later by you and your friends due to an unfortunate event involving a harmful rumor that nearly jeopardized everything between your circle of friends. It simply didn't feel worth the trouble anymore. The frequent arguments you had with outsiders, the dirty looks, and the hushed whispers as you passed by made you feel culpable. The gossip topic made it feel like your fault. It affected you the most but the boys were treated horribly as well. You all began skipping classes, which honestly only fueled the rumors, but none of you could handle the treatment anymore so you all decided to drop out, Felix offering one of his families many large houses as refuge. You've all been together since.
||present day||
You were midway through the movie, thoroughly engrossed in the plot, while laying on the couch wrapped up in a warm and cozy blanket. Minho was spooning you from behind, his arm draped over your waist as he too followed along with the storyline of the film. When you spoke, it was in a soft voice laced with reminiscence "you know, I used to have a crush on The Baron." Your words came out with lighthearted laughter. Minho lifted his head to look down at you, his dark eyes meeting yours. He raised an eyebrow and smirked, saying everything he needed to without uttering a word. "what?! he's charming!!" you said in defense against his incredulous expression. Minho just huffed out a small laugh and shook his head before laying it back down on the pillow. "furry" he accused. You elbowed him lightly in the stomach "you're the worst" you said with an exaggerated pout "you like it" he responded.
You gradually fell asleep before the movie ended, rolling over to snuggle into Minho's warm chest, his soft black shirt pressed against your forehead. He gazed down at you with a gentle smile, brushing away any strands of hair from your face. The word "cute" escaped his lips in a soft whisper as he gazed at the sleeping form beside him. The warmth and comfort of the moment washed over him, and he too succumbed to the call of sleep. But their rest was short-lived, as exaggerated retching sounds mixed with the persistent vibration of their phones shattered the tranquility. Rolling onto your back, you groaned, annoyed at the interruption. Minho grabbed his phone, checking the group chat. "god, they're being annoying" he grumbled, voice laced with sleep. "when are they not?" you asked, snatching your phone up to check the chat as well.
Back in your room, you collapsed onto your comfortable queen-sized bed, which was adorned with a variety of plush blankets and pillows in different shapes and sizes. The color changing LED lights provided a soothing pink glow in the dimly lit room. As you re-read the group chat, you couldn't help but smile at the picture Felix sent before saving it to your phone. You then locked it and placed it on your bedside table. The comforting weight of your many blankets soon lulled you back into a peaceful sleep.
You had only been asleep for a mere two hours when your phone rang, waking you up once more. The sudden noise jolted you out of your slumber and left you feeling groggy and disoriented.
"hello?" you answered, voice rough from sleep.
"hey.. need you over here." a man's voice came through.
You glanced at the time on your phone, rubbing your tired eyes while trying to focus on the bright screen. "now?"
With a tantalizing tone, he uttered the words, drawing out each syllable "Yes now. I'll pay extra."
You let out a deep sigh, standing up and quickly getting dressed in decent clothes. "alright. come pick me up. I've been drinking, I can't drive."
"Already here." the man hung up without another word.
After storing your phone in the pocket of your torn jeans for safekeeping, you pulled on your plush jacket to go along with your simple yet comfortable tank top. Not wanting to waste any time choosing footwear, you opted for the first pair within reach - sleek black ankle boots featuring sturdy block heels. As you passed by the living room, Felix was still awake. You noticed that he was engrossed in a video game on the big screen TV. His fingers moved swiftly across the controller while his eyes remained fixed on the action unfolding before him. Despite being deeply immersed in the gameplay, when you went walking by, he immediately stopped what he was doing and looked back at you.
"Hey, bubs, where are you going? It's already 2 a.m." he asked, confusion and a hint of concern in his voice.
"just a work emergency!" you said simply as you ran your hands through your bed head, attempting to tame the unruly strands.
"this late?"
"yeah, I'll be back soon."
"I- okay. be safe, y/n."
You nodded. "of course, always."
You walked out the door and hopped into the luxurious black car with tinted windows that was already waiting for you. When Minho heard the sound of an engine, he got up to take a look outside his window and watched as you stepped into the sleek vehicle. He couldn't help the concern he felt as he watched it pull out of the long driveway and disappear down the street.
You were back home a mere two hours later, trudging through the door and heading straight to your room, ignoring Felix's lingering stare. You kicked off your shoes and removed your coat and pants before crawling back into bed and immediately passing back out. Tomorrow morning was gonna suck.
part 1.5 || part two || part three || part four
notes: and there's the first chapter of my first ever series! 😬 I hope you liked it!! I know we're starting off slow but I promise it'll pick up! please feel free to leave feedback and interactions so I can feel out what you guys like for part two! ily!! 🩷
There will be no taglist. Please turn on my blog notifications if you want to catch updates for this series!! ♥️
#series: just friends#bunbunworks#lee minho x reader#lee know x reader#minho x reader#skz x reader#stray kids x reader#skz#stray kids#skz fake texts#stray kids fake texts#straykids#straykids fake texts#straykids x reader#skz smau#stray kids smau#lee minho#lee know#yn fic
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Packaging-list + Packaging-list Sequel
⚠️RULES⚠️
📦no harassment/hate asks
📦no racism, homophobia, transphobia, colourism, anti-blackness, islamophobia, bullying, fatphobia, misogyny, pro-israel
📦do not rush me as well, i WILL get to your ask
📦no 18+ readings (I’m a minor)
📦no love life, ideal type, idol/celeb future spouse readings, idol/celeb family members readings, any thing related to death
📦I only accept mini personality readings, first impressions, friendship readings, (insert name) as a friend/husband/wife readings, peoples thoughts of each other!
Kpop Readings
NEWJEANS Hanni and Halle Bailey First impressions
Jenny Park Mini Personality reading
Latrice Kabamba Mini Personality reading
Jam Republic Mini Group Dynamic reading
NEWJEANS Hanni and LE SSERAFIM Yunjin Friendship Dynamic Mini Reading
How do ITZY and NCT view each other
BLACKPINK Lisa and Rihanna First Impressions
NEWJEANS Minji Current Energy (30/01/2024)
Jenny Park and (G)I-DLE Miyeon First Impressions
NEWJEANS Danielle Mini Personality reading
LE SSERAFIM Coachella 2024
(G)-IDLE Minnie Mini Personality reading
NEWJEANS Minji Mini Personality Reading
(G)-IDLE Shuhua Mini Personality Reading
LE SSERAFIM Yunjin Mini Career Reading
IU Mini Personality Reading
NEWJEANS members love languages
LLOUD Mini Reading
NEWJEANS x TYLA Collaboration?
IU x NEWJEANS Hyein Collaboration
ATEEZ Coachella 2024 Reading
BTS J-Hope x LE SSERAFIM Yunjin Collaboration?
LE SSERAFIM Twitter Drama
NEWJEANS Comeback Mini Reading
Tomorrow X Together Comeback Mini Reading
KOZ Future Girl Group Mini Reading
LE SSERAFIM Eunchae Mini Career Reading
Kpop Exposé Reading
Lucas Mini Reading
NEWJEANS Hanni Mini Personality Reading
NEWJEANS Hyein Mini Personality Reading
NEWJEANS Haerin Mini Personality Reading
LE SSERAFIM Yunjin Mini Personality Reading
LE SSERAFIM Sakura Mini Personality Reading
LE SSERAFIM Chaewon Mini Personality Reading
LE SSERAFIM Kazhua Mini Personality Reading
LE SSERAFIM Eunchae Mini Personality Reading
NCT 127’s Johnny and Willow Smith First Impressions
STRAY KIDS Hyunjin and Anne Hathaway First Impressions
BLACKPINK’s Lisa and Taylor Swift First Impressions
P1HARMONY Jeongseob Mini Personality Reading
BOYSNEXTDOOR Leehan Mini Personality Reading
TWICE Sana Mini Personality Reading
Minji Mini Career Reading
NEWJEANS Haerin Green vs Red Flags
BLACKPINK Jisoo and Yara Shahidi’s First Impressions of Each Other
LE SSERAFIM Yunjin and ENHYPEN Jay Friendship Dynamics
BLACKPINK Lisa and TYLA Mini Reading
TWICE Jeongyeon Solo
NEWJEANS Hyein Mini Career Reading
LE SSERAFIM Yunjin St*rbucks Apology?
Teo Yoo and Jaehyun Vedic Astrology Mini Analysis
RIIZE Solar Return Chart Transit Chart Mini Analysis
Pinkpantheress and NEWJEANS Collaboration?
Han So Hee Transit Chart Analysis
North American and European Readings
Jude Bellingham Mini Personality reading
Jude Bellingham Current Energy (03/02/2024)
What do Real Madrid players think of Jude Bellingham
Jobe Bellingham Mini Personality reading
Trent Alexander Arnold Mini Personality reading
Levi Colwill Mni Personality reading
India Armateifio Mini Personality reading
Doja Cat Mini Personality reading
Tyla Mini Personality Reading
Melanie Martinez Personality reading
Jude Bellingham and Kylian Mbappe Dynamic
Alejandro Garnacho Mini Personality Reading
Hector Fort Mini Personality Reading
Joao Felix Mini Personality Reading
Alejandro Balde Mini Personality Reading
Marc Guiu Mini Personality Reading
Pinkpantheress Mini Personality Reading
Future of TikTok Mini Reading
Lolirock Mini Reading
Trump vs Biden Mini Reading
Eastern and South-East Asian Readings
Nijiro Murakami Mini Personality Reading
Kitty Chicha Mini Personality Reading
Psychic Fever Mini Career Reading
PAC Readings
Would your celebrity crush want to date you
What would you be known for if you were famous
What would BLACKPINK members think of you
What would BTS members think of you
What would NEWJEANS members think of you
What would TWICE members think of you
Astrology
Psychic Fever SR Chart Reading
Jude Bellingham Short Birth Chart Analysis
Pinkpantheress Singer Persona Chart Mini Analysis
LE SSERAFIM Solar Return Chart Analysis
LE SSERAFIM Encore Stage Transit Analysis
Kiawentiio Mini Birth Chart Observation
Teo Yoo and NCT Jaehyun Vedic Astrology Analysis
RIIZE Solar Return x Transit Chart Dating Scandal Analysis
Psychic Fever 2025 Solar Return
Psychic Fever II EP Analysis
TikTok and USA Synastry Mini Reading
Pinkpantheress D1 Chart Analysis
Paid Tarot Readings
book a reading here
#tarot#tarot reading#newjeans#stray kids#street woman fighter 2#kpop tarot#black tarot readers#bridgerton#kpop#black women#halle bailey#masterlist#tarot master list
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Stray Kids as Yanderes
Request: "You have yandere on your event and masterlist so would you do skz as yanderes? I know you only do soft yandere and thats fine"
WARNINGS: Obsessive behavior, Murder, Mention of suicide, Toxic relationship, Drugging, Manipulation, Humiliation, Claustrophobic issues, basements, blood, tied to a ceiling (not the reader), mention of kidnapping, delusional mindset, mental abuse, self-harm, cussing, suggestive? talking about kissing, Stalking, I think that's it
I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU CHOOSE TO READ!
You DO NOT have my permission to repost my work anywhere.
A/N: I wanted to expand on their jealousy, but this is already long enough. I struggled with Jisung so much! >:[ I WROTE THIS AT 2 AM WITH NOTHING BUT DORITOS AND COUGH MEDICINE IN MY SYSTEM!
Master list
*.·:·BANG CHAN
Type: Manipulative
Violence: 50-100%
Possessive: 86%
Jealousy: 65%
Punishments: Manipulation
The relationship looks normal at first glance. Chan takes care of you, but not so much that it feels like you're dependent on him. He lets you talk to people and leave the house. He waited until you were ready before moving you into his home, and he still waited.
You were cozy in the Venus flytrap, and its jaws were slowly closing.
He'd pick your friends off one by one. Chan starts with the acquaintances. They're not close to you, so it shouldn't hurt that much for them to leave you. He puts wedges between you and anyone trying to separate you. Your friend who had a crush on you is gone.
Chan is a dangerous yandere because of his awareness. He knows what he's doing is unhealthy and probably immoral, but he wants you. Chan needs you.
I don't think Chan would really have a punishment for you.
He'd just be doing the same thing he's been doing. He'll guilt trip you into feeling bad for lashing out. You think Chan is too possessive? You're right, but can you blame him? Anyone who looks at you would want to eat you like a snack and take you home with them for leftovers. He's just being cautious.
The jaws are shut, but something is stopping you from panicking.
*.·:·LEE MINHO
Type: Possessive Controlling
Violence: 56-97%
Possessive: 100%
Jealousy: 100%
Punishments: Isolation and Drugging Humiliation
Minho is yours out of courtesy. You are Minho's because he wants you. There is a difference. As soon as you learn it, everything will be easier for Minho for you.
As seen in this post, Minho likes to play with you. It doesn't matter if you don't want to play, he wants to play, and you will. If he can see the exhaustion in your eyes, then Minho will let you rest. Hope that he can see it. Hope, pray, do whatever.
The more "tired" you act, the less likely Minho is to give you a break. In a way, he wants you to break. How else will Minho know what not to do?
You're moving sluggish? Then we're moving around. You're about to fall asleep? Have this melatonin gummy that's actually an energy booster. Minho wants you to break so he can fix you.
If you start lashing out, Minho will make you more compliant. He'll slip it into your drink or your food. Depending on how exhausted you are, will depict how much he gives you. Minho doesn't want to kill you. He'd not let anyone else have you, not even death.
If you go, Minho goes. You are his, and you can't leave.
When you're delirious, he locks you in a room. Not your bedroom, of course. Minho wants that room to be a safe space for you. He'll lock you in the hallway closet if you're claustrophobic. Or he'll stick you in the basement with the lights off. Of course, you're in a concealed room, so nothing can get you, but you can't see that.
I'm a firm believer that Minho would humiliate you as punishment. He'll finally take you out of the house. He'll pick your outfit himself, and when you come downstairs and question his outfit, he waves you off. "I want the attention to be on you."
And it will be. What were you thinking about wearing colors to an all-black event? Why are you off the theme?
*.·:·SEO CHANGBIN
Type: Protective
Violence: 75-95% (Never to you)
Possessive: 100%
Jealousy: 12%
Punishments: Isolation
Sure, your happiness is important, but your safety is Changbin's top priority. You need to be healthy and protected. If this means killing someone disturbing your peace, then that's okay. If Changbin is causing you distress, he'll isolate the both of you for a break. Then it's back to being stuck together.
If you let him, Changbin will take care of you. He'll feed you, he'll bathe you, and he'll dress you. He will do everything for you until you tell him to stop, and even then, Changbin will push those limits.
Changbin's possessiveness is laced in his need to keep you safe. He would love for you to live your life. But why can't you live your life in the safety of his arms?
You think he's harming you? Well, imagine everyone else. What if he wasn't there? They're worse than him. They have no regard for your being, and Changbin knows this.
He's certain of it.
Your punishment is Changbin's dream. He'll lock you up in a room where you can't be hurt. Where you're safe. Where else is better for you?
Changbin who hides the number of lives he's taking to "keep you safe." He's certain your mind won't be able to handle it. You can barely look at the news about their deaths. So imagine finding out they're tied to you?
*.·:·HWANG HYUNJIN
Type: Delusional
Violence: 5% (Unintentional)
Possessive: 98%
Jealousy: 79-100%
Punishments: Isolation
You need him, and Hyunjin needs you. It's a fact, and you can't go against a fact. Well, you can, but you would be wrong. You and Hyunjin were meant to be. You were together in past lives. You will be together in future lives. In all timelines, you are together.
But Hyunjin is in this timeline, in the present, and he wants you now.
Hyunjin doesn't just love you. Hyunjin knows he is in love with you. He needs you like his lungs need air, how his heart needs blood. How the trees need our breath. But you don't want him? No, you're just confused.
And if not? Hyunjin will wait for the next life.
But in this life? Hyunjin doesn't mind ending it early. His body will be in the ground, his soul in the stars, and his breath in the sky. You have no choice but to be with him.
When you walk, your feet touch the ground Hyunjin's body is in. When you breathe, you inhale his air. When you cherish the stars in the sky, they sparkle and shine for you. They are his soul and past lives shining on you.
Hyunjin would never hurt you on purpose. He has no issues with locking you up if it means keeping you in check and him from lashing out at you.
"I will never hurt you. People don't harm who they love," Hyunjin tells you. He tells you this as he locks you in a room with a see-through door. Ironic coming from him, but at least you don't have to worry about him hurting you.
Hyunjin has no issues with giving you time. Time with him, but still time to realize that you are meant to be.
Hyunjin who is overjoyed when you finally return his feelings. Who is overjoyed when the Stockholm syndrome hits.
*.·:·HAN JISUNG
(I had to let him marinate cause this was pissing me off ;-;)
Type: Quiet One
Violence: 76-100%
Possessive:
Jealousy:
Punishments: Murder (not you)
Jisung is the type with earbuds on and scrolling on his phone to make the act believable. He's not listening to anything, but no one knows that. Jisung is eavesdropping on your conversation.
Jisung watches from the shadows. He leans against walls, tucks himself into corners, and hides in plain sight. Jisung needs to know everything about you.
Jisung takes your lost pencils, favorite candy wrapper, and anything you thought you "lost." Jisung who puts your things on the shrine in his basement.
Jisung finds everything about your family and friends. He finds out their habits and their tales. What makes them tick? How can he get them to put in a good word for him? Jisung, who fakes a smile for your love.
Jisung trains himself to be around you. He sneaks into your room and stands as close to you as he can without becoming a mess. He walks a little ways away from you and shortens the distance as he progresses. Jisung who hides his obsession out of fear of losing you.
Jisung who wouldn't hurt a fly, repeatedly stabs the person stealing you. His heart is steady, his face his blank, and his body doesn't tremble. Jisung who kills those who harm you, even those you don't know.
*.·:·LEE FELIX
Type: Clingy
Violence: 0%
Possessive: 79-100%
Jealousy: I don't know
Punishments: Manipulation
This relationship starts normal, but the longer you stay with Felix, the more his obsession progresses. It's a little hard for him to breathe without you, like running for miles with asthma and no inhaler.
Felix would never hurt anyone. You don't know that, though. Felix doesn't like death, and Felix doesn't want to hurt you in any way. Not truly, so Felix gives threats. Behave, or he'll kill *blank*. Stop acting out, or he'll take *blank* out.
If you ever call his bluff, he'll get fake blood and a dead body. Felix will stage the act. You come home, and it's peaceful until you hear noise from the basement. What's that red stuff on the counter?
When you get downstairs, there's blood everywhere, and your best friend hangs by their wrists from their ceiling. When you try to run, Felix, covered in blood, is in the doorway. He knocks you out, and you wake up in your bed.
Felix is scared out of his sleep by your panicked breaths. When you tell him of your "nightmare," his eyes will dull, and he'll look near lifeless. Your phone rings before you can question him, and it's your best friend. As you're talking to them, you glance at Felix, but he's back to normal.
Felix who kisses your cheek and wishes you a good morning before taking a shower. While he's in the bathroom, you check the kitchen and the basement, but everything is normal. When you get back upstairs, Felix is plaiting the table with your favorite breakfast food.
"Did you find what you were looking for?" Felix's face is concerned, but his tone is knowing.
*.·:·KIM SEUNGMIN
Type: Laidback
Violence: 26%
Possessive: Discreetly at 75%
Jealousy: I'm conflicted
Punishment: Taking things from you
Seungmin doesn't want you stressing at all. If you have a problem, he'll fix it. Kidnapping you is too much work, so you won't have to worry about that. Seungmin will let you see your friends and family, and let you go out without him.
He knows you would never leave him.
As an idol, Seungmin can get people to watch you when he's not with you. As a person with "normal" status, he finds a way to convince your friends that you have a stalker and he just wants updates on your safety.
They'll send discreet pictures of you so you aren't panicking. They're trying to keep you safe. What if your stalker is watching you now? Seungmin wouldn't lie about your safety. He loves you, and they know it.
You're starting to sneak around? He'll find out why you're sneaking. If it isn't a surprise for him then you have no business creeping around. He should know everything. You should willingly tell Seungmin everything, or at least make it easy for him to find out himself.
Seungmin's punishments start small. It starts with your passions. You like art? Your pencils are snapped, and your paints have been left with the caps off. You make music? Your instruments are locked away or smashed to pieces. Seungmin won't break something of sentimental value. Your studio is locked with everything inside it.
Maybe you like books? If he has to, Seungmin will go through your favorite book and fold the corners. He'll crease the spines of your books and lock them away so that when you get them back, they're messed up.
You read online? You have a Kindle or an app on your phone? That's fine. Your library is cleared out, and he'll start a new book just to make sure there isn't a "Start where you left off" option.
Seungmin isn't evil. He'll make a list of all the books in your library, online or on a shelf, and keep perfect copies. He'll buy you new paints or get you new instruments.
Seungmin who will send a picture of you with your family if you run away. "I hope nothing bad happens to them while you're gone."
*.·:·YANG JEONGIN
Type: Obsessive
Violence: Depends
Possessive: 50-95%
Jealousy: 76%
Punishment: Isolation, self-harm,
You're all he can think about. Jeongin depends on you. He can't eat, his sleep schedule is nonexistent, and he hasn't been outside unless you bring him.
Tell him to give you space, and Jeongin will hand it to you. He'll be fucking miserable, but he'll give you all the space and time you need. When you finally come back to him, kiss him long and slow or fast and intense.
Jeongin doesn't care. He wants you to be stuck to him like glue until you get sick of him and need a break.
Jeongin is fragile. His world revolves around you. You are the sun that brightens his day and the moon that guides him in the night. Lashing out at him about anything is a direct blow to his heart and soul.
You yelling at Jeongin. = You hate Jeongin.
He can't live while you hate him. He lives to please you. If you hate him, then Jeongin has failed you. Failing you means he failed himself, and life is too good for failure as bad as this.
Jeongin who tells you with a blank face but love-filled eyes that he would die for your love. Jeongin who will proudly show you each scar as punishment for making you "hate" him.
©️DEANAMEANTAE2024
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MY LOVE, MINE ALL MINE — CARMEN BERZATTO
1. BUTTERSCOTCH — you finally say hello to a familiar face in the city after a little girl bumps into you. (2.7k)
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Carmen keeps track of the running grocery list in his head:
Green onions? Check. Shallots? Check. Rolled oats? Check.
“Alright,” he huffs into the phone, a stupid thing tucked snug between his shoulder and jaw.
“Carm, I’m serious—”
“Nat, I got it, alright? I’ll call the fuckin’ guy.” Strawberries? Check. Eggs? Check. “I’m at the store, ‘n I’ll be back, ‘n then I’ll call him. It’s fine.” Dino nuggets? Check. That way-too-sugary cereal Sofia likes—? Even though he wishes Richie never gave it to her—? Check, check, check, so fuckin’ checked. “Now, do you wanna talk to—”
He looks to his side, where Sofia once stood with chubby little fingers hooked on the cart, that raggedy old stuffed animal always caught in the other fist. Gone. Carmen’s heart stops and catches in his throat.
Natalie’s voice again, much quieter now that the phone’s not at his ear. “Hello?”
He doesn’t even hear his sister, doesn’t process her words.
He turns around. “Sof?” But she’s not there.
He tries again, facing forward, a little louder. “Sofia?” Nothing. “Fuck,” he mumbles to himself, ending the call without a second thought. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—”
He shoves his phone into his pocket, abandons the cart altogether, pokes his head into the aisle over. “Sofia.” Nothing. “Shit—”
He can’t breathe. A closed fist shoots to his chest to try and soothe the droughted ache. The ceiling’s closing in from above, every aisle looks the same, his feet are too heavy to carry him fast enough through the store.
Where’s his fuckin’ kid?
You’re spooked out of a fatigued trance by a clumsy little girl at your feet in the produce section.
She can’t be older than four, her chubby little face framed by golden brown curls, dressed in a cute little black dress and pink tights, ballet flats to boot. By her hand is a well-loved stuffed animal: an orange tabby cat with lint fuzzies along its body, teetering on the edge of the display about to fall into the lettuce.
“Well, hello,” you start.
She peeks up at you through stray curls with a grin. “Hi.”
You do a quick scan of the immediate area but spot nothing other than a worker stocking bananas twenty feet away, another pushing a cart of mangoes. “Where’d you come from, hm?” You perch down next to her and try to offer a warm smile to keep her calm.
“I’m here with my daddy.”
“Yeah? Where’s he at?”
Her lips, shiny with drool, puff into a pout. “I…” Her little voice wobbles, and you know that fucking wobble, that precursor to something uncontrollable and wretched, and for a split second you consider letting her cry, just on the off chance her dad hears it.
But you come to your senses: it’ll take all but five, no more than ten minutes to cover the entire store ground. You graze your hand by her back and offer her the sorry excuse for a cat. “Hey, don’t worry, it’s alright. I’ll help you.”
“B-But…” Those pretty brown eyes of her turn glassy, ready for tears, and her lip quivers, her cheeks puff out.
“I’ll help you find him, okay? We’ll wait right here, and I promise he’ll find you. We won’t leave this spot til he does.”
She hesitates before she nods, gives you a warbled, “Okay.”
You give her your name—something you read or heard from word of mouth, how putting a name to your face makes you more trustworthy. “What’s yours?”
“...Sofia.”
“Sofia,” you repeat. “That’s a very pretty name.”
The dimples that come through with her smile have you swooning, your chest filling with something sweet. A supercut you’ve long since abandoned flits through one of the best and worst years you’ve endured: kisses at the door for hello and goodbye, chilly Chicago mornings spent in someone else’s sheets, serving coffee in thick handmade mugs and being thanked for it with lips pressed to your cheek. But that was a year ago, and it’s long gone. You’re better off now—occupied with work, and running a business, and trying new things, and finding comfort in the solitude of an apartment that’s filled with nothing but the smell of coffee grounds.
Your pointer finger lifts her toy’s head: “And who’s this?”
“Butterscotch,” she says, Butter sounding a whole lot like Buttah.
“Yeah? Where’d you come up with that name?”
“My daddy’s a chef, he teached it to me.”
A chef, you hum, No wonder he’s here at seven in the morning.
And you do just about everything you’d want someone to do if this were your kid: you keep her right where she is like you promised her, you listen to all her stories she has with Butterscotch, you answer the silly questions she asks while she holds your finger in a squishy hand and bears a gummy smile.
Until—
A man wrought with stress approaches. Fitted white tee, loose denim on his hips, beat up Nikes that’ve probably seen better days. Golden brown curls like the little girl’s, only thicker, darkened with age, and half-straightened, probably from the way he runs his fingers through them like he does as he walks toward you and the girl. Buff arms, built shoulders, and they’re littered with tattoos…
Not what you expected. And he looks so fucking familiar, yet you can’t put your finger on it—
“Sofia,” he huffs, and she scurries over to him in tiny yet quickened steps and jumps into his arms, his eyes closing and brows furrowing with a relief that’s palpable as he tucks his nose into her swirling hair. “What’d I tell you about comin’ to the store w’me, huh?” A veiny hand with the letters S O U inked on the fingers cups the back of her head as he sways her from side to side, failing to give her much of a stern look at all despite his frustration. “You gotta stay by my side, I told you, you’ll get lost.”
“But I wasn’t lost, Daddy,” she pouts, “I was right here, and—and I had to find Butterscotch, and you—you weren’t there—”
“Okay,” he soothes, rubbing his hand along her back before he thumbs away budding tears from her fleshy cheeks. “Okay, hon…” He props her at his hip. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You just scared me ‘s all, alright? Didn’t know where you were, had me lookin’ all over for you.”
“...I’m sorry,” she mumbles, clearly upset, nuzzling into her dad’s shoulder as he presses a sweet kiss to her head.
He looks to you, then, and you lend him a sympathetic smile.
“Sorry about her, she’s, uh…” He peeks at her, so lovingly— “She can be a handful sometimes.”
“No, don’t apologize, she was great.” Your eyes drift to his hands. They’re big, strong, like he knows what to do with them around the house, with a baby girl...with her mother, too, though you wonder where that stands. You try not to. “She’s talkative, makes for a fun conversation. A great storyteller, too.”
He smiles, and it’s hearty, with a twitch of a brow as he draws just a bit closer—it’s slight, so slight you almost think you’re imagining things. “Think so? She doesn’t usually, um…doesn’t usually wanna talk to people, y’know?” He hikes her up again, and she turns so that she’s facing you. “Get all grumpy, don’t ya, Sof? Like with your Uncle Richie?”
“But she’s nice,” she chimes in, lifting her head from his shoulder and leaving the cat’s head peeking through. “Not mean like he is.”
Again with that smile, he looks at her with raised brows, bobs her up and down as he holds her tight, like she’s his entire world. “Yeah?” He shoots you back a look, half-impressed. “You don’t wanna see him today, huh?”
“No,” she grumbles, face smushed into his tee. “Can she come to work with us instead?”
“Sof…” He scoffs, cocking his head to the side, and his eyes dart between you and his girl. “That’s not—we can’t just—”
“Pretty please, Daddy…” She pouts at him, pulls on his neck with her arms looped around it, starts trying to lean back to stir up trouble but his hands hold her firm to his torso. “You said Eva and Vivi can’t play today…”
“I—I know, hon— . . . It’s just— . . .” Kissing his teeth, he contemplates for a moment. “She probably has work to do, y’know? Just like I have to work? And how sometimes you can’t come with me?”
“Where does she work?”
“Uhhh…” In an awkward pause, he seems to realize the dilemma. The expectant glance your way is almost painful. “Shit,” he hisses, holding Sofia with one hand to run fingers through his hair, “I’m sorry, I should’ve—I should introduce myself, right?” The pained look on his face makes you think the question is genuine, and he offers his right hand to you— “I’m Carmen, but, um, most people just call me Carmy.”
It clicks: He’s Carmen Berzatto. Not just some guy or some chef in the grocery store you’ve happened to meet, but the guy. The guy who owns the fine dining joint across the street from your cafe; the guy who showed up to the city a few years ago only to revamp his family-owned sandwich shop in its entirety; the guy you’d heard so much about from the gossip around the block between vendors; the guy who left his roots to be something so much bigger than anyone could’ve imagined; the guy who came back with a reputation with none to rival and a shattered family in its shadow. The prodigal son of Chicago. You heard of him but never met.
“Y-Yeah, right, right,” you nod, stumbling for the right words. “I thought you looked kinda familiar.” You take his hand graciously as you give him your name. His handshake is firm, solid, sure of himself, with a callused palm and dry skin and cracked knuckles, an inked-on hand with a knife through its palm on the back of his hand. “You own The Bear, right?”
“I do.” Sheepish, like it’s embarrassing to be successful.
“Cool, cool, I’ve, um, I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, but I’ve never been.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Something warm in your belly comes to the surface and you try to drown it. “I own the cafe across the street—? Just a, uh, a smaller place—” You shake your head as if to dismiss the thought of him even knowing about it. “I dunno if—”
“No, no, yeah, I know that one, a few doors down—” he nods, fervently— “Etta’s, right?”
You smile. He knew of it so quick, with so little detail you want to think it means something. “Yeah, that’s the one.” For fuck’s sake, the guy probably just likes to support his local businesses. Get a grip.
“My sister loves that place, goes there all the time. But I, uh…” A soft smile at his girl. “I don’t usually have much time to go myself…”
“Yeah, I can imagine you’re pretty busy with her.” Unless her mom is in the picture…?
But he doesn’t take the bait—he only smiles, hums with a subtle nod, gives Sofia a pat on the back to get her attention, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Hey, cub, guess what?”
She comes to only slightly, with pale blonde locks like angel’s hair tickling Carmen’s neck. Grumbles something akin to a Hm?
“You know those chocolate chip muffins you like? The ones your Aunt Natalie gets for you?”
Her curls are already caught in her eyelashes. “With the sparkles on top?”
He gives you a knowing look: sugar, not sparkles. “Yes, with the sparkles. Did you know our new friend here runs that shop?”
Her head perks up with a gasp. “What?” Her excitement is so soft, and she can’t even stave off a smile now, tiny teeth shining through to show the dimples in her cheeks again.
“You heard me.”
From her mouth is only a whisper, a doe-eyed look targeted right at you. “No way.”
You smile at her. “Yes way.”
She puts on those puppy dog eyes, looks at Carmen with a pout as she tugs on him again. “Daddy, can we please—”
In one fell swoop, his hand whisks her hair out of her face. “Uh-uh. Nice try.”
Oh, but she’s a stubborn one. “But please—”
“Not today, baby, we gotta finish shopping, hm? Then go to work?” His eyes dart to meet yours in a knowing glance, a silent apology and excuse to leave. “Maybe I’ll ask Aunt Natalie to get them for you tomorrow. How’s that sound?”
She huffs and buries herself into his neck again, turning away from you now that she’s in a surly mood.
“Okay,” he sighs, smiling to himself, and you can’t deny the comfort in seeing his little girl so cozy with him, like he’s either the only parent around, or he’s really just that good of a father—and husband, or fiancé, or boyfriend, or whatever he might be. You don’t know if you should feel guilty for wanting to pry.
The conversation lulls to a hesitant stop, like neither one of you is sure how to bid farewell—or whether you want to do so at all.
“Y’know,” he starts, with a finality to his tone, “I’ve still gotta—”
“Yeah, me too—”
“And I left the cart in the other aisle—”
“Right, right, of course—”
“And they need me at the—”
“Same here, I need to, uh—”
“Right, yeah, so um—”
“Yeah—”
“I guess I should—”
“Probably—”
“And, uh—…”
“It was nice to meet you, though,” you finish, maybe a little too enthusiastic for only having just done so minutes ago.
But if it were, Carmen doesn’t show it. “Yeah, it was nice to meet you, too. I’ll, uh…I’ll see you around.”
You offer a softened smile. “Guess so.”
And he leaves you with a curt nod before he turns around with Sofia’s face smushed into his shoulder, her arms loosely wrapped around his neck to leave Butterscotch hugged to the nape of it. That’s all you see, then: just a beaten up stuffed animal and springy golden curls as Carmen rounds the corner of the aisle, your breath gone short and face gone warm by the end of it.
Half of it, you’re sure, is the simple brevity of it all: consoling a lost child, to chatting with her father, to finding out he’s a business neighbor. And against your better judgment, the other half of it is a twinge of attraction to him. Even though he has a kid, and he may very well be married, or at least in a relationship, and by the looks of it, stressed out of his goddamn mind…
But there’s just something about him.
The way he was worried about his daughter like he’s supposed to be, the way he holds her and dotes on her and rubs her back like it’s nothing but natural to him, the heartwarming smile that reaches his eyes just by looking at his precious girl. The hard-earned strength in his hands and arms, the symbolic imagery of his tattoos that you’ve yet to dwell upon in late night hours, the awkward demeanor about him like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to talk to you—or if he even knows how. And all this, you see in a man working down the street, a man you’ve never spoken to until today, who could be the worst person in the world for all you know.
You don’t, is the thing. You don’t know his middle name, or his favorite color, or favorite food, or where he’s even worked, really, other than here in Chicago. You don’t know if Sofia’s mother is still around, or whatever happened to her if she isn’t, or if it’s a topic he breaches freely or not at all.
You don’t know enough about him yet to judge. You don’t know much at all. You don’t know if you want to, whether it’ll send you head first into a mess of pasts not unlike the one you’ve been trying to crawl out of alone for the past grueling months, if it’d upturn all the good you’ve tried to make stick.
But if there’s one thing you do know, it’s that you want to see him again.
And that you’ll have to make a batch or two of muffins first.
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