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#wait but perhaps... perhaps this means ill be able to write now

roosterforme · 3 months

Text

Always Ever Only You Part 30 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: Bradley's excitement over the first set of ultrasound photos is unparalleled. He has never been so happy and so overwhelmed in his life, but at times he feels ill equipped to process everything that's happening. And the last thing he wants is to make you feel like he's growing tired of you.

Warnings: Swearing, smut, pregnancy topics, doctors, angst, fluff

Length: 6600 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader

This was written to accompany my series Is It Working For You? along with a bunch of my one-shots and other series, but it can be read on its own! Check my masterlist for the reading order. Always Ever Only You masterlist. Gorgeous banner by @mak-32

Bradley wanted to be able to explain it to you, but he wasn't really sure he could. Sitting in the waiting room with you and anticipating an ultrasound to see the baby was honestly more than he ever thought he could have. You were more than he ever thought he deserved, and you wanted him anyway. But a baby?

He barely had a baseline to build off of. His dad died when he was young enough that he only had a handful of fleeting memories. The sound of a laugh. Two big hands lifting him up when he fell. A lullaby sung softly as he drifted off to sleep. Besides the photos that you and he collected from his storage unit and the stories his mom recounted when he was younger, that's all he had.

But he could practically hear his mom telling him how excited Nick Bradshaw was to be a dad. Bradley could remember the joy in her voice whenever she told him about the way she would catch father and son goofing off together. She was adamant that Bradley cried almost nonstop the first day his dad was gone for a deployment. And now Bradley desperately wished he could remember these little details that made up their relationship. Because soon, god willing, he was going to be on the other side of things: the parent who loves goofing off and singing, but who also gets deployed and causes tears to fall.

It was all too overwhelming for him to put into words, but as he laced his fingers with yours, he knew he didn't have to figure out how to do everything all at once.

"Are you nervous?" you asked.

Bradley looked at your open expression and immediately felt better. Talking through things and sharing his thoughts was the best way to keep from driving himself crazy while also letting you know how important you were. "Excited," he replied, kissing your cheek and ear. "Just really fucking excited. I've been thinking... about starting a notebook. Kind of for the baby? Like how sometimes I like to write down what I'm thinking and feeling for myself."

He still felt silly at times for sharing the notebooks with you, but you nodded with a little smile on your lips. "I love your deployment notebooks. I love what you wrote about me."

He reached for you and kissed you without hesitation. "I think I want the baby to be able to read about how much I was looking forward to meeting them. When they're older, I mean. They can read about how I feel like my heart is going to pound out of my chest right now. And how I can't wait to hold them and give them a name. All about how much I love their mom."

Bradley let you bury your face against his neck. It didn't feel like you were hiding from him so much as giving him a taste of the kind of response he'd get if the two of you were alone. "I like that idea." You kissed the side of his neck and said, "I adore you, Roo. You'll be the best daddy."

Bradley almost laughed when you jolted in your seat after the nurse called your name. "Come on back, you two," she said with a smile. "Hopefully mom and dad can leave with some new family photos."

"Holy shit," Bradley replied, palms suddenly sweaty. Baby photos. He was on his feet in an instant, ready to go. And maybe this was what his dad felt like. Perhaps his parents didn't know what they were doing either, but rather they just counted themselves lucky to go along for the ride. He wished one of them had left him a notebook.

You were smiling up at him as he reached for your hand again, and your fingers felt sure and steady all wrapped up with his. "I'm excited, too," you whispered, answering your own question from earlier while he ran his thumb along your rings. "And maybe a little nervous."

"I'm right here," he promised as the two of you followed the nurse into a room filled with equipment. "I'm not going anywhere."

He kissed you and then begrudgingly let go of your hand when the nurse gave you a hospital gown to change into. As she left the room with the promise that your doctor would be in shortly, Bradley dragged his palms across his khaki covered thighs as he sat down and watched you change. Even though you were suffering from near constant nausea, he thought you looked incredible. Your face was glowing, and you kept looking at him with adoration in your eyes.

"Jesus," he grunted when you removed your bra. Was it possible that today he was the hornier one for once? "Sweetheart. Your tits," he whispered as he ran a hand over his face while you giggled. "Unreal." Then your underwear went sliding down your legs, and he reached down to help you out of them. "Hand me the gown," he told you as he folded your underwear across his knee.

You slipped into the gown when he held it open for you, and then you stood between his legs while he secured the ties and kissed you through the fabric. Your laughter filled the small room, and when the doctor walked in, she found you sitting on Bradley's lap while he ran his knuckles gently across your belly.

"I'm Dr. Morris," she said, shaking hands with you as you stood and then reaching for Bradley's. "I love it when partners show up for appointments, too. It's a lot more fun."

He watched Dr. Morris help you up onto the table, immediately missing your warm body next to his. "I plan on being here for every appointment unless I'm deployed." Your smile faltered a little bit at his words, so he added, "And even then, I'd steal a jet and fly in for a few hours. This is that important to me."

Your smile was restored and then some. Bradley scooted the chair a little closer when you reached for his hand as Dr. Morris started to ask you some questions and enter them into the software. "Do you recall when you last menstruated? I'd like to calculate a due date assuming we find a healthy fetus."

Once you told her the date of your last period, Bradley blurted out, "Why wouldn't it be healthy?"

Now he had two pairs of eyes on him as you squeezed his sweaty hand. "It's very early," Dr. Morris said. "Complications are more likely to occur in the first trimester than in the second or third. And your wife is just between seven and eight weeks along based on her cycle."

"Oh," Bradley said, swallowing hard. You'd tried to tell him all of this information before, letting him know it was too early to inform your parents or Nat or any of your other friends. But it felt somehow wrong coming from someone else. He didn't like this information when it was laid out before him in the exam room.

"It's okay, Roo," you told him, a sweet smile still on your face. So he nodded and watched your lips and the curve of your cheek as you answered a few more questions and asked about prenatal vitamins.

Then eventually Dr. Morris said the only words Bradley really wanted to hear right now. "Let's see what we can find with the ultrasound."

He was sitting on the edge of his seat, elbow leaning on the exam table as he gripped your hand for dear life. As excited as he'd been, now he was on the verge of being sick. What if he'd been too rough with you in bed? What if the football at the beach really did hit you in the wrong spot? What if all of the vomiting had been worse than either of you considered?

One thing was for certain. Bradley was going to love you no matter what, until his dying day. So he held onto your hand and kissed your knuckles as Dr. Morris squeezed lube onto a wand that looked a bit like one of the vibrators you had at home. "Is that for the ultrasound?" he asked, watching you spread your legs wider.

"Yes," the doctor replied, and a huge computer monitor lit up. "We need to get really up close at this stage to be able to see anything, so we're doing a transvaginal ultrasound today. The ones you're thinking of that use a paddle on the belly will come later."

"Right," he replied, and as soon as she slipped the wand inside you, he watched you purse your lips in slight discomfort. "You okay, Sweetheart?" he whispered, eyes glued to your face for any sign of pain. But your pinched expression melted away, and your lips parted softly as you sighed and stared at the computer monitor.

"Oh. Oh, Bradley! Look!"

When he turned toward the screen, he slowly stood as you pulled his hand closer to your body and held it with both of yours. Everything looked a little fuzzy at first, just some gray and black shapes. But then a cute little bean started to take shape as Dr. Morris adjusted the wand, and Bradley rasped, "Is that the baby?"

"Yes," she replied evenly, also watching the monitor. "And everything looks great."

Warmth spread through his entire body as Bradley huffed out a laugh while you giggled. He wasn't sure if his hand was shaking or if it was yours, but he leaned down and kissed your wrists before finding your lips with his. "That's our baby," he whispered, kissing you once more.

"It's adorable," you said, smiling nonstop. "Like a little bean, or a chicken nugget."

Bradley leaned on the table, keeping as close to you as he could. "I'm already so in love." He could feel tears in his eyes as Dr. Morris froze the screen. "Is it over?" he asked in a slight panic. In all honesty, he could happily spend the rest of the day right here with you and the baby, and he wasn't prepared to say goodbye yet.

"Just capturing some images," she reassured him. "Baby's first picture."

"Oh my god," Bradley groaned softly, and you ran your fingers through his hair as he ducked his head against your shoulder. "That's the first picture, Baby Girl."

"The baby looks just like you, Roo," you told him with a laugh, and he kissed you until the doctor cleared her throat.

"Let's see what we can find if we zoom in a little more."

With rapt attention once again, Bradley stared at the screen. It looked like the baby was bouncing around a bit, wiggling to an unknown song. "Is that movement good?" he asked. "And what's that little flickering spot?"

"Very good," she replied. "And the flickering is the heartbeat."

"The heartbeat?" That was inexplicably what threw him over the edge as a tear managed to squeeze its way down his cheek when he blinked. "Holy shit."

He just let his head rest against your chest and basked in the feel of your fingers in his hair as you whispered, "I love you." Bradley had no idea if you were talking to him or the baby. Or maybe both. Or maybe you loved Dr. Morris, because in this moment he certainly did as she snapped more photos. Maybe you loved everything right now just like he did.

"I love you, too."

--------------------------

Bradley was falling apart as you ran your fingertips along his scarred cheek. Or perhaps he was completely keeping it together. You weren't really sure. He had some tears in his eyes even though he was smiling, and the two of you were holding onto each other.

"Do you want to listen to the heartbeat as well?" Dr. Morris asked, and the two of you responded at the same time.

"Yes!"

She laughed and adjusted the ultrasound wand inside you which was actually extremely uncomfortable, but you were starting to think Bradley would cry harder when she removed it. And then you heard it. Dr. Morris adjusted something on the control panel, and set a device on your belly, and you could hear the heartbeat.

"Why is it so fast?" Bradley asked, squeezing your hand. "That's like really fast."

Now your heartbeat was picking up, but Dr. Morris said, "One hundred and fifty two beats per minute. That's perfectly where it should be."

"Oh, okay," Bradley sighed, eyes transfixed on the monitor. "That's good then. That's a strong Bradshaw heartbeat right there. Can you take another picture? The nugget looks really cute like that."

You laughed and reached for him when she eventually shut off the equipment and removed the wand. At Bradley's request, she printed out enough copies of each image that you'd be able to give them to your parents, all of your friends and even Bradley's cousin Brenda in Virginia.

"This seems like overkill," you whispered as the printer just kept going and going.

"It's not," he promised. "I need all of them to wallpaper my locker and fill my helmet bag. Just a bunch of pictures of you and now the baby, too."

"We'll get more ultrasound photos at the next appointment. And the next one after that," you reminded him.

"Good. We'll have enough to wallpaper at home, too." Eased himself back down into the chair as you sat up a little bit while Dr. Morris cleaned up her workstation.

"When is the due date?" you asked suddenly.

"March 24th," she replied, and you and Bradley shared a smile. "Do either of you have any other questions for me?" she asked as she handed a massive stack of ultrasound photos to your husband who looked like he just won the lottery.

"When can we find out if it's a girl or a boy?" he asked, looking through the images with a crooked little grin on his face.

"In the second trimester," she assured him. "You'll make a special appointment for an anatomy scan."

You cleared your throat and said, "So... I've been really quite... I'm sure it's the hormones and everything, but I've been extremely aroused for the past few weeks." Bradley gave you a wide eyed look as you asked, "Basically, I want my husband around the clock right now, and I want to know if that's normal?"

He let out a strangled choking sound, and his cheeks started to flush pink as Dr. Morris said, "That's totally normal. Have at it."

You pressed your lips together before you quickly asked, "And rough is okay? Like pretty rough."

"Yep," she replied, completely unfazed by your words as Bradley looked like he wanted to run out of the room with his stack of baby pictures. "Anything else?"

A smile crept to your lips, one that Bradley would have probably found alarming if he were looking anywhere else except the door at the moment. "Actually, yes. I do have one more question for you, Dr. Morris. Based on the size of the baby and the date of my last period, can you tell me when you think the baby was conceived?"

"Sure," she replied, turning the monitor back on and scrolling through all of the information in your electronic file.

"You did not just ask her that," Bradley whispered, his voice deep with annoyance and maybe a little bit of desire as you grinned at him and bit your lip.

"I would say you probably conceived right around June 27th."

You squealed with delight as Bradley groaned. "Thank you so much, Dr. Morris. We'll see you again in a few weeks."

When she left the room, you hopped off the table and started to untie your gown, pausing to pump your fist in the air while Bradley held his forehead in his hand. "Okay, okay. You win," he whined as he laughed. "You win."

"I told you the baby was conceived in the Honda!"

---------------------------

Later that night, Bradley kept reminding himself that Dr. Morris said rough sex was okay. That seemed to be the only way you wanted it as you got on all fours on the bed and said, "Fuck me hard, Daddy." And Bradley was never going to be one to deny his wife anything she asked for.

Beads of sweat were rolling down his face, occasionally dripping onto your back as he leaned over you. He was panting next to your ear as he went as hard as he could, fucking you until your knees buckled and he had to hold you up. "You know, I used to have a wife who liked it sweet sometimes. I wonder what happened to her?"

"You knocked her up," you gasped as he rubbed your clit with his fingers.

Fuck, he was getting close, and your words were not helping in the least. "Come on, Baby Girl. Come for Daddy."

A few more swipes of his fingers and a little more dirty talk, and you were coming. Holy hell, you were coming hard, which was a good thing, because Bradley needed a break. You released an unholy moan as your legs gave out again, and this time, he let you sink down to the bed as he grabbed his cock in time to come all over your ass and your back.

"Roo," you gasped as he painted you up, and you met his eyes over your shoulder. "That's so fucking hot!"

"I'm glad you think so," he grunted before he sprawled out on the bed next to you on his back. "I got nothing left in the tank, Sweetheart. Do not ask me for more tonight."

You crawled over to kiss his sweaty face and whispered, "You did so good," as you patted his abs adoringly. "You're already the world's best Daddy." Then you leaned down and cleaned his cum from the head of his cock with your tongue, and Bradley moaned as you climbed out of bed. "I'm going to shower and get ready for bed."

He raised his hand in a wave or surrender, he wasn't quite sure which. Forty-five minutes of nailing you until you screamed his name was the most intense workout he'd had in weeks. He needed to hit his home gym in the garage a little harder. Maybe he could invite Jake over to lift weights with him, and then he could sneak away and take a nap while you and Jake had one of your gossip sessions. That actually sounded pretty great.

Bradley managed to get out of bed long enough to let Tramp out and brush his teeth. By that point, you were getting out of the shower and drying yourself off, humming and sighing softly.

"I know what you're trying to do," he said with his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. "And it's not gonna work."

You looked at him with one eyebrow raised as you ran the towel across your chest. "I'm sorry. What exactly am I trying to do that's not going to work?"

He spit out his toothpaste and rinsed his mouth, sending a glare at you in the mirror. "Look at your fucking tits, Sweetheart. Now you're just flaunting them."

"I'm literally just standing here."

He shook his head and kissed your forehead as he walked past. "You know what you did."

When you slipped in bed next to him, he pulled you close while you laughed softly. You were wearing nothing except for his old UVA shirt, and when you curled up next to him, he pushed you gently onto your back. Then he yanked the shirt up and shimmied under the covers so his lips were next to your tummy.

He kissed up and down your side before laying with his cheek on your hip and one hand on your belly. "Listen kid, I don't know what you're doing in there, but I need you to chill, okay? Someday soon, you'll get to see how pretty and perfect your mommy is. Yes, I think about her all day long. Yes, I love her, but I can only take so much. Your old man is an old man."

You lifted up the covers, and Bradley felt your fingers in his hair. "No, you're not."

He kissed the spot just below your belly button before returning to his pillow. "I'll be close to thirty-eight when this little nugget arrives."

"That's not old."

When you curled up on him this time, he collected you in his arms. If you were surprised by his words, you didn't let on. "My dad died when he was twenty-nine. My mom died when she was forty-two. You're a bit younger than me, not that I mind. But my age is something I think about a lot. I'm older than all my friends. I like to be prepared for things before I jump into them. I like to feel out my surroundings. Except when it comes to you, apparently."

You snuggled in a little closer, voice soft as you asked, "What do you mean?"

Bradley kissed your fingers before lacing them with his in the dark bedroom. "I was all in with you as soon as you looked at me. Zero hesitation. No turning back."

You buried your face in his chest and moaned. "You can't just talk about me like that. It makes me insane for you," came your muffled voice, and Bradley laughed.

"I guess I never had any hesitation about us having kids either. And I'm just saying... it's nice to have time to think about the baby before the baby actually gets here. But I'm also in my head a lot right now about my parents and how much more flying I've got left in me and how I don't actually know how the fuck to take care of a baby."

"Bradley!" Your voice was scolding as you propped yourself up on him. "We're a team. And I wouldn't lie to you. You're not old, and I'm pretty sure nobody actually knows how to take care of a baby until they have one in front of them. Then you just kind of do it, I guess. The fact that you are so excited about this pregnancy is at least half of what's turning me on so much. You will be the best dad imaginable, because you love me so well, and I don't doubt you have more of that to give."

He was exhausted, and your words settled over him like something he could physically feel. "I really am so excited. Today felt like a dream. I just want to cover the whole house in the ultrasound photos, and I can't wait to get another smaller paper airplane tattoo."

He felt your fingers trace his tattoo in the darkness. You knew exactly where it was without guidance just like he knew exactly where yours was. "You'll get it right here? With the baby's name on it?"

"Yeah," he whispered, starting to feel like he was going to doze off.

"I have a question," you said, and he squeezed your hand softly. "Earlier you asked when we can find out if it's a boy or a girl."

He smiled at the hesitation in your voice. "What's your question?"

Bradley could feel your heartbeat against his body, and he thought about how he had been able to see and hear what the baby was doing just a few hours ago. The beautiful sound of that rapid heartbeat that belonged to his child.

"Do you care? If it's a boy or a girl?"

"No," he answered honestly. "Not one bit. I just care that it's ours."

"Me too. I'm happy either way." Your words sounded soft and dreamy, and he believed them.

"I love you both. Now let the old man sleep."

--------------------------

The rest of the week felt like a bit of a reality check. You tried taking the prenatal vitamins from Dr. Morris, but you threw them back up almost instantly every single time. "Just skip them," Bradley said on Friday morning as you threw up in the toilet when you were trying to get dressed for work.

"I can't," you practically wailed. "They are supposed to keep me healthy so I can keep the baby healthy." You looked up at him from where you were sitting on the floor.

He sighed and checked the time. "Why don't you just stay home today? You're looking pretty green, and it's Friday anyway. Text Bickel."

Anger flared inside you. He was standing there looking nice and tidy in his khakis while you were on the floor turning yours into a wrinkly mess. And the reason for that was the fact that you had to deal with all of this shit. He just got to enjoy your libido while being excited about the baby. You really didn't want to start resenting him right now when you were leaving for Maryland soon.

"I can't just skip work on a whim like what I'm doing isn't important," you snapped. "I'm trying to get my presentation ready for Annapolis, in case you forgot you offered to help me with that."

He was on his knees in an instant with your chin in his hand. "Hey, that's not what I meant. I just don't want you overexerting yourself, especially since your work is important and you'll be traveling soon."

You still felt bitchy, even though he made you peanut butter crackers and took Tramp for a walk while you stayed curled up in bed for an extra twenty minutes. "That's right. I'll be gone for a week. I'm sure you're looking forward to having a break from the near constant sex."

You used the vanity to pull yourself to your feet while your stomach lurched, even though he was holding his hand out to help you. "Look at me," he demanded without touching you at all. You didn't want to, but you shifted your gaze to his face as he stood too. "If you really think that's true, then we have a serious problem. I'm going to assume that you feel the need to take your nausea out on me, and that's fine. I don't really mind. That's what I'm here for. But do not accuse me of ever wanting to be separated from you."

You pressed your lips together and just nodded as he leaned down to kiss your cheek. You didn't want to be away from him either, but you felt another wave of sickness rolling through your body.

"I need to go, Sweetheart. I'll stop and get you some of those ginger pills on my way home. Maybe they'll help. I love you."

After he left, you threw up again and fought the urge to throw the bottle of prenatal vitamins across the bathroom. Even now you were horny enough that you considered climbing back in bed with your vibrator to take the edge off, but you knew nothing would be as good as the real thing. And you'd have to apologize to Bradley before you could have that, and it would undoubtedly make you cry when you did.

When you finally made your way back out to the kitchen, you found more peanut butter crackers arranged on a plate in the shape of a heart with one of the ultrasound photos next to it. Tears welled up in your eyes, and you tried to call your husband, but it went to voicemail. You listened to his raspy voice before ending the call and texting him instead.

I'm sorry. If you want Marry Me Rooster for dinner, pick up some chicken along with the ginger pills.

After you tucked the ultrasound picture in the new Bronco, you spent your whole morning sitting quietly with Cat, the two of you going over each presentation slide with a fine tooth comb. "Is that calculation correct?" she asked, pulling out a calculator.

"It fucking better be. I did it myself. Months ago."

She looked at you with wide eyes. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," you lied, anxious that Bradley hadn't responded to your text. Two days ago, you were having the absolute time of your life with Dr. Morris, and now you wanted to scream. "Can we just finish this?" you said through gritted teeth as Cat checked your math which was obviously done correctly.

"That's what we're working on," she said smoothly, using her mom voice on you and making your nerves prickle. "Finishing the slides so we can spend next week practicing and getting our notes in order for all of these meetings and cocktail receptions."

The last thing you wanted to do right now was pretend you were drinking alcohol while trying not to vomit. Nothing about this trip to Annapolis seemed appealing. And you didn't want to have to try to hide your pregnancy from your parents if you drove to see them one night.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Cat asked, and you had to steel your spine as you nodded.

"I'm perfect." There was no point in making her mad at you when the two of you would be in close quarters for several days, so you rolled your shoulders and got back to work.

-----------------------------

Asking Jake if he wanted to workout actually wasn't the best idea Bradley had come up with recently. It would be nice to have someone to spot for him at the weight bench, but if you were making his favorite dinner, he'd rather spend the time with you.

"Fuck," he groaned as Jake followed him to the grocery store on his way home. Apparently he needed protein powder and didn't mind that Bradley had to stop for chicken. Of course now he had to try to discreetly grab the ginger pills that you wanted to try for your nausea.

It ended up being easier than he thought since Jake took fifteen minutes to decide which flavor of protein powder he wanted. He was still looking at them when Bradley went back to that aisle. "Are you almost done?"

Jake shot him a nasty look from where he was squatting at the bottom shelf. "Listen, it would go faster if I didn't get hit on constantly when I'm wearing my uniform."

Bradley rolled his eyes so hard, he was afraid he'd get a migraine. "Keep it in your fucking pants. I'll meet you at my house."

Jake grabbed a container and followed him to the registers. When they passed a hot sauce display, he grabbed one and handed it to Bradley. "Get this for Angel, and maybe you'll get laid. Sounds like you need it."

"It's literally the last thing I need," he mumbled, but paid for it anyway along with the ginger and the chicken. When Bradley slid his credit card back in his wallet, he saw the corner of the ultrasound image he had tucked in there last night. He unfolded it and took a peek as Jake paid for his powder. You were everything. And the baby was everything. And he should have been a little more patient with you this morning.

"You coming?" Jake asked, and Bradley shoved the nugget photo back inside his wallet before slipping it into his pocket.

You were already home, and Bradley parked the blue Bronco next to the red one. Jake came careening into the driveway, stopping about two inches from the back of the new Bronco. "Show her a little respect, okay?"

Jake snorted as he climbed out. "You literally fucked the other car to bits. I didn't do shit."

Bradley groaned as he walked inside with Jake on his heels. The first thing he saw was you in the kitchen, feeding Tramp a treat. You had on some skin tight yoga pants and a little shirt without a bra, and you turned to him and said, "Can we talk?" He opened his mouth to tell you that you could have any damn thing you wanted, and then you said, "Hi, Jake," with a look of surprise on your face. "I didn't know you were coming over."

"Hey, Angel," Jake crooned, walking into the kitchen and pulling you in for a tight hug. Shit, Bradley forgot to text you and let you know he wasn't going to be alone. "Didn't see you at lunch today."

"I worked through lunch," you replied, your eyes on Bradley. "Are you staying for dinner?"

"Nah, just going to lift weights out in the garage with Rooster for a bit. I'll be out of your hair after that."

"You can stay if you want," you told him, but he was already heading toward the hallway bathroom with his gym bag. "Why didn't you tell me he was coming over?" you whispered. "I'm not even wearing underwear, and you left one of the ultrasound photos on the fridge."

Bradley quickly pulled it down and stuck it in the freezer on his way to get to you. "I'm sorry. I meant to text you, but then I got in the Bronco and forgot." Tears welled up in your eyes; he should be used to this by now, but he was not. "If you're horny, I'll take care of you as soon as Jake leaves."

You scoffed at him. "It's not that. I don't just want that. I wanted to talk. You're not just a gigantic, walking dick to me."

Jake cleared his throat, and you and Bradley both turned to see him standing there in his gym clothes. "I'll meet you out in the garage," he said with a smirk. "Take your time."

"I'll just be a minute," Bradley called over his shoulder, but you'd already started to open the chicken he set on the counter. "Do you want to talk now?"

"No." Great. You were giving him one word answers now.

"Would you like me to get changed and get out of your hair?"

"Yes."

---------------------------

As soon as Bradley walked through the sliding glass door and headed for the garage, you broke out in tears. What the fuck was your problem? You didn't mind if Jake was here or if he stayed for dinner. You didn't want to completely discourage Bradley from hanging up the nugget photo. You just couldn't control your emotions, and you had zero patience today. And you couldn't stop running to the bathroom to pee.

You decided to fill up some travel mugs with water and take them out to the guys to smooth things over. Tramp ran around in the grass as you walked across the yard, and you could already hear the two of them talking over their playlist as you approached the doorway.

"Is Angel's ass bigger now?" Jake asked, pointing to the dirty calendar that Bradley hung on the wall and strategically covered part of with a post-it note.

Your husband shook his head. "Stop staring at my calendar," he replied as he added weight to one side of the bar. "And stop talking about my wife's ass."

"She's in a feisty mood today. You probably didn't even need that hot sauce to get laid, old man." Based on Jake's response, you were pretty sure neither of them had seen you in the doorway yet as you stood there awkwardly.

Bradley's brow creased. "She's been a real handful, actually."

Jake hooted with laughter. "In the bedroom? Never mind, I don't want to know."

It took Bradley a few seconds to respond. "Can we talk about anything else other than my wife? Please? Literally any other topic would be great."

You turned on your heel and carried the waters back toward the house as soon as you heard Jake say, "Speaking of asses, you know who has a great one..."

They were out there for a full hour. You made what turned out to be perhaps the most incredible looking batch of Marry Me Rooster of your life while you stewed. Even your husband was already sick of you. Soon you'd gain so much pregnancy weight, your ass would probably be enormous. He'd probably have to close his eyes just to have sex with you.

You froze as you were putting the chicken onto a plate. What if he couldn't stand the sight of you with a belly at all? All stretched out and weird? Bradley had probably glorified it in his mind, but you knew it wasn't going to be all that appealing when you were nine months along in the middle of March with stretch marks galore. You were already bloated enough that Jake noticed.

You were turning and looking down at your body when they both came walking back inside, out of breath. "Smells good in here. Are these for us?" Bradley asked, pointing at the waters on the island.

"Yes," you whispered, afraid to meet his eyes. As soon as you heard his voice, you were horny again, but you didn't want to keep forcing him to have sex with you just because you couldn't help yourself.

Jake kissed you on the cheek, and when you told him he was welcome to stay for dinner, he said, "I'll take a raincheck. See you for golf on Sunday, Rooster," and headed out to his car.

"Do you think you can eat dinner?" Bradley asked you softly. When you turned away from him and nodded, he said, "You didn't have to wait for me if you were hungry. Do you want me to shower first?"

You burst into tears once again. "I don't know if I'm hungry. I don't ever know. Sometimes I just grow up. And I can't stop fucking crying! And I don't want you to be so sick of me that you'd rather talk about literally anything else with Jake, including someone else's ass."

"Whoa, whoa," he said quietly, spinning you around again. "I don't want to talk about anything else besides you, Sweetheart."

You shook your head and covered your eyes with your hands. "I tried to bring the waters outside. I heard you."

When you were pulled snug against his sweaty shirt, you felt slightly better. "Baby Girl. I was not about to get into a conversation with Jake about how I can barely keep up with you in bed. In order to keep my pride intact, I would at least want him to know you're pregnant if I'm admitting that you're wearing me out." He kissed the top of your head over and over.

"It feels like you're getting sick of me," you sobbed softly. "And you brought me hot sauce even though I can't eat it right now, and that made me so sad."

"I couldn't be less sick of you if I tried. I just needed to keep Jake off my back rather than let slip that you're pregnant, so I got the hot sauce. And it's completely my fault I forgot to tell you he was coming over, but I had a lot on my mind today."

"Like what?" you asked, inhaling how delicious he smelled even compared to the dinner you made.

"Like possible baby names and the look and feel of your pussy when I fuck you. Do you need me right now? Because I'm ready to go when you want me."

"So badly," you squeaked. "I'm sorry, Roo."

"Don't ever apologize again for wanting to have sex with me. I will be the one to apologize if I don't last as long as you need me to."

You nodded against him. "Well then I'll apologize for having a bad attitude."

"Do you need me to fuck the attitude out of you?"

"Yes, sir."

-------------------------------

Imagine how excited he'll be holding that baby in his beefy arms. Just stay calm, sweet Roo. The hormones won't last forever. Up next, we're going to Annapolis. Thanks @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 31

@hotch-meeeeeuppppp

@chassy21

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ghilliedubh · 3 months

Text

Vrinda: The Ivy Queen

Exploring the connections between the Norse goddess Rindr/Vrinda and ivy folklore

I am writing this with my mind swathed in a dark emerald green. Last Yule night I drew the rune Gebo, the Ivy card from my Ogham deck and the Queen of Swords. This painted an interesting picture in my head, of a green lady wandering amongst ivy-clad ruins. I dived into ivy folklore and mythology, researching who this might be. I visited Hebe, the Maenads and the various Green Ladies of Britain, but one particular solemn figure was sitting and waiting for me.

Very little is known of the Goddess Rindr and her name’s origin is obscure, but it is thought to be connected to a Gotlandic word for ivy, rind. A variation of her name, Vrindr, Wrinda or Vrinda (the name I prefer), can possibly be found in the Ostergotland place name Vrinnevi, the meaning of which would in that case be Vrindar-Vé (Vrindr’s Shrine). Oscar Lundberg proposed that she was therefore a fertility goddess represented by ivy or perhaps even made of it. The theory of her being connected to Vrinnevi has been debated, and some argue that the place name simply means “Ivy forest”. Even so, the similarity between the name Rindr and the word rind is hard to ignore and I strongly feel that she is represented by ivy as Lundberg suggests. Previously I had only known her as some kind of winter goddess and as the unwilling bearer of Óðinn’s son, Váli. This connection to the ivy plant opened up a whole new dimension of her.

I want to start by criticizing Patricia Telesco’s interpretation of Vrinda being a goddess of accepting uncomfortable changes. That just as winter yields to spring, so does Vrinda yield to the advances of Óðinn and become warm and fertile. Whether or not Vrinda’s myth is a metaphor for the changing of seasons, I find it appalling that someone would look at a story about sexual assault and draw from it the lesson that one should not fight “positive change”. Change can be good, but that attitude in this context is disgusting and disrespectful to all that have had to go through such a horrible experience. Now, moving on…

First there is the madness. The maenads were wild, ecstatic worshipers of Dionysus who wore ivy. Often willing participants of the frenzy, but sometimes forced. In Gesta Danorum the tale is told of how Óðinn, when thrice rejected by Vrinda, uses magic to drive her mad and then ill. Disguised as a medicine woman called Wecha, Óðinn tells her father that he can cure her but it would cause a violent reaction. Vrinda is tied to her bed and Óðinn proceeds to commit one of his ugliest crimes. I connect these two instances of forced madness with certain properties of the ivy; ingesting the leaves can cause delirium, convulsions and even hallucinations. Surprisingly, wearing crowns of ivy was believed to prevent drunkenness. To me, all of the above makes Vrinda a goddess of madness, but as a sufferer. We who may have bouts of bad mental health may find comfort in her.

Next I want to talk about the Green Ladies of Britain, specifically the melancholy yet usually benevolent ghosts that haunt castles. The Green Ladies are dead but are still kind, often protecting living residents of their haunts. The Green Lady of Huntingtower Castle in Perthshire (known as Lady Greensleeves) is said to have healed a young boy who lived in a house on the estate. Ivy was also seen as a protective plant in Britain.This protective element also be a domain of Vrinda, John McKinnell writes about a kenning for a warrior in the saga of Guðmundur Arason, serkja Rindar Sannr. Sannr is a name of Óðinn meaning “truth”, Rindar serkur would be “Rindur’s serk”. According to McKinnell this hints that she may have been able to enchant clothing to work as a protective charm. But back to the Green Ladies. Most of them are thought to be the ghosts of particular women of noble lineage that lived in the castles and were usually killed in horrible ways. The Green Lady of Caerphilly Castle is the ghost of Alice de la Marche of France who died of shock when she learned of her husband’s men killing her lover. I mention her specifically because of her ability to blend into the ivy that grows on the castle walls. The ivy in this story feels like a very appropriate symbol and I feel it could be extended to the rest of the Green Ladies. Ivy clings to ruins, it clings to trees long after they die. I want to quote the first stanza of Henry Kendall’s The Ivy on the Wall:

The verdant ivy clings around

Yon moss be-mantled wall,

As if it sought to hide the stones,

That crumbling soon must fall:

That relic of a bygone age

Now tottering to decay,

Has but one friend—the ivy—left.

The rest have passed away.

I believe this sentiment lives with Vrinda. In this aspect, she is a goddess of mourning and trauma, of yearning for the irretrievable past. But at the same time she is a goddess of protection and overcoming hardships and devastation. As ivy holds together and decorates the weathered stones of an old castle, so too can Vrinda help hold together our broken hearts and shattered selves.

Then there is winter. I have read many articles and blogs online written by pagans associating Vrinda with winter and almost nothing else. I never actually saw mentioned any concrete reason for it, but now that I have become aware of her ivy realm it has become obvious. Most people are familiar with the carol The Holly and the Ivy. Both plants are evergreen and are part of a family of yule plants alongside mistletoe and yew. Ivy and Holly historically represented the feminine vs masculine, in parts of England there are still dances between the Holly boy and the Ivy girl. It was supposedly custom once for men and women to light-heartedly taunt each other through song. Sadly it seems mostly the songs praising Holly have been preserved, an example is the following verse:

Nay, Ivy, nay; it shall not be i-wys ;

Let Holly hafe the maystery, as the manner is.

Holly stond in the Halle fayre to behold;

Ivy stond without the dore; she is full sore acold.

Holly and his merry men they dancyn and they sing.

Ivy and hur maidens they wepyn and they wryng.

(Ballad from the time of Henry VI)

In a more positive light, holly and ivy feature in a poem by Henry VIII called Green Groweth the Holly. Here ivy's steadfast color throughout winter symbolizes fidelity. It is a charming poem if a bit ironic, since Henry himself wasn’t exactly a paragon of fidelity. I’ll let you read the third and fourth verse:

As the holly groweth green

With ivy all alone

When flowers cannot be seen

And greenwood leaves be gone,

Now unto my lady

Promise to her I make,

From all other only

To her I me betake.

It is not strange that Henry made this connection. In the language of flowers ivy represents fidelity, wedded love and friendship. Ancient Greek brides would carry ivy as a symbol of undying love and sprigs of it are often found in wedding bouquets today. I think ivy being an evergreen as well as it’s ability to cling tightly are good reasons for it being a symbol for faithful love. We also see generosity and kindness as ivy provides berries for birds in winter. These aspects all together give me the feeling that, yes, Vrinda is a winter goddess. However, I feel she is more a goddess of persevering winter, rather than a goddess of the frost and cold itself. She stays living, green and fruitful when other plants lie dead. Her love persists through hardships. Winter or summer, it holds on.

Just before I conclude I’d like to touch upon animal associations. There is not a lot to work with, but the color and winding tendencies of ivy invoke the spirit of a serpent. Perhaps an adder, with its ivy-like pattern and ability to hibernate. The adder, like the ivy, is also toxic. The maenads wore serpents as well as ivy so it's not entirely far-fetched to see snakes as a favorite of Vrinda, but I’m not sure how well it fits. Perhaps the wren, a bird often seen darting through ivy bushes and has connections to winter. The word “wren” is of obscure origin but the words wren, rind (the Gotland word for ivy) and rindill (the Icelandic word for wren) sound curiously similar to Wrinda and Rindur.

Then there are owls. In Britain ivy has a special relationship with the tawny owl, which is sometimes even called an ivy-owl. Most people are familiar with owls being traditionally associated with death, but it may surprise some that ivy is so as well. This seems contradictory to it’s tolerance of winter, the death of the year, but this association likely stems again from fidelity as well as ivy’s tendency to grow over tombstones. Ivy was also a frequent motif on headstones and there it likely represents immortality and eternal life. Both snakes and owls are carved on headstones too. Ivy was also used to foretell death.

This association with death ties well in with the aforementioned Green Ladies. Owls and ivy are paired together in the idiom “like an owl in an ivy-bush”, which is used to describe a person with a vacant stare (usually due to drunkenness) or in some cases those with a frightened and dishevelled appearance. I almost forgot to mention that tawny owls usually mate for life, fidelity again. Finally, the carol I mentioned earlier has a couple of verses mentioning owls:

Ivy hath berries black as any sloe;

There come the owl and eat him as she go

…

Good ivy, what birds hast thou?

None but the owlet that cries how, how.

That brings us to the end. It’s quite bold of me, I know, to just give Vrinda all these associations purely based on ivy folklore and mythology. However, I feel so uncomfortable just leaving her bound to that one, grisly story of her impregnation. It’s unfair. I really do feel she may have shown herself to me that Yule night, or at least an aspect of herself, and I’d rather she lived in my mind as a lush and complex entity. Maybe I am getting lost in a thick forest of wishful thinking but maybe, like the Green Lady of Caerphilly Castle, she has indeed been hiding in the ivy.

Vrinda the broken, Vrinda the crazed,

Vrinda the wanderer of ruins and graves.

Vrinda the devoted, Vrinda the evergeen.

Vrinda the beautiful, unwavering Ivy Queen

Hrafnsunna Ross

Sources and further reading:

On English ivy folklore and mythology:

http://khkeeler.blogspot.com/2021/10/plant-story-folklore-of-english-ivy.html

https://interestingliterature.com/2021/05/ivy-symbolism-in-literature-religion-mythology-analysis-meaning/

https://from-bedroom-to-study.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-hedonistic-history-of-interesting.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR3kerXYa_Nud94rzbCuhPlv-qH8Dah2R2jibqFLPYV4d8GmGTP87GJgVBQ

https://books.google.is/books?id=eOvyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=ivy+drunkenness+folklore&source=bl&ots=n3L6TNUO9e&sig=ACfU3U1PGGIezufv-sZbxklBhjBdNuqwKw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjDi6SxgYT1AhWTEMAKHcEyBN4Q6AF6BAg0EAM#v=onepage&q=iv

y%20drunkenness%20folklore&f=false

https://speakingofwitchwands.net/2017/11/16/the-magick-of-ivy/

https://www.woodland-ways.co.uk/blog/hedgerow-medicines/ivy/

Properties of English ivy:

https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/hedera-helix/

On Maenads:

https://www.thecollector.com/maenads-women-bacchus/ On Green Ladies: https://www.spookyisles.com/scottish-green-lady-stories/

Wedding flower customs:

https://www.theknot.com/content/wedding-flowers-customs-traditions

Wren:

https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=rindill

https://www.bardsinthewoods.com/2012/12/the-wren-wren.html

Tawny Owl:

https://www.peakdistrictonline.co.uk/birds-of-prey-the-tawny-owl/

Evidence pointing to Rindr being a worker of protective magic:

https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.138/16i.962.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/John_McKinnell_Meeting_the_Other_in_Norse_Myth_ab-ok.cc.pdf

https://norse.ulver.com/src/biskup/gudmunda/index.html

Gesta Danorum book 3, where the story of her assault is written:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1150/1150-h/1150-h.htm

Possible etymology of her name:

https://books.google.is/books?id=DtcMCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA160&lpg=PA160&dq=scandinavia+ivy+goddess&source=bl&ots=GMILPvloOP&sig=ACfU3U3EX9SDhIxFUwiTT_sNHFbMbxOlng&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjv-_fXvYP1AhUwQEEAHdY1D9cQ6AF6BAgfEAM#v=onepage&q=scandinavia%20ivy%20goddess&f=false

Headstone symbolism:

https://headstonesymbols.co.uk/

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alwayschasingrainbows · 5 months

Text

Part 2 of Dean Priest's headcanons (written in a great hope he shall be forgiven): *Please, read the first part before reading this*

He likes talking to Emily about books and giving her advice on her writing - until he realizes she's, in fact, talented. And he starts hating her talent. It means he will not be able to keep her - she'll be out of his grasp.

He hates Teddy Kent, because he has everything Dean doesn't. "But," Dean thinks, watching Mrs. Kent - "Not a mother like mine".

He is overwhelmed with a vindictive joy when he watches as Teddy Kent shakes Emily's hand in the most polite fashion. He smiles at the boy (Dean's smile is just as cynical as his laughter) and his and Teddy's eyes lock, for a moment. "I won", Dean seems to say, and, for a second, there is a spark of anger in Teddy's face. But that boy turns and leaves, not once looking back. "He doesn't want to give me a satisfaction", Dean thinks and his smile widens. Emily's eyes are closed, so she doesn't notice his expression. Dean never mistakes gaiety for happiness.

There are times Dean hates himself for lying to Emily. He comforts her, that winter she is ill. He's gentle, compassionate, understanding. Deep inside, beneath the fear, hopelessness and guilt, lies a sense of being needed. He remembers his mother. You are enough. Oh, but is he? He clings to the memory, as he holds Emily's pale, thin hand.

Their summer of happiness is the most beautiful period of his life. He can't believe his luck. He buys the house Emily loves, because he wants to make her happy. And undo... what he said. "But," he tells himself, "she'll be fine." He buys her a writing desk and tries to fight down the fear, when she looks at this indifferently.

He begins to love the house, too. A home. He and Emily are going to buid a home of their own. A happy home, where there are no fights, no resentments, no hatred. This house is disappointed - like Dean was - and it wants it to live. He wants to live. Somehow, the house become Dean - they're one. Waiting. Hoping.

He hungs his mother's picture on the wall. When Emily asks, why his mother looks so sad, he remembers the time she had cried, with her head on his childish pillow. Because she married a Priest. Right then, he vows to himself that Emily will never cry, if he is able to prevent it.

He almost kisses Emily. Later, he wonders what might have happened if he succeeded. But, as with Douglas, he'll never find out.

There is a short period of time his laughter loses the cynical ring. But when Emily tells him she can't marry him, Dean thinks that his laughter has never sounded less human-like.

He tells Emily the truth, for he can't live a lie. He doesn't believe when she says she forgives him. Disappointed House is disappointed again - just like he is. Houses, as people, cannot escape their fate.

Again, he's back to travelling. Back to escaping. He will never hear Emily say she's going to miss him. It doesn't matter, he tells himself. He doesn't even pretend to believe it.

He loves The Moral of The Rose. He rereads it every time he feels depressed - so, of course, he knows it by heart very soon. I am glad I didn't kill her dreams. Somehow, this thought makes him hate himself a little more, because it is only because of her these ambitions are alive.

He feels an odd sense of gaiety, somehow, when he hears about Teddy and Ilse. "He'll never win, now. He will never have Emily. None of us won." Buthe feels tired... old... and certainly not enough.

It doesn't even hurt when he learns about Emily's engagement. There is an odd sense of relief - he no longer has to dread the day he is going to find out.

He gives Emily the house, because he doesn't have a use for it, anyway. It deserves to live, to be loved - it deserves to be a home. He hopes this Kent boy is going to be good to her. He hopes he'll give her all the love Dean wanted to give. He hopes that Kent will make her shine. Dean couldn't make her shine - he'd almost killed her light. Perhaps he's too broken to fix. "You are enough" his once mother said. Perhaps it was only a dream, but he clings to this thought. It is all he has.

#emily of new moon #dean priest #dean priest headcanons #part 2 #l m montgomery

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scullysexual · 1 year

Text

Emily lived au and is now an FBI agent lol.

I've had this idea in my head a while now and just got the urge to write it. Perhaps in the future there'll be more to this (since I really should not be starting ANOTHER multi-chapter) but depending on how well this is received, I may or may not write another chapter- idk yet. Anyway the premise is: What if Emily survived, became an FBI agent and began to investigate the X-Files in this year of 2022/23? That's pretty much it.

Also, thank you X-Files archive book for essentially being Mulder/Emily's case files for this fic. I will be depending you on heavily in the future.

This is definitely more Emily as the main character fic and m/s and msr in general is just in the background but m/s will definitely be making their appearances here and there- the xfiles are theirs after all.

Also, idk how the FBI works and I didn't do any research before writing this so I probably got tons wrong. I'm sorry

@today-in-fic

The gravel crunches beneath the wheels, signalling her arrival before she even got to the front door. In front of her, she spies a shift in the blind and the brief appearance of a face before it disappears and the blind shifts back to its original position. She was always so good at showing up unannounced.

Emily exits her rental, not bothering to lock the doors (benefits to living in the middle of nowhere) and climbs up the creaky porch steps. She doesn’t even need to knock. She listens to the familiar sound of a thousand locks be unlocked, a wisp of a smile gracing her lips at the memory of coming home from school in winter and having to wait what felt like hours in the freezing cold just to be let in, with November’s chill in the air she could almost be twelve years old again right now.

Eventually the door is unlocked and open wide, revealing Mulder, her father, in the doorway.

“Welcome home, Special Agent Sim,” he says.

A blush spreads across her cheeks and she turns her head down. The title still sounded brand new, like it should belong to somebody else, not little old ill her.

“I guess I never did thank you for fudging the medical records, did I?”

“They’re irrelevant,” Mulder says. “But I knew they wouldn’t accept you into the academy if they saw them so…” he shrugs the rest of the sentence away. “What brings you all the way here anyway?” He moves out of the way, allowing her entry.

She tries not to let the question sting. It’s just a question after all but since moving to DC finding time to come back to her childhood home just didn’t seem available, even phone calls had come few and far between. She told herself it was fine when Will was still home fulltime, perhaps her presence wasn’t missed as much but once her brother moved away to college she should have made more of an effort.

Stepping through to the living room, Emily sits down on the couch, followed shortly by Mulder.

“I have a question actually,” she says once he’s seated. “Before you left the FBI, did you bring any files home with you?”

A darkened look crosses his face. “What kind of files?”

“Just…files.” Her hands move to her lap, fingers fidgeting with each other. “Old files. Unsolved…cases.”

Mulder sighs. “You mean the X-Files.”

She knows her excited look betrays everything.

“Can I ask why you’re asking about them?”

“Curiosity?” Emily sighs. “I overheard people in work talking about them. There’s a rumour they might assign someone to them and if I could have the background on some past cases, see your methods, then I might be able to snag myself the job.”

Mulder stares at you. “This is the job you want?”

Truthfully, no, but her observation skills had been on point since she was a child. Hiding in shadows where nobody would think to look, Emily would observe and listen to what was being said. How many nights did she creep downstairs and overhear conversations between her parents about the X-Files? Knew how much they meant to Mulder, and to fall into the hands of somebody who didn’t care, files and cases that meant nothing to them, Emily couldn’t bear the thought while she was right there. These files, this department, it was almost like a birth right, she had to be the one to man them.

There was another reason too, a personal one. Her name was in one of those files. EMILY SIM. The little girl who bled toxic green blood, who was poked and prodded at, whose cyst scar sits at the back of her neck, hidden from all eyes. There was so much she didn’t know about herself, so much Mulder and her mother kept secret. These files could hold those answers if she looked hard enough.

She doesn’t say all that to Mulder, however. Not once had she brought any of this up before, perhaps waiting for them to tell her instead. They never did. Instead they fudged medical records and told her to stay safe, do not bleed that green blood.

“It’s only right, isn’t it?” she says. “For me to do it and not let someone who doesn’t care or has a totally different agenda investigate them?”

She watches Mulder think it over. Emily knew in his spare time he still looked into X-Files-esque cases but he was no longer a special agent with unique access, those he knew that had that access where all gone, it was just him and Scully with Mulder trying to do what he could from a computer with a dodgy internet connection. But then there was her- Emily- the key to unlock those doors.

“Follow me,” he says, standing.

She does so, venturing into his office. She lingers near the desk whilst Mulder heads over to the filing cabinet. She spies all his alien paraphernalia that clutters the space and smiles. This room was a museum of Mulder’s life, for all the stories it held, and for that reason it was her favourite room in the house.

On the wall she spies the poster. She wanders over to it. It was the same one that had sat in the basement years ago- Yes, she knew about that basement office of course- and now had found its home here. I want to believe stares back at her and she wonders if he does believe now.

“Here they are,” Mulder says, calling her attention back to him. She walks over to where he stands, one of the drawers open, files filing it completely.

Breath caught, Emily stares down at them. One file and all her questions could be answered. Her stomach twists uncomfortably at the thought. Maybe they kept it a secret for a reason, perhaps she didn’t really want to know.

“Not every file is in here,” he tells her and Emily nods. “Those that are were either saved from the fire or recreated by me or someone else. There’s also a lot of missing evidence or it’s been redacted and maybe there just useless but it’s all I have, all anyone has ever been able to find. Hopefully you can gauge something from them.”

She nods again and Mulder begins taking them out, piling them onto her outstretched hands. They did good, Emily thinks all down at the growing pile. There was more than enough here.

“And another thing.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t tell your mother you have these. She’ll kill me.”

There’s a smile on his face so she smiles as well.

“She hasn’t killed you yet.”

“True. But she would if she knew I was putting you in any danger.”

Emily frowns at that, memories of Dana making sure she was always safe and careful appear before her. It was like you were fragile, like you could be broken at any second. You didn’t want that anymore and in your own act of rebellion you chose the riskiest job you could think of, ticked field agent on your application, was handed a gun and chased bad guys for a living, one wrong move and out that toxic green blood would spill.

“I’m a big girl now,” she says, no hint of a smile or joke. Mulder looks at you with sadness that sends the guilt right down to her stomach.

She coughs, attempting to lift the dour atmosphere that’s entered the room.

“Where is Mom anyway? Working?”

“Yeah,” says Mulder, surprised at the sudden change in topic. “She’ll be home soon.”

“You should tell her to retire. I’m sure there’s somebody else around who wants to change kid’s lives.”

Mulder shrugs. “I keeps her busy.”

She makes a noise in agreement, clutching the files, ready to go. She got what she came for and even said hello to a parent, more than enough for the next year, if she remembers to ring in the next six months she can pat herself on the back and say well done.

“Emily,” Mulder calls and it stops her in her tracks. “You should stay tonight. You’ve come all this way and Scully would love to see you again.”

She barged back into their lives without so much a word, one thing on her mind, and was about to up and leave again thinking she’d done her bit, the least she could do is eat some dinner and stay for one night.

“Yeah, I will.”

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

The red files stare up at her, tempting her to open one, to uncover their secrets. She told herself to wait until she was in the comfort of her own house, but there pull is strong, just a little peak—

“There you are.”

Her hand snatches back from the file quicker than it approached it. Emily spins, coming face to face with her mother in the doorway, and shuffles slightly to shield the files with her body.

“You don’t need to hide them,” Scully says, she eyes the spot where the files lay hidden behind Emily’s body, like she can see straight through her daughter and to the contraband on the bed. “Mulder told me, I knew there was something he wanted to say.”

Emily relaxes, shifting to the side to reveal the files. Sadness passes across Scully’s face at the sight of them.

“Why Emily?”

Emily plops down onto the bed, worrying one of the edges of the files.

“Because it’s the right thing to do. If they’re really reopening them then it should be me who does it.”

Scully enters the room, picking up one of the files.

“Have you opened it yet?”

Emily shakes her head.

“You’re worried you’ll find your name in there?”

“Will I?”

Scully sighs, placing the file back down. “You’re file was lost.”

“In the fire?”

“Long before that. I tried to find it one day and it wasn’t in the cabinet anymore. Mulder doesn’t know what happened to it…Not that you need your file…”

Emily waits. She stopped getting her hopes up that her mother would reveal answers to her long ago. Now she just waits, never hoping, just waiting.

“Do you have a partner?”

No answers from Dana Scully tonight it seems.

“Do I need one?”

Scully nods. “It’s better to. This work can be…lonely. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone to be alone with.”

Emily nods. “I’ll find someone.”

“How long are you staying for?”

“One night,” Emily answers. “I really do need to get back.”

It’s Scully’s turn to nod then.

“You should visit more. It’s quiet here now that William’s gone to college and Mulder could do with the company.”

“Yeah,” Emily answers, an idea striking her. “I think I will visit more.”

“Good. We’ll call you when it’s time for dinner, okay.”

Emily smiles. She really could be twelve years old all over again.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

She watches Scully leave and once out of sight, picks up one of the files. It can’t wait until she gets home. Tonight she’ll read each one of them, as carefully and critically as she can. This department is hers.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Snuggled up in her old childhood bed, the bedside lamp casting the room in an orange glow, the wind howling through the trees outside, the files sit, unmoved, on the bed, a messy pile. Emily picks the first one up at random.

X129202 08/08/93.

TOOMS, Eugene Victor.

This case Emily knew of already. It was told to her as a bed time story of sorts when she was younger, the image of Tooms stretching his way down a chimney, like some fucked up Santa Claus, would stay with her forever. Some of the earlier cases were told to her as stories but her mother soon put a stop to them when Emily had become the unwelcomed member in her bed at night.

She was about to turn the page, to read the less redacted version of this story when she is submerged into darkness. She’d almost forgotten about this house and it’s power cuts always at the worst time.

An old habit, Emily roots through the top drawer in her bedside table in search of the candles that resided in her. Picking one out, she roots through her jean pockets on the floor for her lighter. In a quick, practiced motion, the candle is lit and placed beside the lamp. It was a poor substitute to the much brighter lamp but what was one to do? Satisfied, Emily picks up the file again, glancing over the front page. A shiver runs through her.

“It’s fine,” she says to herself. “Reading creepy old case files by candlelight. Completely normal.”

She turns the page. With the exception of a couple of names having been redacted, it’s mostly readable. Emily quickly reads through it, an echo of her mother’s voice sounding inside her head as she does so. She turns to the next page, the lifeless, soulless stare of Eugene Victor Tooms’ mugshot stares back at her. Another shiver as she curses poor light and bad 90s camera quality, she quickly passes over to the page next to it- Tooms’ lie detector test, on and on until she reaches the next Tooms’ file, the one that documents his demise. Good, Emily thinks, tossing it aside and picking up the next.

Halfway through reading the Peacock file does something hit the window startling Emily out of reading with a jump. She closes the file with a bit more force than necessary and puts it on the floor with the rest of them. She’ll read the rest in the morning. In daylight. With the sounds of her father pottering away downstairs and not the creaks and bangs of an old farmhouse in the middle of the woods.

#the x-files #the x files #txf fic #xfiles fanfiction #future fic ideas #scullysexualwrites

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onebigowlhouseobsession · 1 year

Text

I'm re-writing this piece from scratch! Whoo! Thought I would post the first (new) chapter here because I need to get back to posting my writing here on my blog... something I am often too lazy to do, lol.

Summary: Feelings are ships in bottles, waiting for when the cork is one day loosened.

----------------

Cassie has been thinking a lot about the ocean, recently.

She thinks about ships in bottles, vessels down-sized and encapsulated entirely in glass. She considers what it might be like to be that ship, placed in a container that is much too small and from which there is no escape. They are built piece by tiny piece, within this microcosm, this bottle, with meticulous care. It is a labor of love, building a ship within a bottle, and it cannot be undone. Not unless you are ready to destroy what you have so carefully crafted, and yourself, in the process.

Cassie thinks that she is much like the bottle. In this elaborate metaphor she is the bottle and her feelings are the ship. Her thoughts are the rigging, her happiness the sails, contentment the planks and rivets. The unspoken, the unfathomed, are the wild plants that grow unchecked in every corner untended, taking over with time.

The ship will never reach the water, but it hardly matters because the bottle will shatter long before it has the chance.

Cassie thinks a lot about possibilities. What ifs and what may come. She thinks, frequently, on the right words and phrases to communicate precisely what she means. She thinks about ships in bottles, and about how terrifying it is to be the ship no matter how much you adore the hand that creates.

She isn't thinking any of that right now.

It's difficult to breathe. Her chest aches.

She thinks she might be dying. She must be. She's never experienced it before, death, but this has to be what it's like. Her lungs refuse to intake any air, and her insides feel as though they're being turned inside out. She's coughing, hacking, heaving, as if she has a terminal illness...

No, that must be it. She's simply sick. Perhaps she's picked up a bug, or has caught a particularly bad case of the flu. The Gulch does get especially cold in the winter, with piles of snow that slowly accumulate on the ground through the entirety of the season and ice that coats the branches of the ancient evergreens in the forest, and all those freezing temperatures greatly increased the likelihood of getting sick.

It isn't at all uncommon for a common cold or something similar to pass amongst the seven of them over the course of several days, and Cassie had seen Bob coughing like this just a couple days ago. So, perhaps it was, simply, a cold.

Hopefully with some well-planned rest and a few bowls of soup, she'd be able to recover from it quickly. She was far too busy to have the time to be sick, after all.

---------------

Compton was terribly worried. It was becoming rather late into the morning and still he had not seen Cassie. He supposed it was possible she'd simply chosen to sleep in later than usual, but it was odd for him to be awake before her all the same. Usually she'd greet him in the kitchen and they'd drink tea, discussing their plans for the coming day.

She must be very tired then, Compton thought. He let the front door creak open, then shut again as he entered the house. He tried very hard to be thoughtful, taking the care to step softly and slowly as he made his way around the kitchen. He put the kettle out to heat on the stove, fussing over it quietly, but he paused immediately as soon as he heard coughing from further in the house. He made a mental note to bring a cup of tea to Cassie as soon as he was done brewing the pot (hot tea was an excellent way to soothe an irritated throat, after all) but the continued sound of coughing was enough to concern him.

Instead of going back to minding the tea Compton shuffled quickly through the hallway, making his way toward the bedroom at the back of the house.

The door eased open, and Compton stepped into the room. He could see Cassie seated on the side of the bed, honey-comb patterned quilt pulled around her shoulders and head in her hands as she tried to catch her breath.

“Cassie, are you alright?” He asked gently.

“Oh, Compton! Sorry, I didn’t notice you came in.” Cassie smiled at him, or at least tried to. As things stood it looked more like a grimace, and she winced after a moment, hand moving to hover over her chest. Her voice was scratchy and hoarse, and she sounded like she was in a great deal of pain that she was working valiantly to mask.

She glanced over at the clock on her bedside, squinting her eyes as she stared at it blearily. “Uh, what time is it?”

Compton didn’t need to look, but his gaze followed that same direction anyway. The red numbers glowed brightly in the half dark since the curtains were, shockingly, all drawn closed. She never left the curtains closed. “It’s nearly noon.”

Cassie’s eyes widened and her eyebrows shot upward. “Oh no, I am so sorry. We had that meeting today, right?” She scrambled to her feet immediately, rushing over to her closet to procure her sandals, the ones she could slip on quickly and fasten properly as she walked. Compton watched as she darted to and fro, looking for a pencil here or a notebook there. She stuffed whatever she thought she needed in a cloth shoulderbag Compton had seen her use many, many times before, and she was on her way towards the door before Compton could even properly process what was going on. Compton wasn’t shocked per se, seeing as her specialty was multi-tasking and therefore also efficiency, but her sudden vibrancy was a far cry from what he’d seen even moments before. He stared a bit.

Cassie tapped him on the shoulder as she passed, still fastening one sandal strap while she stepped into the hall. “C’mon, Compton. Let’s go before I make us any later.”

Compton fell into step beside his best friend. He handed her the cup of tea before they reached the kitchen, and she smiled appreciatively before taking it by the handle. She sipped at it as they walked through the house. Compton noticed the disorder of the bookshelves once more when they passed through the main interior, but he didn’t mention it. Cassie was still talking, after all, and the last thing Compton ever wanted to be was inconsiderate.

“We’ll never hear the end of it from Otto if we aren’t on time. Or, I won’t, at least. He’s seemed to have taken a liking to you, so I’m sure you’ll be fine. But if I’m even five minutes off I’ll likely have to deal with him calling me Tardy Cassie or the like for a whole week, or until he tires of it at any rate. But, naturally, if Otto and Bob both show up high as a kite we aren’t supposed to mention it.” She laughed at that, which quickly devolved into a full blown coughing fit that made her stop in her tracks.

Compton felt a great deal of concern bubbling up within him, and he turned his full attention toward her. “Are you sick?” He asked, watching for the signs of a conclusion he’s suspected since he first saw her today.

There was a short but stark moment where she considered lying to him. He could see it in her face, the quiet conflict that rested there.

She wanted to offer him reassurance regardless of whether it was true or not, because she didn’t want him to worry about her. She never wanted any of the others to worry about her, but especially not Compton. They’ve talked about it before, though, her wanting to protect him in this way– and he’d been quite clear it never helped. He was worried already, so there was no point in trying to avoid that now, and empty reassurances tended to have the opposite effect for him, anyway. He’ll just worry more, wondering what she wasn’t telling him. Catastrophizing, imagining all of the worst possibilities.

They both understood and accepted that complete honesty was best.

Cassie huffed out a quiet breath, then nodded. “Possibly, yes.” The grass leading to Cassie’s home soon transitioned into large grit gravel, a mix of smooth pebbles and rough rocks that were a tad uncomfortable underfoot. It kept the ground from becoming terribly muddy when it rained, however, making it a fair trade. The sun was bright and shining, their shadows short and stubby as they continued cutting through the Gulch toward the Heptadome. They could see the glass by now, shining and glittering in the light.

Cassie spoke quieter, just in case anyone was around to listen. “But there really is nothing for you to be concerned about. I’ve been sick before, and I’m sure I’ll be sick again… life is a long time, after all.” When that does little to relieve the worry Compton was feeling, Cassie added, “I will be perfectly fine.”

“Maybe we should go back? If you aren’t feeling well it might be best for you to stay home.”

“Don’t be silly, Boolie."

"I could stay with you? I don't think missing one meeting will be much of an issue…"

"I'm not missing this over a silly cough."

"I don't mean to be pushy, but I think you need rest."

"Boolie, I need rest about as much as I need–"

“Hey you two! We were worried you might have gotten lost on the way!” Helmut waved cheerfully as soon as he caught sight of them, which was still quite a distance from the Heptadome proper. He jogged over to them, grinning in that way he does, bright as strobe lights, and threw his arms around their shoulders as he walked with them. “We sure woulda missed you guys. Glad you could make it!”

"We wouldn't miss it for the world," Cassie replied, maybe a tad exaggerative, but Helmut's grin grew at the statement, and it was worth it in the end.

"Heck yeah! Otto was super excited this morning. Something about bottles. Haven't been able to get the details out of him just yet, but everyone is really hyped."

"And here I was, just about to ask what the shenanigans of the day might be."

Helmut chuckled, but before he could properly respond all three of them got a face full of smoke that was currently wafting out from the front of the Heptadome. They couldn't actually see inside because the entire doorway was filled with… an unidentified gas leaking out, swirling in the air, colored a light purple that became blue that became green, so on and so forth, before dissipating into the open air of the surrounding Gulch. Helmut and Compton cough a bit on the fumes, the former of the two waving a hand in front of his face to try to clear some of it. Cassie, who's eyes have begun to water, barely managed not to choke on the tainted air.

"Is this… smoke…?" Compton's eyes widened. "Is someone burning something?"

Helmut shook his head. "Nah. This stuff has been coming out of whatever Otto's working on for a while now. It wasn't this bad before though."

Cassie started to cough again, body wracking coughs that made her chest hurt.

"Yo, Cass, are you good?"

"I'm fine." She was tearing up, now. The ache that had settled in her chest, ripping and tearing and rending, felt something like sadness in its most visceral form. She wanted to curl into a tiny ball and cry and she had no idea why.

"Cassie–"

"Can someone clear this up, please?"

"Hey, Otto! What's going on in there?" Helmut called inside. "Are you making poison with your chemistry set?" He joked.

There was a call shot back after a moment, preceded by a scoff. "No, not today! This test is perfectly harmless to the human body. Mostly. As far as I can tell. Why are you asking?"

"Whatever you're making in there is messing with Cassie real bad."

Cassie hissed softly, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her palm. She placed a hand at the crook of Helmut's elbow to get his attention. "Don't tell him that," She practically pleaded.

"Why not? It's true, right?"

"You truly do not understand how obnoxious he can get."

"Did you tell her that that's just the price we scientists must pay? If she's not up for pushing things forward, then why even try?"

"No, I didn't!" Helmut shouted back.

"Alright! Tell her that, then."

A new voice chimed in. "Come now. Don't you think you're being a little unreasonable?"

"We've been over this countless times," Otto replied. "No one has to participate who doesn't want to."

"Well I think you should be a little more lenient." It took Cassie a minute to notice it was Lucy speaking, but as soon as she did she could easily picture the teasing smile she was likely wearing now.

"Ford, back me up here!"

"Don't pull me into this. I'm going to go get the fan."

It took a few minutes, maybe five, for Ford to find a fan but soon after the space began to clear. The fumes clogging the space mainly dissipated with help from the fan, and once it was mostly gone they could see Otto standing in the middle of the Heptadome in front of a long table, covered in a series of beakers, bottles and tubes connecting them all. A few rounded bottles, filled to the brim with liquid, were lined up in a row on the table, and Otto held one filled with a blue liquid in his hand. Each one of them had their own trail of colored vapor, rising slowly from their openings.

Ford was still minding the fan, turning it further toward the door. He walked over to the table and stood next to Otto once he was done.

Bob was nowhere to be found, but that had become a common and repeating occurrence recently. If asked, Bob's excuse was almost always invariably working with his plants, but it started to fall a bit flat after a while. Cassie had been meaning to ask him what was really going on, but had her own concerns at the moment.

"Now that that whole debacle's been handled can we finally get to the reason we're all here?" Otto held up the bottle in his hand with a wide grin. "Who wants to test my newest creation first?"

No one raised their hand. After a few beats of silence Helmut raised his.

"I wanted to ask a question. Was it safe to sit in here with all that… stuff in the air? Because I think we've already been in here two hours."

Ford nodded in agreement.

Otto just laughed. "That is the question, isn't it? Anyway–"

"Hey, Cassie!" She turned, startled by the call though it was relatively quiet. Lucy was smiling at her, patting the cushion next to her. "You should sit next to me!"

"Oh, really? Are you sure?"

"Of course I am. C'mon." She patted the cushion a couple more times for good measure, then turned back to Otto. She was obviously expecting Cassie to sit.

Cassie sat down next to Lucy, tucking her legs under her, hands in her lap. The ache in her chest had settled down into something of an itch, small and easily ignored, so she decided to do just that; ignore it. With that in mind, she turned her full attention back to Otto, who was still in the midst of explaining.

“--What if I told you it was possible to emulate the essence of any known emotion through the use of psitanium and a slurry of synthetic compounds?”

“Any emotion?”

“Within reason, but, yes, that is what I’m saying.”

Helmut hummed in thought. “What about uh… homesickness?”

“No, that’s too specific. Tamp that down more to general hopelessness and that’s closer to the ballpark.” Otto picked up a different bottle, this one a pale green that glowed like it was toxic. “Want to guess what this one is?”

“Radiation poisoning,” Helmut suggested with a laugh. “Yeah, that one is one hundred percent Radiation Poisoning.”

“I see someone's taken Bob’s position as resident heckler.”

“Somebody’s gotta keep you in check,” Ford said.

“Instead of being researchers you should all become comedians.” Otto rolled his eyes. “Alright, everybody take a bottle. Let’s see how well this stuff works.”

Lucy leaned toward Cassie, whispering to her. “I believe things are about to get interesting.”

She was very close, for a moment, close enough to make Cassie inexplicably nervous– close enough that she could count her lashes, if she so chose, and she could see the golden flecks in her green eyes. Cassie tried to swallow back that odd sensation that was twining its way through her chest once more, something like itching moss tugging at her heartstrings. She reminded herself to do some research on viruses or illnesses that cause… heartburn, perhaps… once this was all over.

Before she could think of a proper reply, a bottle was being shoved into her hands. A lavender purple liquid swirled inside, gleaming just barely even in the bright light streaming through the Heptadome’s glass.

The others held identical bottles, each of a different shade. Lucy was entirely transfixed by the pink liquid in hers, watching it swirl and swirl around like a storm in a bottle as she held it up to the light.

The blue bottle remained on the table, near to Otto but still untouched thus far.

Ford picked up a pencil, scribbling something into the margins of the notebook he was holding.

"I think that makes us ready to get started." Otto announced. "Right, Cruller?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

Compton stared at his bottle with an apprehensive look. After a while longer of just staring at it, he raised his hand.

"Yeah, Compton?" Otto asked.

"Um. Is this… safe?"

"Of course it is. Probably."

The silence stretched on.

"Yeah, I'm with Compton on this one," Helmut pointed at the bottle in his own hand, the same noxious green one from earlier, and made a face. "I'm not taking this unless you do it, too."

"I'm observing–" Otto began to protest, but Ford cut him off.

"I'm the one making the observations. You're just standing around watching." He picked up the blue bottle with a smirk and shoved it into Otto's hands. "C'mon, you made it, you can test it. Bottoms up."

Otto sighed, but acquiesced. "Fine. Luckily for you all I'm taking one for the team. This one is by far the worst."

"You're our hero, Toto," Lucy teased, and all the others, besides Otto at least, laughed.

"So, are we all just going to stare at each other and not drink this or what?" Helmut looked around at all the faces around him. None of them looked all that excited about their individual bottles. Compton was still watching his like it was a feral animal that might bite him.

Cassie tried not to look at hers all that deeply.

Distilled emotions. The concept was… worrisome.

"Okay, that's enough stalling." Ford held up a hand, holding up five fingers. "I'm going to count down to five and everyone is going to drink theirs at the same time."

Ford lowered a finger for each second. Five. Four. Three. Two. At the end of the five seconds, they each took a sip. The difference in time could only have been a few seconds, but as it turned out a lot could happen in that time.

At first, nothing happened at all. Lucy drank hers first, and she mentioned that it tasted sweet, like plums, and wasn't that just lovely. Helmut was second, and he had nothing to say about the flavor, but his mouth puckered up and that was saying more than enough. Compton only took a sip of his, quick and hesitant, and then flinched as if he had burnt his tongue.

Otto didn't react at all, initially, downing a fourth of the bottle and then pondering about potency after the fact.

Cassie drank hers, but all she could note beyond a slight citrusy taste was the way the pit in her stomach grew wider.

Nothing really happened at first, but it didn't take it long to come into full effect.

Everyone stared when Compton, mild-mannered Compton, started to shout in rage.

Cassie didn't think she'd ever seen Otto cry, either, but he suddenly broke out into tears, abruptly, without warning. He was wailing loudly, and Cassie was startled by the sound. A sweeping dread fell over her, like a wave, and she cringed away, shuddering.

"--Why are you being so inconsiderate! You can't treat people like that! I won't be treated like that!"

Bang! There was a crash, and someone was shouting even louder. Cassie yelped and cowered, and it took her a long, long while to realize it was Compton's voice that was making all the noise. And it was just noise to her, a terrifying, frightening noise. She had no idea how or why, but somehow that noise was going to hurt her.

"Take a chill pill already dude. Geez." Helmut scoffed, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling.

"I'm trying. I'm trying my best. I keep working harder but will I ever be good enough? What if I'm never able to prove that I'm worth something?" Otto sobbed between words. "Has anything I've done amounted to anything?"

"--Lab rats?! Is that all we are to you?!--"

Ford held his hands up, eyes wide. "Hey, I'm just the guy with the clipboard!"

"Am I a failure?" Otto blubbered.

"That's so gross." Helmut said, sticking his tongue out with a disgusted face. "Are you crying, man?"

Cassie was afraid. Scared that Helmut would judge her and Otto would never stop crying and that guy with the clipboard was surely out to get her. She was terrified of not meeting expectations and being hated and being discarded, and that guy, Ford, was staring at her and sneering and jotting down words and she feared what he might be writing. Dread settled in the back of her mind and along her spine and sunk deep into her flesh, and she couldn't hear because she was so afraid.

Compton ranted and raved, storming out with steps that felt like miniature earthquakes, and Cassie found she was afraid of his anger, too. Otto's vulnerability was too intense and too acute– frightening in its own right. Helmut's judgment was piercing, sharp and almost painful.

Ford was still writing with the scratch of graphite on paper and she dreaded finding out what it said.

She curled into a ball, forehead against her knees and arms around her shins, anything to block out everything else. Still her thoughts ran rampant, coming up with dozens of horrifying scenarios with which to torment her.

She had no idea how much time had passed, but she felt a tap on her shoulder. Cassie scrambled away as fast as she could, chest heaving as she stared at the would have been, possible assailant.

Lucy looked back at her, head tilted to the side. There was a small, lopsided smile tugging at her mouth, and her expression was… soft. Incredibly affectionate.

Cassie gaped at her.

"Are you okay? You look really frightened," Her voice was soothing and gentle.

Cassie swallowed hard, still trembling. A thought came, a fear she'd shoved as far down as she could, unbidden and entirely unwanted; She'll never feel the same way.

She will never care for you. Not in the way you want.

"I– I–" She couldn't get a word out. Her teeth were clattering. “I… don’t know. Everything is so…” She didn’t know how to describe the feeling, but it was like her entire world was caving in and she was caught in the center of it, terrified of being crushed. “I’m scared,” She whispered, finally, her voice tiny.

A look of determination crossed Lucy’s face, and she didn’t hesitate even for a second before pulling Cassie fully into her arms. She put her chin on Cassie’s shoulder and reached her hand up to cradle the back of her head, supporting her, hugging her tight. “It’s okay, honey. You’re going to be okay, I promise. I know things can be frightening sometimes, especially when you don’t always know what’s going to happen, but I’m here for you right now.”

Something in Cassie’s chest absolutely ached to the point of hurting, tearing, bursting. Another thought came, clear within the haze of fear, unexpected and yet all too easy to predict; Tell her you love her.

“Whatever it is that’s scaring you, I promise I won’t let it hurt you. I would never let anything hurt you. I'm here for you.”

It took Cassie a while to process that fully. Once she did she was left speechless. Cassie didn’t say anything, instead just hiding her face against Lucy’s shoulder, holding on to her even tighter (falling just that little bit more in love.) Lucy brushed a hand over her hair, looking down at her with an expression Cassie was far too overwhelmed to even attempt to notice or identify.

Ford noticed, however. He jotted down a note on the page, closed the book with the pencil wedged inside as a bookmark, and went back to observing.

It took ten more minutes for the effects to wear off, at which point the remaining five of them sat in dead, utter silence. Cassie finally felt like she could breath, for a moment, at least, because then she noticed Lucy was still holding her. She didn't know how to broach the subject without it giving the wrong impression, so she said nothing.

Tell her.

She said nothing. Breathing felt like thorns in her lungs, aching, tearing but she attributed it to the after effects of the distilled emotion compounded by illness and didn't give it another thought.

Otto cleared his throat, took hold of the table leg next to him and pulled himself to his feet. He was eerily quiet.

Helmut glanced around the room then hummed to himself, making a pop sound with his mouth. "Wowza. That was something, huh?" His grin was sheepish, but soon grew wide and amused. "Is it Friday, because that sure was Freaky!"

Lucy was the first one to laugh, bright and unrestrained, absolutely tickled by Helmut's apparent wit. The others joined after a minute or so, and the tense atmosphere was shattered like glass in the heat.

Ford tapped his pencil against his cheek. "So, I think we can all agree that would have been better one at a time."

"Yup," Helmut agreed. "We didn’t dodge that bullet."

"Now we know for next time."

"Hey, where's Compton?"

"He left…" Ford said. "You were kind of giving him a look and I think it ticked him off? He'll probably be back soon, though. The effects should have worn off for him too by now."

"Ah man… I hope I didn't say anything too mean to him." Helmut was already getting to his feet. "I'm going to go find him. Which direction did he go?"

Ford pointed to the side entrance that opened out onto a path that eventually led to the Psychoisolation Chamber.

"Got it." Helmut started jogging in that direction.

"Hey, check up on Flower Boy while you're at it," Otto called after him, voice still a little strained. He certainly sounded as though he'd been crying. "I haven't seen him for two days straight."

Helmut saluted with a nod, but then he stopped with his hand on the top of the doorframe, a grin on his face. "Yeah… Otto, are you sure he isn't avoiding you?"

"Of course not. I'm a f-cking delight. Now get going." Otto shooed him. Helmut grinned yet again, laughing, and made his way out of the Heptadome.

Lucy looked down at Cassie. She still spoke softly, quietly, but it now seemed to be more about not scaring her off as opposed to anything else. “Are you feeling better now?”

"I think so. Thank you for helping me calm down." Cassie noticed that Lucy was holding her hand. She must have taken it while Cassie was spiraling into her chasm of downright debilitating terror.

It all felt rather silly, now. The sun was shining. It was a warm, mid-winter afternoon.

The world was not ending. It wasn't.

"Anytime," Lucy said with a smile. "I'm here whenever you need me."

It was a silly desire, but some part of Cassie hoped she’d never let go. Of course, Cassie glanced at Ford and then away from him just as quickly, face hot with something akin to shame, and she knew she’d have to. But for this moment she chose to bask in what was practically like the all-encompassing warmth of the sun, even if just for a few, short, selfish fractions of time.

And she admitted to herself, right here and now, that Lucy had her heart. She always would.

She did not admit to the way her heart ached at the thought.

---------------

Later that evening, long after the effects had worn off, Ford went to speak to Otto.

As soon as Otto saw him he offered yet another sheepish grin, crossed his arms over his chest, and heaved a great big sigh. “Yeah, yeah, not my best moment I know.”

“I’m not here to talk about that,” Ford said, taking a seat on the edge of Otto’s workbench.

“Really? I was sure you would want to tease me at least a bit.” He shrugged, and he picked his screwdriver back up, continuing to tinker with the handheld device in his hands. “Okay, shoot. What is it you do want to know? And before you say you don’t I can tell when you’ve got something on your mind.”

“What was in that bottle I gave Lucy? I know what all the others were already, but I’m not sure about that one.”

Otto didn’t give much of a response. “That was the mild stuff, just like I told you. Why does it matter?”

“Can't you just answer the question?”

“Don’t get your mustache in a twist, alright. It’s uh… you know, the pink one.”

“That tells me nothing.”

“You don’t think of emotions as colors? Is this not obvious? Sadness is blue, anger is red, revulsion or disgust is green, so on and so forth.” Otto paused, waiting to see if this concept was going to click with Ford. When it didn’t, Otto just sighed. “Really Ford? This is so much easier to talk about with Helmut.”

Otto put down his screwdriver and the device, before spinning around in his chair so he could look directly at Ford. “The bottle you gave Lucy was Love, which was one of the one’s I debated making at all for the record, because, honestly, what are the real world, practical applications for something like that?”

“Right, but depression on demand is going to be super useful.”

“Shut up, Cruller.” Otto shot back instantly. “I’m not the one who had someone making lovey-dovey eyes at me for an hour and still couldn’t figure out what the emotion behind them was supposed to be.”

Ford punched Otto in the arm with a laugh. “Oh really? How would you know? You spent the whole time bawling your eyes out!”

“Suuuure. But you were completely lucid. So what’s your excuse, hotshot?”

Ford balled up a piece of paper and chucked it at Otto, hitting him square in his forehead. Otto threw it back but missed by a long shot.

“Who’s the hotshot now? Oh, yeah, not you.”

Otto snatched the notebook from Ford. “You’re hilarious. Whatever." He flipped it open to the latest page. "At least tell me you took good notes?”

“What do you think I am? Unprofessional?”

Otto raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

Ford glowered at him, but then he nodded. “Yeah, I made sure to document everything. I know how this works.”

“Great." Otto flipped a few pages, skimming Ford's messy, sprawling handwriting, before closing the notebook and tossing it back to Ford. "We should go over the data tomorrow and then start compiling conclusions."

"Sure." Ford opened the notebook again, re-reading his last observation.

Most of what he'd seen was entirely, or at least mostly, expected. Compton's anger and Helmut's disgust were par for the course. It was odd seeing Otto so dejected but it was, again, something they'd planned for.

What he hadn't expected was the way Lucy looked at Cassie. He recognized it for what it was, now.

Love.

The only real question was why she was trying to hide it in the first place.

Why hadn't she told him?

He'd have to ask her when he got the chance.

#psychonauts 2 #psychonauts #my writing #psychonauts fanfiction #cassielucy #cassie o'pia #lucrecia mux #hanahaki au lucassie baby!#oboho writes

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hello-mojo · 10 months

Text

Phantom of The Ministry

skip to the dotted line if you just want the story. I'm gonna put some personal info here first.

meh... I had this idea ages ago before Penny died and I quit writing... there was a lot going on back then. The troll harassing me and a bunch of other people on archive.... Eh It all snowballed on me and especially without penny to encourage me, litterally no one else wanted to read my stupid stories. I had floated this idea by her and she'd loved it. She said she couldn't wait to read it. I will miss her forever. 😢 I never even met her IRL. But I talked to her everyday. I used to tell her all my problems and she would tell me hers while we were writing back and forth. I don't have any of those fics anymore because I was hacked and had to delete the Google account where everything was saved. 😖 oof.

Well this was saved in a different place so. It's literally all I have left to remember her by because I deleted my profile on archive of our own where everything we'd done together had been published. I orphaned the stories but I honestly can't bring myself to look them up from my alternate archive reading account.

I really didn't mean to put so much about her in this but... I guess it's cathartic or whatever. I was working on this all by myself so... be warned. I struggle with grammar, punctuation and spelling particularly as the dyslexia seems to not let me remember the rules no matter how many times I look them up. I also have pacing issues and my plots always felt weak to me so. At the height of everything, I just quit. It seemed like no one was interested anyway.

I wanted to perhaps finish this for Penny or in her memory but honestly... I just don't have it in me anymore. I'm not even that into Drarry anymore. I enjoy many ships but that's neither here nor there. So... here's what I did get written on

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Phantom of the ministry.

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Ch.1 Draco’s Perspective

Draco realized, looking back, that he'd always been a somewhat vain child. After all, what else would you call trying to crusio a boy just because he saw you crying?

Vain. That's what Draco called it. Perhaps prideful as well. Neither personality trait had ever served him well. In a way, he supposed that he had Potter to thank for opening his eyes to his own faults. He might even be able to actually say the words to him, if he ever saw him. Of course, that would never happen because he didn't exist anymore. He'd died in that bathroom, as far as most people were concerned.

Most said that he'd deserved it. A precious few had insisted that he hadn’t, that he wouldn't have attacked unless he had been provoked somehow. Draco himself felt that he had started the ill fated duel and had basically deserved some sort of consequence. However he also felt that Potter, using a spell that he didn't know, was the height of impulsive stupidity and that the 'Sectum-sempra' had been overkill. He stared now at the ruin of his once handsome face. The hideous twisted scars from the left edge of his nose to his left temple, the patchy bald spots where the hair had never grown back after being shaved off by the spell. The cloudy, faded eyeball that had once been bright and vibrant, that had seen everything, now saw almost nothing. Draco had no idea why the spell had only struck the upper left corner of his face. Potter's aim must have been off because they'd been chasing each other. Otherwise he had no idea.

With a heavy sigh he picked up the white China quarter-mask that hid the left side of his damaged face from anyone who might chance to look at him. Not that many ever did. In fact, there were only two people who knew of his existence. Since Severus Snape had died in the war, that left only one person who knew he was here. She came to his hidden potions lab and left him files full of research that needed done, potions that needed identification, other's that needed refined. The list went on and on.

He was a ghost, a figment of overworked employees imaginations. Severus had brought him here after he'd been healed as much as he could be. Draco had categorically refused to return to hogwarts or the life he had known before. His father had always viewed him as a disappointment and after he'd been disfigured, well he'd have been a disgrace as well, and likely would have been disowned.

So this had been the only other option. A friend of Severus's who worked in the department of mysteries as head unspeakable, who had owed the potions master a favor, had arranged it.

That had been eight years ago. He'd never left the ministry since that day, the day Severus had brought him here and handed him over to Madeline Gery.

She was originally from France but her parents had moved to London in the midst of the first wizarding war. She'd worked her way to the top of the department of mysteries, a department that was only a rumor and largely off books. She had arranged for private tutoring, and for Draco to be able to take his exams. She'd had the mask and wigs made to Draco’s specifications and the sketches he'd provided her with. Brown hair, something nondescript that blended in. His own hair was too flashy, too distinctive. If anyone caught sight of his oh so striking platinum hair, they'd know instantly who he was. So, wigs had been the solution. Though, thanks largely to the numerous secret passages and hidden rooms scattered around the ministry no one ever truly saw him.

The passages had originally been intended as an emergency escape route out of the ministry. Near as Draco could tell, they'd been forgotten about and hadn't been accessed or utilized in any way until he'd found them.

He now had free roam of the entire ministry. There was a small room and a two way mirror that looked into the ministers office, there was another such set up in the head aurror's office and a few other of the department heads. He suspected that someone had been using the passages to sus out corrupt ministry officials but obviously the program had been ended without anyone being the wiser. Draco had let himself into the records room and the aurror department after hours and looked for any information he could find on the passages but had found nothing.

Over the years he'd added more passages, tunnels and access points, carefully hidden from and warded against the wondering eyes of idiot employees who were too curious for their own good. He could go anywhere he wanted or needed too inside the ministry now. He left notes for Madeline occasionally about his findings, particularly when he observed ministry officials taking bribes or practicing dark magics. He always got proof first. The employees in question were usually sacked immediately. At least, now that Potter had won the war anyhow.

What a relief that had been. The first few years he'd been here, he'd had to be incredibly careful. He'd let himself into the ministers office after hours and nicked his file, and any other proof of his existence that he could find. With Umbridge and Fudge being loyal to the darklord, he dare not let them find out about his existence. He had observed though. He'd recorded plenty of evidence of their corruption and any plans that he had observed and passed them along to Madeline who he assumed passed them to an order member. It was the best he could do.

----------------------

Ch. 2 Potter's Perspective

He'd killed someone. Harry couldn't forgive himself for it. Nor would he ever forget Draco Malfoy, or the valuable lesson that he'd learned from the horrible experience. Never use a spell that you didn't know. It was forever ingrained in his brain, on his very soul. He might have felt some sort of closure on the matter had he gotten into trouble for killing a student. Something more than just detention with Snape for the rest of the year. That had been bad, but hardly a fitting price for murder. Even if accidentally.

He was the only one who had felt that way about it. Everyone else had said that Malfoy had gotten what he deserved. After all he had started an unsanctioned duel, had been using dark spells, and had fired first. Malfoy had started the chase, and continued to aggressively attack Harry. He'd simply defended himself. That was the official response. Even if accurate, it didn't feel right. Not to Harry. Nor, he could tell, to Narcissa Malfoy. She looked at him with hatred now. Hatred he deserved. There was nothing he could do about it though. Even after he'd found the reserection stone that Dumbledore had left him. There'd been no information anywhere on how to use it. He'd tried to bring Draco back from the dead but it hadn't worked. Harry had been flying blind. He'd put away the Elder wand and the Reserection stone in a safe and heavily warded place known only to him. He couldn't destroy them until he figured out how to right the wrong that he'd caused.

He had no clue how he'd managed to win this stupid war. It had seemed impossible. Without Hermione and Ron, he'd never have survived. He knew it. He might be a magical powerhouse but brilliant he wasn’t. Nor was he any good at strategy. Thankfully his friends had been very willing to help him out. He didn’t feel worthy of such loyalty and support but he was grateful for it.

After the bathroom incident, the minister had appointed Severus Snape as headmaster. Zabini had somehow left the detheaters into the castle and Severus Snape had cast the killing curse on Dumbledore. Harry had confronted him and managed to disarm him, purely by having the element of surprise and sheer dumb luck, as McGonagall would say. Somehow they'd managed to follow through on the scavenger hunt for the horcruxs and the rest was history. Winning hadn't made Harry feel any better though. He and Ginny had broken up after only a couple months of a relationship post war. It just wasn't working. So he'd gone to work at the ministry as an aurror because what else could he do really? He'd thought of going into quidich but the desire to fly knowing that Draco never would again, just hadn't been there.

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Ok that's it. All I've got other than the doc where I listed all the things from the Musical that I thought I could work with to make the story work. I'd love to know your thoughts. If anyone reads this that is. The algorithms on any platform hide me from everyone. Lol I'll never be popular I guess. So what else is new? Lmao. Oh well.

#lgbtqia #ao3 #drarry #fanfiction #draco fanfiction #harry potter #harry x draco #draco malfoy #hp fandom #harry potter fanfiction

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yogoodfella · 10 months

Text

ARC-V Month Day 11: Legacy for the Future (Belated)

@arcvmonth

Y'know... Sandwiched between two fairly negative prompt releases, it's only fair that I get to write about something more positive (Yeah my next one's gonna be the Salt one, and I intend to deliver).

So yeah... How about my thoughts on Jack Atlas... Formatted as a conversation in a fanfic?

This is going to be a midquel of my Day 5 Prompt, Alternato Adventures, of Arias of Florescence. Won't be anything heavy, just a conversation.

Comments and Criticisms are appreciated as always!

Bloom Diva had descended to the Standard Dimension in Yuzu’s place for one day, following a wish her Master made. While ill-considered, the two decided to make the most of this wish, meeting people they wished to during their time spent together, but couldn’t. Yuzu went to meet with her fellow Melodious Monsters, while Bloom Diva had an idea as to who to meet, discussing it with Yuya as they went through the streets of Maiami City.

“Hmm… This one day may be the chance to talk with Jack Atlas in person.”

“Jack? I… Really doubt it.” Yuya responded sincerely, at risk of bumming Bloom Diva out. “Even if we could travel to the Synchro Dimension… How do we find him in a day, with no appointment or something? City alone is so vast, and I don’t know if he’ll even have time for us!”

“I see… Yet, he has lost his position of King, while you have gained it. Perhaps it could make this easier…”

“Man… I don’t really know.” Yuya grew more bummed than the Choir, lost in thought at the mention of: “King… I’m not really sure I’m worthy of this position. I know I’ve beaten Jack, but it was never my intention. I don’t think I’m fit for that, and I’m not even from that Dimension! I just… Don’t think it’s the time now.”

The Fairy resigned calmly: “I understand. My apologies if I have bothered you.”

“No, no… It’s not your fault! I mean… That whole mess would have come up sooner or later anyway!”

Amidst all the apologies, she had an idea as an alternative way to meet Jack. “Yuya… Could you tell me more about Jack Atlas?”

“Uh… More?” The boy turned pensive as well, and was taken aback a bit, so he decided to back off for just a little. “Uh… I know Yuzu and I haven’t really met until Academia invaded while in the Synchro Dimension… Since you’ve been with her, what do you know?”

“The legend of Jack Atlas was told to us thanks to Yugo… Furthermore, we have attended your first Duel with him as spectators.”

“Wait, you did?! I didn’t even see Yuzu…”

“Indeed we did… And we were utterly taken aback by it.” Bloom Diva then explained to a fairly shocked Yuya: “Jack’s conduct is orderly, powerful, and ruthless. He had declared exactly how that Duel would pan out, and it all went as he planned, despite your best efforts. He still wanted to impress the audience by presenting a good showing from both Duelists… Yet he commanded that Duel the whole way through, utterly grounding you, like a king would crush an army that opposed his empire, with Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend as his champion and general.

I had dubbed it… The Symphony of the Sovereign.”

“Symphony of the Sovereign… Yeah, that’s a good title, and… An accurate review.” Yuya then proceeded to explain his side of the story. “That Duel utterly crushed me. Not only because it went exactly as he planned… But because I felt insulted, at the time. You must have heard that he shouted that my Duels were a far cry from entertainment.” The Choir nodded, allowing Yuya to go on. “Those were the teachings of my father, ridiculed in front of hundreds of thousands. But in hindsight, I realized that there was another teaching behind all of this…”

“Oh!” Yuya suddenly realized something in the middle of his thoughts. “I need to tell you this first: I haven’t thanked you or Yuzu for what you’ve done there. If it weren’t for you two, I wouldn’t have been able to go on. You two really gave it your all in your first Duel, and I meant to tell her that her feelings reached me. Well… Your feelings.”

“Think nothing of it, Yuya.” Bloom Diva responded, genuinely warmed. “I merely followed and agreed with Yuzu’s wish.”

“And you did it spectacularly! In hindsight, I bet Jack would have really enjoyed your Duel.”

“I can confirm he did. He spoke out to me personally.”

“Wait, he did?!”

“Certainly. I believe that all came down to our own Duel being sincere to him. Our own voice, as he called it. You had understood that as well… That was the other teaching.”

“Well, yes… But it wasn’t exactly instant. I actually only learned it as I fought him in the finals.”

“I see… We could not watch your Duel, unfortunately… It must have been truly remarkable.”

“It was. We both gave it our all there, but that’s not all of it.” Yuya then explained to a more interested Bloom Diva. “You see, at the time, I thought that all I needed to do was win in order to get my message across; to spread my message through dueling, and finally beat Jack. Of course, I had to do that, but even as I reached Jack in the finals, I wanted to show him that my father’s teachings were not to be mocked… And that’s where I finally realized that it had to be my own Duel, right there. I couldn’t help but feel like he goaded me into doing this, into finally beating him my own way.”

“That is what makes his conduct special.” The Choir deduced. “His tone and presence are truly commanding, befitting of a King, so much so that Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend is truly his closest companion and his grandest general. They Duel as one against all odds, even as… Deary me… Roget attempted to fabricate a Duel so he could take over City by taking control of Sergey first… Jack and Scarlight refused to abide by his corrupt Conduct, and won Sergey over, finally waking him up.

As many rulers have pride, presence and arrogance, so do they have wisdom, strong bonds and experience. And Jack displayed it all in each and every single Duel, befitting of a true King…

And I assume, by all that you told me, that he wanted you to be his successor.”

“Wow… I’m surprised you’ve gotten that, but… Yeah.” Yuya weakly commented as he searched for a Card to show the Choir. After some time, he showed the Card, in the image of a kid girl with pink hair wearing a white coat and black pants, with azure streams all over the outfit, wielding an artifact that vaguely looked like a resonator staff.

“Tuning Magician…?” The Fairy was greatly interested in this. “This looks to be a Tuner Monster. I imagine you must have gotten that in Synchro.”

“Well, it’s more like I was gifted it. In fact, this came from Jack himself.” Yuya then explained to a surprised Choir. “As I was in the penthouse, a certain butler named Sam gave this to me, and Jack had gifted it to him, and told him that it suited the role that he played. As it was an infamously weak Card, Sam took that as an insult not just to him, but to the Commons. So he gifted it to me and told me to beat him as a symbol of revenge. But in reality… I knew that this Card, and any Card, had a role to play, and I communicated this to Jack… Only to realize later that he meant that all along.

Jack’s easy to misread, but I know he has a good heart under that arrogance.

And you know what… If he wants me as his successor… Fine! I’ll do it…

To the best of my ability!” This thoughtful speech, into a rousing cry, ended with a bit of a flustered remark, with Yuya scratching himself on the back of the head, and Bloom Diva giggling.

“There is no need to rush, Yuya… You have done countless good deeds, and many good people now look up to you. Do not tire yourself out and let that smile of yours fade.”

“I won’t.”

And with this, and an eager nod of the two, the conversation ended and the walking on Maiami City continued. While Bloom Diva didn’t manage to meet Jack, she had learned more about him thanks to Yuya. And this only made her more eager to meet him, and perhaps Duel him… More likely from beneath Yuzu.

#yugioh arc v #arc v #melodious #arcvmonth2023 #arcvmonth #bloom diva the melodious choir #yugioh #yuya sakaki #jack atlas

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knightzp · 1 year

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HII miki!!! PLS tell me everything abt ur acc! i.e fave chars, which 5 stars u have (and want?) and fave teams? also, just to spice things up a bit! are there any chars u regret building/pulling for?? (or perhaps any accidental pulls? for instance, my itto was a complete accident.. i just wanted gorou lmao) also... ur fave 4 star : ) srry that was a lot of questions but i cant wait to read ur answers!! have a lovely day!

HIII TŪĪ!!! this was so fun to write thank you for asking!!

fave characters: i have a lot of characters that i love but my most favorites are kazuha, hu tao, xingqiu, chongyun, albedo, benny, ayaka, yoimiya aaand tighnari. there are a lot more that i like but if i had to select just some those would be it i think!

fave 4 star: def one of the three i mentioned before! either benny, xingqiu or chongyun, but its so hard to choose just one.... mmm i think im gonna say benny bc hes very dear to me and has been accompanying me since my very first days playing the game, he has never left my team and i dont know what i would have done without him (i do know, i would have died countless times for sure)

5 stars i have: ive been playing the game for like a year and a half so even being f2p im lucky that i finally have most of my faves! i have kazuha, ayaka, hu tao, albedo, kokomi, yoimiya, xiao, nahida and eula. and from the standard banner, can you believe i only have keqing and mona after that much time playing?? well thats bc i have keqing c1 and.... mona c4. apart from the first 50/50 that i lost, which was with keqing, ive lost ALL the rest with mona and at this rate im sure im gonna get her c6 :'))) hyv stop giving me monas and give one tighnari pls PLS

accidental pulls: i DID have one accidental pull very similar to your case with itto and it was with eula. it was right when i was starting playing genshin and she was actually my very first 5 star. i only did one (1) ten pull on her banner bc xingqiu was there too and i wanted him so bad, but instead i ended up with no xingqiu and one eula that came home at pity 15 and winning 50/50, the luckiest ive ever been and for what... (and the saddest thing is i also didnt get xingqiu until months later sighhh). okay actually it wasnt that bad back then bc i didnt have any more 5 stars at the time so i used her as my main dps until i got ayaka, but now i dont play with her anymore

5 stars i want: since i got kazuha, who i really really wanted and saved for him for more than a whole year bc i lost 50/50 on him the first time (and the second time too... but i was prepared and could get him regardless), now i dont have any other character that i very desperately want as it was with him. and its bc ive been lucky that ive been able to get the rest of my faves too! i mean sure, i do want MORE characters, the ones that id like to get are tighnari, scaramouche (hyv im begging let me win 50/50 this time), nilou, cyno and venti, but i dont have that level of obsession i had with kazuha alsjfdk but yeah when their banners come (back) ill def be pulling for them!

fave teams: and my fave teams!!! im not a meta player and i know there are probably better combinations than the ones i use but idc and im very happy with my teams. so im gonna put the names i have for each team and its members!

permafrost brrrr: kazuha, chongyun, kokomi, ayaka. i loveeee fighting and freezing all the enemies along the way, so this is one is probably my favorite from all these teams. before getting kazuha i used it with xingqiu (hence the name of the team, tho it still works) and i miss a bit playing with xingqiu and chongyun together in the same team but kazuha makes this team even more fun and i like a lot how these 4 work together!

pants on fire!: xingqiu, albedo, hu tao, benny. my team for hu tao! ive been using this one since i got albedo and hu tao last year and ive never thought of changing it ever since, im very attached to it

short kings: kazuha, albedo, xiao, benny. my team for xiao and yes i wanted a team where i could put all my bois together and this one was perfect. a friend that is very invested in meta told me that kazuha wasnt useful at all here but idc bc just playing with them together makes me very happy

papayas quemadas: xingqiu, nahida, kokomi, yoimiya. this team i created it very recently! i was struggling a bit to find the best team for yoimiya and when i got nahida i tried this one and its very fun im liking it a lot! (ajdflsk abt the name of the team it means burnt papayas in spanish, bc the flowers (?) you make with hydro and dendro i call them papayas and then with yoimiyas pyro they become burnt, so yeah :))

queens: kokomi, eula, fischl, beidou. this is a team i have meant for eula using electro and cryo to boost her phys dmg and kokomi too to create electrocharged. i tried it a bit and it was actually fun! but i still need to build the chars better and i dont like eula that much as a character, so i dont really use this one rn. but maybe one day ill finally build them properly and give it a try again!

this was a super long answer but anyway it was a lot of fun to write!!!

i really hope you have a great day/evening too!! 💜

#ask

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briarandhissecretgarden · 11 months

Text

still thinking about Briar and his silly little actions that he does in his room. He's so weird but it makes sense to me because I like it. He gets overwhelmed from a messy place, specifically any desk or work station, but he lacks the little click in his head that tells him to throw away those trashes or put the dishes in the sink. He's lazy in a way. struggles to break out of focus when he's working on something and just has to continue lest that desire vanish in the few minutes it takes him to put everything in it's proper place. Difficult for him very much so.

Apparently putting the things aside means they're no longer there. Briar has depression, perhaps that's part of it. I mean who wouldn't struggle with things like that when you've got so much pressure on yourself? It's an awful feeling.

Briar walks and talks a lot when he thinks, he thinks out loud. he says a lot of things that don't make sense, he reassures himself, he accuses himself of things, he talks himself down. Many Many things he does all so he can think.

"I wasn't quite confident, so maybe next time I'll try this or that. Maybe then, but I don't- no no that can't be correct. Pity on my soul, this is absurd."

"How strange, how lovely. Small little creatures dimensions away from their home yet they still live as if they're in their original world. Sweet disgusting little things. You could not live here.

"I didn't think it would've taken this long, no- no- don't think that way. For how long must we wait here? A reaction? A sign that'll never come? Oh ridiculous, woefully ridiculous!"

"That speaks to me in a language I do not comprehend. Oh but, who am I to judge it's validity? Oh my friend you have much to learn."

Silly little many who talks to himself far too often. I wonder what he'd think of everything and I get to come up with it all!! I want to answer the last few asks I had on this account, he's lovely and can talk so damn much.

He loves apples. They were one of the few remnants of the Overworld in the Nether. Golden Apples are a somewhat rarity and they were kept with the Bastions best treasure. Although, surely one that is so close to their leader or a friendly Brute would allow someone a taste. They weren't ever talked about and eating them was a stupid thing to do. You could see the small potion particles flowing from their mouth and nose whenever they talked or breathed out. Briar was able to make potions with some useful effects, like fire resistance, though those tend to be a bit hard to get down. Magma cream is thick and had a burnt taste to it, a spicy quality that burns your tongue and throat, but lacking all the nice flavor of a hot pepper.

Anyways, Briar has gotten used to the taste of most of these potions. Briar struggles with not reacting too well to pain and other sensations. He tends to not notice or feel pain too much, very very high pain tolerance. He does have a very bad habit of just dunking his prosthetic arm into lava, the blackstone protecting it from being burnt completely, however sometimes the gold will melt and drip down onto tables or floors. Idiot pig, he recognizes this happens and keeps doing it. He often uses his arm as a block like a shield or armor (think piglin brutes and their arms).

thats all for now, maybe ill write up a post about my potion and magic ideas :0)

#minecraft oc #minecraft piglin #minecraft headcanons #loreofmyworld

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bad-at-names-and-faces · 1 year

Text

Midnight Star

ao3

ffn

chapter index

John stood in the city stables, checking the list on the first page of his notebook. This carriage had the royal seal on the side, which meant it must belong to someone from the royal family, but there were no guards, so likely a member of little importance.

He heard someone come inside, and quickly stashed his notebook into his coat pocket. A message boy ran straight to him, handing him a note. John handed a coin to the boy, who ran off satisfied.

The note was in Lars’s familiar scrawl, with no code being used.

Miss Bjorgman wishes to leave, meet at the theater door.

John double checked that he’d written down the information on the carriage he’d been looking at. He’d likely see it around the city, and just because the owner wasn’t important enough to have guards, didn’t mean it wasn't worth checking further.

He went to their own carriage, or rather, the one they had been borrowing from the Corona embassy since they had arrived in the Southern Isles, and drove it back over to the opera theater.

“Are you here to pick someone up?” the man at the door asked him in French. The opera here was definitely the hub of the diplomatic social scene.

“I am here for the party from Corona,” he told the man. At the embassy, he avoided speaking anything besides English, but elsewhere, it was better to speak French, and not let on that he could speak the local vernacular in the same accent as the royal family.

Lars was standing just inside the door, and hurried Inga inside the carriage. It was unclear if she was feeling unwell or if she was simply not happy with the task Lars had given to her.

The traffic was heavy and the streets were still wet from the earlier rain. John wouldn’t be able to listen in on the conversation, but Lars would fill him in on anything he needed to know. The trip home from the opera took longer than usual, but eventually, he pulled up at the Corona Embassy. Lars gave him a quick hand signal to wait, and after Inga went inside, Lars came back out.

“Sorry to cut you short back there,” Lars apologized, “did you learn anything?”

“Possibly the one we suspected,” he told Lars, looking around for any of the staff.

“Do you really think-” Lars stopped as he heard the splash of someone stepping in a puddle, and the stable boy came around looking like he was forcing himself to act like he was just wandering over. “Hello, Nils, I’m sorry we’ve kept you waiting.”

“Don’t worry, Sir,” Nils told him enthusiastically, “it’s been very slow here recently, you know.”

“Yes, indeed,” Lars replied solemnly.

“I think the rain has stopped for now,” John stated deliberately in English, looking directly at Lars.

“But it might rain more, we should get inside,” Lars replied, nodding at him, then giving a quick wave to Nils, the stable hand, before going inside the embassy.

***

June 3rd, 1875

Dear Inga,

I can’t believe Arianna is nine already! I shouldn’t be surprised, since Billy is going to be ten this summer, but somehow I always forget how close in age Arianna is.

Lars is delaying some business in Washington a month or two so that he can be home all summer. We sometimes take the family down to Washington in the winter, but Lars is worried about malaria during the summer, so we stay up in Boston. He warned me that he’ll probably be staying in Washington for several months, and might be traveling a bit, but the rest of us will be staying here.

I really wish I could say I’m shocked at what the gossip papers in Corona have been printing. The stories are beyond absurd, but that’s the sort of thing that sells, unfortunately. My own sister Diana was writing to me about what she had heard, and I tried my best to correct her. I hate to speak ill of my own sister, but I’m rather glad I’ve been an ocean away from her for so long.

I’ve been asking Lars if we might travel back to Arendelle at some point, and he says perhaps next summer. If you’ll be back in Corona then, of course we could travel there, instead.

Please let me know!

Love,

Elizabeth

Inga folded up the letter and placed it on her writing desk. When would she and Henry return to Corona? It had been nearly two years now since she had been to Corona. Of course, it wasn’t like they needed her in Corona, but did they need her to be in Arendelle? It was hard to say. Henry was out in town this afternoon, so she would have to bring up the subject later.

There was a light knock at the door, drawing Inga’s attention from the letter. She got up, leaving the letter laying open on the desk.

“Inga?” Sofia asked through the closed door.

Inga opened the door. Her sister was standing across from her, looking serious. Inga was suspicious, since her sister never seemed to take things very seriously. One thing Inga could say for her was that she didn’t hide anything. Sofia was eighteen now, and of course her sister was a different person than she herself was, but Inga had the feeling that, even though no friends or family would say so, other people had the expectation that the next sister would get married at a similar age. Of course, Inga hadn’t been much younger when she was horrified at expectations of marriage. Unlike Inga, though, Sofia simply didn’t care.

“Is it dinner time already?” Inga asked.

“No, I just finished lunch,” Sofia laughed. “I was wondering if you can help me with Mother’s birthday party.”

“I thought you did a good job of it last year,” Inga told her.

“Well, you know I had Meibel’s help, and she won’t be back for another two weeks.”

“Meibel helped with the party? Oh, of course she did.”

“Mother tells me I shouldn’t be so hard on you for forgetting something right after you had a baby,” her sister said, frowning at her.

Inga took a deep breath. She should be helping with things if she was living here, but she still felt like she was simply visiting.

“Sofia, I do think you’d do well enough by yourself,” Inga insisted. “Besides, what can I do at this point?”

Sofia glared at her.

Inga sighed and nodded, quickly turning to check herself in the mirror by the door. “Fine, would you like to go to the library?”

“That works for me. Mother has meetings all day, so we don’t need to worry about spoiling the surprise.”

“You really think she’ll be surprised?”

“Oh, I think everyone knows she’s just acting,” Sofia laughed, “but sometimes I do wonder if she’s actually surprised we keep doing this every year.”

“So,” Inga began, wanting to talk about something else for a bit, “what have you been doing with your spare time the last few weeks with Meibel out of town?”

“I do have other friends,” Sofia retorted, before looking at Inga and sighing. “I’ve mostly been helping Marie with her studies.”

“That's nice," Inga commented.

"Now it's your turn," Sofia smirked, "What have you been up to? I hardly ever see you without your children, and I don't think you're up to all the things that some of the papers from Corona say you are, at any rate, you're definitely too young to be my mother and I definitely remember seeing Mother pregnant with Linne-"

"That story?" Inga groaned. "Sofia, what are you doing reading those papers?"

"I noticed Kai once getting all of them from the foreign news shop a few years ago, and since then, I've always paid the newsboy to set one aside for me any time they're going to disappear."

"If you find the stories that interesting, just come with me the next time we go back to Corona. You can always find those papers for sale there."

"But that ruins the fun," Sofia grinned.

“Do you even study anymore?” Inga sighed.

“I’m pretty much done with studying, but I’ve read all the books I have to, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Inga shrugged. She wasn’t sure what example she was trying to set with her sister, anyway. Perhaps her sister’s prurient interests would keep her behavior in line.

They got to the library door, and Sofia hurried excitedly over to the table in the corner. "Ready to start?"

"Why not?" Inga replied.

***

Lars looked at his journal. He had just finished writing down the few important things from the opera that afternoon, and he was trying to decide if the whole thing was worth it at all. John had learned some things in the city stables, but there probably was nothing they could learn from the Portuguese ambassador or his wife. If they could make it back another week, perhaps Mrs. Holst would return to the opera. But Karl’s ship was coming before the next matinee, and they needed to make a decision.

All of his notes were in code, but he was starting to wonder if there was any point to being so secretive. His brother’s ship would arrive next week, and he needed to make sure that they were all on board and out of the Southern Isles. Provided they could get to a port with a working telegraph, then the proper officials from Corona could try to find Prince Henry and Ambassador Pincar through official diplomatic channels. Inga and James could be in a safe location, away from where they could be valuable targets. Part of him wanted to let Inga deal with the fallout of her secret departure on her own. After all, she had made their own departure that much more complicated.

He closed the journal and stared out the open window at the streets of the capital city. In some sense, he could claim the Southern Isles as his country, but there was nothing connecting him to this place, at least, nothing meaningful to him. He knew where that man was. John had told him, after all. Several of the brothers had moved to America many years before, and the youngest of them had joined them after a brief exile wandering the ends of the earth. As soon as he had confessed the truth about his birth to his wife Elizabeth, and she had discovered that Lars knew where his father was she had suggested that, perhaps, he should try getting in touch with this Hans. Of course, she hadn’t really heard anything about him, but as she had once told him, how could he know if he disliked someone if he hadn’t properly met? Still, she understood why it might be imprudent.

The wind blew some of the papers on his desk, and he quickly closed the windows before picking up the papers and putting them away. As he finished stacking the papers, he realized he heard the piano coming from the embassy parlor down below. He knew that John had never learned to play any instruments, and he was fairly certain that none of the embassy staff did. He walked down the stairs to find Inga slowly playing through a piano arrangement of some opera.

Inga was pausing to turn a page as he walked in, stopping completely when she saw him in the doorway.

“Sorry,” she gasped, somewhat startled. “I didn’t realize anyone was around. I thought I’d give this piece a try.”

“You shouldn’t have to apologize. You’re not really a guest here, after all.”

“Oh, right,” she mumbled, looking at the corner of the page of music in an obvious attempt at avoiding eye contact.

Lars tried to think of something to say next. There were many things that he didn’t know about her life in the last ten years that she wouldn’t have shared in a letter, even as much as she shared with his wife. He wanted to ask her why she always seemed to be referring to Corona as if it were a foreign country, but thought better of it.

“Since when do you play piano?” Lars asked.

“I used to have lessons when I was a child,” Inga explained, “but I ended up getting frustrated that Frederick was better than me without even trying. I started playing again a few years ago since it was… nevermind.”

Lars nodded. He was fairly certain that she hadn’t been playing to show off in Corona or anywhere else. “You’re quite good, really.”

“Thanks,” she blushed, closing up the music. “I think I’ll go back to my room now, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Of course.” Lars didn’t want to leave her feeling chased out, even if that wasn’t his intention. “Dinner will be at seven, if you’re hungry.”

Inga gave a barely perceptible nod as she headed up the stairs.

Lars walked over to the piano, and glanced at the music. It was an arrangement of an older opera, and he realized it was one that Elizabeth’s sisters had sometimes played at their home when he would pay visits to Elizabeth's family not long after they met. He knew that Elizabeth trusted him, and he hoped he earned that trust as much as he was able to.

The older children would be in school now, and his mother was there to help with the younger ones. Elizabeth could manage everything well, and they had more help now, anyway. They were fine.

***

“Lars! Karl! You’re here!” the young Prince Henry shouted, running over to the brothers.

“Hello, Mrs. Nilsen,” Princess Clothilde stated quickly, covering up her brother’s neglect of the widowed Margit Nilsen.

“Hello, Mrs. Nilsen,” Henry echoed.

“Hello, Hilde, hello Henry,” Mrs. Nilsen greeted, having known the two since they were newborns.

Lars stood quietly with his brother. The royal family never said anything about the difference in position, but his mother made a point of saying how kind they were to them, and that they shouldn’t brag about the attention their family got from the Crown Princess Rapunzel in particular.

“Father was just telling us about when he was in Arendelle, and, Mrs. Nilsen, you know the language,” Hilde told them eagerly. “Father, what was the phrase you used? I didn’t understand it.”

“We don’t need to repeat that,” their father laughed nervously. “In fact, you shouldn’t repeat that, either.”

“Tell us later,” Karl whispered to Henry.

“I’m going to go find Bertha in the kitchen,” their mother announced, “Your Highness, please send someone for me if my boys aren’t behaving.” “Not a problem, Mrs. Nilsen,” their father assured her kindly as she headed inside the palace. “Now, kids, do you want to hear more about trolls?”

***

Anna and Kristoff looked at each other. Elsa had told them that she needed to speak with them when she had arrived. But with the children crowded around her, and the November weather was stealing her chance for distracting the children with snow, so talking was impossible. They had to make do with a few scattered moments of hushed statements.

“Kristoff was suggesting this morning that I could go pay Inga a visit at the spa she’s been staying at,” Anna whispered, hoping that Arianna in particular was out of earshot. “What do you think, Elsa?”

Elsa looked pointedly at Anna, frowning. “When we get a chance, I’ll tell you what I know,” she replied.

“What happened to not spying on people?” Kristoff snorted. Anna held her tongue, wondering if Kristoff really took her concerns about Inga seriously. Elsa wasn’t going to all this trouble over some cheap newspaper stories, Anna felt sure of it.

“This is different,” Elsa snapped. “I didn’t ask to see this.”

Anna swallowed hard and looked at Kristoff. Elsa, as far as they knew, always made an effort to avoid seeing secrets about the private lives of her family. She seemed to be fairly certain that there was something important going on, not a simple marital issue.

Anna didn’t think it was something as tawdry as Henry or Inga sneaking around with others, the way the papers from Corona liked to speculate, but the thought had crossed her mind. The two had gotten married so young, and so perhaps they would eventually need to find the sort of arrangements some couples made to allow them to keep up appearances. That wouldn’t be worth Elsa making a surprise visit, though.

Ariana came running over to Anna and hugged her. “Mormor, can I come to dinner with Aunt Elsa tonight?” the little girl asked, looking up with her mother’s eyes.

Anna sighed and looked at her sister. They would find time to talk properly. “Of course, sweetheart, of course we will.”

Dinner was as enjoyable as it could be being preoccupied by something else. The children were chattering excitedly, so Anna could let them go on. Kristoff kept giving her meaningful glances, and she knew he wanted to know what her sister had come there to tell them as soon as possible. Elsa, for her part, looked like she was answering the children’s questions, though their questions were always predictable.

“...right, Mama?” Linne asked. Anna hadn’t been paying attention.

“I- I’m sure I agree with Elsa,” she said, doing her best to play along with the conversation.

“What do you mean?” Sofia said incredulously.

“I’m sorry, I was thinking about something else,” Anna confessed.

“Linne was just telling me that they’re often out collecting clams at low tide,” Elsa told her.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Anna laughed nervously.

Anna needed to know what Elsa knew, and soon.

***

Inga got back upstairs, and quietly locked the door behind her. Playing the music on the piano hadn’t really helped to calm her mind as much as she had hoped. She sat down on the bed, holding Henry’s sketch book and leafing through once again, somehow hoping to see him walking through the door so she could ask him what some particularly ambiguous looking unlabeled sketch was supposed to be, or chastise him for drawing her like that in the book he took everywhere. Except he hadn’t taken it everywhere with him. Did he know that something was going to happen? Or did he always leave it in the room when he went out on official business?

She hadn’t traveled with him on his diplomatic trips. That had never been intentional, but the timing had never worked out. He still had never taken her to Lisbon. They would always talk about doing that “next year” or after this or that had been settled. She desperately wanted to tell him to forget next year or after things had settled, and just go. He had told her about things that children would enjoy. They would bring them along, of course. It wasn’t like this trip of hers. This stupid, ill planned, impetuous trip of hers. She needed to get back home. But she wanted to find Henry. Where was he?

And how were the children doing? Arianna had noticed that something was wrong. Aggie wasn’t that much younger, but was much more easily distracted by the family and everyone else spoiling him. Inga worried about Arianna more, though, since nobody else seemed to notice that anything was wrong. She had spoken in private, but in public, had appeared as blissfully ignorant as her brother Aggie. The younger two, well, they were too young to be very bothered. Still, she had never been away from them for more than a few hours. It was all she could do not to let it overwhelm her, along with everything else.

Perhaps she should just have dinner.

***

“Lars!” John called out from the back door of the kitchen.

“Hi, John, anything new?” Lars asked quietly as he closed the kitchen door almost completely, with just a small block of wood ensuring they wouldn’t accidentally get locked out.

“Nothing since we got back from the theater. I’ve just been thinking about what you said, that maybe we need to look elsewhere. I still have some family in Charlotte-Amalie, some of them could come help out here, or travel elsewhere. You have your family. You need to get home to them. There’s only so many stories you can tell Elizabeth before things start adding up.”

“I’ll tell her where I’ve been once I get home,” Lars insisted.

“I told you I needed help, but this is turning into a bigger thing than I thought it would be. Once we get Inga somewhere safe and get in touch with Corona, you’re coming with me on the first ship back to Boston or New York, and then I’m going down to the West Indies.”

“Why not Louisiana?” Lars asked pointedly. “When did you last visit your mother?”

“You know who I’ll see if I visit her.”

“I know,” Lars sighed. “Him.”

“Elizabeth thinks you should go there, too, doesn’t she? Come with me.”

“What, you’ll introduce me?” Lars muttered sardonically.

“Fine, I’ll drop it, but some day you’ll need to. Promise me that, and I promise I’ll visit my mother.”

***

“You rang, Your Highness?” James asked as she opened the door.

“Yes, thank you, James,” Inga replied. “Please, come in.”

“What do you need?”

“I was wondering… are you familiar with this sketch book of Henry’s?” she inquired, tapping the sketch book, which she held closed.

“I do recognize it, yes. If you’re wondering, I don’t look inside. Henry has asked that favor very specifically from me.”

“Oh, um, yes, thank you, that’s good to know,” she mumbled. “Do you know if he made a habit of taking the book with him when he went out? Or did he generally leave it in the room when he went out?”

“He usually took the book with him, but the last several meetings, he started leaving it here when he had meetings with officials and members of the royal family of the Southern Isles.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“He kept vague, I suspect now to protect me, but he mentioned that he didn’t like where the meetings were heading.”

“Is this about all the marriage offers? Because John and Lars already told me about that,” Inga told him.

“Well, that was one of the things that bothered him, but they also seemed to think they could make the stories from the newspapers and other rumors work to their advantage.”

“Which stories?” Inga asked, somehow never able to check her curiosity, as much as she hated knowing what was going on in people’s imaginations.

“He refused to go into very much detail, but he did say something about having to endure hearing his family insulted.”

“Oh, I see,” Inga sighed. That could mean just about anything, but now she was at the end of what she could bear thinking about.

James stood silently for a moment at the door before saying anything. “Is there anything else you would like to ask me right now?”

Inga shook her head. “Mr. Nilsen told me that dinner would be soon, so I think I'll be ringing for the maid. Thank you, James."

***

John walked into the servant’s hall of the Corona embassy. An early dinner was being served. He usually didn’t join them, but he felt it was time to listen in a little more.

“Hello,” he said. Everyone assumed he only knew English, so he needed to keep up the facade. St. Thomas, where he was born and lived the early part of his childhood, mostly spoke the same language as the Southern Isles, and he could understand the servants’ chatter perfectly well. All the better, of course, if they didn’t think he understood them.

“Hello,” said the maid who knew a little bit of English. “How are you, John?”

“Good, Adele, how about you?”

“I am good, thank you,” she replied.

“I heard the cook was serving roast pork tonight, and it sounds wonderful.”

“Ah, yes, the pork. Dinner is pork,” she confirmed, having reached the limit of her English ability, returning to her conversation with the others.

He kept a blank face, leaning back against the wall as he eavesdropped.

“Did he say anything about the princess?” one of the stable hands asked Adele.

“I told you,” she muttered, “my English is not very good. I only studied for a year, and that was ten years ago. Besides, my teacher was from London. I can barely understand Americans.”

“Look," a footman added, "I will split the money I am getting if you can tell me anything he knows. I tell you, that princess knows him. He knows something.”

John realized too late that he was looking nervous listening to them.

“Hey, are you two sure that fellow does not understand us?” one of the footmen asked, glancing in John’s direction.

John looked at the kitchen. “That pork roast sure does smell good, don’t you think?” he said very deliberately in English.

“See,” snapped Adele, “he is just here for the food.”

"Fine, fine, I just-" the footman stopped himself a moment, suddenly looking pleased with himself. "Nils, isn't your sister working at the American Embassy? Maybe she can bring someone who speaks English over here. They would both get a cut."

Nils looks up. In the short time he'd been here, John had learned that Nils was young, just moved in from the countryside, and he had an older brother who worked for the Maldonian embassy. It seemed that the whole family worked for the embassies.

"I can ask," Nils agreed, "but she has a lot of work, and it would be odd if someone came over without someone who knows someone here."

"Let us know when she will be coming," the footman ordered.

The cook brought out their meal just then, and everyone ate silently.

“John?” Adele was standing behind him. “You finish?”

John looked down at his plate, and it was empty. Most of the others had gotten up already.

“Yes, I am. It was exc- it was very good,” he said, remembering to keep his words simple for her.

“I take the plate?” she asked him.

“Yes, thank you,” he replied, getting up. He would need to find Lars tonight.

***

Lars sat alone in the dining room until the footman brought him his dinner. This was the one that John said was definitely getting money from someone to spy on him. So far, from what John had been able to overhear, there were no clues about his origins.

It seemed like Inga should be coming to dinner, but perhaps she wasn’t feeling well. He would check in with James after dinner. For now, Lars had more time to himself to think.

There had been some speculation in the servant’s hall that Lars’s selection to be ambassador had been related to the marriage of Prince Henry--after all, Lars had been selected for the position shortly after the prince and princess had first met, so that would only make sense, they told each other.

He played along with that. It was a logical enough story--the marriage negotiations for a prince and princess were mysterious things, after all. The friend of the prince getting a comfortable position paid by Arenelle, and the brother of the princess attending the Naval Academy in Corona. All of those things seemed to make sense to the staff here.

He could go along with that explanation. He had a comfortable position thanks to his connection to Prince Henry. It made Inga and Henry's marriage sound arranged, but they were the only two who seemed bothered by that. It made sense as a political arrangement, and any other gossip could be ignored.

The door to the kitchen opened, catching his attention, and John came in with a bottle of wine.

“The finest Corona vintage,” John announced before the door closed.

Lars eyed the bottle. “Actually, I think I will have some, thanks.”

John poured a glass for Lars before checking the door behind him again.

“How is everything, Lars?”

“I’m a bit preoccupied, that’s all,” Lars admitted.

“Who wouldn’t be?” John shrugged.

A swish of silk from the main hall alerted them that someone else had entered the room, and they both turned to see that Inga had arrived.

“Good evening,” she greeted them, “sorry I’m late.”

“Not very late,” Lars assured her, “but the footman brought my food a little early. I can ring for him again, if you like.”

“Thank you, I think I might like something. John, have you eaten?”

“I had dinner in the servant’s hall,” he explained, then looking at Lars. “It was enlightening, but I think I’ll head upstairs for now. Good night, Lars, Inga.”

Inga sat down as John went back through the kitchen door in order to use the staff stairs.

“How are you doing?” Lars asked, not sure what else to ask.

“Fine, thank you,” Inga replied curtly, not seeming to be interested in further conversation, but she could have gotten dinner in her room, and Lars wanted to try to learn more.

“Is Frederick still playing piano?” Lars asked, remembering Inga's bringing up her brother earlier.

"I suppose when he's at home," Inga replied, looking pensive, "He did take the piano with him when he moved out, though I assume Meibel plays more nowadays. My sister Sofia goes over there to play most days…"

Lars waited to see if Inga was going to say anything more.

"I'm happy to hear he's been well," Lars added after a moment.

"He's a captain now."

"I know. You’ve reminded me yourself that I’m on Arendelle’s payroll, and I'm kept up to date on official information," Lars reminded her. "And it was nice to learn about his wedding before it was announced in the newspapers."

"Oh, of course," Inga replied, looking down at her plate and shift

"I suppose he's too busy to keep up with social letters now?"

"What? Oh, I… I suppose so. I haven't asked him."

"He used to write to me," Lars said, not sure why he was now mentioning things that were probably well known, "back when I first moved to Boston. He wrote for several years, actually. I miss that."

"I'll be sure to tell him," Inga smiled. "I think he should write to you."

#kristanna #frozen fanfic #1875 #OC Inga #OC Lars Nilsen #Prince of Two Realms

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drawingconclusions · 1 month

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JESUS STILL WEEPS (...A REPRISE)

I was primed to make some political posts this week, but that can wait. (However, I did provide a few clarifications to my two previous topics below from February 19, 2024 which you can read at the end of each post.)

A lot of people are hurting right now, from helpless civilians suffering through the gang-led rule in Haiti to the grieving family & friends of beloved Laken Riley to the innocent Russian families who were devastated by the terror attack at the concert hall this past week. While for most people, Easter should be a time of festive celebration, instead for some it unfortunately has become a time of brokenness and grief this season.

With the holidays coming up this week, you're bound to come across movies about the life and passion of Jesus, with some being of better quality than others. A few movies portray him as an almost stoic, ancient philosopher who never cracked a smile and never let his guard down enough to shed a tear. But the reality was quite different considering that both children and adults sought him out while he was here on earth. Jesus spent time with "sinners", with the outcasts and the despised of society, and he never turned away anyone who came to him. As for an example of the level of his emotional involvement, consider how he reacted when his friend Lazarus fell ill and died. In his typically minimalist writing style, the apostle John describes it clearly in 11:35 of his gospel: "Jesus wept." (NIV) Imagine that. The Maker of heaven and earth moved to tears and heartbreak by the loss of a dear friend. And Jesus still weeps today when he sees the atrocities we humans commit on a daily basis. When we treat one another who are made in His image with spite and hatred and absolute indignity. Jesus weeps when he sees a bereaved parent grieving over a fallen son or daughter, knowing the birthdays that won't be celebrated, the proms that won't be attended, and all the other milestones that will be missed. It breaks his heart to see the kind of world we've chosen and made for ourselves.

But lest you think that Jesus is merely a passive bystander in our suffering & tragedies, perhaps you should read the end of the Lazarus story in John 11 for yourself. He still brings hope, healing, and even resurrection to broken, hurting lives. And one day, Jesus himself will right every wrong and every injustice that has been committed. (During his time here on earth, He even wished that time of reckoning was imminent, as I'm sure he was infuriated by all the evils being perpetrated as He walked among us. But the right timing is key to God's perfect plans…) Look, suffering is quite a complicated topic. Sometimes God can mysteriously even work His purposes in our lives despite our greatest losses, and there's obviously self-inflicted hurt that can almost be placed in a separate category in and of itself. But as long as we live on this earth, we'll experience both seasons of joy and also of grief (see Ecclesiastes 3:5 and Job 5:7).

I'm not here to preach to you today or try to explain away your loss and pain. With some of you reeling with heartache, the last thing you need to hear right now is my poor attempts at Biblical elaboration. Yet I admonish you to please keep walking forward even in the midst of your doubts and confusion, just like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-16. Perhaps as mortals, part of our affliction lies in not being able to presently view or comprehend the entire path our lives will journey, but even so, don't ever give up. If you must press forward with tears still streaming from your eyes, keep walking. If you can only stagger forward with the help of close friends and confidants, keep walking. If, like Job (who lost his health, all his beloved sons & daughters and his wealth & means of production), you can barely articulate an anguished yelp of God's faithfulness amidst sleepless nights filled with unanswered questions, keep walking. Because God is still the God of resurrection, and He still holds a special place in his heart for the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18). And God delights in bringing restoration (Job 42:10, 12-15) to those who have lost so much in our hurting, fallen world.

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haberdashing · 1 year

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open your eyes (i see your eyes are open) (6/?)

Jon, faced with being the last one left in a dying world, sends his memories back in time to someone who might be able to fix things before the worst can happen.

Sasha James, for her part, is very confused.

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6

on AO3

Sasha did her best to just keep her head down and stay focused on her work after that. She knew she'd crossed a line with Martin, even if she wasn't quite sure what the boundaries of that line were in the first place, and besides, there were plenty of files waiting there for them, plenty of mostly-false accounts of the supernatural for them to sort through.

The Hodgson file didn't take long to dispose of, not when she'd already been most of the way done with it before the weekend arrived and everything changed.

(Jon gave Sasha a weak smile and a nod as he passed off the next file on the list to her.)

The Lehmann file... Sasha could remember that one, dimly, from the memories that were not her own, and that made going through it much easier. It was little more than a creative writing exercise, really, one with overly-detailed and too-pat supernatural encounters lined up one after the other, though the parts about the author's family difficulties were true to life enough. That boy needed a hug and a place of his own, but Sasha couldn't help with that, just pass along what she'd learned from a combination of new research and old knowledge.

(Jon's smile seemed a bit wider this time, his eyes gleaming as he thanked her for doing her work so efficiently.)

The Cahill file... wasn't very memorable, to the Jon that had been or the Sasha that now was, but the truth of it was easy enough to find just the same. City kid moves out to the country and thinks every vaguely-weird bit of wildlife must be something spooky and supernatural; an old story, really, and not hard to research or dismiss. That deer they came across might have been seriously ill, but it definitely wasn't haunted, no matter what the file report said; a wildlife biologist might have wanted the details, but Sasha certainly didn't need them.

(As Jon passed Sasha the next file, he made some inane comment about making sure to double-check her work every time, that quality was more important to them than quantity. Sasha rolled her eyes and said nothing. She knew well enough what she was doing here.)

The Howell case... was memorable enough, thankfully, because untangling the layers of this one anew might have taken quite some time. As it was, Sasha still wasn't quite sure what to make of it, except that there definitely wasn't anything truly supernatural going on there. A family history of mental illness and magical thinking, perhaps, could explain the long, rambling stories that had been passed on to the Magnus Institute because they were at least willing to listen. Something was strange about that family, certainly, but strange didn't automatically mean supernatural.

(Jon cleared his throat and looked up at Sasha as though he was going to ask her a question, eyes dark and mouth hanging slightly open, but then he just shook his head and started rummaging through the files instead.)

The Blake file... well, that one really was supernatural, wasn't it?

It was supernatural, and Sasha hadn't been the one to research it the first time around. She didn't need to look at the statement to hear Jon's voice reading it out, a story of dreams that hit too close to home, one that wasn't even technically allowed in the Institute's files and yet belonged there more than anywhere else. She remembered his conclusions, too, and how he'd only believed that it wasn't a practical joke hidden away in the Archives for him because Tim had done the legwork for him to prove otherwise.

And while the name and all the details associated with it on the Institute forms were false, the true identity of "Antonio Blake" was known to her, as was the address of the magic shop where he now worked and had briefly interacted with one Jane Prentiss.

Would Jon trust her any more now than he had then, without this strange knowledge that had gone from his past self to her? If she let him know "Blake's" identity, would Jon go after him? How would the two of them meeting go, with them both awake and alive, in a normal London rather than an apocalypse-ravaged landscape?

Did he even know that that eccentric woman he'd sold crystals to was the same Jane Prentiss that now haunted all the dark and grimy spots of London?

Well. As Jon had mentioned once upon a time, the Eye didn't do hypotheticals, and Sasha wasn't great at them herself. There was only one way to find out for sure.

Before Sasha turned in the file, she noted that this one appeared to be genuine despite the faux contact information, but also that if Jon wanted to pursue things further, she advised him to look into one Oliver Banks, accountant turned tarot shop cashier.

Then there was little to do but wait.

#personal #my writing #tma #tma fanfic #tma fic #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives au #the magnus archives #sasha james

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monthjury7 · 2 years

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How To Contact Long Lost Relatives Regarding Your Family Tree

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gukyi · 3 years

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love me or we both go down | kth

summary: after going through with an arranged marriage to please his parents and secure his inheritance of the family business, kim taehyung thinks he’s got it all figured out. he doesn’t. apparently just being married to you isn’t enough, not when everybody and their mother can pick up on the fact that the two of you absolutely loathe each other. but taehyung wants his inheritance one way or another, so he decides that desperate times call for desperate measures: the two of you need to fall in love, and you need to fall in love fast.

{enemies to lovers!au, arranged marriage!au, rich kids!au}

pairing: kim taehyung x female reader genre: fluff, angst, smut (i know, crazy right?) word count: 32k warnings: oral sex (m & f receiving), fingering, penetrative sex, multiple unprotected sex scenes (they’re married y’all), fat cock tae, tae has a wife kink, lots of praise, alcohol consumption (but they’re safe), minor character death (not explicit), mentions of heart attack, slow burn like there is no tomorrow a/n: hello and welcome to the fic everyone, literally everyone, has been waiting for! i am so, so, so excited to share this with you all, especially because none other than rose @kinktae helped me write the smut, and i am literally forever indebted to her. you all better go spam rose with all the love and support you can because this fic would not be here without her and i love her so much.

also, to all my readers who aren’t comfortable reading smut, please know that the smut in this fic is not imperative to the storyline, and you skipping past it will not affect your reading experience., enjoy!

Never in your life have wedding bells felt so ominous.

The sound of them is akin to the sound of strings, of a single piano note in a horror movie, right when the film opens and someone random is about to die on screen for the sake of proving to the audience that this is, in fact, a horror movie. Make no mistake about it; these wedding bells spell doom for you, too. And the most horrific part about them is that just like that poor, helpless soul in the movie, there is no way for you to escape your fate either.

With only seconds left to go before you have no choice but to promise yourself to the man waiting at the other end of the aisle, you desperately try to think of any last-ditch efforts to get out of this. Many, if not all of them, are utterly useless.

Feigning sudden illness won’t work, because then your parents will just reschedule the wedding to a later date. Running away is fruitless. Where will you go? The parking lot?

If only you had a lover out there in the audience somewhere that could object to the marriage when the officiant says, “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.” A knight in shining armor that could whisk you out of the venue and off to a new life, far away from here. Too bad all of the people you’ve dated before hate you now.

Maybe getting married isn’t such a bad thing after all. Instead of having relationships with multiple people who will eventually despise your existence, you only have to have a relationship with one. And the feeling, as has always been, is mutual.

You bristle as your assistants do some last-minute prepping, fixing your sleeve and adjusting your necklace and making sure you don’t trip on your enormous train. They flutter around you like a swarm of well-meaning but ignorant butterflies complicit in the agenda of your family. None of them have said a word to you about the wedding ever since you arrived at the venue, choosing to talk more about things like the weather. Not that you were ever under the impression they had been hired to entertain you. Maybe they were told to not engage you, just in case you try to conspire with them.

As if they could be of any use in your wildly unrealistic escape plans.

The truth is that, unless you were to drop dead on this marble flooring right now, you’re getting married. Whether you like it or not.

The doors open.

You’ve attended red carpets, galas, award shows, and balls. You’ve had hundreds of cameras flashing in your face, the bright light capturing each and every centimeter of you. You’ve had paparazzi waiting outside the restaurants you eat at, the stores you shop at, desperate to catch a picture of you in sweatpants without a drop of makeup on. You’ve been on dates with ex-lovers that looked at you like you were a piece of meat with a credit card. And yet, for some goddamn reason, walking down the aisle in a white dress the size of Pluto, with the rest of your life waiting for you at the other end, makes you feel fucking transparent.

Face resolute, you clutch onto your bouquet so tightly the flowers feel like they’re about to pop right out of your grasp. Determined not to look at anybody in the audience, you stare straight ahead, right into the eyes of your future husband.

Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen multiple times drunk off his ass with hickies dotting his neck and jawline, cleans up pretty well. For someone getting married, at least. He dons a simple black tuxedo that still probably costs more than the average car, his caramel brown hair is pushed back off his forehead, and his expression is firm and still. He most certainly has had an equally expensive team prepping him, but they haven’t done too bad a job. The silver lining is that he doesn’t look any more thrilled than you are to be doing this, right here, right now. But to his credit, this is definitely the best he’s ever looked, as far as you’re concerned.

When you reach him, he offers his hand out to you, a hand that you only accept for the sake of professionalism. The bouquet in your hands is handed off to one of your bridesmaids, and the two of you take your position at the front. Your train drags along the aisle, draping over the few stairs you had to climb to reach the altar, this satin trail behind you that cements you to the floor. It may as well be a ball-and-chain. It’s about as heavy as one, anyway.

This is the longest you and Taehyung have ever held eye contact. Not that you’re really keeping track of how long the two of you have met each other’s gazes, but if you had to make an educated guess, this would definitely be the victor. Most of the time you end up sneering at each other ten seconds in, but to be fair, those other times you were also not getting married. To one another. In a ceremony attended by hundreds of people. And cameras.

There can be no sneering here.

“Don’t you look nice?” Taehyung whispers, loud enough so only the two of you can hear. He has that drawling, sickly sweet tone to his voice, the one that you hate because it makes him sound like he thinks he’s so much better than everyone else. “Surprised they were able to makeup that scowl off your face.”

This, of course, brings on a hearty scowl only he can see, your backs both facing the rows of attendees. “How much concealer are you wearing to cover up all of the hickies on your neck?” You quip back easily. It’s not like the two of you are going to pretend he doesn’t waltz around at every club or bar or private venue he can find, looking for his next treat.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Taehyung grins, and if you weren’t standing in front of hundreds of people about to get married, there’s no telling what next you would do.

The two of you would probably go on like that for another ten minutes if it’s not for the officiant, who coughs once he’s ready and opens the book in his hands. Next to you, Taehyung straightens, hands clasped together at his front, and lips pressed into a neat line. You do the same. There will be no giggles, no laughter nor smiles, nor any genuine emotion at this wedding. This is a wedding for the sake of politics, for economics, for security, and anyone in attendance would be a fool to think otherwise. Especially you.

“Ladies and gentlemen, family and friends, loved ones, and esteemed guests,” the officiant bellows, listing off as many groups of people as he possibly can in an effort to both include and compliment every person in the audience, “We are gathered here to celebrate the wedding, and future life, of Taehyung and Y/N…”

Taehyung turns to you, grinning in that god-awful way, the way he does when he feels like he’s got something over you. And sure, you can’t think of any punishment quite as bad as this, but what’s Taehyung got to smile about? He’s marrying himself off to a woman he hates, kissing goodbye his days as a free-spirited, heartbreaking bachelor, and promising what may very well be the rest of his life to loving you. That is not cause for celebration.

But perhaps, to him, your suffering is enough to bring a smile to his face.

Your vows are, to put it simply, total bullshit. Your family hired someone to write yours and there’s not a doubt in your mind that his family did the same thing. This nonsense talk, this complete and utter garbage that spews from your perfectly-glossed lips, shit about how you promise to love each other until the end of your days, how you promise to take care of each other when you’re sick and accompany each other at every event, every gala, every ball. Shit about how you promise to look only at each other, promise to uphold your family traditions and become a dependable spouse.

The words don’t belong to you. But the thing is that this marriage was never yours anyway.

When the kiss comes, there’s a part of you that thinks maybe you should have psyched yourself up a little more for this. When Taehyung pulls you in, placing a stiff hand on your lower back as he brings you towards his chest, your stomach turns and shivers run down your spine. The feeling of his hand on your body, the breath from his lips brushing against your own, are enough to keep you frozen in place.

He smiles at you, almost as if to ask, “Are you ready?”

And you squeeze your eyes shut, almost as if to respond, “Let’s do this.”

When his lips meet yours, there is almost nothing. Nothing runs through you, nothing explodes, nothing strikes. But when he pulls away and cheers and applause rings out throughout the room, there is something. A little heat, a remnant of a flame, left on your lips. A little sting, just to remind you it happened.

The entire hall is cheering but nothing about this is worth celebrating. The fact of the matter is that you and Taehyung will never love each other the way that you are supposed to.

“Ugh, finally.”

The elevator doors haven’t even properly opened by the time Taehyung is loosening his tie, tugging it off over his head as he stretches his head back and runs a hand through his perfectly-styled hair. As he rakes his fingers through his caramel locks, the hairspray and gel loosens, strands falling down by the side of his face, framing his temple.

“Don’t sound so relieved,” you huff out, deciding now is as good a time as any to start getting undressed yourself. Reaching down to lift up the hem of your reception dress, you tug off your heels, already feeling lighter on your feet. Who cares if Taehyung is watching you pull off your stilettos like a defeated movie heroine? You don’t think you can walk another step in those shoes. “We still have to live together, you know.”

“Don’t remind me,” Taehyung says gruffly, brushing by you roughly as he stomps out of the elevator. “I’m just glad the fucking night is over. I swear, seeing that fake-ass smile on your face made me want to gouge my eyes out.”

You storm after him, refusing to be the helpless damsel in this situation. “Oh, like you didn’t also have that exact same fake-ass smile on your face. It almost made me think you were actually enjoying yourself tonight.”

“I was only enjoying the fact that I know you hate this just as much as I do.” It’s perhaps the only thing you will ever be able to empathize with him on. Mutually relishing in the other’s destruction. Taehyung fumbles with the keypad to the door to the penthouse for a moment before you hear the lock click, the door sliding open as the entrance lights flicker on.

The reason Taehyung’s penthouse is so clean is because he’s never lived here before. Neither of you have—Taehyung’s parents bought it just for the two of you. And as much as you absolutely despise the idea of having to live with him, at least it was not you who paid for your place of residence.

You can tell Taehyung’s never lived here before because it’s actually quite nicely decorated inside. The ceilings are high and the sleek velvet curtains are pulled open, revealing a shimmering skyline. The furniture is modern and functional, and the whole damn place smells brand new. You’ve had the unfortunate pleasure of entering the place Taehyung lived in before now, and it looked nothing like this. The furniture was worn and stained despite the live-in maid, the house reeked of five hundred different spices that wafted from the kitchen to the living room, and the bookshelves were covered with comics, graphic novels, and old textbooks.

If it weren’t for the fact that you and Taehyung are rich kids in their twenties that hate each other, you might have actually thought the place looked… homey.

You don’t have time to be impressed by the interior design and architecture skills of whoever designed this place. Right now, all you can think about is tugging yourself out of your airtight reception dress and passing out on the nearest bed. Which, hopefully, will be as far away as possible from Taehyung’s bed of choice.

“How many bedrooms does this place have?” You ask, shimmying along the floor so you don’t trip over the hem of your dress. From the looks of it, you can see one giant hallway to your right and a massive, double-sided staircase leading up.

“Enough,” Taehyung grumbles in response. The hazy stupor from all of the fancy champagne is starting to wear off for the both of you, leaving behind two grouchy, begrudgingly-married individuals who want absolutely nothing to do with each other and have no problems making that known. Whatever golden light of the evening that was making Taehyung at least a little bit more attractive than usual has faded, and now you see him for what he really is: an unceremoniously tired man in a suit. “You want upstairs or down?”

You gaze up at the marble staircase in front of you, then back down at your too-long dress. “Down.” The last thing you want is to trip in front of the man you have to see, every day, for the rest of your life.

“Fine by me.” Taehyung’s halfway up the stairs by the time he turns back around to say something else. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess?”

“Yeah.” There’s no point in being hostile now. The both of you are too exhausted to mean anything by it. Besides, what else can you say? Everything to complain about has already been complained about. At least the two of you managed to wrestle out from your parents the stipulation that you would not be going on a honeymoon together. Now that would have been your worst nightmare. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It’s as good of a goodnight either of you are going to get. Taehyung heads up the stairs and disappears around a corner, and you start wandering down the hallway. All the bedrooms look the exact same other than different colors on the walls and bedsheets, but they all look serviceable to you. Clean. Empty. Far away from wherever Taehyung is.

You pick the one at the very end of the hall just to be as much of a diva as possible, and don’t even bother drawing the curtains before tugging off your dress. It’s past one in the morning, and you’re so high up you don’t think anyone will be able to see you anyway. By the time you’ve stripped naked and are tugging up the too-tight sheets tucked into the mattress, your legs are about to give out beneath you. The bed could be made of rocks for all you care. Anything to lie down on is fine by you.

Sleep comes fairly easily to you tonight. Once your head hits the pillow you can already feel yourself drifting off, eyelids fluttering shut, but you don’t sleep quite yet. Not before you can think about how this is your life now, sleeping in a foreign bed in a foreign place with a foreign husband upstairs. This is what you will be living in now. Now and forever.

Living with Taehyung is, in both the best and worst ways possible, like living with a roommate that doesn’t give a shit about the fact that they live with another person. It’s good, because you and Taehyung hardly see each other and speak even less, which was pretty much the only thing you were asking for when it came to living with him. But it also sucks, because whenever you do happen to cross paths, Taehyung acts like you don’t exist, barely sparing you a hello or even that tight-lipped smile you send to drivers on the road when they let you cross the street.

Not that the two of you ever engaged in energetic conversation before you got married. But at least the two of you would acknowledge each other, even if only to shoot a glare and a scowl the other’s way from opposite sides of a hotel ballroom. Maybe it’s just because it’s him, but you did always find yourself actually relishing in those little interactions with Taehyung. In this strange, twisted way, it seemed to provide some sort of continuity to your ever-changing life. Like no matter what happened, at least you would know that the two of you would always despise each other.

To be frank, right now you’re not sure if Taehyung even remembers he got married at all.

Nights have been a lot more sleepless since your wedding day. After two weeks, the reality of it has finally started to settle in. This is your life now. And ever since you realized that, your bed has felt much less comfortable.

“But the place is nice, right?”

You look around the living room from where you’re sat on the sleek, white suede leather couch, eyes glossing over the bookshelves, the floor-to-ceiling windows, the draping velvet curtains. From here, you can see the entire city skyline, flecks of gold from the windows of skyscrapers against a navy blue background. Slowly, as the moon creeps over the sky and the clock gets later and later, those lights will soon begin to flicker off, one by one.

“Yeah, it’s not bad.” Nothing to write home about. That is, if home were a place other than here.

“That’s good. At least you don’t live in, like, a total dump or anything,” Victoria says on the other end of the line. “How’s Taehyung?”

His name alone elicits this deeply-exhausted sigh from your lips, like it’s been ten years since you married and every day has felt worse than the last. “Fine.” You can’t really complain about anything yet, considering that you hardly ever see the man.

“Just ‘fine’?” Victoria sounds skeptical.

“Yeah,” you draw out the word, as if trying to convince yourself of its truth. “I mean, it’s like he doesn’t even live here. I barely see him. And when I do, we don’t even speak to each other.”

“That’s good though, isn’t it? You hate him.” Victoria says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And in a sense, it kind of is.

“I mean…”

“I know that your life hasn’t exactly… gone the way you had planned, but isn’t this your best case scenario when considering everything?” She asks. “If Taehyung is as distant as you say he is, isn’t it almost like you never married him in the first place?”

As if on cue, you hear footsteps coming down the stairs, heels clicking on the marble as they make their way to the entrance. You whip your head around to find Taehyung, all dressed up in loose, flowy slacks and a flowery silk button-down, strolling down the staircase as he scrolls through his phone, paying you zero attention whatsoever.

He notices you briefly when he reaches the bottom, meeting your eyes with his own. He offers this measly, unenthused half-smile your way before he grabs his wallet and some house keys from the table by the entrance, opens the door, and vanishes off into the night.

If you hadn’t been in the living room, you probably wouldn’t have even realized he left. Not that you being present as he’s planning on leaving would have stopped him anyway. This is the sixth night he’s done this in the past two weeks. You could stand by the door and stare him down as he emerges from his bedroom, all dressed up for something you’re definitely not invited to, and he would offer you that same goddamn smile and walk out the door without even blinking. Who he was before you got married and who he is now are no different. Not even a ring could change that.

“I guess,” you tell Victoria. At least Taehyung hasn’t turned into a helicopter husband. “I don’t know. Maybe I just wish that I didn’t have to deal with him at all.”

Wish you could turn back time. Wish you could worm your way out of an arranged marriage before it was too late. Wish you could go back to the way things used to be.

You and Victoria talk for another couple of minutes before she regretfully has to end the call, citing both her beauty sleep and an 8AM meeting tomorrow morning as her reasons for hanging up. The moment you put the phone down, you sink back into the couch cushions, staring out the windows at the world below you.

Here’s the deal. What Taehyung does in his free time is none of your business. But also, it’s totally your business, because you are his spouse. A spouse who is an equal amount in the public eye as he is. What he does and does not do has a direct impact on what you do and do not do.

It’s no secret that when you catch Taehyung sauntering down the stairs looking like a Gucci runway model, it’s not because he’s planning on catching a movie with a college friend and then playing video games for four hours on a couch in a basement. He is going out. To clubs, to parties, to exclusive events that he’s been invited to by his equally-rich friends, all of whom are acting like he’s the same bachelor he’s always been.

And maybe that’s the real problem with your whole marriage—other than the glaringly obvious issue that it’s a marriage wholly unwanted by the two parties involved in it. Despite the ring on his finger, Taehyung is going out and pretending that nothing in his life has changed while you’re trapped at home, desperate to save you and your family’s reputation by keeping as low a profile as possible. You would give anything to march around the city all day, flashing middle fingers at paparazzi as you shop at your favorite high-end stores and frequent your favorite clubs. But you can’t, because your family’s fortune and influence is on the line.

And apparently, Taehyung’s isn’t.

It sort of makes you wonder why it was even Taehyung you ended up marrying anyway. His family isn’t any richer or more powerful than yours. Your spheres have always been sufficiently separate. What was it about him, and perhaps more importantly, his family that drew your parent’s eye? And what was it about marrying you that prevented him from saying no? Money? Prestige? Influence?

You suppose you’ll never know. But whatever mystical force that convinced Taehyung to agree to this must not be as important to him as your reasoning is to you, because it’s become exceedingly apparent that Taehyung does not care that he’s married. He doesn’t care about the ring on his finger, he doesn’t care about his public image, and he most certainly doesn’t care about you.

Perhaps you were naive for thinking this, but you actually believed marriage might tone him down a little. Might age him into a real adult with real world obligations. Instead, it’s only given you a firsthand look into who Kim Taehyung has been and always will be: a selfish rich kid.

You don’t bother waiting around in the living room until he gets back, but you are still awake by the time you hear the door creak open. Taehyung makes no efforts to hide his return. You can hear him chattering loudly on the phone as he stumbles up the stairs, can tell from his gait alone that he is most certainly wasted. You don’t want to know what he did tonight. You’ll probably be able to figure it out anyway when you wake up tomorrow morning and check your social media.

What were you thinking, marrying him? That he would change? That he would suddenly become someone that you could rely on? You had no choice when you said, “I do,” but you were at least hoping that maybe one day, one day in a long, long time, the two of you would finally see eye to eye. Maybe there would even come a time when you would genuinely love him. How foolish.

You close your eyes and try to imagine a world where you have married someone you love, someone who loves you back.

Not unlike the many nights preceding it, tonight is sleepless.

Unlike your marital status and general disposition, one thing that hasn’t changed about you is your love for extravagant events. Call you conceited, but there is something so much fun about putting on a fancy, expensive dress that you love and getting your hair and makeup done before going to an exclusive gala and posing in front of five hundred cameras.

Actually, now that you think about it, maybe your wedding could have actually been pretty good, considering it let you do all those things. It’s a real shame there happened to be a storm cloud in the form of Kim Taehyung there to ruin it. Otherwise, you think you would have rather enjoyed that day.

Tonight is the first event since your marriage where you and Taehyung are both required to show up and act like a happy married couple. Which would probably be a lot easier if you and Taehyung had exchanged more than ten words over the past two weeks. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but there was a part of you that thought you could use your arranged marriage to actually cultivate some sort of meaningful relationship between the two of you. So events like these wouldn’t be such a drain on both of you.

When Kim Taehyung comes down the stairs, he actually doesn’t look too bad. You don’t know why this sort of thing keeps catching you off guard—like you don’t expect him to look that good whenever you see him. The problem is that you can’t even chalk up the surprise to him wearing tailored clothes or having his hair done. He just looks… good.

Well, you suppose you do have to look at him every day for the rest of your life. It’s a good thing he’s attractive. At least he’s not sore on the eyes.

Taehyung and his unfortunate attractiveness aside, the two of you don’t say a word to each other as you join up at the entrance, grabbing any last-minute items like house keys, chapstick, and whatever dignity you have left to spare. You send forced smiles and tight nods each other’s way in the elevator, staring straight ahead in the lobby of your building as the car pulls up to the front door.

By the time the two of you sit down in the back of the limousine, the built-up tension between the two of you is so thick you’re almost positive that even the chauffeur can feel it through the closed partition.

If you were any more idyllic, you’d probably spend the drive over to the gala staring out the window and imagining yourself in a different life, on a train to nowhere, flowers in your hair and a journal in your hands. Or perhaps you’d be the CEO of your family’s company instead of having that responsibility passed down to a husband you don’t even want, sitting in an office at the top of a skyscraper overlooking the city. Anything. Anything but this.

But the idyllic part of you died when you realized that fantasies like that are nothing but distractions and that daydreams are for romantics and optimists and losers.

“What’s our plan for tonight?”

Taehyung scoffs. “What do you mean, ‘what’s our plan’?”

You frown. “Well, we’re married, so we at least have to act like it, don’t you think?”

“Isn’t standing there and smiling enough?” Taehyung asks, an unimpressed eyebrow raised.

You bristle. Maybe that sufficed for your wedding, but there was so much going on it was easy to distract yourself from the gravity of it all. But this event is not about you. It’s not even about either of your families. It’s about someone the two of you are, at best, distantly connected to, through work, through fame, through power. Which means that though the focus will not be on you, there will still be eyes looking your way. Eyes watching your every move.

“Do you think it will be?” You challenge. Doesn’t Taehyung realize that things are different now?

Taehyung’s lips curl downwards. “What do you expect us to do, shower each other in kisses? We don’t even sleep on the same fucking floor.”

“Maybe I just expected you to act less like a stranger and more like a husband!”

Taehyung sighs. “Don’t.” The word is clipped, short. “Don’t tell me you actually want to be married.”

“I don’t.” It’s a response that you hardly have to think twice about. “But we are, and nothing can change that.” Unfortunately. But it’s a fact that you and Taehyung have both had to grapple with over the past few weeks, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that you are more aware of it than he is. If Taehyung could have his way, he would ignore you for the rest of his life and keep partying with the rest of his bachelor friends until he keeled over and died.

He huffs next to you, eyes staring straight ahead. You don’t think the two of you have met each other’s eyes in a week. Maybe more. They’re starting to feel as soulless as your marriage itself. “Whatever. What do you want me to do?”

“What do you think?” You cross your arms over your chest. “Just act like you don’t hate me. Can you do that?” The way Taehyung’s behaving right now, you expect that will be a challenge for the both of you.

“Only if you can. I’ll even hold your hand to prove that we love each other.”

“Fine.”

The idea of holding Taehyung’s hand makes you want to implode. The mere thought sends shivers down your spine. But it’s better than nothing, and that’s good enough for you. At least you won’t have to kiss.

The rest of the ride there is silent. You drive to this gorgeous mansion just outside the city, bathed in lights hidden amongst the bushes, illuminating both the architecture and the enormous fountain that sits in front of it. In a house this size, you imagine you could probably go your whole life without ever having to come across Taehyung. It actually makes you consider investing in a home that big.

Taehyung helps you out of the back of the limousine, a cold hand clasping your own as you rest your palm against his. You can feel the way his fingers hesitate as yours make to intertwine with his as you walk towards the entrance, smiling at whatever camera flashes you encounter on your way. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were holding hands with a ghost.

The moment you step inside and are ushered out of the door’s view, Taehyung’s grip relaxes on yours. For a moment, you think he’ll actually spend the rest of the night like this, a gentle hand wrapped around yours, but then he pulls it away entirely and shoves it back into his pocket. Oh. You frown quietly to yourself. So that’s how tonight’s going to go.

You don’t make an effort to reach out towards him again.

For an event concerning people you don’t know a damn thing about, everyone sure seems to know things about you. Other than greetings, you don’t think anyone’s said anything to you about anything other than your recent marriage to Taehyung. Every conversation is punctuated by a Congratulations! you do not feel that you have at all earned, considering you and Taehyung could barely look at each other on the way here.

Maybe Taehyung was right. All you really can do is stand there and smile.

“Oh, don’t tell me… Y/N, is that you?”

The champagne swirls around in the flute between your fingers as you turn towards the sound of your name, looking up to see a familiar face headed your way.

Kim Seokjin is nice enough. He’s terribly handsome and got a flawless smile, but you know better than to trust those pearly whites of his. The sight of him alone is enough to make your body tense up. There was a reason you had explicitly told your parents not to invite him to your wedding.

“Seokjin, what a surprise to see you here,” you say, forcing a smile. “I thought you were supposed to be in Switzerland right now.”

“Change of plans,” Seokjin grins back in that awful, awful way, the kind of grin that makes you feel like he’s looking right through you. “I came back early. It’s a shame, though, I missed your wedding.”

You shrug. “It was a humble affair.” It wasn’t. And you’re positive that Seokjin knows it wasn’t an accident that you didn’t extend an invitation to him or his family.

“Ah, I see,” Seokjin says, nodding his head. He turns to Taehyung next to you, who is making no effort to hide how wholly uninterested in this conversation he is, and holds out a hand. “You must be Kim Taehyung, then. I’m Kim Seokjin. Congratulations on your wedding.”

Taehyung shakes his hand firmly, the air between the three of you growing unbearably palpable.

“Seokjin’s father is the VP of News Daily,” You explain, eyebrows raised as you try to signal to Taehyung what exactly it means when Seokjin is speaking to the two of you. “And his mother is a popular journalist for the city’s post.”

Seokjin grew up in the world of media, and it seems he’s picked up his parent’s affinity for sticking their noses in places they don’t belong. You know he’s not talking to the both of you out of the goodness of his heart.

Seokjin laughs, his hand waving away the mention of his parents. “Oh, please. That’s them. I’m just a bored socialite like the rest of you.”

You resist the urge to scoff.

“Marriage treating the two of you well?” He changes the subject to what he really wants to talk about: you.

“Of course,” you say quickly, preventing any hesitation on your end. Your empty hand reaches towards Taehyung’s, fingers searching for his between the two of you. But his refusal to join hands does not go unnoticed by you nor Seokjin, who is eyeing the space between your bodies with an eyebrow raised. “It’s just been—well, it’s just been difficult to adjust to a new life. That’s all.”

If you were to describe the face of a non-believer, it would be the exact expression on Seokjin’s face. “Perfectly understandable,” he says, that same toothy smile lacing his features. “But it must be nice, you know, to marry someone you love.”

“I couldn’t be happier,” you say, almost challenging Seokjin to say something even more inflammatory. He must know that all you’re trying to do at this point is save face. Love? Ha! As if.

“And Taehyung?” Seokjin motions to your husband.

You can feel the way Taehyung is stiffening beside you. “I suppose we are both lucky and unlucky in many ways when it comes to who we love.”

It’s enough of an answer to get Seokjin off your tail. For now. He bids the two of you a tense goodbye before sauntering off to go poke his nose in someone else’s business, fish for drama, a thread of a rumor he can pick apart with nimble fingers. You wonder if anybody actually likes him.

The moment he disappears from earshot, you grab Taehyung’s wrist tightly and pull him close to you. “What the hell was that?” You hiss into his ear.

“What?” You can’t tell if he’s playing dumb or if he really is that dense.

“You!” You exclaim. “Kim Seokjin is the one person who could easily expose how fake this marriage is and you pull away from me? Right in front of him? You can’t even hold my hand for two seconds, that’s how much you hate me?”

“Who cares what he thinks?” Taehyung says. “He’s just another media rat. No one will even remember we were here tomorrow.”

“But if you keep acting like this, people will start to notice! Why can’t you just act like you don’t hate me, for one night? Is that so bad? Is it that torturous, to spend one night with me?”

“Do not turn this on me,” Taehyung orders harshly. “You’re making a scene. Come on.”

You don’t have time to shout at him for bossing you around like you’re a toddler throwing a tantrum before he drags you out of the venue, the two of you finding a back door to the building that leads outside. The cold air blows against your body, goosebumps popping up against your skin, but you find that the chilly night provides quite the respite after practically overheating indoors. Taehyung makes fire rush through your veins but at least the air can cool you back down.

Nevertheless, your conversation is not over. It’s just been moved to a more private location.

“You do realize that our marriage isn’t going to suddenly go away, right? That we’re going to have to keep doing this for the rest of our lives?” You remind him, eyebrows raised. There’s a part of you that genuinely thinks he’s completely forgotten that your marriage is permanent.

“Oh, and not holding hands for five minutes for this one event is totally going to change the course of our lives, isn’t it?” Taehyung fights back.

“Don’t act like you did the right thing,” you spit out. “You don’t have to pretend in front of me. I know you don’t give a shit about our marriage.”

“What marriage is there to even give a shit about? Just because we had a wedding and signed some documents does not mean there is a real marriage between us. Look at us,” he motions between the two of you like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “We hate each other. Is this what you would call marriage?”

“But at least I’m trying to get past that!” You exclaim. “You make it seem like being as miserable as possible is some sort of badge of honor. Do you actually want to spend the rest of your life hating the person you married? Or do you want to grow up and try and move on?”

Taehyung frowns. “What I want is for the person I married to stop acting like they’re doing me such a huge favor by pretending to care about us. Especially when all they really care about is their family’s goddamn reputation.”

“No,” you tell him sternly. You are doing him a favor. He just can’t admit that he actually needs help from you. “You are putting zero effort into this. What am I supposed to do?”

“Let it go!” Taehyung shouts. “Maybe one day we’ll actually start getting along, but right now it’s obvious that neither one of us can stand the other. I don’t need you to do favors for me. I can handle it myself.”

You look away, rolling your eyes. “Doesn’t look like it to me,” you mutter to yourself.

Taehyung cracks. “Fine. You want me to pretend that I actually care about us? I will.” Thank God. Maybe now the two of you will finally start seeing eye-to-eye. “But make no mistake about how I feel about you,” he spits. “Getting married to you ruined my life.”

You stare straight at him and his eyes are swirling, so obscured in the darkness of the night that you might even think he doesn’t have a soul at all. His pupils bore into yours and for once, for once in your goddamn life, after so many years of staring each other down at debutante balls, so many years of witty refrains and snarky insults hurled each other’s way, it feels like the two of you might actually snap.

Then, a camera flashes.

Trouble in Paradise! would be a suitable title for the front page of the city’s biggest tabloid… if anything about your life with Taehyung could be considered paradise. Unfortunately for the both of you, that is not the case.

You don’t need to keep reading the rest of the trashy article on the front page of the daily tabloid to know how much trouble you’re in, nor do you even have time to scroll beneath the terrible photo of you and Taehyung literally shouting at each other before you hear your phone ring.

You don’t even bother saying hello to whoever’s on the other end. You know it’ll go in one ear and out the other.

“I assume you know why I’m calling,” your mother’s harsh tone spits from the other end of the phone. There’s no doubt in your mind that she’s standing in the middle of her office, snapping her fingers at her fifteen secretaries as they partake in the worst damage control your family’s had to deal with since your cousin two years ago was caught with a mistress outside a high-profile restaurant.

“Can I take a wild guess?” You’re about to be scolded into the next century, so you might as well enjoy your last few moments.

“Don’t get cheeky with me,” your mother warns. “Care to explain why you and your beloved husband made the front page of the Daily Post today?”

“I know,” you sigh, a hand coming up to rub at your temples. It’s eight in the morning, you’ve barely looked at your phone, and you haven’t even brushed your teeth yet. It feels like you’re still asleep, and most certainly lack the energy to deal with this right now.

Your mother, on the other hand, thinks otherwise. “You know? You know, and you still go out and do this? For everyone to see?”

“We tried to take our argument outside,” you begin to explain, but your mother isn’t having a single word of it.

“The fact that you thought it was even appropriate to have an argument in a public setting at all astounds me, Y/N. We raised you better than that.” There’s no need for you to even see her face. You’ve grown so used to that disappointed frown over the years that it’s burned into your brain.

“Maybe you should have thought about that before marrying me off to a man I barely know so I could be someone else’s problem instead of yours,” you bite.

“We did this for your own good,” she hisses back. “You are married because we love you, and we want you to succeed outside of this family.”

“Then why do you care what the tabloids print about me?”

“Because being married does not mean you are no longer a part of this family,” your mother informs you sternly, lips smacking together. “Your marriage reflects on all of us, and you know that. What will people think of us when they see how terribly behaved you are?”

“Everyone acts like that, and you know it.” How could your mother preach good behavior when everyone, everyone you know, is just as spoiled and entitled as you? There’s no such thing as being altruistic when it comes to people like you. Being genuine, and good, and pure—that will get you ruined.

You can hear her breathing into the phone when your mother responds, “But not in public, and that is the point. We expect better from you.”

“If you were so worried about me behaving so badly, then why did you even marry me off anyway? You knew that I didn’t want to. What did you think would happen?” It’s a question you wouldn’t have dared ask three months ago. Hell, even a year ago, when it was first revealed you were to be engaged, you wouldn’t have dared open your lips. But things are different now. You’re married to a man that hates you just as much as you hate him. He is making no effort to improve your relationship and seems hellbent on despising you forever. There is no way to get out of it. And if your parents really foresaw all of that, then what was the point in the first place?

“Your grandmother.”

Your mouth shuts.

“You know she wanted to see you married before she passed,” your mother says, words clipped and biting and harsh. “She cares about you. She wanted to make sure you’d be taken care of.”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” you mutter to yourself like a petulant child. In a way, you sort of are.

“If you want to stay in her will, I suggest you change that mindset.”

You freeze in your tracks. The will?

“Is that a threat?” You ask, positively dumbfounded. Are you being coerced into staying in this marriage because of your grandmother’s will?

You can hear your mother laugh, that muted, knowing chuckle of hers. “It was the deal all along, remember?”

Vaguely, you do. You remember fighting your parents tooth and nail over getting married until your grandmother revealed it was her dream to see you wed. You remember the look on her old, wrinkled face, that soft, sad smile that said she knew she didn’t have much time left. You remember agreeing, because how could you deny her? You remember her promising to remember what you’re doing for her.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“But—”

“That’s the end of this conversation, Y/N. You fix things with your husband or you’re out of her will. She’s made that clear. I expect you’ll make the right choice.”

She hangs up.

Well.

There are a lot of ways to describe how you’re currently feeling, and you most certainly had an expensive education that would provide you with plenty of the vocabulary, but you think the most appropriate words for the current situation would be: you’re fucked.

At least the feeling is mutual.

Hardly two minutes after your mother’s brutal phone call, Taehyung comes storming down the stairs, hair still mussed from the night prior, his own phone clenched tightly between is fingers. Even from where you stand in the middle of the living room, you can see the way his eyes are glinting with anger, the veins popping out from his skin.

“I just got off the phone with my parents,” Taehyung begins, not even bothering to spare a ‘good morning’ your way, “and they are fucking furious about last night.”

You shrug. “Join the club,” you mutter, arms crossed in front of you. What, does Taehyung really think you got off scot-free?

“Don’t act like this means nothing to you,” Taehyung says as he approaches you, footsteps calm despite his demeanor being anything but. “You’re the one who’s so obsessed with keeping up their family’s perfect reputation. You’re the reason we’re even in this mess in the first place.”

“What do you mean, ‘I’m the reason’?” You ask, astounded. Like he’s totally absolved of all blame and just an innocent third party. “You are the reason we went outside. You are the reason we had that argument, because you refuse to accept the fact that we’re actually married and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Right, because holding hands is really gonna show all those people how in love we are. I bet your parents are so thrilled right now.” Taehyung drawls.

“It’s a start!” You shriek. “God, you’re just so—so infuriating! You can’t accept that this was your fault, too. You just have to turn everything against me and you always, always have to get the last word. It’s like you think you’ll die if you don’t.”

“Like you’re any better,” Taehyung huffs back. “You think I’m the villain because I don’t want to pretend to be in love with someone I’m not in love with. You act like us not holding hands is going to ruin our lives. It was one event! One! It’s obvious we hate each other, so why even try?”

“What, do you expect me to just sit around and do nothing? To act like everything’s fine? Like I’m happy?” As if. This marriage is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. “While you prance around the city with your rich boy friends, going out to clubs and parties and pretending that I don’t exist? Is that what you expect from me?”

Taehyung laughs, this loud, disbelieving sort of noise, like he’s never heard such nonsense before. “Just because we’re married doesn’t mean the rest of my life has to change. Am I not allowed to enjoy myself with my friends? Or are you determined to keep me chained to your side for the rest of our lives?”

“What I want,” you punctuate every word, “is for you to stop acting like you haven’t got stakes in this, too. You think I don’t know how your family works? What being married to me means for you? Because I do. And I know that if we were to divorce, it would be you who would get the short end of the stick. Make no mistake.”

That’s enough to shut Taehyung up for a good few seconds. And it shuts him up, because he knows it’s true. Taehyung’s family may have a little more money, a little more power than yours, but you’ve got a family intimately more connected with the media. One phone call and Taehyung may have a rather messy, rather public breakup to deal with.

“You wouldn’t,” he says, calling your bluff.

“Are you sure about that?” You say, sticking your ground. You would never really divorce him, of course, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“I am,” Taehyung says firmly. “Don’t think I don’t know what being married to me is in it for you. What is it? Money? Power? Your father’s CEO position?”

“That’s none of your business,” you snap quickly. Maybe you’re more transparent than you thought. Bristling, you straighten your shoulders and turn back to meet his eyes. “Regardless, it seems we both have a reason to stay in this marriage.”

“It seems we do,” Taehyung agrees with a thin, contained smile. “Then I suppose we can reach some sort of agreement.”

“As in…?” Your interest in piqued.

“I’ll stop going out with my friends if you stop picking fights with me all the time,” he says economically, like he’s killing two birds with one stone.

“Only if you agree to also act more like my husband when we’re in public,” you tack on, because you just can’t settle for anything less.

“Public only,” Taehyung specifies.

You scoff. “Like I’d even want to pretend to be your wife when we’re in private.”

“Good. It seems we’ve come to a deal.”

“What’s in this for you, huh?” You prod, just to be annoying. Taehyung’s right. There’s a reason you’re not divorcing him the second you get the chance. But there must be a reason why he’s not doing the same thing.

“Does it matter?” He challenges, a single eyebrow raised. “My life is just as awful as yours.”

Fair enough.

“Do we have a deal?” Taehyung asks, holding out his hand, that sneaky, devilish grin lacing his features.

Taking his hand in yours and grasping it firmly is the easiest decision in the world. His palm presses against your own, hot hand meeting your cold skin, and it feels like the two of you are finally finding some sort of balance. You look up into his eyes, burn your gaze into his pupils, watch them glint in the white ceiling light of the living room.

“Deal.”

For two people raised on the values of reading the fine print and making educated choices when it comes to business deals, you and Taehyung sure haven’t worked out any of the intricacies of the deal the two of you agreed to. Unlike those business deals your parents constantly agreed to, however, knowing all of the stipulations and provisions of your strange, strange agreement with Taehyung may prove more harmful than helpful.

Like right now.

“Wait, we don’t have to be by each other’s side the whole night, do we?” Taehyung asks you, eyebrows furrowed in a knot, as you sit in the back of a big, black van on your way to a mutual friend’s twenty-first birthday bash.

“There are going to be a lot of cameras there,” you respond.

“Yeah, outside the entrance to the damn club. You know they won’t be allowed in, so who cares?” Taehyung rebukes.

You huff out a little sigh, not wanting to get into an argument when you’re literally minutes away from your first public appearance since the whole tabloid debacle from three weeks ago. You and Taehyung could both do with being a bit more relaxed than you normally are when you’re around each other.

“Hasn’t Clarissa invited hundreds of people? They’ll all notice if we aren’t together,” you remind pointedly. The girl whose birthday party you are attending is an heiress who grew up on the money of two people with a monopoly over the current artificial intelligence market and has millions of followers on social media. There will be notable people there. And people will know the two of you, as well.

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “That’s the point, Y/N. There’ll be so many people, no one will even care. It’s her twenty-first birthday. Do you think people are going to be sober?”

You purse your lips together. He’s got a point. “How about when we are together, we hold hands. But if you see a friend or something then feel free to say hi.” Taehyung can be afforded that luxury. Especially because the chances of him not bumping into someone he knows is exceedingly low anyway.

Taehyung nods in agreement. “You too. But I won’t leave you unless I know you’re with someone you’re close with.”

“You don’t have to stay, I’ll be fine,” you say with a small chuckle. What, is Taehyung suddenly worried, or something?

“Yeah, but it would be in bad taste if I left you with someone you didn’t know well. Or alone. Just wanna make sure you’re taken care of.” He shrugs nonchalantly, turning back to look out of the window on his side of the car.

“Okay.”

You don’t really have anything else to say to that. You’re sure you can handle yourself if you’re left alone for a few minutes while Taehyung says hi, but you actually find yourself rather appreciative of his resolve to look after you. Or, at least, make sure someone else is looking after you. It’s quite… chivalrous. Strikingly out of character for the Taehyung you’ve become well-acquainted with over the past couple of months.

By the time you arrive, it’s obvious that Taehyung was right about there being so many people you two practically don’t even exist. Other than the herds of camera crews waiting outside the joint, photographing everyone that steps out of a black car to see what they’re wearing and who they’ve come with, no one seems to be paying you any attention. And in a way, that sort of nonexistence, that anonymity, it’s refreshing. Your entire life you’ve felt like all eyes were on you, like there was constantly a spotlight above your head, but here, the party centers around someone else.

Despite that fact, Taehyung keeps his promise. He keeps himself pressed closely against you when there’s not enough space for you two to stand side by side, and he makes sure to have a hand gently intertwined with your own as you weave your way through the dozens of bodies in the room. He doesn’t say anything, of course, always looking up and forward instead of beside him, where you stand, but you find that you’re actually quite relaxed with his presence. He spots a bit of a clearing near the back of the first floor of the club, where a whole bunch of leather couches are pressed up against the brick walls, where the two of you can take a breather.

“Damn, Clarissa knows a lot of people,” you say when you finally settle down, happily plucking a martini from a tray held by one of the many caterers wandering through the venue.

“I doubt she’s even spoken to half of them,” Taehyung comments. “She and I have maybe spoken once… three years ago.”

“It was enough to get you invited, wasn’t it?” You point out with an eyebrow raised.

Taehyung nods, chuckling a little. “Touché,” he says, clinking his own cocktail glass against yours.

You take a swig of the drink, letting it wash down your throat. You’re not exactly sure how else you’re supposed to survive the night. “You must enjoy this, huh?” You muse, looking up at Taehyung from where you’re seated on the couch. He’s standing next to you, looking around the room with a distant gaze in his eye.

“Enjoy what? The drink? It’s nice,” Taehyung says, having another sip.

“No, I mean this,” you say, motioning toward the crowd. “The clubbing, the dancing, the drinking. I’ll bet that if you could do this every day for the rest of your life, you would.”

“I’m honored that you think so highly of me,” he deadpans.

“Just making an observation,” you say, holding your hand up in surrender. “I mean, isn’t this what you used to do every weekend before we got married? Get wasted and party? Wake up in someone else’s bed the next morning? Muscle your way through the week just so you could do it all over again?”

Taehyung shakes his head, a knowing grin on his face. “Looks like someone keeps up with her tabloids. Let me guess, you would scroll through all of those trashy articles on your phone whenever you woke up so you could see what your future husband was doing?”

“I could have never even met you and I would know that that’s exactly what you do,” you say, even though you definitely did do those things before your engagement was announced to the public. “You’re a heartbreaker, Kim Taehyung. I don’t need to read a tabloid to know that.”

“Well, you must be quite the lucky girl, then,” Taehyung comments. “You seem to be taking up so much of my energy that I don’t have the time for that anymore.”

You place a sarcastic hand on your heart. “I didn’t know you were always thinking about me. I’m touched.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Taehyung huffs out, making the two of you both shake your heads as you chuckle to yourselves. First civil conversation you’ve had with each other in a long while, even if there may have been a few blows exchanged.

The privacy doesn’t last long. Soon after, a huge crowd of people that could honestly still pass for teenagers herds towards the back of the club, all of them wanting to take pictures with each other. You and Taehyung do your best to stay out of the way, but one of the girls recognizes him from the Elle photoshoot he did about a year ago and begins to strike up a conversation with the both of you about your recent marriage. If she was paying attention to anything the tabloids leaked three weeks ago, she doesn’t mention it. Taehyung smiles and happily answers all of her questions, and even offers to take a picture of the group for them. The conversation ends before the two of you even catch her name.

You’re standing by the line of buffet tables laid out against the staircase leading up to the second floor, no doubt as crowded as this one, when the opportunity for you to speak to someone other than Taehyung finally presents itself.

“Y/N!”

You’d recognize that voice anywhere. You turn around to see Victoria barreling towards the both of you, not even caring when she accidentally spills a bit of her piña colada on the floor as she does.

“Hey!” You exclaim excitedly. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Are you kidding? I’m pretty sure Clarissa invited everyone on her, her best friend’s, her best friend’s cousin, and her best friend’s cousin’s dog’s contact list,” Victoria says with a laugh. “It’s nice to see you. I feel like you’ve been holed up in that big ol’ penthouse for weeks.”

“Damage control,” you remind her succinctly. Victoria knows enough that that’s all the explanation she really needs.

“I don’t know if the two of you have ever met formally,” you say, thinking back to your wedding, where Victoria spent most of her time schmoozing with your parents (who love her) and didn’t even engage with any of the people who Taehyung’s family had invited. “Taehyung, this is Victoria. Victoria, Taehyung.”

“Pleasure,” Victoria says in that loud, unabashedly forward way of hers, holding out a friendly hand. Taehyung smiles back curtly, taking her hand and shaking it gently, so as not to spill any more of her drink.

“Mine as well. I remember you were at our wedding.” Oh? So he does know her?

“That I was. Oh, I miss that day. The food was excellent. Tonight’s isn’t too bad either. Hope you’re doing well, the two of you. It’s nice to see you getting along,” she says, always the observer.

Taehyung’s eyes widen a little when he picks up what Victoria is not-so-subtly putting down, but you place a hand on his upper arm to calm him. “It’s okay,” you tell him. “She won’t say anything.”

“My lips are sealed,” Victoria adds.

“If you wanna go spend time with some of your friends, you can,” you say, giving Taehyung a nudge. He looks positively helpless standing in between the two of you as Victoria out-extroverts him.

“Alright,” he says hesitantly, even though you know he’s already spotted at least ten people you’re sure he’d want to spend time with over you. “I’ll come find you soon, okay? Don’t go too far.”

You nod, and Taehyung disappears off into the crowd. Not two seconds later, you hear someone else call his name in a familiar tone.

“I thought you said you hated him,” Victoria points out as the two of you watch his caramel brown hair makes its way throughout the crowd.

You take another sip of your drink. “I do,” you say.

Victoria looks at you like you’ve just told her you’ve sworn off custard-filled doughnuts.

“What?” You ask, feeling suddenly defensive.

“Nothing,” Victoria singsongs. “It just doesn’t look like that to me.”

“We just need to keep up a good appearance in public, that’s all. You know how mad my parents got when the tabloids leaked all that shit a few weeks ago,” you explain. You’re not sure what all the fuss is about. Taehyung said he would do these things. And he did. That was him upholding his end of the deal. This is you upholding yours.

“If you say so…” Victoria says, not looking at all convinced. “I guess I’m just surprised that—that you two seem to be getting along so well. Maybe you being married isn’t going to be the worst thing after all.”

You stare back out into the crowd, scanning the top of people’s heads for Taehyung’s familiar locks. In the dim light of the club, you have a difficult time finding his, squinting your eyes slightly as you look around, but eventually you spot him, dancing happily with some old friends of his you recognize. He looks like he’s having a good time. And that makes you feel like maybe, just maybe, this might end up alright.

“Yeah,” you say, though with the pounding of the bass and the alcohol already rushing through your veins, it doesn’t really feel like your voice belongs to you. You look back at Taehyung, knowing exactly where he is now, and you smile. Just a little. “I guess he’s not so bad.”

You never do get a chance to meet Taehyung’s friends that night. By the time he joins back up with you and Victoria he’s by himself, a little more drunk than when he left, and ready to go home. And for once, instead of fighting him, instead of insisting you stay an hour more just to make sure you’ve done all of your rounds, you let him take you home.

Taehyung has been spending a lot more time at the penthouse lately. Perhaps his family’s business happenings are slow, or perhaps he’s actually starting to get more comfortable with inhabiting the same space as you, but he has definitely found himself quite the rhythm in that house of yours. He even comes down to the first floor rather regularly.

When he’s home, Taehyung is a lot quieter than you thought he would be. Granted, you don’t exactly know what you were expecting in the first place, but it certainly wasn’t him ruminating in one of the home offices while the Beatles play softly on the stereo, nor was it him reading a book in French in one of those big old grandfather chairs in the living room. If you didn’t know any better, you’d probably think he was still absent in that old way of his, ghostlike and silent, like he was occupying the space instead of truly living in it.

But you do know better, and even though Taehyung is just as noiseless as he used to be, the house already feels a little bit fuller.

Perhaps the reason you’ve become so keenly aware of his presence over the past few days is because of the notable fact that Taehyung has indeed held up his end of the deal, and no longer goes out with his friends in the evening. Or at all, for that matter. Which strikes you as rather odd, because he’s the epitome of a social butterfly, a thousand contacts in his phone and a whole group of friends he regularly spends time with. Maybe his parents told him to tone down the public appearances, too. And that’s understandable, but don’t they know Taehyung? Can’t they see how much he thrives on social interaction? It almost makes you feel… bad for him.

To remedy this, you suggest he invite over his friends. Just for a few hours, you swear you won’t mind.

“Seriously?” Taehyung looks positively shocked when you tell him he can, standing in the doorway of the office he seems to have designated as his own.

“Yeah, why not?” You say with a carefree shrug. Besides, you’ve never met his friends anyway, and now seems as good a chance as any to introduce yourself. You are his wife, after all. “Unless your parents say you can’t. But it’s not a problem for me.”

“You… don’t mind if I have my friends over for a bit? Honest to God, we’re probably just going to play FIFA for three hours straight,” Taehyung says like it’s some sort of warning. Like the idea of him and his buddies from college are going to sit in the living room screaming at the television, leaving you alone to do literally anything else, is somehow bad.

You laugh. “It’s fine, really. Call them. I’d actually quite like to meet them.”

Taehyung picks up his phone almost instantly, as if you’ll change your mind in the next five minutes so he better get them over soon, and already you can see the way his face is lighting up, the way his eyes crinkle as he chats to his friends and the way his lips curl upwards when they crack a joke back. Isn’t it obvious? He feeds off of the energy of others. Who are you to deny him such a simple pleasure?

As it turns out, Taehyung’s friends actually end up being quite nice anyway.

He invites over three, because four people is apparently the perfect number for a hardcore game of FIFA on his Playstation, and they are all very handsome men you have never met before. You suppose like attracts like, after all.

“You must be Y/N,” says the first one you see when you open the door to let them in. He doesn’t look a day over twenty-one—in fact, he could probably still pass as a college student—and has rather long dark hair that drapes over the sides of his face, covering the edges of his big doe eyes. “I’m Jungkook. This is Jimin and Hoseok.”

“Nice to meet you all,” you say, stepping aside so they can enter.

The shortest one, Jimin, grins in response, and Hoseok, behind him, gives you a wave. It’s refreshing enough as is, not having to exchange formal greetings and shake each other’s hands like you do with everyone else. Hoseok even gives you a bit of a nod, too.“You, too,” he says. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

Oh, have they, now? Interesting.

“All good things, I hope,” you say awkwardly, forcing a small smile as Taehyung comes bounding into the room, ears perked up at the sound of his friends’ voices.

“Definitely. Thanks for having us over. We didn’t wanna intrude on the sanctity of your new place,” Jungkook says, gesturing vaguely to the house as a whole. He’s got this excellent, genuine grin on his face, the kind that people who are just happy to be alive always wear.

Already he’s said enough to charm the shit out of you. Who knew Taehyung’s friends could be so… friendly? “Please, you’re welcome any time. I was just thinking Taehyung was getting a little lonely.”

“There he is!” Jimin shouts excitedly when he spots Taehyung behind the two of you, looking a lot more casual than he normally does when he’s alone with you, having abandoned his usual silky button-down and wide-leg slacks for a loose shirt and some sweatpants. You didn’t even know he had those things in his closet.

“Hey, everyone’s here!” Taehyung exclaims, just as happy. He squeezes past you to give the three of them a big hug, and it almost makes you feel like you’re intruding on something you shouldn’t be in. Even though this is literally your house.

“Nice place you got here,” Hoseok comments, eyes drifting around the living room. “Very minimalist, I like it.”

“Sure hope you don’t spill anything on those nice leather couches of yours,” Jungkook says.

“Yeah, unlike Kook, who has spilled tomato soup on every shirt he’s ever owned,” Jimin jokes, earning laughs from Taehyung and Hoseok and a punch from Jungkook.

“Moved after we married,” Taehyung says simply, shrugging his shoulders. It’s an easy enough explanation for why it doesn’t look at all lived in. Here’s hoping none of them realize you sleep in different bedrooms.

“Yeah, congratulations on that, man,” Hoseok says, giving Taehyung a celebratory nudge in the shoulder. “Who’d have thought, out of the four of us, Kim Taehyung would be the first one to settle down.”

The way Taehyung’s body tenses up at that comment does not go unnoticed by you.

“Seriously, I would have never guessed,” Jimin adds on. “You’re showing us a new side of yourself, Tae. But I’m happy for you.”

Normally, you’d probably take offense at such blatant insinuations that your husband was a former playboy, especially from his equally noncommittal friends. But truthfully, it’s not like you were blind to Taehyung’s transgressions either. And what matters most is the fact that since it was announced publicly, you are the only woman he’s been seen with since your engagement.

“Me too. You seem to really like her. I’m glad,” Jungkook pipes up, sending a smile your way. You definitely feel like you don’t belong in this conversation. “I think the two of you will be good for each other.”

“Yeah, I hope so,” Taehyung says with a nervous chuckle. His eyes quickly shoot your way, the two of you meeting gazes, your hesitant expressions matching. At least the two of you are on the same page. “Alright, alright, enough,” Jungkook says. “Who’s ready to get their ass kicked in FIFA?”

“You’re on, Jeon. But when I win, you owe me a five-star dinner,” Hoseok challenges.

“Deal.”

Hoseok, Jimin, and Jungkook immediately crowd towards the couch, and you take that as your cue to leave. But before you can disappear down the hallway, you and Taehyung look awkwardly at each other, hands tied. It’s not like you can say anything to them.

The truth is that, sometimes, it’s easy to forget that not everyone else knows that your marriage is just for business. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are still people out there that believe you marry for love.

Isn’t it crazy to think that you used to be one of those people, too?

“Hey,” Taehyung says when you meet up at the bottom of the stairs again.

“Hey,” you respond.

“You look nice.”

You scoff a little to yourself. What, are you exchanging compliments now? “Thanks,” you say, looking him up and down. “You’re not so bad yourself.” Like he ever is.

“I knew you had taste,” Taehyung teases, and it’s the sort of comment that would have earned him a melon ball to the face back when the two of you were teenagers at a debutante ball, but today only earns him a roll of your eyes as you join hands. You don’t have anything big tonight—just a small dinner to celebrate some sort of business accomplishment for your family, which means that all you have to manage is not ending up in some sort of food fight by the end of the night.

“I didn’t have a choice, did I?” You retort easily as you get into the car.

You don’t normally speak a lot on the way to events. Not that you ever did, but even as your relationship has slowly faded from pure hatred to attempts at compromise, you both seem to relish in being able to stare out of your respective backseat windows and into the city that surrounds you. Just out of curiosity, about halfway through the ride you look towards Taehyung to see what he’s up to, and find yourself genuinely surprised to see him leaning against the window with his eyes closed. Is he sleeping? A couple more minutes of gazing at him tells you he is, because his body has gone lax and his breathing has evened out, soft snores leaving his mouth. This ride can’t be longer than twenty minutes. Has he not been sleeping well? Up in that enormous second-floor bedroom of his?

He’s awake by the time the car parks outside the restaurant, this fancy name brand steak place that was chosen solely because the biggest beneficiaries of your family’s new business deal are two sixty-year-old men whose entire diet consists of beef and beer. No cameras tonight, just a small family affair. You and Taehyung hold hands as you enter the restaurant and are led to the private room in the back anyway.

You and him are seated on the far end of the long, rectangular table, alongside all of the other adult children dragged along to celebrate something that has no effect on their lives. But it’s nice, because the space alone prevents your parents from actively speaking with you, and you and Taehyung can stay in your own little bubble, only chiming in for a toast when necessary.

“What are you going to get?” He asks you, the two of you gazing at the menu. No matter how fancy this place is, all the options seem to boil down to steak, steak, steak, steak, and caesar salad. Classic.

“Oh, so you actually care now?” You counter, an eyebrow raised in amusement.

Taehyung laughs. “Aren’t I supposed to?”

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, wise to his usual shenanigans. It’s hard to tell if Taehyung really means what he says, or if it’s all for show. But perhaps he’s asking because he’s genuinely curious, since no one else seems to be paying you any attention.

“The choices on this menu are simply overwhelming,” you say, motioning to the six options in front of you.

“I know, I’m so torn,” Taehyung jokes, making you huff out a little giggle. At least he’s still got that same sense of humor.

You both end up going for a pretty classic steak dinner, which neither of the two of you finish because the damn portions are the size of your head. Dinner is, in and of itself, absolutely mindless, all of your parents talking about things that don’t concern you whatsoever, leaving you and Taehyung to your own devices as you desperately try to make the night go by faster.

At one point, you notice Taehyung’s foot brushing up against yours, the leather of his loafers brushing against the toe of your patent heel. Thinking someone of it, you push back, foot nudging his back to his own chair. It’s not a second later that Taehyung retaliates, the two of you dancing around each other underneath the table.

If the two of you were any younger, or perhaps any less resigned to your fate, there’s no doubt in your mind you would be attempting to get Taehyung to fall off his chair in an effort to do the same to you. Footsie means war. But when the both of you know that, at the end of the day, you’ll still be going home to the same place, and waking up the next morning in the same house, it doesn’t feel like this is a battle.

It’s just life.

Eventually, you meet Taehyung’s eyes with a hesitant smile, shoe pressed against his, stuck in ceasefire. And for once, he doesn’t have that devilish look in his eye, that smug little grin on his face that tells you that he’s going to make you regret whatever it is you just did. He’s just smiling back at you, all pink lips, having found real fun in the little things.

And that makes you happy.

The rest of the dinner is uneventful, which, in your book, is about as good as a dinner can go. You cheers to the future of your parents’ relationship with their newfound partners and say a quick goodbye to them both, hurrying out of there before they can ask you any questions on your relationship with your husband. But you don’t spend the car ride in silence on the way back.

Instead, you say, “Have you been sleeping well?”

The question seems to catch Taehyung off guard. He was already getting in position to take a power nap on the ride home, head pressed up against the window of the car.

“What?”

“Have you been sleeping well?” You repeat. “I noticed you fell asleep on the way here.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess,” he says, a hand scratching the nape of his neck. “I mean, it’s been hard adjusting, I suppose. But I’ll get over it.”

Hard adjusting? You’ve been together for nearly three months now. Three months worth of sleeping in the same penthouse bedroom, on the same soft-as-a-cloud mattress, underneath the same weighted blanket. And he’s still having trouble?

“Oh. I mean, I just wanted to ask because you seem really tired lately.”

“I got a lot on my plate, what can I say,” Taehyung says with an empty smile, forcing a chuckle. “I’ll be fine, seriously. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Isn’t that my job?” You remind him. “I am your wife.”

Taehyung doesn’t say anything to that. He just lets out an audible breath, the kind you let out when you’re amused and have something snarky to say, but don’t have the energy to get the words off your tongue.

The rest of the ride is pretty quiet.

When you get home, you place your house keys in the bowl by the entrance and take off your shoes, just about ready to take a hot shower and collapse in bed, when Taehyung’s voice stops you.

“Hey,” he begins, almost hesitantly. You look back at him inquisitively. “I was thinking, maybe, if you wanted, we could start sleeping in the same bed?”

You scrunch your nose up. Not in disgust, but in surprise. In bewilderment. What brought this on, all of a sudden?

“Really?” You ask, because you can’t help yourself. “I thought we liked the separate bed thing. Gives us privacy.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says with a shrug, “but—I don’t know, it’s stupid. I just thought, you know, since we’re married and all. And it’s been three months.” He looks about two seconds away from backtracking, from shaking his head and going upstairs before you can say anything else.

“Alright,” you say quickly, nodding your assent. Taehyung’s eyes widen when he hears the word, like he had completely expected you to shut him down the moment he made the suggestion. “If that’s what you want. We can try it.”

“You sure?” He asks, that same hesitant smile from earlier lacing his features. It’s strange. He almost looks… sweet. Nervous.

You grin back at him. “Yeah, I am.”

Taehyung lets you grab some of your toiletries and your pajamas from your designated bedroom before you head up the stairs together, towards the bedroom he’s claimed for himself. Funnily enough, this is the first time you’ve been in his room. Three months of living together and you haven’t dared step foot on the second floor.

You don’t know what you were expecting when he opens the door to let you inside. Maybe a room that screamed ‘Taehyung’ a little more than this one does. One that looks like an actual human has been living here. But other than one of his classic silk button-downs draped over a chair, there’s not a shred of evidence someone has actually been sleeping here. You could honestly be fooled rather easily that the shirt, too, is just decoration.

“You can pick a side,” Taehyung says casually. He grabs his own sleepwear—an old t-shirt and some sweats—and heads into the bathroom to change.

You wonder why Taehyung has had such a difficult time adjusting. This room is about as lavish as a bedroom can get. And yet.

Sitting down on the left side of the bed, you begin to remove your own clothes, unzipping tonight’s dress and stepping quickly into your pajamas, hurrying to make sure Taehyung doesn’t catch you half-naked. How funny is that, you think to yourself. You’ve been married for three months and you still can’t bear the thought of Taehyung seeing you without a shirt on.

When Taehyung comes out of the bathroom, hair all messy and clothes all casual, he grins lazily to himself. “I sleep on the right anyway,” he comments mindlessly.

Within twenty minutes the both of you are about as ready to pass out as you have ever been, the only lights still on the ones on your respective nightstands.

“Goodnight,” Taehyung says, reaching an arm over to switch his off.

“Goodnight,” you tell him, turning off yours as well. And all of a sudden, the room is shrouded in darkness.

You fall asleep instantly.

When Taehyung wakes up the next morning, the first thing he says to you is that he hasn’t slept that well in ages.

“You slept together?” Victoria shrieks, so loud you actually have to move your phone away from your ear as you punch in the code inside the elevator for access to your floor.

“We did not sleep together,” you emphasize. “Okay, well, we sleep together, as in, in the same bed. But we are fully clothed. And not the slightest bit interested in doing anything other than sleeping.”

“I thought you said you liked having your own space,” Victoria points out. “When was the first time you—uh…” she pauses to find the right words, “shared a bed?”

“A couple weeks ago. It’s really not so bad, I don’t know why you’re so hung up over it,” you say, lips pursed. You squeeze the phone between the side of your head and your shoulder, hands full of shopping bags, the string of the handles burning your skin. Maybe you should look into getting a personal shopper.

“I’m hung up over it because, for the longest time, you have sworn off Kim Taehyung. Called him dead to you. Insulted him every chance you get.”

You scoff. You don’t need reminding of how much you hated him, how much you can’t believe you have to spend the rest of your life with him. “It’s different now. We’re married. And he said he wasn’t sleeping well. I felt bad.”

“He wasn’t?”

“Enough about him,” you say, shutting her up. You don’t feel like talking about him with Victoria anymore. “Word through the grapevine says that your parents are actually thinking of letting you start your own company?”

It’s enough to distract Victoria. For the rest of the ride in the elevator, she talks animatedly about a new streaming service her parents are considering letting her launch, under their parent business, of course, but it’s her own company nonetheless. And you’re proud of her. Proud she could do something your parents would never dream of letting you do. Proud she could make that happen.

You push open the front door with the side of your hip after entering in the security code, phone still snug between your ear and your shoulder, when you hear Taehyung call out your name.

He comes into view from the kitchen, which surprises you because you have, on multiple occasions, made fun of how much of a disaster chef he is, especially because he’s admitted to you he’s not a very good cook.

“I made brownies,” he says, holding out a plate of the chocolate treats in front of you. Instinct has you dropping your bags on the floor by your feet and reaching out, but you eye him first, suspicious.

“I have to go,” you tell Victoria, hanging up before she even gets a chance to object to your sudden departure. “You made these?”

“Yes, I did,” Taehyung says, rather proud.

“And the kitchen is… still standing?” You ask, skeptical.

Taehyung frowns at you, clearly unimpressed. “How bad of a chef do you think I am?”

“Pretty bad,” you admit with a shrug.

Taehyung pouts sadly to himself for a moment. “These are good, I swear. Nothing weird in them like vegetables or anything either. I used a box mix.”

“No wonder they look so nice,” you comment snidely, hesitant hand reaching out to grab one. They feel like brownies. So that’s good.

“Hey, I was the one who had to crack the eggs and shit. Three eggs! And not one eggshell in the bowl!” Taehyung says, clearly very pleased with himself.

You laugh at his enthusiasm, taking a bite. It’s good. And exactly what you needed after a long day of shopping. “I’m proud of you. They taste good.”

“I knew you wouldn’t doubt me.” Taehyung grins.

“They’re really good, actually,” You amend, genuinely surprised. And the best part is that you can count at least ten brownies left on that plate, which means that you get at least five more. Which, if you had any less self-restraint, you would probably eat all at once within the day.

“I’m glad you like them. They’re all for us, you know. No one else to share them with,” he says.

“Honestly, I’m probably going to finish them by tonight. You’ll have to make more tomorrow,” you say sheepishly.

“We can make some together,” Taehyung suggests.

“I’m looking forward to it,” you respond. The words come off your mouth easily, tumbling from your lips without you having to think about it. You aren’t saying them because you have to. You’re saying them because you want to. Because baking with Taehyung doesn’t actually sound too bad. Especially if it means more brownies.

“You’ve, uh, you’ve got something,” Taehyung says, gesturing vaguely to the side of his lip.

“Oh, I do? Yikes,” you say, a little embarrassed. Your hand comes up to wipe at the left side of your mouth. “Is it gone?”

“Wait, here, let me do it,” Taehyung says, reaching out towards you. He presses his palm against the side of your face, cradling your cheek and jaw in his enormous hands, and all at once it feels like your skin is on fire.

Your body freezes up at the touch, at the way his thumb swipes at the corner of your mouth, right against your lips, wiping away nothing but a goddamn brownie crumb. You look at him, look right at him, how can you look anywhere else when he’s right in front of you like this, and it feels like you are caught in his gaze, a rain droplet trapped on a web, a bee stuck in its own honey. His big, brown eyes sparkle from the ceiling lights, a chocolate sky that mirrors the food he just made for you. He looks at you and his eyes are so soft, so open, so happy to be looking right back at you. God.

“There,” he says, a moment too late.

“Thanks,” you stammer out, speechless otherwise.

You both stand there, looking at each other, wordless expressions drawn all over your faces, no idea what to do next.

After a while, Taehyung breaks the silence. “Do you wanna order takeout tonight?”

“Okay,” you nod, still a little breathless. Taehyung smiles before retreating back to the kitchen, leaving you standing in the entranceway, shopping bags abandoned by your side.

You look over to where he’s vanished. There’s a part of you that wishes he hadn’t left. A part of you that makes you want to see him again.

Phone calls from your mother are never good. The last time she called… well, you know how that went. So when you see her contact information light up your home screen, it’s only instinct that you feel your heart rate spike.

“Hello?” The voice that comes out doesn’t even sound like yours.

There’s no good way to put what comes next. Your grandmother has died. Heart attack. The paramedics got there too late. It was over before it even started.

For a moment, for a split second, it feels like everything is frozen. Like the world has come to standstill. Your mother’s voice echoes in your ears, suspended in time, the words turning into stone as they crash onto the floor. And when they do, it is as if everything comes back to life.

Truth be told, you don’t know how long you stay there, sitting on the edge of the left side of the bed, your phone resting lifelessly in the palm of your hand. It feels at once like an eternity and only a second in time. You spoke to your grandmother two days ago. You had promised that you and Taehyung would visit her soon. How can this be happening?

Your phone buzzes relentlessly in your hands, condolences pouring in from every person in your contacts, sorry’s and heart emoticons and If you need anything, I’m always here’s filling up your screen. There’s a part of you that vaguely registers your mother, alongside some of the other members of your family, trying to call you. But nothing can seem to shake you.

Until—

“Y/N? You still up here?”

You hear Taehyung before you see him. Hear his voice, hear his footsteps, hear the door creak open as he enters your bedroom. Slowly, almost sluggishly, you twist around to look at him, the mere act knocking the wind out of you. Or maybe you were already breathless.

“Hey, you alright?” Taehyung knows instantly that something is wrong.

“My grandmother died.” The words sit heavy on your tongue. There’s no point in not telling him. He’ll find out soon enough. He’s… he’s family, isn’t he?

“What?” Taehyung freezes in place. “I—I’m so sorry to hear that, Y/N. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” you say, voice weak but steady. You blink up at him, once, twice, three times, and then suddenly you feel tears running down your cheeks.

Taehyung doesn’t say anything else. He rushes to your side and sits himself down on the bed next to you, arms wrapping around your body. And you don’t think about the fact that it’s him, about the fact that this is the closest the two of you have ever been. You just let yourself be engulfed in his frame, let yourself be enveloped in his hold as the tears stream down your skin, little hiccups jolting your throat. You close your eyes and press yourself into his arms, head resting against his chest, and wish so desperately that so many things about your life were just a little bit different.

It must be at least five minutes before either one of you dares to move. Your phone begins to rattle incessantly, that familiar and insistent buzz that the both of you are hard-pressed to ignore.

“I think you should answer that,” Taehyung whispers into your skin, lips right by your forehead.

“Yeah,” you sniffle, sitting up next to him and wiping the remnants of wetness by your eyes. Well, Taehyung’s seen you cry. There’s no going back now. “You’re probably right.” You look down at the phone. It’s your father.

“I’ll be downstairs, okay? Unless you want me to stay,” he offers, looking hesitant.

You shake your head. “No, it’s—it’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

“Call me if you need me,” he makes you give him a nod of understanding before he finally gets up, hands slowly removing themselves from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake. Remnants of warmth. Suddenly, you feel much colder. Hardly a minute later he’s out of the room, and you can hear his distant footsteps as they make their way down the stairs.

Sighing, blinking, and swallowing all at once, you pick up.

The call passes by in a blur. Your father says the will will take at least half a year to be executed, but that the funeral is already being planned. Your grandmother had hoped you would eulogize her. You agree, but you have no idea what you will say. He says Taehyung is invited but does not need to come if he cannot make it. He says a lot of other things too, about your mother, about your cousins, about your aunts and uncles and your poor grandfather, who passed five years ago, but you can’t even remember them moments after he’s said them.

When he hangs up, the tears on your cheeks have dried, patches of them left along your skin. You head to the bathroom, getting off your bed for the first time that day, and try to wash away everything that has stained the morning. A part of you doesn’t even want to bother, just wants to slug downstairs and eat as much sugary cereal as you can get your hands on, but you can’t go down there looking like this. Looking so helpless.

By the time you reach the kitchen, Taehyung is already standing there, on the opposite side of the counter island, a big stack of pancakes in front of him. They look mouth-watering.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Thought you might want something to cheer you up.”

“Did you make these?” You ask, a little endeared. That was thoughtful of him.

“Yeah. They’re still warm,” Taehyung says. He holds out a fork.

You grin.

The funeral is a week later. It sucks in every way that something can suck. But not in the same way your wedding sucked, or even the announcement of your engagement. It sucks because it’s a funeral, because you have to stare down your grandmother’s casket when a part of you still doesn’t even believe that she’s gone. Because everyone there is so sad, so melancholy, dressed in all black and looking down at their feet. Because everyone is so sorry for you, so sorry for your loss, everyone has nothing but condolences to offer you. What will those do? They won’t bring her back. They won’t change things. They won’t make you feel even the slightest bit better.

Taehyung comes. He comes because he offers, and because you want him to. You want someone whose hand to hold. Want someone to smile at you when you’re speaking in front of your entire extended family and trying not to cry. You want someone who is familiar, and warm, and there for you.

And most of all, you want someone who won’t keep the conversation going when you get home.

“Do you wanna order Chinese?” He asks, coming into the living room, where you have been sulking on the couch ever since you stepped foot inside the door.

“That sounds nice,” you force out.

“Okay. Your usual?”

“Yes, please.” You don’t bother asking how Taehyung already remembers what you like to order when you’ve only gotten Chinese twice in the last three months.

“I’ll call them.” He disappears off into the kitchen.

What you do appreciate about Taehyung is how he has defaulted to food as a comfort measure, and how the thought alone genuinely brightens you up a little bit. You don’t know each other very well—still, after three months, you couldn’t even say his favorite color—but he is doing his best, and he is trying his hardest. In some ways, you were unlucky to marry him. To marry someone you didn’t love. To be forced into a union you had no say in, with someone you had so much antagonistic history with.

But in some ways, your luck has changed. In some ways, marrying him was perhaps the best thing that could happen to you. Taehyung is snarky, a little devilish, and absolutely full of himself, but he is not thoughtless. He is not heartless. He has proven that he is willing to put in the work. That he can grow to care. To change. To compromise. And isn’t that the luckiest thing you could have gotten?

“I’m sure you’re probably sick of hearing people tell you they’re sorry for your loss.”

His voice breaks your reverie, carrying throughout the wide open space of your living room. He’s grinning honestly where he stands, slowly making his way over to you.

“Kind of, yeah,” you admit. “It’s not going to bring her back. Most of those people probably don’t even mean it.”

“Don’t say that,” Taehyung says, sitting down next to you. “I’m sure they do.”

You look at him skeptically.

“I mean, they’re sorry for your loss because that loss is causing you pain. And that sucks,” Taehyung explains, albeit a little less eloquently than you thought he would. “I know it sucks for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t like seeing you sad,” Taehyung says honestly, shrugging to himself.

You scoff a little to yourself. “I would have thought my downfall would be the exact thing the great Kim Taehyung would wish for himself.”

“Maybe a couple of years ago.”

You narrow your eyes.

“Okay, maybe even a few months ago,” Taehyung admits with a laugh, making you smile, ever so slightly. “But it’s different now. I like it when you’re happy. When you’re snarky and funny and a little evil. Seeing you like this… I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”

“That’s called empathy,” you point out.

“I’m trying to tell you that seeing you sad makes me sad, stop being a smartass,” Taehyung chides, and that really makes you grin. “There. There’s that smile I was looking for.”

“You’re so annoying,” you say, even though there’s no malice behind it. You give him a little push, palms of your hand pressing lightly against his shoulder as you roll your eyes.

“Only for you,” he promises. He manages to grab a hold of your wrist as your hand meets his torso, pulling you into him as he wraps an arm around your torso. You gasp a little at the sensation, head falling against his body, fitting snugly in the crook of his neck. He gives your side a comforting rub. “I’m sorry today was so shitty.”

“It was,” you agree. “But Chinese food will make it a little bit better.”

Taehyung looks positively scandalized. “What? ‘Chinese food will make it better’? But not your loving, doting husband?”

You pretend to think for a little bit, tilting your head up to the sky as you tap your chin with your finger. “Okay. Maybe that, too,” you cave after a bit of waiting, just to be extra bothersome.

“That’s what I thought,” Taehyung says proudly, looking down at you, eyes sparkling. You can feel his grip tighten as he presses you against his body, letting you rest your head on his side. It feels like the longest hug ever, like you’re wrapped up in a weighted blanket. Only it’s not a blanket. It’s Taehyung. It’s your husband.

He’s your husband.

“Tomorrow will be better,” he says, and it sounds a lot like a promise.

You nod against him, letting your eyes drift shut. Things are pretty awful right now. Your grandmother’s dead. The funeral was the saddest family event you have ever attended. You have no idea what’s supposed to happen next.

But he’s right. He seems to be right a lot these days, actually.

Tomorrow will be better.

Taehyung lets you sleep in for the next few days. Next several days, actually. Every time you wake up it’s close to noon and your husband is nowhere to be seen, the right side of the bed cold to the touch. It’s nothing to be worried about, though, because you can still see the noticeable dip in the bed from where he lies upon it, sinking his weight into the mattress. Taehyung’s an early bird and you’ve been having fitful nights ever since your grandmother passed.

Today, you pull yourself out from underneath the covers around noon, sluggish and still tired, squinting as the near-afternoon light streams through the enormous windows of the bedroom. Taehyung must have thought to keep the curtains open today.

You pull on the first casual clothes you see in your shared closet, some wide-leg sweatpants and a drapey t-shirt, and trudge downstairs like a raccoon to a trash can, hoping to fish through the kitchen cabinets to find something to eat.

Taehyung is, as far as you can tell, nowhere to be seen. You can’t seem to hear him anywhere, and a part of you wonders where he’s at when you stumble upon the note left on the granite counter.

Had a meeting downtown, be back around 1! There should be smoked salmon and some cream cheese and bagels in the fridge.

Taehyung.

You chuckle to yourself as you read his flowy handwriting, amused that he thought to let you know of, of all things, the available breakfast foods in the kitchen. You check the clock. It’s nearly noon. Which means you have just over an hour of the house all to yourself.

Having the house to yourself for five minutes is infrequent enough as it is, let alone for a whole hour. So often is Taehyung around, somewhere, holing himself up in one of the dozens of rooms or mindlessly wandering down the hallways. And for how much Taehyung is present, the funny part is that you still have no idea what he gets up to most of the time. Despite your voluntary abandoning of the separate bedroom rule, the two of you are still firm proponents of the sanctity of your personal spaces. There are rooms in the penthouse Taehyung has never been in, rooms filled with your clothes and makeup and accessories for when stylists come over before an event. A sewing room that you had specifically asked your parents for, because a part of you never let go of that childhood dream of being a fashion designer.

And there are rooms in the penthouse that you have never been in. Rooms with dark wooden doors that have always been kept closed, that you have never stepped foot in. It’s not that you aren’t curious as to what Taehyung gets up to. He could have a goddamn evil lair in one of those rooms and you would be none the wiser. But you don’t go, because he doesn’t go into your rooms. Because you two, despite all the vows you have broken, promised each other you wouldn’t.

An hour to yourself is almost a good enough excuse for you to head back up to the bedroom and take a nap. Not that you don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis, or that you even had a fitful night last night—hell, you woke up near noon today and already you want to go back to sleep—but what else is there to do when he’s not around? What new freedoms have suddenly been given to you?

You head back upstairs, much less groggy after that delicious bagel of yours, when you catch a whiff of what smells like wet paint coming from down the hallway. It’s potent and immediately invades your senses, prompting you to wonder if that has always been there, or just magically appeared. Maybe you were so sleepy earlier, you didn’t notice it.

Well, you notice it now. Unable to help yourself, you start to wander down the hallway, towards the source of the smell. God, it stinks. It takes you back to those days in middle school, when you would spray paint projects inside a tiny little classroom, have to step outside for fifteen minutes while you cracked the windows and aired it out. It gets stronger the further down the corridor you go, like a thick, smelly cloud stationed firmly within the walls of the penthouse. And then you realize where it’s coming from.

It’s an art studio.

A very messy art studio, you amend to yourself, as you peek inside. The door is wide open, and all of the windows are popped too, but the extra air circulation doesn’t seem to have made a dent in the scent. And all over the floor, the walls, and the tables are canvases covered in paint, denim jackets and pants and shirts with these wide, unafraid brushstrokes. Open cans of spray paint lie discarded on the hardwood floor stained with splotches of red, yellow, and green.

Is this what Taehyung does in his free time? Is this where he goes, this bright, sunny room at the end of the second floor hallway? Is this what he is making?

You look down in awe at the clothes resting on the floor, splayed out to maximize dry time. Abstract faces, landscapes, and words are painted onto the backs of jackets, the fronts of old white t-shirts. What hasn’t made it onto the clothes has been put on canvases instead, blurs of color mixed together in this purposeful pattern, confidence emanating from every stroke, every dot. It’s not art in the way that the gorgeous landscapes of Monet, the picture-perfect portraits of Kahlo, the messy, unplanned splatters of Pollock are. It’s art in a different way. In a Taehyung way.

Who knew he loved it so much?

You almost feel like an invader encroaching on his territory when you lean down to start cleaning up some of the mess, throwing out empty spray-paint cans and tossing out grey paint water. You don’t dare touch any of the work, don’t dare try to move it. You do what you can, washing out the brushes resting in the water and cleaning up the wet splotches of paint on the hardwood. Over time, the thick scent of still-wet paint slowly fades, disappearing out the window as the fresh afternoon air seeps in. And you stand there, in a room full of art, in a room full of pieces that Taehyung has undoubtedly poured his heart into creating, and you smile to yourself.

That’s how Taehyung finds you ten minutes later, peering into the room after declaring that his meeting had ended early.

“Thought I’d find you in here,” Taehyung says with a grin as you jump at the sound of his voice, eyes widen when you turn around to see him standing by the door.

“Oh, hey,” you say sheepishly. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Maybe because this is the farthest room in the house from the front door,” Taehyung teases lightly, coming up behind you. “I see you found my studio.”

“I know I’m not allowed in here,” you admit.

Taehyung scoffs. “Who says?”

“Didn’t we both agree on that?”

He shrugs. “Sort of. I think we just reached an unspoken understanding we wouldn’t invade each other’s personal space. But it was not in the fine print, no.”

“The fine print of what?”

“That deal we made.”

Right. That deal you made, four months ago, That deal, where the two of you agreed to pretend to be in love with each other during public appearances so you wouldn’t get burned at the stake by your families. Where the two of you agreed not to interact with each other otherwise because you hated each other so much.

“Oh, yeah,” you say distantly, feeling naive for already forgetting about it. It doesn’t seem to have slipped Taehyung’s mind whatsoever.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind that you’re up here,” Taehyung says, interrupting that piercing little voice in the back of your head that is asking you why on earth you forgot about that deal in the first place.

“Yeah, I—” You scratch at the nape of your neck, trying to find the words to say. “It just smelled like paint, so I wanted to see what you get up too. And it’s this, apparently.” You motion vaguely to the entire room.

“You sound… surprised,” Taehyung muses correctly.

“I guess I am,” you surmise. “I’m rather impressed, too, actually.”

“Really?” It’s Taehyung’s turn to sound surprised.

“Yeah,” you tell him honestly, looking into his eyes. “I—you know, I just came in here because the entire hallway smelled like wet paint and I wanted to know why. But I didn’t know you loved art so much.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Taehyung points out.

You suppose that’s true. You don’t know his favorite color. His favorite song. His favorite book. For a long time, you didn’t know what he got up to on his side of the penthouse. You don’t know how he met his friends. What he studied in university. Who he has loved in the past. Who he loves now. You don’t know why he does the things he does, and why he doesn’t do the things he doesn’t do.

But you do know his Chinese takeout order.

And you do know his hobbies. Well, one of them, at least.

Who’s to say you can’t learn more?

“Well,” you start with a smile. “I’m your wife, aren’t I? Shouldn’t I begin to learn?”

Taehyung picks up what you’re putting down instantly, grinning in response. “Only if you’ll tell me things about you, too,” he requisitions.

“I will,” you promise. It’s the easiest one you’ve ever had to make.

His face is light, bright, bathed in the rays of the afternoon sun. His eyes shimmer as they meet yours, golden flecks more pronounced like this, in this gorgeous, open space, daylight streaming through the windows. Looking at him makes you feel like you are surrounded by warmth, makes you feel like the sun is opening its arms out to you. He has always been gorgeous. Beautiful. But looking at him like this, standing in the middle of a room filled with all the things he loves, a yellow halo surrounding him—he is ethereal.

Taehyung smiles. “Then I will, too.”

The hand-holding comes naturally tonight.

The funny thing is, actually, you don’t need to hold hands at this gathering. It’s not an event. Or a public appearance. It’s not even a business dinner. It’s your aunt’s sixtieth birthday party, reserved exclusively for family. Isn’t that strange? That Taehyung is, technically, family now?

For so long you had vowed to stay as far away from him as possible. Vowed to stick it to him whenever and wherever you could, do anything you could to get on his nerves, rile him up. Vowed that when you, one day, took over your family affairs, you would never, ever invite him. Make it known that he wasn’t to be a part of your life. And yet, here you are. Clinging to him despite being well-acquainted with—loved by, even—every other person in the room. Holding his hand like a goddamn lifeline.

To be fair, Taehyung doesn’t look a hair out of place here. Dressed relatively casually, a smart sweater with a collared shirt underneath it, he smiles warmly at all of your relatives and presents your aunt with a beautiful and very expensive scarf the two of you had commissioned from a designer in Italy, which she absolutely loves. She pinches his cheek and proceeds to wear it for the rest of the night.

“Damn,” you murmur to yourself as you wander around your aunt’s house, hand wrapped around his arm. “This place hasn’t changed a bit.”

“When was the last time you were here?” Taehyung asks.

The question actually makes you think for a moment. “I don’t know, maybe five years ago? Last couple of birthdays I was overseas or in school. Had to send her a card.”

“Bet your parents were real pleased with that,” he jokes, making you both laugh. At least you two will always be able to share your experiences of domineering and influential parents with each other.

“Oh, I’m sure. Just as pleased as they were when they realized how much we hated each other.” You expect that little jest to elicit a laugh out of Taehyung as well, but he just smiles tightly, huffing out a breath of acknowledgement.

“Eh, it’s not like that now, is it?” He offers up.

“I suppose not,” you muse, sitting down together on her ancient grandma couch in the living room. No matter how rich your family gets, she’ll never get rid of this thing, that’s for sure.

One thing you’ve picked up over time is that, for every second Taehyung spends basking in the spotlight, he spends an equal amount of time lingering by the wall, watching the rest of the world turn without him. He’s an observer. He is one by nature, feeling an irresistible pull to understand humans in a way only artists could ever do. He sits down next to you and watches your family in an environment where they can relax, where they can feel comfortable and be casual with one another.

Very seldom have you ever brought friends to events like these. Small family affairs. But Taehyung isn’t a friend, is he? No, he’s your husband. He belongs here just as much as you do.

“My family seems to really like you,” you point out. Not that anybody has ever harbored as much disdain for him as you. Your parents called him respectable and polite when they told you you were to be wed. Your grandmother had said he was a dashing young man. He doesn’t exactly have to reach far to be loved around here.

“That’s my job, isn’t it?” He replies snidely.

“Oh, just take the compliment,” you say with a roll of your eyes. Taehyung always has to be so difficult. “I’m surprised you aren’t nervous as hell. Last boyfriend I brought to meet my parents was shaking in his Louis Vuitton shoes.”

“Last boyfriend, huh?” Taehyung’s interest has been sufficiently piqued. “And, uh, how many of those have you had?”

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, smile twitching on your lips. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Mr. Heartbreaker.” Pretty rich of Taehyung to be asking you such a question when he’s probably had more girlfriends than you can count on both hands. “Not as many as you’ve had girlfriends, that’s for sure.”

“Guess I’m a lot different than all those trashy guys you’ve dated, aren’t I?” He asks, an eyebrow raised as he looks at you.

“You are?”

Taehyung nods assertively. “Well, yeah. First of all, I’m your husband. Second of all, your parents love me. Third of all, you love me, too.”

You scoff. “Don’t humble yourself. You don’t know me that well.”

“Speaking of which,” Taehyung says, eyes wide as he points to you knowingly, “how about you tell me a little fact about yourself? It’s my job to learn about you, isn’t it?”

“That is my line, watch it,” you sneer, pointing back at him. You wrack your brain for a fact that you can tell him, something more exciting than your favorite color but less weird than one of those terrible icebreaker exercises you had to do in college seminars. Something that has pertinence to who you are. Who you’ve become. “Alright. I used to want to be a fashion designer when I was little.”

Now that catches Taehyung off guard. “Really?” He says, genuinely intrigued.

You shrug. “Yeah. I learned to sew when I was really little. Been tailoring and hemming clothes all my life. But I always wanted to design my own stuff.”

“Is that what’s in your room?” Taehyung asks. “A sewing machine?”

“Bingo.”

“Wow,” Taehyung says. “I didn’t know that.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of this exercise?” You say, just to be smart.

Taehyung shakes his head, eyes rolling.

“What about you?” You ask. You can’t imagine what he’ll say. Astronaut. Veterinarian. Or, if he really wants to surprise you, a business executive.

“A museum curator.”

It is an answer that simultaneously surprises and doesn’t surprise you at all.

“Fitting,” you muse. “You could have put your own art on display.”

“Pretty sure that’s, like, super unethical,” Taehyung reminds you.

“So? You’re rich. Start your own museum. Put your own art on display. Live your dream,” you amend. “It shouldn’t be holed up in that studio of yours forever. It deserves to be seen.”

Taehyung smiles at you. “You think so?”

You nod. “Of course. You create beautiful things, Tae.” It’s the first time you’ve ever called him that. And that is not lost on Taehyung, either.

“Thank you,” he says softly, blinking as he looks at you. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to.

Later that night, when everyone’s gotten a few drinks into their systems and Bruce Springsteen is playing low on the stereo, Taehyung disappears off towards the bathroom, no doubt because of the excellent soup that was served that night. All by your lonesome, you feel a little stranded, surrounded by your old relatives dancing on the hardwood floor of the dining room, your other cousins too young to actually spend time with.

In the commotion, your mother comes up to you, swirling a rather large glass of red wine in her hand.

“Where’s Taehyung?” She asks.

“Bathroom.”

“No wonder you were alone,” she says with a hearty laugh. “The two of you have been glued to each other’s sides all evening.”

“He’s my husband,” you offer as an explanation.

“I know, I know,” she says, shaking you off with a smile. Your mother is a lot more casual once she’s had her fill of wine, no doubt her favorite, Bordeaux. A lot more loving, too. “You really made your grandmother proud, you know? She loved you so much.”

“I know,” you say, trying not to get choked up at the mere mention of your grandmother.

“She was so happy to see you with Taehyung. It made her feel safe that you would be taken care of,” she continues on, barely paying you and your swimming eyes any attention. “She would be so happy to see you with him now, too. How much you love her.”

“I miss her,” you hiccup out, trying to compose yourself. Nothing kills a birthday party like some sad sack crying over her deceased grandmother.

“I know, darling,” your mother says, calling you by a nickname she has hardly used ever since you turned eighteen. She squeezes you tightly, a small hug of comfort. “I miss her, too.”

Someone calls your mother’s name, distracting her as she wanders off to your uncle, who is asking what the best way to cut the three-tiered cake on the dining room table is. She bids you a goodbye before disappearing towards the kitchen, no doubt ready to make the cutting of the cake an affair all on its own.

Taehyung comes back soon after, spotting you instantly as you stand around in the living room.

“Hey,” he says, noticing the wet shimmer of your eyes. “You alright?”

You nod, feeling better already now that he has returned. Now that he is by your side. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I hope those tears aren’t because you missed me,” he says, wiping away a stray one that has escaped from your eyes. You close them as his thumb brushes against your upper cheek, your eyelashes, opening them only when you’ve felt his touch vanish from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake.

“No,” you say. But the night makes you honest, and a couple of drinks, even more so. “But I’m glad you’re here.”

Taehyung smiles. “Me, too.”

For all those days you have spent together, never have you and Taehyung had a night in. Which isn’t necessarily completely surprising, considering how many evening events the two of you have had obligations to attend, considering your differing work schedules and meeting times. Considering that, for a very long time, the two of you had no desire to spend any time with each other at all.

But tonight, there is nothing on your calendar. No galas, no dinners, no meetings, no schedules. There is only Taehyung, who has spent the entire afternoon up in his studio, inhaling spray paint fumes and doing what he loves. And there is only you, who has spent the entire afternoon wondering what the hell you’re going to do tonight when there is nothing else planned.

You knock on the door to his studio, catching him right as he’s finishing up another piece. This one is a single flower, painted in broad, confident strokes, bright green and red and sunflower yellow decorating the canvas.

“Hey, what’s up?” He asks, turning around to face you.

“Wanna order takeout tonight?” You suggest.

Taehyung grins.

Thirty minutes and your favorite Chinese food later, you and Taehyung have settled onto the couch, trays of dumplings and noodles and rice in front of you, an unfunny movie playing in the background.

You can’t remember the last time the two of you sat on this couch together. Maybe that night you had made the deal? Perhaps not even then. It wouldn’t at all surprise you if you found out that this was the very first time you and Taehyung have sat together on your couch, in your living room, in your house. So often is it occupied by others—Victoria, who sometimes comes over to ooh and ahh at your closet, Jimin, Jungkook, and Hoseok, who sit on this couch and play FIFA like it’s their job, your mother, when she wants to make herself at home in a place that doesn’t belong to her—but never you. Never you and him.

“This is kinda nice, isn’t it?” You ask, swallowing a bite of dumpling.

“Chinese food is always nice,” Taehyung responds over a mouthful of cold noodles.

“Not that,” you say with a sigh, “this. Sitting together. Watching this shitty movie.”

“It’s not that shitty,” Taehyung tries to reason. On screen, the main character is getting pied in the face during some weird college fundraiser. “Okay, it’s a little shitty. But it’s good background noise, right?”

You nod halfheartedly. “I guess.” Silence. You take another bite of your dumpling, not really sure how to continue the conversation. “We don’t really get to do this a lot, you know? Sit and eat dinner and watch a movie together. Like a date.”

“We’re on a date now, are we?” Taehyung muses, eyeing you snarkily.

“Isn’t that what this is?” You retort.

He shrugs. “I suppose it is.”

“Tell me another fact about you,” you request, looking over to him where he sits on the opposite side of the couch.

“About what?”

“Anything.”

Taehyung pauses, ponders for a moment. But he could never say anything wrong. Not when there is still so much you don’t know about him. Still so much you want to learn, so much you want to commit to memory. For so long you have stared at the planes of his face, the curve of his nose, the twinkle in those dark brown eyes. Those you will always remember. But what about who he is? What he loves? Those are things you still don’t know.

“The very first time I met you,” Taehyung begins, “I asked Jimin what your name was.”

“When was that?” You ask. Despite you being someone who has spent the better part of the last several years vowing never to give Taehyung the time of day, you sure don’t remember when it all started.

“That debutante ball,” Taehyung remembers fondly, “when we were fifteen. I asked Jimin what your name was because I wanted to ask you to dance.”

“Shut up, no you didn’t,” you say with a scoff.

“It’s true. You were standing there in that poofy white dress and I wanted to ask you to dance,” Taehyung points out. The fact that he even remembers what you were wearing is shocking.

Who knew. Who knew, back then, that you would one day grow up to marry him.

“And what did I say?” You demand more.

Taehyung laughs at the memory. “I came up to you, and I asked you if you wanted to dance, and you said, and I quote, ‘Who are you?’”

“No,” you say, aghast at your own behavior. Were those really the first words you ever said to KIm Taehyung?

“You did. Don’t you remember?”

You think back. Think back to every year you have ever known Taehyung, every year you have spent scowling at him from across ballroom floors, making some snide remark as you pass by each other in the hallway. Every year you have spent cursing his existence, willing him away from you so he could bother someone else. Every year you have listened to rumor after rumor of girlfriend after girlfriend. You think back and somewhere, somewhere in there, in those dusty corners of your brain and cobwebbed boxes of your heart, is that first memory of Taehyung, too.

Of him standing there in some generic black suit, black hair swept over his forehead, shoes too big. Of him coming up to you, trying to be as suave as a fifteen year old could be. Of you saying to him, instead of a hello, or even a what’s your name, “who are you?”

Of him saying—

“And you said, ‘your dream come true’.” Like a dam bursting open, the memories flood back to you all at once. “I remember that.”

Taehyung laughs out loud at the thought of him saying something so cheesy. “Unsurprisingly, you didn’t want to dance with me.”

“You were so—” you begin, but you don’t have the words. Don’t have the words to express how you felt about him that night. Don’t have the words to express how you feel about him now. Thinking about this, talking about it, it is a bridge. A bridge between what was then and what is now. A bridge between who Taehyung was and who you were and who Taehyung is and who you are. “—so unthinkable. I couldn’t believe you had come up to me and said that. I couldn’t believe you had the audacity. But something about that night made me remember you. Made me remember your name.”

“You thought about me after that?” Taehyung asks. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

“There is something about you that is unforgettable,” you say, honest and real and true. What else can you tell him? The truth is that you have always thought about him. Whether you liked him or not.

You finish your dinner and place your trays on the end tables next to you, stacking your empty bowls and plates on top of one another as the movie rumbles on in the background.

“It is kind of a shitty movie,” Taehyung admits after a while of being wholly unenthused.

“Yeah,” you agree. “But it’s good background noise.”

Taehyung laughs at your little mockery, warm and deep and from his belly. You look at him. He feels so far away, on the other side of the couch. Feels like he’s miles apart from you. You have spent countless nights clinging to his harm, hand gripped tight in his. And sitting like this, a full couch cushion of space between the two of you—it isn’t enough anymore. So you inch closer.

And closer.

And a little closer.

Until you’re pressed up against his side, legs touching as they rest neatly in front of you, backs stick straight as you stare at the television.

Taehyung holds his arm up. An open invitation.

Without asking, you lean into him, resting your head in the crook of his shoulder, in the space right underneath his jaw. You pull your feet up onto the couch and curl into his frame, pressing yourself against him. He is warm and firm and inescapable. He smells of coffee and paint and Chinese spices. He wraps his arm around you and pulls you in, as if there were any other place you’d rather be.

You sit like that for a while. Wrapped up in each other. Lazing around on the couch as the stars twinkle above your head. The movie ends and the two of you don’t even bother skipping the credits, letting them and the cheesy 80’s pop song play on, a distant soundtrack.

“I never thought any of this would happen,” you breathe out.

Taehyung looks down at you curiously. “What? This?”

“All of it,” you admit. “Us. Getting married. That stupid tabloid picture. My grandmother. This. It’s all so new.”

“New things will happen all the time,” Taehyung muses aloud. “We can’t help when things change.”

“You don’t have any regrets?” You have plenty. Regrets that you’ll never become the CEO you wanted to be in college. Regrets that you’ll never become the fashion designer you wanted to be as a little girl. Regrets that you will come to resent this marriage, resent Taehyung more than you have in years past, all because you had no choice. Regrets that your grandmother couldn’t see you now. Regrets that there were so many things in your life you could have changed, but didn’t.

“I thought I did,” Taehyung tells you. “I wanted to spend more time with my friends. I wanted to major in art in college. I didn’t want to marry you. I know you didn’t want to marry me.” He looks down and you look up at the same time, eyes locking, inches apart. “But looking back on it, I’m happy where I am. With what I have.”

“I never thought it could ever be like this,” you say, words falling off your tongue before you even ask them to.

“What?”

“Us.”

There’s no need to elaborate. Taehyung understands. He understands that, half a year ago, you both would have thrown yourselves into a volcano before holding hands with each other. He understands that getting over your hatred for each other seemed like an absolutely insurmountable task. He understands that you had never wanted to marry each other, that you couldn’t believe you would have to spend the rest of your lives with each other.

And he understands that now, things are different.

“I’m glad things happened the way they did,” Taehyung begins. “I’m grateful for us.”

You press yourself impossibly closer to him, feel his grip tighten around you. Like this, you can hear his heartbeat. Hear it thump like a drum, steady and firm and unwavering. His heart beats against his chest and you wonder.

You wonder if he can hear the way yours beats for him, too.

There were lots of things that made your night in together special. But one of them is the glaring fact that you don’t get them very often. That their infrequency makes them all the more valuable.

This has become blatantly obvious to you, because right now you are not spending a night in together. Right now you are stuck at a gala that you have to attend for the sake of business, drinking thin flutes of champagne and mingling with people you barely speak to.

The one good thing about nights like these is that Taehyung looks positively gorgeous in suits. He sort of always has, but you’d never admit that to his face. At least not until now. And as his wife, you are lucky enough to have a front-row seat.

“I can feel you staring at me all the way from over here,” Taehyung deadpans as he helps himself to a chocolate-covered strawberry from the buffet table.

You’re too obvious to have any shame about it. “What can I say, I like the view.”

“Hard to believe I was the once the one being shouted at for being inappropriate in public,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. He bites into the strawberry and eats it all in a single go, tossing the stems into a bin nearby as you join back up in the heart of the crowd.

“It’s only inappropriate if other people hear,” you tease, letting him guide you, hand intertwined with yours, towards an empty corner where the two of you can snuggle up to one another in (relative) peace.

“I don’t think the champagne was very good for your filter, Miss Y/N,” Taehyung hisses into your ear, warm breath tickling your skin.

“Don’t you mean Mrs. Kim?” You pose, an eyebrow raised.

That seems to do something to Taehyung. It’s not very bright in here, with it being nighttime and all, but even still you can see the way his eyes darken. See the way his lips curl upwards, feel the way his grip on you tightens. It sparks something within you. Something deep in the pit of your belly.

Something that makes you want more.

You test the waters. “Mrs. Kim has a nice ring to it, don’t you think, Tae?”

Taehyung looks about a moment away from losing control. But instead of slamming you against the wall in front of all of these people and giving you what you really want, he growls out, low and powerful, “Home. Now.”

He doesn’t need to tell you twice.

You hail your car outside of the venue and it’s all the both of you can do to not jump on each other right then and there, in the backseat of this giant black van, overcome with want, with need, with everything in between. Taehyung’s leg bounces impatiently the entire ride back, and the feeling of your hand pressed against his doesn’t seem to be calming him down. He pulls you close to him in the backseat of the car, a hand resting on your thigh. You eye him carefully, as if challenging him to be any more daring. He grins.

Home cannot come soon enough. The two of you tumble out of the backseat and into the elevators, where you mash the top floor button after entering in the security access code, desperate and shameless. The ride seems to take hours, and the heat that surrounds you practically smothers you, covers you, fills up your lungs and chokes you.

There is nothing left by the time you reach your door. The moment it slams shut behind you Taehyung presses you up against the back of it, pins you against the wood as he hovers over you, eyes tracing your lips.

“Tell me something,” he demands.

“What?”

“A fact. Something I don’t know.”

It doesn’t take much thinking. “I want you,” you breathe out, watch it hit his skin, watch the way his eyes glint in the light of the entranceway. “Please, Tae. I want you.”

It’s enough for him.

This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed. The first time was nearly five months ago, in a chapel, at an altar, surrounded by hundreds of people. It was so unfun that you seem to have eradicated the mere thought from your memory. But you remember that feeling from that day. That feeling you got when you pressed your lips against his, cemented your marriage with a kiss. That heat. That sting.

Kissing him now—that feeling has returned tenfold. When his lips meet yours, it feels like fire is rushing through your veins, setting alight every nerve it passes, unforgiving and relentless. His enormous hands come up to cup your jaw, fingers pressing against the skin of your cheeks as they pull you close to him, keep you trapped in his hold. This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed but it feels like it is—it feels like there is a lotus blooming on a lilypad in your heart, it feels like you have been struck by lightning, it feels like nothing else you have ever felt before. It feels brand new.

Pressing back against him, he slowly releases you from the cage he has created against the door, spinning around so the two of you can tumble up the stairs and into your bedroom, unable to resist sneaking in pecks here and there as you make your way upstairs. Every step you take you stop, giggle as he presses you against the railing just so he can steal another kiss from you, put his hands all over your body. It’s a wonder the two of you even make it into your bedroom at all.

When you do, however, all bets are off. Taehyung presses you against the still-made bedsheets with a glint in his eye and a growl on his lips, pupils blown wide as he stares down at you, at your body.

"Aren't you a sight? Laid out so pretty for me," he purrs, robbing a breath from you.

It's a tone you have yet to hear from him. You find yourself growing impossibly hot under his stare, burning with an uncharted desire.

You can hardly wrap your brain around it. Here you are, craving the man you had spent the better half of your young adult life loathing. Maybe it’s the champagne; maybe it’s the way his fingers are running slowly up the length of your clothed torso. Whatever it is, your stomach does flips, unfamiliar to the way your body preens under his touch.

"Don't let it go to your head," you tease, simply because you could.

Taehyung hums disapprovingly, pressing kisses into your neck as he grabs one of your thighs and wraps it around his waist, riding your dress up in the process.

You sigh, exposing your neck further for him as he paints bruises into your neck. It feels like just yesterday you had called him out at the altar for his habit of sporting the very same marks you were soon to wear.

Perhaps you should have thought twice about letting the man you had married purely under business pretenses press his hips against your clothed center, but as he rolls his into yours, your mind falls blank, silencing any and all reservations you should have.

Whimpering, you beckon his mouth back onto yours, tongue meeting his wantonly.

You feel his fingers creep up the outside of your bare thigh, thrilling you in the most primal way. Reaching the band of your underwear after what felt like entirely too long, he runs the pad of his thumb against the lacy fabric.

You could scream. He is doing this on purpose. He must be. Surely he knows how badly you were aching for him? For him to fill you– whatever the manner may be.

You let out a whine before you can help yourself, frowning as Taehyung looks pleased with himself, confirming his knowledge of your prolonged pleasure.

"What's that? Did you say something?" he mocks, looking cruel and yet strikingly gorgeous as he smirks above you.

"God, you're irritating,” you huff, hips jerking up against his as he pulls at the band of your underwear, the elastic snapping back into the flesh of your hip. "Just fuck me already."

He tuts, clearly unimpressed by your impatience, "Now, where is the fun in that?"

Your eyes flutter shut as his fingers suddenly snake their way between your thighs. Mouth falling ajar, you grip his shoulders as he runs his middle finger against your clothed slit, trailing up and down your warmth. To think he was still dressed while he was touching you like this...

"No... I think I'll take my time with you," he says.

You mew against his hand, arousal forming against his long digits' ministrations. You have to hand it to him. Taehyung knows what he’s doing. The life of a bachelor has seemingly served him well.

You aren’t usually vocal in bed, but the way he’s purring words of filth to you, breath hot against the shell of your ear as he tells you how hot and slick your pretty pussy felt against his hand, has you gasping and sputtering, your own fingers wrapping around his wrist.

The fabric of your panties provides a friction that toys the line of pleasure and pain, making you thrust up to meet his motions, your humility slipping from you.

Taehyung watches you intently, cock growing hard under the constraints of his dress pants. You look better than he could've imagined, eyes watering and body shivering under his touch, his fingers soaking with your arousal. He can only imagine what you'd feel like with his fingers fully buried into you, rocking them against your velvety walls.

He lets out a groan of his own, turned on by the idea of you fucking yourself onto his fingers, whimpering out his name in ecstasy.

There’s this part of you that faintly recognizes that Taehyung has done this plenty of times before. Plenty of times with plenty of other lovers. But there is a different part of you, that part that bursts with light and hope, that reminds you that he was never married to those other ones. That his allegiance lies with you. And that thought, knowing that deep within you, he is yours, makes your jaw fall slack, pretty noises tumbling from your lips and your thighs clamping around him.

You were close, closer than you care to admit. Every touch against you is careful yet deliberate as he reads the signs of your body, the way it keens and arches into him, offering you words of encouragement as your climax finally hits.

"That's right. Good girl. Let go for me," Taehyung coos, eyes dark and focused on your writhing form.

You cry out into the familiar space of your shared room, head thrown back as you ride out the high, letting it wrack your body, send jolts throughout your veins.

You barely have time to catch your breath when he presses his mouth back onto yours, kiss still as eager as it was when you both first entered your home. You are alight with satisfaction as he pulls away to press a trail of kisses against your jaw.

"I want—f-fuck," you stutter as he finds your already hypersensitive clit once more, rolling his thumb over your now soaked panties in tantalizing circles, "want to make you feel good, too."

Admittedly, this fantasy had crossed your mind once or twice, brought on by the way he carried himself in a suit and the way his large fingers wrapped around the champagne glass; confident, collected, and entirely charming. Who are you to shy away from a man like him? He certainly has always been rather good-looking.

He pauses his motions, pulling his hand back to sit on your waist. Your dress is of the finest, most delicate satin, and after tonight's activities, completely wrinkled. You can almost hear your stylist's cries of dismay. Whatever. You have a steamer. And why focus on the dress when it’s obvious the two of you are focused on what lies underneath it?

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." You nod, skin still burning from your past climax.

Helping you back up, Taehyung stands. You lick your lips as you sit back up on the edge of the bed, watching intently as he unbuckles his belt, audibly hissing as his pants fall to his ankles, cock visibly straining against the fabric of his underwear. Thank God you don’t have to stand. With the way your thighs still felt weak and how your husband looks like a goddamn Adonis towering above you? Your legs surely would give out underneath you if you rose.

Brows furrowed, Taehyung palms over himself briefly before pulling down the waistband of his underwear, his painfully hard member slapping against his torso.

Your eyes widened on instinct. While the last thing you wanted to do was help inflate Taehyung's already large ego, you were certainly impressed at his size; thick and girthy, his tip red and shining with precum.

He couldn't help but smirk, thoroughly pleased by the way you stared at him unabashedly, chest rising and falling heavily.

"Open up for me," he orders.

And who are you to deny a request from your dear husband?

Your pretty lips wrap themselves around his engorged tip, all remnants of lipstick long gone by now. Taehyung hisses, a hand finding the side of your jaw as you run your tongue against the underside of his cock.

"Fuck, you're so pretty," he grunts, fighting off the urge to grip the back of your head and fuck your throat. As much as he'd love your have you choking and drooling all over his cock – and boy would he – he lets you set your own pace, not wanting to overwhelm you.

It doesn't take long for you to sink your mouth further down, however, clearly set on making Taehyung feel as good as you could.

A low moan erupts from his throat, digits pressing into your jaw in request to take more of him in, which you happily oblige.

You had your eyes trained on him, completely obsessed with the way he panted through pink lips, hissing slightly every time your tongue rolled over his sensitive tip.

Lolling his head to a side, his eyes meet yours, gaze primal and wolfish as he watches the way you worked his cock.

"Doing so good, love. Doing so fucking good for me,” he murmurs.

You hum against his skin at the sound of the sudden pet name, an unfamiliar feeling fluttering in your belly. You push aside the feeling, focusing instead on the way he grunts at the new sensation you had just given him.

Giggling, you pull off his cock, opting instead to press a kiss against his leaking tip, making sure to hold his eyes as you run kitten licks against it.

"God, you're such a tease." He shakes his head in disbelief.

He looks so good above you, shivering and cursing out praises on how good your mouth feels, how well you take his cock. Running your tongue along the length of his shaft, you become certain that this is a display you can’t imagine yourself ever getting tired of. But you have all the time in the world, right?

"Y/N,” he gasps suddenly, hips jerking towards your face. "Love, I'm gonna-- gonna cum."

"Cum in my mouth, please." Your voice was pleading and desperate. Taehyung had never heard such words spoken more sweetly.

"Fuck's sake."

You let out a yelp in surprise as his fingers work their way through your hair, bringing your head back down onto his cock. You relax, though, when you feel the hot ropes of his cum hit the back of your throat, your hands finding purchase on his thighs as you do your best to swallow it all down.

Pulling yourself off him, you let out a small cough, eyes watering slightly as you hadn’t managed to prepare yourself with a breath before his release. His large palm runs across the top of your head as you caught your breath, expression flickering with something unfamiliar. Could it be... fondness?

Your heart stammers at the thought as you stand, slowly stepping out of your dress, letting it drape off of your figure. Taehyung looks absolutely gobsmacked, pupils dark as he gazes at you, eyes unabashedly raking your body. He’s shameless.

You both are.

Slowly, you step towards him, fingers reaching out towards his shirt, carefully undoing the buttons as you gaze at each other, expressions unreadable.

"Tae?” You ask innocently, blinking up at him. “Fuck me?"

Your polite request makes Taehyung chuckle.

"Please?" You bring your bottom lip between your teeth, eyes blinking up at him adoringly for good measure. You reach the last button, let his dress shirt drape open. He brushes it off himself, stands there for a few seconds just to let the way you’re ogling his toned chest go to his head. At least he’s good-looking.

He sighs, probably contemplating some clever rebuttal, but eventually decides against it as his cock is already twitching back to life.

"Alright, love. Turn around. On your knees for me," He orders, making your stomach flip.

To your surprise, you are hardly in place when the warmth of his large hands finds the soft of your tummy, pressing you back into his chest as he pressed a peck to the back of your neck.

You squirm in his hold, whining as that same hand of his grabs hold of your breast, long digit rolling your nipple between their tips. You can’t help but press your ass back into him. His cock feels hot and heavy, pressing against the back of your thigh, making your pussy clench in anticipation.

You want him.

You want him so bad that you don't know what to do with yourself, shuddering as his free hand runs along the side of your ass, leaving scorching hot trails on your skin wherever he kneads into your flesh. He's touching you everywhere – everywhere but where you need him the most, and the arousal that drips down your thigh mocks you.

"Dammit, please!" You exclaim, running out of patience.

"Please what?" He says, an eyebrow arched.

You shiver, committing the way his middle finger traced your pelvic bone to memory forever.

You puff out a frustrated breath, nearly at your wit's end. "Please fuck me, Tae."

Taehyung pauses, grip on your breast and hip tightening as he lets out a moan. You let one out yourself as you feel him readjust, cock pressing against your slick entrance.

"Fuck, you sound so pretty when you say my name," He grunts. "Okay, baby. I'll fuck you. Begging so nicely for my cock."

You let out a squeak as you're suddenly pushed down onto your hands, back arching as he pushes his fat cock inside your heavenly cunt. He's thick, so thick, that you instinctively grip the sheet underneath you, fingers curled around them tightly as if it means to hold onto your sanity.

Taehyung lets out a shaky breath, angling your hips up so that you could take more of him.

"You feel—feel so good," he admits above you, and suddenly you wish you could see him. See the way his bangs stick to his damp forehead—see the way his tongue swipes over his bottom lip wickedly.

You let that thought go, however, as he thrust into you, making your jaw fall slack and eyes flutter shut. Profanities roll off your tongue unabashedly, helpless under the way his thick member pulls out of you, only to slam back into you.

You weren't expecting this. The way he stretches you out further than anyone had before. Your pussy clenches around him, reveling in the sweet, sweet burn.

He digs into the flesh of your hips, holding you steady as you mew and cry out, pushing your hips back in time to his, trying your best to meet his movements.

"Tae... fuck, fuck, fuck—"

He was filling you to the brim. Filling you tight and deep.

God, the way he was panting behind you was music to your ears. His cock pulses every time you call out his name, voice muffled and buried as you had your head pressed into the mattress, hair messy and bouncing with every hard thrust.

"S'good! Fuck... so, ah, big..." you cry out.

You feel drunk. Intoxicated off this beautiful man and the way he makes you feel a way only he can.

You nearly let out a sob as the rough pads of Taehyung's fingertips suddenly reach around you and find your neglected clit, rolling light circles on the soft and swollen bundle of nerves skillfully.

You are a mess, whimpering and drooling into your expensive sheets, and he filled every inch of you, leaving no place undiscovered. Your high nears, stewing on low heat somewhere near the pit of your belly, waiting for a chance to erupt and wash all over you. Taehyung must be close to, you realize, as his thrusts began to slow down, slamming into you roughly as if chasing after his high.

"Gonna take this load? Huh? Gonna let me cum inside your pretty little pussy?" His voice is straining, as if trying to breathe evenly but merely moments from falling apart.

If only you could formulate an intelligent response, but instead, you are a blubbering wreck, thighs shaking as they threatened to give out underneath you. But somehow, Taehyung knew. He had you. Quicking his motions against your delicate pearl, he could tell you were close too, and he was going to make sure you got there.

Suddenly, you're crying out and convulsing, tears brimming at the ends of your eyes as you feel Taehyung empty into you, collapsing onto his hands as well.

You feel his hot breath against the back of your neck as he pants, breath growing more and more even as the two of you regain control of your bodies and minds.

Pulling out of you, he plops down beside you, and for a moment, the two of you hold each other's gazes, eyes speaking in ways words never could.

Finally, after what feels both like an eternity and just a moment, you work up the courage to say something, moving closer to him as you place a hand on his chest, cushioning your chin as you rested on top of it.

"Psst," you beckon, voice hushed.

"Yeah?" His voice is husky and tired.

"I’m grateful, too."

"Huh?"

"I’m grateful for us, too."

Taehyung's gaze is soft, and it lingers on you for a second before the sides of his mouth curl up tenderly. He grins down at you, eyes drifting shut. You feel him squeeze you closer, pressing you against his skin. And then, you hear his breathing steady, see his lips part slightly.

You lean into his chest, eyelids fluttering. “Thank you, Tae.”

Not unlike the many other mornings you have awoken in this bed, when you open your eyes as the morning sunlight streams through the windows, Taehyung is nowhere to be found. The sheets on his side of the bed are flipped aside, revealing that soft outline of his body from the night before left imprinted into the sheets, a dip in the mattress where he slept. You had fallen asleep all wrapped up in each other, tangled up like vines, but must have separated sometime during the night. Distantly, you register Taehyung’s voice outside, notice his phone missing from his bedside table. He must be on an early morning call.

You check your phone for the time. Ten o’clock.

A late morning call, then.

Still basking in the afterglow of the night prior, you slowly inch your way out of bed, shivering as you pull the covers off you and scoot your legs around so they hang over the edge of the bed. You rub at your eyes until you faintly remember you did not take your makeup off last night, and when your hand comes away covered with black streaks and flecks of mascara, you wince to yourself. There goes five hundred dollars worth of a skincare routine.

After washing yourself up and applying as many serums as you can to your skin, you wrap yourself up in one of his button-up shirts, the torso so wide that it drapes over you. The tips of your fingers peek out from the ends of the sleeves, and you cross your arms lightly over your chest as you make your way to the door, ready to entice your husband back to bed for round two. What? It’s Saturday.

You peer around the door to find Taehyung standing a few feet away, facing away from you. He’s shirtless, and as his wife you have absolutely no problems ogling him, the toned curves of his back, the muscles in his arms. He’s always been a looker. You just finally have an excuse to look for yourself.

You approach him quietly, not wanting to interrupt nor broadcast your sex life to anybody on the other side who may be listening. Already, the idea of crawling back in bed together sends goosebumps along your skin, makes you giddy with anticipation. You’re just about to tap him on the shoulder, lips curled upwards in suggestion, when he says—

“And my inheritance? That’s secured now, right? Because I said I would pretend to be in love with her in public—?”

And it is as if Medusa herself appeared in this room, turning you to stone as your heart thuds to the floor, a hollow, empty noise.

You don’t hear the rest of Taehyung’s conversation. You don’t even hear the sound of your own heartbeat. This terrible, aching sound rings in your ears, silencing everything in its wake, drowning out even the sighs of your own breath. It is as if you have been frozen solid. As if you have been shot in the stomach. You stand there, feeling absolutely nothing, and all you can do is brace yourself for what is to come. Taehyung’s words were the knife but his next actions will be its removal, leaving in its wake an irreparable wound.

He turns around, casual and cool, voice still hushed. As if you were still asleep. As if you hadn’t heard anything at all. But when he twists his body and sees you standing there, staring back up at him, lips parted in shock.

“I’ll call you back,” he tells whoever was on the other side of the line, looking more panicked by the second. He opens his mouth so he can explain himself, but you don’t need him to. You’ve heard everything already.

“I should have known,” you say, feeling angry and betrayed and sad all at once. “I should have known it was all an act.”

“Y/N, wait, let me explain—”

“What is there to tell me, Taehyung? What are you going to say? That you didn’t mean it? That you thought I wouldn’t find out? That last night was just a one-off?” You demand. The heat from your veins hasn’t left. Still, it simmers through your blood, burning you up from the inside out. “That you didn’t want to lie to me?”

“It’s not like that and you know it,” Taehyung says defensively, brows furrowed. “Just give me a chance to explain myself.”

“Explain yourself? How you pretended, every day and every night, just so you could get some more money in your bank account? So you could make sure you would get your father’s business when he died?”

Taehyung bites back easily. “Don’t act like you weren’t also faking it at some point. I know you were almost removed from your grandmother’s will.”

Your tongue is bitter at the mention of your grandmother. As if Taehyung ever even knew her. “My grandmother has nothing to do with this.”

“Really?” Taehyung challenges. “So you wanting to stay in her will was just a little bonus, right?”

“Don’t,” you say sharply. “It’s different.”

“Different how?” Taehyung spits. “Because right now, to me, it looks pretty similar to what I’ve done.”

“My grandmother died months ago,” you remind him. Her will is no longer the question. It has been written, settled, and executed. There was no reason for you to continue playing along once she took her last breath. No reason—unless you wanted to. “Meanwhile you’ve been keeping your inheritance a secret from me this entire time.”

“We made a deal,” Taehyung says. “A deal that said we would both act happy and pretend to be in love because we both had things we needed to worry about. Family things. Money things. You were a part of this, just like I was. You pretended, too.”

“Well, maybe I stopped pretending!”

You can’t take it anymore. All this anger, all this emptiness, it’s been bubbling up inside you ever since you heard those first words come out of his mouth. It spills out of you all at once, an eruption from your lips, your heart’s doors bursting open. You have held his hand tightly in your own. You have pressed your lips to his. You have laid yourself bare in front of him. What is there left to protect? What part of you has not already been stained by him, by his touch, by the feeling of his fingers against your skin?

The hallway is silent, but you can hear your cry echo down the corridor. Hear the way it bounces along the walls before fading away.

“Maybe I stopped pretending,” you repeat, softer this time. You blink and already can feel the streaks along your skin, the tears falling from your eyes. “Did you ever think about that?”

“Y/N, what are you talking about?” Taehyung looks like he’s in disbelief. Like he cannot believe the words you are saying to him.

Well, that makes two of you.

“Can’t you see, Tae? Can’t you tell?” You ask, the nickname falling from your lips before you can even help it. You must remind yourself to change that, later. “I’m in love with you.”

They are words you have never said to someone before. Not even your old boyfriends. Words that you always knew you would reserve for someone special. Someone who would touch your heart and make it their own, someone who would leave imprints of their fingers against your chest. Someone who would brighten you up from the inside out, leave you bursting with light.

Ironic, that Taehyung has become that someone. When he is the one person you never thought could.

When he has proven, time and time again, that you two just cannot mix. Oil and water. Pastel and acrylic. Satin and silk.

“You don’t have to say anything,” you spit out quickly, before Taehyung has a chance to respond. “I know it doesn’t matter to you.”

“Y/N, yes it does,” Taehyung begins, desperate and pleading. “I know you heard what I said, but I swear, it stopped being an act for me, too. Things are different now, just like you said.”

“Don’t. Please.” You pull away as he reaches out towards you. Faintly, you remember that it is his shirt you are wearing. Remember that no matter what you do, he will always surround you. “Please, Tae.” You have nothing left. You can’t bear to look at him, but where else will you go? You cannot believe the things he’s said, the things he’s done, but where else would you go?

“I love you, too,” Taehyung says, and a part of you wants so badly to believe him.

A part of you wants so badly to ingrain those words into your head, carve them into your heart, let him wrap his arms around you and promise that everything will be alright. But things are different now. Just like you said. You and Taehyung are not the same people you were six months ago. Or six weeks ago. Or even six minutes ago. You are helpless and he has proven that he does not care.

“I have to go,” you say, looking away. You don’t think you could handle turning back to him again. “Please, Tae.”

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung says, and he reaches out once more but you are not there to meet him halfway. Were you ever?

“I know,” you whisper back.

You duck into your bedroom and pack a suitcase of everything you need. Being here is suffocating. Being with him is like setting yourself alight.

Victoria has no questions when you show up at her door later that day, suitcase by your side and this ridiculous bottle of Merlot in your hands. You had picked it up on the way over. You sort of figured you might need it.

“You don’t wanna talk about it, do you?” Victoria asks.

“Tell me about your streaming service,” you hiccup in response.

Victoria is happy to oblige. She even tells you that she still hasn’t picked a CFO, and that the position would be open for you if you ever wished to take it.

Funnily enough, what will become of you once your father retires and passes along the company is the furthest away from your thoughts.

You remember being so worried about that. Being so worried that, once they married you off like every good daughter should be, you would be absorbed into your husband’s life, cut out of your family’s. Your father would choose a cousin, an uncle, or even a friend to take after the business, bestowing upon you a thoughtful inheritance but nothing more than that. All of those years of schooling, finance in college, your MBA soon after, would be wasted, just so you could hang on the arm of your husband for the rest of your life.

It’s thoughtful of Victoria to think of you for the position. She knows just as well as anyone else that you would be an excellent fit. And if things were just a little bit different, you would be jumping at the offer.

But your future career plans are on the backburner, along with the rest of your life.

All you can really do, right now, at this very moment, is wait for things to change. As they always do.

“Don’t you have an event tonight?” Victoria asks about three days into your stay. She’s given you her favorite (her words, not yours) guest bedroom and an enormous closet to match, despite you only coming over with a carry-on’s worth of clothes.

You scoff to yourself. “Like I’d want to go to anything with him.”

“Have you even called your parents?”

“No,” you say, not even caring about the repercussions. There’s no doubt in your mind that they’ll be ringing you soon. And when they do, maybe then you’ll finally work up the courage to tell them what really happened. Tell them that you can’t go back there. Not yet, at least.

“I’m sorry that this happened to you,” Victoria says as she hands you a bowl of vegetable soup, homemade from a couple of days ago. You nod to yourself, sniffling as you curl into the couch cushions and wish they would absorb you whole.

There’s no need to ask her what she means by ‘this’. Everything. From your engagement to the marriage, from those tabloids to the deal, from your grandmother’s death to now. It has all been unfair. Life is unfair. And while you’ve always known that, it has been particularly cruel to you as of late.

Still, when you wake up sometimes, you can still feel him tracing over your skin. Feel his lips hovering over yours, breath fanning out over your cheeks. You turn over and expect to see him lying there, on the right side of the bed, sheets mussed as they cover his figure. You wake up and for a brief moment, for that split, split second, there is peace. And happiness. And love.

And then there is nothing.

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Me, too.”

Maybe he really does love you. Maybe things really did change. But you have always been a pragmatic person, always let your head guide you rather than your heart. The secret’s out. Taehyung had an inheritance he needed to secure. You were his path to doing so. Those things haven’t changed. No matter if his feelings did.

“Hey, look at this,” Victoria says, brows furrowed as she holds out her phone in front of you, revealing a livestreamed interview from the event tonight.

You peer over.

It’s Taehyung.

Of course it’s Taehyung. Who else would she be showing you?

He stands in a clean-cut gray coat, draping over his figure, black dress shirt and slacks underneath, belt wrapped neatly around his hips. He holds his hand up in a wave and smiles politely to the cameras, to the reporters, letting the flashes wash over him like waves in the ocean.

“Mr. Kim! Mr. Kim!” Someone calls. “Where’s your wife?”

Oh, God.

Taehyung grimaces a little, pursing his lips. “My wife won’t be joining me tonight.”

“Can you tell us why?” They shout.

“Sorry, no more questions. Thank you for asking though. She’s well,” he says, quickly ushering himself along, entering the venue so no more reporters can bombard him. When he disappears, the livestream immediately moves on to the next guest, but you hardly pay them any attention.

“Huh,” Victoria says aloud.

Indeed. Taehyung’s response strikes you as rather odd. Why would he tell the public that? Why not make up a lie, say you’re sick, or you’re overseas, or you’re just late? Why simply tell them that you won’t be there? Surely, Taehyung is just as aware of the consequences of arriving at an event without you as you are. There’s no doubt that his parents will be in contact with him soon, too. No doubt that this will leave a stain on his family. His image. It might even threaten his inheritance after all.

So why not lie?

You frown to yourself, nose scrunching up in confusion. You don’t like where this train of thought leads.

“You okay?” Victoria asks when she sees the bewildered expression on your face.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” you say. Just completely befuddled. It escapes you, why Taehyung wouldn’t just make up some sort of excuse as to reasoning behind your absence. Why he would even show up at the event at all. Certainly, going to the event without you is worse than not going at all. It prompts questions. It spreads rumors.

Later that night, you get a call from your parents, demanding to know why you weren’t there with him. You say you got sick. You plead with them not to question anything.

You wonder what happens next. You and Taehyung still have two more events this week. A dinner and a ball. What will you do then?

Taehyung goes solo for the dinner. You suppose you could have predicted that, considering his apparent willingness to arrive alone for the first event, too. He hasn’t made any efforts to contact you and for once, you’re glad for his silence. Not that you even know what he would say to you, anyway, but at least he isn’t begging you to come back to him.

The sad truth is that if he did, if he got down on his knees right in front of you and willed you to come back home, you probably would. He has always been impossible to resist. Even when you first met him, when he sauntered up towards you and told you he was your dream come true. You didn’t know it then. But he was. He was everything you would ever want.

Why would he lie?

Why would he do that?

You can’t wrap your head around it. What is he getting out of it by telling the truth? By admitting to the paparazzi, to the reporters and the cameramen, that you won’t be there with him. That you will not be joining him. Nothing, certainly. His parents must be furious. His inheritance may be on the rocks. His image might tank.

So then, why do it at all?

Could it… could it be?

Is it true?

You have loved Taehyung for a long time. Longer than you probably even care to admit. You have always held your head high at events, spoken loudly and without fear, but being with him made you feel safe. Secure. You would hold his hand and know, know that he was holding yours, too. It grounded you. It soothed your worries.

Does he really love you back?

Taehyung smiles politely and laughs when he needs to at these events, but he doesn’t look the same. Even through the screen you can see those bags under his eyes, that spark that has faded. You hardly recognize him. He looks so lonely, without someone by his side. So distant.

When you know the dinner has ended, you almost pick up the phone and call him.

Almost.

Instead, when the ball rolls around, you ask Victoria if she’s got a spare dress she can lend you.

Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen covered in paint splotches, wearing old college hoodies, and fresh out of a restless night’s sleep, cleans up pretty well. For a married man, at least.

You wonder what the past few days must have been like for him. If they have been as empty as your own. Wonder what it was like, riding alone in a big black van to this hotel ballroom, no one to tease, no one to laugh with, no one to hold. No one to poke him awake if he accidentally fell asleep. No one to make sure he’s okay.

Taehyung stands right outside of the entrance, waving politely to all of the paparazzi, smiling as the cameras flash, giving them the time of day for a moment before he heads inside and muscles his way through another event without you.

Or so he thinks.

You spot him just as he opens his mouth, ready to repeat those same lines all over again.

My wife won’t be joining me tonight. She’s well, though.

And maybe it’s just because you haven’t seen him in nearly a week. Maybe it’s just because he is about to lie to those reporters once more, ready to face whatever consequences come his way.

Or maybe it’s just because you miss him. Miss him terribly, have been missing him terribly. Being away from him was necessary, but that didn’t make it any less unbearable. Not getting to hold his hand, see his smile, meet his eyes. You and Taehyung may not have always liked each other, but you saw him every day regardless. He became a constant in your life. Not an if, but a when. If everything went to shit, you always knew he would still be there.

And there he is.

“Wait! Taehyung!”

Taehyung’s eyes widen as he hears your voice, gaze darting around wildly, mouth parted in surprise. He looks around desperately, scanning the crowd, meeting the eyes of every single person in front of him until he finally looks to the left, sees you rushing up towards him, hiking up the skirt of your dress as your heels tap against the sidewalk.

And when he spots you, sees you running up to him, his body relaxes, a weight lifted from his shoulders as he beams back at you, relieved and thankful and filled with joy, all at once. And you know, then.

You know that everything will be okay.

“Sorry I’m late,” you say sheepishly, cheeks burning as he looks at you, takes in every inch of you, breathes you in and lets you fill him up.

Taehyung doesn’t respond. You reach out to hold his hand but he grabs your wrist and pulls you in, presses you against his body as he presses his hands against your cheeks, palms burning as they meet your skin, and he kisses you. In front of all these people, he kisses you.

And goddamnit, you will kiss him back.

It feels like lightning, like a thunderstorm, like the waves of the ocean are crashing against your heart. It feels like fire, like flames are licking at your veins, sending sparks through your blood. It feels like home.

You and Taehyung ignore the shouts of reporters, the flashes of cameras, the honks of the cars on the other side of the road. When you part, he presses his forehead against yours and lets the tip of your nose meet his. And you smile.

“Don’t be alone any longer, Mr. Kim,” you whisper, loud enough so only he can hear.

“When I’m with you, I never am, Mrs. Kim,” he murmurs back.

You wonder what those tabloids will be saying about you tomorrow.

The rest of the night finds the two of you pretty much inseparable. You wrap yourself around his arm and for the first time in a long time, he presses his hand against the small of your back, keeping you close. Like he’d ever lose you again.

One of your least favorite parts about attending balls used to be the dancing. As a young and eligible bachelorette, you would always have to lock hands with another, let him awkwardly guide you along to the music as you made the worst small talk imaginable, forcing laughter and smiles whenever he said something he thought was particularly funny.

But, like so many others, things have changed. Things are different now.

The waltz comes on and you and Taehyung are the first to reach the center of the ballroom floor, letting him rest his hand on your waist as you press yours on top of his shoulder. Let him twirl you around the room as the orchestra plays in the background, a soft, sweet, light little melody that carries you along.

“I missed this,” you say softly.

“I missed us,” Taehyung corrects. He pauses for a moment, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry for not telling you about my inheritance.”

“I’m sorry for storming out. I should have listened to you.” you respond easily. You both have plenty to apologize for. But night is darkest right before dawn.

“I should have said something,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. “But I was just so—so worried that something would go wrong. And I didn’t know how to explain how I felt about you. I acted in the beginning, too, but then things changed.”

“They always do,” you muse with a grin.

“I couldn’t believe I had you,” Taehyung admits. “I mean, look at you. You’re gorgeous. And funny. And true.”

“Go on,” you tease, even though you do nothing to hide the smile inching its way across your face, the heating of your cheeks, the simmering of your skin.

“Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.” Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I just—I felt something for you I couldn’t explain. I still can’t.”

You don’t have to prod any further. You know. Deep within your heart, you know. There is love blossoming in his to match the garden that has bloomed in your own. The flowers that have sprouted in the ashes. He has them, too. And when those petals open and the light streams in, he will know. He will know, too.

“You make me crazy,” you tell him, whispering gently into his skin. “But I’m a better person when I’m with you. I know I am.”

“I meant what I said, that night,” Taehyung says. Makes you wonder which night he’s actually talking about. “That I’m happy that things have changed. That things happened the way they did. I’m grateful for us.”

“I am, too,” you say. And you are.

You rest your head against his chest as you dance together, swaying back and forth to the beat of the drums, to the strums of the violins, all wrapped up together like ivy, like vines. Those, too, sit in that garden of yours. Keep you tethered to his side, keep him close to yours. He holds you in his arms and he smiles, because he knows, too. Knows that that garden in your heart will soon have a matching one in his. A mirror image of who you are. Who you’ve become.

Things change. They always will. But so long as he is by your side, and so long as you are by his, you know. Everything will be okay.

It's different, this time, when Taehyung presses you into the mattress.

There is no rush. Because now you know for certain that all the time in the world is yours. He is yours forever. You are his.

The two of you are a mixture of tangled limbs and shared breaths, the feverish, irrepressible need to give yourself to each other nearly tangible. He breaks the kiss suddenly, and you’re about to break out in protest. That is, until you see him unbuttoning his shirt.

Inspired, you wiggle out of your own clothes, eyes locked on Taehyung's soft torso and the idea that you had married such a beautiful man, inside and out.

Looking back, you wonder if that was always inevitable. If you and Taehyung falling into each other had been written in the stars from day one, sealed as your fate from the moment he came up to you at that ball when you were teenagers. He was going to be a part of your life no matter what. Whether or not you ended up marrying him. But having him like this?

It makes it all worth it.

"Do you like what you see?" That old cocky smirk of his makes an appearance.

You raise a brow, choosing to omit a response as you unclasp your bra, letting it fall from your chest.

Taehyung swallows.

"Do you?" You tease.

His response comes in the form of bites down your necks and licks down your chest, stealing your breath from you.

Your clothes are somewhere dispelled beside your passionate bodies, growing cold beside the way your two hot bodies warmed one another.

"You are so beautiful," Taehyung praises, fingers coming up to cup your breast, bringing it up to his mouth.

You mewl, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as his tongue toys with your pert bud, teeth grazing it ever so often just to hear the broken gasp that'd always follow.

"And so sensitive too," he giggles, making you pout. His hands are gentle as if every touch means something. As if you mean something—no, everything—to him. And the most wonderful part is that he means everything to you, too.

"Shut up." You roll your eyes playfully, gasping as his palm comes down the side of your thigh suddenly in warning. You bite down your swollen bottom lip at the gush of arousal that dampened your underwear in response.

"Watch your tone, love. Of both our positions, you are in the most compromising one." He reminds you. It isn't a threat, and while usually, that kind of tone would thrill you, you couldn't help but want his mouth back on yours already.

"You talk too much." You flop back onto the bed with a sigh. Taehyung watches with interest as your pretty tits bounce in consequence. Extending your hands out towards him, you give him a pouty look. "Just wanna kiss you."

"Is that all I am to you? Just a pair of lips for you to mack on? I've got news for you, sweetheart, there's a brain behind these ravishing good looks." He scoffs in feigned offense, sitting back on his heels.

You giggle.

It seems as though even during the most intimate of moments, Taehyung still found a way to be, well, Taehyung. At least that hasn’t changed.

"Whatever, pretty boy. Why don't you come over here and put that mouth of yours to good use?" You purr, making his eyebrows raise in surprise.

"Oh? I don't remember you being this assertive when I was pounding you into the mattress last time."

“What, I can’t have a little fun as well?” You tease, grinning as you look up at him, raking your eyes over his figure.

"Wanna have fun, love?," He murmurs into your ears, hands gripping either of your plush thighs. "Then spread those pretty legs for me, and I'll show you exactly how much fun you can have."

God, you love this man.

You oblige eagerly, breath quickening as he helped you press your knees by your chest, leaving the wet patch in your underwear on full display.

"My pretty little wife." He sighs dreamily, making heat rush to your core.

Taehyung's cock stood loud and proud, a hot reminder of where the night would eventually lead to. Seriously, how did you get so lucky? You must've been a saint in a previous life, you decide right then. Or at least, the stars have chosen to be rather kind to you in this one.

"Gonna take these off," he mutters, mostly to himself, tugging the ruined fabric over your ass and down your legs, with your help, of course.

Despite your usual display of confidence, lying beneath your husband, spread out like this, has you feeling vulnerable and slightly insecure. But that insecurity vanishes, however, as he lets out a soft moan, fingers moving to spread your glossed lips apart.

"So fucking pretty, baby. Gonna make you feel so fucking good," he groans, leaning down to press his face near your most intimate part.

Pressing a tentatively lick against, his eyes flicker up to yourself, curious to see if you’re okay with him proceeding. And, well, it’s not like you’re going to say no, are you?

Embarrassingly, you rut against him, making him laugh as you drown in your own mortification.

"Need it that bad, huh?" He coos.

"Yes, please."

The rest of your plea is lost in a moan as Taehyung finds your clit, wrapping his pink lips around the sensitive muscle and giving it a generous suck. Your hands are in his hair before you can think to stop yourself, tugging at his scalp deliciously as his mouth makes its way with you.

Thank goodness for this apartment belonging to just the two of you as the noises that tumbled from your lips surely would've left a roommate blushing.

You're panting, begging for more even though you aren't sure how you'd even handle more. It comes as a delight and slight surprise as fingers suddenly slip inside, wasting no time to rub against your velvety smooth walls, curling themselves inside you.

"Fuck, Tae!" you cry out, eyes squeezing shut.

It was pure reflex. Up until now, you had been watching Taehyung intently, completely consumed by the way his mouth moves against you. How his tongue flicks against your needy clit cruelly. It just felt too fucking good.

You're so wet, positively dripping down his chin as he runs his hot muscle up and down the length of your pussy, devouring you like he hadn't eaten in months, and you were his first meal.

Taehyung’s nothing short of addicting, completely and utterly intoxicating, and you slip further and further to your demise with every lick he takes, every press of his tongue against your clit.

He has a hand pressed against the lower half of your torso, feeling the way you jerk and squirm as he makes a mess of you. You’re close and you know it, too, if not by the way you’re calling his name over and over again, then by the way your thighs tremble, hardly even strong enough to stay up.

"Let go for me, love. I've got you." He sounds so sweet, so angelic, despite how filthy what he was doing to you was.

His words are the push you need, and, like a rubber band that has been stretched past its limit, you finally snap, back arching off the bed as you come with a cry. White fills your vision, and your mind goes blank, only sounds of blissful static filling your ears.

His fingers hold up your quivering legs, mouth pressing kisses onto your pussy encouragingly until you simply can't bear it any longer, pushing his mouth away as you stutter out words of sensitivity and overstimulation.

“I’m going to have to request more of that throughout this marriage.” You manage to say once your vision and breath come back to you.

Grabbing one of your hands, Taehyung brings it to his mouth.

“All you need do is ask,” he replies, making you laugh as he presses a kiss to the back of your hand, always a gentleman

Not long after, you find yourself pressed against Taehyung, tongue running against his as he presses his hips into yours. He isn’t coy about his want for you, rolling his cock against your already sensitive center. Warm precum leaks onto your lower abdomen, and suddenly, all you can think about is having him inside you again.

“Taehyung?”

You don’t even need to ask. Hitching your leg around his thigh, he knows exactly what you’re seeking, lining up his leaking cock with your swollen entrance.

Pressing into you, he buries himself to the hilt, groaning out as your warmth envelopes him. You moan out so prettily for him, feeling tight and full with your first orgasm only minutes ago.

“You okay?” he hums, kissing your cheek.

You nod, ears warm at the intimacy of the moment. In many ways, this is nothing like your first time together. You are face to face, eye to eye, heart to heart. Between your bodies could be found more than just desire, but commitment. Devotion. Love.

“I love you, Tae.” You gush, sighing out as he begins to rock into you.

He falters slightly at your confession but recovers quickly, intertwining his hand with yours and pressing it by your head.

Faintly, you realize.

That was the first time you had ever told him that.

You look up at him, expecting some wide eyes or even a bit of a nervous tilt to his lips, but all you are met with is a glow. He beams down at you, and your heart swells.

“I love you, too, Y/N,” he whispers, but you hear the words in your ears loud and clear.

Soft noises fill the room as the two of you become one—hearts synchronizing with one another in silent promise.

It was a promise unlike the one you had made to each other that day at the altar, for this one was real. This one was true.

You shutter with every thrust of his hips, your abused clit finding itself in the crossfire of Taehyung’s passionate motions.

Whimpering, you cling to him, overwhelmed and emotional, like your heart was about to burst. Taehyung lights a fire in you, sends lightning straight through your core. Every word, every smile, every kiss, every touch, they send shivers down your spine, tingles throughout your skin. It’s like you’re falling in love with him all over whenever you see him, whenever his deep brown eyes meet your own.

You remember being so afraid of love that you broke up with all your old boyfriends because of it. Because you couldn’t commit, because you were worried about your career, because they just didn’t give you that spark. But lying here pressed against him, against your husband, you aren’t afraid. Wrapped up around him, tangled up in him, you know.

Between messy kisses and words of adoration, you find yourself growing closer and closer to your release. Brows furrowed and neck flushed, you come with a soft whimper of his name, coaxing his own orgasm out of him. He lets go inside you, painting you with his seed in a way that pleases you to no end.

Hand still in yours, he gives it a squeeze, pressing a kiss onto your damp chest, right over where your heart beats for him.

“I love you,” Taehyung says again when you meet his eyes, firmer this time, louder. Like he’s worried you didn’t believe him the first time.

“I know,” you say with a giggle, the words going straight to your head—and your heart.

Taehyung scowls. “What, no ‘I love you’ back? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“Well, only because you want one so badly,” you tease, pressing a quick kiss to his round button nose. “I love you, too, Tae. Always will.”

“I think I knew, then,” Taehyung says with a fond sigh, nostalgia overcoming his expression. “That first time we met. I knew you would be mine, one day.”

“You got lucky,” you scoff slightly. “But I’m glad things happened the way they did.”

“You’re my dream come true, Y/N,” he says.

“And you are mine,” you murmur.

As the two of you drift off, all twisted up in each other, so mixed up you can’t figure out where you end and he begins, you think back to that night. That ball.

“Who are you?” You ask, nose scrunched up in distaste. Before you stood a boy you had never met before, wearing shoes that were too big for him and a suit that was a touch too small.

He grins at you, running a hand through his perfectly-styled hair fringe swiped neatly over his forehead, and he says, “your dream come true.”

And so it was.

don’t forget to message me! ~ and don’t forget to message rose!

8K notes · View notes

mc-lukanette · 3 years

Note

Have you considered writing a "Truth" fix-it with Marinette admitting her secret to Luka? Maybe he could be a confidant like Marianne was for Fu.

Truth was having a terrible, awful, rotten, very bad day. If he could use his powers on the universe, he would've asked what he did to deserve this kind of treatment.

It started with his girlfriend keeping a secret from him concerning her ditching their dates, then escalated to Jagged Stone - who'd been his idol for years - turning out to be the father who abandoned him, and now he was fighting Ladybug and Chat Noir in Marinette's room after he’d been told by multiple people that Marinette’s supposed “secret” was that she was in love with Adrien, as if he hadn’t already known that and they just wanted to mock him.

His civilian self had never been never someone to presume, but now it's all he could do. Marinette must've ditched him because she didn't really love him, Jagged probably never even felt bad about abandoning him, and despite Adrien never even trying to win Marinette's heart, he was just better than Luka in every way, because the rich model with all the connections Marinette could ever want would always outmatch the "guitar boy" who worked a part-time job, lived on a houseboat, and had parents who either kept secrets from him or flat-out didn't want him.

Had it not been for his akumatization working to drive him towards a goal without interference, he would've cried. He wanted nothing more than to wake up and think the whole thing was just a bad nightmare, with dating Marinette just being brief highlights of it that kept getting shot down with a reminder that he wasn't good enough.

He wanted it all to be over.

Chat Noir was still trying to banter with him, but Truth wasn't having it. While going after Ladybug first wasn't ideal, as she was the smarter out of the two, it was easier to get rid of Chat Noir and deal with the heroes one at a time.

Thus, when Ladybug had run across the room to use her Lucky Charm, Truth acted. He managed to grab Chat Noir and throw him into the chest that Ladybug had been hiding in before, then locked it tight to prevent Chat from escaping. That done, he went after Ladybug, who was stunned but nevertheless prepared to fight. Chat Noir being out of the picture didn't impact her ability to fight, but Truth had Pharo on his side to knock Ladybug around when it was too hard to get a spotlight on her.

Finally, he managed to tackle her, her lying on her back and him pinning her arms down. The chest nearby rattled in protest, but Pharo shined its spotlight on it, preventing it from moving anymore.

Truth watched as Ladybug looked around for a method of escape, but she came up empty. Her eyes widened in the realization that... this was it. This was the end.

"Now," Truth said, clamping down harder on her arms as he leaned down, "tell me the truth!"

Ladybug tried to shut her lips tight, but he could see her struggling, her body shaking as she tried to free her arms to stop herself. It was only a matter of time.

Then, her mouth opened, and out came the words, "I love you, Luka!"

He froze, his fingers twitching in his confusion while he could only stare down at her in shock.

"And I'm so sorry! I'm sorry for everything! I wanted to tell you - I always wanted you to know - but I couldn't, and you deserve so much better than a hero who can't give you the time you deserve!"

A cold realization washed over him in form of a shudder. Those words could've been interpreted in so many ways, but he was the only one who registered their real meaning: that Marinette was Ladybug, her "ditching" had been her needing to fight akuma, her keeping secrets had been out of a desire to protect him, and he—

...He had only caused her more problems by getting akumatized, being no better than all those that had interrupted their dates. She loved him, and he gave into Shadow Moth to go against her.

Ladybug continued rambling, oblivious to his internal crisis, "You're incredible, and I just love you so much. I knew you were special from the day we met, when you called me—"

Truth clamped his hand over her mouth, preventing her from spilling any more secrets. He could feel Shadow Moth's influence in his mind, demanding that he remove his hand, but Truth ignored it, just as he'd been ignoring so many of his commands. The energy from akumatization that once made him feel powerful now made him feel disgusted with himself, guilt swirling in his gut and making him regret everything.

He reached up with his other hand, grabbing at his necklace and tearing it off. Ladybug's brows rose at the crunching of his akumatized object, and the last things he saw were the akuma flying free and Ladybug's expression turning to something...

thoughtful.

—————

Marinette de-transformed in a nearby alleyway and headed down towards the Seine, having not yet processed all of her feelings from that day. She had a little time left, given that Luka had quietly asked to walk back home himself, but she’d gotten no closer to clearing her mind since leaving her house. She was still a jumbled mess of "what if"s and "but maybe"s, and ultimately knew that it was going to be a matter of essentially winging it and just saying everything that she had on her mind.

As she approached the Liberty to wait for Luka, she paused as she noticed another figure already standing there. After all, Jagged Stone wasn't exactly someone you could not notice.

Before she could debate on whether to approach him, Jagged seemed to sense her and glanced over to make eye contact. She stiffened, only able to wave awkwardly and pretend like she didn't know why he'd be there.

"Hey, frockstar," Jagged greeted tiredly, his smile not quite reaching its usual lengths. "What are you doing here?"

"Um..." She walked over, standing next to him and staring in the direction where Luka was going to come from. "I need to talk to my boyfriend."

"Ah." It took a few seconds for the words to actually register with him, at which point Jagged turned to her, mouth agape as he grabbed her shoulders. "My son's your boyfriend?!"

She didn't quite have the energy to feign total surprise at the “son” comment, but she didn't have to. Jagged immediately pulled back without really looking at her, regaining his composure just as quickly as he'd lost it.

"You... wouldn't happen to be able to put in a good word for me, hm?" He grinned sheepishly, jabbing at Marinette with a hopeful elbow. "Haven't exactly figured out what I'm gonna say yet."

She was torn between being upset with him on Luka’s behalf and feigning sympathy because it was not only none of her business, but she was in a similar boat and felt like she had no right to judge.

She went with the latter, smiling weakly and jabbing him back. "That makes two of us." Then, she frowned as her nerves came back. "And... anyway, I don't know if he'll want to keep being my boyfriend after tonight."

For once, Jagged didn't pry or ask questions, the atmosphere probably felt even by him. They just stood there, waiting.

After a few minutes, Luka finally walked into view, staring at the ground and seeming defeated. Marinette felt ill at the sight, her fingers clutching at the fabric of her capris to find a sense of stability.

Should she approach him? Let Jagged go first? Or, maybe that would seem evasive, so—

She felt a pat on her shoulder, looking up at see Jagged urging her forward with his eyes. She wasn't sure if she should be grateful or consider him to be the evasive one, but Luka's akumatization was also mostly because of her and thus it only made sense for her to go first.

She ran the distance to get to him, Luka glancing up at the sound of her footsteps and stopping as she got to him. The usual light in his eyes wasn't there, and she had to force herself to even say a simple, "Um... hi."

"Hey." He hesitated, then rubbed the back of his head. "I'm really sorry, Marinette."

"Huh?"

"I got akumatized, and I was in your room when I woke up." His brows furrowed with uncharacteristic anxiety. "I didn't have to hear the song to know what the notes were. I must've gone after you."

Marinette blinked, having not even thought about him feeling guilty over the whole thing. She shook her head, reassuring, "No no! I mean—you told me to run! You didn't go after me, not really!"

She wasn't technically lying; he never sought her out to her knowledge, and even as Ladybug, she'd always had to chase him.

Luka sighed in relief, though his expression didn't change much. "I'm glad."

He met her gaze again. She yearned for the way he used to look at her like he wanted to get lost in her forever, but his eyes soon darted elsewhere as he noticed Jagged Stone standing not too far away.

Marinette tried not to get discouraged, stepping back into his vision and waving her hands to try and divert his attention. "Ah—don't worry about that! Look—" She paused, needing a moment to breathe, then lowered her hands and shifted to seriousness. "Can we talk? And walk? It's... really important."

She couldn't imagine the conclusions he must've been coming to in his head, partly because he didn't voice any of them. His eyes merely searched hers, seeking nothing in particular.

"Sure, Marinette," he agreed.

She managed a smile, happy that she made it this far at least. She reached out to take his hand, but stopped herself at the last second and simply walked past him, Luka taking one look back at Jagged before following after her.

The walk was tense and quiet, the only sounds coming from the evening ambiance and their footsteps. The uncertainty of it all gave her anxiety, but she'd been sure of that uncertainty since she first decided to talk to him about this.

Because, whatever the future of their relationship was, it would be in his hands.

—————

As they arrived at her intended destination, Marinette heard Luka briefly stop behind her, perhaps processing where she just took them. It was the Canal Saint-Martin, also known as the place where they'd first agreed to date, and now it was potentially the place where they'd break up as well. Marinette vaguely pondered if that would be for the best, like the memories would just cancel each other out and Luka could forget about it altogether if he wanted to.

Nevertheless, she walked over, glancing at the bridge for reference and sitting in roughly the same place she’d been all that time ago. She then tossed Luka a hopeful look, and he walked over to sit next to her.

Steeling herself up, Marinette took a breath, inhaling until she couldn't take in any more oxygen and then exhaling for just as long. At least a little more emotionally prepared than she was before, she finally spoke up.

"I...I'm sorry, Luka. I'm sorry that I got you akumatized—" She saw that he was about to interject and cut him off. "—and I know you don't blame me, but it doesn't matter—I mean—it does matter, but I'm still sorry anyway, okay? You had a right to be hurt and maybe if I'd explained myself better, then things would’ve been different."

He still seemed to want to argue, but was holding himself back so she could continue, which she appreciated.

"It's not that I didn't trust you. If anything, I—I trust you more than anyone else. You've never betrayed me and I know you'd never tell anyone if I told you my secret. You understand me even when I'm being the disaster that everyone laughs at - everyone but you - and..."

She sighed, pulling out her phone and navigating to her text conversation with him. Mentally wincing, she tapped on the photo of her Adrien wall that Ziggy had sent, then presented it to him. He leaned in to make sure of what it was, then looked back at her, clearly not understanding where she was going but knowing it wasn't her being spiteful or rubbing it in.

She said as much, "You don't assume anything, like when you got sent this dumb picture. I know it was obvious that it was an accident, but you didn’t have to go with it and you did. I wouldn't have blamed you if you got mad, but you didn't. Whenever I'm stammering and being an idiot because I'm scared or nervous, you don't judge me for it or think that whatever comes out is what I actually mean. That's so important to me, Luka, you have no idea."

She settled the phone between them and kept the picture on-screen. Her gaze flickered down to it, silently encouraging him to look at it too, then glanced back up at him.

"How much do you know about fashion?"

He tilted his head, thrown off by the sudden question, but answered anyway, "Only what my sister's ever talked about."

"Do you know why fashion trends die so quickly?" When he shook his head, she explained, "Part of it is the over-exposure. When people hear about what's in at the time, suddenly everyone starts wearing whatever it is, so everywhere you look, you see it, and then people get tired of it."

There was a flicker of understanding in his eyes, Luka looking back-and-forth between her and the phone like he was piecing a puzzle together.

She confirmed it for him, "That's why I have so many. I don't feel that way about him anymore - I don't think I ever did - but I just don't know how to act around him. I hate how the whole idolizing thing took over my life and I already tried everything else, so I figured this might work." She groaned. "And of course it blew up on me and you got sent that without any context. Of course."

He gave a look of concern at the exasperation in her tone, but she tried to ignore it, not wanting his sympathy.

"My point is..." She gestured vaguely at the phone. "I stammer about him, but it's not because I'm in love with him, it's because I've never really been his friend and I don't know how to do it. I'm not dedicated to him and I'm getting better at not doing the stuff I used to."

His eyes flickered again and she wondered if he was thinking about that day on the Liberty where she was late to Kitty Section playing, where she ignored Adrien entirely. Just for emphasis, she tapped her phone and deleted the picture, adding on, "I'm only dedicated to you, Luka. I—"

She shifted in place, hitting the wall behind her feet a few times with her heels to ease off the anxiousness. It was so much easier when she’d been Ladybug, though granted that she was under the influence of Truth's spell at the time. She and Luka were dating, yet she was sure he'd ask her to end it, making putting herself out there all the scarier.

"I..." She met his gaze. "I love you." He gaped at the confession and she continued on, "I love you like I haven't loved anyone else before; definitely not Adrien. It's the kind of love that actually makes me happy, and comfortable, and my life is better with you in it."

She bit her bottom lip, hands curling into fists at the tight feeling in her chest. She turned, placing one hand on the ground as she began to push herself up, her other hand landing on Luka's shoulder to wordlessly insist that he didn't have to stand with her, so his gaze merely followed her as she moved.

"But that's the thing." She took a few steps away, back turned to him as she stared up at the sky. Her stomach twisted itself in knots at the words in her throat, but she nonetheless admitted, "I don't think it's mutual."

Luka's voice took on a sharp, offended tone. "Marinette—"

She spun to face him, cutting him off, "—and I know that you're going to say something sweet and heartfelt about how everyone has a place in your life and then something about how bad notes can still make good songs, but... Luka, you don't understand."

She turned away from him again, this time pacing as she counted off events. "Bullies and liars target me, and sometimes that means going after people I care about. I'm clumsy and a stuttering mess and you wouldn't believe the mistakes I made that I couldn't have even seen coming. It seems like I draw bad luck wherever I go; I mean, your mother is one of the most chaotic people I can think of, so you'd think she'd get akumatized a bunch, but it was only the day I showed up that she did. Even the other boys who only loved me for a little bit either got akumatized over it or became an anxious mess until they found out who they actually liked, and that last one would've at least been really useful to think about if I'd just made the connection back then, but I didn't!" She paused, then met his eyes with a pained expression. "And then there's you."

"What do you mean?"

She stopped in place, not knowing whether to be touched or not by the fact that he either hadn't noticed or was pretending not to. Throwing her arms out, she explained, "Things go bad whenever we hang out! I already mentioned your mom, but then there was the ice rink; even without me getting distracted when all you were trying to do was make me feel better, there was an akuma and you probably got frozen solid by him. When we were hanging out on the Liberty, Adrien just happened to show up on that day with Kagami to turn me into a mess, and then Desperada came to make everything worse."

Marinette couldn't remember when she'd started thinking about such things or feeling guilty for everything that ever happened. There was just a point where it felt like she was always apologizing for something, no matter how small it was, and stuff being her fault became par for the course by then.

"Then, both times you got akumatized, it was because of me—and I know you don't blame me, but I'm always involved! You were ready to leave the TV station, but because I tried to put up a fight, Bob Roth threatened me and that was your last straw. Today was the same thing; you were already upset about what happened with your dad and then it was me who sent you over the edge!" She shut her eyes tight, the memories painful to relive. "You're always putting up with me, Luka. You put up with me crying all over you and even dropped your guitar for it, and then you had to protect me from Miracle Queen's mind control! I'm supposed to protect you!"

He recoiled at the volume of her voice, then furrowed his brows, his eyes darting back and forth as he seemed to process something particular about what she said.

"I'm supposed to make you happy, and I can't. Out of all the people in Paris who should be able to keep you from getting akumatized, it should be me, and all I've done is hurt you. You're the calmest person I've ever known and then I came along and gave you feelings you didn't ask for. Sometimes—" She shook, choking briefly on the words. "Sometimes I wonder if it would've been better for you if you never met me."

Luka's gaze sharpened. He didn't reply, but turned fully to her, pushing himself up as if to approach.

However, she stepped back, his look then flashing to hurt. She took a breath, expression determined as she said with her whole chest, "I'm Ladybug, Luka."

He froze, his body going stiff and his eyes blinking rapidly at either the reveal itself or the way she’d so firmly said it.

"I'm Ladybug," she repeated quietly, this time with an ache in her voice, "and I'm telling you not because I trust you—I mean, I do trust you—but I also believe in you; that you wouldn't sell me out to Shadow Moth even with all the mind control in the world. You've always had my back and supported me even when I didn't deserve it, and I want you to know. It's dangerous and I don't know what'll happen and I'm scared but I want you to know it." She put a hand to her chest. "I'm the one who has to save Paris whenever something happens, and that's why I always had to ditch you. I'm the one who messed up and lost you your identity as Viperion. I'm the new guardian of the miraculouses, and the kwami don't even listen to me; they invaded my privacy and it was one of them that took and sent you that picture."

She realized that her vision was staring to blur and looked skywards, trying to fight back tears.

"I-I'm not a normal girl. I can't be a normal girlfriend, or give you everything you'd want out of a normal relationship. It's my fault that you got akumatized because I just—I wanted you. I wanted to be in a relationship and go on dates with you, but Ladybug isn't supposed to want things. She's supposed to be selfless and only worry about everyone else, but... you made me happy, and I wanted more of that. You were the first person I really felt like I could be myself around without being scolded or lied to and I thought it would be okay..."

She noticed him moving and quickly turned her back to him, at least able to let the tears fall now without him seeing them.

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this. I always think I can handle things but then it goes wrong and I end up hurting people. If I'd just gone home the day of the music festival instead of complaining about Adrien not being around, then none of this would've happened." She sighed in frustration, wiping her eyes clean of tears, and she was so focused on forcing her words out that she didn't hear the footsteps coming from behind her. "I-it's okay if you want to break up, Luka. It wasn't fair that I kept you in the dark, and I understand if you're mad, or you want to date other people, o-or if you don't love me anymore—"

Her voice cut off with a gasp as a pair of arms wrapped around her midsection, pulling her against a familiar, warm chest that had an unfamiliarly pounding heartbeat. She tried to look up at him, but his hair was shadowing out his eyes and left only his trembling lips visible. In fact, his whole body was shaking, as if it were winter and no amount of layers could keep him warm.

"L-luka?" she called, confused.

"Stop," he begged quietly, the hug tightening briefly to give her a squeeze. "Please."

"But..." She trailed off, acknowledging the request. She'd never heard his voice just break like that.

"You've already sung your part of our duet, Marinette. Now it's my turn." He paused, taking an unsteady breath before continuing, "I'm glad you told me your secret. I know you're worried about me being in danger, but it makes me happy that you can rely on me now. Music boxes aren't meant to stay shut, and you deserve someone who you can open up to, even if I hate that you have to mute yourself in the first place to keep everyone safe."

She opened her mouth, wanting to say that it was okay and it was just her job, but kept quiet to respect his earlier request.

"My life isn't worse because I met you," he murmured, an unspoken plea in his tone that told her to never think that way again. "I felt things with you that I never have before. My song started out as a flatline, then we met and you made it move. Music isn't exciting if it doesn't change but you did that for me. What you might see as bad notes is my passion for you, and I won't apologize for it or make you apologize for messing up just like every person does. I'd never wanted someone before you, and even if you never wanted to date me, I'm grateful that I got to know you; to fall for you."

Marinette blinked in an attempt to stop oncoming tears, Luka pulling her closer for comfort when she whimpered.

"All that mattered to me is when we were together, just the two of us. That's when your melody plays the clearest and when I get to see you. Those two weeks when we were preparing our music video were some of the best two weeks of my life because I got to see you in your element. I've accepted every break in the tempo because I've heard you, I've heard the Marinette you've wanted to be, and I want to be there for every beat of it." Then, he exhaled, adding with a somber tone, "I can't imagine how much pressure you must be under, or how awful things are and how impossible it must be to sing when you can't even take a breath without something going wrong. I just... I want to help you be happy. I don't care what you, your kwami, or anyone else says; you're allowed to be happy, Marinette, and I'd drop a thousand of my guitars if it meant that you get to play happy notes one more time."

She let out a sob, blushing pink as her hands unconsciously raised to rest on the ones around her waist, Luka sighing in content and nestling further against her.

"So I don't want to break up with you, Marinette. Not at all. I just want to find ways to make it easier on you - on both of us - and if that means finding ways of planning our dates around akuma attacks, or not planning at all and going wherever the rhythm leads, then that's what we'll do."

She tried to keep quiet, but couldn't help voicing, "W-what if... what if it doesn't work? What if I have to bail on you every now and then? People will think—"

"I was never worried about that," he retorted immediately. "I'm a Couffaine. My clothes are ripped, I carry my guitar in the basket on my bike, and I live on a boat. I stopped caring about what people thought a long time ago."

He was unbelievable. Marinette didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so she did both. He just held her there, his heart still beating against her back but now serving as something to calm her.

"The only opinions that matter in our duet are yours and mine," he said. His hold loosened, though hesitating like it was physically painful to release her. He let her go nonetheless and held his hands out in front of her, palms facing the sky. "So what about you, Marinette?"

She stared at his hands, then slowly raised her own to hover over them. She breathed up, then slid her fingers across his palms until their calloused fingertips met, neither making any move to pull away.

"I...I want to make it work," she whispered, leaning back against him. "I want to be with you, Luka. I'm at my best when I'm with you. I just..."

She stopped, knowing that he would have an argument for anything she said. If she apologized for the failed dates that she can never fix, he'd argue that it'd be worse to leave things off a sour note, and that not every good song starts out good. If she tried to suggest other people for him to date or imply that it'd be easier with someone else, he'd say that his guitar plays only for her and he wouldn't change that even if he could.

"...I'm sorry," she said, smiling her first genuine smile of the night. "I won't doubt myself anymore."

Even though she couldn't see his face, she knew he was smiling too. "Do you feel better?"

"Yeah. Do—do you?"

"Yeah," he replied, voice thick with emotion.

Wanting to see his face, she slowly dropped their hands and turned to face him, silently hoping that she didn't look awful from her earlier tears. However, to her surprise, she noticed that Luka's eyes were watery despite his smile, just like her. Realizing something, she raised a hand to her shoulder, where his face had been hovering over ever since he'd hugged her from behind.

It was wet.

"Oh, Luka..."

She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him against her. He returned the gesture, squeezing her lovingly and giving her back a few rubs that she responded to with a happy hum. They held the position, the warmth of the hug completely negating the slight chill of the night air.

Even when they pulled away, it wasn't far nor for long. Marinette wasn't sure which of them initiated it, but one moment they were staring at each other and the next they were kissing. It had been long overdue and she idly thought that it was better than she would've imagined their kiss at the cinema to be.

She breathed in his scent, her fingers blindly reaching up to slide into his hair. She almost felt like crying again, though this time in relief that everything had actually worked out for once and they were kissing without interruption. Even though Luka was more subtle in showing his emotions, she could tell that he felt the same from the way his hand on her back shook, practically vibrating with happiness.

The kiss eventually broke with a soft click, though she kept her hands on him for the sake of stability. They were both breathing a little hard from the emotional toll of the conversation yet not necessarily in a bad way.

And the love in his eyes - the life that she missed so much - was back. She honestly thought she wouldn’t have seen it again and she was tempted to just keep kissing him in relief, part of her aware that he definitely wouldn’t have minded it.

It took her a few tries to get the words out, hesitant to break up their wordless exchanges of love. She knew what revelation was waiting for Luka back at his houseboat - maybe he'd already guessed it - and she wanted to be there for him, so she asked carefully, "Do you... want me to come back to the Liberty with you?"

Eyes half-lidded, he gave her a soft smile and gently squeezed her hand. "Yeah. Do you want to sleep over?"

She nodded. "Mm, I'd like that."

Holding hands, they began making their way back to the Liberty, the ambiance of the night finally coming through to soothe them. Marinette glanced down at their joined hands, then at the wide smile on Luka's face, the latter clearly caused by the former.

She looked ahead at where they were walking, pretending that she hadn't just been admiring him. "We could always go out for breakfast together. That might work out."

"That sounds amazing." Luka feigned a look of thoughtfulness. "Maybe Shadow Moth doesn't like mornings?"

Marinette squeaked mid-giggle. "You'd think that'd be the case from the name, huh?"

He chuckled, covering his mouth with his free hand, and the conversation remained light from there. Any bad feelings from the day had evaporated, leaving only smiles and hope for the future in its place.

Everything was going to be okay. For once, Marinette could truly believe that.

#type: story #story: oneshot #Flower Arrangement Shipping #episode: Truth #other: ml spoilers #((Bold of you guys to assume that I only had one of these in me.))#Pro LukaMari #Lukanette

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