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cheolhub · 9 months

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EVENING GLOW — KIM MINGYU ࿐

summary. you’re having a horrible, no good, very bad day and mingyu wants to do everything he can to make it better.

wc. 4.5k+

warnings. hurt/comfort, overthinking, reader goes through it and cries a lot, allusions to having anxiety, smut! soft bf!mingyu, so much praise (it’s insane), pet names (angel, baby, sweet/pretty girl), reader is v needy and sensitive, a lot of reassurance, hand holding, fingering, oral (f. receiving), multiple orgasms, slight dumbification, creampie, V SOFT, unprotected sex — MINORS DNI 18+

note. because i love keir ( @jeonghantis ) and bc they deserve the world and all of the stars. also it’s really for anyone who’s had way too many bad days in a row <3 u are very loved (by me and ur fave). also, i lost sight of the plot half way thru this (very common reoccurrence in all of my mingyu fics) so i apologize for that hehsh. i appreciate ur feedback! <3 and yes, this is loosely based off evening glow by wave to earth <33333333 + @toruro i also hope u like this hehehe

bad days aren’t uncommon for you, but you’ve had significantly less since kim mingyu waltzed into your life like the klutz he is. he manages to make every day brighter by simply existing. every smile, every laugh, every touch makes bad days seem like a distant memory.

that’s not to say you don’t still have them because you do.

you still have days– like today– where it seems like nothing is right. days where you overthink every single thing in your life, ‘am i doing this right?’ ‘does he still love me?’ ‘does any of this even fucking matter?’ days where you want the earth to crack all the way open and swallow you whole.

those days are beyond harsh. they have you trudging back home with wet lash lines, cloudy vision, and a loud voice in your head that’s begging– pleading– don’t cry, don’t cry, please don’t cry.

and today… today felt like you went to hell and back. the second your eyes opened, you knew it was going to be one of those days and it truly was a series of rather unfortunate events. you woke up late and alone, you were reprimanded by your boss, you spilled your much-needed coffee during your break, your coworkers were much more hostile than usual, you got yelled at by clients over the phone, your personal phone died halfway through the day because, of course, you forgot to charge it last night, and then, the intrusive thoughts came. the ones that had you overthinking like crazy.

and it’s not like you could talk to anyone about it (read: talk to mingyu about it). your phone was dead and you hated all of your coworkers, so you were stuck. stuck in limbo, it seemed, mind plagued with horrid thoughts. everything good in your life didn’t feel so good anymore.

which is why you were practically in tears when you got back home, letting them roll down your face shamelessly as your hand fumbled the keys. you eventually got it into the lock– after steadying your shaky hand– turning the metal and letting yourself in. the second you shut the door, you press your back against it, head in your hands as you let out the soft sobs you've been holding in all day.

on most of your bad days, you can keep your tears at bay till you make it into the shower. but, on days like today, you just can’t and your sobs echo through the empty apartment, reminding you that you’ll be alone till your boyfriend arrives. it’s not the prettiest sight, though, so you’re partially glad that mingyu misses it since he gets home after you.

he usually does, at least.

what you don’t realize is mingyu is home and he’s wandering around the apartment with his brows furrowed, confused as to where the sound of crying is coming from.

and when he sees you at the main entrance with your hands covering your face, he feels the air leave his lungs and his heart almost literally cracks in half.

he treads carefully, slowly making his way to you. “...baby?”

you’re startled, choking on one of your sobs at the sound of his voice. out of mere embarrassment, you quickly wipe your tears with your sleeve though it does nothing to hide the fact that you actually have been crying.

“gyu…” you say with a wavering voice, doing your absolute best to keep up your shitty facade. you quickly feel your resolve crumbling as you both stand in awkward silence, so you put your head down to avoid eye contact. “i-i thought you were working?”

he ignores your question and counters with his own, “Y/N, what’s wrong?”

you bite your trembling lip and shake your head, eyes still trained on the floor.

he walks a few steps closer, now towering over your trembling body, “c’mon, angel. tell me what happened.”

you take a shuddered breath, slowly raising your head to look up at him. he frowns at your bloodshot eyes and tear-stained cheeks and at the fact that all you can say is “hi…” in a nearly-inaudible, yet dulcet voice.

“hi, baby,” he whispers back, hands coming to cup your cheeks, thumbs wiping at your stray tears. “tell me what happened.” he repeats, a bit more demanding this time.

you deflate, “i just had a bad day… it was nothing.”

he shakes his head at how you invalidate yourself, “it’s not nothing if it’s making you cry, Y/N…” he gently reminds. “please tell me? i wanna help… if you’ll let me.”

you sigh, leaning into his touch. your eyes flutter close and the words escape you before your brain can process them. you tell him everything trying your hardest to not let your emotions get the best of you. it’s not like mingyu would care if you were crying and blubbering out your words, but you knew he hated seeing you so upset, so you refrain from shedding more tears.

you try to refrain, at least. you can’t stop the way they helplessly fall when you open your eyes again. “nothing was going right, gyu… my day was so bad that it had me overthinking every little thing.”

“i’m sorry, baby.” he whispers, pressing his forehead against yours. “i’m so sorry i wasn’t there for you.”

you shake your head profusely, swallowing the lump you feel in your throat, “n-no! no, please, it’s not your fault, gyu, i swear. my phone died, so it’s not like you could’ve known anyway.”

he pulls away from you, hands coming down to hold yours. “what did you think about?”

you squeeze his hands, “a lot of things…”

“like?” he frowns, pressing further.

you look away, mumbling out a lie, “i dunno. it was a lot… i can’t really remember right now. ”

truth be told, you didn’t want to admit the anxiety-induced thoughts you had earlier knowing he’d worry. if he heard half the ones you had about your relationship, you know he’d probably break down himself. you’re well aware mingyu loves you more than anything on earth because he never fails to remind you.

but sometimes, the tiny voice in the back of your head– the one that says he’s too good to be true– gets a bit too loud and you tend to forget all his little reminders– all the ‘i love you’s’ he whispers into your ear right before bed, all the kisses he peppers onto your face, all the hugs where he squeezes the life out of you.

“you don’t have to tell me what you thought about, but i do want to tell you something,” he starts, a small smile making its way onto his pretty lips. he leans into you, with a voice so small as he says, “i love you. and i know i suffocate you with it sometimes, but it’s true. i love you so much. please don’t ever doubt that.”

you nod, sniffling, “i know.”

his smile grows, “and?...”

your lips curve up a bit and you whisper, “and i love you, too.”

“you better not forget it,” he playfully jokes, forehead resting on yours again. “you know i love you the most, though.”

you giggle softly, shaking your head. “you always turn it into a competition. you know it isn’t right?”

“i know it isn’t, but i do.” he confirms, voice tender and a bit hushed. “i want you to remember that the next time you think too hard. i love my pretty girl the most… more than anything. i’d do anything to keep you happy. wanna see that pretty smile everyday.”

the genuinity– the love– that drips from his words has you weak. the words replay in your head over and over almost as if it’s on a constant loop.

i love my pretty girl.

my pretty girl.

your breath hitches at the unanticipated pet name, remembering the sweet, innocent way it rolled off his tongue. you know you probably shouldn’t feel this way, but it doesn’t stop the way you squeeze your thighs together, pussy pulsing at the mere term of endearment. you’re almost sure mingyu can feel the heat radiating off your skin, yet he does nothing. he stands still, warm, brown eyes staring at your tear-stained face.

so you take matters into your own hands.

you stand tall and lean into him. your nose brushes against his and the proximity between the two of you closes quickly. i want to be kissed, your face reads– begs– and he finally sees that, obliging reluctantly.

his eyes flutter and his lips graze against yours before you take the lead and close the gap for him. as his mouth collides with yours, you feel warmth erupt in your body and you relish it.

the kiss is soft. gentle. it nearly has you melting under him.

but the longer his lips mold against yours, the longer his tongue roams the inside of your mouth, the needier you get. it’s like all your worries wash away. all the bad thoughts evaporate into thin air. all you can think about is the everlasting love you have for the man before you and the incessant love he has for you, too.

you untangle your hands from his in favor of pawing at his chest, nails digging into the cotton fabric of his shit and slightly biting into his skin.

you’re slowly, yet surely losing your mind. the kiss deepens and all the coherent thoughts you had minutes prior are being pushed to the back as mingyu is on the forefront of your mind. you’re overcome with need for him. need for him to make you forget everything. need for him to fuck you till all you can think about him and the way his cock makes you feel.

and mingyu knows this, of course. he knows with the way you claw at him and how you whimper desperately as if you’ve been deprived from his touch for far too long.

it’s why he doesn’t make you beg for it. instead he’s pulling away, watching you chase his lips while he breathlessly asks, “you sure you wanna do this, baby?” he looks so enamored with you. there’s no doubt you look like a complete mess right now, but it’s like he sees past it. past the tears, past the red eyes, past all the sadness.

“please,” you whisper, sniffling again.

he murmurs okay against your lips before grabbing your hand and guiding you to your shared room.

he diligently strips you of your clothing, first your pants then your shirt. his fingers skillfully popping the buttons on your blouse and slipping it off your body, letting it fall into a pool on the ground.

“so beautiful,” he whispers, massive hands immediately moving to grope your tits through your bra. “you’re so fucking beautiful, Y/N.”

his words linger in the air and you feel them. you feel beautiful when he stares at you half naked in your cotton panties and mismatched bra. you feel beautiful with your puffy eyes and snotty nose. mingyu makes you feel so beautiful even in your most unfavorable moments.

you whimper at his heavy hands, your own tugging at the ends of his shirt, wordlessly begging for the fabric to join the other clothes on the ground. he obliges immediately, practically ripping it off of himself before his hands are back on you.

he pulls your bra down, letting your tits spill out, kneading at the flesh with hearts in his eyes. a breathy version of his name comes out of your mouth–

and the sound makes his cock ache. his body yearns and begs to be inside of you. so much so that it has him swiftly unclasping your bra before gently pushing you onto the bed. he thinks it’s gentle, at least. mingyu tends to forget his strength so his gentle can be your rough.

it doesn’t matter, it never has. every single act mingyu performs for you is one that comes from a place of love. he’s a benevolent man, not a single malicious bone lives in his hand-crafted body.

“gyu,” you whisper, hand slipping in between your thighs to work on your clothed clit as he towers over you. at your own contact, you feel a shock run through your body and your back just slightly arches off the bed. “need you.”

he curses under his breath, suddenly unable to breathe in his loose house shorts. he hooks his fingers into the waistband, pulling them down and presenting his leaky, hard cock to you.

and the sight has your entire body going hot. you throw your head back against the plush pillows and moan out his name, louder this time, fingers moving faster against your clit– though it would feel so much better if he finally put his hands on you. or better yet, his cock inside of you.

“gyu,” you drag out his name in a cry and you finally feel the bed dip under his weight.

“i know, baby,” he whispers, hand moving yours away from your soaked panties in favor of replacing it. when his bigger fingers begin to rub circles into the covered bud, you gasp and let yours grasp at the sheets under you. “i know you need me. i’ve got you.” he reassures you, voice shaky as he notices just how wet you are. “gonna make you feel so good, don’t worry.”

but you don’t realize how sensitive you are because the second his hand slips inside your panties, his warm hand finding your heated cunt, fresh tears spring to your eyes. “oh, fuck,” you shudder, shaking underneath him.

“you’re so wet,” he mutters the obvious, fingers dipping in between your folds to collect your slick before pulling his hand out.

“don’t tease me,” you plead weakly.

he frowns, shaking his head, “i’m not– i won’t,” he tells you softly, rolling your panties off your body and down your legs. he tosses the cotton material over to join the other articles of clothing on the ground before his hands spread your legs open, displaying you for himself. “i told you that i got you, pretty girl, i promise.”

you give him a broken nod, squirming in discomfort.

his hand is back on your pussy in no time, tapping at your drooling hole with two of his fingers. “this still okay?”

you nod again, “yes, gyu.”

he leans down, lips meeting yours as he presses into you with his index and middle fingers. he’s quick to swallow your moan as he stretches you open, feeling the way your gummy walls invite and welcome him in.

your kiss is more fervent this time around. you can feel his need, the way he shoves his tongue into your mouth, messy and uncoordinated. it has you trapping his fingers between your wet walls, grinding with all your might against his hand.

you have no clue how he manages to multi-task, both finger-fucking and kissing you into oblivion, but he does both without fail. you whine desperately against his lips, one of your hands coming to wrap around his wrist in hopes to support yourself.

the wet squelching of your cunt fills the room and it has him pulling away from you for a second to groan out, “you hear that, angel? pretty pussy takin’ my fingers so fuckin’ well.”

you clench around him again, enveloping him as if your life depended on it– you feel so fucking good–

and yet you crave more. it feels good, yes, mingyu always has you seeing stars, but you need more. more of his fingers, more of him. and mingyu is probably well aware of the fact with the way your pussy swallows his fingers, but you know he’s reluctant about giving you too much because of… prior events.

you want that– you want too much. you want to forget about your shitty day. the only thing you want to think about, the only thing you want to be all-consumed by in this very moment, is mingyu.

“m-more–” you whine against his lips as he wildly pushes in and out of your messy cunt.

fingers unfaltering in speed, he pulls away from you breathlessly, lips wet and swollen. “more, baby?”

“mhm,” you give him pleading eyes as you whisper, “wanna cum.”

“fuck,” he mumbles, nodding his head mindlessly as if your words put him into a daze. his fingers pull out and his ring finger joins the two that are already covered in your slick. they push into you slowly, effectively opening you up. “how’s this, beautiful? this enough?”

you pant, clamping around the digits, squeezing them like a vice. “m-min-” you muffle your moan with your hand, more tears stinging in your eyes.

“no?” he asks, an endearing grin on his face. he maneuvers till he’s in between your legs, he moves further down the bed and your heart thumps erratically in your chest.

it’s when his lips wrap around your clit while he concurrently thrusts his fingers into your sopping heat that you let out an ear-splitting moan. you lace your fingers into his silky hair and tug at his roots without a care.

he winces and moans against you at the feeling, the pain making his cock throb against the bed.

your mind escapes you, melting at the pleasure. his tongue flicks at the sensitive, swollen bud while his fingers curl against your sweet spot, pushing you closer and closer to the edge and you’re on the brink of pure ecstasy.

“s-so close, fuck, i’m close, gyu.” you babble breathlessly.

he moans again, tirelessly continuing his brutal attack on your pussy, but the sound waves of said moans shock your entirety and teeter right over the edge. your vision goes black for a solid minute, only a few specks of white in sight, your blinding orgasm taking your entire body over.

you jerk under him, back arching as you release all over his fingers, the tightrope in your tummy completely unraveling and allowing you to soak his fingers in your syrupy arousal. his mouth moves down as he pulls out and slurps you up obnoxiously, eating you out as you cum.

and you can’t stop shaking, not even after he’s pulled his mouth and fingers away from you. your body twitches and writhes like he’s been working you for hours and mingyu, astounded, has never seen you like this– well, he definitely has– not after a single orgasm, at least.

he shudders, body burning with need. the taste of you alone has his brain a bit fuzzy. “are… you okay? was it too much?” he manages to ask, voice strained.

mingyu thinks his question falls on deaf ears when all he hears is your heaving and tiny whimpers. he moves to clean you up, partially worried he overstimulated you, but then you make grabby hands at the large, flushed man.

he leans into your touch, allowing you to grab on to him, “what’s wrong?”

when he looks into your eyes, glassy and glazed over, he notices the hint of need. the pinch of pure desperation. he sees the way you wordlessly ask for more of him, how you wordlessly ask for him to just fuck you already– he can’t deny you. not with the year-long day you’ve had or with the way his cock is basically begging to stuff you full.

he pecks your lips and sits up again. a soft chuckle escapes him as you chase him for another kiss, but it quickly turns into a sharp breath when he looks down at your puffy, pulsing pussy. you’re crying for him, that much is obvious, but your pussy is just weeping.

an endless trail of arousal continues to drool out of you and it’s so enticing… yet it feels so tantalizing…

he feels a bit guilty for being this hard, for wanting to fuck you so bad. it’s in his good nature. you’ve told him countless times that it’s okay, that you need him, but he just wants to make sure.

“are you sure?” he whispers, so soft that you could almost miss it. “we can just go to bed if you’re not up for this, Y/N.”

you can tell that mingyu is fighting inner turmoil. you know he always feels guilty for fucking you stupid. today, though, you’re sure he feels guilty for the other things.

you don’t want him to. he shouldn’t feel guilty for something beyond his control, so you muster up all your strength and, in a wavered voice, tell him, “i want you… always want you.”

you hear his breath of relief and see the wobbly smile on his face and you mirror it. he’s quickly ridding his mind of the guilt and shame at your reassurance and lining himself up with your hole. he slides the tip of his cock between your lips and revels in the way you jolt gently.

“deep breath f’me,” he mutters, knowing you’ll need it. when he hears your shaky inhale, he takes one of his own right as he pushes into you. “fuck,” he says breathlessly. you’re still so fucking tight around him.

a broken whine bubbles up in the back of your throat and mingyu watches the way your eyes screw shut and your jaw goes slack. beautiful, he thinks to himself. even when you’re fucked out of your mind.

he finds the strength to push past the resistance, slowly shoving himself inside of you till his pelvis meets yours.

when he bottoms out, your face contorts and you’re spluttering over your words, “s-so big,”

he nods his head like he knows. “i know, baby,” he murmurs, sliding one of his hands into yours. “but you’re so good for me, always take me so well.” he whispers this time as he’s leaning down, moving your intertwined hands next to your head on the pillow. his free hand cups your heated cheek and he studies you for a few minutes, cock fully sheathed inside of you.

he watches your face change as you become accustomed to the size of him, how your contorted, pained face relaxes as the minutes pass. when your eyes flutter open and you whimper his name, “gyu…” he pulls out a tiny bit before pushing back in– something of an experimental thrust– and discerns your positive reaction.

he repeats his actions, inching out a bit more and sliding back in with ease. his eyes observe you intently, noticing every reaction you make as he drives his cock in and out of you, each one going deeper than the last.

his hand squeezes yours and his lips graze against yours, “feel good?” he asks, breath fanning over your face.

“uh-huh, so good,” you respond in a pant. “th-thank you.”

he falters a bit, but continues to deliver his deep and calculated thrusts. “why are you thanking me, angel?”

“for taking care of me.”

mingyu’s heart swells and nearly bursts right then and there. his smile practically reaches his ears because mingyu, admittedly, loves being the cause of your pleasure. he’s a giver. he always has been.

it makes his hips move faster, his hips flushing to yours with every stroke. the bed squeaks under you, loud and annoyingly high-pitched. neither of you are bothered by the sound as you’re wrapped up within each other– you’re moaning and whining for more and more against his lips and he’s promising to deliver through deep groans and grunts against yours.

and he does deliver. the tip of his cock kisses your cervix and it knocks the wind out of your lungs. you squeeze the hand in yours and your other comes to claw at his body. you dig your nails into the flesh of his arm, biting into him in favor of leaving crescent shapes on his smooth skin.

he hisses, but the subtle sting just spurs him on. that and the way your pussy contracts around him.

“oh fuck,” you whisper, a high-pitched whine following the words. you’re so sensitive from your previous orgasm that it’s making all too much. your body is buzzing and the familiar knot is forming quicker than usual. “mingyu– mingyu, i-i’m so close.”

he nods, breathing out, “it’s okay, baby– cum for me. you deserve it.” you deserve everything you want, he fails to add.

you don’t hold back, completely unraveling under him. you’re easily reduced to a mess, gushing all over his cock while you mewl a mantra of his name. your brain leaves you for a solid minute as you mindlessly babble out thank you’s and i love you’s.

he pulls away from your lips as he watches you come undone. he’s truly so enraptured by you. with your tear-stained cheeks and the drool that trails past your bruised lips. when you tell him you love him– almost incoherently– his dick twitches in your spasming cunt.

“i love you.” he groans, swiftly rocking into you. you’re sobbing in overstimulation, but he eases you with more praise. “you’re so good, fuck, so perfect. i love you so bad.”

his hand leaves your cheek, instead grabbing your free hand and intertwining your fingers. he pins your hands next to your head, just like the other, and continues fucking you.

“my pretty girl,” he murmurs, holding your contrastingly smaller hands tightly. “i’m gonna cum inside… you want that right?”

the question triggers your mind back to life. “please,” you moan weakly. “n-need it.”

he twitches again, a throaty groan coming out of him before he gasps. his entire body stiffens before he presses himself all the way inside of you. his groans and grunts distort to needy moans as ropes of his seed paint the velvet walls of your convulsing heat.

he attempts to control his breathing. after a minute straight of panting and whining, his heaving chest slows and falls into a steady rhythm.

“are you okay?” he pants, pulling out of you, body still hovering over yours. “was it too much…”

your lips turn up into a tiny, sweet smile and nod your head, “‘m okay, baby.”

“good,” he whispers, leaning in and kissing your lips.

he releases you from his grasp and falls next to you, trying to recover more before cleaning you up. he sighs, soothing a hand over your skin and you scoot into him.

“i wanna help you,” mingyu starts with the softest voice you’ve ever heard after a few minutes of comfortable silence, “you can always tell me when you’re having one of these days, baby… you know that right?”

“i know,” you nod, mindlessly tracing shapes onto his bare chest.

“i’m always gonna be here for you… as long as you’ll have me.”

“i know.” you repeat, words whispered this time. “you always make the days better– make them shine– you literally have a heart of gold, mingyu.”

he chuckles, “i don’t,”

“no, you do. just trust me. if we cut you open right now for open heart surgery, there’d be 24 karat gold in the shape of a human heart inside of you.” you tell him.

mingyu smiles widely. happily.

“just remember that this heart is all yours, angel.”

taglist 🏷️: svt : 🔖 @roe-sinning @hyuk4ngel @bowmonde @5xiang @ttyunz @lunaofthelake @girls4cheol @miriamxsworld @enhacolor @jihoontea

#mingyu smut #svt smut #seventeen smut

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throwaway-yandere · 5 months

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𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙣𝙤 𝙙𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙮 (Yandere!Neuvillette/Reader)

a/n: this was inspired by my favorite childhood TV show, House MD & Oedipus Rex. The plot was supposed to be something else but dingleaf happened one 4AM ago. Anyways, welcome to our first Throwaway-Thursday this End of Year Blues!!!

Unreliable Synopsis: Everyone held their breath when they heard ex-defense attorney (Y/n) say these words: "Your Honor, I would like to challenge Champion Duelist Clorinde to clear my charges."

CW: yandere themes, reader has so much spite I can fry an egg, hurt/NO COMFORT. Please prioritize your mental health if these CWs are triggering to you. (Note: The plot happens a month before the Fontaine AQ, so he doesn't know about what happened to Vautrin.)

“Why the pale expression? Has the trial last week caused you tremendous pain?”

"Such pallor is caused by pity, not grief.” Neuvilette made his fragile excuse to reassure Furina, but the words did not reach her ears. The ringing of raindrops outside was louder, more convincing. Fontaine is vexed with storms near-daily. The sad verdant earth will soon sponge and dry the hydro dragon’s tears as always, but every man hopes they won’t drown first.

At first, he was convinced what he harbored was pity. For the pessimists, Fontaine is a nation where virtuous pagans paraded themselves as rich and devoted ran amok. Absolute justice is a cartoonish ideal– lack of entertainment is the death sentence.

Lady Furina was starting to believe he lives his life by a certain suspect’s final envoi:

Count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.

"Are you insane?!" Navia held your shoulders, eyes wide.

This was the worst thing you could ever do to your best friend.

"Maybe I am." You told her, chuckling slightly as your thumbs caressed the nerves behind her palms. Navia, as intimidating as her occupation was, never once gripped you this hard.

You wish you could hug her fully.

But these prison bars are holding you back.

"Can you blame me, Nav?"

"Don't." She glared. "Don't do this."

Navia trembled.

"Please, don't follow Dad..."

The blonde woman was reduced to a young, hopeless girl. You saw a reflection of the small Navia who lost Callas, and that short glimpse was stretched into a whole tragic spectacle.

"I'm begging you, (Y/n). Please… d-don't go away. Don't leave me too…"

This was the cruelest you've ever been to someone you love.

But also the kindest you've been to yourself.

"There's nothing else I can do, Nav."

"W-We can always do something! There must be a way!" She screamed gutturally. "We'll find a way to make that Chief Justice pay instead. If there's a will—"

"But there's none. There is no will in me left."

"Then hold on to mine, for Archon's sake! Depend on me!"

"What for? We both lack the means to grasp our Archon's hand." You shook your head, grinning without life.

You wiped the tears off her cheeks. In a small fraction of time, you trembled, showing a bit of soul.

"Our Goddess has abandoned me. Everyone and everything but you had." You said. "Dear Navia, don't make this harder for yourself. Let me go."

"(Y/n)..."

Her grip relaxed.

Navia finally let go.

But that was not the scene's last word.

Clorinde sprinted towards your cell, seething in electric rage. Navia stepped back. Their relationship might be less than cordial, but Clorinde was also your friend.

And after all these years of friendship, she never would've guessed you would elicit such melancholic frustration within her.

She knows she'll come out of this duel victorious.

She knows if she doesn't say a word, she'll be the one to bury you six feet under.

Clorinde's fists clenched and her breathing grew harsh and difficult, unable to accept your inhumane gaze.

"Is this your solution, (Y/n)?"

From the tone of her voice, this would not be a pleasant conversation. One wrong word, and you'll see a side of the Champion Duelist not even her court opponents knew.

You nodded.

"Yes."

"State your reason."

"Because this is the only way I'll die with dignity."

…

"Die… with dignity?"

Something inside her cracked.

"Yes." You nodded again, becoming uncertain. "At least with this, there would be something Neuvillette cannot decide for me. And (Y/n) (L/n) chooses a dignified death."

“DEATH HAS NO DIGNITY!!!”

You and Navia flinched at the sudden sound.

Clorinde screamed, feeling her eyes burn. Her veins became more prominent in her face and her skin reddish. The sheer force of her scream was enough to bring your full attention to her, yet to the duelist, her uncharacteristic outburst meant nothing.

“DEATH WILL ALWAYS BE UGLY!!! DEATH– DEATH IS NEVER BEAUTIFUL!!! IT IS ALWAYS SINISTER— LOATHSOME AND VILE.”

"Clor—"

She pulled you by your collar.

“There– there is only dignity in living.” She trembled, casting her gaze down. “You can live with dignity– but you can’t die with it.”

For a while, only her unsteady breathing could be heard.

Clorinde eventually calmed down, her heavy sighs and frantic pants slowing as the red hue of her face somewhat returned to its usual pale complexion. She couldn’t afford a second more to process her growing grief.

"Find another duelist."

As a successor to the Marechaussee Hunters, there's no one else you need but her.

"But I want you."

"(Y/n)."

"You've always been my idol, Clorinde." You told her solemnly. "I always thought you at least made my clients have a clean death under your blade."

Clorinde paused.

That, she cannot deny.

She did spare mercy to the people you defended. But she doesn't understand how you fail to comprehend why she couldn't bear to bring herself to enact the same reprieve for you.

"Retrieve your gloves. I don't and I won't accept your challenge." Clorinde closed her eyes. "Live your days in the Fortress instead. Death is not the solution."

You laughed. As if you'd let yourself be under Wriothesley's guidance when you can smell from miles away that he's one of Neuvillette's lap dogs.

"Isn't this suffering enough?" You spoke with a casual lack of self-preservation. "I don't want to live under Neuvillette's scrutinizing eyes. Not anymore."

You looked up.

That empty smile was no longer on your face.

And that was somehow more frightening than it should be.

"So do your job as a champion and end it all, just like what you've done to Uncle Callas and the others."

Your last conversation with the Duke was not as memorable as when he caught you spiking the Iudex’s cup, yet you’d give his personality credit where it is due. His was certainly a memorable one.

Wriothesley stood a few steps away from the bars while you purposefully cornered yourself. The distance was noticeable. It was clear that neither of you was close to each other. This was mere formality brought about by one of your should’ve-been victims.

“So, you sure don’t want to be roommates?” Wriothesley asked. "Or you know, see old friends and family down there?"

"I'd rather not disappoint them with my presence."

“So, you're a coward?" He asked, intending to provoke you.

"Maybe?" you answered, mimicking his tone. "Wouldn't know. Last time I checked, I was an honorable defense attorney. But suddenly, the Iudex had a change of heart."

"Neuvillette didn't have a change of heart. You are a terrorist."

You laughed sardonically, "suppose so."

You both weren't entirely wrong. Friends and foe alike know you've turned to rebellion after the justice system had failed you repeatedly. Neuvillette's lovestruck fixation was merely the final straw.

“You’re walking on a death sentence.”

“No shit,” you clicked your tongue and continued. “What else do you think this is for?”

“The Iudex was convinced that you’re acting out because you had a guilty conscience, and he’s very willing to drop those charges and forgive you.”

“Guilty conscience?! HA!!!” You laughed. “As if I felt guilty for what I’ve done. If anything, I’m rejoicing.”

Wriothesley smirked, but it faded quickly.

“I told him the same, but then he says if that were true, you’re probably just masking it to play the villain’s part.”

“Do you believe every word he says?”

“No,” Wriothesley did not hesitate to answer. “I know a criminal when I see one. And I also know when a criminal can get away with their mess.”

“The jury thinks otherwise– the oratrice cannot be wrong.” You snickered. “I’m as guilty as they come, hands filled with arsenic and all.”

"You can still get out of this. Sure, you'll get a stern talking-to— a lecture on the virtue of honor and respect. But in the end, he'd give you a second chance. He's still hoping that a mutual agreement will arise in the end."

You expressed your disinterest with a droopy-eyed “Blah, blah, blah…”

Wriothesley frowned.

“You’ll make him depressed.”

You raised an eyebrow.

“And you think I care? Fontaine can flood next month. Just as long as I die tomorrow it’s none of my business.”

…

“Well, it’s your call,” Wriothesley said. “If you’re willing to throw your life away like that, then you probably wouldn’t survive a week underwater.”

He wrapped a hand around one of the bars.

“You know, (Y/n),” the Duke looked at you dead in the eye. “Marriage with the Iudex isn’t as bad as you’re making it out to be.”

You laughed.

“What makes you say that?” You smiled through gritted teeth. “Are you his second spouse?”

“I’m just saying,” he shrugged. “You could’ve just lived a bit more silently.”

You glared.

“Are you saying I should live like a caged bird? That I should accept that our system here is rigged?”

“I’m saying you should’ve been more grateful with what you have.”

You scoffed.

“Wow.”

An awkward silence followed after. It wasn’t as if a quip was hard to form– but the historical context behind whom you were speaking to made weighing empathy over spite a challenge. You knew of his past, his name or lack thereof, and quiet allegiance to Neuvillette. Sigewinne had made sure you knew of it to glorify the adoptive “father” of the Melusines. Wriothesley owes him his survival.

But "Wriothesley" of all people should've known that those who know morbid truths cannot be silenced forever.

And Neuvillette owes you a peaceful death.

… The Duke sighed, noticing that his admiration for the Iudex did not align with his current morals.

“We’ll forever agree to disagree on this, won’t we?” He asked.

“Hopefully not forever, I don’t want to stay here for much longer.”

Wriothesley chuckled at your morbid joke. But before he could walk away with a less-than-heavy heart, you shifted from your corner.

“Hey, Wriothesley?”

He turned to look at you– your hand specifically.

It’s a letter.

“Mind handing these to the authorities?”

Wriothesley’s eyes widened.

“Is that–”

“It’s a written confession,” you chuckled. “Don’t ask me how I got a pen and paper. I know that damn bastard forbids anyone to lend me anything that’ll help me write a final will. Gotta say, at least his etiquette lessons had some use. At least my last words are in pretty cursive.”

He didn’t say another word.

…

The Duke left the room, empty-handed.

…

No one wants to see the Iudex more heartbroken than he already is now.

The interrogation room was small, but not to the point that there was a minimal budget for its construction. You sat on one end behind the glass divider after one of the guards took your letter. There were only plain walls and two lightbulbs on the ceiling. At the center of the room is a table with two chairs on either side, no pen or paper.

Nothing but an empty table.

But the quiet comfort was gone when the man of the hour closed the door behind him. As the ticking of the clock becomes more softer, the two individuals would be forced to sit for the duration of this “interrogation.”

It was none other than your husband, the Iudex, the Chief Justice of Fontaine, and the bane of your existence.

Monsieur Neuvillette.

His back was straight; his eyes, “stern” and focused. He clasped his hands together, fingers intertwined. His gaze searched for something— regret, remorse, anything that could make the upcoming nightmare disappear.

Neuvillette's voice was “calm” and “collected.”

But you didn’t buy it. Not with his messy hair, his forlorn look, his frown. You rarely saw him cry. You had a gut feeling he hides it by standing amidst heavy rain, but this time the redness of his eyes and puffiness of his cheeks says it all.

It’s a heavy downpour outside.

He can’t be bothered to hide his tears from the public eye anymore.

"In your own words, please explain why you had attempted to poison me."

Your eyes lit up. He immediately wished he could take those words back.

So, he’s still in denial. Neuvillette seriously didn’t think you wrote the letter. He probably didn’t think it was your handwriting. It was almost insulting.

“Oh, Monsieur! You are as generous as they say, finally letting your spouse speak for themselves!” You grinned sarcastically. “And they say chivalry is dead! DEAD!!!”

He cringed at your pointed enthusiasm.

You recount the day you attempted to murder him, describing how you had slipped the poison into his favorite cup. How you didn’t really care to hope it wouldn’t be noticed since what mattered more to you was his death over your own freedom. The more detailed you became, the more it suffocated him.

“But, as you can see, you’re alive and I am behind this glass window,” you tapped the divider. “Away from you, at last.”

He bit his lip.

“(Y/n)—”

“I hate you.”

He breathed in shakily.

“I know.”

“And yet you still fell for it.” Your voice suddenly softened.

“Why?” You continued. “Why did you believe my act for the past month? I know you had your suspicions, so why? You knew I was just playing along to get your guard down– to act like some loving housewife so I can find the opportunity to smother you with a pillow– so… why?”

“Maybe…”

Neuvillette took a deep breath.

“Maybe it’s because dying by your hands would be a dignified way to go.”

Your eyes widened. The air turned to glue. Breathing became a challenge.

He looked up, meeting your gaze. Monsieur Neuvillette was serious. No shifting position can make you feel comfortable.

Because Neuvillette in his most sincere form of speech is the most brutal.

“I just wished to be loved by y-you,” his voice cracked. “Even for a moment, even for a lie, I would die to know I was loved by you.”

His face crumpled, tears flowing freely. He reached a hand out against the glass window, his palm marking the divider. Neuvillette was breathing erratically, desperate to hold you. The pain in his chest was getting heavier, much like the rain outside. You almost couldn’t hear him from all the background noise, and you wished that was what happened.

This was the man who took your clients' happiness. The man who took Uncle Callas away with his rationale. The reason for your unhappiness.

And yet, you couldn't think of any other person who would love you as much as he does.

“Y-You know me for who I-I am,” he gasped out. “I am but a weak and beaten down man w-who couldn’t express himself like a human being. Y-You were there, you comforted me with not a smile, an umbrella, or thoughtless words of encouragement— you accepted me for who I was with a warm embrace.”

You hated it.

You hate how your heart ached for the man that made your life a living hell.

“I was the leader of the Revolution and I needed intel against you, nothing more.” You spat. This time, you were the least convincing one. “It was an act of kindness I shouldn’t have done.”

“Yet it has helped me more than you had accounted for.”

“And never before have I ever regretted playing savior.”

“I was merely attempting to reform your life,” Neuvillette breathlessly spoke. “I wished to set you on the right path. You were a gifted individual with great connections. Your peers had high expectations of you. For you to throw that away for nonsense activism— no— terrorism is heartbreaking. And I—”

Neuvillette gulped.

“I didn’t want to face you on the other side of the courtroom.”

You laughed.

“Some things are just fated to happen,” you said. “An old astrologist told me that. She told me I was bound to get myself in deep legal trouble. Growing up, I figured it might as well be a cause worth doing if it’ll lead me to that path eventually. Why else did I become a defense attorney in such a hellishly political land?”

He trembled, tears falling at a faster rate.

You almost wanted to reach out and wipe those tears away.

Almost.

“Must you treat your life as though it is disposable?” Neuvillette asked, choking slightly. “Why are you…”

You digressed. “You’re not going to retract those charges are you?”

“I did.”

You frowned.

“But Lady Furina would not allow it,” he shook, frustrated. “She found out about your past, your hatred for her so-called incompetences and published lese-majestes.”

“Good for her, good for her.”

Neuvillette’s hand slowly slid down.

“I can’t… I cannot watch this…”

You felt a surge of confidence, for Neuvillette was indeed devoid of hope. You've never seen him with his head hung low. What went through Neuvillette's mind remained uncertain. Perhaps, just a small piece of him knew you could never be his. Perhaps he knew that you were destined for a doomed fate.

But it doesn't matter.

All that mattered was that you were free.

That was a month ago.

The rain had been going on nonstop for thirty days, and the Hydro Archon had every right to worry.

“I can’t sleep…” Neuvillette thought he spoke out loud, but it was just a whisper. He’s growing weak, his sleep deprivation catching up to him.

“Then come lay your head down,” she yawned slightly, fanning her breath. “Such heavy thoughts need a place to rest.”

“An irresistible offer,” Neuvillette mused humorlessly. “But I must decline.”

“Oh Neuvillette, when will you relax from this role you carry?” The archon spoke rhetorically.

Neuvillette chuckled sadly.

The heavy downpour wouldn’t stop.

Perhaps…

Perhaps when the day comes and he is stripped of dignity.

Maybe then, he’ll have his rest.

Neuvillette had already forgotten why he was crying that fateful day. But in those memories, he recalls he was callow and unformed. Was it due to an unfavorable trial? The problem evades him. His recollection remains only in how the people reacted around him. Many asked if he was okay and he'd reply with a simple "I'm fine". And he was, until he could no longer convince himself with that lie. He was certain he was about to dip his toes in another cycle of nihilism.

And then you came.

“Monsieur Neuvillette?”

The rain was pouring out in the cemetery. You were there; your presence questionable. He knew that you arrived intending to probe whether or not he was a sovereign dragon, but he gave you the nod of acknowledgment.

“Greetings, Mx. (Y/n),” he answered, “I trust you’ve been well? Is there a person whom you’re visiting?”

He asked in sheer politeness despite knowing your motivations.

“...”

You frowned.

“How long?”

“Pardon?”

“How long have you been carrying that loneliness, Monsieur?” You asked, voice louder. “How long?”

His lip quivered.

“Centuries, perhaps,” the Iudex thought he could pass it off as a light joke to catch you off-guard, but it came off as too sincere. “I do not keep track.”

You cautiously and awkwardly approached Neuvillette, and without a word, wrapped your arms around him in a comforting embrace.

Just like what Uncle Callas had done for you before.

Your existence here was anathema and your words were seditious. His initial reaction was to resist because he knew you were just like Vautrin. He knew you were secretly seeking vengeance because the oratrice unfavorably judged numerous friends and family.

But he needed it. He needed this badly.

It was then that the Iudex decided that he needed you. That he will keep you.

Neuvillette cannot handle another Vautrin— he can't handle another Carole. So, he'll do it right this time. He'll keep you safe, from your illegal associations and even from yourself.

And it was a selfish yet necessary need.

A lump formed in his throat as a tear fell, trickling down his cheek slowly. He allowed himself to melt in your hug, trembling.

“You’re going to need all the hugs you can get if you’re planning to stay as Iudex for centuries more,” you whispered. “You’re resilient, but in this world, that solitary resilience won’t be enough, won’t it?”

Unable to maintain his stoic facade any longer, Neuvillette gripped you tighter in that embrace, his vulnerability finally resurfacing physically rather than Fontaine's rains. Surprised by his sudden tirade of sobs, you embraced him with all the warmth you could muster. At that moment, you had an epiphany. Despite the enmity of their positions, they were the same. Both of you were victims of a nation that demanded more in your assigned roles than you could bear.

“If you'd let me, I'll be the person you’d come to if you ever need a hug.” You weren’t sure if you said it as a devious plan or an act of empathy. “I wouldn’t mind. Not at all.”

You've made yourself important to him now.

Neuvillette cannot lose you too.

As he clung to the solace you inadvertently provided, you can't help but wish you never extended that small comfort months later. Every inch given could be exploited, and when you offered him a shred of empathy, he had seized it and turned it into a mile-long advantage. The vulnerability shared in that hug was the dangerous crack in the sword you've worked so hard to maintain.

And so, when the time came you faced Champion Duelist Clorinde with it, the gaps broke the sword completely and with its death came soon the end of your life.

She was right. There is no dignity in dying with a broken hilt.

But there was peace.

And as much as you hated Neuvillette, you wish he’d have it too.

"I've made it this far, and all I've ever done was in accordance with what fate and others wanted of me. In my demise, let me do something for myself." “After all, I’ve learned from watching Uncle Callas when he fought Champion Duelist Clorinde— an encounter I’ll surely experience in the next few days— that there is beauty in the end. In his last moments, my much younger self saw what expression he wore.” “He was content. The most content I had ever seen in someone's face.” “It was then that I had an epiphany. One that I hope my “husband” Neuvillette will remember, and I care not if it will bring him comfort or pain.” “What I learned was simple:” “Count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.”

Taglist (lmk if you want to be added on the other three fics!): @ayadikreino @kireeen, @pebblemacaroon, @thelostpanta, @vennnnn-diagram, @sagekun, @vadelma-yatta, @detectivei @sugarplumcutiepie @sunhareskies @dxprived4-starboys @unloadingdata @harmonysanreads (amen.) @atomicsoulhumanspy @sangoqueenkoko @pix-stuff @dilucragnidvr

#ansy-writes #yandere genshin #yandere genshin x reader #yandere genshin impact #yandere x reader #yandere fanfiction #yandere male #yandere neuvillette #yandere neuvillette x reader #neuvillette #neuvillete x reader #yandere #male yandere #yanderecore #yandere genshin impact x reader #yandere scenarios

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ajokeformur-ray · 5 months

Text

The breeze seems to whisper 'I love you' // Astarion x gn!reader / Tav

This is my first Astarion fic so I really hope I bring him justice; he deserves that and everything else which is good in life. It took me three days in total to fall head over heels for him, and this piece is dedicated to @ace-tarion for being such a sweetheart in this, as in everything. I love you, dude!❤️

I haven't played BG3, I know maybe 80% of the plot (tadpoles in brain = bad = travel to Baldur's Gate), I've watched a ton of Astarion clips, so apologies for any inaccuracies or inconsistencies. I'm just here for Astarion (though I'd love to play BG3, I don't have any technology capable of running it💔).

Content: You/Tav x Astarion (established relationship), canonical past for Astarion is hinted at and laced within narrative, cuddles, animals referred to as 'snacks' within mentions of Astarion (only a mention; no actual description of animal-feeding/mentions of anything pertaining to animals being fed on).

Summary: Night-time falls, your heart sinks into your stomach as surely as your body sinks into your bedroll, and you want cuddles from Astarion.

Word count: 1, 624.

I am accepting requests for Astarion ❤️ no smut and no pregnancy/birth/kids!!

You lay on the cold, hard ground. The earth is unforgiving, soaking up the day's sweat without offering any kind of reprieve. Stones and hard clumps of dirt dig into your back through the bedroll, the wind is slightly too cold and it penetrates your thin blanket, haphazardly thrown over you in an attempt to ward off the elements.

Everyone has a tent, except you, and you make it a point to lay as close to the fire as you can on the nights Astarion is out hunting; it wouldn't do to help yourself to his tent. He keeps his tent away from the others, though still adhering to the semi-circle layout chosen by the others around the campfire. He would not mind you letting yourself in to his tent, he would likely welcome returning to you there, and yet you cannot justify it even to yourself.

After two hundred years of shit, pure shit, he deserves every ounce of privacy and the security of knowing his tent is his own.

You sit up just enough to shuffle yourself closer to the fire, curling inwards as a shiver wracks your body. It isn't cold, necessarily, but your temperature is not conducive to a restful sleep. You lay on your back, gazing up at the stars which punctuate the sky, breaking up the inky black and blues with pinpricks of white, yellow, and some dull spots of grey from the stars which died many eons ago and are now fading from the sky.

You promise yourself you'll try to remember their placement in the sky.

Despite the best of intentions, you know that you won't.

Your vision goes blurry at the edges as you continue staring up at the night sky, looking for any constellations you recognise by way of finding yourself a bedtime story to recount as you try to fall asleep. The leaves on the trees sway gently in the breeze, and your mind wanders, as it so often does, to Astarion. Your sweet vampire, who simultaneously breaks your heart and put it back together in the same moment every time you uncover more of who he is, more of his past.

Oh, but you love him.

Of its own accord does your body take a long, deep breath in, your heart sinking into your stomach as surely as your body melts into the bedroll. All of your thoughts of Astarion and all of your feelings for him are safe inside yourself, and they serve you now in warming you from the inside out.

Your eyes slide closed, and if you press your forehead closer into your blanket, you can almost tell yourself that you can feel Astarion lying down beside you, you can smell bergamot and feel his silver hair tickle your cheeks, you can feel his fingers intertwined with yours, your legs tangled together, his crimson eyes upon your face so intently fixed like he's scared to blink in case you disappear before his eyes, leaving him clutching only the cold night air, his equally cold body pressed against every line of yours...

You smile to yourself and burrow deeper into your blanket, feeling sleepier, warmer and closer to your rest by the second. Thoughts of Astarion flood your mind and you curl up tighter, as if to keep all these thoughts right where they are. You know if you open your eyes that you'll be alone; you know not where Astarion is this night, but you know he is trying to sate his hunger with the snacks which live in the forest.

So you keep your eyes shut.

As you allow yourself to slip further into your threshold consciousness, you wonder what Astarion would say to you if he returned at this very moment...

"Hello, sweet. Gods, you are beautiful."

You smile again and squeeze your blanket ever tighter to you. Yes, he would probably say something like -

Wait.

Was that - ?

With great caution do you open your eyes, ready to slam them shut again once you see that Astarion isn't there, that he didn't just speak to you. But instead of the cold hard truth slamming into you, flowers bloom in your heart because Astarion is here, looming over you, his silver curls seeming to be glowing in the soft moonlight. His crimson eyes seem black, his charming smirk soft at the edges as he gazes down at you with obvious fondness, vulnerable such as it is.

Of all the stars above me, this one's the prettiest, you think to yourself, and you open your eyes wider to better enjoy the view.

Astarion's smirk melts until it becomes a smile as he kneels down beside you, one of his arms reaching out to brush a leaf away from your face. His fingers ghost across your skin, and you shiver. "Thank you, darling. I know I'm beautiful. Not enough people mention it." His joke fades into vulnerability, as it so often does around you.

But it is no matter. You always meet him where he is, and right now it is no exception.

You smile at Astarion, all of the love for him shining in your eyes until they look like molten galaxies, and he swears he feels his heart, which stopped working centuries ago, skip a beat. You are unguarded where you lay in your threshold consciousness, not embarrassed to have spoke aloud your thoughts, and Astarion wonders if the old saying, that love makes fools of people, is true. You lay at the foot of a vampire, at the foot of a predator, smiling at him, physically and emotionally vulnerable, completely unguarded. Most others at the camp are asleep, Astarion can hear, and yet here you are...

Wait. Why are you awake?

"Darling," Astarion's voice is a hush and you strain your ears to be able to hear him. He bends closer to you to accommodate, anticipating your needs before you fully register them yourself, "Why aren't you sleeping? No harm shall befall you when I'm here." Long ago, he had sought your protection, but now he wanted you both to be safe. If this is how the mighty fall, then Astarion must admit that he is happy he lost his balance. He quite likes the view from down here.

You shake your head and shuffle closer still, unable to get close enough to your most beloved vampire. "Can't sleep without you." I just want to be held.

Oh, help him, but this is devastating in its simplicity. His undead heart bleeds and words have brought Astarion to the point where they run dry. Instead, he stands, and reaches a hand out to you. The message is clear - he wants you to accompany him to his tent, he wants to carve a piece of heaven out with you amongst all the chaos unleashed, he wants to hold and to be held.

Astarion just wants you, and who are you to deny him?

One of your hands slips into his while the other pulls the blanket away from you and Astarion's smile widens as he effortlessly pulls you up to stand beside him. You bend to scoop up your bedroll, and follow Astarion into your tent. The door flap flutters in the wind as Astarion releases it, and it settles in place like a butterfly finding a flower.

You find yourselves easily, your bedroll dumped next to Astarion's, pushed up close until his bedroll becomes a double. It's a well established routine for the two of you, with you spending more nights here than you don't. You never enter his tent if he isn't here, and you certainly never come in without his permission. One day, Astarion will find the words to convey his appreciation for your concern, but until then, he will remind you at every chance he finds that you are always welcome. He finds it greatly ironic that you seek permission to enter space and he, a vampire, does not. He knows he is welcome, wanted, cherished, loved.

It took some work for the both of you to get here, but his months with you are the counterweight to the hell he escaped from.

He'll never be able to thank you enough, he has no idea what he is doing, but perhaps this is a start.

Somehow, through the fuzziness of denied sleep, you end up back in bed, your blanket around you and Astarion's still chest under your head. He lays beneath you like he is patiently waiting for you to make yourself comfortable, and you take the opportunity to wind both of your arms around his waist and squeeze, pulling yourself up just enough to be able to bury your face in his neck. One of your legs slips between his, anchoring the two of you together.

Slowly, like he's afraid to move too quickly in case you disappear within his grasp and leave Astarion holding nothing but the cold empty night air, his hands settle upon your back and a sigh which seems to come from deep within him spells peace for the both of you. "This is nice," Astarion's voice rumbles through your ear and you press yourself ever closer to him, unable to get close enough. Your arms constrict around him again and you feel yourself smile as all those sleepy dreams you were having earlier are now here, beneath you, wrapped around you. As you hold on tighter, so too does Astarion, until the two of you are so completely intertwined that the elements cannot reach you. He has no body temperature and yet you are the comfiest and the warmest you have ever been.

Safe.

This time, Astarion doesn't tell you that you accidentally spoke your thoughts aloud.

#astarion x reader #astarion #baldurs gate 3 astarion #baldurs gate 3 x reader #astarion x tav #astarion x you #astarion comfort #astarion fluff #bg3 x reader #bg3

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violentdelightsandviolentends · 11 months

Note

may I request an angst with evan buckley

"keep your eyes on me." promt with an established relationship please! but hes been through a lot give him his happy ending please, i love him so much 🫶🏻

Lightning Strike.

28. "Keep your eyes on me."

Author's Note - this is a drabble written as part of my 500 Followers Celebration!! find that post here. my soft sweet buck. thank you for this request <3

Pairing - Evan Buckley x Female Reader

Age Rating - 18+

Warnings - sad buck. mentions of a sort of panic attack.

Word Count - 500 ish maybe??

Masterlist. 500 Follower Celebration Masterlist.

Buck is the king of putting on a brave face.

Always strong, never faltering. He reassures everyone he's fine time and time again, smiling and cracking jokes. But you see right through him.

You've always been able to read him like a book. You don't even have to try.

After the lightning strike, Buck doubled down on his brave face. He wouldn't let anyone see him upset - not even Eddie. Which is rare. And worrying.

He seems to be coping surprisingly well, desperate to get back to work and resume normal routine. While he's stuck at home, he's been cooking, doing puzzles, watching football. You're greeted with a lovingly cooked meal and a glass of wine every time you walk through the door.

Until today.

Today, you walk into the apartment, and it's dark. No lights on, no TV blaring sound. Nothing.

"Buck?"

Silence.

"Buck? Baby? I'm home," you call.

Now you're worried.

You start striding through the apartment, navigating your way through the darkness. When you hear a sniffle, your head whips around. There's Buck, knees pressed to his chest, jammed in between the nightstand and the wall. He's curled up on the ground, head resting on his arms that are protectively wrapped around his legs.

"Buck? Hey, did something happen?"

"Yeah," he murmurs hoarsely. "I got hit by lightning."

"I remember," you say gently. "Did something happen today?"

"I don't know," he whispers. "I think I've been distracting myself. And today it all came crashing down."

"Talk to me," you urge.

Buck's lip trembles, and so do his hands. Warm, salty tears drip down his face, and his breathing quickens rapidly.

"Hey, hey. Keep your eyes on me, Buck."

He locks his gaze onto yours, and mirrors your breathing carefully. Eventually, he calms down enough to speak.

"I died. I've been so close to death so many times that I'm kinda numb to it. But this time was so real. How am I supposed to go on living my life like nothing happened, when I literally died?"

"You don't have to live like nothing happened, baby," you reassure, moving to sit down in front of him. "No one expects you to do that."

"I just -," he sighs, trying to formulate a coherent thought. "I just don't know how to carry on."

You reach out gently and place a hand on his cheek, wiping away the tears that are spilling over. Your thumb strokes his cheekbone carefully, grounding him back down to Earth.

"I know you're like, totally anti therapy -," you begin, and he laughs. "But talking to a therapist or a trauma counsellor might really help. Or maybe we find a support group. This is LA, there's groups for everything."

"You think there's a lightning strike support group?" he jokes.

"I honestly wouldn't be surprised," you chuckle. "And if there isn't? Well, we'll start one."

"I might be the only person who attends."

"Fine by me," you tease, nudging him lovingly.

You stand up, and offer him a hand. He takes it gratefully, getting up and instantly wrapping his arms around you. He inhales the scent of your vanilla shampoo, and the tension leaves his shoulders rapidly.

"I love you," he murmurs into your hair. "I'm so lucky."

"I'm the lucky one," you reassure. "Well, technically you are, since you got hit by lightning. And survived."

"I've always been one in a million," he chuckles, squeezing you a little tighter.

"Yes, you have. My one in a million, Evan Buckley."

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muffinlance · 11 months

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Extreme long shot, but looking for a fic I read years ago, that to my knowledge is NOT on AO3 or FF, just on someone's blog or maybe a small hosting site. It's a three(?)-part series.

Stuff I remember: Zhao kills Iroh pre-north-pole; he dies on a beach due to shrapnel, I think. Zuko wanders off in a daze, stays with a nice Earth Kingdom woman for awhile, then embarks on Messing With Zhao's Shit until Zhao catches him. Gaang rescues him (from Pohuai?) after whump.

Zuko leads them back to the Earth Kingdom woman for a safe place to rest, meanwhile Zuko's crew has found her and given her a letter+their location+tell our stupid prince he's not the only one who wants to Mess The Fire Nation's Shit Up. Zuko and the Gaang go to his ship, whose treason against the Fire Nation is already in progress (and they've gotten their families out of the Fire Nation to avoid reprisal, so Jee's wife is there). Katara bonds with the ship healer, who teaches her non-bending healing and is both salty and instructive. Ends incompletely right as Zuko and the Gaang are about to leave the ship.

Those parts of the series are a good read, but I am dying to re-read the part that's an Iroh POV of the royal family, including Ozai's strategic murdering of all of Iroh's children (he had more than Lu Ten in this AU), and Iroh's extremely chilling "maybe I should do the same to his" thoughts until baby Zuko wins him over. It is PEAK disfunctional Fire Family.

I thought I bookmarked this somewhere, but I can't for the life of me find it. Plz send help.

EDIT: FIC FOUND! See the reblog chain for the link, it's in the second post.

EDIT EDIT: This is. Even better than I remembered. My heart hurts, ow. <3

#trying to archive all the fics I like to re-read #and it is driving me insane that I misplaced this one #because I know it took me several hops through ancient fic rec pages to find it originally #heeeeelp #avatar the last airbender #atla #Zuko #Iroh #Sokka #Aang #Katara #Jee #Zhao #The Fic That Got Away

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absurdthirst · 4 months

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A Marriage of Convenience {Regency!Pero Tovar x F!Reader}

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 20.5k

Warnings: Dying parents, arranged marriages, mentions of dying in child birth, fear, anxiety, panic attacks, poor Pero has PTS, virgin reader, vaginal sex, oral sex (female receiving), conversations about birth control, mentions of spousal beatings, pregnancy, childbirth

Comments: When your dying father sends you to Spain to wed Don Tovar, you know nothing about the man besides that he is a widower with two small children who will never love you. Finding your place in his household will take a stiff spine and a loving heart, making peace with your marriage of convenience.

Co-written with @storiesofthefandomlovers

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|| MasterList || Pero Tovar MasterList ||

Click Keep Reading only if you have read the Rating and Warnings and understand the warnings may not be complete to avoid listing spoilers. As AO3 says 'creator chooses not to use warnings'. You also agree that you're the right age to be consuming anything here.

“Father, you cannot send me away.” You shake your head, dread welling in your stomach and you press your hand to the silken material of your day dress, the stays of your corset the only thing keeping you upright at this moment. Not that your stays are as tight as most of the noble ladies that come and go on the marriage mart. You have no desire to be married, to be chattel to a noble man and birth his children. Even though your father has just informed you that the man you are to marry already has children. A widower who is not so choosy as to a new wife that he is willing to take on an old maid who is nearly set upon the shelf and discarded at every social function during the season.

Pero Tovar is the name of the man you are to wed. Not only are you to be married off, but you will be shipped away from your home. Sent to Spain with no one that you know around you. Completely without allies and unable to easily go home if you are unhappy. Your father had met him in London and arranged your marriage before returning home to inform you. “Please.” You beg softly. “Do not make me marry a man I have never laid eyes on.”

“You have no choice. I am dying, daughter. You heard the doctor. I have months left. I do not wish to leave you without stability. The time has come for you to marry. I cannot allow you to delay it anymore. Tovar is a wealthy man. He has a large estate and two children from his late wife. He doesn’t need some young maid to birth children for his heir. He is stern but he has very strong morals. You’ll be safe with him and that’s all that matters. Please do not argue with a dying man.” Your father begs and you choke, tears stinging in your eyes as you embrace him and he rubs your back, knowing these moments before you go to Spain will be the last you spend together.

The day has come for you to leave your father, and despite your best efforts, you weep. Over the course of the month, he had grown more frail and could not even accompany you to Spain to see you wed in person. Embracing him in his sickbed, you know word would come that he had passed, your cousin inheriting the home you had grown up in, and all the wealth your father had accumulated. Your dowry is carefully packed into a large trunk, generous enough that if it had been known, several in London would have made you their wife. Instead, you will be Lady Tovar. “I love you.” You murmur, wishing you could stay until he had left this earth. “I love you father, I am sorry I was not the boy you wished to carry your legacy forward.”

Your father tuts, “don’t be silly, child. You are my life. After your mother died…you are everything to me. My world. I love you. If you could have everything, I’d give it to you.” He promises and cups your cheek, his hand shaking.

Your eyes sting with tears and you grip his hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it. “I know.” You promise, reluctantly pulling back.

“Go. Go live your life. Just promise me you’ll be happy.” He orders and you sniff, wiping your cheeks and you nod. It takes everything in you to leave his chambers but you do and you make your way down to the carriage to begin the start of a very long journey to Spain.

The trip to the ship takes nearly a week. A broken carriage wheel, a broken axle, and a thrown shoe from one of the horses. It seems as if the entire trip is cursed. You occupy yourself by writing letters and reading a few of the books you had packed into your reticule. Wondering if your father has passed already and praying that he has not. When you finally reach the ship, you sigh as you stare at the sails. Rather than just a short journey across the channel, it will be another week, sailing up the coast of Spain before you disembark. Your betrothed’s men should meet you there to carry you to his summer estate in the country.

When you step foot on land, you are relieved and exhausted, anxious and ready to be in your new home. Your husband to be doesn’t come to greet you, not that you expected that anyway but you are greeted by his secretary. “Señorita, I am Carlos. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Come this way, the carriage awaits us.” He says, gesturing to the horses behind him as the staff begins to gather your things to secure them for the final leg of your journey.

The carriage seems to be sturdy and soon you are pulling away. “Tell me about your lord.” You beg, having heard very little from your father beyond the rudimentary information. You want to know more about the man you are supposed to wed. “What is he like?” How a man treats his staff says a lot about him. That is what your father always told you.

Carlos looks at you, appraising you for a bit until he answers. “He is stern. Unforgiving but fair. He knows wrong from right and is only violent when the need occurs. He loved Maria, his first wife, but after she died, he has become a recluse. His children are cared for by the staff and he rarely interacts with them. If you want my honesty, señorita. The house needs life and love once again. It’s cold and lacking happiness.”

You bite your lip, repressing a small shiver. He sounds…..austere. Unyielding. You feel for the children who seem to have lost both their mother and father at the same time. “How old are the children?” You ask politely, aware that if he was not giving love and attention to his children, it would be your job. You remember how terribly you had missed your own mother, though your father had been your rock through grieving.

“They are five and seven. They do not remember their mother. Both too young. Luis - the youngest - was the child born when Maria lost her life. She doesn’t remember her mother. Alejandra, she - she doesn’t remember her either. They are - needing love and attention as all children do and their father - he is a busy man. That’s why he wanted a wife who was capable of nurturing his children when he is unable to.” Carlos explains and you glance out of the carriage as the Spanish port city turns to countryside.

“I see.” You wonder if the children are too painful a reminder of his late wife. If that was the reason he could not be around them. “And his holdings?” You ask. “He is a lord, is he busy with his lands?”

Carlos nods and sighs. “My lord works long hours to make sure that the estates and the lands that are used by his people are properly maintained.” He tells you, making you feel a bit better about the situation.

“Then I will make sure that he has a comfortable home and well behaved children to come home to.” You promise.

Carlos nods, appreciating your compliance and he watches you as you look back out of the window. You are beautiful, have an air of maturity the other girls, the local ones, had lacked. His lord has been searching for a wife for a while, but no one has fit his criteria. He doesn’t want a simpering girl who wants romance, he needs a partner who can assist him with his home and his children. Carlos knows that Pero’s heart is cold, iced over after the death of Maria and he doesn’t know if anyone can melt it.

The good thing about you is that you know that love and romance are not expected, nor required in most marriages. You aren’t a starry eyed little girl who will wish that her husband falls desperately in love with her. From everything you are hearing, that would be quite impossible. You will settle for mutual respect. The rest of the journey is spent quietly thinking, making plans for your new home that could be tossed out the window the moment you arrive. You do not even know if your future husband will be there to greet you.

When you pull up outside of the summer home of Don Pero Tovar, it’s beautiful and instantly takes your breath away. It’s picturesque and grand but when you have a closer look, you can see the cracks, the work that needs to be done. The shutters are crooked and need new paint. The flowers are gone and the paint is peeling everywhere. “Oh. I- it’s beautiful but-” You start and Carlos finishes your statement, “it needs work. After Señora Maria died, Don Tovar just let the place go, too preoccupied to maintain it.”

You nod, understanding that he might not have had the heart to continue to look after the details that make his estate a home for his family. “Then I will hire workers to restore his home to its former glory.” You decide with a smile, eager to get to work and contribute.

Carlos hums as the carriage comes to a stop, “if he allows it. He - it’s - it’s almost like he is stuck in the past, never moving forward.” His eyes widen and he shakes his head, “please señorita, don’t - he mustn’t know I said that.” He murmurs and you nod, “it’s our secret.” The secretary exhales and reaches out to open the door to the carriage, stepping out and holding out his hand to assist you down.

There is no staff lined up to greet you. No betrothed waiting at the door to introduce you to his household. The pots next to the large double doors of the house are empty, filled with dirt and sticks. Providing an unwelcoming air and you try to think of it as some kind of omen. “Well, it is late.” You excuse, biting your lip as you look around.

Carlos looks guilty as he opens the door to guide you inside to find the housekeeper, Señora Garcia. “Come, let’s take you to your quarters and we shall start fresh in the morning, you have had a long journey and I’m sure you’d rather meet everyone after resting.” Carlos says and Señora Garcia nods, “also, your lady’s maid, Carmen, will be waiting in your room to help you prepare for tonight. We will bring dinner to your room.”

You tilt your head. “Prepare for tonight?” You ask, confused by what he means. “What is happening tonight?” Surely he does not mean that Lord or Don Tovar meant to wed you tonight after you’ve only just arrived? You have not even met the man, you had hoped to have a conversation before he becomes your husband.

“The wedding.” Carlos says like you should’ve known. “Did no one inform you that Don Tovar wanted to be married as soon as you arrived?” You shake your head and Carlos sighs. “You are to be married tonight. Carmen will help you dress and we will bring your trunks up to your quarters. The wedding will be at eight. We will bring food to your room beforehand and a bath. You’ll be the lady of the house tonight.”

Closing your eyes, you try to suppress the tremble that races through you. Stiffening your spine and taking a breath before you open your eyes and nod. “I will be ready when Don Tovar says.” You agree, making Carlos nod in approval. “I would also like a cup of tea to be brought up, right away.”

Carlos nods, “sí, señorita. I’ll make sure you get your tea.” He assures you and you sigh, following Señora Garcia up the stairs to your quarters. The house is dark and damp and there seems to be no sign of life anywhere. You immediately feel alone and cold, regretting leaving your home, your dying father for this pitiful estate.

****

By the time your tea arrives, it’s accompanied by your meal. Cold and unappetizing, you wonder why the cook would send you a plate such as this. Investigating your room, you find that it has not been properly aired out, dust still sitting on the window sills and the candle holders not refreshed with new candles. It seems as if you are to be un-welcomed or the staff who works here is completely unskilled in how to run a house.

“Señorita, bienvenidos.” Carmen says as she walks in, “I am sorry I am late. I am your lady’s maid and I am here to assist you with getting you ready for your wedding to Don Tovar. Was your dinner acceptable, señorita?” She asks and notices your frown, “what is wrong?” She prompts, wanting to be there for the soon to be lady of the house.

“The meal was cold,” You explain, understanding that she is not to blame for that. “As was my tea.” You tilt your head and look at the lovely young woman. “Have you worked for the household for long?” You ask. “Is this how meals are normally delivered?” If it is some kind of custom, you would try to be more understanding, but you don’t think that it is.

Carmen shakes her head, “absolutely not. I- you shouldn’t have had a cold meal and cold tea. Please, señorita, let me get you a new, hot -”

You interrupt her, “no. It’s not - I’ve eaten it now and I do not have time to waste. I need to bathe and get ready for my future husband.” You inform her and she nods, “I will go fetch the hot water and we will get you ready.” She promises and rushes off.

You are grateful that your trunks have been delivered, your dress you had made clean, if slightly wrinkled from being packed. Airing it out, you had hoped you would wear this while marrying a man that you had met before, but it seems unlikely to happen now. You had not even heard any movement in the large house.

Carmen works diligently to clean you up, washing your back and making sure the dirt from the journey has been washed off prior to your wedding. Once you’re dry, she works on styling your hair and soon enough, it’s time for her to help you into your dress. “What’s he like?” You ask her as she buttons your dress and Carmen bites her lip. “He’s…direct but fair.”

“That seems to be what everyone says about him.” You hum. “Is he a handsome man?” Carmen glances at you nervously. “He- some think him handsome. But-“ she glances around your empty bedroom and lowers her voice. “He has a - a scar. Over his left eye.”

You inhale sharply, wondering how a man like Tovar got a scar over his eye. You’re worried now, scared that he is going to be a rough man. “He’s a good Don, fair and harsh but I think you will be good to have in this house. We need light, we need love. It’s been missing for far too long.”

It doesn’t take much longer for Carmen to declare that you look perfect. Your nerves flutter in your stomach and you press your hand to it in a meager effort to calm them. “Then perhaps you can show me a little of the estate while we walk to the chapel?” You assume that there is a chapel on the grounds that you will be married in. Giving your maid a weak smile, you try to hide the fear.

Carmen nods, “of course, señorita. Come, let us go now. Your intended will be waiting.” She says and you exhale shakily, trying to gather yourself to get married to a man you’ve never met before.

The estate is beautiful, the ground neglected like the house, although you can tell someone had once cared for them a great deal. You wonder if that was your soon to be husband's late wife. It doesn’t take long for you to see the stone chapel, overgrown and yet the soft candlelight coming from the windows gives it an enchanting glow. You take a deep breath and glance at the maid for some reassurances.

Carmen squeezes your arm and winks at you, “everything will be fine.” She promises but you both know she has no way to assure that. You stand in the entrance of the chapel when the violin starts to play and you swallow harshly when Carmen gestures it’s time for you to go. You exhale shakily and step foot into the main hall of the chapel.

****

When you step into the chapel, Pero keeps his back turned. Your father had shown him your miniature so he knows you are a beautiful woman. Not that it makes a difference. He has far exceeded the socially acceptable grieving period for Maria and now he’s expected to get a wife. He needs a mother for his children and a woman to maintain his estate. The music plays as you walk down the aisle and when you approach him, he turns around and inhales sharply when he sees your face. You’re gorgeous. A woman most men would kill to wed but he doesn’t care about looks, he cares about you filling the position that has remained empty in his home. He wonders if you like the look of him.

Your steps forward stumble briefly, but you recover. Catching your breath and smiling softly, you find him to be most handsome in a visceral, viral way. Rough and not exactly tamed, although many would say that you were possessed to think that way. HIs eyes are dark and watching you, making your skin heat and you wonder if your future husband approves of you. Stepping closer to him, you stop directly in front of him and take another breath. “Don Tovar.” You murmur, curtsying prettily.

You curtsy so perfectly, it’s almost enough to make him smile but he doesn’t. He hasn’t since Maria died. His life is now black and white, his love taking all of the color in the world with her when she died during childbirth. “Señorita.” He greets you and takes your hands, turning towards the priest who was called to marry you. Pero’s secretary and Carmen are to bear witness to the marriage and Pero is glad there’s no audience to see him remarry a woman he doesn’t even know.

The priest recites the vows in Spanish and you follow along closely. Listening as he proclaims that marriage is a sacred duty to your husband and you can barely look at your intended. Sneaking a glance and trying not to fidget. “I do.” You murmur quietly when you are asked if you take the Don as your husband. Your eyes meet his and you bite your lip, wondering if he is unhappy. He is frowning, he must be unhappy with his decision to marry you.

Pero remembers his wedding day to Maria. How excited he was. Young and eager before the days of war to marry the woman he loved. He was ready to have a future with her and it was ripped away from him on one fateful winter day. Tovar recites his vows and when the priest declares you husband and wife, he leans in to kiss your cheek. “Welcome, mi esposa.” He whispers once you are married.

A kiss on the cheek was not what you expected, turning to find his lips when he pulls away leaves you flustered. “Gracias, husband.” You murmur quietly. His secretary and your maid clap quietly and you turn back to them with a smile, thanking them for witnessing your vows.

Pero takes your hand to guide you out of the chapel and to the carriage awaiting to take you back to the main home. Pero doesn’t say a word as you are carted back and when you arrive, the housekeeper takes your hand to assist you inside. “There’s no need to arrange our bed chamber. My bride will be spending the night in her own room.” Tovar reveals with a grunt.

“Yes, Don Tovar.” Carmen nods and you are left feeling rejected even if you had been nervous about the wedding night. It is silly to think of, but you hope it’s because he wishes to get to know you before you become intimate.

“Then I wish you a good night, husband.” You nod politely to him and wait for him to speak.

Pero turns to look at you, reaching for your hand and he bends down to kiss the back of it but it’s cold and emotionless. “Buenas noches, señora Tovar. I will see you tomorrow so we can discuss your duties. Carmen, escort her to her room. Garcia, vamos. We have much to discuss.” Tovar says to his secretary who nods and steps beside him as he strides over without a glance back towards you.

“I see what you mean.” You murmur to your lady’s maid as she starts to guide you back up the stairs. “He is devoid of much emotion, although at least he is polite.” It is better than some men that you had met. “Is there a library in the house?” You ask curiously. “I fear that I had brought many of my own books when packing my trunks.”

“There is a library, señora. It- it needs organizing. It has been neglected for many years but the children do study there during the day. It needs a refresh. Perhaps you may ask Don Tovar if he will provide you with the tools to refresh the room where the children learn.” She says and you hum, letting her escort you back to your chambers.

****

“She is beautiful, no?” Carlos asks his employer who grunts as he sits down in the chair, working on removing his shoes and his wedding attire, wanting to be comfortable. “She is but you know I don’t care for beauty. I need a woman to run the house. To show those fools in society that I have fulfilled their requirements. I don’t need her company, I just need her presence. Her father was desperate to marry her off before his death and her dowry was enough to keep her without spending my coin. She’s suitable for the role and I’m hoping the children will attach to her.” Pero says and Carlos nods, “we shall see.”

You wake up shrieking as a pitcher of cold water is tossed on your face while you lay in your bed. Bolting upright, you flail your arms, hearing giggling as you try to blink and see what or who is attacking you. Finding two children grinning at you in defiance as the oldest holds the empty pitcher in his hands. It is still dark outside, at least you think it is, for the curtains are still drawn over the large windows. Pero’s children. Your husband’s children have woken you up by throwing water on your face. You leap from the bed right as you hear the pounding of footsteps and the door to your room bursts open.

“Alejandra! Luis! Mierda!” Pero growls as he storms into the room to find his children standing there with their hands behind their backs. “What is wrong with you?” He growls, turning to face you when he sees you are soaking wet, his eyes dipping down to the white gown you’re wearing, now see through and he swallows harshly at the sight of your nipples. Carmen rushes in and he turns towards her. “Gather water for a bath to warm her up and get her a robe.” Pero demands and turns back to his children. “I was walking past when I heard the commotion. You cannot do that. Why would you do that?” Pero hisses at his children who stare at him defiantly.

“We thought it would be funny.” Alejandra answers and Pero inhales deeply.

“That is not acceptable. You will miss breakfast and today, you’ll be writing lines - saying you will not abuse your new mother.” He says lowly and Luis shakes his head, “she isn’t our mama. We don’t want her. We want our real mama.” Luis stomps his foot and Pero pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Go to your rooms before I get the belt.” He threatens, knowing he wouldn’t actually hit them but every day they test him and push him closer to physical punishment.

“Papa-” Alejandra chokes and Pero hisses, “do not test me girl. Now get out of my sight.” He hisses and the children rush out of your room.

“I am sorry.” You murmur quietly, covering your arms over your chest and shivering in the cold. It is chilly in the room since there is not a fire laid in the grate and you wish that you did not feel so exposed with his eyes on you. “I- I do not know what happened.” you shake your head. “I was sleeping and then - I just - they do not wish for a new mother?” You had expected that the children were accepting of your new husband marrying again, but it is apparent they do not want you here. That will make things more difficult for you if you expect to forge any kind of bond with them.

“They are loyal to their mother.” He answers curtly, wanting to add that he is too but he feels that would be too insensitive. “They will come around. They have been troublesome and I am hoping a female presence will help them adjust.” He says and Carmen rushes over with your robe to help you cover up.

“Thank you.” You wrap the robe around you and find that your husband does not seem to care for you being here any more than his children and you swallow harshly, feeling incredibly alone. “I see.” You nod and decide that you might as well broach the subject since he is here. “Then I have permission to discipline the children?” You ask him. “If they are to respect me, then they need to see me as an authority figure as well as a motherly one.”

“Yes, but I do not physically punish them. You are welcome to discipline them as you see fit. I have struggled to control them. They do not seem to want to be around me and I - I must admit I am a little hopeless about how to handle them.” He confesses, “if you can control them, you’ll have my admiration.”

You nod, thankful that he will allow you to curtail his children’s rambunctiousness. ��I also wish to reorganize the library and freshen up the house to make things more homey.” You add. You do not tell him that his home is desperately in need of repair, but that would be something that you would be able to tackle with a good scrubbing and a good airing out. “Would that be acceptable to you?”

Pero nods, unable to argue with you when you are doing exactly what he wants to be done. He needs his home to be returned to its former glory and his children to be nurtured and loved in ways he has failed. “Very well, señora. I will let you prepare for the day. Breakfast will be brought to you and you are permitted to explore the house as you see fit. It is your home now.”

“Thank you.” You murmur quietly, wondering if you would ever have a meal with the man you call your husband. “However I will order dinner to be served in the dining room this evening.” It will be the first time you will have imposed your will and you wonder if he will dismiss your wishes. “Perhaps the children can join us?”

Tovar nods, “very well.” He doubts he will eat dinner with you. That implies that you are having some kind of relationship and that isn’t what this is. You’re here to fill a position like if he were to hire a new housekeeper. Pero stares at you for a moment before he steps back and makes his way down the hall to his office.

You blow out a breath, happy and yet slightly discontent with his answers and you feel like he has no intention of trying to get closer to you. It’s like he does not actually want you here, but needs you. “Well, good morning to you as well.” You huff sarcastically under your breath.

Pero continues on with his day, attending to the finances due at the end of the month for the tenant rents and salaries for the staff, signing off on the accounts for the food and necessities. It’s a laborious job but Carlos can only do so much. Your presence here will alleviate the household requirements from him but the estate needs maintenance. The day gets away from him and he is soon preparing for lunch.

You sigh, exhausted and wipe your brow as you collapse into a dusty couch and look around the room. The library will be days in the making to turn into a lovely place to read and teach the children. Who have been watching you warily and not paying attention to their tasks. They are seated at a table, their books open, but neither one of them has completed an assignment. “How do you like the gardens?” You ask, looking over at them. “Is it lovely to have picnics there for lunch?”

Alejandra glances at her brother before she answers you, “we don’t have picnics in the garden. Papa doesn’t really like for us to go outside.” She tells you and Luis nods his agreement, making you frown. “He says it’s dangerous to go outside in the gardens.”

You purse your lips, not remembering any kind of warning about staying out of the gardens. “Perhaps your papa means that it would be dangerous for you to go out there by yourselves?” you offer, standing up and wiping your hands on your apron that you had covered your day dress with. “Why don’t we see about having the cook make up some picnic food and we can take lunch out there? Explore and take in the fresh air.” It was obvious the children were bored and isolated, running around in the gardens would be good for you and them. Perhaps it would even help them like you.

Alejandra is cautious as she watches you, placing her pencil down so she can look at you properly. Luis tugs on her sleeve, shaking his head, and she pushes him off. “The garden, Luis.” She says pointedly and the little boy giggles, making you tilt your head. “What’s so funny?” You ask and Luis shakes his head. “Nothing.” Alejandra answers, “a picnic would be lovely.”

You frown but nod. “Alright. Put your books away and we will venture into the kitchen.” You smile. “Perhaps the cook has made cookies for us to have.” You shouldn’t bribe the children with sweets but you want to break through their prickly exteriors. They are still young and it has been a long time since their mother has been lost to them. “How does that sound?”

Luis nods, cautious but easily swayed by cookies. Alejandra is more reserved, offering you a look as she closes her book and you smile at her, trying to disarm her cautious nature. The children soon have their books stored away and they rush towards the kitchen, calling out for the cook who has become a mother figure for them. Señora Lola. “¡Ay niños!” She exclaims as they practically slide into the kitchen.

You can’t help but smile as the children greet the cook with obvious affection and your complaints about your first dinner being cold are forgotten for the moment. They hug the cook excitedly and both begin talking at once, turning and pointing to you. When the older woman looks up at you, you nod your head politely. “The children and I would like to have a picnic luncheon in the gardens.” You explain in Spanish. “Would we be able to put together a suitable fare for this?”

Lola nods, “of course, señora. I can prepare a basket for you and the children.” She assures you, “would you like a cup of tea while I prepare lunch?” She asks and you nod, moving to sit down at the kitchen table while the children tell Lola about their lessons. You can sense that she’s like a mother figure to the young ones and you’re glad they have had someone since their mother passed. Lola works fast to get you a cup of tea and the children a glass of milk while they wait.

“Thank you.” You watch as she moves about the kitchen, finding her to be quick and decisive as she gathers her ingredients. This is not a woman who is sloppy or resentful it seems. It makes you wonder why the food was so horrible the day before. When the kids are busy drinking their milk, you smile. “Tell me about yourself, Señora Lola. It is obvious you have been with the Don’s household for many years.”

Lola smiles, “my mother was the cook before she retired. My father was the Tovar’s butler and they fell in love and had me. Mi mamá taught me everything I know and we have been in the Tovar household for three generations. My son is a gardener. My husband is the groundskeeper. Maria - bless her soul - was the heart of the home. She lit up every room she was in.” Lola sighs and glances at the children.

“I understand that I am new.” You venture softly. “And I cannot replace Señora Tovar, but I would like to bring some comfort and happiness to her family.” You know that you can’t just force these people to accept you. Not when they had lived for so long with the ghost of the woman who had left them broken. You bite your lip. “Will you help me do that, Señora Lola?”

Lola nods, “if you can bring hope and light back to this home, you will forever have my admiration and gratefulness, señora. You are Señora Tovar now.” Lola tells you and you bite your lip as she prepares the lunch.

Once the lunch is packed away in a basket along with a large bottle of lemonade, you have Carmen bring you a quilt to spread on the grass to sit on. Guiding the children out of the large, glass doors into the garden, you smile at the bright sun and fresh air. The weather is beautiful and you can see yourself bringing the children out here often. “Where would you like to sit?” You ask, looking around the neat but barren gardens. It’s obvious Lola’s husband keeps them up but there has not been any new flowers or plants added for some time.

The children point to a spot near the pond and you allow them to guide you towards it. Carmen spreads out the blanket and you settle down with the children. Pero is standing up to stretch when he sees you and the children on the lawn. He tilts his head and wonders how you managed to get them to sit down for more than five minutes. Maybe he did make the right decision.

Eating outside seems to have been a magical treat for the kids. They ate politely and minded their manners after the promise of running around after they finished was made. You can tell they enjoyed it and by the time you had to pack up to go back to the house to finish their lessons they were sleepy. Making you smile at the way they leaned against one another.

****

“Señora, is this the color you prefer for the drapes?” Carmen asks you as you appraise the different materials and pattern samples. It’s been a month since you’ve been in Pero’s home and you have been slowly working on bringing the home back to its former glory. The children have grown closer to you, wanting their meals in your company, yet still no sign of your husband.

Pero walks down the hall, the portraits of his ancestors lining the walls and he notices the change of the decor. Everything seems dusted and shiny, and the rugs are pristine. It’s fresher and brighter. He knows it’s your doing and that makes him smile, assured he made the right decision to marry you.

“I think it will look lovely in the breakfast dining room, don’t you?” You ask, finding Carmen to be a wealth of information and a good judge of character and design. As the two of you had grown closer the more time you spent going through the house room by room. Even the kids were helping when it was time to scrub walls and beat rugs out in the garden. You had turned it into a game where you covered their eyes and spun them around before they whacked the rugs with a broom. They had giggled and fallen down, but it was worth the extra time it had taken to freshen the rugs. “Perhaps, even if he does not dine with me, Don Tovar might enjoy reading his paper and drinking his tea in a bright and cheerful room.”

“Papa! Papa!” Alejandra rushes up to her father who is shocked at her cheerful greeting.

“Sí, mi tresoro.” He answers and she grins, “we are going into town today.” She declares and Pero frowns, not liking the idea.

“Whose idea is this?” He asks lowly and Alejandra says your name. Pero sighs and tells his daughter to lead him to you. She takes his hand and guides him to the kitchen where you are sitting with Lola. “Hola.” He greets his cook who smiles at him and says “hola señor.” His dark eyes turn to you, “Alejandra tells me you are taking the children into town today?”

“I am.” You nod as you set down the book you are making notes in. Carmen hustles to put the fabrics away and you send your husband a small smile. “The children need new shoes and I have several merchants that I wish to visit.” You glance at Alejandra with a proud look. “The children have assured me that they will be well behaved, and they are excited to spend their own pin money.”

Pero frowns, “I do not like them going into town. I do not want you going into town. It is dangerous.” He says, remembering when Maria went into town while with child and was knocked over. She went into labor early with Luis and that’s the night that she died. His hands shake a little and he shakes his head, “you are not going. I forbid it.”

Your brow arches and you look towards Carmen and Lola. Both women quickly bow and disappear. “Alejandra,” you urge his daughter. “Go and find your brother.” You urge her as you stand up and brush your dress down. If you are going to disagree with your husband, you are not going to do it in front of the staff or his children.

Pero meets your defiant gaze and he clears his throat, “I will not allow you to go into town. It’s dangerous. If you need something, you can tell the staff and they will go and get it.” He compromises and you glance around to make sure no one is around.

“Don Tovar, I appreciate your concern for my well-being but I am not a child and I will not be held hostage on your estate.” You declare. “I will take a footman and a driver with me, and exercise all caution. But I am going to town. Now….is there anything you wish for me to get while we are there?”

Pero clenches his jaw, remembering that moment Maria was carried into the house, her screams still echo through the halls of his mind. “No. I forbid it. You won’t be leaving this estate. That’s an order.” He growls, reaching for your wrist to grip it, his hand shaking as he remembers the night Maria died.

You wince when he grabs your wrist, squeezing it hard enough that your breath catches in pain. You wrench your wrist away from him, yanking your arm down and stepping back, your eyes wide with both fear and anger. "I am your wife. Not your servant." You manage to keep the fear from making your voice tremble.

“You can’t go. I - I can’t - Maria - she- please. You cannot go.” He shakes his head, his chest starting to heave and he hates how anxious he’s become at the thought of losing more from his life. He has barely spent a moment with you since the wedding but the idea of his children losing another woman from their lives makes his chest tighten.

Fear turns to worry, making you step forward and reaching for his arm. “Pero?” You do not use his Christian name often, but you use it now. “What is wrong? Take a breath.” You urge him, frowning at the way that your husband has turned from cold and demanding to panicked. “Talk to me.”

He pants, unable to calm himself down, and he clings to you, pulling you close and he can’t control his thumping heart, remembering the night he lost Maria, the night he lost the light of his life. He closes his eyes, trying to control himself but he’s failing.

You nearly stumble, but you don’t resist him. Holding onto your husband’s waist while he trembles. He’s obviously horrified by the idea and you can’t understand why but you don’t want to make him do this. “Alright, alright, I will not go into town.” You give in, hating that you are but perhaps you can talk to him and come to agreement later on when he has calmed down.

Pero inhales deeply, remembering what his doctor told him to do, and he tries to calm himself down, grounding himself with your touch. He takes several moments before he opens his eyes, his gaze meeting yours. “I- I’m sorry, esposa.” He murmurs, his hands still gripping you.

"It is alright." You murmur soothingly, wanting nothing more than to make him feel comfortable around you. You are supposed to be here to help him, and it seems like he needs help with this. "I am here, I am right here." You assure him with a smile.

When you smile at him, he jerks back and lowers his hands, the shield back up as he gathers himself and clears his throat. “I, uh, I am going to go - go back to my office. I trust you will send Carmen in your place to town.” Pero says and quickly turns to rush back to his office, away from you and the children once more.

You stare after your husband, completely flabbergasted and frustrated. The man dictates that you must stay at the estate, not go to town and has an apoplexy before fleeing back to his study without giving you a reason why you must be a hostage. Blowing out a frustrated sigh, you turn and curse your husband's stubbornness. You need to know what happened to Maria and why town is forbidden.

Alejandra and Luis shake their heads when you tell them you are no longer heading into town. “Please. Tell Papa we must go!” Alejandra whines, clinging to your skirts.

“I’m sorry, amor. He won’t allow us. We must listen to him.” You say and she shakes her head and looks up at you to stomp her foot.

“I hate him!” She cries and runs off, followed by Luis. You sigh and sit down just as Carmen comes over with a tea tray.

“Señora, I do not wish to speak out of turn.” She says and you shake your head, “when do we hide our feelings and thoughts, mi amiga.” You smile at her and she smiles back, glancing around when she takes a seat beside you.

“Don Tovar has - has a lot of fears about you going into town because that was the night he lost Maria.”

You frown, unsure of why going into town would cause a woman to die in childbirth, but you take your tea and listen. “I do not understand.” You shake your head. “Maria died giving birth to Luis, I thought?” You frown, knowing you will need to soothe the children’s feelings later on, but you want them to be able to calm down before you try. If you know why your husband fears it so, you can explain better to disappointed young children who don’t understand why they cannot have fun.

Carmen glances around again, “Maria was far along with Luis when she wanted to go into town to fetch more yarn for knitting. She - she was an independent woman and Don Tovar, he - he worshiped the ground she walked on. She loved him and he loved her. When she went into town, she was robbed for her jewels and coins and thrown to the ground and it sent her into early labor. The thugs were never apprehended and she was rushed home and the doctor was called. That was the night Luis was born and Maria died. They thought Luis was going to die too but he survived. Don Tovar was never the same.”

“Oh.” Your shoulders slump and you can understand why Pero is fearful of his wife going to town now. Even if he does not love you, the children have grown close to you and it would hurt them to lose you. “That is so sad.” You look down into your tea with a sigh and wish for a moment that this had been explained to you sooner. “I better understand why he is so hesitant, but he cannot think that the children will be kept here forever, does he?”

“He has…attacks when he has concerns about the children’s safety. I think - I do not wish to speak out of place but I think that’s why he has pushed the children away.” Carmen says and you nod in understanding. “I think he wishes he could connect with them but it’s hard since all he sees is Maria. He loved her. She was his childhood sweetheart and they married young before he left to fight in the war.”

You sigh softly, knowing you would find it romantic if he didn’t push his children away. To close himself off from pain. “Then I will make him.” You decide with a firm press of your lips. “I will go talk to the children. Inform Lola that the children and I will be taking lunch in Don Tovar’s study.” You decide. “Since he refuses to take his meals in the dining room, we will come to him.”

Carmen won’t argue with you, knowing it is futile, so she nods. “Very well, señora. I will tell Lola now and will let Carlos know.”

You shake your head, “not Carlos. I want it to be a surprise.” You say and she nods, “sí, señora.” You smile and she stands, bowing her head before she exits the room, leaving you with the news to tell the children.

****

Pero looks up from his papers when there is a knock on the door and he calls out “come in.” When you enter followed by the children, he’s shocked. “Señora?” He frowns, setting his pen down.

“Husband.” You send him a smile and guide the children over to the table that sits in front of the sofa and they sit down. Alejandra is still pouting, but her tears have dried and she is not so angry when she was told her papa feared for her safety. “Carmen will be bringing in our lunch soon.” You explain with a cheerful smile. “I thought that since you work so hard and are so busy, we would join you here to have lunch together.”

Pero’s frown deepens, “lunch together? Are you not able to have lunch in the kitchen?” He asks and you raise your eyebrows at him.

Pero bites his lip and you answer him, “the children would like to spend some time with their father seeing as we are no longer going into town.” You say and Alejandra stands up to walk over to Pero, reaching for his hand, “please papa. Let us have lunch together.” Her pout is Pero’s unraveling as he nods, standing up from his desk chair to walk towards the sofa.

Luis grins, unaware and still too young to understand his father’s hesitancy, but he begins to tell his father about the Spanish Armada that the governess is teaching the children about lately. “Sí, mijo. The English defeated us.” His dark eyes meet yours as he answers questions Luis excitedly asks him and he seems to relax a little. Lola and Carmen bring the meal in and the four of you begin to eat.

“I have decided to ask Carmen to direct any traveling merchants to our house when they are going through town.” You take a sip of your tea and look at your husband. “As well as inquire about children that are near Luis and Alejandra’s age that might wish to come play with them. Soon the house will be ready for visitors.”

Pero frowns, “why would we require merchants to come to my home?” He asks as he picks up his glass of wine. “And for the other children…I suppose it will be good for them to mingle with others.” He concedes that point, glancing at you and he’s taken back once again by your beauty, especially when the light hits your face.

“We require merchants to come to your home because the children need new shoes, their own are pinching their feet and the cobbler cannot make their shoes without measuring their feet.” You point out. “Also, I enjoy socializing and since I am not permitted to go to town, I will simply have town come to me.”

Pero sets his wine glass down, “I suppose that is for the best. I want the children to have everything they need, I want you to have everything you need. You - I am guessing one of the staff told you about Maria?” He asks, curious if anything has been said about his behavior.

You could lie to him, but you don’t. “I was told about the night Luis was born.” You admit softly, understanding how such a thing could haunt the man, especially since he was a soldier in the war. You wonder if the poor boy you have come to love even gets any acknowledgement on his birthing day, or if grief is too overwhelming. “You have my deepest sympathies.”

Pero swallows the lump that always forms in his throat when he thinks about Maria and that fateful night. In a way, he’s glad he didn’t have to discuss it with you, to relive that horrid night, but another part of him knows he needs to discuss it with you, to tell you why he brought you here and has yet to consummate the marriage. That time is not now though with the children here. “Gracias, mi esposa. I- I would like to have supper with you tonight…if you want.”

Your head tilts in surprise but you don’t voice it. “That would be lovely, Don Tovar.” You murmur softly, aware that he is asking for a dinner that is apart from the children. “I will ask that Lola makes your favorite dish.” You offer, smiling slightly. “Do you have any preference for dessert?”

Pero’s gaze dips down to your cleavage. You are a beautiful woman and he has not indulged in pleasure since Maria died apart from a few times where he had spent his coin and then felt incredibly guilty after when he felt like he was betraying his beloved wife. Tonight is about giving your marriage a chance, giving you a chance when he’s been so closed off from you since your wedding night.

You don’t miss the way that your husband's eyes dip down to your breasts and you wonder if he has finally decided to acknowledge that he has a wife. You aren’t ignorant of the relationship between man and wife and yet you have still retained your chastity well into your marriage. Pero mumbles something about a sweet and you nod. “I will make sure that is what you get, if you so desire.”

He nods in appreciation and Luis takes his attention by handing him a cookie from the tray. “Gracias, mi amor.” Pero smiles at his son.

“Papa, will you come and ride with us tomorrow?” Alejandra asks, wanting him to join them for their riding lessons.

“I- I am busy, mija. I-”

Alejandra shakes her head, her lower lip trembling. “Papa. I want - please.” She begs and Pero looks at you, a little lost.

“Your Papa is a very busy man, sweetheart.” You remind her gently. “Although, I believe that he should be able to join you for at least one hour? Yes, Don Tovar?” You ask, glancing from Alejandra to your husband. It will allow the children to see their father and still not take too much time away from his busy work. Although you feel as if he spends much of his time working so he does not have to grieve. “How does that sound?”

Alejandra nods, “please papa. Just an hour. Por favor.” She pleads and Pero nods, not wanting to see his daughter so pouty.

“Sí, mi amor. An hour. Let’s go riding for an hour.” He compromises and she surges forward to hug his arm, “¡gracias, papa!”

You smile at your husband’s shocked face when his daughter smothers him in affection. Nodding when he looks over at you, asking if he is doing things right or perhaps seeking help. He’s doing something that will make his children very happy and it’s a good thing. “Now we need to finish eating.” You tell the children. “Papa needs to get back to work, so finish your lunch so we can leave him to it.”

Pero nods, rubbing Alejandra’s back and he leans down to kiss her head. He can’t deny the way his heart twists at how much he’s missed out on with his little girl and his son. He knows he needs to be a better father to them. “Let’s finish eating.” He says and Alejandra nods, letting go of her father to settle down to eat. Lunch is finished in companionable silence and Pero is soon kissing his children on the head, promising them he will have dinner with them tomorrow.

“Go start your studies again.” You tell the children, smiling when they rush off and you turn towards your husband, slightly flustered to be alone with him for the first time. “I will clean up and get this mess out of your hair.” You promise. “Thank you for not turning them away. They talk about their papa every day and want to spend time with you.”

Pero smiles, watching the children rush off after kissing his cheek then yours, and Pero watches them with his heart thumping. “Gracias, señora. You - you brought me back to my children and I- I never knew how to bridge the gap. I- I cannot repay you for that.”

“There is no need for repayment, Don Tovar.” You assure him, still calling him by his formal title since he has never permitted you to use his Christian name. “That is my job.” You know that he would rather be quit of your presence so you nod and quickly turn around to gather the meals up onto the trays to be carried back to the kitchen.

Pero swallows harshly, “please…call me Pero.” He says and reaches for your hand. He squeezes it, and his heart twists as he thinks about you and how beautiful you are yet he feels like he’s betraying Maria.

“P-Pero.” you murmur, feeling shy now that he has stopped you from your task. You bite your lip as you stare into his dark eyes, wishing that you could tell him how handsome you find him. “Is there - something else you wished for, Pero?” You ask quietly.

Pero stares at you for a moment before he withdraws his hand. This is progress but he knows he shouldn’t venture into his attraction to you. It will only lead to heartbreak, either his or the children’s. “No. That is all. I shall see you later for supper.” He says and clears his throat.

You are disappointed, knowing that he wanted something else but you don’t push him. He had shown that he had no wish to have a relationship with you. “Yes, Don Tovar.” You revert back to your formal politeness and you pick up one of the trays and you will send Carmen in to gather the other. “Good afternoon.”

Pero frowns, wishing to hear his Christian name from your lips and when you carry the tray out of the room, he leans back against the chair, sighing and rubbing his face. He wants this to work. He needs this to work. For the children’s sake. Dinner tonight will be his chance to redeem his terrible behavior.

The rest of the day is spent with the children. After asking Lola to make the Don’s favorite meal, you had finished their lessons and then took them down to the kitchen for both their dinner and their baths. Laughing when they pouted when getting into the water, and then pouting when they had to get out. Once they are clean and in their nightclothes, you chatter and joke with them as you take them back upstairs to put them to bed. Leaving you little time to get ready for dinner with your husband, but it is for the best. You had no time to think about why he wanted to have dinner with you now, so long after your marriage.

Pero adjusts his jacket - not the latest trends but well made, none the less- and he paces in the dining room, wondering if you aren’t coming as the minutes tick by. When you finally appear, you look beautiful and his heart flutters in his chest after laying dormant for so long. He strides forward, taking your hand in his and leans down to press his lips to the back of your hand. “Esposa, you look beautiful.”

“Forgive me for being late, Don Tovar.” You curtsy for him and hate how handsome he is in his evening jacket. “The children were begging for another story before bed and I could not say no.” Your own preparation for dinner had been rushed and you hope that he is not disappointed by your appearance.

Pero shakes his head, “don’t be silly, esposa. The children come first. I trust they are in bed?” He asks and you nod, “they are asleep and in bed.” You smile and Pero keeps your hand in his so he can guide you to your chair. He pulls it out and helps you sit before he makes his way over to his own seat.

Once you are seated, Pero sits across from you and Carmen immediately marches into the dining room with the first course. “Don,” you venture, smiling your thanks to Carmen as she sets down the soup. “I believe that we should hire more staff.” You tell him. “My maid also acts as the housekeeper and now she is serving our dinner. I believe that we need a butler and perhaps a full time housekeeper. That way we are not overworking our staff.”

“You are in charge of the household. If you wish to have another, I will have Carlos and Lola ask around in town.”

You lift a brow in surprise, your soup spoon nearly to your mouth and you take your bite and swallow before you respond. “Thank you, I will have them ask immediately.” You smile at him again and Pero glances back down at his own soup as if he is shy. “The children are excited about riding with you tomorrow. I was surprised they had not learned already but they have come so far in their lessons.” If it is a rebuke, it is a small one. The children had been very far behind in their lessons and some had not started at all. You had been working diligently to get them on track to where they should be. “They are very bright children. You should be very proud of them.”

Pero’s stomach twists with guilt. He barely knows his children. He doesn’t know that they are behind in their studies when you mention they have much to learn. The guilt twists in his stomach again and he knows he can’t hide from them anymore. “I am.” He answers softly, offering you a rare smile. You are so kind, he doesn’t want to tarnish you with his sins.

Surprised by the smile, you offer one of your own and hope that he is starting to care. You continue to eat in silence, waiting for Pero to talk to you but the silent sounds of eating settles between you. It’s sad, really. This man doesn’t have more questions about his children and doesn’t seem interested in them. When you are done, you set your spoon down and quietly wait for the next course.

Carmen brings in the next course and Pero is struggling to find the words to make conversation. It’s been so long since he had dinner with someone and he’s a little out of practice with his etiquette. “Are you liking Spain or do you miss your home?” He asks you after rubbing his hands together.

“Truly?” You shrug one shoulder and look down at the plate in front of you. “I have not seen much of the country since the carriage ride to your estate.” You remind him, trapped here by your husband’s wishes. “But what I have seen is beautiful. Carlos is very hopeful we can restore the gardens and the greenhouse to their former glory.” You had learned that Pero had ordered that the garden not be planted, just maintained. As flowers would die off, they would not be replanted. At least until you had arrived. You suppose it was because Pero’s first wife had loved spending time in the gardens. The little pond of water had apparently been her favorite spot.

Pero wants to bite out that the gardens are not to be touched but then he remembers why he brought you here to marry him. He needs someone to maintain his home. “Perhaps we can take a ride soon, I would like to show you my country.” He says softly and looks up after he cuts into his meat.

“I would like that.” He might not mean it. Might not ever do it, since he seems to blow so hot and cold, but you smile. “I have missed riding.” You haven’t gone for rides since the children would want to come with you and they were not accomplished enough to go so far and you do not know the area. “But there has been plenty to keep me busy. Have you any opinion on the changes, Don Tovar?”

Tovar looks out of the window to the beautiful gardens, now full of flowers after your dedication to the garden, and he turns to look back at you. “The gardens looks gorgeous, mi esposa.” He says and turns back to his meal. “You are bringing the estate back to its former glory.”

“Thank you.” You feel proud that even if he is a man who does not interact with you much, that he sees your improvements to his home. “Was there anything that you wished to discuss with me?” You ask quietly. “I thought that might be why you asked me to have dinner with you?”

Pero sighs, setting down his cutlery. “I wanted to discuss…if you were looking to have children of your own. We never got a chance to discuss it and I wanted to address the matter as it would mean us…consummating our marriage.” He says, trying to be as matter of fact as possible.

“I had hoped to one day have children.” You confess setting your own cutlery down and hate how handsome he is despite how aloof he acts. “I have put those dreams aside, now.” You look away, back down at your food and you aren’t hungry anymore. “It does not seem that you are interested in….consummating our marriage.”

Picking up his glass of wine, Pero knows he has failed in your marriage already. He’s been selfish and he isn’t sure how he can fix it. The thought of betraying Maria in this final way has his stomach twisting. “Are you- are you interested in consummating the marriage?” He asks softly.

You need to be honest with him. So you are. “I am not interested in being used.” You admit bluntly. “I have no experience with intimate relations, but I do know what to expect.” You assure him. “However, I would not accept being used to fulfill your needs and then ignored until the next time you have use of my body.” You could very well ruin your chances of any kind of relationship with Pero, but he asked. “You are a very handsome man, and I have found myself thinking about you often, but if you have every intention of satisfying your lust and then pretending I don’t exist until the next time you want to touch me, I would rather you just leave me untouched.

Pero nods, appreciating your candor and the way you hold yourself. It makes you more attractive to him. He sips his wine as he contemplates his answer. “I do not wish for you to feel used and I am not capable at this time of more than physical release. If you wish to experience pleasure, I will ensure you are satisfied with our marital bed. However, if you yearn for an emotional connection, then I would suggest we permanently place any relations on hold.”

You smile, albeit sadly. “Don Tovar, I have never expected love in an arrangement. I am not a silly, romantic girl. However, I will require you to respect me if we were to share our marital bed. Take your meals with me and perhaps some evenings beyond our pursuit of pleasure. I don’t require your heart, I know your first marriage was one of love and your affections still lay with your late wife.”

Pero is taken back by your refute to his offer but he appreciates your directness. “Very well. I assure you that I will try my best to ensure you are satisfied physically. Shall we - would tonight be appropriate or do you wish to wait until it happens naturally?”

You hum, amused by the idea of physical relations happening naturally with a man who has not spent more than two hours in your presence since you have been married to him. Perhaps it is foolish, but you want to know what it is like to be touched. “Tonight is fine.” You assure him and pick up your cutlery again. “Do you have any preference for physical intimacy? I do not have any reference, so I will need to be told if there is something I should not do. Or should do.”

Pero nods, “very well. Let us finish our meal and I will allow you as much time as you require to get ready for our consummation.” He assures you and continues to cut into his meal so he can finish eating. Dessert is soon served and you eat in companionable silence before the dishes are cleared away. “Take your time.” He tells you as he stands and waits for you to gather yourself from the dining room table.

You nod. “Give me twenty minutes.” You ask as he takes your hand to walk you to the stairs. “Then I will be ready.” You noticed that he did not answer you about his preferences but figure that he would just show you tonight. After all, it is a husband's job to teach his wife about how he prefers love making.

Pero watches you walk up the stairs and he exhales shakily, realizing that this will be a big step towards cementing your marriage as husband and wife tonight. He clears his throat and makes his way to his chambers to clean himself up. It’s been a while since he’s been intimate but he remembers that women do not like being with men who smell like a long day. He washes and dresses in his linen nightshirt, deciding to keep things simple for the act. Inhaling deeply, he makes his way down the hall to your chambers.

Tovar knocks on the door, heart thumping in his chest, and when you call out for him to come in, he slowly opens the door. “Hola, esposa.” He murmurs after he shuts it behind him. He takes in your figure, glowing in the firelight and his cock twitches under his shirt.

“Hello, husband.” You bite your lip and wonder how he will approach you and this. “What- what do you want me to do?” You ask, watching him carefully, more nervous than you had expected to be. You don’t think he will hurt you, but you had been told the first time is painful and that you would learn to enjoy it. “Do you wish me to get on the bed?”

Pero shakes his head, walking over to you to take your hands in his and he exhales shakily, suddenly nervous. It’s been so long since he’s been with a woman, especially his wife. His heart clenches when he briefly thinks of Maria but he pushes that aside. “Esposa, eres hermosa.” He murmurs, letting go of your hand so he can reach up to caress your cheek. You are beautiful and any man would be lucky to have you as their wife. You deserve better than him, than some half shell of the man he used to be. He slides his hand down to caress your neck and your collarbone, his fingers playing with the edge of your gown. “Can I take this off?” He asks, his dark eyes meeting yours, burning like embers in the flames of the fire.

Mouth dry from that simple touch, you nod. Watching him as his eyes seem to shine like a dark flame and you can help but to think that he is most handsome. His hands skim down over your waist and he tangles the material of your nightgown in his fingers and slowly starts to drag it up. Exposing you to the warmth of the fire and it makes you even hotter as your skin starts to burn from the simplest touch. Tonight you will just let him touch you, hopefully show you what he likes. Maybe you can help him by letting him find pleasure with you.

Pero tosses your gown to the floor and steps back, his dark eyes running down the length of your body. His eyes focus on your tits, swallowing harshly as his gaze lowers to the thatch of curls at the apex of your thighs. “Hermosa.” He murmurs, stepping closer to you, and he reaches out to caress your waist, pulling you up against his body. “Tell me if you want to stop. Or you don’t like anything.”

You nod, wanting to touch him but you don’t ask. Knowing you would hate feeling rejected if he pulled away. Your breathing stutters as his fingers slide up and brush the underside of your breast, nipple hardening and you bite your lip so you don’t moan wantonly. “Pero….” Your whisper is soft, pleading and you wonder why you are so eager to have this man touch you.

His hand squeezes your breast until he notices that you want to touch him so he reaches for your hand, bringing it to his chest. “You can touch me, esposa.” He assures you, inhaling the scent of your bath oil as he leans in to run his nose along the length of your neck.

His own dressing gown is hanging open at the neck and your fingers slide inside to touch hot, tanned skin. Biting your lip and trying to concentrate as his fingers brush over your nipple and make you gasp. Looking down, you see the gown tenting over his cock and your cheeks burn, but you are curious to see what it looks like, reaching down and brushing the fabric close so you can see better.

Pero hisses when your innocent fingers brush his cock. He reaches down, guiding you to wrap your fingers around him. His skin is hot and velvety and you explore him with utter lack of knowledge but he enjoys it. He likes that you have no expectations of him. He can just feel. He murmurs your name and his hand lets go of yours, letting you explore him while his palms continue their own adventure, palming your ass in his grip.

It feels wicked and yet you know that it is perfectly natural to touch him. You need to learn how he feels since he is perhaps the only man you would ever sleep with. Unless you remarry and your husband is obviously a hale and hearty man. “It is so hard.” You murmur in wonder. “And yet so soft.” You gasp when you feel a wetness on your skin and look down to see a smear of liquid on your finger.

He refrains from chuckling at your virginal observations. “Take your time, esposa. We are in no rush. No rush at all. I want to make sure you feel good.” He assures you and he slides his hand down between your legs, finding you wet and wanting him. He loves that and he is going to make you cum. From his fingers, from his cock. He finds your clit and loves the gasp that escapes you as he starts to rub the bundle of nerves.

Your eyes flutter closed and you hand to cling to his shoulder before your knees buckle. “Oh…ohhhh my….” You whimper, your grip on his cock loosening. You don’t know what he’s doing to you but you need more of it. “Pero.”

Pero grabs your waist, keeping you upright and pressed against him while he works your clit. His lips brush your neck by accident and you shiver against him. He rubs your clit a little faster, wanting you to cum for him for the first time. “That’s it, esposa.”

He doesn’t seem to mind touching you, increasing how fast he is rubbing but he’s groaning against your ear and encouraging you. For what you don’t know, you just know that your stomach is fluttering and clenching right up until stars burst behind your eye and you gasp as your cunt clenches on its own and a wave of heat floods your core.

Pero keeps you upright, working you through it and groaning when you bury your face in his neck. He groans your name softly and slides his finger back to gently push it inside of you, wanting to stretch you out so you feel less pain when he finally fucks you.

“Ohhhhhh.” Your eyes wide, mouth hit against his skin as you moan. Surprised to feel his fingers inside you and your body jolts when he pushes them up and presses against something inside you, “oh Pero.” You whimper, closing your eyes and unable to help yourself, you kiss his neck.

He curls his fingers, knowing he needs to make this good for you. He pushes his fingers a little deeper, loving the way you kiss his neck and he knows he should stop you but the intimacy makes his heart twist, his stomach clench. It’s been so long since he enjoyed the touch of someone else. “Fuck.” He curses, his cock twitching.

“Is this- is this how it feels?” You pant softly, your hips rocking up to his hand. Chasing the feeling that he pulls out of you. “All the time?” You are surprised that there aren’t more babies in the world if sex feels like this.

“Sometimes.” Pero chuckles softly, adding another finger, “sometimes it feels good, sometimes it’s just a physical release to relax. Quiero - I want you to feel like this all the time we are intimate, mi esposa.” He murmurs, his hand squeezing your ass to encourage you to rock down onto his fingers.

You feel so good, rocking on your feet as you wantonly move in your husbands arms. Kissing along his neck every time you grind down onto his finger, you feel that sensation start to build inside of you again. “Pero.” You whimper, clutching his shoulders and clenching around his fingers. “Pero- I- again- it’s- it’s-“ you cut yourself off with a small cry, another wave of pleasure and heat flooding you and making you forget about everything but the bliss of his fingers.

The way you clamp down on his fingers has his cock leaking. To hear you so unabashedly enjoying yourself has him groaning and he works you through it. His fingers soaked and he knows you are ready to take him. “Mierda.” He hisses, pressing his cock against your hip as you come back down to earth. Soon enough, he’s withdrawing his fingers and he wipes his fingers on his nightgown. “Come on, esposa. Lay down. I want to fuck my wife.” He says with a slight smile, knowing it’s taken way too long to get to this point in your marriage.

You hum, nearly floating on a cloud as you walk over to your bed and pull the covers back. Climbing into the bed and knowing that you will come out of it properly wed is thrilling and you lay back amongst the pillows. Watching as he walks towards you. “Are you going to remove your shirt, husband?” You ask softly, wanting to see your husband as fully as he has seen you. There is no love between you, but there will be passion and you wish to know what he looks like.

Pero bites his lip, wondering if he will be good enough. If you will like the scars on his body from his battles won in the war. He exhales shakily and nods, reaching for the hem of his shirt so he can lift it over his head, fully exposing his body to you as you lay in your bed.

He is strong, you can tell that from the corded muscles that spoke of your husband doing much more than just being an idle lord. Bunching and rippling as he stands still for you inspection, you don’t hesitate to let your eyes roam over him. Widening slightly when you get your first look at his cock without some fabric blocking your view. “You are…handsome.” You admit breathlessly. “It- you make my core throb.”

Your words surprise Pero and he smirks, slightly cocky that you are satisfied with his appearance. He shifts closer to the bed until he is kneeling on it, his fingers caressing your ankle bone and up your leg. “That’s good. That’s lust, esposa. Do you desire me? Do you want me inside or you?” He asks, kneeling between your thighs and he doesn’t touch you so you can make the final assessment before he consummates the marriage.

Even though you are innocent, you are aware of what should happen. Feeling bold by the lust that is in his own eyes, you spread your thighs to reveal the thatch of curls covering your core. “Please, Pero.”

“Mierda.” Tovar mutters and caresses your thighs. When he looks into your eyes and sees your certainty, he nods and reaches down to grip his cock. Shuffling closer, he notches himself at your entrance and slowly, so slowly, pushes inside of you. “Fuck.” He pants, trying to control himself but you’re so wet and tight. He exhales shakily and pushes deeper, wanting to make sure you are as comfortable as possible despite him taking your innocence.

You squeeze your eyes shut, feeling a pinch but it is not the painful experience that you had been led to believe that it was. Moaning softly as you feel him deep inside, seemingly deeper than his fingers had been, and throbbing. Your fingers dig into his shoulders again and you slowly open your eyes as you breathe out. “Pero.”

The urge to bury himself inside of you is strong but he remains in control, slowly rocking his hips so he can work his cock deeper inside of you until he is settled inside of you. He knows you are a keen horse rider so your innocence was likely taken during a saddling but he doesn’t care. He’s damaged goods himself and he knows some men would want you to be intact but this is kinder to you and to him. He closes his eyes once he’s fully inside of you, his fists clenched as he tries to not spill his seed before you can experience the pleasure of sex.

“I- I feel so full.” You whimper, your fingers dragging across his skin and your legs shuffling slightly. He’s so still on top of you and it makes you want to move, need to move. To chase the same sensation you felt when you had his fingers inside you. You gasp when you think of what you heard your maids back home giggling about. Riding a man as if he were a horse and you clench down around him thinking about riding Pero like that, his cock deep inside you.

Pero hisses when you clamp down on his cock and he inhales deeply. He reaches down to grab your thigh and he lifts it higher so he can sink deeper inside of you. “Fuck.” He pants and starts to move slowly.

You moan again, eyes widening at how well you feel him. “I- oh Pero.” You whimper, trying to roll you hips down but he has you nailed to the bed with his cock. “I-f-fuck.” You stammer out, the curse unfamiliar on your tongue but it feels like it is necessary for what you are feeling right now as your husband moves inside you.

Your curse has his cock twitching inside of you and he groans when your walls squeeze him. “Fuck, esposa. You feel - it’s - perfect.” He allows you a minute access to his thoughts and that seems to make you wild. Clamping down on his cock and arching your back to egg him on. He starts to move faster, lowering his hips and groaning your name as he tries to make this good for you.

You enjoy the rough sound of his voice. Moaning again as he starts up a rhythm to his movements and making you nearly gasp every time he pushes deep. You slide your hands down your back, playing over scars and working muscles rippling under the skin. You feel like he approved of your curse so you do it again, followed by his name. “It’s so intense.”

He likes to hear that because it’s a lot to him too. To be intimate with his wife. He never imagined he’d remarry but he starts to think it’s possible to have a marriage with you, to be able to survive without Maria…perhaps even be happy. He enjoys your touch and slides his hand up to cup your breast, squeezing and he shifts so he can lean down to take your nipple into his mouth.

You hadn’t expected his mouth. Wrongly assuming that kissing being too intimate meant any part of your body and not just your lips. “Pero!” You cry out loud enough that the servants might hear and arch your back up, wanting more of the pleasure of his mouth at your breast. “Oh fuck, oh fuck.” You whimper, shivering.

He loves hearing you curse, his cock twitching inside of you, and he switches over to your other breast. He bites down on your flesh, nipping and sucking, and he moves inside of you, grinding deep. “You like this, hermosa?” He asks, lost in the pleasure of being inside of you.

“Yes, yes Pero.” You moan, closing your eyes and lifting your legs to wrap them around his waist. You know that you are making him feel good. At least you hope you are. Feeling his thrusts start to build faster, his breathing catching and starting to pant against your skin. “So much.”

He grunts when he feels you starting to clench around him and he drops his hips so he can press his pelvis where you need him more. “Cum for me.” He pleads with a groan, needing to feel you cum before he finds his own high. “Por favor, esposa. Cum.” He demands and drags his tongue along your sternum.

You shiver at the feeling of his tongue on your skin. “Ohhhh Pero!” You cry out, body starting to shake underneath his with the next thrust of his hips as you start to fall apart. Pleasure whipping through every inch of your body as you moan.

He clenches his eyes shut when you clamp down on his cock and he bites down on your shoulder as he barely manages to pull out of you, his hot seed spilling on your thigh. “Fuck.” He pants, cock twitching against your hip as he rides his orgasm.

Your eyes open and you frown in confusion as you feel the wetness of his seed on your skin. “I- is something wrong?” You pant quietly, wondering if you’ve somehow disappointed him.

He frowns, pulling back to look down at you. “What are you talking about? I- nothing is wrong.” He’s trying to catch his breath and he shifts to lay down beside you. “It was good.” He assures you, “did you not enjoy it?”

“You-“ You bite your lip and look up at the ceiling. “You spilled your seed on my thighs.” You murmur quietly, wondering if there was something wrong with you that caused him to do that. He was supposed to finish inside you. That’s what everyone said.

Pero closes his eyes, trying to conceal the pain. “I know - I know we aren’t - tonight was our first night but - but I can’t risk you being with child so soon.” He admits, reminded once again of Maria dying during childbirth.

“I-I am so sorry.” You close your own eyes, mortified that you had brought up something so personal to him. “I understand. Forgive me for being so thoughtless.” You know you have ruined things and you swallow down a sigh.

Pero shakes his head, shifting to swing his legs over the side of the bed. “Don’t worry, esposa. I- I’ll leave you to clean up. I have work to attend to.” He declares as he stands and reaches for his nightgown. “I shall see you tomorrow.” He says, turning to look at you after he edged towards the door.

You nod. “Yes.” You know he wants to leave and you sit up, his seed cooling on your skin. “I will clean up and then choose another book from the library before I go to bed. Goodnight, husband.”

“Buenas noches, esposa.” Pero says and swiftly leaves your room. Tonight, he gave in to his desires and left you upset after he pulled out of you. He knows you will urge him to have a child soon and he isn’t sure he is ready for that conversation but for now, he will retire to his quarters to read over the accounts before he falls asleep. He’s not entirely sure how long he can continue keeping you at arms length but he has to try. He cannot lose another wife.

****

The next morning, you are surprised to find your husband in the dining room when you come in. “Buenas días, husband.” You see that he is reading some papers, so you move to your normal seat with the cup of tea you had retrieved yourself when you had gone in to see Lola. “I hope your night was restful.” You had decided that you understood where Pero stood on getting you with child and you wished to speak with him about it. “Have you ever used a- a condom before?” You ask him. “My maid back home said they can be purchased from the chemist. Perhaps that would be a good solution?”

Pero raises his eyebrows over his newspaper, watching you for a moment until he chuckles. “Is that what you wish for us to use? I am happy to let you manage our…situation if you wish.” He trusts you and he isn’t sure when that changed.

“You said that you did not wish for me to be - to have a child.” You don’t add the ‘yet’ portion because you feel like he would rather that be ‘at all’. “So a co-condom would help.” You shrug, slightly self conscious now. “We don’t have to use one.”

Pero nods, understanding what you are saying and he appreciates your planning. “Let us have Carmen fetch us some things and then we have the choice.” He says, knowing that it will be hard to keep away from you now that he knows how you feel. The passion inside of you scares him and he knows if he allows it, he will lose himself in you. He can’t put his heart back on the line and the children need a mother. With a nod, he goes back to eating his pan con tomate and knows that you will take care of the issue of birth control.

Carmen brings you a plate of food and you thank her, eating in silence with your husband. You had not expected grand conversations with him, at least at the beginning, so you do not try to disturb him with idle chit chat and when you stand after finishing, you give him a small smile. “Have a good day, husband.” You wish him softly.

Pero watches you go and realizes that maybe he doesn’t just want this to be a marriage of mutual benefit. He finishes his breakfast in peace and decides to spend the rest of the day near the children.

****

“Where is my wife?” Pero asks Carmen, who frowns, “she’s in her chambers, Don Tovar.” She answers and Pero frowns, making his way to your rooms and he is even more confused when he enters and calls your name, only to find you aren’t there.

Biting your lip, you urge the horse faster. Knowing that you are breaking your word to your husband, but it cannot be helped. Luis is feverish, and Carmen and Lola had been nowhere to be found when you had gone searching for them. Frantic about your husband’s son, you know it would destroy Pero to lose the last bit of his wife that she had given him. So you broke your promise. Currently racing to town to fetch the doctor, you pray that the instructions you had given his sister were working and that you will be able to bring the doctor back from town in time.

When Pero finds the children, he’s frantic when he’s told that Luis has a fever and you have left to go to town to find the doctor. He can hardly contain his anxiety, his hands shaking, and he growls at Carlos, “I’m going to fucking find her!” He feels like he’s losing control, his heart pounding and his breathing is heavy. His legs feel like lead and his brain focuses on you and his children. Is Luis dying? Is this his punishment for his time in the war? Is he going to lose you? He pants and collapses to his knees, Carlos reaching out to steady him as his vision goes cloudy. “I- I - can’t save them.”

It is to your detriment that you haven’t been to town, wasting precious time to find the doctor and demanding that he come with you back to the Tovar estate. Shaking with fear and praying that you make it back in time to help your little boy. You didn’t give birth to him, but you have grown close to the children and you have come to love their personalities now they are being taught and challenged, time being spent with them. The mischief of your first meeting was long gone. Rushing to your horse and as soon as the doctor is mounted on his own, racing for home.

Pero manages to stand up, shoving Carlos away as he demands to know where you’ve gone. “I - Alejandra said she’s gone to the town.” Pero doesn’t waste a second, rushing to the stables and swinging his leg over his stallion, no saddle, he pushes the horse to the limit as he gallops towards town. Images of you injured or dead flash in his mind and he realizes how you have wiggled his way into his mind and heart. Your kindness and the feel of you beneath him have his heart twisting at the thought of anything happening to you.

Frowning, you spot a rider in the distance on the road. Unsure of who it might be, you glance back at the doctor who is on your horses heels and then forward again. Recognizing the haste in the way you see the horse being pushed, dread knots in your stomach, realizing that it must be your husband. Lifting a hand, even though he is too far away to shout to, you wonder if he will beat you for disobeying him.

Pero sees you as he gallops and he nearly falls off of the horse when he pulls on its hair to slow it down. “You - what the fuck do you think you are you doing?” Pero yells as you approach him and the doctor’s horse skids as he comes to a stop.

“Luis! Luis has a fever!” You cry out, panting for breath as your horse stomps and shakes underneath you, “I- I had to get the doctor.” Your own mother had died from a fever sickness and the idea of losing his little boy on your watch makes you want to be sick. “I- we must hurry Pero! He cannot die, not like mama!”

Pero nods, knowing that now is not the time to have this argument. “You’re unharmed?” Pero asks and you nod frantically. His heart is pounding but you are safe and unharmed from what he can tell so he turns his horse around and the three of you gallop back to his estate, back in front of the sick little boy in record time. Pero kneels beside Luis, watching the doctor and he swallows harshly, “por favor. Just - do something.”

You twist your hands, knowing that Pero is worried and you start to pray yourself. Carmen has Alejandra in the other room and you can hear her comforting the older child. The doctor works and you worry, pacing the floors continuously, eager to bring the doctor anything he might need and bringing in the basin of cold water that Lola brings up.

Pero holds his son’s hand while the doctor assesses him and murmurs prayers as you kneel beside him. He reaches for your other hand, squeezing it as he prays and the doctor starts to drain the boy’s blood in hopes of bringing down the fever. “Bleeding should help the fever break. If not, I have some bark I think will help.”

Pero swallows, his throat is dry, “whatever you can do. I- I can’t lose him.”

You try to be there for him. Sitting strong and praying as the doctor continues to bleed the boy until he claims that it is enough. Wiping him down and checking his forehead again with a small frown before he moves over to the teapot he had requested with boiling water. You squeeze Pero’s hand and glance at your husband’s worried face.

Pero doesn’t know how long he lays there, his heart and mind weary as he watches his son. The doctor gave him the tea and left, stating it “is in God’s hands now.” He’s not eaten, he hasn’t slept. He just sits there and watches the little boy breathe. He doesn’t know where you are, he sometimes wonders but he’s too concerned about his son.

You watch. Waiting for anything and everything that Pero or Luis might need. Often leaving the room to comfort Alejandra and to let her know how her brother is doing. You don’t want her to feel forgotten and eventually you allow her to come into the room after promising to be quiet. The two of you sit in a chair behind Pero and eventually curl up together and fall asleep together from exhaustion and worry.

Pero isn’t sure when he fell asleep, perhaps the exhaustion got to him and he simply rested his head on the cool sheets, his eyes closing without his knowledge. “Papa.” He doesn’t hear the weak murmur at first. “Papa.” A small hand touches his hair and Pero’s nose wrinkles. “Papa.” The voice is stronger and wakes Pero up, his head shooting up to see Luis lucid and awake.

“Luis” He gasps, reaching for him to check his views. His eyes are clear, his forehead cool but not cold. He’s okay. “Mi amor.” Pero chokes, wrapping his arms around the little boy to pull him into his arms.

You wake up, rousing Alejandra in your arms and nearly sob with relief that Luis is awake and alert. “Mama, is Luis okay?” Alejandra demands, her own worry for her brother causing her to not think about what she calls you. Your eyes widen and you try not to tear up at the honorary name, nodding and brushing her tangled hair back from her face and holding her close despite being on your lap. “It looks like he is.” You hum. “Go hug him and your papa.”

Alejandra nods, rushing over to her papa and her brother and she wraps her arms around them. Pero shifts, gathering the children into his arms and he sniffs, trying to ignore the tears that sting in his eyes as he embraces them. “Te amo, mijos.” He murmurs and looks over at you, “come here, esposa.” He gestures for you to come over to them.

Standing up, you are happy to see such a touching moment between the small family. You know you are a part of it now, but they are reminders of his wife and very dear to him. Walking over, you ruffle Luis’ hair and smile. “You gave us all a fright, Luis.” You hum, sliding your hand to your husband’s shoulder.

Pero reaches up to grip your hand in his, his terror at losing you or one of his children now subsided and in its place is joy that he doesn’t have to suffer another loss. The four of you embrace until Carmen comes in to attend to Luis, wanting him to eat something and drink. Pero tells Alejandra to stay with her brother and she nods. “I need to speak with you.” Pero says to you, his voice deepening as he reaches for your hand.

You swallow, aware that he will now punish you. You had disobeyed him and you know from everyone that Pero is a stern man. You follow him quietly, wondering why he is still holding your hand as he guides you out of the nursery towards your bedroom.

When Pero opens the door to your chambers, he pushes you inside. “What were you thinking?” He hisses, dropping your hand as he glares at you, “I told you to never go into town.”

“I was thinking that Luis was in danger.” You won’t apologize for your actions, but you understand his anger. “He needed the doctor and I could not find anyone.” You stand straight and stiffen your spine. “If you punish me, that is you right. But I would do it again. My mother died of fever and I did not want you to lose your last gift from your wife.”

Your words take Pero back and his jaw drops, staring at you as he absorbs your words. Your kindness knows no bounds it seems and that’s the moment it clicks for Pero. Unable to stop himself, he surges forward and you think he’s about to hit you but he doesn’t, instead, his lips press against yours.

You had flinched, you could admit that yourself but then you are gasping against Pero’s mouth, shocked that he is kissing you. He had told you that he wouldn’t do that again; it was too intimate for him. Yet his lips are warm and soft against yours and you cannot help but melt into him.

His hands grip your waist and his mouth moves against yours, his tongue sliding along your lower lip as he pulls you up against him. You moan into his mouth and his hands reach down to tug your skirts up, his hands soon pulling his cock free from his breeches, hard and aching. He needs you and he hopes you want him too.

You had expected a beating, not for your husband to fuck you. But you aren’t going to push him away. Your fingers tug on your petticoats and you quickly push them down. “Husband.” You gasp out when he pulls his lips away. “Please.” You whimper, enjoying his apparent need for you.

His hand grabs your thigh, lifting it over your hip so he can position his cock at your entrance and he pushes inside of you with a groan. “Fuck, hermosa.” He murmurs, caressing your thigh as he pushes deeper.

“Oh god.” You would probably collapse if he didn’t have his hand on your waist and use his strength to keep you upright. Wanting to kiss him again, you wonder if that was a fluke and he wouldn’t kiss you but you turn your head to kiss along his jaw while he throbs inside you.

He turns his head to kiss you, pressing his lips against yours as he starts to move inside of you. You’re so wet and tight and alive. You’re alive. He focuses on you and your touch, his mouth moving against yours as he presses you against the wall.

You had never considered that your husband could fuck you against a wall, and yet, it’s thrilling. You moan into his mouth and cling to him, not caring that his hips push you back against the wainscoting every time he thrusts into you. Your own tongue touches against his and your entire body shivers with pleasure.

“Fuck. Mi esposa. I- Don’t want to lose you.” He murmurs, kissing along your jaw, and he kisses down your throat as he lifts your hip a little higher so he can push deeper inside of you. “Fuck. Please. I need - I need you.”

“Pero.” You whimper, closing your eyes and letting him do whatever he needs to you. You are starting to fall for him, especially with how he worried for Luis.

It’s hard to imagine his days without you now. Cold nights alone have turned into passionate escapades scattered throughout the day, touches leading through the night. He has tried to stay away but you’ve drawn him in. He continues to work his cock in and out of you, groaning as he presses his lips to yours again.

Closing your eyes, you give yourself over to him completely. Clinging to him as he fucks you so deeply you know they you will be feeling him for days after. Even though he’s not wearing a condom, you expect him to pull out and spill his seed outside your body. The condom had been great and you loved the feeling of him pulsing inside you.

Pero kisses along your jaw, breathing you in and he needs you to clamp down on his cock. He grabs your other thigh, lifting you up completely as the adrenaline surges through him and he grunts as he lifts you up and down his cock, still pressing you against the wall.

Gasping, you wrap your arms around his shoulders and try to wrap your legs around him, your skirts bunched between you. “Fuck, Pero, I- I love you.” You moan quietly; needing to at least whisper it even though he doesn’t feel the same way. “So close.”

He hears it but he doesn’t respond. Instead, he presses his lips to yours and when you whine into his mouth, he groans against your lips when you clamp down on his cock. He should pull out but he doesn’t, too focused on you and how you feel and how he could’ve lost you. He grunts and keeps thrusting you through your orgasm until finally, he’s pushing deep and filling you full of his hot seed, painting your walls.

Your eyes widen and you are too busy worrying about the feeling of his hot seed inside you. Knowing he will regret it you are savoring this one moment. “Pero- Pero you have to let me- I have to bathe.” You whimper.

He doesn’t release you, his fingers digging into your flesh as he pants again at your chin, enjoying the feel of you surrounding him. “Don’t.” He murmurs, not wanting to let you go just yet. He can’t lose another person from his life that he cares for.

You frown but you don’t push him away, deciding that he knows what he is doing. “Okay, husband.” You pant softly, feeling him throb inside of you and start to soften. “Is-is this my punishment?” You ask teasingly.

Pero chuckles softly, pulling out of you and lowering you down to the floor. Your skirts settle down and he reaches down to tuck his cock back into his breeches. “No punishment.” He assures you and reaches for your hands, “please…just do not go into town unless you are escorted.” He compromises, knowing that it will be hard to overcome his anxiety surrounding town but he cannot keep you prisoner.

You bite your lip, aware that your husband is compromising. “Yes.” You murmur softly, leaning in and pressing your lips to his cheek. You don’t want to push him for more than he will give you so you won’t kiss him on the lips unless he kisses you first. “Thank you, Pero.” You hum, smiling as you pull back to look into his dark eyes. “I will have an escort.”

Pero nods, letting go of your hands and he is pleased that he could compromise. The idea of you going into town terrifies him, he doesn’t want to lose you. The children clearly love you and he - he has affection for you.

****

Pero looks up at you as you enter the dining room. He stands up, walking over to pull your chair out for you, taking over the job from the footman. “You look beautiful, esposa.” He murmurs, caressing your cheek as you stand before him and he helps you sit down.

“Thank you.” You give Pero a smile, but you’re slightly nervous. Your monthly time has been missed for several months now and you woke up feeling nauseous and your breasts being sore. You are with child and while your husband has become warmer to you, you don’t know how he will react. It’s true that there have been several times since the day Luis was sick that he hasn’t worn the condom, he had also still worn it and never said anything about having children with you or your confession of your feelings. You’ve never repeated those words again. “I’ll just have some weak tea and toast.” You tell the footman before he disappears to let Lola know you are ready for breakfast.

Pero frowns, usually you order more at breakfast and he wonders if you are unwell. “Are you ill, esposa?” He asks and wonders if you are okay. He watches you as you eye the cup of tea with a grimace and he calls Carlos over to order the doctor to come to the house.

“I think that I might have some kind of stomach malady.” You admit with a small groan, covering your nose from the aroma of the tea. “It should pass.” You have an idea of what is wrong but you don’t wish to alarm Pero.

Pero is concerned but knows the doctor will help you and Carlos will ensure his swift arrival. Your breakfast is hardly touched and he will inform Carmen to let Lola know to prepare a light but generous lunch for you. He is concerned, knowing how Luis was and he’s terrified that you are going to end up with the same fate.

After breakfast, you still feel ill, laying down and resting even though you know you should be watching the children. You feel dizzy and nauseous and you wonder if all women feel this way when they are pregnant. You are sure that is what is going on, emptying your stomach of the tea and the few bites of toast you had managed into the chamber pot under your bed.

Pero greets the doctor, escorting him to your chambers. This is the same doctor who was present when Maria died and the midwife called for him after there were complications. The two men exchange a look before Carmen announces the doctor’s arrival. “I will leave you to it.” Pero says after everyone enters.

“Oh, I didn’t know Pero was calling a doctor.” You sit up, embarrassed and hoping that the nausea has passed. “I am afraid that I am not quite feeling myself.” You admit when he tuts and brings his bag over. “I think- I think I might be ….” You lower your voice. “Expecting.”

The doctor nods, “very well. Let us check and we can confirm, Señora Tovar.” He says softly and under Carmen’s watchful eye, he performs his tests. Feeling your stomach, he smiles. “Congratulations, Señora. You are with child.” He offers you a soft smile and Carmen grins, “congratulations.”

“Thank you.” It’s a relief to know that is what is wrong, but you wonder how Pero will take the news that you are expecting his child. “What can be done about the nausea?” You ask him softly. “My mother died young and I have never been around someone expecting.”

“I have a tea I can provide your cook with to assist with the sickness.” The doctor informs you and is soon bidding you goodbye. When the doctor exits your quarters, Pero looks up, eyes questions and the doctor pats his shoulder. “I believe your wife had good news.” Pero swallows, knowing what that means and he thanks the doctor before Carlos escorts him out.

Exhaling shakily, he walks over to your room and knocks, entering your chambers to find you sitting on the edge of the bed. He sits down beside you and reaches for your hand, “esposa.”

“I’m sorry, Pero.” You start quietly, looking down at your joined hands. “I know that you wished to wait, or to never have children with me.” You are worried that he will be upset, that it will ruin the closeness you have felt with him lately. “I do not know what happened. I’m - I am going to have your child.”

He squeezes your hand, “don’t know what happened? I think I do.” He chuckles softly. “And…and I’m not angry about it. I knew what could happen and you are an incredible mother to Luis and Alejandra. I think you’ll be amazing.” He assures you, “and I - I want to have a child that is half you and half me.”

You let out the breath you had been holding and smile. Relieved that he is not upset and you are able to be excited for the first time. “I think it will be wonderful.” You admit, although you frown after a moment. “I promise I will not go into town, even with an escort, when my time draws near.” You don’t want him to worry about another wife, even if he doesn’t love you, he would worry.

Pero nods his gratefulness, knowing you now understand his anxiety and reaction. Especially after you ran off to fetch the doctor. He knows he is going to be even more protective of you. “It’s good news, hermosa.” He promises, leaning in to kiss your forehead, brushing his nose against yours until his lips brush your lips.

You’ve found there is comfort in his kisses. A certain sense of home that you’ve not found anywhere else as the nights in his bed progressed. It was often you ended up sleeping together after your pleasure but you had never voiced that sentiment of love again. You desperately want to say it again, but you are afraid to, afraid of being reminded that you are not his late wife and he had warned you that he wouldn’t love you.

****

As your pregnancy progresses, Pero gets more and more anxious. He’s nervous of the birth, reminded once again of Maria dying after giving birth to Luis. He swallows harshly as he leans against the wall, trying to calm his racing heart. You’re going to give birth soon according to the midwife and each day makes his anxiety threaten to overwhelm him.

Every day that passes, you can see your husband slowly start to unravel. He is sleeping less and worrying about you. Not even allowing you on the stairs without someone. Making you ring a bell to have someone come help you. Most often he works from your chambers, moving his work to your writing desk. You sigh as you slide your hand over your stomach, panting slightly. The pains had started last night but you had kept it from him, knowing he wouldn’t sleep and he desperately needed the rest.

Pero sees Carmen rushing through the halls and she slows down when she sees him. “What’s happening?” He asks, frowning, and the young woman bites her lip. “Tell me.” He demands and Carmen knows she can’t deny him, “she’s having pains. The birth is happening. I must fetch the midwife.” Carmen rushes out and Pero’s eyes widen.

“Fetch the doctor too. I will take no chances.” He says and Carmen nods, rushing off. Pero drops everything he is doing and rushes to your chambers, “esposa. Is it true? You’re having pains?” He asks, eying you in the chair in the corner.

You would deny it, to spare him a bit more time but another pain makes you clutch your stomach. Bending over slightly as you start to moan quietly. It lasts for a long time and by that time you relax, you are panting. “I am.”

Pero rushes over to you. Guiding you over to the bed, “come, you must lay down.” He shakes his head, trying to take your shoes off. “Why didn’t you send for me?” He asks, caressing your ankle as you settle against the pillows.

“You have not been sleeping.” You remind him quietly. “I know you need rest and if I told you, there was not any rest in your future.”

Your whimpers make his heart clench and he shakes his head. “Mi - esposa. Come, do not worry about me. I will worry until the babe is in your arms and you are well and healthy.” His voice wavers for a moment and he wonders if you notice as he wipes your forehead of the beads of sweat.

“It will be well.” The midwife has assured you that you are carrying well for a first time birth and believes that it will be a simple thing. Reaching for his hand, you smile at him softly. “I have already asked that you be allowed in the birthing room if you need.”

Pero is surprised and pleased, kissing your damp forehead. “I won’t leave you.” He promises and brushes his lips against yours. “I’ll be here. Every single second.” He vows as Carmen comes back in with water and a flannel.

You get changed into a clean nightgown, Carmen helping you although you don’t mind your husband being there. He has seen you naked more than your own nanny when you were a child. Getting settled back down into the bed, you grip Pero’s hand and cry out when the next pain washes over you.

Pero lets you squeeze his hand as you try to ride the pain. You whimper and Pero frowns, “where is the midwife?” He asks, starting to get impatient. “And the doctor? I called for him as well.” He growls, looking over at Carmen.

“They are coming, Don Tovar.” She assures him, knowing that he is worried about his wife. Everyone has seen how much the Don has come to care about his wife and they are all happy for him. You are kind and loving and it will be good for him to love again. “The doctor is impressed with your wife and has already said he will come whenever summoned.”

“He needs to be here. I will allow no one to take a singular risk. I won’t have my wife’s health and the baby’s health put in danger.” He hisses and squeezes your hand when you groan at the pain. “Are you - you need anything?” Pero asks, wanting to make sure you have everything you need.

“Water.” You beg quietly. Labor is harder work that you realized and you feel parched from it.

Pero nods and squeezes your hand again. “Whatever you want.” He promises, kissing your hand and rushing over to the tray Carmen had brought you earlier.

Pero returns with the water, letting you sip it and he wipes your forehead with the wet rag Carmen hands him. It seems like the sun is setting when you are finally ready to push. The midwife checking you and announcing it’s time. Pero is terrified, this was the time Maria lost too much blood. He remembers the sheets being soaked with it as Luis cried. He grips your hand, sweat beading on his brow as his heart starts to pound

Clenching your teeth together, you try to make sure that you don’t scream during the next pain. It makes Pero uneasy every time, he pales when you scream and grip his hand as tight as you can. You know that he is scared and even though you are in pain, you’re worried about him.

Pero feels unwell but tries to stay strong, each clenched scream bringing you closer to having his next child and he is terrified. Terrified of losing you. During your marriage, he has grown close to you. Spending many nights in your bed, even if he hadn’t touched you. He can’t imagine his life without you now. “Come on hermosa, you can do it. Push.” He urges you on, wanting you to concentrate.

Nodding, you sit up slightly and start to push. Bearing down with all your might, you see the midwife between your thighs as you start to feel more pressure.

Pero watches you push, his eyes darting between you and the midwife and he’s worried, he’s so scared that he’s gonna lose you. His hand grips yours as he watches you push and he’s silently praying.

“I can’t- it is too much.” You gasp out, falling back against the sheets as you pant.

The midwife clicks her tongue and looks up at you. “One more push, señora, and the bebita will be in your arms.” She promises you. “Next time the pain comes you push as hard as you can.”

“You can do it, hermosa. You can do it.” He eggs you on, sweat beading on his forehead as he watches you struggle. “Come on, mi amor. Come on.” He says, wiping your forehead.

You close your eyes, tears leaking out of the corners as you barely hear the words that you have wished for far longer than you should have. Holding his hand, you nod, bearing down with all your strength and pushing your baby into the world. Feeling them slip from your womb with a rush of relief.

Pero watches the midwife cradle the crying babe, her smile wide and Pero starts to cry, relieved and so happy at seeing his child born. “Felicidades, Don Tovar, it’s a boy.” She announces and Pero leans in to kiss your head.

“A boy, amor,”

“A boy.” You sob, exhausted and relieved and more than a little emotional about hearing ‘amor’ again. Almost terrified that he is thinking of his late wife and reliving that horrible night with a happier ending through you. “We have another son.” You pant, reaching for the baby when the midwife hands him to you.

Pero looks down at the screaming babe in your arms. His eyes sting with tears and he looks at you in awe. “A boy. Another boy.” He murmurs, kissing your forehead. “Amor.”

“He’s beautiful.” You murmur quietly, brushing your hand over his wet forehead. “Perfect.” His ten little fingers are curled into fists and he has ten perfect little toes. “Isn’t he?” You ask, looking up at your husband after you manage to tear your eyes away from your new baby.

Pero leans in to rest his forehead against yours, loving how you are cradling the baby and he knows Luis and Alejandra are excited for his arrival. “He’s perfect. So is his mother.” He murmurs, caressing the baby’s head.

You hum, not sure how to take that and look back down at the baby. He’s turning his face towards you and crying, searching for your breast. “Put him on the breast.” The midwife tells you. “Your milk will come.” You nod, opening your nightgown and guiding him towards your breast and gasping when he latches into your nipple.

Pero watches in awe, the midwife working on helping you with the afterbirth and the baby mouths at your nipple. Pero kisses your forehead again, he’s so perfect. You’re perfect. Hermosa, I- I love you.” Pero chokes, never imagining that he’d fall in love again but he couldn’t help it, you’re too beautiful and kind. The children love you and you’ve made his life so much better.

Your eyes widen and you look up at Pero in shock. “You- you love me?” You ask in astonishment, sure that would never happen for you. He nods and you start to cry. “I love you too Pero, I love you and our three children.”

Pero leans in to kiss you, “I love you. So much. I- I didn’t think - after Maria - you’ve brought this home, my children…me…back to life.” He murmurs and kisses your forehead. “Mi esposa, hermosa, amor. You are everything to me. I owe you the world.” He murmurs, looking down at the little boy.

Your smile is watery, but overjoyed. You had come to Spain to marry a man you didn’t know and was told that he could never love you. Now you have a beautiful son, two other children that adore you and your them, and a loving husband. Your father had chosen right. You were a family.

#pedro pascal #pero tovar #pero tovar x reader #pero tovar x you #pero tovar x f!reader #pero tovar smut #pero tovar fanfic #pero tovar the great wall #regency pero tovar x reader #regency pero tovar #tovar x you #tovar x reader #tovar x f!reader #tovar smut #tovar fanfiction #tovar imagine

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frostbitten-screams · 6 months

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hey why does nobody ever talk about how the rot seems to be like. the only other possible method of leaving the cycle. yeah yeah yeah it eats you and you respawn in-game but I believe that's just Game Mechanic and not Lore Mechanic

the rot seems to consume literally anything it can reach. metal, dirt, brick, water, meat, plant, whatever. and then it becomes part of the rot. it can never revert back (good example is hunter becoming a longlegs + the way pebbles' structure can't fix itself anymore when iterator structures are usually able to for normal damage). it becomes one with the rot until the rot dies like we eventually see in silent construct and then whatever was consumed dies alongside it. or inside it?

and the X markings on each lump that makes up a mass of rot, which just so happens to be spherical/circular, feels almost very intentional of resembling the karma 10 symbol??

maybe I am just seeing correlations where there are none but it SEEMS like the options for leaving the cycle are: get horrifically and slowly consumed by the revolting, squelching mobile embodiment of death OR crawl deep beneath the earth, give up all worldly desires and possessions, and get your body & your essence itself horrifically and slowly scrubbed away with an acid so strong it removes you from reincarnation entirely to exist fuck-knows-where. and are either of those really worth it?

#I may just be talking out my ass but ???????????#please be niceys to me I am just Having Thoughts #rain world #rain world spoilers

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ugh-yoongi · 2 months

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the very last thing i decide | pjm

(or, the one in which a love exists that's easy and instinctual as much as it is painful and self-destructive.)

✘ PAIRING jimin x f. reader ✘ SUMMARY you learn what it means to love with blood on your hands. ✘ GENRE hitman/assassin au; angst, smut ✘ RATING explicit. minors dni. ✘ WARNINGS they are both hitmen (hitpeople?) so there's all the content that goes along with that: violence, death, mentions of blood (a lot) and weapons, murder, but no explicit gore. everyone is morally grey at best and downright psychotic at worst (especially yoongi). reader gets stabbed. no one knows how to be a functional human being. swearing, smoking, light smut (penetrative & oral sex), miscommunication and unrequited love but not really, i drop a classic tumblr meme in a line of dialogue. ambiguous/hopeful ending!! some of the themes here are kinda heavy and i am not entirely sure how to tag them so if you have any questions pls don’t hesitate to ask! ✘ WORDCOUNT 12k ✘ LISTEN TO manchester orchestra - telepath ✘ THANK YOU i cannot remember everyone i’ve showed this to over the years. @the-boy-meets-evil for looking this over and brainstorming with me today. @hot-soop for always being a help. @effortandmore because you told me an embarrassingly long time ago this was worth finishing. and i’m pretty sure i also sent this to @jihopesjoint at some point too. i did a quick edit of this on my own, but after nearly three years i just wanted it posted and out of my wips so i'm sure i missed things. pls ignore them. ✘ AUTHOR'S NOTE fic drops two days in a row?? who am i?? i started this in may 2021 and it was supposed to be a simple pegging fic. i abandoned it bc i was convinced no one would want to read it. between today and yesterday i have written thousands of words and made it across the finish line. i hope you like it. the violence is a metaphor for love or whatever.

[37.5665° N, 126.9780° E | Seoul, SOUTH KOREA]

Jimin’s hair had been red the first time he met you.

How fitting, he thinks, considering he’s currently bleeding out on a table.

Well, there’s still a bit of fight left in him. He hasn’t lost consciousness yet, which he assumes is a good sign; he can still hear Hoseok barking out orders quite clearly. The edges of his vision are fuzzy and the pain in his abdomen is sharp and unrelenting, but he still has enough brain power left to wish he’d died instead.

Because you’d saved his life. And now he’s further indebted to you.

(Jimin never leaves a debt unpaid, but he’s not sure how to make even on something like this.)

Jungkook and Taehyung are fetching supplies faster than Hoseok can ask for them. Two pairs of frazzled, spaced-out eyes. Four sets of trembling limbs. Namjoon’s wearing burn marks into the floor, his cuticles bloody and nearly worried to the bone since he can’t keep them out of his mouth.

And then there’s you.

Sitting cross-legged in a chair as you scroll through your phone. Jimin’s blood is still drying on your hands, leaving smears as you drag your thumb back and forth across the screen, and this doesn’t seem to faze you one bit.

Behind you, Yoongi takes a seat at the piano and starts playing Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and Jimin simply cannot die like this. He can’t die on a wooden table in a room with a piano on which Min Yoongi is playing Baroque organ pieces.

“What is this, a fucking funeral?” Hoseok snaps, though there’s a desperation creeping into his tone that Jimin does not like, does not want to hear. “Cut it out, Yoongi.”

Said man staunchly ignores the doctor, transitioning flawlessly into the fugue. Jimin barely hears the tinkle of your laughter but he hears it all the same, and he wants to pretend it doesn’t calm him, bring him back down to earth when he starts drifting too far away. But you do, and it does, and all he can think about is: will you miss him if he dies? Will it take you long to wash his blood from your hands?

Hoseok’s absolutely incensed, pushed to the limits of his stress at the thought of not being able to save Jimin’s life, and Jimin appreciates this, really, but not when Hoseok pushes two gloved fingers deep into the wound in his stomach so hard all he can do is cry. “Yoongi—”

You snort. You don’t even look up from your phone.

Namjoon, for all his leadership and stoicism and poise under pressure, is just as frantic and panicked as the rest. It’s not everyday one of his people is inches from death ten feet away from him. Most people usually die in the shadows. Kim Namjoon has faced down death more times than most, yet watching the life slowly fade from Jimin’s eyes is too much even for him. “Yoongi, please—”

But the fugue keeps going, tempo change after tempo change, the two pillars of this organization spiraling completely by the time the coda starts, unfocused and sweating and praying. To gods they don’t believe in, to hope, to chance—whatever and whoever might be listening. Jimin usually loves hearing Yoongi play. It’s the only thing that humanizes him, and Jimin had spent so many restless nights shoulder to shoulder with him on that exact bench in the blue hours of the early morning, hypnotized by the way the older man’s knobby fingers moved across the keys.

This is it, he thinks.

Jimin’s going to die with Toccata and Fugue in D minor playing in the background.

He’s imagined his death so many times. Stupid not to in this line of work. Violent, quick and painless, in his sleep, drawn out and gory, a message. And in all of those scenarios, it’s either jarringly silent or there’s someone screaming. Usually him, sounding much like he is now, two fingers stuck in his gut. In all of those scenarios, Min Yoongi is never playing Bach as everything fades to black.

You sigh. “Shut the fuck up, Yoongi,” you say, your tone as blasé and inconvenienced as ever.

Shocked at your audacity, one of Yoongi’s fingers slips and hits the wrong key, something dissonant and metallic as it rings out. But the music stops all the same, the silence nearly giving Jimin whiplash. Now he can hear the clinkof Hoseok’s tools, the squelching of his wound, Jungkook’s desperate pleading for him to just be alright, please God, just hang on. He wants the music back. He doesn’t want Jungkook’s crying to be the last thing he hears. Doesn’t want the sound of his own organs imprinted into his memory.

“What’d you say?” Yoongi asks, because no one talks to him that way. They wouldn’t dare. Most people try not to talk to him at all.

But you do.

And, inexplicably, Yoongi listens.

You roll your eyes. “You go deaf in your old age? I said shut the fuck up. Hoseok’s two knuckles deep in Jimin’s fucking stomach and you’re over there having your little Amadeus moment.”

He bristles. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” Yoongi repeats, and Jimin can’t see him, but he knows his eyes are narrowed, lips pulled back in a snarl, fists clenched at his side.

“Oh, princess,” you coo, and Yoongi’s fury is palpable, permeates every inch of this place, overrides all the fear and anguish. “I’m talking to you, baby. I know Jiminie’s busy trying not to die and that’s stressful for all of us, but please do try to keep up.”

Jimin hears the flick of Yoongi’s switchblade. Then he hears him say, “Please let me fucking kill her,” in that lazy Daegu drawl of his, like forming full words are beneath him. Not worth the effort when they’re directed at you.

Still seated, you uncross your legs and, through blurred vision, Jimin watches you grab Yoongi by his belt loops to tug him closer, grab the wrist that holds his knife and press it to your own throat. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Yoongi. Be a good boy and make it hurt.”

Jungkook’s near hysterics at Jimin’s side. “What the fuck is wrong with you two? He’s dying!”

Jimin tries to say I’m not, Kookie, I’m okay but the pressure on his abdomen is too intense. He can barely breathe, and Hoseok’s still digging around, still looking for that stupid fucking bullet, had to do something and do it quick so there’d been very little anesthetic and finesse, and he’s silently screaming for someone to just comfort Jungkook, tell him everything’s going to be okay, but instead—

“Serves him right for being a fucking idiot,” you say, words muffled by the knife still pressed to your throat. “What a painful, permanentlesson in not forgetting your fucking vest.”

“Stop it!” Jungkook sobs, fingers ghosting along Jimin’s matted fringe.

Yoongi’s still scowling. “Just say the word, Joon-ah. I’ll make it quick.”

You actually laugh at that. The kind of full-belly laugh Jimin would kill to be able to produce. “You wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid.”

Someone snarls. Probably Yoongi. “You’d look so good gutted on the floor like a fish,” he replies, and if Jimin knows him at all, he knows he’s got that dreamy, faraway look in his eyes. The one he always gets when he’s about to kill—the one that makes him so unhinged and dangerous. “Left there to bleed out and die all alone like the trash you are.”

No one’s survived that look before, but you just grin, as if being on the receiving end of it is nothing more than another simple inconvenience. “Do it, then,” you prompt. “You’re so big and bad, yet here you are, waiting for Namjoon’s permission like some kind of pathetic fucking dog.”

“I’m no one’s dog.”

Your eyes slowly flick over to Namjoon. “No?” you ask, smile widening as Jimin watches you drag your heeled foot up the inside of Yoongi’s calf, his thigh, stiletto coming to rest in the center of his sternum. “That’s a shame, princess. That pretty neck of yours was just made for a collar.”

There’s no doubt in Jimin’s mind now that he actually died back in that penthouse and is now residing in whatever level of hell is watching you give his associate a semi despite him being a millisecond away from murdering you.

Yoongi would do it, too. No hesitation. You’ve been on his shit list for as long as Jimin can remember, and you’ve been daring him to put his money where his mouth is and just kill you already for just as long.

Taehyung groans. “Can you two just fuck already so the rest of us can be spared of this?”

You click your tongue, tone melting like butter. You’re fond of Taehyung, soft on him. “No can do, angel. Yoongi here knows I only have eyes for our Jiminie, and god does that hurt his little feelings.”

Your wicked smile gives away nothing—whether you’re telling a bold truth or just unnecessarily needling Yoongi further—but Jimin’s caught off guard and chokes on your words nonetheless.

Hoseok’s forceps still digging around in his stomach, there’s a quiet hurrah of triumph as he finally locates the bullet. Jimin feels nothing as he retrieves it and plucks it out, a reverberated clank! as he drops it into a kidney dish, your words the anesthetic he’s needed as they play on a loop in his head.

When he finally blacks out, either from the pain or the adrenaline or both, it’s your face that greets him. He never gets the chance to tell you why he forgot his vest.

[64.1466° N, 21.9426° W | Reykjavík, ICELAND]

Jimin’s hair is blue when it happens the first time.

It’s November. Namjoon has sent the two of you to Reykjavik and it’s dark all the time, the midnight hue of his hair blending into the impenetrable nighttime that surrounds you. Jimin works best like this—out of sight, part of the shadows. He’s light on his feet, lithe in ways no one else is, not even you, and he’s impossible to anticipate under the cover of darkness.

That’s why Jimin always takes care of the appetizers.

It’s your job to clean up the main course.

The two of you are two halves of the same lethal coin, working together flawlessly after years of carefully honed practice. Jimin slams an unsuspecting man’s head into a wall and you’re right behind him to put a bullet in it.

It’s just how it goes.

And he trusts you. He has to, otherwise he would’ve gotten taken out years ago. You’re not always in his line of sight, but he always feels you, senses your movements before you’re even on your feet. The times it’s gone wrong—and it’s gone wrong so many fucking times, despite how cautious and skilled the two of you are—you’re always right there to catch him before he even hits the ground. Just like a ghost, as if your only purpose in life is keeping Jimin safe and alive.

(It isn’t, but it sure feels that way.)

Tonight it’s another hit carried out in an overpriced penthouse overlooking the northern shore. You’re in and out, don’t waste a second more than you need to. Jimin doesn’t spare a glance at the carnage left behind. Nothing he hasn’t seen a hundred times before. All blood bleeds the same, but he still wonders, foolishly, if his looks different to you. If it feels wrong when it stains your hands and seeps into your clothes.

Jimin has never been covered in your blood before, but he likes to think it would.

The two of you don’t speak until you’re in the quiet safety of yet another hotel room, chain lock thrown across the door, deadbolt secured. A small arsenal of weapons is retrieved from ankles and waistbands and cleaned and packed away meticulously. Jimin’s the one who makes the call to Namjoon, tells him in code that the job’s done. You’ve barely broken a sweat, but under the fluorescent light of the bathroom, Jimin can see a small smattering of blood just along your temple when he closes the distance between you.

Someone else’s, of course.

Anyone who made you bleed your own blood wouldn’t be a quick, clean kill. Jimin would make sure of that.

There’s less to be done about the half-inch scar in the hollow of your throat—a pearlescent reminder of the twin scar he has just below his navel; a callback to the day your devilish mouth said the words Jimin can’t stop thinking about.

“No can do, angel. Yoongi here knows I only have eyes for our Jiminie.”

Maybe it’s stupidity. Maybe it’s the feral, years-long build up that’s been simmering between the two of you—low enough to keep warm, contained enough to never evolve into a rapid boil. Maybe Jimin’s just finally desperate enough to go seeking out answers to questions he’s far too scared to put a voice to.

(Really, Jimin knows it’s adrenaline. Nothing more than chemicals. The two of you high on it, heads floating above the clouds. Powerless; or, at the very least, indifferent to stop the very clear path that’s unfolding on the ground below.)

But, god, he needs to know.

Needs answers.

Needs to know if there’s even a chance you feel it, too: the magnetic ebb and flow the two of you have been dancing around for years. If you see how fondly he looks at you. If you have any idea how easy it is for him to get lost in you. If you know he’d let someone put a bullet between his eyes before he placed his life in the hands of anyone else.

Jimin knows he loves you. He’s known it for a long time, just like he knows all those other things that are second nature to him. Loving you is easy and instinctual as much as it is painful and self-destructive.

At least that’s what he’d thought. Until your devilish mouth said those devilish words and sent him into a tailspin he’s yet to recover from.

You have to feel it. God, can’t you? The way the air crackles between you. The way his skin ignites with a simple look from you. The trembling of his fingers at his sides, desperate to just reach out and touch you—fingers that have been bathed in blood, that have taken life. Fingers that now just want to graze softly across your cheekbones, catch on your bottom lip. Fingers that want to hand you the world on a silver platter. Jimin would do anything for you, give you whatever you wanted. You wouldn’t even have to ask.

Can’t you feel that?

He needs to know.

Jimin is composed, elegant. He kills with grace and still maintains as much of his softness as he can. Isn’t ruled by emotion the way Yoongi and Jungkook are. But now, as he teeters on the edge of the unknown, all he wants to do is jump. Wants to buck all his training, all his resolve and forethought, and jump.

“Did you mean it?” he asks, voice thick. Fingers curl into the expensive silk of his shirt just so they have something to do—something to keep them from reaching out and touching you. “Back in Seoul.”

You’re the smartest person Jimin knows. When you ask, “Did I mean what, Chim?” he knows you’re fucking with him. Dragging this out. You know exactly what he’s asking and he knows you’ll never give anything away so easily.

“What you said to Taehyung,” he answers.

You tsk, eyebrows raising in intrigue. As much as Jimin trusts you, as well as you know him, know all those dirty, dirty secrets he’d never tell anyone else, he’s never been so bold with you. “That those long fingers of his would look good wrapped around my throat? Yeah, I meant that.”

Jimin’s jaw clenches at your taunt. “Don’t play games with me.”

A smirk graces your lips. “Trust me, sweetheart,” you say, voice sickly-sweet as the affection starts popping at the last seams holding him together, “if I wanted to play with you, there’s nothing you could do to stop it.”

With Jimin pressed into the wall behind you, you turn to meet his eye in the mirror. Another smile, teeth bared as you run your tongue across your lips, and this one is his undoing. Makes his cock twitch in his dress pants. Makes him bold. “Do you want to, then?” He takes a step forward—close enough to smell the gunpowder stuck to your clothes, your hair. Close enough for the sulfur and metal to sting his nostrils each time he breathes you in. “Do you want to play with me?”

You love Jimin. Maybe it’s a trauma bond or the implicit, unwavering trust the two of you have in one another, but you know you love him limitlessly. But you also know you can’t love him the way he loves you, the way he deserves to be loved by someone, which is why your mask slips as you say, “I can’t give you what you want, Jimin.”

You try to make him understand that. Really, you do—because Jimin is the smartest person you know, and you know he’s thought about every possible consequence down to the most minute detail and has decided this is worth it anyway. You want to believe in something the way Jimin believes in you, even though he’s wrong. You want something worth throwing all of this away for.

Maybe it’s Jimin, maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s just been so fucking long since someone has looked at you with any gentleness in their eyes at all that when Jimin meets your gaze and says, “I don’t want anything more than you’re willing to give,” you take his hand and jump, too.

And there’s nothing gentle about the first time.

It’s all raw, urgent need, Jimin trying desperately to convince himself it’s more than it is while you convince yourself it’s less.

It’s the two of you finally giving up and giving in, letting yourselves be pulled taut by that invisible string tying you together.

It’s Jimin’s sharp intake of breath when you fully step out of your clothes, the sight rendering him immobile. Whatever plans he’d had before seeing the curves of your body, all the scars from years of working by his side, the mottled yellow-greens and purples from the bruises lining your skin—he has no plans now. Can barely think. Wouldn’t be able to tear his eyes away from you with a gun to his head.

It’s the final bricks of the wall he’d built around himself—around his heart, around all those words and feelings he’d never put a voice to—crumbling into ash at his feet. Now he knows he can’t go back. Can’t return to a reality where this isn’t his truth. Where there’s no you and him, him and you. Where it’s just a physical exchange, a give-and-take, tit for tat.

And god, he knows he shouldn’t think like this; knows he’s keeping the truth buried somewhere deep behind lock and key.

…But now that he knows how it feels to move inside you, what else is he supposed to do?

You’re everywhere. Clenched around him. Your taste on his tongue. The feel of you on the pads of his fingers. The smell of you making a mockery of all logical thought. No—no, he can’t do a goddamn thing to stop the avalanche now it’s started.

“Fuck,” he whines, fingers digging into your hips. The soft skin he finds purchase in such a contrast from your hardened exterior, but Jimin knows. He knows you, knows the person behind the mask, sees straight through you each time it slips.

What stared back at him had always been just out of reach.

Taunting him.

Screaming come and get me, come make me yours, come and fucking take what you want.

Until now.

Now it’s tangible. Now it’s breathy, fractured moans that echo off tile walls. Now it’s the sound of his name thatleaves your lips like a prayer. Now it’s the sheen of sweat that covers both of you. Now it’s nails scraping down his back, tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck.

(And Jimin won’t tell you this, but those red welts are proof that this is real, this happened, and later on when he’s alone, when his mind is working overtime, he’ll look at them and he’ll smile. Because they’re real. Because this happened.)

Now, it’s the way blue becomes his favorite color. Because he can see his reflection in the mirror as he unravels and comes to his own demise as he spills inside of you; can see the fluorescent lights reflecting off the hue of his hair.

Jimin’s hair is blue when he realizes he’s in love with you.

[34.6037° S, 58.3816° W | Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA]

Jimin is blond when Namjoon sends you to South America.

The details had been scarce: a diplomatic advisor with a rap sheet of human rights violations that have been continuously swept under the rug and his equally-corrupt lawyer. A candid photograph paperclipped to another manila folder, Namjoon a fan of all those old cliches. Likes being a little cheeky that way when he can get away with it, because god knows he can’t get away with much, doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.

It’s a simple job. You and Jimin will have it dealt with in a matter of hours. Less if you’re lucky and the universe is agreeable. But the humidity sticks to your skin, has sweat seeping into your clothes and rolling down your temples, and if there’s one thing you can’t stand it’s the heat. Makes it hard to think. And Namjoon—Namjoon, who makes sure all of his agents want for nothing—is a cheap bastard. Rarely approves nice lodging, says it’s too risky despite your arguments to the contrary, that people don’t care what you do when you have money, so you’re stuck in some shithole motel room with an aircon unit that keeps blowing out stale, warm air.

And maybe you shouldn’t, maybe you should be more cognizant of Jimin and all his feelings, but it’s fucking hot, so you peel your shirt over your head and undo the button of your pants. Sit on the edge of the bed and try to think about anything other than the temperature, how it’s starting to prick uncomfortably at your skin.

Jimin clears his throat, keeps his eyes glued to the disgusting carpet. “Got a text from Seokjin-ssi,” he says, words strained. “Looks like they’ll be solo jobs.”

You groan. Leave it to Seokjin to change the plan at the last minute. “Tell Kim Seokjin he’s a useless piece of shit.”

“Done. Anything else?”

“Tell Kim Namjoon if he ever sends us to South America in the summer again I’ll kill him myself.”

Jimin has a laugh like an anodyne. A laugh that takes all those broken, bleeding parts of you and soothes over them like a balm. “Seokjin-ssi says he’s not passing along that particular message.”

“Tell him he’s a bitch, then.”

“He’ll kill me if I say that.”

“He hasn’t done field work in years and he’s probably too vitamin D deficient to leave the basement. He couldn’t even kill a fucking rat.”

There’s another laugh. More forced, less tinkling. You recognize it right away, the sound of anxiety. Solo jobs aren’t common for the two of you. For Yoongi and Taehyung, sure, but not you and Jimin. You’re a team for a reason, and though you’re more than capable of getting this done and out of the way, it doesn’t feel right. Settles in your gut like something rotten, knowing you’ll be without Jimin.

And you know he’s thinking it, too. How he turns the burner over and over in his hands, as if there’s some combination of words he can send back to Seoul to get Seokjin and Namjoon to reconsider. Plans don’t change often; not like this, anyway. These have been declared solos for a reason, and that’s a thought you can’t linger on too long.

“Are they leaving it up to us?” Jimin nods, still not meeting your eye. “Do you have a preference?”

He shrugs, tossing the phone on the small table in the corner. Nothing else to be done. “Not really. What do you think?”

“Nah, don’t care, either. Just toss me one.”

Santiago Aguirre… 47 years old… Resides in a high-rise luxury apartment in Retiro…

Your eyes skim the file, study the black and white photograph of the lawyer. Read over the list of all his high-profile, degenerate clients and all their high-profile crimes. You read about the previous attempts on his life, the seemingly never-ending list of people who want him dead. Your eyes go back to his photograph, frowning at the smug look on his face. What stares back at you is a man who thinks he’s invincible, who thinks a penthouse apartment on the top floor and a security team in the lobby means he’s impervious to harm. A man who has made money off people just like him: dirty, corrupt, hands stained red.

“Okay?” Jimin asks, looking up from his own file.

He’s so striking. So safe. And you know what he’s done, giving you the hit he thinks is easier, willing to risk himself on a solo mission to ensure you make it out. There’s no guarantees in this line of work, in life in general, but Jimin’s brand of selfless love is certainly one.

So you just nod, knowing someone slimy like this can quickly go sideways, and decide you can do the same.

“I’m gonna get ready,” you say. “The plan is the same as all the other solo jobs. Get in, get it done, get out as quickly as possible. Lay low. Don’t come straight back here.”

Jimin rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Anything else?”

You exhale. Try to quiet the nerves roiling in your stomach. Barely resist the urge to press a lingering kiss to Jimin’s forehead before you swallow hard and say, “Yeah. Stay alive.”

It comes out more like a plea.

—

You’re good at your job.

Rarely feel much guilt over it, either, which—well, you’re not sure what that means. That something is permanently broken in your psyche, probably. Being able to take life so easily and without remorse. It’s not natural.

Kim Namjoon is a man who plays God, is the one who decides who gets to live and who has to die. His word is the only law you adhere to. And that’s… that’s something. Makes it less burdensome, takes some weight off, because Kim Namjoon wouldn’t accept a morally-ambiguous job. He wouldn’t ask you to put your life on the line for some petty bullshit.

This is how you’ve lived for the last four years. Four years of blindly following Namjoon’s word, of being a good little soldier and doing whatever is asked of you. Four years of being responsible for not only your own life, but Jimin’s as well, just as he is for yours. Four years that have served you well, all things considered.

Until now.

Something about this job hits you hard. Doesn’t settle quite as quickly as the ones that have come before. For the first time, you’d looked down at the lifeless body at your feet and couldn’t stop the trembling, could barely quell the nausea. Thought what the fuck am I doing, what kind of life is this for the first time. Thought back to that day four years ago when Kim Namjoon saved your life and offered you a job and wondered, for the first time, what would’ve happened if you’d said no.

Now, as you suck on a cigarette, legs dangling off the roof of a building looking not far from collapse, a new thought:

Would Namjoon let you go if you asked?

He’s taken care of you. For four years you’ve wanted for nothing. Have socked away more money than you’ll ever be able to spend, even if you live to a thousand. You could go anywhere, become anyone, and no one would suspect a thing. There’d just be you and a million lifetimes’ worth of transgressions, alone under the weight of all that burden; alone, except for all the ghosts that come to greet you every time you close your eyes.

Doesn’t matter. Namjoon might be willing to let you go, give you the chance to salvage something from this life in the name of normalcy, but Yoongi would gladly put a bullet in your head before he let you disappear with all his secrets.

Doesn’t matter.

You stub out the cigarette and put the butt in your pocket. Make your way down to the street. Stay under the shadows—just visible enough to redirect any suspicion shot your way. You pretend to take a call, flawless Argentinian Spanish falling from your lips as you tell the imaginary person on the other end all about your fucked up day at work. How your manager never gets off your ass, doesn’t trust you, thinks you’re too fucking stupid to run a simple executable.

No one spares you a second glance.

Not here, on this nondescript street in a nondescript Argentinian neighborhood, and not when you stumble into the tiny lobby of your shithole motel. The poor kid behind the desk doesn’t even glance up, just mutters a good evening, miss under his breath that you return in a voice far too high-pitched to be your own.

Better to be seen and be unremarkable than draw attention to yourself trying to stay invisible, you figure.

The cameras in the stairwell are broken so you take the steps two at a time. Pull the room key from its place inside your boot, happy to no longer have it digging into your skin. Pause just long enough to make sure you don’t hear anything on the other side of the door before you’re unlocking it with your free hand wrapped around the trigger of your gun.

It’s empty.

Of course it is.

Jimin stashed the burner in a place no one but you would think to look. You text one simple word to Seokjin—Hey!—and you get two in return: Who’s this?

You know who it is, you fucking dickhead.

It takes a few seconds, but the reply is a simple—

Sorry.

Then you toss aside the phone and float in the darkness of the room. There’s nothing to do but wait, because you don’t dare to do anything alone. There’s sweat and blood and fuck knows what else stuck to your skin, your hair, but you can’t risk taking a shower. Can’t risk the water dampening your senses. Can’t risk being cornered in a moldy bathroom, only one way out. Can’t risk doing anything alone. Can’t take a fucking shower.

It’s this thought, more than anything else, that has your body flushing with rage.

What kind of life is this?

Namjoon had never mentioned repaying your debt. He’d never insinuated you owed him anything at all for saving your life, but you know something like that never comes for free. Namjoon doesn’t do anything just because. Has no goodness in his heart to do anything in the name of it. Watching Jimin nearly die in front of him had been the exception to his usual nature; a rare slip-up by an otherwise detached, uncaring man.

Still, whatever you owe him has surely been repaid by now. Tenfold, if the bloodstains along your collar are anything to go by.

It’s time for Namjoon to let you go.

—

Something is wrong.

Two hours have ticked by and there’s no word from Jimin. No word from Namjoon or Seokjin, either, which is the only reason you’re still in this nauseating motel room and not out on the streets searching for him. Solo jobs don’t go like this. The two of you are always in and out, tragically efficient. Back to where you started and then back on a plane, nothing left behind except a singular bullet hole and another fragmented piece of your conscience.

You’ve had a lot of jobs go wrong, but never two hours.

You’re about three minutes from coming out of your skin. Sick to your stomach with worry, anxiety weighing you down like an anchor. You wouldn’t be able to go out searching for Jimin like this even if you could, and there’s no point in dwelling on that, examining it further. All you can do is wait.

It’s another hour before you hear the click of the lock. You’re nearly on your knees in relief, but you stay rooted to the flimsy mattress. Try not to think about how you’ll have to sleep on it, even though you’ll be up half the night with residual worry. All those lingering ghosts.

Jimin doesn’t say anything, so neither do you.

[55.6761° N, 12.5683° E | Copenhagen, DENMARK]

Jimin’s hair is orange when you go to Copenhagen.

Not for a job, just to breathe. You wanted to see the city at Christmastime; Jimin’s never been.

You crack a joke. Point out buildings of similar color, have him stand in front of one as you take a picture. Everyone smiles when they pass the two of you on the street, Jimin’s eyes fond even though he rolls them as you pose him how you want. Still stands against an apricot-colored wall and flashes a smile and a peace sign, cheeks pink from the cold. Does a good job of pretending the two of you aren’t here just for fun, that this is something more.

It’s not.

The two of you fucked in a hotel room in Reykjavik and haven’t spoken a word of it since.

You nearly lost your mind over him in Buenos Aires and haven’t spoken a word of that, either.

Instead, his hand finds yours as the two of you walk around Tivoli Gardens. You marvel at the lights and Jimin marvels at you. You share mulled wine and spiced doughnuts. Jimin tries to drag you on the swings but you plant your feet and refuse, laughing through your refusals. As dangerous as your lives are, motion sickness might be the most. He gets his revenge and poses you in front of a giant nutcracker, then again in front of one of the endless Christmas trees.

Jimin pays for the two of you to decorate honey cakes. You’re surrounded by families with shrieking children and palpable adoration, and it’s all you can do not to wonder if anyone you’ve taken out had ever had something like this. Something that makes your soul warm; something that still lingers in your bones years later.

The two of you take a selfie when it starts to snow. It stings when you have no one to send it to, so it just lives in your phone. Maybe it’s enough.

On another day, Jimin holds your hand through Torvehallerne. This time you marvel at him while he marvels at all the food, eyes wide each time he turns to ask if he should buy something. You always say yes and he always shares, and it’s all you can do not to think about why you don’t have to budget yourselves. Why you’re able to walk through the market and buy whatever you want; how you could buy every item for sale and it wouldn’t make a dent.

(You pick up small trinkets for Taehyung and Jungkook. Not because you want to, but because it feels nicer than remembering that you have no one to buy gifts for. Not really. Not anymore.)

Jimin wants to ice skate, so you do. He holds your hand then, too. More out of necessity than anything else, and he has none of his usual grace. Someone hands you a free cup of hot chocolate, just because. Jimin pouts and then it’s his hot chocolate. It’s all you can do not to kiss away the whipped cream on the corner of his mouth.

Back in your lavish hotel, after countless days have blurred together and Jimin’s fresh from a shower, skin flushed, you finally ask yourself if it’s worth putting up such a fight. If it’s really all that bad to care for Jimin and be cared for in return. If it’s all that bad to be someone else, just for a little while: someone with a normal life who makes a normal living and has a normal capability to love. Someone who isn’t damaged beyond repair.

That will never be you. Not fully, and certainly not in this lifetime, but maybe it could be, a little.

“Jimin,” you say, because you need to try. Jimin loves you in ways you’ll never understand, and you want to be better for him. “We should talk.”

Your voice is small and hesitant, and Jimin hates it. Sees trouble where there’s only vulnerability, so he misreads. Shakes his head. Takes a risk and stands between your legs at the edge of the bed—yours, because there’s two—as he tilts your head back, thumbs pressing into the contours of your cheeks. The scar still sits in the hollow of your throat, and that version of you feels so far away. That life feels so far away.

There’s no violence here. There’s no blood, no fugues. There’s just you and Jimin, whose voice is small like yours when he shakes his head and says, “You should kiss me instead.”

The second time is nothing like the first.

Jimin moves delicately. Feels like silk lace, tastes like spun sugar. Moves both his mouth and his body fluidly, no hesitation, yet he still takes his time. Still pauses to look at you with endless devotion; with awed reverence. Makes a map of your body and marks all his favorite places with his lips.

“Tell me what you want,” he says. Speaks the words against the skin just beneath your ear. “Anything. I’ll give you whatever you want, just have to ask.”

What you want isn’t tangible, isn’t possible, so you stay quiet. Thread your fingers through Jimin’s hair, gasp when he mouths along the column of your throat. Jimin reserves all his softness for you. Bathes you in it. Would kill anyone to keep it that way.

So you say, “Want your mouth,” and let slip a quiet moan when he gives you what you’ve asked for. When he situates himself between your thighs and sucks and licks until you’re writhing, making a mess, grasping fruitlessly at the sheets, his hair, his shoulders, only calming when his hands find yours and your fingers interlock.

Jimin mouths at you until you’re trembling. Until you’re needy and desperate, hips moving on their own, fucking yourself against his face. Until nothing exists except the heat in your belly, the stars behind your eyelids, the heady, fucked-out sound of Jimin’s voice as he talks you through it, murmurs praise against your cunt.

Jimin mouths at you until you forget.

This isn’t your life. This is not something you can have.

But, in the grand scheme of things, what does it matter? You’ve made peace with death, and there’s only one of two ways it’s going to come for you in the end: by Namjoon’s hand or someone else’s. So what does it matter?

This time, Jimin fucks you slow. Kisses you with your taste still in his mouth. Thumbs over a hardened nipple just to see what earns him a reaction, and what you truly want is more time—something else that’s impossible.

Jimin’s hair is orange when you think you might be in love with him.

[ 48.8566° N, 2.3522° E | Paris, FRANCE ]

Jimin’s hair is pink when—

“Sit,” he says, gesturing to the toilet.

Soaks a washcloth in warm water. Wrings it out. Stands in front of you, and there’s water dripping onto the floor and Jimin doesn’t care, doesn’t seem to see anything in this moment except for you, your hands covered in someone else’s blood, and he reaches out, gently grabs your wrist. Palm up. Someone else’s blood. Everything smells like copper and iron. Looks too surreal beneath the fluorescent lights of this hotel bathroom for your mind to make sense of it.

There is care in the way Jimin cleans your hands. There is tenderness in the way he both refuses to see what you really are and the way he’s the only one to ever see you so entirely, when you look down at the blood he’s washing away and all you can see is stigmata. When all you see is sin.

“I know you don’t love me,” he says, and there is a conviction in his words that stuns you into silence. “Not the way I love you, anyway.”

That tenderness is still there as he says this. As he presses the wet fabric into the meat of your palm, wipes the stains away, and the warmth is as calming as it is undeserved. It feels like something forbidden. It feels like salvation and condemnation all at once, like whatever sick depravity permeates you is contagious, will take over Jimin, too, just from touching you.

Jimin is close enough to reach out and touch. Close enough to see the violence that he exists in alongside you: the rips in his clothes, the scars that decorate his skin. Close enough to know he smells sickly-sweet, just like death. Your hand shakes as it reaches for him and never follows through. Doesn’t want to contaminate him.

“I do,” you finally say. Whatever is in your voice is not conviction. “I can’t.” You suck in a breath, try to steady your breathing. This is where it all comes crashing down, you think, because in all the years you’ve done Namjoon’s bidding, you’ve never cried. You can take life so freely and without thought, but you cannot love Jimin. “Someone like me isn’t capable of it.”

Jimin pauses, the washcloth stuck in the space between your ring and middle fingers. “And who is someone like you?”

Water is still dripping to the floor. Serosanguineous: blood tainting something untouched. Not something one thing or another but both, watery-pink. Looks like Jimin’s hair. “I’ve killed a lot of people,” you answer. “More than I can count. More than I can name. More than the ones that come to haunt me at night.” Your free hand moves to your chest, covers your heart. “There’s nothing here, Jimin. I’m not sure there ever was.”

The washcloth drops to the floor, and all that blood belonging to a man whose name you never bothered to learn before you put a bullet between his eyes finds a new place to rest. “I think,” he begins, clasping your unclean hand in his own, voice dropping to a whisper, “you forget, sometimes.” You gasp as he places your palm to his cheek, drags it across his face, smears a stranger’s blood across his skin. “That we’re the same.”

Jimin is always overwhelming, but the love he has for you is even more so. It consumes you entirely, embeds itself beneath your skin, makes a home, would tear you apart, body and soul, to return to him.

[ 47.4979° N, 19.0402° E | Budapest, HUNGARY ]

Jimin’s hair is lavender when it all goes to shit.

“You’re being followed.”

Seokjin’s voice is garbled through the earpiece, tinny and metallic, and you roll your eyes. Some things don’t need to be said, because you’ve known someone was following you for the last three blocks. Average height, black peacoat, close-cropped haircut. Not the kind of person that’d stand out here, and that’s exactly why you’d sent Jimin in the other direction.

“No shit,” you respond in Hungarian, because you already know the man following you doesn’t speak or understand it. “Give me somewhere to go.”

It takes Seokjin a few moments to run the translation. “There’s a side street up on your right,” he answers. “It’s tight, but there’s an alleyway at the end. You can buy some time if you’re quick.”

“Where’s Jimin?”

You pass a vendor selling lángos and duck into the street behind the stall. Just as Seokjin had said, there’s a small alleyway up on the left, and your footfall is near-silent as you break into a sprint to reach it. “Safe,” is all Seokjin says.

You take a second to steady your breathing, knowing you’re good on time—the man following you was close enough to know where you’d turned, but, if you’re lucky, not much after that. That plays on a loop: if you’re lucky, if you’re lucky, if you’re lucky. What is luck, what does it look like, in a life left entirely to chance? In a life with no guarantees?

You tuck yourself away, focus on Seokjin’s metallic breaths. Think about his basement in Seoul, why he’s in it. Ask, “What happened in Addis Ababa?” because it feels important to know.

There’s not much you know about Seokjin’s life. Whatever happened in Ethiopia had been before your time, reduced to hushed whispers and gossip fodder after your arrival. No one spoke of it, Seokjin especially, but every now and then something would slip in the same way weeds grow in sidewalk cracks.

A job gone wrong. A bombing at the consulate with Seokjin inside.

His reply is simple, words spoken carefully: “I loved someone once, too.”

He can’t see it, but you nod nonetheless; an answer that doesn’t require a response, because you know. It’s enough to fill in the rest. What Seokjin’s trauma looks like. Why he doesn’t do field work anymore. Why he prefers the solitude of the basement, rarely a sound beyond the electric thrum of the server racks.

Who had gone in to retrieve him, and why Yoongi has the scar over his eye.

“You loved someone,” you conclude, “and he would’ve been willing to die for you.”

“Yes,” Seokjin says, and it’s like the word’s been punched out of him. Sounds like something repressed, something left to rot in the darkest corner of the world.

Love, to Seokjin, looks and sounds the same as death.

“I think most people spend their entire lives searching for a love like that,” he continues, and if you could see him you think he might look dazed, off-kilter. You think he might be an avatar. Seokjin is prying his ribcage apart, unwrapping the barbed wire from his heart, saying I once was in love and this is all I know of it. “But, to me, in this life, it’s a prison. Once someone is willing to die for you, how do you keep them alive? How do you—I kissed that skin. I worshiped it. I pressed my lips to it with whatever softness was left in me. How do you look at that same skin and know you’re the reason it’s mangled?” He exhales, all tremor. “You can’t. You can’t.”

You know this all too well. You know what it feels like to look at Jimin and know, intrinsically and subconsciously, that you wouldn’t even hesitate. You’d take and give life to keep him alive and safe. You know that when you exit this world at someone else’s hand his face is the last thing you want to see.

You know it’s a liability.

You know it’s a target painted on your back. Between your eyes.

You know there’s nothing left to say, that this particular conversation has run its course. The two of you sit in an amicable silence, and you hope Seokjin can hear the life that surrounds you, however mundane. Hope he can hear the lángos vendor trying to hawk his goods; hope he can hear a city 8,000 kilometers away; hope he can hear these regular, everyday people going about their lives and remember there’s hope beyond his four walls.

I think you’d like it here, you think, but you don’t dare to say it aloud.

Time passes in a meaningless blur. Could be minutes, could be hours. No one’s come to kill you, so you reckon you’ve long since been in the clear. And maybe it speaks to Seokjin’s idea that love is a prison, because you know something’s happened to Jimin long before Seokjin speaks it into existence.

You’re up and out of the alleyway before you’re told to move. Have no idea where you’re going, but you’re racing through the streets of Budapest with a panic you haven’t ever felt in your life. Feels like quicksand; feels like molasses; feels like you have to wade through all the blood you’ve spilled, now congealed, to get to him.

“Where am I going?” you demand. Your lungs are on fire. In the split-second of silence it becomes a desperate scream. “Seokjin, tell me where the fuck I’m going!”

“The—fuck, the wa-warehouse up on your right.” You can’t think about why he’s crying. “I don’t—I don’t know wha-what’s there, you need to be careful. Please, you have to—”

Twenty seconds and you’ll be there, you’ll be with Jimin, you just need to keep running. You need to keep your head on straight. Remember your training. Remember you’ve built a life in a viper pit.

A man in a uniform is unloading a shipment around the back of the building. Faces away from you, bent at the waist. Takes very little effort to smash his head into the stone exterior and knock him unconscious, pocket his badge. You can’t get stupid now. Tell Seokjin to make sure all the cameras are cut, ask what floor when you shut yourself inside the freight elevator, unwilling to take the stairs and run into anyone who might be waiting. All the way to the top, he says, so all the way to the top you go.

—

Over the course of your life, you’ve made peace with death. Have stared it in the eye more times than you can count. Have dealt it out, evaded it, shook its hand.

You are wholly unprepared for the sight that greets you.

Red. Everything is red—the walls, the floor, what used to be a beautiful parquet pattern in the wood. In the center of the room: two bodies, maybe three. Not much that’d be able to identify them beyond a pile of teeth, no saying whose is whose. Slaughterhouse scraps.

And this is not—Jimin doesn’t work this way. Isn’t his MO. Jimin’s kills are elegant and neat, topped with a bow. What you see before you is ultraviolence. It is unhinged, it is fury, it is a complete loss of control. It’s what love looks like to Jimin, because he sits at the very edge of a rotted chair, legs crossed. Face streaked with blood, clothes covered in it.

“Jimin,” you say, because what else is there?

He tilts his head to the side, smirks a little, looks at you beneath his lashes. Eyes that used to find you across a room and calm you. Eyes that have locked onto you in the throes of pleasure. Eyes you’ve seen yourself reflected in, bathed in love and adoration.

Eyes that now contain nothing.

“Jimin, what the fuck happened?”

He removes his gloves with his teeth and doesn’t flinch away from the taste of iron. “They said they hurt you,” he states simply, “so I did what needed to be done.”

“What—” Nausea claws at your throat; for the first time, it’s all too much. This isn’t Jimin. This isn’t your Jimin, who smiled as you posed him against apricot walls in Copenhagen, who took a bullet to the stomach to protect you and never, ever told you. This is not the Jimin who wasted the last of his goodwill on loving you. “What did you do?” you whisper.

He rises to full height and it makes you flinch. You are scared of Jimin for the first time in your life: scared of who he is in this moment, what he’s capable of. And he sees it, lets that brand of anguish overtake him. Reaches for you before he decides against it and lets his hand drop to his side. Says, “I would never hurt you,” as if the words could brand themselves into your skin so you’d never forget.

“No, you’d just—” You squeeze your eyes shut. Don’t think about how one of the men nearly embedded into the floor was the one trailing you earlier.

Instead, you think about Seokjin: Once someone is willing to die for you, how do you keep them alive? You think about: How do you look at that same skin and know you’re the reason it’s mangled? You think about: In this life, it’s a prison.

You drop to your knees. Let the blood seep through your clothes and into your skin, undeserving of shying away from it.

Namjoon should’ve let you go.

You think about the men in front of you. Who they were, who they loved. The grief all of this is going to leave behind, and it becomes impossible to breathe. You grasp at your throat, think about all the times you’ve been strangled and who’d been there to cut the rope. There is no limit to Jimin’s devotion, and you understand now, how it drove Yoongi to madness. How he loved someone so much he would’ve retrieved their corpse from a building and how that same person can no longer bear to look at the damage they’d caused.

“This isn’t love, Jimin,” you choke out.

He stands in front of you. Stigmata. You’re worshiping at the altar of some kind of devil. At least his hands are clean when he places his fingers beneath your chin, forces you to look up at him. “What is it, then?”

“Destruction.”

A quiet huff of cruel laughter. “See, this is the difference between me and you, darling.” He takes back his hand, runs it through his blood-streaked hair, and your chin sags to your chest without his support. “Because I already knew that. Because I have destroyed myself every single day loving you.” He squats down, eye-level, and he says, “I need you to listen to me when I say this, sweetheart: you do not love me the way I love you, because I would do worse. When it comes to you, there is nothing on this earth I would not destroy to keep you safe.”

He clears his throat. Collects whatever’s in his mouth and spits onto one of the bodies. “If this is enough to have you tucking your fucking tail between your legs, then go, because this doesn’t even scratch the fucking surface.”

You can’t bring yourself to say anything, and sometimes that says it all.

Jimin presses a kiss to the top of your head. Makes a call. Cleaners will be here soon, he says, better get going.

You watch him go.

[ 37.5665° N, 126.9780° E | Seoul, SOUTH KOREA ]

Jimin’s hair is black when Namjoon calls the meeting.

He takes the seat across from Namjoon’s desk because they don’t meet like this often. Assignments are usually manila folders slipped under doors, hushed whispers in hallways confirmed with a nod or a text on a burner phone. Assignments are not last-minute assemblies in conference rooms and offices.

But the way Namjoon is looking at him, with his clenched jaw and a gaze that’s meant to look barbed to anyone who doesn’t actually know him—Jimin doesn’t need to ask what this is about.

Had he bothered to look, he would’ve known by the way you stood in the far corner of the room, face obscured by the mid-afternoon shadows. Yoongi’s close to you, for some reason: dressed head to toe in black, perched on a lateral file cabinet, using a metal corner to sharpen his switchblade. Just like a harbinger of death. Some sort of fucked up omen, a warning that’s come too late.

Didn’t I tell you this would end badly, he hears Yoongi taunt in his head. This is what happens when you lay with trash.

Easy for Yoongi to say when he doesn’t know what it means to be cared for by you. Doesn’t know how it feels to give in to the freefall and plummet at your feet, stripped back and laid bare. Doesn’t know how it feels to kiss secrets into your skin like constellations, to map his tongue along every unspoken confession.

Easy for Yoongi to say, because he doesn’t have to survive the aftermath. Doesn’t have to feel the heartbreak, the agony of having you and watching as you slip through his fingers. Yoongi doesn’t have to struggle just to breathe, doesn’t have to endure the nights staring at the ceiling, watching as the daylight creeps into the corners of his vision. Doesn’t have to watch you looking so unaffected.

“Jimin.” Namjoon’s tone is flat, needlelike.

Behind him, Yoongi chuckles lowly. “What?” Jimin asks, his gaze trained on the painting behind Namjoon’s head. Looks like one he’d seen in Berlin, the time the two of you had gone just because and spent an afternoon ducking in and out of museums to escape the rain.

When he closes his eyes, he still sees the raindrops stuck to your eyelashes. The beads of water rolling off the sleeves of your leather jacket. How blinding your smile had been. The laughter in your voice as you ordered beer after beer after beer for the two of you in flawless Berlinisch. A brief, fleeting glimpse at normalcy. At the kind of life the two of you could have if you were just… different. Lived different lives. Were different people.

“You’ve gotten sloppy.”

Namjoon’s words are a cold bucket of water. Snap him back to reality, yank him back to the present where he’s forced to leave those river-lined streets behind. You’re silent and Yoongi’s still snorting laughter. “Okay,” is all Jimin can bring himself to say.

Jin had gotten sloppy once, too, and Namjoon stuck him down in the basement to work logistics. Might not be so bad, Jimin reckons. He’d be away from you, spared of this fucking misery. “So you know that’s unacceptable.”

Jimin just shrugs, resigned to his fate, whatever it may be. “I’m reassigning the both of you,” Namjoon continues. “You’ll both have new partners for your next assignments, since you clearly can no longer be trusted together.”

“Who?” Jimin manages to choke out.

Namjoon raises an eyebrow, clearly having expected an argument. “You’re being sent to Shanghai with Jungkook. You,” he says, turning his attention to you, “are going to Moscow with Taehyung.”

She’s fond of Taehyung, Jimin wants to say. But you’d been fond of him too, once upon a time, and that’d only ended in heartbreak, so who fucking cares.

They’re cruel, the tricks Jimin’s mind plays on him. How he convinces himself you look pained. How his fingers wring together at the thought of entrusting his life in the hands of someone else, someone new. At your life being just as at stake; at Taehyung being tasked with keeping you alive. Would you die for him, too, the way you’d always told Jimin you would for him? Would Taehyung take a bullet to the stomach to keep you safe the way Jimin had?

Even more cruel is the way you scoff, pushing yourself off of the wall as you fold your arms across your chest and say, “That’s bullshit, Kim Namjoon.”

No one talks to Namjoon that way except you.

Yoongi’s knife stops twirling. Just like a bird sensing a storm, senses on high-alert as he flicks his gaze over to you. “I’m sorry?” Namjoon says. “What part of Jimin losing his mind and nearly outing all of us seems like bullshit to you?”

“Hm, let me think,” you retort, a manicured finger tapping against the hollow of your cheek. “The part where you’re reassigning me for someone else’s mistake?”

Which part was the mistake? Jimin wants to ask. Needs to know how much you regret. Was sleeping with you the mistake? Falling in love with you? Getting too caught up in all these daydreams and letting reality get away from him?

“This organization is more important than Park Jimin getting his goddamn dick wet,” Namjoon snaps. “Keeping all of you safe—keeping you alive—is more—”

You scoff. Take an entire container of gasoline and pour it right on top of Namjoon’s flammable ire. “Then perhaps you’d be so kind as to explain to me why Min fucking Yoongi can fuck damn near everyone in this establishment, yet I have to sit here and listen to your goddamn mouth—”

Jimin doesn’t think Yoongi even knows his arm is moving.

There’d just been the trading of barbed words. His own name being spoken into the ether. Yoongi’s arm moving away from his body, switchblade clasped tightly between his fingers as he plunges it into your flesh.

Jimin watches it puncture your arm in slow motion. Feels the bile in his throat, the heat in his belly. Looks first at Namjoon whose jaw has gone slack, skin pale, as he stammers over words that won’t come. Then he looks at Yoongi—expects to find shock or guilt but finds only a muted disinterest and flared nostrils.

Finally, he looks at you. Watches the white cotton sleeve of your shirt slowly turn red and sticky-wet. Watches as your lips move around syllables and vowels and consonants Jimin can’t decipher.

“—fucking piece of shit, this is my favorite shirt! I’ll never get all this goddamn blood out of it—”

Jimin thinks he hears Yoongi say you deserve it. But Jimin isn’t really thinking much as he clambers out of his chair and moves in Yoongi’s direction. Doesn’t think at all as he lets instinct take over, lets adrenaline steer him headfirst into yet another bad idea.

He’s always known there’d come a day he’d be face-to-face with the sight of your blood. Had always known it’d come from someone else’s hand. Had always promised himself that hurting you would be the last thing anyone ever did.

Jimin has his fingers wrapped around Yoongi’s throat and he finally understands it—the joy Yoongi finds in taking life.

“What’s the matter, Jimin-ah?” Yoongi taunts. Jimin tightens his grip. Suddenly hates that fucking scar across Yoongi’s eye. “You’re never on clean-up duty. Always make your girlfriend do the dirty work. Finally grew some fucking balls, huh?”

“Fuck you,” Jimin says stupidly. Can’t think of anything more to say. Not that he needs to. Wrapping your hands around someone’s throat sends enough of a message, he thinks.

Namjoon’s still tongue-tied as you yank Yoongi’s blade from your arm, immediately pressing your other hand over the wound to stem the bleeding. The sight of your blood is making Jimin dizzy; the smell of the iron hanging in the air. All he wants to do is choke the life out of the man in front of him, but more than that, he just wants to hold your hand. Wants to comfort you, even though he knows you don’t need it. Not from him, not from anyone, but he still wants to. Wants to press his lips to the sweat at your brow.

And Yoongi can see it, too, because he starts laughing. It’s an odd, fractured noise. Jimin isn’t sure if he’s ever heard him laugh before, decides he also hates the way it sounds. Feels all wrong watching it leave his crooked smirk. Makes Jimin’s stomach plummet to the ground.

“Oh, you’re fucked, aren’t you?” Yoongi teases around Jimin’s slackened grip. “You weren’t just fucking her, you’re in love with her.”

Weird how Jimin is the one with his hands around someone’s neck and feels like he’s the one suffocating.

[ 31.2304° N, 121.4737° E | Shanghai, CHINA ]

Jimin watches the life drain from an innocent woman’s face and feels nothing.

Jimin watches Jungkook cut a man down and feels even less.

When it’s over, he cleans up wordlessly and doesn’t eat for three days.

[ 37.5665° N, 126.9780° E | Seoul, SOUTH KOREA ]

Jimin’s hair has faded to brown by the time he returns from Shanghai.

The more complicated job had gone to you and Taehyung. Jimin had tried not to take it personally. The Russian hits are always unnecessarily violent and Jungkook still isn’t fully trained. There’s still a phantom pain in Jimin’s stomach that warns him of the consequences of taking on more than he can chew. So, sure, Shanghai had gone fine, but his mind had been nearly 7,000 kilometers away the entire time.

Good thing he’d returned to Seoul unscathed, too, because he’s sure Namjoon would’ve eliminated him without a moment’s hesitation if he’d fucked up again.

But Shanghai had only served to prove the leader right. Jimin can’t work with you anymore. Can’t focus, can’t stomach the violence, can’t keep his goddamn head on straight.

He sighs as he glances at Jungkook to his right. Jimin had watched him murder two men in cold blood not even thirty-six hours ago and now he’s doe-eyed and sucking down his third banana milk of the morning. It really makes his head spin, being paired with this grown-up infant of a man now instead of you, but for all of Jungkook’s apparent shortcomings, he’d kept Jimin alive. He isn’t dead.

And then you walk in with Taehyung and he wishes he was.

Because you’re laughing and Taehyung’s got his arm slung around your shoulder and you look happy. It’s the kind of happiness that should be contagious, bloom warmth in his chest, but it doesn’t. It just takes the last frayed strand of hope he has and sets flame to it.

You don’t look like you miss Jimin at all. Don’t look like you’ve lost sleep or skipped meals.

“Didn’t take you long, did it?” Jimin says, because he’s wounded and lashing out. Not because he means it.

You must know he doesn’t, too, because you don’t react. “Watch your mouth, Park Jimin,” Taehyung warns, because he doesn’t know, and this only sets Jimin off more. You don’t need defending. Or had you, and Jimin had simply thought it wasn’t his place to provide it? That you wouldn’t want it?

“Or what, Kim Taehyung?”

Taehyung is cherubic. It’s part of his charm, one of many reasons why he’s so effective. If you’re looking to die, you look for the guy who looks like Yoongi, not the one who smiles wide and warm like Taehyung. So when he sets his jaw and pokes his tongue into his cheek and says, “Or I’ll cut your fucking head off, you stupid fuck,” your attention is finally piqued.

“I’m so sick of this,” Jungkook wails, banana milk tossed carelessly in the trash. “All of you need to get your fucking shit together!”

Taehyung rolls his eyes at the same time you pretend to inspect your nails. “Is that why you’re so temperamental, Chim?” Taehyung prods, looking every bit the pretentious, murderous angel he is. “Because you got sent to China on a babysitting mission while the grownups did real work?”

“Fuck you,” Jungkook snaps, rising to full height. “I’m not a fucking child.”

“Oh? Could’ve fooled me.” Taehyung’s words are razor-sharp and smell like kerosene. “Tell me, then: were you on babysitting duty? Had to look after our precious little Jiminie while he nursed his broken heart?”

You sigh, full of faux-exasperation, and place a gentle hand on Taehyung’s forearm. Dig your nails in just enough to be a warning, and if Jimin hadn’t been looking he’d miss it: the way Taehyung deflates instantly, anger dissipating like smoke, back in control. Just because you’d touched him. Just because you were there. Jimin knows that touch, how it feels to be under your control, and it makes his chest ache. Makes everything feel like it’s sitting wrong in his stomach, and he’s either going to be sick all over Namjoon’s overpriced fucking rug or wrap his hands around Taehyung’s throat the way he’d done to Yoongi.

He’s out of his goddamned mind; he feels untethered. Helpless. Like it was always going to end like this, and maybe Jimin knew that and had just ignored it. Maybe now he’s paying the price—maybe he’s finally found something he can’t afford.

Jungkook’s still going off, nasty gaze set on Taehyung because he’s the only one playing along. They’re exchanging words Jimin can’t make heads nor tails of. Words he doesn’t care about. Words that ring empty and hollow because they sound nothing like the way you say his name. Shapeless, unlike the way your lips move around those syllables.

“Jimin,” you say, the sound finally registering and bringing him back down to earth. All he can do is stare. “Can we talk?” Taehyung and Jungkook are still trading barbs.

Wonders how he got here. Looks around the room and wonders if each and every one of them is destined for this same fate, this madness. Wants to tell you why he forgot his vest, why he was three hours late in Argentina. Wants to grovel and beg and leave this place and never look back.

More than anything, he wants to know what it feels like to actually be human.

So he shakes his head. Tries not to be haunted by the way your face falls at the rejection.

There is a scar on his abdomen and a scar on your arm that both tell the same story. There is a man in the basement who is in love with a man above ground and is too weighed down by guilt to do anything about it. There is a man here who plays god, has soldiers to do his bidding, and there is very little here that Jimin has only for himself.

The two of you will have that conversation, but he needs to be human, first.

[ 34.6901° N, 135.1956° E | Kobe, JAPAN ]

This is a waste of your fucking time.

Whatever Namjoon had thought would be here doesn’t seem to exist. Yoongi can barely tolerate you on a good day, threatens to stick a dagger in your neck at least twice an hour, but the more time the two of you waste chasing ghosts, the closer he comes to unraveling entirely.

“Stop fucking staring at me,” he snaps, blowing the smoke of his cigarette right in your face.

You tut. “But you’re so beautiful, Yoongi, I just can’t help it.”

He digs his switchblade from his boot. Makes a show of flipping it open. “I can cut your fuckin’ eyes out of your skull,” he intones. “Maybe that’ll help.”

In your ear, Jimin’s laughter rings like crystal.

Ricochets off of all the corners of Seokjin’s basement, makes the echo sound warped through the earpiece. “Please tell Yoongi-ssi to keep an eye on the man with the shaved head. In front of him, roughly sixty degrees to his right.”

You relay the message. Watch as Yoongi transforms—sharpened gaze, rigid posture, disappears into the shadows. More apex predator than man. “And me?” you ask.

“Backup,” comes Seokjin’s voice. “We haven’t found your mark yet.”

You hum. Pick up the cigarette Yoongi left behind and stick it between your lips. Smoke it nearly to the filter. “You got it, boss,” you tease, just because it flusters him.

“I’m—that’s not—knock it off.”

Exhale. Stub out the cigarette. Butt in your pocket. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Jimin says, and his voice is soft, sounds like spun sugar. “Stay alive, all right?”

Jimin’s hair isn’t dyed at all.

if you've read this far: thank you so, so much! i am more appreciative than i can put into words. this is very different from what i typically write, but i hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.

i would love to hear your thoughts if you have any. <3

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