#also seven's route is so frustrating

[mitskiluvr]

replaying mystic messenger is so crazy because why am i gentle parenting these grown men and teaching them how to handle their feelings

#mystic messenger #mysme #jumin han #saeyoung choi #this post is mainly about those two #i get so mad whenever jumin enters a chatroom like get out of my face im not joking I DO NOT LIKE YOU #like i get it blah blah blah CEO with a cold heart trope and you melt his icy exterior But im so tired... #i don't want to explain workers rights to him #or... basic human rights actually #when he goes “jaehee i need you to work overtime again” and my face contorts in disgust and horror as a sitcom laugh track plays in the bac #also seven's route is so frustrating #like there's genuine reasons for him acting cold and whatever and i get it #but i actually dont want to watch you break a robot cat and then change ur pfp to a dark and broody photo of yourself #I ALSO CANT TALK TO ZEN IM SORRY I HATE HIM SO MUCH #zen lovers do not hate me... i am just a simple person #at one point in seven's route he was like “omg there's an explosive in the apartment? i should send a pic of myself to comfort you...” #I CANNOT HANDLE YOU GO LOG OFF YOUR PHONE #sorry wow im really into this game #i played it four years ago and now it's come back to me #also all of my points are nullified by the fact that saeran is my favorite #doing his route is like pulling teeth and eating socks #i say that with love

[little-miss-dilf-lover]

ooohh, alr,,! so can i pls request tan x crybaby and soft!reader. can it be abt how tan is always "mean" to everyone and then he is accidentally mean to the reader? (not wanting to ask too much but can the fic pls have some smut? i would love to see how tan would treat the reader) u can also do this w pietro if u want. Sorry that my request is long, luv ur work and baiii :)

- 😾

hii bby!! love love it! must admit I did kinda steer off course a little bit. thanks for requesting, hope you like it💌

MAKE TIME

tangerine x fem!reader

word count. 1089

warnings. 18+ only!! tiny bit of arguing, tan being a bit of a turd, but a total cutie after!! fingering, horny brainrot from writer. mdni

Tangerine is always coming and going with work, that his mind is often detached - thoughts spread out in more than one place at a time. Sometimes, it's hard for him to adjust to his surroundings, especially when he's constantly filtering between locations. 

Though, when he's with you, he's home. Back in your shared house, he's finally settled. 

But that doesn't stop him from bringing work home - he'd spend hours locked in his office, planning schedules and routes for upcoming missions, never once giving you an ounce of attention during his minimal time at home. 

You knew what you signed up for, though you hated how insignificant you felt compared to his work. You didn't like how he'd be so blase when it came to failed, planned date nights, how he'd be casual about cancelling for the fourth time in a row. You knew work was important to him, but eventually, you were hoping his view would change - that he'd value you more than some silly little mission. 

Tangerine had returned home from an assignment a mere hour ago, and all he had given you was seven measly words. You were planning on allowing him some time to adjust to being back home - to clean up, to clear his mind, but he never joined you back downstairs. 

You weren't angry or upset about it - you just felt disappointed. You always gave Tangerine leeway, constantly allowing him the benefit of the doubt; maybe he was tired from travelling or that he saw something gruesome. You were always sure to see from his side, so you often felt wounded when you didn't get the same treatment.

You wait on the sofa, phone in hand, as you consider sending him a text. Sending him a slither of your frustrations, but you decide not to - not wanting things to escalate.

And just like that, you hear footsteps trickle down the stairs, Tangerine accompanying the sound. 

"Hi," you call out from your spot on the sofa.

Your greeting goes unheard, your voice blocked out by his phone call.

"Mate, gimme a sec," he says into the receiver, pulling his phone away from his ear as he meets you.

"Oh, you got time for me now?" you quip.

"What's that now?" he asks, his tone alarmed. "Mhm?" he repeats, brows furrowing. 

You hear his friend make a snidey comment through the phone - something that loosens a screw in Tan's head. You watch from a near distance, seeing the change on his face.

"Alright, mate. Yeah, that's enough. I got it," he angrily dismisses, ending the call.

"What was that about?" you ask, perching higher from your corner spot, showing interest.

"Why would'ya fuckin' say that?" he snaps at you, eyes narrowing. "Now, I got him in my ear giving me a fuckin' bollocking and you—" he cuts himself off, watching the way your bottom lip wobbled under his reprimand. "No, love. I'm sorry, I didn't mean that— he just got in my head, and I—" he rambles, quick footsteps carrying himself to you.

He sits at the edge of the coffee table, facing you, taking your hands in his. "Darlin', that weren't meant for you," he hushes, thumbing over the back of your hand. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," you shrug, wiping your eyes with your shoulder. "I know," you sniffle, blinking away a few tears.

"No, it ain't," he shakes his head and slips a hand from your grasp, swiping away the wet under your eyes. "Did you mean that a minute ago?" he asks, his tone hesitant.

"Mean what?"

"About me not having time for you," he asks, eyes following you when you divert from his gaze.

You shrug once more, closing your eyes before nodding.

"Is that what you think?" he quietly questions.

"Kind of," you whisper. "Sometimes I don't feel important to you," your words soften, speaking like you were reluctant to share.

"Love," he draws out, hushing you. "That's—" he sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I never want you to feel like that... I guess I have been neglecting you lately," he admits. "The work is never-ending. My head is always frazzled, and I always try to get it done fast, so I have more time with you, but—" 

"I know," you reassure, slipping your hand into his. "I understand."

"How about this..." he proposes, leaning in to give you a chaste kiss. "I take some time off. And I can take you away? Really show how much I love you."

Your smile widens, eyes practically lighting up. "Okay," you nod, leaning forward to kiss Tangerine's lips. "I'd love that."

"Yeah?" he grins, almost boyishly. "Good. I'll make some calls later."

He brings your face back towards his, cupping your cheeks and kissing your lips soft and sweet, guiding you backwards - pushing you against the couch so he can hover above. He rests a hand on the back of the sofa, using it as stability as he towers over you, caging you. 

He parts from the kiss, both of you breathless from the sudden desperation it had turned into. His grip loosens from the side of your face, and his palm slowly travels downwards, slipping over your tits as he continues down. He runs his hand down your t-shirt-covered stomach, halting when he reaches the waistband of your lounge shorts.

"I have some time now," he offers, his tone teasing as his hand slides down the front of your underwear, fingers dancing over your slit. "Would that get me out the dog house?"

"Maybe," you reply, voice airy when you feel his thumb press over your clit, slowly circling it. "Possibly," you add, spreading your legs.

He hums, a soft, sultry coo against your skin, lips barely brushing yours. Dipping the pad of his middle finger between your folds, delving slowly into your cunt til the last knuckle. Long, thick finger wedged into you so nicely.

You keep him close to you, hands engulfing the sides of his face as you meet his lips, copying his slow, sloppy kisses. He begins pumping his finger inside you, hooking upwards as he rocks it into you, swallowing those pretty little sounds you make so well. 

He slowly adds his ring finger, joining it with his other - spreading you ever so slightly, leisurely fucking you with his two skilled fingers.

"I'll let you cum if you forgive me," he teases, picking up pace, rubbing against that gummy spot. "Say you forgive me, darlin'."

— — — — — — — — — — ☆ — — — — — — — — — —

tan taglist: (tagging bc it’s not a blurb/drabble) @tangerinesgf @kpopgirlbtssvt @earth-elemental18 @ashlynhasmanyhyperfixations @idontknowwhattohaveasmyuser @thewinterv @navs-bhat @ilovetangerinewithallmyheart @theredvelvetbitch @randomawesomeperson102 @lov3lypeaches7 @princess-pebbles-things @astermath @dynamitehacke @boldlyimportantface @charmedkim @fruitlovertangerine @psiiconic @bubblezuku @soradiccherryblossom @landryslove @daenerys-supremacy @dontknownameauthor @honestly-who-even-is-this @simplyreflected @apxtowiris

#request #😾 #tangerine #tangerine x reader #tangerine bullet train #tangerine x you #tangerine smut #tangerine x fem!reader

[tiresomeimagination]

Wait (707 x Reader)

Word Count: 1k

Warning: Spoilers for Seven’s route!

Author’s Note: So basically, I was thinking of how easy it’d be to freak Saeyoung out if you didn’t cope with the whole situation as perfectly as his good end MC is portrayed to lolol. So I wanted to do a little something with how he might react to something like that ^^ 

(Not sure how common this is, but I know squirreling away is a thing that I can be prone to do, and I realized that’d probably freak him out pretty bad hhh I’m sorry Saeyoung)

~~~~~

Seven wasn't sure how long he'd been typing away on his laptop. Fifteen minutes? Thirty? He was just in such a hurry to fix the apartment's security that he hadn't looked up from his screen in a while. When he did, the color drained from his face and his stomach dropped.

Where did you go? You were sitting over on the bed not too long ago. He hadn't heard you leave…but then again he was trying to ignore you.

Auugghhh, why did you do this to him? You managed to steal his attention without even being in the room. With a huff of frustration, he set down his computer and other hacking equipment and hurried out of the room. He looked in the kitchen first, but you weren't in there grabbing a snack like he figured you'd be. He looked around the whole apartment, growing increasingly anxious as he went longer with no sign of you. Did you try going outside again? He rushed back to his computer to check the CCTV…but you weren't there either.

He was starting to panic. He pulled out his phone, getting ready to call you, when he remembered the tracker he slipped into your pocket after the last time you wandered off while he wasn’t looking. He hurriedly checked it and breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that you were still in the apartment. You were…still in the same room?

Confused, Seven looked to the only logical last place to check.

You were huddled in the closet while you scrolled through your phone. Seven had been ignoring all your attempts at communicating. You knew he had important work to focus on and needed space to figure out…whatever it was that happened between him and the hacker…who is actually his long lost brother? It was all a lot for you to process. You just needed a little space of your own. Small, dark, and quiet, was just how you liked it when you felt overwhelmed.

Suddenly, the closet door was yanked open. You looked up to see Seven frowning down at you.

"What are you doing?" He asked in a clipped and frustrated tone.

"Nothing…" You responded quietly, instinctively shrinking in on yourself. Great. You made him upset again.

"You're doing nothing…in a closet?" He asked incredulously before he paused, sighing as he tried to keep his whirlwind of emotions at bay. "You should tell me before you disappear like that," he scolded. He wasn't sure whether to feel relieved you were okay or aggravated that he panicked so quickly for nothing.

"Well…I tried, but you were busy…" You muttered, playing awkwardly with your hands.

That made him freeze. If he didn't already feel like a big enough jerk, he did now. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't keep the look of worry off his face as he knelt down beside you. You looked so pitiful all curled up like that and Seven could feel his heart clenching painfully at the thought of you sitting alone in obvious distress.

He let out a heavy sigh before speaking again. "I'm sorry. I just have a lot to do to fix the security system…" He explained. Although it was true he did have a lot of work to do, it was also a good excuse to avoid focusing on just how jumbled and overwhelming his own emotions were right now.

"I understand, Seven…"

"No, you don't, I just- can you come out of here…please? You can be mad at me if you want, but don’t just disappear. I can't focus when I can't see you," he said, his voice still a bit strained, but softer than before.

You let out a sigh of your own and nodded. "Okay…"

You pocketed your phone and crawled out of the cozy darkness of the closet, pulling yourself back to your feet.

Seven stayed close, placing a tentative hand on your arm as he guided you over to the bed. “Come sit down…” He urged gently. You were a bit confused, but you relented and sat on the bed as he directed. He moved quickly, pulling a blanket over your shoulders before disappearing from the room. He returned a couple minutes later with a sandwich on a small plate.

You gave him a surprised look which only encouraged him to avoid your gaze as he pushed the plate into your hands.

“You’ve been through a traumatic experience and you haven’t eaten anything all day. You need to take care of yourself,” He explained, trying to keep his tone as clinical and unaffected as possible.

You smiled up at him. For the first time since Seven got here and began pushing you away, you didn’t feel so alone. “Thank you, Seven.”

His face heat up at the sight of your expression and he frowned deeply. “D-Don’t take this the wrong way or anything! I just can’t get any work done if I have to worry about whether you're okay or not," he grumbled, turning away and heading back toward his corner of the room.

"What about you? You haven't eaten in a while either," you pointed out, hoping that maybe he would eat with you.

However, Seven had already returned to his computer. "...It's fine. You just eat. I'll eat later. Now, I've got to get back to work, so…don't bother me…but…stay where I can see you…"

You frowned, still confused by this whiplash of behavioral switches. "Um…but-" You started to protest, but he simply slid his headphones back on. You sighed instead, turning your attention back to your meal.

He still didn't seem to have any interest in talking with you right now. But as much as he tried to discourage you from interacting with him…it couldn't be clearer now that he cared. No matter how much he insisted he wasn’t the man you thought he was…he was still just as kind. You were sure of it now that you had seen a glimpse past his cold front.

You smiled softly as you watched him feverishly tap away on his keyboard. If he needed time, you could wait. You would wait for him.

#mystic messenger #mysme #mm 707 #mystic messenger x reader #luciel choi #saeyoung choi #707 x reader #saeyoung x reader #707 x mc #Saeyoung is not very good at hiding his feelings lol #but he tries #but yeah I hope plenty of you can relate and this isn't just a super specific thing ^^;; #I'm uhhh gonna go pass out now probably #o7

[juminies]

Don't know if you've ever talked on this subject or not, but what's your interpretation on Jumin's relationship with Jaehee after her good ending? Really love how mindfully you explain Jumin's feelings and actions, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter! Especially bc her route kinda leaves many people feeling like he's an antagonist of sorts 😬 But I kinda always felt like he'd respect her a lot, especially once he sees how much passion she puts into her dream? And Jaehee shows her genuine care for Jumin, too, moreso after his infamous crash. I'm kinda babbling here, but yeah! Really curious to read up on your interpretation <3

I haven't talked about this before actually—I think there's a lotttt of nuance to it and I didn't want to be haphazard with it in case it comes across as me being over lenient with corporate heirs or whatever hahah. I promise I'm not! I just love Jumin. Also sorry this took me a while to answer, I had actually just started a game the day you sent it with the intention of doing Jaehee's route so I decided I would play before responding to ensure it was fresh in my mind. I hadn't played her route in so long, and I wanted to get the Jumin outgoing calls too!

To get into how I think he would treat her after some time passes I first want to discuss their dynamic in her route a bit, because I honestly think people are unnecessarily harsh on him because of it sometimes. I personally don't feel as if they pushed him too far into an antagonistic role, but perhaps since Cheritz weren't bringing in an outsider (à la Echo Girl or Sarah Choi) to act as the driving force it seemed that way to some people? It was inevitable given the nature of Jaehee's struggles that Jumin would be viewed as the bad guy in a sense, but I feel like it's often sort of blown out of proportion due to a misunderstanding of both Jumin's intentions and his character as a whole. He is admittedly at his worst in Jaehee's route, but people tend to brush his actions during it off as completely out of line and absurd and then go on to use it to totally mischaracterise him as someone who doesn't value his employees whatsoever or is an abusive boss. In reality though, the way he acts as a superior in general as well as given the specific circumstances is very... Jumin? in that it's logical and efficient and goal-driven. Jaehee's route is such a push and pull in the sense that the two of them clash repeatedly in a scenario where neither person is willing to compromise—for what, to each of them personally, is good reason! Jaehee is a victim of a wider system, of capitalism itself, less so than of Jumin as an individual.

On one hand, Jaehee having to give up a project she was finally actually enjoying working on would be incredibly frustrating, even without having something she actively dislikes stacked on top of it. I get why she went against Jumin's wishes of doing a bad job (why would she choose now of all times to put in half of her effort when it's something she's actually having fun with?) and I get why she used Seven's cat hotel proposal. Life can be messy like that. Sometimes you have to make a decision that has a shitty outcome for someone else for your own sake or vice versa. She should be doing something that makes her happy, and had she not gotten the encouragement to find something she loves she would have continued to feel unfulfilled for god knows how long. Plus, in regard to the coffee report she is still technically doing her job and doing it well, even if going against her boss' personal wishes in doing so. She also does use her own time to revise it in the end so Jumin can have his way (and maybe a little bit so she can use her ideas for her own place) so, to me, that says she understands where he's coming from and doesn't particularly resent him. It's a complex situation for sure, and objectively Jumin does have the upper hand even if he doesn't quite realise the extent of it. I absolutely support Jaehee in her endeavours; I love her so much and she absolutely deserves better than eternal C&R bullshit.

At the same time, Jumin's perspective does make sense if you try to understand his worldview a bit more. Jaehee is the only person at C&R he feels he can genuinely rely on, and when he's already been thrown through a loop with his father prior to her disobedience it's entirely logical that he would feel as if everyone who should be working with him is suddenly against him. Jumin has been shown before to not quite have a grasp on the social standing he holds over Jaehee, for example in this chat from deep story day 2 where he doesn't understand why she can't tell him, as he told her, that she doesn't like seeing him in chatrooms.

And I think it's genuine obliviousness as opposed to purposeful ignorance; he overlooks bigger structures at play because he legitimately values hearing the honest opinions of the people around him and expects them to have a mutual respect for him. As far as Jumin is concerned his employees should be able to come to him with honest feedback, but of course that typically isn't the case and so Jaehee can't express how she really feels to him lest she face consequences. Jumin's thought process when it comes to employment is shown to be, to put it simply, people work for money -> more work is more money -> more work is good, and it hasn't been explained to him why this isn't the case for a lot of people. Jaehee's actions register to Jumin as is simply a betrayal of his trust and respect, because he doesn't quite see the level at which he and Jaehee are on unequal footing in the first place. On top of that he is rigid in that he needs everything to be done as he expects it; he does not like sudden change and (as demonstrated in his own route) can be incredibly rattled by it if he is already otherwise stressed or overworked. Just because he stands strong for his friends does not mean he is entirely invulnerable to being overwhelmed and acting out, and while I completely agree he was on some level being selfish in regards to the cat project, at the point where Jaehee quits she has already left him with what (to Jumin) is a mess to handle essentially on his own. He is overworked too, something Jaehee admits herself, and he wanted to transfer the coffee project to another department both to make less work for the two of them and in order to not succumb to his father's lack of consideration for anyone or anything but his current partner.

Again I do not blame Jaehee for anything she did whatsoever—I think it was a good idea for her to quit and she absolutely deserves the happiness she finds in MC and their café!—but Jaehee is incredibly competent and Jumin knows that. Consequently he knows she has big boots to fill and it can't be done on a whim. I'm sure you can see why he would be incredibly frustrated. As a whole it's just a very messy situation where the two of them can't really fathom the other's perspective. Their lives and outlooks on the world are so intrinsically different at this turning point in Jaehee's life, and that's fine. Neither of them have bad intentions towards the other whatsoever.

Now to actually answer your question! Firstly I want to put out there that he says this on days nine and ten respectively:

Then I want to add that I do not think Jumin is the type to hold a grudge. He is shown frequently to take on a sort of each to their own/whatever will be will be attitude, and though this situation is something that impacts him directly I can't imagine him taking it any more personally in the long term than he would anything else. Sure he's a little hostile in her AE, but to be completely honest with you I do not think he would have gone to visit the café at all if he was completely furious and had lost all respect for Jaehee (and/or MC) after her endeavours. Again he knows that Jaehee is highly capable, hardworking, and generally a very good person, and I can't imagine that one rocky dilemma between the two of them is something that would make him bad tempered around her forever. He still clearly held her highly and has a lot of respect for her despite their differences, and she doesn't seem to have any ill will towards him either. Ultimately, as you say, he would grow to respect her passion and would hear her out on why she took the course of action she did in the end. While Jumin may not be great at putting himself in others shoes he can identify patterns well, and it lets him draw parallels between his own experiences and other people's. Once he finds the common ground (he knows how fulfilling passion projects can be, he knows how frustrating it can be to work yourself to the bone for others' sake without any real incentive, and he values real friendship an awful amount) I think he would accept it.

I actually feel like hypothetically in the long term not working together would be good for their relationship in terms of RFA too—Jaehee was only made part of the group originally because of Jumin and it meant that all of their interactions even amongst their mutual friends were that of a work relationship. We know they both dislike being in chatrooms together and dislike hearing each other talk outside of work, which was bound to have put a strain (even if very minor) on their association with RFA as an organisation. Jaehee even says herself it's like an extension of C&R for her! Dropping the working boundary between them means less tiptoeing around each other and more openness among friends, especially for Jaehee.

As for Yoosung becoming Jumin's intern/assistant, I don't think it would carry the same tone into RFA as it did with Jaehee since they are already well associated without the business relationship prior to Yoosung being hired. Sure things might be a little weird at times, but no discomfort or frustration to the same extent. It's already shown to be kind of unserious and silly, and I honestly don't think Yoosung would last long as Jumin's assistant anyway, lol.

#mystic messenger #jumin han #this is so long sorry <3 #also I'm going to be so real I talked around just being like 'jumin is autistic' for the sake of him 'not canonically being autistic' #but when you view him as autistic his outlook on the world legitimately makes so much more sense #like I say this as an autistic person -> I Get It #and I'm not saying everything he does can strictly be justified by saying 'well he's autistic' but that paired with his family/upbringing #really makes him easier to piece together

[vapolis]

I know I’m prolonging this discussion my apologies, it’s just, this IF is the only one I’ve personally seen with such “dedicated” readers, that it’s a bit jarring haha.

The irony is that Seven isn’t moving on with Avina. Not yet, if ever seen played out at all, it’s the idea that has people riled. They’re an RO for a reason which has been stated multiple times cause of the “dedication” from some readers, along with their route not being a love triangle like G and V. Joking, sad comments about dynamics and a healthy amount of frustration are, I think, normal, as it means the readers are invested. But it’s when readers make it too personal and act as such that it goes off the rails. Trust the process and waiting to read what happens is a hell of a thing.

Similar to D and Orla. They’re both RO’s to the Merc for a reason. (They could never make me hate you D..and maybe Orla, though I’m a little more wary of her with her position and all).

yeah, I agree. obviously, everyone is allowed to feel what they feel and if you're that invested in someone's route/character GREAT. massive kudos to the author for being able to get those kind of reactions out of people but I think it's a bit much still.

we're on chapter 2 and idk how long the game will be in the end and the brief interactions w seven and avina have been ok. they seem close but I personally haven't gotten a very romantic vibe (so far) so who knows where their story will go! I'm personally more invested in the codependency and if things will crash and burn again.

and I also agree on the d and orla thing LMAO especially since I've stated they're not even in a poly route or anything close to it so the reaction I've gotten to it has definitely been a bit of a surprise.

#asks #other ifs

[hillbillyoracle]

For the longest time I’ve been thinking these thoughts as well that I don’t think the Ace label fits me completely. It’s not completely wrong but it’s not the whole picture. Before I came to this same understanding I made the decision to not have children or get married. Now that I’m coming to terms with the fact that I actually have low energy I’m still not sure how life will look. I was starting to think that I was non commital and that my ideal relationship would just be a long term partner. I don’t think I have the energy for « society’s relationship expectations » and I don’t feel like bothering other people because I already know they don’t want to deal with me. What are some of your long term relationships tips? It’s either that or I stay single forever which is an idea that’s I’ve always considered as an option. One of the things with being Ace is that when you don’t just follow the script that’s when your the villain. Any other time our sexuality is convient for the system so it’s fine but the minute it starts disrupting their program suddenly what was once admirable is now disdained. Can we briefly mention what sexual power looks like when your this sexuality. I’m super self conscious about how I dress because I know I can’t event express my sexuality the way I want to because people might get the wrong impression. I’m not looking for anything I’m expressing myself because with the little energy I have left I use for creativity. I don’t have a problem with people doing things to signal sexual willingness my problem is the violence in our society when someone finds you hot and you don’t want to « put out » That’s not even getting into the mind games that the genders are playing with each other just the idea of it makes me not want to date. I’m tired just thinking about it. I’m really starting to imagine my life as the village witch living in the forest far from the villagers.

I also don't know that Ace/Aro really fits me but whatever I'm experiencing is at least Ace/Aro adjacent because there's a major overlap in experiences - getting frustrated with compulsory sexuality/romance, chaffing against society being organized around romantic and sexual coupling, simply not having impulses that my friends and family do. I made the decision very young that I didn't want to get married. I wanted to care for children but I didn't necessarily want to physically have any. So I knew from a pretty young age I was going a different route - in those ways I really relate to a lot of aceness.

However, I'm hearing from so many people that dating has become exhausting. And it's substantially more of a sentiment than it was say 10 years ago. Research backs this up - fewer people are dating and having sex. The younger you are, the more pronounced this is. So clearly there's also been a cultural shift in and around dating that's made it unsustainable for a lot of people as well. I'm sure that's also shaping my desire too.

So it's difficult to parse for me.

I think I have very little in the way of advice for long term relationships for a few reasons.

One, while I've been with my partner for seven years, it's been a tumultuous relationship. She was originally diagnosed with BPD and more recently was diagnosed with NPD. While I care about her a whole lot, she's not exactly emotionally available and it's taken years of painstaking effort on my part to establish norms and guide us toward a point of relative stability in our home life. Even if therapy and treatment eventually lead to her being more available, the likelihood of other aspects of a typical relationship (sexual desire, level of romantic reciprocity, etc) lining up seem low.

"Then leave!" I always hear.

No. Because on some level this works. We both are polyam/relationship anarchists who value our friendships very highly and build parts of our lives around them. We have similar preferences in how home and finances should be maintained. She has few preferences in areas I have many and vice versa. She's very good at things I suck at (bureaucracy, paying bills, speaking with officials, etc) and I'm good at things she sucks at (meal planning, ordering and organizing inventory, maintaining a social calendar, etc). While she's far from perfect, she's the most functional and helpful roommate I've ever had. I simply cannot afford to live on my own and neither could she.

So I feel like I have little to offer in the way of long term relationship advice other than don't be afraid to establish relationship norms that aren't common in other relationships. If the other person is on board, you're not harming any one. I know of no one who's been living with someone for 5+ years who has stuck 100% to the classic romantic formula for success.

My parents have been together for 30+ years and have always maintained a high degree of autonomy and alone time - even with my mom's stroke leaving her paralyzed on her right side several years ago. I have a friend who's lived separately in the same town from her long term partner of multiple years and they're both quite happy with that arrangement. I think often of the research lead I worked under who lived in a completely different city than her husband for 10+ years. They visited each other's spaces most weekends but not all.

A lot of things people swear are innately part of a relationship are really optional. The base model is respect and mutual appreciation, everything else is an upsell. Take it or leave it.

Per dressing to express - I think miscommunication is just always going to happen. People act according to their lenses and there's no way to completely circumvent that. And yeah, they're hellishly rude and can even be dangerous about that but there's no way to be totally free of it since it's so far outside of ones own control.

I have found no way to accurately communicate my sexuality/preferences through my appearance with any reliability. My classic example of this for me is that it seems like no matter how I dress, people on dating apps assume I'm a top/dom/pleasure centered. Even when I included a picture of me in self bondage and explicitly listed my preferences on one more open minded app - only seemed to get interest from bottoms/subs/pleasure centered folks. Many of whom didn't bother to ask they were so certain - just based on my look. I've just come away from those experiences pretty convinced that people see what they want to see regardless of how hard you try to communicate yourself.

So fuck em. As frustrating as it all is there's really only one path I've found - do what you want (as long as you're not hurting anyone.)

Cause like what the fuck else is there to do?

#asks #answered asks #aexuality #aromanticism #good food for thought here #thanks anon

[fierce-little-miana]

I really like your fic and I'm love how you do Chizuru and Kaoru relationship. I must admit I'm was very disappointed with how they handle Kaoru in the game, like no kidding he did horrible things and wanted to make his sister suffer but at the same he was a victim of abuse. I wanted a route for him - platonic of course - where he and Chizuru would make up or at least come to a understanding

Thank you so much for the kind words about my fic. It is always super nice to hear some feedback on it. If you like how it focuses on the Kaoru&Chizuru relationship you might have a nice surprise in the coming days (provided that you do not hate modern AU).

I perfectly understand your frustration with how Kaoru was treated in the game (though I am even more frustrated by how he was dispatched in the movie!).

I have only finished Okita's route (good ending only - I don't have enough time to play right now) in the Hakuoki: Stories of the Shinsengumi version, but I am super eager to receive my copy of the Switch version so I can play Sannan's route and the other one (Yamazaki? Sakamoto?) in which Kaoru plays an important role. I want more Kaoru content!

That being said, I did not find the content I got in Okita's route to be frustrating at all. I think Kaoru is a well-written and coherent character in it. He is not sane, he does horrible things, his goals are megalomaniac and very probably unachievable even if everything went as he wanted, but it all makes sense. He can't come back from what happened to him, he is stuck in a headlong rush. There is no escape. He is a well-executed tragic character.

I love tragedy so I love Kaoru. I love him even more because having him as a villain sort of anchors Okita's route as a route deeply centered on Chizuru and since she is sort of the main character you know… Well, narratively the oppositions "ChizuruVsKaoru" and "OkitaVsKaoru" are super interesting to me.

So I don’t mind that Kaoru is a tragic character who could not escape his cruel fate. Even if some days I believe that there was a short window in which he could have been brought back toward the light (I might write a fic about this idea one day). Other days I truly believe that Kaoru was too far gone the minute he decided to take control of the Nagumo clan to ever come back from the path he had decided to travel.

(This is basically me about Kaoru)

But I totally agree with you about something super important: Kaoru is without a doubt a victim of abuse (child abuse from when he was seven, and the game is not clear on when this stopped, sometime before the beginning of the game? sometime in 1864 taking advantage of the political turmoil in Tosa han?) that might very well have a sexual and scientific experimental dimension. That abuse ended in blood when Kaoru killed every authority figure in the Nagumo clan that wasn't him. Generally speaking every important character in the game is more or less given a redemptive action (even if that one action does not rehabilitate the entire character) that sort of acknowledges a "what could have been" scenario. Kaoru is not given that grace. The thing that comes the closest to this is his conversation in the forest by the Yukimura village with Chizuru after she has regained her memory. He is calm and apparently open during it but he is still hellbent on his "evil" plan and, for Chizuru, this conversation is more a corruption offer than a redemptive gesture from her brother. Plus we discover later that he is still lying to her about things at this point (notably about her being able to "keep" Okita).

Having the poster child for horrifying child abuse being among the very few irredeemable characters is… a choice? As I said, Kaoru’s character is well-written and coherent but the optics of that are not super good.

I too would very much enjoy a sibling (platonic) route that would explore their relationship and Chizuru oni’s heritage. Also, but this is because I am fucked up stories enjoyer, Kaoru’s route bad end could be a non-platonic ending. A bit on the same tone as Shiraishi’s Adonis Ending in Collar x Malice in which he is still with Hoshino but both characters are merely nightmarish shells (or everything they feared they could become) of what they were before.

#hakuouki #hakuoki #nagumo kaoru #yukimura chizuru #yukimura kaoru #anon ask #the twins #i am a simple woman I see en irredeemable goblin with a tragic arc and he becomes one of my faves immediately

[skoulsons]

Eye To Eye Is All We Can See

• gif by @azertyrobaz

Pairing: Ezra & Cee (Prospect 2018)

Word count: ~2900

Summary: Ezra says something stupid and Cee tries to convince him that he’s wrong

A/N: Nothing except I wrote this until sunrise , so I apologize if it is absolutely terrible, downright ooc, or horribly grammatically. I have not rewatched the movie quite yet 💀 Just a bit of fluff and a tiny hurt/comfort?? Don’t ship them!!

Tagging my favorite people who I get to talk about this movie with: @sotvtaughtmehowtofeel @not-so-mundane-after-all @orangechickenpillow @jessahmewren @alternatewriter @starchild0985

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Thank you,” she said.

They’ve been together a few cycles, the Green Moon left far behind them.

The cycles have been nothing short of eventful in a small spacecraft and two strangers in a very complicated relationship. Cee has had to keep an extra keen eye on Ezra. Not because of distrust, but to make sure his arm is healing well. Or, as well as a cut-off limb could heal with limited medical supplies and a kid, though capable, having done the operation.

Also because Ezra keeps forgetting he’s lost an arm and continuously reaches out for support along the walls of the ship when he moved from their sleeping quarters to the cockpit and he has fallen every single time. He fell out of his bed the first night they were in it; Cee spent five minutes trying to pull him back into the bed and then another fifteen having a verbal battle with him to try and convince him to get back in bed.

There have been moments of frustration where things catch up with Cee, her irritations coming out verbally to Ezra. He never fights back. He always sits, patient and understanding as Cee rehashes the things she’s kept bottled up and taped down for years with all the strength of scotch tape that’s lost all its grip.

They were also navigating their route off the Green to somewhere safe and figuring out… what exactly they were. Strangers? Partners? Friends? Family? Ezra has treated Cee as a real person, a girl with agency and deserving of a fruitful life since the second he met her; it’d be difficult to walk away from someone who gave you something you missed out on all your life. In that same way, it’d be hard to walk away from a kid that saved your life—twice.

Cee also had nightmares about the Green. The Saters, the mercs, the music, even her own father. Ones of Ezra, too. Him dying, abandoning her. Him using her, just like Damon seemed to do. On the worst night, the night when Damon and Ezra’s lifeless eyes were all she could see and their cold, torn open skin were all she could feel, she woke up crying.

Ezra was at her side before she even woke, unsure what exactly to do. He waited, and when she finally did wake, with a tear-stained face and a burning throat, Ezra’s compassion was overwhelming. His eyes were gentle, concerned. He kept his only arm hovering over her shoulder, waiting for permission. She let him hold it, for both their sakes, wishing she’d hugged him instead. Wishing she met him on the floor, their legs a conglomeration of limbs as he held her tight against his side. Instead, he stayed beside her until she calmed, quiet and reserved affirmations in It’s okay, little bird and You’re safe, Cee. Damon's cold, almost robotic responses to her harsher dreams were always Quit your crying or It’s a dream, calm down, so when Ezra keeps a firm, reassuring hold on her shoulder, talks her through it, and wears a soft smile Cee thinks she got to see even before Kevva knew of it—one that is only heightened when the stars of the Black shine enough light in to highlight his strands, making him look less intimidating than he makes himself out to be—Cee relaxes. How a stranger, of all people, can sit beside her and walk her through something so small compared to what all the Black has to offer is beyond her. How Ezra, literally, stooped down to her level to comfort her.

It doesn’t make sense. Nothing that has happened the last seven cycles makes sense. The Green and the people, if they could even be called such a thing, that the pair encountered still seemed so far away from Cee. That they were things that seemed only to be written in fictional novels and included in stories of old.

Except for one thing. One thing that makes sense. One thing that Cee is becoming more clear on with each passing cycle. Perhaps the clearest thing to come out of their time together.

He cares.

She cares, too.

And now they were in the Black, and had been for six cycles. The vastness and eternity of the growing darkness offered a strange comfort to both of them. Despite their care for each other, freedom was out there. Freedom awaited the both of them out there. Separate freedom.

Cee was always confined to Damon. She was always just another pair of hands to mine or hold something Damon couldn’t. An extra pair of eyes to search for Aurelac or an extra pair of ears to listen for any harm or to protect him, completely selfishly. Damon never acted selflessly, not even for his own daughter.

She hadn’t much freedom apart from him. She was always tied to him and his work. She was never given opportunities away from him. No chances for her to explore on her own. To see what was so great about this life that Kevva gifted her. She never had the chance to meet other people and form lasting friendships. She wasn’t given time to… live.

The Black offered that to her—Opportunities. Planets to stop at, to lay low on. Places to settle down. A life to live.

Ezra had freedom ever since he was a kid. He was free, encouraged even, to explore. To get to know the world around him. The vastness of the growing creation. He had the freedom, the opportunities, to explore all of it. But as he grew, there was a hunger for earning. A hunger for points and mining. Anything that could offer him a more than satisfactory life. Aurelac, specifically. An attachment to the work, the hunt, also selfishly. He did what he had to to get what he wanted, similar to Damon. Only Ezra, despite being on his own for most of his adulthood and being separated from his family for longer, cared. He cared enough to listen and pay attention to a little girl he didn’t even know.

He cared enough to be fair. Even split.

Being free from his work wasn’t too far-fetched for Ezra, but it happening because of a child was definitely not his expectation.

Especially someone like Cee. She had a fire in her. She was capable, he knew first hand she was. She was strong, threatening when she needed to be. She was skilled, intelligent, able.

But she was just a kid. He saw how scared she was, even with Damon. But in their time on the Green, he’s gotten to know her. Cee was kind, careful. Ezra noticed the way the inflection in her voice changed when she got excited about Streamer Girl. She cared and she protected. Her heart was big, willing to risk her life to go back for him, even after he specifically told her to go.

Cee was good. All she did was help. Love. She wasn’t a killer. She wasn’t selfish. She wasn’t ruthless or hungry for points. She wasn’t bad.

Ezra believed himself to be. He killed. He was willing, ready, to kill. Someone who has that reputation isn’t good, especially when killing a little girl’s dad gets added to the list, despite what he thought of the man.

He doesn’t believe he’s worthy to be thanked. That anything he’s done, especially to her, is any reason for thanks.

“Oh, no, nothing to thank me for, birdie. I have left you barren and deem your gratitude inappropriate for such a time. Ever since you touched down on the Green Moon, your conditions have been less than unacceptable…”

“Ezra…”

“...and I have been present in all the things that have troubled you so greatly these last few cycles. You have been burdened with dragging my weakened bag of bones across the Green.” “Even as we venture into the Black, you have continually endured my long-winded communication and idle, though I believe fascinating, narrative.”

“Ezra-”

“I am a bit crestfallen that you’ve been subjected to a multitude of predicaments in the time we’ve been together and that I have imparted insignificant salutary to your current expedition.”

“Ezra.”

“The Saters, the mercenaries… I’ve only brought you hindrance after hindrance, little bird. Allow me to implement points in to your care so that you may persevere in your journey and-”

“Ezra!” she shouted, grabbing at his face. Her hands reached his neck first, fingers stretching to the back of his neck, tickling his hairline.

She doesn’t know what this is like. Damon was never really gentle with her. Not physically, at least. She thinks, maybe, he was gentle with her when she was born. Holding her in the crook of his arm, her small, fragile head resting in the safety of his hold. Her skin held against his, breathing in tune with his, eyes fluttering open to catch her first glimpse of the world; her father, a tight-lipped smile strung across his face as tears well in his eyes, his thumb gently rubbing back and forth over the blanket she’s wrapped tightly in, occasionally bringing his thumb up to her red cheeks, a quiet hi to greet her.

Something she thinks Ezra could’ve done.

Something she suspects Damon didn’t do.

Something she knows Ezra would’ve done.

Cee pulled her hands away from his neck and brought them to his face instead, her palms too small to hold him the way she wanted to. She tried, letting them rest against his cheeks and feeling the scratch of his beard beneath her fingers. She kept her fingers outstretched, her pointer and middle threading lightly through the hair above his ears as her last two sit beneath his ear. She kept her thumbs in place on both his cheeks.

If there’s something to say, Cee can't say it.

She’s used to apologizing. She’s used to apologizing over taking up too much space. She’s used to apologizing over getting excited over Streamer Girl. She’s used to apologizing for eating too much of their rations, even when it was the amount she and Damon agreed on. She’s used to apologizing over resting, even when there was nothing to do. She’s used to apologizing over… being around him. Her breath was enough to apologize for.

But this wasn’t for apologizing. Ezra said something stupid and she needs to convince him that he’s wrong.

But the words can’t come to her. They don't. A contrast to how Ezra seemingly has an eleven page research paper of words on hand at all times, no matter the situation, Cee comes up short on correcting him. On affirming him that he’s wrong. On reassuring him that he has helped her.

He’s a grown man. A grown man who killed her father doesn’t need affirmation. Doesn’t need reassurance. And he surely does not need his face held because some kid thought he said something stupid.

Definitely not.

She holds his face firmly, the skin of his cheeks forming at her hold. “Don’t… say that, please. You’ve…” she pauses, inhaling and exhaling through her nose, forcing herself to catch his eyes and to make sure he hears her. “You’ve done a lot. You have. I know it’s… it’s only been a few cycles, but…”

You saved me. You protected me. You kept me. You came after me. You encouraged me. You made me feel safe. You tried to sacrifice yourself for me. You killed for me, more than once.

You loved me. You love me.

Her mind races with all of it, every word holding an unimaginable weight she had never experienced prior. Every word holding truth and passion behind them. Honesty covered every single one, Cee knowing in her soul that that was the man Ezra is. Those things he has done for her, how he’s treated her—that is who he is.

She watches him, wondering if, somehow, the look in her eyes could say the words for her. And if the glimmer in his eye is any indication, she thinks the burning it has left in her heart has found its way to his, too.

She could never say any of that about Damon. He wasn’t an encouragement and any dreams she had and wanted to pursue were shut down by him. She didn’t feel safe with him—not the kind of safe where she’d hide behind him if they were approached. There wasn’t any confidence that he’d care to protect her with his life. And if it came down to the Saters, Damon wouldn’t have kept her.

Ezra was different. Ezra was new, fresh. Real. He showed her more in seven cycles than Damon showed her in sixteen years.

That, to Cee, was enough.

She was wanted now. She could tell. Ezra’s attempt at telling her he was no good for her and saying he offered her nothing was the furthest thing from the truth.

Cee has sought connections all her life and was always denied or taken too soon to form a new one. It was always just Damon. Ezra went through so many partners in his life that he became numb to anyone who would stick around permanently. Numb to anyone who would ever be with him—his other half. And when a child entered his life and created and filled the hole in his heart that wasn’t there before, it became something supernatural. A longing he had immediately, and also a resisting. He was dangerous and he managed to put Cee in some of the most risky situations in under a day.

But Cee didn’t focus on that. She saw through that. She saw his passion and interest in the things he talked about. While it has only been with her, she’s seen the way he cares. The way he went to walk her through the operation on his arm. How he smiled at her and had an immediate pet name off hand to call her by, which, surprisingly, has stuck around—not that she would ask for him to stop using it. How he indulged her interest in Streamer Girl, saying he must now read it after hearing her praise it so well. She’s seen his gentleness in how he’s treated her, spoken to her, but also his violence in how he’d protected her from the mercenaries.

He’s done more than enough, as much as he may try and convince her, or himself, that he has not.

She smiles at him, her hands still on the sides of his face. Before she has a moment to really think, she brought her hands around his neck more, tilting his head down and his forehead towards her. She goes to the side a bit, kissing the skin right at the hairline of his blonde section of hair. She takes a moment to breathe in while her lips are still pressed to his forehead and her fingers lay by his ears, gently holding his head in place.

If she can’t find words, she hopes this works in their place.

She pulls away from him, keeping her hands still on his face as she settles their glances back. Ezra smiles as he shyly drops his head, breathing out a light laugh. Cee smiles, too. A wide, happy smile. One almost unfit after all she’s been dealt.

Cee drops her left hand to his shoulder and takes her right hand away from his face and brings it to the blonde section of his hair. “So…” she starts, rubbing some strands back and forth between her thumb and pointer finger, “how did this even happen?”

Ezra lifts his head, trying to move his head out of Cee’s grasp, but she just laughs, continuing to rub the strands together. He stops moving his head and looks back at her, a more serious expression on his face. “Quite the story there, little bird.”

She makes a face. “...And? We’re not in a rush.”

“That we aren’t, birdie. That we aren’t. Still, it’s a bit of a lengthy tale that I don’t believe to be worthwhile taking up any cherished time we have on our trek-”

“Ezra.”

“Yes?”

“Are you avoiding my question because it’s an embarrassing story?”

Ezra looks offended and starts backing up his claim with no’s and some long and winding explanation as to how, after inhaling alarming amounts of Dust in the Green, he was brought to Central to be fixed up. A few cycles in, Ezra, prematurely, got out of bed and tripped over himself, hitting the small guard rail on the other side of the bed, knocking himself unconscious. The incident gave him nine extra cycles at medical bay and, within a few weeks, after his wound had healed, his hair was growing back blonde.

They laugh together in the ship, the joyous noise echoing off the walls as they continue to pile on jokes and more stories as the conversation flows. By the end of it, Cee’s face is red and Ezra is breathing heavily, both of them slumped against separate walls, holding their stomachs.

It’s true, there are opportunities out there in the Black. Places to settle down and figure things out. And with each new passing cycle, their decision becomes more clear: they’re figuring it out together.

~~~~~~~~~

post-fic note: I can’t remember exactly, but Ezra’s hair growing back blonde after an incident I think comes from another prospect fic out there, I think we violent ones, but I’m 100% sure if it was that one or another one. All that to say it is not an original idea and I don’t take credit for using it for Ezra’s character. I liked the idea of it when I first read it and wanted to use it similarly

#this is an absolute dumpster fire #but it’s fine #everything’s FINE #im sorry my WIP is getting very close but #I had to write them last night #I was gonna slam my head through a table if I didn’t #I know only like 5 people will see this #and I love all of you five people #im so sorry if this is bad I haven’t written them in a WHILE #not to mention I wrote for hours straight with no food and little water and sleep deprived 💀 #prospect 2018 #prospect fanfic #prospect fic #L writes #fun fact #this was supposed to be cee kissing where Ezra’s blonde hair was #that was it #that was the WHOLE idea #and it is not that anymore

[sil-te-plait-tue-moi]

They don’t care about you.

Quick summary: She gets the call, and she’s back to work. The reader faces a crisis of morality on her first job back.

Word count: 17.8K (quite tame)

Warnings: Depictions of violence and injury; themes of assassination (yes, we are the assassin here); the IMF being manipulative and disgusting; lots of longing with Ethan that will be frustrating for you; some allusions to smut 😩😩; lots of swearing, but you know that’s a given by now 🫶.

A/N: Yayyyy, another chapter. You think this is gonna be a happier one? Think again. Yes, they do fuck a little, but I’m greatly sorry for the angst I am going to put them through. Side note: I am fucking beyond excited for autumn, oh, my God. Time to binge Gilmore Girls WOO!!

Chapters: Part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight, part nine, part ten.

***

We would have a place in some other country – not the US. Some other country, where the predominant language isn’t English and where no-one we know or care about lives. When I imagine it, of course, there are things that I want – I let myself imagine the things that I want. Hardwood floors. Photographs of us. A mid-century modern feel to the interior decoration. Stuff I want. But honestly, I don’t really care about any of it. I’d probably be happy living in a dumpster with him. As long as—the dumpster was—away from everything.

It’s a midnight thought. Not spoken out loud—ever. Definitely not communicated to him. It’s just for myself to have at midnight, sometimes just to entertain myself, sometimes to calm myself down, but mostly just to get myself to sleep. It’s nice. I used to do it when I was a kid: replay a good memory over and over, one perfect one, until I fell into a black sleep. Useful technique. A little bit slow, but useful for good dreams. The only part I can never get rid of is all of the—logistics.

It’s midnight, vaguely, and I think of our place that’s not in the US, with hardwood floors and pictures of us and a mid-century modern feel to the interior decoration. But then I realise that our place is quite small, because, even between us, we don’t have enough money to get anything bigger than a two bedroom. Which is enough, technically. Or would be. I imagine. We’re both able to compartmentalise our entire personal lives into a small square. But the entire point of our place is that we don’t have to do that – our personal lives will be ours. I don’t know what Ethan wants, but I’d like a cat. I miss my cat. He seems like a dog person, but I know he’s good with animals in general. Green flag. I don’t know what Ethan wants, but I want a garden, a place to plant flowers and trim hedges and do all these mundane things that I always watched retired people do in movies. I have so many things I’ve wanted to try, to do, that I didn’t. I used to like crosswords. I used to like running. I used to like drawing. Now, it seems like the only thing I have time to like is work. And I can’t even like that properly anymore.

The place is small, and it also has a stash, weapons and passports and money. Even when speculating, my mind considers logistics. IMF field agents don’t have a long life expectancy. Excusing survival rates, nobody retires at a normal age anyway. It’s either early, or they work themselves old. I have a feeling which one Ethan is. I don’t know which one I am anymore. Nobody retires at the normal age. If we got out, we wouldn’t be really out. Both specialists. With Ethan’s reputation, he’d certainly be called back at some point. He’d be worked till he dropped dead. In a way, I’m luckier than him. If he didn’t die, we’d live in a constant state of paralysis, like living on a thin sheet of ice balancing on the surface of a dark, horrible abyss below. We’ve been in plenty of abysses together before, but I wouldn’t want to be in anymore. We’d live in paralysis, anticipating, and we’d have a stash. A planned route of escape. Ready to go. Probably new identities, new lives. Even if IMF field agents survive and manage to retire, someone usually comes for them. Could be from the agency, could be a past wrongdoing. Actually, I don’t think it’s humane to call people wrongdoings.

But when have I ever stopped to think about what was humane? Never when it mattered.

Horrible—how quickly I latch onto things. The IMF, I guess, is one of them. Benji, Almada. My cat. Books, now. Jo. A cluster of rings I bought at a flea market a few months ago and now wear religiously, even when I’m not going out anywhere. And Ethan. I hate how readily I’m letting myself accept that he’s the centre of my thoughts these days. It makes me feel a lot of things. Ashamed, embarrassed. A lot of bad things, which isn’t to say it’s his fault, because it’s not. He’s always thinking things are his fault when they’re just not. Between us, things are usually my fault. I push him away, I snap at him, I use him, I purposefully don’t call him, I purposefully ignore him. Usually my fault. He always tries to fix things, which is infuriating. Shameful and embarrassing to see him do. He tries to string me back together even though he’s barely hanging on himself. I have no idea if I have the same effect on him as I do. When I touch his shoulder or squeeze his hand, does he feel good? Does he know that I want to help him? I’m not sure how to show him.

It’s midnight, and it’s been several midnights since I’ve last seen him. I recently got a nightlight so that I wouldn’t have to lie in complete darkness – it’s Scooby Doo. Literally. Scooby Doo glows at the foot of my bed, his blue collar shining all over the wall.

I don’t know what’s happening to him. It’s a horrible feeling, because he contractually cannot tell me anything about it, and I will never force him to, and it’s horrible. Like a weight pressing constantly down on my chest, crushing my lungs. If I think about it too hard, think about all the ways I’ve killed people that could kill him, it turns to a stabbing pain, right along my sternum. Stabbing. A knife twisting deeper and carving flesh and bone with it. Not phantom pain, because I’ve never been injured there before. If I had been, I’d be dead. Could be heartburn—if heartburn is related to pining dreadfully for someone who is far too ready to bargain their own life for something futile.

Also, I don’t sleep much. Could be heartburn.

I don’t even know where he is. I know he’s abroad, but I don’t know where. It’s—horrible. A month-long mission probably means he’s bringing a team along with him. Benji’s there, if I had to guess. Almada—well, I don’t know what’s happening with Almada. I could’ve been with Ethan if I agreed to be with him when he asked me when we got back from six months of running. Would I like it? No – seeing him throw himself across buildings is not something that’s beneficial for my nerves.

Anyway. My quality as a field agent is decreasing – I probably wouldn’t be classed as fit to work with him. My eyesight is deteriorating. My psych, nine times out of ten, would come back shaky. Endurance training isn’t something I’ve been compelled to do over the past year, so I’ll be behind. I can trust my reflexes, though. Aside from panic attacks and the occasional tremors and spasms that take over my hands, I can control what my body does and when, and sometimes it knows before I do. If I was called in today to pass a physical, I could probably do it out of memory. Out of necessity.

It’s not something I enjoy: sitting around in this one city like I’m supposed to be out—but I know that, any second, I’ll be back. Even if I’m never called back, Ethan’s already gone. Benji’s gone. Almada’s gone. They’re all back. The people I care about are back there, and I’m stuck behind to worry about them constantly. It’s not something I enjoy.

I’d go back in an instant. If I was asked now, I would go back just like that. When Ethan came to me and told me he’d accepted, I struggled to get my head around it. For him, it’s been twenty-so years of working himself to the bone—literally, sometimes—and being cast aside and marginalised and painted as expendable and all these terrible, unjust things. And he accepted right there, right then in that phone booth. Didn’t understand it. As much as I hate to admit, I do now. When it comes to myself, I can always make the harder decision, the wrong decision. It’s a million times easier to hurt myself than to let Ethan hurt himself.

The IMF provides—security. Not physically, because, no matter how many countermeasures and mitigation efforts are implemented, agents still die even when they’re off jobs. Emotional security. It’s a secret language that only we speak. It’s access to a world that nobody else understands. In the beginning, it makes you feel special. In the middle, it makes you feel gravely important. I think I’m well past the gravely important stage – I am replaceable, and it’s a hard truth everybody has to come to terms with in this business. I’m not twitching for grave importance now. Not anymore. This is more of a quiet desperation. A need. I don’t know why my hands crave to hold a gun in a mission setting. I don’t know why I want to feel the rippling sensation down my body when I lay a good punch against an enemy. Security, maybe. Security in the sense that it’s familiar.

I’d go back, accept, no questions asked.

***

“He’s back in the field,” I state simply. Even at the mention of his name, I have to bring it up. I can’t talk to Jo about it, and Brandt’s not exactly a friend, but he’s the next best thing.

“Yes,” he replies, equally as plain. “Why are you asking about it?”

I fight the urge to scoff, roll my eyes, curl my lip. “I didn’t ask about it. I stated something. I stated a statement. Acknowledgement.”

“So, you don’t want me to tell you how he’s doing.” I’ve only met the smug bastard twice, but I can just tell he’s doing that flat thing with his face, raising his eyebrow condescendingly and everything, dripping with sarcasm. Prick. Brandt knows exactly how much I care about him, somehow.

My mind instantly arrives at the memory of Ethan’s body tangled with mine, in my bed, in my apartment, and I heat up furiously. I still remember what he smells like. I still remember the way something shifted in him when we were together like that. We’re close in a way that I don’t know how to define anymore. Nothing simple—reaches what it feels like. I am not going to attempt to reach a description for Brandt if that’s what he’s looking for.

It’s like he can sense my panic through the phone. “You don’t have to tell me about your relationship with him – I know he cares about you; I know you care about him.”

I don’t say anything to that.

Brandt sighs. “He’s perfectly fine, intact, no lost limbs, no fatal injuries. No death-defying stunts—that I know about. I can’t tell you what he’s doing. You happy with that?”

“Who’s with him?”

“Luther and Benji.”

Luther and Benji. Could have guessed as much, but it’s nice to have a confirmation. They’ll take care of him as best as they can, but Ethan always seems to ignore people’s efforts for him and does stupid shit anyway as an effort for them instead. He’s such a pain in the ass. It’s probably a good thing I never took his offer to be a part of his team. I’d probably have to watch him get killed over one of us.

I clear my throat. “How’s Almada?”

“Good.”

“He’s working?”

“Yes.”

Exasperation tears through my body like a wildfire. “Brandt,” I say sharply, “stop giving me these one-word answers. I don’t want it clipped down. I want you to tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t give you what you want, kid,” he shoots back, just as pointed. “Word of advice: don’t want anything, don’t get disappointed.” I quietly seethe. “Glad to hear you’re alright.”

The call ends.

***

Jo is unwaveringly dedicated to her family. I don’t see why. She seems to think that her blood tie to them is an obligation. She never speaks ill of them, never complains about what she does for them, is always humble about her efforts. It’s like she disappears into a spiral whenever they’re brought up, and I watch her eyes glaze over as she rambled about how her mother is very dedicated and loving but just can’t afford to talk to her much because she’s such a tentative nurse to her father.

“You know, she used to be a receptionist before. She used to work at the school me and all my siblings attended, and we used to see her when we got in trouble or needed to sign out. Stuff like that.” I observe the way her lips quirk up in a reminiscent smile. She seems to be doing better, now, thankfully. I spend a ridiculous amount worrying over her. She’s stupid in the way Ethan’s stupid, except she’s entirely more acute with it than he is. Jo is so—conditional. I’ll tell you if. I’ll come with you if. I’ll accept help from you if. I have a feeling the only “if” that’s keeping her around me is that I let her talk to me about her family, about herself. She came here to the museum with me today—not because she really enjoys my company, but because she enjoys how I listen. I don’t mind. I don’t think she’s had anyone listen to her in a while. I let her talk. “I used to ignore her when she tried to talk to me about home stuff at school. Everyone knew she was my mother, but I was still embarrassed to speak with her. When I got home, though, I’d speak with her for hours.”

My eyes drift away from her and to the painting in the corner of this room where Ethan found me again. The girl and the boy with the flowing cloth and the wall of honeysuckle.

Jo notices. “What are you thinking about?” Her voice, even though it’s lowered, echoes lightly through the expansive room.

“Nothing.” The answer is instinctive. Unless I’m required to think of one, I don’t bother. Usually, people get the idea from the finality in my voice. But Jo doesn’t settle for final. She’s frustrating like Ethan in that aspect. So, when I catch her glaring sceptically at the side of my head, I think of him again. Twitchingly, disgustingly insistent. Twitchingly, disgustingly compassionate.

“What are you thinking about?”

I look over again to the painting. “I think I’m gonna go back to work soon.”

Jo furrows her brow and recoils a little. “You haven’t been working? I thought you came here to work.”

Every time the subject of work gets brought up with her, I run from it. One-word answers. How’s work? Good. What do you do? Sales. What do you do in sales? Sell stuff. Okay, maybe two-word answers from time to time. I tell her, “I did.” There you go: two words.

Jo’s mouth hardens. “Would a croissant make you tell me?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s a no, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

She must think I’m excruciating. I can feel the irritation radiating off of her. To think I thought she was a soft, sweet girl with no faults at first. I suppose she is: soft and sweet. Then the layers fold back to something rougher and older that she doesn’t like to show people. But once it’s out, it’s out. She doesn’t try to mask her expressions with a charming smile and warm eyes. Jo is charming and warm when she is, not before and not after, only in the moment. I’ve seen a low point of hers, and she recognises that there’s no point trying to cover it anymore. She doesn’t mask it. The irritation shows on her face—clearly.

Jo tilts her chin ever so slightly upwards. “Ethan’s working, isn’t he?”

Alarm sparks up like flint and flame. I start walking towards the painting, my boots clicking neatly against the floor. I used to hate it when boots clicked. Now, it’s soothing. Like a metronome, to keep time, to keep pace. Jo drifts close behind.

“Yeah,” I mumble, anger already biting at my gut. I always want to talk about him. It’s getting annoying. “Real estate and—stuff.”

Real estate. That’s what he told Jo.

“Is that why you want to go back to work?”

My hands start to shake a little – I stick them deep into my trouser pockets and grasp at the fabric there. “Not want, necessarily.” The painting towers above the two of us. The pearl at the base of my throat suddenly grows heavy, constricting my breath, narrowing it all. “When they call me, I’ll go.”

***

Tension eases its grip on my muscles like it’s finally as tired as I am. My body melts into the contours of my armchair at the drawl of his voice. He’s exhausted – I can tell. His voice, it scrapes along his throat like it’s raw, and his words slow from time to time, until he takes a break at my prompt and lets us sit in quiet for a few seconds. “You don’t know how much I miss you,” he tells me, soft, delicate. My spine quivers all the way up. 

“You sound tired,” I state. 

“So do you.”

I’d rest better if I could see him. “What time is it where you are?”

He hesitates. Jesus. I knew this mission was under wraps, but how many “wraps” are really wrapped around it? After a few moments, he replies, “It’s early.” 

“You suck.”

“Of course.”

I feel like crying, suddenly. There are no tears in my eyes, and I don’t feel short of breath, but there’s a hollowness in my chest. “You should sleep.” All those sleepless nights together in precarious, potentially unsafe safe houses – I know how he is. Borderline insomniac. He won’t sleep, but I try to tell him he should. Useless, but perhaps he’ll understand how much I want him to take care of himself. Hell, what am I doing? Ethan’s perfectly capable of reading in between the lines, and he chooses to ignore things on purpose. He's clever. He ignores the need to take care of himself on purpose. I tell him outright: “I need you to take care of yourself, Ethan. Actually, properly take care of yourself.”

There’s a laugh in his words as he tells me, “I’m doing just fine, sweetheart.”

“Please don’t call me sweetheart when I’m saying this to you.” I slip my forefinger’s nail under the one of my thumb and dig down into the sensitive skin there. 

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

He’s quieter – it hurts to hear him retract like that.

“You don’t have to apologise,” I rush quickly – whatever I do, I’m not going to make him fucking sad anymore because that’s just—not nice. I feel like I’ve made him sad—a lot in the time that I’ve known him. Angry, frustrated. Sometimes, I feel like—the bad outweighs the good. I don’t want there to be any more bad. Determined, I cross my legs up onto the armchair and tuck myself close, leaning in towards the yellow light of the table lamp that illuminates the entire apartment. Determine, I push my glasses up my nose. Determined, I say firmly to him, urgent, “I need you to take care of yourself. Eat regularly, shower, sleep, all that stuff. Come back in one piece.” Short, to the point – that’s all I can manage. Nothing elaborate like my midnight thoughts.

I can hear his smile even through the phone. “I will.”

Okay. The smile seems less endearing than it does amused. He’s amused at me telling him to put himself first for once. Doesn’t even have to be first – just not last. “Ethan,” I say sternly.

He echoes my own name back to me with that similar serious quality.

Hot with aggravation, I twist the thick, gold ring on my right forefinger. I dug it up from underneath my mattress when I was cleaning this morning, a little trinket to remember my wintertime depression.

I push: “I want you to come back in one piece.”

“I will,” he repeats, but he’s still got that awful hitch to his voice like he’s internally laughing at my words. My words are a plea. Me begging. I just—refuse to sound pathetic when I’m begging right now. If I were to start crying and pleading with him and pleading with him, he wouldn’t be internally laughing then, would he? Just because I’m not going to that degree—crying, that is—it doesn’t mean I care any less. I just have a better sort of idea where to channel it, is all. But for once, he hasn’t got it all figured out – only halfway. “Why don’t you believe me?” he asks.

There’s no genuine curiosity to back his question – it’s more accusatory than anything. Why is he accusing me? “Dick,” I grumble lowly, wishing I could just punch his arm right about now.

He snorts, then replies in a saccharine voice: “Honey.”

I can’t help it – I smile. I smile, and that smile blossoms slowly into a grin. I stop fidgeting with my ring and raise a hand to cover my face, even though there’s no-one around to see me beaming like an idiot.

He called me honey.

Twisted bedsheets and his breath on my skin – it rushes through my mind like a wildfire. I know he’s thinking about it, too. I shift in my chair, trying to remove the pressure between my legs before it starts to affect my voice, the way I’m talking to him. We haven’t spoken about it. There’s just an understanding that—it happened. That I know what his fingers feel like on my skin, that I know how his eyes rolled back just slightly when he pushed into me. That he knows what it’s like to kiss me, that he knows what I look like on my knees for him. An understanding. It felt necessary in the moment. Now, it just—makes me crave him again, in a selfish way.

I ask him, “You care about me, right?” before sense can tap back into my mind. My heel presses right where I want his hand to be. I rock slightly into it at the sound of his voice.

“I care about you.”

He’s lovely. “Then take care of yourself.”

“I will,” Ethan promises, and I believe him this time. “And you? You care about me?”

More than anything. “I care about you.”

***

It happens.

I get the call.

It doesn’t happen under the same—I don’t know, extent?—it doesn’t happen under the same extent that Ethan’s return did. There’s no elaborate trail of phones ringing behind me as I walk down the street unassuming until I take the time to walk into the phone booth and see what the fuck is going on. No, there’s nothing like that. My call is simple. My call is Brandt.

“I need you back in the States as soon as possible,” he tells me unceremoniously, the stingy, little bastard.

Even at the mention of it, of America, makes my shoulders clench and tighten up instantly. After a second of collecting myself up again, processing his words, I ask, “Why?” because, even after all this thought of, yes, I would go back to work in a heartbeat, I’m not so sure about going back to the States yet. I just—wouldn’t trust it. Not after being shoved aside like that.

“Brassel wants you back in the field. Important job. I’m your handler, now.”

Alright, now I properly freeze. Handler. Brandt is my handler. I—don’t want another handler. My last handler cared jackshite about me, and it was—horrible. Knowing that even if I survived a dangerous mission, all I would come home to is an indifferent face, someone who was entirely preoccupied with other matters, whether it be his coffee or the fact that Rihanna needs to release another album. When I did things right—fine, that’s what you’re supposed to do anyway. When I did things wrong—fuck off, you’re useless, how am I supposed to work with this? And Brandt’s been nothing but nice—and fairly assholish (on occasion)—to me. Handler. Handlers aren’t all that nice. I don’t want to have known him like this and then slowly see how he transitions into something else. Every frustration I cause him, every disappointment, could make him different. And then he won’t want to look out for me anymore. 

I swallow all my fears down, attempting to subtly cure my rapidly drying mouth and throat, and ask him with as much of my old spunk as possible: “What’s—what’s the job?” The hesitation in my sentence doesn’t do me any favours with Brandt.

“Not-so-simple hit,” he replies dryly.

“Quick?”

“I’ll tell you more once we have you in person.”

So, it’s complicated. Probably involves a third party somewhere. Whether they’re going to disclose that to me or not, I don’t know. I tell him, “Okay.” Now—what I do know is that the mark is dangerous, capable, and possible intelligence or former intelligence. Not-so-simple hit. They never describe a hit unless they’re former intelligence. And I’ve done a fair share of those—jobs. Even when the mark is an arms dealer or whatever, the initial job description is reduced to “hit”. If they elaborate further, it’s done on paper.

“So, you’re in?” Well, yeah, I suppose so. This is what I’ve wanted. I open my mouth to confirm, but, before the words can leave me, Brandt is wedging in with, “Don’t say yes right away,” his voice sharp and carrying a certain urgency. I furrow my brows. “I know you were about to. Think it through.”

I smile at his words. What a trick. “Aren’t you supposed to be convincing me to stay with the IMF?”

There’s a short pause – he’s thinking. Then, “I know you’re tired.”

Oh.

Brandt and I aren’t friends. Now that he’s my handler, I don’t think we’ll ever really go there. What do I know about him? He’s high up. Brassel trusts him. He was a field agent, an analyst, a field agent again. He’s Ethan’s superior. He’s relatively—a middle man. I have no idea what he’s like when he’s not in this diplomatic, indifferent sort of mode. But he’s smart and he’s sensible and respectable, and, most importantly, Ethan and Benji trust him. They’ve been through some shit, and they trust him.

I flick under my nails. His first name curls oddly under my tongue: “Will—”

“Yes?”

I sigh. “You’ll—make sure it’s—better there?”

“At the agency?”

Think about it. “Yeah.”

The agency that made everything miserable. The agency that pushed me down a route I didn’t want to go down, where I’m stuck now. Not-so-simple hit – that’s all I’m good for at the IMF. I don’t know—when my morals got erased, but they did, somehow, along the way. There’s no good and bad there. It can get scary when that melds into your life away from it. You can’t have a life away from it. But I’m beating with want for it: a life. A normal job. If I can’t have those things, I at least expect something better. If they want me back, I must have some kind of value to them. Is it wrong for me to want to exercise that value? To ask for boundaries? I don’t want to be alone there. I don’t want to be the only one taking care of me. It’s exhausting and lonely and dark and cold and painful. Nobody cares. Nobody notices. I don’t want that. Now, I don’t want to be famous at the IMF anymore. No, I’ve seen what Ethan’s like, and it isn’t any better. He’s lonely in a different way, but it’s all the same. I just want a few people to really look out for me. Make sure I don’t get lost. And I can help them in the same way. If they get buried in everything, I’ll dedicate myself to digging them back out again. I want that. I want someone to make sure it’s better there. 

Brandt tells me, his voice resolute, “I’ll take care of you. You won’t be alone.” Please mean it. Please mean it. He’ll try his best. “They’re not gonna throw you around.”

“And you won’t throw me around either?”

He snorts. “Depends how much of a prick you are, I dunno.”

I shrug. “Hard to beat you in that category, I guess.”

“Ha-ha, very funny. I’m crying with laughter,” he quips back flatly, and a smile flutters up onto my face. “You’ve got a flight first thing tomorrow. I’ll send you the details.”

“Thanks, Brandt.”

He says my name softly. “Think it through. You don’t have to go back.”

Jesus. Stop telling me that. If he keeps telling me to stay away, what am I supposed to do with myself? It’s either the IMF again, or spending time with myself like this for the rest of my life. I don’t know which is worse. When he promises that it won’t be the same, I don’t doubt he’ll try to follow through – I just—don’t think he’ll succeed. I’m bracing myself for it again. If he keeps telling me to stay away, I actually might. I’ve already made up my mind: “I am going back,” I tell him firmly.

***

“Back to work?”

My eyes dart around her face, charting her reaction. “Yeah.”

Jo screws her mouth up bitterly and leans back in her chair abruptly, forcing a short screech along the tile. A few of the other customers out here turn to glare at the horrible noise, but she either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care – she stares me down with a burning intensity in her dark eyes. “Who am I gonna talk to all day?”

I laugh airily – she sounds like a goddamn toddler. After my amusement bubbles down to a gentle hiccup in my lungs, I reach down and take another sip from my coffee, smiling into the drink as my peering eyes catch Jo rolling her eyes at me over the rim of my cup. I snicker again, and hot coffee nearly shoots right up my nose. “Make some friends your own age,” I tell her, sputtering and coughing through a smile. Where’s the polite girl who recommended me Emma all those months ago, hmm?

“But you’re funnier,” she protests. 

I tilt my head in thought. “I guess I am pretty heroic like that.”

“It’s not a long trip, right?”

The quiet tremble in her voice makes my eyes snap back strong to her. Of course, it’s occurred to me that I’m essentially her closest friend here. Jo is unreasonably busy all the time, doing all these things under the reasoning that she has to be exceptional all the time, all day, everywhere, all at once. I’m pretty sure she’s working on about five software projects at once when she doesn’t even need to. And when she’s not doing her school stuff, she’s waitressing. If I leave, she only has those things left. The realisation leaves a pang throbbing through my chest, leaves me feeling infected. She’s one of the only steady, normal aspects of my life, and I’m the same for her.

I pick a crusted layer of pastry off of my croissant, watching. “I don’t know. Depends.”

She seems to settle for that: “Okay.” Good.

“Ethan’ll be back soon.” Only three days, four days more – I’ve been paying attention. I’m less upset than I thought I’d be over the fact I won’t be there to greet him when he gets back. What happened with us before he went?—that was good. If he comes back and I say the wrong thing, that good thing doesn’t mean anything. Oh, well. Jo’s friendly with him, I think. He’s always fussing over her, buying any book she so much as looks at, paying her rent while she gets back on her feet. I smile, tell her, “He can keep you company.” 

She groans playfully, grinning. “I know, but he’s such a nerd.”

I bark out a laugh. “He is, isn’t he? No more nerd than you, though, Computer Science major.”

After pushing her wild hair as best she can behind her ears, her shoulders, she tugs my plate over between her arms and promptly shoves the rest of my croissant in her mouth. “He’s nice,” she says through a mouthful of flaky pastry. Her eyes glint brightly. 

“Yeah,” I agree, side-eyeing her suspiciously, and not just because she’s eating my goddamn croissant. Why is she looking at me like that? I’m careful not to buffer in front of her.

“Can we all go for a dinner when you get back?”

I nod. “Uh, yeah. Any occasion?”

“I just like spending time with you.”

My heart swells to my throat. I clear it, taking another sip of coffee. “Who doesn’t?” She likes spending time with me. But the elation quickly trickles back to earth when I stick my hands back into my pockets to stop their trembling and one clenches around a slip of paper. Right. Right, I forgot. I retrieve the crumpled paper and slide it on over the table to Jo. She raises a quizzical brow. “You call this number if you need anything,” I tell her. “Make sure it’s important. Technically, I’m not supposed to be in contact with anyone outside work during this.”

She wipes off her hands and takes the slip, black numbers scrawled neatly there on the white – one of my burner phones. “If I just want to talk to you?”

I roll my jaw slightly. “Don’t. It needs to be important.”

“So, life or death?” she asks with a smile.

I’m not smiling. “Let’s hope not.” Dread knots in my stomach. Maybe it’s a good thing she took my croissant. “If it’s life or death, Ethan’ll deal with it.”

***

They must’ve updated this room. Last I saw it, it was a neutral grey, bridging right between cool and warm so you could never really decide whether your eyes were bad or not. I’ve put in contacts for today, and I know they’ll put that on my updated file, and I know that my value will go down. I can’t tell whether the new interior is good or bad: bright, white, wide. They’ve painted the walls—white. An asylum sort of white. A little distracting but also so stark that it might actually do well for my aim when it comes down to that. If anything, it’s white so that they can adjust the light intensity to see how well I fare in the dark with a gun.

Numerous people are here to oversee my evaluation, with clipboards and charts and kits and all, but the only two I recognise are Brandt and Brassel. The first is watching me closely with steely blue eyes, face tough-set and refusing to give away anything. Now, I’ve only met the guy a few times in person, but they were fairly excruciating times – all in all, those lines on his forehead give away everything. Forever on edge. I can see the slight sunken quality of grief in his eyes: he’s sad to watch me enter. Brassel, on the hand, is smiling faintly. He’ll do everything to get me back in the field, and Brandt will try to keep me out. I can’t decide who I side with. Both of their attentions prickle down my spine like a ghost has just walked through me, cold, sickly, rotten. I don’t like Brandt looking at me like I’m already dead. I don’t like Brassel looking at me like I’m a shiny coin.

I approach them both with a neutral expression, more tired than anything. The flight was long, I’m jet-lagged as hell, and now I have to do this. My eyes heavy, my skin stuffy with oil and sweat, I stand respectfully in front of them both. The Secretary—and my handler. What a pair.

Searching my mind for something to say, I realise I don’t have anything at all. Nothing smart or polite or funny. I let Brassel say the first words:

“It’s good to have you here, agent,” he states in a way that’s hollow with fake genuineness. I nod nonetheless. “I trust you had a safe journey.”

“I did.”

Brandt stirs next to him, raising his brow and adjusting his grey suit jacket as he gestures over to the equipment in the room. “We’ll start with basic fitness and move on to your skill set, alright?” His mouth is set in a hard line.

“Fine by me.” My limbs ache.

The Secretary clears his throat, and I look over at him again. Despite his appearance, there’s nothing soft in the way he is. Nothing soft about how he speaks, he stares, he carries himself. It’s all sharp edges and calculated moves. Frigid bitch.

He tells me, “The psych evaluation is last.”

I nod.

“It’s not one or the other – it’s both. You’re not going in unless you pass—”

“Both,” I finish for him, nodding sporadically, itching to just get everything over and done with. “Gotta pass both. No problem, bossman, just hook me up and let’s go.” I glance over my shoulder at the treadmill and the ECG. Ethan went through this just a month ago.

The physical test is okay. Emphasis on okay – there’s nothing exceptional nor horrifying about any of the checks I’m put through. Endurance training is easy enough. At first, of course, all the equipment they attach to you is off-putting, and going through months of not running consistently at all has an effect on your performance—but then I focus my mind on the making of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I’m fine. If I just keep thinking about the costume design and production, I can run. And so, I run and run and run and just fantasise about Eowyn’s white dress. My body feels light and nothing feels real anymore, and it’s alright. In my peripheral vision, some of the observers scribble down notes or results on their little clipboards. Brassel has left somewhere. Brandt is watching me with the same anxious air about him. Eowyn’s dress, Eowyn’s dress. I wonder how they made Arwen’s coronation headdress. I used to want to be her so bad.

The running is up before too long. When they increase the speed, increase the humidity in this room, I don’t really realise it. But then everything is up and finished and I’m doing sit-ups and press-ups and pull-ups and planking until I’m struggling to breathe. I’m passing this test. Breathing is optional compared to that goal.

My skin is drenched with sweat, running slickly down my back and soaking my sports bra and my leggings. This sucks. This sucks. I’m careful to keep my mouth shut, though – none of those sharp quips or flurries of curses that always escape me when training with Ethan. Just a perfect silence, interjected only by regular breath control and responding to any stupid questions the observers throw my way.

“Struggling?” asks Brandt as I sit up after a five-minute plank, my lungs quivering.

I glare at him. “What’s next?”

A gun is offered to me – it slides into my hand like home, and my mind eases instantly. It’s a comfort and also—incredibly discerning. How the thoughts in my head go quiet. How the muscles release tension. How my eyes seem to focus a little better.

Aim is no trouble. Each shot I fire hits the target, and everything is accurate to anatomy, even though what I’m shooting at is a man-shaped shadow with nothing else to it. Sternum. Head, between the eyes. Quick deaths.

It’s no trouble.

After, they direct me to a separate room that looks like those interrogation rooms you see in cop shows. I’ve never been in one of these rooms. When I need to interrogate someone, it’s not done as politely. When someone is interrogating me, it’s not as clean. The neatest it gets for me is with the IMF – someone will invite you to dinner and poke harder and harder where it hurts with pointed questions and cold stares until you end up slipping something you didn’t mean to, and then they call for the bill and smile and tell you good night. Oh, well. That’s only when you do something wrong.

Doctor Lawlor is very polite. Curt, clipped, neat. Everything from the way her black hair is slicked back into a bun, the sharpness of her nails, to the way she smiles at me when I sit down in the chair opposite her.

She asks me how I feel about being called back.

“So excited,” I answer, nestling back into my chair and shooting her a grin.

Truth is, I’ve never felt more boxed in. I feel like a trinket, all foggy and scratched, at the bottom of a box. Every once in a while, someone will reach inside and turn me over, and, when I don’t gleam and smile, they put me back. I think I want back in. I don’t even know anymore. All I know is I don’t want to stay at home anymore. I need something different. Whenever I think of being forced to live what I’m living like now, I grow heavy and tired and sick of myself. At least this is different.

Lawlor glances at some kind of checklist on her lap. When she catches me looking too, she tilts it back and hides it from view. “Shall we start with some simple word associations, then?”

There’s no grin on my face now. “Yeah, sure.”

That familiar tiredness returns to my muscles, dragging, pulling. Slump. Can’t do that right now. Later. Right now, right here, this is work. Yeah, sure, the way she clears her throat makes me want to gouge my ears out of my head, but this is work. You’re not—supposed—to like it. It—drags you down. Puts you in a slump.

I meet Lawlor’s analytical stare with dead eyes.

It begins: “Cigarette.”

Miller. “Smoke.”

Brassel will be watching behind the “mirror” here. Lawlor keeps a neutral expression, which I’m thankful for – I can base my own off of hers.

“Boy,” she reads out.

“Corrupted.”

“Almada.”

My body hardens – what? I blink at her for her heartbeat, then glance over at my reflection in the mirror over my shoulder, and I make it quietly clear I’m angry. They shouldn’t’ve brought him up. What has Brandt told the IMF about our calls? Was his friendly nature over the phone all tailored? I seal off. I swallow it down before answering neatly, the same: “Corrupted.”

Lawlor writes something down before resuming. “Girl.”

“Woman.”

“Day.”

I grin. “Tired.” The skin on my arms prickles from the cold.

Lawlor doesn’t grin, and the smile soon falls from my face. “Ocean,” she says simply.

“Lost.”

“Hunt.”

Ethan, I think instantly. I don’t make any notion of looking angry or glancing over at the mirror. “Prey,” I answer solemnly. I would rather me die than they ever know the extent I would go to for him, that I would literally burn everything down so that nothing would happen to him. Of course, things are happening to him, have happened, will happen, and I’m a bit useless in that sector. Strongest thing I could do is leave. But I’m returning to this—room. This agency. Brassel.

I’m not left enough time to finish my thought. “Glass,” the doctor prompts.

“Shatter.”

“Order.”

“Subjective.”

“Colour.”

I smile. “Pink.”

***

It’s almost like I’m living an entirely different life. It’s not even that it’s—cut down the middle. Everything has formed separately: two worlds that never, ever cross and never, ever overlap. Usually. Being out of it—that side is like being in a pot of warm water and the temperature slowly increasing, until you don’t even realise you’re getting boiled alive. And then there’s this, being in it, where everything is on fire all the time.

I feel like a goddamn video game character. Wearing this khaki utility suit, carrying all these weapons, Brandt’s voice in my ear, in the middle of goddamn nowhere – I feel fake. Like I’m in a book or a movie.

I’ve never been to Portugal before. I won’t be seeing any of the major cities, or any cities, in fact, or towns or villages or whatever other places, landmarks and shit, because what I’m supposed to have my sights on is that house right over there: that lonely, white house nestled comfortably near the cliff’s edge. If you take a look at it from where the tourists are permitted, it’s small and far away and yet just defined enough for you to probably think to yourself that you’d love to live somewhere like that. Pretty spot, away from view. Nice weather—mostly. As of now, grey clouds crowd overhead, snuffing out any chance of sunlight. That’s okay – less distracting for me. It does make everything just a little uglier, though. The grass is more grey and yellow than green, and the sea is grey as well, and, well, I guess it’s sort of like one of those old noir films about murder and stalking or whatever noir films are about. Isolated, moody. That’s super noir, right? I dunno. That’s what Jo would probably tell me if she could see this. It’s beautiful—in a dangerous-looking sort of way. Crashing waves bring back crashing memories of the ferry in Ukraine. A storm’s rolling in.

“You’re in place?” says Brandt through my ear. After so long of not hearing anything through my right ear, to now have my earpiece shoved in there is more than a little strange. Bordering overstimulation, because I seem to be a little sensitive there, still recovering, but not to the point where I break down in tears, choke on my snot, et cetera, et cetera.

I take a look up at the tree beside me, the spindly, dry, little thing, and tell him, “Yup, I’m in place.” He could tell for himself anyway – I’m wearing a body cam – but whatever. If he wants to be pissy like that, I’ll let him.

“Stand by.”

I’ve been “standing by” for thirty bloody minutes.

“She is alone, yes?” I ask, because, sometimes (a lot of the time), they’re not clear about these things, not transparent, and then I’m made to do more than I’m actually paid for. Kill two—or three, four, five—birds with one stone, as they say.

Brandt responds flatly, “She’s alone.”

So much for taking care of each other at the agency. But I can’t blame him – he’s probably living two entirely different lives as well; they can’t overlap. I just—can’t believe the shift sometimes. No jokes, no quips, no jokingly condescending “kid”; just straight, simple information, orders for me to follow. And the fact that he probably approved Lawlor’s list of prompts at the beginning of that painstaking, forty-three-minute psych eval. She brought up Almada. Brandt approved Almada.

He’s fluent in Portuguese, Almada is.

I’ll probably never be allowed to see him again. I’m too afraid to ask.

“Start heading down, keep in the grass.” I obey, starting down the hill and leaving behind that spindly tree. Due to the sudden bout of consistent rain down here, the coarse, rat-hair grass has grown thicker and longer, almost brushing my stomach. It won’t cover me completely, but I’ll be able to duck down if she takes a look around. “This is a very important mark, agent.”

“Yeah, yeah, I understand.”

“Good.”

She is ex-intelligence, just like I guessed. No-one takes the extra time to describe a mark unless it’s ex-intelligence, from what I’ve experienced. Maybe it’s guilt, that they got out and now someone is being sent to kill them. Or maybe it’s spite – they left, they deserve it. I try convincing myself that this woman, Georgia Fitzgerald, is heinous. Despicable. A menace. Love that word: menace. Fitzgerald was IMF. Like me. Oh, well. Retirement isn’t really retirement ever, is it? If I left, what if they sent somebody to kill me, too? I don’t ever know why I’m killing her. All I know is her name, her address, and that she is a hostile ex-IMF agent. I’m being taken advantage of – I know that, I’m totally aware of it, and Brassel should be ashamed of himself, but I’m also completely allowing it because I need to—to get back into the groove anyway. I roll my shoulders because I forgot how upright this holster makes your back.

Thankfully, I’m encased all the way up to my neck – this grass would probably give me sores all over my skin if I wasn’t wearing this. It sways and pulls erratically around me as the wind worsens and thunder crackles overhead. The hair on the back of my neck stands up.

Couldn’t use a sniper here. If the wind was lighter, if Fitzgerald actually ever dared to walk outside every now and then, or even past a window, then maybe. She’s cautious—as she should be, I suppose.

I try not to humanise her.

She’s a bad, bad woman who’s done horrible things, and I try my best not to humanise her.

My braid stabs at my scalp in a couple places that make it very painful to move my head, so I reach up a hand and try to loosen it a little.

First job back, and it’s a solo mission. First job back, and it’s a hit. I’m right where I started.

I wonder what Ethan’s doing.

“Yo, Brandt,” I start, dutifully continuing on through the long, so-far dry grass, “who else is there with you?”

“Hmm?”

“Who else is with you? In the little control room.”

If this is an important mark, Brassel must care a lot. The implicit gravity of this mission is starting to set in my body ever so slightly. I perform well under pressure—from what I can remember—but, then again, it’s been more than a year. I haven’t been like this in a year. No hits, no marks, no weight on my shoulders. Something I should have enjoyed existing as but obviously couldn’t quite take well.

Brandt clears his throat. “Focus on the task at hand, please, or I’ll have to call radio silence.”

“No more questions?”

“No.” His forehead’s probably gone all wrinkly.

I enter through the sunroom at the side of the house, gliding my gloved hands over the glass and studying the wide variety of plants all cooped up inside, green and vivid and bright compared to everything else about this place. I pick the lock, and, to my surprise, there’s not even an alarm system. Nothing goes off, nothing blares in my ears. There was no alarm system according to the file, but missions never go the way you planned. I step up from the patio into Fitzgerald’s home.

For a second, it really does just feel like visiting a friend’s house. Early memories, normal ones, of going over for Thanksgiving, of entering a house you’ve never entered before and being absolutely intrigued and slightly intimidated by everything around you. It’s a nice house. The sunroom is, at least. It’s humid and packed with potted plants along the floor, and plants hanging from the ceiling, mounted on the wall, a small, curated forest of thick leaves and thin leaves and small, blooming flowers. A strange Thanksgiving home, but I don’t really class this as—dangerous. I just—stand there and admire the room a little longer.

“Agent,” comes the voice in my head.

I don’t say anything, but I perk up immediately. Right. Right, we’re not normal anymore; we’re a government agent literally on a job to assassinate somebody.

“Proceed with caution.”

It’s then I realise that this room absolutely sucks when it comes to stealth: the humidity settles real quick under my suit, thick and warm but also stifling and horrible; the plants on the floor crowd wherever I go to step, and, if Fitzgerald were to just waltz in, she’d be able to kill me just like that. Suppose I could camp out here. No—she might have cameras, be watching me right now, be packing a bag, grabbing her stash, right now. I have to find her quick. I have to kill her quick. And then I can forget this ever happened and pretend I don’t do work like this and imagine I just went to my friend’s house for Thanksgiving and convince myself that this was all some weird, vivid dream. And then I guess I’ll—have these weird, vivid dreams over and over again because—because I went back. I chose this. I chose this again, even after everything. I think of Brandt on the other side of this camera, of my earpiece. He told me to think about it, that maybe I shouldn’t come back. And I did anyway. Maybe he thinks I’m lost, beyond salvation, beyond his help, and he’s closing himself off because he thinks I’m going to die eventually, so what’s the point? Why try to be friends with anyone when they’re gonna end up dead? “Pick up the pace, agent,” he orders, and I smile. What a guy. I hop deftly over plants and sidle on through the French doors into a different room, cringing at the noise they make.

“Melia!”

My body clenches. That’s not Brandt. Brandt is in my ear, and that’s not Brandt. Distinctly feminine, a little rough, a little deeper than average—that’s Fitzgerald. I think. Georgia Fitzgerald. Not—

“Amelia!”

It doesn’t seem to carry any urgency to it—the cry. But it also means there is more than one person in this house. It means that the IMF’s data either wasn’t correct or that they redacted information from what was probably necessary for me to know. I stand in the shadowed room and listen carefully, my hand moving at a snail’s pace as I retrieve my handgun out of its holster.

A voice calls back: “Ma?”

My face drops at its pitch.

That’s a kid. Squeaky, high pitched, that’s a kid. My eyes harden in horror and nausea slides in my stomach. What are they having me do? What do they want me to do? Two birds with one stone? Is this—are these the two birds? My hands twitch to grab at something, but I’m in the middle of the room, so I have to settle on grasping my gun.

“Continue with the mission, please.” That’s Brassel. “Fitzgerald is the only one that’s necessary. You can forget about the third party.”

Third party? That’s hardly a third party. She sounds—Amelia sounds—really young. When I looked at Fitzgerald’s file, when I looked at her face, I don’t—she had a hollowness to her that I thought could never harbour anything gentle or mundane. And I’m listening to her tell—her daughter—to clean up her room.

Oh, Jesus. Please let this not be real. Please let this be fake.

I squeeze my eyes shut and pray. Please, please, please, please—

Footsteps. There are footsteps on the hardwood floor, just a room away. I try not to breathe; I try not to cry. Jesus. “You’ve got till the end of the day, baby. I’ve been telling you for weeks, and I’m serious this time: I want it clean. I am not stepping on any more o’ your Legos.”

Legos. Jesus Christ.

This is fake, this is fake, this is Thanksgiving, this is fake.

“‘kay, Ma!” the little voice cries back. Amelia.

Up above, there’s a clammering as the little girl runs around up there. She sounds—really young. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. What am I fucking doing here? I’m holding a fucking gun, I’m in her fucking house, and I’m supposed to fucking kill her. And Brassel and Brandt and God knows who else is watching it all over a camera.

No. I don’t want to do this.

I make to turn around, stumbling back the way I came, but there’s a fucking side table and it knocks hard against the wall, and, as I try to make a run for it back to the door, there are the stupid potted plants. Jesus Christ – the crash it makes is legendary.

I watch as Georgia Fitzgerald peers into the room. I watch as her face falls, as fear consumes her eyes, and a part of me deadens. She dashes away around the wall, and I hear the clatter of things most likely from the kitchen, that metallic cluster of spoons and forks and—knives. I hasten my dash, uncaring for these fucking flowers, try to run outside.

“What are you doing?” Brassel presses. Oh, my God.

I think for a second, shoving my way outside and fumbling off the patio and back into the long-grass. The rain has yet to fall. Everything is so loud – the thunder, the wind, the lashing of the grass, the waves. I want to scream.

Fitzgerald comes hurtling out of the sunroom with a small kitchen knife in her hand, crazed, her dark skin a stark contrast to the white of the house. She almost fits perfectly into the greyscale of the place.

“Agent, what are you doing?”

Right. “I’m not doing it in the house,” I tell him, praying that that’ll settle him. If I let myself fall while running, just the right way, I could smuggle off my body cam and smash it clean, and my earpiece, and then I could be free of them. If I did it just the right way, I could fake my own death. If I let Fitzgerald catch up to me, I could be gone from the IMF.

Not that that’s an issue for her. The catching up part, I mean. Because she is a fully trained IMF field agent, just like me, better, even, if the agency cares so much whether she lives or dies. She’s killed people, she’s hurt people, she’s trained. And she’s storming towards me.

I’m perfectly frozen – she can see this, she knows this, she’s using this.

Before I know it, I’m raising my gun, sort of praying she kills me. Faking your death requires intricacies I haven’t prepared for yet – being killed is much more efficient.

And when she grabs the barrel of my gun and yanks it to the side, no shots go off because I don’t fire in the first place, and I’m sort of praying she kills me. Ethan—Ethan can move on. He’s flexible like that. Even if—it would hurt him a little. That I didn’t even try.

With her other hand, Fitzgerald swipes the knife around, and I’m fully accepting that it’s going to slash my neck and that I am going to die.

But my body has been through a lot. I’ve trained with knives a lot. I’ve fought with knives a lot. It’s not a choice when I dart my head back and narrowly miss the singing blade as it wipes past me – it’s an instinct. Practice.

I grab her armed side with a frightening grip, nearly crushing her wrist with the force, and promptly thrust my forehead right over at her face, as hard as I can. As she’s reeling from her nose being crushed, I beat the knife out of her hands with the hilt of my gun, again and again and again.

The knife is lost in the grass.

Crying out with a rawness I haven’t ever heard in my life, Fitzgerald whips her elbow back into my face, snaps a punch under my chin. She has something to fight for. But I don’t even want any of this. I want to leave, want to leave her alone and all of this shit. This was a mistake, I realise as I cough wildly, vomit rising in my throat. She knees me in my stomach, then punches there, and another, and another, and then I’m shoving her away, spinning around and retching up onto the grass.

Christ. Wonder what control thinks, seeing this.

Fitzgerald claws into my back and yanks me right back, curling an arm around my neck and squeezing me tight in a lock. “Why are you at my house?” she growls, deadly. I respond with a squeak and a wheeze, my mouth and tongue bitter. “Won’t fucking leave me alone. Where’s your transmitter?” She shoves me to the ground, hard, and I fall into grass smattered with my own sick. Fat raindrops start to hail around me, matting my hair down as Fitzgerald’s knee presses between my shoulder blades. She yanks my head up, and this time I’m sure she’s going to kill me, snap my neck.

She doesn’t. One hand gripping my hair, the other tears out my earpiece as she screams, “Fuck off!” into it and tosses it far, far away. I cry out with pain as she twists my hair meanly, sobbing and blubbering as the air around me turns to water. She roughly flips me over, jamming my shoulder into the ground. Erratic, she searches for my body cam, her knees pinning my legs down, her eyes frantically scanning my body. When she finds it she yanks it off, crushes it into the grass. I cry and whimper up at the sky.

“Jesus Christ, shut up,” Fitzgerald snarls at me, hitting me across the face.

This blows.

Say I don’t want to die. Say I want to go home and spend time with Jo and listen to her complain about her coursework. Say I want to eat take-out with Ethan and practice our Japanese.

Okay. Okay, maybe I don’t want to die.

I hit Fitzgerald back—really, really hard, right in the jaw. I roll her over, pin her down, and I hit her really hard over and over. I want to go home. I want this to be fake, but it’s not fake, it’s real, and I’m just gonna have to fucking deal with it. Fucking sucks. When Fitzgerald reels her legs up and kicks me back in the stomach, I get back up, ready, drenched, dripping, struggling to breathe in this goddamn weather. When she takes advantage of my misplaced punch and crunches my arm right down on her knee, it hurts like hell, sure, but I also couldn’t give a shit. I beat to her knees in a combination of blind panic and blind rage, completely forgetting all that guilt I felt earlier. I want to go home and I want this to be over. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t give a shit how I get there.

Her face is blurred through the onslaught of rain. I can barely hear anything over the sound of it all, the crashing, the lashing, the roaring. All of it.

“They don’t care about you,” Fitzgerald rasps, voice grating painfully against her throat. Her nose is broken, and blood is smeared all over her bitter face. She’s not in the position to lecture me, not with the gun I have pressed against her forehead. “You’re just a cog in their machine,” she goes on, accepting her fate. “And once you’re not useful to them anymore, you’re gone.”

“Okay,” I say.

And then I pull the trigger.

Her body falls flat, her limbs flopping right down over my shoes – I kick them off of me, and I walk away from the edge of the cliff.

Job done. Messy, sure, but it’s over. I want to go home.

In the doorway of the sunroom, a little shadow stands, watching from afar. For a second there, I actually think about waving to little Amelia. Maybe the disconnect between work and personal life is—a little more worrying that I let on.

In the end, I just kind of stand there, watching right back, just a few paces away from her mother’s shadowy slump of a corpse. I have no idea whether she has anyone else in life or not. Georgia Fitzgerald retired only to get killed. She settled down only to get killed, to be parted from her family. I guess it was inevitable – I was only a catalyst. That’s me being polite to myself: catalyst. Catalyst, my ass. I killed her so that I could go home. I killed her so that I could go play big sister with Jo. I killed so that I could see Ethan again. Worst part is, I don’t really feel guilty about it anymore. I feel reassured – I am going back, I am allowed to see them. In order to do that, I just had to—take away Fitzgerald’s ability to do all that stuff herself. Her or me. That’s it – it was her or me. 

Little Amelia’s shadow edges out little by little into the rain as I start to walk away from the scene of it, start to make my way back up the hill. Once I’m far enough away, she strolls on over to where her mother is sleeping, crouches down by her body. I don’t look back anymore after that. I couldn’t take care of her, so I don’t know why that thought enters my mind. I killed her mother. I can’t cancel that out. Ever. So, I leave, my boots muddied, my socks soaked through, my scalp sodden with water. 

I disappear into the grey rain. 

***

The small motel room I’ve been instructed to go to is resoundingly similar to the one I shared with the others in Brazil, except it’s colder and somehow shittier and the walls are painted an atrocious shade of orange-red in a weak attempt to hide the many imperfections in the plaster. I don’t bother with looking, around, though, because I’ll only be using this space for an hour or two – transport’s already ready, and all I have to do is get there in one piece.

Oh, the shower – the place where I’ve had some of my lowest moments ever in life. It’s hard not to step foot in any bathroom and instantly become aware of the aching in my chest. It’s the same here. Skin clammy from rainwater and blood and sweat, pain throbbing up from underneath like something’s living there, eating me from the inside.

As I peel the suit from my body, my eyes well up with involuntary tears, and I whimper up at the bulbous, flickering, yellow light up on the ceiling, almost biting right through my lip. A pained whimper leaves me, a low, shuddering moan, as I delicately remove the dense fabric from my right arm. Thank God I’m ambidextrous – they drill it into you at the academy. But for now, everything burns. Everything burns with a bright pain, leaving my body quaking and writhing with it as I cradle the crooked limb. Ew. Gross. It’s—disgusting to look at. Not so much worrying, because I’m not a stranger to broken bones and gashes and cuts and bruises and so on. I know how to take care of it—for now. It’s just—disgusting. Swollen, jagged. I prod and squeeze gingerly at my upper arm, curling myself up on the floor with my back against the bathtub. Humerus fracture. I don’t know how severe, but, when she did it, it felt like she snapped it clean.

I cry up at the light again. Fat tears roll down my dirt-streaked face, and I swallow my sorrow.

She really put up a fight. My body is littered with cloudy bruises and ugly welts. My muscles are sore with effort. This is horrible. Why did I put myself through this again?

I cradle my arm gently, making sure my upper arm hangs straight down. I have to shower with this. I’m gonna have to take the rest of my clothes off and then shower with this. And then I’ll have to make it to transport, injuries and all, and then get on a plane back to America, and then sit through a fucking debrief, let Brassel yell at me for compromising the job. I hate him. I hate Brassel so much it hurts.

It’ll be so long before I’m home in Tokyo. I don’t even know if they’ll let me go back right away, or if they’ll throw me around like they do with Almada. One more job, one more hit – we all know how that story goes.

***

“What are you doing here?”

As he swivels around in a panic, I find myself transfixed. He’s what I fought for. He’s why I wanted to stay alive.

And just look at him: he’s so nice. Ethan looks at me the way he did after I broke into de Melo’s house and lost contact, like I’m not real, like I’m some ghost, like I should be dead. His cheeks are flushed slightly from the cold, and his breath leaves him in delicate, little, white wisps. His green eyes glitter, and I meet them, slightly ashamed. He’s been waiting on my doorstep. I went to go get groceries instead of calling him, and he’s waiting on my doorstep. I say nothing else, because I’m still deciding whether I should apologise or drop to my knees and ask him to run away with me, and neither does he. 

My left hand is straining with the effort of two, very full bags, my shoulders jarred to one side. “Let me take those,” Ethan offers, and he relieves me of their weight. 

His voice almost sets me off into hysterics right then and there, but, lo and behold, I manage to hold on.

Both back from a mission. Both different. I try to decipher whether things are the same between us or if they’re entirely changed, but I—don’t know. There are too many factors. Everything is changing, so fast, so quickly, and I don’t seem to have a say in it, and it’s driving me insane. Everything is changing, but I just hope that Ethan and I can stay constant. I don’t care about anything else. 

“You left,” he says, seemingly unable to look away from me, even despite the chaotic traffic blaring up in a series of police sirens and honking cars and rumbling tires.

The back of my neck prickles. “Yeah—?”

“You went back.”

I narrow my eyes. Is he angry with me? I went back, sure, but so did he. Suppressing a frown, I sidle past him and open up the door. “Help me with the bags?” I mutter, extending an invitation for him to come up. He hums his agreement and follows me inside. As I hold the door open for him, I see his eyes catch the white of my cast as my sleeve rides up. 

He can’t be angry with me. No more than I’m angry at him, I guess. He went back to a lifetime of suffering. I did, too, but I at least understand a little bit of why – it’s all I’m good at, good for. I couldn’t be—good anywhere else. But Ethan’s good at a lot of things, but, most specifically, he’s good at people. He’d survive if he were to just go into civilian life forever. I—couldn’t. Not anymore. So, I understand why I went back, even if I also understand that it’s bad for me (I can understand two conflicting things at once, alright?), but I don’t think Ethan should’ve done it. He’s better than all of it, than the whole IMF put together. I’m pretty sure he's just better than everyone everywhere who’s ever lived – he’s at the very top of my list. 

Ethan rambles quietly to me that it’s not good for me to go back to the agency, that I should stay here in Tokyo and try to be normal from now on, that literally anywhere else would be better. 

As we climb the stairs, he remains in the corner of my eye. He’s so cute when he rambles. Doesn’t happen often, but I like to watch and smile and just listen whenever he does. 

When he catches me staring, he tells me, “Don’t go in next time. Please. Just tell Will that you don’t want to go back and then just don’t.”

I pause my ascent, coming to a stop on the next step and looking curiously down at him. He slows as well, just below me, eyes up wide and puzzled. Quickly, I press my left hand to the side of his face and kiss him, my nose pressing into his cheek. He’s warm. If I could, I’d wrap both of my arms around him, but I can’t (damn cast). 

Ethan crumples just a little. His hands are occupied with the bags. 

When I pull away, he leaves his previous thought and says, “I was waiting for you to do that,” and drops the shopping carefully on a step before gently wrapping his arms around me and kissing me again.

Nothing really comes close to it, to the feeling of him wanting to be near me like this. It feels nice. It feels warm, like nothing could ever go wrong. Present. The smell of his dry-cleaning, his light laundry detergent, his shampoo. Nothing discernible, but it’s so him, and it wreathes all around me, and there’s nothing better. His hands are rough like mine, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Callouses, some from his farm-boy days as a kid, most from handling weapons as an adult, grate softly against my skin as he kisses me deeper, closer, sighing like he’s content. I like it when he’s close. We should do this—all the time. We should do this more often.

I feel myself being backed up slowly against a wall, hear the faint rustle of something tumbling out of one of the bags and the clunk of it falling on down the stairs, but I don’t really linger too long on any of that. As one of his hands remains laced in my hair, the other slides into my coat, under my sweater, and the iciness of his palm makes me violently jolt up with a sharp yelp, grinning, laughing.

He laughs, too. God, I could recognise his laugh anywhere, in a swarm of voices, in a crowded room.

I pull him back into me by the lapels of his coat, coaxing back into a slow, leisurely kiss, because I feel like it’s been so long, and I want to learn this inch by inch, just in case. You know. Just in case we don’t end up being able to—to do this more often.

I have no idea what this is anymore, what we are. Calling it what I want to call it seems too brash. Calling it what I want to call it seems idealistic, starry-eyed, and I don’t really think I can afford to be those things with the way my life is going. We’re not just friends. Neither of us want to be just friends. But it’s too naïve to call it what I want to call it, because we’re not exactly innocent. Our lives aren’t pretty. This is—pretty good, though, I think to myself as Ethan presses his body against mine and places a kiss under my jaw. I can feel his eyelashes fluttering against my skin. Yeah. Yeah, we’re not just friends.

“Don’t go in next time,” he mumbles against me. “Promise me.”

Who does he think he’s kidding? We can’t keep promises. Can’t afford to make them, and we sure as hell can’t follow through with them.

Choosing to brush over it, I tell him, “I need your help taking my clothes off,” and tug his arm to indicate that I want him to come up to my place again.

Quickly collecting up the bags and the fallen items, he shuffles alongside me up the flight of stairs, laying kisses on my shoulder, his chest right by my back. Antsy, I fiddle with my keys, irritated that the one I need just seems to keep fucking slipping away, for God’s fuckin’ sake.

Ethan reaches over my shoulder and kisses my cheek, repeating, “I’m serious, sweetheart. I don’t want you going back there.” Jesus, he’s lucky I like him so much. He’s lucky he’s gorgeous because, wow, he’s not really doing well at the whole “welcome back, I missed you, and, also, I want to profess my undying love for you and run away and buy a house with hardwood floors where no-one will find us/kill us, and we’ll be happy and normal” thing. He can’t tell me to be careful with myself when he doesn’t give a shit about what happens to him. It’s wrong and it’s horrid and I hate it. But right now, I just grit my teeth down and try to ignore it, shuffling up to my door and shoving my key into the lock.

The door opens, and the two of us rush inside, the groceries quickly forgotten. His hands immediately situate themselves on tugging my scarf a little looser, allowing him to duck down and press his nose, his lips, to my neck. My breath hitches, and I wrap my good arm around his neck.

“D’you have any idea how worried I was about you? You coulda left me a message, anything,” Ethan mutters, carefully helping me out of my jacket. As he lifts his head up to kiss me, his eyes are snagged steadfast on my cast.

I slide his own scarf off, rushing an absent-minded reply: “I know.” It’s with the intent of easing his mind, but you know—of course, it doesn’t.

Irritation ripples through his body – I can feel it. His expression stiffens.

Something shifts slightly: Ethan kisses me again, and it’s so sudden and powerful that our teeth clash right together, that my nose is flattened against him to the point where it’s hard to breathe right. What a dick. What an absolute prick he is. It’s a part of him that becomes easy to overlook sometimes, during these times, when we’re living regular lives, between jobs and all, because this switch in him, this domestic switch, just flicks on and seems to overtake all of that. Those good qualities that just go a little too far sometimes. Fierce loyalty. Stubbornness. Selflessness. Oh, I fucking hate that he’s selfless. Why can’t he just bloody want to look after himself? My hand knots a little too tight in the mess of his brown hair, pulling sharply, and Ethan whimpers into my cheek. “Baby, please,” he begs me softly, but I don’t know what he’s asking for anymore. Me to stay, me to touch him, me to run away with him to our midnight house with hardwood floors – I don’t know. It’s all confusing, it’s all weird, and I don’t know how we ended up in this mess again. I just don’t want him to ask me to leave to a place where he won’t let himself follow.

Abruptly, Ethan grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me off of him. A jolt of pain bites at my right arm – I shake him away from me, glaring daggers.

The heady haze fades away to the narrow foyer of my small, quiet apartment.

My eyes fix on his shoes. I am not looking at his face right now. What a dick. I don’t want to see the fucking pity in his eyes. I don’t want to see regret, worry, pain, any of it. What a dick.

After my racing heartbeat settles to a dangerous rhythm, thrumming with my anger, he tells me, his voice hardly more than a whisper, “I had to find out from Jo.”

Something in my chest goes bitter with a sting.

“Is she okay?” I manage.

If he nods, I wouldn’t know. “She doesn’t know,” he states, but there’s the tiniest hint of a question in his words.

My eyes snap up at his face, burning with a fire he knows all too well. There shouldn’t be a question in his words. I’m a capable agent, just like him, and I’m bound to the government by a contract, just like him, and there shouldn’t be a question. I’m not going to break everything just for a civilian. And definitely not Jo. I’d die before I roped her into this mess. God willing, it’ll never, never, never happen.

So, I glower at him, at his little, imploring gaze, and answer scathingly, “She doesn’t know.”

The tension in his forehead eases slightly. Why? I don’t even fucking know what’s going on in his head anymore. Every time I’m with him, I like to convince myself that I know him like the back of my hand – bla, bla, bla, tick in his jaw, you know what that means – but everything about him is always buried under five fucking thousand layers of half-truths and half-lies. How do you get to know someone who hardly knows himself? Maybe he isn’t serious about me. We haven’t talked about it, sure, but I think about living with the guy, waking up next to him, cooking him breakfast, getting a dog. I want him so badly to be my future, but I don’t know if he’s serious about me. Fucks me before a mission, runs off across the globe, comes back, fucks me—or, at least, that’s where this is going. Am I an outlet? Stress-reliever? Is that what I am to him?

Jesus, what am I talking about? I made this weird. Make up for it, quickly, make up for it. I like him, and, if this continues the way it is, he’s going to leave.

I reach for him, hooking my cold thumb in the hem of his shirt and gliding it up over his stomach.

“No, just—stop,” he presses, waving me away. I lower my hand back. “I thought you—” he looks away, blinking rapidly, “—I thought something happened to you.” I frown. “I didn’t—”

“Nothing happened to me—”

“I know, but I thought—”

“Well, you thought wrong, Hunt. Look—” I flip my arm up as if to show him, offering a peace offering to him in the form of a grin, “—I’m perfectly fine.” Please just let this be forgotten with.

Ethan makes a face at me, laughing disbelievingly, “You’ve got a broken arm!” His face shifts momentarily to something broken, something he then quickly hides with the sleeve of his jacket, his hand scratching at his eye while he fixes it.

He’s not angry; he’s just worried.

“Okay, not perfectly fine,” I admit, rolling my eyes, “but I’m fine generally. How’s that?”

I catch a glimpse of his smile beneath his hand. “You’re impossible.”

“Good thing that’s your specialty, huh?” I tease, eyes glinting, gently resting my hand on his arm and bringing it back down. There he is – there’s that pretty face. His green eyes are warm but tired.

“That—that was actually pretty good,” he whispers as I kiss the inner corner of his eye, slumping his back against the wall.

“Thanks, honey.”

“Don’t.”

My heart tugs. “Why not?” I protest, coming close to him and feeling his body heat slowly illuminate me.

“Because I’m trying to talk to you.”

“Good talk,” I mumble against his lips. I don’t want to be mad at him right now. By the looks of it, by the way he melts into my kisses, he doesn’t want to either, but he’s still hanging on for some reason.

He looks at me forlornly. “I thought you were gone—”

“I’m not gone.”

“I was scared.”

I pause. “I’m back.” I press my palm to his face, my thumb pressing into his cheekbone, my fingers threading into his hair, over his ear. The cold from my skin must be jarring to him, but, if it is, I don’t see it on his face. “See?” He leans into my touch, placing his hand over my own and burying himself into me, looking at me like we’re in some tragedy. My body aches. “I’m back.” I survived that mission because of him.

Ethan sighs a bodily sigh, and the lines of his face deepen as the winter light filtering through my windows quickly disappears behind a thick blanket of clouds.

He rests his forehead against mine. “You didn’t have to go back,” he whispers fiercely.

The corner of my mouth turns down. “And you did?”

He squeezes his eyes shut like he’s hurting. “Don’t do that. You know how I feel about you. You know I don’t want you back there.”

“I didn’t want you back there either.”

His eyes flash. “I asked you—”

“I lied.”

“Then, let’s not lie anymore, please.” Not possible, but the desperation in his voice almost convinces me to pursue a hopeless journey.

There goes my midnight thought of settling down. It seems silly now. It’s all—not the way I want things to be. He wants me—but not enough. Well, that sounds a little selfish – I should be grateful at all that Ethan puts up with me at all. Spends time with me, I mean. We can’t buy a house in a different country, and I can’t have my garden of colourful flowers, and he won’t ever leave this life behind. I’ll settle for sex, for strategic touches to elicit pleasure, because at least they’re not touches to inspire pain. I don’t hate it. It’s just a bit sad. Knowing that there is a set boundary neither of us will cross: yada, yada, yada, let’s fuck each other’s brains out, yada, yada, yada, woah there, don’t go saying you love me because there’s paperwork for that kinda stuff and, before you know it, you’ll be on one of my long-lost enemies’ hitlist. Not love; like. Didn’t mean to say love. Because I don’t love this. I hate this. I hate where we’re being forced. I hate that he’s looking at me like I’m dead. I hate that I want him so much. Not love. Love’s out of the question. Always has been—always will be.

I stare right back at Ethan, challenging the sorrow in his eyes with a strong defiance. He has—really pretty eyes. I don’t know the terms and conditions for what’s going on right now, right here, between us, but I have a pretty good idea. I’d do anything for him, and just sleeping with him isn’t exactly an all-terrible verdict. It’s better than a lot of things.

I tell him firmly, “You’d have gone even if I told you to stay.” I tell him the truth. He looks forlornly at me. “If I asked you to leave with me now, you wouldn’t.” Ethan has nothing to say for a few moments, and I can tell he wants to say that I’m wrong, that he’s entirely capable of doing something like that, of throwing it all away for the sake of one person. Maybe he was in the past – we both remember Julia. But not anymore. No more lies, he said. Defiance still pulses, glowing, through my veins. “You wouldn’t,” I repeat, no attempts to be soft.

Let’s not lie anymore.

“Not now,” comes his anticipated answer. Quiet, honest. I can feel his breath on my cheek, and I’ve never felt so far away from him.

There’s little solace in knowing I’m right. “And why is that again?” I press, hardening.

“Don’t do—”

Urgency sparks up violently in me. “We could leave,” I find myself begging, “and—and go—”

“I don’t want to,” he snaps, and I flinch at the sudden volume, at the brief glimpse of rage that flashes across his face.

It’s like hitting the ground in a dream. Yup – yup, there goes the midnight house. I don’t know what I thought.

He reaches his hands up to my face again, but I bat them away. “Yet,” Ethan adds. I jump forwards and kiss him like my life depends on it, breathing hard. Don’t get me wrong – I know my place now. I’ll be fine with it eventually. When we pull apart for a breath, he rushes, “Do you want me to leave?”

“No.” A sudden bout of possessiveness flares up in me. The jagged bridge of his nose, the lines around his eyes, the way his head is angled down towards me, still ready, asking. I have his whole image, his whole person, committed to memory by now, but I’m not sure if that person is even genuine. Strategic bouts of happiness and pleasure – what if that’s all this is? Jesus, aren’t we a goddamn pair? I look right into his eyes, searching. Why can’t he just run away with me? Why does everything have to be all wrong? “You’re mine, right?” I ask, gritted, completely immersed in a tunnel.

His eyes meet mine with equal intensity. “Yes.” He means it.

“Say it.”

“I’m yours.”

I kiss him again with bruising force, my body crushing against his, as I unbuckle his belt furiously with a strong, quick hand. My fingers snake into his underwear and wrap around him so that he lets out a strained hiss, gasping and whining pathetically against my neck.

I show him just how mine I want him to be.

***

She and Ethan seem to have gotten closer in my absence. I don’t look, because I haven’t looked at her face directly since we arrived, but I can hear her going off about all of the amazing intricacies of the painting, the colour symbolism, the flower symbolism, all of this stuff, and Ethan is just “really?” and “oh”-ing his way through with a laugh in his voice. What happened to Jo rambling about confusing stuff to me? I’m gone a couple days and suddenly she and Ethan are best friends? Bullshit.

Jo sounds so much younger when she’s talking to Ethan, like she’s a little girl again. It makes me uncomfortable to know she probably sees him as a father figure, because what does that make me? Ethan—Ethan is sort of good at it. Helps her with her coursework because he’s picked a few things up from computer-whiz Benji over the years, ruffles her hair when she teases him, tells her how exactly to fix the broken sink that’s been plaguing her flat for these past few weeks. He’s good at it. I don’t know how he feels about, but, from the look in his eye, it’s nice to play pretend for a couple hours. I don’t even want to try, though. I’m only noticing it now—how so much of how we spend time together could be misinterpreted—and it’s—it’s not good for either of us. Not for Jo, not for me. Me eating the chicken skin off her plate because I know she hates it; me helping her out financially; me glaring at any guy who looks at her funny; telling her to tie her hair up because, if not, she’s gonna irritate her skin and break out. The way we walk on the street – me slightly ahead, placed thoughtfully so I’m on the side that takes the brunt of the winter wind, her following just behind. I dunno. Small things. Not good for us. Don’t want her—getting the wrong idea. Just because her parents are still both in Germany, doesn’t mean—Ethan and I should be seen as substitute parents for her here. Doesn’t work like that.

“You’re really smart, you know?” Ethan says to Jo, nudging her with his shoulder. “You ever think about doing something creative?”

I hear her snort, like the idea is rubbish. “No.”

“Why?”

“It’s hard to get money.”

I glance over at Ethan, who’s placed between the two of us like a barricade. I can only see the back of his head, though, and, behind him, the outline of Jo’s curls. “Money isn’t everything,” he tells her.

I pick furiously under my nails. Don’t go giving her advice, I want to say to him. I don’t want her to remember us. This life isn’t permanent, and I don’t want her to look back on this period and think “huh, I kind of miss those guys”. I don’t want her to remember us, this, at all. So, I burn a hole in Ethan’s back and hope he feels it.

The two of them begin to wander away to the doorway to another room, and I trail behind the pair with a deep scowl on my face.

“And what emotional satisfaction do you receive from real estate, Ethan?” she probes with her faux-philosophical voice. I glare at the back of her hair. She needs to tie it back; she’ll irritate her skin.

I watch as Ethan pats her on the back and reaches up to muss her hair. “That’s just something to keep me busy.”

“So, no emotional satisfaction?”

A pause. “I’ve got my sources.”

I don’t know if it’s my mind playing tricks on me, but, as I’m glowering at his dirty suede jacket, I think he takes a glance back at me.

Ethan and his fucking glances. In what world does he think he can glance at me like that? No matter how much I want to connect with him, it’s just not possible. His dedication to work overtakes any dedication I think he has to me. I should be the same. I used to be the same. I used to have it all fucking figured out, perfectly deluded. God, I’d give anything to be deluded again. Reality sucks. The IMF has us killing people, killing mothers and daughters of mothers, and now I can’t fucking look at Jo. I can’t look at her. How can Ethan look at her? How can he lead her on with the promise of a connection he’ll never complete? It’s mean. It’s not good for any of us. How can he want a job like that more than me?

Whatever. I’m not bitter or anything. If I was bitter, would I have slept with him? 

Momentarily, my head dives right back to it. Everything was harsher, rougher, sharper. The first time, everything was soft, with rounded edges, a burst of desperation. I don’t know what he was desperate for, but all I wanted was him. And—the other day, I wanted him so much that I got angry over it. I pushed myself so hard I could barely breathe. 

As we enter the next room, I find myself grinning at the memory: I rode him like I wanted to kill him. Jesus, it’s quite funny, you have to admit. He was squirming and moaning and grinning underneath me, and, with every breathy laugh of pleasure, with every one of his pleas, I fucked him right down into my fucking mattress. What a dick. I like him so much. He deserves to be happy, and I know this job doesn’t make him happy. I kept thinking that, that he'd rather stay at a job that hates him than be with me, someone—who really, really likes him. When he came, I was glaring at him.

I catch Ethan’s eye as he glances back at me again with a smile, and my face heats up. Sinful thoughts, public place, Jo – not a great combo. He narrows his eyes at me slyly before turning back.

Jo snatches my hand up in hers and wraps her arm around mine in a flash. “You’re weirdly quiet,” she remarks, pressing into me and then dragging me over to the first, small painting in the corner of the room, a portrait of a white guy with a pointy chin and a pointy hat.

Stunned, I go along with it, keeping my attention straight ahead. “Just a little tired,” I grumble as an excuse. Silent, Ethan puts his hand on the small of my back. Encased between the two of them, I’m—not sure how to feel.

“I wanted to call you so many times, but, hey-ho, I held out, didn’t I?”

The corduroy material of her jacket presses even through my own jacket – that’s how firmly her arm is curled around me. Which reminds me: I lent her my blue leather jacket last month, and she hasn’t given it back yet. I don’t want her to have—a memento of me. It tugs my heart that—she wanted to call me, that she didn’t because I told her not to, that she listened to me, that she probably gives a lot more than a damn about what I think. I’ve had people depend on me before, and it wasn’t pretty. Almada’s just one piece of evidence of that. The wall’s up, and I realise now that it may not ever come down. My words are dry and cynical as I reply, “Congratulations, I should have your medal here somewhere.”

She snorts – she’s used to me being a little cynical anyways, and she’s a fair amount herself. “You still haven’t told me how you broke your arm,” she prods, leaning down and squinting at the small plaque beneath the painting, mumbling to herself as she reads the name of the artist.

“Oh, it’s not broken – I just wanted a new accessory.”

“Sure.” Smart girl. “How was it?”

“How was what?” And out of the corner of my eye, I see Ethan take a step back away to lean against the wall and look at us. I get that uncomfortable writhing feeling in my gut again—not the good kind. This isn’t my life. Shouldn’t be.

“Work. You know, you went back and everything? Made a big deal over the no contact rule?”

“It was—”

“Yeah?” she says eagerly, a smile in her voice. If I could look at her right now, her eyes would be big and brown and shiny, and then I’d get sad all over again and compare her to Almada. They have nothing do with each other, and yet everything. Almada looked at me just like she did, like I was the best thing in the world at that moment in time. I loved it when he looked at me like that. Well, what good are looks and feeling proud about yourself when you can’t do anything to save your friend from a lifetime of suffering and loneliness? Ha-ha, am I right? I didn’t save Almada. What good are looks? I shouldn’t let Jo need saving. I shouldn’t let her need me. What good are looks?

“—tiring.”

A brief silence. I keep my eyes on the guy in the painting. “Do I have something on my face?”

“No.”

“Do I look abhorring or something?”

“No—”

“Then why aren’t you looking at me?” she exclaims, shoving me slightly. Ethan pushes himself off the wall and tries to guide me behind him – where in any other situation I would’ve fought it, I let him win this time, and let him try and calm Jo down.

I stay silent.

Ethan tells her, “She’s just a little tired,” and Jo is safely slotted out of my view again.

“Yeah, I heard,” she remarks. “Tired.” I really am. If I’d had a better night’s sleep, if I woke up happier, I would’ve been more affected by this, I’m sure – annoyed, upset, regretful, something along those lines. But I’ve been simmering all day, and I’ll continue to simmer for a while after this, not going down, not coming up. She must be trying to catch my eye or something – I can feel her eyes on me. I edge further behind Ethan. “Okay. You know, someone who didn’t know any better might’ve thought she was tired of us, too.” And then she leaves, claiming to go searching for the bathroom.

I think about pressing my forehead to Ethan’s back, but I don’t. He turns around in his own time, harbouring a frown similar to mine. “I’m not tired of her,” I clarify, searching his face for the disappointment I know he feels in me.

He flexes his jaw. “Hope not.”

Dick. “I’m not. I’m just—”

“Yeah,” he cuts in, his eyes cutting me, too. “I know.” But, unlike Jo, he really does know. He softens the blow, but he lands it nonetheless. I watch as his eyes shift somewhere far behind me, probably to where Jo’s disappearing into a doorway. Only now do I feel guilt start to gnaw. Not hard, but certainly there. Still simmering. Steady, growing. It was wrong, but it was necessary. In the long run, she’d be better for it. I wouldn’t want her becoming fond of me. Things get dangerous when you care about someone. I think about pressing myself into Ethan again. But I don’t. Instead, I listen to him as he huffs, “She’s a really nice kid. You could try being a little more empathetic.”

“I’m plenty empathetic,” I snort, desperate to fill the space between us. My stomach goes floozy with guilt.

Ethan hardens his gaze. “She misses you.”

“Yeah, well, she shouldn’t. We’re not that close.”

He recoils like he’s been burned. “Don’t say that about her.”

The floozy guilt turns to an explosive anger: who is he to tell me that? Who is he to defend her? Jo would be better off if both of us were gone from her life. Ethan doesn’t belong there any more than I do, and he should know that better than anyone. He doesn’t get to scold me. He doesn’t get to tell me what I should and shouldn’t say. I scold him right back: “Stop trying to be her dad,” I say scathingly. “You’re not her dad.”

“Well, you’re not her mom!” he combats, laughing. God, I’m just about to shove him when an elderly couple saunters right through the doors and sit themselves down on a bench just by us.

Curling a hand around his arm, I yank him over to the other side of the room, my grip tight. “I’m not trying to be,” I tell him. I mean it. I won’t ever try to be anyone’s mother. The concept is wrong. Always was, and it’s even more wrong now. I think of Fitzgerald, of that little shadow staring from the sunroom as I rose over her dead body. I think of all the people I’ve killed who were parents. I think of all the people I’ve killed who were children who came from parents, who could’ve been parents. No. Someone who takes lives shouldn’t ever raise them. It’s wrong. I won’t ever try to be anyone’s mother. I never want to be Jo’s mother, and I never want to be anyone’s mother.

My fingertips are pressing so tight into Ethan that I realise I may give him bruises; I snatch my hand back away and stuff it into my pocket, grabbing a painful fistful of my keys in there, gritting my teeth down as the metal cuts into the flesh of my palm.

There’s a small pause of understanding as we reach the other end. He knows. I bet he’s gone through the exact same thing. Fertility in men is mad, though – there are seventy-year-olds popping ‘em out like nothing, so, hypothetically, Ethan still has it in for the long run. If he someday manages to find peace, he could hypothetically have that. Probably not with me, though. Even if I wanted to, my body doesn’t work like that. I don’t even know if I can still have kids after everything I’ve put myself through. I don’t know what would work or what wouldn’t work. Ethan, too, I guess. I can’t say that for him. 

When I glance at him again, he’s got this horrible look of pity in his eyes, drenching me, and his voice is horribly soft as he holds me gently at the shoulders and says meaningfully, “She looks up to you.”

Immediately, I bark out a laugh so sharp that it echoes through this large room. “She shouldn’t. I suck! Everything in my life sucks, and she shouldn’t look up to me!”

His expression sours. “Everything in your life sucks?”

“It was a hyperbole, okay?” God, the stuff he says sometimes. I’m not a good role model by any means necessary.  “Jeez, someone failed English Language.”

“I actually got a 5 in AP Lang,” he retorts flatly. 

“O-kay, hotshot, good for you.”

He grips my good hand tightly, rough skin sliding into mine. He squeezes. “Be nice to Jo.”

I have to take a second to make sure my mouth doesn’t. quiver, that my face doesn’t crumble in the way I can feel it twitching to. Be nice to Jo. I love Jo. I think she’s great. But I think she’s much better alive than dead. I think she’s much better when she’s around the version of me that isn’t involved with the IMF, happier. But of course, I can’t really keep up my side of that anymore. I don’t want to have to see her get sadder and more disappointed with every lunch I can’t come to, with every walk around town I can’t take, with every call I miss. I don’t want to have to see her drift away with all these secrets I have to keep. 

Groaning quietly, I press my face into Ethan’s shoulder. His arm comes up to curl around my back, and his hand strokes comfortably over my shoulders, the base of my neck, my hair. “I shouldn’t be around her,” I say into him, like it’s a confession. “I shouldn’t be around her.” 

He holds me close. I could recognise him just by smell, I swear to God. “What happened on your mission?”

“This has nothing to do with that.”

I feel him swallow, his throat bobbing atop my head from where I’m nestled into his neck. “Okay.”

“You irritate me.”

“I think you should stop pushing her away.”

“You really irritate me.” 

Moments like these are so fucking weird. Moments where everything feels absolutely wrong, but then there’s that one second of a good thing that has you thinking it’s all worth putting up with. 

“Don’t go back,” he tells me, voice rumbling in his chest. I can hear his heart beating. 

I nestle closer. “I won’t if you won’t.” And then I chuckle because it’s just all funny.

Okay, so maybe we’re not exactly a usual situation. Maybe this is the best we can get in our individual situations. Not a midnight house, but at least I’m here sharing this moment with him – at least we’re embracing in this cold, wide museum room. But when I can’t sleep at night, I’ll always keep adding to the fantasy. Never possible but always nice to dream about.  “Not yet, but one day,” Ethan says, and I chuckle because it’s funny.

I tell him, “One day isn’t good enough.”

He tells me, “You’re all I look forward to.”

Yeah, well, one day isn’t good enough. 

#ethan hunt x reader #ethan hunt #mission impossible #tom cruise #benji dunn #tom cruise x reader #ethan hunt x y/n #simon pegg #ilsa faust #luther stickell #ethan hunt is a hot bitch #the world will be dead by tomorrow and i want you to come over #posting at midnight lmao

[altaluneslair]

Obey Me! Nightbringer - Lesson 11 (Spoilers!)

Me throughout the Lesson 11:

Thoughts:

I wish I wasn't the only one who's just sad and not angry at Lucifer and Belphegor. If I were in that situation, I'd seriously cry on the spot. It hurts so much that the trust we've single-handedly built from the previous game is gone in the blink of an eye because of some asshole who suddenly sent us to the past.

And it breaks even fucking more if you're a Lucifer stan. Imagine being the person he trusted the most, then just suddenly becoming someone he doesn't trust the most. He even views us as a threat, and what makes me cry harder is that it's so fucking hard to defend ourselves because if you put yourself in his shoes, we're really the fucking danger here. We have his ring of light without his knowledge and consent, and we can also basically control all seven of them without them having any idea why and how we can do that. We're only with them for few weeks (I think?), so it's no wonder he's very suspicious of us.

But still, despite all his doubts, he lets us approach him and his brothers. He lets us help him with many things. He lets us rest in the House of Lamentation and spend some time with them. He's slowly trusting us, relying only upon his gut feeling, unlike Mammon, Leviathan, and Asmodeus who already had their "deep and heart-to-heart moment" with us.

However, because of that event with Beelzebub, all of that shattered. We lied to him about our identity. His ring of light was with us. The fact that we can control and have (I forgot the right term, sorry) their powers was revealed. I suspect he's very shaken, frustrated, and anxious despite his angry demeanor because he felt that the trust budding within him is broken, and he rarely trust anyone. IMAGINE HIS HORROR RIGHT AND THERE AND I CAN FUCKING RELATE BECAUSE I RARELY TRUST PEOPLE TOO AND I'D BE FUCKING DEVASTATED AND BERSERK IF THAT'S BROKEN 😭💀 (plus I feel he's very stressed at the moment too due to Beelzebub's matter, then we just casually dropped all the fucking bombs. Cheers to us! 🥰👏)

So, we really need to reassure him that we mean well. Not to mention, it's only been a year since Lilith's death, so the wounds are still fresh, especially for Lucifer, so I don't blame him if he becomes very overprotective of his brothers. He just doesn't want to lose any of them because they are all he has. Heck, he's even willing to set aside his pride, kneel in front of Diavolo, and work his ass off for him just to keep them safe and give them a secure place to settle in.

Anyway, please, I desperately need Lucifer's route (and other's route too). I need to hear his thoughts. I want to see all his experiences and know his secrets. I don't want to rely on theories and thorough analysis anymore. Such a complex character needs some deep diving, don't you think, Solmare? 😭

#obey me nightbringer #obey me lucifer #obey me shall we date #obey me brothers #obey me nightbringer spoilers #omswd #om! nightbringer #om! lucifer

[crystalelemental]

Oh good. After writing up seven paragraphs, my computer did that thing where the screen goes completely black, and wouldn't come back until I hard shut it down, so there goes all that work.

Anyway, finished Little Goody Two Shoes. Spoiler thoughts below.

This is the worst good game I've played maybe ever.

It is a minor miracle I came away from this game with a positive impression overall. I think the general vibe gets me. It's engaging to play through once, but I don't think I'll ever do so again.

The main issue is gameplay itself. This game fucking sucks to play. The puzzles get wildly obtuse around Tuesday, with things like hints being given only after you've beaten them, puzzles completely lacking any indication of what you're supposed to be doing and expecting you to brute force it with guesswork, and some areas just being impossible unless you're popping healing items constantly because fuck dude, I don't know how to move through this maze without getting either myself or Apfel stabbed. I actually don't think I can. It is ridiculous.

A major issue was just money, and this is entirely my own fault. Resources got a shitzillion dollars compared to what you make, and with Muffy over here extorting me for fucking soup, I can't keep up with anything. Part of that is my own fault for trying to keep up with both Rozenmarine and Lebkuchen's story routes simultaneously, limiting me to one job a day. I'll own it, probably should've just picked one. I didn't expect resources to get that bad. What's worse is, once I did stop focusing on both and picked one? It never got better. I never ended a day with money on hand. It was all gone to have something to eat, or to have some healing items, or to restore sanity on the notes quest. Which, related, do not do the notes quest while also trying to do two routes. You cannot keep up with this. Maybe it would be less devastating if I could afford more pretzels. I doubt it, though!

Character-wise, as mentioned, I tried to keep up with Rozenmarine and Lebkuchen. Freya...never really did anything. I'd talk to her, but you make a decision day 1 between her and Leb, and Freya exuded nothing of interest, while Leb had that kinda "viewed as the nice girl and knows it, but has a deep frustration with the whole thing" that endeared me very quickly. So when it came down to her or Rozenmarine, who is a quirky weirdo I kinda like but felt a bit too much in on the whole fate thing, I went Leb. So I got Leb's good and bad end, the "fuck up the gifts" end, as well as the notes ending. I will note quickly that I very much like Elise as a protagonist. She's very fun. I have almost nothing to say about the townsfolk.

Notes ending is weird. It's very abrupt and...well okay, the ending specifically answers nothing. The notes themselves answer a good bit, while still not fully answering much. What I do know is that Ozzy's an archdemon who granted Halle's wish for a child, that the witch had nothing to do with it, but the witch of the forest is pissed about the demon taking up residence. This ending is basically identical to the "fuck up the gifts" ending. Regardless of which you get, the witch just shows up and takes your body, implying that her goal was to resurrect as you, in order to accomplish the one thing she could never do: bear life. Basically, she wanted to live as a woman who can give birth, apparently. I'm not 100% sure if this was always a goal, because she says she tried to learn how to produce life, or if this is specifically just spite over the archdemon creating life and her being like fuck off I can do that too you're not special. I kind of assume Rozenmarine's ending would make it a little clearer, since she seems to be the likely Lore Route.

As for Leb's...the main thing is, I'm stunned it was so black and white. Like, there is no gray area. If you go through with your wish, Leb is killed, you become rich but isolated and miserable all your life and the demon eats your second kid you have when you have twins. If you back down, everything is so good that you and Leb travel the world happily, then come back, settle down, and make the town better than ever. It's...kinda weird, actually. Like, a big thing I think is interesting is how the game's structure does make you feel for Elise's status in the town, based on how hard it is to get good ranks on the minigames and how little money you get for how much effort goes in. It sells the idea that she's under-appreciated here and that yeah, of course she'd want to get out and live a life of ease. But I had expected the ending tradeoff to be a bit more...nuanced, I guess? Like, the choice to be that going through with the wish would indeed provide the luxurious wealth and comfort at the cost of loneliness and living with what you did, while not going through with it means you have a mundane life of constant toil, but at least there's love. It wasn't expecting this to go so "deals with the devil are strictly bad and hard work pays off." My point being, the refusal ending feels too clean. Like that's basically ideal. There's no struggle to that ending and no real point to have done anything else if you're looking for a happy life. Maybe that's the point?

I don't really know what my final takeaway is, because even now as I write this, I am still annoyed. This has shifted now to annoyance at my computer, but it started because I did the bad ending where you sacrifice them last, and I feel like it's absolute bullshit the doors shuffle without warning or pause, and that one piece of ceiling fell on me, slapped me into a corner where I was trapped and just had to wait to die. What I'm trying to say is that the gameplay is exceedingly frustrating. And that it kinda warps my perception of the game overall. Because I think if some of these puzzles were less obnoxious? Excellent. Really enjoyed myself. But so many situations are hit by me being outright infuriated about some of these solutions. I think if you have a good tolerance for this kind of thing, game's excellent. If you're like me, honestly just use this guide. I gave up at the snake domain and just looked this up, I wasn't in the mood. Though it won't save you with Dick Crow's Witching Hour Fuckfest Act 2. That's just pure misery.

#little goody two shoes

[blorbo-adoption-poll]

Adoption poll preliminary match 12

Kakashi Hatake (Naruto)

Qiqi (genshin impact)

Venus (solarballs)

Bernadetta von Varley (Fire Emblem)

Only two will move on

Propaganda under the cut

Kakashi Hatake (Naruto) Propaganda

He joined the lower ranks of the Ninja-Military at like five and then Dudes Father killed himself, he does not have a mother, when he was like six because he was bullied to death by the entire village for refusing to heed a rule that would have made him sacrifice a teammate of his.

After that he lived alone in the house where his Father killed himself and got like an obsession with not breaking the rules and they just let the kid keep running around in the Ninja-Military and a teammate of his "killed" right after he went "maybe sacrificing people for missions isn't good" pushing him out of the way of a bunch of rocks and then he got his dead teammates Red Ninja Eye transplated into his skull.

His other teammate killed herself by impaling herself in his hand in order to protect the village because she had a creature implanted into her that was supposed to come out and destroy everything, kinda like a living bomb.

I think this all happened before he was approximately thirteen.

And you know, there's only one more thing you can do now, as his teacher who's the highest governmental authority in the village and also dies by the way decided. Put him into the super secret (everyone knows about them) assassin murder furry corps. Where he spent like a decade before being spontaniously kicked out to go from professional government Killer to Teacher of possibly the most fucked group of children known to men, two third of which are tied to people from his past.

He's like twenty-seven and just another Orphan in Orphan Town. There is no one in your way, custody is ripe for the taking.

I'll be honest, I haven't seen Naruto, but I do know a good part of the Lore through other means. The guy reminds me of a rescue dog.

Qiqi (genshin impact) Propaganda

My girl tragically died trapped in a cave due to a demon battle, dying with sad thoughts so sad it gave her a Cryo vision. The Adepti felt bad so they revived her, but she came back as a murderous zombie so they had to seal her in amber for a long time. When she finally came out, she was peaceful but has a terrible memory and must follow commands now. In order to break her out of a command that makes her “stuck”, she has to be hugged and told that she’s loved… and when her main guardian tries it, it doesn’t work. And poor Qiqi has become the poster girl of “losing the 50/50” within the fandom, there’s even a whole lamenting song about “I pulled a Qiqi”. Well maybe I *want* a C6 Qiqi and am frustrated I keep pulling Keqing and Tighnari!

Venus (solarballs) Propaganda

Cute lil grumpy planet that has a gruff voice n hates being called by his namez meaning!!

Bernadetta von Varley (Fire Emblem) Propaganda

My Beautiful Bernie Bear! She needs to be swaddled in the comfiest blankets and gifted all the stuffed animals and insectivorous plants in the world. Her dad was super abusive beating her friends and tying her to chairs and her mom hired someone to kidnap her to send her to the officers academy. There she’s basically a child soldier but at least she’s away from her parents and gets a real found family.

She has so much anxiety and is constantly paranoid of everything so she spends most of the game locked in her room. She only comes out on specific occasions and in the one route where she feels comfortable.

She’s often the first person I talk to each in game month and she’s such a joy. She’s so creative and kind and ah! I want to adopt her so bad!

Also one of the ways people use her in game is to keep her at as low health as possible and that’s so mean and I need to protect her.

#tournament poll #adoption poll #kakashi hatake #naruto #qiqi #genshin impact #solarballs #bernadetta von varley #fire emblem #fire emblem three houses

[hookaroo]

Laden of the Torn (20 of 25)

AO3 link Catch up on tumblr: One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Tagging @priscilla9993 @cocohook38 @killian-whump <3

Retracing his steps yet again to escape another cruel dead end, Killian worked to quell mounting frustration. With less than an hour until sunset and no means of building a fire, it was looking increasingly likely that he would face the choice of continuing by whatever moonlight permeated the clouds, or hunkering down on cold stone in damp clothing and possibly freezing to death by morning. Even the map would have done them little good at this point. They seemed to be caught in an invisible tide, approaching the likely misremembered landmark only to meet a dead end and be swept backwards the exact same distance to try a new path. If only he could climb the heartless crags concealing the way. 

Puzzle was asleep again, in her new favorite spot beneath his shirt, riding his braceless forearm as he held it stiffly against his abdomen. At least one of them was comfortable.

He considered again the idea he’d been toying with all afternoon: if he simply called out for help, perhaps some of Puzzle’s kin would find them and guide them home. The First had allegedly been observing Killian and Blackbeard for days before the ambush with the fishing nets; undoubtedly, they would have scouts watching for Puzzle’s return.

But a shout could bring unwanted attention, too. If the Less were attempting to get their hostage back, they may be closer even than any First scouts. And Killian was not at all confident in his ability to survive another skirmish.

He reached the fork at which he’d made the incorrect choice before and dutifully turned to follow the other path. Alice had recently gone through a maze phase, after reading the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur, and had occupied herself for nearly a week drawing increasingly complicated labyrinths for him to solve, or begging him to create the same for her. Being afforded a bird’s-eye view was entirely different than navigating one from inside, though. Theoretically, following one wall or the other might eventually lead to the exit, and would prevent endless meandering and becoming lost, but that strategy would likely also take longer as every single branching path would have to be traversed. And in this case, there were probably multiple routes and more than one exit, so he just needed to be persistent and try not to wander in circles…

Behind him. The sudden clatter of stone on stone, and the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end. He spun on his heel, immediately tense, and as he searched dizzily for any sign of movement, his hand edged toward the precious passenger concealed in his shirt. He would not allow her to fall back into enemy hands, no matter what it took.

There was nothing there. He watched for a moment, and listened. Silence. Perhaps he’d just loosened a bit of slate passing through, causing it to belatedly shift in his wake. Cautiously, he bent to fish the spear blade from the bandage pouch. Grasping it hurt, but he refused to be unarmed this time. Even if the noise wasn’t an approaching foe.

Puzzle seemed to have picked up on his apprehension, and she positioned herself more securely in the crook of his elbow. Her tremors were visible in fluttering waves of damp black cotton. Killian limped two cautious steps backwards and halted. The silence persisted. He did not trust himself to keep his balance without watching his steps, so he did an uneasy about-face, but moved as quietly as he could and cast frequent glances rearward to keep an eye out for movement.

He made it perhaps a hundred paces further down the canyon without incident. He was finding it increasingly harder to grip his makeshift weapon as the tooth punctures at the base of his thumb pulsed with pain. But his danger sense still tingled, warning of invisible eyes upon him as he walked, and he had to remain ready for an imminent attack despite appearances to the contrary.

Killian froze. Up ahead of him this time: grating shale and the briefest hint of movement. The synchronized throbbing in his hand and leg tripled in tempo to match his racing heart. Multiple pursuers? The whole Less Clan could very well be out searching for him, but with such an imbalance in numbers, why then would they be holding back their attack?

A rumbling, repeated whoop filled the empty space behind him, starting slowly but gradually picking up speed, and Killian needed no translator potion to interpret its menace. Panting with adrenaline, he made several staggering circles but still could not find the source of the sounds. A higher-pitched hooting joined the first voice, calling an invitation: the advance scouts had found their prey.

Killian stood no chance. Fight or flee, the Less had the advantage. In desperation, he whirled and took off down the canyon, praying he would not fall and crush the treasure he carried. As the call to battle grew and became more shrill, it brought to mind certain hooligans from certain bygone days, and Killian half expected to feel a dreamshade-laced arrow pierce his heart at any moment. Instead, a well-timed hurdle sent claws and fur flying at his face, and though he ducked, stumbling, the Less warrior found purchase in his collar and was immediately on the attack. It was unarmed, the better to keep up with its longer-legged quarry, but that wasn’t much of a hindrance, considering its natural weaponry. As Killian struggled to maintain his balance, he swiped at the monkey with his spear blade, hoping to throw it off before it found flesh with its teeth.

With very little effort, the monkey dodged the blade and sank its fangs into the protruding knuckles of Killian’s first two fingers, all in one rapid motion. Before the pain even began to register, he was shaking his hand furiously to dislodge the vicious beast, but it was now wrapping all four limbs plus its tail around his forearm, intent on removing his only visible means of defense.

Still lurching down the path leading gods-knew-where, Killian took a drunken step sideways, aiming for the nearest rock wall. His desperate plan was to pummel his sharp-toothed tormentor against stone until it let go, preferably before it managed to sever any fingers entirely.

A shard of razor-stone hissed past his ear. Another bounced off the back of his neck. The terrifying din swelled in volume, coming from all directions now, monkey shrieks of aggressive solidarity. Hardly breaking stride, Killian flung his weighed-down arm against the rock face, no time for precision as more irregular missiles bruised and shredded wherever they struck. Instinctively, Killian turned his shoulder to the assault, hunching over slightly, shielding Puzzle as much as he could.

Though probably dazed, the monkey attacking his hand would not let go. Its teeth clamped tighter as it wrenched its neck side to side in an apparent effort to rend flesh from bone. Killian struck the rock again, but the heel of his fist absorbed most of the blow. Clawed hind feet scrabbled for better purchase as tiny fingers dug and scratched agonizingly at his already-injured palm, and Killian realized it was trying to take his blade from him, or maybe just to prevent him from using it…

From seemingly out of nowhere, two additional Less warriors, bigger than their comrade, alighted on Killian’s back and shoulder, and he narrowly avoided a stumble, stabilizing himself with the hand currently hammering against the rock. Pivoting quickly, he slammed his back against the wall so hard it nearly knocked the wind from him, but his passengers were too quick to be trapped. They leapt nimbly to the wall’s razor crest, then immediately back down to their target, both realizing at the same moment where the rescued princess must be hiding. Their collision momentarily caused them to forget they were allies, and the earsplitting tussle that followed gave Killian just enough time to pin the finger-biter between his hip and the wall, and with a mighty heave, he tore his hand free from its determined gnawing.

Pushing off from the wall, Killian bent forward abruptly in an attempt to throw off his remaining two attackers, but they had damnably good balance and reflexes, and they merely shifted their wrestling match to his upper back. With a cursory glance at the blood covering his mangled fingers, Killian carefully positioned his arm across his chest to cover the little “cave” where Puzzle cowered. He had somehow retained his grip on the spear blade in his fist, and he rested it against the opposite bicep, pointing upward as a pathetic obstacle for would-be arm-scalers.

Killian had just taken a faltering step forward when a solid mass barreled into the back of his leg, causing his knee to buckle and sending him sprawling forward. He managed to avoid using his arms as he landed hard on both knees. The duo on his shoulders were finally knocked loose by the jarring landing, but he didn’t have time to register that fact before his new assailant took their place. It felt like nearly triple their combined weight, and Killian could only surmise that the Less commander Quake had found him.

The big ape suddenly had his very humanoid fingers wrapped around Killian’s throat. There would be no need to pry Puzzle from the pirate’s grasp if he were dead.

Immediately panicking for air, Killian slashed upward with his blade and was rewarded with a lessening of the pressure on his trachea, though the keen edge sliced into his hand just as deeply as it did Quake’s. He stabbed upward again. The weapon slipped from his grasp. Quake seemed to be treating Killian’s throat as a tree trunk while he nursed his cut, leaning back at a casual angle, hind feet on Killian’s shoulder blades. Killian’s damaged fingers had little effect on the powerful grip.

“Kill!” shrieked Quake, between licks of his own blood. “Kill the Torn!”

Killian dragged an unsatisfying breath past the obstruction and began to struggle to his feet. He heaved himself up with an exhausted, strangled groan, his fingers still engaged in a futile wrestling match with the hand squeezing his windpipe. He could see dozens of Less warriors flooding the canyon, pouring over the walls like drones defending an anthill. Killian felt as if he were carrying a full cask of rum on his back as he braced himself for the onslaught.

They came from all sides, scaling his legs, using each other as springboards, or even leaping from the walltops and, try as he might to dodge or shake them off, there were simply too many and he was quickly overwhelmed.

One particularly conniving creature latched on to one of Killian’s boots and began a ferocious tug-of-war battle as he fought to maintain his balance. Others swiftly joined in, and it wasn’t long before he had his feet pulled out from underneath him. Once more on his knees, being flayed and helpless to stop it, Killian curled himself protectively around princess Puzzle. Should it be his fate to die today, he was damn well prepared to spend his final moments shielding her for as long as he could. 

Suddenly, the tightness in his throat could not entirely be explained by Quake’s almost-lazy grasp. Another young one he’d failed to save. It seemed he deserved this death.

Into the haze of pain came a bolt of fire as mighty ape fangs pierced the back of his neck and shoulder. Doubtless probing for vital structures, though with victory all but assured, Quake must have wanted to savor the moment, and paralysis only lurked. But jolts of electricity shot down his arm and torso, and it could only be a matter of time.

Other clawed hands were digging, tearing at his arms as his strength quickly faded. Soon, they would breach the cave protecting Puzzle, drag her out, take her back or kill her in their frenzy, and Killian could do nothing.

Amidst the raging anguish of the attack, a sudden doubling of the surrounding tumult could only be Hellfire’s roar as eternity rushed to claim him. But then… one fewer set of claws raking his arm, a little less weight on his back. Fangs withdrawn abruptly, assault averted. By the next heartbeat, all of the monkeys had abandoned ship, even Quake, though it felt as if he’d taken a sizable chunk of Killian’s shoulder with him.

It could be a trick. They could be backing off to get him to look up and expose Puzzle. Killian didn’t dare risk it and remained frozen in place, panting and bleeding.

The nearby melee continued. Then the screams of pain started. And they sounded too intense to be faked. 

Killian lifted his head cautiously, poised to resume his position should anything dive for the entrance. But no, one glance made plain the all-out battle taking place. First versus Less, to the death, and no attention could be spared for the Torn intruder in their midst. 

Killian’s vision swam as he made desperate calculations. He should make a run for it, if he could even stand. He had missed seeing where the First had come from. Away from here, though, while the two clans fought. Figure out the rest later. Or… turn Puzzle over to a First ally? Could he pick one out with enough confidence?

This whole time, the cacophony had blended into an unintelligible animal din, too garbled for the translator portion to keep up, or maybe the pure wild rage needed no interpretation. But suddenly, one shout did rise above the noise, a single word, repeated.

“Laden!”

Killian searched frantically for the culprit. Nearby, Quake thrashed dark limbs beneath a swarm of undersized opponents. Blood, fur and carnage everywhere. No clear advantage for either side, not yet; only the vultures gathering high above.

“Laden!”

His eyes were drawn to the walltop, about forty paces ahead and to his right. Concealed in the striated shadows, a gray-and-black face peered out between two thorn-like projections crowning the canyon walls. The distance challenged his ability to distinguish facial features, but Killian was fairly certain it must be Mandible, or at the very least, another of the First Clan. Only they knew the nickname by which he was now being summoned.

Killian forced himself up, and the world dimmed for a disconcertingly long period of time. Wincing, he took an off-kilter step toward renewed hope, feeling as if he were floating above the horde of distracted monkeys underfoot.

Perhaps even long-disused sea legs aided him against a madly tilting pathway, for he managed to avoid falling despite obstacles he could barely see. One Less soldier made a half-hearted grab at his ankle but was immediately set upon by one of the First. Hardly pausing in his unsteady stride, Killian pressed onward. 

With all of the alarmingly blurry edges the scene had taken on, it was a real possibility that he had imagined the face on the walltop. He did not see it again until he was suddenly and inexplicably passing beneath the landmark with only a vague sense of how he had gotten there. Craning his neck to search was torture, and he dared not stop walking in case he could not start again; thankfully, his guide made a reappearance a little farther down the path, beckoning him forward, and it was enough motivation for ten more steps, then twenty after that, and it did not matter that he couldn't remember each passing moment, as long as he had this semi-solid vision to follow without much thinking required.

The turf war’s fury gradually faded behind him, becoming a confusing mess of echoes off the surrounding stone. Must-Be-Mandible met Killian at a fork in the canyon, and it was then that he noticed two more friendly lurkers keeping vigilant watch in every direction. All three directed Killian down the left path--which, if he were being honest, was the opposite of what he would have chosen. So maybe they were real after all. 

After two more turns which led them more or less in the expected direction but would have taken him hours to find on his own, Killian's heart rate was just beginning to settle into less of a terror-stricken sprint. But the waning of adrenaline meant a sharpening of pain, and the dogged pace set at first by necessity was no longer sustainable. 

“Quickly,” urged the First as Killian began to lag behind, likely sensing things he could not.

“Take her,” he answered hoarsely. “I'll find my own way…”

Then he was ducking as a Less warrior exploded out of hiding, and the two sentries leapt to engage, and he was suddenly running again, drawing on one final reserve of strength to follow Mandible in the direction of safety.

#ouat fanfiction #laden of the torn #wish hook #lost in a labyrinth #monkey attack #animal bites #strangulation #protecting the princess #blood #whump #running #simian battle

[jazzthatonewriterchick]

Lovers & Friends (18+ Fic)

Pairing: Keigo Takami x Black!Fem!Reader (Friends to Lovers)

Synopsis: In which you and Keigo have begun to realize the strange new feelings you both have for each other after one drunken night at a close friend’s wedding that ends with you in his bed, but because of your longtime friendship and committed relationships with other people, you’re more than happy to forget that night even happened and keep your mutual feelings in the dark…for now, at least. 

Story Warnings: Smutty smut; 18+ (MINORS GET AWAY); Cheating/Infidelity; Mating; Light Degradation; Spanking; Exhibitionism; Multiple Positions; Creampie; Unprotected PIV Sex; Facials; Scent Play; Marking; Spitting; Deepthroating; Cunnilingus; Begging; Edgeplay; Power Play; Daddy Kink; Some Angst; Hurt/Comfort; Mild Violence

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned in this fic. However, as this is my writing, I do not give permission for my work to be reposted on any other sites that are not from my own accounts. Thank you!

Writer's Note: This week has been hella weird (I think it's cuz of an eclipse coming or Friday the 13th) but in other news, HAS ANYONE SEEN THE NEW JJK EPISODE? BITCH NANAMI CAN HAVE ALL OF ME. -Jazz

Chapters: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Bonus Chapter.

Read on AO3 here!

************

Chapter Thirteen: I'll Kill For You.

That night across the city, Keigo is tossing and turning in his king-sized bed. 

Usually, on a Friday night such as thing one, he would be inviting his friends over for a little kickback or play a round of video games. Maybe he’d even be out in the streets, bar hopping or going to clubs.

But tonight, he doesn’t want to socialize. He doesn’t want to be with anyone. His phone has been blowing up since he’s gotten home, but he ignores it. He even smoked a blunt and went to bed early for work tomorrow, also hoping this would calm his mind that is won’t shut the fuck up about you and Sakura. 

But it won’t. No matter what, his brain keeps replaying Monday afternoon when you looked so damn good in your work clothes when he met you for lunch and the moment Sakura walked out on him last weekend.

“Dammit,” he swears, frustratedly sitting up in his bed. He figured going to bed early in time for work tomorrow would help him clear his mind for a while, but he was wrong. All he can think about are you, Sakura, and how fucked his situation is. 

But mostly, his thoughts lie with you. He is glad things are “cool” with you after that lunch meeting you two had, but things are still…different. There is still that layer of attraction underneath every conversation you two have; every text he sends you; every laugh you give him at his jokes. That night at the hotel only made that attraction more palpable for him. He can’t even look at you the same way again.

“Fuck!” he growls, gripping his hair in frustration. This is ridiculous! He’s never going to get any sleep if his mind keeps racing like this. 

So, against his better judgment, Keigo rises from his bed, tosses on some sweats and a tank top, and takes to the skies in an effort to stretch his wings, destress, and tire himself out enough to get some sleep. He originally plans to just fly about randomly, a particular route not planned…but what the fuck does he do instead?

He takes the route to your and Rumi’s apartment. 

“You stupid motherfucker,” he sighs, criticizing himself and his need to see you. Logically, he knows he isn’t. There is about a one in ten chance he’ll actually see you in your bedroom window, especially considering that you and Rei aren’t a thing anymore and as far as he knows, you’re single. So when he pulls up to your condo, he expects to see your bedroom curtain closed for the night.

What he doesn’t expect to see, however, is Rei’s ass strutting out of the condo building like a proud peacock. Keigo pauses in his route immediately and zips behind the building, pressing his front up against the brick wall.

He peeks out from the side, sneakily eyeing your ex-boyfriend as he practically skips down the steps of your building. Why was he in there? Could you two have talked? Are you back together? God, he hopes not. How could you have taken back a fraud like that? 

Rei begins to whistle a low tune as he digs into his pocket for his car keys. He clicks a button on the pod, causing the headlights on a white sports bar parked off to the side of the street to blink on.

Keigo carefully examines everything about your ex as he pauses for a moment to take a call when his phone rings, noticing how careless he seems. He even turns around, facing away from his car, as if he has no care in the world.

That kind of confidence can only be accomplished through something he managed to receive. Is it you? Did he come over begging for you back and you said yes? Could you have met him for dinner tonight, gotten too drunk, and had sex with him, which is what he was chasing after all along? 

“This raggedy bitch,” Keigo snarls.

The more he thinks, the angrier he gets. And that anger propels him toward Rei’s car, right behind his back without him even sensing the pro. Keigo is just too fast. He zooms right by and settles onto the hood of Rei's car, one foot up while the other dangles above the ground. He waits for Rei to finish his car, half of the conversation nothing but mumbling.

When he finally hangs up with a laugh, Keigo makes his move. “Stalker much, Tempo?” he asks. 

Rei startles and immediately whips around to find Keigo sitting on the hood of his car. Keigo smirks a this reaction, glad he can scare the guy. At the sight of Rei’s eyes narrow. “Well, if it isn’t the number two pro hero,” he huffs. “You mind getting off my car?” 

Keigo cracks his neck, making Rei tense. “Yeah, I do mind,” he growls. “Nice ride, by the way. I can only imagine what kinda shit you’d be able to get with your award.”

A cool smirk that ticks him off stretches across Rei’s face. “Well, we’ll see in a week, won’t we?” he curtly chuckles. “If you don’t get off the car, I’m taking you with me. I don’t think Y/N would wanna see you under a car though.” His smirk only grows wider. 

Keigo imagines punching it off of his face. This fucker is way too cocky and confident right now. Something definitely happened with you tonight. “Were you with her tonight?” he asks, cutting right to the chase. He knows that this doesn’t concern him, but if you’re going to be with anyone else, he'd rather it be someone who isn’t an insecure phony. 

Rei’s smirk fades, replaced with a bitter stare. “Why’s that any of your business?” he asks, placing a hand on his hip. That makes Keigo even angrier for some reason, despite him being right…but shit, he doesn't wanna hear it from him! 

He begins to argue that your happiness is absolutely his business, but Rei stops him. “You think you’re gonna take my place?” he acerbically hisses.

Keigo’s mouth abruptly closes, his brows furrowing in confusion. What the hell is he talking about? “You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” Rei asks, an accusatory look on his face. "Trying to intimidate me, scare me out of breaking up with Y/N so you can steal my spot?” 

Keigo silently stares at him for a minute, wondering if this man had too much to drink and is just saying shit. “Okay,” he begins. “First of all, you’re crazy. Second of all, Y/N already broke it off with you. Third, you’re crazy.” 

Rei chuckles at his insult, rolling his violet eyes. “Not crazier than someone desperate enough to intimidate their best friend’s boyfriend,” he rebuttals.

Keigo scowls at his words, realizing that he’s talking in the present tense again…as if he is still your boyfriend. Rei laughs, finding humor in this. “What, you didn’t hear? We got back together just tonight. A few hours ago, actually.” A suggestive smirk stretches across his punchable face. “I’m sure you can smell the perfume.” 

Keigo immediately jumps off of the car, his wings shuddering with anger. “You’re lying.”

Rei raises an eyebrow at him. “Am I?” he challenges. He raises his phone to Keigo, that smirk still on his lips like he’s winning this game. “You want me to call Y/N so she can tell you herself?” Keigo blankly stares at the phone, his jaw tightening. he’s almost tempted to say yes. 

Rei cackles, making the winged pro want to wring his neck. “You’re pathetic for trying this card, Hawks,”  he sighs pityingly. “I mean, as a pro, you should be smarter than this thinking you could break us up and steal your way into Y/N’s heart…or bed.”

Keigo's ears perk at the last part and his top lip begins to twitch––something that happens when you’ve got him heated. “Da fuck’s that supposed to mean?” he asks through a growl.

Rei isn't the least bit intimidated, or is at least pretending he isn’t. “Look, who you spend the night with is my business,” he says, putting his hands up in mock defense, “but everybody knows you get around. Is that what your current girlfriend is? A one-night stand that turned into a weekly nightstand?” 

His eyes turn into darkened, violet slits, his stare becoming ice cold. “How is she, by the way?” he asks. “Does she know you cheated on her with your best friend?”

Keigo swears his heart falls into his ass. At the sight of his shock, Rei smirks. “Yes, I know. Y/N told me and she seemed pretty torn up about it. Even said it was a total mistake and wished it never happened.” He sighs, putting a hand to his heart. “She even persuaded me to walk away even after she told the truth. How amazing of a girl is she?” 

Keigo digs his nails into his palms so hard that he winches at the stinging sensation he feels. But it’s all he can do to not clock this joke of a man and a pro hero standing in front of him. He knows that Rei is just trying to rile him up, but he won’t let him.

And as pissed as he is that you took him back and that you told him the truth even after you swore him to secrecy, he also knows that this is your decision. He has no say in who you date being that he is just your friend. And only your friend. 

He takes a deep breath and relaxes his shoulders that are wound up tighter than a drum. After finding his inner peace, he looks at the man in front of him, calm and collected. “Look, Rei,” he starts, “I’m not here for this or to break you and Y/N up if it’s true that you’re back together. I just want her to be happy.”

Rei’s smile is bitter, not at all touched by this. “Well, isn’t that sweet of you?” he scoffs. “Now get the fuck away my car.” 

But Keigo doesn’t budge. Instead, he stands there as one of his feathers separates from one of his wings and sharpens to the point. It then zips through the air to stop at the hood of Rei’s car where it sits dangerously close to the metal, its point nearly digging into it and creating a scratch. The fear that crosses Rei's face is nearly orgasmic for him.

“Listen carefully unless you want a feather fuckin’ up your paint job,” he says in a dangerously low voice fit for a horror flick. “Y/N is very important to me, and so is her happiness. She’s like my family.” 

He steps closer to Rei, getting up into his personal space. It’s enough to intimidate Rei even further and make Keigo even happier. “And if anyone fucks with my family, they….” He pauses, letting his words and the meaning behind them linger in the tense air between them. 

Rei tries to act tough, but Keigo can see his Adam’s apple bob––an indication that Keigo has got him by the balls. “They what?” he quietly asks. 

But Keigo doesn’t finish his previous sentence. He can’t. It would be too violent. Plus, to see Rei squirm makes him happier than he’d like to admit. “Just be careful with her, alright?” he says, a warning in his tone. "You hurt her once; don’t do it again.”

Without another word, he turns to walk away from Rei, mostly to ignore the urge to punch him for the one time. 

But as he does, Rei has more say to him: “Is that a threat, Hawks?” he calls after the winged pro, definitely intending to poke the bear and push Keigo to do something he’ll highly regret. 

Keigo stops short, standing in the silvery moonlight a few yards away from Rei. He flaps his wings once, giving Rei a sight of the majestic, crimson creation that is attached to his back. His feather comes zooming past Rei’s face, nearly taking a bit of his ear and causing him to flinch out of the way.

Once his feather has connected back with the other bunch, Keigo cracks the other side of his neck and glares daggers at your boyfriend from across the lot.

“That’s a promise, Tempo,” he warns. “Don’t test me.”  And then, in a flash of red, he's gone. 

#friends to lovers #keigo takami x black reader #hawks x black reader #feral hawks is the only hawks #black fanfic writer #smutty smut #bnha smut #my fic shit #black coded reader #keigo takami #my works

[ddemonseonghwa]

Seventh Wonder of My World

Bang Chan x Black Female Reader

Day Six: Break Up And/Or Make Up ♥️

Underworldnet Season of Love Event ♥️

CW// make up sex like a mf

You can thank Kehlani’s “It Was Good Until It Wasn’t” album for helping me finish this and the rest of my works for this event~

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Why did we ever break up?

Chan sat in the studio as he worked on a track. He continued to work like he had been for hours. He was just about done, but he was quite frustrated as he was literally right at the end. He let out a sigh as he realized he was missing something.

Stray Kids was working on another album of songs. This next one was just like the SKZ Replay, except it was going to involve way more songs than the last one. Chan had decided to make another song. He was just about done, but he was stuck on what the last part of the song should be. It wasn’t like he was only a quarter of the way to being done with 3/4 of the song missing. He did have another two weeks and this was the last song that had to be finished, but nevertheless he was still extremely irritated and getting more and more frustrated.

He sighed as he sat back in his chair. He looked out the window at the city below and rolled his eyes. How was he going to finish the song?

Why did we ever stop seeing each other?

He grumbled as he turned towards his phone, looking at the time as he tried to calm his nerves. He felt like things were just slowly getting more and more irritating, feeling like his nerves were about to explode.

How did we lose sight of each other?

Just when Chan was about to lose it, his phone vibrated on the desk. He flipped it over and checked to see who it was. He half expected it to be Felix asking him what he wanted to eat. He partially expected it to be Lee Know asking him if he could attend his livestream. At a glance he wanted to get a text from Han and Changbin asking if they could play a game or something. But he didn’t expect it to be her. Not that there was anything wrong with it if it was her texting him. In fact, he felt his whole mood change when he looked to see it was actually her.

Seven 💕: I think we need to meet up and very soon. I need to see you right now or I’ll lose my god damn mind.

Why did your touch become so distant?

It was like his worries and irritation came to a grinding halt when he saw the text. He didn’t hesitate to pick up his phone and type out a response.

Chan: I’ll be there soon, I need to see you, too. I can’t wait any longer, it’s killing me so bad.

Meet me where we always used to meet up. I have to see you.

I’ll be there soon. 💕

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Chan could admit that he was desperate. He could be honest and say he wanted to see her. But he didn’t care what anyone said about how he rushed over to see her. The entire drive was a pain as he took the quickest route to get to their meeting spot. Seven was important.

Chan and Seven went way back. They’d been cool for the majority of their lives, close friends since kindergarten. Ironically enough, or maybe not ironic at all, Chan and Seven used to date. They used to be that couple that was all over the place as being the sweetest duo. They used to be the couple that was always making good memories.

Key words; used to.

Unfortunately, at some point Chan and Seven ended up breaking up. The relationship began to fade at some point and it was also a mix of their own personal problems— Seven’s trust issues getting the best of her and Chan’s slight toxicity that he refused to address because he didn’t want to recognize it as a big issue. Seven and Chan sometimes had subtle arguments behind closed doors, would have silent days of not speaking to each other, Seven’s slick comments and Chan’s non-verbal attitude, and so much more. The abyss between them got deeper until they decided it was best to just break it off before it could become more painfully unbearable than it already was, they decided breaking up would be much better. The feeling of being in love started to fade and as they shyly tried to fix it, it just became worse and uncomfortably awkward until they felt like breaking up was the best option.

And it was not something surface-level. Chan would ignore his insecurities and brush them off despite Seven saying it was an issue, and it turned into slight toxicity. Seven would sometimes have less trust in him over certain small things due to trauma, and Seven tried telling him it was not a big deal. The arguments behind closed doors never involved yelling or screaming or fighting, but it didn’t have to escalate until it got to that point before it was an issue. The arguments would be subtle but still enough to be gut-wrenching and leave them tearing up and parting for hours so they didn’t have to see each other cry. Seven hated crying, and Chan hated seeing her cry more than Seven hated doing it. Chan never had an issue with crying, but it broke her heart to see him cry. Sometimes, Seven would make the slickest subtle comments that would annoy Chan and he would have the loudest non-verbal attitude that would be palpable to Seven and everyone else within proximity of him.

Some days, Seven and Chan would just not talk. Seven would roll her eyes at Chan for no reason and he would watch her walk away with her arms crossed, lips pouted after rolling her neck, watching her walk away out the corner of his eye before he walked in the opposite direction. A couple of times he did go after her and kissed her to let her know he still felt something for her, and Seven would do the same because she always felt something for Chan.

It became so palpable that even his members would be able to feel it and feel slightly uncomfortable when they were both around. They all loved Seven, but the dynamic between her and Chan as they had some difficulties in their relationship was something they knew would go from sweet to sour. Never enough to be violent outbursts, but just enough for them to feel something. Even the employees at the company and her friends would tell them both things changed between them. It’s what ultimately led to their breakup. Of course not without something steamy going down the night they split. Steamy, heated, vigorous and rough breakup sex, very lengthy friends with benefits period after their breakup. This lasted until they finally called it quits for a couple years.

They remained as very close friends but they’d always have a special place for each other in each other’s hearts. But after some point, Chan began to truly miss being with her. Something about being with Seven changed something within him. He thought he could move on and remain friends like they agreed, but he soon realized that would be extremely impossible. Seven was different. She was better than anyone else he’d ever dated and he couldn’t find anyone else that would be the same, because he never would find better than Seven. She was just the perfect match for him and he couldn’t let it go. And of course Seven felt the exact same way.

When they broke up Chan missed everything about her. Her presence, her voice, her big and beautiful brown eyes, her smile, her personality, her proximity, her essence, her everything. It had been three years since they broke up, almost four. But Chan was truly not as sane as he thought he was while they were apart, and apparently Seven felt the same. And the closer he got to his apartment, the better he felt knowing he’d see her soon. Seven still had her key to his apartment and he trusted her since they remained as close friends. But he knew things would get hot as soon as he saw her. Their own personal changes in character for the better was just too much to ignore. Seven had fixed her trust issues and Chan had worked very hard on his insecurities. They took time to work on their own issues and demons, but realizing they were meant for each other is what made a permanent split impossible and made them realize fixing their issues is what was truly necessary. Once they met up, they knew it would go exactly the way they thought it would.

Chan didn’t even wait. He walked into his apartment and already saw her there in the living room. There were some candles that were lit and some rose petals on the floor. He didn’t even mind. In fact, he loved seeing it. He kicked the door closed and fully locked it as he looked at her. Seven stood in his living room— dark red and long sleeved shirt with a black skirt on and black thigh highs. Her long and dark hair was down her back and she wore some makeup— dark red eyeshadow with eyeliner, which Chan felt was his favorite look on her. She watched as he approached her.

“Chan….” She whispered. He came close, pulling her into his grasp. “Don’t worry, baby, I’m right here where you need me,” he said deeply as he immediately pulled her close. Seven clung to his body and whimpered as he pressed her flush against his body, her skin pressing against his. “Please, I need you…. It’s been too long.” She told him, her arms wrapping tightly around his neck as he lifted her up. Her legs immediately wrapped around his waist. “I know, princess…. I’m not gonna leave you again, ever.” He looked at her for a few seconds before pushing her hair behind her ears. “I’m here to stay, baby girl.” He told her, and that was all he said before he crashed his lips onto hers.

Seven sighed, easing into the kiss and allowing herself to relax in his presence. Chan gripped her hips lovingly, his lips locked with hers in a feverish kiss that was so intense it could shatter brick walls. It was so intense that Seven ended up nipping at his bottom lip twice, catching his attention right away. He chuckled, smirking into the kiss and gripping her ass like there was no tomorrow. “So eager, princess.” He whispered. Seven stroked his black curly hair. “Can’t help it…. Missed you so much,” she sighed.

Chan lifted her up and carried her into his bedroom, the one they slept in just about every night before they broke up. “Fuck, I’m gonna show you how much I missed you.” He whispered. Seven whimpered in response, clinging to him harder. “It was so hard without you, Chris. Please, I need this….” She said, her cheeks blushing. Chan laid her down on the bed as he looked down at her. “It’s okay, princess…. I’m gonna fuck you like a slut, cuddle you like a princess, and never let you go.” He commented. He began kissing down her neck. “I’m not leaving you again. Fuck, it was too much.” He said against her skin. He paused before slightly pulling away to pull his leather jacket off and tossing it to the other side of the room. He then pulled off his tight black shirt and threw it to who knew where.

“Fuck, this is all mine. I missed this beautiful body.” She whispered, running her fingers along his abs as he leaned in for another kiss. He paused, looking in her eyes before smiling and mumbling, “thank you,” before he swooped in for a brief kiss. ‘This,’ Seven thought, ‘is what I wanted.’ He watched as she brought his hands to her shirt. “Do you truly trust me?” He asked her. Seven didn’t even hesitate to nod and bring him closer. “I trust you, Chris.” She said loud enough for him to hear it. He smiled, lifting her shirt over her head and tossing it by his jacket. Her skirt soon followed, leaving her in her bra, panties, and thigh highs. “I trust you, Chris,” she repeated. His skin ignited as she said that, his lips kissing and leaving pretty red and purple marks this time.

“F-fuck, daddy….” She sighed. Chan chuckled as he kept kissing and marking her. “Sensitive, much?” He goaded. “I’m horny and you’re playing games.” She huffed. ‘Same old bratty Seven,’ he thought. His hand eased onto her neck and slightly gripped it. “There’s the brat that I know and love…. Hush that fucking fuss, princess. I’m about to eat that loneliness, impatience, and misery right out of this cute little pussy because it’s fucking mine.” And that’s when Chan pulled her panties to the side and took a slow lick up her cunt.

Seven mewled, already grinding her pussy on his face. “Mmm…. Still tastes so sweet…. This is always gonna be mine, this is my pussy. Understand?” He asked as he wrapped his mouth around her pussy. Seven whined as his tongue ran up her slit before he slurped her essence up like it was red wine and then kissed it from the bottom to the top where her clit was. He kissed her clit like it was a Hershey’s kiss. “Y-yes…! It’s yours, daddy, y-yours-s….!” She moaned. She felt herself get more wet, which she knew was not a surprise because Chan was the one and only man who could give her head and bring her close within seconds of eating her out. She slipped her hands into his curly hair, grinding her pussy against his mouth.

“Mmmm, good girl. That’s fucking right. This is my fucking pussy, and it’s always gonna be mine.” He said, gripping her thighs and running his thumb along her garter tattoo. “Nobody else makes you feel like this, it’s always gonna be mine. I’m the only one eating and fucking this pussy,” he growled. He continued licking. “Your pussy tastes so good I might have to marry you so I can eat it whenever you need me to.” He casually said.

This went straight to her core and pushed her into her orgasm as she screamed his name. Seven’s past trust issues made her think she would lose him, but with Chan’s affirmation, she knew he was going nowhere, especially after working on her own demons and understanding she had nothing to worry about. “Chris-s….!” She screamed as she came. Chan being the one that loved her taste in any way, he slurped up all her cum before looking up at her and licking his lips. His seductive eyes looking into hers as he licked his lips.

Seven used her quick recovery to flip their positions and put him on his back on the bed. He knew what was coming when he saw her kiss down his abs, leaving dark red lipstick prints on his body as she descended to be level with the bulge in his pants. While she kissed his body, he felt his cock get harder and harder. He ground his hips up for some friction, making her giggle as she stroked his thigh. “So eager….” She commented. “I’m horny, princess.” He replied, his cheeks blushing. “More like needy.” She said as she kept going. She unbuttoned his black ripped jeans before pulling his thick, long and erect cock out. Hard and ready, she immediately ran her tongue along the underside of his cock. Chan groaned, easing his hand into her dark hair and gathering all the strands to hold it all and keep it out of her face.

Seven didn’t even wait after teasing the tip and slapping it against her tongue. She eased it all into her mouth and wrapped her lips around his cock. Chan was nearly a moaning mess, watching as she briefly took it out before spitting on the tip messily and slowly running her tongue along the tip. “This is my seat and I know I’m the only one who can take it.” She told him. Chan slightly tugged her hair before grinding his hips. “Mmmm, baby, that’s right…. It’s all yours, nobody else’s.” He huffed. Seven smirked, knowing he was under her spell. “You might have to wife me up so I can relieve your stress like this more often.” She said randomly.

She continued her work by easing him into her throat with no hassle and no gag reflex. She kept deep throating him, taking control of the situation and having him in such a chokehold that he knew he’d cum any second. He held her hair as he thrust his cock into her throat with a growl so deep and profound she felt herself instantly get wet again. “S-Seven….!” He groaned, shooting his cum down her throat as she happily swallowed it. She pulled off and looked at him after kissing his tip.

“Fuck, baby, that was so good.” He huffed, looking at her as he panted to recover from his orgasm. Chan sighed and looked at Seven, getting up and pressing her onto her back. He pulled off her bra and put her panties into his pocket. “I need those, you know.” She mumbled jokingly. Chan leaned in and pecked her lips. “I bought you some more. Happy Valentine’s Day.” He mumbled. Seven leaned in to peck his lips and giggle. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” she replied as he kissed her again.

Chan slid between her legs and pressed his tip to her entrance, catching her attention completely. Chan slid his hand onto her cheek and looked into her brown eyes. “Are you ready, pretty girl?” He asked her. Seven felt her chest fill with butterflies and flowers, remembering how it felt to be addressed as his girl, his lover, his partner. “I’m ready, baby.” She blushed as he smiled gently, his dimples showing like beautiful craters in the moon. “You’re always ready, my pretty girl.” He said, intensifying her blush.

He looked down with her as he slowly slid his thick length in. She grasped his arms as he carefully slid in, given the fact that they hadn’t slept with each other while they were apart. And when he reached the hilt, Seven sighed and Chan groaned. She threw her head back onto the pillows as she took in the feeling of his cock being so close to her sweet spot already. Chan leaned in to put his forehead on hers. “Color, princess?” He asked. Seven lightly squeezed his arms and clenched on him. “G-green….! Please move, I-I’m so ready….!” She huffed. That was all Chan needed to start thrusting, setting the pace he knew they both loved.

Seven moaned, watching as he thrusted into her and remained in control. When they were dating the first time, the sex was typically intense and rough. Chan and Seven may have had a rough ride in the first round of the relationship, but the sex was always going to have the same rough and intense energy. Chan never lost his power in his thrusts and Seven still always let him know he was making her feel good. Toxic or not, that would never change.

“Still so fucking tight, princess.” He said, his hips meeting hers. “You’ve always b-been so b-big.” She moaned, wrapping her legs around his waist. “C-Chris…. F-fas-ster….” Seven moaned. Chan followed her words, immediately speeding up his thrusts and delivering just right. His thrusts even got harder right before she could ask and she whimpered. “F-fuck, so good…” Seven whimpered, looking up at him as he kept moving. He swooped in for a kiss, pecking her on the lips for a moment before pulling away. Seven caught him looking at her and despite how many times he’d seen her in just about any situation, she felt herself get worried and she looked away. But Chan wasn’t having it. He caught it immediately.

“Look at me, princess.” He instructed. Seven looked back at him, her eyes saying so many things, but Chan picked out the exact thing that was at the top of Seven’s list. “You’re afraid I’ll leave…. Why?” He asked, slightly slowing down. “Are…. Are we splitting after this?” She asked worriedly. Chan smiled softly, leaning in and gently pulling her in for a brief and gentle kiss that she accepted. “Princess, I’m not going any fucking where. You’re mine and I can’t leave you, and I refuse to leave you all alone in any situation.” He told her, speeding back up again. “Nobody else can have me like you do,” he said, watching as she threw her head back, still looking at him and making eye contact. “Nobody else will have me at their side like you do,” he said, his hands holding her hips like he always did when they fucked.

“Nobody else gets my dick but you,” he told her as he pushed in deeper, right into her sweet spot. “C-Chris…!” She whined. He smirked as he kept going. “And nobody else says my name like that but you.” He huffed in her ear as his hips slammed into hers again. Seven’s nails scratched his back as she screamed his name and came on his cock so soon. But Chan never stopped thrusting, pounding into her pussy and making her whimper and tear up. “I don’t turn anyone else into a mess.” He said deeply. “I don’t fuck anyone else.” He continued. Seven whimpered as she felt him throb violently in her walls, making her pussy flutter against his cock. Chan felt himself cum in her pussy, fucking her through his orgasm and gripping her hips until there were definitely bruises like she always liked. “And I don’t fill anyone else up.” He softly cupped her face and began kissing her skin and leading down her body as he slowly pulled out. “I don’t love anyone else like this,” he said. He came back up to her lips. “I don’t kiss anyone else,” he told her. He pecked her lips and looked into her big brown eyes. “Nobody else has me in love except you. You’re mine…. I love you…. And I missed you, Seven.” He finished. She wrapped her arms around him and accepted his love. “I love you. I missed you, too, Chan.” She said. He pulled her to lay on top of him.

“I wasn’t lying about wifing you up.” Chan told her. Seven felt herself blush as she looked at him. “I’ll be happy to be Mrs. Bang one day.” She laid her head against his chest. “Yeah, you’re the only person I need in my life.” He told her as he stroked her hair.

“Please, let’s not break up again. I’m glad we worked on our issues on our own but I don’t think I can take us breaking up again.” Seven said. Chan moved her hair behind her ear. “I don’t think we’ll have that issue again. I missed you so fucking much. Missed fucking this pussy, too.” He admitted. Seven smirked as she sat up and placed her hands on his abs. “If you want, now that we’ve gotten things out the way…. I’m off for three days. I can ride it like you always liked it. You can fuck me into your sheets from behind, spank me, pull my hair, and anything else you want.” She hinted at him.

Before she could say anything else, Chan flipped them over and pushed her face down, ass up on the bed. “I missed my little nymphomaniac of a girlfriend.” He commented as he shoved his cock into her pussy. “Mmmm, f-fuck and make up, just like in the movies.” She sighed, feeling him thrust right away. He pulled her hair back, smacking her ass and making her gasp in pleasure.

“Just like in the movies, but this pussy is still fucking mine.” He growled, speeding up.

#ddemonseonghwa #ddemonseonghwawrites #tw: smut #underworldnet #underworldnet season of love event #underworldnet valentines day event #stray kids #stray kids bang chan #bang chan #bang chan smut

[natasha-in-space]

Hey so i too read your yooseven hc post but I wonder how would seven show his care towards yoosung cuz in that post i mainly see yoosung is like mainly the who is the "giver". And im not saying its bad (please dont take my words negatively) because i can also see seven himself feeling like yoosung is the one who "does more" than him in the relationship and perhaps may feel insecure about it from time to time because he never really had someone go this far for him, its not something he is used to.

And at the same time, while seven for most of his life have been the "caregiver" mainly because he is aware that he is the stronger twin and the one who could do something (so its more out of necessity) yoosung on the other hand has the innate need to be needed and be the "bigger" person even tho unlike seven he never had to feel the compulsion to be the said "bigger" person out of necessity because he has always been the youngest both in rfa and his family but he wants to be someone his loved ones can rely on because thats what makes him feel personally fulfilled, thats his love language. I hope im making sense

So i can see yoosung struggling in that aspect in the relationship with basically anyone he is been with including seven so I also wonder how it would be like in their relationship with seven as a dynamic

Hmm, yes, yes, I can totally see what you're talking about, anon! Relationships are messy, romantic or platonic, so it's only a given for both of them having to face a few difficulties, these ones included. Now, this is only my personal interpretation based on how I portray these characters, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt!

All I can say is that it's a process. A messy one. It all depends on the context. Do they confess their feelings to each other before taking care of Mint Eye? After? Does Yoosung have to deal with Saeyoung's avoidance like his mc's do during his route? Or do they have no time for that? Small details like these do matter in the long run. There are many, many ways you can write them getting together, and that's what makes it fun to play around with in the first place.

When it comes to the already established relationship... I believe they'll make it work. Not without a couple of mishaps, of course. Yoosung, in comparison to Saeyoung, is someone who is very open to communication, and he has no problem with openly talking about his feelings and asking Saeyoung to do the same. Saeyoung, on the other hand, will have some struggles with that aspect. It'll take him some time to move on from his previous ways of dealing with any difficulties, however big or small. This might lead to some conflicts between the two.

It's always hard to see your loved one pretending like everything's alright or outright denying that there's a problem when you know they don't have to do it alone. Saeyoung does this from the place of love, he really does. He doesn't want to burden anyone with his struggles and he'd much rather use this anxious energy to make his loved ones happy instead of making them needlessly worry. It's not healthy, but it's the only way he knows how to deal with his issues. For Yoosung, this might come across as Saeyoung not trusting him to understand what he's going through, and that stings. It's like Saeyoung thinks he's not strong enough to handle it. Yoosung has a... personal grudge against anyone keeping secrets from him. For a good reason. So, yes, this can become a major problem for them.

But, that doesn't mean they can't make it work. They care about one another. Saeyoung is not smothering Yoosung with gifts or putting up a lighthearted facade in front of him out of annoyance. He's doing it because he genuinely believes that's the right thing to do. I truly think Yoosung can figure it out. He's a deeply empathetic person at heart. He might get frustrated at times and he might need some time to get his thoughts in order, but he knows Saeyoung cares for him. And he knows when he's having a hard time. The tricky part is figuring out how to have this important talk.

It's really about balance. No relationship is perfect, just like none of us are perfect. Neither Yoosung nor Saeyoung had a serious romantic relationship before, so it's going to be very clumsy at times, but that's okay. At the end of the day, Saeyoung would never want to hurt the ones he loves most. He is willing to take notice when his actions start having a negative effect on Yoosung, and he is more than willing to apologize. As for Yoosung, he wants to know the real Saeyoung, more than anything. He might get a bit heated and pushy at times, but he will learn how to be more mature.

As for the way they show affection to one another... again, it's about communication. Saeyoung is the type of person who will show his love through his actions, while Yoosung is more on a verbal side. I truly think they know each other well enough where these differences won't be a problem. Saeyoung doesn't mind getting all mushy and romantic at times to see Yoosung blush and giggle. Meanwhile, Yoosung knows Saeyoung's gifts are so much more than just physical objects.

I guess you could say... they are learning together?

#mystic messenger #mysmes #mysme #mm #saeyoung choi #yoosung kim #yooseven #yoosung x seven #saeyoung x yoosung #mia talks #i hope this makes sense anon! #my thoughts can go all over the place once i start thinking so sorry if i didn't address smth #i love pondering over different dynamics with these characters #sorta like playing in the sandbox!