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#bring the boy back 2021

cannibalcreeps · 2 years

Note

Yes, I would like to know your speculation about the continuation of part 6)))

I am still unsure what you mean by a continuation.

I had a look up of a possible 2023 Wrong Turn but I am not keeping my hopes up that this is going to be related to our three boys at all and more related to the fuck up that was 2021 Wrong Turn 7

There is only one article about a 'new 2023 WT movie, but it's written July 11 2022, despite how it is oddly written as though WT 7 hadn't been released yet else it would know that WT 7 has nothing to do with the series, can't even treat it as a different story path like you can with Halloween or TCM 😅

The only trailers or videos about this is a fan made trailer which doesn't mean anything.

But then that goes in hand, how would to make an 8th one make sense in the whole series, I would assume it would go between the 6th and 1st instalments and if they want to make sense the 7th has to be literally chucked aside as though it never existed, they'd have to throw away the bullshit of cult stuff and either make up some bs about that evil sister/brother/cousins whatever they were that they had no relations to the three boys cause they simply make ZERO sense to be in the lore.

I love Wrong Turn, it's my bread and butter but damn the only way it can be salvageable is if they act like the stuff in WT 6 and 7 didn't exist and make an inbetween of 5 and 1, or if they're brave enough to try and fix up the weirdness of 6 and have them kill off the annoying two and have the three boys making their way back home.

Tbh as much as I want more, the poor film series has not just been dragged through mud but through shit as well.

#with how most horror film series tend to be itll be a miracle for them to go back to their roots #like just be fun and cheesy with dumb kills and family hijinks without the serious bs #i do want to be pleasantly surprised but with what they pulled on 2021 there is no trust at all that they'll actually bring back the boys #which is like theyre the faces of your fucking film! thats like having a NOES and being like 'Freddy Krueger who?'#but thats how it be with low tier horrors weh

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banhchao · 8 months

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when you get this, please reply five things that make you happy and send this to the last ten people in your notifications 💌

hello angel! 🤍👼🏽☁️ thank u for sending this! It’s so nice to stop, reflect and just think about things that make u happy at the current moment and is something I think we should all do! gratitude and self-love is so important 💗

1. I like going on dates! Quarantine restricts us from really being able to go on quote-on-quote “real” dates but I’m happy eating Taco Bell in the car, driving around and spending time with each other talking, listening to music and enjoying the views. It’s simple but wholesome and sweet. I think if you are with the right person or just with someone who makes you happy, you can be anywhere and do anything (even just sit and stare at each other lol) and still be at your absolute happiest. I’m rlly excited because it’s getting warmer now which means I can plan picnics in the park and hangouts at the beach & stargazing at night (within safe distance and health regulations of course).

My dream date would either be some sort of camping-lake swim type thing (swimming in a lake, cooking with a campfire, sleeping beneath the stars by the water) or “Cakespeare in the Park” (watching Shakespeare in the Park on a picnic blanket whilst eating cake out of wine glasses lol). 🍰☁️💗

2. Beach days! The best feeling in the world is when u come back home from the beach and u are a lil tired from the sun sapping out ur energy and u smell like the water. Or just the first cold dive into the water of the year and floating on ur back as the rays beat down. especially in freshwater... lake swims are superior to swimming in the ocean 😤. I love the sun and the water lol both in tropical places and here in Canada. eating fast food on a blanket, getting a tan and then swimming... 🥺. And swimming at night beneath the stars... nothing beats it 💗

3. Kisses 🥰. I used to not be that big a fan tbh lol but now I’m constantly 😘😘😘😘😘😘😘

4. stargazing! one of my new year’s resolutions was learning how to spot constellations. i only know the big dipper atm lmfaoooo but it’s nice to be able to find it no matter where i go. that consistency and certainty is refreshing and reassuring lol and i’m hoping this summer i can learn to spot a couple of new constellations. ✨🌠🌌

5. Water! waterfalls! Ponds! Lakes! Fountains! Rain! The beach! The ocean! Streams! Rivers! i only like going on walks in nature if there’s water nearby lol. & rainy days are my favourite 🌧☔️💧

#I got my kisses last night hehe 💗#I’m a happy bunny #EDIT: I wrote all of this in 2021 (the beginning of it) when I was still in a talking stage #with a boy I adored (spoiler alert: he ended up ghosting because his life was too busy and he was too much of a coward to properly break up)#makes me kinda sad to read over how happy and excited i was 🥺#I’m posting this as an archive of what I thought was to be 💓#after it ended I couldn’t bring myself to publish this and look back on what I lost

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jackhues · 1 month

Text

WHO WILLIAM? - PADDOCK PASS, BABY [ PART TWO ]

in which y/n's enjoying playing the part of paddock princess after a... not so great race (bahrain 24)

[ prev ] | [ next ] | [ notes ] | [ masterlist ]

y/nhamilton

liked by lewishamilton, charles_leclerc, maxverstappen1 & others

y/nhamilton: motorsports is alive and well people 🏎️

tagged: logansargeant, alex_albon

y/nhamilton: also @/landonorris i want my bracelet back -> landonorris: no. -> username: lando + stealing y/n's accessories. name a better duo -> y/nhamilton: him giving them back to me

username: i bet her and the williams boys were just talking shit about all of the cars and eating ice cream liked by y/nhamilton

logansargeant: you're welcome for the ice cream! -> y/nhamilton: thank you very much logan, the ice cream was my favourite part of the day -> logansargeant: favorite* -> y/nhamilton: go away you american -> username: is this new? i don't know if i've seen this before -> username: personally i love it

charles_leclerc: where's my ice cream? -> y/nhamilton: you have to be at the williams garage if you want some. george is here too -> georgerussel63: you're supposed to keep it a secret -> username: AHAHAHA- y/n just outing george -> username: i'm gonna miss them next year 😢 -> y/nhamilton: mate, my dad's switching teams. he's not retiring. besides, georgie can't get rid of me if he tried -> georgerussel63: and i HAVE tried -> username: don't even george. we all know you love her liked by y/nhamilton & georgerussel63

mercedesamgf1: our paddock princess out there doing paddock princess things -> scuderiaferrari: enjoy your last season with her! -> mercedesamgf1: 🤕 -> username: poor merc admin just catching strays

maxverstappen1: am i not going to get any credit for pointing out that your hair made a heart? -> y/nhamilton: will you give my dad the 2021 wdc trophy? -> y/nhamilton: for legal reasons, my above comment is a joke. max is aware of this sentiment and the two of us have an ongoing thing where we bring it up at any minor inconvenience. -> y/nhamilton: besides it's his name on the trophy he doesn't care no more -> username: LMAOO y/n got possessed by mercedes pr for a minute liked by y/nhamilton & maxverstappen1

lewishamilton: is this the first time i haven't made the gp dump? i'm offended -> lewishamilton: this is what they mean when they say kids grow up so fast -> roscoelovescoco: i didn't makes the cuts eithers? wow... -> username: lewis commenting from his AND roscoe's account 😭 that man's actually hurt by this -> y/nhamilton: the last slide is literally your feature -> y/nhamilton: roscoe i'm sorry. i've failed you

carlossainz55: 🏎️🏎️ -> y/nhamilton: 🚗🚗 -> username: oh thank god they're still communicating in weird emojis -> username: frr, i was so scared they weren't going to be friends anymore -> username: if y/n and max made it out alive after ad21, i think her and carlos can survive this

alex_albon: that was probably the best ice cream i've had in my life -> y/nhamilton: it's sweeter bcz i'm around

---

TAGLIST: @67-angelofthelordme-67 , @somepeoplemaybe , @nothaqks , @theforevermorereject , @thatonesblog <3

send a message/comment/ask to be added to the taglist!

NOTE: second part out! if you guys want to see something that already happened in prev seasons, send in an ask/comment! don't forget to like + reblog <3

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neochan · 2 months

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straight out a romance novel (m) – teaser

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 ➪ bookshop keeper!jaemin x author!reader

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐄 & 𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐒 ➪ meet cute (read:awkward), sunshine x sunshine, strangers to something, love triangle, jealousy, best friends to rivals, found family in a way, smut, fluff, minor angst, including barista!jeno, ice cream shop worker!mark, barista!haechan, day care worker!renjun.

𝐖𝐂 ➪ teaser is 1.1k & fic is 20-25k est.

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 ➪ i've had this idea in the drafts since 2021 when i saw this note on a bookshop door. ever since then, i've been dreaming about telling this story. today i put fingers to keyboard and wrote a little something.

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ➪ comment or send an ask!

A brightly-colored yellow paper clings to the door, its message hastily scrawled in ink: "we're open!" beckoning with a number underneath. You reach for the handle, but it refuses to budge, the lock catching you off guard. If they truly were open, why wasn't the door unlocked? You ponder for a moment whether to dial the number, then with a resigned sigh, you retrieve your phone and punch in the digits.

After a brief moment, the phone rings just once before a cheery voice fills your ear.

"Hello, Jaemin speaking."

You hesitated for a moment before responding, your heart fluttering for what seemed like no reason at all.

"Hey. I saw the note on the door. Mind letting me in?" Your voice wavered slightly, "The door is locked."

There's a shuffling on the other end of the line, and then a long slew of slightly muffled curse words.

You can't help but stifle a chuckle at the colorful language. It definitely wasn't what you were expecting from the boy who answered the phone so joyfully.

Moments later, you hear the click of the lock, and the door creaks open. The boy – Jaemin – stands there, phone pressed to his ear, a sheepish smile playing on his lips.

"Hello," he says, his voice slightly louder than expected, the proximity causes a feedback loop that makes your ears sting.

You wince at the sudden noise, but the discomfort is overshadowed by the way he jumps nearly ten feet in the air. He fumbles to hang up the call, hands trembling.

"Sorry about that," Jaemin says, his cheeks flushing pink. "I forgot I was still on the phone."

Jaemin stands in the doorway, caught in a moment of stunned admiration as he gazes at you. His eyes trace the gentle curve of your lips, the way sunlight dances in your hair, and the subtle grace in your movements. He sways slightly, his heart thumping rapidly in his chest.

For a moment, the world seems to slow down as you both stand there looking at each other. It's only when you shift your weight that he realizes he's been staring, hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck sheepishly.

Just as the silence begins to stretch uncomfortably, you clear your throat, "Um, can I come in?" you ask, voice soft yet filled with a hint of amusement.

The sound of your voice snaps Jaemin out of his reverie, and he blinks, his cheeks reddening even further at his own awkwardness.

"Oh! Yes, of course!" Jaemin steps back hastily, gesturing for you to enter the cozy bookshop.

You offer him a gracious smile as you pass by, feeling a flutter of excitement at the unexpected boyish charm that radiated off him. As you step inside, the scent of old books and ink envelops you, wrapping you in a comforting embrace. This was familiar. This was home.

Jaemin shuts the door and follows you inside, his heart still pounding with the exhilaration of your presence. He can't help but steal glances at you as you explore the shelves, his cheeks flushing anew with each fleeting moment of eye contact.

Realizations seem to come slow to him today, because as you pick up a tattered book, avoiding his gaze in the dimly lit aisle, Jaemin becomes acutely aware of how his lingering presence might be perceived as stalkerish. In an attempt to ease the tension, he crosses his arms and leans against the shelf.

"So, what brings you to Seaside Stories?"

You glance up from the worn pages of the book, meeting Jaemin's gaze with a hint of curiosity in your eyes.

"Seaside Stories," you repeat, the name rolling off your tongue as you gesture around the cozy bookstore. "It's a lovely name. Is there a story behind it?"

Jaemin scratches the back of his head again, another sheepish grin gracing his lips. "Yeah, it's, um, the name of the store," he admits, his tone tinged with a touch of embarrassment.

Your brow furrows in confusion as you glance towards the entrance. "But the sign outside just says bookstore," you remark.

The boy shifts awkwardly. "Right, about that... I, uh, I haven't gotten around to changing it yet," he confesses.

You can't help but chuckle at his honesty. "Well, Seaside Stories suits it perfectly," you assure him.

"Thanks," he murmurs, his voice bashful. "I'm glad you think so."

You nod, feeling a gentle warmth spreading through the air between you. The moment hangs suspended, the soft rustle of pages and the faint scent of old books enveloping you both in a cocoon of quiet intimacy.

As Jaemin stands, slightly uncomfortable by the wooden shelf that dug into his shoulder, he clears his throat, breaking the silence. "So..." he begins tentatively, his voice trailing off as he searches for the right words.

You meet his gaze, "So... what's on your mind?" you prompt, a smirk teasing the corners of your lips.

A faint flush colors Jaemin's cheeks as he gathers his thoughts, his eyes flickering. "You never answered my question... What brings you here today?" he asks.

"Just exploring," you reply with a shrug, "I have a soft spot for bookshops, especially ones with charming yellow notes on the door," you add playfully.

As if his face could get any deeper shade of red, Jaemin's face grows hot again. He nods, excitment lighting up his features. "It's always nice to meet fellow book lovers," he remarks.

"Absolutely."

Another wave of silence passes between the both of you as you continue to fumble through the pages of the tattered book in your hands. The cover depicted what looked like a blue haired pirate aboard a rickety wooden boat. Definitely not what you'd read on a normal day. And absolutely nothing like what you write.

Suddenly aware of the lingering silence for the upteenth time, he attempts to clear his throat, but it comes out in a cackle that sounded like a dying cat. "So, uh, can I help you find anything specific?" he asks, his words stumbling over each other in his eagerness to fill the void.

You shake your head, a soft chuckle escaping your lips. "No, I'm just browsing, thank you."

"Right, of course," he mumbles, his gaze darting nervously around the room. "Well, um, let me know if you need anything. I'll just... be around."

With an awkward half-wave, Jaemin retreats down the aisle, leaving you to explore the shelves in peace. As you watch him go, a smile tugs at the corners of your lips.

This boy was weird, but in a good way, you think.

Now come to think of it, so was the boy in the coffee shop.

Must be something in the water.

#jaemin x reader #jaemin smut #nct jaemin x reader #na jaemin x reader #na jaemin fic #nct dream x reader #nct x reader #nct jaemin fic #jaemin fic #nct dream smut

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holyprincenerd · 1 year

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yes yes rigged this cha cha that but please let’s not ignore this right now:

https://www.aftonbladet.se/podcasts/ab/episode/355975 Swedish “eurovision expert” Tobbe Ek (for those of you who aren’t Swedish, this is the same guy who accused Måneskin of doing coke on live tv back in 2021) and his posse of minions decided that it was time to spread some absolutely hateful rhetoric against the people of Finland by calling them shitty, idiotic, telling them they should be ashamed of not voting for Sweden (??? literally what???) etc etc, while also dragging in other contestants like Lord of the Lost and insulting them as a means of questioning why the Finnish public voted for them but not for Sweden. (You know. Because it totally doesn’t make any sense at all that a country known for having the most metal bands per capita in the world would vote for Lord of the Lost. Not at all.)

As the cherry on top of this xenophobic shit cake, they started to go on about how “There’s no way there were ten contestants who were better than Sweden this year.” (Again. Not only disrespecting the other contestants, but them pretending not to grasp the concept of a country known for preferring heavier music choosing to vote mostly for bands this year... Yeah... Couldn’t be their preferences...)

Again, this man is considered a Eurovision expert here in Sweden, yet this is the type of behaviour he and his coworkers display over a nonissue like the Finnish public not voting for Sweden this year. If there’s something shameful here, it’s this.

To reiterate: These are three grown-ass well past 40-year old people having a genuine meltdown over one (1) singular country not voting for them.

Why are we giving Tobbe Ek (and his irrelevant coworkers) a platform, again?

EDIT:

Hoo boy, there’s more. Because of course there is.

ALRIGHT here’s an article from one of our tabloids using quite suspiciously colonialistic sounding rhetoric about Finland being “the kingdom’s previous eastern half”.

https://www.expressen.se/noje/finska-sveket-mot-sverige-gav-noll-poang-efter-uppmaningen-rosta-taktiskt/

The specific quote in Swedish: “Tv-tittarna i tidigare östra rikshalvan gav nämligen Sverige noll(!) poäng under Eurovisionfinalen på lördagen.”

Translation: “TV viewers in [our] kingdom’s previous eastern half gave namely zero(!) points to Sweden during the Eurovision finale on Saturday.”

Yeah, Johan Bratell (the writer of the article) is technically not wrong about Finland having been a part of Sweden. But why bring this up now? This was so clearly meant as a condescending insult.

The article also talks about a throwaway comment that the Finnish commentator Mikko Silvennoinen made about tactical voting (or more specifically, an anonymous comment he read out loud about tactical voting). From my understanding this was a joke reference to the previous elections which took place recently in Finland and forced a portion of the Finnish public to vote tactically as an attempt to block a far-right party from getting into the parliament. It’s embarrassing how much these people are reaching.

And even if they were voting tactically, so what? Sweden won. Why are we so focused on the public vote of one (1) country, Jesus Christ this is embarrassing.

EDIT 2: WHY THIS MATTERS. A LOT.

For those of you who are not in the know about Swedish politics, these statements are reflecting some far-right political views that have their roots all the way back in the times when Sweden ruled over Finland. In recent memory, our far-right political party Sverigedemokraterna claimed that the Swedish minority group Tornedalians are not Swedish, because they may speak local dialects that blend Finnish into Swedish, or speak the minority language Meänkieli. Coincidentally, Meänkieli just so happens to be a minority language that blends Finnish and Swedish, as it is mostly spoken by people who live by the Torneå river, i.e. the Finnish-Swedish border. Here’s an article about this controversy (however you may not be able to read it unless you’re subscribed to said newspaper): https://www.dn.se/asikt/orimligt-att-tornedalingar-inte-skulle-vara-svenskar/?fbclid=IwAR33K_UVRhXlJhyPd3gY7GDXN_lotUdrtM1AeL-nRzWE26Tmq5BFE0lIUzw

Sverigedemokraterna also believe that the Swedish minority group of Sweden Finns should essentially cut their ties to their Finnish roots and that they should not be able to be citizens of both Finland and Sweden. https://aip.nu/sverigedemokraterna-och-de-dubbla-medborgarskapen/

This sort of rhetoric is ridiculously common here, and in situations like the ones that have occurred in light of the ESC, they almost never get called out. Because it’s common. Because it’s okay to call Finnish people names and to use colonial rhetoric against all Finns, both those who live in Finland and those who live in Sweden. Because this is “friendly banter.” Mind you, as someone who technically belongs to both of the aforementioned minority groups I’m completely fine with the actually friendly banter and piss taking that we usually partake in, because it is just that. Friendly. But this is not it. This is actually harmful. I have never seen so many Swedish people attacking Finns on social media as I’ve seen these past few days. The usual colonialistic and fennophobic insults have started to rear their ugly heads: People have started to insult the Finnish language (a fennophobic sentiment that goes way back to the days when Finland was under Swedish rule and the Swedish tried to get rid of the language), they have started to insult the way Finns look (goes back to fennophobic rhetoric of Finns essentially not being “white enough”), etcetera. For more information on how the Swedish government treated the Sweden Finns and Tornedalians (the fact that they tried to abolish both the Meänkieli language and the Finnish language from Sweden and have even done skull measurements as an attempt to prove that these minority groups are not equal to Swedes), here’s another article: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/norrbotten/regeringen-tillsatter-sanningskommission

For those of you who speak Finnish and are interested in the topic, the book Kansankodin pimeämpi puoli by Tapio Tamminen goes into both issues, with photographic evidence of skull measurement incidents among other things. Meanwhile, the Finnish media is mostly just reporting on the tomfoolery of these “journalists.” Sure, there are a lot of Finns who are acting out as well and spreading hateful rhetoric against Swedes, but the difference here is that one group is punching up, while the other is punching down.

Whether Tobbe Ek, Jenny Ågren, Markus Larsson and Johan Bratell meant to cause this does not matter. They’ve still done it, in the case of the former group, they’ve even dragged other Europeans (and Australians!) into this mess.

They’ve gone ahead and spread fennophobic rhetoric on huge platforms: Sweden’s biggest national tabloids. They should be held accountable for this.

To reiterate: ALL THIS OVER THE FINNISH PUBLIC “NOT VOTING FOR SWEDEN” DURING THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST OF 2023.

Edit 3: Just in case we need a bit of clarification:

I know this whole post may come across quite negatively. So let me make this clear: There is an issue with the Swedish culture and its normalisation of fennophobia, however, that doesn’t mean every Swede is maliciously fennophobic. It’s literally just so normalised here, that sometimes people don’t even notice when they’re partaking in it, and because of said normalisation, for many these fennophobic and colonialist insults have become a sort of knee jerk reaction to when there’s “actual beef” with Finland. (Which, obviously, is a fucking problem, because look who has to bear the brunt of that.)

Moreover, many Swedes aren’t even familiar with their shared history with Finland, and the discrimination Finland was put through during the Swedish rule (not to mention the discrimination the Sweden Finns and Tornedalians have had to face and still face). That part of our shared history simply isn’t taught in schools here, so a regular person would have to know to go out and look for the information. Heck, the only reason I’m aware of this is because at the end of the day, despite having been born and raised in Sweden, I am ethnically Finnish, and grew up by the border with very strong ties to the Finnish culture because of it. But less about me, and more about this issue. Most Swedes (and Swedish journalists who have any sort of sense in them and who work for respectable publications) have expressed their dissatisfaction with this years results as well. There’s a reason Cha Cha Cha is charting so well on Swedish Spotify. There’s a reason for why the Swedish jury and the public gave Finland 12 points.

So, Tl;dr:

1. Swedish tabloids are trash.

2. We have an undeniable problem with how normalised fennophobia is here, and it’s absolutely bizarre that this is how it’s getting exposed.

3. Most regular Swedes aren’t happy with this either, and are in fact not Finland’s and the Finnish people’s greatest haters in the world.

4. Tobbe Ek should get fired. At the bare minimun, he and his coworkers should probably issue some sort of apology for spreading this, seeing how it is actually hurting a lot of people.

Anyway, please don’t hate on the Swedes because of this lol, think about what Jere from Vantaa would think about that. 💚

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ugh-yoongi · 2 months

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the very last thing i decide | pjm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then there’s you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is it, he thinks.

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

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

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

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

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

But you do.

And, inexplicably, Yoongi listens.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m no one’s dog.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s just how it goes.

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

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

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

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

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

Someone else’s, of course.

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

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

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

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

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

But, god, he needs to know.

Needs answers.

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

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

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

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

Can’t you feel that?

He needs to know.

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

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

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

“What you said to Taehyung,” he answers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And there’s nothing gentle about the first time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taunting him.

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

Until now.

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

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

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

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

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

Jimin is blond when Namjoon sends you to South America.

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

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

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

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

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

“Done. Anything else?”

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

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

“Tell him he’s a bitch, then.”

“He’ll kill me if I say that.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It comes out more like a plea.

—

You’re good at your job.

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

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

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

Until now.

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

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

Would Namjoon let you go if you asked?

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

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

Doesn’t matter.

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

No one spares you a second glance.

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

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

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

It’s empty.

Of course it is.

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

You know who it is, you fucking dickhead.

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

Sorry.

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

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

What kind of life is this?

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

Still, whatever you owe him has surely been repaid by now. Tenfold, if the bloodstains along your collar are anything to go by.

It’s time for Namjoon to let you go.

—

Something is wrong.

Two hours have ticked by and there’s no word from Jimin. No word from Namjoon or Seokjin, either, which is the only reason you’re still in this nauseating motel room and not out on the streets searching for him. Solo jobs don’t go like this. The two of you are always in and out, tragically efficient. Back to where you started and then back on a plane, nothing left behind except a singular bullet hole and another fragmented piece of your conscience.

You’ve had a lot of jobs go wrong, but never two hours.

You’re about three minutes from coming out of your skin. Sick to your stomach with worry, anxiety weighing you down like an anchor. You wouldn’t be able to go out searching for Jimin like this even if you could, and there’s no point in dwelling on that, examining it further. All you can do is wait.

It’s another hour before you hear the click of the lock. You’re nearly on your knees in relief, but you stay rooted to the flimsy mattress. Try not to think about how you’ll have to sleep on it, even though you’ll be up half the night with residual worry. All those lingering ghosts.

Jimin doesn’t say anything, so neither do you.

[55.6761° N, 12.5683° E | Copenhagen, DENMARK]

Jimin’s hair is orange when you go to Copenhagen.

Not for a job, just to breathe. You wanted to see the city at Christmastime; Jimin’s never been.

You crack a joke. Point out buildings of similar color, have him stand in front of one as you take a picture. Everyone smiles when they pass the two of you on the street, Jimin’s eyes fond even though he rolls them as you pose him how you want. Still stands against an apricot-colored wall and flashes a smile and a peace sign, cheeks pink from the cold. Does a good job of pretending the two of you aren’t here just for fun, that this is something more.

It’s not.

The two of you fucked in a hotel room in Reykjavik and haven’t spoken a word of it since.

You nearly lost your mind over him in Buenos Aires and haven’t spoken a word of that, either.

Instead, his hand finds yours as the two of you walk around Tivoli Gardens. You marvel at the lights and Jimin marvels at you. You share mulled wine and spiced doughnuts. Jimin tries to drag you on the swings but you plant your feet and refuse, laughing through your refusals. As dangerous as your lives are, motion sickness might be the most. He gets his revenge and poses you in front of a giant nutcracker, then again in front of one of the endless Christmas trees.

Jimin pays for the two of you to decorate honey cakes. You’re surrounded by families with shrieking children and palpable adoration, and it’s all you can do not to wonder if anyone you’ve taken out had ever had something like this. Something that makes your soul warm; something that still lingers in your bones years later.

The two of you take a selfie when it starts to snow. It stings when you have no one to send it to, so it just lives in your phone. Maybe it’s enough.

On another day, Jimin holds your hand through Torvehallerne. This time you marvel at him while he marvels at all the food, eyes wide each time he turns to ask if he should buy something. You always say yes and he always shares, and it’s all you can do not to think about why you don’t have to budget yourselves. Why you’re able to walk through the market and buy whatever you want; how you could buy every item for sale and it wouldn’t make a dent.

(You pick up small trinkets for Taehyung and Jungkook. Not because you want to, but because it feels nicer than remembering that you have no one to buy gifts for. Not really. Not anymore.)

Jimin wants to ice skate, so you do. He holds your hand then, too. More out of necessity than anything else, and he has none of his usual grace. Someone hands you a free cup of hot chocolate, just because. Jimin pouts and then it’s his hot chocolate. It’s all you can do not to kiss away the whipped cream on the corner of his mouth.

Back in your lavish hotel, after countless days have blurred together and Jimin’s fresh from a shower, skin flushed, you finally ask yourself if it’s worth putting up such a fight. If it’s really all that bad to care for Jimin and be cared for in return. If it’s all that bad to be someone else, just for a little while: someone with a normal life who makes a normal living and has a normal capability to love. Someone who isn’t damaged beyond repair.

That will never be you. Not fully, and certainly not in this lifetime, but maybe it could be, a little.

“Jimin,” you say, because you need to try. Jimin loves you in ways you’ll never understand, and you want to be better for him. “We should talk.”

Your voice is small and hesitant, and Jimin hates it. Sees trouble where there’s only vulnerability, so he misreads. Shakes his head. Takes a risk and stands between your legs at the edge of the bed—yours, because there’s two—as he tilts your head back, thumbs pressing into the contours of your cheeks. The scar still sits in the hollow of your throat, and that version of you feels so far away. That life feels so far away.

There’s no violence here. There’s no blood, no fugues. There’s just you and Jimin, whose voice is small like yours when he shakes his head and says, “You should kiss me instead.”

The second time is nothing like the first.

Jimin moves delicately. Feels like silk lace, tastes like spun sugar. Moves both his mouth and his body fluidly, no hesitation, yet he still takes his time. Still pauses to look at you with endless devotion; with awed reverence. Makes a map of your body and marks all his favorite places with his lips.

“Tell me what you want,” he says. Speaks the words against the skin just beneath your ear. “Anything. I’ll give you whatever you want, just have to ask.”

What you want isn’t tangible, isn’t possible, so you stay quiet. Thread your fingers through Jimin’s hair, gasp when he mouths along the column of your throat. Jimin reserves all his softness for you. Bathes you in it. Would kill anyone to keep it that way.

So you say, “Want your mouth,” and let slip a quiet moan when he gives you what you’ve asked for. When he situates himself between your thighs and sucks and licks until you’re writhing, making a mess, grasping fruitlessly at the sheets, his hair, his shoulders, only calming when his hands find yours and your fingers interlock.

Jimin mouths at you until you’re trembling. Until you’re needy and desperate, hips moving on their own, fucking yourself against his face. Until nothing exists except the heat in your belly, the stars behind your eyelids, the heady, fucked-out sound of Jimin’s voice as he talks you through it, murmurs praise against your cunt.

Jimin mouths at you until you forget.

This isn’t your life. This is not something you can have.

But, in the grand scheme of things, what does it matter? You’ve made peace with death, and there’s only one of two ways it’s going to come for you in the end: by Namjoon’s hand or someone else’s. So what does it matter?

This time, Jimin fucks you slow. Kisses you with your taste still in his mouth. Thumbs over a hardened nipple just to see what earns him a reaction, and what you truly want is more time—something else that’s impossible.

Jimin’s hair is orange when you think you might be in love with him.

[ 48.8566° N, 2.3522° E | Paris, FRANCE ]

Jimin’s hair is pink when—

“Sit,” he says, gesturing to the toilet.

Soaks a washcloth in warm water. Wrings it out. Stands in front of you, and there’s water dripping onto the floor and Jimin doesn’t care, doesn’t seem to see anything in this moment except for you, your hands covered in someone else’s blood, and he reaches out, gently grabs your wrist. Palm up. Someone else’s blood. Everything smells like copper and iron. Looks too surreal beneath the fluorescent lights of this hotel bathroom for your mind to make sense of it.

There is care in the way Jimin cleans your hands. There is tenderness in the way he both refuses to see what you really are and the way he’s the only one to ever see you so entirely, when you look down at the blood he’s washing away and all you can see is stigmata. When all you see is sin.

“I know you don’t love me,” he says, and there is a conviction in his words that stuns you into silence. “Not the way I love you, anyway.”

That tenderness is still there as he says this. As he presses the wet fabric into the meat of your palm, wipes the stains away, and the warmth is as calming as it is undeserved. It feels like something forbidden. It feels like salvation and condemnation all at once, like whatever sick depravity permeates you is contagious, will take over Jimin, too, just from touching you.

Jimin is close enough to reach out and touch. Close enough to see the violence that he exists in alongside you: the rips in his clothes, the scars that decorate his skin. Close enough to know he smells sickly-sweet, just like death. Your hand shakes as it reaches for him and never follows through. Doesn’t want to contaminate him.

“I do,” you finally say. Whatever is in your voice is not conviction. “I can’t.” You suck in a breath, try to steady your breathing. This is where it all comes crashing down, you think, because in all the years you’ve done Namjoon’s bidding, you’ve never cried. You can take life so freely and without thought, but you cannot love Jimin. “Someone like me isn’t capable of it.”

Jimin pauses, the washcloth stuck in the space between your ring and middle fingers. “And who is someone like you?”

Water is still dripping to the floor. Serosanguineous: blood tainting something untouched. Not something one thing or another but both, watery-pink. Looks like Jimin’s hair. “I’ve killed a lot of people,” you answer. “More than I can count. More than I can name. More than the ones that come to haunt me at night.” Your free hand moves to your chest, covers your heart. “There’s nothing here, Jimin. I’m not sure there ever was.”

The washcloth drops to the floor, and all that blood belonging to a man whose name you never bothered to learn before you put a bullet between his eyes finds a new place to rest. “I think,” he begins, clasping your unclean hand in his own, voice dropping to a whisper, “you forget, sometimes.” You gasp as he places your palm to his cheek, drags it across his face, smears a stranger’s blood across his skin. “That we’re the same.”

Jimin is always overwhelming, but the love he has for you is even more so. It consumes you entirely, embeds itself beneath your skin, makes a home, would tear you apart, body and soul, to return to him.

[ 47.4979° N, 19.0402° E | Budapest, HUNGARY ]

Jimin’s hair is lavender when it all goes to shit.

“You’re being followed.”

Seokjin’s voice is garbled through the earpiece, tinny and metallic, and you roll your eyes. Some things don’t need to be said, because you’ve known someone was following you for the last three blocks. Average height, black peacoat, close-cropped haircut. Not the kind of person that’d stand out here, and that’s exactly why you’d sent Jimin in the other direction.

“No shit,” you respond in Hungarian, because you already know the man following you doesn’t speak or understand it. “Give me somewhere to go.”

It takes Seokjin a few moments to run the translation. “There’s a side street up on your right,” he answers. “It’s tight, but there’s an alleyway at the end. You can buy some time if you’re quick.”

“Where’s Jimin?”

You pass a vendor selling lángos and duck into the street behind the stall. Just as Seokjin had said, there’s a small alleyway up on the left, and your footfall is near-silent as you break into a sprint to reach it. “Safe,” is all Seokjin says.

You take a second to steady your breathing, knowing you’re good on time—the man following you was close enough to know where you’d turned, but, if you’re lucky, not much after that. That plays on a loop: if you’re lucky, if you’re lucky, if you’re lucky. What is luck, what does it look like, in a life left entirely to chance? In a life with no guarantees?

You tuck yourself away, focus on Seokjin’s metallic breaths. Think about his basement in Seoul, why he’s in it. Ask, “What happened in Addis Ababa?” because it feels important to know.

There’s not much you know about Seokjin’s life. Whatever happened in Ethiopia had been before your time, reduced to hushed whispers and gossip fodder after your arrival. No one spoke of it, Seokjin especially, but every now and then something would slip in the same way weeds grow in sidewalk cracks.

A job gone wrong. A bombing at the consulate with Seokjin inside.

His reply is simple, words spoken carefully: “I loved someone once, too.”

He can’t see it, but you nod nonetheless; an answer that doesn’t require a response, because you know. It’s enough to fill in the rest. What Seokjin’s trauma looks like. Why he doesn’t do field work anymore. Why he prefers the solitude of the basement, rarely a sound beyond the electric thrum of the server racks.

Who had gone in to retrieve him, and why Yoongi has the scar over his eye.

“You loved someone,” you conclude, “and he would’ve been willing to die for you.”

“Yes,” Seokjin says, and it’s like the word’s been punched out of him. Sounds like something repressed, something left to rot in the darkest corner of the world.

Love, to Seokjin, looks and sounds the same as death.

“I think most people spend their entire lives searching for a love like that,” he continues, and if you could see him you think he might look dazed, off-kilter. You think he might be an avatar. Seokjin is prying his ribcage apart, unwrapping the barbed wire from his heart, saying I once was in love and this is all I know of it. “But, to me, in this life, it’s a prison. Once someone is willing to die for you, how do you keep them alive? How do you—I kissed that skin. I worshiped it. I pressed my lips to it with whatever softness was left in me. How do you look at that same skin and know you’re the reason it’s mangled?” He exhales, all tremor. “You can’t. You can’t.”

You know this all too well. You know what it feels like to look at Jimin and know, intrinsically and subconsciously, that you wouldn’t even hesitate. You’d take and give life to keep him alive and safe. You know that when you exit this world at someone else’s hand his face is the last thing you want to see.

You know it’s a liability.

You know it’s a target painted on your back. Between your eyes.

You know there’s nothing left to say, that this particular conversation has run its course. The two of you sit in an amicable silence, and you hope Seokjin can hear the life that surrounds you, however mundane. Hope he can hear the lángos vendor trying to hawk his goods; hope he can hear a city 8,000 kilometers away; hope he can hear these regular, everyday people going about their lives and remember there’s hope beyond his four walls.

I think you’d like it here, you think, but you don’t dare to say it aloud.

Time passes in a meaningless blur. Could be minutes, could be hours. No one’s come to kill you, so you reckon you’ve long since been in the clear. And maybe it speaks to Seokjin’s idea that love is a prison, because you know something’s happened to Jimin long before Seokjin speaks it into existence.

You’re up and out of the alleyway before you’re told to move. Have no idea where you’re going, but you’re racing through the streets of Budapest with a panic you haven’t ever felt in your life. Feels like quicksand; feels like molasses; feels like you have to wade through all the blood you’ve spilled, now congealed, to get to him.

“Where am I going?” you demand. Your lungs are on fire. In the split-second of silence it becomes a desperate scream. “Seokjin, tell me where the fuck I’m going!”

“The—fuck, the wa-warehouse up on your right.” You can’t think about why he’s crying. “I don’t—I don’t know wha-what’s there, you need to be careful. Please, you have to—”

Twenty seconds and you’ll be there, you’ll be with Jimin, you just need to keep running. You need to keep your head on straight. Remember your training. Remember you’ve built a life in a viper pit.

A man in a uniform is unloading a shipment around the back of the building. Faces away from you, bent at the waist. Takes very little effort to smash his head into the stone exterior and knock him unconscious, pocket his badge. You can’t get stupid now. Tell Seokjin to make sure all the cameras are cut, ask what floor when you shut yourself inside the freight elevator, unwilling to take the stairs and run into anyone who might be waiting. All the way to the top, he says, so all the way to the top you go.

—

Over the course of your life, you’ve made peace with death. Have stared it in the eye more times than you can count. Have dealt it out, evaded it, shook its hand.

You are wholly unprepared for the sight that greets you.

Red. Everything is red—the walls, the floor, what used to be a beautiful parquet pattern in the wood. In the center of the room: two bodies, maybe three. Not much that’d be able to identify them beyond a pile of teeth, no saying whose is whose. Slaughterhouse scraps.

And this is not—Jimin doesn’t work this way. Isn’t his MO. Jimin’s kills are elegant and neat, topped with a bow. What you see before you is ultraviolence. It is unhinged, it is fury, it is a complete loss of control. It’s what love looks like to Jimin, because he sits at the very edge of a rotted chair, legs crossed. Face streaked with blood, clothes covered in it.

“Jimin,” you say, because what else is there?

He tilts his head to the side, smirks a little, looks at you beneath his lashes. Eyes that used to find you across a room and calm you. Eyes that have locked onto you in the throes of pleasure. Eyes you’ve seen yourself reflected in, bathed in love and adoration.

Eyes that now contain nothing.

“Jimin, what the fuck happened?”

He removes his gloves with his teeth and doesn’t flinch away from the taste of iron. “They said they hurt you,” he states simply, “so I did what needed to be done.”

“What—” Nausea claws at your throat; for the first time, it’s all too much. This isn’t Jimin. This isn’t your Jimin, who smiled as you posed him against apricot walls in Copenhagen, who took a bullet to the stomach to protect you and never, ever told you. This is not the Jimin who wasted the last of his goodwill on loving you. “What did you do?” you whisper.

He rises to full height and it makes you flinch. You are scared of Jimin for the first time in your life: scared of who he is in this moment, what he’s capable of. And he sees it, lets that brand of anguish overtake him. Reaches for you before he decides against it and lets his hand drop to his side. Says, “I would never hurt you,” as if the words could brand themselves into your skin so you’d never forget.

“No, you’d just—” You squeeze your eyes shut. Don’t think about how one of the men nearly embedded into the floor was the one trailing you earlier.

Instead, you think about Seokjin: Once someone is willing to die for you, how do you keep them alive? You think about: How do you look at that same skin and know you’re the reason it’s mangled? You think about: In this life, it’s a prison.

You drop to your knees. Let the blood seep through your clothes and into your skin, undeserving of shying away from it.

Namjoon should’ve let you go.

You think about the men in front of you. Who they were, who they loved. The grief all of this is going to leave behind, and it becomes impossible to breathe. You grasp at your throat, think about all the times you’ve been strangled and who’d been there to cut the rope. There is no limit to Jimin’s devotion, and you understand now, how it drove Yoongi to madness. How he loved someone so much he would’ve retrieved their corpse from a building and how that same person can no longer bear to look at the damage they’d caused.

“This isn’t love, Jimin,” you choke out.

He stands in front of you. Stigmata. You’re worshiping at the altar of some kind of devil. At least his hands are clean when he places his fingers beneath your chin, forces you to look up at him. “What is it, then?”

“Destruction.”

A quiet huff of cruel laughter. “See, this is the difference between me and you, darling.” He takes back his hand, runs it through his blood-streaked hair, and your chin sags to your chest without his support. “Because I already knew that. Because I have destroyed myself every single day loving you.” He squats down, eye-level, and he says, “I need you to listen to me when I say this, sweetheart: you do not love me the way I love you, because I would do worse. When it comes to you, there is nothing on this earth I would not destroy to keep you safe.”

He clears his throat. Collects whatever’s in his mouth and spits onto one of the bodies. “If this is enough to have you tucking your fucking tail between your legs, then go, because this doesn’t even scratch the fucking surface.”

You can’t bring yourself to say anything, and sometimes that says it all.

Jimin presses a kiss to the top of your head. Makes a call. Cleaners will be here soon, he says, better get going.

You watch him go.

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

Jimin’s hair is black when Namjoon calls the meeting.

He takes the seat across from Namjoon’s desk because they don’t meet like this often. Assignments are usually manila folders slipped under doors, hushed whispers in hallways confirmed with a nod or a text on a burner phone. Assignments are not last-minute assemblies in conference rooms and offices.

But the way Namjoon is looking at him, with his clenched jaw and a gaze that’s meant to look barbed to anyone who doesn’t actually know him—Jimin doesn’t need to ask what this is about.

Had he bothered to look, he would’ve known by the way you stood in the far corner of the room, face obscured by the mid-afternoon shadows. Yoongi’s close to you, for some reason: dressed head to toe in black, perched on a lateral file cabinet, using a metal corner to sharpen his switchblade. Just like a harbinger of death. Some sort of fucked up omen, a warning that’s come too late.

Didn’t I tell you this would end badly, he hears Yoongi taunt in his head. This is what happens when you lay with trash.

Easy for Yoongi to say when he doesn’t know what it means to be cared for by you. Doesn’t know how it feels to give in to the freefall and plummet at your feet, stripped back and laid bare. Doesn’t know how it feels to kiss secrets into your skin like constellations, to map his tongue along every unspoken confession.

Easy for Yoongi to say, because he doesn’t have to survive the aftermath. Doesn’t have to feel the heartbreak, the agony of having you and watching as you slip through his fingers. Yoongi doesn’t have to struggle just to breathe, doesn’t have to endure the nights staring at the ceiling, watching as the daylight creeps into the corners of his vision. Doesn’t have to watch you looking so unaffected.

“Jimin.” Namjoon’s tone is flat, needlelike.

Behind him, Yoongi chuckles lowly. “What?” Jimin asks, his gaze trained on the painting behind Namjoon’s head. Looks like one he’d seen in Berlin, the time the two of you had gone just because and spent an afternoon ducking in and out of museums to escape the rain.

When he closes his eyes, he still sees the raindrops stuck to your eyelashes. The beads of water rolling off the sleeves of your leather jacket. How blinding your smile had been. The laughter in your voice as you ordered beer after beer after beer for the two of you in flawless Berlinisch. A brief, fleeting glimpse at normalcy. At the kind of life the two of you could have if you were just… different. Lived different lives. Were different people.

“You’ve gotten sloppy.”

Namjoon’s words are a cold bucket of water. Snap him back to reality, yank him back to the present where he’s forced to leave those river-lined streets behind. You’re silent and Yoongi’s still snorting laughter. “Okay,” is all Jimin can bring himself to say.

Jin had gotten sloppy once, too, and Namjoon stuck him down in the basement to work logistics. Might not be so bad, Jimin reckons. He’d be away from you, spared of this fucking misery. “So you know that’s unacceptable.”

Jimin just shrugs, resigned to his fate, whatever it may be. “I’m reassigning the both of you,” Namjoon continues. “You’ll both have new partners for your next assignments, since you clearly can no longer be trusted together.”

“Who?” Jimin manages to choke out.

Namjoon raises an eyebrow, clearly having expected an argument. “You’re being sent to Shanghai with Jungkook. You,” he says, turning his attention to you, “are going to Moscow with Taehyung.”

She’s fond of Taehyung, Jimin wants to say. But you’d been fond of him too, once upon a time, and that’d only ended in heartbreak, so who fucking cares.

They’re cruel, the tricks Jimin’s mind plays on him. How he convinces himself you look pained. How his fingers wring together at the thought of entrusting his life in the hands of someone else, someone new. At your life being just as at stake; at Taehyung being tasked with keeping you alive. Would you die for him, too, the way you’d always told Jimin you would for him? Would Taehyung take a bullet to the stomach to keep you safe the way Jimin had?

Even more cruel is the way you scoff, pushing yourself off of the wall as you fold your arms across your chest and say, “That’s bullshit, Kim Namjoon.”

No one talks to Namjoon that way except you.

Yoongi’s knife stops twirling. Just like a bird sensing a storm, senses on high-alert as he flicks his gaze over to you. “I’m sorry?” Namjoon says. “What part of Jimin losing his mind and nearly outing all of us seems like bullshit to you?”

“Hm, let me think,” you retort, a manicured finger tapping against the hollow of your cheek. “The part where you’re reassigning me for someone else’s mistake?”

Which part was the mistake? Jimin wants to ask. Needs to know how much you regret. Was sleeping with you the mistake? Falling in love with you? Getting too caught up in all these daydreams and letting reality get away from him?

“This organization is more important than Park Jimin getting his goddamn dick wet,” Namjoon snaps. “Keeping all of you safe—keeping you alive—is more—”

You scoff. Take an entire container of gasoline and pour it right on top of Namjoon’s flammable ire. “Then perhaps you’d be so kind as to explain to me why Min fucking Yoongi can fuck damn near everyone in this establishment, yet I have to sit here and listen to your goddamn mouth—”

Jimin doesn’t think Yoongi even knows his arm is moving.

There’d just been the trading of barbed words. His own name being spoken into the ether. Yoongi’s arm moving away from his body, switchblade clasped tightly between his fingers as he plunges it into your flesh.

Jimin watches it puncture your arm in slow motion. Feels the bile in his throat, the heat in his belly. Looks first at Namjoon whose jaw has gone slack, skin pale, as he stammers over words that won’t come. Then he looks at Yoongi—expects to find shock or guilt but finds only a muted disinterest and flared nostrils.

Finally, he looks at you. Watches the white cotton sleeve of your shirt slowly turn red and sticky-wet. Watches as your lips move around syllables and vowels and consonants Jimin can’t decipher.

“—fucking piece of shit, this is my favorite shirt! I’ll never get all this goddamn blood out of it—”

Jimin thinks he hears Yoongi say you deserve it. But Jimin isn’t really thinking much as he clambers out of his chair and moves in Yoongi’s direction. Doesn’t think at all as he lets instinct take over, lets adrenaline steer him headfirst into yet another bad idea.

He’s always known there’d come a day he’d be face-to-face with the sight of your blood. Had always known it’d come from someone else’s hand. Had always promised himself that hurting you would be the last thing anyone ever did.

Jimin has his fingers wrapped around Yoongi’s throat and he finally understands it—the joy Yoongi finds in taking life.

“What’s the matter, Jimin-ah?” Yoongi taunts. Jimin tightens his grip. Suddenly hates that fucking scar across Yoongi’s eye. “You’re never on clean-up duty. Always make your girlfriend do the dirty work. Finally grew some fucking balls, huh?”

“Fuck you,” Jimin says stupidly. Can’t think of anything more to say. Not that he needs to. Wrapping your hands around someone’s throat sends enough of a message, he thinks.

Namjoon’s still tongue-tied as you yank Yoongi’s blade from your arm, immediately pressing your other hand over the wound to stem the bleeding. The sight of your blood is making Jimin dizzy; the smell of the iron hanging in the air. All he wants to do is choke the life out of the man in front of him, but more than that, he just wants to hold your hand. Wants to comfort you, even though he knows you don’t need it. Not from him, not from anyone, but he still wants to. Wants to press his lips to the sweat at your brow.

And Yoongi can see it, too, because he starts laughing. It’s an odd, fractured noise. Jimin isn’t sure if he’s ever heard him laugh before, decides he also hates the way it sounds. Feels all wrong watching it leave his crooked smirk. Makes Jimin’s stomach plummet to the ground.

“Oh, you’re fucked, aren’t you?” Yoongi teases around Jimin’s slackened grip. “You weren’t just fucking her, you’re in love with her.”

Weird how Jimin is the one with his hands around someone’s neck and feels like he’s the one suffocating.

[ 31.2304° N, 121.4737° E | Shanghai, CHINA ]

Jimin watches the life drain from an innocent woman’s face and feels nothing.

Jimin watches Jungkook cut a man down and feels even less.

When it’s over, he cleans up wordlessly and doesn’t eat for three days.

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

Jimin’s hair has faded to brown by the time he returns from Shanghai.

The more complicated job had gone to you and Taehyung. Jimin had tried not to take it personally. The Russian hits are always unnecessarily violent and Jungkook still isn’t fully trained. There’s still a phantom pain in Jimin’s stomach that warns him of the consequences of taking on more than he can chew. So, sure, Shanghai had gone fine, but his mind had been nearly 7,000 kilometers away the entire time.

Good thing he’d returned to Seoul unscathed, too, because he’s sure Namjoon would’ve eliminated him without a moment’s hesitation if he’d fucked up again.

But Shanghai had only served to prove the leader right. Jimin can’t work with you anymore. Can’t focus, can’t stomach the violence, can’t keep his goddamn head on straight.

He sighs as he glances at Jungkook to his right. Jimin had watched him murder two men in cold blood not even thirty-six hours ago and now he’s doe-eyed and sucking down his third banana milk of the morning. It really makes his head spin, being paired with this grown-up infant of a man now instead of you, but for all of Jungkook’s apparent shortcomings, he’d kept Jimin alive. He isn’t dead.

And then you walk in with Taehyung and he wishes he was.

Because you’re laughing and Taehyung’s got his arm slung around your shoulder and you look happy. It’s the kind of happiness that should be contagious, bloom warmth in his chest, but it doesn’t. It just takes the last frayed strand of hope he has and sets flame to it.

You don’t look like you miss Jimin at all. Don’t look like you’ve lost sleep or skipped meals.

“Didn’t take you long, did it?” Jimin says, because he’s wounded and lashing out. Not because he means it.

You must know he doesn’t, too, because you don’t react. “Watch your mouth, Park Jimin,” Taehyung warns, because he doesn’t know, and this only sets Jimin off more. You don’t need defending. Or had you, and Jimin had simply thought it wasn’t his place to provide it? That you wouldn’t want it?

“Or what, Kim Taehyung?”

Taehyung is cherubic. It’s part of his charm, one of many reasons why he’s so effective. If you’re looking to die, you look for the guy who looks like Yoongi, not the one who smiles wide and warm like Taehyung. So when he sets his jaw and pokes his tongue into his cheek and says, “Or I’ll cut your fucking head off, you stupid fuck,” your attention is finally piqued.

“I’m so sick of this,” Jungkook wails, banana milk tossed carelessly in the trash. “All of you need to get your fucking shit together!”

Taehyung rolls his eyes at the same time you pretend to inspect your nails. “Is that why you’re so temperamental, Chim?” Taehyung prods, looking every bit the pretentious, murderous angel he is. “Because you got sent to China on a babysitting mission while the grownups did real work?”

“Fuck you,” Jungkook snaps, rising to full height. “I’m not a fucking child.”

“Oh? Could’ve fooled me.” Taehyung’s words are razor-sharp and smell like kerosene. “Tell me, then: were you on babysitting duty? Had to look after our precious little Jiminie while he nursed his broken heart?”

You sigh, full of faux-exasperation, and place a gentle hand on Taehyung’s forearm. Dig your nails in just enough to be a warning, and if Jimin hadn’t been looking he’d miss it: the way Taehyung deflates instantly, anger dissipating like smoke, back in control. Just because you’d touched him. Just because you were there. Jimin knows that touch, how it feels to be under your control, and it makes his chest ache. Makes everything feel like it’s sitting wrong in his stomach, and he’s either going to be sick all over Namjoon’s overpriced fucking rug or wrap his hands around Taehyung’s throat the way he’d done to Yoongi.

He’s out of his goddamned mind; he feels untethered. Helpless. Like it was always going to end like this, and maybe Jimin knew that and had just ignored it. Maybe now he’s paying the price—maybe he’s finally found something he can’t afford.

Jungkook’s still going off, nasty gaze set on Taehyung because he’s the only one playing along. They’re exchanging words Jimin can’t make heads nor tails of. Words he doesn’t care about. Words that ring empty and hollow because they sound nothing like the way you say his name. Shapeless, unlike the way your lips move around those syllables.

“Jimin,” you say, the sound finally registering and bringing him back down to earth. All he can do is stare. “Can we talk?” Taehyung and Jungkook are still trading barbs.

Wonders how he got here. Looks around the room and wonders if each and every one of them is destined for this same fate, this madness. Wants to tell you why he forgot his vest, why he was three hours late in Argentina. Wants to grovel and beg and leave this place and never look back.

More than anything, he wants to know what it feels like to actually be human.

So he shakes his head. Tries not to be haunted by the way your face falls at the rejection.

There is a scar on his abdomen and a scar on your arm that both tell the same story. There is a man in the basement who is in love with a man above ground and is too weighed down by guilt to do anything about it. There is a man here who plays god, has soldiers to do his bidding, and there is very little here that Jimin has only for himself.

The two of you will have that conversation, but he needs to be human, first.

[ 34.6901° N, 135.1956° E | Kobe, JAPAN ]

This is a waste of your fucking time.

Whatever Namjoon had thought would be here doesn’t seem to exist. Yoongi can barely tolerate you on a good day, threatens to stick a dagger in your neck at least twice an hour, but the more time the two of you waste chasing ghosts, the closer he comes to unraveling entirely.

“Stop fucking staring at me,” he snaps, blowing the smoke of his cigarette right in your face.

You tut. “But you’re so beautiful, Yoongi, I just can’t help it.”

He digs his switchblade from his boot. Makes a show of flipping it open. “I can cut your fuckin’ eyes out of your skull,” he intones. “Maybe that’ll help.”

In your ear, Jimin’s laughter rings like crystal.

Ricochets off of all the corners of Seokjin’s basement, makes the echo sound warped through the earpiece. “Please tell Yoongi-ssi to keep an eye on the man with the shaved head. In front of him, roughly sixty degrees to his right.”

You relay the message. Watch as Yoongi transforms—sharpened gaze, rigid posture, disappears into the shadows. More apex predator than man. “And me?” you ask.

“Backup,” comes Seokjin’s voice. “We haven’t found your mark yet.”

You hum. Pick up the cigarette Yoongi left behind and stick it between your lips. Smoke it nearly to the filter. “You got it, boss,” you tease, just because it flusters him.

“I’m—that’s not—knock it off.”

Exhale. Stub out the cigarette. Butt in your pocket. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Jimin says, and his voice is soft, sounds like spun sugar. “Stay alive, all right?”

Jimin’s hair isn’t dyed at all.

if you've read this far: thank you so, so much! i am more appreciative than i can put into words. this is very different from what i typically write, but i hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.

i would love to hear your thoughts if you have any. <3

#jimin x reader #jimin smut #bts x reader #bts smut #jimin imagine #jimin scenarios #jimin fanfic #jimin x you #jimin x y/n #bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts fanfic #bts x you #bts x y/n

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absolutebl · 4 months

Text

TOP 10 BL Trends of 2023

This is just me with my analysis hat on.

1. 2023 = the year EVERYONE went outside their lanes

Everything went topsy-turvy this year in BL.

For example, Korea gave us agonized yearning and outright queerness (The 8th Sense, The New Employee) while Japan served up soft office workers and tender family (Our Dining Table).

The BL world went askew for a while, especially in the spring of 2023.

Not that we still didn’t still get Korea’s soft angsty bubbles or Japan’s “what are you doing and why does it hurt?” kink-fests. But there were quite a few BLs that made us chronic watchers sit up in confusion and wonder if Korea was dabbling in Taiwan’s territory or Japan in Thailand’s. Then they fudged the kisses and we were like... okay, back in familiar territory.

In contrast, Thailand stayed course-correcting for the damage they’ve done in the past with tropes (2022) and self referential meta criticism (2021), but also almost aggressively returned to their BL roots after last year’s series of shockers. Certainly, they are reexamining those roots, transplanting some, aerating others. But they really went back to classic Thai university and high school BL and pulps in a big way in 2023.

Taiwan is always difficult to gage because they produce so few but they seem to have stuck with what they do best with no deviation while producing more this year than they have in ages. I’m happy for that, why change a good thing? But there is a tiny part of me that really wants them to hit it out of the part with a quality piece soon. For me, We Best Love still reigns supreme, but I would really like the HIStory franchise to give us that level but longer - like a happy version of Your Name Engraved Herein. I think Taiwan has the chops to give us something as good as The 8th Sense or Old Fashion Cupcake but in their style, and I would like to see them exercise their talent for good rather than just profit.

I know, what a very odd thing for me to say. But if any BL is going to break into the mainstream American market, I genuinely think it’s most likely come from Taiwan.

Vietnam and the Philippines are falling behind, in general. They just didn’t bring out very many shows in 2023, and what the brought out tended to fub the endings. This is forgivable in Japan (because of their style and quality) but not what watchers want in the lower production value propositions. In other words, if you do a pulp, you can’t mess up the ending (by romance standards). that doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon.

2. The Office Romance Dominated

After years of Thailand serving us an endless (and slightly bland) buffet of university (and a few high school) BLs, this year Korea was basically like...

Ofiice. We like the Office. It’s cheap to film we can use grown up actors, acting (mostly) their actual age.

And yeah... it totally worked.

To be fair, Japan has always given us office live action yaoi from the beginning (they had the source material) but this year everyone else, including Thailand, seriously started playing in this setting.

3. Boys Danced with Boys

The darling @heretherebedork was a big fan of this one, and I rather like it myself. Prior to this boys dancing together was very very rare in BL, but this year we got way more than our fair share. It was lovely.

Never Let me Go

My School President

Bed Friend

The Day I Loved You

Step by Step

Be Mine Superstar

Tie the Not

Dangerous Romance

I think there were a few more. These are the ones I remembered to write down.

4. Getting (even more) Meta With Tropes

BL has been getting more and more meta over the past few years but this year they really focused in on tropes specifically. Calling out their own biggest and most favorite tropes in a massive way, especially Thailand and especially GMMTV.

Like they tunneled in on damaging tropes with Bad Buddy and the like over the past 2 years, and now they are just having fun with us.

I mean they just started the dancing trope and already they are calling it out? That’s like rapid-fire regurgitated meta there, GMMTV.

5. Cameos are the norm now

Taiwan has always loved cameos but in the past the other countries have been show and steady with only one or two a year. (Unless Japan does a parody.)

This year Korea got in on the game.

Korea rarely starts trends but they do adopt smaller and lesser known existing ones and make them super popular.

This year they did that with cameo couple appearances, even borrowing a few of Thailand’s pairs (TutorYim and MaxNat traveled north). They did it so much I stopped tracking. Love Class 2, Why R U?, and Jun & Jun were the heaviest hitters.

Taiwan, of course, came back swinging. Kiseki was the gum-ball machine of pair cameos. (In Taiwan mafia = gay.)

6. We are entering the cross pollination age

The number of remakes picked up or started this year was startling, not just countries revisiting their own content (Thailand, Japan) but countries revisiting OTHER countries stuff.

Lemme explain...

Korea has started remaking Thai content (Why R U?) alongside cameo'ing Thai pairs.

Thailand is doing Korean IP (My Dear Gagster Oppa) and has 2 Chinese ones slated for next year.

GMMTV acquired a lot of Japanese IP (Cherry Magic, Ossen, and My Love Mix Up) - and then had problems distributing it.

This is probably the most surprising trend for me. Especially the Japanese stuff. I would have thought these properties well outside of Thailand's price range (even GMMTV's) not to mention Japan’s legendary IP issues (I swear I typed this pout before the pulled TayNew’s excellent Cherry Magic).

Also why not option some of the older popular manga instead? Bet that's much cheeper. (I did see a NEW Thai translation of Finder into Thai, which is 90s yaoi, so I have my fingers crossed on that front.)

I shouldn't be too surprised.

Thailand is running out of y-novel content. Their publication industry is just not robust enough (I was just talking to a friend about this at length recently). But I didn't think they had the funds to option, especially from Japan.

Perhaps the option deals are for peanuts?

7. Korea got cheeky

I’m not sure quite how else to put this.

After finally figuring out boys can kiss, Korea started to do not just higher heat but playful higher heat, with more aggressive word play and linguistic innuendo, like they are entering their racy rom-com teenage years (Why R U? Love Class 2 and Jun & Jun in particular.)

I guess: Welcome to your BL teens, Korea?

It’s cute of them. I am very much enjoying it.

And now that comedy is warming them up, we get to see them play with actual queer burgeoning physicality in shows like The 8th Sense.

It’s nice. I like seeing Korea stretch its wings. They still stick to their bubble, but that bubble seems to be expanding.

8. The Amnesia Trope is back

And I, for one, would prefer to forget about it.

9. BL got trendy

I’m not quite sure how to articulate this category but basically we started seeing a lot of “modern” romance trends out of the west (like a/b/o) show up in our BL. Not a ton and sometimes quite small, but there has a been a steady rise of things like: no seme/uke, femme gay, out gay, condom use, messy gay.

We also got an increasing range of sub genre frameworks (like mafia, office setting) that’s moved BL pretty firmly (even in Thailand) out of school and into the workplace, whether actual working is involved or not.

It’s not to the point where it feels like we get more non-school BL than school BL (if I include all countries in this assessment).

Japan, in classic Japanese fashion, quietly started moving in the opposite direction. It’s what they do.

10. The Vampires are coming

This is an announcement trend, which I don’t usually report on but it’s so CLEAR.

So last year we had a spate of announcements of possible Omegaverse (2 from China, 1 from Japan, 1 from Thailand - the only one that’s happened).

This year we got 5 Vampire (or vampire-esk) Thai BLs announced including one from GMMTV.

Whether all 5 will actually get made is unlikely, but having had (basically) none prior to this (Kissable Lips), I’m pretty confident that we will get at least 2 of them. And I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one other country made one as well. (Side eyes Taiwan with interest.)

Final thoughts

It feels like we are also seeing a decline in BL (both by quantity and quality) from Vietnam and the Philippines. As you all know, I don’t track or really watch either of these two very closely. But it feels like, now, no one else is either.

I think we have likely seen the BL heyday already in both places and their industries are now on the decline.

We might be witnessing a thinning in the players in the BL field.

FYI we had approximately

136 BLs in 2023

Previous Years

2022: 117

2021: 95

2020: 62

2019: 40

2018: 30

2017: 44 (China’s last gasp)

2016: 27

2015: 17 (50% micro)

2014: 17 (50% micro)

And that’s it! Let me know in the comments if you’ve spotted any additional trends you want to call out.

Last year, 2022′s trend report

2021′s Trend report

Last Year’s Stats & Predictions

(source)

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sturniolosass · 3 months

Text

Date Night -

Chris Sturniolo x Fem!Reader

Angst, ends in Fluff

Warnings: Swearing, fatphobia?, arguing, yelling, crying, kissing, anger?, another girl…bi-reader

Summary: Chris was never the type to be ready for a “first date” but when y/n asks him out, he can’t help but feel anxious about saying yes.

Chris was seated on his cream couch in the living room of the boys home when y/n decides to text him.

Y/N

Hey Chris wyd

Nothing much just watching Tv chilling thinking ab running some games of fort…wassup

Oh nothing, I just saw the new Wednesday video you just released.. I was thinking it’d be funny for you to let me take your “first date virginity”..

lmaoo that’d be weird tho right? I mean you are one of my closest friends idk if we should hang out that intimately..

I mean it’d only be weird if we make it..I feel like this would be just a chill day and maybe I could give you some pointers on how you should treat a girl on your true first date…

I mean that’s true.. I guess it wouldn’t hurt..

Chris POV

Texting y/n about this date idea she has, has really struck some anxiety in me.. You see I like y/n a lot but I've been speaking to this new girl named Sade, she's gorgeous and sweet.. she sings, gets along with all my friends and don't get me wrong y/n does most of those things too.. but I've been waiting around so long for her to realize how I've felt about her.. she's had two boyfriends, one or two talking stages, and one girlfriend.. all in the four year span of us knowing eachother, two of which I was completely in love with her..

I was thinking of bringing Sade to half of our date around the ending just to make it clear to y/n that she knows this is exactly what is planned to be, I can't keep waiting around for her to come around to me, my life has to keep moving. I was never the one to out and tell her how I've felt but Nick and Matt tell me that they've both informed her of my feelings years ago...

As I get ready I make sure to text Sade asking her to join us later in the night to hang out.. however I'm not sure where we'll be hanging at so ill wait to give her to major details..

Heading out I call Laura to ask her to send a driver for the day because even though this isn't the real date I still want it to go how I planned it in my head...

Once the driver arrives I spray two squirts of cologne on my wrist and dab then against my neck heading out in my Betty boop Vintage Hollywood Tee, my black distressed jeans, and white air forces getting in the car and heading out on the way to y/n’s house

Your POV

As I’m getting ready to go applying lipgloss and my forces I receive a message from Chris saying He’s on his way.. which confused me a little because i swore that man couldn’t drive and that i’d have to pick him up from his house.. regardless i tie my shoes up and head out down the stairs..

For today i planned to head out to a Top Golf and after have some ice cream then later in the night stop at a park and just walk and talk and finally tell Chris my feelings for him.. Yea it’s been a while I’ve been feeling this way for Chris, maybe a month or two.. and remembering back in maybe 2021 when Nick told me Chris was “in love with me” and i was with Braden, I have no doubt this will go my way..

Chris texts me that he’s outside, i hop up from the couch and run out the door.

“hey” i say sliding in the seat next to him in the all black escalade with blacked out windows “oh hey” he smiles. “chauffeur” i nod insinuating the driver “yea, you know you’re special” he smirks smugly. “yea right” i roll my eyes laughing. “we are we going” he notices we’re still sitting in my drive way.. “oh 3756 cherry street” i tell the driver the address to top golf.. Chris automatically notices the address “Top Golf?!” he shouts excitedly “haha yeah! is that a good idea?” i ask hoping he likes the idea. “give me aux.” i say “ask the driver” he replies.. I get the aux from the driver and play a couple songs..

Once we arrive we walk in play a couple games until we tire eachother out. Sitting down to grab something to eat we start chatting.

“Yo! let me ask you a couple questions and see if you can answer them good enough.” i ask he looks at me weirdly “ok.. but i wanna let you know to help me if i answer then badly.. i have a date lined up after this practice” he laughed.. Me not know if he’s sure or not i begin to ask the questions “if you were friends with a girl and you had a girlfriend then the friend/girl posts pics in a bikini, would you like them?” i ask look at him suspiciously.. “Well it depen-“ he starts “ANNNNTTT” i say making the sound of a buzzer to signify he got the answer wrong.. “what do you mean?? i barely got to answer” he argues. “you shouldn’t like it regardless!!” i argue.. “well, that’s just crazy but i understand..” he nods in approval. “ok next one.” just as i start to ask he states “ oh by the way, Sade is gonna join us later.. where should i tell her to join us at?” he asks looking down at his phone as if he was reading a text message “oh what do you mean i thought i was teaching you some stuff today..?” i ask confused.. “i mean yeah but by the end of the night i kinda wanted to see if the things you taught me worked.. ya know like see if my jitters go away a little” he says nonchalantly.. i just look down, “oh” i say.. “hey how about we just head out to grab ice cream and then she could just join us at the park later” i ask.. “ok bet, ill let her know our plans” he nods.

Hearing Chris even mention another girl made my stomach feel as queasy as it would after eating a whole chipotle burrito in one sitting.. So we head out.. Getting in the car i see Chris Texting on his phone again.. assuming it’s Sade i grab his phone putting it behind my back “come on vibe with me it’s fucking skies” i shout over the bass. “come on just give me my phone back y/n” he stares blankly.. “no you’re stuck in it” i speak. “just give me my shit come on” he raises his voice a little. “na na na boo boo you can’t get it” i joke. “DUDE STOP PLAYING ALL THE TIME JUST GIVE ME MY SHIT” Chris shouts startling me.. i just hand him the phone and turn to look out the window..

It was so obvious i had an attitude but I’m sure Chris wouldn’t tell over the messages between him and Sade he was smiling at.. It hurt me how he was just so fine with being this way towards me when i’ve never once in my life raised my voice at him yet alone completely screamed in his face… however i assume that’s how someone you like a lot can make you feel..

Once we arrive at the Ice cream parlor I get a cone with cookies and cream in which Chris gets the same but in a cup with extra cookies, i look at him smiling “twins” i joke.. he just nods smiling before pulling his phone out his pocket “hey! is it cool if Sade joins us now? she’s around the corner at the Thrift shop and it’d just make sense” he asks.. clearly annoyed i say “sure, i mean that wasn’t the plan at all but what the fuck ever” i speak rolling my eyes.. “what’s is your problem..?” he asks offended by my response.. “like you’ve been acting weird since we left Top Golf and it’s annoying, if you’re just gone be an asshole you can just go home cause you’re definitely killing my mood” he adds.. “Chris what the fuck are you on about? I’ve been nothing but sweet while you just sit on your phone the whole day, the last conversation we had was at Top Golf dude since then you’ve just been on your phone..that’s what’s annoying” i respond.. “whatever i’m just trying to respond fast enough is that not what girls like?” he raises his voice “Sure Chris but am i not a girl sitting in fucking front of you??” i shout back.. he just rolls his eyes

Sade then walks up.. she’s very pretty, Brunette hair, tattoos, brown eyes.. she’s honestly everything like me which is odd.. because Chris makes it seem like i’m nothing his type and just one of the “bros”..

As the Night goes on they continue chatting and i’m just there as a third wheel.. the only time me and Chris are alone is when Sade gets in her car to drive to the park because we still have the driver in the escalade, “hey Chris, i’m just gone gonna go home, i’m not really enjoying myself anymore” i speak.. he looks at me then back to his phone, then back at me “hey look.. i’m not gonna lie, i treated you like shit today and..I’m sorry, but i really need you for this part.. seriously, i’m gonna ask Sade to be my girlfriend and i’m not sure i can do this without you” he looks up at me with pleadful eyes.. “huuuugh fine” you sigh out knowing helping him with this is gonna tear you apart…

Once arriving at the park you, Chris, and Sade walk around the park chatting for a while until you get bored of their constant flirting and decide to lag behind the two.. Hearing a fly near your ear you swat it away only to realize it’s a moth totally terrified you start to jump around stepping on the back of Sade’s shoe to which she speak “Ouch! What the fuck is your problem! that fucking hurt asshole” she yells at you.. which catches chris off guard “woah calm down im sure it was a mistake, there was a bug or something” He speaks. “girl i didn’t do it on purpose, calm the hell down” i say back. “yeah sure you didn’t, you almost broke my fucking ankle fat ass” she yells! “woah what the fuck chill out Sade” Chris yells. “In what world would you ever think that’s funny or whatever the fuck you thought saying that dumb shit” Chris spoke annoyed.. I just walked away knowing if i were to stay there I’d be in a fight..

Once i get a block or two away i hear my name being shouted “y/n! y/n!” i looke back and it’s Chris. Annoyed i continue walking…. “Y/n come on!” Chris yells getting closer.. i slowly stop…

“Chris what the hell do you want? you and that girl have been nothing but rude to me all day… i’m sure you’ve even been laughing at her little jokes she’s had to say about me” i speak… “what? no! i told her to go home.. i didn’t even know she acted that way..i wouldn’t in a million years have even thought about being with her if i knew she spoke like that about you or any of my friends for that matter” He adds.. “Chris can you just let me go home.. i came out today hoping to end up telling you how i feel thinking you’d feel the same but hearing you’ve developed these feelings for someone else has done nothing but broke me over the last couple of hours” I start to tear up.. “What? what are you talking about?” he asks, “Chris, i like you.. like a lot, maybe even love you.. and thinking about our past and how we’re practically the same person, enjoy the same things, same music, same games, same fashion sense, etc. i thought you’d feel the same.. shit apparently even Nick and Matt thought the same thing but they were wrong. I’m fine if you don’t feel the same way but all i ask for is time apart from you, we spend almost every other day together and i can’t take doing that with you knowing you feel the way i feel for you, for another women.” i confess… “wait y/n, i never knew you felt this way…i’ve been in love with you for 3 years now” he drops to his knees in a sort of begging way “you crying because you think i don’t feel the same would have to be one of the most crazy things ive seen all week” he adds… “all ive ever wanted to do was be with you, you’re my rock, my entire world, being without you for more than a week would cause me too much pain to even live with” he confessed… i just smile looking down at him awkwardly. Pulling him up from the ground i ask “so where do we go from here?” looking into his blue orbs.. “i mean we can try again on that date” he smiled hating to have just said that in such a corny way.. “ haha i'd like that. but you’ve gotta promise that they’ll be no extra girls.” i reply.. “i promise” he obliged.. looking down at me in the middle of the sidewalk..

I kiss him.. and it feel like the most soul shocking thing i’ve ever experienced… considering ive never been in love before after dating 3 men.. i can guarantee that this is what love feels like.. we both pull away and he looks down shyly “that was so corny” he jokes “haha kissing under the moonlight, headahh” i joke back. We both cry laughing as we walk back to the Car… Where surprisingly the driver is still sitting…

The end :)

#chris sturniolo #chris sturniolo headcanon #chris sturniolo imagine #chris sturniolo x reader #christopher sturniolo #matt sturniolo #matt sturniolo imagine #matt sturniolo x reader #nick sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #nick sturniolo x reader #matthew sturniolo #sturniolo #sturniolo x reader #sturniolo triplets #sturniolo fanfic #sturniolo smut #chris sturniolo smut #harry styles imagines masterlist

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queen-of-the-avengers · 1 month

Text

Game Day

Pairing: NHL!Steve Rogers x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~1.9k

Warnings: fluff

Summary: You're a nanny for a famous NHL star player whom you have a major crush on. You take his son to one of his games, which he loves, but it's revealed later on that Steve wasn't playing for his son... he was playing for you.

Squares Filled: engagement (2021) for @avengersbingo

Author’s Note: any and all comments are appreciated <3

You’ve been sitting in the driveway for five minutes just contemplating whether or not you should go inside the house. This is your job. You shouldn’t be nervous. You’ve been coming here for two years. Should you look for a new job? Would that make things better? With a shake of your head, you get out of your car and head up the porch steps to the house.

You don’t even have to knock. Steve knows you’re coming over.

“Steve? I’m here,” you announce as you enter.

Steve doesn’t come down right away and you breathe a sigh of relief. You’ve had a major crush on him since you started working for him, but you’re his kid’s nanny. You can’t do anything with him anyway. Instead of facing your feelings, you push them down in hopes you can survive another day. It sucks because you love babysitting his son, Jasper. He’s such a sweet boy and has grown into a very energetic kid. You’ve been with Steve and Jasper since Jasper was born after Steve’s wife left him.

“Y/N!” Jasper squeals when he sees you.

Jasper runs over to you on little legs, and you scoop him up when he gets to you.

“Hi, Jasper! I’ve missed you so much!”

“I miss you!” he grins and hugs you tightly.

Steve comes jogging down the stairs to the left of you and your mouth immediately goes dry at his outfit. He is on the New York Rangers NHL team so he’s dressed in skin-tight clothing that will go under his official uniform. However, the skin-tight spandex stretches over his chest so deliciously that it’s taking everything in you not to set Jasper down and feel his bulging muscles. He has a game he needs to get going to so he asked you to babysit last minute. His sister was going to take him but she backed out at the last second due to medical reasons.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he says.

You put Jasper down and he runs off presumably to get something for you.

“It’s no problem. I love being here.”

“Well, you know my schedule and everything about Jasper. I won’t have my phone on me so if you need anything, call Bucky. I asked him to be on call if anything happens.”

“Steve, don’t worry about any of this. I got this.”

“You’re the best.” He brings you in for a hug which causes you to stiffen up. His clothes don’t do a good job of hiding how strong he is. He is built like a monster even though he is one of the sweetest men you’ve ever known. “Oh, I’ll be home late. The team will probably want to hang out afterward, win or lose.”

“You guys are going to win,” you smile and pull away from him, “but I don’t mind staying a bit later. Be careful, it’s snowing a lot.”

“Nice to know you worry about me,” he winks.

Just like that, he’s gone. You let out the breath you’ve wanted to let out since seeing Steve in his uniform. Jasper comes back with a picture he was coloring shortly before you got here.

“Alright, Jas, what do you say? Want to surprise Daddy at work?”

“Yeah!” he giggles.

“Okay, let’s get ready.”

You were planning on going to the game with tickets you bought yourself, but what better way for Jasper to show his support than to be there for one of his dad’s games? Steve knows you love going to his games so he’s reserved seats for you if you ever wanted to go. It doesn’t matter if you go or not, those seats will always be available to you for every single game he plays.

You and Jasper get ready before getting into the car, and you make the careful yet short long ride to the stadium he’s playing in. The snow is coming down but not hard enough to keep people off the roads. Luckily, you’ve lived in New York all your life so you can navigate a few icy roads.

When you pay for parking, you two head inside and find your seats quickly. They are some of the best seats in the house, right in front. There is a small ledge between the glass and the wall that someone can stand on if they’re small enough. Jasper is only two, so his small feet fit perfectly on the ledge. You allow him to stand there while holding his legs so he doesn’t fall over.

Steve and his team skate onto the ice, and Jasper gets so excited that he starts doing a little dance and clapping his hands. Damn, he looks so good in his hockey uniform. He doesn’t have his helmet on yet since the game hasn’t started.

“Daddy!” he grins and taps on the glass with his tiny hands.

Steve skates around to get used to the feel of the ice beneath him. He looks at the audience in curiosity when his eyes lock on yours from across the rink. A smile breaks out on his face but he keeps himself from skating over to you. He waves at Jasper who waves back and you almost melt at how cute their relationship is.

The game is about to start but he is going to do his best to make every shot knowing you’re out there watching him.

The game starts off without a hitch, and you sit on the edge of your seat hoping Steve’s team wins. It’s neck and neck until the ref calls for a timeout to settle a disagreement on the points the Rangers just scored. Steve takes this moment to skate over to you and Jasper while taking his helmet off. He puckers his lips which means he wants a kiss from Jasper, and the small child kisses the glass since that’s the best he can do. Steve kisses the glass right over his son’s before winking at you.

It’s the smile combined with the wink that makes butterflies erupt in your stomach. Why did he wink at you? Was he hinting at something more? Was it just friendly? He’s sending you mixed signals that are making you confused, but the last thing you’re going to do is ruin it and confront him about it.

The rest of the game went really well for the Rangers, and they won 38-30 just as the buzzer sounded off. Everyone who is in the stands are Rangers fans, so almost everyone cheers for that team. Steve and his team had to get off the ice fairly quickly and into the locker rooms so you didn’t have time to catch him after the game. Plus, he did say that he and his team are going to hang out afterward, win or lose, so it’s time to pack up and get back home.

“Alright, did you like that game?” you ask Jasper when you walk into the house.

“Yeah! Daddy was awesome!”

“Yeah, he was,” you grin. “I’m glad you had a good time but it’s nearly bedtime. I’ll read you your favorite story.”

“Okay!”

“Go brush your teeth and I’ll be right there.”

He runs off to his room while you grab a boxed dinner from the freezer. It has to microwave for ten minutes so you pop that into the microwave and heat it before going to Jasper’s room. He’s not a fan of brushing his teeth at night which is why it only took him thirty seconds to do it, but you’re working on getting him to do it longer.

Storytime only takes six minutes because Jasper is wiped out by today’s events. He didn’t do a lot of running around but he did do a lot of cheering and eating stadium foods. Bedtime has always been easy for Jasper, which you are grateful for.

By the time you got changed into comfier clothes, your dinner was done. For the next two hours, you eat dinner, drink some wine that Steve bought specially for you, and watch one of your favorite TV shows that you’ve seen a million times.

You don’t even realize you fell asleep until Steve got home two hours after that. He shakes off the snow from his jacket before hanging it up and finds you sleeping on the couch with the TV on low volume. Your half-eaten meal and empty wine glass sit on the coffee table, and he lets you sleep a little while longer as he cleans up your mess quietly.

“Doll, wake up,” he whispers and moves some hair away from your face.

You jerk awake but calm immediately when you see it’s Steve. You look at the time and almost curse because it’s so late. You weren’t meant to fall asleep but you had an extra glass of wine that put you right out.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“I don’t mind. I only woke you up because you can sleep on something much more comfortable than this couch.”

“No, I should just go home. It’s pretty late.”

You get up and stretch, and Steve can’t help but look at the patch of skin that shows when your shirt rides up slightly.

“Y/N, it’s snowing pretty bad out there. I had a hard time seeing the road while coming back. Just sleep in my guest room. Honestly, it’s not a problem.”

You should have said no. You should have insisted on going home, but you didn't. Instead, you nod in agreement and follow him to the guest room. You have kept some of your clothes in here from when you had to stay the night previously, so you use those for tonight. After brushing your teeth and doing half of your skin-care routine, you get into bed. Snow isn’t as loud as rain when it hits the window, but you can see it through the shadows and patches of moonlight outside.

It’s hard to fall asleep knowing Steve is only a few doors down from you. Suddenly, there is a knock on the door and you know Jasper didn’t do that. You get out of bed and tread through the darkness to the door. Steve is standing outside fiddling with his hands. There is enough moonlight to light up his face so you don’t bother putting the lights on.

“Is everything okay with Jasper?”

“Yeah, he’s okay. He’s sleeping. I just didn’t thank you for bringing him to the game today.”

“I was already planning on going and figured what harm could it do to bring him along? He had a lot of fun, and he loved seeing you on the rink. You played really well.”

“Yeah, I had someone I needed to impress out there.”

Your heart beats faster at his words but you try to keep the conversation neutral.

“Well, your son was very impressed by you.”

Steve raises his arms to lean them against the frame of the door and moves a bit closer to you. Even in the darkness, you can see how blue his eyes are.

“That’s not who I was trying to impress.” You don’t think you can say anything to him even if you want to. What would you even say? He leans in closer until there is only a few inches between you. “Were you impressed by me?”

“What are you doing?” you whisper.

“If you tell me you’re impressed, I’m about to kiss you. So, were you impressed?”

“Maybe a little,” you tease.

He leans in the rest of the way and kisses you, and just like that, everything between you two changes. He only kisses you that night but makes it a point to do so after every game he plays for the rest of the season. Even when the season is over and done with, he still kisses you as if you’re the only woman that matters to him… and you are.

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

#steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers fic #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers fluff #steve rogers fiction #steve rogers fan fiction #steve rogers fan fic #marvel fic #marvel fan fiction #marvel fanfiction #marvel fan fic #marvel #marvel fluff #mcu #marvel fanfic #mcu fanfiction #marvel fiction

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irisbleufic · 23 days

Note

YOUR 3 CATS ARE SO CUTE OMG! How old are they/what are their stories?

Like many young-ish queer married couples, @one-eyed-bossman and I entered the fast track to pet parenthood in 2020. I was still recovering from extensive cancer treatment at the time, which is part of what makes our first kitty especially meaningful to me.

ZEL

Zel is my darling girl. She’s now 5 years old, and when we adopted her in June of 2020, she was already 1 year old. After being rescued on the streets at a few weeks old with her two personable siblings, she spent an entire year at this lady’s house with like 20 other cats at any given time. She was feral and unapproachable, but somehow I was able to get close enough to her at the rescue to pick her up and put her in the carrier. She nailed me with her claws in the process, but that’s the only time she’s ever hurt me or anyone else. The day after we got her home, I stuck my hand behind the bed in her safe room, and she set her little paw square in my palm and left it there for about a minute. I spent a couple of months crawling halfway under the bed to pet her while she was curled in her bed, and eventually I could get her to follow me around the house by asking, “Do you want to go for a walk?” She barely left my side after that. I spent a lot of 2020 sick in bed; she always curled up snugly between my ankles or my knees. She’s now the smartest cat I’ve ever met. Her language recognition shocks me even after 4 years of having her as a silly little shadow who likes to play fetch with her pink-eared mouse toy. She’s stuck to my side any time I’m on the sofa, and about a month ago she climbed fully in my lap for the first time. Her meow is barely a whisper when she does use it (only to talk to me and occasionally to the TV), but the trills, squeaks, and yowls she makes to talk to her toys are hilarious. She doesn’t even talk to her siblings like that. Unlike many white cats, she is not deaf.

NICKY

We got Nicky a year after we got Zel; he was about 8 weeks old when we brought him home in June of 2021. We met a kind lady who periodically bred her lovely Bengal queens, and Nicky was somehow a “non-show-quality” (?!!) discount kitten. He’s sweet, goofy, vocal, afraid of everything/everyone that’s outside the house, and occasionally very naughty. We hoped he would bring Zel the rest of the way out of her shell, and it worked. He just adored her from day one. She took a few months to warm up to him, but they bonded pretty fast. Now, at 3 years old, he’s a big boy—17 pounds. He likes to stand/sit on laps more than he likes to lie down in them, although he will lie down in mine a couple times a week. He brings me granola bars from the cupboard and loves trash more than he likes his toys:

EMBER

We hadn’t planned on a third cat, but the universe insisted. I mean that quite literally. On 31 July 2022, my mother died at my sister’s place a couple of states away. The morning she died, me and my four siblings took a walk around my sister’s neighborhood. We split up and went slightly different ways; my sister and her husband called me as I was getting back to the house to say that a tiny, tiny crying kitten had run out of the bushes toward them. My sister didn’t know what to do; one of my nieces is very allergic, and we were all burnt-out from dealing with Mom’s passing and the funeral home taking away her body. I told her to bring the kitten back to the house, because I was too grief-stricken to let another thing die that day. Out on the porch, I fed her milk from one of the droppers we were using to give my mom morphine, all the while making desperate phone calls to local rescues. After about 3 hours, a local vet with specialty in caring for bottle baby kittens came to pick her up. She told me that, because I didn’t live too far away in the grand scheme of things, she could foster the baby until she was old enough for me to arrange transport to my home state. There was no way I could walk away from that little baby, so I got regular photos, videos, and updates from her foster mom until I could arrange transport about 5 months later (she came home in December of 2022). She has grown up to be the feistiest tortie I’ve ever met. She has far longer hair than I ever could have guessed, and even now that she’s 1.5 years old, she has very short legs (longer end of munchkin, our vet says!) and an overall smaller stature than her siblings. She fucking adores Nicky, and he has never once played too rough for her given the size disparity. He lets her chase him, jump on him, bap him into play fights, etc. She will cry and cry at night if we don’t pick her up and carry her around before we close the bedroom doors (they get to sleep in the bedroom sometimes, but not always; Nicky likes to knock picture frames off the wall in there, and I’m not about exposing them to broken glass).

#nicky and zel #zel and nicky #ember #cats of tumblr #rescue cats

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akookminsupporter · 14 days

Note

https://www.tumblr.com/akookminsupporter/747202919136477184/its-ok-to-admit-that-jm-and-jk-dont-like-each

Whenever i see things like this, i am reminded why i decided to leave shipping spaces. Jk is a sorry excuse for a boyfriend because he left a concert without telling Jimin he was leaving yet everyone and their mama wants Jungkook to do for other people the things he has done for Jimin for years. Everyone wants a GCF, everyone wants Jungkook taking their someone else to Japan, everyone wants Jungkook to make big pancakes for them because they have penalties. Everyone wants Jungkook to go over to someone else’s house and cook for them everyone was praying on bended knee that Jk did for others what he did for Jimin during FACE era. It’s funny because deep down, everyone sees and knows that Jungkook doesn’t make the same effort for others as he makes for Jimin and that is why for years, we have heard endlessly how everything Jungkook does for Jimin is Fanservice and him not doing all those things for others is because their relationship is not for the camera.

We should accept that two people who had the chance to finally completely escape from each other for 18 months since they don’t like each other, instead choose to enlist together where they would have to see each other’s faces every single day for 18months? What does leaving a damn concert without someone else knowing have to do with how Jungkook and Jimin feel about each other? They were just leaving a concert back to their homes, it’s not like they were traveling never to see each other again and since some of you like to analyze things so damn much, i will like for you to analyze for me why on god’s green earth Jungkook will hate Jimin so much yet on their last OT4 Live that boy couldn’t keep his hands to himself? I will like for you to explain to me in plain English why this boy sat down for hours watching and supporting Jimin as much as he did during Face era?

It’s always the same damn thing with little minded people. In 2021 at Harry Styles concert, we had people yapping about how Jungkook didn’t like Jimin because he spent the whole time at the concert being glued to Taehyung but what did we find out later? Wasn’t that the same period when we found out that Jungkook and Jimin were basically spending their entire days together? Going and coming back from concerts together, eating together, working out everyday together and to add to that, Jk was in Jimin’s room so much that even Tae thought Jimin’s room was Jk’s. Wasn’t that the same time we found out that Jk would go knock on Jimin’s door at 1am, stay there for about 4 hours at a time and then rinse and repeat? If we are to judge how much people like each other by how glued they are at certain points then why on earth was Jk singing and swaying with another member at a concert yet he wasn’t going to spend all his downtime in that member’s hotel room? He hated Jimin so much that he decided to go spend all or most of his time alone in the room of the member he hates so much?

Same damn thing happened at Hobi’s album release party in 2022. Before we got the Bangtan bomb, everyone was yapping about how Jk and Jimin were never seen together at the party and that meant they hated each other only for us to see them in the bangtan bomb “hiding” in a dark corner with hands touching and clearly separating from each other when they noticed they cameras.

Should i also bring back their rookie days when everyone was so damn sure Jk hated Jimin’s guts because he always “pushed” him infront of the camera or ranked him last in looks only for us to find out from many sources that Jk infact would pile clothes on his bed and go sleep in Jimin’s bed and he himself later mentioned that Jimin is the member he spends most of his nights with. Jk hated Jimin so much that he chose to spend his only resting time hanging out with Jimin. I’m sure he used to strangle Jimin all those nights they were together alone.

Tae and Jk are the bestest of besties coming and leaving together to and from Yoongi’s concert yet that didn’t stop Tae from leaving Jk alone at a ski resort and journeying back home with his friends while Jk stayed there all alone. Jk and Tae are clearly besties by that didn’t stop Jk from not saying a single thing during Layover while he couldn’t shut up during FACE and mind you, he hates Jimin. Do u see how stupid you sound anon? So according to your logic, Jk and Tae must hate each other too because imagine leaving your bestie all alone at a ski resort and choosing to go back home with friends or imagine being silent during your bestie’s album release and not saying or doing a damn thing in support of it even though you were literally keeping up with everything some other member put out.

Some of you continue to prove everyday how small your minds are. With the wake of every new content, we have people loosing faith in a ship or believing more in it. Tomorrow we will get some other form of content and Jungkook will go back to being the greenest flag, and then the next moment he is back to being an ass. It is kinda like these boys aren’t human being with layers and complicated feelings. It is like relationships in this life are supposed to be perfect on camera else people are jerks. It is like Jimin is and has always been the most pitiable person who continues to speak about how much he relies on Jungkook even though Jungkook is a sorry excuse for a boyfriend. I guess Jimin was a fool to keep saying Jk will protect him because only a fool will keep saying someone does things for them that they actually don’t.

The earlier some of you realize that Jungkook as a boyfriend or friend only has to make sense to Jimin and no one else, the better for you. The way Jungkook shows his love and affection and if he hates or loves Jimin is something Jimin knows and only he should really care about.

For over a decade we have had Jimin wholeheartedly loving and caring about the same man the same way yet some people just can’t take a hint. These guys have been consistent for over a decade. Consistent in every single way. People thinking they cannot stand each other only to find out they are sneaking into each other’s hotel rooms, traveling together, or making plans to enlist together. Are you people not tired of being proven wrong every single time? Are u not tired of being punched in the face every damn time? Y’all keep raising ur BPs and giving yourself whiplash trying to figure Jimin and Jungkook. One moment you are seeing Jungkook moving the earth for Jimin and the next moment you are hearing that he left a concert without telling Jimin and instead of you to do the normal thing which is to tell yourself that you do not know them more than they know themselves, you come here declaring that they hate each other and then tomorrow when Jungkook wakes up and does another one of his grand gestures that shakes the fandom, you are back to scratching your head. Calling Jk a sorry excuse for a boyfriend like your partner (if at all you have any) doesn’t literally treat you like a piece of shit. Jimin can openly say he enlisted with Jk so he can rely on him. He can openly tell Jk to grow stronger and continue to protect him, he can openly tell Jk to cook for him, can you say any of these about your partner? Yet Jk is the one who is a sorry excuse for a boyfriend? If Jk is a sorry excuse for a boyfriend, i hope i get such a sorry excuse for a boyfriend. Someone whose love for me will continuousy make people to call our relationship fanservice because it looks too good to he true.

yet everyone and their mama wants Jungkook to do for other people the things he has done for Jimin for years.

It’s funny because deep down, everyone sees and knows that Jungkook doesn’t make the same effort for others as he makes for Jimin

It is kinda like these boys aren’t human being with layers and complicated feelings. It is like relationships in this life are supposed to be perfect on camera else people are jerks.

SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE FUCKING SUBGROUP IN THE BACK.

Anon, I love you. Thanks for telling the truth and nothing but the truth and asking the right questions.

I WANT TO KNOW THE ANSWERS TO ALL THE QUESTIONS ANON ASKED.

#anon #ask #jkkrs opinion #These are the messages that remind me why I'm still here #preg 178 #jikook

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toasttt11 · 4 months

Text

ethereal

February 20, 2022

It was supposed to be the happiest day for her, she just won gold at the olympics again, breaking history and accomplishments dreams she never thought were possible to accomplish. It was supposed to be a day she was going to celebrate all night but instead it was a day that she knew was coming.

Fredrick and Vera were two peas in pod since the moment they met, the two connecting in a way that was just ethereal.

They quickly become one of the best pairs in history. Most days were spent together training, laughing, smiling, spinning around the ice together.

They grew up together as their friendship grew with them. Fredrick and Vera had a beautiful connection anyone could see it by the way Fredrick treated Vera with love and affection, the way he always was softly touching her, always gently picking her off the podium, Fredrick never once dropping her ever, The wha Vera would light up around him, the way she always relaxed fully again him, how Vera talked about him whenever someone asked about.

Fredrick and Vera just had a connection that was priceless and special and it slowly turned into something more even. In January of 2020 they admitted what they felt for each other and it just grew from their, it was so natural and passionate between the two anyone would think they would be together forever.

Except they weren’t.

Vera never knew when it changed but it did. One day, slowly but surely the sweet boy who use to bring her flowers and make her laugh turned into someone she couldn’t ever recognize a flash of. The boy she fell in love with was gone.

Vera noticed the way he slowly moved into the guest room and on the road suddenly ever room had two bed. The once loving and affectionate touches became nonexistent, the only time she felt his touch was when they were on the ice. And the once sweet comments and lovingly words she received turned into cold condescending words or pure ice cold silence and ignoring anything they came out of her mouth.

Vera noticed it at the end of the summer of 2021 they had been together for a year and half and everything was great until it wasn’t anymore.

Eventually the more she was treated this way she noticed she was falling out of love with him, and at the end of the day she could handle losing his love and losing being in love with him but she missed her best friend.

Vera planned to split up their partnership after the Olympics were over because she was done trying fighting to save something that he doesn’t even want to save.

She knew she made the right decision when they went to sign their contract for the next year of being pairs when she read the requirements. He wanted her to pay for everything. Everything for skating or to do with skating was to be payed by her. The money they receive from winning would not be spilt but would go all to him and Fredrick had the finally say on everything.

Vera slowly looked up from the contract looking right into Fredricks eyes as she picked the contract up ripping it down the middle, “No.”

“What why not?” Fredrick angrily snapped, the lawyer looked between his two clients nervously, having seen the requirements but was told by Fredrick they both wanted them.

“No i won’t sign this. I won’t sign another contract to continue being your pair.” Vera slowly stood up still maintaining eye contact, “You forgot something Fredrick, i never needed you. But you have always needed me.” Vera turned around walking towards the door, hiding the heartbreak from showing on her face.

“You’ll regret this.” Fredrick yelled towards her back slamming his hands on the table. Not ever been known to control his temper.

Vera held the door knob in her hands before turning around, “No i wont.” She turned around ready to leave before she turned her head once more to see the fumes coming from Fredrick, “Oh and if you couldn’t tell, we’re over.” Vera shut the door behind her walking out the hotel confrence room heading straight to the elevator, she clicked her phone on calling to have her plane ready in a hour to go back to California.

Vera walked down the hall to her hotel quickly opening the door slamming it behind her, sliding down against the door hitting the floor burying her face into her hands.

Apollo and Aries jumped off the bed where they were sleeping and ran right to their mother, Aries nudged his nose into her hands and Apollo leaned his body on Vera’s side.

“Thank you my loves.” Vera whispered to her two babies cuddling with them needing the comfort more than ever. She took a few minutes to just hold her dogs before she gently let go of them getting up and starting to pack up their stuff, she packed all of her stuff back into her large suitcase and all of her dogs stuff into their suitcase she clicked on the leashes for her dogs before exiting the hotel room with the two suitcase, her backpack on her back, her purse on her shoulder and both of her dogs on the leashes.

Vera walked out of the hotel into the car that was waiting for her, thanking the driver who took took her bags before hopping into the back with her two dogs.

The drive was quick to the the airport and she quickly climbed up the steps into her plane, nodding at her employees before heading to her bedroom she has in the back of the plane she closed the door and un clicked Apollo and Aries leashes and sat on the bed pulling her knee to her chest resting her forehead on her knees feeling both of her boys sit on either side of her. Aries layed his head on her arm looking at his mom with sad eyes giving her a small whine, Apollo leaned his whole body weight into Vera’s and licking his mom’s arms.

Vera remembered meeting Frederick when they were young, only just kids and when they went onto the ice together for the first time they just clicked and they knew they had to be partners, their connection was so natural and so easy for them. It was a connection many other skater’s envied wanting to be that connected to their partner.

Vera and Fredrick had met Alexandra who quickly became their other best friend, the three quickly became a trio. Becoming each other’s safe space, where they didn’t feel as the whole world was watching. Alexandra and Vera becoming platonic soulmates the two pushing each other to only become better on the ice. Alexandra and Fredrick finding a sibling in each other and having a very teasing relationship.

Traveling the world and spending most your time on the ice you tend to grow close with the people you skate with and Alexandra and Vera don’t know what was wrong with Fredrick but Alexandra slowly stopped respecting her once best friend that was a big brother to her when she saw how he was treating her best friend.

Alexandra could see how hard Vera just wanted their best friend back and she only hoped that Vera will get her happy ending one day.

Vera woke up hours later running a hand through her hair seemingly to fall asleep with her dogs cuddled with her and checked the time realizing the flight was over half way done and decided it was time to get away from California and fast and she knew exactly where she wanted to go.

New Jersey.

New Jersey a place she’s always loved staying in and the biggest factor as it has one of her most favorite people in the world living their her big brother Nico, and the Devils who have all become like family to her and one of her closet friends Jack.

She pulled up the apartment complex she knew Nico and Jack lived and quickly found an apartment that would be perfect for her and her dogs and quickly applied for the apartment and was surprised when her request was immediately approved and the contracts quickly emailed over for her to sign and put into the money and she would already have the apartment. Vera quickly finished everything letting out a small smile seeing how quickly everything fell into place.

She pulled out the book she was currently reading to past by the rest of the time and before she knew the plane was landing and she was waking up her dogs putting their leashes back on and grabbing her backpack and purse.

She walked down the stairs to the plane heading into the car that was waiting for her and got into the car, the drive to her house was quick and she quickly thanked the driver before unclipping the leashes of the dogs and walking into her house in California, one of her more favorite places and had made some of her closest friends here and the first place she bought a place not rented.

She breathed out a sigh of being home and for once she thanked Fredrick for having moved out a while ago so she didn’t have to worry about him coming over to get anything that is his.

She took out her phone as she walked up her stairs towards her room and texted her group chat with Trevor and Jamie telling them she is home and she knows they don’t have a game today or tomorrow before throwing her phone on her bed and heading into her bathroom and taking a long shower.

Vera walked out of the bathroom with her hair freshly washed and brushed before grabbing a pair of grey sweatpants and a purple loose long sleeve, she slipped on a pair of fluffy socks and walked down stairs and across the long hall to the living room and throwing the throw blanket across her lap as Aries and Apollo layed on both sides of her.

Vera heard the door open and knew exactly who it was especially when her dogs tails started excitedly wagging.

“Honey we’re home!” Trevor’s voice echoed through out the house.

“In here babes!” Vera called back not getting up.

Trevor and Jamie walking into the living room making Aries and Apollo jump up and run over to the two. Trevor set down the bag he brought and kneeled down petting them like crazy as Jamie softly petted the top of both their heads before looking at one of his best friends nothing the dimmed look in her eyes that has been more common recently and the way her lips were naturally more downturned.

Trevor bounced up from the dogs jumping onto Vera, “Congratulations VeeVee!” Trevor hugged his best friend tightly.

Vera tried not to think of everything that happened but she couldn’t help and starting sniffing in the hug from the comfort from her best friend, she burrowed her her head into her chest feeling the tears running down her face and her shoulder began to shake.

Jamie and Trevor looked at each other with concern, Trevor hugged her tightly as Jamie sat on the other side of them brushing a soft hand through her wet hair.

The two let Vera cry all her tears out onto Trevor’s hoodie before she slowly calmed down.

Vera lifted her head looking between her two best friends, Trevor wiped off her tears as Jamie looked her in concern, “What happened Vee?”

“He wanted to sign a contract to continue our pair and it was fucked, he wanted me to pay for everything including all of his expenses, all the earnings were to go to him and he had final say in everything, so i ripped up the contract and broke up with him.” Vera fiddled with Jamie’s hands as she told them what went down a day ago.

Trevor clenched his jaw hearing about Fredrick, Trevor having known Vera before she dated Fredrick and with Vera living mostly in California he was one of the few who truly saw how much their relationship got extremely toxic and how much Vera has been heartbroken over the last year.

Jamie frowned looking at one of his best friends, “Is that why you came home early?” He knew she was supposed to be there a few more days celebrating her gold medals.

“I had to leave.” Vera mumbled resting her head on Jamie’s shoulder while Trevor laided on top of her.

“Well i for one am glad you broke up with that asshole!” Trevor grinned looking at Vera making her let out a soft laugh.

“Of course you are ZeeZee.” Vera fondly smiled knowing how much Trevor hated seeing her in that relationship getting hurt.

“How are you feeling.” Jamie looked towards her in concern.

Vera took a deep breath, “Honestly kinda free, obviously it still hurts to think about losing him as my best friend but i’m relieved to have finally cut that part of me.” Vera for the last year as she noticed Fredrick slowly changing she had hoped everything would get fixed and she could have her best friend back but she knew she really needed to end things with him.

“Good.” Jamie kissed the top of her head.

“I got an apartment in New Jersey.” Vera blurted out into the comfortable silence.

Trevor’s head popped up from where he was laying on Vera, “What! Why?”

“I thought maybe a fresh city to live in could do some good, besides my new location will be opening there soon and Nico apartment complex had an open space and Jack will be there too.” Vera explained her thoughts to the boys.

“I think it will be good for you.” Jamie reassured her thinking a new city could be good for her.

“As long as you don’t forget about us!” Trevor pouted, “And we have a lot of games in New York and New Jersey so we will be able to see you a lot.”

“And i’m keeping my house here in California and i still have to come out here a lot anyways so it won’t be that bad.” Vera reassured the pouting Trevor.

“Alright but as long as i’m still you favorite hockey player best friend, Jack cannot past me.” Trevor looked at Vera extremely seriously making Vera and Jamie throw their heads back laughing at their silly best friend.

#verahischierau #jack hughes x reader #nhl x reader #jack hughes #jh86 #luke hughes #quinn hughes #quinn hughes x reader #nico hischier x reader #ch86 #nico hischier #jamie drysdale #trevor zegras #trevor zegras x reader #alexandriazegrasau #nhl #nj devils #luke hughes x reader #simon nemec

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