YOU WERE SITTING on the sofa, leafing through a magazine you had picked up out of sheer curiosity. Michael had rolled his eyes before saying you were about to read some garbage. You had completely ignored him ━ you knew when something was worth your attention and this... Oh boy, it definitely was worth every second.
Thank goodness he had not glanced at the cover, otherwise he would have realised what you were up to.
Michael was strolling alongside you, one hand idly stroking your leg, clad in a simple pair of jeans, his eyes fixed on a film he probably knew inside out.
"Tell me."
You snapped the magazine shut in one go, your eyes scrutinising your boyfriend's profile with intense focus.
"Mm?" he hummed, too absorbed by the screen.
"I want you to be honest with me," you sat up, crossing your legs, his hand falling back onto the sofa. "I promise not to get upset."
The mere fact that you were moving away from him ━ and talking about not getting angry ━ was enough for Michael to grab the remote, switch off the telly, and focus on his girlfriend. His heart was suddenly beating abnormally faster than usual and he did not like the way you were currently looking at him.
"... About what?"
A mischievous smile played on your lips, your tongue was covering part of your teeth, which ━ based on Michael's months of experience ━ did not bode well at all. A manicured hand grabbed the infamous garbage and waved it gently in front of his eyes.
"Have fans ever asked you to sign their chest?"
Michael blinked. Had he... Had he heard correctly?
"I'm sorry ━ what?"
"Their chest," you repeated. "You know ━ breasts," you ran a hand over your own, as if to illustrate your point.
His eyes followed your movement despite himself. The red of your nail polish contrasted perfectly with the black satin top you were wearing, the lace of your bra visible against your skin. His gaze returned to your amused face.
"Why are you..." Michael let out a breathy laugh, suddenly feeling shy. "Oh, no! No, that never happened, why are you asking me this━"
"Mm," you nodded slowly. "Interesting."
"What's interesting? What does that mean━" he stopped, looked at the magazine, suspicion dawning. "... What is this about?"
"What is what about, my love?"
"That magazine."
You let out a laugh before leaning forward slightly. Your hands glided up your body, two fingers brushing aside a strand of hair that was about to obstruct his view, before coming to rest on your cleavage. You slowly slid it down, the satin cascading over your bare skin before fully revealing the lace of your bra.
"Can I have an autograph, Mr. Jackson?" you asked sweetly, as a fan would, but those words in your own mouth sounded sinful.
He stayed staring, his mouth opening and closing every second. The room was quiet and you were looking at him with those beautiful eyes, pleading with him to do as you had asked, while he sat there with his brain completely useless.
For a simple April evening, the air was extremely warm, Michael thought suddenly.
"I━" he stopped, then tried again. "That's not even how they call me━" you raised an eyebrow. "You're insane..." he murmured, pressing his hand over his face, palm flat against his own forehead.
"So... Is that a no?" you pouted.
Michael made a sound and dropped his hand, rubbing the back of his neck as he chuckled ━ and that reaction seemed to delight you even further.
"You are so━"
"Come on, baby━"
"Stop it!" he grabbed a pillow, putting it over your face.
"Please, baby! I even have the marker ready!" you admitted, removing the pillow from you.
"You have what now?"
Your eyes told him where to look at. His gaze dropped before he could stop it ━ there it was ━ nestled against the lace, the black marker sitting there like it had always belonged. How did he have missed it?
Michael looked away... looked back... looked away again.
You reached for the marker and took it out, holding it between two fingers.
"Okay so..." you started pointing at a specific place on your left breast. "Right here ple━"
"I don't need━there's no━please stop pointing━"
"Now that I think about it… your signature is quite long... perhaps I should━" you made a movement to remove your bra.
"Oh my God."
"Stop acting like you never saw me naked before, Michael! You're ruining the mood!"
"That is completely different and you know it!"
"Do I?"
"Yes!" he threw his head back briefly, the laugh escaping before he could stop it. "You're doing this on purpose."
"Obviously," you rolled your eyes.
"Obviously," Michael repeated, shaking his head, but the corner of his mouth told a different story.
Biting your lips, and without breaking eye contact, you brought both hands up slowly and pressed them together against your chest. You raised an eyebrow.
Michael's jaw clenched.
"You're… you're cheating."
"So... Will you please give me an autograph?" you pouted sweetly.
"You've been━" he let out another laugh. "Give me that."
Michael reached over and plucked the marker from your fingers before you could react, holding it away from you for a moment just to have the upper hand for one single second. You beamed at him as he uncapped it.
"Stay still."
You did as you were told as your boyfriend bent over you with such a focused expression that you had to look at the ceiling immediately to not laugh. His tongue appeared between his teeth, his brow furrowed slightly as if he was actually painting a work of art over you. The cold tip of the marker over your breast made you shiver and your eyes fell back right on his face, bottom lip caught between your teeth.
"… Couldn't have asked for an autograph on a paper like everyone else," he mumbled.
"Where's the fun in that?"
A second later, Michael sat back and capped the marker as you looked down and smiled brightly.
"That's so hot!" you beamed, genuinely delighted. "Okay I need a picture."
"You need a what?"
"Picture. For proof," you repeated like it was obvious as you stood up.
"Proof…?"
"That I was the first ━ keep up, baby!" you exclaimed, searching for the Polaroid.
"There is no━hey, come back here!"
Michael caught you by the wrist, pulling you back as you landed against him, laughing. He joined you as your back settled against his chest. You tilted your head up, your lips brushing against his jaw.
"Want to do something else for me?"
"Haven't you embarrassed me enough, woman?"
You chuckled once more before turning to face him, both hands pressing lightly against his chest, pushing him back until he sat down on the couch.
"I still want a picture though…" you spoke, your fingers found the hem of your top. "Perhaps you could help me take one."
You pulled it over your head in one slow, easy motion and tossed it gently at his face. You smelled of something sweet and when Michael looked up at you ━ at his own autograph ━ his tongue dragged slowly across his bottom lip before catching it between his teeth.
pairing: mark!haechan x fem. reader
genre: college au, smut, rivals to fwbs
wc: 12k+
summary: mark and haechan can't stand each other's guts, but they want the same girl... and maybe she wants them both, too.
content warnings: unprotected sex, threesome, oral (f+m receiving), semi-public sex, multiple orgasms, sex tape, jealousy, marking, hand job, fingering, multiple orgasms (like a lot!!), double penetration, a little bit of mahae action (couldn’t help myself), orgasm denial, aftercare.
a/n: all i’m gonna say is that this was completely self-indulgent. i just haven't been the same since 82+ pressin came out and this is the result. i don’t think i’ve ever written so much smut for a single fic before omg. it's rlly a lot i apologize in advance. ps: stream 82+ pressin, 1999 and the aoty aka the firstfruit.
all your life, people let you get away with things. maybe it was your soft face, your sweet smile, or the way you tilted your head when you lied. they thought you were innocent.
but anyone who actually knew you, knew better.
you were full of fire, tucked neatly into a deceptively small frame. and by fire, you meant you were horny. always had been. sex wasn’t your entire personality, you just liked it—frequently and with whoever could keep up. so when two gorgeous boys started fighting over you, you didn’t think twice. even if those boys hated each other’s guts.
you were just stepping into the cafeteria when a low whistle caught your attention. you glanced over your shoulder and saw haechan strolling in.
you rolled your eyes, but your lips twitched at the corners.
“can’t stay away from me, huh?” you said when he finally caught up, his arm sliding over your shoulders easily.
“you know i can’t, pretty” he murmured, voice close enough to your ear to make you shiver. “you coming over tonight?”
you fold your arms across your chest, purposefully pressing your cleavage together. his eyes dropped right on cue. you knew he loved this shirt. or rather... he loved your tits in this shirt.
“i was there last night, hae. i can’t play favorites, it makes the other boys in my roster jealous,” you said sweetly, brushing a kiss to his cheek and stepping ahead.
“there’s no roster,” he said with a cocky grin, catching up easily. “i know that.”
“oh, don’t be so sure.” you waved at someone in the distance. haechan’s head turned just in time to catch mark lee smiling at you from across the room.
his face soured immediately. “mark lee? really?” he scoffed. “you can do better than that idiot.”
you looked at him, catching the slight twitch in his jaw. you smirked. their little rivalry was so amusing to you.
“remind me again why you hate him so much?” you ask as you drop into your seat. haechan slid in beside you, tugging your chair closer without effort.
“because he’s a manipulative dickhead who pretends to be some righteous good guy,” he muttered, fingers playing with the strap of your tank top.
“so... like half your friends?” you arched a brow.
“why are we even talking about him? let’s talk about us” he groaned, leaning in to kiss you but you dodged, making his lips brush your neck instead.
“since when is there an us?” you laughed, pushing him off half-heartedly.
“since you let me fuck you against every surface in my dorm,” he said smugly.
“don’t think that makes you special,” you replied, patting his chest.
your hand lingered there a second longer, reminding you how toned he actually was. easy to forget with that sweet face and mouthy attitude.
“i’m definitely your favorite though,” haechan grinned, leaning in again and this time, you let him kiss you. his mouth moving slowly but greedily against yours.
across the room, mark was stabbing his lunch violently. his plastic knife bent halfway through his sandwich.
“okay, you’re scaring me,” jaemin said, side-eyeing him. “who’re you trying to murder with your eyes?”
“no one,” mark muttered, dragging his eyes away.
jaemin followed his gaze and snorted. “ohhh, is that your girl?”
“she’s not my girl,” mark grunted. “we’ve just been… talking.”
“yeah? well, looks like that’s all you’re gonna be doing,” chenle chuckled next to him, biting into his sandwich.
“fuck off” mark said, chucking a crumpled napkin at chenle’s face.
“i’m pretty sure she was with jay last semester,” jaemin added, watching mark’s reaction with barely concealed amusement.
“and wonbin,” chenle said through a mouthful of food.
mark’s jaw ticked. “what exactly are you guys trying to say?”
“relax,” chenle raised both hands, smirking. “we’re just saying she’s clearly not into exclusivity.”
“whatever,” mark muttered, pushing his chair back. “like i said, we’re just talking.”
“uh-huh, sure” jaemin said with a knowing grin. “play with fire if you want… just don’t act surprised when you get burned.”
┈─★
mark couldn’t stop thinking about what the guys had said. it wasn’t even like he wanted anything serious with you. but still, the way you clung to haechan, only to turn around and flirt with him like your eyes hadn’t just been heart-shaped for the biggest dumbass on earth… yeah, it was starting to piss him off.
he was stewing in that frustration, gripping the steering wheel harder than necessary on the way to the store, when he spotted your car on the side of the road.
he pulled up behind you without thinking.
your face lit up the second you saw him. you were sweaty and flushed from the heat, but still so damn pretty it made something sharp twist in his chest.
“mark!” you said his name with so much relief he had to glance away, suddenly shy.
“hey,” he said, climbing out of the car. “need help?”
“please… i don’t know what happened. it just died on me” you pouted, arms crossed under your chest. “i barely made it off the road."
mark blinked, trying not to focus on your lips—the same lips that had kissed all over his neck last week at that party.
“okay, let’s take a look,” he muttered, walking over to the hood you’d already popped open.
he leaned over the car and tried to focus, to remember what he even knew about engines. he wasn’t a mechanic, but he knew enough not to look stupid in front of you.
you stood beside him, your shoulder kept brushing against his arm every time you leaned in to “check” what he was doing.
“you think it’s serious?” you asked, biting your lip .
mark glanced at you from the corner of his eye. “hard to tell. your battery might’ve just died.”
“ugh, great,” you groaned dramatically, flopping against the side of the car. “this day already sucked.”
“you’re lucky i was driving by,” he said, wiping his palms on his shorts. “you could’ve been stuck here for a while.”
you smiled at him sweetly, reaching for his hair and playing with it. “thank you for rescuing me, my knight in shining armor.”
mark froze for half a second.
“don’t do that,” he said quietly, eyes still focused under the hood.
“do what?” your voice was all fake innocence, and when he finally looked at you properly, you were leaning back just enough for your shirt to ride up and show the barest strip of your waist.
“you know what” he muttered.
you tilted your head, teasing. “we’re just talking, mark.”
he exhaled sharply. “yeah, well... i’ve had enough of that.”
you blinked at him, not catching the double entendre fast enough. before you could say anything, he stepped closer. not touching you but close enough that his chest brushed yours.
“you keep looking at me like that, saying things like that and then you go and let haechan put his tongue down your throat in front of everyone,” he said, voice low and raspy. “and don’t say it doesn’t mean anything.”
you stared at him, heat curling in your stomach.
“i wasn't gonna say that”
mark gave you a dry laugh, shaking his head. “then stop playing with me.”
you smiled, slow and wicked. “maybe i want both of you.”
mark’s jaw clenched, his eyes dropping to your lips as he licked his own, and for a moment, you thought he might actually kiss you right then and there—hot, frustrated, angry.
instead, he took a step back.
“your battery’s dead,” he said, eyes still burning. “i’ll get mine and jump it.”
and just like that, he walked back to his car, leaving you breathless and grinning like a devil in the sun.
he popped the hood of his car and grabbed the jumper cables, avoiding your eyes the whole time. you watched him work with brows furrowed, arms flexing every time he connected something or reached for a clamp. he was mad.
and you loved it.
“okay, try turning it on now,” he called out, stepping aside.
you slid into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and the engine coughed before finally coming back to life.
“yay!” you grinned, hopping out. “mark, you’re a lifesaver.”
“don’t mention it,” he said, closing your hood.
you stepped out and leaned against the car again. “what would i do without you?”
he walked over slowly, wiping his hands on his shorts. “probably flash your pouty lips at some other poor guy and get him to do it for you.”
you raised an eyebrow. “are you calling me manipulative?”
“if the shoe fits.”
you took a step toward him. “you didn’t seem to mind when i was kissing you last week.”
“didn’t say i minded,” he said, voice low again. “but i’m not interested in being one of your toys.”
“aw,” you pouted the way you knew he couldn't resist. “but you play so well.”
mark’s mouth twitched.
“get in your car,” he said instead, walking away again.
“got tired of me already?” you called after him, teasing.
“no. i’m telling you to leave before i do something i’ll regret.”
you didn’t move. “like what?”
mark stopped and sighed, you giggled to yourself thinking you’d successfully managed to frustrate him. but then suddenly he turned back and stopped right in front of you, so close that your back was nearly pressed against the car.
“like remind you exactly what you’d be missing if you pick haechan,” he said, eyes flickering down to your lips.
you swallowed a smirk. this was so much more interesting than you thought it’d be.
you tried to lean into him, but he immediately backed up.
“drive safe,” he said, heading to his own car without looking back.
you stood there, heart racing, staring after him and thinking how you’d get both of them alone in a room without them trying to rip each other’s throats.
┈─★
you figured if you were ever going to bring up your little fantasy to life, mark needed to be wrapped around your finger first. haechan would be easy to convince—he was practically already halfway there. one breathy moan from you and he’d be on his knees.
mark, on the other hand… he needed more work. not because he wasn’t into you, but because he had that whole gentleman with a moral compass thing going on. sweet. respectful. frustratingly hard to seduce without making it feel like you were the one being played.
in other words, you had to lock in.
so instead of texting or sliding into his dms like usual, you started showing up where you knew he’d be. but this turned out to be more difficult since the guy was literally everywhere and nowhere at once. you found out from a mutual friend that he worked two jobs, volunteered for three different campus orgs, was part of the baseball team and somehow still managed to keep a spotless GPA.
you went to every place he frequented, including the music store where he part-timed at, but he wasn’t there, “you just missed him” the other workers said.
you almost gave up for the day until something caught your eye past the chainlink fence by the baseball field. someone was pitching solo.
and there he was, mark lee in all his sweaty glory.
“hey there, slugger,” you called out, leaning your arms on the fence as he straightened up and turned around, wiping sweat off his forehead with the hem of his shirt. it lifted just enough to show the cut of his abs.
he blinked at you in confusion for a second before recognition hit and his mouth tugged into a crooked little smile. “yo… what are you doing here?”
“you looked lonely,” you said, pushing the gate open and walking toward him, “mind if i keep you company?”
he shifted, catching the ball in his glove, clearly trying to be nonchalant but his eyes didn’t lie—they dragged over you like he hadn’t seen a girl in weeks. you were wearing a tank top you knew made your tits look phenomenal, and you were sure he noticed.
“sure,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “i’m just messing around, anyway.”
“well, i like messing around,” you replied, tone smooth as honey, letting the double meaning land.
mark chuckled nervously. he was flustered, a cute little blush spread across his cheeks and down his neck. you were definitely getting to him.
“you want a turn?” he asked, gesturing to the bat.
you raised an eyebrow, stepping closer. “are we still talking baseball?”
his lips twitched. “depends… what are you talking about?”
you reached for the bat, letting your hand graze his fingers. “guess you’ll have to find out.”
“you ever even held one of these before?”
you took it, pretending to examine it seriously. “i mean, i’ve seen a league of their own like… twice.”
mark laughed, the sound bright and easy. “that’s a start.”
he showed you how to stand and the proper way to hold the bat, stepping in behind you with a respectful distance—no unnecessary touching or cheap moves. you could feel his warmth at your back, his voice in your ear as he adjusted your grip.
“okay, just swing through when the ball comes in. don’t overthink it.”
“easy for you to say, coach.” you glanced over your shoulder and caught his eyes on yours.
for a second, neither of you moved. you realized how pretty his eyes were from this close, they were round and bright looking at you.
then he stepped back and toward the pitching mound with a sheepish little smile.
“alright, give it a shot.”
your first swing was absolutely tragic.
mark laughed again, clapping once. “okay, that was adorable but we should review the basics.”
the next twenty minutes passed like that—him showing you how to swing properly, you pretending to take it seriously just to mess with him. you both ended up out of breath from laughing more than anything else. and by the end of it, you were glowing in the sun, hair a mess, tank top slightly clinging to your skin.
“okay, okay,” you finally said, wiping sweat from your brow, “i need a break.”
mark nodded, picking up the scattered balls. “dugout’s over there. i’ll grab us some water.”
you ducked into the dugout, the shade instantly soothing your sun-warmed skin. your legs were a little shaky from all the running around, but your heart wasn’t only thudding because of the exercise. you watched mark jog over to the cooler, shirt sticking to his back, his hair damp and curling at the edges. he looked so good it was unfair.
he came back with two bottles of water and handed you one, settling beside you on the bench. his thigh brushed against yours briefly before he shifted away to give you some space.
“not bad out there,” he said, twisting open his bottle. “your form’s a little weak, but you’ve got potential.”
“mm, and here i was trying to impress you,” you said, sipping. “guess i’ll have to try harder.”
he huffed a soft laugh and glanced sideways at you. “you’re doing fine, just… need a little discipline.”
“are you volunteering for the job?” you tilted your head.
mark stayed silent for a second. he was watching the field now, fingers drumming lightly on the bottle in his hand. “i know what you're doing”
you raised a brow. “oh yeah?”
“you don’t need someone messing around with your head. or your body. you deserve more than some dumb fling.”
you leaned back on your hands, letting your knees fall slightly open, enough to test him. “you ever think maybe i don’t want more?”
his jaw tensed. he didn’t look at you right away, he was trying really hard to keep his eyes anywhere but your legs. “you don’t mean that.”
“i do,” you said simply. “you think i don’t know what i want?”
he finally looked at you and the way his eyes moved over your face—it wasn’t lust. it was frustration. like he wanted to do something but had spent his whole life learning to hold back.
you leaned in, your voice softer now. “you keep talking like i’m some sweet girl who needs protecting, mark. but i don’t want that from you.”
he swallowed hard. “what do you want, then?”
you smiled, slow and a little dangerous. “i want you to stop pretending like you don’t want this too.”
he blinked, then he exhaled and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, laughing under his breath like he couldn’t believe what he was about to do.
“this is a bad idea,” he murmured.
“maybe,” you said, leaning just a little closer. “but i promise it’ll feel good”
mark didn’t answer but his eyes dropped to your mouth and stayed there. he looked like he was working through every possible reason to pull away, but none were winning.
“you should probably leave,” he said after a beat, voice rough. “before i forget how to be a good guy.”
you leaned in so your leg was now on top of his. “i’m not asking you to be a good guy, mark.”
he closed his eyes and shook his head. “don’t say that.”
“why not?”
“because if i touch you like i want to,” his eyes opened again, darker now. “i won’t be able to stop.”
“good,” you said, voice low. “i don’t want you to.”
he turned toward you, one hand gripping the bench behind you.
“you’re not making this easy,” he said.
“i know, but you can trust me”
his gaze flicked to your lips again. then your neck. then back to your eyes.
“you’re serious?”
you nodded, slow. “you think i’d be here if i wasn’t?”
mark let out a breath through his nose. “fuck.”
you watched his knuckles flex on the bench, how he was clearly using every ounce of willpower to stay still. his shoulders were angled toward you now. his jaw was tight, eyes darting like he was thinking ten steps ahead and still getting stuck on you.
you reached out, brushing your fingers over his forearm. “if you’re gonna kiss me, just do it already.”
he didn’t move right away but when he did, it was careful. one hand slid behind your neck, thumb brushing just under your ear as he leaned in. his lips touched yours softly.
but you didn’t want soft.
you pushed in, lips parting just enough to deepen the kiss, and that was when his restraint cracked. his other hand found your waist, pulling you closer, pressing you into the bench. he kissed you harder this time, all that tension finally bleeding through.
you smiled against his mouth, whispering, “see? doesn’t that feel better than being good?”
his answer was a low groan against your lips, his hand slid up, fingertips grazing the bare skin where your top had ridden up. he paused there, like he was waiting for you to stop him.
you didn’t.
instead, you moved into him, straddling his lap without breaking the kiss. his breath hitched the moment your hips settled against his, and that tiny reaction was all the confirmation you needed. he wanted this as much as you did. even if part of him was still trying to talk himself out of it.
“touch me more,” you said, tilting your head to nip at his jaw.
his hands finally slid under your shirt, splaying across your back, pulling you flush against him. your body molded to his like it had always belonged there, and his lips found yours again.
your fingers tangled in his hair, tugging gently, and he groaned low in his throat. his hips bucked up before he could stop himself, and your breath caught when you felt how hard he already was under you.
his hands moved lower over your ass, gripping tight as he shifted you against him again. it was getting hotter in the dugout, clothes sticking to skin, breaths growing uneven. your lips were swollen, your thighs shaking just slightly from the tension. he kissed down your neck, tongue brushing a spot that made your spine arch.
“fuck,” he whispered, his lips ghosting along your jaw. “you drive me crazy.”
you rolled your hips again and mark’s head dropped back with a groan. his hands moved higher under your shirt, fingers brushing the band of your bra before hesitating.
you tugged your shirt up a little more for him, eyes locked on his. “you don’t have to ask.”
his gaze flicked up to yours and then he pulled your shirt off in one smooth motion, his mouth going straight to your collarbone, trailing heat down your neck. one of his hands cradled the back of your head while the other held your waist steady as you started grinding down against him again, both of you breathing harder now.
his fingers found the clasp of your bra behind you, fumbling only once before it came loose. the second it did, his mouth was on you, leaving open-mouthed kisses across your chest as your hips rolled harder.
you dipped your head, kissed the top of his ear, and whispered, “mark.”
it came out breathy, almost reverent. the sound of his name from your lips snapped whatever restraint he had left. his hands gripped your thighs, and in one quick movement, he stood—lifting you effortlessly as you clung to him, legs tightening around his waist.
your back hit the dugout wall with a soft thud, and he was on you again. teeth grazing your neck now, nipping and licking and kissing like he wanted to mark every inch of your skin.
you gasped, hips rolling against the hard press of him through his jeans. he hissed through his teeth, grinding back.
“mark, more please.” you moaned, eyes locked on his.
he growled something filthy and wrecked and then his hands were tugging at your waistband, fingers slipping beneath to palm the curve of your ass again, rougher this time. you arched into him, head tipping back as he pressed hot kisses along your throat, sucking hard enough to bruise.
your shorts ended up somewhere on the floor along with your shirt. and mark—sweet, tortured, trying-to-be-good mark—was rutting against you like he’d lost his damn mind.
“tell me what you want,” he said into your skin, breath hot and shaky.
you leaned in, lips at his ear. “everything.”
he groaned like the word punched him in the gut. his hand teased over the edge of your panties, fingers just barely brushing where you were soaked for him. he inhaled sharply, head dropping to your shoulder, and you could feel his restraint fracturing all over again.
“jesus christ,” he muttered, voice wrecked. “we shouldn't be doing this here.”
he barely registered the sound of your breathless laugh before you dropped to your knees, eyes locked on his as your hands slid up his thighs. he looked down at you like he couldn’t believe what was happening.
“let me give you what you need,” you murmured, undoing the button on his jeans with practiced ease.
“fuck,” mark breathed, eyes fluttering shut as your fingers brushed over him through the fabric of his boxers. he was so hard it looked like it hurt. you smiled seeing his reaction as you traced the outline of his cock.
he looked like he wanted to say something—some last-minute plea for control—but then you tugged his boxers down and wrapped your hand around him.
his knees nearly buckled.
you leaned in, lips brushing the flushed tip, tongue teasing just enough to make him choke on a groan. he gripped the edge of the dugout bench behind him to keep himself from falling over.
“shit—fuck, baby, please—” his voice cracked as you took him in deeper, mouth hot and wet and so fucking perfect. his hand found your hair, fingers trembling as he tried to resist the urge to thrust into your mouth.
you wanted him to lose it. wanted him unhinged.
you bobbed your head slowly at first, letting him feel every inch of your tongue, your lips, the way your throat clenched around him. when you moaned, his hips jerked and he cried out.
“jesus, i’m not—fuck, i’m not gonna last.”
you pulled off with a slick pop. “it’s okay, cum for me markie.”
before you could take him backs into your mouth again, he hauled you up, lips crashing into yours roughly. his hands found your ass again, lifting you onto the bench like you weighed nothing. your panties were gone in seconds and then he was pressed against you, panting against your mouth.
“you’re sure?” he whispered, voice shredded
you stared into his eyes, wrapped your legs around his waist, and said, “mark. fuck me already.”
not a second after, he was slamming into you with a guttural groan, burying himself to the hilt in one desperate thrust. the air was knocked from your lungs, nails scraping down his back as your bodies locked together in the filthiest kind of synchronicity.
his rhythm was brutal from the start, hips crashing into yours like he’d waited years for this. like every time he'd looked at you, every time he’d jerked off with your name on his lips, had been leading to this exact moment.
“you feel so fucking good,” he panted against your neck. “i can’t—I’m gonna—fuck, you’re perfect.”
you were both sweating, panting, lost in each other. the dugout echoed with obscene sounds of skin slapping skin and your moans mixing with his broken groans.
“i’m close,” he whispered, forehead pressed to yours, voice wrecked. “tell me where you want it. please, baby—tell me.”
your fingers gripped his jaw, lips brushing his. “inside. fill me up.”
he moaned your name—screamed it, even—as he came, body shaking, strong arms locked around you. he held you through every wave, and didn’t stop fucking you until you came seconds after.
when it was over, when your bodies were spent and trembling, he collapsed against you, breathing hard, mouth still pressed to your neck.
“that was fucking amazing,” he whispered, laughing breathlessly.
you kissed the side of his head and smiled, knowing that you had him exactly where you wanted him.
┈─★
the rest of your week was spent with mark, who– slowly and against his better judgment– was developing a full-blown addiction to you.
but you couldn’t neglect the other half of your fantasy.
which is why you were now outside haechan’s dorm. he’d been ignoring your messages for days, which wasnt like him at all. and you were almost sure it had to do with how often you'd been with mark lately.
you walked in without knocking and found him in front of his pc, hand stuffed into his sweats, fist working himself slow to some filthy porn on the screen.
he didn’t even notice you walking in at first due to his headphones. but he must've felt you behind him because he jolted, yanked his hand out, and scrambled to close the tab like you hadn’t already seen everything.
he spun around in his chair, cheeks flaming, trying to hide the clear tent in his pants.
“ever heard of knocking?” his voice came out annoyed but strained.
you crossed your arms, amused. “is this what you’ve been ignoring me for? gooning in your room all day?”
he didn’t answer, just looked anywhere but at you.
you stepped in closer and looped your arms around his neck.
“don’t be mad,” you whispered, brushing your lips close to his ear. “i came here because i missed you.”
“really?” he finally muttered, still not looking at you. “what happened to your new boy toy?”
“don’t tell me you’re jealous,” you said with a little smile. “mark’s not the first guy i’ve been with since our arrangement. i thought you were fine with that.”
he scoffed. “yeah, well… the other guys weren’t fucking idiots.” his eyes finally flicked to yours, dark and sharp. “plus, i doubt he makes you feel as good as i do.”
“then do something about it,” you whispered, dragging your nails along the nape of his neck. “remind me why i started fucking you in the first place.”
his hands were on you in a flash.
he grabbed your waist and hauled you onto his lap. the second you straddled him, he bit your bottom lip before kissing you deep.
“you want a reminder?” he growled “fine, but you’re gonna take what i give you”
you ground down against him and felt how hard he still was. this wasn’t some casual rebound fuck to him—this was territory. there was rage and lust and twisted affection in every move he made.
his fingers tugged your shirt up, mouth trailing fire along your neck, teeth scraping and marking.
“bet he doesn’t know how to touch you like this,” he murmured, slipping a hand under your waistband and cupping your already wet pussy. “bet he doesn’t even know what you like.”
“he’s learning,” you teased, smirking just to provoke him.
he scoffed and shoved your panties aside, pushing two fingers into you at once, hard enough to make your hips jerk.
“not like this,” he whispered darkly. “he can’t make you this wet with just his fingers, can he?”
you gasped, clutching at his shoulders as he curled his fingers deeper.
“god, you’re such a little slut for attention,” he chuckled “running to him just because he’s nice? is that what you want? a nice little boy?”
you could barely breathe now, body rocking into his hand with every word.
“you don’t want nice,” he hissed. “you want me. you want the one who knows how to break you and put you back together with a single fuck.”
your moan came out broken and sharp, your hips grinding down faster now. he was watching you fall apart, biting his lip like it was the only thing keeping him from slamming you down on the floor and reminding the entire dorm who you belonged to.
“say it,” he demanded. “say i’m the one you want. say his name doesn’t mean shit to you when you’re dripping for me like this.”
“you are,” you choked out. “you’re the only one i want, hae.”
he shoved his chair back with a grunt, stood with you still wrapped around him, and carried you to the bed. dropping you onto the mattress with a promise in his eyes, already yanking his sweats down.
“gonna fuck you so hard you forget what his voice even sounds like,” he muttered.
and from the look in his eyes—you knew he meant it.
he crawled over you, and with a quick peck to your lips, he slid his cock into you. you were so familiar with his size after so many fucks that it didn't take long for you to adjust and for him to start moving.
he switched your positions quickly, knowing how much you liked riding him. his mouth was on your chest, spit-slick and possessive, and his hips snapped up in a brutal rhythm from below you. he’d been talking the entire time— filthy words laced with jealousy and obsession.
“so fucking wet for me,” he groaned into your skin. “he could never get you like this.”
you moaned louder at that, clenching around him.
haechan reached over without breaking his rhythm, grabbing your phone from the desk behind him. you barely noticed at first, lost in the sensation of him buried so deep inside you, but then you heard the soft ding.
he pointed the camera down, letting it capture the view between your thighs, where you were split open and soaked, riding his cock like your life depended on it.
“what are you doing?” you gasped, half-laughing, half-panting.
“just making something for your little boyfriend,” haechan said with a smirk, his voice syrup-thick and mean. “he probably wants to know what you’ve been up to.”
he angled the camera to get your face, your tits, your hips grinding down as he fucked up into you. his hand slid up your stomach, fingers wrapping around your throat just enough to make your pulse jump under his thumb.
“look at the camera, baby,” he purred. “let’s show mark how you really beg.”
you bit your lip but obeyed, dragging your gaze to the lens. your expression was wrecked—eyes glassy, mouth open, cheeks flushed.
“that’s it,” he growled, snapping his hips up even harder. “show him who you belong to.”
the hand not holding the phone slid down your spine, grabbed your ass, and slammed you down onto him with a force that made the bed frame groan.
“you hear that, mark?” haechan muttered into the mic, his voice suddenly colder. “this is what your little good girl sounds like when someone actually knows how to use her.”
you whimpered shamelessly, as his cock dragged right against that spot inside you that made your vision spark white.
“she’s squeezing me like she’s never been fucked before,” haechan kept going, still holding the phone. “you ever get her like this, huh? you ever make her cum just from your cock and a few mean words?”
he thrust into you hard and deep, so deep you cried out, fingers scrabbling at his shoulders.
“oh, that’s so much better,” he grunted, pulling back and slamming in again. “bet he doesn’t hit that spot, hm? bet he doesn’t know how deep you like it.”
you moaned loudly, the sound echoing against the dorm walls. he held the phone steady with one hand and gripped your jaw with the other, turning your face to the lens.
“tell him who makes you cum.”
you gasped. “haechan—fuck—you, you do—”
he grinned like the devil.
“good girl.”
the sound of skin slapping, the way your body arched into every thrust, the sweet, broken whines he pulled out of you—it was all being captured. and he made sure of it. shifting the angle, filming your tits bouncing, your fingers clawing at his shoulders, your lips mouthing please, more without even realizing it.
“gonna send this to him,” he muttered darkly, “maybe i’ll wait ‘til he’s all alone at night, thinking about you and then—bam.” he snapped his hips harder, making you gasp. “he’ll see you stuffed full of my cock.”
you clenched around him and he hissed.
“yeah, you like that. you love being filmed, dirty little thing.”
you were shaking now, pleasure boiling up in your gut as he kept fucking into you with brutal precision. all while recording you. all while imagining mark’s face when he saw you like this.
your thighs were already trembling from how many times you’d rolled your hips over him, the coil in your lower stomach drawn so tight you could scream.
haechan’s hands gripped your waist, keeping you just barely in rhythm as you rode him, the slow drag of his cock inside you leaving you teetering at the edge. your hands braced against his chest, fingernails digging into his sweaty skin. you were so close you could taste it.
“that’s it,” he murmured, voice gone low and raspy. “fuck yourself on me. let mark see how desperate you get.”
“haechan—fuck, please—i’m gonna cum—”
suddenly, his hands snapped up to your hips and stopped you. his cock still twitching inside you but he wasn't moving anymore.
“no, you’re not,” he said, eyes dark. “not yet.”
your head fell forward, lips parted in disbelief. “what?”
he leaned in closer, lips brushing your throat. “you wanna cum?” he asked, and you nodded, hips instinctively trying to grind down again.
he didn’t let you.
“then beg for it. look into the camera and beg for me.”
you shuddered. his voice wasn’t teasing anymore. it was burning hot with jealousy and the need to have control over you.
“tell mark you’re not allowed to come unless i say so. tell him you’re mine.”
you stared at him, wide-eyed, chest heaving, and then turned your head to the camera. your voice shook as you whispered, “please… please let me come. i need it. i can’t take it, hae, i—”
his hand slid up your back, grabbing your hair and tugging gently so your neck arched. he bit along your jaw, voice low and sharp against your ear.
“say it like you mean it. say it loud. i want him to hear what a needy little slut you turn into when you don’t get what you want.”
you swallowed, lips trembling. “please…please, hae, i’ll do anything…just let me come—”
“nah,” he muttered, tightening his grip and slamming up into you once. once. just enough to make you cry out and chase the friction, but not enough to give you what you needed.
“you don’t get to cum until i say so. and i’m not saying shit until you look into that camera and tell mark whose cock you fucking love.”
your body was on fire, everything inside you begging for release, but you obeyed. because your orgasm lived in his hands now.
“it’s yours,” you gasped, eyes flicking to the lens. “it’s always been yours. not his. he can’t fuck me like you do.” you lied.
“mmm, now that’s the energy,” he grinned, hand trailing down between your legs to barely graze your clit. “feel that? you want it, don’t you?”
“yes, yes, please—i need it—”
“you’ll take every fucking inch, keep grinding that soaked little pussy on me slow, and i’ll think about letting you come.”
you did as he said. he made you ride him in slow, teasing circles. every drag was torturous, your body screaming for a release you weren’t allowed to have. tears prickled in your lashes, your mouth open in a string of whispered begs.
“look how perfect you are when you’re desperate,” he murmured, finally rubbing slow circles over your clit. “this is what he needs to see. you fucking breaking apart on my cock.”
you whimpered something incoherent, your entire body trembling when he finally granted it.
“cum for me, baby. show him what he’ll never fucking have.”
you shattered instantly, mouth open in a silent scream, grinding down on him with a rhythm you couldn’t even control anymore. and he filmed all of it. the high-pitched moans, the tears, the way you collapsed against his chest completely undone. and when his orgasm hit soon after, he captured his cum dripping out of your used cunt.
when your breathing slowed and your thighs stopped shaking, he clicked off the recording and kissed your temple.
“that should keep him up at night.”
┈─★
the next time you saw mark, it was at a party hosted by one of the student organizations. haechan was there too, for your pleasure, and you knew tonight was going to be the night you finally brought your twisted fantasy to life.
the plan was simple. get both of them to your apartment.
and it was all going well until haechan yanked you into the bathroom, and before you could even think, you were on your knees, taking him in your mouth.
by the time you left the bathroom, your makeup was a mess. the lipstick smeared across your face was a dead giveaway of what youd been doing. haechan went off to get a drink, and you quietly retreated to the living room, sitting in front of a mirror to fix your face.
mark was talking to his friends across the room, but his eyes never left you. he hadn’t spoken to you in a week after receiving the video. he was pissed, sure, but it wasn’t as though he was surprised. he knew you had some kind of relationship with haechan. but to film it and send it to him? that shit crossed a line.
what bothered him most was that he couldn’t bring himself to delete the video. every night, he ended up jerking off to it, his mind filled with the image of you begging for that jerk’s cock.
he noticed haechan walk by, nodding to a few people along the way. when their eyes met, he smirked and started walking toward him.
mark’s lip curled into a scowl as the younger boy stopped in front of him, leaning casually against the wall.
“what’s up, lee?” haechan’s voice was light, almost too fucking smug. he slapped mark’s back with exaggerated force. jaemin and chenle exchanged glances and walked off when they caught the tension.
“did you get my video?” haechan asked, his eyes still glinting behind his cup, the stupid little grin never fading.
“i did,” mark replied coldly. his voice was almost a growl, thick with disgust. “what kind of man records a lady during sex?”
haechan chuckled. “if you watched the video, you’d know she was very much into it.”
mark’s jaw clenched “whatever. you don’t fucking deserve her,” he spat, his words dripping with venom.
“and you do?” haechan raised an eyebrow, his grin widening. “please, she’s not into the whole gentleman act.”
mark’s smirk was all teeth now “then why does she keep coming back to me?”
haechan’s eyes narrowed, but the grin never left his face. “her lip gloss is still all over my cock, so i’d say there’s really no competition here…”
mark’s hand shot out, slapping the drink from haechan’s grip. he grabbed the younger boy by the collar, yanking him in close. everyone around them hushed and someone muttered oh shit.
that’s when you stood up and pushed your way through the crowd. when you reached them, you shoved them apart with a force that surprised even you.
“what do you two think you’re doing?”
your voice cut through the room like a whip—sharp enough to make a few of the partygoers flinch. mark’s fist was still clenched in haechan’s shirt, and haechan didn’t look even the slightest bit bothered. in fact, the smug bastard looked like he was thriving in the chaos, like he’d been waiting for this moment all goddamn week.
mark let go first, reluctantly, his eyes still locked on haechan’s. “he started it,” he muttered like a sulking schoolboy who’d just been caught throwing punches behind the gym.
“bullshit,” haechan scoffed, brushing off where mark had touched him. “he’s just mad he’s not the one you were sucking off ten minutes ago.”
you grabbed mark’s wrist before he could swing. “enough.” you looked at both of them. “you’re both acting like idiots. are we seriously doing this now? at a party?”
“he's talking about you like you’re some kind of trophy.” mark growled.
haechan scoffed. “oh, please”
you could feel the eyes of half the party watching the drama with beers in hand. you tilted your head, walking up between them.
“you two are being childish.”
mark’s eyes dipped down to your lips, shiny from the fresh coat of gloss. a hint of it still smeared down your chin as a confirmation of everything haechan just said. he hated that no matter how pissed he was, he still wanted to grab you, shove you against the wall, and remind you how good he could make you feel.
“so, how about you stop wasting time on this pathetic pissing contest…” you continued, circling behind them slowly, “and come dance with me.”
you walked straight toward the dance floor, the bass vibrating through your heels and into your spine. you didn’t even turn to see if they were behind you. you already knew they were.
you stepped into the crowd, backlit by strobes, and then turned around slowly, one hand held out toward mark. his brows knit together at first, unsure. then he stepped in, hand sliding into yours.
your other hand reached for haechan, and that cocky smile curled across his lips before he grabbed your waist instead, pulling himself flush against your side.
“what’s this, baby?” haechan murmured against your ear.
you just smiled and rolled your hips into him at the rhythm of the music.
mark stood closer now, his chest brushing yours with every beat. his hands hovered like he didn’t know where he was allowed to touch, until you guided one to your hip.
you tipped your head up and kissed him first. your fingers fisted in his shirt as your lips dragged across his—tongue sliding against his until he forgot why he was mad in the first place.
but then you pulled away and turned, grabbing haechan by the jaw and kissing him too. open-mouthed. filthy.
you felt mark tense behind you. you could almost hear his breath hitch as he watched.
but you didn’t stop.
your hand reached behind you, pulling mark closer until he was pressed against your back. your lips were still on haechan’s when your other arm looped around mark’s neck, forcing them both into your orbit.
in the chaos, in the rhythm and push and pull of bodies, your head tilted just enough to make room, and their mouths brushed.
they didn’t even realize at first. your body was between them, but it was hard to see whose hands were where, whose breath was in whose lungs. they were kissing each other before they even registered it. and when they did?
there was a second of stunned silence between them, and they both froze.
“fuck,” haechan muttered.
mark stared at him like something short-circuited behind his eyes. and then he kissed him again, rougher this time.
you looked at them with a victorious smile on your lips.
when they pulled away, lips swollen and chests heaving, you saw the look on both their faces—equal parts frustration and lust. and you knew… this was the moment you had been waiting for.
you didn’t even wait for the song to end.
your hand shot out, fingers latching onto the front of mark’s jacket, then you grabbed haechan’s wrist and tugged them both forward.
“we’re leaving,” you said, voice low but commanding.
mark looked like he wanted to argue but you didn’t give him the chance.
you turned on your heel and walked out.
and like the two moths they were, they followed the flame.
┈─★
your apartment door slammed shut behind them, the tension snapping into something feral the second the lock clicked.
“you—” mark started, but you cut him off with a kiss. filthy, fast, and impatient. his hands went straight to your waist, pressing you back against the wall as his mouth opened under yours. he tasted like alcohol and haechan.
the later boy soon stepped behind you.
his hands slid under your shirt, palms hot against your bare skin, and his mouth was right by your ear. “so you really want both of us, huh?” he whispered, “you’re that fucking greedy.”
you reached back blindly, curling your fingers into his hair as you pulled away from mark.
“i want to figure out who deserves me more.”
haechan shoved mark backward—not hard, but enough to reclaim space. and mark let it happen for a second, jaw tight, watching as haechan spun you to face him and kissed you deep, tongue fucking into your mouth.
but then mark was there again. his hands on your hips, his chest flush with your back, and this time, he kissed haechan.
really kissed him. it wasn’t an accident or in heat-of-the-moment.
mark leaned around you, lips capturing haechan’s mid-moan, his fingers curling into your waistband as their mouths crashed. it was clumsy at first and then it turned hungry.
the three of you moved together, a mess of hands and mouths and breathless gasps. clothing peeled away between kisses, bodies pressing against each other with no room left for shame. by the time you hit the couch, you were half-naked and drenched in anticipation.
you shoved mark down first, straddling his lap, grinding against him as haechan knelt beside you.
“who gets to fuck you first?” haechan asked, his voice hoarse and teasing.
you smiled, biting your lip as you looked down at mark.
mark's breath hitched beneath you, his eyes flicked up and then down to where your soaked panties were rubbing against the thick outline of his cock through his jeans.
"fuck," he muttered, head tipping back against the couch as you rolled your hips again, just to watch him squirm.
haechan had one hand running up your thigh, the other palming the bulge in mark’s jeans with a wicked little grin. his own erection poking through his boxers
"you're both hard already," you whispered, your voice sweet and venomous. you leaned forward, brushing your lips against mark's ear. "and i haven’t even gotten naked yet."
"then fucking do it," mark growled.
"ask nicer," you cooed.
haechan laughed, low and breathy. then he kissed your inner thigh, right above where the fabric was sticking to your soaked cunt, and said, "i’ll ask for him—take it off, baby."
you stood up and pulled your shirt over your head. no bra. both of their eyes dropped to your chest in an almost comical way. you hooked your thumbs into your panties and slid them down. by the time you were naked, both boys looked like they were seconds from breaking.
you dropped to your knees between them and unzipped mark’s jeans first, pulling his cock free and stroking him slowly, twisting your wrist the way you knew made his eyes roll back. he groaned, head falling forward to watch you.
then, without warning, you leaned sideways and took haechan into your mouth instead.
mark cursed under his breath. haechan let out a deep, shaky breath, hand immediately tangling in your hair. you sucked him slow, wet, deep, letting the mess coat your lips as you kept stroking mark at the same time.
you pulled off with a filthy pop, a string of spit connecting your lips to the head of his cock. "you like watching, mark?" you asked, turning your head just enough to meet his eyes as you jerked them both off side by side. "you like seeing how good i take his cock?"
mark's nostrils flared. then his hand was in your hair too, tugging you toward him, and you let him push into your mouth—let him fuck into your throat until you gagged, until your eyes watered, until his cock was slick with spit.
“jesus christ,” he muttered, voice ragged.
haechan reached over and grabbed mark’s jaw, turning his face toward him to kiss him.
their mouths crashed messily. they kissed like they hated each other for how much they wanted this.
you sat back, breathless, watching their lips collide with yours on both their cocks, and you moaned—because this was it. this was your fantasy.
they broke apart with a gasp, and you grinned.
"let’s go to my room," you said.
but you barely made it down the hall before haechan spun you around and pressed you to the wall, his mouth crashing into yours. he kissed like he wanted to bruise you. hands groping, lips biting, tongue deep and fast and hungry.
mark’s hand was already sliding up under your thigh, lifting your leg so he could step in behind you. his breath ghosted over your neck, and his voice was a low growl against your skin.
“you like letting him touch you like that?” he asked, pressing his hips into your ass so you could feel exactly what he meant. “you gonna let me fuck you after he’s had his way with you?”
you moaned, letting your head fall back onto mark’s shoulder as haechan’s hand slid down your front and cupped your pussy, two fingers slipping through the mess between your legs.
“she’s soaked,” haechan smirked. “god, you’re such a filthy little thing.”
“fucking ours,” mark said, and even haechan didn’t argue with that.
they walked you to the bed like wolves with prey between their teeth. when you climbed onto the mattress, you didn’t even get time to settle because mark grabbed your hips and flipped you onto your stomach, pulling your ass up and spreading you wide.
haechan knelt in front of you, his cock already leaking. “open that pretty mouth again, baby.”
you did. obedient, dripping, desperate.
mark’s fingers slid into you from behind as haechan pushed into your mouth. your moan vibrated around his cock, and he cursed under his breath, thrusting deeper. mark’s pace picked up, his fingers curling just right—fucking you open, getting you ready.
"you’re gonna take us both,” mark said, and it wasn’t a question.
he lined up behind you just as haechan pulled back, breath ragged, stroking himself as he watched your ass push back toward mark instinctively. mark slid in slowly, inch by inch until you were full.
"fuck—" mark’s voice cracked. "you feel s’good."
haechan grabbed your chin to tilt your face up. “look at me while he fucks you,” he said, voice thick with lust. “wanna see your face when you cum all over his cock”
mark started thrusting harder, faster. your hands clawed at the sheets, moans falling from your lips in broken little gasps as your body rocked between them. haechan was watching every twitch of your face mesmerized.
and then he kissed you again, teeth dragging your lower lip before he shoved his cock back into your mouth.
it was obscene.
mark pounding into you, cock hitting the deepest spot inside your gummy walls, while you choked around haechan’s cock, spit dripping down your chin and onto the sheets. both of them moaning and touching you like they didn’t care if they left bruises so long as you kept begging for more.
“fuck—” haechan’s voice cracked, hips twitching as your mouth kept taking him, sloppy and hungry. “gonna cum on your tongue, baby. don’t even think about stopping. take it. take it.”
behind you, mark’s breath was a rough growl against your ear, his grip digging harshly into your hips as he drove into you desperately.
“you feel this?” he hissed, voice shaking. “tight little cunt, soaked and squeezing the fuck out of me. you like being used like this, don’t you?”
you moaned so hard it came out as a choke around haechan’s cock, spit and precum leaking from the corners of your mouth.
your orgasm ripped through you like a scream you couldn’t voice, your thighs shaking, core clenching so hard around mark he nearly lost it.
“fuckfuckfuck—” he groaned, ramming into you until his hips stuttered and he came deep inside you, cursing through gritted teeth as you milked every drop from him.
haechan didn’t stop. even after mark collapsed forward against your back, he kept thrusting into your mouth, hips slapping your cheeks as he muttered incoherently, “fucking angel like this… ruined slut… fuck—”
your eyes rolled back, drool spilling past your lips as he came with a loud moan. his cum flooded your mouth so fast you gagged on it. he didn’t even pull out right away but just held your head there, watching your throat work as you tried to swallow around the mess.
mark looked down, chest still heaving. “jesus,” he muttered, watching the cum drip off your chin, pooling under you. “she looks fucking destroyed.”
your body collapsed face-down across the sheets, arms trembling, legs still spread and twitching. your skin burned from the heat of them, from their hands, their mouths. and still—they weren’t done.
mark sat up slowly, eyes locked on the cum leaking down your thighs. he reached down without a word, dragged two fingers through it, and spread it back up into you.
“don’t waste it,” he muttered, his voice low, hoarse. “not after you begged for it.”
haechan was still in front of you, watching the whole thing with a lazy grin. he leaned in, wiped the mess from your chin with his thumb, and smeared it back across your lips. “open.”
you did.
he shoved his thumb in, and you sucked weakly.
“god, look at you,” he whispered, thumb still in your mouth. “so fucking pretty like this. dumb and dripping with our cum.”
mark pushed in two fingers next, fucking it deeper into the mess between your thighs. “she’s still clenching,” he said. “greedy even now.”
you whimpered into haechan’s hand, your thighs shaking again. the overstimulation was biting at the edges of your spine like static.
“she can take another,” haechan said. “can’t you, sweetheart?”
you didn’t reply fast enough so mark grabbed your jaw and turned your head. “you want us to stop?”
you blinked, dazed.
“…no.”
“then say it.”
“don’t stop,” you whispered. “please…”
haechan was behind you before you could think, spreading your ass with both hands like he was admiring a ruined piece of art. he bent down, spit pooling from his mouth and landing right on your hole before he dragged two fingers through the mess of mark’s cum still leaking out of you.
“look at this,” he muttered, spreading you wider, thumb rubbing slow circles. “she’s dripping with you, mark. you gonna let me fuck her like that?”
mark didn’t answer. he just sat back with his legs spread, cock half-hard and twitching back to life as he watched you squirm.
“she said not to stop,” mark said finally, voice like gravel and heat. “so don’t.”
haechan lined himself up and slid in slowly until you were choking on your own moan, fingers clawing the sheets again. your body was trembling from the overstimulation but he didn’t care. not even a little. he gripped your hips and started fucking you in hard, rough strokes that made the whole bed creak.
“every sound you make is fucking delicious,” he grunted. “i'm gonna hear you when i jack off for a week straight.”
you cried out, and mark moved toward your head, grabbing your chin and lifting it.
“open your mouth,” he said.
you did and he spit into it. it hit your tongue, thick and warm, and he didn’t even wait for you to swallow before he slid his cock between your lips.
“don’t you dare stop sucking.”
your throat was sore from taking haechan earlier and your pussy was raw from how hard you’d already been fucked—but none of that mattered. not when they were both moaning. not when mark was muttering how pretty you looked drooling around his cock. not when haechan was rutting into you like he had something to prove.
“she’s not even thinking anymore,” haechan gasped. “just moaning and crying for us—fuck, she’s perfect.”
you didn’t realize your second orgasm was coming until it hit you harder and meaner than the previous one, tearing through your overstimulated nerves until your body convulsed and your throat released a garbled cry around mark’s cock.
mark came first this time, groaning as he pulled out just in time to jerk himself off all over your face until his cum painted your cheeks, your lips, your tongue.
“look at you,” he breathed. “fuck.”
haechan came right after, buried to the hilt inside you, hips stuttering as he flooded you again. his cum mixing with mark’s cum.
you were twitching against mark’s thighs, completely fucked out.
but they didn’t even leave you alone then.
mark pulled you up so you were fully on top of his chest, and ran a thumb over your ruined lips while his other hand slid between your thighs again, fingers stroking the mess they’d made.
“you’re not done,” he whispered.
haechan leaned in from behind, kissing your neck, biting your shoulder. “we’re gonna clean you up from the inside.”
your limbs trembled, your thighs were soaked, your throat ached but your moans still came out soft and needy, like begging had become your first language.
mark’s hand moved between your legs, fingers slipping back inside you with zero mercy. your pussy twitched around him, hypersensitive, every motion making your whole body flinch—but fuck if it didn’t feel good.
“you’re gonna cum again,” he said, more command than promise. “and again. and again. until we say you’re done.”
haechan moved on top of you, curling around you like a possessive snake.
“you hear that, baby?” he whispered “you wanted both of us… this is what that means.”
his hand snuck between your thighs, meeting mark’s fingers. two sets of fingers working inside you, scissoring, curling, fucking you through the wreckage of your last orgasm and dragging you right into the next.
you were crying now, quiet tears streaming down your cheeks as your body betrayed how good it felt. your hips rocking against their hands, head thrown against mark’s shoulder.
“good fucking girl,” mark breathed, watching your face with that reverent hunger. “look at her, haechan. she’s crying and still begging for more.”
“she’s ours,” haechan said simply, dragging his tongue along your neck, tasting the salt of your tears. “no one else gets her like this.”
and then—as if coordinated—they both moved faster.
your moans cracked into a sob, and you grabbed for mark’s arms as you came again. hard. your body shaking against his, your vision going white around the edges.
“one more,” mark muttered, watching your pussy clench and flutter around his fingers. “you can give us one more, can’t you?”
“she can,” haechan said, now sucking a bruise into your shoulder. “she’s such a good little toy.”
you couldn’t even speak. just gasps, sobs, a whimper of please—though none of you were really sure if it meant please stop or please keep going.
“we’ll stop when you can’t remember your name,” mark whispered, fingers still deep inside you.
he pulled his fingers out of you with one last deep curl, just to watch the way your hips jerked from the sudden loss.
haechan crawled down, hand on your thighs, pressing you into the mattress as he dropped to his stomach in front of your core
"be still," he licked his lips and then his tongue was on you.
licking up everything—all of it—his spit mixing with their cum, slow and messy, like he was trying to taste every second of what they'd done to you. he groaned against your cunt, burying his face between your legs as you sobbed, so overstimulated you couldn’t decide whether you were moaning or crying.
mark brushed your hair out of your face with a hand that was far too gentle for how he’d just destroyed you. he leaned down, kissed your tear-slick cheek, and whispered, “you’re doing so good, baby. letting us use you like this.”
his voice dropped lower, mouth brushing your ear now. “you’re ours. you know that, right? nothing left for anyone else. ”
you nodded. your throat too raw, and lips too bruised to speak.
“she’s clenching again,” haechan called from between your thighs, laughing, breath hot against you. “she’s about to fucking cum on my tongue.”
and fuck—you did.
your whole body jolted violently, and mark had to kiss you to keep you from screaming out. you cried into his mouth, so wet, so wrecked, and still grinding back against haechan’s mouth.
“fuck,” haechan groaned, pulling back just enough to kiss the inside of your thigh. “you taste like a dream.”
“i need to fuck you again” mark said, shifting back behind you. “slow this time. deep. so you remember my cock after tonight.”
haechan didn’t argue.
he just moved, lips dragging up your thighs as mark pulled your hips back up.
he slid into you again and you whimpered.
"breathe, baby," he whispered. "you're okay. i've got you."
haechan curled up in front of you, kissing your mouth now, slow and messy. his hand found your throat and he squeezed softly.
you looked up at him, saw his gaze flicker over your shoulder to where mark was moving behind you. and fuck if that look wasn’t hungry.
"you two gonna keep pretending this isn’t about more than me?" you whispered, voice raw but daring. “you’ve been dying to touch each other. do it.”
mark froze, cock still buried deep. haechan didn’t blink.
you rolled your hips enough to make mark gasp—and then you turned your head and said it again.
“touch him.”
haechan’s hand slid down slowly, fingers ghosting over your thigh first… then lower… until he reached between your legs and brushed mark’s cock where it was buried inside you.
"fuck," mark grunted, voice cracking slightly.
haechan smirked, leaned over your shoulder and whispered in mark’s ears, “do you like it, lee?”
he curled his fingers around mark’s cock, still moving in and out of you, and started stroking him. touching you and him in the same stroke. mark groaned into your skin, grip on your hips tightening.
“don’t stop,” mark gasped, voice lower than you'd ever heard it. “fuck—don’t stop.”
you moaned too, completely overwhelmed now watching the two of them break for each other.
"who knew you were this needy?" haechan taunted.
"shut up" mark groaned, hips faltering.
haechan leaned forward again, brushing his lips against mark’s jaw.
“shut me up,” he said, soft and dangerous.
mark hesitated for a second and then their mouths crashed together.
it was brutal and desperate. they kissed over your back like they were fighting for dominance, like they were starving for it.
mark kept fucking into you as they kissed, pace getting rougher now, hips snapping with every gasp. haechan kept stroking you both, his fingers moving between your clit and mark’s cock, never giving either of you a break.
haechan broke the kiss first, panting, lips swollen. “she’s gonna come again,” he muttered, fingers rubbing harder. “fuck, she’s squeezing you so tight.”
“i’m close, too” mark groaned “i’m gonna—”
you came first, clenching around both haechan’s hand and mark’s cock. your whole body spasming as the orgasm slammed through you.
mark came soon after with a gasp, hips stuttering as he spilled inside you again. he only pulled out
haechan didn’t stop touching you. didn’t stop kissing mark. until he’d wrung every drop out of both of you.
it was quiet for a moment.
both boys still half-tangled with you, one on either side. haechan’s mouth trailed down your body, licking over bruises he’d left earlier, until he settled between your thighs again. he kissed your inner thigh, then the other, lips dragging against sensitive skin, breathing in the scent of your ruined cunt like it was perfume.
“she’s still fucking soaked,” he muttered. “how are you still this wet?”
“because she knows what’s coming,” mark said, taking your hand and guiding it to his mouth. he kissed your fingers. then your wrist. then up your arm, slow and careful.
then he sat up and lifted your upper body into his lap, turning you around and cradling you against his chest as haechan started licking long, slow strokes up your pussy again.
your legs trembled, your hands dug into mark’s thighs. you weren’t just being eaten out, you were being devoured.
“you’re gonna take us both this time,” mark grunted into your ear. “not one at a time. both.”
haechan looked up, eyes gleaming.
“ever been filled in both holes, baby?”
your breath hitched. you couldn’t speak but your body said yes.
mark shifted behind you again, this time lining himself up lower. haechan moved between your legs, stroking himself slow, teasing the head of his cock through your slick folds.
“you ready?” haechan asked, breath hot against your mouth.
you nodded.
and then they were both pushing in at the same time.
one in your pussy, one in your ass.
and fuck—you lost your mind.
your mouth dropped open in a scream you didn’t even hear. you were full in the truest, filthiest sense of the word.
they groaned in unison, both of them stilling once they were fully buried inside you.
“holy fuck,” mark gasped. “she’s so tight like this—”
but you did move. you rolled your hips, whimpering, desperate for more friction. and then they started thrusting.
together.
deep, slow, alternating, syncing like they were choreographing the destruction of your sanity.
your body jolted between them with every stroke. you were moaning, begging, babbling things you couldn’t understand. their hands were all over you—mark’s on your breasts, haechan’s on your throat, their mouths kissing every inch of you they could reach.
“this is what you wanted, isn’t it?” mark growled. “us… fucking you together.”
“she was made to take us like this.” haechan breathed, watching your eyes roll back.
you didn’t just come this time. you broke. sobbing and clenching down on both of them as your orgasm hit like a bus. they didn’t even stop, they fucked you through it, fucked you through the twitching and the tears and the oversensitive spasms until you were just a mess of yesyesyes and pleasepleaseplease.
they came together. mark first, biting your shoulder, thrusts deep and hard. then haechan, with a strangled moan, spilling inside you with one final snap of his hips.
you didn’t know how long you were out—could’ve been minutes, could’ve been hours. the world felt muted. like your body had been peeled open and left raw in the best way. your limbs wouldn’t move right. your skin was still tingling. your chest rising slowly like every breath was relearned.
mark was the first to move. he didn’t speak, just rolled you onto your side gently, cradling your body lgently. he reached for the sheets, wiped between your thighs with careful strokes, even as your legs twitched and your whole body flinched at the contact.
“you alive?” mark asked softly.
you hummed. barely.
“good,” haechan said. “because imagine explaining this to the paramedics.” he kissed your shoulder, tongue dragging over the sweat there.
you laughed—more like a broken giggle—and they both chuckled too.
mark leaned in, brushed your hair back from your face. “you okay?”
you nodded, and when you whispered “yeah,” he kissed your temple.
“you need water, or—?”
“i need to feel you again,” you said.
he blinked, then smiled fondly.
haechan slid a hand up your stomach, resting between your breasts. “she’s addicted,” he whispered, and you could feel the grin in his voice. “she’s not even cleaned up and she’s already asking for more.”
you turned your head slightly. “so stop teasing me and touch me.”
mark’s fingers were already trailing back down your side. “not to fuck you again,” he said, “not yet.”
he looked at you softly, but serious. “we’re gonna clean you up.”
haechan slipped out of bed and disappeared for a second, then came back with a warm cloth. mark took it, and the two of them cleaned your body. wiping gently between your legs, kissing the insides of your knees. haechans tongue licked along your hip just because he wanted to.
“look at this mess,” he murmured, dragging the cloth through the mixture of their cum and yours. “we fucked you so good. you’re still dripping.”
you whimpered.
mark kissed your thigh. “we’ll fill you up again,” he promised. “after you rest. after we take care of you.”
“and when you wake up,” haechan added, crawling up beside you, “you’re getting marked again, so no one even thinks about touching you.”
┈─★
the first thing you felt the next morning was heat. not the kind that fades when the blankets shift. no, this was body heat. the weight of someone’s thigh tangled with yours. the press of a chest at your back. the warm exhale of breath across your neck.
your eyes blinked open slowly.
and both of them were still in your bed.
mark was behind you, arm slung over your waist, breath warm against your shoulder. haechan was in the front, legs tangled with yours and one hand resting against the underside of your breast like he’d fallen asleep mid-grope.
mark stirred first, pressing a slow kiss to the back of your shoulder. “morning,” he mumbled, voice deep and sleep-rough.
you hummed. “you stayed.”
“of course,” he said like it was obvious.
haechan groaned, stretching. his hand slid higher and squeezed your tit without even opening his eyes. “if i’d left, i would’ve had to jerk off in the dorm thinking about this,” he muttered. “no thanks.”
you laughed softly, body curling between them. “are you always this charming in the morning?”
mark chuckled. “only when we wake up next to a gorgeous girl.”
“mm,” haechan hummed, finally opening his eyes. “speaking of…”
he pushed the blanket back and looked you over like he was unwrapping a gift.
“what?” you asked, even though you knew exactly what.
mark leaned up on one elbow, gaze sweeping from your face to the marks on your neck, down to the faint bruises on your hips. his hand brushed them lightly, almost in awe.
“we did a number on you,” he murmured.
“yeah,” you said, voice light. “you gonna apologize?”
they both smirked.
“no,” haechan said, already moving to kiss down your chest. “we’re gonna do it again.”
This fic exists because Robby said "kids these days" in S1 E6, and my brain immediately went, "What if someone at The Pitt spoke exclusively in Gen Z slang?" The answer, apparently, is absolute workplace chaos.
warnings: crack treated seriously, canon-typical medical emergencies, mass casualty event, hospital setting, emergency medicine procedures and injuries, lots of Gen Z slang and internet brainrot, Abbot just wants to be cool, workplace chaos, everyone gets bullied equally, reader is an absolute menace (affectionate), accidental emotional support through comedy, established cast dynamics, no use of reader pronouns, not beta read, I know nothing medical related, I might be wrong with everything medical related
This is a work of fanfiction based on The Pitt. I do not own The Pitt or any related characters or settings; all original material belongs to their respective creators.
The first thing anyone learned about you was that you were brilliant.
Annoyingly brilliant, depending on who was asked.
At twenty years old, you were the kind of medical student who made attendings pause mid-sentence because you had already reached the conclusion they were trying to guide you toward. You remembered obscure presentations, drug interactions, abnormal lab patterns, and the exact difference between “unlikely but possible” and “statistically improbable but still worth ruling out.” You could walk into a room, listen to a patient describe their symptoms for thirty seconds, and somehow ask the one question that made everyone else go still because, irritatingly, impossibly, it was the right one.
The second thing everyone learned about you was that you were a menace.
Not in a dangerous or in an incompetent way. Robby would have kicked you out of his emergency department within the hour if you were either of those things. No, your particular brand of menace came wrapped in big eyes, an innocent expression, and the kind of unhinged Gen Z vocabulary that made half the staff feel like they were being actively aged by exposure.
You had been at the Pitt for less than two months before Santos started calling you “the prodigy gremlin,” which was unfair only because she said it like you weren’t proud of it.
You were very proud of it.
Especially today.
Today, the emergency department was already groaning under the weight of a bad morning when the call came in. A bus had clipped the median on an icy stretch near an overpass and caused a multi-vehicle collision that sprawled across three lanes of traffic. Initial reports were messy, the way they always were in the first few minutes of a disaster. Multiple injuries. Entrapments. Possible ejections. At least one paediatric patient. EMS was still triaging on scene, but they were already warning hospitals in the area to prepare for overflow.
Robby stood at the center of the department as the air changed around him.
It happened quickly, that shift from ordinary chaos into organized crisis. Dana’s voice cut through the noise at the nurses’ station, assigning beds, clearing rooms, moving patients who could be moved and snapping at anyone who looked like they were waiting for permission to be useful. Robby started calling out roles before the first ambulance even arrived, eyes sharp, posture squared, his entire body seeming to settle into the shape of command. Collins moved with grim efficiency. Langdon grabbed a tablet. Mohan started checking available trauma bays. Mel’s expression closed into focus, all soft edges vanishing as she turned toward the work that needed doing. McKay was already tying her hair back, irritation and readiness blending into one sharp line across her face.
Then someone announced that night shift was being held over.
A collective groan rose from somewhere near the nurse station.
Jack appeared with a coffee in hand and the expression of a man who had spiritually clocked out six hours ago and was now being dragged back into the narrative against his will. Ellis followed him, already annoyed, jaw tight, eyes scanning the board like it had personally insulted her. Shen came in a moment later with his usual calm, looking like he had accepted the cruelty of the universe and planned to chart it appropriately.
Brendan, who everyone still called Park the Shark when he was out of earshot and sometimes when he wasn’t, appeared from ortho with a surgical cap still shoved half into his pocket.
“Tell me this isn’t as bad as it sounds,” he said.
Dana looked up from the board. “It’s worse.”
Brendan shut his mouth.
You, standing beside Whitaker with a fresh pair of gloves tucked into your pocket, watched all of them arrive like reinforcements in a war movie and felt something bright and terrible spark in your chest.
A captive audience. A stressed captive audience. A stressed captive audience containing several people over the age of forty.
Perfect.
Whitaker noticed your expression and immediately narrowed his eyes. “Why do you look like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you just had an idea.”
“I have many ideas.”
“That’s what scares me.”
You gave him your sweetest smile, the one that made Santos once say you looked like a raccoon about to commit tax fraud. “Relax, Dennis.”
“No.”
“Lowkey, you worry too much.”
Whitaker’s face tightened. “See, that. That’s what I mean. I don’t know what percentage of your sentences are threats.”
“Skill issue.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again, defeated before the day had even properly begun.
The first ambulance arrived three minutes later, and whatever mischief had been gathering behind your eyes vanished so cleanly that anyone who hadn’t known you would never have believed it had been there at all. The bay doors opened, cold air rushed in, and EMS rolled in a teenage girl strapped to a backboard, blood matting the hair near her temple, one leg splinted, oxygen mask fogging with shallow breaths. Robby stepped in at once, voice steady, asking for vitals, mechanism, interventions done en route. You moved when Dana pointed you toward Trauma Two, falling into place beside Mel and Collins as EMS rattled off the report.
“Seventeen-year-old female, restrained passenger, significant intrusion on passenger side, brief loss of consciousness on scene, GCS thirteen, BP ninety-two over sixty, heart rate one-thirty, obvious deformity to right femur, abdominal tenderness, FAST not done, two large-bore IVs established.”
“On my count,” Collins said, and everyone moved together.
One, two, three.
The patient shifted from stretcher to bed, monitors connected, clothes cut away, warm blankets pulled up as much as possible while still allowing access. You stood near the foot of the bed, hands moving before your brain had to command them, helping expose the injured leg, checking pulses, noting the rotation, the shortening, the swelling that already made the skin look too tight. Mel called out vitals. Collins ordered blood. Dana pushed someone toward the warmer. Robby stepped in briefly, eyes sweeping the room.
“What do you have?” he asked.
You answered before anyone else could. “Likely femur fracture with hypotension concerning for haemorrhage, plus abdominal tenderness after high-speed impact. Distal pulse present but weak. We need pelvic binder considered if instability worsens, type and cross, trauma labs, FAST, pain control, ortho consult, and imaging once stable.”
For half a second, Robby’s gaze landed on you.
Then he nodded. “Good. Keep going.”
You did not say anything.
You did not say anything because there was a bleeding teenage girl on the bed and you were, contrary to popular belief, capable of behaving like a normal human being when it mattered.
But when the FAST came back negative, when the blood pressure responded to fluids and the first unit of blood, when Brendan arrived and took one look at the leg before muttering that, yes, obviously ortho was involved now, and when the room settled into the controlled rhythm of a patient who was not okay but was no longer actively trying to die in front of you, you finally let yourself breathe.
Brendan finished assessing the leg, his hands careful despite the irritation permanently stamped onto his face. “We’ll need traction films and then she’s going upstairs. This isn’t staying down here.”
You nodded solemnly. “You ate that.”
The room went quiet in a way that no medical emergency had managed to achieve.
Brendan slowly looked up. “I what?”
“You ate.”
His eyes shifted to Collins, then to Mel, then back to you. “Is that…medical?”
“No.”
“Is it bad?”
“No.”
“Then why did you say it like that?”
“Because you did.”
Mel’s mouth twitched.
Collins turned away with a cough that was very obviously not a cough.
Brendan stared at you for another beat, decided he did not have the time, energy, or spiritual resilience to investigate further, and looked back at the patient’s leg. “I hate this place.”
You leaned slightly toward Mel and whispered, “Park the Shark is giving confused.”
Mel did not look at you. “Please don’t make me laugh in front of the femur fracture.”
“Valid.”
Across the room, Dana saw the entire exchange and made the mistake of smiling.
That made her next.
You waited until the patient was transported to imaging, until the bed was stripped and reset, until Dana swept through the bay with clean efficiency, barking at Whitaker to stop standing in the doorway like a decorative plant and actually restock gloves if he wanted to be helpful. She moved with the kind of terrifying competence that made the entire department bend around her. A family member appeared at the desk demanding information, a monitor started shrieking in Trauma Three, and someone dropped a tray of instruments with a crash that made three people flinch. Dana handled all of it without so much as blinking.
You watched her redirect two nurses, answer a question from Robby, locate a missing portable ultrasound, and scare an intern into moving faster using only one eyebrow.
When she passed you, you pressed a hand to your chest. “Queen behaviour.”
Dana stopped.
Very slowly, she turned her head.
“What?”
“Queen behaviour,” you repeated, reverent.
Dana looked at Robby. “Am I being insulted?”
Robby, who was signing something on a clipboard, did not look up. “Probably.”
“I’m complimenting you,” you said.
Dana’s eyes narrowed. “That makes me trust it less.”
“You slayed the house down.”
Whitaker, who had been restocking gloves exactly as ordered, made a strangled noise.
Dana’s stare sharpened. “I’m sorry, I what?”
You smiled. “Nothing.”
“No, say it again.”
“I value my life.”
“Smart kid.”
“Thank you, queen.”
Dana pointed at you as she backed out of the trauma bay. “Thin ice.”
The second she was gone, Whitaker collapsed against the cabinet, one hand over his mouth. “You’re going to get us killed.”
“Us?”
“I’m associated with you against my will.”
“Bestie, that’s so sad.”
“I am begging you to stop calling me things.”
You patted his arm.
He stared at the ceiling. “I’m not built for this.”
By the time the third and fourth ambulances arrived, the department had tipped fully into disaster mode. The noise became a living thing, pressing against the walls, filling every corner with alarms, voices, wheels, footsteps, orders, pain. Patients came in waves: a middle-aged man with chest trauma from the steering wheel; an older woman with a scalp laceration that bled dramatically but blessedly less dangerously than it looked; a child with a fractured wrist and eyes too wide for his face; a driver with glass embedded along one cheek and a blood pressure that made everyone in the room stand straighter.
You were assigned where you were needed, which meant everywhere.
One minute you were helping Santos keep pressure on a wound while Robby placed a chest tube, the next you were pulling up medication dosing for Javadi, then running labs, then helping Mateo move a patient, then answering a question from McKay before she had finished asking it.
You were good.
Infuriatingly good.
Even Parker Ellis, who looked as though compliments physically pained her, seemed forced to acknowledge it when you correctly flagged a possible compartment syndrome developing in a patient whose forearm had been crushed between two vehicles.
Parker swept in with Brendan, irritation sharpening into focus as she assessed the limb. The patient was pale, sweating, trying not to cry as his arm swelled against the splint. You gave the history cleanly, noting pain out of proportion, increasing paraesthesia, tense compartments, and preserved but concerning pulses. Brendan’s face changed immediately. Parker’s did too.
“Good catch,” Parker said, briskly, already reaching for the next step.
You blinked at her.
Parker made the mistake of noticing. “What?”
“I’m processing.”
“Process faster.”
“You complimented me.”
“I acknowledged a clinical observation.”
“Mother is mothering.”
Parker froze.
Brendan, beside her, closed his eyes like he had just developed a migraine behind both temples.
Parker turned to you, slowly. “Do not call me that.”
“Understood.”
“Do not explain it either.”
“Wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
“You lowkey ate, though.”
Parker inhaled through her nose.
Brendan muttered, “I don’t know what that means, but I feel attacked on your behalf.”
“You should,” Parker said.
You grinned.
Parker pointed a gloved finger at you. “No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“I don’t need proof. I have instincts.”
“Your instincts are giving paranoia.”
Parker stared at you for one long, dangerous second before turning back to the patient. “I want them off my service.”
“I’m not on your service.”
“Then I want them farther away from me spiritually.”
From the doorway, Ahmed the security guard leaned in just enough to observe the aftermath. He had been posted near the ambulance entrance since the first combative patient of the morning tried to swing at Mateo, but he had somehow managed to appear wherever the funniest thing was happening, which told you that security work had given him either incredible situational awareness or a deep appreciation for workplace chaos.
Possibly both.
He looked at Parker’s expression, then at your delighted one, then at Whitaker absolutely failing to pretend he had not been listening from the hall.
Ahmed’s eyes narrowed with interest.
Fifteen minutes later, during the first true lull anyone had seen since the mass casualty began, you found him near the security desk with a folded piece of paper and a pen.
Ahmed looked up at you calmly. “Morale initiative.”
Your eyes dropped to the paper.
There were names.
Robby. Dana. Ellis. Brendan. Jack. Shen. McKay.
Beside each name were dollar amounts.
You gasped.
“Is this a betting pool?”
“No,” Whitaker said.
“Yes,” Ahmed said at the same time.
Whitaker turned to him. “Dude.”
Ahmed shrugged. “She was going to find out.”
You stepped closer, delighted beyond measure. “A betting pool for what?”
Ahmed clicked his pen. “Who breaks first.”
You pressed both hands to your chest. “Because of me?”
“Mostly.”
“I’ve never been so honored.”
Whitaker looked deeply regretful. “This is going to make you worse.”
“Oh, absolutely.”
Ahmed studied you for a moment, then added something to the paper.
You tried to look. “What did you write?”
“Side bet.”
“On?”
“Whether you get all of them before end of shift.”
Your grin spread slowly.
Whitaker groaned. “Ahmed, why would you give them a goal?”
Ahmed capped his pen. “Because I believe in excellence.”
“You believe in chaos.”
“That too.”
Before you could respond, Dana’s voice cracked across the department with terrifying precision. “Y/N! Trauma Two!”
You spun on your heel. “Coming, queen!”
“Thin ice!”
“Love you too!”
Whitaker looked at Ahmed. “We’re doomed.”
Ahmed looked down at his paper. “No. We’re invested.”
By early afternoon, the hospital had settled into the long, gruelling rhythm that followed the first violent impact of disaster. The initial wave was over, but consequences kept arriving. Patients who had seemed stable on scene started to decline. Imaging revealed worse injuries than expected. Families arrived panicked and demanding answers no one fully had yet. The operating rooms filled. Ortho kept getting called. Surgery moved in and out of the department like storm clouds. Everyone looked a little more tired, a little sharper around the edges.
Abbot appeared beside you at the nurse station while you were charting, his coffee replaced by another coffee, because apparently his bloodstream had given up and simply become caffeine.
“You’re causing trouble,” he said.
You kept typing. “Allegedly.”
“I respect it.”
That made you pause. You looked up slowly. “You do?”
Abbot leaned against the counter with the casual confidence of a man who had decided, very incorrectly, that he understood the assignment. “I’m not like Robby. I know things.”
You stared at him. He nodded once, as if confirming this to himself. “I’m cool with the kids.”
From the other side of the station, McKay looked up from her charting with immediate interest.
“Oh?” you said.
Abbot smiled. “Yes.”
“Define ‘rizz.’”
His smile faltered for half a second before recovering. “Charisma.”
You blinked. Unfortunately, he was correct.
McKay’s eyebrows lifted.
Abbot looked smug. “See?”
“Okay,” you said slowly. “Define ‘ate.’”
“Performed well.”
Your mouth dropped open.
Abbot pointed at you. “I told you.”
McKay leaned back in her chair. “I don’t like this. He’s adapting.”
Abbot took a sip of coffee, visibly pleased with himself. “I contain multitudes.”
You narrowed your eyes. “Define ‘Ohio.’”
Abbot stopped. The silence stretched. McKay’s grin grew. Abbot set his coffee down with great care. “That’s a state.”
“Yes.”
“But not in this context.”
“Correct.”
His eyes narrowed. “Bad?”
“Sometimes.”
“Embarrassing?”
“Sometimes.”
“Cursed?”
“Getting warmer.”
He looked genuinely invested now, the mass casualty temporarily forgotten in the face of a linguistic puzzle he had absolutely no business trying to solve. “So if I said Robby was being Ohio—”
From behind you, Robby’s voice cut in. “Don’t.”
All three of you turned. Robby stood there with a chart in hand, exhaustion settling into the lines of his face, his glasses slightly crooked, his expression caught somewhere between suspicion and resignation.
Abbot straightened. “We’re discussing language.”
“You’re discussing nonsense.”
“It’s actually quite nuanced.”
You nodded solemnly. “Dr. Abbot is lowkey cooking.”
Abbot pointed at you. “That’s good.”
You beamed. “That is good.”
“I knew that.”
Robby looked between the two of you. “Why are you encouraging him?”
“Because he’s cool with the kids.”
Abbot looked deeply satisfied.
McKay muttered, “God help us.”
Robby stared at Abbot for a long moment, then at you. “Both of you back to work.”
“Yes, king,” you said automatically.
Robby closed his eyes. Abbot’s shoulders started shaking. McKay turned fully away from her computer, delighted.
Robby opened his eyes again. “Do not call me that.”
“Understood.”
“Do you understand?”
“Highkey.”
He stared at you.
You stared back, angelic.
Robby looked at Abbot. “Translate.”
Abbot, glowing with the confidence of two correct definitions and one catastrophic failure, said, “It means very.” Robby looked betrayed that this was a real answer.
You clapped once. “He ate!”
Abbot lifted both hands. “I’m telling you, I know things.”
Robby rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I have patients actively trying to die, and somehow this is still the thing giving me a headache.”
“Skill issue,” McKay said under her breath.
The three of you went silent. You turned to her slowly. McKay’s face changed as she realized what had just left her mouth.
“Oh no,” she said.
You pointed at her. “YOU’VE BEEN INFECTED.”
“I have not.”
“You said skill issue.”
“I said it medically.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is now.”
Abbot looked thrilled. “Welcome.”
McKay glared at you. “I hate all of you.”
Before anyone could respond, another overhead page called Robby back toward Trauma One, and the moment snapped back into motion. The department swallowed everyone again: Robby to a decompensating patient, McKay to a shoulder reduction, Abbot to a confused older man with chest pain, and you to wherever Dana pointed next.
But the damage had been done. The language had spread. And you had witnesses.
Ahmed caught your eye from across the department and silently lifted his betting sheet. You gave him a thumbs-up. He shook his head, but he was smiling.
By the time you reached Trauma One, Robby was already elbow-deep in the kind of controlled chaos that made everyone around him move faster. The patient was a man in his forties who had initially seemed stable after the crash and then suddenly wasn’t. His pressure was dropping. Breath sounds were diminished on one side. The room smelled like antiseptic, blood, sweat, and the metallic bite of adrenaline. Robby called for a chest tube with that rough, steady authority that made even panic organize itself around him.
You stood ready when Dana shoved supplies into your hands. Santos watched from the far side of the bed, eyes wide but focused. Mateo assisted with positioning. Robby worked quickly, cleaning the site, draping, anesthetizing, cutting through skin and tissue with practiced precision. He moved like someone who had done this too many times to be impressed by it, fingers sure as he dissected down and pushed through the pleura. Air rushed. Blood followed. The tube slid in, connected, secured. The patient’s oxygen saturation began to climb.
For a moment, the room exhaled.
Robby pulled off his bloody gloves and looked at the monitor. “That bought us time. Get surgery down here now.”
Dana was already moving. “On it.”
You watched the numbers stabilize, watched the team reset around the patient, watched Robby’s shoulders lower by a fraction.
And because you had been very good for almost twenty whole minutes, you smiled.
“Respectfully,” you said, “you devoured that chest tube, king.”
The silence was immediate.
Robby turned his head very slowly.
Santos looked at the floor. Mateo looked at the ceiling. Dana, halfway to the door, stopped dead.
Robby stared at you with the expression of a man who had just been forced to process a second emergency against his will. “I did what.”
“You devoured.”
His eyes narrowed. “The chest tube?”
“Metaphorically.”
Dana made a sound that might have been a cough if she had ever been less committed to lying.
Robby looked at her. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking something.”
“I think a lot of things.”
He looked back at you. “Is that supposed to be good?”
“So good.”
“No cap,” Mateo added, and immediately looked like he regretted every choice that had led him to this moment.
You whipped around. “MATEO.”
He pointed at you. “No. Don’t make it weird.”
“You’re learning.”
“I’m surviving.”
Dana finally lost the battle and laughed, one sharp burst before she walked out of the room shaking her head.
Robby stared at the doorway she had escaped through, then at Mateo, then at you. His face shifted through exhaustion, confusion, irritation, and something dangerously close to amusement before settling back into command by sheer force of will.
He shook his head once.
Quietly, almost to himself, he muttered, “Kids these days.”
Your entire body went still.
Santos’s eyes widened.
Mateo whispered, “Oh no.”
You pointed at Robby with both hands, triumphant. “HE SAID THE THING.”
Robby looked immediately regretful. “What thing?”
“THE THING.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“YOU SAID THE LINE.”
“I say a lot of lines.”
“Iconic behaviour.”
“Stop.”
“Never.”
From the hallway, Whitaker appeared at the doorway like he had sensed comedy through the walls. “Did he say it?”
You spun toward him. “HE SAID IT.”
Whitaker doubled over.
Robby’s eyes closed.
Somewhere behind you, Ahmed’s pen clicked.
And even though there were still patients waiting, charts unfinished, families crying, surgeons being paged, and half the hospital running on fumes, laughter rippled briefly through the trauma bay like a pressure valve releasing steam.
Robby opened his eyes, looked at the ridiculous collection of people around him, and sighed with the bone-deep exhaustion of a man who knew he had lost control of something far less medically significant and far more spiritually damaging than a mass casualty event.
“Back to work,” he said.
“Yes, king,” you replied.
Dana’s laughter echoed from the hall.
Robby pointed at you without turning around. “Thin ice.”
You smiled sweetly.
Behind the security desk, Ahmed added another mark to his betting sheet.
Cat!shifter reader x Simon (PLATONIC)
Part 1 | Part 2
Holy guacamole. I never thought I'd get this much traction. Thank you so much everyone, and I hope you enjoy. Apologies in advance for any typos/clunkiness.
This part mentions trafficking of shifters & animal cruelty. Proceed with care.
Present day
You're the most stubborn kid Simon's ever met.
He's tried every trick in the book short of outright kidnapping, to get you to come to him on your own. But you want nothing to do with him.
Can't you see he's trying to help get you off the streets? Into the care of someone who could ensure your safety? Shifters outside of sanctioned work don't have regulations put in to protect them. No oversight. No safety nets. It makes them easy targets for traffickers looking to carry out underground operations.
He's seen the worst of it; shifters tagged like livestock. Sedated and shock collared to keep in check. Some even bolted to the concrete floor or crammed in ill-fitting crates with the barest modicum of hygiene. Fed god knows what and forced to shift for the amusement of the buyers.
Johnny nearly killed one of the sellers they needed alive to interrogate — just about tore the man's throat before Simon stepped in.
The conditions were so abysmal that despite the overwhelming evidence, nothing changed. Nothing done to protect non-working shifters; they're less than human to the government, and treated as such.
Traffickers don't care if you're man, woman or child. A handful of shifters sold to the right buyer earns a small fortune.
And It's Simon's job to make sure you don't end up like that.
Which is why he's out here again, attempting to get you to trust him through association by food — the only method that works more often than not — at least when you're not in a mood.
He's late today, the sky streaked with oranges and purple, but he's not in a rush. You're not dumb enough to pass on free food now that you know he'll keep bringing it. Even when you're being a little shithead.
He adjusts his grip on the plastic baggy before coming to a stop in front of your current residence: an overturned cardboard box, marked with dirt and scratches, half-collapsed against a bush. Crude, but it makes do. You weren't very happy when he followed you back to your make-shift home a few days ago, threw a whole fit and everything.
You aren't inside when he crouches to take a look, but he knows you're nearby, evident with the meow that follows him cracking open a tin of wet cat food. Simon turns his head—
There.
A fixture in the hard shadow cast by the street-light, a pair of glowing eyes stare at him. He knows it's you. Any other cat would've already inched closer at the prospect of a free meal.
He sets the tin on the ground, "Hey kid, I've got dinner." Your feline form is already on the smaller end so he can't even tell how old you are, but he knows you need to eat. He'll get the specifics when he can get you to a specialist, but right now he's more worried about you eating enough to shift later.
After a couple moments with no response, Simon cuts his losses and stands, wiping his hands on his jeans, "Olright. That's tha' then. You better be 'ere tomorrow, you little menace"
He just hopes you don't piss in the food again.
────────────────────────────────────────────────
A week earlier:
Simon can't concentrate.
It's been less than 24 hours since you bit him and bolted. And you've been on the back of his mind since. A sense of dread dogs him; it feels wrong to have let you run, not when you're still at risk. What if someone else finds you first? While he's here, babysitting a bunch of recruits bumbling over themselves to impress him?
Scenario after scenario run through his head and he must've been glaring because Soap comes over to nudge him, "What's got you in a mood, L.T? Yer givin' the rookies a ghastly look. Did ya run out of your favorite tea today? Woke up on the wrong side of the bed, aye?"
"Negative." His reply is clipped.
"Ooh, tetchy today, ah see."
Take a deep breath. He isn't about to snap at Johnny for trying to lighten the mood when today's training is about building trust with your fellow soldiers. And Simon's here scowling at them.
He must've taken too long to respond, because the sergeant's smile tightens, "A word, Ghost?" and starts to herd him out of earshot of the rookies. Bloody mutt.
He sighs, "'m fine Mactavish."
"Aye, right! 'course you are L.T" The words are full of sarcasm, waiting for him to explain himself.
…
"How'd you reckon you earn a shifter's trust?" Simon finally asks, and before Soap can probe, he clarifies. "There's this kid…"
He explains the rest, how he met you and the apprehension at the situation. How is he supposed to gain your trust? Soap should know. He'd ask Price, but the old bear wouldn't be a lick useful, and bouncing ideas with Garrick would only have him back to square one; neither of them can tell what's going on in a shifter's mind.
"Ahm not sure but maybe…"
────────────────────────────────────────────────
(cue the montage)
After turning over Johnny's idea in his mind all night, Simon's equipped for a reunion the following day. And he's brought gifts.
It's more or less what he expected. You're avoidant, testy the moment you see him. It's clear you don't want him close, even when he comes bearing food and toys.
Just the other day he watched you throw a feather wand into oncoming traffic and stare at him.
Punk.
He knows you're hungry, but you refuse to eat with him nearby and you won't touch anything he hasn't opened right in front of you. The one time he opened the can before you arrived, you went ahead and pissed on it before bolting. The team won't let him live it down.
The neighbors started giving him pitiful looks after he faced rejection after rejection. A resident even told him that he'd have a better chance adopting any other cat than you. Apparently— you've got a bit of a reputation.
It was like trying to make peace with something that wants nothing to do with him, yet still waits for him every evening. He was late once and you threw a hissy fit, because surely how dare Simon be tardy when your feeding takes precedence over everything else?
He's trying to be patient. You're just scared. Testing him to make sure he won't pull any tricks on you or disappear, along with your meals.
Johnny said it would be slow progress. Simon just hopes you come around soon.
────────────────────────────────────────────────
Present day (a couple minutes later)
He's halfway back to the mart after dropping off your food when he hears it: A yowl, shrill in the distance.
It could be any other stray — there's no shortage of them in Manchester — but Simon's intuition is rarely wrong. He turns back, already jogging, and he doesn't have to get far: a black shape tears around the corner, little paws skitter on the pavement as you let out a series of distressed, frantic cries.
You see him. And bolt straight for him.
Simon's left dumbfounded as you pounce, scaling him like he's a bloody tree, and his hands reach up, uncertain. The question on his tongue dies when a woman rushes past with an empty dog leash, calling out a name.
No wonder.
He lets out a breath of relief.
"Did some mutt chase you? You olright?" He murmurs, resting his hand on your back to hold you up. You just mew pathetically into his jacket, claws biting into the fabric.
Simon exhales, and tucks you closer against his chest, "C'mon kid, let's get you sorted out."
2/3: Doflamingo x Reader
Length: 12k+
Rating: 18+(This one's not a joke)
Warnings: mature audience, 18+, Mdni, Strong Language and Sarcasm, Psychological manipulation, Dubious consent (emotional & telepathic), Stalking/obsessive behavior, Power imbalance, Violence & threat of violence, Telepathic intimacy, Mild coercion elements, Sexual content (18+)
For too long, you've been telepathically tethered to one of the most dangerous, flamboyant, and emotionally unstable men alive: Donquixote Doflamingo. What began as a childhood psychic bond rapidly devolved into a war of soup-based passive aggression, sarcasm, and sexy psychological warfare.
Interested in being in the taglist? HERE
Previous/Next
-X-The War-X-
A Sample of Your Childhood Psychic Transcript – Extended Cut cont.
Age 15:
You’d been unusually quiet that week.
Not because you were afraid.
But because you were furious.
It wasn’t one specific offense this time. Just… everything. The constant psychic lurking. The sound of his voice in your head at all hours. His smug little commentary during thunderstorms. The time he made you hear him getting laid twice in the same night with two different women, just to “remind you who had options.”
It happened on a particularly miserable afternoon. You were rain-soaked, sleep-deprived, and eating what could only be described as emotional broth. Again.
The fourth bowl this week.
It was lukewarm. You were lukewarm. Life was lukewarm.
And then, like mildew in your brain: Doflamingo.
You eat soup for the fourth day in a row, and I’m the unstable one? Sweetheart, if I have to hear you describe another broth like it’s erotic poetry, I will drown us both in consomme.”
And you, without hesitation, replied:
“If you’re going to hijack my brain, at least try not to sound like a hedge fund with abandonment issues and whores on speedial.”
That did it. You felt the bond sputter. Offended. Insulted. And, worse: flustered. Silence. For two whole seconds. You continued with the intensity of a caffeinated raccoon on the verge of violence.
“Your name sounds like a failed cologne brand. Donquixote Doflamingo? That’s not a name, it’s a Scrabble accident. And your coat? Oh my god, your coat looks like it crawled out of a Muppet and asked to die with dignity. You once monologued about world domination while drinking something pink and frothy out of a coconut.”
You had never felt more alive.
“You dress like a fashion crime scene. It’s like every piece of clothing you wear got into a bar fight with taste and lost. Every time I sense you’re happy, I get a sudden allergic reaction to silk and narcissism.”
You imagined he was somewhere, blinking at a wall, horrified. He didn’t reply for days.
Which only made you cockier.
You thought maybe, just maybe, you’d finally shut him up for good.
You were wrong.
So very, very wrong.
It happened at a port town. You were just walking along the dock. Normal day. Fresh bread. Overcast sky.
And then you mentally saw him.
Or rather, you mentally saw it.
In Doflamingo's head.
A flash of pink.
He was standing before a mirror..
It was the exact hue you liked. Your favorite color. A shade you only ever admitted to loving internally, quietly, selfishly. A soft, flushed, rose quartz warmth that made your stomach flutter when you saw it on ribbon, on cloth, on dusk-lit skies.
And he was drenched in it.
Pants, shirt, lapel flower, boots. A full outfit. It wasn’t garish. It wasn’t loud. It was tailored. Fitted. Subtle. Expensive.
He turned slowly and let his mirror do the insulting.
Smirking. Sunglasses glinting. A smug, calculating flame in silk and restraint.
“Something wrong, soup goblin?” he asked, voice smooth as a blade in velvet. “You feel upset. Must be the lighting. Or the fact that I’m wearing your favorite color.”
Your mouth opened. Nothing came out.
He mentally tilted his head. Listen to you unravel with polite interest. And then, the insult of all insults.
A coat. He shrugs on a pink feathered coat.
“This shade suits me,” he added. “I think I’ll make it permanent.”
That pastel bird-bitch figured out your favorite color and was now using it like emotional napalm.
You had previously mocked him. Many a time. You called him a Muppet. Said his fashion sense looked like a bird got drunk at a textile market and exploded.
You were mad.
You even said—offhand, buried in sarcasm—“Not that it matters, but if you really wanted to get under my skin, you’d wear something in rose quartz or sunset blush.”
You said it like a joke.
He heard it like a command.
And now?
He wears it. Constantly.
Not the same coat, not exactly. He has variations.
A dusky pink with gold-threaded lining for formal executions. A softer, almost pastel version for tea with underworld contacts. A rose-petal embroidered lining inside his cloak is just subtle enough to make your stomach turn every time the wind catches it.
You tried not to react.
You failed.
He saw it.
You looked at him across the mental bond. Another assassination done, blood still cooling under his boots, and he tilted his head with a smirk so slow and sharp it might as well have carved his initials into your spine.
“You like the coat?” he said aloud, too casually, “I had it made. Inspired by someone special.”
Age 16:
This was your foundation year. The broth years.
You trained your brain like a monk with a ladle, cycling through every soup imaginable: alphabetically, regionally, and emotionally. You endured stews. Conquered purees. Survived bone broth. You catalogued cream-based betrayals, whispered to dashi like it was scripture, and gave Pho the reverence of a war hymn.
Bisque was a breakdown in velvet form. Bone broth. Cream-based betrayals. Dashi..
Once, close after his brother's death, you had tried to be the bigger person. You thought, maybe this could be a turning point for him. He had been much quieter and thoughtful.
That was a tactical misstep.
“Sometimes I feel—”
Him: “—like a feral soup goblin hoarding trauma and lentils… You can admit it.”
You don’t. Instead, you begin narrating fake soap opera plotlines in your head like it’s your divine calling. Elaborate affairs. Secret twins. Tearful betrayals over stolen heirlooms.
You cast him in every villain role.
Donquixote Doflamingo, Duke of Deceit, tragically torn between his fiancée and his evil clone. Donquixote Doflamingo, heir to the Flamingo Fortune, weeping as his mother’s ghost reveals she faked her death to become a competitive ballroom dancer. Donquixote Doflamingo, betrayed by his long-lost identical triplet, also named Donquixote Doflamingo.
The man once threatened to drown an island for disrespecting his wine pairing.
Now he’s being mentally reimagined as the mustache-twirling father of three dramatic bastards and one sentient chandelier named Chandré, who speaks only in riddles and falls in love with the gardener every third Tuesday.
You:...and then the evil count said, ‘I only married your sister for the paprika inheritance.
Him, with the weariness of a man betrayed by his own neurons: You are so lucky I’m not bored enough to take that seriously.
You: I already designed your wig.
You cast him in increasingly absurd mental soap operas. Sometimes, as the estranged twin who faked his death to start a spice empire. Other times, as the morally ambiguous cardinal who seduces people with soup recipes and unresolved trauma.
And when you get bored with plots?
You just chant.
“Slurp.”
“Slurp.”
“Slurp.”
Until, inevitably—
“SLURP? SLURP?! I swear to GOD if you say slurp one more time I will LEVEL a village. Who even ARE you??”
“Hi, I’m Donquixote Doflamingo, my hobbies include string-based homicide and traumatizing orphans.”
He doesn’t respond. Which only emboldens you.
Because by now, your inner monologue has become a psychic casserole of passive aggression, fictional drama, and a truly alarming obsession with soup. You’re mentally making stock with dreams and disrespect, stirring emotional bouillon with a ladle carved from spite.
But then?
You make a mistake.
A bad one.
You try dating.
It starts innocently. A boy smiles at you in the market. He says something charming about leeks. You flirt back. Lightly. Barely. A flutter, really.
That’s when you learn a critical rule of the bond:
Strong emotions are a direct line to your personal insane asylum.
You barely feel the blush crawl up your neck before it’s hijacked.
His voice—sharp, silk-snarled, and deeply offended—cuts through the bond like broken glass wrapped in velvet.
“Who is he?”
You flinch. Literally flinch. In public.
The boy is still smiling.
You are not.
Because the devil incarnate has decided to open a commentary track in your frontal lobe.
“Does he know you eat instant ramen with chopsticks and a spoon? Does he know you alphabetize soup by mouthfeel? You’re flirting with that sort of attitude?”
You try to pull away, focus, and laugh it off. The boy asks if you’re okay.
You lie.
Meanwhile, Doflamingo is pacing in your psyche like a furious flamingo in couture.
“Who is this worm? Who is this mouth-breathing peasant? I’ll staple his face to the back of his own neck. Tell him you’re taken. Tell him you’re MINE to torment.”
You ran. Full sprint. Half because of Doflamingo’s snarling possessiveness, half because the poor guy had the misfortune of giving you a flower while the world’s most dramatic war criminal was loitering inside your frontal lobe.
Silence followed. Three blessed, golden minutes.
“Smart. You’d die in two weeks without me. Also, he looked like he smelled like mayonnaise.”
You could see it. Not literally, but close enough. The glint of his ridiculous rose-tinted sunglasses, worn indoors purely out of spite. He’d bought them, you were convinced, just to annoy you.
“I hope your sunglasses fog up every time you monologue.”
After that, you developed a series of new psychological conditions. Trust issues. Chronic stress. IBS. A mild soup addiction.
You tried everything: meditation, journaling, white noise playlists. You filled your head with innocuous trivia; What’s the capital of Wano? How many teeth does a sea king have? Do clouds have feelings?
He did not like that.
"Did you just compare me to a cumulonimbus?! I am a divine force of nature, you little brat, not moist sky fluff! Stop thinking about flamingos!"
That, ironically, only made you think of flamingos more.
You began to suspect he could sometimes sense your general aura, not your exact thoughts, but the emotional weather system you carried with you. He never said it outright, but every time you moved cities, his mood spiked. Sometimes it was laughter. Sometimes it was violence. Either way, it was a red flag. Not a romantic one. A get-a-panic-room-and-move-into-the-sewers kind of red flag.
You knew better than to egg him on.
But you tried. You really, really did.
You meditated until your spine locked up. You imagined puppies, clouds, and serene fruit baskets. You learned the entire taxonomy of soup for mental armor.
And then—one day—you slipped.
A single sarcastic thought. Dry. Thoughtless. Petty.
“Wow. That’s healthy, Mr. Flaming-No.
And he hears you.
You feel the shift before the words even come, like a psychic heatwave rolling across your brainstem. Static crackling with smug glee. A sudden, unbearable presence in the part of your mind you usually reserve for private suffering and bad decisions.
"I thought you had joined a convent."
You don’t reply, immediately knowing that to retain sanity, you must not answer the goblin man.
This does not deter him.
"Playing hard to get, huh? Fine. I love a challenge. A pause. Then, more horrifyingly, "Also, those pants you were thinking about? They do nothing for your calves. You have warrior thighs and sad ankles. Balance the silhouette."
You develop migraines. And rage. And a black belt in emotionally repressing everything. He is in your walls. He is in your thoughts. He is in your fashion critique.
And worst of all, he’s kind of right about the pants.
Age 17:
You’re seventeen now. Nearly a decade of resistance. Several years of soup-based psychological warfare. You are battle-hardened. Cunning. Emotionally fortified.
It’s a windy afternoon. You’re tired, mildly dehydrated, and emotionally detached from your alleged soulmate, who has been suspiciously quiet lately (read: plotting, brooding, probably doing unspeakable things with string and charisma).
You're just walking back from the market. Minding your own business, trying to decide if cabbage has a soul or just very boring anxiety, when your eyes drift. A new poster, slapped unevenly onto a corkboard, the corners still curling from damp. The ink hasn’t even dried all the way, smudged slightly where the print was rushed.
It’s background noise. Paper clutter. At best, a passing glance.
Until you see the name.
Donquixote Doflamingo
Bold. Black. Centered like a dare.
You think there’s no way two people are cursed enough for that name.
Underworld freakshow. Flamingo warlord. Thread-Thread Fruit user. Your long-suffering psychic parasite.
Yep, definitely him.
His bounty is astronomical. The numbers alone are enough to make your eyebrows try to retreat into your hairline. But that’s not even the worst part.
He seems tall. Dangerous. The kind of man that feels like a trick, like the kind of mirage that looks better the worse your judgment gets. If you squint too long, something behind your eyes might snap.
And your stomach sinks.
And of course, like a cryptid with the world’s worst timing and a god complex, he noticed.
“Didn’t know what I looked like until now? Tch.”
That voice. The one that had haunted your quiet moments for nearly a decade. The one who once threatened to puppet your kindergarten teacher because you dared to think her socks looked cowardly. The one that had berated your soup choices, hijacked your dreams, and turned emotional stability into a luxury you could no longer afford.
And now it belonged to that.
Tall. Tanned. Ripped within an inch of obscenity. Muscles like he’d been sculpted by someone deeply unwell. Blonde hair tousled like the aftermath of something sinful, and a smirk that didn’t just flirt with danger. It promised it, wrapped in silk and razor wire. A man who looked like a statue lost a bet, fell into organized crime, and liked it there.
He looked like every bad decision you hadn’t made yet.
No mistake. No hallucination. No soup-induced delusion. That ridiculous bastard in pink is real. He’s real, and—worse—he’s hot.
The glasses. The grin. The coat that screams midlife crisis, king of crime. The smile like tax evasion got a face. Golden-blond hair in wild tufts, tousled like he rolled out of someone else’s bed and never looked back. Tanned skin like sun-drenched sin. Broad shoulders, ripped muscles wrapped in silken arrogance. A torso built like it bench-pressed war crimes and did it shirtless.
And that smirk. That deadly, self-satisfied smirk. Like, he knows things. Like he wins them.
He looked like violence, money, and seduction had formed a committee: an exclusive, corrupt, and devastatingly attractive committee. The kind that held secret meetings in cigar smoke and blood-red velvet, made decisions with knives, and always got what it wanted.
You blink.
You look away.
You mentally repeat the phrase ‘he’s probably 80% cartilage and trauma and is hiding a bald spot’ just to recover your dignity. It doesn’t help. Your face burns. Your stomach coils with shame. You scoff at yourself, an internal slap of reality.
Unfortunately, another thought slips through before you can stop it.
His collarbones could start a religion.
The bond goes silent. Not quiet—silent. Like the air before a storm, thick with pressure and the weight of something inbound. You feel it: that split-second pulse behind your eyes. Like thunder curling in your skull. A sharp, electric pause.
And then, like a god waking up from a thousand-year nap, stretching out with far too much interest:
“…Oh?”
You sit down. Right there. On the damn floor. The market bustles around you, but your brain has exited the building. He feels your panic like a shark senses blood in the water, and oh, he revels in it.
You bolt. Not physically. No, your body is frozen in public humiliation. But mentally? Emotionally? You retreat behind every available defense.
Soup. Obscure barnacle trivia. An emergency wall of potato-based imagery. You imagine peeling tubers under enemy fire. Chanting “yam” like a mantra.
But it’s too late. You slipped. He heard everything.
And worst of all, he is thrilled.
“Collarbones, huh?”
The word echoes with amusement, low and sharp like the strike of a match.
“You finally looked at me. Five years of miso and mockery, and one peek at my chest takes you down?”
You consider dying on the spot. But knowing your luck, he’d narrate the whole thing like it was erotica.
You try to lie. To salvage some form of dignity.
“It was a neutral observation. Biological analysis. Very scientific.”
His voice purrs through the bond, velvet and victorious.
“Sweetheart, you mentally described the way my shirt dipped below my clavicle with metaphor. You thought it looked lickable.”
Shame hits you like a blunt object. You nearly walk straight into a civilian holding a cabbage.
Somewhere in the ether of your mind, he laughs. Loud. Gleeful. Unapologetically delighted.
“And here I thought I was the obsessed one.”
You scoff. Loudly. Like he’s blowing hot air straight into your synapses.
Because, sure. You’re soulmates. Allegedly. Sure, he’s been squatting in your psyche like a haunted Den Den with a god complex for years. But you’re… you.
A broke nobody with six fake identities, a fugitive ex, and a dependency on pantry soups. He’s the de facto mafia king of the New World. A Warlord of midlife crisis fashion and felony flirtation.
You try to recover. You raise walls. You conjure a protective mental beetle named Gerald, whose entire job is to eat inappropriate thoughts on sight.
He eats Gerald.
You panic. You stammer mentally into your fallback plan: complete gibberish.
“Soup. Rainbows. Shoe sizes. Frog taxonomies—”
But it’s too late.
“I’ve got your frequency now, cariño. I heard thirst. Real, honest-to-god horniness. You finally blinked.”
And you did.
You blinked.
You cracked.
You thought about his stupid neck, and now this deranged flamingo with a god complex has leverage for eternity.
“You little soup-slinging, mind-muting, emotionally constipated goblin—you like me.”
You internally shriek, “NO I DON’T—”
“Yes, you do. You had a whole thought about my neck. And my shirt. You zoomed in.”
You curl up on the ground, metaphorically. Maybe literally. You consider setting your brain on fire. Deleting yourself from your own consciousness. Ejecting your soul like bad software.
“Ten years of lentils and psychological warfare. Ten years of pretending I was some cosmic fungus infecting your thoughts. But guess what—You. Like. Me.”
There’s pressure behind your eyes. Not pain. Something worse, his attention. Focused. Hungry. Triumphant.
You squeeze your eyes shut and summon the blandest image you can: beige wallpaper. The kind you’d find in a forgotten waiting room or a discount dentist's office.
He barrels through it like a tank through a bakery.
“You like the sunglasses. Say it.”
You grunt. Out loud. A merchant passing by flinches and steers his cart sharply away.
“Don’t go quiet on me now, soup girl. You gave me material. I’m never letting it go. This is my birthday now.”
You let out a pitiful whimper. He eats it up like dessert.
“You gonna cry about it? Gonna doodle ‘Mrs. Doflamingo’ in the margins of your little soup journal? I bet you’re mad I found out I’m more than just talk. You picked the worst day to realize I’m hot. You’ve given me leverage for life. You’re stuck in my brain, and now—now I live rent-free in yours.”
You scramble for mental footing. You need a defense. Any defense. Something—anything—before he starts monologuing about his abs.
“It was an accident. A brief psychotic episode. The sunlight hit your collarbones at a deceptive angle.”
He gasps. Mocking. Gleeful.
“Your horny little brain betrayed you again. God, I love your unstable little puberty arc. That’s all it took. I’m gonna get this etched into my sunglasses,” he continues, absolutely basking. “Maybe my coat. Right across the fluff. ‘My soulmate thinks I’m hot.’ Should I get it embroidered in soup alphabet letters? For the brand.”
You bite down on the inside of your cheek like it might detonate a failsafe.
It does not. He’s still smiling inside your skull.
You attempt emotional flatlining. Dead eyes. No thoughts. Just the faint buzzing sound of shame vibrating in your teeth.
“I hate you,” you mutter under your breath, unsure if it’s psychic or spoken.
“Mmm. No, you don’t. You simmer. Like broth. Slow and steady. You’ve been cooking in this tension for years, mi amor. Admit it.”
You inhale. Deep. Holy. The kind of breath one takes before committing a crime or hurling oneself off a cliff. Preferably both.
“You are—without question—the worst creature I have ever known.”
“And yet,” he purrs, smug leaking through every word, “you like what you see.”
The kind of warmth that makes your shoulders loosen. That rare, golden hush where no one’s calling your name, no one’s watching. Maybe—just maybe—you let your guard down.
You were letting off steam. A long week. A longer year. You’ve been running, surviving, soup-warring your way through life with a telepathic menace in your head.
But tonight? He’s quiet. Finally, no insults. No commentary. No phantom sunglasses fogging up your thoughts.
So you let go.
Just a little.
A flicker of indulgence. One breath softer than the rest. Just a moment, you tell yourself. A harmless thing.
You’re having a little me time.
Which would be fine. Private. Normal. Human.
Except you forgot one minor, universe-breaking detail. The soulmate bond has a trigger—one liable to activate under very specific, very inconvenient circumstances. Namely: when the universe discovers you are, in fact, attracted to warlord pirates with blond hair and bad manners.
Not hypothetically. Not in a dream journal sort of way. No. Physically. Emotionally. Stupidly.
Far from you, in a bar that stank of sweat, smoke, and the slow rot of ambition, Donquixote Doflamingo lounged across a velvet-backed booth with all the restless menace of a lion in a too-small cage. His coat spilled over the side like a bloodied flag, pink feathers catching the dim glow of the overhead lights.
One long leg stretched out beneath the table, the other bent. His posture said boredom. His eyes—half-lidded behind those ever-present sunglasses—said boredom.
Baby 5 was sulking across from him, arms crossed and pouting hard enough to bend metal. Vergo was mid-monologue, recounting logistics, rebellion rumors, and someone’s suspicious cargo manifest with the droning cadence of a man who believed punctuation was optional.
Doflamingo barely heard him.
He was twirling a toothpick between his fingers, letting it rest between sharp teeth, half-listening until something changed.
A pulse. A flicker. A sharp spike of emotion not his own, but intimately familiar. The bond flared, sudden and hot, as if someone had cracked the seal on a bottle of champagne and all that pressure found a weak spot.
His body jerked.
Just slightly, just enough to make the toothpick snap. He blinked once, slow and reptilian. The glass in his other hand tilted dangerously.
Baby 5 sat up straighter. “What?”
It hit him again like a sniper’s bullet: clean, precise, and devastating.
A white-hot pulse slammed through his skull, down his spine, a psychic lash so intense it stole the air from his lungs. His chair scraped against the floor as he jolted upright, all arrogance gone.
His drink toppled, forgotten. The low murmur of the bar dimmed beneath the ringing in his ears. His sunglasses slid down the bridge of his nose, almost exposing his eyes, wide, startled, disbelieving.
“What the—”
Then he saw you.
Not clearly. Not fully.
Just a flicker.
But that flicker was enough.
You.
Glowing with heat.
Breathless.
You, bathing in the soft radiance of lamplight. Skin flushed, chest rising and falling with breathless urgency. The curve of your throat, the tilt of your hips, the part of your lips as you whispered something meant for no one.
Your expression was raw, unguarded. The kind of thing no one was ever meant to see, let alone feel echoing down a telepathic soul tether.
It was not a memory. It was now.
It was real. And it hit him so hard that the room tilted.
The bond flared, hungry and sharp, like a wire pulled taut between two hearts. His breath hitched. His pulse stuttered.
For a moment—just one—everything stopped.
He forgot the bar, the mission, the kingdom poised for collapse. He forgot Vergo. He forgot Baby 5’s question. He forgot the world.
Because you, the voice that haunted his every quiet moment, had just shattered the final wall. And the sound it made echoed straight through his ribs.
His mind, usually a thundering storm of dominance and calculation, went blank.
Didn’t even have a thought.
Just you—arching in soft light, whispering sin like it was a prayer, and him—wrecked.
For the first time in his life, Donquixote Doflamingo forgot how to speak.
His mouth was open. His breath caught. One hand still hovering mid-air, fingers curled like he meant to grab the table. Or maybe the fabric of reality itself, and shake it.
Trebol leaned in, nose wrinkling. “Uh, boss? You good?”
Then, with the reverence of a man watching prophecy unfold, he rasped:
“She’s legal... she’s definitely legal now. Oh my god.”
Everyone at the table froze.
Baby 5 made a strangled sound. Vergo’s monologue died in his throat.
Doflamingo just stared into the distance like he’d been shot by Cupid and then hit by a train.
Thirty full seconds passed.
Then, laughter.
Low, slow, unhinged laughter. It started deep in his chest and rolled out like thunder, thick with disbelief and delighted menace.
“Oh, cariño,” he said, voice rough with something unholy, “you’re going to regret this.”
Wherever you were, wherever you had just collapsed back against your pillow in sweet, tired afterglow.
Then you felt it.
A flicker. A shift in the air.
Like the temperature dropped a degree, and the static charge of something watching curled at the edge of your consciousness.
Doflamingo was smiling.
Not passive. Not teasing. Real. Awake. Focused. And turned on.
“Well, well, well,” came the purr through the tether of your bond. “Look who’s finally an adult. And doing such adult activities.”
You scream.
Mentally. Physically. Existentially.
It’s a full-body, soul-level meltdown.
“GET OUT—”
“Too late. Saw everything.”
You die. Emotionally. On the spot. Your soul files a lawsuit. Your dignity packs a suitcase.
“Cute little sounds you make. Didn’t think you had it in you. I knew you’d fold one day, but I didn’t expect to get front-row seats.”
You scramble to recover, to bury the memory under seventeen mental potatoes and a Gregorian chant. You imagine beige wallpaper. Tax codes. That one time you stubbed your toe and cried out of spite.
It does nothing. He smirks louder. Emotionally. Telepathically. Spiritually.
“You looked so pretty when you thought I wasn’t watching.” A pause. Sinful. “Spoiler alert: I always am.”
You try to deny it, valiantly.
“That was—private. It was biological. It didn’t mean anything.”
“Sweetheart,” He croons, “it was spiritual phone sex. And you butt-dialed me.”
You vow—vow—never to touch yourself again. You briefly consider shaving your head and joining a monastery. You wonder if monks are allowed to cry this much.
Then he whispers it. Soft. Wicked. Smug enough to black out the sun.
“Don’t worry. Next time, I’ll help.”
You throw your shoe at the wall. It bounces. It hits you.
He feels it.
He laughs for forty straight minutes. Possibly more. You wouldn’t know. You’re already digging your own grave with a plastic spoon.
The bond is buzzing now. You’ve been seen. And Doflamingo? He’s delighted.
You're no longer just hiding from an emotional terrorist. You're hiding from a man who has seen you naked. And he will never let you live it down.
You genuinely consider moving to the Moon. Quiet place. No warlords. No soulbond static humming behind your eyes like a mosquito with a superiority complex.
Instead, you get a therapist.
A fancy one. Specialist in soul bonds, telepathic bleed, and emotional containment techniques. Her office smells like sandalwood and quiet judgment. She has a PhD in psychic hygiene and wears linen robes like a woman who’s never been personally terrorized by a flamingo in sunglasses.
It depletes most of your college fund. You eat instant noodles for six months and barter your roommate’s scented candles to afford the last session. But by the gods, it works.
You learn the ancient and noble art of greywalling. You don’t know how. It’s instinctive like a prey animal flattening in tall grass. You start thinking… wrong.
Not a wall exactly. More like a fog. A numb, soothing, beige silence that makes your inner landscape so boring it repels narcissists like holy water. No thoughts. No feelings. Just the psychic equivalent of elevator music and poorly lit office carpet.
It works.
Doflamingo pings your mind, irritated. Sniffs around the edges. Sends increasingly unhinged mental messages.
“If you don’t stop thinking about taxes and glue, I swear I will fly to wherever you are and start narrating my workouts in detail. I am not losing a psychic staring contest to a gremlin. If you say 'zen garden' one more time, I’ll turn your stupid little frog plush into a hand puppet.”
But you hold. You breathe. You greywall.
This is the year you leave home and all semblance of mental stability.
You packed your bag and ran to become something else entirely: A tactical genius of emotional evasion.
Stone-faced. Steel-minded. Soupproof.
“You know who’d be cute with a little hat? A potato.”
And on the other end of the soulbond, Doflamingo snaps.
“HELLO? What the hell is this? WHAT. WHAT IS THIS? WHY IS THERE A HAT ON THE POTATO? TAKE THE HAT OFF—Why is my head full of... clam chowder? Is this a hostage situation? Did someone scramble you?”
You escalate.
You start doing fake reality show narrations in your head.
“Day six in the hideout. The color-blind Flamingo is pacing again. That’s the third chair this week. He is emotionally constipated and angry at soup.”
“I will find you and stuff a cannonball in your ear canal.”
He’s used to people screaming, begging, obeying, or dying. He is not used to being ignored.
By now, you’ve figured it out. You’re not the strong one. You’re not the clever manipulator. You’re not a warlord with sunglasses worth more than your entire village.
But you are excellent at one thing.
Going silent. Not just quiet— just annoying as hell. Emotionally, mentally, spiritually. You learn to layer your thoughts in static, white noise, nursery rhymes. You picture soup. Endless, brothy soup.
“Did you just think about turnip stew for six hours straight?”
Yes. Yes, you did. And you’ll do it again.
You become a master at decoys. You once spent three days mentally reciting the Goa Kingdom’s Tax Code.
“I swear to god, if you say Clause 7-B one more time—”
You start singing internally. Not good songs. Not ballads. You sing “It’s a Small World” on loop. You create psychic musicals about mundane tasks. You give him earworms so potent he starts questioning reality.
“I heard that stupid rat song in my sleep. ARE YOU SINGING ABOUT STUFFED ANIMALS?! HOW IS THIS MY BOND?!”
You imagine yourself as a sentient raccoon with a briefcase.
“WHAT IS IN THE BRIEFCASE?”
You don’t answer. You never do. That’s what makes it art.
He starts trying to reason with you.
“Just show me where you are. We’ll talk. I’ll be polite. No torture unless necessary. I can make you rich. Powerful. Better soup.”
You respond by imagining what a grilled cheese would sound like if it could sing.
He nearly chokes during a high-stakes underworld meeting.
At this point, he nearly snapped. He has restructured crime empires. He has murdered royalty. He is feared across the sea. But he cannot find the little rat in his head who keeps making musical numbers about turnips wearing wedding veils. You won’t even give him your goddamn name.
He doesn’t get it. No one harasses him. No one forgets he exists. But you?
You cut him off. And now he’s fuming. And he’s not an idiot. He’s unstable, but not stupid.
“You’re being annoying on purpose, aren’t you?”
You don’t answer. You’re pretending to be a turnip today.
“You little goblin. You are doing this on purpose.”
You mentally picture a rutabaga in a scarf.
“Oh. Oh, I see how it is.”
He paces his study. Flings a chair at the wall.
“You think you’re clever. You think I won’t burn ten towns to flush you out, but I will.”
And you?
You imagine slow-cooked lentils with fresh rosemary.
“I SWEAR TO GOD.”
You start picking up tricks from watching the news; World Government censorship, Cipher Pol propaganda, even weather pattern irregularities around key islands. You realize if you shuffle your daily routine and keep your emotions scrubbed clean like laundry, you can dip below his radar.
He can’t read what you won’t allow. And if you act boring enough, he won’t even try.
You move to a new town. Take on a fake name. You’re working part-time cleaning ships. You’ve trained your thoughts to run like a filler arc no one asked for.
He doesn’t even want to harass you anymore.
He wants to understand. He wants to meet the freak who weaponized the word “pink pony yogurt club” against him. He wants to see your face just once and scream into your mouth for five uninterrupted minutes. He no longer calls you a divine punishment.
He calls you “my affliction.”
You replied curtly, ‘Ew’.
You’ve never met. You are just a girl. You have never been kissed. You are the emotional equivalent of a haunted IKEA display.
But he knows your mind like a battlefield, and he is losing.
“You win. You broke something in me. I want to meet you and strangle you and feed you better soup.”
On a suspiciously bird-themed ship, Doflamingo Is Having a breakdown in sunglasses.
It isn’t love. It isn’t longing. It’s rage, confusion, and a slow-dawning fascination with the one thing in the world he can’t find.
“Where the hell did you go. I know you’re not dead. You’re too stubborn. Like cockroach-in-a-microwave stubborn.”
And you are.
You’re in some no-name town with a fake-ass identity, a head full of soup and math equations, pretending to be normal. You’ve erased every trace of your real self like a witness in a mob trial.
Meanwhile, he’s spiraling.
Combusting over a blurry flash of shoulder, like it was a religious experience. Living, laughing, and losing his damn mind over a maybe-nipple like it’s the final boss of his personal sanity dungeon. His usual women aren’t cutting it anymore. Too flattering, too available, not enough psychic mystery or soup-based emotional damage.
And somehow… he can’t get a lock on you.
“Alright then. Let’s see how long you can keep it up. Come on, little soup gremlin. Play hide and seek with the devil.”
You feel it then. The subtle shift.
Before, you were a nuisance. Now? You’re a project. And Doflamingo loves unfinished projects.
You hear him muttering to himself now, sometimes through the bond. Like a shark circling a boat it can’t quite bite. You sit quietly. Eating dry crackers. Pretending to be a sentient loaf of bread. You picture him pacing in his ship’s throne room like a disgruntled flamingo.
You are not a warrior. You are not a revolutionary. You are not a threat. But somehow, you have become the single most fascinating thing in the life of one of the most dangerous men in the world.
And that’s a terrifying achievement.
Age 19:
You saw the news by accident.
It was plastered on the front of a damp bounty flyer, stapled to the wall of a dingy tavern somewhere halfway up a crumbling cliff road. You’d stopped to steal a sandwich and maybe a bar stool.
Then your eyes landed on it:
“DONQUIXOTE DOFLAMINGO — NEW WARLORD APPOINTMENT ANNOUNCED.”
Underneath, a grainy image of him smirking. Arms wide. Coat flared. Pink as sin.
You stood there, sandwich in hand, absolutely unblinking. Inside your skull, the bond buzzed like a wasp nest dipped in champagne.
“Warlord? They made him a warlord? Who looked at that walking Gucci tantrum and said, ‘Yeah, give him state-funded murder rights???”
You knew he knew you saw it. And you knew what was coming next. Sure enough, ten seconds later,
“Sweetheart.”
Your blood turned to soup.
“You’re wearing the pink panties, right?”
Dropped the sandwich. Burned the flyer. Left the town so fast you nearly took the bar stool with you.
You didn’t stop to think.
Because there was no thinking anymore.
Doflamingo—your soul’s biggest mistake—was now a Warlord of the Seven Seas, the Joker of the underworld, and was whispering sweet chaos into your brain like a bedtime story from hell.
He’s in his thirties, and he’s getting worse.
No character development. No healing arc. Just unfiltered rage and an ever-expanding pastel wardrobe like trauma is tax-deductible.
He doesn’t talk into the bond all the time. But when he does, it’s usually after a bloodbath. Or a tantrum. Or a business deal involving a body count.
You’ve gotten good at dodging emotional landmines.
But sometimes he gets weirdly domestic. And those moments are somehow worse.
"You’d like this silk, I think. Soft. Expensive. Bloody, but I wiped it off. What do you eat besides soup?” He snickers, but his voice softens, “I bet you eat like a peasant. Tch. I’ll fix that."
You move again. That’s the third time this year. Send more potato-in-hat images.
You stayed on the move.
Changed your name. Your clothes. Your voice.
You learned how to lie through a Den Den Mushi with a smile.
You stuffed your thoughts with trivia and garbage again; cabbage facts, sock folding techniques, sandwich rankings by altitude.
Even worse, that’s the year you get into a fist fight—and by “fist fight,” you mean a life-or-death brawl with fate, blood, and the violent repercussions of your own hubris.
It happens in a dingy alleyway on the edge of a port town, under lanterns that flicker like they’re in on the joke. You’re not supposed to be there. You’re running a quick errand. You have a bag of yams in one hand and false confidence in the other. Then someone jumps you.
Not metaphorically.
You don’t remember what they wanted. Your coin purse, your life, your identity; it doesn’t matter.
What matters is that you fought back.
And lost.
Spectacularly. Like a heroic cabbage in a blender. You have a bruised rib, a dislocated shoulder, and the sneaking suspicion that you bit someone mid-panic. But the worst part isn’t the pain. The worst part is what happens when you lose consciousness.
Because it turns out, when your soulmate is a warlord of the sea with Haki (You’d discover what Haki was much, much later) strong enough to black out a small country, and when you happen to be unconscious?
The bond fully opens.
And you are dreaming.
Or, you were.
You expect nothingness. Instead, you wake in a place that feels familiar and wrong.
Because suddenly you’re standing in a blood-red room that smells like cigars, velvet, and ambition. The floor is polished marble. The air is too still. And sitting in a throne that looks stolen from a villain-themed opera is him.
Donquixote Doflamingo.
Blond. Tanned. Shirt undone like it’s a war crime. Legs spread like arrogance made flesh.
He’s waiting.
Seated on a throne of strings and broken glass. Pink feathers bleeding into the wind.
His expression is the first thing you see.
Not his voice.
Not his laugh.
Not even that unbearable psychic hum that usually announced his presence like a bad omen with designer shoes.
Just his face.
Startlingly close.
Too close.
So sharp and vivid it felt like a vision carved into the backs of your eyelids, like lightning caught behind them. It flashed into being with no warning, no buildup. One moment you getting your ass kicked, and the next, his face was there, burned into your mind’s eye with impossible clarity.
He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses.
His eyes were wide open; exposed, unfiltered. The color of dried blood and burnished mahogany, glowing with something old and volatile beneath. Strange and warm and unnerving, like autumn leaves falling into a fire.
They were beautiful.
Offensively so.
The kind of eyes that made people forget to breathe, or think, or say anything remotely intelligent.
And he wasn’t smiling.
That, more than anything, made your pulse lurch.
Because Donquixote Doflamingo smiled at everything: mockery, threats, murder, his own reflection, that grin was his weapon and his shield. A constant, polished sneer that meant he was in control.
But his sunglasses are gone. His expression is bare. His jaw is clenched like it’s trying to hold in the whole damn ocean. And for the first time since the death of Rosinante, he looks… shaken.
“You reckless idiot. You absolute menace. You stupid, stubborn brat—”
His voice cracks like a whip, but not with anger.
It shakes.
“If you think you get to drop dead and leave me with nothing but flashbacks of you insulting my coat, I will resurrect your corpse just to yell at you.”
You’re still half-dreaming. Still bleeding. Your mind floats somewhere between agony and consciousness, but his presence is so loud, so sharp, it slices through the fog.
“Huh?”
He leans closer, fists trembling where they grip your dream-reality like it might vanish again. And his voice, so often smug, cruel, and unbearable, is soft.
Raw.
He stares at you like a man trying to memorize a constellation moments before the sky swallows it. His gaze is fixed, hungry; not with desire, but desperation. The kind that comes from nearly losing something he swore he didn’t need.
“You nearly severed the tether.”
His voice is low, rough. Not angry. Frayed.
“You think I wouldn’t feel that? You think I’d just let you slip away without consequence? Without a word? Without—”
He cuts himself off, breath hitching. Then slowly, deliberately, he rises to his full height. He’s huge, ginormous, terrifying.
The world around him responds, the dreamscape shuddering like glass under strain. Shadows ripple along the edges of the surreal, like the dream itself knows better than to test him.
And for once, he doesn’t swagger. Doesn’t smirk.
There’s no humor left in him.
“You can’t die here,” he says, each word a verdict. “Not now. Not before I get to make it worse for you in person.”
You groan, dragging yourself upright with the exhausted defiance of someone who’s been through hell and still refuses to leave it politely.
“You’re more dramatic than a pigeon in a courtroom,” you mutter, blinking the haze from your dream-vision.
He snorts once. No grin. Just grit.
“I’m more invested than a fucking pidgeon. I was born into power. I lost everything. I clawed it back with blood and strings. But you—”
He steps forward. Closer.
Then he kneels. A fluid motion, calculated but unguarded. He reaches out, his fingers curling under your chin; not cruel, not tender, just firm, like he needs to anchor himself to something real. To something that won’t vanish if he lets go.
“I was eight years old when I watched my father get crucified by the people he thought he could live among,” he says, his voice quieter now. “Watched my brother pity me. Then hate me for killing that selfish old man. Then Corozón betrayed me. I have been hated, loved, despised, and venerated—”
His thumb brushes the edge of your jaw.
“And still, none of it prepared me for you.”
He leans closer just enough that you can feel the heat of his breath against your cheek.
When he speaks again, his voice is low. Raw. Almost reverent.
“You don’t get to leave me. Not unless I say so.”
The words aren’t sharp. They’re jagged. Torn from somewhere beneath his ribs.
You stare at him, heart hammering. Not in fear, but in understanding. Because for once, this isn’t bravado or games. This isn’t performance.
This is real.
He means it. Every cracked, ugly syllable.
Doflamingo leans in, forehead pressed to yours. His breath is shallow. The dreamspace pulses, heavy with heat and gravity, like the air before a storm.
And then, you feel it. The tether. Glowing between you. Not frayed. Not dim.
Alive.
“...You are the only thing in this whole rotten world that can never leave me.” He murmurs. “Even when you curse me. Even when you run. Even when you talk back like a little brat.”
His voice drops lower, rougher.
“You will not die.”
It’s not a plea. It’s a command. Solid. Blazing. Horrible. Intimate.
“Live, you idiot,” he breathes. “Live so I can keep loathing you properly.”
And then you wake with a gasp.
Blood on your tongue. A gash across your shoulder. Screams in the distance. The world shuddered back into motion.
Age 20:
It’s the year he takes over Dressrosa. Crowned de facto king after what the papers cheerfully call a “peaceful transition of power.” You snort into your tea and accidentally choke.
Peaceful, your ass.
The article is accompanied by a photo of him on the palace balcony, looking like a war criminal in designer shades, surrounded by confetti and terrified nobles. There’s a quote, too, of course. Something bland and regal. You don’t read it. You don’t need to.
Because you already know what he said to you.
You’ve been getting little psychic postcards all week. And by postcards, you mean whispered threats with the cadence of a marriage proposal.
“Did you know I rewrote the laws of Dressrosa? Guess whose name is outlawed now? It starts with yours.” He’s such a smug braggart. “The throne’s missing something. I think it’s you.”
You set the paper down.
He’s a king now.
You grab your emergency mental foghorn.
Time to pretend you’ve never heard of wine, or thrones, or—God forbid—him.
He’s quieter now, which is worse. Before, he was noise incarnate: arrogant laughter and swaggering monologues, honeyed venom laced with entitlement. The man once used magical thread powers to dramatically soliloquize from the top of a castle. Subtlety was not in his vocabulary.
But lately?
He doesn’t scream anymore. He studies you.
The tether hums faintly, the bond never broken, just waiting. He tracks your moods like a cartographer of storms; silent, focused, and unnervingly accurate. He tracks your emotional rhythms like clockwork.
“Sad today. Tried cooking yesterday and got hurt. Maybe a burn.”
He speaks to no one in particular when it happens. Sometimes aloud. Sometimes just into the smoke. He reconstructs your voice with surgical precision. Imagines the expressions you’d make. Catalogs the things you hate about him, and commits them to memory like a prayer.
The bond has become something of an altar that he’s decided is holy. And you are extremely concerned about what a man like Donquixote Doflamingo qualifies as holy.
"I’ll find you eventually, cariño. You’re the only good thing the world gave me. You’re mine. You know that, right?"
And the worst part?
You feel it.
That subtle tug in your chest. That phantom ache whenever he’s angry. Or restless. Or, God help you, lonely. It drags through your ribcage like ghost wire, cold and aching.
“Speak to me. Scream at me. Hate me. I’ll take anything. Just don’t go silent.”
He sends thoughts now like love letters. Each one is worse than the last.
“Today, I stabbed a man for snoring. Thinking of you.”
They arrive unannounced, like bad weather. No lead-up. No apology. Just violent declarations scrawled across your sanity.
“Put something nice on. I’m fantasizing.”
You eat plain soup with the fury of someone at war. You meditate like it’s a hostage negotiation. You sob quietly into Pancake, your frog plushie, the noble, bug-eyed witness to your ongoing psychological siege.
He hums. Softly. Like this isn’t deeply unhinged.
Pancake stares with you. Both of you silently scream.
You won’t give in. You are almost certain of that. But he is utterly convinced that one day you will tell him your name and location.
Because in his mind, you are his one and only buddy, his unfortunate soulmate with amazing thighs and a frankly heroic capacity for ignoring him. A rare combination of mental fortitude, dry wit, and bottomless resistance.
You will not break.
You are not okay.
But you are very, very stubborn.
And that? He loves it. Horrifically. Loudly. Forever. Whether you like it or not.
Age 21:
The bathroom mirror had seen better days. So had you.
You scrubbed at your face with a rag that smelled faintly of mildew and mint, the water in the basin lukewarm and flecked with soap scum. Another bad day. Another town. Another name that wasn’t yours.
You were tired. Tired of hiding, tired of fake papers and muddy boots, tired of planning your meals like military operations. Most of all, you’re just tired of him.
It had been quiet lately. No jeering laughter in your skull. No flippant commentary on your soup obsession or your thoughts about frogs in hats or emotional potatoes. No psychic eyerolls during thunderstorms. Just... silence. The kind that made your skin itch.
So, naturally, your guard was haywire. You weren’t thinking. That was the problem.
You were just muttering to yourself under your breath as you scrubbed your teeth, watching your own reflection with the dull detachment of someone who hadn’t slept properly in three nights.
You’ve been mentally torturing him for years with soup, barnacle trivia, and passive-aggressive Gregorian chants. You once forced-fed him an hour-long internal monologue about sock fabrics while he was bleeding out in a back alley.
You assume—correctly, logically, reasonably—that Donquixote Doflamingo does not care.
About you.
Not in the way that would suggest softness or sentiment or any of the dangerous, thorned things that curl beneath skin and root themselves in a soul. No, he couldn’t possibly. Because you, regrettably, have heard him.
All of him.
It had started years ago, quiet at first, like a radio signal caught on a wind current. A glimpse. A murmur. Then, louder. Uninvited. Unfiltered.
You learned quickly that soulbond telepathy had no dignity. That whatever cruel cosmic force tethered you to him had zero concept of personal space. Because sometimes, far too often, his mind was a midnight broadcast of sins, and you were the poor soul caught holding the receiver.
He had liaisons. Frequent. Loud. Ridiculously vivid. And you? You had trauma.
There were nights you sat rigid in bed, pillow over your face, trying not to hear the way he rasped breathless curses against someone else's neck. Days when your tea cooled untouched, as laughter and heat flooded your senses without consent. You once hurled a ceramic vase at the wall with such force that it cracked the plaster. He’d been particularly loud that morning. Your earlobes burned for hours.
So yes.
Of course, you assume he’s not all that committed to you.
You are the unwanted intrusion, the irritating frequency in his head that he forgot to mute. Background static. A parasite in his private thoughts. The gremlin soulmate who haunts his subconscious like a tax he never agreed to pay.
You’re just a loose thread in a coat he can’t burn. He’s only mentally present to torment you. To twist the tether. To punish you with psychic echoes of things that were never meant for you. That’s what you tell yourself. Over and over.
The moment you think that thought, clear as day, halfway through brushing teeth, a little smug even:
“Thank god he doesn’t actually like me.”
Oh, sweetheart. If your future self could reach across time, she would gently touch your shoulder, look into your wide, blinking eyes, and whisper:
“You poor, sweet dumbass.”
Because you really believed it, didn’t you? That you were just a blip. A glitch in the psychic system. That Donquixote Doflamingo, flamboyant, feral, deeply unstable, disturbingly hot, was soul-bonded to you solely for the cosmic comedy of psychological torture. That he hated you. Loathed you. That his theatrics, his possessive taunts, his fixation were just funny little threats on the wind.
And sure. Fair. Who wouldn’t think that?
Turns out, you were wrong.
Because the second that thought escapes your brain and the traitorous spark of relief formalizes, it happens.
You feel it. That awful, molasses-thick psychic presence slithering in like tar. Familiar. Claustrophobic. Saturated with heat and silk and something unhinged. He’s there.
Not in body. In mind. Sudden. Vivid. Uninvited. Like someone kicked the door to your soul off its hinges and waltzed inside, horrified.
A stunned silence stretches across the bond.
Then, his voice. Low. Icy. Coiled with disbelief.
“…Excuse me?”
You froze mid-brush, hand hovering near your mouth, foam dangling precariously from your lips. You blinked at your reflection like it had betrayed you.
Then came the second blow:
“What the fuck did you just say?”
Not playful. Not smug. Not even his usual theater-kid villain tone. No. He sounded offended. Personally. Existentially.
“You think—after all this—you think I don’t want to have sex with you?”
Your stomach dropped. The toothbrush slid from your fingers and bounced off the sink like it was abandoning ship.
“You think I’ve been putting up with you—you—for eighteen goddamn years, because I don’t want to fuck you?”
Your mouth opened. Nothing came out.
He wasn’t finished.
“You soup-brained, nightmare-spitting, telepathic sewer imp—I’ve been edged for YEARS. You think I like being haunted by the one person on the planet who moans over lentils and emotionally blue-balls me with Gregorian chant every time I so much as breathe horny?”
“You’re insane,” you whispered, horrified.
“You’re gonna find out just how insane.”
You scrambled, desperate for deflection, decency, distance. You conjured oatmeal, the blandest thought you could find. You tried to imagine beige walls. Beige carpet. Beige feelings.
He bulldozed through it like a freight train made of silk and sin.
“Oh, baby. I wanted you to hear.”
You sputtered something unwell. Something about revenge. About him being a melodramatic megalomaniac. About loud, pornographic payback that starred women who weren’t you.
Your mind flinched to the image he’d wanted you to see:
Him sprawled across a massive bed, silk sheets rumpled and half-ruined. A woman tangled around him, moaning, gasping, her nails dragging down his chest— And he wasn’t even looking at her.
He groaned for you.
He was achingly loud now..
Loud in that specific, dangerous way that meant he was pacing. Shirtless. Furious. Possibly throwing furniture. Possibly hard.
“You don’t think I’ve noticed?” he hissed, sharp and unbearable in your skull. “How your thoughts stall when I’m mid-thrust? How you go weirdly quiet when I face-fuck someone else? Like you’re trying not to care?”
You fought it. Clawed your way toward denial. You summoned soup. Rats in hats. Potato Fashion Week. You mentally described an entire monologue about barnacle society hierarchy.
He burned through it like God’s wrath in Gucci sunglasses.
“Every time you tried to tune me out, I got harder,” he growled. “You’ve been teasing me through sheer neglect, you evil little hellspawn.”
You clapped your hands over your ears, as if that would help. It didn’t.
“You thought you were winning. You thought I was suffering.”
A pause. A dangerous, inhale-through-the-nose, hands-on-hips kind of pause.
“You were right. But now, we are going to fuck. Hard.”
You tried to flee. You slammed mental doors. You summoned the cabbage soliloquy. The potato sock puppet. The ancient barnacle god of taxes. You tried to think of Law doing taxes in his hat.
He crushed it. All of it. Left nothing but the echo of silk sheets and chaos.
You curled up like a dying spider. “We are not—”
His voice slithered back in, slow and thick and molten:
“Yes, we are. On principle. Out of spite. For science. And because I’m going to make you say my real name while you cry about it, you mouthy little headache.”
You fell off the bed.
Audibly.
Painfully.
He laughed. Deep. Loud. Triumphant. A king reclaiming a throne made of your shame.
“You don’t get to deny me for half a decade and walk away,” he purred. “Congratulations, cariño. You’re the most effective form of torture I’ve ever known. Now tell me where you are and I’ll ruin your life properly.”
You stared at the wall like it had betrayed you. Like it knew.
The tile didn’t answer. It offered no help.
Doflamingo pressed harder. Slower. With the precision of a sadist and the flair of a poet.
You snap.
“You’re just trying to scare me.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But I’m not lying.”
There was a pause. You could feel the smirk stretch across his words.
And then, Oh. Oh no.
You felt it.
A vision slammed into your mind like a lightning strike: His body pinning yours to a bed that smelled of sea salt and ruin. Your mouth swollen, your throat bitten raw, his coat long discarded and forgotten. His voice—low, ruined, reverent—rasping against your ear:
“Still think I don’t want you now?”
You gasped. Out loud.
You slammed into the sink. Everything fell. Everything betrayed you. You clutched the counter like it might save you.
But he wasn’t done. Not even close.
“You’re mine, cariño. You just haven’t admitted it yet.”
The words slithered through your thoughts like silk dipped in sin; warm, invasive, and slow.
Heat flared at the base of your spine, sharp as a struck match, then climbed, curling upward in a slow, unbearable arc. You felt it before you could brace for it: phantom fingers beneath your chin. Telepathic, but too detailed. Too real. Too practiced.
He was in your head, and he was enjoying it.
“Let me clarify, cariño. I want to destroy you. Gently. Then humiliate you. Slowly. Then maybe tie a pretty little bow around your throat and make you say ‘mine.’”
You tasted static. Your thoughts short-circuited.
“POTATO SOUP. POTATO SOUP. POTATO SOUP—” You screamed it mentally, like a desperate exorcism.
He laughed.
Low. Rich. Cruel.
He purred.
The bond vibrated, pulsing like a live wire too close to water. You slammed every mental door you could think of, but now, it didn’t quite close right. Something lingered. A thread, frayed and glowing. Still connected. Still feeling.
“You fucking String Cheese Menace! I’m being mentally violated by your interpretive telepathy porn.”
He laughed again. Louder. Prouder. Like you’d just handed him your diary and dared him to read it at a gala.
“String Cheese Menace? That’s new.” His voice oozed amusement. “You’re more obsessed with my name than I am, cariño. Keep going. I like it when you think about me.”
God, you were going to need stronger soup. Soup infused with holy water. Soup boiled under a blood moon and stirred with the bones of your dignity.
Because now, every time your mind even drifts near him, you hear it:
“Make sure you stretch— I’m big.”
And you do. Oh, you do. Too well. Too clearly. Too viscerally.
You will never emotionally recover from the sheer unholy clarity of that lesson.
And worse, no one else will ever understand.
Not a single soul on this cursed, spinning rock has woken up to the sultry, baritone voice of a wanted war criminal calling them “darling” before listing six assassination techniques like bedtime affirmations. They don’t dream of velvet-draped throne rooms, where their trauma lounges like a king in mirrored sunglasses, sipping wine and smirking like the devil’s prom date.
And all you can do, all you ever seem to do, is sigh. The long-suffering kind. The kind of sigh someone makes when told their spine could straighten if they just imagined choking a monarch.
Somewhere—far away but never far enough—you feel him lean back. Not smug. Not triumphant. Just satisfied. Coiled like a serpent. Smiling. Plotting.
“Goodnight, cariño,” he says, soft as sin. “Dream of me.”
Age 22:
It was supposed to be a quiet stop. Just a sleepy little port, the kind that existed in soft sepia, where sea salt clung to the windows and everything smelled faintly of fish and too-sweet tobacco. A place full of rusted signs, loose cats, and old men who argued over card games they'd long since forgotten how to win.
You ducked into the crooked little newspaper shack half out of habit. The man behind the counter didn’t look up. You flipped through the headlines with the disinterest of someone who’s seen too much already; another Sea King attack, another explosion in the Grand Line, another scandal involving a Yonko’s lover and a talking bird.
And then you saw it. One name. Bold print.
“Rising In the North Blue: TRAFALGAR LAW of the Heart Pirates!”
You stared at the paper.
Your hand stilled.
No. No, that couldn’t be.
You remembered him. Not in color, not in clarity, but in blips of memory. Through Doflamingo’s thoughts, years ago. Blurry. Raw. Half-digested with fury. He had a fatal disease or something.
“The brat. My brother’s final, pathetic pet project.”
You’d seen fragments of Law. A coat wrapped too large around too-small shoulders. A boy shivering in the dark, his breath visible in the cold. The way he hid behind Corazón like the sun was too bright, and the world too cruel.
You close the paper gently, fingers trembling just a little. And you whisper to the wind, like the secret might vanish if you say it too loud:
“Interesting.”
Later that night, curled up in the narrow bed of your too-small rented room where the walls are thin and the blankets smell like soap and sea, you try not to think.
But the bond stirs anyway. It’s not loud. Not demanding. It creeps in softly. Like a slow, stalking tide. Like blood blooming beneath bandages.
You don’t say anything. You don’t have to.
He hears your thoughts anyway. He always does.
“You heard, then.” His voice slides in; velvet and acid, sweet and scalding in the same breath. “The little roach crawled out of the grave after all.”
You flinch. Not at the words. The way he says them with that half-smile. That gnawing, sick amusement laced with something older. Sharper.
You’d been thinking about Law more than you meant to. Not constantly. Not in the big, bold thoughts Doflamingo could pounce on.
But in the spaces between. The pauses between breaths. The quiet just before sleep. Little thoughts. Half-formed. Careful.
A boy in the snow. A brother’s shaking hands. A ghost that chose to live.
You didn’t mean to send that thought through the tether. You really didn’t. It had just slipped out, quiet and instinctive, like an exhale after too many years holding your breath.
“Is he okay? He made it farther than anyone thought. I should find him.”
It wasn’t a declaration. It wasn’t even fully formed. Just a passing flicker of concern in the fog of your own mind, a warm memory brushed with frost. But the bond caught it anyway. Like static on a line, it jumped the circuit and lit up something you had tried for years to keep buried.
The response was immediate.
The world around you—brimming with late market noise, fish vendors shouting, tarps flapping in the ocean wind—seemed to pull back, muffled like cotton stuffed in your ears.
And then, with a slow, dangerous precision:
“What?”
The voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. It slithered into your mind like smoke curling under a locked door; sweet, poisonous, and possessive. You froze, mid-step. One hand hovered over a basket of oranges.
You didn’t say anything aloud. But he felt your stillness. And that was enough.
“Say it again.” He demanded.
You clenched your jaw. Willed yourself to breathe. The market moved on without you, unaware, uncaring. Somewhere nearby, a child laughed. A bell rang. A gull screamed over the dock. The sea went on breathing.
“You’re thinking of finding him.”
It wasn’t a question.
It was a blade against your ribs, too casual to be anything but deliberate.
You resumed walking, slow and even, like you hadn’t just had your mind cracked open like a chest. The tether burned faintly behind your eyes: hot, expectant.
“You think he’d want to see you?” His voice curled around the thought like smoke around a blade; low, bitter, brimming with something too sharp to be jealousy. “My brother’s betrayal? The boy who ran from everything?” A pause, thin and cruel. “He wouldn’t know you from a toadstool.”
You kept walking. But the words sank their claws in.
Those were memories Doflamingo never meant to share. Too soft to hold onto, too vivid to forget. And they’d stayed with you, lodged in the back of your mind like splinters that never stopped aching.
His voice slid back in, cruel and smug.
“Is that what you’re doing now? Looking for my strays? Trying to replace me with a broken little pirate in a hat?”
Ah.
That made you stop right in the middle of the street. People moved around you like water, like you weren’t even there. You exhaled slowly. Then, with deliberate cheer:
“Bet he’d let me join his crew. Trauma solidarity. Anti-Doflamingo Alliance. He seems serious. Has a hat.”
The tether snapped taut.
And on the other end, Doflamingo seethed.
For a moment, you almost believed he was gone, until the pressure returned, sharp and glittering like glass ground into your spine.
“Don’t joke.”
He didn’t say it with humor. Not the usual oily lilt. This was raw. Unfiltered.
You felt it in your teeth.
So you doubled down.
“Why not? He looks like he has a dental plan. Bet he’d give me a crew jacket. Maybe even a title. ‘Executive of Not Taking Your Shit.’”
“You think this is funny?”
The fury came first—searing and immediate—but underneath it, curled like smoke in a cold hearth, was something quieter. Older. It wasn’t anger. Not really. It was fear. That sharp, desperate edge only someone like him could mask beneath silk and swagger.
You felt it. Not just through the bond, but in your ribs, in the subtle ache of your sternum. A pressure. A presence.
You tilted your head inward, tone clipped with practiced nonchalance.
“Everything’s funny when you’re not the one screaming in my head about ‘mandatory silk dresses’ and outlawing my name. Law already feels like a better conversationalist.”
The bond stuttered. Not frayed, not fragile, but destabilized. Like a tightrope in high wind. For a split second, the air around you changed; thick with salt, with ozone, with the kind of tension that cracks before a lightning strike.
“Are you out of your soup-stained, morally confused, freeloader mind?” His voice whipped through your skull, raw and incredulous. “You’re thinking of joining him over me?”
And there it was. The truth of his upset.
He was jealous.
Instead, you looked up at the overcast sky, let the wind brush your cheek, and replied flatly, “It’s just a thought.”
He snarled.
“It’s betrayal.”
You shrugged, walking through the crowded street like your chest wasn’t being hijacked by an overgrown warlord having an emotional meltdown.
“It’s a job application.”
“You think that little cretin could protect you?” Doflamingo’s voice dropped lower, venomous now. “He’s playing pirate. I am a Warlord.”
You exhaled through your nose.
“Yeah, but he doesn’t whisper in my brain when I’m trying to sleep. He doesn’t threaten potential boyfriends with crucifixion. He doesn’t refer to himself in the third person like a shirtless megalomaniac. Also, he has a doctor’s license.”
Doflamingo went disturbingly quiet, like a parent realizing their credentials weren’t quite as shining as they hoped. You’d learned long ago that his silence meant he was either plotting murder or branding. Planning. Wounded, maybe. Plotting revenge, definitely.
When he spoke again, it was quiet. Too quiet.
“He wouldn’t even like you.”
You smiled at a passing bird, the gesture almost sweet.
“We’re both tired, emotionally repressed, and have the same war criminal ex. We’d get along great.”
The bond hissed.
Then—like steam escaping a long-forgotten vent—came his voice, half-laughing, half-breathless.
“You little gremlin. You manipulative, soul-linked, absolute goblin. You want to use my trauma bond to run away and hide. You’re trying to network through my villain arc.”
You grinned.
“Glad you’re catching up, Doffy.”
You said it with a smirk, like a wink through the static. You could practically feel him pacing somewhere. Probably high on that gaudy throne of his in Dressrosa, rage-fluffing his ridiculous feathered coat like an over-caffeinated bird, trying to figure out if he could legally declare war on your intentions.
“I’ll kill him.”
“You say that a lot.”
“This time I mean it.”
“Okay, bet.”
Silence.
Sharp-edged, sulking silence.
Which, frankly, counted as a win.
You kicked your boots up onto the windowsill of your rented inn room, letting the afternoon sun warm your ankles while you mentally drafted your pirate résumé. Just in case. Because if Law would let you aboard? You’d be packed by nightfall. You had stolen pineapple bread, sourced from a dubious window seal.
Of course, you’d make it poetic.
“Dear Captain Trafalgar, handsome Law—please find enclosed my trauma credentials—”
The bond twitched.
And from wherever he was—in a tower, in a throne room, in the pit of his own frustration—Doflamingo swore.
Low. Measured. Dangerous.
“…You're not funny.”
“I’m hilarious,” you said airily, licking pineapple glaze off your thumb, “and your coat agrees. I bet Law agrees as well.”
Another pause. And then, something quieter.
Doflamingo exhaled.
Low. Long. Final.
Like the sound a monster makes when it decides it’s done playing dead. Like a beast surfacing. Like something ancient remembering its hunger.
You froze.
The bond didn’t shiver—it shifted, like something had turned to face you from the dark.
“Okay.”
That was all. Just that. With enough conviction to be concerning.
The bread went slack in your fingers. Your stomach dropped like a cannonball.
“Okay, what?” you asked, slow and suspicious.
“It’s time,” he repeated, voice syrup-slick and filled with rot.
“Pardon?” You stopped chewing.
“Run. Hide. Cross the Grand Line backwards for all I care. I am going to hunt you down.”
Mid-bite, mid-thought, mid-life crisis. The pineapple bread turned to sawdust in your mouth.
“Nope.” You said aloud, with the conviction of someone denying reality on principle. “Absolutely not. We don’t belong in the same sea, much less the same island. I have boundaries. And brain rights. And possibly a strong future in privateering—”
“You did this to yourself, brat. You’ve refused to meet, refused to even give me your name. You just threatened to share pillow talk with another man. Prepare yourself for the consequences of your actions.”
A beat.
“You’re near the Red Line, aren’t you?”
You grabbed the pineapple bread, your coat, and your dignity (what little remained), and ran. But it was too late. You felt it deep down, threaded through your spine, your heartbeat, the air around you, like barbed wire laced through every bone in your body.
Yan!Batfam X Danny Phantom! Reincarnated! Male! Reader [Part 1]
Heyyyy so, I'm writing this and it's purely self indulgence. Anyway TLDR: Reader is someone who read the original comics, a few fanfics with crossovers that included Danny Phantom (can you blame me? Those writers are genuinely so good at writing the fics, I'm hooked) and somehow became Danny in one of those crossover fics, but they dgaf and are so done with it all. Reader IS male in this btw
Yo this has been sitting in my drafts for like, more than an entire month at this point so I am DESPREATE to get it outta here.
Next Part
Genuine disclaimers for the following: Death, gore, cursing [I do curse a lot, and I also write how I talk so.] , talks of being experimented on, bad parents doing crazy things, possible grammar and spelling mistakes (Sorry chat, I fear I may genuinely be dyslexic despite not having a proper diagnosis)
Born once? Yeah that's normal, everyone does it. Not twice, but rather thrice? Okay now you're just showing off. We get it, you can defy death and all that fancy jazz. The issue is that [Name] would have much preferred they had stayed dead and six feet under, not half-dead-half-alive and somehow still a magnet for trouble.
If we're throwing all cards on the table then [Name] would admit that while all the cool powers they got from being dead were a total score, somehow ending up in Gotham of all places was not. And you could ask "Well [Name], why didn't you just pick another city to hide away from your crazy parents, that fuck ass rich guy, and the government ops? Surely there were more interesting cities to pick?" And normally, when [Name] wasn't fearing for their 3rd life and everything else, they would agree. Why DID they end up in Gotham?
Because it's the last place that all three of them would check. [Name]'s parents are banned from the city because of that one visit a long time ago where they tried to kidnap THE Batman to check if he was a ghost, which they were surprisingly successful with it but got thwarted by the Joker. Vlad on the other hand wasn't banned from the city per say, just shunned for being a massive weirdo. The Guys In White? Yeaaah after getting beat up by some of the Rouge Gallery they decided it wasn't part of their jurisdiction and did the smart thing, for once, and got the hell outta there.
And why were they fearing for their 3rd life? Because the damn GIW decided that they wanted to get rid of Amities friendly ghostly hero once and for all, and do some freaky-deaky lab experiments on [Name], or should we say Phantom. [Name] had already died twice, once in their first life and then twice when they became half ghost, and didn't want another painful death to mark them. So [Name] did the only thing that made sense, at the time, and came clean to their parents and begged them not to hand them over.
Yeah. You can blame that on their lack of sleep for the past week and all the stress that was eating at them. The more [Name] thinks about it the more they wished they just kept their mouth shut about it all. Of course their freaky parents jumped through so much mental gymnastics and came to the conclusion that [Name] was being possessed by Phantom to try and trick them.
Yikes.
Anyway, [Name] was now hiding out in some shady part of Gotham and was about point two seconds away from praying to the ancients so they could avoid being roped into some classic crossover fanfic shit. They've read a few crossovers, which were really well written by the way, but they always had Danny (Who Reader has taken the place of) going through it.
Secretly Damian Wayne's twin brother? Good but in all honesty [Name] doesn't think they look similar to that guy, so they can safely cross that off on the list. Being dissected by the GIW? Well thankfully not, however they are missing a few fingers since they got blasted off in a fight with them sooo...not out of the woods yet it seems. Having the entire Batfam obsess over them? Despite the strong paranoia [Name] was going through they don't think they've managed to catch the Bats and Birds attention, so that's another one to cross off.
Being homeless? Ah fuck. Well...maybe not? [Name] did find this sick ass abandoned house on the account of radiation and all that so it's totally cool if [Name] lives there. Right, quick note, [Name] is slightly radioactive therefore is now immune to radiation, thanks green slime. You may have ruined their life yes, but hot damn are some of the perks great. So yes, [Name] is very much not out on the streets of Gotham during the night. In fact, [Name] doesn't even leave their house at all.
You'll never be able to pull them into fanfic tropes if they don't leave! Right?....right? Ah fuck. With a loud crash [Name]'s wall is torn down and turned into ruble. The bloody rag in their hand, that they were using to clean up the blood from their missing fingers, is promptly dropped to the floor as they turn transparent.
They look around, hoping they weren't spotted, and find that not only has their front yard been torn to shreds with big ass plants but half the birds were fighting Poison Ivy. Yay. Can you hear the sarcasm? It's like they can't catch a break.
Whatever. It's fine. Totally cool, [Name] will just gather their stuff and head to a different house on this radiated neighborhood. Free housing and all that shit. Too bad now was the time their ghostly core decided to flutter, flicker, and ultimately stop working for half a second and it caused them to go back to being corporeal. And who spotted them?
That fuck ass Red Robin. He was one of the only people, besides Damian who was way too aware of his surroundings at the moment, to notice that a random person who was bleeding phase into existence- before disappearing into thin air like they were never there at all.
Fuck it, [Name] might be some weirdo with ghost powers but they weren't a fool. They doubled back to grab the rag so none of the Birds got the idea to do a DNA scan. Actually, can they even scan [Name]'s DNA since it was radiated? Foolish question cause this is Batman and his possie of way too smart birds, they most likely can. [Name] got shivers just thinking about it.
How the hell did Danny do this in the fanfics? If [Name] wasn't desperate and on the verge of having a manic breakdown they would have already burst into tears and fled to the high mountains.
It wasn't until after they had settled into a brand new house a day later, and two blocks away from the fight zone, did they realize that they had been found out.
------------
Tim Drake sat at the computer down in the Batcave, his eyes going over the footage from the fight once more. At this point he's rewatched the damn thing at least thirty times already, rewinding it to exactly thirty three minuets into the video just to see the half second someone materializes into frame only to disappear a half second later.
The blood sample he collected from the fight was currently sitting on the microscope and he's already run so many tests on it.
How the blood sample tested positive for radiation, Lazarus pit waters, low red blood cells meaning they had anemia, and Acute Heart Failure. Meaning whoever this person was, magical or not, they were very sick. And being sick while living in one of the most radiated neighborhoods is not a very good combo.
Tim would complain that his back hurt from being so hunched over for so long but he was too occupied on searching through the entire database to figure out who this guy was.
What he got? A handful of answers, and more questions. Firstly the kids name was [Name] Fenton, they were around his age if not just a year younger, born and raised in Amity Park. However there seemed to be a lot of technical blocks for researching Amity itself. It's like everything about it was locked up tight.
Which was not a good thing. So Tim did what he does best, he slaved away at the computer until something gave away and found almost everything he could.
And he has to admit it was not looking good. Too bad he was caught up in his work and forgot to notice the piercing Olive green eyes staring at him.
------------
You tried to put the fight out of your head as you laid in the old bed. The only thing wrong about this house was how dusty it is, but it was better than having to sleep behind a dumpster.
You turned over as you closed your eyes, settling onto your side so you could see the window. Honestly that was on you. If you had turned the other way you could have seen how the door was gently pushed open.
Your eyes closed as you felt yourself become consumed by the sweet embrace of sleep. It wasn't your fault you were tired, being a ghost was such a hassle and the ambient ecto was doing wonders for your core right now.
Perhaps you should have been more aware because the next time you opened your eyes you were lying face up in a medical cot. Your first thought was that the GIW got you had you were about to be cut open once again. But then you gave it another thought.
This was too good, if this was the GIW you'd be chained with metal and they would have started already. But this? This was kinder and way more relaxed. Also you think someone sewed up your wounds.
This place was weird as fuck to be honest. You've heard a handful of people walking around but you haven't seen them yet. Biased on the footsteps you'd say there was roughly five people around where ever you were.
If you strain your ears you could pick up a faint conversation... something about radiation and another for the collection? Yikes. You're pretty sure you're about to be added into some weird collection. You did not like the sound of that.
Oh wow two in one day? Yay! I think I'm about to crash into writers block tbh...but I might not. Writing is fun and I like sharing my crazy ideas with people.
Here is Part 2
Anyway here's the Taglist: @linasrosetown @blapbloep @marlakarven @dannyisdying @iloveescara
Tw: swearing, chaotic slang, cultural confusion (lol)
WC: 670
🔗 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
A/n: Fic almost ending
🏎️ CHAPTER 6: “that’s not very slay of you”
The paddock — Friday FP2 — Silverstone
“Y/N, what are you wearing?” Oscar’s voice was genuinely concerned, and maybe a little afraid.
You stood in the McLaren motorhome kitchen, sipping a Celsius and wearing a vintage SpongeBob tee, huge cargos, a pair of beat-up Onitsukas, and a fuzzy bucket hat that had the British flag on it. Your Lululemon crossbody bag was halfway across your chest, bulging with random objects (likely snacks and lip balm). Your sunglasses were indoors. You were indoors.
You blinked at him over your shades. “My fit goes hard, you just have mid drip.”
Lando, seated at the counter with a protein shake, choked.
Oscar looked helpless. “What does that even mean?”
“She means you dress like a Pinterest board from 2018,” Lando translated helpfully, coughing a little.
“EXACTLY,” you pointed, proud of your translator.
Oscar just groaned into his hands.
Later, in the Red Bull garage…
“You drive like you're in an indie coming-of-age movie,” Max commented, watching your FP2 lap time pop up on the screen.
“Yeah. I’ve been told,” you nodded solemnly. “Main character energy. You wouldn’t get it.”
Checo was absolutely delighted. “She’s like a living meme.”
“I AM the meme,” you said, slouching dramatically in the guest chair. “Honestly, I should be sponsored by TikTok or something. Let me post one real quick.”
You opened your phone, took a selfie with Max, who didn’t even look up, and captioned it:
“me n my grumpy cat 🫶🏼 maxy pad supremacy #fyp #maxverstappen #hehateseverything 😽”
You posted it.
“What did you just call me?” Max asked, eyes narrowing.
“Maxy pad. Like— you know, like the…” You paused. “Do they not have that slang in the Netherlands?”
“I know what a maxi pad is.”
“Slay.”
After Qualifying — Top 10 Press Room
Interviewer: “Y/N, P6 again, you must be pleased with that result.”
You: “Yeah, not gonna lie, she ate. Like, the grip was gripping, the corners were cornering, the vibes were vibing. You feel me?”
Carlos: “No.”
Lando: “Yes.”
Ollie: snorts
George: “Can we get a translation?”
You: “Car was good, track was better, I’m in my element. Also I had a Red Bull before quali.”
Interviewer: “A Red Bull? You’re a McLaren driver.”
You: “I fear nothing.”
George shook his head slowly. “You’re like a walking HR violation.”
You saluted him with your water bottle.
Ferrari motorhome — Saturday pre-race meeting
Charles, flustered: “You can’t keep calling him your ‘little meow meow.’”
You: “Why not? He’s baby.”
Charles: “He is not a baby. He is Kimi Antonelli.”
You: “He’s just a little scrunkly Italian boy! Let me be affectionate!!”
Fred Vasseur was visibly trying not to laugh.
Kimi entered the room at that moment. “What’s a ‘scrunkly’?”
You turned and immediately hugged him, ruffling his curly hair. “YOU. You are. You’re scrunkly.”
Kimi: “I’m scared.”
Carlos: “Don’t worry, we all are.”
You on TikTok Live the night before the race:
“Okayyyy y’all, I’m boutta go to bed fr fr. I got my melatonin gummies, my aromatherapy spray, and my Squishmallow. Yes, I travel with it. No, I don’t care. Shut up.
Anyway — I’m aiming for top 5 tomorrow. But if the car acts goofy, I’ll just block Max for funsies. 💅🏼 kidding. kinda.
Okay love u byeeee. Stream Sabrina Carpenter. ✌🏼🫶🏼💋”
Sunday — Silverstone GP Race Recap
📈 Y/N finished P4, their best result so far in the 2025 season.
🎙 Post-race radio:
Engineer: “P4, Y/N! Amazing job, clean race, that move on Alonso was textbook.”
Y/N: “SHE’S HIM. I mean— I’M HIM. I am… they. Okay grammar not working but you get me.”
Engineer: “I think so.”
🎥 Y/N in Parc Fermé, out of breath:
“I knew I had to clutch up. Like it was giving… final boss. That last stint? I was in my Hot Wheels era. Call me Lightning McQueen, bitches.”
Back in the paddock — Post-race
Pierre: “You were on fire today.”
You: “Thanks Pierre Gasoline 🔥”
Esteban, grinning: “I like that. Pierre Gasoline.”
Hello hello hello! Just wanted to say that i really like your blog and wanted to share a peculiar idea for a request that i had. I wanted to request about a kid!reader who's the youngest member of the astral express and also the one constantly keeping everyone on their shoes, kid!reader comes from a planet where they learned how to deal with witchcraft, and since they're young the child really enjoys annoying others like opening cabinets and moving objects all of a sudden. But the main plot is that the reader has a spell of protection going on that doesn't allow them to be killed, they can die by normal causes but not be killed. And the worst part is that they have little regard for their own life because they KNOW they'll come back. Think of it like kenny from South park. Their body doesn't disappear when they come back so imagine kid!reader just dragging their bloodied body towards a portal and going on with their day/trailblaze mission while everyone just has a traumatized expression. I want this to be kind of angsty becuz the kid doesn't have a lot of care towards their own life because he knows he'll come back, and doesn't really realize how much his actions affect others because he threw himself off a window cuz he got told no-
Sorry if this is long, just wanted to share a silly/angsty idea of a child not understanding how it is not normal to be uncaring if you die or not. Also I'd say the reader is specifically a boy but it's up to you! I just think mischievous little boys are the funniest things ever
“It’s Okay, I’ll Come Back”
Summary: Dan Heng finds your corpse at the bottom of the Astral Express’s staircase—and watches, horrified, as you get back up like it’s nothing. You’re the youngest Nameless on the crew, a chaotic, spell-bound child from an unknown planet where death is more of an inconvenience than a limit. You can’t die. Not really. That’s your magic. Your curse. Your job. But when the rest of the crew starts breaking under the weight of your immortality, you begin to realize—maybe dying isn’t the only way to hurt someone.
Tags: Astral Express Crew x Reader, Male!Kid!Reader, Found Family, Angst with Comfort, Near-Death Experiences, Unreliable Narrator, Soft Hurt/Comfort, Reader is a Menace, Trauma (Implied/Discussed), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Themes, Protective Dan Heng, Sad March 7th, Slow Realization of Self-Worth.
Warnings: Graphic descriptions of injury/death (non-permanent), Casual attitude toward death from a child character, Immortality used as coping mechanism, Emotional distress (March, Himeko, Dan Heng), Mild body horror (dislocations, blood, unnatural movements), Child endangerment (narrative context, not glorified), Discussions of self-worth tied to usefulness, Light mentions of magical experimentation (offscreen).
A/N: Aww thank you!! Tho, I have never watched South Park, so forgive me if it's not up to your liking. 😭🙏
Dan Heng finds the body first.
Lying face-first at the bottom of the Express’s spiral staircase, limbs twisted, head at an impossible angle. Blood pooled under your cheek, sticky and crimson on the polished floor.
He doesn’t scream, but his hand clenches the rail hard enough to creak. He kneels beside you slowly. His mouth moves, but no sound comes out.
And then you groan.
Not a ghostly, pained groan—just an irritated, slightly hoarse “Ugh.”
"Ow."
Dan Heng jerks back, startled. He watches, with an expression not unlike a man witnessing the apocalypse, as your small, blood-slick hand plants itself on the ground and starts pushing your body up. You’re eight—nine at most—with a mop of unruly hair and a shit-eating grin already crawling onto your still-dead face.
"[Name]…" he says, but his voice sounds distant, like it’s buffering.
You pop your neck back into place. “I forgot how much it hurts when it’s the neck,” you hum thoughtfully, reaching over to pick up your own dislocated arm like a dropped doll and popping it back in like a LEGO.
“Don't freak out. I’ll clean it up.”
Dan Heng does not, in fact, stop freaking out.
You’re the youngest Nameless on the Astral Express, and an absolute menace.
You arrived a year ago from a planet known only as an unknown-named planet, where magic and reality twist together like tangled hair. A witch’s planet. You don’t talk about it much. You don’t really talk about anything serious, actually. Too boring. Too many rules. You hate rules.
You do like:
Opening compartments without touching them,
Swapping March’s shampoo with hair dye using dimensional magic,
Dragging your corpse through the Parlor Car like a bloodied wet mop.
You don’t like:
Being told “no.”
Being kept out of missions because you’re “just a kid.”
People crying when you die.
“It’s not a big deal,” you insist every time. “I come back. Look—ta-da! Still breathing!”
And you smile with blood in your teeth and scratches on your cheeks and glowing sigils burned into your wrists, ancient and pulsing.
March cries. A lot.
Not around you—she doesn’t want to make you feel bad. But the first time you jump off the Express in Belobog because “gravity makes it faster,” she locks herself in her room and sobs into her pillow.
“You don’t see how he looks when he lands, Himeko,” she says through hiccups. “He didn’t even blink. He said he could feel his brain hit the bottom of his skull and then laughed about it—who does that? What kind of kid—?”
“I’m not sure he knows what it means to be scared,” Himeko answers softly. “And that… that scares me more.”
You don't understand why they get so upset.
You know you can’t be killed. Your teacher—your Mother, back on that planet—cast the spell when you were still learning how to read runes. It’s carved into your soul. No one can kill you. Not gods. Not mara-struck monsters. Not even Kafka with a loaded gun and good aim (you made her try once; she almost threw up).
And it’s not even that you’re reckless. You just… don’t care. You don’t need to.
Life is a game. You’re the cheat code.
Until one day.
You wake up after being impaled by an Abundance-infected tree-beast—again—and you drag your bloody, torn-up body back through a portal to the Express. You’re whistling. There’s sap in your hair. One of your ribs is still sticking out a bit. You’ll deal with it later.
And then you see it.
The crew. Huddled in the Parlor Car. Silent.
March has her knees to her chest. Pom-Pom is shaking in Himeko’s lap. Even Welt looks pale, and he’s seen aeons unravel stars. Dan Heng is the one who breaks the quiet:
“Do you even realize what you look like when you walk in like that?”
You blink. “Cool?”
“No,” he snaps—sharper than usual. “Not cool. Dead. You look dead, [Name]. Your skin is gray. Your jaw was dislocated. You had… blood in your eye.”
March starts crying again. You watch, confused.
“I was fine,” you say. “I am fine.”
“You weren’t fine when that thing bit into your neck and we thought you were gone for real,” March sobs. “You didn’t scream. You didn’t even fight back. You let it.”
You shrug. “It wouldn’t kill me. That’s the point.”
“But what if it could?” Himeko’s voice is gentle, but her eyes are steel. “What if one day it does? Or you come back but you’re not you anymore? How do we know your soul can survive that again and again?”
You’re quiet.
They don’t get it.
They don’t understand that if you stop dying, you stop being useful. You’re not strong, or fast, or clever. You’re not the Trailblazer, or the Navigator, or the Archivist. You’re just the kid who can die and come back.
That’s your job. That’s what you do.
“I’m not scared,” you mutter. “Why should I be?”
Welt kneels in front of you, his hand on your shoulder.
“Then let us be scared for you.”
And for the first time, you feel something crack.
Not your bones. Not your skull. Not the spell.
But something inside.
That night, you don't sleep in your coffin-like bunk.
You curl up on the couch with March, her arms around you and your heart pounding for reasons you don’t fully understand. She whispers stories about her first Trailblazing mission to lull you to sleep. Her hand stays on your back the whole time. It’s warm.
