moonchild

None of this makes any sense.

Not the way he’s come to in this dense forest, not the injury that makes it impossible to move his leg. And certainly not the soft voice that sounds from overhead, airy and feminine and laced with an unmistakable edge of warning.

“Speak, Soldier,” the voice demands, impatient. “Or I won’t hesitate to pull this trigger.”

“I’m hurt,” Taehyung protests weakly. “I can’t move. I have no idea how I even got here, I swear it.”

The voice overhead is quiet for a while and Taehyung decides to risk moving his hands. He lowers them slowly, pressing his palms flat to the earth so he can lift his head and get a look at his captor.

The soft, gossamer dress that billows all around you is the very antithesis to the heavy steel in your hands. The light wind makes the fabric dance around your legs, whips dark strands of your hair off your face. But the gun in your grip never moves, weighty metal steady as you study him.

Blunt barrel pointed directly at his head.

“Stop moving your body,” you order stiffly, “And start moving your mouth. Have you come here to rob me?”

“No -- ” Taehyung sputters, tasting the granules of dirt pressed to his lips. “ -- No. I mean you no harm, truly. I speak the truth when I say I have no idea how I came to be here.”

“A likely story from any man caught trespassing on someone’s property.”

“I never intended to trespass,” he swears, nodding in the direction of his lame leg. “I would leave this place right now but I don’t know if I can walk.”

Your dark eyes narrow as you study him, searching his face for any indication of deception.

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

The leaves beneath your boots crunch as you start to move, walking a slow, careful circle around him. Taehyung keeps still as you complete the cycle twice, assessing the state of his body and thus, the truth of his account. The barrel of that shotgun in your hands stays trained on him the entire time.

“Where is your gun?”

A fair question. Taehyung twists his body to search for the bayonet, one hand blindly groping for the weapon that should be strapped to his back. But he can’t feel the weight of it against his spine and his fingers grasp at nothing. And he knows what he must say next will only serve to heighten your suspicion.

“It’s gone,” he announces quietly. “I must have lost it somehow.”

“I don’t believe you.”

A soft click sounds as your finger toys with the trigger of your shotgun. “I don’t believe you,” you repeat, more fiercely now. “I don’t believe a word you’ve said since I found you.”

Taehyung tenses, squeezing his eyes shut as he waits to hear the shot that could come at any moment.

“You are on my property, Soldier. Deep into these woods. I could kill you right now and no one would ever be the wiser.”

“I know you could,” Taehyung croaks, words unsteady. “I understand how this must look. But I have only told you the truth as I know it. I swear it.”

He takes a chance in the quiet that follows. Opens his eyes to search for yours and finds them a bit less cold than before. The frostiness in your features seems to thaw, though the dour expression remains. Taehyung recognizes this moment for what it is -- a chance to appeal to your humanity.

To beg for his life.

“Please,” he pleads, eyes fixed to yours. “Please believe me. I am a man in need of help, Miss. Have mercy on me.”

Uncertainty flickers behind your eyes as you finally lower the shotgun, barrel now aimed towards the forest floor. And Taehyung’s head swims with the rush that comes from the sudden relief that floods his limbs.

“It’s Ma’am, Soldier,” you correct stiffly, turning away from him. “As I am a married woman.”

Taehyung watches in disbelief as you turn your back on him, pausing for just one moment to call over your shoulder.

“And you should be glad it’s me who found you. My husband would have shot you dead on sight.”

💀💀💀💀💀💀

Taehyung has to fight the urge to snatch up the porridge set in front of him.

When is the last time he’s had a hot meal? He’s lost count of the days by now. They all blend together in a blur of pain and blood and suffering. Were he with his men at this moment, he would not hesitate to grab the bowl and tip the contents back without a single care for decorum.

But his men are not here, you are. Watching his every move with sharp eyes.

When you’d turned your back on him in the woods, Taehyung had been certain you would not return. You had already been generous enough not to leave a slug in his skull and that was a mercy in and of itself. He’d refused to delude himself into believing there would be any further intervention in his pathetic circumstances on your part.

But you had returned.

This time, without the heavy shotgun to weigh you down. You’d extended one delicate hand and helped him to his feet. Supported his tired body as he’d limped all the way into your home.

“You must be starving,” you note, waving one hand at the bowl in front of him. “There is no need to stand on ceremony here. Eat.”

Taehyung’s stomach grumbles loudly as though it’s understood your words and he nods, wiping at his dirty face with the back of an equally dirty sleeve.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, shoving the first spoonful into his mouth. The porridge is hot and it warms a path down his throat and into his empty belly. “I can’t thank you enough.”

You don’t acknowledge his gratitude.

Instead you sit silent and watch his every move as he makes quick work of the porridge, stopping only briefly to sip at the glass of water you’d provided. The quiet scrutiny is daunting and Taehyung can feel sweat beading at his temples. He clears his throat and looks around the room, catching sight of a pair of boots by the door.

“I hope your husband does not take offense to my presence.”

“Don’t worry about him,” you return evenly.

Perhaps a bit easier said than done, Taehyung thinks. The boots look to be rather large from where he’s sitting, so it stands to reason the man who wears them is rather large as well. Coming this far only to be confronted by an irate husband would be going from the frying pan into the fire.

“Well, I won’t impose on your kindness any longer than I have to,” Taehyung vows, spooning the last of the porridge into his mouth. “I swear it to you.”

You say nothing but never take your eyes off him, even as you leave the table to head back to the stove. You ladle more porridge into a fresh bowl and Taehyung could weep with gratitude when you set it down before him.

“What business do you have in this area, Soldier?”

Taehyung makes haste on his second bowl, chewing slowly as he considers his answer. War is a nasty business -- always -- but this war has been particularly difficult. It has pit neighbor against neighbor; split some families into shards. In this war, the enemy is sometimes hard to spot. Most people do not wear their loyalties on their sleeves.

He takes a long drink of water before speaking.

“I’m a scout,” he starts carefully. “I was sent ahead of my men to survey the route we intend to take towards the next meeting point. I left camp on foot so as not to draw attention.”

You digest his words as Taehyung digests his food, dark eyes skeptical across the short spanse of the table. It’s the first time he has allowed himself a proper look at you. He takes in the striking beauty of your features with awe; the midnight black shade of your hair, the unusual golden flecks in your dark irises. He hopes you have the right of it where your husband is concerned. Taehyung can only imagine that he’d be a very jealous man.

“And what do you remember of the moments leading up to when I found you?”

Taehyung wipes at his mouth before setting his spoon down.

“Very little, I’m afraid. The sun was setting by the time I reached these woods. There was no indication on my map of this property or your home, I would have remembered that. But I can’t remember how I got here or how I got hurt.”

Beneath the table, his foot throbs uncomfortably inside his boot. It’s as though his body temporarily forgot the pain in lieu of the more pressing matter of his hunger.

“I see,” you murmur. “And now you are here. Continental Army, I presume?”

Taehyung’s heart starts to hammer inside his chest. You’re staring pointedly at the worn patch sewn to the breast of his shabby jacket, the blue fabric that indicates his allegiance to the colonies. There is nothing to do now but hope that you share in that allegiance -- or that at the very least, that you’ll allow him to leave without bloodshed if you do not.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he admits, tongue feeling a bit too thick for his mouth. “5th regiment, Massachusetts. I hope that won’t be a problem for you.”

Your lips purse as you take a long moment to regard him, drumming one dainty fingertip against the tabletop.

“It won’t be a problem so long as you don’t make it one, Soldier,” you say at last, and Taehyung exhales, hit once more with another dizzying rush of relief.

Light glints from between your collarbones as you move to clear the empty bowls away.

Taehyung’s eyes search for the source of it, finally settling on a golden strand that circles your neck and falls neatly into your decolletage. He marvels at the delicacy of the metal. It’s fine as a thread against your skin.

Gold has always been rare, but in wartime even more so. You must be rich, Taehyung surmises. It would explain the quality of your gown, to be sure. It would also explain why you’d assumed he was here to rob you.

Then you catch him staring, fixing him with those peculiar sparkling eyes and Taehyung flushes, looking away.

“I’ll bring hot water to the basin in your room once it’s done warming,” you announce, leaving him red-cheeked at the table. “And I’ve set out some of my husband’s extra clothes for you. They’re a bit worn but I’m sure they’ll serve you better than what you’re wearing right now.”

Taehyung looks down at his jacket and britches, neither of which was in sterling condition even before he’d found himself stranded in the woods. Now they look to be rags, caked through with dirt and riddled with holes.

“And you’re sure your husband won’t mind? My wearing his clothes, that is.”

“I assure you that he will not,” you announce upon your return. The skepticism in your eyes is all but gone now, nothing left in your expression but a cordiality that borders on warmth. Taehyung decides to allow himself to relax, inhaling and exhaling deeply before speaking again.

“I don’t know why you took me in,” he starts quietly, “But I am grateful to you. To you both.”

You smile at him for the very first time, striking face even more beautiful when you are wearing this expression. Taehyung shyly smiles back.

“Think nothing of it, Soldier. I am happy to help.”

💀💀💀💀💀💀

It takes him nearly an hour to wash away the dirt caked to his face and hands, the mud jammed deep beneath his fingernails. He peels away his boots to reveal his grossly swollen ankle and hisses once it’s free of the leather confinement.

He would still be trapped in those woods, were it not for you. Crawling, perhaps -- aimless and lost -- and to what end? Instead he is clean and warm inside this house, limping his way towards the first proper bed he’s seen in months.

The last thought Taehyung has before he extinguishes his lamp and slides beneath the sheets is that you must be an angel.

Godsent in his time of need.

💀💀💀💀💀💀

It is well into the afternoon by the time Taehyung limps his way into the great room.

He finds you wearing another grand dress, this one a bright red silk that drapes beautifully over the lines of your body. You are seated at a loom near the window, carefully threading what appears -- to his untrained eye -- to be silk.

You speak your first words to him without ever looking away from the steady work of your hands.

“Good afternoon, Soldier. I trust you rested well?”

“I did,” Taehyung answers, shuffling slowly towards you.

He finds himself mesmerized by the effortless movement of your fingers as you work with the silk, how elegantly you weave each strand together without a single errant move. He stops to rest against the wall, shifting weight off of his bad leg as he watches you.

“I love to weave,” you sigh happily. “It calms me. I make all of my dresses myself. Do you like them?”

You stop weaving long enough to allow Taehyung to admire your handiwork, twisting your torso from side to side as you proudly display your stunning red dress. Fine threads of gold filament adorn the sleeves, visible only upon closer look. It is far and away the finest garment Taehyung has ever seen.

“Your work is remarkable, Ma’am,” Taehyung says genuinely, and your eyes light with happiness. In this moment, there is no semblance of the fierce, shotgun-wielding woman he’d met the day before. In this moment, you seem like a different woman entirely.

“Take a seat,” you direct, looking down towards his swollen ankle. “You’ll not heal that thing if you continue to strain it.”

Taehyung gladly shuffles his way to the nearest chair, groaning as he settles into it.

“Thank you. I suppose it’s too early to say but I think it might be in better condition now than it was last night.”

“That’s very good,” you hum under your breath, fingers dancing between threads in a hypnotic staccato. “I’m sure it will be even more improved by tomorrow.”

Tomorrow? Then perhaps you do intend to let him stay a while longer. Taehyung scratches awkwardly at the back of his neck.

“Yes, about that,” he starts slowly. “Has your husband returned? I want to be sure he’s not angry about my being here.”

A strange look passes over your face and the movement of your fingers stops at once. You look up at Taehyung with those ethereal gold-flecked eyes, pinning him with an earnest gaze.

“I must confess something to you, Soldier.”

Taehyung’s stomach flips uncomfortably, though he’s careful to keep his voice steady when he answers.

“Certainly, Ma’am.”

“My husband is dead,” you announce somberly, turning back to your loom. You resume your weaving and a strange sensation comes over Taehyung, half-relief and half-dread.

“I see. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He’s been dead for more than a year now,” you go on to explain, strands of bright blue silk slipping between your fingers with ease. “But as I did not know your intentions when I found you, I lied. I am sorry that I deceived you, but I hope you can understand. It’s a dangerous thing to be a woman alone.”

Taehyung wets his dry lips with his tongue, heart cracking inside his chest for you. A beautiful widow, left all alone in these thick woods -- in the midst of a war no less. No wonder you worry after your safety.

“I understand, Ma’am,” he vows. “And just as I promised you last night, I will say it again. I do not mean to cause you any harm.”

You peer up at him with those spellbinding dark eyes and Taehyung feels goosebumps raise on his forearms.

“I know you won’t.”

💀💀💀💀💀💀

The two of you pass a quiet, comfortable day together.

Taehyung reads while you weave. He limps circles around the room while you cook, testing the strength of his swollen ankle.

And when he sits down to another hot meal and you smile at him from across the dinner table, Taehyung can’t help but feel just a bit sorry for all the men he’s left behind.

💀💀💀💀💀💀

What kind of man was your husband? Taehyung wonders. Thin? Husky?

The clothes you’d lent him just one day prior fit him remarkably well. But the shirt and pants you set out for him today are far too loose, hanging askew off his broad shoulders and narrow hips.

He cinches the pants tight with a belt and scrubs a hand down his face, frowning at the rough hairs that prickle his fingertips. He’s never been one to sport a beard on account of the spotty hair patterns along his chin and this growth feels significant.

It’s as if he’s skipped shaving for weeks, not days.

He limps his way out of his room to find you, encouraged by the improved speed with which he’s able to walk.

Today’s dress is yellow, bright as the sun -- adorned with the same pretty gold patterns you seem to favor so much.

“Good morning,” he greets kindly, pulse quickening when you look up at him from your seat at the loom. Your ebony hair hangs loose today, spilling over your smooth shoulders as you acknowledge him with a beatific smile.

“Good morning, Soldier. Did you rest well?”

Did he? He must have. He can’t remember tossing and turning like he so often does when he’s in the field with his men. In fact, both nights that he’s slept in that glorious bed seem like a repressed memory. Like he’s closed his eyes and been swallowed whole by blackness.

“Yes, I believe I did,” Taehyung smiles, lumbering forward. “My foot is much improved this morning, I’m happy to report. I don’t think it will be long now before I can set off in search of my men.”

Your lovely mouth twitches into a faint pout.

“I see no need to rush your healing, Soldier,” you say agreeably. “I think it best you take the time you need to recover fully before attempting to re-join your war.”

Taehyung nearly trips over the hem of his pants as he settles into the chair near your loom, grimacing at the awkward way his ass meets the surface of the sturdy wood. You quirk one eyebrow high as you watch him.

“Yes, it’s just as I said,” you remark with a hint of a smile. “You should be sure you’re fully healed before leaving this place. There’s no rush.”

Taehyung studies the dazzling blue silk on your loom and notes that the dress you’d started only yesterday looks to be almost complete. He wonders if you’d stayed at that loom all night, weaving while he slept.

“You are very generous to say that, Ma’am,” Taehyung murmurs, eyes trained on the steady work of your fingers. “And I wonder if I might impose on that generosity again.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, I was hoping that you might still have your husband’s shaving implements somewhere,” he says, rubbing his fingers against the grain of the bristled growth. “I am not the kind of man who likes to keep a beard, I’m afraid.”

“I do believe they’re around here somewhere,” you muse, rising from your seat. Taehyung watches, entranced, as the bright yellow fabric of your dress drapes enticingly around you. The silk shifts, hugging the curves of your backside and legs as you disappear into the back rooms of the house.

You are a beautiful woman, of that there is no doubt. And how long has it been since Taehyung has known a woman? Far too long. Far too long in the company of men, filthy in every sense of the word. Far too long since he’s known the pleasure of tasting soft, scented skin -- or the pleasure of being buried between a pair of supple thighs.

You glide back into the room with a satchel in hand, extending it to him with a smile.

Taehyung silently berates himself for entertaining such lewd thoughts about you. You’ve shown him only kindness during his stay here and in turn he’s fantasizing about what it would feel like to bed you.

“This is what I was able to find,” you explain, and Taehyung accepts the satchel and pulls the strap open. Inside lies an ancient straight-razor, in bad need of sharpening. But it will have to do.

“Thank you,” he croaks, clearing his throat. “I’ll do my best with it.”

He lifts himself off the chair, taking great care not to trip over the hem of his overlong pants as he limps back towards his borrowed room, shaving kit in tow. But he pauses as a thought occurs to him.

“If I could bother you for just one more thing,” he calls out. “Where can I find a mirror?”

You shake your head and strands of inky black hair cascade down your back.

“There are no mirrors in this home, Soldier,” you say with nonchalance, turning back to your work. “Vanity is a terrible sin, you know.”

Taehyung stands in the doorway of his room and puzzles that for a long moment. It’s a strange sentiment for anyone to have, and certainly even stranger for a woman as beautiful as you. But he shrugs it off.

It is, after all, but a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.

“It’s no matter,” he concedes pleasantly. “I’m sure I can make do.”

💀💀💀💀💀💀

The clothes you set out for him today are a much better fit, if a bit short in the leg.

Taehyung dresses with ease, encouraged by how well he’s able to move this morning. He limps around his room as he readies with a bit more finesse than before, efficiently making his way from the bed to the wash basin. He splashes water onto his face, rubbing his fingers across his stubbled jaw. At the very least, it’s a bit less wooly than before.

His steps are still a bit jerky as he enters the great room, surprised to find you dressed in a beautiful black overcoat. Bright green silk spills out from beneath it, adorned with those familiar gold threads.

“Good morning, Soldier,” you greet kindly, tying your coat tight around your waist. “I’ve left food in the kitchen for you. You’ve caught me just as I was heading into town for some supplies.”

Taehyung’s heart sinks.

He too, would like to head into town for supplies. He’d love to walk you there, to stand at your side and allow the men who pass to believe the breathtaking woman on his arm is his in some way. But as remote as this home is, there is certainly no way to take on the journey with his foot in his current state.

“I won’t be gone long,” you promise sweetly, and Taehyung wonders if you can see the disappointment in his face. “Just a quick jaunt and I’ll return to you.”

Return to you. It’s a curious choice of words, and it makes Taehyung’s skin hum with awareness. It’s almost as if you feel the same strange pull he’s felt the entire time he’s been in your home.

“Don’t worry on my account,” he smiles, reassuring. “I’ll be just fine on my own.”

💀💀💀💀💀💀

Taehyung decides to make himself useful in your absence.

He roots around in your kitchen until he finds a broom and spends much of the afternoon staggering from room to room, sweeping. It’s more physical activity than he’s had for days and his muscles protest the vigorous exercise but he pushes through, sweeping until the floors gleam.

He rests and helps himself to the stew you’d left warming for him, savoring the luxury of yet another hot meal. It will probably be some time, probably years after this war is fought and won, before the simple indulgence loses its novelty.

The sun is starting to set by the time he sets to work on sweeping the wrap-around porch. He shuffles his way across the creaking wood, clearing away the scattered leaves and dirt.

Just a short distance away sits a large shed.

It’s where your husband kept his tools, Taehyung reasons, and he decides that he’ll have to leave the arduous task of walking to it for another day. He’s already been on his feet as long as he can bear.

So he slowly makes his way around the porch, clearing it as he goes. But he has to stop to squint down at his feet as he reaches the most isolated part of it, the part that wraps around the back end of the house. Dozens of tiny black bugs march over the point of his boot and across the warped wood. He scowls, swatting at them with his broom.

Then he follows the creeping line with his eyes, vision slowly adjusting to the ebbing sunlight.

They’re spiders.

Hundreds of them, from what he can tell, spilling from and into a bush that’s overgrown onto the porch. Taehyung’s skin crawls as he attacks them with his broom, beating back the few he can see. He stays at it for a while, bringing the broom down like a hammer until the porch is littered with tiny black bodies.

Then he sweeps what’s left of them away and limps his way back into the house.

💀💀💀💀💀💀

Night falls and you still haven’t returned.

Taehyung sits alone with his book and an oil lamp, reading in the chair next to your loom. He ponders your long absence with dread, imagining all the ways you might have left this home and fallen into some kind of danger.

What if you had been robbed on your way into town? What if you’d crossed the path of some barbarian who’d taken stock of your fine clothes and glimmering gold necklace? What if you’d happened upon a camp of Kingsmen and they were holding you against your will at this very moment?

Well, Taehyung would be powerless to stop it, wouldn’t he?

There is no way he could set out into these thick woods to find and rescue you, even if that was the case. So he shakes away the fears and tells himself to relax, that you’ll return to him just as you’d promised.

But when he finally climbs into his bed, he isn’t welcomed by the same blackness that’s shrouded him all the nights before. He’s tormented all night by visions of you -- naked beneath him, naked on top of him. Your breasts in his mouth and hands. His cock buried deep inside of you and that melodious voice of yours calling his name.

💀💀💀💀💀💀

Taehyung wakes to find new clothes set out for him.

He staggers his way into the great room and finds you seated at your loom, weaving a new dress this time. This one a deep red. You smile up at him as he enters, gait smoother than when you’d seen him last.

“Good morning, Soldier,” you greet sweetly. “I’ve made eggs for us this morning. Fresh from town.”

Taehyung smiles back, despite his confusion. He suppresses the urge to question you about your whereabouts because who is he to demand such things? A guest in your home and no more.

“Good morning, Ma’am,” he says carefully, shuffling towards the scent of eggs. “Welcome back.”

You ignore the lead in his greeting, offering no explanation for your long absence. And Taehyung can’t help but feel spurned somehow, not unlike a jealous lover. Once again, he must tell himself to keep quiet and mind his own business.

“A beautiful day,” you sigh, looking out the window. “I wish we could go for a walk. But I know that you must heal that injury well before you try it.”

Taehyung swallows around a mouthful of eggs, washing them down with a sip of water.

“Actually, I think I might try it,” he starts. “I spent the day sweeping the floors yesterday and found that I’m able to move around quite well.”

“I noticed that,” you return, fingers twining between red silk strands. “Very kind of you to do that for me, Soldier.”

Taehyung finishes his eggs in a hurry, shuffling into the great room to sit beside you.

“I swept the porch as well, Ma’am, and I must tell you that I found something of great concern outside.”

“Oh?”

“There’s some kind of spider infestation near the back of the house. Hundreds of them from what I could see. I killed as many as I could and beat back the others, but you ought to consider burning that bush away to rid yourself of them.”

Your eyes go wide with horror, pretty lips pursing with shock and Taehyung nods.

“I know, I know,” he commiserates, “Foul creatures.”

“Oh, Soldier,” you bemoan, shaking your head. “You can’t just go around killing spiders! They do far more good than harm, you know. Misunderstood creatures, in my experience. Vilified for no good reason.”

“But I -- ”

“Leave them be,” you say firmly. “They’ve never bothered me once and they dine on the things I’d rather not have in my home. There will be no burning of any bushes today or the next.”

“Very well,” Taehyung concedes, astonished. What a curious woman you are. “I just thought you ought to know.”

“And I thank you for that,” you say, dazzling him again with another brilliant smile.

💀💀💀💀💀💀

Evening comes and Taehyung feels unsettled.

There is something so odd about you, he thinks. Something that draws him in and at the same time makes him feel disoriented, lost.

There is the issue of his lust, yes, the ever-constant throb inside of him when you are near. It’s hard to be in your presence and not be overwhelmed by it. By the lascivious thoughts he has to fight off more and more each day.

And he wonders if you feel it, too.

When you look at him the way you do sometimes, with a gaze seemingly ripe with yearning. When you look at him the way you’re looking at him right now, dark eyes glowing in the lamplight between you.

Taehyung cuts into the roast chicken on his plate and savors the way it falls apart in his mouth.

“An indulgence just for you, Soldier,” you murmur, eyes brimming with pride. “I was able to find one in town. I thought to bring you something you might enjoy.”

“I am enjoying this. Perhaps a bit too much,” Taehyung chuckles. “My men have probably written me off as a deserter at this point.”

“Don’t be silly,” you say with an airy laugh.

“No, I mean it. You’ve made it nearly impossible for me to conceive of leaving this place and walking back into a war. But it’s something I must do. My men are counting on me.”

A sullen expression falls over your pretty face as you fork at your plate.

“The war will be there when you return. Certainly there is no need to leave in haste?”

Taehyung can’t help but feel as though he’s disappointing you and it feels as though he’s disappointing himself. He sips at his water and clears his throat.

“I think I should try to leave tomorrow,” he admits, heat creeping a path up his neck. “I can tolerate the walking. And the swelling is nearly gone.”

“So you mean to leave me then? Just like that?”

“Well, I -- ”

“ -- It’s fine,” you announce, words clipped as you jolt out of your chair. “There’s no need to justify it, and I’ll ask you kindly not to bother.”

You take your plate with you as you leave in a huff, china clattering loudly as you drop it onto the kitchen counter. Taehyung springs up from his chair with surprising speed to follow you.

“Don’t be angry with me,” he pleads, closing in on you. “You’ve been so kind to me. And maybe one day I can repay that kindness. When all this war madness is over.”

You keep your back to him, shoulders stiff as you stand at the sink.

“I’m not angry.”

It is then that Taehyung takes a liberty, touching you for the very first time. He grasps your arms with his hands and turns you, heart twinging at the way he finds your eyes shining with unshed tears.

“I’m not angry,” you repeat, voice just a whisper now as you look up at him from beneath your lashes. “I’m lonely, Soldier.”

You reach up to brush his hair away from his face, fingertips lingering as they trail a path from his cheek to his neck.

“Don’t you ever get lonely?”

Taehyung wants to tell you exactly what he knows of loneliness.

The many nights he’s lay awake beneath the stars with only the sound of gunfire to keep him company. How he sometimes envies the men with wives and children praying for their safe return home. How it’s harder to fight when there’s no one at home doing the same for him.

He would tell you all of those things right now, were his mouth not already covering yours.

💀💀💀💀💀💀

Bright red silk slips off your shoulders and pools on the floor at your feet.

Taehyung reminds himself to breathe as you make your approach, looking nothing like the teary widow from the kitchen. The woman before him standing before him in this room is remarkably bold. You approach him completely bare, brazen, without hesitation.

And Taehyung is more than keen to accept what you offer.

The bed in this room is larger, a bit more plush than the one he’s enjoyed in his own. And when you sink down onto it, straddling his slim waist, Taehyung sinks down a bit, too.

“I want you to forget all your worries,” you whisper, tongue pressing against the seam of his lips.

He opens his mouth to accept it, cock already rigid and pulsing beneath you. You kiss him with abandon, scraping your teeth down his neck, licking at his pulse point with the tip of your tongue.

And when you take him in hand to line him up at your entrance, Taehyung feels almost certain he could die from wanting. That is, until you let him breach you, inch by inch. Then he’s sure he could perish from the pleasure.

It goes on for hours like that, it seems, because at no point do you tire.

You make him come with your hands, your mouth, your cunt -- and Taehyung does everything in his power to return the gratification in kind.

By the time grey morning light starts to trickle through the trees, Taehyung can go on no more.

He slumps deep into the sheets, body boneless with exhaustion. And you crawl up the bed to settle into the crook of his shoulder, lightly humming him to sleep.

💀💀💀💀💀💀

Well perhaps he could stay for just one more day.

That is the first lucid thought Taehyung entertains when he wakes. You are still curled into his side, silky black hair falling like a drape over your face. Taehyung carefully winds a hand into it, smoothing the strands between his fingertips.

But nature calls.

It takes work to untangle your joined limbs, to move the arm and leg you have wrapped around him, but eventually he’s able to slip away without disturbing you. He presses both feet to the wood floor and his swollen ankle throbs, though the sensation is much more bearable now than it was before.

He creeps quietly from the bed, cursing the groaning floorboards as he staggers his way out.

The injured foot makes him clumsier than he should be and pain shoots up his leg when he jams his toe against the edge of your closet door. He claps a hand over his mouth to contain the sound he wants to make, something between a sob and a roar.

But it takes only seconds for that pain to become the least of his concerns.

Taehyung stares into the sliver of space revealed by his bungling, eyes falling onto a pair of boots. A pair of boots that looks to be much smaller than the ones he’d seen in your great room.

He shuffles closer to push the closet door open just a bit more and a frisson of fear runs down his spine. The boots sit next to another pair of boots which sit next to another pair of boots. Each of them lined up in a neat little row.

Each of them a different size.

Over the years Taehyung has known thin men who’d become heavy ones, and heavy men who’d become thin ones. But never once in his life has he known a man to wear more than one size of boot. Let alone seven of them.

“Are you looking for something, Soldier?”

Taehyung nearly comes out of his skin when your voice pierces the silence. He jerks backwards, breathing a bit harder than he should as he wills his racing heart to calm.

“No, I -- ” he stammers awkwardly, “ -- I jammed my foot a bit. That’s all.”

You sit upright in bed and the sheets fall to your waist, but you seem to have no qualms with the casual nudity. You shake your head with a smile as you regard him.

“You’re a careless little thing, aren’t you?” you laugh and the sound sparkles just a bit less today than it has in the days before. “You ought to be more cautious. Someday you’re going to wind up seriously hurt.”

💀💀💀💀💀💀

“Not hungry this morning, Soldier?”

Taehyung blinks as you pose the question, looking up from his bowl to find you watching him with one eyebrow raised high. Obediently, he lifts a spoonful of porridge to his mouth, peering at you cautiously across the table.

The meal is delightfully made -- porridge seasoned with cinnamon and nutmeg -- but it may as well be a bowl of sawdust set down before him. His mouth and throat feel unnaturally dry. He grabs his water glass with an unsteady hand and sips, forcing the food down.

“I guess not,” he says at last, forcing a watery smile.

“Well I’m surprised you’re not ravenous after last night,” you tease, dark eyes glittering. “I know I certainly worked up an appetite.”

Taehyung chews his porridge slowly, mind cluttered with a thousand clashing thoughts. Could there be another explanation for those boots? One that does not make his palms sweat? Perhaps cobbling is another one of your gifts along with weaving.

Perhaps not.

You smooth down the sleeves of today’s dress, the brilliant blue garment he’d found you working on that very first morning here. The gold filaments twinkle in the light and Taehyung stares at them as he tries to justify the discovery he’d made just a short while ago.

He can’t.

He has to leave this place, he knows it, can feel it in his bones. But the days are short this time of year and he’ll have to set out early to make use of the sunlight. The woods surrounding this home are unfamiliar and they won’t be any easier to navigate in the dark.

“I should tell you that I plan to leave in the morning, Ma’am,” he ventures carefully. “It’s time. The weather looks fair enough to travel and I need to find my men.”

There are no teary protests from you today, no angry outbursts or female manipulations.

You seem to take the news in stride, nodding with a smile as you say, “Yes, Soldier. Of course.”

💀💀💀💀💀💀

The two of you pass another quiet day together, this one a bit less comfortable than the days before.

Taehyung reads in his chair, as he’s done every day since arriving -- and you sit at your loom and weave, as you’ve done every day since he arrived.

It’s a shame he can’t focus on the story coming to life on the pages in his hand -- last he remembers, the tale had taken a rather exciting turn. But every few words he can’t help but sneak a glance at you, turning the worries and doubts over in his mind, over and over again.

You disappear into your room after lunch, and Taehyung takes up the task of clearing away the plates. It’s only late afternoon but the sunlight has already started to wane. He makes a note of the hour, silently plotting his escape from this place.

Running down the relevant details in his mind like a battle plan.

You breeze back into the great room a short while later, surprising Taehyung by turning up dressed for an outing, blue dress cloaked in your exquisite overcoat. He swallows thickly, attempting to alleviate the sudden dryness in his throat.

“I must make for town once again, Soldier,” you explain apologetically, gathering your things as Taehyung watches with wide eyes. “Forgive the late notice. This cannot wait.”

“But it’s nearly da --” Taehyung starts, astonished, before abruptly ending his argument. The last time you’d left for town you’d not returned until the next day and perhaps this particular circumstance plays to his favor. “Yes, Ma’am,” he amends evenly. “I’ll think only of your safety until you return.”

You smile at him then, sweeping grandly across the room to press a kiss to his cheek on your way out the door.

💀💀💀💀💀💀

You’ve left him with little sunlight to work with, and so Taehyung sets out with an oil lamp in hand.

He slowly lumbers the distance from the house to the shed, the aging warehouse nearly swallowed whole by the overgrown trees. He frowns when he spots the rusty padlock hanging from the double doors, but the corroded metal serves little use as a deterrent.

The pieces come apart with ease after just a few forceful pulls.

The splintered wooden door springs open and Taehyung pauses for a moment, peering into the darkness. He takes a deep breath, steeling his nerves -- telling himself that it’s not even likely he’ll find anything of interest inside.

And he’s hoping that he won’t find anything inside. Hoping that he’s only allowed his imagination to run wild. That you are not the deceiver he now believes you to be.

He retrieves the oil lamp at his feet and makes his way inside.

At first, the glow of the oil lamp reveals nothing out of the ordinary. He spots gardening tools hanging on the wall, a saw left to rust on a wooden work bench. Deeper into the shed he presses on, startling when a shadow from his lamp passes over a scarecrow tilted against a wall.

He shakes his head with a nervous laugh and keeps moving, careful steps kicking up the fine layer of dust and dirt that cover the straw floor.

It takes a bit of maneuvering not to trip over the wheelbarrow he doesn’t see coming, but Taehyung manages -- eyes falling onto a massive wooden cabinet tucked into the furthest corner of this shed.

There is another rusty padlock to contend with now, this one a bit more stubborn than the one at the entrance. He sets the lamp down once again to free his hands and struggles with it, jiggling the metal pieces for what feels like an age.

After a while, the lock in his hand gives -- shackle loosening just enough for Taehyung to slip it off the cabinet’s handle. He lets it drop to the floor and grabs his lamp before cracking the heavy doors open to search it’s contents.

He finds guns. A veritable arsenal of guns.

Muskets and rifles and pistols, hanging neatly from a line strung inside the cabinet. Dozens of them, lined up in a row -- enough weapons to outfit an entire militia. He goes down the line, one by one, examining each piece, some of which look to be antique.

But it’s the very last gun he finds that makes his blood turn to ice in his veins.

Taehyung holds his lamp up to the bayonet, fear pooling in his stomach as he runs a finger down the thick leather strap. He already knows what he’ll find when his fingertips slide down to the base of it. The grooves he’d marked into that strap long ago, when he was more a boy than a man and newly enlisted in the Continental Army.

His fingers brush against those grooves and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end.

“I hope you don’t intend to use that,” you warn darkly.

Taehyung stops breathing. He turns slowly, lamp in hand, to face you.

There is no beauty in your face in this moment, though your features remain the same. The dazzling smiles you’d once showed him are gone now, replaced by the hard set of your jaw.

Your eyes, once sparkling, are now flat -- terrifyingly cold.

“It’s considered quite rude to rifle through someone’s belongings, Soldier. Didn’t your mother ever teach you that? Very, very poor manners.”

You inch closer and Taehyung tries to retreat, back knocking against the cabinet.

“You’ve d-deceived me,” he stammers, shaking his head. “You’ve been lying to me this entire time.”

You laugh at him, the mocking sound of it echoing off the rafters of the shed.

“I only let you see what you wanted to see, Soldier. Some men prefer seduction and some prefer helplessness. I could see in you right away that you were the latter. But in the end, all human men are the same. Not one of you can withstand the temptation of a willing woman. You saw fit to slake your lust, and now I see fit to slake mine.”

Human men?

“What are you?” Taehyung rasps, heart pounding violently inside his chest. “What do you want from me?”

You sigh, as though bothered by his questions.

“I’m hungry, is what I am,” you return, taking another step closer. “And though I am not the type of woman to play with my food, I simply could not resist with you, Soldier. You are far and away the prettiest thing I’ve caught in the last hundred years.”

You shut your eyes then, and when they open again the glimmering golden flecks and whites are gone. The eyes that stare back at Taehyung now are shiny black, beady.

Vile.

“Get away from me,” Taehyung shouts, shuffling to the side as he tries to clear the cabinet with his body. He stumbles over the nearby wheelbarrow and falls to his knees, nearly dropping the oil lamp in the process.

It’s as he’s struggling to stand that he begins to hear the sounds, grotesque sounds -- fabric ripping apart and popping and cracking that make him want to heave. He abandons his attempts to get to his feet and starts crawling, hooking his lamp between his teeth.

The sound of clanging metal rings out behind him, tools crashing to the ground as you -- as whatever you are -- makes its advance. Taehyung crawls faster, panting as he moves desperately towards the shed doors, which he realizes with dread are now shut tight.

Something comes down on his leg, something that feels like a rod and he scrambles away from it as pain blooms from the point of impact. It is only as he is reaching the doors that he chances a single look back, muscles locking with terror as he holds the lamp before him.

It illuminates the true form of the woman he’d lain with just the night before.

Not a woman at all, but a giant, grotesque spider.

Shiny black legs extending from a long body covered in spots of yellow, blue, and red. The spider rears up on its back legs, poised to strike and Taehyung forces his body to move, hurling the oil lamp into the straw beneath its giant abdomen.

The lamp explodes on impact, flames bursting out of it and onto the straw floor. They lick at his legs and feet as he turns back towards the doors, shoving at them with all of his might.

The spider hisses as the fire grows, the sick smell of burning flesh filling the air as Taehyung keeps shoving, ramming against the doors with his shoulder. They come apart just a bit, enough for Taehyung to squeeze his torso through the opening, dragging his battered legs behind him.

And when he finally manages to stagger to his feet he turns back, just long enough to see the flames start to overtake the roof.

Then he runs.

As fast and as far as his legs will take him.

💀💀💀💀💀💀

Taehyung wanders the thick woods for two days.

He limps his way beneath the canopy of the trees, searching desperately for markers, ears attempting to isolate any sound of rowdy men or gunfire. His swollen ankle seems to have a heartbeat of its own, pulsing miserably inside the stressed leather of his boot. The charred skin on his shins rubbing painfully against the rough material of his pants.

Two days he goes without water, without food. Two nights he goes without sleep, refusing to shut his eyes for even one single second.

Never again will he allow himself to let down his guard. Never.

It takes two days for Taehyung to stumble onto a stream, slowly shuffling his way along the bank in search of men camped near the source of water.

He’s close to collapsing from exhaustion and dehydration by the time he spots a bright blue blur through the thick of the trees.

He follows the blur, heart in his throat as it slowly gets closer, clearer. Limping faster with a reserve of energy he’d not realized he could conjure until this very moment.

And when he staggers into the very edge of the Continental Army camp he does collapse, only to be hoisted to his feet by unfamiliar men.

“He’s one of us,” one of them declares, looping Taehyung’s arm over his shoulder and helping him towards a tent. “Looks like he’s seen some shit, too.”

Taehyung would laugh at the absurdity of that understatement if he could only muster the energy.

💀💀💀💀💀💀

The campfire puts off a comforting heat, and Taehyung scoots a bit closer to the flames.

Most of the men are drunk tonight, singing and dancing as though there’s not an entire war going on around them. It’s the kind of reckless behavior that would have set him on edge not long ago, but tonight Taehyung can’t bring himself to care.

A soldier settles into the space beside him, extending a shabby tin cup of ale which Taehyung quickly accepts.

“Thank you,” he mumbles, before he turns back to stare into the flickering light.

“You’re welcome,” the man grins, tipping his cup in a salute before he drinks. “Whole camp’s talking about you. They’ve come up with some wild stories about how you got separated from your men.”

Not wild enough.

“It’s not something I care to recount,” Taehyung shrugs.

“Yeah well, thing of it is that you’re the sixth man to disappear into thin air, from what I’ve heard. We got reports from regiments as far away as New Jersey of soldiers vanishing just like that,” he says, snapping his fingers for effect. “Only you’re the only one who’s come back.”

Taehyung’s stomach lurches, like the ale has spoiled inside his belly.

A memory comes back to him in that moment.

It’s the memory of all those tiny little spiders on the porch, crawling over his boot. He’d been able to beat back the ones he could see, but beneath that bush there must have been hundreds more.

Perhaps thousands more.

Taehyung shrinks into his tattered overcoat to hide the way he starts to shiver.

And he doesn’t say another word.

hi there! are you mad at me? please don't be! i'd love to hear from you about this story 💕you can send me an ask here.

also -- in case you're wondering where i pulled this twisted plot from, i have an explanation for you here.

“How long since the two of you have been intimate?”

Silence fills the room, the only sound is Jungkook drumming his fingers on the couch arm and the click of your nails against each other, nervous energy in the air.

“A week?” She asks, and you look up at her, still silent. Jungkook shifts on the couch.

“A month?” She tries again, and you can’t help it, you snort out a laugh.

“Try three,” you mumble, and Jungkook makes a noise in the back of his throat.

“It hasn’t been-”

“It’s been three months, a little more,” you say, louder, trying to meet his eyes but he won’t look at you. He never looks at you anymore.

When you leave the therapist’s appointment, you ride down in the elevator together. You feel his eyes on you but after what had happened in that office you’re afraid you’ll ask him for a divorce the second you meet his eyes.

He calls your name softly and suddenly all the anger in you starts to seep into sadness like a tidal wave that knocks you over. Tears prick at the back of your eyes but you stare straight ahead at the elevator door as it counts down the floors. 4. 3. It stops at 2 and an elderly man gets on, smiling at you as he steps inside.

You’re grateful. As unhappy as you are, you aren’t sure you want to give up. You’d been so in love, once.

The first time you’d seen Jeon Jungkook, you’d taken two weeks off, something you’d never done. Not that it was exactly your idea.

You had been 22 years old and you’d been a mercenary since you were 19, recruited by your late father’s employer. It isn’t as if you like violence, especially, but what you do like is money, security. A place to call your own, people that you can trust, at least for a while: those are the things that keep you in it. You know the company, know that they go after corporate types who get wrapped up in sex trafficking or drugs, that they are picky about the contracts they take. You don’t pretend to be some kind of saint. You’re not exactly proud of your kill count, but you can’t say you’re ashamed of it either.

At some point, though, there’s a burnout. Your boss, who you’ve only ever known as Lisa, had called you at 6am the morning after you flew into Cabo for a job.

“There’s no job,” she’d said bluntly and you’d blinked, jet lagged and barely awake.

“What?”

“No job. You have two weeks to spend in Cabo, rack up the company credit card with booze and room service.”

“Lisa-”

“What’s rule number one, agent?” She barked, and you heaved a deep sigh.

“Don’t question your superiors.”

“Right. Have fun. See you in two weeks.”

She’d hung up and you’d just stared at your phone for a moment before plopping back down in bed.

Three days later when you think you’ve tried every cocktail on the menu and eaten all the decadent foods the resort has to offer, you see him.

There’s this guy standing over by the bar, wearing a white button up and cargo shorts, which usually would be an instant turn off, but he has three buttons undone, skin tanned by the Cabo sun exposed. He’s wearing this stupid Puka shell necklace but he has these big, earnest eyes when he looks at you, and an open smile revealing these bunny teeth and you can’t help but be charmed, just a bit at least.

You don’t show it, turn your face away and sip your drink, but you’re smiling around your straw when you hear his heavy footsteps approaching you.

“I’m Jungkook,” he’d said, voice low and soft, and from then on, you’d been inseparable.

You figured it was just some two week fling, of course, because he kisses you so sweet that night on the beach after you’d walked along it for hours talking and laughing, him stumbling into the surf after too many cocktails, pulling you in with him.

And he is sweet, thoughtful and kind, but he can also be savage, you find out when he takes you to a nearby dance club outside the resort, not one that many tourists know about. There’s free flowing liquor and half naked people everywhere and you’re sweating through your thin dress after he’d taken you on to the dance floor, his mouth hot against the shell of your ear while he put one hand on your hip, close to the edge of the club since there’s a wall of bodies pressing against the two of you.

Jungkook leaves just the right amount of bites and marks along your neck and collarbone that night for you to take him seriously, wakes you up making more marks on your inner thighs, shoving your legs apart as if he can’t wait to put his mouth on you.

At the end of the two weeks that have turned in to three with you calling in another week to Lisa, Jungkook keeps rubbing the back of his neck, holding your hand tight in his as you go down to the hotel to check out.

You’re not going to cry. You’re not. He’s just a guy. Just a sweet guy with a good stroke game and you’ll be okay. You’ve never needed anyone.

Then he calls your name, softly, just as you’re leaving the hotel.

He’s got his stupid Puka necklace cradled in his big hands.

“I know...I know this isn’t a ring...but...would you? Would you want to?”

You wear the necklace around your wrist like a bracelet until the ceremony and you wear the same white dress you’d worn to the club and he wears slacks and no shirt, just that damn necklace and you’re laughing into his mouth when the officiator asks him to kiss the bride.

Three years later, you can’t even look at him without wanting to cry or yell or both. He’s never home, has this stupid IT job for some super secret corporation and they work him like a slave. The money’s good, you have plenty of your own saved up but he hasn’t let you use a dime of it since you’ve been married. You and Jungkook live in this big, five bedroom house and the first year had been spent christening every corner of it. Now, you just rattle around in it by yourself when you aren’t working.

At first maybe you’d thought it was the job. Even though you’d taken three months off as a newlywed (another one of Lisa’s orders), you’re still away a lot, but he thinks you’re a fashion designer and besides, he’s away just as much. That first year, though, you’d still managed stolen kisses between emails, sexts on delayed flights, even meeting up in hotel rooms in between your two destinations.

The disconnect had been so gradual, you’d barely even noticed. Jungkook was the one who had suggested marriage counseling, begged you, actually, on his knees, when you’d gotten fed up when he hadn’t come home until daylight on a Wednesday.

You’d been sitting in the dark, fuming, wondering if breaking all the dishes you’d set out for dinner would be too much, when he’d finally come in, quietly. All you hear is his key in the door and you’re standing up, holding your overnight bag.

“Sh-shit,” he stutters, and he doesn’t look drunk, his eyes are clear, at least, but he looks exhausted, disheveled and sweaty even though it’s cool outside.

You don’t even speak, just try to push past him to the door and he puts a hand on your hip, right where he had on the dance floor of that club in Cabo.

“Don’t,” you spit out, and he moves away, turns around to face you.

“Please don’t go,” he bursts out, and the only light is the sunlight streaming through the blinds but his eyes are so big and wet.

“Then tell me where you were.” You don’t back down, can’t back down. You’ve been telling him for weeks that you want to reconnect, that you want to understand.

“I was--work. I was working. I lost track of time while I was doing this project--” He stops, rubs a hand across his face. “I’m sorry. There’s a big contract and---it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry.”

“I made dinner. I don’t even cook and I watched this stupid Youtube video to make this curry for you and it turned out pretty good so I was proud and now it’s all fucking congealed jelly stuck on plates in the dishwasher.” The words come out of you in a rush and it sounds stupid when you say it out loud.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and it sounds hollow even as he stands there with his shoulders slumped.

“I just sit here in this house every day after work and wait for you to come home and you don’t even text me back, Jungkook. You don’t care.”

“I do care! I always---I’ve always loved you, baby, you know that. From the first time I saw you.” He takes a step toward you but you take a step back and he sighs, defeated.

“I’m leaving,” you say, but now your voice is shaking and he shakes his head, hair falling into his face, reaches a tattooed hand toward you that you move away from, again.

“Don’t,” he’d said again, and dropped to his knees in front of you and it was dramatic, you know that, it was a hail mary because he’d been absent either physically or emotionally for months and he knows you’re almost done. “We can try marriage counseling, right? There’s a place my boss goes to, I could ask him--pl-please don’t leave me, Y/n. I love you. You’re my wife.”

It had worked. Of course. You’d seen those big brown eyes welling with tears, your big husband on his knees begging you to stay and you’d hugged him, kissed him and made love to him right there on the floor next to the front door, his hands tight on your hips while you rode him.

“You’re so beautiful, you know that? You’re everything to me,” he’d promised, leaning up to slide his hands up your back, plant soft open mouthed kisses along your shoulder, bite a mark at your ear.

That had been over three months ago. Several marriage counseling sessions later, nothing had changed.

In the parking garage he’s parked left and you’ve parked right so you turn but he catches you, his hand on your hip again.

“Kiss me goodbye?” He asks, bottom lip poked out just a bit.

He’s dressed casually, jeans and a tshirt and with all his tattoos he looks for all the world like a bartender instead of an IT tech at a high level company. It’s hot. He’s hot, and you feel a thrill of pleasure shoot through you when his large hand squeezes your hip, almost a bit too hard.

It had been lovely, the last time you’d been intimate, but that’s what it had been - making love. You enjoy that with him because you love him, but at the end of the day you miss the more savage part of him, the way he’d bitten bruises all over you in Cabo.

You huff out a breath but turn to tilt your chin up and he kisses you more deeply than you’d anticipated, sliding his tongue against yours. You feel breathless when you pull away, and almost angry with sexual frustration.

He gives you a wave and a little smirk that makes you narrow your eyes at him, but when you turn away, your lips turn up at the corners despite yourself.

Despite your dismal counseling session and the potential destruction of your marriage, things at work have been great. You’ve been promoted over the last few years so that you get bigger, more expensive contracts and don’t have to work as much, which is why you’ve been stuck rattling around a big house while Jungkook does whatever the fuck he does all the time.

The contract Lisa had called you in about today has the biggest payout you’ve seen so far in your career. You blink at it once, and then twice, before looking up at her. She’s almost never at the office in person, so you know this is a big deal.

“If it helps to motivate you, he’s the head of a huge sex trafficking ring involving children as young as thirteen,” Lisa, as always when you see her in person, is sipping from a giant thermos full of God knows how much expresso.

“Got it,” you say, and use your little rubber stamp to sign the contract. It’s sort of a joke, the stamps for all of the women at the organization have. Some are cutesy, like yours, a sleeping kitty with your name at the bottom, some more edgy like a skull with a snake wrapped around it.

Lisa’s father and your father had been in the same organization, and her father had been the one who’d hired you after your father had been killed on a job. In the years since, Lisa had taken over and created a female only organization. Sure, you’re an assassin, but that doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy the little sleeping kitten on your stamp.

After the counseling session and Jungkook working you up right before you leave, you’re ready to let off some steam, so you are excited to head to the rooftop meeting where your mark will be.

You go into the locker room and kick off your designer heels, dressing instead in leggings and a fitted tanktop, sliding a mask over your ears and pulling on a ballcap before heading out with your sniper rifle slung over your shoulder in a duffle bag. You suppose if you’re seen, people will assume you’re going to the gym, whistling as you head down the street, bouncing on your heels just a bit.

You don’t enjoy killing, exactly, but you enjoy the rush of it, the adrenaline of getting the shot just right, the look on someone’s face when they realize they’ve been had.

Unfortunately, you can’t really see his face, once you’re up on the roof of the neighboring building, lying flat and lining up your shot. It’s too far away, so all you can see are features, the line of his nose. You know it’s him, though, because the booming microphone announces his name when he heads up to give a speech about all the money he’s donated to charity. All the money made through trafficking children.

Maybe sometimes you do enjoy killing.

You’re letting out a long breath through your nostrils, about to gently squeeze the trigger, when you see a red dot on your mark’s chest, right at the heart.

You pop up, scrambling backwards with your rifle aimed further up, peering through the scope to see what’s happening, and you see someone on the building on the other side of your mark’s building, dressed in a black shirt and jeans, wearing a mask.

“Motherfucker!” You curse under your breath.

This isn’t the first time you’ve had a competing contract, someone double selling because they need the mark dead and they don’t care who they have to pay, but it’s certainly been a while since someone has gotten the drop on you. The last time had been in Rome, when someone had blown off the top of your mark’s head before you could even get your rifle set up. You’d missed out on a lot of money for that, and Lisa had given you a good scolding.

Not this time. You squeeze off a shot above the other assassin's head, but just barely.

It takes a moment before the other assassin ducks, rolling out of view.

You don’t waste time, lining back up and getting the mark’s face right in view. You’re going to make sure he won’t have an open casket, after what he’s done.

Your shot is right on the money, but you don’t have time to see your results, only to see the blood and the mark drop before a bullet whizzes over your head.

Your mouth drops open before you reload, narrowing your eyes as you slide backward for cover, but another shot doesn’t come. You look out at your scope for another long moment before you feel safe enough to pack up and climb down the fire escape.

You wear the leggings and tanktop back home after depositing your rifle back at the office.

You drink a glass of wine and sit at the kitchen table, wondering if your husband will make it home from work tonight.

Jungkook has always excelled at everything he does. It’s like his thing. In high school it was academics and sports, not one or the other. After high school he excelled at decidedly less wholesome things, like selling drugs and stealing cars, but he excelled at it nonetheless, and instead of getting arrested he got...promoted, in a way.

Jungkook had met Kim Namjoon when he was 15, but he’d been 18 before the elder had approached him with a real job offer. Previously to that it was little jobs, petty things like stealing someone’s wallet or taking pictures of an up and coming musician who was cheating on his wife with not one but three other women. A couple of months after his 18th birthday, Namjoon had asked him if he’d like to make some real money, and Jungkook had enthusiastically said yes, not only because of the soju his friends kept buying him but because he respected Namjoon, looked up to him.

The first kill he’d made was messy, and Jungkook had hated every moment of it. Well, almost. He did like the thrill he felt when the mark had seen him, thrown a wide swing that Jungkook ducked, had to tackle him around the waist and take him down to the pavement in a small alley at 3am. There were people everywhere, and Jungkook’s heart had been beating out of his chest when he’d finally broken the mark’s neck, a snap that he barely registered until the man went limp beneath him.

He’d gotten better at it, gotten used to more weapons, but he still preferred a hand to hand fight more than what he’d had to do today, shooting someone from yards away. There’d still been a thrill, though, a big one, his heart racing when the bullet had gone right over his head.

He rubs the top of his head while he’s at the office and Namjoon laughs at him.

“Lose any hair?”

“Fucking probably,” he mutters. He feels off, antsy, ever since the counseling session.

Has it really been three months since he’s touched you? You slept in the same bed every night...well...most nights. They’d come across ten contracts in the last month alone, and Jungkook had been working a lot of overnights. He can still taste your lip gloss on his mouth and he rubs his hand across his lips, too.

“I’ll call Hoseok, see what he can find out, if he can get into the CCTV on that building,” Namjoon says, clapping Jungkook on the back. “Nobody gets them all, kid.”

Jungkook grunts in response because he should get them all. He hates not winning and Namjoon knows it so he’s babying him. He feels like he should go to the gym, work off some of this nervous energy, but instead, he goes out to the parking garage.

Jimin is standing by his car and Jungkook wants to groan but holds it in.

Three months ago, when he’d first started attending marriage counseling, he’d made the mistake of drinking too much at dinner with Jimin and confiding in him about everything. How you kept accusing him of having an affair, how sometimes you’d come home in different clothes than you’d left in. How he didn’t understand how being a fashion designer meant that sometimes you’d leave for work in the middle of the night, leave him just a text or a note on the refrigerator.

“She could be projecting,” Jimin had suggested. “Let me look into it, tail her. That’s my job, after all.”

Jungkook had been drunk and upset enough to say yes and now Jimin was standing there looking like the cat who ate the canary. Jungkook swallows hard when he gets closer to the car and Jimin is holding a manilla folder.

Suddenly he looks less smug and more empathetic and there’s a knot in Jungkook’s throat. Jimin doesn’t speak, just puts the folder in Jungkook’s hand.

When he finally does speak, his voice is low. “Call me if you need me.”

Jungkook sits in the car for fifteen minutes, staring down at the folder in his lap, before he opens it. There are only about a dozen pictures, printed out and Jungkook has time to think how dramatic Jimin is for not just sending these in an email before all the air goes out of his lungs.

There are pictures of you entering a hotel room, coming out dressed in different clothes. He squints at the pictures, hopes that it might be someone else, a mistake, but he’d know you anywhere. There are pictures of you at a restaurant with an older man in a suit and you’re laughing, leaned over the table, your breasts pressed together.

When Jungkook had been talking to Jimin before and entertained the thought that you might be the one having the affair, he thought he’d be angry. Furious, even, mad enough to throw things, tear down a wall like he gets sometimes when things don’t go his way.

Now, looking at the pictures, seeing how you use this smile he thought was only for him, he just feels gutted. These are only the pictures Jimin could get. Jungkook can imagine the ones he couldn’t, a view through a hotel window of you riding this old guy, his hands tight on your hips just like you like. He can imagine it so clearly, how you purse your lips when you get close, lean down to rake your nails across his chest.

Jungkook realizes he’s not breathing and he chucks the pictures onto the passenger seat where they spill out, faceup, and he hiccups out a dry sob. His eyes are burning but there’s no tears, like he’d spilled the last ones when he’d gotten on his knees to beg you to stay months ago.

His chest heaves when he breathes in a long breath, letting it out slowly through his nose like Namjoon had taught him when he was young and full of fire.

“Be calm, Jungkook-ah. Like a stone,” Namjoon had told him.

Jungkook feels like he’s made of jelly instead, like he could slide right through the car floorboards and under the garage, his insides feeling twisted and heavy and liquid. A text message lights up his phone.

Are you going to be home for dinner?

Jungkook looks...different when he comes home for dinner.

His shoulders being slumped isn’t new, ever since you’ve been having issues he’s been like that, but he can’t quite meet your eyes, dipping his head in a way he never does.

“Bad day at work, honey?” You ask, and there’s only a little bite in it. You find yourself a little concerned.

He shrugs, almost defiantly. “Not really.”

Jungkook hasn’t been home for dinner in nearly two weeks and you’d been almost excited about it when he’d texted you back that he would be there, you’d ordered all his favorites but he’s just picking at everything with chopsticks, listlestly, when normally he shovels in food like a starving elephant.

You’re sitting at the head of the table and you frown, move around to sit in the chair next to him.

“Jungkook,” you say softly, but when you put a hand on his forearm, he jerks away from you like you’ve burned him.

Your phone buzzes incessantly from where you have it plugged up on the kitchen counter and Jungkook snorts out a laugh that sounds bitter.

“Don’t you think you should get that?”

You frown. “No. It’s probably just work.”

“Yeah. I bet.”

He still isn’t looking at you.

“Jungkook. Jungkook.”

He finally meets your eyes, raising his chin up, but it doesn’t help how dark his eyes are, how hurt he looks.

“What happened?” You ask softly, but he just looks away, shaking his head.

“M’not hungry,” he mumbles, shoving the chair back from the table so hard it falls when he stands up.

You jerk as it hits the hardwood floors and your phone keeps buzzing.

You go to look at it and Jungkook doesn’t move to leave, his shoulders stiffening. Before you can ask what the hell is going on you look down at your phone and see 4 missed calls and a text message with a picture attachment from Lisa.

Jennie took this while she was staking out the aftermath today. Watch out.

You hum out a displeased noise and you’re about to put the phone back down and save this for later when you catch sight of the picture in your peripheral vision. You press your thumb down on it, your heart racing. You’re wrong. You have to be wrong, eyes playing tricks on you. The man in a black tshirt and jeans, horrible assassin attire, has an eye tattooed on his right elbow. It isn’t the best picture, and of course it isn’t as if no one else has ever had that tattoo but combined with the same outfit you’d seen him in earlier today----

I’m a fucking mark.

It’s the only thought marching through your mind, over and over and over and your heart pounds against your chest plate.

Rage fills every part of you, covering up something you don’t want to think about (hurt hurt hurt heartbreak) because this was over anyway, of course it was, you were nothing to him, you were a fucking mark to him and none of it had ever meant anything.

You hear his voice behind you and it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

“Let me guess. You have to go.”

His voice is lower than usual, like he’s angry, and wow, he deserves an Academy Award acting like the husband who’s just trying to make it work. You take a deep breath, try to find your center like you’d been taught. Your father had been the one to tell you that, to teach you to find your center of gravity when you were in trouble, so that you could pivot the right way, avoid a hit.

You have a gun hidden under the sink, behind the bleach because Jungkook hates the way it smells, stays out of the kitchen any time you use it. You wonder what he has hidden in this house. He’d had it built, after all, you’d only had a small amount of input because at the time you’d been working in Europe for the most part. Rifles underneath the floorboards? A secret bedroom compartment beneath the bed? You’d look it over, after you were done. After he was dead.

You’ve always said you didn’t like killing, exactly, but with this anger burning like fire in your veins, you think you might enjoy this one.

Calmly, you shake your head. “Just a little hiccup at work, no big deal.”

You step over to the sink, wash your hands, taking your time, and you can still feel him behind you, moving closer to you. He might even reach out, put his hand on your hip.

You hope he doesn’t because you think you might scream and then that will make things more difficult. You just want this over.

You crouch in front of the sink, opening the door and sticking your hand behind the bleach.

“Are you cleaning right now? We need to-” Jungkook starts, and then you stand up, barefoot and still in your stupid aline skirt and pink blouse, pointing your pistol at your husband’s face.

He holds up his hands, stumbling backward as if he’s surprised. Your skin feels like it might melt off, you’re so angry.

“When were you planning to do it?” You ask, not knowing you were going to speak until you did.

“What--why do you have a fucking gun underneath the sink, Y/n?” He’s almost yelling and you crouch down, sweep his leg out from under him and he hits the hardwood floor with a yell. You’re on top of him in an instant, straddling his hips and automatically his hands go to hold them before you poke the gun in his face and he raises his hands instead, staring up at you in shock.

“Was I a mark?” Your voice sounds hoarse, close to breaking, and you hate yourself.

Something like slow realization crosses his face, it’s almost heartbreaking to watch.

“Was I?” He asks, softly, and something in his voice causes your arms to sag and then he throws you off him, scrambling up off the hardwood floor.

Tears are streaming down your face despite how much you hate that you’re upset and you let out a frustrated yell and squeeze off a few shots. Jungkook ducks and they go wide, hitting the terra cotta walls, the silencer making the noise more of a pop instead of a boom.

He doesn’t make a sound and you stand up, wiping at your face with your left hand and pointing the gun with your other.

“Honey?” You call. “Maybe we should just talk about it, like Dr. Lin says?”

You wait, counting thirty seconds in your head, and he pops his head out from behind the couch.

“We could-”

He sees you with the gun in your hand and you squeeze the trigger at the same time and he yells and ducks behind the couch again.

“You’re going to kill me!” He yells.

“That’s the plan, my darling husband,” you drawl, because it’s easier to be bitter than to feel whatever is rising in your stomach and chest and throat.

He doesn’t move and you head to walk around the couch but he pops up again, pointing a gun with a silencer at your head.

You notice, idly, that it’s the same model as yours. Funny.

“Y/n,” he starts, but he swallows, his eyes wide, and he doesn’t shoot.

You pause, wait for him to speak.

“Baby,” he pleads, and rage rushes all over you and you must have narrowed your eyes because he ducks as you squeeze off another shot that sticks in the staircase where his head had been seconds ago.

“Don’t call me baby,” you hiss.

There’s a standoff, now. You can’t move or he might shoot, he doesn’t move because he knows you will. You wonder if maybe you can coax him out.

“This has been a real long con,” you say, conversationally.

“Yeah, I guess so!” He spits out. “Guess this sped up the timeline. Or is that what you wanted? So that you could run off with that guy.”

You have no idea what he’s talking about but he sounds pissed off so you go with it.

“Maybe.” You pause. “You might be fine going three months without, but I’m not gonna do it.”

He moves, then, shifts, and you know you’ve gotten to him but maybe not enough.

“At least he knew how to fuck me rough,” you continue. “Threw me up against the wall the first time I let him-”

That works but he’s smarter than you’d thought, he doesn’t pop up from the top of the couch but slides around the side, pointing the gun so that you can’t get a clear shot before he could hit you.

“How long?” He asks, eyes dark, staring up at you.

“I’ve been with the company since I was 19.” You answer honestly. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter how much your hands are shaking because you’re going to do it. You’re going to kill him.

Jungkook shakes his head.

“I don’t---I don’t care about that. How long have you been fucking someone else?”

You pause, watch for him to let down his guard and he does, looking up at you he shifts up on his shoulder and you shoot but it goes over him, your angle is off from up here.

Jungkook grunts and slides back behind the couch. He’s quiet.

You realize, as you stand there, that he hasn’t fired a single shot, in all this time.

“Why aren’t you shooting back?” Your voice isn’t as angry as you want it to be, it shakes and wobbles and you hate yourself. “Shoot back! You shot at me earlier today!”

“I didn’t know it was you!” He yells from behind the couch. “I won’t shoot at you.”

That last part is quieter, softer, and you can barely hear it.

“Why? Wasn’t that the plan? Wasn’t I the mark?”

A sob rips through you and the gun wobbles just as much as your voice now.

He stands up and you point the gun higher, at his chest but it’s still shaking.

He’s dropped his, stands before you with his hands up, hands that you know, hands that have held yours, that have skated across your skin with reverence.

He steps toward you and you steady your hand, taking in a shaky breath.

“I could shoot you.”

Jungkook nods. “You could. You’re good. Better than me.”

He doesn’t grab your wrist to twist the gun away but instead puts his hand on your hip, squeezes you there, and you drop it and it clatters on the floor.

“If you wanted me to fuck you rough, all you had to do was ask,” he murmurs, and your confused emotions whirl around in your head but your body reacts to his touch.

Jungkook moves slowly, as if you might snarl at him like a cornered animal if he moves too fast, but when he gets his other hand on your hip he shoves you against the wall, runs his teeth along your throat.

You gasp out his name and he buries his face at the crook of your neck and shoulder, breathing hard, pressing you hard up against the wall with his body. He’s so warm against you that you melt into him.

“You were never a mark,” he says against your skin, breathing through his nose as if he’s inhaling you, and the knot in your chest loosens. “I saw you and that was it. You’re it for me.”

“You’re lying,” you choke out, but your hands come up to thread through his hair as if you aren’t controlling them.

Jungkook lets out something between a sob and a laugh. “I wish I was.” His hands move from your hips to bunch up your skirt, the one you’ve hated wearing all day. His right hand slips between your thighs and you tighten them only for an instant before parting them, moaning into his t-shirt.

Jungkook sighs when his fingers part your lips, sliding his thumb along your clit, his index and middle fingers teasing at your entrance. “If you were a mark it wouldn’t make me feel so crazy that you let someone else inside you.”

“Jungkook-” you start, but your breath catches when he shoves his fingers inside you and you come off the floor on your tiptoes, crying out.

“How many times?” He asks, and you’re not sure if it’s a demand or not because he sounds so miserable.

Your fingers stroke his hair and he trembles against you, just slightly.

“I didn’t--ah, fuck!”

He presses his fingers deeper inside you, curling them up and it’s almost too much and it’s not enough, you’re digging your nails into his shoulders now.

“How many times did you let him inside what’s mine?”

His words send heat right to your core and your hips rock toward him, craving more pressure, for his fingers to move or for him to shove you further up the wall and slam his cock insdie you. Your brain keeps trying to remind yourself that you hate him, that he lied to you, but goddammit you love him, all this time you’ve only wanted this to work, only wanted your marriage to be okay and now he’s finally touching you just the way you want, finally here and it wasn’t another woman or that he didn’t care but just that he was a killer. Just like you.

“Never,” you gasp out and you wish you could stop crying. “Never, never.”

Jungkook lifts his head, finally, and you see there are tears tracking down his face too and you’ve never been so in love, it hurts, could bust you wide open but just like in Cabo, you don’t want to run from it.

“You said-”

“I was lying,” you plead, sniffling. “I wanted to make you angry. I wanted to hurt you because I thought--” your voice breaks.

“You thought you were a mark,” he finishes, eyes widening.

“Please,” you plead, and when you jump up to wrap your legs around him his fingers slip out of you and you whine but then he’s between your legs, erection rocking against your core and you grab the back of his head and kiss him so hard that it makes stars burst behind your closed eyelids.

By the time he works down his jeans and shoves inside you, you’re whimpering, clawing at his back and he wraps his hand around your throat just as he starts to fuck you hard and dirty, your aline skirt sliding up against the wall.

“You swear you didn’t let anyone else touch you?”

You’d think this was dirty talk if not for the way he’s looking at you, desperate, and whatever part of you wanted to hurt him back for lying to you is gone. You never want him to look at you like that again.

“I swear. I swear, baby, I would never do that to you,” you promise, and his shoulders relax and his thrusts speed up as he kisses you, deep and slow, too much tongue to be sweet but it feels sweet all the same.

His hand tightens around your throat, squeezing the sides hard, just like you like, like you’d asked him to do for the first time in this very living room. There hadn’t been any furniture then, and it’d been on the stairs instead of the wall.

You hold on to him tight with your arms and go limp, letting him take you any way he likes and just the thought of it, how he can fuck you like an object even though you’re his wife, makes you cry out weakly, your orgasm sweeping over you suddenly.

When he doesn’t slow his thrusts, fucks you even harder after you cum, pleasure strums through your body again, hurtling you to the edge of another orgasm.

“You’re mine,” Jungkook mutters against your ear, breathless. “Tell me you’re mine.”

“Yours,” you murmur, near delirious from everything that’s happened today and the pleasure of finally being touched after three months. “Yours, yours.”

Before you can process what’s happening Jungkook is carrying you upstairs and it’s like being in Cabo again when he carried you all the way up the elevator and to the room, your face pressed into his chest.

When you’re lying cradled in his arms, half asleep but unable to stop craving the touch of his skin against yours, he explains everything and instead of you being angry he had lied you’re so glad he’s telling you now, letting you know all these new pieces of him. You tell him the same and the two of you laugh at the coincidence.

His eyes sparkle a bit when he asks you how many kills you’d made, and you want to scoff at his competitive nature but you haven’t seen him smile like this in months.

“C’mon, how many? I’ll go first: 56. That might seem like a lot but-”

“312.”

Jungkook chokes on air, sitting up in bed to look at you. “What? How?”

“Some of them were two at a time.”

Jungkook groans and he grumbles about it the rest of the night but it makes you giggle until you fall asleep.

The next week at the therapist’s office, you’re both sitting on the edge of your seat when she asks.

“How long since you two have been intimate?”