#wonwoo requests

He was fairly dismissive with you, and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t eat at your nerves, if it didn’t eat at your very soul. You loved Wonwoo more than words could describe, and you never wanted to be labeled as that crazy girlfriend who always had to know where he was or what he was doing or who he was with. You let him have his freedom, but maybe you were too forgiving when it came to keeping your mouth shut because he seemed to continue to take advantage of it, always pushing your limits further and further to see what he could get away with.

Honestly, if he wanted to leave you, you couldn’t fathom why he just wouldn’t. He never struck you as the type to stay with someone he didn’t belong with, or even try to keep up a façade when he clearly was unhappy. Maybe that was the reason you just let him be, to ride it out and hope that things would go back to normal.

But it had been a long, long time since things were normal. Your friends noticed that you were moping, that you were a lot more negative, a lot more emotional, a lot snippier than you used to be. They tried to convince you that Wonwoo was making you acrimonious—maybe he was.  At some point, you had to try a different approach because the one you were using was not working in the slightest. So, the next time he rolled back home at some ungodly hour of the morning, you laid the hammer down.

He ambled into the bedroom the same way he always he when he’d gotten home from being out, trying to keep quiet so that he wouldn’t wake you. But you’d been expecting him, laying awake and facing the window where the full-moon light blared into your bedroom and onto your face as you stared out the window, listening to the door creak open and his quiet footsteps settle in.

“I don’t want you in this bed without an explanation,” you grumbled firmly, not even bothering to turn over to look at him. He sighed heavily, and for a split second you thought he was preparing to tell you what was going on—until you heard the click of the door against the strike plate as he left back to the living room to take his place on the couch, in the dog house where he probably belonged.

Several nights after that, Wonwoo didn’t even bother come into the bedroom. He would arrive home and make his place on the couch without even thinking about you in there. He knew your purpose, you deserved an explanation, but he wasn’t ready to give one to you yet, as he still wasn’t sure himself just what it was he wanted. Although he was staying on the couch, you at least afforded him the courtesy of some blankets and pillows and some type of squishy surface to sleep on with a roof over his head instead of banishing him to the streets to fend for somewhere to stay for himself.

You were still at least that gracious, despite his coldness. You still made him dinner on nights he was home and took care of most of the chores and kept the apartment neat, despite his un-deservingness. He had to hand it to you, no matter how mean and quiet and cold he could be towards you, you continued to be the woman he always knew you to be—the one in charge who took care of things that needed to be done, who never dilly-dallied about anything and always knew what she wanted. He felt ashamed, laying there on the couch, for the things he’d done to you.  It was rare for him, but he could feel the tears prick at his eyes as he laid on the couch and stared at the ceiling, wondering if it was worth it to fight or if it was better to walk away.

Did he love you, or not? Did he want to be with you, or not? Was he just complacent, had things slowed down too much and he was getting bored because he was looking at the relationship for the wrong reasons? He hadn’t gotten there yet; he was still stuck on whether he loved you. Tricky thing about that was that he had to look at the deeper questions. What was the glue holding your relationship together and why did it feel like it was drying up and crumbling apart? Was it him, or was it you?

“It has to be me,” he uttered under his breath. He came to the realization that he couldn’t possibly have given you enough time to prove that it was you, if he was never there. That sounded so cliché, though, the it’s not you it’s me line. That sounded like a cop out, and a rude one at that. You deserved so much more than this, than him, and he knew it.  Now that he had been banished to the couch for the foreseeable future, he had a lot of time to think without you there.  It was clear that you’d tried a different approach, even he could see that, so maybe he had to try a different approach, and he promised he’d begin starting the next day.

The next day, he came home with a different mindset and a different objective. It was up to him to attempt to save the relationship, because he had realized that you were trying your best, but you were getting fed up. He had a small bundle of yellow tulips in his hand when he finally popped the front door of your apartment, but not without taking a deep breath. He wasn’t surprised to see you, but you sure were surprised to see him.

You were making some food, not anticipating that he was going to be home, when he opened the door. At first, he avoided gaze with you and kicked his shoes off and shrugged his jacket off to hang on the coat rack. Maybe if you ignored him, he’d leave like he always did. But that wasn’t the case this time. He ambled into the kitchen, flowers in hand, and took you by the waist to spin you around to face him and planted a gentle kiss against your forehead.

“Good afternoon,” he mumbled into your skin, your half-clenched fists pressing against his chest, a little startled, as you blinked a couple of times, trying to tell if it was really Wonwoo. You could hear the crinkling of the plastic around the flowers in his hand that he pressed into your side while the other hulled you in around the back a little tighter.

“Good afternoon,” you replied, but it didn’t sound cheery.

“I brought you some flowers,” he told you, presenting them.

“They’re very beautiful, thank you,” you replied and took them from him once he finally gave you some space to wiggle out of his grasp and find a vase for them, only to be placed nicely on the dining room table after you’d affixed the same purple ribbon that came around the flowers to the vase.  You’d returned to the stove not long after to finish your food, only to hear Wonwoo’s deep sigh as he plopped onto the couch. A part of you begged to ask why he wasn’t going out, or if he was going out, but you’d made enough food for the both of you, so you decided to just let it go. Maybe this was his step, maybe he’d realized his ways and started with the flowers, so you’d give him one free pass.

“Dinner’s ready, if you’re hungry,” you chimed from the kitchen and pulled a couple of plates out of the cupboards.

Truth be told, he wasn’t very hungry. This entire situation had put a huge knot in his stomach, as he was definitely walking on eggshells with you. He could tell by the way you reacted to his forehead kiss that you were on your last leg. He would be foolish to deny a dinner you prepared for him, so he pushed up off the couch and came into the kitchen to dish up.

He quietly took his place next to you, where he normally sat in a spot that had been barren for so long when you sat there by yourself to eat, and started to pick around at his plate. It took you less than a second to realize his nerves—he’d been your boyfriend for several years now, so you’d like to think you knew him pretty well. You tried not to eyeball him or his plate as he picked around and ate quietly, but eventually he reached over to take your free hand, half-furled against the table to cup over it for a moment.  He maneuvered under it to take it into his hand and brought it over to press his warm lips against the back of your fingers.

“It’s delicious, thank you,” he told you, a little more full-bodied than his statement about the flowers earlier. He looked at you with conviction, for the first time in a long time, and watched as you nodded with a hum, a forced half-smile on your face before you returned to your food.  Even still, your hand remained in his as they slid off the table. The soft warmth of his skin against yours was a feeling you missed dearly, even as something as simple as holding your hand.

The evening continued quietly after Wonwoo cleaned up from dinner. You sat with him on the couch, mostly separated, and watched reruns of a show you used to watch together all the time. He made no attempt to check his phone or find a distraction with anything else, just simply enjoyed your company next to him, the way it used to be. It had dawned on him before, but it really solidified just how bad the relationship had gotten because he couldn’t find a way to rekindle that love he used to have for you, the love he begged and pleaded to still be in there somewhere in both you and himself.

You were curled up in a blanket in the corner of the couch, keeping your distance because you were still wary, and especially now that he’d drastically changed directions. Then, he did something you didn’t think he’d ever do again. He reached over to the blanket and untucked it from under your feet and, with hesitation on your part, brought your legs over his lap to stroke against your smooth skin.  It wasn’t implicative, it was innocent as he continued to mindlessly draw circles on your skin as he watched the TV.  On the other hand, you watched the side of his face, looking for any indication that he was trying to hard not to crack.

“Thank you for cleaning up,” you finally told him.

“Of course,” he hummed back and turned from the TV to look at you.

You wanted to ask him do desperately in that moment if he still loved you, the glimmering in his dark chocolate eyes a sight you missed so, so, so much. You just wanted to relish it, because it was a rarity anymore, so you did. He looked at you so tenderly, his fingers against your skin just as so, and he seemed to have no intention of looking away before you. This was the Wonwoo you loved. The attentive, sweet, and gentle man you fell in love with was definitely somewhere in there and you could tell he was trying hard to bring him back.  

Wonwoo leaned over as far as he could after a moment, begging you to meet him half-way. Nervousness and hesitancy pumped through your veins like adrenaline—it had been so long since you last kissed him, you weren’t even sure you wanted to anymore. You put it aside for a moment, for the sake of your relationship, and met him half-way more or less. His soft lips meshed against yours seamlessly and he kissed you like you’d never missed a beat with soft fingers tracing against your jaw before he pulled away. It took your eyes a moment to flutter back open, but when they did and saw that dazzling shy little smile across his lips, you could feel the hesitancy in your heart slowly fading.

For the remainder of the evening, you mostly minded yourselves even for the majority of the time that your legs were still cast over Wonwoo’s lap until one of you had to get up—they didn’t return to his lap after that.  Once it came time for bed, you had a decision to make. Even though Wonwoo followed you to the bathroom to brush your teeth and other nightly routine things, there was the question of if he was allowed to sleep in bed with you again. You weren’t exactly sure what you thought of the entire situation. It wasn’t as if he’d been absolved of everything that had happened between the two of you just because he brought you flowers and stayed at home for one night.

The fateful question came as the two of you were cleaning up the living room a bit. He looked over to you folding up the blanket that he used to sleep on the couch with the last several nights, the one you’d wrapped yourself up in earlier while he moved the pillows back to their proper spots.

“Where would you like me to sleep tonight?” he asked you.

You blinked a few times, looking at the blanket in your hands before you slowly turned your gaze up to him. He looked hopeful, but not too much so, that you’d let him sleep in his own bed.

“What do you think you deserve?” you asked him, trying to find a middle ground; Wonwoo was always the type to be reasonable.

He gnawed on his bottom lip and cast his gaze away from you. He knew what he deserved, even in his own eyes, as he looked over to the couch again.

“I’ll stay here again tonight,” he told you and gathered the blanket from your arms, “but I would like to tuck you in.” He dropped the blanket back on the couch and followed you into the bedroom, ushering you a little bit when you thought about changing his mind about where to stay. Slowly, you crawled under the covers with Wonwoo’s aid and settled into your side for him to pull the covers up over you.   He leaned down, pushing some hair away from your forehead to place a lingering, tender kiss against it.

“Goodnight, my sweet, kind, caring, tolerant, patient girl. Please rest easy tonight,” he muttered into your skin, before he was almost on his way out. He jerked back a bit when you reached out from under the covers to grab his hand and turn him back to you.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you love me,” you challenged. He, and anyone else, could say sweet things so easily without looking into the eyes of the one they were saying those things too; there was a sense of detachment that was easy to get by.

Wonwoo sighed heavily, knowing this would come sooner or later. Truth be told, he did love you dearly, still. There were some things he needed to work through, some places where he needed to try and others where he needed to try harder. After coming to the ultimate conclusion that he was the cause of the roughness between the two of you, his thoughts weren’t clouded about how he felt about you anymore. Complacency was a silent relationship killer and sometimes it took a different route to keep the zeal alive.

He sat down on the bed, dipping the mattress next to you to turn and look at you. Again, he stroked some hair away from your face as you looked up at him, eyes already glossy assuming that he couldn’t. He gazed down at you so softly, looking over your face a couple of times but always came back to your eyes.

“You know I love you more than life itself,” he whispered to you. You could feel and see his sincerity. “I wanted to give you a better apology, and I didn’t want it to have to come out like this, but I do want you to know how sorry I am. I fell into complacency, and I know that’s not an excuse, but I want you to know that I’ll do better, that I take responsibility and I’ll be a better man for you.”

It was inevitable, the way the waterworks turned on despite how well you’d been keeping it together through this whole thing. Hearing him apologize, knowing the he knew how hard you’d been working and how difficult this whole thing had been was liberating in and of itself. Tears streamed out of the corners of your eyes, back into your hair and into the pillowcase while you attempted to stave some tears, blinking them back.

“I’ve not been good to you lately, and you don’t deserve that at all. You deserve someone who works hard for you, like they’re trying to make you fall in love with them every single day. I’ll admit, I didn’t understand why these things were happening, and I’m glad you banished me to the couch, I’m glad you put your foot down because I probably wouldn’t have seen it. All this time, I thought I had fallen out of love with you, that I only loved the memories we made and that relationship didn’t exist anymore. I was focused too much on those memories instead of continuing to make new ones—”

“Wonwoo—”

“In short, I’m an ass, and I’m sorry, my darling, for everything you’ve endured because of me.”

“Sometimes, you’re really hard to love,” you said, trying to laugh to make it feel light, even if you were still crying, “but even then, I do my best.”

He chuckled a bit and leaned down to brush his nose against yours. “And for that, I am so fortunate, and from now on I’ll do the same, even if you’re never hard to love.” He pressed a gentle kiss against your mouth, one that confirmed everything he said was true, that he was sincere, that he would go back to the man you loved before.  

“Even though we’ve kissed and somewhat made up, I still think we could use one more night of space.”

“You’re just worried I’m going to cry the whole night with you in here.”

“If I know anything about you, you will, and I’d rather you not fall asleep with tears in your eyes,” he whispered back, brushing some stray tears off your face. “After all, I still don’t think I deserve it. So, give me one more day to prove that I do.”

Here you were, now, four years down the road after entering the academy, two years into your separate forces. You and Wonwoo had occasionally entertained the idea of a relationship in passing in the beginning years, mostly as a joke to one another, not that neither of you had feelings for each other.

Because, in the feelings department, the both of you were raging.

His smile was much more attractive, his laugh made your skin crawl in the best way; his eyes held the galaxies, and his touch—oh, his touch lit you up like nothing else. It always had, since you first met, but now it was magnified, tenfold, and goodness were you weak for a man in a bullet-proof vest. A weird thing to be wired about, especially in your line of business, they were a dime a dozen.

You remember the first time you saw him in his tactical uniform, though he was a little more of a show off about it than most of the others. He was a sniper, so he didn’t need as much mobility from the bagginess of the uniforms. Often, when you caught him after a call, he looked so incredibly dashing in a tight black turtleneck, his cargo pants belted to his hips securely, a bullet-proof vest peeking out of the cover he was supposed to be wearing.

As the old saying went, you loved a man in uniform. It just was odd, coming from someone who shared a similar uniform from time to time, when you weren’t prim and proper in a skirt-suit or something similar working actual files for the cases at the confines of your desk—the desk Wonwoo often invited you away from. He insisted on buying your coffee every single time as repayment for taking you away from that work. Sometimes, when he couldn’t take you away from it, he brought the coffee to you and closed the door to your office silently behind him.

Everyone knew something was up between the two of you, everyone at NIS and NPA. Most of them just assumed you were dating already; it wasn’t as if their assumptions weren’t in the right direction. Others knew the details of your struggles with one another—it was hard to commit to someone in your field, knowing the risks that came through every single day while on that job. Still, Wonwoo persisted.

Often, he invited you out for dinner, just the two of you. Most times, you rejected with a soft blush and the shake of your head, even as he reached for your hand, trying to convince you to go out with him. But sometimes, you agreed. He always took you somewhere really nice, the both of you getting dressed up to go out since it was few and far between. Those were the nights the two of you most adamantly considered a relationship, when he dropped you off on your doorstep to share a kiss, or two, or three, or more when you grabbed his sport coat to pull him through the front door of your home.

You never wanted to admit it to yourself, but you were fully committed to Wonwoo, even if your title didn’t say so. The fact that he stayed with you through the night when they became a little more passionate than the others, or that he was always checking up on you and bringing you coffee, or that he texted you every time he got back from an intervention to let you know he was safe was slowly shattering your non-title. He started staying over at your place more and more, some nights passionate, some nights sweet, either way, when he stayed over, he stayed in your bed.

One thing you may have loved more than seeing him in uniform, was seeing him bare. The warmth of his chest when you slept against him was surreal, despite its frequency. When you’d wake in the morning and peer at his bare back, you couldn’t help but fawn over him, innocently, more often than not. You adored the rasp in his voice, laced with sleep, when he finally would wake and hull you up against him, requesting five more minutes and melted at the sound of your chuckle as you combed through his hair, deeply inhaling your scent masked by his own as you usually dawned his shirts. Half the time he was at your place, half the time he was at his own, despite still paying rent to his roommate.

Today, he was off, which meant he was actually on call, but didn’t have to actively be in the office. He brought a large cup of coffee to your office, strolling through NIS as if he worked there, but he had the clearance, both from NPA and from you. He knocked on your door, listening to your sweet voice invite him in.

“Good afternoon, beautiful,” he uttered to you, lightly kicking the door closed behind him as he set your coffee in front of you.

“Good afternoon, handsome,” you replied, a soft smile on your face to match his as you gathered the coffee in your hands, thanking him with a chaste kiss as he planted his hand on your desk, on top of your case file, to lean over to you lips. It wasn’t enough for him, though; he rounded your desk to step between it and your chair and leaned back, resting on your open file to garner a look.

“How are your cases going?” he asked you, fully aware of exactly what he was doing, exacerbating the situation as he plopped his rear on top of said file.

“Well, I was reviewing them to see if I could find any leads…” you trailed off as he lifted one of his legs to fully rest on your desk, hulling it just a little higher than his other hip to open his legs to you. He often did this, attempted to distract you from what you were saying—when you forgot, he won, and would lean down to collect a kiss.

“Jeon Wonwoo!” you protested, but that didn’t stop his kisses from trailing away from your lips and down your neck to what he could reach from the ruffled collar of your blouse.

“Yes, honey?”

“Get your cute butt off my files,” you warned him, turning your head to nip at his ear. He pulled back, giving you a dazzling grin, innocently peering at you but you weren’t having any of it as you took his chin, cupping it with your index finger under his jaw, your thumb pinching it. “Don’t flash that dazzling grin at me, boy,” you continued, shaking his head involuntarily, softly from side to side, “even if you melt my insides when you call me that.”

“You just melt my insides in general,” he replied, causing you to push him away with a firm hand on his chest as he giggled, teasing you.

You rolled your eyes as he stood from your desk, doing as you asked to pull up a chair next to yours. He watched you cup your coffee, gingerly sipping from it now and again as he settled into his seat until he was gnawing at his lip, looking at you, getting a little shy which was unusual for him. Your brows rose in question, coaxing it out of him and he cleared his throat.

“Can I pamper my baby for a minute?” he asked you, watching you melt at the pet-name. It got you every single time, no matter which one it was, when he called you something cute like that. When you didn’t object, he reached down, palm skyward to motion with his fingers. Your tight clad feet pulled out of your heels, lifting from the ground for him to tug your legs across his lap. His wide palm smoothed over your shins, cupping your calf as he rubbed your legs down.

“I know you’re on your feet a lot, standing in front of that profiling board,” he whispered to you, setting his coffee down on your desk to caress both of your legs down to your feet, digging his thumbs in the arch of both of them. He watched your lips part, a relieved sigh falling from them as he released the tension in your feet, both from being on them and from being contorted in your heels. Your coffee was almost shaky in your hands as your eyes fluttered closed, his thumbs working into the bottoms of your feet and back up your legs.

“You spoil me,” you told him, mostly a whisper as you took another sip of your coffee, your eyes opening again to peer at him from under your lashes.

He winked at you, “Maybe I do, but only just a little bit.”

“Are you coming over tonight?” you asked him, watching his eyes lift to yours after drifting back to your legs. His hands rubbed you down as he thought about his response, taking a deep breath.

“Do you want me to?” he replied, slipping your legs off his lap before tugging your rolling swivel chair in his direction, leaning far over to kiss your lips once, twice, thrice—gentle closed-mouth pecks that had your heart fluttering for him, especially when his fingers touched your jaw, tilting your head up for him.

You nodded, eyes fluttering back open as he pulled away.

“I was thinking we could have dinner and a nice quiet night in.”

“Mm, how about after dinner we have a candle-lit bubble bath and a fine bottle of prosecco,” he suggested, a purr in your ear as he charmed your coffee out of your hands, a more desperate kiss he placed against your lips.

“You really do spoil me, Wonwoo,” you purred back against his lips. His soft chuckle was a symphony in your ears, his soft hands tugging at your waist, desperately wanting to drag you into his lap. Just as he was about to, your boss knocked and opened your door. Wonwoo wasn’t unfamiliar to him, as your boss gave him a salute before turning his attention back to you, mentioning something about the profiling of one of the cases that had been cold on your desk for a while. You turned in your chair to search for it, picking through file after file before handing it to him so he could review your work—something for a press conference.

Once the door closed, Wonwoo looked over at you with a grin, his fingers back to tug at your suit jacket.

“You’re my queen, I’m supposed to spoil you,” he finally replied, giving you a half-lidded look as his tongue teased the side of his lips.

“That’s code for I want to drag you into my lap,” you responded, rolling your eyes even as he continued to tug at your jacket, trying to do just that, coax you right into his lap. He chuckled, dropping his head to break the gaze with you.

“It’s not code for anything!” he added, his hands finally finding the attempt at your waist futile as they dropped from your coat. Despite that, you stood, surprising him a little bit. It would have been hard to drag you into his lap the way he wanted, considering your pencil skirt, but you gave him a little bit of what he wanted as you leaned over and placed both of your hands on his strong thighs, leaning over him to garner his gaze again.

His brows were raised in surprise as he looked at you, but soon relaxed when his eyes fell closed, one of his hands placed on the back of one of yours, the other cupping your jaw the instant your soft, supple lips met his in a kiss that had his heart pumping hard. His deep inhale through his nose had your heart pumping just the same. Seldom did you kiss him like this when it wasn’t at your house, but something in you told you that you should.

The hand of yours he wasn’t pinning against his leg rose for a moment to stroke your fingers against his jaw before trailing down his neck, over his shirt and against his chest where you lay your palm flat over his heart and before long, the hand that was pinning your hand to his leg was then pinning your hand against his chest, clutching it against his body.

His warm tongue touched against your closed lips, begging for a little more, just a little, and your lips parted for a moment to gingerly graze his tongue with yours before shyly breaking the kiss.

“What’s gotten into you? You never kiss me like this at work,” he breathed against your lips, and you were kissing him again, removing your hand from his leg to thread through his hair and tilt his head for you as you nipped at his bottom lip. Something desperate was screaming at you, but you couldn’t place it.

Wonwoo’s brow drew together—not that he wasn’t enjoying it, but something wasn’t right. He tried to ignore it, tried to ignore the way your tongue touched tentatively against his, when you were usually so fervent about him. Maybe it was the fact that you were at work, typically not too keen about being this unprofessional, even in the privacy of your office.

But that didn’t seem like it, either. He was becoming an anxious mess, mirroring your anxiety. He tried to break the kiss to ask you, muffling a quiet ‘baby’ against your lips, but you kissed it away, silencing him. Your right hand was furled in the front of his shirt, a sure-sign that something wasn’t sitting right with you, only confirmed when he pulled away—

“Sweetheart,” he begged, cupping your chin to keep you a short distance away, but still at his will, “stop.” His eyes looked into yours, looked between them as he tried to read your face, your breath was nervous, but he didn’t give you enough time to say anything as he turned you, plopping you askew in his lap and wrapped his arms around you to cuddle you close to him.

“Something’s wrong. You’re never like this; talk to me, what are you feeling?”

His chin resting on your shoulder was a sliver of solace, his arms tightly around you to drag you into his warm chest. You were askew enough that he could peek up at your face, on the edge of your shoulder, begging for your attention. Unable to come up with a good answer, you shook your head, fingers soft on his arms wrapped around you.

“I—I don’t know, Wonwoo; I’m nervous,” you finally replied.

“Talk to me, baby,” he pleaded. “What are you nervous about? Is it about me?”

All you could do was nod, slowly at first but more vigorously the more you thought about it.

“I have a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, all of the sudden. Instincts… took over and—”

Wonwoo’s phone started ringing, and you knew that ringtone like your death knell. He looked at you, wanting to ignore it to make sure you were okay, but it was duty calling and he had to answer it. You nodded for him to take it and, with you on his lap, shifted to dig his phone from his pocket and put it to his ear as his eyes met yours again. It was what sounded like his commanding officer giving him the details of a high profile situation which sounded vaguely familiar like the open case file that was on your desk.

Wonwoo swallowed hard as he finally looked back at you. “I’ll be stationed ASAP,” he spoke into the phone before hanging up. He could see the nervousness on your face; he almost never got called in, especially like this. You could feel your blood pumping through your veins, but for a different reason. His commanding officer already had a three cop body count and when he gave the news to Wonwoo, he cursed under his breath, his face showing the disappointment with the situation.

“It’s going to be okay,” he tried to soothe you, bringing your hand to his lips to kiss the back of it. “It’s going to be fine.”

“It’s the case, Wonwoo,” you told him, wanting to direct your attention to the open file on your desk, but he knew what it was, and he wasn’t going to let you look. He wanted your sweet eyes on him as he reassured you he’d return to you. He cupped your chin, making you look at him and only him as he stroked your fly-aways back with the fingers of his free hand.

“My stuff is in the car—”

“I’m going with you,” you interrupted, standing from his lap to slide your drawer open, grabbing the Glock in it before his hands covered yours, and wheedling it back out of your hand.

“You’re not,” he whispered from behind you. “You’re going to stay here, or you’re going to go home. It’s dangerous out there and I don’t want you needlessly tangled up in it. I’m the best shot they have, and someone unaccounted for. It’s going to be fine, I’m going to come home to you and we’re going to have a nice dinner and forget all about it.”

“Be on the radio with me,” you replied firmly.

His arms tightened around your waist after sliding your drawer closed, clicking the lock on it, as he buried his face in the crook of your neck.

“I’ll be listening.”

He could feel your heart pounding in your chest, feel your uneven breathing against his body, and feel the tremble in your bones.

“I have to go, baby,” he whispered in your ear.

“Please, be safe.”

Without another word, just a chaste kiss against your cheek, he disappeared with the promise he’d come back to you. He hadn’t even bothered close the door behind him, his coffee next to yours on your desk, the messy files of the case open and splayed across it. You took a deep breath, trying to calm your nerves—he was NPA’s best shot, and if he posted up properly like you knew he would, there would be no problems.

Still, you turned in your swivel chair to flip the small TV in your office on, turning to the live action news of the SWAT situation currently taking place down town, the situation Wonwoo was on his way to. Helicopters circled a building you were familiar with and you glanced at your drawer. You didn’t want to, but you heeded Wonwoo’s words. He would be back for you, he promised, but that didn’t settle the unnerving pit in your stomach.

Your boss pushed through your door, startling you, but he didn’t bother apologize before continuing with what he was going to say.

“There’s a SWAT situation—”

“I know,” you interrupted him. He looked around the office, noting Wonwoo’s absence and he looked at you, looked at the distress on your face. “He left about five minutes ago.”

“Go home,” he said, surprising you for a moment. “You’re just going to torture yourself sitting around here, helplessly, with all of the resources to go help him. But it needs to be just him, there’s nothing you can do. I can see the distress on your face—go home.”

It would have been what Wonwoo wanted. You grabbed your things, flipped the TV off, stowed all the files in the lock box which you shoved into your filing closet and headed out your office door, locking it behind you. You headed home without another word, trying to keep your mind off whatever could be going on and keep it on the reassurance he’d be okay.

You felt like you were going to throw up, trying to occupy yourself with what you were going to cook the both of you for dinner before realizing there probably wasn’t much at home. The grocery store was your first stop—an attempt to just continue the day as normal, as if you weren’t falling apart on the inside as you mindlessly perused the shelves for something to make.

An eternity you felt you spent in the store, only a thirteen item total in your cart. Your mind kept going to the radio; you begged to ask him how he was doing, what was going on, knowing he wouldn’t reply. That, and you didn’t want to distract him. You ignored it, putting your groceries in your car and headed home. An hour had ticked by since he left your office, and you wouldn’t dare turn on the TV. He would let you know when he was okay—and he would be okay. You sat on your couch after changing out of your work clothes, waiting impatiently, keeping the TV off. A little hard, you tugged at your hair, pulling it away from your face, trying to keep from going insane, trying to keep yourself grounded, trying to keep the pit in your stomach contained and keep the contents of it where they belonged.

You had prepared dinner for the most part, placing the proper ingredients in the crock pot. It was four forty-seven in the afternoon, and it would easily be ready by seven if he was back and ready to eat by then. You hoped, prayed even, that it wouldn’t be that long, that he would be back to you long before that. But the sun was quickly going down; visibility would no doubt get worse if there weren’t flood lights prepared for a stand-off.

Agony. Agony was all you felt as you fumbled with your phone in your hands for another thirty to forty minutes, considering giving him a call the more the time ticked by. You had dialed his number into the keypad, thumb hovering over the call button before you could hear the lock on your front door tumble from the turn of a key.

Relief washed over you as you tossed your phone onto the couch, leaping from it to get to the front door. Wonwoo hardly had enough time to drop his duffle bag in the entrance before your arms were tight around his neck, throwing your body into his to stagger him a bit off balance. It was a bit difficult for him to move as he wrapped his arms around your waist, sinking his face into your neck, his vest and cover restraining him a little bit. You could feel the firmness of his bullet-proof vest against your front, but that was much less of a concern than the warm liquid that smeared against your neck.

You were so concerned about him being home that you had transitorily forgotten to process the cut across Wonwoo’s cheek, hardly trickling blood, but enough to smear into your skin.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, probably talking about the blood as he held you close, feeling the entirety of your body against his, despite desperately wanting to tug you closer. “I told you I would come back to you.”

“What happened to you?” you whispered, trying to draw back to look at his face, but he wasn’t having it. He stayed nestled into the crook of your neck, holding you tightly.

“Nothing… nothing,” he whispered back.

“You’re smearing blood all over my neck, it’s not nothing,” you replied and he finally let you draw away. He reached into his back pocket for a handkerchief to clean the blood off your neck, ignoring your stare at his cheek, sliced from what looked like a tactical knife. When he seemed to be done, you snatched the handkerchief from his hand to clean his face a bit.

“I’m a little rattled… I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Your stomach about fell out of your rear—even though he was right in front of you, in the flesh, his words indicated there was a high possibility that he wasn’t going to return to you. You pulled entirely away from him, clenching his handkerchief in your hand as he unzipped his cover, revealing his vest that held two bullet casings centered on his torso, easily kill-shots.

The churning in your stomach came back as you brought your hand up to cover your mouth; the tears stung your eyes, but you pushed them away. He was there with you just like he promised and the casings stuck in the weave of his vest wasn’t going to change that. The grief on your face had Wonwoo’s insides tangling up.

“I—baby, I’m—”

“I’m just glad you’re safe. I wouldn’t know what to do if I lost you.”

He hurried to tug his cover off, his vest with it and dropped them both on top of the duffle bag, desperately wanting to feel you against him, to feel your warmth mingle with his own. Quickly and firmly, he tugged you in, pulling your whole front against him once again, but this time, it soothed the both of you to just revel in the warmth of one another. One of your arms wrapped around his neck, draping over his shoulders, while the other completely disheveled his hair, clutching him close as if he would disappear if you let go.

Wonwoo was counting his breathing, trying to calm the adrenaline still pumping through his veins. Clutching at the back of your shirt, his hands desperately tried to reel you tighter, letting your fingers carding through his hair calm him a little more as he began to walk to the both of you out of the entry way.

“I realized my mortality, today,” he said, more for himself than for you. You were always concerned about that, and you often expressed it. He tried to reassure you as if he was invincible, but you never fell for it. You knew of his mortality the same as his own—nobody was immune to a bullet. Despite that, you just nodded, understanding that he needed to get some things out but keep some other things in.

“It’s okay, you’re safe now,” you whispered back to him. He nuzzled deeper into your neck, no intention of letting you go any time soon. “It’s okay, Wonwoo,” you soothed, stroking down the back of his head and over his neck, hooking on his broad shoulder as you attempted to reel back from him again. You’d be having a word with NPA, with no real reason Wonwoo took fire as an add-on when they should have only called him with the necessary information for him to take the shot and be done with it.

In his eyes, you could see the cesspool of emotions. The fear, the relief, the contentment with finally being home; his arms were still tightly around your waist, but he’d let you lean back far enough to take both of his cheeks in your soft hands. Your thumb brushed just under his cut, which had stopped bleeding—barely a nick, though a long one.

“I had the intent of being the big spoon—”

Your thumb tugged at his bottom lip, silencing him almost instantly as you cupped his strong, sharp jaw.

“You don’t have to ask me for comfort; I will always take care of my man,” you finally replied, peering up into his eyes when his grasp around you finally allowed your feet back flat on the floor. His brow drew together, humming at your words—he loved when you called him your man. “Go run the bath, I’ll make sure the food stays warm,” you told him, dismissing him with a sweet kiss against his pleading and almost quivering lips.

You fiddled with the crock pot for only a moment; the food wasn’t quite done yet, but you had it programmed to low warm for when it went off. Faintly, you could hear the bathwater running in your master bathroom. He knew where everything he needed was at—the matches, the candles, the bubbles, the rose oil; he knew the temperature at which you liked the water and he laid out towels for the both of you. By the time you entered the bathroom, Wonwoo was already chest deep in the bathtub, clothes scattered across the floor as he eyed you.

In your hands were the missing pieces—two slender flutes and the bottle of prosecco he promised you, knowing that it was sitting in your fridge for a special occasion. This was special enough. He waded in the water a bit, finding the edge of the tile-encased bathtub to take the bottle from your hands as well as a cloth, also taking your lips with his in a sweet kiss. Quiet violin was playing in the background and the lights were dimmed. It was exactly as you had imagined when he offered you this earlier in the afternoon.

The bottle popped and he took both of the flutes, distracted with that while your clothes fluttered to the floor and you climbed the steps to settle into the hot water with him. Behind him was where you settled, as per his request, settling down with the water just under your clavicle.

“I changed my mind,” he uttered, crossing the tub to settle his back against the warmed porcelain wall and motioned for you with the finger still holding your flute. “I want to see the galaxies in your eyes,” he muttered to you, handing over your flute so he could help you settle over his lap. The scent of rosewater wafted through the air of the bathroom, mixing with the candles.

With your free hand you pushed his hair away from his forehead, brushing it out of his eyes before tracing his square jaw. His eyes never departed from yours, looking right into the deepest parts of your soul while his free hand entertained the small of your back, adjusting you on his lap so that everyone’s legs were comfortable. He delicately sipped his prosecco as your hand fell into the water, touching against his chest, against the love-bites littering his collarbones. He licked his lips, watching your eyes look them over, knowing you were the cause of all of those marks.

But those marks didn’t rile you or him, those marks reminded you of the blood under that skin, the blood that kept that flesh warm, the blood that kept your favorite human being alive and well in your arms right where he belonged. You couldn’t help but lean over and press a soft kiss against the cut on his cheek, and then his forehead, and then the tip of his nose before he was getting antsy, his fingers furling on your back as his lips tried to chase yours.

Your eyes fluttered closed with the anticipation of his lips, the sparks flew through your body when they finally met and your hand slid up to cup the back of his neck to tilt his head up just a little bit for you. His hand on your back tugged you into him, the skin on skin contact bringing a sigh out of his throat and against your mouth. He broke the kiss first, but rested his forehead against yours.

“Talk to me,” he pleaded, feeling the tension in your body he begged not to be there.

“I was scared,” you whispered to him, “I was right about my feelings. I felt like I was never going to get to kiss you again, back in my office. I—”

“I’m here,” he reminded you, taking your hand to put it over his beating heart. It was calm for you, the heart that belonged to you under your soft touch, his flesh warm and inviting—it was enough. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m going to have a word with NPA, there’s no reason—”

“Baby girl?” he asked, interrupting you, not wanting to hear any more about it. You looked from the wall that had caught your gaze in your frustration, his voice uttering that name melting you back into him as your gaze turned to him. He clutched your hand against his chest, pressing it firmer, making sure you could feel the way his heart beat for you. He shook his head, “Be mad tomorrow. Right now, I just want to be with you.”

You softened, relaxing into his lap. He was right; there was no reason to be upset about it now and taking your frustration out on him. He was there, as he promised, and would go to bed with you and wake up with you. He kissed your jaw as you thought, trying to calm yourself down as you took the first sip from your flute. Despite wanting you to face him, he helped you turn, knowing you’d calm down cradled into his body. He settled you between his legs, letting your back rest against his chest as his lips lingered next to your ear, your head resting on his shoulder.

Wonwoo reached forward to touch your knee which just barely peeked out of the surface of the water; his soft fingers against your skin pulled the goosebumps out, even in the hot water.

“Did you know?” he asked quietly in your ear.

“Did I know what?” you asked, pinning his left leg between your hip and your elbow as you stroked the backside of his knee, listening to him purr into your ear.

“That I love you?”

You shifted against his chest, squirming against him with the sweetest smile tugging at your lips, your eyes fluttering closed as you pushed back against his shoulder.

“Did you know that I love you more?”

“Ah, I don’t think that’s possible. I love you the most,” he teased back playfully, kissing against your neck under your ear that had your head tilting away from him.

“I can’t wait until your lease is up and you move in with me,” you told him.

It was his turn to wiggle against you, creating small waves in the water as he wiggled you with him.

“I can’t wait to wake up to you every single day, not having to worry about what’s going on at home and splitting myself between two houses. I can’t wait to come home to you every single night and just crawl into bed with you whenever I feel like it, knowing my time is unlimited. I can’t wait until I can ask you what you want for dinner instead of you asking me if I’m going to come over.”

“Wonwoo,” you hummed through a soft chuckle.

“Yes, my lady?”

“Cheers to that, babe,” you said, holding your flute just high enough to clink with his.