A/n: am I coping with jikook leaving by writing smut and fluff? Yes, yes I am.

"You're the most captivating person I've ever met and I promised to stay by your side..."

Oh, for the love of God.

Those eyes, those beautiful brown eyes could sparkle like the brightest stars in the night sky, but they were blind. They were so goddamn blind.

He couldn't see it, could he? The absolute mess I was. The natural disaster I had become. He saw right past it. I looked my butler in the eyes in an attempt to let him see how dead I was, but the boy just kept smiling at me, giving me a look that said I brought him life.

After coming back from Calabria, I'd asked Emilio to my room to break me, but the stableboy never made it to my door. Instead it was the butler who was sitting next to me now, obstructing the path I was trying to walk like a stubborn boulder in my way.

Jungkook peered through his bangs like a shy teenager, even though he had grown so much since he first showed his face here. He was gorgeous. A handsome obstacle I couldn't help but be entranced by.

Why me? I asked myself. Why did he decide to give all of this to me when I was so obviously unable to handle it?

"You think I am despicable for letting him near me, don't you?" I said with a stuffy nose. "I am revolting... rotten..."

"You are none of those things."

And then my face was cupped between the watchmaker's hands, who showed no signs of ever voluntarily leaving my room again.

I kept asking myself over and over what drove this perfectly normal young man to thrust himself into my mess like it was worth saving. The world was open to him. He had the choice to do with his life whatever he pleased and yet here he still was, still willingly clinging to me.

Jungkook held me like he was afraid I'd slip away. Afraid to be apart from me. And suddenly something clicked inside my brain, allowing me to understand the stubborn watchmaker on a whole new level.

It didn't matter how many times I threatened him, or treated him like shit. Made his help feel worthless, and pretended to be fine without his care for me. No matter how hard I tried to push him away, he would push right back into me with just as much force. Because he was the watchmaker, and I was the broken clock, calling him toward me with every unstable tick. It was his job, his destiny, his purpose, to fix me.

There was no getting rid of him.

Not while we were both breathing.

Jungkook kissed me, and suddenly I was nothing but a hopelessly romantic sixfteen year old boy, greedy for love in such a childish way. I had never killed. Never tortured. Never forced myself to be a with a woman. I was a boy kissing another boy, and innocent bursts of happiness exploded in my belly like fizzy fireworks.

"Tesoro," I panted, allowing the butler to hover above me on the bed. My cock was throbbing, but no longer with the desire to be destroyed. Oh God, I wanted the watchmaker. But I didn't want it rough, and deep, and painful. I wanted it sweet, and gentle, and careful. I felt vulnerable like an open nerve, but I wasn't scared. There was no need to be scared. "You've never... you've haven't had--"

A virgin. He was a virgin. I could read it on his face. Pure in the way I expected, but I was too hungry to second guess my actions.

We were just two men who desired each other. Two men who wanted to make love. There was nothing inherently wrong with that, was there? Could I be allowed to have this? To have him? Just for today? I would pause to look at this obstacle a little longer, and allow my eyes to feast on it's beauty for a day or two.

My journey would continue in a moment.

This was just a short halt.

Another chance to play pretend.

________

"You romanticize me," I whispered as I laid on top of the sweaty watchmaker, my head rising and falling with his rapid, deep breaths. He was staring at the ceiling, and I was staring at him, watching a droplet of sweat race down his neck down to his collarbones.

His cock was still inside me, twitching like the tail of an excited dog, letting me know that I had at least done a half-decent job of bringing him pleasure.

We were both slowly gaining our strength back after committing to an intense second round, and even though sex usually felt like war to me, this time neither my mind nor my body had suffered any injuries.

"Do I?" Jungkook asked, chuckling softly. "Maybe... possibly."

"You do," I said, pushing myself up a little. "But I suppose it can't be helped."

"My father," Jungkook started, wrapping his arms around me and pressing me close as though I'd threatened to leave the bed. "He was a great man."

I cocked my head sideways, entranced like I'd been charmed by a siren.

"When he came back from the war, he was still that great man... but he was changed. Fear had corrupted his heart, and turned it into a heavy block of ice."

"I'm sorry," I whispered, tangling my legs with the watchmaker's under our warm sea of blankets. I was barely able to move. That's how tightly he held me. But I still managed to kiss his jawline and nudge my face into him like a docile cat. I was addicted. Drunk on him. Meek in a way I didn't think I was able to become. He had stripped me down to who I once was, and though I knew those powers of his were dangerous, there was no stopping it.

"I watched my mother thaw him over and over. And I helped her bring my father back, again and again, even though it became tougher everytime. The joy we both felt whenever we succeeded... it couldn't be put into words. To see him laugh again. To hear him read us stories. To watch him dance with my mother..."

"That sounds like a difficult experience."

"I think it shaped me," the watchmaker murmured. "It shaped me into a man who has to feel needed all the time. I only ever felt worthy of love when I was able to save my father from his own mind. I would have burned my body to let him see the sun again, and now-- it seems-- I find myself having this obsessive drive to... to--"

"Fix people."

Jungkook parted his lips as though he was about to apologize, but I freed my hand and placed my pointer finger against his mouth. "Thank you," I whispered, crinkling my eyes. "For helping me understand."

"You're not upset?" Jungkook asked, pouting like a toddler.

"I'm absolutely insane," I said bluntly, a curt smile curling my lips. "I hear voices, see things that aren't there, and fantasize about killing myself almost every night."

I pushed myself up from Jungkook's chest and sat up, straddling him as I felt his member swell inside of me. "I'm the most shattered person on the face of the earth, tesoro, so I suppose you were always meant to find me."

Jungkook caught his lower lip between his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut as I began to bounce up and down on his cock.

"Y-you know... you romanticize me t-too," he stuttered with a sly smile.

"Do I?" I asked, smirking as I rode the butler all the way to that horizon.

"You think of me as p-pure. Innocent. N-naive..."

"Because you are."

"I'm n-not!"

I leaned forward and grabbed the watchmaker's face between my fingers, strands of my sweaty hair hiding darkened eyes. "You're adorable when you whine."

"F-fuck~" the watchmaker sang, that lovely baritone voice of his floating through the room and swirling all around us.

"We're not stopping yet, okay tesoro?" I panted, sensually moving my hips in circles of different sizes. "I'm a greedy creature, you see? And I just-- can't seem to get enough of you."

The watchmaker's pupils expanded, and I seemed to have accidentally awakened something inside of him when he bucked his hips and pushed himself into me even deeper.

I mewled like a kitten, but Jungkook captured me, hugging me as he took charge and thrusted into me at a steady pace. "Take all you need," he murmured into my ear. "Take all you need and then some..."

I sighed in delight, tipping my head back when the butler kept hitting my favorite spot. "Oh, you silly kid~" I moaned, digging my nails into the watchmaker's shoulders. "You're h-hopeless."

Jungkook kissed me, licking my lips like they tasted of sugar. "On the contrary, mister Park," he grunted, tracing my back as he made love to me. "Hope is all I have."

_________

Jin was sick.

Jin was sick, and I felt horrible about it.

One of my father's doctors had come to check on him but Jin had the Spanish flu and there wasn't much anyone could do about that.

Everyone in the house was scared, but I couldn't even be worried about my footman in peace.

Keep your... your enemies there... and your friends... somewhere?

"Consigliere advised initiation sooner than discussed."

I'd been having a nice day with the watchmaker. For the first time in my life, someone had agreed to go horse-riding with me, which had been an absolutely magical experience. Sad and euphoric at the exact same time. But magical.

I didn't think our time together would have to end so soon, but now I was in my room, stuck in the dark, and I couldn't to stop thinking about my upcoming initiation.

The final task of becoming a made-man in the family involved killing someone from your past in whatever way you chose to. I'd decided quite a while ago on who that person had to be for me, but that didn't mean the idea of it wasn't eating me up on the inside.

To kill someone I had known ever-since I was a child. To kill someone who had helped me in ways I still couldn't fully understand.

Hadn't I loved this man once? Being around him used to give me the greatest joy, but things had changed since then. Slowly but surely, I had replaced the man I used to adore with another person, who I felt so much more connected to.

Betrayal. That's what if felt like. I was betraying one of the few people who had known the old me, but perhaps, in some way, he deserved it.

It wasn't as though the man had ever been loyal to me...

___________

I woke up in the middle of the night, because it was time for me to leave for Italy.

I sat on the edge of the bed for a while, staring at Jungkook and Taehyung, and studying them in case I'd be gone for longer than expected.

I never told them I was leaving, because I didn't have the strength to.

I crawled closer toward Taehyung, and curled into him for a moment because I knew he wouldn't wake up from it.

The man had betrayed me, and perhaps to this day, he still was, but I could never find it in my heart to care enough. He was my soft, gentle bear, who couldn't growl, and loved to share his heart with anyone who promised to be gentle. How could I ever hate him? He was my love. My strength. My shelter. Even if it was a little shabby.

I closed my eyes and drifted off for a bit, though I knew Gonzales was probably already waiting for me with the car downstairs.

My father called last week, and proposed I took Taehyung with me to Calabria to have him killed for my initiation.

His reasoning was that Taehyung's death would be easy to clean up, because he was all alone in this country, and didn't have any connections to take account of. When he added that Taehyung had also betrayed me and was essentially one of my father's spies, there wasn't much to counter argue for me. What good was a friend I couldn't trust?

My father said I should drug the man and have him kidnapped. Nothing messy. Nothing bloody. I could take him to Italy and ritualistically kill him in front of my peers with a simple stabwound to the chest. Completing my journey as a fully-fledged member of the family.

It would be like a cleansing, my father theorized. A cleansing of my old self and all those icky memories still stuck to my youth.

I understood what my father meant with that, because from a logical standpoint, it made sense to choose the groundskeeper.

But I told the man that if anything were to ever happen to Taehyung, I would hunt down every single member of the family and have each one of them meet a horrifyingly gruesome death by the blade of my knife.

I got out of bed and dressed myself, before grabbing my suitcase and hurrying down the stairs like a businessman leaving for a nine to five.

Emilio had already been brought to Calabria, and was now awaiting a devastating fate.

I did think that, in a way, killing the stableboy would still cleanse me of some parts of my past. But it wouldn't be my sixteen year old self who had to be destroyed this time, or the secrets of my soul left behind in my younger years.

That gentle boy, who I had tried to drown out with rough sex and alcohol, was now safe in the arms of the watchmaker.

And I believed he would never let anyone harm me again.