#Comic;; Nuts N Bolts

[drc00l4tt4]

Sneak Peak for Upcoming Thing

I am very sick and very bored so expect a slew of art comin y'all's way /hj

(Bonus Baby Vixen under the cut)

[thebarbotscomic]

Universe

[tf2shipswag]

in the same vein as the last anon u answered i hope you enjoy my nuts n bolts submission as well lol. Also im jumping onto the healing blast bandwagon rn after reading that i love them sm

HOOOOOOOOOH JUST READ IT AFTER SEEING THIS ASK. they are sillys...... The sily guys ever....

anon's submission:

ship: soldierengiemedic

proposed ship name: nuts n' bolts

elaboration: i just think theyre so cute. i havent even shipped this for relatively long they just mean a lot to me. like.... engie and medic supporting solly in battle but solly celebrating THEM after winning the battle ..... all of them being insane in their own ways...........<3 imagine if you will.

engie cutting his arm off while drunk and then solly and medic find him later. medic lectures him abt doing it without him around (because if he was he wouldve thrown a fucking party and gotten funky with it) while soldier gives terrible advice abt how to deal with it like how he did in the comics.

theyre so fucking stupid your honor. i hope u see my vision. theyre ridiculous. they deserve a win <3 <3 - tumblr user ferretwhomst

[talesfromlissom]

What my fav characters keep in their pockets

A/N: I saw an arcana version of this yesterday, and got motivated to make this so :000

-Hanzo-

» In all honesty, anything he likes » Seashells, bottle caps, cool rocks, anything » Bonus points if its shiny » He doesn’t really show anybody these things, as he think they’ll call him a hoarder » But you do realize that there’s always one item for every place he goes?? Like every motel room he’s stayed in, every state he’s gone to, every bar or restaurant he eats in, even buttons from your old cardigan, that you threw out weeks ago. You don’t even know how he found it, because he wasn’t at your apartment that day when you threw it out??? » His quiver doubles as a backpack, so in the pockets he has multiple things, but there’s a small section underneath the quiver/backpack where he stores all these things. You somehow managed to convince him to place them inside of a white box that you keep under your bed instead of keeping them in the bag. He gets upset if he loses or breaks them, like really upset.

-Genji-

» Like his brother, its anything he likes » However, his favorite thing to collect is different kinds of fabric. He can’t wear clothing because of how it fits over his cybernetics, but with the hand that’s still flesh, he’ll run his fingers over the different kinds of fabric he’s collected. Bonus points if its fabric from some of your clothing » He has a couple of coins from god knows where. Even Athena has no idea where they are from, they’re so old, and written in such a strange language, and he jokes about being the chosen one since he has them, despite not being able to read what they said. » He likes those tiny squishy toys that were in those plastic balls that you’d get at the crane machine in arcades. He likes when they stick to his fingers, and then he can flick them off. He goes into a laughing fit when they bounce off the walls and hit somebody. » He names all of these squishy toys. Even though the squinkies had actual names, he names them other things. Names that reference a movie, comic book, or just something so stupid and rediculous and he can’t even say the name without almost doubling over with laughter.

-Mcree-

» Bottle caps, a concerning amount of sharp objects, and a couple of spare change » He likes to travel lightly, so he doesn’t keep a lot of things in his pocket. But his favorite so far is the white cigar box that you painted a bunch of his favorite flowers on. He always buys his favorite cigars, but throws out the box to put the new cigars into the white one. » He can read a lot of different languages, so he has newspaper scraps in there as well. He reads the paper and if he sees something that resonates with him, he’ll rip it out and stuff them into his pockets. » Probably leaves and flowers as well. Anything that smells nice to him. » He also has feathers, he has no idea where half of the feathers come from, or what kind of bird the feathers belong to, but he likes them. He just has to remember to wash them before he starts touching them. » Anything he can get his hands on really, coins, buttons, anything that has a distinctive texture for it. He’ll absolutely cherish anything that you give him as well.

-Lucio- » A multicolored stone disk, he claims its a music disk but he doesn’t actually know » SEAGLASS. Any kind of seaglass is a godsend, he doesn’t care how big, small, what color it is, he loves it. » Snacks, mainly chips and gummies. » For some terrifying reason he has a pocket knife??? Hello??? » As well as dog treats?? He doesn’t even own a dog, but he keeps them there ‘just in case’ » He likes seashells too, he names all his seashells

-Brigette-

» Nuts & Bolts in all honesty, as well as a tiny set of screwdrivers?? » She also carrys a small notebook, completely dedicated to the things she sees or hears, funny jokes she hears from anybody that make her laugh, doodles of her favorite people, notes, anything, you tend to be in most of the pages. » Aside from the typical things, she keeps a pocket ashtray for some reason?? She doesn’t even smoke?? » She has a ton of acorns and seeds in her pockets as well. She doesn’t even plant any of them, nor does she eat them. They’re just??? there?? » A tiny photo album is in her pockets. » It contains photos of those most important to her, her parents, reinhardt, Genji, and most importantly, you.

                                               ──•~❉+❉~•──

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[littleeyesofpallas]

私達は一度ヒトから虚になり然して再び破面として理性を取り戻した

atashi-tachi wa ichido HITO kara kemono ni nari soshite futatabi ARRANCAR to shite risei o torimodoshita

It’s just a tiny detail here that got overlooked, but I really like that Kubo made this deliberate choice to write Kemono with the wrong kanji.  The word kemono meaning “beast” is written  獣(or in some cases, 獸) but Kubo wrote it as 虛, which is the kanji he uses for Hollow.  It’s a really bizarre thing to have to translate because it’s literally imperceptible on the spoken level.  She’s not just talking about beasts/animals, and she’s not just talking about hollows; she’s equating hollows to animals.  But that super doesn’t come across in any of the English translations I’ve seen, all of which just picked one of the two readings and ran with that one and only that one.

I also think it’s kind of interesting that Nelliel doesn’t refer to Hito[人] she just the katakana HITO[ヒト] which almost gives this impression like she doesn’t know the meaning of the word?  Not in like a stupid way, but as if she knows the word but but there’s no meaning in it for her.  Under normal circumstances I’d just assume it was written like this for a bit of emphasis, kind of like how American comics will bold some text for emphasis, but juxtaposed with the kemono[虛] thing I think it had to have been more deliberate than that.

Anyway, I haven’t done one of these in a while, but here’s the super crude nuts-n’-bolts breakdown of this sentence:

私達は: ashita-tachi wa: “We/Us<group sffx> <subject>”

一度ヒトから: ichi-do HITO kara: “once/one-time HUMAN, from”

虚に なり: kemono ni nari: “Animal(s)/Beast(s)&Hollows<indirect object>, as soon as/right after”

然して: soshite: “and then/and now/and finally”

再び: futatabi: “again/once more/a second time”

破面として: ARRANCAR toshite: “ARRANCAR, as”

理性を: risei o: “reason/reasoning power/one’s sense(s) <direct object>”

取り戻した: tori modoshita: “got back/regained/recovered”

Note that the only actual verb is the perfect form of “to regain,” so the subject, verb, and object at the core of the statement is just “we... regained... reason.”  It’s an awkward thing to parse in English, and frankly isn’t especially smooth to read even in Japanese.  But the attempts to make it more readable in English tend to just add more words that draw attention away from the subject and action of the actual line and muddle the focus.  So, in (broken) English, it runs,

“The group of us —at one time, then Beasts(hollows) from HUMANS— now, as ARRANCAR have once more regained our reasoning.”

Other than the actual finicky wordplay of it, what I think is interesting here is how Nelliel is talking about how Arrancar have become more human again and as such aren’t obligated to fight out of violent animal instinct.  But it’s not just becoming more human-like, or becoming more rational and intelligent, it’s specifically phrased as a “return” with a specifically outlined cycle.

I think this had more far reaching implications about the direction the Arrancar Arc could have taken, but the timing of it in the plot here is a little odd because for the most part plot elements like this are actually being dropped, not added or elaborated on a this point in publication.  I wonder if it hadn’t been something Kubo planned to include but differently at first, and that he changed the context but not the sentiment of the scene as the overarching plot pivoted around wrapping up the rescue plotline sooner.

[deathbyseventeen]

Since the Day I Met You (1)

Title: Since the Day I Met You (Part 1 of 2) || Part 2 

Series: Between the Dusty and the Sparks

Words: ≅18.002

Genre: Steampunk, Sci-Fi, Romance, Pining, Adventure, Fluff, Angst

Pairing: Woozi/Jihoon x (F)Reader

❦❦

Blurb: For better or worse, he’s been your friend since the day you met. You’ve been through a lot together already, you, Jihoon, and your ragtag rebel family. But someone messed up, someone made the elitist Sparks government focus on you all– a group of nobody rebels in the cast-off City of Dust that have never even seen the luxury of the walled-off City of Sparks. With a heavy, love-stricken heart, choices have to be made; and, as the leaders of this family, for better or worse

they will be made.

A/N: This AU can be read as a standalone but it *is* a continuation of Steampunk Hoshi - that can be found here: MISSED CONNECTIONS (Y/N ver.) or MISSED CONNECTIONS (Third Person, AO3 Ver). 

                                        ❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦

As the sun rose higher into the sky and the heated the land of the Dust, two of its resident engineers tinkered on their projects silently. 

They worked inside a long building, separated from their main house by a make-shift greenhouse, that only held two rooms. Inside these medium-sized rooms were workshops, personalized by each of its owners; and yet, their workshops were nearly identical. 

A long table with gears, tools, and half-finished projects was set up against the back wall. Crates filled to the brim with nuts, bolts, gears, and scrap metal were pushed up and stacked on top of one another, against the left walls, waiting to be used. 

A single, thin, decaying wall at the center of the building divided them. The sound of their hammers being brought down on metal sheets and their fists pounding against their worktables in frustration, could be heard when one stopped to rest. 

At times, they stared at the door on the flimsy wall that connected the rooms and wondered if the day would come where they could stop pretending that they only held the feelings of friends for each other.

But, it hadn’t yet, so they sat on their stools and continued on with their projects. 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

It was the old, rusty hammer that you had found one day when you had snuck out of the house and roamed the Dunes of the Forgotten, that your hand was most accustomed to. It was the hammer that had gone missing from your tool box months ago. 

You weren’t sure how you knew the specific sound it made when it was being used, but you did, and at the moment, you could hear him using it— slamming it against his latest project, the sound reverberating through the cracked anvil that he owned. 

Clink. Clink. Clink.

You sighed as you wiped the sweat off your face and then wiped your hands on your pants. They were dirty anyway, covered in grease and dust. Who would notice the difference? 

You looked out the window that faced the path back home, wondering how long you had been in your workshop when the bell attached to your favorite window started to ring. 

It couldn’t be ignored. They knew.

Even when you were completely immersed in your ministrations, you always found yourself glancing out of your favorite “casement window” (as Joshua had explained to you when he had fixed it) with a half-circle top. It was tall and wide and it let you see out to where the fences had been added to surround the house. 

“Y/N! Jihoon!” A faint, faraway voice drifted into your workshop, tearing you away from your favorite window. 

You turned around to face the front door and found it closed. A moment later, you remembered you had closed it to keep the warmth of the fire you had started in your furnace in your room. Sighing, you stood up to take a peek out of the small, square-shaped window that faced the back of your house. 

Joshua. 

Even with the bonnet-styled roof dropping a shadow over the window, you could still make out that it was him running in your direction because of the way the small lather pack wrapped around his left thigh bounced against his leg. 

Grinning to yourself, you ran up to the dividing wall, lifted a hand to pound it, and paused. Usually, you’d let Jihoon known that someone was coming and that he should come by pounding on the door. 

But… it had been hours since you had last seen Jihoon. 

Trying not to run, you jogged out of your workshop and straight into Jihoon’s. A wave of heat hit you instantly as you crossed the threshold. 

“Wow,” you said, “it’s really hot in here. Maybe you should turn off your furnace for a while.” 

It was almost comical the way Jihoon dropped the hammer he had in his hand and turned to look at you like he had just been caught doing something indecent. 

You tried not to giggle, choosing to look around to calm down first. That’s when you noticed that he didn’t have a fire in his furnace— the heat in the room was coming from the sun entering the room from the left wall’s window. 

“Oh, it’s hot because the sun’s hitting your shop directly… Ji, you should come over and use my workshop instead of staying here like this.” 

“W-what are you doing here?” He stuttered, his face flush.

“Jihoon,” you sighed, “don’t change the subject. Look at your face.” 

“M-my face?” He asked, eyes wide. 

“Yeah—” you answered as stepped closer to him, your hands reaching up to gingerly cups his cheeks, “you’re too hot. You’re burning up. You could be minutes away from having a heat stroke.” 

You were simply worried about his wellbeing. Your words were far from registering in your thoughts and they wouldn’t until nightfall when you would revisit the day’s events. 

If it wasn’t for the suffocating heat that had plastered red on Jihoon’s cheeks, you might have been able to notice a fresh, non-sun induced wave of heat running up his face and to the tips of ears. 

“I’m fine,” Jihoon told you, swallowing. 

“Next time go to my workshop. I won’t mind. Alright?” 

“Alright,” Jihoon nodded. 

You frowned and it took Jihoon all he had in him not to kiss your frown away. Instead, he lifted his hands to lay them on yours, and while he tried not to intertwine them, he pulled your hands off his cheeks. 

“Why are you here?” 

You paused. It sounded like he didn’t want you here. 

Smiling, you cleared your throat and backtracked to the door, “I wasn’t sure if you heard the bell—” Jihoon looked at the bell tied above his window, “Joshua’s  coming up the trail right now. My shop, yeah?”

Perhaps it had been a bad idea to come to his workshop instead of knocking on the diving door to let him know they shared a visitor like always.

He hummed in response— a yes, you knew and nodded before backing out of his shop and speed walking back into yours. A quick look outside showed you Joshua was nearly there. So, you rushed to your worktable and placed an empty box over the project you had just been working on. 

Not a second later, you watched as Joshua neared your door, glanced at Jihoon’s workshop, nodded at him, and then jogged into your shop.

“Y/N!” He cheered as he enveloped you in a hug, pushing you backward.

“Joshua!” You laughed. “You’re back! How was the trip? You aren’t hurt, are you?”

“Trip?” He said as he shot you a look and then motioned for you to sit down. “Y/N, you know very well that I wasn’t on a trip. I was doing recon—”

“What’s wrong about letting Y/N call it a ‘trip?’ We know what it was,” Jihoon grumbled as he entered through the front door. 

He glanced at you for a fleeting moment before focusing on Joshua. Seconds passed as they both took opposite walls to lean against. Joshua on the dividing and Jihoon on the opposite. They smiled at each other as if the dry, afternoon wind had just brought in the smell of rot and decay from the dunes of the Forgotten, miles away.

“Alright,” you swallowed nervously. The two never seemed to get along and figuring out why didn’t seem to be in your cards. “The bells were ringing. Is something going on?” 

“Cheol wants to call a meeting.” 

You nodded, “Okay, I’ll meet you guys at home. I just need to put away my things.” 

“I’ll wait for you,” Joshua said. 

“No, no,” you responded quickly, “I’ll only be a minute. You guys go on…ahead.” 

“O-kay?” Joshua said hesitantly. 

You watched as Jihoon hurried out the door, not once turning back to spare you a second glance. 

“Go on,” you smiled reassuringly at Joshua when he stopped at the door. Then you waited. 

It didn’t take very long for either of them to be far enough where they couldn’t see into your workshop. In an instant, you were up from your seat and at the door closing it, gently, so they wouldn’t turn around and come back.

Running back to your worktable, you removed the box you had placed over your project and smiled. Quickly, as to not risk having it seen, you grabbed the half-done brown, leather belt’s pieces and one by one, placed them in the box— the belt, the holster, the three small packs you were planning to add to it, all of it. Then, you closed the box and sealed it with a long piece of used tape.

It only needed to look sealed, after all. You would be back to work on it as soon as you could. You just didn’t want anyone to see it. 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

“Where’s Y/N?” You heard Seungcheol say as you entered the back hallway of the house and headed straight to the door the opened up to the inner courtyard. 

“She said she’d be a minute,” Joshua sighed. 

“Why didn’t you stay with her? You know she’s going to start working again.” 

“Y/N doesn’t need a babysitter,” Jihoon snapped and you stopped. Never had you been more grateful for your tendency to wear your dying, brown combat boots. Their worn-out blocked heel, so close to the ground, kept you from making any noise when you walked; and now, they let you see how Jihoon interacted with Seungcheol and the others when you weren’t around. 

Your mind jumped back to a day three years ago when they had all refused to tell you what was going on after you returned. You could feel the heaviness in the room that day but you never managed to get the truth out of them. 

“She’s perfectly capable of following through on her word on her own,” he grumbled, “Why can’t you just start the meeting already.”

“I asked for a meeting,” Seungcheol grumbled in return. 

Your eyebrows furrowed, Seungcheol really had no reason to hold back because you weren’t there. 

“I can’t start a meeting. You two are the leaders of this group. None of us can do anything without your approval.” 

“Our approval?” Jihoon scoffed, “Neither of us asked to be leaders of this shitty group.” 

You frowned. Deciding it was time to stop eavesdropping, you crossed through the door and sped walked to the center of the courtyard. 

While more of the people you had… found, were sitting legs crossed within the overgrown grass inside the stone fountain, others, including the newest addition to your once sanctuary, were standing backs straight and tense, as the watched Seungcheol and Jihoon. Those two, on the other hand, were standing inches from each other. If you didn’t know better, you’d say they looked like they had their chests puffed out to intimidate the other and there were only seconds left before someone threw a punch. But you did, and you knew that within their narrowed eyes, a fight was already raging on. 

Jihoon shifted.

“Enough,” You barked with faux confidence, “I don’t understand what’s going on here, but it’s enough.”

Standing behind Soonyoung, one of the first you and Jihoon had found, a twenty-two-year-old woman that he had brought from Sparks, squeaked and clutched his torso. You scoffed. She had already been around all of you for half a year. 

“Afraid, are you,” you sneered, giving her outfit choice a once over. She was wearing a loose, leather brown dress, a copper-colored, long-sleeved, button-up shirt, and brown, ankle-high boots. Everything, including her socks and the piece of cloth holding her hair in a ponytail, screamed Dusty. But, she wasn’t.

You hated it. 

She wasn’t a Dusty. Even with the clothes, she didn’t look like she belonged here. 

She didn’t. 

You knew the disgust was obvious on your face. 

“Y/N,” Soonyoung said. A warning was evident in his voice and in the narrowing of his eyes. 

“What?” Jihoon snapped, turning to him. “Do you have something to say. Soonyoung? Because I don’t think you have the right to complain.” 

“Enough,” You barked again. You rolled your eyes as Luz— the Sparkian, jumped. “I don’t care what you think, Star-man.” 

Then, you turned to Seungcheol who watched on with crossed arms. 

“You called a meeting, didn’t you?” A discussion about leadership would have to take place later. You already had one headache starting to build. 

“Right,” Seungcheol nodded. Though he still had a frown on his face, he motioned for you to take a seat next to the others— Chan, Seokmin, and Mingyu, in the fountain. Jihoon followed suit if only to lean against the top half of it, next to you on your right.

“I don’t know if you remember, but Joshua left us a month ago to go on a recon mission. Only I, Y/N, and Jihoon, really knew why and since Joshua came back today, I think it’s better if we all know what he discovered,” he paused and glanced at you and Jihoon, “Agreed?” 

 “Agreed,” Y/N agreed, turning to nod at everyone else. 

“Joshua?” Seungcheol asked, “Would you mind telling us what you found?” 

On your other side, Joshua shifted and cleared his throat. “O-Of course,” he answered. 

Dread ran down your body in an involuntary shudder. Something felt wrong. 

Joshua stood up and joined Seungcheol at the front. He smiled awkwardly before clearing his throat again. 

“Well, I went away to go check on the other access points we have into Sparks. They’re all fine and nothing has been moved from the way we set it up and there were no footprints in the sand. After I was done with that I was supposed to find a way into the government’s database to see if they had any information on any of us.” 

“Get to the point,” Jihoon said curtly, cutting in. 

“Mmm, well… I had to sneak into the Sparking Tower… it’s the government’s headquarters. I-It was the only way to…” he trailed off nervously. 

“What… did you find?” You asked slowly, pushing yourself off the ground to stand tall next to Jihoon. 

“They don’t know much about us, who we are or what we’re doing… but they do suspect that we’re a band of rebels trying to usurp the government.” He stopped and looked down at his feet. 

“Isn’t that what we are?” Chan, the youngest in their group, asked. He was confused. Having the title of rebels had long been wordlessly accepted between everyone. Now that Joshua was openly stating it and hesitating at that, something felt off. 

“Yes,” Jihoon answered him quietly as if it were some taboo secret that he couldn’t bring himself to talk about any louder.

“Sort of,” you added quietly, “A bit. But not exactly, Chan. We’re not trying to overthrow the government… but we are… against them?” What you were was hard for you to explain when you couldn’t figure out how to form sentences that made sense. 

You looked at Joshua. He refused to meet anyone’s eyes. That’s when you knew there was something else going on that he didn’t want to say— something he didn’t know how to say.

“What else?” You asked calmly though your hands were starting to ball up into clammy fists. 

“They know about Soonyoung and Luz.” 

“So?” You asked. Anger was beginning to bubble. Even without the light of the sun reflecting off discarded glass and metals, everything around you was starting to be overtaken by a red tint. 

“They… might be trying to figure out how they communicated between borders. And since they suspect that they’re in a relationship, and Luz was…” he trailed off, shooting Luz and apologetic look before continuing, “a common citizen in Sparks, they’re on high alert.” 

“Meaning?” You asked through gritted teeth, trying very hard to not scream. 

“Meaning they probably assigned some elite to come after us. Is that it, Joshua?” 

You looked at Jihoon, horrified at the words coming out of his mouth. He, more than anyone else here, knew what those words triggered inside you. 

He avoided you eyes. He stared unblinkingly at Joshua instead, a red flush racing to the top of his ears. 

“They assigned a special operations agent to investigate us, find us, and eventually… eliminate us.” he finished, swallowing the rock that was forming in his throat. 

You paused, trying to swallow the anger you felt.

You failed. 

“Because of a nobody?” You asked. Every word you spoke rose in volume as the anger flowed freely. “Because… of a nobody,” you hissed, “she isn’t even one of us.” 

“Y/N!” Soonyoung boomed.

“What?!” You yelled in return, turning to your left to glare at him.

He glared at you in return, and behind him, Luz avoided your gaze. 

“You have no right—”

“No right?” You scoffed. 

“Our lives are in danger because you decided to bring some nobody into our home.” 

“That’s not fair.” 

“Not fair?” You hissed, “You’re a lovesick idiot. Have you even finished the repairs on the zeppelin or have you been too busy fucking that Sparkian on the runway? Who, by the way, probably didn’t even believe that the Dusty deserved the same rights as her. Ask her!” You yelled, “Ask her what she thought of the Dusty! You brought in a stranger, Soonyoung! Did she even know your real name?!” 

“I did what I had to do!” 

“What you had to do?” You laughed. 

“She’s responsible for her own actions just as much as you are,” you hissed, “she knew what she was doing when she used that damn Monet! And let’s not forget that if she hadn’t used it in broad daylight like some idiot, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place!” 

Luz jumped and ran inside. 

“Pathetic,” you seethed. 

“Y/N!” Soonyoung growled, fury written all over his face. 

“Fuck off,” Jihoon grumbled, stepping in front of you protectively, “You know Y/N’s right. Our lives are on the line and it’s your fault. We worked in secrecy and you two screwed it up.” 

“Screw you,” Soonyoung hissed. 

“No need,” you snapped as you started to back away in the direction of the workshops, “You already did that when you chose to bring some privileged Spark here and had her pretend she’s one of us.” 

Soonyoung didn’t answer. He glared at you before turning around and chasing after Luz. 

Sitting in the fountain, Chan, Seokmin and Mingyu, looked on wide-eyed.

They didn’t know what to do. They had just been hit with an avalanche of information. 

Chan nudged Seokmin and Mingyu. He pointed a thumb toward the inside of their home and as they disappeared inside, Seungcheol groaned and followed. 

Joshua was the last one to remain outside, looking your retreating back. 

“Everything’s going to be okay, Y/N,” Joshua yelled, trying to console you. But, you ignored him. 

“Infamous last words,” Jihoon grumbled at him as he walked beside you, and, you couldn’t agree more. 

A distance away from the courtyard, in the empty backyard, Jihoon walked as he had been doing with you lately, silently. 

With everything that had gone down, you were thankful that at the least, the person you considered your closest friend was still walking beside you. 

You didn’t try talking to him, too afraid that he would leave you to walk alone with your thoughts, to wallow without end. 

A gentle touch brought you out of your own torment. Out of the corner of your left eye, you saw Jihoon’s hand hovering over your elbow. It took him a second to realize that you were looking at him and retreat back into himself. 

Disappointed, you cleared your throat and shoved your hands into the pockets of your pants. The heat of the sun had warmed your clothes and shoving your hands into the pockets of your pants gave you a fleeting feeling of warmth spreading all over your body. 

But not a minute later, you found your left hand being pulled out of your pocket and into another. 

Jihoon coughed, avoiding your eyes as you whipped your head around to look at him. 

All thoughts left you and without realizing, your gaze trailed down his arm until it reached his hand. Hidden as it may have been inside his own pocket, you were able to see his hand enveloping yours. 

It was calloused but pleasing. It sent warmth up your arms, up your cheeks, and down your body. 

You wondered if your cheeks were red because you swore you couldn’t feel anything but his hand at that moment.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” he whispered when you turned back around, squeezing your hand. And at that moment, the weird way he had been acting disappeared, replaced by the comfort he made you feel and the trust he reminded you that you had in him. 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

10 Years Ago (Age: 13) 

It was the first night in three months that it wasn’t raining. Hours ago, the rain had stopped but you were still stuck inside your home, waiting for the sloshy ground to dry. 

You had been warned plenty of times by your parents that if you tried to go out while the land was settling its dues with the rainwater, you’d be putting your life in danger. ‘Death,’ it seemed like they had wanted to say, but instead decided on saying that the earth would swallow you up. 

You wanted to laugh. It had been raining without end for three months. What could be worse than having to use small, steam-powered boats to travel? 

…

Alright. You had to admit that technically going out at night in the Dusty was probably more dangerous itself. 

Raiders walked day and night, their… shadier business happening under the cover of night. Or at least that’s what your parents had told you when noises outside your window woke you up in the middle of the night and they rushed into your room to tell you to lock your door and hide under the bed until they told you to open the door. 

Houses were raided. 

People went missing. 

This was constant. 

But you ignored this. If you didn’t, you feared that you’d be too afraid to go outside again.

Ignoring the warning they had given you, you found yourself jumping out of your bed and racing to put on the warmest clothes you could find. Though it’d been raining day and night, the way temperature worked was yet to change. Days were hot and nights were cold as ice.

A worn pair of old, dark brown leather pants your dad had gifted you not long ago for your twelfth birthday, an old, yellowing, long-sleeved shirt, a black, cotton jacket, and black, knee-high boots.

You shoved some coins into your pockets and plucked the heart-shaped stone that your parents had gifted you. It went into your pockets like the coins. 

Then, after poking your head out of your room to check that your parents were asleep, you sped walked through the open hallways, staring up at the night sky and shivering as the cold air hit you. The stairs caused you no trouble, they were easy to jog down; and, before you knew it, you were slipping past the smaller, metal front door that you had just helped your father oil that same day, locking it with your key, and racing towards the train tracks a mile away.

You glanced down at your wrist as you ran, trying to catch a glimpse of your watch to see the time. Half an hour till midnight. You’d be getting to the main city of Dust around midnight if you managed to catch the train. 

Luck was on your side that night as you got to the tracks with a minute to spare. 

As the freight train raced passed you, your eyes locked onto one car in the distance. Its door had been left open and you knew that was the car you had to make it into.

Jumping trains was a dance with death. Without your parents to spot you, you had to rely on your own skill. 

You took a deep breath as it was ten seconds away from you. ‘I’m a Dusty,’ you reminded yourself. 

Five seconds.

Your parents had been teaching you to do this since you could walk. It’s the only way to get around without horses. But back then, they’d always held your hand as they ran. They’d basically pulled you the entire time. Now you were doing it on your own. 

Three seconds. 

You took another deep breath and stomped your feet, losing the clumps of mud that had stuck to them like glue. 

Then you ran. 

Just as the car started to reach you, you jumped, lunged, and tumbled into the car, narrowly avoiding one of the moving side rods on the train’s wheels.

You laughed as you laid inside, the air whipping past you.

The rain was gone.

It had been so long since you had been out. 

And the ground had yet to eat you up. 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

You weren’t sure what you had been expecting when you reached the main city of Dust. Maybe you hadn’t been expecting anything in the first place. But when you got there and found the streets were under a foot of water, you found yourself startled. 

Water was dangerous for a Dusty. Hardly anyone ever learned how to swim— large bodies of water were…rare. Your parents had told you about “pools” existing in the old world, a structure that had been built for people to swim in. They told you how some homes, bigger homes, had pools meant for that specific home. 

Things like that would be considered wasteful now. 

You paused. Would the planetarium you wanted to go to still be open?

The streets weren’t as full as they usually were, but they weren’t empty either. 

They felt like the back alleys and abandoned sections of the city, where people always went missing or wound up dead. 

‘Well,’ you thought to yourself, ‘I’ve already come this far,’ and with that, you set off to the north end of the city. 

You hadn’t been walking for five minutes when you realized that you had followed a very bad idea. Not only was the water level rising, but the streets were getting emptier by the second. 

Soulless. 

It seemed everyone else had realized much sooner that the north end of the city would be significantly underwater. The city’s land dropped after all before it came up again like a hill. 

It wasn’t much of a drop, not much a hill, but it was enough for the water to reach your waist. You waded through it, pushing through with as much force as you could as the frigid waters made it harder to move.

There was no way the planetarium, or any places for that matter, would be open.

You shook your head, disappointed. 

The only thing you could do now was to go back in the direction you had come from. You were just about to take a step in the other direction when a body rammed into you, knocking you into the water.

Caught off guard, you sunk to the bottom while choking on the water that rushed into your lungs before a hand grabbed yours and pulled you up.

“We have to run!”

They pulled you up as you struggled to breathe, heaving water at every second. At that moment, it didn’t seem to matter to you that some stranger was pulling you along. 

Until it did. 

“What the heck?!” You yelped, pulling your hand out of their grip. “Stranger!” You yelled as you turned to run the other way. “Stranger danger!”

“Stop, would you!” They snapped. 

You stopped, ignoring the voice in your head telling you to run. 

The voice you were hearing was too ‘childish,’ you thought to yourself. They were annoyed, yes, but their voice was too soft to belong to an adult like your dad or your mom.

You turned around slowly then, afraid that your judgment had been wrong.

But it hadn’t. 

In front of you, a boy no older than you by the looks of it, stared at you wide-eyed and panting. His round cheeks were as red as you imagined yours were. 

It was instinct to ask, “What’s wrong?” 

“They’re after me! And they’ll grab you too.”

“What?” You asked, confused.

For a moment, the boy looked ashamed. Then the look

disappeared and instead, he looked impatient, “I stole something from them and they caught me as I was leaving.” 

“Then give it back,” you said.

He scoffed, “It’s too late for that. They’re looking for blood now and whether they find you or me, they’ll kill.”

“Wha—”

“Where are you, you fucking twerp? I know you’re down here! The waters don’t lie!” An older, rougher voice bellowed around the corner from where the two of you had stopped. 

Your heart stopped.

That voice sounded far from friendly. 

“We have to go,” the boy whispered hurriedly. This time you didn’t try to wiggle your arm out of his hand. Instead, you ran as fast as you could through the waters until he eventually let go.

Then, when the waters reached your chest, you grabbed his hand yourself.

The cold was making it hard to move, but fear ate away at your insides and pushed you to keep moving. 

“W-where are we going?” You whispered. 

“W-we have to g-go to my hideout, or we’ll g-get s-sick, but w-we have to hide f-first,” the cold was starting to get to him too.

“Come out. Come out, wherever you are. I promise not to hurt you.” The pursuers gruff voice laughed around the corner. The water sloshed as they came closer.

A flash of heat ran down your body as you panicked. 

“In t-there,” the boy pointed at the building next to the two of you.

The windows had been left open and even in the darkness, you could tell that the room dipped inside. 

“We c-can’t go in there,” you stopped him as he took a step towards it, “the waters are deeper. I don’t know how to swim.”

The boy stared at you for a second, “I won’t let you drown. I-I promise.”

It took you a moment to answer him. In hushed whispers, you relented and let him pull you forward.

In less than a minute, he was pulling you into the darkness of the farthest corner, where even the light of the moon couldn’t reach.

Just barely, on the tip of your toes, could you push your face over the water.

“On the count of three,” he said as the sloshing got closer, “w-we go under.” 

“One,” you said, swallowing your fear.

“Two,” he followed as the man’s grumbling sounds neared the building.

‘Three,’ he mouthed, and then, together, you submerged yourselves underwater.

Holding your breath was torture. You remembered that the only times you’d ever tried to keep your breath was when your mother used to fill the tub with warm water. In those moments, you’d always have the option to rise and breathe when you needed it. You didn’t have that option now; and, with every second that ticked by, you felt your resolve breaking.

As if sensing your struggle, the boy squeezed your hand and although that didn’t solve the air problem, it did comfort you a bit.

You forced yourself to relax, emptying all the thoughts in your head and clutching his hand. Time moved faster then, and before you knew it, he was pulling you closer to him so he could lead you forward.

“I-Is he gone?” You whispered when you were above water. 

“I think so,” he answered, “I can’t hear him anymore.”

You nodded sluggishly. 

“Common,” he said, pulling you forward, “we need to go.” 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

You were drenched. From head to toe, all you could feel was the prickly iciness of your clothes sticking to your skin and the cold night air hitting it.

Your bones hurt. 

How long you’d been walking with the nameless boy beside you, you didn’t know. You weren’t even sure that your watch continued to work after going through the works with water.

You weren’t even sure in which direction he was taking you, all memory of the city was lost along with the feeling in your toes.

“How much farther?” You asked quietly.

“We’re here,” he answered just as quietly. He nodded at the old building just up ahead.

It looked old and worn out like most of the buildings in the Dust. But closer to it, you saw that it was missing windows and doors too. ‘Ravaged for parts,’ you thought to yourself.

“That doesn’t look so safe,” you tried to say, but your voice dwindled as you spoke.

“It’s fine,” the boy said, “it does its job.” 

You didn’t answer as you followed him. You were too tired to argue with him.

When he realized you weren’t going to answer, he spoke again, “It’s not that bad. It’s falling apart but it’s not dangerous. The rain didn’t get inside either, so it’s dry.”

“Okay,” you said. 

The inside of the building looked just as the outside did, old and worn out. But to the boy's credit, you admitted that it didn’t look as bad as you imagined it would be. The walls were just beginning to peel and the holes in them looked more like someone had taken a hammer to them. They weren’t decayed, or at least, they weren’t as decayed as the buildings you were used to.

“We’re going into the basement,” the boy muttered in front of you.

“Is there light?” 

“No, I usually use a torch. We can use it to start a fire though,” he said. You could almost hear his desire for sleep in his voice, “it’ll help dry us so we won’t get hypothermia.”

“I think we’re past that,” you said, “I can’t feel my toes. Besides, I need to get home before the suns up.”

“I’ll help you get home,” he sighed, “but let’s start a fire first.”

You would have liked your descent into the basement to be slow and careful. But despite your silent hopes, the boy walked quicker, already accustomed to the place and that left you to follow quicker than you liked lest you be left in the dark to figure it out yourself.

You were pleasantly surprised, though, when after reaching the final step, you found yourself in a concrete basement full of fruits and blankets; and, at the center of it all, wood stacked up in a pile and the boy was already lighting it on fire.

“Mothers of gears,” you shuddered as a wave of heat reached you.

“Take off what you want dried,” he mumbled, red smoothing over his cheeks. “I promise I won’t look. You can cover yourself with the blankets.” 

You did so quickly, taking off your boots, socks, pants, shirt, sweater— everything but your undergarments, piled it up, and shoved it towards the fire. After wrapping a thick blanket around yourself, you settled near the fire and called out to him.

“I’m done.” 

Without a word, he swiveled around and neared you to take the clothes you had taken off. You watched on silently as he set-up a pulley system above the fire and hanged your clothes and shoes.

An hour later, while you were both laying on opposite sides of the fire, curiosity spiked inside you though sleep was starting to nip at you.

“What did you even steal to get them that mad?” You asked.

The boy was silent for a while before answering, “Food.”

“Oh.” You didn’t know what to say. He had been caught stealing food. Why did he even have to steal food in the first place? He was too young to steal…

“Don’t judge me,” he grumbled, pulling his blanket tighter around himself.

“I’m not judging you,” you said, “I know that some of us have to steal to survive. My parents have done it before too.”

Silence. 

“Sorry.”

“No need,” he mumbled, “I’m used to it.” 

“You’re a stranger,” you spoke, staring into the flames in front of you, “but you look as old as I am. And to think that you had to steal food…it just doesn’t—”

There was silence between the two of you. Without meaning to, you eyes flicked over to the boy. 

“I’m Jihoon.”

“Y/N.” 

“Thank you… for trusting me, even though you don’t know me.” 

You shrugged under the blankets, meeting Jihoon’s eyes, “Something told me I could trust you.” 

Even under his own blankets, you could have sworn he shot you a smile. A blush crept up your neck and flooded into your cheeks. 

You curled into yourself, embarrassed by the fire on your cheeks.

“Do you… do you actually trust me?”

“Yes.” 

In another life, you might have been ashamed of how fast you answered him. 

“Then sleep,” he whispered, “I’ll wake you in an hour and help you get home.” 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

It had been three years since Jihoon had offered you a home in his own. Three years since that boy had offered you a room next to his; and, three years since your parents had… 

No. 

No. You wouldn’t think of that. 

It had been days since you had fought with Soonyoung because of the insufferable tick he’s got attached to his side. Neither had spoken a word to each other; and when Luz caught a glance of you, she would scurry like a rat back into her hole. 

Her inability to face you only made you dislike her even more. 

And to top it all off, Seungcheol had yet to treat himself as a leader, insisting that you and Jihoon were the true leaders of this band of rebels. If that were the case, you thought to yourself, you were running out of time to come up with a plan. 

A plan had to be made, sooner rather than later. You had choices to make and you couldn’t make them alone.

You’d been awake since four in the morning, huddled in the corner that your bed rested on. You could glance out of your window if you turned your head enough, and see the outline of your workshop.

You wondered if anyone else was awake. Were nightmares plaguing their dreams like they were yours? Unable to sleep for long?

The wall across from yours shuddered with a small pang.

You were still for a second. 

That wall also belonged to Jihoon. 

You stood up and made your way to the door, trying not to trip over the length of your pajama pants in your hurry.

Without giving yourself a moment to doubt your choice, you stepped to the door next to yours, opened it, and stepped inside.

You looked at Jihoon dumbly, your mouth moving like a fish’s as you tried to think of what to say.

“You’re awake?” 

Jihoon looked at you blankly, nodding once. 

“Me too.” Stupid. “I-I just, I heard you hit the wall and I was awake and I was just wondering if you were…alright?”

Silence. 

“Yeah.” 

Silence yet again. 

A gust of wind hit your partially exposed back, making you shiver. Putting on a sweater hadn’t crossed your mind. 

“You forgot to bring a sweater,” Jihoon said, glancing at your bare arms.

You nodded in confirmation. Without missing a beat, he patted the spot next to him on his bed.

Thankful that he wasn’t kicking you out yet, you threw the door closed and rushed to his side. You practically jumped into his bed and pulled the blanket over the two of you, sitting side by side.

Relaxed and content with the silence between the two of you, you started to doze off. Only when your head fell on his shoulder did you startle yourself back awake.

“Jihoon,” you whispered, softly as to not disturb him if he had already fallen asleep.

He hummed in response. 

“What are we going to do?” 

“About?” 

“The impending doom that Joshua was trying to tell us about.”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” he scoffed under his breath. But you were able to hear him anyway.

“But what if that man does find out about us? Where we live.”

“We’ll be alright.” 

“How?” You asked him, worry bleeding into the question.

“We’ll disappear before he can get to us. Find a new home.”

Silence overtook the two as you tried to unravel what he was proposing.

“We’d have to abandon your house?” You whispered sadly to him, pushing off his shoulder to look at him in the darkness of his room. But even in the darkness, you could still find his eyes staring attentively at you.

“This isn’t just my house,” he said, “this is your house too.”

“Jihoon,” you started, “this is your parent’s house.” 

“But it’s not my only home.”

Under the covers, Jihoon’s left hand made its way to yours, his fingers intertwining with yours. He held your hand gently as if he were afraid of crushing it.

“Don’t you trust me?”

“I do.” 

“So…” 

“If they find out about us… and they send someone after us…”

“Trust me, and we’ll escape. I won’t let anything happen to us,” he whispered to you. 

You knew you could trust him. As he peered into your eyes, trying to get you to understand that nothing bad would happen, you felt your love for him, your trust for him, grow.

“Okay,” you whispered back to him, squeezing his hand.

“Let’s go to sleep, yeah?” He asked you as he nodded at the pillow on his bed.

You nodded. “Sleep would be nice,” you mumbled, laying down next to the wall.

Jihoon laid down next to you, trapping you against the wall. He waited for you to complain, to show any signs of discomfort, but you didn’t.

He pulled the covers gently over both your bodies. 

You sighed in contempt as you nuzzled into one of his pillows.

Even if only for a few hours, you’d be sleeping comfortably for the rest of the night.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

The fire you were standing over, turned your face red.  

You gritted your teeth in a shaky snarl as you brought your hammer down on the red hot metal below you.

No matter how much you tried not to think, your anger was spilling out with each blow you brought upon the metal. The metal, it mocked you.

While you tried to make sure that it bent in the direction you were working for, it showed you your reflection. A red face. A snarl. Tears threatened to spill from your eyes. 

It made you angry. 

You felt like a fool. 

<><><><><><><><><>

“Should we wake them up?” 

“What are they even doing together?” 

“Do we have a choice?” 

“Let’s wake them.”

“But, I’ve never seen them sleep past sunrise…”

“I’ll go ask Cheol if we can postpone.” 

They all mumbled so they wouldn’t wake you. Still, you were awoken by their conversation. 

Squeezing your eyes shut as the sunlight started to bypass your eyelids, you hummed and nuzzled further into your pillow. 

Someone aww’d. Who it was, you didn’t know. Your brain was still loading. 

“They look so cute together!” 

That startled you. 

You were starting to register that someone was in your room. A couple of seconds later, you registered their words. 

A particularly long inhale introduced a musky and sweaty scent to you. It was a familiar smell, and it didn’t take you long to place it. 

You opened your eyes slowly, letting them adjust to the light in the room. It wasn’t long before you noticed you were staring at black cloth. 

You had a palm against it. Your fingers twitched, and it dawned you. You were pressed up against a chest. 

Whose chest? Who was you cuddled up to? 

Jihoon. 

You gulped. 

You almost didn’t want to check. But the warmth you were feeling...

Ever so carefully, so you wouldn’t alert the others in the room, you tilted your head upwards until you could see the person you were sleeping with. 

‘Jihoon,’ you gulped. 

Your eyes darted back down to the hand against the black fabric— ‘Jihoon’s chest,’ you corrected yourself. 

He was warm. 

Your fingers curled around the black fabric of his tee. You could feel his hard chest below your hand.

You wanted nothing more than to curl up against Jihoon again, take in his scent and bask in his warmth.

But you couldn’t. To anyone unfamiliar with Jihoon’s sleeping patterns, they might have missed the twitch of his fingers. You couldn’t. 

The arm he had draped over you tensed. Anyone might have been able to miss his movements. But again, you couldn’t. When you looked at his face again, you realized he was awake. 

He looked asleep, but his eyes told you otherwise. Still heavy with sleep, his eyes were only open a slither. The others couldn’t see. His head was angled downward as if curling towards you. 

He never blinked. 

You wondered if he even saw you. 

Then his eyes shot open, and blood rushed to the tip of his ears and dusted his cheeks. Now you knew he saw you. 

“Cheol said we should let them sle—”

It came like rain in the Dusty, unexpectedly and suddenly. You were on the ground before you could even get a word out, landing on your side and spraining your wrist. 

You groaned from your spot on the ground. 

It took everyone else a moment to process what had happened before they rushed to you.

“What happened?!” Chan.  

“Are you alright?” Seokmin. 

“Here.” Joshua. “Let me help you up.” 

“Ow. Ow. OW,” You yelped as he helped you stand. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked. 

“I think…” you paused to ride a wave of pain, “I hit my ribs.”

“I don’t think you could have broken them,” Joshua said as he glanced at your side, eyes narrowed in concern, “Perhaps just bruised yourself.” 

“Yeah,” you said. 

“What happened? How did you fall?” Seokmin asked as he fixed your hair. 

“Oh, I just…I think I just…,” you trailed off, glancing at Jihoon.

You studied him, taking in his appearance. His eyes were shut, and his breathing was level.

He looked like he was perfectly asleep. 

“I guess I just rolled over and fell out of bed,” you smiled, hoping it didn’t look as fake as you felt it did. 

<><><><><><><><><>

He had pushed you out of bed. 

You held back a growl as you brought down your hammer again. You should have been more than careful with your project, considering how small it was. The heart you were building fit in the center of your palm perfectly. 

Your fingers curled around it, hiding it as you clutched it in anger. Despite the heat it was enveloped in and the searing pain it was causing your palm, you kept it there.

You were starting to question the point in finishing this project, and yet, you couldn’t bring yourself to stop.  

The bells started to ring not long after. 

As if finally registering the pain you were causing yourself, you tossed your heart into the box on the table behind you. 

It took you a single look from your peripheral vision to see Joshua’s form starting to materialize in the distance. 

You didn’t wait.

After quickly pouring water into the fire and extinguishing it, you hurried out your door and locked it. 

Joshua was perhaps only halfway to the workshops before you sped walked to his side. 

“Aren’t you going to wait for Jihoon?” He asked, glancing between you and the workshops. 

“If you want, you can go and get him. I’ll go ahead to the meeting. Fountain, right?” 

“Yeah,” he answered. 

There was a pause as you stared ahead, refusing to look back.

“Better hurry. I plan to make the meeting start as soon as I get there. Don’t feel like wasting any time today.”

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

It had been a couple of days since you had last seen him, and although he wasn’t looking at you, you could still feel the ghosts of his eyes following your movements. 

He glared at the floor, arms crossed, and with his lover protectively at his side. 

You wanted to scoff. 

You wouldn’t hurt her. Not unless she gave you a reason to. 

But you liked it this way. Seeing the Sparkian curling into herself pathetically, avoiding being in your line of sight like you had the power to crush her from so far away.

The rest seemed to ignore it all, casually sitting in the grassy ruins of the fountain. 

“Another meeting? It hasn’t even been a week yet.” 

“Yeah,” Seungcheol nodded at you. He waited until you had hoisted yourself up into the second bowl of the fountain to continue. “Some…,” he hesitated, “information was brought to my attention.” 

“By who?” You asked stiffly. Your swaying legs came to a stop as you crossed them and leaned back on your arms.

You hadn’t realized it until now, but it was frustrating that an ex-Sparkian held information you were supposed to know being as even he had said you were one of the leaders. Even if Seungcheol had joined your group of outlaws years ago…

“Outside sources.” 

You raised an eyebrow questioningly. Not that deep down, you knew you could trust him. But, it still frustrated you that he had all the information you were supposed to know. 

“What’s going on?”

Jihoon. 

It took an amount of restraint you didn’t know you had to keep your eyes on Seungcheol instead of looking at Jihoon, who walked in with Joshua at his heels. 

No one responded his question. They didn’t know if they should. 

The way you and Seungcheol had yet to take your eyes off each other grew unrest within them. Though in reality, you could see it in Seungcheol’s eyes that he was wondering why you weren’t answering Jihoon’s question. 

Eventually, Jihoon reached the fountain and stood off to its side. You could feel his gaze on you, and it made you wonder if he had been asking you that question. 

But it didn’t matter, you weren’t going to answer. 

Seungcheol seemed to understand that you weren’t going to answer him then when you wouldn’t turn or acknowledge Jihoon in any way. 

“We received some new information.” 

“And that would be?” You asked impatiently. 

“Sparks assigned an elite to trace us. They picked a top operative that goes by the name ‘Eight.’” 

Silence. 

Seungcheol’s gaze met your’s again and stopped. If the rest didn’t understand what he meant by that information, you did. 

“So, they’ll come after us. And even if we’re in the uncharted Dusty, isolated from the main city of Dust… it won’t take that elite long to figure out where we are.” 

“What?” You heard Seokmin gasp at your words. 

“How long do you think we have?” 

“At the most? A week, maybe less.” 

“Then we have to leave as soon as possible— get as much distance between us and him as soon as we can.” 

“Will that really be enough to get that elite off our trail?” Chan asked, worry lacing his voice. 

“Nowhere will be far enough,” Joshua answered quietly.

Startled, your gaze flicked over to him, standing beside Seungcheol. He met your gaze without hesitation, conveying to you all his thoughts in a single second.

Then you hissed, hurt, as you sucked in a breath of air through your teeth. Your breathing sounded so loud to you, you doubted that the rest of your crew had failed to notice. 

“What do you mean?” Mingyu asked after a moment of hesitation. 

“He…” you started and paused, hoping to find the right words, “…means that we need to disappear.” 

“And that would mean?” Chan asked. 

“We need help making magic real,” Joshua spoke. 

On your right, you could feel Jihoon’s stare land on you again despite your silence. 

“Someone really needs to spit it out right now,” Chan grumbled out of growing fear. You could tell.  

“We have no government, no law… do we?” You asked rhetorically. “If we want to escape, then we need someone’s help.” 

“And who,” Jihoon asked tensely, holding back a growl, “would that be, exactly?”

He was asking you, you knew. But, you couldn’t help but bite your tongue and wait for someone else to answer, still avoiding looking at him. 

“The self-proclaimed King of the Dusty,” Joshua began. “As rich and elusive as he can be, anyone who needs… special help usually finds him.” 

“His existence is only of rumors,” Jihoon snapped. 

“He’s real,” Joshua started, eyes meeting yours. 

“And I know how to find him,” you finished, looking into his eyes. 

Jihoon scoffed beside you, “You’re going to go find a man that can’t be found? A man that’s known to be a traitor to all? I don’t think so.” 

You clenched your teeth together, angry at the words leaving him; and, for the first time all day, you spoke to him though you still didn’t look at him, “This isn’t your choice to make.” 

“There must be another way, Seungcheol,” Jihoon snapped, ignoring you. 

It made you even angrier.

You thought about meeting Jihoon for the first time— letting him save you.

You thought about Jihoon giving you a safe haven after your’s disappeared. 

You thought about the promises he had made you last night. 

You were always helpless. 

“I’ve made my choice,” you growled, whipping around to look at him before turning to Joshua and Seungcheol. “I’ll be the one to go.” 

But not anymore.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

3 Years Ago (Age: 20)

“Keep running!” You screamed over the pounding in your ears. 

In the heat of the sun, sweat dripped down your face in bucket fulls. No matter how many times you had run in the scorching sun, your eyes had yet to stop burning when drops of sweat touched them. 

You clenched your eyes shut as you tried to force the stinging to go away. Your feet stumbled over each other as the tips of your boots hit the hillsides, and you fumbled to right yourself as you tried to run up and down hills. 

Planks of rotten wood that littered the ground tripped you, causing you fell. Your knees hit the ground with a shallow thud, and pain shot up your legs. 

Through blurry, narrowed eyes, you studied the floor in front of you, making sure there weren’t any upturned nails and stuck your hands out to push yourself up. 

You whimpered as you took a step forward, and your leg gave out for a second. 

You were about to fall again when someone pulled you up and forward. 

“It’s okay. You’re okay. Just breathe,” Jihoon rushed out. Letting go of your arm, he reached for your hand without a second of doubt. 

“Agh!” You yelped. Sweat trailed into your eyes and stung you again.

“Breathe,” he gasped out. The exertion of running up and down hills was starting to get to him, and the run was far from over. How were you going to get to the rest of your crew before the group of raiders caught you?

As if sensing your thoughts, Jihoon gave your hand a squeeze. Reassurance. 

You were going to make it. All you had to do was trust in him. 

“I can’t see!” Another voice screamed behind you before the owner of said voice reached out to hold your other hand. 

You held back a snarl as he held onto you but didn’t shake him off. It was added weight, just another thing to hold you back as you ran. But, if you made it back to where your crew was waiting without him, you feared you’d pay even more for it.

“Just keep running,” you grumbled out. You helped pull him along with as much strength as you could muster. 

But, it took you two more minutes before you all reached the actual city of the Forgotten. 

Buildings in the process of falling down, stained in a rusting color, surrounded the three of you. 

Shade came and went while running through the streets.

Pieces of concrete protruded the ground in jagged and random lines. Most of them were visible, but you were sure there was some hiding in the small mounds of dirt and sand that had been piled all over the place. 

 “How much—”

Two words were all you were able to get out before you were pulled down, and a yelp escaped you. 

“What the hell, Joshua,” you snapped as you ripped your hand out of his. 

Leaving him on the ground, you shakily stood up, your hands pushing off the ground. Somehow, during the fall, your hand had managed to slip out of Jihoon’s. 

Once you were standing upright, you realized he was standing beside you, no longer in front of you where he should have been. 

“Gee, thanks for the help,” you grumbled as you dusted off your legs. 

“I think we have a problem,” he said.

“Like we didn’t already?” You huffed. You slapped your knees harshly, biting back a yelp. At the most, you had been expecting you bruised your knees during the fall. But, when you brought up your hands to slap the dust off of them, you realized there was blood on them. 

A single glance downward confirmed your suspicions. 

Your black leather pants had torn from the knees when you hit the crumbling concrete beneath you. Your knees had been scraped, and though you didn’t want to be dramatic, you were sure, that under the dripping blood, you could see your kneecaps.

“Oh…crap,” you winced. You turned around quickly to ask Jihoon for help. But, as you did, a bigger problem fell into your laps. 

“What the hell happened?” You asked. 

Laying in front of you, the man you had been forced to lug around in ‘good faith’ to ‘show him around’ was out cold on the floor. A tiny pool of blood was forming on the ground near his temple. 

“I-Is that blood?!” You yelped. 

“Yes,” Jihoon hissed, bending down to the boys level to study him, “I think he hit his head on the way down. He’s got a gash on his forehead.” 

“Crap,” you muttered, “I didn’t bring any first-aide with me today.” 

“It’s fine, we’ll just have to hurry. Quick,” he grunted as he pulled one of the man’s arms around his neck, “prop his other side on your shoulder. We’re gonna have to carry him out of here.” 

“Alright,” you said. A dull throbbing in your knees made you wince, but you moved nonetheless, doing what Jihoon had asked you as fast as you could. 

You had just made it to the corner of the street, twenty steps away, shuffling under the man’s weight when you felt it. 

“You need to go,” you told him through gritted teeth. You hadn’t moved much, but the pain in your knees was shooting through your legs in waves. You wouldn’t be able to get far, move fast. You’d collapse in almost no time. The three of you would be caught — taken as prisoners, maybe worse.

Soonyoung…Chan…Seokmin…Mingyu… none of them would be able to find you.

“You need to go,” you repeated, forcing Jihoon to a stop. 

“What?” He asked you confusedly.

You looked into his narrowed, brown eyes determined, “You need to go.” 

“No.” One word, but it had a steadfast furry behind it that you could only ever imagine coming from him. It was in his eyes too, the determination to get the three of you to safety and the anger of hearing you suggest leaving you behind. But, you were willing to bet that you had the same type of determination as him. 

“Yes,” you forced out, “I can’t move very quickly with these knees—”

“No.” 

“You’re carrying around extra weight too—”

“No.” 

“So, you need to leave us.”

“No,” Jihoon snapped. 

“Yes,” you insisted, “look, we’ll hide in this building. You go get the others, get some weapons—” you unholstered the rusted beam gun you had blindly brought along, “that aren’t broken.” 

“No, Y/N. I’m not leaving you here.”

“You have to, Ji.” It was a risk, you knew, but you had to take it, or you’d be risking worse. Still, it took all the courage and determination you had in you to avoid his gaze and start pulling him in the direction of the building closest to you before you could change your mind. 

“They’ll be here soon,” you told him. 

He followed you silently, trying not to trip over his feet while he glared at the floor. 

“I’m not leaving you.” 

You didn’t answer him. 

Once inside, you pulled him toward the first room you saw towards the back of the building. Then, you helped him lower the Sparkian onto the ground, leaning him against a wall. 

It was done.

You knew you had gotten him to agree, now you just needed him to get moving.

“Just…” you started, finally finding his eyes, “promise me you’ll come back.” You finished in a whisper as if what you were telling him was a secret no one else could hear.

Jihoon nodded grimly, training his eyes on the floor. 

“Stay safe.” 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

It had only been ten minutes since Jihoon left when a sharp pain spread from your lower abdomen to the rest of your stomach. Just like your knees, it felt like fire was blooming. 

The feeling was overwhelming. You had just managed to lower yourself next to the Sparkian’s limp body when you felt your legs numb out. 

Another wave of pain rolled through you then, and you had to bite back a wimpier to keep yourself from crying. You tried to clutch your stomach in sudden fear, only to feel like you had just set fire to yourself all over again.

You studied yourself; from head to toe, nothing seemed to be out of place.

Your knees were still bleeding, blood slowly sliding over your pants and onto the floor. 

Then you saw it.

A speck of blood where it shouldn’t be. 

With the most care you could have with shaky hands, you lifted your black shirt and winced when you saw the firsts bits of your blood-soaked skin. 

“No, please no,” you whispered, tears trailing down your cheeks. 

There was a long gash on the bottom right side of your stomach. Blood streamed out of it slowly. 

Not a minute later, as you were trying to untie your belt, your hands went numb. Then darkness started to curl around the edges of your vision. 

“Please, hurry,” you whispered. 

The sound of heavy footsteps growing closer interrupted your whispers to Jihoon.

You bit your lips, trying to stifle your whimpers. But it was no use. From the corner of your eyes, as you tried to focus on the small window across from you opening up to the sky, you saw a man come inside. He stopped beside you, studying you and the man beside you. 

‘This is it,’ you thought, a buzzing sensation starting to overtake your consciousness, ‘they found me, and if I don’t die right now, I’m going to wish I was dead.’ 

“This is quite a situation that you’ve gotten yourself into, isn’t it?” They asked. 

The man had blocked your view of the window. Though you didn’t want the last thing you saw before dying to be the face of a raider, you lifted your gaze to see the man before you. 

He looked like he was around your age. High cheekbones, dark, golden-brown hair, and shapely lips. 

He didn’t look like a raider, and, if memory served you correctly, you hadn’t seen him with the raiders either. 

But here he was, staring at you with an expressionless face, hands crossed over his chest.

A shudder ran down your spine. Spots started to appear in your vision. 

But before either of you could say anything else, you blacked out. 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Your body felt like a throbbing, inflated balloon. It pounded, but it also buzzed.

You groaned as you opened your eyes. They had stuck together, and opening them felt uncomfortable. But when you did, a bright light about you, forced you to close them again. 

“What the hell?” You groaned again. 

There was a click around you, “Sorry about that, I don’t think anyone thought you’d wake up.” 

It was a smooth voice, nearly velvety, but it had a cold edge to it that put you on edge. 

Your eyes shot open. 

Memories rushed back. 

Above you, staring down at you was the same man that you had seen before you blacked out.

Your first instinct was to sit up, run away. The moment you tried to though, you discovered that you were tied down to a cot. Ropes were wrapped around your torso, legs, and arms, pinning you down and immobilizing you.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Some of these are tied directly above your injury…” He clicked his tongue, shaking his head disdainfully at you. 

“What the fu—”

“Language!” He snapped. “I thought Sparks were taught to keep clean.” 

“I’m not a Sparkian,” you grunted, glaring at the man as you tried to lift your arms. 

“Is that so?” He hissed. He moved quickly, grabbing your chin with a hand. For a second, you feared he was going to snap your neck. Then, he forced you to look to your left. 

The Sparkian. 

“I’m pretty sure that right there is a Spark.” 

You gulped. 

“I’m not a Spark.” 

His fingers dug into your skin. 

“I’m not a Spark,” he mocked. 

Your breath caught in your throat. Was this man going to torture you? 

“Let me go you fucking raider,” you spit on his face, “or kill us already.”

The rage on his face dissipated as he stood up straight. Like the moment he found you, the expressions on his face dulled until it looked like he was staring at a piece of scrap metal without any idea what to do with it. 

A door opened. 

“Jun, she’s not a Sparks citizen,” a woman’s voice pipped up.  

The man— Jun, raised a single eyebrow in your direction before stepping away. 

“No matter what she is, she’s a traitor to the Dusty’s,” he said.

He left your side, and you took the moment to study your surroundings before following his movements. 

He, or rather they, you thought, had brought you to an empty warehouse. The walls had been stripped of their inner skins, and only their bones could be seen. Even the roof was bare-skinned, only showing its inner metal works, the outer wall, and the lights that hung like bait on strings. 

You and the Sparkian had been placed at the center of the room. Two large, heavy doors were planted on the far right side of the room. Besides them, Jun and a young girl beside him stood in conversation. 

“She’s a Dusty, Jun.”  

“And the man?” 

“Sparkian. Chuu found him in the central database. Looks like he’s a promising engineer. Name: Joshua Hong, twenty-years-old just like her.” 

“Fucking raiders,” you yelled, “you’re casing out your victims now too?!”

Jun ignored you. But, the girl beside him turned to look at you. 

“We aren’t raiders. Why exactly do you think we’re raiders?” 

You bit your lip. The less they knew about you and what you did, the better. 

When you didn’t answer, the girl glanced at the handless gauntlet she wore on her right arm. She pressed some buttons, and a green light suddenly emitted from it. 

“Y/N Y/L/N. Age twenty. Orphan. Ex-Blacksmith apprentice. Parents killed five years ago. Lives with some Lee Jihoon, age—”

“Enough!” You growled, twisting in your ropes. Though you didn’t want to hear the names of any of your friends coming out of their mouths, hearing Jihoon’s name felt like a slap. 

Pain shot through your torso as the rope dug into your injury. Though you couldn’t see, you could feel the blood exiting your body. 

“Look at what you did,” Jun huffed, “Do you think we have medical supplies just lying around to waste on traitors?”

“Fuck you,” you spit. 

He rolled his eyes, “I heard traders were going to be in the Forgotten City. Instead, I get a traitor and a Spark. Maybe I can get some ransom out of him.” 

“Traders?! Those weren’t traders! They were raiders!” 

“I don’t think anyone would give a ransom for her though…” 

“Jun,” the girl chastised him. 

“Ahh,” he whined, “fine, go find Haseul so she can fix her.”

“On it,” the girl told him, spinning on the heels of her black combat boots. 

“Oh, and Kim Lip,” he stopped her, “make sure to bring Chuu with you.” 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Jun had stayed in the room with you for a couple of minutes before he left wordlessly. The door had slammed behind him, and before you knew it, you had been left alone to dwell in your thoughts. 

How long had you been here? 

What had happened to Jihoon and the boys? Did the Sparkian’s friend kill them because both of them had gone missing? 

You were sure that the only sign of your existence in the city— in the building you had hidden in, would be a pool of blood. 

Did they think you were dead? 

Tears formed in your eyes as your thoughts returned to Jihoon and that girl’s— Kim Lip, words. 

Did he think you were dead? 

Was he okay?

Orphan. 

Orphans.

How much did they know about you? About him? Was he in danger now? 

Jihoon had been your only family for three years. You had been his for far longer. You couldn’t bear the thought of having put him in danger. Of Jihoon having the same end like you. 

A shiver ran down your spine. 

Had that really been the last time you would get to see him?

You let out a cry then, twisting and turning in your binds. You only stopped when the pain made it impossible to breathe. 

You looked at the Sparkian beside you. Still out cold, it seemed. 

He had the same binds tied around him and gauze wrapped around his forehead. 

“He isn’t dead if that’s what you’re wondering.”

You whipped your head around at the sudden voice and jumped when you saw her proximity. 

“I figured,” you grumbled before hissing. 

The woman had plunged a needle into your side, and while the pain in your side was numbing out, you could still feel the resonating pinch and the girl’s other hand pressing down on the injury. 

“Please let me go,” you begged her. 

“Oh, sure. Just one condition…” 

Jun.

Hidden in the shadows near the door, Jun, Kim Lip, and another, widely smiling girl leaned against the beams of the wall. How long had they been there? 

“Kill your little friend.” 

Silence. 

You couldn’t do that. You glared at him. 

“That’s what I thought,” he smiled stiffly. 

“Please let us go.”

Amidst their silent glares, the Sparkian awoke, and using his wheezy voice, pleaded for their release. 

“Mr. Hong, you finally join us.”

Tense, you turned your head slowly. Mr. Hong was flicking his gaze between the lot of them, eyes red and watery.

Though you doubted he knew what was happening, it seemed that he was picking up the details of your predicament faster then you had. 

“Please let us go.” 

“I’m afraid I can’t. You see, you’re a Sparks citizen and I…well I’m the King of the Dusty.” 

“The Dusty don’t have a king,” he coughed. 

Jun laughed, “According to… you… we don’t. But ask around, the Dusty have their king, and it’s me.”

“The King of the Dusty is a myth! A fairytale!” You growled, but he ignored you.

“Then let her go,” Mr. Hong struggled to get out, “she’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t even know her.”

“How nice,” Jun laughed as he walked closer to your cots, stopping next to the girl who had injected you, “you want to protect your friend.” 

“She’s not my friend,” Joshua said. 

“Right,” Jun nodded, though it was clear that he didn’t believe him. 

“There,” the woman said, “as long as you don’t touch move too much, the wound shouldn’t reopen.” 

“What did you do?” You grumbled. 

“She just saved your life… again,” Jun answered, scoffing, “And does she get a thank you? No. Traitors are all the same.” 

“Please,” Mr. Hong cried, “She just met me. I threatened her into showing me the Dusty.” 

“You,” Jun laughed, “threatened her? Frankly, I don’t believe that.” 

“It’s true,” Mr. Hong insisted, “I snuck into the Dusty. I found her and her friends. She hates Sparks just as much as I do.” 

“Doubt it,” Jun laughed before snarling, “I lost everything I ever cared for because of people like you.” 

“Jun.” Kim Lip snapped, stomping her way to the cots. The smiling girl followed behind her. “Enough.” 

“Sorry,” Jun smiled, nodding at Kim Lip, “I just—”

“I know. You don’t need to apologize,” she sighed, “but we can’t just punish anyone with any sort of ties to Sparks.” 

“Fine,” Jun said defeatedly. His shoulders slumped, and his eyes turned hazy as he stepped away from your cot. 

The smiling girl behind Kim Lip flicked her gaze between them, “Well now seems like the best time to interrupt. Jun?” 

He was silent, still lost in his own world. 

“Jun?” She called out to him again. 

“Hmm?” He hummed, turning around to look at her before realization dawned on him, “Oh, Chuu, right. Tell us what you found.” 

“Alright, well I managed to track their movements using old security systems that are still running without anyone knowing—” 

“After this, take Heejin and make sure to erase any proof of their existence. Make it so no one else can have access to that, only us.” 

“Already on it, boss. Now on the issue of them,” she nodded her head in your direction, “I was able to track them all the way to their first encounter. It seems she and her friends stumbled upon one Joshua Hong and Choi Seungcheol, both citizens of Sparks.” 

“Premeditated?” 

“Actually, no. Choi and Hong appeared to be lost and one of her crew, in good faith, took them to a resting place. From the footage recovered, it seemed Miss Y/L/N was planning on… eliminating both of them before a ‘Lee Chan’ interfered and stopped her.” 

“And yet now she’s one of them.” 

“Fuck you!” You spit, trying as hard as you could to kick your feet. 

Chuu ignored your outburst and brought up her arm where she could use her gauntlet. She pressed a button on it, just like Kim Lip had done before, and in an instant, a green light shot upwards from it. 

You couldn’t see what it was projecting by the speed that Chuu was tapping away at. It took her no less than three seconds before a video started to play.

“Watch this,” Chuu said, turning her arm so Jun could have the perfect view of it. In turn, you got to see what he did too, though you had to look on from behind. 

It was you. It was Jihoon. It was Chan and Seokmin and Mingyu. 

It was the Sparkians on their knees. 

“…. please….”

The images were near grainy and the audio crackly and hard to make out, but it was clear what was happening. Joshua Hong and Choi Seungcheol were on their knees, begging to you and your crew. 

What they begged could only be guessed.

Two Sparks on their knees for a group of Dusties— it was a sight to be held, but your eyes only managed to focus on it for a couple of seconds. 

Instead, your gaze moved to the other figures being projected until they stopped on Jihoon’s figure standing next to yours. 

You hadn’t noticed it then, the way Jihoon glanced at you every couple of seconds to check on you. It looked like he was constantly sneaking a glance at you to defer the decisions to you. He was waiting for you to call the shots. 

Then it happened. 

His arms were crossed over his chest as he glared at the Sparkians. But in a brief moment where you remembered all you could feel was anger, Jihoon moved his hand a fraction of an inch. 

It was almost indiscernible if they weren’t paying attention. 

But like a butterfly’s kiss, his hand brushed past your right arm’s bicep. His thumb made circular motions on your skin before pulling away as if it had never happened. 

You couldn’t remember that moment happening. But it had. The video that was playing on Chuu’s gauntlet proved that it had happened. 

You thought back to that day, that moment of anger, and realized that you could remember feeling your anger dissipate in a fleeting moment. 

And it was all because of Jihoon.

A painful pang ran through your heart at the thought of him. 

But, before you could dwell on the pain and think about him, Jun grinned as if he’d just won the Dusty’s yearly suppliers lottery. Though, you doubted that he would grin or enjoy that or anything that was sponsored by Sparks. 

“Well, what do we have here?” Jun asked, stalking over to Joshua, and grabbing his chin forcefully like he had grabbed yours. “A Spark that begged for what? Tell me.” 

“What the hell do you care what he begged for?” You spit, glaring at Jun’s side profile. 

Jun chuckled, and without letting go of Joshua’s chin or turning around to look at you, he spoke, “A real fire burns inside of you, doesn’t it. I doubt it wants to be extinguished.” 

When neither of them, Joshua or you, spoke, Jun roughly pushed Joshua’s chin away and moved to stand next to Chuu again. 

He nodded for her to stop the video, “To me, you’re nothing but a traitor to our kind. I don’t care for traitors. But some people—” he paused to glance at Kim Lip, “think you might be worth a little more.” 

“Wait!” Joshua yelled as Jun started to walk away, “Don’t ransom me to Sparks! They’ll kill me! Please!” 

“Ransom,” Jun chuckled as he came to a stop near the door, “Your death isn’t really my problem. Sparks would pay good money to get someone back before they spilled their city’s precious secrets.” 

“Please!” Joshua yelled again while you silently glared at Jun.

“Kim Lip,” he grumbled, “it’s lights out. It’s your call.”

She nodded, and Jun left. 

“Haseul,” she said, turning around to look at the girl who had been tending to your wounds before, “put them to sleep.” 

Haseul nodded and whipped around to face you.

“What?!” You yelped as your eyes fell on the needle in her hand; and, without a second to waste, plunged the needle into your arm.

It took seconds before you felt your eyelids start to drop, and in those weary seconds, the last thing you saw was another needle being plunged into Joshua Hong’s skin.  

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

When you woke up, you thought you were having a lucid dream where all you could see was darkness— and it felt like your mind was torturing you. 

You could tell that you were moving your arms, stretching your limbs, hitting a hard substance but, it wasn’t until you saw a flickering shadow on the ground in front of you, and adrenaline spiked throughout your body, that you realized you were wide awake. 

Your eyes searched for the source until they finally landed on metal torches that had been fastened to the walls. Then your eyes adjusted, and you were able to make out your surroundings. 

You fumed as you realized where you had been brought. If the wall of bars in front of you were any indication, you had been placed in a cell in a basement far below the earth. 

A shuffling near you made you whip your head around, looking for the origins of the sound. 

Joshua Hong, the Sparkian you blamed for this mess, was propped up against the bars that made up the right side of your cell wall. 

He was still unconscious, but in a cell of his own and shivering constantly. He was far but not far enough for you to keep your emotions under control.

“Joshua,” you grumbled, your voice rough from sleep. When he didn’t wake, you tried again, “Joshua.” 

Nothing. 

“Mr. Joshua Hong,” you snapped. 

Like a bucket of water had been poured over him, he woke up gasping for air. His hands made their way to his face, where he rubbed his temple frantically only to hiss in pain. 

You watched on in silence, sucking on your bottom lip as you wondered if it had been such a good idea to wake him. 

Too late now.

Besides, why did he get to go on living blissfully asleep and unaware of the predicament they were in while you were forced to be awake and think.

“Morning, Sunshine,” you said mockingly. 

“Y/N?” 

“That’s still Y/L/N to you.” 

“M-miss Y/L/N,” Joshua stuttered, “where are we? What’s going on?” 

“Oh? Would you like a recap of our situation?” 

“I—”

“No! Allow me,” you quickly went on, “After knocking yourself out, we were captured by a group of raiders, who after tending to our injuries, have placed us in cells. Would you like to guess what they are most likely going to do us?” 

“Kill us?” Joshua responded quietly, feeling the fury you were withholding. 

“Oh, you wish they’d kill us,” you spit at him, “Did you really believe they’d trade you? That’s wishful thinking.” 

“I-I don’t understand.” 

You laughed hopelessly before answering him, “You’re a Sparkian. It’s obvious he loathes you and your kind. What’s better that to parade you around Dusty as his own little prisoner.” 

There was fear in his silence. You could feel it radiating off of him like the heat of a winter fire. 

“What will they do to you?” He asked in a small voice. 

“Me? How kind of you to ask—” you paused to glare at the floor underneath you and dig your nails into the dirt floor, “I’ll probably just be tortured down here. Kept alive until I’m nothing but a stupid shell. All because you and your damn friend had to see the Dusty for yourselves. Well, how was it?!” You yelled. “Did you enjoy your little tour of the Dusty? Were we all you were expecting?!” 

“Quite the lovers spat you two are having. What are you guys— forbidden lovers?” Someone squealed, “Tell me more!” 

You froze, your hammering heart lodging itself in your throat. You turned around to look for the owner of the voice— fear making you question if they had come back already. 

“Over here!” the voice said cheerfully, “To your left!”

You turned and before you sat a dark-haired girl in tattered clothes and bruises that were barely visible on her face and arms. You stared at her with a renewed, fearful realization that you would most likely look like that when the raiders came back. 

When you didn’t respond, the girl took it upon herself to keep talking. 

“Sooo…are you guys a couple? A Spark and a Dusty in love?” 

Her question sent a jolt of anger through you, “I would never fall in love with a Sparkian, let alone date one.”

The girl was silent for a moment as she stared at you, then she blinked, “But you are in love with someone then?” 

You flinched, “I never said that,” then grumbled, “How long have you even been there?”

The girl lifted an eyebrow, “Listening in on your conversation? Since the beginning, honey.” 

“That’s not— that’s not what I meant.” 

“Right,” the girl nodded, “Well, I’ve been locked down here for about two years. Tell me, is the land still as red as I remember it to be?” 

You flinched, “You’ve been down here two years?” 

“Yup,” the girl sighed, slouching against the bars now that her entertainment had vanished, though she still faced your direction, “two… years.” 

“H-how?” 

“How? Or why?” 

“I—”

“They aren’t raiders, you know,” the girl mumbled sadly. 

“What?” 

“I’m just saying. Whoever you met before coming down here… they aren’t raiders.” 

“If they aren’t raiders, then who the hell are they?” You grumbled, arms crossing over your chest.

The girl was silent again, and you had to concentrate to make out the expression on her face.

“Have you ever heard of the King of the Dusty?” She said, her voice as distant as her eyes.

“He’s a myth,” you whispered. 

“He’s a legend,” the girl said, “A Dusty with an abundance of resources and an army of his own. He helps our people and—”

“He isn’t real!” You whispered harshly. “And even if he was, he’s a traitor to everyone!”

“No,” the girl shook her head, “he helps the Dusty’s, but he doesn’t help anyone who stands with Sparks. You probably met him upstairs. He has a sharp face, brown hair, and his actual name is Jun.”

“H-how do you know this?” You asked quietly. 

The girl smiled sadly, “I was one of the people that Jun saved. I was part of his army. But one day, while I was scouting, I met this man. I never thought he could be anything but a Dusty— I mean, who’s ever heard of a Spark coming out willingly and dressing like us.”

“What happened?” 

“I got close to him. Eventually, he told me he was a Sparkian that had run away from Sparks— that he hated them. Before I knew it, I was in love with him, and I hated seeing him suffer, jumping from place to place without a permeant home.” 

The girl turned silent for a moment, and you felt like you knew what the girl had done get thrown in the dungeons. 

“I realize now that I didn’t think it through. I shouldn’t have told him about Jun… about his army… about what Jun stands for,” the girl squeezed her eyes shut like she was withstanding an onslaught of pain, “I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t. I should have known. I should have known not to sell his secrets.” 

The girl continued to mutter to herself, curling into the farthest corner of her cell, turning her back on the pair.

Feeling unnerved at the girl’s sudden change in attitude, you turned away from her and stared at the torch across your cell. You could feel Joshua Hong’s eyes on you, waiting for you to say something, perhaps a way to get you two out. But all you could bring yourself to say nudged you deeper into a cesspool of hopelessness.

“I should have known better than to believe a Sparkian wanted to escape Sparks.”

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

“Hey,” Kim Lip snapped as she banged a metal plate of slosh against your cell bars, “wake up. You eat now, or you don’t eat at all.” 

You sucked in a breath as you opened your eyes. You didn’t know when it had happened, but your body was quickly growing heavier and sluggish. 

You’d stopped trying to count the days when you realized that it would be impossible to keep track when there was no sun to see, and food was brought to you at times where it felt like an eternity had gone by. 

Even your memory was starting to crack under your sluggishness. All you could really remember was constantly coming in and out of sleep.

You knew that Joshua Hong stared at you more often than not. But you couldn’t bring yourself to care. If he wanted to escape, he could figure that out himself— you didn’t want anything to do with him. 

Kim Lip had placed a new tray of food on the ground at the entrance of each of their cells and collected the dirty ones where they had eaten last, before leaving them to the darkness again. 

You crawled over to the tray of food and ate a spoonful of slosh before closing your eyes with the spoon still in your mouth. Maybe if you tried to savor the food longer, you’d be able to distract yourself. 

“You know,” the girl said, slurping her slosh loudly, “pretending like you’re not eating slosh is just going to make it harder for you to accept that you’re stuck down here.” 

“Leave her alone,” Joshua grumbled, scooping his own slosh so carefully anyone watching would question if they even gave him slosh in the first place. 

“What did you guys do to get thrown down here, anyway?” She continued, ignoring Joshua. 

“Would you just s—”

“Nothing,” you said, cutting off Joshua, “We were running from raiders. We were injured, and King Jun found us— the Dusty and the Spark, dying of blood loss.” 

“Must have been quite a scene. How’d you two get together anyways?”

You scoffed.

Joshua answered. 

“We didn’t get together,” Joshua whispered, “She and her friends found me and my friend and saved us from dying of heatstroke.” 

“What?” The girl laughed, not believing what Joshua was saying. 

“It’s… true,” Joshua sighed, “After they saved us, we begged them to show us around for a day.” 

“No one in their right mind would ever do anything for a Spark—”

“We told them that if they didn’t, we’d take them to Sparks and accuse them of having kidnapped us.” 

“What?” The girl asked, her eyes narrowed, “How many of you were there?” 

“Just two,” Joshua said shamefully, lowering his gaze to the floor, “but we said that we had new tech that would immobilize them before they could even take out their laser guns.”

The girl looked at you, “And you fell for that?” 

You stayed silent. This was news to you too, but you didn’t want to think. You didn’t want to regret it when you couldn’t— not when the first thing you would always think about was the safety of your friends.

“Wow,” the girl laughed, “and you really didn’t have this tech?” 

“No,” Joshua whispered. 

“And you honestly left Sparks because you wanted to explore? You aren’t trying to spy?” The girl asked curiously, peering at Joshua Hong though the bars of their cells. 

“No,” he answered, “My friend and I… we felt suffocated in Sparks— we felt like we were always hiding. And no one knows our names, who we are here… so we thought it would be nice… to disappear for a few days.”

The girl scoffed, “And you didn’t think that your disappearance would be noticed?”

“No,” Joshua answered firmly. “I made sure that our presence would be registered in each of our homes. I made us take some days off.” 

“Some genius, are you? And yet you ended up ruining this poor girl’s life.”

Joshua flinched, “I-I know.”

“Catch that, did you?” 

You flinched and dropped your spoon to cover your ears when a sudden screeching overtook your cells. The sound reminded you of train wheels when someone tried to force them to stop. If it didn’t stop, your ears would start to bleed, no matter how much weight you placed against them. 

Then, when you felt like your brain was going to explode, it stopped, and a robotic voice joined them, “No signs of deceit detected.”

“Sorry!” Another voice followed. Chuu’s voice, you realized. “The sound system is still glitching out before connecting!”

You whipped your head around, trying to find the girl. 

“Classifying as non-threatening. Proceed to main office.”

“What?” You asked, eyes widening as you whipped your head around until finally noticing that the girl who had been celled with you was slowly standing up and dusting herself off. “W-what’s going on?”

The girl glanced at you momentarily before pushing through an imperceptible door at the front of the cell. She walked over to your cell without a word, and after taking out a pair of keys, unlocked your cell. Then, she moved onto Joshua’s and did the same.

You were shell shocked.

“If you two would follow me, please.” 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

In a large room with worn-out couches on one end and a single wooden desk on the other, sunlight streamed inside through broken windows. 

You and Joshua Hong stood at the center of the room, trying not to close your eyes and bask in the warmth of the sun you felt you had felt ages ago. 

Behind you, the girl who had been in the cells with you lounged on the couch like she didn’t have a care in the world. 

After minutes of standing at the center of the room, Jun came barging in, Kim Lip and Chuu behind him. He sped walked to his desk without sparing you two a glance, then paused. 

“Where’s my chair? Who took my chair?” 

“I think I saw Heejin with a chair that looked oddly similar,” the girl answered him. 

Jun swallowed back a sigh, “Thank you, Yves. You’ve done well today.” 

“No problem.” 

“What do you want with us?” You said, fear eating away at your patience. You couldn’t think of anything else besides that anyways. 

Jun trained his eyes on you, lifting a single eyebrow to stare you down before answering. 

“I wanted the truth. Luckily for you, he gave it to me sooner rather than later.”

“What?” 

“I’ve been reading your files,” Jun said, tapping on the desk to turn it on. Like the gauntlets that you had seen before, the tabletop started glowing green, and even from a distance, you could see the makings of what seemed to be a picture of you. 

“Y/N Y/L/N usually found with a Lee Jihoon and four others. The five of you are no threat to me. If anything, you stand for the same things I do.” 

A growl formed in your throat. 

“Oh, am I wrong?” Jun asked you. “Do you and your friends not hate Sparks? Is this information about you and your friends actively opposing the Sparks government wrong? I think this right here—” he pointed to something on the desk you couldn’t see, “about you and Lee Jihoon helping and caring for some Dusties that were close to death, speaks for itself, doesn’t it? I think you’ve even managed to steal and run out the few Spark officials that you’ve come across… running their plans to kidnap Dusties.” 

You were aghast.

There was nothing wrong with what you had done, not to you and not to him either, it seemed. Maybe it felt wrong to the Sparkian besides you, but he was Spark, and in the end, his opinion wouldn’t matter to you. 

No.

You were aghast because Jun knew about everything you and Jihoon, and ultimately Chan, Seokmin, Mingyu, and Soonyoung, did. Most of these were things nobody was ever supposed to know. You worked under the cover of night after all. 

But he knew it all. 

“Am I wrong?” Jun asked, gently this time. 

“No.” 

“Then, I’d like to offer you a deal if you don’t mind.” When you didn’t answer, he continued, “Join my army. Help me accomplish what I’ve set out to do.”

“And what exactly would that be?” 

He glanced at Joshua. 

“Him too,” he said, changing the subject, “he’s no threat to me or my people. But I don’t offer you the same deal. You’re a Spark, and I will never trust you or your kind. I will let you go, though with a fair warning that if you ever speak of me, my people, or anything you saw here, we will find you.” 

“Yes, sir,” Joshua gulped.

You swallowed, “How long have you kept us here?” 

“Just a few days. You spent two knocked out and just one in the cells.” 

“One?!” You yelped. 

“Yes,” Jun nodded, “We have ways of making sure you lose track of time.” He mimicked bringing a spoon up to his face, and you knew exactly what he meant. 

Though that fact was still processing in your mind, one that you had been keeping locked up in the back of your mind because it hurt to think about, started to surface. 

You had been gone for a total of three days. Your friends— Jihoon, probably thought you were dead. You couldn’t bear the thought. 

“If we are no longer your prisoners, I would like to go home too,” you sighed, “that’s all I want.”

Jun sighed, “If that’s what you want.” He knocked on the desk, and the glowing disappeared. 

Inside, you still feared Jun. You didn’t know if you believed that he was the fabled King of the Dusty or that he’d really let you go. But when you thought about it, he had been the one to save you, and he hadn’t done anything to harm you two. There was a bit of manipulation to get the truth out of you… but still, there was something about him.

This was your problem, you sighed. Jihoon told you this all the time. 

When it came to Dusties, you always tried to find the good in them. You trusted them easier. 

But when you listened to your gut, you were more often than not— right about your decisions. 

“You can leave tomorrow morning, it’ll take you two days to get home. Chuu will show you the way tonight. For now, you’ll be given some rooms to rest and eat. Yves, will you please?” 

“Okay,” she nodded, sitting upright. 

“Okay,” Jun nodded, making his way to the door. He stopped suddenly and looked at you, “I’ll just ask one thing from you. Don’t tell anyone who we are or where you spent your time. Not even your friends.” 

You nodded.

“If you ever change your mind about joining me or need help… just… find your way back here.” 

“Why?” You asked.

“Because,” Jun said sternly before his voice quieted down into something like a soft whisper, “I have nothing against orphans who came to be the same way as I did.” 

He shot you a look that spoke volumes to you. In a simple sentence and a single look, you felt like you had just come to understand who he was. 

“Thank you,” you said to him.  

Jun nodded then disappeared through the door. Chuu and Kim Lip silently followed behind him. 

Yves stood up then, slowly making her way to the two of you. 

“I hope you know that Jun is being sincere,” she said, “he’s a good guy. He really is the King of the Dusty.”

You nodded wordlessly. 

In the silence, Yves shifted on her feet, “I’m sorry we had to... you know, mess with your heads to get you to talk. But it had to be done, and it’s not like we can just... trust anyone. If we did, then... the King would’ve disappeared long ago.” 

“I... get it,” you nodded. 

“Just a tip, then? You might want to work on your resistance in interrogations and mind games, just in case you’re ever in a situation like this again,” Yves said, suddenly smiling nervously at you. 

“Right,” you nodded, “I… I wouldn’t know how to go about that though…” 

“I can help if you want.” 

“Sure,” you nodded, “yes. That would be great.”

“Alright, well if you two will follow me, I’ll show you to your rooms. I think Kim Lip might have already gotten someone to assemble packs of supplies for the both of you and put them in your rooms.”

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

You and Joshua traveled for two days, stopping only for necessities like eating and sleeping, with the sun beating down your backs before you were able to make out the place you called home on the horizon. 

“There,” you stopped at the top of a dune to point out a large, tan, one-story Spanish adobe styled home. It was encapsulated by a half-finished metal fence and had arches outlining its long porch. 

It was something you could point out on sight, but Joshua had never been there before, and you knew that he could use the hope and excitement of almost being safe.  

“That’s home— Jihoon’s home, I mean.” 

“That looks close,” Joshua whispered, “really close.” 

“Yeah,” you nodded, “ten, twenty minutes tops. We’re almost there.” 

Half an hour later, you finally reached the house. 

Your steps stuttered as you saw the front door unlocked and wide open. Something felt wrong. Something felt off. 

“Common,” you told Joshua, “stay close behind me.” 

You set off quickly, crossing through the door and closing it behind Joshua, locking it to make sure nothing could get in or out without a pause.

The house looked like it was devoid of any life. Dust was normal in the Dusty, but you had always taken pride in the fact that the youngest of your friends always tried to keep their home clean. But now, now dust and dirt covered the floor, the furniture, the windows, and even the walls. 

You stood silently, gaping at the living room aghast. 

“Then leave!” Someone— it was Jihoon, you knew, his voice was something you could never forget, yelled. “I don’t need you! I never asked you to be here.” 

You set off running. Jihoon’s words sparked worry in you that you had been trying so hard to keep down since you had been separated. Anger was evident in the way he was speaking, but there was something else there too. Something that you had never heard from him before and it made you feel like something bad was about to happen. 

Through the living room, and out a door that opened up into the courtyard, you ran, Joshua following behind you. 

You came to a skidding stop behind an uncut hedge when you found yourself witnessing your friends, and Choi Seungcheol, Joshua’s friend, face off against Jihoon. There were no weapons— unless you counted the knife that you had been clutching as you ran, but you promptly put that away when you saw it was only them. They just faced each other, Jihoon glaring at the others. 

“You can’t keep acting like this,” Seungcheol snapped at him. 

You narrowed your eyes. Who had given him the right to speak to him like that? 

“And what right do you have to speak to me like that?” 

“Jihoon, we’re only trying to help you. You can’t keep acting like this, it’s bad for your health. We’re here for you,” Mingyu pleaded to him. Words had never made you worry more. 

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, “I don’t need babysitters. So go ahead, leave, the door is right there—” he motioned in the direction of the door that you had just walked through, without looking— “I didn’t ask you to be here for me.”

Silence brewed, and you chose that moment to step out from behind the hedge.

In a quiet voice, you asked, “What’s going on?”

Time froze before speeding up again. Nobody moved, they were all static, then like puppets all being pulled by the same string, they all whipped their heads around. Their eyes widened, and though you were staring at them expectingly, none of them answered you. 

Then Jihoon let out a shuddering breath nobody could have missed if they wanted to, and he rushed forward, enveloping you in a hug that had you shutting your eyes and melting into his chest. 

“What’s going on?” You whispered to him, the smell of him making it hard for you to pull away. 

“Nothing,” Jihoon answered. 

“But I heard you guys arguing,” you told him. 

“It was nothing,” Jihoon sighed and pulled away, though his hands itched to hold you again. But instead, he pacified himself by looking you up and down, willing himself to believe that you were real, and he wasn’t imagining things. 

Then he saw the bandages wrapped around your knee, and the one peeking out from under your untucked shirt and a rock lodged itself in his throat. 

“What happened? Where were you guys?” Seungcheol’s voice forced you to tear your eyes away from Jihoon and focus on the reality behind him. 

“W-we got taken,” Joshua stuttered out next to him. 

“Yeah, we passed out from blood loss, and when we woke up we were somewhere else. They kept us for a few days, and then they let us go.” 

“But who?” Seungcheol asked, “And why?” 

“Who doesn’t matter,” you said, remembering what Jun had asked of you two, “and as for why, they did it just… because.” 

“Just… because?” Seungcheol repeated, looking at Joshua for confirmation. He looked at you panicked, but instead of butting in, you stared at him expressionlessly.

“Yeah,” Joshua nodded, “just because.”

“Enough talking,” Jihoon said, “Y/N needs to get those bandages changed.” 

“So does Joshua,” Seungcheol said, trying not to snap at Jihoon’s exclusion.

Jihoon narrowed his eyes, a retort starting to form. But before he could say anything, you cut in, already sensing what Jihoon was about to do. 

“Joshua will get his bandages changed too. And, you’ll be allowed to stay here for another day before leaving.” 

“Thank you,” Seungcheol responded. 

“No,” you said sternly. At the swaying of your body (the pain in your knees and torso was coming back, but you weren’t about to tell anyone), the rest of your friends came running up to you. The four of them gave you quick hugs before Chan and Seokmin threw your arms around their shoulders to help keep you standing, and Mingyu and Soonyoung took the pack were were carrying off of you.

Jihoon walked around from behind them and motioned for Mingyu to give him the bag before standing next to Chan, on their left and giving you a careful, worried look. 

“I’m fine,” you muttered before turning back to Seungcheol and Joshua. “Joshua told me the truth. The whole truth.” 

Blood rushed to his cheeks, and he had the decency to look ashamed. 

“I don’t trust you,” you said slowly, “but I’ll give Joshua the benefit of the doubt.” 

“Tha—”

“Because of that,” you cut him off, “I’ll give you both a place in this home when you need it, but we are not some vacation home for you to come and use as you please. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Seungcheol replied unconsciously. 

“That being said,” you swallowed. You feared that the words that followed could end up making things really bad with them, “you should know that we don’t take Sparks kindly here. If you stay here, if you join us, it’s because you dislike Sparks just as much as we do. We don’t stand with Sparks, we don’t do what they say is law, we stand against them, and we do what we can to usurp them when we can.”

Seungcheol was silent, staring at you with a look in his eyes that you couldn’t discern.

When he turned to look at Joshua, he found him looking at you calmly and relaxed. He had already made his choice. Now only you were left. 

“The choice is yours,” you said, “But I do expect the two of you to apologize to the rest of them.” 

“Understood,” Seungcheol nodded. 

Then without a second more to waste, Jihoon steered Chan and Seokmin in the direction of the bedroom they had transformed into a med station. Joshua nodded at Seungcheol smiling, and they followed close behind. 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Part 2 

[percywinchester27]

Unconventional Roommates (Part-4)

Word count: 2.5K

Pairing: Dean X Reader

Warnings: None, fluff-ish?

Series Summary: Now that his brother is at Stanford, for the first time in his life, Dean does something for himself. He takes a step towards chasing his own dreams and moves away from Lawrence to start college, which is both thrilling and scary at the same time. Only catch, in this unknown town, he is stuck with the MOST infuriating female on the planet- the roommate from hell!

A/N: Thank you for all the love and comments guys. Your words are what keeps me going. I’m extremely grateful <3

Beta read by my Darling, @deanssweetheart23. I love you, babe <3

Unconventional Roommates masterlist

"Son, at this rate you will drive yourself crazy."

"I don't have a choice here, Bobby," Dean sighed.

He was furiously scribbling along a sheet of paper, having just started writing the assignment for the first time after giving up on the sheets completely. The T-Scale was still mounted on the side of the work table in Bobby's cabin.

"You've barely gone home, young man," Bobby commented. His usually gruff demeanor seemed caring now and Dean didn't know what to do with it. Gruffness he could deal with. Worry? Not so much.

"Don't worry about," Dean assured him. "Unless this is inconvenient for you."

"It don't matter to me at all. You might just want to spend some time at the apartment that makes you work your ass off here so you can pay the rent."

Dean didn't want to admit that he was avoiding that girl like the plague, but he did it nevertheless. "It's that other girl in the apartment, Bobby. She drives me nuts."

"Girl trouble, eh?"

Dean shook his head at Bobby's raised eyebrows.

"It isn't like that," he laughed despite himself. "I have to control myself too much in her presence so I don't strangle her with my own two hands. She's impossible."

"It's what I used to say about wife when I first met her," Bobby shrugged. "You watch your steps."

Dean laughed out loud at even the idea of him getting out one civil word with that girl, but he let the topic go. It was good to laugh after all the weekend stress. It was Monday afternoon and Dean had barely left the auto shop except to get clothes from the apartment and to go to classes that morning. All of those times her room was locked from outside. He'd briefly wondered if she worked nights, but then dropped it, not wanting to waste time by getting mad about her. He had a feeling that Bobby was letting him off easy on the work because of the college crap. And it made him feel both warm and wary inside. He wasn't used to feeling this way.

But he knew that it was unfair for Bobby's work to lag.

"Hey, Bobby. You do know that I need breaks with this thing, right? So if there's anything, you'll let me know?"

Bobby gave Dean a calculating look, then said. "What I do want is for you to rest up, but if you're up for it, I just got a call about a broken tap. You up for that?"

"Sure," Dean jumped up. It would mean wet clothes, but it was the least Dean could do in return.

"Alright," Dean said, picking up his leather jacket and flinging it over his shoulder. "Where's it?"

Bobby read out the address, then turned to look at Dean who stood frozen on the spot.

"You alright? Know the place?"

"I live there," Dean murmured.

******************************************

Running up and down the steps was starting to be a regular thing now, and Dean was already mad that the reason was almost always the same. That girl.

He banged on the door, the moment he reached the landing. Before his hand could land on the door a third time, it swung wide open.

"Opened too quickly this time?" Dean taunted.

"You? What the hell are you doing here?" She breathed out. "I thought it was the Handyman."

"I am the Handyman," he retorted. "Now move over and let me see the mess."

It was a mess all right. The whole apartment was flooded. There was ankle deep water in the living room, and as far as he could see the barrage of water was coming from her mystery room.

"What in the name of hell…" He trailed off.

"Damn it!" She cursed. "Why did it have to be you?"

"Honey," Dean thundered. "It was going to be me at some point! That's my room flooding over there."

She just huffed, crossing her arms below her chest. Dressed in a baggy Brown Tee-shirt that reached up to her knees and what looked like yoga pants, she was wet to her last cell. She had a huge purple bandanna covering her head today. Even her eyelashes were dripping. Had it been anyone else- absolutely anyone else- Dean would have felt bad for them. But despite how harassed she looked, Dean couldn't muster any sympathy.

"Now move over," he said, trudging towards her room.

But she was faster, blocking the door. "No. You can't go in there."

"What? Are you crazy?" Dean said, outraged. "You hate me so much that you're even willing to drown yourself to kill me in the water?"

"It's not about you, idiot," she said, visibly distressed. "But I'm not letting you in."

Dean threw up his hands in frustration. "Why did you call a handyman if you weren't going to let anyone in?"

"I- Well…" The answer was clearly written across her face.

This was incredulous. "You would have willingly let someone else in, but not me?" Dean gawked. "You're impossible."

"Well, I don't have to live with any other guy," she said, exasperated. "You, on the other hand, are the roommate."

The panic was written clearly across her face. She was torn between obviously wanting the tap- which was gushing out a deluge- to be fixed but she also really didn't want Dean to go in.

The sheer sincerity of her dread made Dean calm down unexpectedly. He couldn't understand her stubbornness but he could understand the alarm. This was really important to her.

He took a deep breath, then asked, "What's your name?"

"What?" She looked taken aback at the sudden change in his mood. And once the scowl slipped off her face, it was even easier to tame the absurd irritation he felt because underneath all those frowns, her face was surprisingly guileless.

He offered her a tiny smile. "I can't keep calling you the Goth lady in room 401 if I'm going to talk you through this."

"Y/N. It's Y/N."

What a beautiful name.

Her face remained comically blank, and if they hadn't been standing in the middle of what was looking like a cascade with every passing minute, Dean would have laughed out loud.

He bent down and reached into his tool box to pull out a wench.

"Here," he handed it to her. "Now, Y/N, I want you to go in and tell me exactly where the water is spouting from. Can you do that?"

She nodded quickly, then ducked inside.

Despite the semi open door, Dean could see nothing. The red door of her room faced a semi- blank wall, creating a sort of screen between the actual room and the little alcove it seemed to form. Dean would be lying if he said he wasn't tempted to, at least, peek inside, but he didn't. She was trusting him with this.

"It's spouting from the swivel," she yelled, loud enough for him to hear. "Right above the faucet."

"Alright," Dean shouted back. "What type of tap is it? Is it like the one in my room? With a round swivel?"

"Yeah."

Good. then it was easy.

"Okay, Y/N," he said. "Listen to me very carefully now. Hold that knob with both your hands and pull it up."

"What? But that will break it."

"That's what we are aiming for," Dean explained patiently. "The lever we are looking for is under that. I'm assuming the water has been spewing for a while now so, the top must be already loose. Just pull it away."

"Okay." Came her muffled voice. There was groan and then her triumphant yell. "Done. Now what?"

Even if she hadn't yelled, the increase in the force of water would have let dean know that the swivel was out.

"Can you see a nut at the base of the lever? Just above the faucet?"

"Yeah!"

"Good," Dean commanded. "Now place the wench at the base, hook the bolt with it and turn it clockwise."

"Clockwise?" She called out to confirm.

"Yeah. Just swing it hard. You'll know it's enough when the water stops."

She didn't say anything to that, but the room was filled with delicate grunts and at long last the pouring water stopped. It had reached Dean's shin now and his jeans was completely wet.

She emerged from the room, impossibly, even more drenched, but her lips were split in a victorious grin. "We did it!"

Dean found himself returning her smile as he raised his hand. "High five."

She reached out with her hand and clapped his thoughtlessly, before her face fell and the sullen expression returned.

"Thanks… I guess." She looked visibly mollified, and again, Dean was tempted to taunt her some, but her fleeting smile had been a thing of wonder and Dean would rather see that than go back to the pissing contest.

"How much for this?" She asked, eyes cast down.

"Don't worry about it," Dean said firmly. "You don't have to pay anything."

"Why?" Surprise rippled across her face once more.

Dean smiled. "Because firstly I didn't put in any labor. I just hollered the instructions and you did the fixing. And secondly, cause we're going to have to put in enough to fix this mess."

He looked around at the floating pieces of household items. The only things unaffected were probably the top of the sofa, the top of his bed and the TV which was mounted on a high platform. Everything else was either somewhat submerged or floating.

He let out a sigh and turned to face her guilty expression. "Let's just drain this all from our bathrooms and we'll see what else can be done."

It took a good part of an hour to get all the water off the floor. In its aftermath, Dean found that the 3 sheets he had managed to draft were all destroyed now. But unlike today morning, he found it hard to pin it on the girl… on Y/N. She hadn't asked for this anymore that he had. God knows what else had been damaged in her room.

He dragged his feet and fell on the sofa, exhausted and wet from hair to toe now.

"Here."

Dean looked up to see that Y/N was holding a wad of cash uncertainly over his head.

He shook his head. "I can't take it. I told you why."

"Doesn't feel right," she muttered, stealing looks, and Dean realized that the only time she'd actually looked him the eye was when she'd been angry at him. When she wasn't, she did her best to maintain no eye contact.

"Look, I'm not taking it," he said firmly. "You can order pizza for tonight though. We both deserve that."

"Okay." She turned around.

"Y/N!" He called and she turned.

He stood up and offered his hand. "I'm Dean Winchester."

She stared, looking from his face to his outstretched fingers, then grasped it in a surprisingly firm grip.

"Y/N Y/L/N."

"It's nice to meet you without any drama."

She smirked slyly. "You don't consider washing away half the house as drama?"

"Naw… That's a calamity. It can be dealt with."

She offered him another smirk and then walked off to find her phone or something. He could hear odd noises of things moving in her room till the bell rang. Then she stormed out of there to pay the Pizza guy.

It was both weird and easy to sit next to her on the sofa, the pizza box propped open between the two of them as the TV played some mindless F1 game. Dean was lost in his own thoughts, wondering how to un-fuck the situation he had landed himself in. He had 4 days to finish impossible amount of work. No way in hell could he do it. Even divine interventions seemed unlikely at this point.

"I'm sorry…" Her voice was soft even in its depth as she pulled him out of his thoughts. Dean looked to see that her eyes were boring into his, washing him in that odd feeling again, like she could see right through him. He'd never seen such shrewd eyes all his life. It was unsettling.

"It's okay," he brushed it off. "You didn't break the tap on purpose."

She shook her head. "It's not why. I'm sorry about Friday. I… the music was playing too loud. I couldn't hear the bell or the bangs for that matter."

"Why did you even lock the door from the inside?" He wasn't angry, he was really trying to understand.

She looked away, staring at the TV screen darkly. "Call it habit. I've been living here alone for a while since the last tenant left and let's just say, you haven't been the first person to try and break in around here." She left it that, offering no other explanation or even the inclination to pursue the topic further.

"But I'm sorry about that."

Dean sighed. No point telling her how much trouble he was in thanks to her. It wasn't like something could come out of it except a guilt trip on her part.

"I'm sorry about the other day, too," she hesitated.

Dean understood perfectly what she was hinting at this time.

"It was wrong of me to say anything about your mother."

"It's okay." And he really was okay with it. His face probably gave it away, maybe he had given it away that day itself that his mom was dead.

"Well, I don't know anything about your mom," she continued. "But I'm sure she must have been a sexy babe!"

Dean all but choked on his slice of pizza. "Excuse me?"

Y/N shrugged. "You look at your face in the mirror? It takes both parties to be really good to create that."

There was a second's pause and then Dean burst out laughing, so hard that he had to drop the half eaten slice and bend over to try and control it.

"You're crazy!" He managed.

"Not the first I'm hearing that," she admitted nonchalantly. "But I can't be the first person to tell you that."

It was his turn to look down to hide the flaming cheeks now. There was a first.

"No one's quite put it that way."

She gave him her penetrating gaze again, then abruptly got up. "Well, I'm off now. You can take all of the living room to dry your stuff tonight, but tomorrow is mine."

Just like that she was back behind that red door.

Dean clutched at his stomach, reveling in the pleasant after ache of a hearty laugh, not remembering the last time he'd had such a difficult day, but also not recalling the last time he'd laughed so much. That girl was something.

*************************************

A/N 2: YASSS! They finally had a civil conversation!

A/N 3: Please do consider reblogging my work and leaving feedback. Reblogging helps spread it, and also helps against the “best posts first” option tumblr has. The more the notes, the less chance of it getting buried beneath others posts. And the comments are what keep me going. I love you guys and I’ll be in forever grateful <3

Here’s my side blog @percywinchester27-writes. You can give that blog a follow and turn the notifications on to know about updates.

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@deanssweetheart23  @captainradicalpassion  @docharleythegeekqueen  @sleepless-sin    @mrsdeanfuckingwinchester  @ohgodwhybloggg  @roxyspearing  @oneshoeshort  @theofficialduke  @wildlandfox  @mrswhozeewhatsis  @emoryhemsworth  @dslocum89  @justacinnamonroll  @fanfreak07  @dustycelt  @serienjunkiegirl   @thinkwritexpress-official  @babykalika2001  @daskleinevolk  @jayankles  @blacktithe7  @pensysto  @iyannamckague  @shamelesslydean  @mysupernaturalfics  @crystallstaircase  @melonberri  @commander-meghan-shepard  @trenchcoat-angel  @smiling-meerkat  @sprnaturallover  @violinbetty  @fandom-trash-worth-it  @grace-for-sale  @katsanders  @samwinchesterfanfic  @bluestarshining  @torn-and-frayed  @adaliamalfoy  @anathewierdo  @gabavaldman  @brindz30  @heavymetalhauswife  @sdavid09  @hatemeup  @plaidstiel-wormstache  @deannawinchesterpie  @kit-kat-katie99  @jessieray98  @mlovesstories  @thing-you-do-with-that-thing   @directionernullneun  @yoursmilemakesmeloveyou  @theoriginalvicki  @angelessquirrel  @thereisnolumos  @julie121899  @blushingokoye  @mikid2000  @freekryptonitecloud  @padasteph-nie  @luna-plena-venandi  @tiffy119  @jayattemptstoruletheworld  @linki-locks11  @mirandaaustin93  @pjofangirl18  @hunterswearingplaid  @cookiechipdough  @superlock-on-pc   @daughterleftbehind  @abumbling-bee  @savanna1899  @imweirdandobsessed  @emilycollins11  @diariesofthebeautyobsessed  @bakabozza  @imascio08  @luvspnandphan @stormisamystery  @atc74  @aiaranradnay  @bellastellaluna  @deansgirl215

[monomas-a-smug-bih]

Apocalyptic Chaos VII: Sacrifices

Part 7

..:::::..

Everyone went silent, horrified gazes burning into the pale boy’s bloodied arm. He huffed.

“I already told you... there’s nothing-“ I watched Jirou shove passed Kirishima, the pained look in his eyes made my mind swirl. My brain just couldn’t keep up.

This, this was really happening?

Jirou’s voice cut through my jumbled thoughts.

“SHUT UP!” She kneeled down and picked up the cloth I’d dropped to the ground. The blonde boy winced as she hastily wiped the rest of the blood away.

“H-he barely got you Kaminari, see?! So get up already so we can go!” The unusually solemn boy looked her in the eyes, giving a sympathetic smile.

“Come on, Jirou. You’re beyond cool enough to have read comic books before, a-and according to those-“

“Don’t be stupid you idiot! Those aren’t real- This isn’t-“ she paused, seeming to recognize how bad his arm had really gotten, how pale his face had gone. “This isn’t...” It was so quiet I heard the desperate squeak of her leather jacket for every unsure move she made. Her crooked purple bangs swishing as she looked up from the ground and snapped out of her daze. Everyone’s silence was soon invaded by hammering steps up the stairs, they were coming. The golden haired boy wiped Jirou’s bangs from her eyes.

“I can’t let you guys stay here Kyouka... according to- I- this isn’t going to end well...”

Izuku’s hush voice cut in, “Kaminari...”

I watched her grit her teeth, her hand gripping firmly to his shaky wrist and ripping it from her forehead.

“You can’t expect us to just- we can’t just leave you here!” She looked to me, then to the others behind us, desperately looking for someone to back her up, someone to say everything would be fine, but...

Soon enough I could hear the few that’d reached our floor, stomping and whaling madly. I looked over my shoulder, spotting Bakugou’s hard ruby eyes, he gulped and stared into the frantic girl with a dark look on his face. Jirou met his gaze and stood up, she looked to be trying to stop herself from lunging at him out of frustration.

“You’ve- you all gotta be kidding me!?”

“J-Jirou don’t, it’s not-“ Kaminari coughed harshly, standing up halfway incredibly unsteadily. My heart pumped vigorously, my throat going dry. My thoughts swarming with ‘is this really happening?’s and ‘what do we do?’s and more panicked questions that wouldn’t be answered in time. I could hear the blood pump in my ears, up until the moans and banging outside seemed to grow overbearingly louder and louder and-

My heart couldn’t take this. I watched Kaminari pull Jirou into an exhausted hug, watching her trembling form latch onto his taller one...

“Promise me you’ll get out of here...” Jirou’s protests faded into struggling mumbles. I watched Kaminari pet her chopped indigo hair. “P-Please Jirou, please just get out of here...” he pulled away, looking her deep in the eyes before walking backwards to shift his weight onto a dusty nightstand. He held his stomach, groaning but letting out a helpless chuckle. He looked up with his drained golden eyes. “You guys too... it won’t be long now, this is really starting to hurt like a-“ his voice cut off into a groan, he winced and tried to catch his breath. I didn’t want to decide whether he was referring to the zombies outside or himself... I frowned, speechless.

I couldn’t believe this was all really happening.

Obviously nobody could, Bakugou looked as distant as ever, packing up and heaving his bag onto his shaky shoulders.

Kirishima’s hand came up from his pocket and glinted against the sun, the metal of a small gun shining in the light pouring from the window. He handed it to Kaminari, who sent a sad smile. Kirishima smiled back, pulling him into a manly hug once he handed it off. Everyone’s goodbye’s were interrupted, the door suddenly leaning in, creaking and about to fly from it’s rusted hinges. I hastily opened up the window, looking down into the far down dead streets below. I panicked and scanned the area. Bittersweet relief shocked through my system. A staircase. A super rusty and skinny metal staircase hooked out of the apartment looking part of the building beside ours. If we could just make it over-

I tried to organize my scrambled thoughts among the gun shots. Kaminari shouted at us to go, doing his best to fend off whatever was about to break through the door. Everyone looked to me, standing with my head halfway out of our only escape. I had to think, fast.

I spotted a piece below the window that stuck out slightly. The worn down white trim that wrapped around the walls below each row of windows. It only stuck maybe five or six centimetres out, not even, but if it was your only chance...

“Kirishima!” He came to my side. I needed reassurance. “Do you think we could go along there and get to that staircase?” He shook his head and readied himself, already climbing out of the window.

“It’s our only shot!” I turned away from him, looking for something to do in the mean time.

“That crazy motherfucker...” Bakugou swore under his breath, taking his eyes off of Kirishima to look back to Kaminari with a subtly admiring yet pitying look on his features. Him and Izuku hurried out the window next, I tried to avoid eye-contact at all costs.

..:::::..

I readied myself to go too, but...

Jirou stood frozen like a statue, her form small compared to the persistent teen in front of her. His lightning bolt bangs stuck to his hot face, his frail looking form had retreated to holding the cracking door back with all of his might. I knew it’d burst open, and we’d be drowning in merciless monsters within seconds. I panicked, meeting Denki’s desperate honey eyes one last time. They practically screamed at me to do something, anything, to save her. Jirou’s legs shook, her body stiff. I shouted.

“We have to go!” She didn’t budge, she didn’t even blink. I reached out to her, only to have her yank away from me. I grabbed her arm again, not even waiting for a reaction. I concentrated, my quirk activating at the sudden contact. I turned away and missed a creamy white light flash across her glassy eyes. I dragged her to the window, the hungry cries and fists pummelling the door starting to drive me nuts. I lifted myself to step out of the window, finding the tiny space of footing and got ready to flatten myself against the beige wall. I watched Denki shut his tired eyes and sigh in relief peacefully. I felt terrible leaving him like this, sick even. I swallowed my emotions and begged myself to keep a level head. I can’t think about him right now... not now. I tried to ignore the guilt swirling in my stomach as I helped the emotionally-muted girl through the window.

We’d made it to the end of the line.

The corner of the building, where the small space for my feet ended, cut off by the humongous drop from the ledge into the streets below. The breeze taunted and terrified me, whipping across my cheeks and running through my hair. Practically screaming how close I was to being swallowed up by the empty streets of Musutafu. The staircase was way further away then it looked. Fear replaced my remorse, I felt a nervous sweat coming on. But a messy head of ash blonde hair in the corner of my eye surprised me. He must’ve stayed behind, because Kirishima nor Izuku were anywhere in sight. I looked over carefully to the blank expression on Jirou’s face beside me, wondering how she would handle this, not having any emotions to worry her at the moment. I looked back to Bakugou, my throat felt tight, my eyes watered at the merciless breeze, my breath picked up immensely. I froze, my vision feeling like it’d been clouded and faded to nothing. I felt fear, nothing but fear. The unpleasant feeling running all the way to my shaky fingertips pressed desperately against the chalky feeling wall. A familiar loud voice interrupted my thoughts.

“HEY! THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!”

I blinked, the fear clouding my senses suddenly flying away with the afternoon breeze. Then all of the sudden I remembered who’d been standing on the skinny rusted steps across the huge gap ahead. Bakugou gripped the railing and leaned forward, the wind swishing through his crazy hair and his crimson eyes sharp against the washed out building.

“HURRY UP AND GET YOU’RE ASSES DOWN HERE!” I felt a random smile climb to my face, staring at him determined, shuffling just a little bit further to the edge. I bent my knees shakily but carefully, doing my best to assess how far I was from him, calculating my jump. I exhaled, trying to swallow my fears. He hung on to the railing cautiously.

I took a hopeful leap.

I reached for the railing, my legs desperately flailing for some footing midair. The railing came closer and closer, I prepared to latch on, it’s now or never. My feet scraped hastily against the side of the thing, my hand grappling onto the rusty metal for dear life. Then my heart stopped, I heard the metal railing let out a terrible sound, bending towards me like it’d throw me off. My body started to fall back. I lost my grip and panicked, but the moment the grainy rusted texture had left my desperate fingers, I felt something new replace it.

I only dangled for a second until I was yanked up. Bakugou pulled me up and I got over the railing. I sighed in relief, squeezing his hand and sending him a grateful grin. That was close. He looked at me and rose a brow, shaking me off and crossing his arms.

“Man y/n, do you really have to suck at everything?!”

Jeez, it’s not like he had to wait there.

But I was sure glad he did.

“Thanks Bakugou.” He rolled his ruby eyes and let his arms flop to his sides. I followed his perplexed gaze, looking up at the purple-haired girl, her leather jacket swaying in the breeze. She was still flat to the side of the hotel.

“The fuck is up with her?”

“It’s my fault, gimme a sec...” Her blank hollow stare was starting to get to me. Her dark eyes looking like a pair of marbles. I concentrated, squeezing my eyes shut. If I want this to work, I have to think of what I want her to feel, I have to think of...

-when I was in the Sports Festival, an intense competition that mattered a lot to me. I’d felt extremely competitive and determined, excited even.

When I opened my eyes, they were blank and took on a creamy glow, like there was a couple of weak flash lights in my head. I ignored Bakugou’s intrigued expression and looked up to Jirou. I need to make her feel like she can make this jump. Confidence, I thought.

Jirou shuffled closer, bending her knees and launching herself off the wall fearlessly. She made it, my eyes fluttered and the glow was gone. I grabbed Jirou’s hand and ran down the creaky steps, Bakugou lead the way.

..:::::..

We met up with Kirishima and Izuku. Bakugou yelled at them for waiting, even though he’d waited for us on the stairs.

I felt what should’ve been Jirou’s tears roll down my cheeks, since I’d grabbed her hand and stolen her emotions like I did. Reminding me of how we’d left Kaminari. Her ocean of sadness and waves of shock and frustration washed over me as we jogged. Jirou’s feelings of longing slowly sinking into me made turning around and running back to Kaminari all too tempting. It made me feel terrible, but I didn’t have a choice. Refusing to come with us would’ve put everyone in danger, and we couldn’t leave her there. She might resent me for it, but that’s not what he would’ve wanted. Kirishima came to a stop at a safe enough distance from the hotel, but Bakugou yanked at him to keep going, steering us in the direction of the drugstore where our car was parked. I tried my best not to look back at Jirou as we ran.

We went in, the bell hanging from the door crying out as Bakugou slammed it shut. His face creased with angry devastation hiding under his ash blonde locks. Everyone huffed and puffed, then went silent, making the room feel uneasy. I squeezed Jirou’s hand, a little hesitant to loosen my grip and let her feel again after we... after that. I had to do it. To keep the rest of us safe. She didn’t give me a choice! It was the right thing to do, I tried to convince myself, eventually letting go and shakily watching her wide and cloudy dark eyes flash blue then to her natural dark orbs. She looked at her fingerless gloved hands, flexing her fingers, then up at me with a worried yet confused expression. She backed away from me, into a wall. Sliding down and letting her head sink into her arms laying across her knees. It felt like someone had pierced a hole in my heart, it ached. I tried to ignore the pins and needles running up and down my tired calves and ankles and wiped my face, looking behind me. Kirishima was sitting on the floor by the counter, Izuku and Bakugou were still standing. The only difference between them being Bakugou was hiding his face in the space of a corner, his elbows by his head leaning against the wall. Izuku just looked distant and regretful. I looked around a little lost, eventually sinking down onto the floor leaning against the wall beside the door. I couldn’t believe this was happening. We’d found friends, only to have one of them taken away from us immediately. I pressed my hands to my forehead.

What kind of sick game is this?

..:::::..

Everyone stayed silent for a bit, until Izuku spoke up.

“We... should probably gather our things and move. It’s already gotten a little darker out...” he kept his eyes on the dirt speckled white floor. I heard the others shuffle up to their feet, then glanced to the side, Jirou didn’t move. I reluctantly walked over, keeping a careful distance from her. I crouched down a little, keeping a soft, hush voice.

“Jirou? H-how are you holding up?” I asked honestly, expecting her to either mope or whimper at me. But then again she didn’t look like that type of girl, I knew she was stronger than that. So the possibility she lashed out at me didn’t seem so crazy either. I watched her heave her head from her arms, eventually standing up. I straightened up too, trying to meet her hurt eyes. I watched her shoulders and jaw tense, her fists curling up with her eyes squeezed shut. I watched her one shoulder raise up slightly. And then-

Everything happened so fast. And when it did, it left an empty feeling in my stomach, a stinging and sore sensation on my burning cheek.

My head was whipped to the side, my body weight had retreated to the counter behind me, I gripped it tightly. The curled fist she’d used to hit me was hung up by her side defensively, ready to strike again. Her breath was heavy. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding all this time, daring to bring my eyes to Jirou’s blazing and anger-filled obsidian one’s. I heard who I’d guessed was Kirishima walk towards us.

“Jirou please-“

“How could you do that to me!?” Here it comes. I feared this would happen. She stomped up to me, shoving me back out of frustration. The pain and resentment in her voice showed through its cracks when she’d raised it even louder. “HOW COULD YOU MESS WITH ME LIKE THAT!” She took an aggressive step forward.

“I-I didn’t know what else to do...” I gave her the best reason I could, I couldn’t bring him up at a time like this. That’d only make matters worse. I looked at her empathetically, keeping my mouth shut. Let her snap at you, she deserves that at least. She grabbed handfuls of my t-shirt, bringing me closer to scream her heart out.

“You should’ve left me there...” She swallowed a whimper. “That was my choice to make! NOT YOURS! You made me leave him there you-“ her voice grew shaky and high, her death grip on my tee shirt loosened. “-you...” she stared into the ground in frustration. Looking at her like this made my heart ache, Kaminari must’ve really been important to her. Her weak grip slipped off and hung at her sides, her indigo bangs trying to shield her vulnerable state. I felt my eyes burn a little, pushing me to cry more, but I didn’t. Jirou didn’t make any more moves, her deadly demeanour vanished and was replaced with a broken-hearted looking girl. I gulped, leaning forward reluctantly and pushing her head into my shoulder lightly. She didn’t refuse, shaky arms soon clawing at my back as I tried to comfort her with a hug. I heard her let out a restrained sob, she cried into my shoulder. She squeezed me desperately, whimpering and pressing her forehead further in retaliation.

“D-dammit Denki...” it came out as a sad whisper, but I heard it. I gulped down my emotions for Jirou, trying to be strong for her. My eyes narrowed, burning into the cheap white flooring. The others watched in silence, we all held a moment in our hearts for Denki Kaminari... the energetic, stupidly blunt and humorous boy that Jirou, Kirishima, and Bakugou had all grown incredibly close to.

..:::::..

Eventually, we gathered supplies and retreated to the car. I was planning on asking where Jirou and Kirishima had come from, but left them alone to mourn instead. I’d tried to do the same with Bakugou, but I couldn’t help but feel his red eyes burning into the back of my skull. Finally, I leaned off of the hood of the car and turned to him expectantly. I met his blood red eyes, only to find him heading over after a second or two of glaring at me. He suddenly grabbed my wrist, ripping my arm away from hiding at my side.

“Hey!-“

“Aren’t you fucking forgetting something?”

I blinked, then glanced down, finding the arm of my restrained wrist looking just as bad as before. It still held a rainbow of reds, and yellows blooming from the swollen and sloppy stitches along my forearm. I hadn’t really forgotten, I’d just tried not to think about it as much as I could.

“No, not really.” I said casually.

He sent a glare my way, sharp mean eyes questioning me. I tried to shake him off, only to have his grip and tighten and his eyes narrow. “It’s the least of our problems right now,” I looked to the side with only my eyes. “it’s fine.”

I heard a growl rumble in his chest.

“Ugh. You’re worse than a fucking toddler...” I rose a brow, he started dragging me away from the car. “Sit.” He said sternly. I sat down leaned against the wall of the drugstore, a little confused. Bakugou was handling what had happened surprisingly well. Then again I don’t really know how else he would react to something like this.

I sat awkwardly, my arm flipped up and lengthy wound out in the open. I hated how vulnerable it made me feel. I looked up to Bakugou, who’d been digging through his bag. He pulled out a small tube of something, flicking the cap open. I waved my hands up in front of me, feeling a little protective.

“I-It’s okay, I can do that myself...“

“Tch. Just shut up.”

I sighed, it’s not like he had much else to do, I thought. So I didn’t refuse a second time. He put his empty hand out and looked me in the eye like I was some frightened disobedient kid. I narrowed my eyes and laid the back of my wrist into his hand reluctantly. The weird jelly substance felt extremely cold against my hot swollen skin, making me tense a bit. He looked up to my e/c orbs, then back to my injury.

“Jus’ stay fuckin’ still..” He mumbled. I huffed, trying my best. Surprisingly careful fingers spread the stuff from the tube across my burning raw feeling forearm, I’d guessed this was one way to get my mind off of things. I relaxed and eased into the wall behind me. My eyes read the shiny tube rolled onto the ground,

Petroleum Jelly

Bakugou picked it up to hide it away in his backpack, reaching inside for something else. I watched Bakugou groan at his backpack frustrated. He swore under his breath.

“Oi, Deku!” The moss-green haired boy had been looking at the dented locker door he’d kept from the school, probably thinking of what he could do with it. Izuku Midoriya whipped his head up in fear.

“Uh, y-yeah Kacchan?”

“Get over here.”

Izuku walked over, he seemed troubled. Bakugou rose my arm up a little, looking to the freckled boy.

“The fuck should I do with this?” Izuku examined my forearm, he sent me a sympathetic look and then grabbed his chin to focus.

“Hm... W-we should probably wrap it up with something. Actually... Now that I think of it...” He slid his backpack off of his shoulders, reaching inside. He took out a petite half torn up box. It’s white color faded and more on the beige-er side. A roll of gauze tumbled out onto Izuku’s scarred hand. “Here, this should help.” Bakugou glared unreasonably at the gentle boy, swiping it from his hand and looking back to me.

“Tch... Whatever, nerd.” He lifted my arm and wrapped it up. I felt more protected now that it was covered, regaining some of my confidence. I felt less vulnerable now that I had one less thing to worry about too. I looked over his shoulder, finding the emerald-eyed boy sending me an oddly curious smile as he rose a brow at the blonde. He handed Bakugou some sports tape he’d found too to finish it off.

I looked at my arm, it felt much cooler and secure now. My gaze shifted to the irritated eyes in front of me.

“Thank you.” I said. He looked away, filled his cheeks with air and blew out forcibly.

“Whatever, ‘s not my fault your so damn hopeless. Learn to take care of yourself will you?” His harsh bluntness brought a smile to my face. I’m the hopeless one? You can’t even accept a simple thank you.

I glanced over his shoulder, a pretty fiery sunset stretching out across the horizon. He stood up, I followed suit. The display of beautiful oranges and pinks and purples still grabbing my attention. I stared into the sunset, thinking about all that happened today. All we’d gone through. Bakugou walked away toward the car, Kirishima meeting up with him halfway. Izuku sat nearby with his supplies spread across the ground. Jirou was no where to be seen, but couldn’t have gone far. I looked back to the setting sun.

No matter this cruel world had left to throw at us, we’d fight on. We’d do it for Kaminari and whoever else we might lose along the way. I knew we’d move on and pull through. When though it didn’t seem like it right now, I knew we could do this.

..:::::..

——

Writing this hurt me :,(

NEXT

[helloiliketits]

There is only one Spiderman (Peter Parker x Reader)

Summary: Reader is just a normal kid. Like you and me. Friends with the one and only Pooter Porker Peter Parker and just really feisty and find it difficult to bolt away from danger. Which almost gives our little lovestruck Spider a heart attack more often than not.

(This has been in my drafts since last year so its outdated, also english is not my native language)

Reader: Of any color

Warnings: Just me kissing ass because I love you, some fluff, some angst but not too much because I dont play like that, also there are some vine references, and the words “b*tch”

(I listened to Tchaikovsky while writing this and honestly each piece syncs so well with this gif, bless the creator)

Sure, he may be a web slinging superhero on the side, but Peter Parker was still a little nerd and had crushes on cute people like everybody else.

Specially someone as cute as you. No one could resist you. Not even our cliche school bitch bully, Flash Thompson. You were a bit of an introvert and would rather spend your time reading fanfics on Tumblr and having some fun times with a few friends but you did have some sudden bursts of confidence here and there. 

It all started when you were new to the Midtown High School. Being a new student already gets you ton of attention. Pair that with your incredible personality and you might have just swallowed a magnet because of how much people are attracted to you. Whether you like it or not. You were practically the Ruby Rose of Midtown High. Everyone liked you instantly. Boys, girls, plants, even a god damn piece of paper would NOT politely detach itself from your shoe during Science class and you’re pretty sure you heard a girl in the room say “Me asf” while you tried to yank it off as the class just basked in your pure presence. You had people feeling ~some type of way~ okay?

So it comes as no surprise that Flash Thompson was equally attracted to you and wanted to date you even if it’s just for the rights to brag because *rolls eye* Flash. You on the other hand, had heard enough about his shenanigans through some of your friends and thought it was best to avoid him.

But isn’t fate a comical thing? You’re on your way to your next class and there he is, shoving our precious cinnamon roll, Peter into a locker while Ned watches anxiously. Sad to see his friend stuffed into a locker while also not wanting to go through the same thing. Peter just sighs and does nothing while Flash and his minions are tucking his legs into the tiny space of the locker which probably doesn’t even belong to Peter, judging from another kid standing next to the group of jocks, obviously not there to witness a "cool" fight but also not friends with Peter enough to care about his state right now. "Guys can't you stuff him in somebody else's locker?" the guy huffs, but generally does nothing to stop them. You guess it's because he doesn't want to get hip checked into the small space with Peter as if they're playing "seven minutes in heaven" (but it lasts as long as it takes for someone to finally rescue their asses). So, you decide to step in. "Flash!" you holler. That definitely gets his attention and he turns around quickly, running his palms through his hair to "style" it and leans against the now closed locker door, grinning. As if there isn’t a very antsy Peter Parker just inside, praying to whoever was listening, that he make it to AP Physics in time.

“Y/N!” he grins, opening his arms for a hug. “Cut the shit, Thompson of a bitch. Let that kid out,” you test. There’s a mix of “ooh”s and “aah”s from the students in the hallway as Flash’s smile falters for a brief second, obviously not used to being talked to like that, but he just crosses his arms over his chest, raising an eyebrow.

“Why don’t you run back to snow white, dwarf-o,” one of his friend teases but before you can get the “I am the perfect height to punch you in the nuts, and I will,” Flash collects his ‘bros’ with a “woah-woah, guys” and bangs on the locker twice and leaves with his group. But not before giving you a wink (which you scoff at).

The hustle and bustle of the hallway continues as the onlookers suddenly get hit with the reminder that they need to be in class. You do too. So, you rush to the locker and throw it open, to let a very confused Peter Parker out. You see that the inside of the locker is... well, hygienically challenged but that’s a teenage boy’s with god knows how many dirty socks and raunchy magazines buried inside so you avert your focus to his scrunched eyebrows and his mouth hanging open instead.

Don’t get him wrong, he’s very grateful but also slightly mad at you for being cute and nice! How dare you be so attractive!? God damn it, Y/N! Now his attraction has increased tenfold! He mutters a faint “Thanks”, flustered beyond his wits and you give him a kind smile that has his heart beating all the way up to his head. He’s damn near frozen.

.And now that’s the origin story of you two. Of course, Peter couldn’t keep his eyes and distance away from you and would “observe” you whenever you were in the room. 

Which was almost always. 

Because he followed you there. 

Which Ned states as “stalking” but Peter describes it as “checking her out up on her”.  [Yeah, ok, Pete!1!1!] 

Much to Peter’s delight, you guys practically lived in the same building so Peter had twelve hundred (and more) excuses to walk you home. Ofcourse, Spider duties remained but that was more of an after-school activity. And it’s not like the neighborhood was jam packed with crime 24x7. Sometimes his “job” required simply patrolling and the most action he saw was a woman dump a milkshake on her (no longer) boyfriend’s head.

One slightly unfortunate day, as you and Peter were trudging up the streets, complaining about school, a VERY clear, sharp scream of a woman echoed nearby! Now THAT’S a job for Spiderman! But, like, you were RIGHT there! So it’s not like he could rain drop, drop top, roll and whip out his spider suit in the middle of the street, kiss you on the cheek and zoom zoom away,

You both exchanged a brief, wide eyed gaze of absolute shock as you both ran in separate direction, wasting no time. By the time Spiderman had arrived to the scene, there was no woman but there was a homeless guy holding a knife towards none other than our lovely protagonist! (das you, bruh) 

“Go for it, shit! I’m a bad bitch, you can’t kill me!” You shout, as Spiderman skrrt skrrts his web and webs the bad guy to the wall before he can touch your spaghett, landing on his feet infront of you with HALF a mind to grab you by the shoulders and shake you like a drink being made by a barista, the other half of him wanted to reach out and absolutely fecken high five you! “Er, good job. Go home, it isn’t safe here” is all he can choke out in his fake “I came from the mid-west, howdy, I’m the man!” accent before catapulting himself off the alleyway [its always alleyways, God, they’re the hub for all bad shit! So predictable too! Take your mugging somewhere unexpected, man! Throw the heroes off guard! Do you even business, bro?]

Back in your apartment building, as you turn the corner practically skipping, a pair of surprisingly strong hands suddenly grab you and pull you so hard, that all your hair holds a Met Gala at the front of your face, curtaining your view from the one and only Peter Dorker, “Are you crazy! Why’d you do that!?” he yells at you

Completely not giving a feck about not giving out spoilers (*cough* tom *cough*) Why’d you do WHAT!? He wasn’t even there! What’s he talking about!

But right now all you’re focused on is the fact that this random ass bish is grabbing your shoulders like some fecken tentacle and- “You ran away! Someone had to do something!”

He barks, “WOMAN I WAS TRYIN  That’s Spiderman’s job! When you hear trouble, you turn and you run the other way! There’s people who will handle this kind of-”

But before he can get another lecture in, “I helped a lady today! There’s only ONE spiderman, Peter! And he can’t be there for us all the time! It’s NOT his duty- He is NOT obligated to cleanse the streets of Queens! Our work is NOT to turn the other way and hope somebody else does the dirty work! He’s here to HELP and we need to PARTICIPATE! We need to do OUR part WHEN we CAN!” you shout, face all red and sweaty, huffing out, trying not to crack into a smile, proud at yourSELF because damn, that speech was GOOD. You huff, contemplating if you should let him EAT it or just go to your room and head bang over the fact that you got noticed by Spiderman! 

Taking one last look at a very open mouthed Peter, you walk around him and into your apartment as he just stands there, frozen like a chicken pizza at Walgreens. 

He lets out a long, loud breath! How could you be so STUBBORN! This was for YOUR safety! Unless you’re on top of Nick Fury’s “to recruit into Avengers” list, you don’t just go bursting into alleyways in the name of saving people! That’s DANGEROUS! He can’t lose you to some heroic-shit-gone-wrong!

But Peter also felt RELIEVED! For the first time in YEARS, he felt content! You were right! There is only one Spiderman! And no he can’t be there to fight crime every second of the day! And while that ate Peter alive every waking moment of his life, he was also glad that there were good natured people like you in this world! Ones who stood up for somebody and didn’t wait for somebody else! He felt a lot better, realizing that he didn’t have to do this alone! He didn’t have to do it all! He wasn’t expected to do it all!

Peter walked to his apartment, head lowered, hiding his grin. God, he loved you!

[leagueofleaguesff]

Johnny🗣Professor

Shannon: Well we're back and on this one I gotta hand it to you and who you're reppin today the Professor. It seemed my homie Johnny had a shot, but came up short in some ket spots.

Skip:

Shannon: Now dont disrespect the man now. He put up a good fight, it just wasn't enough. That was very disrespectful. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Skip: When you're right, you're right. Let me first apologize to Johnny and you, that was a bit over the line. When you break it down *gesture air quotes* on paper, it would have seem Johnny had the Professor beaten...at least initially. I mean the play for Giants defense against a horrid Chicago offense was astute. I like the push of younger guys like Olave down in New Orleans and Greg Wilson who you could argue is the number one on a bad but maybe ascending Jets team -

*This is where Skip keeps talking run on sentences flailing his arms furiously. So furiously that his clothes fall off him cartoonists and he tumbles to the floor*

Shannon:

Shannon: Ok Skip. In all seriousness, are you ok? Just wanna make sure.

Skip: I'm okay. I'm alright. Truly.

*Production staff help Skip to his seat and he puts his clothes back on*

Shannon: Lets just get through the nuts and bolts cuz you took a big stumble.

Skip: Yes let's do it (nodding in shame).

Shannon: I see going on your rant about Professor team, he got these young guys but the difference maker truly was Jefferson in that early London game. Homeboy went off.

Skip: Definitely a bounce back performance.

Shannon: Right. And Johnny being too cautious didnt play Godwin, nor Williams who really has been on a roll but nonetheless, he gambled on D.Smith with dem Eagles n boys and lost.

Skip: I agree. Professor and, the league rather, lost Javonte for the year who is an extremely talent running back and I assure you will be a force in this league some day. Jalen (waves hand in so so motion) didnt really have the best performance either. Still. Pretty evenly matched but Robinson, who I like, just came up really really short Johnnys team. That could have been the biggest difference maker for Johnny. I mean this did more for Professor because it elevated (gestures with ✏pencil in hand) Professor out of the cellar in last place and gave him his first win.

Shannon: Yup. Now despite the bottom of the league having all wins, there's 4️⃣ teams (gestures 4 fingers comically) tied at 2-2. He meaning Johnny on the outskirts but the season is still early.

Skip: (Giggles😂) Can you show the audience that 4️⃣ thingy you did?

Shannon:

Shannon: Dont that remind of you of somebody Skip? Yo boy. Thats right👉 YOUR (points at Skip) boy. (Laughs)

*Skip shakes head in embarrassment as the commercial app advertisement begins*

Press ▶️ Below For The Simpsons CBS Fantasy Football Promo AD⤵️

⬇️⬇️Next ILL FL Undisputed Recap Below⬇️⤵️

[saltineofswing]

Ozzy or Drell?

Obvs I got one for Drell SO:

Full Name: Osmanthus Quince, Sword of Storms

Gender andSexuality: Male;probably bisexual

Pronouns: He/him

Ethnicity/Species: Homo Anubii (Shortened to‘Anubii’ in 99% of situations), a race of technically-undead beings whosegenesis is attributed to Worldmarrow, pure unfiltered magic in liquid form.Worldmarrow makes up the core of the planet and frequently wells up in largeamounts to the crust, magically altering things at random. One of the productsof this phenomenon are the Anubii, who owe their existence to the abandonedorganic material of the sapient races of The Road. There are two varieties:Whole and Imperfect. Imperfect Anubii are covered in Sal’s post here, inregards to Domino the Dominator, but Whole Anubii are, ehhh, a little harder toexplain. They don’t quite resemble any of the races that currently inhabit TheRoad… but the various skin colors they appear in are vaguely reminiscent ofthe mysterious Liches that inhabit the massive millennia-old necropolisesbeneath the surface of the continent. This is a painfully obvious connectionbut nobody has actually officially put it together for a variety of reasons, somost people consider it to be one of the grand mysteries of the Road’s society.

Specifically,although nobody now alive has the words for it, Ozzy would be half-Gariagaxianand half-Bogribolan, as evidenced by his pale hair and sort of indistinctlygrayish skin that you could construe as faintly yellow-tinted or faintlyblue-tinted; in addition, Ozzy was born a little extra special – he is what’sknown as a ‘Lesser Lich’, a type of Anubii identifiable by their incrediblemagical potential… and the subsequent mental instability that accompaniessuch power. If a Lesser Lich is put under too much stress, they have a chanceto breach a power threshold and ‘emerge’ into a Greater Lich; Ozzy,specifically, is a Supremator, a subtype of Lich with an extraordinary controlover an elemental force (in Ozzy’s rather exceptional case four of them –Lightning, Water, Wind, and Ice, giving him the title of ‘Storm Supremator’).

Birthplaceand Birthdate:Actually, Ozzy doesn’t come from the Road’s prime timeline, or ‘Primeline’. Theversion of The Road that he hails from is one we affectionately refer to as the‘Mindrunner’ timeline, where the powerfully Psionic hivemind species known asthe Uluth were able to survive their… rocky exodus through the Unknown, fromtheir dying homeworld to the Road. As a result, the trajectory of thedevelopment of both the continent and the society was drastically altered.Notably, the Psionic energy that saturates the atmosphere due to the abundanceof Uluth Overminds across the continent places an inordinate pressure on theminds of Anubii, resulting in an incredibly high incidence rate of Anubiiexplosively developing into Liches. Because nobody really knew what to do withthem, and the understanding of mental health in this world remains somewhatabysmal, facilities were created where Liches could be sent to keep them calmand/or sedated, and in a lot of cases kept in stasis until a long-term solutioncould be divined.

This meansthat the culture into which Ozzy was born views and treats him as a second orsometimes even third-class citizen, where Anubii that are too powerful or areat risk of turning into Liches are taken away to any of several installationsof ‘The Facility’ and the governing bodies use the populace’s fear and lack ofunderstanding to pass laws that blatantly infringe on Anubii’s civil rights.Ozzy was born in 2002 (Mindrunner is set in 2025), in the ever-cloudy southerncoast of the Tidelands. He was born in the suburbs of The Well, MetropolitanZone Prill-003, named for the local Uluth Overmind. Ozzy is a second-generationWhole Anubii and is an orphan, adopted by two human parents, so his exactbirthday is sort of nebulous. Best guess, he was born during the hot rains ofSummer.

GuiltyPleasures: Ozzyis a really shy guy with very little self esteem and a lot of internalizedissues, so he feels guilty about enjoying himself doing just about everything.He’s grown out of most of it, but highlights include: long showers or baths,colorful clothing, expensive tools, taking apart expensive or sophisticatedmachinery (especially if it doesn’t belong to him), and other stuff that hefeels like makes him ‘impose’ on the world around him too much. A big one,though: using his powers just for his own enjoyment.

Phobias: Not only is Ozzy very shy, he is also a peerlesslyanxious guy. He’s got a LOT of phobias. It would be faster to name the stuffhe’s not afraid of – he’s kind of a coward – but there are a couple ReallyReally Big Ones: he is easily triggered by needles, medical equipment(especially especially ESPECIALLY anything that goes on his head), and mentalinstitutions. He is terrified by the prospect of losing control, hates to beseen/looked at/placed in a position of authority, and is horribly averse to thespotlight. After all, he spent most of his life trying to hide his true natureto avoid getting crammed in a stasis pod for the rest of his natural-bornexistence. He also doesn’t really like to be touched, especially by people hedoesn’t know, and is also rather averse to enclosed spaces and restraints.

What TheyWould Be Famous For:If it weren’t for the whole mess Ozzy has become embroiled in, he wouldprobably be famous for his engineering prowess. Ozzy is a genius-levelintellect, and is a talented machinist in his own right – he was able to get ascholarship to work a janitorial job at a college where he was working towardsseveral different tech-based degrees. He created a technology for prosthesisthat utilizes the Uluth’s Psionic-sensitive material known as ‘Mindstone’ as acore and a tough but lightweight and magically reactive plasteel compound,allowing the prosthetic to be linked directly to the user’s mind and react notonly to their mental commands but also to their expectations; if the userexpects to feel touch sensation, they will. If the user expects the plasteel tofeel and behave like flesh, it will (to an extent). It’s really a miracle ofmodern engineering. If his life had panned out differently, he would’veprobably been taught about in medical textbooks for decades on decades.

Also in a wayOzzy is famous, both in the primeline by way of the Wild Hunt and in theMindrunner timeline due to his… legal status. As an inescapable part of hisfights being televised to the Threnghelleon viewing public, Ozzy has been puton blast in a way; he seemed like a huge wimp to everyone (including members ofthe ‘home team’, so to speak) until he literally could not hold back his powerany longer and kicked the ever-living shit out of notorious Wild Hunt bruiserEthem-Cailo in his very first fight. That very first victory was seen as a HUGEupset, and it’s gotten him a ‘following’ amongst the Threnghel populace. Thisis not necessarily a good thing.

What TheyWould Get Arrested For: Existing, actually. When faced with the choice of submitting to a newordinance requiring all Anubii with ‘At Risk’ or higher status (denoting therisk factor for an individual to become a Lich) to be ‘chipped’ with atransmitter and status indicator, or probably just being straight-up taken awayto The Facility, he had a mental breakdown and revealed that he was a Lich (afact he’d been hiding for years). So he went on the run! Canonically, Osmanthuswould probably be arrested for defying Overmind ordinances, failing to reporthimself as a Lich, resisting arrest, defying basically all Emergence protocols,resisting and evading Pure Fold detainment squads, assaulting a police officer,assaulting a Pure Fold agent, associating with known governmental dissidents,conspiracy to commit a felony, conspiracy to incite a riot… uh, et cetera.

OC You ShipThem With: He hasa girlfriend! Her name is Rosemary, they’ve been best friends since highschool, and she is definitely the one who has the spine in their relationship.When Ozzy went on the run, Rosie basically dropped everything and went on therun with him. Otherwise, when it comes to idle speculation, I think Ozzy hasgood chemistry with Fee; he literally took a plasma bolt to the gummy-works forher before he even knew her, which has endeared him to her somewhat.

OC MostLikely To Murder Them: Ethem-Cailo, now Jovix-Cailo, has faced not one but two ‘humiliating’defeats at Ozzy’s hand now. After the first, Ozzy stole the legendary hammerMjolnir (not the version everybody is familiar with, but with a similarWorthiness parameter), which Ethem-Cailo himself had won by beating the hellout of the Aesir. He wants his hammer back, and is filled with hatred for the‘lowly’ mortal that stole it from him. In fact, Jovix-Cailo is going to havehis shot – the two of them are due for a reckoning, and there’s a significantchance that Ozzy might wind up dying in their final conflict. One of them isgonna have to.

FavoriteMovie/Book Genre:Sci-Fi, no question. Since he comes from a near-future and slightly dystopiantimeline, you’d think it holds no mystery for him. But it’s even more wild,speculative, and diluted there, so it’s still pretty nuts. This goeshand-in-hand with horror stuff, too (the more sci-fi, fantasy, or high-conceptthe better). He also enjoys fantasy to a lesser extent, and is a big fan ofsuperhero comics. He’s a fairly typically nerdy guy in his tastes in media.

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Ozzy has a certain appreciationfor most cliches and tropes, because he’s pretty good at analyzing media. Evenif he doesn’t necessarily enjoy a cliche, he’s able to appreciate the way itslots into a narrative. However, he is easily annoyed by Idiot Plots andanything that arises from people behaving ‘out of character’, which he feels isa sign that they had to force something to fit where it didn’t. He hates the‘We’re five feet from the exit but OH NO I TRIPPED!’ Trope, and glaring gaps inthe logic of the media in general – stuff that isn’t consistent with the rulespresented by the media in question.

Talentsand/or Powers: Asmentioned above, Ozzy is a genius-level intellect and is fond of tinkering;he’s dexterous and knowledgeable in the art of crafting machinery. He’stalented enough in the art of engineering to innovate functional prosthetics,and has a broad umbrella of technical know-how. He’s clever, quick on his feet,and isn’t a terrible tactician when he’s given a comfortable breadth to plan.He’s also crazy good at fighting games. Don’t challenge him to Street Fighterunless you want to know what it’s like to feel hatred for pixelated green menbecause you KNOW he mains Blanka.

What? You’resaying I’m forgetting something? I dunno. Oh, the lightning thing? Haha yeah,right, right.

Ozzy is aBLISTERINGLY powerful magus with an affinity for elemental magic –specifically, elements associated with the storm: Lightning, Wind, Water, andIce. He is so latently powerful that his mere presence can influence theoverhead weather if he’s not keeping a tight grip on his own magical aura.Once, Ozzy channeled enough lightning to power an entire town for about an hour(he did the math in-universe). Since then he’s actually gotten more powerful,to the point that the upper limit of the amount of electricity he can generateis unknown. The cost of all that power is that his body literally cannot handleit, hence why he has prosthetic arms now. In terms of gameplay mechanics, Ozzycan theoretically deal about 600 damage in a single turn with the proper confluenceof events. It costs him a significant amount of HP and CON, so it’s notsomething that can be used flippantly, but it’s a considerable boss-burner ifthe situation calls for it.

Recently, Ozzywas blinded in his one remaining fully-functional eye by a bad turn in a gameof divine chance by Al Fortuna, August En-Zaiid’s patron deity. However, notlong afterwards, Ozzy’s senses of Touch and Hearing were elevated to superhumanlevels by the whims of the very same game; currently he hasn’t had the opportunityto replace his eye with a prosthetic but he does have the ability to mapobjects around him in space based on electromagnetic fields and bioelectricity,and that with his super-hearing gives him a fairly precise image of the world.He just can’t read or watch TV or do anything too precise.

Why SomeoneMight Love Them:Osmanthus is a sweet guy with a big heart and a lot of empathy. He’s a verygood listener and has a very clever sense of humor. He’s smart and is willingto share his knowledge very liberally, but he shares inclusively and doesn’texplain so much as inform (narrow though the distinction may be). When he’scalm, he’s very methodical and cunning, and he gives pretty decent advice. Hehas no problem sharing the spotlight (prefers to stay out of it, in fact) andis very good about giving credit where credit is due – doesn’t hold grudges,nonexistent temper, doesn’t take stuff personally, and is quick with acorrection or a fact-check when needed. Some people enjoy a partner they canhelp or ‘fix’, so to speak, and Ozzy does have a lot of issues.

Why SomeoneMight Hate Them:As I’ve mentioned, Ozzy is a bit of a coward. His self-esteem is absolutelyabysmal and he is devastatingly non-confrontational to the point that he won’tstand up for himself at all unless absolutely forced to. He can seem a littlesniveling, especially since he has a pretty bad stutter that gets worse whenhe’s stressed. On top of that he is kind of hard to deal with at times; it’snot always easy for people to handle their own issues, let alone somebodyelse’s – and Ozzy has a lot of issues. When it’s at its worst, he’s incoherentand completely non-functional for the whole day; at it’s best, though, he stillhas trouble speaking coherently, has problems with dissociating and sometimeshearing things, and stuff like that. When he’s feeling talkative it’s hard toredirect his focus when he’s on a roll, which can interfere with his ability tolisten to other people and participate in group conversations, and if someone snapsat him too sharply he’ll just clam up and stop talking altogether. So,sometimes interacting with him can be tiresome.

How TheyChange: Ozzy haschanged A Lot since I first introduced him to the game in Mindrunner;originally he was a very lonely and honestly quite pathetic guy, with a lot ofproblems he’d completely given up on trying to solve, slogging through day today life and hiding his ‘At-Risk’ status. When Mindrunner started he wasactually suicidal, and had already failed two attempts due to his Lichabilities; although it was partially against his will, being swept up in theevents of that story gave him a will to live and the discipline to actually dosomething about his mental health and the state of the world at large. He hasdeveloped an incredibly fine control over his powers (which continue to grow astime goes on), met a bunch of new people, and has gotten in REALLY good shape,all in the span of half a year after spending most of his time as a skinny-fatjanitor at a second-choice college. Ozzy is working on his self-esteem, whichis coming along slowly but surely; after taking Mjolnir from Ethem-Cailo he hasdeveloped a reliance on the hammer as a sort of crutch for his self-esteem – ifthe fabled mythological hammer of the Aesir deems him ‘worthy’, he probably is,right? It’s a good first step, but the events of his next campaign willprobably involve confronting that crutch. He’s not a hero yet, per se, but he’sgetting there.

It’s not allpositive, unfortunately; since Ozzy started to grow exponentially more powerfulafter his ‘emergence’ into a full Lich Supremator, Ozzy has also begun tosuffer from adrenaline-influenced mood swings and the occasional bout of mania.As is the case with many Liches throughout the history of both Mindrunner andthe Prime Timeline, Ozzy has developed a trigger-response to life-or-deathstressors in which he undergoes a mental status shift and gets much moresevere, violent, and manic that he refers to as The Lich Shift. An unstable butmostly manageable issue that only really rears its ugly head when Ozzy isconfronted with significant danger. The problem is, Ozzy is currently under theweight of several long-term mental stressors: Everybody keeps telling him thathe’s going to have to kill Jovix-Cailo, and although he knows that’s the rightthing to do, he’s never killed anyone before – and he’s going to have to killagain, in the civil war that is all but waiting for him back on his home plane.The burden of responsibility in these situations has begun to warp the ‘LichShift’ defense mechanism into something more distinct and disparate.

Why YouLove Them: Ozzywas originally made because I wanted to turn my Destiny OC Euclid into atabletop character, but he almost instantly became a unique character that wasthe star of a surprisingly in-depth and exciting one-off game. Both Sal (TheDM) and I decided pretty instantly that we wanted to do more with him. I thinkhe’s a fairly nuanced, complicated character for what he is; I feel likecharacters with his type and severity of problems don’t often get to strugglefor their own benefit (as opposed to the audience’s schadenfreude), and despiteevery setback he’s still kicking and still making progress, which I think isvery relatable and very important. He’s got a lot of handicaps and regrets andphobias but he fights anyway. He’s the underdog, he’s grown up taking shit forbeing born, his own powers threaten to kill him, but he fights anyway. Peoplehave unrealistic expectations for him. His life has been completely ruined andflipped upside-down by the choices he’s been forced to make. His reward is along, uphill slog with few immediate gratifications. He Fights Anyway.Characters in his position I feel like get shoehorned to side-character, orkilled off, or turn into the bad guy, or all of the above, but Ozzy is theprotagonist and that gives him a really interesting breadth of emotion andchange. And also, he’s cute.

[blazekurumu]

My Secret Precure Exchange gift for @ohayo-hannah-chan! I had fun making this collage along with the character cures you gave me. Cure Peace and Cure Gelato are the coolest and cutest cures to work with. So I hope you enjoy the story I made for you as well!

Summary: Aoi meets Yayoi and the two team up to save the day! With some cameos at the end!

"What a lovely day for a nice walk!"

Yayoi hummed to herself as she walked through Precure Park, where all the cures could meet up with each other. She was taking a break from her homework to get some inspiration for her new comic idea. Candy has insisted to come along, but Miyuki wanted to spend a day with her shopping for new books. Reika lent her a sketchbook for her so that she could draw with. The yellow cure sat down to draw some more Power Rangers fanart when a loud rift from a guitar sounded off in the area. The music startled the shy girl. She walked around the corner to see a wild haired blue girl practicing on her guitar. Yayoi's eyes widen at how sharp her teeth was and how fast she was shredding on her instrument. Who was this strange girl?

The girl turned around to wave at her. "Yo! How's it going? Are you new here?"

Yayoi felt her face flush at the question. "N-N-Nooo...I mean, I've been a cure for awhile now." She held out her hand towards her. "I'm Kise Yayoi, nice to meet you!"

The girl shook her hand and grinned. "Tategami Aoi at your service! So what brings you out here in Precure Park?"

"I'm here to get some ideas for my new comic!" 

"You draw comics? How cool!" Aoi looked at her sketchbook. "Your drawings are so neat!"

"R-R-Really? I expected someone like you to not be interested in my art." 

That comment made Aoi laugh. "Why not? None of my teammates can draw like this. You have a real gift."

Yayoi smiled softly at her. "Thanks, my teammates always tell me my drawings are good, but I just lack the confidence to show them in public." 

"Are you nuts? You should be proud of your work! I sing in my band and I am proud of it! Your art should fire you up with a great passion!"

Yayoi was amazed by the energy that Aoi was giving her. Perhaps she was right, her passion for drawing was what made her the person she was today.

Suddenly, a large shaking noise erupted from the park. To their surprise, a Akanbe emerged in front of them, this one being a tall tree. Yayoi took out her Smile Pact while All took out her Sweets Pact.

"Is this a monster of yours?" All asked her, giving Yayoi a determined expression.

"Yeah, that's an Akanbe! Usually when they appear, one of our villains can't be far behind." She replied, hoping she was wrong.

A red oni character appeared on the scene, Yayoi recognizing him to be Akaoni. He gave them a wicked grin.

"Well, if it isn't the crybaby Cure Peace!" He bellowed, making her glare at him. "And you have a little friend too! Is this one as wimpy as you?"

"Shut up, you red troll! I'll kick your butt!" Aoi shouted, growling like the lion she was. "Don't talk to her like that!"

Akaoni was shocked at the blue haired girl's statement. "What? HOW DARE YOU!" He turned to the Akanbe. "Finish them!"

Aoi held up her pact. "Are you ready to fight Yayoi-senpai?"

Yayoi gave her a small smile. "Let's do it!"

"READY?! PRECURE, SMILE CHARGE!"

"CURE A LA MODE, DECORATION!"

"GO! GO! LET'S GO PEACE!"

"WITH FREEDOM AND PASSION, LET'S LA MIX-IT-UP!"

Yayoi transformed in a bout of yellow sparkles. Her bangs were styled in curls. Her eyes became a brighter shade of yellow to match. Her tiara had two angel wings attached, and she wore it on the right side of her head. Her outfit was mainly yellow, with dark yellow lining and white highlights. Her sleeves are double-layered with a puffy piece below, and the bow at her chest is big with a small white frilly piece behind it. Her back of her top is split into two coat-tails, each of which is split in the middle to give a petal-like appearance, and her skirt has a frilly layer underneath it. Her arm protectors are extremely short, with dark yellow ribbons at the wrists. Her boots are short with yellow at the top and small dark yellow ribbons.

Aoi grinned as she transformed in powerful icy blue. Her ponytail grows in length to resemble a messy blue lions mane while she gains short forelocks and thicker bangs. On top of her head are light blue lion ears and a gold crown with a scoop of white and light blue ice cream. Her earrings are gold crowns. Her attire consists of a blue jacket with yellow cuff and lapel and a thick, loose collar with fluffy trim and a sky blue choker. Her balloon skirt is split into two designs with fluffy trim on top, one side is sky blue with white swirls, while the other is pale cream. Sticking out from the bottom is a blue lions tail, while her Sweets Pact rests on a light blue ruffled bow on the left hip. Her blue gloves are thick with a yellow rectangle on top of the hand. She wears thick blue and white ankle-length boots with sky blue socks, with the right one pulled up to the thigh and the left one worn above the ankle.

"Sparkling Rock, Papers, Scissors!" Peace made a paper motion as she twirled. "I'm Cure Peace!"

"Cure Gelato! Ready to serve!" Gelato did a rocker pose to finish her transformation.

Both of the girls nod as they charge the Akanbe together. Peace was putting in some good kicks and punches while Gelato supported her from behind with a few punches from her ice encrusted fist. 

"Uh Gelato, can you actually fight without the use of a magical item?" Peace asked her, making the lioness give her a weird look.

"What's wrong with the way I fight? Don't you fight with magic too?" Gelato asked her, giving the Akanbe a good punch in the nose. "I thought all cures fought with magic? The two groups we teamed up with used magic all the time."

Peace tossed the Akanbe over her shoulder, sending him flying in the air. "That's not how we fight classically. Old cures fought with magic, but only for a last resort! You need to fight with your passion, like you told me with my drawing!"

Gelato's eyes widen at that revelation. She was right, her team didn't even use fighting methods that much! With the exception of Macaroon and Chocolat, the rest of the girls don't use fist for fighting! She put her Sweets Pact up and gave her a grin.

"Alright Peace, let's fight this monster the old fashion way!" Giving her a thumbs up, Peace smiles at her. "How hard should we punch this idiot?"

"Hard enough to make the Shadow Realm feel it!" Peace said, charging up the thunder. "Let's do it!"

Both of them charged the Akanbe and gave him a powerful punch to the red rubber nose. Akaoni watched in amazement as the two worked together to beat down his Akanbe! How did they just get more pwoerful with every punch? Was he really losing his touch?

"No way! How did they get so powerful? What happened between those two?" He wondered aloud, his face sweating with fear. "Master Pierrot is not going to like this!"

"Time to end this!" Peace said, as the two made the Akanbe fall to the ground. Gelato grinned as she summoned her Candy Rod.

"I couldn't agree more with ya Peace. Let's crank up the power!"

Peace put two fingers in the air as an electric shock ran down her back. "PRECURE!"  She then spins around with the lightning bolts circling her, concentrates the energy onto both hands in their peace signs. "PEACE THUNDER!" Then she unleashed the powerful bolts of lightning.

Gelato created an ice ball with her wand. "KIRAKIRAKIRARU!"  Then she let the shards of ice to coalesce into a giant ice ball.         "GELATO SHAKE!"  She then repeatedly punches the ball with her ice-encased left fist, causing it to shatter and send shards flying at the target.

The attacks combine to form a barrage of electric shards of ice. The akanbe gets hit with these attacks as he denigrates into nothing. The two girls cheered loudly as they give each other a high five. Akaoni growled at them as he disappeared.

"You did such a great job! We should team up more often." Gelato said, jumping up and down. "Next time, we should bring the whole group to fight!"

"Yeah! Let's do this again really soon. Maybe we can team up again." Peace agreed.

Then the two spent the rest of the day talking about all their adventures and trading their hobbies. Yayoi got to sing a couple of songs with Aoi while she helped her find the perfect idea to draw.

The two walked around Precure Park with a new sense of vigor and moral until...

"This was a fun day! We should hang out again sometime." Aoi said, slinging her guitar case over her shoulder. "Wonder when that day will be."

"I'm not sure, but I want to go home and take a long nap after that fight." Yayoi yawned as she rubbed her eyes. "Let's just hope that nothing happens on the way home."

A loud explosion goes off behind them as they turn around to see a giant monster rampaging the city. Aoi slowly took out her Sweets Pact as Yayoi took out her Smile Pact. But a gloved hand stopped both of them as they looked to see six teens with attitude in colorful spandex and helmets standing behind them. Yayoi's jaw dropped at the appearance of them while Aoi gave them a weird look.

"Who are you guys?" She asked them, still confused at their sudden appearance.

"Who are we? Have you not been in Japan for a long time or something?" The green one said. "We are the Power Rangers!"

Yayoi squealed loudly at this. "Oh my gosh! You guys are super cool! Can I get an autograph?"

The red one patted her head. "No problem, as soon as we defeat this giant monster...."

"No! Allow us to defeat the monster!" They all turned around to see more spandex heroes. "I am Kamen Rider and this is my crew!"

"Wait...which version are you? Are you the new ones or the 90s edition?" Yayoi asked, her eyes swirling in confusion.

"Doesn't matter, we have more people to fight monsters like this." Kamen Rider said, looking at her. "So let a great team of spandex heroes fight this one."

"Are you a threat? Are you trying to make us mad?" Green Ranger said, going in his face. "Cause we can fight this right now!"

Aoi leaned over to Yayoi before the heroes were about to fight. "Are you sure these are the heroes you idolize so much?"

But Yayoi didn't hear her, she was too busy fangirling over the awesomeness of her two favorite series teaming up together.

[bikwin5]

things about b-k nuts & bolts i find weird/endearing

Despite the departure from regular Banjo-Kazooie gameplay the game is filled with small references that only longtime fans would get. A good example is the billboards outside of the Terrarium of Terror that advertise Witchyworld and Snacker’s Loans.

However the biggest nostalgia bait of all is Banjoland, a huge museum where parts of the worlds from the previous two games are put together. The level also has a couple of fake stop ‘n swop items hidden around for whatever reason

There’s a fight against Mr. Patch in Nutty Acres but he doesn’t really do anything other than float in place and you shoot the patches on him.

Likewise, there exists a version of the Saucer of Peril minigame in the Terrarium of Terror. It’s a lot slower and more boring compared to the original and it has probably the hardest and most frustrating TT trophy in the game.

There’s a distinct lack of new characters - the only ones that come to mind are LOG, Trophy Thomas, Pikelet, and Piddles the Cat.

There exists a final boss theme and a spiral mountain challenge theme but neither of these songs actually play in-game, the regular grunty challenge theme is used instead.

The spiral mountain challenge before the final boss features trivia sections between the 6 challenges, most which relate to obscure B-K trivia that only hardcore fans would know.

The overworld (which is honestly the best and most comprehensive part of the game) was clearly designed for a 6th world, tentatively known as “Weird West”. It’s speculated that this song that plays in the LOG’s lost challenges DLC was going to be used for this world. The docks area of Showdown Town has several buildings with boarded up doors/windows and the NPCs in town will occasionally reference how they used to lead somewhere.

The docks area also has a minigame called “Hero Klungo Sssaves Teh World”, a humorous arcade-style game where you have Klungo jump over obstacles to save the world. Since the game was made by Klungo himself it “crashes” at random intervals.

The cops in Showdown Town are chill at first, but later in the game they come after you over any petty action, such as carrying jiggies to honking your horn. You can bribe the chief of police to stop them for a while, but if you do this too many times you can lock yourself out of buying new stuff as there are a limited number of notes in the game.

Almost every song in the game is a remix of or uses part of a track from Banjo-Kazooie or Banjo-Tooie. For example, the Showdown Town theme remixes Jinjo Village at one point, and references Rusty Bucket Bay in the version that plays near the harbor area.

After many complaints about the speech text being too small, a patch was released that included an option for bigger text. The downside(?) is that all text in the game is now in the Comic Sans MS font.

I’ve mentioned this before but at the end of the insanely long credits Kazooie mentions that in 8 years “Banjo-Kazooie: Spanners & Washers” will be out. See this post for more information

[dreadhaus-literature]

{A/N}

I can’t believe it’s almost the end of January already??? This is nuts.

I opened this on a whim, but I was talking to myself and figured...I should just note this down, so.

Despite the fact that I got hella side-tracked playing Batman: The Telltale Series, and though I only created two OC’s (not diminishing! I am very proud of them) I have slowly been trying to cultivate and encourage my writing and creativity.

I feel like I just planted a flower and it’s Baby Groot in his pot, stage.

Adorable and bitty and capable of that little baby groove, but not a lot of range, yet.

Coming back from giving up isn’t easy but that was partly why it was so easy to just give up on everything--it wasn’t going anywhere and I wasn’t doing anything so what did it matter?

I’m still wrestling with it mattering. There’s still that voice in my head, telling me I’d be putting in a lot of work creating OC’s and writing stories for no reward or reason. It’s directly clashing with my desire to create and be active, writing-wise, and it’s akin to cutting off blooms from my growing flower. It is why I talk myself out of writing and why nothing else creative has been done on this blog since last week.

I’ve never been keen on doing things for myself so that is the other part of the issue. I’d just be writing for me, now, and I don’t care about my own writing so there’s no heart in it. That’s why I don’t have a million OC’s, because I don’t need that for myself, but I created the huge Triquetra, Inc. for Monica because I wanted her to have everything she could possibly want at any given time. That was cake and even with those massive OC questionnaires I used to do I enjoyed it because I was doing it for her. It wasn’t even work, I actively looked forward to doing it and giving them to her as gifts.

As a Cancer, I’ll never have that drive for myself. We’re just not into self-satisfaction. So I don’t quite know what to do with...that part of things.

Because I have an idea for a book/novel collection, one I think could actually...you know, make it. Be published. Be worth a goddamn to write. It hit me like a fucking lightning bolt last week and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.

I’d always wrestled with the fact that I love comic books but I can’t draw so I’d never be able to actually...do anything comic related. But last week I realized I could still write superhero/supervillain stories as novels and just not...illustrate them, lol. I mean it’s a fairly original idea, especially going the romance route, and I took it a step further and modeled it semi-after Christine’s “Dark” series--but only in an on-going sense, as in it’ll be a book series focused on superheroes and supervillains in a shared universe, and I could just crank out books within the universe.

It’s still a very, very rough idea and I don’t even have any OC’s for it, I legit have two pages of notes I scribbled down during a break at work last week, but...it feels like I have something, here.

It operates on a “Good vs Evil” premise in that each book will alternate; first book with focus on a hero as a romantic interest, second on a villain as a romantic interest, third on a hero, fourth on a villain, etc etc. And the “Good” or the Hero will feature a traditional, happily ever after, mildly-vanilla/safe relationship, while the “Evil” or Villain will feature a dark, obsessive, unhealthier relationship--so that way I can tickle both fancies. There’s options for people who just want to read a nice, sweet romance novel and there’s options for those who want to sample something a little darker, edgier, while still satisfying a fulfilling romance.

I know it’s still new and very rough and I know it probably sounds like a hopeful thing to say but I really think I have something with this idea. I haven’t done any research and I’m sure there’s these types of novels out there, at least in the ballpark (because it’s 2020 and it’s almost impossible to completely originate an idea) but I haven’t heard of anything exactly like that I just described.

Ironically, I’ve had this idea and executed it before when I was writing fanfiction. I split a collection, CYOAish, called “Heaven or Hell” that I co-wrote, where readers could choose if they wanted to go to Heaven and spend time with “Good” characters or Hell and romance the “Bad” characters.

I, lol, wrote Hell for that collection, but I mean, I can write good stuff.  I mean I do love Peter Parker, I can...write that wholesome stuff. I HAVE THE RANGE.

What I don’t have is the belief I can do this. I don’t believe in myself anymore. And this is where I wind up, every single time I sit down to write something that isn’t for anyone in particular. Writing for Monica is cake, I could do that every single day and not falter, and writing fanfiction is relatively easy (like my Avengers collection, is what I’m referencing here) because there’s a built-in fanbase that will consume your work.

But right now, this is just me.

I feel like I’m out at sea, with a paddle in my hand, and I...could dip it into the water and start myself moving but I’m used to having a motor to do that for me. So it’s...scary, to take those first few strokes, and it’s harder, and discipline is a motherfucker--because we’re back to the question of, why do it? It all feels pointless.

I went through a lot of my writing folders last night, on a whim--one, I was amazed at all the stuff I have planned/saved for the Family, but two, I was looking at the planning I did for Milano and Leothes and Bram, and even for Miekill, who started off as an RP persona but he’s so fucking loud all the time I have half a mind to use him for stuff, too.

But I re-read all this work I had done and then was like, “Well I should do something!”

But then I closed it all and didn’t.

When I start to create, now, that’s all I hear in my head. This little naysayer of a voice, telling me there’s no point to doing anything, and I know that’s my environment. I’ve been stuck for a very long time and have been living in the same cycles for...well, ever. So I don’t expect any change or anything better to happen, anymore.

Lately, though, my horoscope has been very keen to remind me that sometimes we have to make the change happen. To stop expecting things to just get better around you and actively do something about what your situation is, what you want.

And I pass by a hanging quote every single night at work, hanging in a frame in someone’s office--

“If you do the same thing you always did, you’ll get the same thing you always got.”

It’s like the universe is telling me to fucking pay attention, because it’s telling me what I have to do. And I’m just standing in my own way by listening to that voice.

If what’s-her-face can make that Twilight fanfiction into something and I know I can do better, what the fuck is my excuse for not?

So I guess this is another instance of me trying to push myself back up, to stand up and start moving, again. Self-motivating and self-discipline are very difficult, especially for me, so that’s why I periodically have to come here and remind myself of things like this, because right now that little voice is winning. I still believe that I have talent but I also listen when it tells me it’s pointless to write, that I’m not writing for anyone in particular so there’s no reason to spend hours doing this.

January is almost over and all I have to show for it are two new OC’s. I’ll admit this wasn’t the same momentous breakthrough that I had last year, but I won’t be down on myself for it. I’m still figuring things out, I still am a little...lost at sea as I try to find my way again, but every time I come to write these things, it reminds me why it isn’t pointless. That tonight, I felt like writing. I still feel like creating and I still want to do these things.

As long as I don’t lose that, then there’s still a point to all this.

[immobulusmalfoy]

The Panel

Pairing: Tom Felton x Reader Warning(s): FLUFF Request: You should do a Tom imagine where he’s doing a panel at a convention for like Harry Potter with the reader, and they get asked about how they fell in love on set of the movie when they were younger and just lots of fluff and cute dorky Tom ❤❤❤ ——————————————————- “Ready for the panel, babe?” Tom asked before pressing a kiss to his wife’s cheek. “Ten minutes.”

“Of course.” She smiled. The two of them were participating in a Q&A session at a Comic Con due to their roles in The Flash after being in Harry Potter together. “I wonder who will get more questions. You or me?”

“Obviously I will. The girls still love me. But whoever gets the most has to buy dinner tonight.” Tom teased her, right hand slipping into her left as they walked onto the stage.

“Deal.” Y/N laughed, taking the mic that the stagehand was handing her and waving at the audience. The screams were deafening, but the energy was phenomenal. It was always a thrill to have so many people attending a panel with the two of them.

“Hello Tom and Y/N Felton!” their interviewer greeted them as the pair sat down on the plush couch. “How are you doing today?”

“Quite well, thank you.” Y/N answered the girl. “How about yourself?”

Kathy, the interviewer smiled, “I’m doing very well! We’re glad to have the both of you with us today. Shall we roll into the questions?”

“Sure!” Tom grinned, wrapping an arm around Y/N’s waist. “Be sure to ask me a lot, though. We’ve got a bet going on.”

“You big git!” Y/N gasped, slapping his arm playfully. “That’s not how the bet was supposed to work!”

“Too bad. We Slytherins play dirty, remember? Not my fault you’re a Gryffindor.”

“I hate you sometimes.” she laughed, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Kathy was smiling at the two of them.

“Ready for a couple questions, lovebirds?” she teased.

“Ready whenever you are, love.” Tom replied. Kathy started them off, then a couple fans asked questions. Y/N was surprised by the variety of questions they both received.

“Now, I know you both are cast onto ‘The Flash’ right now as a married couple. How did that happen?” Kathy asked.

“Well, when the writers were asking Tom if he’d be interested, they told him he was married in the show.” Y/N started.

“Yes, and they told me to bring my charming wife because if they could get the whole set, they’d be thrilled. So obviously we said yes. She’s a huge superhero nut, so this was perfect for the two of us. And with the huge amount of experience we both had in the Harry Potter films, this just tops the cake.” Tom finished.

“That’s right, you did both appear in the Harry Potter films together as we heard earlier. How does that differ from being on a television show like this?”

“We both really enjoy it, honestly. It’s kind of refreshing to play different roles. Of course, the fans have already noticed the similarities in the movies and ‘The Flash’, like the lightning bolts and Barry’s name. I love reading about their reactions to things. It’s exciting.” Y/N smiled.

“How did you two officially meet? We all know how you fell in love on set, but how did the whole story start?”

“We have two different versions of this story, honestly.” Tom grinned. Y/N laughed.

“Mine’s the true version, though.” The audience laughed at Y/N’s playful reaction.

“Is not.” Tom smirked. “When we were auditioning, we just happened to be next to each other and I copied her answer about gringotts goblins. It was terrible. She was glaring at me the whole time.”

“That part is true.” Y/N grinned, “He did copy my answer, but technically we met earlier that day, he just didn’t remember. Sometimes I really think he has amnesia.”

“Well, feel free to remind me.” Y/N glanced at Tom before continuing.

“You stepped on my foot when we were on the tube heading to the audition. I didn’t say anything, of course, because I already immediately had a stupid crush on you. Then, in line, you just copied my answer and we both got cast. And look where that got me!” She teased him. “Now, I’m married to you.”

“Well how rude of me,” he gasped. “You have to admit though, love, I’m the best thing to ever happen to you.”

“You wish.” she whispered, pressing another kiss to his cheek. “You wish.”

They both were almost surprised once they heard the audience clapping. Kathy laughed. “Well thanks for coming out, you two! I’m dying to know, who won that bet?”

“Tom did. So, I guess he’s treating me to dinner tonight.” Y/N smiled over at her husband who was counting her marks on a paper.

“Yeah,” he sighed, “she’s right. Where do you want to go, love?”

“Anywhere fancy.”

“As you wish.”

[blazehedgehog]

Which would you say was a worse reboot: BK: N&B, Sonic 06, Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures or Bomberman: Act Zero?

Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts isn’t really an awful reboot. I mean, yeah, it’s not the Banjo 3 people wanted, but it was a different time and different people were funding the project. Classic 3D platformers didn’t look very financially viable. Remember, marketing is nonsense and when you have millions of voices all screaming it’s hard to understand what they actually want. I’d be thankful a new Banjo game came out in 2008 at all because the alternative was nothing. I’d definitely take N&B over having nothing. N&B was pretty fun until the last two worlds became overwhelmingly big.

Ghostly Adventures isn’t a terrible reboot either. It’s just kind of bland. It’s a desperate attempt to make Pac-man “hip with the kids” again, designed by a committee who thinks they know what children like (again: marketing is nonsense and nobody actually understands it). You don’t have to like it, I don’t have to like it, but it exists because Namco needed to refresh interest in their “brand” and you could definitely do it in worse ways.

Sonic 06 is pretty embarrassing, but it is the end point in a direction Sonic games had been moving towards for a while. Sonic games had been taking themselves way too seriously for quite a while at that point because somebody at Sonic Team had it in their heads that those games needed to deal with serious themes (in the most hamfisted way possible). After Sonic Adventure 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic 06 was actually kind of just business as usual, and business was awful.

Bomberman Act Zero is such a comically ridiculous left turn for everything that franchise ever is or was. It’s like if Nintendo announced that the next Kirby game would be a scary science fiction game and M-rated to appeal to western audiences. Konami was completely out of their minds on every single possible conceivable level to think that’s what anyone wanted out of Bomberman. Honestly, looking back, Bomberman Act Zero cast a shadow on almost everything Konami did last gen. They systematically killed off almost every single franchise they had because all of their classic franchises were rebooted in to complete nonsense. Silent Hill Home Coming and Downpour, turning Gradius in to Otomedius, Castlevania Lords of Shadow, the crap jobs they did on their HD collections… then there were crummy original games like Neverdead and Blades of Time…

Literally the only thing Konami did right last gen was Silent Hill Shattered Memories and Metal Gear Solid, and I’m sure there’s some intense debate on even that.

Bomberman Act Zero was a herald of things to come. It really is the worst.