#Maybe because it's a consequence-less thing to worry about when other more concerning stuff is going on?

[siena-sevenwits]

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[quinloki]

hihi, I was wondering if you had any tips to writing characters?? Like making them feel more alive and such, and not having their personalities seeming the same, cause I’ve been only focusing on one oc lately(which is a self insert) and I’ve been wanting to add more to other ocs but I just.. don’t really know how to? Especially with the lack of motivation on adding to their stories n stuff

Hm... this isn't something I think I can answer easily, but I'll try to see if I can help a little.

I want to start by saying, having same/similarly characterized OCs/Readers when writing isn't bad. More than anything you gotta write what you like, and sometimes what you relate to more than worrying about having variety.

But maybe the story or character are stuck, and you're not sure what to do, or you feel like what you're going to do, you've done before, and you don't want to repeat it in this case.

Consider, and I mean this seriously even if it's going to sound silly, the Otome Archetypes. Or the Fighting Team Archetypes - whatever and however you want to think about it.

For instance: Your "fire" character in a fighting anime is usually brash, loud, ready to brawl and not too concerned about the plan or the consequences. Sometimes this causes trouble, sometimes not. (The Otome version of that one guy who owns the motorcycle.)

Alternatively, your "water/ice" character will be more subdued, strategic, often wearing glasses (the Otome archetype of "glasses character", rather obviously.)

Earth characters might be loud and like to party, but they're usually bigger than the fire character and more likely to be the Defender vs the canon. In Otome think you're (possibly) quiet type. A little like the glasses character, but less chatty and warmer.

Anyway, you get what I mean. Your typical archetypes used the world-round.

Characterization often means deciding on one of these loose, but well-defined, archetypes. If nothing else, it gives you something to focus your attention on to help stay in character with your character.

Now, the important part - Archetypes are like the Pirate's Code™ - it's more of a guideline. It's *always* more of a guideline when it comes to creations and creativity. So here's a good way to utilize this handy tool without getting boxed into something that might feel 1-dimensional.

I'm going to use Trafalgar Law for this example, and since you're following me I'm going to assume you're familiar with One Piece.

Law is the ice-character, or the glasses guy - laconic (not too chatty), seemingly neutral or almost grumpy in his demeanor. Cares for his friends but not apt to show it, strategic, and oftentimes ruthless. Usually butts heads with the more fiery types (like Kid and Luffy), because their way of doing things is so different. (Gets along with more water (Robin) and earth (Chopper) types.)

Even as Law stays within this archetype for the most part, the more we get to know him the more we see moments where he isn't. Where he gets angry at the same level as a fire-type, where he does something patently NOT strategic. This man's not cool, he's a nerd screaming internally like a cartoon Tasmanian devil about ninjas and Sanji's power suit.

Basic Archetypes are also good for putting characters into trouble too. The over-thinking water-type ends up captured because they were thinking too much and didn't act fast enough. The fire-type snaps and says something in the heat of the moment and hurts a friend.

Archetypes don't just give us a framework for the cool parts, but also for the embarrassing stuff and the flaws.

And you can mix and match too!

Have a strategic glasses style character who is more fire and destruction, loud and brash, but the smart bastard's always got the best plan. Arrogance might land him in trouble, but that hot mouth will cool while he stews on a new plan.

Maybe your bad boy is just a bad boy, but maybe he's also like, the basketball varsity captain, or the guy rocking massive community service hours, or someone whose taking care of a parent who can't anymore.

Nami is an interesting character because he cat burglar antics had a deep meaning behind them. Luffy's happy go lucky nature is all the more precious because we know what he's endured.

Conflict within a character's personality makes a great character, but it's not always needed. Sometimes the story forges the details for us. Yusuke Uremeshi from YYH was nothing but the much worser delinquent of his school and that was it. The character developed from the story, but we never got anything more than here's a delinquent, he likes to fight, he spends the entire series fighting.

And he's *really* good at it.

Once you set in a foundation you can tweak it - is your character Proud or Arrogant? Are they Kind or Nice? Are they Cruel or Cold?

Basically, what part of that archetype works FOR them, and what parts work AGAINST them. What do they enjoy - fighting, reading, skateboarding, swimming, hiking, puzzles, operas, etc. How do those enjoyments color their personality, if at all?

That's usually what the story will answer for you, in my experience - and let them grow!

LET YOUR OCs CHANGE AS YOU GET TO KNOW THEM \o/

There is absolutely nothing wrong with an OC changing and being redefined the longer that you have them. You can even use that growth in a story and help it mold their development.

Okay, the TL;DR:

You can have characters who look similar on paper, but the narrative will define them into distinctly different characters and sometimes you gotta write the narrative to get that effect.

You can have characters who look wildly different on paper, but the narrative will cause similarities. This isn't bad writing, no character should be 1-dimensional - even the villain who sees themselves as the villain and embraces villainy can still decide to save the hero.

Water your OCs and let them change - you might have wanted a daffodil and you got a rose instead. That's not a failure, that's just a success shaped different than you expected.

[randomnameless]

I wanted to reply to JD’s addition earlier but RL and all so maybe I’ll make a new post later about several stuff, but...

This is such a strange take. Edelgard’s ideology is to end nobility as a concept and in practice.

What do you mean by “ending nobility as a concept”?

In Houses we know - from Hanneman and Dorothea’s support - that at inception (when Adrestia was founded?), “nobles” were supposed to be people who seeked knowledge, wanted to guide and help others, but that notion became twisted with time.

If you’re talking about “hereditary nobility” then with the various Ferdie supports, we have the “imperial exams” route, people will have jobs where they can “guide” people based on some sort of academic merit. However (I think it’s in Hopes from Ferdie’s dialogue with Edel, or Yuri with Dimitri?) there is still the issue of... families being able to afford sending children to schools, just like irl, if children need to work for their families so everyone can eat something, they won’t be able to go to school.

And then you also have the irl example of a certain state that used to have an “imperial exams” system put in place that was... on paper, very meritocratic, but in practice, way less “meritocratic” given how only few families could afford private tutors who would go on teaching sons how to take said exams, and a discrimination between people from the South nabbing all places and people from the North, uh, not being ranked high --> which was, all things considered, another way to say “if you’re born in the right family you can achieve things people who weren’t born in the right family cannot”.

There’s a reason why “ending nobility” isn’t taken seriously, because Nobility/Having people in charge being seen as “more important” than other people is inherent to living in even our real life societies. Like, between a former president of the US and Bob the carpenter, who is going to be valued for being “more important” than the other? And as far as I know, the US doesn’t have “nobles”!

Dimitri isn’t trying to end nobility and even Dimitri expresses at the beginning of Azure Gleam that he’s jealous of all the deep reforms that Edelgard is making in Adrestia and wishes he could do the same in Faerghus but because of his trauma with the Tragedy of Duscur can’t because he’s worried about the consequences which is meant to be a flaw just like the ordeal with Rufus. He’s so worried about what may happen that it leads to inaction or slow progress.

I thought Dimitri said he couldn’t do the same reforms Edelgard does in the Empire because he knows forcing reforms and blitzing them is the reason why some nobles killed his Father, and doesn’t want to tear apart Faerghus now that it just escaped a simili civil war (Rufus vs the Fraldarius supporters?).

I’d say Dimitri is less concerned about swapping concept A by concept A’, but more concerned about bringing stability in a torn land, making sure his people are not suffering from the aftermath of the first regidice and Rufus’s coup, and then he wanted to make progressive reforms.

Also look at a n irl certain state that tried to speedrun the change of government from "monarchy" to "republic", it ended with an Empire in less than 10 years after the "republic".

Hopes paints a lot of things as flaws, like offering asylum to refugees, but I do not think Dimitri wondering about the consequences of his reforms on his people is meant to be seen as a flaw.

Anyways, Rhea isn’t fighting for humanity. She’s fighting for the people of Fodlan in her own way but she’s not doing it for all of humanity because humanity outside Fodlan is not in her jurisdiction. You can’t sit there and tell me she’s fighting Leicester and Adrestia for the sake of the people of Morfis or for the people of Almyra.

(tfw i press enter before finishing to type...)

Rhea's fighting for Nabateans and Humanity is a clear throw back at CF's finale, where Edelgard says she fights for a world for humanity, so unless she consulted the King of Almyra, and whoever is in charge in Sreng, Dagda (not Brigid she has Petra!), Morfis, Albinea and some other lands we don't know of, I don't think she also has the same jurisdiction.

So while Rhea has, indeed, no rationae loci jurisdiction to want to protect "Humanity" outside of Fodlan, the Church of Seiros is the main organisation (and only?) in charge of various charity work and general peace keeping in Fodlan when called upon - it's not that far off, from her when she's fighting for her life against someone who wants her dead because why not - to say the Church she led, and herself, were/are fighting for Humanity (but the one in Fodlan, even if, can you blame her for not going in the technical precisions needed, ratione loci (the place/geographical area as you pointed out), ratione temporis (the time, is she talking about the current humans living in that specific day, or is she talking about humans that are going to be born?) and ratione materiae (what counts as humanity? Agarthans are included ? Crestless humans? Byleth?) or her jursidiction when it's something she says as a battle quote?)

I'm having a really hard time fathoming how some people consider SB to be a righteous/heroic route or a route where we're the good guys. The route where:

You invade two independent nations under the pretence of "saving their citizens from oppression" (though I guess you can't be oppressed anymore if you're dead lol) even though Her Majestic Hypocrisy repeats a bunch of times that she's in for conquest and that she'd obliterate anyone who stands in her way.

The cast keeps victim-blaming the invaded parties for *checks note* defending their countries. 

The death toll is the highest. You have to kill Ingrid, Rodrigue, Gustave and Sylvain. And you can also kill Ashe, Mercedes (btw, if she dies, the cutscene where Dimitri and Dedue grieve changes slightly, which is nice), Annette, Shamir, Ignatz, Raphael and Marianne (how does Margrave Edmund feel about Claude's alliance with the empire knowing his daughter was killed by its army?). 

IIRC, this is the only route where you conscript merchants into the imperial army. No wonder the empire has the biggest army.

Based Rhea who, despite being hunted, still thinks about the safety of the continent first in the final chapter. It's hilarious how characters like Edespot or Clyde harp on about how Rhea is the big bad, and in the few scenes you have with her, she's just kind? Anyway. Rhea based.

In the C support conversation - which happens right after Felix got seriously injured and Sylvain got killed- there's this bit where Dimitri is like "I don't know if I can talk with like everything is normal, so many have died already" and Edespot's response is basically "yeah I don't see it that way. Let's agree to disagree". Also, I believe she wonders if she shouldn't just kill Clyde and Dimitri once they're out. Even though Clyde is her ally at the moment. You bet on the wrong lord, Clyde... 

I probably forgot a few stuff, but... oh well.

To be honest,

The only things I like about Supreme Bullshit are :

Its ending! Supreme Leader and Barney (well, at least they throw a sword?) being sitting ducks while Rhea steals the show, and sacrifices herself in an epic shonen scene to get rid of the real threat, aka showing that unlike someone, she knows how to prioritize, and it ends up in an explosion. It matches the ending of the F-Zero anime (at 0.48!), Rhea/Falcon rushes to deal a blow (a Falcon punch and a Seiros strike I guess?) to their mortal enemy, there is a giant explosion, and both Rhea/Falcon fade away in a blinding light. Too bad the Supreme Bullshit BGM is eons away from "Searching to the Truth" :(

The reveal that Rhea kept the keys to the sekrit passages in the Imperial Palace - or Rhea knows more about Enbarr and its castle than the current Emperor and her aides...

Doro's paralogue being incredibly tone deaf about, uh, soldiers being "too busy" by the Mittelfrank troupe, that they can't basically protect the dancers/performers from bandits, when the paralogue happens in an area that is expressedly supposed to be full of soldiers!

If starts align in a certain way, it's the only route in Nopes where Clout dies!

Leopold! He's like Victarion Greyjoy, only if he was taken seriously. But we, as players, know better! Also he's a living retcon, from having a major cichol crest to gift to his son because he fought well (and not to, say, Big B or even Ferdie) a sacred weapon despite the route being all about muhritocracy!

Supreme Leader plans and plays with the cards she has in her hand - from trying to get good PR to get rid of people (Varley sr) by pitting them against her next target (the CoS)!

An entire game full of new Supreme Replies (tm)!

For shippers around, it has a Cathmir scene where everyone knows Shamir will prioritize Catherine's life over her allegeance! too bad this is a Supreme Leader route, so no, Shamir won't fucking try to kill her for blackmailing her and can even kill Catherine herself later on....

That's not a lot lol, and most of it are breadcrumbs because for the proper plot...

Yeah, it kinds of sucks.

Supreme Bullshit is even more tone deaf with the War and its realities than Tru Piss (and that's a feat!), Ferdie being completely, uh, off the mark about everything (invading lands and rekting people, and then saying those people's fears are only in their heads! Pal, one of the first missions in the SB exclusive chapters is to rout refugees??? + the nonsense about the Kingdom having more crested generals, when data shows the Empire has more crested peeps than the Kingdom!), Caspar being turned in the worst version of himself who dgaf anymore about protecting "innocents" and "justice", and, uh, everything with Monica.

Victim blaming is the norm with Fodlan games, but yeah, it really feels odd that suddenly, in the Zahras chapters, Dimitri's all "okay" when his closest friends either died or were grievly injured and the game proceeds as it does when, come on, why wouldn't Dimitri kill her the second they're out of the Zahras verse??

I really disliked how Supreme Bullshit yeeted Ionius from Adrestia, or how it didn't explore in more depth the Insurrection of the Seven, especially since we side with Leopold'n'Waldemar against Ludwig, who used to be allies! Also, as far as I remember, no one mentions anything about Arundel, why he ran away to the Kingdom with a young Supreme Leader and how he changed when he returned, or something?

If Ludwig is pushed by Supreme Leader, reciting her Dad's words, as the one who led the insurrection and the experiments on her, why the fuck no one else mentions them, as Leopold and Waldemar were on Aegir's side back then? They don't even mention "Arundel" participating, like, Volkhard sides against Ionius and hides his niece, but 3 months later, he returns and offers her as a guinea pig?

As is the norm with the Supreme Leader routes, the "truth" isn't what we're looking for, because we know Supreme Leader pushes a narrative she will follow to reach her goals, but where Tru Piss gave hints here and there about her narrative being, uh, rubish, we have no clues here, and Leopold prefers to flash his loincloth than giving us anything meaningful about that incident.

When you compare them to Matthias and Rodrigue (and Gilbert?) who often mention Lambert "back in the days", it's more and more obvious that... we're not supposed to ask questions in Supreme Bullshit, and just go with the flow.

And it ends with a high five.

I'd say it deviates less from Tru Piss than Golden Shower does from Verdant Winds, but it's an "expected disappointment".

That's why my only higlights are not plot relevant (save for the Captain Falcon - Rhea parallel) - because we know the plot will never deliver something meaningful in a Supreme Leader route.

[chateautae]

saudade | kth. (m)

saudade ; “a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something/someone that one cares for and/or loves.”

➵ summary : a demanding idol lifestyle was something taehyung and yourself were all too familiar with. it wasn’t so hard when considering your unconditional love for one another, but lately, taehyung wasn’t the same anymore; and you decide it's time to find out why.

➵ pairing : idol!taehyung x choreographer!reader

➵ genre : angst, smut, fluff (the holy trinity), idol!au, established relationship!au

➵ rating : 18+

➵ word count : 16k

➵ warnings : sexual content, swearing, dom + sub dynamics, dom!tae, fingering, oral (f. receiving), lots of dirty talk, t e a s i n g because let’s face it this is tae, big dick!tae, cock sliding, marking, restraint (with his own hands), unprotected sex (wrap it up peeps), rough sex, mushy i miss you sex, lots of feels, tae undresses reader (it’s hot i promise), praising, name kink, slight body worshipping, slight brat-handling, forced orgasm, creampie, one spank, tiny impreg kink, aftercare

➵ a/n : wow, my first fic on tumblr!! i’m beyond excited to finally be sharing my stories and writing, hopefully i can let you escape into a whole new world and enjoy my works! comments and feedback are always appreciated <3

2:27AM. 

He still wasn't home. 

Texts on delivered, calls unanswered, radio silence on all social media. 

And it wasn’t just tonight, it was every night. 

Everyday. 

And it’s been a month. A long, grueling month.

A month where he only acknowledged your presence just once and called it a day. A month where he returned so late and left early enough the following morning you didn't see him. Somedays, he never even came home at all. You made suggestions to hang out together, and he declined them on the premise of 'too busy'. 

It hurt beyond comprehension. 

It's like he wasn't even there.

But you knew he was. 

He was the one who moved your sleeping body from the couch to your shared bed every night, a sweet gesture of his that gave you hope maybe everything wasn't so bad. Sometimes, though, you woke up on the same couch the next morning, knowing he most likely stayed the night elsewhere. 

You tried to remain indifferent to the treatment, figuring he was just stressed with his tightly-packed schedule that didn't always include you. 

But it was beginning to feel heart-breaking, disappointing, but most of all, so lonely. It was starting to feel like he was slipping away from you, like you were losing him, relationship tearing at the seams. It left you nothing but heartbroken and afraid. Afraid of where your relationship had gone, afraid of whatever happened to the never-ending love you two shared. You both harboured an array of feelings for one another that infinitely tethered you two together, kept you madly in love and nearly impossible to separate.  

So where was that now? How could it have all changed within the span of a month? 

You’ve survived comebacks with him before and he never entertained this kind of behaviour. Maybe you had a fight or two about someone cancelling on a plan or working too hard but nothing as excruciating as this. 

Your relationship began to feel empty, so meaningless. And the more he was distant, the stronger the pain grew and your love seemed to be losing its vitality.

Why would he do this? What's gotten into him? Did I do something wrong? Why doesn't he care anymore? you asked yourself repeatedly for weeks.

You’d think work was the issue, where your relationship had to be purposefully low-profile and subdued. But ever since the inception of your relationship, Taehyung never found any of that difficult. If anything, he loved it the most. You could easily leave it to the 'forbidden’ or 'looked down upon' stigma of you two dating to make everything 100x hotter, more exciting, and fuck, did you and especially Taehyung enjoy fiddling around with the concept as if you were some modern-day remake of Romeo and Juliet. 

The sneaking around, the thrill of moments only you two shared, the promises you kept, the secret kissing or displays of affection, your romantic status like classified information some were only privy to. 

But you didn't have to worry about suddenly losing your 'Romeo', though, because Taehyung wasn't as stupid as he was (no offence, Shakespeare). 

Taehyung remained business-like whenever he needed to be and tended to his work accordingly. He was always cautious of the consequences your relationship warranted, and worked hard to prove your love was worth it despite his chaotic life and the challenges everyone warned you of. 

Taehyung has also always been mischievous, a little rebellious, someone who doesn't always like following whatever he's told; so this relationship was just his cup of tea, making it hard to believe he would grow tired of it considering his well-precedented admiration. 

But now, you weren’t so sure. 

Now he seemed practically devoid of the fact that you two were even dating. He didn’t naturally gravitate towards you anymore like before, instead increasingly gravitating away from you. He didn't linger around to catch a moment with you anymore, didn't come looking for you, didn't spark conversation whether it was important or not, even stopped looking at you as a whole. It seemed like being in your presence was something he avoided rather than just didn't do, like he wanted to fill his time elsewhere and sometimes… you swore it felt intentional. 

As if he didn't want to be around you. 

You sought communicating with him about everything, pinning all the blame on his mountain-high stress and how busy he was thinking you could help ease his mind; but he stayed firm on the notion he was just fine. You obviously knew something was up and wanted to confront him, but you feared pestering or nagging him, never wishing to add to his stress.

And you get that, you really do. He has this demanding, grandiose life that you should understand is incredibly stressful and time-consuming. But you're going to be honest... you fucking missed Kim Taehyung. A lot. 

Granted, you saw him at work, even more so now with a comeback dawning on the group, but it wasn’t the same. 

You missed being home with him. You missed the way his big arms cuddled you when you watched a movie together, you missed 'attempting' to cook dinner with him, you missed your snuggly mornings where he wouldn’t let you go until he laid at least a hundred kisses on you. You missed him tickling you when you least expected it, randomly playing any track of jazz or slow music, swaying you until he made you giggle and you missed him never forgetting to kiss your forehead whenever he parted from you, even if he had to be discreet where work was concerned. 

The cute, couply things you missed, sure. But the one thing that consistently clouded your mind and bothered you nearly every second of everyday... 

Sex. 

That active as hell sex life you two had, you missed every damn detail about it and your body desperately yearned for its revival.

After a month's dryspell, you craved Taehyung so badly it wasn’t funny anymore. From all the times he eyed you suggestively, to the way his large, touchy hands ended up all over you, to the way he eventually laid you down, lost himself in his torturous but pleasurable teasing, maybe even tying you up or handcuffing you in the process, getting you dripping wet before he eventually fucked you just right simply out of his own desire.

Nope. 

You can't do this, it only made you hornier than you already were and fuck, did anything you try on yourself not work at all. You were feeling greedy. Going from doing it nearly three times a week during quarantine lockdown with him to suddenly having gone a month sex-free left you losing your mind. 

There used to be so much fire, so much love, so much passion between you two. It was intoxicating, so ardent that you could feel yourselves aching for each other in your bones.  But now, all of that felt either non-existent or buried so deep underground you couldn't feel much of anything. And of course, the absence of sex and the cute stuff collectively sucked, sure. But what scared you the most were your own thoughts. 

What if he's finally tired of you? What if he wants to focus on his career? What if he's found someone new, someone that isn’t staff, someone much easier and less burdensome than you..

You stopped. 

A dark web of assumptions swarmed your head, all seeming completely plausible and welcoming a dull, daunting sadness to loom over you. Your chest constricted at the thought of your fickle importance to him, wincing at the possibility it could be true. You sat in silence in your lonely home, leaving you to ponder when the apartment began to feel so forlorn in the first place.

The photographs he took framed the walls, the old albums he owned littered your shelves and even one of the many jackets he owned was currently sprawled across your couch. You noticed the way his presence was so deeply rooted in the home, yet he felt as distant as ever. 

You settled in on your couch, cradling his jacket at the thought of how much longer this would continue, forcing yourself to sleep in hopes of ridding the feeling of emptiness from your chest.

But you couldn't.

Your mind drowned struggling to sleep, giving up on shut-eye as a whole until eventually you began swimming, swimming through your emotions and one particular thought stood out to you; this wasn't fucking fair. 

It just wasn't, none of this was. You can't let him continue this, can't remain on the fence about doing something and you certainly cannot just let this go. It was your duty as one of the active partners in this relationship to fight for its life, so that's exactly what you were going to do—with one conclusion you were convinced would work. 

You should give him a taste of his own medicine. 

You decided to be upset, ignore him and see how he reacts. Respond with the same curt responses, not give him the time of day, 'naturally' gravitate away from him. Hell, you could start tomorrow by waking up earlier than him and seeing how he responds to your empty side of bed for once. 

That's if he even comes home tonight. 

This seemed like the only sure-fire method of gaining his attention. Maybe if you acted unreasonably, far from how you usually do he would finally pay you any mind, have to approach and confront you. You’d always let him off the hook on the account of him being an idol, but now he’s taken it too far. 

Your mind grew hazy somewhere in between thinking and shuffling on the couch, only the sight of a vacant apartment and the scent of his cologne lulling you to sleep. 

You groaned as your eyes fluttered open, the reality of last night resurfacing as you remembered the impromptu plan for today, cursing how early you had to wake up to avoid him. 

You lazily rubbed at your eyes as they landed on the clock on your bedside table, suddenly registering you were in a different room altogether. It was then you felt the softness of your pillow, the silk of your sheets, the familiarity of your room's walls coming into view—all of it blissful until you froze at the feeling of weight around your waist, a quick glance confirming it was an arm. It was then you felt your neck being fanned by hot breaths, your back flush against someone's bare chest and you felt your heart speed up. 

Is he...?

Thinking you're getting ahead of yourself, you're proven just right when you turn around to a face you knew all too well. 

Taehyung's soft figure rose and fell as he slept soundlessly next to you. 

You instantly softened, in a bit of shock because he was right there, angelic as ever as he breathed calmly and cuddled your smaller figure into him.

He still held you to fall asleep, huh?

A smile found your face at the thought as you admired the details of his; thick, pretty lashes pressed against the skin underneath his eyes, his large, veiny hand tucked under his cheek as the other draped you, his pink, pillowy lips sealed together in an adorable pout. You shifted onto your side and nuzzled closer into him, listening to his rhythmic breathing and watching his broad chest rise and fall. You melted into his presence, soaking in all the glory that was Kim Taehyung. 

You then remembered he was always here, he did give you his personal time; you just didn't see him. You knew he moved you at night, tucked you in, maybe kissed you goodnight. Maybe he had moments where he felt terrible for being away, whispered sweet apologies and promises into your ear.

But then again, you wouldn’t know, you didn't spend enough time together for you to know. 

A sudden movement of his arm and that eerie thought snapped you back into reality, instantly scolding yourself for getting distracted by him. You had to focus on how you felt, hone in your emotions and refrain from doting on your precious boyfriend. 

You wouldn't be able to ignore him later if you didn't start now.

You were forced to leave his warmth, having to ready yourself for today's rehearsals and resolving numerous things for however long this would continue; you needed Taehyung to feel what you've been feeling all this time, needed him to feel the absence of your presence just as you had felt his. 

And you'll be damned if you were going to be easy about it. 

A couple hours had passed as you stretched, yawning after revising a rehearsal video, the murmurs of staff keeping you awake. Stretching for what felt like the millionth time, you slightly jumped at the sound of the studio doors opening just before the scheduled time. You watched it mindfully, your heart speeding up at the thought of suddenly seeing Taehyung so soon. 

Don’t let it be him first, don’t let it be him first, don’t let it be him first. 

You calmed down once your eyes set on 5 of the members ambling in, watching them greet people until you eventually spotted Jimin and Taehyung trailing behind, thankfully too occupied with giggling to see you. 

You rejoiced in the lack of eye contact until you decided to sneak a peek at Taehyung, mortified when you found his eyes suddenly locking with yours. The shock made you turn away instantly, swallowing what felt like your heart down your throat. 

Your ears were welcomed to the boys making conversation, playfully teasing the 95's for apparently being late and in the midst you managed to shyly greet everyone... except Taehyung.  

And this didn't go unnoticed by him, who already felt worried since he woke up to your cold, unoccupied side of the bed this morning. Taehyung instantly found it off-putting, since he usually knew your schedule and left him wondering what reason you had to disappear without informing him. 

Curiosity flooded him as the thought continued to bug him, what did she have to do so early in the morning? His inquiries turned into actions when he began passing through the boys, immediately stepping towards you. 

"Morning, Y/N. Everything alright?" Taehyung innocently reached for your shoulder once he settled beside you. You almost let him do it, making you reminiscent of when he actually gave a shit about you, but you remembered your little scheme and swiftly pulled away.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Taehyung immediately froze up, disbelief riddling his handsome features. You've never once rejected his touch so blatantly. 

You would never do that, he thought.

Taehyung paused his hand at the point he would have touched you, tugging at his bottom lip uncomfortably before rubbing the back of his neck. You internally winced at the hurt you could see on his face through the studio mirrors, forcing yourself to stand your ground as he feebly spoke again.

"You don't seem fine. Why did you wake up so early this morning? You didn't tell me about it..." He scratched his neck awkwardly, a hint of a pout in his tone.

"I don't know, I just couldn't sleep. I don't need to tell you my every move, Taehyung." You responded curtly.

"I know..but you could've told me, Jagiya. We could've spent the morning together in the apartment if you were up so early." Taehyung looked at you in protest, lowering his voice so others couldn't hear. 

The use of your pet name after a long time instantly ticked you off, even more so his proposal, he could say all that cute shit but couldn't act upon it? 

Irritation nestled its way under your skin, causing you to whisper dryly, “Just get to stretching, Taehyung, we have a lot to go over today.”

His jaw clenched as he swallowed, a troubled expression painting his face. He managed a small 'okay' before he unwillingly stepped away.

Taehyung was beyond confused; something was wrong, seriously wrong. It wasn't just your harsh tone or icy aura, but even in the way you addressed him so plainly as Taehyung. 

He didn't understand, he's seen you mad or annoyed before, but nothing along these lines and he couldn’t piece together the reason for your attitude. It seemed like nothing would ameliorate your mood either, leaving Taehyung cursing whatever evil thing was making you so upset. 

Despite experiencing that bitter demeanour, however, Taehyung was forced to watch you act friendly with everyone else during practice.. except him. 

And what was even worse, he watched you do so for the rest of the week. You had gone a whole week with your (what he found to be) ridiculous behaviour, everything about you so different with him he was left consumed with frustration. 

He watched as you continued to treat everyone else the same, getting a little too close to them than he liked. It was something he noticed in the weeks previous to this, but now silently pissed him off even more because this time you decided to purposefully exclude him; and he hated it. You barely spoke or tended to him over the course of the week, Taehyung's envy blooming in his chest at the way you acted so close to everyone yet treated him, your boyfriend, like a stranger. 

He didn't understand why he was the only one, you talked to Jimin about what he did on his days off, pretended to box with Jungkook, danced around with Yoongi and Hoseok and goofed around with Jin and Namjoon. Hell, he even found you socializing with other staff and dancers more than usual. 

Taehyung couldn't fucking stand it, what in the world was wrong with you? Not only did he figure something was clearly wrong, but that he clearly did something wrong. 

He was beyond confused, annoyed, but more so worried as to what was fuelling your actions. Taehyung didn't know what he did, and he couldn't manage not knowing anymore, most of all despising the feeling that he was suddenly losing you. 

He quickly resolved after a gruesome week he wasn't letting you go after rehearsals tonight, giving a fat fuck you to his evening plans and trading them in for confronting you. 

Your eyes stung from a week’s worth of waking up at the ass crack of dawn to avoid Taehyung, rubbing your eyes as you slung your purse over your shoulder to end another day at the studio. Thinking you were alone, you swiveled around to an empty room and surprisingly spotted Taehyung.

You jumped a little, not expecting him to still be here when you knew he had dinner plans tonight. 

Did he cancel them? 

Suddenly realizing this is the first time in over a month you’ve been in a room with him, alone, and especially after the week you've spent purposefully dodging him, anxiety flooded your chest. 

Your eyes flittered around, nibbling on your lip awkwardly as you pretended he wasn't there. You eventually met his eyes and he returned your hesitant gaze with an intense one, nearly peering into your very soul. He remained unbothered with his hands tucked into his pockets, and now that you were finally viewing him, couldn't help but swoon over his look for the day. 

He really chose to wear that damn grey hoodie with matching grey sweatpants that makes you weak, hair styled in the messy curls he's been sporting ever since his perm and wearing that one silver hoop earring you found incredibly hot. 

He looked like a fluffy puppy but also a full-course meal crafted by God himself. 

This isn't fucking fair at all. 

He noticed you staring at him and his head cocked to the side, studying you with a hint of a smirk. He raised an eyebrow tauntingly, like he wouldn't let you go after trapping you in what felt like shackles around your ankles. You could only swallow dryly, averting your eyes and reminding yourself you had to get out of his trance

His power over you was immense, especially when he flipped his curly fringe from his eyes, examining you with such a fiere, unreadable expression you shifted nervously on your feet. 

How is he so dominant when he's standing a whole 15 fucking feet away from you?

You watched a self-satisfying grin play onto Taehyung’s lips, loving the way you squirmed under his undivided attention until he suddenly began stepping in your direction, sheer panic overtaking you. You weren't ready, you didn't really think of the result of this plan and now that it's worked, you knew you were in trouble. 

Taehyung is unpredictable as hell, you never knew what was running through his mind and which idea he’d pick to entertain. You malfunctioned at the thought and your flight response kicked in, making you step towards the door at light speed. 

"I..uh.. I have to go." You stuttered and purposely ducked around him. You felt relieved once you passed his deep stare, until you felt his slender fingers suddenly grapple onto your wrist. 

Shit. 

"You're not going anywhere." His low voice reverberated in the room, sending currents through your body. You refused to look at him, knowing it would make you squeal, but you stabilized your voice to speak. 

"I..", you swallowed, "don't think it's your place to say." 

You felt his hold on your wrist tighten, knowing that pissed him off. 

A small moment of silence passed and you thought he'd given up, relaxing until he suddenly yanked you towards him, your smaller figure crashing into his chest. He held you against his tall body as his eyes locked with your timid ones, forcing the confrontation of your obvious issue with him. 

You took a stubborn step back instead of giving in, arms crossed. Taehyung had enough of you evading his look and gently lifted your chin with his index finger.

"My place? It's been a fucking week and you haven't even looked at me, Y/N. What is your problem?" He emphasized with annoyance, but his soft eyes gave away he was just desperate for an answer. 

"Nothing's wrong, Taehyung, I'm just tired."

"Oh really? Tired? Y/N, don't think I didn't notice you ignore me for an entire week. I thought something was wrong in general but clearly you have a problem with me and only me. What's your deal?" He vented in frustration, tone utterly displeased.

You only scoffed disbelievingly, looking towards the ground in search of something to hold back your piled-high emotions. 

Taehyung grew tired of your silence and sighed with dejection. He cupped your cheeks and looked at you seriously, "Look at me, bubs, what's so wrong? Did I do something?" the newfound frailty in his voice left you sucking in a breath of guilt. 

You really wanted to voice how you felt, teetering on the possibility until you suddenly became aware you'd be requesting demands from one of the busiest people on Earth.

 Your tongue habitually tied itself. 

"It's just.. It's not important, Taehyung. Let me go." You abruptly turned out of his hold, locking your jaw tightly. 

"Why in God's name would I let you go? Something's wrong, Jagiya, and that's always going to be important to me." Taehyung squeezed your arms affectionately, suddenly warming you to him. 

You could instantly feel your emotions conflicting inside, flooding your chest with regret yet frustration so heavy you needed air. Your eyes were beginning to reveal your vulnerability, trying to blink away threatening tears. 

"Taehyung, just let me go, it's absolutely nothing." Your voice sounded shakily unconvincing and yet, you were tugging yourself away as if he would believe you. 

"It's not nothing, I can clearly see something wrong. Why won't you just tell me?" 

"Because I don't want to tell you, Taehyung. It's really just nothing." 

"You keep saying it's nothing but I can see it in your eyes, you're upset, Jagiya. I know you." Taehyung spoke matter-of-factly, his grip and tone growing desperate.

"I'm not upset, I'm just exhausted." 

"Exhuasted..” Taehyung trailed, licking his lips. “Of course, because now you're waking up earlier than you usually do in the morning and on top of that without even fucking telling me why." His tone grew irritated as he scoffed, looking away from you.

You instantly grew annoyed. 

"And I told you I don't need to tell you my every move, Kim. Why are you even so pissed about it?” 

"Did you just.. family name me?" Taehyung narrowed his eyes

"So what if I did?" You deadpanned. 

Taehyung let out a deep sigh. 

"I’m pissed cause I got worried, okay? Not everyone has a situation like ours where anyone could do shit to you because of me, so I like knowing where you are." Taehyung stressed with a serious tone. "And listen, I’m not letting you go until you tell me what's wrong. I'm fucking serious, Jagi, you did not just ignore me all week only to tell me nothing's wrong." 

"And I'm not gonna say anything. I'm fucking serious, Taehyung." You mimicked him, hoping he'd let you go. 

Taehyung dragged his tongue along the inside of his cheek and chuckled dryly, your impossibility unbelievable to him. He pursed his lips before slowly releasing you, his hands up in mock surrender. 

"Fine, you can leave then." 

You took his words without a second thought and immediately turned for the door. You had just cracked it open before Taehyung’s hand suddenly smacked it shut from behind, making you turn around startled. 

He abruptly pinned you against the door with the weight of his body, locking you in with both arms. He leveled himself to your height and peered directly into your eyes.

"And I told you, I'm not letting you go, Ms. Y/L/N." Taehyung now mimicked you as you felt him dominate you with a degree of alpha-male that left you entranced and unable to move. He drew himself closer to your face, so close that he granted no room for you to breathe. You could only stand in defeat, your doe eyes wide as you flashed them to his lips and back to his eyes. 

Taehyung couldn't resist how much he wanted you anymore.

"I always forget how challenging you can be." He spoke in his deepest, sultriest tone, that damn bass paired with his dancing eyes causing you to bite your lip. 

Taehyung watched you do so and grew hot, finding you irresistible when you were acting impossible yet became putty in his hands. You balled your hands into fists against his chest as he dangerously inched towards your neck, his proximity shooting arousal through your blood. 

His scent was intoxicating, resurfacing the numerous thoughts you had of him in his absence. He manifested butterflies in your chest,  knowing you had to resist him yet found yourself giving in.

He finally ducked into your neck, anticipating the connection of his lips until he only ghosted your skin. He breathed against you purposefully to elicit a reaction, gifted his desire when he felt your body lean into him and breath hitch. 

You hated that you wanted him to kiss you already. You craved him so desperately, so in need of his touch that just the feeling of his body pushing you against the door was enough to make you press your thighs together. 

And little did you know, a month and a week without you left Taehyung dying to devour you. 

As if noticing you getting impatient, he pulled you towards him by your waist and his lips finally crashed onto your neck, a silent groan escaping you as his plush lips began mouthing sensually. You let out a breathy moan but gathered the courage to speak up, knowing full well the high creeping up on you and you needed to get back at him.

"Maybe if you were home more often you'd remember." 

A small laugh escaped Taehyung, "So that's what this is about?" The sudden puff of his breath made you want to jump him. He deliberately pushed his hips into yours, shooting jolts throughout your core once you felt the familiar prodding of something hard. He began sliding one of his hands up and down your waist, almost in an effort to distract you. 

"Of course it is, Tae. You're never fucking home." You spoke with vexation, growing both sexually and emotionally frustrated over the way he was pressing you up against the door and inviting a stirring feeling to constrict your insides. He brought his thigh in between your legs, slightly grinding against you as he added pressure to your heat and sucked your sweet spot.

"I'm never fucking home, huh? Who do you think moves you from the couch to our bed? Makes sure you're comfortable and tucks you in? Kisses you goodnight?" He asked rhetorically, letting his teeth bite at your supple flesh and embellish you with his favourite purple marks.

"T-that's not the point, Taehyung. I'm not awake. H-how does that count as you being home?" You retaliated as best you could, snaking your hands to grab the nape of his neck, fingers trailing into the curly ends of his hair. He groaned so audibly that you grew shamelessly hornier.

"Because I do come home. I sleep next to you in our bed, even cuddle you." He began sucking underneath your jaw, wrapping his arm around your torso to press you flush against him. He kissed down your throat trying to bite and leave more hickies, pushing you back for support.

"I-I just told you, that doesn't count, Tae. You... come home when I'm asleep and leave before I wake up. I-I never see you." You tried to maintain your composure, hands hugging his head close to you. 

"But we already see each other here, don't we? You see me at practice, meetings, in the building... no?" He suddenly came off your neck and his hand flanked to your chin, advancing for a kiss. But immediate annoyance flooded you upon registering his words, pulling your face back. 

"Are you kidding me? You count that as seeing each other? All we do is rehearse choreography and work together. How is that 'seeing' each other?" You asked, baffled at his audacity. 

"Because we're at least together, aren't we? Isn't that all that matters?" Taehyung looked at you as if you were the ridiculous one, ignoring your concerns and trying to kiss you again. You immediately removed yourself from him and pushed him back, his hands letting you go.

"That's not the issue, Tae. The issue is that you're really busy and I get that, but we literally haven't done anything together in the last month. And the reason that sounds insane to me is because we work and live together, you'd expect that somewhere in that time we would’ve done something... but we haven't." You emphasized as you pled your case. 

"Princess, we've been over this. I told you at the beginning of our comeback that our time together was gonna be limited. I remember you agreeing to that and understanding. Why is this coming up now?" 

"So going an entire month neglecting your ‘princess' is what you meant? Your 'limited' seems more like 'nothing at all'.” You air quoted and crossed your arms, becoming annoyed with his ambiguity and sudden use of another pet name. 

"Okay, that's not what I'm saying. All I'm saying is that comeback season is busy, it's one thing after another and I can't always keep up with everything. There’s a lot going on; our album, company business, don’t get me started on the mountain of work with promotions, concerts, filming and photoshoots. I'm even making an entire fucking mixtape. I’m trying my damn best here." Taehyung vouched for himself, holding his hands up to defend against your accusations.

"And I'm not saying you don't try, I understand that you're busy but what I’m saying is I don't even feel important to you anymore, let alone a priority. We barely interact, you never do anything with me or talk to me, but for everyone else you’ve got all the effort in the world to spare. I get that you're an idol, I always see you working hard and I'm proud of that. But you somehow make time for everything else.. why can't you just make some time for me?" You felt like you sounded selfish, almost faltering from revealing anymore but you felt so neglected it had to be said. 

"Wh-what about you? Oh my God, Jagiya.. you're such a high priority to me. Trust me, you really don’t know what I'd do for us and you should know I’d damn well do or sacrifice anything. It may seem like I'm not right now but I promise it's not like that. You'll always be important to me, how could you think otherwise?" Taehyung was perplexed by your sudden outburst, never having known of these feelings before. He reached his hands out to you but you abruptly denied him, snapping at the question.

“Then what’s it ‘like’, exactly? Because it seems very much to me like you want nothing to do with our relationship.” 

“No, that’s-that’s not it at all. Don’t worry about this, okay bubs? Overthinking this won’t do you any good, just trust me.” 

“Trust you? You're not even answering my damn question, Taehyung, what is it then? Why aren’t you telling me? Are you fucking hiding something?” You began speculating, his repeated vagueness irking you.

“Jagi, no, just listen to me. Know that I mean it when I say you’re important to me, you’re the love of my life and you'll always be a priority. Why are you thinking like this? Where is all this coming from?” Taehyung asked incredulously, getting on your very last nerve. 

"I don't fucking know, Taehyung, maybe because you ignore me for hours on end? Maybe because you leave me every morning without considering just waking up together? I know we can't make it obvious we live together, but we’ve always found a way before, what happened to that? Your texts and phone calls are so meaningless. You make time for your friends and other people but don't make any for me." Your eyes turned glassy, tears escaping as you recalled your terrible feelings over the last month. 

"Do you know why you find me sleeping on the couch every night no matter how fucking uncomfortable it is? Because our bed literally smells like you and it constantly reminds me of you but you’re not even there. Do you know how many times I've wanted to talk to you but you're too distracted and I know you'd just push me away? Or how scared I am of bothering you? How many times I've wanted you to come home? How utterly empty and lonely the apartment feels without you even though everything about you is riddled all over it? You don't get it, Taehyung. You just don't fucking get it." You found yourself crying and clutched your chest where it felt like your heart was on display for Taehyung, the reality of everything hitting you like a 16-wheeler. 

Taehyung did nothing but blink at you for several seconds, shocked at what he just heard. Were you seriously.. that upset? His absence was that prominent? It didn't even feel like a month to him, but it seems to you it felt like an eternity. 

Taehyung unfortunately only knew his packed schedule and making sure he didn’t fall asleep where he shouldn't. A multitude of things ran through his mind on a daily basis with his chaotic life; discussing outfits with his stylist, trying to purchase that new serum his makeup artist always reminds him of, meeting with a producer to review freshly composed songs for his mixtape or finally going out for that one drink he always promised a friend or two—and he suddenly hated it all. 

He especially began to loathe his demanding life when he saw the hurt on your face; the way your eyes glistened with pain, the loneliness in your voice, the way you tried physically holding yourself together. He couldn't fathom he was the cause of such pain, wincing at how utterly stupid he was for not noticing this earlier.

I really did do something to her.

He searched for anything to say, beginning to form words but quickly stopping himself from starting a sentence each time. He only examined your crumbling state and regretted not having talked to you sooner, but suddenly wishing you informed him about your feelings preemptively.

"I.. I thought you would've said something, Y/N, but you didn't. How am I supposed to know you feel this way if you don't tell me? You-you seemed okay to me." He inquired softly, tone riddled with guilt, but his words only made a disdainful scoff leave your lips. 

"Told you? Taehyung, you have always made it clear that you're a busy person and I've always respected that. You also made clear the importance of this comeback and that I just had to understand how limited our time together would be. Of course I had to act okay. How could you expect me to come and beg you for your attention after you tell me not to seek it?"

Taehyung was taken aback, falling silent. You watched him angrily, finding it unbelievable he really had nothing to say for such a crucial argument. 

"I was fucking embarrassed, Taehyung. I thought you'd get mad at me for hovering around you while you were busy and stressed. I didn't want to fucking suffocate you." 

"What? Jagi, no, this is important. I wouldn't have reacted like that at all. If you were hurting this much you could've told me and I would've done something. You can always talk to me, how could you not know that?" Taehyung inquired with a hint of accusation and it was like every cell in your body had set off.

"Oh fuck you, Kim Taehyung. Don't give me that bullshit! Of course I know, but I also know that you just get caught up in your own world and your extravagant idol life and I don't wanna fucking bother you when you’re living it without me!" 

"Y/N, don't. I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, can you watch your tone a little?" Taehyung asked with a frustrated timbre.

"You know what? I won't, Taehyung, let's fight. Only way to get your attention, isn't it?" Your feelings had reached its peak as you decided to egg him on.

"Don't do this, Y/N. I'm trying to have a civilized conversation." 

"And I don't want a civilized conversation, it's only making you ask me stupid questions." 

"They're not stupid questions. Can you not understand my side of this?" 

"Nope, I won't because I don't care about your side, actually." 

"The fuck? And you just expect me to understand your side when you won't even try to understand mine? I’m expected to know how you feel? Well news flash, Y/N, I can't exactly read minds.” He humorlessly tapped his head for effect, quipping at you harshly.

"I'm not asking you to read my mind, I'm just asking you to fucking pay attention for once in your goddamn life." You rolled your eyes dramatically, arms crossed tight as ever. 

Taehyung noticeably grew angry at the remark, his eyes narrowing in irritation. "Do not tell me of all people I don't pay attention. You know I've changed over the years but how attentive I am hasn't. Don't ever say that to me again." Taehyung's stern voice warned you of the line you were crossing.

You immediately softened and turned your attitude down a notch, only by a margin since you knew he would never grow angry enough to do anything to you.

"Fine, you pay attention, but clearly not enough." You acquiesced, looking away from him. 

Taehyung tried his best to reason now that he sensed you yielding. "Look, this is my first time hearing about this, okay? I had no clue, especially because you seemed and acted fine with me. Of course I'm going to tell you you should've just talked to me, I'm seriously not asking stupid questions." 

"Well, I didn't want to talk to you." 

"And how was that going to help you? It's only making us argue over something so easily fixable." He indirectly accused you and you returned your eyes to his, narrowing them at his audacity. 

"Wow, easily fixable, huh? Do you really think it takes that little to earn my forgiveness after neglecting me for an entire month? Am I that easy to you?" You smiled to yourself miserably, turning away as tears spilled from you. 

Your assumptions were correct, he really just thought of you as some easy pushover. Part of this was your fault, wasn't it? Being so quiet and passive about everything. You voluntarily let him get away with everything, let him slip away without a fight, and the frustration of that realization came washing down on you, hard. 

"No, wait. That's not what I meant. I just meant that if you'd let me known earlier, we wouldn't be fighting like this." Taehyung instantly softened at your tears with regret, internally facepalming himself.

"I didn't want to openly tell you, okay? It makes me seem...like an attention-seeker, and I was so afraid of bothering you." You wore your heart on your sleeve as your voice wavered, more tears escaping as you attempted to blink them away. 

Taehyung looked at you with overwhelming worry. His heart was beyond broken now, his desire to fix everything growing stronger with every tear that dared escape your eyes. 

He needed to make this right, fast.

"It doesn't make you a fucking attention-seeker, Y/N. Stop being so worried about how you appear to me, I'm with you for a reason. I accept you in any way, especially after how much we fought for this, for us. Your feelings too, they're all fucking valid to me. I really would've done something if you’d just told me how you felt." Taehyung practically pleaded, his pouty lips and devastated eyes making it clear he just wanted to reach some sort of consensus with you. 

"But that's the problem, Tae." You sniffled, wiping some tears. "You keep saying I should’ve told you, when you should've noticed on your own in the first place." 

Taehyung felt like someone had slapped him across the face, his lips parting as a deep look of realization dawned on his gorgeous face. "I…" He trailed, but couldn't let words out. He was realizing how stupid he was, how unobservant and ignorant. He hated it all, hated that he was so busy, hated that he didn't pay enough attention and hated that he hurt you. 

You gave up when his lack of words warranted a tense silence between you two, cut short when you hastily left the room. You walked in the direction of the parking lot angrily. You just needed some air, needed to go home and cleanse yourself of him for the time being. 

You thought you were being quick enough, until you heard laboured footsteps and Taehyung's low voice echoing in the hallway, tailing you. 

"Y/N! Wait, wait! Please, don’t walk away!" Taehyung practically begged as he rushed to your side.

"I'm not gonna wait for anything, I'm going home!" 

"Stop! My manager's gonna take us home tonight, okay? We're gonna talk about this." He stated with solidarity as he grabbed your arm, eager to patch things up.

"No we're not, and I have my own car, I'm getting myself home." You snatched your arm from him and marched on.

"You can leave it here for fuck's sake, and I said stop. We're going home together and sorting this out because I can't leave you like this, okay? We need to fix this."

"Awh, all I'm getting from that is you'll finally be home for once!" You chirped sarcastically, never looking at him as you practically stomped away. You saw him falter from your side, knowing he had to have paused at the heft of your comment. 

You both eventually made it through the building’s doors, you needing to be pretty much dragged into his manager’s car despite your vehement protest, stupidly shut into the back with him.

You were turned away putting on an Oscar’s worthy performance of pretending he wasn’t there, and Taehyung was left to canvas his numerous thoughts as the car drove. 

He realized he had said nothing to your comment earlier because.. you were right. 

When was the last time he sat in a car with you like this? The last time you were both home together? The last time you both lazily threw your things onto the floor once you arrived home and immediately smothered each other after holding back all day? The last time he held you in his arms while you two watched a trashy movie? 

Holy fuck, when was the last time we had sex? Made love? 

He could only think of memories from weeks ago in quarantine, nothing recent. His solemn gaze fell upon you as he thought. He could feel the prominent tension between you two, the gut-wrenching distance, leaving a black hole swallowing his heart. He felt no ease, no affection, no love. 

When did it fucking become like this? 

He was still struggling to stomach the fact that he hurt you. He watched you regretfully, tears pricking at his eyes as he saw you attempting to hold back your own. 

He then felt the sudden need to hold you, to comfort you. You had been pulling away from him for so long that he wanted nothing but to feel his large, warm hand cradle your smaller, colder one. Reassure you that while he's stupid, he's still here. 

Taehyung looked at you and leaned over, deciding to gently slide a reaffirming hand atop yours, gripping your fingers with all the love and warmth he could muster. 

He expected you to reject him, nearly giving up on a reaction until he felt your tentative hand just barely grab his back. Surprised, he took a relaxed breath. 

I'm going to fix this.

Taehyung shut the door as you two sauntered into your apartment and you disregarded your things, heading straight for your room. You thought it would make Taehyung leave you alone, but he caught your hand as you began stepping away. He didn’t yank you; simply held your wrist, still and remorseful with your back to him. 

A long pause passed as he stood in place, silence piercing the air until you spoke coldly, "What do you want?"

“I’m sorry.” Was all he could manage, his once powerful voice so incredibly small. 

You searched for a response, the air becoming somewhat suffocating as you sighed. “I know.” 

“No, you don’t. Jagiya, I mean it. I mean it with everything I have. I'm so sorry” Taehyung insisted with meaning, like he was seconds away from falling apart if you didn't believe him. 

You could hear the sincerity in his words and you could feel how heartbroken he was, but your exhaustion amassed with all the emotions that had been attacking you all week were discouraging you from participating in any conversation right now. 

“You may mean it, but that’s not fixing anything, Taehyung. You really don’t know how it felt to have you ignore me. To see you unaffected by our time apart. It felt like you were pushing me away, like I wasn’t worth your fucking time anymore.” 

“That’s wrong, Jagiya. You are always worth my time.” 

“Then maybe you’re just a contradictive jerk, Taehyung, I don’t know!” You threw your hands up as you broke his hold, turning around vexed. 

"Because one day you're telling me to basically fuck off because you're too busy but the next you're saying I'm worth all your time? Where the fuck was that the last month then? All you had to do was spare me a couple hours a week, just a couple. I wasn't even asking for much, you could've made the time!"

“I'm sorry, okay! I’m a jerk, I get it, but I had a reason! I have a fucking reason but right now I want to apologize and say I'm sorry. I’m sorry I made you feel like that, I’m sorry I neglected you and made you feel alone, I never intended that!” Taehyung sincerely implored, eyes worried and persistent as he reached for you. 

“Then what did you intend? Saying sorry after the fact does nothing. If you didn’t intend to hurt me then what did you intend to do?!”  You shouted, evading his touch again. 

“I was doing it for you! The reason was all for you, for us!”

You couldn’t help but laugh as anger seeped into your blood, unbelieving of whatever excuses you thought he was making up. 

“For me? Us? Really? Wow, did you suddenly quit your job as an idol to become comedian of the fucking year?” You quipped venomously. "How the fuck is you ignoring me for a month 'for our relationship'?" 

Taehyung was trying hard to calm himself down, thinking twice about how he was going to handle this. "Y/N, please, just try to trust me on this." 

You scoffed disbelievingly, shaking your head as you quickly made your way further into the apartment and over to your TV. Taehyung's eyebrows furrowed as he watched you reach towards the shelf underneath it. It was adorned with cherished photos of the people you both held most dear; family, friends, the boys. Most of them consisted of Taehyung entertaining his love for photography, having snapped stunning photos of scenery, people or a combination of both he adored enough to frame. 

But many were of you two, either in front of gorgeous landscapes or adorable candids. You picked up a photograph of you two in Daegu—Taehyung's big arms enveloping yours from behind as you hooked onto them, all smiles in front of his family's strawberry farm after his camera’s timer snapped the photo.

“See this? This is something you did for us, you told me you only take and frame photos of the most beautiful moments in your life, and you gave this to me telling me it was your favourite moment.” You placed the frame down, opting to grab the gray Sherpa blanket off the couch in front of you. 

“This? You got this for me after I was diagnosed with anemia during Christmas and had been shivering for months. You told me not to worry because you’d always keep me warm and whenever you weren’t there I could use this blanket instead, think of it as you. You did that for me.” You disregarded the blanket and held up your wrist. 

“This bracelet? You got it for our anniversary and made it our equivalent of promise rings because you know I hate rings. You even made sure your bracelet matched in a way that other people wouldn't notice and was only special to us." You watched as Taehyung slightly lifted his left hand to look at the mentioned bracelet. "You did that for me, for us.” Tears were brimming your eyes as you spoke, voice growing shaky.

“Taehyung, you did all those sweet and thoughtful things for us, for me. Those are the kinds of things you should be doing, not fucking hurting me by acting like I don't matter to you, making me question everything. What’s wrong with you? How could you scare me like that? Treat me like I’m nothing and say it’s for our relationship?”

“You're not, you're not nothing." Taehyung's voice caught in his throat, trying hard to dry his glassy eyes.

"I get it, Y/N. I fucking get it, what I’m doing right now may not seem as sweet as all those other things, but I promise it’s as thoughtful, it's still all for you. I’m serious when I say that, this is all because I love you. Why can’t you just believe me?” 

"And why can’t you just say what it is? Why won't you tell me? Are you hiding something? Taehyung, what you did felt like anything but love-" 

"That’s not true. The reason is insignificant right now because I didn't mean to hurt you, I’m so fucking sorry.” Taehyung's voice shook with genuity, trying once again to approach you, gingerly, affectionately. 

Your anger couldn’t subside with the way he kept side-tracking, however, your emotions growing erratic again. "Are you kidding me? Insignificant? The reason is the most important! Just tell me, why did you ignore me for an entire fucking month?!” 

"I said it's not fucking important right now. I want to apologize first, I didn’t mean to do it!" Taehyung was desperate to reason, eyes begging you to believe him. 

“It is important! Tell me what you’re hiding.”  

“It’s not important.”

“Yes it is!”

“No it isn’t!” 

“Yes it is!” 

“No it isn’t! I'm trying to earn your forgiveness firs-Y/N, what are you.." Taehyung’s eye widened in shock.  

He couldn't finish his sentence because he watched you grab a cushion from the couch and suddenly launch it in his direction.

"What the fuck? What are you doing?!” Taehyung exclaimed as he dodged, his large hands instinctively catching the object, looking at you like a confused puppy. “Did you just throw that at me?!” 

“I did! And I'll do it again until you tell me what you’re hiding!” You challenged him like a child and started reaching for throwable things. Pens, notepads, books, even a stray plastic water bottle all went hurtling towards Taehyung. 

You couldn’t stop throwing out of frustration, his unfair gift of ambidextrous hands and incredible catching skills making you even more frustrated. 

Did he really have to be made so fucking perfect? 

He continued defending himself from your attacks until he grew annoyed, “For the love of God, Y/N, stop throwing shit! Just put everything down and listen to me, you have to trust me before I can even explain myself!” Taehyung shouted more so with concern for you, dodging a bottle of vitamins. 

Now why the fuck was that just lying around? 

You snorted condescendingly, "Again with that, trust you?" You mocked as the TV remote came into your hand. 

"You know what, Taehyung? Let me explain for you, you’ve just found someone new who's not fucking staff, haven’t you? Our relationship got too difficult and you’ve finally had enough. You’re hiding shit to save my feelings, aren’t you?” You accused him much to your dismay, angry tears pooling in your eyes.

"What-no! Fuck no I would never do or think any of that!" Taehyung vehemently denied, finally having reached you and wrestled you for the remote. He eventually pried it out of your hands, throwing it away and holding your wrists as you resisted him.

 "It’s none of that, alright? I was just so damn stressed and I had way too much work. There’s so much going on, it fucks with me and I didn't want to make you my fucking mental care, unload my idol life crap onto you. You're working just as hard and I didn't want to burden you.”  Taehyung desperately revealed trying to reach you, upset that you could even think such ridiculous, lowly things of him. 

"Don't you dare use work as an excuse. I know you were busy and stressed, but you were making time for everyone else in your life except me. Just say it, Tae. I know you're tired of us!"

"Fucking-Y/N, it's literally not that at all. I was actually busy, okay? What I said is true!" Taehyung pleaded, he knew he was only telling part of the truth, but it wasn't exactly a lie.

"It can't just be that, there's no way. What are you hiding from me? I'm serious, I'll leave this conversation if you don't, I'll leave this apartment if you don't-” 

"No! Just-alright! You really wanna know so badly?” Taehyung inquired rhetorically, his jaw locking. “Fine then. You fucking got found out.” 

You stopped fighting him and blinked, confusion riddling all your features. Taehyung sighed deeply and continued before you could say anything.  

“We got too comfortable, okay? I'm still an idol and our team heard a shit ton of rumours spreading outside the company about me dating someone. They controlled most and knew any remaining ones would just turn into baseless gossip since nobody knew your identity. I’d just get talked about which I didn't care about. But people somehow started finding your face, your name, and your information was spreading fast. Management was scared you'd be made public especially with reporters and cameras so up our asses these days and watching us. I was terrified when they told me. I couldn't let anyone know you, not when they’d do or say shit to you just because we're together… so I had to do something."

Now it was your turn to stand in shock for several seconds, utterly wide-eyed at the bullet you didn't even know Taehyung was keeping from you. 

“What-what the fuck? What do you mean? When did this happen?" 

"The same time I started 'ignoring' you. Nobody pressured me to break up with you, but I was warned to dissolve the rumours asap. I took matters into my own hands by acting the way I did to get people thinking we were either broken up or never dating in the first place. I hated doing it.. but it started working. I didn't want to tell you anything because I knew you'd just say we could solve everything together when we weren't in a position to do so." Taehyung wasn't hiding his clear anguish, upset having to recall his awful memories of the ordeal.

You were still shocked at how little you knew, finding yourself at least understanding of his actions and reasoning, but crossed your mind better ways to have dealt with this; especially ones that didn't entail hurting you.

"But Taehyung, you should've let me known. If you had just told me I wouldn't have gotten hurt like this. Why would you keep this from me?"

"I just.. I couldn't tell you. It felt like I was breaking up with you and I couldn't handle it. Even when I finally had the balls to do it I ended up prolonging because I just got so busy and pushed everything away to focus. I felt like I could deal with it on my own, fix it all by myself. I didn't want to drop this on you when you were busy too." 

You exhaled harshly, hating how unfair this entire situation was. "You could’ve told me with something like this, Taehyung. I can't just let you carry the burden all on your own, this entire problem had to do with me. We promised we wouldn’t keep shit from each other especially considering the circumstances of our relationship. Why would you break that promise?" Your eyes welled up again, inhaling painfully. 

Taehyung paused, scoffing humorlessly. "Yeah? I broke that promise? Jagi...you broke that promise too." 

You blinked again, his eyes piercing yours poignantly as you could only look back at him in defeat. 

He was right. 

He was entirely right, you hid your feelings from him and never told him anything, a clear violation of that promise on your end. But you couldn't let his wrongdoings go either, not on this; the hurt, the doubt, the thoughts he made you think. That pain was making you fall apart and the reality of it all came crashing down on you. "An apology still can’t fix this, Taehyung. I want to go to bed, we'll talk about this tomorrow.” 

You pulled away and moved towards your room until Taehyung rushed in front of you, grabbing onto your arms.

“Wait! This isn’t over, baby please, just listen to me.” 

“It is for today, Taehyung. I can't do this right now.” 

“No, I don’t want tomorrow. I want this now, I want to talk to you now.” Taehyung insisted with what seemed like his entire being. He didn't want to spend tonight like this; he didn't want you to sleep upset, and neither did he. 

“Taehyung, you’re making me repeat myself. Let me go, please. I’m exhausted.” You choked on your words, swiping your tears. 

“No, I told you I’m not fucking letting you go, especially not now.” He gripped you stubbornly, searching for your eyes.

“Taehyung, for the love of God just let me go-”

“I said no!” Taehyung's volume suddenly pierced the room, his intense aura stilling you. 

He didn't sound angry. rather in need, like he was calling out to you with his entire heart and the tight hold on your arms gave it all away. 

You finally decided to pay attention to him. His tone beyond serious, his eyes swimming with worry. His miserable face and refusal to let you go regrettably softened you. You understood him, saw the desperation and concern behind all his actions. 

But he chose to neglect you. He made you feel alone, made you overthink numerous possibilities about your relationship and even question his feelings for you.

"You.." You exhaled with agony, swallowing hard. 

None of this was easy, the nights you spent curled up on the couch overthinking, lying to everyone that you were okay, working in the studio alone to get him off your mind, blaming yourself. The accumulated pain of all those days now manifested in your chest all at once, making your heart ache. 

"You made me feel like I wasn't important to you, like I wasn't worth your time. I.. thought you found someone better, easier.. that I wasn't enough for you." Your voice crumbled by the second, your mind jumping to the one conclusion you tried to avoid the most but couldn't any longer. 

"I thought you weren't in love with me anymore." 

Taehyung's heart shattered into a million pieces, overwhelming hurt piercing his chest so violently that tears instantly betrayed his eyes. 

He couldn't bear any of this anymore, the tension, the distance, couldn't bear that you ever thought such an awful thing. Small tears escaped him as he gently placed his hands on your face, looking into your eyes with insurmountable pain before colliding his lips with yours. 

He kissed you tenderly, passionately, like his mouth was dying to express how much he'd missed you, and trying harder to prove how utterly wrong your last words were. Before you could even reject him, you found your own lips mirroring the same longing, the same need after a painful month apart.

Your eyes fluttered shut as tears stained your cheeks, the sheer love you could feel in his kiss suddenly brightening any parts inside you that had grown dark because of him. He began working against your mouth hungrily, trying to commit every inch of your lips to his memory. 

The kiss was fervent, utterly desperate, your harsh breaths mingling together as his hands on your cheeks wiped your tears away gingerly and yours clutched his hoodie tightly.

It's like he was consuming all of you, attempting to deepen the kiss with every second that passed by as he pulled you closer. And for once this past month, you didn't feel like questioning his feelings for you, because he was now serving them on a silver platter, making it blatantly obvious he had never once lost his love for you and will never do so. 

He kissed you like he wanted you and only you, he kissed you like you were fleeting and could disappear at any moment, he kissed you like you were his home, like you meant any and everything to him, like you were the only galaxy he believed in and it did nothing but set you both ablaze.

His tongue swiped your bottom lip impatiently, wanting to taste you after so long and you permitted absent-mindedly, damning every emotion except love and lust to hell, welcoming him. 

His tongue entangled with yours sloppily as you slid your hands up his sculpted neck, a soft groan escaping Taehyung's lips once you tugged his hair. 

It wasn't until Taehyung caught your bottom lip between his teeth that you felt something ignite inside you. You both panted as you disconnected, gazing at his dark eyes for a mere second before impatiently crashing your mouth onto his again. 

This time you caught him for a heated make out session, pulling his hair aimlessly as Taehyung pressed you against him with his arms snaking around your waist, both of you moving perfectly in sync with one other. The feeling of your bodies so close ignited your arousals, currents running through both your veins.

Taehyung pushed you back against the nearest wall, hard. You nearly yelped at the contact but Taehyung swallowed it with his eager kisses, getting rougher, sloppier, growing high off the feeling of you wanting more, him wanting so much more.

He brought his thigh in between you, pushing his hips against yours and you felt his hardness through his sweatpants. Your panties practically soaked at the contact, your moans devastatingly loud and hot and only making Taehyung harder. 

He brought his hands down to cup your ass momentarily as he kissed you, sliding them to the back of your thighs. You kicked yourself off the ground into his hold, legs grappling Taehyung's waist as he forced you back up against the wall. Your hands grabbed his jaw tightly, wanting all of him as your tongues moulded together. 

Taehyung felt his urges to touch you overwhelm him, utterly dying to hear you desperately say his name and moan breathlessly into his ear. He had gone too long, far too long without feeling you lose yourself to him that he needed you now. 

One of Taehyung's impatient hands moved up to fumble with the button of your jeans, disconneting to look into your eyes, his pink, swollen lips irresistible. 

"Have you been touching yourself?" He breathed hard and asked mere centimeters your mouth, forehead leaning on yours. 

"B-barely. I couldn't get myself off the same way." You exhaled harshly trying to calm down, mind woozy from the sheer adrenaline he was pumping through you. "You?" 

"Tried, but nothing felt like you." 

Taehyung returned his lips to yours breathlessly and unzipped roughly, sliding his hand inside and finding your already sopping wet heat. His fingers made contact through the soaked material and you let out a satisfied moan, throwing your head back against the wall. Taehyung chuckled proudly, pressing his lips to your exposed neck as he began lewdly rubbing your folds. 

Your walls clenched around nothing, begging for something to fill you up. You shamelessly rode against his fingers, desperate for more friction and Taehyung absolutely adored how needy you were. 

He smirked to himself as he pushed your underwear aside, his fingertips suddenly touching your bare pussy and you automatically felt sparks, gasping. 

Taehyung felt your delicious wetness and a satisfied groan left his lips. He couldn’t stop rubbing you, playing with your folds like it was a game he mastered ages ago. His digits spread you all over yourself, teasing you. He purposefully brushed over your clit multiple times and you felt nothing but fireworks, the heat between your legs growing so hot you clutched onto his shoulders to stay sane.

"Fuck.. Taehyung fuck! If you go inside.. I can't.. I'll fucking lose it." You stammered out, trying to relax but Taehyung eyed your panting figure with a smirk so evil you wished he'd just fuck you against this wall right now. 

Taehyung brought his lips to your ear and spoke lowly, the bass in his voice sending chills down your spine. 

"Then fucking lose it." 

Without warning, Taehyung shoved his two fingers inside you, a smug grin decorating his gorgeous face as he watched you nearly cry out, gripping harder into his hair and shoulder for dear life. His fingers began sliding in and out, your walls welcoming him greedily as he pumped you, milking out every beautiful sound you could make for him as he relished in them. 

Taehyung was already the hardest man on Earth, his cock painfully tucked away in his pants and aching to be inside you. You brought your forehead against his for support as he went harder, your breaths melding as you panted fucked out moans from the sheer bliss of his long fingers, just something of his dragging inside you. 

Your body moved up against the rougher thrusts of his fingers, practically fucking you open and the delectable sting certifying you’d lost it for Kim Taehyung. 

You suddenly felt your insides beginning to stir around him and you panicked, not wanting to let go just yet, just on his fingers. 

"T-Taehyung.. shit.. I can feel but- but not just on this." Your head was so gone a coherent sentence seemed impossible. Taehyung's fingers curled up inside you as he pumped a little harder, faster, making you whimper against his mouth and he used every ounce of strength he had not to swallow them with kisses, just so he could hear you. 

"Taehyung, please.." You moaned loudly and held onto him so desperately that Taehyung finally snapped, his dick throbbing to have you wrapped around him and hear his name just like that.

"Fuck this." Taehyung pulled his fingers out and carried you straight into your room.

He threw you down onto the bed hurriedly, his eyes blown out as he positioned himself above you. You breathed unevenly as you looked up at him, his body rising and falling quickly as he tried to control himself and his hungry look made you push your thighs together. 

The sight of your flushed cheeks and panting body underneath him made Taehyung's dominant side thrive. He drank you in greedily, registering this as the first time in a month he had you all to himself. 

"You don't fucking know, Y/N. All those times I had to hold back. When you walked around the studio looking sexy as hell, moving your body like pure sin, and I couldn't do a single thing to you." Taehyung's dark eyes indicated something had awakened inside him.

"What do you mean?" 

Taehyung scoffed, "You just don't get it." He mimicked you from earlier. “I was putting on a front and none of it was true. Every fucking time I saw you I wanted to lose it. Every time I saw you concentrating with that look, working, seeing your exposed skin, all the times I caught you practically eye-fucking me and I wanted to eye-fuck you back." Taehyung breathed out, voicing his pent up tension. 

"But you know what was worse? The times I saw you laughing with fucking Jungkook, screwing around with Jin-hyung, the guys acting so close with you. Watching back-up dancers eye-fuck you, hearing all their fucking comments about how hot you are, people asking if you’re single now, and I couldn't do shit because everyone was always around, watching." Taehyung breathed frustratedly, dangerous eyes locked on you.

"You know I don't get openly jealous, but my blood still boils under my skin when I see or hear those things, especially when I can’t do anything about it. I wanted you.. so badly, just wanted to take you right there in front of everyone if I could.." Taehyung nearly growled as his head hung low, entangling his hands with yours and squeezing them on the bed. 

"Then why didn't you?" 

Taehyung's eyes flashed up amusedly, "Why didn’t-you wanted me to do something in front of everyone?” His confusion softened into a little smirk. 

“You wanted to be watched, huh?" Taehyung lowered himself to your ear.  "Wanted everyone see the way I fuck you? See the way I make you mine? Fuck you open for me?” Taehyung was setting your core on fire and you had to bite your lip. 

He noticed and hated that his lips weren't on yours, quickly planting them for a kiss. 

The weight of Taehyung's leg pushing against your throbbing heat started compromising your sense of control, wanting to rile him up so bad he'll have no choice but to give you what you want. 

"Fuck, this is what I've been waiting for. Teasing you under me, cumming just from my fingers and tongue, fucking you senseless until you’re cumming again." Taehyung's words were filthy as ever and you loved every syllable. 

"Then do it." 

He smiled smugly as his mouth moved to the one spot on your neck he knew leaves you squirming. Curses left your mouth the second you felt his teeth, Taehyung adamant on leaving deep, purple marks. 

“I'm gonna show everyone you're mine, only mine.” Taehyung’s authoritative voice came out breathy as he kissed and bit in between, obsessed with seeing the art he was creating. 

"Shit… Taehyung yes, I missed you, I missed you so fucking much." You desperately stammered out.

"I fucking missed you too, baby." He smiled, his dark eyes glancing from your zip-up sweater and back to you. "But first, off."

Your hands moved for the zipper until Taehyung caught your wrists and forced them back against the bed, obsidian eyes scolding you. 

"That's my job." Taehyung spoke dominantly, hot as fuck as he stared at you while bringing his mouth down to your zipper.

His teeth caught it and slowly zipped down your body, pronouncedly breathing against your bare skin that made you hiss, arching up into him as he held your hands down. 

Taehyung was welcomed by your bra-cladded chest, basking in the glory of seeing your body after so long. He began laying kisses in between your breasts, his every contact electric. 

"Taehyung, please.. don't tease. It’s been so long." 

"We'll see about that."

He reached a hand underneath your back to unclip your bra, practically ripping the clothes off you and chucking them. 

Taehyung was heating up drinking you in, cursing at how even the sight of your naked top was making him somehow harder. 

"Shit, Jagi. You're so fucking gorgeous." Taehyung stated with haste as his large hands found your thighs that rested either side of his hips. He then slowly slid them up your abdomen, cupping your breasts and fingering your nipples. Your hands reached out to hold onto him as you exclaimed but he roughly pinned them above you, restricting you. 

He lowered himself to your chest for hickeys, kissing, licking, nibbling the flesh of your boobs. You arched and groaned as he held you down, sexually frustrated as he torturously teased you. 

"Taehyung, please… you know what I want." You breathed out, your hands resisting but he kept denying you. 

"You’re so fucking hot like this, so impatient and needy for me." Taehyung groaned, lapping his tongue over the flesh of your breasts until the tip of his tongue finally glided over your perched nipple.

You gasped at the contact, whimpering as your walls clenched around something non-existent and you bucked up into Taehyung. You could feel heat pooling at your core, begging to be battered as he sucked on your nipples, tongue doing wonders.  

Marks now embellished your chest as he kissed down to your stomach affectionately and neared your lower half, exciting your opening. 

Your eyes darted down and suddenly caught his length, poking out from his sweatpants and practically begging for attention. 

He instantly took notice. 

"No, princess. It’s about you tonight, not me, no touching." Taehyung ordered seriously, looking at you with a sense of dominance that only left you more aroused. 

You made a whiny noise, "Why not? I want to make you feel good." You retorted, wiggling your hand out to touch him until Taehyung locked you down harder. 

He clicked his tongue as he began pulling your pants and panties down your legs with one hand, his dark eyes chastising you, "We'll get to me another day." He disregarded them and let his hand feel up your thighs, bringing his face to your entrance.  

"But right now, having you like this, begging-” he nipped at your inner thigh, “making those sounds-” he licked the marks, “wet as hell for me-” he sucked your flesh, “that's all I need." His tone dropped an octave, letting your wrists go and nearing your cunt inch by inch. 

"Taehyung, fuck-don't do this. Please, it's been too long, don't tease.." You pleaded, hating the way he was shamelessly working you up.

"Do you need me, baby?" Taehyung watched your breath hitch as he kissed around your nether lips. "Need to feel me inside you? Stretch you out? Fuck the shit out of you?" His low, dark tone made butterflies fill your abdomen and all you could manage was a light nod.

"Tell me, Jagiya. Tell me what you want from me, where you want me.." Taehyung breathed against your soaked pussy and you shivered, beyond impatient. 

"Y-your tongue, your cock, Taehyung, you. Please..I can’t do this.. just fuck me, make me come all over you.." You rambled and looked at Taehyung through hooded eyes. You grabbed one of his hands and brought him directly to your dripping heat, rubbing him against your slit unforgivingly.

Taehyung groaned proudly, "Good girl. I'll fuck you so good you’ll feel me for hours, so hard I’ll have to carry you to rehearsals myself." Taehyung's filthy words rang in your ears. 

A loud moan escaped you once Taehyung's pillowy lips and tongue pressed onto your pussy, your breath hitching as his muscle began licking into your folds. Taehyung hooked onto your thighs from underneath, parting your legs wider for him. Your hands found his broad shoulders for support and you tugged at his hoodie frantically, whining. 

"Taehyung, off.." 

Taehyung drew away from you to slide his top off. He threw the sweater mindlessly as he returned, deciding to sink two fingers inside you as his tongue began licking. His newly exposed skin made you feel more aroused, tugging his soft curls to manage the bliss he was supplying you. 

His tongue licked you like he was starving, sucking and flicking your clit occasionally as his fingers curled up inside your velvety walls. You felt like crying, after such a long time the pleasure was already building up inside you and so intense you needed to let go. 

"Taehyung-Tae.. I feel it. Don't stop..." You moaned weakly, your orgasm dawning on you as Taehyung quickened his pace. His dark eyes watched you through his fluffy fringe and it was intoxicating, had you throwing your head back against the pillow just to contain yourself. 

"Come for me baby, come all over my tongue and fingers. I wanna hear you.” Taehyung cooed at you as he pumped and the tip of his tongue played with your clit faster, soothing your thigh and adoring the wet mess in between you. Your loud moans and groans sent shivers down Taehyung's spine and blood straight to his cock. 

The familiar sensation of something coiling came to you, gripping Taehyung's hair until you saw stars and felt a fierce snap, the unholiest of noises leaving you as your back arched. You panted hard, bringing an arm up to shield your eyes, the pleasure of your high dizzying as Taehyung watched you, tasting and fingering out your orgasm. 

He kissed your entrance multiple times before he decided he was done. He straightened himself up and wiped your juices off his chin, licking your essence off him. Feeling you come undone on his mouth made him go feral, needing to feel your walls hug his cock just the same.

He positioned himself above you, gently moving your arm from your face. 

"Don't hide from me." he spoke softly, intertwining his hands with yours against the pillow to adore your fucked out expression. 

You admired him innocently in the moment, his honey-coloured skin kissed by the moonlight radiating through the windows. The expanse of his broad chest and shoulders looking more bulky now that he was working out, his thick neck, the beautifully visible veins in his arms that all created the art that was Kim Taehyung. 

Your eyes scanned over him greedily until you landed on his lower half, the tent in his pants looking so painful you again ached to relieve it.

Taehyung eyed you as you licked your lips, boldly reaching out for his dick. You touched sparingly, Taehyung instantly letting out a pleasurable groan until he caught your hand.

"What did I say? You never fucking listen, do you?" Taehyung brat-handled you, his alpha male on full display. 

“What if I don’t want to listen?” You disobeyed and reached out again, gaining full contact until he grabbed and forced your hand against the sheets. 

“I’ll make you regret that." 

Taehyung quickly shuffled his pants and boxers down and past his hips, disregarding them and leaving him bare before you. 

Your eyes began ogling the angry, red tipped cock that had sprung out, looking painfully uncomfortable and leaving you wishing Taehyung had just fucked your mouth just watch him suffer. He was already leaking precum, making you whimper at the thought of him coming inside you. 

Taehyung positioned himself in between your legs, bringing his dick to your entrance. He tried to bite away a mischievous grin before sliding his cock against your folds to mix your wetness with his.

"Shit, Jagi, you're so fucking wet." Taehyung moaned with you at the pleasurable feeling. 

"Fuck, Taehyung…I can’t, I need.. inside." Your sentence was mangled, his hot flesh against you heavenly. 

"Shit, saying my name like that..I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll feel me in your throat." Taehyung growled, gripping the base of his cock and aligning himself with your entrance. You readied yourself until Taehyung stopped, a thought suddenly popping into his head. 

"Wait, you got your shot this month, right? You're okay with raw?" He asked with no particular haste, concern glossing over his eyes. 

Taehyung's chest suddenly tightened realizing he didn't even know something as simple as you getting your shot, important to him since your phobia of needles was so bad you usually needed to hold his hand or talk to him on the phone. 

But he was so busy this month he couldn't do either.  

"Of course, Taehyung, of course I did." You breathed out erratically, trying to calm down after his tormenting cock sliding. You gave his hand that held yours against the bed a squeeze, wishing he would begin battering your insides already. 

"Fuck, I know how much you're afraid of needles.. I should've been there." Taehyung became disappointed in himself, eyes faltering from yours. 

You immediately grew soft, "Taehyung.. it's okay, if it's for you then I'm not so scared. Don't worry, bubs." You said as you let go of his hands to cup his cheeks, searching for his eyes. 

"But you get them just for me..even though you're so scared. I love you for that." Taehyung doted on you as he tucked your hair behind your ear, completely contrasting his cock about to abuse you. 

"Taehyung, baby it’s okay, I'm okay. I'm with you right now. I want everything you thought of, everything you want with me… I want you." You looked into his doe eyes tinted with guilt, offering him a smile. 

Taehyung returned a light smile of his own, pressing a feathery kiss to your lips before he grabbed the base of his cock again. He gripped your hand hard as his dick compromised your opening. 

He hissed once he sank in, the feeling of your pussy opening up for him eliciting a drawn out 'fuck' to leave his mouth. 

Taehyung could feel how tight you were after a month without him; you weren't as stretched out and he felt drunk. The way your walls hugged his rock hard dick so snug, so intoxicating he wanted to completely lose control but refrained with you in mind. 

You thought you were used to the pleasurable burn of Taehyung's gifted size, already aware of how well-endowed he is but you suddenly felt a harsh sting and forced your hands against his chest, exasperating. Taehyung immediately stopped, widening his eyes in concern. 

"Are you okay?" 

"Just-just give me a second." He nodded, feeling your breaths calm down as he soothed over your arm, your walls relaxing

"Y-you can move." You voiced weakly. 

Taehyung complied and moved in considerately, failing to suppress the low groans that left him. He finally bottomed out and hit your cervix, both of you letting out satisfied grunts at the feeling of him buried so deep. He could feel the way your walls pulsed around him to adjust, adding to his lists of reasons he was insane for you. 

Taehyung kissed you as he began fucking gently, slowly, wanting to feel the way you wrapped around him, craving for you to feel every inch, groove and vein of his cock. 

The feeling of him slowly and languidly thrusting inside you felt otherworldly, the longing, the care, the love in his movements so apparent you grappled the back of his neck to hug him closer. Taehyung rocked himself against you, laying deep kisses to your mouth.

"Fuck, baby.. you're so tight." Taehyung breathed out, unable to hold back his sense of control, gradually fastening his pace to fuck you better, feel more. 

"How does it feel, princess, tell me." Taehyung cooed into your ear, now kissing underneath your jaw. Your lewd noises grew louder as he began pumping faster and Taehyung looked at you. 

"Shit, Taehyung. I-I feel so fucking good. You fill me up so good… want more.” You practically whined, head spinning at his intoxicating pace, wrapping your legs around Taehyung's torso to feel him deeper. 

Taehyung weakened at the feeling, kissing your lips with fervor and now thrusting faster as his need to come undone racked his balls, but aching to treat you first. His skin was imprinted with your scratches, him only fucking you faster in response. 

"Harder, Taehyung, fuck me harder..!" Your voice trailed with a mewl, kissing him sloppily as your desire for more of him grew unbearable. 

Taehyung smirked against your lips, "You want it harder, huh? You like that? Want me to fuck up your insides? Batter this pussy up?" 

"Y-yes, Taehyung, please." 

Taehyung already felt fucked out, wrestling with your tongue as he wrapped his arms around your torso and pressed you flush against him. You both groaned louder as his pace turned unforgiving, 99% sure your neighbours could hear every lewd sound. 

"Taehyung.. fuck. I missed you. I missed you so much!” You spoke without a thought, light-headed but hyper aware of just how much you wanted him, needed him, not only with his cock buried inside you but just him, so close to you. 

"Shit, baby.. I missed you more. So much. So fucking much, you don’t even know." Taehyung growled desperately as he fucked deeper, kissed harder, his tone coated with sincerity. 

Both your confessions made for rougher fucking, nasty tongue kissing, tighter grasps on each other. You rutted against one another shamelessly, movements faltering in precision and more so in desperation as Taehyung shoved himself inside you. 

And he watched as he did, seeing the way he disappeared into you between your bodies and enjoying the way you bounced in response. 

"Taehyung, fuck, Taehyung.." You moaned out his name breathlessly as you gripped his shoulders, feeling your abdomen flood with heat as his cock kissed your cervix. 

"Jagiya, fucking-watch it, say my name like that again and I'll fuck the living shit out of you." Taehyung warned with a growl as he rammed into you. 

"T-Taehyung.."

“Such a bad fucking girl." 

His arms suddenly locked you down in place, holding you tight as he began the roughest, hardest thrusts you've felt all night. Taehyung deliberately pulled all the way out only to smash back in as he felt your body jerk up in response, swallowing your whimpers.

Your moans were loud, ringing in your own ears as you felt yourself losing your sanity. He snapped into your gut, filled you up so good all you could feel was him. Your orgasm was bubbling in your stomach, begging for release now. 

"Taehyung, I'm gonna- fuck, I'm gonna come!”  You warned him with a pitchy yelp, the tingling feeling unbearable as his body rubbed against your clit. 

"Come for me, baby, all over my fucking cock, Let me feel you." Taehyung encouraged as he desperately tried to hold his own load, wanting nothing but to witness the way you came underneath him.

And out of nowhere your second orgasm washed over you, barely noticing the snap as you ached from oversensitivity and protested him to a halt. Taehyung controlled himself as your walls continuously clamped down on him, watching you pant from fatigue. 

But he decided on your punishment and suddenly flipped you onto your stomach, instinctively settling on all fours as you felt him prod your entrance. He pushed you to arch your back and pulled your ass up, giving a nice smack before kissing up your back like the demon he is. He sank in with no warning and began drilling into you again, setting a merciless pace and angling himself to fuck you completely open. 

“T-Taehyung, what are you doing!”

“You’re coming for me again.”  

“I can’t- Taehyung I can’t!” Your hand quickly came down to entangle with his on your hip, his deft fingers boring into your skin as he mercilessly buried every inch of his cock into you.

“You can do it! Just one more time for me princess, let go for me.” He coaxed you as he felt your walls pulsating around him again, his arms hugging your body to his and mouth breathing unevenly near your ear. 

"Taehyung, Ah- fuck! C-come inside me, please!”

"Shit, I’ll stuff you with my cum, fucking give you my kids!”  Taehyung grunted as he continued bartering your pussy, reaching down to roughly rub your clit. You cried out, half from sensitivity but half from pure pleasure, gripping his hand hard. 

You felt the coil coming back for a third time and Taehyung’s encourgements were doing absolute wonders. "Taehyung-shit I’m gonna..fuck!”

Once he delivered a particularly hard, deep thrust with his hand on your clit, you gasped out his name as another orgasm released through your body, temporarily blinding you with bliss. Your legs grew weak as you buried your face into the pillow, trying to catch your breath. 

“Just like that, baby, just like that.” Taehyung spoke supportively as he thrusted one last time before finally coming inside you, helping you ride out your climax. He groaned into your ear as he spurted hot stripes of cum inside you. You squeezed his hand on your stomach that still held you up, feeling him milk himself of every drop he had racked up just for you. 

Once Taehyung felt completely vacant of his seed, relief washed over him as he kissed your upper back, both of your bodies lax and panting for air. 

"You're amazing." Taehyung tried steadying his breathing, beaming as he hugged you from behind, cock still throbbing inside you. "I fucking… I held that back for so long."  

"You didn’t have to… I would've thrown myself at you if you just came home." You breathed shallowly.  "Could've done whatever you wanted.. I planned...on treating you cause you were so stressed." 

Taehyung rolled his eyes at himself, "Ugh-don’t remind me. I already feel dumb as fuck." 

You turned your head back and scolded jokingly, "Don't call yourself dumb, only I get to say that." A soft giggle escaped him as he let you go. Taehyung slowly pulled out and watched as he did so, viewing the mess in between your legs with admiration. 

Taehyung swiped the cum dripping down your thighs back into your core, completely stuffing you with him until he brought his fingers to your lips. He watched you lick provocatively, his breath hitching at the sight until needing to pull his fingers out. 

He then quickly made off the bed and ambled over to the bathroom, retrieving a damp towel and cleaning you up gingerly. He plopped down next to you after discarding it and threw an arm over his eyes. 

You turned to look at him, feeling the butterflies of him next to you flood your chest. You wiggled closer and propped yourself on an elbow to gaze at him, your other arm laying on his chest. 

Taehyung felt your eyes on him and spoke without looking. "Hi."

"Hi," you moved his arm from his face, echoing him. "Don’t hide from me."

Taehyung grinned at you, lifting his arm. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" 

"Like you're madly in love with me. Don’t do that, I don't really deserve it." He stated dejectedly, evading your eyes to rather view the night sky. 

"Kim Taehyung, what did you just say to me?" 

No response. 

You sighed, "Bubs, look at me." requesting with a softer tone and he returned his eyes to you hesitantly. You wagged your finger at him.

"Don't say that, okay? Maybe you should’ve told me, maybe I should’ve been more vocal about my feelings, maybe we both should’ve just communicated. It's not only your fault, it's mine too so please don't say that." Your bottom lip jutted out and your eyes implored him, upset that he was insulting himself. 

He deserved every ounce of love in this world. 

"Maybe.. I just..Fuck, you need to know I hated doing it, okay? Every time I saw you in that building I was dying to be with you, but I had to hold back to protect you. I couldn’t bear something happening to you, and please, please don’t think I don’t love you anymore. I do, I love you more than you’ll ever know. If I could throw all of this away for you I would." Taehyung spoke sincerely, remembering the way he saw you admit such an awful thought and he hated that he was the cause of it.

"You really don’t know how hard it was. I’m writing lyrics for my mixtape and they all end up about you. We're out at a photoshoot and I always wanted to send you pictures. I didn’t use SNS, call or text you because I knew it’d just be harder for me to create that stupid ass distance.” Taehyung ran a hand through his hair as he sighed, frustrated about it. 

“Even when I was shooting commercials I thought about your reactions if you saw them. I missed you the whole time, more than you know. I just couldn’t risk anything, there was so much on the line with you and I wasn’t going to give you up. Work got in the way and there was so much happening and I just-" 

“Shh shhh.” You calmed him down reaching for his cheek. “Thank you for that. I'm sorry you had to do everything by yourself, had to carry all that responsibility alone." Your lips quivered, catching Taehyung's attention. 

"No, it's okay. I'm the one who made you think all those shitty things. I do find you annoying, but I could never find you that annoying." Taehyung quipped to lighten the mood and you smacked his chest. 

"Hey!" 

"I'm kidding, Jagi." Taehyung chuckled before letting out a long, hard sigh. "I was just so swamped with this comeback, I’m working really hard for it and got too focused." He explained regretfully, tucking his hands underneath his head. 

"So you just thought fuck me for a little while, right?"

"Wha-no I didn't, I mean.. I did just fuck you but-not like that…shit, just come here!” Taehyung suddenly turned onto his side and threw his arms out, you scooted over to him instantly, giggling. He tightly wrapped his arms around you and hugged you close, pressing his lips to your hair and you kissed his shoulder.

Your hand absentmindedly found his and you intertwined them, causing a warm and comforting feeling to spread across your chest. 

You found yourself becoming smaller in his hold, clutching his hand to compose yourself because you didn't feel like ruining a passionate night with tears. 

Nonetheless, Taehyung sensed you growing vulnerable and pulled you on top of him, your naked bodies flush against one another. Taehyung immediately showered you with comfort, clutching you close to him.

"I’m not going anywhere, you’re with me for a lifetime, Jagiya." The smooth bass of Taehyung's voice eased you, reverberating from his chest as he senselessly soothed your back.

"Please, don't do that again. Please just tell me next time when there's a problem, I'll tell you too and we can work it out together." A hint of desperation tinted your tone, shutting your lips together to prevent yourself from crying.

"I won't, baby, I promise." Taehyung hugged you a little tighter, running a hand through your hair. 

"I love you, Taehyung." 

"I love you, Y/N." 

[seakicker]

juju do you ever miss your previous blog? /gen not just your works but your bigger following or the genshin community from a few months ago and all 🤔 please ignore this if it‘s annoying you im jus curious is all!

i thought about this for a little while after i first started up this blog back in july and i think initially i sorta did, but i think i had gotten so caught up in the rat race of followers and numbers and interaction and the subjective concept of "big blog" versus "small blog" that it started to be kinda unhealthy for me in a way. constantly comparing my interactions to other peoples' interactions, wondering if people consider me a """big blog""" (i use this in quotes because there's genuinely no way to tell 99% of the time since follower count is private and you have no clue how many followers anyone has at any given time), that sort of thing-- it had started to become less about being a writer + having fun and more about being this sort of image of seakicker as if she's some kind of character i play. maybe i overemphasize some parts of myself here and underemphasize other parts, but that's just how everyone is i think. everyone's at least a little different online than irl and in some ways but ultimately it's all just the same me. ive always found it important to have some sort of image/brand recognition (so to speak) where people Know me so i think i got too caught up in that before w follower count and stuff as a consequence; i wanted to be someone people really thought about. a little ego issue if you will lol

im not worried about that sort of thing anymore. my interaction is really great as far as i'm concerned (i have a very good flow of asks and it makes me feel really bad that i'll never be able to get to every ask i receive), i have very very kind followers and friends and i receive really good feedback on my posts and fics, i have fun doing what i do and i dont really view seakicker as a character i play (rather than somebody i just am) anymore and i have a very nice blog here.

in terms of overall followers, yeah i have fewer right now than when i deactivated my og blog bc that one was just up for longer, but in terms of follower growth im growing at the same rate i did on that blog. i don't want to worry about numbers anymore and unironically hearing vox talk about his relationship with his following/numbers/interaction has really been healing for me as well... kinda crazy to think that both a youtuber with 1mil subscribers and a humble porn author with an audience of a couple thousand have the exact same insecurities and fears when it comes to content creation and interacting w an audience

tl;dr i don't miss it and i genuinely view myself, my presence, and my blog more positively now

[gaymershigh]

I'm so excited to find a blog who actually does Male/Gender Neutral pronouns! My request headcanons where GN!MC badly hurts their ankle during PE so individually Malleus, Vil, Leona, Jade, and Jack carrying them to the infimary. Probably mostly platonic but kinda leaning towards wanting to be more than friends?

I'm a sucker for 'platonic with some romantic elements' type of tropes so this is a big yes for me!

Triggers: none

Malleus, Vil, Leona, Jade, and Jack carrying g/n reader to the infirmary after they severely injured their ankle in PE

He knew that you're reckless and bound to injure yourself in any type of way just from how brave you are from talking to him. You called him "Tsunotarou" and you've now been chatting with him as much as you get the chance to or when he appears outside the Ramshackle dorm. Though he doesn't mind it, he knows that you should be more careful.

So when you injured your ankle, he was only shocked for a mere second. Again, it's supposed to be expected when it comes to people like you but that doesn't make him any less concerned. He ran his way towards you and that enough makes other students feel uneasy. Even if you two are closest of friends, you usually spend time without anyone there to see so you two are a very bizarre combo to the others.

He had asked you if you were ok and if you could walk again. Your ankle was sprained and your denial of being in pain almost fooled him if you didn't wince as soon as you tried to stand up. He was a fae, his ability to handle pain has far surpassed any ordinary human so he wouldn't fully understand but can still recognize that you're in a rather agonizing situation.

Malleus had no choice but to pick you up from the ground, not as he minds it but what he does mind is people not minding their own business and just stared at you two, God bless Mr.Vargas for telling them to resume the activities. There was no use if you're trying to make him put you down or get yourself down by yourself as he was way too strong, even if his grip wasn't tight at the moment.

He actually has no idea what's wrong with you, he doesn't know why you can't stand up on your own so you have to do the talking. The nurse persisted Malleus to go back to his lessons and it irritated him but you also shooed him out and told him to visit later when he's free. Very questionable as to why he's free as PE ended but you couldn't care less. He always visits you every day because of how you always manage to make him happy and his heart flutter and he is not sure as to why.

Vil always has loathed your carelessness. He has pointed it out several times and telling you to be careful but you just couldn't help but get into countless troubles and it's not helping that your best friends are intentionally and unintentionally troublemakers. He never gave up on scolding you for your careless actions as he wants his..friend to improve but it does get tiring getting angry over the same thing over and over again.

So you falling and harming your ankle until you can't even stand up without the feeling to cry was not surprising in the slightest, just like what Malleus felt. He facepalms to your recklessness before walking up to you to ask if you're ok but NOT before scolding you, telling you that your actions have consequences and other junk but you never cared enough to listen.

Once you said that you might have sprained your ankle, he dramatically sighed and called you a fool for that. Since even walking you to the infirmary was already hard for your side, he had no choice but to pick you up and asks you to stop struggling or freaking out so much like you weren't gaining enough attention from injuring yourself.

While he's used to getting attention, he doesn't like the one he's getting right now as this could end up with multiple scandals of you and him maybe dating. While he's not opposed to dating you- wait, what is he saying!? He doesn't like you that way, right? It doesn't matter is what he thought to himself at the moment as the main priority is to get your butt into the infirmary and do a three-hour lecture on why you should be careful as the scolding wasn't enough. He called out the people staring as rude and should mind their own business and to continue their PE lessons.

He got really upset when it was confirmed that your ankle injury was rather severe and not just mild as it would take about four weeks or even more to fully recover. He understood fully and left the premises as he does have a class to attend but worry not, he will visit you any free time he has. If he couldn't visit you, maybe a video call would suffice. While he wouldn't treat you like royalty, he would be softer with you as he slightly pities your condition. As you were discharged and needed to walk with a cast, meaning you will be slower than before, meaning Vil would also slow down his pacing as you are his friend! Yeah, friend..

Your recklessness was annoying but also what makes you interesting in the lion's eye. It was so entertaining to see a creature with sentience to have very little to no sense of danger. While he doesn't like the part where he gets involved but when he isn't and you're just figuring stuff by yourself is such an amazing show he could watch forever. Well, as long as you don't get seriously injured or something because truth to be told, he doesn't want you in any type of physical pain because surprise surprise, you're his pal.

So when something Leona doesn't want to happen to you happened, he mentally groaned in annoyance because he needs to get up from this comfy spot under the tree but he's still worried of course, it's just not obvious at all. People would've thought that he hated you or something when he saw him walking to where you are with a dead cold stare. When he found out that you were your cause of agony, he gave you an "Are you serious" look. He's very disappointed facial expression makes you embarrassed even more now.

He spat out a monotone "you ok" line, you thought that he was a robot for a second. You said yes and he told you to get your ass up from the grass and you obliged but failed to do so. When he saw you winced as you were trying to get your left foot standing, he knew damn well you aren't ok and gets more worried. However, his expression never changed. He sighed one more time before picking and throwing you on his shoulder in one swift. Your struggles are no use as he was stronger than you.

He glared at the people that dared to stare, especially to the ones that were whispering to one another about utter nonsense, aka stupid "are they together?" Rumors. He decided to tell the nurse what's wrong with you but it was worded so bad that you had to do it in the end anyway, making him scoffed like he just didn't say "their ankle broke or something". He refused to return to his class because it's boring but deep inside, it was because he wants to stay by your side for the entire time of your recovery.

Even if you're discharged and able to walk with a walking boot, he still stuck at your side even from afar as he doesn't want to see you do anything stupid and maybe twist your spine as he does not doubt that you're capable of doing so because of how unpredictable you are. And maybe it's also because, from all the time he has spent with you during his visiting times, something about you shined more inside him. Inside where exactly? Inside his heart.

Jade loves this recklessness you hold. It's the reason why you're so unpredictable and he loves that about you. One second you will be the smartest person in the room, the next second you almost fall off from the second floor of the school building because some of your papers were accidentally been blown by the wind. While sometimes it can be quite troubling, most of the time it's enjoyable.

But now is the times where it's not as entertaining. He did the wrong decision of not keeping his eyes off you for more than 20 minutes to focus and trying to hone his flying skills as he heard you wailed in pain somewhere not too far away. He walked his way calmly to the source of your sounds of misery and see you lying on the grass with the broom beside you, absolutely helpless. He chuckled at your deadpanned face before asking if you're ok. Whatever your answer is, he knows damn well you aren't as you were wincing a lot as you were trying your best to get up.

He offers to walk you to the infirmary and you happily oblige. Only like two or three people would stare for a few minutes as walking you there isn't an abnormal situation as they did it before as well for other injured students. Just as soon as you two reached the hallways, where nobody is around to glimpse, he picked your figure up and continue your journey to the infirmary. If you asked him why he's doing this, is because it's faster and convenient to do it this way. Also, your face got so red when he picks you up and he thinks it's adorable, making you even redder.

For real though, seeing you all blushed up is quite endearing, he might tease you even more just to see that red face again. Anyways, he perfectly explained the situation of your ankle with some condescending remarks in it. He's a very busy man so he doesn't have that much time to visit you so he wishes you to discharge as fast as soon as possible so he can see your lovely face as much as usual.

So when you do discharge, he would always accompany you to wherever you're going if he's not doing that already. No matter if you need a cast or not, he would always treat you like a patient or even more, like royalty. He believes that he should make it up for not being able to visit, especially since you're always complaining to him how boring it was staying in the infirmary bed for four weeks. He can even get you red with this little special treatment, so why not go for it? It even secretly makes his heartbeat fast as well.

Jack hates people who do not think before doing their actions and you are no exception. Nobody knows how you guys got to be friends to begin because it feels so impossible. Maybe because you two were paired up for an alchemy class project? But he still sticks with you for more than eight months already. Maybe he likes you? Or he's like your low-key guardian? Yes, the latter is the second but the first one could be a possibility, who knows.

That's why he gets more irritated when your recklessness is the cause of your distress. He could take it as your punishment for being so careless and take this as a lesson but knowing you, that will never happen so that gets him even more irritated. He runs up to you and scolds you for a few minutes about why you should be careful and such, it's surprising how he's so calm despite how many times he has scolded you about the same thing. After that useless scolding, he finally asked if you were alright or not. He scoffed when you lied about your ankle injury and have no choice but to pick you up from the grass.

Why would you even try to make him drop you off? It doesn't matter how much you annoy him on the way to the infirmary. If someone's injured he takes thing seriously, especially if it's his totally platonic mate that was in pain no matter how severe it is. He would get rather defensive and would throw hands with people who are saying things that maybe your relationship is more than friends so, please remind him that you're injured and your health is something he shouldn't be easily distracted and fight people who don't know how to mind their business, even though you might not care for your ankle yourself.

You kinda did not tell him what's wrong with you nor did he even asked in the first place so you'll do the talking. He got pretty surprised when you told the nurse you have an ankle injury, even more, astonished when that it's in a severe category now. He didn't like that you were taking your conditions lightly and joking about it too. He's a good boy, so he would follow the nurse's orders to leave to resume his lessons. Just like Vil and Jade, he wouldn't visit you every day as he still needs to prioritize his school life and such. Though, he might cut a tiny bit of his workout schedule to visit you until you discharge.

So when you do discharge no matter if you need a walking boot or a cast or just nothing, he will keep his eyes on you more frequently as he doesn't want to see you do some dumb stunt and hurt yourself again. He would make your stay in the Savanaclaw areas close to him and let you do whatever you want while he works out. As long as you stay nearby and don't wander off. I repeat, he doesn't want his probably future lifelong mate to have a single scratch on their face.

OMG!!!!! I FINALLY FINISHED A FIC DESPITE GETTING ALWAYS DISTRACTED!!! I'M SOOOOO HAPPY!!!!! 😭💜✨✨

~𝕸𝖎𝖗𝖎

[lokigodofaces]

I was thinking about this earlier today, and at first it started out as a criticism of Thor: Ragnarok, but I honestly can't call it that anymore. This is about film in general. Ragnarok does have this issue, but this is so much bigger than it. But I have some issues with how alcohol is portrayed in movies and TV.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be alcohol in media. Alcoholic beverages are common in lots of cultures. But, I don't know, it feels like sometimes that media handles alcohol in poor ways.

The example I had that got me on this line of thought is Valkyrie's alcoholism in Ragnarok. It's treated as a joke. Heck, there's a part where Thor misunderstands her and thinks she's trying to stop and when he voices his support and concern over her drinking habits, it's quickly turned into a joke. Because of course Valkyrie isn't going to stop drinking, her alcoholism is too funny! And I was going to post about that and how concerning this is and that so many people found it funny when I realized that this isn't a Ragnarok issue, this isn't a Taika issue. This is an issue in American media (and possibly in other cultures, though I don't know enough to say anything on that matter) that bleeds into all sorts of stories.

So often I see stuff where a character has unhealthy drinking habits and the narrative never really suggests it's a bad thing. Honestly, Arrow is the only things that come to mind that don't make jokes out of alcoholism constantly (didn't finish it, but at least two characters struggle with alcoholism, one of them multiple times, a minor struggles with drugs and alcohol, and pre-island Oliver was an irresponsible partier that routinely got drunk and rowdy which was looked down upon by the narrative). Iron Man 2 wasn't bad (but I haven't seen it in ages, might be wrong. They at least made it pretty clear that Tony's alcoholism and erratic behavior weren't healthy). Oh, Umbrella Academy! I've seen like 4 episodes but I like how they've handled everything with Klaus and drugs and alcohol so far! Same with Five! I don't know if it was intentional with M*A*S*H, but I always felt like all the crazy stuff Hawkeye and Trapper and then BJ do is a way to cope with all that's happening, so I always interpreted the large amount of alcohol consumption as them trying to cope in a way that isn't that great (taste of home, numbs the pain for a while, but not great consequences). So I don't mind it because with the crap they've seen, it doesn't feel surprising that they'd drink. And as the show goes on alcohol does start to be less important (and those are better seasons for other reasons as well).

So that is three things where I liked how alcoholism was handled. Outside of that, it always feels like alcoholism is turned into a joke or not seen as a problem. Or even as a natural And maybe this is just me, maybe I'm interpreting things wrong, I don't know. But I'm tired of this.

Alcoholism is a problem. A study found an extremely large amount of people died of alcohol-related issues in 2020 in America. More than people died of covid. From 2018 to 2019, this number increased by 2%. From 2019 to 2020, 25%. Desperate coping mechanism because of covid. Doctors are worried that habits formed during the pandemic will continue in people's lives and cause all sorts of problems later. Do you see how big of a problem this is? And it looks like it'll only get worse. What doesn't help? Movies treating alcoholism as cool or funny.

[fireemblems24]

Post Grondor Field AM Analysis

I'm prefacing this by saying that I'm still not sure I can write a good analysis of this scene for two reasons:

1. I don't know what comes after, and

2. I'm very emotionally involved in what happened.

But I tried my best. One thing is for sure though, what happened in Grondor in AM was an incredibly significant turning point for AM and Dimitri and my thoughts and analysis on it will definitely expand as I keep writing about and playing the game.

Part of me is just so happy I got to see Dimitri's supports, have the inevitable turn around, and get to do things like tea and dinner time again that it's hard to be objective about this scene.

And by "this scene," I don't mean that actual fight at Grondor, but everything from Fleche's attack to Byleth's words in the rain later.

It wasn't all about Byleth . . .

Given how poignant Dimitri's character arc has been so far, I had a deep rooted fear player-pandering would ruin it. Byleth, as a concept, isn't bad, but too often the heaps of praise feel underserved and other things (like Claude's intelligence, Edelgard's relationships with everyone else) get ignored to make more room for player-pandering.

Thankfully this did not happen. Byleth, throughout the early chapters of AM's part 2, failed to reach Dimitri. And, honestly, seeing Byleth actually struggle for once has done wonders for how I view her character. Still, I worried that player-pandering-power, rather than something that felt earned, would cause the inevitable eye-opener for Dimitri.

But it wasn't just Byleth. Fleche's vengeance kicked everything off, what veered Dimitri away from his fate in other routes. He accepted his death at her hands, not bothering to defend himself. Rodrigue stepping in the way and his parting words forced Dimitri to confront things he'd ignored. Throughout AM so far, people have posed questions to Dimitri who refused to answer them because he didn't want to face what they asked. But Rodrigue dying for him, spending his final words telling Dimitri to live for himself - combined with Fleche's attack - forced Dimitri to confront things he avoided. It wasn't until after all of that when Byleth steps in.

And Byleth didn't "fix" him either. Dimitri's supports show a young man who's still very much struggling with his mental health, poor self-image, his previous actions, and wondering if he deserves not only to live for himself - but if he even deserves to live. Byleth didn't hand-wave Dimitri's problems away.

Everything about the scene is stronger because it didn't fall back on player-pandering, but more earned, realistic, and dramatic actions and consequences - including Byleth's involvement which felt far more earned than usual because of prior failure.

But I wish Dimitri's friends played a bigger role.

Not everything was perfect though. I wish we got a little more than we did from Dimitri's house mates - especially his childhood friends Sylvain, Ingrid, and extra special mention to Felix and especially, especially Dedue.

Throughout all of AM, none of the above mentioned characters feel utilized to their full potential. This isn't a problem exclusive to AM, and by all means it's far from the biggest offender, but given how close all the ties are in AM, it's felt when it's not there.

I still don't know what exactly I would've done with them. Maybe I'd need to make the game an actual novel to do it, and you can't forget how perma-death has historically held back games at times, limiting major moments to a select few "retreat" candidates.

Still, though, getting a bit more from Ingrid, Sylvain, Felix, and Dedue would've made the scene even more powerful.

I actually really liked the scene in the rain.

I haven't made it a secret that I dislike Byleth. Or maybe disliked is more accurate. Lately I've been rethinking my stance on Byleth, in part because I've heard from people who like her or found ways to make her work and from my own thinking about the game while planning future write ups.

I don't think it's Byleth I really dislike, but the player-pandering. Separating the two isn't easy, but it's easier since I've starting coming around to seeing Byleth as her own character.

There's been a few moments that made me care for Byleth, and this scene in the rain was one of them. Because she didn't just fix everything. She tried and failed for months to reason with Dimitri, and despite everything she never gave up on him or failed to keep offering her hand.

I'm not going to lie. I got all the bubbly, heartwarming, heartbreaking feels the writers wanted me to in this scene. Seeing Byleth reach for something and fail, and then finally, finally get through was rewarding in a way many of Byleth's prior accomplishments aren't because this one felt earned. And by God did she earn it.

Some people will likely disagree with that last point, but I disagree with them. She asked Dimitri hard-hitting questions, forcing him to come to unpleasant conclusions rather than trying to force him into anything. She kept Dimitri from veering to far off course, even at expense to herself when she killed Randolph. She saved Dimitri from Fleche when he refused to save himself. She quietly supported him, coaxing out the good she knew was still there and refused to give up on.

I'd never in a million years say someone in real life should put up with Dimitri's toxic behavior and verbal abuse, even considering his extreme trauma and aggravated mental illness. But seeing someone fuck up so badly still get forgiven, still get supported, still struggle but honestly change for the good, still get loved, start to accept and forgive himself through the power of love and forgiveness from others is very powerful, especially since media so often downplays those "softer" things as weakness in comparison to the "badassery" of ambition and stoicism. Using Byleth, who previously had little experience with feelings, who was encouraged to experience them in healthy ways by Dimitri, return the favor isn't really the worst choice.

It's cliche, but cliches aren't always bad.

The mentor dies. Redemption in the rain. Revenge against the protagonist's actions opens their eyes. Etc . . . This scene was chuck full of cliches, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Tropes serve an important narrative purpose because a writer can rely on them to convey a message to the audience that either saves time or sets them up for something unexpected or even expected. Fire Emblem has always and will always be incredibly cliche and full of tropes. It loves tropes so much there's in-universe ones that make some unit or character discussions sound like a foreign language to people outside of or new to the fandom, talking about "Ests" and calling someone a "Camus."

What matters is if a story pulled something off well, not if it's terribly unique. A mentor dying is powerful because it forces the student to grow. Redemption in the rain is high symbolic of water washing things away + the somber atmosphere rain creates. Someone trying to get revenge against a character provides an eye-opening experience about the ripple effect of their actions. We see these things in fiction all the time because they work.

All the tropes worked like expected in this scene. Using images instead of cut scenes did make less of an impact, but more on that later.

Tl;dr: There's nothing unexpected or terribly unique about what happened. It was honestly painfully predictable, but that doesn't make it bad and is in a series that does this all of the time.

The voice acting carried because those images can't.

A major downside to this scene is that it used vague images instead of a cut scene. I get that budget and time were likely concerns, but many cut scenes from earlier in the game seem rather trivial. Did we really need that dance one? Really? I don't think so.

This was a hugely important, action heavy moment. Using one or two still images to convey everything that's happening and all those emotions, really makes it less than it could've been.

That said, the voice acting saves it. I've raved about how amazing Chris Hackeny is as Dimitri, so nothing new here. Rodrigue's and Fleche's VAs also did a fantastic job. No one oversold or undersold the emotions. Even without the cut scene, you felt what happened thanks to the skill of the actors. This scene would've been so much harder to engage with without them, if this was an older FE game where all you got was text. This is 100% one of the moments highly elevated by the decision to have a fully voiced game and choosing high caliber talent (let's not talk about Radiant Dawn's voice acting).

Questionable support timing.

One issue I had came right after the scene when I viewed Dimitri's supports. The nature of some - like his with Raphael and Alois - didn't quite line up with the character I saw in dialogue right after. I wish they staggered them a bit more or got picker about what you could get in part 1 or 2.

This isn't limited to Dimitri either. In the same support batch, I also got a Marianne B support where she still had no confidence or self-worth. And then like 10 minutes later I talk to her in the monastery and she mentions about how seeing all the death in Grondor made her value her life even more.

In the past, I've also received entirely valid opinions that Dorothea in part 2 is hard to understand because she's cherry and flirty in her supports, and morose and hates the war in her monastery stuff, making her seem inconsistent.

It's a bit jarring. It's not really an issue for characters who don't change much like Edelgard or Raphael, but even for characters with more subtle differences than Dimitri, Marianne, and Dorothea - like, say, Lorenz - you get a lot of weird stuff because of supports. I just think Dimitri's stands out because he's a main character with a really prominent, important turning point for his growth.

[antiloreolympus]

8 Anti LO Asks

1. Nah but i agree tho, hermes and persephone in lo just have more chemistry and actual history/compatibility that she just doesnt have with hades, and the same can be said with hades and hera. its just wild the whole point of the comic is supposed to be about hxp and yet theyre so boring//illogical meanwhile decent writing goes into them being with other people.

2. LO is supposed to have modern values, yet the gods, or at least hades, are authoritarians? like the denizens of the underworld do not like him, so they have every right to question persephone and see if shes actually going to be a good queen to maybe make their lives better and not just someone to aide in hades' abuses of powers, and it's pointing towards the latter. how is this "progressive' if it promotes absolute monarchs are allowed to do whatever they want and face no consequences for it?

3. so much of what could have been interesting design symbolism is just gone. persephone and hades were dressed in white and black to look like a bride and groom? now every guy wears a black suit and the women all wear white, no matter the relationship. the red eyes are to symbolize persephone's inner darkness and feelings? theyre just slapped on at random now. her hair length lost all meaning. persephone isnt even a unique color anymore. any thought that was once there is just gone now.

4. good lord the person who interviewed rachel for that fancast is kissing her ass hard, arent they? people have been fancasting their stuff for years now, even when it's just for themselves, she's hardly the first or most important person to do so, esp when it comes with some, ahem, rather racist undertones. why are most if not the only people of color the villains or hypersexual compared to the pale and pure persephone? rachel please check your internalized biases here for a second, please.

5. Maybe it's unwarrented, but the non-greek names of some of the nymphs pisses me off to no end, and I'm not even Greek. They feel so out of place! Why does EVERYTHING have to be Americanized?!?!

6. the flying stuff persephone does also is such a dumb cop out? like one of the most iconic things in myth is the chariots and their animals, including demeter having flying snakes. plus shes not even unique in it either? like hermes flies, so does zeus and hades and im sure basically everyone else, so who cares? how is it a big deal if persephone does it? doesnt that also just make the powers of the gods less unqiue? like so whats so special about hermes then?

7. does anyone know why hxps first meeting was retconned tho? bc them meeting with cerberus is still something webtoons clings to advertise it yet thats not canon anymore bc they met way earlier with persephone being naked, him drunk, and her possibly being underage at the time too?? like theres so many dumb writing choices in this series but retconning the one iconic part in nearly 4 years of publishing for a creepy new version that just makes the series more confusing is so??? why???

8. Okay the shading on Persephones outfit with her pink skin tone makes the outfit look pink as Well.

Also lmao Hades outfit makes him look like a military dictator not a king. The tassels on the coat make it seem like hes going to war not to court.... Well I guess he is sorta declaring war on Zeus by not backing him and protecting Persephone - whos currently a "traitor to the triarchy".

(Also why is Persephone so Tiny next to him?? I can't be the only one who thinks she looks like a child?? Or young teen and not a young woman?)

Whyre people getting mad at Demeter? Shes a mom. She was worried about Persephone. And yeah, maybe the questions arent the "most pressing" but if I was Demeter I too would be wondering where my (basically) teen daughter was staying (with a friend or 40 yr old man who you barely know).

And considering Demeters insistence on whether Perse was with Hecate makes me think Hecate lied to Demeter - so shes likely covering Hades and Kore's asses because she knows its creepy and that if Demeter knew the truth she would (rightfully) freak out. (And I would also be concerned with why the underworld staff are referring to my daughter who I haven't seen in weeks as "my lady" and (I know she didnt hear this, but) why the king of the underworld is referring to Perse as "his wife" even mistakenly).

[jgvfhl]

THE NUMBER LADS ARE STILL HERE!!

Some of these chapters might be uh... less than consistent with the actual chronology of TCW but that's what they get when they don't air the episodes in order! (Read Part 1 and Part 2!)

CT-2222 = Do-si-do = Double Trouble

CT-3333 = Trees = Leafs

ARC-5555 = Fives (duh) = high fives

ARC-1409 = Echo (honorary number lad) = BetterDomino

CC-6666 = Sixes/Death = DEATH

ARC-7777 = Sevenset = RedBoiiiii

CT-8888 = Loops = Loopy

Trees had almost forgotten about the Numbers meeting. Honestly, the only thing reminding him of the day of the week was his own internal clock. A lot had happened, okay? Geonosis was never “fun” for anyone, and he was just glad it was over. His general and commander had both nearly died there--which was only a first for Commander Offee, because that had been the second campaign to Geonosis, and that wasn’t even including the damn brain worms--kriffing sithspit he needed a nap.

But a nap would wait until he could tell the others he was okay. Fortunately, he’d set a reminder for it, so at least he wouldn’t be getting half a dozen comms from Sevenset or Do-si-do about being late. The rest of his squadron was sound asleep by the time the meeting was supposed to start, so out of courtesy, Trees walked to the mess hall, which, at this time, was all but empty. One or two others milled about, looking just as exhausted as Trees felt. He took a seat in one corner, setting the holoprojector on the table and waiting for the transmission to start.

And trying not to fall asleep.

Sevenset started the meeting, Fives and Echo standing beside him like they had last month. They were approaching graduation by now, weren’t they?

“Hey, Trees,” Sevenset smiled.

“Hi.”

“How was bug world?” Fives asked.

Trees gave them a deadpan stare. “How do you think? I’m sure your friends in Torrent have plenty of stories.” The 501st had also been on Geonosis--their Commander Tano had been with Commander Offee onboard the medical transport infested with kriffing brain worms.

Echo smirked. “Yeah, we heard General Skywalker and Commander Tano threw Captain Rex off a building.”

“They did what?” Loops had appeared just as Echo had started speaking.

“Yeah, they’ve done it a lot, apparently,” Fives nodded.

“Kinda sad I missed it,” his batcher said.

“Devastated.”

Trees blinked slowly. “You aren’t. Believe me.”

Sevenset chuckled. “Yeah, you look like you’re falling asleep over there.”

Trees rubbed his face. “Yeah well,” he sighed, resting his chin on his hand, “when your general and commander nearly die twice on the same campaign, and somehow it involves mind controlling parasites, you’d be a little tired.”

The other four all raised their eyebrows at him. Before they had time to ask questions, however, a third hologram appeared. Trees recognized Do-si-do instantly, sitting at a table instead of in his cockpit like normal. But next to him was a new face--as it were. Judging from the glasses on the table and the shifting lighting, they were at 79s on Coruscant. Lucky bastards.

“I found zero!” Do-si-do announced happily. The man next to him gave a little two-finger salute.

Right after that, two more holograms appeared, which made Trees blink and sit up a bit straighter. He was used to Commander Sixes by now--honestly, he was--but after years of training to recognize COs and react accordingly, it was hard to shake the urge to go to attention. But the commander wasn’t the only one joining. Judging by the dull fuschia color of his armor, this was number four, from the Nova Corps.

He looked like he would rather crawl under a rock. Trees had felt similarly upon being press-ganged by Sevenset and Do-si-do to join them.

Sevenset’s face lit up at the two new holograms. “Commander!”

“Stow it, ARC,” came the immediate gruff reply.

“We’ve got two ARCs now,” Do-si-do was quick to point out, tapping the pauldrons of the man next to him.

The commander looked at the newcomer, then looked back at Sevenset. “He knows who I mean.”

“Indeed I do,” the ARC in question answered. “But hey! Two whole new numbers!” Trees couldn’t help the small smile forming on his face. Sevenset’s joy was contagious. “What do we call you guys?”

“I’m Zero,” the man next to Do-si-do replied. He had dark green paint over his armor, --maybe now Trees could convince Sevenset to change his name in the group chat to something other than Green Bean. His pauldrons were both green, and there was an inverted chevron visible over his grey chestpiece. Zero’s head was shaved on both sides, leaving a wide strip of curls down the center, and a tattoo on one side that Trees couldn’t quite make out from the hologram. He also caught sight of wide loops set into his earlobes. This guy almost had Sevenset beat for aesthetic.

They all turned their attention to the marine, who shrank back minisculely from his holoprojector. “Uhm…” He looked like he’d bolt at the next opportunity.

“It’s just your name, marine,” the commander prompted.

Instantly, the man answered, “Fours. I’m Fours.” Fours looked almost regulation from where Trees was sitting. It was hard to tell over hologram, but there might have been the remnants of a dye-job in his short hair, but it was too overgrown to be recognizable. The Nova Corps really didn’t get much time off. The armor they could see on him had vertical stripes painted over each shoulder, ending mid-way down his chestplate, as well as one down the center of his chest, and stripes down each shoulder bell.

Sevenset beamed at them both. “Well, welcome to the party. I’m Sevenset. I see Fours has already met the charming Commander Sixes.” The rest of them introduced themselves one by one, with Sevenset mentioning Echo’s “honorary number status” briefly.

“So… what do you guys actually do in these meetings?” Zero asked afterwards.

Several of the older members shrugged. Sevenset answered, “Eh, just chat. Or… I dunno, spread gossip.”

“They’re largely useless,” the commander said plainly.

Trees smirked at Sevenset’s eyeroll. “Yet, you keep coming to them, Commander,” the red ARC reminded him.

Do-si-do added, “He’s actually never missed one since you dragged him into it.”

Trees could confirm that--he often kept tabs on attendance just so he knew when to be worried if someone missed out. But he also wanted to keep watching Sevenset and Do-si-do taunt Death.

Zero and Fours both looked surprised, although Fours’ expression was a bit harder to read. He was still pretty on-edge. “How did you get Commander Death to join, anyway?” Zero asked, swirling the contents of his glass.

“Sheer willpower,” Sevenset answered smugly.

The commander crossed his arms. “I’m actually waiting for your last functioning brain cell to die from lack of stimulation. It’ll be funnier on camera.”

Fives and Do-si-do both burst out laughing--a problem for the latter, who had just taken a mouthful from his drink and consequently sprayed half of it across the table. Echo and Loops simply had huge grins on their faces, an expression Trees found mirrored on his own face. Sevenset had a sort of strained smile as he waited for Fives and Do-si-do to recover.

“I’m touched you have so much concern for me, Commander.”

“Oh, I’m concerned, alright.” The remark made Fives and Do-si-do break up again.

The commander was definitely warming up to the group, even Trees could see it. He would probably never admit it, but since his first meeting, he’d thawed a bit. Trees almost wished he could have seen their first meeting on Kamino, just to know how close the commander had been to wringing Sevenset’s neck. For old time’s sake.

Once the laughter had died down into smiles, Zero looked to the two batchers standing with Sevenset. “When are you two graduating, anyway?”

“Next week!” Fives announced, beaming with pride.

“Yeah, we get our new gear tomorrow,” Echo smiled.

“Which means this guy,” Fives added, putting an arm around his brother’s shoulders, “is going to stay up all night reading about it, right Echo?”

Echo shrugged his arm off with a well-worn scowl. Trees frowned a little. “Hey, reading up on the kit isn’t a bad idea. I did it. I’ll probably do it again when Phase Two comes out, whenever that’s gonna be.”

Vindicated, Echo folded his arms and lifted his chin at his brother, who rolled his eyes. Zero tipped his glass towards them. “Well, you survived this long. Have fun next week.” He drained what was left of the drink, then slid the glass to the center of the table. Trees really couldn’t wait for leave… he needed a drink after Geonosis. And not just the stuff the boys managed to sneak onboard.

“Hey, Zero,” Loops spoke up, leaning forward a little. “Why haven’t I heard much about the one-eigteenth?”

A good question. Trees knew rather little about Zero’s legion, aside from knowing it was in the Seventh Sky Corps along with the 501st and the 212th. He didn’t even know which Jedi led it.

“Probably--” The green ARC started to answer, then something out of frame caught his attention, and he held up a finger. He stood up and they heard him shout, “Incident! Off the ceiling! Troll, stop helping!” He leaned down. “Hang on.” Then he disappeared out of frame.

“Is someone actually on the ceiling?” Fives asked, looking to Do-si-do for answers.

The pilot nodded, his attention directed upward. “I don’t know how he did it. But he did.”

“Okay, so Torrent should never meet them,” Echo said. “I think we’d watch as the captain went grey from stress before our eyes.”

Fives grinned. “I dunno, it could be fun.”

“No, it would be fun,” his brother agreed, “right until you blow something up and get yourself and others hurt. Then Kix would have your balls.”

“Worth it.” Echo looked between Sevenset and Fives, who had both spoken, then rubbed his face with both hands.

Commander Sixes shook his head. “Never have these problems with my boys.”

Zero returned a minute or two later, another drink in his hand. “Okay. Sorry about that, someone got a balloon stuck in the rafters, and Incident thought it was a good idea to retrieve it.”

“Did he get it?” Loops asked.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Why unfortunately?”

“Because he got a reward for climbing to the ceiling to get it, and he’ll probably try it again later.” He took a drink. “Anyway. One-eighteenth. We’re pretty small for a legion, which is probably why you haven’t heard of us. One company of the two-twelfth is probably most of our troops.”

“Who’s your General?” Echo asked.

“General Veekah Bala.” He got mostly blank stares and couple heads shaking. “Yeah, well. She’s pretty awesome. Togruta, double-bladed lightsaber. Kinda young, like Skywalker, but…” He paused, like he was looking for the right words.

“More sane?” Fives offered. Trees smirked. Skywalker had quite the reputation.

Zero shrugged. “I guess? Dunno, maybe she’s just crazy in a different way.”

“What do you guys do when you’re that small?” Loops prompted further.

“Special stuff--kind of like Rancor, actually. The demo jobs, the stealth missions, that kind of stuff. Each company has a specialty.”

Do-si-do bumped their elbows together lightly. “What’s yours?”

“I’m in Whisper Company. We do stealth and recon and stuff like that. Firebolt is our demo team--that’s… where Troll and Incident are.” He cast a glance towards the ceiling.

Motion drew Trees’ eye to Fives, who had leaned over to whisper something to Echo. Echo thought for a second, then shook his head, a small smile on his face. With Torrent’s reputation, they might like Firebolt, from the sounds of it.

“The other two are Blitz, who hate clankers and bugs more than anyone I’ve ever met, and Enigma, who have made it their sworn mission to hack General Grievous,” Zero finished.

“Hack him?” Sevenset repeated, voicing the confusion on the others’ faces. Except for the commander, because his helmet was still on.

Zero sighed, scratching his head. “Yeah, I dunno. They figure because he’s a cyborg, they can hack his cybernetic parts, right? They’re obsessed. The general totally enables them, too. The Enigma hazing ritual is to hack into a B1 as fast as you can.”

Trees’ face scrunched up slightly. They just kept battle droids around for initiation? That… didn’t seem safe. He and Fours seemed to have similar skeptical reactions to it, but Fives and Echo were nodding along like it made perfect sense. Trees was so glad to be in the 41st.

“What about Whisper?” Loops wanted to know.

Zero just smiled slyly and held up something so they could see. Trees recognized it. Most pilots he’d met had a lucky charm of some kind, either painted on their armor, or their ship, or it was an object they kept with them at all times. Do-si-do had the latter kind: his charm was a dark brown rock with a hole through the center, always in his utility belt. But suddenly it wasn’t.

Do-si-do’s eyes went comically wide for a second, then his hand was flying to the empty pouch on his belt. “What--hey!”

Zero put the stone on the table and slid it to him. “That’s what we do.”

“Steal stuff?” the pilot shot back, snatching the stone up and clutching it to his chest.

“We always give it back.”

Do-si-do was still frowning darkly as he carefully replaced his charm in his belt.

“Huh,” Sevenset nodded. “You guys sound pretty cool. Shame I only learned about you now, honestly.”

“Yeah, it’s okay, we’re usually out of the way, anyway. You know what that’s like, right, Fours?”

The marine stiffened at the sudden attention, and at the subsequent attention from everyone else. Poor guy. “Uh. Yeah.”

“Oh, hey, how’s that mission with Death going?” Sevenset asked him, looking between the marine and the commander. “That’s how he found you right?”

Fours nodded. “Yeah. It’s… good, I guess?”

“They needed the help, that’s for sure,” the commander added. “Although, Bacara’s doing a pretty good job without the general around.”

Trees nodded, remembering General Mundi had assisted on Geonosis, and likely hadn’t been cleared to return to the Nova Corps yet after the assault. Some of the others looked a little lost, though. He reminded them.

“How long do you think he’ll be out?” Fours asked quietly. Trees couldn’t tell if it was genuine concern behind the question or curiosity.

He shrugged. “No idea. I never actually saw him, he was with the two-twelfth most of the time.”

The commander made some nonverbal reply to that before adding, “Well, at least he’ll be coming back. Geonosis has done worse before.”

He would know. Trees had looked him up after his first appearance, just like he had done for them. Commander Sixes had taken part in the first assault on Geonosis over three years ago. As Trees had dug a little deeper, he’d discovered almost nothing but casualty reports in connection. The commander had lost all but three of his original unit that day. Of the three left, two had died in combat, and the third just had a lot of “unknowns” in the report. That might explain the prickly shell of a personality.

Yeah, well, there weren’t brain worms the first time, Trees thought, rubbing his face tiredly. He then realized he’d spoken out loud when the guys who hadn’t been there first balked at him. Whoops.

“Brain worms?” Loops repeated, recoiling, his nose scrunched in disgust. Fours had a similar, though silent, reaction.

“Should’ve had Blitz Co there,” Zero remarked, barely fazed by the revelation.

The commander was oddly silent.

Trees shook his head. “Yeah, well, I’m tired, so I’m gonna turn in. Make sure you add Fours and Zero to the comm link.”

Sevenset nodded. “Will do, Green Bean.”

Trees leveled a deadpan stare at him. “Zero’s green too, get creative. And you’re not the only ARC now, ‘ARCBoi with five i’s,’” he told him, then clicked off the holoprojector.

-------

RedBoiiiii: [image file]

RedBoiiiii: LOOK AT THE NEW ARCS LOOK AT THEM!!!!!

Double Trouble: Yes!! Congrats, guys!

d0nut man: yay! nice paint

high fives: hey how’d you get that so fast??

RedBoiiiii: i know a guy :)

Fives+1: thanks do si do

high fives: echo what is your name

Fives+1: *long sigh*

RedBoiiiii: lol you can change it if you want. i’m the only one with the power to change other people’s names bc i created the chat

BetterDomino: got it

high fives: hey

Double Trouble: oof

d0nut man: hey my buddy Pixel has a handprint too

d0nut man: but he sprays paint around his hand instead of putting the paint on it to make the shape

high fives: oh neat

d0nut man: what’s yours for echo?

BetterDomino: captain rex put a handprint on my original kit on our first mission

high fives: in blood

RedBoiiiii: BLOOD???

BetterDomino: not human blood to be clear

Leafs: and that makes it better???

Leafs: oh maker’s sake, sevenset, really? Leafs?

RedBoiiiii: >:3

BetterDomino: it was rishi eel blood

d0nut man: oh okay

Double Trouble: that tracks

Double Trouble: oh does this mean you’re heading back to the 501st?

RedBoiiiii: yes :’((((

high fives: yeah we got back a couple hours ago

RedBoiiiii: i cri

DEATH: sack up sevens, kamino has enough water without you adding to it

RedBoiiiii: why do you only come into these chats to roast me?

DEATH: you keep standing in firepits

Double Trouble: ouch

high fives: commander sixes sir

BetterDomino: oh no i saw his face

high fives: that was amazing

BetterDomino: aaaaaaand fives has a new idol

high fives: hey echo you wanna come down off your bunk and say that?

BetterDomino: nope im all comfy

Leafs: kick his ass fives

high fives: >:)

Loopy: okay well you guys have been busy

Loopy: oh! Congrats domino the kits look awesome

RedBoiiiii: LOOPS!

BetterDomino: thanks loops!

Loopy: hi sevenset, how are those burns treating you?

RedBoiiiii: what burns

DEATH: you know

Loopy: yeah those :)

RedBoiiiii: ah

WELL IT'S BEEN A SIZZLIN' SECOND SINCE I POSTED PART 2 but that's okay :) Life has been a bit hectic, and also I forgot. Also!! Zero belongs to my dear friend @23-bears and the 118th lads and General Bala have their own blog: @118th-special-forces. Go say hi! And yes, I have part 4 written, so hopefully it won't be another EON between chapters 😬

@blsmjoon @nintendolover13 @darth-void @glubtheflyingfish @peacefulwizardfox @theultimatesandwich @alamogirl80

[sisterspooky1013]

Only One Choice, Chapter 7

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

Saturday brings an unexpected heat wave, the high temperatures uncharacteristic even for D.C. Dana has grappled all week with how to explain her Saturday evening plans to Ethan. Her instinct is to lie, to tell him she’s getting dinner with Missy or has to go into work for an emergency autopsy. But lying makes it impossible to tell herself that what she’s doing isn’t wrong; if she has nothing to hide, why would she be hiding it? In the end, she goes with vague truth and tells him that she’s meeting up with a colleague to discuss some interesting new research they shared with her. Never mind that said colleague is a very handsome and apparently very single man. Never mind that she feels a rush between her legs whenever she pictures his cocky smile. Meeting with a colleague. Interesting research. Nothing more.

She and Ethan spend the morning lying around in their underwear, too overheated to do anything else. The air conditioning hums and sputters, trying to keep up, but it's no match for the sweltering heat.

“Do we have ice cream?” Ethan asks, splayed out on his back against the hardwood clad in green boxer shorts.

“Nope, I ate it all when I was PMSing last week,” she replies from the couch, arms and legs draped off the sides so that no part of her body is touching any other.

They are quiet for a bit.

“Wanna have sex?” Ethan asks offhandedly, and she feels a flush of dread.

“Too hot,” she replies with an equally offhand tone, glad he can’t see her face.

They are quiet again.

“Are you okay, Dana?” he asks hesitantly, his eyes on the ceiling. She waits a little too long to answer.

“Yeah, why?”

“You just...you don’t seem like yourself. Since we got engaged, I mean. You seem kind of distracted. Distant, maybe?”

She takes a steadying breath. She knows he’s right. If she were honest, she’d tell him that she feels crushing guilt for being so infatuated with another man. That she feels like a horrible girlfriend, fiancée, almost-wife, for continuing to seek out interactions with him, but she can’t bring herself to stop. That she loves Ethan, so much, but can’t deny the pull that Mulder has on her. That she feels like she’s cheating when they have sex, because Mulder invariably takes his place in her mind. But she can’t tell him any of that.

She rolls to her side so she can look at him.

“I’m sorry, Ethan. I guess I’m just feeling overwhelmed lately, with work and the wedding. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

He rolls his head to the side to meet her eye.

“So you’re not having doubts? About getting married?” The pain and worry in his voice is like a kick in the gut.

“Of course not,” she implores, crawling off the couch and across the floor to where he lays. She gingerly throws a leg over his hip and straddles him, placing her hands on his sweat-damp chest and leaning forward to kiss him on the lips. “I can’t wait to be your wife,” she says with a soft smile, and the twist in her belly alerts her to the fact that this might be a lie.

They make love, there on the living room floor. She keeps her eyes open, not allowing her mind to wander from this moment, this man. Not allowing herself to admit that this is a consolation, an attempt to prove to them both that she is in this, with him, for the long haul. Her orgasm is weak and brief, not the same. Nothing is the same, anymore. Not since Mulder waltzed into the autopsy bay and complicated her life.

————————

The heat has abated only slightly by 5:30 as she’s preparing to leave her apartment and head to Mulder’s. She debates what to wear for an agonizingly long time; the temperature calls for a dress or shorts, but she fears sending the wrong message if it looks like she’s intentionally bearing skin. She finally settles on a black maxi dress, a compromise in coverage and air flow, paired with flip flops. Casual, not trying too hard, but not frumpy either.

As she makes for the door, Ethan stops her with a gentle grasp on her wrist, pulling her to him.

“You look beautiful,” he says with an affectionate gaze, and that guilty feeling in her belly is back. Their impromptu living room floor love-making seems to have assuaged his concerns over her demeanor for the time being, but it only served to deepen her own inner turmoil.

“Thank you,” she replies before kissing him on the cheek and escaping the emotional heat of their apartment for the temperate heat of the DC evening.

2630 Hegal Place is a stately brick building that has been decently maintained. It’s not as nice as her neighborhood in Georgetown, but it’s hardly the slum that Mulder suggested it was. She feels a little sick as she rides the elevator up to the fourth floor, taking in the dark wood trim against the yellowing walls of his hallway. She finds apartment forty-two and pauses outside the door for a long while. She has a feeling that walking through this door is a decision with consequences, one she shouldn’t take lightly. She realizes she’s not wearing her engagement ring; it’s likely sitting on the bathroom counter beside the sink. A simple oversight; she’s not yet used to wearing it. Certainly not a Freudian slip of the mind...she has the sudden overwhelming urge to flee. Perhaps she knows exactly what she’s doing after all. She turns to walk back to the elevator when the door swings open, startling her.

“Scully,” he says with a lopsided smile.

He’s wearing dark wash jeans, his top half bare, a bag of garbage in one hand. Her eyes immediately light on the broad expanse of his chest, smooth and dappled with a light dusting of hair. His abdomen is solid, sleek and defined. A swimmer’s body, she thinks with a sigh.

“I was just taking the trash out, you’re a little early,” he says with a hint of embarrassment, passing her to stuff the bag down the chute at the end of the hall.

“Oh, sorry, am I?” she looks at her watch; it’s 5:55.

“Or maybe I’m just running a little behind,” he replies sheepishly, then lifts his arm and gestures for her to enter the apartment, “please, come in.”

She enters a combination foyer and dining room, the kitchen tucked off to the left and the living room straight ahead. The ambiance matches the hallway, dark wood and yellow walls, the ceilings impressively high. The decor is sparse; nothing on the walls and only small trinkets littering the surfaces, a fish tank burbling near the window. She waits to see where he directs her to go. The dining room table seems like a suitably professional place for two colleagues to review work files. He brushes past her to the living room, the shower-fresh smell of him drifting into her nostrils; Irish Spring and Old Spice.

“You can take a seat,” he says gesturing to the couch, “let me just grab a shirt and the files.” He disappears through a door that must be his bedroom.

She sets her purse on his cluttered desk and sits on one end of the worn leather couch, looking around at his few furnishings. She startles when a black blur springs onto her lap with a high-pitched meow, and Mulder re-enters the room with a bankers box tucked under his arm, his torso now covered by a black T-shirt.

“Jesus, Priscilla, don’t assault the woman,” he says as he sets the box on the coffee table and plucks the cat off her lap. “Sorry about that, she has an affinity for pretty girls,” he continues, then directs his next comment to the cat. “We have that in common, eh, Prissy?”

She feels a flush to her cheeks and he takes the cat with him to the kitchen, returning with two beers in its place.

“I hope your boyfriend doesn’t mind me borrowing you for the evening,” he says as he hands her an open beer.

She looks at him with a mildly shocked expression, his mention of Ethan feeling out of place and somehow obscene. Noticing her discomfort, he changes the subject as he sits on the opposite end of the couch.

“This is all I walked away with, one box of the best, brightest, and weirdest X files I came across during my time. About half are those I investigated myself, the rest were left from the previous agents who started the division,” he slides the box down the coffee table towards her and she plucks the lid off carefully to see dozens of neatly labeled orange folders. She pulls a random one out from the middle and sets her beer on the coffee table, opening the file across her lap.

“So tell me why the X files division was shut down,” she says as she leafs through the pages.

“Well, the official reason is that an investigation into a man with green blood resulted in multiple deaths, which was just the last in a series of...mishaps. But the real reason is that I was too close to the truth.”

She lifts her head from the file to look at him. He has his bare feet propped up on the coffee table, his elbow resting on the arm of the couch. He seems so at ease all the time, so comfortable around her.

“The truth about what?” she asks, working to peel her eyes from his plush lower lip.

He takes a deep breath. “A lot of things, but namely a government conspiracy to conceal the existence of extraterrestrial life, even as they’re conducting experiments and research on said extraterrestrials. Perhaps even working with them.”

It’s that same even, factual delivery. Her mouth blossoms into a slow smile.

“Working with the aliens? To do what, open a KMart on Mars?” she teases, and he returns her smile with one that is so devilish it makes her pelvis twitch.

“Read on, Scully. The more you see, the less crazy it sounds.”

He stands and goes to the stereo, and after a few minutes of fiddling around she hears Radiohead begin to play. “You like Radiohead?” he asks, and she gives a half shrug, half nod. Doesn’t love ‘em, doesn’t hate ‘em.

“So this one appears to be about some kind of tree-dwelling insect?” she asks, reading over details of a dead man sucked dry of all fluids and bound up in a giant cocoon.

Mulder returns to the couch and sits beside her, much closer this time, their thighs nearly touching. The heat of his body on top of the warmth of the air makes new sweat prick at the back of her neck.

“Indeed, prehistoric insects that were released from the inner rings of the tree when they were logged. I nearly got eaten up by them myself,” he remarks, reaching over to turn the pages that lie across her lap. She shivers a little despite the heat.

“And what does that have to do with aliens and government conspiracies?” she asks, keeping her head down, knowing that if she looks up at him he would be close enough to kiss.

“It’s not that straight forward, Scully. There are things, many things, on our planet that are unexplainable, and having control over that which can’t be understood by science and intelligence gives you a certain degree of power. Unfortunately, it’s a power that’s most often used for evil instead of good.”

She does turn to him then, getting an up-close look at the greenish, almost-hazel of his irises, the pronounced bridge of his nose.

“There’s nothing that’s unexplainable on this planet, Mulder. Just because we can’t explain it now doesn’t mean we never will. Consider how much science has progressed in the last fifty years alone. Who knows what we deem unexplainable now that will be perfectly understood in another fifty?”

He tilts his head closer to her and her heart speeds up, her lips parting unconsciously. His smirk is devastatingly sexy, and she suddenly doesn’t trust herself.

“May I use your bathroom?” she asks abruptly, looking away.

“Of course, it’s through the bedroom,” he says, hitching his thumb to the door behind and to their left.

She carefully makes her way into his bedroom, which contains a queen size mattress on a mahogany frame, a dresser, and not much else. He’s a man of simple means, it would seem. The bathroom is clean and devoid of skid marks and stray pubic hairs; the seat is even down. When she returns, he’s placed several of the files in a neat stack on the coffee table.

“These are the ones I’d recommend you read. At least they may be the ones you find most compelling,” he says as she returns to her seat, inching just a bit further away from him than she’d been before.

She takes the first from the stack and opens it. “So how’d you get into all this, Mulder? Have you always been into aliens, or did you see E.T. too many times when it came out?”

He doesn’t answer and she looks at him. He’s considering her, pondering. Deciding whether to tell her something.

Continue Reading here

[obeyme-kaidii-writes]

Greed - Angelic Demons (2/2)

Mammon x gn!MC

Words - 2596

Content warnings - angst, lots of comfort

Prompt/Inspiration - Angelic Demons Event

Summary - Following the events in the “Angelic Demons” event where all the brothers are turned into angels and forced to wear magical bangles that correct their behavior.

You go to check on Mammon to see how he is doing now that he’s reverted back to his demonic self and no longer under the effects of the angelic magic.

AO3 | Part One - Envy

It had been a few days now since the magic from the cursed (because that’s what they were to you) bangles had worn off. Diavolo had also finally removed the outfits so everyone was more or less back to normal. At least, that’s how it appeared at first glance. In reality, Satan was probably the only one you saw much of as everyone else had made themselves scarce, recovering from the stress of being forced to remember their time as angels.

Two demons in particular seemed to have gone even more silent than the rest and you were starting to grow concerned so you had decided to check on them.

“GO AWAY!”

You blinked a few times, processing Mammon’s response to you knocking on his door. You hadn’t expected him to sound so angry. But given the circumstances, you understood why he would be. He may not have been angry with you - but since he was hiding out in his room, yelling at you was probably the only outlet he had.

“Mammon, I need to talk to you. I just want to make sure you’re alright.”

There was no response from Mammon, so you tried the door knob. Much to your surprise it was unlocked, so you let yourself inside. And the sight that greeted you took your breath away.

Now, Mammon’s room had always been sort of a mess. He was impulsive, and easily distracted, so things often got left right where he set them when he went off to do something else. He still managed to maintain a minimal level of cleanliness though. You could always see the floor. There had always been seats on his sofa. The top of his pool table would be visible.

But going into his room now? It looked like something off that TV show Hoarders you used to watch in the human realm. And it wasn’t just things on his floor either (though make no mistake, there were a lot of those). There was trash too - empty noodle cups, soda cans, wine bottles, shipping boxes. You couldn’t understand how someone could acquire so much garbage in so little time.

“Mammon, what the hell happened in here?” your eyes scanned the room, taking in as much as you could of what was before you, “Mammon?” You called out to him again when he didn’t respond. You would have thought he’d have been trying to chase you out, but it seemed that now that you were here and he was instead going to attempt to hide and hope you just went away.

As you looked around for Mammon, you heard the sound of a plastic noodle cup fall to the floor. You turned in the direction of the noise, and there was Mammon, sitting in his bed, bundled up under his blankets, looking intently at his DDD.

“Hey,” you said as you walked towards him, clearing off a space on the bed next to him.

He didn’t acknowledge you, and just kept scrolling through some app on his DDD. You scooted a bit closer to him, so that you were almost touching and your back was against the wall, before leaning over and taking a look at his screen. He was on Akuzon.

Now everything made sense to you. He must have been buying things online and having them delivered straight to his room. Since everyone else had been distracted with their own things, no one had noticed the influx of deliveries. And it had all happened so quickly, you doubt Lucifer had even received the bill yet.

“What are you doing?”

“Shopping.”

“Looking for something in particular?”

“Nope.”

You knew that shopping was a bit of a therapeutic thing for Mammon, just like gambling could be. That rush of finding something new, of feeling like you won. But this was excessive, even for him. Usually he’d have some sort of goal in mind - new clothes maybe, a new video game he wanted to try, or something nice for you. You hadn’t seen him just mindlessly buying things before. He hardly looked like he was even paying attention to what exactly he was putting in his cart.

“How have you been feeling?”

“Great.”

“Oh...that’s good. I’ve been worried about you.”

Mammon scoffed. Worried about him? Why would anyone be worried about him? He was the scummy second born, after all. And surely after this past week you knew exactly how scummy he was since you were able to see what he could be like if he wasn’t. So what was the point in even trying anymore? He was a demon wasn’t he? Shouldn’t he just indulge his sin? It’s not like it mattered. It’s not like it would change anything.

That’s what he thought, at least. Or rather, tried to convince himself of. But with each purchase he made and each delivery he accepted, he felt the emptiness inside him grow. It had gotten to the point he wasn’t even opening the packages anymore. Just letting them pile up wherever they fell when he sat them down.

“Mammon?”

“Nuthin’. It’s fine.”

“Oh ok.” You studied his profile for a moment while you thought about how exactly you were going to handle this. He wasn’t giving you a lot to work with here, and you were running out of questions you could ask. But maybe you didn’t need to say anything right now? Maybe for right now you could just sit with him.

You scooched over a little more, looping your arm through Mammon’s and resting your head on his shoulder. You felt him stiffen under you briefly, before relaxing again and resuming his scrolling.

“Whattya doin’?”

“I just thought I’d sit with you for a little bit. I’ve missed you.”

“Oh.”

Mammon didn’t really have anything to say to that, so he continued with his shopping. Unconsciously though, he slowly rested his own head on top of yours and it made you smile, feeling more confident in your choice to just stay with him.

As he scrolled, you started pointing out things that looked interesting to you, hoping to engage him in conversation. He was surprised to hear you apparently helping him shop, and not scolding him. Though he supposed that was more Lucifer’s territory than yours. You never really got on to him when he messed up. At first, he had thought it was because you might be a bit dim and didn’t realize all the trouble he’d get himself into. But as he got to know you, he realized you saw a lot more than you let on, and you were actively choosing to let those things go, supporting and encouraging him instead.

Not seeing any reason not to, Mammon began replying to your questions and pointing out things to you as well. It wasn’t long before he was laughing along with you too, as you both found progressively more ridiculous things for sale, shopping now completely forgotten. He should have known better than to think he could ignore you and that you’d just leave. You had this ability to just worm your way into his heart, no matter how many defenses he thought he had in place. He was just no match for you.

And well, he was kinda thankful for that right now. He had missed you. A lot. More than he’d care to admit. But he had been so ashamed of himself, he didn’t know what else to do besides lock himself away. The stupid bracelet made him painfully aware of just how much of a screw up he was.

Before, he had always imagined that he was able to make you proud of him. He liked showing off for you, if for no other reason than to see you smile. He pushed himself to work harder, to be more open with you, even to cause less trouble for Lucifer. But then the bangle happened...and he saw just how short he fell.

The gulf between his “angelic persona” and his “demonic persona” was just felt so vast. Too vast. He was never going to be someone worthy of you.

So he just gave up.

Sensing that Mammon had become a bit lost in his thoughts, you sat up. As soon as your head started to leave his shoulder, he realized that he had been resting his against yours. He jerked his head up immediately, blushing heavily. You let out a soft chuckle when you saw how flustered he was, satisfied that he seemed to be a bit more relaxed and like his old self than when you had first found him.

“You alright?” you asked.

“Umm yeah, fine.”

“Ok,” you paused briefly, taking a breath before continuing, “Do you think we could talk now?”

“‘bout what?”

“Umm, well…” you hesitated, hoping you weren’t overstepping your bounds and about to send him back into his shell, “...about all this, actually,” you said, gesturing around the room.

“Oh.” Mammon’s blush only deepened as he took a quick glance around the room. He hadn’t noticed how bad things had gotten until then. It was like he had tunnel vision, and had only been able to see the path directly between his bed and the door, and nothing else.

“Just felt like doing a little shoppin’ is all.”

“Oh? Well, I’ve just never seen you buy so much stuff before…”

“Well, ya don’t know everything about me,” he replied. He wasn’t sure why, but he was feeling on edge now. Things had been nice when you had been just sitting with him, not talking about anything of consequence. But now you were trying to meddle. He didn’t want the proof of his failure pointed out, and he didn’t want to know you knew either.

“Mammon...I’m just trying to understand...” you pulled back a little to get a better look at him.

“I’m just being who I’m supposed to be. You don’t need to understand.”

“Mammon…!” your thoughts were racing now. What had gotten into him? Everything had switched so quickly from the fun, happy moment you had been sharing - to unconcealed anger. You hadn’t been trying to make him feel bad, you just wanted to know why he was acting how he was, and what you could do to help. But your line of questioning had apparently set him off.

“This is who I am, ok?!” he snapped, instantly regretting it, “It’s all I’m good for! Just stop...please…” his voice sounded so weak now, cracking as it trailed off.

Slowly, you reached out to cup his cheek and turn his head back towards you. You had expected him to resist, but he didn’t. And when your eyes met his, you could see exactly how much pain he was in. He looked even more confused than you felt. You started to stroke his cheek with your thumb, and he closed his eyes, partly to avoid looking at you any longer, and partly so he could enjoy the sensation of your hand on his cheek.

Not knowing what else to do, you wrapped both arms around his neck, pulling him toward you and hugging him. Again, he didn’t resist, he just let you have your way. You were a bit saddened when you realized he wasn't hugging you back, but you noticed he hadn’t pushed you away yet either, so you continued to hold him and nuzzle into his neck.

“Please tell me what’s wrong,” you begged.

There was no response from Mammon, but you felt his arms begin to loop around your waist, soon pulling you into his lap, with your legs perpendicular to his. He mimicked your hold, burying his face in the crook of your neck. You were so warm. And you smelt so good. He had missed being this close to you.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to say now. A minute ago he had lashed out at you, angry and defensive, and now he was holding you and trying not to cry. His emotions were a jumbled, chaotic mess, and he just felt so...helpless.

“...I don’t...know…” he mumbled.

“That’s ok. It’s ok,” you soothed, as you started combing your fingers through his hair. Nothing was said for a while, the two of you simply holding each other; you hoping to convey how much you cared for him, and Mammon hoping you could tell how lost he felt.

“I’m Greed ain’t I…? This is what Greed does. It’s what it is…” he said, his voice scarcely above a whisper, tightening his grip on your waist.

“What are you talking about...?”

“It's reckless, and impulsive, and selfish.”

Why was he saying these things? He called himself impulsive, and sure, you couldn’t really argue with that. But selfish? He didn’t look that way to you. Not to say he never did anything in his own self interest, but he had this way of looking out for his brothers and you. Especially you.

“You’re not selfish, Mammon. Why would you think that?” You kept your voice low and calm, as you continued stroking his head and running your fingers through his hair.

“...because I am...aren’t I…? Takin’ things from my brothers...wastin’ all your time…”

“Hey, you never waste my time, ok? I like spending time with you.”

“...I dunno why…”

“Because you’re The Great Mammon, why wouldn’t I want to spend time with you?” you replied, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Mammon didn’t answer, but you saw the blush start creeping across his cheeks, before resting your head on top of his.

“Look, you might be Greedy, but that’s not always a bad thing, you know?”

“...it’s not?”

“No, it’s not. I never felt that way when I spent time with you. You always made me feel loved, and happy, and safe.”

“...”

“If you were as awful and selfish as you seem to think you are, you wouldn’t have been able to do that.”

“...”

“And what about that little girl, huh? The one you told me about before. The one you take care of. You weren’t an angel when you did that.”

Oh. How had he forgotten about her? Or that he had told you?

“Just because you are a demon doesn’t mean you don’t have good qualities, you know? And it doesn’t mean the bad ones get to overshadow all the good things about you either.”

“Do ya mean that? That I have good qualities?”

“Yeah, Mammon, I do.”

“...even though Imma demon?”

“Even though you’re a demon,” you answered, kissing the top of his head, “You are more than just your Greed. You get to make your own choices.”

Mammon listened carefully to what you had to say, each word making his heart feel a little lighter and his outlook a bit brighter. Maybe...maybe things weren’t as hopeless as they seemed.

“Besides, I like Greedy Mammon. The Mammon that wants to spend all his time with me and never leave my side. I’d be awfully lonely without him around.”

Hearing you say that warmed his heart, thawing the last bits of ice that had settled there. You were right. Just because he had bad moments, didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed good ones too. He was an Avatar after all - he commanded Greed, it didn’t control him. He wasn’t just some mindless, lower tier demon that was helpless against their sin. He got to decide when and how he would act. And if he had to be Greedy for anything, it would be your attention. It didn’t have to be material things (well, at least not all the time).

“...yeah...I guess ya’d be pretty bored without me too,” he said, lifting his head to look at you.

“Oh definitely. Very bored,” you replied, with a smile.

“Err...do ya think you can help me with something?”

“Sure.”

“Returning all that before Lucifer gets the bill,” he said, gesturing to the piles of junk behind you, “or well, most of it.”

“Of course,” you replied, kissing him on the cheek, “We will need to take the trash out too.”

“Sure we can’t just get Beel to eat it?” he asked, with a cheeky grin

“Mammon!”

“What?!”

[whitehotharlots]

The point is control

Whenever we think or talk about censorship, we usually conceptualize it as certain types of speech being somehow disallowed: maybe (rarely) it's made formally illegal by the government, maybe it's banned in certain venues, maybe the FCC will fine you if you broadcast it, maybe your boss will fire you if she learns of it, maybe your friends will stop talking to you if they see what you've written, etc. etc. 

This understanding engenders a lot of mostly worthless discussion precisely because it's so broad. Pedants--usually arguing in favor of banning a certain work or idea--will often argue that speech protections only apply to direct, government bans. These bans, when they exist, are fairly narrow and apply only to those rare speech acts in which other people are put in danger by speech (yelling the N-word in a crowded theater, for example). This pedantry isn't correct even within its own terms, however, because plenty of people get in trouble for making threats. The FBI has an entire entrapment program dedicated to getting mentally ill muslims and rednecks to post stuff like "Death 2 the Super bowl!!" on twitter, arresting them, and the doing a press conference about how they heroically saved the world from terrorism. 

Another, more recent pedant's trend is claiming that, actually, you do have freedom of speech; you just don't have freedom from the consequences of speech. This logic is eerily dictatorial and ignores the entire purpose of speech protections. Like, even in the history's most repressive regimes, people still technically had freedom of speech but not from consequences. Those leftist kids who the nazis beheaded for speaking out against the war were, by this logic, merely being held accountable. 

The two conceptualizations of censorship I described above are, 99% of the time, deployed by people who are arguing in favor of a certain act of censorship but trying to exempt themselves from the moral implications of doing so. Censorship is rad when they get to do it, but they realize such a solipsism seems kinda icky so they need to explain how, actually, they're not censoring anybody, what they're doing is an act of righteous silencing that's a totally different matter. Maybe they associate censorship with groups they don't like, such as nazis or religious zealots. Maybe they have a vague dedication toward Enlightenment principles and don't want to be regarded as incurious dullards. Most typically, they're just afraid of the axe slicing both ways, and they want to make sure that the precedent they're establishing for others will not be applied to themselves.

Anyone who engages with this honestly for more than a few minutes will realize that censorship is much more complicated, especially in regards to its informal and social dimensions. We can all agree that society simply would not function if everyone said whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. You might think your boss is a moron or your wife's dress doesn't look flattering, but you realize that such tidbits are probably best kept to yourself. 

Again, this is a two-way proposition that everyone is seeking to balance. Do you really want people to verbalize every time they dislike or disagree with you? I sure as hell don't. And so, as part of a social compact, we learn to self-censor. Sometimes this is to the detriment of ourselves and our communities. Most often, however, it's just a price we have to pay in order to keep things from collapsing. 

But as systems, large and small, grow increasingly more insane and untenable, so do the comportment standards of speech. The disconnect between America's reality and the image Americans have of themselves has never been more plainly obvious, and so striving for situational equanimity is no longer good enough. We can't just pretend cops aren't racist and the economy isn't run by venal retards or that the government places any value on the life of its citizens. There's too much evidence that contradicts all that, and the evidence is too omnipresent. There's too many damn internet videos, and only so many of them can be cast as Russian disinformation. So, sadly, we must abandon our old ways of communicating and embrace instead systems that are even more unstable, repressive, and insane than the ones that were previously in place.

Until very, very recently, nuance and big-picture, balanced thinking were considered signs of seriousness, if not intelligence. Such considerations were always exploited by shitheads to obfuscate things that otherwise would have seemed much less ambiguous, yes, but this fact alone does not mitigate the potential value of such an approach to understanding the world--especially since the stuff that's been offered up to replace it is, by every worthwhile metric, even worse.

So let's not pretend I'm Malcolm Gladwell or some similarly slimy asshole seeking to "both sides" a clearcut moral issue. Let's pretend I am me. Flash back to about a year ago, when there was real, widespread, and sustained support for police reform. Remember that? Seems like forever ago, man, but it was just last year... anyhow, now, remember what happened? Direct, issues-focused attempts to reform policing were knocked down. Blotted out. Instead, we were told two things: 1) we had to repeat the slogan ABOLISH THE POLICE, and 2) we had to say it was actually very good and beautiful and nonviolent and valid when rioters burned down poor neighborhoods.

Now, in a relatively healthy discourse, it might have been possible for someone to say something like "while I agree that American policing is heavily violent and racist and requires substantial reforms, I worry that taking such an absolutist point of demanding abolition and cheering on the destruction of city blocks will be a political non-starter." This statement would have been, in retrospect, 100000000% correct. But could you have said it, in any worthwhile manner? If you had said something along those lines, what would the fallout had been? Would you have lost friends? Your job? Would you have suffered something more minor, like getting yelled at, told your opinion did not matter? Would your acquaintances still now--a year later, after their political project has failed beyond all dispute--would they still defame you in "whisper networks," never quite articulating your verbal sins but nonetheless informing others that you are a dangerous and bad person because one time you tried to tell them how utterly fucking self-destructive they were being? It is undeniably clear that last year's most-elevated voices were demanding not reform but catharsis. I hope they really had fun watching those immigrant-owned bodegas burn down, because that’s it, that will forever be remembered as the most palpable and consequential aspect of their shitty, selfish movement. We ain't reforming shit. Instead, we gave everyone who's already in power a blank check to fortify that power to a degree you and I cannot fully fathom.

But, oh, these people knew what they were doing. They were good little boys and girls. They have been rewarded with near-total control of the national discourse, and they are all either too guilt-ridden or too stupid to realize how badly they played into the hands of the structures they were supposedly trying to upend.

And so left-liberalism is now controlled by people whose worldview is equal parts superficial and incoherent. This was the only possible outcome that would have let the system continue to sustain itself in light of such immense evidence of its unsustainability without resulting in reform, so that's what has happened.

But... okay, let's take a step back. Let's focus on what I wanted to talk about when I started this.

I came across a post today from a young man who claimed that his high school English department head had been removed from his position and had his tenure revoked for refusing to remove three books from classrooms. This was, of course, fallout from the ongoing debate about Critical Race Theory. Two of those books were Marjane Satropi's Persepolis and, oh boy, The Diary of Anne Frank. Fuck. Jesus christ, fuck.

Now, here's the thing... When Persepolis was named, I assumed the bannors were anti-CRT. The graphic novel does not deal with racism all that much, at least not as its discussed contemporarily, but it centers an Iranian girl protagonist and maybe that upset Republican types. But Anne Frank? I'm sorry, but the most likely censors there are liberal identiarians who believe that teaching her diary amounts to centering the suffering of a white woman instead of talking about the One Real Racism, which must always be understood in an American context. The super woke cult group Black Hammer made waves recently with their #FuckAnneFrank campaign... you'd be hard pressed to find anyone associated with the GOP taking a firm stance against the diary since, oh, about 1975 or so.

So which side was it? That doesn't matter. What matters is, I cannot find out.

Now, pro-CRT people always accuse anti-CRT people of not knowing what CRT is, and then after making such accusations they always define CRT in a way that absolutely is not what CRT is. Pro-CRTers default to "they don't want  students to read about slavery or racism." This is absolutely not true, and absolutely not what actual CRT concerns itself with. Slavery and racism have been mainstays of American history curriucla since before I was born. Even people who barely paid attention in school would admit this, if there were any more desire for honesty in our discourse. 

My high school history teacher was a southern "lost causer" who took the south's side in the Civil War but nonetheless provided us with the most descriptive and unapologetic understandings of slavery's brutalities I had heard up until that point. He also unambiguously referred to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshmia and Nagasaki as "genocidal." Why? Because most people's politics are idiosyncratic, and because you cannot genuinely infer a person to believe one thing based on their opinion of another, tangentially related thing. The totality of human understanding used to be something open-minded people prided themselves on being aware of, believe it or not...

This is the problem with CRT. This is is the motivation behind the majority of people who wish to ban it. It’s not because they are necessarily racist themselves. It’s because they recognize, correctly, that the now-ascendant frames for understanding social issues boils everything down to a superficial patina that denies not only the realities of the systems they seek to upend but the very humanity of the people who exist within them. There is no humanity without depth and nuance and complexities and contradictions. When you argue otherwise, people will get mad and fight back. 

And this is the most bitter irony of this idiotic debate: it was never about not wanting to teach the sinful or embarrassing parts of our history. That was a different debate, one that was settled and won long ago. It is instead an immense, embarrassing overreach on behalf of people who have bullied their way to complete dominance of their spheres of influence within media and academe assuming they could do the same to everyone else. Some of its purveyors may have convinced themselves that getting students to admit complicity in privilege will prevent police shootings, sure. But I know these people. I’ve spoken to them at length. I’ve read their work. The vast, vast majority of them aren’t that stupid. The point is to exert control. The point is to make sure they stay in charge and that nothing changes. The point is failure. 

[mrvdocks]

Nightcall P.2

Summary: Kurt is obsessive over a model and kidnaps her, taking her along for the ride of the night. P.2

You feel the tiredness behind your eyes when they flutter open, your chest rises and falls slowly as you take in your surroundings. You were home. It was close to six now, but some light still came in through your shades and illuminated your living room sunset orange. 

You sit up in confusion, was the whole Spree a dream? More like a nightmare. 

Your head is killing you, almost as if there’s a jackhammer in your skull. 

You rub at your eyes tiredly, standing up too quick and needing to balance yourself on the arm of the couch you were just laying on. 

The apartment’s empty, save for some background noise coming from your laptop. 

That’s odd, you didn’t remember leaving your laptop on.

Your vision blurs for a moment but sharpens on the image in front of you. The chat in the live stream is going nuts with all sorts of comments ranging from “when are we going to see some gory shit?” to “bring back Bobby!” 

That’s when you realize the person on the live stream is you. 

The comments change to asking you if all of this is real and if Kurt is coming back. 

Your eyes widen as you read his name. 

That’s when you hear him. 

“Oh good, you’re awake. I was starting to get scared that I used too much of the stuff.” 

You don’t know how much tensing your body can take. You put the screen down, meeting a smiling Kurt who’s dressed in Bobby’s clothes. You know it’s his because of the sponsors you helped him get. 

You grab at the nearest thing on the table, brandishing a leftover metal fork at him. 

It merely amuses him as he puts your hand down with ease and takes the fork away. 

“Come on, did you really think I was going to hurt you? You, of all people? I have no reason to do that.”

“You’ve done worse for less,” you shudder, glancing behind you to find a way out. 

“You’re not in any danger with me. You’re safe, okay?” He takes small steps towards you, hands out in a gesture to relax you.

It doesn’t work, it only makes you more nervous. For every step he takes forward, you take one back.

“I bet you’re hungry.” He says, disappearing into your kitchen. 

You take this chance to run into your room, remembering there was a landline you never paid attention to there. Maybe you could get out of this still.

Much to your dismay, the line’s been cut by Kurt anyway. 

“I didn’t want us to be interrupted.” He says, bringing in his concoction of food. 

You don’t have the strength in you to fight and your stomach grumbles at the sight of the food. He holds it out in front of you, waiting. 

You stare at it, trying to figure out if anything’s wrong with it.

“I didn’t poison it or anything if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

When you don’t believe him, he takes a bite out of the sandwich and scarfs it down immediately. Nothing happens.

You take it from him slowly and bite at it before completely devouring it whole. 

“Good. You’re going to need energy for later.” He leaves you alone to go back into the living room.

You don’t understand what he means until you hear something drag against your floors. He reappears in your bedroom dragging the body of the same man from the earlier Spree. 

You instantly feel sick to your stomach, the food you just ate reaching your throat as you gag at the smell. 

You shudder lowly, feeling your shoulders shake and your chest heave as you clasp your hand over your mouth in an attempt to calm yourself.

The dead body in front of you was very much freaking you the fuck out and you didn’t know whether to scream or to cry about your situation.

Kurt makes quick work of the man’s possessions, pocketing them to probably discard them later. 

“People are just so rude,” He says. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

Kurt killing someone for demeaning you is something you didn’t see coming. Then again, you didn’t really see yourself being kidnapped on the list of things that would happen this week.

“This makes you worse than Bobby. No, worse than anyone.” 

You don’t know where the sudden fuel to comment on his actions came, you were still scared but somehow it came barreling out. 

He stops what he’s doing, looking at you in disappointment. 

He really couldn’t expect you to go along with this, could he?

“Bobby and I are different, you know that. This is different.” 

You didn’t know him. 

“So what? You don’t like how the world treated you so you just do whatever you like? Murder as you please?” 

He doesn’t argue back, he doesn’t need to. You’re right. 

“I’m not just doing this for myself.” He rubs at his temple. 

“Kurt,” you muster enough courage to look him dead straight in the eyes. “Do not do this and say that it’s for me. I won’t hesitate -”

“To leave? Go ahead, you’ve had all this time.” 

He renders you speechless. He was right, you could’ve easily overpowered him with anything in the room. But if he was so infatuated with you the right thing would’ve been to let you go without consequence.

“You said you trusted me.” He murmurs. 

“You ran a fucking light and now you’re a serial killer! It doesn’t apply to both!” 

“I’m - I’m not the bad guy here!” He huffs incredulously, as if everything he did wasn’t affecting him psychologically the way it was you. “If anything, I’m doing the world a favor! These are scum of the earth people!”

He calms down. “They get it.” 

He points presumably to the laptop mere feet away from you both. The sounds of the stream popped up one after the other.

“Really? Because as far as everybody’s concerned, they all think this is some kind of fucked up joke!” 

“Let them believe what they want to believe. They’re finally watching me!” 

It doesn’t matter to him that they’re insulting him in the comments, or that he killed someone he considered a friend. 

“So everyone has an expiration date for you.” You conclude. 

He was only going to use people up. That should’ve been common sense. You don’t understand why that fact made you feel a little dejected. You wish he could revert back to the Kurt you met. 

“Do I have an expiration date?” 

“No.” He assures. “But if this is going to work I need you to be okay with this.” 

“I’m not.” 

Fighting him was futile. You were forced into it. You wanted so desperately to warn these people and get the word out. But that's also what he would've wanted. He wanted you to give him exposure. The officer still thinks you did it all willingly, but the footage was more than enough to help you get off with a few repercussions. 

You wish you could forget the screams of the people in the car, a thousand washes with soap couldn’t get rid of the blood on your hands. Even if some of them really were assholes, shouldn’t they have also had a chance at redemption?

With each spree, Kurt only was egged on by the audience and those that found the livestream later. Many of them called for you to do something equally as horrifying but you couldn’t. Many suggested for him to get rid of you since you were being ‘boring’. He wouldn’t do it. 

And that’s when he set his sights on Jessie. After promptly kidnapping her and trying to convince her to join him to no avail, he takes both of you back to his house. You had enough. You wanted a way out and Jessie was it. You just didn’t know everything would end so bloody. 

There’s an ensuing fight, she strangles Kurt with the phone charger and knocks you back in an attempt to stop it. The back of your head collides with the passenger window harshly, forcing you to screech in pain.

Kurt doesn’t take it well.

She swindles Kurt, taking the gun he kept in the glove compartment and arming herself with it. This wasn’t how you wanted it to go. You just wanted her to scare him enough to turn himself in. 

But the crazed look in her eye suggested that wasn’t happening.

The final battle takes place at his home. Where all his dirty secrets are let out.

“I’ll shoot you both if you don’t move!”

You keep your hands up, shielding Kurt with your body. 

“Jessie please, let’s think about this.”

“And let him get away with all of this? He’s brainwashed you already.” 

“He hasn’t - listen he won’t get away with this. Jessie please, give me the gun.”

She wavers, the barrel pointed directly at you. Your heart is beating so fast you almost think you’ll die from a heart attack before the bullet even reaches you. 

“No! No, this has to end. He’s fucking crazy, can’t you see that??! This was always going to end with one of us dead anyway, and it’s not going to be me.” She points behind you and almost pulls the trigger but is stopped by you lunging at her. 

“No!” You yell.

You tackle her onto the floor, the back of her head bouncing off the leg of the pool table and knocking her unconscious.

You press your index finger against her neck, feeling her pulse. You sigh in relief. 

“Why didn’t you let her do it?” Kurt asks suddenly. 

“She was going to kill you. I don’t know how I’d feel about that.”

Kurt had no problem having these people on his conscience, but you did. Maybe killing him would be good, but him facing justice for what he did would be better. He could atone for all of this. 

“Even after what I did to you?”

You don’t answer and instead prop Jessie against the wall. You were honestly very sorry for it but you were optimistic about the outcome of all of this. 

Kurt bends to your level and takes you into his arms, squeezing you tight. 

“We did it!” He celebrates prematurely, Jesse’s not even dead but it doesn’t matter to him. He thinks you’re on his side, that’s more than enough. 

You smile nervously, his forehead touching yours in what he believes is a tender moment. 

“What are you going to do to her?” You’re afraid of the answer. 

Kurt’s mood shifts immediately, serious now. 

“I have to get rid of her now obviously. If she won’t join us then there’s no point to her.”

His quick response is enough for you to discard all hope that he would walk away from this. You grip the gun in your right hand, sure that he hasn’t seen it. 

“This is going to be great! We’re going to be even bigger than all these assholes. And you can finally be by my side, as it should be.” 

Your blood runs cold. He’s a dead man walking at this point. 

You say fuck it as you abandon all morals. With the free hand you have, you bring it to the nape of his neck and press your lips against his. He’s so distracted by it that he doesn’t feel the front of the gun pressed against his abdomen. 

It’s only when you feel your finger pull back the trigger that the shot startles you both and he opens his eyes to looks at you in shock. 

You unload another shot into him. He crawls away from you and applies pressure onto his wound, howling in pain.

He looks at you again, hurt and confusion clear on his face. He reaches for you, calling for you in between coughing fits and cries of pain.

You empty the last bullet into his shoulder, sending him backward. 

There’s a ringing in your ear that drowns out the sirens in the distance. You don’t know who managed to call them but you’re thankful to end this nightmare. You’re still holding the gun out but it only takes you a second to realize you’re screaming. Absolute guttural and gut-wrenching wailing. 

When they arrive, the paramedics have to sedate you to calm you down. Jessie is taken in the ambulance while an officer tries to get you out of the house while you’re still conscious. Kurt’s body lays limp in a pool of red, his hand still reaching and glazed eyes staring back at you.

It haunts you.

“People like Kurt needed a partner. We believe he was targeting Ms. Adams previously before his attention turned to you. Do you know why that is?”

You lie. “No.”

It’s easy to say you never knew his intentions. They were spur of the moment decisions. Everything was chance. You can't explain yourself or Kurt’s psyche to her, there’s no easy way to do it. 

She sighs. “Listen, whatever good you think you saw in him, whatever ramble about the real world you think you understood - was never there.” 

Her words should make you feel better, comfort you in the fact that you developing some sort of twisted attachment with your kidnapper wasn’t your fault. You don’t know how to feel, you just feel...empty.

“It doesn’t matter now.” You shrug. 

“You said Kurt told you something before he died. What was it?”

You let your heavy eyes close in exhaustion. You don’t remember why you told them that, but it must’ve slipped out in questioning. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember.” 

Unsure if she believes you or not but knowing there’s nothing else to keep you here, she dismisses you. You trudge out of the interrogation room and out of the station into the cold. You don’t bother with ordering a ride, it’s been ruined for you. 

Instead you walk it home, feeling yourself go into autopilot. You think you see his face in every driver that passes you.

You’re sure you look catatonic to people but you don’t care. You just want to rest.

As soon as you’re home you slip into the bathroom, turn on the shower until it’s steaming and let everything out. 

In the weeks that follow, you and Jessie are thrown into the stratosphere of fame. While she’s more content with her newfound trajectory and takes advantage of it, you decline every interview and prying noses that ask you to explain your relationship with Kurt. It’s all part of their circle jerk of tragedy, milking the victims for information and glamour. 

Kurt’s regarded as a loser by those who are saner than he was and a god by those on the internet. You’re not entirely surprised.

You think it’s all over when months pass without incident until one day your friends send you a link to something on Reddit, which you don’t think twice about. 

You regret it as soon as you see Kurt’s face in the thumbnail. Someone took all the footage from that night and was going to broadcast it later to show off their own documentary. 

You don’t use social media anymore.

[bansheeoftheforest]

Uh, is there still an angst break? Ignore this ask until your ready if so 👉😎👉

-

What was the au where Jekylls pushed down the stairs and experiences a skull crackening again? Oh well but I've been thinking of a branch of that where Jekyll doesn't know hes dead like all day. I also cant remember if that was already discussed or not

The lodgers patch him up, he complains of a headache, and goes on his merry way! He's confused why all the lodgers are so nervous and being nice to him all of the sudden, why creature is looking at him with a stange mix of empathy and pity. He was told he fell down the stairs, fell unconscious, and obtained a bit of an injury. He cant fathom why Frankenstein is "The only doctor who can treat him" why he has to constantly go to her for checkups. Why Maijabi is suddenly following him practically everywhere.

Hyde squeezes back control for a moment and tries the potion but it doesn't work. Maybe a bit of pain but certainly no transformation. Jekyll assumes his injury or whatever medication they're giving him to treat it somehow negated the effects

Jekyll complains about "suddenly blacking out" the lodgers know its because his soul is slippery. They tell him it must just be a side effect of the injury and not to worry

How long can they keep it secret from him? When does he find out? Does he? Does it get to be years only for him to realize that he hasn't aged? That he still needs checkups from Frankenstein? Does he learn sooner? Does a lodger crack and say it? Does he rot? Does he notice how so very cold he is. How animals act around him? It's all very interesting,,

-

I actually did think a bit of Jekyll's kidnappers for the amnesia kidnapping au! When drawing that lil sketch of Henry and O'Leary meeting Robert I had considered making it so O'Leary was suspicious of Lanyon like "Oh theres no news anywhere of someone matching Thomas' description who's missing. But some random people walk up claiming to know him? Begging to take him back with them?" And he'd think they were the kidnappers. But ultimately I decided against it as I felt Lanyon and Rachel were pretty clearly, genuinely concerned for "Thomas" :p

-

I tried playing assassins creed once, the first(?) one. But the controls were confusing and everything was sorta thrown all at me at once, and I got bored of it quickly

But! I went to the store the other day and just so happened to notice Syndicate was being sold for 15 dollars 👀 So I bought it because funky Victorian assassins and your influence! It's a bit less confusing then the first ac game I tried but why is going down or dropping so hard bdksnks. I'm having quite a bit of fun! If you dont count my rage and annoyance-, the B button refuses to cooperate with me unless I'm looting corpses >:(

The b button being the bane of my existence aside, I AM having fun! I like the funky outfits and I want to play as the girl twin (evie?) forever because her clothes are good and shes better at attacking than jacob(?) For some reason. Probably the stun her weapon has? Oh well! I have not unlocked any new outfits yet, nonetheless I wish there were more.

Also! I was thimking, and my current quests are taking place at 1868? Did I get that right? And Jekyll is like 35 in 1885. So in game he'd be 18! An au like I believe you mentioned sounds very interesting 👀 but I must play more to know what's going on and daydream about it

That would be the resurrection au <3

But god, I really like that branch! Especially combined with the hc that he can't feel pain bc the HJ7 and the transformations made him immune. Frankenstein patched him up and made fleshweaver to heal the crack in his skull but it still has to be bandaged, he surely broke a few bones, yet all he has to do is to be careful because it doesn't even hurt. He doesn't even realize how severe the injuries are because it doesn't hurt, it very well might just have been that he accidentally slipped at the bottom of the staircase and accidentally hit his head on the railing during his fall, rather than getting physically pushed and flying down the stairs, shattering his skull upon impact with the marble floor. Y'know what would be extra fun? If he only starts getting a bit suspicious about how severe the injury was once he realizes his lungs stop breathing for minutes at a time when he gets distracted, or his heartbeat stops dead in his chest. I know that that's not how biology or even creature works but lets say the HJ7 is funky, Zombie Jekyll my beloved. Perhaps he would only fully grasp what had happened once he blacked out too much and 'passed out', but his soul slipped out enough to leave his body unconscious on the floor while his soul/ghost was just... Watching. And it's not until Maijabi (who, as you said, follows him everywhere) immediately calls for more Lodgers saying that Henry's soul is getting unstable and Frankenstein's lousy job is starting to shine through that he fully understands that it was not a mere hit to the head. Or maybe it is when days, weeks, maybe months has passed and the headache never goes away, he only feels how his body starts feeling so much more... Fragile and delicate, that the guilt has eaten Helsby up alive and he corners him and spills everything, knowing he is going directly against what the group agreed to but not being able to keep it a secret much longer-- or maybe Creature would tell him immediately, once Henry is, for once, alone perhaps days after the initial accident. He cannot see Henry struggle to understand what is going on when he already knows what's happening to Henry, his mind, and his body. He doesn't listen to the plan that Frankenstein and the Lodgers has set up and immediately tells Henry the first moment they are alone. That would certainly be horrifying, I can only imagine how the Lodgers would find Henry after that, once he actually knows and manages to process everything. He would be so mad, not only to have been killed in the first place, but also because he was robbed of an afterlife because the Lodgers were selfish and could not accept the consequences of their actions. He would be mad, he would be so pissed and I have no doubt he might actually be mad at Maijabi too for even agreeing to help Frankenstein and the rest of the Lodgers. That anger would not stay long, though. That anger would soon turn into misery and sadness and paranoia so even as Henry has tried to push Maijabi away, Henry still ends up on his doorstep begging him to help him make sure he is not rotting, because no matter what anyone says, he is sure he can see rotten spots and patches on his skin and he is just so scared and jdhfjsdfdsfsfs... <3

--

Ooooooohhh, I was actually daydreaming about this just this morning! Granted, I woke up at 5 and began to daydream to fall asleep quicker but I still like the thought of O'Leary being suspicious of Robert/Rachel/Jasper/the Lodgers bc he is protective of 'Thomas' and doesn't want anything bad to happen to him and especially with the idea that Henry still has hallucinations and they both think he was abandoned by his family, left to rot at a mental asylum. O'Leary might very well think that it might be Henry's friends and family that dumped him that Henry had 'escaped' the hospital and that's why they knew he was missing since the Asylum itself obviously wouldn't have posted the news... I really liked Jeks idea, okay? Like a lot, I absolutely love it <3

--

Oh, the oldest AC game I played was Unity bc it was free after the Notre Dame fire, and I can confirm, I played 15 min and could not get through it even if i would have wanted to, it absolutely sucks so i have no doubt the older games are just as frustrating <3

BUT!!!! I'M SO GLAD MY CORRUPTION IS SPREADING AND YOU BOUGHT AND PLAYED IT AND ARE ENJOYING IT SO FAR!!! Trust me, Syndicate truly is an absolutely amazing game and is definitely one of my top 3 games of all time. I sometimes play it w my friend watching me play and trust me, I know that rage of trying to do smt but the character does smt else... or you try to do smt but the game doesn't react and you miss your chance... Oh well, still a wonderful game <3

My friend loves to play as Evie as well but I'm definitely playing Jacob every chance I get and I honestly get a lil pissy when I have to play as Evie bc I always prefer to play male characters, plus, I just like Jacob better bc he is a sweetheart. He is also canonically bisexual as hell!!! Have you met Abberline yet? The police officer? Him and Jacob together is one of my fave ships for the game. I also bought the ultimate/golden/whatever name it was edition so I had a bunch of extra outfits, I love the sherlock holmes outfit for Jacob but my friend keeps bullying me for it </3

Honestly? The time difference is the bane of my entire idea for the au bc if it's during their time Henry hasn't even graduated yet, and definitely not well-known enough for them to actively meet for whatever reason, and if you use the timeline for the jack the ripper dlc (in 1888) a lot of... Less than pleasant things happen so it wouldn't really make a lot of sense for a crossover to happen at that point but maybe it's just bc im a pussy and refuse to play the dlc. Rn, while imagining the au, I just imagine the 1868 timeline to be the same as the TGS timeline. I like to imagine the Frye Twins hearing about Henry and the Society and promptly breaking into his office to ask him to make poison and stuff for them. I also have a feeling that Jacob would flirt wildly with Henry and that Henry would be less-than-amused. It would also be a very fun thing with the fact that there would be two Henrys, with TGS Henry Jekyll and AC Syndicate Henry Green, soo... XD

[deepdonutkid]

Nonsense

A/N:

This took me way too long! I’m sorry, I was stuck on the Polly part for a while after Helen’s death.

Even though there is a part in the middle, which I’m not really satisfied with, I’m still glad, I finished that chapter. I hope you like it. It’s a little sad for a story, that will later focus on... other stuff.

Tbh... I forgot, if Martha died from a disease or something else. That’s why this part is a little vague. But he will talk more about his dead wife much later in the story.

English is not my first language and this is not beta-read, just a small part of it! Thanks to @retromafia​ for helping me out on this chapter! You’re so lovely!

John as mental health issues, but it’s very different to those of his brothers!

tagging: @bonniesgoldengirl​ @theshelbyclan​ @justalonelyslytherin​

Masterlist Do you wanna touch

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All fucking week he had thought about this date and her. John was distracted at work, at home and at the Garrison. His head was somewhere else, preferably with her, the beautiful Russian girl he had met a couple of days ago. He tried to keep this to himself even though he worried others would start to notice his weird behavior. Well, it was pretty hard to shut up about it, when he sat drunk next to his friends in the pub, but John wasn’t really ready to talk about this. It still felt so surreal like this encounter had never happened and it was all in his head. In addition to that, others- mainly his family- would gladly ruin this for him, before it had even begun, which was why he was so reluctant to talk about it.

They would ask him all sorts of stupid questions, which he couldn’t answer at all. He frowned and closed the book. Later he would meet the mysterious woman again and this was his only chance, since he didn’t know her full name or her address or another way to contact her. So he had to go there or he would go crazy thinking about what might have been. But there was a problem with that.

Of course there was a problem as nothing in his life could be easy. Not even once. However he refused to call his kids a problem. His dad called him like this more than once. And if John wasn’t a problem, his name was either accident or brat. Needless to say John was way nicer to his children than his father was to him. John loved all four of them. He really did, but… somebody had to look after them, while he wasn’t at home. So he had to ask either Polly or Ada and he didn’t know what would be worse.

His sister would spread the word of him having a girlfriend faster around than a disease. Maybe she would even spice up the story a little and add some drama just for the fun of it. Then he wasn’t out for a date, but to meet the woman he had impregnated or what else. And Polly, well she was the main reason he was scared to even mention his rendezvous. His aunt had the great talent to investigate his private life like fucking copper. Once she had sniffed something, she wouldn’t let go of it and kept bothering him.

Anyways he had to talk to one of them and the chat wouldn’t be a nice one. A choice between the foul and the evil. Ugh, he was in the mood to flip a coin. There were some on his desk. So why not? He looked around, if anybody was watching him, but he was alone in his office. Then he took a coin from the daily bets and tossed it. Once it was up in the air, he had made up his mind. The coin just proofed it. He should go to Polly and it would fit in his schedule as now was his lunch break and he would eat with the others anyway. If he would go now, he could still catch her alone in the kitchen. A grunt left his lips while he stood up from his chair. His pace was steady, but fast as he made his way through the betting shop. Luckily nobody noticed that he left his table a little too early.

He had never opened or closed a door as quietly as in this exact moment. “Polly?”, he had asked in a careful tone into the empty room. John heard movements from the kitchen. Suddenly her head peaked around the corner. “Yes, John?” She had emphasized every syllable as if he was stupid. Maybe he was just not ready to have this talk. On the other hand he had no chance. This was a now or never situation and he preferred now over never.

John gathered all his courage to approach her: “Would you do me a little favor?” All the sudden his hands were sweaty and no matter how many times he had rubbed them on his pants, it wouldn’t get any less smeary. Usually he wasn’t so nice and polite to his relatives. It was more like he had earned the title arrogant brat rightfully. He scratched his neck and gave her his best puppy eyes. And just to top it off his angelic smile, which had saved him many times before. Most of the times, he could avoid the consequences of his own actions with his charming smirk.

But today it didn’t help. Polly just shook her head. “What is it this time?”

“Just a little thing”, he began, then paused to take a deep breath and gain courage to exclaim his wish: “Can you watch the kids this evening? It’s really important.”

His aunt froze mid movement and starred at him. After a while she started blinking. Her glare was concerning. “Why this time? The last time was just a week ago. Another task from Tommy? He didn’t talked to me about this.”

John pressed his teeth again and shook his head. He looked at the roof and searched for the right words to explain his situation. Why was this so difficult? It was just a date. Yet it felt like so much more.

The Shelby sighed, while his hand was fumbling with his lighter in the pocket of his pants. “I’m meeting someone” was his short answer to a complex problem.

“Did Tommy ask you to?”, she asked once again. No matter if it was business or his private life, Polly liked to be up to date.

Again he shook his head. “No, not Tommy, but it’s still important. So would you please help me?”

Polly clucked her tongue and hurried back to the kitchen. John followed her and leaned against the door frame, waiting for his answer.

“Well, I got a meeting too, so you better change the appointment with said woman, because I don’t want to change my plans for you”, she replied, while stirring a pot. Afterwards she tapped the wooden spoon against the pot and turned around. “Lunch is ready. Better get your brothers, so we can eat.”

Apparently the conversation was over, because it really started, but John wouldn’t give up right away. “But I can’t”, he protested: “That’s the only night she is available and I don’t know how to reach her.”

Without looking at him, she walked right back into the living room and started putting dished on the table. “Ahh, see? I was right about the woman part… But why do you want to meet somebody you barely know?” Her question was reasonable.

John was so lost in his thought about her and yet he had no answer. No good ones. So he just said the next best thing: “I won a bet and I want to see her.”

Right when he said that his brother came in. Arthur widened his eyes and scratched his chin. “Want to see who?”, he asked. It was horrible how nosy his family was.

There was no peaceful day at the Shelby household. Never ever.

“He has a new girl, but he doesn’t know anything about her”, Polly retorted, before John even had the chance to answer himself.

Arthur chuckled and added: “Oh, Our John was never a man for talking. Right, John boy?”

They had to be fucking kidding him. It felt like he was sixteen again and started to meeting Martha. This was so embarrassing. John nodded slowly and gave his brother a false laugh.

“Well, we had other things to do”, John objected and it wasn’t quite the truth, but close enough. There was just no explanation why he was drawn to this woman, who was a stranger to him, but oh, those kisses really worked some crazy magic on him.

His brother burst out in laughter and slapped his hand on John’s back. “Oh, I know! I fucking know what you mean”, he exclaimed: “Why talk, when you can have fun with a woman?”

And right now, John couldn’t agree less. He wanted to talk with the mysterious woman, but she rushed off into the night before he could even say goodbye to her. Damn, he wished he knew more about her, maybe then he wouldn’t be so nervous right now. The Shelby didn’t feel like his usual cheeky, charming self, more like fucking train wreck.

His face got gleaming red, but he tried to act like was completely cool with it. And it wasn’t like he didn’t want to sleep with her. Gosh, what wouldn’t he give to spend the night with her?

“Pol, you see John’s face. He is red like a crayfish”, Arthur joked and pulled his little brother into a headlock.

Their aunt walked around them, very carefully as she was carrying the big steam pot. She sounded like she was mentally everywhere else, when she murmured: “Yes, Arthur, I see it- shameful red- but now it’s time for lunch, so release your brother and come sit.” Somehow Polly managed to phrase it exactly like their mom used to say it, even though she was only three years older than Arthur, but he’d still respect her.

So he did what she asked him to do and let John go again to take a seat at the table.

It was the perfect timing to beg Polly once again, because he didn’t want to have the same conversation with his sister. “Polly, Please”, he insisted: “I wouldn’t ask you, if it wasn’t really important to me.”

“What is so important about one woman, that you have the great urge to meet her?”

That was the question he was asking himself all week, but okay. Now he needed to come up with an answer or otherwise he would have to get comfortable with the thought he would never see her again.

He licked his lips as he assembled the words in his brain to a convincing answer. “She has…”, he began, but then he got lost again.

“Huge cans?”, Arthur purposed with a big smile on his face.

But John shook his head: “Not that, her tits are average, there is something else about her and I can’t say what yet, that’s why I need to find out…. Or I go crazy.”

He turned to Polly and put on his puppy eyes again. “Do you want me to go crazy, Polly?”

Pol pouted and sighed. “Fine, you get your will again, but that’s the last time and don’t ever bother me with this again.”

His eyes shined bright in the lights of success and more importantly… winning an argument with his aunt. “Thank you and I’ll never bother you again.”

The matriarch went her way around her reign and said to herself: “We’ll see about that.”

Now this problem found its solution, the next question popped up in his head. Where were his kids? Because he was so caught up with his date, he had forgotten to pick them up from school. It wasn’t a serious issue. Three of them could walk home on their own, but the youngest was a different thing.

In his memory of this day, he had left Katie here, but she wasn’t running around like usually. “Pol, where are the kids?”

“The kids?”, she observed: “Oh, the kids you want to get rid of? You mean… those kids? They are upstairs.”

John grunted. That was far from reality and his aunt should know that. “That’s bullshit. I don’t want to get rid of them.”

“Then act like you care for them once instead of fucking around and I might believe you”, Polly chided and gave him the mean side eye, while she filled the plates with stew.

And she acted like a real bitch lately, John wanted to add, but bid his lip to stop himself from saying something he would regret deeply. It was so annoying how she tried to make him feel guilty for having a night off. He was so sick of this. Either he was working or he was with his kids and he had little or no time for himself. Just the few hours when they were asleep and he could go to the Garrison for a beer or two.

“It’s just one date!”, he yelled, but then clenched his fists and swallowed his anger and repeated quietly: “It’s just one date.”

The room was quiet now. Nobody said or did anything for a while.

Then Polly started moving again and explained: “You should focus on getting a wife and not play around with some floosy girl… but you’re an adult now, John, so do whatever you want… just don’t drag me into your mess.”

John nodded and went upstairs to get his kids. Yes, he was still bitter about the things Polly said to him, but he wouldn’t let this ruin his day. After all he had plans. Maybe he gripped the banister a little too tight, well, at least he didn’t bellowed at his children, when he found them making a mess in his old room.

All four were sitting here and around them were all the toys they had. Most of them were his old toys or some from his brothers.

“Lunch is ready”, he grunted and waited for them to get up, so they would follow him. They just stared at him with wide eyes.

His oldest daughter was the first to talk: “We heard you yell at Aunt Polly…”

He didn’t answer instead he just moaned and leaned against the wall.

“You’re away tonight”, she added and tilted her head. There was curiosity in her eyes. It didn’t bother him, but something else did. She had the same eyes as her mother. Like a dagger it pierced his heart, whenever she gave him this look. Martha used to do this as well.

Slowly he nodded. He couldn’t lie to his kids at all. “Yes, but you’ll be staying here and Polly will bring you home, when it’s bed time.”

Breanna thought about this for a second and then like this whole conversation had never happened, she stood up and helped her little sister to get on her feet as well. “Well, it’s time for lunch now”, she declared and look at her twin brother: “C’mon, James, we still got homework to do.”

Now that she was standing, John could see how small she was actually. Sometimes he forgot, she was still a child, but the way she acted was different. His oldest daughter had picked up a lot from Polly and her mother, while he was in France. However he tried to not treat her like an adult. She wasn’t and her childhood shouldn’t be ripped from her. Breanna didn’t need to protect her siblings from anything and yet she still thought it was her job.

James on the other hand was quite the opposite. Loud, angry, such a brat, he picked up fight, whenever he could, much like his father at that age.

Luckily his older brother Colin was also a voice of reason and not as chaotic as James. Colin was the oldest and he didn’t actually talk much, but on somedays and with certain persons he wouldn’t shut up. Most of the time Colin did good in school, read a lot, unlike his uncle Finn who was just five years older than him. And more importantly… Colin did everything his father asked him to.

And then here was Katie, the youngest. Just three years old and a sweet girl, but she was of fragile condition. She was born prematurely and was also the reason why Martha died. John tried to ignore the fact, because even though she was the reason, it wasn’t her fault. How could she? She didn’t pick her time to be born. However from time to time, Katie managed to make him cry. After the war, he rarely shed tears, but every time she was sick and he had to go with her to the hospital, he lost his nerves. She was still his little baby and the thought of losing her too wrecked him.

They were all on their way downstairs and John followed them back. He held Katie’s hands while walking down the stairs.

The lunch was very silent. There was still tension left in the room, but John didn’t cared. Katie was sitting on his lap and they both ate from the same plate, like they always did. But it wasn’t a cute ritual, more like a space problem, with all the family members around the table, it was a little cramped. Too cramped for Katie to have her own stool. Another reason, why he needed a wife. So he and his family could eat in his kitchen and they would all have enough space again.

A part of John was worried Polly or Arthur mentioned his date to Tommy, who would gladly take the opportunity to ruin his day. His older brother would pick all the question, John had been asking all week and then make him look stupid in front of the whole family. But apparently Polly was too pissed about the fight to say anything that day and John thanked god for this.

Somehow Katie spilled the stew all over his pants, but he had no time to go back home and change his pants. He still needed to finish the books and after that, he could get dressed for his date.

So John sat in his office in a damp suit and tried to fix what he did wrong before lunch.

Maybe the luck was on his side today after all, because he managed to get everything done early. Somethings didn’t went as smooth as he had wished for, but at least it worked out so well, that he could go to the date and it was still a win for him.

As fast as possible without running he walked home and sprinted up the stairs to the master bedroom. Now he could change his cloths and he was indeed very happy about it. The stew had dried on his leg, which made his skin itchy. Basically he ripped his clothes off the second he arrived in his room.

“Fuck.” A curse left his lips, because he got stuck in his pants and almost hit the floor. Last second he got his balance back and then threw his pants in the opposite direction. He could care about this later.

First he had to clean the stains from his body. So he rushed to the kitchen, just in his underwear and rubbed his leg with a wet cloth. This had to be enough. With the time he had left, he couldn’t take a bath.

Back in his room again, he stood in front of the cabinet and picked the first suit he had in his hand. There was no discussion about this. Suits were suits and he had plenty of them, all of them looked good on him and she wouldn’t even mind, would she?

While he button up his shirt, he stopped all the sudden. What if she would mind? Slowly he walked backwards to the cabinet. Should he wear his Sunday suit? Thought and thoughts came rushing in. She seemed like a fine lady, but yet she agreed to meet with him. Maybe she wouldn’t, if it wasn’t for the bet.

He got headache since his argument with Polly and it got worse. Maybe he would go to the spot, where they should meet and she wasn’t there. The possibility, that she tricked him, hadn’t occurred in his mind until now.

Honestly, John felt so stupid, when he realized how weird the coincidence was. What were his chances to be so lucky? To meet a beautiful, wealthy and unmarried woman, who was also funny and charming and mysterious and he could find a ton more of adjectives to describe her? And then win the round and the bet, he had made with her? What were his chances for that? So either he was one of the luckiest men in this world or a goddamn idiot.

Or maybe… his mind tricked him. He was pretty drunk after all and in his twisted mind the details of this scene got lost. Maybe he didn’t win the round, but because he wished so bad for it, he had changed his memory of that said night. Maybe he was so lonely he made up this perfect woman, because he couldn’t bare his poor existence anymore.

And did he think about his stupid suit so much?

Yes, he was nervous, but this was no explanation for this nonsense.

Right now, John was freaking out about a woman he barely knew. It reminded him of a time, where he did the same thing… but with Martha, a girl he had known all his life. Back then and today he was well aware of why he was so nervous around his first wife. He loved her and he was afraid of saying or doing something very stupid.

But he didn’t loved that Russian woman. He couldn’t, not after only one kiss. It was impossible and yet the kiss felt so real. The memory of her lips was burned into his mind and it drove him crazy.

And he didn’t know, why he had this feeling, which wasn’t love and he didn’t even know what it was, and suddenly he had more questions in his head than he ever had in his whole life.

Usually, he didn’t think that much about anything. He wasn’t the guy who put much thought into every little thing that happened around him.

Everything he wanted to do now was to yell. He couldn’t even put his frustration into words anymore.  His head was full of white noise.

Barefooted he stood on the wooden floor of his bedroom, which he used to share with the love of his life. John took a few deep breaths and looked around. Everything was still the same. After the war he had no energy to change something in here, even though it was just fueling his mental health issues. There was still her cabinet with her dresses and her stuff and sometimes when he was particularly lonely, he felt the fabric and imagined her soft body under it. It didn’t smell like Martha anymore, but sometimes he wished.

It felt like suffocating. He couldn’t breathe nor cry, even though tears filled his eyes.

He walked over to his nightstand and looked at the photograph of her. “You don’t get to fucking judge me”, he whispered: “Like you always did. You died and I’m still here and I love you and I always will, but don’t ruin this for me.”

“You put all these questions in my head, so I’ll fuck up and ruin everything”, he argued… with his dead wife like she was there. And he could imagine her so well, standing next to him with her arms crossed in front of her chest and that piercing look in her eyes.

Even before she died, he talked a lot to her and about her and sometimes just to himself, but it just got worse, when he came home from France. He can’t handle the silence in the room nor the void his head. Suddenly he said with a soft voice: “I know, what I promised you back then and when I made that promise, I believed every word of it, but you can’t be the only woman I’ll ever love now. You are dead.”

He wasn’t there when she died and the worst part was… he hadn’t even known until he got home. Polly said, she was about to write a letter, but then she couldn’t, because she didn’t want to bother him, while he was in the trenches. Of course, he had worries, when he didn’t get a letter from his wife in months. John just thought she was mad at him, because she was pregnant again while he was away. And then he came home and his house was empty. No Martha and no kids. So he walked back to Polly’s Place and then she told him. His wife was dead and he was surrounded by his family, but he had never felt so lonely in the world.

To this very day, this memory haunted him in the worst way.

And yet, he refused to crumble right away. Not before it had even started. Life was going on and he refused to just stand there, while the time passed. He would walk, run away from this memory if he had to.

“Let me try it at least”, he bargained: “You don’t know her and neither do I. She could be a beast, a real bitch and maybe, just maybe I don’t want to see her again. And maybe I’ll do, but that’s not your decision. I make my own decisions now, because that’s how things work for the living people, Martha.”

It hurt to say her name, but he had to. The word had so much power over him and he took this power back, by saying it. Then he flipped the photograph over and walked back to the cabinet.

Without a second doubt he picked his finest suit and just like that Martha was gone. She would come back eventually, but right now he had other things to do. Like do his hair and drink a little sip of whiskey for confidence.

With a toothpick in his mouth, he left the house and walked the road. All alone.