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makeste · 6 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 254: Who the Hell Is Bucky

Previously on BnHA: All Might welcomed 1-A back after the new year with a pun he’s probably been working on for the entire winter break, the poor man. Aizawa received a call :’) and drove down to Tartarus with Mic to meet up with Naomasa and Gran Torino. Nao and Gran were all “so you’ll NEVER GUESS, but we found out that Kurogiri’s quirk is apparently a FAKE QUIRK which was created from a bunch of other quirks -- AND GUESS WHICH ONE WAS THE ORIGINAL QUIRK?” and Aizawa was all (ಠ ∩ಠ), and Mic put a hand on his shoulder, and Nao was all “YEAH YOU DID GUESS, IT’S YOUR OLD DEAD PAL SHIRAKUMO, FROM CHAPTERS 59 THROUGH 65 OF VIGILANTES!” And okay, so (1) OH MY GOD, and (2) I originally thought this meant that Kurogiri is straight up a zombie!Shirakumo, but others pointed out that he might be some random other dude who just has Kumo’s quirk, among others. And like, okay. SO WHAT IS THE TRUTH.

Today on BnHA: Y’ALL HE REALLY IS A ZOMBIE!KUMO, AND NAOMASA AND GRAN BROUGHT AIZAWA AND MIC TO TALK TO HIM AND TRY TO RESTORE HIS MEMORIES SOMEHOW. Aizawa is all “this isn’t some fantasy world with happy endings, this is THE REAL WORLD WHERE MIRACLES DON’T HAPPEN!” but Gran is all “sometimes they do!” and Aizawa is like “!!” and so they sit down to chat with Kumo. Aizawa launches into a passionate speech about how great Kumo was and how he pulled him along and inspired him, and how he (Aizawa) is strict with his students now and -- get this -- FAKE-EXPELS THEM IN ORDER TO PUT THE FEAR OF GOD INTO THEM JUST ONCE LMAO, BUT IT’S BECAUSE HE CARES, and because he wants them to be great heroes and not hapless redshirts who get killed offscreen. And by the end of it he’s crying and imploring Shirakumo -- “if you’re still in there somewhere” -- to become heroes with him and Mic just like they always wanted. All of it is exactly as emotionally devastating as you would figure, btw.

you guys I have been playing hopscotch on my dash since yesterday trying to avoid spoilers about the popularity poll until I actually had time to write down my reactions! all I know is that of course Bakugou is #1 again, because this fandom always comes through lol. my other predictions are that the rest of the trio will receive lots of love again as well, and Hawks will once again be high on the list, and Aizawa too because of the Vigilantes flashbacks (at least HE BETTER), and probably the villains will get a big boost as well after their arc, Tomura in particular. and Endeavor might break the top 10 again too with the newest arc, although I can’t quite remember whether or not the poll was still going on by the time that started (ETA: actually I don’t think it was). but yeah. anyway so there’s a real possibility that most of the kids will actually be shut out of the top ranks because of these GROWN-UPS and VILLAINS stealing all their glory, smh. your time will come, kids

“more than anyone, you were a hero” oh is this chapter going to play with my feelings yet again. is this just going to happen every fucking week now. okay

HELL YEAH MY BOYS ON THE COVER

@unboundednamelessfuture, to answer your ask about whether I’m planning on watching Heroes Rising, the answer is a resounding YES, POSSIBLY EVEN MULTIPLE TIMES IN THEATERS IF I CAN SWING IT, because I’m pretty sure it’s actually just going to be All My Dreams Come True: The Movie. and yes I have seen some spoilers for it, although I’m not clear on whether or not they’re actual spoilers or just rumors. so because of that I won’t post my thoughts just yet, except to say that if it is true, see above re: All My Dreams Come True: The Movie, and also add a bunch more exclamation points at the end of the title omfg

anyway so my sons are famous now. they’re in Hollywood. good for them

AND NOW THE POLLLLLLLL YES

oh shit, I heard about “Deku & Bakugou Rising”, but is that out this week?? shit I’ll have to do a separate post if that’s the case. I’m assuming it’s more of a bonus chapter than an actual spinoff, kind of like the All Might chapter we got for the last movie. either way, to say I’m hyped would be a massive understatement, needless to say

(ETA: okay so I’ve seen Korean scanlations of this -- which I didn’t look at closely because spoilers -- but no English scans yet. so stay tuned!)

so I was wrong about the kids being shooed out of the top 10! I have never been so pleased to be wrong! so we have Kacchan at #1 (I love his face so much. ghlkhf), Deku at #2 (he beat Shouto this year! good for you!!), Shouto at #3 (wouldn’t be surprised if he and Deku were neck and neck again though), Kirishima at #4 (we stan one bright ray of sunshine), Iida at #5 (YOU DESERVE IT SO MUCH SWEETHEART. I’M SO GLAD FANDOM ISN’T SLEEPING ON THE ACTUAL BEST CHARACTER IN THE SERIES), Tomura at #6 (DID YOU NOT GET THE MEMO ABOUT WEARING A NUMBER ON YOUR OUTFIT? MAKING ME FIGURE IT OUT FROM THE PROCESS OF ELIMINATION IS A REAL BASTARD MOVE. THEY SHOULD HAVE PUT YOU AT #8 TO MATCH YOUR CURRENT NUMBER OF FINGERS YOU STUPID SEXY JERK), Aizawa at #7 (THANK YOU FANDOM, YOU’VE REDEEMED YOURSELVES FROM LAST YEAR), Ochako at #8 (I LOVE YOUUUU), Toga at #9 (LADIES!!!!!!), and Momo at #10 (YES GIRRRRRL)

I think this is the strongest showing of ladies yet in the top ten (ETA: actually no, the second poll was slightly better) and I’m all about it. also can they all please keep these costume upgrades because YES. I don’t care if Horikoshi would get sick of drawing them. THAT’S WHAT ASSISTANTS ARE FOR. KATSUKI HAS A FUCKING BULLET BANDOLIER, COME ON, YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS JUST A ONE TIME THING YOU ASSCLOWNS, THIS IS FOR THE PEOPLE

lol here’s the abridged version of the Shirakumo flashbacks, I guess. everyone was saying last week how Vigilantes was now required reading, and like, I get that everyone’s excited about the crossover, but they still have to make this comprehensible for people who only read the main series. I’m guessing we’ll get the short version here, but Vigilantes gets to provide the more in-depth story for people who want to know more about everything, which is more or less what Vigilantes’s role has been in general

anyway so here’s Kumo doing his usual Naruto impression and cheerfully dooming himself by being ceaselessly optimistic and tempting fate’s sense of irony

you sure can! just so long as that crisis doesn’t involve big, heavy rocks, or gravity. I’m sorry kiddo

“‘let’s all form an agency together.’ it happened just after he said those words.” well there you have it, the BnHA equivalent of “one week left till my retirement.” hero training should really include a mandatory course titled Death Flags: The Silent Killers. there are children’s lives at stake here

lol yeah this really is abridged

“once upon a time we all wanted to be heroes and then Shirakumo got crushed by some rocks the end.” yeah, so maybe not quite the full emotional impact of the original lol

OH SHIT SON

so it is his reanimated corpse, then! which means the potential for him somehow dramatically regaining his memories is very high. since this is a shounen manga, I’m gonna go ahead and put it at... 100%. is that too low

guys I don’t know what to do when Present Mic is making faces like this

when even the Comic Relief Guy is getting all traumatized and serious, you know it’s bad. sob who will I turn to now for comfort. Horikoshi’s really just gonna go full dark no stars here and leave me just stumbling around lost

OH IF IT ISN’T THE ORIGINAL PIECE OF SHIT HIMSELF!!

yeah it makes perfect sense actually, you bastard. you steal the bodies from the crematorium and then give the families fake ashes or something. holy shit you really will not stop until you find the lowest possible level to stoop to, and then grab a fucking shovel and start digging so as to GO DOWN EVEN LOWER. just. god everything about this is just so wrong

oh btw, now seems like a good time to bring up this ask I got last week!

anon you blew my mind, just so you know. you’re absolutely right. so that’s one mystery down! though the way that this is going, I’m not so sure I’m gonna like any of the other answers that the Noumu arc is gonna provide us sob

holy shit look at this fucking simile

dead children = leftovers. sure why not. just in case we all forgot how evil he is

and also, YEAH BUDDY THAT’S WHAT I JUST FUCKING SAID, PLEASE KEEP UP. and who even knows how many other times AFO has done this. I hope they’ve started investigating crematoriums, then. I’m just waiting for them to make some connection that leads to them finally finding out about Ujiko, but that might take a while still

(ETA: although if they actually can get Kumo to talk...)

and did he really just solemnly call Mic “DJ” because omfg. Gran, are you the comic relief. do you even know. are you even aware

oh hey look another dagger to my heart

ouch. that was cold. and... not necessarily true, though, is it? because he was kind enough to Tomura. idk, I know my villain mom has done some horrible things, but you’ll be hard pressed to get me to think of him as all bad, even so. he was the one keeping Tomura from going FULLASS MURDER MODE!! for a long time

HEY WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF COP-OUT IS THIS

well then WHY DID YOU EVEN BRING THEM IN HERE! DID THEY NOT SEEM TRAUMATIZED ENOUGH TO YOU?? “well idk they seem pretty shaken up already, but just to make sure they grasp the full repugnant horror of the situation why don’t we make them visit him face to face.” OKAY THEN YOU SADISTS

son of a bitch and speaking of twisting the knife, Horikoshi keeps showing us these increasingly wrecked glimpses of Aizawa lowkey falling apart and I can’t

at this point the shadows under his eyes have their own shadows. and god dude, I know you’re rational, but it’s really hard to watch you just outright dismiss any and all possibilities of hope just like that :(

what the fuck Gran

so you really are the one in this scene who’s trying to lift everyone’s spirits now. well all right then, just what are you alluding to

OH SNAP

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD NOUMU BACKSTORY AT LAST! jesus christ, do Nao and Gran just know everything already, and they’ve just been keeping it all to themselves for the hell of it?? how long before they casually swing by U.A. and are all “oh and by the way, the traitor is...”

ANOTHER AIZAWA FACE BUT THIS ONE IS SOFT OH GOD!!

HEY WHAT’S UP I’M GONNA CRY. SOMEONE TURN ON SOME SAD MUSIC. AND I WON’T GO, AND I WON’T SLEEP, AND I CAN’T BREATHE, UNTIL YOU’RE RESTING HERE WITH ME

AND I WON’T LEAVE, I CAN’T HIDE, I CANNOT BEEEEEEEE

hey Nao. you know what really would have helped with getting him to talk. NOT KNOCKING HIM UNCONSCIOUS. ??? move over do you need someone else to do your job for you or

-- OH THEY’RE TALKING TO HIM NOW LMAO OKAY

“go ahead and do your thing guys. don’t be afraid to make it real gay”

this would be even more dramatic if Kurogiri actually had a face. but even so... OH I AM WHAT I AM. I’LL DO WHAT I WANT. BUT IIIIIIII CAN’T HIIIIDE

oh my fucking god Aizawa is all “but what about his family?” and Naomasa is literally “if you two are unsuccessful, then...” like straight up acknowledging that the three of them were so fucking gay in high school that their odds of getting through to Kumogiri are stronger than that of his OWN FUCKING FAMILY. wow

chin up my sexy man. you got this

OH SHIT AHHHHHHH

LDSKFHL EASY THERE CHAMP, THAT’S TOO MUCH SEX TO BE CONTAINED IN A SINGLE PANEL, PLEASE TRY AND DO ME A FAVOR AND FUCKING HOLD IT TOGETHER HERE FOR THE KIDS WHO ARE READING THIS!! [frantically googles ‘can a shounen manga get you pregnant’]

so Aizawa is all “I’ll be damned if I let his family hear this sickening story” and like, I’m sure he means that in a “they don’t deserve that pain” kind of noble and principled way, but if it were my child I sure would want to know regardless. and aren’t they going to find out either way?? either you do get through to him, in which case obviously you would want the family to know “HEY, GOOD NEWS!”, or you don’t manage it and Nao has to call them anyway as we just established. but you go ahead and get all fired up then, Shouta

now there’s a panel of him staring at Kumo and Kumo is just a big shapeless blob of black smoke just sitting there lol. don’t tell me he’s still unconscious?!

thank you

anyway so Aizawa, did you know that while you were off being an underground hero, Kumo was studying at Oxford to get his medical degree while bartending on nights and weekends to make ends meet. the two of you have so much to catch up about

Mic’s thinking that even with Aizawa using his quirk, the fog isn’t dissipating, so it means Kumo’s body is now made up of fog. well but then what about the metal neck thingy! huh??

and Mic’s opening his big mouth to complain that Kurogiri is far too polite and classically educated to really be their old pal, but before he can finish, Kumo is interrupting to ask about his son!!

he’s. uh. I guess you could call it “well”? maybe a little too well [marge simpson noises]

well Mic is clearly back to being the comic relief here. but Aizawa is keenly spotting those mom instincts that have remained in Kumo to this day!

yes Aizawa the core of your friend is still in there deep down!

OH MY GOD

LMAOOOO. “EMO PUNK... WHERE HAVE I HEARD THAT BEFORE -- !!” [AUDIBLY GASPS AND LOOKS DIRECTLY AT AIZAWA]

oh my lord. like, I don’t think this is actually meant to be funny, but just the fact that he immediately associates “emo” with AIZAWA FUCKING SHOUTA so strongly that it makes him go (•̪ o •̪) all knowingly has me fucking deceased right now good grief

so Kumo says he doesn’t resent his mission at all. some people like looking after emo punks, Mic. you should know

AND NOW MY FEELINGS ARE BEING TOYED WITH AGAIN!! JUST STRAIGHT UP OUT IN THE OPEN!! THIS ISN’T FAIR

heh. don’t mind me I’m just looking for some sort of emotional support to cling to here for my breakdown that’s about to happen about 0.2 seconds after Aizawa starts crying, if he indeed starts to cry. which it looks like he might. oh god I’m not ready for this at all. my hatches are not even remotely battened; my shutters are just gonna go flying right the fuck off

by the way what the fuck is up with the chairs at Tartarus. why do they look like swiss cheese

hmm, Nao and Torino are all “no reaction”, but to me it looks like there clearly is a reaction, though? he can’t even look Aizawa in the eye all of a sudden. it’s clearly getting to him. Nao seriously, do you need someone else to do your job

oh Aizawa

(ETA: Kumo really first-named Aizawa two seconds after meeting him. this man knows how to adopt his introverts.)

okay but Present Mic in a summer uniform is the most punchable version yet, SORRY I JUST HAD TO SAY IT I’M SORRY MIC I LOVE YOU. it was just gonna come bursting up out of me if I didn’t

anyway so Aizawa is gaying it up just as promised

him using his quirk is definitely making the scene more intense, but I’m not really sure why he actually is using it, since we’ve established it’s not having any effect. unless he’s trying to possibly undo some of the brainwashing somehow??

(ETA: so it occurred to me that just because his quirk isn’t dissolving Kumo’s mist body doesn’t mean that it’s not having an effect on his warp abilities. this way they can interrogate him without fear of him trying to use it and them having to knock him out again.)

so Kumo’s continuing to try and play it off all smooth while Aizawa unleashes the full force of fifteen years of pent up grief and trauma!

starting to think Aizawa never did go to therapy after that whole thing. typical U.A. “so you saw your best friend die suddenly and violently right before your eyes and subsequently suppressed it and hallucinated his voice talking to you to avoid facing that reality, huh? eh, you’ll be fine”

oh no a close-up of Aizawa that doesn’t show his face completely. this kind of thing never ends well

BECAUSE HE DOESN’T WANT THEM TO END UP LIKE YOU [sobs forever]

wait are we really going to talk about this?? omg

wait what. so do you mean to tell me he expelled them but then continued to guide them afterwards so they would have long, happy and healthy careers but more importantly would be safe omfg I’m not fucking ready for this shit

we’re cutting to U.A.’s class 2-A! Aizawa’s former class? does that mean he literally expelled EVERY SINGLE ONE of his students last year omg

so then. does every single standout characteristic of the Aizawa we know and love stem from his tragic past and his relationship with this boy then, or what? meanwhile the feelings continue to torrentially lash against my house while I huddle in the basement

I can’t fucking believe we’re actually getting a legit reveal about the “Aizawa expels all his students” gag holy shit

re-enroll!? what?? and “expel” in quotation marks?!?

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS -- HE DID IT JUST TO SCARE THEM!? AND THEN WHAT, WERE THEY PICKED UP AFTERWARD BY THE OTHER HERO CLASSES INSTEAD? SO HE TEACHES THEM A POTENTIALLY LIFE-SAVING LESSON AND THEN GETS TO LAZE AROUND THE REST OF THE YEAR, LOL WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. THIS MAN IS A GENIUS

(ETA: and by this logic, Deku really ought to have been expelled half a dozen times by now. don’t ever try and tell me that this man doesn’t play favorites.)

so Aizawa is taking his goggles off and saying that he’s strict with his students because he wants them to live long, fulfilling lives

OH NO

SOMEHOW HORIKOSHI MADE KURO’S FACE LOOK SOFT?! I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW, IS THERE ANYTHING HE CAN’T DO

AHHHHH

OH NO HE DID IT AHHHH THE TEARS, FUCK. WELL MY HOUSE IS FUCKING DESTROYED, I’M CLIMBING UP TO THE ROOF TO AWAIT RESCUE

wow. anyways that really did get gay as fuck at the end, didn’t it. given the meaning that those goggles have to Aizawa, can this be taken as a form of marriage proposal? no? well I’m taking it that way anyway, so. congratulations you two. I’m off to go sob into a pillow now

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consummate-deviant · 6 years ago

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Continued thoughts about Catra and Hordak...

Hello again, y’all! Is life still treating you okay? Have you spent time with your pet lately? Eating a healthy and balanced diet? Just a smaller thing today, not one of my full-blown book reports, but the infection that is she-ra passion has somehow managed to reach me even through the haze of pokemon breeding that has owned my soul this past week, and I gotta words some more. The topic of discussion today will be Catra and Hordak… namely, how I interpret their dynamic going through season 4, and why some people view it as romantic. I’m… a bit of a windbag, though! So, just to be safe, I’m gonna put the rest of this post behind a cut. Let it never be said I was aught but a considerate dude. Let’s discuss!

Now, as I mentioned earlier, I don’t view the dynamic between Catra and Hordak as romantic in season 4. I think the reason it can kind of seem that way is that season 4 really did shift their relationship in a fairly dynamic way, and the contrast between the way they interacted before and the way they interacted after is pretty stark. Normally, such a wide contrast is brought about by the development of romantic interest by one or both parties, but in this case I posit that the cause was something equally interesting... though quite a bit more tame: it was the first time there was any sort of emotional interaction between them, at all.

I should probably step back though! Lemme explain what I mean. How would you describe Catra’s relationships with Hordak and Shadow Weaver across the first three seasons of the show? One of the more interesting takes I’ve heard is that the dynamic between the three of them is an allusion to a dysfunctional family. Catra is the child acting out because she wants Mom and Dad to acknowledge her. Shadow Weaver is the caustic maternal figure, emotionally sabotaging her child for her own benefit, and Hordak is the aloof, emotionally detached father figure… The kind of Dad who can’t come to your basketball game this week, kiddo, because work called… but he’ll be there next week for sure!

...unless work calls again next week… and work always calls again.

I agree with about half of this. The fact that Shadow Weaver is meant to be seen as an allusion to a poisonous maternal relationship feels pretty close to undeniable. Likewise, any doubt that Catra sought to be valued emotionally by her flew out the window when we saw the way Shadow Weaver treated her in the illusory reality created by the portal.

Pictured... kitty getting scritches.

Catra wanted to be appreciated, accepted, and loved by Shadow Weaver, and the tragedy of her character comes from being denied those things. By contrast, when it comes to Hordak, of those three desires: appreciation, acceptance, and love… she only really wants two of them.

There is no personal element to the early relationship between Catra and Hordak, on either side. Catra neither seeks fatherly love from Hordak, nor seems to be distressed by the lack of it, and that difference in her dynamic with Shadow Weaver and Hordak is pretty important.

Catra desires maternal love from Shadow Weaver. What she desires from Hordak isn’t paternal love, but rather patriarchal validation. Hordak represents the power structure of the world into which Catra was born, and her desire is to be seen as a component of that structure that has value.

For three seasons, where Hordak is concerned, her first priority is to be seen as an undeniably competent subordinate. She endeavors to complete the tasks she’s given efficiently, and attempts to make suggestions with the intent of increasing the effectiveness of the organization. She fails in gaining his appreciation, and grows annoyed and frustrated by this, but that shallow anger she expresses toward him pales in comparison to the absolute devastation that Shadow Weaver’s ever-more-personal rejections bring her. Had the status quo remained where it was, the two of them likely would never have grown any closer to one another… but then season 4 happened.

So, last week I shamelessly stole a question aimed @cruelfeline , and in my tactless theft I mentioned my answer to the question “why didn’t Catra just kill Hordak when she had him at her mercy in episode one”. I’m going to repeat that here, just to make sure it’s established:

“Some people don’t get why she spared Hordak instead of killing him, when she had him at her mercy, but she actually had a pretty vital need for him. Catra has lost the ability to self validate: a lifetime of being raised by Shadow Weaver has beaten it out of her. Thus, she has a pretty intense desire to receive external validation from an outside force… and with Shadow Weaver gone, Hordak was the only person around who could provide that.”

And let’s be clear on this first and foremost: the S4 relationship between Catra and Hordak is, for both parties, an attempt at rebound. This is the first time Catra has Shadow Weaver fully cut from her life, leaving her with only Hordak to supply her with parental appreciation, and Hordak has been betrayed by someone he cared for deeply, but receives motivation to destructively channel his negative emotions from Catra.

This is also the first time Catra interacts with the real Hordak, and not the mask he usually wears before his subordinates. While being exposed to his vulnerability gave her the power to usurp him, it also led her to a realization: Hordak is… a lot like her. One of my other favorite moments of wordless acting takes place with Catra in season 4. Hordak is expressing his feelings of inadequacy and desire to be acknowledged by his brother while destroying them princesses, and Catra, despite saying nothing, displays a range of expressions and ear movements that seem to say ‘wait a minute… is this guy… actually my dad, after all?’

That realization of commonality leads to the first actual emotional interactions between the pair. The first actual attempt to understand each other, and that is, undeniably, a massive shift from the cold professionalism of their previous relationship. Catra was always quick to assure Hordak that their actions were leading them down the path to his brother’s acknowledgment, and Hordak, in turn, validated Catra’s actions and choices… which she especially needed to hear in season 4, when she pushed literally everyone else out of her life. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, their relationship was mutually self destructive… each brought out the worst from the other, and helped their downward spiral remain in motion. It’s interesting how there is a bit of similarity to the dynamic between Hordak and Entrapta and the one between he and Catra. Both are examples of awkward, lonely people, realizing they share more in common than they realized, and growing closer as a result. The latter is more parental than romantic, but the similarity is intentional, all the same… a way of contrasting healthy and unhealthy relationships, if I had to guess.

So… yeah! If you’re wondering what the point of all that was… well… I’m flattered you think highly enough of me to assume I ever have a point to saying anything! I was just pondering she-ra while biking across Galar, waiting for my rookidees to hatch...as you do… and decided I wanted to talk about it some more! As always, I’m not really out here to persecute the Catdak shippers… er… all five of you. I will never be the guy to judge people who ship things I personally don’t like, because I’m not a mailbox head. Just expressing why I don’t think it’s romantically coded, but also why I still find it fascinating regardless. That’s enough outta me, though! You guys have a lovely and productive week. If you have any she-ra related thingamajigs you, for whatever reason, wish to hear my thoughts about, feel free to ask, and I’ll see ya the next time I have the urge to feel ways about stuff. Been procrastinating on my fanfic writing… so I think my next order of business will be to get that ball rolling again. Anyhow, see ya! Be sure to indulge in the finest of all winter beverages: warm, spiced eggnog.

#Catra #Hordak #she ra s4 #she ra

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ofstarsandvibranium · 6 years ago

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Waiting It Out

Fandom: Marvel (College AU)

Pairing: Chubby!Bucky Barnes x Reader

As requested by anonymous: hi! I was wondering if I could request something where you’ve been friends with Bucky for years and there’s been mutual pining forever but now that he’s chubby he’s more reluctant to tell her about his feelings. love u btw 💛💙❤️

You’re not even sure you remember life before Bucky. When you met Bucky in sophomore year of high school, you just knew that that friendship was made to last. He was funny, smart, kind, and was always there for you. You were there for him as well. When his dad passed during senior year, it was hard for Bucky. He was so emotionally devastated, he was so close to failing his last year of high school. But thanks to you, he was able to walk across the stage and accept that diploma from the principal, while shooting you a wink and smile.

You were proud to call Bucky Barnes your best friend. You would do anything for him. Even help him get girls...despite how much it hurt you to do so.

You didn’t exactly know how it changed. But one day, as you were sitting in the cafeteria listening to Bucky talk about the presentation that he absolutely killed in AP Biology, you just knew that you loved him in a more romantic way than platonic. There was just something about his eyes and his smile and his humor that got you hooked. Just like how all the girls and guys were hooked on him. But you never stood a chance. You were just his best friend and that was all you would ever be.

____________________

Junior Year of College

You drag yourself out of your bedroom and into the kitchen to see Bucky plating some sausage and eggs, “What’s this?” you sat on the stool next to the counter.

“You got a big test today. Figured you’d need a good breakfast to get your brain waves flowing, ya know?”

You gave your best friend a soft smile as he slid a plate towards you, “You’re the best, you know that?” he gave a shrug and watched you dig into a meal, a fond smile on his face that was only reserved for you and you alone.

He then let out a sigh as he went to cook breakfast for himself and the rest of his roommates, Wanda and Sam. For years, Bucky’s feelings for you have remained strong. He doesn’t know how it happened. He just woke up one morning during high school and got a look at you and he was bit by the lovebug. And it never went away.

As you two grew older, you grew closer and Bucky fell even more head over heels for you. You were so outspoken about the things you were passionate about. You were so determined, resilient, and hardworking. He was in awe of how beautiful, inside and out, you grew up to be. He also cursed that you would never see him the way he saw you especially after he gained the Freshman Fifteen and it didn’t seem to go away. He looked down at his pudgy stomach, hidden by the oversized tee he was wearing.

At one point, he was so ready to tell you how he felt, but then freshman year and all the stress and food happened and, well, now it seems like he’ll never be able to tell you. Why would you wanna go for a guy like him now? He wishes work and school weren’t keeping him so busy. That way, he’d be able to get to a gym and lose all this weight. But he can’t and now it holds a huge weight on his back.

“How do you think you’ll do on midterms?” you asked after swallowing some eggs.

Bucky shrugged and glanced over his shoulder, “I think I studied good enough to at least pass. Passing is what I’m focusing on. I don’t care about getting A’s anymore.”

“C’s get degrees!” you exclaim jokingly and he chuckles, which makes you smile wider, “I think you’ll kill it.”

He nods, “Thanks, Y/N. You’ll do great too. You always do.”

____________________

As soon as you walked out of class post-midterm, you checked your phone to see several tests from Bucky.

Bucket Barnes: finished my test. think i did okay.

Bucket Barnes: you done yet?

Bucket Barnes: lets go celebrate the fact that we survived midterms!

Bucket Barnes: answer meeeeeeee!!!

You giggled as you typed back a response:

You: just got out.

You: wanna drop off my stuff at the apartment and then we can go eat or something.

Bucket Barnes: meet ya there! :D

You rolled your eyes and pocketed your phone. Your apartment was just a bus ride away, so you headed towards the bus stop to take you back home.

When you walked back into your apartment, you found Bucky and Sam currently wrestling on the couch. They paused when they saw you standing there looking amused. They then pushed each other off, rambling on:

“I was trying to watch tv-”

“He just took the remote and changed the channel-”

“-I was watching a nature documentary while waiting for you-”

“-and the show was boring as Hell so I-”

“Enough!” you yelled with a smirk on your face. They stopped and shut their mouths. You chuckled and shook your head, “For adults, you’re such children.” you then went over to your room, tossing your things onto your bed before grabbing your purse, putting your keys, wallet, and phone inside.

You came back out to see Bucky glaring at Sam, “Buck, ready to go?”

His eyes softened as he turned to you, “Yup!” he pushed Sam one last time before following you to the door.

“You kids be safe!” Sam yelled as Bucky closed the door behind him.

You hooked your arm around Bucky’s, leaning into his shoulder, “You guys are such dorks, you know that?”

He shrugged, “He started it.” he glanced at your head, a fluttering feeling going through his stomach that’s then placed with regret. He should’ve told you how he felt before instead of waiting it out.

___________________

You sat across from Bucky slurping up your oreo milkshake, an amused smile on his face as he munched on his fries.

“Happy?” he asked.

You nodded and let out a satisfied sigh, “Aaaah. Very. Nothing makes me happier than an oreo milkshake, and you, of course.” If he only knew how deeper those words meant to you.

“You make me happy too, Y/N.” he glanced behind you and his smile fell.

Immediately recognizing the change, you asked, “What?” you glanced back to see Bucky’s ex, Dot.

She was a toxic person. She and Bucky started dating at the beginning of Freshman year of college. She was always bragging about how smart, strong, nd handsome he was. The thing about having a significant other is that you go out and eat a lot. That along with Freshman Fifteen, well...Dot didn’t like the weight he was gaining.

She made him feel insecure. Ugly. Not good enough. Eventually, she became ashamed of him and broke up with him. What she put him through had lasting effects, thus why Bucky felt like he could never tell you how he felt now. He wasn’t good enough for you.

“Oh God,” Bucky mumbled into his milkshake as Dot came walking by.

She stopped at your table with the fakest smile on her face, “Oh hi, Y/N!” she turned to Bucky and snorted, “Hey, Pudgy.”

“Leave him alone, Dolores,” you sneered.

Her head snapped back to you, “It’s Dot.”

"Whatever, Period. Go bother someone else. Bucky and I were having a good time until you showed up.”

Dot scowled and leaned over to be face to face with Bucky, “Just remember, Chubby, no matter what you do, she would never go for a guy that looked like you.” she straightened up and continued to walk down to the diner, her little clique following her.

Bucky’s shoulders deflated and your heart broke for Bucky, “Do you wanna get outta here?”

Not looking up, Bucky nodded, “Please.”

You then went over to the counter to pay and pulled Bucky along. Your arm looped around with his, “Do you wanna stop by the store and get some comfort food?”

Bucky shook his head, “No. Dot’s right. This,” he pokes at his stomach, “isn’t doing me any good.”

“She’s wrong. Bucky, any girl would be lucky to have you. Dot’s just a bitch.”

“The girl of my dreams doesn’t even want me. So who’s to say that anyone would want me?” he murmured, eyes on the pavement as you continued to walk.

You then stopped, tugging him to halt, “I’m sure whoever this girl is, she’s kind and understanding enough to know that it isn’t what’s on the outside that counts. Who’s the girl?”

“You,” he mumbled, eyes still on the pavement, hands in his pockets.

“Bucky...” you moved closer to him, placing your finger under his chin to get him to look at you, “Hey, you like me?”

You can see the fear in his eyes as he whispered, “I love you, Y/N.”

You grinned at him, “I love you too.”

“Really? Even with-” his hands waved around his stomach and it made you giggle.

“Especially because of that.” you rest your hands onto his shoulders, “You’ve always been my Bucky bear. Now you’re soft and cuddly as a bear too. I’m sorry Dot made you feel like you’re not attractive or worthy enough. But she is so wrong. I’ve loved you, Bucky, since we were in high school. I’ve loved you then and I love you now. Nothing can change that.”

“God, how did I get so lucky?” his hands went to your waist, holding you close.

“I think I’m the lucky one.” you leaned in, pressing a kiss onto his nose and you stepped back, “I think I’ll save the kiss for after our first date, yeah?”

You held out your hand to him and he took it, “I waited for so long to tell you how I felt, to hear you say you felt the same...I guess I can wait a little longer to kiss you.”

You grinned at him, “All good things come to those who wait.”

#Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky x reader #marvel #au #college au #chubby!bucky

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twentyghosts · 6 years ago

Photo

Earlier @fourteenacross wrote this post about our experience of getting to see the dress rehearsal for Rent Live (which I guess turns out to mostly mean that we saw the actual performance of Rent Not-Live) and I wrote this mess of feelings about my 20 year history with Rent the musical as well as the online and IRL community surrounding the musical. I’m depositing it here beneath a cut. (If you’re friends with me on Facebook: it’s the same thing I posted there.)

I've lost count of how many times I've had to awkwardly explain to someone, "I used to be into the musical Rent. No, like….REALLY into it?" Just in case I've never had to explain it to you: I used to be REALLY into the musical Rent. My junior high school chorus sang "Seasons of Love;" I adored it and eventually purchased the 2-disc CD set at Best Buy. I listened to it, oh, let's say 525,600 times. I convinced my mom to take me to see the tour for my 14th birthday. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, a 6-hour drive from our home. I loved it; I spent hours hogging our dialup internet connection to talk about the show with strangers. My friends at school didn't get the obsession. I'm not entirely sure I get the obsession; I was a 14-year-old straight cis white girl from the Midwest hung up on mostly-queer starving artists in New York. (I note this because I know for a lot of Rent fans, part of the excitement was seeing themselves represented in a way that they weren’t often repsented in the media in general/musical theater in specific; I know that wasn’t my situation.) The closest I can come to identifying the source of my obsession might be the line "connection in an isolating age." Loving Rent brought me into a whole community of people who, in some way or another, didn't quite fit in a lot of places. I met new friends waiting overnight in rush ticket lines to see the tour (bless my parents for indulging my quest to sleep outside of every theater in the Midwest; I think my mom in particular understood that something about this was giving me a place to fit in).

But mostly I talked to my Rent friends online. We talked about the musical, our favorite songs and actors and characters, but we also talked about our lives. At first I was one of the younger ones on the boards and mailing lists, and in retrospect I'm pretty sure I was a monster, but I felt so empowered to talk to cool adults who were like, IN COLLEGE and stuff. I learned about their lives and what was possible outside of my rural hometown.

As I got older, I grew apart from Rent. I stopped listening to the cast recording so much, then entirely. I got embarrassed about how obsessed I'd been. I knew the general consensus was that Rent was cheesy and overwrought. Ha ha, yes, of course, Mark and Roger should just get jobs. Benny's just trying to follow his dreams of real estate ownership. Ha, right, what even IS a "season of love"?

Then in 2009, my best friend Megan, who I'd met through Rent--who co-ran a Rent website with me, who waited in Rent lines with me, who had simply the stupidest inside jokes in the world with me….died suddenly. I was devastated, obviously, and for a long time after that, Rent was just ruined for me, simply too emotionally overwhelming on every level. Some department store started using "Seasons of Love" in their commercials and it was like a kick in the face every time I heard even a few seconds of it.

In 2012 I took a trip to New York and decided to go see the Off-Broadway production of Rent. I went by myself and wasn't sure what to expect--I knew the staging was different from what I was familiar with. I honestly don't remember a fucking thing about that production except that I cried for pretty much two hours straight, at varying levels of intensity, from the very first opening note through the finale. It was emotionally overwhelming and really just a reboot to my system.

2016 marked the TWENTY YEAR anniversary of Rent, and with it, a new tour. I saw it in 2017 with another dear friend I'd made through Rent fandom. Again: I remember nothing of this experience except crying. Well--and talking to people in the lobby while waiting for lotto to be drawn; other people with very fond memories of having seen Rent years and years ago, people who remembered the message boards and the drama.

Last year, they announced one of the upcoming live TV musicals would be Rent. "That's wild," I thought. Rent was now mainstream enough to be broadcast on network television, like Grease. But hey--I'd watch it.

At the beginning of this year--2019, 10 years (5,256,000 minutes) since Megan died--I saw a posting for an online raffle to win a trip to see the dress rehearsal for Rent Live. I entered it of course, not thinking anything of it.

And then 2 weeks ago I got an apparently legit email--I'd WON this drawing. It didn't seem possible--so many people must have entered, how on earth would I win? (Like: I'm not saying that the ghost/angel of my Rent-obsessed best friend somehow rigged this online contest for me, but I can't prove that she DIDN'T.)

The rules of the contest didn't allow me to publicly announce it, and I was scared to talk about it anyway because I was not fully convinced that it was real. Still, I asked Kait, one of my other best friends--who I also met because of Rent, twenty years ago, and who remains a hugely integral part of my life to this day--if she'd want to be my guest on this trip, proving it turned out to be real.

It was real. We went. I felt very stressed and uncertain about it all, but on Saturday, January 26th we turned up at Fox Studios and they accepted my paperwork and gave us paper wristbands and made us wait in a long line and eventually? They let us sit down on chairs in a big studio, and some actors performed Rent in that studio. It was an amazing experience; there were 1300 other fans in there with us, all so excited to see this show that must have meant something to us--it wasn't easy to get tickets to be there, everyone there wanted to be there. While we were waiting for the show, all around us we heard people reminiscing about seeing it on Broadway, meeting the cast, hating the movie version.

There were changes made to the script and staging--of course we noticed, of course we all of us had the entire full text of the original show preserved in amber in our brains. For the most part, I didn't mind--most of the changes I thought were good, or at least okay. A few annoyed me but mostly...it was Rent! I cried, of course, the minute the lights went up and Mark began his familiar monologue. Eventually I stopped crying and I laughed and screamed and just enjoyed the songs; enough time had passed that I could experience the show in a new way. It felt like coming home.

(Years on Broadway message boards have made me aware of how unprepared I am to actually discuss theatrical performances; I don't know musical or theatrical terms, I can't tell if things are off-key unless it's very drastic. I am overall a very forgiving audience member; I want to like shows and performers and generally I do, though of course sometimes I have critiques. As I type this it's been a day since Rent "Live"--which turned out to mostly actually be the dress rehearsal that I saw, due to Brennin Hunt's injury--and plenty of people have plenty to say about how low energy it was, how so and so couldn't hit the appropriate notes...and I don't know about any of that. I just know that when I was there, watching it, I felt every moment and fell in love with every character, even though yeah they should totally try to get actual jobs or whatever.)

And then--we'd already known, from the internet, from some of our old Rent friends, that the Original Broadway cast was there that night too. We suspected they'd make an appearance for us; surely they wouldn't be there just to observe. And indeed...after the finale, they bounded out on stage and sang a reprise of "Seasons of Love." If that had happened to me when I was 16, I think I might have literally passed out. I'd listened to them on the cast recording so so many times, but of course they'd all left the show by 1999, when I got into Rent. (I've been lucky enough to see original actors in other projects since then, but not Rent.) Seeing them, hearing them...honestly I felt like I had full-on Beatlemania, I was literally shaking. I couldn't believe I was so lucky to see that and hear that and feel that.

And then the next day, I got home from LA in time to watch 2/3 of the show on TV. I livetweeted it and chatted in a group chat with a bunch of my Rent friends, people from all around the country. And that's what Rent is about, really--it's about the power and importance of community, and I'm so grateful to be a part of this one. #CompulsiveBowlers #FriendshipIsThickerThanBlood #NDBT

Anyway that's why I was in LA last weekend.

#dumb stuff i make up #my emotions

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just-another-fan17 · 7 years ago

Text

Like You Never Left

Word count: 12,940 words (geez man)

Pairing(s): Romantic Prinxiety with some small side romantic Logicicality

Warnings: Lots of fluff, lots of angst, but we all love a happy ending (tbh I don’t think there’s any warnings...I guess anxious and or self-depreciating thoughts? Only a little though...don’t you worry)

Author’s note: WOW OKAY. Hey guys! A little while ago I asked @tinysidestrashcaptain if I could tag them in a story I wrote featuring everyone’s favorite sides and I was really fake because I contacted them FOREVER AGO. I only just now worked up the courage to finish and post it. Oops? I’m sorry I’m doing my best over here. Please be kind to me, this is the first fanfic I’ve ever written.

Just some clarifications below…

Anything in-between these…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>

…is a flashback

Anything before or after this…

………………………….

…is either a break in scenery or a P.O.V. change

I included that just in case the writing isn’t clear enough, I’m so sorry. I’m a mess. I’ll go now.

~Laur

Roman’s P.O.V.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Okay, it’s a straight shot. Whoever gets down there first wins and gets to pick the movie for tonight.”

“Bold of you to assume there’s a chance you could ever beat me.”

The two best friends sat in their wagons preparing to take off down the steep hill, one boy ever more confident than the other. After the shouted count, “3…2…1…,” off they went, laughter echoing in the warm summer air.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>>

Roman pulled into the university’s parking lot with far too much time to spend in the lecture hall than he would have preferred. After a quick text, to make sure his friend was already inside, he begrudgingly hauled his backpack on and walked towards the double doors. He’d already had a terrible start to his morning when, in a rush, his shirt got caught in a loose screw on the battered screen door, pulling the thread of the sleeve, causing a small tear. Everything seemed to go downhill from there. As he trekked down the pathway, he found his thoughts drifting to how little time he had left in this place.

Junior year. Spring of junior year to be exact. Graduation was rapidly approaching for seniors, and it was all anyone seemed to be talking about. He was walking up the steps of the main building and could hear a group of friends tittering about graduation parties and dinners. He eyed them wistfully.

After a rough battle with the zipper, he was finally able to wrench the books he needed out of his backpack for art history. He then promptly threw his bag down with a glare.

“Well, don’t you look lovely this fine Friday morning.”

Roman inwardly smiled at his friend’s obvious sarcasm. His mussed up brown hair hadn’t seen a brush yet and his shirt was wrinkled with a long thread dragging a mile behind him. Truth be told he wasn’t quite feeling like himself. He hadn’t for a while, but today he seemed especially frazzled and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why. He turned toward his friend sporting an indifferent expression.

“Logan, do me a solid and don’t attempt conversation before 8am,” he deadpanned.

Logan just smirked and raised an eyebrow, occupying the seat next to his friend.

“Is there any particular reason you look like you have not encountered a mirror this morning?” Logan eyed his friend’s out of place appearance.

Roman turned to his friend, hands flailing about, annoyance rolling off of him in waves, as he launched into his rather loud explanation.

“You wouldn’t believe the nonsense I’ve had to endure today! My alarm didn’t go off because my phone was never charging and lost it’s battery so I woke up late. I rushed out of my house only to tear my favorite shirt, suffered through an absolutely ridiculous amount of traffic, and then I didn’t have enough time to stop at Starbucks for my usual,” he finished bitterly.

Logan just smirked at his exasperated friend, barely holding back quiet laughter.

Logan McClure and Roman Prince had been close ever since the two had engaged in a very heated debate in freshman year English. While Logan is far more reserved than Roman, their drastic dynamic differences balance one another out quite seamlessly. Roman will often wax poetry about how it was written in the stars or some other such fated nonsense. Logan likes to think it was how often one was mistaken for the other. Though they only had a few lectures together, teachers always seemed to call them by the wrong name. Both with brown hair, hazel eyes, and a similar tall stature, it was difficult for most to tell them apart before Logan opted for his glasses instead of contacts. Though, in hindsight, their stark personality differences should have done the job.

Both boys waited for their teacher in amicable silence. Logan glanced at Roman out of the corner of his eye frowning. Something was going on with his friend, he could feel it. Logan knows he’s more emotionally inept than most, but if the great Roman Prince is known for one thing, it being obnoxiously loud and ‘looking absolutely fabulous at all times!’ He would be lying if he told himself Roman’s rather subdued expression and unkempt appearance wasn’t quite jarring.

“Hey, Roman-”

Roman’s text tone abruptly stopped him from voicing his thoughts.

Logan saw his face morph into something giddy…and that always spelled trouble.

“Remy’s friend is having a bonfire this Saturday!” Roman’s face lit up at the prospect, while Logan groaned internally.

Roman slowly turned to his friend, a sly expression already in place.

“Hey Lo-”

Logan, in turn, cut him off before he could even begin.

“No. I am not going to subject myself to the nonsense of Remy Marzena on one of my only two days of peace and quiet.”

Logan’s tone brooked no argument, but Roman’s puppy dog eyes had other plans.

“But I can’t go by myself! Besides, you know our dear friend Patton will be there too…” he trailed off enticingly.

“You say that as though it will influence my desire to go.” Logan leveled him with a look, fighting off the blush threatening to spread across his cheeks.

Patton Sanders had puzzled Logan ever since they’d met. He was always cheerful and optimistic at the strangest of times. Logan would forever deny how endearing the literal personification of sunshine could be. Unfortunately for Logan, he and Roman attended Springfield University, while Patton and Remy attended college up town at Pennbrook University. The only reason Logan had ever met Patton was through Roman’s rather unfortunate friendship with Remy. Both had met during the summer of freshman year at the district theater. Logan couldn’t comprehend how one person could be so…extra. Though Roman was quite theatrical himself, Remy, it seemed, was on another level. How he could be related to the sweet, kind, caring, lovable-

“Oh, do excuse me. If it weren’t for me the most socialization you’d ever experience would consist of late nights with your Advanced Methodical Statistics textbook.”

Logan didn’t appreciate the sarcasm, or the spot-on presumption. Roman’s pout was starting to get to him, and Roman did a mental victory dance when he saw the edges of Logan’s eyes soften ever so slightly.

“C’mon Lo, you wouldn’t leave me to fend for myself out there, now would you?”

Logan shifted his gaze to Roman knowing that his answer didn’t matter, seeing as he would be dragged there anyways. Roman’s pout persisted, and Logan winced as he finally felt himself give in.

“Ugh, you make me sick.”

Roman perked up at his friend’s response and texted back that he and Logan would be there. Worked every time. He learned from the best after all.

When the announcements crackled over the loudspeaker he turned and caught a glimpse of his hair in the window’s reflection.

A rat’s nest indeed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Roman sat with his back against his bedroom door knowing the loud knocking would only continue the longer he remained stubborn.

“Come on Ro, open the door. It can’t be that bad!”

Oh, but it was. Sixth grade started tomorrow, and he had a haircut he only ever saw in his nightmares. Everyone, it seemed, has had their experience with this particular nightmarish milestone and he was devastated to have to suffer through it so soon.

“You’re just gonna laugh at me,” Roman huffed.

“I won’t laugh I promise! C’mon open the door,” he trailed off quietly, but encouragingly.

His friend was met with stubborn silence, until a muffled “fine,” could be heard. The door opened to reveal the same old Roman…except his hair was...different. He was sporting a bowl cut that was rather reminiscent of Justin Bieber. The other boy couldn’t help the huge smile that lit up his face, which he quickly attempted hiding behind his hand but to no avail.

“SEE. I knew you would betray me!” He stomped his foot to emphasize his point. He looked for all the world like an angry kitten.

“Aw c’mon it’s not even that bad. You made it sound like they shaved half of it off and cut the rest while wearing a blindfold or something,” he paused at Roman’s squeak of offence and continued, “Look, I know we have school tomorrow, but I practically begged your mom to let me stay and watch a movie and eat lots of food to make you feel better. So, will you come downstairs with me? It’ll take your mind off of it,” he pleaded with his eyes. Those stupid brown puppy dog eyes. He knew Roman couldn’t say no to those stupid brown puppy dog eyes.

Roman looked him up and down, pretending to ponder the offer already knowing he was going to give in, and brushed past him. “We are watching The Incredibles and I get the purple blanket.”

His friend laughed and followed him down the stairs, “Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, moody.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>>

He caught a small smile on his face when he snapped back to reality. Almost immediately, his normally cheerful face was downcast, and he stared at his feet. He wouldn’t be thinking about it anymore. As his day wore on, he let his friend’s comments on how tired he seemed today roll off his back, brushing off the concern. He was fine. He just had to convince himself.

His day consisted of the usual monotony plus a lecture on self-representation by multiple teachers. When his last class ended he all but ran to his car. Once he plopped in the front seat he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. After a few minutes of blissful silence, he started the car and let the radio play quietly in the background as he drove. The sun shone through the trees painting the street with a soft afternoon glow.

“Alright listeners, our next set is going to take you back. We’ve got some oldies but goodies right here on 93.7 W.S.T.W…” that was all the warning he got before Dancing Queen followed by Welcome to the Black Parade came on the radio. An odd pairing, but that didn’t stop his squeal of delight as he turned the volume up and rolled the windows down. At stoplights people in neighboring cars and passersby on the street turned to stare. His bitter sweet singing could be heard by all as he turned left down his street.

“WE’LL CARRY OOONNN, WE’LL CARRY OOONNN, AND THOUGH YOU’RE-”

He was abruptly cut off when he almost hit the back of a large truck.

His car jerked to a stop. He turned the radio down as he tried to collect himself. He stayed frozen at the four-way, long after the truck continued on its way, in an attempt to calm his breathing down. The quiet guitar solo continued in his silence as he stared into space. He found his mind wandering to late nights listening to this album with him, the smile upon hearing his favorite solo, his voice…

Eventually, the laughter of three kids riding their bikes snapped him out of the staring contest he was currently having with his steering wheel. His small smile fell from his face as he watched the kids race each other to the townhouse at the end of the street, carelessly throwing their bikes down by the porch. They looked to be no older than 11 or 12 but Roman couldn’t be sure. Once other people moved into that townhouse he hardly paid attention to that sort of thing anymore. Bottling his emotions had served him well so far. Ignorance is a foolproof system.

His thoughts drifted to the occupants of Brookhaven Ave and how little he knew of them now-a-days. He mentally counted the five families that remained from his childhood. Wait, make that four. The Berkley’s had just moved out a two months ago in October. He hadn’t even bothered to get the name of the new family that lived across the street and neither had anyone else in his family. Roman continued to stare at nothing, his eyes glazed over as he was lost in thought.

A loud honk snapped him back to his senses.

“Oh shi-” the curse was mentally cut off as he hit the gas harder than intended, jerking the car forward.

He pulled up to his porch and ambled inside, with a quick “I’m home!” to announce his presence. Without a word from anyone else, he made it to his room where he released a big sigh that was supposed to release the tension from his shoulders. He flopped on his bed and looked out the window only to see those three kids back on their bikes circling around the corner. He let out a wistful sigh as his gaze caught the rope still attached to his bed. He smiled wryly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He used all the strength that a lanky, 9th grade emo could possibly muster to tie the rope securely to the bottom of the bedpost.

“There.” He stood up eyeing his work proudly.

“Okay, so what’s the plan exactly? You haven’t told me what you’re doing and honestly I’m starting to wonder if I should be scared,” Roman said teasingly.

He turned back, trying to hide the blush threatening to spread across his cheeks at Roman’s remark. Thank god for foundation. He took a deep breath that was supposed to help compose himself and turned around, smirk in place. “Okay, so, I know you’re not allowed out tomorrow for the Fourth of July-”

“Yeah no thanks to you,” Roman cut in, only slightly miffed.

He scowled the interruption and continued, “-Anyway…your parents know you’re not supposed to be out. Fortunately, mine do not,” he finished proudly.

“Am I supposed to be getting where you’re going with this?” he asked tiredly.

His friend rolled his eyes and exhaled slowly through his nose. “The fireworks start at 9:30pm. You can still hang with me at my house and we can watch them from the roof as planned. All you have to do is throw this out the window and climb down. Easy. Simple.”

Roman wasn’t sure if he was supposed to laugh or scoff, so he settled for a mix of both.

“Y’know, if it were anyone else, I’d tell them I’m not scaling the side of my house to hang out with the person who put me on house arrest,” he finished.

Roman stood and grabbed the rope testing its strength.

“Ah, well, good thing I’m not anyone else,” he countered smugly.

Later that night, Roman’s parents would find his room empty. Too busy wondering how the heck he got out of the house, they missed the dangling rope keeping the window cracked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>>

The rest of the week continued with nothing more eventful than a pop quiz in art history. It was finally Friday night, and the small group of friends were hanging out in Logan’s basement as per Roman’s begging request. The guys had been informed of the bonfire earlier that week and apparently a good handful of people were going to be there, much to Logan’s distaste. All the sudden this weekend was looking to be pretty miserable. Logan didn’t realize he was scowling until someone was waving their hand in front of his face to get his attention. He looked up to see Patton with a confused look in his eye.

“Hey, you okay? You were…glaring,” he finished with an uncertain smile. Before he could respond, Remy opened his mouth from across the room.

“Astute observation Pat, but he’s been glaring at the corner of the room for the past 20 minutes now,” he said laughingly. Roman just looked on in amusement, at the flustered look on his friend’s face.

“I’m quite alright. I was just thinking about tomorrow and suffering through an entire evening with Remy.” He put his head in his hand and continued, “Maybe I’ll just stay home and tell everyone that I’m dying of a terminal illness,” he trailed off languidly. Logan inwardly grimaced at how utterly dramatic and Roman that statement was, though he quickly brightened up when Patton laughed.

Remy had finally had enough of this blatant disrespect. It was a party.

“God, you too? How many people do I have to bend over backwards to convince to quit being such a stick in the mud?” The frustration was clear on his face as his head flew back in exasperation. “It’ll be fun. Gurl, honestly, you can’t even talk. You always say shit like that and then you finally get there, and you end the night with: ‘That was actually pleasantly surprising,’ or ‘I suppose it was not as unbearable as I expected,’” he said imitating his voice with annoying accuracy.

Roman stayed quiet that night. He tuned out the good-natured bickering of Logan and Remy. The smile slipped off his face as his thoughts consumed him again. He glanced at Patton who was not so subtly staring at Logan, lovestruck expression in place. He sighed bitterly to himself. He was really happy for his pining friends, ecstatic even, but his lovesick heart could only take so much. Roman was suddenly shaken by his own thoughts.

“Oh god…lovesick?”

He was brought back to reality by Patton shouting over Logan and Remy.

“Guys, GUYS!” His dad voice captured the attention of his friends and they silenced immediately. “Enough fighting. You will settle your differences like civilized people.”

Roman looked up to see the Mario Kart loading screen and Patton holding four Wii remotes.

Logan and Remy just looked at each other sly grins in place.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You better look out Princey, I’m catching up!”

“I don’t think so, you hot topic reject…” Roman threw back a red turtle shell and laughed victoriously when it hit head on.

They were on the last lap of the final race of the circuit and he was not about to give up yet. Roman was too cocky for his own good, and he looked to change that. His gaze hardened with determination, and a sadistic smirk grew on his face, as he gained another power up. A game changing power up. His smile quickly turned even more sinister as they sped closer towards the finish line.

“Hey, Princey.” Roman looked over at him briefly acknowledging his words.

“I’m sorry our friendship had to end this way.” Roman’s eyes flew wide with betrayal as he finally realized what was about to go down.

With no hint of guilt or remorse, the blue turtle shell was sent with a shout of victory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>>

Roman woke up the next day with not much else to do than wait around and start getting ready.

He was scrolling through the depths of YouTube when he got a text from Remy.

HEY if you don’t start getting ready you’ll never get there and then I’ll have to kill you and I don’t plan on going to jail for manslaughter

A few seconds later…

Yet

A laugh bubbled out of him before he could stop it.

How Remy seemed to sense these things was beyond him. He let out an overdramatic sigh and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Damn, it was 5:30pm already? After putting on fabulously subtle makeup, he decided to check the weather and of course it was going to be unreasonably cold. Why did life hate him so?! He ran his fingers through his hair pushing it out of his way and opened his closet.

His eyes locked onto the old, abandoned hoodie before his mind could catch up with him. His grip on the door loosened as his shoulders deflated ever so slightly. Suddenly struck with annoyance he scoffed and reached for the hoodie. He was so over being sad and melancholy all the damn time.

Besides, he was in an edgy mood as of late.

Virgil’s P.O.V.

He stood in the middle of his room looking at all the packed boxes with his heart in his throat. It felt like the room was slowly suffocating him. He was going back soon, and if that didn’t fill him with enough terror and anxiety for the rest of this life and the next, he didn’t know what would. Worse than that? He was living on the same street. Right across the street. What the fuck was he supposed to do now? Never go outside and hope for the best?

Luckily, his mom knocked on his door frame and cut off his downward spiral.

“Hey V? You doing okay? The moving truck should be here in about 10 minutes…” she cut in gently.

“Yeah I-, yeah.” His gaze never left the pile of boxes as he answered.

His mom sighed and sat on his bed, motioning for him to do the same.

“Honey, I know this move is sudden. I know you’ve already begun school, but I thought you’d be thrilled being able to go back! You were devastated when we left Pennsylvania, and it’s still something I haven’t forgiven myself for but-…” she was rambling.

“Mom.” He cut her off. Her jaw snapped shut at the harsh tone. Something she still hadn’t gotten used to over the years.

“In case you’ve forgotten,” he continued, “I didn’t exactly leave on the best of terms,” he finished, scowl in place.

It was the one thing he would never forgive his father for. No, no he can’t even blame his father.

‘You were the one who kept it from him, remember? Remember how heartbroken he looked? How could he ever have trusted you after that?’

He had to shake himself from his thoughts. His mind consistently antagonizes him with everything he should have done differently, and damn him, for messing everything up. He knew whose fault it was. It was only natural that he’d try to find someone else to pin the blame on.

He knew he had changed over the years. There’s only so much pretending you can do to convince people everything is fine before it wears you down. Eventually, he just stopped trying. His smiles dimmed until they weren’t there anymore, leaving an almost permanent scowl. His broad shoulders hunched in on themselves. Any and all optimism flew out the window, replaced by stone-cold cynicism.

High school wasn’t easy on him. Best years of your life, my ass. He looked back at most of high school with a bitter resentment and longing. Finishing senior year somewhere totally new just seemed to taint what good memories he retained. It was hard enough for a gay, edgy emo to make friends as it was, but when they moved, V didn’t even try. He didn’t want to try anymore. The bullying only cemented that decision. So he kept building his walls higher and higher. No one could be allowed to see past his walls ever again.

“V, honey, it’s been years since I’ve seen you smile. I know that things have been less than ideal. This whole move, transferring all your credits, starting at a new university is scary. It’s okay to be scared.” She looked over only to see her son glaring at the floor, but continued. “Penenbrook is a great school and I just know that you’ll make friends this time around. Your father’s relocation could be good for you. Besides, I know at least one person will probably still be waiting for you when we get back.” She turned gauge his reaction. He could only offer a sad, barely-there smile still aimed at the grey carpet. He could only hope at least.

When he didn’t reply, she got up and grabbed a box. “C’mon. Let’s get some of these downstairs.”

The family packed their belongings in a tense silence. His mom tried to initiate small talk but the two Manson men didn’t feel like talking. It’s a surprise to no one that V and his dad don’t have the best relationship either. Both of his parents have jobs involved with the government that prevent them from sharing certain information with their family. V had to learn to understand that sometimes not one but both of his parents had to go away on the weekend and he wasn’t allowed to know where or why. As he grew older, he couldn’t help the part of his mind that wanted to resent his parents. When they moved away from his childhood home it only worsened.

Once the van was packed up, he slid into the back seat and put on his headphones almost immediately. T-minus 13 hours and 45 minutes. He passed the houses and streets he’d come to know the past three and a half years. He didn’t expect to feel any sadness upon leaving, and he was correct in that assumption. He couldn’t help the jolt of excitement he felt when the car passed by a sign that said, “Now Leaving Florida, Come Back Real Soon!”

Maybe things were finally looking up for him.

………………………………………………………………

Things were decidedly not looking up for him.

He and his family were all sitting at the dinner table when his mom dropped the bomb on him. The chit chat immediately stopped when she noticed his expression. He paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.

“…What?” Silence reigned, so he tried again.

“What?”

His father had finally had enough with his apparent insolence and put down his utensils to stare his son in the eyes.

“Pennbrook is a fine school with top programs and teachers. I will not listen to your complaints simply because you are unable to live on campus,” he said with gruff finality.

In hindsight, he should have looked into it, but as of late, his mind has been…occupied by other things. Now, however, all he could think about is the lack of privacy he would now be subjected to living at home full time. On some days, he’d argue that it be worse than prison. He and his father were stuck in a glaring match until the boy finally gave up and sat back in his chair allowing an overdramatic sigh to fill the room.

Dinner continued, and he found himself staring out the window at the house across the street. The light was still on in his room.

…………………………………………………………………

Monday came sooner than he would have preferred.

He slammed his hand down on his alarm clock and looked over at the time. He blearily processed that it was 6:00am and that he needed to get up in order to ensure the least amount of embarrassment today. He pulled his blankets off and walked towards the door furiously trying to rub the remanence of sleep out of his eyes. A light switch would have been useful but that was all the way on the other side of the room, so he was flying blind. In his sleep induced stupor, he forgot that there were still boxes all over his room and that fate never planned on being kind to him. He barely took three steps before he stubbed his toe and fell forward.

“AH, fucking dammit!” He sat on the floor, his head between his knees, debating on whether he even wanted to stand up. Eventually, he decided he’d rather suffer in class than face his father’s wrath today.

He survived the rest of his morning routine without any other mishaps. He threw on his black skinny jeans, combat boots, and patched up hoodie. He didn’t even want to think about what he would have to endure today. He looked at himself and tried to look at the bright side. At least, there was going to be no picking on him. He learned early on that looking as scary and unapproachable as physically possible could really help you in the long run. He ran his fingers through his hair in an attempt to tame it, but a few stubborn bangs still hung in his vision. His eyes were cold, and he prided himself on his disaffected scowl. If he was lucky he could just sit in the back and blend in. He put light, barely there, black eyeshadow under his eyes just for kicks. He supposed this new school could use an edgy loner. He would gladly fill that position.

He ran his fingers through his hair and walked downstairs. After grabbing his keys, his wallet, his backpack, and an apple on the way out the door, he roughly sat down in his old, beat up Honda Civic and plugged in his phone. An oldies emo playlist should lift his spirits. A loud guitar blasted through the speakers, and he was off down the street sparing a single glance back in the mirror.

His classes didn’t start until 8:00am but he was still surprised he found good parking at 7:15am. He parked his car in the visitor’s spot and walked up to the main entrance. He couldn’t help the scoff at the saying etched into the archway of the building.

“Pennbrook, where excellence is habit? Oh, god.” He shook his head and sighed.

He walked in towards the main office with his backpack slug over one shoulder, already slightly amused at the atmosphere this school was attempting to put forth. As he walked down the hall, he saw posters and signs with various absurd sayings: “Pennbrook University, where forward thinking begins,” “Preparing for life is more than just test scores,” and his favorite, “Be who you are and be it well.” Yeah, okay.

He walked into the main office and was greeted by a too-perky receptionist.

“Hello! What can I do for you, son?” He wore a light brown sweater, a pink tie, and glasses. His desk was covered in various amounts of different cartoon paraphernalia, some he recognized and others he did not. His blinding smile crinkled by his eyes.

“Hi, I’m the new transfer student? I was told to come early today for my official schedule and ID card?” He kept ending his statements as questions, but the man didn’t seem to mind.

“Ah, yes, of course! Manson, Vi-”

“-uh, just V sir. Please.” He was quick to cut him off with a wince, lest anyone else hear.

The man peered up at him through his glasses with an amused glint in his eyes.

“Of course.” He walked back over to his desk to fish around for V’s papers and handed them over with a sugary sweet smile.

“Your first class begins at 7:50am. Here is your schedule as well as your student ID. The school layout is pretty simple. Three ‘L’ shaped buildings, two floors. First floor room numbers begin with one and second floor room numbers begin with two. I’m sure you’ll be able to figure it out. If for some reason you’re having any trouble, I’m sure one of our students or faculty members could help direct you,” he finished his rant looking to see if he caught all that.

“Thank you, Mr…” he trailed off inquiringly.

“…Picani,” he supplied.

“Mr. Picani. I really appreciate it,” he said with a slight smile. That smile immediately fell of his face as he turned to walk out into the hallway.

And with that, he was out in search of his first class. He had enough time to glance through his schedule and walk to all the classrooms he would be forced to suffer in for 50 minutes later that day. It was still only 7:40am, but he begrudgingly walked to his first lecture. The hallways were quite crowded at this point, but it didn’t matter. People parted like the red sea when he turned down the hallway. He was a few inches or so over six feet with dark eyes, an eyebrow piercing and a pointed glare in anyone and everyone’s general direction. His gait held a purpose as he walked swiftly and quietly into his homeroom. A quick scan of the room and he was walking toward the seat all the way in the back by the window. The room quieted ever so slightly as he made his way to his chosen seat. He dropped his bag to the floor and pulled his headset on determined to drown out the noise. Chatter slowly built back up as the clock approached 7:50am.

An older man in his mid to late 40’s walked in and called for silence. V took this time to actually look up and realize that someone had dared to occupy the seat next to him. The boy looked at him and smiled slightly before looking back at their professor.

“Good morning, delinquents,” he said as he set his things down. The class laughed as he prepared to take attendance.

V tensed in his seat because he knew what was undoubtably coming. He just had to appear unaffected and maybe it would pass over painlessly.

“…Jenson, Lombardo, Marzena, Mans,” The man started rattling off names, but stopped as though he wasn’t expecting one of them. No doubt his. God, didn’t they inform teachers of anything anymore?! The professor looked up scanning the room until his gaze landed on V.

“Manson?” he questioned.

V sat unmoving as all heads swiveled in his direction. Using every ounce of strength not to crumble as all eyes were on him, he only offered a two fingered solute as any indication his professor was correct.

“Ah, Mr. Manson, I was informed of your transfer. Might I inquire from which school?” He asked innocently, a tired smile in place.

V sighed but answered, “Sandalwood State in Florida. My family just moved back to PA.”

“Oh wonderful, I do hope you find Pennbrook to be a wonderful school to spend the remainder of your college years,” he said with gusto. He turned back to his attendance sheet, read off the rest of the names, and launched into the syllabus.

V was shocked to say the least. Maybe he could get by without his name being spoken aloud. A futile hope, but hey, he was doing good so far. Maybe this luck would stick with him. The kid next to him chose this moment to turn to him and try to introduce himself.

“Hi, I’m Patton,” he smiled amicably. He had a fairly tall build with brown hair and shinning blue eyes.

V just stared, shocked that anyone would even attempt conversation at this point. C’mon, his resting bitch face should’ve been enough!

“I’m V,” he supplied.

“Just V?”

“Just V.” He turned away trying to cut off anymore interaction.

V was hoping that this horrifying awkward tension would be enough to halt this conversation in its tracks, but then again, he was never that lucky. A kid wearing sunglasses chose this moment to turn around and introduce himself.

“Hey gurl. I’m Remy, the fun one, here for your viewing pleasure,” he spoke around the straw in his Starbucks iced macchiato bullshit. He had short brown hair swept back from his face. V couldn’t help the snort that came from his nose at the boy’s antics. He relaxed slightly in his chair.

“I’m V, the emo one, from your nightmares,” he deadpanned. That line had both Patton and Remy laughing.

Remy eyed the singular eyebrow piercing, eyeshadow and unruly hair.

“Honestly honey, I would’ve pegged you as a mellowing punk kid,” he pondered aloud. V just stared.

“A mellowing punk kid…” V tested the words on his own tongue. “Original. I haven’t heard that one yet,” he let a smirk ease its way onto his face.

The sudden shuffling startled him out of this impossible interaction. It seems the syllabus was all that was going to be covered today. V was at a loss. It was his first day, and he was supposed to be silently brooding in the corner. Patton reached for V’s schedule and scanned over it.

“Oh cool, you’ve got Philosophy with me at 2:30pm!” His eyes scanned over the rest of the sheet. “That means you can join us for lunch!” V tried to object but Patton looked back up and him with hopeful shinning eyes that were rather reminiscent of a small child, and V found his resolve weakening.

“I-…s-sure, whatever,” he mumbled.

With that, they grabbed their stuff as Remy dramatically gestured toward the door.

“Follow me, you tall, misunderstood shadowling!” V looked at him with an eyebrow raised.

“You’ll soon learn that my brother will be the most dramatic and theatrical person you’ve ever met,” Patton supplied helpfully.

Remy just laughed without denying his claims, and the three of them marched on to find food.

Maybe not the most theatrical…but he was pretty darn close.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was one of his cleverer ideas.

The two friends were lounging on V’s bed when inspiration struck. Roman jumped up jostling V, who had his head hanging over the side of the bed.

“Good sir, I think I have a particularly grand idea,” he declared with a regal stance.

“Thank God. I don’t think I’ve ever been this bored in my life,” V said unmoving.

“We shall construct a grand movie theatre and have an equally grand Disney movie marathon!” Roman shouted a bit loud for V’s taste, but he was intrigued nonetheless.

“How many times are you going to say ‘grand’ before you explain how exactly we will accomplish that?” He said with playful sarcasm.

“Dishonor me again peasant and I will see to it personally that you die a very painful, boring death.”

V fought to keep the smile off his face.

………………………………………………………….

“It’s a drive-in movie!” they chorused. V’s mom felt an amused smile tug at the corners of her mouth.

She had to admit, it was pretty well put together, considering they were only eight. The TV set had been pushed against the open bay window facing the deck with blankets draped around acting as curtains. The two friends had dug out their old, beat up wagons and piled them high with pillows, blankets and popcorn. They were her really expensive throw pillows, but she couldn’t find it in her heart to discipline them.

“Just make sure you kids put everything back where it’s supposed to be when the movie is over,” she said with a smile. The two just offered her cheeky grins and a promise that everything would be cleaned up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>>

Days turned into weeks, and weeks very quickly turned into a few months. Christmas and New Year’s had come and gone, and spring fever was in the air. V was honestly shocked at how fast time seemed to be going by. School was bearable. He had actually managed to make friends, but even then, he tried to keep his distance. They were constantly trying to get him to go out with them, but he was content with just observing from the side lines. He skipped out on all the hangouts. The only real friend he’d ever had was, it seemed, too far out of his reach. He didn’t need to depress himself further by going out to some party where everyone knew everybody else. That’s what he kept telling himself anyway. It was best not to think about it.

“Hey tall, dark, and emo. How are you this fine morning?”

Welp. The universe just shot that dream straight to hell.

Remy leaned against the door of V’s emptying lecture hall peering at him over his sunglasses with a suggestive smile, awaiting a response. V already knew where this conversation was headed, and honestly, he wasn’t sure how much more of this hounding he could take.

“I’m not going,” he said as he brushed past him avoiding eye contact. Remy hurried after him nonetheless. They both had lunch with Patton, so he wasn’t about to escape that easily.

“Oh, come on, dead girl walking, just come out with us this weekend. You need to get out and experience the people outside this mental asylum,” Remy complained. V smirked a little at his comment before carefully schooling his expression back to careless and uninterested. Despite his efforts, Remy saw it and decided to jump on it while he had the chance.

“Look, it’s a simple gathering with some food, some people, and a bonfire. There isn’t much that could go wrong, so you can give your anxious mind a break.” Remy was aiming for casual conversation, but he couldn’t conceal the whining annoyance in his tone. After being turned down too many times in the past week, there wasn’t much patience he had left to offer.

“My anxious mind is fine. And anyway, I couldn’t go out this weekend even if I wanted to. Both of my parents are away, and I need to watch the house,” V knew it was a weak excuse, but he’d had a long morning and lunch was calling his name. Remy scoffed.

“Where are your parents going that they needed to entrust you to ‘watch the house’? I don’t think your house would spontaneously combust if you left for a few hours.” Remy tried to keep the amusement out of his voice but failed miserably.

“My dad is involved with the government and sometimes his job requires my parents to go away for a few days. I’ve never known what for. He’s never legally been allowed to tell me. All I do know is that they’re both in Washington D.C., or so I’ve been told.” V spoke as if it didn’t really matter, but Remy could sense the underlying irritation.

Remy’s eyebrow quirked up at that. He and Pat had known him ever since a little ways through the first semester and he was quickly adopted by Patton, forming their little group of friends, but the ever-elusive boy was never really forthcoming with any information regarding his past or parents. The more he thought about it, he didn’t really know much about his dark, strange friend. Hell, they didn’t even know his name. Remy sought to change that. He continuously refuses to hang out with anyone outside of school and Remy just can’t fathom why. Who doesn’t want to have fun? Any outing with the fabulous Remy Marzena is surely not an outing to be missed.

“Damn that sounds frustrating. What did you do when you were little, and they had to go away?”

It was an innocent question. V knew that he didn’t mean anything by it.

That didn’t stop the pain in his chest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was 2:13am.

“I just don’t understand. I’m their son, right? I feel like I’m supposed to know. I must be obligated to know, right?” V asked anger coursing through his veins.

Roman just sat on his bed and listened to him vent. V was staying with his family for what seemed like the tenth weekend in a row. He could see this eating away at him. V always claimed that he was fine. That it didn’t really bother him. That there was nothing to worry about. He was just about done dealing with his fake smile until V’s careful control all but snapped about ten minutes ago.

“I mean, I know it was last minute, and they said they didn’t want to, but this happens all the time. We were all supposed to hang out this weekend, and last weekend, and the week before. It’s like they plan these things just so they don’t have to spend time with me,” he finished bitterly. His anger was quickly diminishing, a defeated expression overtaking his features. He stopped pacing to stare at the carpet.

He looked at V with sad eyes but didn’t interrupt. There were tears at the corners of his eyes when he finally let out a choked sob.

“Am I really so bad that they’ll take any and every chance to get away from me?” V turned to him, looking for something, anything that could prove him wrong.

Roman quickly stood up, crossed the room and pulled him into a tight embrace. V clung to him like he would disappear if he let go and cried on his shoulder until there were no more tears left. He pulled away, an apology on the tip of his tongue, but Roman cut him off before he could even begin.

“Don’t. Don’t you dare apologize,” he cut in hotly. He saw his friend’s thick tears, broken expression, and smudged eyeshadow and something inside him snapped.

V’s eyes widened, and his jaw snapped shut. He looked taken aback at his forcefulness. A few stubborn tears still rolled down his cheeks. He tugged him over to sit on the bed and forced V to look him in the eyes.

“It burns me up inside to see you apologizing for your emotions so don’t do it again.” V took a minute to absorb his words and nodded mutely, his eyes never straying from the determined, hazel pair staring back.

“I saw how upset your mom was when they left. Her strained smile may have fooled you, but it didn’t fool me,” his eyes softened as he decided to give up on the tough guy act and sit down beside him. He hesitated before taking V’s hand in his own. A blush took over his face but he continued. “I know this is hard for you. I know you wish that they were around more often. I don’t want this making you think that you aren’t worth anything to anyone. Your feelings matter. You matter. You have so many people that care about you. Hell, my parents have practically adopted you and I’m convinced that they like you more than me,” he huffed out a laugh trying to lighten the mood.

He saw the ghost of a smile on V’s face. He let the silence hang over them for a few minutes before continuing, “They do love you, y’know. They might not be so good at showing it, but they love you, so much,” he said desperately. V’s gaze remained resolutely on the floor. He resolutely ignored the part of his mind that thought Roman meant it wasn’t only his parents that loved him so much. His small smile fell into a thin line.

“How do you know?” he mumbled, voice was still strained. His friend perked up dramatically with his signature mega-watt smile.

“Because, I’m your best friend. I know everything,” he said proudly with his hand on his chest. He batted his eyelashes at V until he couldn’t resist a small laugh.

V turned to him and his eyes softened as he tried to think of how he could possibly put into words how much that meant to him. How much he meant to him. So, naturally, he did what any other emotionally insecure 17-year-old boy would have done at a time like this. V’s eyes turned mischievous and Roman looked at him confused by his sudden mood swing. Before he could blink, V snaked his arm around his waist and swung him around onto his back. His friend let out an undignified squeal as V quickly pinned him under his weight. He squirmed to get out of V’s hold, and had this been a few years ago he would have succeeded, but with V’s recent growth spurt his struggle was fruitless. V quickly pinned his hands above his head in victory. Their hysterical laughter dissipated the remaining atmosphere in the room.

However, as their laughter died down, both of them seemed to realize just how close they were. Both boys were panting heavily, sporting a pink blush. Roman was short-circuiting. Holy fucking shit he’s on top of me, he’s on TOP OF ME, HE’S-. V wasn’t doing too well himself, suddenly realizing the compromising position he threw himself into. Neither one dared move.

In the middle of V’s spiraling thoughts about forcing yourself on you best fucking friend for god’s sakes, what are you doing!? What were you thinking?!, Roman’s eyes shifted to V’s lips and back to his piercing stare.

That stopped his train of thought in its tracks, and his breath hitched audibly. V didn’t know what the heck he was doing, but he felt himself slowly leaning in anyway. Their lips were only a hairs breath apart-

A loud car horn snapped them both out of their fervor and V sat up with barely concealed panic. Roman sat up as well and the two of them were decidedly looking everywhere except each other.

Eventually, Roman cleared his throat and V’s gaze snapped back to him.

“Perhaps we should get some rest, yeah?”

V looked at him and nodded in agreement, and they both shared a small smile, silently agreeing to forget about whatever just almost happened. They rolled onto their backs, pulled up the covers, and stared at the ceiling. When V heard the steadying of Roman’s breath, he turned on his side and mumbled out a quiet, sincere “thank you,” into the silence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>>

“I stayed at a friend’s house,” he said looking away. He was currently thanking whoever was looking out for him up there for his choice of an extra layer of foundation today.

Remy nodded his head and didn’t pry any further accepting his short explanation. They both fell into a comfortable silence as they paid for their food and made their way to a table in the back of the cafeteria. Pat was already there. Remy decided to leave a standing offer if he decided to change his mind.

“Well, if you feel like living dangerously tomorrow, you text me and I’ll pick you up on my way to the party. I can’t stay too long so that means you won’t have to stay too long if you’re really that hesitant.” Remy looked at him awaiting a response. V just sighed and looked over to him tiredly.

“If I consider it, will you let me suffer through the rest of my day in peace?” he huffed. Remy’s whole face practically lit up and Patton let out a tiny squeal in delight.

“I’ll take that as a definite maybe!” he cheered.

V just groaned and glared in the other direction.

Both P.O.V.

He was not one for social outings. The bonfire started at 7 o’clock and he was no closer to a decision. He’d already received a text from Remy earlier that day asking if he was “ready to live a little.” He stared at his phone debating on whether he really wanted to face people tonight. Somewhere deep down he really did want to go, but his mind was constantly rattling off hinderances: “You’re just going to be sitting alone the whole time. They probably won’t even like you. Remy only offered to be nice.”

He was getting really sick of that voice. He stared down at his phone, the text bar blinking back at him. In a moment of pure impulsiveness, that he would probably regret later, he finally sent a message back:

Fine. But if this all goes to shit, I will never go outside again and you will be forced to live with that on your conscience forever.

He got an instant enthusiastic response:

YES. FINALLY. Fucking took you long enough lol

I’ll come by your house at 6:45pm…shouldn’t take us too long to get there but I will need an address from you 😉

V will never understand this boy’s constant positivity. Patton must be rubbing off on him. He sent his address nonetheless. He trudged up to his room trying to decide if his usual style would scare everyone. If he was being honest his style had really mellowed out over the years. People would laugh if they could see his 14-year-old self now. He shook himself of the thought and settled for ripped black skinny jeans, a distressed purple long sleeve, a black beanie, and his old black combat boots.

Time ticked by quicker than he would have liked. Soon enough he received a text from Remy saying he was waiting outside with Pat. He looked in the mirror and gave himself a mental pep-talk before heading out the door. His hand hesitated at the handle as he gazed through the window. He looked longingly across the street and saw all the downstairs lights on. He prayed no one could see him as he walked out and quickly made his way to the car waiting for him. Pat was driving it looked like and Remy was in the front passenger seat. He made his way into the back seat only to look up and find two pairs of eyes scrutinizing him.

“Uh, can I help you?” he said defensively. Both boys just laughed causing his scowl to grow.

“Relax, we just thought with all the glaring and brooding you do at school your outfit would be a little more emo than this,” Remy replied breezily.

“Weren’t you the one who dubbed me the mellowing punk?” V replied smirking. Remy just laughed and typed in the directions to his friend, Jake’s house.

“Hey kiddo! I love your eye makeup!” Patton looked awed and V was just shocked he’d received a compliment at all. He looked at Pat and smiled shyly.

“Thanks Pat.”

The car fell into an easy silence as they drove. Internally, V was freaking out a bit. He had agreed to go to this thing, but he had absolutely no idea what was in store for him. As if reading his thoughts, Patton piped up from the driver’s seat seemingly sensing his panic.

“We’re almost there, he lives in the next town over so it’s not too far,” he began. V took his chance to grill them for information.

“So…who’s going to be at this party exactly,” he said hesitantly.

“It going to be us and a few of the other guys and gals.” He looked both ways and turned left at the intersection.

“And who are these ‘other guys and girls’ exactly? Where do they go to school?” he asked. He stared at his phone trying to appear less anxious.

“Oh, they all go to Springfield University,” he replied easily. V’s head snapped up.

“Springfield University?” he parroted back, eyes wide.

He must have heard him wrong.

Patton glanced at him in the rear-view mirror in confusion.

“Yeah. Why, do you know someone?” Pat asked out of curiosity.

V took a minute to calm himself down and rationalize that Roman probably didn’t go there. V remembered that Ro had thought about it, but before they finished high school, he was still on the fence about Springfield and the local charter school. Besides…how could he know Remy or Patton anyway…The chances were infinitesimal at best.

“Yeah,” he replied without thinking. “Well, no, I mean I used to know someone who might go there, but I doubt he’d be wherever we’re going tonight.” Remy wasn’t sure if V was trying to reassure them or himself. Remy looked at Patton, then back at V before posing his own question.

“Oh. How’d you know him?”

V took a minute to respond. In that time, a small bitter sweet smile spread on his face.

“We were best friends,” he began. The other two boys thought that was all they were going to get out of him, but he continued after a small huff of laughter, “He lived down the street and we did practically everything together. Ever since we were little we were a neighborhood menace.” He laughed outright at that as he remembered a particular moment with Mrs. Berkley chewing them out for drawing on the side of her house with sidewalk chalk.

The other boys were stunned into silence. They had never seen V so easygoing and animated. He seemed almost wistful. But then his smile became crestfallen. “But-..uh…I haven’t really seen him since senior year of high school when I moved.” His head was in his hand as he looked out the window.

Remy was watching him carefully. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say V looked a little lovesick. Eventually, Patton spoke up and that was enough for V to catch himself and revert back to his usual closed off expression.

“Well, what’s his name?”

V just stared at the back of the driver’s seat. It was a simple question, so why was it so hard to just say it. This wasn’t Harry Potter and he wasn’t Voldemort. For so long, he never spoke his name simply because the memories were too much. Even his family had picked up on it. His mom was always so careful about it, like she was constantly walking on egg shells. Those mannerisms were eventually present in nearly every interaction, but V didn’t like to dwell on it much. He seemed to finally snap out of whatever daze he was in before he realized he hadn’t answered yet.

“Roman. Roman Prince,” he finally choked out.

Oh.

Patton and Remy both shared a look of disbelief before they carefully schooled their expressions.

“Well hey, maybe one of these guys will know him,” Pat encouraged. V offered a noncommittal shrug before turning his gaze back down to his phone.

“Yeah. Maybe,” V mumbled.

……………………………………………………………………..

When they pulled up to the house V tried to quell his initial panic upon seeing the ridiculous amount of people. This had to qualify as some sort of public disturbance, right? The sound of Patton and Remy opening their respective car doors shook him from his anxious thoughts. He silently followed them towards the house. Once they got to the end of the driveway, a smiling blonde came walking towards them.

“Hi guys! Glad you could make it. Who’s your friend?” he asked with a welcoming hug and smile.

“Hey kiddo! This is V. He just moved here a few months ago,” Pat answered for him.

“Hi Jake, thanks for having me,” V replied nervously. After some relatively painless small talk, and an explanation as to where everything is, he left the three to their own devices.

There was a huge bonfire out back stocked with anything and everything to make s’mores, along with patio furniture and extra chairs set up on the driveway surrounding a smaller fire pit to accommodate the ridiculous throng of teenagers. Roman and Logan had just roasted some marshmallows, with only a few marshmallow fires to report, and were now sitting on the driveway chatting aimlessly. Roman snuggled deeper into his hoodie as a particularly cold breeze made him shiver.

Patton and Remy quickly surveyed those they could see and lit up when they spotted Roman and Logan. Remy finally spoke up and began to introduce everyone he knew from afar.

“Okay, so you’ve met Jake. Over on the couch is Julia, Maddie, Brandon, Matt, and Anna,” Remy rattled off. He smirked at Pat motioning for him to continue.

“And, over on the other side is Lia, Peyton, Roman, and Logan,” Patton finished. V was nodding his head along before what Pat said had finally caught up with him.

His entire body froze and his breath hitched audibly.

No. No.

His eyes were impossibly wide, and his mouth was opening and closing at a loss for words. He jumped behind Patton and curled his hands into fists, quietly cursing the air blue.

“Are you guys fucking kidding me right now?! Why the fuck didn’t you tell me he was going to be here!? I can’t fucking talk to him, you don’t get it!” He whisper-shouted.

Remy brushed off his panic. V could faintly hear Patton trying to calm him down, but his gaze was focused on the glowing man by the fire. He looked so different, yet the same. His heart leapt into his throat as he heard him laugh particularly loudly at whatever his friend had said. He hadn’t heard that sound in years. His brown hair was perfectly styled he noticed, the fire giving his hazel eyes a urethral quality. He noted the crinkle by his eyes, the gentle curve of his nose, the cupid’s bow of his lips. His blissful moment was broken when he heard Remy call him over here.

“Hey Ro, get over here!” Remy yelled with a laugh. V watched helplessly from behind Pat’s shoulder as he and his friend walked around the firepit in his direction. He couldn’t stop shaking and his eyes were blown impossibly wide. His voice was nowhere to be found and his feet seemed glued to the ground. His protests died on his lips as Roman came over and hugged Remy.

“Took you long enough. You’re the one who forced me to come to this thing and you show up late?” Logan asked playfully.

“Well, we had to make an extra pit stop,” Remy said while he hugged Roman as well. It was then that Roman noticed the dark figure behind Patton. V turned away from him hiding behind his hair as Roman tried to meet his eyes.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked but received no answer. “C’mon I don’t bite…much,” he tried to joke.

V knew he had to face the music. There was no way out of this, God there was no way out of this. He let out a shaky exhale and stepped out from behind Patton. He painfully tore his gaze from the ground and looked at him through his bangs.

“…Hey there Princey,” he tried to smile.

…………………………………………………………………………..

The world stopped.

His confident stance faltered as his phone clattered to the ground. His heart stopped. Tears gathered in his eyes without his permission. His mind was running a mile a minute. Roman wasn’t sure if he was sad, angry, happy…he had been numb for so long, and he only seemed to realize that in this moment. Only one person had ever called him that, and he left years ago, along with whatever genuine happiness he had. He took in two sharp breaths before he attempted to speak.

“…V?” he whispered.

A few tears were flowing freely now. A sob threatening to come out of his throat. Roman looked on to see panic on his face as he began rambling.

“No, no, no, no, no don’t cry!” Patton and Remy watched as V’s carefully constructed walls tumbled down. Gone were his cold eyes and standoffish stance and attitude. His eyes were scared and panicked, as he held his hands up to try to placate the man in front of him. “Please, I knew I shouldn’t have come I’m so sorry I didn’t know you were gonna be here and-” but he was cut off by Roman’s hysterics. His hand was over his mouth trying to calm down before he was all over him.

“Oh, just shut up and get over here,” Ro laughed through tears as he jumped him.

V staggered forward as Roman pulled him into his arms and burried his head into his neck. V hesitantly wrapped his arms around his back and rested his nose on his shoulder, a tear rolled silently down his cheek.

“Where have you been, you emo nightmare?” He laughed, but didn’t move from his current position.

V couldn’t have smiled wider as a loud laugh tore out of his throat. The first genuine laugh he’d allowed himself in a while. They only held one another tighter.

“I was in…it was Florida,” he mumbled quietly.

Roman pulled back to look him in the eyes, a ghost of a smile graced his face. He looked at him like he wasn’t real. His thumb brushed a stray tear from V’s cheek as he studied his face. Gone was the 2007 emo haircut and makeup. His hair was cut and styled a little shorter, hiding under his beanie. A few pieces hung in front of those brown, dough eyes he missed so dearly. His features grew sharper, and he most definitely grew taller. Only an inch or two shorter than Roman himself. V blushed under his scrutiny.

“Look at this hair,” Roman laughed as he ran his hand through it, effectively removing the beanie and mussing it up.

“I like it.” V tried not to melt at the affectionate touch. Roman looked over all his features, and after a beat of silence, Roman spoke up again, “You grew up.”

“Hey, so did you,” V said with a wide smile. “You’re taller than me now, damnit. And look, you finally got a haircut that fits your face,” he finished with a laugh.

“You know me, I couldn’t endure another-”

“-sixth grade bowl-cut disaster,” they finished together laughing.

Their giggles died down and looked at each other, faces turning serious.

“Roman…” V wanted to explain. He wanted to explain what he couldn’t all those years ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Silence.

That’s all there was between them.

A heavy choked silence.

“…you’re moving…?” The way Roman’s voice cracked may as well have broken Virgil.

He wasn’t meant to see the text from his mom about the moving truck. V almost dropped the glass of water he was holding when Roman asked about it. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Virgil just needed a little more time.

Virgil tried to speak. He tried to find the right thing to say, to explain himself, but the words wouldn’t come.

“How long have you known about this?” Shock punctuated each word, and again V floundered for what to say.

“I-..it-…a few months.”

A choked scoff was all Virgil got in response.

“Where?” Roman tried to appear indifferent, but his eyes gave him away.

Tears started to gather in V’s eyes. That was the one question he couldn’t answer. He couldn’t, he couldn’t, and that pained him more than anything.

“I-…Roman, I can’t tell you.” V looked at his friend desperate for understanding, but he was met with barely concealed outrage. Roman knew why Virgil couldn’t tell him but that didn’t stop the anger permeating through his entire being. If it weren’t for his fucking parents. But that didn’t matter in Roman’s head right now. He was just beyond hurt…betrayed that Virgil would keep this from him for so long.

Then suddenly Roman realized something. Virgil was crying. Something he would never normally do, even in front of his best friend. Roman was mad that he was just finding out about this, sure, but Virgil wouldn’t be so panicked if it weren’t a big deal.

“Is it close? Will we still be in school together?” Roman tried to sound hopeful, but he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“It’s-…no Ro…it’s out of state.” The dam finally broke and silent tears began to fall.

Roman let out a humorless laugh, and his face turned cold. He felt like he’d just been kicked in the stomach, and Virgil wasn’t much better.

“When.” Roman was desperate for answers. His whole world, it seemed, was being taken away from him. The one person that he cared about the most, the one person who understood him the most, the person he loved the most was about to move away.

Tears were flowing freely down V’s face. He opened his mouth to speak but after a few failed attempts at getting the words out. He took a deep, shaky breath and spoke up in a quiet voice.

“Five days.”

Roman’s eyes flew wide.

“Days?! You’re moving away in five days and you didn’t think to tell me months ago? Why didn’t you tell me sooner? When were you even going to tell me?!”

Angry. He was angry.

Virgil’s tears continued to fall. His hands we balled into tight fists at his sides and his breathing was labored as he stared resolutely at the floor.

“I-I tried to-, I didn’t mean-…” He couldn’t even form a sentence. He was overwhelmed, on the verge of an attack, but he was trying to keep himself together. He had to explain.

“It’s the middle of the school year! We’re supposed to be graduating high school in four months together. We’re supposed to be getting ready for college together. Getting ready for the rest of their lives together. I thought that you and I-…I thought…” Roman’s voice broke and he shook his head.

“V I’m your best friend! At least I thought I was. What possessed you to tell me five days before you had to leave that I’m probably never going to see you again, because I don’t even know where the hell you’re going!?” Roman was borderline hysterical, but his anger was overriding his sadness. Virgil continued to look at the floor, tears blurring his vision.

A beat of silence passed and suddenly everything that had been going on recently made more sense. Why they hadn’t been able to hang out at his house, why V’s mom always gave Virgil looks when Roman talked about what they were planning to do this summer. All of it.

Roman finally broke the silence.

“I have to go.”

Virgil’s head snapped up at his words, but his feet wouldn’t move to stop him.

He wanted to tell him everything.

He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs how he had tried to tell him before but he just couldn’t bring himself to do so because it hurt so damned much. He wanted to tell him how much he wishes to spend as much time together as they can before he has to say goodbye. He wanted to tell him how much he was going to miss him. His laugh, his nicknames, his dramatics, his limitless kindness and wit, his unbelievable ability to calm and reassure him in his darkest moments. His ability to understand. He just wanted to tell him how much he loved him.

It was a lonely five days.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>>

“I’m sorry.”

Virgil’s mouth snapped shut, confused.

“Roman, what in God’s name are you-”

“ -you didn’t deserve my temper tantrum.” He paused taking in V’s face of confusion. “I shouldn’t have shut you out. I should have stayed. I should have talked it out with you. There’s so much I should have done differently. Instead, I let you go without a goodbye,” he trailed off quietly. A rueful smile could be seen on his face.

“Ro, if I had just told you sooner. None of that would’ve happened.” V turned his face away trying to stop the second barrage of tears threatening to fall.

Roman grabbed his chin with one hand and forced Virgil to look at him. Shock replaced his sadness and a bright blush spread across his cheeks.

“V, I don’t blame you for anything, no matter how much you think this is your fault. I’m just-…I’m so glad to have you back,” he finished with a huff of laughter. There were still tears in his eyes and the laugh was strained, but it was something Virgil didn’t know he needed to hear all this time.

Roman’s eyes slid down to his lips before coming back up to meet his eyes. V briefly wondered if he’d imagined that.

“…Virgil?”

He was asking permission and Virgil sure as hell wasn’t going to lose this chance while he had it. He leaned forward, his lips lightly brushing Roman’s, hesitating only a moment longer before Roman captured his lips in a gentle kiss. Roman put his hands on the sides of V’s face while Virgil’s hands tangled themselves in Roman’s hair. The kiss slowly became more passionate as Virgil pulled him even closer. The butterflies in Virgil’s stomach had him dizzy, but he was about to complain. Roman smiled through the kiss absolutely elated. He caressed Virgil’s cheeks like he was something beautiful, trying to make up for the years they lost.

They were breathing heavily when air forced them away from one another. They didn’t break eye contact. They stood shell shocked at what had just happened, both on cloud nine. Then Virgil started laughing.

“You don’t know how long I’ve thought about that,” he eventually got out.

Roman’s smile could have lit up an entire city block.

They hugged each other again, both sporting ridiculous grins before something caught V’s eye. He moved away slightly and ran his hand over the hoodie Roman was wearing.

“Wait, is this…is this my MCR hoodie?” he said with mock outrage.

Roman had the decency to allow a blush to appear on his cheeks as he decided to feign innocence.

“What, this? I haven’t the faintest idea as to what you’re talking about…” Virgil raised an eyebrow in amusement. His smug smile hid the part of him that absolutely melted because it’s been years since they’ve seen each other, and yet Roman is wearing his sweatshirt. He waited about 30 more seconds before Roman gave up the charade, Virgil’s grin never faltering.

“Hey, you’re the one who left it in my room. Finders keepers, my chemically imbalanced romance.” He shot him a sly look and stuck out his tongue for good measure.

V just stared at him. He was smiling so wide he could barely talk.

“God, I missed you.” He spoke with such conviction that Roman could feel the warmth spreading through him at his words.

Roman tugged him forward and they remained in a silent hug. That’s when Remy took his chance.

“Not that this isn’t incredibly adorable or anything,” he waited to continue as the two finally realized that they had an audience.

Virgil quickly stepped away to ease the blush on his face, but Roman yanked him back with a firm pull, tucking him securely against his side with an easy smile. This only caused his blush to worsen.

“I have a clarifying question,” Remy continued.

Virgil looked on in confusion at his inquiry.

“Roman, what did you say his name was?”

And just like that Virgil went from super relaxed to super panicked. Roman looked over at him in confusion before he quickly cut in.

“No, no, no. Don’t. Do not.” He tried to sound menacing, but the fear showed on his face. He was in no place to give orders.

He looked at Virg and then turned back to Remy as realization dawned on his face.

“You mean to tell me you don’t know his actual name?” he said with barely contained amusement.

“He’s a dark, brooding emo! How could you expect us to know such private information?” Remy was going for sarcasm, but there was a hint of underlying exasperation. Roman let out a loud laugh at that.

“Oh please, Virgil is the softest emo I’ve ever encountered in my life, and he’s only gotten softer,” he finished pulling him closer, pecking his cheek. V…no, Virgil groaned while trying to bury his face in his hands.

Remy let out a soft snort. “Vir-gil?” He tested the name on his tongue. Virgil looked at Roman, a pout in place.

“Oh my GOODNESS, I love it,” Patt said cutting in with an adoring squeal.

Virgil was not amused.

He threw some choice words at his prince charming and just like that the two reunited friends began to bicker back and forth, settling back into their dynamic seamlessly.

“Okay, you sir, are coming with me,” Roman declared.

“Where exactly are you taking me? Looks like some Blair Witch Project woods back there,” V trailed off jokingly. Roman just looked at him with a fond, amused smile.

“There are marshmallows down there with your name on them.” V abruptly stopped walking and stared up into his eyes, looking more serious than he ever has in his life.

“Take me to them.”

Roman laughed and tugged him along. The three people who witnessed this entire exchange decided to hang back to give them some well-deserved catch up time. Just as Logan was about to ask Remy and Patton what the hell was going on, a very loud and very undignified yelp was heard from across the driveway.

“D-did you just taze me?” Virgil sounded shocked and every bit as embarrassed as one could imagine. Roman just stood there with a smug smile. V looked back and saw Remy and Pat looking back at him with barely contained amusement, before turning to Roman with determination.

“You do realize of course now I’m going to have to kill you,” he said matter-of-factly.

Roman ran towards the bonfire with a shout of, “You’ll have to catch me first, Gerrard Way!”

“You are NOT getting away from me this time!” He laughed as Virgil ran after him.

………………………………………………………………………

Later that week one would find the two at the top of a hill, sitting in their rusty old wagons. They looked positively ridiculous with their long legs hanging over the sides, but they couldn’t find it in their hearts to care.

“Okay, we’ve got a straight shot. Whoever gets down there first wins and gets to pick the movie for tonight.”

Virgil looked back at Roman, smirk in place.

“Bold of you to assume there’s a chance you’ll beat me, Brendon Urie.”

The two best friends sat in their wagons preparing to take off down the steep hill, both men confident as ever. After the shouted count, “3…2…1…,” off they went, laughter echoing in the crisp spring air.

And there she is! I just now realized that idk if “taze” is a universal word for poking at someone’s side to tickle them or if that’s something only my friends and I say…but it’s all I got. Also I made them all from Pennsylvania? Yeah. It’s fine, Florida is mentioned in there.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my first attempt at writing these cuties! Perhaps I’ll continue to do so in the future.

Thanks, you muffins!

~Laur

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slashtakemylife · 6 years ago

Text

Sad Voltron thoughts

The greatest weapon of the universe is really handled by a bunch of teenagers

So I’m late to this, I’ve spoiled myself since S8 came out but only now have I really watched the season and I’ve only reached the episode after clear day, now before I begin I will declare this:

I am a CASUAL viewer

I’ve followed VLD since S2 came out and the only ship I have is Adashi, and considering how you can easily take out their two scenes and the plot stays exactly the same, there is absoutely no ship bias in here, just a viewer (that also means that I’ve made this out of memory, any details I’ve miss please tell me but this are my thoughts as someone who is not going to take the time and go back into the seasons, I just watch the show and what stayed stayed)

S8 made me sad, the entire tone of the season is sad, dark and filled with loss and death, now this is supposed to be about the war and it’s consequences, to me it’s more of the consequences of Voltron’s actions, or lack of, rather than just Honerva’s evilness, so to me the fact that they must stop her is not something they want to do because they want to do the right thing but rather it’s them taking responsability for their actions, like saving the universe is the least they could do after everything they failed, (long post)

- Just to be clear

What Canon Shows

What I thought/interpret

In S2 Voltron along with their allies, the beginings of the Coallition, joined to defeat Zarkon, and S3 showed Voltron trying to consolidate the Coalition

The Coalition which is basically the UN and at it’s core it is just a group project, now each of these planets need to rebuild, yes sure they’ll sing up but each have their own issues so we need one neutral party to check and connect all the planets, this is Voltron or mainly, Allura, she is the face and leader of the Coallition

The Coalition plot line is dropped off the moment Allura goes to Blue, so we see none of them until later on

The Coalition still exist but there is no longer this figure to join them, imagine if the UN was just a big room were countries, whenever they wanted, would go and chat about problems the world may have, no one would go

I’d like to point to another part, the Garla, the Coalition began exclusively to defeat the Garla, not to create a united universe, they are literaly pointing a finger at them and calling them evil, the Garla, who’ve been inmerse in a conquerer mentally are left to fight and essencially detroy themselves

At this point, the Coalition works, not because Voltron is doing something good but because their objective, the Garla, are busy fighting themselves, thus no one is actively conquering or managing the enslaved colonies, thus making it seem like there is “peace”

S? I think 5? finally shows the struggle of the leaderless Galra and it finally dying out thanks Lotor becoming emperor, not by the Paladins, but by Shiro’s clone who is controled by Honerva

The Paladins couldn’t give a flying f*ck about the Galra, if the show had followed it’s initial intentions, Shiro would’ve died and Keith becomes the Black Paladin, it would show someone on the team actually cares for the Garla and wants to see them included in the Coalition, Keith, convinced Lotor is the right guy, helps him get to the throne, but since it’s Shiro’s clone controled by Honerva this moves becomes by the Garla and for the Garla, Voltron still doesn’t care about them and the fact that Keith is hardly there or mention, their Galra rep is essencially gone, Galra = Evil

Lotor rise to power is a Galra move for the Galra and it’s shown when he too shows to be evil, he is the crazy villain to defeat in S6

We get to S7, the Paladins learn the universe is in chaos, by the Galra again not having a leader and creating little evil groups and by the planets that didn’t have a defender, so what should we do? Go to Earth

For starters, S3 to 6 I rarely remember them doing anything with the Coalition so the fact that everything is in chaos by small Garla groups means the planets are still defensless, were is the Coalition? why they left each planet to their own device? why couldn’t they help each other?

With no Allura or Voltron or figure to join them, each to their own, leaving them vulnerable to attacks, the Coalition is just a name, Voltorn shook the bee hive, twice, and left, they killed their leaders and then did nothing for them, we also see a druid has decimated most of the Blade of Marmora

The Blade of Marmora, an organization that survived completely hidden for 10,000 years becomes more publicly active to support Voltron, they are now few in numers and pretty much extint

Earth is also in bad shape, Sam said they were the last people standing so it’s natural to assume many people have died on Earth, they get just in time because Sendak of all people went specifically to Earth just for fun of revenge and really by pure chance the paladins wanted to go there and they also get a big ship, the Atlas

We finally see the Coalition, we get to see aliens we’ve previously seen and they are all helping, it seems like the Coalition works just fine

S8, Voltron and the Atlas go back to space to hunt for Honerva but they are literaly just cruising space , they reach a Galra outpost were they try to get the Galra to cooperate, we learn this general was made to give his support to Voltron, only for them to kill their leader and disappear, making him suspicious or uncooperative with Voltron

At this point I thought, yeah, Voltron has killed the Galra’s leader twice, and it’s just now that they care for the Galra? When they are scattered, defeated, low on numbers? They never cared before, why now? Is it because the Coalition is not working and the Galra are weak that they are now finally taking them in consideration? They actually show Honerva is also decimating the Galra so do they go help them because they too have clues to Honerva? So they really don’t care, got it, only Keith does

And also at this point I go hu? That’s right, Lotor was empreror, did he do anything in his reign? Did Voltron tried to include the Galra in the Coalition? This is the first time I hear any Galra said they swore allegiane to Voltron and with Lotor in the throne it makes sense but did we ever see Lotor do something? I remmeber in the Honerva episode she said, find the emperor! And I thought, Zarkon? That b*tch alive? Oh please no! Oh yeah that’s right, Lotor was emperor, wait, what did he do as emperor again? He never even wore a type of head ornament to show status to really drill in my head yes he is the leader nor did he do anything emperor like or really ruled the Galra for me to think, yes this guy made his generals swore their allegiance to Voltron, this is the first time I hear of this and really no wonder he is bitter, Voltron killed his previous leader, put another that made him swear to Voltron and then Voltron killed him as well and left, like WTF Voltron? Chose a side you look like a moody teenager but you have the greates weapon known in the universe and you swing your sword and whoever makes you mad

They go to Olkari again by pure chance and only once they are close to the planet do they see it’s real devastating state, they also mention Olkarion was a key base to the Coalition, a communication base or just a base, idk can’t remember

So at this moment I think, that’s right, the Olkari! Then why did they go to Earth in S7? shouldn’t the Olkari be better equipped to handle the lions than Earth? why expose Earth who is still building up their defenses rather than go to the place they liberated long ago that has the best engineers in the universe?

Also they go by chance, first of all, this is the first time I hear they are vital to the Coalition, I know they are great allies but I’ve never seen or told beforehand they had such a big role and if they had, why didn’t they call anyone from the Coalition? Once Earth was back online they contacted Matt, the Coalition arrived on Earth, there is a working functioning one

Yes they may arrive late but I’m sure they could’ve sent a signal to the Coalition, to the Atlas, to Voltron who we actually literally in that episode see them use their mega thrusters just for fun, they should’ve recieved the distress signal but arrived too late not by chance, this makes me question their statement as if they were really a big part of the Coalition and only after they see the state of Olkari that they send the rebels to evacuate other planets, but it’s stated the robeast had beem destroying plantes for a while, why did no one in the Coalition said a thing? Why is it surprising now? In S7 the universe was chaos, the planets defenseless, so then we are back to square 1 but this time it feels worse and the worst part is that is their failure at not making a strong enough Coalition at going back to Earth rather than stay and help

In Olkari they mention how their information could save billions of live, Allura saying how they need to save all the lives in the universe

Ok, um which lives again? Let’s check the groups shall we? Earth was decimated not long ago, many people died, some are still alive, the Olkari were able to flee but we see that many must have died as well, Ryner probably dead, the Galra, are said to also be scattered and low on numbers due to Honerva, the Blade of Marmora are mostly dead because of that one lonely druid, the Alteans are alive but they are used by Honerva, if they speak they die so disposable and also in low numbers this are all the major groups Voltron has that I can remember

Everything is destroyed and dead, yes I know there are people still there to save but at this point, me as the viewer, I am just so depressed of this constant death and destruction, they never mention a bit of hope, at least one place they can defend and keep safe, a focus, at this point I’m just praying for Shay and her Balmera because they are the only group that they haven’t talked about

I can’t get emotionally invested, the heroes are motivated but they just look so down, so sad, I have nothing to root for, everything Voltron once did is pretty much gone and at this point I think, well what did they do?

The Coalition failed, I only remember seeing it work once on Earth, the farthest place from the conflict, by them failing at consolidating the Coalition the planets they saved are gone, their allies like the BoM are mostly dead because they came our more publicly to support Voltron, they killed the Galra leader twice and did nothing later which bit them in the ass when these random groups of Galra’s attacked them, they now are interested in the Galra because they are as much f*cked up as the rest of the universe and pretty much no longer a threat

I just...What The Ever Loving FUCK is happening, I’m sorry but I can’t get invested in this and worse, all of this just told me that everything I’ve been seeing for two years meant for nothing and no it’s not because Honerva was supper powerful but because they failed at doing what they were supposed to do! Honerva didn’t hit a well stablished big tower, she hit a Jenga tower that already had blocks taken away

And everything is so gloomy, not only am I sad all the time but it feels pointless, if they save the universe is because it’s the least they should do! I just can’t anymore, I know how it ends, I already reached the part were they go into Honerva’s mind so at this point I know they are not going to adress the previous issues i had, it’s only the big battle at the end were Allura dies so I want and don’t want to watch it but the only episode I’ve truly enjoyed is Clear Day and it’s only because it has nothing to do with the plot

Ok this is canon romantic stuff, I’m not feeling Allurance, Lance has stated his love twice, like literal, I LOVE YOU, Allura just smiled and the first thing she sees in her allucination is Lotor, her ex, I know it’s for the dark entity but it felt like Allura couldn’t shake off his memory, even if she doesn’t love him and she clearly looks traumatized to see him, it tells me she is not ready to jump into a relationship, she hasn’t healed from Lotor’s betrayal, she is just looking for someone to hold her before she snaps but I don’t feel an ounce of love of her to Lance, this makes me feel bad for Lance because he is cleary in love but Allura can’t and won’t be able to reciprocate until she is healed and I know perfectly well it won’t happen

#voltron season 8

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daydreaming-scribe · 7 years ago

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Kiss it, Make it Better: Repentance

I know it’s been two months since I posted the last chapter and graphic, but here’s the fourth Chapter of Kiss it, Make it Better. Thanks as always to @gaywitchtwins.

Sam and Alicia have a heart to heart, and Alicia asks for insight.

Seeing Jody and Donna and the girls off is by no means an easy process. Sam managed to convince them to give the Baneses some time to themselves. They’ve trekked out to the roadside where Sam and Max had parked with Jody and Donna holding him up on either side. Claire’s seated next to Alex in the back of Jody’s police car, not far from Alicia’s Jeep. Donna’s packing up the trunk, and a very concerned Jody is trying to reason with Sam.

“I don’t think you should be going back in.” She insists, voice measured with exhaustion. “You’re not really in the condition to be doing anything but rest.” Sam shrugs off her statement. Smiling softly, he places a hand on his friend’s shoulder

“Max said he’ll heal me when I get back to where they are. It’s only 3:30 now, and it shouldn’t be too hard to find the clearing.” What with the smoke trails from the inferno standing out against the bright blue sky. Sam will be shocked if the forest rangers or local sheriffs don’t get there before he does. Jody gives a worried look.

“About that…” She trails off slightly. “What if something happens?” Before Sam can counter her, she adds on. “I know you’re not afraid, Sam, but I think you should be. Max’s a hunter, but he’s also a witch. Using Dark Magic. And he has Alicia under his control right now. If he turns against you, it’s two against one. And you’re in no condition to fight back.”

“Max is a good guy, Jody.” Sam says. “He had the chance to off me earlier.” At her puzzled expression, he explains. “I confronted him about Alicia when we were scouting the forest. But he promised that he was going to tell Alicia anyways. He just didn’t get the chance.” The sheriff blinks.

“Confronted him?” She questions. Her eyes narrow in realization. “That’s why you two were acting strange before. You knew the whole time.” Sam nods, mentally preparing himself as he senses Jody’s rising irritation. “And you didn’t say anything? Alicia tried to kill us! What if that had happened earlier, huh?”

“The Dryad controlling her body tried to kill you.” He points out, promptly rewarded with another glare. “And I didn’t tell you because I wanted to talk to Max, and I thought he’d feel less threatened if less people knew.” Jody’s ready to protest again, but he cuts her off. “Jody, please trust me on this. Max isn’t a bad person. He just wants his sister safe.” The sheriff gives a final pleading look. With a sigh, she pulls him into a hug.

“Be safe,” she whispers. “Don’t do anything stupid.” Sam laughs, hugging her back tightly.

“Yes, Ma’am.” He promises. The sheriff doesn’t look remotely convinced, but she’s soon in the police car with the others. Sam waves till the car is a small speck on the horizon. He then moves to the motorcycle, parked beside the Jeep courtesy of Alicia. Popping open the portable trunk, he withdraws one of the spare shirts and the extra jacket. He puts on the clothing, placing Donna’s lent jacket in the trunk. After a moment’s hesitation, two handhelds come out as well.

Closing the trunk, he makes his way back into the clearing. The forest isn’t nearly as mazelike as before. He never loses track of where he’s heading from, nor the route he’d taken making his way out with Jody and the others. Sam walks alone for some time in silence, the only noises being the birds in the trees and his own footfalls as he makes his way deeper and deeper into the forest. Eventually, however, voices reach his ears. Ones that are clearly arguing. As he gets closer and closer to the clearing, he can make out what they’re saying.

“I can’t believe you’ve been letting me walk around like a complete idiot for months.” The clearing comes into view. Alicia’s back is to him, but Max’s face is in view. His expression is beyond shattered.

“I didn’t want you to freak out.” He counters. Alicia’s laugh in response is filled with hysteria.

“Freak out, yeah, why would I freak out? You only cut my heart out of my dead body and used the magic that killed Mom to bring me back to life.”

“Leesh –”

“No! Don’t!” Alicia yells. “This is dark magic. It’s six layers of wrong. Mom – ” She breaks off, hands covering her face. “Jesus Christ, Max, Mom taught you better than this!”

“Mom’s dead, Alicia!” Max is suddenly right in front of his sister’s face. “Mom’s dead, and you were dead, and I had no one!”

“So, what, that gives you the right to make me your puppet?” Max falls silent once more.

“I just wanted you back.” He whispers. Alicia stills, leaving the twins staring at each other. Sam clears his throat, grabbing the twins’ attention. He jerks his head in the direction of the still-burning tree.

“Max, you’re probably the only one that can put that out. It should be a pretty straight walk back to the Jeep. We’ll meet you back at there.” The two of them stare at him. Max is panting, still out of breath from arguing with his sister. After a slight hesitation, Alicia approaches, walking past him and heading in the direction he just came from. Sam looks back to Max. The man’s golden eyes are bloodshot, his cheeks stained with from still-falling tears. He slowly approaches Sam, and the older hunter hides a flinch as Max places a hand on his injured side. The witch’s eyes briefly glow a gentle violet, hand warming against Sam’s flesh. When Max lifts his hand, the wound has faded to a tiny scar. Sam gives the dejected witch a smile, hoping to relay whatever comfort he can in it. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll wait for you.” Turning from the devastated witch, Sam jogs as fast as he can to catch up to Alicia. He finally reaches her, and falls into an even pace at her side. They walk in an uncomfortable silence for some time, and Sam can feel her beady black eyes trained on him.

“How long have you known?” The question’s what Sam expected, but the biting tone catches him by surprise. A glance confirms Alicia’s glaring at him. “You’ve been tense ever since you first saw me. And Max has been careful making sure we haven’t had any more contact with you since Rock River.”

“I found out this morning.” He says. “Dean thought Max might use the Borrower Witch’s ring, but I didn’t actually know until this morning.” The woman considers his words.

“You knew I was dead, then. You just didn’t know what Max had done.” Sam nods. “And the time you two had alone scouting?”

“I just wanted to talk to him, find out the truth. And convince him to tell you the truth.” Alicia rolls her eyes. “He was going to tell you. At least he promised to.” She doesn’t respond to that. “I had faith that he would tell you. Or, hoped he would, I guess.”

“You hoped he wouldn’t use the ring, either.” She sneers. “Maybe Max isn’t as trustworthy as you thought he was.” There’s no mistaking the bitterness in her tone. Whether towards him or her brother or the situation in general, he can’t be sure. “You trusted him to do the right thing, and I’ve been walking around as a twig monster for months because you thought wrong. Wouldn’t have killed you to check up on Max if you cared so much about him. About us.” Sam’s brow furrows. Her anger is definitely directed toward him, no mistaking it. Which is fair, he deserves, but he certainly didn’t expect her to be angry at him over this.

“I watched you get stabbed, Alicia.” He reminds her. “I was too weak to help you. Pretty sure the last person Max wanted to hear from was the idiot who got his sister killed.” Alicia comes to a halt, gaping at him. Sam winces. “I’m sorry. I forgot you….” He trails off, deciding it’s smarter to not say ‘I forgot you don’t remember dying’. To his relief, Alicia just shakes it off.

“No, it’s fine.” She says, rubbing her temples. “I mean, you’ve told me more in five minutes then Max has in months. Can’t complain too much, can I?” Alicia continues walking. If she’s much closer to Sam than before, he doesn’t think it’s enough of an issue to comment on. “If Max had reached out to you, would you have kept in contact with him?” Sam frowns at the bizarre question, and the even more bizarre shift in Alicia’s tone from angry to conversational.

“Of course.” He says. “I mean, if he needed help.” They’re almost out of the forest now, the Jeep in sight. “Why do you want to know?” Alicia shrugs, making her way over to the car and leaning against the side of it.

“Curiosity.” Sam quirks an eyebrow, staring at her inscrutable expression. “You don’t agree with him bringing me back either, do you? You were horrified to see me.”

“It’s not that, Alicia.” He says. “I’m happy you’re alive and everything.” The answer is an almost hysterical laugh.

“Do I look alive, Sam? You heard that Dryad – I’m a stick figure.” To prove her point, Alicia flashes her stomach, poking at the wound sealed by twigs. “You know, I’ve been trying to figure out why I’ve been off since Rock River.” At Sam’s shocked expression, she rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on. I’m not an idiot. I haven’t cried about Mom. Like, at all. The woman who gave birth to us and raised us is dead, and I haven’t been able to shed a single tear over it. I hid it from Max, didn’t want him stressing out more. He hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in months, he barely eats. The brother who chased after any guy who seemed remotely into him has pretty much become a monk. I’ve been so afraid of him thinking that I was emotionally damaged, or some kind of monster.” She gives an empty laugh. “Guess he already knew.”

“Alicia –”

“Don’t try and defend him, Sam.” Alicia snaps. “I know that you want to make me feel better, but I just need someone to be on my side. I haven’t cried at all, I haven’t had or wanted sex, I can’t get drunk no matter how hard I try, and believe me, I’ve tried. I haven’t really eaten or slept in God knows how long, and it hasn’t affected me in the slightest. I’m a monster. Or, not human. Or alive. The least you can do is admit that Max made me this way.” She has a point. Sam gave her brother a whole monologue about his own experiences and how Alicia has the right to make her own decisions. He can’t exactly switch it up now.

“You’re right.” He says, exhaling sharply. “Max shouldn’t have done what he did.” Alicia relaxes somewhat, not content but not as angry as she was less than a minute ago. “What are you going to do now?”

“Does it matter?” She asks. “Max apparently has the right to make every decision for me now that I’m his puppet.”

“He promised me he’d tell you the truth and let you decide for yourself.” She doesn’t look too convinced by the sentiment, eyebrows raised. “And even though you already know, I’ll hold Max to his promise on allowing you to make your own choices.” Alicia blinks, gaping at him in shock.

“Uh... thanks, I guess.” They fall back into an awkward silence. The trail of smoke has died down by now. Max is probably making his way back to them. They’ve got nothing to do but talk. Or, you know, avoid talking.

“I was half-ready to come to Kansas and kick your ass, you know.” Sam starts at the non-sequitur, glancing bemusedly at Alicia. She laughs at his confusion. “Sorry, little out of the blue. I finally put two and two together. Lot of things are just now starting to make sense.” Sam must still seem pretty puzzled, because she just rolls her eyes and smiles. “Max went on and on about you for weeks after we met at Asa’s funeral. I was about to duct-tape his mouth shut, it was getting so annoying.”

“Didn’t know Dean and I had that effect on other hunters.” Sam chuckles, smiling. “He really spent weeks talking about us?” The woman’s mouth tightens into a smirk.

“Not Dean. Just you.” He blinks, not exactly sure what Alicia means. “Trust me, I was treated to endless one-way conversations and dumb questions.” Her voice shifts, going as deep as it can in a bad imitation of her brother. “ ‘Ughh. I should’ve gotten Sam Winchester’s number’… ‘He’s nice and hot and a good hunter, that’s like a triple threat in boyfriend qualities,’…. ‘Hey Leesh, how do you think he keeps all that hair so well-kept? That seems like a gay thing, do you think he could be gay?’… ‘Did you see his ass in those jeans? I need to get his number,’.” Sam feels his face heat up. This only makes Alicia grin wider. “He was more excited then he let on to see you again in Rock River. Half the reason he flirted with the bartender was so he didn’t get so nervous around you.” Her voice wavers. “And then afterward, the talking just stopped. Initially, I didn’t think anything of it, because he was getting over Mom. When he told me not to call you two ever again, I thought something had happened between you two. Then, the stuff with Max not eating or sleeping or hooking up – I thought he was heartbroken or something. I was ready to hunt you down and make you regret hurting my brother, whether you let him down in the nicest possible way or had been a total homophobe about it.” Sam makes a noise of protest, which Alicia rolls her eyes at, dismissively waving a hand. “Relax, I figured you were a nice enough guy for it to probably have been the first. Either way, Max was moody about it and wasn’t spilling anything. It was like eighth grade all over, complete with the embarrassingly huge crush.”

“Crush.” Sam repeats dubiously.

“Which you know nothing about, right?” He can’t help but smile at the smug tone. “I’m surprised you didn’t realize. He had a great time flirting with you.”

“I wasn’t entirely sure if that’s what it was.” Sam admits. “I don’t get hit on too often.” Alicia cocks an eyebrow, clearly not believing him.. Blushing, he adds “Also, according to Dean, I’m not the smoothest guy. Maybe I’m not good at telling when someone’s flirting.” She snickers. “In my defense, though, you have to admit. Hitting on creepy older men at your own dad’s funeral is a weird thing to do.”

“Granted, but calling Asa ‘Dad’ is a stretch.” She responds, stretching her arms out. “He was great, but he wasn’t a part of our lives like Mom. Max wasn’t even out to him.” She glances back to him. “You were also one of the people closest to us in age at that wake. You’re not that old, Dude. And personally, I think you’re the best kind of creepy.” Sam huffs, returning Alicia’s broad smile with a much fainter one. “And Max likes you. Good enough for me.”

“He can do better.” The words sound defeatist, especially coming from his own mouth. Alicia’s just validated his suspicions, told him exactly what he was hoping to hear. He and Max have a mutual attraction, or at least they did before Rock River. And now Sam’s pushing that away, afraid that Max is too good for him. It’s the truth, though. Or, true enough, at least. Max isn’t going to hook up with the asshole who got his sister killed. Especially when said asshole is talking him into letting his sister decide whether she wants to die or not. Alicia doesn’t seem convinced by his sentiment.

“Why, because you’re straight? If that’s the reason, then I guess so, but he could also do worse.”

“The last guy I dated ended up being possessed by a demon for seven years. Right up until I stabbed him through the chest.” Alicia goes silent. Sam realizes a little too late what he’s admitted. It’s the first time he’s come out to someone since Stanford. “Max bothers you with his crushes. I still haven’t told Dean I’m into more than just women. He doesn’t know that Brady was my boyfriend.” Sam forces himself to shut up before he says anything else stupid. “Sorry, that was dumb to say.” They both stay quiet for a while. Just when he’s thinking it will last until Max returns, Alicia breaks the silence.

“You said before that I have the choice.” Sam nods, meeting her dark eyes. “So, what do you think I should choose?” Oh great, another conversation for you to screw up.

It’s not really my place to say.”

“Oh, come on.” She scoffs. “Don’t give me that. You know what you want to say. Just tell me.” He gives a noncommittal shrug. “Sam.”

“I can’t make the choice for you.” As much as he wants to. He’d love nothing more than to tell Alicia he wants her to stay alive, or at least stay the way she is. So that Max won’t have to be alone, so Sam won’t feel as guilty about her death. “No one should decide except you. If you choose to stay, I won’t judge you for it. I won’t judge if you ask Max to undo the spell, either. As long as you want to do it, and not just for Max.” Alicia frowns.

“Why do you care so much about my choices?” She asks. Sam hesitates, staring at the younger hunter. Well, already told one Banes your life story today. Might as well tell the other.

“Do you remember Elvis? How he asked me about being possessed by Lucifer?” Alicia gives a nod. Drawing closer to her, Sam begins to talk about his history with possession. He spared Max the gorey details, but Alicia’s someone who knows what it’s like. It’s also a bonus that as someone not technically living, she lacks the ability to vomit in disgust. He can’t help but have diarrhea of the mouth, blabbing on about the times he’s been possessed, from Meg to Gadreel. The memories of the Cage that still make him wake up in a cold sweat. How Dean, Castiel and Kevin himself all bent over backward to justify his brother’s actions. Alicia looks nauseous by the time Sam finishes. She flinches when his hand rests on her shoulder, before relaxing into the gesture.

“Bottom line, any choice about your life has to be yours.” The voice in his head reminds him of going behind Dean’s back to undo the Mark of Cain. He tells the voice to kindly fuck off, and adds on that a person’s freedom to die is nowhere near the same thing as a person’s freedom to be a murderous rampaging nigh-unstoppable demon. A sharp cough makes Sam glance up. Standing a few feet from them is Max. He hasn’t improved, appearance-wise. If anything, he’s worse, eyes and nose now almost red and newly dried tear stains covering his face.

“Fire’s out.” Max says, eyes locked on his sister. Alicia pointedly avoids her twin’s gaze, staring at a random point past his shoulder. “Didn’t spread to the other trees, from what I could tell. But the Dryad’s gone completely.” His eyes meet Sam’s. “Couldn’t feel any remnants of the souls trapped in the tree. Hopefully they moved on.” The forest noises fill in the emptiness of their conversation, the birds and woodland creatures far more active now that it’s approaching nightfall. The fate of the ten humans sacrificed to Menodice’s ritual is probably better left unknown, or at least not thought on. Max looks back to his sister. “Did you decide?” Alicia sighs, scratching at her neck. Her hand comes to a rest on top of where Sam’s is still resting on her shoulder.

“I’m nowhere close to okay with what you did, Max.” She says coldly. “You lied and hid the truth from me, for months. I’ve been going insane knowing something’s wrong with me. Thinking I should hide it so I didn’t worry you.” Her twin winces, each word cutting him to the bone. “You might be the one with magic, but Mom taught us both not to screw with the natural order. And using the same magic as the witch that killed her?” Her twin hangs his head, swallowing hard. Alicia presses on, squeezing Sam’s hand. “I get not wanting to live without each other. Okay? Losing Mom was hard. Really hard.” Max is already crestfallen, knowing what his sister is going to say. “I can’t stay like this. This isn’t life.”

“Alicia…” Her brother begins.

“Max, I can’t stay this way.” She repeats. “You’re my whole life. Always have been. But if the alternative to death is this, then I’ve made my choice.” In the back of his head, Sam can hear that cold laugh. What a hypocrite, staying quiet. You have no room to talk about choices. You know a way, Sammy. For her to be back, no consequences. Or close to it at least.

“There’s another way.” He blurts out. “If you want, there might be another way.” Two sets of eyes lock on him. Alicia’s beady black ones are filled with hesitation and concern, while the golden set bear a familiar intensity. Sam can practically taste Max’s desperation. He’s uncomfortably reminded of when he was trying to free Dean from his deal, and later trying to break him out of hell. How many lines he crossed.

Hopefully he doesn’t have to cross many more.

#supernatural #my stuff #sammax #Sam Winchester #Max Banes #alicia banes #jody mills #donna hanscum #graphics #gaywitchtwins #kiss it make it better

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johobi · 8 years ago

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When You Least Expect It | 09

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader x Taehyung

Word count: 11.6k

Warnings: depression, anxiety, a very vague allusion to self-harm, graphic, penetrative sex, vulgar language etc.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16732419/navigate

A/N: I’m sorry this took so long to edit!!

Next: 10 || WYLEI Masterlist

You’re in love with your childhood friend, Taehyung. The problem is, you treasure your friendship with him far too much to ever risk losing it. Oh, and he’s quite the Casanova. At your wits’ end with feelings you can no longer hide as diligently as you once did, you ask him to set you up with someone, anyone, in a last-ditch attempt to avoid a heartbreaking conversation.

The three days following that ill-omened evening passed with as much ease as a spell in the Underworld. You could have been swayed into believing that that was where you were now sentenced, perpetually, to reside, but for your familiarly unextraordinary surroundings. The Black Dog had become Cerberus, and tirelessly upheld your condemnation. Never too far astray, and possessed, always, of a voracious appetite for your misery, the hound snuck its way into the sanctuary of your home and watched you reduce to a melancholic soup between the stale, rumpled sheets of your seldom-left bed.

And you still functioned, yes – to the casual eye. But only to deter interrogation over that most unbearable of subjects. Adopting a frivolous front was so mentally taxing, that you attended only those obligations that demanded your appearance. Like at work, for example. Your sole method of coping, there, came in the form of the new hire Hoseok presented to you on Day One, Post-Taehyung.

In the wake of such devastation, it was far easier to assume a different role; a different life.

So, on Day One, you became The Trainer. The Trainer was bubbly, comedically clumsy and ever so relieved to have the extra pair of hands. Even Hoseok loved The Trainer. So much so, you began to wonder if he preferred her to the real you. The you that slept little, ate less, and, when at home, did nothing. Even when the roots of your hair came to shine like you’d been baptised in a font of grease, you did nothing. And when the blank page of your perennially unstarted assignment began to blend in with the walls surrounding it, you did nothing then, either.

On Day Two, as you lay there in the comforting—for its sheer suffocation—murk of your apartment, the laptop winked its final goodbye as it gave up hope.

And on Day Three, the day that should not have been Day Three but the date with Jungkook you had so been looking forward to, you gave up hope.

As the intervals between his determined door-knocking grew, hailing his weakening will, the path to him felt far too long; far too treacherous to tread. The exhaustion that dogged you saw corridors and rooms outstretch the paltry floorspace detailed in your tenancy agreement, casting Jungkook beyond reach.

You would never make it.

The rapping stopped.

So, this was loneliness. Four blank walls and sour-smelling sheets.

You rolled over, eager to succumb to the lethargy that lapped at your toes. That buffered you from the vulturous circling of your more serrated thoughts.

But then you saw him. Saw his kind, softly-sloping features. A face that granted you succour for its sheer existence.

Your phone cast you in a cool glow, not far removed from your waxen complexion. Jungkook vibrated incessantly, and would not go unignored. When his attempt to reach you passed its fourth minute, the gamble of picking up had your heart hammering. If you answered, what would you be met with? An anger that burned so hot, it could disintegrate what fragile matter of you that remained? You just didn’t have the strength.

But if you didn’t, Jungkook would be gone.

Just like him.

And the crippling fear of that possibility had your thumb swiping in a panic-stricken fumble to admit his call. “H-Hello?” you mumbled, voice uneven for its prolonged disuse.

“____?” came Jungkook’s sweet, agreeable – oh, so, so agreeable – tones. They cracked under concern. “Noona, are you okay? Where are you? I’m at your apartment, like we arranged.”

No, you hadn’t even possessed the decency to cancel the meeting you knew you would never make it to. But that’s what you did, when things became unbearable. Avoided them. Like you did, now, with anyone or anything related to the man who had cut you to ribbons. Even Yoongi, who, by mere association, had become painful to be in the presence of.

“I’m sorry, Jungkook,” you rasped flatly. “I’m not feeling well. Hiking is too much.”

The fury would come, any second now. You didn’t even care to brace for it. Just a hope remained, that it would push you a stage past numb and into an anaesthetised utopia.

But it didn’t. Only warmth trickled forth from the speaker. “That’s okay, noona. We don’t have to go hiking. Are you sick?”

“Yeah, something like that that,” you mumbled, as indistinct as the enigma of an answer you’d given. Had you the strength, you’d have berated yourself for harbouring reservations about expressing your mental anguish to him. Jungkook had, after all, sworn himself to be nothing but a willing ear to your woes. As always, though, your reluctance to add to his burdensome load prevented you from voicing them. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

Wise to your tendency for deflection, however, he wouldn’t allow you to withhold it from him. “Not feeling well in yourself?”

Such a gentle, considerate way to put it. Dare you say, the faintest of somethings tickled your necrotic heart? Maybe it was still capable of sensation. “No, not at all. I’ve been having some very bad days.”

A sigh filtered through your phone, but it wasn’t one of frustration. Nor despondency, which you feared more. “Noona, I know you have this thing where you feel like you have to keep everything to yourself, but even when we can’t be together in person, I’m at the end of a line, at the very least,” was Jungkook’s tender appeal to you. “Texting is great at hiding emotion, because I had no idea you were struggling. That, or I’m an idiot and should have realised.”

“You’re not an idiot,” you immediately dismissed such undeserving slander. “I mislead you on purpose. I was trying to dig my own way out of this hole, but, uh,” you cast a despairing look around the disarray surrounding you. “That didn’t happen. Sorry.”

Jungkook was swift to scold you. “Stop apologising, seriously. We don’t have to go hiking, but I don’t want to leave you alone—I mean, unless you want to be alone, that is,” he added hastily. He was trying so hard to say the right thing. A blooming warmth began to thaw you. “But I don’t want to leave you alone. I want to be with you. We could just spend the day inside and chill out? That sounds just as appealing to me.”

You surprised yourself. Spurning his company had seemed like a dead cert. “No, I don’t want to be alone. But you can’t come in, my place is a fucking pig sty and I’m—I’m embarrassed.”

At your confession, he addressed you with an impassioned softness. “Noona,” he murmured, the word like a velvet-wrapped embrace as it kissed your ear drums. “There’s no need for you to be embarrassed. But, I understand, and I won’t ask to come in. Why don’t you come to my place?”

Now that it was he himself proposing it to you, the prospect of a fresh environment and more Jungkook became the only appealing suggestion to broach your shroud of gloom since its descension over you. Nothing could be better for you than to gain distance from the pungency of unlaundered clothes and the ecosystem that now thrived in your kitchen sink. You grasped the opportunity with both hands. “I-I’d love to. That sounds like a really nice idea. Can I have, like, ten minutes to make myself somewhat presentable? I’m sor—”

“Of course,” Jungkook cut through your forthcoming apology. He wasn’t having it today. “Take as long as you want. I’ll be waiting in my car, okay?”

“Okay,” you hugged the phone closer with both hands. “Thank you, Jungkook. Really.”

“It’s cool. Selfish, really. I wanted to see you so badly,” he admitted with a bashful chuckle, the pure noise summoning the makings of a smile to your face. And thank God, because you’d been convinced future appearances of the expression would prove elusive.

It was imperative that he knew this. “I wanted to see you, too. I really did, I was just—so—I don’t know. Well, you do know. And you didn’t give up and leave me to it. You could have done, probably should have, but—”

“Stop, noona. Go get yourself ready, and—” Jungkook paused to draw in a sharp, excited breath. “Hey, why not get some stuff together to do some baking? Not that I’m any good at it, but I know how much you love it. Why don’t you show me how to make something?”

A faint chuckle threatened to shake free the device you clasped so weakly. Jesus, you really needed to eat something soon. “That does sound fun. You probably won’t have all the utensils I’ll need, so I’ll bring what I can. Uh, just—”

“Hm?”

“I look like shit, so try not to look too horrified when you see me,” you rushed out with a grimace that couldn’t be seen, but felt all too well in your self-deprecative humour. Even as physically and emotionally weak as you were, you were incapable of giving yourself a much-needed break from criticism, no matter how undue. Indeed, had you been laid out on your death bed at this very moment, dragging in your penultimate breaths, you’d likely be apologising to Jungkook for the haggardness of your appearance, or how abrasive to the ears your final gasps might be. “I’ll try and lessen the damage if I can,” you continued, though the appeal of applying make-up was a zero on a scale of I can’t even be bothered to breathe to Do I really have to comb my hair?

Now Jungkook was frustrated. But only enough to target you with a playful chastisement. One that had you swooning like a silent movie starlet. “Don’t you dare, or I’ll come up there and throw you over my shoulder before you have a chance to,” he warned with an authoritative growl. “Just keep yourself comfortable. We’ll probably get messy anyway, I’m notoriously clumsy with food. Especially if I’m wearing a white shirt, which I am.”

“Okay, okay,” you relented, his encouragement invigorating your faltering limbs enough to haul yourself from bed. You fished around in the pile of clothes that, while a little creased, were still unworn. “I’ll get my ass into gear. I’ll be down soon.”

“’Kay. I’m just outside,” was his parting comment before he hung up.

One brisk shower, a hesitantly adorned romper and a perilously pinned bun later, you were ready. Well, not ready, as such, because you still considered your appearance lacking, but Jungkook’s sternly-worded warning rang in your ears and prevented you from making further embellishments. Bare- and fresh-faced was how he was going to receive you. Okay, so maybe not fresh, more weeklong, sequestered neglect-faced, but at least it was bare, as ordered.

Having haphazardly shoved into a box what culinary implements and ingredients you could think to bring, you hauled the cargo with great difficulty down the narrow staircase descending. Your choice of flats afforded you, at least, the agility to catch yourself on the next step when you nearly met your neck-breaking end a few times.

With an incredibly unattractive scowl, you sandwiched the box between the wall and your body as you fumbled with the lock, and wore the expression still when the door opened into Jungkook’s immediate face. Abruptly, you wiped your features free of their unsightly crumpling and, quite of their own accord, found them curving to accommodate a giddy smile. One he wrenched from you with such ease. And giddy, because how the fuck did he get more beautiful with each meeting? The party felt so long ago now, but in reality, it had only been a week or so. The heart — and, indeed, the eyes — evidently grow fonder with time. “Jungkook, I thought you were going to wait in the car? You made me jump.”

“Sorry,” your guts twisted at the crooked grin he slapped on as he immediately relieved you of your load. “I thought you might need help carrying stuff.”

Forever obliging to lighten your figurative and physical strains, Jungkook’s attentiveness sent you into an inward flap. And the re-emergence of his beautiful fucking buck-teeth only intensified the party-for-one taking place in your stomach. Luckily, you were adept at channelling an outward serenity. “Thank you,” was your predictably unimaginative response. Honestly, he deserved so much more than that – not just for carrying a stupid box – but the words to express complex sentiment often abandoned you.

One side of his mouth pitched higher as he led you to his car. “Wow, this is a lot of stuff. Are we preparing a seven-course meal?” he jibed, gently setting the culinary collection into the trunk. He treated even the most inanimate of objects with the care and consideration with which he handled you, as though he considered anything by proxy just as precious. Why, exactly, had you been so unwilling to spend this day with him, again? Free from insidious thought – momentarily, at least –and rooted in the reality of his uplifting presence, the hopelessness of 30 minutes ago seemed lifetimes past.

Jungkook caught your quiet smile as he darted around the car with an adamance to hold open its door for you. “There she is,” he grinned openly when you neared him, hands on hips. “I love your dress, by the way. You look beautiful, as ever.”

“Oh my God, stop,” you groaned, plopping into your seat with a huff and whipping the seatbelt around you. “And it’s not a dress, it’s a romper.”

He closed the door and leaned through the open window to scrutinise the garment in question. “I don’t know what that is.”

It was the most throwaway of comments, but it tore a bark of laughter from you, as though he’d hammered on your chest to extract it from you himself. It was an odd, but welcome, sound. “That’s so funny, and I don’t even know why.”

Giggles continued to hijack you as Jungkook rounded the car and took to the driver’s seat, an eyebrow hooked high in amusement. “If I just say random words, will you laugh?”

“No,” you were perceptibly shaking, now, exposing you for the flimsiness of your denial. And even when you perched an elbow on the door to better adhere a hand to your mouth, it did little to stifle the string of hiccups you were now stricken with. Your chest ached for each sharp intake of breath they prompted. “Fuck, I can’t s—hyuh!—stop!”

As the engine turned over, Jungkook adopted a brassy voice that was comedically dissonant from his usual, reserved tone. He strained his vocal chords into breaking. “Cucumber, squash—oh, this fucking car—moist, cheese, moist cheese,” a hyena-like cackle, interspersed by loud, abrupt squeaks, resounded as your attempts to hinder the noises fell flat. His unrelated interjection — as passionately voiced as the rest of his nonsense recital — only heightened the hilarity of the situation.

“Fuck,” you tittered, wiping away a tear born, for once, from something other than melancholy. “You’re—hup—insane.”

Jungkook yelled victoriously when the car finally growled to life. “I was getting worried, there.”

A snigger. “Yeah, me too. Not for the car, though.”

“I’ve got more where that came from,” he tongued his cheek like the appealing bastard he didn’t know he was, peering behind the both of you to check for blind spots. As he pulled away: “Especially if I get to hear more of your ridiculously adorable hiccups.”

Your cheeks bulged with captive air. “Please, no,” you sighed, releasing a long, restorative breath. When no further hiccups came, you wrapped your stomach in a wary hug. “I’m aching. Sounds like your car’s on its way out, though.”

Jungkook’s face fell slightly. “It is. I’ve been told to expect it. I can’t afford anything else, though, and it’s already had some emergency maintenance,” you watched, distracted, the way his mouth puckered and slackened as it shaped every enchanting syllable. Receptive to the allure of the sight, your lips parted in harmony. “It won’t go on for much longer. I’m looking for better paid work, actually.”

That drew you back. “You’re leaving the school?”

“It’s not that I want to,” Jungkook nibbled on his lower lip like the long-eared mammal he so endearingly resembled. “I don’t have much of a choice. I won’t be able to afford rent, soon. The car trouble is only adding to the list of money troubles I’m having. And I really don’t wanna be stuck in this situation for too much longer,” his addendum was voiced with an understandable, though subtle, distress.

You wanted to draw his hand into a consolatory hold, but it was more pressingly occupied. “I’m really sorry to hear that. I know how tough things can get.”

Jungkook delivered a heartening slap to your bare thigh, sending you rocketing up in your seat. “Don’t worry, I’m surviving. To be honest, I was doubtful of whether I was going to bother sticking around this city. Until I met you,” the volume of his admission plunged dangerously close to a whisper. He stole a meaningful glance your way, the coyest of smirks twitching upward his mouth. Jungkook had an aptitude for pulling off such contradictory expressions. “Moving away from home definitely seemed like the best decision at the time, but I began to doubt it a couple of months ago. When I got poor, basically,” he snickered. “Things are really tough on your own.”

The breath you’d been inadvertently holding since the – by no means unwelcome – introduction of his hand, flowed free. “Right? Bit of a culture shock. I should’ve gotten a roommate, really, but my studio is just about manageable.”

Your heart fluttered to an unsteady rhythm when Jungkook became conscious of where his fingers were so intimately situated. Lingering along the innermost of your thigh, they skimmed the supple flesh beneath them as he corrected the bold manoeuvre and removed them entirely. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” he begged his pardon with a clear of his throat, eyes glued a little too firmly to the road.

“Now it’s my turn to tell you off for apologising,” your lips plucked up slyly. “Not after the things we’ve been talking about. Anyway,” you drizzled the last word with a stomach-turning sweetness. “What were you saying about not sticking around until you met me?”

Jungkook’s flushing subsided somewhat with the diversion from altogether more sordid topics. “It’s simple, really. I want to stay here, now. Because of, uh, you,” but ruby kissed his cheeks all the more avidly for the heart-pounding proclamation.

God, you needed to kiss him.

Unfortunately, unless a kiss was worth the certain, gory decapitation the distraction would bring, you’d have to go hungry.

And you were positively starving.

You clenched fists around your seatbelt, like you didn’t trust it to hold you in place for much longer. However, even if your traitorous hands didn’t uproot the meddlesome restraint, the blaze of adoration raging against your ribcage would easily incinerate it. “Wow,” was your eloquent response.

Jungkook didn’t allow you to elaborate. “I—I mean, don’t think that I’m putting pressure on you to like me, or anything—”

“Fuck’s sake,” you growled, all a shackled beast burning with the frustration of being denied its master’s touch. Jungkook’s eyes widened fretfully. “I really gotta kiss you right now, but I can’t. You’re driving.”

The heated exclamation alone was enough for him to momentarily forget the importance of steering the death contraption you were both belted into. When you realised he was no longer adhering to the highway code, but instead lavishing you with a protracted, open-mouthed ogling, you pushed his face frontward. As heart-stopping as Jungkook was, the magnetism of his stare would, for sure, guarantee your collision with something far more fatal than each other. Nevertheless, he spent much of his time casting you vital, sidelong looks. “I—I can stop. I can stop right now. I can pull over right here.”

Your head hit the headrest with a dull thump, overcome with mirth for his urgency. “We have all day. Keep driving, I have some refrigerated stuff in the back.”

Jungkook emitted a desirous whine. “I don’t know if I can wait that long.”

“Tough,” you snapped merrily, spotting a camera case in the backseat as your eyes perused its hazardously stacked contents. Guilt gored you when you caught sight of his thoughtfully-packed backpack. He’d clearly been prepared for your originally intended date activities. “You brought your camera, after all.”

He peered over his shoulder. “Hm? Oh, yeah. Well, now I can take pictures of you in the comfort of my own home, instead.”

Turning in your seat, you propped your chin upon the heel of your hand. There was no way you could let pass such a fortuitous opportunity to see him squirm. “Yeah? What kind?”

His mouth hung open a fraction at the bait, but avoided the snare. “Whatever you like. You’re my muse.”

The sincerity of the compliment threw off your sultry play. You’d never met a guy who countered coquetry with kindliness. Undefeated in all your many bouts of flirtation thus far, Jungkook was the only one to frequently give you pause. Who knew your Achilles heel was not, in fact, obscenities so appalling that Eros himself would recoil in revulsion, but plain old flattery? Flattery that spilled with such liberty from behind those exasperatingly darling teeth? “Stop being so nice.”

“Why do you always say that?” his brows met in bemusement. “It’s as if no-one’s ever treated you the way they should.”

He had no idea how close that hit to home. “Maybe. Or maybe you’re just particularly kind.”

“I’m not,” the furrow deepened. “Sounds like you dated some douchebags.”

“Quite a few,” you began, then thought better of elaboration. Jungkook didn’t need to hear the true extent of your hormone-fuelled regrets. “But that doesn’t matter, now. You’re opening my eyes to a lot of things.”

“I’ll take that as your roundabout way of admitting that you really like me and wanna spend all your time with me. Forever,” Jungkook’s jesting crinkled the corners of his eyes and the bridge of his nose.

And, yes, you did.

Because you no longer wanted a life that was absent of something so diminutive, so tremendous, as the way his features puckered around joy. You wanted to watch those creases, with time, score themselves between his brows and atop his cheekbones.

And you wanted to be the one who engraved them there.

“Forever is a long time,” you cautioned with a wink. But inside, you were already living it.

You were enamoured.

When he parked beside an obnoxiously up-market apartment complex, you presumed it was to grab some snacks from the gentrified establishments opposite. However, as he lugged the box of utensils to your window, he ducked his head in, confused. “Why aren’t you getting out?”

“Wait, you live here?” you gawped, eyeballing the building that emanated affluence. “No wonder you’re fucking broke!”

As you exited the car, mouth still unflatteringly ajar, Jungkook developed a sudden interest in the – miraculously unblemished – paving beneath your feet. As one of the great unwashed, you felt at risk of apprehension for even daring to tread there. “It’s nowhere near as expensive as it looks, but, yeah. All my savings are gone. I didn’t really budget all that well, but I kinda left home in a hurry. This was the first place I could find.”

Was he really that naïve about financial matters? “Why not just downsize, then?”

“The landlord won’t release me from my contract. I have another six months left on it,” he huffed in vexation, tapping a six-digit code into the pad adjoining the gate. With a buzz as grating as the needlessly extravagant entrance it controlled, the lock released. Jungkook stood aside, stubborn in his chivalry, to allow you entry. “If you ever wanna get in, the code is 093457. Can you remember that?”

Wow.

Without a whisper of doubt fogging his eyes, he’d placed a ghost of a key in your palm. Like it was of no more significance than those digits of his stored in your phone.

Boy, things were progressing rather quick.

And you were clinging, white-knuckled, to the front seat of this rollercoaster as it barrelled down a track conspicuously free of obstacles, squealing for it to go faster. The opportunity to alight had long since passed. All you could do now was throw up your hands and scream. “I think I can, yeah. Thank you. I’ll make sure to come here in the middle of the night to relieve you of all the rich-people possessions you probably own.”

As you entered the lobby, as plush and immaculate as it could only have been, Jungkook ushered you into one of the immediate elevators. The cubicle alone, less of walls and more of mirrored panelling – you know, so you can better appreciate how wealthy you look when en route to brunch with dahling Cressida – was bigger than your only bathroom.

“I’m far from rich,” he muttered into the box staunchly cradled to his chest. A billow of powder stirred under the gust of his breath. Looks like the flour didn’t survive the journey. “Not anymore. My parents are, though. Maybe that’s why it was hard to let that lifestyle go. I made a lot of mistakes learning, that’s for sure. Still am,” was his barely audible addition.

You stood a little straighter. This was his first time mentioning more than their existence in passing. “Why did you decide to leave?”

“They started pressuring me into things,” the offering was vague and ominous in tone. Eyes rising to the mirror image of him opposite, Jungkook engaged his counterpart in a steely staredown. “Business stuff. I didn’t want anything to do with it.”

The hum of the ascending elevator filled the hush left by your introspective pause. “You’re not part of a family-run crime syndicate, are you?” you posed, only half-joking.

Jungkook’s scowl broke with a bob of his shoulders. His laugh could be corked and peddled as a cure-all. And you’d be first in line. “No, it’s not quite that bad. Though, that’d probably be infinitely cooler than the reality. My parents—well, my father—is the head of a pretty large conglomerate. My mother is a member of the board.”

Your eyebrows shot up into the stratosphere. “Whoa. Hella rich, then.”

“Hella? Have you been playing Life is—”

“—Strange? Absolutely. I’m hella fond of that word, now,” you expressed that fondness with a toothy grin that tripled his. But your glee faltered somewhat when you recollected his earlier visitation of your apartment. “Shit, and you’ve been in my hovel of an apartment. I bet that must’ve been like dumpster diving.”

With a ding of announcement, the lift drifted to a halt. Taking the lead again, Jungkook shook his head. And like a cat stalking the metallic shimmy of a bell-toting toy, your eyes snapped to the quiver of his helix piercings. There wasn’t a thing about this man that wasn’t sexy as fuck. “I loved it so much I considered asking to move in as soon as I stepped foot inside.”

You rolled your eyes at his back. “Let’s swap, then. What do you have, a three-bedroom? Four?”

Jungkook crowed. “Okay, I’m stupid with money, but I’m not that stupid. It only has one bedroom. As you’re about to see,” he gestured to the door he now stood before. “Can you take this for a sec?”

“Sure, I should be carrying it anyway,” you relieved him of the box that clanked with the promise of sweet concoctions. “Did you just say I’m about to see your bedroom?”

He fished in the pockets of his jeans for his keys and, with a smooth turn of burnished brass, let you into the awaiting opulence. “I—I meant the apartment,” he spluttered, and you watched, with a kittenish smirk, the tips of his ears tinge red. “You know what I meant.”

“So, are you famous enough for me to Google y—whoa.”

Okay, so it wasn’t on the same scale as Yoongi’s gratuitous bachelor pad, but it was sumptuous all the same. “Nice,” you whistled, your focus fastening to the splendour beneath your feet. Rich, restored mahogany kissed your unworthy soles – something you were all too aware of, as you hastily slipped off your scuffed excuses for shoes – and played host to a number of tastefully-placed shag rugs. Rugs that just cried out to be rolled on. You eyed one, transfixed, a cat again. A cat that had located its next nap spot.

Juxtaposed with the knife-point angles and frigid decor of Yoongi’s apartment that so became him, Jungkook’s was warm- toned, with soft furnishings and of a lived-in air that appealed to you immensely. “This is probably how I’d decorate my place if I had any money,” you lauded, resembling a Nodding Dog for all your vague head-bobbing. “I like it.”

Like Yoongi’s, though, Jungkook’s apartment was open-plan but for the bedroom and bathroom tucked away to the side. Shafts of light, streaming from a slanted glass wall – a fixture imposing in its sheer immensity – brought forth golden tones latent in the dark wood. The sight further compelled you to flop down, belly-up, and bask, feline-like, in the warmth of its glow.

Jungkook deposited the the box – its contents, now, as tossed as a salad – on the asymmetrical countertop of his rustic breakfast bar. And with an expectant hand poised to catch his four-digit camera, he shrugged the strap free from his shoulder. “I’m glad you like it,” his voice took on that fondness for you that you could never quite understand.

What, in all actuality, did he see in you?

When you had drunk in your legal limit of his pleasantly sedative abode, you turned to him, giddy. His eyes played on you, cryptically astir at having won your acclaim. Chin in hand, he propped himself against the counter, looking nothing short of smitten. “I’m glad you like me.”

The boy had a talent for sending you off-kilter.

You tugged at the hem of your shapeless one-piece, jerking your head at the wonder of his affection. “I don’t understand why, but I’m glad you like me, too.”

“Don’t make me list the reasons, or we’ll be standing here all day,” he cracked over his shoulder as he rattled his way around an array of hammered-gold cannisters. Lifting each one free of its lid in turn, he peered dubiously into their depths. “I can never remember what’s what, here. You want coffee? Tea? Something else?”

“Just some water, thanks,” you croaked. God, you sounded like shit. Like a frog had taken up permanent residence in your windpipe and insisted on strumming your vocal chords for you. “I’m trying to keep away from caffeinated drinks at the moment.”

“Ah, of course,” Jungkook acknowledged with a click of his fingers. You watched with a vested interest as he rolled up the sleeves of his—indeed, white, and imminently on course for soiling—sweatshirt to oblige you. A succession of dulcet half-murmurs and airy croons drifted past his lips.

Fucking hell, he could sing, too?

“Voice of an angel,” you muttered, more an aside than anything, but the volume of your contemplation was enough for him to hear. With the full weight of his stare pinning you in place, you threw one of your own, much heavier, at the works of Bernini he called legs. “Thighs of a devil.”

Jungkook turned to the sink, a suppressed grin warping the corners of his mouth. “I didn’t realise I was singing.”

“Oh, you didn’t realise you were singing,” you pitched deeper to mimic him. “You just happen to have a voice that explains the immaculate conception, and you didn’t even realise you were using it. I see,” in a mannerism most certainly acquired from Jungkook, your tongue planted itself firmly in your cheek. “It’s not like you were trying to show off for me, anything.”

Whatever danced in the dark depths of Jungkook’s eyes, then, hit your circulatory system like a stimulant. “You’re asking for it,” was his harbinger of a warning.

You drew sullen circles into the countertop, jutting your lip to bait his scrutiny. “For what?”

The devious twitch of his lips was tacit enough. Leaving you to braise in the juices of your own undoing, he returned to the task at hand; your all but forgotten glass of water.

With a flurry of excitement, you pulled objects indiscriminately from the box, not caring where or with how much might you unloaded them. Your attention was better spent elsewhere, namely leering at the prominent veins that scaled Jungkook’s arms like ivy. When you tracked their descent to his generous hands, wet from the faucet, your want for him manifested in a bitten bottom lip.

“What are we making?” Jungkook startled you out of your indecent introspection, catching you on the edge of exposure. His lips curled tellingly. “Something sweet?”

“Something creamy,” was your proposal, steeped in suggestion. For some reason, Jungkook seemed oblivious to the water now surging over the rim of the glass. “I’m thinking a pavlova, because I’ve forgotten a lot of things. Got lots of eggs, though!”

Not a glint of recognition. “I don’t know what that is, either. I’m not doing great today, huh?”

“You’re doing just perfect,” you hushed him, taking the proffered drink. There was about as much clinging to the exterior of the glass as there was inside it. Looking up from the bowels of your emptied box, you affixed a sceptical smirk. “You don’t have an electric whisk, by any chance?”

Jungkook scratched at the back of his head. An imagined itch, to be sure; the gesture another of his wholesomely appealing habits. “Nope. I’m not exactly Gordon Ramsay, I’m sorry to say.”

“Then I’m gonna need your big, strong, man-arms, probably. Beating eggs is fucking exhausting.”

Flipping open the dozen you’d successfully remembered to bring with, you cracked one against the rim of your mixing bowl with a precision and fluidity that impressed Jungkook enough to provoke a gasp.

“Holy shit, I’ve never seen anyone do that except on TV,” he gaped, studying the art of yolk separation in an awed trance. He could catch flies with the amount of air exposure his mouth was getting.

And there he went again, affecting you in the smallest, most trivial of ways.

Teasing him was fast becoming a prized pastime. “You’ve never seen anyone break an egg before, Jungkook? Do you just live on instant ramen, or something?”

The swipe was barely glancing, but he played up the wound with the eyes of a Disney critter. “First of all, yes, I have seen someone break an egg. You know exactly what I meant. And, second of all, this is exactly what I was talking about.”

“What is?” you chuckled, siphoning your fourth egg into the awaiting gloop.

“All the bad things you say are gonna get you into trouble, one day.”

You stilled. That was a very direct attack. So direct, your pussy throbbed in the wake of its impact.

Feigning virtue was always fun. “I have no idea what you mean. I’m just crackin’ some eggs.”

Jungkook’s silhouette loomed closer. “You wanted me to beat something for you?”

Whisk in hand, your knees felt dangerously close to knocking themselves out and rendering you a floor-bound Salmonella risk. Unprepared for this lobbying of impurity, it took you a second longer than you’d prefer to formulate a counterattack. “I’ll need to see how capable you are, first.”

Yeah, not your best.

Jungkook, however, took it as his cue to mold himself to your back, granting your upper arms an explicit squeeze with the hands you were so fucking obsessed with. The sleevelessness of your romper had been a point of internal contention for you in your earlier clothing deliberation, but now it was the most valued of selections. You experienced, unobstructed, the softness of his unmarred palms as they ghosted down your arms’ reach and engulfed your fingers whole. Never had you felt so delicate as you did, then, swallowed in the expanse of his strapping hands.

Decisively, he plucked the implement from your slackening grip and hauled the bowl closer to him. Or you, rather, a little too comfortably wedged between the pressure of his body and the countertop that never asked to be part of this charged exchange. The warm, sturdy enclosure within which Jungkook held you captive tightened when he began whipping the bowl’s contents with a strength that struck you dumb. Like a primitive ape, you fawned over your mate's show of power, because the display was nothing if not to titillate you into a hard, dirty rutting.

And, fuck, you wanted that.

You leered, mesmerised, at the succulent bulge of tendon and vein alike as his hands whisked up a storm, his biceps rhythmically buffeting your shoulders with the effort of the motion. Hot breath met your ear, liquefying your entire being. “How’s this?”

“G-Good,” you couldn’t have given him a more vivid, greener light. All that he did piqued the fierce interest of your every nerve ending. And that was a reality all too apparent in the collecting slick coating the crotch of your panties. You should have been adding some sugar to the eggs around about now, but honestly, who gave a fuck about that anymore? “Until it forms stiff peaks.”

Jungkook pulled the whisk from the mixture to test its consistency, but didn’t return to the task when it proved unsatisfactorily blended. Instead, he dropped the implement into the creamy mess and seized, suddenly, the clothed swell of your breasts, adamant on turning you into a creamy mess, apparently. The switch in intent caught you wholly unawares. Like a boneless fish, you flopped into his built physique, lolling your head against his broad span of shoulder. “Oh, f-fuck.”

The fabric of your one-piece wasn’t the thickest. With impressively able hands, he kneaded you like dough, plying you into a putty that bulged from between the gaps of his wolfish grip. It wasn’t long before you were rising to readiness, a glaze streaking the space between your legs.

Jungkook was priming you for consumption.

His thumbs grazed to and fro over your budding nipples, wakening them to the chafe of your outer layer. “Feel pretty stiff to me,” he practically purred into the nape of your neck, his lips brushing a template of where he would later revisit. “I’d say you’re done.”

And from the burgeoning bulge making known its presence at the crack of your ass, you’d say he was about done, too.

A hand ventured lower, and then higher, as it slid surreptitiously beneath the hem of your shorts. “Do you want me to keep going?” Jungkook near-whispered, pausing his pilgrimage to your saturated cunt. You craned your neck, with some difficulty, to face him. “If you don’t want this today, I can stop.”

A dazed smile. “I want it. Today. Now,” and, bonding your lips in a kiss that should never have been broken on that night on the balcony, the heated, humid rejoining drew a muzzled moan from the both of you. Immersed, again, in the ambrosia of each other’s unfastened mouths, the steady undulation of Jungkook’s jaw as he received you felt as innate as your own heartbeat. How quickly he had attuned himself to your motions, your tempo; and, with a studious tongue, taken such an intimate cast of your mouth, knowing, already, how best to tease whimpers from you. Together you drowned, caught in a sea of saliva and amassed lust. Lust built from weeks of needless principle.

Oh, why had you waited so long, when this was nothing but right?

The potency of your monstrous, reciprocal desire now unleashed, it spurred your hands, your tongues, to paths they were keen to retread.

Jungkook was particularly quick in infiltrating that one part of you that begged for reunion. But despite his haste to submerse his fingertips in your gooey delight, he skimmed the outskirts of your panties with an infuriating lightness. He tore away from the kiss as though scorched. “You’re already this soaked?” he exclaimed, tormented, knocking his forehead to yours like the revelation had physically weakened him. “How are you so fucking sexy, noona?”

“It’s all you,” there was no need for exaggeration. Not when him simply broaching the meagre cotton barrier snatched the neediest of whimpers from you. Feeling his fingertips glide along the curve of your slippery slit, you briefly fretted that spontaneous human combustion may not merely be a myth. Because as he slathered himself with your syrupy, fervent welcome, you swore you were the pyre of a building inferno. “Don’t you dare tease me, Jungkook, you’ve gotten me so fucking horny,” was your urgent warning, coasting close to shrill. “Put those goddamn fingers--that you know I’ve been fantasising about--inside me, already.”

A husky chuckle tickled the nerve endings spanning your shoulders, every centimetre of your skin pining for the touch of his supple mouth. Kisses that he generously gave, but sprinkled chaotically, like he didn’t want to neglect any one part of you. The cupid’s bow that dipped his upper lip assailed you with volleys of heated adoration, riling you into a squirm that only pressed you closer to the tip of his other, drawn, weapon. “You mean, these?”

Oh how easily they sunk into you; two at once, with an immediacy that spoke volumes of Jungkook’s desire to touch the lining of your most sensitive parts. He half-hummed, half-whined his approval for having been re-embedded in the heat and squeeze of a place his cock wished it could inhabit. For now, it was forced to experience your narrow reaches vicariously, through the nubile probing of his fingers. Jungkook was bewitched. “You feel like fucking heaven, fuck.”

His dick twitched impatiently, pressed flush to your backside as it was. And, though cosy in the pressure with which your asscheeks provided, it answered to a higher call, now; your warm, throbbing pussy. You rocked against his languid insertion, more exploratory than possessed by hunger. It seemed Jungkook had become lost to the wonder of your calculated constriction, each tense of muscle prying further open his mouth and eyes. You snickered at his wonderstruck expression. “Never had your fingers this deep in a girl’s pussy, Jungkook?”

“Not one as delicious as this,” he shot back, leaving an aching void in the wake of his exit. Poised to question his knowledge of your taste, he spun you around so you could better view his sampling. He drew the drenched digits to his mouth, their savoury topping bridging the gap between as gooey strings that lit up his eyes in anticipation. As easily as he had buried them in your sopping cunt, he dipped them past the seal of his lips with an agonised crumple to his brow, like he was partaking of some tantalising elixir he’d been forbidden to let touch his tongue. “I knew it,” he murmured thickly, sucking clean his fingers and allowing your essence to titillate his tastebuds. “You taste as good as you smell, and as hot as you look.”

Enthralled by the vision of him drinking from you with all the reverence of a wizened man supping up the Fountain of Youth, the tail-end of his ardent declaration stole your attention enough to tickle you. “I don’t think it’s possible to taste hot? Unless that wasn’t water I showered with earlier, but sriracha,” you teased, slinging your arms haphazardly around his neck. You did so to close the far too vast a distance between your bodies, but, hands upon your ass and subjecting it to a voracious, possessive squeeze, he was already mashing you to him. Your romper may as well have been non-existent for all the dulling of sensation it granted you. When the top of your mound thudded lightly to the rock-hard protrusion reaching for you from behind Jungkook’s jeans, it did nothing to diminish the utter, raw aching the contact inspired.

“Don’t sass me, noona,” the admonishment was stern, but breathless. “Am I gonna have to bend you over my knee?”

Fuck, the suggestion was enticing. Unfortunately, the drooling maw between your legs had no such patience. It demanded gratification. “Not this time, baby. You can punish me all you like later on. Right now, I need your cock,” you cooed, granting its straining outline the coaxing smooth of your palm.

Jungkook stiffened to a rigidity that could rival his dick. “Ugh—I like that,” was his softly moaned encouragement. “Again, please.”

“I haven’t stopped,” a lone brow raised in bemusement. To demonstrate, you increased the pressure you were applying to his captive length, enough friction to have him grinding into your hand like a randy buck.

“N-No, not that—ah,” you stole his gasp with your determined toying. “Well, that too, but—c-call me baby, again.”

Your other brow arched to match. “Oh? You like that, huh?”

Jungkook sobered a little in his self-consciousness. “Yeah,” the arousal that dusted his cheeks deepened into an irresistible scarlet. “I don’t know why, but, man, that hit a note.”

You caught him before he could pull away. “Then I like it too, baby,” the endearment dripped as obscenely from between your lips as the honey from your lower pair. “So fuck me, already.”

The seconds proceeding your demand hung heavy; almost beyond endurance. But then, in slow motion, you witnessed that sudden click; the wildness that pitched Jungkook’s eyes into an all-consuming blackness that entreated you to an amenable doom. The shiver of energy that shifted through him was near palpable; it resonated from the soles of his feet and upward, until, like a carnivore coiled to pounce, he hoisted you with ease onto the countertop.

With a vulgar smack, the backs of your thighs collided with solid oak, and, God, did you wish you’d taken up his earlier offer of some disciplining. The sting would tingle all the more beautifully for having been dispensed by his hefty palm. “You don’t need to ask me twice, noona,” he puffed, excitement rather than exertion stealing his breath. “I’ll give you the fucking you so desperately crave.”

Jungkook’s arms encased your torso, sheltering your heart better than the ribcage that so freely allowed Taehyung to penetrate. “Whoa,” you hiccupped, steadying yourself with a grasp that landed, fortuitously, on his tautened biceps. They shifted excitably beneath your hands. “What are you gonna do with me?”

Legs free and sprawling, you welcomed him into the space between with an invitation written in your tongue’s ink, blotting his girthy neck with saliva.

An invitation he accepted wholeheartedly.

With an appreciative grunt, the mass of his body bore down on and nearly—oh, so nearly—inside you, dancing on the fringes.

You wanted him to invade you, claim and repurpose you. Dismantle your design; one so sorely built in error.

You would no longer be his, but Jungkook’s.

“So, so many things. But, first, I’m gonna give your pussy the beating it deserves,” he leered over you all stone-cold assertiveness, and you shrunk beneath his emanating power, both gut-squirmingly aroused and intimidated by the absence of the usual fumbled words and averted gazes.

He must have been practicing, you mused inwardly, allowing him this momentary victory over you with a sufficiently servile, doe-eyed pout. “Are you gonna let me see your pretty co—oh, fuck!” your yelp was consumed by a hacking cough, when one, misplaced hand catapulted the box whose only remaining contents consisted of the powdery residue left by your battered bag of flour. Your life, never having run the smoothest course, hit you with the timeliest derailments. This one presented itself as a billowy cloud that powdered most of you ghoulishly white. “Oh, God, look at me.”

Jungkook, who escaped relatively unscathed despite his proximity, cackled openly at your misfortune. But he didn’t surrender his hold of you; not even for a second. He only pulled you closer, marring himself to match. “You could be covered in anything right now and I would still be desperate to fuck you,” he stressed with a bow of his head, charting the topography of your sprinkled cleavage with a hot, open mouth, reducing the offending powder—and you, with every enthused flick of his tongue—to a streaky, viscous sludge. “You taste just as good when you’re a little salty.”

You wrinkled your nose at his willingness to ingest meal. “I guess you want this pretty bad, baby.”

Jungkook’s head shot up like he’d been conditioned into uninhibition on that one word’s command. “So bad,” he virtually snarled, scrambling to undress. Endowing you with your first, unfiltered view of his honed build, he yanked his sweatshirt free of his body, latching a smouldering gaze to you as soon as the obstruction was tossed aside. “Before you covered yourself in flour, I thought I heard a request?”

Your eyes trickled freely down his slopes of definition, steered into the trap that was Jungkook’s sublime anatomy. Cut, bronzed abs and a whisper of hair lay breadcrumbs to an outcropping so stark you could hang something off it.

Hopefully you.

“You know what I want,” your tongue painted the outline of your lips as he unbuckled and whipped off his belt with a crack that had your cunt quivering for the lashings of its master’s crop.

“Tell me again,” Jungkook barely breathed, peeling down the zipper of his pants at a pace that was far too leisurely for your liking.

“You’re getting a bit too bossy for your own good,” you cautioned, though the substance of your warning disintegrated upon each, agitated breath.

Clearly, it was for your own good.

Jungkook’s fingers fell away from his front. “Tell me again,” he reiterated firmly.

How effortlessly he flitted between subservience and indubitable control. Hopefully the thorough flouring you’d sustained would stave off the likelihood of you completely adhering to his countertop in your current, sodden state.

The thrum of your clitoris compelled you into compliance. “Please, let me see your cock.”

A triumphant smirk sharpened his features. “That’s my good girl,” he hummed, tugging his boxers down enough to allow it to topple into his awaiting palm like a freshly felled tree. Reality was far more generous to him than the feeble fantasies you’d concocted, with increasing frequency, the last few weeks. His arms weren’t the only appendages lovingly wrapped by veins, green and blue; powerlines supplying the monster that would soon be hollowing you.

Its perfectly pink head enraptured you. “God, you’re so hot—way too hot. I’m so fucking wet, Jungkook, you know I am. I’m so ready,” the sight of his fleshy offering stirred you into near-frenzy. So much so, you grasped for him without pretence; no longer did you possess the constitution to play ruler. “Fuck me, please.”

Jungkook’s calculated façade slipped when confronted with such raw need. He was on you before you could blink, inhaling you into a soul-sucking kiss that saw his tongue tickling the threshold to your throat. Was it possible to swallow and choke on someone else’s tongue?

If so, you gladly would.

He must have been in some state of severe desperation, because Jungkook spared no thought for your poor, flimsy romper as he yanked sharply at your shorts, inadvertently flossing your cunt with the seams. It should have been painful, in theory, and yet the angling strummed your clit to the tune of your resultant, yearnful moans. With a fistful of fabric, he paused suddenly, confused both by your fervid feedback and the stubborn garment that still adorned your body. “What the hell is this thing? Shorts? I thought it was a skirt,” his voice pitched with an adorable curiosity.

Yes, even now, cock out and teeming with pre-cum, he was adorable.

Tongue pinched between teeth, you giggled. “Yeah, and it’s all one thing. Gonna have to take it off in one go.”

With that, you sat straight, teasing two sets of straps down the round of your shoulders. Jungkook was your besotted audience of one, engrossed in your seductive shedding. His chest expanded with a sharp intake of breath when your bra peeled away from your breasts, tips painfully taut from his earlier bullying. “God,” was his succinct, but cock-felt response. And, sure enough, he watched the show unfold with a white-knuckled clench around said cock, spreading its drool the length of it through each your stages of undress.

Unclasping your bra with a fluidity born from nearly three decades of suffering the damned things, you threw the unwelcome item of clothing over Jungkook’s fruit bowl. And, with a jerk of your hips, disrobed yourself of what remained of your layers soon after—including a misguided choice in panties. In fairness, you’d hardly – having been wallowing in the depths of despair not an hour ago – been expecting his scrutiny. Not while you were spread-eagle and, with your fore and middle fingers scissoring the hood of your clit, beckoning him with your pussy like a wanton wench.

You eyed his vigorous pumping of his dick and tutted. “Baby, slow down. Are you that excited?”

Jungkook grunted past the lip caught between his teeth. “Fuck, yes. Ugh—” his gaze was unshakably fixed to the trail that oozed from your tender interior. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, the utterance barely audible above the mouth-watering shlip of his rhythmic movements. Whether his comment had been for your ears, you didn’t know. But your confidence ballooned exponentially, banishing the skulk of inadequacy that had intermittently threatened your enjoyment.

Hooded eyes flew wide. “Wait,” Jungkook panted, stalling his overzealous strokes. “I-I don’t have a condom, I didn’t think—oh, no.”

Wow. He really had left this decision entirely in your hands, hadn’t he? Your abdomen crawled with a warmth not possessed of arousal. “I do,” you assured him, pointing to your purse. “In there.”

“Thank you, Jesus,” he muttered, shoulders sagging for the relief of your divulgement. “And you, of course,” was his snort of an aside as he pulled the accessory to him and rifled, behind thinly-veiled excitement, through its compartments. “Aha.”

It relieved you endlessly to witness him tear open the packet with his fingers, rather than his teeth. Every man you’d ever bedded that had been a teeth-tearer, had, without fail, vastly overestimated their sexual prowess. Jungkook’s concentrated fumbling only made your heart more buoyant. “Let me?”

He couldn’t have moved fast enough. Surrendering the wrapper immediately, he observed keenly, how adept you were at removing it. It could have been candy inside for all the pre-cum his dick was salivating, eager to don the sheathe that would allow him access to the sultry stretches of your vagina.

With a practiced pinch of the tip, you wrapped him from end to base in one soft, sweeping motion, never quite allowing him the gratification of a firm grip. He squirmed nonetheless, ostensibly overcome by both the feeling and realisation of having your touch grace his—very nearly—bare cock. “I wish you could fuck me raw,” you grumbled, never having been too fond of the taste or texture of latex, nor the hindrance it posed when all you wanted was to fully appreciate his silken skin as it caressed your insides.

That was, perhaps, the most provocative thing you could have said in that moment. Because Jungkook snapped to you like he was impelled by magnetic forces and, with a squeak of flesh on wood, pulled you to the very edge. The angered tip of his cock hovered directly beneath, inciting you to your grisly end by impalement. “Don’t say that to me right now, noona, or I won’t even survive putting it in. Jesus,” he ran splayed hands over the planes of your thighs, and thumbs along the pulse points that gushed, with urgency, to provide oxygen to parts of you that were fast becoming deprived.

“I’ll let you fill me right up one day,” you teased, hooking a leg around his waist and bringing your throbbing genitals into closer proximity. “But I won’t tell you when. I’ll just pull it off and shove you back in when you least exp—ungh!”

Jungkook silenced you with a hungry bruising of lips and teeth, delving his fingers into your backside to better guide you to the beacon that, now, stood sentinel between the seam of your pussy’s lips, coating itself in your plentiful excretions. He wrenched himself free of your oral dalliance. “Ready?”

As if your entire body wasn’t crying out for his fullness. God, you’d never experienced such a haunting ache between your legs. “I’ve been ready since date one, and failed date three is the extent of my self-control. Hurry, baby.”

And with a smooth rock of his hips, he eased his way past your slit and into the clamp of your unaccustomed cunt. The sharpness of penetration pushed a gasp from you, halting him immediately. “Are you okay?” he whispered to your lips, tracing each syllable with his hovering mouth.

You were okay.

More than.

Beyond okay.

It was formidable, the intensity of this moment. Skin-on-skin, simmering under a sheen of perspiration; the intimate, reassuring canopy of Jungkook’s weight, anchoring you to reality.

And you needed that anchor, when it was nothing but an unreality that you were melding, after so long, with a man who returned your ardour. A man who pursued you, who desired you, who embraced you without pretence.

That first stab let flow months of unprocessed, pent-up loneliness and desire for companionship. For sexual affinity.

And as he bled you of pain, all that remained was a strengthening, terrifying appetite, brewing in the pit of your being. With an exuberant smile, you cupped the sides of his face. “I’ve never been better.”

Coaxed by the sincerity of your own words, you laxed around your gradual accommodation of Jungkook’s cock, permitting him to share your body; to become the vessel for his enjoyment. He gave in to the pull of your suckling pussy, a breath he had long been holding rushing free to flutter the wisps of hair around your face that had abandoned their hastily styled arrangement. And though it seemed to pain him, Jungkook steadfastly maintained the quiet, intimate exchange that passed between your torpid gazes. As consumed of lust as they were, the darkness that swallowed his eyes was not that same, meaningless, matte void you had seen stare back at you, time and time again. There glimmered, like an uncharted nebula, thousands of stars.

And every one bore your name; shone to be seen by you.

Jungkook allowed you that glimpse of tender emotion before body overrode heart. He pressed welts into your asscheeks with his boisterous grappling. “Noona—God—you’re so tight.”

And you felt it, too; how you hugged him so inflexibly. Your walls spread, burned around the circumference of his cock, hewn wider by Jungkook’s measured descension to your core. The tip of his member brushed conciliatory kisses to your softest spots as it passed, mitigating what little discomfort there still remained.

And soon, there was none.

Soon, each, sunken inch of him induced only the most moreish, pleasing of sensations.

Jungkook’s sculpted abdomen, drawn tightly under the burden of moderation, pressed flat to your mound as you enveloped his full length. You writhed, feeling his mass so perfectly planted within you. “I-It’s been a long while,” your voice was more air than sound, the feeble, soft noise summoning his mouth to provide your own succour.

A few sprawling, desperate seconds later he broke away, though his impression lingered upon your smooch-swollen lips. Despite the visible trembling of his arms, he kept his tone considerately even. “Let me know when, ____.”

Even now, even lodged so deep that his balls kissed at your crammed core, he put you first.

“Now, Jungkook. Now,” you urged, trapping him in a vice of thighs. “F-Fuck me, I’m ready.”

And he did.

Instinct overruled cognition with a hasty, acute snap of his hips. From the very outset he set a hurried, frenzied pace that saw him transform from the attentive man you so treasured, to a rapt beast heeding the call of a pleasure that could only be found at your centre. A centre he plunged with abandon, tapping you for a completion he was racing startlingly fast towards. “A-ah, noona, I—fuck, you’re perfect, you feel so good,” he gushed unfiltered, your clenching pussy torturing him into the most candid of outpourings. His fingertips dug with such resolve into your ass, it felt like he could tear away flesh.

“B-Baby,” you began, but a raucous groan burst forth from him at your weaponization of the term, striking him at his most vulnerable.

He was gone.

Immersed, so deeply, both in your cunt and the effort he was expending to pound himself into its limits, your provocation only served to accelerate his harried thrusting to a dizzying tempo. The furious pacing was nothing but sweet, sweet violence; your plastered, swelling pussy and endless caterwauling was an attestation to that. Each thunderous clap of your flesh battered your clit to inflammation; a willing casualty of the pummelling he was subjecting you to. “You’re fucking me so good, d-don’t stop, oh!—”

With an ear-sundering squeak, he slid you from the breakfast bar and onto the burly shelf of his stiffened forearm, the other more tenderly employed to cradle your waist. In his strong, resolute hold, he suspended you from the floor, legs dangling, as he continued fuck up into you with admirable determination. And though you were quick to ease his burden somewhat by encircling him with your legs, he then began to stagger away from your previous perch. His intended path was unclear, more-so as you ricocheted from countertop to countertop, entwined and blind in a kiss so sloppy you almost missed mouths, drawing the vicinity of your lips into a maelstrom of tongue and saliva.

With the grating crash of unseated pots and pans, Jungkook drove you to the wall, plastering you onto the decor with the momentum of his pussy-rending pistoning. How he was able to maintain such a potent, jarring rhythm despite the strain of your added weight was an absolute mystery, and one you were only sad you were unable to witness in the rippled strain of his muscular thighs.

“O-Oh God, I don’t think I can last much longer,” he whined, the centre of his face crinkling into agony. “I’m already so close, I’m s-sorry—you’re just so—so fucking—ungh!”

An orgasm would’ve been lovely— okay, that was an understatement— but unanticipated. First encounters were often desperate, grasping tussles that lacked the longevity and attention you required to get you there. And yet, this was the first time it hadn’t bothered you. Ushering Jungkook to nirvana was euphoria enough for this cursory experience. It was a gift you wholeheartedly gave to a man who put you first in all things. And, given time, would master your body enough to pay you back tenfold. With a gentle brush of his cheek, you prompted his unfocused attention. “Don’t worry about me. You’re gonna make up for it later, aren’t you?”

Jungkook loudly moaned his affirmation. “F-fuck, yes. I’m gonna worship your pussy, noona. Just wait,” a series of harsh, broken thrusts was his endorsement. The drag and draw of his rigid cock was so smooth, now, so lubricated by a unified ecstasy, that it truly felt like he belonged. Like he was a part long missing from your malfunctioning machinery, well-oiled and barrelling into you to fulfil a function you’d never quite known.

And now you knew.

“Are you gonna dirty my pussy, baby?” you purred the salacious incitement into his ear to feel him flounder. And, boy, did he. The targeted battering he’d been unleashing on you stuttered to an erratic, madcap blindfiring that struck you in places that you would be sure to tell him to focus on later. A jagged rasp of a moan bruised your vocal chords. “J-Jungkook, f-fuck, fill me! I wish I could feel you fill me, want my pussy full of your cum—”

“Agh!” he spat the strangled response from behind a clenched jaw, your body drooping in increments as his knees quaked from the stress. With a surge of decisive strength, he hauled you up and flopped you onto the dining table directly behind, the surface lower in height than where your entanglement first began and allowing him the unhindered scope of your nude vista. Forfeit of decency for being so deep within you, his eyes dwindled on the hypnotic spring of your breasts, fuelling a passion that raged toward combustion. “I-I’m gonna come, noona, I’m so close—God, how are you so fucking gorgeous—”

With one, final, fatal squeeze of your vagina, you bought him a one-way ticket to his end. A last gasp of breath and the indistinct blurring of his hips saw Jungkook through a climax that thrashed him with such intensity that he no longer appeared conscious of the grip he had of your waist. It tightened as painfully as the vicelike restriction that tormented his cock, and his thumbs delved so far into the supple flesh of your tummy it felt like he was palpating you for medical examination.

“F-Fuck, yeah, oh, noona, yes—” he shouted with such vehemence you became conscious of the existence of his neighbours. That thought was fleeting, however, in the literal face of Jungkook, stubbornly grinding every drop of himself into the true recipient you both begrudgingly permitted to participate. And though the condom, surely, dulled his – and your, because you couldn’t think of anything more soul-rendingly erotic than him emptying the scorching contents of his balls into you – enjoyment somewhat, you were an awed spectator to the seraphic beauty of his bliss. Features free of anything but a meditative placidity, Jungkook, with every whoosh of expelled breath, looked a traverser of Elysium’s peaks.

“Wow,” you chuckled, rosy-cheeked and more serene than you could ever remember feeling. “You still in there?”

Jungkook’s eyes peeled open, black as night. With him fucked-out and flying, you were better able to access the rawness of him through the dilated pools that stared back at you.

A secret, there, seemed so within reach—

“Only just,” he panted, each word ousted from lungs devoid of breath. “God. I’m just—wow. I lo—I mean, you were amazing.”

You sat up to take his face into your hands – hands that craved him still. “I barely did anything. You rocked my world and I came along for the ride,” Jungkook slipped his wilting cock from you, the desolate chasm it left in its wake soliciting a gloomy pout. “I don’t want you to leave. You feel so good inside me.”

He held the softening appendage in his palm, eyeballing the abundance of cum he’d soiled its latex prison with. “Jesus,” he breathed, flashing you an impish grin. “I submit this as evidence that I also feel really, really, fucking good inside you.”

“More, please?” you simpered, prying wide your legs to tempt him into another round. “I’m hungry for your cock, still.”

Jungkook was enthralled by the ruddied, slobbering sight. His sagging dick heaved a determined breath, levitating precariously from his palm. “Fucking hell,” he threw an anguished look towards the bathroom. “I’ll give you as much cock as you want, noona. But I need to take this off, first. Let’s take a shower, and then—well. I promised you something, didn’t I?”

Your eyes may as well have lit up with jackpot signs. “You’re gonna worship my pussy?”

“I’ll do more than that,” he vowed, stalking away to the bathroom with an urgency to his gait. “I’ll get the shower going.”

Watching his chiselled backside leave was a perk in itself. You were definitely going to bite it at least once in your future tumbles together.

In his absence, you evaluated the trail of destruction your frantic fucking had wraught. As his guest - and the lucky recipient of said fucking - you felt compelled to straighten the place to the best of your ability. You spotted your purse first, dusted with flour, and patted off the excess that stubbornly clung to its exterior, inadvertently dislodging your phone from its compartment. Quite against expectations, you caught the sleek object before it could clatter to the floor and ruin your week, and with a relieved sigh and a habitual click, began mindlessly scrolling through a day’s accumulation of unnoteworthy notifications. In the midst of the unexceptional, Yoongi’s name popped out at you.

[15:33] Yoongi I don’t know if you have already, but can you talk to Taehyung, please?

Your stomach bungeed to your feet.

No.

Not now.

Please.

[15:34] Yoongi I can’t get hold of him since he told me the news.

Oh, God. What news?

Had he really disclosed the grisly details of that catastrophic evening to Yoongi?

[15:34] Yoongi You know he broke up with Tara, right?

Oh.

Next: 10 || WYLEI Masterlist

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dominiquegroves-blog · 7 years ago

Text

10 weeks

Most of you probably wont read this, and that’s okay because this is more so for me than anything else. This isn’t a pity party or a cry for attention. I figured if I took the time to really think about my feelings and put them down on paper that it would somehow help me heal, and maybe help someone else going through a similar situation. So here we go.

For weeks now, I’ve had a thousand thoughts and emotions flowing through my body and have until this moment been able to put them into words. Dozens of people, including my husband, have asked me over and over again how I am doing and all I could think to say is that I was “fine” or “ok”, because I didn’t actually have an answer. I couldn’t process how I was feeling. I didn’t know how I was supposed to be feeling. Part of me questioned whether or not I had the right to be depressed since I was only pregnant for such a short amount of time. Was I being dramatic? Did I have a right at all to be so heart broken since, after all, 50% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage? It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later as I was laying in bed, unable to sleep, that I finally forced myself to mentally relive the events that led me to this place; and I finally had my answer, I was sore.

Usually “sore” isn’t a word you would use to describe your emotional state. That may be why it took me so long to be able to put my feelings into words. But in my case, it wasn’t any one thing I was healing from. Over the course of a week I was hit with one traumatizing event after another without any time in between to process the previous one. It’s kind of like when you over work a muscle, or work out the same body part multiple days in a row at the gym. A couple of hours, or a couple of days later you experience a nagging soreness that can make the slightest movement painful. That’s what I was experiencing, only emotionally. A nagging soreness that made everything unbearable.

It started on Monday, September 24th. I had a normal prenatal check up. They took my vitals and blood samples and did a pelvic exam. By this point the baby was in it’s 9th week. We had already seen the flickering of it’s little heart beat during an ultrasound 3 weeks prior. Everything seemed perfectly fine, including my blood work, so we had no concerns. The medical assistant offered to use a doppler so that I could try to hear the heartbeat and started glopping gel on my stomach. After about a minute of hearing nothing but static and my own heart beat, I began getting anxious. She assured me that it was normal not to pick up a heartbeat yet on a doppler and said that it was probably just too early. I hadn’t been having any worrisome symptoms so I relaxed, as much as someone with anxiety could, and put it in the back of my mind.

Two days later we arrived at the hospital for our second ultrasound. I was working at the time as a nanny for two babies who were also with us. Cody and the kids were sitting in the waiting area watching “Trolls” on his phone while I went in for the scan. Before she began I prayed over and over to myself “please find a heart beat, please find a heart beat”. Maybe it was mother’s intuition that I knew something was wrong, or maybe every pregnant woman experiences the same few nerve-wracking seconds before their ultrasound. Either way, after what seemed like years of moving the probe around, the technician asked me if I had had a previous ultrasound. Red flag. She then told me we were going to do a Transvaginal Ultrasound. I asked her if it was too early to see anything with the standard ultrasound. She said “no” and my heart sunk.

A few minutes later she finally said to me “I, uh…well, there doesn’t seem to be a heart beat. It appears that the baby stopped growing a day or two ago”. She looked down. I stared. I don’t know what I was staring at because I didn’t see anything. I couldn’t tell you what was on that screen. I just stared at it, listening to what she was saying while trying to form a thought. She politely waited for me to respond but all I could say was “so is it…” I refused to say the word dead. I wouldn’t even allow myself to think it. She looked at me the way you would look at an injured puppy and said “I’m not really allowed to say, but the doctor wants you to come to her office straight from here anyway so”… pointing to the screen she explained “if there were a heart beat, we would see a flickering in this area, but um, there doesn’t seem to be anything going on”. I continued to stare. Eventually I looked at her and said “okay”, got dressed, thanked her, which now seems like a funny thing to do, and walked out of the room. I don’t know if she had spoken to Cody before I got out or if it was the look on my face that clued him in but he knew. All I could do was look down and try to hold it together until we got to the car. As soon as we got the kids loaded in the car, we both broke down.

It was a short drive to the doctor’s office but in those couple of minutes I tried to gather myself. Again, Cody had to wait with the kids so I asked him to wait in the car. They called me back immediately and started taking my vitals. Thirty or so seconds in I completely lost it. Unfortunately, I am the type of person who hyperventilates when they get upset so here I am, hysterical, alone in the middle of the doctors office. The nurse didn’t know what to say so she just got me a box of tissues, asked if I wanted her to get Cody and left the room. I was trying not to think and to focus on breathing so I could get myself together but there were posters of babies and the stages of fetal development on every wall. Helpful. Eventually the doctor came in and reiterated everything the technician had told me, only with less bedside manner. She then jumped in to explaining that I could wait for signs of a miscarriage to begin and to see if it occurs naturally but that I would most likely need a D&C and suggested I schedule it for Monday. I looked at her as if she were a Martian. Did she not realize how terrifying and devastating this all is? She prompted with “what would you like to do”? I was so aggravated that she could be so callous. I looked at her through tears and said, “I want to go home”.

Terrible things happen in threes, right? Well, as it would happen, the battery on my boss’s nanny car decided to die. So, after unsuccessfully asking around for jumper cables, Cody and myself, along with two crying children who were long overdue for a nap, sat in the car until my boss arrived to give us a jump. He kept apologizing that we had to deal with this, referring to the car, not yet knowing that the car was only the cherry on top of the world’s shittiest day for us.

Fast forward to my surgery. Cody called on Friday to schedule it for me. I didn’t have it in me to do it myself. The day of the procedure, Cody and I were sitting in the hospital room waiting for them to roll me to the operating room. My hair was braided down my back and I had a mint green hospital gown on. In any other situation I would have loved the color. They told me I could leave my socks on. I laughed to myself. I was about to be the most exposed I would probably ever be in my entire life and they think I’m worried about my feet. A nurse administered a type of sedative through an IV and warned me that it is very strong and that I probably wouldn’t remember leaving the room. I made it to the hallway before I blacked out. Apparently I was still conscious though. I wasn’t put under anesthesia until after I was in the operating room. The nurse told Cody I “became very emotional” before they put me under. Wouldn’t you? When the surgery was over I remember the nurse waking me up, asking me if I was ready to go home. I told her “no, not yet”. That was the first time I had actually gotten sleep in days. Eventually the anesthesia wore off and I was forced to face reality, and my sore abdomen, and go home. Before we left the hospital they told me that I had lost a lot of blood during surgery and to take iron pills twice a day but they seemed unconcerned and we thought nothing of it.

For the next few hours I tried to sleep but I had a headache. At some point I began to feel a weird, tingling sensation in my tongue that began to spread to my lips, then my cheek, then eventually the entire left side of my face. I texted Cody who was downstairs to tell him my face was numb. A second later he came flying up the stairs like a bat out of Hell. He asked what was going on but by that time my face had gone back to normal. While I was explaining to him what had happened, it started again, only this time it spread to my left hand as well. I was trying to explain to him what I was feeling but I couldn’t form a sentence. I couldn’t walk and I was stuttering and stumbling over words. By this point, Cody thought I was having a stroke. He called the hospital to fill them in on what was going on. I must have done something really freaky while he was on the phone because he suddenly said “ um, yeah, I’m bringing her in” hung up and loaded me in the car.

The hospital on post was the closest so we went straight there rather than to the one where I had my surgery. I sat in the waiting room, in a wheel chair, doubled over with a horrible migraine. I had my eyes closed the entire time I was there because it was too painful to open them. I could hear little kids running back and forth yelling and I seriously considered screaming at them to shut up. Finally the triage nurse called us back. Long story short, with my eyes still closed, I threw up all over his fancy office trashcan. That was enough to convince him and he escorted us to a bed. The next hours consisted of blood work, IVs, CT scans, and ultrasounds. Finally, after obtaining my medical records from the other hospital they realized that my hemoglobin count was so low from the blood loss during surgery that I developed anemia. My baseline before surgery was at 12 grams per deciliter, now it was at 9 and dropping. They did 3 blood tests in the matter of 3 hours and the last one read around an 8. They told us that if it dropped any lower I would need a blood transfusion. They also said that they needed to transfer me back to the original hospital incase God forbid anything goes wrong they do not have surgery here. So, Domi took her first ride in an ambulance.

When we got to the hospital the paramedics rolled me up to my room, which was, get this, a labor and delivery suite. If you cant appreciate the irony in that, good, because nether did I. It felt like a cruel joke. Later on I found out that Cody had asked a nurse which room I was in to which she replied with the number and said “labor and delivery, congratulations”! He then had to explain that there was nothing to celebrate. He went upstairs to find me and she probably went to find the nearest hole to burry herself in. We spent the night in that room listening to the annoying beeping of the machines while I routinely got poked and prodded to check my hemoglobin levels. Eventually they decided to give me an intravenous iron supplement. Only then did I actually start to feel better. My numbers began to improve, not by much, but enough to discharge me. We left around 3’oclock in the afternoon. We went home and I immediately started packing. We already had a trip planned for New Jersey for the following day. It was supposed to be the weekend of our gender reveal (he was a boy, by the way). As depressing as that was and as shitty as I felt, all I wanted to do was go home and see my family. So we packed our suitcases, brought the dogs to the boarder and left for the airport around 3 am.

It’s two weeks later now. I’m still not 100% better. I ended up quitting my job because both physically and emotionally it was too straining for me. There are still days that I wake up with a splitting headache that I can’t shake. I still cry at the drop of a hat. My energy level is at an all time low. I have no desire to eat, or do much of anything for that matter. Needless to say I still have a lot of healing to do and Cody and I decided that I would do that best while taking it easy at home. If you actually read this far, I’m impressed and also thankful that you took the time to try to understand what both Cody and I have been dealing with. I didn’t write this to throw myself a pity party, but instead to help myself heal and find closure. All of the horrible, little things added up were traumatizing, especially being Cody and I are so far away from family, so it was a lot for us to process. But every day we are making progress and continue to grow stronger.

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jinjojess · 8 years ago

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Gaygirigetsu 2k17: Proposition Pairing: Kiridare Words: 3434 Summary: “I’m listening.”

Happy Birthday, Kirgir! Still feel pretty meh about how this came out, but at least I finally managed to post on her actual birthday!

———–

The cuts were small but deep—gouged into the wood of the front gate with intense precision. An untrained eye would never have noticed them. Even Yui and Yuiko were likely to miss the message carved into a hidden part of the door frame, tucked away in a spot only the most thorough of seekers would check.

Of course, this was exactly what the messenger had been counting on.

Shinagawa docks. Midnight. Come alone.

Too specific to the case she’d just solved to be coincidental graffiti, and clearly not directed at anyone else in the household. Yuiko’s training was still in the middling tier of recognizing forgeries, and Yui’s biggest case recently had been the result of a drunken misunderstanding.

Kirigiri traced the characters with a single gloved finger. She’d never seen a more obvious trap in her life, but…the organization she’d been on the heels of lately was certainly powerful enough to mount a devastating counter strike. It made perfect sense to see her as the main target, as she was the one who had cuffed an organization member and was doggedly pursuing them.

Not that Kirigiri couldn’t handle herself, but ignoring a message like this might prove dangerous for other people in her life. Her daughter had to be protected at all costs, and while she believed that her wife was capable enough to escape for a time, she couldn’t run forever. This was not even mentioning how Kirigiri’s other close friends would fare, like Naegi and his family, or Celes, or the numerous other people she was tenuously connected to through them.

If that emotionally scarring case right before Yuiko had been born that had landed both Enoshima twins in graves had taught her anything, it was that clever criminals sought collateral revenge.

Though she could hear both Yui and Naegi begging her not to in the back of her mind, Kirigiri drew a pencil and her notebook from her jacket and jotted down a memo:

Shinagawa docks. Midnight. Go alone.

***

Kirigiri had the cab let her off several blocks from the dockyard, pretending to head into a nearby bar before squeezing down an alley and making for the water. Thanks to a rather long investigation of a smuggling operation, she was fairly familiar with the area, navigating the network of cargo in a complex zig-zag designed to shake off any unwanted pursuers.

The figure silhouetted against the dusky, rust-colored hue of Tokyo’s night sky did not surprise her—though the fact that it seemed to be the only one present did.

“I have to say, I’m surprised to see you here without your personal security detail,” Kirigiri said, her eyes scanning the area for any indication of said security leaping from behind a shipping crate. “Rather unusual for you, Kuzuryuu-senpai.”

“I said alone, didn’t I?” Kuzuryuu scuffed the bottom of his shoe against the pavement, as if trying to scrape something off his sole.

“That you did. I simply did not assume that it applied to both parties.”

“I’m a man of my word.”

“In my experience, yes.”

“I think the last time we met up like this was before that insane gambit you came up with to put the Psycho Sisters out of everybody’s misery.”

“I seem to remember that they preferred to be called ‘The Despair Sisters’,” Kirigiri corrected.

“Whatever. The point is that it’s been awhile, okay? Jeez…” Kuzuryuu’s voice dropped to a low mumble before trailing off into awkward silence. After a few moments, he began to fidget, pulling a handkerchief from the inside of his jacket only to open it, refold it, and put it back, clearly waiting for Kirigiri to pick up the conversation.

She continued to stare at him, face neutral.

“Fucking hell, Kirigiri,” Kuzuryuu finally spat, shoving his fists deeply into his pockets, as if he’d start swinging them if he didn’t. “Why’d you have to go snooping around?”

“It is simply what I do.” She paused. “For what it’s worth, it isn’t personal.”

“Right, right. Always business with you, huh?”

“Forgive me, but is that not also the case with your own clan?”

He coughed out a rough laugh. “Got me there.”

“So,” Kirigiri said. “I will be going then, if that’s all.”

“Hold it right there.”

Something sharp and dangerous had crept into Kuzuryuu’s voice. It was a tone Kirigiri didn’t remember from high school—the steely edge tinging his words sounded almost befitting of the man next in line to take over the Kuzuryuu family.

“I know you know that I let a lot of shit slide when it comes to you, since we used to be so close in school.”

“Are you looking for an expression of gratitude, or—”

“But this I can’t fucking overlook, even if I wanted to.” Kuzuryuu drew a shuddering breath and held it for a few seconds before continuing. “That guy, the one you picked up…he worked under Natsumi. Like, directly under her. He was kind of like her right hand guy.”

“That’s strange. I normally would have assumed that your sister would have higher standards.”

“Could you not, right now? Fucking Christ.”

“…I assume that what you are trying to tell me is that my apprehension of your sister’s second-in-command is going to affect her in some negative way.”

“That’s a pretty clinical way of putting it, sure.” Kuzuryuu’s remaining good eye flicked to meet Kirigiri’s gaze. She idly wondered what happened to the glass one he’d received after the incident. “Let me just be straight here: cause of you, Natsumi is fucked.”

Kirigiri remained silent. Artificial light from the flood lamps used by fisherman to bring in tuna during the night reflected off of Kuzuryuu’s face, highlighting the sheen of sweat coating it. It was far more sweat than one would normally produce on a breezy, early October evening while standing still.

“You’re afraid.”

“Afraid? I’m goddamn terrified!” Kuzuryuu’s voice hitched at the end of the sentence, echoing off the surrounding corrugated steel so that it sounded like a distant scream. “If I don’t do something to fix this, and fast, the old man is going to… To…”

Clutching his lapel, he coughed twice, then breathed deeply as if to calm himself.

“Natsumi’s fucked up enough times already. Her top guy getting caught and interrogated is telling the clan that she’s a liability. The old man can’t have that.”

“I was under the impression that your sister was your father’s favorite.”

“Ha! Ha ha! Oh god, yeah, sure. That’s what we both thought in high school, maybe, but since I’ve grown up I’ve realized that the family business is his favorite, not either of his kids.” A hiss escaped Kuzuryuu’s clenched teeth. “But I don’t need to explain that to you, do I?”

Kirigiri crossed her arms.

“Look,” Kuzuryuu said, running his fingers through his short hair and looking down at the wet pavement. He reached up inside his jacket to rub his left shoulder. “I need to make this all go away.”

“While I understand your reasoning, and am empathetic to how you feel, I hope you don’t expect me to lie down willingly.”

Kirigiri shifted her weight to the balls of her feet, ready to run. She wasn’t aware of how familiar Kuzuryuu might be with this area, but perhaps she could use his emotional state to catch him off-guard and gain some distance. Of course, if he had lied about being alone that would be another matter entirely, but she had never known him to employ such an underhanded tactic.

The sharpness she’d heard in his voice earlier shot through her mind. It had been a long time…how much had time and proximity to his father changed him?

Kuzuryuu began to laugh again—short, bitter burps of mirthless sound dripping from him like tears. It reminded Kirigiri of how Enoshima used to laugh, with tightly controlled bursts of “upupupu” firing from her lips like bullets. She briefly wondered what Enoshima would say if she saw Kuzuryuu now.

“Why’s it got to be like this, huh?” Kuzuryuu asked, then continued without waiting for an answer. “Why is it that some of us have to be slaves to some shitty legacy?”

“Because not all of us were fortunate enough to be born normal.”

Kirigiri eyed the fingers kneading Kuzuryuu’s shoulder inside of his jacket. Even knowing about the old knife wound Ikusaba had gifted him all those years ago, she anticipated him pulling out a firearm at any second. She had to move at the right moment—if she timed it correctly, she could either escape, or attack and disarm him, whichever would be more effective.

“Guess so.” Kuzuryuu grunted, digging his fingers deeper into the muscle of his shoulder. “Sometimes, sometimes I’m jealous of Peko, you know? Like she can just turn it off when she’s working. The whole, ‘giving a shit’ thing. Me, though? I can’t. Just fucking can’t. Been trying for years, but it’s no good.”

In high school, when they had loosely formed their circle of malcontent heirs, Kirigiri had somewhat admired Kuzuryuu’s ability to succumb to his emotions. It was something that she had seen Yui and Naegi do, of course, but finding someone from a similar background capable of it…it had proven that such a thing was possible. She liked to think that over the years of being a friend, wife, and mother, she’d been able to achieve a little more balance.

“But this has to be me. I have to do this. It’s like when that Satou chick pushed Natsumi down those stairs and all but fucking killed her. Gotta 'uphold the family name’. Gotta earn my place. Gotta prove I have what it takes to take over, or else Natsumi and Peko and me are gonna be out on our asses and at the mercy of the old man’s dogs.”

Kuzuryuu’s hand had dropped from his shoulder but was still concealed inside his jacket. Kirigiri slid one foot backward slightly, trying to firm up her stance.

“You get it, don’t you, Kirigiri? This is it. This is where I have to finally give up this stupid idea that I can keep being a soft-ass, cause I can’t get away with it anymore.”

The handgun was almost invisible against the blackness of Kuzuryuu’s suit, but Kirigiri could make out the outline of it. Despite the tremor in his voice, his grip on the gun was entirely steady.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was either this, or go after your family.”

“Kuzuryuu.” The authority in Kirigiri’s voice caused him to tense, the muzzle of the gun dropping slightly. “I have a proposition.”

“Haven’t you been listening? It’s too late for that.”

“Please, listen to what I have to say. I promise that this solution will alleviate both of your issues, while still keeping my wife and child safe.”

The hand holding the gun dropped to Kuzuryuu’s side.

“I’m listening.”

***

Yui looked stunning in black, Kirigiri decided from her vantage point at the back of the room. She felt her heart skip at how attractively the black kimono complimented Yui’s athletic frame. If only her face weren’t puffy and swollen from crying.

Yuiko, clad similarly, was kneeling beside her, staring blankly at the framed photo at the front of the room. Naegi was on her other side, a reassuring hand resting on her back, leaning over every so often to whisper what Kirigiri assumed were words of comfort. Naegi’s wife was sitting about a meter back from the main party of mourners, holding the hands of both their sniffling children, trying to swallow the sob hiccups erupting in her throat. Kirigiri had never seen Ayumi look so upset before—she normally mirrored her husband’s quiet affability, rarely seen without a gentle smile.

Celes, of course, had turned up in an elaborate, Western-style dress complete with large hat and black veil, which she had Yamada lift up every so often so that she could dab her eyes with a jet black handkerchief. Kirigiri judged by the way her hand shook that this turn of events had affected her deeply.

Naturally her classmates from Kibougamine had attended—minus the twins, of course—and despite Togami loudly announcing that he planned to leave immediately following the service for a very important meeting, they all appeared adequately saddened.

It struck Kirigiri as odd that so many people she hadn’t spoken to since high school had turned out for her funeral, but if she were honest with herself, she suspected that many of them were there more for Naegi’s sake than hers.

“Damn shame,” she heard someone say to her left, “I hear she didn’t even get a chance to train her kid all the way.”

“That’s terrible,” responded another voice. “I suppose it will be left to her partner?”

“Probably. Good thing the grandfather went through with formally adopting her into the family before he died. Otherwise there might be custody issues since the kid is a full-blooded Kirigiri.”

“True. Do you think she’ll be able to find out who did it?”

“No need. Seems like everyone knows it was those Kuzuryuu bastards. It was common knowledge that she was getting way to close to nailing them.”

“If that’s the case it might be better to leave things lie.”

“Exactly. It’s a lucky thing they went after her directly and not the kid.”

“Scary stuff.”

“Definitely.”

Edging away from the conversation, lest someone try to draw her into it and render her expensive prosthetics moot, Kirigiri withdrew further into the corner of the room. In the back corner opposite her own, she spotted a scruffy blonde man leaning drunkenly against the wall. He produced a flask from his pocket and took a swig, before turning to offer it through the slightly cracked door.

Kirigiri pressed her back teeth together, breathing deeply even as she felt her blood pressure rise.

The nerve of showing up here, of thinking he was welcome now that she had no means of turning him away. It was infuriating. She certainly hoped he didn’t think that he had an opening to try and come establish contact with Yuiko.

Resisting the urge to march over to Kizakura and order him through clenched teeth to get his deadbeat buddy as far away from her daughter as possible, Kirigiri instead backed out through the opposite set of doors. She stood in the hallway for several minutes, breathing heavily, before turning to leave.

***

“I’m just saying, Yui-san—”

“Naegi. We have been through this.”

“I know, and I understand how you feel, but—”

“Enough!”

Startled, Naegi took a step back. Kirigiri worried he might bump into the closet door and inadvertently open it, which would certainly defuse the current situation, but cause more than enough damage in a completely different way. Her family’s safety was only guaranteed so long as she remained hidden.

Of course, the hiding portion would be certainly easier were she able to pry herself away, but without family or duty to occupy her, she found the days long and empty, and she wondered if perhaps she should have agreed to Kuzuryuu’s plan instead.

“You have been going on about Kyouko still being alive for months now, and I. have. had it.”

“All I’m saying is that we never found a body. There’s still a chance.”

“They found over two liters of blood, her blood, at the crime scene,” Yui said. “And scraps of her clothing—including her gloves—at the bottom of the bay. What more do you want?”

That had actually been one of the more clever parts of Kirigiri’s plan—utilizing those stockpiled bags of transfusion blood she’d prepared at her maternal grandfather’s former residence in case an emergency transfusion had been needed.

“There could be another explanation, though. We still haven’t found a body!”

“I wouldn’t care if it were just us…actually, it probably would still hurt, but the thing I can’t get over is that Yuiko believes you. You’re filling her with false hope.”

“It isn’t false.”

Yui dropped her face into her hands, muffling her response.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“Get out of my house.” Yui’s voice rang clear and cold through the room. “Now.”

“Y-Yui-san…”

“Get out of my house, and don’t come back. You are not allowed to speak to my daughter.”

“Hey, come on now, don’t you think you’re overreact—”

“SHUT UP!” Yui stood up to her full height, towering over Naegi. “My wife is dead. The mother of my child is dead. Until you can accept the reality of that, you are not welcome here.”

Naegi expelled a weak gasp, opening his mouth as if to say something. Instead, he balled his hands into fists and looked toward the floor.

“Fine,” he said, turning to leave. “If you want to give up on her, that’s up to you. But I won’t.”

Seconds after the door shut, Yui dropped to her knees and began to sob.

Kirigiri dug her fingers into the wood of the closet door.

***

“Yui.”

Kirigiri rested a palm against her wife’s cheek, hoping the feeling of scar tissue wasn’t too upsetting to wake up to.

“Yui. Wake up.”

“Nnng, Kyouko, come on. I’m tired.”

“I realize that, but we need to talk.”

“But I’m tiiii—wait.”

Yui sat up abruptly, her head knocking into Kirigiri’s.

“I…probably should have anticipated that.”

“…Kyouko.”

“Yes.”

“Kyouko, you’re…you’re here…”

“Yes.”

Yui’s breath grew ragged, hitching with impending tears.

“I know this must be a shock to—”

“KYOUKO!”

Kirigiri choked on her words as Yui pulled her into a fierce hug, pressing her nose directly into her collarbone.

“I don’t care that it’s a dream,” Yui said, tears and snot cascading down her face and into Kirigiri’s hair. “I don’t care because this feels so real, and you’re here and alive in this dream and this is all I want. Just let me enjoy it for a little longer…”

“Yui!” Kirigiri gasped, extricating herself from her wife’s death grip. “Please, pull yourself together.”

“This is the most accurate dream I’ve ever had about you.”

“Perhaps that might be because this isn’t a dream.” Kirigiri readjusted her clothing before continuing. “I am genuinely here right now.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“…..”

“Yui?”

“…Oh my god. Oh my god. I didn’t believe Komaru-chan, but here you are and I can’t believe there’s an afterlife. This is a little much. I need a minute.”

“I cannot…Yui. I’m not dead.”

“You’re sure this isn’t a dream?”

“Positive. I have never been dead.”

Yui paused, cheeks still glistening with tears. She slowly reached to the bedside table, retrieved her glasses, and examined Kirigiri again.

“I…I don’t know what to say…”

“I’ve missed you too.”

“I need to apologize to Naegi-kun,” Yui said. “And you…you need to apologize to me.”

“For?”

“For…?! Kyouko, you let Yuiko and I—everyone—think you were dead!”

“Do you not believe I had good reason to do so?”

“I mean I guess, that wouldn’t be out of character for you, but still.”

Yui crossed her arms and looked off to the side for a moment.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that your completely valid reason for putting me through horrendous grief for the past several months is still an issue.”

“You would be correct.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“Yui,” Kirigiri said, reaching out to take her wife’s hand. “Do you have any idea how difficult it’s been to see you and Yuiko in pain and be unable to do anything about it?”

“About as painful as thinking your wife is dead and you need to raise your daughter on your own while also completely taking over her training?”

“I…” Kirigiri sighed. “I’m sorry. I had to make a decision under very delicate circumstances, and it might not have been the best choice.”

“I accept your apology.”

“Thank you. As an expression of my sincerity, I have a much more measured proposition to offer.”

Yui gently pulled Kirigiri to her and planted a kiss on her forehead, then her lips.

“I’m listening.”

***

Ayumi slipped her hand into Naegi’s, lacing their fingers together, and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Honey, I’m so sorry.”

Naegi squeezed his wife’s hand, watching the billowing flames lick the low-hanging haze of clouds above. He could already imagine the headline in the paper tomorrow: GRIEVING DETECTIVE FAMILY TRAGICALLY KILLED IN HOUSE FIRE: FOUL PLAY AT WORK?

“Are you going to be okay?” Ayumi asked. The flames gave her teary eyes an orange tint.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yep.” He turned back to watch the house burn. “I haven’t given up, after all.”

#dr #jess writes #kirigiri kyouko #samidare yui #kiridare #long post #shipping #referring to samidare by first name is weird #but she's kirigiri yui in this #so it'd be weird to call her samidare #anyway i am glad i got something done #even if it's not very polished

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jimlingss · 8 years ago

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I'm literally crying-- I HAVE A C IN CALCULUS!! I got a 90% on my last test and i have a C now!!!!! I had a D before cuz i got 53% on my first test and i am so so happy i am /passing/ i usually get straight A's and some B's and this is the first time i've been this stressed about just trying to pass a class and i am just, so so happy i burst into tears wow. And you came off hiatus-- this is like, a sign! Your presence blessed my grade :')

*applause* you go girl! It may not be the perfect mark but as long as you’re satisfied and you know it’s the best you can do then that’s great! I know the pain of math all too well ._. but honestly it’s so satisfying to get good marks. sometimes when I see a row of 90′s or 100′s…man that does things to me. (and there’s my nerdy side)

honestly as a kid I really loved receiving report cards loooool

myjeansareonfire said:I’M CRYING AND YOU’VE JUST POSTED CH3 OF BEYOND REACH AGSHXFDJSKX OHMYGOD I FEEL REWARDED I’M SO HAPPY 😭😭💖 (why am i like this lol)

YES! IT’S A REWARD. (*shifting eyes) I totally planned it this way with my psychic abilities…ha…haha….

myjeansareonfire said:Ohmygod i’m a sobbing disgusting MESS 😭😭 i was finally able to lay down and read this in piece and that was probably the second or 3rd most painful think i’ve ever read. First of all, i’m personally someone who really craves physical affection. I honestly start feeling kind of depressed if i go too long without seeing my friends or my significant other because they’re the only people who i feel comfortable receiving physical affection from. It relaxes me, makes me feel safe and happy (1/5)

every time i you mention the way hoseok wants to be able to reach out and touch y/n, comfort her, ruffle her hair, help taehyung off of the ledge of the bridge, it honestly really makes my chest ache. And then.. The way jimin wanted to get taehyung off of the roof ledge, ohmygod, that hurt so much. Just imagining how hard he was trying, how hard he was crying, the tears streaming down his face, his voice going horse from yelling at him to get down.. It was honestly so freaking painful (2/5)

I’m curious as to what’s the most painful thing you’ve read. but yeah honestly I didn’t mean to make the chapter that painful…it just ended up turning out that way. It’s honestly up there with my top angst written pieces.

And I’m really glad you understand the severity of the ghosts unable to touch. Sometimes I wonder if I did enough but it seems like you understand so that relieves me.

Personally, I’m not a touchy person at all. Last time I received a kiss was probably a decade ago by some relative on the cheek and it’s been about a decade too since I’ve actually hugged someone hahaha I’m one of those ppl who cringe away, do that weird half hug thing and say they don’t like hugs but honestly…..it’s hard to admit but sometimes I crave some sort of physical affection too - I’d feel weird to ask for it though. Like it’s awkward with family members and me and my friends don’t ever touch each other hahaha maybe someday when I date or something. plus, pshh…I can give myself a hug. (this just got real deep and personal but if you’re talking about your own experiences, I will too haha.)

i think my tears freely started flowing when i realized tae was going to try to kill himself. And just imagining how painful it was for tae to deal with the fact that jimin killed himself after he told him too… Ahh this was just such a difficult thing to read 😭 also i 100% agree with hoseok on that wall between him and y/n… The way you describe it, it’s almost palpable. Y/n is just so closed off and distanced, i personally feel closed off from her 😂 (3/5)

i feel like she just has this ‘don’t fuck with me’ aura but not for the reason people would think. She already has to deal with dead people, i can’t imagine the hell her life would be if she had to deal with annoying /living/ people too. I really hope that y/n will slowly open up.. Or at least to hoseok. (also i just feel like i really cannot express how damn sad it made me to picture jimin being that torn, lol.. :’( i don’t think i’ve read a fic that devastating for jimin before this) (4/5)

I’m sorry it’s difficult to read, I know it’s very emotionally draining. That’s why I’m not very surprised at the low amount of notes and feedback. I’d rather people not read if they’re uncomfortable. At the end of the day, I write for myself so I’m not dwelling on the “results” much.

But yes! No spoilers but we’ll definitely find out more about Y/N’s character. There’s 3 chapters left!! Originally actually, Y/N was a very happy person and ready to help everyone and everything but after I edited the second chapter I didn’t like her character at all and thought it was extremely unrealistic so I did a complete 180 which I became more satisfied with. The OC is a very interesting character.

As always, a beautifully crafted chapter 💖 i adored it all, and i’m sorry i didn’t send the asks while i was actually reading it this time.. I just didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the story at all. I just felt so drawn in to what what was happening. I’m dying to know more about hoseok tho!! *sends moral support to hobi* you can do this!! Remember!! I believe in youuu! 💖 (can’t wait for ch 4! :3) (5/5)

No! It’s really fine if you send a message after or during. You don’t know how much I appreciate receiving these, any of them, regardless of length or time and I read each word carefully with a huge grin. I’m truly honoured to have you as a reader, don’t worry about messages, thank you! I’m even happier to hear that you were so invested, you couldn’t pull yourself away.

Overall, my thoughts on the chapter….I’m a person who values family HIGHLY above friends. I don’t have that many friends, really only have one true close friend while the rest I’m not so close to. But while I was writing this, I truly began to assess the relationships I have in real life, with my own friends and man….I cried really hard editing the chapter. I did two edits in total and cried in each one. These people that I often take for granted, I’m now actively trying to value them and…*sigh, I’m getting too deep into this.

Secondly, usually in fics, it’s all about romantic relationships. There are friendships but typically not the main focus. I’m also responsible for writing weak friendships, throwing them in for the sake of just throwing them in. But I realized writing this how powerful friendships can be. With romantic relationships and family relationships, there’s almost an obligation there, either strong feelings binding you to the person or through blood relations, all the history. But with friendships, there are no obligations…you’re there because you simply want to be. AM I MAKING ANY SENSE? I dunno, just trying to say friendships are really powerful, this chapter hit me hard too….glad you enjoyed :’))))

#im sorry for writing so much #this is like a novel on its own #my rambling #myjeansareonfire #Jimlings

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kiribakus · 8 years ago

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Hi! Spend the afternoon creepily stalking your Tumblr and saw that black cat white cat is on hiatus. Also saw that you said you were near completing it. Also saw you post what you've written on project Metis so far since you weren't planning to get to it for a while. Would you possibly possibly consider doing the same for black cat white cat and posting what you have so far for?

yah sure i don’t see why not :0c although it’s actually nowhere near finished, this is 6,000 words and i deffo have at least 10,000 more to go

CHAPTER TWO:I’LL KEEP THE CAT AND I WON’T GIVE ANYTHING TO YOU

“Everybody wantsto be a cat.”

The snapping of arifle into its tripod, the click of the scope being adjusted. The impossible toplace slight movements of the rifle on the roof, pointing down into the jeweledcity below.

“Because a cat’sthe only cat who knows where it’s at.”

The pink of atongue poking out between lips, the tan color of skin poking out of blackfingerless gloves to press against an even blacker gun. The slight shifting onelbows into a more comfortable position, and the wiggle of a body along to thesong she’s humming.

“Tell me,everybody’s pickin’ up on that feline beat,” Minami hums. “’Causeeverything else is obsolete.”

“You know, it’salmost creepy hearing you sing that, knowing you’re about to kill a man,”Phichit says. His hands fly over the keyboard as he texts Minako statusupdates.

“I don’t know whatyou’re talking about,” Minami huffs. “I’m just excited that they’re trusting mewith such an important job.” She pauses, then picks up her singing andadjusting her scope once more. “A girl with gun makes you wish you weren’tdone, every time she shoots.”

“Creepy,” Phichitsays, pointing at her. “And let’s see…Yuuri misses his shot in Vienna, Yuukodoes a messy job in Beijing, Yuuri gets it on with Viktor instead of completinghis mission…” Phichit lists the examples off on his fingers. “Yeah, I think youwere the only choice left.”

“You’re being abuzzkill,” Minami whines.

“I can’t believeyou’re actually going to try to kill him,” Phichit says. “Yuuri would be, like,completely devastated.”

“Do you think I canhit him?” Minami asks.

“No,” Phichit says,maybe too honestly. “He’s like, immortal. Untouchable. A fucking legend.”

“Let’s have a bet,then!” Minami says, sitting up.

“A bet?”

“Yeah,” she says.“If I hit him, you buy me dessert for a month.”

“If you lose, I getto post those pictures of you with a Yuuri body pillow,” Phichit says,grinning.

Minami pouts. “Youdrive a hard bargain, Phichit Chulanont.” They shake.

“Oh,” Phichit saysafter a moment. “You never said anything about killing him.”

Minami laughs. “I’mnot so crazy as to think I can kill him.” She slides back down on herstomach, kicking her legs in the air.

“Still a cat’sthe only cat who knows how to aim.”

————————————-

Yuuri glares at hisempty pint, cheek pressed against the table. He’s not nearly as drunk as hewants to be—as he’s allowed to be—and honestly it’s pissing him off. On oneside, Yuuko gives him a gentle, sympathetic smile. On his other, Takeshi takesone look at the face he’s making and claps him on the back. The blow is sostartling that Yuuri breaks out into a coughing fit.

“Lighten up,Yuuri!” Takeshi says. “It’s not so bad. It’s just one assignment.”

“I’ll buy youanother,” Yuuko says.

“Support…” Yuurimutters. “I’m support.”

This was the end ofthe line, then. He couldn’t be trusted to lead another mission, even when itwas defensive. When it was in Japan. Instead, Minami was taking thepoint position and in charge of assassinating the target. In Osaka.Yuuri was on the chopping block.

“They’re replacingme with Minami,” he groans. “It was nice serving with you two.”

“Don’t beridiculous!” Yuuko huffs. “Minami is still unproven. You’ve just hadsome…shoddy luck with the KGB, is all. It makes sense that they’d switch aroundagents.”

“You mean Ijeopardized the mission to sleep with the enemy,” Yuuri says.

Yuuko and Takeshiwince in unison. Well, when he put it that way.

“At least hejeopardized his mission too,” Takeshi says. “It wasn’t a one-sided thing.”

Yuuri groans. Helets the noise escape his body in the longest, most pitiful moan of his entirelife. He bangs his forehead on the table rhythmically. “I know. I know. Iknow.”

“I know,” Yuurisays, “and that’s all I’ve been able to think about. I should bethinking about how to get back in their good graces, but instead the only thingI can think about is—” The color in his cheeks spreads to his ears and down hisneck. “Um.”

“Ooo, scandalous,”Phichit says over the com. “Did you forget these were on again?”

Yuuri lets outanother groan.

“I’m tuningMinami-chan in,” Phichit says. “You might want to keep dirty Viktorthoughts to yourself so she doesn’t have more of a motivation to kill him.”They’re greeted by the sound of muted humming as Minami joins the channel.

“Viktor won’t showup,” Yuuri assures them. “It’d be stupid to send a compromised operative intohostile territory, especially when said hostile territory is where the personwho compromised him calls home. The KGB are better than that.”

“Oh, right,”Phichit says. “Minami-chan, our bet only applies to Viktor. If it’s someoneelse that comes the bet is off.”

“What bet?” Yuukoasks.

“Nothing,nothing,” Minami says at the same time Phichit says, “The bet to see ifshe can hit Viktor.”

“Phichit-kun!”Minami yowls.

“Oops,”Phichit says. “Don’t worry; Yuuri-kun said he won’t show anyway.”

“Won’t he cometo see Yuuri, though?” Minami asks.

Yuuri pulls theearpiece out of his ear and sets in on the table. He stands up, despite Yuukoand Takeshi’s protests, and sees himself out of the restaurant. It’s pleasantoutside, the chill of winter sticking to the nights while the days were warmerwith the promise of coming spring. Yuuri leans against the concrete wall of therestaurant and looks up.

Somewhere, on topof one of those buildings, Minami was perched invisible against the dark of thesky, her sniper rifle peeking over the edge. The people of Osaka walked belowher, heads down, no idea that an angel of death lay above them, ready to takeout the enemy without hesitation. She wouldn’t falter. She was well-trained,uncompromised. She was a formidable opponent.

And then, somewhereelse in the city, Viktor. Yuuri had said Viktor wouldn’t come but…but howcouldn’t he? The KGB already knew he was compromised—that must have been whyNatasha was with him that night in Monte Carlo. They knew he might fail, butultimately, he was professional enough to succeed at his mission while alsotaking an interest in a Japanese rival operative and pursuing that thread ofintrigue until he grew bored.

But you aren’t bored yet, are you Viktor?

He hadn’t feltbored, his chest heaving under Yuuri’s hands for that brief moment, the way hegripped Yuuri on the dancefloor. Yuuri can still feel the sexual tension betweenthem, its hold strong even across the world. Viktor still wants him, and Yuuriwants him back. He wouldn’t pass up the chance to come see Yuuri, to frolic inthe playground that was Japan, unafraid of eyes in the sky or operatives on theground.

All for a chance topull or push Yuuri into an alley, shove him against a wall, his leg in between Yuuri’s,holding him up to feel the way he shivers against Viktor and gives as well ashe takes from Viktor’s obsession. All for a chance to taste his mouth again…

“You won’t come forme, will you?” Yuuri murmurs aloud. “That would be stupid and irresponsible ofyou.” And yet, he knew. Viktor was in this city. Yuuri could feel him justunder his skin and swimming in the veins of traffic and passersby.

I’m here,Yuuri doesn’t say. Where are you? I’m waiting.

But even puttinghimself out in the open, begging to be assaulted or kidnapped, Viktor isn’tbiting. Ah, perhaps the KGB wised up and shortened Viktor’s leash. Yuuri headsback inside as the chill of the night starts to seep through his light jacket.

“Oh, Yuuri’s back,”Takeshi says. “Better put your earpiece back in before Minako-sensei sendsCiao-Ciao to set you straight.”

“I’m here,” Yuurisays, slipping the earpiece back in. Immediately, he’s chewed out by Minako andPhichit, but he tunes them out with a sigh. Maybe he had been wrong after all?

“…Honestly,Yuuri,” Phichit says, sighing. “What if I had had some importantinformation to relay you?”

“I have someimportant news to relay to you,” Yuuri says. “Against the advisement of myhandler, Minako-sensei, I am having another beer.”

He hears Minako takea breath. “And,” Yuuri says, “Unless she wants to pay for therapy for me, shewill accept this alternative treatment.”

“He must havebeen a real good kisser,” Minami grumbles.

“It’s more of thefact that I’ve idolized him for my entire life,” Yuuri says. “I think you mightknow what that feels like, Minami-chan.”

The team is stunnedinto silence. Yuuri regrets the words a soon as he says them. “I’m sorry,”Yuuri says. “That wasn’t right of me. I’m just stressed and the teasing isreally getting to me.”

“And you’reemotionally compromising our sniper,” Minako says stonily. “Unintentional ornot, I’m advising that you be removed from support effective immediately.”

Yuuri, having satdown for under five minutes, stands right back up. “Fine by me,” he says. “I’monly being thrown the scraps, after all.”

He walksout—again—with Yuuko and Takeshi calling after him. He stomps out of therestaurant and onto the street, hands shoved into his pockets and shouldershunched. He stares straight at the ground and is so wound up that he doesn’teven realize he’s left the earpiece in until he’s three blocks away from therestaurant and nearing the hotel. Yuuri’s become so accustomed to the chatterin his ear that he’d tuned out most of the worrying and complaining from hiscompanions at Hasetsu.

Why was this such abig deal? It wasn’t like Yuuri particularly enjoyed killing people, but it wassomething he excelled at. To struggle on this front and in ice skating, whichhe actually loved, was as pathetic as it was frustrating. It was like he hadbeen slipping before Viktor entered his life, and now that Viktor was here,everything had shattered. Yuuri was so used to doing as he was told, followingorders down to the wire. This was the second time he had openly defied ordersto pursue a course he wanted.

Yuuriwas…unsettled, to say the least. This change didn’t feel wrong by any means,just frustrating. And that frustration continued to build. Why do I have tofollow stupid orders? Why can’t they see who I am? Why am I being ignored? Whycan’t I chase Viktor?

This was not ahealthy or smart way for an operative to think. Yuuri was the hand and theknife of Hasetsu, of the higher-ups. He carried out the will of Minako-senseiand Yamada-san, who relayed the will of Celestino and the other leaders oftheir organization. It wasn’t the place of a pawn to be thinking for himself.But Yuuri’s pride was lashing its tail. His desire for something more waslurking in the shadows, ready to pounce. Viktor’s presence was blood in the water,impetus for Yuuri to act.

“Eyes on Viktor,”Minami says.

Yes, I know,Yuuri almost says, before he realizes Minami isn’t talking to him.

“I’ve got him inmy scope,” Minami says.

She’s breathlesswith excitement. Yuuri can hear her bloodlust over the com. He freezes. He hastime to think, this is what an agent should be, before Minako speaks,all business.

“Target’sposition? Phichit, conditions?” Minako asks.

“Target’s movingsouthwest with the flow of the crowd,” Minami reports. “Holding acoffee. Doesn’t appear to be accompanied. I can make the shot.”

“Wind speed low,”Phichit says. “No precipitation. Radio silence from other organizations.Getaway in position.”

“Supports?”Minako barks.

“Ready to go,”Yuuko says.

“Ma’am, can Itake the shot?” Minami says quickly. “He’s—he’s almost in perfectposition. The crowd is clearing—minimal collateral—”

It’s all happeningtoo fast. Yuuri closes his eyes, recalls the map of their locations, and he runs.

“Take the shot,”Minako says.

Yuuri doesn’t hearthe gunshot. The rifle is far, far away from him and has a silencer on itsmuzzle anyway, but Yuuri swears he can feel it. The spike of adrenaline joltsthrough his chest, as if the bullet had passed through his body instead ofViktor’s. The silence stretches over seconds, but they might as well have beenhours.

Minami-chan can’t do it, Yuuri tells himself as he runs, cold air slicing at his throat andlungs. She’s a good shot but he’s Viktor. He’s a legend and she’s abeginner, the difference is just too—

“I hit him,”Minami whispers. Then, louder, “I hit him!”

“Confirmed,”Phichit chokes. “The target has been hit. Oh, man, I cannot believe I oweyou dessert for a mon—”

“Professionality!”Minako snaps. “Details, Minami!”

“I missed the headshot,”Minami says. “Got him in the shoulder, looked like just below the shoulder.He’s on the move.”

“Supports, go,go!” Minako says. “Finish the job.”

They can’t mean…Yuuri thinks. No one can—Viktor can’t—

But they had.Minami shot Viktor and he was bleeding out in the streets somewhere, Yuuko andTakeshi on their way to intercept him and…what? Kill him? Viktorcouldn’t die. Even if he was shot, Viktor could survive. Yuuko and Takeshi couldn’tkill him. The possibility of a world without Viktor was not worthcomprehending. Yuuri would not live in such a world.

He keeps to theback alleys, avoiding detection from his teammates, the police, and any otherKGB agents that might be going for Viktor. He should leave Viktor to them,really, that was their job but…

But if Viktor was stupid enough to come here then he wasstupid enough to come alone. And if he was stupid enough to come here alonethen he was stupid enough to get himself killed by agents that didn’t evenrank, that didn’t even have bounties on their heads.

Yuuri wouldn’t restuntil he was sure Viktor was alive.

He doesn’t havetime to look down every alley, but he also doesn’t have a much better plan thanjust that. It’s useless. He can’t scan for blood without a flashlight andViktor isn’t going to be collapsed against a wall waiting for death. He’seither run or hidden himself. Yuuri searches three more alleyways before hestops.

He has to thinklike Viktor. On a crowded night like tonight, a good-looking foreigner with anarm covered in blood wasn’t going to go unnoticed. Running was suicide. SoViktor was hiding somewhere. But where? In a building? In a trashcan? Behind astack of plywood? This was useless!

Yuuri scans theback alleys, dismayed. His eyes fall on a ginger cat, skittering out of analleyway, spring in her step. She makes it a fair distance before she hazards aglance behind her, then continues on. Yuuri watches her go.

No. It couldn’t,could it?

Yuuri peeks aroundthe edge of the alleyway. It’s empty save for two large dumpsters and a smallstack of wooden pallets. Yuuri makes no sound as he enters the alley. His stepsare light and he approaches the closest dumpster slowly. There’s a trail ofsomething wet glittering faintly on the lid. It could be trash or water or ice,but Yuuri’s instincts tell him otherwise. He inhales, and throws open the lid.

Immediately, a handshoots out from the dark to grab him by his sweater and throw his head againstthe metal of the dumpster. Yuuri throws his hands out and catches himself. Thehand lets him go and winds back to punch him. Yuuri catches the punch, andpulls Viktor forward.

Viktor’s heademerges, but he doesn’t look anything like the Viktor Yuuri knows. This Viktoris wild-eyed and snarling, his hair a mess and nothing but the need to surviveon his mind. He looks like a crazed animal, snapping at Yuuri, and yankinghimself free.

He thinks I’m here to kill him, Yuuri realizes.

He lets Viktor goso he can grab him by the throat, choking him. Viktor flails against him, andwith the muscle to back up even one arm’s worth of punches, Yuuri is taking abeating.

“Stop it!” Yuurihisses. “Stop it! You’re making too much noise!”

Viktor snarls againand punches Yuuri hard enough that Yuuri’s glasses go flying.

Yuuri lets out asnarl of his own and frees one of his hands so that he can tangle his fingersin Viktor’s hair and yank it back. “Stop fucking around, Viktor. Shut upand cooperate if you want to live.”

The words sink intoViktor slowly. Too slowly. They’ve made a lot of noise rustling and Yuuko andTakeshi are on the lookout. Yuuri forcibly hauls Viktor out of the dumpster,Viktor hissing when he grabs at his bad shoulder. Yuuri sheds his jacket andpulls it around Viktor’s shoulders, slipping the hood over his head. Then hewraps an arm around Viktor’s shoulders and guides him into the throng of peopleon the main street. They keep to an easy but long stride.

“This is suicide,”Viktor hisses. “We’re sitting ducks.”

“Like I want tohear that from the guy who got himself shot in the open because he wasoverconfident,” Yuuri snaps. He really does not have the patience forViktor’s input right now. “Thanks to your ruckus, that alleyway and anywherenear it is dangerous.”

“I didn’t know itwas you.”

“And even though itwas, you thought I was there to kill you.”

“Well, it wouldn’tbe the first time.”

Yuuri wonders ifit’d be considered rude to dump a bleeding, injured man on a sidewalk and leavehim to die given that his mission had been to kill him in the first place.Really, it was a tossup between just shooting Viktor and redeeming himself orcontinuing to defy Hasetsu and rescue an ingrate. What kind of survivalinstincts did Viktor have, again?

“Real smart,getting petty with your only ally,” Yuuri says. He feels Viktor winding up fora comeback and cuts him off. “Oh please, don’t even try to tell me you didn’tcome alone. The only allies you could possibly have here are the ones that theKGB forced on you and only supposed to act if you tell them to.”

Viktor doesn’treply, which means Yuuri hit the nail on the head.

As if to recoversome of his dignity, Viktor says, “We should at least stick to thebackstreets—”

“And walk straightinto Yuu-chan and Takeshi-kun’s waiting arms?” Yuuri snorts. “They’re notactually stupid; they know that’s how you’ll be making your escape. Our onlychoice is to hide in plain sight. Minami-chan should be off the roof.”

“Should?” Viktorasks, strained.

Yuuri almost wisheshe hadn’t thrown away his earpiece. But no, as nice as intel would be, heneeded complete deniability. His story is that he went for a walk to cool hishead after he was dismissed and tossed his earpiece to the side in hisirritation. He didn’t have a cellphone and for all he knew this was a normalmission without Viktor. It’s not like they had any way of contacting him.

But Viktor wasright. They needed to get off the main streets eventually. He crosses the roadand heads into another alleyway. Good luck; there’s an already rusting lock andloud machinery to cover up the sound of a gunshot. Yuuri pulls his pistol outfrom the back of his pants and blows the lock off. It’ll be bad if anyoneinside heard that, but Yuuri is running out of options for them.

Double luck; it’s astorage room. They’re surrounded by cardboard boxes and shelves of merchandise.He positions them by the door to the shop. If Yuuko and Takeshi tail them intothis room, it’ll be from the outside. Their shock at seeing Yuuri will probablygive him and Viktor enough time to escape through the shop. Probably. Ideally,they won’t have to run at all.

Yuuri shoves Viktordown behind a pile of boxes. Viktor goes down much easier than expected. Nowthat they’re hidden, Yuuri can turn all of his worry towards Viktor’s injury.

“Alright,” he says.“Let’s see it.”

It’s ugly. Into hispectoral muscle and shattering his collarbone for sure. Viktor can’t shrug hisshoulder without wincing and the blood has soaked through his undershirt.Thankfully, his overcoat looks clean from the outside and Yuuri’s jacket isonly bloody on the inside and along the edge.

“I’m going to helpyou take off your shirt,” Yuuri says, and starts to unbutton it.

“Ah, so forward,”Viktor says. “We’ve only just been reunited.”

“Must be nice to besuch a carefree guy,” Yuuri says. “Can’t even be serious after you’ve beenshot.”

“But that’s becauseI have my guardian angel Yuuri with me,” Viktor says.

“You’re notcharming me,” Yuuri says flatly. “I want you to understand how angry I am withyou.”

The smile that hadappeared on Viktor’s face fades and falls away as Yuuri pulls his shirt off. Hedoesn’t meet Yuuri’s eyes. “Go on then.”

“What if I hadn’tbeen me?” Yuuri says. “What if I was a hostile agent? Is that really how youwant your legacy to end? Shot dead in a dumpster without any grace, like asavage animal needing to be put down?”

“I assure you,”Viktor says smoothly. “It is much harder than it looks to appear graceful onceyou’ve been shot.”

“And whose fault isthat?” Yuuri snaps.

A muscle inViktor’s jaw moves.

Yuuri uses hisswitchblade to cut up Viktor’s shirt into long strips and binds his wound. It’swet enough to bleed through immediately, and Yuuri adds the bloodied edge offhis jacket to sop up the blood. “I’m not free of blame, either,” Yuuri says.“Half of my anger is directed at myself.”

He ties the cloth alittle too tight and Viktor winces. “We’re both being stupid about this,” Yuurisays. He takes a breath. “Somewhere along the way, we forgot other people wereinvolved in this game. You can’t waltz into my country without taking a bulletand I can’t walk out on my mission just because I’m irritated about my assignedposition. We both have to play by the rules.”

“I am angry,” Yuurisays, “because I am scared. You’re my idol, someone I’ve admired and loved forabout as long as I can remember. And I almost lost you tonight, in part becauseof me. I made you do something reckless and stupid.”

“You didn’t make medo anything,” Viktor says.

“No, but I’m stillthe reason,” Yuuri presses. “You’re not here because the KGB wanted you to be.You’re here because you asked to be put here. Because of me.”

“You can’t blameyourself for my mistakes,” Viktor says.

Yuuri huffs. “Don’tlet me off so easily. I’m blaming you for my mistakes. For example, how Isomehow thought it was a good idea to rescue you and defy the entirety ofHasetsu.”

“Well, I’mcertainly grateful,” Viktor says.

“Stop it,” Yuurisays. “You’re making me fond of you again. I’m trying to be mad.”

“You’re lovely whenyou’re mad,” Viktor says. “Turns me on a little, actually.”

“And just likethat, I’m no longer fond.”

Viktor laughs underhis breath and leans his head against Yuuri’s arm. “C’mon, let that tension outof your body. Too much tension makes an agent sloppy, didn’t they teach that toyou in school?”

Yuuri raises aneyebrow. “They taught me not to get myself shot.”

He helps Viktorinto his jacket and zips it up the front. Then he slides Viktor’s overcoat backon, being careful with his injured shoulder. With the coat adjusted and Yuuri’sjacket on underneath Viktor looked completely presentable and normal, if alittle unfashionable. He’d just have to be careful not to knock into anythingwith his arm.

“Ah,” Yuuri says.“I’m going to have to explain my jacket away somehow.”

“Say you thoughtyou had a tail and had to change clothing,” Viktor says. “It’ll explain theglasses too.”

Yuuri nods. “That’sgood,” he says. “If there are KGB operatives crawling around it’ll make yourdisappearance more likely.”

He pauses, thensighs. “It’s too good.”

“How so?” Viktor asks.

“I’m going to getaway with this,” Yuuri says. “I won’t be exposed as a traitor and you’re goingto live. It shouldn’t have worked out this well.”

“Perhaps some godis smiling on us,” Viktor suggests.

“Neither of usbelieve in a god with what we’ve seen,” Yuuri says. He pauses again. “We worktoo well together.”

“If I could remindyou of our argument when you rescued me…”

“You’re right,”Yuuri says, smiling. “We work well when you listen to me.”

“You could comewith me,” Viktor says.

Yuuri doesn’t breathe.That’s the issue, isn’t it? How easy it would be to dismiss his life in Hasetsuif only he could follow Viktor. He’d be out from under their thumb and Viktorwould be with him and he wouldn’t have to keep chasing him…it sounded like adream. And that was because it was a dream.

Yuuri isn’t stupid.To follow Viktor would mean trading his leash between masters, not freeing himof the chain. Under the KGB he’d still be a killer and trusted even less thanHasetsu trusted him now. Once you betrayed one organization, there was noreason you wouldn’t betray the new circle. And god knows that there’s no amountof money that can buy trust, especially when it came to spies.

“I couldn’t,” Yuurisays. “Don’t patronize me.”

Viktor smiles andpulls the coat tighter around him. “This is one-time deal, then?”

“Next time I maynot be so quick,” Yuuri says. “Don’t let there be a next time.”

“A pity,” Viktorsays. “I quite enjoyed our ceasefire.” He stands.

“I assume you havefriends that can locate you?” Yuuri asks.

Viktor nods.“You’ve bought me enough time. You better be heading back to your hotel, too.Don’t want to have your neck on the line for saving me; I couldn’t live withthe guilt.”

Yuuri doubts that.“I won’t be late,” he says. He stands up, too.

Something complicatedand emotional passes over Viktor’s face. His smile falls away and his eyebrowspull together. “Yuuri…” he says. “Thank you. This wasn’t…I know for a fact thatno one else outside the KGB would have done this for me. And I understand thelevel of personal risk this cost you. I…” He breaks off.

Yuuri doesn’t say youwould have done the same for me, because it isn’t true. Instead he says,“Don’t worry about it.”

“I think aboutyou,” Viktor says. “Constantly.”

Yuuri swallows. Hedoesn’t know what to do with that. “Do you muse about every man you miss achance to fuck?” He decides on.

“No,” Viktor says,and it means something.

Things are gettinga tad too dangerous. They are very, very alone and Viktor is being very, veryvulnerable. Yuuri always thought he’d be into Viktor leaning him over a desk,but now he’s thinking about pushing Viktor into a wall himself and the changein perspective is both heady and dizzying. Half of Yuuri wants to exploreViktor’s train of thought in great detail, but the other half knows this isprobably more dangerous than a gun pressed point blank against his sternum. Theright thing to do is run.

“You’re ViktorNikiforov,” Yuuri says. “You’ll figure it out.”

Viktor comes backinto himself. “Will I see you again?” He asks, putting on the drama.

“There’s achampionship in Rome, isn’t there?” Yuuri says. “I’ll see you around.”

He leaves first,taking the long way back to his hotel. His last glimpse of Viktor is the curlof his lip in a grin that says he’ll be there.

Of course, onceYuuri gets back to the hotel, short one jacket and most of his higher cognitivefunctions, he’s bombarded by his companions, his cheekiness forgotten. Minami,despite her short stature, is the biggest thing in the room, swinging her armsand gesturing how she spotted and shot Viktor. Phichit is on Yuuri like anoctopus, arm around his shoulders and legs kicked up into his lap the momentYuuri sits on the bed, dazed by the excitement in the room. It’s Yuuko whothinks of Yuuri’s feelings, more in tune to him than any of his other friends.

“We didn’t gethim,” she assures Yuuri.

It takes all ofYuuri’s willpower to not let out a satisfied, I know. He manages ahalfway believable, “Huh?”

“Takeshi and I,”Yuuko says. “He got away. I know it’s not—” She bites her lip and looks around,but Minami is entertaining Takeshi and Phichit on her own. “I know it’s notwhat I’m supposed to say. I know I’m supposed to be disappointed. But I careabout you. I wanted you to know he’s okay.”

“Thank you,” Yuurisays, and means it. It’s one thing to be a rebel out of some kind ofworship-love and a fundamental hatred of your profession but another thingaltogether to rebel because you care about your friend’s feelings, especiallywhen you have a family on the line. The higher-ups could use his family againstYuuri, but Yuuko had Takeshi, too.

“Oh!” Yuuko says.“You didn’t walk around that bare, did you? Where’s your jacket?”

They swallow hisstory about feeling as if he were being tailed fairly easily. The KGB were goodand Yuuri was lacking backup; it made sense that he’d try to evade and returnto base the long way to avoid compromising their security.

And just like that,he gets away with it. Minako doesn’t contact them again and Phichit isdismissed after a few hours of monitoring cameras around Osaka. Viktor escapeswith Yuuri’s help and neither of them face major consequences for it. Itshouldn’t be possible.

But skating bycomes at a cost. It makes Yuuri think that maybe he’s cleverer than he thoughthe was. It makes him think that if he does it once, he can do it again. Andmore than anything, it makes him replay his conversation with Viktor over andover again, carving his words and his tones into his heart so that he’s neverfar from Yuuri’s mind, even more than before.

———————————

“Shoot,” Phichitsays. “And here I thought I might actually win gold.”

As always when he’sin the public eye, Viktor is accompanied by a veritable entourage ofphotographers and journalists, all dying to get the right shot of or scoop onthe living legend in ice skating. He smiles easy at his fans and walks like agod into the rink, offering a wink at his collection of admirers. He’s exactlythe type of famous that screams ‘celebrity playboy heartbreaker’ and if Yuurihad a brain in his head, he would have turned his nose up at Viktor years ago.

Alas, childhoodimpressions stick, and his love for Viktor never stopped flourishing even withthe string of lovers that wandered in and out of Viktor’s bedroom who were allmuch more beautiful and famous than Yuuri could hope to be.

“He looks good,”Yuuri grumbles. What can he say? It’s a pain to be in love.

Viktor’s wearing slacksand a navy-blue sweater that had no business looking as good as it did on him.He reminds Yuuri of the graduate student he had a crush on for a while back atuniversity except he’s Viktor, so like, eight times as hot. His skin andhair have a healthy shine and he waves to the crowd with his left arm as if hisshoulder hadn’t been shattered and bleeding three months ago.

“He looks healthy,”Minami mutters.

(Yuuri makes aneffort not to hold that gunshot against her since she was only doing her job,but considering her recent bout of bloodlust directed almost exclusively atViktor, it was getting tough. She was like a bloodhound trailing her mark untilshe was able to finally sink her teeth into its vulnerable neck.)

(And yet, she alsomanaged to be almost unbearably soft and adorable. Her ability to manage bothparts of her personality and endear herself to Yuuri was quite frankly,frightening.)

It was fine,it was all just fine. Yuuri would sulk and pine on his side of the greatdivide between Team Japan and Team Russia and it would be fine. At hisside, Phichit’s hair is slicked back and like Minami, he’s hiding a fancifulcostume under his sweats and team jacket. Off talking to Celestino, Yuuko isalready wearing makeup and her hair is pulled back into a clean ponytail,looking every part the Madonna of Hasetsu she was famed for.

This is where Yuuribelonged, among these people. Viktor’s world was a sparkling, too-brightfantasy land and he would be better off if he stopped remembering Viktoroffering to take him back to Russia. He belonged to late nightpizza-and-a-movie dates with Phichit, to ballet with Yuuko, to sparring withTakeshi, and to hair barrette makeovers with Minami. They were rough around theedges, but they were as close to a family as he was going to get in his line ofwork.

It’s almostunfortunate that Viktor catches Yuuri’s eye then, just when he’s about to turnback to his companions and leave Viktor alone. Viktor doesn’t just shoot Yuuria wink though—he stops altogether, holding Yuuri’s gaze and tilting his head asif to say, you were looking at me?

Stupid Viktor,Yuuri thinks, distantly. I’m always looking at you.

Viktor smilesslowly, sinfully. Oh, that smile was full of so much knowledge—ofhimself, of his charm, of Yuuri’s gaze and Yuuri’s desire for him. Yuuri feelshis cheeks heat up and he nearly looks away. But then Viktor blows him a littlekiss and he feels his stomach drop to his feet and then come rocketing back upinto his heart that throbs in response.

And then, as if itwere nothing, Viktor looks away and continues on his way.

Yuuri’s jaw drops.He watches Viktor walk away with his head held high, face morphing into ahalf-crazed smile. He huffs a laugh. He wouldn’t be Viktor if he didn’t keepsurprising Yuuri though, would he?

The one thing that keeps my blood pumping, that keepssurprising me, that reminds me I’m truly alive…

“Oh? That’s adangerous look,” Phichit says, slinging an arm around Yuuri’s shoulders. Heleans in close. “What were our orders again? Non…non…”

“Non-fraternization,”Yuuri finishes for him. “I know, I know. I’m not going to try anything. I justwant to watch.”

“Good,” Phichitsays, scrubbing his head. “The last thing I want is for you to be in doghouseagain. If you want to interact with Viktor, why don’t you snatch the gold fromhim?”

Wasn’t that your goal? Yuuri wants to say, but he smiles. He appreciates Phichit’s nagging,though. It meant he was being looked after.

#yoi #viktuuri #victuuri #fics #-w-#i'll finish it one day #i will #anon

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