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cle1024 · 5 years

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dead loss | hhj

member: hwang hyunjin

genre: fluff, angst

summary: life was an exhausting and pointless ride for hyunjin, but you managed to make it a little more bearable while you could. delinquent!au, friends to lovers!au, coming of age!au

warnings: smoking, alcoholism, swearing, violence, death, drug-dealing (no usage), lots of illegal stuff my dudes

disclaimer: there are ships within this story. i am NOT trying to force these relationships on any of the boys, nor am i trying to use them as anything other than an aspect of the story. these are purely fictitious scenarios and relationships, i feel the need to add this disclaimer because some people take ships w a y too far (insisting they’re real to the point where it’s uncomfortable and borderline fetishising) and i don’t want to come across as one of those people.

a/n: anyway i’m gonna go disappear for another 5+ months

Life in a small town was peaceful in the outsider’s perspective ― everyone knew everyone, there was a strong sense of community and unbreakable bond built on reliability and trust. People who believed that shit clearly didn’t live in a small town, or at least not your small town. No, in your hometown everyone was a stranger. If you look at them for too long ― alternatively referred to as “looking at them the ‘wrong way’” ― they wouldn’t hate to get aggressive, borderline violent or just straight up violent. There was no trust in this town, how can you trust a stranger? It was a shady and hopeless area that people struggled to escape. Many of you have accepted your future, stuck in this abysmal hellhole, but some things just aren’t easy to come to terms with―especially when you hate the future you’ll inevitably be trapped in.

A slight metallic scent tainted the air as Hyunjin leaned against the wooden planks of the treehouse, a huff passing his busted lips. He had managed to drag his sorry ass back to the rickety treehouse after sending a simple text to you ― something optimistic and charming: “im going to fucking die. treehouse” ― in the hopes you would come fix his wounds. That’s what you always did after Hyunjin had been in a fight, regardless of whether he asked you to or not. Though he had to ask you this time, even if it was the ass crack of dawn, because he genuinely thought he was going to die any second now. At this point, he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d used all of his energy in the fight, his wounds bled too much, or the result of not sleeping in thirty-seven hours. Hyunjin didn’t think he really cared about dying, everyone has to go at some point, but he did care about whether he would be in pain or alone when he died―and right now, he was both. There was a faint pattering of footsteps in the dewy grass, growing louder until they were gently working their way up the wooden ladder to the treehouse. Hyunjin opened his eyes lazily, watching as you pulled yourself up and into the structure. He smirked slightly and wheezed out a chuckle, “on a scale of one to ten, how dateable am I right now?” You stared at him blankly, scanning over his injuries before huffing slightly and shifting towards him.

“Losing fights isn’t a personality trait, dipshit.”

“Yeah, but it makes me seem like a bad boy, huh?” Hyunjin chuckled hoarsely at your immediate eye roll, tilting his head to give you better access to his bleeding face wounds. He winced softly as pressure was applied to the bloody mark on the top of his cheek, a fresh bruise blooming under his soft skin. He couldn’t see all of his wounds, but he could undeniably feel them. His cheek was bruised and bleeding, his bottom lip was busted with blood seeping into his mouth occasionally―he was just loving that―while there were numerous pains to his abdomen, mainly in his ribs and lower stomach.

“Jeez, you need to stop picking fights you can’t win,” the corners of his lips twitched upwards momentarily, a tinge of smugness painting the action.

“This is the prime of my life, darling.”

You scoffed at his excuse, “yeah, you’ll only be young once but you’ll be stupid for the rest of your life, Hwang.”

“Touche,” he shrugged nonchalantly as your eyes widened in mock offence.

“Oh, do you want to bleed some more?” The two of you chuckled at the threat, though Hyunjin’s sounded much more breathless and painful than yours did.

“Nah, only other people are allowed to hurt me. How else would I get your attention at night?” Hyunjin’s comment elicited another eyeroll and soft smile from you. He knew you’d drop everything to be with him, regardless of how sleep-deprived it made you, because that’s what friends did.

Hyunjin is a delinquent, down to the very definition: “(typically of a young person) tending to commit crime, particularly minor crime.” He does that a fair bit, stealing from different shops run by tired and aging people who can’t be arsed to chase after the mischievous teenager. He smokes, despite his youth, but won’t take a swig of alcohol ― something Jisung often laughs at him for, but that boy was a borderline alcoholic. The tall boy also happened to be involved in fights at least one a fortnight, you sometimes have the displeasure of witnessing them and almost always have the duty of taking care of him afterwards―no one else was willing to do it. You don’t approve of Hyunjin’s lifestyle, frankly you never have, but you know he has his reasons. Besides, he’s a stubborn boy and wouldn’t change even if you tried to force him. He’s reckless and usually impulsive, which became undeniably obvious when he was fifteen, stood in front of a train until the last second so he could dodge it, all with the undying support of his former enemy Jisung ― “You got this, man!”

“All he’s got is a one-way ticket to the afterlife,” you’d deadpanned, earning a scoff from the other boy.

“As Teddy Duchamp once said, ‘train dodge, dig it’.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t stay around long enough to dodge it, nor is he a real person!”

At the end of the day, it really didn’t matter how Hyunjin acted, he would still be your best friend. He’d filled that position since the two of you were kids, it came naturally when you lived one street away from each other and had fathers with a similar friendly relationship―until work got the best of them. Now they don’t have enough time for their children, let alone each other. They differed in some ways: your father harbours expectations far too high for you, meaning he spends most of his free time reprimanding you for not trying hard enough, whereas Hyunjin’s father was always busy and didn’t really care for his son. As a result, Hyunjin spent most of his time away from home, locked inside that treehouse his father built for him and his childhood friends ― many of them had moved on to other things: moved away, became too good for him, or died, but you and Minho always stuck around, later adding Jisung to the bunch when he and Hyunjin outgrew their petty mutual hatred. Smoking, playing cards or watching scenery while he played with a lighter, it was enough for Hyunjin.

Sometimes you think about Jisung and Hyunjin’s weird friendship, it’s an evolution you all laughed about from time to time. When the pair were younger, the age of twelve during middle school to be exact, they harboured a burning mutual hatred that continuously burdened their mutual friends ― namely upperclassman Lee Minho; at least, he was the only one of the bunch who stuck around. There was an incident where the pair were ready to throw hands at one another, but Minho and some of his older friends stepped in and told them to squash it, even if momentarily. After Jisung aided Hyunjin in a fight with some older boys from the next town over, the two sparked a short-lived ��frenemies’ type of relationship ― of course the older boys weren’t scared of two kids who had only just figured out the ego-boost of developing muscle, they were more fearful of Jisung’s older brother as they knew damn well how ruthless he could be; they didn’t want the risk of dealing with someone from the same genes, but Hyunjin and Jisung maintained it was their intimidation that warded the boys off. Jisung initially brushed off Hyunjin’s thanks, but there was a definite shift in their relationship: their sharp insults became sarcastic remarks that garnered a teasing response after the other, then after one incident they were friends. Hyunjin never told you the specifics of the incident and you never pushed, but it was essentially Hyunjin paying back Jisung for saving his ass ― though you later found out the only threat to Jisung at the time was himself. Regardless, Jisung and Hyunjin had discovered their compatibility and Minho had never been happier to see drama fizzle out. He wasn’t a fan of such petty disagreements, “all problems can be solved in this world, either with a fist or verbal expression.”

“Are you recommending violence?”

“It’s still honest communication.”

Lee Minho was truly one of a kind―all three of them were, but it was their varying ability to believe in themselves that set them apart the most.

The Hwang boy was smart, but he had no faith in himself. At the age of fifteen he’d already accepted that he wouldn’t go far academically, telling you “I’ll become one of those tradies that gets wolf whistled when I’m trying to do my job, and no one will say a damn thing because I’m a male,” you could remember him taking a short drag of the nicotine stick, “that’s my inevitable future.” That was one of the many ways you contrasted Hyunjin. You wanted to make your father finally accept you as his child again, and the only way to do that seemed to be success ― but at this point you weren’t sure what that looked like in his eyes; everything you perceived as a success was a comical failure to him. You didn’t smoke ― you tried once when you were fourteen and found it dreadful ― and you certainly didn’t shoplift chocolate bars or ‘train dodge’ like Hyunjin, but you still had your downfalls. Rather, you bury yourself in work you couldn’t understand, got pent up over the possibility of failure, and then turned it all in like nothing ever happened―nothing’s wrong. There was a lot wrong, Hyunjin and you both knew it, but neither ever voiced it. All you wanted was to make your father proud, but you always wanted to run away from this godforsaken town and never come back. Hyunjin wanted you to stay around, the kid couldn’t afford to lose another person in his life, but he knew it was your choice at the end of the day―you had to do what was best for you. It was just difficult to accept. It was like life had kicked Hyunjin and rolled all over him, yet you managed to bring a tiny little spark of life in his soul, something that brought him to carry on. You were his rock, you understood him more than he understood himself most of the time. He loved you, not romantically, but in the way people who have no one else who get it love each other, you know?

He realised he loved you in that way when he was thirteen, after he had his first existential debate with you ― it became a monthly tradition after that: one night you’d silently climb into the treehouse with puffy eyes and a red-tinged face, and he’d never question it because he knew you’d tell him it was fine. Then you’d wonder what happens after death and where you went. Hyunjin had always been firm on the idea there was a Heaven and Hell due to his long standing religious beliefs, and he always assumed he was going to Hell, but those midnight talks always made him realise just how unsure he was about everything ― he didn’t know what or who to believe, but he eventually decided he probably didn’t need to.

Hyunjin realised he had fallen in love with you when you were sixteen, after Jisung and Minho had convinced the two of you to spend your Saturday doing an ‘adventurous hike’ with them ― you didn’t know it at the time, but the two had found out some pricey drugs had been dropped in the woods, and neither of them were in a situation to refuse the money that would come with selling those substances. The two boys were energetically bounding ahead of you and the tallest boy, Hyunjin and yourself dawdling on the train tracks to avoid any shattered glass mixed in with the gravel surrounding the rails, trying your best to avoid being cut through the thin and worn soles of your shoes. Hyunjin squinted at the sunlight, distracted by his own thoughts and daydreams, too distracted to realise Jisung and Minho had stopped dead in his tracks. He bumped into the older of the two, startling him back to reality with confusion, “dude, what the fu―” his voice trailed off as he watched five men ― as in full grown, adult, ‘probably from a gang’ type of men ― snarl at the four of you. Though, their eyes seemed to be trained on Minho.

“Lee Minho. You said you wouldn’t come around here anymore, didn’t you?”

For the first time in his life, Hyunjin saw genuine fear on Minho’s frame as he shifted his eyes and gulped softly; clearly they’d made a grave mistake.

“Y-yeah,” for you, that was the moment you became alarmed. Lee Minho, the self-proclaimed ‘King of Confidence’, doesn’t stutter, “I know, man. I-I must’ve lost track of where we were, you won’t see me around here anymore. I’m not here to cause you any trouble, nothin’ like that,” he spoke rapidly, desperation seeping through his usually nonchalant tone. One of the men eyed the four of you suspiciously, straining his vision on you for far too long―Hyunjin sensed it, pulling you out of his line of vision with a glare. He was always one to protect his friends, reckless enough to put himself in danger to do so, it was nothing new for any of you.

“I better not see you around these parts anymore, Lee. You got it?” Minho nodded firmly, “good. Now go,” the man waved his hand in a dismissive motion, “run along with your friends.”

To Hyunjin, Jisung and yourself, that was your que to turn around and never look back; but Minho knew these men, you didn’t. The oldest knew it would never be that simple, and that became evident when he saw the shining tip of a dagger being pulled from one of their pockets. The four of you reacted fast, running purely on fear; Minho frantically pushed whoever he could reach, without looking, in the opposite direction, urging you to run as fast as you could to get the fuck out of there. Hyunjin grabbed your wrist securely, tugging you in the other direction and refusing to slow down for a second, even when he heard Minho and Jisung yelling distantly. Your legs slowed down slightly until the both of you stopped in your tracks, much to the dismay of Hyunjin.

“Hyunjin, we have to go back.”

“They can handle themselves, Y/N.”

“We can’t just leave them!” You pleaded, gesturing to the distant figures of your two friends.

“And I can’t lose you!” Hyunjin yelled back, startling you into a momentary silence. It was built on uncertainty, confusion and hung heavily in the air for a few seconds, until the sound of approaching footsteps, the sound of frantic running to be exact, and Minho’s frantic yells of “move your fucking asses! Run!” broke the tranquility.

You didn’t find out what Jisung and Minho had argued about until you were twenty-one years old and attending Minho’s funeral: “When I was sixteen, he was going to risk his life to save myself and my two other friends. We yelled at each other; I couldn’t leave him behind to get beat up or blatantly killed by the people who confronted us, but he couldn’t let me in harms way. I only found out why he cared so much and risked his everything, all the time, three years after it happened. But, that’s a secret we all promised to take to the grave.”

All four of you promised to keep that secret ― you’d all promised Minho that you wouldn’t out him, have his parents disown him during or after his life, and you all took that to the grave. Jisung lost the ability to love romantically when he was twenty-one; he’d given it all to Minho and allowed it to be buried with him. He wouldn’t have it any other way, though.

You were officially eighteen and two months, not that the months meant anything. Both you and Hyunjin were anxious about turning nineteen, yet he didn’t want to voice it and destroy the wall he’d built around a certain part of himself―his fears. Being nineteen meant he had to act like an adult: get a job, support his family until his parents found out he had enough money to survive on his own and kick him out, settle down and have his whole life figured out. Nineteen would mean the death of his youth: no more skipping chemistry because it was insufferable or only showing up for woodwork classes, no more train dodging because it was ‘immature’, no more stealing or the shop owners would actually make an effort to ensure his actions had repercussions since he was no longer a delinquent teen. The worst of all was the thought of losing his friends; he already saw Minho significantly less than he used to due to his two jobs ― a barber during the daylight and a bartender during the hours between ― Jisung would probably continue secretly writing poetry ― though the three of you secretly knew he did it ― and work as a truck driver, or something, to escape the dullness of your hometown for a little bit. You, Y/N the bright one, would probably go on to do great things with your life and be added to the list of friends he lost due to not being good enough anymore. Hyunjin wasn’t sure whether you or Jisung felt the same ― Minho excluded since he was already passed nineteen, with Jisung endearingly referring to him as ‘hag’ ― and a part of him didn’t want to know because he didn’t really want to think about it. Of course, that didn’t stop it from being the only thing on his mind twenty-four-seven. Hyunjin groaned inwardly; losing friends. You were just a friend. Hyunjin couldn’t help but scold himself. He could steal from stores without a second thought, stand in front of trains without fear, yet he couldn’t admit his feelings to you. Then again, your friendship spanned across most of his life, and losing that would mean he would lose you. And, frankly, you were the only thing that mattered to him in life. His parents neglected him, other friends had abandoned him over time or just failed to be there for him, but you never left. You stayed, even when you became far more intelligent than him and practically radiated potential. No matter how much he wanted to, he wouldn’t dare risk losing that. He couldn’t lose you, he’d told you that before ― although, when he thought about it, and he absolutely thought about it, he’d lose you regardless of what he did or didn’t say.

But, he had to put those thoughts aside. It was a fresh summer, after all, and there was supposedly no room for sadness in summer. There was only room for happiness, laughter, good vibes, getting high on the good vibes, or just getting high and conforming to the sickly summertime syndrome people were often infected with. Thus, Hyunjin had tried to spend the new season conforming to such a syndrome―excluding the fight where he was beaten within an inch of his life and had you fix him up, that probably didn’t fit the mold of a fun summer. It’d been successful to an extent ― the local pool had far too many people, including neglectful mothers attempting to flirt with the underage lifeguard Kim Sunwoo, and the beach was littered with shattered glass, plastic and cigarette ash mixed amongst the sand ― but the weather was still nice, and Hyunjin did play a soccer game in the park last weekend. That was it, though. The rest of his time was spent mowing the lawns of other houses for some extra cash, pocketing cherry lollipops and dealing decks of fifty-two cards for games that would be inevitably cheated in―like you were now. Hyunjin, Jisung and Minho were in a heated game of Go Fish, a cigarette dangling from Hyunjin’s plush lips and intoxicating the midday air, while you half-focused on the game in amusement, half-focused on the dusty comic book you’d flicked your way through. It’d been buried under many other prints of various comics, all neglected as time and puberty had lowered your interest in the bright illustrations. You couldn’t remember ever reading this one though, it was probably one of the rare collections Hyunjin refused to share through his childhood. A huff passed the lips of the oldest as he lost yet again, mumbling something about disrespectful youths and how they had obviously cheated. Jisung snickered, earning a wack in the gut from an agitated Minho. He scooted over to sit beside you, reading over your shoulder in an attempt to show his disinterest in the card game ― though it really just made him look like a sore loser, and it was quite clear he had zero interest in the childish story you held. A frustrated groan sounded as he threw his head back against the wall, as dramatic as ever.

“I want to go outside,” he complained.

Hyunjin scoffed, “there’s the door,” gesturing to the entrance with sass.

“No,” Minho hissed and narrowed his eyes. Man, he was really spending too much time with those cats, “I want to go outside outside. Like, camping or something.”

Jisung threw his hands up in defeat, “well, why didn’t you say so!” He exclaimed in exasperation, “I’ve got everything you need to go camping! No one in my house uses it.”

Oh, Jisung’s house. What a nightmare that was―or, rather, looked like. It was dilapidated with a rusty truck parked in the driveway, a large shed in the back acting as storage for years of hoarding, of course there’d be something for camping in there. Jisung had once told you that most of the stuff in the shed belonged to past owners who never returned to get it and he’d, for some reason, seen it as a tradition that has to be carried through each owner. You didn’t press the idea or criticise it, the boy seemed really excited about it after all.

“Welcome to my shed of wonders!” Jisung introduced. It was so, so, dusty. You were almost certain some of the junk within the metal sheathing dated back to the 19th century, maybe the 18th if you really analysed the dilapidated furniture and crumbling artefacts. Jisung hummed in thought, “there’s gotta be a tent in here somewhere…” He strolled into the shed, seeming to know exactly what to move and how far. The rest of you stared at the collection in awe―you kind of understood why Jisung prided himself on the contents of his shed, some of those things would make a good buck on Antiques Roadshow and keeping them must’ve given Jisung some sort of positive emotional release, perhaps a feeling of “I have a get rich quick scheme, I’m just choosing to be poor”. Probably made him feel better when people gave him crap for not being able to afford cool toys as a kid. You’d never seen the torment Jisung received, nor did he ever desire to speak about it, but Minho had been vocal numerous times in his distaste for the way the younger was treated. Jisung had a heart of gold, something Hyunjin could acknowledge even when they didn’t get along. He was the kind of boy who deserved nothing but greatness; he was destined for greatness. You could always pray the town didn’t suck the potential out of him, as it did to most others, but you knew those kinds of prayers go unanswered. Jisung’s epiphanic “a-ha!” derailed your thought train, your eyes shifting to see the brunette male pulling a large tent from one of the many, almost overflowing, storage units.

Hyunjin squinted his eyes in confusion, “how did you even find that?”

“It looks a hundred years old,” Minho added.

The youngest male rolled his eyes at their comments, dusting off the green tent. An excited smile graced his face as he turned to face the three of you, “alright, where should we go?”

The sun beat down on you, a light sheen of sweat glistening over your burning skin. How long had it been? Thirty minutes, an hour, two hours? You hadn’t a clue. The last time you ventured down railway tracks you ended up running in fear of men who had a vendetta against Minho―for reasons you’d soon find out. The oldest had evidently learned his lesson, guiding everyone in the opposite direction and away from any men with reasons to stab him for walking in their ‘territory’. Hyunjin dawdled beside you, eyes trailing the railway the four of you walked along. Minho was leading the group, Jisung chewing his ear off in a conversation that probably didn't interest the older, something about the spirits in the woods you were approaching. You could barely make out the faint scoff that passed Minho’s lips, but the younger seemed to hear it clear as day.

“I’m serious! If we don’t get murdered in our tents then we get murked by demons in these damn woods!”

“Is there an outcome where we don’t die on this trip?” Hyunjin questioned with amusement, effectively closing the younger’s mouth and halting more words from spilling out. Minho rolled his eyes at the short bickering, trudging through the forest with an impatient yell, “come on! I want to get there before the sun sets.” It was a dark and dank environment, the air felt musty and thick around your lungs. Trees were overgrown, roots seeping along the dirt trail and serving as tripping hazards. Light dimmed under the cavern of green leaves, yet shadows still managed to dance in the slivers of golden rays. It was tranquil, but also unnerving. In retrospect, it was probably the childhood tales of drug deals gone wrong that put you on edge. Even if it was pure fiction, naive belief was enough to trick your mind into feeling unsafe, watched, hunted. If you ventured alone your fear would have pushed you to the other side of the trail at a much faster pace than you currently maintained, but, of course, you weren’t without company. The aura of discomfort and fear gently wafted in the air ― stronger from the likes of yourself and Jisung, though minimal to non-existent from the two other males. Those two had been fearless since you met them―Hyunjin stood in front of trains for an adrenaline rush! Then again, you weren’t entirely sure as to whether that was fearlessness or recklessness. They were one and the same to that boy.

The group passed through the forest until you found a clearing, a large field with a distant fence to halt you from further adventuring. It appeared to be the outskirts of town, past where anyone would travel for purposes other than hiking or illegal business. Hyunjin stood still with his hands rested on his hips, observing the area, “oh, this’ll do. This’ll do just fine.”

Your eyes rolled at the antics of your best friend, trust Hyunjin to say something straight out of an 80s movie―at least, it sounded like it would be. Jisung strolled ahead, hot on the heels of Hyunjin as they ventured through the long grass. Minho eyed the ground suspiciously, hesitance floating through his orbs before mumbling, “there better not be any snakes around here.” His words clearly weren’t as quiet as he had hoped, as Jisung stumbled away from the grass with a sharp gasp at the announcement. A huff passed Hyunjin’s lips at the other boys’ dramatics, causing you to shift an eyebrow in question―he had no right to be judgemental, he was the most dramatic of all.

“Chill out, you buffoons. There’s short grass ahead, we’ll set up there,” well, that made sense. Clearing his throat awkwardly, Jisung stumbled to his feet and worked to catch up with Hyunjin’s footsteps.

The process of setting up a tent had been… difficult, to say the least ― “Jisung, how the fuck do we set this up?” “Just read the instructions?” “They’re in Russian!” ― though the four of you eventually managed to successfully pitch the tent. Though, in all honesty, the sun had started to set by the time it was standing. That was at least an hour ago. Now, you lay still in your sleeping bags and mumbled descriptions of distant memories and under-developed universal theories.

“Hyunjin, move your irritatingly long legs so they’re resting somewhere other than my feet,” Minho grumbled.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Your mind wandered back to the adventures of that day, dawdling across train tracks and praying none of the smoking vehicles came running up behind you. The memory struck you like lightning; you remembered the time you dawdled down the wrong train tracks and ran for your life. A slight laugh passed your lips at the image of your younger self frantically running, “hey, do you remember when we tried to almost got murked by that gang on the outskirts of town?” Hyunjin mumbled an agreement, a fond smile on his face. Jisung piped up to laugh about how he almost ‘shit his lungs out of his ass’. Although you were able to laugh now, you all knew there was nothing funny about the primal fear you felt in that moment. The fear of the unknown; of death. Silence settled over the four of you momentarily before Minho voiced new information softly.

“I almost killed one of them.”

Jisung just about shot up in his sleeping bag, “what?” he exclaimed.

Minho maintained his characteristic calm composure as he explained, “yeah, it was a few months before we went down there. I was still hanging out with Hongjoong and that gang,” ah, the days of Minho being a gang. They were fond―somewhat fond―memories, “one of them had beat up Mingi, got the wrong guy or something, so Hongjoong and I went after him.”

In all honesty, you never knew Kim Hongjoong very well, nor did you remember much about him. You were never close with him and he’d moved away before any sort of friendship could bud, but you knew Song Mingi well―rather, you knew of him. He was a bubbly kid, tall and friendly with a goofy smile. There was something about him that exuded innocence and happiness, like he was crafted by embers of the burning yellow ball in the sky.

“We didn’t mean to get him that bad, but we couldn’t stop ourselves,” Minho mumbled softly, his mind wandering off to a different space as he blurted out the words, “Mingi didn’t do anything.”

The three of you shared a look before turning back to focus on the oldest, his face blank as his eyes clouded over with thought, concern, nostalgia. Hyunjin cleared his throat awkwardly, “well, it’s in the past now. We learnt to never travel down those tracks again,” he shifted around in his sleeping bag and closed his eyes.

Jisung had proposed the idea of keeping someone on lookout, claiming he didn’t want to get “fucking murked by a coyote or something”. There was the initial suggestion of taking shifts, but Jisung didn’t seem willing to take up the role and Minho said he was “too old to skip sleep”. Hyunjin didn’t give you a chance before saying he’d stay up all night ― of course he wasn’t actually planning on staying up all night, just until Jisung had knocked out for long enough to be unaware of the lack of surveillance. It didn’t matter, though, you both ended up out there after you tossed and turned for a solid thirty minutes. The wind was howling, the tent thrashing from side-to-side at the sharp movements of air. Hyunjin sighed with discontent, “why didn’t we check the forecast before we left?” A light chuckle passed your chapped lips.

“Because the forecast is never correct,” Hyunjin rolled his eyes at your matter-a-fact tone, a slight smile gracing his moonlit features. It was very clear in that moment — and many others, if you were being honest with yourself — why so many girls had thrown themselves at him over the years. All of that started in your first year of school, when a pigtailed girl claimed it was Hyunjin’s neat cursive writing that attracted her, not his cute face—of course that was a crock of shit, it had always been about Hyunjin’s face. It shouldn’t have been, but people were shallow like that.

His visuals had never crossed your mind, not until your early teenage years at least. You were thirteen when it first struck you, bundled up in sleeping bags in your best friend’s lounge room watching some teen movie. It wasn’t something you focused on, your eyes had drifted to your giggly friend and refused to move. His hair was black, dark eyes curved into crescent moons as he attempted to stifle laughter at the current scene. Skin smooth, blue winter pyjama shirt buttoned up to the collar and a pillow clutched between his arms. With a tilted head, he turned and stared back at you with curiosity, “what is it?”

You look perfect. “Nothing,” you smiled tightly.

“What are you thinking about?” The question passed Hyunjin’s lip in a voice of honey and warmth, comforting in the midst of the vicious whipping wind.

You shrugged slightly as you formulated an excuse, “just the future. What I’ll do after school,” Hyunjin hummed solemnly. He didn’t like talking about the future, mainly because it brought in thoughts of losing everyone and everything he’s ever loved. He didn’t want to think about a world where that happened, even if it was inevitable, though the words manage to spill out before he could catch them.

“Will I ever lose you?”

You were dumbfounded. Lose you? Of course he’d never lose you, “how could you ever lose me? I won’t let you, Hwang,” you attempted to brighten the glum atmosphere.

Picking at his cuticles, he shrugged his shoulders slightly, “I’m not good enough for you, I’ll never be enough for you.” A frown formed on your lips at Hyunjin’s pessimism, eyebrows furrowing in satisfaction and sadness. You never knew he felt so little of himself.

“Hey,” the word was spoken gently from your lips, hands reaching out to cup Hyunjin’s face and turn him towards you. He still had a scratch on his lip from that last fight he was in, “you are more than you think, Hyunjin. So much more,” the glaze of your eyes held such sincerity and honesty, “you can do anything you want, man,” yet Hyunjin still couldn’t make himself believe you.

Eyes downcast, “yeah,” he mumbled distantly, “anything.”

The four of you walked home in a comfortable silence the next morning, accepting it would be the last time any of you felt this free.

At the age of twenty-one, Jisung became distant. It was understandably so, Minho had been found dead and was buried within a week of the discovery. There was no proper time to grieve about the loss, everyone expected you to go back to work as if nothing had changed—nothing’s wrong. Everything was wrong, so fucking wrong. Jisung and Minho were never ‘official’ because neither of them had the bravery to face discrimination for being something other than straight. You never knew whether Minho was homosexual or bisexual, even pansexual maybe, but it never mattered. All you could wish was that he was happy, at least once, before he was laid to rest. Jisung closed himself off, became a silent and reclusive man who lived on the outskirts of town. He was a truck driver, swinging between different towns before inevitably returning to the one that seemed to have something against him. It sucked the life from him, it took everything from him; he hated that fucking town. You didn’t see him after Minho’s funeral, not in the way friends see each other, at least. Of course you’d spot him in town occasionally, exiting his house or driving back home after weeks away. Yet, you never spoke a word to him. Never said a ‘hi’, never wanted to speak in case it pushed him too far—broke him, if you will. Rather, you let him seclude himself and suffocate in loneliness; if only you didn’t make that foolish mistake.

When you were twenty-three you bid your goodbyes to Hyunjin, planning to move away and pursue a career that, frankly wouldn’t make you happy, but it would give you enough money to pay rent for a good place. That’s all you really needed, you supposed. Hyunjin bid his last goodbyes with a letter. It was written in his beautiful handwriting, the calligraphy style he liked to brag when he was younger, but seemed to have forgotten about as he emerged into his teenage years — he never forgot, he still prided himself on such perfect penmanship. It was a letter that contained words you never expected your best friend to say, though always secretly hoped to hear. It was a letter that slapped you across the face for being so blind and cowardly. It was a letter about how he fell in love with you, too hard and too fast, and how he always knew you’d be too good for him, one way or another. You hated when Hyunjin put himself down with such words, but you hated knowing that you caused most of them. The boy was incomparable, so unique and one-of-a-kind. There would never be another Hyunjin in your life, never one to take your heart and treat it as his own. Hyunjin was more than he thought. So, so much more.

“I love you, more than you know. In more ways than a platonic-friendship-type of love. The kind of romantic love that’s, probably, unrequited,” Hyunjin, you foolish boy, your love has never been unrequited.

Perhaps you were the fool, not Hyunjin, for keeping your mouth shut about your secret attraction for years. Heaving a sigh, your hands folded the letter closed, you were such a fool.

In your life, you had three great friends that taught you many lessons — many lessons they failed to learn themselves.

Minho often preached about staying true to who you are, exuding confidence in your identity and being fearless of others. Yet he failed to accept who he was, though that was fair enough in your opinion. He had his own struggles, many struggles, but never wanted to confront them. Minho never wanted to confront, let alone accept, the possibility of being subjectively weak; he struggled under the pressure to conform to masculinity—no weaknesses whatsoever. Gosh, that boy was one of the strongest you knew. One of the kindest, too, a heart of gold, truly. That boy didn’t deserve to die, none of your friends did.

Jisung often told you to be careful with your feelings, yet easily gave his away to Minho. The boy had always had an eye for detail, noticing the veins in leaves and miniscule dirt stains on a vintage photograph in his shed, but he tended to overlook the bigger ideas. The things that were right in front of him, you supposed. He failed to notice how he gave away his feelings to one person so easily. He never noticed that he left no room for the regrowth or reacquisition of those feelings, but maybe he just didn’t care. Minho made him feel so peaceful and at ease, how could he find it within him to care?

Hyunjin, where did you start with Hyunjin? Your friend since childhood, your first love, someone you’d never be able to forget—someone you’d never allow yourself to forget. He taught you to be bold, a little reckless to spice up life — though not ‘stand in front of a train’ type of recklessness. He spent years teaching you to overcome your struggles, though you felt as if you failed to tend to his. Of course, he’d never see it that way, but he was head over heels for you. Just as you were for him. The boy had always been talented, insanely so, with perfect handwriting and a unique perspective on the inner workings of life, ambitions and dreams. There was so much potential held inside his body, marked with scars and bruises from the fights he’d had through the years. He’d always told you to never settle for anything less than perfect. Perhaps that’s why he never wanted you to settle for him: he never saw himself as perfect. You wanted him to do the same, go as far as he possibly can to fulfil his limitless potential. But, that didn’t happen—life could never treat him kindly. Hyunjin never made it out of that shitty town. It pained you to think about it — he could’ve been anything, anyone. He had so much potential, yet that place sucked it away and kept him in an iron grip. When you thought about it, you realised none of your friends got lucky like you. One way or another, they all stayed in that town—dead or alive, it didn’t matter, they all remained. Many would’ve seen that as luck being on your side, but without at least one of them by your side—without Hyunjin by your side—what was the point of going?

Walking back into that town had never felt so eerie. Nothing was the same as you remembered. Visually, nothing changed, yet at the same time everything had changed. You were no longer a young adult searching for opportunities, no longer a teenager stressing over school work, or dragging yourself to the treehouse in the middle of the night to tend to Hyunjin’s wounds. You wondered if that thing was still intact. That’s not why you were back in town, far from it, but something ate away at you. Was your rickety hangout still standing? Or had it fallen apart after all of you left, in more than one way.

There was no noise coming from within the wooden confines of the treehouse. You were glad it was still there, even if no one used it. It felt like you were running on autopilot, your feet guiding you up the ladder as you opened the hatch to pull yourself into the space. You swore it was bigger than this. Eyes darted around, taking in the old drawings on the walls, outdated comics and dusty packs of cards. Nothing had changed. You gasped, startled, as you made eye contact with another person, sat in a slightly slumped position across from you. The corner of their lip was slightly bloody, a cigarette dangling from the other side. A reminiscent smirk crawled on their lips, it couldn’t be.

“Long time no see, darling,” he hadn’t changed one bit, “and just in time! You can patch me up before the service.”

There was a bitterness in his tone, one you could taste on your own tongue as you contemplated the right words to say. It was mockingly cheerful, like he knew everything was falling apart and there was nothing that could stop it ― who are you kidding, that’s exactly what was happening ― “because that’s the only reason people ever return to this town, right? To mourn the ones that’ll never leave.”

Words couldn’t pass your lips. There was so much you wanted to say: questions, nonchalant agreements, apologies. It was bittersweet, really, to be meeting like this. It was like old times. A bloodied Hyunjin sat against the wall of the treehouse, nonchalant in the pain of being beaten up, fully prepared to be patched up by your delicate, unbruised hands. But everything was different. Minho no longer whinged over losing a card game, Jisung no longer cheated his way to success in said card games. They’d stopped doing that years ago, and it was an activity they could never engage in again. Hyunjin noticed the despair clouding your gaze, guilt etching your face. A frown creasing his face as he caught your train of thought―you had a habit of blaming yourself, feeling guilty about nothing.

“It feels weird, doesn’t it?”

You nodded slightly, “almost... wrong.”

Hyunjin tossed aside the cigarette, crushing it under his shoe before he opened his arms welcomingly. You didn’t realise how much you’d missed him until the moment you crawled into his arms―you missed all of them. All you wanted was to say one last goodbye to Minho, one last goodbye to Jisung. To thank them for everything, tell them how hard they worked, how incredible they were to be around. Fuck, you missed them so much, you couldn’t help it. Tears were already falling and staining Hyunjin’s t-shirt before you could even attempt to keep them in. A solemn sigh passed his lips, hand stroking your hair as a form of agreement. He’d always fantasised about having a solid friend group that lasted into adulthood, then into the elderly ages. A part of him knew it would never end that way, but he didn’t think this would be the outcome of your friendship circle. When he pondered the potential loss of contact he always assumed it would be a result of moving on to better things, better places and people. He couldn’t help but think back to that camping trip; it was the most carefree time in his life. None of you could’ve ever imagined this outcome ― you could imagine moving away and losing contact over time, you couldn’t imagine being pulled apart by something out of your control. You didn’t want to, but who would? The idea of your friends being taken before their time―before you deemed it to be their time―was almost as upsetting as it actually happening. Life and death, it was a torturous cycle for everyone involved. Hyunjin squeezed his eyes shut as fear bubbled in his chest, the fear of losing you all over again. He tightened his grip on you, what tragic lives we’ve led.

“And then there were two.”

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thatwhichflcws · 4 years

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hello all! ali (27, est, she/her) here again with another intro for my gal nora aka rhea! i also have nora’s pinterest here! this is gonna be short & sweet because i’m super tired right now, but i’d love to plot some stuff out with you all!

— aesthetic

warm mugs of tea, fresh flowers in antique vases, vulnerability hidden behind a friendly smile, a lioness protecting cubs that are not her own, perfectly winged eyeliner, close to few, a smile that claims to know more than everyone else in the room, standing outside in a thunderstorm, early morning coffee runs, a child’s stuffed animal laying forgotten in the spare room, putting family photos in a box to hide from the bad memories, a kind word for everyone.

— basics

name : nora king nicknames : nora age : 38 sexual orientation : pansexual gender identity : cis female, she/her pronouns alternate identity : rhea, titan goddess of fertility and the female body occupation : OB-GYN at the local hospital positive traits : compassionate, confident, mature negative traits : lonely, bitter, judgmental

— background

nora has a mothering presence to those around her; she’s kind and compassionate and always has a kind word to say about others. despite that, she’s bitter about everything she doesn't have, but she tries not to let it affect her day-to-day life. it’s slowly leaking in more to her daily life though. she’s lonely without a family or much of a social life as well. she has the tendency to be judgmental, but tries to keep that to herself as she doesn’t want any part of gossip or high school drama.

she works as an ob-gyn at elysium’s hospital and honestly loves her job more than anything. she truly enjoys getting to know the prospective mothers and helping them through their pregnancies. nora is a bit of a workaholic. after her divorce, she began working more and more and putting off any sort of social life. or rather, she used work to distract from her failed marriage and lack of a social life.

nora wants a child more than anything. it was one of the things that lead to the downfall of her marriage. she is a registered foster parent, but with her schedule at work and various other factors, nothing has worked out long term. and despite that she’s still hoping for something to work out, she’s about to the point that she thinks it might be better to just focus solely on work instead. she’s thought about getting a dog, but hates the idea of the dog being left at home for so long while she’s working.

she enjoys working out and goes for an early morning run before coffee very early every morning. when she gets home, she typically has coffee and a bagel while reading the newspaper before heading to work. in the evenings, she likes to drink tea while she reads on her tablet. she likes having a morning & nighttime routine in place, especially when her days can be somewhat chaotic.

does have a penchant for expensive shoes & bags. she has quite the closet going tbh. one benefit to living on her own and not having to worry about another person, she supposes.

she is honestly the worst at cleaning. she has a housekeeper come a few times a week to help keep things clean around her house. she hates being around all of the messes, but doesn’t want to be the one to clean her messes up either.

nora cannot cook worth a damn. no matter how hard she’s tried to cook, it just never works out. she orders out most nights from local places or has a simple salad or the like. she can make simple things like ramen, but anything more complicated than simply boiling water doesn’t turn out that good. especially because she frequently forgets to set a timer and then her food ends up burning.

— connections ideas

i’m still the WORST with connections ideas so this is gonna be more sparse than em’s connections, but they’re here either way! i’m also down for filling in any wanted connections or brainstorming things out more!

close friends - nora doesn't have much of a social life so this would have to be a person who can really push her out of her comfort zone. they would be someone who maybe tries to get her to loosen up a bit or just someone who is content to drink tea and talk about the latest books they’ve read. i’m down for it all.

casual fling - after her marriage ended, nora hasn’t been in a place to start dating really. this would just be something to occupy a small piece of her time. i’m up for an occasional fling or something that has since fizzled out.

mentee - whether this is someone who works in the medical field or not, this is someone who nora has taken a shine to and is really trying to be a positive figure in their life.

frenemies/enemies - probably someone who is vastly different than nora. maybe someone who just got on her bad side or is very immature. either way, nora is hardcore judgey when it comes to them.

like i said, not a ton of ideas here, but it’s something!

#☀ history. | she’s got a heart made of glass.#pom.intro

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ethandigby · 4 years

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『 LANDON LIBOIRON ❙ GENDERQUEER 』 ⟿ looks like ETHAN DIGBY is here for THEIR SECOND year as a VISUAL ART GRAD student. HE is 27 years old & known to be DEDICATED, HONEST, STUBBORN & PESSIMISTIC. They’re living in NOLAND, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ drew. twenty-two. est. he/him. ethan’s pinterest

trivia:

he really likes white cholate & hot chocolate, often eating handfuls of white chocolate baking discs regardless of the time of day.

visual art major --- tends to stray towards sculptures and installation pieces, though he does have a love for bob ross style landscape pieces. draws a lot of inspiration from older art, and many of his pieces are designed to look worn-out and as though they are missing pieces.

perpetually exhausted --- for all his love of schedules, he has never managed to consistently get enough sleep and though he loves tea, that never seems to have enough of an impact to truly wake him up ---- a.k.a he is a yawn prone little fuck

doesn’t quite believe the local legends, though he doesn’t dismiss them outright either. the statue by wishing tree has, however, made it into several of his works ---- statues seem to have her facial features without him ever meaning to and he will swear to anyone that asks that in sophomore year of his bachelor’s degree he woke up one morning to her face staring at him from amongst the trees on a painting he had been working on. he will hesitantly add that it’s possible that he had just been thinking of her while half asleep, though ethan doesn’t really believe that

currently working as a TA for some of the freshman art classes, as well as overseeing the use of the different art studios from time to time.

doesn’t believe in labels --- and that’s corny as hell, but he just wants to be able to be whoever he is in the moment and has had some harsher reactions when he uses umbrella terms, so he just refuses to label himself. relationship-wise it’s a whole different issue, he floats from one major relationship to another and often times will cycle back to one that’s already gone sour.

has recently started going to a therapist to talk about some of the issues he has processing emotions and his fear of change ---- it’s been helping but he’s still very much on the verge of flight mode and will run away from situations that demand any real sort of emotional input from him on occasion.

personality:

he is cynical, despite a desire to believe the best in people and the world - he has seen too much of the darker side of the world to ever truly believe it ---- this is reflected not only in his interactions with people ( he is open about expressing doubt and disbelief, he won’t believe a word you say, and he overanalyzes promises / invitations / declarations of love ) but also in his art and aesthetic which veers towards the dark and damned, a lot of his work is themed around broken things

stubborn as a mule ---- once he gets an idea in his mind, it can be hard to change his mind with logical arguments though an emotional appeal will have a better chance ---- he’s very set in his ways and struggles with questioning why things are the way they are, insisting that somethings should just be. loathes change and isn’t afraid to express this dislike --- tends to eat the same foods, wear the same clothes, go to the same places ---- despite a childhood dislike of routine, he finds it comforting nowadays, it feels safe.

loyal as all hell, you can hurt him a million times and he will still struggle to walk away and a genuine apology will win him back in an instant. he struggles to cut ties, even with those that he knows aren’t the best for him and has only successfully done so when it is possible for him to do so in a swift and permanent way. in most cases, he will eventually find his way back to those that he knows.

friendly but not overly so --- he has no issue approaching people if he needs something, but he’s not generally one to approach you just to “chat” b/c he’s not big on small talk in general and honestly? he’d never say it but if he doesn’t know you, he doesn’t really give a damn how your day went or how you feel about the weather or current events. if he drinks, he becomes a little more sociable in that matter, but that often drifts into “ethan is going to info-dump about whatever has his interest in the moment and the only way to stop him is to like physically place something in / on his mouth” territory which is a whole different level of awkward.

backstory:

growing up in a household where routine took priority, ethan spent a long time feel stifled by his parent’s demands that everything turned out perfectly ---- the neverending need to do things at just the right time, in just the right way. it was like fitting into a sweater that was just a tad too small, wrong in a way that is hard to explain

it’s in high school that he meets a true kindred spirit in the form of his art teacher ---- he helps ethan to realize his need for freedom and self-expression, and embraces his abilities in a way that he had always been afraid to. it’s a change that his parents are disapproving of, trying to reroute their son’s future to one of the paths that they would have approved of. but for once, he allows himself to rebel.

and after graduation, he leaves. running to new york, where he throws himself into the art scene head first without any real plans. for two years, he works multiple jobs as he cycles through sketchy roommates in his shitty apartment and equally shitty life partners, trying to discover things about himself that he hadn’t known before.

he’s still figuring some of that out, unsure of how to label his gender or his sexuality --- wishing more than anything that he could just be, a desire that he has long held onto since childhood that’s coming back to haunt them at last.

that’s not the only thing that’s caught up with them as of late, the digby’s finally managing to track him down in new york and showing up at his apartment two years after he initially ran off. they came with open minds and a burning desire to see their son do something other than work minimum wage jobs and live in run-down apartments. they were quiet and subdued in a way that they never had been.

it took six months for them to convince him to enroll in college, and he eventually chose to attend radcliffe with an undeclared major. it was far enough from his hometown that his parents couldn’t reasonably drive up too often, but close enough that he could go home if he had wanted. a three-hour drive in the best traffic.

the distance proved to be the right amount --- though his parents certainly seemed to pop up over the first three months with containers of food and worries that their child would have run off, they eventually learned to trust him. and slowly, the wounds healed ---- ethan wouldn’t say that they’re close but they’ve learned to respect each other’s boundaries.

and he’s never seen them more proud than at graduation, except maybe when he told them that he was going to apply to grad school. it wasn’t the path that they had planned for ethan, but they had learned to be enthusiastic about his success, about his dreams and about his art.

doing his master’s degree - it’s been weird. being here is weird for him in general, he still misses new york even though it was a whole different kind of existence ---- he misses the stability of going to work everyday and being completely independent. here, he has to rely on his professors and classmates, he has people that expect him to check in with them and there’s more socialization --- mostly because he’s been trying to do better with that.

connections:

good / bad influence: okay so traditionally, i think these would be separate connections but i think in this case, it’s more convoluted than that. for all of ethan running away from the environment his parents made, he’s very much stuck to those rules and expectations --- i would love for someone to start to break him out of that --- encourage him to party and drink and live life, and it doesn’t all have to be bad, it can be good too. you know, them bringing him to parties and him learning actually valuable lessons from it --- idk open to talking about their potential influence on each other, i think it could be fun

frenemies ( onesided or not ): i think a lot of ethan’s trust issues are a projection mechanism because he knows that in some ways that he can’t be trusted --- so i wld love for someone who they act like best friends when they’re together and then ethan just ... talks smack about them and doesn’t keep their secrets ( and maybe they do the same?? )

exes ( of all types / genders / whatever ): this one, my dear ethan, has gotten around a bit --- maybe they hooked up and now it’s awkward ---- maybe they dated for a while and keep circling back to each other despite knowing that they’re bad for each other ( a la unmiss you by clara mae ) ---- maybe they dated for a while and now they never talk so when they do see each other it’s just ... awkward as hell ---- open to literally anything with this one guys

art buddies: just two pals, palling around --- only prerequisite is that your character has some sort of interest in an art ( writing, theatre, music, film, etc etc ) --- and hey maybe they don’t get along but they put up a united front against the STEM majors who mock their choices in major?

other: open to discussing dormates, coworkers, current love interests and literally anything else that you can think of --- does your character need someone over 21 to buy them alcohol? call ethan. for real tho, hit me up and let’s come up with some stuff!

#radintro #i refuse to make this longer by introducing myself hi i'm drew

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redsdawn · 4 years

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( jessica chastain. forty. cis female. she/her. ) in stratford, dawn wright is more commonly known as red. they’ve been living in stratford for thirty years and currently work as a nurse. some say they are malapert & rancorous but i’m more inclined to believe those that say they’re ballsy & dependable. if you walk by their house, you can sometimes hear cloudbusting by kate bush playing from their window. ( the sting of comments better left unsaid, driving with the windows down, subjecting oneself to the unknown, and never knowing when to stop. )

hello, all! i’m dee, your local goblin whose hands are shaking as they type this! :-) i hope everyone’s having a good evening / morning / day. here’s to writing some good shit together!

disclaimer: i have dawn’s stats here, which hopefully gives you all the need-to-know info at a glance. the second section has death & suicide mentions, so please steer clear of that if need be.

if dawn is anything, it’s restless. she’s always felt like a bird about to take flight, or like she’s looming on the edge of some great cliff. it’s like some current flowing through her bones, or some itch that can’t be scratched. she yearns for more & hates that nothing is ever wholly enough for her.

dawn grew up trailer trash & she still was trailer trash when she moved to stratford after the death of her mother. her dad, nathaniel, was a drunken tradesman who'd never known what to do with the life he’d been given. he was hardly a father when diane was around & even less so after her passing. despite their blood relation, however, he & dawn were more akin to roommates than anything else. nathaniel provided the “essentials” [ bits of clothes every couple of months, piss-poor cooking, a place to sleep ] and little else. he wasn’t warm or particularly kind--not like he was to the girlfriends that’d come in and out of their lives. he didn’t know how to speak to children or how to be the mentor that dawn needed. he’d tried, but it wasn’t like dawn knew how to be the daughter he’d wanted either. she wasn’t diane. she wasn’t warm, obedient, and kind. she was gritty & spoke back, even when it wasn’t smart to.

growing up, dawn was hardly ever home. a majority of her adolescence was spent being a wild cat. as a kid, she’d get up to shenanigans with other kids from school or the neighborhood. she was a tomboy through-and-through, covered in various scars and bruises from climbing & doing things she shouldn’t have. she was an okay student, but her report cards always made a note to mention attention + behavioral issues.

as a teenager, she was even worse. it was then that she learned the careful craft of chasing cheap thrills. always slipping from crowd to crowd, dawn was a social butterfly. she’d slip her way into any group that would have her, reveling in any and all attention cast her way.

dawn was poor-poor. like, having frequent sleepovers at friends houses, because you want an actual real meal levels of poor.

above all, dawn’s childhood taught her how to be hungry & that feeling’s never left her.

it was a particularly persistent set of teachers that really pushed dawn to be more than what she was setting herself up for. her chemistry teacher really made a point to speak to her in frank terms + helped her fill out college application forms when that time of year came around. at the time, dawn had brushed it off, as she did with most things, but she’s always been grateful. it was nice to feel seen for once. she kept in touch & got their recommendation when admissions opened up for nursing school.

going to college & being in a new environment really forced dawn to get it together. she couldn’t just be a little shithead anymore--she had actual responsibilities & appearances now. she mellowed out some afterward, doing everything that she thought people were supposed to do. she got her own place, paid her bills, & worked like she actually cared about what she was doing--which she did, for once.

somewhere along the way, getting stuck in that grind & facing the fears that rose from losing her father started to really get to her. that restlessness had come back in full force, & dawn didn’t know how to handle it. she fell into a bit of a destructive rut that resembled that of her teenage years, and sought help only when her boss gave her an ultimatum. she’s better now, but not quite how she was.

dawn is unflinching. it’s extremely hard to unsettle her. are your guts falling out? is someone throwing shit + breaking chairs? is there a literal fire happening? well, you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at dawn. she loves fixing things & finds it really easy to keep a cool head when shit hits the fan. she’s focused & nonjudgemental. she won’t question why you look like shit or why she has to stitch up a stab wound.

dawn yearns to feel needed & is uncomfortable when she isn’t. that want is what fuels her friendliness. she wants to be in a group, she wants to be something to someone. she goes out of her way for others not out of an innate altruism, but as a result of her deliberate choice to be good. she wants people to feel that she cares for them, so they may in turn care for her, too.

that being said, dawn’s decision-making isn’t immaculate. she has a blinding rage that’s a blight on her progress. it’s regressive & ugly & irresistible. dawn takes things too far sometimes & keeps pushing. she digs her fingers into wounds she knows are fresh & always keeps her knives close. she’s capable of a lot of good and love, but she’s also capable of a very white-hot rage.

some random bits are that dawn is a karaoke queen. she’s a heavy-weight, but doesn’t like alcohol. she’s an excellent hugger. she has an excellent memory & remembers the little things that people tell her. terrible at accepting gifts. she takes life one day at a time. total chatterbox. thinks she has a great pokerface, but her eyes are a straight window to that which lies behind. she’s definitely not a very good driver. writes notes on her hands and wrists.

some songs that make me think of her are

rock city

i bet on losing dogs

disorder

hounds of love

some wanted connection ideas !

a childhood memory -- maybe these two were a couple of ragtag misfits up to no good. maybe your muse’s parents felt bad for dawn, and would invite her over for dinner, regardless of how your muse felt about it. maybe they grew up in the same trailer park. maybe your muse’s mom dated her dad at one point. idk!!

teenage escapades -- did they used to drive around without a care in the world, swearing they were gonna live forever? did they try to use their fake id’s to buy cheap liquor & then haul ass after the cashier wasn’t having it? did dawn manage to weasel her way into your muse’s life & fuck it up somehow?

it’s a sibling thing -- are they related? no. does that stop them from acting like actual siblings? also no. dawn would do anything for this person, including, but not limited to, annoying them to death. silly, serious, and self-less.

frenemies -- they say you should keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. either way, these two are relatively close. do they even remember why they sometimes-kind-of-but-not-really-but-also-kind-of hate each other? maybe, maybe not.

best buds -- everyone needs a best friend &, believe it or not, dawn has a lot of love to give. being her best friend includes unlimited venting sessions, on-call assistance, & free snacks. truly a once in a lifetime deal.

playing doctor -- listen, dawn doesn’t wear those scrubs because she thinks they’re sexy. she knows her shit & who else are you going to call at ass o’clock because you’re bleeding all over your carpet floor? besides, at least when you call her, you don’t get reamed with a 2k bill after.

we don’t talk about that -- sometimes, dawn is off being a lovey-dovey bitch, which is embarrassing, but when she’s not? well.. she wouldn’t be opposed to a rebound, or one night stands that maybe never should have happened to begin with.

BUT REALLY I’M DOWN FOR ANYTHING AND THIS IS ALREADY SO DANG LONG SO IM GONNA END IT HERE AND SAY THAT ILY AND WANT TO DO ALL OF THE PLOTS WITH EVERYONE THANK U BYE SMOOCHES

#rideintro #this was so long i . pls forgive me #i have Thoughts sometimes i guess !#also im not proof-reading this. if i sound illiterate then i sound illiterate & thts THAT!

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kaimcclains · 5 years

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the last time (’cause i could never say no to you)

“I’d prefer to keep this to ourselves for now! I mean, wow that sounds bad, but I just don’t wanna share y-”

“It’s okay, I get it!” Adam flashes what he hopes is a convincing grin. So Kai didn’t want Mira to know he was bisexual/pansexual/a different sexuality Kai hadn’t specified, but he’s hedging his bet on bisexuality. That’s fine. He’s not fond of the excitement that washes over him at the thought of Kai trusting Adam with a secret.

He can definitely say he isn’t a fan either of how Kai smiled at him like he hung the stars in the sky or a euphemism equally as ridiculous.

Nothing prepares him for when Kai laces his fingers securely through Adam’s, and the way he beams at the ground from beneath his red fringe like nothing else exists.

In which Kai believes he's being obvious, Adam pines ridiculously hard, and Mira is a good and patient friend. Also known as the "didn't know we were dating" fic.

“Was it something you’ve always known, or something you picked up?” Adam asks curiously, absent-mindedly stirring a finger in the dirt below him. Kai’s seated a few inches away, elbows propped up on his knees as he stares at the sky. Mira’s resorted herself to making small talk with Benjamin and Benjamini, once it was apparent to her that Adam was off in his own little world with Kai (and who was she to deny him of talking to his oh-so-obvious crush?)

“I don’t know where I got it from. It’s similar to walking, you’ve kind of always assumed you can do it without any thought or anything.” Kai replies. He rubs the back of his arm sheepishly, eyes finding themselves splayed to the length of Adam’s side profile. “Nothing to write home about.”

“Seriously? I know I couldn’t figure out how to fix an entire space ship just at first glance!” He also wants to tack on a question - Why are you always doubting yourself? - but with Kai’s volatile nature, Adam’s sure he would’ve managed to piss the guy off.

They find themselves in that cycle a lot. Kai and Adam are friendly towards each other, making Adam think he might have finally gotten through the younger boy’s barriers, and then Adam says something wrong and he loses whatever semblance of friendship he had gained. It frustrates him to no end, but Kai likely isn’t even aware of it. Kai isn’t aware of a lot of things.

“It’s seriously nothing,” Kai says quickly before Adam can have a chance to interject and protest. “Wanna see something cool though?”

He extends a hand out to Adam, and together they walk to one of the broken-down rollercoasters. Adam’s not actually sure what is supposed to be happening, but he’s not one to complain. Kai voluntarily spending time with him is a concept unheard of until now and he doesn’t want to ruin it.

Kai sits, motioning for Adam to do the same. “See, there’s a part of this that connects to one of the ejectors from the ship you crashed-” he pauses to glare at Adam, cracking a smile once he sees how spooked the other boy looks. “I’m just playing, man. Anyway, I think-”

Adam stops paying attention. The beaming sun that had been relentlessly shining upon their group isn’t doing much for him in terms of comfort, and although he enjoys any moments he can get alone with Kai, he’d much rather like to sit in the shade, preferably under the merry-go-round or in the forest around them. Anything to escape this heat.

“Sorry, is there a point of chilling right in the middle of all this sunshine? I swear my insides are overheating.” Adam complains. Kai conjures some fire, which manifests quickly on his fists and seriously-? Not helping at all.

“Maybe I can beat up the sun,” says Kai with that cocky grin of his that makes Adam’s knees buckle a little. “I guess we’d have to be closer to do that though.”

“Closer?”

Kai’s invading his space in the blink of an eye. He has an arm secured around Adam’s middle before he can process what exactly is happening, breath coming out in short puffs on Adam’s collarbone. Adam wraps his own arms around the other boy’s shoulders, too scared to do anything else.

“Kinda like this,” he replies quietly against Adam’s neck. He shivers.

And then Adam can’t feel the ground beneath him. What he can feel is the flickering embers radiating from Kai’s fingers licking at his legs. Dazedly, he wonders if he’s in heaven or hell right now.

“You can open your eyes, dude.”

He almost doesn’t want to because there is a very possible chance he passed out earlier and this is just one of the many bizarre dreams he’s had the pleasure of dreaming lately. They all start and end with shadowy figures drifting inexplicably out of sight in the corner of his vision, and an outstretched pale hand, but Adam has always been too afraid to grab it.

Despite there being no point for doing so, he eventually listens to Kai and cracks a hesitant eye open. They’re well above the specks of trees below, and what Adam believes is the fairground. “Wow, this is incredible,” he breathes out.

Kai seems to grip onto him a bit tighter, but maybe he’s imagining that.

“I was practicing how to fly earlier, it could be useful for later,” Kai explains as if it’s the most casual thing in the world that he not only knows how to control fire, but knows how to fly with it. Adam would point it out if he knew it wasn’t going to result in a petty five-minute argument that usually ends in Kai downplaying the compliment repeatedly while Adam grows more and more frustrated.

“I’m uh, impressed,” he says in an attempt to banish the period of uncomfortable silence they were encroaching the territory of.

He probably imagines the slight red flush that tinges Kai’s cheeks as he smiles at him too. It’s soft and fond enough to have Adam hurriedly breaking eye contact with him to instead focus on the gentle treetops whizzing behind them.

“Did-” Adam’s voice cracks - oh god, why did it do that - “Did you show Mira yet?” Because what Adam doesn’t get, is why Kai would rather show his frenemy-at-best his newfound flight ability when he could have shown off to his crush instead.

“No, why would I?” Kai sounds genuinely confused like he can’t possibly fathom what Adam is hinting towards. Adam considers himself a fairly straight-forward dude most of the time, and Mira has never complained in regards to any communication issues, so he only shrugs. Kai will understand, he just needs a minute.

He does.

“I’m not into Mira, you know,” he states lowly. Kai has got to quit using that voice, it never fails to nearly launch Adam into cardiac arrest. “I think-” Kai coughs. “I’m more into someone else, actually,” His voice raises a few octaves, to the point where Adam winces.

“Cool,” Adam can hear himself reply distantly. “You should tell her.” Who else can it be but the other lovely lady they had encountered, Vanessa? Adam would’ve thought he’d move on from someone who manipulated him quite thoroughly, but he knows first hand how cruel love can be.

“Him.” Kai coughs again, dipping low enough in flight that Adam can nudge the tips of his sneakers through a couple of sparsely interlocked branches.

“You- oh. Um, that’s cool! Great!” Adam says intelligently. He doesn’t want to ponder the intricate details of the Reeve vs. Skeet debate he’s ready to kickstart in his head right now, so he settles on keeping his mouth shut. Kai likely didn’t desire any questions about his potential love interest either.

“Yeah,” The other boy answers, a lopsided goofy grin slowly overtaking his features. It looks unbelievably good on him. “Wow. I can’t believe I finally admitted it. I never thought I’d be able to tell you.”

“Me neither,” Adam chuckles; That action seems like the best response he can give at the moment. He kind of wants to know whether he fancies Reeve or Skeet, but he’s not in the mood to hear his cr- teammate speak adoringly about the enemy team. Or at all, really.

Minutes pass by, the two of them lazily floating a few feet off the ground as Kai slowly descends lower. Adam senses Kai’s eyes on him every once in a while, but whenever he moves his head the barest inch, Kai snaps his gaze to somewhere else.

They land because all good things must come to an end Adam quietly laments.

“That was fun, right?” Kai asks, peering up at Adam through his oddly long eyelashes. He almost sounds vulnerable. Unsurprisingly, that’s the desperation in his head talking.

“Yeah. I had fun, Kai,” They share a small smile, in which Adam thinks he can hear his heartbeat throbbing away somewhere in his skull. Kai’s eyes crinkle at the corners; The noise gets louder.

“I’d prefer to keep this to ourselves for now! I mean, wow that sounds bad, but I just don’t wanna share y-”

He can definitely say he isn’t a fan either of how Kai smiled at him like he hung the stars in the sky or a euphemism equally as ridiculous.

Nothing prepares him for when Kai laces his fingers securely through Adam’s, and the way he beams at the ground from beneath his red fringe like nothing else exists.

***

“I was wondering when you guys would get back!” Mira exclaims the second she catches sight of her two favorite boys. They’re holding hands; Mira gives herself a reminder to ask Adam what that business is about later. For now, she’s just happy to see them.

“Yeah, I showed Adam something,” Kai winks, making the other boy flush. Adam takes his hand back now that Mira is with them too, even if it slightly pained him to do so.

“Is that so?” Mira asks, quirking an eyebrow in Adam’s direction. ‘Help me,’ he mouths.

***

“Now that we’re alone, I-” Adam jumps off the log he had previously been seated on, struggling to catch his breath from the sudden interruption. “Oops sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya!”

“You could at least warn a guy,” he groans morosely. Mira hides her stifled giggles behind her hand as she nudges Adam over.

“What’s the deal with Kai?” Mira punctuates her question with one grossly exaggerated eyebrow waggle. Adam sort of regrets opening up to her about his Kai situation at all. He’d been relieved to get what had morphed into the biggest problem he’d faced to date off his chest, outside of demon dogs and Death and everything else that had happened, but not when it gave Mira permission to shoot him finger guns every time Kai did something mildly gay.

She still never let him live down the demon monk incident - “You totally cradled him in your arms, dude. And Kai didn’t even pull away!” - that occurred a week ago. It’s not Adam’s fault that he’s the worst at controlling his damn emotions.

“I can’t say.” He subconsciously wraps his arms around himself. There’s a lump forming in his throat for no discernible reason other than he doesn’t want to admit that Kai confirmed he likes guys, he just doesn’t like Adam. Like hell he’s going to admit that out loud.

Mira frowns. She wraps an arm around Adam’s thin shoulders, tugging him into her side. The obligatory question of what happens goes unspoken, but it doesn’t matter with the way Adam spills his guts out to the open air. Keeping a secret from Mira is like asking him to kill a puppy; He simply can’t do it.

“He likes Reeve or Skeet. I don’t understand why!” He vents purely out of frustration with not only Kai but himself as well. If he were a better leader, or if he was more handsome, then maybe-

“I can hear you overthinking from here, dude.” She gives Adam’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. A wave of guilt washes over him, making him exhale a heavy sigh. It’s hard to summon the energy to plaster a faux smile on presently, but if he was smiling, maybe he would forget that he was sad in the first place.

“It’s fine. I’ll get over it,” he says in an astonishingly level voice for someone who feels as if he is on the verge of a breakdown. Pathetic, really.

Mira doesn’t look convinced in the least, concern seemingly radiating from the small dip of her lips downwards. He silently begs her to let the subject go, and while she’s still looking at him with all the worry only a mom friend can possess, she shakes her head.

“Well, all right. But it’s not healthy for you to bottle up emotions like this, just so you’re aware.”

“I know.”

Mira gets up and wrings her back out, hands flailing wildly in the air for a few seconds before one is extended towards Adam. “Now come on. Kai’s probably worried!” She exclaims cheerfully as she drags both of them back to their temporary campground. Adam supposes he has time to dwell on his dilemma later when his teammates are safely and assuredly asleep.

***

Adam awakens to someone messing with his hair. Or more accurately, someone running a lazy hand along the expanse of his head, intertwining scraggly strands with their own fingers. It’s soothing, and Adam’s tempted to resume sleeping before common sense kicks in. Someone is touching his hair.

He manages to give himself a headrush with how fast he sits up. A wary glance at who was responsible for disturbing his sleep has him believing that he hadn’t actually woken up in the first place. He’s clearly somewhere off in Dreamland, where devil dogs can’t hound him down and where Kai is unabashedly grinning at him as if he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. Because there’s no way that could happen in his waking life.

Except it does, and Adam can feel the spot where Kai’s fingers are woven positively burn. “Good morning! I was wondering when you would get up,” he smiles sweetly. The other boy takes his hand back, still maintaining eye contact with Adam.

Adam must have done something unspeakably evil in his past life, because that’s the only explanation he can come up with pertaining to why Kai is suddenly being so warm around him. Fate had to constantly toy with his feelings like it was nothing, like he was nothing. While he can’t say he’s in a foul mood, thanks to his stupidly dumb feelings for Kai, he doesn’t particularly want to deal with them this early in the morning.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep so late,” stumbles out of Adam’s mouth. He knows damn well why he woke up later than usual but like hell he’ll admit the reason to Kai. He receives a half-hearted shrug and a curt apology from the other boy.

Kai then grasps his hand. Adam’s ninety percent sure he could physically feel his heart stop beating. “Let’s eat breakfast. Oh, and I’m not sure if Mira’s awake yet either.” Odd... Adam had already made the assumption that Mira was awake. Then, does that mean…?

“Were you, um… waiting for me? T-to get up.” He can barely spit out the last three words; The cracked ground beneath them had suddenly become much more interesting.

Kai shoots him a ‘duh’ look, resulting in Adam diving headfirst into a mess of confusion and adoration for the blunt idiot he, unfortunately, has a crush on. “Yeah, is there an issue with that?”

He can’t exactly fathom why Kai would wait for him (were they finally becoming better friends?) other than for company maybe, but that wouldn’t explain him fiddling with Adam’s hair. He’s also starting to give himself a headache, but at least he’s holding hands with Kai.

They don’t separate until Mira wakes up and is strolling towards them.

***

The hand holding happens more and more frequently to the point where Adam’s sure he spends more time with his and Kai’s hands interlocked than they do apart. He’s too afraid to bring it to Kai’s attention, half because he doesn’t want Kai to distance himself again, and half because he gets an admittedly very guilty pleasure out of Kai’s attention. It’s wrong to revel in his friend’s attention as deeply as he’s been doing lately - especially when Kai still has an unconfirmed crush on Reeve or Skeet - but he’s only human.

He had just mastered the art of keeping his traitorous heartbeat in check when Kai reaches for one of his hands, and he swears Kai is on a mission to destroy him.

They don’t do it around Mira; Kai always allows his fingers to drift away milliseconds before she can notice. It’s as if the two of them are in on one huge secret, but what Adam doesn’t understand is why they’re hiding? Is Kai ashamed of being more open around him?

Or is Kai just ashamed of being his friend?

Adam swallows harshly, attempting to ignore the giant lump that had settled itself in his throat. It’s an irrational thought and makes zero sense, but Adam might as well be Boo Boo the Fool. The more he mulls it over, the more it starts to make sense that Kai wouldn’t want to be seen getting along with him when Mira’s around.

He concocts a brief list in his head.

Kai doesn’t have a crush on her if he likes Reeve or Skeet, so it can’t be because of that.

Kai also doesn’t act antagonistic towards him in front of their other teammate, and if he wanted to keep up appearances, surely he would be back to his old ways of trying (and failing) to one-up Adam in everything that happens to them.

Maybe Kai found out about Adam’s crush on him and is searching for ways to let him down gently, but doesn’t want to rope Mira into their problems. Subsequently, that would make Adam an asshole because he’s already discussed his stupid crush on Kai with Mira at least six different times so far without Kai’s knowledge.

Kai must be doing all of this to save his reputation. The only problem is, why would Kai care this much about impressing Mira still? They’ve all been through hell together multiple times, and he’s sure it isn’t about to come to an end anytime soon with their track record thus far. He decides he needs Kai’s input on the whole matter.

***

The next time Adam and Kai find themselves alone, Adam brings up his concerns about Mira with him.

Kai eyes him over, head cocked adorably to the side as he takes it all in. “You think I’m trying to impress Mira?”

Adam can’t fathom why Kai doesn’t see it as an issue. They’re teammates, and Adam considers them both to be his best friends. It doesn’t matter that Adam might see one of them as a soulmate; Kai obviously doesn’t feel the same, so he needs to drop it already.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do or not, we just shouldn’t be keeping any secrets from her,” Adam says. He watches as fear dances across Kai’s eyes, mouth pulled down in discontent.

“I thought you were okay with keeping it secret,” Kai finally says, bitterness laced in the undertones of his voice. Adam can’t seem to figure out why it’s such a big deal to admit that they get along now in front of Mira. It would be better for their morale overall if Mira wasn’t constantly dealing with their petty issues. Granted, they haven’t had a disagreement in a while but there’s always the possibility that Kai could go back to his old ways of picking fights with Adam over nothing. Adam wants to avoid that in any way possible; It isn’t good for his mental health in the slightest.

“She’s our best friend, and I think you should be acting like she is, is all I’m trying to say.”

“Huh?” replies Kai. “I just didn’t think… I mean, would she be okay with-” He pauses to gesture between himself and Adam, eyebrow raised questioningly.

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Adam’s really hoping this isn’t the part where he loses whatever standing he’s been holding with Kai and they revert back to one-sided rivals.

“I-” Kai lets out a frustrated breath. He pulls his knees up to his chest and lets out another angered exhale. “If it would make you happy, I guess I’m fine with telling her.”

Adam feels a tiny pang of guilt in his heart. He hadn’t intended to make Kai uncomfortable, but the other boy is acting like it’s such a big deal. He opts to put an arm around Kai to make up for his lack of a response. To his surprise, Kai leans into it and buries his head into Adam’s shoulder.

“I’ll be right there with you when you tell her, if it’ll make you feel better.”

Kai removes his head from Adam’s shoulder to give him an incredulous look. “Why wouldn’t you be? Weirdo.” It must give him some sense of relief though because Kai’s biting back a couple of giggles.

And then Kai plants a chaste kiss on his cheek.

***

“He kissed me! He literally kissed me!” Adam exclaims when he and Mira find themselves in each other’s company later.

“Was it on the mouth?” Mira asks, and it’s obvious she’s holding back her snickering through the way she keeps bringing her hands to her mouth. Adam hasn’t been able to keep it off his mind all day; Kai was making his crush worse earlier when he grabbed Adam’s hands and gave them yet another kiss, and flashed him one of those smiles Adam swears he could photograph and put in a museum. He’s never had the heart to pull away, to say ‘Kai, you’re ruining my life, and can you stop getting my hopes up because it’s fucking killing me-’

“No!” Adam exclaims. Mira startles at his sudden outburst, but he can’t bring himself to care when Kai’s actions from earlier keep playing in his mind like a broken record on repeat. “But he keeps doing all of these things that make me want to kiss him for real, and I can’t do that because-” He takes a moment to recollect his thoughts, flailing his hands wildly in the air. “Fuck!”

“Oh come on, he’s into you. I don’t know how you’re blind enough to not see this. The guy kissed your cheek and your hands for God’s sakes!” Mira exclaims. As much as Adam appreciates her letting him consistently vent to her, it makes no sense. Why does Kai keep doing things that makes Adam want to positively ravage him?

“You’re forgetting that he likes Skeet or Reeve! I don’t have a chance.” “Did you ever even stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, the guy he likes is you?” Mira says, folding her arms across her chest.

The fantasy of Kai liking him keeps him up the rest of the night.

***

They sit Mira down the minute they’re all awake and ready to take on the day. Adam still feels dead inside, and he’s sure his eyebags reflect the fact that he’s running on three hours of sleep. Nonetheless, his other companions don’t say anything so it must not be that obvious.

“So, uh… Adam and I have something to say…” Kai trails off, sheepishly bringing a hand up to his neck. Mira raises an eyebrow, eyes shining with intrigue.

Kai looks to Adam for strength, who gives him what he hopes is a reassuring grin and a hand squeeze. Kai smiles back confidently, turning his attention back to Mira. “Okay so… Adam and I are dating and I wasn’t sure if I was comfortable telling you, but he told me you wouldn’t mind and I-”

Adam is drifting half in and half out of the confession due to his eyelids’ constant drooping, but the word that instantly snaps him out of his stupor is ‘dating.’ Kai and him are what?!

“We’re dating?!” He shouts at the exact same time that Mira bursts out with a similar reaction. Adam frantically surveys his surroundings before his eyes land on a distraught Kai’s expression, hands dropping meekly to his sides.

“W-what?” Kai asks timidly before he turns his gaze to Mira, who’s staring at both of them weirdly.

“Since when were we dating?!” Adam yells out. He doesn’t mean to sound this alarmed, but the boy he’s certain he’s in love with at this point just stated that they were dating and- What even happened to the crush that Kai was harboring on Reeve or Skeet? Did Kai like him this entire time? Was he joking?!

“We- I-... y-you didn’t know?” Kai runs his hands through his hair and squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m so fucking stupid, I thought you knew when I confessed to you a-and…” He opens his eyes suddenly, revealing the few lone tears rapidly making their way down his face. “I didn’t think you wanted to k-kiss yet because we were taking it slow but-... oh my god you probably don’t even like me.”

Adam and Mira share wide-eyed, open-mouthed expressions together while Kai furiously rubs at his eyes. It takes a solid minute for Kai’s entire rant to kick in, but at that point, Kai’s already running away from them.

Adam is a huge fucking idiot.

***

“Kai?” Adam calls out. He’s been walking around the forest and nearing the edges of the carnival grounds again for a good half-hour now, but he hasn’t seen a single hint that Kai is around the area. God, he hopes Kai isn’t lost, or God forbid, encountered another enemy. He screams his name again in vain.

He feels awful for leaving Mira behind with no explanation of what’s going on, but he hardly knows what’s happening himself. Kai really thought they were dating the entire time…? It would certainly explain the hand-holding, and the cheek kiss that still makes Adam feel warm inside.

Speaking of, he’s starting to sweat in this particular area. It’s not that hot outside today, which is puzzling, but he immediately halts in place once he sees a small lick of fire land on a branch only to immediately fizzle out. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he glances up to find Kai curled up on a peculiarly wide branch, sniffling softly to himself.

“Kai, will you get down from there?” He requests, leaning up against the tree so the sun doesn’t damage his eyes as much. Kai self-consciously wraps his arms around himself, eyes glazed over as he hangs his head and doesn’t respond. Adam supposes he’ll have to go up there himself.

A few minutes of scaling the moderately-sized tree later (in which Adam barely manages to prevent slipping and falling on his ass once), he nudges Kai over with his shoulder. “I- I um… didn’t mean to make it sound like I was rejecting you or anything earlier. I’m actually kind of confused.” Adam admits, although he might as well be talking to air with the way Kai avoids any sort of contact with him like he’s poisonous or something.

“What’s so confusing about it? Friends don’t wait for friends to get up while playing with their hair, or hold each others’ hands so often, at least not the kind of friends I think I’d have,” Kai says quietly. His body is still angled away from Adam’s so it’s a tad hard to hear him, but the pieces fit together in his mind anyway. Kai is a naturally affectionate person, at least from what he’s perceived of him so far, but the little things such as hand-holding or cheek kisses must mean a lot to the younger boy. Adam wants to vocalize just how much of an idiot he’s been, how he wants to hug Kai close and never let go, but he doesn’t.

He maneuvers Kai around instead until their bodies are pressed against each other, and kisses the boy he’s wanted to be with since they woke up in that awful bunker, nameless and anxiety-riddled. Kai’s quick to encircle Adam with his arms, pulling him impossibly closer as Adam tries to convey all of what he’s feeling through a simple press of lips to lips.

“I’m sorry. It’s always been you.” Adam says with a small smile once they naturally break apart. Kai beams at him like the rest of the world doesn’t exist, and Adam smiles back in a manner he’s reserved just for Kai.

***

When Adam goes to sleep that night with Kai by his side, he watches the shadowy figures phase in and out of the corners of his eyes. The pale hand is extended towards him like it always is, but this time he holds on tight.

#the hollow #kaidam #the hollow netflix #🌸{fic tag}🌸#adam #adam the hollow #the hollow adam #kai #kai the hollow #the hollow kai #mira #mira the hollow #the hollow mira #mine #finally posting all my fics on tumblr bois

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uniquequotesonlife · 4 years

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13 Things We Learned About Travel by Watching Star Wars

View photos Luke yearns to get away over a binary sunset. (Video: Benguitar9000/YouTube) Are you excited yet about Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens? We sure are! So when someone tells me they’re going to try traveling someplace soon, I give them my best Yoda impersonation: “DO or do not. There is no try.” With J.J. Abrams revving up the Star Wars hype machine again, it got us at Yahoo Travel thinking about how the original films are as much a travel guide as they are a classic mythological space opera. We see diverse lands and fascinating modes of transportation, all in a story sparked by one farm boy looking far, far away to the heavens with wanderlust. You don’t think we can come up with 10 travel lessons learned from Star Wars? As Han Solo once said, never tell me the odds! Here are 13 of them that will teach you a Jedi’s wisdom when on the road, inspired by the thousands of times I’ve watched the original trilogy (no dorks here!). One note: I’ve purged most of the prequel movies from my memory in protest to George Lucas, but I do include one romance-related reference to them here. Han Solo was the original Uber

(Video: Daniel M. Kobayashi/YouTube) Ride sharing was cool in the Star Wars films long before their geeky fans in Silicon Valley thought of it. Obi-Wan didn’t use an app to find Han, but he did go to a part of town where rent-a-pilots were known to congregate, and he arranged to ride a vehicle driven by its cocky owner. Notice any parallels? When Han found out they were running from the Empire, he even used surge pricing on them! How much more Uber can you get? Can’t you just picture Princess Leia calling CEO Travis Kalanick a “scruffy-looking nerf herder”? Related: Go Far, Far Away to See Where the New ‘Star Wars’ Was Filmed Also like Han, Uber shoots first at its critics, and it’s known to keep a secret compartment or two. We just hope Uber will follow his lead and learn that underneath that bad-boy exterior, the company has a heart of gold. (We’re not holding our breath.) One thing is for sure: Anyone would give the Millennium Falcon a five-star rating. If you must lie to customs, play it cool

(Video: Daniel M. Kobayashi/YouTube) Repeat after me: “These aren’t the Cuban cigars you’re looking for.” Maybe you shouldn’t risk it with American customs, but travel to enough countries and you’re probably going to need to employ some Jedi mind tricks against sketchy border-control people. In my case it was the officers at the Syrian airport six years ago, when I had to calmly deny my father was from Syria — had they known the truth, under law I could have been drafted in the Syrian army even though I was born in the U.S. Talk about going to the Dark Side. Pack a versatile wardrobe for any occasion

(Video: Stormcab/YouTube) We’ve got to hand it to Princess Leia — in addition to being the kick-ass, courageous leader of a rebellion against an evil government, she can really pick an outfit. When she was dodging Imperial starships in Episode IV, she was dressed in a practical white robe with that iconic hair bun; on frigid Hoth in Episode V, she wore smart layers. And when cavorting with Ewoks in Return of the Jedi? She was all about that camo look, baby. And all this was despite most of her wardrobe getting blown up on Alderaan! Preadolescent boys like me were most intrigued by Leia’s Slave Girl outfit while trapped on Jabba’s sail barge in Jedi. But we’re not going there, OK? Resist the temptation to have an unplanned wedding when you travel

(Video: Daniel Ard/YouTube) Hey, girlfriend, I understand how you feel traveling with that guy you’re dating. He’s tall, handsome, and saying super-romantic things such as, “I don’t like sand.” You’re light years from home and alone with this person, surrounded by digitally enhanced scenery. Sure, he had one bad night and slaughtered some innocent locals, and he hinted at his desire to become a galactic dictator. But just look at those eyes! And it’s like he can read your mind! Don’t jump into any big relationship decisions without getting back to reality and giving it some thought. Padme didn’t follow that advice, and she got married on the road to a future Sith Lord who knocked her up, then indirectly murdered her. Don’t go into bad neighborhoods by yourself or without telling someone

(Video: joncarr/YouTube) Luke learns this the hard way when he takes his landspeeder into the Jundland Wastes, chasing after Artoo without even telling his aunt and uncle. True, he wasn’t technically alone, but would you want C-3PO having your back in a fight? We’re not saying you should stick to tourist areas when you travel — some of the best experiences are off the beaten path — but have a sidekick and make sure you know exactly how you’d get out of a hairy situation. Luke got bailed out not once but twice when you include his kerfuffle at the Mos Eisley Cantina, but we don’t all have exiled Jedi Masters looking out for us, now do we? No, really, Luke … DON’T go into dangerous places by yourself!

(Video: schultzstudio/YouTube) Yup, he did it again in The Empire Strikes Back, only this time in the snow at his tauntaun’s expense. Luke gets bailed out more times than American banks. If you’re traversing any desolate, icy terrain, have someone to help you fight off Wampa creatures so Han Solo doesn’t need to rescue you. When traveling with the boss, DO NOT slack off

(Video: DRMMRI14/YouTube) It might start with sleeping in before the conference. Then you have a couple too many drinks at the hotel bar and embarrass yourself. Before you know it, you’re pulling out of hyperspace too close and letting your sworn enemies know you’re there. Then this happens, and you’ve failed your boss for the last time. And remember, the Emperor is not as forgiving as he is. Don’t crash at a friend’s house unless you’re on good terms

(Video: Canale di BenguitarBis/YouTube) We understand Han and the gang didn’t exactly have an Airbnb search at their disposal while ducking Star Destroyers in The Empire Strikes Back. But by his own admission he didn’t trust his frenemy Lando and hadn’t spoken with him lately, yet he chose to fly to Bespin anyway. All that got him was betrayal, electroshock torture, and a frozen date with Boba Fett. Lando did redeem himself by saving Han, but still. A general rule: If it’s been more than a couple of years since you talked to the person, don’t ask to crash with them if you don’t fully trust them. Back up your photos and video as you travel … just in case you’re attacked by a Star Destroyer

(Video: QuoteTheGuy/YouTube) When most of us travel, we accumulate files that we can’t risk losing: a photo of that glorious beach sunset, a video of your kids playing in a Parisian fountain, a blueprint to destroy the same Death Star that blew up your home planet. You know, typical souvenirs. Princess Leia knows this, as demonstrated by the way she quickly reacted to Darth Vader’s boarding party by saving the Rebel plans inside the most reliable flash drive in the galaxy, R2-D2. Even if you don’t have an astromech droid handy, carry a USB memory stick with lots of space. You can find Zen in exotic places … with the right instructor

GIF11 (Video: Canale di BenguitarBis/YouTube) Luke Skywalker was not into glamping. He flew to an ugly swamp to learn how to untap his spiritual potential from a cranky old guide who was on his back all the time. But what a guide Yoda was, and despite a frustrating start and that one bad trip where he saw his evil father’s face as his own, Luke emerged a far stronger and wiser person ready to take on the universe. Plus Yoda showed him how to get your vehicle out of the mud. When you’re shopping at a mobile flea market in the desert, inspect the merchandise closely

Would you buy a droid from these guys? (Courtesy: Wookieepedia) While the pre-Jedi Luke Skywalker was trying to whine his way out of the Jawa market — “But I was going to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters!”— Uncle Owen was the one who questioned and picked out C-3P0, the most overqualified farm droid ever, because Threepio spoke the right language. This was the right call. On the other hand, Owen passed on R2-D2 for that defective red look-alike droid without a good inspection. Thankfully the droid broke down on the spot, so they were able to exchange it for Luke’s future X-Wing copilot. Related: Eye Massagers and Star Wars Toasters — Odd Gifts From SkyMall for the Holiday Season Really, Owen and Luke should have known better. It’s not like the Jawas were Amazon, with a credible return policy: They were fly-by-night merchants. When you’re traveling through a foreign town and dealing with a street vendor you’ll never see again, you need to trust but verify. Be friendly with the locals and they may help you out of a jam

The cutest secret weapons you ever saw. (Courtesy: Wookieepedia) I tried going through this article without an Ewok reference — they’re my least favorite part of the original movies, and it’s hard to believe that a family of teddy bears could take down the Empire. Still, there’s a lesson to be learned here: While the Empire threatened the Ewoks, Leia befriended them, which swung the odds in the Rebels’ favor in the Battle of Endor. A parsec is a measurement of travel time … or is it? We confess, we’re not sure what the lesson is here, but it needs to be said in any mention of Star Wars and travel. As Han Solo tries to price-gouge Obi-Wan and Luke for a ride on the Falcon, he brags that his ship is so fast, it “made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.” Only thing is, a parsec is a unit of distance, not time. It’s kind of like saying, “My car is so fast, I drove from San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than 400 miles!” Either this was a rookie math mistake by George Lucas, a con attempt by Han, or something else: Han shortening the Kessel Run from 18 parsecs to 12 by bravely flying close to black holes. We’ll probably never know, and nerds like me will be debating it years from now in our nursing homes. source Read the full article

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