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old-skyguy · 1 year ago

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TMA fears as ASMR concepts

Disclaimer: I wrote this months ago in my notes app. This is not proofread in the *slightest*. So. It's gonna be shit. Lol. Enjoy, ig.

Also not canon compliant whatsoever so don't complain about that because I know.

-Michael Distortion: (POV: you're in the spiral) it's just 15 minutes of Michael whispering the same "baby sharchivist dododododo" tune and then him getting killed by Helen in the last minute.

-Nikola Orsinov does your skincare routine but it's just a direct parody of the Victor Van Dort does your Nails video where instead of the bts poster, the "blanket" is a black and white circus poster (see: Danny Stoker) that crumbles to ash when he puts it on. Also at the end she tries to do a "chemical peel" she found on "the internets". Michael comes in at the end and PRESIDENTIAL ALERT THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTINNGGG.

"Why are you screaming? that's very rude, you know. Especially after I talked to your BOSS for you. And that was NOT an enjoyable experience. He's such a tool >:(("

"Spill the tea, archivist" "oh sorry, did you want some? Sorry ...too bad. You can't have this :33" "WHERE ARE MY MANNERS??" *sticks pinky finger out* "there! Much better"

-Jane Prentiss' GRWM but she doesn't have any other clothes so it's just "time for the fit check!!" *Camera cuts to her dress for one (1) second* then her makeup is just dirt, dirt, and "the worms love you."

-Simon Fairchild and Michael Crew giggle with each other while huddled together and whispering/gossiping and asking "should we do it, should we do it?" "Yeah yeah let's be bad" while shushing each other while occasionally interacting with the listener for 5 minutes and then the rest of the video is just them torturing them via the ocean (them holding you underwater for 2 minutes with muffled gurgling bubble noises accompanied by underwater ocean sounds and silent panicking), throwing you into the sky at extreme velocity (sounds of air blasting your eardrums for a solid 3 minutes before an airplane hits you full force and you fall back into the ocean...which is another whole minute of falling and panicking.), and then the rest of the video is just them laughing while basically using your limp, dazed body as a kite.

-Elias Bouchard beats you with a metal pipe ASMR.

-POV: Gerard Keay breaks into your house at 2:27 AM and ransacks it looking for a LEITNER "WHERE TF IS I- oh. You're awake..Hi." before leaving through the window but he can't make himself fit through so it's just a full minute of him struggling and awkwardly laughing while apologizing over and over. All this time, he's wearing so much eyeliner, he looks like Jeff the Killer. You point this out and he just goes "Oh! Thank you! :D"

-"Buried Alive ASMR: You Get Buried Alive. You are getting buried alive. Someone is burying you. Alive. It is peaceful." (Unnecessarily long, redundant title for what's just screaming that gets slowly muffled as the video goes on and more dirt is piled on top of you before you start to sound content and just. Go to sleep. At that point. Snoring.)

-The Vase eats your boyfriend in the other room. It's just sounds of porcelain and snoring and fleshy eating sounds with ear eating but it slowly progresses to sounds that make less and less sense until it's just the skeleton sound effects from Minecraft.

-POV spiders crawl all over you. They have covered your door in spiderwebs. You fall asleep crying but wake up to being choked to death via spiders crawling inside you and blocking your windpipe.

-Jared Hopworth, the Boneturner, turns your bones with sounds of squishy flesh moving around in the background. At the end, you get eaten by The Monster Pig™ and meat (lol) the body of the missing clown.

-You get sacrificed to The Desolation. Sounds of distant screaming is heard in the right ear while sounds of maniacal/pained laughter is heard in the left. Fire crackles throughout the woods.

-You are getting chased by something. You get stalked with a lot of tension at the beginning; sticks cracking, creepy giggling, devious sounds all around. Your breathing is uneasy, but then the sounds stop and you breathe a sigh of relief and go back to stoking your campfire. Something growls and finally says "evening" and starts counting down. From 5. You bolt away from your campsite downhill for 2 minutes breathing heavily and fast before you trip on a stick and tumble down the mountain getting hit by trees and sent over rocks. You're about to pass out, but then you hear sniffing and growling in your direction and you get back up with an "o shit" and hide in a tree. When the monster sniffs out your hiding spot, it can't reach you. The rest of the video is slightly muffled Gangnam Style.

-POV: Peter Lukas kidnaps you, throws you in a sack, and you are put on a ship to a deserted island. This part is just sounds of boards creaking and boat rocking sounds while you fall asleep to the sounds of Peter's VERY heavy snoring. You're both startled awake by distant "land ho!" And a very gruff Peter's voice talking to himself going "I'm up I'm up ugh". Rustling of the bag is heard while he picks you up and fumbles around with you. You're getting passed around and jostled a bunch. At one point he burns his toast. Sounds of intense crunching can be heard from this along with him saying "elgh" as if disgusted. Finally, he brings you to the deck and throws you overboard onto a deserted island (your bones break and you scream "MY LEGS") before you can hear him far away saying "alright, set sail, we're done here." You manage to get out of the bag (you are wincing, the drop heavily contorted your body) and the sun shines at you while birds squack above and the coast crashes onto the shore. You slowly lose your mind.

-POV you're in the War™ and get shot in the arm and fall into a cave with one of your comerades. You guys shakily and awkwardly attempt to make small talk as you both bleed out on top of several hundreds of other corpses. The Piper is heard in the distance getting louder. When he finally gets to you after taking your friend, you fall into a bottomless pit while he's up there yelling "OH FUCKING COME ONNNN." When you get out on the other side after a minute of silence with faint sounds of "I will remember you" plays quietly through the silence. When you get out, Mike and Simon are snickering before you cough up blood when they start bursting out in laughter being like "I'm sorry I'm SO sorry really but it's JUST. SO FUNNY."

-POV: Robert Montauk is preparing to kill you, sharpening his tools and humming and whatnot before Julia comes in and asks what her dad's doing. While he's distracted, you escape the shitily tied knots and run through pitch dark while he chases you with an axe. "COME BACK. COME BACCKKK. YOU FUCKER I NEED YOU. FUCKER." You run into a church. Manuela Dominguez tries to apprehend you. It doesn't work. "Where the hell's Fairchild when you need him?"

Robert bursts through the church and gets pissed at you for making him scream curse words that his daughter could hear. Throws the axe at you. He misses. Now you have a weapon. You charge at him but fall through another pitch black hole where none other than yours truly are on the other side of it laughing their ASSES off just DYING. "OK. OK Whooooo. We SWEAR that was the last of it hahaha" "haha yeah just some guys bonding over a good laugh, you understand."

-The End. Just. An end screen.

You're dropped into Season one Jon's office and they (annoyed) take your statement. Typing sounds are heard while you frantically go "then the old guy..a-nd then the other old guy then the 2 old men and. And. Worm lady. Skin. Chemical peel." As they mumble "uh huh, yeah. Heh, heard that one before. No go on, go on." When statement ends, you leave but stay at the door to eavesdrop while they skepticize like "this man needs some antispychotics and he needs them NOW. Ugh. My job is utter buffoonery. MAHTIN."

You turn to walk away but get ambushed by Elias Bouchard. The last sound of the video is just a metal pipe hitting you over the head.

#tma #tma podcast #the magnus archives #asmr #this is so bad lol #my two favorites were the one with Simon and Mike and the one with Peter #the vast and the lonely ARE my favorite fears so that's fitting ig #i hated doing the rp format as much as you did reading it #the magnus archives podcast #magpod

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researchercase · 1 year ago

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Séra got the tape recorder from the tunnels. So here's the recording of our encounter with the creature known as the Not Them

(Below cut is a tape recording)

[CLICK]

[Muffled voices]

CASEY [humming to the tune of a song]

KIERAN Why did you come along down here? You know how you are with this place

CASEY [trying not to hyperventilate] Cause, this is important… and I want to be hear in case she tries to replace you… so I'll remember since I'd have seen it happen. My stupid phobia can wait.

KIERAN You know that's not how it works, and I would've been fine on my own

CASEY You keep saying that, yet you're proven wrong every time.

KIERAN Okay, that's not true

CASEY Yes it is. Anyways, what way did she go again?

KIERAN To the right

[Distant footsteps]

KIERAN [Hushed voice] Over here, against the wall

[The two move]

[Silence]

[Whirring from the recorder]

KIERAN Wait a minute…

CASEY What?

[Recorder is pulled out from bag]

[Voices no longer muffled]

KIERAN [Quiet yelling] Why is this in your bag!?

CASEY Wait what??

KIERAN Why would you bring this here Cay?!

CASEY I didn't bring it! I didn't even know it was there

KIERAN First at my apartment and now here?!

CASEY What do you mean at your apartment??

KIERAN The recorder was at my apartment when we were looking for the polaroid's, Casey! How did you not notice!?

[Footsteps stop]

CASEY I-I don't know!? I didn't even put that in my bag okay? Why are you acting like this over a tape reco-

KIERAN [interrupting] Shh!

CASEY Wha- Excuse me!?

KIERAN It stopped…

[Silence]

NOT!ERIKA [Emerging behind Kieran] [Voice Distorted] Hello Hunter! Little Watcher!

KIERAN Shit! Casey ru-

[Sounds of Kieran being pushed, and falling onto the floor]

[Casey backing away]

NOT!ERIKA Now, now, little Watcher! I am frankly upset that three found out my roose! A part of me thought that maybe he wouldn't tell anyone and I could continue till I got bored and killed you and that Hunter! and yet, here we are!

CASEY I-

NOT!ERIKA And polaroid's you say? Can't believe I missed that, I'm usually good at getting rid of the evidence! Oh well, I guess there's always next time!

[Footsteps move closer]

NOT!ERIKA Let's have a fresh start with you!

[Footsteps approach quickly]

KIERAN [yelling] Casey, Run!

[Sounds of tackling and attempt stabbing from Kieran]

[Sounds of struggling]

NOT!ERIKA Enough!

[Kieran shoved off of Not!Erika]

[Kieran attempts to get up but is stopped quickly]

NOT!ERIKA I have no use for your skin, Hunter, best to get rid of the first annoying pest here and now.

[sound of Kieran being stabbed around 4 times]

[Kieran gasps and then falls silent. Dead]

CASEY [Shouting, tears streaming] Kieran!

NOT!ERIKA [Turning] Now where was I?

CASEY [Breathe quickens, yet unable to move]

[Footsteps once again move closer]

[bones can be heard cracking in the background]

[Not!Erika is tackled to the side, interrupting the attack on Casey but they're stabbed still in the process]

CASEY [Casey gasps in pain, and falls to the ground]

[Tape recorder falls]

NOT!ERIKA What the- Ugh, of course you'd still annoy me somehow

KIERAN [Clearly no longer human, just a Hunter, growling]

[Sounds of struggle once again, then Not!Erika pushing Kieran off of her once again]

NOT!ERIKA Consider yourself lucky, little Watcher

[Not!Erika running away, with Kieran hunting after her]

CASEY [Hyperventilating] What do i do!? fuck- what do I do [repeating]

[footsteps approaching fast]

SÈRA Casey!

CASEY [Doesn't notice or even hear Séra, just keeps repeating]

[Séra kneels down next to them]

SÈRA Shit.. Okay okay, c'mon!

[She lifts Casey up]

SÈRA We're getting out of here

[Footsteps getting distant]

[CLICK]

#tma rp #oc rp #magnus institute research department #tma oc #tma rp blog #oc rp blog #researcher casey #researcher kieran #photographer séra #researcher erika gray

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eyes-that-decieve · 1 year ago

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Here's tal's statement!

Tw: typical spiral stuff, brief description of violence, idk anything else

I hope it doesn't make enough sense

[Click of a tape recorder, whirring of a tape. Tal's voice is their usual distorted, two voices speaking just out of harmony]

Tal: Honestly if you need a statement I could give you mine.

Styx: No, no, I'll get one from someone else on the way back.

[Tape recorder clicks off]

[Tape recorder clicks back on, a muffled curse from Styx]

Tal: -your watching thing for an hour and a half. Stop being difficult, I don't mind.

Styx: [Sigh] Fine. Statement of the being known as Fractal, regarding their Becoming. Statement taken direct from subject the 27th of april, 2024. Statement begins.

[Sounds of someone sitting down]

Tal: Hmmm. Where to start? Background is clunky and boring. . . So how about, the first time a child saw the door. Seems about right, gives enough context.

Every day a high school student would always walk home from school. It wasn't very far, but it took them through some pretty narrow streets. One day there was a door. More of a doorway. There was simply, nothing. A void, in a rectangular shape of a door. They didn't actually see anyone, but they got the feeling of someone standing in that doorway, and waving. They waved back, and that may have been their mistake.

Over the following weeks? Months? Days? They kept seeing that doorway. There was always a person in the doorway, and they always got the sense it was beckoning. One time, they went through. Curiosity got the better, maybe.

The entire place was maddening. Soon as they stepped through, the door was gone, or their perception of the door was gone. Everything was gone, even the presence of the person. It looked like many colors, all folding over each other and mixing and changing, and nothing. There was just nothing. They tried to turn around and leave, but no matter how far they ran, they didn't move. Nothing moved, and everything moved. It was bright and not, dark and not. Nothing to hold on to, nothing to ground them. Nothing. No presence behind it, though they didn't know if that would've been better. It was similar to those rooms designed to drive someone mad, featureless walls, except there were no walls, no ceiling, no floor.

At some point they found they must have gotten out, or it let them go. They were sitting on the pavement, and someone was poking their arm to see if they were alive. They sat up so fast they startled them, and bolted home.

This repeated again and again until they could barely remember the times when they were in somewhere that was.

[A laugh, folding over itself in two different voices]

That is not my story. That is a story of someone who has an identity. Someone who is a someone. I am not a someone.

My story is of tearing and clawing of one's very being, of a final violence and screaming. Of replacing nothingness with presence, colorless nothing taken over with neon and shadow.

Does one fear what they become? Does one fear what they inherit? That is a question for one then. Not one now.

[A long pause]

Styx: Damn.

Tal: Oh Styxie, don't be so surprised!

[Tal's voice becomes just a feminine one, the tone is angry and clipped, but tal's grin is audible]

Tal: Where do you think this voice came from?

[Tal's voice returns to normal]

Tal: Is that enough for you?

Styx: Yes, thank you.

Tal: Go back then, I'll update you later.

Styx: [sigh, sounds of standing up] Alright. Bye, Tal!

Tal: Byeeee-

[Tape recorder clicks off, tape whirs to a stop]

#oc: fractal #fan statement #tma oc #oc post #tma #the magnus archives #tma rp blog #the spiral #the dark

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bnna5813 · 2 years ago

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Set Me Free pt. 2: Jimin you killed it.

I was writing a response to someone's post but I figured I'd just make my own because my response was pretty long. I'm not in the music industry. I just listen to a lot of genres so please forgive me if I'm misusing terms. I've seen a lot of discourse about Jimin's song and I wanted to add a few thoughts:

Do I like the song? YES. I love it. I'll be transparent though. After I watched the music video, I wasn't sure how I felt. There was so much to digest. The song is so different from anything we've ever heard from Jimin, so completely beyond anything we expected. The music video was an orgy of mind-blowing choreography, loud ass brass instruments, aggressive autotune, stunning choir vocals, and heavy chest-thumping bass. The beat is just... everyone I've seen react to this song (including myself) made a stank face and started bopping their heads and doing body rolls as soon as the bass dropped. This song is dirrrty.

I implore everyone to please listen to it on Spotify or Apple Music. By now, you should know that Youtube has shit audio quality. Even the exquisite choir sounded muffled on YT. His voice is heavenly on Spotify. His modified voice has so many layers. I know the autotune is a very controversial topic in this song but I think he used it well to transform his voice into something you have never heard from him before. BTS tends to use autotune or voice processors to add complexity and texture. How many of you disliked this song and also disliked On and Black Swan?

I get that it can be too much for some people. Music is subjective and it's okay not to like this song. It's not for everyone. But for people who use the autotune as a drag to say he's using it because he can't sing on key, you should know that the music industry has moved beyond using autotune to correct pitches/tones. We're not in the early 2000s anymore. Some artists still use it to support their vocals but that's not the case in Jimin's song.

In this song, his voice is heavily distorted when the lyrics are coming at you. "I never stop, fuck all your opps" and "Hey fool, just get out of my way / Shut up, fuck off / I'm on my way". Even when he's saying "enemy" in the background, it's heavily autotuned. I also love the effect of the call and response between "oh yeah oh yeah" and his normal voice. The use of autotune is to emphasize aggression and anger. He's basically assaulting you with this vocal distortion because it's very jarring to your ears. Look, Jimin is not interested in making another Lie or Serendipity right now. He's already done that. Jimin wants to continue to grow and experiment as an artist. So even if this resulted in mixed reactions, I applaud him for trying something new.

Another thing I want to add is that this track is the LAST song in his album. I don't even need to hear the album first to know why it's the last song. He said this album is going to be a journey revealing hidden wounds and scars. We know this album is going to be dark. Set Me Free pt. 2 as an ending is him shedding his demons, pushing back against those who inflicted pain, and letting it go. That's why the song is so anthemic and aggressive. It's triumphant and it makes me want to throw a fist up. When we get listen to the album in its entirety, I think many people will agree that this is a powerful ending. If this is how I feel about one song, I really can't wait for next week to hear everything else.

#jimin #park jimin #bts #bangtan #jimin_FACE #set me free pt. 2 #bnna5813 talks

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venusiangguk · 4 years ago

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gold rush | jjk (m)

>>pairing: jungkook x reader

>>genre: pwp, smut, college au (kinda), established relationship

>>word count: 5k+

>>warnings: oral (m/f), fingering (f), phone sex, normal sex, explicit sex, slapping tits, slapping, crying, degrading, dirty talk, all the sex stuff, jks a lil mean and condescending but it’s very cool and sexy

>>notes: hello! this is my first post on here :) it’s part of a longer scenario i’m just seeing how it’s received before posting the full length version~~

>>summary: jk comes back from a weekend away and he wants to show you just how much he missed you.

pt. 1 | pt. 2 | pt. 3

It’s a Saturday night and you’re laying in your boyfriends dorm room bed by yourself. You’re bored and alone because Jeongguk had an away tournament that was far enough to warrant a hotel for the weekend. Typically you would have tagged along like many of the students at your university, but you had had a test on Friday that you couldn’t miss. Which is why you found yourself wrapped in one of his t shirts, under his blanket scrolling absently through your phone not really paying attention to anything much, just going from app to app.

Due to the lack of anything better to do, you boredly slipped your hand under the waist band of your panties. Not particularly horny... just passing the time you would say. You casually ran your fingertips over your smooth lips before yanking your hand out, being struck with an idea. You quickly type a text to Jeongguk.

you :

i’m touching myself rn

Short sweet and to the point. You nibble on your lip as you see the typing bubble pop up not even 5 seconds after it says ‘delivered’.

koo 🥴:

pics ? 🥺

You roll your eyes. Two years of dating and that’s still how he responds.

you :

no way

wyd rn ??

koo 🥴:

why not

i’m at dinner w my team

jimin and tae say hi

-insert pic-

You smile at the pic your boyfriend took of his friends. You were pretty close to all of the team but more so Taehyung and Jimin, seeing as you and Jeongguk would go on double dates with the couple quite often.

you:

tell them i said hi and that they should kiss 😌

Immediately he responds.

koo 🥴:

they said only if u send me pics 😌

You laugh before snapping a selfie to send to him.

you:

you didn’t even ask them but ok 🙄

koo 🥴:

ur in my shirt while jerking off ?

😩 🤌 🏻

pics PLASE

PLEASE**

You giggle and you’re about to respond when you get a facetime call from him.

“You’re so impatient,” You scold. From the looks of it, he’s in a bathroom stall.

“And you’re so mean.” He pouts. “Lemme see ‘em.”

You think about being annoying and making him wait more, but he looks so handsome and hopeful that you just can’t bring yourself to tease much. You grab the bottom of his loose t shirt and pull it up and tuck it under your chin. The cool air of the room makes your nipples harden and you grab one of your tits in your free hand and squeeze and shake it gently. “These?” You ask sweetly.

His eyes are hooded and he subconsciously runs his tongue over his lips before biting the plump bottom one softly. He’s blushing when he says, “Mhmm, they’re so pretty. Will you lick them for me, baby?”

You groan. “You know I hate doing that.”

He swallows, and fusses with his hair for a second before his hand goes out of frame again. “I know it just- makes me so hard, I love watching you do it. You don’t have to though.”

You sigh and grip under your boob, and do your best to get your nipple to your mouth. They aren’t small but at the same time they aren’t the biggest so its kinda tough, but if you really try you can get it done. Once you swirl your tongue around your nipple, you hear a soft moan come from your phone speaker and you feel it go straight to your pussy. You suck on your nipple a little more before pulling off with a loud pop!

“Are you hard?” You ask, a slight shake to your voice as you get more and more turned on. He nods. “Are you touching?” He nods again. “Show me.”

He doesn’t hesitate. He pulls his sweater up and holds it between his teeth so you can see his toned stomach as well as the bulge in his pants. He runs his hand over it, toying with the tip some, making soft muffled noises fall from his lips. His stomach tenses a little bit.

You put your hand down your panties again, and tease a little at your clit. “You look so good, I wish you weren’t so far away...” You whine quietly.

Jeongguk groans and brings his face back into view. “I know, baby. I can’t even stay here with you to help or coach will get suspicious. We are supposed to be team bonding before the final game tomorrow.” He rolls his eyes. “I’ve got to will this boner away and go back out there.” He sounds like it pains him as much as it pains you to finish off alone.

“Take it out really quick, just for a second,” You say quickly before he goes.

He scowls playfully. “I really can’t stay, so just a little.”

You lick your lips and nod quickly, rubbing your fingers on your clit a little faster.

He gets the angle right and unbuttons his pants and pulls his hard cock out just enough for him to stroke up and down. He groans once he gets a hand around himself at the same time that you let out a high pitch moan.

Jeongguks cock is so pretty. It’s fat and plump and pink. Shiny at the tip where he’s already leaking. He always gets so wet for you, just like you get wet for him. His hand wrapped around himself is truly a sight. His long slender fingers moving up and down before the whole hand grips around his girth. He’s thick and long and the thought of him filling you up makes you whine and your pussy pulse.

“Are you touching yourself baby?” He whispers.

You nod. “Yes, yeah... please come home. Right now.”

He hums on a laugh. “Show me how wet that pretty pussy gets for me.”

You swirl your fingers around your wetness before bringing the glistening digits up into view of the camera. He groans and his head falls back before putting the camera back down to his cock to show you how fast he’s stroking.

“You get that wet for me even though I’m miles and miles away? How slutty baby... How do you taste hmm? Sweet like when I last tasted you just a couple of days ago?”

You’re just about to suck your fingers into your mouth for him when you hear a door open through your phone speaker.

“Kook? It’s time to stop jerking off and participate in the bonding activities, Captain .”

You can tell from the deep voice that it’s Taehyung that came to get him. You giggle quietly.

“Yeah yeah, I’m coming give me a minute.” He says through the bathroom stall. He sighs, and gives you a playful eye roll like he’s exasperated.

“Don’t cum while I’m here, and be thankful that it was me that came to get you and not coach. Bye y/n!” He says loudly.

“Bye Tae!” You squeak as you hear the door close.

Jeongguk groans, but smiles lazily at you. “Guess I gotta go.”

You hum. “Guess you do Captain.”

He laughs a little as he does his pants back up, tucking his now mostly soft cock away. “I love you. Cheer me on tomorrow. I’ll see you after, but I probably won’t get back to the dorms till late. Are you gonna be there still or are you going back to yours?”

“I’ll wait for you. Score a goal for me, and text me later. Love you.” You smooch at the screen and Jeongguk does the same before the call ends.

And with that you are once again left alone, but a lot more horny than before the talk. So you do what any sensible person would do.

You pull up the hub.

~~~

Jeongguk walks into his dorm room around 10 pm, and the first thing he sees is you, right where you were when you hung up the night before after your little facetime sesh. The only difference is that you’re wearing a different shirt, still his, and you have ice cream in your hand and your laptop set up on your lap a show playing in the background.

At the sound of the door opening your eyes find his and you quickly set your food down on his night stand, and fling the covers off your lap, paying no mind to the mac book that is now buried somewhere under his comforter, before squealing and flinging yourself into his arms.

He grabs you easily, bags dropping to the floor, hands under your butt to keep you hoisted. You wrap you legs around his tiny waist and smush your lips to his cheek and mumble a distorted, “I missed you.”

“Okay so kiss me about it,” He says back, eyes glinting and lips puckered.

You giggle, placing your hands on his cheeks, angling your head to slot your lips between his. He parts easily for you, and starts to walk you both back to his bed before he drops you where he found you. You bounce lightly and take a second to take him in.

He’s wearing oversized comfy clothes, grey sweats and a big white long sleeve shirt. His long hair is soft and shiny, falling over his pretty face delicately. He must have had a shower at the hotel after the game. He looks soft and oh so sweet. You just want to devour him. From the looks of the semi in his pants, he’s feeling the same way about you.

“Ah, already getting hard for me?” You coo, hand cupping him over his sweats. He pushes against your palm, unashamed. “You just got here baby.”

He shrugs looking down at you. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you all weekend. I had to rub one out in the bathroom room last night as soon as we got back to the hotel. Tae and Jimin were right outside.”

You nuzzle into the material of his sweats feeling his cock quickly become fully erect as you mouth at it. His hand comes down to cup your cheek, run through your hair. “I watched porn after we got off the phone.”

“Did you?” He asks, shifting away for a second so he can pull his sweats down, leaving him in his briefs. You see a little wet patch where the tip is. You suck lightly over the material and he moans loud and clear for you. He sounds so much prettier in person, over the phone just doesn’t compare.

“Yeah, came so hard. Was thinking about you and me.”

“Fuck. Did you make a mess all over my sheets?”

You shake your head as you slowly pull the waist band of his briefs down his hard cock. Once it’s free it bounces in front of your face, flushed and begging for your mouth. You stroke lightly while saying, “No, but I did find something that I wanna try.” You flick your tongue under the head and the hand in your hair tightens and pushes slightly. You part your lips and let him in.

“Mmm, you can tell me all about it once I’m done with you. I can’t wait any longer baby. Swallow me,” He moans, both hands going to the back of your head and pulling you farther onto his cock. He jerks when he feels you swallow around the tip. “So fucking good.” He sighs.

You let him have his way, fucking your throat a little, although he’s much gentler than he usually is when he does it, and he does it for a much shorter time. He must be tired from the weekend, or he must have something else in mind for tonight.

“Lay back baby.” He says when he pulls out of your throat, crawling on the mattress. He finds your discarded laptop and places it under the bed out of the way. You both remove the rest of your clothes before you do as he says and he settles down between your legs.

You figure since he got hard literally on arrival, that he wouldn’t waste time with teasing, would get right to the good part. But no. He takes his sweet time kissing, licking and biting at your thighs, squeezing them roughly in his hands. He nuzzles into your skin flicking the lightest lick over you pussy lips before pulling back and blowing a little. You gasp and roll your hips, trying to get him closer to where you wanted, spreading your legs even farther apart, presenting yourself to him. But he’s having none of that.

“Stop fucking squirming,” He groans before you feel his grip tighten on your hips. But still he doesn’t go where you want him, so you fight against his hold.

“Stop teasing then,” you whine with a scowl.

He bites at your inner thigh. “Hush baby.”

You huff and hit your tiny fists on the bed, frustrated and fussy. “Make me.”

Jeongguk stills and you gulp. He glances up from between your thighs, and he quirks an eyebrow at you.

“What was that?” He asks, much too calmly.

“I said make me.” You whisper poutily.

He sighs and sits up. You get to whine for just a second before you’re yelping and squeezing your legs shut. He just smacked your pussy.

“Shut up.” He says. He doesn’t sound angry, very casual in fact. He rubs his hands over your legs, easing them back open. “Y’know y/n, I had a very long weekend. Travelled hours to play 4 games in two days. Travelled hours back.” He’s running his fingertips over your pussy lips, smearing around the slick you know is pouring out of you. You shiver. You love it when he gets like this. You love it every time your guys are together, but when he’s extremely one way or the other, extremely dominant or extremely submissive? It just makes your entire body burn and your pussy ache. “I even scored a goal for you in the final.” He glances at you, finally sneaking his finger between your folds, he grazes your clit and you shiver, legs spreading even more. “All I wanted to do was get home and take care of you... Make my girl feel good...” He’s rubbing circles around the little nub and your hips slowly start to rock into his touch, breathing heavy from the pleasure. His girl. Yes. You’re his girl. You tell him so.

“Really?” He asks. You nod. He hums. “That’s funny because all I see here is a brat .” He spits out, before another smack lands on your sensitive cunt.

You cry out, trying to close your legs again, but he holds them open. He settles between them again and says sternly, “Now be good. I’m going to do it how I want. Do you understand?” You whisper a tiny yes. He sighs like he’s relieved that you’re not going to be difficult and put up much of a fight, so he can finally do what he’s been wanting to for days. He pushes back on your thighs so your cunt it fully exposed to him, and he spits on it before rubbing his fingers around the sticky mess. Every time he rubs over your clit you twitch, but you’re trying to be good.

“So fucking messy baby. So gross.” He says sweetly as presses his tongue flat on your opening before licking all the way to your clit. He moans at the taste of you despite his words just a moment ago and your eyes roll back. He’s in a mean mood now. And you’re gushing for it. “You’re lucky you’re so pretty baby... because your little cunt is so nasty , just leaking all over the place. I’ve barely even touched her, and she’s dripping down to my sheets. How did you manage to keep them clean while I was gone hmm?” He doesn’t let you respond, quickly sucking your clit into his mouth suctioning it just a bit before flicking the tip of his tongue over it quickly.

“Ah, f-fuck-“ You gasp. You raise yourself onto your elbows so you can watch. He hums around your clit before he flicks his eyes to you. You whimper, squeezing your eyes shut before falling to your back again, not able to handle the gaze he gives you.

He pulls off and uses his fingers to open your lips and pull the hood back before making his tongue flat and licking slowly over your exposed clit.

“Oh my god- That’s- that feels so good baby,” You say between breaths. Your legs are starting to get a slight tremble to them but still, you pull them farther back, making yourself as open as you can for his tongue.

He hums and then smiles, biting at your clit gently, making you jolt. “Feels good baby?” He rubs his fingers all over your core again. You nod and he says, “Could have felt good before and not had spanks if you weren’t so fucking bad.” He swats your cunt again lightly, before sighing and kissing your clit sweetly. Your head is spinning from the switches in his mood but you love it. Love that you don’t know what to expect when he slides his fingers into you. He moans and rests his head on your inner thigh, watching as his fingers slip in and out of your heat. He looks like he’s in awe of your cunt, watching as it clenches and sucks his fingers in. He looks so lovely between your legs.

“Always so fucking tight, can’t wait to get my cock in here.” When he says ‘here’ he curls his fingers inside of you and your back arches off of the bed, and you moan his name loudly. “That’s it baby...” He whispers against your core before he starts to thrust his fingers into you, curling on the pull out. He adds his mouth and you start to shake. Your hands find his hair and you pull him closer, feel him lick and suck at your clit like its the best thing he’s ever tasted. He moans while he eats your pussy. And he has the nerve to call you nasty. He’s absolutely filthy.

“I- close-“ You choke out, relishing in the sloppy wet pleasure that his mouth and fingers are giving you.

He says ‘mhmm’ against your clit before pulling away to get out a quick, “Fuck. Yeah you are, cum for me.” and then he’s diving right back in, focusing on where you’re most sensitive, your clit and your g spot.

“There baby, yeah- fuck , don’t stop ,” You whine quietly as your body tenses. Your legs are shaking out of control, before the string in you snaps and you cry out. Your thighs close around his head and you grind your cunt into his face riding out your orgasm before it gets too much and your try to squirm away. But Jeongguk holds you there until you’re almost crying from the overstimulation.

You pull at his hair, begging him to stop, and finally, he does. He pulls away from your messy cunt, and lays himself on top of you before kissing you deep, wasting no time sticking his tongue in your mouth so you can taste yourself on him. You moan and twine your fingers through his long hair, arching your body to get as close to him as you can. You feel him start to rut his cock over your sensitive core, and gasp. He’s so hard, you can feel him throb against you. He pulls away and grips his cock at the base, lining it up with your pussy before sliding it up and down, teasing your clit even more, mixing his precum with his spit and your slick. He focuses his frenulum on your clit, and his hips twitch. His head rolls back, and his mouth opens in a silent moan. He pulls back and when he looks at you again, he looks wild. His eyes are dark with desire and his pupils are blown. His hands grip at your body like he can’t get enough of you. You’ll have pretty little bruise blossoms all over your body in the morning. Finally, the tip of his cock breaches your center.

You’re so hot, and tight, and so fucking wet around him, that Jeongguk can’t keep the moan that falls from his lips locked away as he pushes inside of you. He pushes all the way to the hilt, you can feel him flush against your clit. Your mouth falls open in pleasure, but your eyes never leave him, the first thrust always being your favorite. Finally getting filled up like you wanted. You can feel him in your belly, heat pooling there as he lets you adjust to his size. Sometimes he likes press his hand into your tummy while he fucks you. Says can feel his cock splitting you open. You watch the man above you part his lips and furrow his brows in pleasure while he does his best to not go too fast, tries not to thrust into you wildly like he so wants to.

He’s leaning over you, hands on the side of your head. You run your palms up his sides, whispering, “I’m good, you feel so good. Give it to me please.” You lean up and press a kiss to his collarbone.

He’s quick as he hikes your legs up and hooks them on his shoulders. He rests some of his weight on you, bending you in half as he starts moving his hips. He pulls out to just the tip before slamming back in with one swift motion. Your hands claw at his back, the angle he has you in allowing him to reach even deeper. Gasps are punched out of you as he starts to set his brutal, sharp pace, not forgetting how bad your were earlier. He’s going to make sure you feel every inch of him for days.

“Oh my god, fuck. That’s so fucking good, Jeongguk. Please fuck me,” Your moans are high pitched and close to sobs.

He leans back some and spreads your legs wide, hands on your ankles to keep them open and he looks down slowing his thrust to watch as he slides into your little cunt. Your pussy is swollen and pink around his cock. He can see your arousal shiny on the base of his cock. “Fuuuck,” He moans as he closes his eyes basking in the feel of you clenching tight around him. He’s slowly pulling his cock from you, only for you pussy to pull him right back in. “This pussy was made to take my cock, huh?” He says speeding up. You nod and tell him, “Yes only your cock gets me this wet, this fucking hot.” He pumps his cock into you hard enough for you to get jostled, so your words come out in choppy and incoherent moans.

The way he’s fucking you makes your tits bounce, perky and pretty. He growls and leans down to suck a nipple into his mouth. You arch into his touch, cute little mewls falling from your lips as his tongue flicks over the small bud. You brush his long hair out of his eyes, holding him to your tit as he makes goosebumps rise to your skin.

“That feels so nice baby,” You say. It’s quiet and desperate, you head thrown back, neck extended and bared to him.

His eyes flick up to look at you, still playing with your nipples. He sees you bared in submission and can’t help the hand that rubs up your torso all the way to your neck. Just begging to have a hand around it. He pulls off your your tit, letting one of your legs fall to around his waist and you moan loud and long as the picks up his pace again.

Your favorite position. He knows how to fuck you any and every way, but like this he fucks you just right, making you fall apart in no time at all. The hand around your throat tightens at the sides, making the moans and whines that come out of your mouth high pitched and airy. The lack of blood flow to your brain makes you feel lightheaded and fuzzy, almost euphoric as he fucks you into submission. His free hand smacks your tits lightly, and you clench from the dull pain as they jiggle. Jeongguk swears.

“God your pussy is just milking my cock, not even letting me pull out all the way. Such a greedy , selfish little cunt. Can’t get enough of this cock filling her up.” He grips your hips with both hands and watches your pussy swallow his cock.

You giggle, soft and delirious as you feel the first signs of your orgasm pool in the pit of your belly, right where Jeongguk’s cock is pounding into you.

“You think that’s funny?” He questions. He grips your jaw and makes you look at him. Your cheeks are smushed and your eyes water from the hold he has on you. “You think being a selfish, greedy little slut is funny?” He presses against the side of your face, biting at your cheek like he just needs to sink his teeth into something to let out some of the pent of feelings coursing through his veins.

“I just love it. Love your cock so much,” You whimper.

Jeongguk pulls back so he can look into your eyes again. He looks at you mockingly. “You love it?” His voice is condescending and it makes your pussy drip. “You fucking love it?” He looks crazed as his hips jackhammer into your cunt, the slaps of his skin meeting yours ringing loud and clear throughout the dorm. Bless his poor neighbors.

“Yes, yes I fucking love it,” God you’re going to cum.

He feels how close you are, sees the way your legs are trembling. He’s moaning when he says, “Shit baby, show me how much you love it. Show me, make that little pussy cream all over my fat cock.”

You nod helplessly as your body jerks in his hold. You can feel your pussy contract over his cock as he brings you the precipice of your pleasure. Tears fall from your eyes from how overwhelmingly good it feels.

Jeongguk fucks into you a few more times, the last of your orgasm leaving your body, as you listen to the higher pitched moans falling from his lips at a faster rate than before. He gasps as he pulls out and positions himself over your heaving chest, cock right in your face as he fists it fast.

“Fuck, open you mouth,” He says, voice dripping with pleasure. You do, smiling, tongue out. He groans deep before his hips jerk and he whispers, “I’m gonna cum,” with heavy lust filled eyes. You feel the first shot of cum land on your cheek.

“Mmm yeah, cum all over my face,” You hum, blissed out.

He milks every last drop of his load out, and you suckle on the tip until he’s whining and shivering, pulling back with an overwhelmed, overly sensitive gasp.

He catches his breath for a second before he gets up and makes his way to bathroom. He sees you about to wipe the cum off your face and says, “Wait a sec.”

You sit patiently, criss cross apple sauce, cum on your face, eyes red and wet from the tears you shed, until he comes back with a wet wash cloth in one hand. He makes a stop at his bags on the floor and fishes his phone out.

He sets the wash cloth on the night stand next to your forgotten, melted ice cream and pulls up the camera.

“Smile baby,” He says, softly giggling.

You do, big and radiant, throwing up a little finger heart. You hear the shutter a few times before his phone takes the place of the wash cloth on the night stand. You reach for it to clean yourself, but he pulls away, wanting to do it himself.

You smile as he concentrates and gently cleans up his mess from your face. His tongue peaks out of his lips and you peck him. He stills before scowling with a small smile, and continuing.

“You look so pretty when you have my nut all over you face,” He says absently. His thumb brushes under you eye. “When you cry too.” He cups your jaw and runs his thumb over your cheek bone. “I wasn’t too mean was I? Too rough?” His eyes search yours. You shake your head.

“No I like it when you get like that, ‘s sexy,” You say wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him so that you both are laying down. You wrap around him like a koala. He yawns and settles in your hold, snuggling into the bed.

“Okay good. You can be mean next time,” He sounds sleepy.

You scoff, knowing that you both know that when you take control it’s in a softer way. Degrading and being mean was his thing, what you liked. Jeongguk liked to be praised.

“Yeah okay,” You say sarcastically. “You’d cry in a non sexy way if I was even half as mean to you as you are to me,” You scratch at his scalp and he purrs.

“I’m sensitive,” He whines. Another yawn. “And sleepy. Shhhh.”

“Jeongguk wait,” You say.

“Hmm?” He says already close to knocking out.

“I wanna eat your ass next time.”

“Mhmm, okay. Now sleep please. Turn off the lamp.” He turns over, wanting to be the little spoon.

You know he didn’t actually listen to what you said, but that would not stop you from holding the ‘yes’ he gave you over his head in the morning when he’s more coherent. You flick off the lamp, and throw an arm over his waist. He snuggles back into you, fitting his body against yours. You kiss his shoulder and say, “Okay, remember that you said yes in the morning.”

All you get in response is a soft snore.

-------------------

and there it is! let me know if u want me to finish and post the whole thing! comments and feedback are appreciated!

part 2 here!

part 3 here!

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queen0fm0nsterz · 3 years ago

Note

ayo i found more unreleased songs for ln2 B') idk if you've seen them already but one is called hope and betrayal, anothers called real end of the hall and the last is dejavu, i can grab some links if you want

OH BEST FRIEND I KNOW ABOUT ALL OF THEM ALREADY AND LET ME TELL YOU I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTSSSSSS!!!

It's been a while since I had the occasion to talk about the music in LN! Now I'm gonna list every single one of them and tell you ALL about what I think. I'm going to link them all here so you can check them out for yourself!

1) Main Menu (Dejavu Version)

This really does feel like a dejavu. It has so many different elements taken from soundtracks of both games, which I find quite intriguing.

It begins with Six's music box, the one we hear playing during in the first sections of Togetherness I, which then abruptly turns into a slightly altered Six's Theme from LN I. While similar, it's not exactly the same as True Colors. Then, the melody procedes more or less as the final Menu Theme, but this time instead of being sang by children, it seems to be sang by a chorous of women -

- and this is where it gets interesting. The next and final section initially reminded me of The Lady Circles, Trailer Version's beginning, where the core melody of End of the Hall is played in the background, however... doesn't the melody playing over it sound like the very beginning of Room With A View?

A jump in the past, truly. While I like this version a lot, I do prefer the one we ended up getting. Having the childern sing adds to the charm.

2) Tiny Flickers (Alpha)

An early version of one of my favorite extra soundtrack? Honestly, this sounds like it could have been one of the songs playing in the TV. I have to admit it sounds slightly frightening, especially when the main theme goes quiet and we're left with the beat. An initially enjoyable silence turned uncomfortable after it lasts for a second too long. And when the main melody starts again and it's going off beat... Something about it is so wrong.

Concept: this song only starts playing from every TV when Mono is running around the City by himself, looking for Six. It's her call for help distorted by the Tower into a sick melody with nothing but ill intent behind it - like it did to Hypno.

3) Real End of the Hall

Right, because we needed it to be 5 minutes long. Dear Lord I hate this song. It just sounds so... hopeless. Like all the joy has been sucked out of it. I'm tearing up as I'm writing this. Fuck you Tobias Lilja /pos

There is nothing much to say about most of it to be honest. The melody is more or less the same, just longer. That is, until we get halfway through... that's when yet another chorous of women begins singing as the static grows louder and louder! In the very back, a child's voice can be heard, yet it's muffled, covered by both the women and the static - until static is all that remains.

And then, at the very end, a familiar sound. That's the Maw, best friends. There is no way it's anything else.

Leads me to believe we were actually supposed to get another scene after the door closes at the end of the game. Maybe Six getting on the Maw?

4) Humming Call (Rest Easy)

Oh this one DESTROYED me.

There is not much to say about it musically, but... damn, Six's humming is just... MAN. You can clearly hear the distress in her voice, she sounds like she's desperately trying to hold back tears and failing. Her voice is quite distorted, so I'm guess this is Monster Six - or even Six attempting to calm herself down during the monster transformation process? Either way, it really seems as if she's in pain. I hate it here

5) End of the Hall (Short)

Nothing to say about this one, just End of the Hall with no clock in the back and less static. Everything hurts

6) Hope and Betrayal

Can I say, I'm glad they chose Nothing Lasts Forever over this one, even though this one is objectively better in every single aspect? Because if they DID go with this one, I would have never fucking recovered. And I STILL haven't recovered?!

The beginning, while similar to Nothing Lasts Forever, as the title implies, is much more hopeful. I can perfectly see the scene in my mind. Mono and Six running together in slow motion and they're about to get out, finally, they're about to leave. Six is a bit ahead, Mono does the jump, and then... it drops. Just like it does in NLF.

... BUT THEN IT CONTINUES.

I'll be honest, this was the last place where I would have expected the Lady's motif to pop out. And YET. Like you can't deny it. It's literally right there for everyone to hear. Right after the drop. And it's so cruel.

Because even though it's solemn and composed like only the Lady songs only manage to be, it still sounds hopeful. Almost as if dropping Mono was the right choice. Up until now, percussions (?) have been playing in the back of the song, like a never ending heart beat. When the drop happens, suddenly, all heaviness is lifted from the song. The singing voice of the woman sounds so... free. The child humming towards the end is just as relaxed, almost as if they just lifted an incredibly crushing weight off their chest.

It's hauntingly beautiful - like the concept I think it's trying to express. In order to be free and embrace her true self, Six has to leave what's holding her down behind. Even if it's a friend.

Even if it's Mono.

This song ceases to be beautiful and transforms into being just straight up cruel when taking Mono into account, which is why I'm glad it wasn't used. It wouldn't have helped with the whole "Six is just a kid trying to survive and is genuinely regretful aftet dropping Mono" argument - of which I'm a firm believer btw.

7) Unknown 2

Ah, another song with a beginning similar to A Room With A View... except this time it goes on for much longer. Almost two minutes of it!

Then, the tone shifts, while still keeping the motif in the back: it's suddenly more reminiscent of Togetherness... until it slowly begins to dwelve into Maw typical noises. I wonder if the game was supposed to have multiple endings at one point - OR! This could have perfectly been the song playing during the credits. It would totally fit there! It does give off a similar vibe to Beneath the Waves... Plus, the Maw noises at the end could be in reference to Six on the Maw again!

8) Pursuing Hounds (Old Hunter Chase)

Not a really good one, but I still sorta like it? It would have fit the Hunter. I like the noise in the back, it sorta sounds like it's a broken machine running after the kids. Still, it doesn't hold up at all when compared to the literal banger that is Boots Through the Undergrowth.

9) Pale Silhouette Above

This one was apparently supposed to be used during the Thin Man chase sequence, in the scene where you have to walk directly under him and avoid being captured. I appreciate the throwback to A Feeling For Meat in the back, even though it makes no sense thematically.

10) Pale Silhouette Arrival

Another Mr Thin song that was supposed to be used in a scene where he came out from an elevator. Apparently both this and the previously mentioned song are shorter versions of Playtime.

Pale Silhouette... I like that name. I'm gonna add it to the "Broadcaster Nicknames to make him sound cool in fanfics" list.

11) Dejavu

Another song filled with Maw noises. It vaguely sounds like the Lady's motif... again. Specifically the one from Lure of the Maw. Compared to the other, this one really does sound it could be a Little Nightmares/Secrets of the Maw OST.

#little nightmares #little nightmares 2 #ln meta #ln music talk #six #mono #ln six #ln mono #the thin man #ln the thin man #the lady #ln the lady #{its always about these four in the end🙄 they really had to make this entire franchise about them and leave no room for noone else #I FINALLY FEEL BETTER AND CAN MAKE THEORIES/ANALYSIS AGAIN ON THE REGULAR #YALL DONT KNOW HOW NICE IT FEELS #time to catch up on some asks😼‼️}

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minachuuu · 4 years ago

Text

The Colors of The Night

❣The Colors of the Night❣

❤ Pairing: Jinsoul x Fem!Reader

❤ Genre: Fluff (And maybe just a lil dramatic, but not angst as such)

❤ Word Count: 7.2k

❤ Song Suggestions: Singing in the Rain by Jinsoul & She by Dodie

A splash, deafening to her ears, Jinsoul opened her eyes to find herself floating in a black sea. But nothing about it felt cold or wet, but a warmth surrounded her body as she sank even further. Gray scaled, she looked at her own reflection on a mirror made of water below her, void of color or even depth for that matter.

Jinsoul’s hand tried to reach in front of her, in case she found something to touch, something to feel. But instead she noticed her skin was a pale shade of gray. Her feet moving one behind the other create ripples in the air as she moves forward hoping to find something to see, something to hear.

“Hello?” She whispered, but the dark nothing surrounding her amplified her quiet call with each echo. The sound bounces so at least it meant this place wasn’t endless, she thought.

But what is logic to the realm of dreams? What is and what isn’t? Some people say it’s just your mind playing games, some say dreams are everything your heart wishes.

Rings of waves expanding away from her bare feet touching the surface of the crystal water, distorting her own image as she shook her head away from it. What is this place? Where to go when the black extends infinitely around?

“Jinsoul?” An echo far away responded to her, almost like a familiar song, making her head bolt up to search for the source. Urgency filled her veins, what she heard was no stranger’s voice, but one she couldn’t mistake.

“Y/n?”

A drop of water fell on Jinsoul’s cheek, running cold down her skin. Her finger carefully wiped it away, and raised so her eyes could analyze it. Color, the wet skin over her finger had color once again. She looked down to the water mirror, the route the drop had travelled down her cheek was colorful again.

“Jinsoul?” She heard again but closer this time, maybe a little to close. Almost as if you were just mere inches away from her face. The only thought of that action made her cheeks spark in heat, but as much as her eyes searched for you she couldn’t find you.

“Y/n…” She gasped as you finally stepped out of the shadows, floating just above the water mirror below her. “What is going on?”

Your skin was void of color, only available to a gradient of light and dark grays, but she noticed a ring of light all around you pulsating in shades of blue, that illuminated enough so you could see each other, as if the rest of the void wasn’t there. Her breath halted as your hand cupped her cheek, the warmth of your skin roaming down to her neck.

“We’re here.” You whispered as you got closer and closer to her, your hand not losing grip of her face. The rattling ideas in her brain urgently raced to her heart, accelerating its beats.

“But where is here?” She squinted her eyes, hoping that you didn’t realize how much they moved their focus from your eyes to your lips and from your lips to your eyes.

“Uh- the plaza?”

A fresh breath of air attacked Jinsoul’s lungs as the void, the water mirror and you all disappeared in front of her eyes. Black turned into a gray film behind her eyelids, as a shadow moved back and forward and her ears filled with the sounds of a busy street, muffled behind the closed windows of the groups’ van.

The car had finally come to a full stop on the side of the road, blinking lights that reflected on the white snow left to be melted at the new warmth of the spring arriving. All that was left was to wait for Jinsoul to wake up and realize you had arrived at your destination.

“Oh my god,” Hyejoo gasped from the back seat, shaking Jinsoul’s shoulders strongly. “Unnie died again! Nooooo! Jinsoul Unnie! Whyyyyyyyy?!”

“Hyejoo!” Chaewon slapped the younger girl’s arm playfully as you and Yeojin chuckled at her exaggerated wail. “Don’t say that!”

It wasn’t new for her, she noticed that you were becoming a resident in her dreams. Maybe it was a sign of missing you after all the hussle of the preparations of a comeback and promotions, she always said to herself. It started with once a week, then twice, three times, everyday.

Sometimes she just found you like a background character, offering her back that loving smile that she was so familiar with and adored. And other times it was just you and her. But every time that happened, her heart woke up agitated, her brain unable to get you out of there.

“Don’t say… don’t say what?” Jinsoul mumbled as her eyes opened, adjusting to the light on this side of her slumber. Her eyes slowly widening at the sight of your face just in front of her, as she raised her hands up to her increasingly heating cheeks.

“Oh-” Hyejoo cleared her throat as she straightened herself in her place. “Nevermind.”

“Welcome back.” You whispered, gently putting one of her stray hairs behind her ear. “We’re here but if you’re tired, we can go back to the dor-”

“No way!” Her energy suddenly jumped in hopes to deflect your attention away, gathering her stuff as she unbuckled her seatbelt. “We’re already here!”

Your eyes found her bandmates who just shrugged and nodded their heads back at you as she opened the door to the van. She scrambled to get her coat on clumsily and the sight got a sigh out of you, a smile adorning your lips as you shook your head.

“Are- are you sure?” You stuttered.

“We’ve waited enough to try this new place, I’m sure!” Jinsoul waved at the manager in the driver seat as she jumped out of the van. “Thank you for the ride Manager-nim!”

You quickly followed behind, gratefully bowing your head at her managers and bandmates. Jinsoul took your hand in hers while helping you out of the van, but refused to let it go once you were out.

“Ah, why did you have to make only two reservations?” Yeojin sulked on the front seat as she turned around to face the others. “We could all use a good massage after our schedules lately, right?”

“I’m not coming near any of you when it comes to massages.” She pouted back, making everyone giggle. “Not after the last time you tried pinning me down forcefully to the ground.”

“I didn’t make the reservation, Y/n did!” Jinsoul pointed at Yeojin with her free hand, winking confidently. “I’ll bring all the members when we finish promotions, I promise.”

“Ah, your word Unnie!” Yeojin gasped, “And Y/n-Unnie is here as a witness!.”

“It’s fairly new, so we’ll try it first.” You chuckled as the van door started closing in front of you, your free hand waving back the girls. “And then I’ll make sure she tells you the truth.”

“Word!” Yeojin pointed back at both of you. “See you later!”

“Enjoy your date!” Hyejoo blurted out as the automatic door was almost closed, when you heard a sudden sharp slap come out of the van. “Ow! What was that for?!”

You chuckled at the last thing you heard before the door clicked and the engine on the car started. The manager offered you both a warm smile before his eyes were back on the road and the van was driving away. Both of you turned around as Jinsoul turned your intertwined hands into intertwined arms.

“I’m sorry for falling asleep on the way here.” Jinsoul admitted as your feet started moving towards the modern building in front of you. “Most have been a quiet or awkward drive for you, you should have woken me up…”

“I don’t think one can have a quiet drive when Yeojin is in the car,” You chuckled, shaking your head. “Besides, I know you are still in the middle of promotions and I figured you could be tired, so I just thought you preferred a little nap.”

Jinsoul's cheeks blushing again caught her by surprise, as she turned her face to the other side so you wouldn’t notice it. Quick to brush it away, she shook her head, skipping in her place.

“But isn’t that why we are here today? So we can relax and just spend a peaceful night together?” She cheered on. “By the way, thank you for inviting me, I’m sorry I made you wait so much but you know-”

“I wouldn’t dare trying a new place without my best friend, you know it’s our thing!” You admitted, taking pride in your bond and traditions. “And because it was your turn to choose last time, for mine I decided that a spa would be a really good option.”

“Casually after I told you the other day that all I wanted was a massage more than anything?” Jinsoul chuckled, tugging at your arm.

“Yes, it was merely a coincidence.” You tried sounding as serious as possible, barely hiding your real intentions.

Jinsoul could easily have told you that she was way too tired or was busy to hang out with you tonight, it wouldn’t be rare for any of you. Usually when she was in the middle of promotions, you waited until she was free to see each other, but this time around you were a little surprised that she was the one that insisted on seeing you. Of course, you thought of something that would be good for her, something relaxing.

You didn’t realize that your eyes were fixed on the girl intertwined at your arm, as a smile kept growing over your lips. It was her eyes looking back at yours as she giggled that brought you back into reality in a second.

“Hey, our reservations are at eight.” You cleared your throat, fixing your eyes to the front. “I think we have time to grab a little snack before getting there.”

“I think there’s a little store that way,” Jinsoul pointed farther into your path and your eyes fixed on the distance, where a little stall with a warm yellow light illuminated a fruit stall on its front. “The snacks are on me!”

You chuckled back at her as you both excitedly accelerated your walk, getting to the corner of the block and to the front of the store.

You opened the door and let her go inside when something of a bright pinkish-orange sparkled in the corner of your eye. Peaches, they looked almost like fake ones of how bright they shined.

You picked up a couple, eager to show them to Jinsoul and excited for the taste of something fresh. As you entered the store, shaking away the cold wind of the night behind, you looked through the aisles, searching for your friend until you finally found her on the back, her eyes roaming through the refrigerators and the drinks inside them.

“Ah, found you.” You closed in, bouncing lightly with every step. “The peaches looked really good for not being in season, so I grabbed a couple.”

“And I got you this too.” She shook a bottle of apple juice as she closed the fridge. “Is it okay?”

“Yes!... Do I really get that all the time?” You chuckled as Jinsoul nodded, “You know me way too much, I bet I’m made of seventy percent apple juice by now.”

And maybe you taste like it too. Jinsoul jumped startled at her own thoughts, immediately turning around in her place, afraid that her eyes or reddening cheeks gave them away.

“Should we go pay now?” Her voice trembled as she ran towards the counter. You followed her closely and put the two peaches on the counter, aside of your drinks and chips.

The man tending the store was scanning the items, as you rested your head over Jinsoul’s shoulder. The gesture grabbed her by surprise, as she shook her head. Why did a common gesture between you and her suddenly make her heart jump and yearn for more like never before?

You grabbed the items once she paid for them, and headed out of the store. You walked silently side by side through the street at your own calm pace as you snacked on your chosen food.

Out of everything that Jinsoul tried to do to avoid getting more and more confused about her feelings towards you, her eyes insisting on landing over you did not help at all. The warm and cold lights of the melting snow and the lanterns rested like heavenly light over your face. She could swear time slowed down and her lungs forgot how to work correctly.

“Hey-” You started a conversation that you tried holding until an appropriate moment, your voice bringing Jinsoul back from her own trance. “What were you dreaming about in the car on the way here?”

“How do you know I was dreaming?” She squinted her eyes towards you. You couldn’t contain your smile at her pouty lips mouthing her question as her eyebrows raised in curiosity.

“Well, you were kind of twitching on your place, and mumbling stuff under your breath…”

“It was a weird dream to be honest.” Jinsoul hesitated, still not sure on what it meant or how to feel about it. “It looked a lot like a possible nightmare…”

“Really?” A displeased gasp was heard in your tone as you bolted your eyes away from her. “Why do you say that?”

“Oh, cause…” Her eyes wandered around trying to find a good alternative to her actual dream, especially now that she was unsure how’d you take it if your name slipped out of her mouth after saying it looked more like a nightmare. So she went to her other best option, the first that came to her mind. “I dreamt that I was blonde again.”

A hard laugh escaped your mouth that made some people turn their heads at you, as your head shook at her response. You remember vividly those times, and you know she didn't enjoy some parts of it but not quite to classify it as a nightmare.

“You didn’t even look bad when you were blonde!” You launched back at her as you calmed down. “C’mon Jinsoul, you’re so pretty, everything suits you well.”

“Tell that to my scalp!” Jinsoul sneered back hoping that your laugh and her comment distract you from her red cheeks after you commented. “Even you said that you liked me better with dark hair!”

“And I do! I just thought... I heard you calling my name when you were dreaming and I was curious.” You sighed, your eyes capturing hers for a second. Jinsoul’s eyes avoided yours as they grew wider, the red on her cheeks intensifying. “But, I just misheard it in between your mumbles...”

“No, not at all!” She panicked, her hands fidgeting as she hid them in the sleeves of her long sweater. “Well, I mean, maybe-”

“Oh look!” You interrupted, your feet halting as your hand pointed at a stall beside you. “We’re finally here.”

You reached a clear glass door, your hand grabbing a cold metal handle that you pushed and let Jinsoul pass first into the lighted heat of the building. A little bell rang your entrances, as warmth hit your faces when you closed the door behind you, instantly making your coats useless.

A waterfall fountain adorned a marbled wall on the other side of the room, plants climbing on both sides of it. A polished and wavy wooden counter sat in front of it, aromatic candles sitting on top of it whose flame danced in a soothing and amicable wave.

“Welcome, welcome! You can leave your coats on the hanger right beside you!” The lady behind the counter on the other side of the room greeted both of you in, waving gently. “Can I have the name of your reservation?”

“Of course, it’s Y/n Y/L/n, I made a reservation at 8.” You approached the counter after hanging both your coats, the lady searching for your name on the screen at her desk.

“Ah! Here it is.” She smiled as she read the information. “A Couple Package reservation for Jung Jinsoul and Y/n Y/L/n. Is that right?”

“It is!” You responded as you handed your credit card to the lady.

“C-Couple?” Jinsoul stuttered as her head tilted in curiosity.

“It was almost the same price as two separate reservations. But we get to use the Couple installations, a box of chocolates, and best of all...” You chuckled as you turned around, excited for the last benefit. “Matching slippers that we get to take home!”

“They have your initials embroidered!” The lady added to your enthusiasm as she handled your card back.

“AND they have our initials embroidered!” You repeated even more excitedly as you nudged her arm playfully. “Your members say we always act like an old married couple anyways so why not take advantage of that?”

She laughed at your sparkling eyes and the slight bounce on your feet. She always loved your child-like spirit, mostly because she was just like you. You both made each other feel like it was okay to get excited at little or apparently insignificant things in life, like… matching embroidered slippers.

The woman nodded, signaling you both to follow her. She showed you the way to your changing rooms, but with each step, Jinsoul’s heart suddenly started ramping up.

She was sure not that kind of person, but she couldn’t deny that she was getting a bit mad with all of this. Friendship worth half a lifetime, unconditional. Nothing of this sort was out of the ordinary for any of you, the holding of hands, the intertwined arms, the subtle skin touches, changing clothes with the other around, daily messages. She was used to seeing your lemongrass scent, the sparkle in your eyes, your wide smile and singsong laugh.

Why all of a sudden all those little gestures made her mind fly away and her heart jump in circles?

With her numbed and cloudy mind, she didn’t realize when you both were already laying down the massage beds until she felt a warm hand travel through her back with strength in its grip. Her eyes recognized her surroundings, calming down when they laid over your silhouette just parallel to hers.

“You seem like a young couple,” One of the ladies preparing something on a table on the other side of the room asked, “How long have you been together?”

Both your cheeks harmonized in hues of red and pink, as you locked your eyes with each other, trying to find any word to answer to that.

“We’re not together!” Jinsoul spitted out. “We’re just friends… really good friends.”

“Really good friends?” The lady laughed as she repeated to herself, you chuckled as Jinsoul realized that emphasizing that phrase might have been a little too much. “I could have sworn... there’s such sincerity in your eyes, you look like a just married couple.”

“Eh, other friends say we sometimes act like an old married couple.” You giggled. “So I guess you aren’t that far from the truth.”

“Well, one can never know what the future holds.” The woman turned around from her table, a tray with hot towels and facial masks prepared, leaving it on a counter that separated you and Jinsoul. “Finishing the massage, I’ll proceed with your desired facials. Meanwhile, enjoy the massage. Don’t worry if you fall asleep in the process, the best thing you can do is relax.”

“Thank you!” You answered, as the woman bowed and exited the room.

Jinsoul couldn’t help but repeat that entire conversation over in her head, but was brought over again to this reality when you extended your hand across the little gap that separated both. She grabbed back your hand, intertwining your fingers as you closed your eyes, willing to submit yourself to the relaxing atmosphere.

But Jinsoul refused to close hers. They didn’t want to leave the sweet image of your hand resting with hers, but she also feared that everytime she closed them she woke up seeing you in a whole different light, colors surrounding you that she was unsure that she wanted to explore any further.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A splash, deafening to her ears, Jinsoul opened her eyes to find herself floating in a black sea, again. Nothing about it felt cold or wet, but a warmth surrounded her body as she sank even further. Gray scaled, she looked at her own reflection on a mirror made of water below her, void of color or even depth for that matter.

Jinsoul’s hand tried to reach in front of her, but she already knew there was nothing to touch, something to feel. Her skin was a pale shade of gray and her feet moving one behind the other created ripples in the air as she moved forward hoping to find the only one she knew that was here to see, to hear.

“Y/n?” She whispered, but the dark nothing surrounding her amplified her quiet call with each echo. The sound bounced back to her ears as she hoped to find you in the endless void again.

“Jinsoul?” An echo far away responded to her, like a familiar song, making her head bolt up to where you appeared last time.

“Y/n!”

“Jinsoul?” She heard again but closer this time, a little to close.

“Y/n…” She gasped as you finally stepped out of the shadows, floating just above the water mirror below her. “Here you are.”

“I’m here.” You whispered as you got closer and closer to her, your hand not losing grip of her face. The rattling ideas in her brain urgently raced to her heart, accelerating its beats. She squinted her eyes, hoping that you didn’t realize how much they moved their focus from your eyes to your lips and from your lips to your eyes.

But this time she decided not to stop the natural path of her instincts, letting herself get closer to you with each second.

But a second drop of water came down over her, as it caressed it’s way down her face leaving a colorful path behind her like it’s sister before. She took a step back, startled. But then a third drop came down, now landing on your face. A fourth, a fifth, more and quicker landing on top of you and the void around you, uncovering behind them a complete and colorful path behind them.

She looked down, discovering that her gray gown only turned a deep dark blue as each drop decorated their way through. Your laugh echoed through the endless void, as your smile complemented your now colored, blushed cheeks and pastel blue gown. The drops started illuminating up the emptiness around, each of them turning into a star as they froze in space and shined with this cyan hue over them.

Jinsoul’s eyes vaulted up to catch you running across the stars, raining all around you as you splashed your feet over the water mirror, now a path, a rainbow of hues of blue that reflected your radiance.

“Let’s go!” You signaled back to Jinsoul as you took off running in a direction by yourself.

“Y/n! Wait!” Jinsoul ran behind you, trying her best to reach out for you. Her hand only barely grazed yours as she tried to keep up with your pace.

“What are you waiting for then?” You shouted as you kept your feet dashing through the water, making your reflections almost unrecognizable in the ripples that you left on your path.

“I- I don’t know!” She yelled back, her hand only barely grazed yours as she tried to keep up with your pace.

Where did you get your speed from to run away from her that quickly? She started losing speed as her legs gave up on her. Her feet halted as she raised her face to the sky, the raining stars softly showering her skin.

Violins and a piano in the distance accompanying the constant beating of her heart that acted as a drum to this scene that looked out of a painting. She let herself enjoy the sight for a second, enough for you to stop running away from her and come back to her.

“Is this what you want?” You giggled through your tired breath, holding your arms to the sky.

Her head tilted at the confusing question, shutting her eyes closed, letting her lungs catch back their breath, shaking her head clear of any mudding thought. But after opening her eyes, everything was still there.

The way you played with the rain of stars around you. The blue glow landing and perfecting your silhouette, as it cooled down your skin and painted your cheeks purple. It was only you in front of her, bearing that smile that wrinkles your eyes that she loved so much.

Maybe it clicked in her mind at that precise moment, but she wanted to be the reason for that smile someday.

“Yes…” She launched herself into your arms, holding you closely to her body. Close enough so she could feel your beating heart against hers. You tied your arms around her back, as her hand travelled to your chin and turned it towards her. Her lips urged on closing the gap left to reach yours, as she whispered back against them. “Yes, this is everything I want.”

“JINSOUL UNNIE!”

Jinsoul jumped on her own seat, her hands flying in self defense, hitting against the window beside the couch she was napping on.

“AH!” She gasped at the impact, taking her hands back to her stomach where she curled around them.

“Told you it worked!” Hyejoo chuckled in the front seat now.

“We’re almost there unnie,” Heejin was seated beside her on the back seat of the van, quickly packing her stuff up on her bag. “Finally home.”

A strong sigh escaped out of Jinsoul’s mouth as she threw her head back into the headrest, her hands rubbing her eyes as she was welcomed back into this reality.

“What were you dreaming about over there?” Sooyoung asked from the seat in front of her.

“Oh c’mon!” She groaned as she grabbed her bag and scanned for items to clean up. “Why does everybody know when I’m dreaming things?”

“Because you talk in your sleep.” A chorus filled the van as Heejin, Sooyoung, Hyunjin and Hyejoo responded at the same time.

“I… I do?”

“Yep, and honestly it’s kind of cute sometimes.” Hyunjin turned around to face her, resting her chin on the back of the seat. “Other times it’s a little scary, depending on what your mumbling about”

“I- I was dreaming with Y/n.” Jinsoul sighed, quietly and hoping nobody really listened to her.

The car filled with silence let her breathe for a second, as she gathered her stuff around. Her phone, earplugs, wallet-

Her eyes paused for a second as she opened the wallet up, resting over a polaroid picture of one of your escapades together to a theme park. A tender smile drew over her lips as she stared, only to be brought back by Sooyoung’s voice.

“When are you going to tell her?” Sooyoung had adopted the same pose as Hyunjin, Hyejoo’s face peeking from all the way up the front, and Heejin laying close beside her. All eyes over her made her cheeks light up like fire as she fumbled her words.

“I- I barely just accepted that I have a crush on her!” She defended herself as she shoved her wallet back in her bag. “There’s no need to rush things up.”

“Rush?” Hyejoo sneered as she turned around, facing back the front. “You call eating each other with the eyes for two years ‘rushing things up’?”

The girls in the car chuckled at her comment, but it only made Jinsoul pout as the thought sank further into her mind. The car arrived at the front of their dorm, just in time for this conversation to be forgotten.

All the girls rushed out of the van, eager to finally be able to sleep for an entire night. But Jinsoul took her time, mostly because her mind wasn’t really into leaving the van but constantly reminding her of you and what she would do now that she was finally free and inevitable you would see each other again.

But a loud sound got her out of her cloudy confusion. A thunder rumbling through the skies as she walked her way to the front door.

“But it’s just spring, why is it thundering?” Sooyoung asked, waiting for her as she held the door open. “Do you think it will rain?”

“I don’t think so.” Jinsoul answered plainly.

Yves shrugged as she closed the door behind her, both of them walking the stairs up to their dorm floor. And as they opened the door, the sight behind it was different from any other day that you could imagine.

The usual chaos one could imagine that a twelve person house could bare, was nowhere to be seen as every corner you encountered there was one girl just laying down on whatever surface they found comfortable enough to do so. A special sight only available at the end of a harsh and intensive promotion period.

“I’ll see if there’s something in the kitchen that we can eat,” Sooyoung told everyone as she left her bag on the floor beside Yeojin. “Or would you be alright with ordering something?”

“TAKEOUT!” A chorus of not less than seven girls filled the air, some not even on a visual range and probably already laying over their beds.

Sooyoung just nodded and walked her way to the kitchen, as Jinsoul threw her entire body on the couch beside Yerim. She got her phone out, leaving her bag on the floor. Turned it on to browse for a while until her eyes were heavy enough, only to realize she had unread messages from you.

‘You’ve done so good this comeback, I’m so proud of you. Last day of promotions! Hwaiting!’

‘Saw the broadcast, beautiful as always. Text me back when you get home, you’ve done great!’

She was ready to dial your number up when a sudden knock on the door was heard, making all the girls around raise their heads.

“Is anyone missing?” Vivi started counting the girls around, counting the ones she already knew that were in their bedrooms.

“No, everyone’s here. We were the last van.” Jinsoul answered back.

“Maybe it’s a manager?” Jiwoo screamed from her bedroom, as the knocking sounded again.

“Is anybody going to get the door?” Haseul shouted from the kitchen.

“Fine, I’ll get it.” Jinsoul moaned as she got up from the couch. It was only enough for her to get close to the door when a familiar scent invaded her senses. Lemongrass.

She already knew who laid on the other side of the door, and still the image of your silhouette standing right in front of her as she opened the door surprised her. She stood there for a second, a second that felt like hours to her just staring at you. The beating on her heart speeding up, her cheeks blushing as for once she was thankful for not having taken all her makeup off.

“Hi!” You cheered up with your shoulders and usual smile. Raising up your hands, they were occupied by large plastic bags filled with containers full of food. “I figured neither you or the girls would have any energy left to cook anything, so I brought you this as a congratulating gift.”

“Y/n…” A swift whisper was the only thing that she could get out of her lips, her eyes scanning you up and down, until it hit her. “YOU ARE SOAKING WET!”

“...Yes.” You shrunk your arms as you lowered the bags of food, a little heavy to keep carrying them up. “I thought it wouldn't be such a big deal, it never rains in the first days of spring. I was cruelly proved wrong.”

“Please come in! Warm up!” She insisted.

“No! Don’t worry about it, I just got out of work so I’m just passing by quickly on my way home.” You shook your head, chuckling at the whole situation. You noticed the heads of the rest of her members start popping up from behind her, curious at the scene. “I wouldn’t want you to take care of this right now, you all must be tired. I’ll just go back to the car for something...”

Jinsoul’s mind lit up a thousand ideas on it’s own, cornering her into making a decision. She turned around, to which the other girls quickly averted their gaze somewhere else.

“Hyejoo!” She called loudly.

“WhAT?” She snapped her head towards you two, sinking her body farther on the couch.

“Come here!”

“Unnieeeeee!” She whined, covering her face with her arms. “WHy ME?!”

“Do you want food or not?!” Jinsoul grabbed one of the bags and shaked it up almost like a prize to a well trained pet.

You chuckled at the exchange, not really surprised, since you hung out with them fairly often. A silent pause filled the air as you watched the girl on the far end of the hallway heavily raise her body from the couch.

“I’m coming!” She groaned. Hyejoo offered you a smile and a nod in her usual way of greeting as she took one bag on each hand, her tired eyes moving back and forth between you and Jinsoul.

Sensing the tension in between both of you, she politely bowed at you and rushed back into the house, as Jinsoul grabbed a coat from the hanger on the side of the door and quickly put it on.

“Let’s go!” She gasped as she grabbed the nob behind her.

“What are you doing? You’re going to get soaked!” You tried holding her back, but hesitated into touching her to not wet her with your dripping clothes. “I just have to grab something from the car, bring it and I’m out, I swear”

“Well, maybe you want some company on the way down the stairs?” She shrugged as she crossed her arms over her chest, evading your eyes as she started to regret her ideas one by one. “My… company?”

Your cheeks reddened at the sight of a flustered Jinsoul in front of you, and with her eyes sparkling back at you, you could never deny you loved her company every second you could.

“S- Sure.” You stuttered, getting caught by surprise when she intertwined her arm with yours. “You’re going to get we-”

“It doesn’t matter.” She cut you up plainly.

The rest of the way down the stairs was strangely quiet and quick. You wanted to ask her how everything went, maybe how you weren’t able to get her out of your mind for the last three weeks since you last saw each other. She was very serious and you thought it was because she was really tired. Totally understandable after a month and a half of promotions.

But inside of her she was trying to build a courage that she didn’t even know she had in her.

Opening the door to the main building, you managed to free yourself from her hold. Together you stood under the roof of the porch as you sighed, mentally preparing yourself to brace the rain once again. Uselessly, you raised the soaked hood on your jacket up to your head as you walked down the stairs as Jinsoul was already exploding with a thousand words to say.

“Y/n!”

She shouted as you were already halfway, immediately regretting her decision when she saw you halting and turning, standing and waiting for her to keep talking right under the pouring rain.

“I- I like you!” She felt her body almost giving up under her when the words spluttered out of her mouth. Her hands were shaking as she waited for your response, but she could only see your eyes squinting back.

“What!?” You had barely listened to her words under the loud rain surrounding you, and of course it didn’t help that Jinsoul barely whispered them.

Jinsoul's eyes shut as she shook her head. Maybe later that night she would grow to regret what she was about to do, but it wasn’t everyday that she got an opportunity like the one in front of her.

She stepped out of the porch, each step getting her closer and closer to you as she crossed her arms on top of her chest. But all she could do against the nerves rattling her body was to keep spitting words that just came into her mind.

“Look, I didn’t want to tell you this way. I didn’t even think that I was going to tell you today, soon or ever to be honest, but here we are.” She started. Rings of waves expanding away from her feet touching the surface of the crystal water, distorting her own image as she shook her head away from it. “I have been dreaming each and every night, every nap, and every second it’s you. You’re there and it’s something that makes me happy. It makes me wish that I didn’t have to wake up.”

“Jinsoul-”

“And one can only bear so much without wondering what it all means. Why do I count the hours of everyday just to be able to hear your voice through the phone or receive a text from you?” She was closing in on you, and the least of her worries right now was the rain pouring on top of her, she just wanted to get everything out of her mind. “But it’s your colors that bring me peace at night, they let me find my way through the dark… This doesn’t make any sense, why would you know what all of this means if I don’t?!”

Only then she dared look up at you, only to be met with a painting coming straight out of her dreams.

The drops illuminated the emptiness around, each of them turning into a star, reflecting the street light around as they froze in space and shined with this cyan hue over them. And there you were in the middle of it all, the way the rain of stars looked like it jumped around you. The blue glow landing and perfecting your silhouette, as it cooled down your skin and painted your cheeks purple. It was only you in front of her, bearing that smile that wrinkles your eyes that she loved so much.

“Why are you smiling at me?” She shrunk in her place, just hoping that a miracle happened and you weren't able to listen to everything she just splurged out of her mouth. “It was nothing, really-”

“Oh Jinsoul.” You chuckled, capturing her attention. She noticed a ring of light all around you pulsating in shades of blue, that illuminated enough so you could see each other, as if the rest of the void wasn’t there. Her breath halted as your hand cupped her cheek, the warmth of your skin roaming down to her neck. “Because I know what you’re talking about.”

“What?” She let her arms fall down to her side as layer behind layer started to fade from her soul, bringing her closer to you. “You understand?”

“Every word of it.” You whispered, a secret well kept between two souls that waited for each other mere inches apart. “I thought I was the only one that couldn’t get you out of my mind.”

“That means…”

“Jinsoul, I like you too. I have for a long time!” You giggled through your tired breath, holding your arms to the sky. “And I have dreamed that I told you this a hundred times already but still woke up and everything was exactly the same!”

“There’s a way to know if it is a dream or not…” She gasped, her mind clearing for the first time since this crush on you muddied her thoughts. The rattling ideas in her brain urgently raced to her heart, accelerating its beats. She squinted her eyes, hoping that you didn’t realize how much they moved their focus from your eyes to your lips and from your lips to your eyes.

“And what is that?”

“Because if this is a dream, I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

Jinsoul launched herself into your arms, her hands cupping your face as her lips urgently closed the gap on yours. Startled at first, you body tensed up taking a step back to counter her body weight over yours. But just as moved away from you, your arms hurried to her waist, bringing her back to you.

She was right that other night, your lips tasted like apple juice and peach, a sweet combination that she could never be tired of tasting for the rest of her life. Your skin was as soft and tender under her touch, with the tips of her fingers tingling like if they were gracing down a silk made rainbow.

And your eyes, how she could stare at them forever. It was just for a second that you pulled apart for air, but it was just enough for her to notice all the variety of colored nebulas and stars that shined on them only for her.

How could she convince herself it wasn’t a dream? The cold wetness of the rain dripping down both your bodies, fighting with the warmth of your embrace, it was not comparable to the ghostly sensations that dreams offered her.

“You know-” You sighed, anything in the world unable to erase the smile off your face. “I think I will accept your offer of coming in and warming up.”

“Yeah,” She chuckled back, shyness returning into her face as she loosened her grip over you. “It doesn’t sound like a bad idea right now.”

You offered your hand to her, and she didn’t hesitate a second as she intertwined her fingers with yours. Not forgetting the last bag of food waiting on your car, you chuckled as you returned to the safe, warm and dry interior of her dorm.

She could stop staring back at you, making sure you were still there by her side, and no one around tried to wake her up and away from in any way.

Because for once, her thoughts weren’t cloudy or cluttered, but bright and surrounded in a blue hue that always seemed to follow you around in the night. Maybe for the first time, Jinsoul was sure what her favorite color was.

#loona scenarios #loona imagines #jinsoul scenarios #jinsoul imagines #girl group imagines #girl group scenarios

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mggpleasedontlookhere · 5 years ago

Text

pascal pt. 2

summary: spencer deals with a grueling case which reminds him of his son, and so he decides to finally come home

word count: 1,307 reading time aprox: 5 mins

masterlist

part 1

It has been a few days since Spencer had left, in which I had left him numerous voicemails about his whereabouts and mental status. Unfortunately I had received no intel about him, until Garcia had reassured me that he had been cooped up in Derek’s house.

It was around 2 pm in the afternoon and I had just put Pascal back in his cradle after feeding him. The sun beamed through the windows, emitting a gorgeous array of blinding rays into the living room where I sat. A book lay on my lap, specifically ‘Persuasion’ by Jane Austen, while I sipped on a cup of tea.

Despite the serene atmosphere, harsh thoughts permeated my head space and completely betrayed the peaceful setting I was situated in. Throughout the days of the empty apartment, my mind had wondered about nothing but Spencer; even when I was cleaning, I would get caught up on a single task because I was overthinking.

Just like now, I had been staring at the same sentence for 10 minutes without a distinct clue of what it meant. My guilt had built its own narrative that took me out of my own reality. Truthfully, Pascal was the only thing that had kept me grounded in the past time. However, he also reminded me of the fight that ensued previously.

I was stressed- we were both stressed- at the time and the fight was nothing but agitation fueled nonsense. Me and Spencer had gone through so much worse compared to our argument, yet I felt like this conflict embedded itself in Spencer’s memory in a malicious manner.

On cue, the front door had opened tentatively, startling me in process.

There he was in flesh and bone: Spencer.

He didn’t look at me when he entered the living room, but he also wasn’t angry. His shoulders were slumped, his hair was a mess, and he wore a grimace on his face. These were usually the telltale signs of a ghastly event.

He had dropped his belongings beside him carelessly and made sluggish, yet earnest strides to the chair I sat in. Within a few moments, he stood in front of me with his head still hanging low. Although with an abrupt maneuver, he placed himself on his knees and laid the side of his head on my lap.

“I’m sorry” He mumbled, his voice sounding distorted and muffled.

Instinctively I laid an apprehensive hand on his head, running my fingers through the tangles of his hair. I was still disoriented from his sudden behavior, slightly baffled to what his intentions were. Although I had received clarity as I felt my lap dampen with Spencer’s tears.

“Hey Spencer, what happened?” I asked gently, lifting his chin up slightly to get a good look at him. His eyes were puffy and dark circles encompassed them, making them more apparent. His eyes were flushed in a rouge color, yet they were painted by Spencer’s melancholy tears. His lips were slightly pursed into a frown, a small habit he did whenever he was despondent.

“I’m so sorry”

He persisted in apologizing, repeating the sentence continuously as he ignored my inquiry. He muffled his head deeper into my lap, grabbing a hold of both of my wrists in the process.

“Spencer...tell me what happened” I stated, worry encompassing my entire consciousness as my heart wrenched at the state of him.

He had finally responded to my suggestion, looking up at me with his doleful eyes. “I had- there was this c-case we had and- I- just can’t” He broke down in a fit of tears, incoherent whimpers emitting from his supple lips.

“Spencer…” I pulled him up from where he knelt, before taking him into my embrace. “You can talk to me- and if you don’t want to that’s fine- but I’m here” I professed, feeling him clutch onto the sweater I was wearing.

He pulled away and wiped his nose with his sleeve, recollecting his composure to elaborate on the reasoning of his discomfort. “I- we had a case and the unsub- oh my god, you won’t believe it- he was strangling infants Y/N...INFANTS!” He explained, becoming exasperated as he came onto the topic of the activities of the criminal. I cringed as he spoke about the methodology of the abhorrent unsub, my heart wringing as I placed my shoes in the parents of the victim.

I continued to stroke his hair, knowing that was a comfort for him, as he continued with his disdainful spiel. He stumbled over a few of his words while venting, especially on the parts where he would mention the sadistic tendencies the unsub had. I noticed the volume of his tone increase whenever he’d get passionate about the subject, considering it was about the death of a child.

“And- Y/N- all I could think about was Pascal… what i- what if it was Pascal?” He lamented, gazing into my own eyes with regret. His attention flickered to the hallway where Pascal’s nursery was situated. “I can’t even b-be th-there for him, how am I-” He paused, getting choked up as his throat contracted in dread.

I was now stroking his cheek, wiping away any evidence of tears that were once there. I paid full attention to his words, observing how his facial features would contort in genuine agony. My feeling matched his own as if our emotions were intertwined or if our bodies transcended into the same being.

“I can’t even be there for him...how can I protect him from people like that” He enunciated every word with self reproach, shaking his head at his inability of being a father. Tears cascaded down his cheeks once again, hitting the sides of my thumbs as I comforted him.

“Spencer come here” I cooed, pulling him up to my level, so he was more accessible. I stood up with him, tightly holding onto his hand as I guided him into Pascal’s nursery. He followed me in apprehension despite his disquietude, baffled about my intentions. I dragged him to where Pascal laid quietly, the music box playing in the background.

A paternal smile etched on the corners of Spencer’s lips, contrasting the ferment mood he was in before. “That’s your son” I whispered, encouraging him to take a step closer to Pascal. “And I know that he loves you with all his heart despite him not understanding what that is yet” I reassured, standing beside him with my arms wrapped around his free arm.

He reached into the crib, stroking the forehead of our son lovingly. “He looks so peaceful” He stated with a smile. I nodded, watching his face morph into a more content expression. It was as if all the horrible things in the world had dissipated and all that were in the room were the sources of his bliss.

“The things you- the incredible things- you do are all for protecting the little family that we have and I’m so grateful for you in my life” I began, snuggling into his embrace as he lifted his arm up to invite me into a hug. “And you were right, I’m sorry for-”

“No Y/N- I’ve put my job over my family numerous times, so I should be the one apologizing” He sighed, pressing a longing kiss on the top of my head while we stared at the bundle of our creation in front of us.

I pressed my hand against his stomach, clutching onto him like he would disappear again. “Let’s not worry about that anymore” I suggested, closing my eyes in bliss. He nodded in agreement, leaning down to place a chaste kiss on my lips.

“I love you so much Y/N- and Pascal” He professed, pulling me into him.

“I love you too Spence- and Pascal”

taglist: @rexorangecouny @april-14-blog @haylaansmi @guessthatswhyiliveinhell @aperrywilliams

A/N:

this was def. fun to write! i love writing about more taboo or uncommon prompts

anyway i hope you enjoyed this little story, see you soon <3

951 notes · View notes

hopeshoodie · 3 years ago

Text

Bellamy and Shannon ~breaking up~ fic

His face showed no reaction the first time the front door bumped loudly, muffled from the other room. The noise barely registered- every morning when Bellamy struggled to unlock it, that loud thump would accompany his fussing with a key and forceful pulling at the stubborn door. Two calls to the property management company and no one had even come out to look at it, and that was enough for Bellamy to allow himself to ignore it. The thump of the locked door became background noise to him.

But the second time, he seemingly realized he wasn’t the one struggling with the door. He set aside the loupe in his hand and pushed away from his work table.

“gotta get a bell on that,” he murmured to himself, mentally running through his schedule. No appointments or deliveries, though sometimes people walked in. He usually kept the door unlocked for walk-ins, but the door had been particularly stubborn that morning and he had gone around to the back, never bothering to unlock the front.

Still, people didn’t usually continue trying to enter after the first attempt. His hours were sporadic, and he had ‘appointment only’ on the website.

The door thudded again as he rounded the corner, irritation tugging at his gut slightly. It melted away when he saw through the frosted glass door.

Shannon, sunglasses sliding down her nose and hair tied half up away from her face, was braced against the window pane pulling at the door. He grinned, eyes lighting up. As if moving in a dream, he jogged to the door, limbs seemingly moving faster than his pace, eyes fixed on her downturned face. Reaching up and attempting to flip the lock, Shannon simultaneously pulled the door out of place, keeping the bolt in place.

“It- it’s not- it’s locked.” He tried to call through the door, but couldn’t stifle the laugh as they continued their dance. She looked up, mid-scowl at the door, and her face softened.

“I hate this old thing.” She shouted, continuing to pull on the door but no longer wrenching it back, “never know when it’s locked or just stuck.”

His hands dropped slightly, taking in her distorted silhouette. Her features blended together through the facets in the glass. She looked like an impressionist painting, and seconds ticked by as he tried to follow the colors across her face. After a bear, Shannon frowned, prompting “go on then,” when he didn’t fill the silence.

“You gotta- sorry, you gotta-” he chucked again, trying to turn the lock as she continued to put pressure on the door, “I can’t unlock it until you let go.”

It was her turn to blush, and she raised her palms in defeat. He slid the lock open and pushed the door quickly, accidentally pushing it into her shoulder. “Sorry.”

He overestimated the space between the door and the frame, trying to squeeze through the gap, and Shannon didn’t step backwards as the door pushed more firmly against her, “sorry,” a blush was starting to spread up his neck.

Managing to slide through the door, Ami ended up chest to chest with her, looking up he let out a breathy, third “sorry,” followed by an eager, “hi.”

He looked up at her with the brightness of the stars in his cheeks, their arms finding their own ways into an embrace. Her chin bumped against his forehead, forcing his head backwards awkwardly, and they spent a moment relearning how their bodies fit together again. He drew onto his toes and pressed a kiss to the corner of her lips before pulling away slightly, arms still around her.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Oh sorry, should I come during business hours? When’s that now? Midnight to six?”

“Something like that,” his response was muffled as he buried his face in her collar again, “you’re lucky I’m here to open the door.”

“Lucky, not so much. I stopped by your flat on the way here, didn’t see your car.”

“I go other places- could’ve been at a mate’s or-”

“Or at work.”

He pulled away with her, in mock disgruntlement, clasping at his own chest. “You got me. But you should’ve said you planned on being back, I could’ve made reservations or planned so-”

“Don’t need to. I’m not in Belfast for long.”

He pulled away, smile dimming slightly, “Oh, okay. Then we should do something.”

“I don’t really want to. Can we just… Chill?” Shannon swept the sunglasses off her face, now squinting at him, before pressing a light kiss to his forehead.

“Like netflix and chill-” earned him a swat to his left ear, but she smiled regardless.

“I just want to catch up. It’s been awhile.”

“It’s been nearly three months, darlin’” his voice lowered, wavering slightly, “I missed you.”

She nodded, kissing his forehead again then standing back. “Are you gonna invite me in?”

“... to my shop?”

“Well it’s not the parliament’s doorway we’re standing in.”

He smiled slightly at her joke, more of raising the corners of his mouth than a smile really, “so to clarify, you’re in Belfast randomly for not long, and you don’t want to go out or anything? In fact, you want to go into my empty, dusty workshop?”

“Is it dusty?” She reached out and squeezed his chin reassuringly, gently shaking his head from side to side, then slipped around him and pulled open the door. He watched her go, paused for a bit and glanced upwards at the hazy afternoon sky, then followed.

Shannon was already peering into one of the glass display cases, running her hands over the metal frames at the corners. He watched her from the entryway, face unreadable. It’s not as if this was out of the ordinary- she made a habit of breezing through his life at random intervals. He never minded waiting.

“Are you just going to stand there?” She didn’t look up from the case she stared down at.

“Where do you want me? Are you wanting to buy something- should I be around the counter with my little apron on?”

She shot a look over her shoulder, then turned back, “maybe, if something catches my fancy.”

Without responding, he meandered over to the hook a clean apron was hanging on, tied it around his waist, and walked over. Surprise and bemusement in her eyes, she met his when he slid across from her.

“Offer’s still on the table, I’d love to make you something. Something for you.” While seeing her wear his jewelry definitely stroked his ego, her purchasing them from his website while she was abroad always came with a twinge of… Something else. Like she was just someone putting in an online order, like she was just someone.

She didn’t respond to his comment, moving slowly down the line before stopping. Rooted in place and watching her out of the corner of his eye, he didn’t mirror her movement until she pointed.

“What about that one?”

He reached into the display and pulled out a row of rings. Of course she’d gravitate towards the one grouping of rings that he’d splurged to inlay with gemstones. He hardly purchased gems unless commissioned to, but every now and then he wanted to flex his old jeweler skills.

The ring Shannon had pulled and was now intently examining featured a blue sapphire he’d cut into a tapered baguette. Certainly wasn’t his best work, but he’d found an antique ring and salvaged the gem from it.

“It’s lovely, but I made it as an engagement ring.” He didn’t meet her eyes, instead watching as she pushed the ring back into the cushion. Her sigh was a bit too loud for the small room they stood in, a bit too performative. He didn’t look up until she slid her hand across the counter and rested it on top of his.

“We don’t have to do this,” she offered, gesturing between them, “you can work on whatever you were doing. I just wanted to be here.”

He couldn’t stop the cynical smile, or didn’t, “so you wanted to be here, to watch me just do work?”

Her misty eyed nod caught him by surprise. Turning his wrist, he clasped her palm in his and held tightly for a minute, and when she didn’t explain herself he leaned forward and kissed her softly.

“Alright.”

“I just need a little bit of normal-”

“Alright, it’s fine.”

Her hand dropped when he let go, bumping on the counter before she pulled it against her waist. Bellamy left the shop front, walking back into his workshop, and she trailed closely behind him.

He took his place back at the table, and she gravitated towards the outside of the room, where tools and antiques alike cluttered the counters and hung on the wall. Obviously it was a nervous tic, wandering around looking at anything but him, but the thought bubbled to the surface of his mind without restraint. Remember when she used to gravitate towards you.

He picked the loupe back up and went back to his sorting, moving stones into different compartments of a storage tray, mind not fully falling back into the work as he listened to her footsteps on the tile floor.

After a few minutes of silence, he asked, “so what have you been up to this month?” His own voice made him flinch, louder than he intended. Hopefully it wasn’t accusatory. He didn’t mean it to be, nor did he especially want it to be.

“Travelling for tournaments, mostly. I’ve had a bad couple of runs and been playing more to offset that.”

“How bad?”

“20k. It’s fine, I made enough in the last three to offset it.”

They lapsed into silence as he waited for her to say more. She didn’t, so he gently said, “you don’t have to justify yourself. If you love doing it that’s all that matters. I saw on insta that you were in Berlin? How was that?”

She started retelling the trip, focusing in detail on the progression of the high stakes games she played rather than the places she went. Bellamy didn’t mind, lavishing in the details that he was convinced no one else remembered. Every time she told a story, he felt as though she conjured up a bubble of the past that wouldn’t exist otherwise- the details she noticed and matter of fact way she relayed memories couldn’t exist without anyone else.

His favorite podcast was her voice- comfortable, unchallenging, witty but basic enough to follow only when half listening. Not that he’d ever not listen to her when she needed his attention, but this ritual was more habitual than that. She spoke as though she was giving the memories permission to leave, as though recounting the anecdotes were her final way of re-living before never thinking of them again. None of the events were particularly out of the ordinary, but the way Shannon framed them felt as if Bellamy himself was making the decisions in real time. The characters she mentioned were flat and unimportant, but each event felt tangible.

For his part, these exchanges made him feel included. He couldn’t be prouder of her, and just sharing a slice of the world as she saw it wrapped around him like a blanket.

As he settled in, he stopped paying attention to where in the room her voice came from. He didn’t realize that she’d walked over until she bumped against his back. He flinched slightly, then relaxed against her as she straddled the bench he sat at, wrapping her arms around his chest and sliding her legs to either side of his, so that she was pressed against him and resting her chin on the top of his head. She didn’t miss a beat, continuing to explain an issue with the baggage at a French airport, only lowering her voice so that she wasn’t talking loudly directly into his ear.

They sat like that for another twenty minutes or so, Shannon gently talking and Bellamy continuing to sort items from shipping bags into containers. They went on a trip from Berlin to home to Milan to the states and back to Berlin.

“It was fine. Geoff and Habib were both competing, so we went out a couple of nights.”

The sentence didn’t stand out to him at all. Both men were regulars in the mid-level poker circuit that Shannon usually attended. From the brief and vague descriptions of them and their antics, Habib seemed much more into the fast life than Shannon was. Geoff suffered the same blunt disinterest that Shannon had towards all the background character in her world. When she was focused on unravelling a person, no detail about them or their psyche was spared. When they were just moving about their day to day life, they were little more interesting than the pigeons she passed outside. She didn’t spare Geoff her blunt, appraising eye. In the past she’d described him as ‘laughing so everyone knows he’s uncomfortable’ and ‘a bit shallow, not materialistic just… dull.’

So the introduction of Geoff and Habib into the story didn’t stick out to him. That sentence, ‘we went out a couple nights’, dishonestly held the same weight as every one that came before and after it.

As Shannon continued, explaining that the bar they went to definitely short poured their drinks but they managed to get drunk anyways, the sentence faded away.

“Habib managed to talk one of the bartenders into going home with him, and we weren’t keen to wait until her shift ended. Geoff and I headed back to his hotel.” She paused for a beat, which drew his attention more than the statement itself. “He gave me the ride and the next morning I headed out early to catch my flight.”

Bellamy’s hand continued to move for a few bears after her statement before freezing, hovering over the table. He waited for her to correct herself. She didn’t, and she didn’t continue talking either. Neither of them moved.

It had been the casual way that she said it that enabled his calmness. Like it was just another place she went, thing she did. She played some poker, she lost her luggage, she slept with Geoff.

Shannon paused, head tilted, staring at the back of his head. A minute passed before he responded in an even tone, “That’s it?”

“What is?”

Bellamy’s hands resumed movement, “the end of the story?”

Shannon’s voice faltered, and he couldn’t help but smirk. Hardly ever could he manage to fluster her, and once he did he’d love nothing more than to continue to chip away at the crack. She was always so certain, but if you managed to trip her up she’d try to backtrack and then devolve into stammering. Any other time, Bellamy would relish the chance. But his smirk fell away when the reality of this time began to leech into his hunched back.

“Well no,” Shannon managed as his thoughts began folding in on themselves, “I just thought you’d want to react to that. That you’d- you’d be upset or something.”

“Do you want me to be upset?”

“Well- no. Maybe, yeah. Be something?”

“I am. I’m very sad.”

“You don’t look it.”

“Why would I give you the satisfaction?”

Shannon scoffed audibly, but didn’t retort. They lapsed into silence, then she said, “you don’t have to give me anything. I just prepared for more of a reaction. Normal people have-”

“Normal people don’t just pop by to casually let their partner know it’s over.”

She began to peel her limbs off of him, scooting backwards on the bench then standing up. She stretched, taking her time as he continued to stare at the table and pretend he didn’t feel the loss of her body heat. She slowly climbed over the bench, straddling it a foot away from him. The space between them now seemed punitive. He didn’t move to face her, and all the while his statement hung in the air.

“Is it over?” she said.

Instead of her movement giving him time to breath, it instead seemed to have ratcheted up the tension. He snapped, “I don’t know! I didn’t say it was! Are you saying it was? It is?”

“Over?” She returned with an even tone, bringing his back down in response.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know,” the rapid fire back and forth stalled as Bellamy’s voice petered out, considering. He quietly said, painfully said, “probably.”

Without having time to modulate her reaction, she was nodding, and frowning deeply, at the same time. Shannon asked, “Do you have any questions about it?”

It was Bellamy’s turn to snort in indignation, “What is this, a fucking seminar?”

“No. But I don’t know what else to say.”

“You think I do? You came here, to tell me that you’ve been going behind my back-”

“It was just the once.” She readjusted, leaning forward then backwards, but still moving incrementally closer to him, “and I didn’t come here to tell you that. I came here because I missed you, and then that seemed pertinent to tell.”

“Same difference.”

“It’s really not.”

They sat in silence for another moment. Despite himself, Bellamy did have questions.

“Were you were hammered?”

“Well, I wasn’t that drunk. It’s not like that, he was drunk too. He didn’t take advantage of me.”

“Sounds like you took advantage of him.”

“I would never, and I resent-”

“Not like that. Seems like you used him for your-”

“I didn’t use him. I just wanted to see if it would matter, y’know? Like if I would care? And I didn’t.”

“Didn’t care about…”

“About him. About that. It was fine, but I wouldn’t do it again.”

He didn’t respond, and after a bit of silence she brushed her hand up the wood bench between them and gently held his side between her thumb and index finger. When that didn’t prompt him into a response, she asked, “Ami?”

Again, her voice was too casual. Could a tone of voice gaslight someone? Bellamy was caught between the world crashing down around them and it not being a big deal. She didn’t think it was, so it wasn’t as if a bomb went off behind his eyes, like it had. He could be calm, if she was, and he couldn’t bring himself to resent her for not realizing neither of them should be calm.

“I just… I don’t know what to say, Shan.”

“I love you,” she said it as a statement, and he wasn’t sure if it was actually a request. He let that shrink in the air between them before replying.

“I knew I couldn’t keep up with you for long. Just don’t know if it hurts more that it was with someone like Geoff. He’s… so dull? You’ve said he’s dull, at least. Was that a lie, or were you-“

Shannon interrupted, “It wasn’t a lie. He’s not-“

“-just phoning it in with him?”

The end of his question made her pause, considering. She’d expected him to cry, and hoped for him to scream or throw things. She had not turned those expectations inwards, examined the event from ever angle, she’d been too busy anticipating his reaction. Working out things to say to him, how he’d think, and how she’d bury this.

She hadn’t expected him to suggest Geoff wasn’t good enough for her to have an affair with. But now that he’d said it… He wasn’t wrong. Bellamy was infinitely more interesting, charming, and affectionate. Geoff wasn’t unattractive, just… unremarkable.

Starting to spiral, Shannon pursed her lips. If Geoff hadn’t been attractive enough to pose as a temptation, which he most certainly wasn’t, then perhaps what Bellamy was insinuating was correct. That there was another reason she’d done it in the first place, divorced of Geoff and more to do with the two of them.

Shannon tossed her hair in annoyance, she hated that there was insight into her actions that she hadn’t considered before being put on the spot, she hated that it had been obvious enough for him to observe before her, she hated him for pointing it out and wanting to make her look foolish, but she was starting to also hate herself. She hadn’t expected that. Sleeping with another man wasn’t a mistake, it was an eventuality. It was an all but tacit agreement in their relationship, that while yes they were monogamous, there would be indiscretions because of who they both were. That it wouldn’t mean anything.

Except, she knew it meant something to him. And maybe, now that she was thinking about it, it happened not because she was a beautiful independent woman who sometimes met beautiful independent men as a part of the job description, but because it meant something about her and Bellamy. And that realization irritated her. He could hardly fault her for finding physicality elsewhere, he was equally as alone as she was. She had no idea what he did, silently working away in Belfast, he could be cheating. He could be falling out of love.

Too.

After finishing the mental loop she refocused, gaze moving from his forehead to his eyes. “Yeah, maybe I was phoning it in, you’re right. Maybe I was trying to spare you from earnestly failing.”

The laugh he barked out genuinely startled her, but less so than the mocking harshness of his voice, “oh I see. You cheated on me to help me.”

Her own introspective expression soured, “You said yourself that you couldn’t keep up, what would hurt your pride more- me coming to you, honestly and openly, and apologizing for a brief stint with someone like Geoff, or me getting swept off my feet and leaving you for someone who’s handsome and successful and smart?”

“Who said anything about pride?” He was yelling now, then realized it and thumped a fist on the table. Lowering his voice, “is that the ultimatum then? I let you sleep around with whoever you want, as long as they’re not remarkable enough, and my pride gets spared?”

“There is no ultimatum.”

The bench screeched as he shoved himself into a standing position, pushing the bench out and pivoting Shannon’s body in the process. Four angry steps away from the table and he spun on his heels, hissing, “then what the hell are we doing here?”

“Aftercare.” Her voice were even, eyes slightly narrowed in that way where he could tell she was strategizing.

“Why didn’t Geoff give you that?”

“I don’t think either of us think this is about Geoff, so can we drop the pretense that it is.”

He laughed cruelly again, opening his mouth to reply with an insult so sharp that her hurt would recognize his, then what she said actually registered and the truth was torn from him, “I wanted to get lost in you.”

Voice breaking, tears gathering then falling, this was the reaction she’d prepared for. She slowly stood as he continued.

“All my life I’ve felt lost, out of place. I knew you weren’t going to help me, but damn if you weren’t a fine place to get lost in. You’re really good at that, you know? You’re so big, your world is so big, I just fell in. And I was still lost but I was lost with you, in you, for you. And I always knew it wouldn’t last but that doesn’t mean I gave you fucking permission.”

“Of course you didn’t,” she said softly, barely audible over his own rattling breaths, “and I’m sorry.”

“Are you sorry about what you did or how I feel?”

“What I did. You’re right to feel how you feel.”

“I asked for this. I don’t even get to be upset because I asked for this,” his voice was thick and tears were continually rolling. “How dare I even hope that this could work-”

“It is working, Ami.” She wrapped her arms around him, having walked over to him slowly as one would approach an injured animal. “You never told me any of this. I didn’t have a chance to-”

“What’s your fucking game.” He shoved at her arm, rejecting the hug, “I’m not a fucking-”

“There’s no game, Ami! I love you, I’m sorry! I didn’t come here to break up. I came here to be with you and yes, maybe to confess. But that should say something! I still care about you! I want you to know, and to forgive me, and for us to move forward. I did it and I realized I didn’t care-”

“You didn’t care because you’re done. You were done months ago. We were done-”

“I didn’t care about Geoff because he didn’t mean anyt-”

“Bull fucking shit, Shannon. If he didn’t mean anything, you wouldn’t have told me. I know you. I know how you think. If cheating on me didn’t seem important, you’d just sweep it under the rug and justify it to yourself as not hurting anyone. You’re telling me this because you want me to react.”

“I am not and I hate that you think I am.”

“I hate that it’s working!!” He yelled, then dissolved into a particularly loud sob. “I hate that I want you to-”

Shannon enveloped him in her arms again and he didn’t resist, collapsing into her. He continued to cry, and she held him, whispering platitudes like “I know, I’m sorry, I promise I’ll be better.”

They stood like that for at least fifteen minutes, as his sobs lapsed into gasps, which petered into sniffles. He blew his nose on her coat, and she didn’t have the heart to be disgusted or to call him out for trying to annoy her. She just kissed the crown of his head and continued to slowly rock from one foot to around.

After a few minutes more, he looked up at her. Face pitiful, truly- eyes blown out and glassy, cheeks blotchy and red. “Do you get the sense that this has run its course?”

“Your little tantrum? Sure.” She teased, and instead of coaxing a laugh out of him his face hardened. A miscalculation.

“I know exactly what you’re doing.” He hoped the accusation hurt her. He hoped he could play her game. He didn’t want her to hurt, but some vindictive part deep down wanted her to agonize.

And it did, her lips curled, “I’m not doing anything. What are you-”

“We’re breaking up and you’re trying to convince me we’re not.”

“We’re not, though.”

“We have to.”

“We don’t. If you’re thinking that because of Geoff, it didn’t mean anything. We were drunk and bored and I hadn’t seen you in-”

“No, that’s the problem. We haven’t seen each other, or so much as talked on the phone, in a month. The problem isn’t Geoff. It’s that you’ve just spent an hour telling me all the amazing things you did, and I didn’t have a part in it. I couldn’t even fit into any of it if I wanted to. We’ve gotten to a place where this isn’t going anywhere, any more.”

“You said you were fine with my career and not doing the whole picket fence and two kids-”

“That’s hardly the same thing, Shan. Stop trying to misdirect-”

“I’m not doing anything,” this was the first indication of anger in her voice.

“Ok well then you’re either not getting it, or you’re willfully trying to sidetrack me-”

“Those aren’t the only two options.”

“Well this isn’t about what we wanted. You know that. I never wanted you to be a housewife, I just didn’t want to be one myself. I just didn’t want to wait around wondering when you’d come home. Apparently now it’s ‘if’ you’d come home.”

She didn’t have words for him, so he continued, “I know we’ve both been busy for the last couple of months, and I know we can’t be on holiday for the rest of our lives. But clearly I’ve misjudged the arrangement we have here-”

“You haven’t-”

“I love you, Shannon. I do. More than I’ve-” his throat closed up and he took a moment, swallowing it down, “ever loved someone. But this isn’t working, and neither of us have been able to make it.”

“So what? After all of this, you’re just going to break up with me and send me away?” Her irritation at losing control of the situation coagulated with her genuine fear of losing him, which seemed to come out of nowhere but was now plainly apparent to her. But as scared as she was, she loathed him. She wanted to be the rational one, the one to weather his anger. She wanted to repent and then hold him and then have weathered something together for once. Some deeper part of her wanted to create something in order for them to come together.

His responding anger didn’t do anything to diffuse her mounting frustration. “I’m sending you away? Don’t victimize yourself. You came here just to tell me you cheated.”

“I already said that-”

“Geoff was a symptom of the larger issue. It’s not fair to me to feel like I’m hanging onto something doomed, and it’s not fair to you to feel guilty about what you want to do.”

“Don’t make it sound like I wanted-”

“You wanted to. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have done it. Maybe you regret it now, but in the moment you wanted it.”

“Would you stop putting words in my mouth-”

His voice suddenly softened, and her took her face in his hands. Gently, he redirected her angry stare downwards towards him. “We’ve gotta call it, Shan. Before it gets worse and we start resenting each other.”

She opened her mouth, turned downwards into a scowl, then once his comment sunk in she closed it. He watched the wheels in her head turn, and she finally settled on, “so this is really it?”

The worlds faltered, clinging to his tongue, “yeah. It is.” He immediately wished he could put them back.

Shannon pursed her lips, nodding, her eyes flicking back and forth as she considered. Without a word she let go of him, stepping back, then quickly walked out of the room. He didn’t want to listen to her go, but still strained to tell if the falls of her feet were getting faster. Was she stomping away or tearfully sprinting? Every step took a piece of his composure with it, tearing away the mature, reflective facade until tears were openly falling once again. He heard the door thud, once, twice, then swing open with a forceful shove.

When he heard the door thud closed again, he let a sob escape, quickly hunching over and dry heaving over the floor.

#my fics #my oc #final trash dump #ah shit i shouldve posted this first so chronologically it showed under the other post #scroll down and read that post first #(if you care whoch you should not)

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okayto · 4 years ago

Text

Magnus Archives Thoughts

Semi-liveblog, as I’m jotting these down as I go but only posting occasionally after the fact.

I got up through episode 97 before I stopped for a long time, so read through the transcripts to re-acquaint myself with everything that had happened up to this point. (as a note: transcripts, excellent. Also helpful if I start getting too creeped out.)

Under the cut (for spoilers), episodes 98-102

(I’m not promising DEEP thoughts, I just needed somewhere to jot things down in case I take another break, with or without meaning to)

Episode 98 (Lights Out): MAXWELL RAYNER, ALWAYS A CREEP.

Awww, Martin, you’re recording statements and it’s Doing Things to you. Poor baby.

Also, ever since rereading episode 80 (Jurgen Leitner’s statement, and Elias’s murder of him), every time Elias appears I just want to shout RAT BASTARD at him.

Episode 99 (Dust to Dust): Totally thought “Boise” being pronounced as “boys” was an error (which still would’ve worked fine for the character, not an issue), but it turns out that Boise City, Oklahoma does in fact pronounce it “boys.” (As opposed to the more well-known Boise, Idaho, which is pronounced “boy-see”.)

Makes sense, though I spent the entire episode thinking she was mispronouncing Boise, ID, and also wondering if the Dust Bowl really got that bad in Idaho.

More interesting: MICHAEL?!?! Michael was a

real person

???? I kinda like him as we’ve met him, thanks to his...y’know, lack of outright hostility and consistent murdery plots, but

MICHAEL????

OH NO WHAT HAPPENED.

I know I know it’s a horror podcast bad things happen I WANT GOOD THINGS TO HAPPEN THOUGHT IT’S A PROBLEM

John. JOHN. oh no.

I am going to probably need so much Happy AU fanfic when this is over aren’t I.

Episode 100 (I Guess You Had to Be There): Oh. Ahahaha. Basira’s a decent interviewer, but I nearly choked on my tea when this guy was like “oh yeah so I’m in this mysterious spiral that appeared out of nowhere and looks very old and there’s an old man crying in the distance but then I realized I was late for dinner, so I left.” [Dumbfounded Basira aura in the background.]

Poor Brian :(

Peter Lukas you bastard. “Sent you to an alternate realm. Hope you didn’t work for the guy I’m going to see, he gets touchy about his people. You don’t? Great. Cheers!”

Episode 101 (Another Twist): The person voicing Nicola Orsinov is excellent at that uncanny brightness. And I’m enjoying Jonny Sims’s excellent muffled voice acting.

MICHAEL?!

MICHAEL STATEMENT!!!

Look, I know Gertrude Robinson wasn’t a nice person, but she was undeniably badass. Still, I feel very bad for Michael Skelley.

And I love Michael the Distortion. Top tier character. Interested in seeing what happens now with Helen, but I’ll miss Michael a lot.

Interesting that Michael has usually been pretty truthful, for the embodiment of something that’s just deceptive, huh? I don’t quite understand the ritual that Gertrude interrupted--the Distortion taking its own shape, embodied (but not as Michael), in the human world? A Distortion version of the Unknowing? I’m too afraid of spoilers if I look up more now, so I’ll have to wait. I do still have like half the series to go.

Episode 102 (Nesting Instinct): John vs. Rat Bastard. Rat Bastard’s all “telling you things would just be a crutch and--” CRUTCHES ARE HELPFUL TOOLS THAT HELP PEOPLE SURVIVE RAT BASTARD.

This show does keep making me laugh when I least expect it though.

ARCHIVIST I get, I get that you hate being here, Melanie, but do you really want to trade it for prison?

MELANIE No! But the way I see it, the police seem really keen not to investigate crimes committed here.

ELIAS That’s actually fair.

ARCHIVIST Shut up!

Rat Bastard: YouGotMeThere.meme

And like two seconds later,

John: Melanie, your desire to murder our boss is very, very understandable and rational but not a good idea right now, let’s talk about how to handle him later.

Elias: I am still here you know.

The acting when John finishes the statement. The starting and stopping to speak. The sheer weariness even as he still clearly freaked out by being able to read in a language he doesn’t speak. Fantastic.

Martin is also a good character. Wanna give him a hug.

#The Magnus Archives

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amydancepants-peralta · 4 years ago

Note

Of course, definitely willing to wait! I just had this idea and you're one of the best smut writers lol. I'm not sure if someone has done this already, correct me if I'm wrong. Prompt: -Dating stage- Amy goes away for a few days, leading to desperate phone sex.

(this is way later than intended, but ... sexy phone time ahead!) 😉

(nsfw!) (ao3 😇)

hooked on you

“Ohh, mama … tell me more, babe.”

From his position lying in the bed he shares with the love of his life, Jake grins into the otherwise empty room, the hand holding a phone to his ear tightening it’s grip as the sound of Amy’s husky voice filters down the line. It’s the same voice that never fails to turn him on - though when it comes to Amy, that really isn’t specific to her voice - and if she had been anywhere other than a hundred miles away for an overnight conference, there’s no doubt that he’d be reaching out to touch her impossibly soft body right now.

But tonight, the woman he hopes to one day call his wife is in East Hampton, and today had been

a long day that felt all the worse for not having her smiling at a desk across from his. So when she’d sent him a text earlier this evening, hinting at the potential for phone sex, Jake had been quick to turn off the movie and head towards their bedroom, because a) it’s Amy, and b) happy hopeful future wife means happy hopeful future life.

In the past five weeks since his exoneration, both he and Amy had fought hard to keep their bubble untouched by the outside world, favouring nights and weekends in bed over all else. (Even if he’d only ended up in jail for eight weeks, the fear of fifteen years had been very real, and each prolonged snuggle felt like a step closer to making up for lost time.) But when Amy had been invited to join other ambitious officers at a three-day conference, both of them knew that the opportunity was too good to pass up - except for the fact that now, they were both far too far away from each other, and itching to close the gap in any way they could.

Including a handy (and newly discovered) version of sexy talk, called Jake describes books he’s reading to a horny Amy.

(It holds a 98% success rate.)

(Ninja Turtle comics, he was quick to discover, are not on the Acceptable Books list.)

“It’s called Good Omens, and it’s written by two different authors, Ames. It’s a … collaboration.”

“Mmm. You’ve been reading so much, Jake.”

Grinning, Jake nods with pride. “Three Philip Roths and the whole D.C Parlov series, babe.”

“Mmm.” There’s a rustle of something on the other side of the line, and as he closes his eyes Jake imagines his girlfriend settling in to her hotel bed, the academy shirt that she ‘borrowed’ from him over two years ago just barely covering her bottom half. It was a tantalising image, even if unconfirmed, and he stretches his left hand down to nurse the erection that was beginning to build beneath his boxers.

“Now tell me about your day, hun. You went to a seminar?”

“Oh god yes,” Amy sighs again, and the version of her in his mind tents her legs, one after the other, as her underwear slinks away. “I met the leading specialist in dactyloscopy, and he called my notes from a case last year ..” she lets out another sigh, this one filled with satisfaction. “Exemplary.”

“Does that make you feel good, Ames?”

Amy responds with a muffled moan into the receiver, and Jake feels his cock expand underneath his palm. His throat starts to feel dry, the quickening of his heart never going away no matter how many times they’ve done this, and he licks his lips before asking - “Are you touching yourself, babe?”

“Mmm hmm.”

He pushes the edge of his boxers down, relishing in the sweet relief of pressure that comes with letting his erection spring free, and listens to his girlfriend sigh through the phone line as his fingers grip around the base. “Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

The bedspread muffles Amy’s response for a second, and when she comes back her voice is so breathy, it hurts. “You.” Jake’s eyes flicker over to the top drawer of their dresser, where the ring he bought for her finger remains hidden inside a pair of old socks, and oh how he wishes he could just marry her tomorrow.

“Did you miss me today, babe?”

“We talked about the - ” pausing for a moment, Amy takes a heavy swallow, and Jake’s grip around his dick tightens. “The importance of observation. And it made me think about that case you solved last week, just from reading over the victim’s diary. I love your observant mind, Jake. Love you.” She lets out another sigh, one that Jake recognises as completely turned on Amy, and his wrist begins to slide up and down. If she keeps going like this, there’s no way he’s going to last long. “I miss you every day you’re not around.”

Eight weeks behind cold metal and too-far-apart visits nudge into the back of his mind. “God, I wish you were here next to me.”

“Mmm. Me too, babe.”

Pushing his head further into the pillow underneath, Jake’s teeth sink into his lower lip as memories of a naked Amy take over his senses. “Ames?”

“Hmm?”

“What is your hand doing right now?”

Her smile, he knows, has turned into the slow and sexy upward curve of her lips that made him an absolute goner the very first time she unleashed it. “What do you want it to be doing?”

Jake’s eyes squeeze tight, the rotating grip of his left hand around his cock increasing as he tries to vocalise everything he wishes he were doing. “If I was there, Ames? My hands would be all over your body. Kissing every inch of those beautiful curves. Leaving marks in places only you and I will ever know about. Touching you. Tasting you. Diving into you, so deep I don’t ever want to come back.”

“Ahh! Jake …”

“But I’m not there. Even though I want to be, more than you know.” He lets out a soft moan, imagining the hand wrapped around his cock is Amy’s as it speeds up. “So I want you to touch yourself, the way I would.”

“Yesss.”

“Are you wet for me, babe?”

“Only for you.”

The obvious arousal in Amy’s voice makes Jake’s dick twitch, and he lets out another sigh. “Wish you knew how hard I am for you right now.”

“Mmm. Wish you were inside me, Jake.”

“I’m there with you, Ames. Imagine it. Your fingers are mine.” Gasping softly into her phone, Amy mumbles a version of his name, and Jake has to let go of his cock before he comes all over the bedspread. Ladies first. “My tongue is on your clit, and my fingers are deep inside. You feel so warm around me, so perfect. So amazing.”

The soft hum of Amy’s vibrator cuts into the background, and Jake realises with a grin that she’d been using her headphones all along; ever the most-prepared. Her moans gather momentum as the vibrations grow muffled, phone long abandoned on the mattress beside her; and in that moment there’s nothing that Jake wouldn’t give to be able to teleport himself right into her hotel room, just to watch his crazily sexy girlfriend fall apart the way he knows she’s about to.

“Jake.” Her voice is throaty, the shuddering breaths of a woman pushing closer to climax barreling down the phone line, and Jake’s grip around his cock returns. “You feel so good, babe. I want you here.”

“Soon, Ames.” With the steady pumping action of his hand, Jake’s not entirely sure how he’s still managing coherent speech, but the sound of Amy’s moans spur him on. “Soon, you’ll be home, and then you and I are going to fuck each other so hard that neither of us will be able to think straight for a week.” A familiar tightening of his abdomen begins to creep in, and Jake knows he’s not far away. “But for now, I want you to think about my tongue on your skin. My fingers digging into your gorgeous butt. My thumb on your clit, rubbing those circles that drive you mad.”

The sound of Amy’s responding orgasm is muffled - he’d bet good money that her teeth are sinking into a pillow right now - but just enough to make Jake’s wrist move faster, and by the grace of all that is good he manages to have the presence of mind to lean forwards; snatching a couple of tissues from the holder on Amy’s bedside table before letting it all go with a heavy moan of her name.

It takes a solid minute or two of shattered breathing on either side of the line before Jake can even try to speak, the distorted galaxy of stars behind his eyes dissipating as the high from his climax slowly fades. “My god, Ames. How you can make me come that hard without even being in the room … you really are the sexiest woman I could ever know.”

Amy’s chuckle is soft, her gratification obvious in her tone as she replies, and he imagines her unfurling her naked limbs underneath the hotel room sheets. “Just warming you up for our reunion in a day or two, boyfriend.”

“I’m counting down the hours, babe.”

His smile grows soft as he turns to look at the calendar on their dresser, noticing that Halloween is only one week away as their discussion turns to their days tomorrow; both so comfortable within each other’s presence that post-orgasm conversation really can be about anything.

He runs over the Heist Engagement plan in the back of his mind as she wishes him goodnight, the lingering satisfaction in her voice enough to give him another semi, wrapping his palm loosely around as he relives the moment over and over again.

And later in the evening as Jake turns out the light, he sends out a note of gratitude for whatever lucky dice he managed to throw that led to someone as incredible as Amy Santiago falling in love with somebody like him.

And if he’s even luckier, she’ll say yes on October 31st.

#oh hey I'm back!#phone zex peraltiago stylez #anon I'm v sorry this took me so long #peraltiago smut #b99 fanfic

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radramblog · 4 years ago

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Album Discussion- Floral Shoppe

Haha why do y’all let me do this.

It’s been almost a decade since Macintosh Plus (aka Vektroid, aka Ramona Xavier) popularised and codified vapourwave as a genre with its first actually popular release in Floral Shoppe. Since then this sub-sub-genre has developed its own subgenres and become its own flourishing marvel of internet music culture. But Floral Shoppe itself is worth examining- not to see where it all began (I haven’t even listened to Chuck Person’s Eccojams or Far Side Virtual yet), but where most people got into the genre. The lifting off point, as it were.

So grab your Arizona ice tea (don’t, it’s fucking awful) and lets dive in.

The first track, ブート(Boot), opens with a buttery smooth cymbal and saxophone line, obviously slowed down, but evoking a level of chill few songs manage to get to for their whole duration, in a total of approximately a minute. It’s a genuinely masterful piece of music. As the vocals come in, you hear them get twisted and chopped, distorted and looped, almost jolting you out of that trance, until it’s clear that the lyrics aren’t lyrics but another instrument, you get used to the nonsense, and you’re back in the zone. The looping with some of the instrumentation makes parts of it feel almost clockwork-like, in a very satisfying manner- especially as the majority of it gets muffled and you realise that opening bass/sax line has been running through the entire time. While the next track on this album tends to get most of the attention, I genuinely think Boot deserves just as much praise.

リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー (Lisa Frank 420/Modern Computing) is another one of those tracks where it’s just like, what could I possibly say about this that hasn’t been said. If you’re reading this, there’s basically no way you haven’t heard this song, so you know what I’m on about. It’s the quintessential vapourwave track, even if it’s showing its age a bit. It’s just so perfect. When I decided to write about Floral Shoppe, I didn’t really want to spend too much time here- me saying “hey I like this song everyone knows” isn’t the most interesting thing on the planet, I guess. I will say, it’s one of the few vapourwave songs you can actually sing along to, and that’s fun as heck.

Also, the lyric is “it’s all in your hands”, not “it’s all in your head”. To be fair, though, the distortion doesn’t help.

The album’s next track is 花の専門店 (Floral Shoppe, hey I didn’t know this album had a title song), a track that heavily relies on this really panned synth (you can’t even hear that on the left ear) and a lot of looping the same bit over and over again. Honestly, the first minute of this song gets a little grating, but it really picks up after that. It’s really fun and jazzy for a solid minute there, a lovely instrumental you can just groove to in your head. The fade out on this piece lasts wayyy too long for my liking, though- a full half minute of outro feels a little indulgent for this one.

Track four, ライブラリ (Library) is lowkey one of my favourites on the album- The slowed vocals work really well, and the instrumentation feels extremely deliberate and methodical. I think my biggest complaint with this song is just that it’s too short, considering Lisa Frank 420 is literally triple it’s length. But I suppose part of this project is how variable the track lengths are- it seems Vektroid was keen to work with these until she was out of ideas, and no longer, and I can’t help but respect that.

地理 (Geography) sounds substantially darker than the previous tracks, with incredibly low drones and a main line that… I mean I dunno how low it is but that shit is definitely in a minor key, you know. It’s also the sparsest track so far, with much more restraint in layering than anything else I can think of on the album. The atmosphere of this is heavy- I don’t know why, but it reminds me of that really creepy loading screen on the fuckin Magic School Bus goes inside the body Edutainment game. That’s probably a bit of a weird connection, but if you played that shit, you know how fucking eerie it’s soundtrack was, and that’s a bit of the vibe I’m getting from this track.

Our next track is a direct nod to Floral Shoppe’s predecessors in ECCOと悪寒ダイビング (Chill diving with ECCO), a reference to the aforementioned Chuck Person’s Eccojams Vol. 1 (itself a reference to the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive game Ecco the Dolphin), and Chill is absolutely right. While many vapour/synthwave pieces are more about entering an aesthetic or a vibe than actually listening to the music, as far as Floral Shoppe goes, that’s most true with this track. It’s also the third longest track here (behind Lisa Frank 420 and the next song), and while it doesn’t develop as much as one would hope based on that (or much at all), spending so long vibing out in a track like this is completely appropriate.

I’m going to be honest, I don’t care too much for the next track, 数学 (Mathematics). It might just be because it comes on the heels of ECCO, but the meandering in this doesn’t hit the same chord as that does. While I enjoy the saxophone on this song, all the shit going on in the background just kinda gets my anxiety going eventually. And by eventually, I mean about halfway through this near 7-minute monster. You’ve got these very chill elements that slowly get drowned out by the steadily rising and accelerating chaotic parts of the instrumentation that just take over eventually, and while it does chill back down again, that’s still a long time focussed on the worst parts of the song. This also really didn’t need to be as long as it is, considering the second half of the track is just, like, the same thing again…

We’re at track 8, and at this point I started looking at the Wikipedia page for the name translation and realising that I have no idea which song this is supposed to be. Like, the track lengths on the bandcamp suggest that this is the 2011 release and therefore this is 待機 (Standby), but it has the name of track 8 from the 2017 release, 外ギン Aviation (Foreign Banks Aviation)? This is confusing as fuck, but since this is the only track here with that issue, I’m assuming it’s actually Standby and someone fucked up somewhere. Oh right, the song itself. Well it’s fucking short, barely past a minute long, and doesn’t have too much going on. I’d call it short but sweet, it doesn’t overstay its welcome. Jazzy, loungy, kinda chill. I dunno.

て(Te) feels almost out of place on this album. I mean, the vibe is similar, but the birdsongs really come out of left field. This sounds like the track you’d hear in a video game after you’re finally out of a cave you spent hours in. If the build in this weren’t so intense, I think it’d fit right in on the Minecraft OST. That’s a compliment, for what it’s worth. It’s also worth noting this light at the end of the tunnel bit was absolutely intentional, because this used to be the final track of the album. However, there’s two more here, added in a 2012 reissue (originally they were unnamed bonus tracks), so we might as well check them out.

…under no circumstances should you check out track 10, 月 (Moon). I don’t know what vocal sample that is, but it is loud, and grating, and obnoxious, and the instrumentation is not doing enough to carry the repetition through. Holy shit, this is 6 minutes long. I’m going to be honest, I skimmed through this one, and it never changes what it’s doing. This is… a bold play, I’ll give her that, but it absolutely does not pay off. This has gotta be one of the worst songs I’ve heard in a very long time. What the fuck, Ramona?

Finally, 海底 (Seabed). This… is just like Moon, in that it’s a fucked up vocal sample that is looped over and over with little changing instrumental. The key difference is this one is less bad- the vocals aren’t as jilting, the instrumentation is chiller, and it is mercifully only 2 and a bit minutes. It’s far from good, but it’s not as immediately awful. Okay, it is pretty bad. These should probably have stayed as extras- and seeing as they apparently weren’t on the physical versions of the album (in fact a bunch of these songs changed for that), Vektroid appears to agree.

So that’s Floral Shoppe, and it’s really one of those albums that kinda drags on at the end. Frontloaded with the good shit, I suppose. Moon and Seabed aside, it’s not like anything is completely awful, but after 25 or so minutes you’ve kinda gotten the point. With that said, the album is as influential as it is for good reason- the first couple tracks are phenomenal, and once you’re drawn in by those, you’re probably going to appreciate the rest of it at least a little.

Modern vapourwave basically sounds nothing like Lisa Frank 420/Modern Computing, or Floral Shoppe at all- the genre has moved past plunderphonics almost entirely at this point, and the aesthetic has shifted to a more consistent, less memeable tone. Even Macintosh Plus is going new directions- the single released in December 2019 as a teaser for Vektroid’s next project under the name sounds nothing like this album, though it is completely fucking awesome (and completely fucking batshit). While it seems like the genre itself has moved past Floral Shoppe, though, it’s still the touchstone the majority of people, especially those unfamiliar with the genre, recognize as the herald of Vapourwave. I’m pretty sure this was the first album to do the whole pink aesthetic, marble bust, computer graphics style, and clearly that’s the style everyone thinks of when they make bad vapourwave art. That’s the aesthetic this album inspired. Long may it reign.

(Ok seriously though guys go listen to VAPERROR or George Clanton or something)

#ramble #music #vaporwave #vapourwave #america stop being afraid of the letter u

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arcanescholar · 4 years ago

Text

Hard To Find The Right Words

Omori Post True Good Ending Spoilers.

Aubrey having a tough time, etc etc. Enjoy maybe??? Might get more chapters later if I feel like it???????????? FUCK????????????

Ch 2

On the long, long list of “shit Aubrey’s had to put up with” for the past few days…

This special, insidious sort of dizziness has gotta be a new one. Seriously, give a girl a break right? Who the fuck is able to handle this many highs and lows at once? It’s enough to make her head spin, and the hospital taking her bat away wasn’t helping matters.

The words that tumbled from Sunny’s placid, stony expression, his singular eye barely betraying the shaky, unsteady difficulty in handling recounting the story, made her stomach turn.

Shit, what a time to be thinking about what she had for lunch. If it comes back up right now she might straight up die of embarrassment y’know?

She couldn’t even turn her attention to Kel or Hero but, with the way the younger had to take a step back and struggle to find any words, and how the elder seemed to freeze like a statue, she had a feeling they were in just as bad of a spot.

“… and, that’s what happened.”

Sunny finally finishes recounting his story, and before he can say another word, Hero is already lunging, Ken barely able to snag his less-in-shape brother before he gets the chance to do whatever he was about to.

Aubrey, though…?

Years of anger, years of hatred and fury and bottled up impatience, a near lifetime of bitterness bubbles in her gut and sends her vision swimming.

Huh.

She just remembered, it was pizza.

Weird, why is Sunny getting so much taller? Kel? Hero? How come her knees started hurting suddenly-

Oh.

Oh, her legs gave out. That makes sense. God, her hair’s getting in her eyes, was it already starting to lose its color? Why is it so hard to focus on anything right now? She should be pissed! She should be picking up hospital equipment and chucking it out a window right now! So why can’t she move?! Why?!

For once, Aubrey can’t summon up her anger. For the first time in who only knows how long, she feels like the scared little girl that had to hide away when holes got punched into walls, that covered her head in her room and squeezed herself into a corner with her rabbit when the arguing got too loud. Her breath catches in her throat and refuses to let up. Is she going to die?

She can’t handle this again. Not now. She’s not strong enough, she’s not tough enough to deal with this-

….

Pap

… A hand rests against her head. That brief touch is enough to peel back the veil and drag focus back kicking and screaming into reality. She almost reflexively goes to turn and smack the hand out of the way, only to realize part way through her turn that it was just Basil’s arm, flopping out from the mattress and accidentally brushing against her head for a moment. The boy was still asleep, still a mess of injuries that made her nearly throw up seeing him in that state.

She might have bullied him, fantasized about beating him to an inch of his life, thought about crushing that bat of hers against his skull more times than she could count. She might have turned that weapon on Kel and Sunny both at least once before, but…

Seeing him like this, seeing Sunny with that eye patch, having lost sight in one of his eyes for what might be the rest of his life?

…

She takes Basil’s hand in hers and carefully stands up. Hero and Kel had been shouting for at least a minute now, she’s not sure how long it’s been since they started processing what happened in their own way. A shove is all Hero needs to finally get out of Kel’s grip, giving him time to damn near sprint out of the room, tackling the door hard enough to almost knock it off of its hinges before dashing out of the room.

Almost without thinking, Kel dips out, rushing after his brother with words that only come across like muffled noises in Aubrey’s ears.

… … …

There was a time when she confided in Mari, a time when she spoke to her about what was happening back at home, she remembered the pain in the older girl’s face, and the words she told her as she let Aubrey rest her head in her lap one quiet afternoon, just between the two of them.

“It’s not my place to say, but… If I could, I’d adopt you right now and give you the biggest welcome to the family hug I could…! Family should never hurt family. No one should ever raise a hand to a loved one and mean it, and the fact that they’re scaring you like that just isn’t right…” The older sister murmured at the time. Aubrey remembers now, Mari brushed her fingers through her hair in a really specific and special way that she almost forgot about.

It was like tracing little circles into her skin with her fingers, like trying to massage the fear from her brain, reaching in deep and grasping the wellspring of her despair and coaxing it out to let her think clearly again…

“When you get older… When things seem tough and scary and you don’t know what to do, that you feel like you’ve got nowhere else you can turn to. You might want to get mad, you might get really furious at having to deal with so much as a kid, but… Promise me, you won’t turn that anger on your friends, okay? Take a breath-”

… Haaaaahhh…

“-center yourself-”

Aubrey gives Basil’s hand a light squeeze. She can hear the hum of medical equipment and the sound of Hero and Kel’s footsteps retreating again.

“-and remember all the precious people you have in your life.”

She wasn’t the sort to pay the most attention to school, but, in this moment, a line she read in a book she had to read a few weeks back crosses her mind again.

“They asked, ‘do you love her to death’? And I said ‘speak of her over my grave, and watch how she brings me back to life’.” (1)

Funny how things dredge up in your memory at the weirdest possible moments, she thinks. For the first time, she’s starting to understand at least some of what those words really mean.

…

After a moment, she carefully tucks Basil’s hand back into the bed, before letting loose a light huff through her nose. He’s still sleeping, if a bit more fitfully from all the noise.

“… Kh. Don’t gotta remind me like that y’know? Puts a bad taste in my mouth…” She nearly spits, trying to mask herself with bitterness.

It wouldn’t be long before hospital security came to drag Sunny back to his bed and cut this conversation short, she had to act fast.

She steps forward, and without hesitation, reaches up… and presses her hand on Sunny’s head, rubbing her fingers through his hair, tracing circles and massaging with a silent, stony expression that matches his own. She was still sick to her stomach, her balance was still terrifically uneasy, but…

“… I’ll come talk to you again later, okay?”

She pulls her hand back, and gives him a light punch to his shoulder before stepping out of the room.

“For what it’s worth…” She says, pausing in the door frame as she hears the sounds of shoes squeaking against tile flooring as the hospital staff finally approaches to do their damn jobs.

“I kinda get it. I understand it. I’ve been there. I’m not good at talking about this kind of thing, but, if you need to talk, I can give listening a try... this time.”

Sunny was going to leave after he recovered enough for the hospital to let him loose with his frankly fucking negligent mom. There was nothing she could do that would change that, but…

At least for now, at least while he was still recovering in the hospital, she could finally, actually speak to him.

“… Thanks for opening up Sunny. Give Hero a bit. That guy’s so strung up trying to be the best of us that I guess even he’s gotta snap at some point right?”

Says the girl trying to play mom-friend to the most broken-ass friend group in the tristate area. Christ, trying to be a decent person sucks. How the fuck did Hero pull it off for so damn long?

“Aubrey…”

“Yeah Sunny?”

“… thank you. I’m sorry.”

“Kh, fuck that, I almost drowned both you and Basil. If I started whining about accidents that happened in fits of rage I’d be the worst hypocrite in history, y’know?”

“…”

“Talk to Basil and let him know what happened if he wakes up before the staff drag you back to your room or something. I’ll let ‘em know you need a sec.”

With that, she carefully shuts the door.

What she says to the staff, what kind of look she gives them is growled with enough force and tinged with enough protective violence that it gives them just enough pause for the young boys to exchange an all too important smile of mutual understanding.

Even if Aubrey never saw it, that little moment of clarity between them saved both of their lives in a way she’d refuse to take credit for helping make happen, knowing her.

A busted, crappy, cracked-screen phone buzzes to life as she walks past the staff. God, she fucking hates it here. The way her shoes hit the tiles, the way the equipment sounds, the fact that every time she’s come here, she’s ended up crying for some reason or another-

Shit, here come the water works now. Damn it Aubrey, at least make it out the door first-

A trip and a tumble nearly sends her falling straight to the floor but, she snaps out her hand just in time to snatch onto a handrail on the side of one of the hallways, her head still spinning as she sags against the floor, her phone toppling out of her jacket’s pocket and landing on its back with a loud, spinning clatter, settling in upside down to her perspective. Tear drops spatter onto the screen, distorting the light and scattering rainbow patterns across its surface. Gah. Add that to the damage. This just isn’t her day.

Behind a call notification, her background shows the cork board in her room with the pictures she yanked out of Basil’s album after saving them from their near ruined state, mixed in with pictures of her and her other friends she made in the time that passed since. A little bubble on the screen bounces about, showing a picture of Kim flashing a peace sign with a bright eyed wink that reflects in Aubrey’s tired eyes, refracting as it passes underneath her teardrops. “… Hhfffhh…”

She eventually picks her phone up off the ground and answers it. A hospital staffer looks about ready to tell her off for using her phone in the hallway but, lets be honest.

The kind of glare Aubrey gives off as she very deliberately swipes her finger across the screen to accept the call is the sort that would give most adults pause.

“… Hey.”

“Aubrey!!!! You finally picked up!!!”

“…”

“I was so worried when I heard about what happened! Kh, stupid hospital not letting us in…!”

“…”

“… Aubrey? Are you there? I can kinda hear you breathing so you probably didn’t butt-accept the call or something!”

“Yeah. Yeah I’m here.”

“Jeez, how come you weren’t saying anything? Did those ner-”

An audible pause. Kim clears her throat after a second.

“Sorry, uh, did those guys get out of the woods okay…? I kinda only caught the cliffnotes of you going to the hospital from that text you sent me so…”

“They’re fine.”

Aubrey steps outside the hospital’s visiting center doors and finally breathes fresh air for the first time in what felt like days.

“Or… They’re as fine as they can be. Sort of. Kinda.” She continues, stepping over to one of the benches outside and taking a seat, drinking in the sounds of chirping birds, gentle breezes, swaying trees, and the sensation of warm sunlight… It was a beautiful day, and she didn’t feel nearly good enough to appreciate any of it.

“That’s good at least yeah? Uh… Hrmggh. I’m bad at this kinda thing but… Uh. If there’s anything you need to talk about, you can hit me and the others up at any time yeah?”

Kim’s voice was surprisingly tender, tender enough that it manages to draw a sniff out from Aubrey, forcing her to bring a hand up to her eyes and rub it across them to make sure she didn’t show any tears yet god damn it-

Ugh. Where’s Kel’s Taurine soaked brain anyway. He’s better about handling this kinda energy! Does- shit, does he even like energy drinks?

“Aubreeeeey, if you keep going silent I’m gonna think someone kidnapped you y’know. Gotta pull the whole gang together, beat up on the nearest creepos till we find you! The Maverick’s got a Style Meter App on his phone that does those shouts from that one game so we’ll even get t’ have our own hype-men-”

The thought of Michael in a parking lot with a buffer sword in one hand and a phone in the other trying to do combos for a video to put on his Way Too Many Social Media accounts hits Aubrey with a second hand cringe that nearly brings her to her knees.

“UGGGHHHH!” Aubrey finally cracks, a doofy grin hitting her lips despite her audible mental suffering, slumping back in the chair and nearly sliding out of it entirely, a few tears finally trickling down her eyes as her body releases its tension at last.

“I can’t believe that try hard seriously sprung for something like that. If he tries that shit in public in front of me I’m making’ his screen look like mine.” Aubrey finally grumbles, adjusting her bow. “… Right, I left my bat at home. Ugh.”

“There we go! Now you’re talking’ again. Jeez, way to make a girl worry… Charlene was getting ready to find some flowers to give to you too, the sweetheart.”

“She’s more of an angel than Angel is…”

“Right?! Maybe we should make Angel give up on his nickname-”

“Don’t bother, Charlene’d never let him do it.”

“You’re so right it’s actually kinda annoying.”

“She’s the best of us, y’know.”

“…”

“So, can you like, talk about what happened at all now or…?”

“… Hang out spot, by the lake, be there in 20.”

“Should I bring the rest of the group-”

“Not this time, Kim.”

The call ends without another word, another ping showing on her phone’s screen showing string of texts from Kel.

JrangeOoe: hey!!!!! ;v;

JrangeOoe: sorry i left you alone with sunny and basil there, hero was having a really bad freak out

JrangeOoe: mom and dad and i are workin with him now, gonna try to calm him down will be back at hospital to give basil and sunny another visit later

JrangeOoe: gonna be honest, this is giving me a little time to figure this stuff out too so, thanks hero for the panic i guess??????

JrangeOoe: ugh no that’s not fair

JrangeOoe: anyway, if you need to chill and get some ginos later i found 10 bucks in a visiting center couch and was trying to hide it but

JrangeOoe: today’s a “spread the wealth” sorta day

It took a couple of moments of hesitation, but…

headhooligan: dinner, maybe

headhooligan: fuck this whole dumbs week

headhooligan: i got some spare cash so i’ll chip in too to get hero something if it’ll help

headhooligan: also what the fuck how are you so calm about this are your parents not trying to work you through this too or something?!

JrangeOoe: uh

JrangeOoe: no but i think hero needs it more right now!!!

JrangeOoe: i dunno how i feel, i guess i’m just to worried about everyone else to think about it?

JrangeOoe: *too

JrangeOoe: i’ll catch you later for dinner tho, if i can get hero to calm down enough to feel safe leaving him be with mom and dad

JrangeOoe: get a feelings jam up in here

JrangeOoe: pizza and ice cream or whatever

JrangeOoe: not at your place tho tbh your mom kinda freaks me out like a lot

headhooligan: >:/

JrangeOoe: what? it’s the truth!

With a roll of her eyes, Aubrey stuffs her phone away, wrenching her bike out of its lock from the hospital’s parking lot bike rack and mounting up. She takes one, final, long look at the hospital’s monolithic facade, and thinks about just how high up that building goes before shaking her head, and pedaling off.

The whole ride home, all she can do is play back today’s events again, and again, and again. Hear the same story in Sunny’s stilted monotone, again, and again, and again.

Every instinct, every trained gut reaction, every beaten in urge and desire tells her she should hate him.

He stole her from everyone, he murdered her, broke her skull against the floor like some raging animal then strung her up like a horror show for everyone to see just to avoid consequences with Basil’s help-

… But…

That panic that gripped her chest when Basil fell in the water from her shove just a few days ago, the terror at taking not one life, but two when Sunny jumped in after him, still unable to swim.

“…”

Her pedaling gets harder, more forceful, making the aging, damaged frame of her hand me down, fourth hand bike creak and groan in protest, hair billowing behind her in a tangled mess of poorly kept locks…

What should be anger gives way to an oddly calm understanding, what should be hatred and fury and violence wraps itself so tightly in its own chaotic energy that all she can do is…

…

There’s not a cloud in the sky, but raindrops spatter on concrete and asphalt where she rides, leaving a trail of sorrow four years in the making, finally given “closure”, finally released.

—-

(1) Credit to Mahmoud Darwish for this legendary line.

#omori #omori aubrey #aubrey focused #spoilers #omori spoilers #omori good ending #omori good ending spoilers #hard to find the right words #chapter 1

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ieattaperecorders · 5 years ago

Text

Something’s Different About You Lately - Chapter 5: Gentle, Cheerful Lies

Some doors are opened. Others are shut.

Read on Ao3

Jon stood outside the gate, checking the address against what he’d written down. This was it. He was in the right place.

He looked at his phone . . . he was early, but not too early. He’d expected her to be there before him, and as he waited he tried not to run through all of the possible ways this might go wrong. She could have checked his background and realized something was off. The agency could have decided to send a different person. Worst of all, he might have simply remembered the dates incorrectly and come too late to intervene.

His attention was so centered on trying not to think about these things that he didn’t notice the car until it was halfway into the driveway. There was a moment of shock as the driver exited, giving a polite little wave in his direction. Jon had grown used to seeing that face twisted subtly, with features that swam whenever you tried to focus on them. She seemed so solid now, so real, and it was oddly disorienting. He found himself wondering if there was such a thing as a reverse of the uncanny valley effect, the distress of seeing something that no longer looks wrong.

She’s a person, you ass, Jon thought to himself. And you’re staring at her. Say something.

“Ms. Richardson?” he asked, as if he was uncertain.

“That’s me,” Helen called as she approached. “And you must be - - forgive me, I’ve done five other viewings today, just need a moment to remember . . .” she glanced down at her clipboard. “Jonathan . . . er, Smith?”

“Go ahead and make a joke,” Jon smiled as best he could. “You won’t be the first.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it," she smiled back, crisp and professional. Her smile was not wider than her face, and it showed an ordinary number of teeth. "Shall we take a look inside, then?”

“Yes, ah,” he nodded. “Let’s do that.”

The house on Saint Albans avenue was big enough for a family of five, and if Jon had actually been looking to move anywhere it would have been astronomically out of his price range. He’d worn his best shoes. Hopefully he appeared more financially stable than he was.

“Is it just you today?” Helen asked casually as they walked across the entryway, her heels echoing against the hardwood.

“Er, yes. Just looking for myself.”

“Just curious,” she replied, though he suspected she was trying to size him up, “I’ve mostly been showing this property to families, or young couples planning to start one. It’s a lot of space for one person.”

“. . . I think I’m going to need a lot of space,” he said distractedly, eyes sweeping the walls of the room as if contemplating its size. He was actually looking for anything out of place, unnatural. Distorted. “I, ah . . . entertain frequently.”

“Right . . . well, in that case, you couldn’t do much better than this layout. The living room flows right into the kitchen, and beyond that is an entry to the outdoor patio . . . .”

Jon nodded and followed her from room to room, doing his best to pretend interest in the hardwood floors and the amount of closet space. He spent a particularly long moment in the second story hallway, silently counting and re-counting the doors, finding their number frustratingly consistent. Before long the two of them had returned to the front of the house, tour finished.

Now what, genius? he thought.

He’d been given months to prepare for this, and despite running through a thousand scenarios in his mind the only real plan he’d managed to settle on had been “find Helen.” He'd hoped that if Michael already had an interest in her, his presence would be enough to prompt it to appear. Wishful thinking, probably. But the Distortion was by nature unpredictable, and any scheme that had depended on guessing its movements would have fallen apart all the same, leaving him with no plan at all.

Then again, ‘left with no plan at all’ was where he found himself now. He tried to focus on what Helen was saying.

“If you’re interested in putting in an offer,” she continued, “the office is just down the street. You’re more than welcome to take some time to consider, of course, but I wouldn’t advise waiting long. Confidentially, there are a few other buyers who’ve taken an interest, and if you want to act while it’s still on the market it would probably be wisest to put something in today.”

“That’s a lie, isn’t it?” Jon didn’t speak with anger or reproach, only the pleasant surprise of realization. His search for Helen had led him across a few articles on less-honest tactics that home buyers should watch for. “I’ve heard about that. It’s to press someone into making a decision, get rid of time-wasters, right?”

It was hard not to frame a thing like that against what was going to happen to her. Did it mean anything? There were so many people who, in the course of their job, were expected to gently and cheerfully lie to people. Push false claims, press on anxieties, exaggerate things. Day after day, twisting a thousand tiny falsehoods into their interactions with people, until no longer felt like lying at all. Did that feed Es Mentiras all on its own?

Oh. Helen was staring at him now, and her mouth was a hard line. Perhaps saying that out loud had been a bad idea.

“Ah, sorry. Forget I said that, please.” Jon took a deep breath. He’d run out of pretense and wouldn’t have much time before she shooed him out. It was now or never. “Tell me, have you ever noticed anything unusual happening in this place?”

“Unusual?” Helen looked uncertain for a moment. Then realization struck, and she looked like she might be disappointed. “Ah. You mean . . . ghost stories? Hauntings, things like that?”

“Sort of? Not exactly,” Jon said. “Look, I’m from the Magnus Institute. . . .”

“Ah. Yes. I’ve heard of that one,” the disappointment that had been threatening a moment ago now fell thunderously across her face, as she realized she’d been wasting her time.

“Yes, well, ah, I know it has a reputation - ”

“As much as I’d love to discuss the many, many unlikely haunted house stories I’ve heard in my career, Mr. Smith, I have other viewings today,” her voice was polite, falsely pleasant and sincerely firm as she crossed past him to open the front door. “If you’re interested in making an offer on this property, you have my card, but for now I really have to ask you to - -”

“You’re in danger.” Jon blurted out.

Helen’s hand hesitated just over the doorknob, and she glanced back at him. She looked wary, though Jon suspected he’d only succeeded in making her wary of him. He kept talking, speaking quickly, afraid if he paused she’d resume throwing him out.

“Someone is going to come after you. Someone dangerous. There’s a - a being that calls itself Michael, it might be stalking you already. Look, you don’t have to believe me now,” he held up his hands, “you can think I’m absolutely unhinged now. But if a strange man with straw-colored hair who laughs like a headache shows up at a home you’re selling – I - I don’t know. Try to get away from him if you can? And don’t open any doors that shouldn’t be there. He can trap you behind the doors.”

Helen stared at him. Jon lowered his hands and sighed.

“Really,” he said, “you should quit real estate all together. But I doubt you’re going to do that because a total stranger came by and started raving about doors and monsters. Just remember what I said, if he shows up?”

“. . . Right. Will do.” Helen’s voice was tight. She opened the door - a normal door, one that opened only to the house’s exterior - and gestured for him to walk through. “Good afternoon, Mr. Smith.”

Jon wasn’t sure he’d helped at all, and he feared he might have blurted out too much if any eyes happened to be on him. But trying to push it further would probably make things worse, he ought to just leave before she decided to call the police on him. Resignedly, he walked out onto the porch.

“Straw-blond hair,” he added. “In ringlets, and the door will be yellow.”

“Understood,” she smiled insincerely, eager to move him along. “Thank you for the warning.”

Jon didn’t look back to see whether Helen returned to her car after he left, or just shut herself in a house she didn’t own until he was out of sight. He stuck his hands in his pockets and began the long walk back to the bus stop.

* * *

It was almost a month later when he heard her voice again. Not the bright sales tone that she’d had before or the uncanny echo he’d grown used to. It was shaky, unsteady, with an edge of desperation that was audible even muffled through his office door.

“- -sent me down here,” she said, “I know he works here, I know it. His name is - is Jonathan Smith. Or at least he said that it was - -”

“There is a Jon here,” that was Sasha. “Are you sure that it was ‘Smith’ he said? Not ‘Sims?’”

“If you want to sit down for a moment -” Martin’s voice, it sounded concerned. “We can go talk to him. And maybe you ought to sit down either way . . . .”

He stood and opened the door to his office, looking out. Helen was standing there, disheveled, clutching the back of a chair like it was all that was holding her up. Sasha and Martin hovered around her while Tim stood at the back wall, looking as though he was considering whether to physically insert himself into the situation. When she saw Jon, Helen’s eyes widened and she pointed in his direction.

“There. That’s him. It’s you?” Her voice began as confident, almost accusatory, but by the end it curved into uncertainty. As if hoping he would confirm that he’d met her before.

“It’s me,” he agreed, nodding. He glanced at the others. “Thank you, Martin, Sasha. I can speak to Ms. Richardson in my office.”

Helen nodded. She took a deep breath and straightened her blazer, trying to regain some sense of composure as she walked. Jon stepped aside to let her in. The second the door to his office closed she turned to face him, not bothering to sit down.

“How did you know?” she whispered, deep creases forming in her brow. “How did you know it would be there?”

Elias is watching, Jon thought.

“It’s a long story,” he said carefully. “One of my staff had a run-in with this 'Michael.' I’ve been trying to see what I can learn and, ah, my - - my research led me to think he might come after you. I take it he showed up?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Did you . . . ” Jon took a deep breath, fearful of the answer that he already knew, “go through the door?”

Helen’s face fell, and that told Jon all he needed. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach as she continued.

“I didn’t intend to. When he showed up I remembered what you had said about a man with straw blonde ringlets. I didn’t believe you, of course, can you blame me? But I did remember. And there was something off about him, something unsettling. I told myself I’d let you get inside my head, I was only startled since he matched your description. That plenty of people have blond, curly hair, and I was being irrational. But then he spoke, and his voice,” her breathing slowed, her speech grew calmer and more rhythmic, though the fear didn’t leave her eyes, “it reminded me of having fevers as a child, of trying to fall asleep with my head swimming and- -”

“Don’t!” Jon said, a little too loudly.

Helen was startled into silence, the statement that had been spilling out of her cut off.

“Don’t tell me. Please,” he crossed over to his desk and took out a form and a pen, placing them in front of her. “Write it down.”

She seemed confused, but nodded and sat, picking up the pen. Jon supposed that he’d already given her one bizarre, panicked warning that had turned out to be true, perhaps he’d gained some credit with her. She wrote and he stood anxiously nearby, the irregular scratch of pen on paper the only sound in the room.

Elias was watching. His attention was always a possibility, the paranoia of knowing you might be watched no less maddening than constant and certain surveillance. But Helen would have caught his attention, and Jon didn’t doubt that his eyes were on them now.

He wasn’t sure how much Elias Knew. Not everything, certainly. If he’d known everything he’d have made an attempt on Jon’s life by now. While he lived he was both a needed component to the ritual and a threat to it, and Elias couldn’t possibly allow that. It seemed, then, that he still had some secrets. But Jon knew he wasn’t hiding his contempt for the man well, and the steps he’d been taking to stay human had become a silent point of contention between them.

When Elias noted that he’d stopped recording statements, Jon had spent an afternoon reading out a stack of nonsense and conspiracy theory that went straight into the computer. After a few weeks of that, Elias began directing him to specific statements, real statements, marking them as higher priority. Jon lied about recording them, claiming the audio files were corrupted and unusable. When Elias suggested the tape recorder that he’d been using before, Jon said it was broken. Which it was. Most things become broken when you hit them with a hammer.

It was a strange sort of fencing match that neither would acknowledge they were having.

A week ago, Elias had walked into Jon’s office and placed a folder on his desk. He’d told Jon to make a recording with him in the room, so that he could get a better idea of what the problem was. There’d been nothing hostile in his manner, he maintained a smiling, genial, let’s-work-this-out-together tone. But it couldn’t have been more aggressive if he’d walked in with a gun.

No unnatural hunger had pulled Jon towards the statement, that wasn’t there yet. But still, part of him had wanted to give in. Something in the back of his mind whispered that he could do it just once, just to satisfy Elias, get him off his back for a while. That he needed to or this would keep escalating. That it would be a while before the dreams began, before things would get truly bad. That he’d have to give in sooner or later.

He’d slid the folder across the desk, and spoken in a tight, controlled voice.

You know, he’d said, I’ve been thinking lately that I may not have been the right choice for this position. If you’re so unsatisfied with my job performance, maybe you should just fire me.

It had felt like a dare. He wasn’t sure what the dare was, since firing him wasn’t possible. Maybe he just hoped Elias would drop the pretense. Admit his reasons for wanting Jon to read statements out loud - to a recorder, a computer, an empty room if necessary - had nothing to do with document preservation. One of them would have to blink first.

It wouldn’t be Elias, though. He’d sighed and told Jon not to be so dramatic, that this was only a technical issue after all, and Jon’s overall work had been adequate. He said that perhaps he’d been micromanaging too much, that he would try to be more hands-off in the future. That he was sure Jon would figure out something on his own.

As Elias turned towards the door, Jon had been just foolish enough to feel victorious. Then he paused in the doorframe, smiling with knowing satisfaction.

Don’t worry, Jon, he’d said. I have every confidence that you were the right choice for this. You’ll take to it in time.

Jon had kept silent at that, sure if he said anything he’d say something he’d regret.

If not, Elias had added, pulling the door shut, I’m sure that one of your assistants would be up to the task.

And there it was. The threat that he’d been waiting for.

Jon glanced over Helen’s shoulder. She’d scribbled a maze of overlapping lines at the top of the page - a frustrated attempt to map out the impossible architecture of the Distortion’s hallways. He blinked, feeling ill, and turned away.

When he had the full powers of the Archivist, Jon had pierced the Unknowing and navigated the Lonely. Now he was so human that he couldn’t look directly at Helen’s drawings without his head swimming and his eyes going glassy. How was he going to stop Elias when he couldn’t See him coming? What did he think that he could do for Helen, already claimed by the Spiral? Did he really believe he had a chance of keeping anyone safe when he was so thoroughly defenseless?

It worries me, said a voice in Jon’s memory, when you do the whole ‘curse this flesh prison’ thing.

This was what he wanted, wasn’t it? To stay human? To keep himself as free of the Beholding’s power as possible? It was what he needed to do, or everything else would be forfeit. Being human meant being helpless. It meant being toyed with and taken apart by the uncaring world. There was nothing for him to do but accept that, and try to stay alive.

The pen stopped moving. Helen cleared her throat. “I’ve finished."

Jon picked up the small stack of paper from the desk in front of her. He had to read it, if only to find out what was different this time. Maybe there was something in her story that could help her. Maybe he could bring some insight to it.

The beginning was as she’d already described. Michael came to the house on Saint Albans avenue, and she dismissed her own wariness as a sign that she’d let Jon get to her. At least, until the door appeared.

For some reason, it was the color that scared me the most, she wrote. That you’d specified a yellow door. As if a blue or brown or white door appearing there would have been any less impossible, as if that one detail being wrong would have meant anything at all. I suppose it was something to grab onto, though, because it gave me the certainty I needed.

The man was standing between me and the stairs, which were the only way down to the first floor. Getting there would have meant pushing past him and I wasn’t sure what would happen if I tried, so I turned and walked into the master bedroom. Didn’t say anything, didn’t answer his question, just left. There was a tree that grew close to the window, and it was sturdy enough to climb down. No easy task in heels and nylons, but I managed. The man didn’t try to follow me. For all I know he just stayed in the hallway, perfectly still, where I left him.

I didn’t bother to cancel my other viewings, just got into my car and drove. I wanted to get home, to a place that felt safe and normal where I could gather my thoughts. But when I got to my apartment, the door, well, it wasn’t mine anymore. I’m on the fourth floor, apartment B. 4A was there. 4C was there. But between them was that dark yellow door with the matte black handle.

I didn’t know what to do. Obviously I wasn’t going to open it, but there was no other place where the real door, my door could have been. After pacing back and forth for a while and trying to get my hands to stop shaking, I called a friend who lived outside the city and arranged to stay the night with her. But when I reached her house . . . well, it was there too. It was the front door, and the back door. I didn’t dare knock.

I’ll spare you the repetitiveness of the next few hours – finding it waiting for me wherever I went, being dragged screaming from a hotel after looking down the hallway and seeing rows of identical yellow doors. I slept in my car, and the next morning I went back to the house on Saint Albans. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping to find, really. I just knew that if I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life out of doors I’d have to find some way to resolve this.

I kept seeing it in my peripheral vision as I drove. It was on every single building, except one. The house where it had all started. You’ve seen the front door there - it’s a very distinctive bright blue, isn’t it? I can’t tell you how friendly that color looked as I approached. In hindsight, I should have realized it could only be a trap.

She had opened what she believed was the front door to the house on Saint Albans avenue and found herself trapped in a maze of endless corridors. From there the statement became depressingly familiar - wandering, fleeing from a distorted figure, finally being found on the street and taken to the hospital.

“Er . . . yes,” Helen looked at him oddly. “That’s pretty much what happened.”

Jon blinked, feeling dazed, and only then realized he’d been reading the statement out loud. That . . . wasn’t a good sign. But probably nothing he could deal with at that moment.

“Have you seen it since then,” he asked, “the door, or the man for that matter?”

“No. I’ve mostly stayed in my apartment for the last few days.”

Helen’s thin fingers fidgeted in her lap, knitting themselves together. The thing that took her and later became her retained that habit, but its hands moved in ways best not considered for long. Was there anything he could even do for her now? He’d tried to warn her and it had changed nothing but details. Even if she escaped his office unscathed, Michael could find her anywhere. He'd come for her eventually, someplace where Jon couldn't intervene.

Dekkar’s description of Bernadette Delcour as having ‘the look of an unfinished meal' came back to him, and he felt something fierce and stubborn rise. There had to be something. He knew so much that he hadn’t known the first time, somewhere in his brain there had to be something useful. Maybe if she wasn’t afraid . . . people who survive an encounter with acceptance and calm tend to do better. But fear isn’t something you can start and stop at will.

“I’m glad you managed to escape,” he tried.

“Yes. So am I, I suppose. But, look, you know about this sort of thing. This is what you study here, isn’t it?” She looked at him, “what do I do now?”

It hurt to see that look on her face – tired, strained and pleading. It was the look she’d worn the first time he’d met her, when she came in desperate for someone to believe her. Hoping someone else would hear her story, know what she had been through. She couldn’t have made a worse choice in where to tell it.

“Move on with your life,” he said after a moment, “and maybe consider a change of career.”

“That’s all?”

“You could switch to an open-plan apartment?”

She laughed at that, sharp and with release. “More or less have one already. I took all the doors off by the hinges as soon as I got home.”

“I think I’d have done the same.” He smiled weakly. “You’ve had a brush with something unnatural, and you’re still here. That’s not something a lot of people can claim. The best advice I can give you is to try and get back to normal. And maybe stay with a friend . . . being alone, obsessing over it, you’ll end up-” he was not going to say spiraling, “- end up tormenting yourself. Better to let it fade, until it’s just another bad memory.”

She was quiet for a while, then nodded slowly. “It was real, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” he said. “All of it was real.”

She took in a slow breath and stood, straightening her clothes, gaining back a sliver of the closed-off, professional demeanor he had seen in her a month prior.

“Well. Then I’ll - -” she sighed. “Suppose I’ll take your advice. Do my best to move on - -”

A tug of panic hit Jon as she turned to leave, and his hand shot out to grab her.

She jumped, turning back to him with surprise. Of course she was surprised. He was grabbing her arm.

“Sorry,” he said. He looked at his own hand and frowned. He should let her go. He didn’t let her go. “Sorry, I, ah . . . .”

Why was he grabbing her arm? He – he shouldn’t be doing that. It was entirely inappropriate. But there was a reason, something important. Something he remembered happening. Or didn’t remember happening. Or didn’t remember not happening? Helen’s confusion was turning to alarm, and he knew, he really knew he should let go. But why did he feel certain that if he let her go she'd slip through his fingers and dissolve?

He looked down at the piece of paper in his hand, hoping it might have an answer. His eyes settled on one word, and it fell into place.

“Ms. Richardson,” he said, voice low, eyes on the opposite wall. “What color was the door in your statement?”

Helen followed his gaze to the office door and gasped, as if only now seeing what she’d been reaching for. She took a step backwards.

“No. . . oh, God, please . . . .”

His office had one door. It had always had one door. The wall they were facing now had two, both painted the same dark yellow.

“Don’t open it,” he said.

“Of course not!” Helen snapped. “But . . . .”

“We can work this out.” Jon forced a confidence he didn’t have into his voice. He tried to remember what color his door normally was and came up blank. “These things, they play tricks on your mind, fool your senses. But it’s possible to see through them.”

“How?”

The doubt in Helen’s voice was painful. Lord, he wished he could see properly again. Just for one moment. But, no, Basira had done it without Seeing. She put her mind back together one brick at a time, with brute force, until she was able to walk out of the Unknowing. If it was possible there, it was possible here. They just needed something to start with.

He loosened his grip on Helen’s arm, reluctantly. It was a relief when she slid her hand up to take his, gripping it with a furious strength – he wanted to keep a hold of her. If he held onto her, she couldn’t slip through any more cracks. No, cracks was someone else, wasn’t it? The one who cleaned houses. Houses and doors and cracks and – focus. Focus.

“How many doors do you see right now?” He asked. “Let’s start with that.”

“One,” she answered. The quaver that had faded from her voice while they spoke was returning, as she stared at the dark yellow wood. “Just one. The . . . the same one.”

One door? That was wrong. There were two doors to his office. There had always been two doors.

“I see two. But both of them look the same.”

Helen swallowed. “How many does your office usually have?”

“I . . . I don’t know. I think - twenty? No, that’s . . .” he laughed nervously. “That’s way too many, isn’t it? That doesn’t make sense.”

“It does sound like a lot,” Helen agreed.

They stood in helpless silence for a while, looking from one wall to the other. Each one had a door. Some had more than one. Some had less than one. All of them had one.

“Don’t suppose you keep a week’s worth of water and camping supplies in here,” she said weakly. “Just in case?”

“Afraid not.”

“Worth trying.” Helen's eyes traced the walls. “Do you think he’s going to come through one of them?”

“I don’t think so. He might, but -” Jon frowned, trying to remember something. “But he wants us to open his door. It . . . choices matter.”

Choices matter, except when they don’t. Infinite tiny decisions and paths, countless choices with uncountable consequences. Wandering through life, stomping on butterflies.

“Focus,” he muttered to himself. “Helen – ah, Ms. Ms Richardson –”

“Oh, Helen is fine. If we’re going to die together we may as well be on a first name basis.”

“Helen, then. When you came into my office, what did you see? What was the first thing you noticed?

“Wh- I don’t know. Your desk?”

“Picture it. What angle were you seeing it from?”

“You mean . . . oh,” realization hit her, and she turned to face the eastern wall. “The front! I was seeing it from the front . . . so the door I came through must have been on that wall.”

“Right. We can ignore all the others,” Jon turned to face the wall with her. “It’s down to the three on this wall.”

“Four.” Helen corrected him.

“Right, two,” he agreed.

He closed his eyes, trying to picture the door to his office, the real one. It was light stained wood, unpainted, with a bright brass handle. That was right, it felt right.

When he opened his eyes, everything was clear. There was one door on the wall he was facing. Light stained wood, unpainted, the door that led back to the world. Keeping hold of Helen, he stepped forward to open it.

His hand closed around the matte black handle and turned.

Everything stopped making sense after that.

* * *

The door opened again in document storage and spit Jon out. He tumbled onto the floor, stumbling on his hands and knees. He was alone. The first coherent thought he had was that Helen was gone again. She'd been pulled into the corridors and he'd tried to keep hold of her hand, but it was impossible to hold onto anything in there.

A fever-dream laugh echoed from behind him. The Distortion hovered nearby, watching with an expression of amusement.

“That was a very stupid thing to do,” it observed.

“Give her back,” Jon tried to sound aggressive, commanding, but it wasn’t in him and his words came out like a whimper. “Y-you. . . you don’t need her. You’ll take other victims . . . you don’t need this one.”

“Oh?” It laughed, and his teeth ached. “Do you have anyone to recommend?”

“N-no, I meant. . . .” Jon swallowed. “Just give her back.”

“. . . No.”

“Hnn.” Jon found he was laughing, hollowly and without amusement. “You’ll regret that.”

“Are you threatening me?” It sounded entertained at the idea.

“No,” he replied. “It’s just a fact. Keeping her won’t turn out well for you.”

Michael said nothing. Jon stared at the floor, trying to get his bearings. Twisted afterimages were still swarming in his brain, and he felt exhausted. Without looking, he sensed the Distortion moving closer – the dizzy-sick feeling growing stronger with its presence. He grimaced as it touched one sharp finger to his head.

“Do you know that you have spiders in your hair?” It asked.

Jon felt his stomach drop.

“Wh-what?”

A door shut behind him, and he was alone.

#tma fanfic #tma #that's right motherfuckers it's helen time #also for those who were wondering about elias #have some almost-answers #time travel au

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