#Anyone in need of a good cry should watch him in LILTING; it's a movie about grieving and Ben is devastating in it.

[estellaestella]

Hi estella! I saw your post about Frantz and and then I read about the movie - I will definitely watch it! Thank you for writing about it!

Last night I watched for the second time “Cloud Atlas” and I was brought to tears again. I wanted to ask you if you watched it and what you think. I have a feeling the book will be more shattering, I still hadn’t a chance to read it. All this intertwining of destinies, predestinations, impossible love between two men (Ben Whishaw!), the anti-utopian story, the fateful significance of the decisions we make, etc. And last but not least, the great performances of all the actors!

Thank you for your amazing edits you make of Timmy!!! I love them and always look forward to them! ❤️💫❤️

You're very welcome 🤗 . Ah, I'm so glad you're planning to watch FRANTZ. I came across its name while reading a CMBYN review (two days ago) and, quite frankly, remembering that I'd seen a selfie of Timmy with François Ozon the director might've made up my mind to watch it. I went in thinking it was one thing but it turned out to be quite something else. And I have to say, I loved not being able to see where the story is taking the viewer.

As for CLOUD ATLAS, I watched it a few years ago and didnt like it that much. Which might be my fault coz I always expect so much from the Wachowskis. I felt Cloud Atlas was too sprawling and figuring out who's-playing-who-again? is almost too distracting. But yes, I can imagine a second viewing might be far more rewarding. As it is, I remember Hugh Grant and Tom Hanks doing a good job and that the Frobisher storyline was the best bit. But then again I dont think I've ever seen Ben Whishaw in a role he has not delivered on. The man is amazing. Even when he's a bear. ❤️ 

Speaking of PADDINGTON, I wasnt quite sure how I felt about the director for that -Paul King- helming WONKA. While the PADDINGTON films are warm and cuddly they dont hit any high notes for me other than the jungle scenes (specially the dream sequence in the sequel). But I looked him up and he directed the tv show THE MIGHTY BOOSH and that gives me a lot of hope. TMB is a surreal, bonkers tv series that is a genius blend of weird and wacky. I'd say it's rule-bending but it just flat out throws the rule book out of the window while driving thru a forest...with a shaman and a talking gorilla in the backseat. So yeah high hopes are back on the menu.

Thank you so much for your compliment 🙈. I do love making these weird little edits. At some point I ought to look into why I enjoy what is essentially a version of playing with dolls but till then I'm going to enjoy this silliness 😘😘😘

[3pirouette]

Fic: Fighting Doesn't Make You a Hero (2/?)

Title: Fighting Doesn't Make You a Hero

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: StuntCoordinator!Steve meets Actress!Peggy, who is an absolute menace when it comes to stunts.

Chapter Summary: Steve falls hard for Peggy (figuratively) while Peggy falls hard (literally).

A/N: Here’s some more of the story I tried so hard to write last year when I put this little AU out. Also, this is the “more” that I think only one person actually asked for. Hope you like it, anyway. I’ve always loved this idea, the rest of the story has just alluded me until now. For Steggy Week ’21 Day 3: Favorite AU.

Apparently, there will be more of this, because my brain has FINALLY figured out how this is supposed to go, and it’s not just one chapter’s worth. Sheesh.

Also, if it is not clear (it should be…) I know nothing about stunts or stage fighting. Completely made up. Please enjoy.

~*~

Chapter 2: Thrust and Parry

It was hard to be nice to her when he was waiting for the next injury to occur. He was professional, clear, and concise. They rehearsed for hours straight on Wednesday for a long, single shot of her moving through a room full of stunt men for one of the climatic battles.

Though no one got seriously hurt, there were a few bumps and bruises that shouldn’t have happened.

It was hard not to be harsh with her, not to be demanding. He could see moments of beauty in how she moved, but then she’d go too far and make contact. He had to find a way of breaking her of it, if not for his own safety, for that of the stuntmen around him.

~*~

It was an early call for the shot they’d spent the entire previous day rehearsing. He was bleary and chugging coffee as quick as he could stomach it. Peggy was already on her way out of hair and make-up as he passed the trailer. She gave him a shy half smile as she passed him, being ushered from one trailer to the next to be slid into her ridiculously tight costume.

On one hand, he got it. He couldn’t deny that she looked absolutely gorgeous in that costume. (How long he’d spent thinking last night about her in that costume and what she might be able to do with that Lasso of Truth absolutely was not relevant…) But from a practical standpoint the costume wasn’t realistic at all, and she wobbled horribly on the stilettos. They had to stop rolling often to keep her taped into the thing.

The stuntmen around him were warming up, and he even heard a few near him joking about wearing cups. He gave them a sharp look, waiting until everyone was quiet before he reviewed timing and patterns while they waited for her to come out to set.

The director wasted no time once Peggy was on set. They made minor adjustments to the cameras and rolled on the first run through. He was proud as he watched them all, every move was timed right and it looked fantastic. He waited, with a smile, for the director to give his notes.

There wasn’t much for his team, but the director took Peggy aside and gave her quite notes and reset the scene quickly. He shot it over and over, from new angles and with different lenses, and by the time it was over, there were three black eyes and a cracked camera lens.

Peggy’s assistant ushered her off set as soon as they cut the last take, the star unable to look him in the eyes as she walked past.

~*~

The director decided, after a short break, he wanted another go at the capturing the pattern. Steve reluctantly went off in search of Peggy, hoping to figure out where she’d gone wrong that morning. He couldn’t find her in her trailer, and her assistant only pointed vaguely towards the parking lot.

He found her in a far hidden corner of the lot, sitting on the edge of a flower pot, crying. He was startled by a side of her he wasn’t prepared to see. He thought maybe he’d be coming out here to find her sneaking a smoke or a flask of rum. He’d heard she was dangerous, a bitch, a tough broad who didn’t care about the stunt men that she hurt. This didn’t really fit with all the stories he’d heard. “Peggy?”

She moved to wipe away her tears, manicured fingers moving swiftly and carefully around the fake lashes and caked on make-up. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right there. He wants another take, right?”

Steve crouched down next to her. “Are you… are you ok?”

She laughed, watery and weary. “Oh, good lord, no, but I’ll be there in a minute.” She waved her hand at him. “I’ll have to stop in make-up first.”

Steve stood hesitantly, astonished at how she pulled herself together so quickly. “Is there… is there anything I can do?”

She looked up at him, taking a deep breath. “I don’t mean to hurt anyone, I promise. I mean, I know I have a reputation, but… I’m not an action hero. I’ve never been physical. I’m not good at it.” She shook her head. “I’m a Shakespearean actress.” She stood, wiping at her mouth and pacing. “Give me Ophelia or Bianca or Beatrice. Hell, even give me a sword fight. I can fence, you know. But one time I get a tiny part in an action film and all of a sudden, I’m being type cast as some action hero and no one ever even taught me how to do any of this!” She was pacing quickly now, the rant spilling from her lips like a waterfall of words she couldn’t stop if she tried, her weariness evident with each syllable. “Not once was I instructed on the how, just, ‘punch here’ and ‘kick there.’ And it was fun so I kept doing it. I thought it was worth it, you know? But I should be saying no. The sane thing to do would be to say no to all of this but I mean, who says no to Wonder Woman?!” Peggy stopped, her face morphing as she realized all she’d said, her hands coving her mouth for a moment before she forced herself back into a stoic, hard shell. Her chin wobbled, betraying her hidden emotion as she pushed past him towards the make-up trailer. “Just know I don’t mean it. And I’m sorry.”

He watched her move away, stunned in her wake. He didn’t quite know what to do with that information, but he was quickly starting to feel a soft spot for her forming. He moved quickly back to set, relaying that she would be there soon and watching the team of stuntmen around him stretch to perform the scene once more.

She was back on set, looking fresh and happy, in just minutes. He ran them through the pattern again, and watched closer this time.

Once he’s shed himself of expectations, it was easy to see that she really didn’t have any idea what she was doing. She was a natural mover, to the point where he figured she was probably a good dancer, and that went a long way to hiding the technical flaws. But she was jerky when she tried to pull her punches and she wobbled off balance when she held back power in her kicks. She misjudged force when blocking constantly, and it put her on her heels, literally.

She was on her back in a blink when she shouldn’t be, coughing and sputtering. She had the air torn from her lungs with the impact, and everyone froze in place.

Steve bounded over, pushing through his stunt team to kneel by her side. Her eyes were closed, pressed tight. “Peggy, are you ok?” She was gasping, trying to get the rhythm of breathing back. “Slow in through your nose, slow out through your mouth, ok?”

He lifted her hand in his as she nodded, sputtering once more before slowly getting a deep breath in, and then another. He squeezed her hand tight. “Good, good.” He smiled when she blinked her eyes open, her breath starting to come back. “Better?”

She nodded, but he could see the frustration and fear in her eyes, welling tears following quickly.

“Let’s get her checked out,” the director called. “We got what we needed anyway.”

Peggy tried to sit her up, but Steve pushed her back down. “Wait until the medic gets here, ok?”

“I’m fine,” she argued, having tamed the tears quickly.

“Be that as it may,” he smiled, whispering, “You know what the protocol is.”

It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was the closest he saw to one today as her hand held tight to his. “Fine. Just this once.”

He moved away mindlessly when the medic came in and started talking to her, checking for a concussion or cervical injury, eyes still on her face.

Forget about the Lasso of Truth, her smile would be what was haunting his dreams tonight.

~*~

He met her in the rehearsal gym, bright and early the next day. He was on the floor, warming up, when she came in, hair pulled back messily and no make-up on, thermos of coffee in her hands. She was pretty much the exact opposite of the made-up, costumed bombshell from yesterday, but he was no less enthralled with her.

He couldn’t help it: he smiled.

Her smile back was half hidden behind another sip of coffee. “Good morning,” she said softly in her lilting English accent that she covered up for her movie appearances.

“Morning,” he stood, wiping his hands on his pants. “How are you feeling?”

“Bit of a headache,” she replied, setting her coffee down and pulling off her jacket. “Are the rest of the team coming?”

Steve hung his head, bashful. “Uh, no. I had them stay last night and run through tomorrow’s scene with your double.”

“Oh.” Peggy froze, the word slipping out softly. She started putting her jacket back on, trying to hide her disappointment. “I didn’t get the message. I thought I was doing the scene.”

“You are!” Steve corrected quickly, holding his hand out. “I just thought…” He sniffed and cleared his throat, trying to sound as professional as he could. “After I found you yesterday, I watched you do the scene again. I mean, really watched you. And you’re right. You’re missing a lot of the basics.”

Peggy wrapped her jacket back around her, crossing her arms. “Yes, well, like I said—”

“You weren’t taught,” he supplied quickly and gently, eyes kind and open. He shrugged and tried to smile. “I thought we could spend some time on that this morning. You already know the scene, so if we go back in and fill in some of those blanks you have…” He trailed off, hoping she’d understand.

She licked her lip slowly, thinking. “And you told the other stuntmen to stay home because…”

He wasn’t sure what she thought he was going to say, but he could imagine how some of his collogues might have treated her and couldn’t say that he almost expected her surprise. “I don’t want you to feel like they were watching you, or judging you. It’s not your fault no one taught you this, or that whoever you’ve worked with before didn’t take the time to make sure you were doing it right.”

She bent, grabbing her coffee to try to hide the shock he saw. She took a long swing and then nodded, pulling her jacket off again. “Alright then.”

He waved his hand, signaling her to follow him to the middle of the cushioned floor.

She was a quick study, and he’d been right as she eventually reveled somewhere in their discussions of balance and force, that she’d been a dancer before she became an actress.

“ACL surgery,” she replied, pulling up the leg of her legging and showing him the scar on her knee that he was sure must have been covered by make-up every other time he’d seen her. “Retore after the first surgery, and I never danced the same after.”

The melancholy that had started to disappear as they’d been going through their first few lessons returned, and Steve swore he’d do anything to see a smile on her face again. After a moment, he pulled up the sleeve on his t-shirt and showed her the crisscrossing pattern on his shoulder. “Cool scar, but I think this one wins.”

“Ohhh,” Peggy reached out, her fingertips lightly brushing over the flattened lines. “What happened?”

“IED just outside of Fallujah. Caught our caravan off guard.” He turned, pulling the shirt back more to show her the back of the shoulder. “Two bullets, six pieces of shrapnel, three torn tendons and almost a year of physical therapy.”

She let her hand run down his arm in a gentle way that made his heart pound. “Is that why you got out?”

He shrugged, stepping away and pulling his sleeve down. “It’s why they wouldn’t let me back in, so yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“Do you miss it?” Peggy asked, truly interested.

He paused. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever asked him that before. He must have been quiet long enough that she took his lack of an answer as not wanting to answer, because she started rambling, stepping over to get more coffee.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I only asked because,” she paused to sip, taking a deep breath. “Well, because I didn’t really get to choose to stop dancing, my body chose for me. And as much as I love this…” she paused, her voice growing quieter as she looked down at her coffee, “sometimes I miss it.”

Steve softly stepped towards her. “This can be a lot like dancing, you know.” He held out his hand.

Peggy set her coffee down and took it, a smile on her face. “Really?”

He nodded, giving her a gentle pull that pulled her towards his body. “Think of it less like moves and add beats to it.” He started counting softly in fours, walking them through the pattern they’d just practiced: step forward, step back, parry, swing and miss, swing and block, swing, connect, turn under and sweep the leg.

Peggy laughed with delight as they stopped, standing. “That was… so much easier!”

Steve couldn’t help but smile back, she looked like an excited child on Christmas morning and he wanted more of that. “See? I told you. You just needed to understand it a little more. To figure out how to make it make sense to you.”

She bounced on the balls of her feet, excited. “Can we try the second pass?”

He nodded, stepping in front of her. He started counting again as she squeaked with happiness behind him. Push, pull, drop, jump, punch, punch… they moved through with the fluidity he knew she possessed but had somehow never understood or tapped into before. He smiled at her as they finished the set: her wrists in his hands, held over her head as they stood face to face.

They both smiled, but didn’t move. Steve could feel his heart pounding, and if the look on her face was any indication, the moment wasn’t one sided.

But he was here professionally, and it did no good to lean in and kiss her breathless like he wanted. He started to pull away quickly, but Peggy grabbed his hands, keeping him close. “Thank you,” she whispered, eyes shining with an emotion he didn’t want to think too hard about.

He didn’t understand. “For what?”

“For this.” She shrugged, twining her fingers with his. “For not just believing I’m a dangerous bitch who doesn’t care who she hurts. For taking the time to actually teach me,” she smiled, “and get to know me.”

It was still between them, and he could tell what they both wanted, but he couldn’t give in. Not while they were in the middle of the movie and he knew she’d still need so much more help if she was going to make it to the end of all of the complicated fight scenes and wire work. Instead, he redirected, smiling wide. “Don’t thank me yet. We’ve got to do all that again, but this time, in the heels.”

Peggy frowned, but didn’t let go of his hands. “Bloody hell, I hate those fucking things.”

[lonestarbabe]

Holding Out for a Hero

Chapter 10: I Wanna Be Missed

[AO3]

T.K. and Carlos are pining idiots, and then, they have a moment of clarity.

I wanna be missed like every night

I wanna be kissed like it’s the last time

Say you can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t breathe without me

I wanna be held, fragile like glass

‘Cause I’ve never felt nothing like that

Say you can’t walk, can’t talk, can’t go on without me

Carlos

Ever since T.K. had come clean about the lies that he had told Carlos, the mood had changed between them. But Carlos felt like there was cement stuffed in his throat because nothing felt settled to him. He worried about T.K. more than ever. How can I know if he’s okay when he’s so good at faking it? How can I protect him? When are things going to spiral again? He was panicked at the idea that eventually, things were going to get worse again. New obstacles were always waiting along the horizon. As soon as I let my guard down, that’s when bad things happen, so I have to keep my guard up. I will keep him safe. I will stay vigilant.

“Did you feel the energy of the arena?” T.K. said after his show, bouncing on his toes. “I’ve never felt so alive.” T.K. was always good-spirited immediately after shows, but lately, he had been ebullient. He didn’t even have the post-show depression that usually appeared after the adrenaline worse off. He’d also been sober, at least as far as Carlos could tell.

“It was a great show,” Carlos praised. “You’re always so good.”

“Things are finally starting to feel normal.” T.K. finished packing his things to leave the arena. “And I get to see Marjan next week, and she won’t even have to give me a lecture to get my life together.”

“That’s great, T.K.”

“Who knew therapy would be so good?” It had only been a few weeks, and Carlos was worried that T.K. felt too good. When the honeymoon period wore off and T.K.’s therapist started to unearth more complicated topics, Carlos feared that T.K.’s good mood would plummet. He hoped T.K. was ready for the ups and downs of getting better. “I’ve tried it before, but I’ve never felt this good.”

Maybe I’m projecting. When Carlos had lost his job and his boyfriend, he’d been just as cheery when he first started therapy. He was hopeful. He thought he was over the worst of it, so he became complacent. Then, Taylor was arrested, and Carlos realized that no matter how many good days were having, you had to be ready for the bad days that crept in. Carlos wanted to warn T.K. about the lows that could so quickly turn into a spiral, but he didn’t know how to mention it without killing T.K.’s good mood.

He looked at his watch. “It’s late. Where to next?”

“Just the hotel. I’m not ready to go out yet,” which was a small relief. Carlos wasn’t going to gatekeep T.K.’s recovery, but he still worried about it. “I don’t even want to go out.”

“Wow,” Carlos said with a smile. “You really have changed.” He hoped he sounded encouraging.

“You’re staying with me, aren’t you?” Carlos loved staying in the same room as T.K., having him close, and laughing with him until early in the morning.

“I know you get lonely,” Carlos said, leading T.K. to the car. When they get there, he opens the door for T.K. and then plops down beside T.K., exhausted. He yawned, causing T.K. to yawn in response.

“You can have your own room if you want,” T.K. reminded him. He said that every time they stayed somewhere overnight. “It’s not like I need to pinch pennies, but I like having you around.” I like having you around too.

“It would be a waste,” Carlos said with a shrug. “Besides, I like our sleepovers. Gossiping and watching romcoms.”

“You love romcoms.”

“I only watch them because…” I love you “… you pout if I don’t.”

“Play it cool if you want. I know you love The Notebook.”

Carlos laughed. “You do know that romcom means romantic comedy, right?”

“You’re just trying to distract me from your romcom-loving, mushy heart.” T.K. nudges Carlos with his shoulder. “Just for that, I’m making you watch The Notebook tonight.”

“No thanks. I don’t want to cry.”

“A good cry is good for the soul.”

Carlos shook his head. “That’s what you’ll say until after The Notebook you make me watch Mamma Mia! to neutralize your emotions.”

“You love it,” T.K. replied with a cocky lilt and rested his head on Carlos’ shoulder. Carlos stayed very still the whole rise home so that T.K. would keep his head there.

When they got back to the hotel, they got into their pajamas, and as Carlos was going to get on his bed, T.K. patted the space next to him. “Sit with me for a while. I want you close so I can comfort you when the movie gets too sad.”

Carlos obliged. He saw that T.K. had already flipped the TV. “We’re not watching The Notebook.” Carlos knew what T.K. was about to do before he did it. “Don’t start pouting. I’m not falling for it.”

“Fine,” T.K. said, flipping the TV off.

Carlos regretted his choice. “I didn’t mean we couldn’t watch any movie.”

T.K. grinned. “I have better ideas.” He scooted closer to Carlos, easing across the big bed.

“What are you—"

T.K. pressed his lips to Carlos’, and Carlos pushed his weight into the mattress so that he could match the pressure on his lips. I forgot how good kissing can be. Carlos hadn’t kissed someone like that since Taylor, and he missed the feeling, and the kiss jolted the exhaustion from Carlos’ body. T.K.’s lips lingered, ghosting over Carlos’ even as T.K. pulled away. Selfishly, Carlos let T.K. kiss him again. A kiss never hurt anyone, Carlos thought. Just a few moments more, and then I’ll put an end to this.

T.K. pushed Carlos down on the bed and climbed on top of him. He pulled his shirt over his head and trailed his lips down Carlos’ neck, and Carlos was helpless to the chemicals surging through his body. Carlos raked his hand down T.K.’s abs. He’s beautiful.

“T.K., hold on.” Carlos couldn’t bring himself to say, “Stop.” T.K. rolled off Carlos right away, and Carlos fought the urge to pull T.K. back onto him. He missed the grounding weight, and before saying anything else, Carlos steadied his breath. God, I want him. “Do you really think this is a good idea?”

“What’s wrong?” T.K. asked, breathing heavily. I have to be the voice of reason.

“If we don’t stop now, we never will.” Carlos brushed a hand down T.K.’s face, needing to know that the moments they shared were more than just fantasy. T.K. was real, oh too real. The gesture gave T.K. the wrong idea. It was an implicit, “Keep going.” Carlos pulled his hand away, not wanting to be inadvertently cruel with the inherent promise in the softness of his touch, but it was too late. T.K. beamed, and Carlos was seconds away from promising T.K. the whole universe.

“I don’t want to stop.” T.K. kissed Carlos’ neck, and Carlos steeled himself, scrounging up all the self-restraint in his body. I don’t want to stop either. But he had to maintain boundaries. My heart is at risk, and I need to keep this situation under control.

“I do,” Carlos said without wavering, and T.K. wilted for a millisecond before hiding his disappointment under the effortless, carefree expression he used for his fans. Carlos hated that look being used on him. T.K. pulled himself further from Carlos. I can’t have it both ways. I’ve made my decision, and I have to stick with it.

“Okay,” T.K. said with a shaky voice; the intensity of his gaze shifted from Carlos to the generic art that was on the hotel wall. “That’s okay.”

“Are you upset?”

T.K. looked over his shoulder for a second, and he smiled like an eighth-grader with braces told to “smile with their teeth” on picture day. “Not at all,” he said, sounding a lot like a fire alarm with a dead battery. Only a moron would turn down T.K. Strand, and right now, I’m the most self-loathing moron on earth.

T.K.

I’m such an idiot, T.K. thought as his thoughts started to spiral into self-recrimination. I should have known that he wouldn’t be into me. I’ve ruined everything, and I took the best thing in my life and flipped it on its head. He’s looking at me with pity in his eyes and must think I’m so pathetic for making a move.

“I’m sorry,” T.K. said, rising from the bed. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Don’t be,” Carlos said in a rush.

“I thought…” T.K. trailed off. I thought there was something between us. Anxiety was building in his chest, converting into anger. “I shouldn’t have…I’m just lonely,” he said harshly. Carlos’ face fell, and T.K. hated himself for the part of him that wanted that hurt reaction. He couldn’t take the way those brown eyes were looking at him, the way they softened that anger even as the anger fought harder than ever to take over T.K.’s mind. “You’re really hot.” Complimenting Carlos’ appearance was a happy medium between the angry façade of rejection and the yearning heartbreak that so easily came with loving the way someone looked at you more than the way they looked to you.

Carlos didn’t respond, and T.K. couldn’t stop talking because if he did, he wasn’t sure what he might do instead. “Can’t blame a man for trying.” For hoping. He painted on a breezy smile as he pushed down the monsters stirring inside of him. “I’m probably not your type.” He probably likes sane people.

“It’s not that I’m not attracted to you.”

T.K. couldn’t help the hope that rose in his chest. I’m fool. He eased closer to Carlos, but he kept space between them. “Then, kiss me.” Please, and if you can’t do that, at least hug me. Hold my hand. Smile at me. Love me. He’d take anything that Carlos would give; he’d give anything that Carlos would take.

Carlos shook his head, voice low, “I can’t.”

T.K. wanted to beg. He wanted to say, Pretend I’m yours for just an hour. Give me a taste of your love, and I won’t ask for more. Let me have just one moment, so I can imagine how forever with you might feel. Make me feel like I matter. “What’s a little stress relief between friends?”

“Stress relief wasn’t what we were doing, T.K. Not to me.”

“What were we doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is this going to make things weird?” T.K. asked, dreading the answer.

“Of course not,” Carlos was quick to reassure him.

“I’m going to sleep,” T.K. said, flopping onto the other bed and flipping the lamp off. He didn’t want Carlos to see the glassiness in his eyes. He was trying not to cry because then Carlos might realize how heartbroken he was.

“Are you okay?”

“A little rejection isn’t going to make me a druggie again, Carlos,” T.K. snapped. But the thought passed my mind, he thought darkly.

“We can still watch a movie.”

T.K. shook his head. “I’m exhausted.” He turned away from Carlos, and he tried to force himself to sleep. I wish I had an oxy to chase the sadness away, he thought as his breathing steadied and he fell into a dreamless sleep.

Carlos

Carlos hadn’t been able to sleep. T.K. was across the room in the other bed, turned on his side so that he faced away from Carlos. Carlos crept out of the dark room, slipping into the lit hallway. He pulled out his phone and realized that he didn’t have anyone to call. He studied his contacts, trying to find a relationship that he hadn’t neglected. Finally, he took a gamble and called the one person who always seemed to see through T.K.’s bullshit.

“What did he do this time?” Marjan said after one and a half rings.

Carlos wondered if calling her had been a mistake as he struggled to find words. He looked at the time, and it was three am. He considered hanging up altogether, but Marjan’s curiosity would probably lead to her calling him back. But what do I say?

“Oh, I see,” Marjan said when Carlos didn’t say anything. “You’re worried you did something.”

“It’s late. I shouldn’t have bothered you.” He gulped. “I didn’t have anyone else to call.” That’s pathetic!

“It’s earlier here.”

“Still,” Carlos hedged.

“Carlos, we’re friends. I wouldn’t have answered if I didn’t want to talk.”

“We are?”

“Anyone who cares as much about T.K. as you do is a friend.”

“I’m not doing so well on that front. I think I care too much. That’s the problem.”

“Caring too much isn’t a problem, Carlos.” It is when it stands in the way of my job.

“I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” Marjan said. “You’re worried about getting too attached.”

“I’m already there,” Carlos said with a titter.

“What’s the problem?”

“My job. I can’t cross any more boundaries.”

“Sounds like an excuse to me.”

“I’m not sure why I called. Sorry to have wasted your time.”

“You’re not getting out of this that easy, buddy.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“You called for a reason, and since you did, you’re getting the friend treatment.” She continued, “This isn’t about your job. It never was. You’re afraid. You’re terrified of what it means to love him. I get it. I’ll kill you if you tell him I said this, but T.K. is sunshine on a rainy day. He makes you feel important. When you’ve gotten his trust, he’s loyal and affectionate. He gives his whole heart. But all those things that make T.K. so lovable are also what makes him so terrifying because sunshine can burn. He becomes self-destructive. He burns too brightly. He gets lost in his passion, and in the process, he hurts the people who are closest to him.”

“How do I deal with that?”

“You remember that loving T.K. Strand means knowing that you can’t save him from himself. You can support him. You can lessen the heat, but you can’t burn with him, no matter how tempting that may be.” That’s what I was afraid she would say, Carlos thought.

“I can’t stop these feelings, can I?” Carlos asked miserably.

“Not really, so it’ll only hurt you both if you’re a dumbass about it.” She sighed. “Tell him how you feel. I’m serious.”

“He’s asleep,” which was probably for the best. If T.K. was awake, Carlos might have stormed into the room before he had the chance to think things over.

“He won’t be forever.” I can’t avoid this forever.

“Yeah,” the conversation dwindled. “Thanks for the advice. Goodnight, Marjan.”

“Call me again sometime when it’s not so late. We can have a real chat. Like real friends do.”

“Will do,” Carlos replied before hanging up the phone and sneaking back into the room as quietly as he could, afraid to wake T.K. up. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do come morning, but when he came back into the room with the light already on, a dim glow around T.K.’s face like a halo, Carlos had a wave of courage that he didn’t think would last until the morning.

Carlos stared into T.K.’s red-rimmed eyes, knowing that it was a decisive moment. He either had to end whatever it was between them for good or take a chance on feelings that were blooming between them, but he knew he couldn’t keep T.K. in limbo. “Do you have a minute to talk?” Carlos asked, fear in his voice, and the pause before T.K. spoke felt like it lasted a lifetime.

[snowdice]

Gaps in His Files (Part 10) [Relabeled; Refiled Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Logan/Patton

Characters:

Main: Logan, Patton

Appear: Remy, Virgil (but only in the epilogue)

Summary:

Logan Berry has learned many things the last 10 years: a lot of math and physics, a bit of humility, and how to be a hero being just a few. Through his education, his experience teaching, and his exploits as the superhero Bluebird, he’s changed in a lot of small and large ways. He has recorded these changes in well-organized documents and files. He’s even had to create two new file designations: a red one for files about his moonlighting at Bluebird, and a light blue one dedicated to his boyfriend, Patton.

When Bluebird is targeted by a memory device and all of those 10 years of progress suddenly disappear, Patton Sanders and Logan’s extensive files are left as his only resource to get those memories back. But what is Patton supposed to do when there are clear gaps in his files? And what does he do when he is one of them?

This is set 25 years before Sometimes Labels Fail though it’s story is completely independent of it and it is not necessary to read that one first.

Notes: Superhero AU, memory loss, past child abuse, past child neglect, unhealthy ideas about ones place in relationships, emotional suppression, self-deprecating thoughts, medical procedures mentioned, very brief unhealthy views of sex

I feel as though I should make a statement in Logan’s defense before you read this. There is a thing called unreliable narration and... our narrator is spiraling. 

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

“I have to go to work today,” Patton said Friday morning. “I am trusting you enough to not attempt to go to school like yesterday if for no other reason then so you don’t embarrass yourself.”

Logan nodded and Patton didn’t think he’d gotten his point totally across yesterday, but he thought Logan would probably not do anything today since on Fridays he only had to attend two classes and not teach or meet one-on-one with anyone.

“Good,” Patton said, biting his lip. Logan was distracted with one of his personal files and wasn’t looking at him. He’d been quiet yesterday after Patton had dragged him back from the college. He’d stopped asking Patton questions about himself or really talking to Patton at all, instead choosing to stew in his ire in silence. He read the book Patton got him and was civil when he needed something from Patton or when Patton asked something out of him, but his discontent with Patton’s presence was written all over his face. ‘Maybe I don’t want what I built’ echoed in the silence between them. It really sucked to know that Logan could so easily learn to hate him. “Bye then. I’ll see you later.” He shut the door to the apartment behind him.

He drove to the hospital in a daze of emotional numbness and sat in his car in the parking lot, staring at the tall building for almost 15 minutes with a tight feeling in his stomach before finally forcing himself into the building.

He had been hoping that having something to keep his mind busy with would help him feel better, but it just seemed to make things worse. It made the gaping hole in his chest widen and widen until it threatened to consume all of him. When he went to check on a patient’s wound, he felt like he could throw up despite the fact that he was long past being grossed out by medical things. It just kept getting worse and worse as Patton worked mechanically through the morning. Talk to patients, smile at coworkers, take vitals. Don’t rest. Don’t feel. Don’t break. Break and someone dies.

“Patton,” a voice called as the lunch hour crept closer. Patton turned to see Remy rushing down the hallway towards him. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I have a shift,” Patton replied blankly. He tried to turn away from him because a friendly face was the most dangerous thing right now, but Remy grabbed his arm. “What do you want Remy?” Patton asked, refusing to look at him. There was a pause before he was tugged on and yanked into a hall closet.

Patton rounded on him once the door closed behind them, a bit of it leaking, just not in any way that would actually help. Instead, it came out in a way that would likely just make it worse when the guilt hit later. “What?” he snapped harshly.

Remy didn’t respond for a long moment, just leaning against the opposite wall of the closet with a frown on his face. Patton bristled under the scrutiny.

“I heard Bluebird got beamed by a memory gun.”

“Yes, I’m sure everyone knows that by now,” Patton replied scathingly.

Remy again didn’t react to the harshness in his tone. He just nodded. “Bet that’s hard for people who know him personally,” he said.

“What do you want?” Patton said and this time it came out more wobbly than harsh.

Remy sighed. “Patton go home.”

Patton shook his head and could feel pressure building up behind his eyes.

“Patton this is not the place for you today. I’ll tell Bev you’re sick. Just leave.”

“I…” Patton stuttered. “I can’t. I…” he started to shake, bursting at the seams. “I can’t,” he gasped, and he didn’t think he was talking about how he couldn’t leave work anymore. Remy leaned forward to tug him into a hug and Patton shattered like a window in a hurricane.

He could hear Remy saying things to him, but he couldn’t make out anything of the words except the soft sympathetic tone.

“A little girl fell out of the window,” he blurted out, unable to keep it in anymore, “and she was so tiny and so hurt and I had to cut into her with a knife so I could try to put her bones back together right and if I did anything wrong she might not ever be able to move right again. She could’ve died on the operating table and it would have been my fault. I shouldn’t have been the one to do it. Why did they pick me to do it? I’m not any good at this. I shouldn’t be here. I’ve just gotten lucky and one day someone isn’t going to wake up that should have and they’re all going to know how much of a fuck up I am. I can’t do anything right. I pretend and pretend to be good at things and nice and perfect but it’s all just an act and eventually everyone’s going to see it and they’ll all hate me. No one loves me and no one should love me and everyone who thinks they love me will eventually find out the truth and leave me because I can never be good enough no matter how hard I try.”

“Woah, hey, that’s not true Patton,” Remy said looking alarm. He was trying to wipe the tears off his face with his sleeve, but more just replaced them the next moment. “That’s so very not true. You’re not a screw up. You’re a great doctor and you’re not faking anything. So many people love you for you including me.”

Patton just shook his head. “You don’t know me,” he cried. “You don’t know me at all. The only person who I’ve ever even let really known me is Logan and I love him so much, but he doesn’t love me back, because I’m not good enough. And now he hates me.”

“No, no, Pat,” Remy said. “I know you’ve probably had a rough couple of days, but that man absolutely adores you. He could never hate you no matter what. He’s a dork who’s afraid of his feelings sometimes and he gets all pissy with strangers, but I know he doesn’t have it in him to hate you. No version of him ever could.”

Patton just laughed. “No. He doesn’t love me. Not really.”

“He does, babe. I promise he does.”

“I proposed to him,” Patton said. He managed to steady his voice, but tears were still streaming down his face. “He said no.”

Remy blinked and his mouth gaped open for a moment. “When…?”

Patton sniffled. “Two months ago.” It had been a soul draining, humiliating experience.

“How do you feel about marriage?” Patton had asked one day in bed after staying in Logan’s apartment for the third time that week. He had been thinking about it for a while and that day he’d blinked open his eyes to see Logan staring at him with the softest expression he’d ever seen on the man’s face and then Patton had been slowly and thoroughly kissed the rest of the way awake. It hadn’t even led to sex that morning, but Patton had thought he wanted to wake up like that every day forever.

“Marriage?” Logan had asked in response with a lilt to his tone that had made Patton swallow.

“Yeah,” he’d replied, “uh, specifically you marrying me.”

“Are you saying you want to marry me?”

“I… yes,” he’d admitted, but felt the need to backtrack, “but only if you want to.”

There had been a long pause and Patton had felt his heart shatter in it. “Give me some time?” he’d asked, but Patton had known that meant no. They had been dating for three years and he knew Logan had likely already made his decision about Patton long ago. He didn’t need more time. He was quick at making decision and he rarely went back on them. Patton had known him saying that meant Logan didn’t think Patton was good enough. That he hadn’t loved him enough to want to wake up next to him every morning. Patton had felt tears prickling at his eyes which wasn’t fair to him, so he’d turned away.

“Of course, sweetie,” he’d said as steadily as possible and that had been the end of the conversation.

“So yeah,” Patton continued in the present. “There’s something wrong with me and I… I don’t know what. If I did, I’d change it, but I can’t figure it out. Maybe it’s just all of me. Maybe he’s too smart and can see through all of the acts and knows how horrible I really am inside.”

“Oh sweetheart,” Remy said and leaned forward to kiss him on the forehead. “You are wonderful. I promise. You’re the sweetest person I’ve ever met. Want me to slap Logan for you? That might fix the problem.”

Patton chuckled darkly. “Which problem?” Remy grabbed his face and made him look him in the eyes.

“You need to go home,” he said firmly. “You need to take a bath and eat some ice cream and watch a sad movie so you can pretend you’re crying about that. Okay?”

Patton didn’t respond, just averted his eyes.

“Come on Pat,” Remy cajoled, “nurses orders.”

Patton smiled just a bit. “I’ll take the day off,” he conceded.

Remy frowned probably because he could tell that Patton was not going to follow the rest of his instructions because Patton was too rotted on the inside to listen to anyone’s advice.

He let Remy deal with telling people he’d be gone for the day and headed back to Logan’s apartment.

Want to read more? Click below!

Part 11

[pinevalley]

A half-forgotten and half-misremembered moment. Alright, this is the aforementioned Cassie drabble! It introduces another major character in her backstory! It also gets dark, so content warnings for: death/murder (described, but not with gore), mentions of choking and blood, and slight body horror.

“We should run away, Cass.” Beside her, Allie’s voice came out light but determined. “It would be easy.”

They were sitting on a rooftop, watching the sunset. It was a habit of theirs — especially on days like this, after they’d skipped class and dodged adults and sprinted down the streets laughing in the almost-summer warmth. Thrill and excitement, simmering down to peaceful familiarity in the evening.

Cassie paused before replying. “Yeah, for sure.” She stretched her legs out on the roof. Her dirty shoes tapped against each other, her gaze fixed on the spread of houses before them and the fields in the distance. “We’d go on a road trip. Find all the best tourist stops and tacky gift stores and stuff.”

She didn’t glance at Allie, but she could sense the girl smiling. They’d discussed this idea several times over the years they’d known each other. Initially, it had only existed as a simple daydream. Something to chat about when things got rough at school or home. Nothing serious. But now, with expectations and pressure building on all sides, the idea had gained substance. They could do it. They really could.

“What would we buy?” Allie asked, with the breezy, teasing tone befitting a question she’d asked several times before. “From the tacky gift stores, I mean. Or, like. What would we borrow?” Steal.

And Cassie, like always, invented a different answer. “Oh, key-chains. Dozens of ‘em, from each place we’d visit. Those cheap plastic ones, yeah, but also the real nice, expensive ones. Like, the ones with wood and metal and the ones that light up and stuff. We’d hang ‘em on all our bags and in your car—”

“My car?”

“Your dad’s car,” Cassie clarified. “‘Cause we’d steal it, like master criminals.” A joke; they could never get away with that. “Or we’d fix up one of them broken trucks in the junkyard. ‘Cause we’re also master... fixers? Car-people? Anyway, we’re multi-talented.”

Allie’s laugh — a bubbly sound, half-breathless in spots — made a grin spread across Cassie’s face.

���You’re right.” Amusement still brimmed behind Allie’s words, but there was confidence in her voice as well. Resolve. “It’s a flawless plan. We’ve got it all figured out. We’ll leave before school’s over.”

Cassie chuckled. “Hell, I’d leave tonight if you wanted. Just ask.” Though her tone was lighthearted, she meant it. The unexpected flare of nervousness in her chest confused her. She faltered, pressing her palms against the roof shingles, her voice softer as she went on. “Just... don’t go without me, alright? I mean, if you needed to, I’d find you. But like—”

“Except you’re gonna die.”

The words pierced through Cassie like a knife. She stared at Allie — stared at the girl straight-on for the first time since they’d ended up on the rooftop — and now she realized what was wrong. Allie had no clear features. Her head, her face, was a blurred cloud of faded and indistinct shapes and colors, like someone had smudged her face on a photograph.

This is wrong, Cassie thought, frozen. This isn’t what happened. This is—

Allie turned toward her, and Cassie’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t see Allie’s face. She couldn’t look away. “You’re gonna die,” Allie repeated, her voice still casual. “At the side of a road, by a beat-up car. And it’s gonna be weird.”

It was strange, hearing Allie say things that made no sense in her mouth but that still slipped out sounding like Allie, with her smooth accent and lilting words. A sick, cold feeling curled in Cassie’s stomach.

“It’s gonna be weird, Cass. You’ll think you’ll choke to death first, but the guy’ll change his mind like an asshole and decide stabbing you would be more fun. Like a horror movie, but happening to you. Killer hitchhiker, but reversed.” Allie took a deep breath, let it out slowly before continuing. “And the worst part? He’ll tell you the truth. That he’d planned on killing whoever he picked up. That killing somebody was all he wanted. That you just got unlucky. Awful, really.”

Cassie couldn’t speak.

“So yeah, you’ll bleed to death. And the guy’ll drive away scot-free. He’ll leave you lying by the road, dirt and gravel pressed against your cheek, just hidden enough that nobody’ll ever find you. ‘Cause the assholes always get away, don’t they?” A breath of mirthless laughter left the girl. “Yeah, they do. Always.” Her shoulders quaked, then went still.

A long pause. The silence stretched. Cassie opened her mouth: tried to say something, anything.

Nothing.

When Allie spoke again, a cold breeze chilled the air. “And revenge is kinda overrated, but it sure sounds sweet when it comes to folks like that, doesn’t it?” She leaned closer. “But Cass, you won’t be thinking about that.” Her voice had dropped to a hushed whisper, her unseen mouth breathing warmth across Cassie’s cheek. “You’ll be thinking about me, and how you never said goodbye to anyone, and how you wished you’d never gotten in the car with him, and how much it hurts, and how damn cold you are.”

A sudden jolt, like falling. The memory blurred into fog. Allie was gone. Cassie was sitting on the grocery store rooftop, hands clenched into fists and nails digging into her palms. Sunlight was just starting to spill over the horizon in purples and oranges. She blinked, relaxed her hands, and inhaled a shaky breath, forgetting she didn’t need to breathe. An old habit. Ghosts didn’t sleep either. She just... faded for several hours. Tuned out. Lost track of time.

As always, the memory of her dream was already fragmenting and fading. Allie had been there; Cassie remembered that, remembered her voice. Allie dreams were good dreams. Then why...

Cassie’s hand rose to her cheek on instinct. Her fingers came away dry. She didn’t know why she’d checked. She knew it was silly. Ghosts couldn’t cry.

[honeybammie]

every day & always › jeon jungkook

↳ part two, part three  ↳ when the time comes for jungkook to take over his father’s role in the min gang, he has second thoughts about the man he wants to be, but you’ll do everything in your power to make him stay.  ↳ mafia!au jungkook, angst  ↳ wc: 5,506 ↳ note: this is what i’ve been working on while i’ve been so absent from tumblr there are 6 parts so far and ~30,000ish words. is it good? not rlly, but i’ve enjoyed myself regardless ↳ note note: my minimal as hell research for this includes one (1) saturday looking up italian and japanese gangs so,,,you’ve been warned 

I did not cry at my father’s funeral, not under the electric eyes of cameras broadcasting my family’s every reaction. He would’ve been proud, my father, sitting me down in front of his leather throne all those times to tell me never to allow the enemy a glimpse under my skin. I’d watched his arrests on a television we rarely used, stood next to him by his own father’s grave, his facade never anything but stone cold. He reserved laughter and remorse for the familiarity of my childhood home, showered me and Yoongi in praises, taught us everything we knew. By the time he died, we had all the knowledge we needed to run the Min Clan. With Yoongi as one of our youngest bosses ever, and I as his second-in-command, our legacy was going nowhere.

The same could not be said for Jeon Jungkook, who wept at his father’s funeral without a drop of shame. Only a petty thief, one would think he hardly had anyone to worry about putting a bullet through him, but his father’s enemies would become his. I had to turn a cheek at his impotence, enraged by the fact that all his youthful promise was being wasted on tears. We hadn’t spoken a full conversation since my own rise in rankings six months prior, and what I saw in him over his father’s casket was a horrible disappointment.

“He’s an embarrassment,” I muttered to Yoongi as we watched from the back of the pack so as not to draw attention to ourselves, all the while Jungkook was subject to throes on throes of woe.

“His father wasn’t born into the mafia, but he ended up as one of our best soldiers of the last few decades,” Yoongi reasoned. “This is the only life he knows, the one he’s been raised for. Maybe the Jeons just take longer to realize the potential they have with us.”

In my opinion, Yoongi put too much faith in him, but when we were children, Jungkook and I watched mob movies for hours on end and envisioned plans for our own heists, counting out thousands of dollars in bills and indulging on life’s finest offerings. I hoped there was still a glimmer of that drive in him. I hoped my brother was right.

Two weeks came and went with hardly a word from Jungkook. He was given a few days off and afterward tasked with a minor drug smuggling job, hardly worth our time, but he was used to the line of work and did it well. No one ever suspected such a disarming face to play a part in organized crime, so he excelled at getting away from a scene scot-free. He could work his way up to be every bit the soldier his father was.

In my office, I crunched numbers, making sure every subordinate was paying their dues and that every investment was boding well. Any suspicion of police on our trail was treated with a red herring to throw them off, and I wrote out instructions for caporegimes to hand down to their soldiers, ranging from assassination to casino operation. On a whim, stemmed from a personal desire, I called in Kim Taehyung myself — one of our greatest thieves, never leaving a trace of fingerprints in his wake. He shared my proclivity for art, too.

I hardly glanced at the shadow in my office threshold a few moments later, uttering a basic “come in” to who I assumed was Taehyung.

“I need to speak to you,” came a different voice, although one painfully familiar. Jungkook stood in front of my desk, expression unreadable for a rare change.

“Taehyung is coming in soon to receive an assignment,” I told him. We were long departed from pleasantries. “Proper code says you should tell your superior when you want to speak to the boss so the boss can find a place in their schedule and meet you on their terms. You know this.”

“Last I checked, my superior was dead,” he said, still straight-faced. “And last I checked, you aren’t the boss.”

He was too bold for his own good. I clicked my pen, anger rising fast inside me, and had half a mind to cut off one of his fingers right there. Better men had been punished as such for smaller crimes. “Yoongi isn’t in town, which makes me acting boss,” I said slowly, hoping he would quickly find some sense. “And your superior now is Kim Seokjin. Go ahead, Jeon, test me again.” I played this game much better than he did.

There was fire perched on his lips, words to start a war, but it would end just as quickly as it had begun, and he would be the one left to ash. Instead, he shifted on one foot, the first sign of his unease at being there, and mumbled an apology. “If you have the time, I’d like to talk about something.”

I wanted to dismiss him with a wave, tell him to come back when he learned conduct. Anyone else in my family would’ve, but making him leave would only mean postponing whatever was in store, and I had already been waiting for weeks to see what he would drag up to me. “Fine,” I resigned, “but wait until after Taehyung leaves. He’ll only take a few minutes.”

“Alright,” he said, looked at one of the empty velvet chairs across from my desk. “Mind if I sit?”

At twelve, I never would’ve imagined Jungkook asking to sit in my office. All these years later, I found myself replying with a stiff nod. “Go ahead.”

Taehyung entered as if on cue, only a second after Jungkook sat down, coming in like a spring breeze and carrying himself so easily I sometimes forgot he was part of what we did. He was too beautiful for the dirty work we found ourselves in, but he was bound for life.

When he noticed Jungkook, the breeze came to a suffocating stop. The two stared, wreaking silent havoc on one another until I coughed and Taehyung’s eyes snapped right back to me. We had all been close, once, but Taehyung’s commitment to perfection and my inevitable future at the top left Jungkook where he so chose to remain. They had started with the same jobs, at the same time, and at his age Taehyung had already pulled off million dollar heists. International ones, too. Jungkook could’ve done the same, worked side-by-side with an old friend, if only he applied himself.

“You called for me?” Taehyung prompted, ever eager for his next job.

“I haven’t had any new art in weeks.” I gesture to the walls on either side of us, decorated mostly in stolen art from the last couple decades—one of the guilty pleasures of the Min family, especially my mother and I. Of course, it was a well-kept secret. The worth of the room was unparalleled, and our collection was ever-growing. “I was wondering if you could get a hold of a Manet for me.”

“I could get a hold of Mona Lisa herself if you wanted,” he said, and I beamed. Jungkook was probably rolling his eyes, but I didn’t look in his direction. Unyielding obedience was, after all, a hallmark of our organization, and Taehyung apparently knew it better than Jungkook

“I’ll make arrangements for you in Italy. Maybe Germany—I’ll figure out more details later, and I’ll let Hoseok know you’re going to be abroad for a couple of days. While you’re there, feel free to grab something for yourself.”

“That’s what I love to hear,” he smiled, the proud owner of a growing collection. Most of what we knew of art, we learned together, and it was one of the only pleasures I got to enjoy outside of the mafia. “Anything else?”

I shook my head, knowing I had to get back to Jungkook, although I would’ve liked to invite him to stay a moment longer. “That’s all for now, but I’m sure I’ll call you back here tomorrow.”

“Of course. I’ll see you then.” He offered a polite, customary nod to me and turned to leave, not deigned to give Jungkook another glance.

“You’d benefit from spending some time with him,” I started to Jungkook, who was clearly not ready for a lecture. And not interested, either. “He’s already on his way to having his own subordinates someday, and you’re still doing the work of sixteen year olds.”

He chuckled, but there was no lilt in the sound, all dry bitterness. “Just because you’re sleeping with him doesn’t mean you have to put him on a pedestal.”

My lip twitched, but indulging him with a reaction would fuel him further. He wanted to make me crack, wanted to prove that he still could. “We should start talking about your initiation. You’re plenty old enough to take the oath, and you’ll need time to catch up to the other soldiers your age, but you’d be a great replacement for your father someday. Seokjin would sponsor you, and I’ve already considered some ideas for your first assignment.”

He waited until I finished to shake his head, black hair falling into his eyes. “No.”

“No?” I echoed. “What do you mean no?”

“I mean no, I won’t take over my father’s position. No, I won’t go through initiation. No, I’m not going to kill for you.”

I clicked my pen, trying to find the best angle to reason with him. My father’s mantra: anyone can be won over when you choose your words well enough. “Your father raised you for this. You are his legacy, and you have far more potential as a soldier than as an associate. You’d make more money, work your way—”

This time, he didn’t wait for me to finish. “I don’t want to be an associate either,” he said, and I was too perplexed at his implications to care that he interrupted. “I want out. Period.”

Jungkook had not come from the generations of family ties that I had, or that most of this syndicate had. His father had made the paramount mistake, decades ago, of crossing the brutal Park Clan. With a bounty on his head, he had gone to my father seeking refuge for himself and his family. The Park Clan wouldn’t have stopped at killing him but would’ve taken his wife, his parents, and done God knows what with them. Jungkook’s father had run a couple odd jobs in his younger years, and my father found great promise in him, liked him—which was a rare thing of my father — and made him a soldier on the spot, promising protection to his entire family. The only conditions: unwavering loyalty for the rest of his life, and his youngest child. Jungkook’s older brother was spared from the mafia life, while Jungkook had been raised in it and taught its ways from the time he was old enough to understand. My father had only wanted to establish the Jeon line, one he had seen great potential in, and I was not about to let that slip away.

“No,” I told him, flat. “That’s not an option. Your father—”

“Enough about my father.” He gritted his teeth, as did I. “That’s all I’ve heard the past couple weeks. Hell, even the past couple years. That I should be more like him, or that it’s time for me to rise to the occasion and keep building a Jeon legacy, but my father was a pathetic excuse of a man.”

“He was as noble as anybody,” I snapped back. “He gave up his freedom to protect his family. If he hadn’t sworn himself to us all those years ago, you wouldn’t even have been born.”

“I’m not angry at his reasons for joining the mafia. I’m angry that he became one of you. When I was young, he’d send as much money as possible to my mom and my brother and to my grandparents, but you know how he got. From the time I was fifteen, he’s spent all his money and time on alcohol and prostitutes. Most kids get an inheritance when their parents die. I got half a bottle of whiskey.”

“You cried like a child at his funeral,” I reminded him. “Made a mockery of the rest of us.”

“He was still the only family I had. Ever since he started drinking and sleeping with other women, neither of us have heard from my mom or brother. She says I’ll end up just like him. I don’t even know if they still live where we did when I was a kid.”

My thumb continued pressing on the end of the pen. Click, click, click, while I thought of what to tell him. Since Yoongi and I were in charge of his family’s protection, we knew where they were located. Jungkook’s mother, about six years ago, had asked my father to move her and her oldest son to a new home, one where Jungkook and his father wouldn’t be able to contact them. I decided to withhold what I knew. For now.

“We are your family. The Min Clan. What do you think’s going to happen if you leave? No one on the other side is going to give a shit about you. Your own blood doesn’t speak to you, and based on what? You haven’t done anything your father has, and they still don’t want you. We want what’s best for you.”

“Then let me go. That’s what’s best for me. I’ll find the rest of my family, prove that I’m not the same person as my father, and make an honest living for myself,” he said, too optimistic for his own good.

“An honest living?” I rolled my eyes. “It’s not all it’s chalked up to be, kid.”

“I’m older than you,” he spat.

“I’m the second-in-command of a fucking crime syndicate. You do child’s work. If reminding me that you’re older is the best argument you’ve got, get out of my office.” I was tired of being patient with him, tired of him trodding over my position like we were friends, like we were still in our childhood days on the playground.

He collected himself, reminded of how small he was. He needed me if he wanted to get anywhere, and the ice he strode so confidently over was beginning to crack under his feet.

“What do you think you’re going to do as an honest living?” I asked, keen on a glimpse into his fantasies.

“I…” he paused, realizing how foolish he was going to sound. I thought he might drop the idea entirely, but he pressed on. “I’ve thought of moving away and going to college. Getting a business degree, starting up an office of my own. I’d try to be a good husband someday, and a better father than mine was.”

All his fire simmered down to coals, reducing him to nothing more than a boy with a dream.

An idiot with a dream.

“You want to run a business? We have casinos. We have strip clubs. There’s your business, and you don’t have to go to school for years taking brain-numbing classes to get there. You can start as an employee and work your way up. And get this: you can have a wife and kids, too, and they’re all protected under the clan for as long as you work for us.” I stood up, trailed a half circle around my desk until I stood before him. “The strip clubs always love a fresh face, and you’d bring in good money.”

“You’re asking me to be a stripper?” He leaned forward in his seat, incredulous. “That’s not—no. Aren’t you listening? I want out. Period. I don’t want to marry a woman into this line of work and make her live how my mother did, and how would I be able to come home to my children and tell them that their dad is a criminal?”

“The same way every other father here does, and one day they could be workers, too. Remember when we were young? Remember when we learned what our fathers did, and we couldn’t wait to make them proud? When we first heard about honor, we didn’t care if it meant putting our lives on the line, or if it meant we’d have to kill. Doesn’t that mean anything to you anymore?”

He passed both hands over his face, exhausted. “We were children who didn’t know better. We didn’t know what death meant. Once you learned, you became all the more entranced with this way of life, and I fell away from it.” There was a damning look in his eyes, a question in them that he didn’t want to ask but proceeded anyway. “Do you even know how many murders you and Yoongi have signed off on in the past six months?”

Any answer, unless I said zero, would do nothing to improve his perception of me, but I wouldn’t lie to him. “I don’t know,” I said, remembering that I had just signed off on the assassination of a Park Clan member moments before Jungkook entered my office. The member would be dead within days. “One every few weeks, maybe, but you act like we do it without reason. We kill rats who give information to the feds, or those who break the code, or rivals. We don’t touch the innocent, and we don’t tolerate those who do.”

“Don’t ask me to be like you.” He was pleading now, begging, and I half expected him to fall to his knees.

“You would only have to kill once, and we wouldn’t ask you to again. Not if you’re working one of our casinos or clubs.” We had only a few regular hitmen we called upon, and although Jungkook’s father was one, there were other places he could be useful. But the initiation required two things: a tattoo and a successful hit. The tattoo, a Siberian tiger head with two amethyst gems for eyes, would be given after a prospective soldier succeeded in a hit: one life taken and one life reborn into the clan. The tattoo was our defining mark, the one way to know Min Clan from the rest of the world. Both of my parents, as well as my brother and I, wore ours on our forearm, conspicuous. Jungkook’s father had his on his shoulder blade, the tiger always watching his back.

“I said earlier that I’ve considered targets for your assignment,” I continued. “What about your father’s murderer? Wouldn’t you like to even the playing field? An eye for an eye?”

“No, not even my father’s murderer,” he said without hesitation. “You can’t change my mind.”

Just give me some time, I thought. My father was the stubbornest ox of the lot. In meetings with other clans, and even among our own, he was known for moving the immovable object, persistent even to a fault.

“Everyone has to do things they don’t want to in order to get where they want to be. You could have the perfect life, no more bloodshed if you just do this for us once. Then I’ll be sure we get you on the path you want. Business? Wife? Kids? Done.”

He averted my gaze, eyes fixed on the floor in front of me, filling with agony and agony and agony. “Why won’t you let me go?” he muttered. “You have a thousand other subordinates, a hundred associates who are vying for a chance to make themselves official members. You said yourself that I’m doing child’s work, so I’m clearly not useful to your operation anyway.”

I pulled on an earring, biding my time. He was watching me again. “My father believed in your family, saw things in your father and in you that he swore of until the day he died. Some of our advisers said that he wasn’t worth taking in, and some say the same of you, but Yoongi believes in you.”

“That’s appreciated.” He spoke softly, politely, leading up to something else. “But it’s not what I asked. I don’t care what your father saw, or what your brother sees. Why won’t you let me go?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again just as easy, wordless, still tugging on the jewelry in my ear.

“You used to have so many tells until your father trained you to always wear your best poker face,” he said, and this time I was struggling not to look away. “But you still pull on your earring when you’re nervous. Your left ear. It’s the one thing you’ve never been able to kick.”

I forced my hand back to my side, too little too late. “I want to believe in you the same way Yoongi does. He’s never been wrong about a person before.”

He didn’t believe me, nor should he. Not that I lied, but he knew there was something greater underneath. He was too perceptive not to notice. “You want me to stay because you can’t stand the idea of me not being here with you.”

Jungkook was no longer skimming along cracking ice, but breaking through and swimming down, down, down, even if it meant drowning.

My fingers brushed the cigarette case on my desk, and I picked it up easily, plucking one out and flicking the lighter until it brought the end of the cigarette to orange life. The process took only a few seconds, but they dragged on while the grandfather clock indicated a change in the hour. I hadn’t expected to take so long with Jungkook. This was longer than all of our conversations of the past couple years put together.

“Cigarette?” I asked, finally, because it was all I could think of and anything was better than silence.

“Fuck your cigarettes.”

He hated me. He had hated me for years, I remembered. Ever since I killed a man of my own clan convicted of adultery with another member’s wife. Ever since the tiger had been inked into my skin. I showed the orange and the amethyst to him proudly, giddy, and he never looked at me the same way.

We were not friends. I was his boss.“Careful, Jeon,” I said, reminded that he had spoken out of line time and time again over the course of one meeting. I had never called him by his last name. “You’re going to have to realize who you’re talking to.”

“What’re you going to do? Kill me?”

“I could,” I bluffed. I wouldn’t, but I remembered the first time I watched a man die: I was thirteen, sitting in on one of my father’s meetings for the first time, a meeting with a Park Clan member who “seemed more reasonable than most” but would not honor required codes of conduct. My father shot the man, dead, because he had embarrassed my father in front of me. His youngest. His pride and joy. I understood then and there what our family meant.

“You won’t,” Jungkook said, just as easily. “I know too much. Funny, isn’t it? Usually when a man knows too much, his downfall isn’t far off. His higher-ups have to get rid of him before he says something he shouldn’t, but not with me. You could never because I know too much of you, have seen what no one else has. I’m an extension of your memory and if I die, how much of your life dies with me? I am your only weakness, the one you want so desperately to blot out so you can be like your father, and you hate me for it.”

He was a man possessed, lunging out of his chair and coming too close to me for his own safety, breath hot on my face. A man I hated, who hated me, and I wanted him to stay more than anything.

I didn’t yell, didn’t raise my voice or even think about it. I only said, “Sit down, please.”

And he listened. I didn’t deny him the truth, and he didn’t deny my orders, a silent compromise.

An eventual whisper came: “I saved your life once, can’t you give me back mine?”

We were elementary school children. Only recently had we been made aware of our fathers lives, and my father had tried to explain the gravity of the organization. I had to be constantly aware of my surroundings, never too open about my home life. A thousand rules were implemented all at once, but I was still only a child, ten years old, and naivety was my fatal flaw.

Jungkook and I walked home together everyday, or walked to the car of whichever member of the syndicate was picking us up that day. Perpetually hand-in-hand. Attached at the hip, my father used to say. Attached at the heart seemed more accurate.

I had thought we were walking that day. No one had said otherwise, until a man walked up to the two of us and knelt down in front of me, making himself smaller, more personable. “Your father sent me to pick the two of you up today,” he claimed, teeth straighter and whiter than any I had ever seen.

We were used to new faces picking us up from time to time but always told their names beforehand, and what kind of car they drove. “Daddy didn’t say anyone was picking us up today,” I argued. Jungkook’s fingers squeezed around mine.

“Last minute change in plans. Your mother got a concerning phone call, and your parents thought it would be safer if I got you instead of letting you walk,” the stranger explained.

“What’s our address?” I tried him again, thinking myself clever. If he was a kidnapper, surely he wouldn’t have that information.

I didn’t realize at the time how many people knew my home address. Thousands of mafia members knew where my family ate, drank, and slept, so he relayed my street name and house number with ease.

I trusted him immediately after, grinning at him with a breezy, “Okay, let’s go!”

Jungkook held me in place as I tried to follow, wide brown eyes fixed on the man. His perception was unrivaled, even at that age. “Where’s your tattoo?” he asked. “Show us your tattoo.”

“Pardon me?” The man placed his hands on his hips.

“The tiger tattoo with gems for eyes,” Jungkook urged. “If Mr. Min sent you, you have the tattoo.”

“It’d hardly be appropriate for me to show you in a public place. My tattoo is on my back,” said the man, unwavering, as he tried to take my hand. I was who he really wanted.

Jungkook stepped in front of me, the smallest and least intimidating barrier I had ever seen, but he wouldn’t let this man touch me. “We’re not going with you,” he said, and suddenly the man’s teeth were too white, too straight as he maintained a calm facade. He hadn’t stopped smiling.

We ran, then, Jungkook taking off towards the school without giving me a warning, but he gripped my hand so hard that I stumbled after him. The man’s heavy footsteps followed us only a couple paces before he must’ve realized there were too many people still around, too many parents and children who would notice if he made a scene.

We stopped running only when we were back in the school’s main office, asking the secretary to call one of our parents. My mother was there twenty minutes later, taking Jungkook and I into her arms and kissing our heads and letting tears fall down her cheeks and into our hair. It was the only time I had ever seen her cry.

Our families ate dinner together that night, eight of us around a table except I sat on my father’s lap, king and his heiress. I told everyone what Jungkook had done, how he had saved me, and in later years I would learn what rival clans did with kidnapped children. Those who were lucky were held for ransom and returned to their families for a sum of money, but there had been plenty who weren’t so lucky.

My father took Jungkook and I each under one arm that night, after we stuffed ourselves full and I drank my first ever sip of champagne. “My one rule, above every other rule, is this—” he whispered, drawing us in close. “You must protect each other. Every day and always.”

Every day and always, I thought. Linking my pinky with Jungkook’s, I knew I would never be able to let him go.

In the middle of the night, I heard my father tiptoe past my room and the distinct click of the kitchen door behind him. Later that morning, I watched a breaking news announcement which displayed the face of the man who had tried to lure Jungkook and I into his car less than twenty four hours prior. He had been shot dead, a bullet through his teeth.

Now, with a couple of feet and a bottomless abyss between Jungkook and I, I realized I was still trying to make every day and always a reality. I had to protect him. Protect a whole clan. I had been his responsibility once while he held my hand and brought me home safe time after time. Now I wanted the same for him.

“We made a promise to my father a decade ago, and it still stands,” I told him.

“You want to protect me by sending me off to kill someone?” He tightened his jaw, making him look older than he usually did. His cheeks still carried some of the roundness as they did back then, but it disappeared more each year. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to protect me by letting me go somewhere else?”

“You think it’s that easy?” I narrowed my eyes at him. He scrambled between yes and no. Idiot. Fool. “You think you can just walk out of this room a free man to a world full of roses? That’s not how it works.”

“Then I’ll plant the roses myself.” He said, still dreaming. I hated to be the one to wake him up.

“And then you’ll have to smell them.” I took a drag from the cigarette, dead ash falling to the hardwood floor. “Word will get out that your family isn’t ours anymore. You won’t have our protection, and the Park Clan will find you and your mother and brother in a heartbeat. Even if they don’t, some of our own clan might suspect you of being a traitor if you defect. If you’re killed—if your family is killed—there’s nothing I can do.”

“My father’s incident with the Park Clan was twenty-five years ago. I hadn’t even been born, and you’re telling me they’d still kill my whole family?”

“Second to family ties, grudges are the strongest thing in the mafia. It’d take a hundred years before they even consider a truce between your families. Your father might as well have promised the next four generations of the Jeon line to us.” I shook my head, recounting the horror stories told to me about the Parks, true monsters among men. “You’d be lucky if they killed you straightaway. They have big business in selling people, though, and still torture their captives like they’re in the Middle Ages. With your mother and brother, who knows what they’d do. They don’t mean anything. You’re the one with information, and they’d do whatever possible to get it out of you. And if you give them what they want, they kill you anyway.”

I stamped on the butt of the cigarette with my shoe, Jungkook eyeing the black cap of my heel and the ash underneath.

“Tell me honestly—” he started, hands shaking, whole body shaking. He never had been able to hold his emotions for long. If his face wouldn’t give him away, his body would betray him. “Is there a future for me that doesn’t involve someone else’s blood on my hands or mine on someone else’s hands?”

I tried, really tried, to think of another way, but we wouldn’t protect him much longer if he didn’t take the oath. Even if he remained an associate, we didn’t have the man-power to give our associates the same protection as soldiers, and his mother and brother would be stripped of the home we provided them in a remote town, thrown back into a city teeming with monsters 

“No.” I started to reach for my earring, caught myself halfway, returned my hand to my side. “I don’t think there is.”

He leaned back in the velvet chair, eyes closed even though he was waking up for the first time, maybe, in his life. A wall of stolen art framed his sinewy and silken body, depicting tragedies spanning the last several hundred years, fictional and real, and Jungkook was the saddest painting of all.

[hyunsracha]

sun & moon — seo changbin

word count: 2k

summary: is your boyfriend ashamed of you?

you loved seo changbin.

you loved his eyes, the eyes that held so much depth and feeling.

you loved his hands, the hands that held pens and pencils to create art.

you loved his brain, the brain that thought of words to create sentences, sentences to make songs that tore you limb from limb, then put you together again.

you loved his heart, the heart that carried his deepest emotions, the heart that didn’t wear on his sleeve.

the heart that was filled with you.

or so you thought.

changbin’s biggest flaw was that he cared so, so much about what other people think.

and he believed that being bad and being wild would make people think highly of him.

he started acting like this during your freshman year of high school, and he kept this attitude all the way to senior year.

you transferred to changbin’s school as a junior; wide-eyed with a perfectly ironed uniform.

sitting in the back of his 3rd period history class, changbin thought he fell in love.

it took him six months to get you to agree to go on a date with him.

you had heard that the short boy with the ink-covered hands was nothing but trouble, so you avoided him.

you heard that the hated “goody-two-shoes” and liked to harass them.

you didn’t want to be harassed.

there was nothing wrong with being a good kid! you liked getting good grades and studying and staying out of trouble.

the first date was amazing. nerve-wracking, but amazing.

he took you to a bookstore, saying something along the lines of “you’re a good student, i figured you liked books.” with an embarrassed blush on his cheeks before asking if that was okay.

you had only giggled nervously and told him that it was okay.

you two looked at books for a while; you showed him your favorites and told him that he should read them.

he bought all of them and has yet to read them. they sit in the same plastic bag they were in when he bought them a year and a half ago.

there was a yogurt place right next door. changbin got yogurt all over his hands. it was cute.

that first date turned into many, and the weeks turned into years.

you loved seo changbin with every inch of your being.

he was your moon; the bright, haunting light to lead you through your darkest nights.

and you were his sun; a shining star that gave him hope and warmth.

your relationship with changbin was … complicated.

in private, he was the most loving, sweetest boy ever. you couldn’t pry him off of you if the sky was falling.

he whispered burning words against your skin, punctuating every expression of love with a kiss.

most of your dates were in the privacy of your home.

not his though. he lived with his friends and...he didn’t want them to see you.

in public, you didn’t exist to him.

he would kiss you in the car before going someone public and then leave you alone, pretending that the touch of your lips didn’t give him a high he could never reach.

and this was why things were complicated.

every time you would ask him why you couldn’t be together in public, he blew you off, choosing to bury his face in your neck and tell you about a new song he was working on.

you just wanted...more.

you wanted to tell people that changbin was yours, and that you were his.

you wanted to be able to hold his hand, and take him places and show him things you know would inspire him.

but you couldn’t. not when he pretended you didn’t exist.

and you were sick of it.

it was a rainy tuesday when you decided that enough was enough.

changbin was talking to his friends, chan and jisung.

they probably didn’t even know who you were.

you stomped up to your boyfriend, taking his hand in yours.

“changbin, baby, we still have a date after school, right?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

he pulled his hand away, plastering on a disgusted expression, “what the hell? who even are you, dude?”

you clicked your tongue, “changbin. i’m tired of pretending. it’s been a year, why can’t you just tell people?”

changbin was nervous. would people’s opinions on him change if they found out he was dating someone? or even, that he was in love? he couldn’t have that. he spent four years building this reputation.

he pulled you away from his friends, who wore confused expressions as they watched you two walk away.

“y/n, i-”

“no, changbin. you can’t keep pretending i don’t exist. i love you, for fuck’s sake! don’t...don’t you love me?”

“y/n, of course i love you. you’re my sun, okay? i just...you don’t understand-”

“then help me understand!” you clutched his hands, shaking them as you spoke, “i love you binnie. don’t you want people to know that i love you?”

his face hardened. his reputation wouldn’t be ruined.

“no. i don’t want people to know. i’m seo changbin, the coolest guy in this damn school. i need...i need to be available. i need people to like me. y/n, i hope you understand. i can’t be unavailable.”

“then be available.”

“what?”

your voice shook as you spoke, unable to keep the knot in your throat down, “then be available. changbin, if you’re going to pretend that this doesn’t exist...then this shouldn’t exist for real.”

your mind was screaming at him to fight for you.

he told you that he loved you countless times, and had showed that he did. was he just going to let you go like this?

“okay. if that’s what you want, i guess.”

and he walked away.

it was a rainy tuesday when changbin learned that breakups are hard.

school had ended, and he was sitting in his car in the parking lot, his head in his hands.

you were supposed to be in his passenger seat, smiling and lacing your fingers with him and telling him how you aced that math test you had today because you had studied all night.

he wanted to hear you ramble about formulas that he didn’t understand because he loved hearing the lilt in your voice when you were sure of what you were talking about.

he wanted to feel your thumb brush over his knuckles while he drove, a habit you had picked up after a few months of being together.

he wanted to see you watching him out of the corner of his eye. you always watched him while he drove. he always kept his eyes on the road while you were in the car because, “people always drive safer when important things are in their car.”

god, he felt like a fucking idiot.

he had thrown everything away.

he had thrown you away.

and for what? the sake of his reputation?

he was so convinced that coming out with you would be the end of the world. that everyone would just see him as some whipped fool, not the guy he had told them he was.

you were the only one who knew the real him.

the only one who saw him cry, and the only one who got to hear his songs.

but now, anyone who walked past his car in the storm got to see him crying.

the following two weeks were torture.

you threw yourself into your studies, writing and rewriting notes to fill the empty space.

changbin threw himself into trouble, constantly getting into fights and getting wasted.

seeing him at school was horrible.

the dark circles under his sunken eyes didn’t stop him from hitting on anything with legs, and you couldn’t decided if you were sad at his state or mad at his actions.

both. probably both.

usually you were excited for winter break, but this time you were extremely excited.

two weeks of sitting inside and avoiding seeing your ex or going to any place that reminded you of him? perfect.

two nights before christmas, you got a call.

“hello?”

“y-y/n.”

“changbin?”

“hi, my sun.”

you sucked in a breath, clenching your fist so hard you thought you would cut yourself.

“what do you want, changbin?”

“c...can you pick me up? i uh...i got my ass kicked by this guy...i think his name is jaebum? that’s not the point. the point is i got my ass kicked at a party. and i tried to walk home but...i walked by the bookstore and-” he hiccuped.

he was crying.

“-and i’m sitting outside and i thought about you and...y/n i love you so fucking much, you know that? i’m pretty sure you’re my soulmate. and i just let you go like the idiot i am. you probably hate me now, yeah? oh, shit it’s cold. can you pick me up? did i already ask that? whatever.”

“changbin are you drunk?” your voice was so, so quiet.

“very. chan took me to this party to hook me up with someone. but they kinda looked like you so i had to leave. then i got my ass kicked. and now i’m here.”

“i’m on my way.” you hung up the phone. your parents would kill you if you knew where you were going, so you left the house as quickly as possible.

changbin was sitting on a bench outside the bookstore, his knees pulled up to his chest as he cried. he had his phone pulled out next to him, swiping through a folder dedicated to pictures of you. a sad smile graced his face as he looked down at the old pictures. he was such an idiot. and you probably hated him. and you were going to take him home and tell him to never talk to you again. and he would miss you for the rest of his life.

“please delete that, i look so ugly there.”

“you could never look ugly. you’re so incredibly gorgeous, i’ve written songs about it. wait-” he looked up, and there you were, in all your christmas pajama glory.

you smiled down at him, bringing a hand up to wipe the tears from under his eye, “don’t cry, my moon.”

you offered him your hand, and he took it, letting you drag him back to your car.

the drive home was silent, the only sound coming from the radio.

you took him back to your house. changbin was sort of a baby when he was drunk, so you felt like you had to take care of him.

“oh, i’m home.”

“this is my house.”

“you’re here. this is home.”

“you’re drunk.”

“and you’re beautiful.”

“is that? from a movie?”

changbin shrugged, walking up the steps to the front door.

oh right, you forgot he had a key.

he let himself in, not bothering to even take his shoes off before collapsing on the couch.

you sighed, shutting the door and locking it.

“y/n.”

“what?”

“c’mere…” he called out.

you sat down on the couch next to his crumpled form, “i’m not cuddling with you, changbin. we’re not dating, remember?”

he winced, “but you...you called me your moon.”

“because you are. doesn’t mean we’re back together. you’re drunk, go to sleep. we can talk tomorrow.”

you stood up, ready to head back to your room. but he grabbed your wrist, pulling you into him.

“i don’t want to talk tomorrow. i want to talk now. i love you, and you love me too, right? so we...we should be together again.”

“you know why we broke up changbin. it had nothing to do with love-”

“i will climb on your roof right now and scream to the whole neighborhood that you are my sun and that i am stupidly in love with you and that i would do anything you asked me to do because yes, i am whipped and yes, i just want to see you smile. is that good? would that fix things?” he had you pressed against his chest where you could feel his heart pounding.

“we can talk about you screaming from the rooftops when you’re sober, okay baby?” you pulled away from him, pushing his chest so he was laying down.

“but- are we gonna be okay?” you could see the desperation in his eyes.

he needed you.

and he was ready to show the world that he needed you.

“yeah. we’re gonna be okay.”

[blackleatherjacketz]

My Brother’s Keeper: Chapter 10

Negan x Reader

Featuring: Alden

Summary: Your brother runs away from the Sanctuary and you pay the price.

Warnings: Mourning, Alcohol Consumption, Hurt/Comfort, Thoughts of Suicide

Word Count: 1641

Notes: This chapter is best when accompanied by Sir Elton John’s “Someone Saved My Life Tonight”

Read the rest of the story HERE!

Hours of somber silence in the backseat of Negan’s car made you more exhausted than you‘d anticipated. The Oxycontin from your orgasm lingered, mixing in with the fear, adrenaline and grief of the night’s events as it left you sick with attraction you couldn’t quite stifle. You wanted to hate him, to wish he was dead and never to see him again, but you couldn’t quite convince yourself to think any of those things.

You wanted to ask him a dozen questions that rattled around in your brain. Why did he kill Alex instead of giving him the Iron? Did something set him off or change his mind? Was it you? Was it Ezekiel? What would happen to the rest of your family now that Alex was gone? Was this all your fault? Did you do enough? Did you do too much? Above all else, you wanted to know if he still wanted you, and you hated yourself for wondering that.

The reality of their deaths hadn’t quite hit you yet, the numbness of grief still keeping you quiet as you walked down the hall, half expecting to see either of them waiting for you. It wasn’t until you finally arrived at your family’s quarters to deliver the news that your father screamed out a trail of expletives, throwing a lamp across the room before shoving into you with the brunt of his shoulder. He stormed out in a puffed-up silence, ignoring your intense need for compassion.

Your sister merely shook her head as tears fell silently down her face, embracing your sister in law as they both collapsed onto the floor. You stood there like a vacant vessel, a messenger they didn’t shoot as they embraced each other, wailing together like banshees as your body barely stood still. You were surrounded by family, yet all alone despite what you’d done to prevent that from happening. You needed some air, a drink, a cigarette or a shower, but you’d settle for just one of those right now.

You grabbed the bottle of whiskey your dad always kept in the cabinet for special occasions. It was half empty already, the label with the dancing devil on it almost completely peeled off as your fingerprints smudged the opaque glass container. You unscrewed the cap and took a swig, the red hot cinnamon burning into the cracks of your chapped lips as you made your way down the hall and out the front door. You didn’t drink very often, and you knew it would only take a few more sips before you started losing your senses. You didn’t want to mourn in front of the other Saviors, and you certainly didn’t want Negan finding out you’d taken to the bottle just yet.

Instead you found yourself climbing the outdoor staircase, one sip for each flight that you reached; a personal achievement if you took into account the high heels you were still sporting. The whiskey heated you up from the inside now, fiery alcohol seeping from your pores as you sweated your way up to the last flight of stairs. The wind was cool at the top of the building, blowing you this way and that as it made the pressure in your ears a thousand times worse.

You hadn’t realized that you’d been crying this entire time, mascara-stained tears dripping onto your neck and chest as you reached the final platform. You did your best to wipe them off, sniffing your swollen sinuses as you walked over to the concrete ledge of the building. Your head was pounding, the fluid in your head not coming out your eyes fast enough before the bottle of whiskey fell from your hands. You watched as it fell seven stories down, shattering into a thousand pieces in a silent glittering picture.

“Hey,” Alden’s voice rang in your ears, seeming so loud yet so far away as he slowly approached you. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

You winced as his words swam through the fluid in your head, bouncing off the walls of your sinuses before increasing the already painful pressure your tears had created. How did he get there? Did he climb up the ladder on the other side of the building and walk all this way? Did he run up all those flights of stairs in the middle of the Sanctuary to… it didn’t matter. Nothing did. Not anymore. You just wanted some peace and quiet, and you couldn’t even get that all the way up here.

“I think we’ve been through enough, don’t you?” His boots displaced the gravel as he walked toward you, their deafening crunch forcing your eyes closed in an attempt to shut out any excess stimulation. Enough, enough, enough! You’d seen and heard enough!

Alden leaned forward and inched his fingertips over your knuckles, squeezing your palm with trembling determination. In your heart of hearts you knew he was trying to help, that he was just as upset as you were, and hell, maybe he came up here for the same reason you did. But you wanted to be alone, to be as physically alone as you felt, and he wasn’t helping any.

“I don’t want to talk to anyone right now,” you admitted.

“I know you don’t,” he acknowledged your pain with a shaky lilt, “But maybe that’s why you should.” His voice was sweet like the summer air, its timbre a warm honey in the black tea of the Southern twilight. His eyes were just like yours as you turned to meet him, wet with tears as the moonlight masked his reddened sclera. He was more alone than you could ever be, yet here he was trying to help.

“I ruined everything.” Another tear fell from your cheek, landing on his hand as you finally squeezed it back.

“No, you didn’t,” Alden started, guiding you toward him with a flick of his wrist. “What happened tonight was terrible, but I can’t stand to lose anyone else, especially not you.” The corner of his mouth curled into a nervous smile as he forced a laugh.

“Why would it matter if you lost me? We’re not even that good of friends.” You wanted to distance yourself from him, to piss him off and make him leave.

“Sure we are.” He held your hand steadily, ignoring your poor attempt to push him away. “Remember that time when neither of us could sleep this winter? It was so cold, we both found ourselves huddling over the gas lantern in the middle of the library and we…” He licked his lips and laughed as he recalled the memory. “We read each other passages from Tolkien to keep each other awake?” He wrapped his arm around your waist. “Or that time when I had a sore throat and could barely speak, so you made Simon go out and find me a dry erase board while you gave me medicine to make me feel better?”

“Yeah,” you wrapped your arms around his shoulders, letting him pick you up off the ledge like a dance scene from an old black and white movie.

“Or that time when you saved that little girl by amputating her arm instead of just letting her go like Doctor Carson wanted?” The tears in his eyes seemed to dwindle down, the caramel in them shining through as he helped you stand up. “People need you here, whether you can see that now or not.”

“I guess.” You looked down at your feet, the high heels Negan gave you covered in dirt as you made your way across the roof. “My dad won’t even talk to me after I told him what happened. He probably thinks it’s all my fault, that I didn’t put out enough, or that Natalie would have...”

“Hey,” Alden whispered, placing both hands on your shoulders. “People grieve in different ways; they go through the stages in different orders.” He rubbed his thumb along the fine hair of your bicep, sending a warm and comforting shiver down your spine. “He loves you more than anything. Believe me, I know, he won’t shut up about his favorite daughter.”

“His favorite daughter?” Your brow furrowed. How could you be his favorite if he treated you the way he did?

“He just needs some time,” he reassured you. “We all do.”

“I thought Alex had time, I thought my mom did…” you blinked a tear away and looked up at the moon. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling.” Alden dropped his head, shaking a few tears loose. “We just have to keep a part ourselves in all of this, no matter how hard it is. We have to keep going and hopefully someday we can be those people again.”

“What if I’m not that good person you think I am? What if I actually liked being with him, even though I knew… I knew what he would do?” You confessed.

“Well, then you’re safer than I thought.” He forced a wink and playfully nudged your shoulder, biting his bottom lip to hold back any more tears. “Look,” He took in a deep breath, glancing at you with that beautifully disarming face. “Negan doesn’t have to define you, just like the Saviors don’t have to define me.”

“Maybe not.” You sniffed and looked up at him.

“Just keep that person alive in there, no matter how bad it gets.” Alden let go of your shoulders and ran a hand through his sandy blonde hair, letting out the heaviest of sighs. “Simon said they’re assigning me to one of the outposts tomorrow, so, I won’t see you again after this.”

“Alden, they can’t…”

“They can, and they did,” he sighed, “Just survive for me somehow, alright?” He leaned in and kissed your cheek. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

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

Tags: @annablack1102 @genevievedarcygranger @letsby @negans-network @negansdirtygirl22 @rasa1945 @chamberofsloths @flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash @namelesslosers @mblaqgi @collette04 @bishsposts @haleyea @ptite-shit @jamiekingofmen @ibelongtonegan @chloejanedecker1, @divadinag @dxloverpunk @tylersblurrylittleface

[bee-kathony]

Fraser Memorial | Ch. 1 “Sutures”

Thank you @sassenachwaffles for being my beta on this chapter and thank you @jules-fraser for approving of my pictures and indulging me as I started another fic! 

2015 | Scotland

The emergency room had been quiet all morning, only three people had come in with minor injuries that were fixed in minutes. My fingers ached to suture someone’s skin, fix a broken nose... anything that would take my focus off of my ex.

Frank Randall had cheated on me. Simple as that.

But it wasn’t simple, he was my fiancé, we’d been together for six years and had plans. Hopes and dreams that involved us buying a house, getting married, children… he ruined them when he slept with one of his students. A history professor at Oxford University, Frank had wooed me in my last year of school. He was a new professor and I was smitten with the teacher.

I should have known that something like this could have happened.

I was once the student, crushing on their professor, hoping he would ask to see me after class so we could talk those extra five minutes without anyone else around.

It’d only been three months since I found out he was sleeping with her and in that short time I had relocated to Edinburgh to get away from him and my shattered dreams. Thankfully the hospital accepted my transfer. It was rare that they would take on a resident from another hospital, especially since I was English.

I glanced down at my watch, only ten minutes had passed since I’d last checked it. Sighing, I ran my hand through my mass of curls, getting my finger stuck in a knot. “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” I cursed, yanking my hand and managing to make matters worse.

“Ye need scissors?” Geillis, a fellow resident, asked from behind the nurses station.

I huffed, “No, thank you. I’ve almost,” I pulled a bit more, “Got it!” My hand came free and only a few loose strands drifted to the white tiled floor.

“Ye ever think about cutting it? Yer hair?” Geillis pointed to my bird’s nest.

Shaking my head, I pulled my hair tie off my wrist and started putting it in a messy bun, “I would look horrific if I cut my hair,” I laughed, tucking loose bits into the bun. “They would stick out even more, if that’s even possible.”

“Aye, yer probably right.” She laughed and then we both turned our heads to the emergency room doors that were now opening with a bang. Finally.

A man with a slight limp walked through the doors, holding up a very large red headed man who appeared to be doubled over in pain.

“Mine!” I called before Geillis could and raced off to meet the men, leaving Geillis’ shouts of complaint behind me.

“How can I help?” I asked, my eyes taking stock of what was before me. The larger man’s face was twisted in pain, and his hand was clutching his opposite shoulder. Dislocated. There was also blood, and a lot of it, running down his arm.

“This idiot here thought he could lift a box of about forty-five bottles of whisky, clumsy dolt.” The blonde man laughed through his words, “Happened walkin’ up the stairs. Smashed all the whisky o’ course.” I chuckled lightly to myself, clearly the man was not too concerned about his friends pain.

“Come with me, we’ll get you set up in a bed and I’ll take a look at that shoulder.” I led the two men who slowly followed over to the row of beds. The large man laid down, wincing as he fell back against the pillows.

“You’ll probably want to sit up and not lean on that arm.” I instructed and moved my fingers in a ‘come forward’ motion.

“Aye, I think it’s broken.” The red haired man said, groaning as he sat up in the bed.

I laid my hand gently on his shoulder to assess the damage, it was in fact dislocated. This would be an easy fix. “It’s not broken, only dislocated.”

“Only,” he laughed and I looked into his eyes for the first time to find that they were the brightest blue I’d ever seen. Caught off guard, I shook my head slightly and turned my attention back to his shoulder.

“I’m going to pop it back into place, it’ll hurt but then feel a whole lot better.” I placed my hands firmly on his arm and he nodded, gritting his teeth and looked straight ahead.

Applying pressure, I forced his shoulder back and then up and it made a sort of popping noise as it reset. The man grunted but then let out his breath, looking down at his shoulder to see it good as new.

“Ah Dhia, it feels a thousand times better, thank ye Sassenach.” He smiled up at me and I felt my belly do a little flip.

“You’re welcome. It really wasn’t very — wait… what did you call me?” I shot my eyebrows up at him. I’m pretty sure that ‘Sassenach’ was not a very nice name to call someone.

The man blushed, his ears turning pink as he met my gaze full on, “Och, I didna mean it in a bad way, of course not, yer English are ye no’?”

“Well, yes I am.” I crossed my arms in front of me and waited for further explanation.

“So…” he drew out the word, “’Tis only a way of calling ye that, yer an outlander, lass. Please dinna take offense because I truly didna mean to offend ye. ’Tis only I dinna ken yer name.”

I looked down at my chest where my name tag should’ve been but it had somehow fallen off during the day. “Oh, I’m Claire. Claire Beauchamp.” I smiled and then I remembered the man’s friend and turned my head to him as well, offering him the same smile.

“This is Ian, my brother-in-law,” the man pointed to his friend with the limp, “and I’m Jamie. Now that we ken each other’s names maybe ye could attend to this blood that hasna stopped drippin’ out of my arm?”

I cursed under my breath. Christ, I had completely forgotten that he had been bleeding. His eyes were a distraction and his Scottish lilt was rather enchanting. Of course, I knew that by moving to Scotland, I would in fact hear plenty of Scottish accents but there was something in the Highland-lilt -- something about the way he said ‘Sassenach’.

“Jesus! I’m sorry,” my cheeks turned red and I moved over to the cabinet beside the bed, quickly pulling out what I would need. Definitely sutures, bandages, antiseptic and tweezers to pull out any remaining glass.

Once I set up the tray and had it arranged neatly, I rolled the small cart over beside the bed. “Hold out your arm please.”

Jamie lifted his arm, and I sucked in the air between my teeth, there was a large piece of glass sticking out. I normally had a strong stomach but sometimes, there were things that put me over the edge.

“Jamie, yer doctor’s afraid of blood. I told ye we shoulda gone to the other hospital,” Ian laughed and put his hand on Jamie’s back.

“I’m normally fine, blood doesn’t make me ill but seeing that,” I looked down at his arm again, “has made me just a wee bit nauseous.”

“Dinna fash, Sassenach. If ye throw up, I promise to make sure none of that hair on top of yer head gets in the vomit.” Jamie laughed and I would have hit him on the arm if he wasn’t injured.

“Thank you,” I said sarcastically and turned to grab the antiseptic and cloth to clean around his wound before I dislodged the glass shard.

While I cleaned his wound, Jamie didn’t complain, only pressed his lips tightly together and put on a brave face. “This may hurt,” I said in a soft tone as I held my tweezers near the glass.

“Just do it, lass.”

The glass came out easily enough, and thankfully it wasn’t very deep into his skin but he would definitely need sutures. I laid the shard on the tray and grabbed another cloth to clean him and this time Jamie let out a little yelp as the antiseptic touched his wound.

“Can deal with a dislocated shoulder but not a little sting?” I mused, smiling up at him as I continued to clean the remaining blood.

His arm twitched slightly but he didn’t pull it back, “Och, the stinging is verra painful, Sassenach, dinna make fun of me!”

“He’s a big baby, Claire, dinna listen to him,” Ian chimed, “He cries in sappy romantic movies too, don’t ye?”

Jamie glared at Ian, but there was a slight mischievous glint in his eye.

“I dinna cry, I have allergies,” Jamie grumbled, puffing out his chest a little.

I grabbed the needle and threaded the suture through the small hole and brought it to his skin. “I have allergies too, you know like when I watch ‘Titanic’ and Jack dies, somehow I always get allergies during that scene,” I joked, which earned me a nudge from Jamie’s other hand into my side.

“Dinna joke about ‘Titanic, Claire, ’tis verra serious, their love was forever.” He laughed and I had to admit to myself that he was very interesting. Jamie was such a large presence, one wouldn’t think at first glance that he was into romantic movies and even cried during them.

“Seems like ye’ll be awhile,” Ian said, “I’m gonna go and grab a snack out of the vending machine, ye need anything, Fraser?”

Fraser? Surely not…

I waited until Ian had walked away before asking Jamie what was currently making me freak out.

“Fraser? That’s your last name?” He jumped slightly as I poked him with the needle and began to suture his wound.

“Aye, James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, to be exact.”

“As in… Fraser Memorial… the name of this hospital?” I paused my work on his arm to look up into his face.

Jamie’s ear’s turned pink again, “Aye, well ’tis no’ like it’s me who owns the hospital. That’d be my Da Brian. One day though… it’ll be mine.”

He was practically my boss and here I was picturing late nights cuddled up next to him on the couch watching ‘Titanic’ and crying.

“So it’s named after your dad then? Kind of odd to name a hospital after yourself, aye?” I resumed suturing his wound, nearly done.

“Och, no. It’s named after my older brother Willie.” He replied, looking down to watch the needle go through the last bit of skin and I clipped the end and tied it off. “He passed away when I was a lad.” I watched as I saw his blue eyes go gray and his smile faded for a moment. “He had cancer.”

My hand lingered on his arm, offering comfort, “I’m so sorry Jamie. Was he treated at this hospital?”

“Aye,” his voice trembled, as if he was remembering his brother now, “My father partnered with a man and bought the hospital a year after Willie died. Then they renamed it for him, to remember.”

I bandaged his arm in silence, not quite knowing what to say, what could I ever say to that?

“You’re all done.” I tucked in the end of the bandage underneath, “You need to clean the wound daily, and for the first couple of days you’ll need to change out the bandage, some blood seeping through is normal.” I assured him, and looked over to see Ian returning with bags of crisps and candy in his arms.

“Och, yer finished? I had to go to three different floors to find what I wanted.” He groaned and offered Jamie a bag of crisps.

“Thank ye, Sassenach. For healing me wi’ yer wee hands so well.” Jamie grabbed my hand and placed his lips on the back of it. I could have sworn he heard my heart beating frantically in my chest.

“No problem at all, anything for a Fraser,” I laughed, hoping I didn’t sound like I was trying to suck up to the owner’s son.

“Will I need to come back to get the sutures taken out?”

“Oh, yes! Come back in about three weeks and I’ll take them out for you.” I only prayed that when he returned I would be on shift.

“Aye, three weeks then, Claire.” Jamie smiled and turned to leave with Ian, who was munching on a Snickers bar, going on and on about how stupid Jamie was to lift that heavy of a box.

My eyes never left the back of his head as I watched them walk away and just before they turned around the corner, Jamie’s eyes met mine and he grinned, setting butterflies loose in my belly.

Present day

I checked my reflection in the mirror, applying one more coat of mascara before I decided my make-up would just have to do for the evening. My dress was a simple black, that hugged every curve and line of my body. Just the way my husband liked, or so he showed me.

“Sassenach!” He called from the living room, “Are ye ready? We dinna want to be late!”

“Such an impatient man,” I fussed, grabbing my coat from the bed and slipping it on over my shoulders. Jamie was waiting for me, his arms crossed, looking down at his watch.

“I’m ready. I swear it!” I smiled and kissed him on the cheek as he turned his face to press his lips to mine.

“Don’t!” I pulled back, “You’ll mess up my lipstick and I don’t think you want to wait around for me to fix it.”

“I’d love to mess up yer lipstick, Sassenach. And that wee dress of yers too,” the color of his eyes turned into a deep blue, “but yer right, we must go.” He sighed, frowning as he settled for a kiss to my forehead and took my hand, leading me to the door.

“Are you nervous, Jamie?” I squeezed his hand as we walked to the car parked on the street.

“Aye, a wee bit.”

“Your speech will be great, I know it.” He stopped us before we climbed into the car, his hands slid down my body to rest on my hips.

“’Tis a big responsibility, bein’ an owner of a hospital.” He squeezed my sides making me jump, “With my father retiring and all, I ken it has to be me but I just worry I willna be good at it.”

Not caring about my lipstick or the stain it would leave on his lips, I pressed forward and closed our mouths together. “Jamie Fraser, you’re the bravest man I know. You’re ready for this, your father has trained you well. Besides…” I smirked, my hands sliding down over his arse, “I can’t wait until I can say I sleep with the boss.”

Jamie laughed and pressed his lips to mine again, “I love ye, Sassenach. Truly, I do.”

“And I you, Jamie. Now let’s go! It’s bloody freezing out here, and I need those heated seats!”

He let go of my hips and opened the passenger door for me. The entire drive over, his hand never left mine - I squeezed it off and on, a matter of habit, to remind him I was there. I was always going to be there, I was always going to be his biggest supporter.

The tension was seeping out of his body. No normal person would have known that, but I knew James Fraser, and I knew just how big of a night this retirement gala at Fraser Memorial was going to be.

[impishnature]

Boss Ford (Part 2)

AO3

Rating: T (warning for some intrusive thoughts)

Summary: When Ford woke up that morning, he never thought that Stan would be challenging him to run the Mystery Shack for a day. Even worse, he’d found himself agreeing before he’d really thought it through. Oh well, it couldn’t be that hard to run the Shack for just one day… could it?

AN: And part two- I had to split it cause it got too long for my liking but I hope this is a good resolution all the same ^o^

Part 2: The Reward

...He really had to stop underestimating his family.

It was just safer to overestimate them, more often than not they did nothing but surprise him and exceed his expectations.

The room was fully restored to it's former glory. Sure the amount of glitter on some of the attractions seemed suspiciously out of place and one or two others seemed slightly more like actual creatures from his journals than he remembered them being, but all in all the room had found its spark again.

Quaint and odd, the Mystery Shack was once again living up to it's name.

Sure Stan was still lamenting the fact that the gift shop had no wares in it as of yet, but the museum itself was fully functional.

A fact he was happy to point out to Ford.

...Repeatedly.

Even then, though nervous, Ford had reasoned with himself that it couldn't be that hard to con some of the local townspeople that would no doubt come to check up on Stan tomorrow through a quick tour of the newly renovated room.

To better prepare himself though, and to squash the still niggling doubts that rang like warning bells in his head he had enlisted the twins to be his helpers as Stan went to relax in front of the TV, leaving only a short 'I'll wait for the surprise tour tomorrow' in his wake.

Suffice to say it had not gone well.

The kids were great sports about the whole affair. Dipper laughed at all his jokes, no matter how obvious it was that he was only doing it to keep his spirits up. Mabel was a lot more proactive, shaking her head and guiding him through every step, her twin breaking her monologues only to translate when it was starkly clear she had lost Ford entirely. It was obvious they just wanted to help and thought he was trying his best, but honestly their 'advice' was making his head spin more than before they'd started the dress rehearsal.

"No, no, no! Grunkle Ford you've gotta make it spookier! Try and make someone jump!"

"Oh, OK, so like-"

"But it can't all be scary, there's got to be some humour in it too. It's just got to be engaging, really. You've really got to grab their attention." 

"...Like a bad horror movie?"

"No! Like a good bad horror movie!" Mabel had gestured her arms wildly along with her words, as if it was obvious what she meant.

Ford had no idea what she meant.

"I think she means when something in a bad horror movie startles you and you can't help but laugh at getting caught out by it."

"I... see."

Ford had no idea what he meant either.

How can something be funny and scary???​  How can something be good and bad???

"There's got to be something for everyone to enjoy. That's all."

"Yeah! You've got to get the crowd excited! Hanging off your every word and ready to throw all their money at you!"

"Mr Mystery always has a trick up his sleeve for skeptics." 

"Does he now."

How in the multiverse do you keep absolutely everyone entertained?​ And for that matter, how on Earth had Stan managed it? Not just once, but to keep this place open for near on thirty years?

"So? How'd it go?"

Stan looked up from his seat on the sofa, smug smile still in place as he took in Ford's disgruntled and flustered expression from the doorway.

"The kids had... a lot of pointers to give."

"I wondered what was taking so long." Stan turned back to the TV, trying to school his face into less of a knowing grin. "Not as easy as you thought it would be then?"

"Quite." Ford sighed as he nudged Stan to move over, sitting beside him in the chair with a groan.

If he was honest, there was something about the entire challenge that was so utterly off that he was tempted to bite the bullet and forfeit now.

But he didn't know how to do that without Stan asking 'Why?' and having to somehow explain the sheer absurdity of it all. The weird bubbling strangeness that he kept having to force down so it didn't engulf him with the bitter tang of hypocrisy. 

Something about it all kept nipping at his heart, like he was doing something wrong.

He couldn't explain that to Stan though, not when he didn't know himself what the feeling meant.

"Hey, no need to look so down. Like I said, it's not your forte, that's all. You got tons of things you're good at- and I haven't even known you that long, so there's probably lots I don't know about too." Stan smiled genuinely as Ford shoved him, the barb about his memory still a sore point but at least he had gotten used to Stan's humour enough not to look at him with abject horror anymore. It still stung, deep down, when Stan said he hadn't known him long, but he could push past it, keep the conversation rolling instead of shutting down.

"I guess I just don't hold a candle to the real Mr Mystery." Ford's mouth tweaked up in a humourless smile, a soft sadness permeating the air when the person was sat in front of him and didn't even know just how much they were all wishing for him to be back to his former self.

"Then stop trying to be him."

He said it so easily, so simply and yet the sentence seemed more mind boggling than all the tips the kids had given him combined.

"I- sorry?"

"What? I'm just saying the truth, Sixer. I just said you had to prove doing a tour was easy, not that being Mr Mystery was easy." Stan shrugged, not really looking at him, his focus split between the show he was watching and Ford's slack jawed confusion. "You're you, not someone else, so do a tour that you'd do- not one he'd do. Regardless of how the kids say you should do it, either. Maybe you can't be Mr Mystery but that doesn't matter, does it?"

How could he say something that made all the tangled up half thoughts, that he couldn't comprehend himself, suddenly clear as day?

Deep down he'd known exactly why this entire charade was eating him from the inside out but he hadn't been able to put the feeling into any words other than 'No, this is all wrong."

He'd shouted and snarled about Stan taking his name when he'd found out he'd been using it, he'd told him in no uncertain terms to give it back.

It made his skin crawl to think about taking over a part of Stan's life, even for a day, when Stan didn't even know it was a part of himself he was willingly giving away.

Stan had no idea Mr Mystery was himself. Had no idea that even though technically Mr Mystery was 'Stanford Pines' it had always been, and always would be Stan Pines plain and simple.

It just felt so wrong when Stan didn't even know himself, to try and pretend to be him.

And even when he hadn't truly understood it himself, Stan had been able to see what the problem was and broken it down into the simplest of messages.

Don't pretend to be someone you're not.

Ford didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and found he desperately wanted to say something that he knew he couldn't, not until Stan remembered on his own.

Isn't it funny that you found yourself, found a place in the world just for you when you were pretending to be me?

All he'd do is confuse his brother saying something like that, when all his memories shifted like sand and what was left behind were tattered fragments of a tapestry his brother couldn't quite yet fit together into each cohesive image.

"I wasn't challenging you to be him." Ford came back to his senses and Stan looked perturbed where he sat, worrying his lip. "It was just some harmless fun, I didn't think you'd take it so seriously. Kind of just wanted to see..."

"To see?" Curiosity piqued, Ford couldn't let the question dissipate into nothingness even as Stan seemed to war with himself over whether to say it or not.

"I dunno. Just seemed like something we've done before. Challenging each other to do stupid things." Stan gave a cheeky though hesitant grin, one that spoke of countless worries that maybe, just maybe, he was remembering things all wrong.

When you had nothing to go on, it kind of made it difficult to balance and comprehend what could just be pure wishful thinking and what was actually real, solid reminiscence.

Fortunately, Ford saw through the look and the question being asked behind it.

I wanted to see if you'd take up my challenge​.  That's something we used to do, right?

"If you mean did you have a habit of getting me into trouble more often than not. Yes. Yes, you did." Ford raised an eyebrow as Stan's expression grew impossibly brighter.

"I knew it." 

Ford hummed in amusement at the triumphant lilt to Stan's voice. "You sound proud of that."

"Of course I am. That's what siblings do." 

Ford didn't know why that sentence stung slightly, clawing at his chest. The words had almost been said with relief, as if Stan was worried that they hadn't been that close. Hadn't had the usual sibling rivalries and playful teasing banter and everything else that came with being close friends and irritating siblings all in one fell swoop.

He knew in hindsight that that peaceful balance had been shattered, and he knew one day Stan would relearn it. But right now he wanted to bring that closeness back to the forefront, that bridge that had been burned as they grew up.

Right now he wanted Stan to think of the good times, and everything Ford willed to desperately get back once Stan was himself again and they could properly try and rebuild the bridge together. Plank by plank, just like that first Stan'O'War they had found together and fixed back up from nothing but a shipwreck rotting alone in a cave.

Besides, Stan had been the best brother growing up and he needed to know that. 

"That they do. And in the same vein- If anyone asks about the trouble we got into as kids, I blame you for all of it."

A surprised gleeful bark of laughter left Stan. "Fair, very fair." He paused then, mischief pooling in his eyes. "Actually no, I take that back. You can't blame me for everything."

"Oh?" Ford's voice was filled with disbelieving amusement. "Go on then. What time have you remembered that was my fault and not yours?"

"Nothing in particular." Stan shook his head, humming childishly. "Just, you're the one that takes on my dumb challenges, you could always just back down and concede defeat." He prodded his brother's shoulder with another bright smirk. "I don't force you into anything, therefore you can't blame me entirely."

Ford sighed, mock long suffering. "True. A lapse in judgement on my part." He raised an eyebrow imperiously. "One that you seem to bring out more often than anyone else... Must be a sibling thing." 

If Stan's smile grew impossibly wider, Ford didn't feel the need to mention it.

Anything for Stan to be well and truly relaxed in the knowledge that, if Ford surmised correctly and he was remembering a fraction of their teenage years, his feelings on the matter, and how thick as thieves they were, were well founded.

"So?"

"So what?" Ford's eyebrows furrowed abruptly, not understanding what Stan was trying to ask.

"You gonna back down and concede defeat this time?" Stan tried to keep a nonchalant, straight face as the words left him, though his mirth was obvious in the tone. "Judge this properly or whatever?"

Ford stared at him for a few moments, as if weighing up his options when really there was only one option he really felt was open to him.

As nervous as he was about this silly challenge he'd walked into, having Stan teasing and pushing his buttons again like they were small kids goading each other was a breath of fresh air, a small chink in his armour he hadn't realised he'd been so desperately missing until it was laid out before him.

His face split into a daring grin to rival some of Stan's most mischievous ones.

"Not on your life."

"Is that so?" Stan's expression grew cocky. "Well, no blaming me whatever happens tomorrow then."

Ford snorted, rolling his eyes. "Please, I'm still going to blame you no matter what."

"Oh? You don't think you'll be able to pull off that tour then?"

Ford narrowed his eyes at the fake innocence colouring the words. 

Don't be Mr Mystery. Be you.​

At least Stan was giving him a fighting chance.

"Oh, you just wait and see, Stan." He stood up straight, snagging his journal as he did so and tapping the front cover, his thoughts spinning with the new possibilities that had been unlocked by Stan's flippant words. "I may not be Mr Mystery but I've got a few tricks up my sleeves."

Stan's eyes twinkled at the obvious agreement with his earlier statement, nodding earnestly as he settled back into what he'd been doing before Ford interrupted him.

"I'll look forward to it then, Sixer."

Ford didn't know whether to chalk the next day's experiences up to his thought process being so utterly right it was painful or so terribly wrong that in hindsight he really should have just conceded defeat before he ever got himself into this mess.

His back hit the wall as he looked up to the ceiling for strength, the silence around him a welcome encompassing relief as he thought more on the whole ordeal.

Route one in which he was right- Stan was entirely to blame and his judgement of situations really went out the window whenever that blasted sibling rivalry reared its teasing head. That much was obviously true.

But route two where he was also laughably wrong for thinking otherwise- the tricks up his sleeve were not as well suited for this particular challenge as he had previously envisioned.

'Well suited' meaning they were downright terrible and went right back to his first hypothesis that he really hadn't thought any of this through.

Really the more he thought about it, the more he realised there was a paradox to the entire thought process. Both ironically right and wrong at the same time in equal measures.

Either way, he blamed Stan.

That was the easiest thought process that didn't require him to think about just how badly his endeavours had gone.

Who'd have thought it would be that hard to keep a crowd of the townspeople entertained?

These people came up to check on Stan almost daily and hung off his every word, even when all he had to offer was awkward small talk with friends he obviously no longer remembered in the slightest. And yet he couldn't keep them occupied for an hour if that?

Maybe he should have asked Stan for at least a day to prepare. Ford frowned, groaning as he rubbed at his temples in irritation. He knew full well it wouldn't have mattered, no matter how much his brain tried to argue that he'd just needed more time, a better nights sleep to figure out the best plan of action. In reality, he knew he just hadn't read the room right, still partially listening to the kids advice from the day before.

He'd set out that night to find some creatures in the forest that would fit all of the twins' requirements for a good Mystery Shack tour:

Scary but somehow humourous.

Shock and awe.

A small smattering of different things to keep everyone entertained.

And above all, something to keep them all engaged.

...Instead he realised, he had done the complete opposite and by trying to please everyone he had pleased absolutely no one.

Between the stomach-faced duck and the category 1 and 2 ghosts he'd managed to coerce into helping him the night before, he wasn't sure it could have gone any worse.

Well, no, that was a lie. Dipper had tried to make him feel better by telling him about the time he brought a gremoblin into the Shack but really all that did was screech a warning bell in his head about all the things that could have gone wrong in that scenario.

He was almost tempted to rescind the offer of letting the kids keep leafing through his journals with those kinds of antics, even if there was a budding pride leaving him stunned that Dipper had even managed to catch one, let alone escape without seeing his worst nightmares.

It also made him wonder if there was any test that could be done to check whether 'reckless abandon' was a hereditary trait considering he really couldn't say he'd done anything differently over the years.

And that wasn't even mentioning Stan's behaviour.

He didn't understand. Ford sighed again, hitting his head back against the wall. The ghosts weren't scary in the slightest, in fact he'd hoped that they would class as the 'good bad horror movie' vibe that Mabel had requested. But instead some of the patrons had freaked out at the thoughts of the afterlife, questions he didn't actually have any answer to what with the unlimited multitude of differing concepts he had come across on his travels around the multiverse.

He'd also decided that, whilst gross, the duck was a rather fascinating and mind boggling specimen.

...No one else agreed with him on that matter.

He was lucky that Soos had been able to calm down the now gagging and close to panicking townspeople. Lucky that he had been given an escape route to flee through as Soos stepped up and took them on a tour himself, filled with a mix of Stan's script that had plainly been memorised and his own small quirks that came from years of listening to the tourists themselves.

No wonder Stan only ever showed them fake attractions and not the real thing. Who'd have thought that most of them didn't actually want to see the extraordinary up close and personal?

Though perhaps Mabel was right, stood at the sidelines as Ford gave the pair a pleading look for help as all hell broke loose. 

After Weirdmaggedon, maybe a lot of them were just a little bit mystery'd out. 

Or maybe they had never come for the mysteries at the Mystery Shack in the first place and had come more for the owner and his showman's smile that could sell you something you definitely didn't need for far too high a price and you'd go home thinking about how good a deal it was.

Just like now, when though all those who knocked asked if the tours were back up and running yet, Ford knew the real question was 'is Stan Pines back yet?'

What had he been thinking taking up this challenge? No one wanted to see him.

No one wanted to see the guy who had done this to their-

"You forgotten where the door is?"

Ford blinked, thoughts of horrified, pale green tourists slipping from his mind as a good-humoured voice echoed from the room behind him. "I'm sorry?"

"Just sounds like you're trying to come through the wall, thought maybe you'd forgotten where the door was."

Ford poked his head around the kitchen door frame, eyes narrowed as his brother pottered about, a quirk to his lips that said he was trying his best not to laugh. "I thought I was alone actually."

"Alone to freak out about what just happened? Cause believe me I can hear your thoughts from in here." Stan shrugged. "Besides, I thought they were pretty neat actually." 

"Yeah?"

He scrunched his nose up, still not really turning round. "Well, other than that- category 1 ghost? That one was just irritating. I didn't think ghosts could be that irritating." He finally glanced over at Ford, pointing at him. "I don't know how it works, but don't ever let me become one of them, you hear?"

A surprised bubble of laughter left Ford in that moment, the ball of tension in his throat relaxing ever so slightly. "I'll do what I can."

Stan nodded, satisfied. "Good."

"Although... you are quite irritating yourself."

"Hey!"

More laughter escaped him at the indignant grumble from Stan, the outside momentarily forgotten until a smattering of 'ohhs' and 'ahhs' from the other room reminded him of just how poorly he'd done. He groaned with defeat, flopping into one of the kitchen chairs with a dramatic flourish that Stan seemed to struggle not to comment on.

"Well, I guess just cause I liked 'em doesn't mean they were to everyone's tastes."

Ford nodded in disappointed agreement, rubbing a hand under his glasses to scrub at his eyes, as Stan sat down next to him. "Clearly."

"Ehh, everything turned out all right in the end. The kid's got everything under control." 

Ford rested his head on his hand, elbow on the table as he watched Stan's face flicker between pride and confusion, clearly not sure why he felt quite so warm about Soos's success. "You think he'd make a good Mr Mystery?" 

"Hmm." Stan hummed thoughtfully, mouth twisting downwards as he thought about it. "Maybe. With a bit more practice." He slipped a drink in front of Ford without a word, face far more open and less joking than Ford had imagined. "So what happened?"

Ford snorted derisively, raising an eyebrow at him in disbelief. "Like I need to tell you."

"You don't need to, but I want to know what you think happened."

"I dunno- the kids think maybe it's a bit too soon for any horror after what happened a week or so ago." Ford waved his hand at Stan as he opened his mouth, his expression saying that even he knew that much. "I know, remember? Lapse in judgement whenever you challenge me to something. Didn't think it through." He rubbed at his face again, a twisted smile on his face. "I dunno, I didn't understand the kids' advice yesterday but I still tried to follow it. Scary but funny, engaging, make sure everyone's entertained." He waited for Stan to speak but when nothing happened he sighed, raised the drink in a small semblance of a grateful salute before hiding behind it. "I dunno. I don't know how y- he did it. I guess you were right, it's not my forte."

"Please, I'm never right about anything." 

Ford frowned, turning quickly to his brother who just shrugged teasingly.

"What? I can't remember what happened last week, let alone anything important. How on Earth would I know what you're good at or not?"

Ford's frown deepened. "I'm pretty sure what I just did proves you right-"

"You're right." Stan hummed, cutting Ford off in his tracks. "I guess it does prove me right- you're no good at being Mr Mystery."

"I- wait, I wasn't trying to be-?"

"Weren't you? Why did you get those particular things from the forest?"

Ford sat up straight, irritation at being interrupted again and again blossoming. "Because the kids-"

"Told you to? Why's that?"

"Cause that's what a Mystery Tour should be like."

"No. That's what one of his Mystery Tours was like."

Ford sat staring at him for a moment, the cogs in his head visibly whirring as the dots connected. "...Oh."

"Now, he gets it." Stan raised his hands up in a gesture of gratitude, but Ford didn't know what to, as he shook his head. "Stop thinking about what a tour should be like and just go with your gut on what you think people would like to see."

Ford huffed, staring into his drink as his thoughts soured. "I mean that's what I did do, from the kids advice. They didn't tell me to go get those particular anomalies."

"Oh, for the love of- where's that book of yours?" Stan held his hand out, gesturing impatiently. "Come on, I know you've got it on you. You always do. Let's go through it together and make a list of things that would be good as an exhibit and why they'd be good."

"And what in your opinion then would make them good for an exhibit?" Ford held out the journal with a small amount of trepidation. He'd ripped out the Bill pages, just in case curious eyes found their way in there, but still there was a small niggling worry that unlike Mabel's scrapbook, the book's contents could spark a painful memory he didn't want to be the cause of for his brother.

Stan, however, seemed to have no such worry, humming thoughtfully as he flipped through the pages. "Something not too outlandish. The tourists we get up here kind of seem gullible, I mean those attractions we made yesterday? Hardly master craftsmen are we? And yet from those old photos they lapped up the old exhibits. My guess is when Mabel said 'Scary', that any number of silly loud noises in the middle of a story could have made them jump, let alone an actual prankster poltergeist like you gave them today." He winked playfully before zoning back into the book. "So something not too much, something fun considering we all could use some of that right now, and harmless 'cause you never want to actually hurt a customer, that gets you bad rep." 

"Are you saying I should just stick to the fake anomalies?" Ford couldn't think of anything quite so bland from his journal. 

What counted as too outlandish when you studied creatures no one thought existed?​

"No." His expression turned frustrated as he shook his head. "Just that- you were trying to make an impression today. You threw them all in at the deep end. You just gotta take it slowly, build up to the weirder things." He shrugged after that, putting the journal down on the table before leaning on his palm. "But this is just what I think, what about you? You think the townspeople can handle half the stuff in your diary here?"

"It's not a diary." The automatic response came out before anything else, making Stan smirk at the sudden grumble. "But true- there's a lot in there that wouldn't make a good tourist attraction." 

"Exactly." Stan smiled proudly, glad to be getting through to him. "And at least I'm not biased at all."

"Sorry?"

"Well, I don't know who Mr Mystery was, so I'm just telling you what I think would work for you. You like solving puzzles and explaining things to people. Find a creature in here that you know a lot about that people will be interested to see. You like facts and figures, not made up stories, so use what you've got to your advantage."

And wasn't it ironic? That Stan was trying to help Ford give his own tour, his own spotlight in the Mystery Shack, one that had nothing to do with Mr Mystery, when really he was giving him all the advice he had learned over the years?

Ford wasn't about to complain though. For some reason a fire had ignited in Stan, one that wanted to show Ford that he could do everything and anything he set his mind to and that even if it was a challenge between them, he was going to help him every step of the way until he was successful.

It was like being a kid all over again, when challenges were more to bolster one another than actually prove the other wrong.

"Alright." Ford moved his chair closer to Stan's so he could look over his shoulder. "The kids idea didn't work, and my own choices on what would be interesting to people went down in flames- so what would you suggest for tomorrow's tour?"

Stan practically beamed at him, happy to help as his eyes scoured through the book, tracing creature after creature until he paused on a page and turned it to Ford. "Are these easy to find?"

Ford played with his glasses, squinting to be sure that he was reading it correctly. "Very, They're dotted round the entire glades around here. I'm sure the townspeople have seen them bef-."

"Then this one."

"This one? Really?" 

"Yeah, no throwing people in the deep end, remember? Start with something that's at least vaguely familiar to them."

Ford's face scrunched up in confusion, taking the journal back from Stan to read over the page. "Are you sure?"

"As sure as I can be. You've tried the other ideas, why not try this one?"

"Hmm... I guess it's worth a shot."

"That reminds me, there's one thing though that you definitely shouldn't do."

Out of all the things Ford thought the crowd would find interesting, this had not been it.

Then again, he had endeavoured to start overestimating his family and Stan's latest idea was no exception to how his doubts at the beginning were completely unfounded.

He'd never have thought that people would actually be fascinated by the little, fluttering, glowing creatures he had managed to catch in small, now colourfully painted jars courtesy of the niblings, and yet here they all were with big wide eyes and soft gleaming smiles.

He'd forgotten what it felt like, the first time he'd come across them himself. How exuberant he had been to finally see one, to know that they existed, but soon he was encountering them almost every day he wandered into the forest and quickly he'd forgotten that first shining gleam of wonder.

Just another ordinary creature in the woods.

He'd forgotten that to most people, they were still very much a fairy tale.

Even then he'd wondered if they were too tame, too small, too childish but both adults and children alike kept being pulled back to the circle he had around him, eyes focused in awe at the small flickering creatures that adorned the table in front of him. Even the teenagers who were trying their best to seem unaffected kept shuffling back, the soft warm gleam of the room a relaxing salve to the wounds gained from the events of the last few weeks.

He didn't know how, but somehow Stan had given him a way to help with everyone's healing process.

And wasn't that a warm feeling stitching him back together that crushed the sharp snagging voices that he'd caused all of this? He was so busy trying to help in any way possible, he hadn't even thought that he was allowed to be himself and heal himself while doing so.

Not to mention it also helped when not one person acted like it was his fault even though they all knew what had happened. Not one person snarled and pushed him away, for taking their Stan away from them, knowing full well that they were all trying their best to bring him back.

No, all in all, he wondered whether Stan had come up with the challenge just to get him to stop throwing himself into work so that he didn't have to think. Whether he had noticed the signs and needed Ford to realise he couldn't do everything alone or because really, all of them just needed a break to carry on moving forward.

Something fun, something that stopped them thinking about what had happened recently and what the future might hold.

Kept them all in the present, spending time with one another and doing what they could to just enjoy the moment.

Making the most of the last few days of summer.

A small persistent hand raised in front of him, a small face filled with questions making him giddy with the thought of a curious child wanting more information. "Yes?"

"Why are you calling it a pixie?"

"Because that's what it is?"

"No, it's obviously a fairy."

"Don't argue with an eight year old who says it’s a fairy."

Ford​ shook his head, smiling brightly. "It's not a fairy, fairies are wildly different creatures." He thought back on his earlier spiel of the creatures, the overloading titbits of information he had given the crowd as he picked up one of the jars to examine it more closely. "Though I guess, when you think of old children's stories, these are actually much closer to what a stereotypical fairy should be, what with the-"

"So, it is a fairy then?" Ford glanced down at the victorious girl before him.

"You may think you will win but you will not win that argument. Trust me, Sixer."

"... I guess with that kind of argument, yes?" Stan's words from the day before rang in his head as he bit his lip to stop the outpouring of fae knowledge fizzle out. Instead he tried another approach, an idea forming as he smiled agreeably. "But really, they just prefer to be called Pixies."

"Oh, OK." And with that the kid was gone, nodding thoughtfully as she left the crowd to go find her parents and leaving Ford completely nonplussed to that having actually worked.

"Wow, looks like you did prove me wrong, Sixer. You can win an argument against an eight year old."

Ford snorted as his brother sidled up beside him, clapping him on the shoulder warmly. "I'm not sure I won it so much in actual knowledge against semantics." 

"Hey, the kid got the message somehow, that's the main thing." Stan picked up one of the jars himself, spinning it around with scrutiny. "You think we could sell these as pets at all? We could make a fortune."

"As much as I admire your thought process, I think a lot of parents would bring them back once they started being their mischievous selves. And besides-" He wiggled his fingers at him, the brightly coloured plasters adorning them another present from Mabel. "They bite a lot." 

"...Pity." 

Ford raised an eyebrow as Stan hummed, putting the jar back down, though the smile seemed at odds with the disappointed sigh of a word he'd released. ""You don't seem that upset. What's gotten into you?"

Stan shrugged, a bashful sheepish look overtaking his features as he looked around the room. "I dunno, it's just nice seeing the place filled with people again, you know? It's such a big place, it's felt weird with only a few of us here most of the time." A voice from nearby called out to him, making the sheepish look blossom into a more self-conscious but proud smile. "That and it turns out I'm kind of good at this whole touring thing, you know?" Ford had noticed his brother moving around with his own group, people intermingling from the centre where Ford stood and off to Stan wherever he was in the room. He hadn't realised Stan had actually been talking about the exhibits, just assumed that as usual people were going to check on him, see how things were going, too busy passionately rambling about the pixies to really take notice of the rest of the room. Stan clapped him on the shoulder again, leaning in conspiratorially as he whispered before pulling away to rejoin his small tour group. "Though maybe they're just humouring me, I wouldn't put it past them."

Ford watched him start to walk away with a small smile before he couldn't resist blurting out exactly what he was thinking. "I don't know, Stan." He waited until his brother turned back, a question on the tip of his tongue that Ford overruled. "I think they're just happy to see Mr Mystery's back in action."

Stan's expression shifted into a myriad of emotions in a blink of an eye that Ford wished he could have caught on camera. Utter confusion and gnawing doubt flickering to bubbling shock and beaming pride before settling on disappointed irritation peeking through the sunny happiness that had been brought up by finding something he was good at.

"Hey! You weren't supposed to tell me!"

Ford laughed, a gleaming bright sound that fluttered through the room and made the atmosphere all the warmer.

They'd get there. The shack, Stan's memories, everything and everyone would get there.

They just needed to let each other help along the way.

.

AN: I. had. far. too. much. fun. Honestly, sibling banter is so great. Like I could not resist them just having mock arguments vs all the real ones ♥ Just all the ‘i didn’t say it was your fault- i said i was going to blame you’ that comes with siblings haha! Anyway, this was where the story was meant to go before I got distracted in writing the intro ^o^ I hope it was worth the wait x