#But my sleep schedule has gotten so bad that I don’t even register falling asleep anymore

[boowhumps]

Whumptober 2023

Day 30

(@whumptober)

By - B.W

⚠TW⚠

~ Swearing

~ Mentions of Death

~ Mentions of ED

~ Pretty Angsty

Enjoy!

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Laying alone in a hospital proved to be a fate worse than death.

Karyme had nothing to do. She layed still, eyes staring at the ceiling.

The room was a pale white color, a bit decorated for Christmas.

Karyme only frowned. She had nothing to celebrate, especially in the hospital.

Everyone was so damn festive, and it was getting on her nerves.

She had missed so much, and no shitty holiday could make up for it.

So she remained blank.

...

Only someone wasn't having it..

__

Karyme stared out her window, watching the snow fall. She had missed the first snow fall, along with so much more.

She laid on her side, eyes focused straight ahead, basically blocking everything else out.

Her room remained undecorated, unlike the rest of the place.

She had kicked everyone out of her room. Selyna forbid she wanted to be alone, because apparently that wasn’t an option here. Everyone kept trying to cheer her up, but it only made her feel worse.

She would take death over this any day. She had nothing here. She was nothing here.

Karyme didn’t recognize herself anymore. She was overly thin, the clothes she wore looking five times her size. She was pale and looked like death had warmed over. Her eyes were red and puffy.

And everything hurt.

Everything hurt so much.

Despite her advancements, she still couldn't hold down any real food. She was hooked up to IV's which were her only source of food at the moment.

..She thought they would realize by now that she was getting sick on purpose..

Guess they didn’t care enough..

But to sum it up, she was miserable.

Not even Kaiden could cheer her up, but he tried.

Oh boy did he try.

A creak of her room door did nothing to her concentration. She kept staring ahead.

"Hey.." A voice says. "I got you some real food.. if you want to try again.."

Karyme frowns but says nothing.

The person moves to her other side, sitting next to her. She can only see Kaiden's face in the corner of her eye, and yet she ignored him.

"Come on Karyme.." Kaiden whispers. "Don't tell me you've given up.. you know I won't let you do that."

No response.

Kaiden frowns. "Can you at least look at me.?"

Karyme glances up at him for a spilt second and goes back to looking out the window.

"That's a start.." He mumbles. "..doctor said you've been progressing well.. you can almost walk on your own again-"

"..what's the point.?" Karyme whispers.

".what.?" Kaiden asks.

"..im gone, Kaiden.. no amount of doctors can fix that.." She says.

"Hun, you're still here-"

"No, I'm not.. I'm someone else.. I'm not me.."

"Karyme.." Kaiden starts. "I know it's been hard.. but-"

"You don't." Karyme says coldly. "You don't know anything."

Kaiden sighs. "You're right, I don't." He leans in a bit. "So teach me. Let me in."

"..i don't want to talk right now.." Karyme mumbles.

"If not now then when?" Kaiden asks. "We both know you'll never talk about it."

Karyme shrugs, turning her head away from him.

Kaiden only frowns further. "I get it, okay? You hate it here and you're miserable. I hate it here too.."

"I hate it here because it's the place where I saw the consequences of my actions.” He says. “I saw what I did to you..”

Karyme says nothing.

“I want to know you, the real you.” Kaiden mumbles. “Not the one I thought was you.”

Karyme takes a quivering breath. “..stop..”

“No, you need to hear this.” He says. “You can hate me, scream at me, hit me, hell, if this is it for us.. then so be it.”

Karyme frowns. “..Kaiden..”

“Talk to me. Tell me what you want. I’ll be whatever you want me to be.” He tells her.

“I..” She frowns further. “..I want..”

Kaiden gives her a look.

“..I want to rest..” She finally whispers.

Kaiden takes a deep breath. “Okay.. like by yourself..?”

“No..” Karyme mumbles. “..not like that..”

Kaiden raises an eyebrow. “Then what.?”

Karyme looks at him. “..I want to rest forever..” She whispers.

Kaiden frowns. “That’s not an option here.”

“You said whatever I want..” She says upset.

“Hold on now, don’t get upset..” He says softly. “Karyme, you know that isn’t something I’m willing to do, not even for you.”

“..you’re being selfish..” Karyme says, eyes narrowing.

Kaiden sighs. “That’s fair..”

Karyme turns her head away from him, tears in her eyes. Kaiden frowns.

“Do you want to be alone, then.?” He asks.

Karyme doesn’t respond.

Kaiden sighs again. “I’ll be back in a bit..”

He leaves the room, and Karyme is alone.

Once the door shuts, the tears fall. Karyme buries her head in her pillow, sobs wrecking through her body.

She begins to rip the IVs out of her arm, tears running down her face. Immediately a beeping sound fills the room as Karyme pushes herself out of her bed.

As her feet come in contact with the cold floor, a pain shoots through her leg. She hisses, and struggles to maintain her balance.

She takes a step forward.

Then another.

And another.

A wave of dizziness hits her, but she still tries to take another step forward.

That proves to be a bad idea as soon as she steps forward, for her legs give out under her and she plummets to the floor.

She feels her head hit the floor pretty hard, and her vision goes blurry..

She closes her eyes, focusing on her breathing.

It’s slow and painful to breathe, she notices.

She hears the noises getting farther from her, which can’t be a good sign.

She lets herself go fully limp, waiting for the darkness to take her..

..expect it never does.

Instead, a pair of arms wrap around her, lifting her up as if she was nothing.

She instinctively holds onto them, having no strength to complain.

There’s a voice, but it’s too far to hear.

She registers the person laying her back down on her bed, and then something damp is placed against the side of her head.

She immediately feels the burn, but she can only groan softly and turn her head slightly.

A hand cups the side of her face, and slowly turns it back to its original spot.

The touch is gentle, and easily recognizable. Karyme feels suddenly safe here.. all of her worries fading into nothingness.

The person continues to talk, but she can’t make out any words.

Instead, she lets herself give into unconsciousness, trusting that she’s okay with him..

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

[rebelrainfall]

you know what they say about absence

ao3 link here

Hey @cassianserso it’s me, your secret santa! I loved your prompt (Jyn and Cassian writing letters to each other), and I had SO much fun with it. I so hope I did it justice!

***

The cold air hits Jyn like a wall as the door to the transport swings open. It may be a good thing - there was barely room to sit down during this last four-hour leg of the return trip and she’s about ready to collapse. Cassian’s not in the hangar, not that she expected him to be, and neither is the U-wing. He must have left already, for what will be his first covert op in almost a year. He was so restless being grounded, hated feeling useless. She’s happy for him.

She’s less happy for herself, not that that’s a thought she has the time or will to explore.

No matter what Solo might say, there’s nothing weird about what she and Cassian are. Since those few, tense weeks after Scarif they’ve become close, and that’s all it is. They share a room because it’s convenient. They’re friends. Partners. And yeah, if someone had told her a year ago her life would be like this she would have been terrified, but things are different now. It’s good. What they have is good. She’s good at soothing that little voice that cries every now and then (more than she’d ever like to admit) for more. What he gives her is more than enough.

Jyn punches the code into the door of their room, ignoring the pounding behind her eyes. She has a day and a half before she’ll have to ship out again and she intends to spend as much of that time as possible asleep. Even the hot water in the ‘fresher isn’t enough to keep her there for a moment longer than necessary.

Cassian is definitely gone. The cot across from hers is neatly made, his least-conspicuous jacket gone from its hook. He’ll be on a mid level of Coruscant by now, if she remembers correctly what he told her. 

Her own things are almost entirely the way she left them. Her blankets are half-on, half-off the bed, her vest thrown over the back of the desk chair, but there is something different. 

There’s a piece of folded flimsi on her pillow.

There’s no introduction - her name isn’t even on it. But the note is in Cassian’s handwriting.

I was hoping you’d be back before I left and it came so close. If you arrived when you were scheduled to it’ll only have been an eight hour difference. I can’t say when I’ll be back but I think it should be soon. 

I heard from Bodhi yesterday. He says to tell you training is going well. He didn’t say as much, but it sounds like things are going well with Skywalker, too.

K wasn’t cleared to come with me for this one and he’s very upset about it, so be advised. He should be having his ocular lenses replaced in Bay 3 if you need him.

Maybe you’ll be around when I get back next time. I guess I’ve gotten used to [word(s) scribbled out] having someone else in the room at night. The silence is strange.

There’s no ending or signature, but she doesn’t need one. Cassian never struck her as one for gestures like this, and that he went out of his way to leave this for her makes her warm in a way she refuses to linger on. 

She sleeps twelve hours that night, and ten the next, and in the time between she snatches a sheet of flimsi from a supply closet to return the favour.

I’m sorry I can’t be back to see you. Trafficking rings don’t like to be kept waiting. At least I had two full nights in a proper bed, but you’re right. I miss It is too quiet here alone.

K is a little more charitable now that he can see again. I almost want to say pleasant, but we both know that word doesn’t apply to him. Don’t listen to anything he may tell you - the smoke bomb was his idea.

I’m shipping off again this afternoon to the outer rim, somewhere near Sullust. Pilot says the planet’s almost as cold as here. Bet you had a nice warm room on Coruscant, too bad I can’t stow away with you.

She leaves her note on his pillow and climbs into the shuttle with his in her pocket, like some holo-drama damsel collecting love letters. 

 Maybe he’ll be here next time she gets back.

II.

He isn’t. 

There are signs all over the room that he was here, at some point, since her. Another jacket missing from its hook, an empty mug where she didn’t leave it.

Another note on her pillow.

Just missed you again. We have the worst timing. I’m back on Coruscant, but this next stint is [word(s) scribbled out] delicate. I might be back in a few weeks, but it could be months. I hoped to see you before I left, but you’re right. The war doesn’t wait. 

Don’t let it go to your head, but I think I miss you. I still couldn’t bring K and it gets [word(s) scribbled out] boring by myself. K’s still being a grump - keep him company for me, hey? I also heard something about him attempting to create his own language to bother Skywalker’s droid, so I suggest you keep an eye on that.

There’s still no signature, but this time there’s a date. Two weeks ago. Jyn puts the flimsi down with a heavy breath. It could be months. The timing is… not great. She has an unusual stretch of downtime, more than a week, and no one to spend it with. This is the end of what she’d become accustomed to, she realizes. Now that he’s back in the field, Cassian can no longer be a daily fixture in her life. The prospect frightens her more than she cares to consider.

It’s ironic. Never thought I’d be sad to be alone.

Of course it isn’t so lonely as she might have feared. Bodhi is finally back from his flight training, a full-fledged X-wing pilot with the stories and the friends to prove it. He’s come such a long way in the short time she’s known him and his company is refreshing, even if he isn’t the man she finds her mind wandering far too often toward now that he’s gone.

She sleeps fine that week, though the nights are still too quiet. She could never miss the hum of snoring and whispers of the pathfinders at night. But alone, the dark and the quiet are oppressive in their deepness, threatening to swallow her without Cassian’s steady breathing from across the small space. It scares her, how accustomed she’s gotten to having someone else around. To having him around.

Maybe this is for the best, this separation. She hadn’t realized how much she relies on Cassian, his presence, his kindness. It’s a dangerous game, to rely on anyone. She’s always held a savage pride toward her independence, and maybe this reminder is what she needs to get herself back on track. 

Maybe.

But when she considers it, life without him seems more frightening even than the weakness of reliance. She doesn’t have to be alone any more. The night before she leaves again she sits at the desk in their quarters writing him another note.

Sorry I can’t be here, tried my best! Since you’re so broken without me. I’m never forgetting that and I’ll make sure you don’t either.

Hope you’re here when I get back. I need Bodhi needs someone else to talk to - you can only hear the same three stories about Luke Skywalker so many times and I hit my limit two days after he got back.

Heading back to the outer rim today. Those traffickers from before are gone so now we’re just cleanup crew. Getting sick of Dameron’s jokes. Not that yours are any better. 

Maybe I do miss you

III.

Four time zones on three different planets in the space of a week and Jyn’s circadian rhythm is wrecked. Thane says it’s 0500 local time when they hit atmo and she has to take his word for it because that makes as much sense as anything else.

She doesn’t see many people as she lugs her duffle back toward the barracks. It’s early enough that anyone on a night shift is still working and most of those who start in the morning aren’t awake yet. Madine’s given the crew the full day off, thank the force, and Jyn intends to take full advantage of that fact.

She opens the door and switches on the light before she notices anything different. Someone startles upright on the cot across from hers.

“Shavit, sorry!” She flicks it back off, already halfway to the ‘fresher to turn on that light instead as her pack lands on the floor with a quiet thud.

“No, no, it’s ok. I’m not - I wasn’t asleep.” Cassian’s voice is rough, but alert. “Turn on the light.”

She does, kicking off her boots, before the first thing he said registers. “It’s five in the morning! Why weren’t you asleep?”

He shrugs, squinting at her as his eyes adjust to the light. His hair has gotten longer since she saw him last, long enough now to fall in his face. A little part of her wants to comb it away from his eyes, or maybe tousle the bit by his ears. She shoves the thought away.

“Hi, by the way,” he says, ignoring her question. “Did you just get back?”

“Yeah.” She slumps down on her bed. “And hello to you, too.”

Stars, she’s missed him. Until now she hadn’t realized how much. But now that she’s looking at him… The way he smiles at her, gentle, makes her want little more than to wrap her arms around him. Kiss that gorgeous grin off his face.

Oh.

When did that start?

(A long time ago, not that she means to admit it).

He’s saying something but she missed the beginning, a little distracted.

“Sorry?”

He shakes his head. “You really are tired. I said, meet me for lunch, if you’re awake by then?”

“Sure, I probably will be.” She’ll make sure she is - like she would skip a meal with him after the six weeks they’ve just missed each other. “How long are you back?”

“Technically, I’m still a stand-by agent. So probably a while.

“I have at least a week.” Jyn drags herself back upright and heads towards the ‘fresher. The sooner she gets in the shower, the sooner she can get out and into bed. The hot water is heaven after so long caked in mud, but it still isn’t enough to keep her any longer than necessary. Once she’s out and dressed she sits on the counter to braid her hair, listening to Cassian talk about Coruscant through the open door.

“You should know, my ‘apartment’ sucked. My neighbour in the unit below smoked and it would come up through the vent and I didn’t have any windows. You would have hated it.”

“Wanna bet? I slept in a tree last night. Not a treehouse or even a platform, a hollowed-out tree.”

He huffs a laugh. “Sounds like fun.”

She finishes her hair and turns her attention to the healing gash on her shoulder, opening the cupboard for a square of gauze and a roll of medical tape. She hops down from the counter to pass them to him. “Help me with this?”

“Where?”

“Shoulder. I can’t quite reach it.”

She turns around and pulls down the strap of her tank top to show him. He hisses in sympathy.

“What did you do to yourself?”

“Fight with that stupid tree. It looks worse than it is.”

“Still.”

Settling down on his bed, he guides her to sit in front of him so he can center the gauze over the wound. His hands are gentle smoothing the edge of the tape to her skin. She hopes it’s cold enough that he’ll assume that’s what makes her shiver. He’s so careful - far more than she would have been.

He runs a hand softly up and down her back once it’s in place, and Jyn freezes. 

“There,” he murmurs, “All patched up.”

“Thank you,” she says, proud of how steady her voice is. Force, she’s pathetic. He’s her friend. This is nothing new, this touch is not new. 

If she were to lean back she would be in his arms.

Not that she’s thinking about that.

They’ve lived together for months. He’s touched her more than this dozens of times. Why is this the gesture to undo her?

Cassian clears his throat and she almost jumps. Kriff, did he notice her sudden nervousness? But then he gestures to the desk and the two cups on it.

“Caf for me, tea for you. Should be cool enough to drink, now.”

Oh, he’s an angel. She stands up to get them and then to sit down on her own cot, grateful to have an excuse to get away from his overwhelming proximity. She passes his mug across to him and takes a sip of hers, and of course it’s her favourite kind.

“Thank you. You’re getting up now?”

“If I get more done this morning I can have a longer break for lunch with you.”

Stars, has he always been this kind?

“Aw,” she deadpans, “It’s like you missed me.”

He flicks his eyes up to hers, then looks down into his own drink. 

“I did.”

She focuses on her tea, carefully not looking at him. She can’t feel this way. Not now, not ever. This is Cassian. 

“How did the rest of the trip go? Aside from the evil tree.” It’s been quiet for long enough that the question is a surprise. She shrugs. It’s ok, she tells herself. He’s her friend and that’s more than enough. She’ll love him forever for it no matter how else her traitorous heart might behave.

“Boring. Helped Kyrell’s squadron distribute aid for a while, and then we took out the last holdout cell. It was never a huge operation. That ring had maybe a dozen ships.”

“Boring is good.”

“Mm. How about you?”

“A little less boring, but I can’t… it’s classified, sorry.”

She knows he’s not brushing her off. She wishes there was something he could tell her, if only to keep hearing his voice after so long, but she’s used to that answer. So she takes another sip of her tea and tries to remember anything that’s happened. Anything she could say to make him smile.

“How is Kay?” Is what she settles on. “Did he finish that spite-project of his?”

“His language? He did, and Threepio is suitably bothered.”

“Good.”

“What’s better though - the princess caught wind of it and now she’s trying to figure out if we could work it into a code. So all the droids might have to learn it, not just Threepio.”

It was the right topic. Casisian’s lit up as he tells her about this, all the little details he knows. She finishes her tea before she has time to realize it, and her exhaustion really is starting to catch up with her, but it’s not until Cassian stands up that she gives any of that a moment’s thought.

“You should get to bed,” he says, crouching down to fish his clothes out from the drawer under his bed. “You have six hours ‘til lunch and if you’re late I’m not saving you caf.”

“Mean,” she grumbles, pulling her blankets up off the floor and setting an alarm on her datapad while he takes out a towel. She hears Cassian turn on the shower as she lays down. She’s asleep before it shuts off.

*

Jyn would not consider herself a morning person. Not that it’s truly morning when her alarm goes off at half-after noon, but that’s just a technicality. She tells herself it’s better for her sleep cycle to get up now, and go back to bed at a more normal hour, but really it’s only her plan with Cassian that gets her properly awake.

Alarm still blaring, she reaches under the bed to grab the first set of clothes she can reach. She sits up, stretches, and reaches to turn it off.

And stops.

There’s a piece of flimsi on her datapad.

Confused, she reaches for it. She talked to Cassian only hours ago, and she’ll see him soon, so why would he need to leave her a letter now?

Unless he couldn’t meet her. If he was sent off for another op, if he’s going to be gone for weeks, but no. He’d have woken her if he had to leave. He wouldn’t leave without a goodbye.

She unfolds the note, worried. Something must be wrong.

Jyn, it begins, and that’s new. She likes the way her name looks in his small, tidy writing.

Jyn,

I’m glad you’re  home. I really have missed you. So much.

There’s something I want you to know. I never planned to tell you but [word(s) scribbled out] I think I see things a little differently now. I should have waited until I saw you at lunch but I think this may be easier in writing.

I won’t waste time. I love you. You know that already, you must. You mean so much to me and I don’t want to imagine my life without you. But it’s more than that, I’m in love with you. I was never going to bring it up but something this morning [word(s) scribbled out] [word(s) scribbled out]. I can’t explain it.

If I’m right, if you want what I do, forgive me for doing this the coward’s way and let me be yours. If I’m wrong, [word(s) scribbled out] I’m so sorry. Please, please, let me down softly and I’ll never bring this up again. We can forget about it, I’ll get over myself, just let me be in your life. I had to tell you. I love you. I’m sorry.

Jyn stares down at the words on the page.

It doesn’t compute.

Not the first time, barely the second time.

Let me be yours.

Jyn puts the letter down after her fourth time reading it, only to pick it right back up again.  She takes a deep breath, forcing her mind into a facsimile of calm and tries to think logically. 

Everything she’s hardly realized she wanted. More.

He…

He loves her.

Cassian loves her. And by now he’s probably sitting in the mess wondering if she’ll show up. Assuming the worst, if she knows him at all.

He loves her.

Luckily, there’s something she can do about that.

[breanime]

What about a rival gang coming after you to get to rio and you get shot in the side. When you wake up from surgery your super scared and looking/asking around for rio but he’s out “taking care of it” and when he comes back you’re super upset with him and just scared and he loves on you and is super apologetic. Thank you! 💛💛

To be clear: my requests aren’t open, I’m just finishing up headcannons from yesterday :)

This one got a little long...haha, my bad 

*gif not mine*

As soon as the gun goes off, Rio’s whole world seems to stop

One second, he was pushing you to the floor and pulling out his pistol, shooting at the assholes who came for him

And the next, you’re screaming

When he looked down at you, he can see the blood seeping through your clothes

And his heart stops

He vaguely registers the sound of his own voice, and Mick and his guys run up, guns blasting, while Rio crouches down next to you

There are tears in his eyes, and he hates that because he doesn’t want the last thing you see to be him crying

He hates that his mind want there, and Rio tries to focus in on you, telling you that you’re gonna be ok, to stay with him

But your eyes flutter close, and while he can feel you breathing and knows that you just lost consciousness, he’s shaking with fear

Rio doesn’t know it, but you can still hear him as you’re passed out

And the last thing you hear is his voice, deep and slow and full of absolute RAGE saying

“Every person--every. single. one.--who had something to do with this is dead”

When you wake up, you’re in a hospital room

Your side hurts, and you hiss as you try to sit up

One of Rio’s guys is there, and he gets up and goes to your side, telling you to try not to move

“W... Where’s Rio?” You ask weakly

“He’s taking care of this,” the guy assures you, “but you’re safe. I’m here, and there are two other guys outside...”

“Wait, what does that mean? ‘Taking care of this’?” You ask, though you know the answer

The guy steps back, looking uncomfortable. “Just... Just rest, I’ll let him know you’re up”

You wait until the door closes behind him to cry

You’re scared, and in pain, and you’re worried about Rio

You don’t want to be there, you want to be with him, in his arms

Why wasn’t he here with you?

Less than 30 minutes later, Rio walks in the room

His face is bruised, and you can see blood on his shoes, but he looks fine

When he walks into your room, you can see the anger in him

His eyes are black, and his shoulders are tensed

His fists are balled up at his sides, and you can feel the power, the anger, the murderous rage coming off of him as he moves towards you

You can tell that your man has killed tonight, and from the looks of him--

--he killed more than once

But as Rio gets closer to you, he softens

His eyes turn sad, and his frown is one of guilt and sorrow, not rage as he looks at you

He stands at the side of your bed, looking down at you before reaching his hand out and caressing the side of your face, his long, bruised knuckles brushing your tears

“Baby, I--”

“Where were you?” You interrupt, and he steps back

“Taking care of--”

“--of business,” you finish for him, sitting up, wincing as you did, “yeah, I heard,” you want to swat him away when he steps back over to you and helps you up, but you can’t

Instead, you lean into his touch

“I was so scared...” You say, tears gathering in your eyes

“I know, baby,” Rio says back, “I’m sorry, I should have protected you--”

“No, not then,” you shook your head, “Now. When I woke up and you were gone.” You sniffle. “I was all alone.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, sitting on the edge of your bed, “but I’m here now, and I ain’t leavin’ your side till you’re all better”

You nod, and he leans over and kisses your forehead, his lips soft and warm on your skin

You let Rio wrap his arms around you, melting into his touch

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I’m so sorry, baby”

You don’t know if he’s apologizing for not being there or for you getting shot, but either way, you tell him it’s okay

Rio is true to his word

He stays with you every day while you’re in the hospital, sleeping on a cot next to you

He wakes up before you, makes sure you’re sleeping comfortably and kisses your forehead as he watches you sleep

Rio has the nurses show him how best to change the dressing on your side and what to do when you’re in pain

He also has a very serious talk with the (slightly intimidated) doctor about what meds you’ll be on and how much activity you should be doing while you’re healing

During the day, he sits in bed with you, you in his lap and his arms wrapped around your waist, and you watch terrible daytime TV together

He gets hella into the soap operas

He still gets calls and texts, but he stays in the room with you while he discusses business, unless you’re asleep

In which case, he’ll send in 3 of his guys

(2 to watch over you and 1 to entertain you)

while he handles business

Rio tells you exactly what he did to the members of the rival gang

It’s gruesome, but he wants to keep you in the loop, and you’re grateful

The only time Rio leaves your side for more than a few minutes is the day before you’re schedule to go home

He preps the house

Makes sure there are clean sheets on the bed

Buys extra soft, feather-stuffed pillows for you

Lays out your favorite, comfiest set of PJs for you

And makes sure the fridge is stocked with all of your favorite foods

He also stops by one of his warehouses to check the product and make sure Mick’s keeping everything going while Rio is busy

(he is)

Then he goes back to the hospital to pick you up

When you get home, Rio doesn’t let you lift a finger

He holds you all day, kissing you and telling you over and over how sorry he is

Finally, you look up at him and say: “Baby, I don’t blame you for any of this. It’s okay. I love you.”

“Love you too, mama,” he smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “So much...”

You can tell Rio holds a lot of guilt and regret over what happened, so you try to show him that you’re fine

You get more and more mobile with each passing day

And so one day, you wake up before Rio--

--he hadn’t been sleeping through the night since you’d gotten shot, he wakes up in the middle of the night to check on you, and sometimes he can’t fall back asleep until the sun comes up

So you press a soft kiss to his cheek, glad that he’s sleeping, and sneak down to the kitchen

It takes you longer to get to the kitchen than it used to (obviously), but once you’re there, you start cooking Rio a big breakfast

You’re struggling to reach the pancake mix in the cabinet when you hear Rio’s voice

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He strides across the kitchen, glaring at you

“Makin’ breakfast.” you answer, pouting when he pulls your hand down. “What?”

Rio takes a breath, a telltale sign that he was upset with you but trying not to overeact

“You’re supposed to be relaxing,” he says carefully

“I know, but I’m feeling better, and I wanted to make you breakfast cause you’ve been taking such good care of me.”

He sighs, and you can see his eyes soften as he looks at you. “That’s insane,” he chuckles, “you’re insane...” He leans down and kisses you, his arms wrapping around you

His kiss is soft and gentle, and when he pulls back, he’s smiling--

--an actual, genuine Rio smile

“I love you,” you say, smiling back at him

“I love you too,” he says, kissing you again

He takes you to bed then, and you spend the morning in his arms

You know he’s still not ready to talk about his feelings with all of this yet, and you’re not going to push him,

but you try to let him know a few things.

Namely that you’re safe now, you don’t blame him, and you know that he’ll always do whatever it takes to protect you

And he does

The next time the two of you go out, when you’re all better, you can tell there’s been a shift in dynamics in the streets

Everyone treats you with a strong sense of respect, and when you walk down the street, people almost throw themselves into traffic to get out of your way

You raise an eyebrow as the owner of the expensive restaurant Rio brought you to nearly breaks his neck to open the door and greet you

The restaurant is empty; Rio reserved it for just the two of you

(and the guards he keeps around you now)

“Really, Rio?” You ask

He grins, his hand on your waist

“Just doing what I can to keep my girl safe,” he says innocently

You laugh, and spend the rest of the evening basking in Rio’s love

*******************************************************************************************

Okay, I’m not even gonna lie hurt/comfort is my JAM, and I will DEFINITELY be fleshing this idea out before I go to bed so I can (hopefully) dream about it. Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think!

Everything Taglist: @sweetybuzz25​  @mrsjaxtellerfan​  @rhabakoli​  @encounterthepast​ @realduckvader​   @justvnash​ @knowles-morgan  @ateliefloresdaprimavera @evanlys19  @nyxxnoxx​ @carlaangel86  @luminex3 @jigsawlover10  @gollyderek @otomefromtheheart  @lexxierave @crushed-pink-petals

Rio Taglist: @gemini0410​  @glimmerglittergirl @gensneverland @jamielennkeeler @angels-pie @hermionetriskatniss​  @christinawxxx @nich0lasmatthews  @whovianayesha @tashawar @existentialvacuum @beardburnsupersoldiers @feelingsandemotionsnotexplored

[lunatens]

too much to ask

word count: 1.5k

genre: angst :((

pairing: hwang hyunjin x gender neutral reader

requested by anonymous <3

a/n: i don’t write angst often but this is probably the most angsty thing i’ve ever written lolol pls enjoy i hope it makes u sad also if anyone wants a sequel lemme know bc i feel so bad doing best boy hyunjin like this 

112520 update: here’s the sequel!

~

“happy birthday to me,” you sing lowly to yourself as you take another swig of your drink. it’s nearly midnight--meaning your birthday will be over in a mere few minutes--and hyunjin still isn’t home. you haven’t seen him all day, except for when he gave you a quick kiss when he left early in the morning with whispers of “i’ll see you tonight, babe. happy birthday,” as he quietly slipped out the door. 

honestly, you had high hopes for today. you’ve generally been understanding of hyunjin’s busy schedule, and while it’s hard for him to be busy or overseas so often you’ve gotten used to it. sure, it meant a lot of holidays or anniversaries or celebrations spent alone, and it always hurts, but you’ve learned to accept hyunjin can’t be with you all the time. 

but he promised you he’d be home early from practice today so the two of you could spend the entire evening and night together--a rare occurrence, most times you have to settle on just a video chat or something. so hyunjin promising to spend the evening together was a big deal, and you couldn’t help but get your hopes up. of course you support hyunjin’s career and you always will, but you’d be lying to say you don’t crave a normal relationship where you can actually be with each other.

you had sat there for god knows how long staring out the window, eagerly waiting for hyunjin’s arrival. as the shadows grew long and a dusty haze darkened the sky, your heart sank deeper and deeper while your apartment remained silent. no loud laughter or terrible, over the top renditions of “happy birthday” echoing through the walls; no smell of blown-out candles or taste of sweet frosting on your lips. most importantly, no kisses that taste like sprinkles or soft hugs or hours spent in hyunjin’s arms like you were expecting. you haven’t even heard from your boyfriend since he’s been out, and you find yourself thinking at least a “sorry running late” text would be nice.

all of the day’s increasingly sad events--or lack thereof--are what has led you to your current state: lying sprawled out on the couch in the dark with your drink in one hand and the tv remote in the other as you flick through channels. you notice the slight buzz of alcohol making your head feel a little fuzzy--perhaps you’re balancing the line of tipsy and drunk.

you’re so out of it you barely register the key in the lock or the creak of the door as it swings open. the quietness of how hyunjin removes his coat and shoes tells you he’s trying to avoid you noticing him right away--he’s being cautious, you know he’s unsure of how to handle this situation. you glance at the clock and aren’t sure whether to laugh or cry; it’s 12:01--he’s missed your birthday by a single minute.

you opt for ignoring hyunjin, wanting to see how he treats the situation. honestly, your thoughts are too cloudy to even try and piece words together, so silence seems like the best option for now. you remain your channel surfing, eventually settling on an animal documentary. on-screen, you watch as a herd of elephants traverse a large expanse of desert. the room is silent, besides the quiet narration of the elephants’ journey, but you know hyunjin’s still there.

after what seems like an eternity, you pick up on the tentative shuffling footsteps that make their way to the couch. you feel arms snake their way around you from behind, but you don’t reciprocate.

“i’m so sorry, y/n” he mumbles, climbing over the couch to sit beside you. he studies your face, but you continue staring at the tv ahead. a baby elephant is now approaching a mud hole in search of water. you try to focus on the elephants and not how upset you are at how your rare chance at having a fun night together was taken away from you. you’re trying not to think about how you’re always so patient with hyunjin, and you put up with so, so much, and the one day that’s meant to celebrate you has been ruined. was it too much to ask for just one day--scratch that, a mere evening together? apparently it was, you think to yourself, and you try to remain stoic but you can’t stop the teardrops from silently trickling down your cheek. the elephant on-screen slips and falls into the mudhole, trumpeting feebly as it struggles to climb out. 

“y/n, i’m so sorry.”hyunjin says again, this time pulling your body close to his so he can hold you tightly and stroke your hair gently like he always does to soothe you. this action makes it worse; now you feel like you shouldn’t be mad at him, it’s probably not his fault. but you still are mad, and you can’t seem to redirect this anger. you still remain limp, not responding at all to hyunjin’s attempts at reconciliation. the alcohol clouding your thoughts does nothing to help the situation, and you find you’re having trouble processing the whirlwind of emotions running through you.

“i just--i tried to leave after practice, which already was running late,but seungmin was struggling with a part of the choreo so i-”

“you promised.” you cut him off, voice quiet but stern--almost stern, actually, as your voice waivers a bit at the end. hyunjin shuts up, taking the cue not to make any excuses. he quietly waits for your response, and you can feel his heart beating loud in his chest. you know he’s feeling immense guilt right now and is doing his best to not set off any land mines, and you almost feel bad for him for a moment, but the pang in your chest when you finally look at him with tear-stained cheeks reminds you how hurt you are. 

“you promised, hyunjin. you promised we’d have this one evening together, and i was dumb enough to actually get excited to be able to spend time with my boyfriend for once but now i realize that was so stupid of me, how could i be so stupid hyunjin?? this should’ve been like every other holiday or celebration where i sit alone wishing you were here and you’re out with your friends having fun and touring the world, i always miss you when that happens and it sucks but at least it doesn’t hurt as bad as this does,” the words start spilling from your mouth, and you’re not sure how much hyunjin can even understand from your mildly slurred speech, but you’re sure he’s got the gist of it.

“y/n, i--”

“i wish i never met you.” you mutter, half to yourself. your voice is barely audible at all, in fact you wouldn’t even be sure you said it if it wasn’t for the way hyunjin’s face fell. you watch how the colour drains from his face and he stares at you with wide eyes and speechless lips, you can see the heartbreak written across his face. hyunjin responds softly, trying his best to keep his composure.

“y-you don’t mean that,” he says with uncertainty, now avoiding eye contact. you merely glare at him in response, you want to tell him you didn’t mean it and you take it all back but you know that’s not entirely true. as much as you love hyunjin so, so much, this loneliness and heartbreak is just so hard sometimes, and it makes you question whether this relationship is worth it. sometimes you just think it would be so much easier if you’d never met hyunjin, you wouldn’t know this kind of pain.

hyunjin’s breath hitches at your silence, and he runs his fingers through his hair--a constant habit of his. without looking back up at you, he speaks once again, voice low. 

“okay, well uh, i-i think i’m going to head to bed then. i lov--happy birthday, y/n.” he mutters, and with those words, he slowly makes his way to your shared bedroom. in your peripheral vision, you catch him turn to look at you when he reaches the doorway, but you continue staring blankly at the tv. it’s not long before his slender figure disappears from sight and you hear the door quietly click behind him.

on the tv screen, you notice the elephant has fallen into the mud pit and is struggling to climb free. the herd in the distance doesn’t seem to notice this struggle, and the elephant sinks deeper into the mud each time it tries to escape. you check your phone to see the time and your wallpaper photo of you and hyunjin together is enough to open the flood gates. silent tears stream down your face as you lie alone on the couch, pulling the blanket tight to you and trying not to think about how falling asleep without hyunjin beside you (yet knowing he’s in the room next to you) just feels so wrong. it’s safe to say this has been the worst birthday ever, you think to yourself as your drunkenness finally lulls you to sleep.

[tastyliltina]

SnackInc 1/?

A/n:  This has been sitting in my drafts for a while and I've been meaning to post it...kind of a worldbuilding thing I made back when Fern was still a newer character of mine.  Not really sure if I'll continue it or not, but the basic premise is that Fern works at a corporation that commissions humans out to be used as snacks for more feral giants/predatory creatures.  This keeps random attacks on humans down and helps settle cravings the giants might have.  Fern's a pretty well known snack but fell on hard times and had to resort to more shady deals outside of the corporation.   So...yeah, have a worldbuilding thing ;;w;; If you enjoyed and want a story for yourself, feel free to inquire about commissions!:  tinascommissions.carrd.co/ All stories are on sale 50% off until Dec. 10th!   Now, onto the story! ~~ Fern stumbled through the street, clutching his wad of cash. Thick, warm liquid slimed his clothes as he moved away from his client. The giant looming behind him chuckled, and Fern turned to face the beast.

“Look, man…” Fern sighed, trying to brush back his hair. “Keep this quiet, alright?  Don’t want it getting around I’m offering this...service to random giants on the street.” He thumbed through the payment, ensuring the bills were all there. Once he was sure, he glanced back up to the grinning giant.

Pearly peaks of white shimmered in the moonlight. Something about fangs in the dark was much more terrifying. Still, Fern held his ground.

“Heh. Whatever you say, morsel~.” A tongue traced over smiling lips, and Fern rolled his eyes.

“If that’s your best compliment, I’d hate to see an insult,” he muttered. The giant scoffed, but straightened. Deals like this weren’t appreciated among watchful eyes. Departures needed to be discreet.

Fern sighed. He watched his client stalk away, and tried to grasp what little pride he had left. The fact the ground shook with every step the giant took did little to help. Being treated like food for a quick cash grab...how humiliating. Still...money was nice. And with more wealthy clientele, maybe working in the food industry wasn’t so bad. Turning, Fern descended into the dim alley. He shivered as the drool clinging to him reacted with the wind…. Getting home would be hell.

Slowly, he traversed the desolate streets. Runoff from a recent storm splashed beneath his feet, though hardly drew Fern from his thoughts. With the money he’d gotten from tonight, he’d almost be able to pay off rent. If he did that, maybe he could find some more high-end clients. Spending night after night in another mouth, in another reckless giant was getting old. Most of the bastards didn’t use mints... Others liked to bite.  At least through SnackInc, he got the clinets that cared about their treats a little more...he missed the days of pampering.  

But damn, having extra cash felt so, so good. Fancier outfits and attending clubs where the high-end clients frequencted wasn't cheap.  The reassurance dinners would be easy was well worth a few showers, he supposed. As long as rates didn’t spike, maybe there’d be enough for something hardy. A soup, or...maybe just burgers. Either sounded fine, as long as it wasn't a steaming bowl of ramen.

Soon enough, Fern found his apartment. The building was silent as Fern ascended the stairs. He supposed that made sense at this time of night. Just as he slid his hand into his pocket, Fern heard a rustling behind him. He stiffened. Giants and humans alike knew not to visit the others' living quarters, especially this late at night. It wasn’t worth the jail time or the fees. Some, though…

“Easy, pal.”

The voice was calm. Casual. Fern blinked. He turned, and was met with a pair of golden eyes. The rings of yellow peered down at him, squinting in the dark. Fern didn’t miss the reptilian features on the creature before him, and felt part of his blood run cold. Reptiles were the worst for rando attacks.

“What.” Fern snipped. His tone wasn’t aggressive enough. Fern didn’t care. He didn’t want to be yelling at a giant he didn’t know, especially one that knew where he lived.

“Said easy, man,” the giant continued. He was small, green-skinned and husky. Scales patched across his face, and a black sweater draped the giant’s torso. Unlike Fern, he appeared calm and collected.  “Not gonna try anything. Just wanted to know where the nearest gas station was.”

Fern raised a brow. Oh.  Though he didn't know if he trusted that answer or not, Fern could take it.  He lifted a hand, pointing south. “‘Bout five miles that way. You can’t miss it.” The giant followed his gesture, squinting again. Then, he nodded.

“Cool, thanks.” Instead of leaving, or moving at all, the giant remained seated. Fern furrowed his brow.

“Well...okay. I’m-I’ll be going,” he mumbled. The giant nodded, not seeming intent on leaving. Fern felt something twist his stomach as he stepped into his place. That had been...unnerving, almost as much as approaching random giants to get them to eat him.

Slowly, Fern stepped into his living room. He flicked on the light, and was greeted with the familiar sight of...mediocrity. Beige walls, a beige couch, dirty carpet. Even the flickering light emulated half-assed effort. But, this was home. For now. Fern stretched, sighed, and made sure to lock his door behind him.

He sauntered down the hall, the thought of a shower making everything a little less horrid. Clean clothes, a clean bed… Even with the uncleanable stains of previous occupants on the mattress, sleep sounded so wonderful right now. Fern stepped into his bathroom. He stripped, tossed his clothes aside, and turned on the shower. God, hot water felt good.

Several minutes and layers of body scrub later, Fern scooped his soiled laundry up. His nose wrinkled at the stench of unmasked slobber. He tossed the clothes in the washer, ran a hand through his hair, and returned down the hall. The bed creaked as he collapsed into it, the scent of occupants past filling the air. Fern didn’t care. By the time the smells registered, he was already asleep.

~~

Fern woke up to the sound of his alarm. He groaned. Another day, another customer to please. Sitting up, he snatched the offending device from his nightstand. Who was on the calendar today…

Wait. Fern’s eyes scanned over his clientele list. There was a new face among the regulars... Green skin, yellow eyes, red Mohawk...damn. It was the giant from the other night. Fern grimaced, setting his phone down and rubbing at his face with a sigh, taking a moment to collect himself.

Normally, the ones that approached Fern outside of business were scouting for fresh meat after some kind of falling out. They were the ones that made this job hard. Fern stood, looking over his calendar. For today, at least, there weren’t any taken slots. He had that much. Maybe he could do some cleaning? Cleaning sounded great.

He stood. No point planning the day without getting it started, he supposed. Fern stretched, sighed, and ambled down the hallway. He scouted the kitchen for food, and settled on some bacon and eggs.  There was always a sense of pride that came with making his own food. Fern stepped up to his stove, twisting the stove knobs.  

Soon enough, a steaming pile of eggs and bacon littered a paper plate.  Fern grabbed some silverware, once again checking his schedule for today.  Nothing new. He rubbed his chin, opening the file of his newest client. As expected, there wasn’t much available.  Most clients went by a first name basis, and the majority didn’t include any other information but a phone number and place to reach them.  Fern wasn’t sure how the new guy found out about what he offered, but decided to shrug it off.  

Breakfast was quick.  Fern took his time cleaning his plates, wishing he didn’t have to go out to the store today.  But, one couldn’t get by without dish soap and food. Fern was too much of a neat freak to live a day without one, and food wasn’t a necessity when some clients bought him dinner before having him for dessert.  He trudged down to his bedroom, throwing on a simple sweatshirt and jeans.  

Fern slid out of his apartment, slipping his hands into his pockets.  The jingle of keys signified him locking his door before he peeled away from the familiarity of home.  Human-sized creatures traversed the narrow sidewalks, hustling and bustling to and fro. Fern didn’t miss the stares of those passing him.  Word got around. Some people looked to him with admiration, being able to take on such an important, and yet demeaning task. Others scowled at him, and some took things to a physical level.  Fern ignored those that bumped into him without saying anything, reserving his battles for those that had the guts to say something and make a scene.  

Walking to the market never took too long, one of the perks of living in a small town.  The building smelled like cinnamon, a warming reminder of the chilly air outside. Fern slid in with a small crowd.  He headed for the cleaning section first, rubbing his hands together as he searched the shelves for his usual dish soap.  

“Hey.”

The voice snapped Fern to attention.  He blinked, turned, and smiled at the familiar face behind him.  Kenny stood with her hands in her pockets, oversized sweatshirt complimenting her ripped up jeans.  Fern relaxed. It was nice seeing a familiar face, even if it was of a cranky and potentially crazy bitch.  

“Hey, Ken.”  Fern nodded. He took pride in the ability to shorten her nickname without getting shanked.  Kenny stepped up next to him, sliding her hands to her hips. Unlike Fern, Kenny had a more vanilla career.  She was a well-renowned tattoo artist. Fern’d debated going to her for a few years, but didn’t know if their history justified her making a few creative decisions while he was under her needle.  

“What brings you to market?  Finally decide to crawl out of your slimy cave?”  Kenny’s voice lowered. While she wasn’t a friend per se, Kenny was one of the few people Fern opened up to about his career choice.  She’d never given him a hard time about it. If anything, she almost seemed in awe...or disgust, it was really hard to tell as far as Kenny was concerned.  

“Ran out of soap,” Fern shrugged.  “Can’t go without it,” he paused to pluck a bottle from the shelf.  “Got a new client today. Some giant approached me after a rough one last night…  Had to scrub myself for hours, the guy had way too many drinks before he gave me a call.  Starting to think he ate me on a dare, y’know?” “Shit man,” Kenny shook her head, somehow without disturbing her loose bun.  “I still don’t get how you deal with those assholes day in and out. Doesn’t it get...I dunno, gross after a while?”

“It does get gross, but really...someone’s gotta do it.  If not me with all the magical guards in place, then it’d be someone else, or no one at all.  And we know how big folk can get if they don’t get their...fix.” Fern tried to hide the bitterness in his tone, but he could still feel it in his voice.  Anyone who didn’t live under a rock knew how bad things got before the Snack business stepped in. Disappearances, random attacks on towns… Even if it wasn’t a well-liked profession, it was an important one in order to keep the peace among different species.  “But, there’s perks,” a crooked smile plastered Fern’s face. “Don’t gotta worry about a giant trying to mess me up, y’know? I’m...valuable.”

Kenny scoffed, “Valuable my ass,” she shook her head and sighed.  “But yeah, you gotta point. Still...”

“Don’t you go worrying about me,” Fern laughed.  “You’ve got a badass persona to keep, y’know?” He yelped as Kenny’s hand whacked the back of his head, but snickered at the fuming woman.  She crossed her arms and sneered at him.

“Oh, shove it up yours.”

“Sorry, only know how to go down, I’m not into that-” “Fern I swear to God if I didn’t like you I’d shove my foot so far-...you know what, fuck it.”  Kenny grabbed the back of Fern’s sweater, and the next thing he knew, he was flat on his back. A dull ache spread along his back and head, and he groaned.  

“Nice...seeing you, Ken…” Fern mumbled as he pushed himself up.  As usual, Kenny’d vanished into the crowd. Fern expected as much.  Kenny never liked being forced to admit she had other emotions besides anger and rage...Fern liked to tease it out of her when he could, even if the result was almost always the same.  Rubbing his head, Fern grabbed the soap from the shelf and headed towards checkout with a chuckle.  

[hobidreams]

If you’re still taking requests could you please do a reaction where the boys find out their girlfriend doesn’t really take care of herself that well? Like she forgets to eat meals and doesn’t sleep very well? If that makes sense

Thank you for the request! I had fun writing them. The rest of the boys are under the cut - sorry to mobile users if Tumblr ruins it.

Namjoon

“When’s the last time you slept?” Namjoon’s tone is most definitely unamused as he takes in the bags beneath your eyes, the way you move your limbs lazily because they feel heavy.

“Last night.” It’s not a lie, technically. You did sleep. For an hour. But your thesis is haunting you, keeping you up and consuming all of your thoughts. New ideas or directions just consistently pop into your brain, demanding to be written or explored. Nobody can fault you for being dedicated, right?

Namjoon crosses his arms. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s tru—whoa!” You’re suddenly scooped up in Namjoon’s arms. He nudges the bedroom door open with a foot and plops the both of you onto the bed. “Joon, I have to work!”

“Nope.” He wraps himself around you, legs holding yours still, so you can’t fidget and keep yourself awake. “Close your eyes. Just tell yourself I’m the bad guy who misses you too much to let you go.” He drops kisses in your hair. As you breathe in his scent, relax into his heat, you feel your eyes droop. When Namjoon feels your resistance slack, he smiles, cheeks slightly dimpling. “Goodnight, baby.”

Seokjin

There’s a knock on your door one night when you’re in the middle of working. Not expecting anyone, you’re surprised when you look through the peephole and see Jin, carrying a duffel bag and a brown paper bag from your favorite bakery. “Jin? What’re you doing here?”

“When you called me earlier… You sounded tired.” His voice is soft, drenched with concern and fondness. “I have a few days off, so can I stay here with you?”

Your heart soars, but logic keeps you in check. “What about the guys? They’ll miss you.”

“Eh, they’ll be fine.” You step aside and Jin walks in, dropping his duffel on the couch. “I brought some leftover groceries that I have to use up, so you’re going to have to eat whatever I make, okay?” He pulls out a bag that’s full of meat and veggies, obviously bought just before he came. “And I picked up your favorite almond croissants!”

“Jin, I—”

“I know you have a lot of work to do.” On his way to the fridge, he pauses to tug you into his arms for a hug. “I’ll keep myself busy. But I want to go to bed at the same time. Before midnight.”

All you can do is smile. He’s more astute than you realized, though you should have thought better than to try and fool him. Your stomach growls in happy anticipation.

“Now, go work.” His eyes crinkle as he lets you go. “I’ve got cooking to do.”

Yoongi

Your head is throbbing, absolutely pounding, again. If it were up to you, you would crawl to your bed and stay there for the next week. But deadlines have to be met, and you’re the one who has to meet them. Your stomach growls but you barely register it, having been ignoring it for the last… who knows how long. Almost done, you think like a mantra, I’m almost done.

Suddenly, a plate laden with fruit is set down next to you. You pull out an earbud and turn to find your boyfriend, his lips slightly downturned in a frown. “Eat. Please.”

“I—”

“Please,” he repeats, handing you the handle of the fork. “And come to bed when you’re done.”

“I don’t have time to sleep, babe.” You chew the apple that he’s cut into bite-sized cubes for you.

“You can spare an hour.” He turns those sweet eyes on you.

You know you can’t argue, especially not when he’s just as busy as you are. But when he can, he always makes time in his schedule to check in on his lady. So you manage to smile back at him. “Okay. I’ll be in soon, I promise.”

“Good.” He fondly strokes your cheek with a finger. “I’ll be waiting.”

Hoseok

When Hoseok gets home, he finds you passed out on top of the bed, still in all the clothes you wore out today. He sighs, helping you up to strip off your blazer. You don’t even stir until he’s sliding off your pants to replace them with your pajamas.

“Mmmn… Hobi?”

“Shhh, just keep sleeping,” he murmurs, unbuttoning your top. “You worked too hard again, baby.” His voice is forlorn, heartbreaking as he supports your weight.

“Almost… finished…” Your head lolls as he pulls the t-shirt over your head. Then he’s guiding you under the covers, tucking the blankets beneath your chin.

“No, you can’t keep pushing yourself like this.” He watches you slip back into sleep ten seconds after your head hits the pillow. “I’ll come every day if that’s what it takes.” He’s busy, but he’ll make time, damn it. He can’t just do nothing. Not when you’re one of the most precious things in his life. “I’ll go make you dinner. Sleep well.”

On his way to the kitchen, he tidies up. He makes sure your desk is neat, stray papers recycled, clothes hung up. If these small things will help you feel even the tiniest bit better, he’ll do them. This time, he’ll take care of you, like you always take care of him.

Jimin

When you come home from another grueling day at work, Jimin is sitting on the couch. A sober look paints his delicate features, his brow furrowed as you shut the door, drop your keys, and strip off your jacket and shoes. “Hey,” you greet, voice quiet as you attempt to decipher what’s going on in his mind.

“Can we talk?” He murmurs, just as tenderly as you walk over, sit down next to him on the sofa.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m…” He pauses, choosing his words. “I’m worried about you, angel.”

“What?” You balk, searching through your memories as you try to recall if you’ve done anything to warrant concern over.

“You’ve lost weight. You’re not eating. You barely sleep. I’ve caught you slumped over your desk so many times.” His words are practically shaking, brimming with emotion. “Is something wrong? Is there something bothering you?”

“No, no…” You nervously play with the strands of your hair. “It’s just. I want to do a good job on this project, so I guess I’ve been forgetting everything else.”

Jimin heaves a sigh. “I love you and I love how hard you work. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned… It’s that you have to put yourself first.” His palm is warm when he lays it on your thigh, his eyes holding yours captive. “I know I can’t be around all the time, but I’ll try my best. So please, take care of my girl when I’m not here, yeah?”

You nod, leaning forward to kiss him. “Thank you, Jimin. For caring so much.”

He rests his forehead against yours. “Always.”

Taehyung

“Say ahhh!” Taehyung grins like sunshine as he holds up a lettuce wrap that he assembled himself. It’s stuffed full of meat, with the onions and sauce added just the way you like it.

“Tae, it’s going to get all over the laptop,” you mumble, having gotten used to ignoring the call of your stomach. “You eat it, babe, I’ll get some food later.”

“You said that hours ago.” He frowns, holding the wrap and swaying it like an airplane. “Just one wrap!”

“Tae, I…” you swivel towards him and realize that while his tone may be joking, his eyes are dead serious. You gulp. “Okay. Ahhh.” You play along, letting him feed you the tasty wrap.

“Good?” He beams.

“Delicious.” A bit of sauce dribbles down your lips and he kisses you before lapping it up with his tongue. “Tae!” You’re giggling now.

He wipes your chin with a napkin. “Couldn’t resist.” Cutely, he purses his mouth to blow an air kiss as he stands up. “I’m going to make you some more. I’ll leave some in the fridge too, so you have to eat them when I’m not here to feed you. Or I’ll be sad.”

“Oh, Tae. What would I do without you?”

Taehyung pokes his head back in from the kitchen. “Lucky for you, you’ll never find out!”

Jungkook

The clock on your phone reads three in the morning, and you can’t sleep. Again. You groan, rolling over among the bedsheets. It’s been a rough few weeks, your body rebelling against any attempt to get some rest so you just gave up trying. You average about two and a half hours a night, but at least you’re getting shit done. You’re only here now because Jungkook insisted. You gave it your best shot, and it just wasn’t good enough.

Gingerly, you peel the blankets off and your feet are about to hit the floor when Jungkook groans. His hand finds your waist and he’s drawing you back. “Stay,” he mumbles, “stay with me.”

Your heart melts, but you try to stay focused. “I have to work, Jungkook.”

He’s so sleepy in his own right, but a hand is creeping beneath your top, palm hot on your back. He starts to rub soothing circles, a technique he knows always makes you relax. “You need… sleep…” He plants lazy kisses on your shoulder. “You’re always tired, babe.” He uses just enough pressure on your aching muscles. “I’ll keep going until you fall asleep.”

You let your eyes shut, taking deep breaths, focus on his comfort, his heat. He watches you fall asleep again, a stirring in his chest at how precious you look with your bangs swept over your nose, your mouth half-parted. “I love you,” he whispers. “So let me be here for you.”

[jade4813]

A Lie, Told Often Enough, Chapter 3

Author Notes: Inspired by @fallinginloveinaflash‘s AU prompt. All credit for the idea goes entirely to her.

Title: A Lie, Told Often Enough

Rating: NC-17

Synopsis: Iris just landed her dream job at a PR firm and her first assignment is reforming the bad boy image of celebrity artist Barry Allen. He’s overly cocky and well-known for being a playboy, but Iris has never met a challenge she couldn’t handle.

Chapters: 3/?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Barry groaned as he stumbled to the door. He’d been deep asleep when he was awakened by a loud, insistent knock that gave no indication it would go away any time soon. As he’d dragged himself out of bed, he’d glanced at the clock and realized it was nearly noon. Stifling a yawn, he threw open the door, asking, “You forget your ke-Iris!”

He’d been expecting Cisco on the other side, so he stumbled back in surprise when he saw Iris on his doorstep, leaning on the arm she had braced against the doorframe. Her eyebrows quirked up slightly, the only indication she’d heard what he’d been about to ask. However, she didn’t speak until she’d brushed past him into his apartment. Then she said in a brusque tone, “Barry? We need to talk.”

No good conversation started with those four words, so he braced himself for whatever was coming. He turned to face her and saw her whip her head to the side to stare at the wall. “Can you – uh – can you put on some clothes, please?”

“Why?” he asked, looking down. That was the moment he realized he was dressed in nothing but a pair of sweat pants, and he could only imagine what his hair looked like, all rumpled from sleep. As mortified as he normally would have been, he grinned when he saw her blush. He couldn’t help himself. “Is something wrong?” he teased her, though he reached for a t-shirt he’d thrown on the back of a chair even as he asked.

Iris shot him a glower out of the corner of her eye. “Not at all. But someone might catch me here, and if they do, I don’t want them to think that I’m one of your…your…groupies.” After a second, she asked lightly, “You’re not expecting one of them now, are you?”

“No.” But Barry frowned, pondering her words as he pulled on his shirt and used his fingers to try to comb his hair into some semblance of order. “Okay, so what are you?”

“What do you mean?” She asked, turning back to him before he even had a chance to tell her he was decent. Had she been watching him out of the corner of her eye? He wanted to ask, but he wasn’t sure he could make it sound like he was just joking and deeply invested in the answer.

Instead, he explained, “You’ve said we’re going to be working together for a while. If someone catches us together, what do we say? We can’t tell them you’re my publicist if this is all supposed to be secret.”

She frowned at him. “We’ll say I’m a member of your security team.”

Barry felt his eyebrows hitch up, and he couldn’t resist letting his gaze sweep from the floor along the five foot four inches of her to the top of her head. “Um…”

She rolled her eyes. “My dad used to be a cop and now he runs his own private security firm. I used to help him with set-up and scheduling, that kind of thing, so it’ll check out if people question it. Trust me. Anyway, stop trying to avoid the subject.”

Feeling he’d already lost track of the conversation, he responded tentatively, “Okay. What’s the subject?”

Iris rested her hands on her hips and glared up at him. “Have you changed your mind about changing your image? Or are you just really bad at it?”

He knew exactly what she was talking about, but he feigned outrage just on principle. “What? I don’t know what you mean.”

With a huff of irritation, she started to pace. “All right. I’ll walk you through it. Over the past three weeks, while you were touring, I’ve been doing everything I can to spread rumors about your new romance with a mystery girl. I reminded you about it every night, when we talked on the phone. On no fewer than four – four – occasions, I asked Harry to get you a scarf that you could take onstage with you at a concert. As I explained…to you…repeatedly…Patty likes scarves and when we went public, it would seem like you had taken a reminder of her with you on the road. But did you do it?”

“Things are crazy backstage before a concert. I guess I forgot to –”

She carried on as though he hadn’t interrupted. “No! Of course not! Not until I flew out to meet you myself! And then you ignored the scarf I brought you and stole the scarf I was wearing, instead!”

He stiffened slightly. “Well, the one you brought still had creases in it. It looked too new for anyone to believe my girlfriend had given it to me.”

Iris paused in her rant and mulled over his excuse. “All right. I can see your point, and that was a good catch. But the scarves Patty wears are always more frilly and decorative than the one you took out with you, so when the entertainment media commented about it the next day, nobody connected it to her. I guess it’s better than nothing.”

Pointing a finger at him, she made a jab towards his chest, but he noticed she didn’t actually touch him as she chided him, “By the way, I wasn’t kidding when I said you’re going to be billed for my flight and hotel, so don’t even think about arguing with me on that. Anyway, can I have my scarf back now?”

He grimaced. “Uh…sorry. I think I lost it.”

She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t press the point. As she turned away, Barry stifled a relieved sigh that she’d accepted his excuses so easily. He’d been afraid she would guess the truth.

“Iris? What are you doing here?” he’d asked in surprise and pleasure as he caught sight of her dodging the crew backstage as she stormed up to him. His heart started to race. Had she really come all this way just to see him? If he’d known she was coming, he would have gotten her front row tickets to the show.

“You keep saying you forgot to take this onstage, so I’m making sure you have no excuse this time,” she growled through gritted teeth, thrusting a length of wispy green silk in his direction. “We’re trying to convince people you’re in love. When we make the announcement, people are going to connect the dots and see that the two of you have been half a country apart for the past several weeks. We want them to think you kept a part of her with you, even if you had to be apart.”

“I see,” he’d said, staring reluctantly at her offering. His band filed around him, heading onstage, and he knew he only had seconds left. His eyes locked on her lips, he bent down until their faces were only inches apart. He wondered what she would do if he kissed her, even as he reached out and unwrapped the deep red scarf from around her neck. Her lips parted, but she didn’t say a word, and he grinned when he looked up and saw that her eyes were wide.

“I like this one better. Wish me luck?” he asked, slinging her scarf around his neck.

He laughed when she narrowed her eyes at him. As he turned to take the stage, however, he heard her yell after him, “You are totally going to pay for my flight, you know!”

Though he was normally hyped up by the sound of the audience’s roar when they greeted him, he barely registered their excited cheers when he realized that the scarf was still warm from her skin. He ducked his head and inhaled as he waved absently at the crowd. It smelled like her perfume.

That night, he’d folded her scarf carefully and tucked it at the bottom of his travel bag, where it still remained.

Wanting to change the subject, he blurted, “Anyway, of course I’m serious about changing my image. I mean, what about that quiz show thing? I did exactly what you told me to do!”

She nodded slowly. She had set him up with an entertainment site that did a bit called Twenty Questions. Celebrities had two minutes to answer twenty rapid-fire questions on everything from their love lives to whether they slept in the buff. “You did,” she agreed, drawing out the second word reluctantly. “For the most part. But why did you say the last time you fell in love was in a coffee shop? The story was that you two met at a party.”

He shrugged. “I had to answer quickly, I couldn’t remember the story, and it was the first thing that came to mind.” And he hadn’t said he’d fallen in love. He’d clarified that he’d met someone he thought he might be falling for. It wasn’t much of a distinction, but given that Iris clearly didn’t feel the same way about him, it made him feel better.

“Well, it’s going to take some work to figure out how we can explain why nobody saw you two grab coffee together. Ever. But I think I can work with it,” she acknowledged. “But let’s get to the real reason I’m here this morning. Do you want to explain last night?”

“What about last night?” he asked in confusion. “I went to the party you told me to attend! I saw Patty!” In fact, he’d stayed at the party for far longer than he would have liked, just because he knew it was what Iris wanted.

Iris snorted. Lifting her phone, she showed him some photos an entertainment site had posted from the night before. “Okay, then you tell me. We’re twenty-four hours away from revealing to the world that you and Patty are so desperately in love that she’s reforming your image. But absolutely nobody is talking about the two of you possibly being an item today. Care to guess why?”

He looked at the picture on the screen, but although she’d told him to guess, she didn’t give him the chance to do so. “Let’s see. Here, the two of you practically have a football field of space between the two of you.” She flipped to another picture. “In this one, you guys are standing next to each other – miraculously – but could you manage to look more bored if you tried?”

“I was tired,” he mumbled.

“Oh, and let’s not forget my personal favorite. What about this one? She’s talking to you, but are you gazing into her eyes like a man in love? No! You’re staring at the centerpiece to the table instead!”

“It was a nice centerpiece!” he defended himself weakly.

“It’s a wood carving of a pineapple and…what is that? Some bananas? How nice could it possibly have been?” she snapped.

Barry shrugged and shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. “I knew we weren’t announcing our supposed relationship yet. I wasn’t sure how much you wanted me to try to sell it.”

“Well, I didn’t expect the two of you to stand up in front of everyone and make out. But I thought that needing you to not look like you find her utterly boring went without saying.”

The problem was, he did find her boring. Nice. Maybe exactly like the kind of girl he should find enchanting. But boring. He wasn’t stupid enough to say as much, however. “It just seems weird, pretending to be in love with someone that you barely know.”

“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad,” she protested.

“Oh, yeah? Prove it. Kiss me.” As soon as the words left his lips, his mouth snapped shut. He hadn’t meant to dare her to do that, and he realized he’d better shut up before he let anything else slip.

“I – wh-what?” she stammered. With a nervous laugh, she argued, “That’s not at all the same thing.”

Barry stared at her a long moment, choosing his words carefully. Then, stepping forward, he leaned down close. “You just said it was easy to pretend to be in love with someone you barely know.”

He heard her suck in a shaky breath. “But you aren’t someone I barely know. You’re someone I’m getting to know fairly well, who for some reason goes out of his way to aggravate me. It’s not the same thing.”

Their lips were an inch apart. “Chicken,” he whispered.

Iris swayed toward him, like she might take him up on his dare, and he caught his breath. Then she stepped back quickly and shook her head. “Okay. Fine. You’ve got me. It is a little weird to pretend to be in love with her. But nobody’s expecting you to marry her. You’re just…you’re telling a story.

“People will believe your new image is real because they want to believe it. Every time they see that look in your eye, like you could be interested - or, um, when you say you’re falling in love – they’ll want to believe it’s true. More than that; they’ll want to believe that if you love someone like Patty, you could fall in love with them. They want to believe that you’re more than the bad boy image the media has built up of you. That you could be their dream guy. Handsome. Funny. Charming. Sweet, if you can manage it. Everything they’ve ever wanted. The kind of guy who can sweep them off their feet. People love the excitement of the bad boy, but at the end of the day, they want to return home to someone who will love them forever, no matter what. That’s the image we want to sell of you.”

Barry looked away and sighed. He thought about telling her that he couldn’t concentrate on selling a love story with Patty when he was distracted by her, but there was no use. The love Iris talked about was rare – even more in an industry where people were on the road more than they were home. He’d learned early in his career that it wasn’t fair to try to have a real relationship with the life he led. It was hard to tell someone they should wait for him when they’d be crawling into a cold bed alone almost every night.

Iris deserved more than the kind of relationship he could offer her under the circumstances. But even as he told himself as much, he couldn’t deny that he was drawn to her. He just wanted to be close to her, even if these moments with her were all he ever had.

“All right,” he agreed softly. “I’ll try. I may not be very good at it, though.”

She let out a long breath, followed by a shaky laugh. “Well, would it help if I stick by your side for a little while? At least until we’ve got things off the ground? That way, if you have questions about how much you’re supposed to sell a moment, you can turn to me.” She bit her lower lip as soon as she finished making the offer.

He grinned widely, grateful for the chance to be with her a while longer. “Yeah,” he agreed. “It would.”

Iris stepped back and nodded briskly. “Okay, then. If that’s what you want me to do, I will. Now we just need to figure out the big reveal. We’ve got some good chatter going online, but we can’t keep the identity of your mystery girlfriend a secret forever. Patty has a few days off filming, and she said she could stay in town. I think we should take advantage of the opportunity.”

“Why is she agreeing to do this, by the way?” he asked. At her surprised look, he explained, “I know why I’m pretending to date her. I want to clean up my image. But she doesn’t have that problem. So why is she doing it?”

Iris shrugged and started scrolling through the calendar on her phone. “Well, she has the opposite problem. She’s made a career out of being the girl next door, but that means she can’t even get in the running for more dramatic roles because people think nobody will buy her in the part. You’re trying to clean up your image; she’s trying to roughen hers up a bit. Which means right now you’re perfect for each other.”

Then, without even missing a beat, she asked, “I don’t suppose you know how to dance?”

Barry frowned, thrown by the abrupt change of subject. “I don’t – It dep – why?”

“There’s a big event tomorrow night. A dinner and dancing kind of thing. Lots of stars on the scene, and that means lots of paparazzi. It’s the perfect opportunity to make your relationship public. But we can’t have a rerun of last night. You have to actually sell it. If we handle this right, I think it could be the opportunity we’ve been looking for. But none of that matters if you can’t dance – or if you’re not comfortable enough about it to do it in front of the cameras. What do you think?”

She looked so hopeful when she looked up at him, he didn’t know how to answer. He could dance, he just wasn’t sure if he could sell the story she wanted. But he couldn’t explain that to her, and in the silence that fell between them, she clearly jumped to the wrong conclusion.

“All right, don’t worry about it. We’ll practice,” she said firmly, swiping through apps on her phone until she got some music to play. “I think if you can manage just one dance tomorrow night, it’ll be enough. You can do this; I’m sure of it. Okay?”

She turned to put her phone on his table. Stepping up behind her, Barry hooked his thumb in the belt loop to her jeans and tugged, spinning her around. Pressing his hand tightly against the small of her back, he spun around in a circle, carefully maneuvering when her feet tangled in his as she tried to recover from her surprise.

“What are you –?” she gasped as he spun the two of them around again. “Barry!”

“This wasn’t what you had in mind?” He threw her a wide grin and he spun the two of them around and around, again and again, covering the area of his almost-empty living room. The hand at her back was the only place he dared touch her, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her – the smile that had stolen his breath, and the light in her eyes that was quickly stealing his heart. She braced her palms against his arms as she found her footing and spun around with him. Throwing her head back, she laughed as they spun faster and faster.

When he was dizzy enough that he was afraid he would lose his balance, he let her go, spinning her gracefully away from him. She grabbed the back of a chair and gasped for breath, and he leaned back against the wall to get his balance. A sound caught his attention, and he glanced over to see Cisco standing in the doorway, staring at the two of them.

“Uh…did I come at a bad time?” he asked.

Barry scowled and, afraid his friend would have read the feelings on his face, headed into the bedroom without a word. Behind him, he heard Iris explain in a sheepish voice, “We were just practicing for his date tonight. I mean tomorrow night. With Patty. He has a date with Patty tomorrow night. We were practicing dancing. For it. That’s all.”

At least she sounded as flustered as he felt, but he wondered if she’d been embarrassed to have been caught goofing around on the clock, if she was still lightheaded from spinning, or if there was any chance it could mean something more.

[sharedshield]

And here we go again!! Another cross on my @badthingshappenbingo!!

I’ve gotten some prompts and I’ll definitely get to them, I just started this thing like ages ago, it took me so long to write and it’s became quite the monstrosity and I really just want it to get it out here.. Feel free to request anything from those lovely prompts!

Fandom: Timeless

Pairing: Garcy

Prompt: Pneumonia

„What the hell is taking so long?!”, Wyatt kicked against the metal staircase leading up to the Lifeboat’s entrance.

Emma had jumped again, this time into 1919, and Lucy suspected she planned to meddle with the Treaty of Versailles. Agent Christopher had ordered Wyatt, Rufus, Lucy and Flynn to go. Two soldiers because Paris would be crawling with police and nobody felt comfortable sending Jiya away after she’d just spent three years in the 19th century.

The only one they were waiting for was Flynn.

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon”, Lucy tried to calm him. It wasn’t like Flynn to be late, in fact he usually was the one waiting for them. “I’ll go get him.”

Wyatt grunted and Jiya shot Lucy a meaningful look, but she ignored both of them. Worry had been gnawing on her insides since the night before, when she had gone to his room seeking solace for her troubled thoughts. He hadn’t answered his door, and at first, she had thought he was messing with her, but upon letting herself into the room she had found him already asleep.

While unusual, Lucy had written it off to exhaustion. After saving Rufus, Emma and Jessica had sent them on a hunt across centuries and continents, barely granting them any time to breathe. Lucy herself was bone tired, but Flynn (and also Wyatt for that matter) took on most of the physical work, so he was probably trying to get every second of sleep he was granted.

Lucy had been able to quiet her worries then and had managed to get a full night of rest herself, but they had come back in the morning when the rest of the bunker had breakfast together and Flynn remained to be seen, despite being an extraordinary early bird. It needed until lunch for him to make an appearance, but even then, he was taciturn and grumpy.

“There you are!”

She met him only one step out of the kitchen area.

“Huh? Yeah, sorry, needed to get some spare ammo”, he pulled on his jacket, the modern one, they’d steal some time appropriate wardrobe once they arrived in 1919, and passed her without so much as a look.

“Finally”, Wyatt groaned when they got the Lifeboat.

“We’re on a schedule here, Flynn.” Agent Christopher gave him a stern look, but just like Lucy she got ignored. He passed her with long strides and vanished into the Lifeboat after Wyatt.

“Is, uh, is he alright?”, Rufus asked, “’Cause I know what his good days look like and I really don’t want to be in Paris in 1919 when he has a bad day.”

“He’ll be okay”, Lucy gave Rufus an encouraging smile and followed him to the staircase, “Or at least I hope so.”

Traveling with the Lifeboat was always ruff on Flynn. Apparently, the Mothership was a much more comfortable way to get through time, something like the cruise liner of time machines.

Usually, he needed somewhere from five to ten minutes to get his bearings after the landing, sometimes it was worse, depending on how long and what he ate before the jump, you know the drill.

Lucy was glad for some extra time to take a breath before actually starting the mission, and she knew Wyatt was too, although he’d never say so in front of Flynn. The only one who seemed comfortable with this sort of transportation was Rufus.

This time however, it was worse. Rufus and Lucy had managed to get them clothes and Wyatt had secured the area at the outskirts of Paris and Flynn had yet to emerge from the bushes he vanished into after the landing.

“Flynn? Are you okay?”, Lucy tentatively took a few steps closer and was greeted by the sound of dry heaving, accompanied by heavy, rattling coughs.

She wasn’t a big fan of seeing puke or any bodily fluids, but Flynn really didn’t sound like he was okay.

“Flynn?”

“Would you give me a damn minute?!”

Lucy didn’t pay his angry call any notice and stumbled her way through the bushes until she found him, on his hands and knees, breathing heavily.

“I told you to leave me alone”, he sighed sitting back with his face up to the sky. Flynn was pale, a bead of sweat trickling down his temple changed its direction due to the different angle and rolled into his hair.

“You didn’t, actually”, Lucy sat down beside him, trying not to get tangled up in her skirt while doing so. “You’re not okay. You should have stayed at the bunker.”

“I’m fine, Lucy. And I don’t really see that happening, Emma is still on her warpath and with Wyatt being tangled up in this mess as he is you need a soldier who’s actually able to do his job.”

He stood in one fluid motion, there was no swaying or stumbling as he held out his hand to help her up.

“Are you? Able to do your job?”, he narrowed his eyes at that, defensively, but Lucy didn’t back down. He was right, Emma was more determined to get them out of the way than ever and Wyatt wasn’t able to make objective decisions when Jessica was involved. They needed Flynn and he couldn’t allow himself any slipups, not when a mistake could easily end with one of them dead.

“When am I not?”

 Flynn kept his word, he always did. The mission went without so much as a hitch, maybe not entirely successful since Emma was able to escape, but history stayed pretty much the same. The authorities of 1919’s Paris had only to deal with the unidentifiable bodies of sleeper agents, unlike they had to in the original timeline.

He managed to keep it together, to stay upright and walking until they reached the Lifeboat, but then Flynn crashed spectacularly. His head was reeling, this damn collar and the tie were too tight for him to breathe properly and whole ensemble was so hot he felt like he was suffocating.

Somehow, he reached his seat, but only to fall forward and to press the heels of his hands to his eyes. Why wouldn’t everything stop spinning?!

“Hey, Flynn, are you alright, man?”

If he got a dollar every time someone asked him that, he’d have enough money to build his own time machine.

He grumbled in response to Rufus concerned question, but it was Lucy who provided an actual answer.

“I think, he’s running a fever. He really shouldn’t have come with us”, there was a pause and some shuffling, Flynn didn’t bother enough to look up. There was a rushing in his ears now and he felt another coughing fit coming by the way his lungs constricted.

“Flynn? Uh, Gar-Garcia? Do you want some water?”

Lucy carefully put her hand on his shoulder, a featherlight touch he didn’t even register because his body shook with suppressed coughs. Flynn pushed himself out of his seat again and stumbled to the Lifeboat’s entrance, desperate for some fresh air and not wanting to infect the rest of the team with whatever ancient disease he’d caught with his coughing.

With his luck, it was probably tuberculosis. Or the plague.

The fit lasted a few minutes, it got so far that Flynn found himself retching again. When it finally was over, the world was still spinning but the breaths came a little easier. Lucy handed him a bottle with water and after he rinsed and then took a few sips, he staggered back to his seat.

“You think you can handle the trip back without puking all over the backseat?”, Rufus asked jokingly, but, truth to be told, neither of them wanted to know what would happen if either of them expelled the contents of their stomachs mid-flight.

Flynn made a vague gesture in Rufus’ direction, giving his okay for lift off after he fumbled his seat belt close. Then he let his head drop against the seat, closing his eyes and thus ignoring Lucy’s worried looks and Wyatt’s pointed glares.

 “How did it go?”

“Emma escaped again, but we could prevent her from blowing up the meeting. And we need a doctor”, Lucy carefully climbed down the staircase followed by Wyatt.

“Did somebody get hurt? Is Rufus okay?”, ever since they brought Rufus back, Jiya was even more on edge when they left for missions

“I’m fine, Jiya. But Flynn is sick”, Rufus was the last one to step out of the Lifeboat, hands unsurely hovering behind his colleague in case he should fall.

But Flynn stubbornly made his way down the steps and headed for the bedrooms, when Agent Christopher planted herself in front of him.

“I don’t need a doctor.”

He tried to stare her down, but Denise only raised an unimpressed eyebrow. He really wasn’t at his usual level of threatening, with glassy eyes, pale skin and an overall posture that screamed ‘Please, let me go to bed’.

She reached up to feel his skin, but he painfully flinched away from her touch.

“It’s not bad, just a cold or som-“, his feeble try to escape her examination ended in another coughing fit. He turned away and buried his face in the crook of his elbow, trying to will the coughs to stop, but soon he was doubled over, desperately gasping for air as dry coughs kept on tearing at his throat.

“Okay, okay, uuh… You probably should sit down”, Lucy came up beside him, hands fluttering helplessly over his shoulders until she just gripped his arm and carefully guided him to the ground. “Deep breaths, ju-just try to breathe.”

Flynn slumped to the ground, the coughing finally subsiding. He was panting, a little groan escaped his lips as he leaned forward and rested his forehead on his knees.

“I’m getting a doctor and medicine, get him to his room”, Agent Christopher ordered, already on the phone.

“I don’t-“

“That’s not up for discussion!”

 Flynn was wrong in two things. First, he really needed a doctor because, second, he didn’t just catch a cold, but wounded up with pneumonia instead.

The doctor had left the bunker with the instructions to keep Flynn in his bed and get him to take his medicine, have lots of fluids and a light diet. Lucy made it her obligation to oversee him carrying out the doctor’s instructions.

Which was why she spent a lot of time in his room (meaning more time than usually).

He was sleeping when Lucy joined him again after getting a snack for herself, curled up under the flimsy blanket and, for the first time ever, Lucy thought he looked small.

It was a disconcerting thought, Flynn looking small. He wasn’t imposing, not if he didn’t want to, and despite the bunker being tiny and dark, Lucy never felt crowded when she was in a room with him. He was more like a steady presence, comforting and assuring.

A quiet noise stopped her train of thought, Flynn was clutching his blanket and pulled it tighter around his shivering form. The bunker was always chilly, but it was only early evening. The real cold that made Rufus and Jiya cling to each other in their bed and Lucy seek out company, it only came at night.

Lucy leaned over him and moved to feel his temperature on his forehead but remembered how he flinched when Denise wanted to touch him earlier. Her hand hovered unsure for a few seconds, before she pressed her fingers softly against the prominent cheekbone.

It wasn’t enough to wake him, but he winced anyways and turned away, buried his face in his pillow. His skin was hot to her touch, and its pale color made him look almost ghostly.

She couldn’t stop her sigh and was nearly unable to not brush a strand of dark hair out of his eyes. How long has it been since the last time he had felt a friendly touch? Not violence but love directed at him? Lucy didn’t want to think four years, not since Lorena and Iris, but it was what came to her mind.

It was not fair. Lucy did think he was a monster, yes, at first, but it only lasted until she had finally learned the truth. About Rittenhouse and his family, how they had taken everything dear to him, hunted him and made him think the only way he could stand up to them, the only way he could fight them was with even more violence.

There was a voice at the back of her mind that asked if it wasn’t Lucy’s fault he terminatored his way through time. After all, it had been her journal that had sent him on this trip, she had given it to him and promised they would fight together and then had let him down over and over again, had pushed him away, called him a murderer and finally had gotten him arrested. The voice sounded suspiciously much like her mother.

But she knew there was another side to Garcia Flynn. The sadness and sorrow that made his shoulders bow and kept him in his room for hours, soft smiles and bad jokes, the insecurity, self-loathing and guilt that held him prisoner in his own mind; coffees in the morning and the tug on the bottle of vodka when Lucy had enough, the soft touches when he held her after Emma, the way he guided her down the stairs after Salem.

Garcia Flynn wasn’t a man without fault, far from it, but he didn’t deserve all the shit life threw on him either.

“Lucy?”

She startled upon hearing his scratchy voice calling out. Flynn was awake, looking at her with tired eyes.

“Hey”, she did touch him now, gripped his shoulder and helped him sitting up, didn’t let go of the cup of water when his shaky fingers lifted to his mouth, letting their hands touch.

“You don’t have to do this”, Flynn said after he settled back against his pillow.

“What? Helping you? Staying with you?”

He shrugged, avoiding her eyes. Lucy noticed how he fidgeted with his wedding ring. A tell, he was uncomfortable, she just wasn’t sure why. Because he was forced to show weakness? Because she was a witness to it?

“You don’t have to be here.”

He thought she didn’t want to be with him?

“What are you talking about? You’re sick and I’m here to help. End of story”, it came out a little more forceful than she intended, but maybe it helped to get the message through.

“I saw you”, he confessed, only she wasn’t sure what. “With Wyatt, before-“

Oh. Oh.

“I don’t give a damn about Wyatt. Not right now. I’m here because I want to be, because I want you to get better”, she switched from the chair to bed, perched herself up on the edge, “Is it that hard to believe?”

Now she dared to do it, she actually pushed the strand of hair our of his face, let her fingers trail down the side of his face and then cupped his cheek. He stared at her with wide, glassy eyes, and Lucy didn’t think he dared to breathe. It may have been the fever that made his eyes so shiny, but she wasn’t sure. He looked at her like she hung the moon, like she was his reason to live, so utterly devoted to her that she wanted to cry.

“I-“, Lucy started, the same moment Flynn decided to breathe again. His lungs weren’t to grateful to be deprived of what reduced amount of oxygen they were getting, and Lucy could hear the hitch.

It took minutes, it was cruel, and Lucy could only stand beside him and rub his back while the coughs ripped through his body, produced all sorts of gross stuff and left him trembling, panting and gasping for air.

“It’s okay”, she soothed him, “It’ll get better soon, the meds will kick in and you’ll be better.”

Suddenly she was back in her mother’s bedroom with Amy, before Rittenhouse, Flynn and time machines. She cleaned, changed oxygen tanks, spoon fed soup and crackers and administered meds.

It was a painful memory of a happier time, that at the same time wasn’t that. Seeing her mother wither away and nevertheless feeling the pressure of her expectations, the prospect of being alone with Amy after the inevitable death of her mother.

But now she knew what to do.

With practiced motions she freed him of the used tissues, held the cup for him to take a few more sips, then checked his nails and lips for a blueish tinge. There was one indeed, so she pulled the oxygen tank, left by the doctor as a precaution, closer to the bed, set it to 5 liters and carefully arranged the nasal tube.

His eyes followed her every moment, but Lucy didn’t find herself bothered by it.

“You seem so… used to stuff like this”, Garcia noted. He was laying down again, on his side, it was a little easier to breathe that way.

“Amy and I took care of Mo- our mother when she had gotten worse. She hated hospitals and didn’t want a nurse at the house constantly. So, it was up to us”, Lucy didn’t meet his eyes, busied herself with getting another blanket out of the sort-of wardrobe they all had in their bedrooms.

“That doesn’t sound fair.” She let out a dry laugh, of course it wasn’t. Carol made Amy put her life on hold, because Lucy was supposed to get tenure at Stanford and Amy’s podcasts weren’t real work anyway. She just had decided her daughters would care for her, without asking them.

They would have done it, of course, they weren’t monsters and Carol had been their mother, but some kind of choice would’ve been nice.

“It wasn’t, but we were used to it. Amy actually did most of it, I had Stanford. I kind of thought, that…”, she scoffed and shook her head.

“What did you think?”, even sick, with a sore throat, shivering and feeling miserable, Flynn cared for her, listened. This man was ridiculous.

“It’s stupid. I just- I thought if I got tenure, if I got to carry on her legacy, she could draw strength from it, you know? That it would give her the kick to beat the cancer. See? It’s stupid.”

“I don’t think it is. You just wanted to help her.”

Lucy sighed and finally met his gaze. She could see that he was flagging, the fever was pulling him under again and yet he fought to stay awake in order to be there for her. Ridiculous.

“And now I want to help you”, she said firmly and took a towel to mop some sweat off his forehead. He shivered under her touch but let his eyes close. “Sleep, Garcia, I’ll be here when you wake up.”

 A few hours later, he was still asleep. Jiya had come and gone, had brought some crackers and fruits in case either of them grew hungry.

Lucy read in a book about the demolition of socialism she found in his personal little library, but couldn’t quite concentrate on the words, looked up every couple of lines.

Flynn’s sleep had become restless, he tossed and turned, his hands twitched, and she could see his eyes moving behind the lids.

“Garcia?”, she asked softly, but only prompted a tiny whimper. “It’s okay, Garcia, you’re safe.”

“No…. No, please don’t… Leave her alone…”

“Shh, it’s okay, you’re okay.” Lucy squeezed his arm, tried to rub some comforting warmth into him.

“Lorena”, it sounded suspiciously like a sob, and, oh, Lucy’s heart, the one she carefully started to piece together again after Chinatown, it shattered into a million pieces.

She knew it wasn’t safe to wake a soldier trapped in a nightmare, not by touching him. He might lash out and hurt her, completely unaware of himself and his surroundings.

But Lucy didn’t care, not now, not when he was clearly suffering.

“Garcia!!”, she grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him.

He startled awake, gulping down hasty, too short breaths and scrambled to come back to reality.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.”

She desperately tried to calm him, ground him. “It’s me, it’s Lucy.”

“Lucy…”, he sounded far away, but met her eyes. “Lucy.”

“Yes.”

A shudder ripped through him, but not from the fever. He tried to take a breath, but it caught in his throat.

“Lucy.” He fumbled for her hand and she met him halfway, then he sagged forward, and she caught him. There were more shudders now and unsteady breathing, his hands clutched at her sweater, and if the same sweater had a growing wet patch on her shoulder, then so be it.

She mumbled endearments, sweet nothings into his hair, not at all caring that she could get infected too. Lucy didn’t know exactly how long it lasted, the minutes blurred together at some point, but eventually the shudders and shivers ceased to an unsteady breathing and then, after a deep, weary sigh, his weight got a little heavier on her shoulder.

Lucy lowered him back onto his pillows and pressed a soft kiss to his brow.

 It was one and a half weeks later that Lucy found Garcia sitting on the couch in the common area. There was a blanket draped over his shoulders and steaming cup of tea in front of him, but he appeared to be asleep, snoring softly through a still clogged nose.

They hadn’t talked, really talked, since his nightmare. The meds had kicked in soon after, leaving him slumbering for the most time, but unfortunately, they hadn’t got along with the foods Jiya and Denise provided, so they spent the last three days feeding him up again.

Lucy carefully pulled the tea bag out of his mug before it became too bitter, then settled down beside him with another book.

She made it through two chapters before she felt him stirring beside her.

“Lucy?”

“Good morning, sleeping beauty”, he rubbed his eyes at that, and it was really not fair that a six-foot-four man could be that adorable. “Your tea’s cold. I’ll make some more.”

She heard him following her, when she moved to fill up the electric kettle, then they sat down at the table to wait for the water to boil. Lucy pushed a package of chocolate chip cookies to him and Garcia obediently took one and started to nibble at it.

“Lucy, about what happened, I’m sorry”, his voice was still hoarse and with him mumbling, she guessed the words rather than actually hearing them.

“What do you mean?”

He awkwardly cleared his throat, wincing when it hurt. “The, uh, the nightmare. I didn’t mean to-“

“Cry? Or you didn’t mean for me to see?”, Lucy leaned forward and boldly took his hand, “Garcia, you were sick, you had a bad dream, I was there to comfort you. End of story, no big deal.”

He seemed a little taken aback by that. “I can’t imagine it was a… pleasant sight seeing a man crying out for his dead wife.”

“So wasn’t you gasping for breath, shivering and shaking. But I stayed anyways.”

Lucy looked at Garcia and he met her eyes shortly, before turning his attention to the cookies.

“But why…”

Why were you there?

“Because of you, Garcia. I was there because of you.”

[shinobicyrus]

Full Disclosure

My Christmas Truce fic for @rainosa, who asked for “Danny & parents angst.” I angsted the best I could manage this close to Christmas.  

 “...You redecorated.”

Tucker turns around and furrows his brow at him. It’s a stupid thing to say, but it’s the first thing Danny can think of as he stands in the doorway to Tucker’s room, the strap of his duffel digging into his shoulder.

“Huh?” Tucker looked around for confirmation. “Oh! Right, yeah. I moved some things around like...last semester? I think?”

Last semester? Has it really been that long since he visited Tuck at his house? New anime scrolls have replaced the last of the posters that had been around since middle school. The bookshelf has been moved to make space for a brand new desk, where Tuck’s computer is humming and idle. At least that was the same- unless Tucker’s been replacing its innards again.

No, except for the bed in the same old corner, Tuck’s room is practically unrecognizable. It’s been a lot longer than just one semester since Danny’s stepped foot in his best friend’s room, and he never even realized. 

Too busy with ghost-drama, probably. 

Tucker opens his arms to indicate the room, still littered with rumpled old clothes, comic books, and tech magazines. “Well, mi casa and whatever, I’m failing Spanish.”

“Tucker, you speak fluent Esperanto with Wulf. How are you failing Spanish?”

“Can never find time to finish the homework. It’s okay, I’ll just ace the final and squeak by.” He sweeps aside some t-shirts to excavate the carpeting  underneath. “Uh...you can put your stuff here. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting-”

“It’s fine.” Danny throws his duffel bag down on the cleared floor space and braces for the inevitable question. 

Instead, Tucker asks: “You want to watch a movie or fight off a demon-invasion on Mars?”

Danny releases a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Maybe just a movie. Scientists accidentally opening a portal to hell sounds a little too...”

“Relevant to our current situation?”

"Yeah. That.” Danny sits down on Tucker’s bed and winces when he feels something very not-cushiony or bedlike. He rummages underneath and pulls out a thick comicbook with a werewolf-looking woman in frayed clothes on the cover. Tucker practically dives across the room to snatch it out of Danny’s hands as he just starts flipping through it. 

“Ha-ha that’s not a movie what’s this where did it even come from what a mystery.” Tucker quickly banishes it to his bookshelf. 

Danny raises any eyebrow. “The Den of Empress She-Wolf?”

“I am invoking the ‘no-judgements’ clause of our friendship.”

“Wow, it must be really bad.”

Tucker scowls in a vain effort to hide the blush coloring his cheeks, making Danny laugh. It feels good, feeling the tension from the past few hours dissolve in a short fit of giggles.

Yeah, coming here had been a good idea.

He lets Tucker choose the movie, and they both sit down on the bed with their backs against the wall. At least the TV hadn’t been moved since the last time Danny had been over.

He doesn’t really pay attention to the movie. It’s difficult to focus on anything for too long. At some point, Tucker’s Mom knocks softly and shows up with a gigantic bowl of stovetop popcorn. Danny doesn’t know what cover story Tucker fed his parents, but it had to be close enough to the truth, judging by the concerned look she thinks she’s hiding.

“Thanks, Mrs. Angela.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble. Just made a little too much, is all. You boys are settled in for the night?”

“Yes, Mom,” Tucker groans like he’s suffering. 

“Fine, fine, I won’t keep bothering you.” 

Danny’s phone pings in his pocket. Without even looking, he reaches in and silences it. He doesn’t need to see who it is- all of his friends have their own ringtone. 

Tucker looks at him, wearing the exact same look his mom just had. “Are you gonna check your-”

“Hit play, we’re in the middle of my favorite scene,” Danny says. It’s not a lie; Andrew Garfield really shines with classic Spider-Man sass against that carjacker.

Tucker looks like he wants to say something, but finally relents and starts the movie back up again. Danny releases another breath he’d been holding.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. The room’s dark when he jolts awake; still muddled, Danny briefly thinks just for a moment, that he’s home. 

Tucker is sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed near Danny’s feet, the light from his laptop screen painting deep shadows and harsh digital. The memory of where he is and why he’s there settles back into his headspace like a sharp slap of focus. Danny knuckles at the crust and dark circles around his eyes. “What time is it?”

“A little past one.” Tucker keeps his gaze on the screen, keeping the manic tempo of clacking computer keys. Danny has no idea how that didn’t wake him. Maybe he’s gotten too good at grabbing whatever sleep he can, or his subconscious finds unmistakable Tucker-noises comforting.

Danny sits up and reaches out blindly for his phone, but this isn’t his room and Tucker keeps his nightstand on the other side, so he just ends up slapping his hand against the wall. Tucker wordlessly pulls Danny’s phone from someplace and hands it to him, somehow still typing one-handed. 

“Thanks.” He looks at the blanket pooled around him that wasn’t there before. “I took your bed,” He says it like an apology.

“S’okay. You looked like you needed it. That thing was buzzing up a storm, by the way.”

He’s right. The lockscreen says Danny has fifteen new messages. Sighing, Danny plugs in Sam’s birthday and checks them. Text messages from Jazz and Danielle, updating him and asking if he’s okay. No missed phone calls from his parents, thank God. 

The last call made on the phone was technically yesterday, when he called Tucker and asked if he could stay the night. Thirty seconds was all his voice could manage, at the time.

Even though Tucker had told him the time, it hadn’t registered until Danny’s looking at the clock on his phone and sees the missed notification he scheduled. Danny sits up straighter. “Patrol!” He blurts out. “I completely-”

“Already taken care of,” Tucker keeps coding. “Val and Sam are handling it.”

“Those two...together?”

He shrugged. “I dunno man, I think they had a secret meeting and hashed out their differences when we weren’t looking.”

Danny double-checked his messages, but there wasn’t anything from Sam or Val.

“So...uh.” Tucker clears his throat. “Jazz filled me in. While you were asleep. Actually, before you got here, too.” 

“She...did?”

“Yeah....her, Sam, and me kinda had this planned out for a while, now. For when it happened.”

“Oh.” He can’t quite look Tucker in the eyes. It’s...he guesses he shouldn’t be surprised. He’s actually really touched, that they had his back when he didn’t ask for it- that they were ready for whatever happened and never told him so he wouldn’t feel any more pressure than he already was.

“You told them.” Tucker says it not like a question.

“Yeah.”

“And...now you’re staying here.”

“It...didn’t go well.” Danny finally drags his eyes up to Tuck’s. “How much did Jazz tell you?”

“Just that shit went down and Operation We-Never-Decided-On-A-Name was in effect. She didn’t think it was right to say anything more unless you were ready.”

He should have guessed Jazz wouldn’t just blab about everything. His big sister was a lot of things (see also: meddling, anal, way too cheery at seven a.m.) but she’s been surprisingly good with boundaries and keeping his secrets, after the first few hiccups. “Wanna know the funny thing? It wasn’t the half-ghost thing.”

“But...what else would it be?”

“Don’t get me wrong, it just about gave them a heart attack, but things didn’t get bad until I told them everything.”

Tucker’s eyes widen. “Everything, everything?”

Danny chuckles sadly. “Turns out, finding out your best friend from college is secretly a ghost-monster trying to kill you and/or destroy your marriage is one thing, but your own kids knowing about it and lying about it?”

“Ooohhh.” Tucker nods. “That.” 

“Yeah. That. And since things couldn’t possibly get any worse, I thought: ‘why not just rip off the filthy band-aid that is my life all at once and tell them about their clone-daughter, too?’”

Tucker winces. “Ooohhhh crap.” 

“And that’s when the yelling started.” Danny changes his voice in a poor imitation of his mother. “’She’s just a little girl, how could you let her run away on her own!’ I mean, yeah, I definitely deserved that- but she had Valerie looking after her, and it’s not like I could force Danielle to do anything she didn’t want to do! And with Vlad I tried to explain how I had it under control, like, we had a mutually assured secret identity thing going on- he stopped trying to actively murder Dad years ago. All our stuff was strictly foiling evil plots and him beating the crap out of me sometimes.”

“And the cloning.” Tucker adds.

“Okay yeah that too, which is sort of how Danielle got name-dropped by sorta accident in the first place, but then they had the gall to berate me for not trusting them!” It’s like being back in the living room all over again. Danny’s fist is balled so tight his nails are biting crescents into his palms, and in the dark he can tell his eyes started blazing green again, which probably hadn’t helped things with his ghost-hunter parents, much.

“Trust? I’m like, Trust?! How can ever really trust people that have tried to shoot me on sight, before? That have spent whole family meals talking about dissecting me ‘molecule by molecule.’ How can I trust people that build a goddamn portal to the netherworld in their basement and put their family and the whole freaking town in danger every. Single. Day?!”

They’d been appalled when he exploded on them, even Jazz  looked uncomfortable, even if it was all thing’s she’d been saying for years- if a bit gentler. Looking back on it- replaying the whole thing over again- made his heart pound with residual panic.

But Tucker? Tucker just nods and listens.

Danny has to swallow down the sudden dryness squeezing his throat. “I blamed them.” He manages, throat hoarse. “I blamed everything on them. I told them their stupid portal turned me into this, and I looked them in the eye and said I saw the first accident, the one that made Vlad, and I said that if they wanted to angry at anyone, they should look in a mirror first.”

“Ouch,” Tucker says. “Not exactly inaccurate, but ouch.”

“It was around then I decided staying there was probably a bad idea and packed a bag.”

“That’s...probably for the best.” Tucker nods. “Get some distance, clear your head.”

“You and Sam kind of came up too.”

“We did?”

Danny makes sound resembling a laugh. “They asked if you guys knew. I don’t think I laughed harder in my entire life.”

Tucker blinks at him, slowly processing what he’d said, then bursts into a shoulder shaking laugh. “Oh my God. They actually asked if we knew?”

Danny chortles. “I know, right! I was like, ‘how do you think I even survived this long without going crazy’?”

Tucker’s so far gone he’s slapping his eye and wheezing desperately. “You literally yell ‘I’m Going Ghost!’ in the hallways at school! Even if you didn’t tell us, we’d have figured it out in like, a week!”

“I know!”

“Jazz figured you out!”

“I knooow!” Danny keels over with laughter, tears streaming down his face. 

Tucker wipes a tear from his eye. “And-heheh- and I think Sam would have noticed that her boyfriend’s eyes freaking glowed whenever they- wait- did you tell them you and Sam are-”

“God no, are you kidding? What am I, nuts?”

That just ignites a whole new round of laughter- they’re probably too loud, Tucker’s parents are two rooms away and might be wondering what sounds like a pair of cackling lunatics coming from their son’s room. But Danny and Tucker surrender to it and fall together in a heap on the bed, still shaking with little leftover giggles.

They lay there quietly in the dark on the bed like they used to in grade school. Back then staying up into one-am was a huge deal, devouring junk food, playing video games, and watching gory age-inappropriate movies action movies.

Now they usually stayed up this late hunting ghosts and cramming what little homework they could manage before falling asleep in exhaustion. 

Danny suddenly feels very tired. 

“What are we supposed to do now, Tuck?”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Stay here the rest of the weekend, eat unhealthy shit, and bingewatch bad anime from my hard drive?”

“God yes. You’re the best.”

“Hahah, hell yeah. Who’s best friend now?”

“Still Sam, but for completely different reasons.”

“No fair, I think I’ve proven I can totally pull off that same skirt.”

“I love you, Tuck, but that was so wrong.”

“Don’t shame me I got fifty bucks outta that deal and my legs looked great.”

Danny snorts back a laugh- and freezes when his phone buzzes.

Tucker waits a few moments for Danny’s head to stop pounding quite so fast before asking. “That Jazz again?”

“...no.” Danny’s shaking fingers fumble the password twice before he manages to bring up the single text message:

Mom [1:37am]: Never forget you’re my baby boy and I will always love you 

Tucker might be right about the best friend thing after all. He doesn’t say a word while Danny cries quietly on his bed. Just sits up, pulls the blanket over the both of them, and starts typing a comfortable rhythm on his laptop again.

[5hfanfiction]

i have questions for u

Summary: Lauren hears the song for the first time.

“Why did you leave me here to burn? I’m way too young to be this hurt,”

-        I Have Questions, Camila Cabello

xxx

Nothing else beats a good sleep.

Especially when you’ve got a tight schedule like Lauren.

She enjoys what she does in the industry, with interviews and performances here and there, recording sessions and the like. It’s fulfilling for her to be able to go this far in her career, so it’s quite hard to envision what her life would be if she hadn’t taken a leap of faith when she had the guts to audition for X-Factor. No doubt the best decision she has ever made.

But being in this line of work isn’t as glamorous as it seems.

And by tight schedule, it really does mean tight (especially with the new album coming up) that there’s barely enough time for the girls to get a wink of sleep. Lauren swears she could go insane at any point, but she signed up for this so she’s going to take what she’s going to get. Of course the girls fought for their hard-earned breaks and day-offs, being worked to the bone is just plain abuse. Fortunately, their manager would always hear them out, calling the higher-ups in no time requesting for their much needed break.

“Charlie, you’re the best!”

“I love you!”

“You’re laundry’s on me, Charliebear.”

“Well, guess it’s time for bed.”

Despite it being only a quarter to eight in the evening, Lauren retreats back to her bedroom in the hotel suite that they are currently staying at. The moment her body hits the soft mattress, she’s dead to the world as she finally succumbs to sleep. She doesn’t make it for dinner since the other girls know that waking her up would be similar to disturbing a bear during its hibernation, a risk none of them are willing to take.

So the three mind their own business, do their own thing and leave Lauren in peace.

Or so she thought.

Lauren couldn’t remember whatever dream she’s having but she does remember hearing this loud music in her dream so she starts searching for it then—BAM! She’s back in the real world, her tired muscles aching as she stretches her arms and legs. She turns her head towards the window which has its curtains drawn, exposing New York’s city lights. With the night still young and the sun still down, Lauren should still be very much asleep.

The music—a Beyonce song, she finally figures—is getting louder this time and Lauren buries her face and grumbles nonsense into it. She tries doing the good ol’ pillow-against-your-ears trick but it doesn’t work, so goes for another option and haphazardly scrambles around her bed for her phone. She does spot it on the nearby bedside table, groaning when she has to scoot closer to it, her body not wanting to move at all.

Her phone indicates that it’s only half past eleven and she’s even more pissed that she has only gotten around three hours of sleep. She opens a few of her messages, learning that both Ally and Normani are out somewhere so that leaves her with none other than Dinah (though Beyonce on full blast is a dead giveaway). Because she’s exceptionally lazy today, she calls Dinah instead of charging into her bedroom.

It saves energy and Lauren is low on it.

Not surprisingly, it goes straight to voicemail, either due to her phone being dead or being set on airplane mode.

“Goddamnit,” Lauren curses, discarding her phone onto the bed. The Latina gets up anyway, extremely groggy and pissy, gathering all the strength she needs in giving a Dinah an earful (if she’s feeling extra pissed off today she might even give her a full sermon in Spanish). She pads outside her room and into the common area dressed in a loose sweatshirt and a pair of shorts. When she’s a couple of feet away from Dinah’s room, she notices that the song has ended. Before it could proceed to the next, Lauren decides to simply barge in.

Then she realizes it’s locked.

Lauren lets out a loud and infuriated sigh, raising one hand in knocking position.

“DJ! Could you keep it down I’m—“

“Why?”

Her words are cut off.

Lauren’s fist hangs in the air motionless as her ears register the sound. It’s as if time has frozen in place and she’s left hearing the rasp of the voice echo inside her head all over and over again. Memories of the girl flashes into her head, both the good ones and the bad. With so many issues that have gone between them, she isn’t sure she could handle hearing the rest of this.

Something tells her she shouldn’t be listening.

Not right now at least.

She makes a move to leave.

”Did you leave me here to burn? I’m way too young to be this hurt.”

The voice sends shivers down her spine, her feet halting in its tracks. Her head whips back to Dinah’s door. She swears the voice is speaking to her as if she is physically there, telling her to stay.

And listen.

Her will to flee is strong, but the effect that the voice has on her is stronger that she is drawn back to where she stood outside Dinah’s room. Lauren feels like a metal being pulled by a magnet.

She wants to break free.

“I feel doomed in hotel rooms, Staring straight up at the wall Counting wounds and I am trying to numb them all.”

She continues to stand there idly, her feet refusing to follow what her mind is telling her to do while the rest of her senses go numb. It’s annoying how she’s so unsure. One second, she decides to go on but the next she’s just itching to leave. Her decisions continue to jump back and forth like a tennis match, and she can’t seem to choose which one has triumphed over the other.

Something burns in her throat, a kind of screech that begs for the song to stop.

Just stop.

“Do you care, do you care? Why don’t you care? I gave you all of me My blood, my sweat, my heart, and my tears Why don’t you care, why don’t you care? I was there, I was there, when no one would Now you’re gone and I’m here.”

She’s locked in a dreamlike state, similar to a sleep paralysis wherein she’s conscious that she’s awake yet she can’t bring herself to budge. It’s an internal battle that she’s struggling to fight, because her mind knows that maybe it’s time to face the music. The other part of her, however, stubborn and all, refuses to hear any of it.

But why is it so hard to walk away?

“I have questions for you Number one, tell me who you think you are You got some nerve trying to tear my faith apart (I have questions for you) Number two, why would you try and play me for a fool? I should have never ever ever trusted you (I have questions) Number three, why weren’t you, who you swore that you would be? I have questions, I got questions haunting me.”

While the chorus continues to play on, Lauren’s shoulders slump. She has finally given in to temptation, or more like she has accepted the fact that she has to listen to this sooner or later. But maybe it is too soon because everything feels heavy, her head, her chest, her eyes and there is nothing she could do about them. She’s frustrated over a song that’s getting to her so badly. Her emotions are getting messed up.

She is getting messed up.

“My, my name was safest in your mouth And why’d you have to go and spit it out? Oh, your voice, it was the most familiar sound But it sounds so dangerous to me now.”

“Camz…”

Lauren’s eyes widen as her name slips out from her and her hands immediately rush to cover her mouth. She hasn’t said her name in a while, it was so foreign yet so familiar at the same time. It’s an indescribable sensation to something she isn’t expecting. The corners of her eyes are dampening as she imagines what she would have felt when writing the verse.

So raw.

So vulnerable.

The words are filled with so much pain that it comes in like a series of punches into her stomach, though the one beating her up has already been stabbed multiple times in the chest. The muscles in her legs loosen and she drops to the carpeted floor, tears falling one by one with no indication of stopping, chest aching with every drop.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry, she says in her head.

But what is she sorry for?

Her sobs are silent throughout the second chorus, her hands still cupping over her lips. She releases all the tears, all the emotion she unknowingly had been holding in for God knows how long.

She wonders how crazy she must look if Ally and Normani catch her in this state.

“Do you care, do you care? Why don’t you care? I gave you all of me My blood, my sweat, my heart, and my tears Why don’t you care, why don’t you care? I was there, I was there, when no one was Now you’re gone and I’m here.”

She somehow regains composure and wipes away her tears with her sleeves. With a huff, she manages to stand up, the muscles in her legs recovering their strength. Her hand runs through her wild raven hair as she listens intently to the conclusion of the song, internally pleading to just get it over with. What she did not expect though, is to feel utterly and hopelessly broken by the next few lines.

“How do I fix it? Can we talk? Can we communicate? Can we talk? Do I wanna fix it?”

A huge lump forms at the base of her throat.

“I’m afraid of you.”

Fresh new tears gather at the sides of her eyes.

“Is it my fault?”

Lauren wants to scream.

“Do you miss me?”

She finally loses it and the tears come pouring out once more.

“I have questions.”

xxx

Guilty.

Lauren is guilty.

Guilt. That’s what she has been feeling all along the moment she hears the song. Somewhere, deep in her heart tells her that she has something to do with it. It has taken her around twenty minutes to draw out the conclusion while squatting outside Dinah’s room, back leaning against the door. Her face is still puffy with a tinge of pink on her nose and cheeks from all the crying, and her eyes a bloodshot red.

She should head back to her room before anyone sees her like this but she’s too tired to do anything.

Too emotionally exhausted to be exact.

She hasn’t counted the number of songs that has played since, but she knows that she has been there for some time. The music is still as loud as ever (Dinah should probably be deaf by now), yet it simply passes from one ear to the other. If her mind has been clouded with so many emotions minutes ago, now she is feeling blank.

Empty.

Nada.

It’s so empty that she hasn’t even noticed the music stopping.

“Woah—hey! Lauren?”

Lauren nearly falls on her back when Dinah suddenly opens the door, the younger girl jolting in surprise. The Latina quickly gets up on her feet and turns to her bandmate who watches her with confusion.

“Have you been crying?” Dinah places a comforting hand on Lauren’s arm, “You look horrible.”

“Oh, gee thanks,” Lauren rolls her eyes at Dinah’s honest comment, “And no I haven’t been crying, I just yawned before you opened.” She crosses her arms rather defensively, sporting her tough as nails persona.

“Sure, Jauregui. Sure,” the Polynesian pats her on the arm with a flat smile and pretends to take the bait. Instead of dwelling on the subject, Dinah knows when she shouldn’t cross the line so she changes the topic, “Why were you sitting outside my room, by the way?”

Lauren hasn’t anticipated for her to ask, her body twitching just the slightest bit upon hearing the question. She hopes Dinah hasn’t picked up anything on her body language because she really can’t deal with an interrogation or some kind of intervention right now.

“Your music was too loud,” she attempts to give her best excuse though she facepalmed herself internally at her lame try.

“Sooo you just had to sit outsi—wait a sec, I had my headphones on,” Dinah jabs her thumb over her shoulder to the direction of her bed where a MacBook Air sat with a pair of headphones above it. “How could you possible hear that?”

 “Uh…I think you had your speakers on too?” Lauren points at a bluetooth speaker on top of one of the bedside tables, “I tried yelling at you about it.” Well, tried. Technically, she hasn’t finished her nagging since it had been cut off but Dinah doesn’t have to know about that.

“Crap! Seriously? Again?” Dinah runs over to where the speaker lays and shuts it off, while Lauren enters the room with a low and tired laugh. The younger girl sits on the edge of her bed and pouts her lips apologetically, looking up at her, “Sorry about that Lolo. My iPad’s connected to the speaker and Spotify was open too so when I was playing songs on my MacBook I guess they both played…”

“That explains it,” Lauren says with humor in her voice. She was about to say something else but Dinah unexpectedly jumps up from her bed, startling the Latina a little who also jumps in place.

“Did you…” Dinah seems to hesitate, somehow waiting for Lauren to complete the question for her. She rephrases her question in her head multiple times, knowing how Lauren absolutely hated to be treated as if she’s some fragile child. There have been some occasions in the past wherein the girls have been reluctant on bringing up certain…issues but Lauren has not-so-calmly clarified that she can handle it.

Judging the state she has found her when she opened the door, Dinah guesses she couldn’t exactly handle it. This is why she can’t help herself but be cautious when it comes to her.

“Did I what..?” Lauren tilts her head like a confused puppy, oblivious to where this is heading.

Dinah clears her throat, “Did you hear it?”

Lauren stiffens. She blinks for a good few seconds and answers, “Yeah.”

“I was really curious so…”

“I sorta was too. She seems to be doing great.”

The mood is light and Dinah hasn’t expected for it to be this easy to talk about it. In fact, she had been holding her breath right before Lauren gave her her answer. It would have been easier if Mani or Ally were at her side. Thankfully, it didn’t end up going downhill.

“Yeah, she’s well,” Dinah nods in confirmation. Maybe talking about her will help. “We spoke a few days ago. She’s in New York for—“

“Oh, tha-that’s great! Like super good.”

Shit. Dinah immediately regrets mentioning that they are currently in the same city. She would take it back if she could, but the damage is already done and the mood shifts uncomfortably, causing Dinah to reach out for her bandmate who only retreats backwards.

“Lauren…”

“I’m gonna try and head back to bed.”

“Um, okay. I’m sorry if I—“

“It’s fine,” Lauren waves it off, feigning nonchalance, “I’m fine. I’ll just…go.” Dinah watches her intently but Lauren’s eyes look anywhere but the Polynesian’s. The older girl musters one last not-so-assuring smile then she shuffles awkwardly out. The door closes behind her as she leaves.

Dinah curses at herself.

xxx

Camila isn’t easy to forget.

Out of all the people, Lauren took the news the hardest. Their relationship may have changed in the months leading to her departure, but it didn’t make things any easier. Although there have been various situations that have hinted regarding Camila being the first one to go, the reality of it has been too incomprehensible to believe.

Lauren wishes she should have noticed the little things, like the way Camila would request for a break by camping in an unoccupied room to be by herself or how she would seem to be on the brink of tears during one of the rehearsals. Would a simple are you okay make a difference? She wonders. But that’s all she could do, wonder, because they all have moved on and the girls respect her decision, despite not being allowed to be seen in public together.

Management sucks.

“Hey, sorry to keep you waiting.”

Lauren is pulled out from her thoughts when Camila arrives in a pair of gray leggings and a Vehements hoodie, her attempt at a disguise which Lauren has to keep herself from laughing. The outfit isn’t exactly what you would call discreet, but the ponytail, glasses and Nike combo didn’t really seem very Camila so she figures she must have really planned this one out.

“I know you’re judging me,” Camila narrows her eyes, taking a seat across from her. The coffee shop they’re in is small but private, just what they both need so they wouldn’t have to worry about paparazzi tailing them. Luckily, only four other customers are enjoying their early morning coffee, coming from a generation that most likely did not recognize any of them. It’s been nearly a year since they have both been here, having discovered this hole in the wall a few years ago. “It’s the best that I can do and you seem pretty cosy yourself.”

The green-eyed girl glances at her FSU shirt and a pair of shorts and Doc Martens. She opts to be as casual as she could in order to avoid any unwanted attention, bringing with her a FSU ball cap as well. “I’m going for the whole college girl look.”

“Very patriotic,” Camila comments with a grin, taking in her shirt and cap. “All you need is your student loans and a packet of ramen noodles then you’re good to go.”

Lauren laughs heartily and shakes her head. What has she been so nervous about when things are going so well? It’s true that it might have been some time since the two have been alone, casually chatting and whatnot, but there’s something about their encounter that’s making her feel at ease. Maybe it’s the fact that Camila looks absolutely happy, smiling at the other end of the table with her elbows propped and chin resting on her intertwined fingers.

The sight has made Lauren realize that her leaving really is for the best.

Then she remembers why she’s called her here.

“Camila…” she starts, fumbling with her words in her head. Her fingers play with the condensation dripping from her iced drink, tracing random circular patterns on the cup. She shuts her eyelids for a second, then opens them as she exhales deeply. “Is there…is there something you’d like to tell me?” A sense of dread clouds her mind.

Camila knits her brows together, her hands dropping gently onto the cold metal table.

“Like…is there something you’d like to ask me?”

Camila’s eyes shift around behind her thinly-rimmed glasses, processing Lauren’s question. The vagueness of it didn’t give her any clue on what Lauren is trying to let on so she searches for some kind of clue in her surroundings, looking at Lauren every few seconds. But her former bandmate refuses to add more details, leaving Camila to scavenge around her memory for something she may have completely forgotten months ago.

Then it hit her.

“Oh, Lauren…”

Lauren’s head snaps up to meet her beautiful face. No bags, no tiny creases on her forehead, no indication of stress and upcoming anxiety attack. She hasn’t seen her be this radiant in a while, probably her days in Fifth Harmony have taken it away from her. But now she has regained her usual glow, one that shined so bright she could outshine the sun.

“W-what?” Lauren asks dumbly. Dealing with Camila is thrice as complex as dealing with herself. Sometimes she thinks she knows what’s going through her head, other times she is left to crack her cryptic expressions that could have been masking her real emotions. Now, however, the smile that barely reaches her cheeks and the warm brown eyes that have melted her heart since day one are making zero sense to her.

Is she smiling because she’d rather not talk about it?

Was it a mistake bringing it up?

“I wrote that like, two years ago,” Camila says, half-embarrassed as if someone stumbled upon her middle school diary.

“Yeah but I just think—hold on a sec,” Lauren stuffs her hand in her shorts’ pocket as her iPhone vibrates indicating an incoming call. Great timing Charlie.

“Go ahead,” Camila gestures for her to take it.

The call lasts for about a minute or two with Lauren muttering a series of “Yeah”, “Uhuh” and “Okay” then ending it with “I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” before sending Camila a sad smile, disappointed that their conversation and little reunion has been cut short.

 “Is everything okay?”

“Just have to meet up with one of the producers. I’m really sorry, Camila…” Lauren sighs. She retrieves a crisp five-dollar bill from her wallet and sets it onto the table. “Calling you then leaving so quickly.” Should I really leave?

“No biggie,” Camila dismisses it with a wave of her hand, flashing her freshly manicured nails, “I’m glad to see you though.”

“Me too.”

But Lauren doesn’t make a move to get up from her seat, her hands still gripping the metal armrests as if she is about to. Her feet, on the other hand, are stuck to the floor like it’s been superglued to the tiles. And her eyes, this time, are locked onto Camila’s and they just stare at each other in silence with Lauren’s heart beating a million miles per second.

 “Hey, you should really get going, Charlie wouldn’t want you to be late.”

Lauren nods weakly, carefully standing up. She would be lying if she would say that she would be satisfied going back to the hotel like this. The only way for her to be able to sleep tonight is to get things over with so she can get rid of the guilt that makes her stomach sink every chance it gets when she thinks about it.

Because Lauren had once been so significant in that aspect in Camila’s life that she has poured her heart and soul into a song. A song that she may have the answers to the questions it asks. The questions that have been haunting the poor girl for far too long.

As if reading her mind, Camila assures her “I promise you, you have nothing to be worried about.”

“Wait…what do you—“

“I’m sure you’re wondering… “

Camila is the girl whose heart she has broken, the lively spirit she may have destroyed.

Lauren is the girl whose heart has also been broken, whose heart was also taken away when she left.

But no matter the pain or damage she has caused, Lauren is just the girl whose heart Camila has also broken.

Not the person from her song.

“The song’s not about you, Lauren.”

xxx

The first time I listened to the song, I was on the brink of tears. And I couldn’t help but write this one. While dozens of people think that the song may be about Lauren, I’d also like to consider the possibility that it’s not.

I do hope you’ve enjoyed this as I have other songfics in mind.

have a great day and be nice to each other

-keeks

[insecwrites]

Excuses and Writing notes

Summary; Larry Needlemeyer is an underappreciated hard worker, and life has dealt him bad hand after bad hand. He hasn't been okay for a very long time, and he can no longer see a way out of the pit of depression he is in. He tries, and he does his best, but without any help, he is not going to succeed. tl;dr:  How the heck does Larry cope with doing all the work and getting no thanks? He doesn't.

Warning; suicide attempt

Read on AO3

Coming home was a rare luxury to Larry Needlemeyer.

Technically, he had every Sunday off – a wonderful 24 hours to do whatever he needed to keep himself standing during the rest of the week. Things like eating a meal that wasn’t a leftover from Joyful Burger, and sleeping on a matrass instead of trying to sleep behind a cash register without anyone noticing. Sadly, the last three weeks there had been emergencies on the job. Or, well, all of them. Ice cream machines breaking down, a robbery, an aisle of winebottles falling over, an alarm going off, an insect infestation….

Larry hadn’t seen his bed in so long that his hands were shaking, and that there were dark shadows moving around in his peripheral vision.

His home was small and underkept. His feet kicked through the small pile of bills that had collected behind his door, and landed in the puddle of water that came from the one leak that never seemed to go away. There was a definite reason as to why his apartment was one of the cheapest in Elmore.

In about one hour, he had the night shift at the Gas station. It was on the other side of town, so detracting the amount of traveling time, he would have a nice 45 minutes of rest.

He didn’t feel like sleeping, in all honesty. It wasn’t restful. His dreams, if you could even call them that, were like an endless loop of his jobs. Tasks he had to repeat over and over, the worst parts of his customers blended together, endless performance interviews with all his bosses. And when he woke up he’d get to do it all again in real life.

He slipped open his phone, and winced at the sharp blue light. It was late. Karen would, in all likelihood, still be asleep, but Larry wasn’t sure when he’d get another chance to send her a message. His schedule was packed, and he couldn’t take days off. There’d been an ‘incident’ in the pet store, and all the lost animals ( and their catch fees ) were going to get subtracted from his wage.

She had been distant lately. Larry knew what that meant, and he wasn’t… he wasn’t really surprised. He pulled out his plastic flip-chair, and sat down. The plastic creaked ominously, but it held.

Even as he typed a quick message asking how her day was, and that he loved her, he knew that he’d been neglecting her. Not wilfully, but just…. There was no time. He had no more energy in his body. Even just the act of typing a small message felt like a herculean effort after a day of yelling customers and scrubbing floors on hands and knees.

He sent the message, and put his phone back into his pocket. He wasn’t sure how long she was going to keep indulging him in their engagement. He’d had to sell the ting he’d planned on proposing to her with, just to keep his apartment. He’d saved up money again, but then there’d been that robbery of the bank… Gone were his savings.

“What isn’t gone, at this point.” He mumbled to himself.

He closed his eyes, and measured his fatigue. Despite the lead that had settled in his limbs and head, he knew it was going to take a while before he fell asleep.

He forced his eyes open again, and scooted his chair a little closer to his table. He might as well continue trying to write his suicide note. He didn’t want to come across as one of those people that blamed the world for his suffering and loneliness. He didn’t really want to invoke pity, but it didn’t feel right to just go and leave nothing behind. Writing a suicide note with those criteria was surprisingly difficult. His trash-pile ( no money for a bin after the last one got lost ) was full of unfinished and rejected drafts.

At least he’d finally come to a decision about the method, and that already really helped. As a rock, bleeding out had never been an option, but strangulation had been pretty high on his list. It felt perverse and bad to admit it, but there was something like a feeling of satisfaction in him whenever he imagined someone walking in on his corpse. His boss maybe, or his landlord. They’d knock on the door, wanting to collect their money, or rip him a new one for not showing up at his job. The door would get forced open, and then they’d see him dangling from his ceiling fan.

Larry glanced up at the broken pole of the ceiling fan in the middle of his living room, and sighed. The one time he worked up enough courage to do it, and of course he’d turn out to be too heavy.

He’d thought of poisoning, but apparently a lot of people survived that if they were found in time. With Larry’s employers, he’d be lucky if these 45 minutes weren’t getting interrupted for a clean-up on aisle 3. Drowning had been an idea too, but again the internet had proven a valuable tool. It was apparently the least fun way to go, and could lead to serious brain damage if you got saved in time.

Freezing to death, was apparently the nicest death. Larry hadn’t even had to try that one on his own to find out that it wasn’t an option. Richard Watterson had, despite the restraining order, come into the Joyful burger for another meal. And in doing whatever it is the rabbit was doing, he had locked the Joyful Burger’s freezer behind Larry’s back. It had been discovered very quickly, but in another stroke of misfortune, the doorlock had gotten stuck, and it had taken almost a full 24 hours to get him out. He’d been making peace with his death, and wishing his job had allowed him to have his phone on him during work, so he could message Karen during his final moments.

About 11 hours after losing the sensation of touch in his body and hearing his joints crack as if there was ice between them, Larry had realised that he was immune to the cold. Immune enough not to die from it, anyway. He’d gotten very sick, and he’d had to work while feeling like he was going to faint at any moment.

So, he had finally settled on jumping from a high building. Or maybe the bridge. If he jumped from high enough, his body would snap into a dozen pieces, and end it all in an instant. And even though some people might recognise his body, and realise what he’d done, to most people he’d look like a small collection of broken rocks, and some clothes. He still had to decide if he wanted to wear one of his nametags.

But first, the actual note.

Larry bit on the end of his pencil, and stared down at the letter he’d started the last time he’d had some time.

Dear Karen,  

I hope you were not the one to find me. I didn’t want to hurt you, but I know I’ve been neglecting you and everyone else. I’m not sad, or convinced that the world is unliveable, or something. I’m just too tired to keep going, and I don’t know how to get out of the circle I live in. I know you’ve been seeing other people  

Larry grabbed the paper, and scrunched it up. He didn’t want to blame Karen, or make her feel bad, but… well, he didn’t want to kill himself over just one aspect of his life. It was an amalgamation of things that made every waking moment a slog.

He grabbed a new piece of paper, and began again.

  Dear Karen,

I’m sorry. I know I’m leaving you alone, and with a lot of guitl, and I never meant for this to happen, but I just can’t hold up anymore. You’re the only good thing in my life, and I know that you’ve been looking for a way out  

“No, no no.” He grumbled to himself, and he shoved the letter to the side for a new one. This time, he didn’t add Karen’s name.

I know this might seem a little drastic. I’m just working some extra jobs right? No reason to go and kill yourself, to a lot of people.  

My parents died… quite some time ago, and my little sister too. It was a house fire. And I KNOW. I KNOW that rocks are usually pretty good at surviving a fire, okay? It was the firemen. Mom and dad went in to get Rosetta from her room, and the fire had heated them all up, and when they came out, the firemen hit them with cold water from the hose  

Larry stopped writing, and wiped at his eyes. Images from their funeral flashed in his mind. They had burst, and… and nobody had quite been able to identify which parts belonged to whom. So in the end, he’d chosen to bury them in one coffin, just to be sure that he wasn’t filling three graves with a mishmash of three different people.

He’d never been in debt before their death. He hadn’t had it large, but his parents had sent him pocket money whenever things got tight. “You’ll work your way up. Slow and Steady, as Needlemeyers do. Then, when you get a fat Payroll as a CEO of some company or the other, you can start thinking about paying us back.”

I never wanted to disappoint you, mom, dad. I never…. I work a ton of jobs, and I work them hard, but I’m not moving up. I don’t have the money for good food, or for a nice night out every once in a while.  My fiancée, she loves me, but I can’t  

Larry was so tired. He knew the route to the roof of his apartment block. The door up was technically locked, but Larry had the key. He was the one they sent up to fix the TV reception when it was on the fritz, after all. He often stood at a short distance of the railing, and looked down at the parking lot below. A good six floors down, he knew that the ground would split his head like a ripe watermelon. Leaving the unfinished note, he pushed back his chair and left his apartment. He didn’t bother locking the door as he headed to the stairwell, and grabbed the key for the door that locked away the roof.

A few blank moments later, he was standing near the edge again, looking down. The cloudy night didn’t allow for the moonlight to reach Elmore, but the sputtering streetlights were plenty enough to see by. On the parkinglot below, there were marks of where Larry had dropped rocks to see if they would split.

“Karen loves me.” Larry said out loud to himself. “I can’t do this to her.” His own voice sounded blank and stilted to his ears, but he had to finish writing his letter. His suicide note. He had to find a way to write down what he felt, so that she wouldn’t suffer after hearing that he’d killed himself.

“She would be sad.” Larry bit on his thumb, hard enough to hurt. “She would wonder if I killed myself because of her, and she would feel horrible. And I don’t want that.”

Didn’t he?

Larry looked down, his knees feeling like overcooked spaghetti, and he imagined his own broken body on the parkinglot below, with Karen kneeling next to her. He imagined her crying, perhaps trying to rearrange the broken bits of his corpse back together like a puzzle. He imagined her losing her smile, for weeks on end, and tears springing to her eyes at the mere mention of his name.

He imagined his bosses, perhaps under the fire of a public outrage. People demanding better healthcare for people working in low end jobs, holding up posters of his face. He imagined all the people who yelled at him as he did his job, now devoid of joy, feeling guilty for his death. Almost as if they had murdered him.

Larry stopped. He had stepped closer to the edge, and the tips of his shoes were peeking over the edge.

“That’s not… that’s not helping.” He said to himself. “Karen – I don’t want to hurt Karen, and that means I have to finish my note. So she understands.”

The excuse felt weaker every time he used it. Someday, even the idea of hurting Karen was not going to be enough to make him step back. The allure of just taking a step forwards was terrifying and exhilarating at once. Once he made that step, he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. He’d never see Karen again, and he wouldn’t have to see her cry. He’d never have to face the consequences of what he was about to do, and he’d be free to sleep and be at peace, forever.

And Karen was so nice – she would understand, she wouldn’t take it out on him – she would know he wanted her to move on!

Shaking like a leaf, Larry shuffled closer to the edge. Tired as he was, even just a short moment of low blood sugar would be enough to send him to his death. He closed his eyes, and continued shuffling forward, wondering when his balance would give out-

BEEP BEEP BEEP!

The sound of a phone alarm going off had Larry almost jumping off the railing, and his heart jumped into his throat as vertigo hit him. Stumbling back, he fished his phone out of his pocket, hands trembling hard enough that it took him three tries to slide the pick-up icon to the right.  

“H-hello?”

“Larry, where are you! Someone has left three packs of mozzarella in a panini maker and turned it on! It’s HUGE mess, why aren’t you cleaning it up yet!?”

“It’s my break, sir.” Larry replied automatically. “I still have about –“  

“I don’t give two flying birdcakes about your break. Get over here or you are fired!” There was an audible noise as his boss slammed down his phone, and then a short grumble before the old fuzzball remembered how to exit a call from a smartphone.

Shaken, Larry trembled his way down the stairs, past the open door of his apartment, and onto the street. It had been quite some time since he’d felt so…. So alive. So disconnected from the slog. The route to his job was brought into a sharp contrast, now that he had looked death in the eyes.

As he entered his job, and stepped through the melted mozzarella towards the flaming paninimaker in the back of the Joyful Burger, he knew that he had earned some more time to work on his note for Karen. It was going to take a while before he dared to go up there again.

He began cleaning the mozzarella from the paninimaker, as he heard the tell-tale ding of a customer entering despite the ‘We are CLOSED’ sign on the front door.

“Welcome to Joyful Burger sir. How can I help you?”

[just-jordie-things]

Like She’s Mine (part nine) - Stiles Stilinski

this part is a little different.  it’s a montage of the next year everyone spends together.  it’s a lil collab with my boo and the star of the story @celestial-writing

warnings: swearing + quite an abundance of angst

Over the course of time, life seemed to get more into a schedule.  Allison began to stay at Scott’s more and more, and Stiles seemed to find permanent residence in the couch.  Madi seemed to enjoy his presence, and I myself wasn't going to start complimenting either.

I started working at Lou's Flower Shop again, back to my basics.  Taking inventory, helping customers, restocking.  Nothing too difficult.  Allison usually picked up the same shifts as me anyways, so it wasn't bad at all.  Being paid for mostly sitting around and talking to my best friend? Yeah no problems here.  Madi usually stayed at the apartment with Stiles, he's been taking night classes rather afternoon ones to work with our schedules.

Most days I would get home as he's walking out the door.  I'd make dinner for myself and something soft for Madi.  We'd eat and I'd take her for a bath.  Then it was bedtime for her and downtime for me.  Normally I'd just sit in the sofa, watching tv or reading a book.  Stiles would return around ten o'clock and if sleepily tell him goodnight and thank you for watching her today.  Then I'd get the blankets for him and usually tuck him in.  Sometimes I was on the border of passing out, and he'd tell me that he could do it himself.  But I think most of the time he really did like it.  It was nothing special really, I pull the blankets over him, kiss is head, and say ‘sweet dreams’.  Nothing to crazy there.  But it always left him smiling.

The weekends were the best, because we'd just lay around in our pajamas and watch tv.  Usually one of us would fall asleep.  When I did, I would wake up to find the blankets wrapped around me, and my head on the armrest and legs strewn across Stiles’ lap.  It was a comfortable position.  When he fell asleep his head either landed in my shoulder or plopped on my lap.  But when it was my shoulder I maneuvered him down to lie on my lap because that was more comfortable.  I'd run my fingers through his hair gently or draw patterns on his arm and back.  The only rules were that you couldn't purposely wake the other, and the one who didn't pass out has to make sure Madi is okay.

When the summer came back to us and Stiles had finished school, we became less tired and our schedules weren't so tight and hectic.  I still had the same amount of shifts at Lou’s. I worked four days out of the week, for six hours.  Allison worked three of those days at the same time.  But with her Scott and Stiles being out of school, and with Lydia being back at Beacon Hills for the summer, we managed a pretty easy babysitting crew.  Sundays were our best days.  We all got breakfast together, either eating out or at someone’s place.  We talked and chilled around, Stiles and Allison fought over Madi while Lydia complained about going to a far away school, as always.  Scott didn’t talk a lot about UC Davis, at least not with us.  Allison’s told me before that he was doing very well and enjoyed it, which was good.  As for me, online college was pretty breezy… I almost felt like a slacker.

“y/n, you’re not a slacker” Allison sighed as I confessed the feeling to her.

“You guys are all going to school, waking up early or getting back late like Stiles, you all work so hard and I feel like I just… don’t”

“So?” Allison replied, quirking a brow as she ate some protein bar that looked like it needed a heap of sugar or chocolate chips packed in it.  “y/n, you work so hard.  You’re managing having a job, taking those courses, watching Madi, and I’m sure having Stiles around to take care of is a pain in the ass”

“I am not!” Stiles called from the kitchen.  “Some nights I do the grocery shopping!”

“So that’s why I never see any fruits around here” Allison muttered.

“I heard that!”

“Anyways, hon, you are a wonderful mother, student, and coworker.  I aspire to multitask like you” I smiled at Allison’s kind words, and the feeling disappeared.

For the fourth of July that summer, the gang and I took Madi to see fireworks for the first time.  There was a small show at the Preserve.  The kind of thing where you bring a big blanket and snacks, then sit and cheer for the bright explosions.  I was nervous because I wasn’t sure how she was going to react.  They were loud, and I remember being younger how I was afraid of them.  She’s only a year and a half of age, would they be scary or pretty to her?

Scott and Allison laid out the blanket on a nice empty patch of grass while Lydia handed out snacks and drinks.  No worries. Only waters and sodas.  On out Sunday nights together after Madi was a sleep we’d pass around glasses and a bottle of wine, but not usually while my daughter was awake and in the room.  Just in case.

“Hey Stiles?” I asked softly as I held Madi at my hip.  He turned to look at me, smiling and playing around with her.

“What’s up buttercup?”

“Do you think she’ll like them? The fireworks?” I asked trying to keep my voice down,  i didn’t want a big fuss.  Stiles pursed his lips as he thought of an answer and my brows cinched together.

“Well, let’s just say if she doesn’t and starts to cry I can just take her back to the jeep and calm her down away from all of the excitement” I smiled lightly at that and nodded.

“Thanks” i told him and he nodded.

“Come on kiddos pick a spot” Scott called.  He was sitting on the end, Allison next to him, and Lydia next to her.  They all had their own bag of chips and a soda can.  Lydia was huge on party planning.  I sat next to the strawberry blonde, stretching my legs out and letting Madi sit between them.  As we waited she spent most of her time tracing the floral designs on the blanket.  Stiles was sat next to me, on the other end of the blanket and here and there one of us would move slightly and our arms would brush together.  Being the cheesy person I am it would send sparks through my whole body and goosebumps would raise.  But I hid it by playing with Madi and distracting myself.  If I was lucky, I wasn’t blushing.

I fucking was of course.

The fireworks show went as perfectly as it could.  Madi stared up at them, and made quiet ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ as she pointed to the colors.  She’d yell “mama mama!” Getting my attention even though I was already contently watching them.

“They’re pretty aren’t they?” I’d ask, ruffling her short and soft strands of hair.  She’d just giggle and clap her hands, then go back o staring.  This cycled the whole night.  

But minutes ticked by and I grew more and more fatigued.  Stiles said something to me that I didn’t quite catch, so I leaned over to hear him better.  My head bumped his shoulder.  Maybe I was too lazy to move, or too out of it to register my own actions, but I nuzzled against him and shut my eyes, letting my head stay there on him.  He just smiled a little and rubbed my back as I rested there.  I didn’t open my eyes until I felt a small body crawl over me.  I peered down seeing Madi making her way onto Stiles’ legs instead.  I don’t think he knew I saw this, perhaps he figured I was sleeping.  He was caressing her head, her back her arms, and I watched her as she fell asleep against him.

When the show was over and empty bags discarded, I heard a whispered exchange of words.  Lydia took Madi from Stiles, cradling her to keep her asleep, and Stiles slid his arms around me.  I groaned when I was lifted, and he laughed quietly.  I didn’t want him to know I was awake, so i let him carry me back to the parking lot and set me in the Jeep.  I fell asleep on the way home that night, and when I woke up in the morning I was in my own bed again.

When Lydia left to go back to school, we all went out to eat for dinner, somewhere nice, and the Sheriff offered to watch Madi for the night.  Stiles drove me over with her, both of us dressed up for dinner.

“There’s my favorite kiddo!” Noah said as he opened the door.

“Thanks Da-” The man took Madison from my arms, and Stiles shut his mouth.  I giggled softly.  

“Oh, you thought I was talking about Madi?” Stiles’ features lifted.

“I knew you wouldn’t forget me pops-”

“y/n, the kid I never had come in I haven’t seen you in a while” I laughed again as Stiles

mouth dropped open.  Noah and I talked about how work is, how the summer’s going, and when it was time to leave, Stiles spoke before I could.

“She bathes at seven thirty, and needs to be in bed by eight.  If she won’t sleep, she likes the moonlight and there’s two stuffed animals in her bag that she has to sleep with.  One blanket usually does the trick, but put the other in there just in case.  Also reading to her sometimes helps, or talking at all she likes hearing people talk” Noah nodded, looking to me with a slight smile as I tried to stop my overworking head.

“Glad the mother isn’t the only one who knows all the tricks” Was all he said.  My cheeks flushed.  “I raised you Stiles, I think I can handle pretty much anything” I laughed again and tugged on Stiles’ sleeve before he could say something witty.

“Thanks again Sheriff” I said as we went back to the doorway.

“Its Noah.  Anytime y/n” I smiled and waved goodbye.

“Bye Madi, be good for Mr Stilinski okay?” I said, and Stiles kept playing with her I had to rag him out of the door.

“I can’t believe my own father likes you more than me”

Soon enough we were back to our busy schedules.  Though now we were masters at it.  December rolled around and the whole apartment was decorated.  Allison and I had put lights all around the ceiling, which were always on.  She’d gotten a small fake tree that we all decorated.  There was mostly just baby stuff, bottles and dolls, with ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ on them.  But there was other normal ornaments like snowmen and reindeer.

Christmas Eve everyone came over and we watched all the Christmas classics.  Rudolph, Frosty, The Drummer Boy, they were playing on a constant loop on the television.  Scott and Allison were curled up in the recliner, Lydia on one end of the sofa, and Stiles Madi and I on the other end.  I sat next to the armrest, with Stiles so close Madi sat half on my lap and half on his.  When the tv finally was shut off, Allison Scott and Lydia exchanged their goodbye and merry Christmases before heading out into the abnormally cold night.  After I’d put Madi to bed, telling her a Christmas story that I proudly knew by heart, I went back to the living room to find Stiles laying on the couch.  He let out a groan as he rolled over.

“Stiles..” he looked up to me.  “Why don’t you come stay with me tonight?” His brows raised slightly.

“I’m fine out here-”

“No you’re not your back had been terrible to you on that couch”

“No it’s not-”

“Stiles I know it is” I sighed.  “Just come stay in bed with me tonight.  Besides, it’s Christmas what kind of friend would I be if I made you stay there” He seemed to think about it, and I jerked my head slightly.  “Come on” I said softly, and after that he slid off the couch, following me to my room.  Strangely enough, he’d only been in here a few times.  But I wasn’t often in it as I used to be.  I was usually in the living room or kitchen with him.  I got into the blankets, and he walked around to the other side of the bed.  I patted on the mattress, seeing his hesitation.

“You really don’t mind?” I shook my head, and slowly but surely, he laid next to me.  It was quiet for a bit, and I just watched him fiddle with the hem of the blanket.  “You’re sure-”

“Yes, Stiles, it’s fine” I said, closing my eyes for a moment.  When I opened them he was staring at me,  seemingly shamelessly.  “If you ask one more time-”

“Merry Christmas” I broke into a smile, rolling over to check the clock.  And it was indeed, midnight.  My grin only grew as I looked back to him.

“Do you want your present?” I asked in an excited whisper.

“Now?” I nodded, biting my lip and sitting up on the bed.  “It’s gonna make the others mad I did mine first-” I shook my head.

“No this one’s separate” I said.  “I’ll go get it” I added before speeding out of the room.  I got it from it’s hidden spot in the vegetable cabinet, I knew he’d never find it there.  When i came back in the room, he sat up, pulling the blankets back.  “Here” I said, handing it to him.  “Open it” He took the small wrapped box from my hands, and I anxiously pushed my hair behind my ear.  Stiles opened up the paper, revealing a plain cardboard box.

“You sure it’s okay I do this now?”

“Yeah go on then” I urged, and he lifted the lid.  His eyes widened, and he looked up to me with parted lips.  I couldn’t bite back my smile anymore and I held my hands tightly together.  “Do you like it?” He answered by reaching forward and hugging me tightly.  The key that matched my key ring falling onto the blankets.  The key with the number 88 painted in blue nail polish on it.  The key to my apartment.

“Yeah, yeah I like it” He said, pulling away from me and picking it up.  I grinned a smile of flattery, and again he hugged me.  “I like it a lot”

I woke up to him poking my nose and when I finally mustered the willpower to open my eyes, he had that foolish smile on his face.  Instantly I realized both of my hands were pressed against his chest.

“It’s Christmas”

Madi’s second birthday went much more smoother than her first.  Lydia couldn’t make it down for her party this year, but she sent a present in the mail.  I made the cake at home this time, not wanting to go through the chaos at the bakery all over again.  But apparently making my own cake brought it’s own craziness.

“STILES!” I screamed when I slipped on flour that might’ve spilled to the floor.  He came rushing in, and I could tell he was trying not to laugh at me.

“Alright come on chef” He said, and held out his hands, pulling me up.  “We got a cake to make, I’ll help”

“I don’t need help I’ve got this-”

“You clearly need help.  Now what next?”

The next ten minutes was us bumping into each other as we poured ingredients into the bowl.

“Stiles! You got sugar all over m-” I sneezed halfway through scolding him.  He laughed, coughing as he breathed in the flying powder.  “Oh my god it’s all over your hair” I put my hands over my mouth, suppressing giggles.

“I can’t believe you!” He smashed an egg into my chest.  Luckily I was wearing an old tee shirt.  But I gasped and gave him an angry look.  Fear crossed his face the second before I throw a handful of flour at him.  I reached for another handful, but he wildly held his hands out.  “TRUCE!” He begged, and I smiled wickedly.  

“Or what?” Panic crossed his features, but in seconds he’d surged forward, and his arms wrapped around me from the back, lifting me up and I squealed.  “Put me down! Put me down!” I screamed, thrashing around.

“Apologize!”

“Never!”

“Well what have I walked in on?” My head shot up to see Allison standing in front of me, holding Madison on her hip.  She was staring at us, with my feet lifted off the ground, back pressed into Stiles’ chest and his arms wrapped around my torso.  There was sugar and flour all over our faces and hair.

“Uhm” Stiles set me back down, and I gave her a big smile.  I tasted the powdery substance in my mouth.

“RIght so I’m gonna pretend that didn’t happen”

“Mama!” Madi smiled big as she exclaimed and reached for me.

“Let’s let mommy get cleaned up okay?” Allison suggested, bouncing Madi and taking her into the other room.  Stiles and I exchanged a look, and burst into laughter a few seconds later.

“What is it baby?” I asked Madi as I held the camera up to her, taking a video of her as she opened her presents.

“Puppy!” I giggled as she grabbed happily onto the stuffed dog.

“You loved stuffed animals don’t you sweetheart?” I asked, still taking a video of her as she held it up to my phone.

“Yeah!” Allison was awweing in the background, grabbing Scott’s arm and shaking it.  Stiles chuckled from where he sat on the floor in front of the couch.

“Who do you wanna show the puppy to? You wanna show Alli-?”

“Dada!” My head jerked up to her, no longer watching through the phone screen.  Allison’s gaze snapped to me, and I shakily tapped the screen, ending the video.  She was giggling, and began crawling around.  I was staring at Allison with wide concerned eyes.  SHe couldn’t have possibly meant Theo, that’s ridiculous.  How… no… no that was crazy.

“Alright Mads how about I take you to bed-” Allison stopped when Madi plopped herself into Stiles’ lap.

“Dada!”

“ALRIGHT TIME FOR BED” Allison clapped her hands, and scooped up Madison before anything could be said.  She whisked the girl out of the room and I heard the door to the nursery shut loudly.

“y/n-”

I got up and walked into the kitchen before Stiles could finish.  I needed to think.  No.. no thinking was bad I needed a drink.  Yeah.. yeah a drink.  I got down a glass and yanked the cork out of a new bottle of red wine.  I poured it, but some spilled on the counter.  I groaned, rubbing my face and wishing I could scream.  But I yanked out a paper towel to clean it up.  Of course a ton of them when I only needed one.  Tears sprung in my eyes, and a choked whimper left my lips.

“Hey… hey y/n” I turned to Stiles, and he gave me a gentle expression as he took the towel from my hand and took off the one piece.  “What’s wrong?” He asked, wiping my mess off the counter.

“Sh-she she called y-you D-dad” I choked out.  “A-and th-that’s great b-but she-she’s not yours” By this point tears were streaming down my face, and Stiles stilled his actions.

“Hey, hey it’s not that bad” He whispered.  “It’s not that bad, really she didn’t know”

“Exactly” I whispered, staring down at the floor.  “She didn’t know. She just said it how’d she even hear it? Or-or process that-”

“y/n, don’t overthink it, seriously.  She’s only two, she’ll learn not to… she’ll learn that that’s not… me” Stiles stepped closer.  “She’s only two y/n” I put my face in my hands, and Stiles reached a hand out onto my shoulder.  “Come on, come ‘mere” I thumped my head onto his chest, and he chuckled.  “I’m sorry y/n”

“No don’t be sorry” I mumbled.  I didn’t do anything to hug him back, just had my head pressed against his shirt.  “It’s not your fault” His hands rubbed my back.

“I’m still sorry you’re going through it” He said softly, and his chin propped up on my head.  I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just pulled out of his hold.

“I should go check on her” I said softly, and he nodded.

“Okay” I left the room and went into the nursery, quickly wiping my eyes.

“Oh thank god” Allison said.  She was bouncing Madi on her hip.  “She just won’t sleep” I giggled softly.

“Awe, come here sweetheart” I said, taking Madi and holding her close to me.  “Mommy’s tired, you want to sleep?” Madi nodded, and I smiled softly.  “Okay, come on” I hummed taking her over to her crib.  “You want all your animals?” I asked, holding onto her new dog.  She nodded, and I plopped all her animals in one by one.  I saw Allison out of the corner of my eye, shuffle up next to me.

“So, what’d you and Stiles talk about?”

“Allison I don’t know if I wanna talk about that” I mumbled, and she nodded.

“I understand” She responded.  “But when you’re ready…”

“I know.  You’ll be the first I come to” I assured, stroking my thumb gently over Madi’s forehead to calm her to sleep.  Allison smiled at me and leaned up to kiss my cheek.

“I’m going to go home with Scott” She said, and I nodded.  “I’ll see you at Lou’s for the morning shift” I nodded again, and watched her leave the room.  I sighed and looked down at the crib, then walked over to the rocking chair, plopping down with a sigh.  

“Oh Madi what am I going to do?”

I warned you.  just saying.

tagged: @celestial-writing @morganschiebel @bunnyboo10154 @imissyoualittlemoreeveryday @peter-andhislostgirls @johnsonxstilinski @natureanallthingscute 

there were a few tags that haven’t worked, so again if you wanna be tagged go ahead and ask :)

xoxo ~ jordie

[fmdjaewonarchive]

►i just wanna feel something.

dates: october/november 2018 mentions of: n/a word count: 2.6k  warnings: depressive thoughts, mentions of death, insomnia, weight loss, self-hatred, implied suicidal thoughts tw (vague-ish?? idk tbh??) and probably a bunch more, i don’t quite know what to tag this exactly but if you’re sensitive to these topics i suggest passing this up, it’s just really not worth it details: jaewon isn’t doing well mentally and i needed 2.6k to put that into words (and still failed tbh). this is my 6th draft on this and it’s still hardly readable so just imagine how bad the other 5 are but i just want to have this out of my system already. also i didn’t proofread this mainly because if i do odds are i’ll just throw the whole thing away so ignore any errors (and just ignore this post as a whole tbh you’re probably better off that way)

“you look moody lately.”

unity’s manager tells him on the car ride back from some variety show appearance and of course, jaewon laughs the comment off with a sharp, cynical burst of laughter, scoffing as he reminds the man that he always looks moody.

his amusement is short lived though, laughter dying out on instant as his manager points out that this is different, that he looks different. the man mutters something about the look in his eyes being more hollow these days, his smiles obviously less sincere than usual and jaewon doesn’t like the insinuation a single bit.

because you see, different never means just different, jaewon knows that. different was what people had started to describe him as after his parents passed and his behavioral issues had first reared their ugly head, what teachers had used when they discussed the once so friendly and sociable boy that now only switched between two emotions: apathy and anger. different is nothing more but a synonym for worse.

he’s doing worse than usual.

the accusation shakes something deep inside of him, making his bones rattle and his fingers tremble to the point he’s forced to ball his hands into fists in the pockets of his hoodie to hide the tremor. he channels all his energy into forcing a smile on his face, he has to bite the inside of his cheek raw to do so and even then it’s still a challenge to keep the smile present long enough to make it seem convincing. he ignores the ache of his facial muscles from the forced expression, ignores the fact that his throat feels tight his chest hurts.

after keeping the nice act up for just long enough to make it believable he excuses himself from the conversation by claiming to be tired, the schedules getting the best of him (“that must be why i look so out of it lately” he claims) and pushes his earphones in perhaps a tad too hastily for it not to look like some sort of flight response.

jaewon doesn’t actually fall asleep, of course, he doesn’t, sleep hasn’t come easily to him for weeks by now but he pretends to be for the rest of the way home.

and instead of actually catching up on the rest he’s been missing he spends it continuously reminding himself that he’s fine.

really, he’s fine.

and if he isn’t, he just needs people to think he is.

“doesn’t dimensions feed you? you look so skinny these days.”

his grandmother slips the comment into the conversation so casually jaewon almost glosses over it at first but when it registers in his mind he chokes on his jasmine tea, coughing violently, eyes red and teary as he takes a moment to regain himself, his grandmother continuing to sip her own cup of tea like she had hardly said anything unusual.

the thing with jaewon’s weight is, and he knows this all too well, is that it is a fickle thing. he is naturally skinny, had always been ever since he was a child and it had only gotten more obvious after his growth spurt in his teens, gaining so much in height but hardly anything in width. the other thing he knows is that while gaining weight is a whole task and a half (much to the joy of dimensions entertainment) he never had the same issue with losing weight not due to scary, unhealthy dietary restrictions but because of an entirely different factor: stress.

whenever stress weights down on jaewon slightly more than usual, the first way it shows is  through his appearance, losing weight rapidly to the point where usually, the public begins to take notice and points out the drop in his weight, only for all those rumors to be snowed over the second times get less hectic and jaewon slowly eases back into his usual weight.

it’s something people close to him know, that there is no need to fuss over his weight, that it has nothing to do with his health which is why jaewon is so taken aback when his grandmother mentions it. by now, he knows to not underestimate the older woman, that she’s usually onto things long before he himself is, it’s been that way all his life: when it came to raising him after his parents died, when it came to signing him up for his dimensions audition, even when he came out to her and told her about his relationship with samsoo, it was obvious that she had already known long before he himself had.

so when she carries on about how sunken his cheeks look and how bony his shoulders have gotten, he knows it’s no notion to his health or an urgency to eat more. no, it’s her subtle way of telling jaewon she can tell he’s not doing well, that’s he’s not feeling well on a mental level rather than a physical one. more importantly, it’s a way of telling him that he can’t respond to defensively or brush aside like unfounded concern because she’s not straight up accusing him of anything, she’s not explicitly stating her worries because she knows that he knows exactly what it is she’s implying.

she’s telling him she knows and there is nothing he can bring in against it.

and jaewon hates it, hates knowing that his grandmother sees right through him, that yet again she has to worry about him. hadn’t the poor woman done enough worrying throughout raising him?  

jaewon knows he owes her so much, he can probably never begin to thank her for everything she’s done for him. he doesn’t even want to begin to think about how he would have ended up had she not been so patient with him, had she not known how to handle him so well.

he wants to be able to pay her back for all the sacrifices she’s made, to prove that it wasn’t all a waste of time and effort, that he wasn’t a waste of time and effort.

but in all honesty, jaewon doesn’t quite believe he’s not. he doubts he’ll ever be anything more than this miserable person filled with nothing but anger and resentment. he’s terrified that he’s bound to disappoint everyone who so desperately wants to believe he could ever be anything close to a good person.

and it makes him wonder how anyone ever stumbled onto that misguided belief at all.

so as he lets his grandmother smoothly guide the conversation back into lighter territory (“how have the unity boys been? it’s been so long since i last saw all of them, you should bring them over for dinner soon”), he weakly smiles at her over the rim of his cup, the smile not quite reaching his eyes and mentally, he apologizes for all the love he received from her that he will never quite deserve.

if only he knew a way to give it all back to her.

“these bags under your eyes are getting harder to hide by the day, do you even sleep anymore?”

the make-up noona scolds him sharply as she tries to fix his make-up ahead of some music show performance. normally, jaewon would probably have laughed at the comment, made some comment about for once it wasn’t a mark on his neck she was struggling to cover up but for once the amusement stayed out, only muttering a quick apology as she continued to layer concealers and powders and whatnot on him to make him look just a little less tired.

a little less unstable.

as of lately, sleep has begun to escape him again. while the nights technically only got longer, his only seem to get shorter. he wonders if it’s a seasonal thing, that for some forsaken reason whenever winter slowly creeps closer his sleep schedule seems to rapidly deteriorate, that he finds himself outside at 3 am more often when it’s cold enough for him to feel the chill all the way in his bones even hidden in a thick coat and scarf.

because it’s not the first time, losing sleep, counting the hours he should have spent asleep yet finding himself wide awake was not anything new to jaewon. but he had been doing better for a while, had gotten himself together more over the course of the summer, even with their hectic back to back comebacks he had managed to get all the sleep he could get.

but suddenly he isn’t anymore and he doesn’t even know why, that was the most frustrating part of it all. how was he going to fix something that he didn’t know what was wrong with to begin with?

it isn’t even that he isn’t tired, he’s absolutely exhausted, sitting here right now, laying in bed at night, at any given time he just feels tired to the point that he wonders what feeling wide awake felt like again, a vague distant memory he can’t quite grasp or recall.

but it’s not enough, it’s not enough to let him fall asleep until hours and hours later than planned after a lot of tossing and turning (or well, minimal tossing and turning before getting up not to disturb his boyfriend with his fussing) and it’s so frustrating. what he does need is for his mind to stop racing, for it all to come to a halt for just a moment so he can find some sort of tranquility but it doesn’t because there are constantly so many things that demand his attention about, that he has to worry and overthink or that he just feels like he should worry and overthink about and he’s so tired of how it never seems to stop.

he’s so tired of being tired.

“jeez why are you such an asshole lately.”

one of the members mutters under their breath during another late night practice and it causes jaewon to tense in his spot. he doesn’t even catch who it is that says it, doesn’t stop to rationalise that the comment is probably heavily reliant on the fact that they must be tired and annoyed,  it’s so late already and has only gotten later because jaewon insisted no one was leaving until they got a specific move down to perfection and maybe, they’ve been practicing later than usual because jaewon’s internal exhaustion clock of when it’s been enough doesn’t work anymore since his sleep schedules has decided to fuck him over.

no instead there is only a voice in the back of his mind reminding him that if one of the boys said it they’re probably all thinking it before going on to remind himself they’re not wrong for thinking it, that they’d be right to despise and resent him.

he calls for a short break, just a few minutes and promises that after that they’ll only go over the choreography a few more times and as he watches the members all slump down and reach for a bottle of water or a towel, he can’t help but think he was never made for this.

he was never made to be a leader.

it’s not the first time he finds his mind wandering to these thoughts. ever since unity had been formed, jaewon had doubted dimensions’ decision to make him the leader and it was an insecurity that has never faded throughout the years. if anything, it has only gotten worse. because now, two and a half years into unity’s career, he has so much proof, so many memories of times he has failed the group.

he may be good at telling them what to do, at keeping them in line and at following the companies every demand, push them through late night practice and drag them out of bed early in mornings to be on time for schedules, at telling them to grit their teeth and bite their tongue when they have to do things they’re not entirely behind, that jaewon isn’t entirely behind himself either.

but beyond that, what good does he really do?

there is no warmth to him, no compassion or encouragement or understanding or literally any of the traits a good leader is supposed to have. he’s this block of ice, he’s refusing to let them in or to open up to them, he’s incapable of relating and handling their emotions in a proper way, hell he can’t even handle his own.

he does more harm than good, he’s always done more harm than good.

the thoughts make it impossible to not feel like he’s too much in his own practice room, within his own group. it’s impossible to not feel like too much when he was literally taking up space he shouldn’t take up.

it is impossible not to feel like too much when he knows every person in the group would be better off without him.

one of the boys call his name and jaewon needs a moment to focus back on reality. it takes a few questioning looks thrown his way before he realizes they’re in fact still in practice, that they’re probably waiting for him to continue where they had left off.

as he pushes himself up from the floor, swallowing the bile resting in his throat, he tells himself it’s okay if they hate him, he hates himself too.

“you look miserable”

this time it’s not someone else pointing out what jaewon already long since knew, this time it’s his own mind reminding him of the fact.

and his mind is right because as he stares at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror, he can’t help but agree.

it’s the look in his eyes like his manager said, it’s the way his face looks more sunken than it usually does like his grandmother said, it’s the bags under his eyes like the make-up noona pointed out and he even can’t help but agree that with the seemingly permanent frown and his lips drawn together in a thin line, he kind of looks like an asshole like one of the boys pointed out during practice.

everything about him screams that he’s feeling like absolutely terrible and it’s not that that’s a groundbreaking revelation because he’s been aware of it for weeks now but it’s still a problem because it shouldn’t be so obvious, people shouldn’t be able to tell.

yes he can barely stand the sight of himself because he can barely stand himself as a person. yes, he’s losing sleep and weight because he’s too caught up in his own mind and the constant intrusive thoughts that fuel his self-hatred.

but none of that is supposed to be anyone else’s problem.

the truth is, jaewon doesn’t want to make it anyone else’s problem because it will just be the next thing on a long, long list that makes him more bothersome than anything else.

he’s not supposed to be a lot of things but he’s at least supposed to have his shit together, to be on top of things and to be able to stand on his own feet.

if he’s none of those things? what does that make him but a complete bother?

and the last thing jaewon wants is the be even more of a inconvenience than he already is.

so yes, he’s miserable, completely and utterly miserable but there is little concern on his mind about fixing that, he just wants to know how to cover it up.

because if it’s not anyone else’s problem, it’s not a problem at all.