#also this photo is making me realize how deathly pale i am

[pjharvey-moved]

this is my new tattoo btw i don’t rlly want to post my face on here anymore lolz but heres my arm

[parkandzhong]

Chensung--- Jisung's Fear of Dogs

Chenle first becomes Jisung’s self-proclaimed protector when Jisung is 7 and a 10 year old pushes him off of the monkey bars at the park. Jisung ends up with a sprained wrist and Chenle ends up being grounded for a few weeks. He manages to convince Jisung’s mom to let him go to the hospital with them, and while there Chenle tells Jisung that he’s going to be his protector for the rest of his life. He becomes Jisung’s helper in class, and Chenle proudly puffs out his chest and says “I’m going to protect you from everything scary for the rest of forever.”

Being Jisung’s self-proclaimed protector, Chenle realizes, is not as easy as his 8 year old self thought it would be. Jisung was never really subject to bullying, so Chenle thinks it’s going to be a piece of cake. What he doesn’t realize until a few years later, though, is that being Jisung’s protector takes a lot of work. Jisung’s scared of a lot of things, and usually ends up with his legs shaking and voice wavering as he tells Chenle about what’s spooking him.

Spiders, cockroaches, sudden noises, amusement park rides, and scary movies all make Jisung leap out of his seat in fear. Donghyuck once set Jisung’s ipod screen to a photo of a cockroach and Jisung screamed, fell out of his seat, and broke his ipod after throwing it to the ground in his panic. So Chenle sometimes wonders why he signed up for protecting Jisung from EVERYTHING he was afraid of. Most of Jisung’s fears don’t affect his daily life, and the fear is gone within a few minutes of him being startled. But there’s one fear Jisung’s had since he was a kid. Chenle isn’t quite sure what caused it, because it’s been around almost as long as they’ve been friends.

Jisung misses a few days of school once a few months into their new friendship. It’s the first time it happens and he shows back up with wide eyes, a quiet demeanor, and he’s very beaten up. There are scratches all over his legs, arms, and face and they’re accompanied by a littering of bruises and a few large bandages. Chenle has the sense to ask Jisung’s mom about it instead of Jisung himself, but she just tells him that it’s left Jisung shaken up and not to ask.

Chenle has a few guesses, because Jisung has a few things he refuses adamantly. Amusement parks are out of the question—the injuries would’ve been worse and Jisung most likely wasn’t at an amusement park on a Monday after school hours. It’s been 9 years, and Chenle still hasn’t asked Jisung what happened that day. Not when he asks Jisung’s mom when they’re 13 and she says it still affects him.

It isn’t until they’re at an animal shelter doing some volunteering that Chenle gets a pretty good idea as to what happened to Jisung when he was 6. It isn’t too noticeable at first, because Jisung has the tendency to hang around the cats. He startles occasionally when he gets distracted talking to Chenle and a cat bumps into his hand wanting to be pet. But he also takes a liking to the kittens, and he holds them in his lap a lot.

Jisung doesn’t mind the little dogs either, but it’s when a German Shepherd comes into the room that he startles and backs up against the wall. He eventually unsticks himself from the wall and tries to give Chenle a smile when he notices his staring. Then the dog barks in excitement at one of the other volunteers and Jisung flinches. Hard. Chenle meets his expression of surprise and instead of acknowledging what just happened, he just asks:

“Do you wanna go back to the cats? I think everyone has the dogs covered.”

And Jisung’s total relief at the question is glaringly obvious as he nods. A happy Border Collie bumps into his legs and Jisung almost screams. His hand clutches Chenle’s, and Chenle can feel him shaking and starting to panic as he leads him through the shelter to where the kittens are housed. Jisung remains on edge the entire time, and when they run into another large dog that they have to share an elevator with, Jisung’s hiding in the corner and his legs are shaking.

Jisung’s fear of big dogs isn’t exactly new. It’s one of the most long-term fears of his. Any time they see a big dog Jisung gets jumpy and he has the tendency to hide himself behind Chenle.

“Can I ask you something?” Chenle asks when they’ve reached his apartment and Jisung’s beginning to settle down.

“Um—”

“you don’t have to answer, I was just curious.”

Jisung agrees reluctantly.

“When we were kids and you showed up to school with all the bruises and band aids……what happened to you??”

“You…..you remember that?” Jisung asks weakly.

“Yeah, I’ve always been curious. You just….never talked about it.”

Jisung’s quiet for a long time, and then he sighs.

“I was playing in my neighborhood with my cousin. One of the neighbors had a big dog that they usually kept on a chain. Some kid who lived by me enjoyed pissing him off all the time and I guess he just got done with messing with the dog because he was walking away and the dog was barking really loud and trying to get to him. Me and my cousin were across the street and you could hear the chain snap. The dog had gotten so pissed he finally broke it and the kid started running away and he was trying to save himself from the dog so when he ran by me, he threw me down in his path.”

Chenle’s sitting in shocked silence at the audacity of the kid to throw Jisung in the way.

“The dog wasn’t on me for long. I don’t know what made him stop attacking me. I just remember screaming and crying as he tried to scratch me and rip my leg away. I was in the hospital for a couple of days, had to get some stitches and a little bit of surgery to make sure everything healed properly….big dogs just freak me out. I know it’s dumb because it happened so long ago, but big dogs still freak me out. I wish I wasn’t such a wimp about it but then I see a big dog and—”

“That’s a totally reasonable fear, nobody would judge you for being a wi—”

“I DON’T WANT TO BE SUCH A WIMP, OKAY?!? It sounds so fucking stupid having to tell someone that you’re deathly afraid of dogs bigger than a Corgi!! It’s a fucking joke!!”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, you asshole! If it’s bigger than a Corgi—”

“I don’t care how big the dog is. You really want to overcome your fear?”

“I’m tired of feeling like a moron when I have to tell people.”

“I can try to help….”

-

They go back to the shelter the next day, and Chenle tells Jisung to tap out as soon as he’s feeling too uncomfortable to continue. They spend some time with the kittens to get Jisung calm and then Chenle brings him into the room where the bigger dogs are kept. Jisung looks pale and nervous, wiping his hands on his jeans and taking a shuddering breath as they sit down. Chenle forces him to look him in the eyes and talk as if there’s no dog in the room. It takes Jisung 6 minutes to tap out of being in close proximity to a Boxer.

“You’re alright,” Chenle says encouragingly as they leave. “The dog didn’t even try to bother you.”

Jisung pauses for a moment and supposes that yeah, the dog didn’t go near them at all. But it doesn’t quell the anxiety when they come back 2 days later with a bigger, more friendly dog. It trots over to nuzzle at his lap and bumps his hand trying to get Jisung to pet it.

“He’s happy to see you,” Chenle says.

But Jisung’s too busy focusing on the teeth to move. His head snaps up when Chenle grabs his hand.

“We can either try to pet him, or we can leave,” he tells Jisung.

Jisung can see his hand shaking and Chenle’s fingers wrapped around his wrist. The dog whines and he stands up, the chair making a loud noise as he bolts out of the room and out of Chenle’s grip.

-

It takes 2 and a half months for Jisung to get acquainted with being in the same space as a big dog. He still gets uncomfortable if the dog’s too excitable and flinches slightly when one of them barks. Chenle sings and chats with him in a soothing voice the entire time and they always leave the situation if Jisung’s even a little freaked out.

The dog Jisung tends to run away from still seeks his affection, and he’s gotten better at enduring the nuzzling of the dog.

“He must really want you to pet him,” Chenle laughs softly 3 months into their project.

Jisung’s wide eyes meet his and Chenle’s face drops from the smile.

“You don’t have to, I just think it’s funny that he likes you a lot.”

“Force me to pet him,” Jisung says.

“Jisung, I’m not going to force—”

“Grab my hand and help me stop being such a wimp.”

Jisung stands up from his chair and holds out his arm. Chenle wraps his fingers cautiously around Jisung’s wrist. His stare feels like it’s burning into Jisung’s cheek, so he closes his eyes and leans back as far as possible.

“Make me pet him,” Jisung croaks.

Jisung jumps when Chenle moves his hand, and his breath hitches in his throat as he feels the tickle of the dog’s nose. His hand wavers and he can sense the dog beneath it, and then Chenle lowers it a little.

“You’re sure?” he asks.

“Um……yes.”

Jisung gulps and he flinches when the dog’s soft fur touches his fingers. He feels Chenle force him to run his hand across the dog’s back, feels the dog breathing beneath his hand. They’re both still for a minute, so Jisung opens his eyes and sees his hand resting on top of the dog. His chuckle is barely inaudible, but Chenle still catches it.

“I pet the dog,” Jisung says.

“You’re still petting him,” Chenle reminds him.

“I did it.”

“I know. I’m proud of you.”

-

It takes another month for Jisung to become more comfortable with the dogs, even if he just stands in the corner while Chenle gives them a bath. Even if he’s not totally cool with dogs and the excitable ones still make him anxious, Chenle’s helped him come a long way from the traumatized 6 year old he used to turn into. Whenever he tries to tell Chenle that he’ll never be able to repay him, Chenle just shakes his head and says, “there’s nothing to repay. You’re my best friend, it’s my job to make sure you’re happy.”

CHENSUNG ANON I AM IN TEARS THIS WAS SO CUTE WHAT DID YOU MEAN NOT A GOOD IDEA THIS IS THE SOFTEST SWEETEST THING I HAVE EVER READ

[scifrey]

I'm super pleased to announce that my satire novella THE DARK SIDE OF THE GLASS is returning to print as CITY BY NIGHT, published by Short Fuse. 

The Cover Reveal is on its way, but in the meantime, how would you like to read the first three chapters for free? They will be released one at a time on Wattpad this week, leading up to the October 6th publication date. And if you'll be at Con-Volution on October 7th, join us for the release party!

This is a story about Mary, number one fan of the hottest cult vampire detective TV show, City by Night...until it becomes all too real.

An accident with the Craft Services truck sends her hurtling into the world of the show, and Mary is thrilled--who wouldn't want to live alongside their favorite TV characters? Unfortunately, living in TV-land isn't all that Mary thought it would be. The charm fades when Mary realizes that the extras still don't speak, the matte paintings don't become real, and all the infuriating flaws in the writing are just amplified when you have to try to interact with the shallow characters. And then, of course, the lead character Richmond DuNoir falls for her!

Sure, fine, he's hot...but he's also a bit, well, poorly written. And his admiration comes with its own set of problems: Antonio, Richmond's psychotic stalker, has a habit of killing off the girls-of-the-week. Not only is Mary disillusioned with what she thought was a lush world until she had to try to maneuver in it, now she's about to be murdered by one of the stupidest clichés in the history of television in a world that, pardon the pun, totally sucks.

A loving satire of the Toronto film industry, vampire-cop television, and what it really means to be a "fan" from award-winning science fiction author J.M. Frey.

READ THE FREE PREVIEW ON WATTPAD | PREORDER THE NOVELLA ON AMAZON

Chapter One : Concerning Rabbit Holes and All That

When Mary comes to, she is lying face down in the grass beside the road.

Her first conscious thought, beyond Ow ow ow, is How long have I been lying here? Followed closely by Ouch and Am I really so unimportant that nobody has helped me? and Ouch and Where am I? Followed again by Ouch as she tries to get her hands under her shoulders and push herself onto her knees.

Rain has pooled in her upturned left ear. Her toes are frozen. Everything aches. Her head throbs. Her knees and her palms burn. Her left arm and left leg are bleeding, both from jagged gashes right above the joint that look way, way grosser than anything she's ever seen people sporting after a visit to the Effects Makeup trailer. There's grit in the long cut, and when Mary flexes her fingers, she can feel the sickening grind of grains of dust against her muscles. It feels disgusting, the way that frogs squashed by a little boy's shoe is disgusting, with that sort of oozing pop.

The Craft Services van that hit her is nowhere to be seen. The studio is gone, too, even though she was pretty sure she hadn't run that far. Something warm and salty stings her left eye.

She's on a street she doesn't recognize, at night, with streetlamps that only mostly work. They cast an amber glow over the glistening pavement, so perfectly moody that it looks like something out of a cinematographer's wet dream. There's grass between the sidewalk and the road, and it's wet from a storm that must have passed over her while she was unconscious, if her wet hair and ear are anything to go by. The air smells of...nothing.

Nothing at all. For reasons Mary can't fathom—reasons which make her heart beat faster, her shoulders ratchet up to her ears—this unnerves her. It's unnatural.

There's no one on the barren street. It's a strangely harmonious mix of residential and storefronts made out of the converted ground floors of houses, all dark and closed up for the night. There is, by some strange cosmic luck, or fate, or universal synergy, a phone booth less than a block away, on the corner. Mary hasn't seen a phone booth in years, but she doesn't own a cellular phone herself because she never wanted to be distracted at work. She hates her coworkers when they tap away with their thumbs, instead of paying attention to who is going in and out of the studio gate like they're being paid to do.

It takes Mary a few minutes to get upright. She is reminded unpleasantly of the cliché about the wounded gazelle on the Serengeti: weak and tottering, but too afraid of attracting the wrong attention to bleat for help. Her head throbs again, and then a very stupid realization bubbles up to the surface of her muzzy brain: she is alone.

Totally alone.

There is no one on the street. There doesn't even seem to be anyone in the houses. The Craft Services van driver, her boss, and her co-workers have all just abandoned her, left her for dead on the side of the road. Clearly, nobody came after her. Nobody even stopped to make sure she was alive, as far as she can tell.

That says a lot more about how they think of her than Mr. Geary's horrible insults about her scripts. The ungrateful...jerky jerks! Mary thinks, clutching at the gash on her arm.

She has given City By Night two goddamned years of her life. She just wants the show to love her in return. Is that so very much to ask?

Apparently, it is.

Anger fuels her enough to get her over to the phone booth, helps her exchange pain for momentum. Clutching at the scarred metal frame of the door to stay upright, she stares in stupid incomprehension at the coin slot for a second. Her left hand dips unconsciously into her empty pocket, which is its own sort of special agony. She nearly cries when she realizes she has no quarters. It takes her a few more fuzzy, swimming moments to realize she can probably make emergency calls for free. Hopeful, she fumbles up the handset and dials zero. The operator—female and far too perky for Mary's dark frame of mind—comes on and asks what she needs or where she would like to be connected. "I need help," Mary says into the handset. She can practically hear the operator frowning, because, duh, why else would she be talking to one? "I was...I think I was hit by a car. A van. Whatever."

"Holy sugar!" the operator says, all professionalism thrown out the window. Mary wonders if the operator calls her husband punkin. "Stay where you are, ma'am. We're tracing the call and an ambulance is on the way."

Mary winces; she's too young to be called "ma'am" just yet, and it's another dig at her self-esteem that she really does not need today. It's pretty thoroughly dug already.

"Thanks," she says, and lets the handset clatter out of her grip, relieved because it was pressing into her road burn. She slumps down the side of the phone booth to wait. She folds bruised elbows over bruised knees and rests her head back against the Plexiglass and tries to stay awake. She read that you're not supposed to go to sleep if you've hit your head, and she thinks getting smacked in the skull with a Craft Services van counts. The cord for the phone handset isn't long enough to reach all the way down to her ear, so she just lets it dangle, detachedly amused by the way the operator's voice is squawking out at her. She's pretty sure that she's probably in shock. She's also pretty sure that the fact that she's in shock isn't supposed to be funny, but she realizes belatedly that she's giggling all the same.

Hysteria makes Mary drift for a while. She's aware of closing her eyes, of replaying every time Crispin Okafor winked at her from the back seat of his car, the way she received the cast photo poster after the Season One wrap party, already signed with what she assumed at the time was a personal message. She thinks about how much she threw herself into the show, and how she's never seemed to notice or care that she has been bouncing off of brick walls.

It's a sucky thought. She stops giggling and lets herself be sad for a little while.

She might have even cried, but by then, her head is pounding and her whole body is like one stiff, hot rip. She thinks maybe the wetness on her face is tears, but it could also be rain, or blood; it's hard to keep track, especially when the liquid feels so warm, and her skin is getting so cold.

She wonders if she should be mad for a bit, just to change things up, keep her life interesting until the ambulance arrives, but she isn't sure whether she should be madder at the crew or herself for being so gullible. That spirals her back down into depressing aching sadness again, so she decides to stay there.

And somewhere in all of that, she thinks she sees Crispin Okafor. Crispin—the damnably beautiful lead actor who knows just the right way to smirk at a paparazzi camera, what angle he should hold his head and shoulders at—is sticking his face into the phone booth. He's dressed in his costume; that black leather jacket that Richmond DuNoir favors (whose style Mary has copied), in the signature red silk shirt that makes his smoky dark skin take on the depth of velvet, that fake look of honest concern.

"Miss?" he asks softly. "Miss, are you all right?"

"Fuck off, Crispin," she says back. At least she thinks she says it. It might come out just as a slur. Her mouth feels full of marbles and cotton now, and it's getting harder and harder to do anything as simple as moistening her lips. Of course, Mary very rarely swears, so it could be that, too.

She feels like this is an appropriate time to start, though.

"Miss, I think you're pretty badly hurt."

"Go away," she says, miserably. "You're the last person I want to see right now."

He startles visibly, dark eyes becoming dramatic white spots on his shadowed face. Overdone, she thinks. You're trying too hard to emote. Retake.

"You know me?" he asks.

"Seriously, I said go away."

He looks like he wants to argue with her, but cuts himself off, halted by the sudden approaching wail of sirens. The ambulance screeches to a halt beside her, washing the interior of the phone booth red and blue by turns, painting the already pale skin of her arms with deathly tints: blood-red and dead-flesh-blue and back to skin-colored before alternating again. Crispin is gone between flares, melting artistically into the darkness.

Mary's head starts throbbing worse in the flashing light, and she is pretty sure she's going to vomit any second now. She wishes Crispin had hung around long enough so she could do it on his goddamned shoes.

KEEP READING