#and it’s really fun when someone I haven’t known for super long gets it dead on

[horrorsequel]

Before I start a new piece of media one of my friends really likes I always like to ask them who they think my fav will be or who they think I will relate to most and it’s always so interesting cos if they’re right I feel Seen and if they’re Wrong I get insight in how they see me. It’s a win/win

[suzena]

Complete Dead Apple Explanation

Or: “The Ultimate Guide to Dead Apple”.

Warning: this is a long post! I’m not kidding, I worked on this for three months. There is a TL;DR at the end but it will only briefly cover the most important points.

I see posts about Dead Apple not being understood far too often and so I’m introducing: this explanation! I do want to preface this by saying that I can completely understand that this movie can be confusing. Or, as Fyodor said it:

But, as someone who has seen it many times, I’m here to shed some light on it! Hopefully after this post it’ll all make a bit more sense, and you’ll at least have different questions.

If you haven’t watched the movie yet and are wondering when to watch it, the story officially takes place between season two and three, though you’ll be able to watch season three with no issues if you haven’t watched the movie. Please do note that this post will contain light spoilers for the plot after season two, so don’t read it if you haven’t at least finished catching up to the anime.

I’ll try not to summarize the movie, but instead explain it. That means that this post does not replace the movie, but instead tries to elaborate upon it and tries to place it in the larger plot. Most of the early movie is therefore ignored, but please do not hesitate to ask if you have extra questions, comments, different interpretations or you want me to go into more detail about something. I may not know everything, but I’m always down to talk about this movie!

Alright, with all of that out of the way…

The Dragon Head Conflict

We’ll start at the beginning, which is to say, we’ll start at the prologue, which can be found as a permanent event in Mayoi (and also as a part of the Dead Apple manga). This is not technically needed to understand most of the movie, but it does give some context that will make it a little easier, since this is where it all starts. 

The Dragon Head Conflict, sometimes also translated as the Ryuuzu Conflict, is (as the movie states) the largest conflict in the history of Yokohama’s underworld. It took place six years ago, and originally was about five hundred billion yen an ability user left behind after they died, which various organizations were very interested in. It lasted for a total of 88 days, and involved conflict between eight different underworld organizations, including among others the Port Mafia, Gelhart Security Service/GSS (from Fifteen) and Takasekai (also from Fifteen).

Now as you can imagine, the government isn’t super stoked that gangs are shooting each other up all night and leaving corpses everywhere, to the point where the sidewalk is torn up from the bullet holes. To try to combat this, they thought that they could best fight fire with fire, and let a strong ability user from outside Yokohama settle this conflict all at once.

This new ability user, known as the “White Qilin”, unfortunately doesn’t really care about ending the conflict and kills other strong ability users left and right just for the fun of it, contrary to what the government had hoped he would do. Whether they are uninvolved parties or Port Mafia executives, it doesn’t matter to this guy. The White Qilin also ends up taking the money the conflict was originally about, but that doesn’t stop his murder spree. In this way, the White Qilin gains control over the entire conflict pretty fast, making him the main target to eliminate in order to put a stop to the killings.

Dazai approaches this problem similarly as to how he did during the conflict of Stormbringer, with a group of ability users to overpower the lone individual, but gets his plan twisted on him and gets kidnapped instead. Naturally, he predicted this outcome, leaving a hint for Chuuya where he left a transmitter for a tracking device so that Chuuya could come rescue him. 

This is then the first scene of the movie, where Dazai and Chuuya confront and defeat the White Qilin using Corruption, and the whole Dragon Head Conflict ends since the White Qilin is finally gone and all the money burned. This battle is so iconic in the underground circles that it gains them the name “Double Black”, or “Soukoku”.

A few small notes on the Dragon Head Conflict before we move on.

As can also be seen in the first scene of the movie, this is where Oda adopts all five of those kids you see during the Dark Age, which was also already stated in the Dark Age itself. 

“I heard all about it, Odasaku. You’re raising five kids, huh? And not only that, they’re orphans from the Dragon’s Head Conflict.” ―Dazai, Dark Age

Also, ever wondered why the Port Mafia is the only major criminal organization in Yokohama? There actually used to be five in total but four of them completely perished during the Dragon Head Conflict. Another reason why Dazai & Chuuya ending the conflict is so impressive, since because of that the Port Mafia is the only one to even survive it at all.

Shibusawho?

As you’ve probably guessed by now, the “White Qilin”, also named “the Collector” in Dead Apple itself, are both different names for our main antagonist: Shibusawa Tatsuhiko. The government had good reason to believe Shibusawa would be able to stand against the entire Yokohama underground and come out on top: his ability.

Shibusawa’s ability, Draconia, creates a fog around him, which separates other ability users from their own ability and makes non-ability users disappear as long as the fog persists. When surrounded by this fog, ability users are confronted with this version of their ability that is split from themselves. If an ability user is to die within this fog, their ability will be added to Draconia’s collection room.

There is decent evidence that it takes a while before the fog activates, so the effect isn’t immediate. This can be seen with Chuuya, who makes very short contact with the fog before he lifts up the building that he shoves in the Dragon’s mouth, but it’s seen even more clearly with Atsushi and Kyouka at the start of the movie. They spend a small while running around Yokohama wondering why everyone is gone before they’re finally confronted with their abilities.

To some extent the separated abilities represent the inner conflict in an ability user. This can of course be clearly found in Atsushi and his shaky connection to the tiger, or in Kyouka who has Demon Snow which is the last remnant of her parents but also murdered them in front of her. But the clearest example of this in the movie is actually Kunikida, since there is a visible change between him and his ability.

The notebook of Kunikida’s ability does not read its usual “理想” (ideals), but instead now says “妥協” (compromise). For Kunikida, a person so tied to his ideals, this version of his ability is an “abomination” (his words, not mine), and thus a source of inner conflict, since it represents a side of Kunikida that he carries within him.

“A copy of himself that didn’t follow ideals but made compromises was an abomination to Kunikida.”―Dead Apple (light novel)

If ability users manage to defeat their abilities in a physical fight, and then also accept these parts of themselves for what they represent, they will regain their ability. For example, Atsushi does not immediately regain his ability after defeating the tiger because he does not completely accept that the tiger represents that he has killed a person. For Atsushi, a person who connects his entire reason of living to saving other people, this is nearly irreconcilable. The only reason he probably is able to get over it in the end is that the person he killed was actively torturing and trying to kill him, so Atsushi had to kill to survive.

Shibusawa, then, is dead. Chronologically, his murder is the earliest you see of him. Fyodor has told Shibusawa that Atsushi contains something that “guides the envy of all ability users”, so Shibusawa, who feels like he is missing something, seeks to take this by any means. This doesn’t work out too hot for him, and Atsushi kills him.

Now a fun thing happens. Since Shibusawa is the center of the fog at all times, so to speak, and he’s the keeper of the abilities that die in his fog, his ability is separated from himself and lives on, nearly indistinguishable from his original body. Only one downside to this: he completely loses his memories.

I can only assume the government steps in at this point to take this strong ability user in his vulnerable state, and then have him solve the Dragon Head Conflict not long after. He most likely also survived Chuuya’s Corruption by being an ability, and having ability crystals in his collection to fall back on and recover, as he also does in Dead Apple. However, all of that is just pure speculation.

After the Dragon Head Conflict, Shibusawa spends some years abroad, casually killing thousands of ability users for the same reason as during the Dragon Head Conflict: just playing around and trying to fill that hole of something that is missing inside of him. The Japanese government mostly does a spectacular and spectacularly unethical job of cleaning up after him, since they learned nothing from the Dragon Head Conflict and still think that they can control him to protect Japan should it ever be invaded by foreign ability users.

Eventually, when the timing is right, Shibusawa gets invited back to Japan by Dazai. At the same time he is told by Fyodor (can you see the manipulation happening on both sides?) that Dazai’s ability is the ultimate ability that will finally complete him, and so Shibusawa eagerly comes to Yokohama. 

From here on out, as far as Shibusawa is concerned, it’s just a matter of covering the entire city in fog, killing Dazai and then taking his ability. Since Dazai cancels the fog itself with his ability, Shibusawa does need to kill him first, since the fog will work just fine on a corpse. Unfortunately, Shibusawa, however smart he is, is not in control of the plot in this movie. That control is left entirely to the combination of Dazai and Fyodor.

Intermezzo: Singularity Crash Course

Let’s do a lightning quick crash course on singularities before continuing, because you’re going to need that to understand what is happening in the next part. While Stormbringer was released after Dead Apple, I’m still going to be leaning heavily on and paraphrasing the information provided in that novel since it gives a really nice overview.

Abilities are bound to rules, just like everything else. No organisms other than humans, such as plants or monkeys, can possess an ability. Each human can only have a single ability, and when they die the ability disappears with them. Finally, there is a limit to the strength of any such ability.

But what if you wanted to go beyond that limit? What if you wanted to play with the natural laws of this world? What if you wanted to get really silly with it? Well, in that case, you can try your best at creating a singularity.

Singularities are defined as “the interaction of multiple abilities that develops into a higher-level phenomenon different from the original abilities”. This mostly exhibits itself in a massive release of energy, but rarely there are semi-stable versions of them. Singularities aren’t bound to conventional rules, and can be much more powerful for that exact reason.

As for creating singularities, there are two defined ways. The most reliable method is to have two contradicting abilities clash with each other. This leads to fun mental exercises, think “unstoppable force meets immovable object”, or, two ability users who can both see a few seconds into the future fighting to the death (sound familiar?). As a second method, an ability can also contradict itself, essentially causing the same result, but it’s a lot more finicky.

“Dead Apple”

The latter part of the movie revolves around exactly the creation of such a singularity, as all planned out by Fyodor, and accurately anticipated by Dazai. Let’s lay out all the layers of this.

Shibusawa is after Dazai’s ability. Meanwhile, Dazai is trying to stop the fog to save Yokohama. As for Fyodor, we’ll get to him in a second.

Dazai “teams up” with Fyodor and betrays Shibusawa to put a stop to the fog. The idea of this is that Fyodor combines two abilities from Shibusawa’s collection, which Dazai can’t do himself without canceling them: the ability to pull abilities in a surrounding area close, and the ability to merge abilities together. When these two are merged, together they create an ability that will absorb Shibusawa’s entire collection, and then Dazai only has to touch this ability to effectively get rid of Shibusawa’s power source.

There is a specific reason why it has to happen like this, and Dazai just touching Shibusawa isn’t quite enough. Let’s mentally walk through the process if Dazai were to touch Shibusawa. The fog disappears for a bit (and Shibusawa with it, most likely), but Shibusawa now knows Dazai’s intentions. Fyodor will take Shibusawa’s side and now Dazai is at a large disadvantage. Ultimately, it doesn’t even solve the problem. We know from the Dragon Head Conflict that just destroying Shibusawa’s body is most likely not enough, and he will be able to resummon the fog (and his body) with time and energy. The problem needs to be cut off at the root, the ability crystals.

Unfortunately, Fyodor didn’t really team up with Dazai, instead choosing to team up with Shibusawa in order to get rid of Dazai. This is then where Shibusawa gets to kill Dazai, and discovers that wait, Dazai’s ability may not be what he’s seeking after all. However, the abilities are already merged, and Dazai’s ability joins them. This combines “the ability to merge” with “the ability to nullify”, which don’t exactly mix well. Does Dazai’s ability become part of the other ability? Does his ability nullify the merging ability before that can happen? It’s already part of it, but at the same time the merging can never happen. It’s contradictory, and thus a singularity is born.

Fyodor, meanwhile, hasn’t quite had his fill of betrayal yet, and decides to remind Shibusawa of what he is by killing him, reminding Shibusawa of his earlier death by Atsushi’s paw. All of this, killing Dazai and using his ability to create a singularity, having that power from the singularity then go into Shibusawa to create the Dragon, all of that was part of Fyodor’s plan. Shibusawa is only able to cover an entire city with fog because of the large amount of ability crystals he has collected, and so with enough power (like from a singularity) he can cover the entire world in this fog. Up until this point, neither Fyodor nor Shibusawa have seen a single ability user survive the fog, and thus it is the perfect method for getting rid of all ability users in the world, which does seem to be Fyodor’s end goal.

However, Chuuya swoops in and defeats the Dragon. Dazai was well prepared and had the antidote to the poison he was killed with hidden in his mouth, so he is alive and well again. That means that Dazai has his ability back and it cancels out the singularity space they both are in. It doesn’t completely get rid of the Dragon however, as some energy still lingers around the tower. 

Fyodor is still on the scene, and uses a part of the merging crystal that he saved which was used earlier to create the singularity to merge Shibusawa with the singularity, giving Shibusawa a very anime transformation into his final form.

At this point, as a result of Shibusawa’s transformation, the fog turns red. If this red fog then covers the entire planet as Fyodor is hoping, and you were to watch it from space, it would look just like a poisonous red apple. The name of the movie therefore refers to this plan of using Shibusawa to rid the world of ability users.

This idea of poisonous apples in this movie comes from two different sources. From Fyodor’s side, it is referring to the apple Eve ate in the Bible, the original sin. For Fyodor, there is poetic irony in this: the world will end with the same sin as it began with. The crime is the punishment. On Dazai’s side, it refers to Snow White, who bit the poison apple and died (temporarily). He already talks about this to Oda when he is sixteen, vaguely implying he knew all of this was coming as soon as he met Shibusawa during the Dragon Head Conflict. Since Fyodor was already around at that time and also had a hand in enabling Shibusawa originally, this may indeed be planned out this far in advance, but it’s always hard to tell with these guys.

Then the kids take over the fight for the rest of the movie, and Atsushi, Akutagawa and Kyouka work together to defeat Shibusawa’s final form in the form of a long, epic final fight. Shibusawa is finally defeated and it all ends happily ever after. 

The End.

Byakko VS The Dragon

…Or is it? You thought we covered the entire basic layer of the movie, so we’re done now, right? Think again! This is only where things start to become really interesting. Please note that this section will take some ideas that were already pointed out by other people, and build on those.

When looking at lore relevance of characters, Atsushi may not immediately spring to mind as one of the most important ones. Sure, he’s the protagonist of the main manga, but in comparison to the mystery surrounding Dazai or Fyodor he fades a little into the background.

Even in this post, an explanation about a movie that’s basically about Atsushi, I’m able to explain the basics of the movie without mentioning him much at all. And yet, the movie’s core conflict is not between Shibusawa, Dazai and Fyodor, but between Shibusawa and Atsushi.

While there isn’t a lot of information given about Shibusawa’s and Atsushi’s connection, what we do get is very interesting. Shibusawa is consistently referred to as a Dragon during Dead Apple, and while subtitles usually translate everything as “tiger”, Atsushi’s tiger is actually referred to as “Byakko” half of the time. 

Now what is the difference between any good ol’ normal tiger and the Byakko, I hear you ask. The Byakko is much more than an ordinary tiger, since it is part of the 四神 (shijin/ shishin), the Four Guardians of the Four Compass Directions, which the Dragon is also a part of. What you essentially need to know from this is that the Byakko belongs to the same group of creatures as the Dragon, and that this solidifies Shibusawa’s status as Atsushi’s foil in this movie.

It also allows us to make a direct comparison between Shibusawa and Atsushi. The thing is, I have been lying to you a little bit. So far, I’ve been calling the Dragon a singularity. The truth is, it may not be. I know, I know, if it’s not a singularity, then what was that whole Dragon thing about?

Fyodor actually specifically tells us that the Dragon isn’t a singularity, but instead it’s “the true form of the chaos born from abilities”. (Note here that the Dead Apple light novel talks about Fyodor as if he is “reciting some Oracle”. Did Fyodor get this information from someone else?) Is this related to why Fyodor wants abilities gone from this world? Is there another layer to abilities and other creatures that BSD hasn’t even touched upon (think Lovecraft)? It’s hard to say at this point. All we can say is that the Dragon gets referred to as something else, and… that the Dragon is similar to the Byakko.

The tiger ability we see that got separated from Atsushi in the movie actually doesn’t follow the rules the other abilities do. It has a clearly defined face, and the red gem is not on its forehead. The gem found on the ability tiger is also red, which is in line with the other extracted abilities we see, but what gets extracted from Atsushi by Shibusawa is this blue cube. The weirdness continues in the flashback we see of Atsushi being tortured by Shibusawa. 

We see Atsushi’s ability leave him, but then in a flash of self protection instinct, he partially transforms into the tiger, claws and all, while the blue gem is outside of his body. Earlier in the movie it is shown that if an ability is extracted from an ability user, they no longer have access to the powers of that ability. Then how is Atsushi able to use his tiger abilities here? 

Granted, there is a bit of conflicting information within the movie about this, since during the final fight with Shibusawa this blue cube is once again extracted from Atsushi, but now he does lose his tiger powers. Could he resummon the tiger while not in possession of the cube if the situation is dire enough? Is this just a psychological thing because Atsushi is aware of it this time? Who can say. At any rate, this blue cube is connected deeply with Atsushi, but the clues given imply that it may not be the Byakko itself.

“That’s not an ability! That is me!”―Atsushi, reaching out to the blue cube in Dead Apple

To be honest, the movie does very little in explaining anything around Atsushi, instead raising more questions than answers. For that exact reason, the rest of this section will mostly be speculation about one possible angle on Atsushi’s ability that personally makes sense to me, but of course this is only one potential theory.

I do also want to add here that Atsushi personally goes through an arc in this movie from seeing the tiger as something separate to something that is intrinsically part of him. This can also be a reason for this final exclamation of “that’s me!” when he reaches out to the blue cube, but it doesn’t explain everything, which is why we explore an alternate possibility here.

My take on it is that the Byakko and this blue gem that get extracted from Atsushi are not the same thing. With the side note here being that they are probably deeply connected, but not the same regardless. 

My reasoning for this is that everything Atsushi-related you see in Dead Apple makes a little more sense when you consider the Byakko and the blue cube as two separate entities. The Byakko’s gem is red, the cube is blue. The Byakko is framed as something separate from Atsushi, while he claims the cube is not an ability but he himself. Atsushi had access to the Byakko while the blue cube was outside of him. Shibusawa even makes a point of mentioning that the orphanage director, who correctly thought Atsushi was the tiger, had the wrong idea about Atsushi’s ability. The Byakko is definitely Atsushi��s ability, but this blue cube is… something else. 

And yet, the tiger is also deeply connected to whatever this blue gem is. Currently, one theory that makes sense to me is that the tiger is an ability that can be passed on, just like Demon Snow, that has the specific task of protecting the power of this blue gem. So, a two in one deal. Atsushi also gets referred to as “the one holding the Byakko ability” by Ivan, which would be in line with the Byakko being an ability that can be passed on as needed. Shibusawa makes a similar statement, calling Atsushi “the one clad in the Byakko”. Atsushi also has issues controlling his ability before joining the ADA, just like Kyouka and Tsujimura, who both also inherited their abilities. I would love to further speculate on this, but there is so little information on anything relating to this, so anything further would be completely baseless.

However, there is one more different clue given to us by the movie. Namely, what this comparison to the Dragon means for Atsushi as the one holding the Byakko.

Almost in the same breath as Shibusawa is recounting Fyodor’s words about the Dragon being the chaos of all abilities, the holder of the Byakko also gets its own description about its true form: the one opposing all abilities.

This relates to what the blue cube may really be. What Atsushi does to Shibusawa in his final moments is what I essentially believe to be this blue cube’s true power: it completely unravels an ability. The blue power eats up everything supernatural about Shibusawa until only his natural skull is left.

If you think this sounds familiar, it kind of does! I cannot ignore the similarity to Dazai here, though I do have to point out that Dazai can only cancel out an ability, and this blue cube power seems to… completely erase the ability itself, leaving no trace of it. The similarity to Dazai is further found the moment Dazai dies and his ability leaves his body. At first, his ability is white and vaguely similar to the blue cube before deciding that nope, this is just barely not it.

I have a hard time connecting this to anything larger simply because the series does not give a lot of clues on this subject. How did abilities come to be? How is the Book related to that, since it is not an ability or borne from an ability? And how does Atsushi factor into this? 

Shibusawa has been led to Atsushi since he believed Atsushi would grant him something special, something he had been looking for all this time. “That which every ability user desires.” 

This is actually a familiar story! This is not the first time Fyodor has led someone to Atsushi with the premise that he would be able to lead them to what they were seeking. The first two seasons of the anime follow that specific idea, of Fitzgerald wanting Atsushi so he can lead him to the Book.

The tiger as the guide to the Book is something emphasized again and again. While in English it gets translated as “guide”, the original manga panel said “道標（タイガービートル）”, or, “guidepost (pronounced: tiger beetle, in English)”. While this is partially just a funny pun, it also once again points to the tiger specifically as a guide.

It did leave me to wonder about the absence of a certain scene in the series. Fyodor has been sending other people to Atsushi for the entire length of the series, but has never interacted with Atsushi himself. For someone who claims to be looking for the Book, and knows that Atsushi is somehow the guide to the Book, isn’t that a bit weird? Is there a reason Fyodor won’t interact with Atsushi himself? Fyodor knew about Atsushi way before he joined the ADA, so it’s not like Dazai is particularly standing in the way here.

Regardless, this factor that makes Atsushi so special may very well be this blue cube. How does the power to completely undo abilities lead to the Book? Who knows. We simply do not know enough about the Book or the origin of abilities to say more about this. Maybe the true power of the blue cube is something else entirely.

What does all of this mean? Where will it all lead? Only the future (Asagiri) can tell.

The Unexplained and Weird

Welcome to the section I’d fondly refer to as “a collection of things I have no explanation for”. There is plenty of that in this movie, but I do want to touch upon them since not being explainable as of currently does not necessarily mean that they aren’t important in the future. Also, not having an explanation for these things is driving me insane and I need to share in my suffering. Let’s go! :)

Let’s get the big thing out of the way first.

Mukurotoride, my friend, my enemy. For those unaware, Mukurotoride is the name of the large black tower that Shibusawa, Dazai and Fyodor were chilling in for most of the movie. The name gets translated as “Skull Fortress”, but the kanji used gives the name more of a “Dead Man’s Castle” feeling, since it refers to a person long since dead more than a skull. My problem with this tower is as follows: it doesn’t make any sense. Whatsoever.

Why is it there? Fifteen establishes it’s there seven years before the current timeline, so a year before Shibusawa dies. I would’ve accepted it if the tower was a weird side effect of Shibusawa dying or something, but the current facts point towards this tower not having anything to do with Shibusawa at all. It’s also very decayed. How long has it been there? Who put it there? Is it relevant that it’s right next to Suribachi? Or in the Yokohama foreign settlement? (Side note: foreign settlements have not been a thing since 1899. What’s up with Yokohama having a foreign settlement?) No one seems to know anything about this tower, not even in the Japanese community. And then in-universe, everyone also seems okay with this wildly out-of-place tower that looks like it’s made out of human bones being there in the middle of the city? It’s giving me Sky Casino vibes.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, we can talk about Fyodor’s ability.

I want to start this part by explaining my personal stance on the current Fyodor theories, since it influences how I talk about what is shown of his ability in Dead Apple. There are a bunch of theories about Fyodor having an insta-kill ability that only works on non-ability users. Personally, I don’t subscribe to this theory, and I have multiple reasons for this.

First, I don’t think we’ve ever seen Fyodor’s ability being used. At the end of Cannibalism a cop dies as soon as he touches Fyodor. In the manga abilities don’t have a special shine effect, but in the anime they do. However, in the anime there was no ability-shine here.

A stronger argument, perhaps, is that this happens right in front of Dazai, and Dazai immediately afterwards says he has no clue what Fyodor’s ability could be. He could be lying, of course, but since this is a common enemy he shares with Fitzgerald, who is the one asking him about Fyodor’s ability, I don’t see any reason for him to do so here. The whole murder reads a little bit like Fyodor just putting on a show for Dazai.

Finally, from a narrative viewpoint, killing with a touch is a little… useless? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’s convenient, I guess, when you’re a terrorist who seeks to exterminate part of the global population. But there are many ways to kill a person, and Fyodor has shown time after time that he doesn’t need to rely on an ability to murder people.

The strongest argument for the insta-kill ability in my opinion is Fyodor himself saying “this is my true ability” before killing that kid who was enslaved by Ace. However, this may also be part of something else that is going on with Fyodor, in a way that is perhaps very similar to Atsushi.

Alright. Whether you agree with that or not is up to you. To get back to the movie, there are a few interesting clues provided about Fyodor’s ability.

The first is of course Fyodor’s iconic line when his ability shows up on screen: “Crime and Punishment are close friends.” Everything he says after that point is already referring to Shibusawa again, so this is the only clue he himself is willing to offer up. If we consider that the abilities that get split from their users represent inner conflict, all he is saying here is that he apparently has no inner conflict. Does he know something else about the world? Does he just know who he is? Honestly, I don’t think we’ll get anywhere talking about Fyodor’s mental state.

Then there is the “I am Crime”, spoken by Fyodor holding the skull, and “I am Punishment”, spoken by his ability holding the apple. This one is slightly more straightforward. The ability user being the crime, and the ability the punishment. I’m not 100% sure if this is actually referring to Fyodor himself, or if it’s just about Shibusawa again. The skull (Shibusawa, an ability user) being the crime, and then the apple (covering the world with fog through Shibusawa’s ability, thus punishing ability users) being the punishment makes sense when viewed like this, but it could be that Fyodor is somehow also referring to himself during these lines.

Okay, if Fyodor is apparently not willing to open up, we can gather some more info just from what we can see instead of what we’re told. Most of what this part covers is taken from these excellent posts, but I’ll summarize it here for the sake of completion. Fyodor’s ability looks different compared to most other abilities. Most of the abilities shown in the movie have a blank face without any features, and have their gem on their forehead. The exception to that first part, interestingly enough, is Elise, Mori’s ability. This is most likely because she has physical form as an ability to begin with. Which then raises the question: does Fyodor’s ability also have a physical form outside of the fog? His ability looks identical, so that would imply some sort of clone ability. Next to this, Fyodor’s epithet is “The Conjurer”, which would be in line with him being able to create another copy of himself. (Though I should add here that the Japanese seems to just refer to him as “魔神”, which can be any type of evil spirit. However, if I’m not mistaken, the “Conjurer” should be from the official translation, but let me know if I’m mistaken on that.)

Finally, there is the position of the gem on Fyodor’s ability. Nearly all other abilities have their gem on their forehead, but for some reason Fyodor’s ability has his on his hand. The only other ability that has its gem not on its forehead is… the Byakko. I don’t have an explanation for this one, but the weirdness should be pointed out, since it’s another way in which Fyodor’s ability deviates from the others.

Next to the above, there are two other weird details I want to quickly touch upon.

First, the knives in the apples in the dish in Mukuroride, as well as the apples with a knife in them in general, as they are the theme of this movie. I believe this to be of a more metaphorical touch, so we won’t read too much into it, but it does have physical consequences that tie back to the title as well.

This exact shot is used four times throughout the movie, but with a varying amount of knives stuck in the apples. It starts with one, then two, then three. The room starts with just Dazai, then Shibusawa enters, then Fyodor. With each of them showing up, another knife appears in an apple. This is then a metaphor for these three being the instigators behind the Dead Apple incident. These knives in the apples can also be seen as their calling cards, as they were left both at the bar and at the scene of the crime where that agent was killed who was supposed to meet with Kunikida and Tanizaki. 

In a later scene, it cuts again to this frame, but a knife and the skull has disappeared. These both get taken by Fyodor. The knife is used eventually to kill Shibusawa, but Shibusawa also took one of these knives to kill Dazai with. Either way, these knives that have been in these apples are used to murder, once again corroborating the connection between death and apples.

And finally, the relevance of the moon. 

There are a few impressive shots of the moon in Dead Apple, where the moon is shown to be enormous, to the point where even the light novel points out how extraordinarily large it is. The novel also points out that the blue cube crystal holds a similarity to the moonlight. Just symbolism to show that it’s connected to Atsushi, or something more? The other side of the page in the main series will also only be written on the night… of the next full moon.

The Point of It All

I hear a lot of “Dead Apple doesn’t matter to the plot, just watch it for the Soukoku scenes and move on”. And while I do agree that it’s not mandatory viewing to understand the storyline that corresponds with season three onwards, I do think there is more to Dead Apple than most people give it credit for.

I always like to ask myself after reading a book or watching a movie: “Okay, so what was the point of that? What was I meant to take away from this?”

For example, in essence Stormbringer is a case study on singularities. Likewise, BEAST is a study into the limits of the Book, and all other side stories similarly have a message, however big or small.

So what does Dead Apple establish? Why bother?

I hope by now you agree that Dead Apple seems to be the introduction to explaining more as to what is so special about Atsushi. This seems to go deeper into chapter 28/29 of the manga, or season 2 episode 8 of the anime, where Atsushi also has some weird things going on with the tiger. What this exactly is, or where this seems to be going is unclear for now, but the Dead Apple definitely emphasizes Atsushi’s importance as well as the concept that there can be something more than just abilities.

In-universe, there are also reasons for this conflict to happen.

Most likely both Dazai and Fyodor knew the end result long before the conflict ever started. It’s their reunion in a way, so I suppose they are both seeing how the other’s condition is at the moment. They may even have gathered some intel somehow? It’s almost like collecting metadata, they won’t have a direct conversation about important things, but they try to collect information just by seeing how the other acts, to see if the other lies within prediction.

Aside from that, on Dazai’s side, except for foiling Fyodor’s plan and keeping Yokohama safe, the Shin Soukoku dynamic also gets strengthened, something Dazai is actively working on. On Fyodor’s side, next to giving the whole “eliminating all ability users” a good honest shot, he also gets to collect a lot of intel on the opposing side. For example, Fyodor in Dead Apple gets to see Corruption up close, which may potentially be relevant.

Finally, from a storytelling perspective, it sets up a lot for the third season, especially in character interactions and relationships, e.g. Atsushi & Akutagawa, Dazai & Chuuya, Kyouka, Fukuzawa & Mori. It should be noted that some characters literally have been intentionally regressed to make the ending make more impact. Whether that was a good decision or not is not why I’m here. You should just know that it’s intentional. You could chalk it up to Atsushi losing his ability impacting him and his behavior a lot, if you wanted to justify it somehow. The Order of the Clock Tower also gets its first anime appearance, showing Agatha Christie on screen, who will most likely play a more important role later on. Likewise, Dead Apple is the introduction to Fyodor as a villain, where you get to see him for more than just a few flashes.

Trivia and Fun Details

I suppose this section is skippable. But who doesn’t love trivia? This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything included in this movie, but rather an overview of what I personally caught, understood and thought relevant to include.

The “Dragon Head” in the Dragon Head Conflict refers to a Qilin, which are said to have similar heads to dragons. Since the conflict centered around the White Qilin, this is where that name comes from.

At some point Akutagawa and Kyouka use a mafia code to refer to a passageway. The code “0505” refers back to Atsushi’s birthday.

The symbol ᛟ found on the outfits of the Mukurotoride squad refers to inheritage, since Shibusawa inherited his own ability. More information about that here.

Dazai at some point meows at Fyodor. This is a very sassy way of telling Fyodor that he will personally eradicate all of Fyodor’s rats in Yokohama, including Fyodor himself. (The light novel calls it a “tedious” meow. Lmao.)

The music from Dead Apple seems to be recycled in season three of the anime. I’m guessing to save on budget?

Atsushi’s door that he eventually opens to unlock his hidden memories has its own music motif that shows up every time he thinks about Shibusawa, the fog or his memories associated with killing him. Try to pay attention to this, it’s really cool.

The motif of the door is also a tune that sounds a lot like the track named Dead Apple, further showing Atsushi’s relevance in his movie.

The lyrics of the soundtrack tell their own story. When the Dead Apple plot first takes off and Dazai is at bar Lupin, a song called My Prince plays telling of Snow White who is sleeping and waiting for her prince. However, it seems to be a spin on the classic, where indeed Snow White chose to knowingly bite the apple knowing it was poisoned, in much the same way as Dazai knew he was going to be poisoned in Dead Apple. Le Cheval Noir tells of how bored the singer is, and how nothing is special to them anymore. This plays during the scene where Dazai talks to Shibusawa, showing Shibusawa’s apathy towards everything. Mein Prinz, the song that plays as Dazai gets backstabbed, is nearly exactly the same song as My Prince, but now more dramatic and in German. This is a clue that Dazai saw this coming from before the Dead Apple conflict even started, and it’s now up to Chuuya again to save him. Overall, Dazai is leaning into the Snow White aesthetic hard in Dead Apple.

And finally, a list of everything the light novel insists refers to the theme of poisonous red apples: the red apples with the knives in them, apple suicide, the merged abilities producing a red sphere, the singularity that results from that in all its forms and the planet covered in red fog. If it’s red and spherical, you can just assume it should represent a deathly apple.

TD;DR

Recapped extremely briefly:

The Dragon Head Conflict introduces Shibusawa as a villain who was kept by the government but went off the rails. Shibusawa’s ability is a fog that splits ability users from their abilities. If ability users die, Shibusawa obtains their ability. Shibusawa died and inherited his own ability, also causing him to lose his memory. Therefore he wants to obtain Dazai's ability in order to gain what he feels he lacks. Dazai betrays Shibusawa together with Fyodor by combining abilities. However, Shibusawa kills Dazai first, adding Dazai's ability to the merged abilities creating a singularity. Fyodor kills Shibusawa, causing him to regain his memory of being previously killed by Atsushi. A dragon is created and defeated, and Fyodor's plan is revealed to be the covering of the entire planet in Shibusawa's fog, killing all ability users. This plan is foiled, but Atsushi is shown to have potentially another power next to his ability (the tiger). This power is possibly the ability to completely unravel abilities, and may be what makes Atsushi the guide to the Book. Mukurotoride is completely left unexplained in the movie, but there are clues given about Fyodor's ability that point away from an insta-kill ability, and more towards a clone type ability.

[cynicalmusings]

hi hi, r! hope ur doing well after that cyno rampage hehe. for ur ask game, cld u do 19, 39, and/or 40??

(ask game questions)

19. tell me a story about your writing journey. when did you start? why did you start? were there bumps along the way? where are you now and where are you going?

well, i’ve been writing for quite a while. not necessarily fanfiction, but when i was younger, i started writing (and never finished, of course) a bunch of stories, made ocs (whether it was for fandoms or just my own characters) and all that. 

i can’t really pin down an exact date or age, but the main reason i started writing because it was… fun, i guess. i’m a big sucker when it comes to fiction, especially novels, and i probably decided to start writing because hey, if all these authors can write awesome novels, why can’t i?

there haven’t been too many bumps along the way, or at least not any super significant ones, but a problem i definitely struggle with that keeps my writing from getting done is writer’s block and a hell of a lot of procrastination, as well as the tendency to give up midway through projects; basically, a lack of productivity.

regarding where i am now, well… you can all see that right here. i’m on tumblr, writing fanfiction, because why not? i’m also working on a few original and non-fanfiction-oriented stories in the background, but the progress is… slow, to say the least, mainly for the reasons given above. my aim is that at some point in the future i’ll have a few novels published; i don’t want to necessarily get too well-known, but it would be nice to have some of my work that i’m happy with out there for others to read (and hopefully enjoy, but who knows?).

39. what keeps you writing when you feel like giving up?

well, usually i take a break from whatever it is that i feel like giving up on, and then grit my teeth, get back to work, and think, ‘if i don’t get this damn thing written, nobody else is writing it for me, so i may as well give it a shot, and if it ends up terrible, too bad, and i can always retry it some other time.’

because at the end of the day, especially when it comes to original works, you’re often the only one writing it, and you can’t wait for someone else to write it and then just read the finished product. another thing that helps is imagining what you’re writing as finished and the satisfaction you’ll get looking through the whole thing and knowing, ‘hey, i did this. that’s pretty cool.’

40. please share a poem with me, i need it.

see, i’m not that big a poetry person, so finding one was quite the struggle. eventually i went ‘screw it’, so here’s one of my favourite speeches from the 12th doctor instead:

“hey! i’m going to be dead in a few hours, so before i go, let's have this out. you and me, once and for all. winning? is that what you think it’s about? i’m not trying to win. i’m not doing this because i want to beat someone, or because i hate someone, or because i want to blame someone. it’s not because it’s fun. god knows it’s not because it's easy. it’s not even because it works, because it hardly ever does. i do what i do because it's right! because it's decent! and above all, it's kind! it’s just that. just kind. if i run away today, good people will die. if i stand and fight, some of them might live— maybe not many, maybe not for long. hey, maybe there’s no point in any of this at all, but it's the best i can do. so i’m going to do it, and i will stand here doing it until it kills me. you're going to die, too, someday. when will that be? have you thought about it? what would you die for? who i am is where i stand. where i stand is where i fall. stand with me. these people are terrified. maybe we can help a little. why not, just at the end, just be kind?”

[mynameisjeffers]

14/11/2022

        Sweet Jesus it’s time for my once a year blog post lmao. I’m currently sat at HOME in Bristol, listening to Sincerity is Scary, by The 1975. Eli is next to me, I think they’re watching some crappy Dwayne Johnson film on Netflix.

        Trying to think about what’s happened since my last post, an awful lot of everything with a whole load of nothing thrown in too! I’m still at uni, though I’m in the middle of repeating a year. I got behind with my work, missed some important deadlines. I managed to get extensions but surprise surprise I missed those too, so I’ve had to repeat a year. I’ll now be 31 when I graduate, I started studying at 26 for Christ sake! 

        Last year, as part of an assignment, I was part of a small group that made a short film. We were given scripts by students that had graduated, and had to shoot it. The script we got was cool. It was about a date that was actually a set up by the Protagonist, she knew that the Antagonist was a murderer and overall scumbag. We shot the film at my pub, The Kings Head, which was super stressful. Ideally when shooting a film, the set needs to be deathly silent, but that meant filming at like 11:30, earliest. Which would then keep the managers there suuuuper late... So we went with what we could. So timing was an issue. Then there was the over-inflated ego’s of the Producer and Director. I thought I had a really good relationship with the Director, he was on all of my modules and we always had good fun, but the role just went to his head. He thought he knew best and didn’t want to take any sort of input from ANYONE, even though it was a GROUP project. It resulted in the film being rushed, and scenes being chopped together with no real fluidity. It’s displayed in the final edit too, someone will be sat down in one shot, stood up in the next, then sat down again? It was all just a mess. However, when the Director sent me the edited video, for me to then edit the sound files and marry them up, once completed I did feel a sense of pride about it.  Yes it was disjointed and yes it was extremely amateur, but it was the first film I’ve ever been a part of making. I guess I do look back at it with some sense of joy..

        Another project I did during last year of uni was screenwriting, we were told to write a script for a short film OR pilot episode of a TV series. I opted for a pilot show, over the dozens of uni assignments I’ve completed now, this was easily my favourite. The inspiration for my script came from me thinking what is my worst case scenario of the next 10 years of my life. The resulting script ended up being quite dark, naturally, with a man who works a dead end job, having completed nothing with his life, relationships fallen apart and nothing going for him. But honestly, I was super proud of how it came out! It’s one of the few uni assignments I’ve ended up continuing after the deadline, I’m going to write the whole season out - 7 episodes - just for my own fun!

        What else has been going on... OOO I’ve been talking with a girl. It’s so weird, me and Nish were playing Apex with some randoms and she joined. We had a great night enjoying the fact we didn’t have an absolute toxic twat for a team mate, added each other on Discord and that was that! Then out of the blue a few weeks ago she messaged me asking if I still played. From then we haven’t stopped talking. It’s so strange but I feel such a connection to this person, someone who I’m yet to meet in real life, but I’ve felt I’ve known her for so long. After feeling invisible for so long I’m starting to feel seen, acknowledged again. I really REALLY hope this grows into something more man, she’s lowkey my dream girl tbh.

[soyellowcurtainsthen]

Hello! Could I please request a Gramblack Assassin AU for the ask game? 🙏🏻

Okay my friend, I’m sorry for the super long wait for this! It’s finally done and I’m posting it, can you believe!!

This was a fun prompt, and i hope my trash writing has been worth the wait (it probably hasn’t, but let’s not think about it)

Tagging @chordassinationtechnique because Megan must always be subjected to my garbage writing!

(Also content warning: for blood and knives, but like nothing is in great detail don’t worry)

Stakeouts are boring.

Yeah, they look fun in the movies where everything is shiny and glossed over and the protagonist is only sitting for a handful of minutes before the bad guy inevitably trips up and the action begins. In reality though, it’s hours upon hours of sitting in the cold and being bored out of your mind because unfortunately even criminals are allowed some downtime.

The job he’d had been hired on was pretty run of the mill. A small- time low-life drug dealer trying to make a name for himself, attracting the wrong kind of attention from the bigger players on his patch, and like clockwork he’d had been called in to clear house.

Gram had set up, on the rooftop across from his marks top floor apartment, and from his vantage point he could easily see the man moving around the small space. When he’d first got into this job he thought he would have to bare witness to all the different and horrible ways that humans could be cruel and twisted. He’d expected these men to spend their free time skinning puppies or something else as equally fucked up, turns out, a surprising amount of criminals spend their free time watching Netflix.

So yeah, stakeouts are boring, and it’s this fact alone that had allowed Gram to let his guard drop.

The only warning he got, before his head was smashed viscously into the wall beside him was the faint smell of cigarettes.

There’s blood running over his eyebrow from where his head had collided with the wall, but that’s the least of his worries as he feels the other persons weight settle along his back, keeping him locked in place, and the unmistakable feeling of a knife edge being placed firmly along the side of his neck.

“I mean, I knew you were shit at your job, but this is just pathetic” a low voice mocks in his ear.

“Who the fuck are you” Gram responds in as threatening a tone as he can manage, but he imagines it cant have the effect he wants it to while the blood continues to stream down the side of his face.

“Looks like you aren’t as subtle as you think you are. Our buddy down there, clocked you following him home. First rule of tailing someone, asshole! Don’t get caught.” His attacker punctuates his point by pressing the blade more firmly against the skin of Gram’s neck.

Sensing little options, Gram decides it’s probably wise to keep his mouth shut for the time being.

Lightning fast, and before Gram can even fully get his bearings, the knife is pulled away from his neck and he’s spun around to face his attacker. He almost breathes a sigh of relief when the blade is pulled away from his skin but it fades quickly when he realises that the knife is now being pressed against the skin above the waistband of his jeans and a hand takes up place at his throat instead.

He hadn’t really known what he expected the other man to look like, but what he absolutely wasn’t prepared for was the way his throat ran dry at the sight of the other man. The universe has a funny sense of humour Gram thinks, of course the man currently threatening to kill him would be unbelievably good-looking.

“He wants you dead, you know”

Gram feeling a moment of bravery, or rather stupidity, decides to call the other man’s bluff.

“ If you wanted me dead though, I already would be” He says, locking eyes with the other man. “True” the other man concedes, with a slight tilt of his head towards him. “So why haven’t you?” Gram questions. His attacker makes a point of slowly dragging his gaze down the lines of Grams body, hand tightening ever so slightly on his throat as he does so, before resuming eye contact. “Maybe I don’t think you’re an entirely lost cause” he replies “ and why is that?” The man doesn’t answer right away, instead choosing to loosen his grip on Gram’s throat, leaning in closer to the skin below his ear. Goosebumps explode across gram’s skin as he feels the the tip of the knife being dragged softly over the skin above the waist band of his jeans before slowly being pulled up up under his t-shirt and dragged slowly over the skin of his abs. Gram is really going to have to have a word with himself later about the way his back arches ever so slightly into the movement of the knife across his body.

“Oh, I’m sure we can think of some way, you can prove me right” the other man breathes into the skin of his neck.

Gram feels the knife move away from his skin, and he knows he should use this opportunity to make a break for it, but he’s too entranced currently with the man in front of him to do anything other than stay exactly where he is.

They move closer together until there is only a hair width of space between their lips, before a smirk breaks out across the other man’s face and Gram feels the cold press of a knife at the base of his skull.

The other man moves away from him quickly after that, a lock of gram’s distinctive silver hair in his hand.

“What are you doing” Gram asks

“Saving your life, dumbass” the other man says making his way towards the roof exit.

“Wait, what about what just happened” Gram asks, head spinning at the sudden turn of events

“Don’t worry, I’m not done with you yet” the other man smirks, before disappearing through the door.

It takes Gram all of five seconds to follow after him.

[wonjaekook]

One Minus One Plus One

Pairing: college student!Mark x college student!reader

Description: In all of the years you’ve known Jungwoo, you should have figured out to not take his words at face value because, though you haven’t even met, Mark Lee seems to hate your guts.

Word Count: 9.9k

Genre: kind-of-enemies to lovers! fluff? angst? humor? I honestly don’t know how to categorize this

Warnings: vaguely suggestive ending, some minor swearing

A/N: This is my (late) holiday gift for a friend and to you all, I suppose. It’s an enemies-to-lovers but not really, as they’re not really enemies and it’s more passive-aggressive!Mark and very confused!Y/N. To the intended - I love and appreciate you so much; thank you for always supporting me and listening to me ramble about even the most ridiculous ideas <3 If you ever need anything, I hope you know that you can always shoot me a text or DM! Please enjoy c:

Mark Lee is always sweet. It’s the kind of sweetness that’s warm and fulfilling, leaving a pleasant feeling in the pit of the stomach, like a steaming up of hot chocolate rather than a strikingly sweet popsicle. His nature isn’t something he particularly prides himself on, as it’s partially unintentional, driven by awkwardness and politeness at times, or by the compulsion to simply make people happy. Jungwoo has told him that he’s allowed to be a little more selfish once in a while, he’s allowed to say no and take breaks sometimes. Except, he’s ever the people pleaser, ever the hard worker, ever the yes-man. Mark Lee is always sweet.

Except when he isn’t.

You’re fairly certain that Mark Lee has hated you since before you even met him. When you decide to transfer to the same university that your high school best friend Jungwoo attends, he talks your ear off about all of his great friends and all of the places he is going to take you and all of the fun you’ll have. He’s always been the descriptive type, telling you far too much about his good pals Mark, Donghyuck, Johnny, Taeil, Jaehyun, Kun, Lucas… and countless others, whose names you sometimes have a hard time keeping track of. Jungwoo has a lot of friends, something which has remained true since high school. Whenever you catch up with him, he speaks particularly fondly about Mark, who is one of his roommates and someone he considers to be one of his closest friends.

“You’ll love him,” he says, “but not too much, I hope. That would be super weird, you and Mark.” He wrinkles his nose at that and doesn’t make any more abnormal comments. You don’t think much of it.

In short, you let Jungwoo decide your opinion on Mark Lee before you ever met him. With everything else about moving to a completely different university occupying the majority of your thoughts, it’s easy enough to accept that Mark will be awkward and painfully sweet and that you will become fast friends. That’s your first mistake.

Before you even finish moving in, Jungwoo drags you over to his place to meet some of his friends, who he insists will become your own. It’s just past noon and he claims that everyone will be awake and ready to greet you once you get there. He’s half right, in the sense that only half of the apartment is awake. The early-risers, who Jungwoo didn’t even have to shake before he came over to get you, are at the table in their common area, sipping on various caffeinated beverages. These consist of Mark and Jaehyun. Donghyuck is presumably still curled up in his bed, asleep after a late night of playing games, and Johnny, who had stayed overnight and doesn’t actually live with them, is passed out on their couch, an arm slung over his face to block the light. Your friend has shown you enough pictures for you to recognize them.

Jungwoo practically deflates as soon as he walks in to see only two members of the current household conscious. “This is why we can’t have nice things,” he grumbles before striding over to Johnny and yanking off the blanket covering his long torso.

The elder groans, clearly having only been dozing and not deeply asleep, and moves his arm so he can glare at Jungwoo. “Your disrespect for my sleep schedule is why we can’t have nice things.”

“You don’t have a sleep schedule,” Jungwoo says back, glaring at his friend with the blanket in his hand. “Plus, Y/N’s here.”

Johnny lazily looks over and sees you in the entranceway, to which his response is to roll slightly so that he’s propped up against the back of the couch with one leg crossed over the other rather than just lying down. “Sup. Name’s Johnny.”

“Ew, don’t use your flirting voice!” Jungwoo whines at his friend, kicking him in the shin. In all honesty, you’re both amused and slightly flattered that Johnny is attempting to flirt with you when he’s just woken up. The messy hair is kind of a look. “Y/N’s a friend.”

“Yeah, we’ll be good friends, alright,” Johnny says, looking directly at you and wiggling his eyebrows in the most ridiculous way. That gets a giggle out of you while Jungwoo gawks, kicking Johnny again for good measure, slightly harder this time.

Jungwoo looks like he’s about to start arguing again when Jaehyun kindly interrupts, shifting the conversation. He gives you a small smile, perfectly polite and handsome, his hair straight and soft over his forehead. “It’s nice to meet you, Y/N. I’m Jaehyun.”

You lower your head to acknowledge him. “It’s nice to meet you, too.” You look towards the other boy at the table, who you now realize hasn’t glanced up at you once. Jaehyun had been at least half watching the mock fight between Jungwoo and Johnny, but Mark had just been staring at his cup from behind circular glasses, not even drinking it. His own hair is slightly damp, curling at the ends, making him appear somewhat young. “You’re Mark, right?”

Finally, he looks at you, but looks away quickly. “Yeah.”

That’s… that’s not right.

You try again, smiling as brightly as you can, even though he won’t glance in your direction again. His side profile is full of both soft shapes and hard angles, afternoon sunlight coming in through the window falls as highlights on his cheeks and nose and chin. He appears exactly as your friend had described him to you, but his attitude proves him to be a walking contradiction. You shift on your feet, grasping for the right words to say. “Jungwoo has told me a lot about you.”

“Uh… yeah. He’s told me about you, too.”

You almost outright frown at that. Isn’t he supposed to be super nice and friendly? Instead, it sounds like Jungwoo has been spreading all sorts of nasty stories about you. Hypothetical stories that, apparently, only Mark has been listening to. Neither Jaehyun nor Johnny are acting strangely towards you at all.

All three of the other boys do seem to notice the change in behavior for Mark, though. There are a few moments of tense silence before Johnny elbows Jungwoo. The latter speaks up. “Hey, Mark, can you go resurrect Donghyuck? I think he might be dead.”

The switch is instant and very startling to you. His face loses all of its tension as he looks at Jungwoo, nodding. “Yeah, sure. If I don’t come back in ten minutes, I’m the one who’s dead.” He pushes himself up out of his chair and exits the common area.

After he’s gone, you look at Jungwoo. He stares back. You make a motion with your head towards the front door, where you retreat to and he follows. You stand somewhat stiffly, hands linked behind your back. “Did you say something to him? About me?”

Jungwoo puts his hands up defensively. “Nothing bad, I swear!” He looks back towards the common area. “He must just be having a bad day or something…”

That doesn’t explain the sudden warmth when someone else spoke to him, though. You frown. “Okay… I guess I’ll just have to try harder to get him to like me.”

Your friend seems to perk up at that. “That’s the spirit!” He proceeds to grab you by the shoulders and steer you back to the common area.

You have an amiable enough time chatting with the boys who had remained there. Eventually, Donghyuck emerges from his room, looking even more ruffled than Johnny had, and Mark shuffles out with him. Once again, he doesn’t even spare you a glance. Every so often, as you’re talking to the others or just listening to their strange, all-over-the-place conversations, your eyes flicker over to him. He contributes to the chatter, but it’s like he’s purposefully avoiding you, even though you’re literally in the room with him. It kind of hurts.

Still, you try not to let it bother you too much. An hour passes, which you realize with a start, and you remember that you’re not even nearly done unpacking. As you’re rising from your seat on the edge of the couch, Jungwoo throws a comment out to you. “You’re welcome to bust in here any time!”

He’s met with a chorus of agreement from the others, except one.

The next day, Jungwoo makes a point to introduce you to the rest of his circle. Not long after, you’re added to a group chat with a whole phonebook of unfamiliar numbers. Most of them, minus several who your friend had told you in the past do a poor job of checking their messages, send their names pretty quickly. Jungwoo tells you who the others are. With a pang of disappointment, you realize one of the missing numbers was Mark.

On your first day of classes, you’re pleasantly surprised to find that you share an economics lecture with Donghyuck, who acts both very tired and also full of energy, chatting your ear off before and after class, but looking as if he’s about to pass out when the professor gives her introduction and starts to go over course material. That day, you also learn that you have an ethics class with Jungwoo’s friend Doyoung, stoic and serious and exactly the opposite of Donghyuck, but still smiling at your lame jokes and carefully making sure you get the homework down.

The second day starts out much more slowly. You settle down for your third class, a curriculum development course, and it takes you about a solid minute to realize that Mark Lee is sitting in the room with you. He had come in while you were busily typing out a text to a friend from your previous university. The classroom is not particularly large and you had taken a seat near the middle, so there aren’t many places for him to hide. When he walks in, he takes a seat by the wall closest to the windows. You consider greeting him, walking to his desk to try and talk to see if he had a change of attitude from the last time you saw him, but then your professor enters the scene. As he passes by the far side of the room, Mark looks up from his own phone and smiles, mouth instantly opening to greet him. You stay in your seat and try to look busy as you listen to them chat amiably. Mark laughs in disbelief at something your professor says about his vacation.

At the end of the lecture, you pack up your things quickly and make the effort to take a few small, light steps to catch up to Mark, who’s already leaving. “Hi, Mark! I didn’t realize we had a class together.”

He gives you a sort of half-shrug, keeping his head pointed straight ahead. Almost imperceptibly, his pace increases. “I guess we do.”

He opens a door to a stairwell, not making any particular effort to hold the door for you. Reflexively, you grab the door and slip through after him. You try again as the two of you head down. “Are you going to be home tonight? Jungwoo invited me to have dinner with you guys.”

“No,” he says, voice edged with irritation. He reaches into his pocket, fishing out his phone and a pair of earbuds. “I’ll be out.”

“Oh.” You slow down slightly. “Well, we should hang out sometime. My next class is this way, so… see you.” By the time you’re done talking, he’s slipped both earbuds into his ears and is pushing the doors at the bottom of the stairs open. You hold back a heavy sigh and shrug your backpack higher onto your shoulders.

As he told you, he’s not in his apartment that evening. Though Jungwoo had invited you to help cook dinner, he shirks his responsibilities, slipping away to play games with Donghyuck and leaving you and Jaehyun to cook, with relatively unhelpful commentary from Johnny, who was once again on the couch when you arrived. At some point, their friend Yuta slips in, steals some noodles, and leaves.

After the cooking is done, you and Jaehyun celebrate with a firm high-five, and Jungwoo and Donghyuck un-disappear, coming out of the younger boy’s dark bedroom. The lot of you are halfway through eating when Donghyuck perks up. “Wait, where’s Mark? He said he would do calc homework with me.”

You bite the inside of your cheek and hold back from saying that he told you he wouldn’t be home.

Thankfully, most of Jungwoo’s friends are nice to you and it’s easy enough for you to make friends of your own. You ease yourself into a routine of classes, homework, and hanging out with your new social circles. Mark doesn’t hide that he tries to avoid you about half of the time. At the same time, you try to split yourself between friend groups, as to not force him either to be around you or to not hang out with his own friends. There are the occasional large scale events that both of you are invited to, but there are enough people that you usually aren’t forced to interact. After a month of classes, you stop trying to start conversations, but you still greet him. He greets you back with the indifference of an overworked, tired stranger. During your class, he firmly ignores you. He does more than ignore you - he speaks to virtually every other person in your class except you. All of your friends carefully avoid the topic of his blatant dislike for you, though you know they all think it’s odd.

Finally, one of those large events comes to pass via the boy known as Zhong Chenle. He doesn’t go to your school, but is still somehow acquainted with all of Jungwoo’s friends, so he became acquainted with you as well. He’s eccentric and sarcastic and sometimes you see him playing basketball with Mark and Jaehyun in the school recreation center. So, when he rents out the local ice skating rink and invites you, you’re excited to go. It’s not often that you get onto the ice - it’s always a thrill after you re-learn how to skate, and you enjoy the feeling of the smooth gliding and wide, curving turns on the blades. You imagine that you’re painting with your feet.

Things go down smoothly, like you envisioned. After just twenty minutes, you’ve confidently found your ice legs and you’re racing around the rink with Donghyuck, playfully tipping each other off-balance with carefully or sometimes not-so-carefully timed pushes. A few minutes later, a new player enters the arena. Maybe if this new person weren’t Mark Lee, you wouldn’t have noticed their entrance, but your eyes are instinctively drawn to him.

The boy in question is clinging to one Lee Jeno, another friend of Jungwoo and Donghyuck and all the rest of them, as they both try to find their balance. Jeno seems to be having somewhat of an easier time with the skates on his feet, making slow pushes so that he glides short distances with Mark holding onto him. Mark is adorably flushed, in a way you haven’t seen before, his cheeks aflame with cold and embarrassment. His body is swallowed by an overly large hoodie, completing the cozy and cute look.

Your racing buddy has also slowed down to watch with you, staring at the scene. He suddenly nudges you with an elbow. “You should help him.”

“Jeno? I think he’s gotten the hang of it. Plus, I don’t know him that well.” It’s now a game of who can dodge implications rather than who can dodge physical pushes.

Donghyuck rolls his eyes, skating lazily alongside you. “You know I’m talking about Mark. This would be a great opportunity to get on his good side.”

“Why don’t you help him? He’s your boyfriend, after all.” If you weren’t focusing on turning your skates and keeping your balance because you’ve reached the short end of the rink, you would cross your arms and huff at him more dramatically.

He clicks his tongue sharply, something you know by now that he does when he’s irritated. “Mark isn’t my boyfriend. Doyoung and Taeyong are boyfriends. Mark and I are soulmates. And he’s still painfully single.”

“So are you!” As you protest, you realize that Mark and Jeno are getting closer. Donghyuck fires something back indignantly, but you’re just thinking about what he said before. The offer to help lies in front of you as a real possibility, but how would you feel if someone you hated came up and asked if you wanted help skating? If you really hated them that much, you would just think they were being condescending. The last thing you want to do is give Mark a reason to think you’re acting that way towards him. So, as you skate closer, you pick up your pace and speed on by, not even glancing at the two boys with their arms interlinked. Luckily for you, Jungwoo is just ahead, so you hook arms with him and jerk him forward with your momentum, making him yell out in surprise.

As you’re gliding along, laughing at your friend’s reaction and attempts to push you, Mark stares at you from behind with a small frown on his face.

“Mark?” Jeno’s voice snaps him out of it and he looks towards the younger boy. “Do you need me to slow down?”

“No,” he says rather grimly, “let’s go faster.”

You don’t speak to each other at all for the entire night.

The next month and a half passes unremarkably. Then, suddenly, midterms are rolling up and you find yourself swamped with work, especially in the class you share with Mark and your new friend Yuqi. At the current moment, you’re at your place with your head buried in your arms, groaning dramatically. “I can’t do this.”

Yuqi nods, looking somewhat dead inside. “Professor Lim hates us.”

“I don’t know what chapters we even covered half of the material in. Did he just make it up?” You lift your hand to paw through the textbook in front of you lazily, so much of it seeming foreign. “It doesn’t help that the Instructional Systems Design Model is such a big part of the project.”

“Maybe that’s in Chapter 1?”

You flip through her suggestion before slamming your book shut. “Nope.”

“I know!” You perk up at your friend’s revelation, looking at her from across the table. “We can just ask Mark! He’s good at this class, he probably knows.”

You stiffen at her suggestion. There was only one time you dared to ask him for help, in which he just brushed you off and said he was busy. Since then, you’ve resigned yourself to only asking Yuqi for help, no matter how clueless she is in this class sometimes. A brief moment of panic sends your heart racing as she whips out her cellphone. “Don’t mention me.”

She turns to look at you, finger poised to press call over her phone. “What?”

You put your head back down, muffling your words. “Don’t say my name when you talk to him.” She gives you a weird look, but shrugs, pressing the call button. “Wait! And put it on speaker so I can hear the answer. Please.”

Wordlessly, she rolls her eyes, but pulls the phone away from her face, setting it on the table in front of her. The call connects after two rings and you hear Mark’s voice with the staticky phone call filter over it. “Hello?”

“Hey, Mark! It’s Yuqi.”

“Oh, hi, what’s up?” He seems to brighten up, showing a pleasantness that you rarely hear from him these days.

“I just had a question about our curriculum development class. Do you know what chapter goes over the Instructional Systems Design Model? I can’t find it.”

“Oh, sure. Hold on, let me grab my notes.” From the other end, you can hear the distorted shuffling of clothes and paper for a moment. “It’s Chapter 4, I think. We didn’t really go over that chapter in class, but Prof. Lim told me when I went to his office hours.”

“Oh my god, thank you so much, Mark! You’re a literal life saver,” Yuqi gushes, about to practically kiss the phone in joy.

You press your hands together in front of you in a silent thank you. Mark laughs lightly into the phone. “No problem! If you ever need anything, let me know. I’m always happy to help.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you! Bye, Mark!” After receiving a goodbye from him, Yuqi presses the hang up button. She claps her hands twice in excitement. “That makes things so much easier!”

You’re stuck thinking about what Mark said before hanging up. It’s exactly in line with how Jungwoo used to talk about him - polite, helpful, friendly. An ugly part of you has to wonder what you did wrong once again. What part of you is undeserving of his kindness? An even uglier part feels the green flash of envy. “How do you have Mark’s number?”

“We had a class together like a year ago and he’s a pretty cool guy. Also useful to have around.” The image of them studying together, chatting like close friends, heads bent closely over shared notes, makes the parasite of jealousy dig deeper in your belly. The logical side of your brain knows you shouldn’t be feeling like this, but the two sides of Mark Lee make you want to throw an uncharacteristic fit. She tosses her phone to the side before flipping open her textbook to Chapter 4. “Why?”

“Were you guys ever… like…” You bite the inside of your cheek, not wanting to say it out loud.

“Me? Mark? No, we just worked on a project together. I have no idea what gave you that idea.” She wrinkles her nose at you.

“You just talk to each other so casually,” you huff, trying to expel the negativity from your system, “I don’t know.”

“He’s like that with everyone,” she says easily, leaning back in her chair. “Except you, I guess.”

“Except me. I guess.” You parrot, not feeling any better about the situation. When you proceed to ask her if you did anything weird on your first day of class that would have put him off, she denies it, telling you that you were completely normal. Resigned to forget the mystery for the night, you open up your textbook.

Midterms pass with relative success. At least, with more success than you had at your old university. You’re excited for a break, a reprieve from the pain of studying. Johnny arranges a potluck and movie night at his place, assigning everyone a dish and putting you on dessert.

In your class with Doyoung, who is often assigned as the chef of the group, you pressure him for everyone’s favorites. “Something fruity? Chocolatey?”

“We’re split there. There’s not much you can do that would appease everyone, honestly. Some of them are the pickiest guys I’ve ever met.” He continues to scribble notes as you grill him for info, not even looking up.

“What if I did something different? Like matcha cookies?” You tap your chin in thought and Doyoung lifts a hand to point at you after the suggestion leaves your mouth.

“Yes, do that one. Basically everyone likes green tea.”

“Basically everyone?”

“Not Mark.” Doyoung shakes his head disapprovingly. “He’s not arriving until after we eat, though, so I’m sure it’s fine.”

You’re not sure what to say to that. That night, you work hard making your matcha cookies, setting aside a bit of time for a side project. When you arrive at Johnny’s apartment with two dishes, one quite a bit smaller than the others and labeled with Mark’s name, safely hidden in the pantry until everyone has stepped out of the kitchen area and you can put it somewhere you hope he’ll see it. You can only hope that he at least appreciates your effort. When he arrives a bit later into the night, non-gifting you his usual non-existent glance, you can’t help but impatiently squirm a bit. Before you leave, you make a pass by the kitchen and, disappointingly, but not surprisingly, the container is in the same place as you left it, your note still affixed to the top.

The mystery continues, however, when you approach Johnny a few days later to ask about retrieving your containers.

“There was more than one? I only have that big rectangular one that you brought the matcha cookies in. They were really good, by the way - I can only wish the cookies I make turned out like that…” He scratches his head and you feel like the gesture perfectly represents how you’re feeling as well. If he doesn't have the box… who does?

A small part of you holds onto the hope that the intended person retrieved them after you weren’t looking.

The class you share with Mark is not nearly the most interesting one you have, nor is it one that is particularly memorable most of the time. There’s something so terribly tedious about it that makes you suffer a disproportionate amount whenever you do a chapter of the reading, though you think that you’re usually quite good about your work. Still, though you’re not exactly the most studious of your classmates, you can’t stand resounding silences in the classroom. So, when your professor asks a question and no one volunteers, you try to at least say something somewhat intelligent. Today is one of those days. Except, as you speak, you realize with dawning dread that your words aren’t making any sense of all, are barely related to the question, and are progressively spiraling into completely different subject matter. Still, you find it hard to stop, eventually coming to a stuttering stop with your answer. Even Professor Lim can’t hold back something of a put-off expression. You sink lower into your seat and, as your professor says something along the lines of your comments being “not quite relevant,” your cheeks burn.

You spare a glance to the side, looking for some sort of pity or reassurance from Yuqi, but you end up looking past her at Mark. You half expect him to smirking at your failure, like a villain in a high school drama, but, instead, his eyes meet yours. He offers you the barest twitch of an encouraging smile before looking away, his face neutral again. You’re almost unsure about how to interpret the look - it’s the closest thing to a positive emotion he’s ever shown you. Confused, you fix your eyes on your open notebook and keep them there, scratching random notes and doodles into the margins for the remainder of the lecture.

When you think about Mark Lee, you feel like you’re going insane. It would honestly be pretty easy for you to make one of those crazy conspiracy theorist maps with the red strings and thumbtacks attempting to connect a bunch of pictures with all the strange, fragmented experiences you’ve had with the boy. At one position, you could put all the information you supposedly knew about him before even meeting him, all of the things Jungwoo told you, all the smiling pictures from before you arrived. Somewhere else, you could put all of the times Mark has brushed you off or outright refused to acknowledge your existence. In a third location, you could put all the things you’ve actively seen or heard him do that align with the person you thought he was. Finally, you could put the most recent developments of him subtly starting to not ignore you together. The whole diagram would be circled with giant question marks all over it and one question written in capital letters: WHY?

You’re trying to do your damn curriculum development homework and all you can think about is Mark Lee and the first smile he ever gave you. And, from the way your heart is beating, pushing heat into your face and ears, making you wistful and longing to see his smile again, you think you know the direction your feelings have headed.

The next few times you head over to Jungwoo’s place, it’s hit or miss as to whether Mark appears to be actively avoiding you. Finally, one day, you’re pressed shoulder to shoulder with Jungwoo, your eyes fixed on the small screen of your phone as you show him a funny video you found. You don’t notice Mark until he opens his bedroom door loudly enough that you look up and you meet his cold gaze. He’s in casual clothes, a hoodie and jeans, with earbuds hanging from his ears, his hair slightly tousled from the wind outside. The eye contact lasts for only a moment before his door acts as a barrier to your vision. You blink hard.

“Just when I thought we were getting somewhere…” You sulk, speaking lowly as to not be overheard by him.

“You and Mark?” Jungwoo asks, not even looking up. The video ends and your friend puts down your phone, folds his hands in front of him, and turns to look at you. “Did you ever figure it out?”

“Did I? How could I figure it out when he won’t even talk to me? Did you?” You lean away from him, crossing your arms. “Should we even be having this conversation over here? He’s just in his room.”

Jungwoo shrugs. “He has his headphones in, he can’t hear anything. To answer your question,” he pauses, leaning in closer to whisper like he’s telling you a secret, “I have no idea.”

“You must have some ideas at least?”

“I have many ideas, many theories, and quite a few formulas. Most of which don’t particularly apply to this situation.” You grumble something under your breath about engineering majors as he continues. “For Mark? He might be letting all the negativity he’s ever felt out on you, honestly. Maybe because you’re the same major?”

You sit up slightly straighter. “We’re the same major?”

“Yeah?” Jungwoo replies, giving you a look. “He’s trying to be music education instead of history education, though.”

“I never knew the specifics,” you mumble, letting your posture fall back into a slouch. In reality, it’s more than just not knowing the specifics - there’s very little you’ve managed to learn about Mark that you haven’t actively had to pry out of your shared friends. You know about some of the foods he likes, some of his hobbies, and a bit of general information. It’s awfully hard to get to know someone when they refuse to acknowledge you.

That notion makes your developing crush feel even stupider.

You attempt to turn the subject back to where it began. “Why me, though? Why not literally anyone else?”

“You’re a pretty cool person and you’re good at a lot of things. Mark’s developing an inferiority complex?” Jungwoo taps his chin as though he’s pretending to be some great thinker.

“I’m not going to lower myself to help some man’s ego,” you huff, your nails digging into your palms as you make tight fists. “Plus, there’s nothing I’m particularly good at that he’s not also good at, if not better.”

“It’s not really about ego, I think…” Jungwoo says, trailing off. “I dunno. He’s not like that with anyone but you.”

“No one but me, huh.” Honestly, you’re kind of getting sick of that expression. This isn’t the kind of exceptional you want to be to him. Not at all. You’re honestly not sure when it stopped being a simple need to be on pleasant terms with Jungwoo’s friends and started to get romantic. Your lips press into a thin line for a moment before you exhale sharply from your nose. “Everything is a big ‘I don’t know’ and I hate it. If it’s not an ‘I don’t know,’ it’s still stuck in the ‘why?’ stage.” You lay your head down and you have to resist the urge to scream into your arms. “I’m going to lose my mind.”

“You really make no sense at all.”

“It really makes no sense that I-” You bite your tongue to stop yourself to stop yourself from admitting out loud to the feelings you’ve just recently realized. Jungwoo just gives you a sly, knowing smile that you don’t like the look of one bit.

Before you know it, finals are around the corner and, with it, one of the last organized events you’ll have with your friends until testing is over. This time, it’s a group dinner where people can come and go as they please, and a few of you have taken it upon yourselves to do all the cooking. Namely, you, Doyoung, Jaehyun, Kun, and, surprisingly, Donghyuck. Suffice to say, the kitchen is not enough space for all of you. Still, you manage to pull it off, completing a hearty Korean-style dinner that slowly disappears from their dishes as all of the others eat. By the end, you’re worn out from the sweltering heat of the stove, the occasional bickering with the other chefs (‘Donghyuck, stop eating all the radish!’), and chatting with nearly every single one of your friends. Names and faces scroll through your head and you’re honestly not sure who you’ve seen and not seen by the end of it. Except for one person.

Mark Lee is, once again, nowhere to be found.

You make sure to smack away hands going for seconds in order to wrap up a moderately sized portion of food for him anyways. When all of the food, save for what you’ve set aside for Mark, is gone, Taeyong offers himself and some of the others up to clean, which you and the rest of the cooking boys eagerly accept. Most of them have headed out by now, but the few remaining begrudgingly agree to the job at Taeyong’s call.

You lean against the wall idly, watching the work being done and listening to the rhythmic sound of the water running and the sponge scraping against metal. Finally, Jungwoo happens upon the wrapped plate you had prepared for your missing guest.

“Who’s this for?” He asks to the room, almost salivating at the sight of the food. Damn, that boy can eat.

“It’s for Mark. You can give it to him when he gets back.” Your words are half informative, half threatening. Jungwoo takes the hint and carefully replaces the foil covering the food.

It takes another minute for him to look back over at you, seeing you looking bleary-eyed, close to swaying onto the floor from fatigue. He steps over, patting you on the head. “Y/N, you can go rest on the couch if you want. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I might just do that,” you respond, not clarifying which part of his sentence you’re talking about. At his behest, you shuffle over to the couch. It only takes a moment for your eyes to flutter closed. The music of washing dishes lulls you quickly to sleep.

You’re not sure how long has passed by the time you stir to the sound of the front door closing. You recognize that water is no longer running and that there are only two voices left in the kitchen area. Lying there for a moment, unsure of if you should make your presence known yet, you determine that the voices belong to Jungwoo and Mark.

“Oh, Y/N made sure to grab this for you,” you hear Jungwoo say, followed by the faint crinkling of the foil covering the plate.

“She did?” Mark’s voice is surprisingly soft, warm, everything you’re not used to from him.

The voices drift closer towards you, accompanying the slip of socks against the wood floor. “Don’t act surprised. Also, she’s on the couch sleeping right now. I’ll probably wake her up in a minute so she can go home.”

“Oh.” You’re listening as hard as you can, trying to determine whatever Mark is feeling just by his tone. “Is she okay?”

Your heart beats faster and you want to squirm, ask questions, anything. You remain still.

“Just tired.” A beat of silence. “Why are you looking at her like that?”

“Dude, I just…” Mark has some sort of lightness to his voice that you’ve never heard.  “Nothing.”

“Do you think I can’t tell? Come on, I’ve known you long enough.” Jungwoo would normally be teasing saying something like that, but right now you just hear a kind of weariness that you’re entirely familiar with.

“Not as long you’ve known her.” The sentence comes out bitter, the first negativity you’ve heard from Mark all night, and Jungwoo sighs in response.

“Do what you need to do and then I’ll wake her up.”

They walk farther away. The telltale sound of the microwave opening and shutting after the foil crinkles again, followed by the beeping of the buttons and the hum of the machine, tells you that someone is heating up the food. Under the microwave ambiance, you hear what you think is plastic against plastic. The machine is stopped before it can beep shrilly. The smell of warm, reheated food fills the air briefly. There’s shuffling as Mark presumably walks.

“Night.” Jungwoo echoes Mark’s sentiment and you hear more shuffling towards you. A touch on your shoulder. You keep your eyes closed, trying to control your breathing for a moment longer. Your friend shakes you slightly. “Y/N, wake up.”

You try your best to play up your awakening act, like you hadn’t been listening to the entirety of the last conversation. Rubbing your eyes and blinking, you look up at Jungwoo. “What time is it?”

“Almost midnight. Everyone went home to sleep and study.” You get up slowly, rolling your shoulders once you’ve sat up. “I can walk you back, if you want.”

“That’s okay, it’s not a long walk.” You get to your feet, padding to the kitchen area. There, on the table, is the plastic container you’d brought Mark’s cookies in weeks ago. “Oh, that’s my container. Did Johnny find it?”

Jungwoo reaches up to ruffle his hair, looking between you and the container. “Mark did, actually.” “Huh.” Shrugging, you pick it up and make your way to the door. “Tell him thanks for me.”

“You could tell him yourself?” Jungwoo offers, looking vaguely hopeful.

You smile, but cringe at the same time. “Yeah… you know.”

He shakes his head, seeming disappointed once more. “Fine. Text me when you get back?”

“Will do.”

As you walk home, your container clutched in your arms, you think about how more pieces are being unveiled, but nothing is really making that much more sense at all.

Finals pass as they always do. You study with Yuqi for your curriculum development class. The situation from midterms repeats itself almost exactly at one point, with her calling Mark for help and you staying quiet as he talks, and the test is no harder than any of the others you had previously in the semester. You force yourself to keep your eyes on your exam and to not glance over at Mark except when you’re walking out of the classroom at the end. All you can see of him is the back of his head, his hair slightly disheveled. Idly, you wonder if you’ll get over your baseless crush if you aren’t able to look at him and mull over the problem during class anymore. You think that’s the last you’ll see of him before you run into him at an event next semester.

On the last day of finals, your group chat receives two messages from Jungwoo.

JW: END OF THE SEMESTER PARTY TOMORROW NIGHT TO CELEBRATE FINALS BEING DONE BEFORE EVERYONE LEAVES. ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY.

JW: I don’t care if you planned a “date” with your “girlfriend,” I expect to see all of you there :))

A minute later, your phone buzzes again with an individual message from the same boy.

JW: Y/N, my lovely best friend, you’re part of the planning committee and you’re going to help me set up. Be there an hour early xoxo

You know there’s no use fighting it so, the next day, you show up to his place as expected. Jungwoo, Lucas, Yuta, and Johnny are all milling about, trying to seem busy but, honestly, there doesn’t look like there’s much to do. Some of the furniture has been moved to the side, there’s a giant mysterious tub that is partly filled with a reddish liquid that Lucas and Yuta are leaning over, and Johnny is affixing colorful lights to a wall. As soon as your shoes are off, Jungwoo is steering you to the common area.

“Y/N, you’re late!”

“I’m like ten minutes early-” You start.

“No, no, no excuses. I have an important job for you!” It takes you a moment to realize that he’s not leading you to the kitchen, but towards someone’s bedroom. “You like crafts, right?”

“I mean, I guess? I-”

“Great!” He pushes open the bedroom door, Mark’s bedroom door, and pushes you not-so-gently inside. Mark is sitting at his desk, bent over something with a look of surprise on his face. He looks cozy, dressed in a simple red t-shirt and gray sweats with circle glasses perched on his nose. “I want to hang about one hundred paper cranes around the apartment to add a little flare to the party. You can’t leave until you’re done, Mark has the paper, bye!”

He shuts the door behind him.

You and Mark stare at each other in bewilderment as you process whatever just happened. You’re in Mark’s bedroom for the first time. You’re also being actively forced to interact with him one on one for the first time. None of your friends had ever forced you to try and work out your issues until now and you’re certain that Jungwoo’s implication was that you’re not allowed to leave until you’ve talked it through. Some part of you knew he would eventually snap and force you to interact, but you always ignored that possibility. Until now.

“Um,” you start, twisting your fingers together in front of you, “he said you have the paper?”

“Yeah…” he looks back at his desk, grabbing some of the myriad of square sheets and holding them out to you. “Here.”

“Thanks.” You carefully make sure to prevent your fingers from brushing against his as you take them from him. Stepping back, you settle cross-legged on an empty spot on his floor. After you sit, you take a moment to look around. His walls have the occasional band poster plastered on them, there’s a hoodie on the floor across the room, and some of his drawers are partly open, illustrating a pretty typical college boy’s room. A couple of books are pushed to the side on his desk as he works on folding the cranes. Remembering that’s what you’re supposed to be doing, you get to work, making careful creases. Your first crane comes to life on yellow paper slightly lopsided. Good enough, you figure.

You’re in the middle of your second crane when Mark’s chair screeches quietly against the floor and he stands up, gathering his paper. To your great surprise, he sits down a few away from you and mirrors your pose. When you meet eyes with him briefly, you look away as fast as you can, returning to your crane before you can even try and read what he’s feeling. The next three cranes pass quickly with your eyes locked firmly on your work. When you dare to look up again, you find that Mark is intently watching your hands. He startles when you see him. Realizing he’s been caught, he speaks of softly. “Do you… know how to do it?”

Even when he’s the one talking quietly, looking embarrassed, you feel so small. You look down at his own paper pile, which has a few crumpled sheets surrounding it. “I can show you.” He nods and you cautiously scoot closer so that you’re side by side. As gently as you can, you explain each fold and he copies your movements. Soon, you have a relatively even green crane and he has a somewhat lopsided pink crane, very similar to your first.

“Thanks,” he says, staring at his creation, “all of the tutorials I googled weren’t making any sense, but I think I got it now.”

“No problem.” You nod, moving back to your spot across from him. Not wanting the experience to end quite yet, you think about what Jungwoo said last weekend. “Thanks for returning my container.”

He instantly knows what you’re talking about. “Thanks for-”

Before he can say any more, he stops and his expression hardens. He proceeds to look back down at his hands, making slow, purposeful folds in the paper in front of him. You frown, but do the same. A few cranes later, you can’t stop it anymore. After months, months, of him treating you like this, you can’t go one more crane without finding the truth. You throw a half-completed crane to the floor and, though the noise isn’t loud, he looks up. “Mark, what did I do?”

He seems entirely too surprised by the question, which sparks a kind of anger that you didn’t even realize you were holding in. “What?”

“What did I do! What made you act like this to me? Did I do something? Do you just hate my face? What did I do wrong?” You squeeze your knees brutally, trying to resist doing something like tearing up the few pieces of origami you had completed.

“Nothing.” His simple, one word answer only serves to make you more upset. Though he appears initially dismissive, he sees that you’re about to start shouting and quickly continues. “You really didn’t do anything!”

“Then, why? Mark, you’re making me lose my mind!” Now, you feel like you’re on the verge of crying out of frustration. So far, you’ve managed to not cry at all about this stupid boy who has largely chosen to ignore your existence, but you can feel the telltale warming of your cheeks and the pout in your lips.

“It’s not something you did! Not really.” He takes a shaky breath, appearing almost as upset as you, though there are no tears in his eyes. “It’s about Jungwoo. Please, don’t cry.”

The initial confusion helps you swallow your building tears. “If you’re upset at him, why do you have to take it out on me? I really wanted to be friends with you, Mark. I really did.”

“I wanted to be different.” Now, he’s quiet, refusing to look at you for the months of shame he’s feeling rise to the surface.

“From Jungwoo?” You’re not quite following still. You just know that, even though he’s subtly broken your heart and led you in circles over and over for the past few months, you want to know why he’s hurting and you want to stop it. Even if he hasn’t been full of kindness to you, he has been to everyone else. And you know almost for a fact that this isn’t something he’s told anyone else.

“From you.”

Pushing aside papers, crumpled partial cranes, complete cranes, you move closer to him. You’re not sure if you’re overstepping your boundaries and you still kind of feel like one wrong move will make you cry, but the yelling has left your system and your instincts say proximity will help you understand. “Will you explain it to me?”

“There was a you-shaped hole in Jungwoo’s heart ever since he had to go to college and stop spending so much time with you.” Mark’s resignation is quiet, soft-spoken, like the boy you’d heard so much about but only now had gotten to truly meet. “Whenever he came back from breaks, he would talk about you so much and about how similar you and I are and it just made me feel… it made me feel… like… I don’t know. Like I’m just replacing you while you’re not here.”

“Mark…” You’re not sure quite what to say that he hasn’t logically figured out for himself already. Maybe it would help to say the obvious anyways? “You’re not a replacement. You’re you and I’m me and he has different places for both of us.”

He lets out a puff of air. “I know that. It’s just the type of feeling that you can’t really get to go away, even when you try really hard to believe the opposite.”

“I get the feeling.” And you do. It’s like the nagging feeling that you’ve had that you did something unforgivable to upset Mark even though you were almost certain you didn’t.

“I was mean to you because at least that would make me different enough to not be replaced, I guess. It worked because you never stooped to my level to be mean back.” Though he hasn’t quite apologized, he sounds genuinely sorry.

“It worked because you couldn’t have been replaced in the first place,” you say back. You look over and he has a small smile on his face.

“That too. Also-” He stops himself, seeming conflicted. “No, it’s a bad time. A really bad time.”

That piques your curiosity. “Huh?” He’s not smiling anymore, instead looking awkwardly to his side, away from you, and drumming his fingers on the bed. “Mark, you might as well say it. Whatever it is.”

“Okay, after a few months, I realized that you weren’t going to replace me and things were fine. But, you know that thing that kids do?” You’re confused and he’s growing red, practically steaming at the ears in embarrassment, which you can see even in the dim light of the room. “So, I kept being mean because then you kept looking at me even though whenever I thought about what I said to you later, I always felt really bad-” “Mark, you’re rambling. What are you talking about?” You ungracefully interrupt him, touching his arm to get his full attention. He seems to grow even redder at your touch and suddenly exclaims his next words.

“You’re really cute!”

Slowly, his words make more sense. You try to piece them together out loud to make sure you’re understanding him correctly. “So… the thing kids do… where they’re mean to the person they like?”

He moves his head up and down in a tiny nod. Now, your face is heating up, too. Even more than it was when you were on the verge of crying. After a moment, he groans and presses his face into his hands. “Damn, I’m such an idiot. I know this is, like, what middle schoolers do, but since the beginning of the semester I’ve just been so confused, except you’ve probably been way, way more confused than me, and I didn’t even think about it, but all of our friends are probably confused, too, and-” As he jabbers, when your thoughts and feelings had been processing slowly previously, you now feel like your whole reality is crumbling. You spent the last while beating down your feelings when he’s become a pile of mush in front of you about the same problem? At this rate, he’s never going to stop rambling either. Not that you particularly want him to. It’s the most he’s directly said to you ever. And it’s adorable. What else would be adorable? You wonder, teasing him a bit before you tell him the truth. For how long he kept you hanging, you deserve to create at least some tension of your own, you figure. Just for a moment.

“- you’re probably thinking about how dumb this is and I don’t know how you’ll ever forgive me-”

You sit up straight and cross your arms over your chest. “Mark.”

He stops talking and looks at you, more panic seeming to rise in his face at the serious expression you wear. “Oh shit, I never let you talk. Y/N-”

“Mark.” He finally stops, staring at you. “I don’t forgive you.” The panic turns into sheer terror. He clearly hadn’t expected you to put it so forwardly. However, before he can say anything truly depressing, you continue. “I don’t forgive you because you haven’t actually apologized yet.”

His eyes are like tiny suns, round and bright and holding all the feeling in the universe. “I- I thought…” He looks to the side, thinking about everything he had said, and realizes that you’re right. “You’re right. Y/N…” He presses his hands together in front of him. “I’m so sorry.”

It’s probably the most succinct and straightforward he’s ever been with you, but you don’t have much time to think about that before he’s leaning forward in a full bow, pressing his forehead to the ground.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-”

“Mark, stop!” As soon as you realize what he’s doing, you shuffle forward, putting both hands on his shoulders so you can attempt to yank him back upright. “I was joking, please stop!” He remains upraised, once again looking confused. Slowly, you move backwards about two feet to put some breathing room between you. “You don’t need to do that. I like you, too.”

One slow heartbeat passes. Then a second. You’re not sure how long the thick silence hangs between you, but the tension is so heavy that you don’t even hear any outside noise from the other boys who are supposedly getting ready for a party.

“You… what… wait, no, really?” Mark’s baffled face as he stutters back to you paired with the anxiety of the entire situation makes a laugh bubble out of your chest. He seems to be entirely at a loss. He continues to just stare at you wide-eyed, like he’s witnessing some incredible event instead of just ogling you in the dim light of his bedroom.

“Don’t look at me like that…” You can’t help but reflect some of his flustered behavior, eye contact becoming almost painful. He’s never met your eyes with such enormous positivity and cuteness before and it makes you want to run laps around the building or something. “Mark, I’m serious!”

“How could you like me back? When I was so mean to you? For months?” He begins to twist in place, trying to lean over and look at your head from multiple directions. “Did you fall down the stairs on the way over here and hit your head or something?”

“Mark!” You uncross your legs and shuffle closer on your knees, reaching out to still his movement by grasping his shoulders once again. “Please stop.” When you touch him, he freezes, still moon-eyed. After he stops moving, your hands slide down so that you can hold his. His hands are warm and stiff, just like the rest of his body.

He finally breaks eye contact, looking at where your hands are connected. “I just really don’t get it. There’s no way you like me.”

“You almost sound like you’re upset about it.” You tilt your head, smiling at him softly.

“I am!” He’s insistant, his hands holding onto yours firmly now. Though his grip is tighter, he visibly deflates, his shoulders sinking. “It’s so unfair to you. I was such an ass.”

“But you’re not. One ass-like behavior does not an ass make.” You almost confuse yourself saying it, but you continue. “It’s not about the times you were weird to me. It’s about the times you were nice to everyone else. Like when you helped Yuqi with our class. Or when you helped Donghyuck with his calc even though you aren’t even taking it with him. It sounds kind of dumb, but because of that, I knew you weren’t a bad person. Even if you were trying to be one to me sometimes.” Your thumbs run over his idly, making soothing strokes over his skin as you speak. “Still, you weren’t really all that mean to me, per se. More cold, if anything. Then, when you stopped doing so much of that, it got really confusing. I do have a question, though.”

“I’ll try to answer it, I guess.”

“Did Jungwoo really say we were that similar?”

He blinks. “Maybe once or twice? It just really stuck out to me, for some reason.”

“You’re cute.” He blushes furiously at that. Carefully, you untangle one of your hands from his and bring it up to his cheek, cupping his blazing face. “Do you want to try this? The being together thing?”

“I want to, but-” He presses his lips together, making his cheeks puff out slightly as he thinks. “I don’t know. I feel like I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve a chance with you.”

Silence sits between you for a moment. Your hand moves back down so you’re holding both of his again. “I know what you can do to make it up to me.”

His eager eyes on your face prompts you to continue. Slowly, a grin threatens to split your face in half.

“I guess you’ll have to kiss me at least once for every time you were mean to me. Maybe more than once.” Your brilliant smile changes form in the air between you and reappears as the stars in his eyes.

“Practice round? Just to make sure I get it right.” The subtle flirtatiousness of the idea that leaves his mouth absolutely appeals to you and you agree. You move as close as you possibly can, your knees pressed together, your breath on his lips and his on yours, his soft bangs grazing your forehead. The touch of his lips against yours is awkward at first, but transforms into something sweeter with a little time. Once you both pull away, it seems you have the same idea when you both go back in for a few quick pecks afterwards. Finally, when you’re content for the moment, he leans forward quickly to press a kiss to your cheek.

You figure that a return to the work of folding cranes will help calm down your rapid heart rate, but every time you steal a glance at Mark, the butterflies return. You know for a fact that he keeps looking at you, too. By the time the noise level outside of the room increases and music is being blasted through the apartment, you’re nowhere near being done with all one hundred cranes, but both of you are sure your mutual friend doesn’t actually care about that. Together, you emerge from his room. You don’t answer any prodding questions from your friends for most of the time you’re mingling, though you’re pretty sure that a good number of them see him sneaking kisses at least once or twice.

Some of them definitely see when you sneak off to his room again before the clock has even turned to midnight. At the same time, you could be damned if you really care.

[superhero--imagines]

Part 1 Here! / Part 2 Here! / Part 3 Here! / Part 4 Here! / Part 5 Here! / Part 6 Here! / Part 7 Here! / Part 8 Here! / Part 9 Here! / Part 10 Here! / Part 11 Here! / Part 12 Here! / Part 13 Here! / Part 14 Here!

Donate to Higher Ground HERE!

* “Everyone in school thought you were dead.”

* Jessica says bluntly as you walk down the pink streamer filled hallway

* you offer her a fake yawn and a smile.

* “My dad came by for a surprise visit.” She looks confused before her expression smooths

* “Oh your real dad, not Carlisle”

* Carlisle contacted his counterpart, Eleazer to tell him you were running away with a man 300 years your senior

* So of course Eleazer came running -after he probably had a spat with Carmen about who would handle this situation better- to Forks on the first flight he found

* Only to burst through the door to see you and Emmett playing kingdom hearts in the living room

* “Oh, I see the rumors have been vastly exaggerated.”

* Cue -figuratively- sweating Carlisle who takes a sip from his mug

* Since he was already here you figured you would take a few days off from school and show him around

* “Is there anything in particular you might want to see?”

* Edward and Carlisle are looking pretty smug thinking that they’ve already shown you everything of note in the area.

* “I’ve always wanted to see the space needle in Seattle.”

* They both falter when they hear that. All the things they’ve shown you are things humans wouldn’t be able to see, hidden meadows, waterfalls, underwater caverns

* They never thought to show you human landmarks. Eleazer nods a growing smile on his face

* “Seattle has a lot of museums that I’ve wanted to visit as well”

* Carlisle let’s out a sigh of relief, none of his kids would be caught dead at a museum outside of a field trip

* To their dismay and Eleazer’s delight your eyes sparkle

* “Can we go to the pop culture museum and the arboretum too?”

* You don’t even pack, Eleazer tells you you can just buy whatever you need when you get there. You do take a duffel bag full of blood bags though

* And then you’re gone, you leave care instructions for your animals with Edward and you and Eleazer drive off towards Seattle in the rented Mercedes he got at the airport

* “Is it just me... or do they look happier with Eleazer than they are with us.” Edward’s only talking to himself, but Carlisle hears and the oncoming doting parent verbal and mental sputter makes him regret saying anything at all

* “it’s okay Carlisle, I’m sure they’re happy here with us too.”

* You guys stay at a pretty upscale hotel downtown, in the penthouse

* “Are you here on a trip with your boyfriend?” The receptionist asks, and Eleazar straight up starts laughing

* “This is my dad.” You say with a straight face and you can tell the receptionist wants to die

* “I-I’m so sorry, we usually get couples this time of year.” Right, it’s almost Valentine’s Day. Makes sense.

* Still there’s something super gross about people thinking you’re romantically linked to Eleazer

* The penthouse is very nice. There’s an infinity pool on your balcony, and three different bedrooms.

* The trip is really fun, you have a -pretend- meal at the revolving restraint at the needle, and spend the rest of the week museum hopping

* “She feels so familiar....” you mumble to yourself as you gaze at a portrait of a woman with long dark hair

* “That’s Carmen” Eleazer tells you

* “What?!?”

* “She was popular with artists even before she turned, it’s always been a hobby of hers to model” You’re just glad it’s not a nude portrait

* You take super cheesy pictures at the natural history museum, and even better pics at the pop culture museum

* On one of your last nights in the city Eleazer took you to a laundromat

* “I know we’ve been running out of clothes, but I’m sure the hotel has a laundry service”

* Eleazer just grins, talking to the attendant, who takes him to a hidden door.

* Well this isn’t sketchy at all

* Eleazer takes your hand in his as he leads you down a long narrow hallway. When you teach the end there’s a pretty nice bar and what appears to be a jazz club

* “It’s a speakeasy, I thought it might be a little fun for our last day”

* Being beautiful has its perks because the waiter doesn’t even card you, just brings you your dink

* “So...Garrett huh?” You groan, and Eleazer smiles

* You knew this was coming

* “Don’t worry, I’m not like Carlisle, if you like someone I like them too.”

* Well at least he isn’t acting like a total freak about the whole thing

* “I am surprised someone like Garrett is more your flavor though” you raise an eyebrow.

* “In comparison to who?” Eleazer gives you a funny look

* “Edward of course”

* You almost spit out your drink

* “Oh, is this one of those situations where the three of you are a couple together?”

* You start coughing and the waiter brings you a glass of water

* “We’re not together!”

* “Well of course you and Garrett aren’t together yet-“

* “Edward and I aren’t dating.”

* Eleazer just looks at you like you told him you’re pregnant

* “That can’t be right” he mumbles and you sigh

* “Why would you think we were dating?” The jazz singer belts out a high note and Eleazer patiently waits for her to be done so he can talk again

* “Well you went with them to Forks, and when you came to visit last year with him we all just figured it had happened naturally”

* Besides, Eleazer see’s the way he looks at you.

* Like you’re the epitome of your gender, like there’s never been anyone like you and there never will be again

* “We all? The entire coven thinks that?” Your fingers thread through your hair.

* What does Tanya think about that? She must be feeling pretty smug what with that talk she gave you all those years ago about how you would eventually date Edward

* Edward probably knows and just doesn’t even care, the criminal probably thinks it’s funny

* Eleazar watches you have a breakdown, taking a small sip of his brandy. It looks like you haven’t realized the way you look at Edward yet

* You look at him like you don’t have a single doubt. You trust him unconditionally, you know exactly who he is and where he will be.

* You look at him like he’s home

* “This is so embarrassing” you mumble and Eleazer smiles

* He guesses it’s not time yet for you to realize your feelings. Maybe it’s for the best, he’s not as bad as Carlisle, but the thought of giving you away at your wedding makes his heart ache.

* “The best cure for embarrassment is alcohol, drink up.” He grins when you clink your glass against his before gulping down the contents of your drink.

* Who knows, maybe in a few years someone completely different will show up and sweep you off your feet.

* You do talk about something really important with Eleazer though

* “Eleazer when do you think Aro will send for me?”

* Eleazer stops mid motion, his glass halted halfway between the table and his mouth

* “If I’m being honest, I don’t think he will for many years” Eleazer has an awkward expression on his face. “I think he’s afraid of you”

* You sputter

* The great and powerful Aro?! Alive for 1000’s of years. AFRAID OF YOU?!?

* “Oh don’t look at me like that, try and think about it from his perspective.”

* Your power is on par with Janes, but unlike her over the decade you’ve been a vampire your power has only gotten stronger. Your body’s natural despair and your desire to be human feed off of each other, compounding on each other to make your power that much more potent

* The only difference is that now you’ve learned to hide it, keeping your emotions in check so others aren’t hurt

* There isn’t a person alive that stands a chance against you at your full potential. You’re the strongest known vampire

* “Chelsea can’t bind you to coven with her loyalty like she does the others,” Eleazer takes a sip of his drink. “his only choice is to let you come back on your own volition, otherwise he risks a war.”

* A war he wouldn’t win, on your own it was dicey, all of them against just you could go either way

* But you weren’t alone anymore, now you have Tanya, Kate, Irina, Carmen, Eleazer

* And Edward. You know without a second thought Edward would follow you into hell if you asked.

* “Saving any discovery of remarkable talent”

* A discovery like Bella

* You’re not 100% certain, but you’re pretty sure your powers don’t work on Bella, the same way Edward, Jane and Alec’s powers won’t work on her

* And if she can really spread her shield to others-

* You’re f*cked

* “but the chances of that are slim to none.” Eleazer reassures you

* You give him a reassuring smile

* “Salud” you raise you glass and he smiles

* “Salud” he grins as your glass clinks

* You weren’t expecting the week to go by so fast, or to be having as much fun as you did.

* You were pretty sad when the end of the week rolled around and Eleazer dropped you off home

* “He’ll be back before you know it” Edward says, his arm over your shoulders, giving your arm a comforting squeeze

* “Yeah I know, it still feels bad though”

* Edward doesn’t say anything, he just holds you a little closer

* You’re thankful to the Cullen’s for taking you in and giving you an opportunity you might not have had otherwise

* But they’re not your coven, they’re not really your family

* And so now you’re here, walking in a bright pink and red construction paper covered hallway next to Jessica who’s talking about Valentine’s Day

* Ah right, today’s Valentine’s Day

* “Do you think maybe...Mike bought me a carnation?” She asks twirling a strand of hair around her finger

* “I’m sure he did”

* You’re actually sure he bought one for Bella, but you’re hoping the courtesy extends to the whole friend group

* You bought all your friends valentines, and that includes the Cullen’s and everyone on the cheer team

* The money wasn’t the worst part, they were only a dollar each, the worst part was having to write notes for all of them, it wouldn’t have been so bad if the girl at the table wasn’t giving you a dirty look as you pretended to struggle through writing 30 cards

* “How much do you want to bet Bella gets the most flowers out of all of us?”

* You would bet the entire contents of your bank account, but you’re pretty sure Jess can’t match your bet

* “Well, she’s something new to look at, and boys are dumb”

* Jessica blows a strand of hair out of her face. You know she’s probably a bit bitter since she’s started to notice Mike is interested in Bella and not her

* But you kind of get it

* Bella’s cute, but she’s no Cindy Crawford. And to add...she’s really shy, not exactly someone with a charismatic personality.

* The attention she’s garnered will fade in due time, Edward had told you as much

* “It’s the same thing as when we moved to town, most of these kids have gone to school together since childhood, so when someone new gets here it’s all they can think about. They don’t really like her, they just like the idea of her. The illusion of a choice”

* It made you a little sad to be honest, even worse was that Bella didn’t seem to enjoy the attention. She seemed uncomfortable every time a boy flirted with her

* “I almost feel bad for her, I get the feeling she’s not really into any of these guys that are chasing her” Jessica says, so you’re not the only one that’s noticed

* You’re a little surprised that when the student comes by with carnations you get two entire bouquets worth

* And then they come back the next period and give you another bouquet

* “Oooo someone’s popular!” Angela teases and you shrug. Most of these are from Alice and Rosalie, they each bought you three each

* You got a whopping 12 from Conner which feels a bit surprising

* You knew he was going after it, but you didn’t think he would bother to actually put any effort into his attraction outside of flirting with you

* You’ve got one from everyone in your friend group, a handful from others on the cheer team, Emmett and Jasper both bought you one

* The only person who didn’t get you one was Edward

* You wonder if he got Bella one? The thought seems unlikely since they were basically at each others throat the last time they were together

* So imagine your surprise when you walk into the hall to see Bella and Edward talking

* You’re gone for a week and it’s like they’re suddenly insta-friends

* In fact, Bella’s actually blushing, a carnation twirling between her fingers

* A light red carnation

* So he did buy carnations after all, just not for you

* And Edward...his eyes are sparkling as he looks down at her. A lopsided grin curling onto his face

* Oh, there’s that smile

* He says something to her and she pouts, slapping him lightly with the carnation

* They’re getting along just fine without your matchmaking efforts

* So you were the problem

* You should be happy, relieved even-

* But all you can feel is the sharp twist in the bottom of your stomach

* “Hey (Y/N/N), I see you got my flowers”

* You turn around to see Conner who’s looking at your half zipped bag, 3 bouquets of flowers popping out of the top

* “Oh, yeah thanks they’re beautiful.”

* “I’m glad you got them, I noticed you weren’t at school and for a second I was worried you wouldn’t be here today too.”

* He really is cute. He’s got chocolate brown hair and clear blue eyes, a splatter of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He plays tennis or baseball or some other irrelevant sport.

* He’s popular with the girls too, he dated Lauren a few times, and Jessica admitted she had a crush on him freshman year.

* “Are you feeling better now?” He asks, he looks genuinely concerned and it takes you back a bit

* “Yeah, my dad came for a surprise visit so we went to Seattle”

* “Oh that’s cool, what did you guys do?”

* You’re a little surprised that Conner O’Malley, f*ckboy extraordinaire, is Trying to engage you in an honest conversation

* “We just did all the tourist stuff, space needle, museums, food, the usual.”

* Conner smiles at you, hands fidgeting together

* “That’s cool, did you um-did you read the note with the bouquet?

* You didn’t notice there was a note, you swing you backpack around, picking out his bright red bouquet with ease.

* You hadn’t paid attention to the note attached than reading the name on the front to see who they were from.

* “Will you be my valentine” you read the note out loud, feeling confused. What does that mean

* He fidgets in front of you, from here you can see his ears are bright red

* “So would you want to go out sometime?”

* He’s asking you out? On a proper date????

* “We could go watch a movie, or um I know you like to ride those bikes in Port A-“ you do like to ride those bikes in port a

* You watch the his human boy fumble over himself. There’s no future with this boy, one day he’ll grow old and want things you won’t be able to give him.

* “I have a ton of homework to catch up on-“

* “Oh, yeah no, I get that”

* But maybe... maybe it’s okay just to pretend and let yourself be entertained by the experience

* “Would you want to come with me to the library? I’m totally lost on Trig”

* You know it’s not the most romantic place, but that’s part of the reason you suggested it. You want to give him an out

* He looks a little surprised but recovers quickly.

* “I’ll meet you after school then, we can drive to the library together”

* You don’t bother telling Edward, you just look to the spot where he’s with Bella, he must have heard

* His eyes meet yours, his mouth pinches into a slight smile and he gives you a nod before turning back to Bella

* What so just because he’s got a new friend you’re invisible now?

* Stupid Edward. Not like you care, you just wanted him to know he’d have to ride home with the others

* Maybe his new best friend Bella can give him a ride home

* “So you’re going out with Conner tonight huh?” Mike asks when you take your seat in biology

* Edward doesn’t so much as spare you a glance

* “He’s just helping me catch up on school work.” You shrug, pulling out your biology homework

* “I bet he’ll help you catch up on-“

* “You’re going out with Conner?” Bella interrupts, you’re grateful for it but at the same time: those doe eyes and innocent face irritate you

* “He’s just helping me catch up on homework I missed”

* “Couldn’t Edward hell you do that?”

* You try to not look at Edward

* But what the f*ck?!?

* Last week the two of them couldn’t even sit in a car together for a short ten minute drive, and now all of a sudden she’s asking why you’re NOT spending time with Edward?

* It’s so... irritating

* You feel a tap on your arm, and turn to look at Edward

* “Control yourself”

* Oh great so the one time he decides to acknowledge your presence is to tell you to control your powers because he’s worried about his little human girlfriend getting the whiplash?!?

* Seriously, f*ck off Edward

* “Mr. Barnes I have to go to the nurse.”

* You don’t even wait to hear his answer, you just grab your bag and walk out

* You keep walking, practically fuming until you get to the parking lot

* Well you can’t leave, you already told Conner you’re going with him to the library after school

* Not to add it’s going to look real weird if you don’t go the nurses office eventually after storming off like that

* But you don’t want to go there yet

* Queue you discretely crouching under a window, lightly tapping the glass

* “Rosalie, Rosalie can you hear me?” You whisper

* Rosalie head turns to the window, her eyebrows threaded together, you poke your head just slightly above the ledge and give her a small smile and a wave

* Well at least it’s always interesting with you around

* “What are you doing?” Rosalie asks when she meets you under the school staircase

* You give her a nervous smile before collapsing onto the floor

* She gives you a knowing look before sitting beside you

* “So what did king Brood do now?”

* Queue the Edward rant

* “I leave for one week and all of a sudden he’s besties with some human, when just last week he told me not to get to close to her”

* “That’s Edward for you, king of the brood and hypocrisy.” Rosalie leans her head back against the wall

* “You know he didn’t even get me a carnation?”

* Rosalie rolls her eyes

* “That sounds like him, if it helps he didn’t buy me a carnation either, he just doesn’t think things like this are important”

* “He bought Bella one.”

* Rosalie sputters at that, so you retell her all about the flirting you had to watch

* “What color was the carnation?” Rosalie asks, and your eyebrows thread together

* Why is that important right now?

* “Um I don’t know, not quite pink, not quite red, something in between.”

* Rosalie’s expression smooths

* So that’s his game

* “Don’t worry about it too much as long as it’s not a deep red it doesn’t mean love”

* Now it’s your turn to sputter

* “W-what why would I be worried? Edward can do whatever he wants, even if it is with some human”

* Rosalie gives you a knowing look, and you avert your eyes

* If Rosalie were cruel she might ask why you’re sitting out here with her instead of in class, if you don’t care about what Edward does

* But Rosalie isn’t cruel, at least not to you

* She pats your shoulder, and you sigh

* “Come on let’s go to the nurse so you can pretend you have cramps or something” you nod

* “Besides don’t you have a date with the hottest human boy at our school?” You groan and a teasing smile curls onto her lips

* “Not you too.”

* The date is over hyped for sure, it’s mostly you and Conner sitting at the end of a small table asking each other questions about the trig homework

* “So...are you supposed to use the radical formula for this one?”

* “I think so..do you remember the formula?” Conner scratches his head

* “Um I remember there was a story about a mixed up guy going to a party that’s supposed to help”

* Basically it’s more like you’re helping Conner with home work than him helping you Totally underwhelming

* “Sorry, I bet there are better ways to spend your Valentine’s Day” Conner scoffs

* “Are you kidding? I’m spending it with the hottest person at Forks HS, as far as I’m concerned this is a win” he grins and you smile back

* Well, it wasn’t completely a waste

* You roll around back home around 11:30, everyone’s gone, on with their own Valentine’s Day plans.

* You’re not surprised to see Edward’s not in his room either He’s probably out watching Bella or doing god knows what

* You know this is the way it supposed to be, it’s the best thing for you too, you know even with Bella in the mix Edward would never betray you

* Once she’s on your side you don’t have to worry about the Volturi. But still, there a twist in your stomach You don’t like this new Edward, even if it is who he really is.

* You want your Edward back

* You sigh as you walk down the hall and into your room Stopping in the doorway when you flick on the lights

* There on your desk is a bouquet of roses

* You have half a mind to think they’re from Eleazer or Garrett or something

* So imagine when you pull off the card to see Edward’s name attached

* “Glad to have you home, happy Valentine’s Day” - Edward

* You toy with the card, a small smile curling onto your lips

* Maybe he’s still your Edward

* Your Edward just more anti-social

Tags:  @moonlights27 @thebluetint @the100thtwilight @awesomebooklover17 @oneofthepotterheads @smileygirl08 @imdoingathingmom @iconicgguk @yrawn @alyciaswhore @little-horror-show @wicked-watering-can @lazydreamers @ xxxmuxxx @ideas-for-you-to-adopt​​ @poisoinedhope @maryleigh8796​ @moose-squirrel-asstiel​ @hotmessgoodness @jaimewho @corabmarie @what-am-i-doing10​

[auramindedd]

Talent ||

Desc: You and your new friends decide to a drunk Among Us game. You have lots of fun and you’re glad to be able to have amazing friends like them. After ending the stream and sobering up, Corpse asks you something you’d never thought you’d be asked.

Warnings: Cussing, drinking

Notes: i’m using these fake social media apps bc they’re fun &’ i like using them for messaging and twitterrrr! i hope you guys don’t mind them! <3

also, i’m super sorry for not posting in a while. my motivation comes and goes, but right now i have lots of it.

i wanna work on an smau series so, be on the look out for that! :))

——————————————————————————

“No balls!” Rae shouts, daring you to kill Jack who is trying to get something out of the vending machine, but him being drunk as fuck doesn’t help.

“I have three, actually.” You joke. Both you and Rae burst into a fit of laughter, but not for long since Jack goes up to you two.

“What are you two laughing about?” He asks, laughing with you guys even though he has no idea what he’s laughing about. Gosh, Jack, you’re really making it hard for me to kill you right now, you think to yourself.

“This,” You answer, killing him. You and Rae run away, screaming whenever you see someone. Thank God for everyone being drunk or else you two would be sussed out for being complete maniacs.

“Y/N,” Rae whispers. She gestures towards the green room and you can see Sykkuno watering the plants.

“No!” You whisper-yell. You’ve become Rae’s hitman, Brooke being the other Imposter. You need someone to vouch for you so, you don’t mind being by Rae the whole time.

“Hey, Sykunno!” Rae shouts when Sykkuno walks out. He’s slurring over his words, trying to say ‘hey’ back. Yeah, no way you’re killing him.

“See? Absolutely no fucking balls. Small dick, too.” Rae taunts. You want to kill her, but if you do, you’d immediately get voted off. So, you kill Sykkuno instead. It hurt, but you had to show Rae what’s up.

“How come no bodies have been reported?” You ask to nobody in particular, just wondering out loud.

“I’m good at hiding them.” Corpse jokes from behind you, scaring both you and Rae. Corpse knows how sensitive you are to any sound when it comes down to places that are quiet, and since only you and Rae have been together, his voice was the cause of your overdramatic ass scream. Playing along, Rae starts screaming with you two, the both of you being extremely obnoxious.

You know that he was just joking about hiding the bodies because Brooke is your partner for this round. You’re not even sure how Corpse isn’t dead yet.

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Corpse chuckles. “I won’t sneak up on you like that anymore.” You and Rae stop screaming, relieving Corpse’s poor eardrums of being blown.

Rae starts running around you in circles while you and Corpse are in the middle of a conversation. You know what she’s hinting at, but you decide to ignore her. You’re not going to kill Corpse.

“No balls!” Rae shouts competively.

“What?” Corpse asks, sounding confused.

“I have so many, Rae, you don’t even know, but I’m not gonna- I’m not gonna kill Corpse.” Good going, Y/N, you think to yourself. Well, now you have to kill him.

Corpse starts running away and you do everything your drunk ass can do to catch him and kill him. He’s laughing, running into walls, you doing the same. Finally, you’re able to kill him.

Rae catches up to your avatar, laughing maniacally. She cheers you on, knowing that’s the only way that you’ll continue to be her hitman. Jack, Sykkuno, and Corpse. You’re not even sure if Brooke has killed anyone.

“Brooke! Brooke, have you killed anyone yet?” You try to be quiet, but your shitface drunk and you don’t think that’s working.

“No, have you?” She asks, trying to be quiet, too.

“Yeah, three people. I’m Rae’s hitman.”

“Okay, I’ll do better.” And with that, she’s off to go kill people.

———

“His body was in the hallway to Decontam... I think, don’t quote me on that.” Dream says, slightly slurring on his words.

“There’s 4 bodies and we’ve only found one? What the fuck?” Charlie sounds exhausted and you can’t help but laugh.

“Sorry,” You try and catch your breath, but once you do, you’re still giggling a bit. “Sorry, that was funny.”

Everybody else starts laughing and eventually, the voting time ends and nobody is voted out.

Wow, a tactic you didn’t even mean to use actually worked. It’s either because of how drunk everyone is or because of how contagious your laugh is - a lot of people call it cute and adorable.

———

You guys decide to end the game, everyone else ending their streaming while you just close your laptop. You all seemed to sober up towards the end, none of you wanting to drink anymore. Right now, you’d say you’re 85% sober. Taking a shower and drinking lots of water should have you good and all sobered up.

After taking a shower and getting a cold bottle of water, you lay in bed, watching random Minecraft speedbuilds of people building cute cottages.

You get a DM from none other than Corpse Husband. You smile to yourself before answering.

———

You wake up with a minor headache. Last night, you’d say that the Minecraft speedbuilds helped sober you up, but right now, you know it was the cold shower and cold water bottle.

You remember the text message Corpse had sent you, about wanting to check up on you. You two have only known each other for about a week or two now, and you two haven’t really talked. It’s nice, though - having someone who wants to check up on you. He’s done it these last three days you’ve played with him and his friends.

You text Corpse, telling him you can talk on the phone now. You both have been trying to plan to talk to each other just so you guys can get closer. You and Corpse relate to a lot of things and talking in Among Us with proximity chat and Corpse’s stream, it’s not the best way to have a deep conversation.

“Hi,” You greet him, placing your phone down that way you can make breakfast and talk to him. He wanted to FaceTime, and you’re not sure why because he said he’d be covering his camera. It’s fine with you.

“Good morning, Y/N. What are you up to?” A small yawn escapes his lips.

“Making some chocolate chip pancakes.” You grab your phone, showing him the pan that’s mostly filled with chocolate chips.

“Gosh, Y/N, want some pancakes with your chocolate chips?” He chuckles. You giggle, placing the phone back down and turning the camera to face you.

“I’m an amazing cook, puh-lease. I know what I’m doing.”

“I think we’ll have to test that theory.”

“You live like 2 hours away from me, how are we gonna do that?” You ask him, placing a pancake on your plate. You put more butter on the pan before putting more pancake mix on.

“I’d 100% drive two hours to your apartment just to try out your food.” He says. You smile at him, shaking your head and rolling your eyes playfully. “Speaking of going to each other’s houses, I have a question.”

“What’s up?”

He chuckles nervously, “Do you maybe want to collab?”

You’re caught offguard by this. You quickly put your pancake on your plate before answering.

“I’d love to.” You’re able to contain your excitement, surprisingly. “But Corpse, if you’re not comfortable with meeting me, we can find some way to do it over the phone. I really don’t think it’d be that hard. You could record your parts and I cou-”

Corpse cuts your rant off, chuckling a little bit. You smile sheepishly, taking a bite out of your pancakes.

“I’ll be fine, Y/N.”

“Okay,” You give him a small smile. “We can make plans later.”

“Good,” He says and you can hear a smile in his voice.

“Good,”

You and Corpse talk about anything and everything, alternating from really deep conversations to lighthearted, funny ones. Lots of laughing, but also lots of crying on your end. Corpse telling you that it’s okay and that everything will be okay is your new favorite thing. You never knew how much those two phrases would be changed just by coming from a different person. They never really meant anything when they came from anyone else - as much as you appreciated people reassuring you. But hearing it from Corpse, it really did feel like everything was going to be okay.

You two end the call, both of you being busy today. He promised to call you more often and you did the same.

——————————————————————————

Taglist:: Updating it tonight, comment or message me if you want to be added!

@bakugonua @emsies-dream @i-love-scott-mccall @anyasthoughts @diesinspanishbcimhispanic @campcampie @happyheartsss @izthefangirl @just-that-bi-girl @fire-heart-raven @tayloryorkscurls

——————————————————————————

Tags:: ignore

[rayshippouuchiha]

I just had an au idea that I fucking love already. Bnha au where quirkless discrimmination is, like really, really bad. Izuku is there when the laws get tighter, when everything gets worse. When he’s young the discrimination was bad because everyone knew he was quirkless and his mother was “overprotective”abusive. He doesn’t stand up for himself, he accepts it. (Deep down he’s so angry he can barely breath, he’s so angry he wants to scream, he wants to rip and claw and scratch until everything stops. But he doesn’t because he’s quirkless, worthless, a deku. Deep down though he knows the consequences if he does. Deeper down he knows he could get away with if he really tried.)

He wants to be a hero more then anything. He holds that dream close and closer and closer until it slips through his fingers like everything else.

He doesn’t care about himself. He doesn’t. But when he sees someone else facing the discrimmination he faces, when he sees the world start changing to close him and those like him out. When he realises that he was lucky.

He wants to be a hero. So he becomes one. He disappears and gets a new identity. This one isn’t quirkless. He threatens, hurts, and does whatever has to be done to get where he needs to be. Then he becomes the hero he never got.

It’s starts in whispers but eventually he is known enough but not too much. He helps quirkless people. He gives them new identities, gives them fake quirks, gives them passports, gives them what they need to survive in the world.

And if that involves multilating willing participants to give them “quirks” if that means kidnapping little kids to get them away from situations they should never have been put it, if that means killing somebody that needs to be dead. Then, well. He always wanted to be a hero, and he is one now.

I don’t really know plot but I love the idea, maybe you can make an au out of it maybe not. I don’t know how the muse will take you. I have a lot more ideas but if I write them down this ask will become way to long. Sorry for errors in writing.

It’s me with the bnha au about quirkless midorya that gives other quirkless people fake identities and quirks. You haven’t even seen the earlier ask yet, but I just wanted add, because it bothered me, that I changed my mind about inko.

She would not be “overprotective” abusive. She would either be a really good mom, not the best but basically canon. Or, she would be neglectful and good at the same time. Like when she’s around him she treats him with respect and gives him love, but she isn’t often around and leaves him most of the time to his own devices. He has to learn some things young because he can’t trust that she’ll be there. But he can’t hate or think badly of her because she treats him the best out of everyone in his life and he thinks it’s the best he deserves. He’s grateful to her.

And later when he realizes how common it is for quirkless children to be killed, sold, abononed, abused by their caregivers he realizes that he was lucky. He knew it before but that’s when he knows. (While in reality all of these things are bad, maybe izuku’s situation wouldn’t require urgent removal but it still gives him issues and trauma.)

Izuku is already at the edge of going down his vigilante/criminal ways but inko dies and suddenly it’s there. Her death is basically the catalyst for Izuku diving into his new life head first because nothing is holding him back anymore.

This is my third ask talking about my bnha ‘quirkless Izuku giving other quirkless people fake quirks’ au idea.

But I just realised and could not leave those asks without it that the insporation for this au would be the amazing fics Anyone by Gentrychild (for izuku’s orginisation) and Horizon: Star Driven by RogueDruid (Icarius51) (for quirkless quirks).

Sorry if all my super long asks about this are annoying I just want to rant about one of my ideas while they are still fresh.

+ fake quirks they could create could be fake mutations. Find someone that could change someone’s eyes and find someone that could change someone’s hair permanently with their quirks or surgery. Anyway one idea I have is that the “quirk” would be a half snake mutation. They would with a quirk change the persons eyes to slits, and then cut their tongue in half so they had two half’s of a tongue (it’s a real thing look it up).

Sorry if my random rants are annoying I just never have anyone to share my ideas with and here seems like a chaotic enough place to do so while having fun and not being shamed.

~~~

I compiled them for easier consumption! And you’re absolutely not annoying darling, don’t worry about that at all!

[yuta-nakamots]

misfit - j.sc

Pairing - Sungchan x Reader

Genre - Horror/Thriller, Angst, Fluff

Warnings - serial killer, character death, violence, murder, implications of sex

Summary - A murderer is on the loose, killing with no regret and ending the lives of more than just a few people. No one knew who it was, turning against each other upon even the slightest bit of doubt. Maybe you should’ve been more careful with who you chose to trust. 

Word Count - 5.3k

A/N - this is inspired entirely from a dream I had a few days ago. I've added very little to what I saw in my dream aside from Sungchan as the male lead. yes, I am freaked out by this and yes, I am scared of writing for Sungchan bc I don’t know his personality all too well but as an ‘01 liner myself I have faith in us

Written for the #NeoHalloween writing festival hosted by @nct-writers​. Check out the masterlist here.

For five months now, your town has lived in fear. A serial killer was on the loose and he was known by the name of Hickleback Jack though no one knew where the name came from or who had started it. Each month, the population of your town voted on the local community board to have one person executed who they thought was Hickleback Jack. So far, not a single guess was right leaving five innocent people dead. Well, five plus an extra thirty, give or take.

See, the thing about Hickleback Jack, was that every time the votes came in at the end of the month, he could see just who voted for him and targeted them as his next victims. He killed six of those people over the following month, adding up to seven dead each time the town guessed incorrectly. It was getting to a point where no one trusted each other, no one dared to say anything against each other in fear of being accused or in fear of being the next to fall mercy to Hickleback Jack.

Not much was known about this killer other than his appearance. He’s male with a tall and broad figure though he always covers his face with some kind of mask. His common weapon is known to be an axe. People have claimed to have seen him late at night under the dim orange glow of the street lamps but he was never caught by the authorities, leaving everyone restless and waiting for the next kill.

The night was still young when you had gotten home from school and it was a Friday night which was basically an open invitation for you to call over your boyfriend, Sungchan. He had transferred in to your university at the start of the school year, and had ended up sitting next to you during your sophomore seminar class, leading to the start of your friendship with him.

A simple friendship soon blossomed into a relationship after Sungchan’s bright personality began shining through his somewhat intimidating exterior. You lived without fear when Sungchan was around, the love you had for him blocking out anything else in the world that wasn’t him.

You sat on your bed, your homework spread out in front of you while you held your phone up to your ear. “Do you want to come over tonight?” You ask as soon as he picks up your call.

You hear rustling on the other end of the call before Sungchan clears his throat and speaks, his voice husky from sleep. “Sorry, can you repeat that?”

“I said, do you want to come over tonight?” You paused and heard him yawn. “You fell asleep after class didn’t you?” You smiled to yourself thinking of your boyfriend’s handsome face as he napped after getting back to his apartment once he finished with his classes for the day, which was a common occurrence now that the semester was in full swing.

“Mmm,” he hummed in thought, “as much as I’d love to, I really shouldn’t have taken that nap because of how much homework I have.”

“Oh, that’s okay, do your homework first,” you reassure him, “maybe we can hang out some other time this weekend. It’s only Friday after all.”

“Definitely. Are you starting yours right now?” Sungchan asked.

“Yeah, I’d rather not wait and end up cramming on Sunday night.” You laughed, knowing that said event has happened more times that you’d like to admit.

Sungchan let out a noise of agreement. “I’ll let you know when I’m done with my homework though.”

“Same here.” You promised.

“Alright, let’s get to work and I’ll talk to you soon.” He told you.

“Sounds good, love you.”

“Love you too.”

With that you hung up, eager to start on your homework in hopes of getting to spend more time with your boyfriend. You actually had a lot of it this weekend thanks to molecular biology, and you figured that if you couldn’t talk to Sungchan, who had yet to take the course, you called up your study group discord instead. Luckily, many of them were in similar situations as you, faced with the daunting task of completing all the worksheets assigned during class earlier in the day.

“Okay so was anyone paying attention during the lecture today?” Your classmate Chenle asked.

“I know Yeji fell asleep so you’re in the same boat as her.” You interject, recalling the sight of both of them knocked out in their seats as the professor droned on about the functions of the structures inside cells.

Yeji let out a gasp of shock at how blatantly you called her out. “I may have fallen asleep but at least I still know that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.”

“Everyone knows that, Yeji.” Your other classmate Jaemin said, his voice void of enthusiasm.

“Okay, Jaemin, we get it, Mr. Serious.” You teased.

“Yeah, this is a biology study group, not a bible study group, lighten up a little.” Chenle jokes.

Jaemin scoffed, “sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who’s trying to do well in this class.”

“Well not all of us enjoy the taste of coffee with six shots of caffeine in them.” Yeji argued back.

“Guys,” you called out as Jaemin and Yeji started arguing, “guys!” They finally stopped to hear what you had to say. “Let’s just get this over with sooner rather than later because I know none of us want to be awake at 2am trying to figure this out alone.”

“Agreed,” Chenle said, “so question three, the one about the DNA mutation, how is missense different from nonsense?”

“Missense is where one of the bases mutates and changes to something else, therefore changing the protein level,” Jaemin explained, “nonsense is the same theoretical concept except it spells out one of the stop codes.”

Yeji let out a groan, “can you slow down, or like, I don’t know, use easier words or something?”

Most of your night passed by like this and before you knew it, it was already nearing midnight and you could tell your classmates were just as exhausted as you. “I think we should call it here.”

“Definitely,” Yeji confirmed, “tomorrow morning at 10?”

You all let out similar answers of acknowledgement before Chenle spoke up. “The poll closes on tomorrow night so make sure to vote if you haven’t already.”

Because of how long this has been going on for, everyone was already on the same page once someone mentioned the poll or voting. “There were only five kills this month so I wouldn’t be surprised if the last one is announced tomorrow or Sunday morning.” Jaemin chimed in.

“All the recent kills were related to the university so I know a lot of people are suspecting someone in our age range.” Yeji informed the group.

Jaemin let out a chuckle, “if the killer actually is a college student, I wouldn’t be surprised since it is getting close to the last wave of midterms and then finals so that would explain why the victims fall into the same category.” The chat fell silent at that. “I’m just saying that he’s getting a little lazy by grouping all his kills like this.”

“Jaemin, are you sure you’re not the killer?” Chenle asked with a laugh at the end.

“Guys, I can promise you that I’m not the killer, I swear on my life.” Jaemin promised.

“Alright, that’s enough detective work for tonight, I’ll start the call again around 10 tomorrow. Sounds good?” You conclude, wanting to curl up under your covers already, which is exactly what you do once everyone wishes each other a good night and hung up.  

Morning came a little too quickly for your liking, the bright sunlight flooding into your room through the window and forcing you awake. Checking your phone, you saw that it was 9:30am, meaning you had some time to spare before your next meeting with the bio study group, along with a notification from Sungchan that he had sent well after you had fallen asleep.

Sungchan > y/n

2:14am: Just got rescheduled to work opening shift tomorrow.

2:15am: Didn’t finish my homework but I can stop by at your house after work with my stuff and we can hang out and have fun once we’re both done?

Your heart warmed at how he stayed up late trying to finish his homework for you and that he suggested the idea of coming over after his shift at a small local restaurant finished just so the two of you could be together even if you’d be focusing on your own tasks for a while.

y/n > Sungchan

9:32am: Sorry I didn’t text back earlier, I just woke up!

9:32am: But of course you can come over, I might even be done with my work by then ;)

You plugged your phone to let it charge and left it on your nightstand as you made yourself breakfast downstairs. The house was quiet since your mom already left for work and you dad worked a night shift job and was probably sleeping at the moment. It was strangely serene as you prepared yourself a bowl of cereal though the calm was rudely interrupted by the sound of your ringtone coming from your room.

Deciding to get it after eating breakfast, you poured the cereal in first, thinking about the way Sungchan had told you before that he liked to pour the milk first and let the cereal soak up the milk. “It makes it super soggy and I like it.” He tried reasoning with you, to which you only raised an eyebrow at.

Just as you put the milk carton back into the refrigerator and was about to take a bit of your cereal, your phone started going off again. You placed your bowl onto the kitchen table and made your way back up to your bedroom to see what it was that was so important this early in the morning. Checking the notifications, it was Yeji who had been calling you so you shot her a message.

y/n > Yeji

9:39am: What’s up?

Yeji > y/n

9:40am: I just dreamt that it was Jaemin who was the killer

9:40am: please call me right now I feel like I’m going to go insane

You heeded her words and called her immediately. “So what happened in the dream?”

“I don’t know, I just remember being chased by a man with an axe and I was running to the school to try to see if I could get help but then I tripped and when I turned around, it was Jaemin.” Yeji blurted out without a single breath in between.

You paused, trying to take in all the information she just threw at you. “Do you have any reason as to why you think you dreamt this?”

“The way he was talking last night,” she stopped to catch her breath, “he spoke so in detail that I couldn’t help but overthink like, what if he is actually the killer? What if we’re next?”

“Well, you can vote for him in the poll if you want but personally, I don’t think it’s him.” You think of your next words carefully. “I’m not trying to invalidate your thoughts but Jaemin does come from a reputable family-”

“Y/n, it could be anyone. Family doesn’t matter. We have no information on the guy, we don’t know what economic class he’s in or anything.” Yeji interrupted.

You took a few seconds to gather your thoughts before speaking again. “That is true, but we all know Jaemin wants to be a surgeon right? He’s in all these difficult classes and he maintains such high grades-”

“Okay but how is that relevant?” Yeji interrupted yet again.

She was getting on your nerves but you held yourself back. “Listen, I’m just trying to say that with the amount of time and effort he puts into school, I don’t think he could be the killer. The killer plans his kills well enough that we just can’t find him and that probably takes just as much time as school does for us.”

Yeji took a while to respond though when she did, her words surprised you. “Now you’re starting to sound like the killer.”

“Yeji, I can promise you that it’s not me. I’m just as scared as you are in this whole situation,” you reasoned, “I’ll even vote for Jaemin if it makes you feel better.”

She let out a sigh across the line. “Okay fine. Maybe a kill will happen while we’re on the call and it’ll clear Jaemin’s name.”

“I think you’re letting it all get to you, just try not to think about it for a bit.” You advised.

“But am I really overreacting y/n? We live every day in fear of being the next victim. Tomorrow is not promised to any of us, so am I really overreacting?” You look over at the clock on your wall as she spoke, realizing that it’s already 9:55 and you should probably start the call already.

“No, I don’t think you’re overreacting, I’m just saying that constantly thinking about it to this extent isn’t good for you. We still have school to pay attention to,” you explain, “speaking of, I’m gonna start the call now.”

“I can’t just stop thinking about it that easily but whatever, let’s just hope that we’re not associating ourselves with a murderer by doing this.” You can only shake your head as you start the call.

Chenle joined immediately followed by Yeji. “Good morning ladies, President Zhong here. How are we doing on this fine day?”

You rolled your eyes even though a smile spread across your face. “I’m doing good, Mr. President. Ready to finish off these worksheets.”

“Good, good,” Chenle affirmed, sticking with his act, “and you, Miss Yeji?”

“Fine.” She shot out.

Chenle let out a quiet chuckle, “someone’s a little grumpy this morning. Maybe we should’ve met a bit later.”

“No, let’s just get this over with.” Yeji grumbled just as Jaemin joined.

“Great! Now that the head brain cell is here, let’s get this meeting started.” Chenle exclaimed.

Four hours into your meeting and eight out of ten worksheets later, your phone begins to ring with an incoming call from Sungchan. “Hold on guys, I gotta take this call. Hello?”

“I’m downstairs, come pick me up.” You couldn’t deny the butterflies that spread throughout your chest upon hearing your boyfriend’s voice. You got up to let him in though you certainly didn’t miss the teasing coming from your laptop as your classmates yelled about you and Sungchan.

As you made your way downstairs, you froze halfway down the stairs, seeing Sungchan already in the kitchen eating the bowl of cereal you forgot about. “I’m guessing you made this for yourself earlier and forgot to eat it.” He said through a mouthful of food.

“Babe, no, don’t eat that, it’s like five hours old. The milk is probably stale.” You exclaimed, worried about his health if it really did go bad.

Sungchan only shrugged as he took another spoonful into his mouth. “Tastes fine to me.”

You rolled your eyes before turning to head back upstairs. “Join me in my room once you’re ready, you cereal monster. Leave the dishes in the sink too.” As you returned to your room, you couldn’t help but wonder how Sungchan got in though you figure he’s probably seen you use the spare key under the doormat a couple times since you often were too lazy to get your own keys out of your bag most of the time.

When you sat down in front of your computer again, Jaemin had just finished explaining the answer to the problem you guys were working on earlier so you chimed in asking him to go over it again though he was quickly overrun by an excited Chenle. “Is Sungchan there?” He practically yelled.

“No, not yet, he’s eating some soggy cereal downstairs.” You inform him.

“Alright, let me know when he comes in.” Chenle says, unphased by your boyfriends’ odd preference of cereal.

Halfway through Jaemin’s explanation, Sungchan came into your room, placing his bag down at the foot of the bed before he took his jacket off and stripped out of his work uniform. “I heard a door open, is that Sungchan?” Chenle shouted over Jaemin once more.

“I never get to fucking speak in this group.” Jaemin huffed, at which Chenle muttered a quick ‘sorry’ back.

“Yes, Chenle, Sungchan is here,” you announce, looking over at the boy in question who had just finished pulling a shirt over his head and winked when he saw you staring at his body, “he seems very flirty today, must be because of you, Mr. Zhong.”

Sungchan sits down next to you and places a kiss on your cheek, smelling oddly of cleaning supplies, but you pay no mind to that, figuring he must have used them at work. “How’s it going Chenle?” He asks, though his attention is only on you and he places his hands on your cheeks and leaves a quick kiss on your lips.

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t just hear the two of you kissing,” Chenle remarks, earning a laugh from Sungchan, “but anyways, you should come back to the basketball team. We miss our giant point guard, you know.”

“Nah, I’m too busy these days. I already have work and school plus I still want to spend time with y/n.” He commented as he shifted to lie on his stomach next to you.

“Man, who knew a girl would be all it took to make this dude throw his love for basketball out the window.” Chenle taunted.

“Love makes you do things, you know how it is.” Sungchan replied, resting his head on your thigh.

Running a hand through his hair, “anyways,” you divert, “back to what Jaemin was saying about meiosis.”

“Thank you, y/n, I thought I’d never be able to speak again.” Jaemin uttered pointedly. “As I was saying, the main difference between meiosis and mitosis is that it creates four daughter cells instead of two like mitosis does.”

“Hey guys, wait, did you see the article that just came out?” Yeji inquired. “It’s another death.”

There was a moment of silence before anyone said anything. “No but you can read it to us.” Chenle concluded.

“Okay,” you could hear the deep breath Yeji took before reading the article, “it says here that the body was found at around 1:20pm in an alley between the lower-income housing apartments, the cause of death is assumed to be by Hickleback Jack using his axe, and the estimated time of death is anywhere from 12 to 1pm.”

“Wow,” Jaemin began, “so he just killed out in broad daylight.”

“Not gonna lie Jaemin, but I thought you were the killer.” Yeji let out blatantly.

You were mildly shocked at her bluntness, but not surprised given how stressed everyone was. “Me?” Jaemin gasped, “Yeji, you know I’m pretty much Rapunzel with how much time I spend in my room studying. And when I’m not studying, I’m either editing pictures or playing video games.”

“It’s true,” Chenle confirms, “he really doesn’t leave his room. We had a sleepover once and I felt like I was becoming a hermit like him.” Sungchan slightly wheezed at that, sending Chenle over the moon. “Did you hear that? Did you guys hear that? Sungchan thinks I’m funny!”

“Yeah yeah, enough about me being a hermit. But Yeji,” Jaemin addressed, “why did you think it was me?”

Yeji hesitated before responding. “I just- the way you were talking the other night...I don’t know. It just sounded so specific and detailed that I couldn’t help but think that it could have been you.”

“I don’t think a murderer would simply reveal his plans like that, you know.” Sungchan proposed.

“Well yeah, but it’s just the way he spoke, it was like he had things organized...you know what? Let’s forget I said that, but I know the four of us are clear.” Yeji resigned.

Sungchan sat up, “wait, why am I not cleared?”

“Y/n, what time did he call you?”

“Like 2-ish.”

“Exactly. Sungchan, you don’t have an alibi, as far as we know, until 2 and the time of death is stated to be 12 to 1pm.”

“I was at work earlier in the day, though.”

“Can you prove it to us?” Yeji pressed on.

“Yeah, my coworkers can vouch for me.”

You were quite surprised at how aggressive Yeji was being towards your boyfriend but you didn’t see any reason to stop her since she had very valid arguments. “Send a screenshot of it to Chenle and we’ll verify you from there.” Yeji commanded.

Sungchan slouched down a little next to you. “I don’t have the numbers of my coworkers though.”

“Alright, then you’re still on the list of suspects.”

After finishing all the worksheets for microbio and ending the call around 3:30, Sungchan pulled out his laptop and started typing away at a half-finished lab report for his human A&P class. You fell asleep curled into his body, his warmth and the constant tapping of his keyboard lulling you to sleep.

When you woke again, you immediately noticed the absence of a large boy next to you and frowned to yourself. As you came to, you heard noise coming from the kitchen and identified your mother’s voice followed by Sungchan’s. Noticing the time on your phone, you guess that he was probably helping her prepare dinner since it was already past 6 and your family ate around 7 before your dad left for work.

By the time you made yourself presentable and came downstairs, your mom and Sungchan were already setting the table. “Looks like our sleepyhead finally woke up.” Your mother exclaimed, making you grimace. “You didn’t tell me Sungchan was staying over,” you were about to open your mouth to say that you didn’t know that either but you weren’t given the chance to do so, “it’s okay, especially with that killer still on the loose, it makes me feel better knowing there’s someone around to protect my baby.”

You looked at Sungchan as if asking him for answers though he seemed to only avoid your gaze, reluctantly taking the seat across from you at the dining table. Your father walked in, delighted to see your boyfriend. “Sungchan! Good to see you, how are things at school?” He asked as he joined you all at the table.

“Okay for the most part, I haven’t taken to my writing class all that much though I enjoy my other science classes.” Sungchan answers.

Your dad hums in approval while you stare down Sungchan, trying to get him to look at you. “Remind me again what you’re majoring in again?” Your mom asks, Sungchan whips his head around faster than you can make eye contact with him.

“I’m majoring in forensics.” He states.

“Interesting, interesting,” your father contemplates, “you know, y/n here wants to become a pediatrician. The two of you are practically opposites in the science field, one dealing with crime and the other dealing with children.”

Sungchan let out a laugh, “I guess opposites really do attract then.”

You hated how well he entertained your parents and you hated how much they liked him. For the rest of dinner you tried to pin him down through your stares and even played a game of footsie with him but nothing seemed to work. It was only once the two of you were back in your room getting ready for bed that you were able to talk to him.

“Look, I’m not mad at you or anything, I’d just appreciate it if you talked to me first before just telling my parents that you’re staying over.” You told him as you went through your skincare routine.

Sungchan jumped onto your bed as he apologized. “Sorry, I just thought that since both of us finished our homework and with the killing today, it would just make sense for me to stay over.” He opened his arms, inviting you in as you stood up after finishing your night routine.

You copied him, jumping into your bed straight onto Sungchan, effectively pushing the air out of his body. He grunted as your weight fell onto him though he still wrapped his arms around your waist and shifted you up the length of your body so your face was level with his. “Hi” you giggle, shy from the sudden close proximity.

“Hey.” He says back with a smile as you slide off him, leaving an arm and leg slung over his body. “Tired?”

“No, not really, I took a nap earlier since someone didn’t care to wake me up.”

“You looked too cute, besides, you need all the rest you can get.” Sungchan explained, using his free hand to squish your cheeks. “If you’re really not tired then I know a way to make you tired.” His hand found its way down to your butt to further emphasize his point.

“Ew, no, not now.” You quickly refused, moving his hand up to your waist. “Just go to sleep and I’ll probably fall asleep after you anyways.”

“Oh wait,” Sungchan said, reaching over you to the nightstand for his phone, “did you vote on the poll yet?”

“No, I almost forgot.” You groaned, lazily reaching for your phone as well.

You pull up the local community board and enter your information, looking at the list of all the citizens, pondering on who you’d give your vote to. “Who are you voting for?” Sungchan asks, looking over at your screen.

“I really don’t know.” You tell him, though truthfully, you had someone in mind.

Thanks to the nap you had, you really couldn’t fall asleep no matter how hard you tried. You ended up dozing off occasionally but you’d wake up half an hour later only more irritated than when you first fell asleep.

You don’t remember what time it was, but at some point, Sungchan had removed himself from your grasp, unaware that you were still awake, though you made no effort to stop him thinking that he was just going to use the restroom and come back. Five minutes passed, five minutes turned into ten, then twenty, and you decided to check on him once thirty minutes had passed.

The house was completely dark, not even the light from the bathroom was on. You checked inside in case Sungchan had maybe gotten hurt and passed out, but he was nowhere to be found. After searching almost all the rooms in your house, you had yet to find any sign of him. After a bit of thinking, you had wandered out to your mothers’ greenhouse thinking that maybe some time with the plants would help to calm your mind.

It did anything but that.

Not long after setting foot inside of the small shed, you heard screams coming from nearby, getting closer and closer. You watched from the inside of the tinted glass as three girls ran through your backyard and into the next property. You couldn’t help it that you were frozen to your core, knowing who was coming.

You saw his frame as he jumped over the fence from the other end of your yard, axe in hand, running through the open grass and you thought he might have noticed you until he stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes glued on you. You should’ve ducked down as soon as the girls ran past but it was too late now and there was no second way out of the greenhouse.

You knew you should have tried to run, maybe smash through the glass panelling but something in you told you that maybe, just maybe, you’d be able to stop him. Steeling your nerves as he crosses the threshold of the greenhouse, you call out to him. “I know who you are.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

It was as if your world was crumbling before you, the once so comfortable relationship you knew felt fake, even though Sungchan, your loving boyfriend stood right there. The only difference was that you knew who he really was.

“Why?” You start, “why did you kill all those innocent people?”

“It’s all for fun, y/n.”

“What do you mean ‘for fun’? Those are real people you know, people with families and friends who miss them dearly.” You nearly cry out as he continues to approach you.

“You see, life is a game.” He paused his words as he came to stand in front of you. “Laws are nothing but a social construct that us humans follow mindlessly until our own demise.”

He takes a step closer to you, but you stand your ground. “Laws are what keep us safe and keep us happy. They allow us to lead our lives peacefully with others-”

“They are nothing but limits.” He closes the distance between the two of you, an arm wrapping around your waist, pulling you towards him, and you allow him to do so. “My dear, sweet, y/n. If only you weren’t so smart, I wouldn’t be faced with this dilemma.”

“You wouldn’t kill me.” You were trying to persuade him just as much as you were to yourself. “You’d never.”

“Oh? And what makes you think that?”

“You love me.”

“I do, I love you so dearly, but now that you know who’s behind all the killings, there’s no way that I can let you go.” You felt his axe nudge the back of your leg as he brought both arms around you. To an outsider, it would look as if a couple were having a conversation, but for you, this was a fight for your life.

“Take off the mask.”

“Why should I?”

“So I can talk to you properly.”

He took off the mask without much more convincing, his normally handsome face now distorted by the crazed look in his eyes. People often say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and if they really were, then Sungchan didn’t have a soul.

“I swear to you that I won’t ever tell anyone about this, about you.”

“I don’t believe that you’ll keep that promise, my dear.”

“You know how much I love you. As long as we can stay together, I will not say anything.”

“This is not a tale of beauty and the beast. I am no beast to be tamed and there is no happy ending to this story.”

“Sungchan, no. You don’t mean that.”

“Do I really not mean it, or is that what you would like to believe? Something tells me it’s the latter.” He held you tight against him with one arm, the other raising his axe. “It’s truly a shame that your beauty must go to waste, you were truly a wonderful person both inside and out but I’m afraid that your life must end here.”

Before he could prep his swing, you pulled away and grabbed the nearest pot, launching it at him, the ceramic breaking against his head making dirt rain down upon both of you.

Not even a second passed before his axe was flying at you, lodging itself into your neck, nearly severing your head from your shoulder. You should’ve been thankful really, thankful that Sungchan had given you a quick death, not his usual route since it was so painless and easy for both the victim and the assailant.

He liked a struggle, but for you he made an exception out of love so that the last thing you’d see was him, your lover, before everything stopped.

[that-wimpy-cowboy-doll]

Dialogue prompt: Shieldshock (duh) and "You weren't supposed to see/hear that" (whichever version speaks to the muse more)

💕😘💕😘💕😘

Whoo baby this is late but I went with “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”  Hope you enjoy, bb.  Regrettably the overtly sexy stuff is only mentioned

Darcy did her best to stifle the flush burning its way up her neck, diverting her eyes from Steve Rogers marching his handsome heroic ass into the latest Stark Industries company party.

“He wasn’t even supposed to be here,” Darcy hissed, and brought her glass of champagne up to her lips, draining it.  “The last time I saw him, he said he wasn’t coming…”

But there he was, in all his tall glass of Captain glory.  Not unnoticed by many of Darcy’s coworkers, men and women alike, who weren’t even trying to hide the lust in their eyes as he made his way through the glass doors from the hallway into the event space. 

Not that Darcy could blame them. He looked damn good in a suit.  Looked damn good out of one, too, the last time she’d shoved his dress slacks down his thighs on her couch so she could take him in her mouth, make him lose control with his huge sexy hands in her hair and her name hoarse in his throat.

That was beside the point, though. The point of avoiding her famous fuck buddy in public was, well, 1) to protect his Super Duper Hero Complex by preventing her from being used against him by supervillains, 2) to keep the fuck buddy dynamic on a professional, non-work-involved basis, and 3) perhaps most importantly, to keep either of them from catching dreaded fuck buddy feelings. Any kind of public interaction lent toward making them feel obligated to each other, and that was something Darcy’d proclaimed absolutely not happening when they’d agreed to this.  No strings attached sex was fun, as long as they kept their passions strictly below the belt.

“I mean,” Jane started, as she always did, to remind her best friend of how stupid she thought the whole arrangement was, “it’s not like you’ll burst into flames if he says hello to you in front of other people.  That’s kind of...acting like a human being?  The last time I checked?”

If it was possible, Darcy blushed harder, not watching him be accosted by Tony near the bar.  “I don’t know, it’s possible I might spontaneously combust if he even fucking smiles at me in public...when we’re alone I can do whatever the fuck I want, but here…”

“You’re a whole-ass baby, you know that?” Jane deadpanned, hunting for the cherry at the bottom of her drink with the tip of her straw.  “Just be casual.  Like you are for the debriefing meetings.”

This was different, Darcy wanted to huff, knowing that she would sound like a whole-ass baby if she did.  Being casual with the person she rang for casual sex in their workplace, in the moment, was one thing.  They were still technically at work, sure, but this was a party - she was supposed to enjoy herself.

It was hard to enjoy herself in the same room as Steve Rogers without his lips on some part of her.

“I have...a problem,” she admitted slowly, her champagne glass far too empty for her liking.  Jane, meanwhile, wore an expression somewhere between unsurprised and unimpressed.  “I think I want to be exclusive.”

“Are you not already?”  The incredulity in her best friend’s voice was clear, but Jane propped a hand on her hip anyway to add to the effect.  “I haven’t heard about any of your Tinder escapades lately, and from what Thor’s told me, Steve doesn’t really have his eye on anyone else…”

“Just because we haven’t been fucking anyone else doesn’t mean he wants to be with me, too.”  He was closer now, shaking hands with some fundraiser coordinator Tony had invited; God, every bone in Steve’s body seemed more warm and genuine than the last.  “If I talk to him in public I’m going to want to kiss him in public, and that...crosses a line I don’t know that he’s cool with.”

“There’s this magnificent thing I’ve read about,” Jane said, her PhD voice in full effect, “called having a fucking conversation, Darcy.  I love you with my whole entire heart, don’t get me wrong, but I think if you just talked to him...you wouldn’t be on the fence with all this anxiety.”

That was easy for Jane to say.  The best sex of her life had wanted her pretty much the moment he’d laid eyes on her, had done his best to make up for his absences in the time they were able to spend together, and Jane’s heart, though preceded always by her big, sexy brain, lived on her sleeve.  She and Thor sorted things out without much fuss.

Darcy had known she was several leagues below Steve when they met, and had made an idiot out of herself walking directly into his giant rock-hard chest with an entire tray of coffee that splattered on his Very American uniform.  God only knew why he’d agreed to be her bang buddy a month or so later, but she had a distinct feeling it had more to do with what lay on top of her chest rather than the dumb dorky heart that beat under it.

He was making rounds, coming closer, so she changed the subject quickly, Jane performing her mightiest eye-roll while Darcy rattled off something inane about some singer who’d donated to the literacy foundation Tony and Pepper were heading.

“I heard Pepper wants to get Lady Gaga to perform at the ribbon-cutting,” Jane added helpfully, glancing into her emptied glass.  “Sounds pretty cool.”

“She was the one who got Weezer for tonight.”

Darcy’s heart stammered in her chest at the voice that had contributed that delightful tidbit of conversation, and the tall, muscular, suited body that accompanied it.  Steve’s smile glinted from under his perfectly trimmed beard, the velvet blue of his jacket and pants doing absolutely nothing for the growing whirlpool of want in Darcy’s stomach.  Christ almighty.

“Was she?” Jane prompted, looking, to her best friend’s dismay, like a cat with a mouthful of canary.  “Darcy loves Weezer, you know.”

Was this it?  Was she dead?  Had the gala all been some elaborate ruse planned by Stark Industries to murder her fucking dead on the spot in front of the hottest man she’d ever met?

If this was it, Darcy mused, at least she looked really fucking good.

“I didn’t know that,” Steve said, and now he was making eye contact with her, that knowing smile on his lips that could only be held by someone in his exact position.

“They were actually my first concert.”  She swallowed, her throat dry.  “Right after ‘Pork and Beans’ came out.  I was in college and I wore...way too much eyeliner, but in fairness I think I was in the majority there.”

Jesus Christ, stop fucking talking.

Jane smirked at the empty champagne flute in her hand.  “Here, I’m out, too, let me get you another one.”

Against her better judgment, Darcy surrendered the glass with only a furtive version of the eye-daggers she wanted to send her best friend.  Jane sent her a sly wink before tailing it toward the bar.

“Weezer.”  She swallowed again, doing her best not to notice the way his tongue dashed out across his lower lip, his eyes boring down into hers through those stupid long eyelashes.  “When do they come on?”

“You haven’t been seeing anyone else.”  It wasn’t a question, he was smiling a stupid cocky half-smile that she thought stupidly would look much better between her thighs.  “What was it Jane said…’no Tinder escapades’ - was that it?”

It felt like the blood had drained from her body.  “You...weren’t supposed to hear that.”

He stuck his huge hands in his pockets, gathering himself up to his fullest height.  Fuck, he was so big.  She couldn’t get enough of it.  “Well...you’re both right about something.  I’m not seeing anyone else either, and kissing in public could definitely cross a line.”

Great.  If the mortification wasn’t enough, now her heart felt like it had dropped into her stomach.  “Yeah?”

He stepped forward, his hand sliding to her favorite place, the small of her back with his pinkie just brushing into her ass.  When they were alone, this always felt like him laying his claim, showing her where she belonged, where he belonged.  But they weren’t alone.  Not even close.

“Yeah,” he murmured, dropping his lips to hers, slotting their mouths together.  Her eyes flew shut of their own accord, melting into him, the smell of his pine soap and fresh linens filling her nose.  Steve kissed like he fucked, like he did anything: full of passion, vigor, life.

For a moment, Darcy forgot they were in the middle of a gala, lost in his warm body pressing up against her, but when she brought her hands to his collar he pulled away slowly, releasing her bottom lip from between his teeth with a sly smile.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” he whispered, his nose still halfway touching hers, “you wanna dance to some Weezer with me, Darcy?”

She closed her eyes again, a tiny laugh escaping her in a short breath.  “Yeah, I’ll dance to some Weezer.”

[xxdragonwriterxx]

🔥Drunken Mishaps🔥

A/N: Hey guys! So as just a fun little extra to my stories, I’m going to add a music recommendation at the top of each of my fics like this! I just like to listen to music while I write and thought I might as well share some of my favs! Feel free to ignore this if you want, it’s just for fun! (Side Note: the songs may or may not have anything to do with the topic of the fics. They are just going to be random songs I like. Some of them might relate but others might not).

🐉 Song Recommendation: “One Night in Bangkok” By: Murray Head 🐉

~~~

(Y/N) grumbled to herself as she drove to the bar down the street from her apartment building, her movements stiff with frustration. She had told him several times to drive himself to the bar with his friends, knowing he would get bored halfway through and want to come back home, but Hanji and Erwin had insisted on carpooling together, bringing her grumpy flatmate Levi with them. She would’ve gone with them, but she had a big test the next day she needed to study for. Hence her frustration at being pulled from her study session to pick up her sour roommate when all of this could’ve been solved by simply having him drive alone.

(Y/N) parked and wasted no time in entering the surprisingly well kept establishment, the only bar that was clean enough for Levi’s standards, fuming as she made her way up to her friends.

“Oh hey, (Y/N)! Finally decided to join the party, huh?” Hanji asked when she saw the angry girl, making (Y/N) pause.

“Hanji…, you were the one who called me to tell me that Levi wanted a ride home because his phone was dead and he was bored. If this was all some trick to get me to come here, I’m going to kill you.”

“Oh no, no, no, nothing like that, I know how busy you are,” Hanji said, waving her hands in front of her. “I was just happy to see you, that’s all.”

(Y/N) growled something under her breath that all three of her friends ignored and stalked over to them, her eyes flashing when she caught sight of Levi leaning against the bar, slumped over in his seat.

“This is why I told you to drive yourself,” (Y/N) said by way of greeting when she finally reached them, slapping the wooden surface of the bar with her palm to emphasize her frustration.

To her surprise, the normally observant raven-haired man snapped his head up in shock with a quiet yell, almost as if he hadn’t known she was there, despite her being two feet in front of him.

“Levi? Are you okay?”

The sudden dazzling smile that broke out across his face left a very bewildered (Y/N) reeling, his eyes softening when they focused on her.

“Hey, princess! I was wondering when you’d finally meet me here. I missed you.”

(Y/N) let out a squawk of surprise when Levi suddenly latched onto her arm and pulled her into him, nuzzling his face into her neck and breathing in her scent as if he had done this a thousand times. Her blush intensified tenfold when she heard him quietly mumble, “so warm…” into her skin. Turning to Hanji and Erwin, who were struggling to hide their laughter behind their hands, (Y/N) gritted her teeth and silently wondered why she put up with them sometimes.

“You guys seriously had to get him drunk?” (Y/N) hissed.

“Well yeah!” Hanji said in between barely suppressed giggles. “He needed to relax, you know how he is, always so pent up all the time. He needed some time to really unwind so we challenged him to a drinking contest. You know how good I am at holding my liquor.”

“You better not be driving, Hanji…,” (Y/N) mumbled, still glaring at her friends.

“Oh don’t worry, I didn’t drink tonight, I just wanted to watch the chaos unfold,” Erwin said with a wink, wrapping a large arm around his girlfriend’s shoulders. “I’ll make sure we both get home safe and sound.”

Hanji beamed at her boyfriend before turning back to (Y/N), her grin widening. “Besides, he was being stubborn and wouldn’t admit his feelings for you even though it’s super obvious he loves you. So we decided to…, loosen his tongue a little.”

(Y/N) blushed but shook her head. She knew Levi had absolutely no interest in her, they had nothing in common. She was a psychology major while he was aiming to become an accountant, the two of them only meeting in their shared statistics class in the second semester of freshman year. They were only roommates because they worked well together, having done several projects together for their shared classes that ended in success, eventually leading to a surprisingly sturdy friendship between the two. He was sarcastic and grumpy while she was sassy and cheerful. He was cold and isolated while she was warm and confident. She had always found him undeniably attractive, but she knew that he would never look at her in the same way. He had even told her himself once that his attractions leaned more into the quiet, anti-social type, the kind of girls who were cold and reserved like him so he wouldn’t have to think of pretty words to say.

“Hanji, that’s stupid.”

“But true!” her friend cooed in a singsong voice, smiling even more when Levi suddenly wrapped his arms around (Y/N)’s waist, holding her tightly against him with a happy sigh.

“I’ve got to be honest (Y/N), when Hanji first brought it up, I didn’t think much of it either, but look at how he is acting now. And he’s only done that with you so far. Even drunk, when Hanji tried to give him a hug, he pushed her off of him, grumbling about how she wasn’t the one he was waiting for,” Erwin said, chuckling at the uncharacteristic behavior of the normally reserved young man.

“Guys, he’s only doing this because we share an apartment. We’ve sat together to watch movies before, he’s let me lean on him when I’ve had a long day at work or in class and needed a break, he’s sat in my bed beside me when helping me study and vice versa. He’s only latching onto me like this because I’m the only person he can remember being even remotely close to physically.”

“Sure, whatever you say (Y/N),” Erwin said, huffing a laugh at the thunderous look (Y/N) threw him.

“(Y/N), you seem so tense, are you feeling okay? I bet I can make it better, if you let me…,” Levi’s words stole (Y/N)’s attention away from Hanji and Erwin again, her eyes widening at the sight of Levi leaning in to caress her neck with his lips, even letting his tongue dart out to swirl along her soft skin, forcing a squeak from (Y/N)’s lips.

“Umm, Levi? Why don’t we continue this at home? I’ll ummm, drive us back to the apartment and then we can hang out there, okay?” (Y/N) said in hopes that he’d buy it and let her go long enough for her to bundle him into her car.

“Ooooh! Gonna continue at home, (Y/N)? Shameless.”

(Y/N) flipped Hanji off then, her blush turning her entire face red as her friends laughed at her expense. Levi groaned in frustration but peeled himself away from (Y/N), allowing her to help him to his feet and leaning on her once he was finally up. Praying that he wouldn’t vomit all over her, (Y/N) kept her movements slow as she told her friends goodbye and helped Levi to her car, stuffing him in the passenger seat before getting behind the wheel and pulling away from the bar.

Thankfully, Levi was mostly quiet on the drive home, keeping his hands to himself and merely looking out the window at the buildings that passed, only speaking to occasionally point out a pretty light he saw, or a dog being walked as their owner took advantage of the cool evening air to be outside. (Y/N) couldn’t help but giggle at his drunk antics, her traitorous heart thumping loudly in her chest when he flashed her a smile in response. She had never seen him smile so many times in one night, and it was getting harder and harder to keep her composure when those normally rare smiles were directed at her.

Although he kept mostly to himself in the car, (Y/N) was once again thrown head first into shock and embarrassment as soon as she had helped Levi into their apartment building, her roommate immediately clinging to her like a lost puppy. 

“Mmmm, (Y/N),” Levi purred, rubbing his face into the space between her shoulder and  her neck, making it hard for her to focus on getting the door unlocked. Her face was rivalling that of molten lava as he groaned, his eyelashes tickling her neck when his eyes fluttered closed. “You’re so soft…”

(Y/N) finally got the door open and shoved him inside, quickly locking the door behind them. Once she was sure the deadbolt was secure, she went to turn around only to find Levi pressed against her again, his tongue once more coming out to flick along her throat down to her collarbones, making (Y/N) freeze at the feeling.

“Gods kitten, you have no idea how long I’ve waited for you,” Levi murmured in between licks and kisses.

“Levi, you were only out of the house for a few hours, we haven’t been away from each other that long.”

“That can’t be right,” Levi said with a shake of his head. “I’ve been waiting for you for years, not hours.”

Suddenly (Y/N) understood what he meant and felt the flames immediately rekindle in her cheeks. While part of her was overjoyed that he shared her affections, the other part of her knew it was too good to be true. He was drunk, he had no idea what he was talking about, he was just spewing bullshit, saying what the alcohol was telling him to say. Hell, for all she knew, he could be imagining she was a different woman entirely. He had yet to say her name, he could be thinking that she was someone else from one of his classes, and was using her to realize his fantasy since the star of his desires couldn’t be here.

“Levi, I don’t think you have the right person, you’re drunk and obviously not in the right state of mind, why don’t you just go to sleep so you can have a clear head in the morning?” (Y/N) said, trying to guide him to the couch.

“No, I know it’s you,” Levi said with a frown, leaning to drop another kiss on the dip between her collarbones, his lips lingering after he parted from her skin. “I’ve waited too long for this, I’d never mistaken you for anyone else. You’re the one I want.”

(Y/N) felt like squealing and crying at the same time but she swallowed both impulses.

“Levi, you’re dreaming. I’m not who you think I am, so stop kissing me. I’m the wrong person, and the last thing I want is to ruin our friendship because of some stupid drunk mishap!”

“No, I know you’re (Y/N). I could never forget you. I love you, there’s no way I’d ever not recognize you.”

(Y/N) breath hitched at his words, even when she had to suppress the smile that tried to appear on her lips when he gave a cute little hiccup after his impassioned speech. So he really was fantasizing about her. She wanted to leap on him and smother him with kisses but she held herself back. She knew better. Just as she had told her friends at the bar, this was all just some drunken whim spurred on by her close friendship and living situation with the young man, the alcohol taking advantage of his hazy memories to make her seem like some kind of long lost lover to him. She smiled as she thought about all of the teasing she was going to be able to do in the morning, even while her heart simultaneously broke at the thought of his disgusted face when he heard about kissing her when he was finally sober.

“Levi, you need to go to bed now. You’re going to need all the sleep you can get for when you have to deal with your hangover in the morning,” (Y/N) said. To her surprise, he stubbornly shook his head again.

“Not a chance. I finally get to have you after all this time. I’m not letting you leave this bed until you’re screaming my name.”

Gods, he was so far gone. (Y/N) opened her mouth to respond when all of a sudden, she felt his hips press into hers, her eyes widening almost comically when she felt his arousal nudge against her. Immediately, her entire face turned red, the color even creeping down to her neck and spreading out over her collarbones where Levi was still leaving small nip marks, soothing them over with his tongue before moving back up her throat.

“L-L-Levi!” (Y/N) squeaked.

His smirk against her skin made her spine tingle. “Now you’re starting to get the right idea.”

His words were followed by another hiccup, making (Y/N) snap out of it again. He’s drunk. He had no idea what he was saying and doing. As his roommate and friend, she knew he hadn’t had a lover in ages, at least not since he was dumped in his first semester of sophomore year. This was all just the result of the whiskey in his system combined with his pent up sexual frustrations, his body instinctively looking for an outlet. She just happened to be close by.

(Y/N) had to bite on her lip to keep from moaning as Levi dug his hips into hers again, his length pulsing a little through his pants as he ground against her, his panting moan sending her stomach into a state of butterflies. But this was wrong. Quickly pulling herself together, (Y/N) shoved aside her own needs and placed her hands on his chest just as he reached for her shirt.

“Levi, stop. You need to go to sleep.”

“(Y/N)? What are you-”

“Levi, it’s time to go to bed, come on.”

“(Y/N), wait! Please don’t leave me, I’m sorry if I was being too forward, I just want to show you how much I love you. If you aren’t ready-” He was interrupted by yet another hiccup. “If you’re not ready then we don’t have to take that step yet.”

(Y/N) felt the tears spring to her eyes, anger and sadness flooding her system. She knew he had no idea what he was doing, but she was starting to get tired of him toying with her feelings, even if it wasn’t on purpose. Gritting her teeth, (Y/N) ignored his protests and slapped his hands away, pushing him into his room.

Her heart clenched at the hurt look he gave her when she pushed his hands away but she ignored that too, pulling off his shirt, pants, and shoes, leaving him in his boxers, and tucked him into his bed. To her relief, his eyes finally started to flutter closed as she made sure the sheets were wrapped securely around his body. When she was finished getting him ready for bed, (Y/N) yawned and cast one last look at him before turning to leave, knowing her late night study session was already thrown out the window for the night, more than ready to just get to sleep.

His hand quickly grasping her wrist stopped her and she turned around to see a sad, lonely look on his face, one that made her want to kiss him until her lips turned blue.

“If you’re comfortable, will you stay with me tonight? E-Even if you don’t want me, I just want to h-hold you, even if it’s just for tonight.”

(Y/N) swallowed hard. She knew he was drunk but that clearly didn’t change how he was feeling at the moment, and it was clear he needed someone to be close to right now. Besides, he would have no right to be upset with her in the morning when he woke up to find her next to him, considering he was the one who asked her to stay.

Nodding her head, (Y/N) snatched one of his shirts and quickly changed in his adjourning bathroom, leaving her in just his shirt and her panties. She knew it wasn’t the most appropriate outfit at the moment, but she didn’t have the motivation to go back to her room to change. And again, he had asked her to stay with him, if he had a problem with her wearing comfy clothes to bed, then he could fuck off.

Slipping under the covers with him, (Y/N) had to force herself not to smile when Levi immediately clung to her, his arms looping around her neck and his leg throwing itself over her hip like he owned it as he buried his face in her chest, humming contentedly.

“Goodnight, Levi. You’re going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning,” (Y/N) said, leaning down to give him a quick, self-indulgent kiss on the forehead before settling down to sleep.

________________________________

Levi groaned in pain as the light from the window shone in his eyes, his pounding head doing nothing to help his already growing irritation. What had happened last night? He couldn’t remember anything, but something must’ve happened considering he felt like shit. He had an awful taste in his mouth and he felt like he was going to be sick. Lifting a hand to his face, he was massaging the bridge of his nose when a voice beside him made him freeze.

“Morning, Levi. Sleep well?”

“(Y/N)!!!” Levi cried out in shock, shooting up and scooting back to the edge of the bed in shock. “What the fuck are you doing in my bed!?”

“What? Don’t remember last night?” (Y/N) teased, her eyes flashing mischievously as she smiled.

“No! What the fuck did I do?” Levi asked, dread creeping into his belly as he scrambled to remember what had gone down the night before.

“Hmm, well, let’s see, first you went and got shit-faced with Erwin and Hanji, apparently it was some sort of drinking competition you and Hanji did. Then when Hanji called me to come get you, you kept nuzzling me and kissing my neck and calling me pet names. Finally, when we got back to the apartment, you kissed all over my neck and told me all about how I was finally going to be yours and you were going to make me scream your name. Oh! And you may or may not have, um…,  ground against me,” (Y/N) said, her smile only growing wider at the horror on his face. She loved to tease him sometimes, and this time, it was a good distraction from her aching heart.

Levi, on the other hand, wanted nothing more than to have a giant black hole swallow him up, making him disappear. Or to have a truck run him over. Or to slit his own throat. He knew going out with Eyebrows and Shitty Glasses had been a bad idea, but he had never expected it to go this downhill. He felt like throwing up, and this time it wasn’t just from what he now knew was a hangover. He was absolutely mortified. He had loved (Y/N) pretty much since the day they had met, his small little crush on her developing into full blown desire until he was head over heels for her. He had been looking for a way to tell her, his sanity starting to fray that the seams the longer he waited, but this was NOT how he had expected nor wanted her to find out. Then he suddenly remembered that she was here in bed with him in nothing but his shirt and some panties.

“I-I didn’t f-force you into anything, did I? We didn’t do anything, right?” Levi asked, cursing himself for stuttering.

(Y/N) immediately dropped her teasing manner and looked at him in shock and disbelief.

“Oh gods Levi, no! You were just drunk, that’s all. You were actually being really sweet for most of it, I’m only here because you said you didn’t want to be alone last night. That’s all, nothing happened between us. You’d never force yourself on me, and I’d never take advantage of you like that, when you were incapable of making your own decisions and retaining memory the next day.”

Levi sighed at that, relief washing over him. He didn’t think he could handle it if something like that had happened to (Y/N) and it had been his fault. Soon enough though, that  relief was replaced with embarrassment again, his head falling into his hands with a groan as he prayed for someone to just end his misery.

“(Y/N), I am so sorry, I can’t believe I did something like that. Just forget it ever happened, okay? I promise, I will have Shitty Glasses’ head on a stake for this.”

“Does that mean you really didn’t mean it?” (Y/N) asked, the words slipping out before she could stop them. Levi’s head snapped up to look at her.

“What?”

“Nothing! Just ignore me, please.”

“No, did you just ask if I meant it?”

(Y/N) nodded her head slowly, her teeth reaching out to bite at her bottom lip, dragging the plump flesh in her nervousness, making Levi have to suppress a moan at her cute expression.

“Does that mean…, you maybe feel something similar?” Levi asked boldly, trying to ask her before the rest of his confidence faded away, his body practically trembling with the pressure.

(Y/N) hesitated before she nodded slowly again, her eyes darting around the room as she suddenly found the plain ceiling of his bedroom to be very fascinating. Then, his words really sank in. Something similar…

“Wait a minute, you have feelings for me? None of it was an act last night?”

“I don’t lie when I’m drunk, I actually become more honest. Usually to the point where I lose what little filter I have on my tongue. I meant every word of what I said last night, at least, just so long as all of them were about how much I care about you.”

(Y/N) could hardly breathe. She was just waiting to wake up and find Levi still asleep, or in the bathroom vomiting his guts up. This had to be a dream, her brain playing tricks on her.

“What?” (Y/N) asked, her voice shaky and breathless.

“I love you, (Y/N). I’m sober now, and I can tell you with full certainty that I love you. I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable last night, I wish I had gotten the chance to tell you in a more modest manner, but I guess that point is moot now. I love you, and I have for a long time.”

“Oh thank gods! I love you too,” (Y/N) sighed, launching herself at him to plaster her lips to his. Levi chuckled at her response and held her close as he deepened the kiss, groaning at the taste of her paired with the feeling of her body against his and her tongue fighting his for dominance.

Breaking away, (Y/N) gave Levi a coy smile that sent his heart pounding against his rib cage, his silver eyes staring at her intently as she ran a finger down his shirtless chest.

“You know, Levi. Now that I know we are both on the same page, and you’re sober now, do you think I could take you up on the offer you gave me last night for a certain activity you had planned?” (Y/N) asked, a different kind of teasing tone in her voice, her hues sparkling as she eyed the light dusting of pink that accented his cheeks.

Levi growled, his chest swelling with love and pride as he looked at the woman he had wanted for so long. Arousal immediately stirred in his loins at her words, but his hands were gentle as they wrapped around her hips and dragged her into his lap.

“Fuck yes, now that I’ll remember it, I’ll do anything you ask,” Levi purred, looking into her eyes for one last confirmation of permission before swooping down to devour her lips with his own.

The two were so mixed up in each other that neither of them noticed both of their phones go off on the bedside table, two messages sent to each of them from a certain four-eyed freak and tall ass tree that read: 

“You’re welcome.”

[scraregenrecs]

Rec Roundup - May 2021

Hello friends! It’s June! (i know, i know, wtf, right?) Which means that we have a nice long list of fics from May that we know you all will love. There’s a little bit of everything. Everyone can find something they enjoy on this smorgasbord of rare ships and gen!

So, look through the list and buckle in for some AMAZING fic!

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Aeration by @middyblue, Alexis & David, rated T, 4495 words

Summary: Isn’t her whole life proof that she can handle it? However shitty life gets, she puts one heel in front of the other and keeps walking, keeps going to the next adventure, the next thrill, because it’s when you stop that it catches up to you; it’s when you stop and there’s no one there that you start disappearing.

The night before she leaves Schitt's Creek, Alexis gets a text from Sebastien.

Rec [written by doingthemost]: This is a stunning fic that takes an unflinching look at the people that Alexis and David used to be, and the people they've become. I haven't read an Alexis character study that touched me quite so deeply. Check the tags!

and i’ve known you for a long time by @hullomoon, Stevie/Twyla, rated Gen, 574 words

Summary: While moving in together, Twyla discovers something from their childhood

Rec [written by samwhambam]: I love this little fic for multiple reasons! Stevie! Twyla! MOVING IN TOGETHER! REDISCOVERING SHARED MEMORIES. I love it all. Give it to me. It’s a sweet little slice of life and hullomoon killed it. Again. Per usual.

Every Night Has Its Dawn by @lilythesilly, Stevie/Ruth, rated G, 633 words

Summary: Everytime Ruth takes her to a new place, whether it’s a karaoke bar or a concert in the park or a cheesy tourist trap, or to try her favorite foods (sushi is so far a yes, the bistec Ruth made in her kitchen this afternoon is so far a yes, kimchi is so far a no) she watches Stevie with a bright smile, like she’s anticipating whatever her reaction is, good or bad.

Stevie never wants to stop chasing that smile. She’ll follow Ruth to a million different places in a million different cities if it means she gets to see that smile over and over again.

--

Ruth + Stevie + Karaoke

Rec [written by doingthemost]: This is so pitch perfect, I could see it easily unfolding on my screen. I love the way you instantly get to understand the dynamics of their relationship through Stevie's amusing POV. This is a must-read for anyone curious about the ship!

The Future Is This Moment by floosilver8, Jake/David, rated E, 1774 words

Summary: Mostly canon compliant, David's POV for just before the cold open of S03E01 Opening Night

Rec [written by yourbuttervoicedbeau]: I’m such a sucker for David/Jake and this is super hot! I also love the tense shift at the end there.

High and Warm by lonelygrocerystore, Stevie/Twyla, rated T, 567 words

Summary: A (very stoned) Stevie and Twyla share a moment at Mutt's barn party and Stevie has feelings.

Rec [written by samwhambam]: Give me ALL the Stevie and Twyla making out while stoned at Mutt’s barm party. It is SUCH an underrated moment in the show. They both looked fantastic and it’s time we all really appreciated it. This fic is a combination of stoned making out and queer feelings and I really enjoyed it. So much. Highly recommend it.

In her brown eyes (the ones she gave to me) by @sarahlevys, Stevie/Ruth, rated G, 600 words

Summary: "I'm dating someone. Her name is Stevie."

Her mother tsks under her breath. "Stevie, ha? Sounds like a boy's name."

A laugh escapes Ruth despite her nerves. "Well – yes. I guess so."

Ruth tells her mother about her new relationship.

Rec [written by samwhambam]: This fic gave me mom feels. 😂 I read this and was really rooting for Ruth and I was so happy that her mom was receptive to meeting Stevie. It really breathes life into a character that we got limited screen time from. It’s a nice little treat!

Let’s all be with us by [orphaned account], Stevie/Albany/Jake, rated M, 1556 words

Summary: Jake and Stevie are at Café Tropical for their weekly milkshake the night of Jocelyn's baby sprinkle. After Albany overhears Klair saying breaking news: we still fucking hate her in regards to her at The Wobbly Elm, she flees back to where they'd indulged in lunch earlier that day, meeting the two of them in the process.

Rec [written by yourbuttervoicedbeau]: The thing I love most about fanfic is when I read something that makes me consider a character in a new way — or, honestly, makes me consider them full stop, which is something I’ve never really done with Albany. But this fic fleshes her out and gives her a damn good day.

my dress on the floor by @5ambreakdown, Stevie/Twyla, rated T, 4332 words

Summary: David smiles and squeezes his hand. “You’re cute.”

Before Patrick can respond any sort of way to that, he hears the door open behind them and turns to see Stevie enter, her eyes widening and mouth opening slightly. He hears her whisper, “Oh shit,” as she takes in Twyla behind the counter.

Huh.

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are stevie and twyla together? will patrick ever understand fashion? did i just vomit a bunch of words onto the page and didn't double check to make sure it was coherent? all these and more just might be answered!

Rec [written by samwhambam]: This is such a fun fic!! It’s told from Patrick’s POV as he slowly starts to notice some uhhhhh things between Stevie and Twyla. I love the Stevie and Twyla of it and I love David and Patrick being the classic best friends and getting super into it. I was smiling the entire time. It’s such a good fic and I kept getting distracted while writing this review because I keep reading the fic instead lmao.

rise and spin / over and over again by @anniemurphys, Alexis/Twyla, rated T, 2384 words

Summary: The apartment is dark when Alexis gets home, curtains drawn, air heavy. She wants to give in to the darkness, to curl up in it – but she also wants to pull her wife out.

Seven moments of grief, and one moment of hope.

Rec [written by doingthemost]: Please mind the tags! That said, if this is something you're comfortable reading, you'll find a devastating, breathtaking, captivating story in so few words. This is a fic that reminds me of how powerful fandom can be, and how we can often find solace and empathy in telling stories through these characters we love.

save it from the funny tricks of time by @hullomoon, David & Moira, rated G, 1114 words

Summary: While David helps her pack up her wigs, Moira reflects on their relationship.

Rec [written by yourbuttervoicedbeau]: David and Moira’s relationship is one that always fascinates me, and the parallel between the opening of the first episode of the show and this fic is so brilliantly done.

Sweaters In the Dead of Summer by @kindofspecificstore, Heather/Rachel, rated T, 2195 words

Summary: Rachel desperately wants to bury herself in the covers and never come out again. The lights were off last night- Heather didn’t have to see the patchwork that makes up her back and shoulders, the speckling of white and pink dots in varying stages of healing scars. She doesn’t like it. She’s not proud of it. But Rachel doesn’t really know how to fix it either. It’s not embarrassing, per se, just awkward to explain.

You know that feeling when you want to pop a zit?

Like that, but all the time. Except it’s all you think about. And you can’t control it.

Rec [written by doingthemost]: Yay, more Heather/Rachel! Please mind the tags with this one, but with that out of the way, this is a touching look at their relationship (every relationship in this fic, in addition to the Heather/Rachel, is treated so well!) and the importance of being seen and cared for.

To the end of reckoning by @dinnfameron, Patrick & Ronnie, rated T, 1308 words

Summary: He should get David a coffee. He could deliver it to the motel, see how he’s doing. His arm is raised halfway to flag Twyla down when he catches himself. David doesn’t want to see him right now. He may never want to see Patrick ever again. The thought makes him sick.

“Brewer.” Patrick turns at the sound of his name. There aren’t many people in this town who call him that, and sure enough, there’s Ronnie Lee at a table near the front. He’d missed her, somehow.

“You look like shit,” she says.

Rec [written by yourbuttervoicedbeau]: I love Patrick, I love Ronnie, I love anything and everything that explores the contentious relationship between the two of them. I love post-barbecue angst. Basically I love every single thing about this.

you make everything good by @rosedavid, Alexis/Twyla, rated G, 835 words

Summary: “Stop being grumpy, it’s lame."

Twyla has to go and visit her gaggle of cousins for two weeks, and Alexis is pouty about her girlfriend leaving for so long.

Rec [written by doingthemost]: This is an adorable little slice-of-life type of fic with some fun banter and some true-to-the-show Twyla moments! It's cute and funny and exactly what I love about the ship.

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Happy reading, friends!

[sun-moon-stars-jedi]

Batfam Ficrecs - Part 3

Don’t have anything to read during the holidays? No problem, here are some great Batfam fanfics. Most of them are fairly recent, so hopefully you’ll find something new. The focus is on fluffy and funny gen Batfam stories, but I also included a few H/C stories and two JayRoy ones.

My other Reclists for fluffy Batfam fics are here and here if you’re looking for even more. Have fun reading =D

Short and Sweet Stories:

How To Break Up A Knife Fight by RubyofRaven (Gen, 1.5K, Rated Gen): In which Alfred is away, Bruce has an emergency, and someone needs to be left in charge. Family fluff Batfam style with a perfect ending.

A Hindering Hand by collectivefandomstuff (Gen, 4.3K, Rated T): When Dick is refused the opportunity to coddle Damian, he decides to lavish his other siblings with his questionably helpful assistance. They are palpably ungrateful. Dick being an annoying older brother is hilarious and sweet at the same time. Good feel reading.

Halloween Wonder by alecmagnuslwb (M/M, 1.7K, Rated Gen): Jason and Roy take Lian trick or treating and she has a specific request for their costumes. Sweet JayRoy family fluff.

Get Out Of My Room by damthosefandoms (Gen, 2.2K, Rated Gen): Dick likes to mess with his little brother. Jason enjoys being a little shit to his older brother. Everyone always says they’ll get along when they get older. They’re not so sure about that. Sweet and funny story about Dick and Jason being brothers.

Have I Told You About Minnie? by Hinn_Raven (Gen, 4.5K, Rated T): After you’ve known Matches Malone long enough, you get used to him telling you about his kids. Not that his kids know about it. Bruce is a proud dad, even when he is undercover, and can’t stop telling everyone about his awesome kids. Nice focus on the relationship between Bruce and Stephanie.

Night at the (National History) Museum by collectivefandomstuff (Gen, 7.2K, Rated T): The Batbros cause havoc at a gala and it is hilarious.

Nutella by good_ho_mens (Gen, 1.7K, Rated T): Dick just wanted Nutella, and Jason didn't feel like getting shot today.

One Wrong Step by good_ho_mens (Gen, 3.0K, Rated Gen): Damian steps on a mine and Jason refuses to leave. Also, Tim worries. Batbrothers bonding during a crisis and it is so good.

Put On Your Mask (We're Going Shopping) by shanahane (Gen, 3.2K, Not Rated): It's been... some time since Bruce has done any sort of shopping. Still, somehow, miraculously, the trip to the supermarket is a not a complete disaster. One could even describe it as successful. Wholesome Batdad with his sons.

Friends That Say (You’re Not Alone) by ProsperDemeter (Gen, 3.5K, Rated Gen): Clark visits Wayne Manor during Christmas and sees a totally different side to Bruce in how he behaves around little Dick. Sweet and wholesome, good dad Bruce and little ray of sunshine Dickie.

siblings being siblings series by envysparkler (Gen, 12.3K+, Rated T): The Batkids notice that Bruce never confronts Jason about little mistakes and start to use him as a scapegoat. It spirals from there. Super funny, especially once Jason gets his revenge.

 Hurt/Comfort Stories:

in doctor's office lighting (i didn't tell you i was scared) by good_ho_mens (Gen, 8.9K, Rated T): Tim gets meningitis and it isn’t pretty, but his family is there for him. A sickfic that goes pretty deep, including the first real look at how Tim’s missing spleen will influence his life. Hurt comfort done super well.

Tough Love by iselsis (Gen, 7.6K, Rated T): Jason finds his mother dead on the bathroom floor, but his grief is interrupted when a strange man breaks into his apartment and kidnaps him. The moment you get what is happening this story changes completely and it is so good.

Zoetic by PurpleArrowzandLeather (Gen, 4.2K, Rated T): Jason goes inside a burning building to save people who are trapped in their apartments. He doesn't come out. Emotional and sad, but so satisfying. (And Chapter 2 makes everything better again.)

Looking for Home by Team_Alpha_Wolf_Squadron (Gen, 11.8K, Rated T): Bruce and Jason are lost in the woods, not knowing how they got there, or even where they are. A little road trip even when there is no road is always good for bonding though. So, so great. Not gonna say more to avoid spoilers. Background Bruce/Clark, but that’s not really important.

Broken Bodies, Daisy Bloom Series by RandomReader13 (Gen, 15.6K+, Rated Gen to M): The Batfam during the zombie apocalypse. A very realistic take on how to survive the zombie apocalypse, with emotional family moments and the expected worst case scenario happening but with a twist.

Waylaid by Elya_Rho (Gen, 31.7K, Rated T): All Damian wanted was to spend the day alone with his father. Then Drake had to go and ruin everything by getting himself kidnapped... Damian pretending not to care about Tim while simultaneously doing everything possible to safe him is so good. Very nice Batbro story.

 In Progress:

Keeping Score by Elya_Rho (Gen, 67.3K+, Rated T): Brothers can turn anything into a competition … including saving each other's lives. Don’t worry about it being a WIP, there are no unresolved cliffhangers. The individual missions are so good and get even better with each chapter. I reread all of them several times already, so definitely worth a try.

the thing with feathers by bacondoughnut (Gen, 16.3K+, Not Rated): When Dick and Bruce go missing and Tim can't find them on his own he turns to the only other person he can think of for help, Jason. He just hopes they can keep from killing each other long enough to save their family. Jason reluctantly helping Tim, great detective work and begrudging brotherly bonding, what more could you want?

Drink Deep in the Morning by GordandV (Gen, 4.0K+, Rated T): Robin era Jason talks Dick into taking him driving. Sweet Batbrothers in an interesting magical realism AU. A WIP with only one chapter, but the world is established in such an interesting way, it’s really worth a read.

A Change Of Scenery by Sun_Moon_Stars_Jedi (M/M, 18.5K+, Rated Gen): Jason finds himself stuck in the past while Roy has to deal with the fourteen year old version of his husband. Time travel is just so much fun! I’m shamelessly putting my own fic here, it’s fluffy and funny, so if you’d like to, give it a shot.

Epic Series:

Emotional Motion Sickness Series by Batbirdies (Gen, 348K+, Rated Gen to M): A series beginning with Bruce Wayne finally deciding to go to therapy, and the ripple effect afterwards. I can’t put into words how good this series is. If you like Bruce as a good dad, who makes up for his faults and is there for his kids, you absolutely have to read this!

Flightless Birds Series by Ionaperidot (Gen, 181K+, Not Rated): A Bruce without the Batkids meets one with them. Cue Batdad collecting abandoned kids from the multiverse. The progress Bruce and each of the kids makes is amazing, an absolute must read. Slight TimKon, but the pairing is not the focus of the stories.

In For a Pound Series by Cdelphiki (Gen, 248K+, Rated Gen): Talia gives Damian to Bruce when he is still a baby and it changes everything. I’m sure everyone has already read this amazing series, but on the off chance that you haven’t, go do it. Everything Cdelphiki writes makes you feel warm and happy, family fluff of the highest quality.

[lucisfavoritedemon]

The Black Dove

Pairings: Bucky x reader, Steve x reader (no Stucky), Sam & Dean x Winchester!reader, Castiel x reader

Summary: All you have ever known was how to fight and hunt. Your world and all you have ever known is thrown through a loop when you are sucked through a portal, and forced to adjust to this new reality. Will you leave the life you knew for so long, or will you decide to go back home, leaving the ones you loved behind?

Squares Filled: Crossover @marvelfluffbingo    Free Space @spnfluffbingo

Warnings: some angst, fighting with siblings, super fluffy conversations, happy Steve, homesickness, fluff, and more fluff

Word Count: 4954

A/N: All mistakes are mine. 

Enjoy!

I used to be a normal girl, who lived a normal life. As normal as life as a “criminal” could be. My name is Y/n Winchester, my brothers are Dean and Sam. We are hunters of the supernatural. We have been hunting for as long as I can remember. I was only a year old when my mother died, and Sam was only still a baby. 

Though we knew what was truly out there, not many people did. That’s where the life of fake credit cards, and run ins with the law come in. It wasn’t an ideal life, but it was a life that we wouldn’t change for the world. At least that’s what I always thought.

Sam and I were looking through books at the bunker library. We were trying to find a way to open the portal to the other reality where our mom was stuck in with Lucifer. We were getting no closer to finding a way to open the portal.

“I’m getting so tired of all these books. Don’t get me wrong, I love books, but this is just exhausting that we aren’t any closer.” I said, slamming my book closed.

“I know. We can’t just give up though. We don’t have that option.”

“I understand, but why can’t Dean help us too. We shouldn’t have to do it all ourselves.”

“I know, but he is seeing if he can find cases for us while we look. Maybe hoping to give us a break.”

“Are you sure? He hasn’t left his room. I even made dinner, and he hasn’t come out.”

“Maybe you should go check on him?”

“Why is it always me.” I stand up, playfulling stomping my foot. I walk down the hall to his room. I knock before walking in.

“Hey, I just started it, wanna watch it with me?” Dean said, eating a slice of pizza.

“No! You’re supposed to be looking for cases! Not watching movies.” I grab his remote and turn it off.

“Sorry, but I haven’t found anything.”

I grab his computer. I begin to look for mysterious deaths in the area, or in nearby states. “There. Found one. Was that so hard?”

“Cas will stay here and keep you company while you finish finding that portal thing.”

“Fine. Get dressed. I’ll go tell Sam.” I walk out, and head back to Sam, “lazy ass was watching movies and eating pizza. I found a case for you guys. Call Cas for me. Dean apparently thinks I can’t handle going out on a case, and I also need a babysitter.”

“Yeah I’ll call him.” Sam chuckles.

“Thanks.” I go to the kitchen, and get another plate of food. I sit at the table and take a breather. I hoped that we would find how to reopen the portal, but I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take.

“We’re heading out. Cas said he would be here soon.” Sam said.

“Okay.” I just look down at my plate.

“Hey, it’ll be okay. We’ll be back before you even know we’re gone.” Dean reassured.

“It doesn’t matter. I just hate it when I can’t go.”

“If we didn’t need to find a way to open the rift again, you could come with us.” Dean smiled, trying to be positive.

“Sam and I should be the ones going. You have done nothing.” I snapped.

“Y/n, please calm down.” Sam tried to diffuse the situation. He knew Dean and I couldn’t stand each other sometimes.

“Sorry, but it’s true. He was in there watching movies, and eating pizza after I worked for an hour to make a homemade dinner for us.”

“It was kind of rude Dean. She did find a case for us quickly.”

“No. We both talked about this.”

“Talked about what?”

“We feel like after the last hunt, you need to stay benched.”

“Fine. But I don’t always need a babysitter.”

“Yes you do. To make sure you don’t find a hunt, and take off.”

“Why do you care?”

“In case you get arrested? There is still a warrant out for your arrest.”

“Like you two should talk.”

“Thing is, we are ‘dead’. They realised you’re not.”

“Okay, you have a point, but it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Yeah, but it should be the last.” Dean says, walking away.

“We’ll call you when we get a motel.” Sam gives a small smile.

“Be safe please.”

“Promise. You stay out of trouble.”

“I’ll try.”

Sam walks out, and I’m left alone again. I finish eating real quick and go back to researching. It wasn’t too long before Cas showed up.

“I brought snacks.”

I smile kindly, “thanks Cas.”

“I know you don’t want me here, and all, but I feel like we don’t hang out much on our own.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you here, it’s the fact my brothers don’t trust me enough to stay here.”

“I agree with them though.”

“Of course you do.” I go back to reading, already wanting the small talk to stop.

“I don’t want anything happening to you. Believe it or not you and Dean are very similar in that aspect.”

“Don’t compare us. I want to be NOTHING like him. I at least do some real work around here.”

“You both are strong headed. Both have the will to help people no matter what it takes, but right now, you need to stay here for a while. Just till this blows over.”

“And what if it doesn’t? I’m not going to continue to be sidelined.”

“I know. If this doesn’t blow over in a month, I will talk to them.”

“Fine, but don’t think I’m letting you off easy. You still agreed with them.”

I smile, and finish scanning through the book I was reading earlier. On the very last page there was a spell that could open a hole to another reality of our world. “I think I found something. It seems a lot easier than we thought it would be.”

“It may look simple, but that could change.”

“We have half the stuff here in the bunker. All we need are these last few ingredients.”

“We will wait for them to get back then. I’m not letting you out, and I’m not leaving you alone.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Now we can hang out and enjoy each other’s company.”

“For someone who wants my attention, you haven’t made a good case for yourself.”

“I’m trying. I’m new to this whole relationship thing.”

“I know, but usually if your girlfriend is complaining about someone, you don’t agree with the person they’re angry with.”

“Then I would be lying, and I’ve read that you will always figure out when I’m lying.”

“Okay point.”

He pulls me onto his lap, “I may not know a lot about relationships, but I do know that I never ever want to lie to you.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere with me Cas.”

“I’m not trying to flatter you. I’m being honest.”

“Fine,” I lean in to kiss him, but I’m interrupted by my phone ringing, “hello?”

“Hey, we made it to the motel for the night. Is Cas there?” Sam said, and I could tell he was smiling.

“Yeah, he’s here. I wish you two would have waited just a little longer before leaving. I found something.”

“You did!? What is it? Is it complicated?”

“No. We actually have a little over half the things we need here at the bunker, and the rest we can easily obtain.”

“Sounds good. Get done as quick as you can.”

“We will do our best. See you in a few days.”

“See ya.”

He hung up quickly before I could say anything else. I just wish that I was able to do more than to stay here. I understand that I screwed up, and they didn’t want me to pay the price like they had to in the past. I couldn’t be too mad, but I still wanted to help. Not just sit here with my hands tied.

“You okay?” Cas spoke up, tearing me from my thoughts.

“I will be. I just hope that this works. If not, then it’ll be my fault for giving false hope.”

“Don’t blame yourself. They won’t blame you.”

“They may not, but I will blame myself.”

“Y/n, don’t say that. I promise everything will be okay. This is going to work, it has to.”

“Which is why you have to let me gather the ingredients. I need to test it. If it works, then they can go through, but I have to to test it.”

“And what if it doesn’t?”

“Then maybe I could be used for something good for once. Make Dean see I’m not just a screw up.”

“He doesn’t think you’re a screw up.”

“Yes he does. I’m going out to get the rest of this stuff. I’ll go in a disguise. I will be careful. You just have to trust me.”

“Okay. You have an hour. If you’re not back, I’m coming back to find you.”

“Fair enough.” I change, then head out. It doesn’t take me long to find the rest of the ingredients. I get back and start working on the spell. 

“I hope this works.”

“Me too.” I finish mixing everything together. I began to read the spell, as the room began to glow bright. I finished reading the spell, and there, in the middle of the room, was a red lightning bolt thing. I had a feeling it was the portal we needed.

“There. It worked. Now, we wait for Sam and Dean.”

“No. I have to test it.”

“We don’t know how stable it is.”

“Doesn’t matter. I have to try. If it closes, you have the spell and the ingredients to pen it back up.”

“Y/n, please don’t.”

“I’m sorry Cas.” I hug him tightly, and kiss him before I head to the portal. I walk through as everything goes black.

3rd Person POV:

It was the end of the battle, and the Avengers were sent to scan the streets of New York for anything that remained of the battle. They were about to leave earlier, but they saw a flash of light, and thought there were more aliens coming. As they scanned near the source of the flash, one of them spotted a girl who was unconscious, but was completely untouched from the debris and dust around them. 

“JARVIS check vitals.” Tony Stark stated.

“Vitals are normal sir.” Tony’s computer system, JARVIS, stated. 

“We should send her with Fury. Have them contain her in case she is not human.” Tony suggested to the others.

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. What if she is just human, and she wakes up with people watching her. That could be terrifying.” Steve stated.

“I agree with Steve. You never know what she really is. Come on let’s just take her back to the tower, and wait till she wakes up.” Natasha stated.

“That won’t be necessary. S.H.I.E.L.D. has taken upon itself to monitor her in Washington. If she is human, we will figure out how the hell she got here. We have targeted the source of energy, and it isn’t like anything we’ve ever seen, but she seems human.”

“Told ya Cap.”

“Fury, I’m not sure if that’s a good idea sir.”

“It is, if I say it is. You are welcome to escort her if you want Captain.”

“No thanks, but I do want a call if she wakes up. No experimenting.”

“Did he just tell Fury what to do?” Clint whispered to Natasha.

“Yep.”

“Fine. She wakes up, you’ll be the first contact.”

Steve just nods and walks off. He didn’t know why he was taking this so personally. Wasn’t like he knew her, but something about her said she has already been through a lot. He couldn’t risk her being questioned, and overwhelmed.

“Will she get the proper medical treatment she needs?” Tony asked as he carried the girl to where Fury’s helicopter was.

“Now you’re worried about the girl? She’s not staying here, if that’s what you’re trying to get at.”

“I’m just making sure that she is treated like a human until she is proven not to be.”

“Let me guess you want a call too when she’s awake?”

“No. Sending Cap in will overwhelm her enough. I just want to know if you determine human or other worldly.” Tony said, laying her inside the helicopter, as Agent Hill straps her down in a gurney.

“Fine,” Fury walked to the pilot’s seat, “man you’d think they knew her or something.” Fury mumbled, taking off.

Tony walked back to meet the others, who were all sitting around waiting for him. They all sat in silence for a bit. Everyone could tell they all had something to say about the girl that just randomly showed up out of, seemingly, thin air.

“Fury said she’ll get the proper treatment she needs until she wakes up and they can figure out her story. Figure out where she came from.”

“That’s good. Maybe she really is just a human, who just happens to be super lucky?” Natasha suggests, not very convincingly.

“We all know that isn’t very likely.”

“Barton’s right. She is the only explanation of the flash of light. It explains how she was almost completely clean. She had no other injuries, so she most likely bonked her head on entry, and that explains why she was passed out cold.” Tony stated, trying to sound rational.

“Look, if she is human, we can’t overwhelm her with questions. Imagine how she would feel. She may not be able to think straight and tell us something that she doesn’t mean. One of us has to go and be there with her. Make sure she isn’t overwhelmed by all the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.”

“Glad you already volunteered yourself Cap.”

“Someone had to. If not me, then who?”

“I think you’re the perfect one to do it Rogers. You have that welcoming look to you.” Natasha spoke up.

“I agree with Nat.” Clint spoke.

Everyone was in agreement. Steve was the best person for the job, but Tony wasn’t very pleased, he wanted to make sure that no one got hurt. He would have volunteered had Steve not done so already. He couldn’t risk losing anyone to whatever she could be.

Reader POV:

I don’t remember what happened, but the next thing I knew when I opened my eyes was that I was in a hospital. This was unusual for Sam and Dean. We always treated our injuries at the bunker before we resorted to going to a hospital, but this place wasn’t anywhere that I recognized.

I heard voices talking outside, but I just played it off as the doctors and nurses talking about what happened to me. I saw a blonde haired man out of the corner of my eyes, and thought that maybe the voices were Sam and Cas.

“Dean?”

The man looked over at me, “no. My name is Steve. I’m part of the team that rescued you.”

“R-rescued? Where am I? Where are my brothers?”

“Hey calm down, it’s okay. You’re in a hospital in Washington D.C. We found you in the streets of New York after an alien invasion. As far as your brothers, we didn’t know whether you were human or not.”

“That better explains the restraints. Are you sure I’m not being arrested?”

“Is there a reason you should be arrested?”

“No. Just saying this is a lot like what they do to people who are hurt who they are arresting.”

“They usually handcuff, and use restraints, but guess that proves you’re human.”

“Yes I’m human, how did I get to New York, the D.C. from Kansas.”

“Where in Kansas do you live?”

“Lebanon, with my brothers Sam, and Dean Winchester.”

“Okay. It’ll be okay. We’ll find your brothers. We’ll get you home. We don’t know how you got to New York, we saw a flash of light, and there you were untouched by all the debris, and you had no other injuries, other than you were unconscious.”

“Then the portal kind of worked.”

“What portal?”

“I found a spell in a book to create a rift in reality. My mom is trapped in another version of our world, but we haven’t been able to find something that works. Until now, sort of. It took me to New York, but it possibly proves that with a little tweaking, we can get our mom back.”

“I’m sorry about your mom, but that doesn’t explain why we can’t find you in any system.”

“Well you kind of need my name for that don’t you?”

“Not with facial recognition.”

“That is advanced technology, and they only use it for criminals. Unless you were lying about me not being arrested.”

“No, you’re not being arrested. What is your name then so maybe we can properly identify you.”

“My name is Y/n Winchester. I grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, and have been all over the country,” I shake my head at what I just said, “I shouldn't have said any of that.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m wanted for murder. A crime I didn't commit, but I can’t prove that i didn’t because you wouldn’t believe me.”

“She isn’t anything Captain Rogers. She’s just human. But the thing is, Miss Winchester, we don’t have anything on you. No date of birth, no address, no nothing.” A man with an eye patch announced, as he walked in.

“My name is Y/n Winchester, I live in Lebanon, Kansas, I was born October 13, 1981. My parents are Mary and John Winchester. I have two brothers named Dean and Sam. Dean was born on January 24, 1979. Sam was born on May 2, 1983. My brothers, and I live in Lebanon. Please, please, you have to believe me.”

“Y/n, I believe you, but it doesn’t make any sense how you are here, but it’s like you don’t exist.”

“What year is this?”

“2012?”

“May I ask your names? And where you’re from?”

“I’m Steve Rogers. I’m from Brooklyn.”

“Nick Fury. And that’s classified.” The man in the eye patch stated. He seemed very secretive, and I didn’t understand why. Guess he didn’t trust me. Which was fair.

“So Steve, Brooklyn. When were you born.”

“That is also classified.” Nick Fury said.

“So many secrets.”

“I don’t want you to get overwhelmed.”

“If you knew my field of work you would know that I don’t get overwhelmed easily. My grandfather came from 1958 through a closet in our motel room. I saw my mom’s father be resurrected. I’ve seen my brothers die and come back as if nothing happened. Whatever you have to say , it won't shock me.”

“Fine. I was born July 4, 1918.”

“Wow. I mean it isn;t impossible, but I’ve never heard of a human staying alive for that long.”

“Look, I know you two want to chat about how it’s possible for the captain to have survived so long, but we need you two. Steve, I want you to train her.”

“What? Train me for what?”

“You’re not serious about this.”

“Dead serious captain. I’ll let Stark know that you have taken on this task, and that he has nothing to worry about.”

I sat there looking between the two men. I wasn’t going to be trained like a circus monkey. Whoever these men were, they were very odd, yet oddly familiar. I began to struggle in my restraints to get them to loosen up.

“Help her out of those, I fear we have a lot of work to do.”

Steve nods and comes to help me. As soons as my first hand was free, I landed a punch to his face. I loosened my other hand and began running. I ran into a bathroom and changed into my clothes. I had to get out of there, but just when I thought the coast was clear, I ran into a group of guards, and they dragged me out to a car. This was it. I was probably actually going to jail now.

We pulled up to a big building, and they let me out. I was surprised they actually trusted me to not run off this time. The men make a circle formation to probably make sure I don’t take off again. They lead me to a big open room, and they guard the door. I look around seeing if maybe Nick Fury, or Steve, were in the room. I noticed a man at the far corner window in the room looking out. I looked back at the guards thinking maybe they left a hole for me to escape.

“Don’t even try. They will kill you if I order them to, so don’t even think about trying to escape.”

“Who are you?”

He turns to face me, “My name is Alexander Pierce. I’m the director here at S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Isn’t that the thing that you use to protect yourself from enemy attacks?”

“Yes, but this organization is called S.H.I.E.L.D. It stands for…”

“Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.” Nick Fury interrupted.

“Thanks for that Nick. I just wanted to meet the girl that the whole world is talking about.”

“Because of how you came to this world. It wasn’t natural.” Alexander Pierce said. 

“Nothing in my life is natural. What makes this situation any different. The fact that it’s like I don’t even exist is unnatural.”

“We were able to locate the bunker in Lebanon, but there was no sign of anyone having ever lived there. It’s an old storage warehouse.” Nick Fury stated.

“Did you go inside?” I asked no believing him.

“I didn’t, but my men did. All they reported was cobwebs, and boxes that were filled with old machinery parts.”

“That’s not possible. I mean maybe the men of letters bunker might be a little dirty, but there should be something there. I mean Sam and Dean wouldn’t have found it yet, but there has to be something.”

“Men of Letters?”

“Um, they are an organization that is made of men who help protect society from threats, but no one really ever knows about them. It’s a lot safer that way.” 

“We aren’t aware of any group out there like that.” Mr. Peirce spoke immediately.

“That’s kind of the point, but they were killed off back in the 50s. So, there is no one left to carry the legacy other than me and my brothers.”

“I think we should get her settled in. Get her a place set up where she can rest and gain her thoughts.” Nick Fury said, pushing me gently towards the door guarded by the men.

“Why the rush? I think she should be able to get a tour of the facility.”

“If she wants a tour, Steve Rogers can show her around. I don’t think anyone other than an Avenger should be escorting her around outside of her apartment.”

“Alright. I guess you have a point.” Mr. Pierce didn’t seem too happy about that decision.

“Mr. Rogers will show you to your place. It’s all set up for you. He has the key for you.” Nick Fury stated, ignoring Pierce.

“Thank you. I hope we get all of this straightened out soon. I don’t want to be a bother to anyone, or cause any more trouble.”

“It’s no trouble. Trust me, and we could use someone with your spunk.”

“Because I did. I'm trying to learn how people talk nowadays. It was that obvious though, huh?”

“Just a little. What do you mean how people talk nowadays? What are you like a hundred?”

“Pretty close. Like 94.”

“I was kidding.”

“Wish I was.”

“This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

Steve and I walk out of the building, and he leads the way to where I would be staying. It was a tiny little apartment complex, but it looked cozy. This was where my comfort level was. In tiny cramped spaces that seemed like they wouldn't be big enough for one, but you fit 4.

“I'm on the floor just above you, so if you need anything, or just need a friend, you can come find me.” Steve smiled. 

“Thank you. That's very kind of you.” He nods and goes to walk away, “Steve?”

“Yes?”

“Will you tell me how you look so young? What's your secret?”

“Super soldier serum, and being frozen in ice for 70 years.”

“I see. Very interesting combination.”

“I didn’t mean to completely catch you off guard with that.” Steve apologised.

“Don’t apologise. If you heard what I dealt with on an almost daily basis, then you would know that is not the weirdest thing, or most bizarre thing I have ever heard.”

“Good. Now go get some sleep. Fury wants to see how you train. He wants to see what makes you special.”

“Nothing. There’s your answer. I’m not special, the life I believed I lived for so long is no longer. My brothers somehow don’t exist, and I’m stuck here. I wish Cas was here right now. He would know what to do.”

“He was my boyfriend. He may go by another name, he used to be known as Jimmy Novak?”

“I’ll see what I can find, but I think you should rest.”

“Goodnight Steve.”

“Night.”

Steve walked out, and I shut the door behind him. I wasn’t used to such a nice place to live in, but here I was. Sam and Dean would have been so jealous if they saw this place. I really missed them, and I wish they were here with me. I didn’t get the chance to fix things between me and Dean, but I guess I did tell Cas I was okay if the portal closed behind me. At least I would be one step closer to finding our mom, and getting her back.

The next morning I woke up, and hoped that all of it was just a bad dream. That I had never opened that stupid portal in the first place, but alas, that was not the case. I trudged out of bed, and was going to take a shower when I heard knocking on my door.

“Y/n, it’s Steve.”

“Hold on. I’m coming.” I yelled/loudly talked back. I walked to the door and opened it letting him inside.

“I would have thought you have been up and dressed by now.”

“I would have, but I needed my beauty sleep, and time to process all of this.”

“Well, I have some good news for you, we found this Jimmy Novak guy. Fury tracked him down.”

“I really appreciate that Steve, but let me guess, he has a family.”

“That was going to be the bad news.”

“Look I really appreciate you trying, but even if Jimmy didn’t have anyone, it wouldn’t be the same.”

“Look, Fury gave me permission to take you to Lebanon to see that bunker you were talking about.”

“That would be nice. I want to see for myself that what he said he saw was truly nothing. I mean I know it probably is that way, but I have to see for myself. I have to know that my brothers truly don’t exist in this world.”

“Go and get ready. I’ll meet you downstairs when you’re ready, okay?”

“Sounds good. Thank you so much Steve.”

“Of course. I want to bring you peace for whatever is going on. I just want to help. I want to be a friend to you.”

“You have really proved that Steve. Let me go get ready, I’ll be down in an hour okay?”

“Sounds good.” He smiles, and sees himself out.

I go and take a shower quickly and dress in some of the clothes that Fury, or Steve, must have bought while I was still in the hospital. He was a really nice guy, and I really appreciated everything he has done for me. It just felt so weird to be in a place that didn’t have my brothers in it. 

I got dressed quickly, and headed downstairs to meet Steve. He was standing outside in front of a nice sedan. Nicer than any car I have been in other than the back of a police car. Though, the Impala was a nice car, it still had that old timey feel which I guess is why Dean liked it so much.

“You ready?” Steve asked, opening the passenger side door for me.

“As I’ll ever be.” I smiled, and climbed in. 

Steve got in the driver’s side, and started the car. He drove off heading to Kansas. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared that I wouldn’t find any answers about whether or not the Men of Letters actually existed. I didn’ know what I would do if the life I lived before waking up in that hospital was gone. I guess I would just have to wait and see.

[korianelise]

Of Protective Big Brothers and Asshole Friends

People should be more like flowers.

Flowers were simple, easy to please beings that were just along for the ride. All they needed was Sun, Soil, and water, and they were happy.

Flowers were beautiful in their simplicity. They were independent, quiet, and everything Purpled wishes he could be.

Humans, though, were ugly in their greed. Always needing more for themselves, hoarding as many riches and resources they can. It was never the necessities they craved, it was how much junk they could buy to show off. In Purpled’s opinion, he’d rather be a lonely flower.

Or maybe a weed? While flowers stuck out for their beauty, weeds blended in for the opposite. Yeah, that’s right, he’d rather be a weed sitting atop an abandoned hill, overlooking the sea, flowing in the breeze, then what he was right now.

It’s not that he was the problem, the boy actually prided himself on staying out of the countless wars going on in the server, it was everyone else. It seemed like they had all been blinded by their own need for power.

The once beautiful SMP now represents something dark, ugly, and twisted.

But what could he do about it? He was one of the most irrelevant inhabitants on the server. It hadn’t always been that way, but as he said, humans were greedy.

So, what the hell was he supposed to do when Dream all but breaks his door down in a haste to get inside?

It was a surprise to see the man, so much so that he startled so bad he drops the sword he was holding, distantly aware of how the blade barely missed his socked foot.

Watching the older man clumsily make his way to his feet, out of breath and face split into one of the biggest grins Purpled had ever seen, he merely raises an eyebrow when he exclaims, “Oh man, I can’t believe that worked! ”

Huffing a bit, still unsure of how he felt about the intruder in his home, Purple catches eye of all the potions and weapons strapped to the Admin’s body. “Care to explain?”

God, what was he supposed to do? He hasn’t seen Dream in so long, the elder being busy trying to take Wilbur and Tommy down. Why? He couldn’t tell you, but word on the street says the blonde wasn’t happy with the revolution against his rule.

It was, what, 5? 6? Citizens in total? Purpled didn’t understand the big deal, but honestly? That’s probably for the best, something tells him trying to wrap his head around the conflict will give him one hell of a migraine.

“Annual manhunt,” Swiping a hand through his now damp hair, Dream starts to look a bit sheepish, “I-I didn’t think you’d be home?”

Scrunching his brow even further, Purpled is a bit puzzled by the statement. If he wasn’t home, Dream wouldn’t have been able to get it. It’s a blatant lie, but Purpled is too exasperated to call the blonde out on it. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“It sure as hell would have made me feel better.” Flopping down on the bed next to him, Dream sighs in content at finally being able to sit down.

Purpled, on the other hand, squawks in protest at this, the man is soaking wet, and he was kinda planning on sleeping in his bed tonight, so he’d rather it not get soaked.

Stifling a sigh, the boy trudges his way over to his bed. All but throwing his body onto it, Purpled starts poking the older blonde on the cheek repeatedly, “Get up you big oaf.”

Slapping the smaller boy’s hand away, Dream turns his head to the boy, unclipping his porcelain mask from his face. “What did you just call me?”

Chuckling nervously, Purpled inches his way off the bed bit by bit, “Nothing.”

“No, no” Pouncing before Purpled could even comprehend what was going on, Dream has the boy tackled to the bed, hands waving playfully over him, “You called me an oaf, I think that warrants an apology.”

A cocky grin suddenly fills the smaller boy’s face as he looks up, mischief shining in his violet eyes, “Okay, okay, you’re right. I’m sooo sorry that you’re just so lazy, and boring and-”

“That’s it!” The young boy is cut off by a giggle forcing its way out of his throat as Dream’s hands suddenly scribble at his side.

“W-Wait! Dream-” Hands flying down to fight off the ones scratching at his ribs, Purpled can’t stop the relentless laughter that comes out of him. It takes the boy a few minutes, but eventually, he is able to wriggle himself out from under Dream, propping himself on his elbows to catch his breath. “God, you asshole.”

Laughing to himself, Dream lightly smacks the boy on the shoulder, “Don’t say that.” Waiting for the teen to compose himself a bit more, Dream watches in mild curiosity as the boy reaches into the chest next to his bed, pulling out a golden apple.

Throwing it at the older man’s head, Purpled scoffed as he almost dropped it, “Thought you might be hungry.”

Taking a bite of the sweet treat, Dream doesn’t even attempt to keep good manners as he mutters a quick, “Thanks,” with a mouth full of food.

Scrunching his brow in disgust, Purpled looks at the blonde critically, “You’re so gross, god,” Laughing at the shove that follows the remark.

The two sit in content silence for a bit after that, both waiting for Dream to finish his food before striking up conversation again.

Purpled had begun to fiddle with the sleeves of his jacket waiting for the older man to finish, a nervous habit he picked up once the wars started.

You can only be shoved to the side so many times before you start to get anxious every time you talk to someone.

Dream must have picked up on the dip in his mood though, carelessly tossing the apple core behind him and shifting so he’s sitting more in front of Purpled than off to the side of him. “So, what have you been up to, kid? I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while.”

It took all of Purpled’s self-control not to snap at the man. “Maybe because you haven’t. I’ve been...busy. Super duper, have no time to hang out with anyone, busy.”

The wince he receives from the statement is satisfactory enough.

Because it has been forever since he’s seen Dream--well, scratch that. He sees Dream all the time, but the man is always busy fighting off that little rebellion. What did they call themselves again? L’Manburg, right?

But, before Dream could even utter a word of apology, a shrill yell cuts him off.

“It’s the only place we haven’t looked, man! He has to be up there!”

Exchanging a glance with Dream, both boys make their way over to the stained glass lining his UFO’s walls. Upon looking down, Purpled can make out both Bad and Sapnap making their way up his water elevator, and George keeping watch on the ground.

“ Shit!” Flying away from the window and into the middle of the circle room, Dream quickly clips his mask back on as he tugs anxiously on his blonde hair, “They’re here.”

Returning his gaze to the window, Purpled’s eyes widen upon seeing the two hunters about halfway up. “You gotta go, man. Like right now.”

Dropping his head, like he’s about to regret the decision he’s about to make, Dream turns to Purpled one last time, stature rigid and jittery, before saying, “I’m sorry kid, I’ll pay for the damages. Go hide.”

And with that he crashes through the window, glass shattering everywhere as Dream pulls out a water bucket to stop the would-have-been fatal landing.

The second Dream hits the ground, Sapnap, and Bad break the hatch to his UFO open, wasting no time in composing themselves and scouring the room.

It wasn’t until Sapnap’s gaze snapped onto him that Purpled felt the terror he was feeling truly sink in.

Now, he wasn’t an easy kid to spook, he played bed wars for fun for god’s sake! But, this wasn’t the arena where everything was just fun and games, no, this was Dream's server where you only get three respawns, three , before you’re dead. Permanently.

So can he really be blamed if he countered every step Sapnap took towards him with his own step back?

The tactic seemed to be working fine for him until his back finally hit the wall he knew he inevitably would.

It seemed like that had been the cue Sapnap was waiting for. Surging forward, the brunet swings out his sword and presses it gently against his neck faster than Purpled’s brain could keep up with.

Sucking in a harsh breath, Purpled can’t help the tremors that wrack his body as Sapnap snarls in his face, “Where is he?”

This wasn’t the Sapnap he knew, wasn’t the man he usually hung out with. No, this was a tired, agitated, and not thinking straight Sapnap. A Sapnap that was known to make reckless and poor decisions, a very “act now, think later” typa guy.

God, why can’t his brain just shut up for once?

“Sap, wait, he’s not in here.” Sagging in relief as the blade was pulled away from him, Purpled looks over to see who just saved his neck. Standing over the broken glass of the window Dream jumped out of was Bad, looking down at the duel between the blonde and George that was currently happening, “The muffin jumped.”

In a moment of bravery Purpled sure as hell didn’t really possess, the boy scrambled over to where Bad was standing. Looking down, he can’t help the proud smile that creeps its way onto his face. Dream is kicking George’s ass.

Maybe if he had been paying better attention he would have heard the muttered, “Green bastard,” from Sapnap, or the “Language” exclaimed by Bad, or the look the two men changed before two large hands clamped down on his shoulders.

His whole body tensed under the touch, an involuntary shiver running down his spine. This wasn’t a brotherly clap on the shoulders from Dream, or a playful swat from Tommy, this was a “You’re not getting away” grip.

“I’m sorry, kid” And before Purpled even knew what was happening, the arms on his shoulders were forcing his body out of the window, the alarmed cries of Bad falling on two pairs of deaf ears, “But we really need a distraction.”

Purpled, in his panicked state, had just enough time to remember that he didn't have any water buckets in his inventory before he was pushed off the ledge, a blood-curdling scream ripping through his throat as he plummeted towards the unforgiving ground.

He almost missed the way Dream's head snapped up at the shout before the world went black.

He was entirely out of options.

Manhunts usually don’t go this poorly for him, not to brag or anything, but Dream usually kicked ass during them. This year? Not so much.

He couldn’t even tell you why he was doing so bad, he had plenty of armor, food, and weapons. Yet here he was, almost completely out of breath, running like a madman to his little brother’s humble little home.

Okay, maybe a giant UFO in the sky wasn’t exactly too humble of a home, but you get what he means.

Reaching the door of the water elevator, Dream hesitates. His friends aren’t that far behind him, and he knows how desperate they’re getting to disarm him, to win their first manhunt. All in all, a version of his friends he doesn’t really want around his little brother.

But, he was out of breath, his legs were aching, and he hasn’t seen Purpled in so long .

With that thought in mind, the blonde wrenches open the door, taking a deep breath before stepping into the water and letting it pull him up to the trap door leading into the younger’s house.

Swinging the small hatch open, Dream throws himself out of the water, not even caring to try and do so gracefully. “Oh, man,” He breathes, a wheezy laugh bubbling out of him, “I can’t believe that worked! ”

Because he really hadn’t, today has been a mess and he didn’t expect anything to go his way. He truly thought his friends would have caught up to him before he was able to make his escape.

Somewhere in the room, Dream hears a surprised yelp cut its way through his laughter. Looking up, the blonde is just quick enough to catch the blade of a diamond sword barely missing Purpled’s socked foot, though it seemed as though the boy was too shocked to notice the close call.

Jesus, he didn’t come up here just to suffer a heart attack.

But, before he could berate the boy for being so careless, Purpled’s voice cuts him off. “Care to explain?” The remark comes off playful and sassy, but Dream could hear the slight concern and confusion behind it.

Climbing to his feet, Dream takes a moment to collect himself. “Annual manhunt, “ he sighs, swiping a calloused hand through his sandy hair, “I-I didn’t think you’d be home?”

He hates how it comes off more like a question. It’s clear to see in the younger blonde’s expression that he doesn’t believe him a single bit. But, it seems like the kid was willing to humor him if his next statement was anything to go by.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“It sure as hell would have made me feel better.” Which wasn’t a lie, Dream doesn’t think he’d be able to live with himself if Purpled got hurt because of him.

Deciding that he was done standing, Dream flops onto the purple bed next to him, relishing in the relief it brings his aching bones, and smiling at the squawk of protest it gets out of Purpled.

Closing his eyes, Dream hadn’t noticed the boy had begun to make his way over to the bed as well until he felt a hand sneak under his mask to poke his face. Again, and again, and again.

“Get up you big oaf.”

Finally having enough of the childish antics, Dream unclips his porcelain mask and turns to face the younger beside him, mock anger taking over his face. “What did you just call me?”

It takes everything in him to not burst out laughing at the panic blossoming on the blonde’s face. “Nothing.”

“No, no” Tackling Purpled to the bed, Dream wiggles his fingers above the boy’s rids threateningly, an evil grin splitting onto his face, “You called me an oaf, I think that warrants an apology.”

He can’t help but raise an eyebrow at the cocky smile that takes over the younger’s face. “Okay, okay, you’re right. I’m sooo sorry that you’re just so lazy, and boring, and-”

“That’s it!” Digging his hands into the teen’s ribs, Dream can’t help but laugh a bit along with him. It’s been so long since he’s heard his little brother laugh, he hadn’t even realized how much he missed the sound until now.

With a gasp, he feels smaller hands fly down to his own and try to fight them off, “W-Wait! Dream-” but Purpled couldn’t seem to complete a sentence through his relentless stream of giggles.

Finally taking pity on the boy, Dream lets up on his attack, moving away from the smaller body to let the blonde compose himself.

“God, you asshole.”

Chuckling a bit at the snark, Dream lands a light slap onto the boy’s shoulder. “Don’t say that.” Sure, it was a bit hypocritical, he had quite the potty mouth himself, but it made him feel like more of a big brother to say things like that.

Watching with mild curiosity as Purpled leans over the side of his bed, reaching into the chest there, Dream is most definitely not prepared for the golden apple that comes flying at his head, scrambling back to try and catch it clumsily.

“Thought you might be hungry.”

Taking a bite into the small treat, Dream can’t help but sigh in content at the taste. He hadn’t even realized how hungry he was until now, “Thanks” he mumbled, having no regard for the fact that his mouth was full of half-chewed up food.

With a fake gag and a look of utter disgust, he hears Purpled say, “You’re so gross, god.”

Scowling at the statement, Dream leans over enough to shove the boy away from him, slumping in his own mock self-pity.

Taking another bite of the apple Dream contemplates a thought over each bite. How could he have gone this long without checking in on his little brother? Sure, he was older than both Tommy and Tubbo but he was still his baby brother .

He was supposed to be there for him, hang out with him, and make him feel loved. But, he can’t help but feel as though he’s failed Purpled.

How do you just forget about the most important person in the world to you?

Moving his gaze back to the blonde boy in front of him, Dream notices the way his face has fallen, and how he’d started to fiddle with the sleeves of his cotton sweater.

Huh, last he checked the boy didn’t have any nervous quirks to him.

Tossing the apple core behind him, not even caring to try and aim it at the trash can, Dream’s face softens as he focuses on trying to fix the mistakes he’s made. “So, what have you been up to, kid? I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Maybe because you haven’t. I’ve been...busy. Super duper, have no time to hang out with anyone, busy.”

Okay, that one stung.

Because he knows it's a lie. Dream doesn’t even want to count how many times he’s seen Purpled warily watching him from afar. Watching him fight in a stupid war that didn’t seem so worth it anymore. Not if it hurt his relationship with Purpled this deeply.

Just as he was about to open his mouth and tell the boy in front of him how sorry he was, and how much he truly meant to him, a shrill yell from outside cuts him off.

“It’s the only place we haven’t looked, man! He has to be up there!”

He had really hoped he would have more time before they found him.

Glancing at Purpled, both boys warily make their way across the room to look outside. Upon reaching the window, Dream’s heart almost beats out of his chest. They were coming up here.

“Shit!” Launching himself into the center of the room, panic starts to creep into Dream’s chest.

They were going to come up here, into his little brother’s home, and trash it in search of him. His poor, innocent, little brother’s house that he spent weeks building from the ground up.

God, he was so stupid.

“You gotta go, man. Like right now.”

Snapped out of his trance, Dream hadn’t even realized Purpled had taken another peek out the window.

Stifling a long, exasperated sigh, Dream hangs his head low. He needed to get out now . Not being here would put Purpled in less danger, and give him a better chance at getting to the End. He could easily fight off George.

But he really didn’t want to leave Purpeld alone.

Clipping the white mask to his face, not wanting the other blonde to see the regret for his future actions painting it, Dream lets the emotionless smile settle on the violet eyes boring into him.

“I’m sorry, kid, I’ll pay for the damages. Go hide.”

Not giving himself another second to think about what the hell he was doing, Dream sprints as fast as he could towards the glass in front of him, making an effort to ignore the surprised gasp Purpled had let out.

Drawing a water bucket from his inventory, Dream uses it to turn the would-have-been-fatal fall into the exact opposite. Upon landing, he whips around to see George charging him, sword out and ready to come down on him.

Pushing away the panic about the boy he left behind down, Dream smiles under his mask. George was just too easy.

Ducking under the swing, Dream kicks his leg out, sending the older man flying back with a grunt of pain.

Not giving his opponent the chance to retaliate the blow, Dream is on him in a second.

He wants to end this as soon as possible. He left his baby brother alone with Bad and Sapnap--someone who was known to make brash and dumb decisions. But, his pride wouldn’t let him just stand down. The sooner he could win, the sooner he could-

White-hot pain exploding on his face him cut off the blonde’s thoughts.

Stumbling back, Dream registers that George had clocked him in the jaw, a cheap shot taken in a moment of vulnerability.

Shoving down his agitation, Dream pulls his focus back to the fight. Getting his ass beat isn’t going to help anybody.

Taking out his own sword, Dream starts taking slash after slash at George, forcing the britt onto the defensive as he takes step after step back to avoid getting cut.

None were fatal blows, but ones that would sure as hell hurt.

Raising his sword backward, so the hilt of the blade was above George’s temple, Dream can’t help the smirk that plasters itself onto his face as he’s about to drop his arm and knock the older out, but a sudden noise makes his whole body freeze.

That….sounded familiar.

The scream was too high-pitched and youthful to be from either Sapnap or Bad, which only left one other person as to who it could be- no.

Dropping his sword, Dream's mind goes blank as he starts running as fast as his body will allow him to Purpled's rapidly falling form. The boy had gone silent, no long flailing in the air, or screaming, or sobbing, or giving him any indication that he was still awake.

And if he had passed out, there was no way for him to land safely.

That thought seemed to do what Dream thought was impossible, and made his body move even faster. The boy's body was too close to the ground now for him to catch him gently.

In a last-ditch effort to reach his baby brother's body, Dream takes a leap of faith and all but football tackles the small, limp, fragile body not 5-feet in front of him.

Tumbling to the ground, the force of the impact forcing Dream to roll head over heels multiple times, he looks down once he stops and is more than relieved to see a small body cradled to his chest, not ashes from what would have been his first death.

Ignoring the throbbing in his own body, or the 3 forms making their way over to him, Dream looks over Purpled, noticing that he was right, the boy had passed out. There were tear tracks on his face, red, and blotchy, and just wrong looking on him, and he had a sluggishly bleeding cut on the crown of his head.

Overall okay--but far from it at the same time.

This was the boy's first close encounter with death, and if Dream had any say in it, will be the closest Purpled ever gets to dying again.

Pulling the vulnerable form closer to his chest, Dream buries his head in the soft curls of the boy's hair.  Nothing else mattered right now, just his little brother secured to his chest and the fact that he almost died .

"-Ream, is he alright? You're gonna have to move buddy, I need to look him over."

Snapping his head up at the voice, Dream is met with the face of an all-too calm Bad. But, upon closer inspection of the man's face, he could tell he was pale, seemingly shaken up from the past events as well.

To his right was George, the Britt's hand slapped over his mouth, eyes bulging out of his head as he stared at the two huddled on the floor, as if he couldn't believe what just happened.

And that means to his left was Sapnap.

Eyes narrowing in the deadliest glare he could muster, the only thing keeping Dream from attacking the man right now was the little body cradled in his arms. " I’ll kill you ."