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bangtanficsforyou · 9 months ago

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Hello, Love! (JJK)- 03

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: fluff, angst, probable smut (we don’t know yet lololol)

Rating: 18+

Summary: You had a plan when you returned home, seven years later. However, falling in love with your sister’s fiance wasn’t it.

Word count: 6.2K

Warning: for this chapter; there's some heavy mentions of drugs. Except, for that, there's so much happening 😩.

Fun fact: the picture in the middle is actually a screenshot of a scene from the movie this series is based upon 🤭

Series Masterlist

“Any update?”

“Sir, we haven’t heard anything back yet.”

Jungkook sighs, having expected that answer. “Keep trying to contact them, and as soon as you hear anything back from them, let me know.”

He emphasizes the word anything because at this point, he genuinely believes rejection would be better than being kept hanging. At least, a rejection would help him have a practical understanding of the scenario and remaining options.

“And how are the preparations for the party going?”

“Sir, we have arranged most of the things, if you like you can pay us a visit and inspect things yourself,” his manager replies.

“Yeah, maybe after my meeting with Mr. Han, I’ll drop by at the hotel,” Jungkook nods to himself, thinking that, that will be the ideal way to go about things. “Remember, everything should be perfect. If everything goes as planned, I’m sure Riya will be impressed.”

“Don’t worry sir, we will look after it.”

You wake up to the sound of your alarm.

You look around, taking in the room, and notice the soft blankets that are currently wrapped around you. For a moment, your mind feels blurry, having no recollection of last night whatsoever. However, once the memories come back to you, you relax into the soft mattress and sigh at the comfort.

Your eyes start drifting again and you feel this weird sense of giddiness at the thought of having slept so comfortably after ages. Unfortunately, you are stopped from going back to the world of dreams by a constant dribbling of a ball against the floor.

You frown and raise your head slightly to figure out what is causing the noise. From the slight space that the open door leaves, you see a young kid playing with a small ball.

The sight causes you to jolt awake.

You quickly grab your handbag, which was thankfully lying right next to your bedside. You shuffle through your bag and heave a huge sigh of relief upon finding the item you were looking for; a golf sized ball.

It’s safe, you think to yourself and put the ball back in its place.

Knowing that the drowsiness you were trying to lean into, is gone, you decide that it would be smart to utilize the time to reply to any texts or e-mails you might have received.

However, your face drops when you see the notification of several missed calls on your home screen. Your entire body freezes in panic, and you feel an overwhelming sense of fear take over your body.

You gulp and press the ‘call back’ button.

You don’t think that the call goes past even one ring before it’s picked up on the other side.

A very panicked and worried voice greets you. “Y/N, yǒu gēngxīn ma?” Y/N, any update?

You shake your head, “hái méiyǒu.” Not yet.

“Qǐng jǐn nǐ suǒ néng. Xùnsù de. Fǒuzé yīqiè dūhuì huǐ diào.” Please do whatever you can. Quickly. Or else everything will get ruined

“Wǒ zhèngzài jìnlì. Bié dānxīn, wǒ huì xiǎng bànfǎ de.” I'm trying my best. Don't worry, I'll figure something out.

As you cut the call, you’re left with nothing but a pile of emotions that you have no idea how to deal with. You rub your temples and try to take a few deep breaths in hopes that this feeling of being paralyzed would pass.

However, you give up within less than a minute, and at the very next moment, you find yourself shuffling through your bag again.

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bangtanficsforyou

Hello, Love! (JJK)-03

New

4 days ago

Genre: fluff, angst, probable smut (we don’t know yet lololol)

Rating: 18+

Summary: You had a plan when you returned home, seven years later. However, falling in love with your sister’s fiance wasn’t it.

Word count: 6.2K

Warning: for this chapter; there's some heavy mentions of drugs. Except, for that, there's so much happening 😩.

Fun fact: the picture in the middle is actually a screenshot of a scene from the movie this series is based upon 🤭

“Any update?”

“Sir, we haven’t heard anything back yet.”

Jungkook sighs, having expected that answer. “Keep trying to contact them, and as soon as you hear anything back from them, let me know.”

“And how are the preparations for the party going?”

“Sir, we have arranged most of the things, if you like you can pay us a visit and inspect things yourself,” his manager replies.

“Don’t worry sir, we will look after it.”

You wake up to the sound of your alarm.

You frown and raise your head slightly to figure out what is causing the noise. From the slight space that the open door leaves, you see a young kid playing with a small ball.

The sight causes you to jolt awake.

It’s safe, you think to yourself and put the ball back in its place.

Knowing that the drowsiness you were trying to lean into, is gone, you decide that it would be smart to utilize the time to reply to any texts or e-mails you might have received.

However, your face drops when you see the notification of several missed calls on your home screen. Your entire body freezes in panic, and you feel an overwhelming sense of fear take over your body.

You gulp and press the ‘call back’ button.

You don’t think that the call goes past even one ring before it’s picked up on the other side.

A very panicked and worried voice greets you. “Y/N, yǒu gēngxīn ma?” Y/N, any update?

You shake your head, “hái méiyǒu.” Not yet.

“Qǐng jǐn nǐ suǒ néng. Xùnsù de. Fǒuzé yīqiè dūhuì huǐ diào.” Please do whatever you can. Quickly. Or else everything will get ruined

“Wǒ zhèngzài jìnlì. Bié dānxīn, wǒ huì xiǎng bànfǎ de.” I'm trying my best. Don't worry, I'll figure something out.

However, you give up within less than a minute, and at the very next moment, you find yourself shuffling through your bag again.

“Auntie, I only drink black tea,” one of Jungkook’s distant cousins declines politely.

Jungkook’s aunt only smiles in response and moves to the next person, offering them the milk tea.

“I am sorry, but I will have coffee,” comes the response.

Another polite smile from Shweta.

“I only drink black coffee.”

“Oh,” she responds and again moves on to the next person who so happens to be Jimin.

“I will have—“

“Shut up and drink it,” Jimin’s words are cut off immediately.

Jimin without a single protest picks up a cup and starts sipping on the tea. No matter what age, he knows better than to disobey his mother when she is annoyed.

“What’s wrong with a simple milk tea?” she mumbles to herself on her way back to the kitchen. “Back in our day,—“

Her words come to a halt when a loud bang of a door opening with more force than required, resonates through the entire living room. The sound catches everyone’s attention and the usually loud room goes quiet.

And then you walk in through the door.

You walk in without any awareness of the eyes on you and make your way straight to the dining table. Pulling out a chair, you take a seat. You grab a bottle of water and instead of pouring yourself a glass, you start drinking directly and empty the bottle.

Then, you look at the breakfast that has been arranged on the table and take two slices of bread and start spreading butter on them. Once done you look around for the salt pot and find it resting on the table, away from your reach.

“Salt.” You speak the one word sentence to the old lady that has the container right next to her.

Everyone in the room breaks out of their trance of watching you and albeit a little weirded out, go back to what they were doing.

The old lady passes you the salt pot and she too, returns back to the conversation she was having with Jungkook’s mother (who is also sitting at the same table, a few chiars away) before your wild card entry.

“It is too hot today to go out shopping. Can we not go some other day?”

“I know, but there are absolutely no chances of the weather getting better any time soon,” Jungkook’s mother replies, sighing at the thought of having to step out in this heat. “Plus, we don’t have much time.The wedding is right around the corner.”

The older lady hums in understanding. “But we should visit a few shops first just to compare the prices and quality of clothes.”

“Don’t worry about that,” reassures Jungkook’s mother. “We will go to Mr. Roy’s showroom in Amy Avenue. They will give us everything at discounted rates and we won’t have to worry about the quality at all.”

“But who will take us there? The place is pretty far!”

“What a coincidence!” You speak up suddenly, mid-chew. “I’m also going there. You guys can come with me.”

Another round of silence falls in the room.

“But dear, who are you?”

You look up at the old lady upon hearing her question.

First blink.

Second blink.

Third blink.

“Who are you?” You shoot her question back, instead of answering her.

The lady frowns, finding your tone rude. “I am Jimin’s grandmother.”

“I am Jimin’s friend.”

Jimin’s eyes almost pop out of his sockets at your sudden declaration. This is the first time he is getting to know about your existence. How can you be his friend?

Jimin’s mother steps out of the kitchen quickly at the mention of her son’s name. “You are Jimin’s friend? He never mentioned you before.”

You simply shrug as if to convey that it is not your business to wonder about the strangeness of Jimin not mentioning you before.

“So where do you stay?” Aunt Shweta queries further, finding her curiosity spike at the information of her son having a girl friend she has never heard of before.

“People’s Republic of China.”

“Make sure—“ Jungkook’s sentence is cut off mid way when the sound of your voice reaches his ears. “I’ll call you later.” He promptly cuts the call and rushes out of his room.

“Ch-China?” Shweta is perplexed, thinking she is hearing things wrong. “Jimin has never stepped out of this city.”

Jimin looks around in confusion having no clue whatsoever as to what he’s supposed to do. It is then that he sees Jungkook rushing out of his room. The moment his eyes lock with Jungkook’s, Jungkook puts a finger on his mouth asking Jimin to stay quiet and play along.

Jimin glares at Jungkook, realizing that he has somehow become the scapegoat, again.

“How did you two meet?” This time the question is aimed at Jimin, as his mother seems to be totally confused by this revelation. Since, when did his son start making girl friends from other countries? And how?

Jimin gulps, knowing he will have to face the MID (mother-investigation-department) later. “O-online?”

Jimin’s words come out more as a question than as an answer and this only heightens his mother’s confusion.

“Online?” She asks, reflecting her son’s unsurety.

Jimin looks at Jungkook who is thankfully hidden from Shweta’s view and as Jungkook nods, he looks back at his mother. “Yes, online.”

Shweta looks at Jimin with a look that clearly says that he has got a lot of explaining to do. She then looks back at you to ask you something, but decides otherwise upon realizing that you seem entirely focused on eating your breakfast.

And that marks the end of the conversation.

Everything resumes back to normal. Shweta heads back to the kitchen. Jungkook heaves a sigh of relief. Jimin convinces himself he shouldn’t murder Jungkook right before his wedding.

However, unbeknownst to everyone, two people in particular have taken a certain interest in you.

One, Tae Oh, Jungkook’s maternal cousin.

Two, Jeon Baek Hyeon, Jungook’s father.

There are a total of three cars. The one in which you’re currently seated in has you in the passenger seat, with Tae Oh and Jungkook’s mother in the middle row.

Jungkook takes a peek inside the car and sees that his mother is on the phone with someone while Tae Oh is listening to some music with his earbuds plugged in. He takes this opportunity to speak to you.

“Listen,” he whispers. “Please don’t let them know who you are.”

You look at him, over the rim of your sunglasses, which rest on the bridge of your nose. “Who am I?”

Jungkook looks at you as if the answer to that question should be obvious. “You’re Riya’s sister.”

You nod at him and with a click of a button, pull the windows of your seat up.

“I-Wha?—”, Jungkook knocks on the window, asking you to pull it back down.

You look at Jungkook and then look at the driver who is currently in the process of turning the engine on. Then you look back at Jungkook and shoot him a two-finger salute as a way of bidding him goodbye as the car takes off.

Jungkook stares at the now moving car and wonders as to what turn of events will this shopping day-out take.

In the fifteen minutes that the car has been on the road, you have finished an entire bottle of water. A fact that Jungkook’s mother finds concerning.

“Dear, are you okay?” she asks wondering if you’re drinking so much water because you’re not feeling well. With the sunglasses that you have on, she cannot even read your expressions properly.

You look at her through the rearview mirror. “I’m as okay as a squirrel with an acorn stash for winter.”

Jungkook’s mother is confused by your choice of words but decides that you must be intending to convey that you’re alright. She nods, although the worried frown on her face refuses to go away.

Tae Oh on the other hand, keeps stealing glances at you, through the rearview mirror. You’re the prettiest girl he has ever seen. When he realizes that you’re humming some song to yourself, he decides it’s his time to shine.

He clears his throat. “Auntie, you know right I was about to be the next big music idol?”

“Is it so?” Jungkook’s mother queries. As someone who is trained in classical music, she finds herself interested in this conversation.

“Yes,” Tae Oh confirms. “Unfortunately, the judges didn’t have the depth to understand my style of singing.”

“What song did you sing?” You ask, now looking back at him through the rearview.

“Wannabe,” he replies, feeling shy now that you’re directly speaking to him.

“By spice girls?”

“Yes,” he replies, sounding proud and confident about his ong choice. “Would you like a demo?”

“Sure.”

The clearing of his throat is the only warning Jungkook’s mother gets.

"Ha ha ha ha ha—YO, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want!"

He starts aggressively beatboxing, but it’s not beatboxing so much as random noises that sound like a train derailing. He keeps going anyway, hands waving like he's orchestrating a symphony.

Suddenly, you join and start "beatboxing" along—by loudly spitting sounds that vaguely resemble a wet cat sneezing."Pfffsh—tch-tch—PFFFssh-tch-tch!"

Tae Oh, not realizing the absolute disaster unfolding, presses on, getting way too into the song. He sings the next line, stomping his foot like he’s a rockstar who just broke out his big hit. "So tell me what you want, what you really, really want!"

You are nodding along aggressively. "I’ll tell you what I want—what I really, really want!"

You both are absolutely butchering the rhythm, singing in completely different beats. Tae Oh continues dramatically, as if he’s hitting the high note of a power ballad. You are adding extra "ha’s" where they don’t belong. "I WANNA, (ha), I WANNA, (ha), I WANNA, (ha)!"

You try to match him but totally miss. "PFFFT—ha ha—PFFT—zigazig ahhhhh!"

Jungkook’s mother watches in utter disbelief, frozen in shock. Nothing could have ever prepared her for this. It's like a car wash you just have to see through to the end.

You both try to keep the song going, but at this point, you both are so off-key and off-beat that it’s devolved into a chaotic mix of random noises and misplaced beats.

"If you wanna be my lover—YOU GOTTA GET WITH MY FRIENDS!"

“Because—“

"FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS!" You both belt out, together.

“Nice try.” You give Tae Oh a nod of approval as the duet comes to an end, who smiles back shyly at you.

Jungkook’s mother reminds herself to close her mouth which was wide open during the entirety of your performance.

On a brighter side, at least now she’s assured that you aren’t feeling sick.

Jungkook sits in a sleek, modern reception area, fidgeting with a notepad in his hands. Dressed in a crisp suit, his leg bounces nervously as he mentally revises his speech for the upcoming meeting. His lips move slightly as he murmurs the rehearsed lines to himself.

"Right. I just need to be clear, confident... just ask directly, no big deal..."

The door to the office opens. A tall, authoritative man, Mr. Han, steps in, his eyes scanning the room before landing on Jungkook. Jungkook stands, straightening his jacket and putting on his best business smile.

"Jungkook, I presume?"

Jungkook bows slightly. "Yes, sir. It’s an honour to meet you."

They exchange firm handshakes. Jungkook gestures toward the chairs, and they both sit down. Just as Mr. Han opens his mouth to begin, Jungkook’s phone buzzes loudly. He glances at it – and realizes it's Riya. His brow furrows. He hesitates, then looks at Mr. Han.

"Sir, if you could please excuse me for a minute."

"Oh yes, absolutely."

Jungkook receives the call and speaks in a hushed tone. "Hey, Riya, I’m in the middle of—"

"Which guesthouse did you drop Y/N at?"

Both Riya and Jungkook speak at the same time, although somehow, Jungkook’s words get drowned out.

Jungkook blinks, caught off guard. "Uh... I brought her to my place."

A beat of stunned silence follows on the other end, as Riya waits for Jungkook to add that he's joking. When he doesn’t, she loses her cool.

"What?! You brought her home?! She’s a drug addict, Jungkook, you cannot trust her with anything!" she exclaims. "Where is she now?"

"Relax!" Jungkook speaks calmly, even though the revelation of you being a drug addict shocks him. But he can’t sound panicked, not while sitting right in front of Mr. Han. "She’s just taken my family shopping at your dad’s showroom in Amy Avenue."

Riya gasps sharply, followed by a barrage of words. "Shopping?! Jungkook, you idiot! Alpesh Uncle is at the shop today—if he sees her, we’re in serious trouble!"

Jungkook’s eyes widen as he realizes the gravity of the situation. Panic begins to creep in as he nervously rubs the back of his neck.

"Alpesh Uncle... oh no. Okay, okay, don’t worry! I’ll fix this."

"You better fix it."

He quickly ends the call, his heart racing, and looks back at Mr. Han, who’s been politely waiting. His expression has shifted from professional to slightly puzzled.

"Is everything alright?" Mr. Han asks.

"Sure, sir," Jungkook forces a tight smile, though his mind is racing. "How is Mrs. Han?"

"Mrs. Han?" Mr. Han looks perplexed by the sudden change of topic but answers anyway. "There’s some medical issue, you know, with her gall bladder. But the doctor was also wondering if it’s related to her knee—"

Jungkook nods, trying to seem interested as Mr. Han goes on.

"—there’s a lot of pus that's collected there—"

"Sir, can I meet you after two hours?" Jungkook suddenly blurts out, unable to hide the stress building inside him.

"Today? I’m sorry, Jungkook, but I’m really busy today."

"Sir, can you give me six million dollars?" Jungkook cuts to the chase, knowing why he's really there. But before Mr. Han can respond, Jungkook starts gathering his files and stands up. "I’m sorry, sir, I have to leave. It’s an emergency."

Mr. Han stares at him in utter confusion as Jungkook rushes out of the room, his footsteps echoing in the hallway.

Jungkook bursts through the hotel doors, adjusting his suit jacket as he hails a taxi. He jumps inside, running a hand through his hair, trying to make sense of the chaos he's just unleashed.

The sun hangs high over Amy Avenue, casting a warm glow on the busy street. Lively storefronts line the avenue, and the air is filled with the sounds of chatter and laughter. In the midst of the hustle, is you, who leads Jungkook’s family in a single-file line, a colorful chain of chaos and utter confusion.

You stand at the front, a beacon of energy and casual confidence. Your dark hair sways as you turn back to check on the group, your hands raised to maintain the chain. The family follows your lead, though not without fair share of difficulties.

"Come on, everyone! Let’s stick together! Hold hands tight!" You shout.

Behind you, Jungkook’s family members talk animatedly among themselves. The line weaves slightly, and a few members begin to pull away from the chain.

"Hey, don’t pull so hard! I’m not made of rubber!" Aunt Young grumbles.

"Watch out! We’re going to bump into a car!" Uncle Choi says, nervously.

The street is bustling, and the noise only adds to the jovial confusion. You glance over your shoulder, your eyes sparkling with enthusiasm.

"Just a little further! We’re almost at the showroom! You’re all doing great!"

You look at the entrance of the showroom which although is now visible, still remains a few meters away. You turn around and face your followers and address them. “You see that? That’s our destination. A few steps more and we will get there. Don’t stop now.”

You speak like a coach motivating their team on how to win a champion’s trophy.

As you all approach the entrance of the showroom, Alpesh Uncle steps out. Adjusting his glasses he squints at the screen of his mobile. “Lord knows, what happens to the tower.”

“C’mon, c’mon. Just a few steps more.” With the volume at which you’re speaking, it’s all thanks to the hustle of the market that your voice doesn’t reach Alpesh uncle.

“Hello? Hello? Is my voice audible?” Alpesh uncle speaks loudly into the phone but when he is met with silence, he removes the phone from his ear and waves it in the air in a zig-zag motion, hoping that it will catch the tower.

“Very good! Very good!” You encourage with your back facing the showroom, motioning your hands for the line to keep moving forward.

Alpesh uncle is about to go inside his showroom, having given up on trying to find the mobile tower when he spots Jungkook’s mother in the crowd. “Ah! Look who it is!” He exclaims cheerfully, and starts climbing down the small flight of stairs that connects the street to the showroom.

Now, the entire family’s attention has shifted to Alpesh uncle, the line has broken as everyone comes forward to greet him and you’re about to turn around when you feel a firm hand grip your arm and yank you with a swift tug.

Before you can react you come in contact with a hard chest and you look up to realize that it’s Jungkook, whose attention is fixed on his family and Alpesh uncle greeting each other, having totally missed your sudden disappearance.

“Let go!” You snap trying to free yourself from his grasp but his arms only tighten around you.

“Shh,” he looks at you, a sense of urgency in his eyes as he waits for Alpesh uncle to go inside along with his family. “Alpesh uncle is here and you cannot be seen by him.”

“But I need to go and talk to him,” you argue, although Jungkook pays no attention to your words even though you keep squirming in his hold. “Let me go!”

Jungkook watches as one by one everyone starts getting inside. He sees Aunt Young and aunt Shweta discussing among themselves and looking around, most likely searching for you, before they, too go inside.

It is only when he’s sure that it is safe that he releases you.

That was a close call.

Jungkook stands outside Riya's vanity van, his hands gripping the door frame as he leans in slightly. His eyes flicker to you, who sits a few feet away on a folding chair, quietly eating from a plate of food meant for the cast and crew and he couldn't help but feel a twinge of frustration. “There were full of mosquitoes there, she wasn’t eating—”

“So you could have gotten her food. What was the need for you to bring her home?” Riya argues, from where she’s currently sitting inside the van with her hairstylist brushing her hair.

“She’s your sister, Riya,” Jungkook points out as if that should make it obvious why he brought you home.

“Exactly! She’s my sister,” Riya agrees to Jungkook’s statement but refuses to acknowledge the emotion behind his words. “Just do what you’re told to do.”

Jungkook sighs, knowing there is probably no point in having this conversation. Not to mention the fact that he still remains unaware as to why you were supposed to remain hidden from Alpesh uncle. He somehow figured that no one from your family except for Riya knows about your return, but he has absolutely no idea why Alpesh uncle spotting you would have been such a big deal.

However, a shooting set is definitely not the place for that kind of conversation.

“Have you managed the funds yet?” Riya asks.

“I’m on it,” Jungkook replies, not mentioning that he left a very crucial meeting like a bride leaving the altar, right after receiving Riya’s call.

“Then please just focus on that.”

Jungkook sighs again and with a nod, takes his leave.

As he’s walking in your direction, he notices that you’re entirely focused on eating and he takes this opportunity to verify something.

He quickly changes his direction of walking and walks towards the parking lot. He unlocks his car and finds your bag lying on the passenger seat. He only has to unzip the first chain to find several small containers filled with pills.

A sick feeling spreads through his body and he quickly zips back your bag and places it exactly where it was before.

Slowly things start making sense to him.

The day when he met you at the hotel; you were completely absentminded and hardly bothered to pay heed to basic social cues. Whereas, when he drove you from the hotel back to his house, you were rather normal. You even remembered the fact that you both had met seven years ago.

Your odd behaviour could all be explained by you being under the influence of these pills.

Jungkook rubs his temples, feeling a headache surfacing.

After a few moments, he takes a deep breath, locks his car and heads back to the shooting set.

“Eat quickly we need to leave,” he takes a seat right next to where you’re sitting. However, now that he knows what he knows, it is like he has started to put the puzzle together and for some reason, a suspicion occurs in his mind when he realizes that you’re wearing your sunglasses. “Can you remove your sunglasses for a second?”

You stop eating and look up at him. “Why should I?”

“Just remove them,” Jungkook deadpans, running thin on patience.

You shrug and remove your glasses. Letting them hang from your shirt, you resume eating.

Jungkook watches you closely, and his suspicion is proven right when he notices that you’re blinking your eyes quite frequently. He does not recall this being the case when you were your normal self.

So, this fast-frequent blinking thing is a characteristic of the Y/N that comes out after popping the pills.

“Do you take drugs?” He asks you.

“Nope,” you reply, popping the ‘p’, not being phased by the question at all.

“Then what are those tablets that you take?” Jungkook refuses to back down.

You look up again, even in your high state looking slightly taken off guard. Although, nothing that derails you. “They are medicines,” you reply matter-of-factly, looking straight into his eyes.

Jungkook stares right back. “What medicines?”

“Dichlorosystrin, zincodestrin and oxidisulphide.”

“Are you ill?” he counters, trying to get you to admit that you do indeed take drugs.

“Nope.” You pop the ‘p’ again. “I feel weird sensations in my body and these pills control them.”

“What kind of sensations?”

“Sensations such as shivering, palpitating, irritability, trembling, sheepishness—”

“Just finish the food and then we will leave,” Jungkook cuts you off with much annoyance, understanding that you’re high and no matter what he says right now, you will always have an answer. You aren’t even in the right state of mind to understand the seriousness of the conversation.

You and Jungkook walk through the gates of the banquet hall of the hotel, where Jungkook is organising the surprise party for Riya. Jungkook walks a few steps ahead of you, while you follow his trail.

While Jungkook is scrolling through his phone, checking his mail, you rip open a packet of chips. The sound of which annoys Jungkook to no end.

You take a chip out and munch on it loudly. Jungkook turns around and glares at you. You almost collide with him not realising that he has stopped walking. However, upon noticing Jungkook’s glare, you look to your left and right, checking if it’s really you, he’s glaring at.

Before, you can ask him what’s wrong, he is walking again.

You don’t think much of it, resume your munching and follow Jungkook.

However, it couldn’t be more than ten steps before Jungkook is facing you again, causing your steps to halt as well.

“So you are sober now?” Jungkook snaps, unable to hold it in any longer. “Do you have any idea how many side effects those pills have?”

“There are plenty of them,” you reply, without missing a beat. “Memory loss, definitely a gain in appetite which is reduced considerably when you eat, increased thirst and if I pop in a lot of pills, my heart would race to 300 and when so much blood is being pumped, there will be nosebleeds and—“

—“and?” Jungkook waits for your next words with a bated breath, hoping you won’t say what he thinks you’re about to say.

“—and hypoglycemic shock, then coma, then death.”

Jungkook releases a breath, a mix of disbelief and sheer horror coursing through his veins. He looks at you and the look of pure calmness on your face as you say these things astonishes him to no end. How can you know about all of this in great detail and still choose to pop those pills? Most importantly, how can you speak about all of this so casually? You aren’t even high now!

“You’re addicted to those drugs,” he says, as if explaining the seriousness of the situation to you.

“Nope,” you deny. “I have formulated them 15 days ago. It takes 21 days to get addicted.”

Jungkook scoffs. “That’s what all drug addicts say,” he resumes walking, feeling undeniably frustrated that no matter your state, you refuse to take this seriously.

“I’m not a drug addict,” you mumble, voice soft and for the first time since he has met you, vulnerable. “I haven’t touched them in seven years.”

Jungkook looks back at you and some of his annoyance melts at the childlike expression on your face. He huffs and decides it’s for the best to focus on why he’s here.

“Jun!” Jungkook calls for his manager, who comes rushing towards him. “Is everything ready?”

“Almost, sir.” Yeonjun, or Jun as Jungkook likes to call him, replies.”Only the swing is missing it’s seatbelts. That will be organised by this evening. So we cannot make the swing fly yet. Except for that you can test everything out.”

Jungkook nods and stands nervously in front of the crew, his eyes darting from the large red swing (which looks like a loveseat) to the sky, where fireworks were meant to bloom on the big day. This is supposed to be a perfect dry run for Riya’s surprise, and he wants everything to go smoothly. He tugs on his shirt collar, feeling the weight of the moment and takes a seat on the two-seater swing.

“Jun, be Riya for the time being,” Jungkook pats the space next to him, motioning for Jun to take the seat.

“S-Sir, me?” Yeonjun is slightly taken off guard by his boss’ words.

“Yes you, Jun,” Jungkook confirms, with a small flicker of amusement.

Yeonjun follows his instruction and takes the seat. He crosses his legs, places his hands on his lap in a very ladylike manner and looks at Jungkook with a loving look.

“Okay, you didn’t have to go the extra mile,” Jungkook tries to seem stern but the wide grin betrays him.

Yeonjun only looks away and flips his non-existent long hair to the other side.

A loud cackle coming from you grabs both Yeonjun and Jungkook’s attention.

“Ma’am, you’re finding this very funny,” Yeonjun says with a grin of his own, breaking from his character. He also takes this as an opportunity to invite you to be in his place. “Why don’t you come and sit here?” he gets up and offers you the seat.

“There’s no—”

“Sir, it’s better this way,” Yeonjun insists. “Let the lady try.”

You look at Jungkook wondering if it’s okay with him. Only to realize that he’s also looking at you with the same look.

You put aside the chips packet and dust your hands, and make your way to the swing. The moment you’re seated Jungkook explains to the entire crew the planned sequence.

“Listen carefully, the music comes on first, then the drapes, then the flowers, fountains, then the crane will lift the swing up and finally the fireworks. Okay?”

Numerous ‘yes,sir’s are received from the crew.

“Cool. Let’s go. ‘Riya’,” Jungkook looks at you and only then does he realizes that you’re not listening to any of this. Instead you’re examining the ropes that attach the swing to the crane very carefully. “Y/N?”

“Huh?”

“We’re about to start.”

“Oh, Okay,” you nod and get ready for whatever it is that is about to happen.

Now Yeonjun takes over as he addresses the crew working under him. “First play the music,” he instructs, to which the guy inside the crane, who’s responsible for all the buttons and keeping things in sync, shoots a thumbs up.

You look around and notice the two large speakers that remain hidden from the party section and expect them to blast any second now. However, moments pass and nothing happens. You look at Jungkook who with each passing second looks more and more impatient and give him a reassuring nod.

The guy inside the crane repeatedly presses the button that is supposed to be connected to the speakers but the speakers remain dead.

Jungkook loses his patience and yells at the guy to be heard over the distance. “What is wrong? Start the music!”

At that very moment, a strange metallic groan echoes from the crane above.

“Why is the swing…?” Jungkook begins, but before he can finish, the swing lurches upwards, leaving the ground behind.

“Whoa, wait!” Jungkook yelps, one hand tightly gripping the rope of the seat as it lifts into the air. While the other instinctually comes in front of you, in a protective manner, trying to work as a makeshift belt. You do not notice that however, as you burst into laughter, your head thrown back in sheer joy.

“This wasn’t part of the plan!” Jungkook panics, eyes wide as he sees the ground getting smaller beneath them.

“This is awesome!” You exclaim between giggles, your hair flying in the breeze. “This is awesome!”

Jungkook isn’t listening. His breath quickens, as the swing refuses to be still. One moment it moves to the right. The other, it moves to the left. “Get us down!” he shouts.

Oh you don’t remember the last time you had so much fun.

Now the music starts to play.

“A little unsaid, a little undone,”

The swing rotates a complete three-sixty and you holler in excitement.

“Fleetingly it stays, in a twinkle it’s gone”

The crew starts putting a blanket underneath just in case either of you fall.

“Such a silly feeling.”

Just as Jungkook thought things couldn’t get worse, one of the drapes that is supposed to cover whoever is sitting on the swing from getting wet by the fountain, comes loose. It gets caught in the wind and wraps itself around his face. Blinded, he flailed his arms. “Help! I can’t see! I can’t see!”

“Hold still, hold still!” You say, unwrapping the cloth with care. As you peel it away, you notice the look of panic and distraught on his face. “You’re okay. Look at me. You won’t fall”

Jungkook, heart pounding, blinked rapidly, his vision clearing as your calm yet excited face came into view.

“There, better?” you query, your voice steady now.

Jungkook nods, his chest rising and falling with deep breaths. He leaned back into the swing, still slightly nervous but trusting your calmness. “You’re way too comfortable with this,” he mutters.

“Well yeah, I wasn’t expecting this,” you express, the laughter in your eyes contagious.

By now, although the swing is in the air, thankfully it has stopped moving.

“Well, are we getting down anytime soon?” Jungkook hollers to the crew below.

“Sir, we are trying,” comes Yeonjun’s reply. “The machine malfunctioned.”

You two hang in air in silence, both carrying two completely different moods. The quiet however gets disrupted when the fountains start, which is then followed by confetti of petals. With no drapes to cover the both of you, you two get wet.

You enjoy the flower petals falling on you, whereas Jungkook only feels cranky at his entire plan turning out to be a major disaster.

When the fireworks take off, you gasp and look behind you where the sky is lit with all sorts of beautiful colors.

The gasp catches Jungkook’s attention and he looks at you. You’re grinning wide, with your mouth parted and your eyes reflecting the fireworks. Although, he thinks the sparkle in your eyes might have everything to do with the joy you feel inside.

You notice Jungkook looking at you and can’t help but explain the rush of emotions you’re feeling. “I feel new sensations, as if fountains of cool water are breaking out underneath while fireworks are going off above, while we are swinging through it all.”

“I’m glad you had fun,” he smiles at you reluctantly. “But this whole thing is a mess. Nothing went according to plan.”

“Isn’t that the best part though?” You quip. “Had everything gone to plan, it wouldn’t have been much of a surprise. You too got a surprise, thanks to this mess.”

The corner of Jungkook’s mouth tug upwards and you can’t help but grin wider in response.

“You’re impossible, you know that?” He says but the tension in his voice has melted, replaced by something much lighter.

“Not as impossible as the chances of this being a success on the day of the party,” you say in a low voice, as if the words are not meant for Jungkook’s ears and look around innocently.

Jungkook lets out a laugh, this one free and genuine. In this moment, for some reason, the thought of all his efforts of impressing Riya, going down the drain doesn’t scare or disappoint him.

One thing he’s slowly learning about you; high or sober, you always have an answer .

A/N: *clears throat* just note the line about her mentioning this sensation about fountains of water underneath and fireworks above. Will come in handy later 🤭💓.

Also, I'm dropping my new fic "All that Sparkles" (Ceo Tae, Arranged marriage au) on my Patreon tomorrow! So if you'd like to check it out, you're most welcome 🤗❤️.

#jungkook x reader #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook smut #jungkook scenarios #jungkook au #Jungkook series #Jungkook ff #jeon jungkook #BTS fic #BTS au #BTS smut #BTS fluff #BTS angst #Fic:hl #Fic: hello love

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imshymorph · 1 year ago

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Hello, I went to the store and bought some soft!Price, enjoy.

I’ve been thinking about this a bit a lot more than I'd like to admit, but there’s something about the orange trend on tiktok that screams Price to me. And I know I'm late to talking about it but it only proves how long this has been in my mind.

Because on the one hand, he’s a military captain in charge of an elite task force in the special forces. In other words, this man is busy. I truly believe that when this man is at home, he’ll just go to his little office Monday morning and not come out until Sunday evening. He screams workaholic. So there’s a small side of me that thinks that if anything you’d have to bring him oranges, cause this man hasn’t had even a molecule of fruit in weeks.

- - - - -

On the other hand, he 100% gives the vibes of the kind of dad that heard you say that you liked red apples once and keeps the fridge fully stocked since then. Gets at least half a dozen every time he goes to the store because his love likes them.

So the conclusion I have come to it’s that he absolutely buys, peels, gets the white stringy bits off and hands the individual slices to you. But you absolutely do it for him, too. That's how love and care is shown in the Price household.

That’s why, when you realise it’s past 5pm and John hasn’t come out of his office yet, you go to the kitchen and get one of the big juicy oranges sitting in a big bowl on the counter. Without even thinking about it you start peeling it, leaving for his office after throwing all the bits you took off in the bin.

He hears your light knock on his door and before he even looks up, a smile is already forming on his lips. He lets his eyes linger on the computer screen a little longer as he finishes filling up one of the many text boxes in the file he’s working on. That’s what gives you the chance to round his desk and stand behind him.

Before he can even ask, you’ve handed him the already peeled orange. Now that your hands are free, you start massage his shoulders and the base of his neck. “You should take a break, darling.” you justify in a murmur as you focus on rubbing the tense muscles.

And honestly, who is he to go against what you say? He just gives a low agreeing hum and leans back, letting your hands melt his tension away as he enjoys the orange. An orange that tastes that much better just because you were the one to peel it for him.

You do it for the exact same reason he gets up before you every single Sunday morning. He’s careful as he slips out of your arms, often pushing his pillow closer to you so you hold onto it during his absence. He then goes to the kitchen, confidently puts on the dumb ‘kiss the chef’ apron and starts making breakfast.

The specific breakfast depends on the week and the season, but today he opted for your favourite herbal tea, obviously prepared just how you like it. To go along, he makes some french toast, drizzling some honey on it, as well as cutting up some strawberries to put on top. He sets all of it on a tray, along with an orange, the cutlery and a napkin.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve woken up or not while he cooked, if you got up and went to find him. More often than not, you pad into the kitchen while sleepily rubbing your eyes, pressing yourself against his warm back as you hug him from behind, usually with an excuse akin to “the bed felt too big without you”.

Even in those instances, he insists you have to be properly pampered. So he just scoops you up, no matter your size, “what kind of captain and husband would i be if i couldn’t carry you, my love?” he says before you can even think of complaining.

He sets you on the bed gently, pulls the covers over your lap and kisses your forehead before he leaves. Barely a minute later he’s back, without the apron and carrying the tray with your breakfast. He sets it on your lap before rounding the bed and sitting with his back to the headboard beside you.

The two of you share some casual conversation while you eat and he sneaks in some bites off your french toast. At some point he absentmindedly gets the orange and starts peeling it.

He doesn’t even look at it, setting the long piece of peel to the side of your tray before taking the stringy bits off. Right as you finish the last bite of your toast, he takes off the last white bit, handing the now separated slices to you.

And while you enjoy the mix of sweet and tart flavour, he throws an arm over your shoulders, pulling you into his side and kissing your temple. You smile, leaning your head on his shoulder and raising your hand towards his lips. He accepts the segment with a small smile and you earn yourself another kiss to the forehead as a thank you for what you call the breakfast tax.

#cod x reader #x reader #call of duty #call of duty modern warfare #cod mw2 #captain price cod #captain john price #captain price mw2 #captain price x reader #john price x reader #soft!price #captain john price x reader #john price #price x reader #captain price #cod price #price x you

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gertlushgaming · 2 years ago

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Jagged Alliance 3 Review (Steam)

For our Jagged Alliance 3 Review, where The country of Grand Chien is thrown into chaos when the elected president goes missing and the paramilitary force known as “the Legion” seizes control. Hire mercs, meet interesting characters, and fight in tactically deep turn-based combat in this true successor to a beloved franchise.

Jagged Alliance 3 Review Pros:

- Decent graphics. - 14.65GB Download size. - Steam achievements. - Full controller support. - Graphics settings - fullscreen mode, resolution, v-sync, graphics adaptor, frame rate limit, brightness slider, and ui aspect ratio, graphics preset, anti-aliasing, resolution percent, shadows, textures, anisotropy, terrain, effects, and lights. - Multiplayer settings - friends only, with modes, no mods, and join by code. - Full mod manager. - The forgiving mode will make the game a bit easier with health regent etc. - Three actual difficulties - first blood, commando, and mission impossible. - Dead is dead mode is an option that saves after every choice and every death. - To the bitter end, the option doesn't allow you to save during combat. - Excellent voice work. - Tongue-in-cheek humor throughout. - Strategy action gameplay. - Cutscenes are a mix of FMV and in-game interactions. - Can skip cutscenes. - At the start of the game, you have to pick your team and contact them to see if they will join, not all will. - The mouse cursor is controlled with the left stick. - You start the game and deal with missions and backend systems using a faux computer interface. - Fast loading times. - Turn-based combat and you can swap between units at will. - Out of combat, you are free to walk around. - Handy button to highlight and move the squad as one unit but you can break them off separately. - When aiming you can choose which body part to hit, which body part is showing or you can do free aim. - Three stances - standing, crouched, and prone. Affects accuracy and Stealth. - You can do stealth kills and use the scenery to hide and shoot. - Melee and ranged weapons. - Full inventory management and you can give items to other units instantly. - Shortcut menu options. - The satellite view allows you to give travel orders and skirmish options. - Different weather types along with day and night. - Button icons show on the screen. - Click a button to show all Interactive points on the screen. - The help screen acts as a tutorial library. - Encounters are varied and can be as in-depth or as fluid as you like. - Generally, the ai does a good job of playing like a real gamer. - You do get tutorial pop-ups at times. - A lot of comical dogs in action movies and current affairs. - Very difficult regardless of game difficulty. - There is a friendly fire that can be comical. - When you go to do a move you will see an outline of where you will be. - You get hit and damage percentages. - Beautiful looking locations. - Multiple choice encounters. Jagged Alliance 3 Review Cons: - Cannot rebind controls for either the controller or the mouse and keyboard. - No benchmark test. - Doesn't offer a colorblind option. - The tutorial pop-ups are less than ideal. - Doing basic actions is very clunky with the controller. - The controller is not the best way to play and I ditched it for the mouse and keyboard. - Can be hard to see the enemy at times. - Some of the dialogue is pure cheese. - It just takes so long to get to the point where you feel comfortable. - Small text in a lot of places. Related Post: New Star GP Preview (Steam Early Access) Jagged Alliance 3: Official website. Developer: Haemimont Games Publisher: THQ Nordic GmbH Store Links - Steam Read the full article

#PC #steam

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scuttling · 4 years ago

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Paper Rings

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairings: Aaron Hotchner/Female Reader Word Count: 10,191 Tags: SFW, Fluff, Literature, Friends to lovers, Everyone thinks they're dating, There was only one bed, Some angst with a happy ending, Confessing love in the rain, TW fire and blood/wound Summary: Some of my favorite tropes rolled into one cute fic inspired by Taylor Swift's Paper Rings. (lyrics and music) Link to A03 or read below! “Good morning, my friendly neighborhood crime fighters,” Penelope says as she enters the briefing room, wearing a dress that is bright bubblegum pink, with fingerless gloves and glasses to match. You, Derek, and Spencer groan your replies, because you just got home from a case last night, with less than seven hours between arriving at your apartment and returning to the office, and that is everyone’s least favorite thing.

You can’t deny that her typical sunny disposition makes you smile a little bit brighter, but you’re still exhausted, and even your usual extra large travel mug of breakfast blend is barely taking the edge off.

That’s probably why, when Aaron enters with trays of steaming espresso drinks from the cafe down the street, and a striped box of donuts, you act like a kid on Christmas morning.

“Oh my god, I love you. Thank you, I love you.” He got an array of basic drinks based on everyone’s usual orders, and you scan for one that has something with latte, but he takes one out and hands it to you, smiling when you take a sip and sigh—okay, he’s smiling with his eyes, but you are well versed in his body language and facial expressions, and he’s practically grinning at getting your order (triple one pump hazelnut extra hot latte) correct.

You are not the only one to notice.

“Get a room, you two; it’s just coffee,” Derek says, taking the white mocha from the tray and drinking half of it in one sip. “Now if you tell me there’s a bear claw in there, I’ll confess my undying love too.”

“I don’t know; I asked for an assortment,” he says, and it’s clear he did, but your cup has your name on it; you cover the ink with your hand and take another grateful sip. “I do know there’s a plain glazed in there, though,” he says a bit lower, just for you, and you smile, give his wrist a squeeze, and dive for it before Jennifer Jareau can get her hands on it.

That’s all the morning meeting consists of—bickering and bantering and caffeine and carb consumption—and when the group disperses, you follow Aaron to his office and sit down in the chair across from his.

“Thanks again for breakfast. You definitely raised the morale of the troops,” you say with a sip of your perfect latte, and he shares the hint of a smile.

“You’re welcome. It helps that you’re all so easy to appease.” He flips open his bag, pulls out a small, worn, paperback book, tosses it toward you. You pick it up, run your hand over the well-loved cover, and hum.

“The Call of the Wild—this made it into the Aaron Hotchner Nightstand Collection?” He arches a brow.

“It’s so overrated that it’s underrated; no one ever actually reads it, they just assume they know what it’s about. It’s a great book, if you’ll give it a chance.”

“Hey, you’ve read all of mine without complaint; of course I’ll give it a chance.” You take the last, sad sip of your latte and stand up, point out the door with your thumb. “Speaking of, mine’s still downstairs on my desk. I’ll be right back.”

Exchanging books started as an offhand comment one night, on a flight home from Georgia, when he’d mentioned that he never buys new books, only cycles through the same ten or twelve he’s been reading since college. He knows what he likes, finds something different in the text each time he reads, and you’d found something so profoundly beautiful about that that you’d asked for the list. You wanted to know more about the books that tug at his emotions enough that he’s read them day in and day out for over twenty years with no boredom in sight.

He’d done you one better, said he’d be happy to lend them to you, if you’d like, and that was an offer you couldn’t refuse. Seeing college-aged Aaron’s notes in the margins of battered paperback novels was a prospect too good to be true.

Of course, you couldn’t accept the gesture without returning one of your own, so you’d offered to share your favorite books with him too, only... you don’t exactly give him your favorite books. You purposefully buy the cheesiest romance novels you can get your hands on, pass them off to him while he hands you poignant, classic novels that have won literary awards and Nobel prizes.

Today’s is called Lord of Scoundrels, complete with a shirtless man on the cover, kissing a woman with dark, flowing hair and a light blue dress; you snicker the whole way to your desk and back up to his office—earning curious glances from the rest of the team—and when you drop it on the desk in front of Aaron, you watch closely for a reaction.

As usual, he doesn’t really give you one, just flips the book over, skims the summary on the back, and nods.

“Sounds interesting,” he says, and your heart does a little flip.

He could easily hand the book back, laugh in your face, refuse to read something so clearly out of his wheelhouse, but he thinks these novels are important to you, and he never fails to read them, offering his favorite parts the same way you do for his.

The world probably doesn’t deserve Aaron Hotchner; you definitely don’t.

“I think you’ll really like it. Sebastian and Jessica start out kind of indifferent toward each other, but the more they interact, the more they find they have in common. It’s very acquaintances to friends to lovers, if you’re into that.” He looks up with an expression you place as uncertainty, even if you’re not quite sure the reason for it. You smile softly. “I should get to work, but thanks for the book. I’ll see you at lunch?”

It’s been so nice lately that you started taking your lunch outside, sitting on a bench beneath a huge, shady oak tree, and Aaron had taken to doing the same; you both quickly realized it was stupid to sit outside together, apart, so you meet up in the bullpen now and walk out side by side, spend the hour talking about your books or the team or Jack or life in general. He shakes the uncertain expression, nods his head.

“Of course. Thank you,” he says with a wave of the book, and you head back downstairs to start your day.

You’ve become mostly accustomed to the feeling, but it still surprises you a little when all that gets you through the day is thinking about your next conversation with Aaron. A week later, you’re on a case in Pittsburgh, and you and Aaron are paired up to room together. That’s nothing unusual—it seems like you’ve been rooming together more often than not lately, which is fine by you; he’s tidy, quiet, always interested in a late night snack, pretty much the perfect roommate—but when he opens the door and you step inside, the single king size bed in the middle of the room takes you by surprise.

“Uh… do you think it’s a mistake? Or maybe they just ran out of doubles?” you suggest; he's kind of frozen in place, and while it’s not ideal, you know it’s not actually going to be a problem. You’ve shared a bed with JJ before, and Spencer, and even though you don’t feel the same way about them as you do about Aaron, you think you can manage a couple nights in close quarters.

“Probably just ran out of doubles,” he agrees after a moment; he doesn’t bring up calling the front desk to ask for another room, so you don’t either, just hang your clothes and head into the bathroom to change into your pajamas and do your nightly routine.

It’s a little awkward at first, and you don’t know why; over the last six months or so, he’s actually become your closest friend on the team, and conversation usually comes easily, but silence settles over the room uncomfortably as you slip between the sheets on your side of the bed.

He goes into the bathroom, does his own nightly routine, then comes out in his pajamas and turns on CNN.

You take out your book, pay no attention to Aaron, but the longer he sits on the edge of the bed, staring at the news ticker on the television screen but not actually watching it, the more you wish he’d just get over himself and come to bed. If he’s trying to wait for you to fall asleep, he’s going to be waiting a while.

“So you were right; I love Buck,” you say as a way to start some conversation, to bring some normalcy to this unusual situation. You hold up the book you’re reading, the one he let you borrow. “His struggle between remaining loyal to his owner and answering the call of the wild—I love dogs, but I never imagined a book about a dog could be so moving.”

He turns back with a soft smile, then switches off the tv and heads over to his side of the bed; he pulls back the comforter, slides between the sheets, meets you toward the middle of the bed.

“I told you you’d like it; what chapter are you on?” He leans over to look, so close it wouldn’t take much to lift a hand and brush it over his hair; it looks unfairly soft, and part of you wants to card your fingers through it, to tug on it and mess it up a little. He probably wouldn’t even mind if you did.

“Chapter 7—I only have a few pages left.” You snuggle more comfortably against your pillow, lean into his shoulder, and move the book so it’s more evenly between you. “Want to finish it with me?”

He does, and you read silently at a similar pace; he reaches up to turn the pages, and you think about how these hands have flipped through this book so many times before, what he might have been thinking, feeling, while reading. It’s a more intimate act than you’ve shared with anyone in a really long time.

When you finish the book, you sigh, let the feeling of reading a really great story envelope you; you turn to face Aaron, and he’s looking at you… and then there’s a knock at the door that startles you both.

He gets up, walks over and checks the peep hole, then opens the door.

“Are you sure?” you hear JJ ask, and he steps back so she can enter the room; when she sees you tucked snugly into the middle of the bed, she shoots you a soft smile and mouths you’re welcome, which makes absolutely no sense without context. You’ll have to bring it up to her later and ask what exactly you’re supposed to be thanking her for.

“So you said the detective called?” Aaron prompts her, and she looks away from you, nods.

“Yes, he wanted me to ask if we could have a few agents meet him at the second crime scene tomorrow instead of the precinct, figured it could save a little time.” Aaron looks confused, like he doesn’t see why this couldn’t have waited until tomorrow, but he ultimately agrees.

“Sure. You, Reid, and Prentiss can head straight there, if that’s what he wants. I’ll let them know in the morning.” JJ nods, and looks over at you, and then back at Aaron, who makes a kind but curious face. “Was there something else?”

“Huh? Oh, no, that’s it. I just didn’t want to forget. I’ll let you guys go—enjoy the rest of your night,” she says with a smile and a wave, and when he closes the door behind her, you both exchange a look.

She’s definitely acting a little weird, but it’s late, so you give her the benefit of the doubt.

You scoot over to your side, put the book on the nightstand and switch off your lamp; Aaron climbs back into bed and switches his off, too, and he turns to face the wall while you lay on your back and stare at the ceiling.

It takes about half an hour, but he falls asleep first; you turn to face him, watching his back, following the rise and fall as he softly breathes in sleep, and the peaceful rhythm lulls you into submission, and you drift off as well.

When you wake up a couple hours later, he is on his stomach with his face pressed into his pillow, and you are draped over his back with your cheek against his t-shirt. It’s soft, and warm, and smells like him, and you glance at the clock and realize it’s too early to do anything but get comfortable and fall back asleep, so that’s exactly what you do.

The next time you wake up, to light creeping in between the curtains, Aaron is no longer in bed, but you’re holding his pillow, still warm beneath your cheek. He doesn’t act weird when you get up and start moving around, just pops out of the bathroom with his toothbrush dangling from his mouth.

“Got you a latte,” he says around it, gesturing to the desk and the pair of paper cups that sit on it, and you grin.

“Seriously, you’re my favorite human,” you answer, and you grab your coffee and lean against the doorframe, sipping and sighing until you’re a little more clear-headed. “Sorry if I crushed you; guess I was restless last night. I usually don’t move around that much.”

He just shrugs, spits out a mouthful of foam into the sink.

“You didn’t crush me. I’m pretty solid, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“I’ve noticed,” you tease, looking at him over the lid as you take another sip. “Now hurry up and quit hogging the bathroom if you want to leave here at a decent hour.” He rinses, zips up his toiletry bag noisily for dramatic effect, and slips past you, rubbing a hand over your unruly bed head as he goes. The day passes quickly, with lots of interviewing witnesses, following dead-end leads, and bad police station coffee. When Aaron calls it and tells everyone to get some dinner, you all split off into smaller groups—Spencer and Derek go for Chinese, JJ and Emily opt for pizza, and you and Aaron end up at a retro diner with burgers and milkshakes and a plate of fries between you to share.

“I think we should be focusing more on the docks,” you say, dipping a fry in ketchup and taking a bite. “Even if that’s not where the bodies end up, it seems to be where the unsub is meeting with the victims. We could stake it out tonight, maybe. If you want.” You never want to step on his toes, because he is the boss, the leader, even if you’re friends too; you try to be careful how you phrase things, especially in front of other people, because you don’t want your comfort to look like disrespect, however unintentional.

“That’s a good idea. You and I can head down there after this; I’ll let the others know to patrol nearby, in case we need backup.”

He dusts off his fingers and pulls out his phone, types out a text, and you look around the restaurant—the place looks like it was ripped right out of the 50s, with a checkered floor and lots of red vinyl, a shiny jukebox in the corner. Out of place is a flatscreen tv behind the counter; during the day, when it’s busier, it might play news or sports, but you two are the only ones here at the moment, so the staff is hanging out beneath it watching a movie. It’s Titanic, you realize, when the iconic ‘Rose floating on a piece of debris’ scene plays, and you snort, take a long drag of your chocolate shake.

“I always hated this part. They could have found a way for him to survive, too. Unnecessary death for the heartache factor,” you say, and Aaron looks up from his phone to the screen, makes a sound of contemplation.

“I always thought it was kind of romantic. When you love someone, you’d do anything for them to be okay, even at your own expense. Even if it’s stupid.” You look over his face, study the features you know like the back of your hand, and you guess you can kind of see that, but you can’t say that, so you just sigh.

“I suppose you think Romeo and Juliet is romantic, too,” you tease, and he looks back at you, rolls his eyes.

“It’s very much of its time; it's a lot harder to suffer a miscommunication like that these days. And there is something to be said for star-crossed lovers—people who shouldn’t be together, for one reason or another, but can’t help but drift close anyway.” You swirl your straw in the metal cup, thinking briefly of how that happens to describe the two of you, and when you look up at him, you think you see a hint of that same thought on his face.

More likely, that’s just wishful thinking.

“I like the sword-fights,” you say to lighten the mood, and he laughs, and you both polish off the rest of your food and then head for the docks.

Two hours in and absolutely nothing has happened, but just when you’re ready to complain, or suggest playing I Spy or something, there’s movement from one of the shipping containers to your right. You nudge Aaron, point to the container, and you both creep closer, trying to make out the situation.

When you’re just around the corner, it’s clearly two men fighting, but you obviously don’t know if this is your unsub, two random guys having it out on the docks, or what, so you mutually agree to wait until you have some kind of sign that this is your guy. When one of them pulls out a hunting knife that looks vaguely similar to your murder weapon—as close as you can tell in the dark, anyway—you raise your guns and identify yourselves as FBI.

The unsub drops the knife, but fists his hands in the other guy’s jacket, manhandles him to the edge of the dock, and shoves him into the water, then jumps as well. You swear, and Aaron takes off his jacket, throws it on the ground, then his phone on top of it, and looks back at you.

“Stay here and call for backup,” he instructs, and then he jumps in too; you call the team from your comms, get a response from Emily, and then toss your phone onto Aaron’s jacket and follow him.

He, of course, went for the victim first, so you look for the unsub, who is not visible above the water. You completely submerge yourself, feeling for more than looking for him, because the water is cloudy on a good day and pitch black at ten o’clock at night; when you pop your head up for air, you see Aaron getting the victim up onto the dock, and the unsub bobbing a bit further out. You swim to him, limbs aching, and he seems to know it’s time to give up.

He’s winded, gasping for breath, so you keep him above the water to your own detriment, dragging him by his wet jacket instead of cuffing him, because you’re not trying to kill the guy or lug his unconscious body back to shore. You just barely keep your own head above water most of the time, coming up for big gulps of air when absolutely necessary.

You finally make it to the dock, and your team has arrived, so Derek pulls him out of the water, makes sure he’s alright, and puts some cuffs on him. Aaron’s hands are on you right after, getting you up on the dock, wrapping a towel around your shoulders.

Despite the warm spring breeze, the water was freezing, and you can feel your teeth chattering. He rubs your arms for warmth, crouches down to look you seriously in the eyes.

“Thought I told you to stay here,” he says with an arched brow, a scowl you can tell is more concerned than angry. You wet your frozen lips and try your best to smile.

“You jump, I jump, Jack.”

He looks at you like you’re an idiot, but fondly, if that’s possible, then hugs you so tightly, guides your face to press against his warm neck. How he’s not teetering on the edge of hypothermia is anyone’s guess.

“Your lips are practically blue. Stupid,” he murmurs, but his mouth dusts over your temple in what is unmistakably a kiss, and when you’re able to feel your lips again, you reciprocate, press them a little harder against his throat while you shiver in his arms.

It doesn’t mean anything except I’m happy we’re both alive. Probably.

That night in bed, he faces the wall, and you stare at the ceiling, but you wake up with your nose against the back of his neck. The way he’s breathing tells you he’s not asleep, and when you wrap your arms around him, he holds them tight. Things don’t change after Pittsburgh, and that’s okay. You are comfortable with the way things are, and you love what you have—lunches under the oak tree, the exchange of books, late night texts when you both can’t sleep, hands brushing when you walk to the parking garage, glances shared across the jet. All those things make it easy not to focus on what you don’t have, what you’re not even sure Aaron would want anyway.

You exchange books again on Friday at lunch: he hands you Beloved by Toni Morrison, a book you already know and adore, and you hand him Ravished by Amanda Quick.

“Dubbed the Beast of Blackthorne Hall for his scarred face and lecherous past, Gideon,” Aaron shoots you a glance—“that’s purely coincidental”—“was strong and fierce and notoriously menacing. Yet Harriet could not find it in her heart to fear him. For in his tawny gaze she sensed a savage pain she longed to soothe... and a searing passion she yearned to answer.”

You hold back a smile.

“It’s a modern retelling of a classic story—Beauty and the Beast,” you add, taking a bite of your sandwich. He looks you over like there’s something he wants to say, but he just tucks it under his arm and steals a piece of melon from your lunch.

“I have Jack this weekend, so I probably won’t get to read much, but it sounds intriguing.”

“Well I hope you like it when you read it. Tell him I said hi; it’s been too long since I saw him. I bet he’s looking more like you every day,” you say, popping a piece of melon into your mouth. He smiles softly.

“A little, but Haley says she sees her father in him, and I have to agree. We may have to wait a few years until he looks like me; he’s too cute for that now.” He doesn’t sound self-deprecating, just fond, but you can’t let a comment like that stand, regardless.

“You’re cute; the difference is that kids are cute all the time. You’re an adult, so sometimes you’re handsome, sometimes you’re cute, sometimes you’re hot… it can be hard to reconcile.” This time, he looks you over with something light and playful in his eyes, and it’s something you want to explore, but the timer on your phone goes off, indicating that lunch is over, so you just exhale softly and pack up your things.

You don’t talk much after that—his Fridays are usually busy with meetings, and he leaves in a hurry to pick up Jack, which is understandable.

Emily, JJ, and Penelope invite you out for drinks and dinner—“because we know Hotch is busy,” Penelope says, which has literally nothing to do with your weekend plans, but you don’t correct them—so you don’t linger either.

You go out for Italian, so you are sleepy and full of wine and pasta by the end of the evening, and you smile at your friends.

“Thanks for inviting me out tonight, guys. I had a really good time.”

“Of course,” Emily says, taking her last sip of Pinot Noir. “We barely see you anymore; it was long overdue.”

“Definitely,” you agree. “I should really try to drag my ass out of bed more often.” You can’t help it, though, that after a long day, your bed and a good book just call your name. You’ve always been introverted in that way. JJ laughs softly, chin in her palm, elbow on the table.

“Honeymoon phase. Give it another couple months and you’ll be past that.” You do have a new memory foam mattress that has made sinking into the pillows and blankets all that more indulgent, but you didn’t think JJ knew about that. And you’ve never heard of a honeymoon phase for a mattress before.

“Eh, I don’t think so. There’s literally nothing more satisfying on this earth.” The three of them exchange an amused look, but your phone vibrates, and that catches your attention; you smile when it’s Aaron, sending you a photo of Jack with a toothy grin and his hands covered in fingerpaint. You look up to the sound of chairs scraping against the floor.

“Alright, we’ve lost her. See you all Monday,” Emily says, pulling you in for a hug; when she steps back, she smiles. “And tell Hotch we said hi.”

“I will,” you promise as you hug the other two. You hang back a moment, type out a reply—Looks like you’re having lots of fun without me!—and get into your car to head home.

You change into comfy clothes, drink a glass of water, and climb into bed with Beloved, and at around 9:30 you receive a reply.

Having the most fun we can without you. Maybe next time Jack is over, we can tempt you with dinosaur chicken nuggets and fingerpaint?

You smile, the happiest you’ve been all night—and that’s saying something, because you really did have a great time—and send back, It’s a date. Come Monday, you’re feeling pretty good, well-rested and relaxed from probably too much time in bed, but Aaron looks upset when he walks into the morning meeting. He keeps it short and sweet, and everyone disperses quickly, giving you sympathetic looks as you hang back to try to have a word with him. He clears off the white board, tidies up the table that doesn’t need tidying, and you place a hand on his back, gentle and comforting. He sighs, and you can feel the tension leave him almost instantly.

“Hey. What’s bothering you?” you ask softly, leaning around to try to catch his expression; he looks tired, sad, and maybe a little conflicted, leans into your touch.

“Taking Jack back to Haley’s was rough last night; it always is, but yesterday was really bad.” You know a little about this from weekends past, how Jack always cries when Aaron has to leave, how he feels terrible about it for the rest of the evening, but it must have been extreme for him to still be so upset. “And Haley…” He sighs again, runs his hand through his hair. “It’s like it’s one step forward, two steps back with her sometimes.”

“Why don’t we go sit in your office and you can tell me more?” You want to continue discussing this—that’s what friends are for, and he’s clearly in a bad state emotionally, you think it could help—but he just shakes his head.

“No, I… it’s okay. I don’t want to weigh you down with my problems.” You take your hand off his back, lean a hip against the table and look up at him.

“I’m not just your friend when it’s all easy breezy, lunch in the sunshine, talking about our favorite books,” you say with a sad smile; he reciprocates a little, which is more than you expected. “I’m here when things are complicated, when you have bad days, too. The Monday blues especially.” One of his hands rests on the table, and you cover it with yours, lean in to press your forehead to his shoulder. “Let me be here, okay? Even if all you need me to do is listen.”

It takes a moment, and his eyes are wet when he finally responds; he inhales deeply, nods, and brushes his free hand over your head in something of a hug, murmurs a rough, “okay.”

You sit in his office for an hour—which, again, is more than you expected—listening to him talk about his weekend with Jack, how heartbreaking it was to take him back to Haley’s, how he tried talking to her about taking him more often and she just wasn’t sure she could trust him to do what he says he’ll do. He understands where she’s coming from, knows he’s been unable to keep his word in the past, thinks he doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt; he hasn’t asked for advice, seems to just want to vent, so you just listen.

“Then I mentioned you, that you might come for dinner next time he’s over, and she was worried about that,” he says, exasperated, and you frown.

“Why would she worry about that? I’ve been around him lots of times.” It doesn't make sense, because Haley has always been nothing but sweet to you; Aaron looks up at your question, and it seems a little like maybe he hadn’t meant to say that part, though you can’t imagine why.

“It’s just different now… because he’s older,” he says after a brief moment of hesitation. “She doesn’t want him getting attached to someone who might not always be around, you know.” You sigh softly, because if that’s all it is…

You lean forward, take his hand, squeeze it tight.

“I’m always going to be around, Aaron. I can talk to her, if you want, tell her that.”

“No, it’s—you don’t have to do that.” He squeezes your hand back, closes his eyes for a beat. “Just hearing you say it, it makes things easier. I’ll talk to her again next time.”

You talk a little more, and he seems a lot better afterward, even if he is a bit less expressive during lunch; you figure any progress is good, but it makes you sad to see him so down, so naturally, you formulate a plan to help get him back to the Aaron you know and love.

At the end of the day, when he makes his way to the bullpen, you spin around in your chair, take him by the sleeve.

“You’re coming home with me tonight,” you say in no uncertain tone of voice. “For a few hours. I’ll bring you back for your car.” He agrees with a fond look, and you lose yourself in the expression for a moment, then stand up, grab your things, and walk with him out to the garage.

Rush hour traffic is what it is, and you leave Aaron in charge of the music, which means you get The Beatles and The Who, Rolling Stones and Neil Diamond, and you’re both singing along and so much happier by the time you pull into the parking lot of the bodega nearest your apartment.

“Just running in for provisions—be right back,” you say with a grin, and when you return with two paper bags of loot, he looks at you like you might be his favorite person in the world with an age in the double digits. It’s a look you love putting on his face.

“Do I get to see what provisions you’ve acquired?” he asks, teasing, but you shake your head and tell him he’ll see it when you get there.

With a pit stop in your apartment to grab a blanket and a few throw pillows, you take him up to the roof and get things ready for your makeshift picnic. There is white wine, still mostly chilled; cubed cheese, far from gourmet but no less delicious; crusty french bread that was fresh this morning but at this hour is a little extra crusty; blueberries, because they didn’t have grapes; dark chocolate, because you share a fondness for it; and paper cups for the wine.

Aaron takes a look at your bounty, spread over the blanket, and smiles the first real smile you’ve seen all day.

“Fancy,” he teases, and he takes off his jacket, gets on the ground with you. You pour each of you some wine, pop a blueberry in your mouth.

“No, but I thought a meal—and I do call it that loosely—under the stars might do you some good.” You lift your paper cup and tap it against his, brush your fingers over his hand. “To the best boss, best dad, best friend I could ask for.” You take a sip, but he doesn’t at first, watches you with something simmering behind his eyes.

“Do I get to make a toast?” he asks after a few beats, and you smile, nod, and hold up your cup. “To the only person stupid enough to jump into a freezing cold river after me. To the only person I would consider eating a bodega dinner with. To the only person who sees me the way you do.” You both take a sip, which is hard to swallow around the lump in your throat. He looks into your eyes, then breaks the dark chocolate into slivers and hands you a piece like he didn’t just say the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to you before.

You eat, and talk, and drink, and when you’re done with dinner you put everything back in the bags and lay back on the blanket, side by side, and stare up at the stars. The moon is high and full, shining while the stars twinkle around it, and you can’t think of a single time you’ve ever felt more at peace.

“This was really perfect,” Aaron says, almost a whisper, after about twenty minutes of companionable silence. “I can’t thank you enough for being there for me today.” You turn to face him, hands curled up under your chin, and he turns toward you as well. He’s so handsome in the moonlight your heart almost aches.

“You don’t have to thank me. I just wanted to see you happy.” You feel your eyes well up with tears, because he deserves to be happy; you sigh, blink them away, and he leans in and presses his lips to your forehead, rests them there for a long time. When he eventually pulls back, you bring a hand to his hair, brush it back at his temple, and then the creaking of the door makes you pull back, sit up.

It’s your neighbor from 422, who you’ve seen on the roof a handful of times, sneaking away from his wife to smoke a cigarette. He squints in the dark, recognizes you, and waves.

“Hey, 418! You’re not alone tonight.” Aaron sits up too, and you laugh softly.

“Nope, but we were just leaving. The roof is all yours.” Aaron stands, pulls you up, and you grab the blanket and pillows while he grabs the bags, and the two of you head back down to your place.

It’s after ten when you get the groceries put away, and you stand next to Aaron in your small kitchen, contemplating what you want to say next. Your mouth betrays your brain, says what you’ve been thinking but weren’t quite sure how to approach.

“It’s late; I know I said I’d take you back to your car, but you could stay here if you want. I have a spare toothbrush, and I know you have a spare suit at the office, and it’s not like it’s the first time we’ve shared a bed before.”

You’d completely understand if he’d rather go home—you hate when your plans are changed at the last minute, and you prefer to do your full nightly routine for your sanity’s sake—but he only nods, and you lead your way to the bedroom, show him the master bath.

You are in your pajamas, tucked into bed, when he comes out in his boxers and undershirt; he hangs up his suit in your closet where you’d left him some space, then climbs in beside you. He looks over at you, then past you, at your nightstand, which has a stack of books on it—none of them romance novels. You grin, busted after months of book exchanges, and he leans over you to look at the titles.

“Persuasion, To Kill A Mockingbird, One Hundred Years of Solitude—Beloved.” He looks from your copy of the novel to his, which you hold in your hands, and you shrug sheepishly.

“I like reading the notes you put in the margins,” you say meekly, hoping he’s not angry, but all he does is laugh.

“Let me guess: you don’t actually like romance novels.” He leans back against your pillow, and so do you, resting the book on your lap.

“I mean, I don’t not like them… but I’ve been buying those just for you.” The smile on his face is brilliant, and only makes you yearn for him more; things you have been purposefully not feeling are flooding your heart and mind and body now, with him so close, laughing over this stupid secret you’ve been hiding for so long. “And you, sweet man that you are, have been reading them, and discussing them.” You put your hand on his shoulder, and he ducks his head to laugh again.

“Since we’re being honest… I didn’t read all of them. I tried,” he says when you act offended, shoving the shoulder you’re resting against, “but some of them were so bad. I just flipped through, found something I thought could pass as my favorite part, and hoped to hell you didn't ask too many questions.”

You both laugh until you’re breathless—he is so different from how he was this morning it makes you want to cry—and when your laughter dies down you look at each other, sharing breath, two heads on one pillow; is it any wonder you bridge the distance, pull him close for a warm, gentle kiss?

When you break the kiss, you are instantly worried about what Aaron will do—you aren’t drunk, aren’t even tipsy, so you know he can’t be, so much bigger and more solid than you, but will he think it’s a mistake? He kissed back, you’re pretty sure, but maybe that was an accident, something done on autopilot—

He leans in for a second kiss, mouth deceptively soft, and you curl your arm around his back, press into it with lips desperate not to let this end now that it’s started. When you separate, you are both looking into each other’s eyes again, breathing a bit heavily, and you meet in the middle for a third kiss, the best kiss you’ve ever had in your life.

That kiss ends when you yawn in his face, and he chuckles softly, leans over and switches off your bedside lamp; you smile at the ceiling, and he wraps his arms around you, presses his lips to your shoulder, and tells you good night. The next day, the two of you arrive at work early so he can shower and change into his fresh clothes without anyone on the team noticing—not that you think they would really care, but they’re nosy, and a little annoying, so you both agree that’s probably for the best.

You don’t talk about the kisses, even though they’ve been the only thing running through your mind since they happened; you promise to discuss it at lunch, though, and that’s such a sweet, romantic prospect that you think you prefer it better that way anyway.

Only, you don’t ever get to lunch, because there’s an urgent case in Minneapolis, an all hands on deck situation, meaning even Penelope joins you on the jet. You debrief on the flight, hunker down in the conference room, and split up to cover more ground; you barely get to speak to Aaron the whole time you’re there except to be given instructions and to fill him on what, if anything, you’ve learned.

You don’t even make it to your hotel that night, working around the clock to catch the people responsible for terrorizing the city. It takes not one, but almost two full days, and when you board the jet on Wednesday evening, everyone is dead on their feet. You barely remember the flight or the trip home, and you fall onto your bed fully clothed and crash just like that.

Thursday is your birthday, which you almost forgot, and so you assumed everyone else would too. You should have known better, because even if your team can be annoying, they are still your friends, and they love you, so you are well and truly spoiled.

You are treated to a latte and bagels from Emily, purple cupcakes with silver sprinkles from Penelope, a piggy back ride from Derek, a book of poetry you’ve had your eye on from Spencer, and a card from JJ—really, it turns out, from all of them.

“Enjoy a romantic getaway on us?” There’s some kind of certificate in the card, and when you flip it over, you discover that it’s for a hotel and spa that offers couples massages, mud baths, intimate aromatherapy? You arch a brow. “Uh, thanks, guys. Are you trying to tell me something here?” JJ’s face falls a little and she points to the card.

“It’s a romantic getaway. For you and Hotch? Since things have been so hectic lately,” she says, but your ears are kind of ringing and your brain is stuck on the for you and Hotch part.

“Oh. Um. Sorry—it’s just kind of soon, I think? How do you guys even know about that?” you murmur. The two of you haven’t had time to discuss Monday yet, and you haven’t spoken a word to anyone; you wouldn’t have guessed Aaron would have either, but there is a gift certificate for a romantic getaway in your hands, and you’re kind of spiraling.

“Well come on, we haven’t exactly been pretending we don’t know,” Emily says, and you can feel the confusion in your features when you look up at her. “And you guys haven’t been exactly secretive. We’re happy for you, though.”

“I mean, we haven’t been secretive, but we haven’t really had a chance to talk about it yet. It’s only been three days.” You are met with looks similar to the one on your own face.

“What do you mean, three days?” Spencer asks with a frown. “You and Hotch have been dating for almost two months. Right?” he says, looking at the others, and they nod, but it’s tentative. Your first reaction is to flush, and you close the card, fan your face with it.

“You guys think… You guys thought…” You look at them, then up at Aaron’s office; there’s no way he can know that you’re having a moment, but he chooses then to come downstairs, coincidentally. He’s smiling at first, but it falls when he looks at your face.

“Hey. Is everything okay?” He presses a cool hand to your hot cheek, flicks his eyes over yours, and JJ makes a noise; when you glance over at her, she’s gesturing between the two of you.

“I’m sorry, we were wrong? What were we supposed to think?” Aaron frowns, not following, and you take a deep breath.

“They got me a gift certificate for my birthday. To a spa. For you and I to have a romantic getaway, because they were under the assumption we’ve been dating… for two months.” The way he pulls back quickly makes your stomach ache a little, but you say nothing. You should have known.

“You say I love you,” Derek begins like he’s listing evidence. “You have lunch together every day. You’re always smiling at each other.”

“Seriously, some of the softest, gooiest smiles I’ve ever seen,” Penelope adds.

“You eat together on cases, you’re texting all the time when you’re not together.”

“I’ve been pairing the two of you up in hotels since I first figured out you were dating,” JJ says, and the whole ‘you’re welcome’ thing suddenly makes some sense. “I booked you that room with just the one bed so you’d maybe feel more comfortable about us knowing, so you’d see that we don’t mind.”

“You’re always looking at each other, always touching,” Spencer says. “In Pittsburgh—that was the first time you really hugged or kissed each other in front of us. We were trying to pretend it wasn’t a big deal, but it was kind of a big deal.”

You look over at Aaron, try to gauge his reaction, but for the first time in a long time you can’t tell what he’s feeling. You can’t really tell what you’re feeling, either. Sadness. Worry. Loss? But what have you lost?

“We’re friends,” you say, even if it sounds weak to your own ears. “We’re… close.”

“We wouldn’t exactly make sense as a couple, would we?” Aaron asks rhetorically, and your heart clenches when he says that. He told you this morning that he’d made dinner plans for you, both for your birthday and to discuss the kisses, what they mean, where you go from here, but that doesn’t sound very promising anymore. “We’re just—”

“Star-crossed,” you say, but you feel like your eyes are vacant. You can hear your heartbeat pounding in your ears. You’re stupid for kissing him, for letting yourself think he could feel the same way you feel, have felt for a while. Isn’t friendship enough? Don’t you already have this special bond so unlike what you have with anyone else in your life? Why press your luck? You know better than that. “We should get back to work.”

You don’t look at Aaron, so you don’t know whether or not he looks at you. JJ does, and you can tell she knows you’re upset, but she just nudges everyone on their way, and you take a seat at your desk—it’s covered in balloons and streamers, the Penelope special.

You’ve never felt less like celebrating.

At lunchtime, Aaron stops at your desk, and the two of you walk out to the bench, open your bags in silence. You’re almost halfway through the hour before he tries to speak.

“Uh. I. About earlier,” he finally gets out, looking down at his sandwich, and you shake your head even though he’s not watching you.

“It’s fine. We don’t have to.” You take a bite of your salad even though you don’t taste it. “You’re right, it doesn’t make sense. You are who you are,” smart, sweet, handsome, tender, caring, “and I am who I am.” Too quiet, too young, too impulsive, too silly, too emotional. He nods, looks at your face for the first time in a while, swallows.

“Right.” You’re due to exchange books back—his is on your lap, yours is on his—and he picks them both up. “I’m like this,” he says, holding up Beloved. “Faded cover, dog-eared pages, scribbles in the margins: middle-aged, divorced, a little broken, barely holding it together for the kid I don’t get to spend enough time with. You’re like this,” he says, holding up Ravished. “Fresh and glossy and shiny and new, with your whole life ahead of you, the whole world ahead of you. You could do anything, with anyone.”

You frown, because this is not what you meant, at all. How could he think that about himself, when the well-loved cover and the dog-eared pages and the scribbles in the margins are all the best parts of him?

“Aaron,” you say, but it sounds like pleading; you reach out to put your hands on his arms, but he pulls them back. His eyes are rimmed red, lips pressed together to hold back everything he’s not saying.

“I think lunch is almost over.” He packs up his things, leaves you with tears in your eyes and a wilted salad and a brand new romance novel you’re never going to read.

Later, he cancels dinner, says something came up, and you go home to your empty bed and watch Titanic and bawl your eyes out when Rose tells Jack she’ll never let go. Friday, you get another case. Weekend cases are no one’s favorite, but especially not yours, when you desperately needed that buffer of time away from Aaron to sort out your feelings and get back to some sense of normalcy. Instead, you’re flying to a small town outside of Nashville to catch a serial arsonist, and when you get to your hotel, you and Aaron are sharing a room.

At least there are two beds, this time.

You go with Emily and Spencer to a crime scene, walking around a house that was once picture perfect and is now all charred wood and ash, and you quickly tell yourself to get a grip and not look for metaphors for your own life while trying to solve a case. What kind of investigator are you? Pathetic, apparently.

You work until evening, and when it’s time to break for dinner, you buy a sad looking assortment of items from the police station vending machine and eat in the conference room by yourself.

It’s a good thing you do, because they get a call about the fire while everyone is still away, and you and a few locals are the first on the scene.

It doesn’t start out bad, mostly located in the back of the house, but you know how quickly these things can spread, and the fire department is working hard to put it out. One of the officers is talking to the family, and the mother is crying, so you come closer to figure out why.

“She said the daughter was supposed to be staying at a friend’s, but sometimes she changes her mind at the last minute and comes home. She can’t get ahold of her,” the officer says, and you nod, thinking.

“Where would she be? The front or the back?”

“Her room is in the front, second floor; if she’s here, that’s where she’d be,” the mother says, wiping her eyes with a tissue, and you tell the officer to stay with them, that you’ll take care of it. You talk to the firefighters—this town is so small there are only two that were able to respond, and they’re both busy trying to put out the fire, but they clear you to go in if you stick to the front of the building and get out of there as fast as you can.

Your team isn’t here yet either, too far out for comms to be effective, and you can’t get ahold of Aaron, so you make a judgement call and head inside.

The front of the house is so eerily normal it’s almost easy to calm your nerves and pretend the back isn’t in the process of being destroyed. You open the front door, run up the staircase, and call out for the girl; she answers, not from the front of the house, but the back—a bathroom maybe? Flames lick up the wall beside it, but you can get to the knob, and she comes rushing out, into your arms, terrified. You weren't expecting that, and you both fall back: your head hits off the floor, but she seems okay, so you tell her to run out the front door and find her mom.

You press a hand to the back of your head, and it comes back tacky with blood. There’s ringing in your ears for a couple of minutes, and then your favorite voice in the world comes through.

“Where are you? We’re here, where are you?” You’re getting hotter, and when you crane your neck up, you can see why: the fire is getting closer, creeping toward the staircase, creeping toward you. You inhale, cough, and press your walkie button.

“I’m upstairs in the hall; hit my head. It’s not safe.”

“I’m coming for you.” You groan. Stubborn man.

“It’s not safe, Aaron.” You hear the crackle of static, hope maybe he heard your warning and will wait until more firefighters arrive—but knowing him the way you do, that’s just wishful thinking. His voice rings out again, and despite the pain, you can’t help but smile.

“You jump, I jump, Jack. Just stay put; I’ll be right there.” You close your eyes, drift in and out of consciousness; when you see him, all you can think is how ridiculously in love with him you are, and that you really hope you’ll be around to tell him. You are, of course, fine. Your head is the worst of it, even the smoke inhalation was mild, and the fire didn’t touch you, so there are no burns. Aaron doesn’t leave your side the entire time you’re being checked over, looks serious and concerned, though he smiles when the mother comes over and squeezes you so tightly you wince a little. It starts to rain, making the firefighters' jobs a little easier, and it feels oddly cleansing, after the day you’ve had. Someone offers you an umbrella, but you decline.

The fire is successfully put out, and the half of your team that didn’t respond to the scene responded to a call for suspicious activity, which ends up being your unsub. You are all happy no one was killed this time, and since you’re staying the night again, the group decides to grab a drink to celebrate. You don’t have a concussion, but your head still aches, so you pass, and Aaron passes with you.

You head to the hotel, park in the lot, but you don’t even make it halfway across before you stop, a hand on his arm.

“I need to say something,” you tell him, and he looks up at the dark sky like, right here? Right now?, even though you’re both already drenched. You nod, because if you don’t do this now you might never—almost dying always gives you an unhealthy amount of confidence, which you attribute to equal amounts of adrenaline and stupidity. “When we first met, I didn’t think we’d have a lot in common. We’re both quiet, but in wildly different ways, and I’m quick to trust and let people in while your guard is almost never down.”

He looks a little sad at that, and you realize you’re kind of doing what he did, putting the two of you into completely different categories, emphasizing the ways you don’t belong together. But that’s dumb, so you don’t give him time to focus on that for long.

“But being your friend, Aaron—the more time I spent with you, the more I came to feel like no one has ever understood me the way you do. No one has ever seen me the way you do.” Rain is pouring down all around you, beating against the pavement, flattening your hair against your head, but you don’t care. Regardless of his reaction, this is actually kind of perfect. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with you—that was an accident, I admit. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” You step closer to him, put your hands on his waist; he doesn’t pull away. “I don’t need shiny, glossy things; you're the one I want—faded cover, dog-eared pages, notes in the margins. I love you exactly as you are.”

He is gorgeous in the rain, water in his hair, dripping off his nose. His expression looks hopeful, and you pray to god that’s not wishful thinking.

“Say something, anything,” you beg, anticipation killing you, and he presses his hands to your cheeks and pulls you close for a deep, passionate, soulful kiss that says it all.

The words are nice to hear, though.

“I didn’t mean to fall in love with you either,” he breathes against your lips when the kiss breaks. “I told myself it was just a crush, because someone so young and beautiful was paying so much attention to me, treating me like more than just the guy giving orders. But the more time I spent with you, the more undeniable it became. You are everything good about the world—bright, optimistic, caring, funny, sweet. How could anyone not fall in love with you?”

You swallow hard, lean up to press your lips against his again.

“When you said we wouldn’t make sense as a couple…” He shakes his head.

“That was just me chickening out. After we kissed, I was all but ready to ask you to go steady,” he says, and you both smile, because he’s such an old fashioned dork, but god, do you love him. “And then we found out that the team thought we’d been together for months, and you looked freaked out, so I freaked out. I’m sorry. I should have made us talk about it sooner.”

“Classic pointless miscommunication,” you say with a laugh, and he chuckles too, kisses you again.

“Let’s go inside and get dried off; there’s a birthday gift in my bag I’ve been meaning to give you.” He takes your hand, and you head up, duck into the bathroom to change into dry clothes, squeeze the water out of your hair. There is a small, flat, wrapped present on your bed when you emerge, and you smile, sink down to open it.

It’s Romeo and Juliet, a brand new copy, but when you flip through it, there are blue inked notes in the margins. Aaron comes to sit beside you, touches your face like you’re something precious.

“The course of true love never did run smooth,” he murmurs, and you smack him on the arm with the book.

“That’s from A Midsummer Night's Dream, and I know you know that,” you say with a grin. He nods in admission, and you wrap your arms around his shoulders, lean in for a warm, loving kiss. When you pull back, it’s with a soft smile. “Give me my sin again?”

“My pleasure,” he whispers, and you sink into his embrace and promise never to let go. The following week, you both leave work at noon on Friday so you can enjoy your romantic getaway. You drive to the spa, and Aaron reads over the brochure on his phone with a tone you find hilarious.

“Mud bath—I’m not bathing in mud. That’s counterintuitive.”

“It’s special mud; more like clay,” you say, but he snorts, scrolls.

“Seaweed wrap—nobody is wrapping me in seaweed. That sounds like a nightmare.” You laugh softly and take your exit.

“It’s supposed to be rejuvenating. JJ recommended it.”

“JJ weighs fifty pounds. It would take all the seaweed in the Atlantic to wrap me,” he says, and you roll your eyes, jab your finger into his ribs.

“But what if I get to unwrap you?” you ask, eyebrows raised; you briefly glance over and he makes a face of contemplation.

“Okay, that’s a maybe. Intimate aromatherapy—what does that even mean?”

“I think it means we do something that makes us smell good and then we go back to our room and kiss and stuff.”

“Now that doesn’t sound half bad,” he murmurs. “Foot massage? I’m not letting a stranger touch my feet, that’s weird.” You look over at him, squinting.

“You literally plugged someone’s bullet wound with your finger yesterday, but someone touching your feet is where you draw the line? Will you do anything on the list?” He scrolls down it, and his extended silence makes you laugh.

“Meditation. Couples massage,” he says, reaching over to rest a hand on your thigh. “There’s a sauna.” You think of him, sweat-drenched in a fluffy white towel, and take a deep, calming breath. “I bet the room is nice; did you bring a book?” You smile indulgently, reach out a hand to brush through his hair.

“Yep. It’s called A Duke’s Wild Kiss…” He gives you a mildly withering look, and you lightly tap the bridge of his nose. “Just kidding. I brought To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.” His answering smile is brilliant.

“Are you serious?” You nod, and he gestures to the backseat, where your bags are. “That’s what I brought, too.”

You spend too much of your romantic getaway in your room, but it is really nice; you do the couples massage, though, and aromatherapy, and the sauna, and then you take turns giving each other a foot massage while the other reads To the Lighthouse out loud.

The world probably doesn’t deserve Aaron Hotchner; you definitely don’t, but somehow you get to keep him anyway. A/N: Though I snuck in a few parts of a few different lyrics, two lines in particular inspired this fic: 'Now I've read all of the books beside your bed' and 'I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this.' A lot of my fics lately have incorporated books... guess I better get reading!

Taglist ❤️: @thaddeusly @arsonhotchner @mrsh0tchner @ssahotchie @sleepyreaderreads @mintphoenix @meghannnnnn @disgruntledchowchow @azenpal @g-l-pierce @my-rosegold-soul @ssamorganhotchner @heliotropehotch @angelhotchner @qtip-blog @gspenc @wishuhadstayed @averyhotchner

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x female reader #hotch x female reader #hotch x reader #paper rings #inspired by #taylor swift

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krakenartificer · 4 years ago

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When I got my ADHD diagnosis, I looked at the questions on the screening form and thought, "If this result comes back positive, then I'm definitely not the only person in my family who has it." Questions like

"Have difficulty finishing one activity before starting another one" and

"I finish others' sentences before they can finish it themselves" and

"have trouble staying on one topic when talking"

...I thought were just weird quirks of my family, but no. When I got my results, I contacted my cousin, and she contacted her sisters and mother, and .. .. yeah. Basically everyone in my dad's side of the family is ADHD.

Now there are some problems with that, obviously, (getting family reunions to stick to a schedule is lol no) but there are some really fantastic perks. For one thing, no one in that family minds if I interrupt them while they're talking ... everyone's happy to keep 3 conversations going at the same time .... and no one minds if you fidget constantly.

But the best perk -- at least that I've found so far -- is that all of our parents have coping mechanisms, and passed them on to us. When I found myself unable to handle tasks with more than one step, my father didn't say "WTF are you talking about? It's easy! Just do the thing! Stop being lazy!" No, he could relate completely, and he sat down and taught me how to handle that.

So today, I'm going to pass on to you the coping mechanism my dad taught me for handling the "cannot put tasks in order / cannot get started / forget what I'm doing" problem. You'll need to adjust it for your own needs and your own struggles, but hopefully it'll be helpful in setting up your own process.

I'm going to walk through it with a big project I'm doing at work, just to have a concrete example. That will make some of the discussion specific to computer programming and technical writing, but I do the same thing for all my projects, so hopefully it'll be generalizable.

So to set the stage:

I was supposed to modify this piece of code -- we'll call it "Rosetta" -- to make it handle call data as well as what it was already doing. I did that.... but we now need the code to be able to handle calls (if that's wanted) but also to be able to handle NOT having calls (if THAT'S wanted).

Which is just .... ugh. So much. SOOOOOOOO much.

So. Break it down.

Step one is to get some recording mechanism - pen and paper, whiteboard, blank computer document, whatever

(Technically, this is a different coping strategy, so we'll just take a quick detour: WRITE THINGS DOWN. Your brain is shit at remembering things, and anyway you've already got limits on your working memory; why would you choose to tie up some of that limited resource in something that could be accomplished with literal stone-age technology? Don't even try to remember things. WRITE THEM DOWN.)

I like sticky notes: they're readily available in all offices, they're pretty cheap, and (most importantly) they can be rearranged if it turns out that I forgot a step or put the steps in the wrong order (which, like, let's be honest, I am definitely going to do). But they kill trees and create unnecessary methane emissions, so I've recently switched over to using virtual sticky notes. That's the format I'm going to use for this example, but you can use anything that meets your purposes.

So, you've got something to write with, you're ready to start.

The first question is: what are you trying to accomplish here? What would "done" look like? What is our goal?

I need to end up with a version of Rosetta that will make the correct results if you don't want calls, and will also make the correct results if you do.

The goal here is that you end up with a statement that you can definitively say (a) Yes this is what I wanted or (b)No this is not right because _______

In this case, in order to do that, I'll need to define "correct results" for both call- and non-call versions. But if I have that nailed down, then this statement meets that criterion: I'll be able to say "Yes, this is what I wanted: see, it makes the correct result for calls, and it makes the correct result for not-calls". Or else I'll be able to say, "No, this is wrong: see, it makes the correct result for calls, but on not-calls it does X and we wanted Y."

I have a clear, definitive standard about what I need to do and whether or not I've done it.

But there was a prerequisite there: I need to define "correct results".

So that goes on a sticky note: Create test that will compare my results to existing call!Rosetta-results and to existing not-call!Rosetta-results.

[ID: Two blue boxes, one on top of the other. The top one says in white text "Create test to compare my results to call!results" The bottom one says "Create test to compare my results to not-call!results"] OK. So now we know what we want. The second question is: what do we need to do in order to get that? Here's where the sticky-note recording system really shines, because you don't have to answer this question sequentially. You just start writing down every single thing that is not the way you want it to end up.

I need it to remove commas in the python script, not the bash script

I need to delete the first part of the get_runs() function, which doesn't do anything

I need to delete the rest of the parameters passed to build_query_script() function, because runs encompasses all the others

while we're on that subject, runs doesn't even need the group_variable, so let's pull that out of the parameter document

we also have a dmf defined, which the bash script demands but doesn't use; let's change that demand

since we're changing the structure of the parameter document, we don't need to pull new metrics for each run, so let's move that outside of the runs() loop and only run once

right now the parameter document is ALMOST but not quite "one row per template". Make it so it's actually one row per template.

among other things, that's going to require making it possible for a template to be followed by nothing at all, since it's the assumption that a template will have a metrics block after it that makes it not quite one row per template. So make it possible to publish a template with a null block

the other thing that's weirdly hard-coded is the definition of what a block looks like. Would it make more sense to separate that out into an input file, like the parameters document? On the one hand, that would make it much more flexible; on the other hand, that's another piece that can break. Don't know. Put a question mark on it.

etc

Here's what it looks like at the end of this step:

[ID: A black and white background showing many boxes in two different shades of blue, all with white text. Some of the boxes are overlapping each other.]

As you can see, at this phase you don't need to worry about any of the following:

ordering the tasks. Just stick 'em right on top of each other for now

how you're going to do any of this. Right now we just need to know what, not how

sticking to only one project. As I was working on this, it occurred to me that this whole process would have been a heck of a lot easier if someone had just made a user manual for this, and since I have to go through all the code line-by-line anyway, I might as well write up the documentation while I'm at it. (To help out future-me, if nothing else.) So I put those tasks on another color of sticky note.

making notes that make any ***ing sense to anyone else. This process is for you, and only you need to understand what you're talking about it. Phrase it in ways that make sense to your brain, and to hell with anyone else.

on that topic, also don't worry about making steps that are "too small" or "too dumb" to write down. This is for you. If "save document" feels like a step to you, then write it down.

You also don't need to get every single step involved in the project right now. Get as many as you can, to be sure, but the process is designed on the assumption that you ARE going to forget important steps, and is designed to handle that.

When you can't think of any more steps, then the third question is: what order does it make sense to do these in? Are there any steps that would be easier if you did another step first? Are there any that literally cannot be done unless another step is complete?

This is also a good place to group steps if they fit together nicely. When I used physical sticky notes, I used two different sizes; digitally I can of course make them whatever size I want.

So I have several documentation steps that (a) do need to be written to make sense to other people and (b) I really need to know what's going on before I can do that. I could write them now, but if I did, I'd just end up re-writing them based on things that change as I'm coding. So we'll move those to the end:

[ID: Three dark blue boxes with white text. They read "Create step-by-step instructions for creating your own metric agg", "Create step-by-step instructions for modifying a metric", "Create step-by-step instructions for modifying a query."]

These parts, though -- if I had all the variable structures written down, I could look at them while I'm coding. Then I won't have to keep scrolling back and forth in the code, trying to remember if it's an array or a dictionary while also trying to remember what part of the code I was working on. Brilliant. Move that to the front.

[ID: Seven dark blue boxes with white text, three large, four small. The first one is large and says "Write up explanation of how Rosetta works." The second one is large and says "Document structure of all variables." Attached to that one are four smaller boxes that say "All_blocks", "Runs", "metric", "New_block". The third large one says "Document what qb_parameters.csv contains"]

Also, while I'm at it, I should get the list of variables I need to document -- then I won't have to keep scrolling to find them. Make those sub-steps.

I definitely keep needing to look up what's in the parameters document, so I should write that down, too. For the user manual I also should write down what's in the metric document, but I don't need that for myself, so I can send that to the end.

[ID: The same three dark blue boxes from two screenshots ago (create step-by-step instructions for metric agg, modifying a metric, and modifying a query), now with another dark blue box in front of them with white text that says "Document what granular_metrics.tsv contains."]

These five are all small steps, and are all related in that they don't actually (hopefully) change the functionality of the code; they're just stuff left over from prior versions of this code. So we can lump them all together.

[ID: Five light blue boxes with white text that say "Delete first part of get_runs()", "Have build_query_script only receive the "run" parameter" "Delete dmf" "Move metrics=get_metrics() outside build_all_blocks (all the way up to the top level?" "Delete group_variable from qp_parameters"]

My brain likes this better, so that I can keep track of fewer "main steps", but that's just a peculiarity of me -- you should lump and split however you prefer to make this process easier for you.

[ID: The same five boxes from the prior screenshot, now all made smaller and attached to a larger box that says "Remove Legacy Code"]

Keep going, step by step, sticky by sticky, until you've got them in order. If -- while you're doing this -- you remember another thing you need to do, write it on a sticky and slap it on the pile; you don't have to stop what you're doing to deal with it, because it's written down and it's on the pile and it will get processed; you can just keep working on the thing you're on right now.

[ID: All the same boxes from the first screenshot, now in a neat row. Some of the original boxes have been grouped together. The ones that were said to be at the beginning of the process are on the left and the ones that were said to be at the end are on the right.]

Step four: for the love of all that's holy, SAVE THIS LIST.

Write it on your cubicle whiteboard where it won't be erased

write it on a piece of paper and tape it to the office wall

send an email to yourself

take a picture with your phone

I don't care but save it.

When I used physical sticky notes, I kept them all on the hood of my cubicle's shelf. Now, as you can see, I use Powerpoint, which is irritating af but does allow me to keep everything in a single document, which I can write down the path of.

[ID: White text on a black background says "open ~/Documents/Rosetta\ Modifications\ and \Documentation.pptx" The next line says "Notes in Rocketbook pg 10-12, 16" The next line says "Turn that into documentation that can be used for making modifications."]

And now (finally) you can answer the question "How would I even get started on that?" You look at the first thing on the list, and you treat it as its own project. You can hyperfocus on this step and completely forget about everything else this project requires, because everything you need to remember for the rest of it is written down.

If, as you're working a step, you think of something else you need to do for the big project, write it on a sticky and slap it on the pile. Don't even worry about trying to order it or identify sub-steps; as long as it's not blocking the thing you need to work on right now, you don't have to care. Just stick that bugger anywhere at all on the list, and go back to what you were doing. When you un-hyperfocus and come back to look at your list, there'll be a big sticky note stuck sideways across all the rest of the steps, and you'll remember to file and order it then.

Other benefits of this system

1) The first question really helps with unclear directions from your boss. You can take whatever they told you to do, and translate it into a requirement that is clearly either met or not-met, and then run it back by the boss.

If they say, "No, no, we want ______" then phew! You just saved a huge miscommunication and weeks of wasted work! What a good employee you are! What an excellent team player with strong communication skills!

If they say "Yes, that's what I want," then you know -- for sure -- what it is you're trying to accomplish. Your anxiety is reduced, and your boss thinks you're super-conscientious.

(And if your boss is a jerk who likes to move the goalposts and blame it on their subordinates, then have this conversation over email, so you can show it to their boss or to HR should it become necessary.)

2) Having this project map means that when you spend an hour staring at the requirements and trying to figure out how to get started (which, let's be honest, you were definitely going to do anyway) ... When your boss/coworker comes by and says, "How's it going?" Instead of having to say "I haven't even started 😞" You can say, "Pretty well! I've got all the steps mapped out and am getting ready to start on implementation!" and show them your list, and they think you're very organized and meticulous. 3) Sometimes, especially in corporate jobs, you and your coworkers will run into a problem that's too big for even Neurotypicals to hold all in their heads. At that point, the NTs will be completely lost -- they've never had to develop a way to handle projects they can't just look at and know how to get started. So then you pipe up in the meeting and say, "OK, well, what exactly are we trying to accomplish?" and everybody at the conference table looks at you like you're a goddamned genius and you don't have to tell them that you use this exact same process to remember how to make a sandwich 😅

4) Having this project map makes it so much easier to stop work and then start it up again later, but this post is already really really really long, so I'm going to address that in a separate (really really long) post.

#adhd #adhd life #tips #semi-solicited advice #gpoy #your mileage may vary #long post #very long post #sorry I wish I wrote more concisely too

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a-nice-and-interpretive-fanzine · 4 years ago

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[ID: A cream-colored banner that says "A Nice and Interpretive Fanzine: essays and art about the meanings we've found in Good Omens." There is a photo of a book page with a key on it behind the banner text. The photo source is rosy_photo on Pixabay. /end ID]

A Nice and Interpretive Fanzine: Information Masterpost

Welcome!

This is a zine for those of us who love the subtle, complex work that is Good Omens, and who’ve enjoyed the thoughtfulness of the fandom as people interpret how the many moving pieces of the story come together, creating a slightly different meaning for each of us.

To put it simply, it’s a book full of the fandom’s own analysis and commentary about the Good Omens TV show, enhanced with illustrations from our brilliant artists.

This zine is analytical in the sense that all the writers are expressing their own nonfiction thoughts and feelings about the show, rather than writing fanfic, but it is not meant to be heavily academic. Anybody who likes to pick apart the series and discuss it should be able to enjoy it.

The zine will contain essays by fans who are passionate about analyzing and interpreting different parts of Good Omens - the characters, the plot, the writing techniques for the book and script, the cinematography of the TV show, the popular content of the fandom itself. Accompanying these essays will be black and white illustrations from our artists.

How are you organizing this process?

May 1-May 15: Everyone submits their application to do writing or art through a Google form. Behind the scenes, I’ll be setting up a separate email and Discord.

May 16-20: Applicants will be screened during this time.

May 20: I’ll email everyone to let them know the outcomes of their applications. The final participants will get a link to the Discord server for the zine (totally optional, of course).

May 21: If there’s any clarification or solidifying of ideas that needs to happen, I’ll contact you and discuss with you by this point. This is also when artists will be matched up with essays.

May 22 to August 14: This will be a period of just working on our essays and art. The Discord chat and Tumblr will be there for support and for exchanging ideas!

August 15: Participants need to email their full works to the zine’s email address by this date. No special formatting is needed; I’ll do that in InDesign.

August 15 to August 31: I’ll be putting the zine together in InDesign.

September 1: Preorders will open.

September 30: Preorders will close.

October 1: The zine order will be placed!

October 15: Assuming all goes well with printing and shipping, the zines will be shipped out in waves starting on this date. If the printing or shipping from the manufacturer is delayed, then shipping will just start ASAP.

Writer Application HERE Artist Application HERE Asked and Answered Questions on Tumblr The Fanzine's Page on Twitter

Read below for more detailed information about the zine in a Q and A format!

What are the specifications for the zine contributions?

For writers, I’m starting with 3k words or fewer per essay (approximately 10 pages at the size of this book). This depends heavily on how many participants we actually get, so it may change!

For artists, I’d be looking at black and white works, 300 DPI, 5.5 x 8.5 inches or smaller. If your art is supposed to fill up the entire page (i.e. no white space), please make it a total of 5.75 x 8.75 inches with nothing too important around the edges to account for bleed during the printing process.

Can I submit an essay to this zine if I’ve already posted it on Tumblr?

Not as you’ve already posted it. We don’t want to just copy/paste the exact thing that hundreds or perhaps even thousands of people have already read.

However, it IS fine and maybe even a good idea to take the same thought from your post and refine it, preserving your same thesis. For example, a lot of Tumblr posts are just us fans jotting down 5 or 6 paragraphs of random thoughts at 2 AM, but some of them are really cool thoughts! Expanding them and turning them into a bona-fide Essay would make those posts into excellent zine chapters. And you can copy small pieces of your own language as long as the whole thing isn’t just pasted word-for-word.

How long do essays have to be? Is there a limit?

With the number of writers we have, I've calculated that each person should ideally keep their essay to about 6000 words. There is wiggle room.

There’s no real minimum for your contribution; some analytical ideas are really good but can be expressed concisely, so it’s okay if your essays only come out to a few pages typed. For reference, with our book size, a page is about 300 words.

What happens if the zine sells a lot and you end up not only breaking even, but turning a profit?

It’ll go to charity. While I’ll ask the participants what they want to do for certain if we do make enough money, my suggestion will be donating it to Alzheimer’s Research UK in honor of Sir Terry Pratchett.

I’m not really comfortable calling this a “charity zine” up front since I simply don’t know if it will raise a significant amount. For the most part, I just want the thing to physically exist, which means breaking even, and don’t want to make it more expensive for buyers than it needs to be to afford the printing costs.

What kinds of essays are you talking about? What could be included?

In short, any analytical thoughts about the Good Omens TV show - and possibly even the fandom as it interacts with the show - are possible inclusions for the zine.

To expand a bit, think about the meta posts you see floating around Tumblr. Often these involve analyzing characters, or picking up on patterns in the plot. Sometimes fans use their own background knowledge to write posts about the significance of certain costume choices or the way music plays into each individual scene. Some posts examine the ways the series approaches gender, while others might discuss ways that the characters present as neurodivergent. That’s how diverse the pool of possibilities is for subjects in this zine.

How does art come into this?

Images will be black and white, to match the bookish mood of the project overall. Images can range in size from a half page to a full page.

I’m planning to talk to the artists and authors and loosely pair artists with essays that appeal to their personal interests.

I know how to illustrate a story, but how do I illustrate an essay?

There are infinite answers to this! I’ve seen some beautiful symbolic artwork in the fandom already (e.g. a number of takes on Aziraphale munching on an apple with Crowley in snake form curving around him), and there are tons of symbolic motifs to draw from, but these are not the only options. An artist illustrating an essay about cinematography, for example, could draw a well-known scene from an alternative angle. An essay about Heaven as a capitalist corporation could be illustrated with a cartoon of Gabriel giving some sort of excruciating PowerPoint presentation. A character analysis could be accompanied by a simple portrait. And on and on. I’m not interested in limiting the possibilities by trying to make a list, but just know that there are many and you don’t have to make it complicated if you don’t want to.

If the writers can reuse their essay ideas, can artists reuse their drawings?

Similarly to the writers, if you already have an interpretive drawing that you’re in love with, artists can use the same ideas and the same fundamental composition that is present in their own existing work. However, it has to be redone in some significant way. Whether it’s taking something you drew in 2019 and redrawing it using an updated style, taking a sketch and turning it into a lined and shaded piece, or redoing a full-color drawing so it presents more strikingly in black and white, it shouldn’t be identical to the thing you’ve already posted.

So how are you choosing participants here?

It’ll be based on what people are interested in writing about (or illustrating). I’ll be looking for people who are passionate about their essays, but I’ll also be looking for variety. It all depends on what people want to offer, so I won’t know for sure what it will look like put together until everyone’s application is in.

For artists, I’ll be trying to figure out whose style looks like it would adapt well to illustrations in black and white, and also who demonstrates an interest in the same subjects as the writers.

If we don’t get a lot of applicants, I’d love to simply include everyone, but I can’t commit to that without knowing for sure how many people are involved.

Do I have to use a formal writing style to participate?

No. You should use a style that makes your thoughts and ideas as clear as possible, but as long as it’s understandable, you can also get a little artistic with it. You can “write like you speak,” though perhaps in a more organized way. You definitely don’t need to worry about stylistic rules like not using the first person. This is not academia.

Is this zine going to center only on Crowley and Aziraphale?

That remains to be seen! It depends on what ideas show up in the applications. There will be a lot of the ineffable partners for sure, but whether the whole zine will center on them or whether there’s plentiful stuff about other characters will depend on what the participants suggest.

Do we have to agree with all your personal interpretations of Good Omens to be in the zine?

No! In fact, I’m assuming that a number of essays will contradict each other, too, and that’s perfectly okay. The zine is a sampler of fan interpretations meant to inspire, not instruct. It’s not “Here’s a fan-made guide on how to understand this TV show,” it’s “Look at all these moving parts and how many meanings we can find in them. What does it mean to you?”

However, there are some basic rules and assumptions by which I’m working here.

I don’t personally have the energy to include essays that are highly critical (“negative”) in this zine. It’s analytical but also meant to be fun.

I’m pretty focused on the TV adaptation. This isn’t “no book analysis allowed” but just that the essays will end up being weighted toward subjects that apply to either the TV show or both the book and the show.

Each writer should focus on making their own points over disproving other fan interpretations. If you’re writing in an expository style, it’s normal for the essay to contain rebuttals to opposing ideas, but these should be minor supporting points, not the heart and soul of your essay. For reference, I’d say the majority of meta I see floating around on tumblr would follow this rule just fine.

Essay ideas that seem to contain bigoted or exclusionary sentiments will not be accepted (no TERFy stuff, for example).

What kinds of editing will go into the zine? Are you going to argue with us about the contents of our writing?

While I might ask you to elaborate on certain points in your writing or clarify your thoughts about your subject, I’m absolutely not here to ask you to change the thesis, opinions, or headcanons on which your writing is based. If I really have a problem with your initial idea, I’ll tell you that up front and politely decline the contribution.

While formatting the zine, I’ll make minor edits if I think I see a typo or misspelling, something small and obviously unintentional. As with any other zine, your content won’t be changed without consulting you.

Is this a SFW zine?

Yes. If people want to discuss sexuality in a theoretical way, like erotic subtext, that would be allowed. There are canon references like Newt and Anathema’s moment under the bed that might come up, too. But there will be nothing explicit, and since these are essays instead of stories, there will be no “action” going on between characters. Let’s just say sex isn’t a forbidden topic, but it will be like discussing it in English class.

As for other topics that could make the zine NSFW, like gore or extreme language, I don’t think they will be an issue. Some dark topics, like abuse by Heaven and Hell, may be discussed, but they will be warned for, and these are not stories, so you aren’t going to see violent actions playing out.

Will there be any “extras” like charms or stickers?

I’m not sure yet. I’m most inclined to keep it simple, because of the nature of the zine, but would be open to including some bonus items if there’s an artist who’s really passionate about it.

With that said, I am pretty committed to making a hardcover edition of the book available, in addition to the standard softcover version.

You’re doing this with only one mod?!

Yes. I personally find it easiest. While I’ve worked on multi-mod projects in other domains and adore all of my co-mods, it’s a little bit different when it’s a project with this many moving pieces that includes real-life components like printing and shipping. Though there are a lot of individual things to be done, I am experienced with all of them, so it’s less overwhelming to just take on the whole project. That way, I know exactly what needs to be done and when, and there are no issues with assigning tasks.

What qualifies you to run this zine?

The résumé answer: in fandom, I successfully solo-modded a large not-for-profit zine in the past, the @soulmakazine2018, and while I can’t speak for the whole fandom, it definitely seemed to be well-received. <3 In real life, I’m a case manager and this involves coordinating and communicating with a lot of different people including my 100-person caseload, budgeting services, and filling out all kinds of paperwork on the fly, all skills that can be imported into zine work.

The practical answer: well, I’m the one who decided to start this project, so if you like the sound of it, you're stuck with me. I say with encouragement and enthusiasm that if you’d like to do a different take on a commentary zine, you should absolutely do it.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #ineffable partners #fanzine #good omens zine

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egoludes · 5 years ago

Text

the greatest gift of all.

note: so, to be honest with y’all...i have no idea where this came from. i was just minding my business this weekend, @adorecevans and i started talking about one (1) headcanon scenario, and now here we are! this is going to be a v casual series, basically just snippets of dom!chris and sub!reader (in no particular order) building a relationship. future installments will explore the history more, but what you need to know for this one and the series overall: dom!chris meets sub!reader through a dom/sub dating app of sorts and have been engaging each other long distance for a few months. reader has no idea that it’s chris evans for the obvious reasons, and since he doesn’t give a name at all, she addresses him as Sir. i’ll explore all that background more in the future, but for now: i really hope you enjoy!

credits: unsplash for the stock image, and an anon in @honeychicanawrites‘s asks one day for the image of cevans calling his lady ‘mama’... i had to do it.

warnings: masturbation, voyeuristic vibes, intimacy over video call, dom/sub dynamics, long distance / virtual relationships, sex toys, use of title as name (sir).

wc: 2.3k

The thought comes to you on a Sunday afternoon.

You’re on your belly thumbing through texts, legs up and crossed at the ankles with Sir’s newest gift -- a pretty pink slip -- and your laptop beside you. The screen is dark, save for a grey circle with an initial in the center that lets you know he’s there, listening, when you say: “Have you ever tried one of those dildo molds, Sir?”

The initial silence is suffocating, and you worry for a second that the idea - spur of the moment, really - goes too far. You’re just learning each other, after all; still adjusting to the pictures, the calls, the gifts you model for him with pride.

But then, he speaks, a familiar rasp to the words that makes you clench in your fitting black shorts. The question comes from a place of genuine curiosity, but you’ve riled him up still, which excites you; always does. “That’s what you’re thinking about over there, huh? Feeling me?”

Your body heats, conditioned already to react to that dangerous tone in his voice; but you try to keep your expression reticent when you turn it to your camera. There’s another moment of nothing -- just you watching the lens like it’s him before you. Then, your lips curl, lids narrow, and your voice turns playfully sweet. “Well, when am I not?”

He hisses, a sharp sound that makes you preen, and you can hear him on the other end, adjusting his screen. “Easy, mama,” he growls, earning himself a giggle, “it’s too early for you to be working me up.”

You laugh again, this time with more body before resting your cheek on your palm. Without his video on -- a compromise you’ve grown used to -- you can’t know that he’s actually watching you. But you lean into it all the same, swinging your legs behind you. “But, have you?”

He clicks his tongue, a thoughtful sound, and you imagine what his features must look like, twisted by consideration. “No - I don’t think I know anyone’s who has either.”

You hum, eyes glinting with something that makes him suck in a breath. “I’ve always wondered about it. Not just the process, but just...having one,” you murmur, settling deeper into your pensive stance. There’s a dreaminess to your tone that not even you notice; but he, that ever-mindful man, takes note.

You continue on, none the wiser.

////

A week later, you come home at the top of rush hour, grateful that you’ve made it so early, but burdened all the same. Stress is a fickle, but poignant thing, and you’re feeling its weight extra today as you make your way up to your apartment. You’re excited for the time to yourself, thinking on what you might make for dinner, when you see it - a small, but noticeable box at the foot of your door.

Immediately, your expression turns, confusion and wariness turning your mouth into a scowl. You don’t remember ordering anything, nor are you expecting something for anyone else. You hope the label will give you a clue about what this could be, but to your chagrin, it has no company - just your address and a generic return location.

Still, you take it in, setting it on the kitchen counter, where it stays forgotten as you shower, eat, and pour yourself a glass of wine. You’re halfway through the second when the package re-snares your attention from the corner of your eye. You drain the rest of your drink with a gulp, wiping red off the corners of your mouth before you stand, determined, to approach it.

The box is unassuming; plain cardboard with nothing but the barebones label to distinguish it. You lift it again, this time with both hands, to measure it and feel something heavy shift inside. It’s enough to pique your curiosity, and you tear through the packaging until you can see what’s in it.

At the center is another, smaller box made of sleek black velvet. A card is attached with red ribbon, careful lettering penned in dark ink. Even before you fish it out, you can work out the message, but it doesn’t feel real until the note sits in your hand and you’re reading it up close.

For my favorite girl; so you can feel me any time you want.

Sir.

Your eyes dance over the words a few times before their meaning sinks in and you realize it’s a gift from him. Then, you’re practically rabid, tugging out the box out and flipping the lid in one motion.

When you see what’s inside, it’s all you can do not to buckle at the knees. In the middle of the box, set up almost regally on a bed of plushy silk, is a veined, pink dildo. You don’t need to touch it to know that it’s heavy, but that doesn’t stop you from doing it all the same. Your fingers take it by the base first, wrapping firmly above the balls to test the weight. And you moan at it, that delicious thickness as you lift it from the box with both hands. Your palms curve around it, twitching with want, and you realize then that this is what he looks like, what he feels like.

What you would get if he came home to you for real.

The thought is too much to bear. Your breath quickens, fingers dancing deliberately up and over the shaft to size it up. You tell yourself that this is all you need for now ---- you know better than anyone that to use this toy for the first time without him is a test of his patience you’re certain to fail. But, the more you touch, the more you need, and before you can reconsider, you’re on your hands and knees on your couch, panties pressed sloppily to the side as you guide the heft of Sir’s length past your aching entrance.

The impact is immediate. You fall forward with a gasp as every inch stretches you open and by the time it’s fully seated, your face is completely hidden in your couch cushions. The fabric muffles your voice as your hips start to move, a slow, languid grind to make sure everything is felt.

You get so lost in it, you don’t hear your phone buzzing until it’s almost too late. But, at the nth moment, you recognize the ringtone you’d chosen just for him and, despite the clear risk of answering, you reach for the device, trembling with nerves, excitement, and lust, at the dangerous game you’re about to play.

When you answer, there’s nothing but darkness from his end and your face in the corner. You’re sitting on your butt now, legs carefully spread and hips angled to keep from jostling the toy inside you. But, it’s hard not to squirm in a situation like this; even more so, when he starts to talk, voice raw from the day.

“Hi, honey,” he breathes, the endearment -- your favorite -- making your heart swell, “almost thought you were already asleep.”

You shake your head, biting back a knowing smile. “No, Sir… I’m still awake, just...watching tv.”

“Yeah?” He says, something skeptical in the tone. Even without his video on, you can almost feel his gaze burning a hole in your expression. Like he’s inspecting it, picking it apart for clues. He must find one, because he hums lowly; a dip in the sound that makes it sound like he’s smirking. “Only watching tv?”

“Y-Yes, Sir…”

“Okay, okay -- what’re you watching? Is it any good?”

Your eyes flicker towards the television to glean what’s playing, but Sir catches you before you can get a good look. “Nuh uh -- eyes over here.”

Despite your better judgment, you pout, all but caught now, and the expression makes him laugh. He’d had a number of subs before you -- people who had piqued his sexual interest, but never quite held up to any of his other, more innocent expectations. But you ---- even if he wouldn’t call you something as invested as a lover, your personality makes it hard to be anything but endeared to you. Before he knew it, he was in headlong, calling you for sessions a couple times a week, sending gifts even more than that. You’re fun to just exist with, even in this moment as he’s so deliberately toying with you.

“Can’t be too good if you can’t tell me anything about it without looking, huh?” His voice drops, a dangerous timbre taking it, and you feel your body shake. “So you gonna tell me the truth before you get yourself in more trouble?”

A whimper breaks past parted lips and you bite down a little too late to stifle the sound. “T-The toy,” you whisper, clenching around his cock despite him being hundreds or thousands of miles away. The irony isn’t lost on you - if anything, it’s making your need spike. There’s something so odd, but so enticing about the whole thing. “I couldn’t wait, Sir… your cock just looked so good.”

Sir curses near the phone, so close that you swear you can feel the breath of it on your palm. “Jesus...I knew you’d be hungry for it, but I didn’t think it’d get you this much. Breakin’ our number one rule and everything.” You shift on the couch, free hand reaching to pull out the dildo in anticipation of his punishment. It’s likely to be no orgasms for the night which, as disappointing as that is, seems almost worth it for the pleasure of this weight inside you. Then he speaks again, forcing you to pause in your motion.

“Get on your computer ---- I want to see the way I fit inside you. Then, we can talk about your punishment.”

The minutes between your phone call and the start of the call on your laptop are equal parts tantalizing and tortuous. You’ve only broken this rule once prior and ended up having to watch him fuck his hand through two sloppy orgasms before getting sent to bed without touching yourself even once. So the fact that he seems to be inclined to let you keep the dildo in gives you pause.

But it’s the sort that’s almost intoxicating. Your adrenaline is pumping, thighs slick with want, and by the time you’ve gotten the video up and running, you’ve shed your panties completely, legs wedged open with the camera trained between them as directed.

“Fuckin’ hell, sweetie… look at that pussy eating me up.” You whine out for him, walls clenching visibly at his words in a reaction that makes him purr. “That good? Everything you thought it would be?”

You nod in a daze, cock drunk even with your hips still, and Sir shifts on the other end, the telltale clink of an open belt alerting you to how good it feels for him too. You’re in two minds to beg him to see, even if it’s just a view of the waist down, when he beats you to the punch. “Take it out --”

You blink, trying to focus on his words enough to make sense of his command. He can see the confusion in your face and has to try not to laugh. “Take it out,” he repeats, “and sit on it. I want to see you take it properly.”

It’s a scramble after that -- you, shifting and guiding the toy out of you until you’re hovering over the tip of it on your knees. Lidded eyes dance towards your laptop as you still there, body wound tight in anticipation, and like many times before, you hold his gaze through the lens as you sink down, down, down onto the dildo he made for you.

If you thought you were full before, you’re certainly learning your lesson. The change in angle has the cock dizzyingly deep, enough that it punches the air out of your lungs. You can feel the balls against your bare skin, a permanent reminder of how much you’ve taken, and when he calls for you again, adoration in the breathy tones, you can’t help but buzz.

You love to make him proud of you.

His tone is so tender that you nearly forget you’re in trouble and are about to lift your hips and give him a show when he stops you. “You heard what I said, honey,” he teases when your confused expression returns. “I want you to sit on it. You stay right where you are.”

The urge to beg is potent -- a searing kind of desperation that you’ve never minded indulging with him. But before you can form words in your head, let alone out loud, the dildo comes to life inside you, shaking with such force you cry out from the suddenness. Between being full, and the toy revealing itself to be a vibrator, it’s all too much, so much, and you’re falling back into the couch knees shaking beneath you.

“Now, now, don’t give up on me yet,” Sir coos, a distinct click sounding from his side of the screen and confirming your suspicions when the vibrator turns off right after, “you wanted to feel me, didn’t you?” He pauses long enough for you to nod, gasping in a breath as your teary eyes dance blindly over the screen you wish you could see him on. There’s another click, then a cry as your body arches in an involuntary jolt.

“Then, be a good girl - show me how well you can handle it.”

#chris evans x reader #chris evans fanfic #chris evans writing #dom!chris evans x reader #chris evans masterlist #honey and sir.

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gureishi · 4 years ago

Note

Hello! Hope you are well! I love the new prompt list! I was hoping to ask for Zen with “You left your mark on me” thank you so much and have a good day 🤗

Thank you for this wonderful request, my dear!

Did I take this prompt too literally? Perhaps. But boy did I GRIN the whole time i was writing about it. I really hope this brings you a lil joy today~

thirteen: left your mark on me

Zen X Reader, T, words: 1928

・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・

He’s already long gone when you wake up. You have a vague, sleepy memory of him kissing you goodbye when it was still dark out—now, the sun pours through the window and your alarm jolts you violently from a dream.

It’s 8 am on a Sunday—in other words, a wildly inappropriate time to be awake, in your opinion. You rub your tired eyes with one balled fist. Why on earth did you even set an alarm today?

You’re yawning and considering just curling back up under the covers when you remember: the interview! Of course.

You stumble out of bed, dragging your blanket with you, and make your way into the living room. There are several shirts draped over the back of the couch; you can picture him so easily, with his languid early-morning eyes and his hair untied, trying on each shirt in turn and peering into the mirror—anxiously twisting to see himself from every angle, agonizing over the choice.

You turn on the TV and flop onto the couch, pulling the blanket around your shoulders. You check your phone: it’s only 8:05, so they should still be doing the intro.

The TV’s already on the right channel, and you smile, certain he set it that way before leaving this morning. He doesn’t always tell you how important it is to him that you watch—“Nothing would make me happier,” he says, “but I don’t want you to feel any pressure”—but you know what it means to him. And this is a big national news program, the kind millions of people will watch. He’ll be checking his phone right now, pacing in the studio, looking for a message from you.

You swipe to your first contact and send him a text. “I’m watching, babe,” you write. “Can’t wait.”

Just as you’re weighing whether or not you have time to make some coffee before he’s on, you hear his name; as usual, and even after all this time, your stomach does a little somersault.

He strides on screen, positively resplendent in a corduroy double-breasted blazer (good choice, you think), his hair tossed over his shoulder, glistening under the studio lights. He reaches for the host’s hand and shakes it gently. He’s got it down, you think: the amiable manner, the cool handshake, the half-smile.

The host makes a joke and he laughs lightheartedly, tossing his head back in way that’s somehow as natural as it is artful. And that’s when you see it.

Your mouth falls open. You shoot up off the couch, automatically moving closer to the screen for a better look. You rub your eyes; try rubbing the spot on the TV screen, too. But it’s undeniable

There is, without a doubt, a small, circular bruise on the side of his neck—just the size and shape of your mouth.

You lift a shaking hand to your face. No way. NO WAY.

You fall back onto the couch; he’s saying something now, answering a question about his transition from stage to film, but you barely hear him. If he was anyone else, this would be meaningless—he’s an adult living with his partner, after all, and there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about a little love bite. But he’s him. And he’s on national TV.

Your phone is already buzzing. Nervously, you swipe away the new notifications and return to your thread with him.

“Zen,” you text him. And again. “Zen. Zen. Zen.”

He doesn’t answer, of course; on screen, he’s grinning, nodding as the host makes a comment about his last movie. Reluctantly, you swipe back to your notifications.

There are several text from his publicist, of course. The first one says “Are you serious?!” and the second says “How did you let this happen?” You don’t look at the third or fourth.

There are texts from his agent and her assistant, too. His agent’s text just says “Why????” and her assistant has followed up with a longer and more formally-worded message.

You groan. This is tricky territory: as his manager, it’s at least partly your responsibility to keep him from going on TV with a freaking hickey on his neck. And as his partner, it’s certainly up to you to not bite him.

You set your phone down, deciding to give everyone a few minutes to calm down before you answer. What can you even say? You honestly have no memory of leaving the bruise on his neck, but you imagine (blushing a little) that it must have happened the previous night, or you would’ve noticed sooner. If you’d just woken up when he was leaving this morning, maybe you would have seen it, would have warned him…?

Your phone is still buzzing and you glance down at it, hoping—inexplicably—that it’s him, though you can see clearly that he’s still live on air. It’s his publicist again.

“Check twitter,” she says. Oh no.

With a mixture of dread and an almost masochistic fascination, you open the twitter app. You’re already following his hashtag, of course, and—oh no—you see his name again and again on your feed.

You scan the top tweets, your heart thudding hollowly in your chest. The tone is generally amused—“Zen on tv with giant hickey lolololol”—but still, you’re horrified. He’s trending.

Begrudgingly, you start to answer the texts from his team. No, you didn’t notice it; yes, you would have told him if you had; no, you haven’t heard from him yet—he’s literally still on live TV.

You try to focus on the interview. He’s talking about his new movie now, gesturing with those long, beautiful hands. If you squint, you can’t really see the mark on his neck, and you wonder if it’s really that noticeable. Based on your twitter feed: yes.

He’s standing now, shaking the host’s hand again, and the studio audience is clapping, and oh, you’re so relieved it’s over. You twist the blanket nervously between your fingers as the screen goes to a commercial. You mute it, let your eyes drift shut. Maybe this was all a dream.

Your phone buzzing again startles you—not a dream. It’s him, calling you mere seconds after stepping off camera, and you answer right away, nervous fingers slipping over your phone screen.

“Hi, babe!” he chirps, full of energy. It’s his just-got-off-stage voice.

You hate to burst his bubble, but: “Did you, by any chance, look at your texts, hun?” you ask him.

“Nope! I wanted to call you right away! How was it? How was I?”

“Zen…” It’s not like him to be so oblivious; is it possible that, nervous as he was this morning, he really just didn’t notice? “Um, you didn’t happen to…that is, the makeup artist didn’t say anything to you, did they?”

“Makeup artist?” He hums in confusion. He’s going to make you say it.

“There’s a huge hickey on your neck and everyone is talking about it,” you blurt out in one breath. He pauses and you think he’s going to react with surprise, shock, concern.

Instead, he laughs. Laughs.

“You saw it, huh?” He’s talking quietly, probably now in the dressing room, but there’s no anxiety in his voice. He sounds almost…pleased.

“Yes, baby. Everyone saw it.”

He’s still laughing, a kind of satisfied chuckle.. “Good,” he says.

You don’t know what to do with him. You feel your phone continuing to buzz even as you’re talking to him—it’s got to be the publicist, the agent, all the assistants.

“So just so we’re clear,” you say slowly. “You knew it was there and you intentionally didn’t try to cover it.”

“Yep!” You hear people chattering behind him; you can picture him smiling to himself as he strolls through the dressing room, packed with people, colorful and chaotic. Inexplicably, in the midst of all this, he sounds so very calm.

“Babe, everyone on the internet is panicking. Your publicist is panicking. You know she wants you to be more private, wants you to stop, like…throwing my name around in interviews.”

“I never said your name,” he says proudly.

“Zen…”

“Listen,” he says, his voice taking on a more serious tone. He’s practically whispering now; you suppose he’s hidden himself away in a back corner of the dressing room to talk to you. “I know how my publicist feels, and I don’t want to upset her or anything. But I can’t stand it anymore.”

That’s a private voice, a “just us” voice—one you’re used to hearing murmured into your shoulder as he lays in bed beside you at night.

“Can’t stand what?” You don’t know why, but now you’re whispering, too.

“All this secrecy,” he says. “Babe, I want to…I want to run through the streets shouting about you. I want to tell everyone in the world how desperately I adore you.”

You can’t help it: you smile.

“You just want to break the rules,” you tease, and he laughs again, more quietly.

“No,” he says. “I just want to make sure everyone knows who I belong to.”

“Babe…” You know you should argue; you’re his manager, for god’s sake. You should scold him, apologize for leaving the mark in the first place, make him promise not to pull something like this again. But you don’t have it in you.

“I’ll take the blame,” he says. “I’ll tell my publicist and my agent and anyone else who asks that it was just a silly mistake, that I didn’t even notice it. I’ll tell them whatever I have to, and it’ll blow over. But I just…I needed to do this. Do you understand?”

And you do. How could you not?

Much as you’d like to, you can’t deny the twinge you feel in your gut when interviewers ask him about his on-screen chemistry with some glamorous co-star or other and he has to laugh and smile politely and give them a vague response; you can’t deny, either, the sinking feeling you get when you read speculations online about whether he looked at so-and-so for a moment too long in whatever behind-the-scenes footage. It makes you want to scream.

But this…

Today, a huge percentage of the country saw him live with the imprint of your teeth on his skin. And they can wonder and deliberate about who gave him that mark all they want; it doesn’t matter, because you know. You were the one who grazed his sensitive skin with your teeth, making him squirm, moaning your name.

“I do,” you tell him. “And you did look very cute.

“Just cute?” he whines.

“Beautiful, and charming, and clever, and captivating. As always.”

“If you say so.” You can hear the kind of face he’s making—soft smile, eyes sparkling. “And don’t worry about twitter or whatever, darling. What’s that saying? Any press is good press.”

He’s not wrong, you think—trending on twitter can only help him, in the long run; his publicist will come around sometime tomorrow when she sees the inevitable bump in ad revenue. It’s not like he’s caused any harm.

Suddenly, you want to see him. You want to throw yourself against his chest and feel those long fingers on the exposed skin at the back of your neck.

“When will you be home?” you ask him.

“Maybe an hour. You need something, babe?”

You clutch your phone with buzzing fingers, anticipation pooling in the pit of your stomach. “Yes,” you say. “You.”

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

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bbugyu · 5 years ago

Text

finding something to do + kim mingyu

you had spent your better years bored with mingyu, and he thought holding your hand felt like holding his fleeting youth.

wc.4088 | almost smut, mostly fluff, friends to lovers/uni au, fem reader, that one trope where there is mutual pining but both of them think the other is gay, maybe like half an ounce of angst if you squint Really Hard, lots o swears

i usually make my fics hella neutral as far as gender and size and orientation goes but hahahaha this ones for the average sized bi girls! also just realized that i stopped using capitalization in my fics and yk what? im fine with it. this fic is based off of the song of the same name by hellogoodbye.

“stop honking, other people live here.”

mingyu grinned at you through the half-open passenger window, leaning over to pop open the door. the handle had never recovered from a giant cup of soda crashing into the side of his ride in the middle of a particularly rowdy summer shenanigan, the sticky substance soaking into the mechanics before he had gotten the chance to hose it down in a friend's driveway at 2am. now, you had to wait for him to open it from the inside on all future shenanigans, and you could only roll the window down half way, lest you have to laugh at mingyu aggressively pulling on the window between his palms as you pulled on the motorized switch to coerce it back into the closed position. you slid into the co-pilot seat and looked over to your best friend.

"if you answered your texts i wouldn't have to honk."

you rolled your eyes, tugging on the seatbelt. "go, gyu."

he laughed and shifted into drive, turning up his stereo as he pulled away from your apartment building, hand returning to the stick to shift up a gear. "thanks for coming."

"what else was i gonna do?" you slipped the slides off your socked feet and pulled your legs to sit cross-legged. "i finished rewatching avatar."

"study, maybe?"

you looked at him. he was right, finals were right around the corner, but you had an uncharacteristically light load this quarter (due to you not realizing you needed approval for one course before registration and it filling before you could sign up) and you weren't too worried about the three tests you would have to take in a couple weeks. "could say the same to you."

mingyu let out another laugh, suddenly singing along to the song as he ran a hand through his hair. you smiled at his profile, then pulled out your phone to update your instagram story. as you moved the camera over to mingyu from the streetlight-lit road ahead of you, he laughed midway through a lyric and practically yelled "mwoya" at you, gripping the wheel with both hands and jumping in his seat.

you laughed hysterically, frantically saving the video before pointing the screen at him. he turned down the music to watch it, eyes flickering between your phone and the road. he laughed at the way it cut off on both of you screaming. "what was that?"

you giggled, swiping through filters. "you being dumb."

"you love me."

"you're right."

mingyu smiled at that, adjusting the stereo volume again, bobbing his head to the rhythm as he drove to the one convenience store in your town that sold his favorite mint chocolate chip ice cream, a mission he had called upon you for at 11:30pm. when it switched over to a song you knew, mingyu noticed your subconscious humming to the tune and a few lyrics falling out of your lips, the wind from the open window whipping through your hair.

by the time you reached a small parking lot across town, you had yawned probably half a dozen times.

"tired?" mingyu pouted as he rolled up the windows and unbuckled his seatbelt. "sorry for dragging you out."

you shook your head, following suit and pulling yourself out of the car. "i slept too late, i think. i'll be fine."

you followed mingyu across the quiet street to the convenience store the two of you frequented perhaps too often, finding yourself there after late night study sessions or mid-barhop for ramen, snacks, and most importantly, the mint choco ice cream bar of mingyu's affections.

after perusing the options as if you hadn't been there earlier in the week, you picked out an ice cream bar as well as a couple bags of chips. you walked up behind mingyu at the register as he was pulling out his wallet.

"i'll pay if you come over and play smash," he said, nodding at your hands full of snacks.

you eyed him. "what's the catch?"

"you can't be mad when i play meta knight."

you groaned, but put your things on the counter for the cashier that was likely the same age as you both to scan. "fine. i'll still beat you."

mingyu grinned at you, and you snagged your ice cream bar off the counter as he paid, the other snacks getting put in a plastic bag. you grabbed the bag and held it open as mingyu retrieved his own ice cream, both of you peeling them open as you exited the convenience store.

"mm," you let out, mouth full of ice cream as you leaned against the metal bar meant to lock up bikes on the sidewalk. "it's nice out tonight."

mingyu agreed, biting into his treat. "it's refreshing but not too cold."

you nodded, watching cars pass on the street. "i can't believe it's almost summer already."

"me neither," he said, squatting in front of you as he ate. "we're gonna be seniors next year."

you groaned. "have you decided if you're doing summer quarter?"

he shook his head. "i decided against it. i only really have to take one extra course next year so it didn't feel worth it."

you nodded, looking down at him. he was looking to his left, absentmindedly watching someone walk their dog across the street.

after the ice cream was finished and you threw away your wrappers, mingyu cursed slightly at the fact that he still managed to get his finger sticky despite doing his best to avoid meltage. after he popped open your door, he dug in the glovebox for some wet naps, playfully knocking your knees aside as you tried to sit. you laughed, waiting for him to be done so you could put the bag of snacks on the floor in front of you.

when you met mingyu sophomore year, your hair was shorter and he was blonde. he had sat next to you in your shared ecology lab and promptly fell asleep before the class had even started, and you had to nudge him awake when the professor was handing out the syllabus.

"gah, fuck, i'm up," he waved a massive hand in your face, blinking away his sleep before focusing on you with furrowed brows. "you're not seokmin."

seokmin was his roommate, you learned, and also met a few weeks later when you went over to their dorm to work on assignments together. they've since upgraded to a compact but efficient three bedroom apartment and acquired another roommate. you stared out the window into the night sky as mingyu drove to said apartment, blinking heavily at the lure of a nap. you pulled your knees up to your chest and tried to listen to the song playing from the stereo.

only moments later, mingyu glanced over and noticed that your eyes had fluttered shut, your head lolling against the window. he wondered, staring at you in awe, how much longer he could pretend he wasn't in love with you.

when you and mingyu had first gotten to know each other, you admittedly had a bit of a crush on him, until you found out he had a boyfriend. even after they split almost four months later, and you had been there to bring him chicken and beer while he fumbled with the drawstrings of his sweatpants and rubbed his swollen eyes with the back of his hand, you decidedly resigned any feelings for him, knowing it was a lost cause for you to pine after a guy that didn't even like girls. hell, you barely even liked boys - you had gone on dates with six different girls, yet not a single guy since you came to university, and mingyu had sat on your bed while you tried to get ready, giving a concise "try again" when you showed him an oversized sweatshirt.

"why not this?" you asked, groaning.

"you have good proportions, bitch. show 'em off."

rolling your eyes, you rooted around in your closet for something less shapeless. your style had always skewed a little athletic, a little hip-hop. you bought mostly mens fit shirts, making the task slightly more difficult. you found a nice pair of high waisted jeans you hadn't worn in a while and paired it with a drop shoulder tee and a turtleneck, finally getting the approval of your best friend.

all of the facts laid in front of him led mingyu to believe you were completely and utterly gay, and even if you weren't, your taste in women suggested he was the exact opposite of your type. you liked petite girls. girls with long hair and that wore skirts and lots of rings. the kind of girls that you had to lean down to kiss.

so he continued to try out the pool of eligible bachelors in your area that were within a respectable age range. he had even tried to date some girls, but every time they tried to suggest the dates go further, he would think of the way his best friend's fingers had sent electricity through his entire body just by brushing an eyelash off his lip, or how you would trace the veins that ran through his wrist as you watched a movie together on your couch. the way your touch set his skin on fire. the way he wished he could just admit the way he felt about you.

he always smiled and said he'd call them sometime. he never did. it wasn't fair to them, but neither was him only ever asking them out because they reminded him of you somehow.

guys were easier, he thought. they didn't remind him of you.

mingyu was so caught up in the sight of you sleeping that he absolutely ran a red. he cursed under his breath when he realized the light he was passing under had been yellow for longer than he had thought, thinking how lucky he was that the cross street was empty. good thing he was almost home.

"hey, sleepyhead," he said when you stretched suddenly as he pulled into his parking spot. "do you wanna go home?"

you shook your head, yawning. "no, i need to eat chips."

he laughed and killed the engine. "you left a pair of house shorts here and you can borrow a shirt," he said, suggesting you crash in his bed when you got too tired for smash.

"what, you don't wanna carry me home?"

mingyu slammed the car door shut and shoved his hand in his pocket. "i'd rather not, no."

you stretched again, a hand reaching out to ruffle his dark hair as he tried to punch in the door code for you to enter his building. "mean."

he laughed at you again, leading you up the three flights of stairs to his apartment.

"hey, minghao," you said, waving at the shadowy figure that was seemingly melting into the couch, illuminated by the tv.

he raised a hand in acknowledgment, sitting with his neck at a 90 degree angle, a movie with subtitles on, and his phone face down on his chest. "yo."

"wanna play smash?" mingyu asked.

"no thanks."

mingyu dropped his keys on the kitchen counter. "we're playing smash."

"you're funny."

you laughed, and mingyu pouted. "please, myungho?"

minghao finally looked at his roommate. "i'm watching annihilation. the switch is handheld for a reason."

you watched mingyu roll his eyes with a smirk on your lips. he went over to the switch dock by the tv and grabbed the console, sticking his tongue out at hao. you giggled, following mingyu down the short hall to his room as minghao waved you both off.

"have i said that i like hao a lot?"

"yes," mingyu said. "like, every time you come over."

you smiled, throwing open his dresser and carding through the shirts that would surely be massive on you. "well i do."

the switch got tossed onto his bed and he sneaked around you to grab a pair of sweatpants from the drawer above the one you were looking in. he also pulled out the pair of shorts you had left, putting them on top of the dresser. "i'm getting naked now."

you shook your head lightly, knowing he was only changing his pants, but kept your back to him out of respect anyways. you picked up the shorts. "did you wash these?"

"yeah, i threw 'em in with my laundry last week."

you nodded, spotting the color you had been looking for. "aha!" you pulled on the ashy gray shirt, revealing one of your favorite things you had ever convinced mingyu to buy. an extremely soft, lightly distressed shirt with a tasteful rip along the neckline. "i'm getting naked now."

"clear," mingyu said, letting you know he wasn't looking as he flopped onto his bed, propping up the switch on his bedside table and setting up the controllers.

you pulled off your loose sweatshirt and swapped it for the borrowed shirt, then shoved the denim shorts down your legs, laughing lightly at how your sleep shorts completely disappeared under the shirt. you turned around, stretching out your arms to show how large the shirt was on you. "look."

mingyu rolled onto his back and propped himself on an elbow to look at you, giggling as you swam in his shirt. outwardly, he smiled, but internally, he thought this was simultaneously the worst and best idea he had ever had.

you looked absolutely stunning in his clothes, he thought, but only said that you were cute. he ignored the familiar feeling in his stomach and handed you a controller as you crawled onto his bed, settling on your stomach next to him.

he had to stop putting himself in this position. you were far too pretty for him to forget his feelings towards you.

but maybe that's what he wanted. maybe he didn't want to forget his feelings. maybe the few times you had told him his dates were attractive weren't just objective reassurances. maybe he held onto the sliver of hope that you could possibly be attracted to him, too.

you slammed your face into the bed as the game loaded. "why are all switch load times utter ass?"

mingyu adjusted so that he was laying on his side with an arm propping him up and flicked the back of your head. "because the console can fit in my palm."

your hand went up to swat at the culprit of the flick, and you pouted as you lifted your head to look at him. "that's not fair, your hands are huge." you wiggled onto your elbows to grab his wrist, pressing your palms together. "see?"

mingyu laughed, feeling his cheeks heat up. "well, you have baby hands, so." he punctuated his point by curling his finger over yours. you pouted again, then slipped your fingers between his, thinking about how nice his warm hand felt over yours.

you blinked, then pulled your hand away and grabbed the joycon as the game finally loaded the skippable intro, hoping you weren't blushing too much as you cleared your throat. mingyu stared at your pink cheeks for a moment, his mind reeling. was he seeing something that wasn't there? or was his hope in you validated?

you were clicking through the menu and felt his eyes on you, and all you wanted to do was hide behind your hair and avoid eye contact. you nearly jumped when mingyu cleared his throat.

"hey, i have something i've been meaning to ask you."

your eyes met his briefly. "shoot."

"do you…" mingyu paused, trying to think of the right way to phrase his question. "i know you have exes that are guys, but is that something you're, like… still into?"

your ears burned and you wiggled until you could sit back on your own legs, fiddling with the hem of the shirt you stole and hesitating to make eye contact. "you mean, being with guys?"

"yeah," he said, watching you intently with his brows furrowed.

"yeah, i mean, i guess?" you shrugged. "i like both."

mingyu nodded slowly, watching your eyes as they stared at the wall across his small room. your cheeks were a rosy pink, and you were chewing on your lip. "me too."

you looked at him finally, your eyes wide. "what?"

he gave you a crooked smile. "i like guys and girls, too."

if you were blushing before, now you were blazing. "oh, my god, i'm an idiot."

he laughed. "what, did you think i was, like, totally gay?"

"shut up," you threw yourself down onto his bed, hiding your face in the blanket. in your defense, he had definitely called himself gay before, but you definitely called yourself gay constantly, so maybe you shouldn't put so much weight in those words. "shut up, i'm embarrassed. i don't want to talk about it."

hearing mingyu laugh next to you made you feel like you were on fire, then you felt the ghosting of fingers on your arm. you froze. mingyu's voice was soft when he spoke again. "do you wanna talk about how i have a massive crush on you?"

you slowly raised your head to look at him, cheeks burning red. he gave you a small smile before you choked out a "huh?"

"i ran a red earlier," he said suddenly, his fingers moving from your arm to absentmindedly brush your hair out of your face, then to your shoulder, then back. it was a reassuring touch, one you had felt from him before, but you still were caught off guard by his sudden succession of confessions. "you were sleeping and i couldn't stop looking at you. i totally could have crashed the car."

"dude, what the fuck." you stared at him, then lowered your voice to imitate him. "'hey i have a crush on you and i almost killed us both because of it.' that's you, that's what you sound like right now."

mingyu laughed in your face and you couldn't help the chuckle that fell out of your mouth. "sorry i almost killed us."

"i guess i can forgive you," you said, picking at your nails suddenly despite them being clean. "especially because i might have a crush on you, too."

mingyu kept staring at you with a fond smile, and you wondered if he could also hear how hard your heart was beating. "can i kiss you?"

you looked at him, trying not to stare at his lips. you nodded, almost hurriedly. his hand pulled against your back as you rolled your body to face him, and your hand reached out for his jaw as he pulled you into him. and when his lips crashed into yours, you yelped slightly, melting into him almost immediately. they were plush against yours, and he was gentle as he pushed your back onto the mattress, adjusting to hover over you slightly. when you let your head fall back onto the bed, he grinned at your blown out pupils and swollen lips, buzzing at the way your hands curled around around his neck, fingers digging into the hair at his nape. he adjusted again, a hand finding your waist as he pulled back to let you swing your leg across his lap. you pulled him back over you, enjoying the way his hips hit the back of your thighs as he caged you in with an elbow by your shoulder. you stared up at him, heart racing, eyes flicking down to his lips too many times for him to not take the hint.

mingyu had always enjoyed pleasing you. this definitely felt like the next natural progression.

he dove into you, and your arms wrapped themselves around his shoulders. mingyu was a hugger, and he also liked wearing very little clothing when he worked out, so you knew what he looked like under the plain white tee. knew what he felt like. but suddenly - with his hands slipping under what was technically his shirt to properly feel your waist, with how his tongue fought with yours - you really felt him for the first time. the way his shoulder muscles rippled just beneath the skin as he adjusted, clearly trying to not make his growing bulge so obvious. you considered the fact that you might get to see how much leg day really benefited, considering how much he posted about it with sweaty post-workout pictures on his story.

mingyu felt your thighs squeeze around his hips, pulling back slightly. "is this okay?"

"is it?" you responded, a hand pulling back to fall on his jaw. "i've wanted you for ages."

he laughed lightly. "god, we're idiots."

you had no time to respond before he was kissing you again, his hips rolling into yours, pulling a surprised moan from you. he ate it up, his fingers gripping your waist tighter at the sound. you felt his girth as it pressed against you, and you gasped. when was the last time you had been with a guy? high school?

when mingyu's teeth bit down on your lip, you were really glad he was the guy you were unconsciously waiting for.

he tugged on your hips as he rolled onto his back, pulling you to straddle his lap. you giggled slightly, settling back into the open mouthed kisses as he ran his hands from your ass up your back, slipping under the sports bra you were wearing.

then there was a knock. you yelped, burying your face in his shoulder as you heard the door swing open. "make room for king k r- oh shit!"

you laughed into mingyu's neck as he yelled for seokmin to get the hell out, his hands tugging the hem of the stolen shirt over your butt in an attempt to shield it from view. you heard him squeak out an "i'm sorry!" as the door shut again.

"i'll kill him."

you exhaled, the laughter still on your lips as you looked at his profile from where your cheek pressed against his shoulder. "bet he thinks we're secretly dating."

mingyu laughed, scratching an eyebrow before returning his palm to your ass. "not a secret now."

"oh, so we're dating now?"

mingyu craned his neck to look at you. "is that not what was going to happen?"

you giggled, sitting up and putting your hands on his chest. you adjusted your knees, fully aware of how the movement would rub you against his still hard bulge. "we have both fucked people without dating them afterwards, kim mingyu."

"ah," he said, digging his fingers into your soft ass and rutting into you gently, making you gasp. "we're gonna fuck? i thought we were just joking."

you slapped his chest, giggling still as you rolled your hips. "if you don't wanna, i could ask hao-"

"oh, shut up," he said, pulling you down to kiss him. "if you liked myungho like that you would have tried it ages ago."

you smiled, your thumb running over his adams apple as you placed gentle kisses on his jaw. "sweetie, are we jealous?"

"i don't deserve this, you know?" mingyu pulled your hips against him again, a low grunt tumbling from his beautiful mouth. "i haven't put my dick in a girl since i met you and now i'm with you and you're talking about my roommate? this seems extremely mean."

you giggled again, then placed your lips on his again. he instantly kissed you back, one hand leaving your ass to go to the back of your neck. "you're the only guy i ever think about," you whispered, getting repeatedly interrupted by mingyu's needy lips on yours.

the wolf-like grin that broke onto his face sent chills down your spine. "let's keep it that way."

seokmin's hand was still on the doorknob, his wide eyes blinking, when minghao paused his movie and sat up to poke his head out and look down the hall. "the hell was that?"

he puffed out his cheeks as he walked back into the living room, his palms clapping gently. "i thought you said y/n came over to play smash?"

minghao's eyebrow quirked up. "she did."

the eldest sat on the couch. "i thought mingyu was gay?"

"what?" minghao looked down the hall again. "wait, what? were they-" he stopped when he heard a muffled groan that was far too familiar.

seokmin grabbed the remote and pressed play, scratching his cheek as he turned up the volume. "what are we watching? catch me up."

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glass-rose-paperweight · 5 years ago

Text

Rosie Watson

I don’t see much talk about Rosie, which is understandable since she has so little screen time. However, a child is a pretty important part of anyone’s life. And I’m in a child psychology class right now, so this sort of stuff is on my mind. I often see her appear in fanfiction, usually inaccurately, which is understandable because writing children is hard. This post is going to talk about her development at the end of the show (about 18 months old), what her development would be like at 2 years old (a common age for her in fanfiction), and how Mary’s death might have affected her.

Physical Development

By 18 months old, the physical development of most babies is pretty well developed. They’re almost definitely going to be walking by this time, maybe still a little unsteadily, but most can get around pretty well without much assistance at 18 months. By two years old, most children can climb stairs, run, and jump. Other than growing bigger, their physical development is starting to come to a close. Fine motor skills are still developing at this age; gross motor skills are going to be more well developed. A common test used is stacking blocks. At 18 months, they can generally only stack about 3, but by 2 years, babies can usually stack 5 blocks. Their peripheral and color vision is basically completely developed by 2 years, and their eyes, unless there is something wrong with them, will probably be close to 20/20 vision. They have well developed depth perception and perceptual constancy (the idea that an object viewed from a different distance or a different angle is still the same object). By 18 months, their hearing is well developed, and babies of this age can locate the sources of sounds just as well as adults can.

Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget came up with 6 stages for cognitive development in babies. By 18 months, Rosie would be in either stage 5 (12-18 months) or stage 6 (18-24 months). By this age, Rosie would be quite inquisitive about the world. Babies at this age are described as ‘miniature scientists’: they are exploring and trying to figure out how things work, often getting into things they shouldn’t. And since they can move around pretty well by this age, they’re able to get into a lot of things. They will be engaging in trial and error behaviors in order to accomplish something, though at 18, the baby might be able to start mentally representing some objects and able to manipulate them in their head and figure it out that way. The example Piaget gives is an experiment he did on his own kids. At (I think) 18 months, he gave his daughter a stick that she wanted to pull into her crib. She was able to get it into her crib only by repeated trial and error of repeatedly turning the stick until it was able to fit through the bars. He repeated this experiment with a different kid when they were about 24 months old, and they were able to sit there and think about it for a moment before turning the stick and pulling it into the crib because they were able to mentally manipulate the stick. Object permanence is fully established around 12 months, so Rosie at this age would fully grasp it and go after objects that have left her view or been hidden. Deferred imitation (the ability to repeat an observed action after a waiting period) is also well established by 12 months - children are able to repeat actions seen 4 weeks prior. So it would be easy for Rosie to repeat the actions of others at 18 months, definitely by 2 years. This is because memory starts solidifying around 12 months. Toddlers 1-3 years old require 12-14 hours of sleep each day.

Language

I think this is the biggest mistake I see when it comes to writing really young children. Your 2 year old will not be speaking complete sentences. At 18 months, babies only have a vocabulary of about 50 words (though, they can understand far more words than this - probably twice as many words). Between 18 and 22 months, babies have a vocabulary explosion, going from 50 words to about 300. About 75% of the words gained during this time are nouns. What is common at this age is overextension, which is use of words in situations where meaning is extended. This usually happens with function or form. For example, if a baby is shown a small dog and told that is a ‘doggie’ and then shown a cow and told that is a ‘cow’, they child might think anything bigger than the small dog is a cow, even if its actually a dog. So medium to large dogs, sheep, horses, moose, and cows might all get called cows. By extension, anything about the size of the dog, or maybe even smaller, might get called ‘doggie’. Or, maybe the baby has a toy train that it calls a ‘choo-choo’. The baby might end up calling anything with wheels a ‘choo-coo’. At 18-24 months, babies will be using 2 word sentences. However, they do seem to understand syntax pretty well at this age - if they want you to sit in a chair, they will tell you ‘sit chair’, not ‘chair sit’. At this age, they will be using Telegraphic Speech, which are brief expressions that contain the meaning of the sentence but only essential words are used. Adults use this in their everyday life, such as if we text someone ‘home Tuesday’ instead of ‘I will be home on Tuesday’. If you want to go the route of showing Rosie as some sort of genius baby (or any baby of this age, for that matter), then you might have a baby using 3 word sentences with a vocabulary of 500 words. That would be a very smart baby. However, it’s almost impossible to tell how smart someone will be at this age. Baby’s brains are still developing, and even the smartest babies will have an upper limit on what they are capable of at this age. Most IQ tests can’t really start accurately predicting future intelligence until about 5 or 6. Even the tests that have been designed for babies 2 and younger are really only useful for telling if there’s some sort of cognitive impairment, not if the baby is exceptionally smart for its age. Even the ones that excel at the tests at that age might end up with only average intelligence. If you want Rosie to be a genius, it likely won’t really start showing until she is a little older.

Mary’s Death

Mary dies sometime between Rosie being about 6 months (when she throws the rattle at Sherlock) and 18 months (the end of TFP). We’ll just say 12 months for easy numbers. By this age, Rosie would have developed very strong attachments to her caregivers. Obviously John and Mary are her caregivers, but the scene where Rosie throws the rattle at Sherlock shows that Rosie has formed a strong attachment with Sherlock; 6 months is about the age where fear of strangers begins, and Rosie shows absolutely no discomfort with Sherlock, so he’s been around enough for the previous months to have a strong attachment with him. When Molly tells Sherlock that John doesn’t want to see him anymore at the end of T6T, we’re going to say that Rosie is about 12 months. This is about the time when fear of strangers starts declining, but if Rosie wasn’t pretty comfortable with Molly, she would be fussy at being taken away from her father, so it’s a pretty safe bet that Molly has also been pretty involved with taking care of Rosie. So, that’s 4 primary caregivers total. Some might think that, because Rosie is so young, Mary’s death wouldn’t affect her. And Rosie isn’t likely to remember Mary or that she died. However, babies are utterly dependent on those that take care of them. Consequently, they form very strong attachments to those that take care of them. As anyone who has been around a baby can tell you, they get upset when the person that takes care of them disappears and isn’t around to offer them safety and comfort. By 12, Rosie would have formed a very strong attachment with Mary; even with her other caregivers being around, she still would have noticed Mary’s absence and been affected by it. However, her other caregivers weren’t around. John tells Sherlock that he doesn’t want Sherlock around any more, and then Sherlock goes “off his tits” with drugs for a while. John is having to deal with his wife being dead and the anger he feels towards his friend over that. It’s shown that he’s not doing too well. He’s probably still Rosie’s primary caregiver, but he almost definitely wouldn’t be as involved as he was simply because he’s so emotionally distraught. Meaning that the person who was probably least involved with Rosie prior to Mary’s death (Molly) might have ended up becoming the main caregiver for Rosie for a little while there. She went from 4 to 1 and a half caregivers, more or less. And that would definitely have affected her. The most obvious way would be in her attachment style. Babies form different attachments to their caregivers, partially dependent on the baby’s own temperament, but usually dependent a lot more on the kind of care they receive. Most babies have secure attachment. Securely attached babies will show mild distress at a caregiver’s departure and will want to interact with the caregiver upon their return. However, they are easily comforted by the caregiver and go back to being happy and content pretty soon after being comforted. They use their caregiver as a secure base to explore the world around them. As long as the caregiver is close by, and giving positive signals as the baby is exploring if the baby becomes uncertain, they will remain content and explore just about everything they can. Securely attached babies are happier and more sociable with strangers, more cooperative with parents, get along better with peers, are better at problem solving, and having higher attention spans and lower impulsive behaviors. Contrast that with insecure attachment. There are actually 3 different types of insecure attachments, but I’m not going to go into them because this post is long enough as it is, and the individual types isn’t really important. There are some consistencies. Insecurely attached babies will be more emotionally distressed and less easily comforted by caregiver’s departure. They may initially show confusion or be dazed and disoriented with the caregiver first leaves. They may show contradictory behavior when the caregiver returns, alternating between pulling the caregiver close and pushing them away (though, there is one form of insecure attachment where the baby basically just ... doesn’t care about the caregiver. They show the least distress out of all babies when the caregiver leaves and basically ignores them when the caregiver returns). Rosie would most likely start out as a securely attached baby. She is surrounded by a lot of people that love her and engage with her and take very good care of her. Sherlock would absolutely encourage exploration and curiosity within Rosie. however, attachment styles can change, depending on the caregiving received. I think it likely that, after the events of T6T, her attachment style would change from secure to insecure. The good news is, that also means it can change back, from insecure to secure. Even though we see Sherlock and John interacting with her will at the end of TFP, she would likely still be insecurely attached. It takes time for anyone to get over that sort of thing. If you are writing her at 18-20 months, it would be completely believable to write her as being a bit of a ‘problem baby’, with all the issues that come from insecure attachment. However, by 2 years, she will likely have gone back to a secure attachment style, likely with no lasting consequences of what happened during season 4. Babies display a wonderful ability to bounce back from all sorts of harsh conditions they go through at a young age, showing almost no problems later in life as long as they are given the chance to have a better situation and improve.

I hope this helps anyone looking to write about Rosie or any babies about 18 to 24 months of age.

#rosie #rosie watson #sherlock #sherlock holmes #bbc #bbc sherlock #sherlock bbc #john watson #mary watson #mary morstan #writing advice #fanfiction help #babies #t6t #the six thatchers #tfp #the final problem

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dindjarindiaries · 5 years ago

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Bittersweet - Chapter 1: The Headache and a Half

summary: You come into work already preoccupied just to find out there’s a whole other group of people you’ll be working with, and you have to watch Marcus’ eyes wander.

warnings: pining right out of the gate, light angst, kinda-cringey beginning but stick with it, also i really don’t know anything about the fbi and i also only watched the episodes marcus was in so i’m sorry if things look really wrong lol

rating: T

word count: 4.612k

masterlist ⟹ next part

chapter 1: the headache and a half

You stand in the church with both your hands in those of a stranger, a man whose face is hidden from you—but you don’t seem to care about it. You’re dressed in all white with a veil to match, feeling elated yet torn apart at the same time. You don’t know why. You’re getting married and you’re supposed to be happy about that.

Except part of your heart feels empty, as if this isn’t right—as if this shouldn’t be the man standing there. But you don’t even know who this man is. How could you possibly know that?

Your thoughts are broken apart by the sound of the church door flying open and gasps of surprise from the guests. You look and feel your eyes double in size at the sight.

It’s Pike, standing there in all his soft glory, already dressed up for the occasion.

“Wait!” he exclaims. You’re eagerly studying the knit in his brow that shows his desperation and the glow of his dark eyes that beg for you to listen. “Don’t do it.” Marcus stops only when he’s at the base of the altar you’re standing on, his gaze locked in yours as he continues. “I should’ve told you before—so long ago—but I’ll tell you now.” He pauses to take a deep breath. “It’s you. It’s always been you. I’m in love with you.”

There’s another gasp throughout the church, but you feel that hesitance you’d had before finally dissipate at his words—and you realize that’s exactly what you’ve been waiting for. You separate from the man you’re standing across from to smile down at Marcus. “I love you too, Marcus,” you say with a voice full of disbelief and unshed tears. “I always have—and I always will.”

Marcus finally smiles in the same way you do, his eyes smaller yet brighter as they wrinkle up in the way you adore so much. He reaches out a hand to help you get down the steps to meet him, his hands remaining tight in yours as he looks down at you. No words are said—you’ve already spoken enough—and your gazes soon fall to each other’s lips. You lean closer and closer together, already starting to let your eyelids flutter closed, heart racing at the prospect of what’s to come, feeling his breath on your face, when finally—

—your alarm goes off, alerting you to the fact that it’s 7:15 in the morning and you have to get ready for work.

You release a groan as you slap your hand down against the clock, hands reaching for your spare pillow and stuffing it over your face. You scream into it, glad that it drowns out the sounds so your neighbors don’t think you’re being murdered. You might as well be. Having a dream like that makes you wish you were dead because what the hell even was that?

You toss the pillow aside again and sigh heavily, staring at the ceiling as you shake your head. “I’ve been watching too many romcoms,” you tell yourself, running your hands over your face. You haven’t even made it to work yet and you’re already starting to get a headache.

As you roll out of bed and get ready for the day, you think about how this sadly isn’t the first time you’ve had a dream like that. Now, the whole marriage-in-the-church-with-him-bursting-through-the-door is most definitely a newer and deeper context, but having dreams about your work partner of countless years is something you’ve become more and more used to. Thanks to your unrequited feelings for him, you’re bound to keep having dreams like this as long as your heart decides that it wants to torture you day-in and day-out.

But it also doesn’t help that you have to go into the office every day and work side-by-side with the man himself.

Marcus Pike isn’t the type to break your heart—consciously. You’ve known him for a long time, now, having both come into your jobs at the FBI around the same time. Obviously sharing many of the same interests thanks to the art-centered focus of your work, you became close quickly, which was helped by the fact that you were partners. Ever since, you’ve been close friends, and while you wouldn’t exactly coin the term “best friend” for Marcus, you know it’s pretty close—if it wasn’t for your best friend who already takes the spot.

Speaking of the devil, you hear a dinging come from the phone still on your bedside table, and you finish buttoning up your shirt to walk over and see what the notification is. You bite back a smile as you read the message.

andy💞: good morning, miss thing! here’s your daily reminder to make sure you stop dreaming about mr. perfect and get ready for work!😌

You shake your head and feel your cheeks heat up despite the fact Andy’s not even here to see it. She’s been your best friend ever since college, where you met each other at your first party and spilled out all your life problems to each other in the girl’s bathroom after drinking way too much vodka. After freshman year, she became your roommate and your faithful confidante through life. You’ve stayed close, even though she had to move to the city in New York for work and you went to Texas, texting you everyday and calling you at least a few times a week. Recently, she’s been preoccupied with helping you through your pining problems.

me: very funny, andrea. but you don’t even wanna hear about last night’s dream.

You send the message and put the phone down, refusing to entertain whatever curiosity you’ve pulled out of Andy now. Instead, you dwell more on the problems at hand. You wish you could get the image of Marcus bursting into your wedding out of your head, feeling embarrassed at the fact that your subconscious even created it in the first place.

Somewhere along the way of working with Marcus, you started developing feelings that went past the co-worker line. And then the friendship line. And now you don’t even know where the hell it lands. All you know is that you think about him way more than you should. Especially his smile… it’s so bright and downright adorable with that little dimple of his… and when his eyes crinkle up, oh it’s so—.

You stop and look in the mirror where you’re doing your makeup, slapping your own cheek to push those thoughts from your mind.

It happened at some point when you started to talk as more than coworkers, to learn things about Marcus that you know he hasn’t talked to many others about, including his divorce. You know what he’s been through and, in exchange for the deep truths he’s told you, he also knows what you’ve been through. This isn’t including the shared trauma you have at the things you’ve seen and done on the job together. That’s why he’s one of the only people you tolerate in that office.

Well… “tolerate” doesn’t really do your true feelings for Marcus any justice.

You huff as you finish your routine, finally going back out to your room and picking your phone up from the bedside table. There’s another text there and you’re already wishing you could send a punch through the phone.

andy💞: first of all, ‘andrea?’ rude??😤 second of all um ma’am now i NEED to know what happened.

Your gaze drifts to the ceiling for a moment as you release a heavy breath.

me: let’s just say it involved a church and a wedding dress.

You feel embarrassed even typing out the words, but you dread the moment when you see those three dots pop up in a bubble at the corner of the screen.

andy💞: oh shit, don’t tell me you married him LMAO😭

me: it’s worse than that.🤦‍♀️

andy💞: how can it possibly be worse than that???

me: listen, i’ll call you after work and tell you, kay? i gotta go.

You sigh when you lock your phone decisively, gathering the rest of your belongings and heading out of your humble apartment. After you make your way down to the lobby and get into your car, you fall back into the seat with a heavy sigh, groaning when your temples already start to tighten up into a tension headache.

Just what you need to go into work with.

The drive finds you numbly swimming through your thoughts as you go through the typical routine of your everyday suffering. Well, if you’re being honest, that’s a dramatic way to describe it. But still. You can never decide if you’re relieved to get to work and see your partner-of-long or if you’re dreading it. Having to face your partner after dreaming about him is… well, not ideal. You’re grateful that he doesn’t pick up on your awkwardness, though. Or, if he does, he never tells you. You’re equally as grateful for that.

You see a text on your phone from Andy but choose to ignore it, not needing the additional stress nor the reminder of your dream as you park in your usual spot in the garage. You hike your small bag on your shoulder and head inside the building, only taking a moment to refocus yourself once you’re inside the elevator. Your eyes fall closed as you release a heavy sigh, rubbing two of your fingers against each temple as you wiggle your jaw. You hope that the caffeine you know is already awaiting you on your desk will be a relief to the pain you’re experiencing. The doors open and you wince a bit as the fluorescents invade your vision, not helping your headache as you trudge over to your collection of desks.

To your surprise, there’s only the coffee sitting on your desk, still steaming—and no Marcus there to greet you as usual.

You don’t know if you’re grateful for that or saddened by it. All you do is give a light huff as you set down your bag, picking up the mug and giving it a daring taste. It’s perfect just like it always is. Marcus always pays attention to detail. The thought makes you smile—and for a brief moment, it makes you hopeful. Just like it always does. Every single morning.

The feeling quickly fades. You hold tight to your mug as you walk out of the cluster of desks, peering through the glass walls to see where Marcus—and the rest of your team, for that matter—could be. It’s highly unusual for them not to be crowding in a group around somebody’s desk, either studying a new case or trying to look up information on thieves you’ve been hunting for months. You find yourself hit with a large wave of shock when you walk out to see Marcus in one of the floor’s main conference rooms, sitting beside a blonde woman who’s obviously distressed. There are others in there with him who look familiar, but you know they’re not from your team.

They’re from the homicide team. You suddenly feel your headache intensify at the prospect of what this could mean. Through the glass, your gaze meets Marcus’, and his brow lifts as he gives you a look that practically says I’ll explain everything in a second. You give him a nod and draw a long sip from your coffee, holding back a wince when your temples tighten up painfully. The caffeine has to work its magic fast, or else you’ll be clocked out for the day before you’ve even really clocked in.

A few minutes later, you watch as Marcus stands up from his seat, a few others following as he heads out of the conference room. You stand and wait for him to meet you, his dark eyes glittering in a way that already informs you that you’ve got quite the situation on your hands. Once Marcus is in hearing range, you speak out.

“Is that the homicide team?” you question, raising an eyebrow as Marcus walks alongside you back to your cluster of desks.

“Yep,” Marcus answers, popping the “p” as he lets you step inside the glassed-off area first. You lean against your desk as Marcus tosses a pile of files onto his, standing with his hands on his hips in front of you as he continues. “This morning, there was a robbery during the local exhibition setup—including a murder.”

You exhale deeply and force more coffee down your throat, realizing that your physical headache is just the first one you’ll be getting today. “That’s more action than we’re used to.”

“Yeah,” Marcus agrees, crossing his arms now as he takes a quick look outside of the glass. “Now, the homicide team’s stepping in to help us.” He looks back to you. “Which, you know, means they’ll be leading the mission.”

“Obviously,” you murmur. Not that you’re not grateful for their work, but the agents who work in the homicide department have always been hailed as the heroes of the FBI. Patrick Jane is especially the one mentioned by many, with his ability to read people making him particularly noteworthy. You hold back a scoff at them stepping into the art theft department, likely eager to make your work look like some kind of opportunity for them to show off even more. “Not that I’d really want to deal with a murderer on our own.”

“Exactly.” Marcus finally walks over to join you at your side, leaning against your desk as he looks down at you. “How’s your morning been so far?”

You try to hide a smile as you shrug up at him. It’s a question Marcus asks you everyday without fail. “The usual.”

Marcus lifts an eyebrow. “So, getting pestered with texts from Andy?”

You laugh and widen your eyes for dramatic effect, taking another sip of coffee. “You know how the daily ritual goes.” You pause for a moment, debating on whether or not to tell him that you’ve been distracted and stressed all morning to the point of giving yourself a tension headache bad enough to make you sensitive to the fluorescents hanging above you. The only problem is, you know he’ll ask you why—and you don’t have a good lie thought up just yet.

Marcus beats you to it. “What else?” You look into his dark gaze to see it observing you closely, as if he knows something’s wrong. He always does.

Your shoulders sag a little as you stare back out beyond the glass. “I just didn’t sleep well.” You sigh as you pick through your half-lie. “I was stressed about it all morning and now I’ve given myself a headache from hell.” You look back up at him with a slightly-amused expression. “And hearing about this whole joint-operation with the homicide team is—.”

“—not the best remedy.” Marcus finishes the thought for you, giving you a nod in understanding. “I’m sorry. That sucks. Losing sleep is no joke.” He sits up a little taller and gestures with his thumb over towards his desk. “I think I have some stuff for a headache, if you need it.”

You smile gratefully at him. “Thanks, Pike, but that’s probably not the best idea.” When Marcus furrows his brow, you look down at your nearly-empty mug of coffee with shame. “I may or may not have completely forgotten to eat breakfast, so I’m running on an empty stomach.”

Marcus tuts at you, shaking his head with the ghost of a smile on his lips. “You gotta’ start taking better care of yourself, partner.” He fully stands up from the desk, walking over to his. “Thankfully, I’ve got just the thing.” Marcus opens a drawer of his desk to reveal not only the aforementioned bottle of pills, but also a granola bar.

You shake your head as he hands both items to you. “You don’t have to, Pike.”

“I know.” Marcus sticks his hands into his pockets as he lets his smile grow. “But if you’re not gonna take care of yourself, then I will.”

You fight hard to keep the heat from rising to your cheeks as you reach for the bottle of water in your bag and use that to swallow down two of the pills, handing the bottle back to Marcus before unwrapping the granola bar. As you eat it, you question Marcus for more information. “So, what’s on the docket for today, then?”

Marcus sighs and lets his gaze drift to the ceiling, as if he’s picturing the agenda in his mind. “Well, I’ve got a briefing to do with Fischer in about…” Marcus trails off as he looks down to the watch on his wrist, “ten minutes. Then, it’s all up to the homicide team. We’ll basically just be here as resources to help guide them.”

You nod and take another bite of the bar in your hand. “I assume I’ll get all the information I need in the briefing.”

Marcus nods to confirm your words. “I’ll try to make it nice and clear—and I’ll deal with their team.”

You shake your head as you stare up at him. “I couldn’t let you do that, Pike.”

Marcus gives his hand a wave. “It’s fine, partner. I’ll learn their ways—and then we can take them for ourselves.”

You snicker and raise an eyebrow. “So that’s why you want to handle it.”

“Nooo.” Marcus tries to refuse your words, but he does a terrible job as a mischievous smile appears on his lips. “Listen, I’ve got it, alright? Unless you wanna help.”

You scoff and finish off the granola bar. “No offense to them, but I’m not feeling particularly eager to work with a whole other department when this one’s got me crazed enough.”

Marcus laughs, patting your shoulder before he picks his files back up from his desk. He moves to head off, but stops in front of you, looking into your gaze seriously. “Hang in there. I’ll try to keep things short and sweet so we can get in and get out.” You give him a nod, and he pats your shoulder again before walking off towards the briefing room. You release a sigh and close your eyes for a moment, trying not to overthink his friendly actions nor remember what you’d dreamt about just hours before. You’re unsuccessful in both and it starts to reverse the effects of the pills you’ve taken.

Minutes later, you’re heading off to the briefing room yourself, taking a seat somewhere far away from the small crowd that’s closest to Marcus and Kim Fischer of the homicide department. You take out your notebook and release a soft breath, the tip of your pen bouncing against the paper as you wait for the clock to strike upon the hour. While you appreciated Marcus’ help in aiding your headache, it still hasn’t faded, and the way you’re clenching your jaw right now is surely a reason as to why. But you can’t help it. You feel on edge more than ever with this situation involving a whole other department—and you feel like something’s off.

During the briefing, you realize what.

Sitting just in front of Marcus is another famed agent from the homicide team, Teresa Lisbon. That’s a name you’ve heard more commonly in break rooms when you’re refilling your coffee and end up hearing the gossip of the building. Her name is almost always associated with Jane’s and you’ve caught on to the fact that—in a way quite similar to you and Marcus, actually—they’ve been partners forever and it’s led many to believe that they’re an item. But it still hasn’t happened. And now, you watch as her and Marcus share more than a few gazes during the meeting.

But you’re probably overthinking this. Right?

Yeah, you think to yourself, because the crazy woman who has romantic dreams of her partner at night gets to judge another woman and get jealous if she shares a few gazes with her partner. Totally entitled to all of that.

You roll your eyes at yourself and lean your elbow against the armrest of your chair, willing all your strength not to close your eyes and hide yourself from the sight.

Marcus sticks to his word and keeps what he has to say short and sweet. You write down whatever’s important but let yourself tune out what you don’t think is as necessary. You’re not usually the type to space out during briefings—you’ve always been known for your precision—but this situation feels far out of your hands as an art theft agent and more in the hands of those who sit around you. Once the briefing ends, you nearly exclaim a hallelujah, standing from your chair and beelining for your desk. A few moments after you plop down into your chair, Marcus appears yet again, his hands resting on the edge of the desk as you smile up at him.

“Nicely done, Agent Pike,” you inform him, watching as he gives you a nod in thanks. “So, it’s their move next?”

“Yeah,” Marcus confirms your words. “They’re making a plan, and they’re letting me in on it.”

You furrow your brow. “And not me?”

Marcus hesitates, his dark eyes searching yours as he lets out a soft sigh. “Yes, you, but here’s the thing.” Marcus crosses his arms as you anticipate his explanation. “You don’t seem like yourself today—so I want you to catch up on your sleep.” You’re about to argue when Marcus continues. “It’s okay, it happens, and nobody has to know.” Marcus lowers his voice as he goes on. “You can head home for a while, sleep as much as you need to, and if you feel up for it, you can come back tonight and join me here. Does that sound good? Or am I being a patronizing prick?”

You chuckle a bit at that and shake your head, giving him a small and relieved smile. “That sounds great, Pike. Thank you so much.”

Marcus simply nods again, reaching across your desk to pat your shoulder before he heads away. You release a sigh and stand up from your chair, hanging your bag on your shoulder as you make your escape. Your head is still pounding and your eyelids feel heavier at the idea of getting to sleep as you step onto the elevator. You can’t bring yourself to think of what you’ll miss but you do know that you feel embarrassed at the cause of your physical suffering. If Marcus knew, he probably wouldn’t be this kind to you about it.

Who are you kidding. It’s Marcus. He’d probably be even nicer about it.

As you walk to your car, you finally unlock your phone, seeing a leftover text from Andy.

andy💞: you better. i’m off work today, so i’ll be waiting.🥱

You shake your head as you sit inside, clipping your phone into the hands-free contraption suctioned to your windshield as you take off and call Andy. It only rings once before she picks up.

“Finally!” Andy exclaims overdramatically. “But also, shouldn’t you be working right now?”

“I should,” you agree, keeping your eyes on the road as you navigate your way back to your apartment, “but Pike sent me home to get some sleep.��

“He—what?” Andy’s obviously confused. “Did you tell him about the dream, or—?”

“No, Andy!” Your answer comes quick and loud. “Why the hell would I ever do that?”

“I don’t know! So that you’re not lying to him all the time?”

“That’d be awkward as hell. I’m never doing that.” You huff as you turn your wheel. “Anyway, Marcus just reads me well. He could tell I was off. I mean, I do have a headache that’s bordering dangerously on a migraine.”

“A Marcus-induced migraine?”

You bite your lip and tighten your hands around the wheel in annoyance at both yourself and Andy. “Possibly.”

Andy chuckles a bit on the other end of the line. “Ah, his power. If only he knew.”

“He won’t.”

“But can I? You still haven’t explained what happened!”

And so, in the time it takes for you to reach your apartment, you explain to Andy everything about your dream and what you could of what’s happened since then. Andy, of course, goes crazy over your romcom-esque dream, and she squeals at the drama of the situation you’re currently in with a whole other department filling your shoes. You even mention the looks you’d witnessed between Marcus and Teresa earlier.

“They gazed at each other? Multiple times?” Andy gasps dramatically. “How scandalous.”

“Shut up,” you wince, parking your car and trapping your phone between your ear and your shoulder as you get out. “Look, I’m sure it’s nothing and I’m just overthinking it, but… I know she’s got some kind of history with her partner and if something really does go down, I don’t wanna see Marcus get hurt again.”

“Or, you just wanna see him with you.”

You sigh and push your way inside your apartment building. “Fair point. That’s probably why I’m overthinking it.”

“I think you might be, Miss Thing. This isn’t a Jane Austen novel. They probably just looked at each other because briefings sound boring as hell and they didn’t know where else to look.”

“Probably.” You whimper once you get into your apartment and inside your bedroom, flopping down onto the bed as you close your eyes. “I feel so pathetic and creepy talking about Marcus like this, Andy. I shouldn’t be analyzing his every breath.”

“Hey, that’s what happens when you like someone. It’s fine. You’ll live, he’ll live, and life will work its way out. For now, you should probably take Marcus’ advice and sleep.”

You nod to agree, despite the fact Andy can’t see you. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll talk to you later, Andy. Love ya’.”

“Love you more, girl. Sleep well and try not to dream of Marcus for once.”

You snort and shake your head. “I will.” You hang up and let out a deep breath, your brow furrowing together as you notice a new text notification. You open it up and you hate the way your heart practically leaps at the sight of Marcus’ contact name.

marcus🥞: Make sure you get some quality sleep, partner. Things are getting… interesting here and I miss having you around. I have a lot to fill you in on once you get here.

You smile to yourself as you type your response.

me: you got it, pike. try not to have too much fun without me. just pretend i’m there to roll my eyes.🙄

You start to let yourself settle into bed—regardless of your work clothes—and take one last look at your phone before you comply with Marcus’ request.

marcus🥞: I’ll try my best.🥴 Text me with how you’re feeling when you wake up.

me: roger that👍

You bite back a smile as you put your phone on your bedside table and relax against your pillow, already feeling your headache starting to fade in the face of Marcus’ kindness—and completely unknowing of the one that’s awaiting you the moment you step back into that building.

masterlist ⟹ next part

if you’d like to be added to the bittersweet tag list, let me know!

permanent tag list: @mikahid @bestintheparsec @stilllivindue2spite @givemethatgold @xbrujita @mandalorianspace @blushingwueen @sevvysaurus @myakai13 @thisis-theway @beskars @rachelloveseveryone @theindiealto @hiscyarika @burningsoulbloodyheart @wickedfrsgrl @synystersilenceinblacknwhite @bookwafflefangirl @charliepeaceout @cable-kenobi @ezraslittleblondestreak @hdlynn @your-pixels-are-showing @b0n-chann @nettyklecan @javier-djarin @chibi-liz05

#i didn't edit this i'm sorry lol but uh #yeehaw?#how we feelin?#idk how i feel but i promise it'll get better and less cringey lol #marcus pike #marcus pike x reader #the mentalist #dindjarindiaries #bittersweet fic

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bat-besties · 4 years ago

Text

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

Remus is the most eccentric customer who visits Janus and Virgil's café. When he goes missing after talking to a mysterious stranger, Janus resolves to investigate further- and Virgil isn't letting him go alone.

AO3 10k

Huge thanks to @mariniacipher, I could not have written this without her. She let me talk about the idea for hours, it has somehow developed into a series, and the story itself took a real twist because of talking to her! Another massive thank you to @5-crofters-jams, who did a marathon edit of the entire piece for me, and has made the story so much smoother and more effective (and much less British because my original dialogue did upset her American sensibilities XD) Also thanks to @tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors, who knew everything I needed about pigeon corpses!

CW: dead bird, touching the bird corpse, bird funeral, Remus levels of comments about gore and innuendo, drug mention, mention of vomiting, kidnapping and captivity, feeling nauseous from anxiety, light dehumanization, brief allusion to racist violence

Remus was...

(There was usually a little gesture there: Virgil’s rolled eyes, or Janus’ helplessly fond smile, or a disapproving look from Remy-)

....Remus.

Their anarchist cafe saw its fair share of unusual customers but only one of them was, well, Remus.

Morning sunlight threw beams which striped the posters covering the walls- old propaganda posters mixed with ads for tutors, food banks, and drag shows. There was a quiet chatter of customers, occasionally broken up by bursts of laughter or a called greeting to another patron as they came in. Kids from the skatepark sat on a pile of beanbags charging their phones, having given up the comfortable chairs for a small group of elderly butches with stretched tattoos who were now speaking with slang from fifty years ago. A mother whose baby was trying to grab onto her braids was trying to feed him with one hand and hold her husband’s with the other. A college student frowning at their laptop screen and consuming coffee at an alarming rate was seemingly oblivious to the punk trying to discreetly read their laptop stickers. One of a Pan-African flag matched the full-sized one on the wall, swaying with wafts of coffee and baked goods along with spider plants and assorted pride flags. Old photos of a Black Panther group in the town, reprinted and signed by some of their patrons, were framed proudly on the walls.

Since everyone had been served, Virgil was taking a few breaths to check over the register and prepare for the next rush. The rhythm of checking, preparing, and letting the background chatter fade into the background blended into a pleasant, thoughtless routine. Cups out. Setting out more sandwiches. Look over the register. Maybe get something from the back-

“Morning, shitwad!”

Virgil ducked under the counter as something thumped into the coffee machine behind him, and a few of the regulars laughed in good nature.

“Oh, good morning, darling,” Janus replied smoothly, appearing from the kitchen. He was wearing a yellow shirt which contrasted with his deep brown skin perfectly, as well as a bowler hat and dapper bow-tie. He pulled plastic gloves over his hands with all the elegance of a debutante preparing for a ball.

There was a shrill wolf whistle. “Those are some sexy wrists!” was the next comment, followed by a squawking laugh, and Virgil rolled his eyes as his friend brought a flustered hand up to adjust his collar. Every day, he faced the deep attraction between the most sophisticated person he knew and the most outlandish, and he didn’t know which was more obnoxious. As Virgil popped back up, Janus reached over to the projectile on the back counter. It was the small, feathery body of a dead pigeon, carefully wrapped in cling wrap.

Virgil gave Janus a long-suffering look and got out a bottle of disinfectant. “Morning, Remus,” he grumbled, despite his irritation. “What can I get for you today?”

“My friend died at 3am last night,” he replied instead. “I need to store her in your fridge until you both get off work, and then we’ll hold her funeral!”

When they were alive, Remus treated the pigeons as gently as they did each other-

That is to say, he was ruthlessly protective of chicks, ready to grab and move anyone encroaching on territory, and, if pecked, was fully ready to bite back. Still, at his two-tone whistle a whole flock of assorted birds would fly down to meet him. His eyes would shine bright as they flew around him like a feathered whirlwind, and settled on the surfaces all around him like a hopeful congregation as he fed them with whatever he had. Despite their number, almost all had names and ascribed personalities.

Exactly how he could tell the difference between two seemingly identical pigeons Virgil had no idea, and he wasn’t entirely sure that Remus wasn’t fucking with him about it.

“Why did you throw her if you’re trying to preserve her?” Virgil said, but he tried to keep the frustration out of his voice. In fairness, it didn’t look too damaged by the blow. It would take a lot to change the kindness Remus showed the doves, as roughly as he showed it.

“I thought you’d catch her, emo! It would have been a beautiful moment!” he protested, throwing his grey eyes open wide.

Virgil took a deep breath and nodded. “You know what? Yeah, maybe it would have been. But you forget-”

“Fight or flight,” Remus filled in. He shrugged. “I guess that makes sense.”

As usual, he was dressed in as many layers as he could be, with only a hint of pale skin showing on his face and through a pair of fingerless gloves he had cut himself. Everything else was an amalgamation of black and brown leather, denim, flannel, a puffy coat, a long flowing skirt in leopard-print, and fishnet tops over cotton T-shirts, leaving barely any Remus-outline at all. It didn’t matter what the weather was; his outfit might change components, but it never revealed so much as his neck.

Everyone had their reasons, Janus would quietly say at almost anything their customers said or did. It wouldn’t have crossed their minds to ask why he covered himself so much, but it was something Virgil couldn’t help but wonder about sometimes.

Maybe Janus was right and Remus was handsome, but his face was so obscured by his moustache, stubble, and makeup in purple and green- or whichever colours he felt like- that he seemed to be aiming for ‘gives you a headache after you look at him too long’ more than anything else.

His hair was almost literally a bird’s nest. He had completely rejected offers of a hairbrush or a comb, insisting he preferred it the way it was. The third co-owner of the cafe, Remy, with whom he was staying at the moment, had made many attempts to detangle his hair, all of which had been met with screaming and gnashing of teeth. After each clash, Remy would send Virgil a barrage of complaints by text. But while Janus had offered for Remus to stay at his own apartment, Virgil and Remy had made a mutual decision to save them from 24/7 pining by volunteering instead. Janus had refused even considering dating him the very first day he had barged his way into the cafe- and into its founder’s affection. As long as Remus came to them for food and shelter, it would be an unfair balance of power.

Remus reached into an inner pocket of his coat and slid a purple pin with a spider silhouette on it over to Virgil. “You could stab this into those big brown eyes of yours,” he said, widening his own at the barista.

“Sweet, thanks,” Virgil said, pinning it onto his apron string. It did match with his spider-web hair design. “Then I won’t have to look at Janus getting flustered any more.”

Remus grinned at Janus, who was trying to act as if he’d been so invested in carefully holding the pigeon that he hadn’t heard. He leaned on the counter and dropped his voice into a stage-whisper. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. “I think he’s sexy.”

“That’s disgusting,” Virgil whispered back. “I’m going to throw up in your coffee.”

He shrugged. “I’d still drink it. Then I’d just be able to judge you based on your stomach bile.”

“You’d be so fucking impressed by my stomach bile,” Virgil retorted. “It’s so acidic from anxiety it would kill you immediately.” He turned to start wiping down anywhere the pigeon had even possibly touched.

“Bartender!” Remus yelled in an exaggerated English accent, banging on the counter. “Bartender! I would like a coffee and a sandwich, please!”

“One moment, my dear,” Janus said in a more passable impression, opening up the freezer door and placing the tiny corpse into an empty ice-cream container well away from the rest of the food. “I’m just cryopreserving- what’s her name?”

"Her name is Loki,” Remus supplied, his voice dropping to a matter-of-fact tone which was surprisingly tender coming from him. “She's good at stealing chips from tourists. And flying and shitting at the same time.”

Janus threw away his gloves, thoroughly washed his hands, then made a small note: "Loki: not for consumption." He glanced up at Remus so he could see the note, who repaid him by throwing his head back so he could laugh. Janus' mouth quirked into a snicker too, and the rest of the coffee shop seemed to fall away from the two looking at each other.

"We're going to get a violation," Virgil interrupted, because that was the expression of a Janus who would complain and pretend not to pine for hours after Remus left. He turned on the coffee machine to hopefully distract from the moment. "It's a dead fucking animal."

"So is the rest of the meat," Janus dismissed without looking at him. "And it is wrapped up and away from the rest of the food."

Ever since Virgil had joined the team and the cafe had begun to establish itself as a firm success, the city council had done everything in its power to shut it down. Each time, the cafe had won, even if their most recent fight was one of the most nerve-racking experiences of his life, and their personal lives had been dragged through the dusty carpet of every courtroom in the city. Each step of the way, Janus insisted that the risk was worth it.

After all that, Virgil was not letting the cafe close on account of a dead bird, as skilled a thief as she might have been.

"It’s a pest animal you let in here," he insisted.

Janus dismissed him with a shrug. "Come now, so is Remus."

The customer grinned. "You flatter me, rattlesnake." His eyes traced Janus' face as they scrunched up with joy. "Can you tell me about Dodgy Knees again?"

He closed his eyes as if pained. "Diogenes! Diogenes! I'll break your knees if you mispronounce-"

"Kinky!"

He rolled his eyes fondly. “Oh, is that so?”

So Virgil tried to ignore the disaster scenario of the cafe being shut for good, fixed a cup of coffee and a sandwich for Remus, and somehow got caught into a conversation about the pros and cons of leaving society to go feral in the woods.

“No, I do agree, but wolves-”

The door rattled, and an older white man with salt-and-pepper hair and a pinstripe suit walked in. He wasn’t entirely out of place amongst the clientele, but he honestly looked more like the businessmen in some of the cartoons Janus had papered one wall with. Remus ignored the bell as he leant his elbows on the counter, gesturing with his sandwich as he talked to Virgil while the barista came up to the register.

“How can I help you today?” Virgil asked the man, who was glancing around the decor. That type of customer was almost certainly drawn by the coffee, all blends hand-picked by Remy.

“I’ll be in and out in just a moment,” he replied with a small smile, and Remus stopped talking. “An espresso to go, please.”

Virgil nodded. “Sure, a moment-”

A blush crept up Remus’ cheeks, and he ducked his head with uncharacteristic shyness. As the man caught his eyes his entire expression softened, the hard lines of his face seeming to melt as his lips parted slightly, like he would say something. But, for once, he was speechless.

Janus looked as though he had been slapped in the face. “Are you acquainted?” he asked, in such a casual tone that Virgil knew he was deeply hurt. He arched an eyebrow as he waited for an answer.

“I- yes, I believe we are,” the customer gave a genial smile in return, his eyes fixed on Remus’. “Some time ago.”

Janus’ eyes narrowed. “Where do you know him from, Remus?”

There was a crinkle of plastic and leather as Remus shrugged. “Long story,” he said distantly.

Virgil slid a cup of coffee over to the man, who tapped a black card to the card reader and gave him a quick smile. “Keep the change,” he quipped. It was a tip some ten times greater than their recommended 20%.

“Thanks,” Virgil mumbled, but his focus was on his friend, who was drifting out of the door, as he tended to do at the end of a conversation. “Hey, Remus, we’ll see you later?” he called after him.

“Sure, Virgey!” he replied, giving him a quick grin before he held the door for the businessman, and the two of them walked out together. The older man ducked his head to whisper something into his ear, and Remus laughed and linked their arms as they headed into the street.

As soon as the door swung shut, a cloud settled over Janus’ expression. “Well,” he said, adjusting a sandwich which was just slightly out of line with the rest. “They say a stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet. It takes all sorts. To each, indeed, their-”

Before he could utter another saying, Virgil interrupted with a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure it’s not what it looks like.”

“And what does it look like?” Janus asked caustically. “Remus was acting unusually, yes?”

“Sometimes people get nervous,” he ventured. “If they like someone-” There wasn’t a single trait Remus said wasn’t his type; a silver fox with money was as good as any.

“Don’t say ‘like’, it’s so middle school,” he snapped, and Virgil flinched at the tone in his voice. He grabbed a cloth and headed over to a table which some regulars he knew were just vacating to wipe it down. Poor Loki’s funeral was going to be a tense event.

Except, as night fell and the cafe began to glow with the golden lights and the warmth of the ovens, and as Remy arrived to help them with the evening rush, Remus didn’t show up for the body in their freezer.

The brief liveliness Janus had shown bustling between the kitchen and the front faded as the final family trickled out. He waved away most of their offered money, seeing as it was a birthday party and he knew them, and Remy and Virgil made meaningful eye contact but didn’t protest.

As they closed, Remy filled the awkward silence with chatter about the men he was dating, the new hair product he had tried, the fact Remus never washed up when he was told to, and he was, like, so sick of it-

But no Remus appeared to defend himself, even after they left half-an-hour late and each one tried to call him.

He didn’t appear at Remy’s to sleep overnight, and he didn’t come into the cafe at all the next day.

That next night, Janus disappeared into the back, leaving Virgil to clean up by himself.

His stomach was upset, and he couldn’t help but think about that man over and over.

Long story- what exactly did “long story” mean?

Remy used the phrase when it really was a complicated story full of exes and rumours and friends of friends-

Virgil used it when he was asked why he didn’t speak to his family any more.

But he’d never seen Remus look like that before, and the guy had seemed nice- and there was an obvious suggestion for why his friend was busy overnight.

He realised he’d been wiping down the same table for the past five minutes.

“Virgil,” Janus said quietly behind him.

“Yeah?” he turned, and his brow immediately furrowed at his friend’s sombre expression.

He had his phone in one hand, and his hat in his other. “I’m going to ask you for a favour,” he said slowly. “You are quite free to decline it.” He paused. “I want to go to the house of the man who Remus went out with, and check that he’s alright.”

“I...don’t know that’s a good idea,” he said, twisting the spider badge on his apron so he could avoid the weight of his friend’s expression. “I mean...it could be an invasion of Remus’ privacy, if that was an old friend or-” Scared of causing further upset, he tilted his head to fill in ‘something else’.

“Yes, I know.” He sighed, looking out into the night through their plate-glass windows. “You know I’m not one for hunches-”

“Eh, you turned out a guy for being an undercover cop in like two seconds because he asked about ‘The Antifa’-”

Janus gave him a look with almost the level of exasperated fondness Remus engendered, and Virgil fell silent.

“I’m not one for hunches, but I’m usually right when I have them, then,” he finished lightly. “I have a very bad feeling, and a Google Search for anyone in the town who could possibly have a black card doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Anxiety coagulated in his stomach, but he tried for his final hope. “Are you sure it’s not...jealousy?”

He gave him a long, tired look. “The thought has never even been a worry of mine,” he said drily. “Still, I can go by myself, and make my own self a bother, worse, a fool.”

And it wasn’t really a question at all whether Virgil would let that happen. “Two of us is just a bother,” he replied with a confidence he didn’t feel, unclipping his badge from his apron and slipping it into his hoodie pocket.

Janus hung up his hat and put on a neat suit jacket over his outfit. “Thank you, really-”

He shook his head, opening the door so that a rush of petrichor and tarmac washed out the pervasive smell of coffee and food from the cafe. “Let’s go.”

They walked out into the night, still damp from the earlier rains. The lights of the shops around them reflected against the wet tarmac, and music pumped out of passing cars giddy with the promise of the coming weekend. They headed to the bus stop, Janus politely greeting every person they passed, and Virgil ducking his head so he didn’t have to. He didn’t know if the people who replied were familiar to his friend from the neighbourhood, or just trying to be polite in turn.

As soon as the bus stopped with a hiss of steam, Janus led him down to the back, and sat by the window, checking the map on his phone again. “It will be some time,” he said. “But, I ask you to be patient.”

“Course.” Virgil rested his head on Janus’ shoulder and closed his eyes. “Just tell me the stop before and I’ll be...right with you.” Moving vehicles lulled him to sleep anyway, and he would just worry the whole way otherwise.

“Of course.” Janus wrapped an arm around him, so he wasn’t jolted as the bus started again.

As Virgil dozed in fits and starts, the window changed from views of convenience stores and fast food shops to blocks of apartments, to anonymous offices and retail outlets, to high-walled parks, and then houses set back from the road by sweeping drive-ways or pavements almost as wide as the road was. Finally, his head was jostled off Janus’ shoulders, and he blinked as the stop dinged, too loud after the fog of sleep. Outside, it was pitch black but for the pools of light beneath the streetlights, and the golden glow which the mansions kept far behind barred gates.

They stumbled off the bus, and Janus checked his phone just once more before they headed off down one of the identical sides of the road.

Virgil pulled his hoodie close around him against the night chill. He considered putting his hood on to protect his ears from the nipping wind, but they were already two black men alone in a very white neighbourhood. It wasn’t worth it when his stomach was already rolling with anxiety. He rubbed his thumb over the badge in his pocket and tried to breathe the cold air in 4-7-8. They walked over empty roads, past rows and rows of similar houses, until they turned a corner and cars lined the road, piling into a single driveway which was illuminated like a Christmas lights display. A few fancily-dressed guests stood by the cars, but most of the noise came from inside. The house towered even its neighbours, and was built in the faux-Classical style which he hated.

Janus checked the address against his phone, then nodded. “That’s it. What did you call those, again? False temples?”

“Temples to dumb rich Americans and bad architecture,” Virgil supplied with a quirk of his lips.

“Quite right,” he replied, assessing the entrance. “And in all likelihood, Remus is stuck inside with his…”

“Yup.” He looked between his own patchwork hoodie and Janus’ dapper suit. “Maybe you could sneak in, but I definitely wouldn’t fit in.”

He straightened, and adjusted his bowtie. “Then we’ll go around the back,” he replied.

Virgil shook his head. “Nope, nope, nope, that’s- Jesus Christ, no, that’s a great way to get arrested or even shot. No.”

“Virgil,” Janus said quietly. “These past two months, Remus has visited us every day except that brief time after the fight over the milk cartons, or whatever it was-”

“I asked him to clean up a drop of milk and he poured the rest of the carton over my kitchen,” he said sourly, which he felt he was entitled to despite the situation.

“Yes, yes,” Janus dismissed. “Anyway- he always comes, doesn’t he? So now-”

“I have a really, really bad feeling- and bad thought, and bad everything-” he protested, backing away from the gate.

An orange sports car swerved past them, and parked horizontally across the driveway, and a young white man in a tracksuit the same colour as his car leapt out and gave them a wide grin. “Hey! Hey! Hello!” he yelled, and flashed them peace signs, to which Janus replied with a pained smile and Virgil a small wave. “Everything’s started- have they done the fireworks yet? Or the, shit, thing with the melted chocolate and it flows-”

“Chocolate fountain,” Janus supplied with the smile he reserved for his more aggravating customers. He slipped his arm into Virgil’s and pulled them forwards. “We were hoping to arrive for that too, ah-?” He waited for the man to supply his name, but instead-

“I like your hair!” he said to Virgil, admiring the spider web design. “Rad!”

“Yeah, thanks,” he replied, subtly trying to pull them backwards as Janus marched him to the door after the guest. “Your car is...yeah, that sure is a car.”

“Sure is!” he replied with a blindingly white smile. He flashed something at a bodyguard at the door- who had sunglasses, earpiece, everything- Virgil noted with a sickening thrill of fear.

“And your friends, sir?” the bodyguard asked.

“Yeah, yeah!” The guest tossed his car keys at his chest and headed through to a foyer filled with well-cut suits and low-cut dresses, champagne glasses and trays of canapes. Marble floors reflected the lighting, which glinted out from chandeliers above. A wide staircase glided up to the hidden upper floors.

“Oh, hey! Hey, you!” the young man yelled as soon as he got in, bounding over towards a woman who greeted him with a grin, raising her glass like a toast.

Janus and Virgil just blinked at each other. “Are you...sure?” Virgil asked quietly. “Remus is here?”

“I’m honestly not so sure any more,” Janus muttered to him. “But let’s not rely on whatever chemicals are keeping our dear friend happy, and start looking around.”

They moved through a throng of people and out into a wide ballroom, filled with yet more guests and a live string quartet playing in one corner. Along with the music was the trilling of occasional birdsong from tropical birds fluttering inside several oversized golden cages dotted around the room. A few others held white marble statues, but they couldn’t compare to the shifting flurries of reds, blues, and greens. Without agreeing on it aloud, the friends first went over to a small party congregated by one of them, in case the birds had attracted Remus.

“No, but then I said-” A balding man was proclaiming. “I said, Rudy, that’s not the Dow Jones Industrial Average at all.”

The group burst into laughter, Virgil gave Janus a bemused look, and they moved on.

Everyone was well-dressed, in sparkling necklaces or ties in jewel colours or even in more casual clothes, like the man from the sports car, which still seemed to drip wealth. Wearing sneakers with a suit wasn’t that fancy a look, but when even Virgil recognised that pair from an ad campaign for a luxury fashion line which would come out next month, he guessed it didn’t matter. Nobody looked at them twice. Still, there was nobody dressed in the contents of an entire rummage-sale bin with purple eyeshadow used as contour.

“There-” Janus whispered- “Is that?”

They both froze as they watched a man with a moustache waltz past in the arms of a lady dressed in black. It wasn’t Remus.

Virgil scanned the room again, eyes passing over the gilded cages, and the tropical birds and statues inside them- nobody in the crowd admiring them was any business of his-

As they parted, the figure inside the tallest gold cage became clear. It shifted position- an animatronic? He looked more closely as it moved after everyone had turned away, fiddling with golden chains around its-

“Oh God-” he whispered. “Look.”

Virgil was an avowed atheist, but if the person inside the cage wasn’t a statue, he must have been an angel. His shining hair was cut short to show of the clean marble lines of his face. His chest was sculpted too, covered in scars which looked like they must have come from a golden sword like the one he was gripping. He looked as if he would swing it into position if not for the gold chains wrapped around his arms, tethering him to the delicate bars of the cage. He was gazing out into the distance.

Most striking of all, dove-grey wings crested over his shoulders and trailed all the way down to his ankles. His white tunic contrasted the hints of pale purple, pink and blue shimmering in his wings.

It was one of the most beautiful sights Virgil had ever seen.

He glanced at Janus for his reaction.

He found only an expression of absolute horror. Janus was completely silent for a moment, struggling for words, before he gasped. "Oh, Remus- what did they do to you?”

A cold feeling washed over him.

No- those were their friend's grey eyes, and that was the shape of his face, stripped of his facial hair and usual tacky makeup. No wonder Virgil hadn't recognised him.

Compared to the usual chaotic spark in his expression, he looked blank. As if his mind was somewhere else entirely- or like he'd been drugged.

Still, Virgil couldn’t help but be drawn back to his wings; they were hyper-realistic, even twitching as he tried to tense his shoulders to alleviate the pressure of the chains on his arms. And the amount of feathers it would have taken to make that shifting, downy gradient...not even all of Remus’ flock had that many. It was compelling, but sickening.

It felt wrong to look over his arms and legs when he was usually so adamant about covering them, so he dropped his eyes and tried to erase the knowledge of how muscled Remus was beneath his usual shapeless outfit.

It wasn’t that Virgil found his friend attractive exactly, but with wings like that, dressed like that- he was a centerpiece, clearly, and even as his stomach churned with the wrongness of the display, it was a palpable effort to keep his gaze from snapping back to him. “I’m gonna be sick,” he muttered to Janus.

“He’d never, ever choose to dress himself like that in front of everyone," Janus whispered, anger crackling red at the edges of his quiet voice. "And even if he did, he’d never shave off his moustache.”

He shook his head. “So...what do we do?”

In response, Janus sauntered over to the left, took a champagne flute from a waiter, and then gestured for his friend to follow. They zigzagged through the crowd until they got closer to Remus, whose eyes remained glazed and distant.

They stopped just by him. Up close, it was clear the tunic was some kind of cotton material, and the sword had blunted edges. He was wearing makeup too, and a lump in his mascara made Virgil feel another sharp pang of pity. As ridiculous as painting them on would have been, how real the scars looked in comparison to the rest of the outfit was jarring. He was built and scarred like a fighter, and all the little touches to make him look delicate only emphasised how roughened he was. Both were at odds with everything he knew of his friend.

“Remus,” Janus whispered. The name fell like a plea. “Remus, it’s us.”

All of a sudden, the man’s eyes snapped to them, his expression melting into disbelief. “Remus?” he echoed. It was as quiet as a whisper from a crypt. “You know him?”

“You’re-” Janus’ face fell. “Remus, that’s you-”

The man almost imperceptibly shook his head. “Twins, we’re twins- you know him? Please, is he okay?” He looked almost identical, though up close the differences began to stand out. He was probably more muscular, but who could tell under all of Remus’ clothes? The main differences were a gap between this twin’s front teeth and, more than that, his eyes. Even as he looked at them desperately, there was something missing from them, some jolt of hope or excitement which just wasn’t there. Their heaviness was an uncomfortable weight on Virgil’s face.

He wrapped an arm around himself. “Sorry, he went missing-”

“But we tracked the man he left with back here,” Janus filled in. “Isn’t he here too?”

The man shook his head again. “No, I- I’ll earn more information, after this. I don’t know anything,” he whispered. “I just know he found him, and he wants him to come back without a fight.”

Virgil never should have just watched as that man walked Remus out of the coffee shop. Long story his ass- “What the fuck is happening?”

Remus’ twin tried to shrug and then winced as the movement tugged on the chains. His wings fluttered with the movement. “They just tranqued us the first time. I don’t know why he’s delaying recapture-” He took a deep breath. “Just tell him to run away as soon as he can.” His grey eyes hardened to steel. “He might as well keep doing it.”

“I will if I can find him, thank you.” Janus took a small sip of his champagne. “What exactly was the capture for, if I can ask?”

The captive glanced around the room, and at the movement Virgil cut his eyes to the side. Nobody watched that he could see. “The wings, of course,” he said with a bitter smile. “Yes, yes, they’re real, go ahead and look at them.”

Janus’ eyes widened, subtly taking in the wings.

“My name’s Roman,” he continued in a low, urgent voice. “Tell him that Roman said to run, okay? Don’t listen to any of their offers or threats. I’m not a gladiator anymore; I’m here instead. It’s...not too bad.”

As Janus opened his mouth, Roman shook his head. “Don’t talk to me too long.”

“We can get you out,” Virgil said before he knew what he was thinking. “Whatever this is-”

“Go,” Roman insisted. “It’s not worth trying to do anything for me. And don’t call the police-”

Janus rolled his eyes. “You really don’t need to worry about that.”

“Fine.” he lifted his eyes to the middle distance again. “You should go now. Please.”

Virgil gave a little nod, taking Janus’ arm. “Okay. We’re gonna go.”

“Thank you,” Janus added. He opened his mouth as if to say something else, but then let Virgil lead him away.

He steered them back through the ballroom with their backs to Roman, trying not to glare into the eyes of each of the guests they passed. It would almost have been easier if there was a big fuss and show about the captive man, rather than the chatting and dancing and gossiping with, oh, a living being as a conversational curiosity-

As they came back into the entrance, Janus began to turn towards the sweeping staircase.

“No,” Virgil said under his breath, trying to tug him back to the doorway. “No fucking way. I know you’re angry but-”

“I’m not angry,” he replied coolly. “I am, rather, curious. Because I don't think they tell everything to Roman, and we’re not going to get luck like this again. Any information will help.”

He glanced up at where the staircase twisted out of sight. If Remus was up there, he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. And, despite his words, Janus was throw-ignorant-customers-out-of-the-cafe mad. Except, he wasn’t quoting memoirs of increasingly obscure activists or putting neat yellow gloves on in warning, so Virgil didn’t know what he would do.

On cue, Janus reached into his breast pocket and drew out the gloves. He slipped one on, tugging it into place. “Better for fingerprints, and more neat.” He glanced at Virgil. “You don’t have to come with me, in fact it may be better if you didn’t.”

It wasn’t fair for Janus to pull on his ridiculous gloves like a boxer about to face a much bigger opponent, and ask him not to fight by his side. Even if Virgil had decided to leave the party, it wouldn’t have been fair.

“I will,” he said, tucking his hands into hoodie paws. His heart was thumping against his ribcage as if it would break out- that was a thought to tell Remus when they saw him. “I’m gonna complain about it afterwards.”

Despite his apparent composure, it took Janus a moment too long to answer as his eyes traced Virgil’s face. “Of course.” He took his arm. “Shall we?”

He was half-expecting an alarm to blare as soon as they set foot on the first stair- but nobody noticed. They took another few steps, feet sinking into the thick red runner. The back of his neck prickled with stares, but he knew from long experience that those were imagined. Or were they? No, that was anxiety. Janus’ hand tightened on his forearm and he stopped. Above, someone paced past on a wooden floor in the measured rhythm of a guard. He gagged.

“Deep breaths,” Janus murmured.

“I hate this,” he replied. Then he forced a breath in his nose and out of his mouth.

After the footsteps faded, they kept walking until Virgil moved his heavy boot onto the polished wood floor as gently as possible. Identical two-panel white doors stretched along the hallway without any noticeable distinction, until the corridor took a right turn at the end of the row.

“You take the left, I’ll take the right,” Virgil whispered, and Janus nodded.

With their footsteps echoing almost too loud on the floor, they each crept to the far ends of the hallway. There was nothing beyond the corner except another staircase, and thankfully no more doors.

He tried the door handle on the far right with his sleeve over his hand, and it turned. He nudged it open and peeked in to see a huge bedroom strewn with suitcases and clothes, and a sparkling necklace of diamonds carelessly draped over a black dress. But no Remus. He shut it and moved onto the next.

Locked. The next was too. His hands were shaking like there was a motor in them.

He closed his eyes and leant his head against the wall, trying to ground himself in the sensation. Okay. Next one- unlocked.

It was a bathroom, all white marble and gold like downstairs. He closed the door and glanced over to Janus, who shook his head.

He glanced at the staircase before crossing the corridor and turning the handle of the middle door slightly.

A voice rose behind the door, deeper and smoother than Remus’. “Hello?”

Virgil reached in desperation for the next door handle as footsteps sounded from inside, and tugged it open in time for Janus to walk in quickly and efficiently in the rhythm of the security guard. He followed with a few strides, shutting the door behind him in with a fumbled click. The room was an empty guest bedroom. Janus was hiding himself under the bed before Virgil caught his arm and pulled him out. He headed to the big sliding window.

“Please, please-” he whispered to himself, trying to lift it. Locked, locked, oh God-

Janus searched the mantelpiece for a moment before pressing a cold key into Virgil’s hand. He tried to put it in but his hands were shaking too badly and he couldn’t-

Janus took it off him. It fit with a click.

Virgil pushed up the window in a rush of cool air. He climbed out onto the little ornamental balcony running between a few windows and stood flat to the wall, chest heaving, before Janus followed with a tumble. He reached over and shut the window while Janus crouched down below the sill. The room was still empty.

Virgil slid down the wall, trembling hands over his mouth. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears and he was sure he would be sick-

Janus had curled into a ball, forehead to the stone of the balcony.

He wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that.

After a while, they ended up both sitting side by side in the space between the two windows, hands twisted together. It was silent.

Virgil glanced back into the room. “It’s empty,” he whispered. “We should leave.”

Janus nodded. “One moment-” He crept towards the other window and peeked in the bottom before he dropped to the ground, hand over his mouth.

Virgil widened his eyes. On cue, his heart finished its brief rest.

Janus pointed to his suit jacket, then made a rectangle shape with his fingers. Virgil frowned. His friend repeated the gesture, and it clicked. Black card.

He so, so badly wanted to run now, but instead he crawled over to poke Janus in the side so he would move over to give him space by the window. Their eyes met, and Virgil pulled his hood over his cold ears to settle in for a wait. He kept his head down, pillowed on his forearms, while Janus risked peeking up every few minutes.

Suddenly, Janus grabbed his arm. Virgil lifted his head. He could just about see Roman standing in the doorway, rubbing at the deep red marks around his forearms, and the captor leaning back in a leather armchair holding a glass.

Janus put his hands up to the window-

“Janus,” Virgil hissed, but then the window slid a crack upwards and voices travelled through.

“Quite the party, wasn’t it?” the captor said, pouring himself a drink.

Roman nodded too quickly. “Yeah,” he said in a hoarse voice, attempting a smile which didn’t reach his eyes, which were fixed on a closed silver laptop on a side table. “Yes, it was...very grand!”

He rolled his eyes. “What did you think of the decor?”

“Quite magnificent! Like a- an aviary in a palace.” His wings were trembling as though there were a breeze running through them.

Tilting his head and looking Roman up and down, the captor spoke just as genially as he had in the cafe. “You really aren’t as interesting as your brother was. Too many blows to the head, no doubt.”

Roman’s mouth tightened. His fists had too.

Against the deep, comfortable, red-brown tones of leather and what must have been genuine mahogany, and the backs of books all bound neatly and sticking out of the shelf as though frequently read, Roman’s outfit stood out as even more fake. Gold accents in the sandals he was wearing matched the subtle gold trimmings of the room, but if the study were a convincing stage, Roman looked like a badly cast understudy.

The captor laughed. “Predictable. This isn’t the fighting pits.”

Virgil and Janus shared a look before watching again.

“Your brother’s been living like a tramp and he’s still more beautiful than you are, under all the mess,” he commented, as casually as if he was observing the weather. Roman’s eyebrows drew together, watching for the end of the statement. He brought up a hand to cover a scar along the edge of his neck. “He’s not as scraped up as you, of course. And he really-” He swirled his whiskey for a moment before taking a sip of it. “He really is genuine. You can imagine worse things than this, can’t you?”

He paused, then nodded.

He shrugged. “He can’t. That’s the difference.”

Janus grabbed Virgil’s hand. He curled over and pressed it to his own forehead. Virgil rested his hand on his back and bent to whisper in his ear. “Hey, only I need to listen, so-”

He shook his head and Virgil cut off, peeking back over the windowsill.

For just a moment Roman glanced at the window before he asked, “So, where is Remus anyways?” He seemed to freeze as he waited for the answer, a statue once again.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” He held his hand out and Roman looked at him blankly. “The laptop,” he snapped.

“Oh!” He grabbed it from the side table and tried to hand it over from a distance.

He took it and flipped it open. Roman stepped back immediately, hopping from one foot to the other like a boxer. Virgil felt himself tapping on Janus’ back in sympathy.

The captor flipped the screen open and typed for a moment before he began to read something. Virgil felt Janus’ chest go still.

The captor laughed. “Oh, would you look at that- “Queer Eye’s Karamo Brown urged to cut ties with Salvation Army”.” He shook his head. “There’s nothing worse than a hypocrite- did you know about this?”

Remus’ brother’s jaw tensed and he shook his head.

He carried on reading for a little while, tutting, and then switching to another tab. “Okay, fine- come and look.”

He crossed the room to stand behind the man, hands gripping onto the back of the sofa as if he would fall over without its support.

“Don’t touch the furniture.” With a roll of his eyes, he reached his hand behind him, twisted his hand into his captive’s wing- then tugged. As he pulled a handful of feathers away Virgil winced, but Roman only reacted with a tightening of his hands. Then he took a measured step back from the couch.

“You know,” the captor said so softly that Virgil had to strain to hear him. “You know, Remus would have cried and cried at that.” He scattered the feathers, spotted with blood, over the floor. “That, or started swearing- and the crying would come after that.”

“You’ve told me before,” Roman snapped. As soon as he spoke, he froze again. “Oh, uh- I’m sorry-”

The laptop clicked shut. “I asked you to behave this evening,” the captor said, getting up and tucking it under his arm. Virgil and Janus crouched down further. For some reason, a tiny chip in the stone paving caught Virgil’s eyes. A tiny fissure ran from it into the rest of the solid slab. “That meant all of this evening.”

“Please-” His voice broke, and pitched high it sounded like Remus’. Janus’ hand tightened on Virgil’s until it hurt.

“Out.”

Virgil tugged on Janus’ hand and bent his head to his ear. “C’mon, we need to go.”

Janus looked up. His eyes were shining, and at the same time Virgil felt like a monster for not crying and a sharp annoyance that his friend had given into his emotions. He took a deep breath, and both feelings passed. He tugged on his hand again. “Okay, time to go,” he whispered.

He decided not to risk closing the window while the man was still in the room, just nudging Janus to the side. They crept across the balcony, slid up the far window, and climbed through one after the other, painfully slow.

They padded through the empty room, then opened the door and slipped out together. Downstairs, the last of the party guests were trailing out, either upright with exhaustion shining in their eyes to match the sparkle of their jewels, or with the help of a few discreet employees supporting champagne-soggy legs. Wordlessly, Janus slung his arm over Virgil’s shoulder, and he let his friend lean on him as they passed security and walked down the long drive to the dark street. He was heavy, but Virgil was careful not to stumble.

They carried on walking that way until the corner, when Janus straightened up and adjusted his jacket. Still, they crossed the road side-by-side and didn’t speak.

As they walked, the bottom of the sky was being washed out into greyness. The houses were unlit now, and they looked smaller in the dark. It just barely smelt of metallic dew. Virgil thought he might start screaming if he opened his mouth.

They reached the bus station sooner than expected. There was half-an-hour before the first early-morning bus. With a huff of air, he sat down on the pavement and leaned his back against the pole.

“Well that was just what we expected, wasn’t it?” Janus said lightly. He stayed standing, facing the mansion they had come from. Virgil looked up at him in silence. “I’m going to murder that man,” he continued in the same tone. “The security for that house is shocking. I’m sure it isn’t that hard. Perhaps I should let the twins do it, though.”

He nodded. “I’ll help bury the body.”

“You know, Virgil,” Janus met his eyes. “You really are the best friend anyone could ask for.”

"What?" he mumbled as he looked down. "He was a dick."

"Come now, you also broke into the house of someone connected to illegal fighting rings whose interior decoration tended to the alive and miserable.”

Heat flooded into his face. “Least I can do.”

“Quite a bit more than the least.” His lips quirked into a smile. “Especially for someone who was terrified of talking to customers a year ago.”

"Oh, shut up." He poked Janus' neat brogue with his boot. "Mr. Sherlock Holmes here figured out the whole thing anyway." His chest felt funny, and he hugged his arms around it.

"Well, Watson," He took a deep breath and decided to stop tormenting Virgil with his tenderness. "I have our final deduction- the man had no clue where Remus is."

"Really?"

Janus shook his head. “He was just looking for an excuse for Roman to slip up the whole time. Taunting him, the furniture, physically hurting him- it was all trying to push him to some tiny ‘infraction’ so he could bluff about the information.”

“Huh.” He replayed the events and nodded slowly. “Sure, I can see that. Still, we don’t know if he’s always like that. He didn’t deny the information when Roman touched the furniture- which is a fucked up rule, Jan- I don’t know if him not saying where Remus is was an excuse at all. He said Remus was better than his brother, and he gets pissed when you suggest cutting those clumps out of his hair. He must have been-” He regretted saying it to Janus, but it was deduction time. “He must have been really- cruel to him for Remus to act anything like Roman. He enjoys being cruel, clearly.”

“You’re right.” He twisted the finger of his glove. “Still, surely telling Roman about how scared Remus was would upset him. And he didn’t, so something doesn’t add up.”

Well, his intuition hadn’t lied before. “So what do we do?”

“We find Remus first.” He straightened his shoulders. “Remy would have texted if he went back to the apartment, we can assume he’s not at the cafe since he was found there, and he could have gone to his usual parks and streets but if he’s being watched he wouldn’t. So, where would he go?”

“It wouldn’t be anywhere with a lot of people,” Virgil added. “Or maybe even with a lot of birds, since they all come to him. Somewhere abandoned?”

Janus nodded. “I think we could check out some of the old warehouse districts.”

He nodded. “Sounds like a start. That one’s only ten minutes after the home one.”

They waited quietly, each caught up in their own thoughts. The bus to their district began trundling past until it slowed down for them and the door opened.

Janus shook his head at the driver. “Sorry, we’re not coming.”

She began to close the doors again without comment.

“Wait!” Virgil waved at her. “Wait a moment! Wait-”

She stopped with a huff almost as loud as the bus’ exhaust. Janus let Virgil pull him through the door by his hand, tapping his card dutifully.

He raised an eyebrow as they stumbled into some seats.

“Where’s the place we were talking about running to just before, uh, bird-friend left?” Virgil whispered, even though he doubted the tired commuters would be listening in for names and details. “And where can you bury the kind of bird friend in our freezer? And where wouldn’t be a place you’d search?”

“The forest?” he replied. There was only a scrubby patch of it outside the city.

“Yup. Look, we should go back to the cafe to get Loki, anyone asks and we’re just, you know, getting rid of the health violation in the fridge in a way which isn’t a health risk to a park or anything.”

Janus stifled a yawn. “That’s very smart.”

“Thanks, it was kinda impulsive, but-” Virgil shrugged as he looked out the window at the unrelenting row of houses. “I’m happy to be out of there.” He tucked his arm around his friend. “And you can nap until we get there.”

“I’m just fine, Virgil,” Janus replied, affronted. “Besides, I don’t want to rumple my outfit.”

Virgil gave an exaggerated yawn himself, and Janus immediately followed. He glared at him, which only made Virgil give him a small grin. “Bedtime.”

He was met with a head thunking onto his shoulder. “You had better wake me up in time,” he threatened.

“I will.” He readjusted so he was more comfortable. “We’ll be fine.”

By time they reached the cafe the sky was white and grey. Virgil waited by the bus stop, leaning his head against it as a half-asleep Janus unlocked the front. After enough time for Virgil to consider if he could sleep upright (five minutes), he reappeared with a canvas bag with a rainbow flag hand-printed on it, and a stack of three sandwiches, which he handed to Virgil.

The bus came soon after, and they collapsed into one of the back seats.

They had barely finished the sandwiches by the time they reached their next stop. They got out onto a cracked bit of sidewalk and looked at the trees rising above them. Silent, they walked forward until the concrete suddenly ended.

Virgil breathed in the stench of wild garlic and dug his toe into the slimy layer of dead leaves. Damp air curled in his mouth as though it would die peacefully there. Something chittered in the distance, and then cut off suddenly. He tried to tilt his head up to look at the trees and suddenly the vertigo of only sleeping for a few hours on the bus journeys hit him.

It was a world away from the gilded cage and the dizzying party.

He took a deep breath. “This feels right.”

Janus nodded. He tucked the bag under his arm carefully. “I hope…” he trailed off softly. “Well, Virgil, let us venture onwards.”

He touched his friend’s elbow for just a moment before he walked into the dark trees. After a moment, Janus followed, and they walked on together.

There was occasional litter, plastic bags and water bottles, but as they got deeper into the thick trees and tangled brambles along the forest floor it disappeared. Janus winced as he tried to lift his perfectly shone shoes over a muddy patch Virgil’s leather boots trudged through with ease. The trees were stout and gnarled, fungus protruding out of them like infections.

They wandered without any real direction, just trying to make their way further into the labyrinth of trees.

Virgil suddenly caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye and he grabbed his friend’s arm.

It could have been a pile of abandoned clothes and torn out feathers-

But there was a glimpse of leopard print, and the vague outline of wings, and a low crooning coming from the figure curled there.

Janus crouched down six feet away from him, laying Loki’s bag by his side. “Remus,” he said so softly that Virgil barely heard it. “Remus, it’s Janus.”

Remus froze. Then his wings curved up around him. They were a lot taller than Janus was crouching. A pair of grey eyes came up to meet Janus’. His lips parted as he looked over the two of them. His purple and green makeup was smeared together until it looked like a black eye, and even his moustache seemed to have its own case of bed-head.

“We-” Virgil cleared his throat against a sudden lump. “Well, Janus, mostly, he found the guy’s house? And we went there, and, uh, we were worried about you so we looked.”

His eyes widened.

“We found your brother,” Janus said in a quiet voice. “Roman. He told us to tell you that he wasn’t a gladiator any more; he was there instead. That it, uh, wasn’t too bad.”

For a moment, Remus stopped breathing. Then he brought his hands up to his head, slumping his shoulders and letting his wings wrap around himself. “Bullshit,” he said hoarsely. “What else did he say?”

Janus bit his lip. “He told you to run away as soon as you could, and not to listen to anything they offered or threatened.”

Remus made a strangled yelping laugh which set Virgil’s teeth on edge. His wings were trembling so much that there was a slight breeze on his face. “Roman’s saviour goddamn hero bullshit-” He twined his fingers into his hair and started tugging. “He’s not- fuck,” he winced as he caught a matted section. “Not pathetic enough for that job.”

Janus tried to reach a hand out to untangle his hands from his hair, but Remus only stilled and leaned his head into his glove. Janus gently tugged at his wrist, but Remus wrapped his fingers around his hand and held it to his hair.

“Dude, you’re not pathetic. You broke out of that place all by yourself?” Virgil found his voice off-putting in the silence, but he kept speaking. “That’s hard. And you hid in the same town, in plain sight, for ages. And-”

“I ran away,” Remus said into his knees. “And I knew he’d get punished or die. He had to fight people. All goring out eyeballs and pulling out guts by the handful. Or the clawful. Depended on what kind of people were captured.”

“There are more people like you?”

He shrugged and, just like his brother, the movement made his wings move. “With the weird animal thing? Oh, sure. I would rather have a tentacle dick but you get what you get.” He spoke without humour.

Janus pressed a tiny kiss to the back of his hand, not seeming to care about the smear of dirt on it. “Darling, I’m sure you’re well enough endow-”

“No!” Virgil yelled, holding his hands up. “I have risked myself too many times today for you two to have to listen to that from you.”

Remus shrunk back further into a ball. “Sorry.”

For a moment Virgil was struck genuinely speechless. Then his brow furrowed. “Hey, no, I was just teasing.”

Janus turned to glare at him. He widened his eyes in response. Maybe he should have guessed Remus would be more delicate, but, well, it was Remus.

“Anyway, it’s okay, alright?” he attempted.

“Yeah, sure.” He lifted his head and smudged his makeup even more with the heel of his hand. “Fine.”

Virgil pulled the third sandwich out of his pocket and handed it over. “Figured you’d want that.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

Remus took it and began to carefully undo the wrapping. He took a small bite of the corner. “Mom and Dad are normal but Roman and I just were just born this way- oh there ain’t no other way,” he sang as he shimmied his wings. “But we lived in the middle of nowhere, and we stayed at home our whole lives, even though we talked a lot about hiding ourselves so that we could move. We kept ourselves to ourselves and we had a farm.” He threw his crust to the forest floor, seemingly by habit of having his flock around him. “Hope they didn’t search there for me; that would suck. Our parents saw us get captured, so at least they know what happened.”

Janus nodded as he listened. “How long ago was that?”

“Two years.” He stuffed the rest of the sandwich into his mouth.

“Goodness,” he said softly. “I can’t imagine.”

The corners of Remus’ moustache twitched up into a smile. “Nah, you couldn’t. Thanks,” he said through the remains of his sandwich.

Virgil waited for him to finish eating.

“We brought Loki with us, in the bag,” he said. “We figured it would be a good cover, and we can hold the funeral here.” He reached into the bag to pull out a trowel. They definitely hadn’t had one in the cafe, so Janus must have stored it there after Remus disappeared.

Janus reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and drew out a bag of classic Lays. He handed them over to Remus. “I do hope the flavour’s alright. I think it’s a classic.”

“Perfect,” he muttered. He stumbled up to his feet with a wince, holding his wings out for balance. Even without them fully spread out, the wingspan blocked the entire section of tree behind him. He rolled his shoulders back and flapped his wings.

Both of them stared.

Remus grinned and widened his eyes. “I can fly, you know. I could shit on you midair like-” All at once, his face crumpled and he held a hand up to his mouth. “Sorry, it all hit me again,” he said with a voice like sandpaper.

Virgil put his hoodie sleeve over his mouth as he swallowed back a guilty laugh. He started digging into the soft forest soil to distract himself.

He heard a flutter of feathers- had he been missing that under the whisper of all Remus’ shifting clothes before? - and then sobbing into a suit jacket. It was kind of scratchy on your face, Virgil knew, but it hid tears pretty well. He moved his whole shoulder into his digging, watching a depression form as the other two murmured words of upset and comfort to each other.

“I thought it was you,” whispered Janus against the shell of Remus’ ear. “And- my heart just stopped.”

“I wish it was.” Remus leant his forehead against Janus’ chest.

“But then how would I hold you, hm?” he replied, and there was the brush of fabric on fabric. “We’ll get him out.”

“You promise?” Remus said, and Virgil’s hand clenched around the handle. It wasn’t a good idea to-

“Promise. Split my chest open with a pickaxe and hope to pickle my heart.”

There was a wet laugh. “Kinky.”

“Come now, that was romance as well as kink.” His best friend’s voice was unbearably soft.

A warm feeling settled in Virgil’s chest despite the chill of the weather. Dammit. He stabbed the trowel into the ground again, ignoring the wetness in his own eyes.

He kept digging, until a set of feathers nudged into his face. “Did you poke me from all the way over there?” Virgil asked incredulously. Remus’ wing was as wide as he was tall, and he used it to poke him in the cheek again. It was a little disconcerting to see how much it moved like, well, a limb of his.

A feather brushed over the tears on his cheek. The wing retracted, and Remus came over to kneel by him and take the trowel. He sunk it into the ground, gouging out a huge section of earth with a small battle-cry. He flung it over his shoulder rather than adding to Virgil’s careful pile and then grinned at him.

A smile tugged at his mouth as he reached for the bag. “I think you finished the grave.”

He carefully wrapped the pigeon in the canvas bag Janus had chosen for her and handed it to Remus.

He looked at the little bundle in his hands for a long moment. Then he took her out of the bag. He began to unwind the plastic wrap.

Janus winced.

“That’s not clean-” Virgil whispered.

“It’s going to pollute the forest otherwise,” he replied without looking away from the corpse in his hands. “This is more natural. Besides, they’re pretty clean birds.”

So they watched in silence as he carefully took it all off and placed her in the grave. She was still intact, though her body had stiffened. “Thanks for being here, even if you were technically using her to stalk me,” he said. “Um, this was Loki. She was mischievous, and bold, and really smart. I’m going to miss her.” He cleared his throat and nodded, eyes wet. “Okay. Ready.”

Virgil scooped a handful of dirt with his trowel and scattered it over her. It pattered softly against the earth. Remus was staring hard into the distance. A few rays of sun poked through the trees as he pushed the rest of the dirt back into place. “Should we leave some rocks or something?”

Janus nodded. “I can collect-”

“I thought Roman was dead until a few days ago,” Remus interrupted. It sounded like a statement from a scratchy vinyl recording. “Ghosties are easier to carry around than big living brothers who got jacked from murder. Whatever you need me to do to get him out, I’ll do it. Killing, going back- whatever.”

“I don’t need you to do those things,” Janus said firmly. “All I need you to do now is come to my apartment,” he turned to his friend. “I’m not putting you in any further danger, Virgil-”

“Bullshit.”

He paused, brow furrowing. “Beg pardon?”

“That’s bullshit,” he repeated. “This is the part where you’re you’re going to think you’re being really smart about everything,” he held his hands up, “but you stick to your principles too much and you risk yourself and maybe those two-”

“Thank you for your confidence, Virgil,” he said acidicly.

“Anyway.” This was a spectacularly bad idea. “I’m helping.”

Defensive, his voice grew more formal. “If this is about the court cases, or the job, I promise you that you owe me nothing-”

“I like you, and I like Remus, and I don’t like what’s happening.” He shrugged. “It’s not a big thing; it’s just as simple as that. Okay?”

After a moment, Janus gave a nod.

“Aw, you like me?” Remus cooed. He wiggled his shoulders and grinned, his eyes crinkling up at the corners.

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Course.”

Janus gave Remus a helplessly fond smile. “Then it’s decided. I think we could all use some sleep, then we start this evening.”

#ts fic #sanders sides #remus sanders #janus sanders #virgil sanders #dukeceit #platonic dukexiety #hurt/comfort

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brooklynislandgirl · 4 years ago

Note

Beth and UARF!Billy - ❤♡❥ღ💕💘💝💓💌💟💙💚💜💛

Heart-Eyes || -

Five A.M.

Beth’s barely awake as she comes into the office, coffee in hand, only to come face to face with the widest grin she has ever seen on Hal Gates’ face. Dark eyes dancing, he relieves her of her thermos cup, takes both her arms in his hands, and swing-dances her around the cramped space where they work.

“We’ve done it, girl!”

Though abjectly confused, Beth can’t help but grin in return. “Wha’ve we done?” She wants to be just as thrilled, wants to share in the old man’s joy. “We’ve got data on white pointer mating! I’m running the compile now, we should be able to parse it and watch the video footage within an hour or two!”

She’s floored.

The shock is clear on her face, even her mouth drops open a little. Often bandied about as the Holy Grail of marine biology, great-white mating is known to exist. Despite decades of research into the habits of the species, that particular bit of knowledge has eluded marine biologists.

“Wha...? How?”

“Mate of mine, Crawford down in New Zealand has taken a fisherman’s eye-witness account on our elusive little friends, and shared video. Crawford sent me all of the data.”

“Oh, Hal.”

Dr Gates nods at her eagerly and once again promenades her around some tables, brushing past a stack of hastily shoved aside folders with charts of migration patterns, weather reports, and feeding data. Then, far more carefully, he hands her into a seat and plops down into an office chair, slapping his knees in pleasure and pride.

“Speaking of mating rituals...”

Beth laughs but blushes at the same time, eyes askance. She suddenly knows what he’s going to ask, or at least of whom.

“...And since we have so little to do until all the research is collated and complied...”

“Must we?”

“No finer time, girl.”

She holds her hands up to stave him off until she gets up, crosses the room and takes a sip of her coffee. Not exactly how she wanted to start the day, but there’s no real reason not to humour her mentor.

“Have at, den.”

“Excellent.” Hal Gates really is an inveterate old gossip.

~*~

❤: who is more affectionate in public? in private?

Beth laughs. Okay, so this isn’t really so bad. “I t’ink I gotta say...I’m more affectionate in public. Mos’ of da time, Doctah Manderly... just doesn’t know what t’ do. Very stiff, hands in his pockets or stand at parade rest.”

The last cocktail party had been a half disaster, between trying to get William to mingle with the public attendees and not leave to check on his seals at first opportunity. The one time he surprised her was when he put a hand on the small of her back though the illusion was broken when she found that the six-foot-six man was trying to ultimately hide behind her. No amount of mock-tails were going to spare him any acute discomfort.

“Probably for da best. No offence, but he’s very definitely...ah....British.”

“None taken.” Hal offers her a wink and taps the side of his nose.

“But even behind close doors? He just... lil uptight, I guess. I sometimes wonder if mebbe he’s worried about havin’ an episode, and some affections are difficult when you have a service dog nearly t’ree-quarters ya size intent on doin’ her job, but I’d say he at least tries when it jus’ da two of us. Fingahs in my hair, brush against my arm. Da kine.”

Hal nods, knowing the specifics without having to drag them out of her.

♡: who is the bigger romantic openly? secretly?

"I t’ink,” she begins, carefully considering this one. “Dat anyone who loves da sea so much dat dey would give up a whole life to dedicate demself to it...got a big romantic soul. What is da ocean, if not love an’ life, an’ all dat we dream of in songs an’ poetry? I only t’ink it’s harder for him to express dat because well..”

She makes a dismissive gesture.

It isn’t that he grasps the concepts of language and expression, they’ve certainly entertained passionate arguments, verbal jousts that have filled the air with sign and countersign.

“Romantically speakin’ I jus’ don’ see him as da type dat I’m gonna find outside my window wi’ an ole boom box, playing In Ya Eyes by Petah Gabriel, ya know? But I also don’t believe he wouldn’t t’ink about it. So secretly? Him. Openly, me.”

❥: who is more likely to plan something big for valentine's day?

“Honestly, Hal...I’d have t’ say him. He’s a planner. Wants every detail to be perfect, will second guess himself a hundred times jus’ to make sure dere no wrinkle in the research. Me? Always been da spontaneous kine, except when it came to really wantin’ to work wit’ you.”

Hal pats her lap, his face soft.

ღ: who is more likely to initiate hand-holding in public?

“Again, it would be William. I don’ know wha’ he’s t’inkin’ a lot of da time, if he’s even aware dat I am dere sometimes. An’ I don’ really wanna make a big deal about it, don’ wanna ovahstep. For me, it’s a much more difficult proposition, is like...touch is where I’m most comfortable, outside of typing endless notes or readin’ data.”

She nods toward the words scrolling along the screen. She fully disclosed her disabilities when she applied for the position so thankfully she doesn’t have to explain now. Most of the other people at the facility don’t even really notice. Except for maybe Ben who sees too much and maybe says too little. That’s to be expected though when you gather a bunch of scientists and stick them in one beautiful place.

“You want him to initiate more, don’t you?”

“I would, yeah. But dere always more important kine and so really guess it nevah really matter.”

💕: who is more likely to make huge declarations of love in front of other people?

“Fair question an’ I guess dat would be me. We...we agreed not to make a big t’ing about any of dis, you know how quirky everyone here is, an’ in case it doesn’t work out, we don’ want da kine t’ get weird. Especially wi’ James an’ Miranda. So if somet’ing like dis were t’ happen it’s probably because he push all my buttons an’ my tempah got da best of me, right? Could see it happenin’ over breakfast. On da beach. Mebbe by da pools.”

Which is why she tries so hard to keep her passions in check. She doesn’t want to blurt out anything that can’t be taken back.

💘: who developed a crush on the other first?

“Couldn’t say,” and in those two words it is the breadth and depth of her honesty. Beth doesn’t have crushes in the same way most people do. She’s never seen anyone and instantly found herself immersed in fantasies, desires, a desperate need to be around them. She might find someone intellectually stimulating and enjoy the conversation. She might notice that something about them calls to her artist’s eye and be aesthetically pleasing in its symmetry, someone might make her laugh but she doesn’t dwell. And by the time there is the first inkling that she might want more out of a situation or relationship, she’s already become close friends. Or she watches as that object of her affection drifts beyond reach and she tells herself she’s happy because they clearly needed something more than she’s even capable of giving.

And sometimes, Beth wonders if she isn’t really broken or damaged in some way. Because she can’t even say she ever had a crush on Billy. She doesn’t know that she can say she has any expectations other than they look good together on paper, and it’s been drilled into her since birth that appearances *do* matter. “Mo’beddah you should ask him.” Gates doesn’t say anything, he only nods.

💝: who spends more time (possibly overthinking) what presents to get the other?

“William. For same-same reasons as Valentines Day, an’ da need for everyt’ing to be as exactin’ as he can make it. Like, how hard and how long it take him to find...or more likely, *breed* dem two purple neocardinas in my office?” Shrimp like the two in her tank, deliriously happy and spoiled and free of predators, are rare in size and colour, and yet… there they are. Then there’s the allegorical evidence of his severe and frothing dislike of mass consumption marketing, the complete commercialisation of every secular and religious holiday, the pastiche of feelings tacked on almost like an afterthought.

💓: who initiates most physical contact?

Beth hesitates. That’s slightly more personal than the other questions so far and truth be told she’s a little ashamed of having to answer without specific parameters. But it is a question, and she did agree to answer them with the same honesty as she offers Hal in all their other work and conversations. “I’ve always done well wi’ sensory input dat was based in kine oddah dan auditory. Smell, taste, seeing… but of alla dem, touch has always been important to me. Textures, near imperceptible data processed t’rough skin. An’ I guess dat I use dat wi’ him. Way to express ideas or sensations dat might not come across ordinarily. Enthusiasm, excitement, humour, rage, disappointment. I wan him to feel an’ understand when I don’ have da words in me, or know how to express. A lot of da time, it’s accidental or at least….subconscious.” A beat goes by. “I don’t believe he really cares much for it.”

💌: who is more likely to send cutesy texts to the other?

This one is hard for her to answer because they aren’t really cutesy text people. Most of their days are too filled with very real world drama, service to the greater good, the understanding and conservation of the most vulnerable environments and animals within. There’s weather, there’s reports, there’s an entire litany of experiences that don’t leave much time to play around until well after hours when they can finally seek well deserved liberty. However, Billy does sometimes send her pictures of the seals doing very cute seal things, or Annie shepherding him and his charges with the boss-vibes of the Queen Mother. In the end she only offers her mentor a smile and a shrug.

💟: who spends time reading their zodiac compatibilities?

“Oh absolutely I do. Find da whole pseudo-science of it fascinatin’, especially when da stars are not in da same position as dey were when it was invented an’ da psychological impact it has on our species is jus’ totally wild, you know?”

Beth knows that she’s the textbook definition of a Cancerian woman, and Billy does a good job providing a counter-argument on being a Libra. Further there’s a bit of an annoyance factor; he thinks junk science ‘belongs in the bottom of the bin with the rest of the rubbish.’ And he has a point, to some extent, even if she doesn’t agree with him. Not everything can be cold facts and numbers. Sometimes a little playfulness was in order and he absolutely needed to be reminded of that.

Hal laughs and shakes his head. “You’re going to do my chart then, aren’t you?” “Wit’out a doubt, Doctah Gates.” She wiggles her brows.

💙: who is more protective?

“I think objectively, I am. You know William’s troubles, and I have to keep them all in mind dough it’s not like he can forget dem, right? Some of his facts aren’t… I’ve consulted with some medical doctors and if we are careful, dere’s a lot he can experience dat he sees out of reach but I don’ like bringing dem up because I don’ want to agitate him. Only can lead t’ problems.” She does wish though that he’d trust her a little more, that he’d let go of some of his well deserved fears. That he’d let himself out of his shell and accept that even with limitations he can do many of the same things as the rest of the group does. But he seems content enough to hang back, ever the observer. And she doesn’t know if it’s her place to try to drag him into things though she might be better at it than anyone else. Miranda has told her as much.

💚: who tends to get sick more often? who is better at taking care of the other?

Hal’s question is really a continuation of the previous one and once again she has to call Billy out on it. Because she’s never really been sick a day in her life, not since early childhood and the culmination of that was the test bite that nearly lost her the leg she keeps tucked away, hidden out of sight whenever possible. “Dat seems a small kine ingenious, he no can help his seizure disorder. An’ I feel like he really ought to have a good psychologist. I t’ink some t’erapy would do him good. Spends too much time in his own head an’ mebbe not enough taking charge of his life. I know he can be afraid of lots of t’ings but it nevah really *has* to be dat way. But I also don’ wanna push him, for same-same reasons I mention before. You can lead a shark to chum but no can make him frenzy, know what I mean?” The analogy is silly. Billy wants so much more than what he feels he has. And a darker current in the back of her mind wonders if they would still be the same if he felt he could reasonably have them. That feels so selfish and toxic and she really has no place casting judgement on him when maybe she’s no better off than he is, only expressing it differently.

💜: who said "i love you" first? or, if neither has said it yet, who is more likely to say it first?

It’s strange how perceptive he is and goes in for the killing bite. The honest truth is that neither one has said it. And neither one likely will. Billy has layers of guilt and trauma, has beliefs that she cannot get a single foothold to try and tear apart. He doesn’t feel deserving of such a finer emotion. And Beth? She has her own reasons. She doesn’t even know if love is a thing that exists or if it’s some fairy-tale people tell themselves to make it easier to get by. She believes in affection, and she believes that people bond the same way packs and pods and herds do. But she feels the concept of love is poisonous. Ruinous in the way it can destroy someone from the inside out. And how any time she’s ever thought she’d felt it, it was ripped out from her grasp. She won’t say it. She won’t hear it.

She doesn’t answer him immediately, but instead gets up and paces away, appearing as though she’s checking on some of the cameras situated around the bay. The wall that she’d left down for Hal goes back up, slamming into place.

“Research from both psychology and neurology fields have found that there are twelve different areas of the brain that light up and work together when two people are attracted to one another, releasing chemicals like dopamine, adrenaline, oxytocin and vasopression. All the symptoms people experience are simply animal-instincts provided to guarantee that we as a species survive by either wanting to mate, or flee.”

💛: who believes in soulmates?

And Gates understands he’s made an error in judgement, though he’d only been trying to be helpful in a meddling kind of way. Anyone at the facility could see that Billy and Beth were two sides of a very quirky but ultimately needed coin. That they’d both changed each other in the two years she’d been a research fellow, and how they’d both blossomed for it. Well, anyone but the two of them. And this had seemed like such a good idea at first, tied into shark mating habits which he’d hoped she’d take better than she is.

Her answers have thus far matched up quite nicely with the boy’s.

Sadly, especially this one. She doesn’t turn to look at him. “There are no such things, Doctor Gates. And even if there were, statistically it would be almost impossible to meet a soul mate. Within the same general age group there are about a half a billion potential companions all over the world. One would have to travel the entirety of the world, every remote pocket of the planet. Secondly, there’s no scientific proof that souls even exist, and enough studies across various disciplines to prove that they don’t. Believing in such nonsense only makes a person unhappy. And all that aside, most mammals are not biologically programmed for monogamy and I doubt human beings are either.” Because if they were, why would anyone leave someone they claimed to love?

#Mahalo!Crow <3333 #A Star to Sail Her By|Doctor William Manderly #No Man's Land|Billy and Beth #Urca Aquarium and Research Facility #Aloha'aina|Hawai'i

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mcrmadness · 4 years ago

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Madness draws: Behind the Scenes of the Bela/Farin: “Widumihei” comic.

A few months ago I posted here this comic:

CLICK HERE for the original post about that comic where you can see it in better and bigger size, and also reblog it ;)

And this post is just a deep dive into how I plan, do and draw my comics.

Let’s start with sketchbook things...

So every comic needs a story, right? My comics usually are born from either some dialogue I imagine in my head or by an impulsive inspiration that happens when I see something or talk with people and a random idea is triggered. I’m very good at coming up with new ideas solely based on just one word or so which is why I often ask people if they have anything they would want to see/read because I suck at coming up ideas on my own. Or I do get ideas, but not as often as I’d want to.

This particular idea was very old and I have tried but I cannot find the piece that was my inspiration but it was in some of my old German books because I remember laughing at it with either my brother or even with the German teacher in 2011 or 2012. I was only able to find my first “sketch” of the story:

This is in the notebook I used for writing down some comic ideas and even had one comic in it, plus it’s also my fanfiction writing notebook. It has no date but I know for sure it was either 2011 or 2012 because that’s when I did my last Bela/Farin comic and pretty much started my (unintentional) 6 year pause from drawing altogether.

I have always been trilingual when I do these plans for my comics, often writing the “narration” in Finnish and the dialog either in English or German because I just cannot imagine them to speaking Finnish. The translation of that text goes as:

COMIC (sarjis = sarjakuva = comic book in Finnish)

1. The phone is ringing. 2. F: “Widumihei?!” B: ? 3. B: “Farin wtf?” 4. Farin walks from another room. 5. B: “Widumihei?” 6. F: “It means, “will you marry me?”“ 7. B: *wtf* REPLAY:

1. Bela is sitting/laying somewhere. 2. The phone is ringing. Reached with his hand? 3. Looks at the phone, “wtf?”, a thought: “von Jan: Widumihei?!” 4. Bela: “Farin?” / “Jan?” 5. F comes from another room, looks in from behind the door frame or something. B: “Widumihei?” 6. F: “Widumihei: “WIllst DU MIch HEiraten”“ 7. B: “WTF”

So when I then started to draw these comics again in 2018, I kept thinking about this one too and still wanted to draw it one day. If you have read the finished comic, you may notice something different in the old plot versus new: I switched Bela’s and Farin’s roles. Back then I didn’t know too much yet but over the years I have learnt much much more about them and I just figured that asking to marry him even as a joke would be too much for Farin and that it would fit Bela’s persona much much better.

***

I had a bit of problems with getting started with this one, mainly because the last times I drew a dä comic was in June 2020, in April 2020 and before those in October 2019. Because of so long time between the comics, I just always forgot about my methods and in which order I do things and what works for me the best. So every time I started to work on a comic, I had to start completely over because all I had was blank paper and I somehow needed to get my thoughts in order and out of my head, into a physical form aka as text and images on the paper, and it’s easier said than done.

So pardon me but from this on the text is going to get a little bit confusing for a little while from now on - but it’s also a very good look over how the life with my suspected ADHD be like sometimes...

I started working on the plot once again to my sketchbook... I think it was somewhere in the beginning of 2020. Because the next idea there is from the summer. This is what the plot looked like at that point - here I had already switched their roles:

Shortly, the texts go: 1. Farin is reading a book. 2. A phone makes a noise. 3. (Farin) looks at it/read the message. / 6. B appears into the doorway. / 11. F spits out the tea.

And underneath it you can see one of the stick figure storyboards I often do in order to kinda see the text in pictures better, and I will write down or draw important aspects like expressions (Farin’s eyebrows) or things like *facepalm’* or *eyeroll* so that I remember to add them.

Next I was struggling with the era. It needed to be an era with the old mobile phones with SMS options but still not too early because I feel that Farin would have not been the first in line to buy a brand new technology object, especially not when it’s a phone. I was even googling when did Germany get their first mobile phone - I remember I got my first phone aka Nokia 5510 in 2000 or 2001 after my mom got a new one and gave her old one to me, so the story shouldn’t happen too many years before the Millenium.

Originally I planned 1997 for that - I needed to think about that based on their styles because shorter hair is harder to draw. Here’s me trying out some hairs and how they’re to draw and which era would suit my needs the best. I actually find the text hilarious altho it’s mine but this is what it’s in English:

Time period -> 1996-1997? 1998 I’ve never drawn 1999 is not that much fun to draw 2000 is already a bit too late? Bela not that much fun to draw. -2001 moustaches are not fun to draw?

I think I was struggling with my thoughts because the next thing in that sketchbook is yet another storyboard:

Or actually I think this was just to see how many sheets I’d need and how many panels I could fit on one sheet.

Anyhow, I then did other things for some time before I got back to this project this year. Including finishing with the sketchbook I had been using since 2010 (and the half of it since 2018!) and I had to get myself a new one. So when I started to think about this comic again, one night I was just thinking about some Bela/Farin scenarios as usual and suddenly I just felt that I NEED to do the comic in the 1998 style!!! So suddenly we jump from the original 1997 idea to the new era, only because of the colors.

So asap I grabbed my sketchbook and started to look for the proper colors for the hairs:

This one I posted here before too as I was struggling a lot and just felt that I didn’t know how to draw, again. Sometimes when I feel like that, I start drawing with my non-dominant aka left hand because it doesn’t have all that in muscle memory so drawing and writing with it feels more free and it feels almost like pressing a refresh button in my brain. Suddenly the right one know again how to draw because left isn’t too well in control. The below part of the image is done completely with the left hand, including the coloring.

And because I had now a new sketchbook, I somehow couldn’t... deal with the plot and plans being in a different sketchbook than everything else so I had write the plot/dialog AGAIN, into this new sketchbook, along with the storyboards and everything:

Translations: kirja = book, puhelin = phone, oviaukossa = in the doorway, teet suusta = tea(s) out of a/the mouth. “Puhelin zoom” just means “close up to the phone screen” in Madness.

You can also see that I found out that I don’t need to do the stick figure storyboards to imitate a sheet when I can just draw this rectangle and smaller rectangles inside of it and write there numbers to match the things in the dialog to make it much easier for me to plan the pages. And here’s also a small easter egg: there’s 13 panels overall in this comic :D I almost did 12 but then felt that no, I really need to do 13 because, you know, the hairs, the era, the album title. And also because I like the number so much lmao.

So from there we get to the second storyboard which is not just stick figures anymore but just me planning how I want the panels to look like. To get the imagery of the rooms and facial expressions etc. out onto the paper so that I can see them in real life instead of my shady imagination that sometimes isn’t as vivid as what I could be.

Also have you ever tried to draw a beach chair? It’s more difficult than you’d think:

I tried to draw the same thing from the same reference photos so many times and still I always felt like I was trying to draw that impossible triangle or some other illusion image. And it just went on and on here:

Originally I also had planned the second panel to be a close up of the phone so that Farin’s face would be left at the background from the frog perspective. That’s what I was trying to with that weird-ass face on the left but turned out that I have never drawn these characters from such angle and I just... couldn’t see it in my head clearly enough to be able to draw it. So I dismissed that idea and that’s why the angle changed from a phone close-up to a side view to the room and at Farin.

As I was in the middle of planning the second page, I suddenly wasn’t happy with my original plot anymore. I wasn’t sure if it would work and needed to think about it one more time. So I wrote two other dialogs here, along with a storyboards for them both. I ended up choosing B from those two options eventually.

I don’t remember anymore if I had already done the first sketch of the comics or not but at some point I just felt that I no longer knew how to draw in my style. Sometimes you just draw and learn wrong things and wrong methods that you get used to and then you have to take a break and actually do a little bit of studying over your own style to find again the way how you want to draw, and get rid of the bad habits and find the good ones again. In my case it was to draw the eyes way way too big when they originally never were THAT big, so I had to learn how to draw them small and normal again. That’s why I did these, as I really needed to pay attention to the faces and remember how to draw them again:

The front-side views were another big readong for this “study” because I have drawn that perspective only once or twice before and I needed to figure out how I want to draw that. Also, I don’t know if it’s just me but for some reason the front-side Farin reminds me of one of the parent characters from this cartoon called The Rugrats which I watched as a kid. It was totally unintentional, but you can google The Rugrats if you don’t know how the charatcers looked like in the cartoon.

The things below are just me testing something. The red Farins were just to test how the colored pencils work on each other and how the fineliners work with the colored pencils, and which way is the better way to do the shading. And the red colored pencil was the only one available at the time so that had to do.

A little bit about the heads btw: You might notice some difference between the left and right faces. It’s because I have always, always struggled with drawing anything that is looking at right. Most of the animal portraits and all I have drawn so that they look at left because I just find it so much easier to draw. I think with comics it’s because I always start with the eye (and the eyebrows if I don’t forget it) and then do the forehead, nose, mouth and chin, and after that I either continue from the hair (from the front) or do the ear first. But when I am drawing them to look at right, I have to basically draw the mirror image and starting from the hair is not the key because it can easily mess up with the perspectives. I still usually draw everything in the same order but it really is difficult because I’m doing a mirror image and my own hand is on the way, too. Basically I’m drawing from right to left instead of left to right! (I think I should try drawing those with my left hand, then...)

And from here we get to the first sketch of the comic. From here on the images are from my phone’s camera so they are sometimes illegally bad but no can do, I again didn’t think I’d post these to anywhere:

Here you can see I was mainly just focusing on the shapes and the space inside those panels. Just trying to see the perspective and how everything is. The only thing that I drew more precisely was the third panel, with the hand and phone. I had quite a nice memory of old phones in my head but I still googled for some reference photos of Nokia 5110 phones as that was my first phone (as I mentioned earlier), and I also happened to have some of my other old phones on the table nearby so I took my own hand reference photos too:

They always say there’s a little bit of the artist in their art and this one literally has that - “Farin’s” hand is actually my hand! :D And I think the size is kinda on point too because this phone was like 2-3 times smaller than Nokia 5110 and I have small hands, and I believe Farin must have much bigger hands, so the 5110 probably would have looked about the same size in his hand.

After the first sketch, the next step was then - the second sketch:

I also wanted to add more action to the panels so that it’s interesting to look at and not just basically the same panel over and over again with just different speech bubbles, so I came up with the idea of Farin spitting out his tea not being as cartoony as it could be and that he would have to actually clean it up instead of just leaving it there just because in cartoons/comics everything is possible. That way I got more depth into the panels and it was also interesting for me to draw because I drew lots of new postures I have never drawn before, and I’m surprised how well it went despite me not even looking for any kind of reference photos! The only things I used reference photos for were the beach chair, and the phone in a hand. (I have actually always been quite good at drawing 3D objects and spaces, especially if they are rectangular.)

So yeah, this is the phase where everything is then finished with pencil and what follows next is drawing the lines with fineliners - I use Sakura Pigma Micron fineliners for everything else, and black Promarker for doing the lines for the panels (and also if I need bigger pitch black areas done).

Here are the panel lines done but I only had a photo of this first sheet.

And here are both sheets with the finelining done and all pencil marks etc. erased. I really like this part because it looks so clean when all those sketch marks are gone. It’s also crazy to think I literally spend hours drawing something in pencil only to erase it all away later :D

And here’s one photo of the coloring process, the first one has only the base colors done but none of the shadows yet (apart from the shirts), and the second one has some of the shadows done but not everything yet.

Usually after coloring, I will then go through everything with the fineliners one more time to make sure all the lines are dark enough as it just gives everything the finished yet a bit “sketchy” look that what I really like with my comics. The actual last detail is always adding my signature along with the date or year.

And here’s the finished comic one more time for comparison:

Don’t forget to check and reblog the actual post about this comic if you read this post all the way here. I’d appreaciate that a lot since art and artist on Tumblr are not really that much appreciated.

#mcrmadness draws #mcrmadness draws: behind the scenes #my comics #dä fanart #die ärzte

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saiilorstars · 4 years ago

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Rise Up

Ch.11: Black Orchid

Previous Story: It Had To Be You || Current Masterlist

Pairings: Barry Allen x OFC

Chapter Summary: Following a tip from a time travelling friend, Belén starts the endeavor to find a way into the Green: a world for all botanist metahumans. She goes in search of a potential ally from another botanist metahuman, Black Orchid, who seems like she would rather work alone.

Pronunciation of OC: Bell-en. The last syllable has an emphasis so it’s not pronounced like ‘Helen’ would be.

Taglist: @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @perfectlystiles [If you’d like to be part of this OC’s taglist, let me know!]

"So...Mom knows about you?" Maritza watched her sister's uncomfortable form on the other side of the glass. Belén gave a silent nod of her head. She'd told Maritza about her mother finding out, in the worst way possible, she was the Azalea. "Gosh, Belén...she didn't take it well, did she?"

Belén shook her head. "Nope. She's moved on from the 'I'm ignoring you' phase and she's onto full fledged anger."

"I think the word 'metahuman' is just tarnished for her after everything that's happened," Maritza said, though in no way did she mean to give their mother a pass on her behavior. "I'm sorry."

"No, this one's not on you. It's on me," Belén sighed. "I thought that maybe after telling her my secret, things between us might start getting better again, but…"

"I'm sorry," Maritza felt the need to say again. After everything Belén had told her, going from their mother's challenging personality to the metahumans hunting them down...Maritza could only say 'sorry'. She wished, wished, that she could do something to help Belén but her past choices have prohibited her from. "I really wish I could help you out there."

Belén found it in her to smile. She didn't know how, or when, but coming to see Maritza had stopped being a chore and more like...a way to relieve stress. She could tell Maritza everything that was going on and not be judged. She hadn't quite forgiven Maritza for everything she did last year, but...Belén could say she was getting there.

Feeling her phone buzz inside her pocket, Belén gave it a quick check and found a text from Iris. She had to say goodbye to Maritza in order to meet back at STAR Labs.

~ 0 ~

Iris had done her job as best as she could and when she wanted to, she could almost be like a spy the way she found information on people. She had pulled up a profile of a woman dressed in a black and magenta suit with an over-sized jacket. Soon as Cisco saw the picture he let out a wolf whistle, along with questions about her specific clothing choice.

"This is why I do the suits, just saying," he raised his hands to show he was just making a statement...a true statement.

"Who are we looking at, Iris?" Belén asked, brown eyes already scanning the woman's picture till it burned in her mind.

"She calls herself Black Orchid," Iris began. She rose from her seat and zoomed in on the picture of woman. "As far as anyone knows, she's a meta with - take a guess - plant-based powers who usually appears in the lower parts of the city."

"The slummy parts?" Barry figured that would be the best place to lay low and still make a name for themselves.

"She's not known for always appearing when needed, but she's still known enough to have search engine results," Iris scrolled through some of her pictures, stopping at a familiar tab. "This is actually from my old blog. People still send me stuff and take a look at the date for this post."

Belén walked up to the screen to find the date stamp. The picture was of Black Orchid holding up one, no doubt, petty thief in her arms in front of a crowd of people. "That's last month." She turned sideways, one finger pointed behind her at the picture. "She's an active meta, then."

"It's been weeks since her last appearance but do you know what's interesting about that too? It's right around the time Datura and you fought for the first time."

"Could it be that's she's scared of Datura, then?" Caitlin's theory made sense since pretty much everyone in the room feared the siphoner.

"It also means she's keeping up with the news and thus still very much in the city," Barry crossed his arms.

"So, why exactly are we looking for this girl?" Cisco made the question he'd been dying to ask ever since Iris made them gather in the cortex.

Belén walked back to the main desk and put her arms over them, nervous for some reason. It wasn't like her friends would call her crazy for what she wanted to do, after all. "Graciela mentioned a place to me - the Green - that I could use to contact other metahumans that are like me. It's a place like the Speedforce, if you will, where I could train and...meet metas like me. Meta who could help me get better so that I can fight Datura and actually stand a chance."

"And you think Black Orchid will be that meta?" Cisco languidly pointed at the picture on the screen.

"With any luck, she's got a better handle on her powers," Belén shrugged. "And I can pretty much use any help I can get."

"It's worth a shot," Barry agreed with her. "We just have to find her and bring her in."

"Like...here?" Caitlin blinked. She hadn't made that connection until now. "Do we think that'd be a good idea? Revealing where the Azalea and the Flash work?"

"She's obviously taking on crime already," Iris gestured to the pictures she'd collected. "She could be a good addition to the team."

"Black Orchid was a villain on my Earth before she disappeared," Harry startled the group from behind. He'd come in as quiet as usual and strode down the room with purpose. He came to a stop in front of the pictures on the screen and gazed at them for a few seconds. "You should be careful. She's as toxic as you, Belén."

"But she's not a villain here, clearly," Belén said. "And I actually need her to be toxic, okay?"

Harry turned sideways, giving them all a look that said 'you're all idiots and are going to get killed'. "Bringing in more metahumans into this is only going to blow up in your face. You want to take Datura down? You kill her already."

"Easier said than done," Belén folded her arms. "And I'm not exactly looking to kill her."

"She is with you."

"Okay," Barry cut in before Harry's imprudence got worse. "Thank you, Harry, for your input but this is something Belén wants to do. I support her and so does everyone else."

Harry scoffed lightly. "Course you do. Cos you're all idiots."

"Do you have a better idea?" Cisco called from behind. "No?" he let a few more seconds of silence pass by before saying, "Then hush!"

"Thanks guys," Belén sent her friends a warm smile. "And thanks Iris for searching. My head's been all over the place, so…"

Iris nodded at her. "Any time. I can keep looking if you want."

"I say we focus on Black Orchid right now," Belén glanced at the screen. "We need to find her, so...yeah. Let's focus on where she appears most."

As the group made plans to continue searching for Black Orchid, eventually dispersing from the room, Harry inched closer to the super suits left on display. He looked over his shoulder to make sure he was alone in the room then yanked off Belén's suit tracker. He then gingerly planted a decoy in its place. For Jessie.

~ 0 ~

Datura swiftly caught Belén's suit tracker with both her hands and squealed with genuine delight. "Finally!" She held the small device between her fingers and clicked her tongue. "Now the game can finally start!"

Harry stood across her in the alley, his face blank of any expression. "My daughter is safe, right?"

Datura lowered her hand and offered one sneaky smile. "Sure. I do remember to feed her once in a while." She waited for his reaction but he stood frigid. "Don't like my joke? Fine. So-" she tucked the suit tracker into her pocket, "-what's my dear Belén up to now?"

Harry stayed quiet for a few minutes. He hated this so much. A snitch. That's what he was reduced to by some 25 year old in a leather suit. Not just that but a thief and a traitor.

"Wells?" Datura's voice darkened, as did the part of her face Harry could see with her mask. "I need to know what Belén is up to. I might just forget to give Jesse some dinner today."

The mention of his daughter made the man finally move from his stance. "She's looking for the metahuman, Black Orchid."

Datura snorted. "Killed her off a while ago," she mumbled. Her dark eyes met his surprised gaze and caused another sneaky smile to spread across her face. "What? You didn't know that one? Offed her months ago."

"Why?" Harry asked wearily. He would love to finally know what she was planning, what Zoom was planning...but learning that would mean he'd die seconds later.

"She was in my way and I thought she would be the one," Datura's cryptic answer was almost like she hadn't answered at all. All Harry got from that was it just another fight between criminals. "Anyways," she played with one of her long curls, "Let Belén find the doppelganger. No matter how hard she trains she'll never be better than me. It's just impossible." She turned to leave but stopped to give Harry one more warning, "By the way, Zoom might be requiring something from you soon."

At that, Harry gulped.

~ 0 ~

"I think we got a pretty good location, don't you think?" Iris glanced back at Belén to see the woman staring down at the kitchen table that held all of their information on Black Orchid.

They were in Belén's apartment, scouring through every last detail they could find of their meta. Together, they'd found more pictures of Black Orchid, some even when she was in the middle of some pretty gruesome fights.

"She's pretty much all over the slummy streets but, if I counted right, she's appeared at this intersection more than the others," Belén picked up a picture of an intersection that happened to hold a pretty cruddy-looking bar. "I bet you that bar is where we'll find out more about her."

"You want to go there?" Iris made a face at the picture. It was only a picture and it already scared her.

"It's okay, I can go by myself," Belén's reassurance didn't exactly help Iris because she didn't want Belén going there by herself either.

But someone knocked on the door, preventing Iris from voicing these opinions out loud. Belén let the picture back on the table and went to go open the door.

"Mom?" she blinked in surprise to see Veronica. Of course, when the surprise faded she was pretty relieved - and perhaps partly excited - to see her. "Come in!"

Veronica, in her part, still looked pretty unsure of herself. She walked in and gave a brief, small smile at Iris. "You're busy…"

"Yeah, but, don't worry. You wanted to talk?" Belén's excitement did not go unnoticed by Veronica.

With a sigh, Veronica shrugged. "I would like to, but...I don't know if it'll change things." She walked towards the kitchen and noticed all the papers sprawled across the table. "Were you two working?"

Iris didn't know what to respond with. She looked to Belén for some help, or clues, as to what to say. Would Belén want to disclose what they were actually doing or keep it away from Veronica?

"Yeah, we're looking for someone," Belén came to stand beside her mother, looking pretty unsure herself.

"A meta?" the distaste in Veronica's tone was clear for anyone to pick up on. She picked up a photograph of Black Orchid and frowned. "So you're really deep into this metahuman world."

"I have to be, Mom. I'm one of them," Belén said quietly and with eyes boring onto her mother's face for a reaction.

"Don't…" Veronica seemed to shiver at the reminder of Belén's metahuman side. "I wish you wouldn't say that so openly."

"Why not? It's the truth."

"Yes, but…" Veronica stopped and glanced at Iris. Just as the reporter was about to announce her departure, Veronica caught her off guard with a question. "How do you let her do this? How can you just let Belén go into this dangerous world and be okay with it?"

"Mom!" Belén exclaimed disapprovingly, but Iris was good with quick responses thanks to her line of work.

"Because it's her choice and, to be honest, she's a perfect fit for the job," Iris crossed her arms. "She and Barry are the perfect people to protect us. And people like us-" she pointed at herself then Veronica, "-have a duty to help them wherever we can. That includes being supportive."

Veronica's face was indescribable. On some part, she seemed impressed with the response...but then another part was angry Iris wasn't taking her side. "Well...you would say that," she said in the end in a low mumble, "Barry's your brother...does Joe know about this?" Iris didn't have to say or do anything for Veronica to know. "Course he does because he's your father."

"Mom, I thought we were going to talk…" Belén inwardly sighed. She should've known that Veronica would not get over this so quickly. At least there was no shouting this time.

"Belén, I just don't understand why you are so fixated on this...this world!"

"Because it's my world, mom. And I can't abandon it when there's so many people that could get hurt if I do."

Veronica shook her head. "I-I think we need to continue this another day because…"

Belén didn't want to keep pausing this argument because every time they did, it just dragged on the feelings more. But she also feared that if they kept going in one go, they really would just end up shouting at each other like the other times. At least this case seemed to be so grave for Veronica that she wasn't shouting. She was thinking. She may be thinking the wrong things but at least she was thinking…

"I'm here...whenever you want to pick up on things…" she said quietly.

Iris sympathized for her friend while Veronica walked out. "Bells, I'm so sorry."

"No," Belén sniffed and turned back for the table, eyes flickering from one picture to the other. "I need to focus on this."

"Yeah, but-"

"-Iris, I have to focus on this first. Maybe my mom just needs some more days to process this." Belén wanted to believe this so badly.

~ 0 ~

The pictures of Central City's slum parts did no justice to its reality. There was a lot more graffiti on the walls, a lot more trash on the streets. A lot of people were ruder and definitely looking for something to pick-pocket. Belén kept her arms crossed over her chest as she walked down the street. She found the bar from the picture she and Iris were looking at and went directly inside.

There was a foul odor at the entrance that she wished she could forget.

"Take a seat with me sweetheart," she heard a man say as she walked in.

"Screw off," she spat without sparing him a glance. She came up to the bar counter, which was pretty empty save for two more customers at the end. She pulled her phone out and left it on the counter in front of her, just in case she needed to snap pictures or look at one of the ones she already have.

A tall Asian woman with long, dark hair came by a couple minutes later. "What can I get you?"

"Um…" Belén wasn't that big of a drinker, and much less during the day so she just asked for a mimosa. While she waited, she began to look around the bar with more searching eyes. She didn't see anyone that would necessarily stand out. Everyone seemed to be doing their own things, whether it was legal or not.

"Here you go," the bar tender returned with the bright orange drink in her hand. As she put the glass down, her eyes lingered on Belén for a few seconds. "You looking for someone?" her tough voice startled Belén. When the woman nearly fell off her stool, the bartender smiled. "You're not from around here."

"That easy to tell?" Belén bit her lower lip.

"Yeah. Don't walk alone in these parts."

"Is it really that bad here?"

The bartender nodded her head. She popped a bubble from her bubble gum and smirked. "Not if you know how to take care of yourself."

Belén saw some odd marks on the side of the woman's neck. She was sure there were some stitches poking up from her blouse. "Are you okay?" she pointed at the injuries, startling the bartender for a moment.

"Yeah. Just got into it with someone, no big deal." The bartender seemed to shift from friendly to brief. "My name's Shivhan if you want to leave a tip," she said before walking away.

Belén picked up her mimosa and had a couple sips from it. As she was putting it down, she heard a familiar voice behind her that nearly made her spill the glass.

"You are beautiful but crazy," Barry stood behind her and not too pleased.

Belén turned her stool sideways so she could see him. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

"Iris told me you were coming here! Belén!" he whisper-hissed as he sat down next to her. "This is a shady place to be at on your own, Bells. How could you come here alone?"

"Um, because I'm a big girl who can take care of herself?"

Barry deadpanned her. That's not what he meant and she knew it. "It never hurts to have backup. Besides, do you even know what you'd say to Black Orchid if you found her?"

"No, but...I'm a reporter. I'd wing it," Belén picked up her mimosa again and smiled.

Barry shook his head at her. "Alright, so what do have? Any clues?"

"Not really. I was just kind of scoping the area out," Belén shrugged and briefly looked back at the room. "But there's barely any people here and those who are, are definitely not Black Orchid."

Barry could agree with that since almost every customer in the building were men. "Maybe we should try later."

"I'm hoping something will happen that would make Black Orchid appear."

"Bit cynical," remarked Barry.

"Desperate." Belén sighed and forgot about her glass as she turned her stool to face the room. "I don't know, maybe we could speed things up or something."

"Like how?"

"Well...Black Orchid seems to appear whenever there's trouble, so…"

Barry was giving her a strange look. "You want us to stage a fight?"

"Something like that."

"I don't know about that Belén...I think we need to come up with a good plan and then-"

Belén was about to cut him off with the fact they didn't - or rather she didn't - have time to sit down and plan, when they heard a loud crash from outside. At once Belén jumped off her stool and tried to peer out into the street from her spot.

"Fight! Fight!" a crowd sitting near the door started to chant, prompting some delirious laughter from the room. It was only a matter of seconds before they rushed out into the streets.

"Creeps," Shivhan, the bartender, spat while she continued to wipe down the counter.

Barry got up as well and sprinted up to the window to see what was going on. Belén soon followed and saw with him that there were a couple of masked thieves making out of a shop with some valuables. Two of them had guns.

"We gotta do something," Barry rushed out the door but just as he was about to leave the sidewalk, Belén yanked him to her side.

"This is our chance!"

"Belén, someone could get hurt!"

"They won't because you'll intervene if she's not here in 1 minute," Belén promised then faced the street.

The thieves were trying to make an escape but there were being confronted with another group intending on taking the stolen valuables. Just as they were about to fire, something purple swooped down and punched the two gunmen from the first thief band.

"I told you…" Belén sounded breathless as she gazed at none other than Black Orchid. Barry had to hand it to her and her precise thinking.

Black Orchid was a feared presence by most of the people outside, judging how they stepped back. From what they could see, the meta had long, dark hair and dark eyes hidden behind a black mask that covered half her face. She wore a one-suit in the colors of black and violet. It was the same one Iris had shown them earlier.

Black tendrils sprouted from the woman's back and captured three of the men. She threw them halfway down the street without regards of where they hit or how hard they hit. She then ducked to avoid being hit by one of the men behind her. She jumped back up and kicked a leg up to knock the man down. As bullets fired towards her, she used her vines to create a shield where the bullets embedded themselves. Once she disbanded the shield, she sent the bullets right back and injured two more men. The last two remaining were from each of band and they both looked equally terrified.

"Drop it and go," she ordered in a rough voice.

The two instantly dropped their stolen things and made a run for it. Black Orchid raised three fingers and when she'd pulled them down, her arm did a boomerang action and released two different black masses that attached themselves to the men.

"Barry, we gotta get her alone," Belén spoke quietly to the speedster next to her.

"But how?" Barry looked around and saw that while the thieves had been taken down - killed, really - the crowd around them was still watching Black Orchid like hawks.

"I brought something with me," Belén admitted. Barry looked down at her and saw her reaching into her purse. She showed him the tip of a syringe. His eyes widened at it but before he could say something she said, "It's a sedative."

"Belén, we can't really do-"

"-I need her, Barry," she told him like this was already decided with or without him. "Datura is going to kill me if I don't up my game. Black Orchid can help me do that."

There was some questionable tactics Barry saw Black Orchid far too comfortable with, but he knew that he could stand there and argue with Belén without making a difference. "Fine." He took the syringe from her and disappeared. A minute later, so did Black Orchid.

When Belén felt a set of arms pull her as well, she smiled. She found herself in an alley where Black Orchid was already down with sedation. "Thank you," she said to the speedster.

Barry gazed down at the unconscious metahuman. "I don't think she'll be thanking us for this."

~0~

Team STAR Labs was never one for kidnapping. So when Barry and Belén brought in a guest, kidnapped and unconscious, they had much to say over the matter.

"This is not legal," Caitlin was the first to say, or scold, at the two metas. Barry and Belén stood in the middle of the cortex, listening to everyone having their go at them. "You kidnapped someone!"

"Well, if I asked she wouldn't have come," Belén argued. "You guys didn't see her out there. She's tough."

"And you think you need to be the same?" Cisco's doubtful stare made her roll her eyes.

"I need to change something and she can help me figure out what."

"Least she's taking initiative," Harry inputted his own opinion, surprising Belén that he was actually siding with her since he originally didn't agree with the plan of finding Black Orchid. "You can't always be soft. Especially when someone's trying to kill you."

"Uh, thanks Harry," she offered the man a small smile before looking at Caitlin and Cisco. "I'm not hurting her. I just needed to get her here so I could talk to her."

"And if she doesn't want to help?" asked Cisco.

"Let's hope she does."

"Well…" Caitlin has looked up from a computer, "... now's your chance. She just woke up."

~0~

Black Orchid was a woman who could be scary. Her balled fists repeatedly pounded against the pipeline pod. "LET ME OUT!" She screamed and screamed the same thing.

Cisco honestly thought the pod wouldn't last if this kept going.

Black Orchid only stopped when she saw someone coming into the pipeline. She straightened up and raised her head to judge if this person was going to help or not. "Who are you?" She didn't have to wait for a verbal answer since she saw clear as day who was on the other side. "The Azalea? Hm. That's a shocker. Would you let me go? I didn't do nothing wrong."

"You did kill people…" Belén reminded, though not as a way to punish her.

"They're thugs! It's kill or be killed!"

"Look, I'm not here to talk about who you killed or how many you killed. I need your help."

Black Orchid dropped her arms to her sides. Her chin raised again and though she had a mask on, Belén swore she was being judged. "Why would the Azalea need my help?"

"Because Datura is a dangerous metahuman that I cannot stop if you don't teach me how to get into the Green."

Black Orchid lowered her head. "Excuse me? The Green? You know about that?" Belén nodded her head. "But you don't know how to get in?"

"Have you ever seen me in there?" Belén made a good point.

Black Orchid crossed her arms and looked around the pod she was trapped in. "And you thought the best way to get me to help you was to lock me up?"

"Not my best idea but I really needed to have a minute with you."

"Here's the thing, I don't trust you. And, let's be honest, you don't trust me." Black Orchid inched closer to the glass wall. "I'm not training anyone. In this world, it's all about yourself. I need to look out for myself."

"Well, that's a pretty way of looking at life," Belén remarked. "But look, I really need your help. Datura is coming back-"

"-then you fight her off. She's your fight, not mine. Why do you think I've hidden for a month now? I'm not looking to get killed."

"But if you don't help me a lot of people are going to die!"

"Better them than me," Black Orchid said so plainly, so flatly, that Belén's mouth almost fell to the floor.

"How could you...how could you say that?"

"Because it's the truth. Self preservation."

Belén was flabbergasted to hear such a thing.

~0~

"I cannot believe she said that!" Belén stormed into the cortex, looking ready to kill someone herself. "How rude! How...selfish!"

"Sorry it didn't work out, Bells," Cisco meant as a true apology but she scoffed at him.

"Are you, though? You weren't even on board with the idea in the first place!"

Cisco made a face but, knowing she was just upset, he kept his mouth shut. He, did, however, give a look at Barry and Caitlin. Someone else needed to step in.

"Belén, maybe we just need to give her some time," Barry's suggestion was also responded with a scoff.

"I don't have time!" She groaned and turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" Caitlin called after her.

"Out! Don't follow!"

"She's m-a-d mad," Cisco whistled then quickly looked back to see if Belén had heard.

"She's upset, and with good reason," Barry rubbed his forehead. "Let's just keep an eye on her. She took the suit so-"

"-she's really mad," Cisco blurted and received a disapproving look from Caitlin. Barry just sighed.

"She turned off the tracker in her suit," Caitlin informed a few minutes later.

"Not surprising," Barry mumbled and moved over to see the screen himself. "She couldn't have gotten far. I'll go get her. See if I can talk to her."

He zipped out of the cortex with his suit, intending on finding Belén and bringing her back. However, it turned out Belén was very good at hiding. It'd been at least an hour of him scouring through the city before he gave up and asked for some additional help. Caitlin and Cisco were monitoring as usual, but, like Barry, they didn't have a clue where Belén went. It was like she disappeared.

"I've gone through all the places she usually goes to, I'm starting to get worried," Barry admitted. He stood at the top of a rooftop overlooking the busy streets of the city. It was fine that Belén wanted to have some time alone but two hours of no contact felt wrong.

"Uh, we got something, Barry!" Cisco exclaimed.

"Did you find her?" Barry quickly asked, ready to go as soon as they gave him a place.

"Yeah, um…looks like some warehouse off on Third and Carson street."

"That's weird," remarked Caitlin. "That whole block is for warehouses. What could Belén be doing there?"

"Don't know but we're going to find out," Barry said before speeding down the building he was on. He followed the instructions from the two and didn't bother coming in cautiously. He skidded to a stop and looked around the empty warehouse. "Belén?" he called out and received no answer. "Belén!"

"What's going on, Barry?" Cisco asked after the third failed call for Belén.

"She's not here," Barry ripped the cowl off his head and started walking down the left. There was something making a light noise coming from that direction. "But I...I don't think this warehouse is empty…"

"Belén's tracker says she's there, dude," Cisco insisted, though he was going through the tracker's ping just to make sure.

"Well, I don't see her," Barry kept walking forwards, now spotting something silvery round the corner. "Belén?"

"Barry, be careful," Caitlin warned. She was beginning to think there was something wrong with this entire situation. As if the world was reading her mind, she got a different type of alert on her computer screen.

Barry reeled back when a redhead swung from the side. "Hi there pretty boy," Poison Ivy showed off a smug smirk before firing at the speedster with a high-tech gun.

"Barry!" Cisco shouted as the computer stopped getting readings from Barry's vitals, his entire suit's actually. "Everything's gone offline." Cisco leaned back against his chair and heaved a heavy breath.

"Caitlin!" they both heard Belén's voice shriek from the other end of the line.

The two in the cortex did a quick double-take at each other before calling out their friend's name.

"Where are you!?" Caitlin demanded while she worked to figure out how the meta alert was coming from one part while Belén's tracker was pinging from another.

"Downtown! And I'm -" Belén shrieked again.

As it turned out, she was nowhere near close Barry's location. She didn't know how it happened, to be honest. She'd been sulking on her own for a while when she started to see some familiar red energy from a distance. Trained or not, she was not planning on giving Datura a pass. She chased after the energy until it led her downtown…

Datura had sucker-punched her from behind. She seemed to be on a different plan because even though she had a clear, open path to hurt Belén again, she walked past the woman on the ground and moved towards a street pole. Her eyes glowed an orange before shooting lasers at the street pole.

As Belén turned on her stomach, she saw the bottom of the street pole begin to steam as the acid from the lasers melted it away.

"Better, run, run, run!" Datura sing-sang to the people around when the street pole started creaking and leaning on its side.

"Oh, dammit," Belén muttered and scrambled to her feet. She started throwing vines to pull away the people in danger of getting squashed.

Datura boredly rolled her eyes as if saving people was a waste of time, and to her it was. When Belén pulled the last person out of the way, Datura rubbed her hands together and created a sword from her red energy.

"Uh oh," Belén had the good sense to back away. "Caitlin!" she started to call but for some reason, no one answered her. "Caitlin!"

"Where are you!?" Caitlin demanded so suddenly that, if Belén had been more focused, she would've picked up on the fact something was wrong.

"Downtown! And I'm -" Belén shrieked and ducked when Datura threw her sword at her. "It's Datura! She's back!"

"And ready to win," Datura said with a proud smile. Her eyes glowed silver, as did her hands. She radiated in Lunar energy, something Belén hadn't quite seen before and was therefore a little scared. "The power of Eclipsa-" Datura's smile widened, but Belén once again noticed there was a different voice speaking with Datura's, -is mine. Here's a little taste of what I can do!" She drew her hands back and started firing consecutively with lunar bolts.

Belén whipped her hands in front of her and tried doing what she saw Black Orchid doing earlier. She created a makeshift shield in front of her but Datura was going nonstop. "Caitlin, I really need Barry right now!"

"I - we thought he was with you!" Cisco exclaimed. "We lost contact with him!"

That made Belén automatically drop her shield in shock. "What!?" A series of lunar bolts hit her square in the chest, knocking her back on the ground. She shook her head in an attempt to rid her ears of the warped sounds. "Caitlin...where's...Barry?"

"We're working on it!"

"Oooh, are you looking for your partner?" Datura started walking towards Belén who was sitting up. "Yay-high?" She made a gesture of Barry's height over her head, "Red suit? Admittedly good looking?" Belén openly glared at her, making the woman laugh. "Don't be jealous. But, I do know where your Flash is."

Belén paused and gave Datura a look. "What?" She quickly got up and, to Datura's surprise, she swung a vine to throw the Earth 2 meta into a bus stop bench. "If you hurt him-"

Datura raised a hand and delivered a shock of electricity Belén's way. The brunette screamed as her body convulsed with the electric shocks.

Datura slowly got up and felt something over her lip. She took a drip of blood off her skin and scowled at herself. "Great." She walked towards Belén, admittedly feeling wobbly on her feet. "Listen up Azalea, here's the deal. I've got your Flash all nice and unconscious thanks to a speed gun I swept from Earth 2-" she bent down in front of Belén, smirking at the weariness in the woman's face from being attacked, "-and if you want to see him again...you're gonna have to drop this. Poison Ivy doesn't do patience."

Belén blinked rapidly from the electricity still lingering in her body. "I...want to...see him."

Datura smirked. "Thought you would." She raised a hand, making it seem like she was going to wave goodbye when instead she fired one last energy beam to knock Belén out.

~ 0 ~

In the cortex gathered at the cortex after realizing their two leading metas had been taken right under their noses.

"It was a trap," Cisco said quietly, and defeatedly, at his chair. He had his hands put together to the bridge of his nose. "It was a trap and we didn't see it."

"But it doesn't make sense how Datura got Belén's suit tracker in the first place," Caitlin hated the fact she couldn't figure that mystery out. "We didn't even realize it was gone."

From the corner of the cortex stood Harry, still and silent. His jaw was clenched with guilt but he still could not say anything.

"We know where they are," Iris reminded them. She looked at the screen on the wall, displaying the last known whereabouts of Barry. "Let's just go get them."

"First of all, we don't even know if they're still going to be there," Cisco pointed out, dropping his hand to his lap. "Second of all, even if they are still there...what the hell are we supposed to do?" he made a quick gesture at their members. "They'd kill us."

Caitlin set a hand on Cisco's shoulder and gave a smile at the rest. "I think what Cisco's trying to say is that we do not have the...meta-skills to take on Datura and Poison Ivy at the same time."

"Well, we have to do something," Iris walked up to the desk and set her arms over the top. "Can we call in Nina?"

"Even then, taking on these two metas…" Caitlin gave a shake of her head. "She'll need back up."

"Where do we get that from?" Iris looked at the trio expectantly.

Cisco looked up at Caitlin, both apparently thinking of the same thing.

"Wait here," he pushed himself up from his chair. He exchanged a nod with Caitlin before the two walked out of the cortex.

~ 0 ~

After hours of screaming to be released, Black Orchid resigned herself to the fact she may never be getting out of the pipeline. She picked herself up as soon as she heard the pipeline door opening.

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded when she was face to face with Caitlin and Cisco.

"Manners," Cisco pointed at her. "We have a proposition for you."

"And why the hell would I care?"

"Because it involves your freedom, smartass," Cisco snapped. Caitlin inwardly sighed. This would definitely infuriate Belén but right now what mattered was bringing her and Barry back.

Black Orchid leaned on her hip. "I'm listening."

"The Azalea and the Flash have been kidnapped by Datura. We need you to help our friend, the Tempest, get them back."

Black Orchid unceremoniously snorted. "You want me to go up against the siphoner this entire city is talking about? She's the reason I stopped showing my face."

"What do you mean?" Caitlin's eyebrows knitted together.

Black Orchid didn't like the fact she'd unintentionally admitted that. "It's clear that this Datura wants to kill anyone in her path. I've seen what she's done to the Azalea. Imagine what she'd do if she found another botanist metahuman? No way!"

Cisco wasn't in a particular mood to remind the woman she was a human being. So, like Belén, he did first and would apologize later. "Fine, then I guess you'll stay here forever. Or at least until you die."

"You wouldn't let me die," scoffed the meta.

"Have you seen any other prisoners here?" Cisco's question made the metahuman pause. "Yeah. What do you think happened to the others in here?"

"You can't do that!"

"Then please help us," Caitlin pleaded. "C'mon. You're afraid and we get that, but if you don't do anything then Datura will kill the Azalea. And, if there's no one left to fight Datura...you're not going to be safe anywhere."

"If I go up against her I'll die right there and then," Black Orchid countered with.

"You said you were hiding from Datura so you didn't show your face," Caitlin reminded. "But the Azalea said you showed your face today after a store got robbed. That doesn't sound like self preservation to me."

"...that was my favorite store," Black Orchid rolled her eyes, attempting to make it all casual.

"Cut the crap, girl!" Cisco exclaimed. "Your freedom's on the table and you're gonna seriously waste it?"

"We can help you," Caitlin added. "We can make sure you're well prepared. We could even help you heal from your past fights." Black Orchid visibly stiffened. "The Azalea told us about some of the stitches she saw on you. And like my friend said, your freedom is on the table."

Black Orchid's dark eyes flickered from one scientist to the next. She knew what her position was and how far she could actually get. It wasn't good. "Fine," she huffed and reached a hand to the back of her head where her mask's tie was. "But I need some stitches to be re-done. So, who's the medical doctor here?" she tore the mask off to reveal a familiar face, though not familiar to Caitlin or Cisco.

Bartender Shivhan Jang stared at the scientists.

Author's Note:

So, first of all, this is a disclaimer for the fact that while I am writing in the character of Black Orchid, I am doing a different VERSION of the character. Black Orchid belongs to the DC world.

Now, the reason I decided to write this character in was because I felt it genuinely wrong she was written and barely got recognition. I never heard of Black Orchid until I started doing research on botanical metahumans for this precise arc. It amazed me she was such a complex character that I just had to write my version of hers.

And a visual reference of Black Orchid, aka Shivhan, would be the Korean singer Sunmi.

#ocappreciation #arrowverseocs #fd: the flash #the flash #barry allen #barry allen imagines #barry allen fics #the flash fics #the flash imagines #oc: Belén Palayta #oc: the azalea #fic: rise up

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