#and wonder why you do not own fixative because i do wanna preserve that one pencil drawing from yesterday

[isbergillustration]

Desperate Attempts

[shovson]

synth this is stranger anon! I just finished reading you stopped by my house and totally get crazy about it... first i think george should be seeking for helps he's crying and screaming in max's house but then max is getting crazy for him too. theyare so abnormal to each other

at the same time max is just pure loving like?? innocently thinking they had something after spent a week doing george. oh. luckily lando and dan are so nice. damn why they didn't fuck again max must hurt so bad (wondering that as a george fan?). i think the whole thing is george's fault and wanna see how he will handle this between his gf and max. pls tell me it'll be a happy ending!>?!

HEELLO AGAIN ANON I HOPE YOU'RE WELL!!!!!!! I KNOW THIS IS MESSED UP THIS IS HOW I FOUND OUT ALL MY FICS ARE STILL PUBLIC ADSKJHSFDKJFDHJJHJ NOOOOO. i thought i did the privating correctly but i fucked up LOL

BUT IM GLAD YOU LIKE IT SO MUCH <3 AND I APPRECIATE YOU READING IT HAHA

really putting them both thru it all and for what? u know fun fact it was going to end at chapter one with GEORGE JUST WALKING AWAY LOL but a lot of people were like "BRO U CANT LEAVE IT THERE" which is....fair

spoilers under read more

i think theyre both looking to preserve themselves in a way. i think its all good then they fuck and its like. okay so max is looking to get with someone (in my mind its also an ex, but maybe even danny) and uses george as a crutch despite their little interaction. then george thinks too impulsively and also uses max as a temporary solution. then HE GETS WITH THE GIRLFRIEND AGAIN......then he gets scared and doesn't tell max until its too late. so now he's gotta apologize

(im kind of thinking of imola 2021 where george took full responsibility for the incident w valtteri after reflecting for a bit! he made a bad judgement but fixed it immediately!)

then max resents george (because he got attached) but refuses to talk about it with george. george is willing to take accountability but max knows it'll hurt george even more if he doesn't even engage with that idea. smh my head . the pettiness is unreal. he's literally willing to kill them both if it means he "wins"; that george can never feel comfort in his own relationship again, that george is berated for what max thinks is the wrong decision, and that george will stay with max (even if in a way that is so hateful). love makes people crazy.

danny + lando trying to mediate makes me giggle. lando is really like "im sure the week with george will be fine" then comes back to fire and hell on earth. but yeah #dandobesties4eva

ANYWAYS stranger anon it will be happy dont worry i wont say how it resolves but....everything is good in da end ^_^ i drew a picture for it and everything before deleting it haha!! thank you again stranger anon!!! i really do appreciate when people comment and send asks about my stuff <3

[arrowflier]

arrow!!!!!! the x-men AU idea! yes, yes, yES. 🙌

Twisha my dear, thank you for giving me an excuse!  This got a little dark (warnings in tags), but it was fun to try.

Spikes and Quills May Do Me Ill (but your hands never hurt me)

“The fuck are you lookin’ at?” the hedgehog boy growled at Ian, and Ian backed away, hands raised.

“Nothing,” he said quickly, then hesitated.

“Well?” the kid pressed, quills perking up in agitation.  “What is it?  Spit it out!”

“Your neck!” Ian blurted out obediently, and immediately closed his eyes with a wince.  He shouldn’t have said that.  He should not have said that.

He waited for the blow to come.  Hedgehog guy was notorious for his short temper, and the only thing Ian was unsure of was whether he’d be getting a fist to the face, or a spike to some other part of his body.

Probably his eyes, since he’d been caught looking.

He just couldn’t help it, though.

Ian had always sort of had his eye on the other boy.  He didn’t even know his name, but he’d seen him around school.  The guy would show up wearing like fifty layers of clothes—long sleeves, cut-off gloves, a hat and scarf no matter the weather—and he always stripped off as soon as he was in the door, shedding clothes like a snake sheds skin, until he was down to a sleeveless tee that showed off all his most unique attributes.

And unique they certainly were.

The first time Ian had seen him, he’d almost thought that they were tattoos.  Some sort of major piece that covered his back, his shoulders, and his neck, carrying down the backs of his arms but fading away from the front, from his chest.  He’d been trying to get a better look at the pattern when some idiot had come up behind the guy and tapped him on the shoulder, resulting a sudden flare of quills that had everyone around them stepping back in alarm.

It was beautiful.

That wasn’t the only beautiful thing about him, but it might be what Ian liked most.  Plenty of other boys had dark hair, or blue eyes, or a muscular stature.  Plenty of other boys walked through the halls like they owned them (even though none of them did).

But there was only one boy in school with all of that and more, only one boy that Ian wanted to touch.  To see if those spikes felt real.

Only one boy who…still wasn’t hitting Ian?

Ian squinted one eye open, then both.  The other boy was just staring at him, lips pursed, eyes narrowed.  He looked angry, but also…curious?  That couldn’t be right.

“The fuck did you say to me?” hedgehog boy asked quietly, the kind of quiet that was dangerous.  The kind before he threw that other kid across the bleachers last year for calling him a mutie to his face.

Ian wondered if that kid had ever regained the full use of his legs.  Or his facial muscles after they got all the quills out.

It had sure been something to see that happen.

But now wasn’t the time to reminisce about watching this fine specimen in front of him picking up some asshole like it was nothing, quills rippling down his muscled arms and back as he tossed him aside like a bag of potatoes.  Not unless he wanted the same thing to happen to him.

Well…

No.  Never mind.

“I said I was looking at your neck,” Ian muttered quietly, torn between answering and self-preservation.  He wasn’t really sure which one won.

“And what,” hedgehog boy hissed, stepping closer, “is wrong with my neck?”

Um.  Was he serious?  Ian had been able to tell from the across the room that something was wrong, even under the flickering hallway lights.  The other boy’s neck was red, and not in the fun, blushing kind of way.  

No, it was red like a bloody bruise.  In fact, now that Ian got a closer look, it actually was bloody—smears of dried blood covering an oddly smooth area that looked wrong next to all the quills spiked up around it.  

It almost looked like he had been plucked.

“What happened?” Ian asked instead of answering the question.  “Did you do that to yourself?”

“No, I didn’t…” the other boy sputtered and paused, clearly caught off guard.  He eyed Ian warily for a moment, but whatever he found in Ian’s eyes must have calmed him, because then he was backing away again, quills smoothing down into his skin.

“What’s it to ya?” he asked, glancing around.  There were only a few other people left in the hallway, most having already made it to class.  

It made Ian weirdly brave.

“I could help,” he offered, and tried not to shrink back when those ice-blue eyes fixed on him again.

“Yeah?”  Hedgehog boy stepped closer again.  “How you gonna do that?”

“I, um.”  Ian paused, swallowed.  Tried again.  “I can heal?”

The boy’s eyes rose.  “That a question, tough guy?”  He sounded incredulous.

Ian shook his head.

“No, I mean, I can,” he confirmed.  He lifted a hand awkwardly, reaching for the other boy, who pulled back out of reach before Ian could touch him.

“I just need to…” Ian trailed off, reaching out again.  With another glance around the hall and a shallow nod from his companion, Ian stepped forward.

He got his hand on that reddened neck, soft under the skin of his fingertips.  After a single breath of hesitation, when he wasn't pushed away, he flattened his palm against it focused.

It started as a warmth under his skin.  Almost soft, not unpleasant, just a brush of heat to tell him it was working.

Then came the pain.

Ian hissed between his teeth at the first sharp feeling, like a pinprick on his own neck.  If he looked, he knew it would be red like the other boy's, a tiny fleck of blood rising to the surface.

"Hey, wait," came that boy's panicked voice.  "What are you--"

"Shh," Ian urged, and pressed his hand tighter to that injured throat.  "This is how it works."

The pain kept coming.  Pull after pull of quills that didn't exist coming free of his skin, each one sharper, more real than the last.

And with one particularly rough pang, the visions started.

Come here, Mickey boy

Fear.  Anger.  Shame.

No son of mine...

Heightened heart rate.  Breath catching. A hand on his shoulder.  Around his throat. Pain.

Get that from your no good mother...

Pain.  Pain.  Tweezers in a gnarled hand, plucking.  Cold eyes, staring.  A girl cowering in the corner, watching, crying.

"Stop!" the boy cried, yanking back out of Ian's hold.  "The fuck are you doing?"

I’ll teach you to...

A door opening, hands dropping.  Metal instrument falling to the floor.  His neck is sore, but his legs burn more as he runs, runs, runs.

He sounded frantic, afraid, but Ian was too far to stop.  There was more healing to do.

He ignored the now raw wound on his own neck and reached out again.  The other boy went to slap him away, but hit his palm instead with his own, and Ian was once again lost in pain, and memories, and feeling.

His neck was healing, now.  But his palm was bleeding, crescent shaped marks from untrimmed nails digging in as he saw his own eyes staring at him across the hall.

Bright green eyes.  Pale skin.  Red hair.  Lips that looked like--

"Get offa me!"

Ian let go, panting, disoriented.  The eyes he gazed into weren't green like his own, but blue and sharp and wide.

"Mickey," Ian breathed, and the boy bolted.

🦔🦔🦔

Ian didn't see Mickey for the next two days.  Not at school, and not around the neighborhood, either.

He wanted to see him.  Wanted to apologize.  It was how his mutation worked, and he wasn't sorry for that--he had to feel something to heal it, take it into himself, live through it.  But he should have warned Mickey of what that meant.

That it meant he would see everything.

Ian was walking home after school, starting to wonder if Mickey would ever show his face again, when they jumped him.

Two older boys and a girl, all wearing anti-mutant propaganda shirts with bandanas over their faces, tugged Ian back into a narrow alley by the straps of his bag and threw him up against the rough brick wall.

"Heard about your little stunt with the Milkovich brat," one of them hissed in his face.  His breath was rank even through the cloth covering his mouth, and Ian tried to twist away.

Another one punched him in the gut, hard enough to make him wheeze.

"Don't you look away while he's talkin to you, mu--"

He was cut off by an arm wrapped around his throat.  An arm covered in bristling, sharp quills.

"You wanna say that again?" Mickey growled behind Ian's attackers, voice low and dangerous.

"Shit!" the third one yelped, and took off running, nearly knocking her own companions over as she ran for the opening of the alley.  Ian fell to the ground as his first attacker followed close after, and rubbed a hand over his ribs.

"Uh, hey there man," warbled the boy Mickey still held up.  "Just a misunderstanding, I swear, we were--"

"Shut the fuck up," Mickey ordered, shaking the arm around the boy’s neck so the longest quills rattled dangerously close to his face.

Ian wondered what he was going to do to him.  And whether he should care.

Mickey looked at him over the other guy’s shoulder.  Whatever he saw in Ian’s eyes had him relaxing his arm, and shoving his prisoner away so hard he stumbled.

“Don’t let me see you again, asshole,” Mickey said to his back, aiming a kick at him on his way to the street.

“What made you come back?” Ian asked from his position on the ground once they were alone.  Mickey turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow.  The quills along his back flared once and settled, calm.

“Why do you think?” he returned, like it was obvious.

Maybe it was.  But Ian needed to hear him say it.

“Thought you were avoiding me,” Ian challenged, and watched Mickey roll his eyes.

“Yeah, well.”  Mickey rubbed a hand over his lip, the quills on the back of it sticking out over his fingers.  “Us muties gotta stick together, right?”

Ian smiled.

And though he’d definitely deny it later, Mickey smiled back.

[kevyfanfics]

Irondad Ending in Platonic Cuddles

Welcome to continuously whumping Peter for no particular reason other than we all want to see it :') Today's agenda is intrusive thoughts and a hint of sensory overload! And thank you so much for all the support so far, youre all super sweet!!

TW// if you're sensitive to Peter's guilt complex, intrusive thoughts, sensory overload, or anxiety attacks, please proceed with caution <3

This can be read at Irondad Ending in Platonic Cuddles  on AO3!! Have fun and stay safe🖤🤎❤️️🧡💛💚💙💜

---

Of course, during the weekend before finals, Peter's mind can't stop focusing on what he doesn't want to focus on. As he tries to study for anatomy, he somehow finds his head wandering back to psychology like a broken record, trying to decipher the same information that isn't too important in the grand scheme of things.

The rebel wants to change what's not working, reform, fix. I like fixing. I fix. Like Mr. Stark fixes. Fear is to be ineffectual. But the desire of the rebel is revenge. I don't want that. I don't do… The caregiver wants to protect everyone. I want to protect. What if I can't protect everyone? What if I can't get there in time? What if they- To be honest, he's losing his patience far quicker than he would on a normal day. Between his packed AP Finals schedule, patrols, workshop days, his annoying intrusive thoughts, and that damn leaking faucet down the hall, he's about ready to rip his hair out.

The first cranial nerve is Olfactory, a sensory nerve passing through the cribriform plate of the eth- He grips his hair between his fingers, hands trembling and knuckles going white, when he can hear a leaf blower at ground level. He's on the 48th floor.

Deep breaths. Just focus. Passes through the cribriform plate of the ethmoid bone and sends information ab- He jumps when a car alarm starts blaring and just about hurls his anatomy textbook out the window. Ripping his earbuds out, roughly sets them down on the coffee table and rocks slightly with his head in his hands. The motion is soothing and always helps to ground him when the world starts to careen out of his control. He focuses on breathing and not letting his emotions get the better of him. What he doesn't need is to lose his temper at the Tower or have full blown sensory overload. For now he simply lets the rocking do the trick. He ends up wiggling his toes, pressing them into the soles of his shoes over and over without even realizing it. Trying so desperately to keep ahold of his frustrations, his mind begins to wander back to psych class.

The hero wants to prove they're worthy. Courageous. I have to prove I can do it, I just don't know how. Every time I try I- The hero's greatest fear is weakness, vulnerability, failure, failure, failure-

"Hey, kiddo. How's the studying goin'? Decide on what you wanna order? Pizza? Burgers? Shawarma?" Peter continues his rocking despite Tony's sudden voice. Though, it does cut off the neverending string of thoughts that tend to take over at any second- Wait, no, that's the wrong word. Threaten. The neverending string of thoughts that threaten to take over. Threaten. Threaten. Threaten. The neverending string of thoughts that threaten- "You good?" Tony's confused, yet more attentive, voice interrupts again. Peter gains enough clarity to realize his legs are now bouncing rapidly, giving away his nervous energy. He's able to grasp on to the most honest, blunt answer he's probably ever given.

"No, I'm not," he answers through grit teeth to keep his frustration at bay. The straightforward answer must momentarily shock Tony into inaction because he can feel his mind begin to wander again and he vaguely realizes he needs to keep himself grounded. Feel the couch, my hair, my shoes, don't forget to breathe, but breathing is too much work I don't want-

"Okay…can I sit?"

What kind of question is that? It's his house he doesn't need to ask me. He doesn't need permission.

"I just wanted to make sure." Peter's anxiety-ridden movements come to a jarring halt. He's talking out loud and he doesn't even realize it. His grounding techniques aren't working. He's losing control. The couch dips and one of Peter's legs resumes its bouncing. "Do you want to talk about it?" What I want is my brain to just stop for one second I don't want to think anymore I just want it to stop. This time there's a lack of response, and Tony feels way out of his depth. Fast-paced anxiety attacks he can do, but this? He doesn't know what he's supposed to do. "Is it alright if I touch you?" He knows firsthand that sometimes he would rather pour boiling water over himself than have someone try to comfort him through touch when he's distressed, so he isn't all that surprised when Peter shakes his head.

That'd be too much. Too much input and feeling and hearing and thinking and-

"Overstimulated," he suddenly stumbles on. "Overstimulated and my brain won't stop." He desperately wants to explain it more than that, but even his own voice grates on his nerves. The fact that he can't articulate what's going on grates on his nerves. That damn faucet.

"Alright, I getcha, bud," Tony gently assures, noticing the huff of frustration from the teen and the self-reliant rocking picking back up. The motion is predictable, unlike his mind, so it's comforting. It quells the anxiety. Tony bites the inside of his cheek, not wanting to reveal what he's about to reveal, but his kid is more important. "Do you think a weighted blanket would help?"

"Weighted blanket? Why do you have a weighted blanket? I haven't-" Peter cuts himself off this time. He didn't mean to say all that out loud. It just kind of happened, like there's a disconnect between his mouth and his brain. "Mr. Stark, my arms are getting cold," he says before he truly processes it, completely blowing past Tony's previous question. Before Tony can respond, he barrels on. "When the body goes into fight-or-flight, blood pools at the center of the body to preserve vital organs, making the extremities feel cold," he all but recites. Tony then notices how quickly the kid's face begins to pale.

"Easy, kid, deep breaths," Tony urges, panic settling into his voice as he kneels directly in front of Peter. "I'm gonna need you to slow your breathing down a bit, okay?" Peter nods rapidly, wondering when he lost complete control of his breathing. Last time he checked he wasn't breathing and now he's breathing too fast and nothing is making sense and- "In through your nose, out through your mouth. C'mon, with me. In, out. In, there ya go, out." Peter does his best to follow his mentor's instructions, even though his gasping breaths don't feel like they're bringing any oxygen with them.

"Anxiety attack," Peter connects the dots again. "Too much, too much input." Tony nods encouragingly, wanting nothing more than to pull Peter into a hug.

"You're doing great, Peter. Do you need anything?" He doesn't know what to do, but he wants to help somehow.

"Existing is hard," Peter says as if nothing was asked, yet Tony's pained expression softens.

"Yeah…but I'm real proud of you for existing anyways. Even when it's rough." Peter nods, face scrunching up with a complex mix of emotions that he can't pinpoint.

"I, I think I'm ready for that hug now," he admits, voice cracking as the pressure of it all finally takes its toll. Tony doesn't hesitate to pull the kid into his arms as he cries it out, wrapped safely in his mentor's hold, still vibrating just under the surface. It doesn't take the anxieties away, but it certainly helps Peter regain some of his control. His leg stops bouncing, he doesn't feel cold anymore, and his brain doesn't feel like it's moving at a million miles a minute. Breathing still shaking and labored, he rests his head on Tony's chest as his mentor leans them into the couch.

"You can't keep putting this much pressure on yourself, Underoos. School isn't the be-all end-all," Tony carefully tries to reason with the workaholic high schooler. Peter lets out a breathy chuckle as tears slide down his cheeks.

"Says the guy who graduated MIT at my age," he reminds without hesitation, wiping his eyes. If anything, he feels behind for someone so often being referred to as a genius. Not like Tony, who was running an entire corporation at 21.

"And that got me nothing but a slip of paper and hell in a handbasket. Shitty social skills, independent to a fault, zero responsibility. Trust me, kid, you don't want to force yourself to grow up too fast." Tony sighs, his hand lightly resting in Peter's hair. Peter welcomes the touch, closing his eyes, and considers Tony's point. Maybe he has been putting too much pressure on himself.

"Hey, Mr. Stark?" he mumbles, light from the arc reactor casting a glow on his face.

"Hm?" Tony focuses on gently carding his hand through Peter's hair, carefully undoing the occasional knot.

"You're the best." Peter feels the hand still momentarily, then it continues.

"Then you haven't met you yet."

[eldritch-elrics]

svsss: journey through the mausoleum (plus, zhuzhi-lang is a himbo)

got to chapter 65 last night!

as usually i have a lot to say i guess jkdhgsds i think putting stuff under cuts makes people scroll past these posts more? but also i don’t really want to be too annoying with my Many Reactions so cuts are a good way to go

tldr: loved the mausoleum arc, big fan of tlj, communication is good, and i have a new favorite scene in the book

binghe is extra as FUCK for bringing in all those rhino pythons

so i maintain that tianlang-jun should have been foreshadowed more/is introduced too late in the story, but other than that i think he’s a really fun villain and i’m a fan

for one - he’s the only one who’s able to hurt binghe :0 harm the protagonist...

which creates some Very Good Tension

count number one of zhuzhi-lang being a himbo: trying to sacrifice himself for tlj while being threatened

“is zzl really a himbo” you ask. well, yes. is he dumb? very much so. is he nice? absolutely. is he hot? well, i have no idea. i forget if he’s described as attractive or not. but, i think he can be if he wants. does being a little bit evil negate his himbo-ness? idk! i’m sticking with my assessment

i think i have a bit of a soft spot for evil henchmen

zzl also protects sqq from the corpses <3 good for him

it’s always fun to me when the system is like “wooo yay you fixed the storyline! cut the filler!” because 1. love seeing sqq lay waste to pidw and 2. the implications?? once more i am wondering WHY is the system so interested in making pidw a better story. (and the fact that it’s still calling his adventures in this world a story.) are sqq’s adventures being written down and serialized in the real world? are we as readers supposed to believe that scum villain, as a text, is a direct result of sqq’s “editing” of pidw?

uh, back to the plot

binghe wasted spiritual energy trying to preserve the mushroom/plant body :( come on man...

i really like the whole stretch of plot when binghe’s unconscious. it’s just so tense!! really well-done in my opinion - this is the first time in a while we’ve got a sense that lbh is in danger, and sqq is also running low on energy and stuff, so they’re both in bad places and the stakes are high

PLUS the hurt-comfort of it all. sqq trying not to hurt lbh’s body :(

the whole part in the coffin!! excellent. and the convo with meng mo... sqq calling himself lbh’s shizun finally...

cuddles <3

dying at lbh’s fuckin. boner. and the system’s REACTION it’s so EXCITED i am just. holds my head in my hands. i can’t deal with this novel

the confrontation with qiu haitang and the old palace master was very cool and intense. though i have to say i’m not really a fan of either “angry unreasonable woman” or “bitter disabled person” as tropes/archtypes (especially how sqq was reacting to the palace master’s condition). and poor qiu haitang! i have no idea if there’s any way to set her mind at ease other than revealing the whole transmigration thing. i do hope she’ll turn up again and get a better ending?

so the plague city sqq callout party is once again not directly lbh’s fault! the old palace master is the one to blame!

SO ONE OF MY FAVORITE PARTS IN THE BIT I READ LAST NIGHT. is. sqq realizing that he could utilize lbh’s plot armor to his advantage. but then deciding that he doesn’t want to take that risk. doesn’t want to use lbh’s body as a prop!!!

character development :D

he’s really starting to see lbh as a person as opposed to a character! and being less selfish/survival-oriented...

man. sqq, almost beaten, lying on the ground holding binghe in his arms........ :(((

so is the implication that lbh injured/took revenge on the old palace master because the palace master was being creepy to him about his mom? it’s a bit vague but that’s my theory. weirdo old man...

speaking of people lbh killed. maybe it will be revealed that gongyi xiao is actually alive too :( i’m still salty about that

SO MUCH DEMON BLOOD. poor sqq

so i don’t think i got how sqq was able to free himself from zzl’s blood manipulation? was it because binghe woke up and subdued it?

binghe waking up was a lil deus-ex-machina-y lol i would have liked to see some sort of trigger for it (even a cheesy one). like i get why he’s ok and no longer hurt (protagonist powers!) but like, gimme a reason for the shift to happen at that precise moment...

but AAAAAA FINALLY THEY ARE TALKING

lbh realizes how much sqq went through to save him :( and he’s so happy he didn’t get abandoned!!!! aaaaaa my poor boy

i like crybaby lbh much more than i like cold/cruel lbh lol

i do agree with sqq’s assessment though - lbh keeps doing the thing where he cries and apologizes but doesn’t actually change. he’s slowly getting better about it but that’s some development i’d like to see

so tlj.... DOESN’T want lbh’s body? i stg his motivations change every 5 minutes. that’s one other thing i don’t really like about him. is the “trying to steal lbh’s body” thing just gonna go nowhere? f...

ALSO SQQ GETTING OUTRAGED ABOUT TLJ CALLING HIMSELF MORE HANDSOME THAN BINGHE

binghe dumbass moments <3 gave him the sword...

..........zhuzhi-lang vore.......

zzl, while healing sqq’s plant arm: don’t worry i don’t want to fuck you unlike LUO BINGHE.

sqq: OKAY??? THANKS

i really hope there exists shipfic of sqq and zzl. like i don’t ship them at all but they just get into so many Situations that i cannot help but think about it. like it would make a funny crack premise

you know what? sqq deserves his own harem. it could consist of lbh, lqg, sqh, zzl.....

SQQ CANNOT CATCH A BREAK. TLJ IS A FAN OF RESENTMENT OF CHUNSHAN

modern au tlj is the dad who is way way way too supportive and thinks sqq would just be a wonderful husband for his son~~

interested in tlj’s intention to unite the human and demon worlds. like on the surface it sounds like a good idea right? peace and harmony and reconciling differences and stuff. but tlj’s plan is certainly not well-thought-out, and i’m sure his intentions also skew towards a sort of “merge them so they’re both easier to rule over” thing - which i don’t think is confirmed or anything, it’s just my suspicion

both tlj and lbh have a sort of entitlement thing going on - “i’m powerful so i can do whatever i like / take for myself something i love (whether that be humans or sqq).” which is then backed up by the power the system allows them as final boss and protagonist respectfully

speaking of lbh taking whatever he wants: stop kissing sqq without asking him aaaaa!!!! we know you love him and it’s sweet but please bro

him going all that way to reunite with sqq though <3

and then zzl comes in and i just.

this scene is simply the best

the slapstick of it!!!! i wanna see it animated so bad holy shit

the scene was good when it was just “sqq hides lbh under the bedcovers and he’s having none of it” but then it just kept escalating...

sqq and zzl’s convo is so suggestive too...

zzl himbo moments again?

AND THEN TLJ WALKS IN

“no need to explain, i understand everything” OK BRO.

LIU QINGGE IS HERE <3

tlj fanboying over him a little lmao

tlj, upon realizing that lbh had been in the bed with zzl and sqq: oh, you guys were having a threesome?

i cannot deal with this. i’m gonna do some sketches from this scene it’s so funny

[akvtsuki-ari]

A Study In Body Language: v. love is a virtue

Warnings: smut! unprotected sex, mild angst, but other than that mostly fluffy. 

Length: 6.5k

Authors Note: holy shit yall. we did it. 25000 words, 5 chapters and a whole lot of emotional turmoil, we fuckin did it. i will be writing an epilogue for this story but for now, here it is - a study in body language. hope yall have enjoyed this wild ride 

Plot Summary: Spencer realizes how deep he’s fallen, and reads something that changes his plans of confession. Love is beautiful, apparently. 

Link to the song mentioned: 1000 Times by Sara Bareilles 

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

He overhears you in the bullpen. You’re not sad when you talk about it, and maybe he was a little too hopeful to hear you clearly but you sounded relieved. He hopes you’re relieved but he doesn’t know how to deal with that feeling. He doesn’t feel sorry for himself but he could drown in the relief when you say you broke up with Jay. A weight off of his shoulders, off of his consciousness. For a moment he wasn’t so damn restless. You were single but he doesn’t know what that changed. Everything felt different, shit everything was different. The world that he’d come to know was shattered underneath the weight of this feeling. 

“Why’d you two break up?,” JJ asks. She’s curious, but Spencers hanging on your voice for the answer. His whole body relaxes. You pause, maybe you’re shrugging. 

“I don’t know - I think we both realized that this wasn’t gonna be long-term but we’ll always be cool. He’s a really good guy, but we have different wants, I think,” you say casually. You don’t sound sad. 

“You don’t seem upset,” Prentiss comments. Spencers happy he’s not delusional. 

“I’m not. The whole thing was really mutual and I loved him but not as anything more than friends really and he feels the same so I’m okay,” You say casually. He doesn’t hear much else, so he walks away before you can turn the corner and see him. 

Rain beats on the windows when Spencer walks away. It’s been raining for days now, the darkness seemed to be encompassing but it was nice. Spencer liked rain, watching it when he needed to think and it seems like he was having to do that more often these days. Rain wasn’t somber to Spencer, as much as it was a sobering reminder. Rain made him think of you, but most things did so he isn’t sure if it’s any deeper than that. Everything made Spencer think of you. 

Spencer couldn’t stop himself from thinking of you. It was a crushing realization that you were in love with someone and that you would do anything to make them happy. It was always apart of him, he couldn’t catch a break without being reminded of how much he adored you. Things continued as normal but he was working hard to make sure of that. He didn’t want to lose you, or hurt you so he tried so hard to make sure things were okay, even if it killed him slowly. He wanted to call you his, because in his heart of hearts, he wanted you to think of him as yours. Spencer was overwhelmed every time he saw you because it was you. You were you and he’d give you everything if you asked for it. He would rob the stars in the sky for you, he would steal the sun for you to keep, he would do anything to make you happy. That realization was crushing and Spencer was unsure if you had any clue.

__

The work day passes normally. Everyone was ready to go home, though some of the team wanted to hang at O’Keefes for a drink but you and Spencer passed. They all gave each other knowing looks, that Spencer became aware of when he realized he liked you. You still seemed clueless, and that was a scary enough thought. Spencer just flushed as he sees everyone walk out to the elevator, leaving you and him alone for the night. 

“Any special plans, Spence?,” you ask Spencer, fiddling with the strap of your bag as you two waited for the next elevator to come. Spencer shakes his head, looking at your stance and smiling. The bag was too big for you, clearly too heavy on your shoulders but he knew you’d never get rid of it. It was a thing about you he’d picked up from before. 

“Not really, no. Might go home and watch some TV, though I don’t know what,” Spencer replies thoughtfully. You nod in understanding, letting out a huff of frustration as you let go of your bag problem. Spencer just chuckles as he stands in front of you, fixing up the buckle before the strap. You look up at him with a grateful grin, and he feels his heart pound. Love, love, love on his mind when he looks at you. He feels a bit sick, but he figures it’s a symptom that seems to swallo him. 

You wrap your arms around Spencer and lay your face in his chest.He wonders if you can hear how hard his heart is pounding but it doesn’t seem like you notice. You nuzzle into him, and it seems to be so subconscious for you. He wants to ask himself if this was friends did but he knew better - this was too complicated for such simple questions. He hugs you back, taking a breath and you pull away and look up at him. His eyes are a pretty green, spots of brown speckling them but they look hazel in the light. You’d see them sometimes when he woke up and they’d fall under the sunlight. You always liked them and maybe you look too long, so you pull away. Spencer wishes you didn’t but the moments gone before he can protest. 

The elevator dings. The doors both open as the two of you travel down together. Spencer wants to offer you some company but he can’t tell himself too when he knows his own intentions. 

____

Spencer was alone. It was the wordless night that seemed to eat at him, even though the clock had only barely scraped by to 11. Lately, Spencer doesn’t have trouble sleeping but it seems like that would change soon. Thoughts of you were cocoon his thoughts. He felt so stuck, because he wants to tell you how he feels - but the risk is too great. Too much of a burden to bear because he has no clue about how you feel. He assumes you don’t return those feelings but if you did -  he wasn’t sure if anything would change. That reality is far more crushing than not knowing at all. 

One thing Spencer did when he was thinking of you was read your letters to him. Those letters were more important for his sanity than he wanted to admit. You told him of everything, gave him daily reminders of why he needed to see the world again. Your return was more than waited on, but prayed for. A selfless act in self-preservation on your behalf, and a brave one on Spencers. 

The first letter dates a few weeks after Spencer was in rehab. You’re so different in writing, maybe more honest because you aren’t thinking so much. Spencer doesn’t know how to explain it but he likes the way you write. 

Dear Genius, 

Congrats on a whole 3 weeks!! I’m so proud of you, and I’m happy to hear you like group therapy. I loved your clown painting, by the way and I want it framed for my apartment ASAP - seriously I had no clue you were so good at art. I also want pictures of when you guys have group therapy with those service dogs because that is so cute!!! Excited for the next letter just for that. 

Updates on my life are pretty boring but you asked so I’ll deliver. My dad is doing okay right now. We’ve talked a lot and he’s sorta mulled over my chilhood and apologized about well… all of it. It was a bit much, to be honest but thats okay. I’ll get through it, especially when I have these letters to look forward too. I met someone sorta too, he’s from DC but he moved into my neighborhood. He’s nice, but who knows, you know? 

Also, you told me to keep sending you new music to listen too, but honestly I just wanna send you radio hits. You should listen to The-Weeknd, maybe Starboy? I mostly just wanna see how you feel about stuff people listen to on the car radio haha. I don’t know, but either way, hope you like the song. 

Anyways, I love you and I’m looking forward to our next correspondence. Good luck always, and keep yourself strong. 

Best Wishes,

Y/N 

Spencer smiles big. The kind of smile that reaches the lines in his eyes and makes his whole body relax. He replies with what you ask for, he remembers. He had a picture of him with an Australian Shepherd from therapy that you framed and put on your desk. He remembers how much you liked it, though he wasn’t sure why. He hadn’t sent you the clown painting yet because it seemed to slip his mind but he reminds himself to give it to you. He looks through more letters, reading the different one-sided exchanges. He reads your weekly updates about the community mural that you painted with all the kids while you were back home. He reads about the different volunteers, and how your childhood friend who you lost touch with had moved back and had a baby. Her name was Ellie, and you loved her. He comes across the letter where your dad passed away, only a month into your trip. 

Dear Spencer, 

Hey kid. I’m happy to hear about your progress!! I know it’s been tough because you’ve hit that middle slump but I know you. I know you’ll get through, it just takes time and you’re doing great keeping your head above water. I love you and I’m so proud of you, you’re gonna go far. 

I know I sound different here, it’s because my dad passed away last night. He passed quietly, stubborn bastard. I cried, more than I was expecting. He’s the last person of blood who would claim me as family and he just sorta disappeared. It’s just weird, how little i seem to feel. I was sad but it was weird, more emptying than anything but in a fucked up way I was relieved. I don’t know. I suppose it’s complicated

It made me think of you, in a weird way, I guess. You told me to send you music and I guess this is my indirect way of telling you stuff, but you should listen to 1000 times by Sarah Barielles. I don’t really know what to make of it but thanks for being a good friend and I’m grateful for what we have as friends always. You’re a good person, Spencer. 

Anyways, let me know if anything changes and good luck next week. I miss you, but I know we’ll see eachother again soon and things will be good. Keep sending me pictures of Dianes cat also because she’s so cute and I love her. Thanks for everything. 

Love always, 

Y/N 

 Spencer looks at the song you sent. He normally listens to every single one but that week he had already used up all of his computer time to read the articles from your local newspaper and he never got a chance too after that. He figures now was a good time, always having a piece of you when he got that music. Even if the song wasn’t his style, it made him think of you and for him that was most than enough. It was a blessing in a lot of ways to have a part of you that only he knew of. It was music anyone could listen to but the meaning was his alone. Spencer opens up his laptop and types in the song title. He presses play, awaiting whatever pop ballad you had waiting for him

Then the lyrics start to play and Spencer feels sick,” 

“Again again I let it go, let it go/ Cover my mouth don't let a single word slip/ Out wouldn't wanna tell you, no tell you, no/ Nothing could be worse than the risk of/ Losing what I don't have now,” 

Shit. 

Spencers heart drops to the bottom of his stomach. He feels like he’s going to die, and he doesn’t know how else to explain this feeling of detriment. You told Spencer you loved him a full month before he even realized how far deep he was and he just… didn’t acknowledge it. Spencer wanted to throw up, every visceral feeling of panic banging on the inside of his chest and threatens to crush his heart under the weight. Spencer could feel it in his throat, as he scrambles to find his phone your contact, dialing your number as he feels the drum of his heartbeat. His fingers shake as he hears you pick up on the other side.

“Hello?,” 

Your voice makes Spencer ache. Spencer breathes out, unable to speak for a few seconds. You look confused on the other side of the phone. 

“Spencer?,”

Your voice is all Spencer hears yet your words feel distant. His voice is abysmal and small when he speaks - the words trapped in the maze of thoughts, unable to be expressed correctly. Spencer coughs before he talks, trying to clear his airways even though nothing was really wrong. 

“Are you home and are you busy?,” Spencer asks, tears threatening to run down his face before his voice can give out 

“I’m home but I’m not busy, why? Is everything okay? ,” Panic is subtle in your voice, Spencer swallows thickly. 

“Yeah, yeah - I’m okay. Can I come over?,” Spencer asks, voice quiet. 

“Of course, Spencer. See you soon, and drive safe - the weather is still bad so you gotta be careful,” you say warmly. 

“Yeah, of course. See you soon,” Spencer replies. The line clicks and Spencer stares into his phone. He picks his care keys up and puts on a jacket, knowing he’d still get caught up in the rain. 

____

The rain is heavier than it was before. It was late, the clock reads 11:45  and Spencer can’t see much as water spills from the grey clouds that hung over his head. It was peaceful, almost. When you ignore the feeling of imminent panic and anxiety that washes over him, the rain is soothing to his ears as heavy as it. Spencer hands around the steering wheel are gripped tight enough to make the pads of his fingers white. His skin is hot, chest covered in a light sheen of sweat as he thinks of what's going to happen when he gets there - or moreso, if anything has happened. Spencer's thoughts are deafened by his own uncertainty - he owes it to you to tell you but if it’s too late for him he may never come back from that. He needed to tell you because you deserved to know but the thought of nothing happening hurts him. He’d rather you didn’t know but that’s not fair.

Spencer's thoughts of your ex-boyfriend pop up and he feels guilty. He’s tearing himself to pieces finding every reason in the world not to tell you, but he had to make the right choice because you were braver than he could ever be. He wants to show you he’s changed and that he won’t run from this. He refused to run from you. 

His hands shake when he knocks. His hair is wet and the water seems to soak through parts of his old jacket. He looked like a mess he was sure but it didn’t matter. Spencer was so anxious, he doesn’t remember the last time he ever felt this anxious. 

When you open the door with a smile - that’s when Spencer knows you were the love of his life. He just looked at you, looks at you with sunken eyes that flit over your face with a feeling you can’t explain. Spencer needed you, maybe more than you needed him. 

“Hey, Spencer,” You say warmly. Spencer walks inside and you close the door behind him. He looks at you for a second, taking his jacket off as he just looks to you in silence. He wants to spit the words out, he wants to say them so the two of you can get caught up together. Spencer wants to be yours, and for you to be his and then some. Spencer loves you. 

“What’s up?,” you ask quietly, seating yourself next to Spence whose found himself a spot on the couch. You grab his hands and play with his fingers for a few seconds, the touch is just so damn intimate. You loved Spencer, so much more than you could explain. You had that little anxious bubble in your chest about what could happen - that ‘maybe’ that brought you so many restless nights. You wondered if today was the day but before you go to dismiss the thought, you feel Spencers hands under your chin. He lifts your face up, eyes examining your face carefully. His scruff was nice, he looked different than before. 

Before you can ask, Spencer kisses you. It’s out of character, and in many ways out of place for him. He’s not the type to kiss anyone out of the blue but he doesn’t know else to break the tension with any language other than physical. It's the way his lips melt to yours, the way you kiss him back immediately, the way his lips have a way of holding yours. The way his hands hold your face up. It was everything that made you remember that Spencer was fucking kiss you. Kissing you like he was the reason he was breathing. Curled around your very existence, with his lips giving you their every secret. This kiss was an exchange in secrets, but more than an assurance. Spencer kisses you, and you kiss him back and the whole universe is still. 

When Spencer pulls away, you’re more than speechless. You look at Spencer, looking in his eyes for regret and you find none. Solace, maybe but no regret. You just look down, too scared to look at him again but he stops you, lifting your face up again. 

“Don’t hide from me please,” Spencer croaks “I need to look at you,” 

“Why?,” 

“To make sure you’re real,” Spencers confession makes your body heat up. 

“What’s gotten into you?,” you laugh nervously. You think Spencer will follow in suit, going back to being silly with you like normal but he doesn’t falter. He holds both of your hands and looks down, your eyes still fixated on him. Spencer sighs. 

“I read your letter, from when your dad died. I never had a chance to listen to that song, but I did. I normally did but that one somehow managed to miss me and..,” he trails off, like his thoughts are moving too fast for him to say what he wants to. You swallow thickly. So he knows, you figure. 

“It’s okay if you don’t, you know, return those feelings,” your voice chokes out. Spencer laughs. 

“You’d be a fool to think something like that,” Spencer says earnestly. You choke a little violently. 

“Oh?,” 

Spencer turns to look at you again. His eyes are full of something, and this time you know the feeling. You give it to him often, that look of adoration That “You’re so stupid, please marry me,” look you give to the person you want to love most in this life. 

“My whole life, I couldn’t afford to believe in anything related to destiny. I didn’t believe in miracles, or destiny, or a lot of other things for a long time. Sometimes I still don’t, like when cases go so bad that the whole team is left with that hollow feeling,” Spencer starts “I try my best to remember joy and happiness, and sometimes I do believe in miracles but it’s not everyday. Sometimes the pain was just too heavy,” 

“When I started taking dilaudid again, I was just trying to cope with the pain. My life can feel like a series of unfortunate events sometimes,” Spencer says softly. The grip he has on your hands tightens just a little bit. 

“I’ve been wanting to give you this confession for weeks, but like always you’ve proved to be more brave than I could ever be. Of course you figured it out first, who could be surprised but,” Spencer pauses for a second. 

“You’re the love of my life. Maybe it’s too much to say right now, maybe enough time hasn’t passed for me to decide that but if I said anything less I’d be lying to you, and I don’t want to lie to you ever again,” Spencers voice is barely above a whisper. 

“Y/N, you’re the only woman I could ever love this much. Those two months, those words that you gave me are what kept me sane. It was thoughts of your voice and your touch that kept me alive. It was your kindness that gave me strength, your love that gave me courage. It was you that reminded me of what it feels like to have hope, and perhaps even believe in miracles and destiny,” Spencers crying and so are you, but you still managed to hold eachother. 

“I’m wholly in love with you. I really don’t know how to say anything else. Please be mine because for now, loving you is all I really want to do,” Spencer says the last part with a small voice. The butterflies in your stomach make it hard for you to speak and you’re crying so much you have a headache. You want to kiss him, and say something back but for now you’re just crying a little bit. You’d clear all the grey clouds in the world to give Spencer some sunshine. 

“It’s always been you, dickhead,” you say through giggles. Spencer loves the sound of your laugh, if he could he would bottle up and keep it for himself to wear around his neck. Spencer wants to wear your name around your neck so the whole world knew he was yours and you were his. 

You can’t hold yourself back from moving into Spencer's lap, bare thighs over his legs as you lean into his neck. You adored Spencer and you knew that for so long, but you always figured he didn’t feel the same. That song was your confession, and when he didn’t listen you always figured he didn’t feel it. Miscommunication is a hell of a drug, you figure. You were here now, wrapped in Spencer and more than ready to give him all of you. You adored Spencer, the way his mind worked full of cogs and his heart was full of affection. It was everything Spencer did when he was getting better, giving you purpose. Spencer made you feel at ease, always. Even when bad things seemed to swallow you up, Spencer gave you ease. 

You look up at Spencer, there are small tears in your eyes when you do. You straddle his lap, and kiss him again. Holding your waist, Spencer smiles. He’s so grateful to be touching you like this. Spencer wants all of you to himself and he’d be damned if he was selfish for it. 

“Spencer,” your voice is small, but happy. Spencer hums, wrapped up in the way the two of you kiss for him to be upset. You look up at him, into him in the way only you can and speak again. 

“Make love to me,” your question is quiet. Spencer immediately became a little unsteady but he understood your request. That term “make love,” used to gross you out but you got it now. Sex and love are different - but sometimes you used sex to make love. To feel someone so close to you like that, you wanted to make love with Spencer. You wanted to have marks all over your skin so that the sight of him could be there forever, and for him to fuck you like you were the only thing he needed. Spencer wanted to make you feel wanted, and you wanted him to want you all the same. So, Spencer smiles, places a hand on boths sides of your face and kisses you slowly. Spencer loves you, adores you and wants to make you feel beautiful. 

“You wanna go to your room?,” Spencer asks. You nod, and Spencer lifts you up before carrying you. You’re wrapped around him, yelping at his surprising strength. 

Spencer lays you down, eyes glassy as he looks at your figure. He’s admiring you - he wants to make you feel pretty. You’re the prettiest woman in the world to him, and all he wants to do is make you feel it. He leans into you, his body pressed to yours as your legs are tangled. Spencer always cradles your face when he kisses you, as if he’s trying to hold you as close to him as possible. Spencer treats you like glass, his touch an ink stain leaving your body with permanent color as he kisses you. His tongue pushes past your lips softly, before pulling back. His fingers are so nimble, tugging with the sides of your shirt, staving himself off as he feels your bare thighs. 

His mouth moves to your neck, peppering kisses along the sides of the column of your throat. He grips your thighs, feeling your wrap your legs around his waist pulling him closer. Spencer tugs at the ends of your shirt, detaching from you so you can get it off. He chokes at the sight of you without your top on and you can’t help but hide your face. Spencer's face leans in, taking your nipple in his while he uses his free hand to gently brush against the other one. 

“You’re beautiful, you look so good like this,” Spencer comments. A soft whine escapes your lips at the combination of words and Spencers touch. He was sweet with every movement but damn he had way too many clothes on. 

“Spence, take it off,” you whine. Spencer gives you a small laugh, taking off his shirt before hovering over you again. His body was surprisingly toned from being out in the field and you definitely weren’t upset about seeing it. Your hands find their way around his waist, touching his skin in appreciation. He gives you a shy smile, before his head ducks down again, moving to kiss down past your breasts to your stomach and above your naval. His kisses are gentle, mouth careful in leaving them in as many places as possible. He stops when he ghosts his mouth over your panties, placing a kiss on your vulva - a wet spot formed on the light color. Spencer moves to kiss your thighs, getting close to your center and taking his time with it. Small hickies take place all along your skin, Spencer wanted to mark the word “mine,” into your skin with his mouth. He wanted you to think of him always, but especially when you were doing this. 

Your breaths are staggered and heavy, as Spencer rubs you down with his hands - palms massaging your legs as he touched you. For the first time in your life, when someone touched you could feel how much they meant it. Maybe it’s because Spencer manages to make things you’ve felt before feel different - he makes everything feel better. 

Spencer slides your panties down your legs carefully. His eyes are low when he sees your clit, sensitive and aching for his attention. He places a kiss on it first before he sticks his tongue out flat for you. Your fingers grip his hair immediately, legs wrapped around his shoulders where you could see him shift his weight to unzip his jeans and get himself off which only worked you up farther. Spencer eats you out like he’s been starved of you his whole life, head rhythmic as he brings you to your orgasm and slows down. He’s making an attempt to savor you but enjoys the sound of irritation you make every time he stops, something he’d explore farther at a later date. You’d gotten head before but it always came off as a favor and not like your partner wanted to do it for you. Spencer made sure you knew he wanted just as much as you did. 

You orgasm in Spencer mouth twice in borderline succession as Spencer refuses to pull away, smiling as he holds your hips down and makes your whole body shiver. You have to catch your breath when he finally spares you and gives you a toothy-boyish grin of satisfaction that you only ever saw when he beats you in a card game. You look down at him adoringly, wanting to cry at how lucky you felt. You pull him to kiss you and he looks at you for a second - a questioning one since he just had his tongue inside you. You roll your eyes in a “duh, that’s the point way,” and Spencer swallows thickly. 

“Do you want me to return the favor? Because I’m more than happy too,” you say reaching for his dick, which twitched at your touch. Spencer shakes his head. 

“Not right now, wanna focus on you tonight,” Spencer replies. You look at him with the most affectionate puppy dog eyes and Spencer bursts out into full giggles. God, he loved you. 

“Can I?,” Spencers question is tentative, and all you do in response is open your legs up wider for him and give him a nod. You mouth a “please,” to him and Spencer just smiles, kissing you softly. 

Spencer stretches you out so fucking good. He’s careful, whispering pretty nothings about how beautiful you are and how lucky he was. The words were only fuel to the fire as you tighten around Spencer and some choked sound leaves his throat. Out of curiosity, you do it again and Spencer moans aloud. You give him a raised eyebrow and his voice is suddenly low. 

“Do that again and I’ll cum,” Spencer warns. You giggled for a second before looking up at Spencer's face. 

“You can cum in me if you’d like to,” you say, voice innocent  “I’m on the pill,” Spencer wants to cum right then and there but he pauses to take a deep breath. 

“Think I’ll have to take you up on that,” Spencer groans. You use one hand to rub your clit as Spencer pulls his hips back and starts to fuck you. The motion is slow at first, not wanting to hurt you but your voice in his ear only urges you to go deeper. 

“I’m so lucky to have you like this love, you’re so pretty for me,” Spencer's praises are so sweet to you. Sugar to aching ears when he speaks lovely words for you. You whine. 

“Spencer please cum in me - god, please,” you egg Spencer on as you get yourself off one last time. Spencer presses his forehead to yours, pausing for a second to kiss you sweetly before pounding into you again. 

“Shit,” Spencer's voice feels like it gets stolen from him as he finishes inside, feeling your orgasm aftermath convulse around him pushes him off the edge as you look at him warmly, a soft blush flooding your expression. 

“I love you so much,” you giggle to him, wrapping your arms around his neck and allowing him to rest his body weight on you. Spencer wants to stay with you like this forever, wanting to wrap you up in his arms and hold you for eternity. He was hoping you’d let him. 

“I wanna stay like this, but let’s go get cleaned up first,” you say thoughtfully “I can wash your hair for you and we can shower together,” you say softly. Tears well up in Spencers eyes - remember the last time you did just that for him. He nods softly, burying his face in your neck, kissing new bruises that were soon to become dark purples. 

____

You come out of the shower first as you hear a knock on your door. It’s been a few minutes and the knocking has been incessant, you figure it’s a neighbor or maybe someone who needed help. You wrap your robe around yourself and towel around your hair before you open up the door. 

To your fucking dismay, it’s JJ, Emily, and Penelope - all stood outside with a bottle of wine as a greeting. Your eyes pop open immediately as you try to brush away the panic and give them all a fake smile. 

“Hey guys! What are you all doing here so late?,” you ask, internal panic threatening your life. They all give you a knowing look. 

“Well, we wanted to talk to you about something and we figure -,” Garcia starts but is interrupted by the sound of Spencer's voice, calling out to you as he walks out of the shower and in view of the open door. He can’t see them, but they can see him and he’s covered in hickies. You shut your eyes in disbelief as they all go dead silent. 

“Oh - oh my god is that Spencer?,” JJ asks shocked. You’re going to throw yourself in front of a bus. 

“Shit,” Spencer bolts into the other room leaving you to deal with the mess. You were so gonna get him for that later. You give them all an apologetic look. 

“We, uh - yeah,” you say a little distant. They all just giving you a knowing look, even Garcia even though that’s mixed with a bit of disgust. 

“We’ll see you on Monday, Y/N,” Emily says, being an angel and cutting the conversation short. You just nod as she drags a blabbering Garcia and deadsilent JJ away, reminding yourself to send her a thank you note later on. You walk into the room with Spencer and he gives you a guilty look, eyes apologetic as you roll your eyes, walking up to him to kiss him. 

“You’re so goddamn lucky I like you, dickhead,”

“You like me?,” Spencer asks, wrapping his arms around your waist before falling over to lay down with you. 

“Oh shut up, you know I do,” your tone is mean but your face gives you away. Spencer kisses you long and slow before looking at you again. The room is barred with loving silence, it feels every part of the air. It’s domestic, soft and adoring. A person whose love made you feel child-like joy but whose being brought your soul such comfort. You and Spencer lay in your bedroom like that for a while. 

“We should change right?” you ask laughing. Spencer nods. 

“I have clothes for you in my dresser,” you remind. Spencer nods as he stands up, slipping on some boxers and a shirt. You change into some old college pj’s and shorts and get laid up next to Spencer. 

There’s this silence that fills the room. It’s difficult to describe, the feeling of it is so new and hard to pinpoint exactly. You can feel it just barely on your skin, the way Spencer's arms hold your waist as the two of you lay next to each other, closing the gaps of space that fall between you - just itching for that familiar feeling of closeness. Spencer Reid was the closest thing to heaven you ever got - scruffy face and curious eyes. It’s hard to find truth in another person, yet stil Spencer shows up for you and kisses away all your nightmares. Loving him was so certain, but the fact that he loved you too felt unreal, still. Maybe it always would. It was a lot for you to take in but the feeling of him at your side, face on your chest sleepily messing with your hands. The way he looks up at you with such a pretty expression, mouthing the words I love you. It was the silence in the room and the cadence it managed - the soft and lulling adoration buzzing the nerves on your skin and kissing you awake. This was more than love, but faith. A regained faith in the notion that good things really can happen to good people. Spencer's love to you was a promise from the universe that good things are always around you even if you don’t see it at first. 

Spencer is so relaxed against you now, you read his body language and can feel his exhaustion. You were so attuned to him, fingers aching  to run through his hair and tell him how proud you were. Spencer made your heart light - his beaming smile turning you flush. Beautiful - him, this, the universe. Loving Spencer made the world feel so beautiful, even though both of you encountered such darkness in it. You were going to marry him someday, you were so sure of it. Someday you and Spencer would grow old and live with some livestock in a cottage somewhere far from here like he wanted. Or maybe a house in the suburbs with two babies you call your own - and a cat, and a dog too. Anything would work for you, but Spencer is probably a bit more picky. 

For you and Dr. Spencer Reid, love has always been a case study in body language. People lie, or hide the truth when they talk - so the two of you have never fallen in love with the words you may exchange. Instead you’ve fallen in love with the gentle touches, the longing glances and lingering hugs - or the feeling of their skin on yours when the night is too cold to be alone. It was the dilating pupils, and the feelings that universe seemed to fall away when the two of you shared looks to each other. You fell for Spencers subconscious before you ever fell for his mind or his body - the little things he did like raising his shoulders when he was happy, or fiddling with your hands when he was deep in thought, you fell in love with the things Spencer would never see for himself and he did the same for you. Spencer fell for the way you moved without thinking. For the person you were when all the curtains were closed. 

Love is anything but conscious. Love is deep-rooted in the sheer notion of that being alive is worth something, which is to say love is the basis of life. Not romantic love - but all love. Love is the basis of life. Spencer Reid loved you, sharing a piece of his life. In returns you gave him yours. An eye for an eye can give us sight we could never have before, if the exchange is born of adoration. 

There are still so many unresolved knots to tie, but for now it didn’t matter. Just like those first two months, Spencer is laying at your side and he smells like you. For now, he was here with you - as the two of you fell so deeply for each other as the seconds passed. There are so many questions to answer, but that’s okay for now. 

You two had all the time in the world to figure the rest out, and for him - thats more than enough. 

This silence was more than enough.

____

taglist:  @cynbx​ @zephyr-studiesjp​ @skrrrrrrrrrrt​ @reid-187​ @louistwinslover​ @pastanest​ @nomajdetective​ @iamburdened​ @secretlyablueunicorn

[marveloussupernerd]

Happy New Year - Yoosung

Happy new year everyone! Hope this year you and your loved ones are happy and healthy. And hopefully we can find 3D people to fall in love w too!

Summary: you’ve had a crush on Yoosung for way too long. Maybe you’ll make your move tonight when it hits midnight? Maybe...

“Hi Princess!” Zen greeted you, lifting you up into a big hug. “Can you believe it’s almost the new year?”

“Honestly I can’t. This year went by so fast!”

He set you down. “I can’t believe you only joined the RFA this year.”

“I know right?” You pulled slightly on the sleeves of your shirt. “It feels like I’ve known you all my whole life.”

“How about this year we do more parties? Or hangouts in general. I don’t like that we’ve only gotten to hang out a handful of times this year,” he pouted.

You rolled your eyes. “Of course!” You began to walk into the event. “Is everyone here already?”

“Yup!” He lead you through the main entrance. “Yoosung keeps looking up at the door. I think he’s been waiting for you.”

“I highly doubt it,” you told yourself more than him. “I’m sure he’s just excited to meet the LOLOL guest I invited.”

Your eyes locked with Yoosung’s and he rushed over. “Sure, Yeah right,” Zen teased.

Yoosung pulled you into a hug. “Happy New Year! Well, almost. I was wondering when you’d show up.”

“Oh! Well I’m here now. You look nice,” you complimented, eyes glancing over his navy suit. It was well-fitted to his body. Jumin must’ve made an investment in him.

“I’ll get us some drinks,” Zen offered, nudging you as he left. You rolled your eyes.

Seven practically skipped over to the two of you. “Hey! You look...” he glanced at Yoosung, then back at you, “Pretty.”

Yoosung choked on air. “Yes! You do. I was just about to say that.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. It’s not even new,” you shrugged, referencing your outfit.

“I could always get you something new next time,” a deep voice said behind you. Jumin. You refused to jump, even though his presence had startled you.

You turned to face him, a smile on your face. “I’m good with this. Thank you though!”

Jaehee was next to him, giving you an awkward wave.

“Ugh. Just because you offer to buy her things doesn’t mean you’re going to get to take her on a date.” Another voice behind you. That was Zen. You scooted back a little bit, forming a circle with your friends so you could stop being startled every time. “I won’t let you.” Zen continued, placing an arm protectively around your waist.

You didn’t even have a crush on Zen. But your cheeks were heating up. He was super overprotective like an older brother. It didn’t help how handsome he was. You scooted away just a little. “I’m okay Zenny. I can take care of myself,” you grinned, using your nickname on him.

He reached to the table behind him and picked up a drink, handing it to you. “This is yours by the way!” You reached to grab it, but he pulled his hand back a little, waving his finger. “Ah ah ah. Remember, you shouldn’t take drinks from guys. Except you can trust me.”

“That makes... startlingly little sense,” Seven commented.

Still, you knew Zen was just being his overprotective self and took the drink. He’d never spike your drink. None of the RFA members would.

“So,” Seven started. This couldn’t be good. “Are you all going to start off the new year the right way?”

“What’s the right way?” Yoosung asked. Pure sweet boy. He was perfect. You were already blushing at Seven’s question.

“You kiss someone at midnight of course! It’s a thing,” Zen explained.

“Maybe Jumin and Zen will finally kiss,” you teased.

Jumin stiffened. “This conversation is idiotic,” he groaned, then left the circle. Jaehee frowned, then followed, clipboard in hand.

“Is that really a thing? Or are you two just messing with me,” Yoosung asked, a small pout on his face. It was like he had learned that those two liked to mess with him.

“No, this is real. Although you don’t really have to do it. Champagne toast works just as well,” you shrugged.

“Have you ever done it?” Yoosung asked timidly, unable to meet your eye.

“I guess? When I was dating this one guy a long time ago. But not at a party or anything like this.” You knew your face was flushed. It was embarrassing talking about it. “I don’t know... it’s not necessary or anything.”

“You’ve had a boyfriend before!?” Yoosung asked in shock. Zen and Seven laughed out loud.

“Yeah of course. Like in high school and stuff.”

“Oh...” his face was bright red. “I’ve never had a girlfriend. I’ve never even kissed someone.”

It broke your heart. Who wouldn’t want to kiss Yoosung? Uh, you mean... uh... Still, it was sad. “Don’t worry! I’m sure you just need to find that special someone!” You encouraged him.

“Yeah. Maybe she’s closer than you think,” Seven added suggestively, sending you a wink. Was it really this obvious!?

You drank the rest of your drink quickly. “I’ve gotta get more. I’m gonna, uh, go mingle with the guests!” You excused yourself, desperate to get away from your two wingmen.

Mingling made you feel better. Until it got closer to midnight. Seven loomed behind you during a conversation. “It’s 11:45,” he whispered ominously in your ear. It made you shiver.

“5 minutes til New Years!” Zen cheered to you, handing you another glass of champagne. “If you’re nervous, you can just drink instead. That’s as good a choice as any.”

“Are you even kissing someone? I don’t know why all this pressure is on me.”

He laughed. “Of course not. The press would go crazy! But do it for me. It’d be fun.”

You sighed, excusing yourself to get some air. You stepped outside the event, leaning back against the wall of the building. Your feet hurt from your shoes. You were tired and you didn’t wanna be here. And you especially didn’t want to feel pressured. You took a big gulp do your champagne. You needed more alcohol.

“You needed a break too?” Yoosung asked, walking over to you, glass of his own in hand.

You sighed, nodding. It was freezing outside, but it felt nice. It was warm in there and stuffy. You needed something to wake you up. “There’s so much pressure to start the new year out right. I miss when I was a kid and slept right through the parties.”

“That was fun,” he chuckled. “My parents always had their friends over. I hung out with their kids and we all crashed before 11.”

“Oh I felt that.” You took another big drink. “My head hurts and I’m tired.”

“You’re telling me. I’m so freaking nervous,” he whined, shoving his empty hand into his coat pocket.

“Don’t be nervous,” you giggled. “It’s just a countdown. Then people cheering. Then you can go home and fall fast asleep.” Yeah... you needed to tell yourself that too. You felt a shiver run over you. Before you could stop him, Yoosung was trading his glass between his hands to shrug off his jacket.

“Oh! I’m okay,” you assured him. It didn’t stop him though. He wrapped his jacket around your shoulders, champagne sloshing from his glass from the motion.

He chuckled. “It’s no fair guys have to wear 7 layers and you’re stuck in this, freezing.” He pulled the jacket on your shoulders further, ensuring it wouldn’t fall off.

And then his watch went off.

He still was grasping his jacket on you, trying to fix it. “It’s midnight,” he stated awkwardly. He let go of his jacket and took an anxious half step back, noticing how close you were moments before.

“Oh! I-“ you held out your glass, clinking it against his. “Happy New Year Yoosung.” You downed the entire glass of champagne. Yoosung gingerly took a sip. Then he looked at the ground. Then glanced at you. Then his glass. Then you.

And then you took a step towards him. You were going to kiss him. You could do this !! Worst case you could blame it on the alcohol.

And then he took a step towards you simultaneously. And then your foreheads bumped. You laughed out loud, your free hand moving to cup your forehead. It hurt. Yoosung’s face was bright red. He took your empty glass from you, bending down to set both your glasses on the ground. He stood back up to face you.

“Happy New Year,” he whispered, his face so so close to your own you could taste the champagne in his mouth, without your lips even touching. One of his hands moved to cup your face, the other pulling slightly on his suit jacket, resting on your shoulders.

You shut your eyes and leaned forward, lips meeting his. His lips were so soft, as though never having gone through the abuse of kissing in the past preserved their baby soft feel. Where were you supposed to put your hands!? You rested them on his chest, by his shoulders. It was too soon when he pulled away, the stupidest smile on his face.

“I- I love you,” he choked out, his face bright bright red. “And it’s okay if you only wanted to kiss me because it’s New Years or whatever but... I just wanted to tell you. That I think about you all the time. That I wait for you to call. That I stared at the door to this event for like an hour because I was waiting for you to show up. That I-“

You grabbed his tie and pulled him back to you, pulling his lips back to yours. He let out a whimper, but caught on quickly, hand going back to lightly stroke your hair, careful not to mess up the style you had worked on.

“It worked!”

You broke away from Yoosung, turning on your heel to glare at Zen and Seven, who were currently toasting to their success.

Yoosung was trying to stutter out some form of a remark, but failing. You continued to glare at them. “Go away. I have to kiss my boyfriend some more.”

“Your b-boyfriend?” Yoosung asked, hands shaking as he grabbed your hand and pulled you back to face him.

“If... you’d like. I love you too, Yoosung.”

He let go of your hand, grabbing the champagne glasses from the ground, pushing each into the hands of the boys staring at you. “Go put these away or something.” He was pushing them back through the door. “Leave us alone!!!”

“Have fun kiddos,” Seven teased, winking in your direction.

“Stay safe!” Zen called.

Yoosung hid his face in his hand momentarily after they left, groaning. “They always know how to ruin a moment.”

“That’s okay,” you grinned, grabbing his hand again and pulling him back in for another kiss. “Happy New Year my boyfriend.”

[nelllraiser]

my mother’s daughter | solo

— - “there is a cord between us, not yet cut”

     It had been nearly two months since Nell had seen her mother. Nearly two months that marked the day the young witch had been cut off from the majority of her family, not a single word spoken between her and the woman that had raised her. Fifty-three days since Nisa Vural had chosen her coven, pride, and image over her own flesh and blood. That’s how it had looked to Nell when she’d been standing in the council chambers, refusing to crumble under the disapproving and disappointed looks that had painted her mother’s face. It had been even longer since she’d graced the steps of her mother’s home, the familiar and cheery paint of the porch seeming to welcome her in a way that was inversely matched to the tumultuous feelings she felt within as Nell crossed the border spell of the home. 

     She didn’t even need to knock before Nisa Vural was there in all her glory, flinging open her front door with a fluttering heart in her chest, the matriarch’s expression a mix of reluctant hope and a standoffish guard. As always, the elder witch would be the one to have the first word. “You shouldn’t be here.” Nell hadn’t been sure to expect when it came to what this encounter might bring. She’d steeled herself, of course— thought herself ready to see and even smell the familiar sight of a woman who’d held her when she was young, brushed the hair from her face and wiped her tears in the dead of night when she’d woken to nightmares. But nothing could have truly prepared her for the way she still flinched as Nisa’s words struck her like a slap to the face. Her feet felt restless, as if they were begging to run back down the drive and pretend like this had never happened. That wasn’t an option as the conversation with Ariana played fresh in her mind. Her friends were in danger. Her friends needed help, and Nell would have done whatever it was the world asked if it meant making sure those she cared about lived to see another day. But she couldn’t be what they needed with ribs that still groaned and cracked and refused to cooperate after Constance had drowned her beneath the waves that White Crest was named for. How was she meant to defend and fight with fractured ribs? It was practically asking for death— both for herself and those she was hoping to help. Her voice cracked like her ribs when she spoke, the stumble in her breath giving her away when it came to just how desperate she was in these moments.

     “I need help.” It wasn’t something that had ever come naturally to the young woman. She was more accustomed to offering a hand up as opposed to asking for one, but Nell’s pride was null and void when faced with the potential loss of loved ones. As the words balanced in the air between Nell and the older woman, Nisa’s lips pressed into a thin line, weighing her options as her youngest daughter looked up to her with battered eyes and a stubborn jaw she’d inherited from her mother. Wordlessly Nisa stepped out of the front doorway, holding it open with a single arm as an obvious invitation inside. It was all Nell needed to cross the last steps over the threshold, and the house hit her all at once.

     It hadn’t changed. Nell didn’t know what she’d expected. Perhaps she’d thought that every trace of Nisa’s three failures for daughters would have been purged from the house, family photos torn down, expunged and replaced with mindless self affirmations or simply leaving the walls bare- empty yet somehow resembling an open wound, gaping with no sign of being repaired. But the pictures had stayed preserved along with the memories, feeling more like a shrine to someone who’d died than a conscious decision. And perhaps it was. As Nisa crossed the pictures and led the way to her healing room, she mourned for what had been lost, just as she always did when she walked past the frames on the wall. Nell felt a similar sense of loss, though she quickly stuffed the cavernous hole with anger and a sense of betrayal as she always did, refusing to let the sadness consume her or acknowledge that it was there. 

     Out of habit, Nell lifted herself onto her mother’s healing table, a pained gasp slipping from her unintentionally as her ribs protested with the motion. In a moment, Nisa raised a hand that seemed to glow with a gentle light to her daughter’s chest, quickly identifying the source of the girl’s pain. “Cracked ribs.” They were the first words to break the stretched silence between them, though Nell didn’t dignify them with a response. The less she talked during this, the better. The healing would be faster in more ways than one if she managed to keep her mouth shut, no need to open physical or emotional scars by wasting her breath. It seemed that Nisa had other ideas, the coven council member and mother warring in her once more as she watched her daughter suffer. She just wanted a snippet- a glimpse into her daughter’s life to know that things were relatively okay despite having cut her off. “Do I want to know what you did?” 

     The age-old tightening of Nell’s chest was quick to take hold as her mother took on a tone she’d heard countless times. Always wondering what it was that Nell had done. Always ready to place the blame on her daughter. The defensive reply bubbled up before Nell could force it down, breaking past her wordless barrier. “Why do you have to do that? Even now? Why do you even care?” Nisa’s stern eyes were quick to find Nell’s, her steady hand still on the girl’s chest as she gently pushed her to lie down so that she might begin the healing. 

     “Yelling like that is just going to make your ribs hurt more. Are you going to tell me or not?” Again all the hurt that was knotted inside Nell picked up its arms, fortifying itself in the form of a retort.

     “Why?” she insisted again. “Are you going to kick me out of another coven? Find another way to abandon your own fucking daughters after- after-” Nell couldn’t finish the sentence, or rather didn’t trust herself to without having her voice break, tears threatening to fall loose. Everything was just so much. There was so much happening in the world that she couldn’t wholly fix or control. Nisa’s magic began to slowly restitch the broken parts of Nell’s bone, though it did little for the broken heart that lay underneath it. 

     “I wasn’t abandoning you,” Nisa replied fiercely, but her words were quickly drowned out by Nell who couldn’t seem to stop the avalanche of accusations now that they’d begun to fall.

     “Bea died, mom! I watched her die, and I had to wake up to her headless body, covered in her blood, and go home and tell everyone that she was gone. That I was the reason she was gone.” Somewhere in all her speaking the tears she’d tried to hold back had flooded over, breaths coming fast and jerky. “And you didn’t give a single shit! Not about me! Not about Luce! Not even about Bea! All you could think about was your bullshit pride and the coven!” One of her sobs turned into another wince of pain, ribs not yet permitting the full range of her emotions. “And now I just wanna be fixed and help my friends and you still don’t care. You just wanna know what I did to deserve this.” Again Nisa made her denials.

     “That’s not true! You don’t think I felt a single thing hearing that my daughter had died? That my other two had suffered alongside her? All I’ve ever wanted was to protect you, Penelope. But how am I supposed to protect you when you insist on throwing yourself in front of every freight train that comes your way? When you continue to make the decisions that hurt you?” Nisa was close now, nearly finished with her healing work. But it still seemed there was much left to mend when it came to her daughter. Her voice stabilized, though there was still the ever-present steel lacing her tone. “I banished you to protect you. Because maybe then you’d finally learn to stop doing all these things that get you into these positions.” 

     Nell’s bulldozing tirade of an accusation stopped for a long moment as she tried her best to digest. Was it possible the things her mother did that had hurt her most were truly done out of love? Did her mother’s intentions matter when they were still the one responsible for the scars on her heart? “You could have done anything-” Nell continued, her voice quieter this time, too tired to yell. “-anything else. But you took away everything.” At least her tears had stopped, though their tracks were still wet on her cheeks. For once in her life and for a long moment, Nisa was speechless, unknowing when it came to mending what had long been broken between herself and her daughter. Finally, she found the words- though they felt as if they’d already fallen flat before leaving her lips.

     “Everything I’ve ever done...was for you.” It seemed Nell’s tears were already being renewed, another wrack of her breath bringing them forth once more.

     “I just don’t know how to believe that. Not after everything- not after everything you’ve done. Not just the coven.” It had been all the years building up to that. The banishing served only as the straw to break the camel’s back. It didn’t seem like there was anything to do in these moments, no ground to be gained on either side when Nisa spoke again. 

     “Then it seems there’s nothing left to say. Your ribs are done.” It was a clear dismissal. Nisa could recognize a lost cause when it was staring her in the face, when neither of them knew how to fix what had been missing between them for as long as Nell could recall. How was she meant to rebuild something she barely remembered? It was somewhere in her, back in the nearly forgotten childhood memories of magically healed scrapes and midnight hugs. However breathing life into it seemed as fruitless as wishing on a star. Nell hopped off the table, roughly wiping the wetness from her eyes as she tested her newly whole ribs. Not so much as an ache or twinge when she moved. They were good as new. If only she could say the same for her mother. 

     “I’ll go now,” Nell uttered while heading for the door, stubbornly thrusting her chin into the air as if she could force herself into being okay. The last she heard from Nisa were words that soured Nell’s expression. “You can’t tell anyone you were here.” Not unless Nisa wanted to face the backlash that came with speaking to someone who’d been tossed from the coven. Nell’s determination was back in full-force, fastening the buckles of her emotional armor into place as she walked out the door.

     “I know. Don’t worry, I won’t.” Nell had done what she came here to do. It was time to once again lock the door against the tempestuous storm that was falling short of her mother’s love. She had friends to help. 

[impulsivelycontentious]

No one reads this or connects it with my other online identities but since I've removed personals involvement from my other social media stuff, and I feel like bitching, I am jsut gonna go ahead and do it.

So I have brain damage. Yeaaaaars ago I threw up so hard I actually ripped open the inside of an artery in my neck, and it threw a clot, and that clot did some nasty shit on its way on through and out.

No doctor noticed for two weeks.

Everyone else did.

Good times.

Anyway.

So now I have a damaged brain. Brains don't grow back. Some areas can regenerate a few cells - notably the prefrontal lobe - but mostly brains fix themselves not by regenerating like skin does, but by rearranging the cells we have to fire to fancy new configurations.

This has been quite the ride. Because shit, it changes things.

I don't even know how much of my personality is consistent. No idea. Let alone everything else.

I have memory loss my nurologist won't akowledge because it falls short of dementia. That was the bar. "You don't have dementia, you know what year it is." Gee thanks there chief.

Anyway.

My brain wasn't too stable to begin with. I have always been prone to logic leaps that occur very quickly and not necessarily in ways other people would make them. My mind is jumbled and a little random and things collide all the time that probably shouldn't.

This has become much worse since the brain damage. See, my brain keeps wiring shit together. Shit it really shouldn't. It changes who I am, what I think, what I can think.

It's actually quite terrifying to realise you're a sack of geletine misfiring lighting at itself.

So anyway. To the point. Yes - I have one of those. Probably. It's somewhere in here.

Oh right, no, another detour. I'm autistic. "Oh yeah, they definatly didn't screen girls when I was a kid because how the fuck did they miss this otherwise" autistic.

Back to the point.

Recently I had this sensory processing ... Whatever the fuck that was. I call them.idssocistive episodes. I don't know how accurate that is. But my mind unhooks from my sensory data. Everything feels muted and unreal - sound, sight, touch, heat. Name it. It's wrong.

I hate these.

It gets particularly nasty because there are nurologicsl consequences. See, my concious mind ramps up it's interpretation of sensory data. It goes all in and leaves the rest of my existence stuffed in this tiny little box without enough space to do dick.

One effect of this is I suddenly become highly obsessive. I think it's a comfort mechanism, I require the same stimulus over and over again or to somehow mentally connect it to the same element. Of course, it could also jsut be that obsessive behaviour towards interests is part of who I am. I am autistic. I DEFIANTLY go all in when something fascinates me. But not... Not like this.

Do you have ANY IDEA how many times I watched starwars 8 in 72 hours? Any clue? Holy fricking ... Something. I watched it fast. I watched it slow. I watched it skipping ahead 10 seconds every 10 seconds. I dissected that thing in micrscopic detail.

It gets better. Because mere hours before I got hit with this episode... I was not a starwars fan.

Nope. I watched it. It was ok. I wasn't going out of my way for it.

And suddenly. Wham. Episode 8. All the time. I watched some 7 and 9 as well but it was like it was entierly because eit was connected to 8.

I cannot even.

And while this is happening, *I know*. I know. I really do. I know this isn't my normal behaviour. I know this isn't my wheelhouse. I know something is deeply, deeply wrong in my brain.

I think it might actually be an ok movie, honestly. But not THAT good. And now it's one of my favourite things. Forever. I have no idea if it's actually good. Did I not give eit a chance the first time? Is my obsessive brain simply emotionally hooked up how? Fuck, I don't know.

So that's why I'm posting today. On this day. May 4th.

I'm seeing a lot of star wars today and it's making my brain tickle with it's own ridiculousness.

Not the whole point though. Because it lasted 72 hours (I watched dit one more time after that and if wasn't near as intense).

But what happened AFTER my 72 hours as an obsessive raylo (oh yeah. I went there. I'm not even ashamed. I am also compeltely content with the end they got, because I do not see that shit working out).

Brains don't regrow. They rewire.

And suddenly, I'm drawing. Like... A lot. I filled pages of doodles. Sketches. I redrew a peice I'd been working on for about a month in a few hours and damnit, it was good. It's not professional quality but I'd never down anything that well before. This goes on for another day. And then I started a story, and I wrote 2000 words all at once.

I'm dyslexic. And words are severely impacted by my brain damage to the point it can cause me phsycial pain to force my thoughts in to words.

And here I am. Going nuts on my phone. The words just spilling out and again - damnit, it was good shit.

My brain was abstracting. Where the concious sort had been shunted, it wasn't directing the abstracting aspect of my mind.

And I was making cognative leaps. My brain was wiring itself together for creativity.

For another 24 hours.

And now, dear reader, we get to now.

I have written 200 words in the last 2 days. They feel wrong.

I started and stopped a dozen images. None of them feel right. And there are objective quality differences.

I can still draw a bit. If I'm not tired. I'm almost always tired - it's neural fatigue, it comes with surviving a brain damage.

I have somehow brain damaged my way in to better skills.

And it's... It's not a good feeling.

Doing it the first time and watching something take place in front of my eyes I don't recognise was like magic. It was euphoric. Amazing. Exciting.

Realising as time wears on that the ability to do this is intrinsically tied in to the way ones brain handles brain damage and sensory processing issues?

Not a great feeling cats. Not at all.

I find myself staring at a document willing words on tot he page that just aren't there anymore and feeling so frustrated I could scream.

Whose idea was this anyway? Why can't I keep my rewiring?

It's so hard dto explain the feeling of loss.

It's not me who did these things. A version of me, yes. But not the one we are keeping.

The one we keep struggles to hold a narrarive in her head and the narrator's tone took 3 rewritten to preserve for a single paragraph.

I don't want to stop. But how do I keep going? I'm not the author anymore and I've always struggled with adopting the tone of others.

So yeah. That's where I'm at. And I wanna talk about it. Because I don't want to be alone. But I can't escape the feeling I'm being dramatic. Terribly dramatic. And so talking about it is hard. How much is my own spin and perception and how much is real?

Did this really happen?

I think it did. But like every story I tell, I don't know. Memory loss. Cognetive issues.

I just wanna tell stories and draw. But the words hurt and the art makes me tired.

It's frustrating is all.

I hate being lighting geletine.

In case you're wondering what kind of cognative leap happened:

That one is april 4th.

And that one April 28th.

🤷‍♀️

Fucked if I know, really.

[yukiwrites]

A Cute, But Loving Mistake

Thank you for the support as always, @soffie101!! I hope you like this ;v;)

It’s a C-A Support chain between her OC Lisette (info here!) and Raphael

Commission info HERE and HERE!

______________________________

C SUPPORT

At the Marketplace.

Lisette: I do wonder if there was a new shipment of Angelic tea, it has been much too long since I’ve shared a cup with-

Raphael: *sniffs*

Lisette: Goodness, is that you, Raphael? What troubles you so, young man?

Raphael: O-oh, Lisette? Hi there! Thanks for the handkerchief, let me just *hoonks* there, thanks.

Lisette: Uh, yes, you are most welcome. Has something happened?

Raphael: *sniffs* Nah, it’s just that I saw this merchant and- look at all this baby stuff! Man, it brings me back to the days my little sister was THIS small and she- *sniffs* she was so cute and tiny and fragile…

Raphael: It just makes me wish to be stronger so I’ll get hired as a knight to protect her even more! Good stuff, this.

Lisette: Oh, my, that IS rather adorable, this baby-sized bib...

Raphael: Right? And those over there even have the Crest of Seiros sewn into them!

Lisette, frowning: Well, that is rather blasphemous, and as such…

Lisette: I do not think my daughter would ever enjoy such things, surely.

Raphael: Aw man, that’s a pity-

Raphael: Wait, your what?

Lisette: Oh.

Raphael: Your daught- MAN, she’s picky for a kid, huh?!

Lisette: No, you have got it wrong-

Raphael: No, no, Big Bro Raph here is an expert in this kinda stuff! Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to find something your baby will LOVE! My sister never complained when I got her new stuff, you know?

Raphael: Well, maybe that one time, or that other time. Maybe that other time too, but- the thing is that I’m gonna help you find something she’ll love! C’mon, let’s go to that spot over there, there are some simpler things like toys and stuff.

Lisette: As I said, it is a misunderstand-

Lisette: Well, perhaps not entirely, however-

Raphael: OH, I get it, you don’t want people to know, right? Don’t worry, we can say I’m looking for stuff to send to my sister! All the merchants here know me so it’s gonna be a walk in the park. Leave it to Big Bro here, alright?

Lisette: *sighs* Perhaps this is going to be harder than I expected...

B SUPPORT

Raphael: Oh man, wait ‘till Lisette sees all this! Her kid’s GOTTA be happy with some of these!

Raphael: Good thing I caught that merchant right before he was leaving. Since Lisette wasn’t near, I just grabbed everything I could, Haha, I can’t wait to see her face.

Lisette, on her own: ...

Raphael: Oh, there she is! Heeeey, Lisette!

Lisette: Hm? Raphael- goodness! What is all this you carry? There are so many bags and boxes and-

Raphael: I know right? I couldn’t stop once I saw all this cute stuff. Look, I’ll show ‘em.

Lisette: W-wait, you’re stacking these boxes on the floor. We’re in the middle of the corridor, there is no need to- oh. Goddess preserve me.

Raphael: Hah! I knew it’d take the words outta you! Isn’t it cute? This here is the box of toys and that one there; I fixed an old lady’s wagon back at the city and she gave me a lot of her daughter’s old baby clothes! You woulda thunk there would be only a few, but the kid had so much stuff! Look at those frills and ribbons, your kid’s gonna LOVE it.

Lisette, blushing: R-Raphael, I beg you to lower your voice, I am rather troubled.

Raphael: Oh! Oh yeah, you never told anyone ‘bout your kid, right? *whispering* Let me just carry this stuff to your room, then.

Lisette,blushing: N-no, please, listen to me: this is not an appropriate gift for a man to give to an unmarried woman, can you understand? Besides, this is too much to-

Raphael: Not appropriate? Really? But I just wanted to help make your kid smile… 

Raphael: Then, can you tell me where I can put these without anyone knowing? I promise I won’t do this in an open spot again, but I can’t help but wanting to help you and your kid!

Lisette: I cannot- this isn’t- *sighs* v-very well, Raphael. Thank you for wanting to be of use in such a heartwarming way, I am very touched.

Raphael: Great! You can just tell me where to go so people won’t see us together! I can, oof, carry all these in one go!

Lisette: P-please do not overexert yourself, yes? There is no need for us to walk our separate ways, at least for now. Do come with me to my study to drop all these crates off. Mayhap you can stay for tea? I finally found the Angelic blend for sale last week.

Raphael: Sure! I’m starving after lugging these around, anyway, so we could instead go to the mess hall! I gotta feed my muscles.

Lisette: Heehee, very well, then. I shall ask for the cook to give you extra helpings for being such a thoughtful companion.

Raphael: Oh yeah!

A SUPPORT

Lisette: Mrhm, these texts Seteth summarized are a great source of information…

Lisette: My eyes grow tired, however, so I shall stop here- goodness! It is already this late? I should tidy up these books and place them in their shelves.

Raphael: Oh, there she is! Lisette, heey!

Lisette: Raphael, good day to you. Or rather, good evening. I have completely lost the track of time as I was studying.

Raphael: You’re always going ‘round with a book or the other, right? Here, lemme help you with these ones that go high up.

Lisette: Why, thank you, Raphael. I would have needed to fetch the ladder for those.

Raphael: No problem! Hey, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you for a while, but I think now that there’s no one around, I can.

Lisette, sweating: Very well. Go on.

Raphael: How old is your kid? ‘Cause I’ve been bringing you baby stuff since you’re young and all, so she couldn’t be that old, right? But I wanted to give her stuff for her age since my sister sometimes complained that I got stuff for her that was ‘too babey’, so I don’t wanna get it wrong for your kid.

Lisette: Ah, that...

Raphael: By the way, did anything happen to the dad? I haven’t seen anyone dad-like around you so I was wondering if he’d died or something, so that must’ve been really hard for you, right? So young and already with a kid to raise without any dad figure to her.

Raphael: I know what’s like to raise a kid alone -- even though she’s my sister, I was kinda her parent for the most part of her life before we moved in with our gramps, so I wanna help you in any way I can to make sure your daughter doesn’t want for anything!

Lisette, sweat, blushing: I, ah, that was a very sweet and thoughtful declaration, Raphael, however, I, well. There has been a deep misunderstanding for a long time that I have not been able to clear, but… My daughter, as I called her before, was simply a… yes, it was simply a baby wyvern I have been caring for a long while, so I have gotten attached to it- to her- like she was my own daughter.

Lisette: Do forgive me for the misunderstanding, but I have yet been able to find the right time to clear it...

Raphael: Pfft, hahah! Oh man, I got it all wrong, huh? *thud*

Lisette: *gasp* M-my back-

Raphael: I’m glad you don’t have to carry that responsibility all by yourself, then! Raising a kid is tough, especially when you don’t have anyone to lean on.

Raphael: I was about to ask if I could be the father figure your kid would need, but I guess wyverns don’t see men as dads, do they? Haha!

Lisette: Haha… ha. Yes, t-they do not. Indeed.

Lisette, blushing: *ahem* However, I am delighted about your offer and touched by your kind heart, Raphael. I feel that it would be a shame to stop meeting with you now that this misunderstanding has been cleared, so if you would have me, I would love for us to keep strengthening our bonds as allies.

Raphael: Sure! Heck, I wasn’t gonna stop being your friend because of THAT. Besides, I’m sure you’re gonna need me to put more books on high shelves from time to time, right? I’m not leaving you alone!

Lisette, smiling: Thank you once again, Raphael.

Lisette: The mess hall is long closed, but I do have some confectionaries stashed away in my room… Would you care for a cup of tea and some delightful sweets? As a thanks for all that you’ve done up until now.

Raphael: You got it! 

[seafleece]

one of the front legs of the thing absolutely smashes into the 008’s cockpit, and all at once it’s not funny anymore. she raises a shaky hand to her ear and immediately can hear the rattle of beau breathing, heavy. surprised.

“beau. she knows. get out of there.”

she hears beau spit. it’s probably blood. “it’s okay.”

“beau—“

“i know who it is.”

the other mech, it just— it catches 008’s fist, holds it fast and then wrenches the arm to the side.

jester’s a few seconds from calling for the traveler— the brief consideration that interference will definitely get them kicked out, maybe arrested, is overturned, but long enough for her to catch the feedback still coming through. the wheezy, gasping sound of beau laughing.

—

“why’d you do that?”

she takes momentary satisfaction in how dairon looks— like she’d actually taken the hit, when beau slammed her into the wall. they wince when they jerk their head over to look at her.

“hello to you, too, miss lavorre. how’s your tall friend?”

she scowls. “why’d you fight her?”

“i was not expecting to see her in the ring. i came to make some money, not a scene.”

“yeah, well, you got both. and we didn’t really have any to spare.”

“i’ll get the 008 fixed up. i was there when it was made.”

“i don’t care about the 008.” it’s not really true— she cares because it’s beau’s, because if it’s in the shop that means beau sits out the mission, means she’s in the kind of danger they can’t stamp out. “i care about beau. i’m the one who fixes her up, not you.”

dairon laughs. “i do not think she would let me do that for her. you should take it as an honor. i’ve never seen her look that way at anyone.”

her heart stutters a little, and then she remembers she’s angry. “i— i do. it’s not her fault no one gives her the chance not to fight.”

“yes, i agree. she could have been an expositor two years ago. the zadash branch is in dangerous need of an overhaul. they don’t know how to look for talent— they think it’ll come to them in the exact form they need. they’ve lost the mistress’s approval.”

“i meant you, too.” she crosses her arms, and then, finding the gesture inadequate, her legs. “she got really hurt. you went for her cockpit. she doesn’t expect anyone to do that.”

“miss lavorre—“

“it’s jester,” she snaps. “how’d you even learn my last name, anyway?”

“believe it or not, beauregard talks to me, as well.” her tone softens when jester’s scowl twists into something a little less angry and a little more hurt. “jester. it’s not safe that beauregard fights the way she does. it’s not actually self-preservation to put yourself in danger on an assumption of safety.”

“i know,” she says. “you think i don’t know that?”

“she trusts me to show her when she needs to change. i was showing her.”

“she’s not stupid. you don’t need to half-kill her to tell her she needs to guard better.”

“no,” dairon says. “she’s not stupid. but she doesn’t trust easily.”

“she trusts me.”

“yes, she does.” they say it like it’s a problem. “i wonder when that happened.”

“she could trust you, too.”

“she does, jester. it’s just not that simple.” dairon looks away, and jester siphons a little more satisfaction from the note of— regret, she thinks— that creeps into their voice. “vulnerability’s a funny thing. you see it when she speaks to you. i see it when she fights me and loses.”

“it‘s not the same. not if she doesn’t mean for you to see it.”

“she does. part of having a teacher is expecting to be corrected. she knows i’ll beat her, when we fight.”

“she didn’t this time,” jester grouses, and then thinks about beau laughing when she’d found out. her crawling from the dented cockpit with eyes bright, hugging dairon so tight in the alley she’d actually lifted her off the ground.

dairon looks at her like they know she’s figured it out. ”you’ve tried to talk to her about this before.”

she says nothing.

“she’ll listen to you about a lot, i can see it. but not about this.” dairon almost reaches out, for her hand, and thinks better of it. “she won’t listen to me about it either.”

“so what, then?”

dairon shrugs. “i have to show her she needs to do something else. and i can trust that she’ll be okay afterward, because of you.”

“oh.”

“she’s never had someone who wanted to help her feel better before, not like you.”

“i know,” jester whispers. it should be a compliment, but she thinks about fjord and veth calling beau prickly after poking at her until she lashes out. she thinks about beau telling her in the dark that she’d gotten a letter from home, that she had a little brother. she’d shook, and shoved her knuckles against her mouth to keep from crying too loud, and said she hoped they’d treat him better. it should be a compliment that she’s the first person beau has ever trusted to help her, but it isn’t.

dairon looks at her kindly, like it’s all passed, but she glances over to see beau talking to caleb, sees her rub crusted blood from under her nose absentmindedly. she uncrosses her arms to pick at a loose thread on her suit, but keeps her legs crossed. a matter of principle. “we were supposed to be resting.”

“i’m sorry,” dairon says, looking over as well. she sounds like she means it. “it could’ve waited. i was excited to see her. i didn’t know she would be here.”

“funny way of showing it.”

“maybe so.”

“she’ll be okay. i’ll make sure. but you need to fix up 008.”

“i will. where are you staying?”

jester grits her teeth, thinks about zadash and the days beau left to train and came back late, tired, and hurting, but dairon has their money and they’ve got their eyebrows scrunched like they’re actually thinking over what jester said. she tells her the place.

—

“you should learn how to fix up 008.”

beau stretches, languid and with a groan. it’s too small a bed for it, her legs nudge against jester’s and jester can see her fingers curl on the slats of the headboard. “yeah, it’s kinda stupid, huh?”

jester frowns. “no, you didn’t make it. it’s complicated.”

“they all are, though. and i can’t keep expecting the soul to fix it up for me. gotta be self-dependent.”

“no,” she says again, a little rushed. “no, you don’t.”

“i should be, though.” she can hear the faint frown, the self-admonishing tinge. a hint of something she knows will burrow deep and treacherous if jester doesn’t pull it up by the roots now. “not always gonna have someone around to help.”

“you’ll have me,” she says, and reaches for her. she closes a hand on the curve of beau’s hip and beau jumps.

“you don’t have to. i can’t ask that.”

“i want to.”

“yeah, but—“

“i don’t do stuff i don’t want to do,” she breathes. “you know that.”

beau sinks down a little, becomes a little more loose, a little more pliable. a little easier to pull against herself, to her front. “yeah.”

“i wanna help you. always.”

beau’s quiet for a long moment. these kind of conversations end up a lot more dispersed, usually, someone falls asleep or goes out on watch or just ducks out, feeling a little too raw a little too soon.

“why?”

her chest expands and shrinks against jester’s arm, against her front. in the dark, jester can see the curve of her face, sees her eyelashes dust her cheek when she blinks. her mouth is open, just a little. like she wants to keep talking, but doesn’t know what to say.

jester does, though. it’s easy. “i love you.”

beau’s chest freezes, caught on an inhale. she stops blinking.

“oh.”

jester’s head is above hers— she tips a little to press her own mouth, also open, to beau’s temple. shorter hairs, the ones that always escape beau’s topknot, press against her nose. she closes her eyes.

she’s only loved a few people before. momma, the traveler— does he count? fjord and yasha and caleb and caduceus and veth, of course, of course, and molly, and kiri, too, wherever she is. she doesn’t really know how to say it’s different, it just is. not more or better, just different.

“i, uh, i love you, too,” beau says, quiet like she turned her face into the pillow just so, like she’s nervous. the breath pushes out of her lungs again and she sinks against jester like all the fight’s gone out of her.

she doesn’t worry if beau means it. just that it probably sounds a little heavy on her tongue because she’s not used to saying it. because she’s not used to feeling like she can say it. like she can feel it and still be safe.

she thinks about kissing beau again, and then she remembers something about beau saying she thought the first time was a dream. if she did now, she thinks, she could tell beau a million times it wasn’t a dream, that she meant it, but it would still be late and beau would still be a little woozy from healing, and she’d still wake up afraid. because the thing she can do for beau, she thinks, that other people can’t, isn’t telling her things. it’s listening.

beau’s almost asleep. jester’s mouth is still pressed to the crown of her head, and she leaves it there and thinks that there’s nothing to prove. that there’s tomorrow morning, and the one after that, and all the way down.

[secret-engima]

Alright, quick question before I finally go to bed - We’ve seen Bahamut’s Blessing, you gave us that WONDERFUL Leviathan’s Blessing. Any ideas you wanna share for the others? (Especially Ramuh? There’s no way you don’t have hcs for him) Because I totally have Ideas for Ifrit and Titan I’m willing to share (tomorrow though. For now - SLEEP).

Ohhhh hmmmmmmm.

I-

Actually do have SEVERAL but they’re all disjointed?

But here we go:

Actually gonna start off with Titan because I’ve worked out a few things about that before for my Fem!Titus AU:

Titan is the one who gives his Blessing the least. His Blessing is ASTRONOMICALLY rare because while he kinda likes humanity, humanity rarely impresses him enough to bestow a Blessing and those lines he has Blessed tend to die out (THANKS A LOT IFRIT). But his power is Earth - it is the growing things and how they speak, in making them move and hearing their knowledge, it is in HEALING, in the ability of nature to reclaim and restore from grievous harm, it is in the stubborn strength of earth and of that which grows from it, to either stand unmoving or to steadily, unwaveringly devour the opposition until it is simply another part of forest, buried deep beneath victorious roots.

To speak less poetically: plant manipulation/communication, enhanced healing, and enhanced strength/durability.

Titan’s Blessed, back in pre-Solheim days, were always loners, the ones who preferred nature over other people because they had a higher chance of running into and impressing Titan, they were also by nature stubborn, kind, with deep hearts to protect and TOWERING rages once ticked off. Legends of giants and berserkers? Yeah, those ideas first came from stories of Titan’s Blessed. Unfortunately, his Blessed were never ones to ... breed so to speak. Many married and had a few children, but with war and natural disaster and the Berserker Rage side-effect the Blessing had, those family lines rarely lasted five generations before quietly dying out.

(save for one half-strand, tired and worn thin from strife that lasted in some form or other through Solheim and its fall to end in a woman with soft red hair and a Way with plants and healing, like light at her fingertips, who drew the eye of a proud Dragon Blessed soul and bore a son with her hair and his father’s eyes before finally passing away but that is a story for another time).

For Ifrit- Ifrit is Fire. And Fire is associated with a lot of things but in this I’ve chosen (as hinted in Leviathan’s speech with Gladio) Cunning, Ingenuity, and also, surprisingly, Purity. Titan’s Blessed were stubborn self-healers, but Ifrit’s were CUNNING, Cunning and clever and outspoken. Who saw what was wrong with the world and decided to Fix It with their own hands. It was Ifrit’s Blessed who first invented many things that would later become Solheim’s trademark technology, and it was from Ifrit’s Blessed that medicine was revolutionized.

Ifrit’s Blessed were not given unnatural strength or the ability to call blades from the air, they were given knowledge. Ifrit looked upon those who already had clever, curious minds and gave them the ability to FIND those answers, to hold fire in their hands and not burn as they carefully forged new tools and new ideas, to figure out what was wrong with people and then HEAL it, purge sickness from another’s body (but not their own) with fire’s Purity.

I’ve got ... a lot of nebulous HCs for Ifrit but chief among them is that Ifrit was the Astral of Fire and Purity. That it was because Ifrit was gone that the Starscourge was able to take root. Not only where the Astrals severely weakened by the time Starscourge made its appearance, but they were missing the member of their pantheon specifically meant to deal with stuff like this and that’s why the ball got dropped so hard (THANKS A LOT SOLHEIM).

Anyway.

Shiva’s Blessing - Ice powers are a given, obviously, but with it comes an inability to die from cold. Frostbite immunity baby. There’s also- how do I put this? Shiva’s Blessing is the one that grants not cunning, but trickery. The refractions on the snow that dazzle or play with the eyes, the whisper of snow powder forming a fog that hides many secrets, the bite that bleeds strength away. Shiva’s Blessed were not just children of ice and snow, but of illusion, delicate mirror images that tricked and confused the opponent, beautiful tapestries of history woven in the air, preserved in the memory of ice and lit by the refraction of sunlight through crystal. Her Blessing was the second rarest right behind Titan’s, and when Solheim burned, her children were among the first to wither and fall, and it took a great many years for her heart to heal enough from that pain to try interacting with humans again.

Ramuh: Best Boi™ of the Astrals, Astral of justice and wisdom and the Storm. Also occasionally considered the Astral of Cunning, even though that’s more Ifrit’s gig, and that’s probably because Ramuh, unlike the other Astrals, learned subtlety long before Shiva ever walked as Gentiana and takes care not to flaunt his power and presence save for the occasional righteous storm. There are so many things I could do as his Blessing and all of them are cool. But my favorite idea is Shapeshifting, the ability to adapt and weather any storm or trial, to hide in plain sight, to have the wisdom of what it is like to safely walk among the wild things that Ramuh so dearly loves. There are even legends that the Ulrics were once Coeurls, that Coeurls were creatures Blessed by Ramuh with the power of his storm and the wisdom of his mind. That through this wisdom they learned how to shed their fur and walk among the other Clans, but that overtime and through tragedy, they eventually forgot how to shift back, and that is why their teeth sometimes seem too sharp, their instincts too keen, their tempers so bright and hot, and the storm greeted with laughter and song rather than fear. That this is the reason they are so reckless, for the things that would surely kill a normal human mean nothing to the strength and ferocity of the storm touched black wildcats of Galahd, and that even now, locked in fragile human skin, their instincts still hum with that long-lost surety.

Also Ramuh’s Blessed can sense storms, use lightning magic (obviously), and unlike Bahamut’s Blessing, can manipulate OUTSIDE sources of lightning (read: electricity, lightning storms, etc etc). Ramuh’s Blessed are also granted something of a ... ability to understand the winds. To hear things on the winds that to normal ears, even keen animal ears has long since faded out from distance. The wind is what carries and guides the Storm after all, and the Storm-Children were ever able to look to the winds for guidance, just like their sister tribe of TideSingers.

So yea, those are my HCs on the Astrals and their Blessings, at least before Bahamut got all up in everyone’s business and forbid any Astral’s Blessing but his own (which the others obeyed more out of exhaustion and heartsickness than actual agreement, which is why in Gladio’s story and several of my time-travels various Astral’s blatantly yeet this rule).

[lucas-lowe]

TASK 2: IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

July 2010.

Luke idly glared at the retreating dark of the dawn. His stomach let out a pathetic growl, or more accurately, a dying squeak. There comes a point in starvation where you can’t even sleep because of the hunger, and Luke was far too familiar with that pang.

The earth beneath his back was stiff and cold like a cadaver, and he could not think of a reason to get up. His head knew he should go look for food, something to eat-- like one of those small rat like creatures he saw in the woods, a fish swimming in the stream, the berries he ate a few days ago that made him threw up all night. Anything. If he couldn’t find anything to eat, he at least needed to get water. But no, his body didn’t want to move.

Luke coughed off a weak laughter, wheezing at this madness. He was stranded in some kind of an island, like that guy Crusoe in the book, with a group of lunatics who were probably in some cult-- something about elements and the First and not aging. As soon as his ankle healed, he slipped out of the camp and made his way to the west edge of the land. 

The trouble was, Luke didn’t know a thing about surviving in the nature. He was a city boy through and through. Even when he was without a home, he could have dumpster-dived and scavenged for food in the city. No such option on this godforsaken island. He didn’t know how to hunt or fish, didn’t know what berries are edible or not. He couldn’t even start fire for fuck’s sake.

Perhaps he should have stayed with the cultists, learn a thing or two about the island living. But no, his tendency to isolate himself got to him again, and he would probably die out here.

December 1997.

The night descended on the open road, breathing down the chilled air on his neck. The cold crept up to his blistered feet, seeped into his shivering bones, and he feared that he was marked for life. The ghost of a white breath danced before his eyes before vanishing without a trace. A raggedy backpack, a half-empty water bottle and a few pieces of clothing were all he had.

Empty-handed and alone, yet he had persisted for almost a year on his own. But for how long? He ran out of his saving months ago. He doubted that his family was looking for him-- if they ever bothered to, that is-- but he couldn’t be too careful with the Lopes. He couldn’t live on the streets forever, either. That’s why he was bound westward, to find a better life for himself. Start anew.

No car had passed by for hours, so he had given up any hope of hitchhiking to the closest town, and had started walking. He was under no illusion that he would get anywhere like this. It was just that he had nothing but his own two legs, and walking was all he could do.

He stopped to catch his breath as his bad leg started to ache. “What the fuck...” he said out loud just to remember his own voice. What the fuck am I doing? Since he couldn’t afford a bus ticket, he reasoned his options were either hitchhiking or walking. But this was his only pair of shoes and it had already started to show wear and tear. He didn’t even own a map so he just had a vague idea that he was heading west. He was, absolutely and completely, un-fucking-prepared for this journey.

A shaky sigh escaped from his cold, empty stomach as he dropped his backpack and flopped down next to the empty road. Up above his head was the cruelly brilliant sky full of stars, and the vast wilderness stretched as far as he could see, but his eyes lingered on the cracks of the asphalt. He knew there was nothing for him out there-- no star watched over him, no light guided his path, and no one was coming to save him.

He had nowhere else to turn but himself.

He should feel sad, or scared, but all he could do was laughing at himself. The truth of the matter was, he was far too talented at isolating himself in a self-destructive way. He knew that. He could have easily asked for a help, but he didn’t. He could have picked a safer, less strenuous journey, but he didn’t. He simply didn’t know how to exist any other way.

The stars burned bright above. He just didn’t look up. There were lights in the distance. He just closed his eyes. Maybe, and just maybe, someone was out there waiting for him-- he just refused to believe that. That very thought scared the life out of him. It was so much easier to hide alone in the dark, not found, not missed, not needed and wanted and loved. No one could hurt him if they couldn’t found him.

So how could he not laugh at himself? This was his own fault, no one else’s.

He breathed in the frigid, forlorn air, let it filled his lungs, and got back up to his own two feet. He stretched his creaking legs, cracked his neck, and turned his eyes forward.

He dug himself into this grave and laid himself down. So it was his job to claw his own way out.

May 1995.

[tw: gun, death]

The sun came up nevertheless, even after a sinful night.

Almost everyday, he watched the frozen colors of daybreak painting the sky. Waking up in the morning, on his way to the training or on the track, he had seen it until it became a part of his routine. But until today, he didn’t realize how painstakingly beautiful it was.

A man just died by the hands of another, yet the dawn was terribly radiant.

“You okay there, kid?” asked Pablo as he lit a cigarette. Pablo was a tall guy with the unkempt, bushy beard, and always smelled like a mix of smoke and horribly musky cologne. He was one of Father’s henchmen, the trusted kind.

Leaning against the hood of the car, he fixed his dry eyes on the sunrise without words. He didn’t know how he was, to be honest. He could still taste the last night’s dinner in his throat after throwing it all up. His body was sore and he could use a shower or ten. So no, he wasn’t okay. 

They had arrived at this riverbank a few hours ago as three. Now they were only two. ‘Take care of it’. That was Father’s order. 

He quietly ran a thumb on his blistered, dirt-covered palm.

-----

“You know how to use this?” Pablo asked, holding out a grip of a loaded gun. They stood over the brand new grave in the field, both of them covered in sweat and dirt. He never liked guns. Having the weight that could end someone’s life in his hands wasn’t exactly pleasant.

And then Pablo dragged out the third man from the trunk of the car. Blindfolded, tied and gagged. Pablo forced them down on them knees. Their bloodied head and shoulders were shaking uncontrollably. They reeked of desperation and piss, squeezing out a muffled, incomprehensible plead.

He unlocked the safety and cocked the gun just like his brother taught him. ‘Man, your aim’s terrible.’ He remembered Leandro’s crooked laughter when he had managed to hit none of the beer bottles set up as practice targets. He brought the gunpoint up to the back of the captive’s skull. The shudder crawled up the barrel and grasped at his hand like barbed vines.

The cry morphed into a terrible howl, held back only by the spit-soaked gag. It begged and begged and begged for mercy, while spewing fear and rage and curse.

And he wondered, do any other animal beg for their life? Do they experience the same primal hatred that burns in your chest, the ashy black smoke of grudge you exhale at the one who holds your noose? Not just the instinct of self-preservation expressed in aggression, but the acute malice humans carry like a venom.

Because he wished he couldn’t understand what was buried underneath the scream.

Please, I’ll do anything.

He wished he couldn’t feel a thing.

I don’t wanna die.

His finger wrapped around that trigger and--

He lowered the gun, only to realize that he was covered in cold sweat. He couldn’t pull it. It wouldn’t take much force to squeeze that trigger. Just a tiny movement of the finger, and the gun would roar, and all this would be over. That was the impossibly thin line he couldn’t cross, the infinitesimal difference between a man and a killer.

He fumbled at the safety, shivering. His hand was locked in place and couldn’t let go of the gun.

“Hey, hey, hey. It’s okay,” said Pablo, approaching him gingerly. A much bigger hand gently peeled his off the gun.

He stumbled backward as his knees gave in. The captive was now sobbing. From relief or panic, he couldn’t tell. But before he could process it, he heard the mechanical click, followed by a gunshot. With his ears ringing, he stared blankly as the headless body fell into the grave with a thud.

-----

“For what it’s worth,” Pablo started, polluting the fresh morning air with his cloud of smoke. “I thought this whole thing was fucked up.”

He didn’t reply, staring at the sunlight shattering against the surface of the murky river. No speck of cloud wandered in the sky above, and it would be the perfect sunny day of May. The air smelled of cigarette and late night rain. Three or so ducks swam about in the water, quacking without a care in the world. No care at all.

“Hey, don’t worry about your father,” Pablo blurted out. “I’m not gonna rat you out.”

“...okay.” He wasn’t particularly worried about Father. He thought whatever would happen would happen. What he didn’t understand was why would Pablo take a risk like that. He was just too tired to question it. “Thanks.”

The weight shifted as Pablo walked over to his side and sat down on the hood of the car. “Want some?” He extended a stick of cigarette.

He stared at the wrinkled packet in Pablo’s big hand, and then back toward the river. “I can’t.”

“What? You’re old enough.”

“No,” he said, “I run tracks. Can’t fuck up my lungs with that cancer sticks.”

“Oh,” Pablo thought for a second before putting out the cigarette. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Pablo fished out a pack of gum instead. Without asking, the older man handed one over to him. Instead of unwrapping it, he just stared at it in silence. It was mint. 

Disgustingly, his empty stomach demanded food with a grumbling. He recognized in a sick sense of detachment, that nothing had changed. The morning still came. The sky didn’t collapse. They could still talk about insignificant things. He still wanted a breakfast. Maybe no red meat, not at least for a few days, but he was still hungry.

And that moment, he realized that absolutely nothing would change if he were to die. The world would continue regardless.

July 2010.

Luke jolted out of his sleep. Groaning, he forced himself to sit up and rubbed his forehead. He couldn’t have been out longer than a few minutes. The sun was still rising toward the east, and the sky was ablaze with cold amber. He rose to his feet and dragged himself toward the western cliff of the island. Might as well watch the sunrise, he thought. 

Just when he reached the end of the land, it occurred to him that he should have gone toward the east for the sunrise. His brain must have gone on a hunger strike or something. 

Standing by the edge, he looked down into the mouth of the ocean, its jagged teeth and dark depth. That’s a long way down, he thought. The ocean collided into the land and shattered, crying out in the cacophony of waves. The light was yet to reach this side of the world, but gradually and surely, the boundless firmament was waking up. From the fading darkness emerged thin whisks of clouds. He sat down by the cliff, and aimlessly watched the clouds traveling westward, toward the horizon and beyond.

Even on this god-knows-where island, the world was as always infuriatingly and unabashedly beautiful. It taunted him, a tiny, meaningless blob of existence compared to its marvel, that it didn’t give a damn.

“Fuck my life,” he sighed to himself, laying back down and promptly finding the cliff to be the worst place to lie down. More clouds rushed by him toward the ocean, carried by the salty, lukewarm wind.

Death didn’t scare him-- not in the way it should, anyway. He knew it didn’t matter if he died here or not. He could starve himself to death, eat a poisonous berry, get eaten by a... whatever the fuck that lived in the Jungle, or jump off the cliff-- and the world would not care.

It’s just that, to him, death felt like admitting defeat.

Luke shot his final glare at the audaciously bright sky. He survived his family. He survived the streets-- hell, he was thrown into the ocean with bricks tied to his leg, and that didn’t kill him. Surely, it would take more than an island away from the civilization (and with possible cultists) to kill him.

So he got back up to his feet, as he always did, ready for another day of hunger.

[chaoticneutralwriter]

Catalyst

“There’s an old saying that says every demon was once an angel.

So tell me, is it possible for a demon to become one again?”

guardian demon! Jimin x reader

word count: 14.6k

genre: slow-burn, angst, fluff, romance, comedy, slice of life

Related works: see masterlist under Guardian Demon! Jimin

A/N: Shoutout to @milady-mira for this moodboard! Thank you all for the kind messages throughout the month as I worked on this T-T Unknowingly I had sucked myself into doing another chonky chapter but enough on that, let’s roll!

It’s been a good three days since Jimin sprang those tickets on you and you’re still riding on cloud nine. You wake up every day still thinking it was all a dream which makes you check your phone almost religiously, pulling up the app to see that yes, the two GA tickets to BTS’ Love Yourself Tour were sitting in your inbox. It’s gotten you feeling so good that you didn’t mind going to work at all for once. Today is no different, you started your day by spending a good ten minutes in bed after waking up just staring at your phone, smiling so widely that your cheeks ache. After drinking in the sight of the tickets for the nth time, you sigh contently, placing your phone on your chest to stare aimlessly at the ceiling in reflection.

-

“You’re not coming?” You can’t help pouting, head leaning heavily against Jimin’s chest as he carries you bridal style back to yours and Jaehee’s house. After much crying, you’ve protested against apparating back home in fear that you might actually throw up. It was a tough argument to make but when you threaten Jimin that if he risks it and you end up puking your guts out even when you had warned him, he’ll be responsible for cleaning it. So that got you both to come to a consensus of apparating as far as to get off the building and walking the rest of the way.

“Of course not cherub, would it make sense for someone who looks like the mirror image of your idol to be at their show? It’ll cause a riot.”

“Oh right… Good point.” You mumble, all tuckered out and practically half asleep at this point. “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing already.” Jimin reprimands, adjusting his hold on you as he continues to walk. The rest of the way was filled with silence, with you more or less trying to fight off falling asleep right in Jimin’s arms. It’s proven difficult though, in your post-drunk state you’re more susceptible to the soft sounds of his heartbeat lulling you to a drowse. On top of that, the gentle rocking you feel from his strides does nothing to help, only making you feel more and more like a baby being put to sleep. So it’s no wonder that you lose track of all sense of time because the next thing you know, you’re entering your home and then you’re in your bedroom, being placed down into the comforts of your bed.

It takes everything in you to peel your eyes back open for just a second and the sight that greets you makes a lazy smile tug at your lips.

“What’s with that smile?” Jimin asks. You hear the beginnings of a chuckle slip through his words so you know he doesn’t mean anything snarky by asking. You blink but it feels like you’re keeping your eyes closed for way longer than necessary each time you do to consider it blinking.

“Thank you…”

“You’ve said that about eleven times tonight too.”

“Yeah…but I’m really thankful…for you doing this…” You say, words slurring into a mumble as you begin to finally give into sleep. The chuckle finally comes out softly as he takes a seat on the space by your head.

“Again, don’t mention it darling.”

You feel fingers comb through your hair and you instantly melt at the touch, eyes slipping close and unconsciously leaning further into it, a content hum escaping past your lips. His ministration nearly makes you miss his next few words.

“You should call your friends, do something for your birthday this weekend. You can figure out who you can take to the concert then.”

You probably should’ve told Jimin that stroking your hair was a sure way to make you knock out in less than five seconds (drunk or not) because the last thing you remembered before falling into a dreamless slumber was mustering up another hum in response and the feeling of soft, dexterous fingers against your scalp.

-

You had woken up embarrassed as heck and with a pounding headache but overall, overwhelmed with giddiness and gratitude for the demon that you had wanted to repay him somehow.

And see, there’s your problem right off the bat; how do you repay a demon besides forfeiting your soul to them? You suppose you could….Jimin doesn’t technically own your soul — you and him were just connected via your soul contract. You snort to yourself, the idea making you realize you’d make the statement of ‘selling your soul to the devil for some BTS tickets’ come true (he’s not the devil per se, but semantics). Still, you’re not sure if you want to jump that gun just yet since it’s a pretty big fucking life changing decision to say the least. But then your mind wanders; if Jimin were to ask however, would you agree?

A small part of you whispers yes.

But then that other half of you is telling you; you’re fucking nuts (you could only guess it’s the human instincts of self-preservation).

You let out a loud sigh, conflicted. Seeing no use in just laying around thinking about it until your hair turns grey though, you decide to get up finally, even if you did have the day off to lounge around. As you go through your routine, you continue to brainstorm on what you can possibly do for Jimin but, to no surprise, you come up with very few, meagre half-ideas that don’t seem right. As you’re finishing and heading to the kitchen to fix yourself a light breakfast, you realized something —

You haven’t really seen JImin at all for the past three days.

Your hand pauses on scraping the cream cheese on your bagel, head tilting to yourself. Now that you think about it, this is probably the second longest time he’s been gone. You never had the need to question it (probably some demon-related business) but that just means it’ll be even harder to do something nice for him. Maybe you should shoot him a text…? You grab your phone and pull up your message thread with him, tapping the text box until you’re confronted with the blinking text cursor. How should you go about this….?

“Hey…. What are you up to?”

You backspace on that; it doesn’t sound or look right to you. You try for a different approach.

“Yoooo….. Where’d ya go? Lol”

Wow, you’ve never backspaced fast enough. You let out a long sigh, slumping shoulders and tilting your head this way and that out of frustration. Why are you thinking so hard on this for? It’s just a check-up text, like asking your….friend if they wanna hang out after a long time. Ugh! Whatever! You puff up like a cat, bracing yourself unnecessarily as you type rapidly the first thing that comes to mind.

“Hey, haven’t heard from you for three days so just wondering where’d you go?”

Then you hit send before you can second guess yourself, tossing your phone onto the counter as if it has the plague. You turn away, not wanting to get sucked into that black hole of waiting around for a text back. So you settle on munching away on your bagel and finishing your cup of tea. You shuffle around the kitchen, cleaning and putting away dishes, all the while trying your darnest to avoid peeping over your shoulder to stare longingly at your phone like some lovestruck teenager waiting for her crush to text back. But after putting away the dishes and cleaning the countertop, you still have yet to receive a reply back from the demon in question.

Another sigh escapes you before you can stop it. You gotta find something else to do so that it’ll take your mind off of it — maybe watch some Netflix? You grab your phone, moving over to the couch to turn on the TV. Scrolling through the Netflix account, you blindly pick a long-running sitcom you had decided to binge one day and then stopped because you completely forgot about it. As it plays, you find yourself only half paying attention to the episode as periodically, you swipe your phone to scroll through your Twitter (and a small part of you begrudgingly admits hoping you’d see Jimin’s reply). As expected, your timeline is filled with BTS related things, whether it be about the first North American concert happening in three days or just compilation videos of members doing XYZ.

You stop on a particular one of Jimin and as the clip plays, a smile immediately stretches across your lips. Watching Jimin acting silly and laughing with his whole body is not something you haven’t seen before, but it never fails to make you laugh every time. You would bet that no one could resist either, even if they might not know who Jimin is because who can help it when he has a smile that turns his cheeks round and soft like mochi while making his eyes crease to the point where he can’t see anymore. Besides that, he always had an aura about him that glows with such warmth that anyone could clearly see how kind, sincere, and hardworking he is. And when he’s on stage — the thought alone makes you shake your head in disbelief because it’s like he becomes a different person. He’s no longer just a talented boy next door, he’s someone who was born to perform with an overflowing amount of charisma and stage presence.

A true contradiction if you’ve ever seen one, Park Jimin has somehow managed to embody both youthful, innocent smiles and sultry, seductive gazes. You chuff a laugh to yourself —  the more you think about it, you suppose it’s a rather good fit that your guardian demon looks like Jimin, and not just because he’s someone you associate affection with. You pause in thought, realizing something. From the start, you always had a clear distinction between your guardian demon and BTS’ Jimin because in spite of being mirrors of each other, they’re completely different, like the difference between the evil and good twin. But as time went on, you discover that they…. are actually quite similar, more than you had initially thought.

It’s….strange.

You absentmindedly scroll through your timeline again, so caught up in your thoughts that you don’t notice you’ve landed on an audio edit —

Of Jimin body rolling and doing all other manners of EXTREMELY RUDE THINGS TO VERY SULTRY MUSIC.

Your phone nearly goes flying out of your hand at how fast you chuck it away, cheeks warm and eyes wide. On second thought, you think it’s better that they’re a little bit more different from each other; having one Jimin who knows how to control his body like that is already one too many.

You shake your head as if to physically rid you of the thoughts because if it stays there any longer, you feel like you won’t be able to look your guardian in the eye for a very, very long time.

So you resolve to finally pay attention to the episode playing out in front of you until Jaehee arrives home. Your evening passes by in a flash and yet still, Jimin hasn’t texted you back. Dejectedly, your eyes cast away from the phone beside you for the umpteenth time that day, hand mindlessly going back to shovelling your fried rice around with your spoon.

“Hey, what’s up? You seem really distracted….” Jaehee comments across from you, concern furrowing her eyebrows.

“Ah… no it’s nothing…” You try to brush off, shooting a small smile but Jaehee doesn’t buy it, even her glasses (a rare sight for even you) doesn’t hide the way her deep brown eyes look at you with such dubiousness that it makes you doubt yourself.

“You keep staring at your phone like a kicked puppy. Is it about the BTS concert? It’s happening pretty soon right?”

You can’t keep the wry smile off your face at the mention of the concert. It gives you away on your sudden changed circumstances regarding it and Jaehee easily picks up on that along with your hesitancy to agree with her assumptions of what’s bothering you.

“Well….About that…” You start off, not knowing how to break this as lightly as possible. “I…actually have plans on going to their next stop…?”

The reaction is immediate, Jaehee’s hand stills and her eyes shoot wide open as she blurts out in rapid succession, “What?! Really?! So you got tickets?! I thought you said you weren’t?!”

It makes your lips quirk up more, her enthusiasm overwhelming you to where you had to abandon your dinner altogether to tackle all of her questions. “Yeah, I thought I wasn’t too. But then…Well…” You take the time to unlock your phone to pull up the solid proof to your claims, sliding it closer for Jaehee to see. She picks it up and gasps, a loud, drawn out noise with a dramatic flair at the end, eyes practically bulging from you to the phone screen and back.

“Oh my God, shut up!” Her rising excitement is contagious and so you can’t help but to return it with a wide grin. “You’re really doing it! Is it for the upcoming concert this week? Or the one after that?”

“The one after that.”

“You’re going with one of your friends then yeah?”

“Uh…Yeah…” Your hand comes up to rub your neck, already feeling your cheeks heating up. “I’m going with a friend of mine. Ji— Julien! Julien — he’s actually the one who got me the tickets.”

Even with the partial name slip, Jaehee drives forward, this new development clearly taking hold of her if her gaping mouth and wide sparkling eyes is anything to go by. “Oh my GOD! Are you for real!? Julien got you these tickets?”

When you nod, abashed, she only squeals delightedly before gushing, “Y/N! I think you found yourself a keeper!”

“Huh?” The sound escapes you before you can help yourself along with the rising heat of your cheeks. Jaehee passes the phone back to you, a knowing smile taking form on her lips.

“Julien seems like he’s really into you and totally gets you. I mean, to me, this is like the ultimate profession of love in your language — getting you tickets to see your favourite band.”

You feel your blush intensify at such a profound statement, wondering whether or not you should even mention that he’s paying for all the travel expenses as well and that on top of the tickets, that’s what you’re troubled over. So you settle on going with a half-truth; you think Jaehee might end up coercing you to marry Jimin right at this moment if you told her everything.

“Well, yeah I think it’s great and all but I feel really bad. I wanna do something nice in return for him.” You sigh, “I just don’t know what.”

“Ah…So that’s what’s bothering you.” Jaehee nods, leaning back in her chair with a pensive look, arms crossed. “You could maybe….treat him to dinner?”

Do demons even eat anything? You think to yourself. You don’t think you’ve ever seen Jimin consume anything for sustenance other than alcohol but even then, you think it’s just for the heck of it instead of a need. You shake your head — if it were anyone else, the suggestion would’ve been perfect.

“I don’t know what he likes…? He has…” You fumble for the right words to cover up your….special circumstances. “Dietary restrictions.”

“Ah…”

With that, both you and Jaehee fall back into a contemplative silence. Every once in a while, Jaehee would pipe up with another suggestion but they all end with a shake of your head.

“Ah well, I’m sure something will come up. Like maybe after your trip….?” Jaehee wriggles her eyebrows suggestively and you nearly choke on your last spoonful of fried rice. She barks a laugh at that, assuring you that it was just a joke (“…unless?”, she had tagged on which earned her an indignant smack from you and a cackle from her). You clean up and pack away leftovers before you eventually bid each other goodnight, heading off to wash up and settle for the night.

You were halfway through an episode of a drama that caught your interest when your phone lights up, the chiming notification muffled against your bedsheets. Your eyes instantly whip to it and when you catch sight of the name, you pause everything you’re doing, swiping to pull up the text thread.

“Miss me already? You’re so sweet cherub

(You roll your eyes)

But since you asked, I’ve just been doing errands here and there, mainly for your trip. Nothing to worry about.”

You huff quietly, though an endeared smile creeps on your lips at the thought all the same. However, the guilt indefinitely creeps back to you as you find yourself worrying your bottom lip at the mention of his generous act. You really want to do something nice for him, show him just how grateful you are that he’s going out of his way to do this for you (you honestly think this might even be out of his contract agreement as a temp guardian). At this point, you think you’ll have to settle for something like a bottle of alcohol — it’s the only sure thing you know that he’ll enjoy. Or maybe…

You shake your head; you need to give more thought on that.

“I’m just making sure you didn’t accidentally discorporate or something okay?

Who else is gonna pay for my flight and hotel XP

But I’ll make it up to you when I get to the duty free at the airport. I know you like alcohol but I’m still a broke college student so just accept my token of gratitude that way.”

You type, sending it off before you can overthink it. God you hate this — since when did texting Jimin become such a nail biting thing? You blow out a stream of air, flopping back onto your pillows in frustration.

Get it together, you tell yourself, patting your cheek only to come away scowling from how to warm it feels. A chime saves you from wallowing in your self-consciousness any further, bringing up your phone to check his response.

“Don’t worry about it, just go and have fun.”

Your heart involuntarily flips and you have to take a moment, putting your phone down for a bit — he’s not making this any easier. You roll around in your bed for a couple more minutes, reading and re-reading his message as the metaphorical butterflies in your stomach run wild. Once you’ve managed to reel in the rampant onslaught of feelings, shaking out your trembling fingers, it makes you realize something else; something rather important. The corners of your mouth tug downwards and after hesitating, you decide to shoot your shot.

“So… Are you not coming at all?”

When he doesn’t reply back immediately, regret instantly makes you backtrack, hastily typing an explanation but his response bubble pops up, stopping you.

“Never would’ve pinned you as a clingy type but I don’t mind ;)”

You have to smother your face in your pillow to muffle the loud groan you let out. When you get it out of your system, you race to finish what you were typing and hit send.

“I’m asking because we’re technically bound to each other by a blood contract and you never disclosed the finer details of it i.e. if large distance effects it or not.

So I need to know if it’ll be a problem because if so then you have to come too even if it means not being near the arena.”

“Haha, relax cherub. I get what you mean.

And you’re not wrong, distance does effect the bond of the contract. The farther away we are from each other, the less of a read on you I get. If anything were to happen to you, I won’t be able to help.”

You figured that much. It wouldn’t make sense in having a contract at all if important factors such as distance between the two parties didn’t have any effect. That just means either one of you could run away from the other and that would leave you both vulnerable; you in harms way and him risking the chance of losing a bail for his mischief with heaven. Besides that, a small part of you admits that you’d feel a little more comfortable traveling if you knew Jimin was going to be with you since this would be your first time flying with just another friend, even if it’s not that far out — it’s still a new place neither you nor your friend are familiar with.

As if reading your mind, another text pops up from him.

“I’ll be close by, I promise.”

A smile breaks out onto your lips, the butterflies erupting again and though they’re restless inside you from his words, you’re put at ease.

“I trust you…”

“…It’s late, you should go to sleep.”

“Okay… Goodnight.”

“Sweet dreams cherub.”

-

Dark chocolate eyes remain fixated on the screen for a moment longer, a number of emotions swirling within his chest threatening to become a hurricane, all from three simple words.

I trust you.

He thinks you a fool — there’s never, in the history of mankind’s existence, been a human who had openly said that they trusted a demon.

It never leads to good things.

But he thinks himself a fool too because those words mean more to him than he could ever imagined. Shit, he’s in deep, the acceptance of it pulls out a dry laugh from Jimin. He drops the phone away from his face, arm flopping to one side as his view shifts to that of the starless night sky above him. He’s had a lot to think on these past days ever since your birthday and though it wasn’t exactly a lie when he told you he was running errands, most of that time was spent trying to sort out his feelings.

The fact of reality is Jimin doesn’t have a lot of time left as your temporary guardian. By the looks of it, he’s pretty much done a good portion of what heaven had demanded of him and once he gets the official decree, the contract between you and him will be broken and he would have no business to linger around you less it was to tempt you into forfeiting your soul to hell — something he’d rather not do.

Yet in spite of it all, the thought of leaving you is something he couldn’t imagine doing, would not accept at this point. But as long as he is around, Jimin will only become a burden on your life, a toxic weight chaining you down in a pit of misery for he is a demon; a creature that causes misfortune on others and thrives off of it and as such, you’ll never be blessed with the good karma you receive from doing good deeds because he is not capable of bringing it. Any and all good things that happen to you will be short-lived in exchange for a hefty price because that is the demon code — nothing is without a cost, a sacrifice. And thus, he cannot remain with you as a temporary guardian nor demon.

Unless….

In his other hand, he grasps at the bottle of whiskey and drags it over this lips, the liquor leaving a burning trail down his throat in the big gulps he takes. It distracts him from his troubled thoughts but as per usual, the effects is much too short to offer any real relief. He doesn’t have long to sulk about it though because he senses another presence coming towards him.

“I have to say, this is uncharacteristic of you to have willingly called for me brother.” Jungkook steps close enough so that he towers over Jimin, forcing him to stare up at that annoyingly handsome, twenty-something year old idol’s face that he’s so fond of, doe-eyes gleaming mischievously with dark wavy locks framing either side of his face. “I’m a little suspicious.”

Jimin snorts, a hand wrenching free from one of his belongings to reach up and pinch the younger’s ankle. Jungkook skips out of the way with a throaty giggle before rounding back to the elder’s side. He makes himself comfortable, sitting down next to Jimin in his oversized t-shirt and baggy sweatpants that makes Jimin think what a waste of a body to be dressed like that. They sit in silence for a while, letting the city night life below become their white noise as Jimin watches the inky abyss above him with unseeing eyes while Jungkook carefully observes him.

He’s not unfamiliar with Jimin’s brooding and aloof nature, has seen it enough times over their years of being friends to the point where he’s able to read him quite easily. But now, as he gazes upon this perfect mask, there is no signs of indifference marring the almost angelic features, not even a hint of annoyance. Instead, the emotion he sees is melancholy — something that he’s never seen before but it is there, clear as day. The sight of it stirs an uneasy feeling in the pit of Jungkook’s stomach but he refrains from asking directly, choosing to hold onto the belief that perhaps it’s not anything serious. For now, he’ll do what he does best; prod for information.

“You seem awfully moodier than usual…. Has poppet’s gloominess finally affected you too?”

He sees two eyes slide over to focus on him, their colour a subdued ruby that belies the warning beneath them. But they seep away just as quickly as Jimin doesn’t move to enact said threat, not even verbally and his eyes drift back to staring listlessly above him. It has Jungkook quirking his eyebrows and before he can let his curiousity overtake him, Jimin’s voice cuts through the still night air.

“If you must know, she’s no longer not going to the concert.” He states plainly, “I’ve made sure of that.”

It takes a while for the words to register in Jungkook’s head but when he does process them, he’s gobsmacked.

“You didn’t…!”

When he’s met with no response, it only further confirms that indeed Jimin had gifted you tickets to your most sought after concert. Jungkook’s mouth falls open but he could produce no coherent words from the shock. It’s only after a minute of shuffling around, not knowing what to do with himself that the younger demon finally throws his head back with a loud bark of laughter.

“I cannot believe this!” He chokes out between cackles, “You actually bought tickets for her even after you claiming you’re not a ‘miracle worker’! Brother, you hypocrite!” Jungkook’s gives a hardy smack onto Jimin’s shoulder and ignores the glare sent his way from it. Once he calms down, wiping at the corners of his eyes, Jungkook continues teasing.

“So did she promise her soul to you in five years time or something? Surely you would’ve taken advantage of such a golden opportunity.”

Again, he’s met with silence from his companion only this time when it drags on, the air shifts and the unnerving feeling grows within Jungkook, the playful smile slipping from his lips. His thoughts begin to race with a multitude of questions, all coming to a conclusion he doesn’t think he’s ready to face yet. He opens his mouth in an attempt to carry on the light nature of the conversation but unfortunately for him, Jimin begs to differ, as if finally growing tired of humouring Jungkook.

“Enough with the small talk; like you said, there’s a reason why I’ve called you here.” Jimin says, his tone low with a seriousness that makes Jungkook think he’s about to deliver some grave news. “I have something to ask of you.”

From the way he says it, Jungkook feels like it’ll be a loaded question and it puts an immediate stop to any possible attempts of deflecting. Despite the darkness surrounding them, Jungkook could clearly see the swirling emotions that reflect in Jimin’s eyes, even if his face, for the most part, shows no signs of that turmoil. He wouldn’t have known just how conflicted his companion really was otherwise and it makes a small part of him not wish to know what the elder wanted to ask. But curiosity, the double-edged sword, has him gripped in its tight hold so he swallows, bracing himself with a shield of feigned disinterest.

“What is it, oh dear brother of mine?”

Jimin lets out a heavy breath, as if he too was bracing himself for something but he’s had time to mull it over thoroughly, his decision made and it’s now or never. So he pulls himself together, schooling his expression and he utters the words he knows will surely become a catalyst in disrupting the very order of heaven and hell itself.

“…Is it possible for a demon to become an angel again?”

His quiet words seem to ring even louder in the night that it’s impossible to be misheard by anyone. But that’s exactly what Jungkook wants to do, tries so desperately to convince himself to do, to the point where people will call him delusional. The question is so ridiculous that the younger demon is stupefied for what seems like an eternity before a loud laugh of disbelief escapes him in one choked exhale, the sound forced and unnatural.

“W-What? That’s— Don’t be ridiculous brother! You and I both know that —“

“Ezazel.”

All laughter ceases immediately at the name he had not heard in so long. It leaves him short of breath, shuddering as he inhales sharply like he’s been doused by cold water. Jaw clenching, Jungkook swallows as his eyes focus onto Jimin, the irises beginning to simmer a deep golden topaz behind the dark chocolate hues as he fights the tremors that threaten to overtake his body. Jungkook shoots up from his seat.

“You…” He strains, raising a threatening finger to Jimin, voice tight with effort to keep it steady. “I don’t know what games you’re playing at but—“

“No games I’m afraid,” Jimin says with a quiet, breathy laugh, an eerie calmness about him that has the younger demon slowly becoming more enraged. “Demons were once angels before they fell from grace, it doesn’t happen often but the fact of it is true. So surely, if that is the case, the opposite can be done as well.” Gaze flitting to Jungkook, Jimin adds, “Am I wrong?”

“I—“ The younger struggles to formulate words, teeth gritting and eyes glaring down at him, “What does it even matter? It’s impossible either way!”

“So there is a way?”

Jungkook freezes, mind stuttering at how he had accidentally got the tables on him turned by Jimin, but he supposes it’s only natural; behind that angelic face lies a cunning demon after all and unfortunately for him, one that always seems have a way with his words. Still, that won’t stop Jungkook from clamming up about what he knows or doesn’t on this matter.

“Like I said, it doesn’t matter whether I do or not hypothetically because I won’t tell you regardless!” Jungkook is huffing as he gets all of that out in one seething breath, his young face contorting into what Jimin worries will become a permanent stony scowl. It makes the corner of his lips twitch at how cute he looks but he suppresses it, not wanting to perhaps anger Jungkook more — he needs answers and he knows Jungkook is his best, if not, only chance at getting them. So Jimin remains steadfast, determined to getting Jungkook to spill.

“I don’t have much time left here…”

“Exactly, so why do you even want to know something like this? What’s the point?”

The question triggers an unintentional chortle from Jimin, gaze returning back to the desolate night sky briefly, the barest of smiles pulling at plush lips from the irony of it all and Jungkook could only stare, perplexed.

“I…” Jimin starts, trying to search for the right words. “Let’s just say I’ve made up my mind on something…for someone …”

The younger demon’s mouth falls open, moving the slightest to mouth the last phrase Jimin had said to himself as his eyebrows furrow in pensive confusion. His head cocks to one side, not understanding before all at once, it clicks together. Eyes shooting wide open, Jungkook whips his gaze to Jimin once again, a mess of emotion reflecting in them — shock mixed with disbelief mixed with outrage and disappointment that eventually all melt into a burnt, golden ember that seems to consume his whole sclera.

“You can’t be fucking serious….”

“Ez—“

Jimin’s attempt at quelling the younger’s temper fails as he’s quickly cut off by Jungkook as he starts to pace around in his spot, the anger rolling off of his broad shoulders in waves. “Look, it’s all in good fun when I said you’ve gone soft for her. Hell I think she’s just okay too but to risk your life for her?! Do you even hear how crazy that sounds?!” He scoffs, lips twisting into a sneer. “You know for all the decades of experience you claim to have, you sure aren’t really smart after all huh?”

The condescending comment makes Jimin narrow his gaze as he stands to step up to the younger, shoulders squared and eyes flaring to life to match the intensity of Jungkook’s.

“You don’t know what it’s like to live all those years, drifting from one decade to another until they all blur together, being stuck dealing with the same rotten piece of shit humans that can’t get sent to hell fast enough and when you think you’ve seen them all, they just keep on crawling out of the woodwork like fucking cockroaches.” A sort of pitying look softens his features for a split second as he says, “You’re still too young to understand.”

Whereas Jungkook’s voice had risen in volume with his growing rage, Jimin’s remains in a low, even tone; a cold, quiet anger simmering under his calm facade like a coiled snake ready to strike at any moment. Jungkook’s jaw ticks in defiance, not backing down but growing more agitated because he realizes…. He doesn’t recognize the person in front of him anymore. The revelation saddens him but most of all, it scares him.

“The only thing I don’t understand is how you think she’s any different; in the end, humans are all fickle creatures and you’re only fooling yourself to think otherwise.” The younger demon grits, glaring daggers down at the other demon. With one final shake of his head, he sets his hardened gaze on his dear friend and mentor, already turning away. He needs to leave, needs to get away from having to divulge his secrets or sort his feelings out, maybe both. Either way, it’s for Jimin’s own good. “I won’t let you do something as stupid as throwing away your life for one seemingly decent human girl.”

“You—!” Jimin begins, making a grab to spin Jungkook back around by the shoulder but all he grasps are wisps of black smoke as the younger apparates away.

Slipped right through his fingers, quite literally. Jimin ruefully scoffs, fist clenching as he exhales deeply, trying to rid of the tension that had stiffened his body. It’s no use though, and he’s again left alone to stew on his own except this time in a much fouler mood. His eyes fall to his forgotten bottle of whiskey, not much of the dark liquor left inside. Regardless, he picks it up and drains it in one go, a sad attempt at drinking away his problems.

When he swallows the last bit of the bitter alcohol with not even a hint of that numbing relief, he smashes the bottle against the ground, the crashing of glass breaking against asphalt intermingled with the sharp shout of frustration Jimin lets out. His shoulders heave in a struggle to regain his composure, one hand covering his eyes as if he’s willing away an incessant headache and after a few more deep, slow breaths, he somewhat relaxes; the searing hot anger running through his veins ebbing away into a tempered flame. Tilting his head back, his hand moves to run through his locks, tugging slightly at the roots as he looks out at the darkness above him — still no stars in sight no matter how long he stared.

Funny how a few nights before, he was staring up at the exact same starless sky and felt more at peace with himself than he’d ever been but now it all seems like a premonition, a bad omen of what’s to come. His lips pull back into a spiteful sneer; how apropos. Not like that would stop him, starless skies be damned, because ultimately they’re all the same to him anyways. It’s ruefully does he admit that they’ve only started to become something beautiful to look at when he had met you.

-

It’s with mild amusement and disbelief that you take up Jimin’s advice on ‘hosting’ a belated birthday get together with your friends. At first you were doubtful, with what few of the close friends you do have, the chances of them being able to come out were far more slimmer than average. But after working up some courage, you go for it anyways, shooting off a tentative text message in the group chat to see if anyone is up to hanging around, get some bubble tea and maybe lunch…? You’re open to ideas.

You weren’t expecting much but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel pleasantly surprised and happy that they were free and were excited to get together after such a long time. So with plans made and set, there’s only one thing left for you to worry about; just how are you gonna bring up the fact that you got two tickets to the concert and that you could only bring one of them? The thought instantly makes you anxious — it’s like you’re forced to pick favourites and you by no means favour a friend over another. But you have no choice, you only have the one ticket to give away.

You’ve managed to worry yourself up until the very day as you get up early the next morning. Should you maybe not bring it up as a group in person? Or would that make things look worse if you approach one person through text? But even then, you can’t guarantee the person you pick would be able to go either, then that just means you have to guess who’s most likely abled. Agh! You’re losing your mind over this and if you let it go any further, it would ruin your mood. So you decide to put it aside for now and see where the day takes you during this little outing. If the mood seems right then you’ll bring it up, if not….

Okay, no more thinking on this, just go with the flow. With one last shake of your head, you concentrate on getting to the designated meeting spot, determined to have a good time in the company of your friends. Luckily it’s easy because as soon as you’re all gathered together, it’s like no time has passed between anyone. You all fall into conversations comfortably, caught up and joked around with one another but of course eventually, the topic ends up on the subject of all your worries.

“Ugh! I’m so sad I can’t go to this concert!” One of your friend, Jess, whines, turning away from her phone screen as she no doubt must’ve caught sight of some fancams that happened for their first stop. “Why’d they have to skip over our city this year? I thought it was such a good turn out!”

Your other friend lets out a heavy sigh, slumping slightly at the mention of such tragedy. “I don’t know man, it sucks though! I was so ready to go! But the money for the travel on top of the ticket is too much for me.”

“Right? After saying they would come back next year too….All men do is lie.”

Your circle of friends laughs and you do too in spite of growing more and more fidgety in your seat, nervously sipping on your drink. You think this is the perfect time to break your silence on the deep secret you’re holding if you weren’t absolutely breaking out into a cold sweat simultaneously. You know you have to act fast though, before you lose the timing so in an effort to keep on it but not give yourself away, you throw in what sounds like to you some painfully awkward two cent.

“What if there was, like…a contest and the prize was a round trip to see the BTS concert….” Your hypothetical instantly catches the attention of your friends and you nearly shrink back out of intimidation, but you swallow the feeling, trying to keep casual about it and hope that your face isn’t as red as it feels. “But there’s only two tickets, ‘cus that’s how it usually is, so you can only take one of your friends, so like, how would you even decide that?”

Each of your friends hum in consideration, falling into a pensive silence before one of them speaks up, “Oh my God, I wouldn’t even know.”

“Right? Last minute trips would definitely not work for me like, as much as I hate to say it, I need money and can’t afford to quit even though I hate my job.” Soohee sighs.

“Pfft, I’d probably quit like….YOLO this is BTS; for my boys.”

“Or call in sick? Like,” Rosa says before she makes her voice sound more nasally and scratchy to portray a sickly tone, coughing in between sentences, ”’Oh sorry, I don’t think I can come in for at least three days, I’ve caught a really serious cold okay bye.’”

That earns a peal of laughter from everyone but your heart is pounding through it as you grin along. “But like, no hard feelings if that ever happens right?” You can’t help putting out there, masking your anxiety for playfulness.

“Yeah no, I mean we’re all friends here right?”

“Well….I might feel just a little bit salty if I didn’t get a ticket.” Mei jokes, scrunching her face but everyone all knows from her exaggeration that she means no real harm if it comes down to it. If anything, it successfully pulls another round of light-hearted chuckles from the group. Overall though, everyone collectively nods in agreement or verbally voices it and it’s enough to put you at ease considerably. The feeling of gratefulness warms you over at the genuineness you’re witnessing, making you think that you were worried over nothing. So when everyone settles down, you take a deep breath and muster up all the courage you have to say the next few but very decisive words.

“Okay because like…..I may or may not need to confess something… And you’re all probably gonna hate me for it.” You begin wryly with a crooked smile. Your friends perk up like meerkats towards your direction, always ready for some good tee. Rosa has one eyebrow quirked, eyes widen comically to pin you with a cartoonishly accusatory stare.

“What? Did you secretly score tickets without telling us?”

You nearly choke on your own spit, inhaling too sharply and you have to fan yourself for a second before you squeak out, “I mean… I-I have a good friend…who’s friends with someone who was part of a…group trip for the next stop of BTS’ tour in North America that dropped out so now he needs two people to take their spots so they asked me if I wanted to go and if I knew anyone else who wanted to go so…yeah! I have tickets to their next stop so do any of you guys wanna come with me?!”

It was a mess; you tripped and stuttered your entire way through, words spilling out faster by the time you finish your tall tale for this miracle. Your face feels like it’s on fire again as you mentally bash your head against a wall because anyone can smell this bullshit from a mile away and you don’t think you even explained that flights and hotel were covered for this trip right? Oh my God how are you going to explain that?!

As you mentally berate yourself, you don’t notice how all of your friends are stunned into a shocked silence, each with their mouths agape in various sizes until Jess sputters, hands flailing about in front of her before she’s gripping the table, leaning over from her seat on the opposite end of where you were.

“Hold on! Wait a minute! Pause! You’re saying you got connections to their next stop?!”

Her outburst causes a chain reaction, snapping all of your remaining friends out of their stupor to shoot rapid fire questions at you.

“Like are we talking free free? Or like they’re trying to sell tickets for cheap cheap?”

“You said group trip right? Like does that mean the spots dropped are free to take but like we gotta give a deposit or something?”

“Are you sure this isn’t some sort of scam? How good friends are you with this person?”

In turn, your mind goes racing to come up with more plausible answers to the loopholes they’re pointing out. You swear if you were starring in the movie ‘Inside Out’, the inside of your mind would be a scene of chaos — alarms blaring and all of your personified emotions running in a panicked frenzy yelling at the top of their lungs. Frantically before you abort mission altogether, you grabbed onto the one thing you can answer with full confidence.

“The person who told me about this and is offering is someone I’ve known for a while — I trust them so I know this isn’t a scam for sure.” You reassure, holding up your hands in a placating manner. “They said the group does these….trips really often and like, everyone has a lot of air miles or something so….a lot of the times some people fly for cheap or even free; something like that? And the deposit was already made by the two who were supposed to go and it’s non-refundable so they said they’d rather find someone just so it doesn’t go to waste. I don’t know, they explained it to me but it’s sort of complicated.”

“Wow, this sounds like  a bunch of rich people….” Mei comments, blinking in astonishment. “Must be nice…”

“Then what about a place to stay? Is it like…a hotel or an AirBnB? Is it even covered or is that something that needs to be split and paid?”

“….I think that’s the only thing left to be paid…?” You lie (along with this entire story but you have to add some sort of element of plausibility! It’s more suspicious to have everything come at no charge than for at least one thing to be paid for). “So yeah! Umm…anyone down?” You finish quickly with a slightly nervous laugh, eyes shaking.

You wait with bated breath as you watch your friends consider your proposition albeit still dubiously. You don’t blame them; you would be too but you can’t outright tell them the whole truth because that sounds like an even bigger lie than what you had already just told. Besides, you’re always known for being a truthful and trustworthy person (minus this big ol’ outright lie here but it’s with good reasons), not to mention not that gullible when it comes to these things — you consider yourself to be a pretty big skeptic! So surely….

“Okay but like…just one last question….” Rosa pipes up, sounding awfully serious that it has you a little on edge. Your shoulders unconsciously hunch up as you peer at her, waiting for her to call you out entirely but then, “Is your friend’s friend in the market for a sugar baby? Or like know anyone in their circle who is? ‘Cus…. I can give them my business card.”

That seems to dispel whatever remaining suspicions left as everyone bursts out laughing in solidarity, yourself included. The rest of the conversation regarding the trip transitions smoothly to everyone re-evaluating their schedules to see if they’re able to accompany you (within reason, much to the chagrin of all parties). It ends with people who were most likely to be available to settle a few final things before messaging you to say whether it’s a go or not, no fuss or muss (“because we’re all adults here”, Soohee iterates proudly). Overall, you’re very satisfied with the outcome having went way better than expected, the heavy weight lifting off your shoulders and the rest of the day resumes with more laughs, dinner, and even surprise belated birthday gifts (that got you choked up).

By the time you’re heading home, you’re feeling so happy that you nearly walk right past a certain demon. It’s only when he calls out to you do you startle out of your euphoric reverie.

“It worries me how increasingly prone you’re becoming to being at death’s door.”

“Oh shit! Jesus Jimin!”

“Flattered but point proven.” He chastises. Lowering your hand from your chest, you pout up at him before turning away to continue walking down the street to your home. He falls into steps with you easily, what with his long, lean legs but you’re in a good mood and if you’re being honest…. It’s nice to see him after so long. Giving him a once over, you note that Jimin’s still sporting an ashy brown for hair colour, cut short to where you can see a hint of an undercut with his cartilage silver piercing gleaming even in the low lights of the street lamps. He’s dressed in that casual chic way you’ve grown to know him for — one hand shoved into the pocket of his black jeans with a tear on each knee and a simple light denim button down with a square pocket with the words ’Saint Laurent’ scribbled on in black cursive ink. The sight makes you roll your eyes but smile nonetheless; it wouldn’t be him without it.

“I’m actually surprised to see you here; thought you were busy with….stuff.”

“Hey, you’re still technically my charge so my heads on the chopping block if you get distracted by a BTS billboard while crossing the street when you’re not supposed to.”

You choke a gasp of indignation, giving him a shove even though it does nothing more than make him teeter to one side slightly. It also pulls out a deep musical chuckle from him and you find your heart singing along to the tune. You freeze — Oh God, what was that? Your heart skipped a beat just now and it’s not because you had a good day.

“I take it things went well with today by the looks of that dopey smile.” His voice distracts you before you can get lost in dissecting the foreign feeling. When you turn your wide gaze up at him, he merely gestures to the little gift bag containing a new version of a BTS album you don’t own along with other goodies your friends know you’ll enjoy.

“O-Oh, yeah! It went way better than I expected actually. Everyone came out and we went for bubble tea, chilled and then had dinner. They even surprised me with late birthday presents, which they didn’t have to. Also, three of them said they would let me know if they can schedule time off to come with me; two of them said it was a most likely so that’s good.” When you finish recounting your day’s events, you suddenly feel shy, sounding like a grade schooler who’s telling their parents about their first day of school. But Jimin simply nods, humming here and there to let you know he’s listening. You both eventually reach the steps leading to your door and you dig around in your purse for your keys as he waits.

“That is good. You’ll have someone to go with,” Jimin pauses, teasing smile pulling back his perfectly pink lips, “and I finally won’t have to babysit you as much.”

You glower at him but when all he does is stick his tongue out at you, you roll your eyes with a shake of your head. “Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that.” And as retaliation, you mumble. “You big tsundere.”

“You know I heard that right?”

“I know, I was counting on that.” You say. As an afterthought, you stick your tongue out at him too and it’s his turn to roll his eyes. You clear your throat roughly to disguise the self-satisfying giggle that escapes your lips, turning back to unlocking your door, “Now are you coming in or not?”

You miss the look of conflict that flits across Jimin’s face as he hesitates on the invitation but ultimately decide against it, schooling his expression back with a carefully placed laid-back smile by the time you turn to look at him. “I’m afraid not; you know how it is.”

You let out a noncommittal hum; you figured and you want to sigh, a bit disappointed at his short visit but you can’t be mad at that. “Right; getting up to no good as per usual?”

“You know it, darling.”

The gruff noise you let out is more or less done to hide your traitorous heart; the term of endearment hitting differently this time around. You cross your arms for good measures, like a physical attempt at keeping your heart in check before it bursts right out of your chest as chew on your bottom lip. “Well, good night then I guess — try not to get discorporated and all that jazz.”

His smiles widens into a full on grin, teeth on display and eyes creasing into crescents. Just when you can’t get blind-sided anymore by him and his unfair beauty, Jimin leans in closer to you, hovering so close that you have to take a half step back and pray he for once, doesn’t see how quickly your face is reddening or how fast your heart is beating. Turning his head slightly, he taps the cheek facing you with a finger, “How about a goodnight kiss for good luck then?”

“Bye you dingus.” You deadpan, ears burning as you clatter through your door and promptly shut it once you step through it, heart pounding a mile a minute.

Jimin watches you go, the Cheshire grin growing into more of a fond smile. He doesn’t think he’ll get tired of seeing you so flustered; face flushed and lips chewing nervously. It’s an image he’ll keep to himself, another memory he’ll cherish of you amongst others because when he finally steps away from your door, it might be for the last time he’ll ever see you.

-

Ever since Jungkook had met Jimin, he had began to believe that there was a higher being controlling the universe and all that are within it — and he’s not talking about the forces Upstairs™. Some people might call it ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’, an intangible force who assumes no form and takes no sides.  

It’s the only way he can explain how he’d end up in this predicament. It’s a whole mess of irony that he thinks even God themselves couldn’t have seen or been capable of doing. He wants to both laugh and cry at the same time….and also strangle Jimin. Jungkook lets out a loud disgruntled groan, dragging his hands through his hair for the second time, dark brown locks mussing up wildly from the gesture. In the solitude of an abandoned rooftop building, he had been sitting by the edge lost in his troubled thoughts on the recent conversation he had with Jimin. He doesn’t know where to begin to unpack all of that.

He should probably start with the most obvious; how stupid the other demon is being and probably the most outrageously dim-witted thing he’s heard since….since his life as a supernatural entity! No sane being of their kind would risk giving up their life for one mortal being, let alone willingly (some may argue guardian angels but you’d be surprised that they’re way more political about it; not just anyone gets that sort of privilege). Jungkook can’t understand it, can’t seem to find words to process it but the more he tries, the more he realizes that it’s not so much about what Jimin wants to do for you, rather it’s what he did to him.

What Jimin plans to do had awakened a long forgotten wound of his that he thought had disappeared, leaving him restless and a bitter taste in his mouth. It dredged up distant memories that felt like they were from another life time ago, or even of someone else’s — his memories, but ones that were best left to be forgotten because they weren’t something he looked back on fondly. It was a time where he felt like a lost puppy; didn’t know who he was or what he was meant to be and so, felt like he didn’t belong anywhere. So how ironic is it that he was able to find himself when he met Jimin, of all things, a demon.

But by no means did they hit it right off the bat when they first crossed paths. No, it was very clear that the bored demon had no intentions of befriending Jungkook at all — in fact, he always had an air of distaste whenever he decided to be a nuisance to Jungkook,, often times appearing when he least expected. And the feeling was mutual, so least to say, neither of them could have predicted that the exact opposite happened.

Over time, Jimin had unknowingly grown fond of Jungkook in a way where he sees parts of himself in the younger while Jungkook had begun to see that Jimin really did have a heart somewhere in his chest after all. Jimin had been the one to give him a choice, opened his eyes to seeing the possibilities, to not be afraid of being himself and because of that, Jimin is someone….he cares about, even if he wouldn’t admit it out loud.

So he has his reasons.

Besides, what’s so special about you anyways? Sure, you let him crash your place from time to time, bake some bombass chocolate chip cookies and he guess you’re pretty funny for a human but other than that, you’re just human; one small blip among the millions — billions — of other fragile souls on this earth that are all destined to perish with time.

Just what does Jimin see in you that's worth protecting?

Well, he supposes sitting around thinking about it wouldn’t give him answers. So with a stretch, Jungkook gets up, peering out at the city horizon as the first warm rays of orange light breaks through the midnight blue of the night sky. He watches for a few moments longer as it becomes brighter and brighter until the sun had chased away any remaining darkness left. It looks to be another clear day, only a few clouds dotting the azure sky but it’s as they say, sometimes a storm can be just around the corner.

-

When you wake the next day, it’s way before your alarm clock that you set for work but instead of feeling bitter about losing precious minutes of extra sleep, you decide to just lay in bed, using the time to slowly wake at your own pace until you feel like you’re up to the task of getting up finally. You also feel refreshed and in a good mood, oddly enough. Kind of sad if you think too long on it, how this feeling is so foreign to you that you can’t even recall the last time you had felt this way; maybe because they were all too short-lived to begin with anyways. Ah, you forcefully stop yourself from exploring those thoughts any further or else you’ll spiral and start needlessly worrying. You’re living in the now so you should enjoy it and that’s one inspirational quote you’ll actually live by. How couldn’t you when you’re literally going to a BTS concert in less than two weeks.

…

Holy crap you have less than two weeks to prepare.

You bolt upright in bed, suddenly overwhelmed with a pressing matter at hand. Your heart flutters in a strange mixture of excitement and mild panic as you sit there, completely stunned at the fact that this is happening and you still have so much you need to do!

That has you getting up in no time, going through your morning routine faster than you can comprehend with your mind racing with what seems like millions of different thoughts per second. You rush around, trying to do ten things at once; check your phone for any new updates from your friends, make yourself breakfast, finding out where the heck you had left your luggage case, and before you know it, you’re scrambling out the door because you lost track of time for work.

You make it with just barely two minutes to spare but once you start your shift, time seems to reverse its effect on you and the hours begin to tick by slower than watching grass grow. Doesn’t help that you were stuck as a cashier again, the bane of your existence. Though your manager assigns tasks for you to get done around the queue line, you can barely get far enough before running back to your register to cash out any customers that approach. Plus, it has you feeling more like a meerkat in the Savannah; constantly having to pause in concentration to pop your head up to keep an eye out to avoid leaving customers waiting. So in short, you didn’t get anything done.

It leaves you feeling disgruntled but ultimately, you can’t find the strength to care anyways (you aren’t paid enough to). You’re on your last two hours of your shift, cashing out the last customer before the line is deemed clear for you to scurry back over to the closest aisle you were reorganizing but when you round the corner into it, you bump into a body.

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry I didn’t see you!” You gasp out hurriedly, the blow disorienting you for a second so when you finally get a good look at the person, you almost do a double take, eyes widening in surprise. “Jungkook?”

“Hey, poppet — been a while huh?”

And it has, now that you get a good look at him. He’s dressed like he always does — a baggy black shirt that looks to be two sizes too big on him and matching black jogger pants but his hair on the other hand; the dark locks are much longer than you had last remembered, the fringes splitting in the middle nearly reach down to either sides of his chin, falling in thick, wavy locks. It has you starstruck; only ever used to seeing the actual Jungkook from BTS with short, coiffed hair either parted slightly to the side or with fringes flopping over his forehead. If you dare say it, this new look has you almost falling for him, almost. You eventually compose yourself and, after glancing around to make sure no one was around, you drag him deeper into the aisle to continue your conversation.

“Yeah it has,” You begin, feeling strangely awkward but nonetheless happy to see the younger demon. “Thought your visa expired or something.”

Jungkook shakes his head before sweeping the hair out of his eyes briefly as they gleam along with the barest hints of those two bunny teeth through his smile. He’s cheeky as you had remember him being, but for some reason, you sense that it’s been dialled down by a couple of notches like something is weighing on his mind. Just as you’re about to ask what he’s been up to without being too invasive right off the bat, he speaks up first.


“When do you get off work?”

“Uh..In like,” You check your watch, “Two hours or so?”

“Good, let’s go somewhere after.”

His proposal takes you off-guard, this probably being the first time he’s ever asked you to go anywhere with him, much like Jimin before he spontaneously took you star-gazing (or lack thereof) for your birthday. Now you know something is definitely up, and you can’t help but eye him suspiciously for a good minute. He picks up on your skepticism and only chortles a laugh, reaching out to ruffle your hair which you squawk in protest before swatting his hand away vehemently.

“Relax poppet, I just…have something to talk to you about — regarding your glorified watch dog.”

“Hey!” You automatically gasp affronted, going in to smack the younger demon for bad mouthing his senior. “That’s rude and for that I’m almost tempted not to take you up on your offer.”

“But you will anyways because you’re too nosy right?”


You have nothing to say to that and it only makes Jungkook beam at you, a full on shit-eating grin. He might’ve pronounced it as ‘nosy’, but what he meant to say was ‘curious’. And that is one vice that you can’t seem to help about yourself. So you begrudgingly agree to meet him after you finish, all the while secretly glad to have something to help you power through the remainder of your shift.

It’s evening by the time you clock out, fishing your phone from your pocket to check the time and also answering a couple of text messages, one of them being your friend who has successfully worked out everything on her end to be able to attend the concert with you. The good news washes away any mental exhaustion you feel from work instantly, and you can’t help the wide smile that breaks out over your lips. You return your friend’s enthusiasm through a series of keyboard smashing text bubbles and badly misspelled words but vibrating at a frequency that could shatter glass aside, it all further makes everything feel so much more real; like this is actually happening.

“Hey, you know texting and walking is becoming the leading cause to pedestrian deaths in the past year recently right? Stop contributing to that.” Jungkook’s voice snaps you out of your thoughts as well as his grip on the back of your shirt, yanking you until you feel yourself tipping backwards but just as you let out a yelp, your surroundings shifts in a swirl of colours and warped images and before you have a chance to make out any of them, it stops and you find yourself in a completely different place than where you had been.

You stumble on your feet, going as far as to grip onto Jungkook’s arm less you wanted to fall flat on your face until you feel like you have a grasp on your vertigo again.

“Don’t,” You wheeze, blinking hard in hopes of stopping your world from spinning in your eyes, gaze firmly locked on your shoes. “Don’t do that without warning next time!”

“Then what fun would that be?” You hear Jungkook snicker above you.

You want to smack him again but you’re more focused on pulling yourself together. When you do, you finally let go of his arm to take a look at your surroundings. You’re surprised to see that Jungkook had teleported the both of you to what appears to be a rooftop garden. And not just the typical, modern city rooftop garden that looks like an open patio people would host fancy cocktail parties on, no, this is an actual garden on a rooftop. You’re standing on a gravel pathway that’s bordered by different shrubberies interspersed with tall, wispy ornamental grasses that sway at the slightest of breezes. In areas where there are more soil space, you spot what appears to be bushels of lavender peeking through to break up the shades of green that overtake the place but what’s even more surprising is that you also spy a couple of trees planted that gives you the impression that this is quite a big rooftop.

“You’ll catch a fly if you keep your mouth open like that.”

You immediately snap it shut, not doubting Jungkook on that considering how much greenery you’re surrounded with, but it still doesn’t stop your amazement from coming through.

“W-Where is this? Are we still even in the city?”

The demon snorts, stuffing his hands into his pant pockets as he begins to stroll off. “Yeah, it’s just a place I found. Apparently it’s owned by some big shot CEO.”

You hastily pick up your pace in order to catch up to his longer strides, can’t help your brow from furrowing at the information. “What if we get caught up here?”

“Nah, bastard hardly ever comes up this far in the building — it’s all just for show. Besides,” Jungkook smirks, “Who says ‘we’re’ getting caught? Other mortals can’t see me remember.”

Right.

You kiss your teeth at that, having no choice but to believe in the younger demon that you won’t get caught trespassing any time soon. So with a sigh, you continue alongside Jungkook as you make your way around the garden. “So,” You start off, “You said you wanted to talk to me about Jimin?”

You glance up at Jungkook when he offers you no immediate response, catching an eyeful of his profile. Deep brown eyes are lost in the horizon ahead of him in an almost trance like state as the slowly setting sun turns the sky into vibrant hues of pink, orange and purple. The warm rays cast upon Jungkook’s skin makes it appear almost golden, glowing from the inside and his hair shines with a rich lushness that you even catch the subtle hues of brown in them.

You’re so caught up in his visuals that for a moment you actually think it’s a good thing no one else can see him because no doubt, he’d be turning heads and getting mobbed just by walking down the street (or perhaps it’s a shame that he can’t be seen). You also get caught up at how scarily accurate he seems to have the actual Jungkook look pinned down; from his shapely thin lips, cutting jawline, prominent nose to his expressive doe eyes and of course, his signature bunny smile. It makes you wonder if there was something he missed from being a perfect copy of the young Korean vocalist.

Finally, as if feeling eyes on him, Jungkook inclines his head towards you, shaking his long fringe in order to see through them and making the numerous silver hoop earrings on his lobe and cartilage twinkle in the remaining light. You try to school your face into one of indifference but the creeping blush on your cheeks gives you away at your shameless staring (you think you might’ve been openly gaping at him too, how embarrassing!)

His lips twitches in the slightest at the corner but he doesn’t comment. Instead he silently ambles over to the left of a slight fork in the path, coming up to what you finally notice are small steps leading to a slightly elevated, wooden deck that gives you an impressive view of the city below behind the safety of glass panels and railings that come up high enough to prevent anyone from climbing over. Jungkook comes to a stop before it and you follow suit just beside him. Another moment of silence passes between you two before he asks you a question that takes you completely off-guard.

“What do you think of Jimin?”

You buffer in answering, mind jumping to all sorts of interpretations and wild assumptions. Clearing your throat to mask the fact you might’ve choked on your spit a little, you stutter out with the vain attempt at seeming totally nonchalant about it, cheeks burning for different reasons this time, “L-Like what? Like, how he is as a demon? Or…like, him as my guardian….?”

“Him, as himself, as honest as you can be.”

You suck in a breath, thrown into an even bigger loop at how blunt Jungkook’s being so suddenly in regards to your guardian demon. “Well,” you drag out, eyes shifting self-consciously as your hand reaches up to scratch the back of your head. “If I have to be honest…I…I think he’s pretty alright for a demon….”

“….Really?”

The deadpan and disbelief in Jungkook’s tone makes you whip your gaze to him and his expression makes you blink incredulously at him. He almost looks offended and a little too serious for a simple enough question, as if your answer will determine the fate of the universe and you just fucked everyone over by giving a half-assed one. It has you back-tracking defensively, like you really did doom humanity but it’s not like you mean to! No one told you so much was at stake in the first place!

“W-What?! Why are you even asking me this so suddenly?!”

Jungkook lets out a loud sigh, the sound rough around the edges from frustration bleeding into it as he says, “Just — “ But then stops himself, shutting his eyes briefly as if to reconsider his approach. You watch quietly as he runs a hand through his hair, tousling the locks and watching them fall back into place. He takes a deep breath in before letting it out, eyes sliding back open to the view in front of him. It’s dark now for the most part, the warm orange light from the setting sun being nothing more than a sliver of colour that eventually gets engulfed by the overwhelming navy blue of the night and in its place are the millions of fluorescent lights that shine from the windows of the buildings and skyscrapers around you.

It’s a nice scenic view from where you and Jungkook both stand, but you’re more so concentrated on trying to read the demon’s expression, so unused to seeing his handsome face pinched into something that isn’t cheeky or teasing in nature. The sight of it mellows you out, thinking that perhaps there really is a much more serious meaning to his question. After a few moments, Jungkook speaks again, his voice low and gravelly with an unknown emotion.

“You and I both know that Jimin doesn’t have that much time left as your guardian. And you and I both know what that will mean when the time comes.”

Ah, there it is.

Your chest suddenly feels as if a weight has nestled itself on it at the sobering statement. Every once in a while, that fact has crept into your thoughts but each time it did, you had always pushed it aside; for more pressing matters at the moment and simply because…. You don’t want to think about it. You don’t want to think about the limited time you have left to spend with Jimin and that at any moment, he’ll tell you he’s leaving or even worse, he’ll simply be gone without a word or trace, and you’ll just have to move on with your life.

“Y-Yeah…I know.” You struggle to work around the constricting feeling, fingers fiddling with the strap of your bag. “I…I just don’t like thinking about it.”

You glance over when Jungkook doesn’t give you a response, only to meet his deep brown gaze already on you with a look that tells you to elaborate. Your face flushes again at having to divulge your inner most feelings but as you had come to realize earlier, this means a lot to Jungkook so you feel obligated to give a (much more) honest answer. Swallowing, your eyes fall onto anywhere but at the demon beside you.

“You better not tell him this…” You can’t help muttering petulantly before starting, “Jimin….He’s done a lot for me — things that I can’t even express my thanks for in words. I don’t know if he told you or if you found out, but he got me tickets to go see BTS.”

“So I’ve heard…”

A small smile creeps up on your lips at the memory, recalling all the emotions you felt on that day. “I honestly didn’t expect him to; I even said I didn’t want his help in scoring tickets the first time he offered but then, he just goes and…gets them.” You shake your head. “He really didn’t have to you know? I mean, it would’ve sucked that I didn’t get to go but I would’ve gotten over it somehow, eventually. So for him to go out of his way, doing something that I’m sure was beyond his contract as my temporary guardian is…. “ You trail off, not knowing if you can find the words or if there really is any to describe how grateful you are because Jimin giving you those tickets meant more than just being able to see BTS, he’s given you a shoulder to cry on (quite literally), listened to your deepest worries that you seldom talk about even to your closest friends and given you his honest advice and support. He’s looked out for you in little ways when there are times he could’ve chosen not to, made sure you ate, slept and took time for yourself.

He showed you that there is a sort of hope that all things will pass and good things will come in time. You don’t know when it happened, but Jimin had become a great source of comfort for you, something irreplaceable and someone who had made you want to do better, take chances and just…live a little.

“He might not like to admit it, but Jimin’s a lot sweeter than he lets on… Or at least, when he deems you worthy of being in his good books.” You let out a light laugh, already picturing his stink eye at the mention of him being remotely ‘good’. From beside you, you hear Jungkook snort.

“I really want to repay him somehow…. And not just for giving me tickets to see BTS. But I don’t think there’s anything I can do or give that would be enough and that… that frustrates me.” You conclude, your own voice dropping into a wistful murmur as you lean against the railings.

Jungkook watches you, seeing the faraway glassy look in your eyes that tells him how lost in thought you were. He sees the way your face seems to soften, heard the way your voice had grown quieter in the gentle way you had spoken of Jimin and though it had not been much, Jungkook’s heard all the things you’ve left unspoken.

It’s the same whenever Jimin speaks about you.

He scoffs quietly under his breath, defeated.

“H-Hey! Don’t leave me!” You yelp, breaking out of your train of thoughts just in time to catch the creak and rustle of Jungkook descending the small steps to continue the walk down the pathway which had been lit up by little post lights along the ground. You hurry after him, not wanting to risk being stranded on this tall high-rise office building that you have no business being in. “You still never told me why you’re asking me this all of a sudden.”

“…Just think of it as a warning for what’s to come.” Jungkook says simply. “It won’t be easy, and you’re only making it harder on yourself by becoming attached.”

You stiffen, the grip on your bag strap tightens as your steps slow a bit to a drag, kicking up the small stones as you go. “I…I know that… I just…” You sigh heavily, shoulders sagging. “I’ll deal with it when the time comes alright?”

It’s a pathetic answer even to your ears, but as much as you want to ignore the elephant in the room, Jungkook’s right. There’s no stopping Jimin from leaving you once he gets the okay from heaven — it’s heaven for crying out loud, who goes against the words of God? Besides, who’s to say Jimin would want to stick around you if given the chance. Maybe it’s just you that’s clinging onto him because of all he’s done for you…. But can you really blame yourself for that? He’s done so much and yet you could do nothing —

You nearly stop walking altogether, realization hitting you like a ton of bricks. Unknowingly you’ve come full circle to the one thing that had been fixated on your mind ever since you’ve thought about it and now… Now you’re starting to think that maybe, unconsciously, you’ve already decided on what it is that you wanted to do.

Your faltering steps catches Jungkook off guard when he notices you weren’t following him, making him turn around to see that you in a way he could only describe as a lightbulb going off in your head.

“What, forgot you left the stove on at home?” Jungkook asks, one eyebrow raised.

You blink back to reality, taking a moment to process what he said before shaking your head. “No, no…Just remembered something…”

He gives you a weird look before shrugging and you fall back into step with him again. Eventually, the two of you reach a sort of dead end where there is fewer plants and an open space that reminded you more of a sand garden instead. Patches of shrubbery still dot around in this spacious area but all that appears here is a stepping stone path that leads to a bench situated under a large tree. It’s significantly bigger than the small maples that you had seen walking around the gravel pathway but it still only had a few small green leaves scattered sparsely on its branches, seeing as how spring has only just begun. Along with the LED lamp lights stuck into the ground along the pathway, the space is also lit up by fairy lights that outline the border of this part of the garden that you had no doubt would make for a great place for a romantic date.

It’s nice, you think idly as you admire your surroundings, if only this was a public place and not on some rich asshole’s building, you would’ve loved to come back here just to find a peace of mind every once in a while. Your eyes wander back to Jungkook, finding him standing under the tree, head tilted back to stare up at the thick trunk. As you approach him, you see him reach out a hand to touch the rough bark in quiet contemplation and as if sensing you behind him, he speaks without turning.

“You’re a good kid poppet — and I’m kinda starting to see why Jimin hadn’t locked you in a basement for the duration of his community service hours just to get it over with.”

“Uhh….thanks? I guess…” You reply, bewildered but strangely reassured.

“Make sure you don’t lose that good head of yours in the future, yeah?” Jungkook says amicably but you can’t help to think that there is something deeper to his well-meaning words. When he turns to you, you nod regardless and it’s enough to have the corner of Jungkook’s lips lift in a half smile filled with something you can’t quite discern in the shadows that fall across his face. It’s gone before you can really pin it down as Jungkook runs a hand through his hair, pushing the thick locks out of his eyes and gestures with his chin at you.

“C’mon, I’ll take you home before your guardian chews my head off.”

-

“I already told you; we’ll meet tomorrow at midnight, I’ll pay you half of the money and then the other half when we’re done.” Jimin grinds out between his teeth, clutching his phone so tightly he fears he’ll end up cracking the device. The person on the other shoots off more bullshit that Jimin could care less about and with a hard roll of his eyes, he ends the call abruptly, the boiling irritation makes his skin feel hot. He runs a hand through his hair out of habit, mussing the brunette strands until they fall slightly parted against his forehead.

If he hadn’t known better, Jimin thinks being smited would’ve been way less painful than what he’s gotten himself into. But then again, it’s pretty fucking hard to find a reliable informant in the black market on ways to transition himself into a guardian angel. Or at least, that’s what he hopes would happen. Jimin lets out a scathing laugh, finding this all morbidly funny, considering this was the least shadiest option he’s found in his day and a half manhunt after getting Jungkook to help him was a bust.

No matter, Jimin’s come into terms that he’s willing to bet everything he has at a shot of this. He’s not willing to wait around and let some higher being decide his fate if he so can help it because for the first time in in his life, this is something he’s willing to fight for.

And if this all goes to shit….

Well, he at least likes to think he’s a decent gambler.

Taking the crystal glass in his hands, Jimin knocks back the drink with ease, letting the smokey aftertaste linger on his palate as he licks his lips. When he sets the glass down, he bristles, suddenly aware of an all too familiar presence beside him.

“If you’re here to berate me, then save your breath because you’re not going to change my mind.”

Jimin hears a loud sigh and then suddenly the bartender scurries over from having been waved down by the younger. Not long after, a second glass of whiskey is placed before them, making Jimin quirk an eyebrow.

Jungkook takes a healthy swig of the drink, grimacing as he swallows. He turns to Jimin who looks at him with open curiousity.

“Last I remember you don’t like whiskey.”

“I don’t like a lot of things brother,” Jungkook corrects, dark eyes trained on the way he swirls the liquor in his glass absentmindedly. “And as much as I don’t like what you’re planning to do, I’d rather not have you doing something even more dangerous for it.” He inhales deeply, as if after much deliberation, finally turning his attention to Jimin, a hard look marring his face.

“That’s why I’ll tell you — I’ll tell you what you need to do to become a guardian angel.”

[deadanddeactivated]

Changes

So @figurative-siren-song posted a thing today and uhh apparently i was really in the mood to write some heavy angst. This was before i was having a really shitty day (tbh when i wasnt having a shitty day it had a happy ending).

Anyway no fancy post editing because tumblr mobile sucks, please enjoy

AO3

--

The sides weren't like real people.  They couldn't just… reinvent themselves or change the way a real person could.  When the sides wanted to change, they had to break apart. Become a fragment of their old selves, and let the other fragments fade.

Virgil knew a thing or two about changing.

Not like De, who was still self-preservation no matter what he called himself.   Or like the twins, who couldn't even remember King tearing himself in two.

Forgetting didn't work so well for Virgil.  Instinct wouldn't have made the mistakes Fear and Anxiety had.  

Then again, Instinct was the one that started the whole mess.

(It's not like the memories had stayed away anyway.  Not like with the twins. Virgil supposed he should have expected that.  It just wasn't in his nature to forget, even if he couldn't remember what he wasn't forgetting.)

The point is, Virgil knew a thing or two about changing.  

So the pit in his stomach didn't really come as a surprise.  He knew the risks. Lifetimes ago Instinct and King had talked about them at length.

"Hey Roman."  Virgil greeted that morning, hoping Roman didn't notice how tense his smile was.  "You want to spar or something today?" 

"Don't distract me!"  Roman declared, yanking a snack from the cupboard and turning back towards his room.  "I have to get this project done! Thomas is depending on me!"

"Oh."  Virgil breathed, even though Roman was already gone.  Patton walked in next, offering a smile as he prepared a quick breakfast of sugary cereals.

"Good morning Virgil!"  He greeted.

"Morning Pat."  Virgil returned the smile, even if it didn't  reach his eyes. "Hey, do you maybe want to bake today?  I think we're running low on cookies."

"Oh that sounds swell!"  Patton said. "But Thomas is feeling a bit disheartened at the moment, I need to spend the day lifting his spirits!"

"Right, of course."  Virgil mumbled. 

"Thanks for understanding kiddo, we'll bake tomorrow."  Patton assured, planting a kiss atop Virgil's head as he passed.

"Tomorrow, right."  Virgil agreed, looking down at his hand.  Tomorrow.

Logan was already at work when Virgil knocked at his door. 

"Yes?"  He asked, sounding a little annoyed at being interrupted.  Virgil hesitated, biting his lip a moment before pushing on.

"I was just wondering if you wanted to go stargazing, maybe."  Virgil suggested. "The sky in Remus' side of the mindscape always does cool things when you're around."

"My apologies Virgil but I am busy preparing next week's schedule.  Perhaps we can go some other time." Logan refused and immediately turned back to his work, assuming the conversation to be over.  Virgil just sighed, stepping from the room and wondering what now.

As he was turning to his own room, thinking of maybe writing a letter, the rundown door at the end of the hall caught his eye.  

Trying in person couldn't do any harm, right?

Stepping through to the other side of Thomas' mind, Virgil was a little surprised to find he remembered exactly how to get to the living room.  He even remembered which of the floorboards creaked and which would break if he stood on them. It was actually a little bit of fun and by the time he found De, reading on the couch, he was smiling.

"He De!"  He greeted.  "Wanna hang out?"

"Why?"  De hissed, destroying Virgil's good mood.  "I'm sure the others didn't send you here to spy on me."

"What? No, I just wanted to-"

"Don't save it."  De spat, standing.  "You didn't choose your side, don't live with it."  Without another word, De walked off.

That…

That didn't go the way Virgil was hoping.

But it's alright, he told himself.  There was still Remus. Hopes high, Virgil eventually found the green side in his side of the imagination.

"Remus!"  He called, waving.  The glare Remus shot his way made Virgil stagger back.

"Fuck off."  The duke growled.

"Wait, Remus-" But before Virgil could speak, throned vines rose from the ground to separate them.

"I said fuck off."  Remus repeated.

Oh.

Right.

Okay.

That's…

That's fine.  

It's fine.  

Virgil will just try again tomorrow, right?

But even as he thought it, Virgil knew he wouldn't last that long.  He didn't have the drive to fight against the growing pit in his chest.

Wiping his eyes, Virgil knew there was really only one thing left to do.  It still took him another moment to sink out.

"Virgil!"  Thomas startled as Virgil appeared, jumping back from his computer. "Uh, not that I'm complaining but what are you doing here?  I'm not anxious."

"I know."  Virgil said, leaning against the back of the couch and looking off to the side.  "I just, wanted you to know that I'm proud of you. You're doing a great job."

"Thanks?"  Thomas frowned, sounding unsure.  "Is everything alright man?"

"Yeah."  Virgil lied.  "It's nothing I wasn't prepared for."  He took a deep breath and forced himself to look at Thomas.  "Bye Thomas." He said.  

Then, in a blink, he was gone.

Instinct sat with King a lifetime ago.

"If you break apart you might fade."  Instinct warned.

"I'm going to tear myself apart no matter what."  King argued. "Maybe this way I'll survive it."

"It's too dangerous." Instinct argued.

"It's my only choice."  King shrugged. "I'm going to forget this.  I don't want the mini mes to know about this, just in case they keep breaking.  In case they become something so small, Thomas doesn't need them anymore."

"Thomas is always going to need his creativity."  Instinct claimed.

"Not this one he doesn't.  I don't make sense to him anymore."  King sighed. "Look after them, won't you?"

"...I will."  When King broke he tried for two perfect halves and yet Virgil's pretty sure there were pieces missing.  Things so very King that went to neither Roman nor Remus.

Years later Instinct sat alone.  

Thomas wasn't listening to him, the sides weren't listening to him.  He couldn't be sure if it was Morality turning Patton, and therefore all of Thomas, against him.  Or was it Thomas' new ideas of instincts being somehow lesser than normal thoughts. Maybe it was Instinct himself athat had pushed them away.

Whatever the cause, the problem remained.  Thomas wasn't listening to him. The sides weren't listening to him.  He couldn't do his job like this.

What was the solution?

King.  King was.  

That night, something in Instinct broke and he ceased to be.  

Fear arrived in the mindscape a few days later.

Fear had long since broken into Anxiety when the memories started flooding back.  Spurred on by desperate attempts to remember a name he wasn't sure he had.

And with those memories came a realization.

Anxiety was a fragment of a fragment.  He was too small a side. Instinct could handle a change in Thomas.  But Anxiety? One wrong change and he'd cease to be.

That night Anxiety tried to leave first, hoping it might hurt less.

Now, fading into Thomas' subconscious, Virgil was glad he stuck around.  He just wished he had longer, to fix the things he broke.

But Anxiety wasn't like Emotions or Logic or Creativity.   Next to them he was just a small part of Thomas. A part Thomas could manage himself now.  He didn't need Virgil.

Would the others notice, Virgil wondered.  Would they realize what he'd been asking for all day? 

Would they care?

Virgil didn't have long left to ponder that.

None of the sides were particularly happy to be called for an unscheduled meeting, all rather busy.  However they couldn't just ignore a summons from Thomas. Patton, Logan, and Roman appeared together and yet Thomas looked around desperately, like he was looking for something.

"Is everything alright kiddo?"  Patton frowned.

"You threw off my groove!"  Roman claimed.

"Where's Virgil?!"  Thomas asked, panicked.

"Why he's right-"  Logan cut himself off, turning to see Virgil's regular spot empty.  "That's odd." He frowned.

"Did something happen?"  Patton asked.

"I don't know!  He just, he popped in and he said he was proud of me and then he was just, gone!"  Thomas explained.

"But you clearly still have your anxiety."  Logan noted. "You acted rather different when you didn't."

"Then it can only be one thing!"  Roman declared. "Rise, you fiends!"  At his shout, Deceit and Remus find themselves appearing.

"Oh yes, this is exactly what I wanted to do today."  Deceit claimed, rolling his eyes.

"What did you do to him?!"  Roman demanded.

"Who? Jeffery Dahmer?"  Remus asked, tilting his head with a smirk.

"I believe he's asking if you've seen Virgil."  Logan clarified.

"Not at all."  Deceit huffed. "He certainly didn't try to trick me into 'hanging out' with him."

"Me too!"  Remus gasped.  "So I skewered him with thorns!"

"Remus!"  Patton exclaimed.

"Okay so I didn't skewer him."  Remus grumbled. "But I tried! And that's what counts!"

"Virgil must have been real desperate if he went to you two for company."  Roman muttered.

"He did ask if I could spend time with him, unfortunately I was busy with the schedule."  Logan said.

"He asked me too."  Patton realized.

"Geez, what would make our local loner desperate for company all of a sudden?"  Roman asked.

"His room."  Patton whispered.  He sunk out quickly.

"Patton?"  Thomas called, concerned.

"What about Virgil's room?"  Remus questioned. "Is it dirty?"  He smirked.

When Patton rose up a moment later, his face was seldom enough to put them all on edge.  He opened his mouth to say something but instead found tears filling his eyes.

"Patton?"  Logan pressed.

"It's, it's gone!"  Patton managed through tears.

"Guess you lot weren't good enough for perfect ol Virgy either."  Remus smirked.

"No." Logan said, understanding washing over him.  "If his room is gone that means… Virgil faded."

"What?  No, that's impossible!  Thomas still has anxiety!"  Roman argued.

"Thomas will always have anxiety.  However, he no longer needs Virgil to manage it."  Logan explained, shaking his head and trying to pretend his hands weren't shaking.

"I still need Virgil!"  Thomas argued. "We have to bring him back!"

"I'm sorry Thomas, you don't need him.  Subconsciously, you know that." Logan said.

"But we can bring him back, can't we?"  Roman asked.

"No."  Patton sobbed.  "We can't." A thunk cut into the sense of grief falling over the sides.  Turning, they saw Remus had fallen to his knees.

"I…"  Remus' voice was a whisper, quieter than any side had heard it.  "I didn't let him talk. He tried to talk to me."

"He wasn't lying." De said.  "He was trying to say goodbye."

"He isn't gone!"  Remus screamed. "Maybe he's just, he just moved back, yeah?  Let's go check De, I bet he's picking a movie for movie night!"  He decided.

"Remus."  Deceit tried but Remus was already gone, racing through the mindscape for a room that wasn't there anymore.  Patton sobbed louder to the side but Deceit barely heard him.

Virgil tried to say goodbye.

Deceit never let him.

He's not going to get a second chance.

Another thunk rang through the room.

[alectoperdita]

3 for Kaijou?

I’m sorry. This one utterly ran away from me. On top of it being a shitty work week. Please accept this overly complicated soulmark AU.

“I may be an idiot, but I’m not stupid.”

The doors flew open with a spectacular bang that would have shaken the walls if not for their sturdy construction.

“You got no right!” A familiar, abrasive voice shouted as an equally familiar and unwelcome figure stormed into Kaiba’s office.

Haruhi, Kaiba’s secretary, scrambled into the room in Jounouchi’s wake. With one last frantic dive, she caught Jounouchi’s sleeve and tried to drag or at least slow his advance. Jounouchi shook her grip off and kept moving, resulting in her tripping to the carpet.

“Seto-sama,” she wheezed. “I’ll call security right away.”

Kaiba flicked his gaze between his determined but beleaguered secretary and the angry man now stopped on the other side of his desk. “I’ll take care of it,” he said, tone brisk and even.

“Seto-sama?”

He quelled her protests and concern with a glower. She sighed before picking herself off the floor, made a beeline for the exit, bowed politely, and then closed the double doors with a soft snick. 

Which left Kaiba alone with Jounouchi. Truth be told, the last thing Kaiba wanted was to be in the same room as Jounouchi, and not because the man was currently steaming mad. Yet he caught himself sweeping his eyes up and down the length of Jounouchi’s body, wondering where his soulmarks laid and what they showed. Kaiba’s left thigh twinged as he crossed his legs and sat back in his office chair. After fixing a trademark smirk to his face, Kaiba arched an eyebrow at Jounouchi in a silent question.

Jounouchi practically vibrated with rage as he pulled a half-folded sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and slapped it down on Kaiba’s desk. The force of his hands rattled the pens in their holder container. “What the hell are you trying to pull?” snarled Jounouchi.

“Can’t you read, deadbeat?”

Kaiba glanced down for the briefest moment only to confirm that the sheet was what he suspected it to be. It was indeed an application, specifically Jounouchi’s, for the next KC-sponsored Duel Monsters tournament scheduled in two months. A large, obnoxious red stamp reading “REJECTED” was plastered across the top of the form. A precaution he had made a week ago in service of not having to see Jounouchi Katsuya again in the near future.

How fabulously that had backfired, he thought to himself sourly.

“I wanna know why!” Jounouchi demanded. “I’ve got the rankings to qualify. Hell, I’ve got more than enough.”

“It’s a private event. The company reserves the right to reject any application it chooses to. It doesn’t need to justify the reason,” sneered Kaiba.

“Bullshit! This isn’t the company’s doing. It’s you! At least own up to it! It’s not like you’ve never pulled this shit before. You tried to keep me out of Battle City back in the day. One star ranking? A horse’s bone? Remember that?” Jounouchi snapped.

Battle City had been ages ago. Kaiba had done that for admittedly petty reasons at the time, still stinging from needing Yuugi’s help to rescue Mokuba. Now he was doing it out of self-preservation. There was no way he could tell Jounouchi that, though.

Holding Jounouchi’s gaze, Kaiba unfolded his legs and slowly rose to his feet. “Fine. I don’t want you there. Happy now?”

Jounouchi’s shoulders shook as he balled the hands he’d pressed into the surface of Kaiba’s desk into two trembling fists. For a moment, Kaiba thought Jounouchi might try to hit him. That was actually the preferable outcome compared to what really happened. 

Jounouchi’s rage crumbled into anguish and hurt. “Why are you like this? Why of all people on earth are you my– Fuck!”

Jounouchi’s words sent a shockwave through Kaiba’s body. Wait… That implied that Jounouchi… “You already knew.”

“That my so-called soulmate is a fucking asshole? Yeah. I may be an idiot, but I’m not stupid!” Jounouchi looked at him with eyes filled with both anger and grief.

Kaiba gaped at the other man, clutching the edge of his desk for support. It felt like the rug had been pulled from under him. If Jounouchi understood his marks enough to identify Kaiba, then his feelings were much further along than Kaiba had guessed. Kaiba had hoped that keeping distance between them could arrest the process.

Though he didn’t trust his voice at the moment, he forced himself to speak. He needed to know. “How long have you known?”

Jounouchi ran a hand through his wild hair, tugging at the strands in frustration before letting go. “Years, Kaiba. Right after Battle City.”

The answer knocked the wind from Kaiba’s lungs. “But you never said anything.”

“What was there to say? If you knew, you obviously didn’t want it. And if you didn’t, you’d never believe me,” Jounouchi said bitterly, but he was studying Kaiba’s reactions closely now. He licked his lips nervously, then visibly rallied himself to ask, “When did you figure it out?”

“Last month.” The admission left Kaiba’s lips before he could stop it.

Jounouchi straightened with a jolt, and his jaw dropped. Even his hurt gave way to shock, a feeling that Kaiba could sympathize with. “But how? Didn’t it get uncomfortable? Didn’t it keep growing?” he asked softly with brows knitted tight.

Though soulmarks were enigmatic by nature, they were puzzles that demanded recognition and resolution. The sensation of gaining new soulmarks, having them etched into your skin, was a painful one. Many people counted themselves lucky to never get any, and most people didn’t. Kaiba always figured he’d be part of the 86% of the population that never met their soulmate, thus avoiding the tedium of the experience. Or he had hoped until that had been dashed in the first year of high school when he began sprouting stark, black marks on his left leg.

“I think the better question is how did you figure it out?” Kaiba still didn’t know if he should be stunned or irritated over the fact that Jounouchi had him beat on the magnitude of years. Even if he had been doing his best to ignore it in the vain hope that doing so would make it disappear.

“It took a while, but I got a good picture of what to literally look for by the time you ran off to America,” Jounouchi admitted plainly as he shrugged off his jacket. 

Then Kaiba’s heart rammed up into his throat when Jounouchi reached back and pulled off his shirt in one swift motion. “What are you—”

“It’d be easier to just show you,” Jounouchi cut him off before turned his back to Kaiba.

Kaiba’s eyes widened as he took in the vivid and colorful soulmarks etched over a sizable portion of Jounouchi’s back. When Jounouchi had alluded to a literal picture, he wasn’t kidding. The marks reminded Kaiba of full-back tattoos that old-fashioned yakuza wore so proudly, even the art style was reminiscent of woodblock prints. But the soft, shimmering watercolor of the marks meant they could never be mistaken for mundane tattoos. Unable to stop himself, he stepped out from around his desk to approach Jounouchi for a better look.

The subjects depicted in Jounouchi’s soulmarks were straightforward: an armored man on a horse charging into a body of water with a notched arrow aimed at the white fan held by another warrior standing at the helm of a small ship on the other side of the image. It did not escape Kaiba’s notice that the bowman sported brown hair and blue eyes, while the opposing warrior had blond tresses sticking out from under his helmet.

Jounouchi had kept talking as Kaiba studied the marks. “At first, it was just the outlines of the guys. They were hella hard for me to get a good look at back there. I think the first mark I got was the bow and arrow around the time we first met, but that was the start of our first year, and I met a lotta new people then. Then the rest of the image slowly filled in over the months. No color at first, though. I think I must have gotten the colors when I was unconscious during Battle City. Because we came back to Domino, and boom, there it was. I had a pretty good guess by then, especially when I didn’t get any new marks while you were away. The archer’s not exactly subtle. So I started digging through art books at the library, thinking maybe I might find more hints. The fan was the key. It's—”

“It depicts a scene from the Battle of Yashima,” Kaiba finished, eyes still fixed on the shimmering soulmarks on Jounouchi’s skin. His fingers itched to touch them.

“Yeah, the Tale of the Heike. So this battle was supposed to have taken place off the coast of Shikoku in the—”

“The Seto Inland Sea,” Kaiba groaned and dragged his hand across his face. Jounouchi was right. He may be an idiot at times, but he wasn’t a complete moron. Even Jounouchi would have put together the pieces when given such an obvious puzzle.

Jounouchi had turned back around and was studying him carefully when he finally dropped his hands to his side. Kaiba jolted, almost jumping back after discovering Jounouchi standing so close and so shirtless. 

“Wow, so you knew all that from just one look at mine, but you took how many years to figure out yours?” Jounouchi gaped.

Kaiba bristled and glared. “Mine requires more than a passing glance to solve.”

Jounouchi rolled his eyes and crossed his arms across his bare chest. Somehow that didn’t make him any less distracting. “Lemme see then.”

“Pardon?”

“I showed you mine, so you show me yours.”

His breath caught in his throat. “I don’t think that’d be wise.”

“C'mon, you freaking gave me soulmarks that’ve tatted me up like some old-school gangster. The least you could do is let me see yours.”

Jounouchi took a step closer, and Kaiba backed up in response. They continued like this until Kaiba collided with his desk. Jounouchi stopped trying to approach at that point, but his gaze remained determined and insistent.

“Lock the doors,” Kaiba growled and leaned against his desk.

Without further question, Jounouchi turned, flashing his soulmarks at Kaiba, and jogged toward the office’s doors. As Jounouchi did as he was told, Kaiba took a deep breath and shucked his pants before he lost his nerves. His left thigh itched once it was exposed to the office’s cold air. A quick glance down confirmed that he was about to gain any new marks. Not that he should after solving its damnable riddle.

Jounouchi gawked for a moment when he saw that Kaiba had removed his suit trousers. Then he rallied himself visibly before crossing the room again. Kaiba gripped the edge of his desk, entire body tensing when Jounouchi knelt down to take a better look at the columns of black marks running across Kaiba’s milky skin.

Jounouchi reached out, then caught himself. “Are these words?” he asked.

Kaiba focused on the watercolor shimmer of Jounouchi’s marks visible from this angle and nodded. “Ink calligraphy.”

What he didn’t say was that the characters were written in his hand, their style changing over time like he was trying to emulate any number of modern shodo masters. The fact that his marks manifested as long lines of rather small and flowing characters running down the length of his left thigh made them hard to even read from his top-down perspective. It seemed that both he and Jounouchi had theirs in similarly inconvenient places that failed to aid in their comprehension.

“There’s so many characters. Do they… Do they wrap all around?” Jounouchi’s warm breath caressed his bare skin, and Kaiba had to suppress a shiver.

“They do.” Another reason it’d proven so challenging to read enough of the marks.

“What do they say?”

Kaiba recited the words from memory. They were stilted on his tongue because the passage itself was awkward, sometimes missing subjects or action verbs. By the third line, Jounouchi gave an incredulous laugh, resting one hand against Kaiba’s bare knee. The sound and the touch stunned Kaiba into silence.

“Oh my god, that’s totally Run, Melos!” Jounouchi then exclaimed, lifting his gaze to beam up at Kaiba.

“How could you possibly know that?”

“We covered it in school, duh! Great Japanese lit and all that junk! Really, you don’t remember it?”

Literature had always been Kaiba’s weakest subject. Gozaburo emphasized certain philosophers and thinkers in Kaiba’s early education, but not prose for storytelling’s sake. Kaiba himself had similarly neglected that subject, as he saw little value in it. Still, Kaiba had an excellent memory, and he would have remembered the short story if he had read it before last month.

“Oh wait, we covered that during our second year. After Battle City. So you weren’t around…”

Jounouchi’s palm still rested like a blistering brand on his knee. Kaiba should really shake him off, but he was paralyzed by the irony that hung heavy in the air between them. Jounouchi had solved his marks at the same time that Kaiba missed what he needed to understand his. It felt like some great cosmic joke. Then again, Kaiba would have accepted the conclusion then even less readily than he would now. 

“I still don’t see how you figured me out from all this, though,” Jounouchi muttered, breaking the silence.

Kaiba sucked in a deep breath to calm his racing heart. “Really? An infuriating tale of a man devoted to his sister and able to move a tyrant king through the power of friendship doesn’t seem on the nose to you?“ 

"Ass,” snorted Jounouchi with good humor.

Kaiba almost smiled in response. Almost. “It’s a book cipher. Once I figured out the source text, I used it to decode the rest of the characters.”

“You’re not gonna tell me what it actually says, are you?”

“No." 

Jounouchi dropped his gaze back to Kaiba’s thigh. "Well, they’re pretty. I like ‘em.”

The compliment might have knocked him flat if not for his desk’s support. He couldn’t help the shiver that ran down his legs. Must be cold from the AC. He cleared his throat. “Yours are… The composition is well-done.”

Jounouchi arched an eyebrow as if to silently ask, “really?”

“And will you put your shirt back on?” Kaiba snapped, now growing increasingly self-conscious without discussions of their soulmarks to distract from the display of naked skin.

They both quickly redressed. Kaiba kept his eyes trained on a painting on his office wall as he pulled on his pants and cinched his belt. As soon as Jounouchi don his shirt again, he stepped toward Kaiba but stopped just out of arm’s reach. 

“What now?” Jounouchi asked.

Good question. Neither of them was likely to receive any new marks soon. Jounouchi probably already hadn’t for years. Which ran counter to why Kaiba banned him from the tournament in the first place. He’d hope to stave off Jounouchi’s realization by minimizing contact, but that was all moot point.

Kaiba picked up the rejected application from his desk, and Jounouchi tensed. 

“Why don’t we start by getting your registration properly processed?”

An olive branch if Jounouchi knew how to read between the lines. And Jounouchi did as he beamed at Kaiba in return. The affectionate smile caused Kaiba’s heart to flutter and his marks to itch anew, and he decided they weren’t the worst things in the world.