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stereksecretsanta · 3 years

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Merry Christmas, happyjuicyfruit!

For @happyjuicyfruit. I'm not going to lie, I saw your request and an idea was born and aside from sleep and work I wrote non-stop until this was done because it felt so good to write it. So cathartic. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I did writing.

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*****

Falling into Place

“The best feeling in the whole world is watching things finally fall into place after watching them fall apart for so long.”

Unknown

The warm hum of the TV mingled with the sound of the running shower through the small studio apartment Stiles rented in Sacramento. He scrambled on his small double bed (tucked into the corner alcove opposite the bathroom door) to try and get his sweats on without applying any pressure to his injured foot. He awkwardly half-hopped on one leg, falling back on his ass on the mattress as he held the cuff carefully open to maneuver his bandaged foot inside. Mission successful, he star-fished on the bed, fully clothed at last, damp hair mussing the sheets and his foot throbbing.

He stared at the ceiling for a long moment, listening to the sounds of the shower, then forcing his eyes shut tightly to try and banish the image of exactly what body parts the less than average water-pressure might be crashing down on. Swallowing thickly, he hopped awkwardly along the narrow space, around the bookshelf he’d used as a divider at the end of his ‘sleeping area’ and into his roughly eighteen feet of living/kitchen space.

Careful not to clip his injured foot on anything, he managed to get the leftover lasagne out of the fridge and into the microwave with minimal disaster. He then frantically searched through the pile of unwashed dishes and cutlery to find enough for two people to eat with.

For some reason, it bothered him, the idea of Derek seeing his dirty dishes. He froze then, wondering if he’d left his laundry hamper spilling over. He didn’t have much time to panic, because the second he thought it, the shower shut off.

A few moments later, Derek stepped out into the room, steam billowing behind him, hair damp and…wearing Stiles’s t-shirt and sweats which looked a little tight in the shoulder and chest and across Derek’s thighs but mostly fit him just fine. Luckily Stiles preferred baggy. He didn’t realise he was staring until Derek started talking.

“I took them off the clothes dryer in the bathroom. I hope that’s alright? I washed mine in the sink. They had blood on.”

Stiles blinked, struck mute for a moment, still not really over the way his sweats clung across Derek’s hip area to form words. “Ah, no, sure, all good,” he managed at last, using the washing up to distract himself. “At least I’ve filled out a bit since the last time you had to borrow my clothes, right? And you’re lucky I had some spare. Laundry day is well overdue, to be honest. I’ve just been working on my assignments, which I got in on time, but then I found out about this case, the one with you in it and I had to find a way to convince them to let me in on it, to try and get you out, you know? So I’ve been so busy I just haven’t had time to–”

“Stiles,” Derek said, cutting his rambling off. “It’s fine. Really. This is hardly the worst place I’ve stayed.”

Stiles laughed. “Wow, ringing endorsement. Better than an abandoned bus station. Well, I’ll have you know this is a steal so close to HQ and it may be small but it’s just been done up. I am the first tenant to tarnish this kitchen. And because it’s one of the many investment properties Natalie Martin got out of the divorce, and of course Lydia is using emotional blackmail to my advantage, I can actually afford to live here without bankrupting my dad even further. Plus the roof-terrace, it’s amazing. I mean, I never actually go up there but some residents have this communal allotment and the view is amazing. Or, you know, it would be if I went there.”

Derek had crossed his arms, had rolled his eyes with that sigh, all of which weretelling signs Stiles was annoying him. And yet there was a little twist at the corners of his mouth that made Stiles��s stomach flip.

The microwave pinged then and Stiles came back to himself, prodding at the centre of the two chunks of lasagne to check they were heated properly before decanting them onto two plates. He went to offer one to Derek, complete with cutlery, before hesitating. He winced.

“Uh, would you mind carrying mine over to the ol’ dining area there? It’s a second hand couch but it’s in pretty good shape and I don’t wanna get lasagne all over it by hopping over there with my plate.”

Derek frowned at him for a moment, then down at his foot, as if he’d forgotten Stiles didn’t magically heal like he did from gunshot wounds – or, you know, splintered fragments of cement that had ricocheted off the wall from the gunshot that had largely missed him, but still. He’d been on the run again, Stiles knew, and before that likely just with Cora since he and Braeden had gone their separate ways. If their texts over the last few months or so were anything to go by, that is. He’d probably not spent much time with humans since last Stiles had seen him, except the ones trying to trap or shoot him.

Eventually, Derek took both plates and stepped back a little into the makeshift doorway between the wall and the shelf that stood as a screen at the end of the bed. It held his books, nicknacks and a TV that swivelled to face either the living area or the bed because Lydia was a goddess and a genius. Stiles hopped awkwardly passed him, supporting himself on the arm of the couch as he eased down onto it. Derek offered his plate to his sturdier lap rather than his hands, likely a survival skill taught after years of observing how erratic Stiles’s hands could be, before settling next to him on the couch.

The late night news was reporting the raid on the warehouse as a drug bust but they knew the truth. Thankfully, the FBI didn’t seem to know the truth, that the guy they’d been pursuing, namely Derek, was a werewolf. He thought they’d managed to get out of it without exposing that and hopefully, if Scott’s dad came through for them, Derek would be out of the spotlight soon enough.

Stiles had set it all in motion the second he’d seen Derek’s face on a slideshow of live suspects, but when he’d discovered they were planning on raiding a possible location of Derek’s, he hadn’t been able to wait for Rafael McCall. He’d made many contingency plans, but the one that’d ended up going into motion had been such a cliché he was almost disappointed in himself and the institution he was interning with.

He’d snuck in a spare FBI jacket and in the chaos, had managed to get Derek into it and offered up his cap and they’d literally walked out of there. Well, Stiles had been carried really, but semantics.

He hadn’t planned for there to be hunters there, who had happily started shooting the second the FBI had burst in looking for Derek. Derek, who had only been there because somehow those hunters were connected to the murders the FBI had linked Derek too. Stiles hadn’t gotten the full story out of him yet. But anyway, he hadn’t planned for there to be idiots there wanting to go on a shoot-out with the FBI, for bullets to be flying everywhere. He hadn’t planned for getting injured by exploding concrete, which was pretty much a bullet wound anyway.

That’s what his bosses were classing it as anyway – wounded in action pretty much. They were so pleased an intern that shouldn’t have really been there hadn’t been killed and that he was pretty much taking near-death in his stride that he thought maybe his reputation might have gained a few more points if anything.

And once Scott’s dad finished subtly helping Stiles’s team to connect the hunters to the murder instead of Derek, exoneration hopefully shouldn’t be too far behind.

“Where did you get this from?” Derek asked as he gulped down another mouthful of lasagne like a starving animal. Really, Stiles wondered when his last decent meal had been.

“Uh, I made it,” Stiles said with a mostly empty mouth. “I can’t afford to live off take-out, dude. I gotta live smart while I’m still an intern.” Even with the FBI an internship didn’t pay a luxurious dividend. “I can make a few things that can keep in the fridge for a few days. This is the last of the lasagne though, buddy, so if you want seconds the take-out menus are on the fridge.”

Derek blinked at him, looking almost owlishly startled which was sort of adorable on him really. He looked tired and confused and a few stray droplets of water trickled down his neck from his damp hair. “No, this is good. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“Well, they haven’t given me my Michelin stars yet but I can eat a lot better than some of the other interns by being smart about it and thinking ahead.” Stiles finished the last few bites of his own and set the plate on the floor by his feet. “If I hadn’t learned to cook and make food stretch a little more, dad and I would’ve had to sell the house to keep us in take-out.”

Derek had gotten the larger portion, Stiles was a good host, so he was still eating and seemed to consider Stiles’s words for a long time before saying between mouthfuls, “Your mom taught you?”

Stiles offered a wistful smile.

“Yeah. Not gourmet or anything but cooking was our thing. I wasn’t the kind of kid that could sit down and watch TV while their mom cooked. I was always under her feet so she made me help, made me useful. Some things stuck, I guess. I learned enough.”

He thought that was going to be the end of it. They fell quiet and the late news bulletins had long-since finished and returned to some late-night comedy talk show. But then Derek spoke, quiet and distant, like he was somewhere far away, in a tone way Stiles wasn’t sure he’d ever heard from him before.

“My dad was the cook. He didn’t really teach me meals, Laura always used to help him in the kitchen. But he did teach me to make his salted caramel brownies.”

Stiles wasn’t sure what to do with that.

It’d been a long day, a long few weeks for Derek, really. He looked both world-weary and yet less troubled than he had since Stiles had last seen him. He sounded at peace with a part of himself Stiles had only ever glimpsed in their two years or so of chasing monsters together around Beacon Hills.

“Those sound amazing,” Stiles offered with a little smile, because it was the truth. Derek’s face turned to him then, empty plate still in hand, the glow of the TV and kitchen light making his features soft and warm.

He studied Stiles for a long time, eyes roving his face as if he were relearning him, before he said quietly, “it’s really good to see you, Stiles.”

Stiles smiled and chuckled a little self-consciously, “well, you know, likewise. And hey, I’m always willing to put you up when you’re a wanted fugitive, you know this from experience.”

Derek raised a brow, lips twitching. “Did you mention that in your interview for your internship with the FBI?”

“Oh, we got a sense of humour since we last met, huh?” Stiles laughed, but as he put his foot down to rise, he winced, remembering his injury. “Holy shit,” he hissed, grasping his ankle in lieu of his throbbing foot, thinking of the medication the hospital had sent him away with, sitting on the kitchen counter.

When they’d made their initial getaway, Derek had literally skulked around in the shadows while Stiles reported to the field leader, before taking himself to the hospital. In matter of fact, Derek had taken him to the hospital, giving him sideways looks like he was equal parts pissed off and concerned. And he hadn’t left Stiles’s side until they’d come back to Stiles’s apartment and they’d taken their respective showers.

To be honest, sitting in Derek’s rental car while he picked up Stiles’s prescription was a bizarre feat he kept coming back to. Not an unpleasant one though. He was definitely more than capable of looking after himself, had proven that a hundred times over, really. But it felt nice, having someone there who looked worried, who took the dinner plates and set them in the sink, who brought his medication and water to take them with in the only clean glass and…oh god…

“Dude, you don’t have to clean my dirty dishes, you’re a guest–”

“Technically, I’m a fugitive in hiding,” Derek cut across him neatly, running more hot water into the sink, the last of it until the tank filled up again after two showers, Stiles thought. “Besides, you need to stay off your foot and if you leave these dishes another night they might run off on their own.”

Stiles glared at him as he drank from his glass and then downed his pills. “This is a small apartment, buddy, there’s only room in here for one wise-ass.”

Derek ducked his head as he started the dishes, but Stiles caught his smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Stiles woke up with a little start, the kind you got when you caught yourself drifting off on the couch in front the TV. Except it didn’t look as if he’d caught himself. It looked like he’d fallen asleep in front of the TV and Derek had carried him to bed. The medicine must’ve knocked him out, Stiles thought, blinking blearily at the narrow strips of pre-dawn light peeking around his blind to the side of the bed.

He could hear soft breathing in the quiet from beyond the wall that the double-sided bookshelf made and it felt comforting. Even now, nearly a year-on from the event, he still had trouble with the feeling of waking up too quickly. He wondered why his initial panic hadn’t woken Derek, but then, he supposed Derek had been on the run for so long, again, it was no wonder he was dead to the world.

The fact that he felt safe enough to crash in Stiles’s place was another thing to think about all on its own. The insinuations and repercussions swirled around in Stiles’s brain as he fully came aware of himself, cursing the pain in his foot before sliding tentatively out of bed. He used the bathroom as quietly as he could, then realised if he wanted to take more medication, he’d have to eat something first and to do that he’d have to turn the light on in the kitchen to find something.

The sounds of Derek sleeping sounded so peaceful that he felt like a dick for contemplating it. In the end he crawled quietly back into bed, careful to keep the leg attached to his wounded foot out of the blankets and tried to ignore the pain.

It didn’t work. He fidgeted uncomfortably, the discomfort making him uneasy, letting his mind stretch to strange places, to worries that apparently simply had to be solved at 3am. It was cold in the apartment too which didn’t help, but Stiles was one of those defiant people that waited until he was cold enough to be wearing a beanie indoors before he would put the heating on – more blankets before heating.

He’d worked himself into a state wondering if maybe the nurse he’d seen earlier hadn’t managed to get all the fragments out of his toe and that was why it hurt so much, when he heard Derek shifting around on the sofa. On instinct, he squeezed his eyes shut, guessing he just wanted to take a leak, but his brow furrowed when he heard a click-clack sounds on his wooden floor. It reminded him of Scott’s old dog loping across the kitchen floor and it took him a moment to register what that noise meant until he felt a cold, damp nose snuffling around his foot.

An image came to Stiles behind his closed lids and he remembered the black wolf darting into the fray in the desert, eyes glowing blue.

He twitched at the contact, but Derek either thought that was an instinctive motion out of sleep or didn’t care if he was awake because he hopped carefully up onto the bed and draped his front legs over Stiles’s. One of his heavy, warm paws just rested over the place where Stiles’s sweats had ridden to expose his ankle and it was as if Stiles could feel all of the pain draining away from his throbbing foot through the place where Derek’s warmth rested.

Opening his eyes at the sheer relief, he of course found the same black wolf sprawled half over him, warm and soft and staring right back at him with piercing blue eyes that glowed in the dimness. Stiles could just make out his shape and without really thinking about it, he reached out to touch. It just occurred to him that maybe Derek didn’t want to be petted like a dog and that maybe he might give him a reproving nip when he felt soft, fine fur under his fingers and the pressure of Derek leaning into his touch.

Stiles stroked one downy ear and then, emboldened, scratched his fingers over the wolf’s head. It felt cathartic and he wondered absently about those therapy animals, before the flick of Derek’s tongue against his wrist.

A low, tired chuckle rippled out of Stiles, hoarse and sleepy. He thought in the pre-dawn dimness, in the little alcove the bookshelves created around his bed, that maybe anything was possible without complications. There were no rules, no posturing or pride or uncertainty. Derek had sensed his discomfort, his pain, maybe even his loneliness – maybe because it mirrored his own. The low, grumbling sound Derek made when Stiles stroked the side of his head and scruff told him Derek was as happy for it as he was.

Then Derek, still the wolf, laid his head down on Stiles’s torso, breathing evenly and Stiles fell asleep stroking his fingers over his fur. Fell into a slumber that was light and painless and full of dreams.

Derek was already gone from his bed when he awoke well into the morning. When he sat up and hobbled out of bed, Stiles found him doing push-ups in the space between his couch and the TV. He stared at him dumbfounded for a moment, still finding it surreal, a half-naked Derek Hale exercising in his tiny apartment with sweat beading between the muscles of his shoulders and down to the small of his back.

He had the terrible feeling that he was staring and that his lips were parted, as if ready to spill something embarrassingly appreciative so he quickly turned into the kitchen area – only to stop dead. It was spotless. The dishes were cleaned and stored away, the units were practically gleaming and to make it worse, there was a laundry basket in front of the fridge piled high with clean, neatly folded laundry.

Holy shit.

“Dude, please tell me you did not do my laundry?” he pleaded, dismayed.

Derek seemingly ignored him for a moment, pushing up from the floor, the tight line of muscles in his back drawing Stiles’s unwitting gaze until he eventually rose. He snagged the glass of water off the side and drank it down greedily.

Stiles couldn’t help but wonder how many push-ups a werewolf had to do before getting all sweaty. But then the thought drifted off on a tangent about how long a werewolf might have to do other things to get that sweaty. How long, how hard…

Oh god, his face was burning.

Green-hazel eyes considered him for a long time, bright with the sunlight streaking through the window and Stiles had the horrible feeling Derek could tell his thoughts by smell or something. Whether he did or not though, all he said was, “I had to wash the blood out of my clothes. It just made sense to take yours at the same time. It’s no big deal.”

“Even my dad doesn’t wash my dirty underwear, Derek!”

Derek snorted, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t roll around in them, Stiles, I tossed everything into two washers.”

Stiles spluttered at the idea of Derek rolling around in his laundry and his hands flailed. “You’re a wanted fugitive until further notice, you could’ve been caught!”

Rinsing the glass in the sink and setting it on the draining board to dry, Derek turned back to face him, leaning slightly against the units. “I went to the utility room downstairs. No one was going to be looking for me there. I don’t get what the problem is.”

Well no, Derek wouldn’t, would he? Because he’d always been awful at looking after himself. Because he hadn’t had to share space with a human since…forever and Stiles was hyperaware that Derek could probably tell his every activity for the last few weeks on his dirty clothes, that he could probably read Stiles’s mind from chemo-signals or whatever and Stiles was only just realising exactly how much he had to hide.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, Stiles scrubbed at his hair and the back of his neck. “Ummm, you’re right, it’s nothing it’s…I still haven’t really woken up yet. Thank you, for…basically sorting my life out while I slept the morning away. You didn’t have to do that though, you’ve probably been under more stress, being on the run than I have doing an internship.”

“An internship with the FBI who have no idea about werewolves when you know pretty much everything there is to know about the supernatural sounds pretty stressful to me,” Derek offered lightly, glancing out the window and down at the city thoughtfully for a moment. He seemed to be struggling for the best way to phrase whatever it was that was on his mind, but then, Stiles supposed he hadn’t had much in the way of company the last few weeks.

He knew Derek had been with Braeden briefly, then Cora, then on his own when his life had turned upside down again. And there was a lightness to Derek’s face this morning that Stiles thought mirrored his own. Like last night had been the first time he’d slept well in a long time too. He looked more at ease than Stiles had ever seen him in his entire life and he was technically still a wanted fugitive.

Dragging his hand through his hair again to distract from his wandering thoughts as best he could, Stiles hobbled into the kitchen area properly and shoved the last two slices of bread into the toaster. Hmmm. He’d have to get some groceries. His foot was throbbing though.

“I have to report to work via video conference later, since I can’t really walk much.” He glanced to the crutches the hospital had given him on loan for a couple of weeks and tried to imagine scaling the insane amount of stairs he had to climb everyday. He’d probably end up with a broken neck. Luckily he had loads of paperwork, which he was good at and didn’t mind doing. They’d probably let him do it from home for a few days, if only so they didn’t have to do it.

His efficiency with the paperwork was probably a big part of why they liked him so much, since most of his classmates tried to beg out of it. But his single-minded concentration that came with his ADHD, as much as it was easing as he got older, was a godsend apparently. When it was a subject he had interest in, i.e. his job, he was like a machine.

“Can I stay?”

Stiles turned slightly to look at Derek, still staring out the window at the grey sky. “Until things are sorted out with the FBI. Can I stay?”

He sounded warm and awkward and almost longing, voice a little husky and Stiles swallowed tightly.

“Dude, stay as long as you want. You’re always welcome. Mi casa, es su casa, always. You don’t have to ask.”

Derek looked at him at last, lips slightly parted as if he were going to say more. In the end, his mouth closed and he nodded determinedly.

Work was pretty gracious about his request to work from home. He had reports to type up and some other paperwork to keep him busy for the rest of the week at least. Plus he was entitled to some medical leave if he couldn’t walk easily. Besides that, they were thrilled that one of their unsolved cases seemed to be coming to a close because of ‘his help’.

Rafael McCall had apparently planted the necessary evidence into the system to connect the guys they caught at the raid the other day to the murders Derek (although the FBI didn’t know his identity) was accused of. One of them with similar build to Derek had even sustained serious burns to his back during the raid, which Stiles had reasoned could be where the suspected tattoo was that they’d used to identify the unsub they were looking for. It was the idiot’s own fault really, for being an immortal hunter who murdered countless people, for packing a flamethrower and trying to turn it on the FBI.

Stiles had zero sympathy for people who wielded fire. Maybe it was just because he had seen what fire could do in the Hale house, on Peter Hale’s face before he’d healed himself. It was a dick move. Even if he’d technically done it himself once, he supposed.

So it all tidied up nicely, really and by the time the video call had ended, Stiles was sure Rafael had managed to erase any evidence with anything similar to Derek’s face or body. He should’ve felt bad using the guy, he supposed. But he’d never claimed to have scrupulous morals and besides which, it was Scott’s idea to ask for his help in the first place.

Daddy McCall had infinite favours to do before he could make it up to Scott, Stiles supposed. But in the mean time, as long as Scotty approved, he would use Rafael McCall’s powers for good and maybe the guy would get his head out of his ass along the way.

He’d shot a text to both McCalls, one a curt message of thanks, the other assuring Derek should be safe as soon as they were sure the guys they caught were going to stay caught. The only problem was, Derek had snuck out while he’d been on his conference call. He’d noticed mid-conversation with his boss and so hadn’t been able to act on it. The second the call came to a close, however, he shut the laptop and sprang up. Snatching his phone up, he dialled.

The phone rang and rang. Stiles was already toeing a shoe onto his good foot and reaching for his crutches when he heard the jingling of keys outside his door. He stopped dead at the sound, looking up just as the door opened. Derek stepped inside, arms loaded with brown paper grocery bags. He blinked at Stiles’s proximity to the door, as if surprised and neatly side-stepped him to set the grocery bags down on the kitchen floor.

“Where the hell have you been?” Stiles demanded.

Derek raised a brow, pausing in loading fresh fruit and vegetables into the fridge drawer. His expression said it all.

With a scowl, Stiles gestured to the front door. “For the next few hours you’re still potentially on their system as most wanted, Derek. You can’t just go for a walk around Sacramento.”

“Stiles, you have a grocery store around the corner – literally. I was in there for ten minutes. I wore your Mets cap. I kept a low profile – I know how to do that, I’m very practiced at it.”

Stiles hesitated. “You went to the rich people supermarket?” That was the only grocery store on his block. Sometimes Stiles hit it up on payday for their luxury cookie range when Lydia came to visit.

Rolling his eyes, Derek continued to load the groceries into the fridge and cupboards. It was all so domestic, the scene, the bickering and it made Stiles feel sort of funny.

“Nobody noticed me. There was no way you could manage the groceries on your own and you hopping around on crutches and fighting me over who was going to foot the bill would’ve made more of a scene that me going in alone.”

“Dude, I can be stealthy and I don’t need you to fill my fridge–”

“You do if I’m going to eat all your food,” Derek interrupted, tossing the paper bags into the recycling bin before turning to face him. His nostrils flared and he stared Stiles down for a long moment before shaking his head. “Sometimes you need help too, Stiles,” he breathed, exasperated and fond all at once.

Stiles swallowed thickly, darting his gaze to the side. He didn’t even like accepting his dad’s help at the best of times. With Lydia and Scott, loved them though he did, they had their own stuff going on and he couldn’t ask for their help either. Or he could but he didn’t want to. It was easier just to struggle through. And yet Derek was standing there, watching him expectantly, with that mixture of softness and annoyance on his face and Stiles didn’t want to reject the symbolic hand he’d been trying to grasp since he was sixteen. That had often come close but had never felt within his reach until now.

A sudden buzz on his intercom for the front door made Stiles jump.

“I also ordered Chinese,” Derek smirked, “think you can manage to get the door?”

Stiles muttered under his breath at the indignation of it, but still buzzed the delivery guy in.

“You don’t have to bribe me with food to let you stay,” Stiles said as they set the take-out boxes on the minute counter space a few minutes later. It smelled so good that the argument Stiles had been forming in his mind dissipated in the delicious smelling steam rising from the boxes. “You’re welcome here, even after your name is cleared for a bit, if you want.”

Derek huffed as he split the contents of each dish out equally. Because Stiles may have been human but he had the appetite of a wolf. “Nice to know, but this isn’t a bribe. It’s just something I want to do. Don’t make a big deal out of it, okay?”

Feeling like he was getting some of his equilibrium back, Stiles grinned. “Isn’t this like…a courting ritual, a wolf sharing food or providing food?”

“Shut up, Stiles,” Derek barked, ears flaming. He snatched the bowls out of Stiles’s hand and carried all of them over to the sofa so Stiles couldn’t hop across with them and, most likely, risk sending it all to the floor.

Some old movie was on with Humphrey Bogart – Stiles’s mom and dad had liked watching his movies together so he left it on and they ate and Derek half-watched with a wistful little look on his face that made Stiles wonder if someone in his family had liked the movie too.

Stiles talked about Katherine Hepburn and how his mom had loved her, how she’d watched her movies with her mother. He talked about World War One’s impact on Africa and how he’d drifted off on a tangent about it in the middle of one of his papers about World War Two, and how his dad had just smiled quietly through the whole meeting with the teacher when he called his dad in about Stiles’s attention span. And through it all, Derek smiled slightly, that private little half-smile as he sucked noodles into his mouth and toed off his shoes in the middle of Stiles’s apartment. The apartment that Derek had cleaned and it just made Stiles feel so…warm. Comfortable. He’d never felt comfortable with someone and yet hyperaware of their every little movement at the same time.

Derek had polished off most of his chow mein and shifted back on the sofa a little as Hepburn dumped Bogart’s gin into the river, relaxing with Stiles until their knees touched.

Heat swelled in Stiles’s stomach and he covered up the little splutter he gave and distracted himself by chugging down some more noodles.

“I haven’t had good Chinese take-out since I moved up here,” he sighed happily, licking the sauce from his lips. He turned to Derek more fully then and swore he caught those eyes dropping to the movement of his tongue and back again. Huh. “I’ll sleep on the couch tonight. We can alternate–”

“You’re injured–”

“And you’re a guest,” Stiles protested but Derek just shrugged, looking back to the TV.

“The couch is comfortable enough when I shift, and plenty warm. It’s fine, I’m not turfing you out of your own bed Stiles and that’s the end of it.”

Stiles’s tenacity was sidetracked by curiosity. He set his now empty plate down, sitting back a little to let his leg stretch out and relieve any pressure on his throbbing foot. He’d had medication with his food and it was starting to kick in. “Do you always shift when you sleep or is my couch just that uncomfortable?”

“It’s fine, Stiles,” Derek half-groaned, polishing off his rice now, thumb tracing the edge of the plate distractedly. He stared at the screen without really seeing it. His silence only lasted a moment longer than it should have, but Stiles noticed. He noticed everything, he noticed the way Derek was still relaxed next to him, not uncomfortable at their proximity, the way his mouth had a slight shine from his tongue and the way the light struggling to peak through the clouds touched his cheekbones.

“I don’t shift in my sleep a lot. But it’s…it’s like letting go, I guess. A release of tension.”

Stiles nodded. “It feels good. Like sinking into a hot bath or eating really good food. It lets you process stuff?” he suggested and when Derek nodded his own lips twitched. He couldn’t help himself. “So that’s why you’re so zen now, huh? You’re one with the wolf and the wolf is one with you?”

But Derek didn’t laugh, didn’t really seem to register the joke, he looked hesitant, oddly vulnerable even as he was obviously trying to guard himself. “I can control it. If it bothers you.”

“Nah, you do you. Just don’t shed on my sheets or anything.”

With a scowl, Derek watched as Stiles snatched the last prawn cracker out of the complimentary bag between them. “I do not shed. I’m a werewolf, not a dog.” But there was that fond exasperation again that made Stiles a bit giddy. It made him feel stupid and hungry and happy and brave and scared all at once.

He drummed his fingers nervously along his thighs as he chewed and swallowed, and then of course his mouth moved of its own volition.

“Thanks, by the way. For…you know, last night. Taking the pain? And, well…you know, I…” He looked at Derek for some sort of clue, because Derek hadn’t mentioned last night and Stiles was almost half-convinced it’d been a dream. That was until he saw the way Derek’s eyes were molten and so, so close.

Stiles gave a nervous, breathy little laugh. “You’re better than that crap the hospital gave me.”

Considering him for a beat, Derek seemed to scan every inch of Stiles’s face. “Probably not half as addictive anyway.”

Stiles wasn’t entirely sure about that.

He spent the rest of the day doing his paperwork while Derek seemed quite content to alternate between reading one of Stiles’s books, flicking through the TV and messaging Cora on his phone.

It felt like they’d always shared this, comfortable and easy and gravitating around each other. When Stiles finally went to turn in, he found himself hesitating. His hand rested lightly on the bookshelf as he turned back to look at Derek, who was curled up under Stiles’s blanket that he snuggled up under on the couch on the colder evenings. For once in his life though, words failed him and after too long staring at Derek on the couch, all he could say was “goodnight Derek,” before heading into the bathroom.

His head was buzzing as he watched his reflection scrub his teeth, eyes too bright and face a little pink. Because it felt like everything he’d thought he’d imagined between them, once Derek had left them in Mexico, had just picked right back up where they’d left off. The easiness, those little half smiles that made something twist deep in his belly. He spat into the sink and splashed his face and throat with cool water to try and compose himself. Then he turned on the extractor, just in case there was some whiff of Stiles’s emotions or whatever in there.

It took another forty-eight hours before he got the short, not quite curt phone call from Rafael McCall saying Derek’s appearance was officially off the FBI’s radar (and unofficially off their records completely, as if it’d never been). But Derek stayed. He watched Stiles as he finished the call and then as he hung up, he held his gaze as he asked simply, voice warm and almost husky, “can I stay?”

Stiles wasn’t even thinking about the way Derek kept his apartment clean and his laundry done as he said, “as long as you want.” He thought about the fact that they liked the same cheesy old movies, that Derek liked to curl up with Stiles on his modest couch in the evening to read, while their feet pretty much touched under the blanket because the apartment was still a touch too cold, but not cold enough to turn the heating on yet.

He thought about their bickering and the way he liked to listen to Derek breathing as he drifted off. But mostly he thought about the way Derek had looked at him in Mexico, as he’d gotten into that car.

Now he was as safe as he was going to be, Derek used his modest little rental car to give Stiles a ride to work, saving him from struggling on the crutches all the way there. There were lifts in the actual building so it wasn’t so bad and Stiles’s life returned to a new sort of normal, but one where Derek picked him up after work. Where, when Stiles was poring over something for work on his laptop, Derek went out for a run and came back sweaty and breathless, or brought home the fresh doughnuts from the bakery a few blocks away until Stiles sang his praises through a mouthful of delicious warm sugar and cinnamon.

Stiles’s toe was healed enough that he could walk without the crutches in record time (if he was careful), so he soon started walking to work. But his heart still skipped a little when he walked out of his work building one evening to see Derek leaning against one of the fountains, just across from the glass doors.

“Hey,” Stiles breathed, feeling warm at the sight of him. He stayed late, he always did and Derek knew that but he’d still waited. Only a few of his fellow interns walk passed, looking interested. Stiles watched as Derek cleared his throat, ducking his head a little as if embarrassed and wondered what they were whispering to put that look on his face. Stiles had to know, but Derek gave no clues of course.

“So there’s a sale on at the furniture place just on the edge of town. I was thinking, you know, if you wanted to stay for a while longer, we could pick up a decent sofa bed? Give you a bit more space to sleep? Because honestly, there’s barely enough room on that thing for me to sleep on and you’re just a tad broader in the shoulders.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Derek assured him as they walked and Stiles knew a little prickle of disappointment. Because of course Derek wouldn’t be staying forever.

“Yeah,” he offered, running a hand through his hair, eyes on the sidewalk. “You’re probably so ready for a bit more space. I mean my apartment is a bit small for a werewolf–”

“It’s not too small,” Derek cut across him, sounding as confused as he looked when Stiles glanced at his face. “There’s nothing wrong with it, Stiles. I only meant that I’m fine where I am. My family spent half our time sleeping out on the porch in the summer, or camping out in the living room in front of the fire. I don’t need a fancy bed or a bigger apartment. I asked you if I could stay because it felt right.” He looked as if that was a bit more than he wanted to say and quickly looked back to the path ahead, waiting at the crosswalk in silence.

Derek was pretty poor at self-care, always had been, worse than Stiles’s dad, really, but outside of the life or death situations that came with Beacon Hills, he’d never gone along with anything he didn’t want to do. If he wasn’t happy where he was, he’d tell Stiles so, or leave.

It wasn’t until they’d crossed the road and started round the corner that Stiles spoke again, mind grasping at the tangent he was spinning onto. “You’ve never really mentioned your family much, except for the essential stuff,” he couldn’t stop himself from saying.

“It’s easier to talk about the little things,” he shrugged, “I guess I’ve gotten used to talking about some things. When I spent time with Cora, she’d like to hear about them all the time. Everything I could remember. She was younger, didn’t really remember some of it. Not the good things.”

Stiles nodded, wondering how much of the good stuff he would’ve remembered about his mom if his dad hadn’t been there to refresh those memories.

“Is that like…your new anchor now or something?” When Derek looked confused, he continued, “just…your anchor was anger, wasn’t it? Only you’re not angry anymore, you seem…well you seem pretty amazing, if you ask me.”

He hated how fast his heart beat. The way Derek’s eyes flicked to him as if he’d heard. He probably had. Probably knew it wasn’t because Stiles had lied either.

“Not really. It hasn’t been anger for a long time. I can’t really pinpoint when, it’s not something that happens suddenly. It’s a gradual thing.”

Like grieving, like healing, like fighting beside someone everyday and missing them and only realising after they barrelled back into your life that you were falling in love.

It took Stiles a beat to realise his mind was drifting and Derek was still talking.

“…suppose I found myself in a situation, where someone was talking to me, maybe something I didn’t like, and I’d think…what would Stiles do?” Derek looked at him then, pausing on the sidewalk outside Stiles’s building and staring into his eyes with that wistful look.

Stiles’s stomach swooped and his head spun, even as Derek continued to talk.

“Of course, you’d always say something stupid or random–”

“Dude, you know me so well,” Stiles interjected, a little breathlessly, but Derek continued.

“–but whatever it was I felt…more focussed.”

The chilly evening air whipped around them, picking up a little now and Stiles exhaled shakily, breath coming out in the lightest of mists between them.

Unbidden, the memory of being in the back of that van, with Derek and Liam came to him. Derek, trying to teach Liam to control his shift, both of them trying to tell him about anchors, about his focus. Back then, Derek had given him a look that Stiles had assumed was surprise at Stiles’s keen observations about werewolves and their anchors. Now he thought it had been a betrayal of a much more personal secret.

He tried to think back further, tried to think about their random text message thread over the last year, where Stiles had annoyed Derek as much as ever but Derek had always replied back. He thought about Scott and Allison, about Malia and him, the friendship their once-relationship had blossomed into. He thought about Jackson and Lydia and then he just stared at Derek as his scrambled thoughts fizzed out into quiet realisation. Like water rising up the bank where he’d camped with his assumptions of the world, until the flame he’d resigned himself to nurture there was swallowed up by the tide.

For just a moment, he felt like he was treading water again, only this time Derek was kickingback alongside him.

“You…you never said,” Stiles managed at last.

Derek stepped closer, the traffic going by, the glow of the streetlights and those of the business signs and windows all around blurred and inconsequential. It all wrapped around them in a flurry of sound and movement that fell away, as if they stood in the eye of the rush hour traffic’s storm, serene and untouched by the world as it passed on by. Stiles could feel the warmth radiating off of Derek and thought longingly of the solitude of the apartment above.

His tiny apartment that he loved but had also been a bit self-concious of. But now he supposed he knew why Derek loved it so much.

“It wasn’t…I didn’t…” Derek set his jaw, looking annoyed with himself. “I didn’t want you to expect anything from it. You were seventeen and I was…I was messed up, Stiles.”

Stiles glared. “I’m messed up. We’re all messed up, Derek, anyone who the Argents or the Nemeton or that goddamn town touched is messed up. What did you think I would like…jump you or demand a promise ring or something?!”

Exhaling impatiently, Derek shook his head. “I’d been on the run my whole life, Stiles and by the time I realised what was letting me keep my control, it’d all caught up with me at once.”

At that moment, Stiles thought of that Dire Straits song his dad loved, and that line, ‘When you gonna realise it was just that the time was wrong’ and he thought about what had happened. Probably happened anyway, if he could trust Peter’s story about Derek’s first love, and then his knowledge of what had happened not long after with Kate Argent. He thought about what that would mean for Derek, and how even a diminutive age gap with someone not quite of age would matter more to him than a lot of people. He thought about how angry and scared Derek had been when they’d seen him in the woods that day, when they’d been looking for Scott’s inhaler, and the man who stood before him now. He thought about the journey Derek had taken himself on after Mexico to get here.

Suddenly, the door to the apartment building opened and one of Stiles’s neighbours smiled apologetically as she stepped out onto the street between them and headed off down the sidewalk. The moment broken, Stiles shuddered as the chill crept down his neck and Derek tilted his head slightly, assessing him for an extended moment, before urging him inside.

They ate carbonara in front of the TV with Derek’s choice of a British series called Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which Stiles felt a bit lost with, mostly because he wasn’t paying attention. He kept finding himself humming Romeo and Juliet without meaning to. This was so domestic. He couldn’t help but notice just how domestic it was and at the same time revel in it. Revel in the comfort of it and the tiny hope that maybe, if Derek had told him all this now, then that might mean this time he intended to stay.

Derek washed the dishes and Stiles dried, before excusing himself to the shower, if only for some space to process everything. Washing off the office was always cathartic too though, even if you did love your job. He dragged his hand across the surface of the steamy mirror as he roughly towelled his hair dry.

He couldn’t begrudge Derek his need for space or to process shit by himself after everything he’d been through after Mexico. He’d not exactly vanished off the face of the earth, except for the weeks he was on the run and understandably too busy for their usual text message sparring. There were so many things he wanted to ask, so many things he wanted to tell Derek and he wasn’t sure where to begin.

But amongst all that, among the repeated verses of Romeo and Juliet that just would not get out of his head now, he couldn’t help but keep coming back to the same question. If Derek had told him now, was that because it was okay for Stiles to expect something? Or…maybe not expect but…to want? Did Derek want?

Everything was still a blur when he opened the bathroom door, steam furling out around him – around Derek, who was standing right outside the door, in the narrow walkway between Stiles’s bed and the bathroom wall. There was nowhere to hide. Stiles was wearing his sweats and t-shirt and Derek was barefoot right next to his bed and the narrow space brought them so close Stiles could feel his heat. He was so perilously close and there were so many things he wanted to say.

He had plenty of time to say them.

Later.

Suddenly, there was nothing more important than showing this imperfect, verbally challenged man exactly how he felt. He stepped forward, effectively closing the minute space between them, exhaling in an unsteady breath as his eyes traced the shape of Derek’s mouth. His hands slid up Derek’s neck. As he cupped his jaw, as he traced his thumbs across the soft bristles on Derek’s cheekbones, Derek’s eyes slid closed as if the pleasure in it was almost unbearable.

It was like Derek shuddered without the movement of it and his hands, broad and so warm and gentle, slid up Stiles’s back, chasing the damp chill from his shower and leaving prickling bursts of heat in his wake. Derek tipped his head to press his forehead to Stiles’s, breathing deeply as he held Stiles close.

Stiles’s hands cupped the back of Derek’s neck, fingers threading through his short hair and Derek made a low sound like a groan deep in his chest.

“When I watched you get into that car, I felt like I lost something I never even really had,” Stiles murmured into the scant inch between their mouths. Derek’s hands slid warm up over the goosebumps on his back. He dragged his nose down the side of Stiles’s, across his cheek and jaw and chin, all without opening his eyes.

Even with his heart screaming in negation, Stiles drew back, just enough to turn them, so Derek’s back was to the bathroom and Stiles was standing in the gap beside the bed, using the shift in positions and minute space between them to say what he needed to. Derek’s eyes looked glossy and dark, considering Stiles with confusion, hands gripping his waist as he watched Stiles tried to find his words.

“I know why you had to go, then. But I really want you to stay now.”

Derek’s smile grew slowly, tentatively, but it dazzled him with its authenticity. He was still smiling when he started to lean in. Stiles wrapped his arms around his shoulders, the two of them pulling each other in close in tandem until their mouths slid together.

It was so sweet he felt himself sink into Derek at the same time that Derek pushed back. His bed had storage drawers underneath for his clothes so it was pretty high, high enough to scoot back onto and have Derek stand between his legs and just plaster the heat of his body against Stiles’s – all without their mouths separating. The slow press and caress of lips was like a question, like a request, like the shy affection of two people who had done this dance without even realising exactly what it meant until now and god, he didn’t expect Derek to be so soft.

They tilted their heads to press deeper and Derek dipped to nudge his jaw with his nose, graze the corner of his mouth with his lips until Stiles’s skin tingled pleasantly from his beard. It was like werewolf scenting and human kissing mixed up in a way that was purely just Derek until Stiles panted against his lips. He parted his lips slightly, shifting back and cupping Derek’s neck to take him with him until they were sprawled on the bed. The soft, warm shadowy place illuminated only by the glow from the lamp in the living area beyond the bookshelves.

The warmth they created between them lit Stiles up from the inside out. Derek rolled him on his double bed, tussling with him in his sheets. Stiles couldn’t help but think they must smell of them and that was maybe what was driving Derek crazy most of all. He tugged his shirt off between kisses, Derek catching his mouth the moment it passed over his head, pinning Stiles’s arms so they were still all caught up in the sleeves. He was ridiculous and perfect and making Stiles laugh at the awkwardness that felt so right. Derek’s answering chuckle against his lips and tongue was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted.

“I’ve never heard you go this long without talking,” Derek mused as Stiles lifted his head to nip at his jaw, to scrape his lips across soft, scratchy hair and relishing in the slight burn.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Stiles mock-chided, struggling, flailing out of his t-shirt at last and smoothing his hands up Derek’s back, all tight smooth muscle. “Just your shirt?”

“Mmm.” It was nonsensical but Stiles only had a moment to wonder what it meant before Derek kissed him with bruising force and drew back. He tugged his shirt off and dropping it somewhere near the end of the bed.

There wasn’t a moment of worship or godlike awe. Stiles didn’t doubt Derek had had his fair share of experiences like that. Stiles was too desperate for him to gape and gawk. He caught Derek’s shoulders and tugged him back down to him the moment his shirt was off, holding him close, bare skin sliding together hotly. Stiles’s hands gripped at his impossible shoulders and the small of his back in little spasms, wanting him everywhere, dipping between their bodies to stroke over his chest and stomach until Derek’s abs shuddered against his fingers. He groaned against Stiles’s mouth, bracing himself over Stiles’s head with his forearms, letting him touch everywhere and hold him close.

Stiles grinned against him, before nuzzling back into his cheek and wrapping his arms around him again completely.

He squeezed, pushing a little to roll them again until they were on their sides. Derek’s hands slid down his back so slowly, holding him, one hand sliding into his hair to cup his head so, so gently. Stiles nuzzled him again, just under his jaw and Derek pressed his nose into Stiles’s hair. They were both mostly hard and that was fine for now. This was what they both needed.

At some point as they lay tangled together, Stiles started to drift. He found himself half-over Derek, still wrapped in his arms in a messy sprawl but with the blankets over him now, warm and close and breathing only Derek in.

“You smell amazing,” Stiles mumbled, half-asleep. Derek’s chest jumped slightly under his hand with mostly silent laughter. He felt him press into his hairline sleepily, not as chaste as a kiss to his forehead, somehow more intimate in a way that sent little tendrils down Stiles’s spine.

“You feel amazing.”

Stiles muttered something about them not even being started yet but it was mostly smothered by his mouth smooshed against Derek’s shoulder and he definitely heard Derek say something about Stiles drooling. Stiles thought he fell asleep before he’d even finished laughing.

He was in that blissful place that wasn’t quite sleeping, just drifting pleasantly in relaxed consciousness. The calm tranquillity of someone just awoken, slowly drifting down to reality like a feather on a soft, warm breeze. There was something tickly nuzzling into the hollow of his neck. He groaned, stretching his limbs under the heavy blanket of heat, his arms coming up instinctively to wrap around broad shoulders and stroke clumsily until he cupped the back of Derek’s neck.

Derek was half-kissing, half burrowing into his neck and shoulder. He was only half awake himself, it seemed, and urging them both out of slumber in what Stiles thought was actually just the most fantastic way imaginable. Actually, he wasn’t sure even his imagination could come up with something this good. He felt his neck throb, as if Derek had been at it for a while and he squirmed. He tugged gently on Derek’s hair until Derek nosed across his adam’s apple and down to the opposite side of his neck to worry him there, just beneath where his collar would sit – if he ever put a shirt on again.

After a blissful eternity just lying warm and content under soft caresses, under Derek’s weight, held off him just enough by Derek’s arms either side of his head, he started to roll his hips into Derek’s soft, diminutive motions like a question again.

Derek lifted his head then, eyes glazed and dark and beautiful, hair sleep-mussed. Stiles was struck with how beautiful and soft he looked, asking for his silent consent. In answer, Stiles tilted his head and slanted their mouths together and rocked up against him until they were pressed together where they were both hard. They moved like that for a while, unhurried and lazy and perfect.

It was early morning and Stiles thought distractedly that he was going to be Derek’s workout that morning. He chuckled into Derek’s mouth and gripped Derek’s ass to pull their hips tighter together. It was firm and perfect and Derek went with it, with a little almost-growl, rutting into him even as Stiles clumsily tugged their sweats down, only just enough to bring their cocks together. He panted, tearing his mouth away from Derek’s to look down and watch them grinding together, both straining and hard and sticky.

Derek pushed up on one arm, the other coming down to hold them both together. The flat of his thumb danced under Stiles’s head as he stroked and Stiles shuddered, stomach quivering. He gripped Derek’s wrist, but not to stop him. He pressed his head back hard into the pillows as he fucked up into his hand.

He blinked bleary-eyed up at Derek, who was watching him through lust-blown eyes, half-lidded with thick lashes. Stiles grunted as he wrapped his arms around his shoulders again, holding onto him, rolling up into him even as Derek pushed back. They were just carried off fast and hard, as sudden and swift as Stiles’s heart beat and Stiles came in thick stripes between them. Hungry and shocked, he reached down to stroke them both as well, clumsy and urgent until Derek’s heat splashed over his own release before he’d even recovered himself.

He was shaking, he was pretty sure, still rocking as if he couldn’t help himself, even though he was sensitive. Derek kissed him everywhere like he was the most precious thing he’d ever seen – sweaty and mussed up and completely gone, drunk on Derek.

Derek had nice arms, Stiles thought dazedly, not for the first or last time. Those oh so nice arms scooped him up and held him close, sheets still tangled around them. Together, they fall into that soft, dreamy place that Stiles just realised only lazy morning sex could bring.

“Did you love me before I was your anchor?” he asked sleepily against Derek’s mouth sometime later. Derek liked to touch his nose to Stiles’s a lot, to drag it over his cheek and the corner of his lips so they lay at the same level mostly, on Stiles’s favourite pillow he’d brought from home that he couldn’t sleep without.

Derek opened his eyes then, hand warm on Stiles’s hip and he looked freer than Stiles had ever seen him.

“I think there was always something, an understanding or–”

“A spark?” Stiles mused.

Derek rolled his eyes but his lips were quirked in a little smile as well. “If you like. I can’t pinpoint when it changed exactly, it just…I started to change. And when I was stuck in that desert, I dreamed about you – I only dreamed about you, Stiles, and that’s when I knew.”

Stiles studied him closely in the muted light. “That I was your anchor?”

“Yes,” Derek said softly, so openly. “And I was messed up then, we both were and the timing wasn’t right, and you were seventeen and part of me felt like I’d never really stopped being sixteen but I knew that somewhere along the way, you’d become the most important thing to me.”

Stiles stroked his face. Derek was getting laugh lines around his eyes, and they were the most perfect thing he’d ever seen.

“I think I fell in love with you when you were hiding out in my room all that time from the sheriff’s department, even if I didn’t really understand what it meant.”

He still wasn’t sure he understood it entirely now, but they had plenty of time to figure it out.

He leaned in this time, bringing their mouths together just a split-second before his phone buzzed. No, Derek’s phone buzzed in the living room. They ignored it at first, then it started vibrating frantically, signalling a phone call in silent mode and Derek huffed in annoyance before hopping out of bed. He pulled up his sweats as he went, but not before Stiles got a glorious glimpse of that perfect ass. He couldn’t wait to see more of it.

As Derek answered, he stumbled into the bathroom and ran a washcloth under warm water, sponging himself down and wringing it out to take out to Derek, but as he turned, he found Derek in the doorway, phone still to his ear, a worried look on his face. Or a worried scowl at any rate.

“What sort of trouble?” Derek said to the person on the phone.

Stiles didn’t have super-hearing, but the apartment was quiet and Derek’s phone was loud enough that he heard a woman’s voice on the phone. Cora?

“You’re telling me that their whole pack was destroyed?” His tone was difficult to read and Stiles wasn’t sure if Derek was summarising Cora’s words for Stiles’s benefit, or just simply floundering in disbelief. Because Derek had just been on the run for months because hunters, the ones they’d helped the FBI catch, had annihilated an entire pack and somehow pinned the blame on Derek, who had stopped by to check it out at exactly the wrong time.

The second hit on a werewolf pack in less than six months was a bit of coincidence and usually hunters were a bit more circumspect about their attacks, even the crazy ones.

Genocide on a wider scale was harder to ignore.

Stiles glanced at his own phone through the doorway, sitting currently silent on his side table. His work may not be aware of it yet, or maybe they were, but interns weren’t privy to this sort of dangerous information – the kind of information that could start a wider scale of panic. There were people like Rafael all over the FBI and CIA, trying to keep the secrets of the supernatural world secret. They were either doing a really good job of it or the officials were being pretty secretive themselves.

Stiles wouldn’t have time to find out which it was. He just knew. Stepping closer, he pressed his ear close and Derek held the phone away from his ear slightly so they could both listen.

“They weren’t even careful about it Derek,” Cora’s voice said, sounding fast and afraid. “The pack I’m staying with are in contact with this one in Brazil everyday because they’re the alpha’s in-laws and communication completely stopped. When they sent some people to check it out, they were just…everyone is gone. It was a blood bath. A scale of attack no one could’ve defended against. We’re working on other packs, telling them to go underground, get into hiding so I can’t – I wouldn’t ask you, but you know there are kids in this pack I’m staying with, Derek, in some of these other packs we’re trying to get to safety and something huge is going on here and I need to know someone I trust is looking into it.”

Stiles swallowed thickly, hands shaking and Derek held his gaze, as still as stone. In the short time Stiles had known Cora, he’d never heard her this shaken and desperate. This was bad. They both seemed agreed on that.

“I’ll check it out. Send me the location,” Derek said.

“Just for reconnaissance,” Cora insisted, voice shaken but determined now. “You promise me, Derek. This isn’t a battle you can win alone. You stay out of sight, find information and get out.” When Derek didn’t reply she persisted more firmly, “you promise me.”

It was not a question.

Derek sighed and though his expression was tinged with worry, his eyes were soft and affectionate. Stiles had heard him talk about his time with Cora and the pack she was staying with fondly, so he thought they’d gone some ways to mend the fractures in their relationship. He couldn’t wait to find out more – once they got out of whatever mess was headed their way, because there was no question they were heading straight for it.

“I promise, Cora. I can be careful.”

Stiles swore he heard something like “yeah, now you can” muttered down the phone from Cora and he smirked in spite of himself.

“Don’t go alone. Are you still in contact with Chris Argent or Braedan? Or can Isaac meet you?”

“Isaac’s still in France, he’s…” Derek looked thoughtful. “He’s happy there, Cora. He’s got a whole life.”

“Argent or Braeden then,” Cora said impatiently, more like a mother than a sister. “You can’t go alone.”

Derek straightened a little then, staring directly into Stiles’s eyes without any reservations and with meaning so much more significant than his simple words suggested. “Don’t worry, I’ve got back up.”

They had to get a flight to Brazil. Luckily there was space on the next flight out with only one stop over and Stiles was thrumming with nerves the whole time.

On the last leg, Derek laid a hand over his on the arm rest to still his twitching fingers when it looked like the woman in the window seat next to them was about to kill Stiles.

He wondered if it were possible that Derek could anchor him as well as the other way around, because after that he did actually manage to get some sleep. He didn’t know then just how much he would need it.

The next seventy-odd hours of Stiles’s life were non-stop. He wasn’t even sure he could process it correctly for days, weeks, months after, but somehow, while they were checking the wide area the murdered pack had claimed as territory, he and Derek had gotten split up. The ‘hunting party’ that’d attacked the pack had disbanded but some were still in the nearby town and some, Derek had apparently found at the scene of the crime. All of course, while Stiles got into trouble with the former.

Stiles wasn’t even sure how but by the time Derek had met him back at their hotel, Stiles had already had most of the hunters he’d encountered taken in by local law enforcement as suspects and Derek…Derek had parked up out front in what Stiles was pretty sure was a stolen car.

“Oh my god!” Stiles declared more than gasped as he scrambled into the passenger seat. “Are you insane! There are Brazilian police all over this town now and you park up in a stolen car!”

Derek rolled his eyes. “It’s not reported as stolen, they didn’t live long enough to make the call.”

Stiles scowled, scanning the street anxiously but the police that’d made the arrests were gone with their charges now and those that’d been left to clear the scene still seemed to be inside.

“Dude, where have you been?! You were meant to be back hours ago!”

Pulling back out into the street with all the calmness of a man out on a morning stroll, Derek made the turn at the junction toward the airport. “I was a bit caught up. I text you as soon as I could.” Before Stiles could do much more than process that the fact that he himself had also not really had time to check his phone, Derek added wryly, “Looks like you’ve been pretty busy too.” His eyes followed the three police vans they passed, currently transporting their suspects to the local jail.

They might not stay there, Stiles’s dad had been brief and distracted when he’d put Stiles in contact with someone trustworthy in Brazil. He was probably working on a big case himself as he was very hasty to get Stiles off the phone, so Stiles still wasn’t sure exactly how much Detective Silvos, who’d helped Stiles get these guys nailed down, knew about the supernatural. He hadn’t really blinked at Stiles’s vague and suspicious story though. Not when Stiles’s dad had spoken to him on the phone.

He also hadn’t asked Stiles to give him his address or contact details or to stay in town while the investigation continued, which was standard even in another country, of that he was sure.

He had the nagging suspicion somehow his dad was involved in this, which was impossible, surely? How could he be involved in a hit on werewolves in Brazil and Mexico that were somehow linked?

And why weren’t Lydia or Scott answering their damn phones?!

He stared at Derek then and the sight he made. “Is that your blood? Dude,” he hurriedly stripped off his outer shirt for Derek to put on when they reached the airport. They did not need that kind of attention.

Derek set his teeth. “Get your phone out and book us on the next flight out of Brazil.”

Stiles studied him carefully for a moment before digging in his pocket for his phone. “Sacramento flights are–”

“Not Sacramento,” Derek cut across him, focussed solely on the road ahead, as if he dared not let his mind drift back to whatever he’d left behind.

Watching his face in profile carefully, Stiles waited for Derek to explain or clarify what he meant exactly. But the haunted look in Derek’s eyes as the street lights flashed by made the uneasiness at the back of his mind settle heavily in the pit of his stomach. “Derek?”

“Book the fastest route to Beacon County airport,” he said at last, casting Stiles a little sideways glance.

Of course whatever crap was going on here was leading them back to Beacon Hills, the place they’d both tried so hard to escape. Stiles was so getting his dad a job somewhere in Sacramento because his life expectancy was definitely going to go up with that move. He shot his dad a text to check in as he pulled up the flights options.

It was night when they landed in Beacon County Airport after a long two stop flight and the taxi they took from there dropped them off at the Stiles’s house. An uncomfortable sense of foreboding filled him when they found that his dad wasn’t there. Even as Stiles felt his panic sky-rocketing, even as he dialled his dad’s cell and the line rang and rang, Derek stood poised on the threshold of the front door, listening to the cool, quiet night.

Stiles watched him, knowing, just knowing somehow that he was picking up on something Stiles couldn’t have a hope of sensing.

“They’re in trouble – we’ve got to go,” Derek said quickly. Stiles snatched the Jeep’s keys off the rack in the hall. He hoped that the fact that Scott had left the Jeep here meant his dad was with him, or at least protected somehow.

“Your driving will get us pulled over in five seconds, we want to avoid attention not get shot off the road by the anti-werewolf militia,” Stiles said as he shut the front door behind them and darted for the Jeep. Because his brain had been working overtime on both flights and he was starting to put it all together now.

He thought as he pulled his seatbelt on and Derek wrenched open the passenger door with distaste, that Derek was about to argue, but then he stiffened as if he’d heard something, eyes going wide and he jumped in.

“Drive,” he barked, before he’d even closed his door.

Stiles floored it, going five over the speed limit the whole way despite the way Derek was braced forward in his seat and scowling at the rate of movement.

“Look, if they see us speeding down the street it’s going to draw even more attention than a werewolf running down it,” Stiles snapped, heart pounding, mind racing as he thought of his dad, of Scott and Lydia and everyone else.

Scott hadn’t had time for specifics it seemed, hadn’t even had time to finish the phone call properly or reply to Stiles’s messages. Stiles wondered if his phone had been caught in the crossfire again, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Derek rolled down the passenger window roughly using the lever and glared at Stiles as if daring him to make a dog comment as he inhaled the sharp night air.

“Turn right,” he barked and the Jeep protested loudly as Stiles jerked the steering hard.

“Put your seatbelt on,” Stiles snapped and Derek turned his head to level him with a withering look. Stiles wasn’t deterred. “It still hurts if you fly through the windshield doesn’t it? Now don’t lean too far out of the window or a streetlamp will take your head clean off, fido.”

He had the brief, glancing thought that it was good their bickering banter hadn’t changed. That, and that they made a pretty good team. He only hoped their success of the last few days, weeks really, was going to hold true for whatever they were getting themselves into now. It was Beacon Hills, after all.

Derek helped him follow Scott’s trail toward an industrial site and as Stiles pressed harder on the gas, even he heard the sounds of gunfire. His stomach dropped and he and Derek locked gazes briefly. He saw his own worry etched into Derek’s expression and swallowed the bile rising in his throat.

“Blood?” he breathed, not wanting to know.

“Not Scott’s. Not the pack’s, I don’t think but…” he frowned then and stiffened in his seat, grabbing for the door handle. “Keep going. Put your foot down.” With that, he leapt out of the door, landing easily on his feet.

Stiles swore, glancing repetitively in the wing mirror only to see Derek quickly keep speed alongside the passenger window, pushing the door shut hard.

A stream of gunfire pinged down from one of the rooftops to their left.

“Snipers!” Stiles shouted and Derek snarled, leaping onto the nearest structure and scaling the concrete, up and out of sight.

Ahead of him, Stiles could see the conflict now, a force of guns flashing in the dark, aiming for a barely covered alcove with wide open arches and he knew, just knew this was them. The militia that were trying to kill everyone he cared about. Maybe they even had? One man side-stepped out of the shadow of the building they were targeting, position prime for fire and Stiles knew without thinking the guy was preparing a kill-shot.

He floored the gas and slammed into him, sending the guy skidding forward with a crunch. Panting hard, Stiles turned out the still open window and saw Scott staring at him from his crouched position behind a pillar.

“You didn’t think you were doing this without me, did ya?” Stiles called out, a little breathless but with a wave of relief filling him at seeing Scott alive.

“Without us?” Derek added as he came up alongside the Jeep once more, evidently having disposed of the snipers that had sidetracked him. Movement just ahead, of more gunmen rounding the corner caught his eye though and his eyes flashed, fangs extending as he leapt forward.

If Stiles hadn’t been head over heels for him before, he sure would’ve been then. Because Derek wasn’t the same erratic, scared little kid in a man’s body. He was focussed, more dangerous and stronger now because of it. He may not have been an alpha but he was unstoppable. Maybe the others felt it too or perhaps their arrival had simply rallied their morale because he saw Malia move, saw Peter and for probably the first time, Stiles appreciated that they were wolves – a pack of wolves acting as one, all of them. He stood struck still as stone at the sight of them working together like a single force and didn’t really come back to himself until what was left of their enemy tore away with a screech of tyres.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about any of this, not a word not a single word,” he rounded on Lydia as the others moved toward…toward Deucalion, broken and limp on the floor.

“We had reasons, really good reasons,” Lydia muttered sheepishly, and as they moved, as Scott and the others focussed on Deucalion, she levelled him with a shrewd glare. “Why didn’t you tell me about Derek?” She challenged under her breath and Stiles wasn’t even sure how she’d known from just a glance, or if it’d only been a hunch that he’d confirmed with the full-facial flush he had absolutely no control over.

“Well that’s a…fairly recent development. Like…sort of shiny new…”

“Please, there’s nothing new about that,” Lydia scoffed under her breath.

He felt Derek tense as he came up behind them, Peter close by, Malia too and he wondered how much they had heard or if they’d been focussed on Deucalion’s last words.

“It’s already started, hasn’t it?” Malia asked.

Stiles frowned. How much had they missed here? “What’s started?”

“It’s an all out war,” Scott breathed, lifting his gaze from Deucalion to each of them in turn, as if confirming each and every member of his pack were unharmed after such a close call. An instinctive motion, Stiles thought, after years of running with wolves.

Stiles’s head was still spinning as Scott embraced Derek, relieved and glad to see him and so well, Stiles thought. Scott was the alpha but Derek represented a force of strength for Scott, a big brother figure and support that Scott didn’t have from anyone else. As they spoke, as Derek explained what had brought them there, Stiles suddenly found himself among all the conflicting feelings that had gripped him since they’d started heading back toward Beacon Hills.

Because their connection, this thing he and Derek had found together, their little den back in Sacramento felt so fresh, new and delicate like a bubble and whatever Beacon Hills touched, it fucked up. But standing there, watching Derek, watching Derek watch him with those soft eyes, he realised every inch of Derek was calm and collected. He was focussed because Stiles was there, anchoring him and whatever else happened, they were going to be okay.

“We found a pack slaughtered in Brazil, there were two words written on the wall, Beacon Hills.”

“You came back for Beacon Hills?” Scott asked, bemused.

“No,” Derek replied simply. “I came back for you.”

“We came back for you,” Stiles corrected.

Malia gave him a wry look. “Yeah, are ‘we’ going to explain that anytime soon?” Stiles honestly forgot how much she loved to tease him. He’d missed her, he’d missed all of them really and he felt a little giddy at the thought of sharing this happiness he’d found, this inner strength he’d cultivated, the person he’d become.

Derek moved to his side then, a subtle but distinctive movement. His eyes searching his, a smile touching the corners of his mouth as Stiles’s gaze dropped to it. It was like Derek felt invincible with Stiles beside him, and that knowledge was heady. The backs of Derek’s fingers brushed his where they hung limp at his side with such subtle, shy tenderness and yet Stiles’s stomach fluttered and he gave a nervous little laugh.

“Sure, we’ve got…stuff and you guys have stuff – a lot of stuff, actually. Huge stuff. But can we go somewhere with heat and light because I haven’t slept properly in like literal days and I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

Derek’s soft little burst of laughter, almost too quiet to hear, was a beautiful sound, a moment of calming clarity, like the last gulp of fresh air before diving into deep water. They had a war to win.

When the smoke cleared, when they had defeated the militia that had tried to wipe out anyone with supernatural blood, they stood together in the darkness.

Stiles watched Scott bring a freshly turned, freshly afraid werewolf into their protection, if not their fold. Watched the beginnings of their future unfold before them and for once he didn’t feel afraid. He glanced to Derek, who gave him that little quirk of a smile, saw his own future, as well as his pack and he couldn’t wait for the rest of his life to begin.

The Jeep couldn’t make the drive to Sacramento, so he left her back in Scott’s loving hands to drive the newbie back to the loft. Derek’s old apartment had been renovated by the pack into ‘pack ground zero’ and now housed quite a few of their newest recruits slash recues. Scott had only looked a little bit annoyed, mostly indulgent, when Stiles had called it ‘Scotty’s School for Gifted Youngsters’.

He climbed into the passenger seat of Derek’s Camaro, a new model, not the old classic that apparently Derek had left with Cora. Derek looked so good and Stiles wondered how much begging it’d take to get Derek to stop for a milkshake on the way home. He was guessing not much, Derek was pretty good at taking care of him. He’d even looked ready to take on their friends when they’d effectively outed themselves to everyone in Deaton’s clinic before the final showdown. It had been unnecessary though, as nobody seemed very surprised, except Scott, who bless his heart was oblivious about most things.

“Your dad gave me ‘the speech’ when you were loading the car earlier,” Derek mused as he pulled out onto the quiet main road. “It wasn’t exactly the ‘shotgun’ speech…”

Stiles cringed. “It wasn’t the safe sex speech either was it?”

Derek smirked. “It was more along the lines of, I’m glad it’s you and good luck you’re gonna need it.”

Stiles made a sound that was a mixture of outrage and amusement. “Oh my god, traitor! You guys are gonna gang up on me at Sunday dinners aren’t you?”

Derek’s quiet laughter caressed his ears as Beacon Hills fell away in a blur of twinkling lights into the darkness behind them. He reached out, stretching fingers across Derek’s denim-clad thigh and relaxed back into the seat, staring out at the road ahead where the headlights greeted the tarmac.

Derek’s fingers came down to cover his as he drove.

“Do you think another militia will pop up like that again?” Stiles asked after the lights of Beacon Hills had long since vanished behind them.

“I think it’s always possible. Hunters are still out there. People like Monroe are still out there,” Derek said thoughtfully. “But rumour is spreading, about the Beacon Hills pack, about the safety they provide, their strength. It makes anyone think twice about making an attack like that again, but it also means newly turned werewolves and people like them have somewhere to go instead of getting into trouble, instead of causing mayhem with powers they can’t control.”

Stiles nodded, “it actually helps to have so many people in the town in on the secret too, I guess. They’re like an extension of the pack.” Plus his dad had been elected sheriff again and he had never been more respected by the community. While that kept him rooted in Beacon Hills too for the foreseeable future, Stiles didn’t worry as much as he had before. The bitterness that had once tainted his connection to that town had dissipated somewhat, his bond with his hometown, with the pack stronger than before.

It was funny how it’d taken him and Derek finding each other, really finding each other to enable them to reconnect with the pack and the town the way they were meant to. They would always belong to Beacon Hills and the pack there, it would always be theirs, but what they had with each other was home. Home was wherever Stiles curled up next to Derek at night and the rest of the world was a better place outside because of that.

Stiles couldn’t even put his finger on why, exactly. He thought though, perhaps, that they’d both been two very capable but misguided kids. Two strangers that, for their own reasons, had been forced to learn to take care of themselves. And while they’d both managed fine, they hadn’t necessarily been good at it. They’d been drawn to each other from the start, had always known how to push each other’s buttons but also known that they were both missing something.

Now they were whole. Cracked, a little chipped here and there and definitely dented, but for all those flaws, they were together and complete.

They’d looked out for each other as allies in war, but now they looked after each other as partners, as equals. As the other’s most important thing, the anchor that held them tight, steady and sure no matter how rough the seas around them grew.

“You’re totally gonna rip my throat out if I open this bag of Doritos in your new shiny baby aren’t you?” Stiles mused as he tugged the aforementioned bag out from his backpack that sat between his legs in the footwell.

“With my teeth,” Derek agreed automatically, completely deadpan. But his hand squeezed Stiles’s gently where they were still connected.

Stiles grinned.

There was also the fact that no one quite enjoyed Stiles’s own special brand of crazy like Derek did. That sort of unconditional love was something more powerful than anything, supernatural or otherwise. It was hard not to feel invincible knowing that. And when Derek looked at him sometimes, even then when it was just a quick peek between keeping his eyes on the road, like he couldn’t help himself, he could see Derek felt the exact same way.

“So at the end of the month, my boss is holding this sort of…I guess the term would be a dinner,” he began as he gently wriggled his hand free from Derek’s to open the dreaded Doritos. “It’s like this unofficial thing he does, to sort of congratulate us all for our hard work. Like a work’s Christmas party except it’s way too early for Christmas. But anyway, we’re allowed to bring significant others.”

When Derek glanced at him again, Stiles waggled his eyebrows and stuffed some Doritos in his mouth. “How significant do you wanna be, Derek?”

Derek flushed but turned back to the road. Honestly he rocked the angry-embarrassed thing, Stiles was so gone for him.

“Is he going to recognise me?” Derek replied eventually, but as he did so, Stiles leaned over to poke a Dorito into his mouth, forcing him to partake in the desecration of the Camaro’s spotless interior and lingering new car smell.

“Only one way to find out hubby-wolf.”

“Oh my god, Stiles, no pet names.”

“I’m also thinking we can probably fit a queen bed in the apartment,” Stiles continued as if he hadn’t spoken. We should stop at Ikea tomorrow. Just something with a little more room for you to, you know, have at me with all your wolfie desires. The full moons are gonna rock.”

Derek made a noise that was torn between dismay and adoration and annoyance all at once and Stiles grinned, stuffing his mouth full again before poking another chip between Derek’s lips. He prodded it until it was almost fully in Derek’s mouth, but when Derek resignedly sucked it in fully, he nipped at the end of Stiles’s fingertip, looking both irritated and pleased with himself.

Stiles beamed and dusted his fingers off before starting to mess with the radio.

Derek had to know what he was in for, after all.

#happyjuicyfruit #stereksanta20 #*fic20 #*gifts20

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allsassnoclass · 4 years

Note

Prompt: 28, 10 and Lashton

You said lashton in an art gallery. I said Off-Screen circa 2017 (aka Luke’s Utah Era). this might feel a little out of context, because it is. the theoretical prequel that I'm writing would explain more of the surrounding circumstance, but the most important thing to note is that Luke moved in with Ashton in Utah after the end of the SLFL tour. This takes place in January of 2017.

lashton: “Where are all of my hoodies? Did you borrow literally every single one of my hoodies?” + art gallery

The last guest has left when Luke arrives, the gallery technically beginning to close for the night. Ashton is tired, all of the frantic energy from the past few months building up to this evening of schmoozing and revealing the deepest parts of his soul to be judged by the art community, and he feels empty now that it has passed. There’s a glass of some sort of fancy alcohol in his hand, but he hasn’t had the chance to drink it all night, and his suit feels like it doesn’t fit his shoulders correctly. It’s been bothering him, but he’s been too focused on smiling genially and making nice with every single person who passed through the doors to look at his art to do anything about it.

The sound of the main doors opening is loud in the quiet of the space, and Ashton tenses where he’s talking to the owner of the gallery. He relaxes once he sees that it’s not another art snob or a random person who got lost, but Luke. He stands at the threshold awkwardly, fiddling with the hem of one of Ashton’s college hoodies, beanie stuffed unceremoniously over his hair. It’s getting longer, and he’s been letting it curl more instead of spending hours styling it and trying to get it to sit right.

He looks just as breathtaking as ever, and Ashton is almost overwhelmed with how lucky he feels to be one of the only people to see famous rockstar Luke Hemmings with his guard completely down.

“Luke,” he sighs, relief too obvious. Luke just smiles and wanders, stopping short when something in a painting catches his eye.

“Friend of yours?” the gallery owner asks, and Ashton turns his attention back to her. It’s too easy to forget that anyone else exists the moment Luke enters a room. Ashton needs to get a grip.

“Yeah, that’s my housemate. Do you mind if we look around for a bit? He couldn’t make the normal gallery times.”

He logistically could have, because Luke doesn’t have responsibilities here in Utah, but Ashton knows that the idea of him having to look nice, be in a crowd of people, and possibly be recognized almost sent him into a panic attack.

“Sure. I’m locking up by 10, though, so be out before then.”

Ashton thanks her profusely, and the look she gives him is a bit too knowing for his taste. Still, she heads towards the back with an artistic grace, and Ashton joins Luke where he’s staring at one of Ashton’s paintings.

“Hi,” he says quietly. Luke leans into him in a practiced move, shoulders brushing together. Luke has always been familiar and comfortable, despite how little they see each other.

Ashton knows he should feel bad that Luke felt so lost in LA that he had to come all the way to Utah and Ashton to try and find himself, but selfishly he’s glad. For a few months, he gets Luke to himself, curled up on his couch and eating at his kitchen island instead of off traveling the world and meeting adoring fans. Besides, having Luke here helps. Ashton can’t take care of another person if he’s drunk every night, and meals are easier to prepare when there are two people to eat them. It’s easier to fall asleep if someone else is breathing slowly next to him. It’s easier to keep the loneliness at bay with Luke stepping into the gaps in his life.

“Was it a good showing?” Luke asks.

“It was,” he replies, resisting the urge to do something inappropriate like pull Luke closer and tuck his face into his neck just to breathe him in. “I even sold a few paintings.”

“You did?” Luke lights up. “Ashton, that’s amazing! Which ones? Wait, I want to see them all anyway. Walk me through them as we go.”

Ashton does, trying his best to remember the thought process and inspiration behind each of the paintings hanging in the gallery. For the earlier works it’s easier, because objects inside are more defined and they have clearer stories. For recent creations featuring bold strokes and swirls of color and more ambiguous shapes, the inspirations shift towards ideas. Some of them he created while drunk, and he has to check the title cards to figure out what he was going for, because while drunk Ashton isn’t good for much, he at least always writes titles in his notes app when he paints.

His professors made him include some of those works, saying that a few are profound and mesmerizing and probably your best work. It makes Ashton feel like he can’t create anything if he doesn’t have a few drinks in him. It’s a mindset he’s trying to move away from, but it’s hard. At least he has endless inspiration with Luke in the house.

Luke looks at a piece entitled Longing for a few minutes, and Ashton prays that he doesn’t ask who or what he was longing for while painting it.

“Come on,” he says when the swirl of blues and purples (with just that shimmer of gold to represent the person of desire, possibly forming a hazy constellation of Luke to anyone who knows what to look for) becomes too much. “I want to show you the synesthesia section.”

“Section” is a generous term, because it’s actually just four paintings on the same wall. He has many more paintings for various songs and albums back home, most of them on smaller canvases he can get from the craft store, but there are a few songs that evoke such strong, beautiful visuals that he had to paint them properly.

The first painting has a primarily blue background, mixing with black in short strokes by the edges. Traveling diagonally across the canvas are an assortment of other colors, mostly yellows and reds until they meet strokes of white in the middle. The paint is thick, creating textured mountains where the colors meet, and that’s Ashton’s favorite part about painting, really. He’s not very good at 3D forms, but paint never lays completely flat. He likes how dynamic it is because of it.

“Gravity,” Luke croons as he looks, “is working against me.”

Ashton loves hearing him sing. He was worried for those first few weeks Luke came to him, because he rarely heard it, but now he can count on random melodies filling the house at all hours.

“John Mayer makes nice songs to look at,” he says. Luke smiles at him, then they move on to the next one.

This painting has a bit more variety in color. Ashton remembers mixing them on his pallet, unbothered by the streaks it caused in the brush strokes, knowing that it was necessary to capture what the song makes him see. A dark background gives way to a curve of reds, purples, pinks, blues, ending in some greens and yellows and a hint of orange. He splattered white and black on afterwards, just a little bit near the middle of the curve, and Luke leans forward to see all the small dots.

“This one really does look like ‘Karma Police,’” Luke says. “Even I can see it.” He straightens and gives Ashton another grin, and he knows that he can’t capture that smile in a painting (he’s tried, so many times), but he still wants to attempt it again.

“I can’t believe how talented you are,” Luke says. “It’s almost unfair.”

“Thanks,” he says, ducking his head. Luke nudges him with his elbow and moves on to the next painting. This one follows a similar pattern to the other two, a dark background with color in the middle, but it’s messier. Blue and purple feature the most, but there are hints of orange and yellow, and white overtakes the painting in peaked chunks and thin streaks.

“You’d think that for a Prince song, there’d be a bit more purple,” Luke says, tilting his head.

“Maybe he should have written more purple songs, then,” Ashton shrugs. “‘Joy in Repetition’ has more blue.”

“Wait, is “Purple Rain” even purple?” Luke asks, alarmed.

“Yes, that one fits the title.” Luke looks reassured at that, and they continue to the last painting. Ashton feels nerves clench in his stomach.

He didn’t submit any of his photographs or colored pencil sketches of Luke, not even the really good one of Luke sleeping in his bed with an arm over his face that Ashton drew one night when the insomnia was hitting him hard, but this painting could be just as damning. It’s different from the other three because it’s slightly bigger and oriented differently, vertical instead of horizontal. The background is also based in white instead of black, primarily creating a pale blue to match the cautious optimism of the song. More blue meets with seafoam green, peach, and white in the middle, dripping down the canvas until all the colors fade into just the green. The lines of this one are smoother, blended together evenly, but there are bursts of gold in the middle and near a few edges that he bought a specific brand of metallic paint for. Ashton watches as Luke’s eyes trace the painting before he turns to the name card.

“Luke?” he asks when a few moments have gone by with him completely frozen.

“Really?” Luke asks, voice cracking. “This is what you see?”

“Yeah,” Ashton says. He knew he was going to end up painting the song as soon as he first heard Luke’s voice singing about tasting the ocean. “It’s mostly “Outer Space,” but I incorporated some of what I saw for “Carry On” at the bottom.”

“Oh,” Luke says, then turns and tucks himself into a hug, squeezing Ashton tight enough that he feels short of breath. Ashton wraps his arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer and letting Luke cuddle into him in a way that he’s almost getting too big for.

“I take it you like it?” he asks, just to be sure. Luke nods, and when he does finally pull away he swipes at his eyes with the sleeve of Ashton’s sweatshirt.

“Can I buy it?” he asks.

“Luke, you can have it for free.” Luke shakes his head vigorously.

“No, you’ve already given me too much. I want to buy it from you. You should be paid for your art.”

“Okay,” Ashton says quietly. Luke’s eyes are still fixed on the painting, and Ashton comes back to slide a hand around his waist again. “We can negotiate a price later.” He presses a kiss to Luke’s temple, because that’s something he can get away with still.

“Don’t try to give me a discount. I’ve already stolen your food and half your clothes.”

“Speaking of,” Ashon says, “I’m absolutely positive that this hoodie was the last one in my closet. Where are all my hoodies? Did you borrow literally every single one of my hoodies?”

“Yeah,” Luke says sheepishly. “They’re comfortable. They smell like you.”

Luke is going to kill him like this. Ashton can’t even be upset, because what a way to go, but things like that are not helping him keep a lid on how absolutely head-over-heels he is.

“I’d be more upset if you didn’t look so good in them,” Ashton says before he can stop himself. Luke’s breathing stutters, but he doesn’t do anything besides lean a little closer. Ashton’s heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest.

“Come on,” Luke says. “I still want to see the rest of your pieces, then we can go home.”

Home, Ashton repeats to himself. Luke thinks of your house as his home.

They wander their way through the last few canvases, then stop briefly in the photograph and colored pencil room before stepping out onto the street. Their hands brush as they walk, and Ashton wonders if he can get away with grabbing Luke’s. This night feels significant in so many ways. Something has shifted, and he’s not sure if it has to do with his art career or the man beside him. He wants it to be both so badly he aches with it.

When they have two more blocks to go before reaching the house, Luke reaches over and threads their fingers together.

A/N: I don’t have synesthesia, but the first three song paintings really exist and can be found here. the one for os/co was made up by me.

#my writing #lashton #drabble #off-screen #this just set multiple things in stone that were undetermined before today #but when (if) I ever write the prequel things could shift and change #also this Ashton has synesthesia. the kind where he can see music #also me writing the piece with os/co: 'oh Helen isn't going to like this'#ugh I had something else I was going to say about this but now I've forgotten #this is a little treat for the people who follow me here after reading it because this is not going on ao3 until after the prequel #off screen

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citrineghost · 5 years

Text

A Letter to WordPress

Dear WordPress,

Tumblr has been around for a good while now and many of us have been here since the beginning (or close to it). It’s become something of a comfort and a home base for many. You can understand then why it’s so terrifying and tension-setting when a new owner comes around.

This website has been through a lot of changes, very few of them good in recent years. I want to open up a dialogue from the user base about our feelings and desires surrounding this site, because to so many of us, not only its design and function, but its success and future are a big deal.

Obviously not all of the things I list below will be universal opinions, but I’ll try to outline some of the things I’ve seen the majority of users want. I’ll also throw in some things that are more personal, because I can’t claim to know everything the rest of the users want, but I can tell you where I see obvious problems.

First and foremost, here’s an obvious one. You can’t really go anywhere on Tumblr without knowing: we want the bots and the nazis gone. We need some kind of captcha system for every time someone wants to include a hyperlink in a post or response. Until the staff count gets higher, I would honestly suggest closing down the report system for everything but bots, nazis, and death threats/suicide bait.

Make NSFW content welcome again. Outside of porn bots, the pervasiveness of NSFW content is slim to none. As long as minors and those with ‘NSFW’ blacklisted aren’t seeing the NSFW content, there’s nothing wrong with it being here. A large number of the people posting NSFW content on here are artists who use this content to make a living on commissions. The ban has done nothing but make valuable members of the Tumblr community leave and take their art elsewhere. The focus should be cracking down on anyone who isn’t properly tagging NSFW content with ‘NSFW’. If the focus is put on that, the problem with NSFW content will be null.

Please keep Tumblr unintegrated with other social media. Most users will agree, the anonymity is such a huge part of what draws us to Tumblr. Other people only know what we tell them and it’s very appealing for our real life accounts (e.g. Google, Facebook, etc.) to be completely separate. When users want to share links to other accounts, they can do so easily with links on their blogs.

Replace ads with either, better, more sensible ads or members content. A large part of the ads on Tumblr make absolutely zero sense just by looking at them. Not to mention, they’re all completely unfit for the user base. I’ve seen weight-loss ads (harmful to the many people on the site recovering from eating disorders) and ads for products most people wouldn’t need or want until their forties. Most of the user base is 13-35, if I had to guess. I can tell you right now, you would make more money and the user base would be much happier if ads were removed in favor of members content. Adding a paid membership that allows users to gain access to new features (rather than restricting what’s already here) would be a huge boost in morale and company income. Use that income to improve the site. Don’t get comfortable making more than the bare minimum in profit until the website is functioning reasonably well. Hint: it’s not right now.

Keep the base functions of Tumblr. Don’t try and get radical, hoping big changes will excite the community. They won’t. We’re creatures of habit and we just want memes, fandom, and relatable nonsense. Keep reblogging, replies, customizable blogs, tags, and likes functionally the same.

Be receptive to bug reports and post change logs so that the community knows that they’re being addressed and fixed.

These are the obvious pleas of the community. Please keep in mind that the heart of Tumblr is in its users and if you ostracize us, there will be nothing left. We love this website and we want to see it thrive as much as anyone. We just don’t want to sacrifice the spirit of the community in the process.

Read more under the cut if you want to see some more of my own personal suggestions. I’d love for other users to sound off in the replies with whether they agree with any of the pleas or suggestions and also give their own!

Okay, so, here are some personal opinions that are by no means the voice of the community. I think they’re pretty sensible, but what do I know?

Change back the color. I hate this saturated navy color and I’m pretty sure a lot of others do too. I’m part of the disabled community and I know and have seen people saying that these extremely contrasted colors that were added are making their Tumblr experience worse. It gives people headaches due to light sensitivity and, frankly, it’s ugly. If you’d like to cater to those who are visually impaired/colorblind, that’s fantastic! Do so with an account setting that turns on higher contrast mode or adds patterns to things to make them distinguishable.

Add an option to blog suggestions and posts that have shown up on your dash from followed tags that says “Stop Suggesting This.” I’ve been suggested a number of blogs that I’m not interested in following. I don’t want to block the user, but I do want some different suggestions and for those blogs to stop showing up in suggestions. I’m also tired of seeing the same post twenty times from a tag I follow. There is currently an option that says “This particular posts sucks.” While I think that was a great attempt at catering to the community, I don’t want to use it because my intuition says that there’s a negative connotation. Does me saying the post sucks make it show up less for other people? Does it lose popularity? I can’t tell. The only thing I know is that I don’t want to say that a good post sucks just to make it quit showing up on my dash.

Implement some of the features that XKit uses. I would bet at least a quarter, if not more, of Tumblr users use XKit to make using Tumblr less painful. That shouldn’t be the case. Tumblr should have these functionality options available in dashboard settings.

A very hot take here that many might disagree with: Make notes viewable more like mobile has them. As it is, it’s hard to tell which ones I’ve seen on desktop. It can be tricky on mobile too, honestly, but it’s easier than on desktop. I would also heavily suggest making the unseen notifications darker so that they stand out and making a button to indicate that you’ve seen them.

Keep the dash, messages, notes, and profile as separate processes similar to how mobile has it. The trek all the way down the damn dashboard is a long one. I want to be able to see notes and messages in full size without losing my dash progress. When I switch back I want to be right where I was. I understand if this one isn’t possible or practical. It was just something I like about mobile over desktop but I’m aware that they’re two different beasts with different capabilities.

As far as the aforementioned members features, I do have some ideas, but I can’t guarantee they’re the best the user base has to offer. I’m sure others could think of better. Anyway, some things I’ve thought of are groups/clubs, digital currency, and separate dashboards. So, as it stands, You can have multiple blogs on one account. People can follow them separately. That’s fantastic. What would also be nice though, is being allowed to make separate dashboards. This would probably take up another chunk of server space, so I understand if it isn’t feasible right now, but I would jot it down. The ability to separate shitposts, aesthetic imagery, fandom content, and NSFW would be amazing. If you follow a huge number of blogs, like me, you could even make a friends dash so that you don’t miss your friends’ posts. It would just be a matter of allowing people to add and name their new dashboards. Then, when they go to follow people, it prompts them to choose what dash their content goes to. You could even simplify it by making the follow button default to the main dash, but adding a little dropdown arrow beside it. You could then choose which dash to add them to from a list. Below are some bad paint-drawn concept drawings.

Anyway, I hope this has all been helpful in some way. I’m fairly certain that WordPress will never actually read this, but it was cathartic to write and I hope it will be cathartic for someone else to read.

Sincerely, birb-ghost

#wordpress #tumblr #news #update #updates #verizon #yahoo #design #web design #developers #development #concept #concept art #art #drawings #good omens #bug #bugs #ghostpost #letter #letters

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derangedhyena-zoids · 4 years

Text

You know what there doesn't seem to be a preponderance of on Zi?

Kids.

fair warning: this is a goddamn mess of a horseshitpost about history, population and reproduction dynamics, and chucklefucking about character genetics that I have unfortunately have actually spent time thinking about because my brain literally doesn't accept "idle" as a state.

this probably gets a little weird and also contains mention of sensitive topic (tagged) so please be aware of that

Ok so

Compared to say, the society pictured in Fuzors (which doesn't comply with the xCentury-verse sufficiently and thus gets ignored by me), NC0 seems equally prosperous but a lot more resource-strained. Not "at that time" but simply as a way of life.

Nobody thinks of themselves as resource-poor, but nothing is terribly robust except in the largest cities (eg the modern day rebuilds of the old capitals, Guygalos and New (Helic) City.)

This isn't a secret. It's more or less been the case for the entirety of humans' colonization of the planet. That's why locale self-sufficiency is so important and why there's huge stretches of nothing everywhere. You simply cannot live wherever you want. The environment is fucking hostile and You Will Die.

So first off, let's be real: when you first colonize a planet and want to establish yourselves there, there's going to be rules/procedures in place regarding reproduction to make sure nobody ends up genetically representing too much of the population. It'd take a bit to get to the point of non-directed (and/or non test-tube) reproduction even being allowed.

Basically, space humans colonizing alien planets gonna have hella birth control tech available. There are no "oops" offspring. I'm inclined to think it's actually something that's been modified on a very base level (read: likely genetic modification, is heritable) level, that would require outside intervention of some kind (eg chemical) to make reproduction possible.

The point of "safe to naturally mingle" would likely correspond with the eventual, initial tech-dip as the stores of things from initial arrival were finally depleted (because it was probably planned out that way), and tech that was arrived with started to go offline permanently.

They'd have to be settling into what they could do and make with the resources available on Zi, meaning that avoiding uncontrolled population growth was still a huge priority, because the let's-successfully-establish-civilization mindset would still be thoroughly ingrained at that point.

There'd be hundreds of years of "danger zone" population levels where large adverse events could've easily wiped them all out if they weren't mindful. But, they were, and humans colonized Zi successfully (...again), good job, hooray

The overarching society-level birth control was well-codified in the various cultural groups that arose. But these inclinations did change over time as larger and more friction-prone groups formed (read: the Empire, over time, became large and in charge, discontent developed and huge chunks of people kept trying to detach. Eventually the Republic cropped up. You need more people to be a bigger thing.)

Any desire to handle the population with kid-gloves all but went out the window as the first conflicts started and people were killed. These conflicts eventually escalated into the long-standing wars between the Empire and Republic, and restrictions on reproduction basically went away. (+depending on who was in charge things may have even Yikes'd in the other direction)

(just a canon-fyi I'm not following the Battle Story in the slightest, I'm only trying to make the xCentury anime(s) function. Zoids' various canons are like Transformers' canons - A MESS)

Before these wars started happening, not much besides the occasional natural disaster, accident, or simply old age killed anyone. People can live a long time on Zi! Much longer than usual.

Why? Because a lot of human common human pathogens from Earth simply *wouldn't exist* there (space humans are gonna be really careful to not tote that shit around), so there's only really lifestyle-related issues, latent or new-mutation genetic problems, and any micro-organisms on Zi that mutated sufficiently to be able to affect people. (which is not really a stretch if we're going by the thought that Zoidians were long-evolved humans. The Zoidians were there a LOT longer than humans have been)

so. modern day. I have NC0 a few hundred years after CC/GF. As a whole I think the human race on Zi is relatively young, but a lot of the oldest information (like "exactly when we fucking got here") was lost in Imperial/Republican wars.

Those went on for hundreds of years themselves, enough to establish mass Zoid manufacture as The Way Of Things(tm) and otherwise entrench what became the norms for human society there. (I STRONGLY suspect there's still a lot of residual Imperial/Republican tension in places/families and that Backdraft was founded by, for lack of a better word, Imperial sympathizers with a longstanding grudge against a unified GF-run government *coughhh Alteil cough* but... I digress)

Humans are at a perfectly serviceable population. I actually hesitate to put a number on it because I don't know what # value would properly represent "a sustainable amount of people on a barren planet with very limited resources" but it'd be a sizable population (I'd guesstimate tens of millions). I imagine the GF, being the unquestionably-global governing body*, is relatively authoritarian as far as the core population and major cities go. They obviously can't tightly police the whole planet, but they can certainly keep an eye on it.

This doesn't mean it's a dystopia or that the GF is evil or that it's anything bad, really. I sort of picture it being run by Committee, likely made up of various descendants of powerful families ([insert 10 tons of political intrigue here that I'm picturing, it's amazing, ANYWAYS]) Zi's government is definitively a plutocracy.

There were plenty of people on the planet who were ambivalent towards the Empire and the Republic's nonsense and just carried on what social norms and culture that had been established by the early colonists. Many didn't LIKE that all the fighting was happening because innocent, uninvolved people kept getting killed, and that sucked because they just wanted to live quiet lives in secure towns and be left alone.

There was also a desire for more law enforcement in general, since gangs, bandits, and the Zi equivalents of sovereign citizens kept causing problems. So when the Guardian Force was established initially to wrestle peace into place, it was largely welcomed and people were very, very glad to get rid of hundreds of years of war.

This also meant a lot of people had kids because things became markedly more stable. In fact what led up *to* New Century was probably several solid centuries of strong population growth, establishing additional stable strongholds in habitable areas (new cities were established and built up), modernization and other general signs of prosperity.

So, all this blah blah blah leads up to several key realities for New Century:

-There isn't a strangehold on population growth, nor are there formal limits. However, the chemical-whatever that causes the inbuilt birth-control to fuck off is under the purview of - or at least monitored by - the government. So... there's that. It's also overwhelmingly likely that people have figured out other sources for this over time, if for some reason they're distrustful.

-This inbuilt bc is in effect for everyone. Both folks involved have to be on board. I mean, it'd technically be possible to surreptitiously slip some of the chemical-whatever to an unwilling partner? But it's not like that would be difficult to figure out.

-Family units range from what we'd recognize as a 'family' to entire towns sharing children/parenting responsibilities. Monogamy is the norm but polygamy isn't weird. People can be pretty sexually loose and it's not frowned upon at all - because let's be real, NC0-society is at full-on bread-and-circus levels of operation. There seems to be a moderate anti-intellectual bent and Zoid battles are the height of achievement. People are chasing highs as a way of life.

Topically relevant individuals' headcanon:

I think Steve's wife died in childbirth (having Leena.) It neatly explains what happened to her and Layon's unhealthy obsession with Leena.

Feel like Bit and Brad both were raised in the more "communal" type of settings.

Harry's family comes from old Republican money.

Stoller came from a family that's the equivalent of a house in the south that has confederate flags everywhere. Except they're Imperial.

ARE YOU STILL HERE? GOOD LORD WHY. WELL NOW THIS IS A SHITPOST ABOUT ZOIDIAN HYBRIDS AND OTHER ANCESTRY FUCKERY

Remember in some other post I wrote I said that when you start to hybridize Zoidians in, reproduction becomes more difficult? That's IN PART because of the bc thing, and in part because general genetics fuckery. But once you *had* a hybrid you had very robust individuals, who initially lacked a fully functional version of the inbuilt bc. Over time that was mixed back in, but there were at least a couple janky generations.

Literally every hybridized line in existence is either from Hiltz or Ryss. Fiona didn't reproduce (wasn't for lack of trying. Both her and Van being bonded to the same Organoid caused problems in that department.)

Ryss had two kids with Raven. The reality of Raven aging and dying sucked. The reality of her kids, grandkids, etc aging and dying sucked. Though her immediate offspring lived a lot longer than progressive generations did, as the bloodline became more diluted, a slightly-improved human lifespan became the norm. This was incredibly depressing to Ryss and is a large part of why she fucked off to the middle of nowhere to live with things that wouldn't age out and die on her. It's also why she didn't continue to have children.

Hiltz... Hiltz fucked (and well, raped) a lot of people (50% as a power/hate thing and 50% because he's from the Feed-Fuck-Fight club) and some of the people that lived to talk about it had offspring. The same aging issues were in effect for these offspring, but unlike Ryss's family they didn't have the benefit of anyone explaining what the fuck was going on. So they had a strange time.

Remember that these direct hybrids would've been of age squarely in the aforementioned, post-GF "everyone is having kids" time, so a fair number of distinct new lines were created and persisted. There was also a weird range of ages involved, because the direct hybrids lived A WHILE and could have offspring for most of that time.

Now, in the context of "many years later", this means a fair number of people carry these genes in varying dilutions. It's not a large amount in the context of the entire human population. It's a handful of family lines with increasingly baffled histories. But family groups frittered a lot in the aftermath of GF, so a lot of that knowledge was functionally lost.

Basically no one has any idea anymore, what little idea that they had in the first place. The only families with distinct and traceable genealogies are the rich/old-money ones.

So, in the NC0 cast I officially headcanon 5 folks as these dilute-hybrids. You know most of them; Sara, Vega, and Brad, but I'm impolitely adding Stoller and Iyaga (Ehga?) to that mix because reasons.

Brad and Iyaga are from Hiltz's line. Sara and Stoller are from Ryss's. Vega is unique in that he draws from BOTH; Ryss from his mother's side and Hiltz from his father's. Sara had a *really* hard time actually having a kid as a result of that particular genetic fuckery. IMO this explains some of her behavior towards Vega - by the time she had him she was so emotionally estranged by both the loss of Vega's father and the loss of numerous pregnancies (and by that time was more involved with her 'backdraft career'), she struggled with BASIC AFFECTION.

anyways, thanks for coming to the world's most useless ted talk

*ZBGF is like world-police, GF is world-gov, ZBC is a branch of ZBGF that keeps battles in line (and monitors usage of things). The GF is "background", in that it's using the more-friendly-seeming ZBC as its eyes and ears while keeping track of things on a higher level.

p.s. the bc thing is actually adapted from another story of mine's background, so don't worry I didn't spend ALLLLLL this time thinking about that for this only sdhgfjdfdf

#headcanon #tw rape

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ariadnelives · 5 years

Text

Chapter 13 -- The Perfectly Good Explanation

[Missed earlier chapters? Go catch up here! Otherwise, welcome back! Oh, and make sure to join our discord server! Chapter can also be found @ ao3”]

“She's coming back,” Sasha said.

“I want to think so too,” Backflip sounded a lot more worried, “but—”

“I don't think she's coming back,” Sasha demanded, “I know it for a fact.”

“Deathsbane,” Backflip lowered her voice so the police officers outside the cell couldn't hear, “she took our guns and a backpack with 500,000 credits and ran away to save her own skin.”

“Nope,” Sasha insisted, “we're not seeing the whole picture.”

Backflip whispered harshly, “she ditched us and let us get caught so she could get away!”

“There's got to be something we're missing.” Sasha shook her head. “She wouldn't just leave me like this. I can't believe that. I won't.”

“You're in denial.” Backflip sighed.

“You know, you can be a real child sometimes,” Sasha snapped.

Backflip looked hurt.

“I'm sorry,” Sasha said halfheartedly.

“It's whatever,” Backflip crossed her arms and looked to the side. Sasha was right, technically speaking Backflip was only fourteen years old and was, by most definitions of the word, a child. However, Sasha was not being technical, she was being intentionally hurtful, and it wasn't, as Backflip claimed, “whatever.”

“No, I'm actually sorry,” Sasha said, this time sincerely, and moved over next to Backflip. “We've both had a pretty bad day, and I shouldn't have snapped at you like that.”

Backflip grunted to indicate that the apology was accepted, but since she was actually a child in exactly the way Sasha meant, she still continued to maintain an air of grouchiness despite not officially being upset anymore.

“Plus, it's my fault you're in here anyway,” Sasha continued.

“How do you figure?” Backflip asked, “You're not the one who called the cops on us, or the one who ditched us.”

“I tricked you into coming on this stupid mission because I was feeling cooped up,” Sasha shrugged.

“I knew the risks when I thought I was leaving with Spacebreather,” Backflip shrugged back.

“You've got to understand, Sweettalk might not be concerned with rules, but she wouldn't throw us under the bus. I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for what she did.”

“I'd love to hear it,” Backflip rolled her eyes, “I think I saw someone who could explain that booking it down an alley with all our guns and money.”

“I know it,” Ghostrunner said from the opposite corner without looking up from the stars she was drawing on her arm with a semi-permanent marker. She had been so quiet that Backflip and Sasha both jumped when she spoke, having almost forgotten she was there.

“Well, lay it on us,” Sasha said, “Not like we've got somewhere else to be.”

Ghostrunner continued to draw stars on her arm as she began to explain the story. Backflip and Deathsbane were both enthralled, they'd never heard Ghostrunner talk for this long before, and they allowed her to tell Sweettalk's entire life story without interrupting.

A lot of the story was stuff they already knew. Sweettalk's birth name was Mingxia Huang, and she was born in Xiagu, the sole colony of Saturn's cold moon, Enceladus. The moon was too rocky and full of canyons to build a standard bio-dome on level ground, but when a team of engineers is faced with a problem, it's a safe bet they'll come up with a solution far more ridiculous than simply abstaining from attempting to colonize a completely inhospitable moon.

Instead of a normal hemispheric bio-dome, the top of a canyon was sealed off with an advanced glasslike material thick enough to stop a nuclear bomb. The steep, flat walls of the canyon were outfitted with artificial gravity to allow the inhabitants of Xiagu to walk up and down them, heating elements to keep them from freezing to death, and specially engineered gardens to keep the atmosphere breathable in the airtight canyon.

Xiagu was a quiet, very insular community, more suburb than city. The children went to school during the day, did their homework in the evening, and for recreation, there were weekend games of a team sport that involved groups of players standing on one side of the canyon and throwing a ball high enough that it would get caught in the opposite wall's gravity and fall to the other side, where the opposing team would attempt to volley it back. On paper, it was an incredibly boring sport that amounted to little more than volleyball with more complex physics, but the whole community usually came out to watch, and getting lost in the cheers and enthusiasm actually made it pretty fun to watch.

The adults all had jobs and, for the most part, nobody was poor. Their food was all produced in gardens at the base of the gulch, there were small businesses that offered just about anything you might need at a reasonable price. There wasn't much crime, except for the occasional smuggler bringing contraband food or imported clothes in, but this was usually harmless. It was a nice, if incredibly dull, place to live.

The one thing about it that was, from the inside, extraordinary to a young Mingxia Huang was that she could always look to the mouth of the canyon and see Saturn, glorious, golden, and ringed, hanging in the sky. She used to watch it as she fell asleep and dream of places far more exciting than her home.

Her parents were good people. They weren't too strict, but they also weren't so permissive that Mingxia felt the need to act out for attention. They had steady, boring jobs tending to the climate control systems that made sure the colony stayed habitable. They loved their daughter, and she loved them. She hoped that when she grew up and got to live her exciting, glamorous life in the big city, she'd be able to provide for her parents in their old age.

Unfortunately, however, her parents never reached old age. They were two among the first wave of casualties in an outbreak that would claim the lives of every single resident of Xiagu, with two exceptions.

The viral cause of the plague would have been detected and eradicated quickly in the larger cities of Mars and the Jovian moons, and was little more than a minor annoyance in the mining communities of the Kupier belt where it originated. It was, technically speaking, alien life, but it was nothing as exciting as the Divoratori, it was just a few microbes and viruses that had been frozen in some of the larger asteroids, left over from some chunk of rock that had drifted into our system when the planets were young and never found its way back out. It caused sniffles and mild disorientation at first, and was just severe enough to affect productivity the slightest bit. The mining company added supplements to the company store that altered workers' DNA to compensate for the symptoms, and slowly but surely, the community built up an immunity. Within a few generations, every single miner in the belt had the virus in their system, but they were completely asymptomatic.

Every couple of years, the virus would mutate and the sniffles and disorientation would return, and the mining company would have the supplements adjusted to address the new mutations. What they hadn't accounted for was the cumulative effect of their continuous cycle. The virus had been incubating for hundreds of years in a community of people whose immune system had been genetically engineered scores of times to be resistant to its effects.

After generations of mutation and compensation, what had once been nothing but inconvenient sniffles and disorientation to the miners would, in the system of a person whose genetic code had not been radically altered to resist the virus, be a respiratory arrest and complete shutdown of the central nervous system within 18 hours of exposure. Under normal circumstances, the minerals would be disinfected and made sterile before anyone outside the community could touch them, and anyone who risked contact with the virus would be given a viral inhibitor that would prevent them from becoming infected.

This was, unfortunately, through legal channels. Smugglers, however, aren't usually known for being sticklers for the rules. One young smuggler, a teenager from Xiagu, had gotten his hands on a sealed case of Platinum ore and a single dose of the antiviral supplement from a disgruntled miner who wanted to make a quick buck on the side and didn't think to first disinfect the payload. The young smuggler then used the platinum ore as a bribe to convince a customs agent to look the other way while he brought his exotic fruits and designer jewelry into the bio-dome.

The customs agent would become patient zero fifteen hours after opening the case to inspect it. In those fifteen hours, he managed to interact with seventy-eight other people, sixty-two of whom were infected with the virus. Mingxia's parents would become the seventh and eighth casualties, respectively. The victims were quarantined as soon as the threat was identified, but it was far too late. The virus was spreading too quickly to treat, and the community was far too small to sustain losses this heavy.

Mingxia was not able to say goodbye to her parents. They died while she was in school when she was twelve years old. She refused to believe they were really gone at first, and she screamed at her principal that he was lying, and demanded he bring her to them. It wasn't until she arrived back home and saw the town pastor there to prepare her dinner and tuck her into bed that her heart properly sank.

She did not eat the dinner the pastor had prepared. She did not sleep that night. Her eyes remained fixed on the sky outside her window, on Saturn, as she wondered how this could be allowed to happen to people as good as her parents.

The next day the pastor drove her to the church and told her she'd be staying there for a while. It would be difficult to find her a new caretaker, half the town was in quarantine and the church was serving as a sanctuary for those who were uninfected and preferred to remain that way.

It was here that Mingxia met a young altar boy by the name of Prescott Cain. He, like her, was an orphan (although she almost struck him when he used the word “orphan” to describe her) who dreamed of one day going out into the stars and living a glamorous life in the big city of Xijing, on Callisto. She liked to hear about Prescott's big dreams, even if they seemed unrealistic. He'd lost his parents years earlier, and she liked the idea that he was doing so well and still had hope even though he'd lost so much.

After a few hours of him regaling her with tales of escapades he hadn’t been on yet, he decided to confide his deepest secret with her: he left the village all the time. He'd go out on adventures, hunting treasure and seeing strange new places, but he always had to come back quickly or else the pastor would get wise.

“But if I had a partner,” he told her, “maybe I could start adventuring in the big city full-time!”

Mingxia was too young to realize she was being conned. She hadn't put together that his “adventures” were actually petty crime, and she had absolutely no way of knowing the consequences of the crimes he’d committed. He wouldn’t even piece it together until years later, so how could she have known?

The next night, in total spite of how terrible an idea it is to run off with strangers even when one is emotionally stable, let alone in a state of grief, Mingxia and Prescott boarded a small shuttle and, taking advantage of the confusion the outbreak had caused, managed to escape their hometown. Mingxia and Prescott were lucky enough to evacuate before she could become infected, so they both assumed that the quarantine had worked and that life in Xiagu continued as usual without the two orphans who left in the night.

The next six months were spent on Callisto, in a shack that Prescott's current gang had set him up with. Their days were spent running cons on the streets of Xijing. They started out small, with games of Three-Card Monte. Prescott would play the dealer, showing the crowd three cards (both black jacks and the queen of hearts) and laying them facedown on a table. Players would place a bet on whether or not they could identify the queen after the cards were quickly shuffled and rearranged, and if they were successful, they'd win back double their bet.

Of course, Three-Card Monte is a fairly well-known con, so it's hard to get people to actually play. This is where Mingxia, the shill, comes in. She'd pose as a player, and when passers-by saw this little girl betting her allowance on the game and winning, they'd think maybe this game wasn't rigged for once. It helped that Prescott was scarcely older than her, so most players actually thought they were taking advantage of him.

When this proved to be a somewhat slow way to make money, they started to up the ante. For a while, Mingxia would be sent into a bodega, one with no more than a single cash register, and wait for Prescott to make a purchase. When the register opened, Mingxia would have to break a bottle in the back and start crying loudly, causing the lone attendant to rush back to check on the ruckus. Approximately half the time, they'd forget to close the register all the way, and while the store owner was helping Mingxia clean up shards of broken glass, Prescott would empty out the cash drawer. If they failed, they'd have lost the cost of the candy bar Prescott bought, since store owners rarely charged the crying, unattended little girl for the bottle of iced tea she broke. If they succeeded, they'd walk away with several hundred dollars.

Across Xijing, Prescott pulled just about every scam and grift in the book with Mingxia as his shill. With varying degrees of success, they pulled slip-and-falls, fiddle games, melon drops, and for two shocking months, purchased dirt-cheap mushrooms from a local deli and passed them off as illegal hallucinogens to unsuspecting high school students at a vastly inflated price, knowing they couldn't be reported for this without their customers admitting they'd attempted to purchase illegal narcotics.

Mingxia was never happy during this time, but she participated after Prescott told her she had to choose between taking the moral high ground and eating. She knew what she was doing was wrong, especially when the scams took advantage of others' generosity. She felt lied to. She'd been promised a glamorous lifetime of adventure, not a hungry ten months ripping off shopkeepers and broke kids who were too dumb to know any better. When she raised this objection, Prescott would invariably ask, “how exactly is this different from what I promised?”

Mingxia became very good at persuasion. She lived with Prescott for a little under a year, and by the end of it, she could sell any lie with very little effort. She could, and often did, convince grown adults to part with hundreds of credits on the pretense that she needed to buy a three-credit bus fare. She hated herself almost as much as she hated Prescott.

Near the end of their time together, she couldn't take the guilt anymore and threatened to roll over on him if he didn't take her back to Xiagu. She figured the pastor could find her a caretaker, or she'd become a ward of the church, or they'd go to jail and end up in a state-run children's home, and either way she'd be going legit and getting more food and a warmer bed. Prescott whipped up a batch of crocodile tears and claimed to agree with her. He told her, of course he'd take her back to Xiagu, but that he'd spent their last few dollars on packets of mushrooms, and that they'd have to sell this one last batch in order to buy passage.

They split the packets down the middle, agreed to run their usual routine on a high school where their stock hadn't been discovered as fakes yet, and rendezvous back at their shack with whatever money they'd made.

Mingxia got within two blocks the school's grounds before a police officer stopped her, announced that they'd received a tip about a young girl matching her description selling narcotics outside a high school. They searched her bag and found several packets of mushrooms inside. The police claimed the tip was anonymous, but she knew Prescott had sold her down the river to protect his own skin.

They took her into custody and, eventually, determined that the packets in her bag were full of perfectly legal, non-hallucinogenic mushrooms. As far as they could prove, she'd committed no crime and would have to be released into her parents' custody. She told them she had no parents. They asked if she had a legal guardian. She gave them the name and address of the pastor in Xiagu, hoping they'd send her home.

It was at this point that Mingxia found out there was no more Xiagu to go back to. The entire population was dead less than a week after she left. She and Prescott were the only two survivors, and he was probably halfway across the system by this point.

The officers were left with no other option than to send her to a nearby home for orphaned children. This is where Ghostrunner first encountered Sweettalk, and where she'd learned of these events. Ghostrunner was the only person she'd ever confided this story in, and she'd made her promise to keep it a secret.

“Who would I tell?” Ghostrunner asked her, “I don't talk to anyone.”

Ghostrunner confessed to feeling incredibly guilty for sharing this story with them, even though Sweettalk had apparently betrayed them, but reasoned that she would probably be okay with it if it made them blame her less for bolting.

Conditions at the orphanage were subpar, to say the least. There were only five residents, and they were given only enough food to keep them alive. For recreation, they had three moth-eaten books, a broken stationary bicycle, and each other's company. They slept in sleeping bags on the floor instead of beds. Mingxia missed being able to look up at Saturn as she fell asleep terribly; the water damage on the ceiling of their windowless bedroom couldn’t hold a candle to that view.

The children at the orphanage had assumed there was just no funding whatsoever. The caretakers seemed nice enough, and were always very apologetic about being unable to provide filling portions or new clothes for the children. It wasn't until after their rescue that they found out the caretakers were receiving thousands of credits in state funding and had keeping fake budgetary books that showed razor-thin margins. In reality, they spent the bare minimum on the children's care and pocketed the rest for themselves.

An elderly neighbor named La Pesadilla eventually discovered the conditions the children were forced to live in, and, in a rare moment of conscience, she alerted an associate named Pilar Aguilar, who she knew operated a much better home for children with her young girlfriend.

The next day, the caretakers told the girls they'd all been adopted by a wealthy benefactor who'd offered to buy out the orphanage for an exorbitant price. The girls were surprised to see that their savior was such a beautiful young girl, hardly older than them, and covered in tattoos from the neck down. She ushered them into her shuttle and brought them to their new life on Ship Trap.

Later that day, Law Enforcement received an anonymous tip that included all the evidence necessary to put them in jail for the remainder of their lives. When the police got to them, the caretakers were found savagely beaten and tied to a post in the run-down orphanage, restrained in the childrens' sleeping bags. They gave a full confession and offered no explanation of who had assaulted them. It was clear they'd rather live out their lives in prison than invoke that person's wrath again.

Mingxia was initially resistant to the community on Ship Trap Island. She didn't see how it was different than what Prescott did. It wasn't until she found out that those living there were fed and sheltered even if they refused to participate, and that they exclusively took from those who had too much to feed those who didn't have enough, that she was okay with it.

She eventually became a willing participant in the pirates' adventures, and that's when she really knew that this was different than what she'd been through with Prescott.

This time, she didn't feel like she was taking advantage of innocent people, she didn't feel like she was being taken advantage of, and she felt like her partners in crime viewed her as family, not as a tool. Her charisma made her rather popular with the crew, and the criminal skills she'd developed under Prescott became invaluable now that she was putting them to good use.

She was on the scene when a young Pilar Aguilar survived exposure to the void of space and became Pilar Spacebreather, and first took notice of Sasha Aguilar as she worked almost supernaturally hard to save her sister's life. It would be a little while before she worked up the nerve to talk to her, but when she did, she laid on the charm like she never had before.

It wasn't long before she earned her own new name, by—

“Well,” Ghostrunner said, “you know that part. She got Ariadne away from the police by posing as her lawyer, even though she was only fifteen years old. Stole a pantsuit from a department store and used talcum powder to put streaks of gray in her hair.”

“Jeez Louise,” Backflip sighed, “no wonder she ditched out. Last time Prescott sold her down the river, she ended up in that horrible orphanage. I'd have run too, if it was me.”

“That's not a story about why she ran,” Sasha insisted, “my takeaway from all that is that she always has a plan.”

“Mine is that her plan is to get as far away from the police station as possible,” Backflip shrugged.

“Sasha's got it right,” Ghostrunner said, “Look.”

Backflip and Deathsbane turned around to see the entrance to the holding cell, where a tired-looking officer was playing a card game by himself on a tablet.

Standing in front of the desk was Mingxia Sweettalk, dressed in high heels, a pencil skirt, horn-rimmed glasses and a navy blue blazer, carrying a tablet of her own and attempting to look as grown as possible.

“Excuse me, officer,” she said firmly, “I believe you've been holding my clients illegally.”

9 notes · View notes

agustdomain · 6 years

Text

Running Circles Through My Mind

Synopsis: You weren’t sure when he started to become a regular thought in your mind. It was subtle, yet inevitable. The only problem was perhaps the feeling wasn’t mutual after all.

Word Count: 12.7 k

Genre: Best Friend!au, Angst, Fluff

Warnings: Language

Member: Jaemin, ft. the other Dream boys

“Hey! Hey you! I know you hear me calling you.”

You huffed underneath your breath, opting to raise the volume on your headphones instead. However, ignoring this particular friend never ended well, because he was the most persistent of them all. He proceeded to rip your headphones out of your ear, your annoyed glance meeting his equally frustrated one.

“Can I help you?” You groaned, reaching for them but with no success as he gave you an unimpressed look. You and Renjun were good enough friends to have learned how to communicate through facial looks, but more often than not you often found yourselves bickering for seemingly unimportant reasons.

“Why do you have to be so anti-social? You saw me walking over here. Who puts their headphones in when someone is approaching them?”

“I do.”

“Maybe that’s why you don’t have that many friends,” He grumbled, giving up by placing your headphones down and taking the seat across from you at the table. It was early morning, the air slightly brisk and the sun hidden somewhere in the clouds. You were midway through first hour, but luckily it was your senior year and you had miraculously managed to score a free first hour. Renjun happened to be one of the smartest guys you know, and had the smallest schedule possible, getting to leave campus around 2:10 in comparison to your 4:00.

“What do you want? You’re usually on your way to school at this time,” You mindlessly throw out there, sliding one headphone in your ear and leaving the other out to be courteous. You nibbled on an apple slice as you eyed your friend across from you.

You and Renjun had known each other most of your high school career. When you were tiny freshmen, you had a couple classes together, and rode the bus to and from school together. Your friendship really hadn’t sparked up until halfway through junior year, when you heard Renjun singing one of your favorite songs on the bus ride home. You don’t know where your spark of courage had come from, but at some red light you joined him at his seat- remembering his startled face still made you chuckle to this day- and said, “Seems to me like you might have some good music taste.” To figure out if that was true, you guys had spent the rest of the ride to his stop comparing artists you like. The rest was history.

Though you only had one class with him this year, you spent a chunk of the day missing him. You would never admit it to his face. But he was one hell of a friend.

“I want some acknowledgment once in a while. A text. A ‘How are you, Ren?’ I’m doing well, in case you were wondering.”

You just blinked at him, his antics not at all unfamiliar. After all, he was well known for his dramatic attitude, and it didn’t at all surprise you how he used to that to his advantage in the one class you guys had together: Theatre.

“No, but seriously. You never come this early. What’s up?”

He just sighed, looking around at the slightly vacant campus before slyly commenting, “I’m hanging out with some people this Friday and I was wondering if you wanted to join.”

“Ren, are you talking about that pizza place we were all thinking about hitting up?”

“You know about that?” He was genuinely surprised.

“I’m in the same group chat as you. And last time I remembered, we have the same group of friends.”

He rubbed his neck sheepishly before throwing out there, “You’re the least active person in the group chat. Don’t blame me for wondering whether or not you knew.”

“I have things to do. I can’t spam the group like Chenle and Hyuck half the time.”

“Okay. What do you have to do? Watch dog videos and talk on the phone with Lisa?”

“I don’t judge you so you don’t judge me, got it?” You pointed an apple slice at him, his hands raising up in surrender before losing your attention to your notebook. “So, why did you feel it was so important to come see me before school starts and tell me about this get-together.”

You glance up, not failing to see his little grin before letting himself hide it. He proceeded to announce in a funny voice, “I may or may not know that a certain someone will be joining us for the special occasion.”

“Spit it out. Come on.”

Renjun cleared his throat, pausing once more for dramatic effect. Just as you were about to reach across the table and grab him to shake some sense into him, he exclaimed, “A very tall and broodingly handsome guy who goes by the name Hyunjin told a little birdy he might be down to try a new pizza spot.”

Your eyes grew as wide as saucers. You spluttered, trying to form a sentence, but your mouth failing to work properly. Renjun stood up briskly, bowing as if he were performing before motioning as if he were quieting down an audience. “I know, I know. No need to thank me. In fact, I don’t even know how I did it. He’s usually so quiet in our math class. Kid barely smiles. Yet, when I see him with his friends he literally smiles like it’s a job. Anyways, he heard Mark and I talking about it in class and asked if he could come. Strange, right?”

“Are you messing with me now?”

“Nope.”

“You promise?”

“Geez. Ask Mark if you don’t believe me. You know he can’t lie for shit.”

“Ren,” You reached over, grabbing onto his arm aggressively. He gave you an annoyed look but didn’t say anything, “What do I do? I’m so embarrassing when I’m around him! I can’t go with you guys anymore!”

“Dude, relax. It’s not that serious. Just act like he’s one of us. Besides, I thought you said you were over your crush on him.”

You threw your head back, groaning in frustration. “Renjun! You’re so dense sometimes for being an actual genius! I had no choice. I approached him and literally embarrassed myself! He rejected me, remember?”

Renjun raised a finger in the air for his next point. “Technically he didn’t reject you.”

“He indirectly did.”

“No. He just told Mark, “Are you trying to set me up with one of your friends? Because if you are, don’t.”

“That’s telling me that I approached him for no reason and he let me down nice and easy before I decided to approach him a second time.”

“Okay. So what’s your point?” Checking the time on your phone, you just shook your head, feeling unnecessarily stressed about the entire situation. You could recognize that there was sense behind Renjun’s words. But you just couldn’t get your embarrassment out of your head. This was Hyunjin.

Hyunjin was a guy you hardly came across at school at all. In fact, it was your senior year and you only found out about his existence this year. He was cute, funny, and seemed quiet. Hence, why a pep talk from Donghyuck and Mark a few months ago had inspired you to approach him and ask him if he wanted to get to know each other better. He had agreed, and advised you to get his number from one of your mutual friends- which was Mark since they often did sports together- but much to your horror, only a couple days later, Mark had approached you and told you that Hyunjin had instructed him to stop trying to set him up with people he didn’t know. You were mortified, to say the least. A few months into the future, and here you were now, trying to avoid any interaction with Hyunjin at all costs.

Taking note of the bell ringing in under five minutes, you started packing up your stuff. Your silence seemed to tick Renjun off, and he childishly crossed his arms across the table. “So you’re telling me you’re going to handle this like a child and not come to hang out with your friends simply because you feel embarrassed?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” You stood up, feeling satisfied with that being the end of the conversation. Just as you waved at him and started to walk off to your class, you heard Renjun call, “We’ll see about that.”

Lunch rolled around that day, and you began to feel like this was the longest Monday you had ever experienced in your life. However, the last classes of your day were the most laid back- one of them being theatre- so you had hope that it would be more fun than draining.

“-And then I proceeded to whoop his ass in the next three rounds,” Donghyuck’s proud voice travelled over to your ears as you approached your signature lunch table. The way your high school was set up, half of the lunch seating area was in the cafeteria and the other half was situated outside under ramadas. Since freshman year, your group of friends opted to sit outside, no matter how hot or cold the weather could become.

“Dude, how are you going to sit there and lie to my face? You did not win those rounds in Mario Kart. First of all, who the hell plays with Koopa Troopa?”

“Me, asshole. And guess what? I kicked your ass with him!”

“Oh, shut up! I want a rematch as soon as possible-”

“Bring it on, wannabe wario-”

“Y/N! I’m so glad you’re here,” Lisa announced, drawing the attention of the others. She got up to hug you briefly before whispering, “I’m so tired of their arguments. They’re so ridiculous.”

“We can hear you, you know. We’re right next to you,” Donghyuck deadpanned, staring at her as he sipped on his chocolate milk.

She just rolled her eyes before patting the seat next to her. “It’s days like these that I wish we had classes together. Today is so long,” She complained.

You definitely agreed, reaching over and ruffling Jisung’s hair who grumbled and kept his attention on the game he was playing on his phone. “I bet this will be recorded as the longest Monday in the book of world records.”

“Hey Y/N. Where’s Ren? I need to borrow a dollar.”

“He’s working on a project in the library. He’s not eating lunch today.”

“Hyuck, you need to stop mooching off all of us. We’re not going to be around forever. Learn how to save money,” Mark pointed out, spreading ketchup across his burger. Donghyuck began scarfing down his fries, mulling over Mark’s words.

“I have money. I just leave it at home so I’m not tempted to spend it.”

“Then proceed to spend our money?” Mark amusingly said, shaking his head.

“It’s not like you guys tell me no.”

“He’s right,” Lisa said, shrugging her shoulders. Mark opened his mouth to speak, but decided against it. You just shook your head, slipping your headphones in and turning on one of your favorite playlists. You bobbed your head to the music, your thoughts trailing to other things, like a movie you recently watched and the cute boy you saw at the grocery store the other day. Your thoughts halted when you heard Lisa mutter, “Here comes lover boy and his princess.” The last word, she said bitterly, because as much as she pretended to be bothered by Jeno and his girlfriend, she actually found them adorable and just felt sad about her last relationship failing.

“Hey guys,” Chaeyoung said softly, waiting for Jeno to place his stuff down at the table before following suit.

“Hey Chaeyoung. How’s our boy doing? Is he being a pain in the ass like usual?” Donghyuck asked casually, smiling in the face of Jeno’s glare.

“You’re so annoying,” Mark commented loudly, his smile a contradiction to his words.

Chaeyoung looked genuinely confused, her eyes trailing to Jeno before looking back at Donghyuck. “No. He’s always kind and sweet to me.”

“That’s new.” Jisung speaks up for the first time, his gaze glancing up shyly over his glasses before returning to his game. Jisung was the youngest out of your group of friends, only a sophomore. It made you sad that he was going to be left here for two more years while the majority of your friends, including you, would be starting the next chapter of your lives in the upcoming months. At least he had Chenle for another year though, since he was a junior.

“Don’t listen to them. They just like to tease.” Jeno smiled at her sweetly, before shooting everyone a glare.

Lunch went on for a few moments in quiet chatter, everyone finishing up slowly and one by one. Jeno and Chaeyoung were lost in their own little worlds, Jeno taking the time to shower her in affection and spending almost every moment making her laugh. Donghyuck and Mark had their heads bowed together, looking at who knows what on Donghyuck’s phone and snickering here and there. Lisa would walk away from the table to go talk to other people then come back and talk to you for a little before heading to the vending machine and disappearing for longer than necessary. Jisung opted to read a book after getting bored of his game. This was your guys’ typical lunch routine.

“Where’s Chenle? And Jaemin?”

At the mention of Jaemin, your ears perked up, actually wondering the same as Mark about where he was at. You hadn’t seen or heard from him all weekend and was looking forward to seeing him.

“Chenle wanted to play soccer so he’s at the field right now,” Jisung quietly said, flipping a page from his book.

“I don’t know where Jaemin is. Y/N, do you know?” Jeno inquired. You two were the closest to Jaemin, so naturally one of you would typically know the answer to the question. However, you didn’t know either so you just shrugged. “He’ll show up eventually. That’s how he is,” Jeno said with finality before turning to Chaeyoung.

“Jaemin owes me a candy bar. He lost that bet on Friday, and I am expecting my damn candy bar-”

“Is there ever a moment where you’re not demanding something?” Mark said exasperatedly.

Suddenly, two hands covered your vision, and you reached up to feel them. They were soft and familiar, and you felt an uncontrollable smile grow on your lips. “Guess who,” a voice sang as you recognized it immediately. Even though he was trying to mask it by using some ridiculous high-pitched voice, you could recognize him anywhere.

“Nana! We missed you!” Donghyuck hollered, Jaemin’s presence instantly disappearing and you swiveled your head to catch him pushing Donghyuck’s arms off of him.

“Thanks, Hyuck. I missed you guys too even though I saw you this morning.” He looked down at you then, gracing you with a soft smile as he reached down and tugged your ear. That was his thing- or both your things. You don’t know when or where it started, but it was his way of saying he was happy to see you. It was never hard, only gentle, but it always made you happy when he tugged on your ear.

“Good to see your face. Today has been painfully long,” He muttered, taking the seat beside you.

“Aye. That’s Lisa’s seat.”

“You mean ‘Ghost Lisa’? Because I don’t see her sitting here now.” Jaemin silenced Donghyuck immediately, causing Mark to laugh at his priceless facial expression. You watched as Jeno and Jaemin did a handshake as a greeting, the latter flashing a friendly smile at Chaeyoung before turning to you. He raised his eyebrows at you before inquiring, “Why so quiet? You’re usually talking Mark’s ear off. Actually, I take that back. These days you’re as quiet as Mouse over here,” he gestured to Jisung by hooking his thumb towards him.

Jisung sent him an unamused look before returning his attention to his book.

You just shrugged. “Guess I’m not in the mood these days to talk.”

He furrowed his eyebrows, chewing the bite he just took of his burger before swallowing and saying, “What have you done to Y/N? You’re not her.”

You just tsked, pushing his head slightly before causing him to chuckle and shake his head. You guys sat in silence for a while, enjoying each other’s presence. Lisa came back, greeted Jaemin, then grabbed her stuff and went off who knows where. Since Jaemin was there, you didn’t really feel like listening to music anymore so you put your phone and headphones away, yet you still sat in silence.

You had known Jaemin the longest. You met him freshman year, and became friends within the three weeks you first met. He was so easy to get along with, at least you thought so. He was witty, but not in a rude way. He loved to make you laugh, and vice versa- and you two constantly laughed about the same things since you had a similar sense of humor. He was shy once in a while, but vocal about his opinions when the situation called for it. He had a way of being attentive that it felt intimate, like there was no one around but you when you were talking. He was amazing in every sense of the word, and just like Renjun, you missed him like crazy when he wasn’t around. Without him, these last four years would have been one hundred times worse.

“What are you thinking about?” He asked, his eyes flickering to you before returning to his yogurt he was currently eating.

“You,” you calmly voiced, his eyes widening at the one word. You watched as his face flushed, as he spluttered, trying to gather his words coherently. You relayed it back to how you must have acted this morning when Renjun had told you Hyunjin was joining your friends on Friday to go eat.

You reached out and squeezed Jaemin’s forearm gently before adding, “Relax. I was just thinking about what you said the other day. When you mentioned going on a small trip with your family. Like camping, right? Is that still happening?”

Jaemin had taken the time you were speaking to pull himself together, returning to his normal self. You oddly found it super adorable how randomly flustered he had gotten. He was the most composed guy you knew, at least majority of the time. “Yeah, that’s still happening. I’m leaving school early on Friday to hit the road. I sort of don’t want to go, but oh well. I’ll be back by Tuesday.”

“You’ll have fun. Don’t be bummed out.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Jaemin scraped at his yogurt cup, his thoughts overtaking his mind, it seemed, before he checked his phone and cursed. “I need to go see my counselor. I’ll see you in class, okay?”

He gathered his stuff quickly before saying goodbye to everyone and leaving. It was just like him to see his counselor every waking moment he got, and you envied how dedicated he was to the task. College was nearing in the future quicker than you would like to admit, and though you were practically jumping with excitement for graduation, you still felt the inevitable goodbyes starting to weigh on your chest. But you had almost an entire semester left, and you were going to cherish what little time you had with your friends until you went your separate ways.

“Hey, so who’s going on Friday?” Jeno said, glancing around the table. “If anyone needs it, I’ll pick you up.”

“Aren’t we going straight after school?” Donghyuck asked, confused.

“I don’t know. Who planned this?”

“Chenle.”

“And of course he’s not here. Okay, so who’s riding with me to the pizza place?”

“I will,” Donghyuck said, then added, “Lisa probably will too. Jisung, what about you?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” He quietly said, turning to you, “Are you coming, Y/N?”

“Um,” You said, looking for the words as everyone’s gaze turned to you.

“What do you mean, ‘Um’?” Donghyuck sassily asked, raising his eyebrow as if he were your mother accusing you of lying.

“I don’t think I am.”

Mark immediately looked concerned, knowing you never liked to miss out on hanging out- when pizza was involved, it was most definitely a yes from you. “Is it about money? I got you covered if it is.”

“No! It’s not that… I’m just… not feeling it?”

Everyone grew quiet, gazes being exchanged between everyone.

“What?” You asked, looking around and feeling as if you missed something.

“You? Not feeling pizza?” Jeno offered, with no emotion laced into the words.

“You’re lying. Tell us the truth,” Mark announced.

“Is Mark pissing you off these days? Is he annoying you? Because I understand then if that’s the reason you’re not going- Ow! Mark, that hurt!”

“It was meant to hurt, dumbass! Cut it out! You’re not even funny! Y/N loves me! Right, Y/N?” He said the last part, sounding hopeful and a little self-conscious.

You shook your head and said, “It’s nothing like that. And of course I love you, Mark. I just... Got a lot going on. I’m tired and I want to take the weekend to de-stress.” You’re not necessarily sure why you didn’t tell them it was because you were embarrassed that Hyunjin was coming, because you knew Mark would more or less understand and Jisung supported mostly everything you did. And you knew Jeno would probably brush it off, leaving Donghyuk to make fun of you. But you just couldn’t bring yourself to explain the situation. And the only ones who technically knew about it were Renjun, Mark, and Jaemin.

“Well, if you change your mind, let me know,” Mark said seriously before smiling and proudly saying, “Besides, we all know it’s going to be lit in my car if it’s just Chenle and me.”

“Excuse me while I go barf,” Jeno said. Mark threw a carrot at him, causing you to laugh and allow your thoughts of your embarrassment fade away.

It was your final class of the day, and you had to admit, it indeed was the longest Monday you had ever had. Of course, you were being dramatic, but now you were tired and grumpy and your last class happened to be math, your least favorite subject. However, the upside was one of your favorite people happened to be in this class.

See, you had depended on Renjun to make your class right after lunch fun, but he spent whatever chance he got to pester you about coming on Friday, which in turn made you snap at him and cause him to give you attitude back. Eighth hour dragged on too, and here you were at your last class. Your class with Jaemin.

“Hey,” Jaemin’s bright smile directly contrasted with the tone of the day, his eyebrows raising at your grumble in response. You slid into the desk next to his, your head finding its way to the cool desktop. “You’re looking rough.”

“Because I am. Today sucked. And we have four more to go until the weekend.”

“Think of it as three. Friday never really feels like much work, does it?” You moved your head to rest your cheek on the desktop, so you could view Jaemin instead. He was looking right back at you, his pretty features quite literally knocking the breath out of you. You couldn’t fathom sometimes just how beautiful this guy actually was, and whenever you pointed it out he would just brush it off. Watching you silently for a moment, he proceeded to make a silly face and cause you to laugh, adorning a smile to brighten up his facial features.

“Attagirl. That’s better. What’s got you so down?” He asked genuinely, leaning on his hand and turning on that attentive charm that secretly you were a sucker for; you didn’t know how he did it, but he was another shade of what it means to be a friend. A beautiful friend.

“I don’t know. First off, it’s a Monday. Mondays tend to suck,” Jaemin simply hummed in agreement, “And school’s been kinda rough in general anyways. I just keep having this sinking feeling that somehow I am going to mess everything up, fail every class, my college retracts my enrollment, and then I drop out and get a job where I miserably work for the rest of my life,” You took in a deep breath after that statement, feeling oddly relieved for expressing what sounded like a ridiculous worry.

Jaemin took in your words for a moment, the minute bell ringing signalling there’s one minute left until class begins. He reached over then, gently caressing the side of your head before patting it and saying, “Y/N, I know how you are. You tend to get caught up in irrational worries. I know you’re struggling with classes right now, and I see how much your stress is taking a toll on you. You probably think no one notices, but I do. We all do, but everyone else probably won’t say something until it’s too noticeable. I’m not like everyone else though.”

He leaned closer then, your heart suddenly stopping as you unconsciously held your breath, not expecting his close proximity. His head was tilted at an angle to match your resting head atop the desk, his facial expression more serious than you’re typically used to, and his eyes immediately drew you in- not that you weren’t listening before.

“You’re one of the most resilient people I know. Don’t forget I’ve known you for four years, seen you when you’re struggling with stress and schoolwork. And you always pull through. This time isn’t any different. Keep your head up and keep it on straight,” He proceeded to tug on your ear and flash you a gentle smile, your throat suddenly feeling dry at his actions, “We’re almost at the finish line. Before you know it, we’re going to be graduating and moving on. And I know you can’t wait, because I can’t either.”

The bell rang then, seeming to signal the end of the conversation and begin your teacher’s lesson. You raised your head and directed your gaze to the teacher at the front of the classroom, your attention nowhere near the math she was writing on the board. Because for whatever reason, you couldn’t describe why your heart was racing and your throat felt so dry.

“I must be going crazy,” You whispered, feeling uneasy at the thoughts surrounding Jaemin, and why your heart reacted to that. In the end, you just decided to ignore it.

After the bell rang, Jaemin walked you down the stairs and to Chenle’s locker, waiting for the latter to meet you there and walk to the bus with you guys. You guys stood in silence, but it was comfortable as he looked around at the people walking by and you scrolled through social media on your phone.

“I heard from Ren that you’re not going to eat pizza on Friday. That’s not like you,” Jaemin said with innocence. You stopped scrolling, not feeling the annoyance that came with Renjun’s pestering. You blamed it on Jaemin’s tone and the way he executed his sentence, not because it was Jaemin himself. Definitely not because it was just Jaemin.

“It is like me. Because I plan to binge-watch some criminal show and eat ice cream for dinner.”

Jaemin tilted his head, looking at you curiously before retorting, “Yeah. I suppose you’re right. You want to tell me the reason you don’t want to go?”

You sighed. “You already know why. You don’t have to play innocent.”

“I’m not playing innocent. I don’t know your reason why. Yeah, I heard what Ren thinks is the reason. But I want to hear it straight from your mouth. And you know how he is when it comes to explaining things that upset him. It’s more complaining than about the actual situation.”

You leaned your head back on the locker you were standing in front of, cursing Chenle for walking so slow and probably chatting up Jisung about some show they’re both watching.

“Do I have to?”

He looked away from you, quiet for a moment before saying gently, “Of course not. But I think there’s more to your side of the story. And maybe you’re not as dramatic as the situation is painting you to be.”

You had to admit the situation did seem dramatic, and Jaemin wasn’t one to sugarcoat how he looked at a situation. So you decided maybe it was a good idea to confide in him and see if he thought you were overreacting. “I’m sure you know that Hyunjin is tagging along,” You waited for his nod before continuing, “Which, I mean, is totally fine. I have nothing against him personally. It is a little weird to me considering Ren and Mark don’t know him too well and just decided, ‘Hey. Let’s invite a stranger to hang out with our friends.’ But I mean, I guess Mark does know him because they played basketball and baseball together. Whatever. Point is, I have nothing against the guy. He seems cool, I guess. I just…”

“I’m assuming this is about what happened a few months ago?”

Your phone dinged, and you looked down to see a message from Chenle letting you know he was riding with Jeno today to run some errands. You let Jaemin know and you guys began your walk to the buses, replaying his question in your head before answering. “Yes. I guess that’s really it. Look, I know it might sound like I am being a big baby about it. I’m choosing my embarrassment over hanging out with my friends. But if I could control my emotions, I would. Before I approached Hyunjin in the past, I used to never see him around. And now it’s like life is messing with my head. Because I see him everywhere around school now. And he seems to recognize me too, but I just ignore him and try and get far as quick as possible. The embarrassment is unreal.”

Jaemin nodded as you talked, and you took his silence as a comfort, causing you to feel comfortable enough to continue. “I could go out with them on Friday. But I would just feel self-conscious, and worried Hyunjin would bring it up and then embarrass me more. Then Donghyuck would find out and never let go of it and I just- I don’t want to deal with it.”

You let yourself end there, because you didn’t know what to say anymore. It was quiet for a while, the bus stop nearing as you wondered what Jaemin was thinking. You peaked at him, his dark brown hair resting on his hair in fluffy strands, looking particularly bed-headish today. You took note of his slightly tired face, and wondered how he could be so lively on days where he was tired.

“May I tell you what I think is actually the problem? And you can correct me if I’m wrong.”

His words caught you off guard, not sure where he was going with this, because after all you didn’t feel any other way about it. At least, you thought. You motioned for him to continue, him proceeding to nod and collect his thoughts before continuing.

“I think… You might still like Hyunjin. Or, have a crush on him is probably a better phrase,” You gave him an incredulous look but he held a hand up as if to to signal for you to wait, “And that’s probably why you feel so passionate about not going. I know how you are. If a situation affects you emotionally, you will retract yourself from said situation. Simple as that. If you didn’t care about it, then you wouldn’t go to the extremes of being so adamant about not going.”

You immediately shook your head. “But it’s not because I’m still crushing on him. It’s because I’m-”

“Embarrassed. Yeah, I get that. But you have been embarrassed all the time around us and that has never stopped you from hanging out with us.”

“I don’t personally know this guy though. What if he brings it up in front of everyone?”

“What if he does? It’s not like you made a fool of yourself. You told him if you wanted to get to know each other. He said yes. Then he went back on his word and told Mark to not set him up with anyone. That’s on him. Why are you letting a stranger hold you back from hanging out with your friends?”

“And why is everyone pestering me about going? It’s not that serious.”

“Exactly.” He poked your temple, causing you to swat his hand away and that familiar smile to creep on his face. As you reached the bus stop, you turned to him and met his gaze, his eyebrows raising as if to ask you a silent question. He broke the silence instead, letting you know what questioning thought was plaguing him. “So you don’t like him then?”

“No.” In your head, it had sounded firm, but it sounded unsure coming out of your mouth. His face became serious, and it weirded you out, because he was usually smiling. It gave you an odd feeling in your stomach.

“If you do, there’s nothing wrong with it. It would make more sense, because then the embarrassment would be justified. And if that’s the case, then you should explain that to Ren so he stops being so annoying. You should also consider maybe going and showing this Hyunjin guy what he decided to miss out on. You’re pretty amazing, after all.” His words were nonchalant, but his face stern. That feeling that crept up on you earlier in class started to come back again, and it almost felt similar to being sick in a weird way. Your stomach flipped, watching Jaemin drone on about the situation, his words hardly registering in your mind anymore. Your throat felt dry again, your eyes traveling the expanse of his straight nose, following his dark and very slightly curved eyebrows. His hair was a bit on the messy side today, which was unlike him, but you disregarded that. He was truly beautiful. “Y/N? Are you listening to me?”

You blinked, the feeling fading away as quickly as it came.

“I hear what you were saying,” It wasn’t a complete lie. “And I guess you’re sort of right.”

“So you do like him,” He tilted his head, his eyes trailing to the pavement beneath your guys’ feet. His words sent a panic fleeting through, jumping to deny it.

“No, Jaemin- I can’t like him. I don’t even know the guy. Gosh, this is so frustrating. Why do I have to keep having this conversation? I thought you were the person that understood me the most. Don’t you think I would tell you if I actually liked him? If it’s so important for everyone that I show up on Friday, I will.”

As if on cue, the bus turned the corner and slowly made its approach.

Jaemin opened his mouth to speak, but you held your hand up, wanting the conversation to end. “It’s okay, Jaemin. You and Ren are right. It’s not that big of a deal. I’ll just pretend that nothing happened and I’ll pretend I’ve never talked to Hyunjin before Friday. It’ll be a fresh start.”

He just shook his head, a sigh of exasperation slipping past his lips. “You’re missing the point here. Of course.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? The vibe I’m getting from you is that I’m being dramatic and I should get over it and just go on Friday.” The bus rolled up then, and you were never more grateful than now. Just as you turned to climb into the bus, you caught Jaemin motioning by waving his hand over his head and uttering, “Went right over your head, of course. Unbelievable.”

And as you boarded the bus, and took your seat, watching through the window as he stalked off in the direction of his house, you couldn’t shake the nasty feeling that was left behind by the conversation you just had. And on your ride home, it was Jaemin on your mind. Unbeknownst to you, it was not the first time he was plaguing your thoughts. You couldn’t shake whatever it was you were feeling, all you knew is you didn’t like how you and Jaemin had ended off the conversation. Because that wasn’t how you guys were at all. And you hoped it wouldn’t start being like that. You were proud of your dynamic with Jaemin, and it wasn’t like you guys to end a conversation on a sour note. But maybe you were overthinking it. Maybe you were always overthinking about Jaemin, and you just didn’t know it.

It was around 11:30 that night when you received a text from Jaemin. He was saved under Minnie Mouse, because you thought you were clever as a Freshman and you never changed it considering you enjoyed how it made Jaemin cringe.

Minnie Mouse:

Hey. You up?

You:

You know I am. I’m watching a show on my phone. But I am surprisingly getting sleepy. It’s so early tho…

He didn’t respond for a few minutes. You shook the feeling off, and tried to focus on your show, but you immediately clicked the notification when he responded almost fifteen minutes later.

Minnie Mouse:

I’m sorry about earlier. I was being really intrusive, which isn’t like me. I stand by some of what I said, but the way I worded it was bad. If you don’t want to go, don’t go. Don’t listen to Ren, and don’t listen to me. I understand what you meant by everything you said, and if it were me, I’m sure I wouldn’t want to put myself in that situation either. Remember not to put your life on pause though based on your embarrassments. If that is the only thing keeping you from going, then think about it a little more before outright rejecting the idea. But you’re one of my best friends, and I don’t want you to be miserable on Friday. Again, I’m sorry.

You read it over a few times, feeling anxious for some reason. Your eyes skimmed it, continued to re-skim it before trying to type out a response. However, everything you tried to write didn’t sound right or it was awkward, so it took some time to eventually be semi-satisfied with what was written. You sent it and tossed your phone to the side, wondering why you kept replaying that moment with Jaemin earlier. Seeing his frustration. Being the cause of his frustration. You didn’t like it at all. You liked making him smile, making him laugh. You even liked seeing him flustered during lunch. You didn’t ever want to be the reason behind him being upset. You reached for your phone slowly upon hearing it vibrate.

You:

You don’t have to apologize, Jaemin. You were being yourself. You were curious about why I was being so dramatic. And everything you said made sense. Though I don’t agree with everything you said, you had a point. I did a lot of thinking since our conversation earlier. And I’ll go on Friday. I think even without talking to you, I might’ve reached this conclusion myself. Maybe I wouldn’t have… you tend to be my voice of reason when mine isn’t working. I think I just needed to take a moment and get over my embarrassment.

You:

Honestly, it was months ago. I’m sure he doesn’t even remember. And if he does, it’s not a big deal. And I do want to have pizza. I want to hang out with my best friends. I’ll just treat him like one of you guys. Be friendly. And there’s no reason for me to halt my chances of having fun just because of a cringey moment in my past. Thanks, Nana. Sometimes the sense you knock into me is one of a kind <3 Ren definitely would’ve just made it worse haha

Minnie Mouse:

It’s what I’m here for, to knock some sense into you.

Minnie Mouse:

But honestly, don’t force yourself to go if you don’t want to. What you want and what makes you happy is the main priority.

You:

This will make me happy.

Minnie Mouse:

Good. I want you to be happy.

You stared down at his text, your fingers hovering over the screen. You licked your lips in thought, wondering why you felt stuck at his words. In fact, you hardly ever had a conversation with Jaemin where you didn’t know what to say. Conversation always flowed naturally with him. Today really must have been an off day for you.

You:

Likewise, Nana. I think I’m going to get some shuteye now. Goodnight. Sweet dreams.

Minnie Mouse:

Sweet dreams, Y/N.

You prepped for bed, replaying the conversation in your head. You thought back to today in class, when Jaemin heard what you thought were ridiculous worries, but made you feel sensible. He comforted you about worries you never voiced aloud. He said what you needed to hear, and he was always good at that. He smiled his dazzling smile at you, granting you a stress reliever by the simple tug of your ear. He was incredible in every sense of the word, and you were so grateful to have him.

As you laid in bed, the last thing on your mind was Jaemin. You were too tired to notice, or perhaps it was something you never bothered to notice at all.

A couple days later, it was Wednesday and it was the dead middle of the week. A day that your friends sometimes like to utilize as an excuse for desserts after school.

“Hump day!” Chenle hollered, pumping his fist into the air as you all walked towards the parking lot.

“Hell yeah! I’ve been craving a banana split all week,” Donghyuck groaned, dragging his feet.

“You’re a banana split,” Chenle called back to him.

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Okay, who’s riding with who?”

“I’m going with Mark!” Chenle declared, dashing over to the passenger side of Mark’s small little white car. Jisung silently followed him.

“Ride with me and Jeno?” Jaemin asked you quietly, his arm falling across your shoulders. You froze, instantly stiffening up at the gesture. You gazed up at him, a small smile curving his lips and his eyes as attentive as usual.

Your throat felt constricted for a moment, before you felt your body relax and a smile grace your own. “Of course. Is that even a question?” Something strange happened then. Jaemin’s small smile faded, his face taking on an odd look. You didn’t realize your close proximity, but his face was closer than you expected. You waited for something, anything from him, but only watched as he wiped the odd look off his face and turned his attention to Jeno, shouting at him to hurry up and kiss Chaeyoung goodbye already. His arm was still slung around your shoulders. And you found yourself too lazy to look away from his face. At least that’s what you thought.

“Hey. I’ll ride with Jeno too. So go with Mark, Ren.”

“No! I was already here!” Renjun said sassily, leaning back on the car to make a point. Lisa stepped toward him and crossed her arms. That didn’t faze him, however, and he only proceeded to straighten himself out. Their height difference was very slight, but Ren still managed to make himself seem taller as he looked down at her over his nose.

“I don’t care if you were here already. I want to ride with Y/N.”

“No one’s stopping you.”

“It would be crowded with you in here. So ride with them.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were my boss.”

She rubbed the bridge of her nose, sighing in frustration. “Why do you have to be so annoying all the time?”

He grinned. “The feeling’s mutual.”

Jaemin shook his head and stepped in, placing a hand on Ren’s shoulder. “Dude, just ride with Mark. Before you kill the vibe for everyone.”

“What?! How am I- Whatever. I don’t have the time for this,” He strode over to Mark’s car without another word, sliding into the backseat. Both you and Jaemin watched as Mark pulled the car out, Chenle rolling the window down and blasting the music, shouting, “Y/N! This is my jam! This is the song I was telling you about! I- Stop, Ren! Anyways-” By that time, Mark was pulling out the parking lot and he couldn’t shout at you anymore.

You smiled fondly, shaking your head and glancing at Jaemin who was watching you with an emotionless look. You just brushed it off, wondering where Jeno was. Lisa must’ve been wondering the same thing because she continuously kept on calling him, with no luck in him answering.

“Literally all the guys we hang out with are so frustrating! If it’s so hard for him and Chaeyoung to stop sucking faces, then bring her along!”

Jaemin responded with, “I’m not frustrating. I’m the coolest guy you’ll ever meet.”

“Sure. Keep dreaming, sweetheart,” She said.

“Wonder what’s bothering her,” Jaemin uttered near your ear, his breath fanning over your ear and over a sliver of your neck that your sweater left exposed. You looked up at him, watching him as he watched Lisa with curiosity. You started to notice just how much you stared at Jaemin these days, and you didn’t know what to make of it. You just wrote it off on being attentive to him constantly talking.

“There you are! Let’s go! I want a burger.”

Jeno jogged over, whistling and smiling like the giddy lover boy he was.

“I’m surprised your lips aren’t back with Chaeyoung,” Jaemin commented, causing you to laugh. He shot you a smile, but Jeno wasn’t too happy with the comment, leaving Jaemin locked outside the passenger seat for longer than necessary.

The ride there was relatively quick, but Jaemin kept stealing glances at you, a smile on his lips every single time. Lisa and Jeno filled the silence with their chatter and endless banter, but it was like you and Jaemin continued to have a silent conversation of your own. Whenever Jeno would say something that could have a double meaning, Jaemin would glance back at you with wide eyes, as if to say, “Did you catch that?” and you would shake your head and smile as if to say, “I did. And it was hilarious.” And if Lisa would say something weird or more than unnecessary, he would send you a, “Did she really just say that?” by raised eyebrows or a pointed look. And you would either shrug, shake your head, or just rub the side of your head in mild annoyance. But none of those moments were your favorite, no. It was the brief quiet moments. With soft music playing low on the speakers and floating in the air of the car. And the A/C blowing softly, to keep it cold enough that you weren’t freezing in your sweater. And there wasn’t any reason for Jaemin to look over his shoulder at you, but he would anyways. He would just send you a soft smile, his eyes light and carefree. The last time he looked back, when you were nearing the diner where you were to get your desserts, his lips weren’t curved with a smile. His expression wasn’t serious, but it was attentive as usual. However, it wasn’t like it usually is. He eyebrows were slightly drawn together in thought, his lips a bit pursed. His eyes scanned your face, before his lips parted and his expression relaxed. When his eyes came to rest on your own, he was shameless about his staring, and for some reason you weren’t bothered nor embarrassed. You boldly met his own gaze, holding it and letting the music travel to your ears.

No one spoke in the car. Nothing was heard but the soft music and the soft blow of the A/C. And you and Jaemin were having a conversation in a language you couldn’t decipher, but couldn’t get enough of as you let the moment wash over you. None of you couldn’t find it in you to look away, and it felt more intimate than any other time you guys held each other’s gaze. You didn’t know what it meant, but you knew that whatever it was, you wanted more of it.

Jeno spoke to Jaemin, and Jaemin answered him, glancing at him briefly before looking back at you. His eyebrows drew together again, his face more on the stern side, which was unlike him. You wondered what you looked like to him. Jeno continued talking to him, and Jaemin had no choice but to look away. And when he did, it was like you could breathe again. All you could think was, you didn’t know why you were feeling this way for Jaemin, and you didn’t know what you were going to do.

Thursday night. It was around midnight this time when you got a text from him. Lucky for him, you were wide awake. And you didn’t want to admit to yourself that it was because he was plaguing your thoughts.

Minnie Mouse:

You awake?

You:

Of course. What’s up?

Minnie Mouse:

Wondering why I procrastinate like an idiot. I’m nowhere near finished packing for my trip tomorrow.

You:

Sucks to suck.

Minnie Mouse:

Haha. Real funny. Want to keep me company?

You stared down at the text, confused. Another text came in from him though, and it made more sense, a smile uncontrollably reaching your lips.

Minnie Mouse:

By video call, I mean.

You:

Warning, I look pretty rough. After 11, I start resembling a hot mess, instead of the solid 11 that I am.

Instead of responding, you figured he signed into his account on his computer, so you followed suit. Sure enough, after you logged in you saw the little verification that showed he was online. You called him, waiting for him to answer, which didn’t take long whatsoever.

You waited for the call the connect, your heart rate picking up for seemingly no good reason. You glanced at yourself, seeing how tired and messy you looked. But this was Jaemin, and he had seen you at both your best and worst. When the call connected, you first noticed how his room was lit up by the light being on. His computer was set on top of his desk, which basically let you see a poster-clad wall that also had award plaques and shelves with books, trophies, and other things lined at the top of the wall. You could see a slit of his bed to the left and a small percentage of his walk-in closet that was cracked open with the light on in the back right corner. You always adored seeing his dark blue walls, longing for the same color to be for your room. Instead your room was a boring and dull brown.

The second thing you noticed was how even though it was late, Jaemin looked good. His hair was swept up and off his forehead, sticking up here and there in odd places but mostly in order. He was adorned in a slightly baggy black t-shirt and some gray sweats. He was leaned down in view of the camera. He smiled upon seeing you and waved, then started to move around his room, carrying things from out of view towards his bed.

“I see you at least started the process of packing,” You said, carrying your computer to your bed and treading over to your lights, hitting them, before walking back to your bed. You sat on top of your comforter, watching him move in and out of view. You spent some time in the dark using the computer screen’s light to study your nails. You altered between watching Jaemin and letting your thoughts occupy your attention. A chunk of your video call was just spent in a comfortable silence, with an occasional comment from Jaemin here and there. You enjoyed this, and you liked this time with Jaemin. As selfish as it sounded, it wasn’t often that you got to spend time alone with him. So you were going to drink it in as much as possible. It was because you enjoyed your talks with him, not because you were into him. That’s what you were telling yourself.

You glanced down at your pajamas, pulling your black hoodie sleeves over your hands

to keep them warm. You started getting sleepy, but blinked it away. You wanted to keep Jaemin company through the tedious process of packing. So you moved around on the bed, switching positions. You eventually decided on drawing your knees into your torso and wrapping your arms around your legs. You laid your head on top of your knees, slowly falling asleep.

“Y/N,” Jaemin sang, your head slowly raising and spotting his facial features close to the computer. You didn’t understand how he looked so rejuvenated as his face brightened at the sight of your face. “If you’re sleepy, you should get some rest.”

“I want to keep you company, Nana.”

He looked down in what you thought was shyness, a shy chuckle falling past his lips. He ran his hand through his hair, puzzling you immediately at how good he looked this late at night and how you never noticed that this hairstyle fit him so well.

“As much as I want you to be here with me, I don’t want to be the reason you’re falling asleep in class tomorrow.”

Your breath felt like it disappeared into thin air at his words, but you shook it off and blamed it on sleepiness. “No, I’m good. I promise.”

He just took a moment to look at you, before resting his head on his hand and puckering his lips slightly in thought. “Let’s talk then. If you’re going to stay up with me, I don’t want you to be miserable as you fight off sleep. I want to make your night.”

He said things so innocently, yet they held such strange meaning to you that you just knew would replay over and over in your mind long after the conversation ended. Something about Jaemin was changing the way you looked at things, that way you looked at him. Or maybe you always did look at him this way, it just took a bit of time for your mind to catch up to your heart. Whatever it was, you knew you were going to keep it to yourself.

“Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

Jaemin simply smiled again and the continued his packing, calling out, “So are you looking forward to tomorrow?”

“What about tomorrow?”

“The new pizza place. Hanging out with everyone.”

“Oh. That.” You actually hadn’t thought about it much, and looking back on it, you were only a little nervous to say the least. You would’ve felt way better if Jaemin was going to be there, but you would live. You figured you would just spend your time talking with everyone. “It would be better if you were going to be there. But I’ll survive. I hope the pizza’s good.”

“I heard it was,” Jaemin was quiet for a moment, and you just figured he was distracted but upon speaking again, you figured it was because he was probably thinking of how to word his next question, “So you’re feeling okay about Hyunjin being there?”

You rubbed your hands in thought, massaging them as if they held the answer to your question. Your heart jumped as you heard Jaemin zip up his suitcase then move it to the floor. You waited for him, letting him finish things before turning out his lights and getting into bed like you.

His surroundings were shrouded in darkness, his face lit up by the computer screen. You couldn’t decide if it made him look angelice or eerie, but when he graced you with another smile, you decided it was definitely angelic. He was on his side, his head in his hand. And you realized you indeed were screwed, and you were definitely crushing hard on your friend Na Jaemin.

“So. Hyunjin?”

“Right. I mean, I guess it feels just like it did right before I first approached him the first time.”

“Oh. Really?” Jaemin asked quietly, his face serious.

“Of course, it’s a little different. Considering I’m not showing him my interest in him. It just feels a little nerve-wracking.”

“I would feel the same. It’s not everyday your closest friends invite someone who you used to have feelings for.”

“That’s true.”

You basked in silence for a moment, both you and Jaemin looking at each other through the computer screens. Although you guys were a distance away from each other, in different houses and merely seeing each other through the use of technology, the moment felt as intimate as the one in the car. Maybe even more so now that Jeno and Lisa weren’t around.

“You know,” Jaemin’s voice got quieter, and you may have imagined it being a little more deeper than usual, “You run through my mind. A lot.”

Your heart rate picked up, gauging his facial expression for any signs of joking. Your mind was racing, trying to decode his words, figure out his angle, read his intentions. But it was late at night, it felt wrong to kill the moment by overthinking, so even though you may regret in the future, you decided to let the late night tired buzz take over and let you speak your mind without holding back.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one.”

He hummed, his eyes getting sleepy and his words becoming more like a lull. “It’s hard not to think about someone like you.”

You felt like your appearance directly mirrored his, but you wanted to soak in his peaceful features, so through your sleepy daze, your eyes did its usual sweep of his facial features. You thought to yourself how could you possibly not be head over heels for this guy.

“Who wouldn’t be crazy over you?”

His eyes were closed now, his breaths deep and slow. You thought he fell asleep, so you slowly moved your mouse to hover over the end call button. Just as you were going to click, you heard his soft and sleepy voice mutter, “Wait for me, Y/N.”

“What do you mean?” But he was out like a light. And you were too tired to demand an answer. So you ended the call and went to sleep.

You didn’t know what was so different about this particular Friday, but the feeling in the air was vastly different from how you felt on Monday. This day, you felt warm, filled up, and every smile felt effortless. You were dressed nicer than you normally would be at school- nothing too fancy, just a white shirt, black jeans, and your favorite boots with a jean jacket to complete the ensemble. You were wearing a necklace Renjun bought you back at the beginning of the year and your hair was up, which was unusual for you. You even had some light makeup. Your friends would probably assume it was for Hyunjin when he would come out to eat with you guys. It wasn’t for him though. It wasn’t even for Jaemin. It was for yourself.

You felt wide awake when you woke up in the morning, a feeling so foreign to you. A smile graced your lips as you picked out your outfit, as you proceeded to get ready. You were in a good mood on the way to school, when you got there, and when you sat to eat breakfast. You were happy through your morning classes all the way to lunch. And maybe it was a little because of Jaemin, but it was mostly because it felt like some weight that was previously on your chest had disappeared. Or so you thought.

“Woah, someone’s looking fancy today,” Chenle commented when you walked up with your lunch.

“Are you dolled up for someone?” Mark inquired, his curiosity imminent as he glanced up from his applesauce.

“No. Just in a good mood. That’s all.”

“Is that so? That’s weird. You’re the grumpiest person on this Earth.” Donghyuck said, earning a punch from Jisung. You smiled at Jisung before shooting a glare at Donghyuck who only muttered under his breath,

“Hey. When does Jaemin leave for his trip?” Chenle asked the table. “We have class before lunch together and he was still here.”

“He’s getting picked up right now during lunch. I’m sure he’s going to say bye then leave,” Mark informed the table. And he was right- to an extent.

Shortly afterward, Jeno and Jaemin approached the table, both their faces oddly serious. It was so strange to see not only Jaemin, someone who genuinely smiles a lot, but Jeno, the prince of smiling, with no emotions flitted across their face. Jeno had food in his hand, but you assumed Mark’s assumptions were right because Jaemin was empty-handed.

“We were just talking about you! Are you leaving now?” Chenle asked, getting up and hugging Jaemin as a form of greeting.

“Yeah, actually, I am. I just came over here to say goodbye.” You were hoping he would do his usual routine of smiling over at you and tugging your ear, but you immediately knew something was wrong when he avoided looking anywhere in the direction of where you sat at the table.

He looked painfully gorgeous today. His hair was swept up and off his forehead once again. He was wearing a button up striped shirt, the sleeves rolled up like he didn’t know the air had a chilly bite to it. It slightly confused you that he was dressed like that when he was going to camp, but you dismissed it as his outfit for school.

Everyone simultaneously stood up and began saying their goodbyes, you hanging back a little bit to be the last one to say goodbye. You were worried about the way he didn’t look at you when he approached the table, but you figured it was because his mind was on the trip, not you. You watched as he had a little chat with Mark and they clasped each other’s hands, doing a one-handed hug. Mark said something to make him laugh, but you didn’t catch what he said.

Jeno was the last one to go before you, Jaemin’s expression becoming serious again. Their voices were low, and their conversation was brief, but they still hugged. You let Jeno move to sit before you took a step in Jaemin’s direction. Hiis eyes found yours for a brief moment, his lips pursed, before he began walking backwards in the direction of the office. You froze in your tracks, your mind going blank as you realized he was leaving without saying goodbye to you. He waved slightly at you guys, hollering, “See you guys Tuesday!”

Your eyes stared in the direction he left, still staring long after he was out of view. Your friends were quiet, obviously noticing what had just occurred. You found it difficult to turn to face your friends. You told your throat to stop feeling so tight, your eyes to stop being so sensitive, and you pushed it all down. Your friends know you a little too well. As you turned to them, Mark immediately said, “I’m sure he was just in a rush, Y/N. He wouldn’t do that on purpose. Especially to you.”

But you knew better. You knew Jaemin. It was what he didn’t do that mattered. And you knew that it was completely intentional.

The moment had come, the day you had been dreading and looking forward to all at the same time. Since lunch time, you hadn’t really felt like yourself, but you pushed it all to the back of your mind and anticipated going home later that night and crashing.

Like Friday, you were walking toward the parking lot for Jeno’s car. You were accompanied by Ren and Chenle, and they were chattering about something that happened in class earlier on, but you weren’t paying attention. You couldn’t help it, but whenever your mind trailed, your brain decided to torture you and replay what happened with Jaemin during lunch.

It was so painfully obvious what it meant, and how it conveniently happened the day after what you guys had said sleepily on the video call. Not only did it hurt, it made you angry that this was the way he was addressing what you both said. You deserved more, and if he truly decided to be rude about it, then so be it. You weren’t going to let it bring you down.

Reaching the parking lot, your heart uncontrollably jumped at the sight of Hyunjin standing at Mark’s car. His stoic gaze traveled over to you and the guys, and thankfully there was no sign of recognition in his gaze. Chenle bounded over, thrusting his hand out to greet Hyunjin. You watched their exchange, and watched as Hyunjin laughed over something Chenle said. He looked nice when he laughed. You shook off the thought before getting into Jeno’s car and waiting for the rest of the night to unravel, a certain boy running through your mind.

Through the car ride, you noted how Jeno was unusually quiet, and not his usual smiley self. You connected how he was acting with the way he was during lunch and made a note to ask if was okay later, before letting your mind wander elsewhere.

Eventually you reached your destination. The pizza place, not cleverly, was called Peek-a-Pizza, and was not necessarily impressive in appearance. It was small and didn’t look busy at all, which was weird since it was relatively new, but none of that fazed you or your friends as you entered.

You quickly found a booth, your heart literally jumping to your throat when you were second to last to slide into the booth and it left Hyunjin to be the one on the outside, right next to you. You had to admit, he looked as handsome as you remembered. His hair was as dark as ink and laid across his forehead in a oddly neat way for appearing a little messy. His face was quite intimidating when he had no facial expression, and past you would have been fawning about how potentially hot he looked. He was dressed in a baggy black long sleeve and ripped black jeans. You watched through the corner of your eye as he fiddled with the shaker that held Parmesan cheese. He twisted it in his hands, his eyes trailing around the small establishment. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, his eyes found the side of your face, no expression hidden in his features whatsoever. You tried calming down your racing heart, thankful that your expression was fixed and calm. Your eyes met his, just as silent as him and waiting for his reaction.

He just snickered before looking away, leaving you perplexed and turning away. As you waited for your pizza, you chatted with Lisa and Chenle who sat across from you. Hyunjin and Mark talked mostly to each other while Jisung sat on the other side of you, which caused you to naturally strike up conversation with him.

Everything was running smoothly so far. The food arrived, and it didn’t disappoint as you all dug in, feeling hungry and satisfied with every bite. Conversation only sparked up again after people started not feeling hungry anymore. As you were grabbing another slice, your ears perked at the mention of Jaemin’s name from Donghyuck’s mouth. You hadn’t caught the beginning of the conversation, but you froze in the middle of biting your pizza when you heard what they were actually talking about.

“No, me too. I’m surprised too.” Donhyuck exclaimed, quieter than usual.

“Especially Jaemin. You know how he is. His focus is school or Y/N,” Renjun said casually. You made it seem like you weren’t listening, your head facing Lisa and Chenle, but listening on the other boys’.

“I think it’s good for him. He needs to get out there and experience life already. We’re about to graduate, and honestly I’m all for it. Dahyun is a pretty girl. And she’s funny. I think she’s perfect for him.”

“I just didn’t see this coming. I thought he told you just last week that he wasn’t interested in dating Dahyun,” Donghyuck asked, a tinge of disbelief in his tone.

“Well, his feelings must’ve changed. I’m telling you what he told me, okay? I just gave him her number and he went on his merry way. He didn’t really give me details. He just said, ‘I thought about what you said. I think I’ll go on a date with Dahyun.’”

“What about…” Renjun didn’t finish his sentence, but you felt like you were going to throw up when you saw him flicker his eyes towards you to indicate who he was talking about. Immediately their voices lowered, as if you weren’t sitting at the same table as them. You felt like you were going to cry, and you felt pathetic, but you just sat there and tried to pull it together.

“What about her?” Jeno asked.

“Come on, dude, it’s obvious. Even I see it, and I’m me,” Donghyuck offered up.

“I don’t think it’s what he wants. And her either. They’ve been close this long and nothing’s happened. He can’t wait on her forever, and the same goes for her. Maybe they’re just meant to be friends.”

You heart felt like it was ripped out of your chest by Na Jaemin, and you willed yourself not to cry like some heartbroken fool in front of all your friends. You were stuck, frozen, as you tried so hard to think about something else and not let one single tear fall. The sound of Hyunjin’s voice called your attention.

“Why did you never reach out?”

“Huh?” If he noticed your red eyes and slightly quivering lips, he didn’t say anything, and you silently thanked him as he regarded you with an emotionless look.

“You asked me if I wanted to get to know you. I agreed. And I told you to get my number from Mark. But I never got a text.”

You were blown away, absolutely astonished that he had the audacity to play oblivious. And you were already not in a good head space, so you couldn’t prevent your face and tone from hardening. “Are you seriously asking me that?”

“Does it look like I’m joking?”

“You told Mark you didn’t want him meddling in your life.” “I did.”

“So there’s your answer.”

“I didn’t tell him to not give you my number though.”

You blinked, not realizing your voice slowly began to raise, “I’m sorry, but you don’t get to play dumb in the situation. Whatever game you’re playing at, I’m not interested.”

You realized that the rest of the table had fallen silent, but you didn’t care. You opened your mouth to speak, but Hyunjin smoothly exclaimed, “Let’s talk outside.”

“Why should-”

“Because I think you need it,” He said it low enough for only you to hear. And you realized that he was indeed saving you from embarrassing yourself even further, maybe possibly even crying and making your friends upset. So before you knew it, you were stood outside with Hyunjin of all people.

You were facing the side of his body, your tears immediately falling without a foreseeable end as he kept his gaze trained ahead. He was quiet, letting you cry it out until you felt like you could calm down and stop crying. Your crying eventually turned into sniffling and then silence. It was only until there was complete silence that he spoke.

“Feel better?” He looked over at you, his face as emotionless as ever. He stood stock still, which would’ve been unsettling if it was anybody but him. It was so fitting for him. He was definitely an enigma in terms of his physical appearance.

“No.”

“Crying is usually a hit or miss when regarding your emotions.”

“Why did you help me back there?”

“I could see you were trying hard not to cry. I assumed it was because you didn’t want your friends to know. So I thought of what I could say that could get you to come ‘talk to me.’ Bingo, bringing up the big elephant between us was the answer.”

You don’t know how you managed, but you laughed at his words. He stared at you, a small quirk at the side of his lips before his deep voice filled the slowly darkening sky. The sunset glow naturally fit his facial features, but did not suit the persona he was putting up.

“You don’t have to force a laugh if you’re not happy.”

You nodded, turning your body to face the same direction as his body. You both looked out at the mostly vacant street. It was peaceful, and it was odd that out of all moments throughout the day, the moment you felt at most ease was standing with Hyunjin alone in some parking lot.

“This is odd. But not bad.”

Hyunjin quirked his head and had a grin on his lips, showing his amusement. “That’s definitely how I would describe myself.” You laughed again, glancing over at him and catching a small smile before it disappeared. Without looking at you, he said, “Whenever you’re ready, we’ll go back.”

“Okay.”

You don’t know what spurred you on; maybe it was standing with Hyunjin and being surprised that he isn’t who you expected him to be, or it was the conflicting emotions that filled you to the brim, but you impulsively pulled out your phone and typed a text that you knew Jaemin would only get when he would have service on Tuesday.

You:

Falling for you was my mistake. It’s best we forget what was said last night.

His response came sooner than you had expected- two days earlier to be exact. You came to the conclusion that he came back a day earlier, which meant that he saw your message earlier than you anticipated. On Sunday night, when you were laying in bed and heard your phone buzz, a part of you knew it was him. There was no one else who would reach out to you this late but him. You collected your thoughts as you stared into the darkness of your room, ignored your racing heart, and reached for your phone. Your assumption was right, the name Minnie Mouse lighting up your screen. Wordlessly, you clicked on the notification and read the message.

Minnie Mouse:

I’m sorry you feel that way. Thursday was… something else. But I agree It’s for the best that we forget Thursday night.

You shook your head, a painful laugh falling from your lips. You choked back your tears, wondering why you were so sad and getting angry because of it. You felt childish as you changed his name to Jaemin in your contacts, the first time in four years that it was touched. As you laid in the darkness, you couldn’t help but feel as if something had shifted between you and Jaemin. And it wasn’t good, it was the exact opposite of what you wanted. It felt like a piece of you had run off, and all you could do was sit there and put a brave face on for the spiraling situation. You were angry, because you were sure he was calm and over at his house, falling asleep without you in mind. And the saddest part was, even after what was said and done, and even though you were upset at the one person you didn’t want to ever feel this way towards, he was still running through your mind.

Falling for him was your mistake. A mistake you would secretly have to live with as he brushed it off like it was nothing.

>>> Next part <<<

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the-gay-in-the-way · 6 years

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Yo, still(not really)dying.

I just dragged my way thru some mandatory chores and now I’m back in bed trying not to make it worse than it already has become.

In the meantime, while I was filled with pain earlier, I had a thought that is deliciously horrible.

So, yknow the marriage proposal au everyone freaked out about a while ago?

The one with Patton and Virgil communicating long distance while maintaining the promise to marry each other one day?

Well, I had another idea for an alternate version of it.

Basically, during the last year before Patton and Virgil are finally supposed to meet each other face to face, Virgil decides to send Patton a special Christmas gift.

It’s a video of himself.

Which is shocking since Virgil absolutely hates being in photos and videos.

But he makes the video for Patton anyways because he knows that Patton has been waiting to see his face for years now and has been so incredibly understanding of him not showing his face anyways.

So he makes this little video of himself talking to Patton and telling him about how excited he is to finally see him in person again and how (Kap-search/explore)Thomas and Deceit are also super excited to finally meet him in person and how he misses him and how he can’t wait to finally propose to him properly.

And Patton watches the video on Christmas and cries his eyes out the entire time.

And it makes him even more excited about finally meeting up with Virgil again.

But then he doesn’t get any letters from him after that.

And when the time comes for them to both meet up with each other(cus they were smart and planned it better this time)Virgil doesn’t show up.

And Patton waits for a while, thinking that maybe Virgil just ended up meeting some kind of delays or something.

So he waits.

And waits.

Months go by and finally Patton gets a letter from Alaska.

But it’s not from Virgil.

Instead, it’s from Virgil’s uncle Ansley.

And it completely shatters Patton’s heart.

In the letter, Ansley explains to Patton that Virgil had gotten into an accident right after Christmas.

How there had been a rush to deal with a sudden storm that was going to hit the town and how Virgil had gotten caught up in it and hadn’t returned home that night.

How they’d all gone out and searched as soon as they could.

And how they hadn’t been able to find him.

How they’ve been tirelessly searching ever since.

And how the only thing they found was his hoodie, caught on a low tree branch far into the wilderness.

He tells Patton that he’s sorry he couldn’t find him or even keep him from disappearing in the first place.

And he offers to send Patton some plane tickets.

So that he can be there for the funeral.

Despite how devestated he is, Patton replies quickly and accepts the offer of plane tickets.

He arrives in Alaska barely two weeks later and is met by an entire town still in mourning.

He meets everyone and they all talk to him about Virgil.

And it hurts, but it makes him happy too.

To hear about him from other people.

To know that he was truly happy and loved here.

And Mackenzie, the man who was basically Virgil’s boss, gives Patton the rings that Virgil had made for the both of them.

And Patton wears them(one on his finger and one on a necklace, since that one was Virgil’s and it didn’t fit his fingers)because it’s what Virgil would have wanted, he’s quite sure.

And then the funeral happens.

And it’s beautiful and fun, since Virgil ha always said that he wanted everyone to have a good time at his funeral instead of just crying and making themselves more miserable.

And Patton finds out that Virgil had kept a Will, cus he was paranoid about everything, and he had actually left a good chunk of his money and belongings to Patton.

And it hurts.

To lose Virgil right when he was finally going to properly be with him.

To receive so many things that had once belonged to him.

To know that there was no way of getting him back now.

It hurt a lot.

But Patton would strive to get past that pain and learn to be happy instead.

Happy for his own life and the things that Virgil had given him while he’d been alive.

The time they had shared and the memories they’d given each other.

Patton decides to stay in Alaska after that.

He doesn’t really know what else he should do instead so he just stays there and moves onto the little plot of land that Virgil had been thinking of buying for the both of them.

He purchases it with some of the money Virgil had been saving up to use for this exact purpose, and he works alongside the rest of the town to build a nice house that resembles the one He and Virgil had always wanted to live in.

It’s not quite right when it’s finished.

And nothing Patton does makes it seem any better.

But he tries his best to ignore that and be happy anyways.

It doesn’t entirely work.

A few months pass by like this.

Just under a year.

When, one day, a very strange and ramshackle man limps into town.

Thomas is the first one to greet him and also the first one to realize who he is.

As it turns out, Virgil was far more resilient than any of them had given him credit for.

He’s rushed to the hospital to be checked over and taken care of, and the entire town freaks out as the news of Virgil’s survival and return spreads throughout it.

The last person to find out ends up being Patton when Ansley finally asks if anyone’s told him yet and is met with a lot of horrified and guilty faces.

So Patton is finally informed and he’s instantly scrambling to get to the hospital.

And, when he gets there, he only has to wait for a few minutes before he’s allowed to enter Virgil’s room.

When he does, Virgil has already gotten himself cleaned up from taking a shower and being given some warm clean clothes to replace the rags he’d been in before.

He looks tired and malnourished and a bit pained.

But it’s definitely him.

And, when he sees Patton, he starts crying quietly and asks him with some uncertainty if he’s real.

And Patton cries too and slowly reaches out to him, only to end up being dragged onto the hospital bed and into Virgil’s arms.

It’s a happy reunion but it involves some complications.

Apparently, Virgil got caught in the storm and ended up having to take shelter in a cave.

The cave ended up falling in around him and he ended up stuck in there for a while, barely surviving off of some small rodents that had also taken shelter within the cave and whatever water that came dripping down from the ceiling.

It took him an unknown but long amount of time to finally find a way out of the tiny cave system.

But, when he was free, he had no idea how to get back home.

So he ended up wandering around and just remaining lost for months on end until he found a familiar bit of wilderness he recognized.

He used that to finally get back, but ended up rushing in a panic to do so as things grew more and more familiar.

So he got a little injured in the process.

Past that, and the introduction of the occasional panic attack, he was fine.

No serious illnesses or lasting injuries.

An now he was home.

And with Patton.

After he was checked out of the hospital, Patton took him back to the house.

Seeing it made Virgil cry again.

And when they got inside, Patton handed over his own ring and got down on one knee while holding Virgil’s.

He says that he’s sorry he doesn’t have a ring he personally made or picked out, but this was all he had.

And then he presents Virgil’s ring to him and asks him to marry him.

And Virgil cries even more and says yes and ends up on his knees too, holding out Patton’s ring and apologizing for not being there sooner and for taking so long to get back, Patton reassuring him that it was okay all the while, and then he proposes as well.

And Patton also says yes.

And, later on once Virgil is fully healed again, they work on the house together and make it perfect.

And they continue to live in Alaska.

But there is now a number of rules and regulations that are strictly kept in place to make sure that nobody ends up disappearing like Virgil did.

And there are extra rules for Virgil specifically because Patton doesn’t wanna take any chances.

And Virgil doesn’t fight him on it because he doesn’t really wanna take any chances either.

And I bet you guys totally thought for a second that I was actually gonna just straight up kill off Virgil and make Patton live alone for the rest of his days. Which is a fair thing to think, since I almost did exactly that. You’re lucky I didn’t want it to end like that this time.

Anyways, that’s that. Hope you enjoyed this other alternate ending to my weird romance au. I like this au a lot. It’s one of my favorites. You can probably tell by my wall of text down here that I ran out of text blocks on my phone. Whoops.

So yeah, I’m done now. Here’s the gen taglist.

@a-snoway-afternoon @ashrain5 @virgilscat @gumdrop2113 @chelama @dragonsight9 @marse-422 @derpiest-unicorn @i-identify-as-a-mango @fearfilledvirgil @let-me-be-an-individual-rachet @blitzgamev @the-life-ofa-troubled-ace @satanblessi

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #patton sanders #moxiety #did another romace thing again #i made it angsty this time tho #twas fun #im still in pain #life is pain #and that gives me a lot of inspiration for some reason

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kateahontas · 6 years

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JET Program Final Mission

Just a warning that this post is horrifically sappy. Please comment the amount of times you cringed or rolled your eyes and I'll eat a mint chocolate flavoured product for each one.

Matt sent the modems back to Softbank today, so the internet in our apartment is long-gone and that is a real occurrence to cement all the happenings right now.

JET Program Final Mission was on Saturday night. It was a great success in that it was a beautiful time, but it really sucked in terms of having to be a farewell party, meaning that we will be leaving the country and the date is approaching too quickly.

The party was in a fancy hotel in Tachikawa and had a much too expensive price of 7,000 yen per person. We had absolutely no problem with people not being able to justify coming because of the price. A few non-English teachers from my school were present (teachers being present from my school at all that aren’t Kenichi is a huge thing in itself) and that made me tear up, because who knew you could mean anything when you often feel like you don’t?

Matt and I were officially announced and walked into a room of our pals standing and applauding. We were greeted by life-size print-outs of ourselves from our Australian wedding, who we of course got photos with part-way through the celebrations. We were shown to our seats and Party Master gave a few words. He is always self-appointed MC, and it’s definitely the most fitting. Matt and I had to give a speech in Japanese that we were not even secretly terrified about. It’s really difficult to articulate feelings to these people in English, and even more difficult to do it in Japanese. We did a lot of tag-teaming, involving giving messages directed at our schools. I said a chunk about Kenichi, and that was the only part I asked for assistance from a Japanese person for. I found a really fitting sentence in Japanese about having a telepathic relationship with someone, but I was unsure of the nuance. My chosen Japanese pal to lend me assistance was Miki, who was also present at the party. She has been so good to me over the years and speaks English pretty much fluently despite never having studied or lived abroad. Also, her children are adorable and her husband works at Matt’s school, so we’re all meant to be. She helped me in making the sentences a bit more coherent. It got a really great reaction at the party, so I was relieved.

Kenichi had told me the day before of the table Matt and I would be sitting at. Kenichi, in true Kenichi style, seated me next to him. Before we even made our speech, we were sitting at the table taking in the scenes and Kenichi turned to me and said “I can’t imagine my life without you” and that was really the beginning of the end for me personally. Kenichi drank throughout the night to try and deal with his emotions (which he has A LOT of) and it didn’t work at all. He became more emotional and was pretty much bursting into tears any time something happened.

There was a screen located to the right of the stage, and while the food was being brought out, a short presentation of our three years in Japan played. It was edited by a teacher from Matt’s school who has basically given her life to us. It featured all the photos we gave to Party Master a few weeks back, a million photos from our Japanese wedding party and also photos from our Australian wedding. The food started coming out and Kenichi made a quick toast so everyone could drink as much as possible.

Kenichi had mentioned to me a few weeks earlier that he was preparing for some kind of performance. I assumed that a few teachers would do the same thing, but that was not the case. He presented a speech that contained four separate stories about our lives together while being backed on piano by another English teacher from my school (who I did not know even had such a talent?) The speech was in Japanese, but we are being promised copies of it in both Japanese and English.

The first story was the story of the purple hair. About two and a half months before we came on JET, I had my hair dyed bright pink and purple. I always obviously had the intention of changing it before Japan (and actually only found out I had been accepted into the program the morning of the day I had my hair dyed). I worked at a Steiner school with the crazy hair, so nobody cared. ANYWAY, I entirely blame Ben for the story of the purple hair. He started messaging me a few months before we came to Japan (when my hair was bright and popping) and he told Kenichi about it EVEN THOUGH I had conveyed to him my full intentions to dye it brown before coming to Japan (because I am not an idiot). Kenichi has revealed to me on a few occasions that he was terrified to meet me, and it was exacerbated by me having purple hair. He thought he would have to tell me that I would not be able to show up to my school like that. He said he even practiced telling me in a stern voice (before he met me) to dye my hair brown. I imagine he practiced in front of a mirror, because that makes me do a weird side-smile.

The second story was the story of Otosan. Otosan is “father” in Japanese, but for the purpose of this story, we are referring to Otosan, the lovable hound who is the face of the Japanese phone company, Softbank. I needed a phone contract with Softbank, because of how deep my love for Otosan ran, even though I knew nothing about him. In our first week of being in Japan, Kenichi took us to the Softbank store in Tachikawa to get us both phone contracts. It took three hours and once I started working at my school, it didn’t take me long to realise that that kind of time is really precious for someone who works as much as Kenichi. Kenichi told the person signing us up at Softbank that I loved the pupper that was the face of their company, so they gave us a stuffed toy of Otosan that speaks in Japanese when you press his tail. We still have it and I will never forget such a gesture by a man who was probably properly flustered with us at the time, but never showed it.

The third story is the ongoing story of how Matthew knows everything. Kenichi was telling us about a Japanese celebrity once when we went out for dinner with him, and Matthew already knew who it was. This particular story isn’t so impressive. I believe the story of Matt having to reprogram the Rakuten Mobile page so that I could sign up with them is more impressive. Last week, Kenichi asked if I knew where a place was that is related to moving out stuff we have to do. I said “Matthew knows. He knows everything” and Kenichi said “ああ！さすがマシュー！" Which is just like “as expected, Matthew genius’d again”. I Kenichi would marry Matt if it were allowed.

The final story was the story about Kenichi’s birthday last year and Christmas. It took me a really long time to get to the point in our friendship where Kenichi invited us to his house. I tried really hard for a long time, thought that I was probably being a pushy jerk and then I backed off a bit, and Kenichi would be the one to initiate hangs, which was a huge break-through for me. We had already been to his house at least once before his birthday. His birthday party first took place at Kenichi’s favourite restaurant close to his house. Matt, myself and a few other teachers from my school (one an ex-teacher) were all there. We later went to Kenichi’s house where he showed off his Google Home and the cake was brought out. Matt helped Kenichi cut his cake and then I fed him his first bite of cake using a huge spoon and getting it everywhere. Then, everyone else also fed Kenichi one bite of cake each. We later found out that this isn’t normal for Japanese peoples’ birthdays. On Christmas eve last year, Kenichi invited Matt, myself and some other pals to a community centre that his parents run to make udon. We made udon noodles from scratch, cooked them, ate them, did some craft and had a really good time. Then on the way home, Kenichi took us to a hill nearby that had an amazing view of the entire area and we all hung out there for a bit. It was perfect at the time, because we really wanted to be in Australia for Christmas and we couldn’t, but we still got to spend it with our family anyway.

Finally, Kenichi broke into song for a bit for the last part of his performance, but I was already crying at that point.

Some time after his speech, Kenichi and I were talking at the table about all the times we’ve had. He said “there is another thing I remember clearly” and he went on to mention the night that Matt had to fly back to Australia to be with his mum. We had just spent Christmas in Perth, and had flown back to Tokyo the day before. Matt got a message from his brother saying that Matt’s mum had taken a turn for the worse, and things didn’t look so good. We were able to get Matt on a plane the following morning, but I had to stay here. We ended up apart for three weeks, then I went back to Perth for our wedding. The day after our wedding, I flew back to Japan alone to spend another three weeks away from Matt. On that first night, when Matt had just left to be with his mum, I was sitting on the couch in my pyjamas watching Gilmore Girls and I had just eaten avocado toast for dinner. I got a phone call from Kenichi who said “what are you doing? Come and meet me at a cafe in Tachikawa.” I got dressed and met him there about half an hour later. We spent three or four hours together talking about stuff and practicing Japanese and English. He said to me “this is going to be the hardest night for you and you shouldn’t be alone”. That whole period of time was unbelievably shit. I look back on it and I have no idea how I managed to function and go to work and be a person. When Kenichi brought that up at the party, I couldn’t even. I said to him “you saved me that night” and I told him how I don’t even know where the strength came from that got me through that. He said “you know that I have trouble just calling people up like that and asking them to hang out. I just don’t do it. I knew that you needed me that night” and the whole exchange is honestly going to be the thing that makes it impossible to get on the plane.

The food was fancy and tasty and difficult to eat consistently because we had to make the rounds. I tried to let all the teachers from my school know that it meant a whole few truckloads of existence that they attended. I hope they do know, because it’s true.

I saw Miyo, a beautiful human who works in the office at Matt’s school for the last time, and it was so heartbreaking for the two of us that we just had to walk away from each other.

We were presented with a cake that had a beautiful chocolate message on it authored by Party Master. A retired teacher from Matt’s school who is a beautiful soul came up and gave us two pictures that he had painted the night before. One was of Matt’s school building, and the other was of the cafeteria at Matt’s school. They look amazing and they are framed and he said “never forget our school”.

Kenichi and Kosuke presented us both with bouquets of flowers and some other people showered us in gifts. Cake was eaten, photos were taken and I only got to consume two alcoholic beverages. We gave our final speech and then it was time for the second party at everyone’s favourite sports themed karaoke place: BASEBALL.

Lico rocked up part-way through this party and she said “I want to sing Korn with you” we were like “you want to what?!” and it turned out she actually meant Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn”. We made dreams come true. We are going to karaoke with Lico and Kenichi on Sunday, so we have decided to show her some Korn then.

Kenichi and I sang Don’t Look Back in Anger because it’s our thing and he said “this is the second last time we’ll sing this” so the finale is definitely happening on Sunday!

To be frank, it was too much and I would say I don’t deserve what these people do. Other feedback from other JETs confirms things we always thought were true: no other schools have a Party Master or a Kenichi or a Lico and I wonder about the inner workings of the universe and how your outfits might not always match, but I am sure you don’t look as shit as you think you do.

We are allowed a few repeats on Friday as Matt’s school is having their end of term party, and we are very much there and on Sunday too at karaoke.

#worlife #party #jetprogram #food #partylife #livingabroad #travel

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ark-of-eden · 7 years

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R is drunk and raving (not in the party way).

(R:) Additionally, I’m procrastinating like a fucking champion at working on fic construction, so you know the best use of my time is going off about random social media crap on the internet.

tl;dr: Putting all commentary in tags on Tumblr makes R cry and shit thousands of words into the Internet.

Every social media site inevitably develops sets of unwritten social conventions. Some of them actually make sense as being derived from meatspace etiquette and therefore you don’t really have to stress about remembering them as long as you play nice like a decent creature.

And some of them just don’t make any fucking sense that I can see. Folks on Twitter using a deliberately space-limited form of media to write a page’s worth or more in a string of 30+ rapidfire tweets? This is just how it’s done over there? (Tweetlonger exists but for some reason these massive chain-tweeters never seem to use it. Same with posting the whole thing in a long-form site like LJ/DW/Tumblr and just linking it to a tweet.)

And Tumblr has things that I literally had to put effort into learning after I migrated here, and after I learned about them I frankly decided to ignore them because I couldn’t see the point in them. Tumblr has this bizarre allergy to commentary and, likely derived from that, the practice of instead commenting by putting it all in awkward tags that render the tagging system not especially useful and are harder to get to if you’re actually interested in an individual’s thoughts about a thing and not just the twelfth instance of the same post crossing your dash in a day or two. It’s not like you can’t engage with people, because asks and messaging and such exist, but like...there’s this strong sense that it’s Terribly Ill-Mannered to weigh in with your own impressions right there, in the body of the post, typing your own words in that seductive, wide-open text box that appears all on its own when you go to reblog something. The properly-socialized Tumblrite eschews that tempting text field and instead posts weird sentence fragments in tag form (interspersed with actual tags that might serve to usefully categorize the post’s content), to the extent that some people can add on a good couple paragraphs of material down among the hashtags where others need to go looking for it on purpose if they want it. (I, at least, haven’t been able to find a plugin or something that automatically expands full tags on all posts so that I don’t have to fuck around with extra interface elements to get to them. I admit that I haven’t looked super hard, though.)

Preserving the original form of the OP’s post is a noble practice that I heartily support, but how is adding commentary a problem if you’re only adding a separate thing, not taking away or altering anything in the original...? This was already a practice/convention/code of social interaction on Tumblr when I got here, so I was never in the front row to witness this element taking shape. I suppose it must have made good sense at the time, but every time I see ten people reblogging the same post with no additions and a paragraph of tags appended to it, it’s like a splinter in my brain that has been digging into me for years now.

And I’m not hating on people who do that! I get that that’s The Way It’s Done Here and I am the deviant weirdo for continually adding comments directly onto things that I reblog. Tags are where individuality lives here, unless you’re producing your own original posts, which I guess other people are then supposed to reblog without commentary so that you have to go hunting after all the reblogs individually if you want to get an actual sense of what these people were all thinking when they reblogged your thing. It all just seems...so...WORK INTENSIVE, refusing to use site functions as they were intended??

Look, I absolutely know that my commentary is not the work of incisive genius that unfailingly adds value to every post I find worthy of my attention. We’re pretty much solid shitposting on this blog. Because I’m a little loaded at the moment and that gives me a handy excuse to run my fingers like an idiot (plus I put that readmore up there, so if your eyes are actually consuming these words, you have only yourself to blame for being here), let me run down relevant history of how we got here.

LJ was home for a good long while. Then shit got seriously messed up and Dreamwidth was created as a better LJ, so we migrated all our stuff over there. And journaling sites along those lines still feel like a native environment. I, in particular, am the most long-winded piece of shit we know and I am honestly incapable of talking about anything of worth in short form. It’s a sickness and I just sort of have to own it. :/ But that’s why journaling sites are a good place for me to live, because that’s where people go when they have the inclination to read meandering scrawls about the depths of other people’s lives or whatever.

We went to Twitter for a good while because all the cool people we knew from LJ were going there for some unfathomable reason. These people wrote things that were complex and fascinating to read, so all of them jumping ship to a place that limited them to 140-character chunks made no damn sense, but we loved those people and wanted to trust that they knew what the hell they were doing. And they probably did, and a couple of us were actually okay with Twitter, but I, being the long-winded shitpiece, spent a lot of time frustrated and kind of overstimulated.

Then things started going to hell more and more consistently for me personally (and us generally by extension, but that’s unnecessary detail). Bunkering down specifically to protect people that you care about from the fallout of your crazy is a fairly common thing for mentally-ill people to do, I think. So I’d shut up online until I felt stable enough to talk to people again. Those periods lasted a few days, then a week or more, then a month, then eventually I stopped talking entirely. I missed the LJ/DW format, but in the past I’d written about life events and things I was thinking about and such, so...at the time, all I really had to write about was the bad stuff. So LJ/DW was basically unusable as well.

I literally came here to be as shallow as I could possibly manage. Tumblr had a rapid, chaotic flow similar to Twitter, but could hold longer content like LJ/DW. We’ve never really used the site’s full functionality at any point, though. For at least a year, all we were following was the most lightweight, zero-calorie entertainment that we could find. (We actually came here for Flight Rising content, so there was a lot of that.) Being engaged with fandom in any consistent respect is an extremely recent thing.

And I’m not saying that fandom hasn’t got depth and complexity because it absolutely does and that’s one of the beautiful things about shared fan experiences. I kind of got into that sort of fandom by accident after getting here and rediscovering Transformers. But the unvoiced policy that I’ve always had here is to avoid the Too Real and dodge serious topics whenever possible. Thus, no gender theory, no neurodivergence or multiplicity, no nonhumanity, no religion or UPG, nothing with real substance behind it that bared real vulnerabilities. (Apparently this was a good move anyway because the nonhuman and multiplicity situation here on Tumblr is a bit of a clusterfuck? I honestly wouldn’t know, as I haven’t made a lot of effort to link up with those folks.) That’s still the policy. That might remain the policy forever until I reach some vaguely-defined threshold of sanity that makes me worthy of talking about those things in places and formats that other people can interact with.

And I’m sorry for all this talk about mental illness, but it’s simpler just to explain things clearly. I likely won’t go into any more detail about it on Tumblr. Or anywhere else, because I care about people even if I’ve never met them or talked to them at all and I still want to keep it all in the bunker to protect good people from the crazy. Sometimes, all you can do is just prevent the damage from spilling out into other people’s lives, and that’s the place that I usually operate from.

I’m still pretty drunk, so I’m allowed to ramble from too much truth serum, but all of that explanation was to get around to saying that the format of online communication that is most intuitive to me is the long, oversharing gut-spill of random people talking about things that are really meaningful to them - not in the sense of elaborate philosophy or artsy epistles to the cosmos, but just people being super real about things that are meaningful to them and going into lots of detail about them because gushing about things you love is great. And it’s possible to get that sort of discussion and gushing in Tumblr fandom, and I love it because it reminds me of better times, and the fact that I love it is WHY IT MAKES ME SO GODDAMN FRUSTRATED that Tumblr culture is basically stifling discussion and feedback and RESPONSE to things that people find interesting!!

Like, here’s how I see it. Unlike on LJ/DW, where you were limited to hyperlinking to a cool post in one of your own posts if you wanted your readers to go check it out, on Tumblr, if you find a super cool thing, you can pull it directly into your space and let other people experience it directly, exactly as you experienced it. But the thing is, I also subscribe to the My Blog My House concept. If I pull a thing into my “home,” I do it because there’s something homelike about it; it belongs in my home for some specific reason. I don’t take “ownership” of an item in the sense that I’m claiming it in place of its creator, but I’m taking ownership of it in the sense that it’s part of my Stuff now and it’ll get my fingerprints all over it and be blended into the general morass of Stuff that I recognize as my home. I don’t just pull random crap into my home for no reason at all.

And I just figure that other people are similar in the sense that they reblog things for distinct, unique reasons, not in the sense that they have some master plan for their blog content (some do, but it’s not necessary), but just that they have compelling reasons why they pick certain bits of content out of the larger river of their dashboard and put it in their own space for people to experience with them. I follow people based on the interesting things that they find interesting. I’m interested in why they’re interested in those things. They seem like interesting people to me because they’re interested in what they’re interested in.

But the WHY is a really important part of the equation for me. Did this person reblog that photo because they’ve been to that place themselves, because they like that kind of tree, because they reblog photos with that color scheme every Thursday? Did that person reblog that piece of art because they love that character, because they’re studying that art medium, because it reminded them of something funny they saw somewhere else? People attach their own context to things that they latch onto. It’s so freaking weird to me that people have to hide their interpretations or impressions in tags here on Tumblr, making them unimportant and optional in the process of sharing things they like with others. (Okay, people also share a lot of things they hate, but reasons for outrage are still part of the context that one adds to content.)

I WANT TO KNOW WHY YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE SHOWING ME. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT MAKES IT IMPORTANT TO YOU. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT MAKES YOU THINK AND FEEL. Even if it’s a blurb about how giant robots fuck or a cute kitten video, I NEED TO KNOW THESE THINGS.

Not in excruciating detail or with insightful analysis or even a lot of text at all. Mostly, the things that people put in tags are things that, to me, are a really crucial part of the experience of being able to go into someone’s “home” and see the Stuff that they chose to put in it. Reducing oneself to a glorified signal repeater is...okay, I guess, though it turns a Tumblr blog into a kind of faceless stream of other people’s material a lot of the time. The personal touch is what makes it all interesting. And I’m just unutterably frustrated that, somewhere along the line, it was decided that personalizing an experience by sharing one’s own impressions of it became rude enough that polite society decided that it had to be hidden away in tags. I want all of it, so I do go looking for it, but omg it requires MORE EFFORT and BURNING CALORIES and BODILY MOVEMENT and WAAAAH, you know what I mean. :P

And possibly Tumblr society is right and it’s done for a good, decent purpose and I’m being pigheaded and uncool by insisting on doing things my way without bothering to try and understand the local customs. I’m not usually that much of an asshole, but I am about this, for some reason. And I admit that my craving for those personal touches could very well spring from how utterly isolated and lonely I am, so maybe normal people really don’t need all the extra info and actually do just want mostly-impersonal streams of content. And that’s fine, since I know I’m kind of a weirdo even on my best days.

I’m pretty sure that that was all that I really wanted to say. I’m probably overreacting about the whole comments-in-tags thing. Like I said, it’s kind of an irrational irritation. Also, I need to stop before I write myself sober and no longer have an excuse for all of this. If you actually read all of that, you are an awesome, generous person and I’m pretty damn certain that I love you even though I have no idea who you are.

#long post #social media #mental illness #personal history #content tagging #really i should illustrate the issue by putting a shitton of additional material down here in the tags but i'm kind of cashed out now #does anyone else experience that thing where typing directly into tumblr's post box lags like an absolute motherfucker #istg typing this out took me twice as long as it should have because i kept having to wait for tumblr to catch up to the last 20 words #not like i exactly type like a wind ninja necessarily but just that tumblr exists in a perpetual state of shitting on itself #i kind of feel bad for the poor thing #that feels faintly stockholm-syndrome-like but oh well #gratuitous tag abuse #i totally wasted an evening but at least that is all out of my system now #tbh i hate relying on alcohol for things like helping me write stuff easily but i feel more emotionally de-constipated now #seriously bless everyone who actually read all that shit #you are loved

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missingmorethanmyskull-arch-blog · 7 years

Text

Tox’s (and part of Arum’s) Life Story, and music

This gon’ be long so I’ll put it under a readmore

(a bit of comparison to Red and Boss too so I think I’ll reblob this to them)

This is me rambling to my dear @r0astet0aste but I took out everything that’s not actual rambling to shorten it if only a little

I've got to get up an info page for Tox

-slams hands down-

LISTEN I'M GONNA DUMP ALL HIS SONGS ON YOU

OK SO

ARUM NEVER PAID ATTENTION TO HIM. EVER. EVER EVER. NOT UNTIL THE WAR

HE WAS FAR TOO FOCUSED ON BEING GASTER'S ASSISTANT, AND THEN TRYING TO GET HIM BACK

THE SCIENCE DAD AND SON IGNORED THEIR 'UNINTELLIGENT' SON/BRO

TOX GREW UP FEELING INFERIOR AND NEGLECTED AND STUPID

SO HE THREW EVERYTHING HE HAD INTO PHYSICAL ABILITY IN THE HOPES IT WOULD GARNER HIS BROTHER'S ATTENTION

AND EVENTUALLY STARTED TAKING OUT HIS FRUSTRATION BY ABUSING ARUM

BUT ARUM DIDN'T GIVE A FUCK

HE TOOK THE PUNCHES AND KICKS LIKE "are you done throwing a tantrum, bitch? yes? good bye i'm going back downstairs"

Basically he was enamored with his dear old daddy and considered Tox a waste of space

So getting beaten up had the same effect as Tox wailing annoyingly as a small child. That "ugh stop" effect

Meanwhile poor Tox just

Wanted attention

Yes he beat up his big bro but all he wanted was attention

So there's this song for his feelings on Arum pre-war

Diary of Jane - Breaking Benjamin

Keep in mind he doesn't remember G

So all he knows is Arum ignored him for science for no reason

And so he was desperate for attention

He got it in the royal guard

He was good. He was powerful. He was Undyne's favorite

He fell for her of course

So they got together

(Arum has been with his Grillz, his Alphys, and the shopkeep bun in terms of real relationships I just need to figure out the order. Alphys first I'm p sure)

Then

The human fell

Arum fell for her gradually, put his trust in her, believed she'd break them free, etc

That didn't happen

King died. Six souls were destroyed

Toriel returned to the throne

Undyne didn't like that

Because Toriel instilled a mercy policy to fallen humans

But Frisk had told Arum that the human population had grown immensely in the last several centuries

Breaking free and initiating war - Undyne's plan, just like Asgore's - would result in monsters being eradicated

Arum was always on Toriel's side

When Undyne challenged her, the civil war broke out

Tox felt loyalty to his lover, ofc, but he also realized Arum and Toriel were right. War was a bad idea

Besides, the last thing they needed was their ruler to be another Asgore

Who was ruthless and made the underground hell

So he was torn

He eventually settled on a side - Toriel's

There's this song for when he had to fight Undyne

Headstrong - Trapt

Then

then

well, keep in mind

none of this was actually Frisk's fault

Everyone thinks it was but

In reality, she was trapped in the void by Flowey during his omega battle

Flowey felt horribly guilty for fucking it all up

He started rewinding time, again and again

Arum was the only one aware of this

He experienced the resets and reloads

So the Civil War, which stretched for idk a few decades probably

was actually much longer

Tox died

When he was killed the first time

Arum had a meltdown

He realized then that

despite everything

Tox was the only family he'd had left

And none of their fighting mattered, did it?

He'd wasted his brotherhood. He'd ignored the only person he had that was family

First mental break

This song

Not Gonna Die - Skillet

ISN'T IT GREAT?

the last thing i heard was you whispering goodbye... and then i heard you flatline

Arum was an absolute mess

Then time rewound again

He tried to warn Tox not to fight in that battle

Tox didn't listen to him ofc

so he died several times in the war

So I've got a few songs about that

Soldier Side - System of a Down

Battle Cry - Skillet

Not Afraid to Die - Written By Wolves

And my favorite for the Civil War time (aside from Not Gonna Die)

IS THIS ONE

Rise - Skillet

(by the way, yes, in every Skillet song on his playlist, Arum is the girl singing)

I mean

technically Undyne is the one revolting from Toriel's rule but

Toriel's rule is basically a revolution from Asgore's reign of terror

They're fighting on Toriel's side for a semi-peaceful life

They can't wage war on the humans

They obviously won't be breaking the barrier any time soon, back at 0 souls

All Toriel and her followers want is for the death to stop

So the last 40 seconds of this song?

With the phone call and the news reports and all that

They're all things that would've happened in Asgore's reign

Monsters breaking into each others's houses and dusting them for EXP

People being left on the streets to die

etc

AND THAT LAST MALE VOICE?

"You're such a failure!"

"What is wrong with you?"

"You're worthless!"

"You can't do anything right!"

"I wish you had never been born!"

All things Arum has snapped at him throughout his life

So he's got shit like that playing in his head

But he's still fighting to protect

and by this point

Arum has lost him so many times

He just

He wants to take it all back

He synthesizes a carefully measured solution of determination

Aware of his and Alphys's failures with the amalgamates, he realizes pure determination would only make Tox melt

(Alphys has committed suicide by now btw)

So he works desperately to find a working determination amount, mixed with other chemicals, so he can stop Tox from dying without making him melt

Not much time to test it but he does his best

Keep in mind Tox can't remember any of his deaths

All he knows is his brother has flipped his fucking lid ever since the human left

And keeps talking about time shit that he doesn't understand

Arum forces the determination mixture into him

It works

Tox survives the battle he kept dying in

Drawback: Tox's body distorted

It didn't melt but

It had to shift and change to account for the DT

this is why he's nine feet tall

The civil war continues

Inevitably, Toriel loses and steps down

She returns to the ruins

Undyne takes the throne

Tox is one of the only survivors on Toriel's side

The brothers return to Snowdin and Arum attempts to explain the whole time shit

(He pointedly does not attempt to explain Gaster or what he was always working on)

But he apologizes for everything

So ok Tox doesn't really get it all

He's still just... not very bright

But he realizes that Arum has lost everything and is trying to change

So things for sure aren't perfect, but they at least stop hitting each other and attempt to communicate more

Arum's first mental break and the endless resets within the war has left him not enitrely stable

Arum was a mess

He put his faith and trust in Frisk and look where it got him

Look where it got the whole underground

He returned to working desperately to try and get his dad back

He somehow convinced himself if Gaster was back, everything would be okay again

Honestly he put G on such a high pedestal, it's crazy

He consistently believes he could never measure up to him in terms of scientific ability, though he's been monitoring and repairing the core personally ever since G was cast into the void

He's probably surpassed G by this point but he can't believe it

he's got Red's failure complex honestly

He just shows it far less

Oh I should mention his HP was never 1

He always had over 200

Physically, he was always stronger than Red

He just didn't use it

Bigger, stronger, he didn't have the defects that Red was created with basically

anyway after that, whenever a human fell, they'd kill the human and purposefully crush their soul into little bits

so Undyne couldn't take the soul for herself

a few slipped through the cracks, tho

current time, Undyne has 3

Flowey kept occasionally fucking with time

The magic in the underground soured

Crops began to fail

Soon, food became very scarce

the monster population had basically halved due to the war but still

Hunger began to take control over everything

Tox came up with the clever idea (for once) of slowly conditioning himself and Arum to be resistant to most poisons

They started to poison their own food stores to deter people from stealing their food

But the fact is they started to starve slowly

Another human fell

In a fit of hunger, having lost himself, Arum killed and ate the human

well he set half aside for Tox but

yeah he tasted meat for the first time that day

Cue another mental break afterwards, when he realized the brutal, horrifying act he'd just committed

He'd killed only a few times in his life, and only in self-defense

Tox had dusted many in the war, but that was war

This was him murdering and eating someone in cold blood

and he really loved the taste, too

He was sickened by himself

Tox, too

But they didn't really have a choice anymore

Tox had long since accepted that the world was fucked up

Arum was new to the idea, having locked himself away in labs for most of his life, he was far more sensitive to this shit

This was around the time that Arum first became suicidal

So here's another Tox song as he started to realize Arum was in even worse mental shape than he thought

Never Too Late - Three Days Grace

Arum is growing ever more desperate about getting his father back

On a very bad day, he attempted to use the machine he was building, before he had finished it and properly tested it

Oh boy did that backfire

He reached into the void with a flawed machine and the void yanked payment

You've seen Fullmetal Alchemist, right?

Them boys reached into the void asking for the impossible

Arum reached into the void asking for something very possible, but he did it in a flawed way

He didn't have enough power or control in the machine

So first of all it exploded and took a chunk out of his skull manually

Now that could be healed with green magic provided you have all of the bone material with you

But what the void took wasn't all physical

It took chunks of his mind

Not only that, it soured and rotted his soul

His soul reached 0/0 HP but he did not die

His soul was permanently rotted and changed. He's already at 0, but still there, so he can't die

His magic soured too

You recall his dark, dark red magic color? Almost brownish black?

Wasn't originally that color

The hole in his skull destroyed one eye but the other began to glow permanently

He can't teleport, he can't die, he can't conceive a child, he can't even soulbond

He's essentially a zombie

And he looked the part for a while, too

Tox heard the explosion and rushed down there to find Arum unconscious with a chunk missing, tendrils of voidy shit being battered back by vines

Flowey probably saved them all from more damage

Tox attempted to heal the wound in Arum's skull but it didn't work

His body no longer accepted green magic

The basis of green magic is healing HP and at 0/0, there is nothing to be healed

Green magic hurts Arum about as much as being attacked does

Both make his soul glitch the fuck out like an amalgamate's

Anyway, Arum was unconscious for a damn long time

Days

But finally, he woke up... And he couldn't remember anything. He couldn't focus his gaze on anything. He couldn't speak and could hardly move

He was completely catatonic and only vaguely conscious

Tox had to take care of him the same way you might take care of a baby or doll, minus the crying

He fed Arum by hand, carried him around the house, manually moved his joints so Arum's body didn't entropy

Attempted to communicate in any way

Eventually Arum started to be able to recognize sign language again, and at least nod or shake his head in response to simple questions

He slowly regained control of his body, then speech, and at last, his memories began to come back hazily

He's still missing chunks of his life but he made a pretty miraculous recovery over a period of several years

He remembers, vaguely, the feeling of time resetting

But he can no longer experience resets properly

He doesn't remember them and they give him intense migraines

He never remembered the events of the day the machine exploded, and seeing as Tox has no clue what happened, he still doesn't know

He's just sort of... Assumed the machine is fine

And hes always like "oh yeah i should get back to building it some day" but hasn't gone to the basement since and he doesn't know why

Flowey ain't around

I mean they were never friends

Arum and Flowey fought over resets before, though Arum's mostly forgotten it

And they've talked about Alphys or about science briefly but

Theyre acquaintances at best

But Flowey, guilt ridden yet again, hasn't been around and won't tell him what happened

Anyway

The period of several years where Arum was 100% dependent on Tox stuck with them

Their shaky bond has evolved into a full on dependency on each other

Arum needs Tox desperately because he's a fucking mess mentally, and often he'll have bad days where he can't remember anything and goes semi-catatonic again

During which days Tox babies him and ensures his safety and comfort

Tox needs Arum because now he has a purpose

He's not only wanted but needed

It's like they never fought

They're as close as brothers can get

(Without being incestuous lmao)

They rely on each other 100%

Arum is there for Tox when he has war-induced PTSD flashbacks and needs comfort. Arum feeds them both with humans and other food he can steal.

Tox mans puzzles, patrols, keeps them safe from Undyne and is there for when Arum's mental health deteriorates

They split food evenly down the middle

Arum would give Tox more of his share since he can't starve to death, but Tox refuses

Arum is still often suicidal

He's honestly tried every method in the book to die

Overdose on poison he's trained himself to survive. Bullet to the head (ow). Trying to crush his own soul. Starving on purpose. Drowning. Freezing. Setting himself on fire. Hell. There's a Reapertale Sans rp blog ( @jokingdeath ) that Arum went up to and was like "touch my hand and kill me"

He literally shook hands with death and it didn't kill him

And nights when he's attempted or wants to attempt, and knows it's all useless, and is just a sobbing mess

Tox is there for him

Here's the last two songs lol

Also both Skillet

Fire and Fury - Skillet (I realize this is a love song but platonically okay)

The Last Night - Skillet (not all of the lyrics fit but you get the gist of it)

Oh i fORGOT MY OTHER FAVE!

why isn't it on the youtube playlist how dare

wait there it is lol

Ok so this one, The Last Night, Rise, and Not Gonna Die are my top 4 for Tox

honestly I can't rank them they're just my top four

Fix You - The Offspring

She sees a million stars like holes in the sky

Arum has a far more bitter take on the surface world than Red does

all God's tears for her they cry, and I am in her rain

Arum is just

you think Red is in bad shape depression wise?

hAH

The difference is Arum puts up a far better "i don't give a fuck" front than Red

Arum laughs at his own pain far more. He makes death jokes and dead baby jokes

(His laugh is not sane anyway)

He kills mercilessly, without hesitation

With a smile on his face

(His smile is not sane either)

Gore makes Red vomit

it makes Arum grin

Red has at least a modicum of faith that they'll get out some day

Arum knows damn well he's never going to be free

Honestly they're both Underfell!Sans but they are vastly different

They were vastly different long before Frisk fell

And they had vastly different lives from the beginning

Arum's Gaster was a good man

Yes, he neglected Tox terribly, they both did

But Dros created them to be his children

As the last skeleton alive, and not interested in a romantic relationship, he created Arum and Tox in a similar fashion as how Erebus created Red and Boss, bot for the opposite reason

He also didn't fuck up with Arum

Red's physical body came out wrong

He formed too small, too frail

He always had 1 HP

Yes, it was in part due to his pessimism, but physically, his body can't hold much HP in the first place

If Red's HP were to rise (and it will) I think I'd cap him at 50

My 5 foot smol was born with the short end of the stick

slaps knee

short end

Boss was born with the long end slaps knee again

Boss's body was always too big

He couldn't control his magic properly and his body was pushed too far

which made him a very sickly child

but as an adult he evened it out with endless training

They're both on one end of an extreme

Whereas Arum and Tox were both quite average. They were evenly leveled, physically

Arum is 5'6", he's completely normal

He just happened to have inherited Dros's extreme intelligence

a fairly common thing in humans, genius can be hereditary

Meanwhile Tox... didn't

Boss was born with strength that he had to hone. Tox was born average and created his own extreme strength through willpower and desperation

Red was born with a too-strong mind that was further distended with experimentation, and had to hone and focus his intelligence once they escaped. It left him with so many emotional issues

Arum's inherited intelligence was carefully guided by his father and he was an average genius, also made extreme through willpower

All of his emotional issues are because of his fucked-up timeline 8,D

Ahhh I love designing characters

Red and Arum as as different from each other as they're both different from Chaos

who is also an Underfell!Sans

Who just happens to be female

and just happened to go insane and kill her entire timeline due to a certain brat :3c

BUT THAT'S RAMBLING FOR ANOTHER DAY

#Out of Skeleton #its just how i am now (headcanons)#precious poison (tox)#music #pretty as blood (aesthetic)#intoxicating (tox aesthetic)#tw: suicide #tw: abuse

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