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the-volume-is-astronomical · 3 years

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The Crown, The Sword, and The Gay

The Tower

A/N: mi gente im just trying something out and seeing if people like it :] ive had this done for like months and months on end and i finally decided to share it so em enjoy

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words: 2380

summary: Roman’s stomach is making it very clear that this talk wasn’t going to end well... as long as he doesn’t end up in that tower.

pairings: eventual prinxiety, eventual intrulogical, eventual moceit

warnings: some potty language (not much), stress, anxiety, disappearance mention, flashback, crying

(let me know if theres any other)

Roman felt himself waking up, maybe because of the stupidly bright sun hitting his eyes, he didn’t know how that was possible since he remembered closing the red velvet curtains shut tight, so he didn't have this exact issue. So, when he heard some ruffling and things being moved around he wasn’t all that surprised.

¨Rise and shine, you little brat¨ Ruth said in a very tired but demanding voice.

¨Oh dear nurse, allow me five more minutes¨ Roman whined putting a pillow over his eyes so he could block out the rude sun.

¨Oh, flattery will get you nowhere, mister.¨ Roman could hear Ruth moving around the room, preparing breakfast no doubt. Roman took the pillow off his face and sat up, hair a wreck, and his eyes squinting because of the light coming from the window.

¨And he finally rises,¨ Ruth said sarcastically.

¨Yeah, yeah, the dashing prince has awoken.¨ Roman said half asleep. Ruth helped him sit down so he didn’t trip over anything and started serving him breakfast, she wasn’t going to wait for him to finish eating as she was already heading for the big oak doors.

¨Wait!¨ Roman sobered up, Ruth flinched a little at the shout but turned around anyway ¨Can I do anything for you?¨ She asked.

¨ Come eat with me, you for sure haven’t eaten anything today.¨ Ruth went to argue but closed her mouth when she noticed she, in fact, had not eaten.

She sat down in the chair in front of the royal, Roman made a few hand gestures as if to show she was open to take anything, she knew the monarch wouldn’t eat until she had settled for something so, she took a piece of bread and started eating, as did he.

After a few moments of silent eating Ruth spoke up ¨I still don't understand, after all these years you haven’t become a spoiled brat that doesn't care for his servant¨ Roman didn't even look up at her he just said ¨I guess you raised me well.¨ Ruth almost choked on her bread and looked at Roman as if he had gone insane. “Oh come on don't be so humble Ruthie!¨

She still looked at him confused and a little annoyed at the nickname but mostly surprised he would say anything of the sort, ¨Ruth, you are my nurse. You have been with me my entire life, You fed me when I was a baby for god sake! I consider you a mother, even if I have another mother in the throne room right now,” Roman shivered at the thought of having to talk to his parents after the events of the past week but continued anyway “and I sure as hell think of you as the person who raised me.¨

Once he had finished he immediately put a mouth full of food and kept eating as if hadn’t given that speech. Ruth still looked shocked but cleared her throat ¨Well, then I made you a sap!¨ Roman started laughing ¨How will your future spouse ever forgive me?¨ Roman burst out laughing and Ruth gave a small chuckle.

Ruth stood up and went to Roman's closet to gather his outfit for the day, while he finished breakfast. She threw the clothes at him “Hey!¨ Roman made his trademark over dramatic gasp. She sighed “I unfortunately also gave you my dramatics…”

“And I don’t resent you for that!” Roman screamed back with a big smile on his face.

Ruth looked like she had something on her mind. Roman didn’t have to wait much before she said what that was, he never did. ¨Would that make you and my Remy brothers?¨ she said, actively ignoring the prince’s comments. Roman stood up going towards his shoji screen to change behind. ¨Ha! We already consider each other brothers so it wouldn’t be much of a change.¨ Ruth started making his bed “Well this is new information to me.¨ Roman giggled a bit

¨Remy´s supposed to be back by noon, he passed a lot of territories to deliver this message so I sure hope he’s alright¨ Roman has always thought she was a worried mother even to him when he went on long trips.

Roman stepped out from behind the screen and reassured her ¨ He’s fine! He may act reckless but he's very calculating… but expect him a few hours later than what the estimated time of return” Roman slipped away looking for his shoes. ¨Oh and why is that?¨ she asked, hands on her hips, Roman gave a nervous chuckle.

Shouldn't have let that slip.

“Roman…” Ruth said in a warning tone. Remy was going to kill him but he didn’t want to die at his nurse’s hands “Remy’s been... seeing... this person a-and when his message trip aligns with where they live… he spends some time with the person so…” Ruth looked at him as if deciding something, “As Remy’s mother, I thank you for telling me the truth..” Roman was relieved “But, as your mother, I have to say…YOU SNITCH! Snitches get stitches for a reason!” Roman laughed genuinely and Ruth joined.

After their giggle fit, they heard someone knock on the door. Ruth went to answer the door, it was a guard “His and her highness request the prince’s presence,” Ruth thanked the guard and turned around and Roman looked mortified, “Roman, you have to talk to them.” Roman had never heard Ruth speak that soft. Roman only felt dread “Ruth I don't want to go” He was genuinely petrified.

“I understand, but they are very understanding and I believe they wouldn't punish you for simply trusting the wrong person” Roman shook his head “ They’re already so protective. They always had me under knight or guard surveillance but now they might do something so I won’t be able to sneak by” Roman was panicking and Ruth noticed, she walked up to him. And took his hand “Roman they just want the best for you…” Roman took his hand away from her own “No! They are just afraid they aren’t going to have an heir after one of them ran away.” Roman's hands were in his hair and his eyes started to glaze over.

Roman was very much not over his brother's apparent “disappearance”

“I understand Remus vanishing has affected your parents over protectiveness, BUT they have always aimed to protect you but after what happened...can you really blame them for it?” Roman sighed, Ruth forced his hands out of his hair, he took a shaky breath to calm down “No, but getting hurt is part of life! So what if I trusted the wrong person? Everyone does!” He gestured to the sky as if it was the only person listening, he felt so defeated.

“Well I can't change anything so, you should tell your parents that!” She didn’t know what to say to make things better. “I’ll try, let’s just hope they at least try to listen” he left it there and headed out of his bedroom’s oak doors, he never liked disagreeing with Ruth.

Roman walked down the long hallway towards the throne room but, of course, he wasn’t alone because that would be too much to ask apparently. Instead he was being escorted to see his parents by the guard that had informed him his parents required him. He already knew what they were going to talk to him about and he was dreading it.

Why did he have to make such a mistake?

Did the universe want him to not trust anyone after what happened?! If it would make the sinking feeling in his stomach leave then he would happily oblige.

The guard stopped at the throne rooms doors and Roman took a deep breath as the guard gave him side eye glance and opened the doors, “You required my presence?” Roman spoke trying to keep his voice steady and his head high, “Yes, Roman, we would actually like to talk to you about last week's event…?” He phrased it as a question a little too late. Roman’s father, King Leonardo, wasn’t an emotionally driven person and never was truly soft with anything he said, but he cared. The way he was soft spoken with Roman was just having the opposite effect that his father wanted.

Roman’s mother, Queen Victoria, was very comforting and always tried to shield her children from harm's way, but coming from a family of royals, she didn't have an example to follow but she wanted to be there for her child. “Roman, my little lion heart, I need you to keep in mind this is for your safety...ok?” Following everything by the book, always looking and being her best, so she would be a good example even if she wasn't nurturing, all she wished was for Roman to know she loved him and Remus with her whole being, Roman just gave her a tense nod as a response.

Roman’s Father spoke up, “Roman, you're going to be under knight supervision at all times,” That wasn't as bad as Roman expected, he basically already was! Anything but to be stuck in that damn tower “...And you have to stay in the south tower-” ...He should have knocked on wood.

“Father, I did nothing wrong! I shouldn't be punished for this-” Romans mother spoke up, she knew both her son and husband could be hot headed. She wanted to stop anything before it got the chance to begin “Roman this isn't to punish you! We want to protect you-” The Queen sounded like she was pleading with her son.

Roman did not hear her plea or just ignored it “...For how long do I have to stay there?” Roman’s mother spoke up, “Don't worry, you'll be there maximum 2-”

“Indefinitely.”

The King spoke in a cold unforgiving tone, Roman knew he had messed up big time. Victoria turned to her husband “Leo, we agreed he wouldn't be there for more than 2 fortnights, we agreed on that.” The Queen seemed upset but was obviously attempting not to show such emotion.

“Those were the rules we agreed to when he was a child and he would grant being punished” Both of Roman’s parents were staring at each other, showing they weren't going to back down.

Roman spoke, “Understood.” His voice was mostly monotone but tight, Victoria turned to him with an apologetic gaze. Roman shook his head. It was his own fault, his mother shouldn't blame herself for his actions.

“I'll tell Ruth, so we can pack.” Roman turned to leave but his father had more to say. “Before you go, Hugo won't be your assigned knight. One of the new recruits is climbing in status and popularity very quickly and he agreed to-” “babysit” Roman cut in. “-protect you. As long as I recommended him to Queen Marie for her armada”

As if things couldn't get any better, he had to meet this new recruit, he hoped they would at least get along. Roman just nodded and opened the door to leave. At that moment, Roman’s father called the guard that had escorted Roman to get the new recruit as soon as possible, he just left as quickly as he could.

His parents knew that not being around people and not being able to talk were some of the worse things that could happen to him. They decided it was going to be the way to punish him. Though, he never stayed for more than a month, now he understood why.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Roman- basically power walked- back to his room, his brain tortured him with memories of his 7 year old self being forced onto the tower for the first time.

No! Please it was an accident-!

I won't do it again!

I won't- Please!

That was all he said as his father signaled the guards to take him, his mother not being able to look, turned her head away, trying to ignore every motherly instinct in her body to stand up and comfort her child.

The guards dragged him out of the castle- the only home he knew- and shoved him in a carriage, where Ruth was waiting for him. Ruth had always been happy around him but her expression was unreadable -looking back she seemed angry, he just hadn't seen her that way before- but, Roman didn't care. He threw himself onto Ruth and sobbed his tiny heart out, Ruth trying her best to calm him down, he eventually fell asleep. Three hours later, he was woken up by Ruth.

“Were here, principito”

Roman was scared. Ruth saw it in his eyes.

“Come on! You offend me, you really think I would let them take you to a scary place?”

The little royal could only muster a small “no”. Ruth took his hand and walked with him toward a tower. Roman thought it was beautiful, that's the day he figured beautiful things can hurt you.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roman never got used to it. He always dreaded the ride there, all the build up to the feeling of nothingness. When he looked up at the tower, he got the same feeling that he did when he was 7, Roman learned to not look up. He’d always prefer being in the tower when he was a kid because, back then they allowed Ruth to stay behind with him. Now she would only go in the carriage with him and leave.

After they stopped allowing Ruth to stay with him, at least he had Hugo to bother, by asking him for stories of his adventures. He didn't have that anymore.

The only adventure story he had now was a vibrant red book, in the book shelf of the tower, the only fictional book in his whole collection. He will admit, it was a very smart move on his parent’s part. They always monitored what he read, filled his whole book shelf in the tower with Philosophy, Math, and Royalty etiquette. When he begged for weeks on end for an adventure book they granted him one but, they made sure it was the only book that was fictional. They wouldn't give him an adventure book based on real events, No! That would be giving Roman too much hope.

Good move.

#roman sanders #roman angst #sanders sides roman #ts roman #prinxiety #ts prinxiety #future prinxiety #sanders sides #ts princey

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wsyurim · 3 years

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timezones suck!! but hello everyone and thank you for the warm welcomes ♡ i bring you all miss han yurim aka etoile’s lead vocalist aka accidental idol. here is her profile and her career page. unfortunately, i wasn’t able to come through with a plots page, but i do have some ideas that i’ll throw down below the cut. also below the cut will, hopefully, be a brief introduction to yurim and so feel free to press that little heart if you’d like to plot, and i’ll come hopping over to your im’s!

background!!

yurim comes from a very loving family. she’s the youngest with her dad being a firefighter and her mom and accountant which also means her financial status is middle class at the least though yeouido isn’t the cheapest place to live. her older sister’s like six years older than her as well so you can guess how much adoration yurim’s gotten ever since she was practically born. this is all setting up for me to explain that yurim has really high self-esteem which comes in handy with this job lol

never actually had thoughts of being an idol. when she was younger, most of her time was spent with books and with paint because she loves to draw! it’s still one of her hobbies today as well as a skill that the company likes to use on variety shows and stuff (”yurim-ssi, can you draw one of the cast members for us?”) though she kind of hates doing that

starts singing as a hobby after her friends tell her she has a really pretty voice. asks to be sent to a vocal academy because when she wants to do something, she wants to do it well!! from there, she probably spends like six to seven months before an instructor convinces her to join yuseong’s open audition where she ends up getting second?? she’s as confused as the next person tbh

thinks that’s it, but then she’s getting offered a trainee contract? and yeah... you can see where that led her to lmao debuting as etoile’s lead vocalist!! which is why i describe her as an accidental idol because she never intended for this to be her line of work

as a trainee, she was pretty shocked by the competitive nature and would usually take a step back if it seemed like she was getting involved in something too intense. yurim’s very much the type to “lose” in an argument solely because she doesn’t want to get into an argument; she sees them as a big waste of time!! the type to insist that having pride is the stupidest thing because it’s all worthless at the end of the day. what’s pride going to get you more than possibly a fist to your face yknow

she’s one of those idols who is very sincere and genuine to her fans, but she’s pretty quiet on-screen so people who may not know etoile well enough other than their hit songs will probably question why she’s an idol (think vixx’s leo in terms of public image)

her haters will try to smear her by insisting that she’s not working hard enough or that she’s not doing her job enough which isn’t completely wrong because she’s not the type to like go out of her way to be active on shows and stuff? but she does aegyo when her fans ask for it, leaves long messages on fancafes for her fans, gives her best on stage (she has good stage presence!!) and is basically a really good idol for her fans as she thinks that’s all that matters

remember that part where i said she has very self high-esteem? that means hate comments really don’t affect her because she knows who she is as a person and that those lousy comments on the internet aren’t going to affect her life at all lol

behind the cameras, she’s not all too different from her idol persona. she’s quiet, likes to observe rather than participate in things actively which can make her come off as being super distant and uninterested. but she has a really kind heart and is genuine with her interactions with people

to this day, doesn’t really have any dreams or aspirations as an idol, but she’s here so she’ll do it until her contract expires or etoile’s career comes to an end. whichever comes first!! but do not question her passion for singing because that much is very real

possible plot ideas!!

someone who trained at yuseong at the same time (2016-2017) and thinks that yurim doesn’t deserve her spot in etoile because she doesn’t appear passionate enough. maybe you had another trainee friend who didn’t make it but yurim did so it leaves you bitter? though that’s just a random tidbit that doesn’t have to be used!!

you wonder how yurim manages to remain so confident in herself despite this line of work. idols get hate thrown at them here and there, and you’re a victim to that as well but you see yurim who just happens to skip past all that without being affected and it confuses you

you happen to get shipped with yurim a lot and it can either a) make you want to avoid her or b) make you want to approach her because it’s funny. yurim falls on the latter in which she thinks fanships are kind of funny because she can’t imagine what makes people want to “ship” two idols together

you think yurim’s boring and try to get her to be more active in things? whether you meet on set of a variety show and try to involve her or if it’s off-camera, then maybe get her to do something adventurous

you don’t think yurim should be an idol if she never wanted to be one, and you ask her why she’s still here?

some more casual work relationships that end up getting deeper? like you meet yurim so much either backstage or at the salon or on the same shows, and you end up talking to her all the time anyway that she’s become some sort of confidant? she’s not a woman of many words which means she does a great job at listening

something angsty would be lovely too because i love a good heartbreak or two! ex-boyfriends, past/current unrequited crushes, ex-friends for some reason

you happen to really like yurim’s voice, and she’s flattered really!! <3

#ws:intro #( ⋅ ◆ ⋆ — ooc. )

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juniaships · 3 years

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Actiontoongorlz's Top 8 Canon x OC Ships 💖💖

I've been looking at OTP/Couples memes for a while and decided that it's time for me to make my own! For an extra surprise I'm not putting Ben Tennyson x Jora Holiday on this list because I focus too much on them anyways & I want my other OCs & their loves to have the spotlight for a change. The timing couldn't be more perfect as we're close to Valentine's Day!!! If you don't support canon x oc or find my ships displeasing then move along because this is a Happy Place! 😁😁 Again these are couples that I consider my personal OTPs in regards to canon x oc. That and making more content with my ships in general! Be warned the text is long and contains spoilers for certain shows and such!!

Clarify: these are my own ocs so there's not going to be anyone else's oc/canon. I might have to save that for another post in the future! 💚 But yeah these are characters that I came up with :]

Alright I'm done ranting, let's get started!

1. Sonic x Lani: I never quite gave much thought into this pair as I should so I promise to do something with them in the future! I promise! What I appreciate about SonLani is that there's little drama, like everything is super chill because both parties are chill. It's not a big deal and they don't need grand gestures to show how much they care about each other. Unlike Preboot Archie with its carts full of poorly written romance and strangely OOC moments on Sonic's end, SonLani had a lot of time to grow, while keeping his established personality in check. They actually communicate with each other, and stick by each other thick and thin. Lani loves Sonic for who he is & has no plans on changing him. Likewise Sonic has someone he can rely on when things get tough; not to mention he can really be himself around her without going all "iLl sLOw dOWn fOr U." Plus the ship name I gave them is a huge nod to the games ^_^

2. Jason x Vanessa: A recent pair due to Vanessa being a new creation but I'm honestly in love with them right now. In-universe they are regarded as the prime example of 'Opposites Attract' in Odyssey. They didn't get along very well in Jason's first couple of months in town due to his hardheaded self and her aloof demeanor. But through events such as Blackgaard and Novacom they gradually learn to trust one another. They see each other in a different light, Vanessa realising that Jason is a lot more thoughtful than he lets on, and Jason discovering her hidden fun side and kindness. Vanessa provides challenges and a sense of normalcy Jason can enjoy away from spy business. Meanwhile Jason fulfills her thirst of adventure & simultaneous desire for a peaceful life as well as spirituality. They're a equals, regarding each other as such and not to mention the BANTER! Hard to believe a former nun can keep up with a secret agent both physically and trading barbs XD. There's also the Forbidden Love factor of Vanessa being the duaghter of Regis Blackgaard, Jason defending her because he KNOWS she is nothing like her old man. Their friendship and romance overcome so many obstacles. I can honestly say that if Vanessa was canon she'd be the type of person Jason would like to be with especially over Jillian Marshall *gags*

3. Kaysha Wallace x Leo Hamato: Now here's a ship that I want to get more into 😁😁 Honestly I love the idea of this pairing: the serious leadee x bubbly spirit! Kaysha is very perky yet understands Leo's feelings on shouldering so much responsibility (she being the oldest child in her family). She's very willing to support him because she doesn't want to see him get all weary from burden. Likewise Leo can be himself around her, and teach her to be more responsible. He doesn't doubt her potential and sees her as an equal even during those periods where she was not on par with the other ninja. Kaysha shows Leo it's okay to relax and let other people help him out and not shut everyone out. When Leo expresses his ability to give her a safe life she simply laughs it off; the way she sees it him simply there in her life is enough. The most interesting facet is their dynamic varies between shows, so you'd see different scenarios and reactions as well as similarities and differences in their romance subplot.

4. Artie x Rhodanthe: Another couple I seriously need to give more attention to, they're meant to be is the foil to Shrek and Fiona in several ways. Artie and Rho may come from different social classes but they're both searching for a purpose to prove their haters wrong. Artie lacked confidence while Rho was overconfident believing she didn't need help. Together Artie learns to stand up for not only for his kingdom and loved ones hut also for himself; Rho's pride gets tempered by Artie's kindness and willingness to compromise. Another thing I like is that Artie has someone who loves him for him not because he is attractive and of royal blood. Likewise Rho has someone who respects her in spite of her social standing & shares her beliefs in making life easier for the poor & outcasts. While both lacke the physical prowess of Shrek and Fiona they rely on each other's resourcefulness and strategic thinking to get by. Unlike Shrek and Fiona they don't get married at the end of their focus movie, resolving to figure out where to take their relationship next. They still have their own life goals and don't want to rush into a relationship which sends a pretty good message. However they have their disagreements - in fact they got a huge argument that became a plot point in Shrek Forever After - but through it all they rediscover the things that made them fall in true love with each other. I'm really loving the subplot I have planned where they forget their memories and slowly fall back in love again.

5. Finn x Alma: Surprise! Yes8 I have a Cars OC (that was originally a fanon Disney Princess) who is the niece of Tow Mater in my verse and she enters a relationship with Finn McMissile. The thing I love about this pair is that it allows Alma to use her skills to flourish, treating amd healing injured spies. She's also into travel and adventure so she can pretty much keep up with Finn. Likewise Finn realizes she is more than just a pretty face or a one-off fling but someone with the passion to face challenges head on; Finn seems to love a good challenge! But overall they'd make a nice pairing, Finn showing Alma the world and Alma showing Finn some of the more simpler things in life.

6. Alexander Paine & Qiu Jin: Well well well look at what the cat dragged in? If it isn't our first villain pairing? XD Just kidding only one half is a genuine villain. What makes this couple so unique in that their storyline goes way back to before the events of the show, he being a agent and she a mechanic. They loved each other deeply, even to the point of starting a family, but forced apart due to some troubling events. When they do get back together it's not so much a bittersweet reunion as Paine became a full villain and Qiu Jin had spent years in&out mental institution before being released There's visible pain & regret, Alexander desperately wanting a semblance of what they once had. He seeks power not just for himself for to heal her. But Jin refuses to go along with his schemes wanting nothing more than to move on and see their children. Jin is a huge Mortality Pet for him, but his own selfish desires for power is a major obstacle their love can't overcome. It's the more bittersweet of my pairings but an important one nonetheless.

7. Bruce Wayne x Nicola Holden: Ok the Brooding Guy/Gentle Girl trope is a mixed bag these days but I really like this trope in regards to Brucola. Like with Artie/Rho, Bruce and Nicola come from different social classes but has that same compassion and drive to help others. Nicola is someone Bruce can trust but at the same time she lets him know there are boundaries (aka don't use my weaknesses as a contingency plan). I also feel like Bruce needs a sort of normal love interest, while he has canon normal girlfriends most of them were pretty boring. At least with Nicola she has has a life outside being a love interest her own goals and motivations. She also loves Bruce for him, not because of his money and good looks. It's a generally healthy dynamic built on honesty & empathy. Another reason why I find this pair adorable is that it actually matches with the rest of the Trinity; you know, like how Superman is with a journalist and Wondy is with a soldier/agent. Nicola & Bruce having different ways of pursuing justice while still sharing similar moral codes. It helps that Nicola is actually a hero rather than an antihero/villain/straight villain (Bruce dating a villan would only make him look like a hypocrite). Nicola sees all facets of Bruce's life and makes the choice to stay; provides some much needed light not just in his life but also the rest of the Batfam. In turn Bruce has another connection to the normal world that is willing to be in his life and see him genuinely happy. They're mature adults who ground each other and build each other up.

8. Optimus Prime x Malina Lovelace: Okay is it just me or do I think TFA Optimus Prime needs more love? What's funny is that at first Malina didn't like the thought of being outshined by newcomers in her superhero career. Spending time with Optimus makes her realize that there's more to being a superhero than fame. Optimus doesn't look down on her, and is more than willing to work with her and appreciate her work. She becomes touched by his friendliness and aceepts him and the other Bots. At the same time Malina reminds Optimus that it's okay to make mistakes and move on, and that it's okay to cut toxic people out. I even wrote a noncanon ficlet where Malina calls out Sentinel and Blackarachnia for the way they treat Optimus. OptMalina is a romance built on respect despite the obvious differences. Not to mention they have each other's back, and they learn about each other each time. And just like with KayLeo and BatRose there's different continuities which means unique versions of the Optlina pair. The Bayverse *chortle* and Prime versions are a few I'd love to explore in the future!

Miscellaneous

- Chad Charming x Soraya Nedakh: Essentially snobby rich kid who learns to be self sufficient and see past appearances through a positive influence. Soraya helps Chad to understand that being royalty isn't just pretty clothes and parties but actually using that status to help others. And Chad actually has his views challenged: Soraya doesn't back down easily.

- Jetta x Zane: The concept of JettaZane (or A Touch Of Snow/IceMagic) is that the robot teaches the human what it's like to be human. Jetta started out as an extremely cold person and a loner, but her time with Zane - the literal ninja of ice - gradually melts her heart & she becomes more caring and accepting. So the robot programmed to be human helps the human raised to be a cold machine unlearn her toxic traits and reclaim her humanity. Also Pixane is kinda boring imo, like they're only together because they're both robots. Not very compelling if you ask me.

- Brian Crown x Kelly Arbol: The wellmeaning goofball and the beatnik poet are something I rarely see much of, but that pretty much sums up their ship. Brian may be a bit self centered but he has a heart of gold and through Kelly's influence he becomes more confident in being a worthy successor to his dad. Meanwhile Brian respects Kelly in and out costume and teaches her how to have fun. Not to mention Kelly interacts with someone outside her circle, which is a welcome change from the trope of only dating someone within your circle.

- Janus Lee x Lenora Rose: Another pair from the same show as Paine and Qiu Jin, there's not much to say on them other than it's one of the most tragic couples. Lenora died a long time ago due to circumstances beyond her & Mr. Lee's control and it's her death that was the catalyst to his gradual descent into evil. As the show goes on we see glimpses of their life together and realize that Lenora is more than the Ghost, she was someone with her own dreams and motivations. She and Janus were outcasts who found companionship in each other, and were able to build a life together using their hard-earned resources to help others. Even in the last few months of her life she didn't go down without a fight, wanting her legacy to be one of love and hope. It's her memory that may be the key to redeeming Mr. Lee in the future of A.T.O.M.

- Ben Florian x Paige: Again not much else to say but they're the antithesis of Mal x Ben. One thing that bothers me about Mal & Ben is that they are supposed to be equals when it's pretty darn obvious from the scenes they were not. With PaigeBen it's clear that they ARE equals who respect each other. Ben's agency isn't reduced to just love interest, he has someone he has good communication with and wants to see him succeed. Paige has someone who shares her interests and see her more than just that One American Newbie. They LEARN to work together without love potions involved. Plus we haven't had a commoner Disney Princess in a while so Paige fills in as someone who works her way into high status then uses that status to help others with Ben at her side.

That's enough of my Canon x OC OTPs! I hope to explore them more throughout the year :) I work hard to flesh out my OCs and their romantic storylines as if they're real 💚😌

I do have KayLeo week planned for Feb 14 to Feb 21 so don't be shocked when I start posting rottmnt stuff or art of Kaysha! Anyways these are my personal ships that I enjoy despite the lack of content I made of them, so hopefully I have the creative juices flowing to make more stuff! Final note I'm working on a platonic oc x canon meme to show that love doesn't have to be romantic. A

#canon x oc #oc x canon #otp #multifandom #actiontoongorlz #oc meme #oc x canon meme #long text tw

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pisati · 4 years

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I already posted on main about it and I’ve got nowhere else to really vent. I know my co-receptionist is active on twitter and I don’t know if she’s ever tried to look for me (probably not), but I don’t want to risk complaining where she could possibly see.

it’s just been a long, shitty week. and it’s only tuesday. we had two euthanasias yesterday and two today. usually we get one TOPS in a week. most weeks we don’t have any.

I don’t know how many weeks we’ve been doing this now, but it’s definitely been over a month. I’ve worked with the lead receptionist a bunch since I started. she’s nice, but she’s very much got her own personality. she’s from new jersey, and that’s the explanation for a lot of her attitude, she says. I respect her and how well she knows herself and her boundaries. but I really feel like she could be a little nicer. I get that she’s worked in healthcare for a long time and she’s seen some shit but she acts like she knows everything and sometimes it’s just really insensitive.

I don’t think she means to sound rude, but there have been times when I’ve been talking about something and she’s only half-listening, usually because she’s working on something, and she’ll finish what she was doing and go “now what are you babbling about?” she did it to one of the techs the other day too. I know she just means to ask “what were you saying?” but it really makes me feel like whatever I’m saying is just nonsense to her, like I’m running at the mouth and whatever it is isn’t important.

we listen to what she wants to listen to. for 12 straight hours, 3 days a week, every week. according to her my music taste is respectable, but “a lot of sad-sackery”, so we listen to her music. we have limited overlap, but I don’t say anything. not because I don’t want to start an argument, I’m pretty much cool with whatever. but I’ve noticed that when we listen to what she likes, it’s often just a small handful of things she likes. I KNOW DMX has way more songs than just the same few. same with nicki minaj and beyonce. we’ve listened to some rage against the machine, which I can appreciate, but there are definitely way more songs than just killing in the name, bombtrack, take the power back, and know your enemy. I’ve listened to musical soundtracks. we did les mis and chicago and maybe a few others last week. I’ve sat there and watched videos I didn’t care to watch, because she’s really enthused about black opera singers and bruce springsteen and whomever the fuck else, because I like to think I’m a nice person and when someone is excited about something and wants to share it I let them be fucking excited about it, even if I don’t give half a flying fuck about it. today was a disney day, apparently, so I listened to soundtracks for mary poppins, the little mermaid, and beauty and the beast. sound of music too. whatever other eclectic songs tickle her fancy on any given day. but I’ve noticed it seems to just be the things she likes. I’ve come to work on disney days before but I don’t recall hearing soundtracks to more than just a few movies. I tried to get her to listen to a little hozier once or twice; since she’s a singer we often end up talking about vocal talent. and I was trying to show her what a great vocalist he is. she listened to maybe a few seconds of a song or two and, nah, not her taste. she gets why someone like me would like his voice, though. today she was laughing about something one of the techs had said; we have a whiteboard in the back hallway and every week or so someone (her, maybe?) puts up a prompt and people can write their responses. ya know, team bonding, sorta. this week she’d put up “what two famous people would you like to have dinner with?” and one of the techs had written “leo dicaprio and billie eilish”. and she was laughing about it. she’s not a fan of billie’s popular stuff. I told her about how I didn’t think I’d much like billie at first, but I listened to her whole album and I was surprised, I thought she had a really nice voice. just.. nope. I asked if I could play one song. just one. nope, nope, nope. she’d listened to half a second of each song on her album and decided she didn’t like any of them. I didn’t press.

yesterday she really just... ugh. the head vet had come up to the front desk to tell us that a really sweet client offered to buy us lunch, and did we have any ideas on what we’d like? they were thinking panera. I wasn’t sure if there was anything there I’d eat, but I’d take a look at the menu. my coworker had piped up with “she’s like super picky” and then ensued the “so what do you eat?” conversation. I didn’t really have much to say, since I’m tired of that fucking question and I don’t have such a small palate that I can just list off everything. she interrupted with “mac and cheese, I know that.” I forget what else she said, but I tried to explain that it was a sensory issue and there’s actually a disorder that involves a sensory rejection of food that lasts well into adulthood, and she was just sitting there next to me trying to hold back laughs. I asked her what was funny, she goes “it just sounds like picky eating, like it sounds so ridiculous”.

yeah, because I love being 25 and not being able to go to more than a tiny handful of restaurants with friends because those few places have one thing on the menu I’ll eat. I fucking love being too deeply embarrassed to special-order anything plain that I’d rather not eat at all. I love the “so what DO you eat” question, I love being laughed at and made fun of, I love feeling like a child who could never “grow out of it”. I really fucking love it, that’s why I continue to do this to myself. fuck’s sake.

this is the person who takes euthanasias so seriously that she’ll fuck anyone’s day up if they interrupt her while she’s getting paperwork together or if they’re being loud while the owner is in the room. she told me about her home health care work and how she dealt with a lot of people who were in hospice and she was real sympathetic to just about anything, because they were dying. I know I’m not dying, this doesn’t involve death, but the complete lack of empathy towards me just... really hurts. here I am trying to explain myself the way I always feel the need to, because I apparently have to have a fucking reason why I’m so picky, and she won’t hear any of it. she was fucking laughing at me.

I don’t feel disliked at my job, but I’m getting that feeling like I did in high school and college. like I’m both a part of something and not. I know I’m weird and a little awkward, but... she talks to people on the other team and they leave memes for each other. there’s a new girl on the other team who only started a month or two ago, but my co-receptionist is leaving memes for her specifically; the new girl even called today and she picked up, and they were having a riot of a conversation from what I could hear; a lot of genuine laughter, and I could hear the way she was talking, it sounded just so natural. a lot of the time with me she doesn’t quite sound like that. she’s got a pretty dirty sense of humor, and she was leaving some pretty gross memes for the new girl, meanwhile there was a video she’d shown the new doctor and the head vet that she didn’t want to show me because she “wasn’t sure if we were there yet”. she’d already described it to me, and she finally showed it to me today; it was just some nerdy guy singing about pussy in an 80s R&B voice. nothing I couldn’t have found somewhere on the internet myself. hell, it’s probably already floating around tumblr somewhere. idk, I don’t feel disliked but I am starting to feel left out. like, even the new people are more integrated than I am, and I’ve been there 8 months. I don’t know why this happens to me literally everywhere I go. every job, every school (except IUP somehow??), fucking everything. I just never feel like a true part of anything and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’m not unfriendly. I don’t think I’m unapproachable. maybe I really just am that boring.

I’m just really tired of this. when she was out sick that one day last week, and I had to handle 13 straight hours of reception basically by myself, with some help from the office manager, I actually felt less tired than when she was there. I feel like I have to put on a face for her, like I have to pretend to be interested in whatever she’s going on about all day. I can’t say anything to her because she’s the lead receptionist, but it’s been getting on my nerves lately that I try to actually do work and she’s sitting there looking at memes, telling me she has to find this particular one of jason momoa so she can print it out have it at her desk because he’s just so attractive

I didn’t get a break yesterday, because our doctors were lagging so far behind and I had to keep the phones on. she left to go do something, and I was left to answer phones by myself. I almost didn’t get a break today either; there were still one or two clients left by 1pm and I couldn’t turn the phones over to the break message, and she had a thing to do with her car so she’d be back. I forget how I ended up mentioning that I didn’t get a break yesterday either and she was like “well that’s me the other times the doctors are behind. it’s your turn”. and while that is fair... one of the techs came up to talk to her after she’d left. she looked at me and was like, “where’s trish?” and I was like “... on break”. and she looked at me and I looked at her and she was like “...she’s been taking more breaks than any of us”. and I was like “yyyyep.” she goes out a few times during the day to have a cigarette too. usually when it’s quiet, but of course in the space of 10 minutes there’s a lot that can happen. often it does. thankfully today we had those last few clients out by 1:30 so I did get to clock out, and she let me stay off the clock until 2:30. but if the doctors were as behind today as they were yesterday, I’d have had no break today either.

we pretty much only ever talk about what she wants to talk about. she’s constantly interrupting me or talking over me, so I just let her talk. I’ve heard more about her wild sex life back in her 20s than I’d ever care to know. today she told a story three times (once to me, once to the head vet, and once to one of the techs) about how she can accurately guess a man’s dick size by the way he walks, and how she did this to some guy she dated in her early 20s and he was surprised by it. I don’t want to make things tense or awkward by saying I don’t want to talk about these things and I’d personally rather listen to music that keeps me calm and just quietly scan, fax, label, and attach things in between the periodic phone calls, but I can hardly get a word in edgewise anyway, so it’s mostly just me listening. she’s let me know in no uncertain terms that she doesn’t like rats and doesn’t think they’re cute; doesn’t want to see pictures of them, just.. nothing. I personally think that you can’t claim to love animals if you only love the ones you think are cute. but I don’t even know if she does. I couldn’t tell you why she’s working at a vet clinic.

it’s fucking exhausting. it’d be exhausting with alexa too, I know that for a fact. I’m getting better at my job but I still need a supervising receptionist, so either way I’d have to deal with one of the two. I’m just glad it’s only 3 days a week, but even my 4 day weekends are flying by. the days are all blending together and I’m having a hard time getting my brain to work. none of this is easy. but it definitely doesn’t help to have to work with someone who’s so rigid about everything they do; like, I spend all fucking day listening to what you have to say and listening to every single song you want to listen to and watching every stupid video you think is funny (though some of them are; other times it’s like.. something reminded her of a veggie tales episode so now we have to watch it), and I can’t even play one song I like because you’ve listened to a split second of it and automatically think you don’t like it? the fuck, dude.

just.. the way she acts like she knows everything about the way people act, and how little tolerance she has for bullshit. I appreciate that second bit, but there’s other times when she really just has no sympathy and I feel like everything would be easier if she did. yesterday our one doctor was lagging really far behind and she was getting so annoyed because he had all this time for his appointments and people were having to wait and he never caught up all day; one of the clients ended up being one who was VERY particular about estimates and payments and shit and apparently he’d fucked something up after she had told him and the tech well ahead of time to be very careful with her. and she’d about had enough of him after that. by the end of the day he looked like he was either about to cry or had been crying. and he apologized to her for fucking up; I forget exactly what he said and she accepted his apology, but it almost seemed superficial. she had had it. the second she was done with her shit for the night she left. I stayed a few extra minutes to do something, but... like, even I could tell there was more to the story there. you don’t just lag all day for no reason, and especially not when you have to start the day on a euthanasia that wasn’t expected. I get that when you’ve worked with people for so many years you end up with a low tolerance for bullshit, but come on. I’ve been dealing with shitty people my whole life but I at least understand what it’s like to have a bad day. this particular doctor, a lottttt of the staff has a problem with, for many reasons. he’s only ever been nice to me, and I don’t know a lot of what goes on that annoys reception and the techs so much (often it’s some of his medical decisions, which... I wouldn’t know anything about that. how am I supposed to know what his rationale was for prescribing meloxidyl for a rhodesian ridgeback? the owner asked me for a refill and I requested it). so I guess some people’s patience runs low with him. but even so, I don’t think I could ever lack empathy that much. no matter how long I do this shit. I was tempted to ask him if he was okay, but I figured he had a lot on his plate to get to. he was there til like 10 last night, and his worklist was really long today too. I could tell he’s been on edge since last week. it’s not my business to know why, and I don’t have to. just be fucking nice to people, lmao

for someone who’s so picky about her music taste, she’s got no fucking right to talk about my eating. she won’t even venture outside the things she likes. she decides once that she doesn’t like something and that’s the end of it. so why is it suddenly a problem when I don’t want to try a variety of foods?

I’m just. really frustrated. I don’t want to have to vent about my coworkers but I’m not going to get through this easily. we don’t even know how long we’re going to have to do this. I found out today alexa’s husband is now in the hospital; they’re treating it like COVID and/or really bad pneumonia, but what the fuck does that mean for her team? for mine? did she bring germs to the clinic? is she going to have to quarantine along with her team? is my team going to have to run shit? I have no idea, and I only found out about this through facebook. I haven’t heard anything else from anyone. we do sanitize between teams so there’s a low risk of cross-contamination, but... we don’t get everything. there’s no way to.

I need to go to bed soon. I’m so glad tomorrow’s my friday. I’m ready for this week to be over.

#ugh.

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scenes-in-between · 5 years

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Daemonicus

(pre-episode)

In the week after the explosion on the ship, Scully barely sleeps. When her fears about William aren’t keeping her awake, she is bolting upright at every little sound coming from the hallway outside her apartment. When she does sleep, her dreams are a parade of one calamity after another befalling Mulder, out there on his own.

Oddly, she takes some comfort in the fact that these dreams are always different; she still can’t explain the dreams she had when he was missing before, the ones Mulder quietly confirmed were somehow representative of what he had endured, but they were always the same. This time around, it is possible to convince herself that these are normal nightmares, mere products of stress and worry, nothing more.

She forces herself to leave the apartment, once a day, to check her anonymous email account from an internet cafe in Georgetown. Her stomach knots tighter and tighter each time she accesses an inbox that is as empty as it was the day before. Sometimes, if William is asleep in the stroller, she finds herself ducking into the church on the way home, praying that tomorrow will be the day she finally hears from him.

It takes two and a half weeks for those prayers to be answered.

Her heart leaps to her throat at the sight of the bolded You have 1 new message notification. Tears of relief and longing spring to her eyes as she reads the single line of text within.

“Safe for now, though I can confirm the threat was genuine. Are you safe?”

She doesn’t know how to answer that. Between the incident with the mobile, what she found (and didn’t find) on the Navy ship, and everything that Shannon McMahon claimed, two weeks ago she had serious doubts about whether she and William were safe. However, looking over her shoulder constantly since then has revealed no indication of an imminent threat. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one, but if she shares her worries with him, he might try to return prematurely, and it is clear from his message that that would be a dangerous mistake.

Her fingers tremble as she taps out a reply.

“I cannot tell you what a relief it is to read your words. Not hearing from you for so long, I feared the worst. Please keep yourself safe, and do not worry about us. I miss you very much, but I am thankful beyond measure that you are alive.

Yours, D”

That night, for the first time since he left, her sleep is deep and dreamless.

***

Two months pass.

They manage to establish a delicate correspondence; there is no pattern or regularity to it, and each time she hears from him is a gift she does not take for granted. The ability to maintain this link with him, however tenuous, affords her a measure of strength through their separation that she might not otherwise have had. Life moves on in a way that could almost pass for normal.

As her maternity leave nears its end, she finds herself feeling conflicted about returning to work. She misses it, without question, but she also knows too well the dangers that exist out in the field, and the thought of one day not making it home to William is utterly terrifying. (Never mind that the X-Files unit really only requires two agents, and she has no wish to displace Monica, who seems to be thriving in the assignment.) It comes as an unexpected relief, then, when AD Skinner hesitantly suggests, as though he’s afraid of offending her, that she might consider taking a position at Quantico.

***

“Where are you going, Monica?” “This man Kobold can help us, John. I’m going to prove it to you.”

Monica stalks out of the autopsy bay, and after a pause, John heaves a frustrated sigh and starts to follow.

“Agent Doggett?” comes a quiet voice from behind him when his hand is on the door.

He looks back over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

Agent Scully’s tongue touches the corner of her mouth, an obvious tell that she’s nervous about saying whatever she’s about to say. “I know you’re frustrated. That you feel like… like the answer here is obvious, only no one can seem to see it but you.”

“Gee, can’t imagine why I’d feel like that.” He releases the door, turning fully and crossing his arms over his chest. “Look, if you’re gonna try and tell me that I should ignore evidence, ignore what my gut is saying on this guy Kobold--”

“I’m not. I’m not suggesting that at all.”

“Well what, then?”

He can see her choosing her words carefully, and it irks him. He doesn’t need to be patronized, least of all by her. Once upon a time, they were comfortable enough with each other to forego all this dancing around and careful tending of egos.

“The cases in the X-Files… you know as well as I do that they often require… a different approach than a standard investigation.”

“The hell they do. I’ve been at this for almost a year and a half, and not once has a case required me to believe in voodoo, or demonic curses, or aliens in order to solve it.”

“That’s not what I mean, exactly.”

Well now he’s confused. “Okay. Well, what do you mean?”

“When I worked with-- When you and I worked together, we didn’t always share the same theories about whatever we were trying to solve.”

It’s not lost on him that she was about to start with a Mulder story and then course-corrected.

“Right…” he says, not entirely sure where she’s going with this.

“And very often, those differing theories and perspectives were what kept the investigation moving forward, when it otherwise might have stalled out. In fact, that’s exactly why many of the cases became X-Files in the first place. The standard approach wasn’t enough to solve them.”

“Come on, I don’t buy that. Just because local LEOs, or even some other agent in the Bureau, couldn’t get the job done, doesn’t mean the approach is wrong.”

“Doesn’t it, though?” She’s giving him the full, earnest, Dana Scully Serious Face and goddamnit if his heart doesn’t skip a beat. “How many times did we get a break in a case just because one of us was looking in a direction the other one didn’t think of? Even if the final result was something completely ordinary.”

She’s not wrong. But…

“Yeah, and how many times did we waste days or even weeks barking up the wrong tree?”

“I guess my point, Agent Doggett, is that you get better results when you… bark up as many different trees as possible.”

“Even when I’m damned sure my tree is the right one?”

“Yes. Even then.”

He sighs. “You can��t ask me to ignore the fact that Monica is being led around by her nose on this case. Being manipulated by someone who is definitely out of his mind and very possibly also a murderer.”

“Don’t ignore it, no. And keep watching her back. But don’t stop her from pursuing her own line of inquiry, either, even if whatever she’s pursuing doesn’t make sense to you right now.”

“I don’t like it,” he says with a scowl, shaking his head. “But all right. I’ll try to give her some room to do her thing. But if I think she’s putting us in danger listening to this guy, I’m pulling the plug.”

#x-riles fanfic #txf: daemonicus #scullyfic #doggetfic

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chickenscript · 6 years

Text

A/N: nyeh. and so it begins. i'm doing this in a series 'cause i've seen a few other people do it like that and well, i wanna experiment with new formats. sorry it took so long btw. i’ll be buckling down on the prompts that were sent in- enjoy!

- ho boy is there a lot of sass to go around when you two are together.

- you complain about things to each other that you wouldn't with other people. especially if it's about those other people.

- he really doesn't get emotions all that well- they weren't programmed into him right, so he's great at the language of sarcasm and composed comments. you honestly can't tell when he's not serious sometimes.

- it's great when something unpredictable to him happens though, then you get to watch how his brain starts running around in that big noggin of his, trying to figure out what the hell was happening.

- cold, hard science was his anchor, with the exception of metaphysics, so when stuff like that teleporting mutant they found pops up, he's bewildered and thrown off but crikey is he excited. ten times as much as when mikey gets new paint.

- it's pretty funny to you, but don get laughs out of you any time.

- he makes hella good blunt jokes and they always get you going because you share that same kind of dry humor.

- he doesn't really like touch so much and it took you a while to adjust to the preference since you're kind of a touchy person. (hence why you go to the other brothers when you're in a cuddly mood)

- he does sometimes seek out a hug, or want to just lean over your shoulder while you're doing something and pull you closer until your backed up into his chest. he also likes to gently talk when he gets like that, voice all low and pebbly.

- a big shift from his crackly, puberty one.

- he also corrects people a lot offhandedly. you got used to it though. just like you got used to how he gets very in the zone about stuff, and you notice when he does while you're talking and start saying weird shit to get him to focus again.

("And oh, by the way, turtle soup? I’m a big fan.”

"Mm hm- wait, what did you just say?" (well, maybe that’s more morbid than weird)

- when he isn't so impassive and really, genuinely smiles or laughs, you like to coo and prod at him.

- you make fun of each other, a lot actually. you're banter kings, and practically unstoppable when you fire pokes at his brothers. they are no match for you two.

- like mikey, you’re usually an extra hand during a project and he's taught you a ton in the realm of science and tech. it’s a good thing you soak up stuff like a sponge when it’s within your interest.

- like how to hot wire a car or just be able to know your wires and never cross them incorrectly. it took a hefty amount of trial and electricity burns to figure out your way around machine guts. and a couple fires. but he's never kicked you to the curb and called you unteachable.

- you're always welcome in his lab and to assist with experiments so long as he's taught you whatever it is you're trying to do thrice.

- it's great because you’re not as terrified of explosions - or maybe just shrapnel - as his brothers are, and you’re a good thinker so you make a great assistant (or co-mind. you’re still brainstorming better names)

- lots of hands/robo arm gestures. you actually get into the habit of doing them too and leo points it out with some light jabs about how you're starting to get stuck in that lab all day too.

- like April, you like to hitch a ride on him but not as much as Raph. then again, everybody feels the same about that to be honest.

- you tend to borrow his tools in case you have something you need to fix at home, but sometimes you over estimate yourself so you call your good ole handy man turtle and he either talks you through the repair, or jets over to help if it’s something you’re really unfamiliar with and unsure of. (you may or may not have nearly blown your fridge sky high)

- you guys are like grease monkeys when it comes to the turtle tank.

- don't get yourself started on the stealth cycles- you loves those puppies so much. (you’re a real motorhead and was always excited to drive something for the first time)

- don’s taught you a lot on the care of both the tank and cycles, but he won't let you drive a cycle without him on the back. and without you wearing an assortment of sports pads and a helmet he modified. (he’s actually designing smart armor for you if you ever get caught in a battle. april shot him down when he offered to make her some for no good reason in your opinion, like free smart armor bro. who’d say no to that?)

- humans aren't as sturdy as turtles.

- you could say the same for him and his soft shell when the all the battle buff is off.

- you really do appreciate his ways of showing he cares though. it's sweet and quietly tactful.

- oh, you guys are huge sugar junkies. he eats sweets and drinks high in sugar or caffeine stuff all the time when he's binging work or skipping sleep. if you can't get him to bed, then you'll compromise by joining in on the sugar rush so you'll be able to get him to there when he crashes.

- which takes forever, mind you. you're usually the first one to zonk out on the pile of bean bags you helped him gather and nest in a corner of the lab.

- but he joins you at some point. the geometric edges of his battle shell jolts you awake and lets you see that.

- you honestly do a lot of the self care don doesn't do for himself. you remind him to eat often when he's got a project going- you bring him his favorite sandwich from subways, a tall coffee, or mikey's cooking (which is usually heavy udon whenever he knows don is at work so he can get hearty meals).

- you really just make sure he’s alive, and kind of healthy. (”Oi, stay hydrated.” you toss Donnie a bottle of water that one of his shell’s spidery arms catch instantly. He mumbles something like a thanks, still much too busy to watch you set yourself up on the beanbags with your laptop)

- he properly thanks you in subtle ways, like the odd gift.

- victim example being a custom made roomba. (his names connor btw, and you adore him and how much he helps keep the apartment clean since you and your uncle are horrible at upkeep. even when you get strings of messages about him being stuck in precarious situations that aren't even)

- sometimes don knows he can say things that sound too harsh and he can't always tell when they've gone that far, so he makes sure you're not upset about it later by surprisingly asking outright if it’s really bothering him.

- he really is a softie under some layers, or at least he doesn't want to be on anyone's bad side. then again, you're not sure he cares all that much about the latter.

- you still act like dicks to each other sometimes, not that you’ll ever really mean anything.

- and if you do say something with some bite to it, you know how to grow some balls and apologize. (you do a lot of that when you’re one of the reasons he cracks. sometimes he even needs some tlc if he’s really messed up over whatever made him blow a gasket)

- after all, don liked to think he was the mature one out of the group.

- so you let him keep thinking that.

- you have indeed asked about his eyebrows. he just never acknowledges you once you bring them up.

- and he’s as melodramatic as leo sometimes, and god it annoys you when you’re not in the mood. so does having to kiss up to him when he’s moody.

- you don’t try so much anymore, but you do get him his favorite snacks when you’re feeling merciful.

- well, actually, you’re really just a doormat for the people you love. you couldn’t stay mad at any one of the turtles for an hour on average, or less. long lasting grudges toward friends just weren't in your nature.

- you understanding don and being able to sit through his little rambles about his newest creation or a theory, or anything else in that regard makes him so very happy.

- he’s gotten a cut to the chase comment way to many times before and you are amazing for listening. (a true talent that is, being an ace listener.)

- to you, he's just really interesting to listen to. and he doesn’t mind when you ramble either.

- but you do realize how odd it is that you know someone who’s motto is; the blast radius should be about here. but i’ve been wrong before, or, your other top favorite, it shouldn’t blow up. much.

- jeez, don is such a dweeb.

bonus:

"You're ambidextrous?"

Donnie blinks at you, "Yeah, what of it? All geniuses are."

You scoff and shake you're head, returning to your book, "You're getting more full of yourself by the day, nerd boy."

"Oh, why thank you for noticing~"

bonus bonus because the ideas won't stop:

- don wearing a leather jacket makes you feel questionable. like really tight in the throat questionable.

- so does the suave way he's wiggling his eyebrows when he catches you staring- nope. nevermind. your dork friend is back.

"Loser."

"Dick."

#rise of the teenage mutant turtles #rottmnt #tmnt donatello #headcannons #friendship #fiendship?#i mean #you guys could be mad scientists #i guess probably more like kronk and ezma tho #heh #pull the lever y/n!#gah!#not that one!#tmnt donnie #reader insert #x reader #rottmnt headcannons #my writing

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marinsawakening · 5 years

Note

2 3 4 and 7 for ur meme >:3 let the salt come forth

2: Most amatonormative ship?

UHHHHH of all time??? or just in FMA??? oh shit should’ve probably thought this one through before making the ask meme lmao

okay so I’ll do in FMA first because it’s the easiest and uh. that’d be alm/ei. there’s literally no reason for either al or mei to have a love interest, its clearly used as a gag in canon, it was pretty much 100% onesided in canon, but for some godforsaken reason the fandom just?? loves it???? and considers it canon that they’d get married later in life?????? I mean I’m not gonna say that Arakawa wouldn’t agree with that but. she and everyone else is would be wrong. Al is aro and Mei is lithro and they try a relationship post canon but it doesn’t work out bc they’re arospec babe so they decide to be good friends instead and its a relief for everyone involved and that’s the truth.

Of all time…. that’s tough. I’m gonna go with Ca/leo (calypso/leo from the heroes of olympus franchise) even though I’m sure there’s worse things out there because I remember being FUCKED UP MAD when good ol’ uncle rick decided to pair off literally the only character from the original series that didn’t get a love interest because that was LITERALLY HER ENTIRE POINT and then decided to pair of leo because amatonormativity I guess AND THEN decided that they wouldn’t actually work as a couple so he just fucking. changed calypso’s entire personality. and I don’t mind that change much bc I like her better in HOO but YOU CAN’T JUST CHANGE CHARACTERS YOUR NOT HAPPY WITH RICK ESPECIALLY NOT FOR A ROMANCE THATS NOT HOW IT WORKS. anyway im still salty about HOO can you tell.

3. Most amatonormative ship fic trope?

*slams my fist on table* HANAHAKI DISEASE. yes I know that the aro community as a whole is really Done with soulmates and I totally understand and respect that (even if my own feelings are a lot more complicated) bc they’re amatonormative as heckie and much more widespread but like. the entire concept of hanahaki disease is ‘if someone doesn’t love you back you will get TERMINALLY ILL” and I mean??? who the fuck???? thought this was cute????? seriously what the fuck.

4. What popular ship has the least chemistry?

Well I already used alm/ei so and I’m disqualifying ro/yed on grounds of wanting to make this fun so…. pissing people off lets go with edw/in. it sucks. its bad for winry’s character development and completely superfluous to the story. we gain absolutely nothing by having ed and winry be romantically involved. they work way better and are way cuter as friends, and we would lose no story beats whatsoever except for the proposal at the end which was awkward as fuck in my opinion. like if your ship contains canon dialogue like “were his shoulders always so broad” (or something either way it was winry busing about Ed’s shoulders which…. is that a thing? that I missed?) and “wait at home and bake me an apple pie” (again, something among those lines), that’s…. not great chemistry. sorry you guys i just don’t see it.

7. Which ship discourse is the funniest?

*pulls out my time in the VLD fandom* LET ME TELL YOU A THING

(under the cut because this shit is too fucking long)

okay so for the most part the VLD fandom wasn’t actually…. that bad. I mean it was childish and volatile as fuck and everyone was really hostile to each other don’t get me wrong, but honestly, it’s not the worst fandom experience I’ve ever had, and once I managed to carve out a little niche for myself it was pretty enjoyable (also a lot of the fans were autistic which. neat).

but there was one event in that fandom that just fucking. killed me. and I’m still not over it.

so once every three months or so (on average, sometimes it’d happen multiple times a month and sometimes it’d say quiet for months on end) we had some Major Bullshit happen that got on top of the regular ship wars. sometimes it was something a cast member (Pidge’s voice actress, usually) had said or reblogged, sometimes it was new age ‘confirmation’ that just added wood to the fire of the regular discourse, sometimes it was a new Hot Take™ on the show that everyone loved for a while until someone inevitably pointed out that it was ooc/problematic/etc. and then everyone hated it, etc. etc. pretty standard volatile fandom stuff, all things considered, with the vast majority of the discourse having valid points but being taken way out of proportion because of the sheer size of the fandom.

the shaladin discourse is definitely a good example of that. the main point of the anti side in that discourse is ‘hey don’t ship shiro with the other paladins he is an adult and they are teenagers’ and the point of the anti anti side is ‘don’t tell me what to do you pearl clutching purists’ which. i mean im clearly biased here. but the discourse was blown so far out of proportion, primarily because, again, this fandom is too fucking big, but also because a lot of people involved in the discourse were kids themselves. you basically had a bunch of 14/15-year-olds who by and large haven’t quite mastered critical thinking yet yelling at each other in debates that got very emotional very easily. (not saying this to be condescending, lord knows we should all be happy that I wasn’t into fandom when I was fifteen or I would’ve 100% been the person going ‘well actually it’s called ephebophilia get your terms right’ so we all dodged a bullet there. but im just saying that, historically, young teenagers don’t have the best trackrecord for rational, calm discussions, and it really showed.)

so, why am I taking the time to tell you all of this? so that you have proper context to how stupidly ridiculous this discourse was on a regular basis. many (most) of the people in this fandom seemed to totally forget that, while telling people not to ship pedophilia or stuff like that is generally pretty important, it’s ultimately still fandom bullshit and doesn’t really, actually matter that much in the grand scheme of things. it very quickly became a very strong ‘us vs. them’ mentality on both sides that resulted in actually pretty seriously toxic behaviour like death threats (although the anti side definitely had more of a tendency to go witch hunting after people, shaladins were absolutely not exempt from Bullshit, as you’ll see below). like i shit you not we were all genuinely waiting for the time someone would get stabbed irl over it or something, it was so tense.

and at some point, at what I consider the height of this stupid discourse, came Operation Shalanonymous.

I might be getting the name wrong, but they genuinely called it something like that, with a serious graphic behind it. I shit you not. This whole thing was so, so surreal.

Operation Shalanonymous was literally a spyop. A 15-year-old shaladin (and maybe some others, I don’t remember) who at the time went by the url ‘theblackguardianofsheith’ or something similar (they deleted, to my knowledge, and I hope they’re living their best life) pretended to be an anti and went ‘undercover’ in an anti discord server, with the purpose of ‘exposing’ the antis for what they really were. they gathered a bunch of screenshots and such, and then released them all as ‘damning evidence’ onto Tumblr, claiming that they showed evidence of sexual harrassment and hypocrisy, among other things.

I can’t remember all of the accusations, but some were pretty serious, so I took the time to go through the screenshots and found… very little. there were some distasteful remarks here and there in the form of ‘i wanna kill [insert shaladin]’ that the mods shouldn’t have let slide, and a childish, kinda sexualizing derogatory nickname for the shaladin in question in the form of ‘hunty’, but those two things were really the worst of it. yes, this behaviour was bad and the mods shouldn’t have let it slide or participated in it, but all in all? not worth an entire spyop. if anything, what I found much more damning was that the shaladin (who, as a reminder, was 15 as well) had written a couple of little notes on the screenshots drawing attention to some particular messages of a then 13-year-old anti who said they had a crush on shiro. the notes themselves would’ve been nothing more than childish IF that same 13-year-old hadn’t just come out of a massive dogpiling attack where they were repeatedly misgendered and accused of wanting to have sex with adults themself despite them being a csa survivor. so attempting to throw back to that discourse to ‘prove’ some kind of hypocrisy was distasteful at best and honestly, it did not make them look very good.

so yeah. as you can imagine, the discord members and mods took that very well, and just. for a while, Operation Shalanonymous was this actual Thing, where shaladins were crying that the antis were finally exposed and the antis were accusing the spying shaladin of sending graphic rape porn into the chat to shock users, which the 15-year-old shaladin refuted by saying that they were attempting to get them to do something about it (apparently they were trying to get it taken down or something, but I genuinely have no clue why they thought the antis could help with that, but then again, this whole situation was so far-fetched and there was little evidence provided that this was actually ‘graphic rape porn meant to scar csa survivors’, like the antis claimed either, so like. i don’t fucking know), and accusations went back and forth for a while. it was a mess.

and this, this right fucking here, is hands down the most childish, most distasteful, most useless ship discourse that I’ve ever encountered. not only did someone actually take the time and energy to pretend to be an anti for quite some time in order to ‘spy’ on antis, they also decided to, in all seriousness, release the screenshots under the actual fucking name ‘Operation Shalanonymous’, dropping them like they were the fucking panema papers. like guys??? you know this is the fucking voltron fandom, not goddamn wikileaks, right???? these are not state secrets you’re releasing. they’re screenshots from a fandom chat. it. doesn’t. matter. that. much.

there were some genuinely horrifying things that went down during this whole debacle, and I probably shouldn’t find it as funny as I do, since this really was a prime example of how toxic people can get when they think they’re in the right, especially when the person in question is a teenager (who, again, don’t have the best track record for emotional regulation and foresight). but I just fucking can’t take this shit serious. you gotta remember that a 15-year-old was mostly heading this thing, and it really shows; the whole entire set-up and pay-off was just overwhelmingly childish, and it makes me so, so glad that I wasn’t into fandom at that age, because who knows what shit I would’ve pulled. and I just can’t stop imagining what everyone involved will think of this shit when they’re in their twenties or thirties. because god. ship discourse does not matter this much, guys. it really, really doesn’t, and this whole debacle was nothing but an embarrassment for everyone involved.

so anyway that was hands down the most ridiculous ship discourse I’ve ever witnessed, thanks for coming to my history lesson.

#Anonymous #aro stuff #diskhorse #i see i have some other asks in my askbox as well and i'll answer those tomorrow its too goddamn late here #my posts

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willandlyra · 7 years

Text

no one would know the sound of a ghost

in which nico hates his neighbours until one of them shows up at his door claiming his apartment is haunted, and he requires a partner in ghost busting.

word count: 5228

read on ao3

Nico, so far, has not had much contact with his new neighbour, dubbed currently as ‘Will from next door’ and that’s exactly how he likes it.

Their current encounters start and end with the following:

1. Will moving in just as Nico leaves for work. Headphones in. Minding his own business. His eyes accidentally meet in the lift with who he assumes is the guy moving in from the impractical amounts of boxes he’s holding. Will says, with too much enthusiasm for nine in the morning, “hi! I’m Will”. Nico smiles, and doesn’t say anything because he can’t remember how to formulate words.

2. Later in the same day. Will still transporting a couple of boxes of things when Nico returns home a few hours later. He actually manages to introduce himself this time. Will drops one of said boxes on Nico’s foot. Great start.

It’s nothing personal to Will, despite his early morning enthusiasm that one time and the fact that Nico actually yelped quite embarrassingly in a very public hallway when half of Will’s possessions collided with his toes. Or – that might have a tiny bit to do with it, but truthfully, Nico doesn’t really care for any of his neighbours.

Not because he doesn’t like them, per say. The ‘nothing personal’ title carries on from Will and is shared between the entirety of his apartment building. The fact is, they’re his neighbours. On principle, no one likes their neighbours. Neighbours are 90% of the time annoying and nosy and invasive. They’re too loud – the guy living in no.196 before Will was always playing his music at an unforgivable volume for three am, and Nico supposes the mistrust has carried.

Some of his neighbours are sweet, sure. Mrs Anderson opposite says hello with a sweet smile every time she encounters him in the hall or lift. She’s approaching eighty-one, and is under the impression that his name is ‘Dave’, but it’s the thought that counts. Piper across the hall is very nice, if not… over enthusiastic, and he supposes if she wasn’t his neighbour, she’d be his friend. As it happens, she is his neighbour, and he has to hear her loudly singing when she leaves her apartment for work every morning. Nice.

That’s a problem with neighbours: you know bits and pieces about them and their lives and their characters, but not enough to know them as people. You get to know all of their crazy and their ugly when you’re listening to mini soap operas through the thin walls dividing your homes, and you accidentally spy upon their irritating habits, and catch them at bad moments, and see all the sides of a person they wouldn’t reveal to a stranger on the street, by pure accident.

That’s all you see though. Some of them are friendly, and they aren’t shy about it, and waves and smiles and greetings are exchanged in the hallways but you don’t know them well enough to find a redeeming quality for all of the pet peeve criterias they fill.

His neighbours have all kinds of crazy. When Piper starts laughing she doesn’t stop until she looks as if her lungs are about to rupture, Mrs Anderson dresses like she’s in a time warp from 1988, Leo down the hall collects cactuses in different shapes and sizes, and Nico himself spends half his time yelling at his laptop at incompetent people on Mythomagic forums.

He hasn’t had many encounters with Will yet, but when he does, it’ll top the list so far.

It’s a Friday night, and Nico is ready.

He’s had a week of work – gross – and he’s ridiculously tired, but instead of sleeping, Nico has a way better idea. He has a glass of wine already poured into a glass, sitting idly on the coffee table beside a box of chocolates that he was probably supposed to send to Hazel. Adam Sandler movie (everyone has guilty pleasures) is at the ready. Fluffy bed socks are on. Door is locked. Ready.

He sits down, grin on his face, and breathes out a sigh of relaxation.

…Which is precisely when there’s a knock at his door.

Nico groans. Quite loudly. He sort of hopes that they get the message but as the only response is a couple of other rat-a-tat-tat knocks on the door, he supposes not.

He considers ignoring it and pretending he’s not in – but they’ve probably already heard the groan, and the light from the hall is obviously going to travel through the gap underneath the door itself, and he doesn’t know who is there, anyway. It could be Billie Joe Armstrong, ready to declare his love. It probably isn’t, but it could be.

Nico sighs. An irritated one this time, and it’s not really necessary but it’s kind of for good measure. And then he drags himself up off of the sofa, and feels like he’s pulling dead weight as he slowly, very slowly, makes his way to his front door.

He’s not sure who he’s expecting to find at this hour (it’s only nine in the evening, but whatever, Nico’s an old man when it comes to socialisation in the night). It could Billie Joe. It probably won’t be Billie Joe, but he hopes it is. It could be the boy he got into a fight with in high school - Octavian - who swore revenge, ready to punch him in the face. Could be his ex boyfriend from two years ago turning up with a baby basket, screaming “it’s yours!” before disappearing into thin air, like in all the movies - not that he's sure how that'd work. He isn’t particularly expecting any of these – probably someone who forgot their key, or someone begging for money who somehow got into the building. Maybe his landlord for a surprise inspection, who knows.

He opens the door, and out of all the ideas that sprang into his mind, and all the logical and rational people it could have been, Nico is not expecting it to be Will from next door.

“Um,” Will says. He looks a little like a deer caught in headlights. Maybe he has the wrong address. “Hi.”

Nico stares at him for about ten seconds and then, rather than responding with a traditional greeting, blurts out, “do you have the right address?”

Will blinks several times. And then he says, “yeah. I mean. I wasn’t looking for anyone else. I’m here because – well, for you.”

Because that doesn’t sound creepy at all. What the fuck. Nico’s going to have to rename him Will from next door to Will from the wanted serial killers list.

“Right,” Nico says. There’s a short pause. He shifts uncomfortable, and adds, “for, um, any particular reason?”

Please don’t say homicide, Nico thinks.

“This is going to sound kind of crazy, I know-“

Oh God. He’s going to say homicide.

“But I think my apartment is haunted?”

There’s another pause. This one stretches out longer, an awkward silence in which Will hastily shuffles, waiting for a response, and Nico just gapes at him.

“You what?”

“I… think my apartment is haunted?” Will repeats, and okay. Maybe he did hear right, then.

“Um,” Nico says. “Right. That’s. Well. Unusual.”

“I know,” Will agrees. “But weird things have been happening since I moved in, and. I don’t know. You’re the closest neighbour I have, and sometimes I hear you – accidentally, thin walls, sorry – discussing the existence of aliens on the phone late at night. At least, presumably the phone. Maybe to yourself. Which is fine. But. I just mean, it made me think you might be the most appropriate person to approach here.”

Nico stares at him for a long moment. “You do realise this isn’t like, the ghost busters head quarters or something?”

Will snorts. “Obviously,” he says. “It’d be a pretty stupid ghost to live right next door to the HQ of its nemesis, after all.”

It’s a kind of funny comment. Nico wants to laugh, but he’s still gaping at Will, not really sure in any way how to respond to him.

“Are you fucking with me?” he asks. “It’s been a long week, man. I’m not feeling it. Come back on Wednesday, maybe. I can cope with Wednesdays.”

“I’m not joking,” Will insists, looking a little desperate. “Like. Genuinely. My apartment is being haunted. I am being pursued by a poltergeist, I am literally certain of it. And it’s been going on for months, ever since I moved in, and I just ignored it and tried to rationalise it but my Cheerios just got knocked off of the kitchen table for no reason, and they’ve spilled everywhere and I have had enough.”

Nico just says, “why were you eating Cheerios at nine pm?”

Will shrugs. “Mid-life crisis.”

“You’re not middle aged though.”

“But I will be, some day, and I’m having a crisis about it.”

Same, Nico thinks, nodding. Because he totally relates.

“Same,” he tells Will from next door. “I feel that.”

“Thanks,” Will says.

“New question, why were you eating Cheerios, they’re bloody gross.”

“They aren’t, but that’s not the point. I reiterate: I think my apartment is being haunted. In fact, scrap that. My apartment is being haunted.”

“Okay,” Nico agrees. “Your apartment is haunted. What – I mean, I’m not trying to be rude here – but what exactly can I do about that?”

“I need you to help me search for paranormal activity,” Will admits hastily, and Nico just stares at him. Again.

“Wait,” he says, a few moments later. “You are literally being serious right now.”

“Yep,” Will sighs. “Completely. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Nico says automatically. Is it? He doesn’t really know. He’s never been asked to hunt for paranormal activity before. Particularly not with someone he has literally spoken to twice. And neither of them were exactly intimate encounters.

“Thanks.”

“Why?”

“Because my apartment is being haunted,” Will says. “Oh, you mean – well. I can’t go alone. Everyone knows you never take on a poltergeist or whatever that is alone. I tried telling my friend, but he thought I was joking. And, um, my other friend recommended psychiatry. So far you’ve only crossed one off the list. So that’s a good sign.”

“Jesus Christ,’” Nico says. He shakes his head in disbelief, and he’s kind of really feeling like he needs to sit down for a bit. Or maybe for the rest of his life. That would work.

“Is that a no?” Will asks, defeated. All of this staring has given him a good look at Will from next door. He’s cute, that’s for sure. Blonde hair, blue eyes, most likely helps old ladies cross the street. He really is attractive – although most people are, if you haven’t got laid since 1968. Nico may or may not fall into that criteria.

Also, Will had these big blue eyes, hard to say no to. He’s really cute.

Also, Nico’s seen this film before, and it totally sucks.

Turns out ‘Jesus Christ’ doesn’t mean no after all.

Nico does what any good neighbour would do, and allows Will in, and offers him a coffee.

“Yes, please,” he says. “My coffee always seems to end up going drastically wrong. I blame the ghost.”

“Are you sure you’re not just really bad at making coffee?”

“I’ll have you know, I’m an expert,” Will retorts. “I’d show you, but honestly, I’m too scared of accidentally breaking the mugs. The ghost has made me very superstitious.”

Nico eyes him wearily, thinking, why the fuck did I let this lunatic inside of my apartment?

“I’m sure it has,” Nico says. “Can I ask when the supposed haunting began?”

“Right after I moved in.”

“And what exactly were the signs?” he presses, feeling a little too self-important. Nico’s enjoying this, though, in spite of the serial killer possibility still being a fairly high risk. He feels like a ghost buster. Maybe this is actually what he was born to do. If, you know, ghosts actually existed. He has no idea what he’s supposed to do or ask, and he’s kind of making it up as he goes along – it reminds him of the improvisation exercises they had to do in high school drama. A simpler time.

“Well, it’s really cold, for a start…” Will begins, and Nico can’t help but interject.

“The whole building is,” he tells him. “The heating is kind of shit. Don’t supposed they mentioned it in the sale, though.”

Will frowns. “Maybe the whole building is haunted,” he says, and Nico doesn’t reply, because if he did he would probably bang his head violently against the table.

“What else?”

“Things keep breaking. I keep dropping everything when I shouldn’t be. Things just fall off the table or out of my hands even when I’ve got a firm grip.”

“That’s called butterfingers,” Nico informs him. He feels that on a pretty deep level. Maybe he isn’t the ghost buster after all. Maybe he’s actually the ghost.

“I still think it’s the ghost,” Will says defensively. “I was never this bad before!”

“Really?”

Nico’s not sure why, but from looking at and talking to Will, he’s kind of drawn the conclusion he’s the type to break a good few mirrors in his lifetime.

“Well,” Will says. “I don’t think so.”

Nico sighs. “What else?”

“Weird noises.”

He raises his eyebrow. “As in…?”

“Like. I don’t know,” Will shrugs. “This kind of… groaning sound? But not like, I mean, not in a sexual way. I’m pretty sure I’m not just eavesdropping on someone getting laid by accident. It’s more of a… pained wailing.”

“I see,” Nico says slowly. “And what time would you say this occurs most of all?”

“I don’t know. Like… eleven in the evening until two in the morning, mostly, I’d say?”

Nico coughs. “Right,” he says, and then swiftly moves along onto another question.

Will does not need to know that the supposed ‘ghost noises’ he’s been hearing every night are actually the sounds of Nico losing at Silent Hill.

The last time Nico got invited back to a guy’s place in the evening was probably over three years ago. Also, it wasn’t to search for paranormal activity and the proof of a poltergeist, so Nico’s really not sure whether he’s winning or losing tonight.

“Here it is,” Will says, opening the door. “I don’t know whether you’ve been in here a lot before, with the old tenant, but. I’ve moved it around a bit.”

“Yeah, no, it looks good,” Nico says. “I like your set up a lot better than Percy's.”

“Percy?”

“Old tenant,” Nico tells him. “I came over a few times. The place always smelled of fish. It was gross.”

Will wrinkles his nose. “Ew,” he says. “Bet you’re glad that he left.”

“Oh, I am,” Nico says. “He was definitely not one of my better neighbours. He’s moved away with his girlfriend now, thank God, though I’m pretty sure they’re only together because she’s a pescatarian.”

“Makes sense,” Will shrugs. “Did he ever mention anything weird while he was living here?”

“99% of the shit he says was weird,” Nico tells him. “But if you’re talking about in relation to the ghost, then no, he didn’t.”

Will groans. “Why am I the only one being targeted?”

“Maybe the smell of fish scared him off?” Nico offers helpfully. “Or maybe he was being… haunted, and I just wouldn’t know because he never approached me about it quite as, well, forwardly as you did.”

“I was tired of suffering in silence,” Will says defensively.

“I’m not hating,” Nico raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Although, there is another option.”

“Which is?”

“He doesn’t exist. The poltergeist, I mean, not you.”

“I mean, that’s a possibility,” Will muses. “But I still have pretty high confidence in its existence. Do you not believe in ghosts, then?”

“Not really,” Nico admits.

“But you believe in aliens?”

Nico flushes. “That’s a debate for another day. It’s a bigger likelihood. Look at the size of the universe, Will. You really think this planet is the only one to harbour intelligent life? Will. Will, listen. They’re out there.”

Will stares at him for a few moments. “And you don’t believe in ghosts?”

“…Not really?”

“So you think we just get born out of nowhere and remain on the planet for an unspecified amount of time and then just die? Just like that?”

Nico shrugs. “I dunno, but if I were a ghost, I sure as hell wouldn’t be spending my days in the afterlife haunting random apartments.”

Will considers this. “Me either, but maybe it was resting in peace, but then the previous tenant angered it with the fish, and now it’s out for vengeance.”

“Okay, now that’s something I’d do,” Nico nods. “I agree with the current actions of the ghost.”

Will frowns at him, and points to the pile of broken ceramic, Cheerios and milk on his kitchen floor.

“Really?” he asks dryly. “I don’t.”

“How exactly do we detect paranormal activity anyway?” Nico asks, and Will, for a moment, looks perplexed.

“Ah,” he says. “That could be an issue. Don’t you need like, all kinds of fancy scientific equipment?”

“This isn’t a science fiction novel, Will. I’m pretty sure those kinds of tools don’t actually exist.”

“Such a sceptic,” Will sighs, mournfully. “And so young, too. So sad.”

“They didn’t need high tech equipment in paranormal activity the movies though,” Nico says, ignoring his previous comment. “You have a video camera?”

“Nico, those movies weren’t real…”

“Obviously,” Nico says, rolling his eyes. “But we have to take inspiration from somewhere.”

“True,” Will admits, and he complies. They set up Will’s old video camera in the kitchen, where Will insists most of the ‘incidents’ seem to happen, and wait a while.

“We should search the apartment too,” Will declares. “There might be, you know, weird demonic markings on some of the walls or something, that’d indicate there’s a demon here, right?”

“Or that a previous tenant was into the illuminati,” Nico says. “But sure.”

Nico goes along with it anyway, though he’s not entirely sure why. This is hardly on the top of the list of things he was planning to do tonight, but maybe, on the odd occasion, socialisation with a stranger does end up being better than sitting around watching bad Adam Sandler movies and being bitter. Not that Nico would ever admit it.

Also, who knows – maybe the whole ghost buster thing could end up being a pretty good career change. Nico’s not really feeling being in marketing for the rest of his life. Or for a second more than he has to be. So that could work.

“Hey, Will,” he calls. “Wanna go into business as professional paranormal activity experts?”

“Sure,” Will says. “I’ll come up with a theme song. We’ll probably get sued for being crap, though.”

Nico waves him off from the other side of the room. “I’m pretty sure whether or not you have been released from the haunting of a supernatural entity is a matter of opinion, and entirely subjective.”

He turns to look at Will, who is stood by the wall trying to look behind the photo frames and tiny flower pots (seriously?) for any, like, small 666 signs or something, presumably, and absent-mindedly thinks about how he has great legs.

“I’m pretty sure it isn’t,” Will says, turning around, and yeah. Great legs. “But it’s fine. We’ll work with it. You found anything?”

“Nope,” Nico says. “Zilch.”

“Me too,” Will frowns. “Subtle, ghost, subtle. I’ll give you credit for that. You’ve got moves.”

“It isn’t real,” Nico says. Because probably.

“Or it’s just more subtle than you are,” Will says, shaking his head. “My legs are great. I’m with you there.”

Nico blushes, and Will grins.

“Sorry if I-” he starts, but Will waves him off.

“I’m kidding,” he says. “It’s fine. Also, it’s been ages since we set the camera up, shall we go and check it?”

Nico blinks. “It’s literally been about forty-five minutes. If that.”

“Like I said, it’s been ages.”

They turn the footage onto fast forward, and watch for any – Nico doesn’t know what. Demonic figures. Floating plates. Suddenly falling kitchen appliances, or something like that.

Nothing happens, though. It’s a still image of a kitchen (with Will’s evening-breakfast still spread out, all over the floor, nice) that just happens to be the backdrop for a bit of blur and zoom indications, and a clock showing the time at the bottom.

But nothing happens.

“There!” Will says. “Nico, go back, I saw something!”

It turns out, all that Will saw was a bit of dust moving in the corner between the wall and the cupboard.

“You disgust me,” Nico says. “Clean your kitchen. Also, the cereal.”

“I don’t know if I should. Can’t I send stuff like that in to be analysed in labs and stuff? Is that a thing?”

“No,” Nico replies. “Clean it up. I’ve almost slipped on that milk at least three times.”

Like a good Samaritan, Nico offers to help clean up the cereal disaster, and promptly slips on the milk.

“See,” Will tells him, holding an ice pack to his head, which he had hit pretty hard on one of his kitchen counters. “I told you weird incidents and disasters kept happening here.”

“I slipped on spilled cereal ingredients,” Nico reminds him. “If you always leave your paranormal encounters left around on the floor like that, no wonder you’re always tripping over.”

Will frowns. “That’s a fair point,” he says. “I’m still recording some more, though. Just in case.”

“You do that,” Nico says encouragingly. “I’ll just. Be here. Icing.”

“Ah, right,” Will says, biting his lip. “Sorry about that. Your injury, I mean.”

“It’s okay,” Nico replies. “I mean. I don’t know what I was expecting when I came over here today, but it probably should have been something like this.”

“I… kind of feel like I should be offended right now,” Will frowns.

“Can you blame me? The first day we met, you dropped a box on my toe,” Nico points out, and Will’s eyes widen.

“Oh god, I’d forgotten about that! I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t be,” Nico says quickly. “It’s fine. All is forgiven.”

“Maybe it was the poltergeist?”

Nico groans on impulse. “Please stop,” he says, and when Will looks at him a little strangely, he feels self-conscious, and asks, “what?”

“Nothing, it’s just…”

“What?”

“You sounded a lot like the ghost noises I hear at night just then.”

Oh, fuck.

They manage to leave the recording going this time for almost an hour. Key word: almost. They spend the time sat dutifully in Will’s bedroom, googling things like, “paranormal activity detection”, and “is there a ghost in my house”, and “are ghosts adverse to fish?” on their phones.

It’s been a long time since Nico was in a guy’s bedroom as the clock neared towards midnight. He’s usually wearing a lot less clothes and not researching the likelihood of having a poltergeist in a newly-built block of New York apartments, but he’s having a pretty good time regardless. Maybe on occasion, the supernatural is better than sex. He considers this, and then decides that probably isn’t true. Maybe they should be combined. Will is still pretty, after all. Sex and the Supernatural. If the ghost buster business doesn’t work out, at least he has a great name for his future T V show.

“Will, the building isn’t haunted,” Nico says, for probably the 59th time. Nothing I’ve found backs up your idea. And if it did, it wouldn’t matter. It’s the internet. It’s all bullshit.”

“Well someone’s feeling cynical,” Will says, and Nico couldn’t agree more.

“That’s me,” Nico agrees. “Full time cynic. Non-believer. Para-sceptic.”

“…Who believes in aliens?”

Nico scowls. “We’ve been through this.”

They check the tape again, and there’s nothing.

“I told you so,” Nico sings gleefully, and Will glares at him.

“I don’t like you,” he says. “I’m glad I dropped box on your foot.”

“Hey!”

Will, as a good, courteous neighbour (who is blatantly copying Nico’s ideas) offers Nico a cup of coffee.

“I thought you said it always goes drastically wrong,” Nico reminds him, wearily.

“Oh, yeah,” Will says. “But I mean what’s life without a little risk? And it’s not like anyone has ever died.”

“That… doesn’t really reassure me, to be honest.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Live a little.”

Nico laughs, and when Will gives him a questioning look, he just says, “come on. Isn’t that a little ironic? We’re literally searching for a ghost right now. And you’re telling me to live a little. Jesus Christ.”

“Get out of my house,” Will says. And then. “Do you think I offended it?”

Nico does accept the tea, though. Mostly because he wants to see how horrifically bad this can go. Also, he’s never been one to turn down free coffee. Also, he’s running out of coffee at his own place, and it’s the strategically correct way to go.

Will takes extra care getting the milk out and boiling the kettle and pouring the water into the mug without accidentally burning half of his skin off. He’s doing quite well, actually, Nico was expecting more disasters by now. He’s pleasantly surprised.

Will hands Nico his cup of tea with a proud look on his face. “Didn’t even injure myself,” he beams. “I’m very proud.”

“I’m proud too,” Nico tells him. “Go on. Have your tea. You deserve it.”

“I do,” Will agrees. His tea is on the counter, cooling down, and Will glances at it. “I’m the master.”

“You are.”

“I’m glad we can agree.”

“How could I ever disagree?” Nico says. “Come on. High five.”

Will grins. Nico thinks about kissing him for 0.2 seconds until he promptly rejects the thought. He’s still a stranger, even if they have gone on this ghost hunt together, and discussed business initiative, and he’s really cute. That changes nothing. Obviously.

He raises his hand in waiting.

And then, as Will reaches up to give him said high five, disaster strikes. To be fair, it was bound to eventually. But as Will’s hand raises up to meet Nico’s, his elbow goes flying out in the direction of the counter, and the mug, in the collision, goes flying, and topples off behind Will’s arm and crashes onto the floor and promptly splits into about ten different pieces as the tea drenches the cupboards, the newly cleaned floor, and Will’s leg.

“See!” he exclaims. “This is what I mean! Things like this! They happen constantly! I’m cursed, I tell you, what the hell.”

“Will,” Nico says slowly. “You do realise that you knocked the mug off the counter, right? Not some ghost or invisible being. It was literally you. Hence the coffee on your elbow.”

“Yeah,” Will says. “I mean, that’s usually what happens, but that doesn’t mean a ghost isn’t here, dictating the events.”

Nico gapes at him. “Oh my god,” he mutters. “Will! You idiot, you’re not being haunted, you’re just clumsy.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not just clumsiness,” Will argues weakly, but Nico knows that they both know he’s right. “It happens way too often to be a coincidence.”

“It’s not a coincidence,” Nico says.

“Yeah,” Will agrees. “I have a poltergeist.”

“No you don’t. It’s normal. It even has a name.”

“It does?”

“Yeah. It’s called really clumsy.”

“Ah,” Will says. He seems to ponder the thought for a moment. “Maybe I’m not being haunted then.”

“Did you mean, no shit?” Nico says, sarcastically, and Will laughs.

“Okay, you were right, I suppose,” Will shrugs. “It was kind of fun though, right? I hope I didn’t waste your evening. To be honest though, I don’t know for sure yet. I’m still not entirely convinced. It could just be hiding from you.”

“Nah, you didn’t. I mean, I had fun,” Nico says. Will gives him a small smile. Nico realises that the amount of emotion they are lowkey showing is disgusting, and dives into the other topic. “To be honest, you might be right, it could be,” he says, and he nods.

“Or maybe you’re the ghost. And you’ve just dressed yourself up in human form.”

Nico shrugs. He kind of really wants to kiss him, still. He can’t believe he’d spent his whole Friday night searching for a ghost. The things he’ll do for a cute boy is quite embarrassing. “You have no way of knowing,” he says, egging Will on.

Will pokes him in the side. “Hmm,” he says. “Feels real, to be honest.”

Nico gives him an innocent look. “Well, I mean,” he says. “There’s only a few ways to find out. Proper scientists conduct investigations, don’t they?”

“Experiments are very important in any case of paranormal activity,” Will agrees, a glint in his eye, and a grin on his face. Nico smiles back, too, and Will’s eyes drop to his lips and linger. Nico may not be quite as subtle as the poltergeist, but at least it’s led him to be able to take a hint.

He leans in quickly, and before he can change his mind he presses a chaste, gentle kiss on Will’s lips, lasting for a few seconds, before he pulls back, only half an inch, still so close to Will, and says, “wait, shit. That’s what we were talking about, right? I didn’t get the wrong idea?”

Will laughs a little. “That’s what we were talking about,” he confirms. “And you had exactly the right idea.”

Nico breathes out a sigh of relief, and Will pulls him closer and kisses him again, properly this time, slow. And if this is what the ghost chase has been leading up to this whole time then yeah, Nico definitely hasn’t wasted his Friday night. They keep kissing, slow and soft, and Nico can’t help but smile against his lips.

Maybe neighbours aren’t all bad, he thinks.

“Wait,” Will says, pulling back. “Maybe we should go to your place. You know, just in case the ghost is watching.” There’s a twinkle in his eye, and Nico wants to groan, but he wants to kiss him more and so he does, and again, before he actually answers him.

“Thought I was the ghost,” he says, and Will shakes his head.

“Nah,” he says. “I think you’re normal. Well, to an extent. You did just assist a near stranger in a hunt for paranormal activity for the past, like, four hours.”

Nico rolls his eyes. “Never mind,” he says. “Poltergeist or no poltergeist, I can’t do this here. I’ll be too distracted by the memory of searching for signs of the illuminati.”

Will laughs, and kisses him again. Says, “yours, then?” and yeah. Nico can work with that.

The last time Nico invited a boy back to his apartment past midnight was a while ago, and though it didn’t come after a lengthy search of a non-existent (he hopes) poltergeist and the emergence of a career in ghost busting, he has to admit that he likes the way it went a lot better this time.

#solangelo #solangelo fanfic #solangelo fanfiction #fic #i wrote this a few years ago as a different ship BUT i think it works better as solangelo lmao #SO IF U HAVE READ THIS BEFORE I AM NOT A PLAGIARIST im just suffering writers block #also excuse all my accidental brit speak idk what america is

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atlasjohnsons · 7 years

Photo

BASICS

Full name: Richard Regulus Johnson

Any nicknames?: Richie, Rich, Dick, Dick Dick, Big Dick Rick

Age: 29

Birthday/Zodiac sign: August 12th, which makes my baby boy a Leo!

All Leo’s have high standards and they don’t like to let themselves or anyone else down. They enjoy being seen as a person of substance and status, and prefer to be in a position to help others rather than approaching them cap in hand. Leo’s pride would not allow them to live or work in a situation that they consider as ‘beneath’ them. They are far more comfortable working in an exciting area where they can jet off to glamorous places and influence the more mundane members of planet Earth. Leo’s won’t stand for being treated with contempt or ridicule, but they are very aware of other people’s need for dignity, so they are rarely offensive or hurtful. Leo’s can become surprisingly downhearted on occasion, but they don’t usually stay depressed for long and their confidence returns fairly quickly. The thing that saves most Leo’s in hard times is their joyful sense of humour. Leo’s faults include impatience and a tendency to over dramatise problems. They become irritable when things go wrong and quite sarcastic when ill, under pressure or over-tired. Leo’s live in the fast lane, working and playing very hard. However they must remember to build in some rest and recovery time. They can be pushy parents because they want their children to achieve as much as they have – and exceed it. Leo’s encourage their children to become independent. Leo’s are generous and kind and will do anything to help others, especially their family. They excel as a family member and enjoy keeping in touch with relatives although are not the type to cling. As a marriage partner, Leo’s are very loyal and dependable, as long as they’re feeling loved and at the center of the family network. It is very unlikely for Leo’s to have a fling simply out of curiosity, although if they are feeling undervalued and unloved by those around them, it may lead in that direction.

Height: 6′2″.

Any tattoos, piercings?: Richie currently has this tattooed on the inside of his left forearm and a fern tattooed on the outside of his left forearm. A lesser seen tattoo is this, located from the lowest part of his right shoulder blade and spanning up to his shoulder. The word ausdauer is also tattooed on the inside of his right middle finger, facing towards him. Also, both his ears are pierced.

FAVORITES

Sound: Though he would argue that he has a lot of favorite sounds, one of the few that has withstood the years is the faint sound of singing and piano filtering in through a window. It, often times, reminds of him simpler times: when Rhea and Richard first moved to Germany when he was a little boy, his innocence not quite lost yet and reminiscent of the bright smiles of Cronus and Rhea together. This is a sound he would often fall asleep to, some neighbor of a neighbor practicing merrily as a boy drifted off into a dream of happier times and happier days. He would never admit this, often times shrugging and opting for the simple answer of ocean waves as the sea seems tranquil and serene, but often has the ability to destroy.

Color: His favorite color would be the kind of blue the sky morphs into just as the sun dips down into the horizon, the stars just barely beginning to shine against the skyline. Additionally, his second favorite has to be the yellow-ish white aura of the full moon on a clear night.

Person: Without a doubt, it is Rhea. Rhea has been the one constant in his life since the day he was born, the one person who has always wanted him and put him first when it seemed no one else did or had any recollection of him. There is no one they aspire to be like more, their loyalty, ferocity, and sheer will something that Richard still finds hard to match, even so many years later. He regrets leaving them to tend to his business in Germany, but he would rather they stayed away from the danger of it all, they are the one vulnerability that would actually kill him.

Memory: He knows it’s silly and he knows it’ll never happen again, which is why he cherished the memory so much, but he distinctly remembers a small instance in his toddler years. It was before they moved, very much still in New York City with Cronus and Rhea. He remembers taking both of their large hands in his very small ones and being swung by the both of them, unfiltered laughter filling the air from all three of them. He remembers their smiling faces, genuine and bright in his mind. They were perfect, they were untouchable, everything was pristine for one precise moment before the cracks started to form. It’s not so much a fond memory as it is for wishful thinking, but it’s his favorite. Though, if you ask him, he’d probably tell you the story of how he snuck out one night as a teenager, rolled Rhea’s car out of the driveway and down the street so he could drive a little ways out of town and into the countryside to look at the constellations with a nameless person that he claims he can’t remember.

Place: The planetarium, most likely. However, whenever he IS in Germany, he goes off the grid once a week to visit the library that he often went to when he was a child. It was here that he learned of Gods and Titans, mythos from beyond the Greeks, constellations that lined the night sky, it is here that he feels the most at home.

Vice: Can I just go with the obvious and say sex? Richie hardly smokes cigarettes, he feels as though they’re unclean; drinks plenty but knows how to hold his alcohol and knows not to get belligerent; and doesn’t participate in hard drugs as he knows it can affect his thinking and his reflexes. Underneath it all, he’s very much someone who seeks validation and adoration, even if he doesn’t quite believe in love. (Or so he thinks).

HAVE THEY EVER…

Been in love?: No, not even once, not even close. He thinks far too much to allow it to happen, especially if it gets in the way of what he truly wants.

Done drugs?: He’s tried something or other at some point, but he refrains from doing them now, he’s not really gluttonous in that sort of way.

Killed someone?: In all honesty, Richie has some unresolved aggression and anger issues that sprout through occasionally when he participates in interrogations. It’s not usually pretty or painless either. But yes, of course.

Betrayed someone’s trust?: He hates doing this, it makes him look like a complete hypocrite and he doesn’t trust many people to begin with, but I’m sure he has one time or another when he was much younger. He wants to do anything he can to prevent it now, though.

Had their heart broken?: In terms of it being romantic? No. Familial and friends, however? Yes.

Lost someone?: I mean... Yeah.

DO THEY…

Have any pets?: Hyas is likely his best friend and lifelong companion, who Richie rescued from an abusive family as a puppy during his time at university. Subjectively, he knows that Hyas only has a certain amount of time left and he also knows he has to get another companion soon, (who’s going to gift Atlas a dog, please do the thing) but he can’t bring himself to just yet.

Have a family they still talk to?: ... This is embarrassing, but I’m pretty sure they talk to Rhea almost every single day unless they both have busy schedules.

Have a best friend?: See above.

Want to get married and/or have kids?: No to both, he’s seen how relationships can get complicated over time, especially in his line of work. He’s also been very much monogamous for the majority of his life, so he’s not even quite sure what a functional romantic relationship should even be like. Though, a small part of him does sort of want to have kids and he might even have some running around that he doesn’t know about, but he’d never ACTUALLY admit that.

Want to leave?: No, New York is his. Though, he’s not sure if he wants to move his operations here once he’s demolished the Olympus or keep them in Germany.

THIS OR THAT?

Phone call or text? Oddly, Richie prefers phone calls. They seem much more personal and it’s easier to tell if someone is lying to him by their voice, rather than a message.

Wealth or loyalty? Loyalty, 100%. He could literally have nothing in terms of wealth as long as he has the loyalty of his people.

Love or lust? Lust, love doesn’t really and shouldn’t exist for people like him.

5 Friends or 100 Acquaintances? 5 friends, so long as they’re real with him and loyal.

Summer or winter? Summer. Though the sun is out longer, he can hardly see the stars through the clouds during winter... Plus, it’s not much fun to lay out in the snow.

OTHERS:

Wanted plots/connections: coming soon.

#about #olympustalk #THIS GOT REALLY EXTRA BUT IM NOT SORRY IM READY 2 GO

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hongbab · 7 years

Text

The Songbird - Wonshik snorts, half a smile quirking the left corner of his mouth upwards, but a beat later it dies down and he looks up with sadness in his eyes. “Please, don’t hurt Jaehwan,” he says quietly. “He’s not the one at fault.” (Leo/Ken, pg-13, 5622)

a/n: written for this prompt. this is probably not what you had in mind, anon, but i hope you’ll still like it;;

It’s 2.36am and Taekwoon is still sitting in front of his computer with his elbows on his desk, his fingers buried under his hair as he holds his forehead in his palms.

Everyone else from the department has already gone home and he should have done so as well, but instead, he keeps staring at the blaring monitor with the browser open at the intranet home page. He doesn’t know how to start this. Or, more like, he can’t start it without having to crawl out of his skin.

When Hakyeon called him into his office, Taekwoon thought he might want to praise him for single-handedly catching the head of that lowly gang of drug smugglers, maybe even tell him to take a few days off as a reward. And Hakyeon praised him, told him he was his best man, and his eyes were sparkling, a happy but nervous smile plastered on his face. However, he didn’t give Taekwoon any rewards, but—and he looked troubled when he did this—gave him a new case that most detectives had failed to solve thus far.

“You are our only hope,” Hakyeon said, sliding a file towards Taekwoon on the desk. “He’s a fucking phantom and everyone’s so lost.”

So, for the last three hours, Taekwoon has been sitting behind his computer with the file open in front of him, pictures and screenshots and handwritten notes and printed pages all scattered around, the name ‘Songbird’ repeated on every single piece of paper. This is torture and he’s already cringing so hard.

He has solved so many cases during his career: from criminal possession of weapons through mysterious deaths to some mafia-level shit, and now he’s been assigned this. He hates it more than anything before.

Maybe he’ll just start tonight, proceed until the point his colleagues have been unable to move on from, and say he can’t do it.

The Songbird’s website is entitled—surprise, surprise—‘Songbird’ and it’s pretty much just a blank index page with a high-resolution picture of some kind of bird* with the weirdest reddish-yellowish-orange feathers—the ends of which look like locks of red hair—and yellow and green head that Taekwoon has ever seen (he hasn’t seen a great many kinds of birds in his life). He clicks the image and a welcoming page pops up, asking him to either sign up or sign in.

This is it. This is where he should stop.

Taekwoon lets out a sigh and clicks the sign up button which directs him to a page that asks for his e-mail address, name, gender, the date of his birth, and the details of his credit card. How can this person be so fucking obvious.

He digs out the expired credit card Hakyeon handed him with the documents from under the pile of papers and types up the numbers, filling in the form entirely with fake personal data. He clicks the confirmation link in the e-mail he receives in his—again—fake inbox, and on the new page that pops up the title reads, ‘Welcome to Paradise’, a text box appearing underneath and asking him to write a letter to the owner of the site about how he found them, what he wants from them, and what he wishes to do to them.

Taekwoon lets his head fall on the desk and the pain in his forehead grounds him enough not to start screaming in frustration.

When the mobile phone next to his hand pings with a new text, Taekwoon almost falls off his chair in surprise.

It’s been four days since he signed up to the Songbird’s website and two days since the Songbird sent him a message in which he thanked Taekwoon for signing up and asked for his Kakao ID so they could chat there. The message was full of unnecessary emojis and tildes, and ended with an “xoxo, your Songbird”, forcing Taekwoon to stifle a hysterical laugh.

He gulps down some of his now cold latte to calm himself and takes the cheap, bad quality smartphone—a tool he was given to execute the investigation—into his hand, swiping up with a clammy finger to unlock the screen.

~Songbird~ hi Leo~~

He squints at the cheesy alias he’s chosen to use (if this person is a Songbird, Taekwoon might as well be something big and scary that would eat a fucking bird for dessert), and looks around in the office to see if someone is looking. Sanghyuk, on his right, is immersed in a video of weird game characters instead of actually working, so he takes a deep breath and replies.

Leo hi

~Songbird~ is something wrong? :^(

Leo no, why do you think something’s wrong?

~Songbird~ just the simple hi :/ i hope my message didn’t upset you, i was actually so surprised by your emotional letter~ hehe

Leo oh I was just… ugh I might have got a little carried away with that letter

~Songbird~ it’s okay it was really cute :3 i really liked the part where you wrote you’d like to take me out for a nice dinner and kiss me goodnight afterwards^^ you seem so sweet ♥

Leo thank you

~Songbird~ are you by any chance replying to me in such short sentences bc you’re shy? haha

Taekwoon puts the phone on the desk and drags his hands over his face, hating how his stomach is in knots from this whole thing. He’s never been a good communicator, neither has he been good at texting people in a smooth way, especially not if he was supposed to sound flirty. Maybe this is the point where he should hand the phone over to Sanghyuk to dig into the Songbird's ID specifications, or maybe he should just drop the phone into the toilet, possibly attempt to drown himself in the sink afterwards, but he sniffles instead and drinks the rest of his awful latte before taking the phone into his hands again.

Leo I’m not very good at texting people talking to you like this makes me a little flustered

~Songbird~ OMG so cute!! u don’t need to be flustered sweetheart you’re doing great! :) would it be better if i sent u a kiss?

Taekwoon all but chokes on his own saliva and Sanghyuk glances at him from the corner of his eye, ignoring him anew and going back to his video when Taekwoon stops coughing. His fingers are trembling on the screen when he types up his answer.

Leo I giess *guess

More than a minute passes without a new text and Taekwoon feels all the blood leaving his body to creep up into his cheeks, making him blush furiously. He shakes his legs nervously under the desk and his heart is going crazy and he’s just so fucking angry with himself for being such an anxious piece of shit—he might even be a little excited and it just makes him all the more annoyed.

~Songbird~ sent a video

The small clip shows a pair of pretty, plush and very pink lips that are pursed and they get as close to the camera as possible, a very loud smacking sound coming from the speakers of the phone. Taekwoon mutes the damn thing as fast as his jittery fingers let him, and when he looks back down at the screen, he sees the lips parting, revealing snow white teeth as the Songbird smiles sweetly.

And Taekwoon is mesmerized.

He replays the video three times, trying to imagine how the Songbird looks like, but he’s lost and all he can think of is that genuine smile and the little air kiss.

His legs stop shaking.

~Songbird~ better now?^^

Leo it was cute

~Songbird~ honestly you’re so adorable~~ I hope you’d still wanna kiss me after that dinner date

Leo yeah, I would your lips are pretty

~Songbird~ aww thanks i gtg now but i’ll get back to you soon sweet dreams honey ♥

Leo good night

Another night ends with Taekwoon headbutting his desk.

“Here.”

Taekwoon turns away from the document he’s typing up and glances at the mobile device on his desk, Sanghyuk letting go of it as he plops down in his chair. There’s a devilish smirk on his face that Taekwoon knows means something awful, his eyes already narrowing before Sanghyuk would say anything more.

“Have you found him?”

“I found an IP address, but that doesn’t mean much,” Sanghyuk says, leaning back in his chair. “But first—”

“I said no questions,” Taekwoon grumbles. “You’ve read the whole thing, haven’t you?”

“Read it, watched the video and all,” Sanghyuk replies and his smirk turns into a full grin. “You have such a way with words.”

“Shut up,” Taekwoon scoffs. “I need to get him to trust me. And I told you not to read it.”

“Yeah, well, that’s why I read it. He must have some very low standards if he thinks you’re cute, but anyways, what we now know is that the device he uses belongs to a certain Mr Kim Wonshik.”

“Which means that his real name is Kim Wonshik, right?”

“Maybe,” Sanghyuk shrugs. “He might have stolen it or something. But if I were you—and thankfully, I’m not—” Taekwoon sends him a death glare here, “I’d start off by digging up some info about this Wonshik guy and ask him if he knows anything about your little birdie. Or, if he is your little birdie.”

“He’s not my— oh, fuck off.”

Sanghyuk sniggers and turns back to his computer.

~Songbird~ sent a photo

Taekwoon snatches the phone away from the edge of his desk before Sanghyuk could touch it first, standing up to walk away so he wouldn’t have to deal with the nerdy brat’s examining stare as he opens the photo.

His breath catches in his throat when the picture finally loads and Taekwoon's back hits the wall of the empty corridor as he sways a little. It’s an almost full-body photograph and the person in it is wearing a black, silk-like bathrobe, the thin, shiny material sticking to a frail-looking body, the light enhancing every curve and edge underneath. The hem of the robe bunches just under the boy’s hip bones, leaving a pair of smooth, pale thighs visible, a large part of the Songbird’s chest also uncovered. He’s apparently lying on a bed, and Taekwoon notices a never before seen part of his face: a prominent nose above the plump lips which he has already seen at least twenty times in the video.

The Songbird is pouting.

~Songbird~ it’s such a lazy morning what are you doing sweetie?

Leo working

~Songbird~ oh you poor thing :( and what do you do?

Taekwoon takes a deep breath and writes down what comes to his mind first.

Leo I’m a lawyer

~Songbird~ !!! sounds exciting tbh i wish you were here now

Taekwoon slides down against the wall and crouches, his knees too weak to keep him upright any longer. He swallows around a lump in his throat.

Leo why?

~Songbird~ i’m bored and lonely :(

Leo do you think I’d be entertaining enough to make you feel less bored?

After some thinking, he adds a spiritless

haha

~Songbird~ well i have a few ideas about how we could pass time~~ not sure if i should tell you abt them at this point you still seem a little nervous :D

Leo I’m a little nervous but I mean you can tell me if you want

~Songbird~ first you could play with my hair bc i really like that^^ and then maybe we could kiss some hehe and if u feel up to it we could get rid of my bathrobe andddd i’ll let u know abt the rest if we can meet up sometime ♥

Taekwoon feels his limbs going numb, but despite the feeling, he springs up from the floor and locks the phone, putting it into his pocket as he starts striding towards the bathroom. He opens the tap and tries to stand as far away from the counter as possible so his crotch won’t brush against it, making everything happening down there a lot worse, and splashes icy water into his face, tapping it into his cheeks to calm himself. When he looks up into the mirror with some water drops running down his skin, he sees dark shadows under his eyes, his skin looks almost grey and there’s a flush across his cheeks, and he has a few more crow’s feet now than the last time he looked at himself for real.

He really needs to take a few days off and preferably get laid on those days, too, because withdrawing from any kind of intimacy with others has been taking a toll on him and now he’s hard just thinking about a naked stranger whose face he hasn’t even seen yet. How sick is he…

He also needs to see the Songbird behind bars as soon as possible.

When he storms back to his desk, Sanghyuk blinks up at him curiously, leaning into his personal space to peer at his monitor screen.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“I’m going to find Kim Wonshik.”

“And why are you so upset about this plan of yours?” Sanghyuk arches an eyebrow. “Did something happen?”

“Don’t talk to me now,” Taekwoon snarls.

“Rude.”

Taekwoon can’t exactly say he’s prepared for meeting the Songbird just now, but he stands in front of a door with a hand raised to it and ready to knock. He doesn’t really know what he’s going to do if the Songbird is the one who opens the door for him, and he doesn’t know what he’s going to do if it’s someone else.

So many years of being a detective and now he’s nervous about meeting a civilian.

He knocks on the door and waits, the knob turning after a few moments.

“Um, hi,” the guy standing in the doorway says, looking confused.

He is not the Songbird and Taekwoon is a hundred percent sure about it; he’s looked at the Songbird’s almost full-body selfie enough times to memorise his apparent proportions, his skin tone, the fragility etched into all of his visible body parts. The person in front of him is tall and lean-bodied and has a tattoo peeking from the collar of his tank top and Taekwoon almost heaves a sigh when he notices it.

“Detective Jung Taekwoon,” he announces, holding up his badge. “I’d like to have a few words with you.”

The guy goes pale, but steps aside and lets Taekwoon into his small studio flat, shuffling to the couch to fetch his slippers.

“Are you Kim Wonshik?” Taekwoon asks, looking around the place so he doesn’t have to look the guy in the eye, still feeling wrong-footed from the whole thing just because the Songbird is involved.

“Yeah,” the man says and Taekwoon closes his eyes for a moment in relief. “What’s going on?”

“Do you know the Songbird?” Taekwoon inquires then, pocketing his hands so he won’t fidget so obviously.

“Song— what,” Wonshik looks even more confused, standing in the middle of his flat in a pair of basketball shorts and a white tank top. He scratches the back of his head awkwardly. “Do you mean Jaehwan?”

“Jaehwan?” Taekwoon arches an eyebrow, his head snapping to Wonshik curiously.

“Ah, you don’t— oh,” Wonshik deflates and if possible, even more blood leaves his cheeks. “I— you might not be talking about him.”

“Has a website through which he recruits people he can trick for money by selling his body?” Taekwoon asks with a little bit of acid to it, and the blood returns to Wonshik's cheeks at that, turning it red.

“Listen, he’s not—”

“Do you know anything about his current whereabouts?”

“I don’t,” Wonshik says firmly and it’s true; Taekwoon sees the sincerity in his eyes and maybe some… sadness, too. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell anybody.”

“Yes, well,” Taekwoon snorts, “that would earn you a few years in jail and not in the same cell with him. Just saying. Anyways, he’s got a phone number that is supposed to be yours. Did you possibly give him a device to use?”

Wonshik opens his mouth and then promptly closes it. He makes a face as he asks, “Okay, can I get a lawyer at this point?”

“You could,” Taekwoon replies a little impatiently. “But I don’t think you want to go into the process just yet; you’ll have enough time for that later. So?”

“Do you want me to tell you how I’m connected to him?” Wonshik squints. “Like, everything?”

“By all means, yes.”

“Alright, well—” Wonshik's bottom hovers above a chair and he motions towards the one closer to Taekwoon, although a little hesitatingly. “Sit down, if you want.”

“Thank you.”

Taekwoon pulls out the chair and sits, lacing his fingers on the table top.

“So,” Wonshik clears his throat, “I’d actually heard about Jaehwan's site from a friend and—”

“Who is that friend?”

Wonshik furrows his brow in judgement, his facial expression turning dark. Taekwoon doesn’t budge, but he can feel how much he’s annoying Wonshik.

“His name is Hongbin, Lee Hongbin,” Wonshik replies with a small sigh. “I’m not sure how he knows Jaehwan but I think he said something about some high school they attended together? So, I was, like, really under the weather and I’d been like that for a while at that point and Hongbin suggested I try meeting with Jaehwan.” He pauses, shutting his eyes for a second. “Jaehwan and I, we talked a lot through e-mails, it was a bit like online friendship at first, but then I… I don’t know, I kind of started to feel something for him. We met up after a while and talked a lot and started meeting each other from time to time.” He glances up at Taekwoon, his face flushed again. “I just really liked Jaehwan and um, well, he said he didn’t like me like that, but he still wanted to be friends with me, though it was difficult because of his… circumstances. I gave him my old phone because he once mentioned how much more comfortable it would be to talk to people by using a smartphone instead of e-mailing each other.”

“Are you saying he’s been operating a website which actually brings him a lot of money, but there was a time when he didn’t have a phone?” Taekwoon asks, disbelieving.

“The website is not his and he said he can’t have a phone because it’s dangerous,” Wonshik says, now obviously concerned that he’s saying too much. He averts his eyes. “The whole thing is totally different from how you see it.”

“Care to share how it’s different?”

Wonshik leans back in his chair, his face haggard like he has aged 20 years during their conversation. He looks broken and now it’s Taekwoon who feels confused.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Wonshik mumbles. “It’s— it’s just not my business to talk about, you know? I’ve never really been involved in the story apart from being Jaehwan's… friend, or whatever.”

“Are you currently in contact with Jaehwan?”

“No,” Wonshik shakes his head. “He’s not allowed to contact me.”

“What do you mean ‘not allowed’?”

Wonshik makes a wailing noise.

“Can we please stop now?”

“Alright,” Taekwoon takes a deep breath and stands up. “Thank you for your contribution, though; you’ve been a great help. Here’s my contact if you happen to remember something you wouldn’t like to keep to yourself.”

Wonshik slowly reaches out for the business card Taekwoon is offering him, turning it around between his fingers, looking at it, but probably not actually seeing it.

“Are you a real cop?” he asks, blinking up at Taekwoon.

“I am,” Taekwoon nods. “I have a gun and all.”

Wonshik snorts, half a smile quirking the left corner of his mouth upwards, but a beat later it dies down and he looks up with sadness in his eyes.

“Please, don’t hurt Jaehwan,” he says quietly. “He’s not the one at fault.”

Leo hey

~Songbird~ oh hello~ what’s up?

Leo I’ve been thinking and I wanted to ask you if we could meet

~Songbird~ finally haha ofc we can sweetie when would u like to meet?

Leo maybe tonight? if possible?

~Songbird~ sure^^ can u come to the hotel i’m staying at?

No one can really accuse Taekwoon of not trying his best as he parks his car in front of the four-star hotel and turns the rear-view mirror towards himself, examining his own face. He looks like he normally does, really; poker face and a cutting glance, his mouth a tight line. He did spend a little more time combing his hair than he usually does and he also took a shower because he felt like he needed it, and it’s not like he’s dressed fancy in just a T-shirt and a pair of jeans with his favourite sneakers, though the extra sprinkle of cologne might have been too much. He runs a hand over his face, trying to make his stupid heart understand that this is work, this is not a date and if everything goes well, he’ll leave this place with Jaehwan sitting in the back with a pair of handcuffs around his wrists, and then he’ll have some paperwork to do at the station. He’ll be in bed by midnight, content and happy and tomorrow Hakyeon will tell him he’s getting a bonus for doing an excellent job on this case.

It’s going to be okay. This is going to work out.

Taekwoon tries very hard to keep his composure as he tells the receptionist he’s there to visit the guest in room 524 and gets the assent, his legs feeling heavy as they carry him into the lift.

Jaehwan sent him a picture earlier, of himself, clad in only an oversized white T-shirt and what must have been the hem of his briefs peeking, pale thighs and pink knees and muscular calves all on display. He asked Taekwoon if he thought that shirt was okay for tonight and Taekwoon remembers the mirror selfie now as he throws his head back against the unforgiving metal wall, closing his eyes.

It’s going to have to be okay.

The door to room 524 opens after his second knock and Taekwoon freezes up immediately.

It’s Jaehwan standing in the doorway; he can tell not only from the T-shirt he’s already seen in the selfie but also from the broad shoulders and small waist, from the shapely legs covered by the black fabric of a pair of trousers. And Jaehwan's face is beautiful; his eyes two sparkling, almond shaped gemstones above the perfect curve of his nose, his lips plump and red even like this, when he’s not pouting. His hair is a honey brown colour and looks silky with his fringe pushed back from his forehead but a tiny lock is hanging there still, like it didn’t want to be restrained by hair spray. Taekwoon feels his jaw drop slightly.

"Hi," Jaehwan says in the most pleasant voice Taekwoon has ever heard, a wide, somewhat crooked smile spreading on his lips and the slightest of dimples appearing on the two sides of his cheeks. "Come in."

Taekwoon blinks a few to clear his head, though he doesn't succeed. He steps into the hotel room that looks quite cool considering it's only a four-star hotel, the furniture simple and the bedsheets crisp and white. He doesn't know how to proceed.

Jaehwan closes the door and pads to him with his naked feet, standing in front of him with a gentle smile on his face. Taekwoon feels a blush spreading over the bridge of his nose.

"I—" he starts without a clear plan about what he really wants to say. "I— I'm—"

"Ssh," Jaehwan whispers and then laughs, cupping Taekwoon's cheeks in his hands. "It's going to be alright. You're here now."

Taekwoon's heart skips a beat and returns to its job at full speed as Jaehwan pulls him in and presses his lips against his own, kissing him slowly, sweetly. It only registers in the back of Taekwoon's mind that he shouldn't go into it, the end of his train of thought just slipping out of his grasp, leaving him helpless and defenceless in the face of Jaehwan's citrusy perfume and the softness of his lips, the warmth of his mouth, and his bony fingers in Taekwoon's hair.

Jaehwan's waist is small but just the right size in Taekwoon's hold and he feels himself melt against the boy, Jaehwan swallowing a quiet mewl when it escapes his throat.

He doesn't want to stop this.

Jaehwan pulls away after too little time, a hand resting on the side of Taekwoon's neck, his thumb touching his pulse point. He looks like a peach blossom, Taekwoon thinks, his lips even redder and his cheeks tinted with a somewhat dark shade of pink, eyes fluttering as he looks at Taekwoon.

"You're different from how I imagined," Jaehwan says, tilting his head to the side. "A lot more handsome."

Taekwoon blinks a few in embarrassment, suddenly too aware of the hands on him, of his hands on Jaehwan. He pulls back entirely.

"Uh, can we talk?" he asks.

You know, I'm actually here to arrest you—honestly, what the fuck is he doing.

"Talk?" Jaehwan asks and glances away into a corner. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Jaehwan, I—"

Jaehwan stills entirely, pricking up his pointy ears, the dismay clearly visible on his face as he starts breathing faster, his lips parting.

“Let’s go to the bar,” he says urgently, and a moment later he’s grabbing Taekwoon's wrist, tugging him out of the room and almost running through the corridor.

They stop in a corner just by the fire exit and Jaehwan—as small as he looks—pushes at Taekwoon's shoulders, making him fall against the wall with a yelp.

“I thought we were going to the bar?” Taekwoon mumbles.

“No,” Jaehwan replies, furrowing his brow. “We just had to get out of there. Who are you? How do you know my name?”

“Wonshik,” Taekwoon says. Jaehwan's pretty eyes narrow and he seems to puff up a little. “And I’ll tell you who I am if you tell me why we had to get out of the room.”

“It’s bugged so he’ll know if you want to hurt me,” Jaehwan jabbers and that doesn’t serve with too much information. “You’re a cop, aren’t you?”

It feels like someone has just poured a bucket of ice water over his head and Taekwoon feels himself tense up. Jaehwan doesn’t seem to be particularly surprised anymore, nor does he look scared with his hands keeping Taekwoon's shoulders pinned to the wall; all he looks is angry and disappointed and hurt. And for some reason, Taekwoon feels ashamed.

“Listen,” Taekwoon starts, “what you’re doing is illegal and—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jaehwan rolls his eyes. “You were playing so well, I wouldn’t have thought— fucking Wonshik.”

“Okay, so, um,” Taekwoon straightens and forces Jaehwan's hands off his shoulders and instead, takes his wrists in his grasp. “I think it’ll be best if I take you to the station now.”

“No!” Jaehwan cries out, apparently shocked by his own volume. He shakes Taekwoon's hands off his wrists. “Don’t you understand? I’m not the one you should be after.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve tricked twenty-three people for money in the last few months; I’m pretty sure you’re the one I should be after,” Taekwoon replies, now getting angry.

“Has Wonshik told you about Hongbin?” Jaehwan asks, his eyes strangely wide like he’s afraid of the name.

“He said he’d heard of you from him.” Taekwoon knits his eyebrows. “Does he have anything to do with this whole thing?”

“Does he— oh my God,” Jaehwan goes pale and as he falls silent, Taekwoon can hear the vibration of his phone in the pocket of his trousers. Jaehwan fishes it out, closing his eyes for a second and taking a deep breath as he looks at the screen, swiping to take the call. “Hey. No, it’s nothing. We just needed something to make the atmosphere less tense,” Jaehwan chuckles and he’s putting up a perfect act until his eyes wander up to Taekwoon's face and he bites his lower lip. “You want to come here? Ah, but we haven’t— I’m not… I’m not in danger, Hongbin,” his voice goes low and he almost whispers, “I don’t think you should come here.”

Taekwoon feels his hands ball up into fists, the confusion irking him more than anything. He wants Jaehwan to stop talking on the phone and explain everything, to untangle this mess in his head, and also—he slaps himself mentally at this—maybe to kiss some more. Fuck everything.

“Okay,” Jaehwan says dejectedly. “I love you, too.”

That’s a nice little figurative kick in the gut.

Jaehwan ends the call and lowers his head, and he looks so tiny as he keeps staring at the floor.

“He’s coming here,” Jaehwan sighs and looks up at Taekwoon with tears shining in his eyes. “This is all your fault and I… I don’t want to betray him, but I’m so tired.”

“Do you… that is… do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“I don’t really have a choice, now do I?” Jaehwan laughs hollowly and then he plops down on the floor. Taekwoon follows him down there and sits, watching as Jaehwan plays with a loose thread of his sock. “You’ll probably think I’m crazy and that this is unreal, but… so, the thing is that Hongbin had come up with this idea about half a year ago, I think? That we could make money with… well, me, because he said that a lot of men think I’m pretty?” He pauses.

“You’re really pretty,” Taekwoon says before he could think twice and then averts his eyes, a blush creeping up on his neck. Jaehwan snorts.

“I hate that you’re still so sweet when I’m making a confession that’s probably going to get me in jail,” he says. “But anyways, the point is that we’d set up that site and he’s not doing it… in such an immoral way? He only takes the money of those I agree to meet up with and as soon as he gets the confirmation from me that the guy has shown up, we charge their card. Your money has probably already been taken, actually.”

“I used an expired card,” Taekwoon mumbles.

Jaehwan laughs and this time it’s a happy one. He glances up at Taekwoon and says, “You’re not playing fair either.”

“Yeah, but I have legal permission for that,” Taekwoon replies and that makes Jaehwan chuckle again, the sound of it making a bunch of crazy butterflies swarm in Taekwoon’s stomach. “Are you, by any chance, you know… together? You said you loved him, too.”

That apparently saddens Jaehwan and his shoulders sag, his fingers trembling in the air and he stops playing with the thread.

“He really watches out for me and keeps me safe. It did start out like… dating, but I’ve been…” a deep breath, “I’ve got so tired of being used, because… I actually needed to… sometimes do service so those people I met up with could spread the word about this whole thing and we could get more guests and more money, but I didn’t have to do it every time. I’m just… I’m scared of getting out.”

“Scared?” Taekwoon asks. “Is he… threatening you or something?”

“No, of course not,” Jaehwan shakes his head. “I just… I knew there’d be trouble and I’m scared of… the consequences. For both of us.”

“I’m sorry,” Taekwoon says and he knows how empty it sounds even if he feels close to angry tears from the whole situation. He has never before felt this strongly that he wanted to just disappear, he’s never wanted to jump into a different universe and start a new life from scratch as much as he does now. He doesn’t want to be Jung Taekwoon; he wants to be that funny-looking bellboy down the hall.

“There’s really nothing to do, right?”

Jaehwan exhales shakily and his eyes are huge and full of worry, sorrow, and regret. Taekwoon takes his fingers from his crossed ankles and holds his cold hands in his palms, lets Jaehwan bury his face into the crook of his neck, his lips quivering against Taekwoon's skin.

Jaehwan wilts in Taekwoon's hold like a small flower that suddenly got picked out of the soil and left under the piercing sun to die.

The last time detective Jung Taekwoon sees his Songbird it’s in his cage.

Jaehwan has dark shadows contouring his glassy eyes and his skin is almost grey, his shoulder blades visible even under his shirt as if his wings have got torn out, leaving only the stubs there.

Taekwoon touches two fingers to the metal bars, tries to get closer to Jaehwan who is sitting in the corner, only half facing him, hugging his knobby knees to his chest.

Taekwoon wants to tell him he’ll get him out of there as soon as he can, he wants to tell him how he has already given his badge back, how he has already quit just so he can help, but Jaehwan doesn’t seem like he wants to hear any of those.

Taekwoon let him out of his prison only to lock him up in an entirely different way.

The Songbird can’t be free.

*it’s a raggiana bird-of-paradise

#vixx #leo #ken #keo #rating: pg13 #req #au #angst

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