#fashion boyfriend and murder girlfriend

[nightsnacker99]

the jasad heir: a tale of a man and his vest

[scary-grace]

Enough to Go by (Chapter 14) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Your best friend vanished on the same night his family was murdered, and even though the world forgot about him, you never did. When a chance encounter brings you back into contact with Shimura Tenko, you'll do anything to make sure you don't lose him again. Keep his secrets? Sure. Aid the League of Villains? Of course. Sacrifice everything? You would - but as the battle between the League of Villains and hero society unfolds, it becomes clear that everything is far more than you or anyone else imagined it would be. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Chapter 14

When you agreed to be Tenko’s sidekick, playing for keeps this time, you made a promise to yourself that you wouldn’t involve anyone else. You broke that promise almost immediately, but Kazuo made you break it, so you decided it doesn’t count. Your friends who were killed in the Kamino incident weren’t dragged into it by you specifically, but you’re still part of the reason they died, so you have to count them, too. Mitsuru’s stayed out of it by having a girlfriend and being too busy to notice whatever the hell you’re up to, and Yoshimi’s got enough to worry about with her illness. You never wanted your friends to get caught up in this. You thought you’d hidden it well enough to keep Mitsuko and Ryuhei safe, too.

Except now Ryuhei and Mitsuko have met Tenko, and they’ve become the League’s first ever sleeper agents. Every time the two of them show up at your apartment, for any reason, League-related or otherwise, you can’t help feeling like you’ve failed them. You feel like you’ve failed Tenko, too.

Tenko’s not here today. He’s been spending at least some time at the new hideout Overhaul provided in order to keep up appearances, and with Kurogiri on another mission, it’s harder to move people back and forth safely. Toga and Twice are embedded with the yakuza full-time, which means you haven’t heard from them other than a request from Toga to go thrifting and find her a new coat. It’s cold in the Hassaikai base. Compress is usually at the new hideout, too – now that he’s got his prosthetic, your services are no longer needed. The people who spend the most time at your apartment now are Dabi and Spinner. And your friends from before.

Dabi and Spinner aren’t here today, but your friends are supposed to be here at any moment, and as soon as the thought crosses your mind, you hear the secret knock on the door – followed by an order to “let us in, you criminal”, which sort of defeats the purpose of a secret knock. You unlock the door and open it. They both push past you eagerly, only to pause, disappointed, when they realize your apartment is empty. “Come on,” Ryuhei complains. “I wanted to meet the rest of them.”

“Not even your weird boyfriend’s here? Lame,” Mitsuko agrees. “I wanted to give him this.”

She’s holding your high school yearbook. “Why?”

“So he can see all the bad haircuts he missed out on. This –” Mitsuko gestures at you “ – is the result of five years of my influence on your fashion sense. He owes me.”

“Yeah. I’ll be sure to let him know.” You’ll show Tenko the yearbook when hell freezes over. You shut the door. “Do you guys have questions about any of the stuff we talked about last time?”

“No. I don’t care that I’m not fighting,” Mitsuko says. “My quirk sucks for it.”

“Not if you fine-tuned it enough. If you could sense people’s intentions towards you really closely, you’d be able to tell their moves ahead of time,” Ryuhei says. “My quirk could be good for fighting, though. Is he sure he doesn’t want me fighting?”

“Yes,” you say. Tenko was impressed by Ryuhei’s quirk, but if Ryuhei gets captured, he’ll be a potential link to you, and Tenko’s still trying to keep you out of any suspicion. “For right now, anyway.”

“Fine,” Ryuhei says. He sits down on your couch with a thud, and Mitsuko grabs the armchair. You take the other end of the couch. “We got some stuff going. Inada’s been looking into the Hassaikai a little more –”

“We’ll get to that,” Mitsuko says. “Tell her our real idea.”

“Supply caches,” Ryuhei says. You blink. “Storage units aren’t that expensive. We could rent a bunch of different ones all around the country and fill them with stuff you guys need – like medical shit, food, supplies –”

“New information, if we’ve got any,” Mitsuko adds. “Phones aren’t safe. If they’re tracking where your signal is coming from, they’ll find it bouncing all over the place, and that’ll be suspicious from somebody who’s supposed to be in Yokohama.”

“Why wouldn’t I be in Yokohama?” you ask. Then it clicks. “Wait, you think I’m going to be with them?”

“Uh, yes.” Mitsuko and Ryuhei trade a glance. “At some point you have to, right? If you’re their medic, they need you to be with them wherever they are.”

“Kurogiri just comes to get me.”

“What if they need you and he’s not with them?” Ryuhei is giving you a weird look. “What happened with the one guy’s arm – it could have been bad if you weren’t there, right?”

It would have been. Nobody else in the League carries medical supplies, and without you to smooth the way at your clinic, Compress could have easily been reported to the police and arrested. “And it would make more sense for you to be with them,” Mitsuko continues. “Your boyfriend’s a lot more hinged when you’re around. If that’s what hinged looks like for him, I don’t even want to think about what he’s like on his own.”

Tenko’s more grounded when you’re around, or so you’ve heard from Spinner. He and Dabi don’t argue as much, and he’s apparently a lot less apathetic about things. But you’re still taken aback by what your friends are saying. The role they’re envisioning for themselves when it comes to helping the League is the role you’re playing right now, because they don’t expect you to play it for much longer. You hadn’t even thought of that. Are they right?

You’re not going to think about that right now. “I think supply caches are a great idea,” you say. “How many were you thinking?”

“That depends. How much money are we working with?”

Money’s not the only thing it depends on. It also depends on where the League is likely to be, and how easily they’ll be able to travel, and whether they’re more likely to be spotted in big cities with tons of surveillance or small towns where everyone knows everyone, and a whole lot of other questions. Mitsuko points out another benefit of you traveling with the League full-time; the cops still don’t know your face, which means you can move around freely even when the rest of the League can’t. The longer the three of you talk about it, the more it makes sense. You’re starting to wonder why Tenko hasn’t brought you with the League full-time already.

You’re in the middle of looking up storage units when the doorbell rings. The sound scares the hell out of you, like most unexpected sounds do these days, and you rocket to your feet. “Where are you going?” Ryuhei asks. “It’s probably just a delivery. Did you order something?”

You shake your head. “The others might have. They’ve done stuff like that before.”

Ryuhei accepts the explanation, but Mitsuko doesn’t. She follows you to the door. “I’m getting a weird feeling.”

“Like a feeling that the delivery guy is going to kill me?” you ask. Mitsuko shakes her head. “Then it’s fine. It’s easier if I just grab it now.”

You unlock the door and find yourself looking at a man holding a manila envelope. You can see your name written on it, along with your address, in neat but spidery handwriting. You hold out your hand for it. “Do I need to sign for this or something?”

“Nope. Just confirm your name and address.” The delivery guy holds the envelope just out of reach until you confirm both pieces of information. “Perfect. Here –”

He places the envelope in your hand, but once you’ve got it, his other hand comes up, and both enfold yours. The delivery guy is holding your hand, and in the split second before your mind registers just how weird this is, you find yourself feeling sick. Really sick. Dizzy. Nauseous. Another split second later, just as you’re thinking you should pull away, pain knifes through your skull. It’s not just weird. It’s a quirk.

A status effect quirk? You try to pull your hand away, but your arms feel like lead. Your voice comes out strange and slurred. “What –”

“Overhaul requires your presence,” the man says, and your stomach twists. “Come with me.”

“Fuck you.” A pair of arms wrap around your waist and yank you backwards into your apartment. Mitsuko pulls you away from the door and keeps pulling, even when your legs give out and she has to drag you. “Sasegawa, get your shit together!”

The man steps across the threshold into your apartment, dropping the envelope on the floor. “Thought you’d be alone in here. This is going to get messy.”

He reaches for you, but before he can make contact, Ryuhei hops the couch and gets between the two of you. The would-be kidnapper’s hand collides with Ryuhei’s face instead, and Ryuhei’s quirk activates. You’ve seen Ryuhei’s quirk at work before, but it always amazes you just how fast the rebound happens. The kidnapper’s got next to no resistance to his own quirk. Most people don’t. He throws up all over himself and the floor. He’s throwing up blood.

“Okay, what the fuck?” Ryuhei snaps. “What kind of quirk was that? Who is this guy?”

“Hassaikai,” you and Mitsuko both say at once. Mitsuko keeps talking. You’re too busy trying not to retch. “See how his eyes glow green? His quirk’s called Irradiate. It can paralyze people if he wants it to. Or it can kill.”

“So how the fuck did you miss it? You’re supposed to read intentions!”

“His intention was to kidnap her, not to hurt her or kill her! Hurting her is just a byproduct! My quirk doesn’t do what you think it does!” Mitsuko sounds as pissed as you’ve ever heard her. She shakes you. “If you’d just listened to me –”

“We have to do something about him.” You cut her off and gesture at the delivery guy, who’s now having a seizure just inside your doorway. “Emergency services. I have to call them.”

“You want to get him medical help? He just tried to kidnap you!”

“I need him to leave. And I don’t need the cops here.” You know the Hassaikai are under investigation. You’ve already come into contact with them once that the heroes know about. If you’re documented making contact with them again – “This guy is just a delivery guy. We don’t know what happened. When I opened the door and took the package, he started convulsing. That’s it.”

“And what about you? You look like hell,” Ryuhei shoots back. “You’re a nurse. Isn’t helping with shit like this your job?”

Shit. It is your job. If the cops come here, they’re going to ask why you’re not tending to the guy who tried to kidnap you. “One of you needs to call,” you say. You pull away from Mitsuko, fighting the urge to throw up, and head to the delivery guy, tilting him onto his side so he won’t aspirate if he starts vomiting again. “Now.”

While Mitsuko places the call, you try to remember what you know about radiation sickness. Not a lot. You seem to remember that the symptoms correspond to the dose, and that instant vomiting isn’t a good sign. Vomiting blood is never a good sign. But you got nauseous right away, even though you didn’t throw up. If this guy actually irradiated you, you’re in trouble, too. Did Mitsuko say his quirk was radiation, or just that it mimics the effects? You need to ask her, but she’s still on the phone, acting really panicked and hysterical to ensure that the EMTs get here fast. You’ll ask once she hangs up. In the meantime, you’ve got one hell of a headache and a guy having a seizure on your floor. You’re busy.

The EMTs don’t question your story when they arrive. They get the gang member off your floor and onto a stretcher, give you a bodily fluids cleanup kit to deal with the vomit, and book it. Ryuhei’s too squeamish to help you clean, but Mitsuko isn’t. The two of you work on taking the stain out of the carpet while Ryuhei opens the envelope the Hassaikai member brought with him. “I should be the one to open it,” he says when you protest. “If there’s a quirk in here it’ll bounce off of me.”

“Why would there be a quirk in an envelope?”

“Why would the Hassaikai send a delivery guy to kidnap you? These people are insane.” Ryuhei rips open the envelope. “No quirk. Just a letter. It’s – well, fuck. This is bad.”

“Don’t just say ‘this is bad’. Read it,” you say. It’s quiet for a few seconds. “Well?”

“It’s not addressed to you. It’s for Shigaraki,” Ryuhei says. Your stomach lurches. “I guess the guy was supposed to leave it here for Shigaraki to find after he kidnapped you. Overhaul’s saying he doesn’t trust Shigaraki to behave himself just for Toga’s and Twice’s sake – wait, are they hostages? – so he’s going to hang onto you, too. And – fuck, this guy is a freak.”

“Wait, let me see.” Mitsuko strips off her gloves and goes to investigate. You come over, too, but she shoos you back. A moment later, she swears. “We can’t let him see this.”

“See what?” You’re not done with the bodily fluids cleanup, but you peel off your gloves and step around Mitsuko. “He was going to kidnap me. I should get to –”

“You don’t want to,” Mitsuko snaps at you. You’ve never heard her take that tone before, and you’ve heard her get really harsh. Then, to Ryuhei: “We can’t let him see this. If he sees this – look, I’ve been around the yakuza before. I’ve seen some shit. This is fucked up even for them.”

“What is it?” you say, exasperated. You’ve met Overhaul. He creeped you out plenty in person. You doubt a letter could do the same thing.

“I think we should show him,” Ryuhei mumbles. “Let him see what he’s up against.”

Your phone starts buzzing in your pocket, and you pull it out to find a text from Tenko. We got him. We’re on our way over.

They got who? And why are they coming here? How are they coming here without Kurogiri? Are they really traveling through Yokohama on foot? They’re going to get caught. You can’t think straight. Your head hurts. “Mitsu, is that guy’s quirk actual radiation or just the symptoms?”

“Actual radiation.”

You might be screwed. The thought that your would-be kidnapper is even more screwed than you are isn’t much of a source of comfort. You put on a fresh set of gloves and go back to cleaning up the mess of guess-it’s-radioactive bloody vomit on the floor.

Tenko and the others don’t arrive until half an hour after you’re done cleaning, when you’ve switched clothes and showered off and you’re sprawled on the couch, reading the Wikipedia page on acute radiation sickness and trying to decide whether the continued urge to vomit is the result of anxiety or whatever dose of radiation you caught from the kidnapper. You hear the secret knock, but Ryuhei’s at the door before you can even get up from the couch. The door opens, and a moment later you hear Compress’s voice. “Who are you?”

“New ally. Who are you?”

“We don’t have time for this,” Tomura says impatiently. “Let us in.”

Ryuhei lets him in, and the rest of the League piles into the apartment after him. The entire rest of the League – Twice and Toga are back, looking extremely pleased with themselves, and everybody else looks like they’ve had a great day, too. “Overhaul’s fucked,” Tomura announces. “Turn on the TV. I bet they’re covering it.”

You switch on the TV, and everyone comes to settle around it. Twice plops down on the couch next to you, only to scramble up a moment later when Tomura comes over. Tomura’s not shy about being affectionate with you in front of the League. He pulls you against his side, not quite into his lap, and you lean against him, squeezing your eyes shut. You didn’t want to tell him about the attempted kidnapping, and now you don’t have to. It’s a relief.

It turns out that the League’s revenge against Overhaul is just the final piece of Overhaul’s worst day ever. The heroes moved against him at last, destroying his headquarters and capturing his lieutenants, effectively destroying the Shie Hassaikai for good – and on top of that, Tomura, Dabi, Spinner, and Compress attacked the convoy that was transporting Overhaul to a villain-specific hospital. A hero’s dead. Two cops are badly injured. And Overhaul himself is now short both his arms, and his quirk.

“I was thinking,” Tomura says, “somebody who hates quirks shouldn’t have one of his own. We got revenge for Compress –”

“I took his arm myself,” Compress says proudly. Twice high-fives him. “And in revenge for Magne, we took everything else that mattered to him.”

“Those quirk-destroying bullets he had? Those are ours now,” Dabi says. “Smug bastard. He had it coming.”

“You have no idea,” Mitsuko mumbles. Dabi gives her a weird look.

“We messed with them during the heroes’ raid,” Toga sings out, grinning her sharp-toothed grin. “And I got to see Izuku! He’s so cute when he’s covered in blood. Ochako and Tsu were there, too! I wish I’d gotten to talk to them more – they’re so pretty –”

At least Toga likes the idea of having age-appropriate friends. She’s got a few screws loose already, but only hanging around with you and a bunch of older guys probably isn’t helping. On the TV, there’s another alert – something about a girl the heroes were trying to rescue from Overhaul, who’s since gone missing. “And on that note, Saintess,” Compress says over Twice’s crowing about just how badly they pissed off one of Overhaul’s lieutenants, “we have a present for you.”

He extracts one of his spheres from his pocket and uncompresses it on your coffee table to reveal a messily severed arm. Mitsuko yelps and recoils. “Wrong one,” Compress says hastily, and compresses it again. “This is for you.”

You have a bad feeling about it, and once he uncompresses the second sphere, you’re proven right. In place of the arm, there’s a tiny girl sprawled out on the table. She’s wearing a hospital gown, her arms and legs heavily bandaged. She has greyish-white hair, just like the girl in the picture on TV, and just like the girl in the picture, there’s a horn on the right side of her forehead. She’s also asleep, or maybe unconscious. There’s a hectic, fevered flush in her cheeks, and her breathing is rattling and uneven in a way that raises a whole host of red flags.

“This is Eri,” Twice says as you stare in horror. “Isn’t she cute?”

“She was the key to Overhaul’s plans,” Tomura says. “Her quirk’s Rewind. It activates when she touches someone, and it turns back the clock on their body, or parts of their body. Overhaul was using it in the deleter rounds to turn back quirk factors until they no longer exist.”

“He was being so gross with her,” Toga says. Her mirth from before is gone. “He kept cutting her and using his quirk to put her back together again. We could hear her crying if we went down to that level.”

“The heroes were trying to rescue her, but we nabbed her when their backs were turned,” Twice adds. “And we brought her back here! She should be with us, don’t you think?”

You can barely think. “Can she control it?” Mitsuko asks. “Like, is it active right now?”

“Maybe. Why?”

Mitsuko doesn’t answer. She grabs your hand away from your side, yanks it towards the coffee table, and slaps it down on top of the little girl’s hand. Your entire body jolts, and you struggle to pull free, but Mitsuko leaves your hand there for a second, two seconds, three. When Tomura grabs you and pulls you back, she lets you go. “What the hell was that?” Tomura demands.

Mitsuko doesn’t answer him. “I can Google shit just as well as you can,” she says to you. “Feel better?”

You do. Your headache’s completely gone, along with the nausea, and it’s easier to think – and now you get why she did it. The exposure to the little girl’s quirk Rewound you, past the point where you were exposed to the radiation quirk. You’re not irradiated any longer, which means that by bringing Eri back here, Compress and the others have saved you a lot of trouble. But they’ve also caused a problem. A really big problem. “We can’t keep her.”

The League stares at you. “Why not?” Spinner asks.

You’d expect that question from Tomura or Dabi. Not from Spinner, who lived at least adjacent to the real world until four months ago. “She’s a little kid,” you say. “Kids need stability. They need a roof over their heads and to know they’ll have food and a safe place to sleep every night. And if one of you is about to say that you didn’t have that and you turned out fine – no, you didn’t.”

Dabi snorts. “But she’s so cute,” Toga complains. “Look at her little cheeks. I just want to bite them!”

“No biting the kid. If you’re going to bite the kid we’re definitely not keeping her,” Tomura says. You can’t believe he’s still thinking it’s a good idea to keep her, and when he turns to look at you, you can see that nothing you’ve said has sunk in. “She could stay with you. It’s safe here.”

“No, it isn’t,” Ryuhei says, and you glare daggers at him. “Don’t. I’m not going to act like there wasn’t –”

Whatever he was going to say, it’s cut off when the girl on your coffee table startles awake. She pushes herself to seated with shaking arms, glancing left, then right. Her eyes are bright red, like Tomura’s, and as you watch, they begin to fill with tears. Her mouth is trembling, and so is her voice when she speaks. “Where’s Deku?”

“Oh, come on,” Tomura complains, and the girl cringes. “You want Midoriya? Really? I – hey!”

You’ve elbowed him into shutting up. The girl is curling in on herself, arms wrapping tight around her knees. “He was going to save me,” she whimpers. “Him and Lemillion and the man with the glasses –”

“They did save you. From Overhaul. Then we saved you from them!” Twice chirps. “It was no trouble. Say thank you!”

“Hey,” you warn. They brought Eri to you. It’s your job to help her. You turn to her and soften your voice. “Hey. It’s okay. You’re safe here. Nobody here is going to hurt you. I promise.”

She shakes her head. “Nobody here will hurt you,” you say again. You don’t even want to think about what it must have been like for this girl to live under Overhaul’s thumb, being tortured by him to manufacture the quirk-canceling bullets. “You aren’t in trouble. You’re not going to be in trouble, and even if you were, there’s nothing you could do that would make one of us hurt you. That’s not what we do.”

“Overhaul –”

“He’s gone,” Tomura says. Eri looks at him. “We got rid of him. I took his quirk away and left him for the heroes. He’s not coming back.”

“We’re not him,” Spinner adds. “He sucked.”

Eri’s shoulders relax slightly at that. Then her face crumples. “I want Deku.”

You preemptively elbow Tomura, then start strategizing. If you touch her, you might get rewound further than you want to be, so you need to find a different way to comfort her. You hand her a box of tissues first, pluck a few out to show her that it’s okay to take them, and get to your feet. “The rest of you, stay where you are,” you order. “I’ll be right back.”

Your apartment doesn’t exactly have kid stuff in it. You find a spare blanket in your hall closet and come back, unfolding it and settling it carefully around Eri’s shoulders. She’s picked up the tissue box, but instead of using it, she’s hugging it. At work, you keep a box of cheap stuffed animals to give to scared kids, for them to hold during their appointments and take with them when they leave. You don’t have any stuffed animals here, so maybe you can give her a pillow. Or –

You head to your room on autopilot, dig into the box of things you brought from your parents’ house, and come back. Tomura’s eyes go straight to the object you’re holding. You know he recognizes it. He wouldn’t be staring like that if he didn’t. “Is that –”

You nod and crouch back down next to the coffee table. “Eri,” you say, and she looks at you. You hold up the plush corgi Tenko gave you for your sixth birthday. “I’ll trade you for the tissue box. This is way more fun to hug than that is.”

Eri’s red eyes brighten ever so slightly, but she’s hesitant to reach for it. Maybe she thinks you’re going to take it away. You set it down on the table and push it towards her, making sure to pull your hand away so she knows you aren’t planning to snatch it back. You feel the smallest sense of relief when she drops the tissue box and grabs the plushie with both hands, hugging it tight against her chest. It’s really cute. Or it would be, if you didn’t know why this is happening to her. If you didn’t know why she’s in your apartment in the first place.

She peers at you from between the plushie’s ears. “Who are you?”

“I’m Saintess,” you say. You’ve never called yourself by your code name before. You feel twenty kinds of dumb. “It’s really nice to meet you. But I know it’s probably not comfortable to sit on the coffee table. How about you go sit in that chair –”

Dabi’s in it. Tomura glares at him until he moves, and Eri stumbles over to it, trailing the blanket and clutching the toy. “And get comfortable,” you tell her. She burrows into the blanket, watching all of you with enormous eyes. “Do you feel okay?”

“Cold,” she says. Chills, then. Probably a fever, too. “It hurts.”

All those bandages. You don’t want to know what’s underneath them. “Okay. I’m going to put on some gloves so it’ll be safe for me to touch you, and then I’ll take your temperature and check to make sure you’re okay. Is that all right with you? It’s okay if it’s not.”

Eri hesitates. “Will I feel better?”

“You won’t feel worse,” you say. She nods, and you go back to the hall closet for your first-aid kit.

You try to tune the others out as you tend to Eri, but you can’t quite make it stick. Dabi is asking Toga and Twice about which heroes they dealt with during the operation against the Hassaikai, Compress is raiding your kitchen, and Spinner is way into your personal space, wanting to know what’s going on with Eri. Tomura is, too, at first. You catch him watching you more than once, a weird look on his face. You know him well enough to know most of his expressions, and that one’s new. You wonder what it means.

Then, while you’re waiting for the thermometer you just put in Eri’s mouth to beep, you glance back to check on Tomura, and he’s gone. He’s over by the kitchen table instead. There’s an envelope in his hands.

No. No, no, no. You grab Ryuhei, order him to take the thermometer out when it beeps and memorize what it says, then race towards Tomura – but you’re way too late. The envelope and the letter inside it crumble to dust as you reach him, and when he looks up at you, his jaw is clenched so tightly that the tendons in his neck are standing out. “What happened?” he snarls.

“Lower your voice,” you beg. You don’t want him to scare Eri. “It’s not a big deal. Nothing bad happened. It’s just –”

“Don’t fucking lie,” Mitsuko says, coming up beside you. You don’t have to warn her to keep her voice down. “That yakuza bastard sent a hitman here to kidnap your girlfriend. It would have worked if Ryuhei hadn’t been here to give him a taste of his own quirk.”

“It’s fine,” you say. “The Hassaikai’s been dismantled, right? It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“They knew where you were,” Tomura says flatly. “When I find out who told them –”

“Nobody had to tell them.” The pieces are coming together in your head, slow and ugly. Overhaul saw the bandage on your hand at the warehouse. He’d have known that the League would need to seek help for Compress, and the free clinics are the only place where an injury like that won’t result in immediate police involvement. “A Hassaikai member showed up at my clinic. He asked about my hand.”

“Overhaul brought it up, too.” Tomura’s right hand lifts, clawing at his neck – lightly at first, then harder. “You – Inada – why did you use the kid’s quirk on her?”

“She got radiation poisoning. That’s the fucking hitman’s quirk.” Mitsuko ignores you when you tell her to shut up. “My guess is, Over-fuck knew he could fix whatever his hitman did when he got ahold of her. Him fixing it wasn’t an option. So I used the kid.”

“I owe you.” Tomura is still scratching, and now he’s focused on you. “They knew where you were. They’ve known since we made the alliance. It – fuck!”

“Hey, keep it down,” Spinner calls anxiously. “You’re scaring the kid.”

“Her temperature is 40 degrees,” Ryuhei adds.

Shit. “We need to table this,” you say to Tomura. His eyes flash. “That girl is really sick. It’s not safe for her to stay here, and I can’t help her the way she needs. She has to go to people who can help her.”

“The heroes? Fuck that.”

“She has to,” you say again. “They can help her. We can’t.”

“What makes you think they’ll do anything?” Tomura’s expression twists. One of his nails digs deep into the side of his neck and pulls up blood, and just like you did before, you cover his neck with your hand. “They won’t give a shit. They didn’t when it was – when –”

He breaks off. You wait, and he looks away. “Forget it.”

“They’re running her name and picture on the news,” Mitsuko says. “They care about what happens to her, and you all are in enough trouble without another kidnapping on your record. They’ll look for you twice as hard.”

Tomura’s fingernails scrape lightly across the back of your hand before his hand comes to rest over yours, index finger raised. “I’m not just dumping her on the street.”

“You won’t be,” you promise. “I’ll take her to the police station. I can say I found her wandering around –”

“So they’ll think we just dumped her on the street.”

“Or that she got away somehow. I don’t know.” You don’t have time for this. “Her fever’s high enough that she might not remember anything. If she does, she’ll remember we didn’t hurt her. That we took care of her while she was with us. She’ll know we aren’t him.”

Tomura’s shoulders relax slightly. It matters to him to be better than Overhaul. It matters to you, too. “Hang on,” Dabi says from where he’s leaning against the wall. “Maybe we shouldn’t send Saintess to drop the kid off. She’s had one run-in with the Hassaikai already, and the police already know about it. Her turning up with the kid is too big of a coincidence. Inada should be the one.”

“Two run-ins. Overhaul sent somebody here for her.” Tomura’s hand tightens around yours. “Her identity’s compromised. When we leave this time, she’s coming with us.”

Your stomach drops. “The kid trusts her,” Tomura continues. “And she’s a nurse. It’ll look like we left the kid by the clinic or something.”

“Why does it matter where we drop the kid off?”

“So we don’t end up looking worse than they do,” Tomura snaps. “What’s the point of revealing their hypocrisy if we just throw someone away?”

It’s quiet for a second. “Wait until nightfall, then,” Dabi says shortly. “So we can at least keep a lid on the number of people who see Saintess wandering around carrying a missing kid.”

“She’s sick,” Spinner says. “Doesn’t she need help as soon as possible?”

“Not if it gets us caught!”

You’re on Spinner’s team here. “What if Compress uses his quirk on me and Eri both? Then he can bring us near the police station, so we won’t have to walk as far and risk getting spotted. We won’t even show up on camera until we’re right there.”

“What kind of distance can you release your quirk from?” Tomura asks Compress, who shrugs. “If it’s far enough, you can give the sphere to Inada or Sasegawa to carry.”

That’s the plan they settle on, eventually. Compress will use his quirk on you and Eri, Mitsuko will carry you both to the police station and text when she’s there, and Compress will deactivate his quirk from a distance. Eri’s breathing is raspy. You need to hurry. You roll her up carefully in the blanket, making sure she doesn’t touch you. “The puppy,” she mumbles. “Can I keep him?”

“Of course,” you say. You were too old for it, and you don’t need a keepsake of Tenko when you have the real thing. “He’ll take good care of you as long as you take good care of him. Are you ready to go?”

She nods. You pick her up. Rolled in the blanket like this, she’s unwieldy but light. You turn to face Compress. “Okay, let’s do this. We –”

You get compressed mid-sentence, and the next thing you know, you’re standing in an alleyway a block and a half from the police station, face to face with Mitsuko. “Be careful,” she says. She looks pissed, and you’re not sure why. “Look, me and Ryuhei are activating the sleeper thing right after this, and you’re going with them. We’re not going to see each other for a while.”

Oh. “I’m going to miss you,” you tell her. Mitsuko laughs. “They still don’t know my face. We’ll see each other.”

“We’d better.”

“Keep an eye on Yoshimi for me,” you continue. “And Kazuo. I worry about them.”

“We all do,” Mitsuko says. “And now we have to worry about you, too.”

You feel a surge of guilt, one that melts into bemusement when Mitsuko leans in and plants a kiss on your lips. “Go on. I’ll see you around, Saintess.”

Saintess. That’s your name now, isn’t it? It’s the one everyone’s going to use. Mitsuko leaves the alley first, heading in one direction. You stand still and watch her go, watching a piece of the life you had before disappear around the corner. Then you adjust your grip on Eri and aim for the police station.

[cafeseoulmate]

Why We (Don’t) Work

i'm okay with being by your side for as long as i can hide what if i told you that i've fallen?

featuring: music major!beomgyu x fine arts major!gn!reader

genre: fluff, angst, childhood best friends to lovers, neighbors to lovers au, idiots to lovers au, high school au, college au, band au, hurt/comfort, slice of life, slowburn, mutual pining, 5+1 & nonlinear format

wc: 13k

warnings and other notes: cursing, alcohol consumption, reader is implied bi/pan, two jokes about murder, mention of the flu, brief mention of making out, cliches, inaccurate portrayal of a painting & sculpture double major, idk where this was going tbh

I. WE'VE BEEN FRIENDS FOR TOO LONG

The idea of friends eventually becoming lovers, especially those who have known each other for a long time, is okay in your opinion. In theory, the principle of falling in love with someone whom you've previously built a relationship with is not that great but not that awful either.

It's reasonable, practical and natural even in many situations. You would know from the amount of friends you've watched over the years who only started seeing each other romantically after a few years of getting to know and being comfortable around each other platonically.

You just figure that it's not for you and Choi Beomgyu, the nuisance who's been affectionately stuck to your hip since your days at the neighborhood playground.

For starters, you've known him for far too long. Not that love is supposed to have an expiration date, it's just that most people who start off friends—like your college friends Yeji and Ryujin who started dating before your junior year—usually take less than a decade, and that is really pushing it in your humble opinion.

Beomgyu's known you since the time you were sporting bowl cuts your mom fashioned with your kitchen scissors, probably and unconsciously even longer than that given that your respective moms have also been close friends since you were toddlers. You've pushed each other at the swings and the slides more than any of your other childhood friends, have gone to the same schools together spent most of your non-holidays with each other since kindergarten, and even live in the same university dorm at the present.

You both had almost 16 years to bring up anything remotely close to romantic feelings with each other and the closest to romantic-leaning affection that you got from him was the time he gave you a bouquet of roses, and he didn't even buy it for you originally.

It was in your 10th grade, when Valentine's Day gifts have finally reached normal status among the consciousness of your teen peers. Since Halloween, Beomgyu had been saving up his money to buy Yeeun from Class 4 a bouquet of roses—bribing you to pay for his lunch two out of five days in the week, singing and dancing his ass off at his family's Christmas and Lunar New Year parties for money, and working the afternoon shift at the neighborhood guitar store—only to chicken out at the last minute because Jaehyun from Class 6 had asked Yeeun to be his girlfriend in a very public proposal at the soccer field.

In a small class reunion last Christmas, Taehyun had asked about the whole ordeal, supported by the drunk cheerings of your former classmates at the memory of Beomgyu handing you the abnormally large bouquet by the school gate during dismissal almost five years ago.

"What else do you want to know about that?" You asked with a frown, feeling light-headed from all the barbecue and soju yourself. It was finals week for most of you as well, somehow making all the shots of peach-flavored alcohol taste sweeter and the stories bitterer. "You all know how it went: Gyu chickened out and didn't want to waste his hard-earned money on a girl who got a boyfriend that same day so he gave it to me before we went home."

"You also gave me half of the money to buy it! That's also an important detail!" Beomgyu slurred out to your right, leaning his head on your arm with a giggle and making you roll your eyes. "I thought, 'ya, this person bought me lunch for three months they kind of bought this bouquet so I'll just give it to them. That's only fair!'"

Yunjin raised a finger this time, as if making a shushing motion in the air as she took a long sip of her soju bottle across the table. "Okay but!" She exclaimed after slamming her bottle down, momentarily covering her mouth as she hiccuped before continuing. "You...you could've just gave it to your mom or something!"

"Auntie's allergic to flowers." You pointed out. "My dad also forgot to buy my mom flowers that time so I gave it to him when I got home. I technically saved two lives that day.”

"So it didn't spark anything?" Jeongin pointed to you then to Beomgyu who was contemplating on falling asleep on you by that point, clearly uninterested in this conversation you've had with the rest of the world a million times already. "Not even a little bit?"

Of course there were times over the years, at least on your part—moments where Beomgyu spent an hour too long in your childhood home when he just told you that his parents wanted him to come home at a certain time, filled a day with questionably sweet gestures only to bribe you with trouble after, or comforted you too well in your darkest moments among others that made your heart flutter more than it's supposed to.

You never told anyone about how on that day, you plucked out a single rose from the bouquet before secretly handing it to your dad as he cooked a quick Valentine's Day dinner for your mom. There was no denying that, even if he gave it to you under pitiful circumstances, it was still a sweet gesture. After Yeeun, he thought of giving it to you, the next immediate person and his best friend.

The red rose drank fresh water by your windowsill for three days until Beomgyu invited himself over for a cram session when you ended up hiding the flower shamefully under your bed and convincing yourself that you were just momentarily blinded by the principle of the gesture.

Though it accidentally wilted after you've forgotten about it amidst your busy high school schedule, you still keep the petals in a box under your bed as a reminder of all those moments you've thought you were starting to feel something for your best friend, only to snap yourself out of it after. You even had one of the petals made into a resin necklace by Yeji when she picked up on the hobby, wearing it everyday since without Beomgyu ever asking about it’s significance.

He just thinks you got it from the congratulatory bouquet the boys all pitched in to give when you won a sculpting competition at the university museum.

But as mentioned, you've mostly come to terms with the fact that you've known Beomgyu long enough to let a lot of opportunities to pass by, even if it pains you. Though romantic love doesn’t have to have an expiration date, you think you’ve been around your best friend long enough to know and accept that nothing is going to happen.

So to keep up appearances, you shook your head in front of your demanding friends that night at the reunion and teasingly pushed the sleeping Beomgyu to Taehyun's shoulder, much to everyone's disappointment.

"I've known him for all my life, literally. If something remotely romantic were to happen, it should've happened years ago." You grimaced before downing another shot of peach soju, that particular shot stinging a bit too much for your liking.

"But that's, like, the tricky thing with friends: you never really know when things are starting to be something else with one or both people." Sieun pointed out with a pout.

"Oh, I can assure you, it's not like that with us." You waved your hand dismissively in response before quickly going back to gathering your next mouthful of lettuce wrap. “Anyway, you guys have known us pretty well too. We just don’t match that way.”

Next to you, Beomgyu groaned seemingly in agreement as he stirred on Taehyun's shoulder, moving to lean on you again. "You're all so fucking noisy." He mumbled on the nook of your neck, hands encircling around your waist as he then pointed at the jug of water on the table. “If Y/N says it's not like that then it's not like that. So let me sleep and let Y/N eat their food!"

You shrugged at Sieun and Yunjin, smoothly shifting the conversation's focus to Sieun after before filling in a glass of water for Beomgyu as he’s requested.

"You're going to have a nasty hangover later, you know." You pointed out to him, making sure to keep your voice low knowing that he's sensitive to noise when he's drunk.

"You'll take care of me." He replied confidently with a boyish grin, more as a statement than a question. "Can I sleep over your dorm later? Hyuka won't let me in the room like this and Ryujin's already on vacation anyway."

You then rolled your eyes, knowing full well that you don’t have a choice anyway. "Sure, sure."

II. WE HAVE SHIT TASTE IN PEOPLE (AND IT WOULD BE AN INSULT TO OURSELVES IF WE START LIKING EACH OTHER)

The first time someone directly and publicly questioned Beomgyu's relationship with you, however, was at the traditional secret gathering your classmates had arranged in your two-day senior retreat just four years ago. On that night, after a whole day of tedious team-building activities and an evening of getting lectured by your teachers on house rules, most of Class 2 gathered at the boys' shared room for swiped alcohol and midnight snacks.

At that time, it was Daehwi who had asked and the context was the equally traditional game of truth or dare. When Beomgyu was picked for the second time that night, he surprisingly chose truth, prompting the question everyone has apparently been asking among themselves.

"Would you date Y/N?"

Beomgyu laughed. It was always his instinct to laugh whenever his own relatives asked the same question or when you would tell your own similar experiences but also because he saw you throwing your head back in laughter as well from where you were seated between Yunjin and Ryujin.

But what really solidifies this question as an inside joke between the two of you was the time when you watched When Harry Met Sally together at a sleepover in Beomgyu's house a year before the class retreat.

It was the classic friends to lovers romcom that you ended up watching in that particular sleepover in the first place because Yunjin mentioned that it reminded her of you and Beomgyu. So of course it had to be brought up before you could accidentally fall asleep on Beomgyu that night, you pointing to Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan before smacking Beomgyu in the head and asking the exact same question the boy would face at the senior retreat.

"Without thinking about all the gross couple shit like kissing or whatever," You gagged between your question, making Beomgyu roll his eyes and scoff. "would you date me?"

"First of all: gross—"

"That's why I said without all the couple stuff!"

"Still gross! Why would you think of that question!"

Back to the class retreat, once Beomgyu had calmed down from laughing and before Jeongin or Hueningkai could start leading the teasing on how you and your best friend reacted to the question in the same way at the same time, he said, "Y/N has shit taste in people. It'd be an insult to myself if they start liking me, even more if we do date."

You laughed even harder, repeating the words back to him. "Ya, you have shit taste in people too!"

Daehwi almost did a whole spit take with his glass of Cola while hearing your exchange. "Damn, you two are brutal with each other!"

Taehyun told Beomgyu later on that he felt as if that particular answer could be misinterpreted as the latter being mean to you. But your best friend was quick to explain that it's something you actually talked about in the aforementioned sleepover. You also backed him up on this over breakfast the next day when you sat with the two boys.

On the night of your sleepover, after you asked the question and Beomgyu was done making his teasing disgusted faces in front of you, he had said the exact same words for the first time and even elaborated on it.

And like Daehwi, you also almost did a spit take hearing it for the first time but your own glass of hot chocolate.

"You had a crush on Yeonjun two years ago before he was cool and you dated that annoying what's-her-name from the softball team who, by the way, cheated on you before you could even celebrate 100 days." The blunt 11th-grader Beomgyu said in front of your surprised face on that sleepover. "Ah, and don't get me started on that time you were swooning over that asshole Taejoon from Class 7 last semester because he sat next to you on the bus when I got the flu? You were crushing on a guy who thought he was jack shit and played with a lot of girls while I was almost dying in the hospital! Shit taste and inconsiderate!"

You and Beomgyu also did not forget to mention to Taehyun about how you almost smothered Beomgyu to death with a pillow in response, pausing the movie so Meg Ryan didn't have to see the crime you were about to do before tackling your best friend on the bed.

"Hey, Yeonjun's cool and Minji from softball really is an asshole but I didn't know Taejoon had a reputation in Class 7 back then! I just thought he was cute and really polite to the old ladies and the kids on the bus!" You retorted aggressively, smacking Beomgyu's face repeatedly with the Hello Kitty pillow he lent you for that night. "And I visited you with the boys and Yunjin after school while you were sick to catch you up in class, you ungrateful brat! I have shit taste but I'll never be inconsiderate to you!

"While we're at it, you also have shit taste, mind you! Pining after girls like Yeeun and Rina right when they start dating other people! Ah, and you dated that girl, Areum, in the 9th grade too even when everyone kept telling you that she was trying to get to Soobin through you! Shit taste and idiotic!"

Your college years would not spare the both of you from having more strings of failed romantic relationships just as much as it did not stop all the questions from friends, both new and old, about Beomgyu's relationship with you so the answer always remained the same: both of you have shit taste in people so dating each other would be somehow insults to yourselves.

But there are times, of course, when it would just be you and Beomgyu alone and, instead of the usual jokes and banter, he allows himself to be just slightly honest for the sake of his sanity and to make sure that you never feel as if he has some hidden ill-intent in always jokingly bringing up the uglier sides of your dating history.

In another sleepover at his house last summer, he didn't fight you when you decide on watching My Best Friend's Wedding and blurted out halfway, "As your own best friend, I think you deserve the best."

Though no one did a spit take this time, you did momentarily freeze while trying to tuck yourself in under the weighted blanket you were sharing. On his laptop perched comfortably on a foldable table, the movie was coincidentally at the part where Julia Roberts was delivering the iconic, "Choose Me” speech.

“I'll have to say this quick or I'm just going to have this massive coronary and then you'll never hear it and.....and....you have to. This is, by far the dumbest thing I've ever done in my entire life.” Julia Roberts dramatically delivered on the laptop screen as if filling in the silence. “Ugh—so dumb in fact—uh—that I can't...... oh but I'm gonna.”

“What’s wrong?” Her male lead, Dermont Mulroney, asked and Beomgyu felt like he should be asking that question to you when your silence started dragging on for too long.

When you did regain your composure, you chuckled nervously. "I-I mean yeah, I know, but...what's with that all of a sudden?" You furrowed your brows up at him.

And like he was mirroring you, Beomgyu also paused for a moment as he too contemplated on why he said it out of nowhere.

Meanwhile, Julia Roberts just continued delivering her lines flawlessly, filling in the silence between the two of you. “Michael......I love you. I've loved you for nine years. I've just been too arrogant and scared to realize it and, well, now I'm just scared. So I, I......realize that this comes at a very inopportune time. But I really have this gigantic favor to ask of you.” Though the sound coming in on your respective earphones was only at 75%, suddenly it felt louder the longer that Beomgyu didn't speak. “Choose me? Marry me. Let me make you happy.”

Beomgyu scratched the nape of his neck and smiled sheepishly, turning away for a second as you finally pause the movie and the light illuminates the side of his face a little too brightly.

“Oh God, please don’t tell me you’re gonna pull a Julia Roberts right now. You know—“

“What? No!"

“Then answer the question!”

"I just remembered, you know, how we always say that we won't date each other because we both have shitty taste in people and everything." He shrugged when he did explain himself, unconsciously sinking lower on the bed as he pressed his back harder on the bed frame behind you. "And I know it's a joke and all but I—I also think that you deserve better than someone like me...or Yeonjun, Soobin, Tae, and Hyuka.

“Though I guess it is hard to find someone better than us, especially me and Soobin, I think you should still look for someone who’s really kind, smart, and will never give you a hard time. You deserve someone who looks out for you and makes you feel like home but also like you’re flying.

“Someone who’s funny too but not too funny to upstage me! Just enough to get you through the dark times because you do get really stressed out these days. I—I don’t know, I guess I was just thinking about—about that, yeah…”

You relaxed your expression as he spoke, though a small pout remained. "Okay..." You pressed play on the laptop again with a laugh. "Random but okay.”

“I give my whole heart out to you in a speech and that’s all you have to say?”

“What else do you want me to say?” You scoffed and playfully nudged him away, earning you a dramatic wince from him. "With how you generally act around people I like, it's not that hard to figure out that it's because you think this way."

“Yeah but, I don’t know, maybe say it back to me too and comfort my lonely, lonely heart?” He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in response.

“I think that’s a you problem. We all tell you to just get yourself out there then you reject every person who throws themself at you.”

The boy feigned a glare next. “I’m going to kill you in your sleep later.”

“Fine.” You rolled your eyes, moving carefully on the bed to face him fully. “You deserve someone infinitely better than me too. Someone gorgeous—not just pretty!—and smart enough to keep your dumbass in check and just overall awesome, but not too awesome, of course! I’m literally the coolest person you’ll ever meet…ever!”

"Oh you flatter me, Y/N!" He exclaimed dramatically with his hands to his chest, smiling when you snorted and turned your attention back to the laptop again to press play on the movie.

Though he partly thinks otherwise—that it’s impossible that there’s someone out there infinitely better than you overall—he does agree that you are the coolest person in his life.

"You're so annoying." You mumbled under your breath and he quickly retaliated by pinching your cheek affectionately. "Ya!"

"You love me."

"I know right, how will I even find someone better than you?" You teased but Beomgyu's observant enough to understand that you only mean it halfway.

"Maybe you won't?" He teased back with a wink. "I know for sure no one's better than you."

"Shut up."

III. WE ARE EXTREME OPPOSITES (AND WE ANNOY EACH OTHER A LOT)

If you were to be asked about the things that annoy you about Beomgyu and vice versa, you both would probably need a month of preparation and a year each just to list everything you've come up with. Sure, you’ve known each other for a long enough time to be comfortable in each other’s presence but that doesn’t make everyday perfect as there are still instances when you get the undeniable urge to smack him in the head or dropkick him for being insufferable.

If you were to make a top five shortlist, however, the fact that Beomgyu has no concept of personal space when it comes to you would take the cake—pinching your cheeks, holding your hand whenever a remotely attractive person passes you by, always putting his legs on top of yours, hugging you to death, and always headlocking you when you meet up among others.

But beyond that, ever since he got comfortable with initiating skinship with you around the 3rd grade, he's also somehow managed to convince himself that he had the right to be all up in your personal business too even when you didn't want him to—from simple things like stealing your food, spamming you with messages the second you don't reply as quickly as he'd like, to always having insisting that he accompanies you whenever you mention going to a new place, online stalking anyone you find interesting, randomly popping up at the studio in the Fine Arts department, and loosely keeping tabs on people you hang out with.

There have been times, however, when Beomgyu’s nosiness has actually saved you from a date or unwanted attention in public and even comforted you. In elementary and high school, whenever you’re allowed to pick groupmates, he’s always ready with gossip about everyone’s work ethic for some reason. Whenever a creep at the mall or at a party would try to hit on you, he’s always by your side ready with a glare and all intent to report the creep to the authorities. And even when he’s a shit drunk, he’s always aware enough to defend you whenever your friends pick on you.

But more importantly, as the more reserved person between the two of you, Beomgyu’s always the one who’s forcing you to open up to at least one person when you’re down (aka him).

The first sleepover that the two of you ever had was in the 6th grade when Beomgyu invited himself over to your house and stayed up with you until 3 AM to finish a Science project your three other groupmates basically gave up on. You never asked him to do it, just complained about it over lunch once, then suddenly he was barging in your house with his own stationary and your Science teacher already notified of how your groupmates have been slacking the past two weeks.

“Why did you do that?” You pouted after turning in your finished paper online. Fortunately for the two of you that time, it was a Friday and sleeping in wasn’t going to be an issue, especially for 6th grader Beomgyu who had the tendency to sleep the whole day. “I could’ve just told Mrs. Kim on Monday myself.”

Beomgyu shrugged as he fluffed the pillows and arranged your plushies on the bed. He hasn’t had his sudden growth spurt at that time so fitting in your old bed frame was still fairly easy then. “Knowing you and how long your groupmates have been bailing on you, you’d probably chicken out if Yunjin or I don’t do it ourselves or push you to do it.”

“No—“

“You know I’m right.“

You glared at him then, standing up from your desk to punch his arm. “I hate you.”

But he only rolled his eyes. “Then next time, I’ll try to not meddle that much anymore. Just…when our classmates are taking advantage of your kindness like this again, report it immediately, okay?” He nagged, his voice soft while his expression was determined. “Even if you don’t tell me directly, I know you’ve been having a hard time with that even more this year for some reason and, knowing you, you’d rather suck it up because you think you’re bothering people when you bring it up when you’re not.”

“That’s not true.”

“Y/N.” He squinted his eyes and pursed his lips.

You scoffed, climbing in the bed and laying down on the side next to the wall. “Okay, maybe sometimes it’s true.”

“Y/N.” He repeated your name in the same tone, lying next to you with your teddy bear in his arms. "Ms. Fluffy doesn't think so and I kind of agree with her."

You rolled your eyes in response, Beomgyu catching the gesture before he could turn off your bedside lamp. “Fine, fine. I admit it, I wasn’t—I wasn’t planning to tell Mrs. Kim because I thought my groupmates would get mad and think of me as a nuisance.” You winced at the admission, lifting your blanket up to your nose.

But Beomgyu was quick to stop your hand, flicking your forehead after. “Stop doing that. You literally did half of your paper, even the parts you weren’t assigned to. You’re far from a nuisance.” He retorted, tucking Ms. Fluffy the teddy bear next to you. “And Mrs. Kim’s job is literally to make sure we’re not having a hard time learning, she’d understand.”

That time, and most times when Beomgyu would be the one nagging you, you felt like shrinking under his fierce gaze. “I don’t want to get into trouble with anyone in class—“

“I’d fight anyone off for you if that happens."

“But I can handle myself if ever!”

“Now, you’re just contradicting yourself.” He pointed out with a chuckle, settling down next to you. “Just...next time, okay? You should never suffer in silence by choice, you’re better than that.”

You had no choice but to nod in agreement and fulfill your promise that very next Monday, talking to Mrs. Kim yourself to elaborate on the incident further with Beomgyu holding your hand the entire time.

Most of the time, it's sweet and thoughtful that your best friend looks out for you out of genuine concern. You can’t admit it to his face, knowing he’ll tease you endlessly for it, but you like Beomgyu having his full attention on you most of the time and how he can literally rival your family as the person who knows you best.

But alas, there are still numerous instances when it's caused you more harm than good to disastrous levels.

At the top of your head, there was that incident in the summer before your sophomore year when Yeji first set you up on a blind date with Theo, a friend of a friend from the Vocal Performance department.

You even made sure that Beomgyu wouldn't get anywhere near your bowling date, threatening all of your mutual friends to keep the agenda a secret over message (and free food for Taehyun and Hueningkai) and scheduling the date on the same weekend Beomgyu was going to take an exam for one of his summer classes.

However, when Theo briefly left you alone in your lane to buy snacks, a familiar mop of brown hair, black hoodie, and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses suddenly whooshed in your peripheral vision, followed by two figures in hoodies you unmasked at the end of the night as Yeonjun and Soobin.

Another annoying thing that Beomgyu does is that when he’s “investigating” something—whether it’s a friend’s date or that time everyone thought Taehyun was secretly seeing someone—he always brings the same get-up of hoodie and thick-rimmed glasses along as "disguise." It's a stupid idea that first came to him when Yunjin went on her very first date in high school that he never bothered to change even when everyone started catching on, making it easier to spot him in your surroundings.

Though he didn't approach you until you approached him back in your dorms, it was still unnerving to spot him, Yeonjun, and Soobin playing five lanes away from you and your date. Their glances felt heavy on your back as the night went on.

"He was literally in two of your classes last semester. It's not like he's some stranger to you." You frowned at Beomgyu after letting Yeonjun and Soobin go with an earful of a speech of their own. Though you and Theo agreed that you clicked better as friends, you still lectured and nagged at your three friends in your dorm's communal kitchen with Beomgyu staying an hour longer than the other two. "How did you even get to the bowling alley? I thought you have an exam tonight?"

"My exam was only until 7 PM so I got Yeonjun to drive us to the bowling alley as soon as I got out. It was a celebratory thing for me too! That English final really kicked me in the ass, if you must know." Beomgyu answered with a pout, hands deep in his hoodie pockets and his glasses slipping on his nose. "And even if I do know Theo in passing, I don't know him that way. He’s more Yeji’s friend than mine. What if he was a shit dude when it comes to dates? What if he stood you up tonight or something?"

"You say that for all the people I like."

Beomgyu waved his hand dismissively in defense. "I only say that to the objectively trashy ones and the ones I don’t know enough about. Theo’s under the second category.”

"Still! You get what I mean!" You frowned as you smacked him on the back of his head, earning you a wince from him. "Gyu, once, just one date where you leave me alone. No disguises and no spam texts. Can you do that?"

There's a long pause that followed after with Beomgyu opening his mouth a couple of times only to close it back again, keeping you on edge for what felt like forever but was only for around five minutes.

He never told you what he was going to say at first or if he was even thinking of something else to say, you can just easily infer that it's different from what he actually ended up saying with the way his expression softened right before he finally spoke.

"Only if you tell me more about these things before you actually go on them. Even just the basic things are fine.” He frowned this time, crossing his arms. Even without you scanning every inch of his face, his expression easily gave away to the fact that he was thinking of saying something else but was trying his best to hold back. “I’m...I'm worried, okay? I don’t want you getting in trouble.”

"You know I can handle myself. We've been through this hundreds of times, I'm not that kid from the 4th grade who couldn't tell on my shit groupmates." You interjected, crossing your arms in front of the taller boy. "Anyway, if I ever need help, you're always the first one I'll call, you already know that."

He pouted down at you. "Sure?"

And you nodded with a laugh at his ridiculous expression, uncrossing your arms as you couldn't fight the amusement creeping up on you whenever Beomgyu tries to act cute anymore. "Positive."

So on the next two blind dates that Yeji set up for you that summer, you were pretty sure that Beomgyu only kept tabs on you through text as the hoodie and glasses were nowhere to be seen when you and your dates went out.

♡

On Beomgyu’s end, if he were to pick a top one habit of yours that he finds the most annoying it would be your tendency to hide your artworks from him until it’s finished when he’s always showing you his drafts.

Much like how you often try hiding your burdens, troubles, and blind dates from him, you often ban Beomgyu from seeing your drafts and sketches until the work itself is done which, as a fellow artist, makes him want to sneak up on you even more.

Especially when you think that you’ll be working on a particular project for a long time or if it’s in a medium you haven’t tried before, you’d often be blocking Beomgyu from seeing a peek of your plans out of a weird superstition that you might not finish anything if you hear a comment from him too early.

As your musician best friend who’s always showing you his own work even when it’s still disjointed lyrics and melodies in his head, Beomgyu sometimes thinks that you don’t trust him enough in something important as your own art. Without you knowing, it hurts him a bit sometimes because it’s as if he can’t be useful for you in that sense when you're always his most trusted critic when it comes to his music.

“It’s not like I can possibly make a bad comment.” Beomgyu insisted sometime during midterms as you talked over your senior thesis projects over dinner. It was almost 2 AM in your dorm’s communal kitchen, your mugs only half-filled with lukewarm chocolate when the boy asked if he could take a peek at your sketchbook after letting you hear some of his new music. “With you and your art? Impossible to make any bad comments I’m telling you!”

“Eh, but—“ Maybe it was the tiredness from having been up for 24 hours straight, trying to stay on top of your piling requirements, that unlike your usual response to Beomgyu’s pouting and puppy eyes, you decided to blurt out, “I just—I don’t know…I think too highly of your opinion.”

Beomgyu was effectively rendered frozen and speechless, missing the way you slouched your shoulders and hid your face behind your hair after your confession. “I—what?”

“Don’t make me repeat it.” You deadpanned, taking another sip of your chocolate next to him. At least with your shoulders touching, you couldn't see the way his expression unconsciously softened while listening to you. "It's already embarrassing enough as it is."

“But…but why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would you think highly of my opinion? It’s just me.” Beomgyu chuckled nervously, feeling his face heat up in embarrassment as he spoke. “Not like I’m a professional artist or whatever.”

“Do I really have to say it?”

Beomgyu nodded, pursing his lips. "I'm being serious right now." He pretended to squint his eyes and furrow his brows and you rolled your eyes in response.

With a sigh, you then answered. “It’s exactly because you’re you. You’re Choi Beomgyu, the annoying kid from the neighborhood who just decided one day that he’d join me at the plastic tables in the playground when he saw me drawing flowers on my mom's notepad. The one who bought me my first oil paint set for Christmas in the 7th grade because he said he noticed how much I enjoyed it in our Art class. The one who always adds more compliments to my work along with actually helpful feedback even when I ask for criticisms only because he’s too nice for his own good but he’s also very intuitive.

“You…annoying as it is, you’re kind of very important in my art and it makes me nervous sometimes to show you anything before it’s complete because I think it has to be perfect and totally not disappointing even when you first see it. I only want you to see good things from me...”

While the silence that followed felt like an hour for you, it felt like forever in Beomgyu's mind as his thoughts flew to the memories as you mentioned them.

Much like you, he can also vividly remember how exactly you befriended each other at the playground then, when he complimented your doodle of the daisy bushes by the swings because you drew them a little too well for a five-year-old with broken crayons and an unsharpened pencil. You even complained to him that you can render the flowers better if you just didn't forget your sharpener at home, leading to a whole conversation that you continued at the swings where he offered to push you for the rest of that afternoon.

He remembers that 7th grade Christmas when he picked your name for the class Secret Santa and didn't even have to read more on the wishlist below your name because he was already set on buying you an oil paint set and some brushes to go with it outside of the classroom. He knew you were saving up to buy it in the summer yourself but he also knew that it'd make you even happier to get it six months earlier so it was easy for him to take money from his own savings that were supposed to go on a new ukulele.

But more importantly, his mind lingers to a memory you didn't mention, to that day outside of the teacher's lounge when you were first filling in your college applications. While your other friends were talking animatedly about what they were planning to do after your high school graduation, you were unusually quiet next to Beomgyu as you filled out your application which quickly prompted him to ask if you were okay.

"What did you put in your program?" He had asked after, leaning his head on your shoulder only for you to cover the top half of your application with your hands. "Ya, I want to see!"

"No, it's embarrassing!" You protested, moving the form away from his peering eyes when his hand tries to reach for it. "You'll know later anyway if I pass Seoul University!"

"You mean 'when' you pass." He corrected, resting his chin on your shoulder this time before peering up at you. "And why are you embarrassed over your program? It's not the most embarrassing choice you've made in front of me."

"Ya!"

"So what is it?"

You leaned away from him and Beomgyu found it weirdly strange to be on eye-level with you while seated after he's suddenly grown almost a head taller than you over the summer. "I might...do a double degree on Painting and Sculpture."

"What's embarrassing about that? If anything, I'd be surprised if those two are nowhere near your top five options." He raised a brow almost instinctively. "Y/N, a double degree's impressive as hell!"

"It's just that..." You stumbled shyly over your words, scratching the nape of your neck. "I don't know, it's a shot in the dark. It's not like I'm that good like how you're great with your music."

"That's bullshit. You've always been talented and hardworking when it comes to your art. If anything, it's me who's always trying to catch up with you." He countered immediately, sitting up straight with a serious expression on his face. "And it's something you love and want to learn more of so why would it be embarrassing? Be confident and own your passions, Y/N."

"They might not actually see that if I don't do well in the exams and the portfolio I turn in. For all we know, I suck compared to other people."

"You literally just won a mural competition last summer." Beomgyu rolled his eyes. "Admissions would be dumb to reject you."

Looking back on that memory almost four years ago, the revelation of what you really think of him makes Beomgyu's head spin that he had to quickly snap himself back to reality when you downed the last of your chocolate and mumbled how opening up was a mistake to yourself.

"I'm going to bed." You announced, rubbing your eyes tiredly and clutching your mug to your chest.

Before you could leave the table, however, Beomgyu quickly grabs onto your arm. "Wait, wait, no!"

"I'm tired as shit. You can rub my emotional comments on my face tomorrow morning."

"It's not that." Beomgyu frowned, tugging on your arm for you to sit down again. When you hesitantly follow along with him, he then continued, "It's just...is that why you tried hiding your application form from me back then?"

"I mean, I wasn't as confident in myself then as I am now and I had my other doubts about taking the program itself but...yeah, I guess." You shrugged slowly, looking everywhere but him. "I also thought that if I take both Painting and Sculpture, I have to make you proud no matter what."

On any other day, he would've teased you for it but he knew you'd probably smack his head on the table in that moment. So, instead, he held back on a smile and nudged you gently on the shoulder. "You make me proud no matter what you do." He assured. "And, if you must know, I also think highly of your opinion on my music...I guess we just show it in different ways.

"And if you're not ready to show me some of your new projects yet, it's okay. I can wait for all of them because I know they'll all turn out great."

You then looked up at him with raised brows. "Even if I make you wait until graduation for some of them?"

"I might ask Ryujin or Soobin to take photos of your progress for me if I have to wait that long." He joked, making you chuckle. "You know, the usual."

"Sure you will." You scoffed before picking up his mug on the table and standing up again. "Dude, come on, we really have to go to bed."

IV. WE KEEP SECRETS FROM EACH OTHER

It's not to say, however, that there aren't any instances when your roles are unwittingly reversed. Beomgyu also closes himself off from you and everyone else from time to time and you naturally end up being the nosy one banging on his door and demanding for him to at least let you know that he's eating well.

It's often when Beomgyu's stressed—when there's too much work to be done, especially in his music, or when he suddenly finds himself in a problem that he unusually doesn't share with you at the first encounter.

In these moments, you usually start noticing a week before he could even lock himself in his room and isolate himself from all of your friends. Especially since university began when you'd mostly meet in the day at lunch with your friends, he'd stop pestering you to elaborate more on a story you'd tell half-heartedly but he'll still hold your hand under the tables in front of all of your friends, squeezing it more often than usual out of anxiety.

And his smile never reaches his eyes when he's stressed, the same way his laugh would be quieter, an easy giveaway that he's going through something he's decided to keep on his own.

So as someone who's noticed his patterns over the years, you let him be at first, squeezing his hand back and initiating all the jokes in the group for him to finish with the punchline so he doesn't linger too much in his own thoughts.

Then when Hueningkai or Soobin do message you that Beomgyu hasn't left his room except to go to only half of his classes, you're quick to come up to his dorm with takeout and whatever project you're working on, knowing that what he really needs best in these moments is company.

There's times when Beomgyu acts extra bratty and doesn't let you in his personal space for a couple of days, a week at most like the time he was so stressed about Toto getting sick back in your Freshman year. It takes a lot of time out of your week and money from your weekly allowance buying him food but you wait patiently by his door anyway, catching up on your studies on the hallway floor if you're at the dorms or outside his room back in your neighborhood and occasionally knocking on his door to ensure that he's still alive.

But when he does let you in, opening the door just wide enough for you to see his bloodshot tired eyes and a blanket over his head, you take the initiative to open the door wider and hug him before anything else.

You almost never initiate skinship as much as you never share things until they're prodded out of you by Beomgyu, he knows that well so that's exactly what you do when you first see him in this state. All the time.

You don't speak until he lets you go and you're allowed to occupy his space with him. Back in your old neighborhood, you would put your things on his desk next to his own and work quietly until he decides to open up to you on his own accord.

Since college started, however, things have been slightly different in that once you're in the room, you'd sit on his bed first and let him hug you until he's ready to talk. If his roommate, Hueningkai, would be there at the end of the day, you'd throw a shoe at the younger boy and ask him to come back after dinner with the promise that you'd play Mario Kart with him the next weekend.

When Beomgyu's stressed, he likes it better when it's just the two of you, your exact opposite since you'd rather have all of your close friends with you on a hangout when you're in a similar state of mind.

The most stressed Beomgyu has been in college was when he was finishing the first official album for TXT, the band he formed with Yeonjun, Soobin, Taehyun, and Hueningkai in the summer before your freshman year. It was in the second semester of your junior year, when both of you were also preparing for internship applications on top of academics and the clubs piling one on top of each other that you sort of saw this coming as soon as you felt stressed out yourself.

Beomgyu only let you in his dorm room on your fifth day of camping out, crying out his frustrations on your shoulders for almost two hours that you had to change into one of his shirts after and ask Hueningkai to bring up a whole pitcher of water for your best friend to drink over dinner.

"I—I...I just...I can't! I can't finish the songs! I'm going insane!" He exclaimed on your shoulder, his cries muffled against you but you don't mind as you continue rubbing his back in circles and reminding him to breathe. "And...and nothing's been going my way these days! Not in my classes, not in the radio show or on the soccer team! I'm just...I'm just so out of it, Y/N!"

You hummed comfortingly, carefully moving both him and yourself so you're both sitting up properly once more. You then pointed to his open laptop and computer screens on the desk across the room with a small smile, "I can see your progress from here, though. You've been doing well. You're trying and getting things done, that's what matters."

"It's not all that good..."

You shook your head almost immediately, handing him another pack of tissues you've brought with you before discarding the used ones in the nearby trash bin. "Yes, it is! I've heard the drafts before you locked yourself up in here, they're all great." You retorted, tilting your head when he buries his face in the crook of your neck once more. "I think I like Thursday's Child Has Far To Go and Maze in the Mirror the most. They're very you.

"And about your classes and clubs, just take your time with them. Soobin and I e-mailed some of your profs already, Jeongin and Tae are handling the radio show well, and I'm sure Sunwoo and the rest of the soccer team would understand your absence for now.

"For now, just do what you want to do. Rest if you want to rest. If you want to focus on the band, then that's fine too. Everything will align themselves in time, just please don't forget to take care of yourself."

"And if they don't? Align themselves in time, I mean?"

His breathing was ragged then from all of the crying and his eyes the reddest and puffiest you've ever seen them. You figured from then on that you really hate seeing Beomgyu cry in frustration the most.

"They will, I promise. They always do with you." You replied without thinking, hesitantly patting his head and gently wiping his tears with your thumbs. "And you know I'll stay with you here until you're satisfied with your progress. Or at least for a couple of days because I have tons of presentations next week."

He sniffled a bit, spraying his hands with alcohol and adjusting the blanket wrapped around him. "W-What are you going to work on in a bit?"

You scoffed, already expecting that he'd ask. "I brought a project for my Sculpture II class, if that's okay. I also brought newspapers so I don't make a mess on the floor." You answered anyway, chuckling when his eyes immediately lit up. "You've been bugging me about it so I thought I can show you the my progress just this once to cheer you up."

And as if a light switch was turned, the glossiness previously in his eyes suddenly looked like sparkles as he sat up straight. "I could smother your face in kisses right now."

"Wipe that snot off of your nose first." You pretended to cringe when he dramatically opened his arms wide and puckered his lips. At that moment, you immediately knew that he was feeling a bit better, at least. "Geez, sometimes, I think you just sulk sometimes to get me to come here and show you my works early."

"I'm not that evil!" He pouted, taking the weighted blanket off of his back and getting off the bed. "Though, now that you've suggested it..."

A pillow then quickly landed on his face. "Choi Beomgyu!"

So you spent three nights at Beomgyu and Hueningkai's dorm room, working on a bust of Yeonjun (it's a long story involving you losing a bet to him at your last group hangout) on the floor while Beomgyu finished the final edits to TXT's songs. You then go back to your own dorm room before breakfast to freshen up for your class then come back again after your classes, often around 4 PM.

And when Beomgyu finally caught up with his classes and extra-curriculars, he surprised you with an invitation to TXT's surprise album launch over a month later.

Another thing about Beomgyu is that he's strangely great with surprises, preparing elaborate plans for occasions like your birthday, the holidays, or when he's bounced back from a difficult situation right under your nose.

Initially, the boys only told you that they'd release the album after finals week and play it at the year-end school festival, the first time they would be performing a full set of original songs. Though you, Yeji, Ryujin, and Yunjin insisted that they should do a proper album launch, all five of the boys just kept saying excuses or shifting the topic to something else.

On your last official school day for that semester, however, you suddenly received a notification from TXT's social medias about a surprise album launch at a cafe you frequent with all of your friends and a personal message from Beomgyu telling you to come over 30 minutes before the show.

So in retaliation, you made sure to stop over at the nearest flower shop with the girls and surprise Beomgyu with at least a congratulatory bouquet of roses, the same size as the one he gave you all of those years ago.

Said bouquet almost getting ruined when Beomgyu hugged you the moment you entered the cafe.

"You came!" He exclaimed giddily on your neck, almost toppling you to the ground as his arms encircled your waist. "You came! You came! You came!"

You scoffed, taking a moment to regain your footing as you rested your cheek against your best friend and carefully held the bouquet behind his head. "Of course I'd come. I'm your number one fan."

"Sure you are." He feigned a sniffle before tilting his head away to press a kiss to your cheek. "But still, thank you for coming. This means a lot to me."

"I know."

"You helped finished this album."

"I doubt that. I just worked with you in silence for three days straight."

He shook his head fervently, pulling away from you fully by then and leading you to the makeshift stage across the room. "You helped me refocus and get back on my feet so I can finish everything. I think you helped big time." He retorted before picking up his guitar from its stand. "Anyway, I have another surprise!"

"I only got you one." You feigned a frown while shaking the bouquet in your hands, making him chuckle before occupying the empty high stool next to him. "I'll have to get back at you again after this."

"You're already doing so much for me coming here tonight. And you bought me really expensive flowers!" He assured, strumming the guitar a few times. When you then opened your mouth to retort, he quickly interjected, "Anyway, I wrote this song for you! I'm still thinking if I want us to perform this later but I really just want to play it for you right now before anything."

So in the middle of that cafe, while your friends ran around preparing the decorations and doing soundchecks, Beomgyu sang his song, "Nap of a Star," with his guitar on his lap and his phone with the lyrics on the music stand.

"I can see even without you in front of me. I feel you, even without saying anything. Because I believe in you, even if I'm anxious

"I can touch even without you in front of my eyes. I reach even if you go far away from me. Just by remembering you, my heart always dances like before

"I want to become your nap and dream together always as if nothing happened. The evening sunset and the darkened night sky, my heart is full of you."

He occasionally giggled and fumbled on the guitar a bit everytime he glanced over in your general direction but he finished the song with you nearly in tears, something you instinctively hid by smacking him in the arm once the guitar was out of the way.

"You jerk! You wrote that for me? Are you sure?" You exclaimed, rapidly blinking back tears. "And I only got you flowers today! God, you're making me look like a bad friend!"

He rolled his eyes, getting down from the high stool and standing in front of you. With your own chair's height, you were easily at eye-level with him as he smiled at you. "I already told you, just coming over to hear us is already enough. Don't worry about it." He assured. "Anyway, what did you think of the song?"

"It's beautiful, of course." You scoffed half-heartedly, making him chuckle. "Was that night walk in the lyrics about—?"

"That night walk at the art fair? Yeah." He grinned shyly, rubbing the nape of his neck.

Once, in the 9th grade, you had a big fight with Beomgyu over Areum, at that point his ex-girlfriend. What you both do remember the most about it is how it happened on the week before a planned trip to an art fair in the busier district of Seoul that you were really excited about.

Though you were pretty sure that you weren't on speaking terms with him that time, he still showed up at the bus stop on the day itself, prompting you to apologize to each other before heading to the art fair together.

"You were crying like shit in public that we had to move to a more secluded area because people were looking. Then, you almost choked me to death with your hug." You recalled in confusion. "Not like I was any better but..."

"I put it in because I really thought our friendship was over then." He explained with a pout. "Then the first words we told each other when you saw me at the bus stop were apologies and...ah, it's very cheesy but I just think back to that time whenever I miss you. I think it's one of those moments I remember when I think of our bond."

You smack him again, this time directly on his chest, but the tears also flow freely this time. "God, you're so...you're so poetic and annoying! And you're making me cry!"

"I take that as a win." He laughed deeply as he hugged you, one hand rubbing your back soothingly while the other cupped your face and wiped your tears gently.

"How can you even say those things without crying? We've been friends for almost 16 years, damn it, Gyu." You mumbled in his plaid shirt, hugging him back. "I-I really love the song…”

"Years of practice on how to say it properly, actually." He joked half-heartedly, rubbing your back even more and mumbling to a passing Soobin something about the last preparations for the album launch. "That's why I do all the talking for us."

V. I LOVE YOU TOO MUCH

Your thesis for your Painting degree, you realize right before the Winter break this senior year, is the perfect surprise to get back at Beomgyu. While you've briefly mentioned that you'll have to take an extra year to complete your Sculpture degree's senior thesis, you're focusing on your Painting degree in your 4th year and have miraculously kept it under wraps from everyone including your best friend because everything's been hidden in your laptop and at the studios.

At the same time, it sort of fits. Though overall, most of the studies, actual finished works, and research you've done so far for your thesis are focused on human relationships overall, traces of Beomgyu have been slipping in here and there, reminding you that it's quite hard to paint anything about your friends or your first love without him.

He's in the series of studies you did of all of your friend groups, in a watercolor rendition of the faces you remember from your old neighborhood's playground, and even in a charcoal rendition of your favorite romance book characters as your thesis advisor suggested that you try and explore.

And he's in even more finished works and abandoned sketches way before that, some you unconvered in your old binders while researching for your thesis.

It could just be the extra hustle and bustle of your senior year, with you and all of your friends busier than ever as you work on your final year. Not to mention, you still have to prepare balancing a job at the university museum with your fifth year classes next year and Beomgyu's been busy putting out new music with TXT and discussing a junior producer position at an entertainment company.

But it's been almost a whole month since you last went to a proper lunch (one that isn't jut coffee and convenience store ramen) with any of your friends which is a whole record for you and Beomgyu, in particular. You're probably just missing the guy a bit too much these days that even just getting his daily cheer up messages has been messing with your thoughts all over again.

(Not that it doesn't mess you up on any normal day. It's just a tad bit extra now that you haven't seen his face around in a while)

So when you brought up to your thesis advisor the idea of painting a portrait of Beomgyu, the studies of which you would gift him for Christmas then remake as a proper oil painting for your thesis after the Winter break, there wasn't much of a complaint on her part.

Hell, you might even suspect that Prof Kim, a mentor whom you've also had in past studio classes, has been secretly rooting for you this whole time after years of always seeing Beomgyu randomly pop up around the department building.

"And what kind of relationship will a portrait of Choi Beomgyu represent in your exhibit?" She asked on Monday with a teasing glint in her eyes, a copy of your project research in her hands.

Your face heated up in an instant as you fumbled over your words, something you quickly excuse as a reaction related to the snow outside. "I—well...I'll figure that out later which I know is a cop out answer academically but I'll connect it to something in my RRL later, I promise!"

Prof Kim chuckled, closing her binder. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding! Personally, I think you already have it in your RRL and project proposal, you just need to make a more explicit mention of your friend in the paper moving forward since he'll be a subject in one of your finished works."

You nodded sheepishly, quickly gathering your things and standing up to bow at your advisor. "I'll e-mail you my progress again next week before the break!"

"No, no, it's okay! Just e-mail me after the holidays, I won't deduct grades or anything!"

A few days later, you're on the floor of your dorm room with Ryujin and Yeji cramming their own choreographies for their respective senior theses in another corner of the room while you finished your second study of Beomgyu, using your most recent photos as a reference.

The small 12x16 canvas you were working on sat comfortably on an equally small easel on your work desk, another canvas of the same dimensions drying by the windowsill next to a pile of old photos at the same time. Since your thesis would only require photos of your studies, you figured that you can give all of them to Beomgyu then make an extra oil painting of the two of you, knowing that he'd probably shy away (after making egotistical jokes, of course) if it's all just him.

"So what would the final painting be?" Ryujin suddenly asked as Yeji pauses the music for a five-minute break, approaching you as she drinks a bottle of cold water. "They're all so different."

You glanced over your shoulder and frown. "That's the thing, I'm not really sure how I want to paint him in the final work."

"Why?" Yeji asked this time, sitting cross-legged on a nearby mat.

You shrugged in response. "I don't know. Honestly, I thought if I do some studies, I'd get a clearer idea but I'm already three paintings in and I still have no plan of action for the one that actually counts to a grade." You sighed, turning your attention back to your unfinished painting.

"At least you have the Christmas gift ready!" Ryujin half-heartedly joked, sitting on an empty chair next to you. On your peripheral vision, you also caught Yeji nodding with a hopeful smile. "You don't have to paint the final work until after the break, anyway."

"Yeah, but it's the one that's going to be displayed at the exhibit at the end of the year." You pointed out matter-of-factly, carefully finishing the last layer of your painting. "And it has to be perfect."

"Maybe you can work something out over the break? You're going home to your neighborhood with Beomgyu and spending more time with him, anyway." Yeji suggested next. "Maybe then you'll have a clearer idea, hm?"

And Yeji was definitely right, as she always is, when you do go home to your old neighborhood with Beomgyu after the last official school day of the semester and find yourself hanging out in his childhood bedroom on the days leading up to Christmas much like the old days.

The idea comes to you on the afternoon of Christmas Eve almost two weeks later, when you invited yourself at the Choi's once more to listen to TXT's new songs and catch up with Toto. You sat cross-legged on Beomgyu's bed with your own earphones connected to his laptop and a live-sketch of the boy in his favorite green plaid shirt and freshly cut and dyed black hair on your lap.

Glancing over at him and seeing the way his eyes sparkled as you listened to "Way Home," it was a rather quick revelation to you that the best way to paint your best friend is in his most comfortable state. Just like this: when it's just the two of you drawing and listening to music, basking in the comfort of each other's company.

So you looked back at him again as the song transitioned to "Blue Hour," trying to take in as much of his features in that moment as much as you can. The faint sunlight coming in through the fogged up windows, Beomgyu's messy hair and skewed reading glasses, his hand propped up on his desk as he rested his cheek on his palm, his brows furrowed slightly in concentration as he worked only to consciously soften them when he looks at you, the way he talked animatedly about certain parts of the song with a boyish but proud grin on his lips.

Before you can even listen to the third song, you were already placing your hand on his upper arm and asking him to stay still for a moment.

"Why?" He asked, blinking twice while his hands go to pausing the song on his laptop anyway.

"I'm trying to memorize your face in this light." You answered absentmindedly, turning to a fresh page on your sketchbook and looking at him for a minute longer before removing your hand from him. "Okay."

"Okay?" He chuckled nervously. "What was that for? Are you going to send the mafia to kill me or something?"

You rolled your eyes, folding your knees closer to your chest to hide your sketchbook as you start anew. "It's a secret."

He then tried peering over your shoulder, moving the chair he was sitting on closer to the bed. "Are you drawing me?"

"Maybe." You teased with a smirk before pulling the sketchbook closer to your chest when he tried peering again. "Play the next song, Gyu."

Painting him in another solo portrait then on one of the two of you after that was relatively quick and easy as you finished your final gifts on Christmas Day while Beomgyu and his family went to a reunion out of town. While the last painting study, the one you'll render to a bigger canvas after the break, is him looking back at you fondly on that Christmas Eve afternoon, the additional painting of the two of you was from a candid photo Taehyun took when Beomgu played you Nap of a Star.

So now, here you are, in your room this time with the portraits gift-wrapped on the foot of your bed while your best friend handed you a late Christmas gift of his own.

"I was going to make it on my computer at first since everyone was sending in pictures on chats but then Yeonjun said that it might end up looking like the slideshows you have at funerals even with my superior editing skills." Beomgyu explained with a nervous chuckle as you unwrapped the gift, finding a thick scrapbook of all of your memories and mementos growing up. "Since everything else of you that I have—the pictures, the craft store receipts, Lotte World tickets, and everything—are all in boxes at home and at the dorms, I just thought I'd print the pictures I got from our friends and instead of scanning the things I already have then make it into a physical scrapbook.

"You did always say that you want to make one someday but we never really had the time so I thought I'd start it for you and, surprisingly, there are too many things in my own space that are yours or remind me of you."

You browse through the abnormally thick book in surprise and amusement, not even knowing that Beomgyu's kept even the simplest scraps of paper related to you after all these years. From the pictures his mom took of the two of you for every first day of school until the 12th grade to the candid photos he's taken of you over the years on his phone (regardless of how unflattering they are—you make sure to smack him in the arm everytime you come across one as you continue browsing) to notes you'd leave on his locker whenever he missed school and all the Christmas tags you've put on your previous gifts, it's the most detailed history of the two of you from when you met up until the present, complete with small captions handwritten by the boy himself.

So much so that you even linger on some of the pages you never thought you'd see, including the sketch you drew that day on the playground, the first note he passed you in class in the 1st grade, and a copy of the front page of the Science paper you crammed with him in the 6th grade.

"How did you even get some of these?" You ask, pointing to a photo of the two of you from your first Christmas together you somehow forgot existed. It was in the 1st grade when the Chois had to cancel going to their annual family reunion because of Mr. Choi's work so your families ended up watching the neighborhood fireworks display together. "I don't even think I have a copy of this!"

"That's from my mom! Also took her a long time to find on her phone." Beomgyu grins before turning to another page just full of flattened flowers, mostly daisies and roses. "And these are from all the bouquets you've bought me for recitals, graduations, and our first album launch! I kept at least one of everything because I wanted to use them in a project someday but I wasn't really sure what until I got the idea to make you a scrapbook."

"How did you even decide to give me a scrapbook for Christmas? And going through all the trouble of asking everyone we know for extra pictures? I thought you were busy with the band and your thesis?" You ask next, turning to the last page and finding a bunch of old letters and old invitations, the one from your senior prom standing out. By this point, it was hard to keep the stray tears at bay as you sniffle, making Beomgyu laugh before passing you tissues.

You went with all of your friends back then but you only danced alone with Beomgyu, somehow deluding yourself into thinking that he would confess and reciprocate your feelings.

But he never did, holding himself back from saying anymore in front of your house and simply kissing your forehead at the end of the night, and that was probably the only time you cried over the boy for that reason.

Beomgyu scratches his head and smiles sheepishly before slowly gesturing over to your wrapped gift for him. "A-Ah, well...Ryujin may or may not have mentioned something about you slaving away the past few weeks for your gift."

Your jaw slacks. "Are you serious?"

Before you could protest even more, however, Beomgyu's quick to raise his hands up in defense and interject, "Well, to be fair, I got the original idea of a simple scrapbook with everything I have way before Ryujin approached me! Then she mentioned sometime ago how hard you were working on my Christmas present that I had to up the stakes and ask for more pictures and stuff from everyone else after.

"And it wasn't that time consuming, actually! Everyone was happy to share photos and even some stories about you which I wrote in some of the entries because I thought it was sweet. Just...I want you to feel absolutely loved with this gift.

"And I mean, isn't it also nice seeing us from other people's point of view?" He points out next, flipping back to the pages mainly dedicated to photos of you and your mutual friends mixed in with photos they took of you. "It's also kind of a gift from everyone else in that sense."

You wipe another set of stray tears, making Beomgyu pout and reach a hand up to help you.

"Are you okay—?"

"I love it so much." You sniffle, smacking his arm before hugging the scrapbook to your chest. "Thank you, Gyu."

He heaves a sigh of relief, clutching his chest with his free hand. "There are still some blank pages towards the end. I figured you can put your own stuff in it if since I know you keep some things in the box under the bed." He suggests, patting the bed as if to gesture to the boxes you keep under it. "Or if you want, we can just fill it with new stuff later."

"Will you help me add in my own things?"

He nods with a bright smile. "We can do it before dinner with your parents." He then reaches towards the opposite end of the bed and picks up his gift, shaking it in front of him and asking next, "Should I open my gift in the meantime?"

"Yes, please. I can't be the only one crying right now." You nod with a chuckle, moving the scrapbook to your bedside table and helping him remove the tapes all over his gift.

"Before you make your usual complaint that it's too much, it's also actually part of my senior thesis for my Painting degree. Remember how I mentioned last time that I decided to make two separate theses for my programs? So, these are studies for one of my final paintings." You explain as the paintings come into view, Beomgyu's eyes widening and his jaw slacking in an instant.

"Woah..." He breathes, laying the canvases next to each other gently. “This is...this is amazing!"

"And there's one of the two of us. Look." You point at the last painting with a small smile. "The reference is from a photo Taehyun sent to our chat after the album launch."

"A-And...and where are the other portraits from?" He asks in a lower voice after a moment, eyes sparkling when he looks up at you again.

You gulp down any feelings of wanting to melt on the spot, pointing to each painting as you answer, "The first portrait's from a photo I took at your last gig, the second one's from last summer when we went to Haeundae beach, and the third one's from just the other day when you were letting me listen to your new music."

He points to the last one shyly, his cheeks flushed pink as the two of you look over at the painting of him listening to music on his headphones with a small smile on his face. "This was in my room?"

You nod, equally shy now that he's asking the questions upfront. "I-I just figured...you looked so warm and cozy then and that's always how I remember you so...yeah. That's also the one I'll be painting in the final work that's going in my thesis."

"Really?" His eyes widen even more, to which you simply nod once more before briefly looking away from him.

"Yeah, because my thesis is mostly on human relationships and, really, the rationale in all of these paintings is that I wanted to portray you as how you are in my eyes which is—"

Before you could even finish your thought, however, Beomgyu's oversized hoodie engulfs you and his lips land on your cheek. Then he gives you another peck, this time on a spot just slightly higher on the same cheek.

Then another, and another, before moving to another cheek. "You're amazing. I love you so much." He whispers against your skin dangerously close to your lips, almost as if he was telling you a very important secret.

And you know he means it differently than the other times he casually says it to you when he doesn't laugh excitedly between his words or jokingly force you to say it back as he would often do.

Instead, he punctuates the declaration by cupping your face gently and repeating the words again. "I love you so much. I love you the most." He sighs, meeting your gaze desperately.

And it's probably the years of knowing him that he doesn't have to elaborate on it further for you to catch on. At the same time, you feel a weight lift itself off of your shoulders at this, one that you haven't even realized you've been carrying along with you this whole time, hugging the boy back tighter with your arms on his waist in response.

“Can I?” He asks next, stroking your cheek with his thumb as his eyes momentarily flickers down to your lips.

You nod with a soft hum almost instantly, tilting your face as he closes the gap between your lips.

Beomgyu kisses you like it's the most natural thing in the world for him to do, his lips feeling comforting on top of yours as he conveys every built up feeling and all the kinds of love he’s had for you in the past 16 years and receives the same back from you.

And all negative thoughts you’ve had, worries that your best friend will never look at you the same way you’ve always hoped for him to, are immediately thrown off the window and replaced by the assurance that Choi Beomgyu, the nuisance who’s been affectionately stuck to your hip since day one, is in love with you.

"I love you." He repeats, voice muffled towards the end as he gives you another fleeting kiss before rubbing your noses together. "You know what I mean, right?"

"I love you too." You reply on your own accord, panting slightly as you fill your lungs in with air and biting your lip as you feel your face heat up after. "I outlined it out at the bottom of our painting too with my signature, in case you didn't spot it."

"Ya, I did." He chuckles sheepishly, briefly moving to sit away to put your paintings on the side of the bed. Before the space he previously occupied in front of you grows cold, his arms are back around you once more as he tackles you down on the bed. "I'll hang all of them in my dorm when we get back."

"You can't nail things to the walls then graduate. That's not how it works." You laugh with a shake of your head, encircling your arms on his neck as he props himself on his elbows on top of you. When he laughs along, something in your heart stirs happily at how the two of you could go from intimate to casual so smoothly, assuring you that nothing much is going to change—just now with more-than-friendly kisses and the assurance that your best friend feels the same about you. "Anyway, they're all small enough to go on your desk at the dorms and at the studio."

"Then I'll put them on my work desk at the studio. Everyone has to know I have a really talented partner."

"Partner?" You scoff teasingly against the sudden rapid beating of your heart, playfully pushing him away. "I'm your significant other now?"

"Didn't I make it clear enough with the kisses and the hug? Not even with the fact that I've been sticking by you my entire life?" He feigns a pout as he easily rolls the two of you over with you comfortably on top of him now. "Should we make out instead?"

Your face heats up more at the comment, eyes widening when he does press a longer kiss on your lips and even manages to open your mouth while you’re distracted. "That's also not how it works, Gyu!" You manage to successfully push him away and roll your eyes, hiding your face in his chest in embarrassment.

"Then will you be my significant other? I'll take care of you like I always have, just with more kisses! Maybe some other things too like just five seconds ago." He dramatically asks with a smirk, teasingly prying your hands away from your face. "What? You wanted me to ask!"

"What happened to having shit taste in people and dating each other being an insult, then?” You tease one last time, making him groan. "Or not liking anyone I like, hm? You’re kind of contradicting yourself here.”

"We’re contradicting ourselves. I think I know enough Math to know that negatives cancel each other out." He retorts before leaning down for another kiss and resting his head on your chest after.

"But you suck at Math.”

"Do you want help with the scrapbook or not?"

VI. (epilogue) MAYBE WE WORK A LITTLE TOO WELL

A big bouquet of red roses and sunflowers is dropped in your arms by Beomgyu for the second time in your life, purposeful this time as he follows it with a an extra daisy tucked in your ear and a kiss.

"Congratulations on the exhibit, baby!" He greets you giddily after with a grin and a soft pat on your head. "I’m so proud of you! You’ve worked so hard!”

"Ew, ew, ew, not in front of us, please." Hueningkai complains, hiding behind Yeonjun and Taehyun as you lead your friends around your thesis exhibit. “I’m a child!”

You roll your eyes, draping your free arm around Beomgyu's waist anyway as Ryujin and Yeji wander off to the portraits you made of your family while the boys approach your studies on your high school and college friends.

"I have another surprise, by the way!" Your boyfriend speaks up again, taking out his phone and placing an earphone on your left ear. "I may or may not have gotten the idea from that time you were finishing up your thesis in the studio."

"I'm fucking scared." You joke, adjusting the earphone anyway while he wears the right bud on his right ear. "What is this?"

From what you can remember of those all-nighters two weeks ago, you brought your remaining works in his studio to work with him in the same space. While Beomgyu was winding down from having just finished his own thesis and recording the demo for a new song, you were trying to work quietly in your own corner, alternating between singing TXT's old songs to yourself or mumbling about how you were going to present the written part of your thesis to Prof Kim.

You also remember making out on the studio sofa while you’re on break but you’re pretty sure (well, you’re hoping your boyfriend's not insane like that) that it’s not anything remotely related to that in particular.

Beomgyu then takes your hand, leading you to where Yeji and Ryujin are. "Let's start here. I followed your gallery's pamphlet but modified it a bit towards the end so we'll end up in the painting you made of us."

And when you do stop in front of the painting series, that of your family over the years, Beomgyu's pre-recorded voice rings through your ears.

"Hello and welcome to "Why We Work,” a senior thesis by artist and my beautiful, beautiful partner, Y/N Y/L/N." Beomgyu proudly announces in the recording, making you laugh out loud in an instant. Faint in the background, you can distinctly hear Maze in the Mirror's instrumentals playing. "Y/N, baby, are you tuning in? Congratulations on finally finishing your Painting thesis! I made you an audio guide!”

You smack the real Beomgyu on his arm as you try and regain your composure. "Ya, you brat! What is this?”

He only giggles in response, making a shushing gesture dramatically. "Shh, just continue listening in. I made it for the whole gallery."

You roll your eyes but tune in anyway, responding well to the commentary as you walk with Beomgyu and even discussing some of the works yourself live and more in-depth.

“This was really sweet of you.”

“It is sweet of me, you’re welcome.” He teases, earning him another smack on the arm.

taglist: @wccycc @4beomy

[ermdoctorwho]

If every doctor had a news coverage abt them

IN THE NEWS TODAY :

-Teachers get kidnapped ; old homeless man suspected.

- Excentric self-proclaimed doctor and scottish boyfriend cause mischief with Yetis in London Underground ; Futurist female friend and her photograph girlfriend still at their search.

-Old fancy man defeats bearded leader with karate and military intervention.

-Beloved bohemian scientist falls off of a tower ; Thinks Dr.Sullivan is an imbecile, and develops affection for peculiar robotic pet dog. Journalist Sarah-Jane Smith refuses to cover the news.

-Cricket-like Father of four takes on adventures into space ; unfortunately becomes father of three as the fourth sacrifices himself.

-Arrogant blonde man with horrible fashion choices fights the Matrix with american woman and redhead woman ; gets defeated by "The Rani".

-Goofy but manipulative spoon-player unofficially adopts troubled teenage girl who masters explosives.

-Young man goes back between the 19th and the 20th century to find hot girls and guys to fuck.

-Bald man saves people around time and space and cheats on blonde woman with Sherlock Holmes.

-Adored silly man ruins redhead woman's marriage ; still revered by thousands.

-Knockoff of the adored silly man forgets how to interact with humans and has a complicated romance with woman called River Pond.

-Old emo teenager accused of murder ; says the victim was 'dead already'.

-Silly blonde woman who has midlife crisis at age 20 has pakistani lesbian lover ; denies.

-Adored silly man resurrects from death ; is Jesus ?

I'M YOUR ANCHOR ANNE KERR, THIS IS TODAY'S NEWS AND WTF ?!?

[panthera-tigris-venenata]

"AITA for dumping my boyfriend which led to him being captured by a bunch of crazy pirates?"

For a bit of context, me (17F) and my ex boyfriend (17M) come from a drastically different backgrounds. My boyfriend comes from a very priviledged and influnetial family (I'm not sharing exact details due to his media notority), and it's only due to his influence that me and my friends (17F, 18M, 15M) were given a chance to live on the right side of the tracks, so to speak.

As you can imagine, that was challenging. Me and my friends were put into a unique position.

We were forced to do a complete 180 of our lifestyle and beliefs.

Some of my friends, particularly E (17F), are taking to the change so well - she's doing so well. She's becoming a big name in the fashion world, which I'm so happy for her, she's been so passionate about everything fashion ever since I knew her, and she's doing so well in school too. She just got the chance to show off how clever and amazing she is, she's really blossoming in this new enviroment.

Right. Anyway. My boyfriend.

He kept asking me to give up every last of my beliefs, every little thing that made me who I am today, and I didn't feel like saying no was an option. As I said, his family is exteemely influnetial, and his parents could very well take this new life from my friends.

So I tried to adapt.

I studied hard any way I could. I was supportive girlfriend and tried planning exciting and cute dates - which is a thing that I never did before, so it was a challenge for me - and he almost never had time for me.

I even dyed my hair blonde and completely changed my style to fit in better.

I kept answering these never-ending questions from media that just kept hounding me - I've never felt more like a prey before, and I grew up in an extremely "survival of the fittest" situation.

But it never was enough. Even with all the support my friends and particularly wonderful E were giving me, I couldn't take it anymore.

I decided to end things with him on a friendly note, going as far as throwing in the obligatory "It's not you, it's me," and to make the move back to my childhood home so he could move on quicker.

I just wanted to be myself again, you know?

But my ex-boyfriend decided that I was making in-the-moment snap decisions and that he needed to come get me.

I did not ask him to follow me.

You see, my childhood home is a very dangerous place, especially for a person in his position.

He knew that, and my friends informed me that they warned him against following me repeatedly. Since he was relentless, they went with him, and warned him to stay with them and in disguise.

Keep in mind, I did not ask him to come.

Failing to follow easy instructions multiple times, my ex-boyfriend wandered off and was kidnapped by a bunch of crazy and murder-happy pirates.

Despite all of this, I went out of my way to help him get out of this hostage situation or whatever. (If we're being honest, the pirates like to put up a bit of a display. It's a thing we all do.)

So, I did as much as I could, even though I had no obligation to help him anymore. I got as much information as possible about his situation, getting insulted in the process. I planned a rescue operation, even though I needed to mend all the relationships that were broken by me moving to my boyfriend's place, basically. Lot of people weren't happy with that, so I had to make a lit of social calls.

I really feel like I did all I could at any point of this situation.

So, Reddit, AITA for getting my ex-boyfriend kidnapped?

[duckprintspress]

6 Queer Books for Autism Acceptance Month!

April is Autism Acceptance Month, so the group of folks at Duck Prints Press who suggest titles for these rec lists dug into personal favorite queer reads to find these six titles that include queer characters who are explicitly or implied to be autistic. Our picks are:

The Luis Ortega Survival Club by Sonora Reyes

Ariana Ruiz wants to be noticed. But as an autistic girl who never talks, she goes largely ignored by her peers—despite her bold fashion choices. So when cute, popular Luis starts to pay attention to her, Ari finally feels seen.

Luis’s attention soon turns to something more, and they have sex at a party—while Ari didn’t say no, she definitely didn’t say yes. Before she has a chance to process what happened and decide if she even has the right to be mad at Luis, the rumor mill begins churning—thanks, she’s sure, to Luis’s ex-girlfriend, Shawni. Boys at school now see Ari as an easy target, someone who won’t say no.

Then Ari finds a mysterious note in her locker that eventually leads her to a group of students determined to expose Luis for the predator he is. To her surprise, she finds genuine friendship among the group, including her growing feelings for the very last girl she expected to fall for. But in order to take Luis down, she’ll have to come to terms with the truth of what he did to her that night—and risk everything to see justice done.

May the Best Man Win by Z. R. Ellor

Jeremy Harkiss, cheer captain and student body president, won’t let coming out as a transgender boy ruin his senior year. Instead of bowing to the bigots and outdate school administration, Jeremy decides to make some noise–and how better than by challenging his all-star ex-boyfriend, Lukas for the title of Homecoming King? 

Lukas Rivers, football star and head of the Homecoming Committee, is just trying to find order in his life after his older brother’s funeral and the loss long-term girlfriend–who turned out to be a boy. But when Jeremy threatens to break his heart and steal his crown, Lukas kick starts a plot to sabotage Jeremy’s campaign. 

When both boys take their rivalry too far, the dance is on the verge of being canceled. To save Homecoming, they’ll have to face the hurt they’re both hiding–and the lingering butterflies they can’t deny.

Hell Follows With Us by Andrew Joseph White

Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with.

But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all.

Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens, as long as Benji can control the monster and use its power to defend the ALC. Eager to belong, Benji accepts Nick’s terms…until he discovers the ALC’s mysterious leader has a hidden agenda, and more than a few secrets of his own.

The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester by Maya MacGregor

Sam Sylvester’s not overly optimistic about their recent move to the small town of Astoria, Oregon after a traumatic experience in their last home in the rural Midwest.

Yet Sam’s life seems to be on the upswing after meeting several new friends and a potential love interest in Shep, the pretty neighbor. However, Sam can’t seem to let go of what might have been, and is drawn to investigate the death of a teenage boy in 1980s Astoria. Sam’s convinced he was murdered–especially since Sam’s investigation seems to resurrect some ghosts in the town.

Threatening notes and figures hidden in shadows begin to disrupt Sam’s life. Yet Sam continues to search for the truth. When Sam discovers that they may be closer to a killer than previously known, Sam has a difficult decision to make. Would they risk their new life for a half-lived one?

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Wei Wuxian was once one of the most outstanding men of his generation, a talented and clever young cultivator who harnessed martial arts, knowledge, and spirituality into powerful abilities. But when the horrors of war led him to seek a new power through demonic cultivation, the world’s respect for his skills turned to fear, and his eventual death was celebrated throughout the land.

Years later, he awakens in the body of an aggrieved young man who sacrifices his soul so that Wei Wuxian can exact revenge on his behalf. Though granted a second life, Wei Wuxian is not free from his first, nor the mysteries that appear before him now. Yet this time, he’ll face it all with the righteous and esteemed Lan Wangji at his side, another powerful cultivator whose unwavering dedication and shared memories of their past will help shine a light on the dark truths that surround them.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She’s used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she’d be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world.

Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organised much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship’s leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot – if she’s willing to sow the seeds of civil war.

What are your favorite queer books with Autistic rep? We’d love to hear about them!

You can access this list as a bookshelf on Goodreads!

Did you know? Duck Prints Press has an affiliate shop on Bookshop.org – and you can access all our rec lists (including this one!) there to facilitate purchasing the books. If you buy with us as your affiliate book store, authors get royalties, Bookshop.org gets a cut, and we get a small percent of the purchase price too – everyone wins!

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

ALEX DEWITT (DC COMICS)

1.) The term “fridging” is literally based on Alex and what happened to her. She was killed off violently by a bad guy trying to get at her boyfriend only a couple issues after she was introduced (making it obvious they only brought her in to kill her off for shock value). Her death did very little to the narrative other than hurt her boyfriend Kyle and was done in an exceedingly horrifying and violent way. (Bad guy came to the door with flowers and threatening note, broke in and attacked her, choking her to death, before [off panel] chopping her body up and sticking it in the refrigerator as a “surprise” for her boyfriend. This obviously is really fucked up and she deserves better and should win this actually (a vote for Alex is a vote for all fridging victims [in spirit])

2.) It doesn’t get much worse than being the character whose death originated the “fridging” trope. In Green Lantern Vol. 3 #54, Kyle Rayner comes home to find that Alexandra, his girlfriend, has been killed by the villain Major Force and stuffed into the refrigerator.

Alexandra DeWitt is the character whose misogynistic treatment coined the term where a character, usually female, is killed off purely to make the main character, usually male, feel bad. Even if there are other characters who have been subjected to similar levels of misogyny, Alexandra DeWitt’s treatment has been essentially immortalized.

3.) I know she’s not going to win but shout out to my home girl, literally the trope namer for women shoved in fridges. All anyone ever knows about her is that she was Kyle’s girlfriend and got murdered for his character development, even though she had plenty of potential to be her own character.

MARINETTE DUPAIN-CHENG (MIRACULOUS LADYBUG) (CW: Racism)

1.) First, her creator has it as a hard Canon rule that every single episode she has to be wrong about something, even if it doesn’t make sense for her to be. She got to be with a boy who liked who she was and not the fact that she was a hero, who is much better suited for her as a partner than the one she is constantly shoved with. Her superhero partner constantly pushes past her romantic boundaries and is actively encouraged by everyone else in canon around him, even when she states multiple times that she doesn’t want to date him and they are not a couple. He’s always trying to take away from the fight, and several times when he is turned down he will take it out on her. The creator of the show describes him as flawless. Her suits are awful, they’re literally just decorative spandex on her body, giving her no structure or support.

2.) victim of both the crew’s misogyny and racism the show literally cannot be normal about her i submitted her to the character massacre poll so im gonna repeat some of the stuff i said from there shes a 14 year old girl n a rule of the show’s bible is that marinette must always be the one to learn a lesson so shes always wrong according to the narrative even when she actually isnt in the wrong one of her main character traits is that she has a crush on adrien and cause shes a teenage girl shes of course portrayed as obsessive and stalkerish for… having pictures of her fashion model crush in her room n knowing his schedule even though hes super busy n it would be reasonable for her to keep track of his schedule so she n his other friends could actually hang out with him despite being half chinese and (from what i remember) her mom being a first generation immigrant she has no actual connection to it for all intents and purposes her being half chinese is almost irrelevant for her character unless the show feels like being weird about it such as having her white crush be more knowledgeable about chinese culture than her n her parents being based off of the creator and an ex girlfriend of his (his tweet about that is still up btw) which leads into the next thing of marinette is weirdly sexualized by the show she has the most blatantly body paint suit of the girls (cause all of them have body suits seriously pretty much all of the women n girls in this show could be submitted which is bad considering its a girl power show for kids) the camera frequently frames itself on the lower half of her body in one of the comics after she detransforms shes left naked (an issue entirely invented for this comic) and has to wear a box as clothes n there was a scandal about a member of the crew drawing her naked which the show’s creator defended (remember this guy said marinette was like his virtual child) shes not winning in her love life either so both marinette and adrien are superheroes with secrect identities n neither of them know who the other person is under the mask marinette likes adrien who is chat noir’s civilian identity and adrien likes ladybug who is marinette’s superhero identity hes not into marinette n marinette’s not into chat noir however chat noir constantly flirts with ladybug (usually instead of actually helping her) ignores her rejections of his romantic advances n throws a hissy fit whenever she doesnt priortize him (such as not helping her defeat the baddie thats frozen all of paris cause last night she didnt show up for a date he set up when she told him she couldnt go on a date cause she already had plans with friends threatening to quit when most of paris was underwater due to a different villain cause marinette got trusted with an important secret n he didnt and attempting to use cataclysm (his ability to destory anything) on marinette’s best friend when marinette had her use the ladybug miraculous in her stead) while her own pursuit of adrien only ever ends in her own humiliation cause the crew just thinks its so funny for a teenage girl to get repeatedly humiliated for the crime of wanting to ask her crush out n then yank her back when she tries to move on with a guy who openly has a crush on her respects her n is very supportive of her which is something they literally wrote her to do n pressured by pretty much everyone to ask out adrien (as a civilian) n date chat noir (as a hero) cause the show doesnt know how to properly develop a romance for their main couple beyond having everyone say theyre meant to be and then also this is more of like the show’s general misogyny and double standards but when girls crush on the same guy theyre all catty bitches to eachother (n then also two of them are irredeemably evil cause the show hates teenage girls n thinks the show’s main villain (who only isnt a child abuser if you dont considering neglect n emotional abuse real abuse) is more redeemable than two cartoony mean teen girls) while guys crushing on the same girl are chill n buddies with eachother

3.) We’ve seen time and time again she’s capable and smart and creative and can really do anything she puts her mind to-but canon forces her to fall for a guy after he halfass apologizes (never actually says sorry and lies about never having friends when in the same episode he keeps saying he’s this persons friend) about a misunderstanding because ooh white boy go hard I guess and thus for multiple seasons have her go stupid around and simply because of this boy. This same boy but now hero form she’s doesn’t know, gets to trying and flirt with her over and over even after she tells him very nicely that she doesn’t like him like that, thought they were just bantering, and that she likes someone else. The narrative punishes her when she does anything that the boy doesn’t like, either by him not helping her as a hero in fights or scolding her in both forms. Additionally, her character is through the ringer when ever it comes to him because “she’s boy crazy” like teaming up with her bully to ruin this girls dress because she is attending an event with him- which goes way off base for her character- and this happens only whenever he’s involved. They have her be weird around him like sniffed his pillow once and took a hair from what she thought was a statue of him and also have her never function normally around him-which fine that can be true to life cause she’s 13-but when she falls for this other boy who makes her relaxed and helps her to be who she is happily-the narrative pulls a 180 once they date showing she can’t forget about the first boy and putting her pictures she took of the first boy back in her room when they were previously removed. Last thing because I think this is getting way too long sorry, but they sexualize the hell out of the female hero: from their poses and shots focusing on their chest, butts, or movements of them, but also the male heros costumes are way more intricate and detailed where as the main character for three plus seasons only had a red bodysuit with black neck and black spots while the male hero had a black suit detailed with a golden bell, leather belt as a tail, black ears, green cat eyes, and more. I just can’t with this show doing girls dirty and then claiming “girl power”

[anarcoqueer1994]

Thanks to Them killed me. They gave us so much great Hunter content. I love how into things he got, like I think he would have a Tumblr account for wolves and Cosmic Frontier. And I love that making clothes is something he got to do more of, he loves it and Camila supported his passion.

Look at Him

Side note look at Willow loving this for him.

Like I heart strong plant girlfriend, and her nerdy, fashion designer boyfriend being mutually supportive.

But then this episode decided to murder me with this

And like Flapjack/Evelyn's (? Maybe) sacrifice . Flapjack must have seen so many grimwalkers of Caleb die at the hands of Belos and couldn't let another one be mindlessly murdered for standing against Belos.

What I am saying is, I watched this episode 4 times since last night and I cannot stop thinking about it.

[morally-grey-girlbosses]

The top two characters will be eligible for entry into the bracket!

Propaganda under the cut.

Vriska Serket:

People love her! People hate her! People want to fuck her! People want her dead! It’s Vriska fucking Serket bby! No introduction needed.

she did nothing wrong but i guess you could bring up that time she mind controlled one of her friends to jump off a cliff permanently paralysing him and then later stabbed him through the chest with his own lance or that time she killed one of her other friends by mind controlling one of her friends or that time she blinded her best friend because said best friend blew up her magic artifact causing her to lose an arm and an eye. said best friend would later kill her and then thousands of pages later rework the timeline to not kill her. and then they kissed. shes also a mentally ill neurodivergent gay teenager living on murder death planet who was forced to murder lest her spider mom eat her for breakfast, basing her entire personality off her singular role model who was a fucked up pirate who lived a longass time ago. she has a redemption arc after dying and genuinely begins to heal from her traumas and work towards being a healthier and better person and then an alternate version of her gets created by aforementioned timeline reworking and shouts at her and steals her girlfriend. she did nothing wrong. she created so much discourse. i love her immensely. shes even vriska (vriska)

It's vriska. Need i say more?

It’s Vriska.

She had her own discourse tag (Vriscourse) due to all the crimes she did. These include murder (of enemies, friends, and strangers), a revenge sprial that led to her paralyzing one friend and blinding another, and literal mind control. She was one of the protagonists. Also one of the biggest problems that needed solving. A deeply hurt and desperate teenager, she tricked a lot of her team and a lot of the fanbase into thinking she was a shallow violent "spider8itch." She earned every last bit of vitriol she got. She was a scared lonely teenage girl. Her best friend (the one she blinded) murdered her. It was declared both a just and heroic death. It had to be undone with time travel because it was impossible to suceed without her. She had so much love to give. She delivered needless pain instead. She was a result of her society and unbringing. Her friends were not nearly as brutal as her. She's like if Azula ATLA had a sense of humor and was allowed to say fuck.

vriska serket ... she is still so controversial - hence the moral ambiguity yes she does do terrible things but consider: she has an evil spidermom that needs to be fed children and she lives on the imperialist militaristic kill planet ... is it any wonder she is so morally dubious ?

homestuck.com

Damara Megido:

Damara lives in a caste based society where blood colour is tied to lifespan. She is of the lowest colour and thus she’s already on the bottom of society. She speaks a language not widely understood by her acquaintances, except for her eventual boyfriend, Rufioh. Her boyfriend cheated on her, so she paralyzed him and he was turned into a head on a robot horse body by Horuss, the guy he was cheating on Damara with. He then feels awkward around Horuss. She was also bullied relentlessly throughout her youth by literal royalty. She killed her tormenting bully, Meenah, the lowest caste kills the highest caste. She becomes so estranged from her “friends” that it’s suggested she has entered into the service of the literal destroyer of the universe. At the same time, when interacting with “friends” she portrays herself in a very sexual, horny otaku fashion, and pretends not to understand people when they talk to her. Tragic girlboss to herself.

Rose Lalonde:

this is my... twelth or thirteenth submission? i think. and not going to lie its all blurring together for me but rose is my ultimate blorbo of all time. shes a lesbian nerd with a degree in wikipedia psychoanalysis she uses to call her friends gay. she ends up involved in the end of the world and makes a plan to destroy the main villain which involves her own death. she consorts with eldritch beings and succumbs to their grimdark influence. she is shtity to her friends and is very self important. she cares deeply for them. she is a flighty broad and she has a lot of snarky horseshit. said grimdark episode is after her mom dies. she gets stuck on a meteor for three years and ends up becoming a teenage alcoholic. she goes on her first date unsure its a date and totally wasted. she flies around blowing up the structures of innocent turtles and consorting with dark cosmic entities. she gets stabbed through the chest. she dies three times over the course of the comic. she even gets gay married. shes such a girlboss and look its homestuck of course shes problematic. ultimate blorbo ever. vote rose

Terezi Pyrope was submitted without propaganda, but I am familiar enough with Homestuck to attempt to write some myself. Here we go:

She dreams of becoming her alien society's equivalent to a prosecutor, whose job is basically just to murder criminals with little to no evidence. She gets involved in a huge revenge spiral between all her friends. She fucks over one of the main human characters and ends up creating one of the worst timelines because of it. Despite all that, she ends up working for good in the end, and helps that same main human character rewrite the entire history of three universes to create a more favorable result.

[wednesdaythesecond]

top 5 things to put girl mikey through

in no particular order:

Transphobia, Misogyny and Transmisogyny

> any and all varieties of this unholy combination. transphobic violence, the catty way girls treat girls who are different from them, social ostracization, being transvestigated by magazines and blogs, guys not wanting to touch her, her boyfriends not wanting anyone to know that they're dating her, her parents not talking to her, misgendering and deadnaming, having to constantly prove herself to medical authorities, having to constantly prove herself as a woman, being forced into extremely rigid gender roles, unequal and unsatisfying sex, homophobia, force mascing, conversion therapy, catcalling, being treated like a sex object, "Mikey's only in the band cuz she's hot," hypersexualized photoshoots, being ignored and disregarded, only being interviewed about her relationships, "Gerard Way's sister," people trying to get up skirt or down shirt photos, magazines talking about her weight and appearance, "Pete Wentz's girlfriend," not being taken seriously by anyone, being asked about her plastic surgery constantly, bodyshaming, blogs trying to guess how much she weighs, etc.

Sexual Violence

> unwanted groping, harrasment, guys not taking no for an answer, Gerard not taking no for an answer, coercion, grooming, teachers who like her a little too much, corrective rape, abusive boyfriend, nonconsensual vouyerism, roofies, stalking, secret photos, girls not taking no for an answer, dick pics, sex as a means of repayment, trading sex for band things, rape threats, etc. sexual violence <33

Normal and Healthy Eating Habits

> welcome to the 90s, baby. it's all H chic. eating nothing for extended periods of time, eating way too much and regretting it, constant shame about food, being cold all the time, vomiting, checking her body all the time, weighing herself constantly, "are you really going to eat all that," her mother encouraging her disorder in her own way, intense shame, calorie counting, tasting and wasting, staring at photos of beautiful 90s models, comparing herself to every other girl, scraped up knuckle, shaky hands, black spots in her vision, brain dog, coffee for breakfast, cigarettes for dinner, food as a reward, restriction as punishment, diet coke, alcohol instead of food, clothes from the kids section, bruising easily, always being a little tired, pretending to eat, empty fridge, vomit hidden in plastic bags on the tour bus, dark circles, fucked up teeth, inpatient stays, etc. just normal and healthy things <3

Violence

> good old fashioned violence!! abusive relationships, abusive family situations, gay bashing, misdirected gay bashing, rough sex, broken bones, choking, permanent damage, bruises, cuts, serious injury, blood loss, too much blood loss, car crashes, murder, vampire bites, werewolf bites, bones setting wrong, Munchausen by proxy, etc. fuck her up!!

Addiction

> everyone needs something to get them through the day. getting addicted young, replacing food with drugs, track marks on her inner arms and feet and backs of her knees and other places, bloody noses, shaky hands, unfocused or too focused eyes, reusing her estrogen needles for H, reusing her H needles for estrogen, always at least a little drunk, too underweight for detox to be medically viable, smoking since childhood, mysterious pills, prescription pills that aren't under either of her names, multiple lighters and spoons in her bag, illegal diet pills, replacing feelings with drugs, bloodborne disease scares, constantly being some kind of sick, etc. give her all your poison and give her all your pills, she's out and withdrawal could kill her

[basilbunnii]

any physical nina and jack hcs? like how they look, disabilities, how strong they are etc?

i am SO glad you asked :D i've got a lot of them so buckle in LOL

(all under the cut this is a biggie)

nina:

this goes without saying, but obviously i completely see nina as a scene queen who leans into "trashy y2k" (she's a huge fan of ke$ha and the millionaires)

i feel like shes also totally for getting a lot of piercings because she enjoys feeling bedazzled all throughout the day even if shes sleeping or in pjs/comfy clothes

an absolute glitter FIEND to the point that she's the person putting glitter in her shampoo, glitter in her perfume, glitter accessories, glittery makeup, drink shimmer in everything— literally anything that can be glittery will be glittery

going back to music though, i think her top bands are paramore, the millionaires, and ke$ha— like she's a very healthy mix of scenemo and y2k and it really serves

i also know i draw nina a lot different than other people AND I AM TAKING THE OPPORTUNITY TO EXPLAIN MWAHAHA

so my nina does not have a full body bleach because (if i remember right, great, if i don't this is my canon) she gets the acid/bleach dumped over her which i am of the impression it would only bleach her face

i also think that nina would have a moment of clarity after and thats why she would let her smile cuts heal over and scar

i think the chemicals would also get rid of a LOT of her nerve endings in her face so she would not feel a lot of the previously mentioned piercings

i also think her hair would be crispy crunchy from all the hairspray and hair dye and being lit on fire

i can see her also being a big fan of led lights— like the idea of being able to constantly change the color of things around her to match her vibes or her outfit seem totally fitting

onto disabilities, i think nina definitely has QUITE the handful of mental illnesses, but i also feel like she would have pcos which would lean into her wanting to be more feminine from an infertility standpoint and "wanting to be more of a woman" so to speak

as for the mental illnesses she is 150% someone with bpd in my mind. i also think she suffers with psychosis and ptsd, as well as i think she would be on the spectrum (she's def got a special interest in fashion/design)

i also think a lot of those would pop up in her childhood, namely the bpd and the ptsd, because of the bullies and the outcasting, but i think jeff's influence on her life would lead to more prominent symptoms and reactions alongside psychosis and delusions caused by the psychosis

she's also got a problem with obsession and obsessive tendencies (as i think we all know or acknowledge— i have no clue if that was canon in original but fanon hast declared it)

i do think she's definitely strong so to speak, probably a bit more than the average person, but i think her "strength" would come from agility and flexibility when it came to murders

that being said i think she was definitely in dance and gymnastics when she was a kid which contributes to that

i do also think that she gets hurt pretty often regardless because she gets trigger happy and loses her accuracy (much to jack's dismay)

shes way more spry and quick than most people so while maybe you could out-strengthen her, you couldn't outrun her and she would be able to slip out of difficult positions easily

totally off of vibes but she lived in the midwest before the slendermansion

like as someone in the midwest of america that story REEKS of midwest 👎

jack:

so i feel like jack leans more into a simple emo getup— hoodie and jeans, flannel and jeans, not super showy (but nina would definitely dress him up)

its giving very overdressed girlfriend and underdressed boyfriend (at least next to her he is)

jack doesn't necessarily listen to a lot of emo songs though, honestly its a really healthy mix of everything "alt" so to speak

when it comes to disabilities, jack has super noticeable ocd

he's always super clean, always organized, everything has a place and it's in it's place (the complete opposite of nina who is the messiest person on earth)

he's definitely got other things like ptsd, depression, etc etc but i think the ocd definitely plays a HUGE role to the point that it's way more important to get across than anything else is because a lot of the mental illnesses of creepypastas are assumable (in my mind at least but i am super into psychology)

i don't think jack has any super noticeable disabilities and my justification is because he is literally a demon they don't usually have a problem unless they're a sinner in origin and mr man was sacrificed not a sinner

i don't think his vision is perfect for a demon though, i do think that the lack of eyeballs is a bit deterring there

doctor handwriting

very very doctor handwriting

there's a big separation in the way he acts whenever he's level-headed and whenever he's remotely emotional

i do think it's fairly hard to get him over that point of level-headedness though— he's very calm and collected until something is pretty personal or sensitive

i've seen a lot of people on here (one or two LMFAO) call him a feline-type demon which i agree with to a degree, he purrs and he's definitely got almost pressure points that make him purr, but i don't believe in the tail (arrest me i am an early 2010s creepypasta fan it takes me by surprise every time)

i do also indulge in elf ear jack i thoroughly enjoy that

jack definitely has a few piercings, but not nearly as many as nina (because thats a VERY high bar)

in terms of strength— i feel like my headcanons are pretty assumable because jack is a demon

he's already pretty strong as is, like he is nothing to fuck with even when he's calm and collected and unprovoked— but get him riled up and i think its a million times worse

there's less of a barrier whenever he's emotional because it creates this blurry-headedness that obviously does not mix well with being a demon and the emotions make him go from like this normal mode to a much scarier much more intense "final form demon" mode

if you take anything out of the strength portion, take "dont fuck with the demon" out of it 🫶

i mentioned that nina lived in the midwest, jack lived on the east coast (namely new jersey)

if you made it this far have another piece of art i made for my ipad background of the sillies (theyre on nina's couch cuddling i love them)

if yall want relationship hcs next lmk.... or shoot me an ask if you want other characters bc istg i've been holding onto these since i was 10

[thewidowsghost]

Running Out of Time (Maggie Sawyer x Danver!Reader)

Main Masterlist

Anonymous asked:

hi if you still write for maggie sawyer, would write a fic about the episode Alex gets kidnapped but it's r instead of Alex thanks

"You don't have to hurt anyone," a police officer says into her phone. A line of police cars is lined up outside a bank. "No one is making you do this. You're choosing to do this. You and your friend chose to go into that bank. You chose to take those people hostage. But you know what? You can choose to put your guns down. You can choose to let those people go. You can choose not to hurt anyone."

"Look up!" a man yells. "Up in the sky!"

There is a sound of glass smashing and the crowd behind Detective Maggie Sawyer.

"Hey, not even Pretty Boy Floyd got to meet Supergirl," Kara Danvers says, hauling two of the goons out of the bank. "It'll be a fun story to tell your roommates in jail!"

Maggie walks up to Kara, tucking her phone into her back pocket. "Supergirl . . ." Maggie says and Kara rests her hands on her hips, exhaling sharply. "I almost had him . . . "

"And I got you over the finish line!" Kara says brightly. "And just in time for dinner. I'll see you later."

. . .

The smoke alarm beeps and (Y/n) Danvers waves a towel around. "Thanks," her older sister says, handing the delivery man a twenty.

"(Y/n), the first time I tried to microwave macaroni and cheese," Mon-El says, "they had to evacuate three city blocks."

(Y/n) glances amusedly at her older sister's boyfriend.

"That's an exaggeration, but Ihave seen less terrifying nuclearing explosions.

"Well, I like pizza better than paella anyway," Maggie says, opening a box of pepperoni, glancing affectionately at (Y/n).

"Yes, me too," (Y/n) agrees.

Kara opens a box of Hawaiian pizza. "I love ham and pineapple!"

"Thank you. It totally shouldn't work, but it totally does," Mon-El agrees with Kara. "How's my girlfriend, guys, huh?"

Kara chuckles. "What?"

"Bank robbers, zero," Mon-El talks through a mouthful of pizza. "Supergirl, two. What do you even need cops for in this city?" he chuckles.

A dangerous look lights in Maggie's eyes, and Alex and her girlfriend Lena exchange a glance.

"He's from a different planet," (Y/n) says, resting a hand on Maggie's knee. "He doesn't even know what he's saying."

"No, he's right," Maggie says, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Why bother trying to talk a guy down when Supergirl can just swoop right in and force him down?" she looks over at Kara. "Seventeen hours of 'What do you want, how can I help you?' good old-fashioned hostage negotiation wasted."

"You're not upset that I caught the bad guys and got everyone out safely, are you?" Kara chuckles, pushing her glasses back up onto her face. No, Kara didn't have to wear her glasses, everyone - even Lena knew because Alex did not want to start her relationship off with the Luthor on a lie.

"I would've gotten them to free the hostages," Maggie says.

"Maybe," Kara shrugs. "But they're in jail now, where they can't hurt anyone. That's all that matters."

Lena glances over at (Y/n), whose eyes had widened slightly.

"Unless they use the Supergirl defense," Maggie says, leaning forward.

"The what?" Kara asks.

"It's a think some criminals use to get their charges dropped," Lena offers.

Maggie nods. "It's a perfect storm for a defense attorney. Excessiveforce, evidence contaminated by debris, vigilante justice . . ." Maggie trails off, meeting Kara's gaze.

"'Vigilante justice?'" Kara echoes. "I stand for hope, and help, and compassion! I did what I had to do to get those people out of there."

"I think what Maggie's trying to say is that what you do is amazing when we're up against . . ." (Y/n) begins.

"A giant purple monster or a half-cyborg murderer, sure," Maggie interupts, and (Y/n)'s hand falls to Maggie's knee again. "But, most of the time, police work requires a more delicate touch."

"Delicate?" Kara echoes again.

"Yeah," Maggie replies. "You broke one guy's arm and you gave another one a concussion. And that was after you knocked in the roof of a National City landmark." (Y/n) stops trying to interrupt when Maggie scoffs, "And now, it has a big, Supergirl-sized hole in it."

"A thousand things could've happened from the time of your call to the hostages walking out," Kara says, glaring at Maggie from across the table. "Maybe, yeah, sure, I broke some walls, but I got everyone out of there safely, and that is a win."

"Well, you should've asked. But you never look before you leap," Maggie replies, a tight frown spreading across her lips.

"Because I can fly," Kara replies, leaning back in her chair.

"Okay," Maggie scoffs again, looking away. Maggie meets Lena's gaze, and Lena flashes her what seems to be a sisterly glare.

Mon-El clears his throat. "Well, as being something of a superhero myself, I can say that sometimes it's better to punch, than, than to talk."

(Y/n) lets out an inaudible groan, pressing her hand to her forehead, trying to quell her quickly growing headache.

"Sometimes," Kara throws her napkin on her empty plate, "talking is more hurtful than punching. Obviously, I've upset you, Maggie. I'm gonna go."

"No, Kara, don't do that . . ." (Y/n) says, Kara having stood up from the table.

"No, it's fine." Kara says, pushing (Y/n)'s comment aside. "Than/k you. Thanks for dinner."

(Y/n) gets up from the table to follow Kara, Mon-El in front of (Y/n).

"We're gonna go," Alex says, she and Lena also getting up from the table. Alex gives her youngest sister a hug before she and Lena Luthor leave (Y/n) and Maggie's apartment.

(Y/n) turns to face Maggie. "I know you're upset about earlier, but I really . . . " she pauses. "I just really want you and Kara to get along."

"Kara and I get along great," Maggie says, meeting (Y/n)'s tired gaze. "It's Supergirl that I sometimes have trouble with."

"Okay, just keep trying," (Y/n) takes a step forward. "Okay?"

"Okay, for you," Maggie replies. "Wait, where are you going?" she asks as (Y/n) strides towards the door.

"To catch up with Kara and tell her to try too," (Y/n) throws on her jacket. "But she's just as stubborn as you." (Y/n)'s (E/c) eyes gleam with affection for a moment.

. . .

"Kara. Hi," Maggie walks up to Kara at Catco.

"Maggie," Kara nods. "Is everything okay?" she asks, the two walking towards Kara's desk.

"Yeah, I was just looking for (Y/n)," Maggie replies, "wondering if she checked in with you."

"Didn't you crash at her place last night?" Kara asks Maggie.

"I did," Maggie replies, "but she left to catch up with you after you left. What, she didn't stay with you?"

"She never caught up with me," Kara answers, turning to look at Maggie with a concerned look on her face. "Maybe she went to the DEO?"

Maggie shakes her head, "Alex said she didn't check in last night or report this morning."

"Huh . . ." Kara's eyebrows knit and her phone rings. "Ah. Mystery solved," Kara shows Maggie her phone, which had (Y/n) as the caller ID. "(Y/n)?" Kara answers the phone.

"Hello, Kara Danvers," a man, definitely not (Y/n), answers.

"Who is this?" Kara asks, stopping in her tracks.

"Well, the real question is, who are you?" the man replies. "Everyone around you thinks you're just a mild-mannered reporter. But I know the truth."

"What do you want?" Kara questions.

"I have your sister," the man replies.

"You're lying," Kara says, terror spiking in her.

"I'm not," Kara's phone vibrates and she pulls her phone from her ear. Maggie comes to stand at Kara's shoulder. The two look down to see the image of the body of a motionless figure lying on the floor of what seems to be a glass box.

"A man named Peter Thompson is serving a life sentence in Albatross Bay Supermax. You will free him within the next thirty-six hours or your precious baby sister will die. And I know you can, because I know . . . You're Supergirl."

. . .

(Y/n) blinks dazedly, weakly raising her head.

Noticing her surroundings, (Y/n) pushes herself to her feet.

"Hello?" she calls.

Electricity buzzes around her, and (Y/n) presses her head to the glass of her enclosure, breathing heavily.

"I knew I recognized you from the elevator," she croaks. "I know who you are. The people that I work with, they will find me." (Y/n) glares up into the camera at the corner of the cell. "And when they do, you will be in a world of hurt." (Y/n) totters slightly on weak legs. "So, I am giving you one chance. Free me, now."

Fear spikes in (Y/n) when she looks around the container. Three of the walls and the floor are made of cinder blocks, the ceiling of a chain-length fence, and the front wall made of glass.

. . .

"So, this person who says they've kidnapped (Y/n)," J'oon says, everyone gathered in the main debriefing room of the DEO, "what did he say on the call."

"H-he said he would kill (Y/n)," Kara says, pacing back and forth in front of the round table, "if I didn't break PeterThompson out of Albatross Bay."

Maggie and Alex are leaning heavily against the table. Lena and Winn Schott are standing off to the side, talking in whispers.

"He said he knows Kara Danvers is Supergirl," Kara goes on, and Lena and Winn stop their conversation, their widened eyes falling on Kara. "He's targeting (Y/n) because she's my sister," Kara goes on.

"But why (Y/n)?" Alex questions, straightening herself. "He could've also chosen me. Why go for her?"

"I don't know," Kara replies, shaking her head.

"This might be stating the obvious here, but why don't we just spring Peter Thompson and bring (Y/n) home?" Mon-El questions.

"The DEO does not negotiate with terrorists," J'oon replies.

"But this is (Y/n)," Mon-El faces J'oon.

"If we do this once, we'll open the floodgates," J'oon argues, a pained look in his eyes. "Every bad guy will know Supergirl can be controlled."

"And even if we do what he wants, it doesn't guarantee he'll release her," Maggie says. It was the first time she'd spoken since she'd learned (Y/n) had been kidnapped. "She's his insurance."

"All right, people,let's get to work!" J'oon booms, and everyone scrambles around. He walks over to Winn, who had sat down at his computer. "Winn, any luck with Alex's subdermal tracker?" he questions.

"No," Winn shakes his head, "it's been offline since ten'o'clock last night." Winn shakes his head, furiously typing on his keyboard. Whoever took her must have found some way to power it down."

"Where are we triangulating the signal from the phone calls?" J'oon asks Lena.

"We're nowhere," Lena plops down into a spare computer. "The caller used four different arrays to scramble the signal." Her accent had thickened with her worry for the youngest Danvers.

"You guys listen, we gotta move," Winn turns around to address all the agents.

"All right, let's start with what we know," Alex says, rising from her chair.

J'oon nods, "If this guy knows you're Supergirl, we just that to our advantage."

"That's gotta be a short list," Mon-El says. "Who knows your secret?" he questions.

"Jeremiah, Eliza, Clark, Alex, Lois, Lucy, the DEO, James . . ." Kara trails off, trying to think of a few more. "Lillian Luthor," she glances unsteadily at Lena, but Lena meets her gaze steadily.

"Does Peter Thompson have ties with Cadmus?" Lena asks, coming to stand around the table.

"No, I already checked," Winn replies. "There's nothing."

"Then you're asking the wrong question," Maggie supplies, and the others look at her. "We don't know where (Y/n) was taken, we don't have a crime scene, we don't have any physical evidence. They've clearly been planning this for a while. Whoever took (Y/n) is a ghost who doesn't want to be found."

Kara's head rests in her hands. "Then what's the right question?" she questions.

"Who is Peter Thompson and what does he mean to our ghost?" Maggie says, and the others nod.

. . .

Maggie, Alex, Kara and J'oon walk into the prison.

"Mr. Thompson," J'oon flashes his FBI badge. "Hank Henshaw and Alex Danvers, FBI. This is Detective Sawyer from NCPD, and Ms. Danvers from CatCo Magazine."

"The feds, a pig, and a journo," Thompson says, looking between the three. "To what do I owe this confusing pleasure?" he asks.

Maggie throws a manilla folder on the table between Thompson and J'oon. "Your jacket's a thrilling read. Three home invasions, two DUIs, two counts of felony murder."

"You all didn't come down here just to flatter me, did you?" Thompson asks, meeting Maggie's brown eyes. Maggie takes a breath, "This morning, we got a call from an anonymous source, asking that you be released from prison."

"Someone wants me out of jail?" Thompson laughs. "Not used to that. People usually want to keep me behind bars."

"A life sentence can't be all that easy," Alex says, "being in here all by yourself."

"You ever keep in contact with anyone on the outside?" J'oon questions.

"Just last week," Thompson replies, "Mr. JC Penney sent me a letter. He said there was a sale on galoshes." Kara's eyes burn and she steps forward as Thompson continues. "It's just that I don't have anywhere to wear them."

Kara slams her fist onto the metal table, startling Maggie a little. "Enough!" she orders. "My sister's been kidnapped, and her life is on the line until we find out who wants you out of prison."

"Ms. Danvers ..." J'oon says warningly.

"So save us the sarcasm! Who is it? Who has her?"

"Calm down," Alex says, her voice equally as warning as J'oon's and she places a hand on her sister's arm.

"Who has my sister?" Kara yells, ignoring Alex and J'oon.

"I don't know," Thompson says, meeting Kara's furious gaze.

"You're lying," Kara says angrily, her eyes narrowing.

"He's not," J'oon says. "We're done here."

The officer pulls Thompson to his feet and leads the fugitive out of the interrogation room.

"Why'd you let him go?" Kara asks J'oon.

"Because I read his mind," the Martian answers. "He's telling the truth." J'oon gets up from the table.

"Losing control is not gonna help us find (Y/n) faster," Maggie tells the superhero. "It's only going to get her killed."

Kara stares at Maggie for a moment, and then her phone rings. "Winn," she says, sounding almost defeated.

"Hey, we got something," Lena's voice comes from the speaker.

"What?" Kara asks.

"I scanned the visitor logs for Peter Thompson," Winn's voice comes from the speaker this time, "over the past three years. They're pretty sparse, except for one name that keeps popping up."

"Who?" Kara asks.

"Doesn't matter, it's a fake name," Winn replies. "I pulled some security footage and, baby, I ran that facial recognition software. Thompson has a son."

"But we checked, he doesn't have any relations," Kara replies.

"Well, apparently, there's a lot of family drama," Winn says. "Thompson's name isn't even on the kid's birth certificate. And I only figured this out after I cross-checked the name with the court transcripts. The kid spoke at Thompson's sentencing, and his name is . . . Rick Malverne. He has a house an hour outside the city."

"Malverne. Why does that sound so familiar?" Kara says aloud and Alex stares at her sister.

"He went to high school with us," Alex snaps her fingers.

. . .

Kara lands outside a house and busts down the door. "(Y/n)! (Y/n)!" she yells as she runs through the house.

Sticking her head in one of the rooms, Kara sees a set of computer screens with (Y/n) projected on them.

"(Y/n). (Y/n)!" Kara says softly, walking up the screens. "(Y/n)!"

"She can't hear you, Kara," comes a voice and Kara turns around to see a blonde man standing in the doorway.

"Rick?" Kara asks in disbelief.

"Jeez, I haven't seen you since graduation," is Rick's reply. "You look great."

Kara's eyes blaze and she grabs Rick, lifting him off the ground. "Where's my sister?" she demands.

"You break my father out of prison yet?" Rick asks, his teeth clenched.

"You know I can't do that," Kara murmurs.

"Can't or won't?" Rick questions.

Kara throws Rick back into a wall with a grunt.

"Tell me where she is," Kara growls.

That's not how this works," Rick answers. "Now, why don't you try and play nice, Kara?" he asks. "You were always the nice one."

Kara sighs, a hardened look on her face.

"Just let me talk to her," Kara breathes, looking over her shoulder at her sister on the monitors.

"Well, if that gets you to play ball, then I'm happy to help," Rick says, sliding around Kara to type on the keyboard.

The monitor chimes.

"(Y/n)!" Kara croaks. "(Y/n)!"

"Kara, is that you?" (Y/n) calls. "Rick Malverne from Midvale, he kidnapped me!" (Y/n) places her hand on the glass, facing the camera.

"I know," Kara replies. "I'm with him right now. Are you okay? Where are you?"

"My tracker. Can you use my tracker?" (Y/n) asks, and Kara can hear the frantic tone of her sister's voice.

"It's not working. We don't know -" Rick cuts Kara off.

"Okay, that's enough of a reunion, I think," Rick says.

"No, wait," Kara says.

Rick sighs, "It's simple. She's told you she's okay. And now we trade my father for (Y/n)."

"Your father is a murderer," Kara retorts.

"Manslaughter-er," Rick corrects.

"Tell me where she is," Kara demands again.

"Tick, tock. Tick, tock."

Kara's eyes burn red from her building heat-vision and Rick leans closer, "oh, wow, it's even cooler up close. You hurt me, you'll never find her. And she'll die. Slowly."

. . .

"He looks normal," Winn says, watching as two DEO agents lead Rick Malverne into the interrogation room.

"He was nice in school," Kara says, crossing her arms.

"He used to carry (Y/n)'s bookbag," Alex agrees. Lena raises an eyebrow and Alex shrugs.

"Why is he doing this to her?" Kara wonders aloud.

"I tried reading his mind, but he seems to be blocking me somehow," J'oon says.

"Let me in there," Maggie turns to J'oon. "I can talk to him."

J'oon considers Maggie for a moment before he nods. "All right."

. . .

Maggie sits down in a chair across from Malverne, Kara and Alex framed in the doorway.

"Detective Sawyer," Malverne considers Maggie, leaning forward slightly. "And they say there's never a cop around when you need one."

"So you know me?" Maggie crosses her arms.

"Of course," Malverne smiles, leaning back in his chair. "I took a whole year planning this. Watching (Y/n). Preparing. I know everything.

"How did you know I was Supergirl?" Kara asks, crossing her arms.

"The day at the beach," Malverne replies, meeting Kara's eyes. "Before you started wearing glasses.

"Hey, Rick," a young Alex greets a young Rick Malverne, Kara and (Y/n) standing behind her. (Y/n) was gently explaining things to Kara in a low voice.

"A bunch of us are heading to Swan Beach after school," Rick says, resturing towards the direction of the nearby beach. "You and (Y/n) wanna come?" Rick smiles over at the two year younger (Y/n).

"Back then," Rick says, pulling Kara and Alex from the memory, "I had no idea that (Y/n) would end up playing for the other team, so to speak."

"You're new sister is kinda weird," Rick says, gesturing to a young Kara who was looking up at the sky with wide, amazed eyes. A young (Y/n) rests her hand on Kara's shoulder, looking amused.

"Then there was a crash," Malverne goes on.

Kara charges to a car, pulling a woman and a baby from the burning wreckage.

The rest of the kids run up the hill to see a young woman hugging Kara with one arm and cradling her baby with the other.

"And her older sister walked away without a scratch. People at school said it was adrenaline, but, uh . . . "

"But you didn't believe that," Maggie finishes, meeting Malverne's gaze steadily.

"I saw Kara Danvers do something amazing," Malverne glances over at Kara. "And it stayed with me. I knew Kara was living in National City, and then Supergirl showed up in National City . . ." he chuckles. "I put two and two together. I knew it was you."

"What happened to you?" Alex asks, leaning forward. "I remember when (Y/n) and Alex had the chicken pox, and I was eating lunch by myself. You came and sat with me.

Rick chuckles. "I was fourteen. And I didn't have the nice house or the perfect family you three had." Maggie stands up from her seat.

"You think we had it easy?" Kara asks, unfolding her arms. "You have no idea what either of my sisters sacrificed for me. Or what I was going through!"

Malverne straightens in his seat, fixing his eyes on Kara. "Why, because you had to hide your superpowers? I was hiding bruises! Do you know what it's like to have your mother tell you you're garbage every single night? A belt whenever you had the wrong opinion? And then I found a lifeline. A dad my mom kept from me. And he saved me from her and he moved away from Midvale. And even though he was already struggling, he always made sure there was food on the table and he got me enough money to go to college. And then three years ago, the state took him from me."

"Your father killed two people," Maggie says, leaning against a wall, her arms crossed. "He confessed."

"They had it coming," Malverne replies, leaning back in his seat. "And now I'm gonna rescue him just like he rescued me. Alex shifts uncomfortably, leaving the room without another word. "I can't believe we're still talking about me! You have twenty-four hours and eleven minutes." Kara stiffens as Rick continues, "Come on, Kara, show us some of that rah-rah Midvale Junior High Spirit." Malverne is yelling now. "Free my dad! Or your sister dies."

Kara growls, zooms over, flips the table, and pins Malverne to the wall.

"Oh, you use half this much gusto in springing my dad, you'll have your sister back for game night."

"Kara! We're done here!" Maggie's voice cracks.

Kara lets go of Malverne and the man drops to the ground. "Hey. You know what'll be fun?" he asks. Maggie frowns, an eyebrow raising as she steps back from the man. "Finding out which of the three of you loves her more. "Honestly, I wouldn't know where to place my bet," he sneers and Maggie swallows thickly.

Kara frowns at the man and after a minute, the three women go to leave the room, Maggie pausing for a second.

"Go Stallions," Malverne grins.

Both Kara and Maggie leave the room. "I'm giving him one more minute, then I'm going back in there," Kara says.

"No," Maggie replies.

Alex straightens from where she'd slumped against the doorframe.

"Let him sweat it a little. We got what we wanted," Maggie reasons.

"What?" Kara questions, looking down into Maggie's eyes. "All we know i show he knows my identity."

"We know that Rick's pinned his whole sense of self-worth on Peter Thompson," Maggie says. "Thompson is the key to getting (Y/n) back."

Kara's angry eyes seems to extinguish as she considers Maggie's words.

. . .

An hour or so later, Maggie leads Peter Thompson into Malverne's interrogation room.

"Ricky," Thompson says, walking towards his son.

"Dad," Malverne gets up from his seat.

Thompson pauses before moving to hug his son. "All that time inspiration, I imagined a day when . . . I could talk to you without a pane of glass between us."

"The DEO moved heaven and Earth to free this man," Maggie says. "We did what you wanted. Now, tell us where (Y/n) is."

"No. No, not until my father and I are far from here," Malverne says.

"You think we're stupid?" Maggie questions. "I showed you mine. Your turn."

"So you can toss us in Gitmo?" Thompson asks. "Not gonna happen."

Maggie shakes her head in disbelief.

"Maybe he gives you a piece. A little token of goodwill," Thompson adds. "You gotta give them something, Ricky. That's how it works. Just tell them where she is." Thompson narrows his eyes at his son.

"Well, you really nailed his essence, I'll give you that," Malverne says.

"What?" Maggie asks, stepping forward, her arms crossing.

"I mean, that thing . . ." Malverne says, studying his father's face. "He couldn't decide whether to hug me or not. That's vintage Dad." Malverne sits back down in his metal chair.

"What are you talking about?" Thompson asks, walking up to stand beside the table.

"My father would never be playing these games. He'd be wanting to get the hell away from here and making sure that he never went back to prison," his expression is one of anger. "I've been planning this for a year. Do you really think I didn't prepare for you," Malverne pauses, looking up at Thompson, "Martian?"

Thompson walks over to Maggie and shifts back into himself.

"You're down to twenty-three hours and fourteen minutes," Malverne says as he gazes a Maggie and J'oon. "And counting."

Maggie closes her eyes, pressing her index finger and thumb to the bridge of her nose.

. . .

(Y/n) looks around her containment module. Her eyes narrow as she looks up at the camera.

(Y/n) pulls off her jacket and belt. She climbs up, pulling the camera off the wall.

"Okay," she breathes, having taken apart the camera.

(Y/n) bites down on the end of her belt, snaps a card from her wallet, and pulling down the shoulder of her shirt. She whimpers as she digs the sharp end of the card into her shoulder. (Y/n)'s teeth bare down on the belt, her chest heaving as she finally pulls her tracker from out of her shoulder.

(Y/n) spits out the belt, her chest heaving. "That sucked," (Y/n) grumbles, blinking back her tears. She connects her tracker to the camera after pulling out a few wires.

. . .

"I just got a software update request from one of our trackers," an agent says, peering at the computer screen. "System's not recognizing the IP address."

"She's a little genius!" Winn says. Winn runs down the hall. "Guys! We found (Y/n). I found her."

Kara - who is standing with Mon-El, Alex, and Lena - turns to face Winn. "You did?" Kara asks frantically.

"We got a ping from her subdermal tracker," Winn explains. "She's not far!"

Kara runs over to the door where she finds Maggie sitting at the table across from Malverne.

"Maggie. Winn found (Y/n)," Kara says, and Maggie turns to look at Kara. Alex is framed in the doorway, her eyes wide with hope.

"What? How?" Maggie asks, getting up from her chair.

"I guess you underestimated my sister," Kara says, glaring at Malverne. "Let's go," Kara turns and marches towards the door.

Maggie pauses, turning to study Malverne.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Malverne says, his gaze flicking between the Danvers' sisters and Maggie.

"You're delusional," Kara turns to face Malverne. "The second we get back here with (Y/n), you're going to prison with your dad."

Malverne shrugs, looking at the table in front of him. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Kara strides the room, but Alex and Maggie study Malverne.

Maggie and Alex runs out of the room. "Watch him," Maggie tells the guard as she runs past him after Kara. "Hey, stop," Maggie tells Kara. "Malverne still thinks he's in control," she tells her.

Kara turns, looking highly annoyed with Maggie at this point.

"He's not acting like someone who just lost," Alex adds. "He didn't even flinch. It's like he expected this."

"No, no, no, we are not listening to that psycho," Kara says, walking closer to the two. "Every minute we wait for matters."

"I - I want to get her as badly as you do," Maggie retorts, "but we can't punch our way out of this. We've got to get this right."

"If the shoe were on the other foot, (Y/n) would already be out the door. I'm not waiting," Kara argues.

"You're not the only one who cares about her!" Maggie says, her voice rising.

"I'm going!" Kara yells over her shoulder as she strides out of the DEO, Alex running after her.

Maggie swallows thickly and looks at the ground.

. . .

Alex and Kara smash through the roof of a warehouse, and (Y/n) hears the thump on the ground. Kara lets go of Alex's arm.

(Y/n) scrambles to her feet. "Kara! Alex!" she shouts.

"(Y/n)!" both the sisters yell.

"I'm down here!"

Kara runs over, pulling a sheet of metal off the floor.

(Y/n) hears the noise and looks around hopefully, but she doesn't see anyone coming to her aid.

All Kara and Alex see is a laptop and a countdown clock. The words, NOW YOU HAVE FOUR is spray-painted onto the wall.

"Four? What . . ." Kara asks, but there is a rapid beeping from the clock and the time now reads 4:00:00.

There is a grinding noise, and water begins spraying in from one of the pipes.

The twoolders Danvers' sisters watch, terrified as their sister looks frantically around.

(Y/n) grabs her jacket from the floor and presses it to the pipe, hoping to stop the flow of the water.

. . .

Kara and Alex march through the door of the interrogation room, Kara's fists balled. Alex sets the laptop on the table, opening it and turning it towards Malverne.

"Where is she?" Kara crosses her arms.

Malverne shrugs. "I told you not to go down there . . ."

"Tell us where she is," Alex slams a fist on the table.

"I gave you thirty-six hours to break my father out of prison," Malverne relaxes in his chair. "But you didn't listen. So now, that room is gonna fill up with water in less than four hours. I think it's time you got moving."

Kara's lip quivers. "Let me talk to (Y/n)."

Rick leans forward and presses a few of the keys and there is a beep.

Kara turns the laptop around and leans down to talk to her sister through the computer.

"(Y/n)," Kara says, her voice quavering.

"Kara! Alex! I sent out a signal, I thought you were coming," (Y/n) says, the water up to her waist now.

"He re-routed the IP address. He sent us somewhere else. Do you have any idea where you are?" Alex asks, her eyes wide with worry.

"I was unconscious. I could be hours away or I could be in the city," (Y/n) replies, a frown spreading across her face. "I don't know." Despite how far (Y/n) was away from the camera, both Kara and Alex can see the fear on their little sister's face.

Rick leans forward. "(Y/n), it's Rick. I don't want to hurt you. I keep on telling your sisters that. Tell them to get my father, and this can all be over. You can come home and get dry."

"No. Alex. Kara. No," (Y/n) says, pointing at the camera. "You do not give that terrorist what he wants. You cannot let yourselves be blackmailed. You cannot open yourselves up to that, ever. Do you understand me? You're both better than me." Again, despite her words, her widened eyes display her fear and worry.

Maggie enters the room and, seeing (Y/n) on the screen, runs over. "(Y/n)!"

"Maggie!" (Y/n) calls.

"I'm right here," Maggie replies, her tone softening.

"Maggie, I need to speak to you alone," (Y/n) says, and Maggie immediately grabs the laptop and walks out of the room, cradling the laptop to her chest for a moment.

"Honey, everyone here is working hard and we're going to find you," Maggie says and her voice cracks. She sits down on the floor, her back against a wall.

"The water is rising fast and there are things that I need to say," (Y/n) says, looking up into the camera, her eyes softening as though she really was meeting her girlfriend's gaze.

"No," Maggie's voice cracks. "Don't start talking like this is the end."

"I don't want it to be, but in the case that it is . . ."

"It's not!" Maggie cuts her girlfriend off. "You're a badass, Danvers. And you're gonna figure out a way to get yourself out of there or you're gonna hold on until I find you." Maggie's voice quavers.

"Maggie, listen to me, please," (Y/n) tries again.

"No," Maggie interrupts, tears welling in her eyes. "W-we just started t-this, you and me, and i-it's not g-going to end. Not today. Not for a long time. We just had our first Valentine's Day and I wanna do more with you. I-I want more firsts." (Y/n) looks up into the camera again and she doesn't worry about wiping her tears. "I want to have a first vacation. We haven't even argued about where we're gonna go yet or how to load the dishwasher. Or what to name our first dog. Do you want to get a dog? A cat? Both?" The tears are falling freely down both women's faces now.

(Y/n) smiles slightly. "Both? Let's name the dog Gertrude." Her eyes sparkle with amusement.

"See," Maggie smiles, her expression watery, "there's a lifetime of firsts that we're going to do together. So, you hold on, okay? Hold on until I get to you. Promise. Promise me!"

"I . . ." (Y/n) starts but the video cuts off.

"What?" Maggie says, typing furiously on the keyboard. "(Y/n)!" Maggie, frustrated, throws the laptop to the ground.

"What happened?" Kara runs over where Maggie is sitting.

This distraught woman stands up. "I t-told you not to rush in. Now you've made things worse."

"I did what I thought was right," Kara retorts.

Alex, Lena, Winn, and Mon-El run into the hallway.

"I should have been heard," Maggie goes on, not noticing that the others had appeared. "I should have been listened to. I'm her girlfriend."

"I'm her sister," Kara snarls in return.

"And you think that trumps me?" Maggie questions, taking a step forward. "That you know what's right for her. I . . . I got her to be herself, Kara. I-I have j-just as much to lose as you. You should've listened to me."

Maggie turns around and storms away.

. . .

There is a beep as Maggie enters Malverne's interrogation room.

Malverne straightens, studying Maggie closely.

Maggie sits down at the other side of the table, crossing her arms and resting her elbows on the table.

"Under two hours," Malverne says, leaning back in his chair. "The clock is ticking fast," he comments.

"I know," Maggie replies, leaning forward in her chair. "And if it ticks down completely, we both lose. And I don't think you want to lose."

A ghost of a smile spreads across Malverne's face, "Neither do you." Malverne pauses. "I was wrong about Kara," he says. "She's too much of a Girl Scout to do what needs to be done. I misjudged her. Alex," he shrugs, "she can't do anything with Kara in her way. I may have discounted you. You're a cop. You could just walk into that prison and break my father free if you wanted to. You care for her."

Maggie simply blinks.

"I've seen that," Malverne goes on.

"Stalking us," Maggie says, leaning forward a bit more.

"The way you look at her," Malverne says, his expression softening a little. "The way your hand touches her hand when you're walking down the street."

Maggie's eyes water and she bites her bottom lip and looks down at the tabletop.

"Love can make people do things that they don't normally do," Malverne goes on. "So please, help us bring home the people we love.

. . .

(Y/n) could no longer touch the floor of her containment module, as so much water had flooded into it.

(Y/n) holds her breath, diving to the bottom to grab her belt.

She lets out a strangled yell as she tries to close the valve with the belt.

Her chest heaving, (Y/n) resurfaces, greedily gulping in air.

Wrapping the belt around her hand, she dives down and punches at the glass, trying to get it to break.

Getting desperate, (Y/n) pulls off her cargo pants, leaving her in a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of boxers.

Resurfacing again, (Y/n) uses the space left to tie the legs of her pants and fills the other end with air.

(Y/n) puts the makeshift life-vest over her head.

. . .

"Please tell me you have something," Alex says, emotion surging over her.

"We've literally tried everything, all right?" Winn says, his hair disheveled from the continuous motion of running his hands through it. "I've checked family holdings, bank accounts, call logs from the prison . . . There's nothing."

Alex lets out a suppressed sob, resting her head in her hands.

"I'm gonna talk to Maggie and see if she's got anything else out of him.

Kara looks at the computer monitor projecting the camera looking into Malverne's room, but (Y/n) isn't there.

"Where . . . where's Maggie?" Kara asks, and Winn and Mon-El turn to look at the screen.

. . .

Maggie glances around the corner of the prison wall but stops when she hears the guard's keys jingling together. She waits until the guard walks through a set of double doors to moves. She strides up to one of the metal pipes and places a projector in front of a camera so that the guards watching the cameras wouldn't see what she is about to do.

Maggie jogs through the projection, her face set in determined lines.

She blows the lock on Peter Thompson's door. "What the hell are you doing?" Thompson asks as Maggie grabs his upper arm.

"Taking you to your son," Maggie's voice cracks.

Maggie lifts (Y/n)'s raygun and shoots two cameras as she makes her way through the prison.

"Nice gun," Thompson comments.

"It's my girlfriend's," Maggie says shortly, pushing Thompson forward.

"Maggie, you know (Y/n) wouldn't want you to do this," Kara says in her Supergirl uniform.

"All I care about is getting her back alive," Maggie says, her eyes burning. "You were right, sometimes words don't work."

"Sometimes punching doesn't either," Kara counters. "She just came from your son. She was with him all day, trying to turn him," Thompson turns to look at Maggie, "make him understand. You know what kind of words your son's been using? Words like 'rescue' and 'love.' He says he wants to rescue you, like you rescued him," Kara steps forward, her arms crossed across her chest. But if he kills (Y/n) Danvers, he'll never be rescued. He'll have to live with that for the rest of his life. And that'll be his hell," Kara's voice softens. "Now, you've done a lot of bad things in your life, but you've done one thing you can be proud of. You were a father. A good one. You were there for your son during the toughest time of his life and that's what you need to do again now. If he kills her, you will have failed at the one good thing you've done with your life. Be a father now."

A timer beeps on Maggie's phone, and fear strikes through her. "She's out of time."

"Please, is there anywhere he would have taken her?" Kara asks.

"There's one place," Thompson says.

. . .

Maggie, Alex, and Kara open the garage door of the storage facility and they run in, Maggie freezing with horror at the sight of her girlfriend in the glass chamber.

Kara speeds over and puts a fist through the glass and all the water - as well as (Y/n) - flow through the hole in the glass.

(Y/n) coughs up water as she rolls onto her side.

"Thank God," Maggie says, pulling (Y/n)'s head into her lap. "She's okay. She's alright."

Maggie lifts (Y/n) head up as she chokes on the water, coughing it up. Maggie rests her chin on (Y/n)'s head, before pressing a few kisses to the same spot. (Y/n) grabs Maggie's hand and squeezes it weakly.

"You held on," Kara says, pressing her hands to her sister's pale cheeks; Alex grabs (Y/n)'s other hand,

"I-I h-eld on," (Y/n) stammers. Then she looks up into Maggie's eyes, which are soft with affection.

Maggie cradles (Y/n) head and presses her lips to her girlfriend's forehead.

. . .

The four women return to the DEO, (Y/n) asleep in the MedBay while Maggie stares out the window, relaxed by the soft patter of the rain and her girlfriend safe.

"Hey, you," (Y/n) says hoarsely and Maggie turns, relief evident on her face. "You okay?" she rasps.

A look of disbelief spreads across Maggie's face. "Am I okay?" (Y/n) asks softly, settling down in a chair and taking (Y/n)'s hands in her own, a look of tender affection on her face. "Are you kidding? That was really clever, with the whole Navy Seal thing with your pants. What was that?" Maggie smiles and (Y/n) laughs weakly.

"Well, I knew I just had to buy a couple of seconds," (Y/n) says, and a tear trails down her cheek. "I knew you were going to come."

Maggie' gaze softens.

"You didn't let me finish before, but I, um . . ." (Y/n) pauses.

"What?" Maggie murmurs.

"I just really have to say it now," (Y/n) continues.

"(Y/n) . . ."

"It's okay, it's okay," (Y/n) says as she sits up, Maggie shooting out a hand to help. Maggie tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and turns to gaze deeply into (Y/n)'s (E/c) eyes. "Those firsts that you talked about . . ." (Y/n) says, her voice a whisper because of how close her face is to Maggie's. Maggie nods, a soft smile on her face. "I want to have them all with you." (Y/n)'s eyes get watery. "I never want to stop having firsts with you. I love you, Maggie Sawyer.

"I love you, (Y/n) Danvers," Maggie murmurs, her eyes still watery.

Word Count: 7114 words

Taglist:

@procrastinatingsapphictrash​

@makegoodchoices​

@fanboy7794

@imtheflash

@theofficialzivadavid

[chvoswxtch]

Hi! I wanna order some old fashioned jealousy with Billy Russo pls ❤️

hi nonnie! thanks for stopping by the bar! ❤️

headcannon below the cut

billy russo & jealousy

billy russo is the kind of guy that swears he doesn't get jealous

he's annoyingly good looking (& he knows it), owns his own company, has more money than I think he knows what do to with, surrounds himself with the finer things in life, and always gets what he wants

he doesn't think he has anything to be jealous of

until you come along

until your attention is on something other than him

billy talks a big game, but deep down, he's a huge softie, & he's still that little orphan boy at heart that just wants to be loved and important to someone

it could be something small, like he notices you're working a lot lately and don't have as much time to see him, so he's constantly dropping by your office with coffee or lunch, but mainly it's to make sure everyone you work with knows you belong to him

of course you see right through him and call him out on his true intentions

"what, I can't come bring you lunch, doll? if you can't get off work in time for a date, i'll bring the date to you."

or maybe he notices you're spending more time with your friends than him lately, and keeps making comments about it in passing

"you're goin' out with them again? didn't you just see them last night? c'mon darlin', come out with me instead. haven't gotten you to myself in awhile."

he never comes right out and says he's jealous you aren't giving him your full, undivided attention, because he's terrible at expressing his true feelings

in the midst of yet another argument about how you're spending your time lately, I can see him accidentally letting it slip that he wants you to move in

"if you'd just fuckin' move in already, I wouldn't have to schedule time to see my own goddamn girlfriend."

being the self absorbed little shit he is, he doesn't notice what he's said until he finally shuts the fuck up and realizes that you've stopped arguing back with him and your face is frozen in shock, and only then does he back track and finally come clean

"wait...fuck that's not...that's not how I meant to ask you that. I was gonna-shit, this is all wrong. I...look i'm sorry, alright? i'm not tryin' to be an ass here. I just...I miss you, that's all. I feel like I don't get to see you as much as I want to. I just...wanna spend more time with you, doll. that's it. I wanna be selfish sometimes and have you all to myself. I hate havin' to share you all the time."

his jealousy is hard to detect when it comes to certain things, but when it comes to someone openly flirting with you-

oh it is very fucking easy to tell

if billy russo is anything, it's possessive, and if he even thinks someone is trying to hit on you, or you're being a little too nice to another man for his liking, he loses it

if you're getting hit on, billy won't hesitate to come right up to you, wrap his arm around your waist tightly to pull you into his side, and introduce himself as your boyfriend to whoever it is with pure murderous rage in his eyes

if he's feeling particularly enraged, he might just come up and pull you in for a heated kiss right in front of that person, making a show of visibly slipping his tongue past your lips and grabbing your ass before even acknowledging the person's presence with a cocky smirk

"oh, hello. who's your friend, darlin'?"

but if you're the one he thinks is flirting-

he's roughly dragging you to the nearest bathroom/supply closet/etc. to remind you exactly who you belong to

"billy, I was just being nice-" "the only person you needa be nice to is me. now why don't you get on your knees and show me how fuckin' nice you can be."

[luzxii]

could you ramble about them a bit? /nf ‘ts just easier to make boards for characters i have a basis of their interests ‘n backstory,

Hey!!! so sorry for taking so long to respond to this!!! heres a bit about both of them plus some aesthetics/stims/objects/etc i'd link with them! Hanna: Hanna is a outwardly bubbly young adult whos around 26 years old. Shes the girlfriend of Rick and took his place at the movie theatre after he quit. She externally seems carefree, but internally she has severe anxiety. she has an abusive ex boyfriend named Alaric who tried to recruit her to a cult (not the skiddad one), but now shes much happier with Rick. She loves to draw, garden, and collect plushies.

related themes (you dont have to do all of these, these are just examples): plushies (squishmallows, etc.), yellow, sunshine, slimes, cute things, pompompurin, sunflowers, popcorn, sweets, etc.

Meerkat: Meerkat is a town famous actor and celebrity who contributes to the theatrics. Hes smug and flirtatious, yet respects others. His passion is acting and he perused it after being kicked out of his homophobic and pressuring household. However, though he seems pretty great he secretly has a thing for murderers. He pays criminals to have romantic endeavors with him in secret. He has to balance his personal life with his image. He has a pet meerkat named Romeo.

related themes: meerkats, fashion, theatre, magenta, sparkles/glitter, fancy things, furs, etc.

and here have some pictures to choose from for the middle image!!

Hanna:

Meerkat:

[summercreolefanfictioner]

Can i request some modern college au Kanato fluff headcanons if that's possible?? ^^

hohoho I've been planning to answer this a bit later but it's kanato's birthday so might as well 😉 oh btw I don't think fluff headcanons would cut it so might as well add a whole lot of things for his modern college au version

ps. you can view kanato's modern college au romance scenario here (yes the s/o will be fem reader based on this scenario)

warning: a bit of nsfw

kanato sakamaki: modern college au headcanons

modern boy living in an art of dolls, life, murder series, and desserts

kanato is actually taking up forensic mortuary science (basically everything about embalming funeral and reason behind death sht) bcos even in an au where he lives and breathes as a human, he still has his fascination with death and such so might as well throw them all out in this kind of course

he actually thought of dermatology or being a surgeon at some point bcos he'll get a license to cut somebody open but yeah his average grades won't let him make it

besides he can work in crime scenes and hunt criminals like in those murder crime documentaries he binge watches 24/7

while kanato enjoys studying under this course, he actually has average-ish grades just bcos karl annoys the sht out of him and he only does well in practical exams (so yeah if you give him a test paper, he'll most likely get a C or D; at least it's not an F)

he also takes up like two business classes on the side bcos karl demanded all his sons know something abt business management (ya know in case ayato decided to rebel against him and not become the heir)

he only had like 3 or 4 ex-girlfriends and they're either studying philosophy or english studies; and fun fact: these girls study in the same building as him

another fact: yui was shocked bcos she has no idea she's been in the same class with all kanato's ex-gfs all along 😭😭😭

but he had one ex who goes to the same class as laito's

you might think he'll date someone from his own class but actually, the forensic mortuary science course only has one class and there's only like 10 to 15 students (most of them being male); and since this purple gremlin right here is so introverted, he will never date someone who's obviously from the same circle 'cause he will always pick someone who won't draw that much attention

sounds like his modern college au scenario tbh (link above)

the triplets are all famous in the ryoutei university for being the it boys??? since ayato is the cute varsity player (I based this on the fact that Japanese fandom said he's babyface), laito was the casanova, and kanato was the "cutie goth kid"

ofc all the triplets are models, especially laito and ayato. but kanato was the only hand model out of them like yeah sure they've used his face and all for gothic photoshoots but what caught their eyes is his hands so yeah he's been careful not to get them injured or anything

another thing: boy wasn't allowed to carry teddy around school (bcos karl)

he actually tried smoking once bcos he saw laito and subaru doing it, only for him to cringe at the taste. laito mockingly laughed at him with kanato saluting him with a middle finger

his room is actually a purple harajuku pastel paradise like everything's lit with purple LED lights and filled with stuffed toys. also has his own mini fridge for his snacks and other things. his room is basically his own man cave.

his fashion sense is a mix of modern punk rock with a bit of goth. he also wears piercings for fun (but not too often). you can refer to his official super best art for more details

he wears piercings bcos of brotherly pressure (like once upon a time ayato and laito thought kanato must get piercings like then and they ended up injuring his ear)

now onto the fluff hcs that the anon asked

kanato as a boyfriend in the modern college au has no yandere tendencies so yeah we should be grateful

however, purple gremlin's so filled with jealousy and sassiness you'll think you're dating a brat

but he's not like caging his s/o or anything or demanding them to text him every second; he just doesn't like her being so friendly with other people

like too friendly with people (given by his own introverted tendencies)

would always ask his s/o to hang out with him after school like netflix and chill or chilling in the park laying on the grass and admiring the flowers

would even go to a stuffed toy shop with her or invite her for dinner at a desserts cafe

he's so good at resin and everything jewelry so he has prob given his s/o a lot of handmade jewelry pieces (even thought of opening his own online jewelry store)

even willing to use his own car just so he could drive his s/o around (he doesn't use his own car bcos why would he when they have their own family limo and sometimes ayato drives him and laito back home)

fun fact: his s/o studies culinary major in pastry??? and a few hotel restaurant management courses. also part times in the school cafe to learn a thing or two abt managing a restaurant

if you have read the scenario, you're prob aware that he met his s/o through ayato

kanato isn't a big fan of pda or something since he keeps everything lowkey so he doesn't kiss his s/o in public or do grand things, but he can deal with holding hands or intertwining pinkies

he doesn't also like those things such as going social media official like those celebs cause he thinks it's unnecessary

but if someone spots him and his s/o somewhere and asks them if they're dating, he'll just say yes and not elaborate anything

fun fact: after the ending of his romance scenario, he casually announced his relationship with his s/o to yui and his bros like nothing happened (like no preamble, he just dropped the bomb)

although kanato works with a lot of formaldehyde and other chemicals in his course, he actually keeps himself clean like he makes sure to change his clothes and spray on his sweet perfume so his s/o won't sniff chemicals that could harm her health

when it comes to arguments, kanato might look like a tough nut, but he's nothing but a soft cookie

he would say he doesn't care but he is sobbing as fvck and dying on the inside

he's like "how dare she? why won't she just make it up to me?!"

so yeah he ends up yielding bcos he has "spared her mercy"

now, with his nsfw headcanons hahahahahahaha

so here's the thing, his s/o actually passed out after their first sex so that counts as something

he's actually so good at foreplay tho, examining everything he could do to his s/o and how she'll get off with just his fingers 👀

likes leaving hickeys in places no one would see

would also gaze at his s/o from afar like he's already undressing her with his eyes all predatory and with a smirk that says, "see ya later"

ofc he practices utmost aftercare, like leaving his s/o clothes arranged on the nearby couch with a cart full of desserts and a few drinks on the side so his s/o could feel how much he loves her

would also cuddle with her all night long (that is if she doesn't have curfew)

he experiments with bdsm and roleplaying every now and then bcos he digs sht like that but he doesn't go knifing his s/o like he does in canon cause hello modern college au

but yeah he would shower her with kisses like for him this is a mandatory

and yes, he's one secret horny guy 👀

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Thank you for creating A-town it is really funny and I am actually invested now.

Thank you! Further headcanons about A-Town, the shitty decade-postwar sitcom inspired by Jake Berenson's life:

Brandon A., the main character, is easily the least popular one on the show. He's usually the straight guy to his friends' antics, he constantly cheats on his girlfriend Crystal (including with his cousin Trina), and he's underbaked compared to all the wacky side characters. (Jake, if asked, doesn't care that everyone hates Brandon.) (Jake's a liar.)

The most popular fan ship is Gina/Trina, also called Team Gets Shit Done. Not that anyone ever really gets much alien-fighting done ever on the show, but at least those two are marginally less incompetent than the rest of the cast.

Far and away the most disturbing fan theory (from Jake's point of view) is the one around Trina and Brandon's cousin Zeke who gets killed off in an episode with a million jokes about everyone only pretending to be sad he's gone... only to have that same actor appear in a different minor role two seasons later. There are all kinds of elaborate Epileptic Trees-type explanations for this mistake, including that there's a secret seventh morpher who took on Zeke's identity to get close to Trina.

Jeremy Jason McCole makes a Special Guest appearance, of course — guy was the public face of The Sharing for 0.03 seconds, after all. His character (at JJM's insistence) is a heroic civilian who gives aid to the fauximorphs while they're on the run from The Gathering, and sacrifices himself to get captured by the aliens so the kids can escape. In theory this should have consequences for the plot — he knows the identities of the entire resistance movement — but in true sitcom fashion, it... doesn't.

Speaking of The Gathering, Ash Lewis, who plays Daisy A./ Zeptron 420 (Brandon's older sister), is the breakout star of A-Town. Much like Alfie Allen in Game of Thrones or Dylan O'Brien in Teen Wolf, it isn't clear how much of this is down to talent and how much is down to her just being given more to work with than most of her costars. Either way, she's the blonde bombshell who builds her way into Hollywood heartthrob fame.

...with a little help from costar Marco Alvarez. Because the whisper network is what it is, and Ashleigh "Ash Lewis" Lewandowska would never make it to the A List if anyone knew about the steady girlfriend she has at home. Despite playing a teenager, she's within a year of Marco's age, and she initially suggests the two of them get seen on a few date. Marco does one better, finding her half a dozen "boyfriends" to keep the vultures happy long enough for her to start getting blockbuster roles. By far her most attention-getting "fling" is the single date she goes on with the very inspiration for her A-Town character: she and Tom Berenson (with their respective girlfriends' permission) get exactly one dinner together at the most tabloid-trafficked restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, a headline too good to pass up and a highly effective murder to the next decade's worth of rumors about her orientation.

More A-Town headcanons here and here.