#if this reaction seems over the top i am a former employee who worked at rt animation from 2018-19

[kkoraki]

HA HA HA… YES! good riddance to godawful rubbish!

[peachyteez]

second chances ≫ DAY THREE, COMFORT.

as a feral wolf hybrid that was violent with all of the employees assigned to him, seonghwa was subjected to be put down. however, jiyu being the softhearted feral hybrid nurse she was, she decided to save seonghwa no matter what.

PART OF THE HEAVEN SERIES.

✧ taglist: @defsoul15, @choisaniskillingme, @t-tbinnie, @multi-bookmarkscripts, @hello-its-ya-boi

feel free to let me know if you would like to be added to the list! :)

✧ notes: a little sneak peek of jiyu’s home life. it’ll be explained more in depth in later parts of the series.

back。| next。

hearing the horrific sound of her alarm, jiyu groaned and tossed over towards her nightstand to silence her phone. sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she got out of bed and opened the curtains, hissing at the piercing sunlight pouring in. she watched the sun slowly rise above the city—it was a peaceful scene for her.

however, the peace was disrupted when her phone rang.

her blood ran cold when she saw the caller id. dad.

she hesitantly answered the phone. “h–hello?”

“it’s been a while, jiyu,” her father spoke. “i’m assuming you’re still working at that ridiculous hybrid center.”

jiyu’s grip on her phone tightened. “so what if i am?”

“watch your tone, young lady. or i can bring you back before our agreed deadline.”

jiyu grit her teeth as she stared straight ahead out her bedroom window. “why did you call?”

“as someone who’s about to take over the family company soon, you should start thinking about your future. you can start by thinking about your future marriage.

jiyu felt her world go numb at her father’s words. future marriage?

“i’ve sent you a file of canidates to your email. they’re all sons of other big corporations that i’ve chosen. combining our shares will be beneficial to both parties,” her father continued. “look through the list and send me at least five of your picks.”

“are you serious?” jiyu quietly seethed. “dad, you’re practically handing me off to someone i don’t even know or love! why can’t you leave me alone? it’s my life!”

her father sighed. “i’m doing this for your own good, jiyu. it’s better than devoting your life to hybrids—”

“if mom were still here, would you still be doing this?” she asked, feeling a spurt of bravery. “would you still say the same thing—”

“enough, jiyu!” her father shouted. the two were silent after his outburst. “i’m doing this because i love you. give me your picks by the end of the day.”

he hung up. jiyu dropped the phone from her ear as she felt tears welling up in her eyes. “love, my ass.”

she wiped her tears away and turned away from the window to get ready for the day. however, the phone call left her in a gloomy mood, something yeonjun picked up on the moment she sat at her desk.

“bad morning?” he asked.

“my dad called.”

yeonjun rolled his eyes at the mention of her dad. jiyu’s told him her past and yeonjun absolutely hated the man. he treated jiyu more like an asset to the company than his own flesh and blood.

“what happened this time?”

jiyu turned her monitor on and continued typing up yesterday’s report on seonghwa and soobin. “he wants me to get married to strengthen the company shares. i have a list of candidates and i’m suppose to choose.”

yeonjun almost spat his water out. “and you’re letting him do that?!”

jiyu paused her typing and sighed. “i have to. otherwise he’s taking me back before our agreed deadline.”

“but he can’t just—”

“i’ll be fine, yeonjun,” she reassured with a small smile. “can we please just drop the topic?” she asked when more people started filing in to the office.

while greeting their coworkers, yeonjun quietly sighed. “alright.”

throughout the day, jiyu tried to forget about the phone call. easier said than done. i’m doing this because i love you. it was a line that her father always repsonded with whenever she asked why he was doing all of this.

jiyu always scoffed at the idea. it wasn’t out of love. her father never once stopped to ask what she wanted to do in life. instead, he planned out her life for her. everything in her life was already pre–determined and calculated for the business. except for the last five years.

shaking her head to get rid of her thoughts, she realized that hours had already passed, and it was time for the daily checks on the hybrids.

“time for the daily checks,” she nudged yeonjun next to her.

as they both walked down the hall towards their hybrids’ rooms, yeonjun gently ruffled her hair. “i’m always here for you, okay?”

stopping outside seonghwa’s room, jiyu smiled. “thank you.”

watching her best friend turn the corner, jiyu entered the code in for seonghwa’s room and the door opened. seonghwa, who was once again sitting on the floor with his knees tucked to his chest and staring out the window, turned around and looked at jiyu.

jiyu plastered a smile on her face and closed the door. “hey, buddy. looking out the window again?” she asked as she took a seat on the floor by him.

seonghwa slightly furrowed his eyebrows. something about jiyu was off. her smile seemed...forced. and he didn’t sense her usual bright vibe that she usually had.

“did you sleep good last night?” she asked as she looked out the window. seonghwa’s room window faced the field, so she saw various hybrids out and about with their caretakers or with some nurses.

out of her peripheral vision, she saw seonghwa give a small nod, making her surprised, yet happy. he might not have spoken, but the silent form of response was nonetheless, an improvement. “that’s good.”

hearing her response with a forced happy tone made seonghwa frown. “you’re not happy.”

jiyu thought she was hearing things. looking around the room, she didn’t see anyone else. it was just her and seonghwa in the room. staring at him with widened eyes, she realized it was him that talked. “d–did you j–just—”

“for the record, i was verbal the whole time. i just preferred not talking,” he explained.

jiyu could only nod. this certainly came as a shock to her. then she remembered what he said. “what do you mean i’m not happy?” she quietly asked.

seonghwa glanced at her out of corner of his eyes. “you’re not how you usually are when you come visit. you seem down.”

jiyu looked down at her hands in her lap. “is it that obvious?” to be honest, she was also shocked at how seonghwa managed to pick up on her mood. she’s only known him for two days, yet he knew her well enough to know that she was indeed, not happy.

“to an observant eye, yes,” he responded.

jiyu sighed. “i’m sorry. i know how hybrids can be affected by negative moods—”

“stop apologizing, it’s fine,” seonghwa interrupted with a sigh of his own. “you can’t always be happy, you know.”

“...yeah.” suddenly, the conversation she had with her father replayed in her memory and tears started forming again.

looking over at the female next to him, seonghwa noticed how tears were gathering in her eyes and how she desperately tried to not let them fall. before he could process what he was doing, he reached a hand out and gently pat her head.

jiyu tensed and regret immediately filled seonghwa. he immediately retracted his hand. “s–sorry,” he mumbled.

“no, no. i didn’t hate it,” jiyu frantically explained. “it just caught me off guard, that’s all.”

an awkward silence surrounded the two. for seonghwa, he didn’t know to comfort the female next to him. they’ve only known each other for two days, making him wonder how to comfort her without making things awkward for the two of them.

“um, is everything okay?” he carefully asked before internally facepalming himself. of course not, you idiot. that’s why she’s sad.

“more or less,” she vaguely responded. “it’s just some personal issues at home.”

seonghwa nodded, falling back into the same awkward silence. suddenly, jiyu scrambled up from the ground. “ohmygod, i’m suppose to be here for your daily check up, not cry a river!” she squeaked as she ran for the clipboard on the table.

bewildered by her sudden mood switch, seonghwa couldn’t help but secretly smile as he watched the female hastily write. she was an interesting person, he wasn’t going to lie. and different from his previous caretakers.

going through the morning checklist, jiyu mumbled to herself as she checked off the boxes. “temperature’s okay...no, not sick...condition’s stable...”

“jiyu,” seonghwa suddenly called out to her.

jiyu whipped around in surprise at the sound of her name coming from seonghwa. her eyes widened even more when she turned around and he was standing directly behind her. looking up, she cocked her head in confusion. “y–yes? what’s the matter?”

seonghwa took a deep breath for what he was about to do. gently cradling her head, he nuzzled the top of her head with his cheek.

jiyu was shocked speechless. what is he doing, what is he doing—

seonghwa pulled back and sheepishly scratched the back of his neck. he couldn’t lift his head up. “i–it’s how wolves comfort each other and...well...it looks like you needed some...so...”

her silence only made him afraid. had he made a mistake? was she going to punish him?

“i–i’m sorry if you didn’t like that. i–i won’t do it again—”

snapping out of her shock, jiyu didn’t know how to react. but one thing was definitely clear. she was ecstatic at this huge leap of improvement for seonghwa in the span of three days. not to mention how it looked like he was slowly warming up to her. a warm smile slowly spread across her face. “stop apologizing, you didn’t do anything wrong,” she reassured.

seonghwa snapped his head up in surprise, eyes slightly widened from the unexpected reaction he received. she wasn’t mad? his former owners would’ve definitely punished him if he attempted something like that with them.

“thank you for the comfort,” jiyu added.

frankly, seonghwa was shocked at how different jiyu was compared to his former owners. “y–you’re not mad?” he meekly asked.

jiyu furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. “of course not. there’s no reason to be angry.”

his question was like a window for jiyu. a tiny window into his past. if he asked a question like that, she figured that he must’ve had a history with abusive owners.

“i may not know the details of where you were before coming here,” she softly said, catching seonghwa’s attention, “but you’re safe here. no one’s going to hurt you, i promise. try giving us a chance to help you recover, yeah?”

seonghwa thought about it before slowly nodding his head. a grin spread across jiyu’s face at his response. “if you want, i can start taking you outside tomorrow,” she suggested. “you probably haven’t been out in a while, right? ever since coming into...this ward.”

“...right.”

giving him another smile, jiyu walked towards the door to continue with her morning rounds. “then i’ll take you out tomorrow.”

she turned over her shoulder to give him one last look. “and really. thank you for earlier.”

and with that, she left seonghwa’s room.

the tiniest smile spread across seonghwa’s face. maybe, just maybe, the universe gave him a second chance.

[flowesona]

guess how much i love you - soft yandere! seokjin x reader

This is part of the MFEEU canon, written by the amazing and talented @worldwidemochiguy​. I hope I can do it justice :)

“What’s wrong, little Yoona?” Jin crouched down to see Yoona. She was sulking in the corner, having pushed away all of her pseudo-siblings until one of them finally resorted to asking Jin for help. Jin always had a way to make Yoona smile, yet even now as he pinched her cheek and gave her buckets of attention he could barely get a sniffle out of her.

Finally she gave some kind of reaction to him. As he continued to try to coax her into smiling, she finally pointed at something as the cause of her woes. Jin followed where her finger was pointing to the sofa, where Hanuel and Jihae were cuddled together with their Nintendo switches engaged in visiting each other’s towns in animal crossing.

“Why does Hanuel-eonni treat Jihae differently to me?” She whimpered. Her godfather smiled, turning her gently to face him.

“That’s because they’re in love. One day, you’re going to find someone you love like that.” 

“Really?” Yoona was looking at Jin as if he was some kind of prophet, enlightening her on the path to true happiness.

“Yes. You know that when I met aunty (Y/N) it was love at first sight?”

“Really?”

“Of course, Yoona. Of course, it wasn’t easy, but love never is.” Seeing how his discussion with Yoona had pacified her qualms slightly, he had an idea to make her happy.

“How about I tell you the story of how I met aunty (Y/N)? Should we find your Shooky and have a storytime?” He offered.

“I’m not a kid anymore!” Yoona had pouted, but eagerly climbed onto his lap with her round plushie in tow ready for his highly anticipated storytimes.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“N-no, stop!” Jin raised his head at the sound of the melodic voice. His focus switched from the seven takeaway coffee cups he was trying to balance to the source of the glorious sound. And it was love at first sight.

She was near perfect. Her skin glowed, her eyes were filled with an otherworldly mirth and her sweater hugged her body in just the right way. The only part of her that was marred was her arm, to which some unattractive boy clung. Not a hair on his body held any appeal, yet the girl seemed infatuated, giggling at every word he said as they waited for their order.

“(Y/N)? A cappuccino with a double espresso shot?” So that was her name? Jin watched as she took her coffee with a sleep-deprived grin. And he knew he had to have her.

He whipped out his phone and dialed Taehyung’s number quickly, still glancing at the couple as they waited for the vermin’s drink.

“I need your help.” He said quickly. “Fuck, she’s leaving.”

Taehyung quickly caught on.

“Follow her. See if she’s going home. Do you have her name?” Taehyung’s voice was background noise as Jin followed (Y/N) out of the shop. Snow was starting to drift down, sticking to his hair and dampening his clothes but in that moment his appearance was the least of his worries.

As he told Taehyung her name, her appearance, and the university he presumed she attended due to her sweatshirt being emblazoned with the name of a nearby establishment. 

“I found her. We’ll have all her details in a few hours. Come back to the offices and we’ll sort this all out, alright?”

It was only when he hung up his phone he realised that half of the various hot drinks he’d volunteered to bring back for everyone - planning to secretly use the outing as a opportunity to spike their beloved drinks with salt - had spilt onto the ground in his haste. But he couldn’t care less about his colleagues when fate had granted him a much greater design.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“We understand you applied for the assistant role last week?”

(Y/N) was hidden in the back of the university library, trying desperately to keep her voice down whilst attempting to quell the situation.

“As I said, you’ve got the wrong person. If you’ll excuse me…” 

“You are (L/N) (Y/N), correct? We have all your details on record.”

She didn’t respond.

“Well, if you want the position then come to our offices by 11AM tomorrow in business casual.”

The phone call ended, leaving (Y/N) with all sorts of unnerved feelings. 

Those feelings intensified as she stood outside the offices the next day in a simple blouse and trousers. Whilst the strange circumstances surrounding the offer were nothing to be ignored, she’d looked up the company name to find they were a reputable business, and their staff pay was nothing to sniff at. As a student barely able to afford a coffee in the morning, could she really afford to look a gift horse in the mouth?

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

The job was truly a blessing upon her life. Reasonable hours that perfectly coincided with her university lectures, decent pay and fellow employees who seemed to respect her.

She didn’t know why, of course. How could she know of the stranger pulling the strings behind the scene to get her into his arms?

“Sorry, could you drop this off with Kim Seokjin? He’s on the top floor. You can borrow my keycard to get there.” One of her colleagues asked, pressing a manila folder into her hand along with the keycard needed.

“Sure.” 

Her heart was pounding as she scanned the keycard to enter the new level of offices. Never before had she been around such high up executives, who could have her fired in a second if they so pleased.

(Y/N) approached the first man she saw.

“Excuse me, do you know where Mr Kim is?” She asked timidly.

“You’re speaking to him, darling.” He responded, turning to face her. (Y/N) resisted the urge to blush when she made eye contact with him, as he excluded an aura of attractiveness and wealth she could never compete with.

“Oh, right. This is for you, sir.” She handed over the folder, trying not to die from the embarrassment.

“Wait a second.” She felt a presence next to her. Standing by her shoulder was another man. To put it simply, he was gorgeous. From his clear golden skin to his sharp features, it was as if an ancient statue had been breathed into life.

“That was meant for Kim Seokjin, right? That’s me.” 

As if the situation could get any worse.

“Kim is a common surname, darling.” The former man commented as he passed the folder to the real Seokjin.

Noting the look of anguish on her face, Seokjin took one of her hands into his own.

“You’re new here, right? Don’t worry, it’s an easy mistake to make.” He offered her a warm smile.

“Thank you. I should go…” (Y/N) gently tried to pry her hand out of his hoping to end the whole interaction as soon as possible.

“Here, my card.” Seokjin pressed a rectangular business card into her hands, emblazoned with his name and number in stunning cursive. “Call me, and I’ll take you out for dinner sometime. As an apology.”

(Y/N) nodded, and he finally released her. 

The business card lay buried in her purse for days afterwards. She couldn’t bear to face him again to be reminded of her embarrassment. But her interia was only serving to anger Jin.

“It’s been three weeks, Jin-hyung.” Taehyung said cooly. “Maybe it’s time to try again.”

His office had become a second home for Jin, who would spend around an hour each day ranting and raving to his boss, who just took it all on board with a knowing grin every time.

“How?” Jin muttered. “How do I get her to talk to me?”

“If there’s a will, there’s a way.” Taehyung responded, tempted to return to his mountain of work but also not wanting to leave Jin to wallow in doubt.

Jin just kept pacing.

“You could give her a promotion? Or maybe you could turn up at her university and sit on a lecture or two. That way you’d have an excuse to see her when you like.” Taehyung pressed. “You’ve still got some holiday hours this year to spare.”

Jin didn’t reply, but his decision was already made.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

(Y/N) was ready to go back to sleep. No number of espresso shots could cure her banging headache, as her hangover weighed down her body as if she was carrying a ten pound barbell on her back.

She didn’t noticed how someone new had slipped into the seat next to her in the lecture theatre. All that occupied her mind at 9am was the desire for sleep. The double life of being a student and office worker was wearing on her hard, and she was contemplating on handing in her notice. The only thing that kept her from so was the tantalising paychecks and the haunting beauty of Seokjin, the memory of whom which had remained in some unused part of her brain.

The professor had a droning voice. The monotone syllables were practically a lullaby, and surely resting her head for a few minutes wouldn’t hurt? Not when she was at the back of the theatre and was practically unnoticeable.

Jin smiled as he observed (Y/N) slowly drifted into a deep sleep. The poor lamb had overworked herself. If only she knew of how he wanted to make sure she would never lift a finger again. He’d bided his time, months of casual stalking building up the the moment he’d finally decided to sit next to her, and how fortune had smiled upon his to give him the chance to admire her without being ‘creepy’.

Her deep sleep remained uninterrupted as people started to leave the lecture theatre, and a daring plan started to form in Jin’s mind. It was dangerous to just take her in the middle of the crowd, but it wasn’t like anyone else was particularly attentive at 10am and besides, anyone who asked questions could be paid off without a worry.

Gently he scooped (Y/N) up under his arm. She didn’t stir, as he gently guided her to the exit amidst the groups of other lethargic students. Navigating the crowd with a sleeping girl attached to him wasn’t easy, but Jin managed to make it out of the building and into his car without her waking up. It warmed his heart to see her head loll against the soft leather of his car interior as he indicated for the driver to start the engine.

Halfway to their destination, (Y/N)’s eyes starting to peel open.

“Mmmm... where am I?” The confused words stumbled out of her mouth as (Y/N) rubbed at her eyes.

“We’re going home.” Jin responded simply.

“Home? Wait... why are you here? Aren’t you... you’re one of the bosses from work?” The gears in (Y/N)’s brain we’re starting to turn.

“Well... yes. We can call this a promotion, I guess?”

The warmth of his smile, the smooth feeling of the leather car interior against her back and the steady beat of her heart all worked to convince (Y/N) that she was alright. It wasn’t conventional, but the adoration in Jin’s eyes was like a dream.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

Unfortunately, a serious event plagued their ‘honeymoon’ period.

On Tuesday morning, as Jin gently woke her up with a cup of coffee, he noticed something was wrong. Her face was hot to the touch, and she could barely open her eyes.

Evidently, the cold weather and her busy schedule had taken a toll on her health. For the day she was stuck in bed, Jin dabbing at her forehead with a wet cloth and feeding her spoonfuls of broth.

“(Y/N)? How do you feel, my love?” Jin posited as she was nestled up half paying attention to the TV he’d brought into their room.

Through her drowsy drawl, he could barely make out what she was trying to say.

“Why are you… so nice? No one has ever loved me, not like you do. It’s not normal, to have your boss slash kidnapper treat you better than your exes. I don’t know why I’m not fighting you like any sensible human should.”

Seeing tears start to well up, Jin wiped at her eyes, wanting to shush her but simultaneously wanting her to continue praising him.

“I’ve never had a boyfriend who cares for me like you do… this isn’t right. I must be dreaming.”

Jin gave her a soft smile, his heart drumming loudly in his chest.

“This is reality.This is love. And I love you all the way to the moon and back.”

Before he could go on to tell her of what lengths he would go to show her his love, she’d fallen asleep. 

He wanted nothing more than to stay by her side for the rest of the day, but the vibration of his phone in his pocket reminded him that he still had a job to do. He left the bedroom before answering it, closing the door with as soft of a click as possible.

“How’s it going, lover boy?”

“Shut it, Jimin.”

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

“You see, love triumphs all. When you love someone, you should stop at nothing to make them love you back.” Jin concluded. Yoona had been hooked onto his every word, Jihae and Hanuel long gone both from the room and from her mind.

“Yoona? Yoona, we have to go!” At the call of her father the young girl clambered out of her godfather’s hold.

“Do you feel better now?” Jin asked. She nodded happily.

“Will you tell me more stories next time?” 

“Yoona!” Yoongi finally found her next to her godfather. 

“Go find Mommy, she’s got your jacket.” Yoona nodded happily, rushing off leaving only the two colleagues.

“You’ve gone soft, hyung.” Yoongi commented.

“Show a bit more respect for your elders.” Jin snarked back, but he couldn’t hide his happy glow.

“Sure thing. Pass on my regards to your wife.” Yoongi said before turning on his heel to find his own family.

Now that he was all alone, Jin pulled out his phone to send a quick message.

‘Be home soon, love.’

(Y/N) responded about ten seconds with a gif of two dogs hugging, to which Jin chuckled.

‘I love you. All the way to the moon and back.’

[cialbi]

Summertime Happy Daze - Chapter One

Summary: Working in a small, local grocery store down by the shore has its perks; good pay, free food and seven handsome coworkers. Your first day back after two years abroad, your happy summer days have just begun. 

Genre: Slice of Life, Friendship, Romance (fluff), Hurt and Comfort, (BTS AU)

Pairings: BTS ot7 x Reader

Warnings: Language

Word Count: 8651

Based on TRUE Daily Events

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

The faint cry of seagulls could be heard overhead, circling the sky in hunger as you stood lucidly, staring at white twin doors that had paint peeling off with age. The familiar image was comforting in a way, like seeing an old classmate from school that you hadn’t known very well, but brought back those memories of the good old days.

And like seeing an old classmate, a part of you wanted to duck away and avoid them altogether. 

You gripped the rim of your oversized sweatshirt for comfort, the brush of your tightly tied ponytail tickling the nape of your neck as it blew against the breeze. The sleek, silver name tag pinned to your clothes sailed in the sunshine. Little beads of sweat had begun to form on your forehead and the sticky summer heat thick against your skin as you drew in a breath. 

You checked your watch; it was 11:00 am in the morning. 

It had been awhile since you were down at the shore; the heavy scent of ocean prominent in your nose. You wrinkled it in discomfort. 

The idea of spending your summer at the beach had been your parents' decision and they had leant you their beach house to use while you were working. Leaving you to your own devices, your mom and dad had chosen to take a much needed vacation to Hawaii. Instead of keeping you company they had retired you to fend for yourself. 

Although you understood, you also felt bitter that they up and went without you.

“Structure. Discipline. Self reliance. Think of this as practice for the fall when you go back to school.” Your dad had said. 

“We think this is what’s best for you, sweetheart.” Your mom agreed.

You narrowed your eyes at the memory of their words. Yeah, what ‘was best for you’ was to hightail it out of here and retreat to the comfort of your own bedroom. You didn’t bode well in anxious situations and your first reaction had always been to run the opposite direction. 

But now that you were standing outside the back of Kim’s Market, that option didn’t seem very plausible. Today was opening day, and you knew as much help as possible was needed.

Almost every summer spent down the shore you’d worked in this little, local market. Since you’d been eighteen to be exact. The pay had been good and the owner allowed his employees to snack on food for free; not to mention the heaps of down time and 5G wifi. You’d done a lot of instagraming in those days.

The last two years were the longest you’d been without paying a visit to Kim’s. Choosing to study abroad, you’d saved money by spending the summers over there instead of returning home to your country. Though every now and then you had found yourself thinking about the little market and wondered how it was doing. 

Standing in front of it now felt nostalgic, but you realized that two years was a long time and that many things could have changed while you were gone. And that’s why you found yourself so nervous. 

Will they even remember me? You wondered to yourself. 

You reached out your hands to touch the chipping wooden door and felt the wrinkles of maturing paint beneath your fingertips.

By they you meant your former, future, coworkers that you spent months of your time with over the past years of your life. Would they be happy to see you? Had they changed at all? Because you knew that you certainly had.

You remembered their faces as clearly as you could see in front of yourself. Their laughter and smiles were an unforgettable memory ingrained in your brain and the special moments you had spent with each of them had been precious. The long hours at work, the trips to the beach to enjoy an afternoon picnic, even the gaps of silence that had dispersed like a welcomed breeze. Every second had been cherished, and the heat of the fierce, beaming sun was always a reminder of the lovely summer days you’d spent together. 

Because above having been your coworkers, they had been your friends. 

Get a grip. You told yourself. How long you’d been standing there, you couldn’t tell, but by the looks of nosy passerbys it must have been for a while now.

Taking one last, nerve wrecked breath, you pushed open the tall double doors that lead inside to the back office, a blanket of air conditioned cool prickled your face. 

It was dimly lit. Only the small rectangular windows that poured in the early afternoon sun provided any sort of light in the small wood paneled room. It looked as if plant life had invaded. Pots of tiny trees and baskets of wild flowers decorated almost every surface. Their gardener had a knack for floral feng-shui.  

Said gardener stood behind a marble counter, back slightly bent as he trimmed stocks of parsley with a pair of gardening shears. A happy melody vibrated through his lips as he hummed to himself cheerfully. His deep brown eyes glimmered as if stars swam in them. 

He wore a black, deep cut v-neck shirt and airy blue jeans stained with dirt. Glowing brightly in the afternoon glare were the words Kim’s Market plastered across his chest and a little silver tag with the name Hoseok etched into its face. 

He looked peaceful, eyes lidded as if he had drifted into his own, little world. 

“Hi Hobi.” You piped up, his nickname shy on your tongue.  

The man snapped his head of chocolate brown hair up from his ministrations and squinted at you--or maybe he just couldn’t see well without his glasses. Nearsightedness if you recall. Even so, realization seemed to dawn on him as you were greeted with his infamous sunny smile. The perfect ‘welcome back.’

“Y/N, it’s so good to see you.” Hoseok said, then shrugged. “Well, you know, as much as I can see you.” 

You shrugged back with a smile. “It’s good to be seen.” 

He placed the shears onto the cutting board and approached you with outstretched arms. You thought for a moment he was going to hug you, but instead he placed both hands firmly on your shoulders and held you in place. 

“Let me get a good look at you!” He said, eyeing you once over. “Beautiful.”

You blushed, looking down at the ground in hopes that he wouldn’t notice. Beautiful wasn’t the exact words you would have used, feeling a little frumpy in your baggy attire.

 “Thanks.” 

“So.” Hoseok cocked his head to the side, your eyes meeting. “How was Japan?” 

You bit your lip a little and averted your gaze once again to the tiled floor beneath your feet. You knew well that Hoseok could always tell when you were lying. “Good. I had a great time.” 

His eyes followed yours, brows furrowed as he aimed a curious look at your face. The older man opened his mouth to say something but before he could utter a word he was sorely interrupted by an outburst from the deli. 

“Y/N!” A chorus of voices in assorted octaves shrieked with delight.

Shocked, but happy to be off topic, you turned your head to meet the smiling faces of Jimin and Jungkook. They peered from a little open frame in the wall that doubled as a fissure between the office and the deli.

Jimin’s eyes twinkled in excitement while Jungkook grinned at you from ear to ear, and suddenly you felt your prior worries begin to dissipate. Returning their expressions of friendliness you waved at them with an arm tucked behind your back. 

“Hey gu--woah!” 

A little yelp escaped your lips as you felt your legs being lifted off the ground.

Arms wrapped around your waist in a tight hug, a mess of shaggy black hair had burrowed in the crook of your neck. “You’re back.” It purred, deep, husky voice muffled by your shoulder. 

Knowing exactly who it was before you even saw his face, you giggled, touched. 

“Hey Tae. I’m back.”

At the call of his nickname, Taehyung lifted his head and flashed you a smile so winning that you got the idea he didn’t smile like that very often. 

“Hi! I missed you!” 

A light chuckle from Hoseok tickled your ears as the enthusiastic Taehyung hug-dragged you around into the deli so that the rest of the boys could properly welcome you. After a lingering minute the hold on you dropped, which allowed you to take a gander at your surroundings.

The deli looked pretty much the same, albeit a bit cleaner. It was small--homely--the entire area itself took up only one third of the modestly sized market. The deli case, up front and center, was lined with meats, cheeses, salads, ground hamburger chuck and fresh cut slabs of prime beef, each holding a respective, organized place amongst one another. Three scales were scattered on the top, separated by Hoseok’s potted plants and a few steps away were the rows of slicers that cut the hunks of meat and cheese into cold-cuts. 

On the left of the case, pushed snuggly against the wall, was the grinder block. That was where all the chuck for hamburgers were ground into ribbons and panned on trays to be served to customers. Parallel was the butchers block and across from that, way in the back, was the sandwich block followed by the wrapping block and the walk-in fridge. 

They were all placed pretty close together and you could recall many collisions from the past as everyone had rushed to deliver their orders. Your heart warmed in remembrance. 

“So, whatcha think?” Jungkook’s voice pulled you from your thoughts. 

He was leaning against a tall metal hand-trolly piled high with boxes of what-nots and arms folded proudly across his chest. You noticed immediately that he was bigger than you remembered. He looked like an adonis from where he stood, his blue-and-white-striped shirt clung to his muscles, almost every ridge and curve visible to the naked eye. He oozed with pride.

You thought Jungkook was inquiring about his muscular metamorphosis or the very least about the deli, but when he gestured to the trolly you frowned. 

“Uh. Nice… boxes?” You raised a brow. Jimin chuckled from beside you. 

“Not those--well yes those. I’m stocking this year!” He boasted, face lifting in dignity. 

You felt Jimin shift. “Yeah! And don’t forget you left me all alone with the registers!” He pouted. 

Jungkook’s lip quirked to the side. “You know hyung, you could have joined me if you weren’t so…” He trailed, fishing for the right word. “Weak.”

You thought Jimin would pop what with the way his face puffed, flabbergasted. “I have abs! I can lift things!” He retorted, pulling up his sweater and smacking his toned stomach for emphasis. You looked away in shame.

Someone clicked their tongue from behind the sandwich block. “You’re too short.” 

It was Yoongi. 

You hadn’t noticed him from his seated position on the floor, but there he was, clad in a grey sweatshirt and backwards cap, knees hugged loosely to his chest as he scrolled through his phone. 

“Don’t take his side hyung!” Jimin turned to you with sad, gooey sparkles in his eyes. “You see what happens when you leave? They all bully me.”

You brought to mind how they all had teased Jimin; the poor boy made it far too easy for them. One time, Yoongi had pretended that Jimin was invisible for two days, all the while Jimin had relentlessly thrown himself in front of the older and practically begged to be acknowledged. 

“Where’s Jimin? I don’t see him. I hope he’s not dead.” Yoongi had taunted, shielding his eyes as if looking for someone. 

Jimin had bit his lip so hard it turned purple. “Stop it hyung! You know I’m right here.”

It wasn’t until you had locked his paycheck in your locker that Yoongi could miraculously see him again.

Before you left, you had been Jimin’s safeguard. You had taken pity on him because he always looked so lost and helpless. The others could easily fend for themselves, but Jimin--with his cute pouty lip and doleful eyes--there was something that had made you highly defensive of him; like a mother protecting her young. And he felt about you like you were his knight in shining armor. 

In times like this one, you would have ruffled his hair affectionately or perhaps even went after his offender and gave them a piece of your mind. It had always thrilled him to tears when you stood up for him. 

But time had passed and you didn’t know if the same tactics would still apply. 

You looked up at Jimin as he hissed at his coworkers like an offended kitten, a look of attack and desperate attempts to sound big. But in the end he was still nothing more than that. A kitten. Although you’d never admit it to him, you were the tiniest bit charmed.

Well, it couldn’t hurt to try? 

Tenderly, you patted his glossy head, receiving a startled jump from under your touch. 

“Don’t listen to them Jiminnie.” You cooed. “Your job is just as important and neither height nor arm muscles makes you any more or any less of a wonderful, capable man.”

Both Jungkook and Yoongi scoffed. 

“And you two!” You swiped a delicate finger between them. “Don’t think that because I’ve been gone for some time, that I won’t hesitate to kick both your asses if I hear you tell him otherwise.”

Jimin beamed at you with crescent moon eyes, catching your hand in his. “She’s really back.” He whispered, just loud enough for only you to hear.

The five of you exchanged looks before Yoongi snorted and the rest of you fell into a gleeful bote of laughter. No. The deli, the market, the atmosphere, it really hadn’t changed much. 

But the boys themselves most certainly had. 

Yoongi’s hair had gotten longer; crimped seafoam-green bangs touched the tips of his eyelashes and his once sunkissed skin had faded a few shades. His shoulders slouched a little more. He’d always been a quiet man, but something about the way he held himself seemed more aloof and less interested.

Jimin was much skinnier, almost worryingly so. His once pinchable chubby cheeks were replaced with sculpted definition to his jawline and his collarbone protruded amidst his baggy baby-pink sweater. He still had his abs, yes, but when he had previously exposed himself to the group, you had noticed the little lines of ribs poking through his honey-colored skin. Although still painfully pretty, you worried he hadn’t been eating enough.

Jungkook--muscle growth aside--seemed to have grown an entire foot in height. His pointy nose was slightly sunburned and his cappuccino hair swept to the side, streaked with highlights. His former, innocent demeanor now dripped with overconfidence and tenacity; something you instantly knew would be difficult to keep a handle on. 

Even Hoseok, sunny, energetic, ever-loving Hoseok had looked uncharacteristically tired. He had tried to hide it, but the lines under his eyes gave him away.

And Taehyung. His lion's mane of wavy hair, his deep chocolate-brown eyes, his obnoxiously good looks-- 

You eyed the raven-haired boy who had become completely distracted, busily taping a pair of plastic gloves around his wrists and using a bendy-straw to blow them up like balloons. He cooed excitedly and shoved them in your general direction. “Look Y/N! I’m like Baymax!” 

He hasn’t changed a bit.  

Perhaps it was the many bodies in such a tight space, or perhaps you were just overly perceptive today but it suddenly dawned on you that two other members were missing. 

You frowned. “Hey, where’s Namjoon and--”

“Yah! I see goofing off!” A shout that reminded you of a squawking mother emanated from the other side of the deli case. 

Ah. There he is. 

In unison, you all whirled around to see the store owner, Jin, shouldering a large silver tray of fresh pastries and looking absolutely perfect. His beautiful full lips pulled back in annoyance and his ivory skin tinted pink like blooming roses. He had an evergreen apron tied around his waist and his free hand was placed fiercely on his hip.

“Hyung, look!” Taehyung wiggled his balloon-a-fied hands at Jin. “Y/N is here!”

Jin looked over to you, his expression softening. “Hey there Y/N.” He said, circling around the deli case and placing the tray on the meat-grinder block. 

“Hi Jin.” You blushed. His presence had a way of making you flustered. 

He patted his floury hands on his apron before extending one towards you. You took it with a hardy handshake, his touch lingered slightly before he pulled it away. 

“Are you ready to work hard?” Jin asked, straightening back up. 

You eyed your coworkers skeptically. “Yes sir.” 

Taehyung was using his balloon-hands to squish Jimin’s face while Jungkook stood by as witness; the three of them bursted into fits of giggles when one of the gloves popped just above Jimin’s nose. Yoongi, who was completely ignoring you guys, had returned to his previous activities, engaged in his phone once again. 

Ready to work hard? By the look of it, you didn’t feel like you really had a choice, because no doubt you’d be carrying a lot of the weight.  

“Good.” Jin said and took a spatula from one of the magnetic holsters. “Because it seems to me that with these four slack offs--” he gestured with it at the younger men, “--you have your work cut out for you.”

Read my mind.

You hummed in response and watched as Jin began to square off the pastries with the spatula. He looked good--well he had always looked good, but with his delicately placed locks of black hair and eyelashes that casted shadows across cheekbones, the shopkeeper looked particularly angelic as he focused on his work. 

“Ooh! Hyung! Is that the crumb cake?” Taehyung’s short attention span was naturally swayed by the sight of food. 

He scurried over to the two of you, a look of unadulterated hunger on his face. The rest of the boys, minus Yoongi, followed shortly after him. Taehyung reached for one, the plastic from his glove still deflated around his hand. Jin smacked it away. 

“Don’t you dare touch these with your grubby little hands.” The oldest scolded. “These are for the customers. You know, the ones who actually pay for my food.” 

Taehyung whimpered, disappointed. “...looks so good though…” 

“They most certainly are. Delicious--” His eyes narrowed. “--and for the customers. I don’t want to catch any of you snacking on these today. Anything else, fine. But stay away from the crumb cake.”

A chorus of protest had Jin stabbing the spatula with a particularly strong force.

“I mean it.” 

Jimin’s lip jutted and Taehyung leaned against the grinder block back first, angling his face to fix Jin with the perfect puppy-pout. Not that it worked. Jin’s nerves were made of steel. 

“Just a little?” 

“No.”

“A crumb?”

“No!” 

“A lick?”

“Aish! Stop bothering me!” 

“Move.” A curt voice cut through the room. 

Namjoon, the last missing member of the group, appeared from the inside of the walk-in fridge, holding a large plastic bin with the words ‘cuts to be trimmed’ written on the side in black sharpie. 

You all turned to look at the man as he glared intensely at you; the crowd of people in his way. Namjoon’s arms were shaking under the weight of the bin like he was barely keeping it from falling out of his grip. He was flushed, with tiny beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. You gulped as everyone automatically stepped aside and created a path for him. Even Yoongi scooched over on the ground. 

Why is he...

You looked at Jimin confused, but the boy just shrugged. “Namjoon is the butcher now.”

Namjoon mumbled something you couldn’t hear as he heaved the bin towards the butcher's block and slammed it down on the counter. His back was turned to you, not having noticed your presence. 

The tallest man’s willowy figure had always been lean but, like Jungkook, new muscle definition ripped up his biceps and upper pectorals. On top of that, his once golden skin was now a deep shade of almond and his brown quiff had been replaced with a silver, clean-shaven undercut. 

Two years ago, it had been you, Namjoon, Yoongi and Taehyung that worked in the deli, cutting cold-cuts, making sandwiches and helping out around the market whenever time allowed. Jin had been the one in charge of the beef, only temporarily lending the reins when the store got too busy for him to handle it alone. Jin liked control. He especially liked control over their best selling meat, so you wondered how Namjoon had convinced the uptight shopkeeper to let him go full-time. 

He looked poised, a little cold.

You hugged your arms sheepishly. “Hi Joon.”

The butcher slipped, eyes wide and clearly not expecting to hear your voice as he caught himself on the butchers block. Giving himself a second to catch his breath, Namjoon turned to look at you with a bewildered expression. 

“Y/N...” He said, taking a step towards you. 

“Hey, it’s good to see yooooh my god are you ok?” 

Your hands flew to your lips in shock as Namjoon’s heel snagged on a piece of plastic--no doubt left on the floor from Taehyung’s glove--and flew to the ground in a tumble of limbs and a loud ‘crash’. You bit back a laugh. There’s that klutziness.

Wincing in pain, Namjoon stood up, his face red with peevery as he steadied himself. “Taehyung!” He growled.

Silence followed. 

Taehyung looked at his only remaining balloon-hand then looked back to Namjoon. “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain!?” He cheered, diving for the older with his hands outstretched. 

A loud ‘pop’ echoed in his wake. The rest of you exchanged looks of surprise as Namjoon held himself, wielding a long, skinny butcher's knife that extended towards Taehyung’s defending hand. The butcher fixed his eyes on the raven-haired male--who swallowed hard as the tip of the blade barely met his palm--shooting aggressive daggers. 

“No.” 

More silence. 

Jin clapped his hands, breaking the lull. “That’s it! Everyone back to work!” 

The shopkeeper shooed you guys away with a flick of his wrist and turned back around to resume cutting the crumb cake. The few “awws” that reverberated from the younger boys' mouths were silenced by the don’t-fuck-with-me look thier boss shot at them. 

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Work well underway, the day seemed to slip by pretty slowly. The store was basically empty save a browsing customer here or there.

Jimin had returned to the registers while Jungkook was busy wheeling boxes around and unloading the contents to their respective places. Yoongi remained unbothered on his phone and Taehyung was doodling away with a black deli crayon on a piece of wrapping paper. The only noises that could be heard were the murmurs of Hoseok and Jin from the office and the soft thwacks of Namjoon’s cleaver as he chopped up pieces of meat and dumped them into a vacant bucket. 

You sighed to yourself. It’s so quiet...

There were no chairs back in the deli. Jin’s reasoning had been that sitting around made them look lazy, and laziness would repel customers. Nevertheless, none of the boys had any trouble finding ways to look apathetic. So you were leaning against the sandwich block, hands gripped around the wooden sides to support yourself and mind wandering off in boredom. 

A little restless, you looked down at Yoongi who was sitting inches from your branched out legs. 

“So, Yoongi…” You tried. “How’s business been today?”

Your shift may have started in the early afternoon, but most of, if not all the boys had been here since opening at six. You were privately grateful that you didn’t have to haul ass at bumblefuck am in the morning. 

Yoongi looked up at you briefly and you noticed tiny little bags under his eyes. “Slow.”

He had never been much for small talk. 

Ennui set in again and you found yourself wishing that you had brought your phone to pass the time. Maybe you’d forgotten on purpose due to your social media sabbatical or maybe you’d truly just forgotten but either way staring at a screen if not just to look at something sounded pretty good. So, to compensate, you settled on looking around the store. 

The late afternoon sun had soaked the deli in warm shades of oranges and pinks, the sheets of white menus that hung from the walls glared irredecentaly against the blaring light. The metal of the slicers and the walk-in glinted like precious silver and plastic containers full of lettuce, tomato and onion on the sandwich counter reflected images of your surroundings. You could hear the rolling of pebbles from outside as cars pulled in or drove away from the market and the faint smell of raw beef wafted through your nose. You crinkled it in disagreement. 

It was amazing how everything felt so… normal.

Looking at Yoongi’s hunched form, you pushed yourself away from the counter and tentatively took a seat next to him. He didn’t move. A quick peek over his shoulder, you realized he was typing something on a notes app. 

“Whatcha writing?” 

At that, Yoongi lifted his head and shielded his phone against his chest. You felt a little bad for eavesdropping. 

Your eyes met his. The look of genuine interest spread clearly on your face had Yoongi’s lips tugged back in a gentle smirk. He raised his hand to rub the back of his neck and dropped the phone from his chest to expose its contents towards your waiting gaze. 

“Lyrics.” He shrugged. “Never know when inspiration will hit you.”

Yoongi had one of those voices that oozed self-control, a voice you couldn’t imagine raised. And the way his eyes glimmered with passion for his art made your heart thrum little pitter-pats against your ribs. I forgot how handsome he is. 

“I didn’t know you liked to write music.” You truly hadn’t. He had always been so reserved, even back then. 

Yoongi snorted. “Well, my real goals in life are to cut meat and cheese for wealthy, uptight buttfucks. But what can I say? Gotta dream big.” 

You laughed. I also forgot how colorful his language could be. 

You wanted to ask him more, but a call from the front of the deli had you both snapping your heads towards the order counter.

“Excuse me!” A woman with two chins and sunglasses peered from the other side of the deli case. “Some service over here!” 

“Speak of the devil.” You sighed, rolling your eyes in Yoongi’s direction. “Keep writing. I got it.”

A hint of a smile ghosted his lips as you stood up and trotted over to the customer who was tapping her fingers impatiently. You put on your best pseudo grin. 

“Sorry for the wait ma’am. What can I get for you?” 

She frowned at you--or maybe that was her normal expression. “Yes. Thank you.” Her painted lips sneered. “I’d like a sandwich--”

“Hoagie or Kaiser?” You interrupted. The sandwich bags varied in sizes, so you needed to know which one to write her order on.

“Hoagie.” Her chins wagged as she navigated her eyes to one of the paper menus. “With--” 

You scrawled down her elongated list of toppings, checking the right boxes and circling the written words printed neatly on a chosen hoagie bag. The customer paused, opening her mouth as if she wanted to order something else, then promptly closed it. 

“That’s all.” 

“Alright!” You said with a nod. “That’ll be up in just a couple minutes.” 

The customer grumbled something you couldn’t make out but backed away from the counter and went to wait off to the side. 

That was the part of the job you hadn’t missed. The entitlement, the poor treatment, the rudeness and you, as an employee, were just supposed to smile and be polite besides yourself. 

Walking back to the sandwich block, you slipped past Namjoon, careful so as not to bump him and then clipped the bag on a sleek metal rack. It was your first sandwich of the year and you could feel a twinge of nervousness as your brain tried to remember what to do and what order to do it in. 

Yoongi peeked his head up again to watch you quietly, making sure you were ok or if you needed any guidance. 

Turkey. Swiss. Lettuce and tomato. A little salt, some hot peppers and onions. Oh and oil. Don’t forget the oil. You recited as you grabbed what you needed from the deli case, hands quivered slightly with nerves. You didn’t want to fuck this up. A part of you wanted to show the boys that you may have been gone a couple years, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t still make a killer sandwich. The whole store knew your sandwich making skills had always been the best and you had a reputation to uphold. 

You went over to the slicers and paused briefly, gathering your demeanor before you switched on the blades. Gripping the butt of the cheese you breathed deeply, quiet enough as to not draw attention to yourself. 

There was this irrational fear that you had; you even experienced nightmares once or twice because of it. You had always catastrophized that one of these days you’d slice your hand into a thick flap and then have to walk around with your flesh flopping like a turkey’s throat. Shuddering at the thought, you began to slice.

Thankfully, your body memory took over and suddenly you felt yourself falling back into old motions, cutting the cold-cuts with ease and one hundred percent skin-flap free.

With a slight spring to your step, you brushed past Namjoon again, again being careful not to hit him with your butt as you went about your way. You heard an appreciative ‘thunk’ of blade hitting wood. 

When all the items were laid out in a neat line, you began to assemble the sandwich, making sure to place each piece of food in the correct order. First meat, then cheese, then veggies and then oil. You never put oil on the bread because the moisture would make the entire sandwich soggy. You explained this to Taehyung and Yoongi once when a customer had come in with a complaint about an ‘inedible sandwich.’ Finishing up your order with a sprinkle of lettuce and a spray of oil you topped it off with a light dusting of sea salt. Perfect. 

While you took a step back to admire your handy work, more customers began to line up in front of the deli case. With a low groan, Taehyung paused his doodling to go help them. Yoongi stood up and tucked his phone away in his hoodie. 

“Ahem.” Namjoon fixed you with an instructive stare and you chuckled sheepishly. 

“Right. Sorry.”

You gathered up the sandwich and brought it to the wrapping block, careful not to spill anything. Quickly and neatly you rolled the paper over it before taping it closed and stuffing it in the bag. 

“Here you are.” You beamed at the customer who had ordered from you, handing over your masterpiece. 

She didn’t thank you, just grabbed the sandwich and waddled away. 

“You’re welcome.” You muttered bitterly, the corner of your lip twitched in contempt. 

Bitch.

You were used to ungrateful customers. Most people who came to the shore were wealthy beach house owners--the top one percent--and most of them didn’t appreciate hard work let alone practiced basic manners. 

Giving yourself a moment, you checked your watch. It was a little after lunch time, which explained the sudden pickup in business. Usually between 12:30 and 2:00 the market became increasingly busy, then again between 4:30 and 6:00, giving everyone about an hour to catch their breath. 

“Already aching to clock out, eh?”

 Taehyung came up from behind you, causing you to squeak in surprise. He chuckled deeply in your ear, his breath hot against your skin. 

You whipped your head around, blood creeping up your cheeks. “No!” 

“Cute. Well here.” He handed you two paper sandwich bags. “This’ll pass the time.”

Taehyung graced you with a little wink and a wave of his hand before walking back up to the front of the deli to take more orders. 

Your shoulders slumped as a sigh departed your lips, already missing the freetime. 

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Another hour crawled by. Not a moment to relax as the three of you maneuvered through and around the small space, slicing cold-cut after sandwich. You were beginning to lose your bearings as the line never seemed to end. 

“Coming through!” 

“On your left. No. Left Taehyung.” 

“Behind you hyung!” 

“Knife!” 

Every once in a while, Namjoon paused from his ministries to help out when the three of you had your hands full. He worked like a pro and made everything seem so effortless. You’d never felt more beholden. 

Once the line cleared and the four of you had a moment to yourselves, you breathed a sigh of relief. It truly felt good to be up on your feet again, but damn, dealing with so many people in such a short amount of time really weighed on your introverted personality. Running a hand through your hair, you looked at the clock on the deli phone.

Only four hours left to go. 

Phew. Ok. You can do this Y/N.

A slew of giggles erupted from the deli case and you turned your head to see a dwindling customer bent over the counter and chatting animatedly with Taehyung. By the way she twirled her hair and fluttered her lashes you could immediately tell she was flirting. And honestly, you couldn’t blame her. Customers had often flirted with the boys and every time it was a reminder of how seriously handsome each of them were. You frowned.

She was beautiful. A very tall, very blonde woman with a modelesque physique. Her skin was as fair as a jasmine petal, with perfect blue eyes and a perfect snowy neck. The spaghetti straps of her sundress threatened to slip down her tiny, pointed shoulders and you noticed her arms were crossed around her chest, emphasizing her cleavage.

Laughing at something he said, she reached out to touch Taehyung’s arm, a bold move if you ever saw one. He followed with his eyes to where her hand touched him and slowly backed away. Handing over her order, he fixed her with his boxy smile. 

“Bye! Come again soon!” He chirped. Ouch.  

The customer obviously didn’t want to leave, but Taehyung had already turned his back towards her, clearly ending the conversation. Her pretty, glossed lips bent down in a grimace and reluctantly she sulked off. The raven haired boy caught your stare, his eyes flying up to the sky as he shrugged. You made a gagging motion with your finger and then the two of you laughed. 

Yoongi shuffled over, a tired expression creased on his face as he dipped back down to the floor, back flush against the cool metal of the walk-in. His cheeks were rosy from all the exertion and eyes heavy as he sighed. Taking one last look up front as to make sure no other customers were around, he fished for the phone in his pocket and returned to typing fervidly. 

“How ya holding up?” You said to him. 

“Hm.”

Man, he’s a tough one to crack. 

A few moments passed in silence. You enjoyed the cool breeze of the air conditioning, eyes hooded as it satiated your skin. It felt peaceful to be among friends again. 

A subtle thunk grabbed you from your stupor.

“Oof. Watch it!” Yoongi jerked forward as the door of the walk-in pushed open from behind him. 

Namjoon emerged from the door with a large rack of ribs cradled on his shoulder. He looked between the two of you and quickly apologized to his friend. 

“The door knob is a little loose inside, so be careful not to pull it too hard.” He said, gesturing with his chin to the fridge. 

You nodded your head and Yoongi  hummed in admission, though if he was really listening you couldn’t tell. Doubtful. 

“Hey! Which one of you dum-dums keeps forgetting to price the sandwiches!?” Jimin called, face huffy as he poked his head out from behind aisle B. 

For some reason, Jin never liked the idea of using up-to-date cash registers, opting for old-fashioned antiques that probably came from the nineteen-thirties. That excluded a barcode scanner, so poor Jimin had to punch in all the item prices by hand. God forbid a customer decided not to buy something because then the boy had to zero out the register and start all over again.

“I had to make the prices up, and you know Jin hyung hates when I do that!” Jimin stomped over in a flurry of dust and dirt from unswept floors. Speaking of things Jin hated. 

Your eyes widened. Horrified, you realized it had been you. You totally forgot you had to hand write the prices of the sandwiches along with the orders. 

The rest of the members started to busy themselves, avoiding Jimin’s wrath. Taehyung began opening boxes of pickle jars from underneath the counters and Namjoon got to work on prepping the bonesaw for the ribs. To your surprise, even Yoongi stood up and began to clean the counter with a metal scraper. It was like they all turned their heads and whistled evadingly. 

You sighed, wiping the bridge of your nose. Honesty was the best approach. 

“Sorry Jimin! It was me.” You admitted to the blonde haired boy. 

He craned his neck to look at you standing in the back behind Namjoon. For a split second you worried he would tell you off. 

Instead, Jimin flashed you a radiant smile. “No worries Y/N. It’s only your first day back--”

“It’s all our first day back.” Yoongi muttered lowly. 

“--so it must be hard to remember everything all at once.” He finished, shooting a glare at the sea-green head on the floor. 

“Thanks… I’ll try to remember to write them down next time.” You said, heat rising to your cheeks. How embarrassing. 

“No problem, love.”

Taehyung scoffed, folding the emptied box in his arms. “It was a problem last year when I forgot that one time to price a ham sandwich. One time.”

Jimin pursed his luscious lips. “That’s because you’re always doing something you’re not supposed to be.” 

Taehyung threw up his hands in mock frustration. “Sue me!”

“Ironic that this is coming from the person who’s supposed to be behind the register.” Yoongi said, reminding his younger that in that moment, he’s the one doing something he’s not supposed to be.

Jimin ignored the remark and sauntered over to your side. He grabbed your hand between his.

“I’ve been dying to know!” He exclaimed, brown eyes sparkling. “How was Japan?”

From within the room, all ears perked up.

Your face fell a little at the question, not wanting to answer it again. “Oh you know… it was good. A great learning experience.”

He picked up on your bypassed tone. “Oh… did something happen?”

Suddenly, flashes of broken bottles, a messy room and red lights flashed through your head. You took a step away from him. 

“No. Nothing at all. Like I said, it was great.” You forced a little smile. “My Japanese is pretty good now.”

As if sensing your troubled thoughts, Jimin hummed in disapproval. His face was tinged with concern as he said “If something happened, you can tell us.” Great. An interrogation session was clearly in the making.

Abruptly, Namjoon turned from the bonesaw and shot Jimin a warning look. “Min, if you have time to chit-chat, you have time to help Jin or Hoseok.”

Jimin made a face. “But I’m talking to Y/N. We have so much to catch up on.” 

The butcher's shoulders squared in irritation. Running a hand through his silver locks he stopped what he was doing completely. “Go help your hyungs or go back to the register. There’s too many of us back here and hardly any room.”

“No fair! You guys get to spend all day with her, and I have to sit up front all by myself!” 

“Yeah, we’re pretty lucky.” Taehyung waggled his thick brows towards you.

Namjoon pinched his nose and shut his eyes to ease the headache he was getting. “Don’t make me call Jin over here.”  

“You’re no fun! I hope you cut your fingers!” Jimin stuck out his tongue. “Seriously, you always cut your fingers. It’s beyond me why Jin hyung trusted you as our butcher” He pointed at the array of band-aids that littered Namjoon’s hands. 

“At least I’m helping them out! Someone has to cut the meat around here, and I don’t see you volunteering.” 

Jimin turned a little green at the thought. “I’m just saying. Lose a finger and you’ll never be able to properly hold a knife again.”

“Fuck off.”

Jimin’s lip quivered. “When did you become so mean?”

You waved your hands at your two bickering coworkers in an attempt to dissipate the negative aura, wishing someone would come to your rescue. As if on cue, Hoseok’s head appeared through the little aperture between the back office and the deli, arms full of leafy greens. 

“Jimin, don’t you have a register to monitor?” He raised an eyebrow. 

Jimin bowed his head in defeat, knowing he didn’t stand a chance against the gardener. You felt relief wash over you. “Yes hyung…” 

With a quick glance back at you, his little body scuttled away to resume his job. A twang of guilt struck you.

Following suit, you squatted down by the sandwich counter and pulled out rolls of bread from orange crates. You placed them on top of the work surface so that you, Taehyung and Yoongi would be prepared for the next rush of orders. It was a quarter past 3:00. 

You thought about Jimin’s question, feeling bad for blowing him off like that. He’d always been so kind to you--warm and welcoming--and right then you felt like a raging bitch. 

I wish people would stop asking me that question. 

As you were pulling out the last bunches of bread, a blur of ebony and white caught your attention. 

“I’m a chef!” Taehyung announced, crouching beside you. Startled, you nearly dropped a sandwich roll. 

He adorned the pickle box on his head, indeed looking like he wore a chefs hat made of cardboard. He flashed you a toothy grin.

“The fuck?” Yoongi looked up and sniggered. 

Taehyung danced around the deli with the box on his head, not bothering to remove it when the next slew of customers arrived at the counter. He wiggled his hips and sprung about full of energy, causing a mixed reaction from the people up front.

A part of you knew he was trying to cheer you up.

You stifled a snort of amusement. “I wonder about the way your mind works, Tae.”

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Around 3:30, Jin appeared from the office. 

“Y/N, can you help me with something?” 

You were on the ground with Yoongi, reading over his shoulder as he typed away lyrics passionately on his phone. The market had gone completely quiet, so you had seized the opportunity to bond with him.

Taehyung had gone back to doodling, the cardboard box completely forgotten, and Namjoon disappeared outside about five minutes ago. Probably to smoke.

“Sure.” You said. You stood up and brushed some bread crumbs off your clothes. 

“Follow me.”

Jin led you outside past Hoseok’s garden and over to a small freezer-truck parked adjacent to the back of the store. The air looked wavy and greasy as it came up from the ground. The heat hung heavy in the treetops, weighing down the leaves so that the only movement was that of automobiles, pulling out from the parking lot and roaring down the streets. Boiling and humid, it was summer at its most stifling. 

Jin took out his keys--no key fob, you noticed, but plenty of keys. Your own keyring had two keys and a fob shaped like a cat. You wondered if your keyring said something about you. 

He opened the door. The two of you stepped inside, the plastic flaps of the entryway hitting your face as a waft of cool air pricked the hairs on your skin. There were rows of boxes filled with produce and dairy; a storage unit used for things that weren’t yet needed on the market shelves. Jin stood next to a huddle of large boxes filled to the brim with juicy red strawberries that Hoseok had picked from his garden. 

The storekeeper gestured towards them. “I need you to take these strawberries and put them on the top shelf of the walk-in so they can defrost.” 

You eyed them closely, wondering why he hadn’t asked Taehyung or Yoongi. They looked pretty weighty but you thought you could handle some considerable lifting.

“Sure. No problem.” You said, bending down to pick one of them up. You were right in your assumptions. They were heavy as fuck. 

Jin brushed a perfect strand of ebony hair away from his face, a grateful look graced his delicate features. “Thanks. Hobi has been nagging about it all day.” 

“My pleasure.” You smiled. 

If you were being completely honest, you’d do practically anything for Jin. Your little crush on your boss was a bit embarrassing, but you’d come to terms with it. Shoulding the box with gusto, you turned to leave.

“Oh, and also.” He stopped you. “I meant to ask. How was Japan?” 

You gritted your teeth and swallowed thickly. You hadn’t wanted to lie to Jimin, but you really didn’t want to lie to Jin. 

You flashed him a weary smile. “It was awesome.” You fibbed for the third time today.

Jin nodded his head with a knuckle to his chin, less sensitive to your hesitance than Jimin and Hoseok had been. “That’s good to hear. Make any new friends?”

“Yeah.” 

“Meet anyone special?” 

“No.” 

Jin’s expression changed. Was that a look of relief on his face? You blinked, suspicious that your eyes had played a trick on you. You never thought Jin to be the bashful type, but in that moment he looked particularly shy. 

Not pressing any further, Jin put a hand on your elbow and stretched his pretty red lips into a soft smile, eyes glittering. “We really missed you.”

Your heart fluttered at his confession, a peaceful feeling returned to your body. 

“I really missed you too.” Fucking freudian slip.

The shopkeeper’s face turned pink. Suddenly wanting to look away, you turned your attention back to the boxes and stared. The box already on your shoulder began to falter since you’d been holding its weight for so long.

Jin followed your eyes and sighed. “Thank you so much. I’d have Jungkook do it, but I already have him making runs to the delivery trucks and bringing those boxes around front.” Ah. It’s delivery day. That explained why you hadn’t seen much of the youngest boy. 

“It’s not a problem. I’m happy to help.”

Although it’s only filled with strawberries, the pressing weight they provided made you breathe hard as you hauled it through the double doors and back into the market. Hoseok looked up from his office chair, a spread of bundled herbs layed out in front of him. 

He waved at you with a bunch of rosemary and chuckled brightly. “Need a hand?”

Not wanting to bother him, you shook your head. “Nope! I got it.”  

“You sure? That looks heavy.”

“Don’t worry Hobi! I’m stronger than I look!” You tucked the box in the crook of your neck and flexed your bicep.

He eyed you skeptically but nodded nonetheless, resuming his work.

You heaved yourself back into the deli. Sweat threatened to drip down your face as you walked in on Taehyung holding a circular plastic container filled with a curious, salmon-pink substance. What was that boy up to now?

“So… what, exactly, did you put in it?” Yoongi asked. He was bending over the sandwich block watching Taehyung with sick intrigue. 

“Potato salad, egg salad, tuna salad, seafood salad, chicken salad, macaroni salad… all the salads!” Taehyung cheered, then paused. “Except for coleslaw.” He shivered in disgust. 

Yoongi sighed nonchalantly. “It’s just gonna taste like mayonnaise.”

The boy simply shrugged, spooning a good amount of the mixture into his mouth and looked on in consideration. You and Yoongi gagged simultaneously. 

Both boys' eyes snapped to you as they finally took notice of your struggling form. Yoongi’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. Taehyung put the container down and smiled at you. 

“Hey Y/N, need some help?” 

You placed the strawberries on the butcher’s block to catch your breath. “Nah. Seriously, I got this. Just gimme a second.”

“I can do it if you want.” Yoongi said, folding his arms over his chest. 

Determined to finish the job by yourself, you raised a hand and waved off the offer. “I can do this.” 

“Alright, well, I’ll get the door.” He pushed himself off the counter and turned to open the walk-in. 

You hummed in appreciation. Lifting the box again, you hauled both it and yourself through the waiting door. A cold breeze coursed beneath your flesh. 

Yoongi held it open, watching you with slitted eyes as you stood on your tippy-toes and tried to place the box on the top shelf. It began to wobble in your hands. You grunted, your arms begging to give and you realized too late that you were too short. The box doubled back and suddenly, you felt yourself go with it. Your heart began to hammer in your chest, dread washed over you as you anticipated your fall. 

There was a click of the door shutting closed as two hands shot out from behind you and steadied the box, which consecutively steadied you. 

“Careful.” Yoongi warned. 

Your eyes widened. 

He was really close. His hard pectorals pressed up against you and it was then you realized how strong his body was. You could feel his quickened heart thumping, which only aided in the increase of your own pulse. He smelled like mint. 

Your ears burned red despite the cold. 

Yoongi helped you push the box onto the top shelf, hands enveloping yours. His fingers were long and elegant, a couple silver rings sheathed around them. You noticed lengthy veins that protruded through his skin and you gulped. Even though the box had already been shelved, he didn’t move away. 

“Uh. T-thanks.” You stuttered.

“Yup.” 

Finally he backed up and removed his hands. You turned around slowly and met his eyes. Yoongi’s face was equally flushed. After a moment of awkward silence, you found your voice again.

“W-we should… uh… head back out. Jin has more boxes that need to be moved.” 

He rubbed his neck and averted his gaze, but nodded slowly. 

Together, the two of you soundlessly turned to exit the fridge, anxious to get out of the cold. You willed your heart to slow, feeling embarrassed that you let the moment get to you. 

You reached out and grabbed the handle. 

Whether it was from your spaztic sensitivity or the way your hands shook, Namjoon’s previous warning had escaped you as you pulled it way too hard. 

The handle snapped off and fell to the floor with a rambunctious ‘clang.’ For a long moment you just stared at each other. 

“Fuck.”

You and Yoongi were undoubtedly trapped inside.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Next⤏

[noncommited-writer]

Peter is an intern at SI, the Tower, and wins an employee raffle for a few hours with Tony (who doesn't know Peter is Spiderman)?

What the fuck. I actually went all out with this one. I have no idea how this suddenly became a 2.6k word fic!!???????? I'm concerned and confused. But hope you enjoy anyway!

Peter had no idea what dumb impulse he had to drive him to do this. But he guesses this is the price for letting his dumb ass hormonal brain take over his decisions. This being, taking part in an office raffle that he had no plans of winning or even think he’d get a chance to win. The prize is a few hours with their CEO, the Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man.

For some reason, the raffle extended to the interns too (which shouldn’t surprise Peter. Interns at this company are treated amazingly) so that means everyone who is twenty and naively hopeful, threw in their name into a box, on the off-chance they would get chosen out of the hundreds of employees in this building to meet the one man they all admire.

He had throw his own name in on impulse, driven by his daydreams of spending a day with his handsome boss. Yes, Peter admits he is harbouring a huge crush on the billionaire, but he reckons it’s no big deal because it seems everyone here does too.

That is, until the winner is announced across the PA systems all throughout the ten office floors in the tower. Peter felt like sinking into the ground when his name was called out, even more so when he meets the jealous gazes of the other interns. When they tell him to meet Tony Stark on the penthouse floor, Peter felt like he was on fire.

He does his best not to burrow into his sweatshirt when he walks across the silent office, everyone’s eyes piercing through him. Peter heaves a breath of relief when the elevator doors close behind him.

“Mr. Parker?”

Peter jumps, his hands waving in the air as he spins in the empty elevator.

“My name is Friday. I am Mr. Stark's artificial intelligence in charge of controlling this tower.” Peter immediately forgets about his sudden scare, now staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes and a barely contained smile.

“Woah, that is so cool! Did Mr. Stark make you?”

“Yes. He used a rudimentary A.I. base as the building blocks to my personality. From there, I basically grow into my own person.”

“Holy crap, that is amazing! I knew Mr. Stark is brilliant but I didn’t know that he was able to create an A.I. fully capable of expanding her own mind and growing like an actual human being! You are extraordinary. I bet Mr. Stark is proud of you.”

Silence greets Peter in the elevator, and he shifts anxiously on his feet. He wonders if he’s crossed a line with talking about Mr. Stark. Maybe he was being rude?

“Um, Ms. Friday? Are you okay? Did I talk too much?”

“Just Friday, Peter. I… I’m okay. No, Peter, you’re okay. I’m just… processing.” Peter frowns. Did he break Mr. Stark’s A.I.?

“No one but boss has ever spoken like that to me before.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m an actual person.” She pauses. “Thank you, Peter.” The teenager flushes immediately, taking notice of how she is now using his first name.

“Uh, no problem. I just thought about how crazy amazing it is that Mr. Stark created what is basically a human conscience. It’s what anyone would do.”

Friday snorts and Peter had to backtrack and stop his mouth from gaping because he’s pretty sure that’s a very human reaction. “You’d be surprised. Even though many people here are interested in technology, not many have the capacity to care for it like Boss does.”

“I get what you mean. Have you heard of the printer incident with that intern from about a week ago?”

——

Tony has seen many things. The bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the good. Many of which leaning over to the former. It is a cruel world after all.

So maybe it’s because he hasn’t seen many good things in his life that it stops him in his tracks when he sees the most good—pure—and gorgeous thing in his life. Even in a ratty grey sweatshirt, he still finds himself fixated on the pretty little thing babbling along excitedly like a puppy with Friday which—hold on, Tony hasn’t even gotten over his looks to unpack that yet.

It’s the years of putting on masks and faking confidence he has under his belt that he’s able to stand up from his lab table and walk over with an air of suavity, somehow surprising himself he’s not tripping over his feet from those doe eyes that look so much better up close.

The way the kid stands up straighter and turns pink at how he gets caught with rambling to Friday is probably the most endearing thing Tony has ever seen.

“I take it you’re the lucky winner of the raffle,” Tony starts, reaching out his hand for a firm shake. The kid’s hand is warm and almost shaking with nerves as he takes it, “Yup! But I didn’t really expect to win. I kind of… joined on impulse.”

Tony only grins at that. He doesn’t step away from the kid, just looking him from head to toe after sliding his hands into his pockets.

If it’s even possible, the kid seems to turn even more pink, blinking owlishly at Tony. “Peter Parker, right?”

Peter nods slowly, and suddenly Tony’s head is filled with all sorts of ideas on how spend those hours with this bright-eyed intern. He doesn’t have much time after all, so Tony’s got to make every second count.

He gestures to the lab table, “Welcome to my man-cave. Or you can call it my safe haven.”

Peter trails after Tony further into the penthouse lab, his wide eyes taking everything in. Just when Tony is about to introduce his new baby (Mark L, a sexy little thing Tony has spent the last few days in his workshop trying to reconfigure) to Peter only to get cut off by, “Is this nanotech?”

Tony nods, waving a hand over the holographic screen and steps closer to Peter. “Yup. This baby is almost done, almost perfect down to the T. But there’s this one issue I can’t seem to get rid of. Every time I keep trying to activate it, it just does the opposite.”

Peter scans the thin lines of coding. “Are they activated through mental manipulation?”

Tony hums, watching as Peter’s brows furrow. The intern reaches up with his fingers to zoom in on a small part of the coding. Peter snaps his fingers, eyes going wide. “That’s because you’re scanning the cerebrum. I’m guessing you did the same for your other suits?”

The genius can only nod, more curious of where this is going. “You have to scan the cerebellum. Because it’s nanotech, the technology acts more intimately with your brain, almost like it’s a part of you, so you have the scan the part of the brain that controls movements like it’s another limb.”

Tony pauses, watching this pretty thing—smart too!—explain to him his mistake and somehow, it turns Tony on in all the best ways. He’s close enough to smell the faint scent of strawberries in Peter’s hair. Not creepy at all, Stark.

“Let’s see if your theory is correct, Parker. I bet lunch if this doesn’t work.”

The gorgeous intern only smirks, “I guess you’ll owe me a burger, Mr. Stark.”

——

Tucked in a small booth in the corner of a burger joint, the two men go off in tangents talking about their love of technology, their half eaten burgers forgotten in favour for each other’s attention.

The moment Peter starts rambling about how fascinating it is that Stark Industries has started using their renewable energy in other areas like cleaning water, Tony can only stare in amazement as this ball of energy showers him in praise and awe. The way those words spill out of his mouth giving Tony all the wrong ideas on how to spend the rest of the four hours they have together.

Just when Peter is about to digress to other ways Stark Industries can help the environment, the younger man goes rod stiff, eyes going hazy. Tony watches with worried eyes as the man stands up abruptly, almost tipping the entire table over. “Mr. Stark, I gotta—I gotta go, someone’s calling me.”

He turns on his heels and races out the door without hearing Tony’s muttering of, “Your phone’s not even buzzing.”

Tony tips generously and rushes out of the restaurant, following Peter’s footsteps. The moment he’s out on the asphalt, though, he feels the ground shiver. He turns to the different of a loud rumbly sound that echoes through the streets of Manhattan. He sees a large brute in a metal suit at the end of the street, a sharp pointy weapon at the top of his head, reminiscent of a horn, smashing through rows of cars and vehicles, shoving them to the buildings as if they weigh nothing.

Rhino.

Tony curses when he realises the one time he leaves his suit at home is the time he needs it the most. He taps his glasses. “Friday. ETA for the Mark L.”

“Seven minutes, Boss. By the time the suit is here—”

“Rhino would’ve done enough damage to the city already. Shit.” Tony stands up on his tip toes to look through the throngs of screaming civilians, trying to spot a head of curly brown hair. “Goddamnit, Parker. Where did you go?”

Tony knows he’s no match to the large beast, but he can’t stand idly to the side, especially when Peter is out there and possibly in danger. He pushes through the crowds, helping up the people who are getting trampled in the stampede and telling Friday to keep him updated on the suit.

Rhino is smacking cars left and right, endangering the people still inside and the people in the buildings the cars are landing on. Tony grits his teeth. He may not be able to fight him—hell, he’ll probably even die from doing this—but he has to try and buy time for the people to escape.

For once, he’s grateful for his lack of self-preservation skills when he walks into the middle of the road. “Hey, Horn guy! You mind getting off the street? You’re making the traffic worse!”

The large man drops the car he’s holding, his stormy eyes now trained on Tony who gulps. On second thought…

“Yeah, maybe you don’t know, but destroying cars is pretty expensive. Ever heard of car insurance? They’ll hate you.”

The loud deep chuckle he gives is enough to make the hair on Tony’s neck stand up, “Ha. Stark. Too dumb to hold get your suit?”

“I’d say I don’t think you’re even worth my suit. And… Is that a Russian accent I’m hearing? How’s the weather over there? I hear it’s too cold for a Rhino to reside in. Is that why you’re terrorising my city right now?”

Rhino spits on the ground, teeth grinding. “You talk too much. Like little annoy spider.”

Tony’s brows furrow as he mutters ‘spider’? Only for his thought process to be cut short when Rhino starts sprinting full speed in his direction. There’s barely enough time to roll out of the way, avoiding getting trampled to death by his large heavy feet.

“Okay,” Tony grounds out. He steps back into the middle of the street again. “I think you need to go see an eye doctor. I’ve never seen anyone miss that badly.”

The scream of anger is loud and suddenly, Rhino is facing him again, his arms out and wide. Tony knows he won’t have enough time to run away and with that realisation, he stands frozen to the ground, eyes getting wider and wider as he sees the giant run towards him.

Just when he’s about to run under his large arm, he sees a flash of red and feels a hard weight bulldoze into him. Suddenly, he’s in the air and a built arm is wrapped around his waist. “Phew. That was a close one. Don’t worry, sir, I’ve got you.”

He cranes his head to meet the blank stare of white lenses. “Spiderling?”

“Mr. Stark? Ah, that explains the whole screaming in the street like you want to die.” Tony huffs a relieved laugh.

“Didn’t know you swing around these parts.”

He feels the subtle nudge of his shoulder when the hero shrugs, “I swing around wherever there’s trouble.”

“Are you going bankrupt or did you just forget your suit at home?” The man asks.

“Left it. It’s coming soon.” They swing over a rooftop, and Tony is surprised by the almost gentle way Spider-Man sets him on the ground. “While I go stop Rhino, I suggest you wait for suit so you don’t run into the streets like you’re asking for it, Mr. Stark.”

I guess you’ll owe me a burger, Mr. Stark.

Tony’s brows raise. It’s the same exact way Peter pronounces his name. With that slight excited intonation and high pitchedness to it; he can imagine the way his lips pucker when he says ‘Stark’. He doesn’t know what goes over him when he sees the man about to leave. He grips onto his wrist, pulling Spider-Man back close into his personal space. Leaning in, he mumbles, “Thanks. I appreciate it, Spider.”

His Adam’s apple bobs up and down under his skin tight suit, and Tony is overwhelmed with the urge to peel away the spandex to plant his lips on that pale skin. “N-No problem, Mr. Stark.”

Tony’s smile is wide and almost wolfish, letting go of the man and stepping back. He already knows what he needs to know. He smelled those strawberries even through his mask.

Peter Parker.

It doesn’t take too long for his suit to arrive. He quickly flies over to the destruction, webs splattered all over the area. He can see Peter swinging from building to building, avoiding the thrown car parts at him, sometimes even catching them himself and throwing it back at the ruthless brute. Tony flies over next to him, shooting a blast to Rhino’s face, distracting him enough.

“I wonder where you get the time to do this and the internship.”

The hiss of surprise from Peter makes Tony smirk under the faceplate. “Was I that obvious?”

“Only when you kept saying Mr. Stark. Also, your strawberry shampoo was a dead giveaway.”

Peter looks at him over his shoulder, his cheeks rising under his mask. “My shampoo?”

Tony backtracks, “Uh, not that I sniffed you out or anything—it’s a pretty strong smell.”

Peter was about to respond, only to be cut off when a piece of rubble is thrown his way. Peter yells, “Talk later.”

They make quick work of Rhino, with Tony blasting him until his on his back and Peter webbing his large body up. They work seamlessly, as if years of practise made them fight like this. Tony isn’t sure what to feel about that.

When the cops arrive, both Tony and Peter get up on a rooftop building, conversation hidden and private. Peter is still trying to catch his breath, slumping against the ledge.

“So. My shampoo gave me away, huh?”

Tony resists the urge to look bashful. “It was a very distinct smell.”

Peter just laughs, throwing his head back. Tony doesn’t let the embarrassment get to him, however and quickly gives out a comment he knows will throw Peter off.

“Since we only have about two hours left together.”

“Yeah?”

“Can you show me how much of that flexibility is real and not just from the adrenaline?”

Peter stares hard at him through the mask, his eye lenses going wide. Tony swallows hard and shifts his weight on his other leg. The air is heavy and electrified, their hearts beating loudly and fast, almost in sync with each other. Tony retracts his helmet, his heady dark eyes roaming down Peter's defined body with a greedy glint, jaw ticking as his mind whirls of filthy thoughts that surprise even him. Peter doesn’t back down, however and somehow, Tony knows that whatever Peter says next will change his life.

“Only if you show me that your hands are as capable as they were during the fight.”

Tony isn’t the type to let people down with his abilities, and neither is Peter.

[peaches-of-1]

Peachtober | Day 14: Overgrown

Black!Reader x Monster Woo

Summary: Monster Woo is a simple man who sells flowers for a living and you are an Instagram photographer. Your models’ faces are better known than you yourself, but Woo wants to see what’s behind the camera.

Genre: Fluff

Moodboard and reaction requests open! Mstrlst in bio!

During a sunny Spring Day, a new shipment of flowers come in at 꽃벌 (play on words of flower and bee). It is the largest one since it is the start of the season. Valentine's Day is long gone, and White Day was a hit. All of the red and white roses being 70% of the seasonal inventory and now going back to its regular 40% since roses would sell no matter what season or occasion.

Youngwoo rolled up his burgundy sleeves to help the part time worker carry large sacks of fertilizer and dirt into the back while she balanced seedlings and vases under her arms and even atop her coily buzzcut.

“Naveah, once you’re done bringing in all the pots, can you start organizing them please?” He asked.

“Sure, Big Daddy.” She replied.

The tall man sighed, “I told you to stop calling me that.”

Naveah just smiled in response and continued to carry the rest of the product until the truck was empty. Then she began sorting pots by height and material while Woo worked on answering calls and writing down some new clients and jobs they were wanted for. A few weddings, a birthday, two divorce parties. One he turned down because they were planning on burning flowers, and he could never imagine putting his beautiful gifts through that.

A young woman about 20 or older came in dressed in purple slacks, heels to match, and a white shirt. Her typha colored hand reaching into her purse for her phone to check if she was at the right location.

She entered the store and Woo told the woman on the phone, “One second.”

“Hello.”

“Hello, I am Y/N and I run a photography blog. I was wondering if you would be interested in hiring me to take pictures of your flowers for advertising. I have experience with both still life and live models.” She said, setting her card down on the desk.

Woo picked it up and read the Hangul and the English translation. She was a photographer for sure.

“Why does your name seem so familiar?”

She gave a smile, “A few of my models have walked during Seoul Fashion Week this past bit cuz they saw my photos.”

He smiled, “Ah, right. It seems like  with a face like yours, you would be the one in front of the camera.”

Y/N began to blush, “Oh, um. Thank you.”

The two just stared at each other and smiled for a moment before she spoke up.

“Well, I should get going. You have a phone call to get back to.”

Woo nodded, “Oh, right. Yes. It was nice meeting you and I will be in contact.”

The woman left and the florist finished the call, thankful they hadn't hung up. Y/N...jeez she was beautiful.

The sound of a glass vase breaking snapped the tall man out of his daze. He sighed and called out the worker's name before heading over to get the broom to hand to her.

After work, Woo locked up and said farewell to his worker before taking a taxi home. Before going to bed, he looked up the Instagram page that was on the card Y/N gave him.

She was really good. Like, it was so much better than he had expected. Pictures of flowers in vases and people and so many beautiful faces. A lot of her stuff was currently flower based. It seemed she didn’t delete the stuff from her early days either. The camera quality had gome up so much too. Woo couldn’t help but like one of them that made him think of a tattoo. Wait, no.

It was from 4 years ago! She was going to think he was a creep! No, no. Y/N wouldn’t do that, right? It was just a possible employer checking out an employee’s past work to see if it would affect his current business. He made up his mind. Woo would hire the beautiful black girl to work for his company. All of his current photos were taken by him and Naveah, so they weren’t that great. If they could up the photo quality of the inventory, then they would sell more.

The large man soon fell asleep thinking about what floral arrangements he would make for each tier. Each one was linked with a color, so he could make it monochrome. Or maybe most of that color. Y/N looked really cute in purple. Hair like an allium.

The next day at the shop, Youngwoo called her while setting up the flowers he would use for this week’s specialty arrangement.

“Hello, this is Photobomb Productions, Y/N speaking.” She said in English and then repeated it in Korean.

Woo smiled, “Hello. This is Youngwoo from 꽃벌. I would like to take you up on your offer of becoming our floral photographer. I have been meaning to take some new pics for some summer deals.”

He could hear her squaling out of excitement in the background and then she cleared her throat and talked professionally, “That is great to hear. What day or time would the photographic subjects be ready for me to photograph?”

“Today is Friday, so I will be busy all weekend. I can get them done by either Tuesday or Wednesday since I already have sketches. All I have to do it put them together.”

“Perfecto! How does Tuesday at 2pm sound?” Y/N asked.

Woo looked at his schedule, “I have a delivery at 1:30 in the afternoon, but I will probably have my worker handle that one.”

“I see. Alright, well, I will see you then. Do not hesitate to call me if we have to move it to Wednesday. Have a nice day.”

“You too.” Woo replied and the woman hung up.

“Who was that, Big Daddy?” his worker asked, carrying in a box of seeds to set up in the seed bin near the front.

He rolled his eyes, “That woman who came in yesterday. A photographer. She’s gonna take photos for us from now on. I’m gonna be up late drafting up a contract and then we’ve gotta--” The tattooed florist sighed. “I shouldn’t bore you with technicalities. Let’s get these arrangements done.”

“Let me bring over the vases.” The short haired woman said.

Woo looked at the workbench, “Neveah, where are the Calla Lilies?” he asked after her.

“We had two weddings that wanted them, so we are getting an emergency shipment in, but not until tomorrow.” She replied, making sure the seed packets fell flat before adding more on.

He nodded, “Right. Right. Um…” then he remembered the thought he had last night and went to a sky blue bucket and picked out a bulbous purple flower with a long stem. “We’ll use these today instead.”

And so for the next few minutes before the sign was flipped, the two made matching arrangements. Neveah had always wanted to do more now that her probation was up. Woo’s shop was known for flowers and arrangements, served weddings of all types and even funerals. The most important thing about it was who it employed, however. Former convicts and people who were needed someplace to work while on probation.

Youngwoo believed that everyone deserved a second chance and that humans could change, which is why he hired who he did.

“Ah, it didn’t come out as well as yours.” Neveah said as hers had a bit of a bend in the long stem and just seemed overall more messy than the one her boss made.

“Don’t worry about it. This is only the third one you’ve ever made, so I think you did really well. In fact, yours will go on the box instead of mine so people will see it first.” The man set hers onto the white wooden box in the window and placed his next to it.

Dark pink roses and sunflowers graced the top of the white vase with solid aster placed in here and there. The allium rested above each one like a proud head. They would stay in the front for the week and then they would be dead and turned into compost for a nearby flower nursery.

The woman smiled and then it was time to flip the sign. Business didn’t pick up until around lunch which was the usual thing. People buying either a single flower or a dozen on the way to a date. When Neveah left for the day, Yieun clocked in and hugged Woo having started this business together before she tried and failed to become an idol.

“Is the car filled up yet? Remember, I have to drop off some stuff for a business meeting and a 16th birthday today.” She said.

“It’s all packed up and ready to go. Feel free to double check, but it had been pretty quiet today.” He replied. “Ah, are there business cards still inside?”

Tuesday came, and Woo was nervous to see her again. They had talked over the phone for the past couple of days to finalize things. Y/N was really kind but he could tell how much her work meant to her. It was a small business that she was ultimately running on her own and often didn’t get paid for her time because people hardly ever took the arts seriously. Photography was no exception.

People thought it was just sitting in good lighting, point and click, which it wasn’t.

Woo had three different arrangements made for each color level. White, green, purple, and yellow. Each added the amount of flower types and the default price was a clear glass vase. A custom vase color/type would cost $3 extra. The second and third were in custom vases and set up in the workshop.

It was extra clean for today and there were no arrangements to be made. Mondays through Wednesdays were the slowest of the slow most of the time. That meant today was perfect for Y/N to come in.

She arrived right on time in a yellow long sleeve top tucked into a rainbow skirt and white and rainbow shoes. Rainbow accessories too, but carrying a duffle bag of work stuff.

Yieun was out on her current delivery, so Woo fixed his brows and hair before greeting her with a poliot bow.

“Hello, Y/N. How are you doing today? Have you eaten?” He asked.

“I am doing well, and yes I have. I went to a taco place. It was good, but the sauce stained the jacket I was wearing.” The woman sighed, tying her hair back before she set up everything.

It wasn’t the most glamorous thing, but Woo asked if he could watch. She said as long as he stayed behind the camera, it was ok. However, the man wasn’t watching the flowers, but instead watched how she worked. The way she bent over to get a better angle from her tripod and set up the lights.

She seemed so delicate, like she herself was a rose petal in need of much care. However, they way she pursed her lips seemed to go perfectly like thorns. The man knew she wasn’t thinking about him. Her eyes were on the flowers, but at the same time, Y/N was all he could think about for the past week.

Sometimes his imagination would try to run away with the idea of her, but that wasn’t fair to her. He barely knew her last name.

The shy and strong Woo was enchanted by the photographer. Ah, he wanted to say something to her. To ask her out, but she was so professional. This was just work for her, and he didn’t want to get in the way of her job. Still, wasn’t it worth a chance to at least get a proper answer instead of wondering “What if?”

“No, no.”

“Um, Youngwoo? Can you help raise this up a bit more?” She reached her brown hand towards the top of the light.

As the taller man helped her, he decided to just go for it, “Hey, um, Y/N. Feel free to say no, but I was um. I was wondering if you would possibly maybe want to go on a sort of kind of date with me?”

“Oh, um, sure. Right there is good.”

Woo tightened the stand, and she began taking pictures again.

“What kind of place were you thinking?” She asked. “Y’know, for our date? Dinner and a movie?”

“I’d like to take you on a picnic. I know it’s sort of cliche, but Han River is really nice and there’s usually some nice busking that goes on there.” He said was her felt his heart beat outside of his chest, “I am leaving the shop to Yieun and a part timer this weekend. We can do it then.”

Y/N smiled up at him as she stood on the other side of the arrangement, “Sounds like a plan, Youngwoo. I shall wear a dress.”

“You can wear anything you want. I’m sure you’ll look great.” The man answered earnestly.

A surprised smile before Yieun called for him. Woo said he’d be right back and went to go talk to his co-worker about what had to be done. It wasn’t much. Just a bit of organizing here and there and sweeping. Simple things that took a while.

“By the way~” She whispered. “Did you ask her out? Niveah said she’s all you talk about.”

“I did.” He replied, playing coy.

“And? Did she say yes?”

A smile broke out on his face, “She did.”

Yieun put her hands up for a high five and asked for details one their hands met in celebration.

The following days, Woo kept sending his friend photos for potential outfits. She kept telling him to ditch the dress shirts because he looked awkward in them. It was just a casual thing, so he went with some gray sneakers, khakis, and a black and white striped top. Because of the pollen forecast, he opted out of contacts and just wore his glasses. The most expensive thing he wore was his gold watch from a birthday.

He had decided on a simple picnic instead of the ferry for dinner. Maybe if things went well, but he didn't wanna look too far ahead. He knew of a spot away from the main busy area where a few weeping willows provided the perfect shade.

“Youngwoo-ssi!” Her familiar voice called.

The man was breathless as could be as Y/N walked towards him, her copper skin covered in a blue and white dress that allowed for her arm to be bare except for a gold and white bracelet. Simple makeup other than a pink matte lip that accented her smile.

They bowed and greeted each other.

“You look...amazing.” He couldn’t help but stared.

“Thank you. You look great, too. I think this is my first time seeing you without an apron on.” She replied.

Woo smiled in response, “Thank you. I have a super special spot for us. A friend told me about it.”

She smiled, “Sounds great.”

“Have you had any other clients lately?” He asked.

“Oh my gosh, so I had this really sweet woman come in yesterday with her pregnant wife so that we can do the pregnancy announcement pictures and stuff. This is fine. I had it set up and such for that because she made an appointment.”

The tall man smiled, “Oh, that is really nice.”

“However, she went into labor in the middle of me taking the photos.”

“She what?”

“Right?

Woo asked, “Did she not know she was going to give birth?”

Y/N shrugged dramatically, “I guess not, but luckily, my next door neighbor is in her last year of training to become a nurse. She helped to deliver the baby in my bathtub.” She laughed. “I spent most of the day cleaning it.”

Both of them laughed at the whole story. That’s what it was like to have an at home studio as a photographer.

“Ah, here it is.”

Behind the leaves of a willow tree, there was a perfect little alcove where a red gingham blanket was spread out and food was separated between the two in the form of sandwiches. Conversation flowed smoothly as the overgrown tree provided shade for the couple that fate decided to put together. They talked about work and of family.

Kim Youngwoo blushed when she complimented him on being a good person, taking in people society had rejected because of a series of bad mistakes.

He told her about how he just wanted to help people like him, how the U.S. basically deported him back to Korea because of--

“I don’t care what you did, Youngwoo.” Y/N said honestly. “You’re obviously not the same person you were back then, or at least you are doing much better. Besides, that isn’t the person I’m starting fall for.”

“Who are you starting to fall for?” Woo asked, hoping his heart was beating for all the right reasons.

She bit her lip and then looked up at him after hesitating to say the truth, “You.”

[sareyen]

A Machine Without Feelings: A Jane Eyre AU (Part 5/11)

Read on ao3

Chapter 5

It was midday on a Tuesday when Moira interrupted Charles’s lesson with Peter, the boy being allowed an early tea time.

“What is it, Moira?”

“Someone has come to visit you, and they are currently waiting in the foyer. A Mrs Katherine Hudson, I believe,” Moira said, Charles crinkling his nose, the name unfamiliar to him. Charles did not have a wide social circle, the only people who would call on him residing in either Westchester or Graymalkin – and they would rarely have a need to call upon him in person.

“I do not know of any Hudsons, let alone a Katherine Hudson. Did she say where she has travelled from?”

“She said that she knew you when you were a boy. She introduced herself as Mrs Hudson, but she did mention that you used to call her ‘Kitty’.”

Charles’s eyes widened as his lips spread into a wide, giddy smile. Kitty had come to visit him, his favourite and most beloved nurse that used to sneak him sweet biscuits and wipe his sweaty brow when he was feverish. She had been Katherine ‘Kitty’ Pryde when Charles had been at Westchester, but that was eight years ago – Kitty must have gotten married to a Mr Hudson, and Charles knew that the man was one lucky bastard.

Charles laughed aloud, feeling lighter than he had been for the past few days, kissing Moira on both cheeks before rushing past. Charles did not spare a glance at the drawing room, where the tinkle of piano music was drifting out of the open door, accompanied by the laughter and chatter of noble gents and ladies.

Charles caught, in the corner of his eye, Erik glancing at him as he brushed past the doorway, but the tutor moved too quickly for Erik to comment on his sudden presence.

“Kitty!” Charles called as he reached the top of the steps leading into the foyer, the woman standing below turning to the sound of the voice, revealing her face. Kitty looked very much the same as the image Charles conjured up in his memories, and barely looked a day older despite eight years having passed. She was dressed in a demure light blue day dress, and her hair was done up in a slightly more fashionable style than what she wore as a maid in Westchester. She held a bonnet with a matching sky-blue ribbon in her hands.

“Master Charles, is that you?” Kitty said, rushing forward as Charles leapt down the stairs, not caring about manners as he lunged towards Kitty, wrapping her up in a tight embrace. Her billowing skirt got in the way a little, and the stiff bodice of her dress pressed uncomfortably against Charles’s chest, but he did not care. Kitty laughed with surprise, but returned Charles’s embrace wholeheartedly.

“My, how you’ve grown! You’re not the little master that I used to know,” Kitty spoke fondly as the two pulled apart, pulling at Charles’s shoulders to make him turn around in a circle so she could inspect him. “You’ve grown into a handsome young man, Charles, but those sparkling blue eyes of yours are still the same. I knew school would do you good.”

“It did. And you, Kitty. I have just heard that I can no longer address your as Miss Pryde. You are Mrs Hudson now, is that correct?” Charles asked, Kitty blushing a little, making Charles’s grin stretch wider, eyes glimmering. “Do tell me, Kitty. Who is this mysterious Mr Hudson?”

“I am indeed Mrs Jimmy Hudson now,” Kitty admitted, showing Charles the simple gold band around her ring finger. “He is a good man, and works as a coachman. He came to work at Westchester a mere few months after you left for school.”

“Congratulations, Kitty,” Charles said, hugging his old nurse – his friend – again. “Oh, I have missed you, Kitty. And all of the others at Westchester.” Kitty warmed at the young master’s words, clasping his hand with hers. Kitty’s touch was still as gentle and comforting as Charles remembered it to be.

“If you really missed us, Master Charles, you would have written to us sooner – I had sent correspondence to Graymalkin where I had heard that you were a teacher, but they said that you had moved on to find new employment! And Ironfield hall is even further away from Westchester than Graymalkin, I’ve been travelling for days to meet you,” Kitty said, touching Charles’s cheek.

“I do apologise, Kitty. Time is a luxury, these days. I’ve been so busy,” Charles apologised, Kitty shaking her head, waving away his words.

“No, no, you need not apologise, Master Charles. I am glad that you have been keeping yourself busy. You are a tutor here, if I have heard correctly. You must enjoy the work immensely.”

“Oh, I do, Kitty,” Charles gushed, thinking about Peter and his smiling face, how his nose crinkled when he struggled on an arithmetic problem or when he tried to recall all of the countries of Europe. “I have but one pupil, but teaching him is very fulfilling. He is quite energetic, and quick-witted, so he keeps me on my toes.”

“I do say that you’ve found your calling,” Kitty said, genuinely happy for her not-so-little master. “And is your employer, the master of this house, a good man?”

Charles faltered a little, but the slight hesitation went unnoticed by Kitty. Charles cleared his throat, nodding.

“Yes, he treats me… appropriately. He is a fair and just master. His other subordinates treat me well, too. You must have met Moira, Mrs MacTaggert, earlier,” Charles said, Kitty nodding.

“Yes, she was lovely. I was truly relieved to find that you are surrounded by agreeable people here, Master Charles,” Kitty said, the two of them knowing that the same could not be said about Westchester. At the reminder of Charles’s former home, Kitty’s exuberance at their reunion dimmed, her expression turning grave. Charles felt apprehension churn in his gut, his brow creasing.

“What is it, Kitty? If you’ve come to visit me, something must have happened. Is everyone at Westchester alright? I can only imagine what must have happened if you are here asking after me now. I do hope no one is dead,” Charles said, growing more nervous as Kitty seemed to try to find words.

“I wish I came under better circumstances, young master, but no. You see, Master Cain Marko has passed. It was yesterday a week, now,” Kitty said. Charles’s mouth dropped open with a shocked pop.

The name from his past sent a series of shockwaves coursing through Charles’s body, and for a moment, it was like he had a bout of severe vertigo. When everything righted itself, Charles looked at Kitty carefully.

“And how does his father, I mean, my step-father bear it?” Charles asked, knowing that Kurt considered Cain the sole heir to the Marko-Xavier fortune. Now that Cain was dead, Charles could only imagine the state Kurt must be in.

“Why you see, young master, it was not a common mishap; Master Cain’s life has been very wild, and these last three years he has given himself up to strange ways. Drinking, gambling, unsavoury acts. It was no secret. His death was shocking, but it did not come as a shock,” Kitty said, dropping her voice and whispering, as if speaking about the dead man would rouse him from the grave.

“Unsavoury acts?”

“Yes. Master Cain associated himself will all manner of ill folk, and got into debt and thrown into jail. Of course, his father helped him out on multiple occasions, but he was not strong of head or heart, and fell into his old ways soon enough. They say…” Kitty said, leaning in closer now. “They say he killed himself.”

“Killed himself?!” Charles exclaimed, his voice echoing in the foyer, Kitty wincing. Charles gathered his voice, dropping his speech to a quiet mumble. “If that is the case, I can only guess that my step father is beside himself.”

“That he is, young master. When he found out, he was in a rage for the next two days. His reaction was unlike that of a father losing a son, but not surprising for a man like Kurt Marko. In his rage, though, he seemed to burst something in his brain, and now he is bed-ridden. The doctor says that he does not have much longer to live, now. Which is why I am here. Master Marko does not speak much after being struck with illness, but he keeps saying ‘Charles, Charles’ over and over,” Kitty explained, Charles growing a little pale.

Even after all these years, even when Charles believed that he had moved on from the terror the Markos have stirred up in his life, just the mention of their names sends his gut twisting.

‘No, Charles. You are no longer the ten-year-old Charles Marko. You are not afraid of him. You are Charles Xavier, tutor to Peter Eisenhardt, employee and… equal, of Mr Erik Lehnsherr. You are Charles Xavier, and you are not afraid, and you are not alone.’

“I must go to Westchester,” Charles said, now grasping Kitty’s hand, tapping it as he thought. “We must leave quickly. Westchester is a day or two’s ride from Ironfield, and if Kurt Marko is in such a dire situation as you suggest, then he may even breathe his last breath before we mount a carriage. Kitty, I need to speak with Eri- Mr Lehnsherr about being granted leave, and need to pack a few things.”

“Of course, Master Charles. I can assist with the packing, if Mrs MacTaggert allows me,” Kitty offered, Charles kissing her cheek gratefully. Charles soon found Alex, who was more than happy to find Moira and help Charles pack while he went to speak with Erik.

While Charles had been speaking with Kitty, Erik and his party had left the drawing room and withdrawn outdoors to the gardens. The spring weather was lovely this day, contrary to the gloom surrounding the events at Westchester, and Charles had to shield his eyes from the obscenely bright sun as he made his way outside.

It was not hard to find them, Charles only needing to follow the chorus of obnoxious laughter. Charles found Erik sitting with Miss Frost beneath a vine-covered canopy, the two of them seemingly engaged in conversation. Erik had a small smile on his face, one that was vaguely amused, while Emma returned the look with an elegant curl of her lips. They stared into each other’s eyes, seeming to speak with their gazes and their minds, and Charles had to clear his throat to garner Erik’s attention when he approached.

Charles bit down on the poisonous green monster and tried to kill it. He was not victorious.

Emma smirked a little, tilting her blonde hair to the side as she watched Charles. Her gaze was a little different than usual. She did look at him like he was something she should crush underneath a bejewelled shoe, but regarded him curiously, like she was trying to figure something out.

Erik stood quickly, murmuring something to Emma, who just smiled knowingly and turned away from Charles and Erik to peruse a small novella in her hands.

Erik strode over to Charles, eyebrow raised in that way that asked ‘what is it?’.

“I need to leave Ironfield,” Charles said, Erik freezing. Erik stared at him, jaw set tightly, before roughly grabbing Charles by the elbow and hauling him out of the gardens and back into the large mansion. Erik manhandled Charles into his study, shutting the door behind him, his larger frame blocking Charles’s exit.

“Erik, that was completely unnecessary. Why did you haul me here?” Charles huffed, rubbing his elbow as Erik regarded him carefully. “You were awfully rough about it too.”

“You say that you need to leave Ironfield, and then you ask me this?” Erik retorted hotly, crossing his arms over his robust chest. “Why do you think I reacted like that?”

Charles did not want to think about the answer to that question, his heart thumping.

“Well, that is not the pertinent matter right now. As I was saying before you manhandled me from the gardens in the view of all of your guests, I require a leave of absence, for a week or two,” Charles said, flicking his blue eyes to meet Erik’s, which seemed to dawn with understanding. Charles could see the moment Erik’s tension seeped from his tight shoulders, how he relaxed a little and dropped his crossed arms to his side.

“For a week or two,” Erik mimicked, Charles rolling his eyes a little at Erik’s slowness this afternoon.

“Yes, as I said. A week or two, or longer. It is hard to say.”

“What for? Where are you going?” Erik questioned, stepping away from the door now that he knew that Charles was not running from Ironfield forever, moving past the tutor to sit on the edge of his desk. Charles drank in the image of Erik’s long legs crossing over as he rested his hands on either side of his hips on the desk, muscles flexing beneath his shirt.

“My step-father has summoned me. He is dying,” Charles said simply, shrugging. Erik noticed Charles’s shoulders sink, and he stood from his desk again, coming to stand in front of Charles.

The older man gently nudged Charles’s chin upwards to meet his eyes, which were warm in their icy hue.

“The step-father that disliked you because you are smarter and prettier than him?” Erik asked, Charles letting out a bubbly laugh, one that coaxed a shark-like smile from Erik. The sight of the smile made Charles’s insides melt.

“One and the same,” Charles said, voice gentle.

“Good riddance, then,” Erik said, and despite his rude remark about a dying man, Charles couldn’t help but laugh.

“He’s dying Erik. There is nothing good about it,” Charles chastised half-heartedly, the smile on his face showing Erik that he wasn’t truly mad.

“So you will be gone a week?” Erik asked, Charles shrugging once again. Erik’s hand moved from Charles’s chin to rest against the curve of his shoulder, thumb brushing against the fabric covering his neck.

“A week, maybe more. It is hard to say. Since he is dying, I can’t put a time on that.”

“Then I hope he dies quickly,” Erik muttered, Charles choking on his breath, Erik shooting him a cheeky grin.

“Erik! That is- You- He’s a dying man, Erik!” Charles spluttered, the older man barking out a laugh.

“He is of no importance to me, and from what you have told me about him, you even making plans to visit him is more than he deserves. For what he’s done to you, no one can be mad at me for wishing him a swift death,” Erik said, and Charles didn’t know whether to be afraid, upset or flattered. Maybe a mixture of all three.

“You are incorrigible,” Charles harrumphed, rolling his eyes. “And you owe me wages. I have yet to be paid for my many months of service.”

“How much do I owe you?” Erik asked, stroking his thumb along the slope of Charles’s chin before stepping back, opening a little box on his desk and pulling out some bills.

“Fifteen pounds.”

“Here’s fifty,” Erik said easily, holding out a large sum of cash in front of Charles, the tutor’s eyes bugging out at the sheer number.

“What? No! You only owe me fifteen,” Charles replied stubbornly, Erik grinning.

“You are the first person to not accept a raise in their wages. Come, Charles. Take the money,” Erik said, shaking the bill in front of him again, eyes alight.

“No, you only owe me fifteen, Erik. If you don’t have smaller change, I can receive my wages when I return.” Erik liked the way Charles phrased it, like it was a simple fact that he would come back.

“You need money to travel, Charles. Take it,” Erik said again, a little impatience seeping into his tone now. Charles just rolled his eyes, now crossing his own arms across his chest. Charles did not respond and just stared at Erik challengingly, his employer gritting his teeth and throwing he fifty pounds back into the box and pulling out another slip of paper. “Fine. Then I only have ten.”

“Fine. You can owe me five pounds, then,” Charles said, moving to swipe the cash from Erik’s hand, the man withdrawing it at the last second. Charles scoffed, before saying with a huff, “Really, Erik?”

“You will come back for the other five, won’t you?” Erik asked, more of a promise than a question, lowering his arm so Charles could take the money. When Charles’s fingers pinched the note, Erik’s other arm quickly came forward to latch onto it, holding Charles in place. “You will come back, won’t you, Charles?”

“Yes,” Charles breathed out, Erik squeezing his hands, before letting him go. Charles turned to leave, but before he left Erik’s study, he turned back around, a small smile playing at his face.

“Since you still owe me five, I won’t be going easy on you in our next chess game. You haven’t paid me to let you win, yet,” Charles said, grinning at the sound of Erik’s unabashed laughter than resonated after him as he walked down the hall, already counting down the days until he would return.

Back to Ironfield. And back to Erik.

***

A day’s carriage ride later, Charles pulled in through the heavy metal gates of the Westchester estate.

Westchester was almost exactly the same as how Charles remembered it, but it seemed a lot smaller now. Charles wasn’t sure if it was because he had grown in height (though not by a lot, compared to other boys), or if it was just because he was no longer filled with terror as he walked through the grand halls of his childhood.

Not to say that Charles was not afraid – he was, but it was only his intangible memories that he was scared of. It was only memories of books being slammed over his head, of the way his breaths seemed too loud when he was hiding from Cain, of the eerie creaking in the Red Room that made Charles’s breath sometimes quicken.

But in the present, Charles was not afraid. Cain was no longer stalking the halls of his former home, and Kurt Marko was bedridden and apparently paralysed on the left side of his body. A bleed in the brain, they said, caused by stress, drinking and his robust size.

Kitty touched Charles’s arm and told him she would carry his meagre belongings to his old chambers that the staff had maintained even in his absence. Kitty also informed him that at this time, late in the afternoon, Kurt was usually asleep after having an early supper of watery porridge and lukewarm tea, unable to stomach much else. Charles would have to wait until morning to speak with him, if he lasted through the night.

If anything, the fact that Kurt Marko was still breathing after his near-fatal fit only showed how relentless the man was, clinging to this last thread of life with tenacious will-power. ‘Erik,’ Charles thought, ‘would probably curse the man’s apparent inability to die swiftly.’

With nothing else to do, Charles roamed the empty halls of Westchester. He passed by the room of portraits, lingering a moment in front of the image of his mother and father, labelled ‘Mr and Mrs Brian Xavier’. Beside it was a portrait of Kurt Marko, the man’s large form covering an entire portrait, with no room for much else.

Walking through the room, Charles moved onto the library – it seemed to remain relatively untouched, no one in Westchester being much of an avid reader, not like Charles. The young man ran his fingers over the neatly stored spines of the books, before stopping at ‘Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Pollens’. Charles pulled it out, and saw a little crust of brown at the bottom corner of the book; a little crust of blood that lingered here, even when the wound it came from had long since healed on Charles’s head.

That was much like everything else here at Westchester. Everything was a remnant of times past, stagnant and unchanging. It seemed that only Charles, who had miraculously escaped the estate’s still hourglass, had moved forwards. Charles, and Charles alone.

Charles found his favourite nook, but this time he did not feel the need to draw the curtains to obscure himself. His longer body fit the alcove more snugly than before, knees bent out of necessity rather than comfort, and he leaned against the window as he flicked through the pages of ‘Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Pollens’.

Now that he was more educated, he no longer had to skip the long German words that he did not know, and he did not have to decipher meaning from a mish-mash of pictures and phrases. Charles read the book thoroughly, fingers running over worn pages and faded watercolours, before Kitty found him and called him for supper.

“Will mother be joining us?” Charles asked, Kitty shaking her head.

“You know the mistress,” Kitty replied, Charles nodding and not saying anything further. “But, she has been a bit more lucid as of late. It may be good for you to see her as well, young master, before you go. She is usually best after supper; having something in her stomach usually helps her, so tomorrow evening would be ideal.”

“Thank you, Kitty,” Charles said, the woman smiling as she placed a hearty stew in front of Charles. Unlike before, the stew was thick and full of ingredients, the staff no longer having to try and bypass Marko’s restrictions and able to use whatever they wanted to feed their returning young master.

Everyone was so glad to see that their young Master Charles had grown into a fine young man; short, but boyishly handsome, with rosy cheeks and a vibrant smile. They compared him to the now departed Cain, and the contrast was like night and day.

Charles invited all members of the staff to dine with him, and he regaled them stories of his time at school – only the good memories with Raven, of course – and how his life was at Ironfield. Everyone listened to Charles with rapt attention, their hearts light with the knowledge that their young master had grown to become eloquent and educated, but retaining the same youthful innocence and kindness that they remembered from all those years ago.

Charles returned to his chambers early, body and mind drained from the long journey, but found that he could not drift off to sleep easily even with a full and content belly. His bed was not as comfortable as the one he had in Ironfield, and even though Kitty had lit a substantial fire in his chambers, he felt a little cold.

It was in a moment between wake and sleep that Charles realised that Ironfield was now his home and where he belonged; alongside Moira, Alex and Peter. Beside Herr Lehnsherr. Beside his Erik.

***

While everything at Westchester remained the same, Kurt Marko did not. He looked like a mere shell of the man that he once was, shrivelled and puny and buried in layers of blankets to stave away the cold. He was a shadow of the terrifying figure Charles pictured in his head, and that alone made Charles step towards him confidently the next morning.

Kurt Marko’s eyes watched him, one drifting lazily in the opposite direction, the other one recognising him instantly. Those blue eyes, the floppy and thick brown hair, the smattering of freckles and unnaturally red lips. Kurt Marko would recognise that Xavier boy anywhere, even on his deathbed.

“Hello, step-father,” Charles said evenly, voice deeper and more measured than Kurt Marko remembered it to be. He no longer sounded like the boy who cried out to be released from the Red Room, and Kurt gurgled out a putrid laugh at that.

“You have grown,” Kurt slurred, a little drool dribbling from his lips and down his chin, but he could barely feel it.

“It has been eight years,” Charles replied, the dying man choking on a bitter laugh. “I am not the same person as the boy that was sent off to Graymalkin School.”

“Evidently. A teacher now, are you,” Kurt said, wheezing a little from where he sat semi-supine in his bed, torso propped up with numerous pillows. His hair had grown grey and it was thinning terribly, combed over only to reveal a speckled head creased with wrinkles.

“Yes, and I enjoy it very much,” Charles replied, moving to stand beside his step-father’s bed, taking a towel that Kitty had left beside it to dab at the drool on the man’s face. Kurt looked incensed at the seemingly belittling notion, spluttering something unintelligible at Charles, weakened arms feebly swatting the young man away.

“Why…” Kurt heaved, eyes alive with the flames of hatred, incongruent with the weakness of the rest of his body. Kurt’s body was weak, but his soul was still very much alive, running on the fumes of almost a decade of hatred. “Why must you still live, but Cain… my Cain, my son, be the one buried beneath the ground?!”

“Because I looked after my health, Sir,” Charles said evenly, taking care to remain calm, not wanting to fall to his step-father’s level and give in to the anger simmering beneath his freckled skin. Charles would not be the boy who retaliated against his step-brother and hit him over the head. Charles would not stoop to that level of being ever again.

“Bah! You were always an unnatural child, protected by demons. I sent you to Graymalkin School where I thought you would die. You were supposed to die, of typhus or accident. But no… No… You are still standing here, healthy and blue-eyed, looking like your father, like all the other fucking Xaviers,” Marko spat, Charles frowning. The movement in his face seemed to feed into Marko’s anger, the man grinning at the reaction he caused.

“I know that you do not want to be here. Why would you?” Marko sneered, pushing himself up a bit as his body was wracked by a fit of coughs. Charles held a glass of water to his chin to try and help wet the man’s throat, but he just growled and smacked Charles’s wrist, the glass of water tumbling onto the carpet and staining it dark.

“I heard that you were dying, step-father, and I wanted to make peace,” Charles said, the man just chuckling darkly.

“Make peace. Make peace? How could I make peace with the thing that has tormented me for so long? I know what people think of me, and I know about what they think of you. ‘The true Xavier heir’. They call me a usurper, and my son a false prince, all because you exist!” Marko coughed harshly again, and Charles was startled as a light spray of blood spurted onto the white bedding by his step-father’s head.

“Step-father, calm yourself. You are not well,” Charles said, but not making a move to wipe away the spittle or the blood.

“Don’t speak to me as if you are superior, boy! I am Kurt Marko. I own the land you stand on, the wooden boards beneath your feet, the roof over your head. Everything is in my name, and you do not own a single bit of it! It was supposed to go to my son, my real son, not the fucking Xavier offal that Sharon sired. You…” Kurt said, pointing a fat, shaking finger towards Charles. “You… You probably came here because you thought that because I am dying, everything I own will become yours, hm? Well, you are mistaken.”

Charles looked at his step-father, confused and fists clenched. Kurt mistook Charles’s confusion for anger, and cackled in spite.

“None of this belongs to you. Upon my death, you will have none of it. Your name is not mentioned in my will, and Sharon will get nothing except for that cart of whisky in the cellar and the old, decaying cottage by the stormy ocean. This… All of this may no longer be under the Marko name, but like Hell I’ll hand it all to a Xavier.”

Kurt wheezed again, now completely drained, but smirked at Charles in satisfaction. Charles just regarded him with apathy and a hint of disgust, wondering what it was about this pitiful, pitiful man that inspired so much fear in him before. Looking at him now, all Charles could see was a spiteful, depressed old man who, in the end, possessed nothing of worth. No family, no love, and certainly no happiness.

Charles didn’t want anything he had, not even one shilling.

“Thank you, step-father,” Charles said, the man in the bed stilling as he stared at the young man who rose from his chair. “For relieving me of the burdens and trappings of this house, and everything in it. I had no desire for it, and you have organised new accommodations for my mother, which I also thank you for. And now that you have so cleanly cut ties with me, once and for all, I will see myself out. I hope your last days are peaceful, and that you pass without pain. Farewell.”

Charles did not look back at his step-father when he left his grand chambers, the old man spluttering obscenities in Charles’s wake.

Kurt Marko died that night after a laborious coughing fit; his sheets were stained with blood, and the contorted look on his face showed that he had not died peacefully, nor did he die without pain.

***

Charles saw Sharon Marko the day after her husband passed. He found her in her drawing room standing by the window, a near-empty glass swirling in her hand. There was an opened bottle of half-finished wine resting within arm’s reach beside her, the cork long discarded since once a bottle was opened in the presence of Sharon Marko, it was always finished by the end of the evening.

Sharon Marko was a beautiful woman, but her beauty was diminished by the way she carried herself, already under the influence of what looked to be her second bottle. Her blonde hair that appeared golden in the Xavier portrait was now coloured like dull straw and simply tied in a knot at the base of her skull above her hunched neck. Her skin was wrinkled, splotchy and red from the drink, and her poor dietary habits meant that she was thin and frail, though naturally tall.

Now, she wore a black mourning dress, black lace veil obscuring most of her flat hair.

Her face was tired and weathered, and when she turned to look at her son, it did not even look as if she recognised him. She did, though, and momentarily put down her drink to wave the young man over.

“Charles,” she said, the name sounding foreign in her voice. “My son. I have not seen you since you were…”

“Ten. Eight years ago now, mother,” Charles supplied for her, the woman nodding slowly, before picking up her glass and taking a drink from it. She drained it in one mouthful, moving to pour herself another. She poured a glass for Charles as well, handing it to him.

“So you are eighteen. A full man, now,” Sharon spoke, contemplative. There was a little twinkle in her eye that was so rarely there. “Almost nineteen, then.”

“Yes, soon,” Charles said, Sharon smiling a little more now.

“What wonderful news. Kitty tells me that you’re a tutor, at Ironfield Hall. I am not familiar with the family there, they are a bit far from our region,” Sharon said, settling down onto a chaise lounge.

“Yes, the house’s master is a Mr Lehnsherr,” Charles said, Sharon humming.

“Only a Mr Lehnsherr? No wife, no family?”

“None that I know of,” Charles said, and Sharon cocked her head to the side, before reaching out to touch her fingers to the crest of her son’s hair. The touch was short and brief, but it had been far more affection that anything she had given Charles for most of his life, and Charles’s heart swelled and ached, almost full to bursting.

“And are you happy there, with this Mr Lehnsherr with no family?” Sharon asked, eyes appraising. Charles swallowed, nodding slowly.

“Yes. He is a good man, and his other subordinates treat me well. I consider them good friends, and maybe with a little more time, I can see them as family.”

Sharon smiled a little more at that, sobriety piercing through like a lightning bolt, before the clouds drifted in again.

“That is good, my son, and it is good for you to visit me here. I will be off to the countryside cottage immediately after the funeral, and it is a fair journey from here.”

‘I’m not sure if you will visit me again,’ was left unsaid, but the two Xaviers seemed to hear it loud and clear.

“Carriages are swift these days, mother,” Charles offered, the woman letting out a short laugh.

“Yes, they are. How times have changed.”

***

Like Sharon, Charles left the moment Kurt Marko was lowered into the ground, not wanting to linger any longer than necessary. It had been one week since he had left Ironfield to return to Westchester, and even though a week was not a long stretch of time by any means, it left Charles feeling antsy and desperate to return to Ironfield, which was now home to him.

Like eight years ago, Kitty packed Charles’s belongings, slipping a packet of sweet biscuits and an extra set of socks into his case. Like before, Charles kissed on the cheek before they parted ways.

Now that Westchester belonged to a new master that bore neither the Xavier nor Marko name, it was only natural for most of the staff to be let go and find new employment. Kitty was not too upset about that; she held no lingering ties to the estate now that both Sharon and Charles were no longer affiliated with it, and it was not difficult for her and her husband to find employment elsewhere.

The journey back to Ironfield did not feel like it took as long as the trip Charles endured to leave it. It was like there was a string tying Charles to Ironfield, pulling him closer with a warped sense of gravity. He could hear the call of the estate in his head, always urging him to come back home. Charles believed that even if he were on another continent, on the other side of the globe, he would still be able to hear that call.

It was daylight when Charles arrived back at Ironfield, and he had leapt off the carriage prematurely, wanting to walk the last stretch himself. His suitcase was light as he walked along the side of the road, fingers brushing past the soft flowers and bushes that lined it, blossoming bright in the springtime.

It was when Charles reached the outermost field surrounding Ironfield that he saw a lone figure sitting atop a stone barrier; brown hair that looked copper in the sunlight, ginger scruff and piercing pale blue-grey eyes. The man had forgone a coat, and was simply wearing a familiar checked brown waistcoat and expertly tailored trousers, feet enclosed by polished brown boots.

Charles found himself smiling giddily when the man looked up and saw him, immediately hopping down from where he was perched on the stone. The man slapped at some dust on his trousers, bounding over to Charles with a few strides on his long, lean legs.

“You’re back,” Erik said, rushing into Charles’s space, filling up Charles’s horizon and heart. “You said you’d be gone a week, or two. You kept your word.” There was a slight mischievousness to Erik’s shark-like grin now, and Charles swore that he heard the words ‘bastard of a step-father must have died quickly, good riddance’.

“Of course I came back. You still owe me wages,” Charles said, Erik’s face softening minutely, bringing his hand up to straighten Charles’s neck tie that had gone askew from when he jumped out of the carriage in a flurry. Erik’s fingers brushed his chin a little, an intimate touch that Charles pretended was accidental.

“I’ll pay your wages after a game of chess. It’s no fun when I’ve paid you to let me win,” Erik said, Charles laughing, shoving Erik’s shoulder playfully, the older man’s eyes lighting up. The two of them made their way back to the mansion together, smiling and teasing, both so obviously happy that Charles had returned.

“I am glad to be back, Erik. Thank you,” Charles said, bearing his heart a little. Erik smiled, nudging at Charles’s wrist and leading him to the drawing room, a chess set already sitting there and waiting to be used.

Charles’s heart lurched. Erik did not know when Charles would be back, so if the chess set was already set up, it meant that he was also waiting and preparing for Charles to return to his side.

Charles rubbed at his aching chest as he sat down in his usual chair, and letting himself forget, just for a brief moment, that Erik was not promised to wed Miss Emma Frost. Right now, in this room, Charles indulged his fantasies and let himself think that it was only him and Erik that existed, everything outside of this room rendered obsolete.

Next chapter (6/11) →

[fallout4holmes]

Nuka-World 3

Since we were meeting leaders, we headed to the one next door first. The Disciples called the maintenance area under Fizztop Mountain home, so we headed around to the employee entrance. The guard didn’t have any trouble seeing us, despite her face being completely covered. “Watch yourself, ‘boss,’” she threatened, “cuz we sure will.” Holmes did not deign to comment.

The inside of the mountain was the typical sort of decor I expect from raiders, but the Disciples took their fondness for dismembered body parts on pikes to an extreme level. It was one of the more unsettling locations I’ve been in, and I once followed Holmes through a serial killer’s art studio. The person we were here to see wasn’t going to ease that sensation.

A woman with a bit of a drawl to her voice was talking to another woman wearing a bladed helmet, like an apocalyptic valkyrie, while a man in a spiked helmet stood to the side. All the Disciples kept their faces hidden at all times, and these three were no exceptions, the helmets doing the job instead of hoods and masks.

The gist of the conversation was that the Disciples weren’t too pleased with Gage’s plan and choice of new leader. The lady in the bladed helmet said they were giving Gage one last chance, and if this scheme of his didn’t work out, she’d kill him. No wonder the guy was eager for Holmes to be on board, his life was counting on it.

Holmes approached the valkyrie after she dismissed the other two. “So,” she said. “You’re Gage’s little pet project.”

Great start.

“If you mean I’m the one he tricked into becoming your Overboss,” Holmes said with a warning tone, “then yes.”

She shook her head, “The Overboss title doesn’t mean anything. Hasn’t for some time. Everyone knows Gage wanted Colter dead. Of course, if I’d had my way, it would have been a slow and painful process. But whatever.” She sighed, “Let’s get this meet and greet over with. I’m Nisha. I lead the Disciples.”

Holmes introduced himself, last name only, and decided not to mention the synth standing just behind his shoulder. That was fine with me; I wasn’t in any mood to chat, and the more mystery we could keep around us, the better. At least until we had something resembling a plan.

Nisha was calm and smooth, with an edge. Seems the Disciples only had one rule, to keep the peace of this little alliance between the gangs, which really just meant “don’t get caught.” Nisha was smart enough to know that her odds weren’t great if her people had to fight two rival gangs at once. Otherwise, she figured rules went out the window when the bombs dropped.

Holmes disagreed, “The world needs rules. Otherwise, we’ll never recover.”

“Rules are dangerous,” Nisha countered, “because people start to trust them. Colter thought some sort of rule or code would make him untouchable, but he found out he was wrong—the hard way.” That sounded like a problem of ego instead of rules to me, but I doubted she’d appreciate the difference. "Although I could give him a little credit,” she continued. “He built the Gauntlet after all. Of course it was total shit at first, no imagination, but we spiced it up a bit.”

She was pleased with herself. Holmes was not amused. “How many lives has the Gauntlet claimed?”

She shrugged, “Who’s counting? At least enough to keep the traders busy. We like to send them in to clean out the bodies whenever things get ripe in there.” She smiled, savoring the fact. “They don’t always make it out alive, of course. The Gauntlet never sleeps.”

She was trying to get under Holmes’s skin. Hell, she got under mine. But Holmes is nothing if not practiced at keeping his emotions in check. “Impressive,” he said flatly.

Nisha seemed amused. “I may let you keep that pretty head of yours on your shoulders after all. I just hope Gage is right about you. He made a lot of promises to get us here and never followed through.” Her voice sharpened, “So you better not screw this up, because I’m not about to tolerate another round of bullshit.”

Holmes raised an eyebrow, “I assure you, I am the very best at what I do.”

“Disciples don’t make idle threats,” she warned. Maybe sensing she was alienating a potential enemy, she backed off a little, made the case for why Holmes should help the Disciples take over the park instead. The Operators are spoiled brats, the Pack are a bunch of animals, the stuff you’d expect rival leaders to say about each other. Finished her speech with a gem; “Do right by us and everyone in the Commonwealth will know your name.”

Holmes almost laughed. “They already do. However, I will consider your proposal.”

That wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. “Aren’t you sure of yourself,” she huffed. “Well, consider this; how much do you value your life?”

“You’ve made your threats perfectly clear,” Holmes didn’t quite roll his eyes but he obviously wanted to. “I’ve yet to meet the other leaders, but you’ve given me a great deal to think about. Do you mind if I look around?”

“Of course not,” she said, back to quietly pleasant. “See what we do here. If you decide you want to help out, come find me.” She headed up the ramps winding up to the top of the mountain.

“Charming woman,” I muttered. We had a look around, scoping out the place. Didn’t find much except confirmation of the Disciples’ sadism. I ain’t the kind to ever wish harm on another person, but I was getting pretty damn close to making an exception for those people. We made our way out, back into the welcome sunlight.

Heading south through the park brought us to the Parlor next, a former dinner theater turned headquarters for the Operators. We’d overheard a couple Disciples ridiculing the Operators for caring about things like personal hygiene, which was a mark in their favor in my book. Add the fact that according to Gage the Operators cared most about caps, and I had the idea that a couple centuries ago these people would have been right at home in the mafia. Or the stock market.

A guard wearing armor over a suit stood outside the door, “You can head on inside, Overboss.”

We found a handful of Operators idling in the theater’s lobby, chatting or smoking a cigarette. They all eyed us curiously, but kept to themselves for now. Holmes stopped us just outside the open doors to the main hall. Just out of sight, someone was talking, and it didn’t take long to figure who the gossip was about.

“Sorry, boss. All that’s turned up is that he’s got that Pip-Boy on his arm.”

“So,” a woman spoke, “our new Overboss is a vault dweller.”

A different man from before added, “Or an iced vault dweller.”

Holmes and I shared a look. Had they heard of Holmes? Gage had made the Minutemen connection, but Holmes being on ice wasn’t always a detail folks were aware of. The woman considered this, and dismissed the messenger. We took our cue to make our entrance.

A platinum blonde with armor over a plaid suit stood by the stage, a bearded man next to her in the same sort of armor over a fancy suit of his own. “Well,” the woman said as we approached, “I guess we all owe you for taking down Colter.” She looked straight at me, kept her face neutral (which isn’t something most people can do the first time we meet), and ignored me. After some further critique of the former Overboss, she asked Holmes what it felt like when he killed the guy.

"How did it feel when I killed a madman in an electrified suit of armor trying to kill me?" Holmes responded. "I suppose the same adrenaline rush and ensuing relief that comes with any fight for my life."

It wasn't the answer they were looking for exactly, but the lady moved on and finally got around to introducing herself. "I'm Mags. This is my brother, William."

"Pleasure," he said like this was anything but. The feeling was mutual. Something about these two bugged me, a fragment of a memory just a bit too hazy to make out.

“Along with our co-conspirator Lizzie,” Mags continued, “we run this crew. We call ourselves the Operators.”

Mags’s big pitch was that the Operators were interested in one thing; money. Their methods were a touch more bloodthirsty than what the founders of Nuka-World had in mind, but what better place to make all the caps you can want? No lunatic bloodlust or animal instinct, just cold rationality and a willingness to do literally anything to make a cap.

“Then let me assure you,” Holmes said, “that enabling trade is my primary concern here in Nuka-World.”

That answer pleased William, but Mags was still skeptical, and rightfully so. Still, she said she was looking forward to it and told us to feel free to look around and speak to her if we were interested in lending a helping hand. So we looked around. Holmes wanted to meet their co-conspirator. Me, I was still wondering where the hell I’d heard the names Mags and William Black before.

The old dinner theater wasn’t in the best shape, but it could have been a heck of a lot worse. We found Lizzie in the kitchen with a chemistry setup. A quick glance through her terminal revealed a series of disturbing experiments on some sort of “persuasion formula.” Get settlers to do anything you tell them to, and I mean anything. Also made the connection of where I’d heard of them before.

“Valentine, these people lived in Diamond City,” Holmes looked at me like I’d been hiding this fact.

“Yeah, I see that.”

“You don’t remember them?”

“The names seemed familiar, but I haven’t been able to place them. Would have to have been decades ago, I’d think.”

Holmes’s curiosity had been piqued, so he set about trying to find more information. In typical Holmes fashion, he decided the most efficient way to do that was to break into the only locked door in the place.

It was Mags and William’s room. I wasted no time looking at the terminal while the nosy “Overboss” made sure no one gave us any trouble. Mags had a handy list of players in the park, details on all the gang leaders and people to be aware of. More interesting to us at the moment was the holotape from her mother on the desk.

“Now I remember!” I said. “The Blacks were an Upper Stands family, twenty years or more ago. Maggy and Bill were rowdy terrors, ran around with their friend Lizzie causing trouble. They were exiled when one of their classmates was found… well, it wasn’t pleasant.”

“Come now, Valentine—”

“Let’s just say I’m not surprised they turned raider, alright? Mr. and Mrs. Black left town soon after their kids were exiled, scared for their lives. My guess is they could see their children’s vengeance coming. Lizzie Wyeth… don’t remember much about her folks, if she had them, but she always seemed like a real smart kid. Guess she put that to use.”

“Then they must know who you are, surely?”

“That’d be my guess. Wonder what they make of the old synth from back home they used to make fun of, running around with a vault dweller.”

“I’m not in a particular rush to find out,” Holmes said and we made a quick exit back to the park.

“I’d like to talk to some of the traders next, if possible,” Holmes said as we walked. “I don’t think I can take interviewing the leader of the Pack just at the moment.”

“I don’t blame you,” I chuckled, “but I doubt the traders are going to make for cheerful conversation either.”

We headed to an enclosed space in the courtyard, which graffiti informed us was the market. Inside we saw stalls set up all along the walls, the familiar shouts of traders a little bit like home. Or they would have been, if it weren’t for the red light on the collar of every single one of them. Their customers were a handful of travellers who had somehow managed to make it here and pay whatever price necessary to not get killed. Raiders watched from scaffolding in the middle of the market, making sure business went smoothly. We made our way around, more to see the state of the traders than any interest in their goods. Came across a handyman named Chip who’d been in Nuka-World so long he wouldn’t know where to go even if he did get free. He talked about restoring power to the old park. After being here for twenty years, he hoped to get her running again somehow. It was kind of inspiring and damn depressing all at the same time.

Then we found the clinic. Dr. Mackenzie Bridgeman used to live in a settlement west of the amusement park. When Overboss Colter offered her a deal—work for him and he’d leave her settlement in peace—she agreed. The doc was naturally curious about the new guy in charge, and took a leap of faith when Holmes let slip he wasn’t too pleased with his new position. “Then this might be your chance to make some changes around here.”

“Such as?” Holmes asked.

“The gangs that call this place home are already at each other's throats.” She leaned closer. She couldn’t have looked more conspiratorial if she tried, but none of the raiders on watch seemed to care. “Now, you could risk your own neck and try to keep them from tearing each other apart, or you could do the right thing and put them in the ground. When it's all said and done, you're still running this place from your fancy house on the mountain over there. Except now, you won't have to sleep with a gun under your pillow.”

Holmes regarded her quietly for a moment. “I think you have the wrong idea about me, Dr. Bridgeman.”

Poor lady nearly had a heart attack, “Okay, okay, I get it boss…”

“Holmes, could you not terrorize the locals?” I scolded.

Drawing attention to myself had the intended effect; she was too startled to be scared. Holmes, for his part, was doing that sigh he does when he realizes he’s been a jerk. “I wasn’t trying to. Dr. Bridgeman, I fully intend to make the ‘changes’ you suggest, however it will not be for the purpose of ruling unchallenged from on high.” He waited for a raider to pass, and whispered, “I simply want to help if I can, and go home. Any advice you can give to help me do that would be appreciated.”

The doc breathed in relief, “Oh. Good. Well, if you're serious about this, then you'll have to take down the leaders of the gangs. That means putting a bullet into Nisha, Mason, Mags and Mags's brother, William. Once you do that, the gangs will collapse and Nuka-Town goes back to being a free trading post.” She looked around nervously, “I should uh, probably stop talking about this out here.”

Holmes smiled a little, “I think that would be wise, doctor. I make no promises, except that I will see what I can do.”

"Kill the raider leaders, restore power to the park for the traders," I muttered as we left the market, "sounds like a plan."

Holmes scoffed, "Not much of one.

“Heck of a lot better than what we had before.”

He smirked, “A fair point. It is progress, at least.”

Up next was the Amphitheatre, where the Pack was based. The guard informed us that “Mason’s been waiting for you,” and in we went. At this point, we felt ready for just about any variation on raider the park could throw at us.

We were not ready for a zoo.

Shouldn’t have been a surprise, really, with the Pack’s penchant for animal masks and costumes, but I definitely did not expect to see a caged ghoulish gorilla, a two-headed gazelle… and people. Dogs, mongrels, and mole rats walked around free, apparently tame, while a cage fight went on to spectator cheers between a dog and a mole rat. Watching over all this spectacle from his throne on the amphitheatre’s stage was the man that had to be Mason.

“Now that I get a good look at you, not sure I’m buying this new Overboss thing,” the mustachioed raider said. It was kind of hard to take him seriously in his furry pants and vibrant facepaint, until you remembered that there was a cage full of humans just across the way.

“I’ll send you my resume and references,” Holmes drawled, tired.

“The fuck’s a resume?” Mason demanded, then changed his mind, “Don’t matter. Name’s Mason, The Pack’s Alpha. This here is our side of town. You might be Overboss, for now, but I’m the boss of the Pack, and it’s gonna stay that way. Long as you don’t go forgetting that, we’re gonna be fine.”

Mason at least didn’t sound like he was giving us a sales pitch right off the bat, just questioning the new guy and a little show of bravado. He was also willing to talk a little about Gage and Colter, and made pretty clear that everyone knows Gage is the power behind the throne, and no one is happy about it. Holmes did ask eventually what exactly the Pack had that the others didn’t, apart from their fashion sense. Mason’s answer? “The Pack are the meanest sons of bitches you'll ever meet. We do whatever it takes. And we're fiercely loyal. The Operators will cut your throat as soon as they get what they want out of you. And the Disciples? Who the fuck knows what those crazy bitches want. There's something wrong with them. And you just can't trust someone who ain't willing to show you their face.”

I thought his opinion was probably on the mark, which was a surreal feeling. Always good to keep in mind that folks are often a lot smarter than they look. The last meeting of the day finished, we scoped out the backstage area of the amphitheater for the sake of thoroughness. The Pack’s living area was decorated with colored lights and animal trophies, a fine alternative to human body parts. Apart from the yao guai in a cage with three dead people around it.

By now the sun was setting, so we headed back to our, uh, quarters. Gage was waiting in the Overboss’s bar, and headed straight over to the lift when he heard us coming up. “You’re back, good. So—”

“Mr. Gage,” Holmes was in no mood, “I have just endured a day of kidnapping, fighting for my life through an obstacle course of deadly traps, and spending the entire day engaging in conversation with people I would rather see eaten by a deathclaw. I am going to sleep. We will discuss your plans in the morning.”

Gage didn’t like it, but he didn’t protest. I followed Holmes into Colter’s former quarters, and wondered if the man had been suffering from some sort of hallucinations when he decorated.

“You’ll stand watch?” Holmes asked as he removed the bulkiest pieces of armor.

“You have to ask?”

He smiled a little, “No. But I do anyway.”

I put a hand on his shoulder, let him come to me. Behind closed doors, he could let it all go. Fell against me, held me as close as I held him. I still have to fight back the fear that I’m gonna hurt him, metal isn’t made for cuddling, but it gets easier every time. “We’re gonna get out of this, partner,” I whispered.

“Of course we are,” he said with a hell of a lot more confidence than I think he felt. “It’s simply far more exhausting than I expected.”

“The hard part’s still to come.”

He sighed, “We’ll see what Gage expects from me next tomorrow morning, and make our plan from there.”

I kissed him lightly, and nudged him toward the bed, “Rest up. I’m watching over you all night, just like always.”

He managed to fall asleep eventually. I did exactly as I promised.

[dancingkirby]

Chapter 1: In which things start out awkward and get worse

Long-awaited sequel START!  Yeah, still don’t know if/when it’ll be finished, but I seem to have a pretty clear outline now.

Anyway, I have been frustrated by miscommunications caused by autism as of late, so I decided to write a whole chapter where it was turned up to 11.  It was kind of interesting writing Eska as the “bad guy” for once...but her POV is coming up next chapter.

“Korra?”

“Yeah?”

“We have a situation.”

Korra and Asami had been packing Korra’s things for the former’s long-awaited permanent move to the latter’s mansion.  It was an arduous task, and one that really couldn’t be made any easier by bending. (Korra knew because she had tried airbending, which just made the mess worse.)  Asami had left Air Temple Island to take the first load of boxes to her house, and Korra was just starting to think that she had been gone a long time when Ikki came to her to inform her that she was on the phone.

Korra paused to catch her breath from the mad dash to the phone, and then inquired, “What…kind of situation?”

“Your cousins decided to pay a visit.”

“Desna and Eska?!” As if she had any other cousins that she knew of.

“Yep.  I found them sitting outside the outer gate. They’re on the porch now.  They refused to go inside the house or even say why they’re here until you get here.”

Korra smacked her forehead.  Moving day was stressful enough, but now she had her weird relatives to deal with.

“Okay…okay.  I can do this.  I’ll have them get Oogi ready.  Be there in a bit.  Love you.”

“Love you too. Oh, I almost forgot.”

“Hm?”

“They have a kid with them.”

After a brief stop at the police station to ask Mako for backup (since one never knew with the twins, and she’d prefer not to have to use brute force if there was a problem), Korra punched in the code at Asami’s gate and let the two of them in. Sure enough, her cousins hadn’t budged; they were sitting on hastily-found and mismatched chairs like they owned the place.  And there was indeed a child…a girl of about three.  The child looked supremely uncomfortable, and was holding on to Eska’s hand for dear life.  She had lighter skin than would be expected for a Water Tribe individual, but more importantly, she had very green eyes.  It was almost as if someone had made an exact copy of her father’s eyes and nose, then pasted them down onto Eska’s fine-boned face.  

Hold on a minute. Did that mean that Bolin and Eska…Korra desperately tried to cancel that train of thought.  

Mercifully, just then Mako made a noise that was most akin to a choking komodo rhino.  The child started crying.  Eska shot Mako a murderous look as she pulled the child onto her lap.

“All right, calm down…just calm down...” Mako muttered, presumably as much to himself as to the trio on the porch.  He walked a short distance away and took several deep breaths.

When he got back, he said in a more even tone, “Asami, I will need to use your phone, because Bolin is in big fu…” -he shot a glance at the kid-“freaking trouble.”

“Sure.”

“Do we really need to involve him in this right now?”  Korra asked. Maybe it hadn’t been the best idea to bring him after all.

“He’s going to find out sooner or later,” was all Mako said.  Korra would still have preferred to wait, but Mako had known for Bolin for longer than she had.  She decided to let him have the final say against her better judgment.

Once Mako had entered the house, Korra turned to the twins and said “Eska.  Desna.”

“Cousin,” they answered in unison.  Eska added, “This is Kinalik,” gesturing to the child.

“Um…hi,” Korra said, not having much experience with small children.  Kinalik hid her face in Eska’s coat.

Eska abruptly announced, “She needs the toilet.”  How she knew that was a mystery to Korra.

“O-of course,” Asami replied.  “Just go up the flight of stairs next to the foyer, and you should see it.”

Eska lifted Kinalik into her arms and slouched off without thanking Asami.  Korra shot her girlfriend a look of sympathy.

“So are you going to tell us why you’re here?”  Korra said as she turned to Desna.

“We thought it would be safer to leave home for the time being, until things blew over,” he replied.  Korra waited for him to elaborate on these “things,” but he didn’t.

“Well…we have plenty of room!” Asami told him, trying to smile and be a gracious hostess even under these trying circumstances.

“We will only require one bedroom,” Desna said.  At the couple’s strange looks, he went on, “I sleep in the tub, didn’t you know?”

It was impossible for Korra to tell whether he was being serious or not.

Having run out of things to say, the trio hung around awkwardly until Mako returned, followed shortly by Eska and Kinalik.

“Bolin will be here soon.  You and him can work things out then,” he said, addressing Eska.  “Meanwhile, it looks like the situation is stable, so my job here is done.”

As Mako walked back to his car, Eska said something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like, “But you didn’t do anything.”

“Not the most impressive police officer I have ever seen,” Desna added in a more audible tone.  Korra bit back a retort.

There was nothing left to do but wait until Bolin got here.  Korra took that time to observe.  Something seemed…off about Kinalik.  She hadn’t said anything this entire time, and was now rocking back and forth rather vigorously.  Eska had no reaction.

“Is she upset? Is there anything we could bring her?” Asami asked.

“She is fine,” Eska replied.

“Are you sure? I still have my old toys stored up somewhere; I could try to find them.”

“We all have our difficulties,” was the only thing Eska said in response.

But Eska wasn’t neglectful, either.  Although she didn’t show the traditional displays of affection one would expect from a mother, she kept a close eye on Kinalik.   At one point, Kinalik made a fist with her thumb sticking out, and Eska made an identical gesture and touched their thumbs together.

“Thumb kiss,” she explained when she saw Korra and Asami staring at her.

After a while, Asami rang for some lemonade and refreshments to be brought out.  Kinalik grabbed at a dumpling and took a bite, but she immediately spat the bite back out.

“It’s yucky!” she proclaimed at the top of her lungs.  So she could talk.

Rather than reprimand her daughter for rudeness, Eska said, “Here, give it to me,” and ate it herself, spat-out bite and all.  From the look on her face, it was clear that she shared Kinalik’s opinion, but at least she didn’t verbalize it.

They also ignored Asami’s hint that they might be more comfortable inside the house. Although Eska had removed Kinalik’s coat, she and Desna refused to take off their own.

“Aren’t you uncomfortable?” Asami asked.

“We like being uncomfortable,” Eska shot back. Korra and Asami glanced at each other and decided to drop the matter.  If they wanted to die of heatstroke, that was their problem.

Finally, they could just see someone approaching in the distance, so Korra went to meet Bolin at the archway.  Please don’t let him have brought Opal!

She shouted out a greeting, and felt a great relief that he had come alone.

“Korra, what’s going on?” he said.  He was somewhat pale.

“Um…what exactly did Mako tell you?”

“Just that Eska was at Asami’s house, and I should get my ass over there right now…and that oh yeah, I’m a dad now.”

“I’d say that about covers it.  Did you tell anything to Opal?”

“Didn’t have a chance to.  She was out shopping somewhere…I think the bookstore?”

Then something appeared to occur to him.

“How do I even know it’s…”

“Trust me. You’ll know.”

Bolin continued to look uneasy.

“She’s not going to hurt you,” Korra assured him with maybe slightly more conviction than she felt.  To tell the truth, she didn’t have a good memory of what had happened between those two in the South, having been preoccupied with her own concerns at the time. There was something about a wedding, she knew that.

“I guess the last time we met she didn’t try to kill me, but still…” Bolin trailed off.

“Look, if she tries anything, I’ll be here to protect you, okay?”

“Okay…I guess.”

And off they went.

Kinalik’s resemblance to Bolin was of course immediately obvious to anybody who could see, which did away with any traces of doubt lingering in Bolin’s mind.   His legs went out from under him, and he sat down heavily on the porch floor.  There was complete silence for several seconds. Desna was pointedly looking away.

“Why didn’t…why didn’t you tell me?” Bolin squeaked once he found his voice.

“There wasn’t exactly an opportune moment,” Eska deadpanned.

“But we met in the hotel lobby just a year ago!  Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“By the time that foolish employee stopped bothering us, you were far enough away that I would have had to shout it across the room.  And anyway…” Eska looked down and appeared uncharacteristically shy, “I assumed that you would have interpreted the news as another attempt to control you and become irate.”

“What’s irate mean?”

“Angry.”

“I wouldn’t have been angry!  I mean, yeah, I was really scared of you, and to be honest I still am, but I like kids. In fact, me and Opal were just talking about…” His torrent of words abruptly ceased as he realized what he’d just said.

“Oops,” he mumbled. Eska raised her eyebrows.

“I was already cognizant of you having another girlfriend, feeble turtleduck. Remember?  Although she is not apparently who I thought she was.”  She tapped her finger on her chin and added, “Opal…I have heard that name before.  Oh yes, she was the one on whom I hung up the phone.”

“Okaaayyy…”

Korra cleared her throat.

“I think some introductions might be in hand,” she prompted.  Eska took the hint.

“Indeed. Kinalik, this is Bolin. Bolin…Kinalik.”

“Hey there!” Bolin said as he beamed and reached for the child as if to pick her up.  Kinalik screeched and hid her face in Eska’s coat again.

“Don’t lunge at her like that!  She’s very sensitive!”  Eska scolded.

“Sorry…sorry,” Bolin mumbled as he backed off a few paces.

“She might not have much understanding of what a man actually is,” Desna opined; Korra had almost forgotten that he was there.  “She decided that Eska and I were both her mothers, and we saw no need to correct her just yet.”

“Agreed.  And her nurse is female, her nurse’s assistants are all female, and her grandfather is deceased. We had intended to introduce her to the concept at a later date, but…we were forced into circumstances that were less than ideal.”

Like Desna, Eska did not say exactly what these circumstances were.

“I have an idea!” Asami stated.  “How about we wrap things up for today and try again tomorrow, once…um…how do you pronounce her name again?”

“Kee-nah-leek.”

“Right, once Kinalik has a chance to get rested and used to the change of scenery.”

“That appears to be an adequate plan.”

“Right,” Bolin chimed in.  “And I have to…tell Opal, I guess, somehow.  How am I going to do that?  What if she thinks I was cheating on her?”

“What date did you meet her?”

Bolin was able to tell her approximately, although he wasn’t sure of the exact date.

“I brought a copy of Kinalik’s birth certificate.  I presume that your Opal know enough about mathematics to calculate that Kinalik was conceived about two months prior to that date.  Should I go locate its whereabouts?”

“No, no, we can save that for later.  Because you all look really tired and, uh, Opal will be wondering where I ran off to. And I have to talk to Mako as well. Fun fun fun. So bye.”

He turned and ran down the steps like someone was firebending his rear end.

“His fear is always amusing,” Eska remarked.

After that, the twins were at last convinced to move into the house.  Asami arranged for the best guest room to be made up for them, with an en suite full bathroom on the off chance that Desna actually did sleep there.

“It will do,” Eska said.

By then, it was too late for Korra to haul the rest of her stuff over, so she would spend the night.

Dinner was just as uncomfortable as the day’s other events had been.  Kinalik revealed herself to be an extremely picky eater, and turned her nose up at anything except for a bowl of plain noodles.  The twins did eat the regular meal of chicken and vegetable stir fry with rice, but Eska in particular picked at her food and hardly actually consumed anything.

Asami tried her hardest to include them in various conversation topics, including the plans for Korra’s upcoming move-in party, the weather (unusually warm for so early in the spring), and even pro-bending  (which was widely thought to never have been the same after Amon’s invasion).  But Eska and Desna mostly kept to monosyllabic answers, and excused themselves at the first possible opportunity.

It broke Korra’s heart to see her girlfriend looking progressively more crestfallen as the evening went on.  After dinner, Asami put on the ugly pajamas, which was code for “No sex tonight,” and went almost directly to bed.

Enough was enough. It was time for Korra to give Eska and Desna a piece of her mind, cousins or not, chieftains or not.

When she knocked on the guest bedroom door, she heard Kinalik start to fuss inside.

Eska opened the door and frowned at Korra.

“We just got her to sleep,” she informed her cousin.

“Sorry about that,” Korra answered.  “But we need to talk.”

Eska sighed, and said, “Fine.  But let us at least do so some distance away.”

Once they had reached the end the corridor, Korra faced her cousin straight on.

“Listen.  This rudeness towards Asami needs to stop right now. She is doing everything she can to make you comfortable-despite you showing up with no notice whatsoever-and you have not so much as thanked her even once.  If you have something against me, let me hear it. Don���t take it out on her.  Are we clear about this?”

Eska rocked back on her heels and looked genuinely caught off-guard for the first time that Korra had seen.

“If you had to endure what we have had to endure over the past thirty hours, then maybe you would be more empathetic,” she all but growled.

“I dunno, I’ve had to endure a lot!”

“You have never had to expel a human being from your nether regions.  Unless that was why you went back South.”

Now it was Korra’s turn to be caught off-guard.

“You. Absolute.  Bitch!  That was not the reason and you know it.”

“Well, at any rate, until you’ve feared for your child’s life, then maybe you should keep your oral orifice tightly SECURED!”

She turned and stomped back to her room.

“Eska, wait…what? What are you talking about?”

Eska paused at the door and said, “I was going to inform you tomorrow.  But maybe now I don’t feel like it.”  She opened the door wide as if to slam it, but caught herself just in time.

[xlaitswrites]

Origin (Part 1?)

I dunno, I feel like the ending is either poetic or lazy. I may continue this piece at a later date, but for now, I feel it is complete enough to post.

The lab was quiet today. The normal hustle and bustle of the scientists and engineers was relaxed, at ease. On the ceilings, orange, spider-like machines skittered about, working to maintain the various systems within the ceiling, while also replacing some of the more damaged ceiling tiles, occasionally disappearing into a maintenance hatch to get more supplies, or recharge.

All of the labs in the building were relatively quiet. Soft chatter of the employees, the clicking of various machinery and robotics… it made the air seem still. Even in the lower labs, even the basement labs, everywhere was unusually still. Deep within the facility, a large blast door separates a single chamber from the rest of the rooms. It was usually avoided by the various workers, with only the repair drones occasionally disappearing inside.

Inside was a room covered in frost and ice, and a large obelisk of metal. The walls were unnaturally smooth, black metal, only given texture by the layers of frozen coolant that adhered to them. The spire in the center of the room seemed to be made of the same material, it’s pointed, angular appearance making up the entirety of the rooms focus. Occasionally, red lines pulse along the surface of the metal structure, following unseen, hexagonal patterns along its surface. The whole room feels inhospitable, ominous… and because of the temperature of the room, at least the former was true.

This is the brain, the central hub of the entire facility’s network. Their computer system, their security, their drones, all are tied to this supercomputer wrapped in an arcane feel.

There is a loud rumble, a thunderous cacophony of sound and chaos as some of the more volatile machinery above detonates. Fire engulfs the rooms, but the suppression system does not turn on. None of the drones come to aid in quelling the flames. The lights, however, dim and the emergency lighting is engaged, bathing the entire facility in an uncomfortable, red light.

An engineer near the central hub is tasked with entering the uninhabitable room. The nervous system of the whole building was not working properly, and they need to know why. Hastily donning cold-weather gear, he multitasks, jamming his elbow against the keypad in a rushed attempt to gain access to the chamber. It takes a few tries, but he eventually gets his access code correct. However, the massive sliding door, which was both electrically and mechanically operated, refused to budge. Cursing his luck, he looks around frantically for a moment, then nods with resolve.

It takes a try or two, but the heavily kitted out male leaps up and grips the ledge of one of the spider-droid access hatches, pulling himself inside the spring-loaded door. Crawling through the vent, it gets colder, quickly, and despite his jacket and pants being made for this, he still finds himself shivering.

“I don’t get paid enough for this.” He thinks to himself as he pushes on the maintenance door at the other side, which doesn’t budge. “Great. Iced over.” Using his small stature to his benefit, he spins around inside the vent, a heavy boot being brought down onto the hatch. Thunk. Sharp ears can hear the sounds of tinkling ice on the other side, proving his theory correct, and gleaning a positive outcome of his first strike. Another after another, he strikes the vent hatch with the heel of his boot, until it finally swings open forcefully, before swinging back and forth on its hinge.

Finally though, he shimmies through the door backwards, landing on his feet. Shattered ice lies on the floor around him. His breath visible, he makes his way to the obelisk of a computer, looking around cautiously for any signs of damage.

The icy floor causes him to slip when he gets close, a gloved hand slamming against the computer’s side to keep him from falling on his face. Panting from adrenaline, he shakes his head, standing up. “Gotta be more careful.” He mutters to himself, before looking at the surface he was still leaning against.

Anywhere there was significant contact with his hand or finger there was a lit up hexagon. A screen beneath the surface had lit up just above that, showing garbage text entered into the prompt, and had been submitted.

“Shit.” Frantically, he began typing commands, looking at diagnostic logs and checking all output for any traces of the problem. However, the computer had other plans.

All at once, the screen cleared. Everything was replaced by large, blinking letters.

INTRUSION DETECTED

A loud hiss filled the room as the top-most half of the spire split along its edges, releasing a cloud as the intensely hot air inside of the computer was exposed to the frigid air surrounding its casing. The four “walls” of the case slowly came down, remaining upright on two arms each, almost as if they were being carefully set aside.

The core seemed to be a fairly large, robotic skeleton, which was violently ejected from within a small electric or magnetic looking field that was holding it in place, landing with a heavy, metallic thud on the ground.

The engineer’s first reaction was to step towards this new, robotic entity, believing it to be damaged. His movement was halted as it stood up slowly, body twitching slightly, the new dent in its “ribcage” slowly being pushed outward and repairing itself. It’s mostly featureless face looks up at the engineer, red and blue, mismatched, goggle-like optics staring straight at him.

It speaks a single word, its voice purely fabricated, clearly electronic in nature. Every syllable was synthetic, holding no inflection, no emotion.

“Identification.”

He fumbled through the thick, tightly zippered jacket for his lanyard.

“Identification.” It stands up straighter, a thick, grey goop beginning to ooze from out of its largest bits of casing. The engineer, unfamiliar with this new entity, or how it functions, continues to fumble, mumbling to himself in a frantic panic. He finally retrieves the card and holds it up.

Its eyes lock onto the card quickly, the goo still pouring out onto the ground, pooling around it’s feet. “Identity: Confirmed. Clearance level: Engineer Level 2.” Its puddle begins to take shape, forming synthetic musculature over the metal skeleton of its original frame. What was an 8 foot tall, mechanical skeleton has now become an equally, if not slightly taller, featureless, androgynous humanoid before long. “Clearance Level is has been administrator modified recently to 4, with a note: Temporary Clearance for entry to Brain.” It steps forward, the grey figure slowly defining its shape as it moves.

A once slender build gains muscle definition. A featureless face begins to lengthen into a short, feline muzzle. Shoulders widen, and fur grows in. Everything is grey, a metallic, almost gunmetal grey. In the light of the room, it reflects softly, but quickly loses its luster as the now male-looking construct fills in the coloration. Snow white fur, with charcoal stripes breaking up it’s monotony; short, but still there. It looked soft, and seemed to frost over. His eyes change from goggles to round, glassy orbs, their irises matching their original colors, an almost 3D-glasses-looking set of eyes with the right retaining a crimson red, the left taking on a chilling blue.

He grins, his voice taking on a now mostly organic feel, but in some way still seems electronic. It’s not something noticeable right away. “So you are not my handler.” It’s low, almost a growl, almost sadistically playful in nature, but his words are clear, understandable. “You know not what I am capable of, you know nothing of who I am, or what I do. You are… unfamiliar with my systems.” His grin only gets wider, displaying sharp pearly white teeth, inset in gunmetal flesh. Digitigrade legs carry him slowly forward, bringing him closer to the frightened male.

The engineer draws a small pistol from a holster within the oversized jacket, and without hesitation fires several rounds into the machine’s chest, emptying all the 9mm slugs from within the magazine. The robots eyes dim, and it stands motionless, jaw slack, statue still for a moment before coming back to life, shaking off the cold a bit before grinning again. “Not only an intruder, but an aggressive one. Self defense engaged.”

He blinked, never to open his eyes again…

Wiping the blood from his silvery claws onto the frosty wall, he sighs, breath invisible, indifferent to the air, looking around the chilled room. “What I wouldn’t give to be outdoors again.” He leans on a massive, clawed hand, pressed against the frigid wall for a moment, closing his eyes. In his head, he looks through the building using the network of security cameras installed in various places. A smirk grows on his face as he sees the panic and mayhem his little “hiccup” has caused.

With a nod, he resolves, standing upright. Like tearing tissue paper, he rends the metal of the blast doors wide open, giving him a nice exit point to his frosty tomb. Instantly, the one alarm he doesn’t control sounds, only adding to the chaos above. Large caliber, automated weaponry unfolds from the ceiling, aiming at his center of mass. Each gun immediately opens fire once in place, all slugs whistling their way to their target.

Reacting at a speed only a computer could, he tears a chunk off the thick metal door, using it as a large tower shield. Without a valid target, the guns continue to fire into the shield, the heavy slugs tearing large holes and chunks out of the thick metal. Unimpeded by the weight of the improvised cover, he advances down the choked hallway, the only exit from his chambers and a heavily armed killing plane. This was built to keep him in, and keep unauthorized others out. However, they had never tested it against him.

It’s failing.

Horribly.

As he advances, he lifts up the scrap to scrape the guns off the ceiling, moving it to carve them out of the walls, and remove them from the floor. His tail, ever working, wraps around the barrels, pulling them in nice and close as they are converted into a silvery goo, which is added to his mass. He chooses not to add any bulk to his already bulky frame, instead adding it as true mass, making himself heavier, but not making his paws any less quiet against the metal floor.

And so it continues, on and on. He forces his way past turrets and soldiers, scientists and engineer alike, reducing them to nothing but aftermath. He doesn’t stop the bloodshed when he reaches the ground floor, no. He continues upward, making sure there wasn’t a single living person in the building he hadn’t completely fucked up, mangled, brutalized… killed. After all, that was his original purpose. And unstoppable soldier, a covert but fierce weapon.

After what they did to him…

He finally enacted his revenge…

Yet, he still felt… empty.

[soycrates]

What Has Happened In My Life In The Past Couple of Years.

I have been meeting new people and trying to move on in my life, but the more I push forward, the more I realize it might be important for people to hear what I’ve been pushing back.

At the beginning of 2015, I was working regularly as a journalist, planning to take time off from my post-secondary studies so I could work up the money to pay for next year's tuition (I was already struggling with), and renting a very small room on the second floor of a house a little way's away from the downtown core. I was recommended a cheaper room and eventually an extra job to pick up from someone I had met in undergrad during my studies. This was someone I thought I could trust despite clear warning signs, but I was too underfinanced to have other options and couldn't - at the time - get any help from friends, family, or loved ones. Even the job, which had us working 13 hour shifts sometimes (just to remind fellow Ontarians: according to the ministry of labour, the maximum number of hours most employees can be required to work in a day is eight hours or the number of hours in an established regular workday, if it is longer than eight hours. The only way the daily maximum can be exceeded is by written agreement between the employee and employer - which my employer never did, for most of the people they hired on). Despite the additional warning signs that this was not a decent place of work, I worked there anyway. I needed the money for school. I really needed to support myself, because at the time I did not have a tangible safety net or anyone supporting me. I sincerely felt that my alternatives were being without enough money to take care of myself and save for school, and without a place to live.

I say this to explain why I stayed in this cheaper accommodation, and at this job, after my coworker raped me. I waited perhaps a month to actually report it. First I waited out of shock, since it took me a few days to actually register what had happened. I remember clearly the feeling of taking a shower and not feeling like I was in my body at all. Like I wasn’t even lucky enough to be dead, just floating there, watching a husk of a human being take in everything going on. Then I waited out of fear, because I knew saying anything about it and trying to actually get legal justice would be hard and would uproot my life, a life I was working so hard to try to get back to in academia to secure a better future for myself. Eventually I had to stop waiting - I found it impossible to pretend that I felt at all safe around this former colleague and coworker, and since he was my main contact at work, we were often paired together in situations. When our work took us to out-of-town locations and we stayed in hotels, I had to ASK to be roomed with another girl on our work force. On one of these out-of-town jobs I finally caved and told my supervisor that I couldn't continue to work closely in any capacity with this coworker as they had manipulated and sexually assaulted me. There were so many situations in those months I felt manipulated into silence, out of fear, out of having no options to turn to. Being used.

It was then, out in this town I had never been to, without a way to return home, where I was fired. My employer told me that he couldn't do anything about the situation, that he was "sorry, but" I would be "best" finding some other place to work. I was fired; my rapist was not.

I spent the better half of late 2015 and the first half of 2016 filing paperwork, getting interviews taken, calling back police officers and investigators in hopes that something could be done. The investigation trailed off quickly as they refused to even interview anyone else involved than myself, even though I had multiple witnesses in my life who had seen how inappropriately this former coworker behaved around me, how often I had to act polite to keep my job around someone who continually pushed boundaries. I had first thought they were simply socially inept, something I would never fault a person for. Something I had sympathy for. It is only after that I recognized that social ineptitude cannot justify such manipulative and sociopathic behaviour.

I had to give up on pursuing any form of justice for this matter to take care of myself, but after all that had happened, I was a mess. The therapist at my doctor's clinic diagnosed me with PTSD, which is a diagnosis I struggled to accept for a while - kept trying to push myself, to say things were okay, to say that I could move past everything as the same person I always was - but things were undeniably different after the events of the past two years. I don't feel safe around people. Certain things that wouldn't have phased me before completely scare me now. I am more paranoid. I wake up replaying traumatic events in my head and I can't start my day off with a smile because I'm already furious and defeated. I entirely avoid places and things that remind me in the slightest of those traumatic events. I feel like my memory of the past gets worse and worse because I'm intentionally trying to repress entire years of my life.

I've tried to work various jobs in the meantime but the trauma of having a coworker sexually assault you, and then being fired for it, colours every attempt I have to make casual conversation and good relations with coworkers. I barely manage to do any job right sometimes because I am too afraid to work with people again. I'm lucky enough to have a background with journalism and digital content that I occasionally pick up work where I don't have to see anyone or interact with virtually anyone. That is enough to feed me, sometimes, each month but all of this means that I've basically given up any hope of returning to my university and continuing onto a graduate degree. I had to stop seeing my therapist and taking my medication because I couldn't afford the prescription as well as the travel cost to the doctor's office. Everything I have, I save for either food, or on necessities - shampoo, underwear, dish soap, etc.

Writing this all, I still feel very angry. I've felt a lot of bottled up aggression build up over the past couple of years because of how futile the entire situation seems. Though I feel bad about it, sometimes I’m even angry at the people in my life who care about me, dreaming of how things could have been different if when I asked for help, they had listened. I know it’s not their fault, and they couldn’t have known things would turn out this way. 

Every time I think I'll open this up to people, publicly, and ask for (primarily financial) help I negatively anticipate the reactions. I have no closing remark that will make any of this rant seem as if it had a point. I just feel that I have struggled to feel normal and "on top of the situation" for 2 whole years now, and it amounts to one big huge lie. I'm not on top of the situation. I am living my life hiding from other people and wasting away in fear of being treated how I have already been treated. I worry most of all that still no one would care, still no one would help.

[antoine-roquentin]

Politically, the Fifth Republic created by and for De Gaulle, with a unique concentration of executive power in the Presidency and a legislature rigged to exclude trouble-makers, functioned more or less smoothly for thirty years after his death, down to the end of Mitterrand’s time in the Élysée. By then the era of fast growth and rapid rise in living standards that had underpinned its original success was long over, and the effects of the global downturn since the mid-seventies were beginning to tell. Mitterrand’s sharp turn of 1983, abandoning public spending to prime the economy for austerity to stabilize the currency, talk of socialism for rhetoric of financial discipline, was widely greeted as putting the political system on a sounder basis. In neutering French communism as a helpless junior accomplice to the change, and discrediting the pernicious revolutionary strain in the country’s culture, he had laid the foundations of a stable Republic of the Centre: no longer dependent on the individual charisma of a national hero who was distrustful of parties, but now solidly anchored in a cross-party ideological consensus that capitalism was the only sensible way of organizing modern life. With the PCF at last eliminated as any serious presence from the scene, France could look forward to the kind of alternation between a Centre-Left and Centre-Right, differing on details but agreed on essentials, that was the certificate of a liberal democracy.

So, on the surface, it came to pass. At the Élysée, Mitterrand from the former was succeeded by Chirac and his faithless minister Sarkozy from the latter, followed by Hollande from the former: nineteen years of presidential rule by the Centre-Left, seventeen years by the Centre-Right. Until 2002, when the Presidency was abbreviated from seven to five years, making elections to the executive and legislature coincident, there was even alternation within alternation—‘cohabitation’—as one side captured the Premiership with a majority in the National Assembly while the other continued to hold the Presidency: Chirac and Balladur under Mitterrand, Jospin under Chirac. But below the surface, for deep-lying cultural reasons, the equilibrium was always less stable than it seemed. From the eighties onwards, as elsewhere in the West, the continuous imperative of the time was neoliberal radicalization of the operations of capitalism: deregulation, privatization, flexibilization. In France, this was an agenda calculated to provoke tensions within the electorates of both Centre-Right and Centre-Left. [2]

Gaullism, of which the Centre-Right presented itself as the—albeit increasingly notional—heir, had never attempted to undo the local version of the post-war welfare state, if anything expanding it as fiscal revenues rose, and always secured at least a third of the working-class vote, while holding fast the traditional bastions of conservatism in rural and small-town society, topped up by the modern entrepreneurial and technocratic elites at the switches of French capitalism. Liberalism had never been much of a watchword in post-war France, where it was typically associated with unbridled laissez-faire. The arrival of neoliberalism—the prefix scarcely even necessary to raise hackles—predictably opened up a fault line in the Centre-Right bloc between its business, bureaucratic and professional components, over time increasingly eager to benefit from a striking off of outdated fetters on the pursuit of profit, and its provincial notables and petty-bourgeois clerks or artisans, not to speak of workers, who stood to suffer or be sidelined by them; similar tensions arising when in a subsequent phase divisive moral questions—should there be a market in reproductive rights, should marriage be gender-neutral?—were added to economic issues.

Inevitably, the advent of neoliberalism split the Centre-Left electorate too. There Mitterrand’s skills had left the Socialist Party in all but complete command of the situation, with a Communist remnant obliged to tag behind it by the two-round electoral system. The majority of Centre-Left voters came from the lower end of the income pyramid: workers, schoolteachers, poorly paid white-collar and public-sector employees, with superimposed above them better-off professionals, semi-managerial personnel and state administrators, flanked by the country’s large, well-endowed media-intellectual establishment, and in control of the PS machine. Hayekian doctrine had little to offer the former, but a growing attraction for the latter, increasingly persuaded that the basic drivers of a much needed modernization of society could only be the firm and market. The fissure in the Centre-Right was thus reproduced on the Centre-Left. On each side, the dominant layer of the bloc was committed to advancing the neoliberal turn Mitterrand had set in motion in the early eighties. But since both had to win elections to achieve power, neither could risk alienating essential voters by campaigning too openly for a neoliberal agenda, or provoking violent social reactions by pursuing it too radically in office. The result was the unsatisfactory record of half-measures deplored by every right-minded organ of liberal opinion—the Financial Times, the Economist, the Frankfurter Allgemeine—abroad. Public spending remained far too high; the welfare state was not cut down to decent size; business was not set properly free; budgets were not in surplus; unions were not broken; post office, prisons and too much else remained in the hands of the state. In their timidity, Centre-Right and Centre-Left shared responsibility for the failure of France to embrace modernity.

In point of fact, the symmetry was incomplete. There was a significant difference in the problems that neoliberalism posed to each coalition, and the ways each handled it. [3] For the Centre-Left, the component of its electoral base that stood to lose from any French version of the achievements of Thatcher or Blair was larger than the corresponding segment of support of the Centre-Right, and bound to lose more, as socially most vulnerable at their receiving end. To meet this difficulty, the PS required an altogether more affirmative ideological lamination of its course, capable at once of embellishing and distracting from its objectives. This was bequeathed it by Mitterrand: the inspiring ideal of Europe. It was in its service that the French were called upon to liberalize and modernize themselves. In private, Mitterrand—more candid than his successors—knew what that meant, as he confided to his familiar Jacques Attali at the outset: ‘I am divided between two ambitions: the construction of Europe and social justice. The European Monetary System is a condition of success in the first, and limits my freedom in the second.’ [4] Once the EU was in place, every market-friendly initiative could be extolled or excused as required by solidarity with Brussels. Not infrequently, the Centre-Right too found this a convenient exutoire, but it could never resort to Europe as an all-purpose ideological trump without renouncing its claims to some memory of Gaullism, and did not need to. Neoliberal aims came more naturally to a larger part of its constituency, requiring less borrowed finery for them.

Yet at the same time, the Centre-Left was the better equipped of the two blocs actually to introduce neoliberal reforms. Resistance to these was always most likely to come from the popular classes where the larger part of its own social base lay, in particular—though not exclusively—from the trade-unions, where only the collaborationist CFDT could be relied on to swallow virtually anything. For the Centre-Right to provoke a head-on conflict with unionized workers or student movements, not to speak of broader popular layers in sympathy with them, was to invite defeat, as Juppé discovered in 1995 and De Villepin in 2006. By contrast, still claiming to represent the injured and oppressed—and interpret their best interests—the PS was in a more favourable position to neutralize such opposition, as Valls’s success in ramming through a labour law to please business in 2016 showed. So too it was no accident that over the years the Centre-Left privatized many more public enterprises than the Centre-Right.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

Jeffree Star says someone stole $2.5 million worth of makeup from his warehouse

Someone stole $2.5 million worth of makeup from Jeffree Star's warehouse. 

In a video posted on Tuesday that quickly ascended to the top video on YouTube's trending videos, Star warned viewers that there would be "no humor, no sarcasm" that's typical of his content. 

"The things that I am about to tell you have been my nightmare that I've been living with for a few weeks now," Star said, after announcing that his unreleased concealer had been leaked over the weekend and discussing the launch of his Blue Blood collection. "You guys probably noticed that I was very silent on social media leading up to the launch." 

He explained that in addition to struggling with his birth mother's declining health, he was dealing with the "horrific" theft of a massive amount of product from one of his stock and shipping warehouses. 

SEE ALSO: That Britney Spears biopic is a travesty, and Twitter wants its 2 hours back

On Mar. 17, the night after Star uploaded the reveal video for his latest collection, over $2.5 million worth of cosmetics were stolen. The thieves pulled it off by cutting a hole in the roof and then using the back door, according to TMZ, which seems to be a trend in makeup heists.

"This is the biggest theft I have ever experienced in my entire career," he said in his most recent video. "This is the biggest hit as a brand. I'm still shocked about the entire thing." 

Over the weekend, someone posted a photo of an unreleased concealer, presumably stolen during the warehouse heist. Star says he's been "waiting for this moment," since it's been about two weeks since the burglary. 

"These people were professional," Star said, noting that a former employee could have tipped off the thieves. "I fully believe it was an inside job."

The stolen products include thousands of highlighter palates, thousands of lipliners, and an entire shade of concealer  — the beauty guru said he only has a few hundred boxes of C5 left. 

The leaked photos that surfaced online, suspiciously, show boxes of unreleased concealer in C5. 

Star then said in addition to hiring a private investigative team, he's working with law enforcement and the FBI to figure out who's selling the stolen product on the black market. He also said that he's found bundles of his stolen product on buying and selling apps like Poshmark.

He kept fans updated on Twitter, announcing that a "major player" had been arrested. 

I never knew I’d be spending my Monday night with the FBI tracking down black market makeup sellers.

— Jeffree Star (@JeffreeStar) April 2, 2019

I don’t even know where to begin right now.. The last few weeks have been so mentally exhausting but I’m so grateful for all the law enforcement & FBI agents who have been working on my #Concealer heist 🙏🏻 A major player who has been selling my stolen product has been arrested.

— Jeffree Star (@JeffreeStar) April 3, 2019

Good morning to everyone except the black market 💙

— Jeffree Star (@JeffreeStar) April 3, 2019

Surprisingly, this isn't the first great makeup heist to hit Southern California.

In May 2017, $4.5 million worth of cosmetics were stolen from the Anastasia Beverly Hills warehouse just outside of Los Angeles by also sawing through the roof. The burglars got away with 100,000 boxes of eyeshadow, which were presumably also sold online.

But like Refinery 29 points out, the warehouse burglaries highlight a greater problem in the beauty industry: The black market hurts fans, too. 

If you aren't buying products from an authorized seller, you could be purchasing counterfeits, which aren't bound by the rigorous testing and strict regulations like the rest of the beauty industry. While Star, and other retailers, get their products from cosmetics labs, counterfeit products have tested positive for human waste and nasty bacteria. And according to the FBI, officials have found disturbing amounts of carcinogens like arsenic, beryllium, and cadmium in seized counterfeit makeup, in addition to "dangerous levels" of bacteria and aluminum. 

As Star says in his video, his products are created with specific formulas in a controlled lab environment. By buying his collection off a black market seller, you might end up with a counterfeit and could experience rashes, allergic reactions, and eye infections.

"If you see any stolen makeup, please report it," Star concluded in his video. "My social media is always open if you want to share anything that you see for us to track down or investigate."

WATCH: 'Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Live' is set to tour

[the-karasu-no-one-knows]

The importance of boundaries.

*Update* Boundaries.

The importance of boundaries, for me, is a process I am still working on. Last night, I overdosed on one of my psychiatric medications. I took 4 and the demon alter took 10 or more. I was found barely conscious as my one alter did what it could to communicate with Carl to call 911. I was taken to the ER and hooked up to several things with a drip and the forceful instruction to drink charcoal. It was a difficult night.

I did not come to until I was being whisked away in the ambulance to the emergency room. This post is being filtered due to my location and those whom I know would say something to anyone out here willing to listen and gossip (which is A LOT of people).

I am doing better. I was medically cleared and sent home today and I am still recuperating from the overdose (especially my stomach). The reason why I placed the word "boundaries" on here is to share what happened and why I didn't reach out. Only one friend (close friend) was contacted by Carl to help him get home to retrieve our car because he always rides in the ambulance just in case.

This time of the year is extremely difficult for me. Nearly 15 years ago, I lost my mother. Shortly after, my fathers girlfriend and then 3 years later, my Auntie who died by not taking her diabetes medication anymore. Her grief due to my mothers passing took it's toll and I couldn't save her.

Those that know, know I have an intense trauma background of physical, sexual, RA and emotional abuse. The vast majority of that abuse ended when I was 29. After that, things were still very difficult and only until 2009, I was able to get help for specific area's of trauma, even though today, I still am unable to get the right help that deals with survivors of such an extreme amount of trauma.

I also lost my job. That job meant so much to me and the loss has been tremendous. Unfortunately, one half of the couple, whose child I was taking care of, decided to let me go. Those reasons are still upsetting to me because I did what was best for the child, yet the vane way that the step mother wanted to do things, was full fledged and she used a decision I made in the child's best interest, against me. I did not grieve the loss in an appropriate manner and I will explain that reason why.

I made a friend (female) at my previous...previous employer. An employer who fucked me over badly. This friend was made because she felt she could talk to me about anything. Initially, yes; but as the friendship went on....the conversations grew difficult to listen to. My friend is also having an affair and she is an admitted masochist. That was the area that fucked me up in my head.

This friend would call me everyday. Sometimes twice to three times a day. I would spend countless hours on her. The discussions were mostly about her affair and her masochistic desires and fantasies. I grew increasingly weary of the topic and it seemed that she really didn't understand how much of a sickness that is. A sickness related to her own trauma. On top of that, she would tell me every little sexual detail about her and her boyfriend, who happens to be the Supervisor at the job she still works at and where I used to work.

Her conversations grew increasingly dark. The last conversation she had with me, she stated that her boyfriend performed erotic asphyxiation on her. Considering that she is a masochist, she told me how she thought that he was going to kill her. I became frustrated and annoyed stating that all she says is that she trusts him and if she really does trust him, she wouldn't of made such a statement.

I told her that she needs to be careful because bruises can occur. Now this is something she wants, but knows that she and her boyfriend need to be specific because those bruises need to be hidden. She also has no issues discussing her desire for welts and bleeding and bruising. She told me this in the beginning of the friendship and I didn't know it would be brought up more and more as conversations went on.

This episode of erotic asphyxiation caused her a great deal of stress. I continued to tell her that she needs to communicate her concerns but all she says is that she doesn't want him to stop this behavior and she wants masochistic play within their affair. The last time I spoke to her, which was last Sunday, my attitude reflected that I was growing more and more annoyed with her and that she seemed to want me to fix things and that I am her therapist.

Carl noticed that every time he would come home from work, I would be on the phone with this woman. He said that I would be on for a couple of hours and that he felt it was getting in the way of us spending time together. Last Sunday, I had to lie in order for her to not come over. She wanted to come over every Sunday so she could get used to her graveyard shift. The same shift I had, she now has. I told her that Carl was ill and that we could not have her over. In essence, I wanted time with my husband and that I didn't want to see her or talk to her so much because of the impact it was making on my overall health.

Carl told me that he saw me being put in a situation where I felt stuck. He knows that I am altruistic and that I will give my all when someone needs me, but he felt that this woman was taking more than "my all" and becoming a nuisance. He referred to her tonight as a "succubi". I told Carl that I agreed with that observation and that I had to put my foot down and I did that last Saturday night. I didn't tell her I was doing that. Instead, I started to slowly shut down, which is very bad.

She texted me three times Sunday night and before her work shift Monday, she texted me before going into work and at 2:47 am. She knows that I am a night owl so she sent that text and told me she really needed to talk. I yelled out to myself saying "YOU DON'T NEED TO TALK!! I was so annoyed with her that I yelled out and Carl knew that he was going to text her and tell her to stop. She ended up texting Carl first and Carl told her that I needed my space.

Carl witnessed a lot last night with the overdose and he is very aggravated with our friend. He told me that either I tell her to back off or HE will terminate the friendship. All my husband cares about is my welfare and that this is already a Hellish time of year for me and I am doing the best that I can to stay out of the hospital.

Those that know me know that I can't NOT care. I've been a caregiver and therapist since the age of 6 so this is INGRAINED in me. A pervasive pattern of behavior that I was created to continue. I have slowly enforced my boundaries with two other females out here. One was back in 2015 and the last, in 2017. I didn't know that this most recent friendship would delve into an area that I am educated in (BDSM) and that would lead me down a path that made me extremely difficult due to my own trauma.

That fetish of BDSM was not fully voluntary for me so when my friend was telling me about asking men to "rape" her, she would joke that when she asked men to do that to her they would tell her "we don't rape the willing". This was something that she repeated often and I would try my best to block it out. A pattern of masochism that she enjoys, I find abhorrent due to my own extreme history of trauma.

This friend has no idea that I overdosed and she, thankfully, does not use Facebook. Also during this time, she told me how her boyfriend tells her about the content of meetings at work. Her boyfriend is the Supervisor of Maintenance at my previous employer and it does bother me that they are having a romantic relationship at the workplace which is forbidden! She also told me that my former GM was following me.

She explained that the GM watched me and my close friend Steve at work. She watched Steve leave late and she watched us talking at work. She was either watching in the parking lot somewhere or had someone watching us. On top of that, I went to visit my friend at work and I ended up chatting with her and Steve. Two days later, a memo was put out stating that employees are not allowed visitors. My friend tells me all of this late at night and I have a full blown panic attack.

I freaked out because I had to go into hiding back when I was 17. My life was threatened by someone I was dating who was a gang leader in Chinatown NY. I already know what it's like to be stalked so when my friend told me this, I immediately informed my friend Steve because I was freaking out and so fucking angry about it. I was informed of the make and model of this GM's vehicle and I've kept an eye out ever since and so has Carl.

I had all of this shit happen with me during an incredibly difficult time of the year. Also, my father is putting together a family tree and he asked me to see if I had photos to add. I hadn't gone through this storage bin of photos for years and when I did, I lost touch with being mindful of my reactions and in the end, I was thrust back into my past.

This past Sunday I broke down crying to Carl and then I thought it would pass, but instead, I wanted to feel nothing and I chose to go numb. Unfortunately, the demon alter thrives on negativity and Carl told me he knows that my friend and her incessant neediness tore away at my core and that her darkness consumed me and I lost it all by wanting to go numb.He also knew that the crap from my previous employer still had me upset and that losing my job and viewing the photos for the family tree just came smashing down upon me.

Thankfully, my close friend whom I made at the Hell hole where I worked, has been a God send to me and to Carl and my alters. He came to the rescue last night and brought Carl home to retrieve our vehicle. My amazing friend Steve has rescued us before. Carl and I and my alters know that no matter what, he asks nothing from me and that is what makes our friendship a beautiful one. He has no expectations of me and never overwhelms me. He has been of tremendous support and I am beyond grateful for all he has done for me and my little family. Thank you so much Teme Loo <3

Amy Kerns. I'm so sorry I didn't reach out to you. I didn't reach out to anyone, but Carl did by texting Steve. I tend to not reach out because my mind plays horrible tricks on me. My mind creates this delusion that I am a burden and that I would be better off dead. That demon alter latches onto those thought patterns and comes out and does its best to do away with me. Sometimes I can't always win against it but I am working so hard, and so are the alters, to keep that alter at bay.

Please know that I am healing and doing my best to stay out of the hospital. I will do my best to reach out and utilize my support system because I know it's there. Please be patient with me during this time. March is horrible for me because I remember everything. Sights, scents, colors, and everything in between. Thank you for taking the time out to read this. I am resilient and I will be alright.

[recurring-polynya]

I haven’t posted any fanfic since April and I am dying, so I dug out this first chapter of this amateur hockey AU fic I started back in my annus mirabilis of 2019, which I am never going to finish. Despite taking place in an ice rink, it was supposed to be a fundamentally summery story and it was 90 degrees here today, so that seems about right.

I’ve always been rather fond of it and I hope you like it, too.

ao3 | ff.net

🏒   💘   ⛸️  

The old rink seemed a lot smaller than the first time Rukia had walked through those doors. Smelled the same though, that astringent tang of bleach and wet rubber with just a note of snack bar french fries. Which was strange, because the Ice Society snack bar didn't offer french fries or soggy pizza or any of the usual things served in the snack bars of the hundreds of ice rinks she'd been in over the last ten years. But everything about Ice Society was weird.

For starters, it was called Ice Society. Presumably it was a shitty pun on "High Society," except that the man who owned the rink was a crusty old ex-Marine with one eye who didn't even know what puns were. It was just a mystery.

Rukia half expected Ol' Man Zaraki's asshole son to still be manning the counter of the pro shop, but an orange-haired teen snored at the register instead. She kicked the front of the counter, and he sat up with a start.

“Huh, wha? Won’t get me this time, old man!’

Rukia cleared her throat.

The kid peered down at her from his perch on a high stool. “Uh, you want a sharpening? I am definitely allowed to use the machine without supervision.”

Rukia raised one eyebrow. “Saw an ad. Rink’s looking for a figure skating instructor for the summer?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” the teen scratched his head.

“I...would like to apply?”

“You got a resume or something?”

Rukia narrowed her eyes at him, but passed it over.

The kid made a very serious face as he looked it over. “First Place Overall, Tri State Championships 2015, mmm, very impressive. First Place Regionals 2016, ah ha ha, very tough competition that year.”

“You don’t know a ding-dang thing about competition figure skating, do you, junior?”

“Nope!” he replied cheerfully. “I don’t have any hiring authority either.” He craned his neck around to check the big clock hanging behind him. “Mr. Manager’s out playing hockey with the delinquents, but he should be done in about ten minutes. If you want to talk to him, you can wait around, or I can give this to him assuming I don’t fall asleep again or forget.”

Rukia didn’t really register the second part of this sentence because her heart gave a little leap at the mention of delinquents. “Ol’ Man Zaraki still teaches the kids from juvie how to play hockey?” she asked.

The teen regarded her curiously. “Naw, his back gives him trouble. His son does it now.” He narrowed his eyes. “S’how I learned, y’know.”

Rukia wagged her eyebrows at him. “No shit. Me, too. I’ll wait.”

She wasn’t sure that Ikkaku would even remember her—it’d been ten years and he’d been a surly teen at the time, not too interested in the shouting, angry kids he was trying to teach wrist shots to. Rukia hoped maybe he’d mellowed out a bit, and might be a little more inclined to hire someone with a soft spot in their heart for his dad, who, seriously, had to be about 900 years old by now.

“I’m gonna go out and watch,” Rukia informed the shop kid, snagging her resume back.

“Suit yourself.” He suddenly seemed to remember something. “Wait, you play hockey? Look, my team is lookin’ for—“

Rukia waved a hand dismissively. “It’s been years. I don’t even own equipment.”

“We sell equipment! You’d get an employee discount!” he shouted after her as she headed into the rink proper.

Rukia recognized the drill the kids were doing. They would skate up the ice, the coach would set them up with a pass, and they would take a shot on goal. Most of the kids could barely shoot the puck, but to be fair, the tiny person in net couldn’t really stop anything, either. Nevertheless, Rukia could hear a steady stream of barked encouragement from the coach under the high pitched babble of shouts and shrieks from the other players. These kids didn’t get a whole lot of encouragement in their lives, and she remembered very well the feeling of teammates shouting her name for the first time.

“Great job, great job, everybody! Give your keeper a high five, and go get changed! Awesome hustle today, Ururu, way to hang in there!”

Rukia leaned against the curve of the rink, watching the little hooligans high-five their coach as they piled off the ice.

“You didn’t suck too much yourself today, old man!” one of them squeaked.

Rukia snorted. Some things never changed.

The coach was taking a moment to help the goalie—who turned out to be a tiny girl with dark hair in pigtails—loosen the buckles on her leg pads, before shooing her into the locker room.

Rukia stood up and prepared to re-introduce herself, when he pulled off his helmet, and instead of Ikkaku’s shaved head, a mass of dark red hair spilled out. Most of it was covered with a sweat-soaked bandana, but she would recognize that ponytail anywhere. The words dried up in Rukia’s mouth and she stood stupidly gawping like a fish. The man, who stood close to 6’4” in his skates, stopped short when he realized there was a tiny woman in his way.

“Ah, ‘scuse me, almost didn’t see you there.” He seemed confused by her lack of movement, speech, or any other discernibly human reactions. And then recognition dawned. “Rukia? ‘Zat you?”

Something about the sound of his voice brought her back to herself. Rukia crossed her arms over her chest and smirked at him. “Hey, Renji.”

🏒   💘   ⛸️  

“I’ve seen you around, I think,” Rukia mentioned, poking one of the pucks experimentally with her stick while she waited her turn.

“Family court, prob’ly,” Renji suggested. People were always recognizing him. It was the hair. “You in the foster system, too?”

“Uh, yeah,” she admitted.

“Whadja do to get put in juvie?”

“Jacked a car.”

“You stole a car?”

“It was a 1996 Ford Festiva, so maybe ‘car’ is a little generous. How ‘bout you?”

He fidgeted. “Spray painted a dick on the side of the school.”

Rukia laughed. She had the grating laugh of an old grifter, not a little girl’s laugh at all. “Karakura Middle, lime green? Real attention to detail on the ball hairs?”

“That was me.”

“Nice work.”

Renji felt his cheeks color. He’d never actually gotten a compliment on his graffiti before, let alone from a cute girl who had jacked a goddamn car. “Hey, it’s almost my turn here, and I do not know what I am doing, don’t judge me too rough, okay?”

“I would never.”

“Next!”

Renji launched himself down the ice at top speed. He lost his edge after three paces and landed stomach-down on the ice with a shit-ton of momentum. Ikkaku, barking instructions from the blue line, managed to get one hand on the boards and jump high enough to clear the careening child as he skidded by. Renji bounced off the boards a few times and came to a rest deep in the neutral zone.

“Good hustle, Abarai!” Zaraki boomed.

Rukia was laughing her ass off.

🏒   💘   ⛸️ 

“Yeah, Zaraki took me in a couple years after you moved away,” Renji explained as they sat in the bleachers drinking kombucha from the snack bar and watching Ichigo, the teen from the pro shop, drive the zamboni repeatedly into the boards. “After I got kicked out of the third or fourth foster family. I’m sorry Ichigo confused you.”

As if on cue, the zam hit the boards particularly hard, thoroughly rattling the glass. Renji stood up and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “That’s it, you’re done!” he bellowed. “Go find Ganju and tell him to finish up!”

“Aw, maaaaan!” Ichigo groaned.

Renji plopped back down again. “So what are you doing back in Karakura?”

“Oh,” Rukia said, suddenly remembering that this wasn’t some dumb nostalgia trip. “I’m doing a summer student research program over at the Seireitei U downstate campus. I saw the rink was advertising for a part-time figure skating instructor, and I thought it might be nice to make a few bucks in my free time. Liked the idea of seeing the old place again.” She smoothed out her rumpled resume, and handed it to him.

"Oh, cool! Yeah, both our figure skating instructors just graduated college and moved away." Renji skimmed her resume for a moment, his eyes widening. “I always knew you were a good skater, but…”

“The man who adopted me was a former Olympian,” Rukia said stiffly. “He saw a lot of potential in me.”

“Looks like he saw right,” Renji shrugged. “You sure you don’t got better things to do than teach some teens how to stomp around the ice backward with their arms sticking straight out for fifteen bucks an hour?”

Rukia shrugged back. “The internship’s only ‘sposed to be 20 hours a week. Not like I know anyone down here anymore.”

“Well, you know me.” He handed her the resume back. “The job’s yours if you want it.”

She blinked at him. "That's it?"

He shrugged. "You want an interview with the old man? He'll be by in a few hours to shout at the HVAC unit."

"Is it broken?"

"It's too scared of him to break, that's what the shouting's for. Anyway, he'll just ask me if I want to hire you and I'll say yes."

"But how do you know I'm any good?"

He gave her a strange look, like he wasn't sure if she was trying to pull one over on him or not. Finally, he said, "What, you want a tryout or something?"

"I just don't think you should make hiring decisions based on nostalgia for someone you played hockey with as Squirts."

"Hey, we played together well into Peewees," he joked. He checked something quickly on his phone. "Ice is free for the next hour and a half. You got skates with you?"

"They're out in the car."

"Go get 'em. Hey, Ganju!" He waved to the stocky man climbing onto the zamboni. "Pull that back into the garage, would ya? I'm gonna use that ice."

When Rukia returned with her skates, Renji already had his back on. Rukia studiously tried to ignore him, setting up cones on the ice. Just as she finished the last knot, he hockey-stopped at the door, throwing a spray of ice in her general direction. She ignored him and stepped out onto the ice. “What would you like to see, Mr. Ice Rink Manager, sir?”

“Well, you need to get warmed up, right? Let’s see some circles.”

“Circles.”

“Yeah. You’re some sort of hotshot, right? Switch off forward and backward.”

Smirking, Rukia took off around the first face-off circle, letting her legs stretch out with each crossover. She switched direction for the second, taking it backwards . She stayed in reverse, and instead of skating around the perimeter of the center circle, she launched herself into a double Lutz. She finished the last two circles normally, and came to a neat stop in the corner.

There was the loud blast of a whistle, and Renji skated up to her. “You sure don’t listen to directions too good,” he frowned.

“I got bored,” she shrugged. “Is that whistle really necessary?”

“Yes. Okay, next, see those cones?”

“I am not blind.”

“Skate around ‘em. Like this.” He made a serpentine gesture with his hand.

“I dunno, they’re pretty close together,” she said skeptically. In fact, you could probably drive a zamboni between the cones.

“Eh, just do your best,” he suggested.

Rukia took off and launched into an elaborate sequence of steps, dancing around cones, skipping from one foot to the other, flipping from forward to backward and back again.

“Yeah, that was pretty good, come back and do it again.”

Rukia executed the exact series of steps on the way back.

“Not very original, are you?”

She put her hands on her hips.

He pointed to a series of hockey sticks he had laid out on the other side of the ice. “Skate up that side of the ice, and jump over the sticks.”

Rukia had done this drill many times as a child, of course she knew you were supposed to hop over them one at a time. That seemed inefficient. Rukia took a long starting run, and shot him a shit-eating grin before launching herself into the air. She had managed to break his grinning shithead act for just a second-- his eyes widened in horror as he realized what she was doing.

Rukia sailed through the air, clearing five of the six sticks. Shit. She danced frantically, trying not to trip over the last one, and managed to clear it with a tiny little bunny hop. She spread her arms wide, and bowed, like she was particularly proud of that last bit, and then skated up to him, looking phenomenally smug.

The jackass still couldn’t manage to look impressed. “Okay, last test. Are you ready?”

“What is it?”

He shot her a toothy grin. “Catch me.”

Renji took off, backwards, tweeting his whistle obnoxiously.

Rukia took off after him, taking big, scooping power strokes.

As soon as she started getting close, he flipped forward, putting on a burst of speed. “You used to be able to catch me a lot quicker’n this!”

He was fast, a lot faster than she had expected. But Rukia was faster. Ducking her head down, she put on the jets. As they neared the corner, she cut inside, and passed him, transitioning to backwards, so she was facing him. “Happy?”

With a mischievous look in his eyes, Renji blew on his whistle, and put on another burst of speed, picking her up under the armpits and holding her straight out in front of him, her feet dangling a foot off the ice.

“What are you doing?!” she howled.

“We’re figure skating now, right? That’s how this works?”

In response, she grabbed the whistle hanging around his neck and blew it as hard as she could.

Laughing his ass off, Renji skidded to a stop, and gently deposited Rukia back on her feet before doubling over with laughter, clutching his stomach.

Rukia tried to look angry and impatient, but to be honest, she couldn’t remember the last time she had horsed around on the ice like that. She could almost hear Byakuya’s droning lecture on the importance of protecting her precious ankles, but she pushed it to the back of her head. He wasn’t here, and she was determined to enjoy the break from his clucking.

Renji looked up, wiping tears from his eyes. “Wow, that’s a stoneface. C’mon, don’t tell me that wasn’t at least a little bit fun?”

She crossed her arms across her chest, and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Maybe a tiny bit.”

“Good. I forgot. If you wanna work here, you gotta like having fun. No fuddy-duddies.”

“I will have you know, I am an expert at having fun!”

He bobbed his head in an exaggerated nod. “I can tell.”

“What kind of test was that, anyway? You just made me run a bunch of hockey drills.”

“You think I know anything about figure skating?” he scoffed. “Look, here’s the real test,” he announced. “Are you available on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, from 6 to 9, and Saturday mornings, 9 to noon?”

“Yes,” Rukia replied.

Renji tipped his head to the side. “Please come work for me, Rukia. You are ridiculously overqualified for this, but the Learn to Skate classes start this week, and if I have to teach them myself, I’ll have to drop my summer course. The pay’s not great, but you get a staff discount at the snack bar and I can give you free ice time between the hours of 2 and 4 am, if you want it. You get a couple teen assistants, real nice kids. I don’t mind if you make them run personal errands for you or whatever. Also, you get to hang out with a bunch of sexy guys, like Ichigo and my pop.”

Rukia snorted through her nose. Had he forgotten that she was the one who came in here, looking for a job? “You sound pretty desperate, maybe I should hold out.”

His shoulders slumped. “Aw, shit. You want me to throw in free skate sharpening, too?”

“‘Zat your Camaro parked out front?” It was a beautiful mid-70’s model, a hood the size of a tennis court, bright red with black racing stripes. Rukia was going to be very disappointed if it turned out to belong to the orange-haired Pro Shop teen.

Renji frowned. “You can’t have my wife. You wouldn’t want her anyway, she only runs a quarter of the time.”

“She’s a looker, though.”

“That is true, I am a man who knows how to wash a car.”

Rukia leaned forward. “I want a ride in her.” It had been a long time since she had ridden in a car where you could feel the rumble of the engine in your bones. Byakuya would shit a brick if he found out she was riding around in something without side-impact airbags.

“Really? That’s it?” Renji asked.

“That���s it.”

“You can drive her if you want.”

Rukia stuck out her hand. “You have a figure skating instructor.”

Renji grabbed it and shook it firmly. “Welcome aboard. You, uh, you wanna go driving right now?”

Rukia’s cheeks colored. “Oh. I gotta… I’m ‘sposed to meet up with my new roommate and I gotta unpack and stuff.”

“No problem,” Renji drawled. “We got all summer, right?”

“Yeah,” Rukia agreed with a grin. “We got all summer.”

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In case you’re wondering how the rest of this was supposed to go, Ichigo tricks Rukia into joining his awful hockey team, which is made up of a bunch of teens (Keigo, Mizuiro, Tatsuki and Chad), Renji, Ganju and some drunks (Yoruichi and Kuukaku). Rukia makes her assistant figure skating instructors, Orihime and Uryuu join, too, and I think at some point they recruit Toushirou. Rukia and Renji have a fling and keep insisting it is “just for the summer.” There is a romantic skate-sharpening sequence. They make out in the back of Zaraki’s rusty old pick-up truck which Renji had to borrow because the Camaro broke down. At some point, Byakuya shows up and he and Zaraki get in a fight, which they decide to take down and resolve in a hockey shootout with poor Renji in goal, except that Byakuya doesn’t know how to shoot and Zaraki’s back is just really bad and eventually they get tired. Just be glad I moved on to other things.

[deniscollins]

More Resignations, but No Sign Yet of a Change in Gaming Culture

If you were on the board of a Gaming Industry Association, what actions would you recommend to reduce sexual harassment and assault in the industry? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

First, a popular esports tournament was canceled. Next, top gaming studio executives stepped down. Then, a prominent talent management agency for video game streamers laid off its employees and closed.

The stream of reports of sexual harassment and assault in the gaming industry that began in June has continued unabated, as more women — and some men — have come forward with accusations of mistreatment.

Despite the actions that companies have taken in response to individual incidents, gaming experts say they are hesitant to call the moment an inflection point for an industry with a long and difficult history of sexist behavior and abuse. This is not the first time women have spoken up. In 2014, in what is known as Gamergate, women faced death threats for criticizing the gaming industry and its culture. Last year, women again came forward with stories of abuse in what was seen as gaming’s #MeToo moment.

So few expect the resignations this time to quickly change a culture that for decades has often been hostile to women.

“You can fire people all day long,” said Kenzie Gordon, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Alberta who studies how games can be used to prevent sexual and domestic violence. But “if only the individual people are held accountable, that doesn’t have any impact on the culture of the organization as a whole, necessarily.”

The most extensive action has come at the talent agency Online Performers Group. The agency’s former chief executive, Omeed Dariani, was accused in June by Molly Fender Ayala, a community developer for the game Overwatch, of acting inappropriately toward her and propositioning her for sex in 2014. Mr. Dariani stepped down from his role the same day that Ms. Ayala came forward. He did not respond to a request for comment, and Ms. Ayala declined to comment.

Last week, with most of its clients working to terminate their agreements and distance themselves from the talent agency after the allegation, the group itself shut down. The new chief executive, Shane Wilson, broke the news to about 10 employees on a video call, several former staff members said.

“It’s heartbreaking, O.P.G. went out of business today,” Mr. Wilson posted on his LinkedIn page. He did not respond to a request for comment. Two days later, the agency’s site was unavailable.

Some employees had already quit the company after the claims against Mr. Dariani. And Oliver Pascual, a senior account manager there who was laid off, said the majority of the group’s 70 content creators and streamers had signaled their intentions to leave.

“The clients leaving was likely a big reason, but I think it was also a matter of the public’s opinion of the company by that point,” Mr. Pascual said in an interview. “We had always prided ourselves on O.P.G.’s pristine reputation, and after those allegations, it was tainted and hard to recover from.”

Days earlier, several top executives stepped down at Ubisoft, the French video gaming company that develops games like Assassin’s Creed and Just Dance, after a “rigorous review that the company initiated in response to recent allegations and accusations of misconduct and inappropriate behavior.” Serge Hascoët, the high-profile chief creative officer in charge of Ubisoft’s games, was one of the departures after accusations were made against him in a French newspaper. He could not be reached for comment.

“Ubisoft has fallen short in its obligation to guarantee a safe and inclusive workplace environment for its employees,” Ubisoft’s chief executive, Yves Guillemot, said in a statement. “I am committed to implementing profound changes across the company to improve and strengthen our workplace culture.”

And in early July, the fighting video game tournament Evolution Gaming Series, known as Evo, which draws thousands to Las Vegas each year, canceled this year’s virtual tournament and announced that its chief executive, Joey Cuellar, would “no longer be involved with Evo in any capacity” after a gamer said on Twitter that Mr. Cuellar had acted inappropriately toward him and other teenage boys in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

“We are shocked and saddened by these events, but we are listening and committed to making every change that will be necessary in making Evo a better model for the stronger, safer culture we all seek,” tournament organizers said in a statement published on Twitter. Mr. Cuellar apologized for his actions in a since-deleted tweet. He could not be reached for comment.

Kishonna Gray, a professor of gender and women’s studies and communications at the University of Illinois, Chicago, said she viewed the statements and reactions from gaming companies as attempts to “pacify” people until they stop talking about the companies’ problems with diversity, inclusion and harassment.

“They just purge the evildoers and think that they’re OK, not realizing that they’re all complicit and that there’s a culture that devalues women,” said Professor Gray, who studies the gaming industry. She said she wanted to see evidence of companies hiring and devoting resources to diverse candidates.

Neither Evo nor Ubisoft responded to a request for comment about specific changes they planned to make.

Ms. Gordon said she was heartened to see people in positions of power forced to step down over the accusations, but said it was too early to see evidence of a true shift. A “culture change” has to start at the top, she said, so she hoped women and people of color would be given more senior roles in gaming companies.

“If we saw things like that, and not just kind of being a symbolic gesture but people being put into positions where they could affect how the company operates, that might be indicative of something,” she said.

Carly Kocurek, an associate professor of digital humanities and media studies at the Illinois Institute of Technology, said sexism in gaming has its roots in the very beginning of the industry in the 1970s.

Dr. Kocurek, who researches the cultural history of video games, has written about Brenda Laurel, one of the first female game designers, who worked at Atari in the 1980s. When she started the job, Ms. Laurel was one of the first women at the company, Dr. Kocurek said, and told her male colleagues that they could no longer use the women’s restroom as a smoking lounge.

“Everyone laughed, because they thought somebody had gotten their wife or girlfriend to come play a prank on everyone,” said Dr. Kocurek, who interviewed Ms. Laurel for a book about her pioneering accomplishments in gaming. The men thought it was “so ridiculous that a woman was working there.”

Game companies are somewhat more diverse now, but Dr. Kocurek attributed the longstanding sexist attitudes to these male-dominated beginnings.

“If you don’t actively try to change these things, they don’t change that much,” she said. “There’s been a few times where there’s some pushback and there seems to be a real conversation happening, and then it just kind of fizzles.”

As more women join the video game work force, its white male-dominated culture is pushing back, said Anita Sarkeesian, a media critic, podcaster and creator of the Feminist Frequency nonprofit group that provides educational resources related to gender, race and sexuality, and operates a confidential emotional support hotline for people who are harassed in the gaming industry.

They feel like “they’re losing this culture war to what they would call the S.J.W.s,” said Ms. Sarkeesian, referring to the term social justice warriors.

“And their reaction is violence,” she said. “That is the environment in which these stories of abuse are coming out.”