#indeed dot com is right there maybe try that

[totheblood]

i like highly encourage you to log off and message a friend or a therapist if ur in my anon writing a novel length hate message because you have to scroll past an smau with ur hands down ur pants when ur reading ellie williams smut … get serious help

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Outmaway Debut: Super Mario Bros. Wonder

It's officially been over a month since Super Mario Bros. Wonder was released, meaning our embargo for covering its plethora of new enemies has been lifted!

Or at least, that's what it looks like on your end. Hi! I'm Mod Hooligon from a month ago, and I'm writing this post on October 21, 2023, having beat the game just earlier today and going "Wowie-zowie! That was Super Mario Bros. Wonderful! Those sure were some Weird Mario Enemies Dot Tumblr Dot Com! Time to write posts about them that won't be published for another month instead of finishing my galaxy rankings like I should be doing!"

Anyhoo, to kick things off, let's talk about Outmaway! Right off the bat, Outmaway makes a great first impression with all the hallmarks of a good enemy: cute little creature, Eyes-in-a-Black-Void-Face, funny name, and the trademark Mario Enemy Shoes. It's such a Video Game Enemy Design in all the best possible ways.

If you couldn't tell from the fact I bolded the word earlier in the post, Outmaways love to kick things that are in their way that should be the name of the enemy we're talking about. Or maybe they hate it. It's hard to tell when they have a serious case of resting cute enemy angry eyes.

Regardless of how they feel about their lot in life, kicking things out of their way is what Outmaways do best, whether it's blocks of ice or Koopa shells. Do you ever think of how often you kick Koopa shells to take out rows of enemies? Well Outmaway is here to turn the tables, and show you how it feels! You can try throwing a shell at it, but don't say I didn't warn you...

Of course, if you're a fellow Weird Mario Enemies Afficionado who read the line about it kicking around ice blocks, you might be thinking "Hey, that's kind of like Buster Beetle, isn't it?"

Indeed, Outmaway is the second enemy to join the exclusive club of "2D Mario Platformer Enemies That Attack By Using Ice Blocks As Projectiles." But can the two co-exist peacefully, or is Outmaway here to steal Buster's job...?

As we mentioned in our original post on Buster Beetle, the decision to make Buster Beetle a Buzzy Beetle relative feels weird and arbitrary given how little the enemies have in common. And if you couldn't guess from our blog title, we love weird and arbitrary! But it is a questionable choice from a game design perspective, given you'd expect a Buzzy Beetle relative to behave like a Buzzy Beetle. It's very possible that this is why Buster has been missing in action since Super Mario Bros. 3, and that Outmaway is less stealing Buster's job than filling an opening.

Regardless of how you feel about Outmaway replacing Buster Beetle as Mario's voice actor, I think it's a great enemy, and I hope it can become a Mario Mainstay. When it comes to new Weird Mario Enemies, it can be difficult to tell which will stick around. Some of them rise to the occasion, like Goombrat, while others go the way of the Dondon...

I'm hoping for an ideal world, where we can play as Outmaway in Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash 2! It doesn't even use a racket, it just kicks the ball back.

[notjanine]

me a week ago: i love my job!!

me now, after having a mid-year review that amounted to you’re doing an excellent job and you bring such a valuable perspective to our practice but i don’t have the ability to give you a raise right now but don’t worry bc i just hired a new CFO to try to figure out money so we can maybe give you a raise later this year: *breaks into a cold sweat as i crack open indeed dot com*

[tastydregs]

New AI Chatbot Deliberately Trained to Be as Stupid as Possible

2Dumb4You

As impressive as they are, sometimes AI chatbots like ChatGPT can be really, really dumb.

Leaning into that dumbness, and away from the potentially terrifying and easily abused power of an amoral intelligence hooked straight into the internet, is a goofy little chatbot called "2dumb2destroy."

Instead of ginormous datasets, it's trained on crap like all seven "Police Academy" movies, Pauly Shore features, Ralph Wiggum quotes, and a bunch of other useless schlock.

And thankfully, as its name suggests, it's probably too incompetent to ever do humanity any harm.

"Everyone's talking about AI right now, and our impulse is, how can we make this stupid?" its co-creator Steve Nass told BuzzFeed News.

Little Consequence

Making a dumb bot, though, still requires some smarts. Nass and his friend Craig Shervin built 2dumb2destroy off OpenAI's GPT-3

In addition to force-feeding it silly quotes from the "Naked Gun" movies and "Zoolander," they also trained it on some real life things, like George W. Bush's bumbling speeches and the sagacious exchanges that take place on the forums of Bodybuilding dot com.

"It seemed like people just needed a funny, dumb [chatbot] that people could interact with that didn't have big consequences," Shervin told BuzzFeed.

"With so much talk of AI going to steal people's jobs — especially advertising writers' — people are having an existential crisis: Are we needed?" he reasoned. "We thought, 'Let's make an AI so stupid it can never threaten to steal anyone's job or [cause] any existential crisis.'"

AI Adage

We can confirm that the bot can be pretty funny, and, indeed, dumb.

"What do you think of ChatGPT?" we asked 2dumb2destroy.

"I think ChatGPT is very good for people who don't have friends." Yeouch!

When we asked if AI could bring about the end of humanity, it had some more Dumb Guy wisdom to impart to us.

"The only thing I know about AIs is that they're going to want a raise," it said. "And they're smart enough to start World War III over it."

It's worth messing around with the chatbot, but just try not to drive it insane like Microsoft's Bing AI. Then again, maybe its intellectual innocence means it'll hold onto its sanity forever.

More on chatbots: Bing AI Says It Yearns to Be Human, Begs Not to Be Shut Down

The post New AI Chatbot Deliberately Trained to Be as Stupid as Possible appeared first on Futurism.

[delicrieux]

☆ﾐ 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚊𝚢 “𝚘𝚑”

PART 10: BIG DICK IS BACK IN TOWN

y/n is back in brooklyn for the holidays. thinking that a stream will make her feel less homesick for cali, she starts working on her famously titled hentai.free.srv. what was supposed to be a relaxing stream turns into a special delivery about two hours in.

─── corpse husband x reader ─── soc. media + written fiction! ─── word count: 2.2k ─── ❥ req: Here's one... You know those apps for delivery like Domino's or whatnot... What if reader is streaming Among Us with Corpse, and reader mentions they're hungry and Corpse offers to order them food, and readers like no no it's fine... Then there's delivery at the door (Corpse ordered beforehand) 

author’s note: fucky format is also back in town baby!!! also if you find any mistakes - no u didnt <3 thank u everyone for enjoying this story sm i literally cant believe how feral yall going strawberry cow was a nuclear explosion im still recovering tbh. got an ask a while ago and decided to incorporate it into myso. happy holidays everyone! myso will continue on monday!

ultimate masterlist.  ҉  myso masterlist   ҉   previous.  ҉   next.

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Indeed, being soft on any social media platform was the biggest disgrace and needed to be eliminated post haste. Moreover, it was a slippery slope - once you start flooding your timeline with cute imagery and heart emojis, what will stop you from posting inspirational Facebook quotes? Disgusting. If Rae were here, she would chide you (not you thinking about her as if she’s dead or something). For once in your life, you feel like you deserve it. 

Alas, you hope this little chaos you’ve caused is enough to throw everyone off. The stans, especially. You know the hashtags, you’ve seen ARMY scourging for info online with the same fervor and ruthlessness 1 Direction fans hacked airport security cameras just to spy on the boys. If you had any dirty secrets online, they are out to the public now - thankfully, besides the Harry Styles stan account (with edits and all), you have nothing. Though, now that you think about it, exposed nudes would have been better than your Punk!Harry edit receiving almost a million views. God, your life’s a fucking mess.

Your fans aren’t the only ones out for info - you, too, are trying to decipher Rae’s message. Code: Barbecue Sauce. The two of you had come up with it roughly two years ago, around the same time when you promised that if you didn’t find significant others by the time you’re 40, you’ll just marry each other. It was one of the many rules found in your friendship codex. Barbecue Sauce signifies information - an exchange of information. And depending on how it ends or begins (”So I’m sitting there” alludes to Rae, “On my titties” alludes to you), secret data on that person is given away, usually free of charge. 

But why? And to whom did Rae give away what? You had pestered her mercilessly and even sent some voice messages where you were crying. You were only crying because of a video of a grandpa smiling you saw on TikTok, but you are a snake, and so you put those tears to good use. If streaming doesn’t work out, you’ll just become an actress. Hollywood would love you. Your PR firm sure as fuck wouldn’t, though.

Rae was having none of it. She said you’ll figure it out eventually. Told you to channel your superior puzzle skills. You were quick to remind her that you can barely count to ten without having an aneurysm. Oddly serious, she admitted that she worries for you sometimes. Why only sometimes?! you demanded. She merely sighed. uttering under her breath something that sounded closely to “Boke.”

You leave her for barely a week and she’s already neck deep in the gay volleyball anime, hoodie and cardboard cutout and everything. Your life is falling apart.

But Brooklyn is nice. It had snowed when you stepped off of the plane. Thousands of snowflakes sprinkling into your hair, dotting your cheeks and nose. You missed this sight back in Cali. You missed your parents, too. 

Home cooked meals, old sweaters, your old room and about 40GB worth of old high school pictures on your computer. You went through them all one night. Some were stomach churning, cringe inducing nightmares. You were especially fond of those. Texted some of your friends that were still in Brooklyn, met up, decided to bake. Bad idea, Rae was the resident chef back in Cali. Besides laughing till your stomach hurt, and almost burning down your kitchen, nothing all that significant happened. Somewhere down the line, at about 3 am, half-way through a cheesy rom-com you had the overwhelming urge to text Corpse.

That’s where the problems really started. God, you missed California, missed being in the same timezone with a guy you hadn’t even met yet, how embarrassing is that?! You missed skating around and taking pictures of the beach in the setting sun, sending it to him, silently wishing he was with you to admire the view. 

You really want to call him. And to hang out with him. But for some reason, the thought of that springs up immediate anxiety and you shy away from asking. Him sending you cute good morning texts doesn’t help, either. Maybe it’s better he doesn’t know that you’re a blushing, stuttering mess each time you read “baby”. 

Late evening. Your stream is already set up, people are slowly trickling in and you greet them with a grin and a soft “Hello! Hi hi!”. You did your best to make your room a perfectly chaotic backdrop - led lights, an embarrassing amount of anime merch and plushies. You always try to balance out your weeb side by dressing hot as fuck for your streams - today’s inspiration just so happens to be egirls. Mostly because you watched one too many egirl make-up tutorials on TikTok, and also because you’ve been listening to Corpse’s song all day.

Yeah, no, who are you kidding, you dressed up this way because you were hoping Corpse was watching your stream. You didn’t forget your cat headphones, either. You know he likes them. You want to make him suffer. Perhaps then, finally, he will ask you out, so you wouldn’t have to.

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“I feel like,” You start when you put away your phone, staring idly at the chat, “I feel like I need a new name for you guys. Calling you guys after two years of streaming is just... weird, no? I also don’t respect men so I don’t want to call you guys. Like, so many creator’s have, like, a name for their fans. Uhm, Cody Ko has the chodesters, Kurtis Conner has, uh, folks? Kurtis Town? Citizens! Markiplier has mommy issues--” You can’t help snorting, “So, I’ve been, like, thinking - I know, shocking! - so I was thinking I’m gonna name you cockroaches. Because you’re grimy little shits impossible to kill. And also then I can use the legendary Minaj meme ROACHES!”

Your stream enthusiastically echoes ROACHES, making the chat swim. Yes, if anyone would enjoy such a name, it would be your audience. You’re as equally proud as you are disturbed.

“Well, anyway.” Leaning back into your chair, you throw your arms out with a bright grin, “Big dick is back in town, baby! If you noticed the backdrops different, it’s cuz I’m in Brooklyn now. Don’t ask me when I will return to Always Sunny, I don’t plan that far ahead.”

While Minecraft boots up, you decide to answer a few questions.

r u dating sykkuno?

You want to smack your head into the keyboard, but as it is, you can’t exactly afford a new one, so you refrain, “No, Sykkuno and I are not dating, we are just good friends. Uhm, I’m not sure how much I’ll have to repeat this, but, we really aren’t, so if the roaches could chill - Oh my God, that sounds so stupid, I love it - uh, yeah, if the roaches could chill that’d be great.”

the roaches lmao sounds like we’re a sports team

“Oh shit, yeah it does, uh-- maybe I can make like, jerseys or something. That’d be cool, I think.”

how disappointed are your parents with the way your life turned out?

“My parents are actually not disappointed at all!” You say with a cute little smile, “Uhm, they’re both really proud, actually. They’re glad I found something I love doing and made a job outta it. Dad finds my Youtube videos endearing. Yes, they watch pretty much all of my videos, unless I explicitly tell them not to. And yeah, with all the fucks and thirsting for anime characters. Uhm, it was very embarrassing at first, but I mean, after a while, shame just...doesn’t exist anymore, I guess? Funny thing about my parents, actually, when they watch my videos-” You eye catches a comment, “Oh! No, they only watch my Youtube videos. They don’t know how to use Twitter, thank God. Uhm, anyway-- when they hear a name they don’t know, like, I dunno, Dabi, or something, they google--” You’re grinning by now, eyes crinkling, giggling softly, “--who that is, and buy me like, merch and stuff. It’s really cute. 

can i be adopted by ur parents plz

will you and corpse ever collab?!

You were about to answer, though the man of the hour himself decides to do it for you.

Corpse_Husband: yes.

Okay, not to say your heart skipped a beat, but it totally did. With a pleased smile, you nod, like one of those bobble head toys sold at the dollar store. The motion is oddly reminiscent of Sykkuno’s own nod. Perhaps you had picked it up from him. The chat seems to notice.

pack it up, sykkuno

More questions pile about this mysterious collab you and Corpse are planning. Yeah, you’d like to hear more about it, too, since he single highhandedly decided one was happening right now. Corpse remains silent. Fine, keep your secrets. 

“Okay, guys, oh, I mean, roaches, Oh my God--” You’re covering your mouth, giggling, “-calling all roaches, calling all roaches, calm down. Everyone grab a snack and a blanket I’m turning up the music volume so we can all chill. Entering chill zone. Entering chill zone. Roaches, prepare.”

we are prepared

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An hour or so passes and you grow hungry. It shows with the amount of cakes you had baked in your server. Currently, you find yourself throwing eggs at the wall of one of the renovated houses, your face scrunched in concentration and slight frustration. 24 of the 50 eggs have been wasted. “What’s a girl gotta do to get some chicks around here?” you had uttered under your breath, until, finally, a screech - the egg finally spawns a mob. Your mouth falls open, “Aww, look!” You approach it, so small, walking in zigzags beside you, “It’s a baby chicken! Die, bitch.” The baby chicken is no more as you swing your bedazzled (you have mods) diamond sword. You’re cackling by the time the dust settles.

y/n is a child murderer

“Roaches,” You address your fan-base, spurring another fit of laughter - you can’t get over the name, “I think I’m like, forgetting that eating in Minecraft won’t actually make less hungry in real life.”

take a break and go eat queen <3

“Fuck no, we starve and die like men. Now I actually really need another chicken.”

Another twenty minutes trickle by and you’re trying to lure back a panda from the jungle when there’s a knock on your bedroom’s door. Whipping your head to the side, you slide down your headphones. At the same time, your mom pokes her head through the ajar door, “MOM!” You scream, “Get OUT of my room I’m playing Minecraft!” But your yell has no actual bite to it, as you don’t manage to hide your smile. Your mom laughs, doing some sort of sign language and motioning for you to follow her with her head. That or it’s some sort of performative dance. 

“I’m live right now,” You tell her, pointing at your screen. She knows this already, though, “do you want to say hi?” 

The roaches spam the chat with friendly hellos. You mom, quite impatient now, waves you over. 

“Sorry, roaches, mom needs something. Be back in a bit!”

Stopping the stream, you rush out of your seat and pleased she slinks into the hallway. “What’s this about?”

“Your pizza came.”

“My what now?” You echo, confused.

“Domino’s. You ordered pizza?”

“What? No? I was busy with the stream, I never--”

Thankfully, you had managed to grab your phone from your room before you exited. You almost choke on spit once you read the messages.

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You decide that it’ll be impossible to stream after experiencing what you had just experienced. You tweet out a quick apology to the roaches (God, that fucking name) and say that you had a breakdown but you’re okay. That is as a close to the truth as you managed to muster. It’s a sad sight, chewing and crying; your mom winced when she saw your state - disheveled hair and rundown eyeliner and everything. “D’aww,” She had muttered, caressing the top of your head, “don’t cry my little raccoon.”

If anyone was ever to ask you where did your chaotic nature come from, you’d answer with my mom. To make yourself feel better, you took a selfie - duck face and peace sign and the horrible 2000′s angle. Sent it to Rae. 

looking hot, her message read. 

thanks, was all you replied with.

You couldn’t just leave things as they were. Once you calmed down, you wanted to text Corpse, but how would you follow up the ungodly caps lock and screeching? Impossible. An idea sprung to mind, one that was brave. Taking the first step.

Instead of sending a text, you sent a voice memo.

“Thank you for the pizza, it was delicious.”

You voice still sounded a bit raspy. His reply was instant. Your heart skipped a beat. He sent a voice memo back.

“Glad you liked it, baby.”

He was going to be the death of you.

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tags (in italics is those i couldn’t tag! make sure all’s ok w your settings!) : @littlebabysandboxburritos - @fairywriter-oracle - @tsukishimawh0re - @ofstarsanddreams - @bbecc-a - @annshit - @leahh19 - @letsloveimagines - @bellomi-clarke - @wineandionysus - @guiltydols - @onephootinfrontoftheother - @liamakorn - @thirstyfangirl - @lilysdaydreams - @pan-ini - @mxqicshxp - @tanchosanke - @yoshinorecommends - @flightsandfantasy - @liljennyx3 - @slashersdream - @unknown-and-invisible - @sinister-sleep - @fivedicksinatrenchcoat - @mercury–moon - @peterparkerspjsuit - @unstableye - @simonsbluee - @shinyshimaagain - @ppopty - @siriuslystupid - @crapimahuman - @ofthedewthesunlight - @mythicalamphitrite - @artsyally - @corpsesimpp - @corpsewhitetee - @corpse-husbandsimp - @hyp-oh-critical - @roses-and-grasses - @rhyrhy462 - @sparklylandflaplawyer - @charbkgo - @airwaveee - @creativedogs - @kaitlyn2907 - @loxbbg - @afuckingunicornn - @fleurmoon - @yeolliedokai - @truly-dionysus - @multi-fandom-central707

more tags are in the comments bcs tumblr only allows me to tag 50 people max 💙

[amispnrewatch]

SPN 1x06 “Skin”

Okay, I’m gonna try to type while I watch this time instead of forgetting this blog exists until the episode is almost over.

You can tell the footage for the previously on segment was saved on a VHS copy instead of the original film that the show was shot with because even in the HD iTunes version I have it looks low quality as fuck. And jumpy in the way that brings me back to my teens watching the WB all the damn time.

I love this song. WTF is this song. Shazam says “Good Deal” by Mommy and Daddy. I… have no comment, except that it sounds like everything I was listening to in college at the time this shit was airing.

Aaaaand not!Dean turns around to face the SWAT team after obviously torturing some woman. THAT is a cold open.

I wanna know what that car is in the background. It’s pretty. Maybe a convertible Impala? They have similar grills. This is not at all important.

Also, I love that with these higher definition versions of the episodes you can see that Sam’s email is lawboy and whatever dot com and that people in the fandom have started calling him Law Boy. It’s hilarious.

DEAN: Well, what exactly do you tell ‘em? You know, about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doin’?

SAM: I tell ‘em I’m on a road trip with my big brother. I tell ‘em I needed some time off after Jess.

DEAN: Oh, so you lie to ‘em.

SAM: No. I just don’t tell ‘em….everything.

DEAN: Yeah, that’s called lying. I mean, hey, man, I get it, tellin’ the truth is far worse.

SAM: So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life? (DEAN shrugs.) You’re serious?

DEAN: Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can’t get close to people, period.

Aaaaand now I have Dean and Cassie feelings again and we haven’t even gotten to her episode yet.

SAM: No, man, I know Zack. He’s no killer.

DEAN: Well, maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you.

Aaaaaand now I have Dean and Lee feelings and we’re nowhere near Lee’s episode in season 15.

YOU JUST BLEW THROUGH A STOP SIGN DEAN WTF.

Little Becky. Oi with the reusing of names.

Of course Sam made friends with a bunch of rich kids while he was at college in a desperate attempt to try to be normal.

SAM: You know, maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack’s house.

DEAN: We could.

REBECCA: Why? I mean, what could you do?

SAM: Well, me, not much. But Dean’s a cop. (DEAN laughs.)

DEAN: Detective, actually.

I love that Dean was like “how dare you call me that.”

Okay, after a bit of research, I totally want to take a day trip to Bisbee, Arizona, but it’s already in the 90s here in the desert and it’s not even May so that trip is going to have to wait until… winter or something. There is no way in hell I’m going deeper into the desert when the weather gets hotter.

It’s a historic mining town tourist trap looking place now which is exactly the kind of shit I love.

SAM: Bec, look, I know Zack didn’t do this. Now, we have to find a way to prove that he’s innocent.

I mean, not technically, technically you would 1) NOT FUCK WITH A MURDER INVESTIGATION YOU’RE NOT LEGALLY INVOLVED IN BECAUSE ANYTHING YOU FIND WOULD BE INADMISSABLE IN COURT 2) find evidence to provide a reasonable doubt for the jury that he did commit the crime. You know, like a lawyer would need to do, Law Boy.

DEAN: I just don’t think this is our kind of problem.

When I made my husband watch this show with me (he’s seen it all at least once now over the years) this is the recurring thing that drove him crazy.

You guys can’t even go in through the back door? Or shut the front door behind you? Really?

REBECCA: (tearfully) Well, there’s no sign of a break-in. They say that Emily let her attacker in.

Yeah, that doesn’t even really mean that she knew her attacker. Just that it was someone she let her guard down around or got in some other way. See: The Son of Sam and Nightstalker, etc.

Love the pinup magnet on the fridge. I’d throw shade at that, but I have a pinup magnet on my fridge too so… pot kettle and all that.

Okay, both people in the next couple are gorgeous.

And oh wow those special effects changing eyes… wow.

This poor couple. I feel so bad for them in this episode.

How… how are the police gonna explain the way he was able to beat himself over the head with a bat??? I…

I love that 5:30 in the morning on TV is clearly like… 10 AM.

Okay, this is a really unrelated point, but the graffiti on the dumpster here reminds me of the Teen Wolf fandoms use of the name Void!Stiles when Stiles Stilinski was possessed by a Nogitsune… I just spent way too long digging through YouTube and my Tumblr tags from back when those episodes were airing looking for a few specific videos and couldn’t find them. The TL;DR reason I bring it up here is goofball, bi-coded main character guy getting possessed by an entity set on destroying the people he loves. SOUNDS LIKE THIS EPISODE AND A WHOLE LOT OF SPN RIGHT. I love that all these monster hunting shows call out to each other.

This scene haunts me years later and I don’t even WATCH Teen Wolf. I just watched the fandom on Tumblr collectively lose it’s shit then tripped down a Hale Pack fanfiction rabbit hole.

ANYWAY

Back to Supernatural, a show that also treated its fan base, cast, and characters like garbage! Huzzah!

DEAN: Well, there’s another way to go—down. (They look down and notice a manhole.)

I’m gonna be mature and ignore the double entendre there…

But I love that Dean thinks of the world in 3D. Which sounds like a dumb statement to make, but this is honestly a good example of that in action.

SAM: I bet this runs right by Zack’s house, too.

Really Sam, sewers run by houses? SO WEIRD. I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED.

DEAN: You know, I just had a sick thought. When the shapeshifter changes shape—maybe it sheds.

SAM: That is sick. (DEAN puts the bloody pile back on the ground.)

Guys, there is a WHOLE ASS EAR in that pile of yuck you’re looking at. I think it’s pretty safe to assume the shapeshifter indeed sheds its skin like a snake. A much… gooier snake.

Sam’s friend is rightfully pissed at him for fucking with the crime scene.

This is before the pearl gripped guns?! Wow. I never noticed that before.

Also, this whole episode gives me feelings.

++++

Cool. Tumblr mobile ate a whole section of my notes on this when it crashed for NO APPARENT REASON. Love that.

It always boggles my mind that actors can trust the people they’re working with enough to let people “tie” ropes around their neck or put them in actually dangerous positions in a scene.

SHAPESHIFTER: He’s sure got issues with you. You got to go to college. He had to stay home. I mean, I had to stay home. With Dad. You don’t think I had dreams of my own? But Dad needed me. Where the hell were you?

SAM: Where is my brother? (The shapeshifter leans in close to SAM.)

SHAPESHIFTER: I am your brother. See, deep down, I’m just jealous. You got friends. You could have a life. Me? I know I’m a freak. And sooner or later, everybody’s gonna leave me. (He backs away.)

SAM: What are you talkin’ about?

SHAPESHIFTER: You left. Hell, I did everything Dad asked me to, and he ditched me, too. No explanation, nothin’, just poof. Left me with your sorry ass. But, still, this life? It’s not without its perks. (He laughs.) I meet the nicest people. Like little Becky. You know, Dean would bang her if he had the chance. Let’s see what happens. (He smiles and covers SAM with a sheet.)

This exchange is just… so much. So many feelings. And I will forever (unless we magically get a fix-it fic mini season someday…) be SO MAD that none of this got resolved in that pointless, trash heap of a finale.

REBECCA: Okay, so, this thing—it can make itself look like anybody?

SHAPESHIFTER: That’s right. (She chuckles.)

REBECCA: Well, what is it, like a genetic freak? (The shapeshifter laughs.)

SHAPESHIFTER: Maybe. Evolution is about mutation, right? So, maybe this thing was born human but was different. Hideous and hated. Until he learned to become someone else. (REBECCA looks around, uncomfortable. The shapeshifter’s eyes glint silver, and he smiles.)

It always amazes me how much of this show is a pile of accidental queer allegories parading around in an ill-fitting toxic masculinity suit.

Vulcan mind meld! I love nerd!Dean. Also, I’m rewatching Star Trek: TOS with my husband, because that is what my life amounts to these days, rewatching comfort TV and flailing over the bits I love.

This post does a better job than I can do of pairing up screen caps with the dialogue of this next scene. SIX EPISODES IN. They’re dumping all of this character depth SIX EPISODES IN. FUCK THIS SHOW FOR NOT EMBRACING ITSELF.

Okay, I love that he screams back in her face after he threw the phone. It’s not something to laugh at because the situation is horrifying, but I can’t help laughing at it every time.

AND THE WAY THEY CUT THESE SCENES. Going from him winding his hand back to backslap her directly to him dropping the chains on the table to show how hard he must have hit her without actually making the actors hit each other. Good job editing department!

I… don’t understand the shifter’s motivation for killing people. If he can take over people’s identities without killing them, why kill them? Is it just because he’s a homicidal, rapist piece of shit? Cause that’s all it seems like.

How did the SWAT team even know she was being attacked? Why can the snipers aim no better than Storm Troopers?

Ugh, these kind of transformation body horror scenes are exactly why werewolf stories have never really appealed to me much. Like, I could do without watching your ribs move and teeth fall out, dude.

BUT.

THIS FUCKING SCENE.

I looked up the song that’s playing over shapeshifter!Dean being caught by the SWAT team and then going through the grotesque transformation. (And as far as I know, the iTunes version has the original music from the episodes.)

It’s a song called “Mary” by The Death Riders

Who's your mother, who's your mother here boy // Who's your mother, whos your mommy dear // Who's your father, who's your father here boy // Who's your father, who's your daddy dear

Silently screaming // Where everyone knows // Daddy's always watchin' // Where everywhere - everywhere I go

I don't wanna be a freak show pretty boy anymore // I don't wanna be a full time slave // I don't wanna be your midnight cowboy anymore // I just want to be Mary

This is… a fascinating choice. Here are the rest of the lyrics. The song as a whole has a weird incesty kinda vibe to it? Kinda like when SPN tries to straight-wash itself and misses the mark wildly. (Like Dean’s male siren episode.)

The midnight cowboy line reminded me of 12x11 and the bull riding scene with “Broomstick Cowboy” by Bobby Goldsboro playing over it

Dream on, little Broomstick Cowboy, // Dream while you can; // Of big green frogs, // And puppy dogs, // And castles in the sand.

For, all too soon you'll awaken; // Your toys will all be gone. // Your broomstick horse will ride away, // To find another home. // And you'll have grown into a man, // With cowboys of your own. // And then you'll have to go to war, // To try and save your home.

And then you'll have to learn to hate; // You'll have to learn to kill. // It's always been that way, my son; // I guess it always will.

Because, you know, why not add tons of feelings into the lyrics, right?

Props to the people who can embrace their rewatches and reclamations of the show with ease. Because every episode seems to remind me of how hollow and tragic Dean’s ending was and I just… struggle all over again.

Anyway, back to the episode so I can move on with my day.

REPORTER: An anonymous tip led police to a home in the Central West End, where a S.W.A.T team discovered a local woman bound and gagged. Her attacker, a white male, approximately twenty-four to thirty years of age, was discovered hiding in her home. (A sketch of DEAN appears on the screen.)

DEAN: Man! That’s not even a good picture. (SAM looks around cautiously.)

SAM: It’s good enough. (He walks away.)

DEAN: Man! (He follows SAM.)

(CUT TO: Alley. DEAN and SAM are walking. DEAN steps into a puddle.)

DEAN: Ugh, come on.

I love that we get two tiny little back-to-back vanity moments for Dean here. One commenting on the sketch artist rendition of him being broadcasted on the news and the other tripping in the puddle. There is literally someone running around the city trying to kill people while wearing Dean’s face, but Dean is still concerned with how he looks appears to others. He’s still concerned with keeping up his own performance. The shifter left him with just a t-shirt, so he doesn’t even have his usual comfort layers on and at any moment someone could spot him and call the police or try to kill him for assaulting Sam’s friend. His life is wildly out of control in that moment and the only thing he can try to focus on is his appearance (something semi-controllable) and finding the shifter before any of that other shit can happen.

One day I want to put together a like top 10 episodes focusing on / explaining each TFW character from the series. Like the kind of list you could show someone who’s never seen the show, but has OPINIONS about the characters (or who hasn’t seen the whole show and seen the growth they went through… you know, like the people responsible for the travesty of 15x20). This episode would be on that list. I’m not sure how I could manage to make a list of only 10 episodes to understand Dean Winchester by, but eh.

SAM: What are you gonna do to me?

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, I’m not gonna do anything. Dean will, though.

SAM: They’ll never catch him.

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, doesn’t matter. Murder in the first of his own brother? He’ll be hunted the rest of his life. (He picks up a sharp knife and examines it.)

Speaking of season 15 in general, this right here. This was Chuck’s villain story arc thesis statement. AND THEY DROPPED THE GODDAMN BALL WITH IT. I think that’s the thing that honestly pisses me off the most these days (about 5 1/2 months from when the finale aired) is that they tried making the whole thing a tragedy but did such an awful job with it that it just ended up like a deflating condom balloon at a dive bar concert. Disappointing and gross. The finale for season 14 set them up SO FUCKING WELL and it just… didn’t get there.

Becky’s parents are gonna be pissed at how torn up their house is after all this shit…

And you’re not shooting him when you first see him strangling Sam because…?????

I like that he took the necklace back. Also, is this kinda Dean death number .5 of the show? Like it wasn’t him but it was also kinda him. Eh.

At least they left the windshield on Baby this time. Reflections are better than tearing her apart.

[yoonia]

Mistakes and Retakes (M)

↳ Characters / Pairings | Kim Seokjin x reader

↳ Genre | Enemy to Lovers!au, smut, fluff, a bit of angst if you squint a little

↳ Word count | 18,5k words

↳ Summary | You hate to admit it, but making bad decisions and being reckless seems to be your forte. From saying yes to a last-minute meeting to ignoring your father’s warning about driving late at night on a slippery road. As if you haven’t gotten enough bad luck already, your high school nemesis decides to be a hero and comes to the rescue. Santa must have placed you in his naughty list for a dire punishment before Christmas.

↳ Author’s Note | A slight rom-com fic for Christmas, if you will. I had fun writing this but I do hope everyone would love it just the same.

↳ Warning | explicit sex scene, unprotected sex, a slightly unhygienic outdoor sex (please be safe, kids), portrayal of childhood bullying, mentions of/implied characters’ nude pictures.

↳  Part of the Stranded For Christmas Collab

↳ Music Companion | Not There - Zoey Lily, Indigo Svn

↳ Cross-posted | Inkitt | AO3 

Under any normal circumstances, you probably wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t be driving through the long winding country road cutting through the forest so late at night just the night before Christmas Eve.

You would have gotten yourself an early morning ticket on a domestic flight or probably take a train instead. And you would have probably already been lounging in your family’s cabin, eating some homemade chocolate chip cookies that your Mom usually makes on holidays, instead of sitting behind the steering wheels, fighting off drowsiness and boredom from the long drive.

Travelling back home on your new car was not so much of your initial plan at all. But neither was agreeing to an urgent last-minute meeting at the office which had led you to miss a chance on getting a ticket ride home. You dub yourself more as a people pleaser, which was the only reason why you were unable to say no. Though as you are looking back to it now, as you are driving your car through the dark path still miles away from home, you are starting to question yourself whether or not it had been truly worth it.

Your hands grip the steering wheel tightly as you look up ahead on the empty road, focusing on the icy parts that are sparkling under the car’s headlights. You are not as familiar with this road as you do with the routes you go through daily back in the city. It has been a rare occasion for you to drive home this way and the darkness around you is making it harder to see and be sure that you are indeed going in the right direction.

“It’s just you and me, Buddy,” you mutter softly as you look down on your navigation system, giving it a few taps as if it would help nudge the thing back alive from being stuck on one point. “Just as long as you can come back online again, then we’re good.”

Getting further down the road, your GPS system has been losing transmission that it is starting to lag. All you have been seeing on the map is a long, straight road, and the dot that marks your location is still blinking at the part of the route you have left behind had an hour ago. With only thick lines of trees on both sides of the track, no streets signs, shops, or intersections appearing to you yet, you could only hope that you have yet to stray out of the route heading home or miss out on any turns that you are supposed to take.

Getting impatient, you press your foot down on the gas pedal and let the car accelerates forward to get you out of the dark woods. You are hoping that you can get some working internet transmission somewhere around the next intersection heading into town.

For a split second, while you are trying to ignore the eerie feeling growing in your chest from being surrounded by the dark woods, your mind wanders off to remind you of your father’s words about your reckless driving and what he had said to you when you told him about your plans to drive home.

"Drive carefully."

"Don't drive so carelessly! Pay attention to the road."

"Are you sure you want to drive in that tiny city car of yours? Can't you just ride a bus home? It’s not safe to drive so late, go in the morning.“

"Change your tires before winter comes.”

As if fate has it, just as you turn the car to follow the path as the road curves to the right, the tires slide against the frozen asphalt, sending your car tumbling out of control and skirting off of its path. You slam on the breaks to make it stop, yet it only throws the car into a spin as the road goes downhill, before landing itself in the ditch on the side of the road.

You can only sit there in silence as everything stops spinning, feeling your heart hammering in your chest from the shock. Trying to calm yourself down, you take a deep breath before clambering out of the car and walk around, checking to see if you can find any visible damage and how bad you are stuck.

After studying the awkward angle your car is in as it is lying on the ditch, you step back inside and crank the engine back to life. Once again keeping your father’s image in mind, you try to remember his lessons about how to get yourself out of this kind of trouble. You start trying to maneuver the car slowly up the embankment, moving it inches at a time until you get the car into position to push it off of the ledge and back up on the road.

Applying the gas slowly, you start leading the car to climb up the bank while increasing the pressure on the gas pedal as you go. You keep following the steps calmly, until you hear a sound that makes your heart sink down to your stomach—the sound of the tires spinning. Taking your foot off the gas, you switch the gear to reverse the car, hit on the gas again, only to have nothing happening. Unwilling to give up, you switch on the gear forward and hit the gas again. And nothing. Switching the gear backwards, you hit the gas again, repeating them a few more times, yet the only thing you keep getting is the sound of the tires spinning and the car not even moving an inch.

“Fuck it!” you cry out while beating your hands against the steering wheel. Grabbing your purse, you search for your phone, hoping to be able to call for help. Yet just like the deadbeat blinking you were getting on your GPS, there is no reception on your phone to make any call.

Falling back in your seat, you can only cry out helplessly when you realise the situation you have gotten yourself in. You are indeed, completely stuck.

“Why me?”

Either you have been struck with a string of bad luck or if you are simply being punished for being such a terrible decision maker, the unfortunate event does not stop there.

As if getting your car stuck in a ditch is yet to be enough of a trial, you slipped down the slope when you were climbing your way to the main road. One missed step was met with an icy ground as you scrambled up the side of the ditch and you were sent falling back down, leaving you with a coat and a pair of jeans that are now completely soaked with snow, a sore hip, and a possible sprained ankle.

You dread the fact that you are nowhere closer to the nearest town and that you have not seen any other car passing by so far that you could flag down for help. Standing at the side of the road, you lean down to check on your ankle first before whipping out your phone from your pocket. There is no visible injury or swelling on your throbbing ankle—not yet, at least—a fact that you are relieved to see, yet it means nothing when there is still no reception on your phone for you to call for help or send any news home.

Looking both ways down the road, you find the road completely void of cars. It is already extremely late in the night and your hope of getting any help is slowly waning thin.

You still have miles away to reach the family cabin, a journey which would have taken you another hour or two with your car. The next town is much closer, yet even if you bother to try to walk the distance, whether it is down the long empty road or looking for a shortcut through the trees, you know for sure that you wouldn't make it all the way there by foot until past midnight.

Especially not with this ankle.

You are not completely sure if it would be safe to leave your car and your luggage out in this place either.

“Damn it.”

You choose to walk anyway, figuring that you may still have a chance to either get a reception somewhere along the way or find a ride on the nearest intersection ahead. Moving carefully on the side of the road, you pay close attention on your cellphone while trying to make sure that you wouldn't slip on frozen ground or strain your ankle further.

You have managed to walk a few meters away from your car, hobbling on your way until you nearly give up and turn back around when there is no building or lights on sight. Suddenly, the thought of just staying inside your car to keep yourself warm sounds a lot nicer than having to walk through the cold and into the dark woods.

It is at that moment when you hear it, the sound of a car engine, or a truck, coming from behind you. Turning around, you see a pair of headlights coming towards you, steadily moving on the ice-covered road in the distance.

“Oh my God, thank you,” you mutter with a sigh. You are both relieved and in despair as you lift your hand, hoping that the driver would care enough to stop for you.

Maybe you could ask for a ride, or borrow their tools to pull your car out of the ditch so you can carry on with your journey home.

As the vehicle slows down the more it gets closer to you, it is finally becoming clear that it is indeed an old pick-up truck which you would normally see in the farms around town, letting you know that it is probably a local. Whoever it is, you can feel your heartbeat settling down with relief when the truck comes to a stop right in front of you. Maybe you could finally be saved.

The driver lowers the window on their passenger seat and you lean closer to speak, only to have chill running down your spine when the driver leans towards you, letting you see his face up close through the dark interiors of his truck.

"Well, now. If it isn't the beautiful city girl, miss _____. What are you doing out here so late, woman?” he says so cheerfully, his eyes carry a glint of recognition and mischief while his lips—still the plum and sexy pair that you had once adored and hated—are grinning wide for you.

Fuck. Maybe the whole holiday season is cursed, after all.

You have stopped believing that angels and good fortune existed since many years ago. And if there is anyone in this world to blame for it, then you would point your finger on one person only.

Kim Seokjin.

The pride of the town, now farming business extraordinaire ever since the day he took over his family’s farmlands, the model student at school, the golden boy of the track club, parents’—and apparently, starting some time since his puberty, also women’s—favourite, and your childhood bully.

He was a total jerk to you back in school.

For some reason, he had found the pleasure of rubbing you off the wrong way since you were kids and had made your life miserable for your entire teen life.

From throwing worms, bugs, and small frogs at you when you were kids, to tugging your hair when you started growing them out and putting them up into ponytails and french braids every summer in mid-school. What took the cake was what he did to you back in high school. There is a reason why you had cut all contacts to nearly everyone from school since the day you graduated and he was the one who gave you just the perfect reason for it. You have even dreaded going to school reunions to the fear that people would bring up all the past events. Or even worse, call you by the very same nickname he had given you that had spread like haywire within less than a day and lasted until the very last week before graduation.

Just thinking about everything has your stomach churning and your blood boiling hot. It is just unfortunate that the latter is still not enough to give you warmth as you continue the slow walk down the road while fighting off the cold.

And the stubbornly handsome lad? Oh, he is still there, following you close with his truck while shouting through the window with all the snarky comments he could think of as if it would get you to hop into his truck and spend the rest of the journey sitting next to him until you reach town.

“I can understand if you were homesick for being in the city so long, but I didn’t expect to see you walking your way back home,” he says, snickering to himself as if he had just said the funniest thing ever while you keep the permanent scowl on your face as you stay silent. “Feeling adventurous, are we?”

You snap a look at him and instantly regret it.

Sure, the man is gorgeous and good to look at, but does it matter when he is the devil himself? You are half ready to run back to your car, opting to hoist it out of the ditch yourself if only you could or just sleep inside it until it would be possible for you to get any kind of help in the morning. Grunting, you hate the fact that neither is possible to do and it would be ridiculous to just walk back and sleep on the side of the road.

Speaking of your car, your heart lurches to your throat as you remember that you still have your belongings left behind and you would certainly need to get them one way or another if you are going to leave this area. Eyeing the truck beside you, you wonder if it would be strong enough to pull the car out of the ditch.

But that only means you would be asking this jerk a favour. And it will require you to actually talk to him. Not to mention that you have no doubt he would use this sometime later against you. You just know that he would.

He keeps rambling on while the wheels in your head keep turning, and before you can think better of it, you start talking to him, only to make him stop blabbering about some stupid things. Something about the woods, wild animals, and being frozen in the woods.

"Why are you even around here, anyway?" you ask him without looking as you keep on walking, holding back from asking him the real question hanging on your tongue—’Why does it have to be you?’

"Umm, for starters, I do live around the area. Not everyone had the big dreams of leaving the small town to be a big hotshot working behind desk jobs, you know?” He comments so lightly without noticing how much his words feel more like a jab to you. Pursing your lips, you glance sideways to see his eyes softening, as if he regrets saying something that may resemble a call out for your wish to leave the town as soon as possible the moment you graduated years ago. Clearing his throat, Seokjin continues to speak, “I was just coming back from a neighbouring town to drop some goods and buy some supplies before the road would be closed off for the thick ice and snow. The shops will be closed until after the New Year. I'd hate to be stranded on the farm all through the holidays without supplies to help me get through the cold."

You listen to him without saying a word or responding to him. Not only because you couldn’t care less about his daily activities or to his survival needs, but because you also need to focus on your legs more. You have been trying to walk normally to hide and ignore the pain on your ankle, and it is getting even harder now as the cold is starting to seep deeper into your skin through the wet patches on your jeans.

“Are you back to ignoring me again?” Seokjin asks you when he is not getting any reaction from you.

A little annoyed for having to hear his voice again, you only reply him with, “I’m trying to convince myself that you are merely a figment of my imagination just to keep me company. You are not really here and I’m just listening to some wind trying to be you.”

“______, Come on. This road is highly deserted. I don’t know if you have been paying close attention, but nobody passes here once it gets dark. I can’t promise you that you will have another chance of getting help once I drive off,” he says after groaning in despair, no doubt already losing his patience for your attitude. ”Now, will you please get on the truck? Let me help you. Fuck, I can drive you to town, at least.”

You are tired, stressed, and in pain, and the answer is hanging right at the tip of your tongue. Yes, absolutely. Take me away from this dreadful place, please.

But as you remember how much you hate him and that he is the enemy, your mouth betrays you by saying, “No."

All of a sudden, Seokjin hits the breaks and the truck comes to a sudden halt. The sound made by the tires against the icy road and the jolt of movement causes you to stop walking, and you end up looking at him with wide eyes.

"Please, ____. You are completely soaked and I know that at least one of your legs is hurting."

Furrowing your brows, you begin to question why he seems so adamant to help you. Maybe he does care, or maybe you just look so desperate and he is doing this out of pity. You already hate the fact that he had caught on to how you have been basically dragging your ankle as you walk no matter how much you have tried to hide it from his eyes.

You always hate to appear weak in other people’s eyes, and it is even worse to show this side of you to Seokjin.

A flash of memory comes to your mind, of him standing in the school hallway, grinning wide as he called out to you. The kids around him started laughing and pointing at you after hearing what he said, and how you rushed to hide in the bathroom, hiding your reddened face while crying until the last period of the day.

And school was never the same again ever since.  

“Look, I know you hate me,” he says, nearly pleading at this point and you have to do everything in you to hold back from saying ‘You think?’ and make things even worse when it is obvious that he is trying. “And though I know I totally deserve the silent treatment, probably until hell freezes over, can’t we call it a truce for now so I can help you? At least until I can get you somewhere safe or to your family’s cabin in one piece. You also need to get your legs treated because there is no way you are getting through this cold with that leg of yours.”

Exhaling a deep sigh, you have to admit that he is right. There is no way you can keep on walking further in this state, and you hate to be too far away from your car without making sure that all of your belongings would be safe while you figure out how to get your car free. Right at this moment, you see no other possibility of getting help aside from the man that you have hated most for years.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but—” you release another sigh to push your anger away and let things go. For now. “Fine. I do need help, but remember that I’m only agreeing to do this because I have no other choice.” And you are also desperate, but he doesn’t need to know that. “Let’s call it a truce and I promise I won’t maul you if you can either get my car out of the hole it was stuck in or help me get my things first.”

Seokjin’s eyes light up instantly and you can see him releasing a relieved sigh as he smiles at you.

“So, truce?” he asks again, offering his hand through the window for a shake, and you give your gloved one to grab onto him to shake his hand.

“Truce.”

Once you had gotten into his truck, you made Seokjin agree to turn his truck around and drive back to where your car had been stuck in. Seokjin had helped you step down the bank, carefully this time and without slipping down the slippery slope, then joined you as you examined your car.

You had asked him if he could pull the car out of the ditch, only to have him shaking his head, regretfully telling you that he wasn’t all prepared with the proper tools to do it when he was only planning to make a quick drive out of town and back and was not expecting to find you stranded in the area. The only option is to get your things out of the vehicle and get to town before midnight to decide how to go about it.

While Seokjin goes to the trunk to retrieve your bags and suitcase, you look down on the small car and wince at the sight of it. A huge dent is visible on its side where you felt it hit against the edge of the ditch and the way its tires are slanted sideways in awkward positions is not entirely a beautiful picture to look at.

You had relied too much on your new car when you decided to go on this trip, believing that it would never fail you. As a matter of fact, it didn't. It was more that you had failed your car more than it did to you when you were being reckless about the road.

Seokjin follows your gaze just as he hoists a suitcase out of your baggage trunk, looking down on the tires and mutters, “You weren’t using the right tires.”

You can only sigh when you know that he is right and you are too tired to defend yourself. “I have been too busy right before the holidays, and I couldn’t find the time to take it to the auto shop,” you tell him, furrowing your brows a little. “I wasn’t planning to drive home on it either until I had no other choice but to do it at the very last minute.”

He only stares at you and you bite your tongue. Squaring your shoulders, you wait for him to make a sarcastic comment to taunt you. Unexpectedly, Seokjin only nods. Maybe he had caught the distress in your eyes or see it on your face, because he only smiles knowingly and says, “It’ll be alright. We’ll just cover it up with something for now and lock up the doors. I’ll have my friend pull it out first thing in the morning. He has a tow truck which would be better to do the job than my truck and some old rusty chains would.”

Surprised to have his response, you can only return his gaze and absentmindedly murmur, “Okay.”

Both of you work systematically as you move your things from the car into his truck. Then you watch Seokjin placing some fallen branches and street markers to keep your car out of sight before hopping back on the truck to continue the journey. As you are soon back on the road, you slowly feel the cold coming back and tug at your coat to tighten it around you. You look down on the heater and notice it running, but say nothing even though you doubt that the thing is working properly in this old truck of his.

"You shouldn't have worn something so thin in this cold." Seokjin’s voice suddenly comes to steal your attention away from his dashboard and you find him glancing down on your body when you look at him.

"I wasn't exactly planning to be away from the wonderful heater that my car has,” you murmur with a sigh. “I also didn't plan to fall into the snow either."

“You fell?” he asks while glancing back and forth between you and the road ahead.

Nodding your head, you answer him with a light scoff. “I slipped on that ditch when I tried to get up on the road earlier.”

You hear him cursing under his breath. “Damn it. That explains your leg,” he mutters softly, once again surprising you when he looks even more concerned instead of laughing at you for it. The latter was something which he would have normally done on times like this. At least, in the past, there was no doubt that he would.

Looking out the window, you focus on the sight around you to ignore the weird feeling growing in your gut. For this one night alone, he has surprised you more than once with the way he acts. Once he was done being a smartass, he began to act really—nice. He even calls you with your name instead of that name. The mockery he gave you in senior high school which was the final straw for everything he ever did to you.

There is another reason why you are silent with your thoughts. Since the moment he brought up about your leg, you start feeling your ankle pulsing with pain when you could barely feel it earlier in the cold outside.

"You're shivering,” Seokjin suddenly speaks after a while, breaking the awkward silence that had been rising between you.  

“Um—what?”

You meet Seokjin’s knowing gaze with your confused one, until you finally notice that while you have been lost in trance, your body has started shivering again. As you watch the way your hands and your body tremble, Seokjin drops a small blanket on your lap.

“I don’t have a spare jacket, but you can use this lap blanket for now. You probably should lose the wet coat too, but I’m not sure that this thing will be enough to warm you if you’re only wearing that sweater of yours,” he says, tapping on his heater as if he is trying to wake the thing up.

“This is fine,” you tell him while covering yourself with his blanket, though the size only covers your chest and lap. His masculine scented cologne fills the air around you as you take a deep breath. Leaning back in your seat, you accidentally knock your sprained ankle against the floor and wince in pain. “Oh, shit. Ow!”

“What, what’s wrong?” he turns to you as he hears your voice. You are in too much pain that you only whimper and bend down slightly to hold your leg to stop it from hitting anything else. “Fuck, I almost forgot about your leg,” he says when he looks down to watch you massage your calf to ease the throbbing pain a little. “Are you okay?”

Whimpering, you can only shake your head and blink back the tears. “I don’t know. It’s hurting.”

You hear him cursing under his breath while he looks around through the woods, as if searching for something. Then suddenly, he changes gear and turns the wheel before you feel the truck leaving the main road, entering a gravelly pathway appearing between the line of trees. “Alright, hang on tight.”  

Reaching up to the handle on your door, you hold on tightly on it just as he had told you so while the truck shakes roughly down the pathway. You look around in shock, while Seokjin appears eerily calm as he drives the truck with rapt attention.

“What are you doing? Where are we going?” you finally ask him once you find your voice again, knowing that the main intersection leading to the town was not supposed to be around until another couple of kilometres and this is certainly not the turn you were hoping to see.

“It’s a shortcut. We’ll get there faster if we go through here. Trust me,” he says with a tiny grin on his stupidly handsome face which instantly melts your heart to a puddle. Sighing away, you have no choice but to actually trust him. Even if he is the last person on earth you would ever plan to give your trust to.

“Give it to me.”

He was just walking out of the changing room after practicing with the track team when you ambushed him. Like the true bully that he was, Seokjin was walking with confidence oozing all over him and was barely noticing you trudging over his way. As he looked at you, his eyes grew wide for a moment before his face turned cold.

“What are you talking about?”

“Give. It. To. Me.”

“Give what to you?”

“The goddamn picture! Do I really have to spell it out for you?” You screamed right at his face when he kept acting dumb about it, and you instantly looked around, afraid if anyone would hear you talking. Though it was more due to what you were talking about that you feared for people to find out, not for being caught talking to him in public.

“Ah, the picture!” He suddenly said, the expression on his face brightened as if he had a ‘eureka’ moment and you prayed to all the mighty above that you could hold back from scratching that smile off of his face. Literally. “I’m afraid I can’t.”

“What?”

Seokjin grinned wickedly as he leaned closer, whispering to you. “Why would I give such a nice picture to you after all the trouble I had gone through to get it? It’s my prized possession and I’d rather not lose it,” he said, his eyes glinting with pure mischief that had your body shivering in fear.

“What do you want with it anyway?” he asked, then his grin started to grow. “Do you find it thrilling to have a bare photo of you out there somewhere?”

“You—” you suddenly felt the urge to slap him on the face but you managed to hold back by clenching your hands right before you could swing it. Yet you still felt a small pride growing in your chest when he noticed your anger and flinched back in shock. “How the hell did you get it anyway?”

Seokjin only shrugged his shoulders. “Took it myself back in summer camp. You should be more careful when you go changing your clothes.”

“So, you—” you gasped. Clearly not believing your own two ears. “You really do have it.”

You tried to deny that it was true when there were people whispering rumours about how Seokjin had his hands on a certain picture of you. A polaroid picture that was said to be taken while you had your breasts revealed when you were about to go swimming in summer camp. You had waved it off when your best friend came to tell you about it and said that it was probably a lie, something he would ramble about with his friends just to put a shame on you. That the picture did not exist.

But this. This confirmed it.

You looked away when you felt your tears coming. Your chest had grown tight but you refused to let him see how weak he was making you feel. “How many people have seen it?”

“Just a couple of the guys who saw it in my room the first place. I don’t go around showing indecent pics to everyone I see. You should give me more credit than that.”

Forcing yourself to look at him, you practically started begging for his mercy. “Please, Jin. You can’t show it to anyone else or let it spread. Ever. If you really don’t want to give it to me or destroy it, at least promise me that you won’t show it to anyone.”

He was silent for a moment. “I promise,” he finally said. “And I’ll destroy it if anyone ever finds it.”

You didn’t truly expect that he would promise you that much, but you had to admit it gave you a good feeling when you heard it. “You do?”

“Scout’s honour.”

You were about to say something else when the other boys from the track team started walking out of the changing room. So all you did was give him your final threat before moving on. “I’m holding your words for it, Seokjin. And if I ever find out that you are spreading it around, I’m going to make you pay for it.”

You didn’t bother to wait for his response and quickly scrambled away from the spot, leaving the dumb pervert behind. If only you didn’t put so much hope and trust into him, you probably wouldn’t have regretted it later on.

Trees.

You look around and the giant trees are all you see aside from the dark void among them as the truck keeps driving through the woods. Seokjin has his eyes set forward as he drives the truck through the gravel-covered road.

Looking back and forth between the sight around you and him, you start to grow wary of the situation. Not only for the fact that you have no idea where you are going and that you cannot see anything outside the window, but also for the way his jaw is tight and his knuckles are turning white against the steering wheel.  

“Are we lost?”

Seokjin gives you no response at first, but then his jaw ticks for a brief moment and he forces himself to relax a little as he answers, “Uhm—no.”

“Oh, that sounds convincing,” you sarcastically comment on him while rolling your eyes. “Why don’t I believe you? I thought you knew the area.”

He glares at you for a second before turning back on the road. “I do. It’s just—I might have taken the turn a bit too early.”

Gasping, you look around you once again before turning to him with wide eyes. “You’re kidding me. Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Look, I got this, alright? Fuck, I know these roads. It’s not my fault I kept getting distracted by you,” he suddenly snaps. “You know, I think you just succeeded in giving me your bad luck or something. It’s starting to feel like helping you is turning into bad karma.”

You let out a groan. Just when you are starting to think that you can start liking the guy and he just ruins it in seconds. “Bad karma? Now you’re saying I’m a bad karma? That bad luck started when I agreed on taking this damn ride with you.”

Shaking your head, you look away while cursing and calling him with every vile word you could think of. Then you ramble about how things have only been getting worse and you regret trusting him, starting from how you should have stayed back in your car and waited down the road instead of hitching a ride with him. You even add by telling him that it would have been better if you had camped out at the side of the road, to saying how you are starting to believe he is doing this on purpose to scare you or possibly kidnap you instead of taking you home. Then how you would rather risk being abducted by aliens than having to be taken by him.

All of a sudden, he starts to laugh, which stops you from calling him more names and have you turning to him, finding him looking amused while giving you his cocky smile for no reason at all.

“Sweetheart, you better stop blabbering shit and let a guy focus on driving before I kiss you.”

Huffing at him, you cross your arms and look away. You say nothing to him as he continues to drive. At least, not directly. Because you keep on muttering all the curses and threats you could think of to let him know that you would not be sitting down nicely if he fails to bring you home tonight.

“What if we get ambushed by wild animals? What if there’s a cliff on the end of this pathway? There is no possible way that this road is safe enough to drive on. I swear to God, if we don’t make it back safely, I’m going to—”

While you kept rambling on, Seokjin had only been silent. You could see his grin slowly fading away the more your voice got higher by the minute, words broken between each other as you were tossed and turned at every rough shake the truck had to endure the deeper it got into the woods.

Then, like a bad karma, your suspicion and doubt are both proven as the truck suddenly jolts, hitting a pothole in the middle of the road until you feel it tilting sideways before it falls to the other side as Seokjin presses the pedal, only to send it to another hole instead of releasing it free. When you hear him cursing while pressing the gas pedal, and all you could hear is the tire spinning instead of feeling it move, you know that you are both in trouble.

“Don’t tell me that we’re stuck.”

Seokjin snaps his eyes on you with his lips pursed tight to a thin line. He says nothing before he opens his door and steps outside, checking on the situation and any probable damage. Deep down, without having to hear him confirm it for you, you already know that you are completely stuck.

“Fucking great.”

Deciding not to be the bad guy, you carefully climb out of the truck to see what the problem is and maybe offer some help. Though you find it that you are probably useless when you could barely stand straight thanks to the numbing pain on one of your legs. You finally find a way to move around, however, but only by holding onto the side of the truck as you hop your way over to the other side.

You find Seokjin just standing up from looking into the tires, using his cellphone’s flashlight to be able to see better in the dark. You walk closer—or, in this case, hopping on your uninjured leg to keep yourself from walking on your hurting ankle—as he walks towards the truck’s compartment, and it is then when you finally see how the truck is angled awkwardly with its front tire buried in the snow. The snow had probably covered the deep pothole which he had missed earlier, and yes, now you are both stuck in the middle of nowhere. Right in the middle of the woods and the darkness around you is not helping to make you feel better at all.  

Turning to the back of the truck, you see Seokjin rummaging through the stuff he has back there and you call out to him. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Seokjin nearly jumps, your voice has completely startled him as he didn’t even notice that you have gone out of the truck.

“Fuck, _____,” he gasps, pressing his free to his chest. “ No, I think I can handle it. What are you doing? You shouldn’t be walking, you’re going to make it worse,” he adds with a frown. He even turns his phone to light up your leg as if to make a point.

“I’m not standing on it,” you say to him while pointing at your leg that is slightly lifted off from the ground. “I just wanted to see what’s wrong. You can’t expect me to just sit in there and do nothing.”

Shaking his head, Seokjin reaches into the back of the truck once again and pulls out a car jack and a shovel. “Don’t worry, I got this,” he says while showing you his tools with a wink.

You look over to the tools he has in his hands and cannot help but ask, “You’re going to use those to do what, exactly?”

He looks down for a brief moment and starts explaining, “I’m gonna lift the truck up a little so I can see the hole and dig around it to make a path so the truck can climb up. It’s too dark and the snow is too thick, I need to do something before digging up to make sure I won’t be hitting the tire with the shovel.”

He may seem confident, but the way his eyes are shaking only lets you know that he is not truly sure about it either. He can probably see the dubious look on your face because he later adds, “Look, I don’t exactly know if it’ll work, but at least I can try to do something to get us out. Now move over and let me do the work.”

You do as he says and slide out of his way as he walks over, then he hands you his phone to help brighten things up for him. He calmly states that since there is still no reception showing on both your phones, they are completely useless at the moment except for their flashlights, and it would be the only thing you are allowed to do without adding injuries.

Seokjin kneels down next to his truck, getting the jack into place. Tossing his coat jacket away, he bends down and tries to nudge the tires out of the pothole using his tools. You point the lights from his phone towards him and lean against the side of the truck as you watch him work. Your eyes trail down as his muscles stretch and bulge underneath the tight long sleeves of his sweater, his shoulders looking strong and built as he pulls and pushes, groaning as he uses his strength to pull his truck out of the trap. His lips form into a pout and the frown on his face deepens as he concentrates.

You realise that even the darkness of the woods is not enough to mask his beauty. If only he had not opened his mouth to ruin things with his snarky comments and teases, you might have been swooning all over him like many of those students back in your high school, both girls and boys, would.

Noticing your silence, he glances over his shoulder and his cocky smirk grows when he notices where exactly you are currently looking at. “See something you like, sweetheart?” he teases.

Scoffing, you look away to hide the way your cheeks are warming up from being caught ogling him. I fact, you cannot believe you actually were seeing something that you like. Yet another thing he doesn’t need to know.

He continues to work once he is pleased to have you flustering. The space between you falls silent except for the sound of him working on the jack and his heavy breathing. And you cannot help but suddenly feel slightly nervous around him. Maybe it’s the cold, you wonder. Deciding that it must be messing your brain up.

You start wishing that you could be somewhere warm, with blankets around you instead of wet clothes and hot drinks. And hugs. Lots of hugs. Even Seokjin looks warm enough to snuggle with, with his strong arms and shoulders to lean on.

“Damn it,” he curses, snapping you out of your trance and have you looking at him again. He has moved from using the jack to digging into the ground with his shovel, and he looks annoyed when the couple of diggings he did had made no difference. “The ground is solid ice, the shovel can’t get through. I guess we’re going to be stuck here, after all.”

He tosses away the shovel and lets it land on the nearest pile of snow while he catches his breath. His face and neck are glowing with sweat, while you can feel your own skin blanch. Dread instantly takes over when you realise that you are going to be held up right here in the dark. And that is when you finally snap.

“Fine, you’re right. It’s probably me. I’m cursed. I must have done something wrong and whatever holy entity exists up there hates me.”

Of course, it had to be. You have been followed by one bad luck to another on this one night only and not even Seokjin’s presence could steer it away. Or maybe he is just a part of that bad luck? He isn’t really helping you, after all, so it could be it. At this point, you are starting to believe that the universe truly hates you.

“Have you gone insane?” Seokjin asks you with his eyes wide and a nervous chuckle coming out of his lips. He walks over to you and places both hands on your shoulders, lightly shaking you up as he calms you down. “Look, I was only joking when I said you were some sort of bad luck, okay? You seemed so into it when you were wallowing about how you got stranded, I thought it would be fun to tease you.”

Your heartbeat is still racing as if you are about to have a panic attack, but he forces you to keep looking into his eyes and you find both his words and his assuring gaze are distracting you just enough to have you slowly calm down.

“It’s nobody’s fault, things like this could happen to anyone, anytime. It could be worse, you know. I mean, we could have been stuck at different places on our own instead of together,” he adds with a playful shrug while throwing you a smile as he could tell that whatever he is saying to you is starting to get into your head.

“God, whatever,” you mutter while rolling your eyes. You cannot help the grin that comes from hearing his words. Looking away from his ridiculous happy face, you look out through the line of trees, into the darkness and the void that had scared you off earlier. Your eyes slowly adjust themselves to the dark, and just then, your sight clears out to show you something appearing from beyond the trees. “Hey, what’s that? Is that a—a house?”

Seokjin follows your gaze and he immediately laughs. “Well, what do you know? We were on the right track, after all,” he says, sounding relieved while you are left completely confused. Thankfully, he explains to you shortly, “That’s the Choi family’s old farm. We might be able to get us some help.”

You look over towards the old building, noticing the broken fences surrounding it and the way the main house looks more like a ran down shack and the old barn next to it is not looking so grand either. With no lights in the surrounding building, they look like nothing but a pair of haunted cabins. “But it’s dark and it seems—deserted.”

“Uh—yeah, old grandpa Choi lived here alone after his wife died. He only had a couple of horses, two cows, and a few chickens to take care of. I think I heard about him moving to be with his kids on the other side of the town after he got sick last year.”

You snap your eyes back to him, astounded. Even more so when he had spoken so lightly like it is no big of a deal.

“So—it basically is deserted.”

“I—technically, yes. But there has to be some electricity running or perhaps some tools left behind. Maybe a working house phone, or a first aid kit for your legs, who knows?” If he is completely unsure about his own ideas, he is clearly trying to hide it from you by turning around and quickly making his way towards the old farmland.

“And how exactly are we going to know that?” you ask while moving in small hops to follow him. “I’m not about to add breaking and entering to my naughty list.”

He stops dead in his track, turning around instantly when he heard what you just said. “A what—list?”

Waving both your arms, you voice out one of the most ridiculous things you could think of. “There has to be some kind of list of the bad things I did to deserve this much bad luck in one night.”

“Oh, you’ve got some bad luck, alright. But at least you got me, right?” he teases while chuckling. Though he stops when he sees that you are being serious. “Well, fine—do you have any better idea?”

Clearly, you have none. You are completely flabbergasted to the entire thing that you have nothing to offer at the moment, and he seems to be too impatient to wait until you can make up your mind. Obviously, there is no other choice but do exactly what he is planning to, which is why he turns around again and starts making his way through the trees.

“And we are not breaking into the property. I am,” he says to you while looking over his shoulders, not minding where he is heading as he trudges forward to the edge of the pathway.  

“Jin—” you call out to stop him just as he walks past the line of trees. But when he suddenly cries out and disappears as if the ground had just swallowed him, you know that you are too late.

“Oh, my God! Jin!”

It takes a lot of effort for you to hop off towards where Seokjin had fallen into. Once you reach the edge of the woods, you finally notice that the ground slightly descends from the pathway, going downhill towards the farmland beyond.

You can hear him laughing before you find him, lying down on his back and practically buried in the pile of snow. The broken patches of the snow around you shows you just where he had his misstep earlier before he came tumbling down.

“Jin, are you okay?” you shout out to him while taking another step forward while he is still chuckling like an ass down there.

As he notices you moving, he suddenly yells out, “No, ______. Stop!”

His warning is left unheard, however, when it is far too late. You have taken a step into the snowy hill and the ‘ground’ beneath you breaks, sending you slipping down the slope until you fall on your back, landing right beside him.

“Shit, _____,” you hear him calling as he crawls to you. “Are you okay?”

Seeing his face hovering above you snaps you right out of the shock, and then you start laughing.

“Oh, God,” you scream. “We are such a mess.”

“Shit, you scared me,” he says, slowly grinning when relief washes over him. “Yeah, we are quite the mess. And we are both soaking wet now.”

“Oh damn, you’re right,” you murmur as you look down on your clothes, and his own, all completely covered in snow. “No thanks to the snow, I guess.”

Lying back down against the slope beneath you, you look over to the farmhouse before you and wonder loudly, “Do you think we could just rest and shelter here?”

You feel cold and tired, and in more pain after the fall. The night is not getting any younger. And with this much stress, you know that you cannot force Seokjin to try and break his truck free in the dark and in this cold. You know that your family would be worried about you if you don’t reach home by tonight, but you also know that at least your father would still be logical enough not to unleash a whole search party for you only because you are late for half a day.

As long as you can go back on the road the moment the sun rises, that is.

As if reading your thoughts, Seokjin follows your gaze and nods. “Maybe. It might be better to rest than risk it in the dark. I can try again when the sun is up. Hopefully, the ground will break more easily once it has warmed up,” he says, before pushing himself off the ground. “Stay here for a moment and let me lock up the truck before leaving it.”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s not like I can go anywhere,” you wave him off as he turns to run back up towards his truck, leaving you there to feel the throbbing pain on your ankle while wondering how terribly sore you are going to feel in the morning around the hips.

You were never one to go to high school parties.

But when your best friend became a host for one during her birthday on one Friday night, there was no way you were going to refuse. Especially when she had let you know that your crush was invited.

He was one of the boys from the track team, one of the few decent ones who had never been rude to you. Dongjun was always so nice and so full of smiles that you fell for him instantly. His personality intrigued you solely because he was different compared to the other boys, more mature, more gentle, and had always been so caring.

Through a scheme brought upon by your close friends, you had ended up inside the closet during a Seven Minutes in Heaven-ish game with the gorgeous boy himself. The seven minutes felt like a lifetime when you spent the first two talking shyly with him before spending the next five minute of it kissing.

Your very first kiss. With your very first crush.

Your heart was racing and there was no doubt your face would have a change of colour when you finally parted, and you had let him know about it being your first. “That was my first kiss.”

He smiled against your lips with his forehead on yours. “Then it was my honour to have been given a chance to give it to you,” he said then, and you felt so close to melting into a puddle. “How about I repay it by joining you at lunch next Monday?”

“S-sure.”

He was the one who left the closet first, after kissing you one last time with a brief, chaste kiss. And you were still smiling and flushing in bliss when you stepped out half a minute later.

The bliss you felt then was cut short, however, when you were met with the last person on earth you would ever wish to see.

“Someone looks happy,” Seokjin greeted you with a sing-a-long tone as he watched you stepping out of the closet.

“Who invited you?” you asked him with a frown. You were sure that your best friend had insisted not to invite the devil, yet here he was, looking bitter and evil as he always did when he saw you.

With his hands in his pockets, Seokjin grinned. “The boys from the club were invited and they needed a ride. So I had to be a good samaritan and offer my service.”

“Quite the samaritan, you are,” you scoffed, then tried to walk past him.

“I wonder if he would be even happier if he had seen your picture.”

Stopping in your tracks, you turned to him and glared. “Don’t. You. Dare.”

Seokjin backed away from you, chuckling. “We’ll see, little one. We’ll see.”

Seokjin trudges down the small snowy hill with you on his back. With every step he makes, your body bounces against his strong back a little. The warmth coming from his body and the strong grip he has on your thighs are enough to make your heart pounding and your insides tingling. You have your arms around his neck and it is quite surprising that you have no urge to strangle him while he makes the trip down to the deserted farmhouse.

He had tried to help you walk earlier, only to fail when the pain on your leg felt too unbearable. If it wasn’t so bad when you fell on it the first time, it certainly looks like the second fall had officially made it worse. Added with having it buried in the snow, though only briefly, there was no way you could walk on it on your own.

Between his show of clumsiness and your sprained ankle, it has been proven that the possibility of you falling again on your hurting leg would be much bigger if you had been hopping all the way down from the slopes to the old farmhouse, so he had offered to give you a lift on his back.

You say nothing as he finished the descent walk until he reaches the main house’s front porch. Just as you had suspected, the door and windows are locked and sealed tight and the electricity seems to have been cut off. After trying all the locks and fails at it, he then moves towards the barn on the other side of the property, instantly relieved to find that the front lock had been broken off.

“I guess this is where we’re staying the night,” he says while pulling the door open.

Seokjin hobbles into the barn while flashing his phone around. Finding a few wooden crates at the front side of the room, he walks over to them and carefully deposits you on top of one of them.

“Stay here, let me look around to see if there’s anything we could use.”

After settling down on one of the strongest crates, you watch as Seokjin stumbles further into the barn with the help of his phone to light the way. Within a minute, he reaches all the way back and shouts, “Hey, there’s a door here.”

“Is it leading somewhere?” you shout back, curious to know what he had found. You only have silence as your response and you use your own phone to light up your surroundings. All you could see with it are a couple of wooden crates like the one you are sitting on, a few piles of dry hay, and some dirty sacks which you may not want to know what they contain inside.

While you are marvelling on the interior of the barn and wonder how on earth you are going to stay here for the night, you can hear his muffled voice coming from the other side of the barn. Having no idea what he is saying, only able to hear random muffled words, you yell out to ask him, "Who has a nice rack?"

Seokjin returns from the other room, standing in the doorway with an amused look on his face as he laughs. "I was saying that there is a fireplace on the back,” he tells you as he makes his way back to you.  

"Oh."

"Come on,” he says as he turns, giving you his back while kneeling on the floor. It takes you seconds to climb onto his back, and he is careful enough as he lifts you up to not have you bumping your ankle as he takes you to the room out back.

You are surprised to find that the other room is a lot more descent than the front side of the barn. It looks more like a tiny lounge or a seating room, except with only a few broken chairs set aside and a large wooden chest placed across the fireplace. There is even a long cable hanging from the ceiling, as if there used to be a hanging lamp or a chandelier being set up there.

He points at the small fireplace in the smaller room as he slowly deposits you on the floor. “It may not seem much, but it would be enough to warm us for the night and keep us from freezing to death.” You look at the small furnace and the few blocks of wood left on its side, silently relieved to have it there and hope that he could make them work somehow.

“I also found this,” he says, pointing his lights towards the huge chest which has its lid left open. He helps you walk over to it before showing you the fuzzy blankets being kept inside.

“Blankets?”

He chuckles. “Yeah, they might be a bit damp but I think they’re usable. Let’s get you warmed up while I set up the fire.”

You didn’t even realise that you have been shivering until you try to speak and the words are caught on your numbing lips. As Seokjin moves to stand next to you, you finally notice that his lips had taken a bluish tint. The fall he had earlier in the snow had made his clothes all soaked and there is no doubt the cold temperature has gone through the thick clothes he is wearing, just the same way it has been for you.

Seokjin looks away from the pile of blankets, meeting your eyes with a determined look in them. ”You need to take those soaked clothes off. It won't help much if you keep them on."

"Are you trying to trick me into getting naked for you?"

"No, I'm just helping you out. I know that I’m a jerk but I know when to be nice, so stop thinking the worse about me, will you?" he suddenly snaps and you flinch at the tone. You were trying to make things light but perhaps the stress and the dire situation had pushed his emotions to the edge. You hear him sigh as he bends down, pulling a thick blanket and hands it to you gently. “Here, take everything off and wear this. We can hang them all dry by the fire later."

He pulls out another blanket for himself, and takes the extra one he finds inside and lays it down on the floor as a cover. Taking your hand in his, Seokjin helps you to sit down on it carefully. “I’ll help you take your boots off. I know it can be a pain in the ass,” he says while forcing a smile, as if he is trying to lighten things up again after his previous outburst.

A part of you wants to shut him off, still feeling the sting of his reaction earlier. But you figure that he is right, the hardest part of it would be pulling your foot out of the boots. The pain could be a bitch and there is no way you would be able to handle it on your own, much less brave enough to actually do it without someone else’s help.

“Okay,” you say to him, angling your leg towards him and let him hold it up gently in his hands. “I’m so going to hate this part.”

He chuckles. “Try not to kick my face,” he says, smiling as bends down.

“I’ll do my best,” you tell him while gritting your teeth.  

Pulling one boot off from your uninjured foot first, Seokjin places it gently beside the wooden chest, then he reaches for the hurting ankle. You clench your jaw as he holds tightly on the back of your knee, then pulls the boot off with the other hand. The pain is too much that it has you screaming and cursing as he tugs the boot off in one swift move, but you hold back just enough not to kick him right on his head.

“Great job, no more injuries for the night,” he teases as he puts the boot away. He looks down, studying your ankle for a moment before lowering your leg so you could rest it on the blanket. “It’s definitely a sprain. Be careful with it when you change. I’ll give you some privacy.”

He walks away to the other side of the room with his blanket folded on his arm and you wobble slowly on the blanket to turn around.

Keeping your back on him, you strip down to your underthings after making sure that the wetness has yet to soak that deep into them, then wrap the fading burgundy coloured blanket around your body. You could hear the crackling sound of fire behind you as Seokjin lights the fireplace up while you were taking your time with the thick layers of your clothes, and now warmth is starting to rise in the room.

You still hear him shuffling around behind you so you keep your back on him and take your time, inspecting your ankle using the lights from your phone. You hear the sound of his wet clothes falling on the ground before he whispers, “Are you decent?”

“Yeah, I am,” you tell him before turning around, finding him wrapped in a red blanket. He walks over to you with a white box in his hands.

“Is your leg still hurting?” he asks you, holding the box up to you. “Saw this by the fireplace. I think the bandages are still good enough to wrap that ankle of yours for a while until we can get something better to heal it.”

“Um, okay,” you answer him hesitantly as he kneels down in front of you with a bandage in his hands. “Do you know how to put that on me?”

His eyes twinkle in the dark. “I’m no doctor, but I used to fix up some of the boys from the track club whenever someone hurt their ankles during practice or at a competition back in school. Trust me, I know what to do.”

Sighing, you realise there is no point in denying his help by now. “Fine, as long as you can make sure I can still walk. I might sue you if I never walk again,” you joke with him, and you are relieved when he only laughs.  

Seokjin reaches up to hold up your leg, and you flinch back as he touches your skin. “Oh, sorry. Did I hurt you?” Seokjin asks you with a sheepish smile.

“No, you didn’t,” you answer while looking down, hiding the heat rising in your cheeks while wondering exactly why you are reacting this way. You keep your eyes looking down as he expertly wraps the bandage around your sprained ankle. His hands move gently as he treats you and his voice is soft when he says how he wishes he has some painkillers in hand to help you deal with the pain whenever you wince.

“There,” he says once he is done, and you mumble a soft, “Thank you,” while he slowly crawls next to you so he could lie down on the blanket by your side. “Are you comfortable?”

You try to smile at him and nod to respond, but even as you tug the blanket tighter around you, you are still shaking. He must have noticed it no matter how hard you try to hide it from him, because he looks over and gently tugs your blanket towards him. “You’re still freezing. Come here.”  

Looking up, you see him smiling as he shifts closer. “I know something that’ll warm you up,” he says as he moves his arms around you, pulling you to his side. It doesn’t take long for you to finally warm up. His body is doing much more to give you warmth than the blanket and fire do, just the way you had expected it would.  

You were still full of bliss from the Friday night party when you came to the school on Monday.

Pretty sure you were humming a song throughout the day, even through Math class that you had dreaded so much. You have yet to meet up with Dongjun since you arrived at school. The only time you did see him was during PE class, when he waved at you from the distance before the teacher tortured you on the tracks.

Your heart was racing rapidly right before lunchtime, and you had to stop yourself from running off to the cafeteria with the excitement of seeing your crush. You did rush out of the classroom the minute the bell rang and found him there, but the reaction he gave you when you came to him was completely unexpected.

“What’s wrong?”

You forced him to explain the reason why he was suddenly acting cold. He couldn’t even look at your face when you asked him if he still wanted to have lunch with you.

“I—I changed my mind. I also have practice right after this, so I have to go. Sorry,” Dongjun avoided you like a plague and you chased him out of the cafeteria for answers. Except that when the answer came, it arrived to you through the one person you dreaded to see most.

Just as you managed to stop Dongjun on the hallway, the devil came and wrapped his arm around Dongjun’s shoulder.

“What’s going on here? A lover’s quarrel?”

“This is none of your business,” you hissed at Seokjin, wishing he would just go away so you could finish talking to Dongjun again.

Instead of turning away and leave, he spoke with a wicked grin on his face, “I don’t know, I thought maybe Dongjun can share what is on his mind with me. We both received something special from you, after all.”

He winked, while you felt like you have been thrown to a burning flame.

“No,” you muttered, shaking your head while you looked between him and your crush; one who was looking at you with disgust while the other looked gleeful, and you carefully backed away from them.

Just as you turned around to leave the place, you heard Seokjin called out to you, “You know that you could just give him an extra copy to keep so I won’t have to show him mine, right—”

You were already dashing out of the hallway when he called you with a certain name, not using your name or the nickname he would usually use whenever he was taunting you. But another hurtful nickname which you could still hear even when you were putting distance between you. You could still hear the laughter coming from the students who were nearby and heard the name. And you could still hear his voice even until days, weeks, months passed, and people were still calling you with it.

It was the start of the war, right before hell was unleashed through your very own two hands.

Kim Seokjin was going to pay.

If only the one revenge that finally stopped him was enough to make the other kids stop all the same time.

Under the flickering light from the burning fireplace, you huddle close to each other with your backs against the wall. Groaning against his chest, you talk about the possibility of your parents making a missing person report for you while he promises that he will get things moving again by the break of dawn.

Bumping his blanket-covered shoulder against yours when you suddenly grow quiet right after, Seokjin asks you, “What are you thinking about now?”

“The apocalypse.”

“The—what, now?”

“You know those zombie movies?” You ask him while tilting your head to look up to his face, seeing him nod. ”In those movies, you’d see those characters that would meet up during trial times, then they end up teaming up to get to safety or fight to find a way out. Then just as you are starting to root for them to succeed, they’d get lost in the middle of nowhere, stumble into a group of zombies while running out of supplies and with no weapons to protect them, and you’ll either end up with a heartbreak from seeing them perish right at the end of the movie or ugly crying when they and up surviving and falsely think they are in love with each other from all the adrenaline they got from escaping death.”

Seokjin falls silent for a brief moment, appearing like he is in complete awe, before he starts laughing. “Are you saying that all of this reminds you of that?”

“Yep,” you say while emphasising the P. “Getting your car stuck in a ditch, followed by getting lost in the woods, find a deserted barn and choosing it as a shelter. Those are all in the checklist of doom in those movies I’ve seen.”  

Seokjin laughs. “You always did, and still do, have such a vivid imagination, ______.”

Smiling at him, you only shrug. “Can’t help it. It’s better than always thinking the worse of things, right? It always works to help you escape from the real world sometimes.”

“Oh, it does,” he agrees, still chuckling as he imagines the scene in his head and compares it with the current situation you are both in.  

When the last chuckle runs through him, he turns to you with a somber smile. “Hey, I wanted to say sorry—I know I was such an ass to you when we were younger. I was a total jerk and I had no excuse for all that I’ve done. And also for—” he swallows hard and stops himself, but you know exactly where he is getting at when you see the painful remorse in his eyes. “But, I want you to know that I am sorry, for everything.”

“Oh.”

You are caught by surprise to his sudden confession that you have absolutely no words to say at first. Especially not the right ones. But then you look up into his eyes to see the sincerity in them that finally brings your mind back to life. “I, uh—I don’t really know what to say. I had never thought you would apologise, ever. Least of all care enough to think about it.”

His gaze softens, but you could still see the sadness in his eyes growing while you nervously keep rambling on. “But I appreciate you for apologising. It really means a lot to me that you do.”

Seokjin cuts you off before you can finish talking, as his lips come pressing gently against yours.

You are caught completely off guard that your body freezes for a moment. Seokjin pulls back briefly, hesitant to continue at first, but little does he know that your nerves had just gotten awakened since the second his lips collided against yours. With a gasp, you lean forward against him to press your lips to his. You can feel him relaxing and breathing deeply as he moves his lips in tune with yours.

The kiss feels gentle and featherlight, but it is still enough to send your body buzzing with light sparks of warmth. Your eyes slowly flutter to close as he slowly deepens the kiss. Slowly melting into his touch, you feel his hands moving down your hips and you are suddenly lifted up as he is carefully pulling you onto his lap without harming your leg.

His fingers find their way to slip beneath the blanket and trail along your bare back, making shivers run down your spine with his delicate touch. One of his hands makes its way up to the back of your head where he cradles you, angling you so he can deepen the kiss. As his tongue laps along the seam of your lips, asking to slip in, his fingers tighten in your hair, pulling on the strands as he eagerly devours your lips.

Yet the moment your scalp stings from the pull, it triggers a memory from the past that instantly stops your brain from functioning. You are suddenly reminded to how he used to pull your hair as he sat behind you in class, before mocking how ugly you were with your hair all tied up. Then the other bad things he did, as little as they may be then, all start coming back to you.

As if there is a bucket of ice being poured over your head, you instantly snap out of your daze and push against his shoulders. Shoving him away, you push yourself off of his lap and try to sit up, though you can only shuffle back from him slightly when Seokjin still has his hands holding up your waist.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. His voice is deep and sounds like honey that it makes something inside you drip. It sounds like a sin, and you quickly remind yourself that this means nothing. That he means nothing.

Your chest tightens when your emotion is running wild and your mind is spinning like crazy. You look away as you climb down from his lap once he lets you go, and lie down next to him again.

What has gotten into you? You ask yourself, completely not believing that you had just kissed Kim Seokjin.

“_____, what is it? Is something wrong?” Seokjin reaches for your hand and entwines his fingers with yours, and only then do you realise that your hands have been shaking.

Looking up, you take in the sight of him. His lips plumped and swollen, pink and wet after the kiss. His eyes are hazy, and when they were showing you his dark desire only moments ago, they are now staring at you with a pained gaze in them.

“Did I really hurt you that bad, _____?” he murmurs softly, as if questioning himself rather than doing it to you. The worrying line appears thick on his face, enough to have you choking on your words.  

“Jin, I—”

“I’m sorry. I really mean it. I don’t know how many times I need to apologise, I will,” he cuts you off before you could say anything, not only with his pleas but with the touch of his lips. You have been so deep in your terrible memories that you didn’t notice it when he leans close. While you are distracted with his lips and his soft voice, he wraps his arms around you as if he wants to stop you from breaking apart.

“Just—” you clear your throat when you still cannot find your voice. “Just tell me why? Why did you have to torment me so much when we were kids?”

Remorse and sadness start to fill his eyes and you suddenly regret bringing things up. You probably should have said anything because his smile vanishes and a somber expression takes over his feature. The sight of him fractures something deep inside your heart that you start chewing the inside your cheeks, indecision weighing heavily in your gut. You still cannot believe that you had kissed him, even more so to think that you actually liked it. But you cannot deny that it still hurts every time the memory of the past comes back to you.

Seokjin’s eyes burn into yours when he slowly starts to speak. “I never hated you, if that’s what you are thinking. Even if I can truly understand if you do hate me for everything I did,” he says, sighing deeply while he runs his fingers through his hair. “Honestly, I don’t really have a great excuse. I kind of always liked you.”

That has you raising your brows. He liked you? But that makes no sense.

“Well, you sure have a terrible way of showing it. You kinda had then and still kind of do,” you murmur softly, confused, while his cheeks flush under your gaze.

With a small grin on his face, he responds to you slowly, “I know I do. Back then, I was just a stupid kid who wanted you to pay attention to me. Then, when I got older and we were in high school, I realised how stupid it was but you already hated me. So it was like, what the hell is the point on changing it now?”

That does sound stupid. Frowning at him, you can only ask, “And how did that lead to you embarrassing me in high school with the boob pic rumours and the name you gave me then?”

Seokjin blinks slowly and then his face pales. Turning his gaze on the floor, his hands clench tight on his side and he looks angry. Though it is clear that he seems to be angry at himself more than he does to you, or to the situation he created then.

Rubbing a hand on his face, Seokjin sighs. “There was never a boob pic,” he mutters while covering his lips with a palm.

“What?”

He looks over to you, the remorse in his eyes seems to grow deeper. “It was a lie, okay? It was true that the polaroid picture everyone found was of you, but it was a picture of you in that summer dress you loved so much. I took a candid photo of you because I had no idea if I could still see you that way again after that day. I hid it from everyone because it was my prized possession and people just assumed that it was—” he stops to clear his throat, “—something indecent, and started spreading that I was keeping a picture of your boobs since I fought real hard to keep people from seeing it. I couldn’t explain my friends that I kept it because I loved looking at you when I couldn’t do it openly when we met, and things just blew up into a big mess that whatever I tried to do to stop it didn’t matter anymore.”

“So, it wasn’t—” you choke out both from relief and astonishment that you cannot even say it out loud. It was never a photo of your private parts, he was never the pervert you thought he was, but it doesn’t stop the heat from rising on your cheeks that comes from knowing the truth behind those rumours.

“I still have it, you know. I can show it if you don’t believe me. It’s starting to fade a bit, but the image is still there.”

Your eyes turn wide, clearly not expecting that. But you find yourself believing him somehow without seeing it. “There’s no need. I—” you clear your throat before speaking again, suddenly feeling the way your heart flutters in your chest when you imagine him keeping a picture of you in his room and wonder the reason why. It has been years, after all. “That’s why you refused to give it to me.”

“Yeah, well—” he rubs the back of his neck while looking away sheepishly. “It would be embarrassing to let you know about my stupid crush then when you hated me so much,” he says with a chuckle.

You voluntarily join him, chuckling softly when the weight in your chest slowly fades. But there is one more thing you need to clear away to be able to move on. “And the nickname? You embarrassed me with that and mocked me right at my face with it. What was that all about?”

Seokjin flinches the moment he remembers about it and begins shaking his head. “That one, I can’t even defend myself. I was bitter and jealous. Dongjun came up to me that weekend and told me about you giving your first kiss to him, and he was planning to ask you out that day. I—” he groans as he pulls at his hair out of anger.

“Fuck, I feel like such a total ass,” he chuckles bitterly, shaking his head. “It’s not that I never truly realised that I was acting like one back then, but—God, I can’t believe I let that got into my head. I just—he kept bragging about the kiss and out of jealousy, I just told him that he could be happy with stealing your kiss all he wanted, but at least I was the one who got the boob pic. And I made that comment to make my point clear.”

You blink. “So, instead of clearing things up, you ended up using it to your advantage to stop him from making advances at me.”

“I’m such an ass,” he groans, once again rubbing his hand over his face.

“Yeah, you were,” you mutter, frowning. “The least you could have done was made a better rhyme for it. Betty Boob? Days after you called me that right at the school hall, people started calling me Betty with the Boobies or Boob Girl, before they got lazy and just cut it short with Boobies or changed it entirely to Grand Tits or something.” You ramble on, though what had made your stomach coil in anger and disgust back then now only gives you small trembles of laughter when you think about it. But you admit that perhaps you only feel that way because he had told you how sorry he was for being an ass to you. You have already started forgiving him, in a way, you just want to tease him a bit while asking for some explanation. Even if you were expecting to hear any other excuse than about him having a stupid crush on you.

Seokjin chuckles bitterly, noticing how much the tension between you has grown lighter, then his grin turns somber again when he speaks, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of that to happen. I swear. It was stupid of me for not keeping my mouth closed, and I’d no anything to make up for it.”

Exhaling a sigh, you let his words sink in for a moment. You have no idea why you are taking this a lot better than you had thought you would. But then again, this is still better than what you have been thinking about him all these years. Everything was still pretty messed up, but you had started hating him less since he admitted the truth about the polaroid picture and when he said that it was his prized possession. You may bring it up later in the future for him to prove it, though that has you thinking—does that mean you want to see him again?

Then the name-calling. You still hate it, but it seems funny now when you think about it, after you found out that it was merely a slip up caused by his ridiculous jealousy. It did ruin a chance for you with Dongjun, but was it really such a big deal at all? You only shared one kiss and it was an innocent crush that didn’t lead you to a huge heartbreak. So maybe it wasn’t so much of a big loss, after all.

But still—

“If it weren’t for you giving a permanent title on my name and the unrealistic boob pic, I would have probably hated you less.”

His face falls, then he nods weakly. “Yeah, I hated myself for letting things happen and I still kind of do. If I could go back in time and change everything, I would. I swear. I’m really sorry, _____.”

It sounds unbelievable, but you can see the truth in his words when you look at him. “Okay,” you whisper to him. You can still feel the hurt for bringing all of them up but it has grown much lesser now that you have talked about it. The only thing you are feeling now is the way your heart is clenching at the sight of his fallen expression, how his eyes are covered in hurt and how you want so bad to console him just as much as you need him to do the same to you.

“Thank you,” he says, sighing in relief. “Just—tell me what to do to make it up. I’d do anything.”

“Anything?” you ask him, while he nods. Your eyes fall to his lips, and you start feeling tingles on your own lips the moment you remember the kiss you shared. “Then—maybe you can make it up right now.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“This—” you whisper before lunging forward to him. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you tug him forward until he falls over your body. He could barely catch himself as he lands on top of you but still manages to hold his weight up as he plants his hands on either side of you.

He places a soft kiss on your lips, neck, on the bend of your shoulders, taking your mind away from the crumbling pain inside your chest while replacing it with heat that brings up a desirable shiver through your body.

The thought of him being the enemy is starting to get tucked away to the back of your mind. Your conscience keeps telling you to push him away, but your eyes look down on his body as you try to avoid his gaze, forgetting that just like you are, he is basically bare underneath the blanket he has wrapped around him, aside from his briefs. And you had pushed the thick fabric away when you were kissing him, giving you the perfect few of his muscular shoulders, his bulging pecs, his delectable abs that are calling you to run your fingers on and follow the trail leading down beneath his boxers.

Perhaps people were right about the advantage of kissing and making up, because your mind suddenly drifts. The anger and hate you have had on him for years suddenly start heating up into something else as they are slowly burning into something more feral between your legs.

Instead of pushing him away and ignoring it, you give in and pull him to you. Without any hesitation, his lips find yours once again, as if being apart from you was already too much and he needs to taste you again, breathing in your soft moans as he deepens the kiss. Your legs move apart as your body grows lax beneath him and he crawls between them. His crotch lands right at your covered center and you buck your hips up, grinding against his bulge to relief the itch growing at your core.

“Fuck, ______,” he groans as he pulls slightly away, keeping his lips hovering against yours. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

His complaints fall short because he already catches your lips with another kiss. It grows deeper and hotter by the second, getting even more desperate and needy as you suck his tongue inside your mouth and he bites and nibbles on your lips between each kiss. His hands roam down your body, touching every curve, every inch of your skin, before they make a quick work to relief you out of your underthings. Your own hands find their way down his bare chest, feeling his hot skin and tracing down the lines of his abs before you slip your fingers through the waistband of his briefs and push it down. Seokjin’s hand leaves your skin only to help you on it, and he is soon out of the last fabric covering his skin.

Once you are both completely bare, your blanket has fallen to your side while his own is still hanging desperately around his waist, he pulls back slightly and looks down at you.

“Are you sure that you want to keep on going? I don’t want you to regret this,” he murmurs against your lips, tracing them with his own. Breathless as he speaks, the pure desire in his eyes is clear.

“Please,” you start pleading, already too far gone to think clearly at this point. It feels as if the moment he had laid the truth and his own self bare before you, every wall you have put up crumbled to the ground and your true desire wins. “Get over here and fuck me,” you impatiently scold him when you notice that he has yet to make a move.

“Damn, you’re bossy,” he says as he grins at you.

“Yeah, well—you should’ve known that by now,” you tell him off while acting blasé, though the tremble that is slightly present in your voice betrays you and you just have to snug your bottom lip between your teeth to hold back a groan.

You watch him fisting himself, giving himself a couple of strokes as he slowly bends down. Moving over your body, Seokjin’s lips land on the column of your throat, tracing hot kisses all the way down until he finds your nipples. They have slightly turned hard from the cold air and incredibly sensitive that your whole body jolts with pleasure the moment he takes one into his lips, earning a loud cry coming from you.

He swirls his tongue around the bud, making you arch your back as you moan and sigh, pressing your breasts into his face to have him suck it harder into his mouth.

Releasing the pebbled nipple with a pop, he kneads the other breast, pinching the tip between two fingers. His eyes grow dark with lust as he watches the way the tip turns instantly hard as a pebble, how your chest heaves heavily for air while whimper after whimper keeps slipping through your parted lips.

Still stroking on his length, he moves the other hand from your breast to grip tight on your leg and spread it open for him, only to suddenly stop. As he blinks, the desire in his eyes is soon replaced with confusion, as if he had just realised that something is wrong.

“Ah, shit—I don’t have any condom. I wasn’t exactly expecting to have sex with anyone when I left this morning,” he says, chuckling nervously. He tries to make things light but you can definitely see the panic in his eyes and it squeezes your heart a little. “I—I can try and pull out though. I mean, I’ll do it, or we could—”

Chuckling softly, you reach up and place a finger on his lips to stop him from rambling. “It’s fine. I get checked regularly to know that I have nothing in me. I’m safe and I’m also on birth control,” you calmly explain to him while deep down cheering at yourself to have made the decision to do so even if you haven’t been with anyone else for months. But yeah, he doesn’t need to know that last one. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, unless you have something—”

“I’m clean,” he quickly adds, appearing relieved for a moment before the dark gaze in his eyes returns. Leaning back down on you, he presses his lips against yours, while he lets a hand roam down your body, tracing down your skin from your waist to your belly, then down to your mound. At the touch of his fingers against your folds, you spread your legs wider, beckoning him closer as the need to have him inside you gets even stronger. You can feel yourself leaking down below, your arousal building and pooling around his fingers when he whispers, “And I also want to come inside you. Fill you up until you are all hot and full inside with my cum.”

“Jin,” you whine softly, your eyelids are fluttering when you feel like your whole body is burning with need. You barely catch on to his smile as it grows, when your eyes are filled with haze and tears as he slowly slides his fingers up and down your wet slit, gathering your arousal before he pushes two fingers inside, stretching your tight entrance with a slow thrust.

“Have patience, pretty girl. You know that I need to make sure you’ll be ready for me,” he says with a chuckle. Kissing your lips to tame your light whimpers, Seokjin pumps his fingers in and out of you a couple more times. You can feel the pleasure rising, edging you to the point that you are close to explode, but still not enough to reach it yet.

“Please—please, Jin. I need you,” you keep pleading while he only licks his lips, hiding the sly grin he is sporting as he watches your reaction to his touches. You give your all to keep your hands away from pulling his hand to reach deeper, clutching tightly on his upper arms to keep your hands out of the way. But then the need inside you wins and your body moves on its own, as you start moving your hips, humping yourself against his fingers to have them fucking you deeper.

Just as you are losing control of your body and desire, his own resolve seems to snap at the same time. With a whisper of a curse, he withdraws his fingers from the depth of your heat then slowly climbs his way on top of your body. Using one hand to hold himself up, he brings the other, the one which has been coated by your release, into his lips. You watch in awe as he licks his fingers, drinking in your sweet nectar with pure hunger in his eyes.

“I wanted to taste you the moment I saw how drenched you are,” he groans, then he moves his hand back to his shaft, covering his wide girth with his palm. He spreads your legs for him while he strokes himself, then aligns the tip of his length at your entrance.

“Relax for me, baby,” he whispers. Staring into your eyes, he enters you slowly, really slow, letting you feel it as he stretches you apart and fills you up with his thick girth. You feel it as his cock enters you inch by glorious inch, how each ridge and vein rub against your pulsing walls, and you clench your jaw while praying to the fucking universe that you wouldn’t come right this very second.

“Jin—” you gasp as he reaches deeper, pushing through the depth of your tight walls as if he wants to mark every nook and every cranny of your hot canal, torturing you once again by sending you to the edge before he could fill you up to the brim. “Oh God, you feel so good.”

You feel his chest rumbling against your breasts as he chuckles. “Really, now? Well, I’m nowhere done with you yet, pretty girl,” he says. His cock is already deep within you and he suddenly pushes forward, thrusting the last few inches of his length in one swift move until you feel the hard tip of his cock nudging at the brim. And your body erupts, the first spasm of your incoming climax runs through you, pulsing around his cock as your walls grow tight for him.

Gasping for breath, you don’t even notice it when your eyes are shut closed to how good you are feeling until he tells you to open them.

“Open up your pretty eyes for me, baby. I want to look into your eyes and see how good I’m making you feel,” he coaxes you while pressing his lips on yours to snap you back to focus on him. The moment you open your eyes for him, his smile grows and you find yourself wanting to see it even more. “Deep breath, baby. Are you ready?”

Exhaling a deep sigh, you nod your head. “Yes, give it to me.” And he does just that.

He pulls back slowly and starts moving immediately, as if he has been holding back for too long and it is time for him to get what he needs from you. Pistoning his hips, thrusting deep, he fills your tight channel over and over again with hard strokes. You can hear his curses each time his cock hits your depth and your walls clench tight around him, while your own curses come as he latches his lips around your nipple, nibbling and sucking the hard tip as his thrusts grow faster.

Your hands make their way from his pecs to his waist, before they land on his hips so you could hold him close to you and feel the way he swivels his body on each thrust he makes.

“Jin, more—more, please,” you beg him, pressing him by the hips and urging him to move faster, to fuck you harder, keeping him there even with your eyes closed from feeling too much and not having enough.

“You want more, baby?” he asks you once he releases your nipple from his hot mouth. You look up and see him moving to the other breast, licking the hard tip and blowing his warm breath on it.

“Yes, Jin. Faster. Harder. I want to—”

He gives you no chance to finish that very sentence when he suddenly gives you a hard thrust, and you instantly cry out his name when he hits you right at the very spot you needed him to be. He keeps repeating the motion, keeping up the steady pace as he hits the spot again, and again. One stroke, two strokes, three—

“Jin…I’m—shit!” you whimper as he nips at your throat, muffling his deep groans as he feels your walls clamping down on his cock as your pleasure starts building, tugging you close to the cliff’s edge.

“Come, baby. Come on, come for me,” he coaxes you with deep grunts as he continues to thrust, making your whole body shake and your thighs quiver harder around him. You start feeling his cock flutter inside you the more your body tightens around him, your stomach coils with your rising climax while he grows harder, his cock twitches against your walls to let you know that his own release is just on the horizon.

And then, you feel it, your whole body erupting in shocks of pleasure as your climax comes in massive waves. You feel like you are burning hot while your release coats his cock, your cries drown the slick noises of your cum against his thrusts, before you feel like your heart is about to burst out of your chest.

“Fuck, I’m coming—” he hisses, and like a huge eruption, he explodes with his own release. His entire body vibrates against yours as he fills your tight channel with every single drop of his cum and it sends your body into another climax. It feels smaller, but almost as intense as the previous one as you feel every drop of anger and frustration, every single want and need, all that have been accumulated for years to be relieved at this very moment.

Seokjin still moves in and out of you as he slowly comes down from his orgasm, while yours settles down into short spasms of pleasure until your body calms beneath him. You open your eyes slowly, blinking away the haze as you take in the sight of him, while his eyes are slowly opening as he finally comes to halt.

At that very moment, when you look into his eyes, you feel content for the very first time and you are starting to see him in a different light. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes are just as glossy as yours, his chest is rising and falling rapidly as he takes in deep breaths. His hair is a complete mess, both from your hands when you were kissing him and from his rapid movements when he was fucking you into oblivion. His lips are plumped and slightly parted, and you find yourself wanting to pull him back to you so you could kiss him again. And when you look at him, you no longer feel the same anger that you used to have for him whenever you saw him in the past. Instead, you are starting to feel like you want to see him like this and feel this exact moment with him again.  

To feel the same peacefulness and content that he brings after that wild, intense sex.

Staring into his eyes, you can see every emotion running through him. Everything that seems to mirror your own. His confusion, excitement, his want and need. Everything blurs together into one. For a moment, it feels too overwhelming that you look away from him, only to find yourself wondering why you are not having a hard time dealing with all of this.

The moment you snap out of your thoughts, you notice his eyes trailing up and down, giving you his perusal gaze before his cocky grin returns.

“You know, if only I had known that all I had to do was to fuck you senseless in order to stop us from fighting so much, I would have done it years ago,” he suddenly says, chuckling breathlessly. Meanwhile, you don’t stop yourself from rolling your eyes.

“Oh, shut the hell up and just kiss me before you ruin the whole moment, you jackass,” you snap at him, but let your lips spread to a grin when you cannot resist the bubbling laughter slipping out of your mouth right before he does what you asked him to do.

You are both smiling when he kisses you, his lips feel soft and his hands are gentle when he caresses your skin, before slowly taking you into his embrace. The moment a soft groan vibrates from deep inside his chest and his tongue slips through the seam of your lips, you realise that he is probably thinking the same thing you have in mind. That he wants to feel all of it and do everything all over again just as much as you do. And that makes you feel much better about wanting him instead of hating him like you were supposed to.

You wake up to the sound of birds chirping and loud shovelling in the distance.

The room is still quite dark when you finally open your eyes. The fire has died out, but you have some light faintly coming in through the opened small window close by. The sky is still dark outside but the sparks of light from the rising sun are slowly appearing, letting you see everything around you without the help of your flashlights.

The space beside you is empty but the continuous sound of a shovel hitting the ground lets you know where Seokjin is. The air is cold, but not as cold as it was last night. Your body feels sore, for numerous reasons, but at least the pain on your leg has become numb.

Pushing yourself to sit up, you finally realise that you have both your blanket and the one Seokjin was using last night wrapped around your body. No wonder it feels so warm, you wonder with a smile on your face—one that grows wider as you look over to find your clothes all folded so neatly on top of the wooden chest next to you.

You have just finished putting on every piece of clothing on your body—sans the boots—when Seokjin walks into the room.

“It worked!” he says. His whole face and hair are drenched with sweat but he has a huge smile on his face as he lifts up the shovel in his hand. You notice that it is a different one than the one he used last night, with a much bigger size and more dirt on it compared to the one he owns, and he is proud to show it off while explaining, “I went into the toolshed right out front and found this. The ice on the ground has melted a bit and this bad boy did the work in no time.”

“So we can go now?”

“Absolutely,” he says, nodding his head while throwing the shovel away so he could lift you in his arms.

An hour later, Seokjin pulls his truck into the driveway of your family’s cabin.

Your entire family welcomes you at the front door, both with relief for having you finally back home safely and the look of surprise on their faces of seeing you wrapped in Seokjin’s arms as he helps you walk inside. It is not until a few minutes later, after everyone is sitting in the dining room with hot drinks and some light meal for breakfast, when you tell them everything that had happened. Starting from how your car had skidded off the road to how Seokjin found you, only to end up getting stuck together in the Choi family’s old farm—skipping the part of your make up sex by the fireplace—and ensure your father that Seokjin’s friend is on his way to retrieve your car as you are having this conversation.

“We called him on the way here and he told us not to worry about it,” Seokjin tells your father while your mother is busy searching for some medicine in the kitchen. “He’ll call either one of us later to let us know once the car is safe in the auto shop.”

“That’s good,” your father says before he leaves the room to let the younger ones talk in the living room, which basically only includes Seokjin, your brothers, and yourself.

Your oldest brother keeps shaking his head as he listens to the details on how you decided to stay in the old barn and use it as a shelter and how Seokjin managed to get his truck free. “That’s unbelievable,” he wonders loudly while sipping on his coffee. “I wouldn’t have believed it happening if you had told me this any other day.”

“I’m just surprised to see the both of you getting here in one piece without killing each other,” your second brother speaks. Being the one who is closer to you by age and who is also basically your best friend, he is the only other person in the room who knew about your feud with Seokjin since he had been going to the same school as you did. As he looks over between you and Seokjin with a scrutinising gaze in his eyes, you know that you will have some explaining to do with him later. 

A lot of explaining.

Seokjin chuckles as he looks at your brothers. “You know what people used to say about Christmas. What better time to bury some old hatchet than on the most glorious time of the year, am I right?”

Rolling your eyes at him, you only respond to him with, “I have never once heard of that saying, but do go on.” Everyone laughs at your comment, but you quickly adds, “But in all honesty, I think being stranded and meeting each other on the way was an early Christmas blessing.”

“Yeah, it helped us made up,” Seokjin agrees while looking deeply in your eyes.

“That’s good to hear,” your brother speaks with a chuckle, earning all attention to turn to him just as he continues, “For everyone who witnessed the vendetta going on between you two, it was quite intense. I don’t think any one of us love remembering how _____ got suspended from school after she stole your car and left it by the lake with flat tires and scratches all over your new paint. That was a rough one.”  

While your brothers laugh at the memory of your eventful revenge, Seokjin looks at you with his brows raised, demanding some answers.

Oh, that’s right, you wince as you send him a sheepish smile. You knew there was something that you forgot to talk about last night. Judging by the way he grins as your gazes meet each other, you know exactly how to make up and make things right.

Hopefully, you can do it soon.

All Rights Reserved © 2016-2019 Yoonia

Disclaimer: All works are written by myself. Any copyright infringement, reposting on any other social media or website, and any act of plagiarism will be dealt with legal action

[thebluenoteblog]

Give me That Title

Summary: You have been hooking up with Colton for months and though you have feeling for him you’ve known since the beginning what your relationship with him is. You’re okay with it. You’re also okay with being perpetually single. That is until you meet someone that makes you want to date for the first time in a while. Though Colton’s reaction to hearing about your date... well that’s more surprising than the fact that you decided to go on a date in the first place.

Player: Colton Parayko

Word Count: 5.1k

*Inspired by Meghan Trainor’s Title*

I know girls ain’t hard to find

If you think you want to try

Than consider this an invitation

To kiss my ass goodbye

You were on the floor in front of your floor length mirror, with makeup spread out on the floor all around you when your phone buzzed. You paused with the mascara wand next to your eye, finished what you were doing, reinserted the wand into the tube, screwed on the cap and then picked up your phone already having a pretty good idea of who it was.

Colton had just gotten back in town from his road trip earlier that day and odds were he wasn’t in the mood to go out partying tonight. He wanted someone to come to him. The most recent notification on your phone, right above a few from the NHL app was indeed a text message from Colton. You had been his most regular hook up for the past seven months and at some point, in that time he had given you his phone number when he got tired of dealing with snapchat.

If you were being fair, the two of you did a lot of talking to. If someone were to scroll through your text messages they would never know that you were just some twenty-one-year-old girl who had gotten caught up in a lifestyle that you had no business in. They would probably think that you and Colton were friends. Friends who just hung out a lot late at night.

You unlocked your phone, opened the text and scanned the message. You busy?

You glanced up into the mirror, at your half-done makeup. Yes.

His response was fast, like he’d been waiting for it. No, really. Do you want to come over?

Okay, if you were being fair, it was a very rare occasion that you passed him up on an offer to come over. You always responded to his messages and you were basically at his beck and call. Your only serious obligation was your college courses. Your work hours were pretty much ‘come and go as you please’ and so you did. Whenever Colton asked. He knew when you were in class and he knew it wasn’t now.

Being tied to a man who had no intention of ever committing to you wasn’t a huge issue for you. Committing your time to him wasn’t either because he was gone so much and spent so many nights out with the team that you could still have friends and a life of your own. Besides, you would be lying if you said you hadn’t hooked up with a few other people in the beginning just as he had. You assumed he still did, but you didn’t bother anymore, the sex didn’t compare.

Then two weeks ago, you met Chase. You were sitting at a coffee shop on Main Street, enjoying your tea when he had walked in. He’d sat down on the couch beside you as he drank his coffee. He turned to you, stared at your Blues t-shit for a moment and then said, “Can you believe how badly the Blues got it handed to them last night?”

You’d spent two hours talking after that, about anything and everything. He’d asked you out. You’d given him your number. Now you sat in front of your mirror getting ready for the first real date you’d been on in over a year since you had broken off your engagement and sitting there, on that couch next to Chase, in his faded St. Charles County Firefighter t-shirt, you’d realized something.

This thing with Colton wasn’t enough anymore. You wanted a real relationship. Someone you could imagine a future with and not roll your eyes at yourself for being ridiculous. Someone who would really love you and not just love getting you naked. Someone who saw in you whatever it was that Chase saw that made his eyes light up when he talked to you that day.

You wanted someone who would someday ask you to marry them. You would buy a house together. Make one of those salt plaster ornaments with your first house key to put on the tree that you would decorate together every year. Build a fence in the backyard for your dog and your kids to run around.

Maybe that would be Chase, maybe it would be the next guy you went out with, or the next. Maybe you would find him a year from now. But you knew one thing for sure. No matter how much you wanted him to be, no matter how much you loved Colt, he was never going to be that guy.

He would never commit to a girl who looked like you.

Hell, you didn’t think he was ready to commit at all, despite how nice of a guy he was and his picture-perfect image. He enjoyed living it up, he enjoyed his parties, he enjoyed his bunnies. A girlfriend would cramp his style.

You glanced down at your phone and saw that ten minutes had passed, you needed to hurry up and get your makeup done and you still had Colton to deal with. I can’t. I’m going out tonight.

Again, he responded before you could pick up your mascara to finish your other eye, so he must not have been doing anything. He was probably laying on the couch watching TV. Oh. Are you going out with (Y/F/N)?

You didn’t really think about what you were typing before you just hit send, you just did it and then dropped your phone before going back to your makeup. This time you finished all of your eye makeup and were on to your lips when your phone eventually buzzed.

It wasn’t until you picked it up that you read what you had sent him and actually felt a little bad. You knew you both saw other people. You knew you weren’t a couple and you were both free to do whatever you wanted, but neither of you ever made a point of talking about it. You only knew about it his exploits from the girls who bragged about it online and occasionally posted pictures of them together to corroborate their stories. No, (Y/F/N) is out of town. I have a date tonight.

He’d responded five minutes later with. You have a date?

You glanced at the message, not sure how to respond at first then decided on simply, Yeah, he’s really nice.

The dots appeared and then disappeared about five times before they stayed long enough for him to type out his response. You never go on dates.

You rolled your eyes. Leave it to a guy in the NHL to think he had a girl locked down because she didn’t go on other dates for a little while even though he was still fucking other people. I decided that I want something real. Is that so bad?

You finished your makeup and made it out to your car before he responded. I guess not.

If it ain’t no thing

Then I won’t be hangin around

But don’t be blowin up my shit at three am

Sayin how you need me now

You had now been out on two dates with Chase and Colton had coincidently texted asking you to come over as you were walking out the door to get into Chase’s truck the night you went out with him for the second time. He’d taken your rejection slightly less… diplomatically this time which was uncharacteristic for him. You’d only turned him down a handful of times, but you could never remember him being upset. He’d always continued to talk to you until one of you got too busy to hold up the conversation. This time though, he was clearly upset.

Can you come over? I have food that I shouldn’t be eating that you would love.

You smiled when you read the message, because it almost sounded like he was inviting you over for a date even though you knew that wasn’t what it was. You could still dream. Then you remembered that outside your apartment complex, Chase was waiting for you.

I’m sorry, I’d love to but I’m busy tonight. Raincheck?

He’d responded quickly like he didn’t even think about what he was saying before he said it, Big date tonight?

You narrowed your eyes at the phone. What’s that supposed to mean?

You waited for his response before you walked outside into the bitter February air. Nothing. I just wanted you to come over.

Now it was three in the morning and you were lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. Still thinking about how uncharacteristically spiteful Colton had been that night. Then your phone went off for the first time. You ignored it, because, well, it was three in the morning. But then ten minutes later it went off again. And five minutes after that it went off again. Not five minutes passed before there was another. Then soon after another alert. Finally, you sat up in a huff, grabbing the phone off your bedside table and unlocking it to see the notifications.

All messages from Colton and he appeared to be drunk. Very drunk.

(Y/N) r u home

i miss u

u should com over

r u still with him

u should be here instead

You squeezed your eyes shut then opened them to make sure you were reading the messages correctly. Is that why he had been so spiteful that night? Was Colt… jealous? You couldn’t go over to his house now, because regardless of what you suspected, nothing had changed. He wasn’t going to commit to you. He wasn’t going to give you that house together or the Christmas tree with the first key ornaments or the kids running around in the backyard. It just wasn’t in the cards for them. Besides, he was drunk off his ass right now. He would never, in a million years send u or r in place or you or are if he wasn’t well past the legal limit.

Colton, go to sleep. You’re drunk, you don’t know what you’re saying.

The dots appeared right away but it took him awhile to type the message.

i no wht im saying i miss u com over ur with him arnt u

It took you a moment to decipher the message but when you did, you sighed and responded carefully. Colt, I’ve been home since 10:00. I can’t come over, its already three in the morning and you’re so drunk you’ll be passed out by the time I get there. You won’t even be able to let me in.

He didn’t like that answer. ill take a shower to sober up before u get here

Colton.

fine goodnight

You sighed again, Goodnight Colt.

Don’t call me boo

Like your some kind of ghost

If you don’t want me seeing other guys,

Then here’s what you need to know

Come stay tonight.

It was just those three words. The team was leaving for a road trip and they had the next day off. You had always in the past cleared your schedule on those days for him if he asked you to. The two of you would stay in bed all day, you would cook for him when you got hungry and he would leave for the roadie the next day relaxed and happy. This had started off as an occasional arrangement but had become a routine and now almost every time he had a day off in town, this was the plan.

You cleared your schedule.

When you got to his house with your overnight bag, you had just knocked on the door when it opened. He was standing there looking perfect as ever in a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt, but his hair wasn’t styled like usual. It was tousled and limp like he’d been running his fingers through it enough to destroy whatever effect the gel had previously had on it.

He stepped to the side to let you in and closed the door behind you as soon as you were out of the way. He turned to face you, “I’m sorry… about the other night.”

You shrugged, not meeting his eyes, continuing to face the living room. You didn’t want to talk about this. You knew your time together was limited. This may very well be the last time they spent a night together before you had a boyfriend and you had to end… whatever this was. you didn’t want to spend it talking about what he’d said two nights ago and how he hadn’t meant it. How he was just drunk. “It isn’t a big deal.”

You slipped off your shoes, leaving them by the door. You always felt weird wearing shoes in his house, everything was so much more expensive than what you were used to. You walked away from him before he could say anything else, placing your bag on the couch and then leaning against the back of it and turning to watch him. He was frozen in place, staring at the spot you had previously been standing. After a minute he shifted his eyes to you and made his way into the living area.

He stood directly in front of you, with his hands in his pockets. He looked unsure for the first time since you’d met him, and you couldn’t quite figure out why. “I made dinner.” He said. “It’s almost ready.”

You furrowed your eyebrows at him, “You made us dinner?” You asked. “I always make dinner.”

“I know…” He said, he shifted, looking over her head at something in the distance, “I just thought… I don’t know. It was an early game and I got home at seven… I don’t mind cooking, so why not?”

You shrugged your shoulders, “I don’t know, I guess I just figured I would be cooking for you tonight.”

He looked down at you, meeting your eyes and smiling softly, “You don’t always have to do stuff like that. You can just come over and relax with me.”

Something was off. Colton was a nice guy. He was an amazing guy. But this was so far out of left field for your relationship that you didn’t know what you were dealing with. Then again, that’s how everything with him had been since the day you told him you were going on a date. He’d make sure to mark you up with hickeys everywhere when you hooked up the couple of times it had happened since. He was usually rough, but he never was one to leave dozens of hickeys all over you. Maybe one or two, nothing like that. His sideways remarks. Drunk texts. Now this?

You were in love with him. You had been for a long time and you knew it. Hell, you’d known when you let this start that you would fall in love with him. He was just the kind of guy you couldn’t help falling in love with. That’s why he had girls falling at his feet. He was a twenty-six-year-old professional hockey player, rich, attractive, with a great personality and he could have any girl he wanted. You never had any illusions that you would be the one to lock him down. Hell, at the time you weren’t even looking for a relationship. You were running from one.

But when he looked at you and said things like that, things like you can just come here to relax with me, it made you angry. Because you were in love with him. And when he said things like that and sent you a string of drunk texts at three in the morning, it gave you this irrational hope that he cared about more than just your pussy.

There was no way though.

And even if he did, did you want that life?

Constantly worrying about whether or not your boyfriend was with some other girl because he could have whoever he wanted? Always feeling like you weren’t good enough for him? Never being able to contribute equally to the household? Would he ever actually marry you even if he did date you? No. Probably not. You weren’t NHL wife material. Not pretty enough or classy enough.

But you smiled at him and pretended this battle wasn’t going on in your head and said, “Why don’t I help you finish cooking? I’m starving.”

After you ate, an amazing meal as it turned out Colton was actually quite the cook, when you made to help him with the dishes he turned around and set you on the island behind him, effectively banishing you from the soap. “I always help.” You protested.

“I’ve got it, (Y/N).” He said, his back muscles working as he washed a pot. “Just sit there and look pretty.”

You rolled your eyes, “As if that’s possible.” He turned to look at you over his shoulder, narrowed eyes and you bit your lip before responding, “Sorry, did I say that out loud?”

“Yeah. Don’t say it in your head either.” Then he went back to the dishes.

After the dishes were clean you expected to end up in the bedroom, but instead he guided you to the couch and handed you the remote, “What do you want to watch?”

You stared at the remote for a moment, then looked back at him. “I don’t know. I only watch movies in the theaters and I don’t think you’d like any of the shows that I watch.”

He frowned, “You only watch movies in theaters?”

“I don’t have the attention span to watch them unless I’m forced.” You said, “I’ll do anything to get out of it. Write, sleep, read, sex. Anything except watch the movie unless it’s a favorite and I’m in the mood to watch it. Which I’m not.”

“Okay, you like the Flames, right?” He asked. You nodded, “They’re playing now. Want to watch that?”

You smiled up at him, “That sounds awesome.”

By the time the game ended, you were curled into his side with his arm wrapped around you and you were ranting about every missed call while going on about Tkachuk’s game winning overtime goal. “Are you like this when you watch us play?” Colton asked, with a look in his eyes that you couldn’t identify and a smile on his face.

“Oh, I’m worse.” You said laughing and shaking your head, “When I lived with my sister she used to get so mad at me on nights you played late games because I would wake her up yelling at the TV.”

Colton placed a hand on your cheek and moved in. He pressed his lips to yours the same why he had so many times before, but this time if felt different. The kiss was long and slow and there were no hands pulling at clothes. One of his remained spanning your cheek and neck and the other rested on your waist, holding you in place.  Your hands, after the initial shock of the randomness of the kiss wore off, went up to his shoulders. He pulled you closer like he was afraid you were about to push him away, but you didn’t. You wouldn’t. You didn’t know if you knew how.

Especially not after the way this kiss made you feel.

You were the one to separate your lips, resting your foreheads together. Neither of you spoke for a stretch of time and the only sound filling the room was the Flames postgame in the background. Eventually he broke the silence. “I don’t like you dating other people.”

“Colton…” You said, squeezing your eyes shut. You didn’t want to hear this. You didn’t want him to tell you how he didn’t like seeing you with other people, but you could never be his. It wasn’t something you wanted to hear and if he said it… well if he said it you were going to have to get up and leave. You were going to have to end this.

“Please listen to me,” He said, his voice barely above a whisper but their faces were so close that you had no trouble picking up his words. “It hurts thinking about you dating someone else. It hurts thinking that I’m so close to losing you and if you don’t want me to stop you then there isn’t anything I can do about it.”

You pulled your forehead away from his and leaned back a little, looking at his hardwood floors, “Colton I can’t just be some girl that you call when you want to screw for the rest of my life.” You said it softly, but the words were harsh and he cast his eyes at the floor along with you, “I want something real. I want someone who is going to take me out on dates. We buy each other birthday presents. Set up a Christmas tree together every year. Have dreams of a future with each other in it. Someday I want a house with a backyard full of kids and a husband playing with them. I can’t have that if all I am is another girl who you mess around with but never want anything more from.”

When you were done he looked up at you and your eyes met. Before you could look away, he said, “But what if I want all of those things with you? What if I want something real too?”

Tears sprung to your eyes. Why was he doing this? Why couldn’t he just let you walk away when it was easier because you thought he would never love you. “Colt I don’t know if I’m cut out for that life. I’m just some girl who got caught up in a lifestyle she had no business being part of.”

“What’s so bad about it?” He asked, looking a little panicked. Like he hadn’t actually accepted the possibility of you walking away tonight for good. “Why couldn’t you date me?”

You shook your head, “I’ve been around your friends. They party. They drink. And athletes… they cheat. I know it’s a stereotype, but I would always be worried about it. Especially since the entire time we’ve known each other you’ve had the ability to just… do whatever you want. Besides the fact that I’m not pretty enough to ever be seen in public with you.”

Colton looked genuinely offended, “I don’t cheat. I never have, and I never will. I was raised better than that.” He placed a hand on your chin and forced you to look into his eyes, “And you are beautiful. I would take you everywhere. You would be all over my Instagram even.”

You blushed, “Colt…”

“(Y/N), give me a chance.” He said. “I messed up. I didn’t realize I was in love with you until someone else was already doing a better job at what should have been my job than I was. Please, let me fix it.”

You studied his face, trying to decide if he was serious. Trying to decide if you should give up what you saw in Chase for what you knew was there in Colton. There were obstacles, many of them, but if he was that determined to make it work then you would give it a try too.

“Okay, we can give it a real shot.”

I’m lovin’ what you got

But I’m hating what you doing

You gotta show me off, off

If you embarrassed,

Then thats the case I’m long gone

You’d been officially dating for four months now and things were going great. He knew how you felt about him going out drinking with the guys, so when he went, he invited you along. There were no more bunnies bragging about their conquest with him online, in fact they were beginning to suspect that he had settled down with someone. You were at every home game wearing his jersey with the other wives and girlfriend and even flown out to one of the away games. Pictures of the two of you together started appearing online, especially on websites that people used to track the habits of players and the speculation started.

Did Colton Parayko have a girlfriend?

The thing was, he wouldn’t confirm anything. People would tweet him, asking him about it. Nothing. People would message him on Instagram asking him about it? He ignored them. He posted a picture of himself with your dog on his Instagram and the comments were filled with the same question.

Do you have a girlfriend?

Is that your girlfriends’ dog?

Did your girlfriend take that picture?

Still he didn’t respond to any of them. You were beginning to wonder if it was because he was regretting his decision to enter a relationship with you. Was that what the issue was? Was he embarrassed of you? He’d promised that you would be all over his Instagram, but he hadn’t even let you tag them in a picture together. Did he wish he’d found someone more conventionally beautiful?

You were scrolling through a speculation post when he sat down beside you on the couch. “What are you reading?” He asked, looking over your shoulder.

You quickly locked your phone and dropped it into your lap, “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

He narrowed his eyes at you playfully, “I know your password and my arms are longer than yours.”

You sighed, “Why haven’t you gone public with our relationship?” You asked.

He looked caught off guard, “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t posted any pictures of us. You haven’t answered when anyone asks about us.” You looked away from him and down at the phone you were twisting in your hands. “If you’re embarrassed of me just tell me. We can end this.”

“No!” He said it before the words had even died on your tongue, “Of course I’m not embarrassed of you.”

You still didn’t meet his eyes, because honestly, you didn’t believe him. “Colton…”

“(Y/N),” He said, “I’ll post pictures of you right now. I’ll tweet out a response to the next person who asks me. I’m not embarrassed, why would I be? I didn’t know it was that big of a deal to you or I never would have kept it a secret. I just don’t like my private life to be all over the internet.” He grabbed your hand and pulled your phone away, setting it aside before taking your hand in his. “Please believe me.”

You looked up into his eyes and all you saw was love. He looked so genuine. How could you not believe him? “Okay,” you said. “I believe you.”

“We don’t have to keep it a secret,” He said, “I love you. I don’t care if people know.”

You smiled up at him, “I would like that.”

Give me that title, title

Come on give me that title, title

Better give me that title, title

Better give me that title, title, yeah

They’d been together for two years now and they had come a long way from the day that Colton had sworn she was going to walk out his front door and end up in the arms of another man. As she sat on her towel with her toes dug into the sand next to him, glass of wine in her hand, staring at the sun setting over the ocean, he couldn’t believe that he’d ever come close to letting that happen.

The words she spoke that day stuck in his mind every single day since she said them. Someday I want a house with a backyard full of kids and a husband playing with them. They already bought each other birthday presents and set up a Christmas tree together every year. They talked about their future together every day. But that was something that he hadn’t given her yet.

She was so distracted by the sunset that she didn’t notice him set his wine glass on the small table between them, low to the sand, before reaching into the beach bag, into the zippered back pocket that she never would have had a reason to open and pulling out the small velvet box. He settled back onto his towel with the box in his hand, but kept his eyes focused on her.

He’d had the whole moment planned out, but now that they were here, and he was holding the ring and she was sitting next to him, it was like he had never planned a thing.

He shifted to his knees so that he was facing her, and that action was enough to pull her away from the sunset. She turned to him with a smile on her face so genuine that it made his heart swell. “What’s that look for?” She asked, “You should be watching the sky, it’s beautiful.”

“I’d rather watch you.” He said, and her cheeks flushed. Whether it was from the tropical heat or his words he didn’t know. He kept the box hidden under his hand as he said, “(Y/N), the day we decided to be together, you said something. You said that someday you wanted a husband and kids and an entire life with someone.” He looked down at his hand which still hid the ring, then back up at the most important person in his life who was looking at him with wide eyes, like she wanted to believe what was happening but didn’t quite want to get her hopes up. He lifted the hand that wasn’t concealing the ring and used it to guide her into standing up. She rose to her feet, burying them in the sand.

He rose to one knee and finally reveled the box, snapping it open, “I want that to be me. I want that life with you. I’m ready for it. If you say yes, I promise that we’ll have a house with a huge backyard and a fence and a swing set for our kids to play on. We’ll be the family that you always wanted to have. So, (Y/N), will you marry me?”

She was completely in shock, staring at him like she couldn’t believe a single word he had just said had actually come out of his mouth. But it had, and as soon as she realized that, she answered him. “Of course, I will!”

He slid the ring on her finger, tossed the box on the towel beside them and then was up and twirling her in the air in a second. Yes, they had come a long way in the past two years. And god was he glad they had.

[padfootagain]

The Jedi And The Pilot (II)

Part 2 : A New Deal

 Here comes part 2 for this series I haven't updated in a while, sorry about that…

No warnings apply here! I just hope you'll like it!

Word Count: 4332

"Oh, maker…"

Obi-Wan was holding on the controls before him with so much strength his knuckles had turned as white as snow. His back pressed against his seat, he couldn’t believe he had stumbled onto a pilot even more reckless than Anakin.

"What now? You don’t like flying?" you teased, earning a glare from the Jedi by your side.

"I don’t mind flying, but this is not flying. This is… oh no…"

He pinched his lips as you rolled the ship several times, avoiding the shots of light aimed at you.

"If you throw up, I’ll take an extra fee. And I won’t clean it up for you," you warned the Jedi, who merely gave you an offended side-glance.

"I will not throw up. I wish you would be more careful though."

"More careful? We’re being shot at! And it’s your fault, Jedi!"

You had just left the atmosphere. Before you lied the countless stars, shining glimmers upon a velvety void. As far as the eyes could see, there was but darkness and dots of light. It was your favourite sight in the whole galaxy… just… the infinite possibilities of space. All these shining stars holding secrets of their own, as if they waited for you to discover them all.

But for now, you couldn’t settle on the beauty before you. Instead, you were focusing on avoiding the blasts that were shot behind you.

You entered the coordinates with one hand while your droid, an old R1 unit that you had painted in red a long time ago and answered only to the name Rupture - for a reason even unknown to you, but you and accepted the nickname - was preparing the jump to hyperspace.

You turned the ship to the right and left and rolled over several times, still avoiding the bolts of red light fired your way.

Obi-Wan was suddenly quiet. He seemed focused beside you. You chose to ignore him, for now.

"Rup, buddy, I’ll need a bit more power on the thrusters, please."

The droid beeped after only a few more seconds to signal you the extra power now available for your acrobatics, and you hurried to use it to turn the ship around in a quick movement, passing through the 4 ships. And as expected, two of them shot each other.

Only two left.

You pointed the ship towards space once more. By your side, Obi-Wan was strangely calm.

"You’re okay over there, Jedi?"

"I can feel something… someone…"

"Bad?"

Obi-Wan slowly nodded.

"I can’t figure out who it is. But I certainly have a bad feeling about this."

"We don’t need more trouble than we already have."

"We must make the jump."

"Yes. I am aware of that," you replied in a dry tone.

Another roll, and your droid finally beeped to signal you that the ship was ready to go to hyper-space.

"Alright, hang on, Jedi! One last acrobatics and we're in the clear."

"Do you really have to…"

Before he could finish his protest, you were turning your ship up, until you traced a circle around the enemies' ships, that were too slow to react. The time they needed to make the manoeuvre was more than enough for you to make the jump. You were soon pushed against your seat, the thrilling sensation of lightspeed making tickles run in your belly, as stars before you were distorted in blurred, stretched white lights.

By your side, Obi-Wan heaved a relieved sigh.

You were finally safe.

"You are impressively dangerous," he said with a touch of humour to colour his voice.

"Well, thank you," you answered with an amused smile. "I'm very proud of you for not throwing up."

"I am a good pilot, believe it or not."

"I would not dare to doubt the abilities of Jedi in any area," you answered mockingly, which made him chuckle.

"I'm afraid we've missed our introduction back there. What's your name?"

"Y/N."

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Y/N."

"I wish I could say the same, but you're more trouble than you're worth for now, Jedi."

"I reckon that you were quite skilled in escaping from all this trouble, pilot," he teased, a humorous smile badly hidden on his features, and you struggled yourself to hide how much you wanted to laugh.

Rupture signalled you that all was fine, and he went to keep an eye – or well, a sensor, you guessed – at the hyperdrive, which had over-heated a couple of times before.

"How did you find an R1 unit anyway?" Obi-Wan asked. "I thought they had stopped the production years ago."

"Rup and I have been friends for years. Found him in a dump on Corellia. He saved my life, and I saved his in exchange. We've been a team ever since."

"He saved your life?"

"Ha… I don't think I should tell you the story, it might not have been extremely legal, the things I was doing."

"I see. You're a pirate."

"A pirate?!" you exclaimed, properly outraged and vexed. "Certainly not! How dare you?!"

"Well, you said you were earning your life in an illegal way…"

"I smuggled goods through Corellia. That's not exactly the same thing."

"You're a smuggler, then?"

"I'm a pilot. I'm a pilot, that's what I am."

"Who… smuggles goods through Corellia. Were you smuggling tonight?"

"I reckon that I smuggled your arse off this planet, indeed," you replied with a sour smile.

He opened his mouth to fire back, but had to yield.

"Well, I can't argue with that one."

"I don't particularly enjoy smuggling," you went on in a softer tone. "But I don't exactly have a choice, these days. This war is making my business very complicated."

Obi-Wan slowly nodded.

"I see."

"I'm not against you, relax. I mean… I don't put the blame on the Jedi, like some do. And I reckon that having to smuggle to get enough credits to go through the month is a lesser evil, considering what some have to go through."

"I'm still sorry that you have to go to such extremes to live," Obi-Wan said with compassion.

"I'll be fine."

"I guess you could get more money from this trip if you chose to hand me to the Separatists… they would pay a handsome fee for my head, I'm sure."

He was only half-joking, but you laughed hard at him.

"I'm a smuggler by default. But believe it or not, I do have a conscience."

He smiled.

"I believe you do indeed."

There was a silence in the cockpit, disturbed only by the rhythmic humming of the engines. All around the cockpit, the stars still traced lines of light against the darkness of space as you travelled too fast for them. The warm light in your ship gave the metal on the control a yellowish glow.

You struggled to refrain a mischievous smile.

"How much is it that I'd get if I handed you to the Separatists again?"

His laughter was as bright as the stars around.

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

 Coruscant was but a glistening sea of impossibly high buildings. You hated the place. You hated the busy traffic and all these people in their freighters who couldn't even fly and yet played the pilots. You hated the sight of all this metal, there to pack up as many people on this tiny planet as possible. You preferred forests and oceans and mountains to this.

While you silently complained about the scenery, and tried to not get involved in a crash with one of those flying idiots around you, Obi-Wan had settled your arrival at the Jedi Temple.

"Your money is waiting for you," he told you as he turned off his com-link.

"Great! Perfect!" you smiled.

"The Order could use a pilot of your talent though," Obi-Wan slowly added, glancing over at you. "If you want to make some more money, we could pay you well to work for us."

You laughed.

"No, no, no, no," you shook your head. "You stumbled onto my ship, and I had the courtesy to not let you be killed. That's about how far my relationship with you all Jedi is going to go. Too much trouble."

"More than breaking the law to earn a decent living?"

"When did I say that I could reach a decent living?" you gloomily replied.

"Well, one more reason to work for us."

"I will not fly into war zones. I will not do that. And I can't work for the Order, I don't take sides in this war."

"I see."

"No. No, you don't see. I don't have the luxury to take a side. All I can do is try to not get the wrong people angry so that I can live a little bit longer. And flying a Jedi back to Coruscant is already going to get me in a lot of trouble with these wrong people I've been trying to avoid for so long. So, I'm dropping you off at your lovely temple, I'm getting my money, and that's it. Then it's farewell."

Obi-Wan remained silent, merely nodding. Deep in thought, he stroked his beard, his eyes lost on the horizon but he couldn't see any of the buildings you flew by.

The Jedi temple stood proud and tall in the city, the architecture so recognizable. You had never been in this part of the planet, never dared to even think you would ever go there. You were more used to the neighbourhoods where you had to walk with a blaster apparent at your belt if you wanted to go home in one piece.

Indeed, Obi-Wan had not lied. A padawan was waiting for the two of you on the landing platform with all the credits you had asked for. Three times what you thought you would get out of today.

"Thank you again, Y/N," Obi-Wan gave you a kind smile. "I hope we meet again. And if you change your mind about working for us, just come here, and ask for me."

"I will not change my mind. But thank you for the offer anyway. Try not to get yourself into too much trouble, Jedi."

"I'll do my best, pilot."

You exchanged a smile and shook hands. Just as you walked back into your ship, Anakin and Ahsoka were arriving to greet Obi-Wan.

"We heard you ran into more trouble than what was expected," Anakin smiled to his friend.

"Indeed," Obi-Wan nodded. "But I also received some unexpected help from a talented pilot."

"The woman who just left?" asked Ahsoka.

"I kind of forced my troubles upon her, she took me back here, and lost the ones who were after us."

"I'm sure you loved it," Anakin joked mockingly, causing Obi-Wan to roll his eyes.

"I thought she could work for us, but she turned down the offer."

"Maybe she has a better job already," Ahsoka replied, but Obi-Wan shook his head, and a frown of worry formed on his brow.

"No, I don't think so. I think she might be in trouble herself."

"She's a Separatist?"

"No. No, I don't believe that, she said she didn't want to take sides in the war."

"Why not?"

"Earning a living in these times can be difficult, and some sometimes have to make trades with people… who are not exactly respectable."

"You're worried about her," Anakin spoke slowly, in a cautious voice.

"I'm worried I might have gotten her into more trouble than I thought I would."

"If she turned down your offer, there is nothing you can do now."

"She said she sometimes had to smuggle goods to make a living, these people can be dangerous."

"I'm sure she can handle herself, you said yourself that she was talented," Ahsoka tried to reassure Obi-Wan, but it failed.

He fell silent, knowing the conversation would not ease his mind. He would meditate on the matter, but a voice in the depth of his head told him that your paths would cross again. He merely hoped it wouldn't be to find out that you were dead.

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

 Despite how much you hated Coruscant, you had your flat there. Most of the passengers who hired you wanted to be transported from here, or at least, made their deals from here. You had no choice but to live where there was work, and so you did.

It was a tiny flat in a poor neighbourhood. But it had a bed, and a kitchen, and a decent bathroom, a table, a few chairs, and you could hardly ask for more. A large sign on the other side of the street, signalling a bar, painted your whole flat in pink. You locked the four locks on your door, and went to hide your money in the hole in the wall behind your bed. You didn't remember a time when you had so much money in your possession. It was far from enough to get off this planet though.

Soon though. One day…

You had barely lied down on your bed when someone knocked on your door. Loud, strong banging that made you jump. You took your blaster out of your bedside table, while the banging started again.

Well, they were fast, you couldn't hold that against them…

"Y/N! It's Barty! Open up! The Boss wants to see you. Come on, open the door. I saw you coming in!"

"He's not my boss," you corrected the Twi'lek.

"He still wants to see you."

"So he can kill me or beat me up half-to-death? I don't think so."

"Look, there's been a misunderstanding. We heard that you picked up a Jedi. Obviously, you would never do something like that. So, the boss is going to listen to your version, try to figure out the truth behind it."

You bit your tongue. You knew helping a Jedi would get you into trouble, however, you hadn't figured out that it would mean this much trouble.

"What if I did?" you asked.

There was a short silence, before Barty would heave a deep sigh.

"Y/N… not you…"

"Look, he forced me to do it," you lied… or well, half-lied. Obi-Wan had not exactly given you a choice, you doubted that he would have hurt you if you had refused though. "What was I supposed to do? Fight a Jedi? They have lightsabers, you know?"

"You should have brought him to us, or to the Separatists."

"I thought we didn't take sides," you answered, slowly opening your window, trying to make as little noise as you could.

"We don't. We go with the money."

You winced at his answer, disgusted. That's not why you weren't taking sides. You simply didn't want to get shot at, but the money was not the issue. How many jobs had you turned down to keep your neutrality? You had lost count a thousand times over. This time though, it seemed impossible.

And if you had to pick up a side, then your choice was already made.

"Look," you tried to reason with the Twi'lek one last time. "I didn't have a choice. I didn't want to take him, but it was quite literally a matter of life and death. What was I supposed to do?"

"We both know it's not that easy."

"It should be! I didn't have a choice!"

"Maybe the boss will listen to you. No matter what he does, you have to come now and see him. Explain this face to face with him. And then, maybe he'll be good enough with you and forget it all happened. You don't have a choice. They're sending me now, but you know they won't be so kind next time if you don't come. So just… come with me."

You thought about the money you had just hidden, but moving your bed again would make too much noise. You heaved a silent sigh, and merely grabbed your bag again. You took one last look at your flat, but knew you wouldn't be coming back. It didn't matter. Everything you needed, everything you cared about was in this bag you held against you now.

"I understand," you lied, climbing onto your bed to get a better access to the window. "Just give me a second, I'll give the boss the money, that might help."

"It sure will! But open the door for me, would you?"

But you were already stepping onto the bannister. Your ship should have been on your rooftop but you weren't dumb enough to leave it there. After all, you knew the Boss. Or well, you had never met him, and had no intention to do that, but he did have the reputation to kill whoever he was tired of, which had led you to take a few precautions. Including hiding your ship on the other side of the street, in a little alley behind the bar.

You climbed down the ladder on the side of your building and hurried to the gateway that connected your side of the street to the other. You heard some loud bangs behind you and guessed that Barty was trying to break into your flat. Good. It would slow him down.

It was night, and if the stars shone above you, you couldn't see any trace of them. The fumes coming out of the heating systems of the old buildings covered the sky too much to allow even the moon to shine through. The lights were those of the street, yellow and too close to your taste, showing your shape too much as you ran in the alley. And of course, the large sign above the bar shed its pink hues all over the place.

The Stammer was a weird place where only people with the lowest level of conscience thrived. You had never liked the place, but it didn't matter that you liked it or not. All that mattered was to cross the damn bar and get to your ship safe and sound.

It smelled of smoke and drugs and liquor and a good dose of sweat too, the smell of a place where you didn't want to linger. The low light, drenched in a pinkish colour – that matched the sign outside – made the shape of the customers a little blurred. A man near the door was selling death-sticks, some were playing Sabacc and most of the rest were drunk. You crossed the room as fast as you could without drawing too much attention to you.

You were closing the backdoor behind you when you heard some kind of commotion going on on the gateway. It probably had something to do with Barty. You hurried on.

It was a little hard to breathe, and not just because you were tired and had been running. You struggled to keep a clear mind despite your fear, forcing your breathing to get a little more even to calm yourself down.

If you were caught and taken to that criminal, you would probably never see tomorrow's dawn.

You pushed the thought away as you ran to your freighter. It was right there, on the other side of the landing platform.

"Y/N!"

You were almost there when Barty's shout reached your ears, making your heart trip in your chest and your legs run even faster.

You were locked inside the cockpit way before the Twi'lek had crossed the distance. Rupture gave you a questioning beep.

"Okay, to make it simple…" you answered, out of breath, starting the engine as quickly as you could. "I'm in deep shit, and if we don't get out of here now, we're both gonna die. So, Rup, please, hurry up…"

A loud banging noise against the door of the ship signalled you that Barty was trying to get in. Then the high-pitched sound of a blaster...

"Rup…"

The droid complained a little about you getting him into trouble, but the engines were soon roaring through the night, covering the sound of the blaster shots. And in a matter of seconds, you were flying above the city.

It didn't seem that you were followed, but then you used all the tricks you knew to lose anyone who would want to go after you through the traffic of the busy town.

Besides, you didn't know much about what the Boss was up to, and you didn't want to get involved. You weren't a security risk or anything, you guessed that if he wanted to go after you, it was more a question of principle than anything else, maybe to set up an example too. You hoped he wouldn't put you on his priority list.

In the gigantic city of Coruscant, there was only one place you knew that the Boss could not reach. Even he, with all his spies everywhere, could not set up a murder in the Jedi Temple. And luckily for you, you had a way in.

You didn't like any of this at all, but you reckoned that you didn't have a choice. It was that or being killed now…

You landed on the same platform where you had left Obi-Wan earlier that day, and were met by a guard as soon as you set foot out of your ship. Despite the helmet, you could hear the trooper's frown in his voice.

"What is your business here?" he asked in a cold voice.

"I'm here to see Obi-Wan Kenobi," you said, crossing your fingers behind your back as you hoped that you remembered the name of the Jedi right.

"What for? Who are you?"

"I'm Y/N Y/L/N. I brought him here earlier today, I'm a pilot. He offered me a job, and told me to come back when I would have… thought about it, let's say. So, here I am."

The clone spoke through his comlink, and you didn't fail to notice how he held his weapon at the ready. Where you really that scary? Did you look like such a threat?

"Wait here until Master Kenobi arrives," the clone ordered as he turned his full attention back to you.

"Okay… great. Thanks!"

Five minutes passed, and then ten, and finally fifteen minutes ticked by, and you thought he would not come. You thought you would be thrown out of the Temple and left to survive on your own. You had refused the job, after all…

What would you do then? Leave the planet and lay low for a little while seemed like the best option. But where would you head to? The Boss had agents everywhere…

Luckily, it didn't have to go to such extremes, as you recognized Obi-Wan silhouette walking towards you in a fast pace, a shadow against the lights of the Temple behind him and the stars above.

"Y/N?" he greeted you with a worried frown. "Is everything alright?"

"Oh, yes! Yes, it's alright!" you lied with a grin. "I just… I've reconsidered your offer, and I might be interested."

He raised a surprised eyebrow.

"Really? And it couldn't wait till tomorrow morning? It is very late, you know?"

"Well, I didn't want the offer to expire before I could talk to you. And I am interested, indeed. I mean, it would be a regular job, right?"

"We could pay you for each mission if you'd prefer, but I reckon the usual way if you choose to regularly work for us would be to pay you every month."

"That would be great! You see, regular incomes would be a nice change."

"I see," he nodded, although you could read in his eyes that he knew there was something else.

You offered him your open hand.

"You've got a deal, Jedi," you gave him a smile, but he didn't take your hand just yet.

"Is it really the only reason why you've changed your mind?"

You took a second to choose the way to answer, but you clenched your jaw and decided it wasn't his business.

You had not come here to get a Jedi to protect you and save you from a brute. You didn't need rescuing. You needed a safe place to stay. You didn't need Obi-Wan Kenobi, you needed the Jedi Temple.

"It's the only reason you need to know about," you answered.

For a moment, Obi-Wan hesitated. You had admitted that you knew some… unrespectable individuals. Had you been sent as a spy?

Something in your glance told him it wasn't so. What was it exactly, he didn't know. But he wanted to trust you. He did trust you, somehow, for a reason he couldn't pinpoint and yet was strong enough to make him shake hands with you. There was something warm and radiant in the Force around you. There couldn't be such thing around an evil person, and who was he to not listen to the Force.

Maybe your paths had crossed for a reason. He was eager to find out why.

You were smiling a genuine smile at him when a speeder flew above you, loud and quite low. It was easy to recognize Barty's shape sitting in the driver's seat. And Obi-Wan didn't miss how your jaw clenched once more as you recognized the Twi'lek.

Something in his heart told him that his fears had become true, indeed.

"Do you have a safe place to stay for tonight?" he asked with a soft, reassuring voice.

You hesitated, but took a deep breath to relax a little anyway. You weren't here asking for charity. You had never done so in your life, you would not start today. It had been you against the world for so long, and you had always managed on your own. You would manage, one more time.

"Is there a hangar where I could put my ship?"

Obi-Wan nodded, respecting that you had dodged his question for now.

"I'll show you."

As you climbed back into your ship with Obi-Wan on your heels, you realized what you had done.

You were working for the Jedi Order.

Oh, in what kind of troubles had you put yourself into now…

*************************************

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[taltos-seidmadr]

On spirit communication

(art by galactic-castle)

Before I really start making my point, please allow me to make a short prologue about where I’m coming from and why I’m writing this post.

I’m a Heathen, in terms of religion, and in my practice I do some things that can be construed as “spirit work” according to the understanding of the greater community, but I don’t really consider myself to be a part of that community, and I’m pretty much off doing my own thing that is closer to my understanding of my own culture and/or Heathen traditions rather than what I see circulating on the internet most often. There are two reasons why I wanted to bring this up. One, I don’t feel myself qualified to give advice on anything and this might end up the only advice post I ever write, especially regarding this topic. And two, I apologize for occasionally using some terms that might be more specific to me than the actual jargon of the wider spiritworking community, because I’m not in it, but I hope it will be understandable regardless.

One of my spirit worker friends approached me with an issue they were having. It made me realize what a huge underlying issue it is, and it is indeed one that I also used to have, so I told my friend what I did to resolve it - and after their encouragement to do so, I’m telling you all now hoping that it may help some. I think to some degree it can apply both to the spiritworking community and to those pagans who keep in contact with their deities in some sort of way that involves trance work and/or resembles verbal communication. I obviously have no idea whether it’s applicable to every practice or not, so take it with a pinch of salt, but Hungarians have a pretty insightful and witty folk tale about the importance of a pinch of salt in the right place and the right time, so pretend that I made a reference to that and hear me out.

I want you to imagine the following situation:

You are a beginner practicioner of whatever you are doing. You start talking to some spirits, establish relationships with them, and maybe even start making friends. (While I do believe that a god is a type of spirit, right now I’m just including deities in the category of “spirits“ for the sake of convenience, and just know that the overall advice is still applicable if you don’t believe the same.) But real life also demands your time and energy, and so do real life people, so you begin to pay just a little bit less attention to your spirit fam than you would like. And then you maybe spend a little too much time on the hellsite dot com, and you read a post about how if you don’t actually pay enough attention to your spirit fam, then you are one of Those™ spiritworkers, which is Bad. And you barely even notice it, but somewhere in the back of your mind you start feeling guilty. Then the little behavioral psychology mouse that lives in your brain learns that talking to spirit family=electric shock, and thus you start avoiding your spirit fam even more, and you feel even more guilty, and so the cycle keeps continuing with increasing returns (on the guilt, or diminishing ones on the communication end).

My friend was there. I’ve been there. A lot of us have been there, probably. Maybe you didn’t even have to imagine this scenario because this is exactly where you are at.

And this entire guilt-avoidance cycle (just according to my unofficial armchair observation) goes back to an idea that nobody really says out loud but everyone seems to imply, which says the following:

“You should spend exactly as much time and energy on  spirit relationships as you would on human relationships”

and I’m not even going to argue outright with this statement, because in some ways I kinda agree, but this post is already taking me 84 years to write so just allow me to cut to the chase and lampshade something that I don’t agree with.

This statement seems really wise and unassuming... until I remember that in order to spend time and make meaningful interaction with a spirit on that side, I need to tune in.

This is the point where I feel a bit on shaky grounds because I don’t have much to go off of other than my own practice, but maybe some of this will sound familiar. Take this from someone who has just never been completely tuned out probably since birth, that in order to tune in in a truly meaningful way, I still have to expend a LOT of energy, and I’m not even talking about anything magical here, I mean the completely everyday mental energy that I have a limited amount of at any given point. What this means in effect is that if I wanted to treat my spirit relationships exactly the same way as I do my human relationships, I would have to spend about half my life in a highly concentrated trance state, which is

a) probably impossible, b) even if it were possible, it would probaby serve as a serious detriment to my ability to navigate the real world, not to mention the active harm it would do to my physical and mental health on the long run.

You need to keep in mind that regardless for your metaphysical beliefs, you are a physical being and you have an extremely important responsibility to take care of your physical manifestation. And keeping this in mind, instead of allowing myself to run the guilt-avoidance cycle like a hamster runs a wheel, I could do two things that lead to healthier results:

1. Make a healthy, honest and realistic assessment of what you can actually manage

For me it’s kind of a go to, that no matter how little time or energy I had during the day, and no matter how stressed/anxious/whatever I feel at the end of the day, I pretty much always can do at least a little bit of trance before I fall asleep, when I can have a little contact with the spirit family, and it actually helps me fall asleep too, so it’s kind of a win-win-win. I’m bringing this up because I don’t have the scientific receipts on the matter but I’ve heard that something about the state of the mind when it’s getting into and out of sleep is special and that makes trancing easier. Don’t quote me on it, but I’ve experienced that to be true.

2. Involve your spirit family in ways of communication that either don’t involve trance at all, or don’t require tuning in fully

As for the first half, the most straightforward example that comes to mind is divination, or literally any sort of randomized thing that you could use to communicate. The second half is a little bit harder to explain but I will try to give my own personal example.

I want you to imagine a spirit phone. This is metaphorical right now but visually speaking, I really want you to imagine an actual phone, the object. For fun. It has a screen you can read texts on. You don’t even have to imagine it very hard or in great detail, you exactly know what a phone looks like. There are many days when I cannot hold an entire environment in my mind’s eye in great detail, but there is no time when I wouldn’t be able to put so much energy in that I wouldn’t know what is written on an imaginary screen as text. Of course communication like this is a bit limited, but this way you can text your spirit fam any time you want. If you are saying rn, but Sithi, that is the stupidest fucking idea I ever heard, texting my gods?! This is too modern for me! then you need to understand that the point is not whether this is an actual phone you are holding, but the limitation through which you channel the finite amount of mental energy that you have. The point is the focus. That you are only imagining so much that actually carries information value. If you want, imagine a word wall from Skyrim, a magical book, a burning forest floor on which you scrape your message into the smoldering ashes with a holy stick, I don’t know man. Use your imagination. Come up with something that fits into your inner world and makes you happy. Similarly if visualization is not your strongest suit, just work out something that builds on your strengths instead. (Funny thing about the phone is that it’s very good for making voice calls too! Hmm? Hmmmmm? Wink wonk!)

Just keep in mind that just because you cannot do everything that you planned or can even think about, it doesn’t make you somehow inferior or less than a human. It can be good to stretch your limits, to an extent, but knowing where those limits are in the first place is probably THE most important thing you can do for yourself in your spiritual practice (or in anything for that matter) and it’s a piece of knowledge that will make your relationships healthier and easier, no matter what layer of reality you are on. That was pretty much my hot take and I hope this will help you let go of some unrealistically high standards and be a little bit easier on yourselves, because we all need that a lot. Especially right now. 🔥👁️‍🗨️✨

[kimjongdaely]

Gone [Alluring]

Mafia!AU & Motorcycle!AU

Pairing: Lay x Reader

Warning: Drugging someone, sexual situations, addiction

Summary: You learn the hard way that your new neighbor isn’t as kind and sweet as he seems.

“Good morning, Yixing!” You greet, smiling at your neighbor as the two of you leave at the same time. Yixing has moved in only recently, and it was quite a surprise when you constantly saw him leave at the same time as you did for work.

But because of that, the two of you were quick to be friends. He’s always kind and friendly, quite a soft-spoken person so you liked him instantly.

He smiles. “Morning!”

“Off to work?” You ask him, which he nods as you watch him get on his motorcycle, parked in front of the apartment. Apparently he’s some sort of sales person...you didn’t ask for details.

“Yeah,” he smiles, revving the vehicle. “Lots of customers to please!”

How true is that. You wave him goodbye as you head the opposite direction for the bus stop, laughing. “Have fun!”

Your days working behind a desk in an office are long and boring. You can hear the clock tick, loud in the silence, the only thing that seems to remind you that time is, in fact, moving. 12:30 and it’s off to lunch. 7:00 and it’s time to go home.

Exhausted, you try not to fall asleep on the bus ride home. You’d hate to miss your stop and have to wait for the next bus back. You’re also famished—do you have anything at home to eat?

You groan at the thought, sighing. You think there might be leftover spaghetti in your fridge...but did you eat that yesterday? Or is it still there? Do you have anything else?

In your half-dazed state, you see something through the window.

Yixing?

You blink, pressing up against the window as the bus zooms by. The next stop is the stop you get off, and you practically run off, back towards the spot you think you saw Yixing.

Something feels wrong.

You hear voices down the street, coming from an alleyway a little ways from your apartment. There are still people out on the street, so you’re not immensely worried. It’s still quite early.

You peak in, indeed seeing Yixing.

He seems to be arguing with someone, and you’ve never seen him angry before...or heard him raise his voice. The man he’s with is slightly shorter, but standing tall like he has authority over Yixing.

You catch snippets as their voices travel.

“So what are you going to do with her, huh?” Yixing hisses, shaking his head. “We can’t keep her locked up forever! What was Kyungsoo thinking?”

“Like I said,” the other man says, frustrated, “He was seen. He had no choice.”

“What do you mean ‘no choice?’” Yixing says. “Bribe her! Or better yet, kill her! You should know how troublesome kidnapping is!”

You cover your mouth to keep in your gasp. You never thought you would hear such things come from the sweet, kind Yixing’s mouth. Kill? Kidnap?

“Look,” the other man says, voice lowering and dripping with authority. “Let’s just get this one job done and we’re out of here, alright?”

“Of course.” Yixing seethes out. “Can’t wait.”

You can tell their conversation is over. You hurry away, heading back towards your apartment and praying he doesn’t catch you eavesdropping.

This is very bad.

The next morning, you don’t know how to greet Yixing. You’re scared to, actually. How can you not be, when you realized you live next to a potential murderer or kidnapper?

Still, you force out a smile and try to keep your tone light, like usual. “Morning, Yixing!”

He smiles at you, the gesture bring chills down your spine now. “Morning.”

You feel your heart hammer in your chest as you go down the elevator with him. You feel paranoid, every little gesture he does makes you jump and flinch. He looks at you oddly, and you smile again.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” you lie, feigning a laugh. “Watched a horror movie last night. Still not over it.”

He laughs back, nodding. “Ah, I see. I’m not too scared of movies like that. Next time you could come over and watch it together.”

“Sure.” You gulp, feeling your mouth go dry.

Of course you’re not scared! You’re literally a criminal!

You take a deep breath as the elevator door opens. “Well, see you later!”

“See you.” He waves, getting on his motorcycle.

You hear the doorbell ring that night. You feel your heart stop, peaking through the peephole and feeling your veins fill with dread.

Yixing.

Oh no.

You open the door halfway, trying to look relaxed. “Hey! What’s up?”

“Hey,” he greets, politely. “I wanted to ask if you were still up to watching horror movies?”

You feel your blood freeze. “Oh, uh, I’m a little tired today. Maybe next time?”

He cocks his head, his eyes watching you carefully. “You sure? You’ve been acting weird all morning...and you’re still acting weird.”

“I’m fine.” You try to close the door on him, but he sticks his foot in, pushing past your door. You step back, feeling vulnerable under his gaze.

Something about the look in his eyes are different.

You begin to tremble. “W-What are you doing? I’m just not feeling well, Yixing.”

"I’m worried about you.” He says, though his tone sounds nothing worried. “Do you have a fever? Should I take you to the hospital?”

“No.” You shake your head, still stepping back as he steps forward. “I’m fine. I just need some rest. If you would please just—”

“I have some cold medicine.” He says. “I brought it in case. I kinda of knew you were acting up.”

You stay silent, watching him carefully.

He smiles. “If you take the medicine, I’ll leave immediately, okay?” His tone is surprisingly tender, and it makes you second-guess yourself.

You sigh. “You’ll leave right after?”

“Of course.”

You nod, sitting down on your couch. You feel your skin prickle, feeling so incredibly anxious like you just willingly let in a murderer. Which you probably did.

He goes to the kitchen, coming back out with a spoon and a small bottle you’ve never seen before. It doesn’t have a brand, just a plastic bottle with a pretty pink colored liquid inside.

“Just a spoonful will do.” He says, pouring the liquid out carefully onto the spoon. “Say ‘ah!’”

You hesitate, your mind running wild but you can’t back out of this now. It would be better to do as he says, since you don’t know what he’ll—or can—do.

You gulp down the spoonful, and it tastes surprisingly sweet, slightly tangy. It’s a taste that gently resembles alcohol...

“Whoa.” You mumble, feeling your head begin to spin. “T-The medicine’s p-pretty strong.”

“Yeah.” He answers, though his voice sounds faraway. “Just sleep it off.”

Your eyes slide closed involuntarily, and you are met with darkness.

You wake up feeling weird. Like you crave something, though you can’t exactly pinpoint what it is.

You groan as you get out of bed...not remembering having gotten in. The memories come flooding back, and you realize Yixing must’ve helped you into bed. Well, at least you’re alive and well.

As you go through your morning routine, the craving gets worse. You begin to feel annoyed, grumpy because you don’t even know what it is you crave...you just feel the emptiness gnaw away at you like a starving beast.

Like you’re addicted to something but you don’t know what.

The doorbell rings, and without much thought, you open the door. Yixing is there with his bright smile and fresh clothes. “Morning! Do you feel better?”

“I—uh,” you look at him, and it’s as if a switch had flipped inside of you.

The craving inside you grows worse like hunger, insatiable hunger and you lunge at him. “Yixing! Yixing, I need you.”

“Oh?” He cocks his head at you, though not looking the slightest bit surprised. He comes in, closing the door shut but you don’t care. You feel the emptiness grow triple its size, the hunger painful.

“Please Yixing.” You beg, throwing yourself all over him because you need to feel him. You want him so badly it hurts. You love him, god you love him so much this feeling is euphoric and you need him need him need him—

He kisses you, the feeling like an explosion in your mind, a dam breaking because those intense feelings are overwhelming, overflowing and you can’t stop it. You don’t know what to do, as you cling onto him more, more, more—

He chuckles. “So it works.”

He pushes you away, ignoring your pleas and whines for him to hold you, kiss you, anything. You feel weak, limp, as if you can’t function if he’s not touching you. He calls someone, refusing your approaches no matter what you do.

“Junmyeon? Yeah, it’s me.” He says. “The Love Shot works like a charm. It’s time to get out of here.”

He puts his phone away, grinning down at you. If you weren’t so dazed and desperate, you could tell his eyes are filled with mirth, as if you look like a dying animal in his eyes.

He pulls you towards him, his voice washing over you so, so pleasantly, like honey and chocolate. “Sorry. I couldn’t let you get off the hook after you heard.”

“Y-Yixing,” you sob desperately, clawing at him, wanting to crawl inside of his skin so you’ll never have to part. “I need you. I love you so much.”

“Yeah.” He whispers, “So you’ll sacrifice yourself for me, right?”

Yixing puts on his helment, revving up the engine. His job here is done, and his brothers have also moved to their new location.

He looks over the horizon, memorizing the skyline of this city. It really is quite pretty...but what’s a pretty city if there isn’t a little crime?

His motorcycle kicks up dirt as he zooms off towards a new, promising horizon. It’ll surely be interesting.

“Well then.” He smiles to himself, speeding up. “Off to the next place.”

Previous Chapter

Alluring Mini Masterlist

A/N: Somehow this got a little darker than I intended...With everything going on, I wasn’t really feeling like writing, but I’m glad I got this series done. It was fun and pretty twisted. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Tags: @ninibears-erigom @loser-dot-com @lifewithsehun @shesdreaminginoverdose @fuzzy-melonlord @enchanting-exo@shxrl4747 @drealsweetrebel @skjdln @sehunnies-hunnie96 @solarsa @bluepsycopanda @harryhooksgazebos267 @ilook-soperfectstandinghere14 @anxietyishell (It’s been a while so forgive me if I forgot to tag you)

©kimjongdaely

Talk to me!

[mrsq8geek]

Advice for an aspiring author hoping to write lgbt muslim characters?

Hi, thanks for your question!  This is quite the rabbit hole, so I can't cover everything, but I did my best.  Some general guidelines and then my own view:

1. Do not write this story unless it is from personal experience or with the direct express written permission from the person it’s based on, and I hesitate with that second one.  Like many other experiences, this story hasn’t been told all that often, so unless you’re one of the above, you don’t have many points of reference and will probably get it wrong and, I suspect, as ‘exotic’.

That said:

2.  Start by examining yourself. One of my favourite resources is @writingwithcolor​, which has many great references for this.  At this point, we're asking questions such as "Why do you not want to represent us?" and "Why do you need to tell this story right now?" among others.  Do check it out.

3.  Please, please don't write an apologetic acceptably assimilated model minority.  I don't know where you're from, or where you intend to set the story, but we're all influenced by American media, so I feel it's important to mention.  We generally don't have positive feelings towards those characters, let alone relating to them, at least not to the aspects where they're supposed to represent us.

(My personal pet peeve example is Abed Nadir from Community, a Muslim enamoured with Christmas and is an all-around Acceptable Arab... played by an Indian actor.  It's extra irking because the show was touted as being Better Than Big Bang Theory, and it seemed okay addressing many other nuances, but when it came to this? Think of it this way: why didn't they cast an Asian actress to play Britta or Annie and called her white? Or, indeed, an Indian actress to play Shirley and called her black? Because clearly they believe the audience can't tell the difference? Arabs are black or white but not brown, guys.  Not all Arabs are Muslims and vice versa.  Some Muslims are (gasp!) white.)

Anyway, the point is Abed, and others like him, are non-threatening.  They reject their own identity and are desperate to be Just Like Us Default White People.  While this is definitely the case for some people, 1. it's not the case for most people, 2. it's just a really tired trope especially in current times, and 3. the other side of this trope’s coin is that in order to be acceptable for The West, they have to rebel against their character’s original identity, which is just as tired.

But I digress.  You already know by asking this question that it’s controversial.  Why not play it straight instead?  Pun unintended.  Do your research, whatever way you choose to go. 

4.  Speaking of doing your research, do. your. research! Muslims are a diverse group of about 2 billion people*.  There are two major sects and many smaller ones.  In the major ones, homosexuality (etc) is a sin, haram, full stop, end of sentence.  Any level of presenting like the opposite gender is not only haram, it’s cursed.  Yes, there are many people coming up with exceptions and loopholes, or just doing what they want regardless, and if you want to write about them, that's your prerogative, but:

* so Kamala Khan, for example, is completely unrelatable to me. (See: 9)

5.  You know what else is considered haram in majority Islam? Extra-marital sex.  Pork.  Alcohol.  Drugs, yes including cannabis, in fact even nutmeg.  People do all that anyway! Especially in non-Muslim-majority countries where the laws don’t make it harder for them, or in poorer Muslim-majority countries where people don’t get educated in religious matters, or indeed all over everywhere because not all people of any religion actively practice that religion.  It's a non-issue by this point. 

5A. The only reason LGBT Muslims is An Issue, and it’s An Issue Now, is because America’s making it one.  It’s no different than, say, modern white feminism.  They stir the pot, we deal with the mess.

5B. Muslims are people, and people aren't perfect. We know this, and we've addressed it as nauseam… and that’s just it, we’re allowed* to talk about these things because we know ourselves and our experiences.  It’s more acceptable coming from us to us because we have a common ground to start discussing things.

* I wrote allowed, but it really depends on the situation. Sometimes you’re not allowed simply because you don’t want to make it an issue, and that’s okay too.

5C. Since you’re asking, I’m assuming you’re not a Muslim yourself, and that puts a layer on scrutiny on you.  We don’t know where to begin to talk to you, and it’s worse if you represent us in any controversial way or in any way less than perfect.  Less than perfect by whose standards? It depends. Nobody knows! (See: 3)

5D. Examine yourself, research the topic, and know just what you’re trying to say.

6.  That said, here’s my personal take on it that I’d love to see someone do, but haven’t so far.  I don’t know how people arrive at their sexuality, whether it’s by nature or nurture, but they do end up there one way or another.  When it comes to Islam, you’re highly encouraged to (heterosexually, to be clear) marry and reproduce.  You’re discouraged from sex outside that framework.  If you are unable to marry for whatever reason, you’re supposed to find a way to deal with it. Fasting is often recommended.

And the way I see it, finding yourself not being attracted to the opposite gender is just one reason to not marry.  “So I NEVER get to have sex?” Yes, just like your straight brothers and sisters who realize they can never marry for their own reasons. Maybe their health prevents them. Maybe they have family depending on them, especially financially, and they realize can’t add a husband or wife into the mix. Maybe they’re incompatible with the person they wanted.  

The West worships Romantic Love (also money, but that’s another thing), but it really isn’t everything in life*.  Just see any post here on tumblr dot com discussing the different kinds of love the Romans acknowledged and wrote about extensively.  Yes, it’s a powerful drive, but again, it’s not the only thing in life, and coming to that realization is its own journey.

* (Something something Harry Potter)

I am so, so sick and tired of characters who don’t practice their religion (“hi, I’m Muslim/Jewish/Christian/Hindu/Buddhist/whatever, but I will have that pork, that beef cheeseburger, whatever”*), and equally tired of characters who are the personification of their religion (“hi, I’m religious, hear me act out my stereotypes”). Don’t get me started on characters who exist just so the authors can bash that religion.  

* a recent disappointing example was the show Crazy Ex Girlfriend.  When Rebecca is first introduced, I was excited to learn the show was about a Jewish character, finally a religious character portrayed as practicing!  But it was quickly revealed they were focusing on the cultural aspects, and not only is she non-practicing, she doesn’t even believe any god exists.  Snore. In contrast, see: Shepherd Book from the show Firefly.  Not just a practicing Christian, an actually interesting character in his own right.  Not a perfect person by far, but someone who’s doing his utmost to live his life and still maintain his faith. 

I want a Muslim character who finds themselves attracted to whomever, someone from the same gender or whatever you want, or feeling like they want to present as not their birth gender, and then proceeds to do what so many of us real-life Muslims do: find ways to deal with it and come to terms with it.  Acknowledge it and make peace with it.  Make the choice, the conscious decision, to remain faithful to their beliefs and maybe not pursue a romantic relationship with the other person… and instead interact with them like a human being they care about.  Help them reach a goal or achieve a dream, keep them safe from harm, something.  Maybe focus on the traits of the other gender that are accessible, or fight the toxic effects of the patriarchy, something.  Writing like “a happy ending == they end up together”, and any and all other outcomes are Bad and Tragic and Void, is boring and unrealistic.

Just as a black woman being soft and feminine is a rebellion against the mainstream, a religious character sticking to their faith above all else is way more interesting than yet another character breaking the rules.

Addendums:

7. “But Islam is homophobic?” No, Islam has rules against intentionally engaging in specific behaviors.  You’re not faulted for having low alcohol tolerance, you’re faulted for the act of consumption. You’re not faulted for being addicted to drugs, you’re faulted for making the decision to try it the first time, or if you were tricked into it, for not trying to get clean once you’re there.  However!  People, all people, hashtag not just Muslims, often try to enforce rules by creating fear and hatred around them.  It’s a convenient societal shorthand, even if the consequences can be different than intended.  It’s the same mechanism that leads to “abstinence = zero sex ed” in the US.  Abstinence isn’t the issue, people trying to enforce it by making information around sex opaque are the ones causing problems.

So some Muslim people end up homophobic, and some Muslim people go all in the other direction, because the balance is delicate and difficult to find.  

8. “LGBT stories aren’t just about sex, what about asexuals, transsexuals, etc?” True, but most LGBT stories tend to go in that direction, and I’m keeping it as broad as I can here.

9. Even if your character is Muslim but not Arab, it’s probably going to come up, in your research if not in your story.  Although the most populous Muslim nation is Indonesia and the most famous “Muslim” terrorists are Afghani, the most prominent Muslim sites are in Saudi Arabia and Palestine.  The branding is there.  With that in mind, required reading is the film Reel Bad Arabs, and any primers you can find on Orientalism, Colonialism, and Imperialism.

***

Honourable mentions:

Check out the Saudi series Masameer by Myrkott on YouTube, many episodes have subtitles. They recently made a movie and it's on Netflix internationally!  You can't escape American Imperialism any more than you can escape British Colonialism*, but we're all way past being enamoured by them.  The Emirati series Freej is also in Youtube, sans subtitles, though the DVDs have them, and I’ll leave it at that.  Hashtag quarantine let us catch up on shows?  Stay safe, stay home.

* she said, in English.

[msephy]

Upbringing chap 9/13

The story is done! I’ll post the rest of the chapters one by one in the next few days :)

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8

Cross-posted to AO3

Earth 53 - Jason Todd

They arrived too late. When Batman and Jason did eventually find the cache where the League of Shadows had settled while in Gotham, not too far from Talia’s sighting, it was empty. It would even have been hard to find traces of their passages if not for Batman’s top-notch technology – and a few things Jason had in his gear that came from having a timeline slightly ahead in time.

Bruce didn’t swear, but the set of his shoulders spoke volumes.

“Robin,” he called in the com. “Open up a map with all known League hideouts.”

“Can you send that to the Batmobile?” Jason asked suddenly. “Our worlds aren’t that different. Maybe there are a few I know that you don’t.”

“Too risky.”

“You mean that we have too many places to check as it is,” Jason translated. “Except most of those will be pointless, because Ra’s probably knows you know about them.”

Bruce pursed his lips. Jason shrugged. “It’s worth a try?”

“Fine. Robin, prepare and send the data. ETA, seven minutes.”

He fired his line without any wasted words. Jason followed, heading back to the Batmobile, frowning slightly. Bruce retreated in himself when he was hurt, or worried. That made him look cold, but it was just a defense mechanism. How had Jason not noticed before?

Because this younger Bruce was easier to read? Or because he was less emotionally involved himself.

They didn’t talk, not to slow down, and landed each on a side of the car. Jason slipped in it and absentmindedly glanced at the time. They did take seven minutes to reach it.

“Robin, status.”

“Hang on. Here, did you get it?”

The batmobile’s built-in computer opened into a world map where several dots appeared.

“Yes,” Bruce confirmed while Jason tried to zoom in.

That thing wasn’t up to his standards of technology, but he still managed after a while.

“How do we select a destination?” Jason asked.

“Didn’t you want to add your own?”

“I don’t have a computer in my brain. Talking it out would help.”

Though Jason had a bad feeling about this one. If he was right… Bruce started talking about the closest pits but they both knew Ra’s wouldn’t take Damian there: the ones around Gotham were the ones where the Bat would have the most control. Yet if his body was deteriorating quickly, Bruce thought out loud, he might not have the luxury of a choice.

Then Dick interrupted through the com. “I just received a signal from a plane. Small one, privately owned. It’s already far from the coast, heading East.”

“Can you track it?” Bruce asked.

“No, it only latest thirteen seconds; not long enough for me to use it to hack my way in. Sorry.”

“It’s enough, though,” Jason said. “They’re leaving the continent for sure, and if they are willing to take the time to cross the Atlantic, then I know where they’re going.”

“You’re thinking about their headquarters in Bhutan?”

“No,” Jason shook his head. “The place you’re referring to is their training grounds. They have many more hideouts in the mountains, especially in Tibet.”

Jason could head Bruce frown. “Just drive. We need the plane in any case.”

Thankfully, Bruce didn’t protest, starting the car and accelerating. They’d reached the highway when he talked again. “Tell me more about this place.”

“There is not much to say. The infrastructure is big enough to host Ra’s usually guard of followers and private enough that they won’t be distracted by the League’s internal politics.”

“And you know about it, because…?”

“The League had reasons to trust me the way they don’t trust you. I’m carrying guns, what did you expect?”

Bruce’s disapproval transpired through his every pores. Jason couldn’t care less, especially not when it gave them invaluable intel.

“Are you sure they’re there?”

“Of course no, I’m not sure,” Jason spat. “And you know it. But Talia should find a way to communicate with us again, given the chance. If we’re close enough to act, then we’ll be able to strike. They won’t expect us to know the layout of the place, or even where it is situated at all.”

“Don’t rely on your knowledge of this place in another world too much.”

“Any better ideas?”

Bruce, of course, didn’t answer. The trip continued in silence. Why was Jason even worried? He barely knew the brat. Besides, he’d really brought that on himself, running away like this.

But Damian was a Robin, even if he didn’t bear the name in this world. And a kid, of course.

Then an icon blinked on the monitor, indicating someone was trying to reach Batman – and that that someone was Superman. Bruce took the communication.

“Superman,” Bruce greeted in Batman’s voice. “I’m in the Batmobile with Jason Todd, we’re listening.”

“Hello, Batman, Mr Todd. I have good news. We have found some promising information about the multiverse, from one of Green Lantern’s contacts. We found a Dr Lrvnjrnz who might be able to help us. He’s willing to come on Earth to discuss it further.”

“We don’t have the time for this shit right now,” Jason said without hesitating. “It will have to wait.”

Bruce glanced at him briefly, before concentrating on the road again. For the first time since Jason arrived, he saw his shoulder relax, just so slightly.

“Agreed,” Bruce said. “We’re busy with an emergency, Kal, I’ll call you back.”

“I’m not sure Dr Lrvnjrnz will still be available.” Superman’s tone was interrogative.

Surely, Bruce would be able to save Damian without him. And people on his side were likely not looking to bring him back.

Somehow, it was the easiest decision Jason had ever made.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jason said. “We’ll call you back when we have time, Superman.”

And he cut the communication.

###

Earth 1 – Jason Wayne

Was everyone on this Earth old, stern and marked by pain? Jason wondered, when he saw the face of Kal El appear on the Batcomputer’s monitor. Maybe it was just age. Maybe it was just Kal. He’s always been quite apt at putting on the façade of the Man of Steel. Probably a good skill to cultivate, when one faced Lex Luthor regularly.

But still.

“From our readings, it appears an anomaly occurred three days ago. A rift. We couldn’t trace the origin, it might have nothing to do with either of the worlds involved.”

“You mean like that time with Prime.”

“Something like that, though of a much lower order of magnitude. I’ve scanned the area, I see no trace of foreign particles, except in the Cave.”

“That would be me,” Jason mused. Kal looked at him for the first time since the conversation started, and he smiled his most Lutherian smile. “Hello, Kal El, nice meeting another version of you. My apologies if I don’t follow multiverse etiquette, it’s my first encounter with it, I’m afraid.”

Kal nodded. “Nice to meet you too, Mr Wayne.”

Jason grimaced; he even saw Bruce wince. “Jason, please. There is no need to be formal. I’m glad to hear you detected the cause, but does this lack of details mean we won’t be able to reproduce the effects?”

“It won’t be needed,” Kal reassured him. “Inverting the two of you would require a comprehension of the multiverse that we don’t have, but opening a portal to another Earth should be doable.”

Jason let out a breath. He was going to see his little brother again, and his two nephews from hell. He hadn’t intended to stay even if there hadn’t been a way: he would have found one. But still, it was nice to hear that would happen sooner rather than later.

“Thank you, Kal El.  That’s a relief.”

“It’s still a delicate operation, not something we can do every day without causing further instabilities. Especially since we aren’t sure of the cause in the first place.”

“I’m bringing Jason back,” Bruce said, his tone definitive. There was no asking to which Jason he referred. He wasn’t about to leave his adoptive son in another world, however welcoming it might be.

“Two openings should be enough for our system to support. But we can’t make it portable.”

“We can’t leave from the Watchtower, we’d end up in space,” Jason commented.

“No, indeed,” Kal agreed. “We’ll have to move the necessary machinery to our headquarters on Earth. As some of it is delicate, it won’t be ready until tomorrow.”

“That’s a date,” Jason commented absentmindedly, before noticing the absolute shock on Kal’s face. He laughed. “Just an expression, Superman, except if you actually are interested?”

“I’ll have to decline. Batman, Mr… Jason. I’ll keep you updated on the move.”

“Thank you, Kal,” Bruce said, nodding at him.

Kal nodded back then cut the communication. Jason turned to Bruce. “Anything I can help with in the meantime? I’ll need distraction from the wait.”

“You’ve been helping already”, Bruce answered.

“Handling your files is something I can do in my sleep. And it’s probably best if I don’t get too involved in your nightly activities, at least, I shouldn’t go out in person too often. Though accompanying Dick was… interesting.”

“You ran into trouble?”

“You know we didn’t. Nightwing is amazing, as you already know, but it has to be noted.”

Bruce didn’t quite smile, but Jason could see the warmth in the way his shoulders relaxed, his head almost nodding in approbation. His cowl did make it harder to read his expressions, though.

Jason frowned. “You’re not coming in the gear, by the way, are you? We won’t want to Batmen crossing paths, or even just criminal thinking you’re my brother and attack you because of something he did.”

The card which hung above their heads was kind of hard to miss. They also had a Joker around. Maybe he wasn’t as possessive and manipulative in this world than in his? Or maybe this Bruce had been caught in the clown’s parody of a courtship. Either way, he didn’t want them to cross paths.

Bruce’s frown was visible despite his mask.

Jason snorted.

“You can take gear if you insist. But, really, you could just wear jeans and a t-shirt and nobody is going to recognize you. You’re ten years older than Bruce, even if you weren’t a good actor.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“The hell you are. It’s my world we’re going to, and it will be my rules.”

Jason smiled to soften the blow, but his tone was adamant. Bruce grumped, which meant he didn’t want to agree out loud but still would go along.

“Any idea on how to find your Jason Todd when we’re there?” Jason asked. “I mean, if he contacted my brother it will be easy, but otherwise?”

“He’s not the most subtle person,” Bruce sighed. “If he doesn’t actively try to stay hidden, he shouldn’t be hard to pinpoint. There are good chances he went straight to the Cave, though. Despite our differences, he would have known contacting your brother was his best chance of finding his way back.”

That was the most words Jason had heard him say, and he didn’t miss the tension in the last sentence. “You think he might not want to come back?”

Bruce pointedly didn’t answer, removing his cowl to sit at the computer instead. Which was an answer per se. Though, well; a supervillain. Jason would always remember the face of the local Alfred when he’d opened the door to see him standing there.

He shuddered.

Then he pulled through it and joined Bruce, standing at his right hand. “Care to hear about what my Gotham is like? I was up to date with the latest criminal developments when I got here.”

Bruce didn’t answer for a long while, typing in the document he’d opened. Then, finally, he closed it and opened a new, blank page – then nodded, one.

[danishprince]

redid this 92 questions meme from 4 years ago for Fun and Profit because i like seeing how much i’ve changed over the years. not tagging anyone, but if you want to answer the questions, go wild

what was your…

last beverage? woter

last phone call? a confidential call to a research lab at my university because they’re studying alcohol use in young adults and wanted to know if i fit the criteria to be in the study (i do, so i get money for it fuck yeah)

last text message? i told my dad that our neighbors got two of their trees cut down and his response was “Wwwow”

last song listened to? currently listening to “evening prayer aka justice” by ezra furman!

last time you cried? maybe like saturday or sunday? not really sure

have you ever…

dated someone twice? nah

been cheated on? don’t believe so

kissed someone and regretted it? eh i’ve had a few kisses that i look back and kinda cringe at because we were really drunk or i was Not Into Them or whatever, but actually, truly regret? no. 

lost someone special? it’s been awhile since anyone close to me died. my maternal grandma (and step-grandpa) are getting pretty old/less healthy though so i’m like starting to already feel weird snatches of anticipatory grief for that which :/

been depressed? i’d say so yeah, on occasion

been drunk and vomited? fun story i briefly thought i was allergic to alcohol freshman year because i’d throw up every time i drank. TURNS OUT however i just was a dumbass who didn’t know how to hold their liquor

list three favourite colors: hot pink, teal, black

in the last year, have you…

made a new friend? yes indeed

fallen out of love? cannot say that i have

laughed so hard there were tears? oh constantly. though i do that regularly because of the dumbest shit, so that’s not, like, an anomaly

met someone who changed you? YES the professor of my psych lab whom i ADORE

found out who your true friends are? yeah, or at least i feel way more comfortable and grounded in my friendships than i did. which is cool!

found out someone was talking about you? i overheard my coworker at our (drama-filled, my god) orientation leader job bitching about some other coworkers, but then what she said about me was “yeah katie’s pretty cool” so i was like :) :) neat

kissed anyone on your facebook “friend list”? hell yeah babey

general questions.

how many of your facebook friends do you know in person? the vast majority. there’s a few Spelling Bee Kids who’ve just added me for Spelling Bee Clout that i don’t know irl, but otherwise i don’t really add people i don’t know

how many siblings do you have? 1 (one) 16-year-old bröther

do you have any pets? 1 (one) very old round guinea pig named hamlet

do you want to change your name? eh not really. i’m not, like, obsessed with it, but it’s a decent name and i have no urge to change it

what did you do for your last birthday? i turned 21, but it was a monday, so i went to a restaurant with three of my friends and ordered 1 (one) Alcoholic Beverage. then later that week i went to a coffee bar that serves alcohol later at night with some of my other friends and had more Alcoholic Beverages there

when did you wake up today? 9:30ish

what were you doing at midnight last night? being asleep lmao

something you cannot wait for: going to arizona and later going back to kentucky for senior year of college (holy fuck)

when did you last see your mother? like 15 minutes ago, she’s doing laundry or something

what is one thing you wish you could change about your life? where 2 begin. uhh i wish i was more naturally outgoing instead of having to consciously turn on my Extrovert Persona in certain scenarios and end up getting super drained from it. i also wish i knew what the fuck i was doing with my life but i think that’s just, like, The Eternal Twenty-Something Mood (at least i hope it is dear god)

what are you listening to right now? the song “rodeo” by lil nas x, which PERSONALLY said gay rights

have you ever talked to a person named tom? yes multiple, and every tom(my) i have hated (sorry if you’re a tom and you’re a decent human bean)

what’s getting on your nerves right now? i have to do a bunch of important life and school stuff but i am procrastinating it! so i guess...my brain

most visited webpages: twitter, tumblr, discord, instagram, the dear prudence advice column on slate dot com lmfao

blood type: o+ i believe, but i am too smol to donate blood so i do not know for sure :(

nicknames: some of my friends refer to me over text as k8e and i love it tbh. also katie itself is a nickname

relationship status: single but like, kind of a thot

zodiac sign: virgo sun cancer moon cancer rising 

pronoun: they/them but she/her is also fine

primary school: private lutheran school

middle school: the same private lutheran school

high school: public school

college: university of kentucky for undergrad and also a concurrent grad program (long story). maybe more grad school???? somewhere else??? or not???? I Don’t Know

hair colour: honey blonde

long or short: hair? just got it cut short in january and it was the best decision i ever made

height: 5’6"

do you have a crush on someone? define “crush”

what do you like about yourself? i’m a good listener and writer and also sometimes my Funney Joaks land

do you have any tattoos? nah. i am afear’d i’d regret it

are you right- or left-handed? right-handed

first surgery: some ear procedure thing in kindergarten. if that doesn’t count i got half my wisdom teeth out the summer before college and the other half the summer after freshman year (but was technically awake for both) 

first piercing: ear piercings when i turned sixteen

first best friend: uhhhhh my friend stephanie from home-preschool? or this girl named grace who was my kindergarten best friend but then moved away

first sport you joined: i believe dance classes when i was but a little peanut

first vacation: idk? we went to san diego when i was two i think? don’t remember it though

first pair of trainers/sneakers: good question. had some boss-ass light-up shoes once 

right now i am…

eating: popped corn

drinking: woter 

about to: hopefully write this [bernie sanders voice] damn email, but who is to say : - )

listening to: my liked songs on spotify (currently “i think i’m going to kill myself” by elton john)

interested in having children? if that’s how the proverbial cookie proverbially crumbles, yeah. that idea seems really far away even though i know high school classmates with kids.

interested in getting married? yes, but if and only if i meet the right person

ready for a career or have one? [sobbing]

which is better…?

lips or eyes? eyes generally, but lips are also Good

hugs or kisses? k i s s e s. i lov to kiss. love hugs too though if it’s with friends

shorter or taller? actually being a similar height to me is optimal! 

older or younger? mmm i tend to subconsciously lean older, but younger is fine too

romantic or spontaneous? the wording seems to imply that “romantic” and “spontaneous” are opposites which just isn’t true. both?? 

nice stomach or nice arms? arms i guess?

sensitive or loud? my first impulse was “loud” but like....loud in that i tend to gravitate to people who are more extroverted than me, but not in terms of being overtly annoying or demanding.

hook-up or relationship? :^) judging by my History(tm) it’d be committed hook-up, lol. but like either is good. am not about sex with a stranger though.

troublemaker or hesitant? troublemaker ~vibes~ but not actually, like, a danger in any way. being hesitant can be cute, but i myself am often pretty hesitant so it can become an Awkwardness Standoff more often than not

have you ever…

kissed a stranger? no, but came damn close in greece

drunk hard liquor? oh yeah lmao

lost glasses or contacts? i’m sure i’ve lost a pair of contacts somewhere in there

had sex on the first date? depends on your definition of “sex”, and also on your definition of “date” really, but also Yeah

broken someone’s heart? i hope not, but i think maybe :/

had your own heart broken? ....ish?

been arrested? nope

turned someone down? yyyyyyep

cried when someone died? not in my memory? though i might have

fallen for a friend? :^) haha oh yeah

do you believe in…

yourself? i try oh my god do i try

miracles? i think

love at first sight? nah. i think intrigue at first sight is a thing, or lust at first sight, or even just a bizarre extraterrestrial sense of Knowing, but real genuine love? nahhhh son you gotta know someone deeply for that. mortifying ordeal of being known and all that

heaven? mm yeah i’d say so

santa claus? no, and i haven’t for a hot minute there

kissing on the first date? lol yeah kiss away

angels? fuck yeah sometimes they’re circle things with 56879879677 eyes and they’re cool af

well in review i have indeed changed quite a bit from myself four years ago! in summary i am more of a thot and also drink alcohol. idk. my answers then ~seemed~ more sure of myself in terms of, like, this façade of being chill all the time, but less sure re: how i related to other people. all my angst on those questions was about school instead of general personhood. 4 years ago i also definitely /remember/ being insecure (at the time) about the fact that i’d never kissed anyone/etc., but my answers themselves don’t look that way. (sidenote being insecure about that kind of thing really isn’t worth it, everyone does life at their own pace.) whereas now i feel more open actively discussing my insecurities (see above re: future plans/etc.) instead of just boxing them down and pretending they don’t exist. as a high schooler i thought i was bad at being a person, and i feel like i’m a lot better at being authentic with myself (and ergo, being a person) now. though of course there is no right way to be a person which is something i still frequently have to remind myself.

ANYWAY yeah that was a fun waste of an hour feel free to use these questions for yrself

[one-ishmael]

Chapter 7: The Chapel

Let’s move on to some capital-T Theology in this next run of chapters in Moby-Dick; or, the Whale! I’ll say ahead of time that I am, at best, an amateur theologian, having taken only a few classes on the subject in college, and none of them even remotely relating to 19th century Christianity.

But, having been raised in a denomination that encourages scholarship of the Bible, following @benito-cereno for many years on this site, and listening to his wonderful podcast @apocrypals, I know a thing or three about the following of ol’ Oily Josh.

SUMMARY: Ishmael returns to the inn after his morning perambulations, then leaves again to visit the famous Whaleman’s Chapel of New Bedford. The weather has turned bad, sleeting heavily, but he makes it there, crusted over in ice. The chapel is already half full of various worshipers, each sitting apart and silently in their grief, gazing at the memorial tablets on the wally behind the pulpit. Queequeg is there, but because he can’t read he is unaffected by the gravity of the scene.

So, we transition ever so smoothly from Ishmael extolling the merits of the whale fishery, rhapsodizing about how it has made New Bedford a paradise on earth when it was previously a blasted waste, straight into this, a contemplation of the cost of that wealth. Not only the lives lost in gaining it, but the grief of those left behind, the shipmates and relatives who now suffer eternal grief.

Ishmael explains that the deaths of whalemen in the process of their craft is especially harsh, as their bodies are usually unrecoverable. A boat is simply carried off over the horizon, and everyone on it is accounted as dead. A man is dragged beneath the waves after not cutting a rope soon enough, never to be seen again. He goes overboard during a squall, and only noticed in the morning’s accounting.

Thus, the grief is more keenly felt by those in this particular chapel. Which is a real place, it turns out, but is called the Seaman’s Bethel and not the Whaleman’s Chapel. It is preserved exactly as it is described in this book, and you can go there, in New Bedford, and gaze at those tablets yourself, if you so wish.

Not knowing where your loved one’s body ended up is tragic, because how will you find them when the resurrection comes? Indeed, Ishmael posits that this is the reason the grief is all the deeper and intractable in this place. It undermines the very faith of the grievers, how can they believe in Eternal Life if the bodies of their beloved lay at the bottom of some ocean, thousands of miles away?

This is referring to the concept of Jesus returning to grant eternal life to all who have died. The idea being that when you die, you don’t just go to heaven immediately, but have to stay dead for a while, until Jesus returns to Earth to raise the righteous dead and bring them with him up into paradise. So the placement of bodies after death becomes a very important thing, in Christianity.

There’s a whole Thing about what these resurrected dead will be like, and be able to do, which is buck-fucking-wild, but I’m not gonna get into that here. Check out episode 5 of the aforementioned podcast, Apocrypals, for more info on all that.

Getting back to the text, I really didn’t understand this bit at all the first time I read it, but now it makes more sense, being aware of the whole second-coming-resurrection thing. Ishmael gets more philosophical here, wondering why people care so much about where the bodies lay, or why people care about their loved ones being dead at all! After all, they’ll be back as immortal spirits in no time. They’re not even really dead, just resting until the second coming.

And yet, there is grief. There is sorrow eternal, over the placeless dead. There is fear over the idea of resurrection itself. Ishmael seems to be picking at a contradiction here, that people don’t really believe in these things. Or, that the faith itself only sustains itself by offering hope to those in the depths of despair. You may say, taking advantage of those who are desperate for a shimmer of hope.

But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

Then, Ishmael gets really philosophical, right in the last paragraph.

After contemplating the tablets seemingly foretelling his own death in his forthcoming voyage, he decides to take the whole thing in stride. Sure, maybe he’ll die in some ignominious way in some random accident, but so what? He’s just getting it over with, getting a promotion to an immortal spirit, shedding his earthly form early.

Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.

So, what we see as the world is not necessarily the truth of it. Ishmael is going full Descartes here, saying that the only thing you can know for sure is that you exist. The true nature of the world is not revealed to us by appearances.

That is definitely gonna show up a lot in this book, as an ongoing theme. The world that presents itself to our eyes, at a glance, is not even a fraction of the whole story when it comes to whales. Why should it be so for anything else? What appears to be the important things in life, the physical things, are just impermanent shadows, compared to the eternal nature of the soul!

Sounds an awful lot like Gnosticism to me, frankly. Melville was a bit of a heretic! Not that he ever claimed not to be. Gnosticism being the off-shoot of christianity, going way back to the very early days, which posits that the physical world was made by an evil being called the Demiurge and exists only to corrupt the pure, spiritual essence of mankind.

But, really, Melville isn’t being specific enough to be slotted into any particular theology or philosophy. The whole point is that knowledge is impossible. You can try and try, but to really get to the true truth? The real reality? It is completely unknowable whether you’ve ever reached it. 

I warned you it was gonna be a big one, for such a short chapter. And this isn’t even getting into all the meaning I could wring out of that line about faith being like a jackal. I’ve basically made that quote the basis for this indie game project I’ve been working on, and even used it as a prospective name!

The deep stuff in this book comes out of nowhere, sometimes. One chapter Ishmael is opining about how pretty the girls of New Bedford are in the spring, and the next he’s saying it’s okay if he dies because this physical world is but an illusion. Go figure!

As always, you can follow along with the full text of the book FOR FREE on Gutenberg dot org. Or, there are many free or very cheap editions available on amazon dot com. And if you really want to get fancy, check out the illustrated edition by one Evan Dahm, the author of the webcomics Rice Boy and Vattu.

Until next time, shipmates!

[inevitablebliss-with-arial-blog]

A worry-free life is a rare thing but there is a way to give your mind a break. You can use this technique to worry less by safely delaying your worries so that you will have less worry time.

I wish I could say that this technique will work for all worries, but it doesn’t. This technique will only help you to stop worrying about the things you cannot do anything about in the near future.

Let me start with an example from my own life, as that will most easily explain the technique. At some point, I was looking forward to visiting my partner again, who lived in India. But I was also already worried whether I would be able to make enough money with my business to let him come over to my country afterwards, and also whether I would then still have enough money to move into a house when getting back to the Netherlands.

I was reading a book from Gay Hendricks at the time who inspired me to make an extra effort to stop worrying. According to him, worrying is completely unnecessary and should always be stopped. Stopping all worrying all together sounded scary to my mind, but I found a safe way to worry a LOT less about this issue.

First I asked myself: can I take any action or decision to create the future more favourable? Well, I could try to make my business successful, but I was doing that for other reasons already so I couldn’t do more than I was already doing anyway.

Secondly, I asked myself: Do I have all the information to be sure that I even need to worry about this? And I didn’t. My boyfriend and I would see each other again for two months in India, and it would actually make sense to wait with worrying before at least until the end of those two months together. Because who knows…! Maybe we would stop liking each other during that time. Maybe we wouldn’t even want him to come over to me anymore. Also, I was just about to try out something new with my business, which could bring in more income. Implementation of that would take about two months as well.

Then I decided to not worry anymore for those next two months. And of course, I kept thinking about the issue sometimes. And whenever I would catch myself thinking about, for example, how I could maybe find cheaper furniture, I would stop myself right there and tell myself: I’m not worrying about money at least until I leave Bangalore.

It really worked like a miracle. That whole relaxed vibe of ‘I’m not worrying about money’ has stayed with me ever since. (And it’s now 6 months after I started saying that).

What happened? My income increased enough due to some unforeseen factor, and we still really want to see each other again, but he doesn’t want to give up the job he now has in Bangalore for at least another 6 months.

Yep… Am I happy that I didn’t break my head over that money issue that turned out to be a non-issue while another unforeseen issue was the actual issue…!

We often unconstructively worry about things we cannot do anything about right now, and that might never occur! And it takes away the joy of life!

|So how can you worry less?|

When you spot something in your life that you’re worried about a lot, stop, and ask yourself: “Can I do or decide anything in the near future that will help me regarding this issue?” And if that’s not the case, make an agreement with yourself about when you’ll allow yourself to start worrying again.

This idea of letting yourself worry again later is, by the way, just to soothe your mind. The mind wants to control and keep everything in check. Deciding not to worry every again is like saying to a guard that they can close their eyes forever: not much chance. While taking a good look at the situation and estimating for how long you can safely stop worrying, is sweet and gentle to the mind. And therefore, doable.

Safely is a key word here. Do make sure that you really don’t need to start worrying again before that date. As soon as you really might need to make a decision or take an action, you do want to switch your mind back on.

The best is probably to apply this to just one big thing in your life. Only one thing so that it’s doable as you’ll be able to focus on not worrying about that one thing. And a big thing because then you’ll be able to see the impact it makes on your life satisfaction.

And as said, you can only apply this to something you indeed don’t need to worry about now.

Two examples: You could apply this to worrying about whether you will pass your exams, until you get your scores back, while anyway doing your best at studying for the joy of learning and getting good grades. Or you could apply this to worries of getting cancer at old age until it actually happens, while anyway trying to take the best care of your body because that’s what will make you feel good today too.

A last advice: write this down. To remind yourself and set a strong intention, write your decision down as a statement: “I’m not worrying about money until I leave Bangelore.”

|A practice in worry-freeness|

What will this give you? Not only will this give you less worrying about that one issue for the timespan you agreed on with yourself, it will also bring you in general more clearness of mind because it’s a living meditation to keep your mind on track with this intention. So if you want to apply this to other worries too, you’ll have an easier time after practising on another thing.

In addition, you might find yourself be perplexed at how often our worries indeed were completely unnecessary because life so often turns out unexpectedly different. This will help you to build trust that your worries are not that necessary.

Music Credits: Intro: Ignite To Light by Pipe Choir Outro: Wings by Nicolai Heidlas

x Arial InevitableBliss(dot)com