#it smells like wet dirt and worms and shit

[luxpenumbra]

thinking about how sleepin' and empty house are back to back on relient k air for free someone HELP me

[mlm-writer]

Safe (John Constantine x GN!Reader)

Pairing:  John Constantine (LoT ver.) x Gender Neutral Reader Rating: General Audiences Words: 654 POV: Second Summary: The Big Tober Day 5 - Falling asleep together Tags: fluff, John is a self-loathing little shit but we love him for it, and uhhh cuddles?

A trail of steam followed John into the living room, the hot water still evaporating off his body. You smiled as he plopped down next to you on the couch. Now he was so close, you could smell your shower gel in his damp hair. You owned shampoo; John just grabbed whatever. You didn’t mind. How could you be worried by such minor things anyway as John lied down on the couch with his head in your lap. He was making your pyjamas wet, but it would dry in due time. “What are we watching?” Your boyfriend mumbled sleepily, eyes half-open as they stared at the TV. You put one arm over his chest, knowing he liked the weight of you on him in some way. 

“It has vampires,” you chuckled. John groaned. He hated all those tacky TV shows; you loved them even more now, because they always made your boyfriend start raving. Today, you were feeling nice, so switched the vampire show out for an animated movie. John was thankful for your mercy. He was barely two minutes into it, or he started demanding you were changing positions on the couch. 

You followed his instructions and lied down, with your back propped up against the arm rest. John then draped himself over you like a blanket. His weight was comforting. Sometimes you worried the warlock had his last day flirting with death. Those days you couldn't wait for the doors to open to reveal your boyfriend covered in the gunk of the day. The alternative was calling him all day, but you always figured neither you nor John would like that. 

Today had been one of those days. You felt anxious all day, which was instantly relieved when John returned, covered to the knee in graveyard dirt. It was now that his weight was on you, that you felt truly calm. He was here and he was all yours now. You looked down, watching the light of the TV dance on John’s sleepy face. You ran a hand across his back and arms, letting him know you were here too. 

John sometimes worried sick about you too. He wanted the world to be a safe place for you. Meanwhile, he was followed by all sorts of demons, making his presence the exact opposite of what he wished for you. Yet here you were, anchoring him and becoming the safe space for him instead. You made him feel like he was exorcised from the demons of his past, present and future. In times like this, he often wondered what he could do to repay you. 

“You’re thinking too hard,” you mumbled when you noticed the shift in John’s face. You were not stupid and you knew better than anyone that your boyfriend was just a bunch of edgelords in a trenchcoat held together by magic, cigarettes and self-loathing. He was so easy to read, easier to play like a kazoo. In response to your off-handed comment, John grumbled like he always did when you were super right. You chuckled. He was cute when he got a little pouty like he was now. “Come on, you’re tired.” You wormed yourself free and turned the TV off. John was on the couch a little longer, until you left for the bedroom. You undressed along the way, ending up in bed in just your underwear. You were lying on your bed for less than ten seconds, when John joined you, putting his head on your shoulder and an arm around you. 

You kissed his forehead, his eyes closing right after. “Let’s not wake up early,” your boyfriend mumbled sleepily. You hummed in agreement, your own eyes closing. You drifted in that peace, not falling asleep yet until you heard the soft snoring of the man lying half on top of you. That melody led you to the land of the dreaming as well. You were safe. 

—————

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[cowshampoo]

What are your opinions on dirt?

Mostly positive. There are some circumstances where I do not enjoy dirt - dirt that's just try and cakey. My favorite type of dirt is soil. You know what I'm talking about, but not that potting soil shit you buy at the store, real, natural soil. The rich, deep brown, wet soil you plant crops in. The color of a moist dark chocolate cake. The rich soil you use for your favorite stuff. How it absorbs water instead of just sitting on top. I like the way it crumbles. I like to lay in the dirt and look at the pill bugs.

My mom has a worm compost bin in her crawlspace. I've never stuck my hands in that soil because I don't live with her, but I imagine it's quite nice. Enriched with chopped up banana peels and eggshells.

This past Halloween I drove out to a haunted house for a special event where they "bury you alive." I was originally going to just to the buried alive and NOT do the haunted house (my brother said that was "the most autistic way to experience a haunted house"), but I'm glad I went through the haunted house because the buried alive was a total disappointment. Sitting in a room with 11 other people, back to back, in a room that smells like cheap makeup and acrylic paint. All they did was drop a ball pit on you. The woman next to me kept squirming and moving around. It wasn't peaceful the way I wanted it to be. There was no sound of shovel in dirt, of rain hitting the grass, of quiet. The scariest part of it was thinking how many other people had touched those balls and the chances of me getting COVID or some other sickness. I really like dirt. It reminds me of sitting on the elementary school playground showing girls bugs I thought were cool and then they would roll their eyes and walk away. When I could read several books in one sitting. When I happily did my homework without any struggle. When I was happy being alone. Before puberty and adulthood. The dirt reminds me of home. That I will have a place to go back to, someday.

I hope this answers your question. Sorry I got off track. And a little morbid.

[bellsarefun]

𝕯𝖔𝖒𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖎𝖈 (Dragon! Bakugo x Reader)

【ｓｕｍｍａｒｙ：(Y/N) (L/N) lives a surprisingly domestic life alongside her husband, the powerful hot-headed dragon Katsuki Bakugo.】

【ｐａｉｒｉｎｇ：Dragon! Katsuki Bakugo x Female! Reader】

【ｒａｔｉｎｇ：PG-13 — All characters featured in this story have been aged up over eighteen. Also, there is gore and blood in this, so if you are upset by that this isn’t for you.】

【ｗｏｒｄ　ｃｏｕｎｔ：2.6k 】

【Ｎｅｘｔ　Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ: Part 2】

(Y/N)’s hands kneaded soft, fluffy, pale dough on a stone counter top fitted in smooth grey stone, the flour falling like snow on her pale beige apron. Her mind wandered with the routine task; make the bread, let it rise, and then bake for one hour—she had done it all before.

Grabbing a nearby bread pan, she eased the freshly kneaded dough into the oak wood bowl. Her hands wiping the bits and pieces of stray batter on the fabric apron tied tightly around her waist. Once she had cleaned them in a nearby water basin, she laid a tea towel over the mouth of the bowl to rise for a few hours.

‘Finally, done. I can take a minute to relax.’ The woman thought to herself, untying the nice bow created by the laces of her apron. ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t get back early.’

Hanging the apron on a nearby hook near the entrance to the makeshift kitchen, she stretched her arms high over her head. Her neck muscles protested angrily as they were strained, but she smiled at the relief shooting across her form.

She looked around the kitchen, her (E/C) eyes scanning the beaten stone counter tops, the haphazardly hanging plants from the ceiling, and scratched wooden shelves for any sign of misplacement or grime. The rocky interior walls casted dancing shadows from the many flickering candles around the room.

Satisfied with her keen observation, she hummed to herself contently. Her feet spinning on their heels as she walked out of the kitchen, making a mental note to light the slab, stone oven afterward.

The kitchen lead into a larger room, large wooden support beams held up the ceiling in every corner. There was a large rounded bed pressed against the wall to her left, large furs and pelts were piled in a heap on the bed. On the farthest wall led a corridor where bright sunlight streamed through from the outside—a stairway could be seen in the corridor leading into a dimly lid spiral down.

(Y/N) noted a few of the candles had blown out in the room, presumably the breeze from outside had extinguished the weak flames. She sighed to herself, straightening out her white blouse and suspenders while she moved to a small table across from the bed.

A small green book embroidered with gold detailing waited for her on the scratched dark wood of the table. Her hands picking up the book she seated herself on one of the chairs, but she soon felt herself falling back onto the cold ground with a painful thud.

(Y/N) groaned, holding the side of her head carefully as the world spun around her in a warm blur. Her eyes managing to focus on the chair who had spitefully broken under her the moment she sat down.

“For fucks sake, of course.” She cursed under her breath, using her elbows to hoist herself up from her spot on the floor. Her hand searching for the book that had been flung from her hand, finding it a few feet away.

Looking at the chair, one of the legs had given out and the scratched up, claw-marked, and singed wood wasn’t able to hold weight any longer. It was a wonder how it didn’t break sooner.

“Fucker almost killed me.” (Y/N) voiced allowed to no one in particular, the stabbing pain in her head not receding and only increasing as she pushed herself to standing.

‘I really need to find other furniture that the ones he steals from his raids. A new set of chairs is something I’d pay money for.’ She thought to herself, running a through her hair and picking out pieces of dirt and splinters from her (H/C) locks.

A large roar shook the entire inside of the cave, the forceful vibration almost sending (Y/N) tumbling once again. The book nearly falling from her grasp, but this time she clenched it tightly in her fingers. The sound of scraping stone echoed wildly in (Y/N)’s ears, her face scrunching up at the unpleasant sound.

Her hand was quickly placed on the rocky wall beside her, watching the furniture, that had been fashioned to the wall with wires, to make sure nothing broke. ‘That bastard just had to come now.’

“Tiny! Where the fuck are you? I’m back if you hadn’t noticed.” The loud booming voice emanated from the corridor, the pissed of tone making (Y/N) roll her eyes. She scrambled to the doorway of the kitchen, her book forgotten on the table, and she checked to make sure the bread bowl hadn’t fallen off the counter—luckily, it hadn’t.

“I’m coming, I’m coming, you impatient bastard wait one minute!” (Y/N) called back to the voice, her eye brows narrowing as she noticed the plates and bowls that had fallen from their wooden shelves.

“Whaa? You calling me a bastard, you better watch your fucking mouth, human.” The voice responded sourly, the unmistakable growl that edged it’s way into the tone making (Y/N) chuckle lightly to herself.

She walked toward the corridor of the room, noting that most of the candles has blown out in the rumbling. The rocky hallway was rather small and led into a larger cave with a ceiling that stretched meters above her head. There were no stalactites, like they had been broken off purposely.

Sunlight streamed into the large cave from outside, giving it enough natural light to see around without any aid of candles or lanterns. In the corner of the cave sitting with his legs crossed, his hands tearing at the meat of a freshly killed deer, was Bakugo.

(Y/N) rubbed the back of her neck in defeat, seeing the blood already beginning to pool around the carcass of the poor animal.

“I’m here and already, you’ve made a mess.” She commented in disgust, walking over to the man as he turned around to face her—lips and cheeks smeared with thick red blood.

Bakugo swallowed the meat in his mouth, the hind leg of the deer had been ripped off the animal and was being held in his hands.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re a fucking clean freak.” He retorted, his mouth opening and taking a large squelching bite of the raw meat. “Only humans would worry about shit like this.”

(Y/N) hummed, rolling her eyes as she scanned him up and down—he would definitely need a bath after he was done his “meal.” The blood soaked into his pants and the beautiful white fur of his long red cloak around his shoulders. The red sticky ooze seeped over his toned, muscled body.

“If you’re eating all of it, just give me tender loins to cook please.” (Y/N) sighed defeatedly, the smell of raw bloody meat hitting her nostrils in an unrelenting attack of metal and gore. 

“You humans and your risk of worms.” He grumbled under his breath, his hand reached toward the back of the deer and shoved his hand into the back—through the pelt. (Y/N) winced at the sound of his hand pulling out the two strips of meat, his other hand shoving another mouthful of meat into his mouth. No matter how much (Y/N) has seen him rip flesh from bone, it still made her nauseous sometimes.

“You’re looking green, Tiny. Go back inside, if you’re going to vomit your insides out again.” Bakugo said, his crimson eyes scanning up and down (Y/N)’s pale face. His hand threw over the two pieces of tenderloin, the meat landing on the ground with a splat.

(Y/N) nodded her head silently, crouching down and delicately picking up the strips of deer. The blood was still warm in her palms and she groaned at the thought of getting the red stains on her nice blouse.

“If any of this gets on my shirt, I’m slipping laxative in your water.” (Y/N) threatened, hurrying toward the corridor once again and she heard the outraged exclamation of Bakugo behind her. 

“You better not, fucking tiny ass human. I will rip your precious books to smithereens.” Bakugo shouted after her with a growl, the woman rolling her eyes around her skull in response.

“Okay, dragon boy, let’s see you fucking try. I’ll bleach your cape pink.” (Y/N) jabbed back, calling over her shoulder at Bakugo who continued to munch on the meat. She could hear him grumbling curses under his breath and she giggled softly to herself.

(Y/N) hurried through the corridor, through the room, and into the kitchen. She could see a drop of blood preparing to fall onto the floor she zoomed toward a clean bucket and dropped the meat into it. Her palms leaned on the counter for support, for some reason the smell of the fresh meat made her feel sick to her stomach.

She sharpened a knife and began trimming the meat on the counter. It wasn’t long after she heard Bakugo come stomping through the corridor and she leaned out of the door to see the muddy tracks behind him.

“Clean your shoes off next time, I swear you lived in a barn.” (Y/N) called out, her lips frowned at the sight of the freshly mopped floors being covered in brown muck. Bakugo paused, turning around to look at the mud he was dragging through the room before he smirked deviously.

“I was raised in a cave.” He said, continuing to stride toward (Y/N) with an evil glint in his eye and her frown turned down into a scowl. “What’s wrong, Tiny? You’re looking a little pissed off.”

(Y/N) sighed and shook her head, looking at the blood still wet on his body.

“Don’t take another step, clean off the blood. We have bathing pools for a reason, dipshit.” (Y/N) demanded, pointing her sharpened bloody knife toward him. Bakugo faltered for a moment, a dangerous frown forming on his face.

“I’m not fucking that filthy. I washed yesterday, just like you asked, remember?” Bakugo retorted, his arms crossing over his chest. (Y/N) hummed at his rather adorable expression and continued flaying the strips of white fat from the meat.

“You’re covered in blood, Katsuki Bakugo, and that means your washing.” (Y/N) said, her eyes glanced down where she was happy to see that her work was pretty much finished.

Bakugo rolled his eyes and grumbled his way back toward the corridor, she was pretty sure she heard a imitation of her own voice. She simply giggled and packaged the meat in parchment paper to save for stew later and dropped any dirty dishes in the sink-bucket.

He returned a few minutes later, dripping wet and clothes in his arms. Bakugo wasn’t wearing a thing and (Y/N) noticed right away, her face turning a lovely shade of rose red.

“Okay! That’s- No clothes- Your other shirts are in the dresser!” (Y/N) said, looking away from the spectacle of a naked Bakugo. She heard his footsteps approach her and felt strong arms wrap tightly around her waist, pulling her snugly against him.

“I’ll get changed later.” He muttered against her skin, the warmth of his breath tickling the skin of her neck. “Nothing happened while I was gone?” (Y/N) was frozen in her spot, the feeling of the water dampening in her back, and her face flushing with a beautiful color of red.

“N-Nothing, the den’s been quiet as ever.” (Y/N) answered, her voice stuttering at the beginning but she managed to focus on the cutting board in front of her. “No one’s touched your precious gold horde.”

Bakugo hummed, his chin resting on top of her head, and he snuggled his face into her hair. His hands wandered about her waist, his toned chest pressing against the small of her back.

“I wasn’t worried about the gold.” He muttered quietly, the growl at the end of his voice made (Y/N)’s arms explode in goose bumps. “You smell different, tiny. Did you use the milk soap you bought a while ago?”

She paused for a moment.

“No? My smell changed?” (Y/N) asked, she had never really gotten used to the draconic abilities of her husband. Bakugo nipped at her earlobe absentmindedly, he’d always held this animalistic quality that he brought everywhere in their relationship.

“Your cinnamon smell is just different, alright? It smells like milk mixed with cinnamon.” Bakugo said, his eyes watched her hands move rhythmically as she finished up ridding the meat of any fatty tissue.

“I still don’t know why you humans are so picky.” Bakugo scoffed, shaking his head as let go of her waist and walked out of the kitchen in order to hopefully put some pants on.

“The fatty parts make the meat chewy.” (Y/N) said honestly, her eyes glanced over to Bakugo’s form but she refused to look for long—the blazing warmth in her cheeks forcing her too.

The conversation continued for awhile, (Y/N) was busily hurrying around the kitchen and chopping vegetables for the stew. Bakugo was making himself useful and watching her whisking around the kitchen from his spot sitting on one of the counters.

The stew shimmered on top of the stone oven, the bread was baking in the rocky blazing insides happily. The smell permeated the air and the warm smell making (Y/N) sigh contentedly.

“Shitty hair and pink bitch want to come over for dinner, they want to taste human cooking.” Bakugo started, the subjects of his yapping changed like the wind—it could go from hating Midoriya, to how great he is, or how he caught the deer earlier.

“Of course, I said no-”

“Why don’t you invite them over? They haven’t been over since fall, the winter’s been tough on them.” (Y/N) said, stirring the stew in the pot and sprinkling in a few herbs and spices into the shimmering pot. Bakugo scoffed.

“Hell no! They’re messier than me. That shitty hair is really fucking annoying.” He retorted, his posture straightened to a stiff board, and he muttered quietly under his breath. “He’s always touching you.”

“What is it with you dragons? Always so overprotective of your ‘mates.’“ (Y/N) sighed, looking toward her husband who huffed and shoved himself off of the counter. His shimmering ruby eyes glaring darkly in her direction, stalking over to her.

“Mates are a big fucking deal, tiny, I’ve told you this before.” (Y/N) nodded her head, her lack of listening made Bakugo snatched her wrist and pulled her roughly against his body.

“Dragons mate forever. You are mine, forever, you fucking idiot.” He growled, her smaller body was pressed flush against his. (Y/N)’s eyes widened at his serious tone, he usually wasn’t this sentimental and she expected a scoff from him instead.

Her heart fluttered in het chest, a large smile crossing her features

“I understand, Katsuki.” (Y/N) simply said, embracing her husband close to her and enjoyed the peaceful moments that followed. Two years ago, she didn’t expect to find herself here and married to the dragon that had quite rudely crashed through her house—hurting himself in the process.

For months, she nursed him back to health and somehow managed to love him in that time. Now, there they are, two years later and married. If (Y/N)’s younger self had a conversation with older (Y/N), she was sure that younger her would call her insane.

“I love you, dragon boy.” She said softly, her hand running through his spikey blond hair. Bakugo huffed and he laughed cockily.

“Who doesn’t love me?” A swift jab to the ribs made him cough and he nipped at her neck in retaliation. “Heh, I love you, tiny human.”

[tonguetiedraven]

Swap It Till You Make It

Summary: After fighting off the Impure Baron in Lightning's cursed Aria deck, Bon tries to free Rin, only for something to go horribly wrong.

Can they find their ways back into their own bodies? And can Bon keep quiet about his crush while they try? (Not if Lightning has anything to say about it.)

Part: One, two, three (you're here.), four

A/N: welcome back to another round of Bon gets his ass kicked by adhd, lol.

— — — — — — —

“Fuck,” Rin grumbled, and Bon agreed entirely. The girls had obviously spotted them, Shiemi was waving, and Izumo was sort of smiling.

Rin waved and Bon wanted to shove him into the bush for that. He never gave silly little waves like that. He’d raise his hand and nod, but he didn’t wave and that had to look weird. They weren’t supposed to let themselves be caught. Rin was giving the game away with what would have been a cute wave in this body, but – oh! He should wave.

Bon raised his hand and gave a very stiff and awkward wave. His uniform dragged uncomfortably against his skin and his entire body twitched. This shit sucked. It was cool out too and the breeze was tickling his nose. The wet clothes were uncomfortable before and now they were miserable. Why was the rustling of the leaves so loud? And holy shit, just how many leaves and trees were out here rustling? It sounded like an entire army of them—

“Hey!” Shiemi skipped up to his side and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug that had his entire body going rigid.

He didn’t often get hugged. His mother was the only one that ever tried, and he always put up a token resistance with her. (He had a reputation even if his mother’s hugs were incredible and warm.)

Shiemi was a lot shorter than him—or she would have been if he was actually in his body. This was closer to the proportions of him and his mother, and it was warm and soft, and her kimono didn’t scratch like his uniform.

Rin was staring at him with wide eyes. Bon blinked up at him, jolted, and promptly wrapped his arms back around Shiemi.

She smelled like dirt. Not in a bad way. Not like Lightning. She smelt like fresh earth and nature. Like lying in the forest and staring up at the sky through the leaves. Like digging for worms or climbing a tree. Had she always smelled like that?

“You okay?” Shiemi asked in a soft, curious voice.

That was when Bon realized he’d kind of buried his nose in her hair. His cheeks (and ears) promptly went pink and he jerked back.

“Yep!” He squeaked as his tail thrashed nervously behind him. How did Rin keep that thing wrapped around his chest?

“We, uh, had some trouble with Lightning,” Rin offered, wide eyed and obviously lying.

Izumo raised a round eyebrow. “Trouble? What’s he doing?”

Bon blinked. They needed an excuse.

Izumo smelled like rice. Like fresh rice. There was a hint of some kind of artificial flower on top – he’d noticed that before, it was her perfume – but the rice was new.

Man he was hungry. Rice sounded delicious. Ooh, curry. Or a curry bun. Did he have any snacks in his room? He couldn’t remember. There was a vending machine in the hall though. Did Rin have change? He could feel a wallet in his back pocket. Was it wrong to take Rin’s money if it was to feed his body?

Wait, if he was Rin he should just cook.

“A lot? He’s moving in and he has a lot of, uh, dangerous stuff. Just… just laying around. Some of it…” Rin frowned and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Kind of had an effect? Like an, uh, allergy!”

His nose was still itching from that miasma. Bon sneezed a bit absently and rubbed his nose. Shiemi had moved back to Izumo’s side at some point. When had that happened?

Focus! What the ever-loving hell was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just focus on one thing at a time? He was an aria! Focus was the one thing he excelled at!

The rustling seemed to get louder just to spite him. Still, with an astounding and exhausting amount of stubbornness, he pried his mouth open and forced a few words.

“Lightning had a book. I grabbed it and it shocked me. He’s…” how would Rin describe Lightning? “Bizarre.” Nope. That sounded wrong. He’d use some silly and colorful description. He was always coming up with (cute) analogies.

A song started running through his head with that thought. One he’d been listening to while studying with Rin the other day. The lyrics bounced around his head, getting louder and refusing to go away as he stared at Shiemi and Izumo and tried to think of a better story, only he couldn’t because the words were just bouncing around and making his heart twist and thump. It would be a love song.

“Yeah!” Rin said way too loudly and exuberantly for Bon. “It was that misery stuff.”

Izumo, frowning a little at the energy Rin was practically vibrating with, looked at Bon. “Misery?”

Misery? Unhappy? What the hell was Rin talking about? Yeah, this was weird, not miserable (at least not yet) but it would be if he had to take that test and the holy water was still itching and –

“Miasma.” He supplied as it clicked in his brain for some reason. “It was miasma.”

Rin nodded, and for absolutely no reason, reached over and took Bon’s hand (which he’d once again been drumming against his leg without noticing) in his own. Bon’s entire body went stiff and his tail froze in the air.

“Anyway,” Rin said, still too loudly, “I gotta get him back to my place and get him that, uh, antidote thingy. Lightning said to watch him. Might flame up or something. Uh, nice seeing you guys. Talk to ya later? Okay, bye!” And with that stream of nonsense, he dragged Bon away from the now gaping girls and towards the dorm at a full sprint. Bon followed after him, tripping on feet that didn’t feel right and trying not to think about how much those two were going to talk about Rin holding his hand.

Except they’d think it was him grabbing Rin’s hand, and now the rumors would never stop and they were going to talk about it and Rin was going to find out and Bon was going to combust. Or at least he would if it wasn’t for this damned holy water.

(And it wasn’t fair because he wanted to grab Rin’s hand--his proper hand, not this weird body swapped way of grabbing hands--but he hadn’t and now it was going to be something they thought he had done. All because he opened a chest with weird runes. Elder Futhark or Futhorc? Which kind was it? He should have taken another moment to look and see if he could decipher them. Maybe –)

“That was horrible!” Rin panted as they continued down the leaf strewn path. They crunched loudly under foot. He’d never noticed the crunching before. “Holy shit, we gotta look crazy!”

“Why did you grab my hand?” Bon demanded, blushing and still dealing with the love song playing in his head. (How could he make it go away?!)

“’Cause we needed to get out of there and you weren’t moving.” Rin laughed breathlessly, grinning and blushing himself. Bon had never looked at himself when he was blushing. His freckles were obvious when he was blushing, and the pink was spreading to his ears. Ugh. How embarrassing. “Also, you nerd, you knew it was miasma.”

“We were trapped in a castle of that shit for at least an hour! Of course I know what it is. Hell, my temple’s been fighting it for years. That’s why I almost wasn’t born. That shit got my mom and –“

“What?” Rin looked entirely horrified – it was another bizarre expression on his face – and stopped running. He used his grip on Bon to turn him around so they were facing and stepped too close. (Looking up at him was so weird and he could feel his tail flicking nervously behind himself. How did Rin control it?)

“What?” Bon parroted back. His free hand started to drum nervously against his leg.

“You almost died?”

“My mom almost died when she was pregnant with me. Father Fujimoto gave us the antidote? Miasma has been fucking with my temple for generations now.” It was because the Impure King’s body was sitting trapped in their temple. Who the fuck had thought it was a good idea to have the families live near that? Actually, who had trapped it there? Shouldn’t they have buried it a little further? Put a few more flames around it? Oh. That was probably why they had so many salamander contracts. Huh. But why—

Rin made an unhappy growly sound. It wasn’t quite right. Rin’s growls were typically actual growls, but this was too human for Rin. Still, it was unexpected enough to make him blink up at Rin.

“What’s… what’s wrong?”

Rin squeezed his hand and gave his head an angry shake. (Though, to be fair, it might have just been that his face looked angry and all his action did by default.)

“I should burned that bastard longer,” he grumbled, and for a moment, Bon could see fire in his eyes. Something angry and intense. Something that sent a strange burst of warmth through his own body. Rin was still holding his hand (he had a surprisingly strong grip) and he was furious about this. About Bon possibly dying (which he had already known, hadn’t he? Wasn’t that in the letter? Or had Rin not put the pieces together—agh! FOCUS!)

“It’s, uh… it’s over. I’m good. Well, I will be good. Once we, uh, figure this out.” He squeezed Rin’s hand and tried for a smile that felt a little odd. His teeth were too big and they poked at his lips as they moved. How did Rin deal with all of this?

Rin, with a darker blush (wow, he could turn as red as a tomato) glanced to the side and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Right,” he murmured in a shy tone. “Let’s, uh, get your stuff. My stuff?” He blinked and frowned. “The stuff.”

Bon nodded and felt his tail flicking curiously again as the song kept playing in his head.

They made it maybe five more feet before a voice was shouting in his head. “Rin!” Bon jumped, nearly tripping on his strange feet, and reeled around as the voice continued in his head. “I caught the — wait.” Kuro dropped in front of him, hackles rising on a low growl. “You’re not Rin.”

“Kuro?” Rin asked, frowning. “Can ya hear me, buddy?”

I have no idea what’s going on. Bon thought with another twist of worry in his gut.

[girljock]

                  She’s   not   sure   whether   she   wants   to   find   Sophie’s   body   or   not.   All   she   knows   is   that   she’s   pressing   her   foot   down   so   hard   on   the   gas   it   feels   like   her   leg’s   going   to   bend   backwards,   and   when   she   turns   off   the   road   into   the   field   the   shit   car   she   drives   almost   rolls.   Good,   she   thinks   for   a   fraction   of   a   second.   Maybe   I’ll   die   and   won’t   get   a   chance   to   make   the   choice.

                      Kowalski   considers   turning   around   as   she   gets   out   of   the   car   and   walks   into   the   field.   In   comparison   to   how   fast   the   pickup   was   going,   it’s   almost   like   she’s   walking   in   slow   motion.   She   feels   as   if   she’s   watching   herself   as   she   does   this,   staring   down   at   herself   from   behind   as   this   shell   of   a   girl   shambles   forward   like   a   zombie   in   search   of   the   friend   she   once   knew.

                      If   she   really   did   come   all   the   way   out   here   for   nothing,   then   Sophie’s   still   missing   and   Charlie’s   just   as   close   to   finding   her   as   before.   Gone   without   a   trace,   and   she’s   wasted   her   time   on   a   wild   ghost   chase.

                      Brown   eyes   glued   to   the   ground   as   she   searches   for   irregularities:   grass   pushed   down   oddly,   a   lump   of   dirt   …   hell,   a   hand   sticking   straight   up   out   of   the   ground   like   the   green   part   of   a   carrot.   Nothing.   She’s   almost   starting   to   feel   grateful,   and   moves   slightly   back   towards   the   direction   of   home   when   she   trips   over   the   shovel.   She   hits   the   ground   beneath   her,   hard.   Charlie   only   lets   out   a   soft   “oh,”   like   one   might   say   upon   discovering   an   old   water   bottle   on   a   shelf.

                      Charlie   is   beginning   to   wish   she   hadn’t   come   alone.   She   takes   the   shovel   into   her   hands   delicately.   There’s   nothing   remarkable   about   it.   It’s   got   a   black   handle,   is   mostly   red,   and   looks   to   be   made   of   metal.   She   knows,   though.   Of   course   she   does.

                      It   feels   like   the   tall   grass   is   watching   her   as   she   finds   the   mound   of   dirt.   It’s   long   enough   for   5’4”   Sophie   to   lie   in.   She   can   imagine   it.   She   hates   that   she   can.

                      She   stands   there   above   the   patch   of   dirt   for   a   long   time,   holding   the   shovel   in   silence.   Recent   rain   has   brought   worms   to   the   surface,   and   it   has   been   long   enough   that   small   bits   of   grass   are   beginning   to   regrow   over   the   once-upset   soil.   She   stares   at   it,   as   if   trying   to   win   a   staring   contest   with   the   Earth   itself.

                      Kowalskis   finish   what   they   start.

                      The   wet   soil   breaks   easily   under   the   shovel   and   almost   instantly   the   smell   hits   her.   She   turns   to   the   side   and   gags,   eyes   watering   as   everything   falls   away.   She   feels   so   small,   so   very,   very,   very   small.   Nonexistent,   a   fraction   of   an   atom   in   an   unforgivingly   massive   ever-expanding   universe.   The   stench   is   a   knife   to   the   senses   and   in   some   way   a   knife   to   the   heart,   a   dreaded   confirmation   of   what   she   knows   has   to   be   true.

                      She   continues   to   dig.   Perhaps   it   is   the   methodical,   repetitive   movement   that   does   it.   Perhaps   the   idea   that   someone   so   young   who   she   loved   so   much   could   die   does   it.   Perhaps   she   has   simply   grown   too   small   to   think   at   all,   and   has   decided   to   make   one   hundred   percent   sure   it’s   Sophie.

                      In   less   than   a   minute   she   recognises   the   well-loved   Ca.r   Seat   H.eadrest   shirt   Sophie   got   signed   a   couple   years   back.   She   moves   the   shovel   up   and   comes   face   to   face   with   Sophie   Diane   Stone,   or   at   least   what’s   left   of   her.   She’s   rotting   away,   bugs   crawling   over   her   flesh,   eyes   completely   missing.   Her   black   lipstick   is   smeared   across   her   cheek   like   someone   had   tried   to   poorly   erase   a   pencil   error.   Her   dyed-black   hair   was   falling   out,   the   shine   gone.

                      Sophie   was   dead.

                      All   at   once   everything   came   crashing   back   to   Charlotte.   Sophie’s   smiling   brace-face   in   ninth   grade,   back   when   she’d   never   so   much   as   touched   a   bottle   of   hair   dye   and   was   still   a   little   bit   afraid   to   say   the   word   fuck   out   loud,   even   when   she   was   alone.   Sophie   being   a   sore   loser   at   any   and   every   video   game   they   played.   Her   hands   being   purple   for   three   days   after   she   tried   to   die   her   hair   alone   in   the   bathroom.   How   she   managed   to   be   so   goddamn   cool   without   even   trying,   how   she   was   willing   to   share   anything   and   everything   she   had.   The   way   she   could   sing,   could   dance,   could   act.   She   was   your   biggest   hypewoman   and   all   she   ever   wanted   to   do   was   get   out   of   this   shitty   town   and   the   only   way   she   managed   it   was   by   being   buried   just   outside   city   limits.

                      Charlotte   doesn’t   know   what   to   do.

                      She   calls   Ryan.

[that-one-newsie]

newsies jatp au part 1!

Part one is here! Let me know anything you’d like to see in future/anything I can improve on/if you want to be added to the tag list As always, reblogs are greatly appreciated! Hope you enjoy it! (if anyone has any title ideas please send me an ask I’m rubbish at titles lol)

The Orpheum, Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles – 1995

They’re playing at the Orpheum. They’re playing at the Orpheum. Everything they have done, everything that they have sacrificed all comes down to this moment.

Albert counts them in, and then they’re off.

It’s a great song, Now or Never, and standing on stage with his bandmates and best friends, giving it all that he’s got, Jack’s never been more at home.  Music, he decides, is the reason he lives. (Well, that and teasing Al about the hot tech guy he claims he doesn’t have a crush on).

They finish the song with the bang of the smoke machines and the crackle of mic feedback, drenched from head to toe in sweat. Breathing heavily, Jack looks up, hearing for the first time the cheers of the staff and crew.  In all of the adrenaline he’d forgotten it was the tech rehearsal, but it’s nice to hear their appreciation anyway.

Oh well. At least they know that they can rock everyone’s faces off when they come to see them play.

“Thank you,” Crutchie leans into the mic, “we’re Sunset Curve.” He winks at the girl behind the table, and Jack chuckles, before spinning around to grab a towel.

Their rhythm guitarists, the Delancey brothers, are grinning stupidly from ear to ear.

“Too bad we wasted that on the sound check, that was the tightest we’ve ever played!” Oscar exclaims. Morris nods his head in agreement, still very out of breath from the performance.

“Wait until tonight, man, when this place gets packed with record execs!” Jack is still very much on an adrenaline rush, bouncing around the stage like and excited child, the ribbon on his arm flying around all over the place.

Crutchie moves over and playfully punches Albert on the arm. “Al, you were smoking.”

“Oh, no, I was just warming up. You guys were the ones on fire.” Albert uses his drumsticks to gesture to the other four boys on the stage.

That’s a load of bull and all of them know it. Al’s the best drummer their age in all of LA.

Seeing the look from Crutchie, he relents.

“All right, I was killin’ it.”

Laughing, Cructchie pulls him into a quick hug, which he reluctantly accepts.

Jack’s stomach growls, a painful reminder of the fact that he hasn’t eaten since the morning. He could murder a street dog right now.

Ah, what the hell. They’re about to play their biggest gig yet, might as well treat themselves.

“I’m thinking we fuel up before the show… I’m thinking street dogs.”

This suggestion is met with full agreement from Crutchie and Albert, but Jack notices Morris slipping off towards the girl who was cheering for them earlier, with Oscar in tow.

“Hey, Delanceys, where you going?” He calls after them.

Oscar just looks at him and shrugs, but Morris replies “I’m good.” The next part of his sentence is directed at the girl across the counter: “Vegetarian, I could never hurt an animal.”

Jack scoffs, and licks his finger and shoves it in Morris’ ear. He recoils and Jack feels a sense of triumph. His mind wonders for a minute, and he vaguely hears Crutchie chatting up the girl, who introduces herself as Rose.

“Here’s our demo. And a t-shirt, size beautiful.”

Crutchie heard someone use that line of their girlfriend when they were shopping once, and he’s never really stopped using it. Apparently it works though, because Rose looks impressed.

“Thanks! I’ll make sure not to wipe the tables down with this one.” She says with a small laugh.

Albert butts in, “Good call. Whenever they get wet, they just kinda fall apart in your hands.”

Yeah. That’s a problem that they need to fix if they want to keep selling merch.

Oscar flicks Albert’s cap and slaps Jack on the shoulder. “Don’t you guys have to go and get hot dogs or something?”

“Sure.” Jack swings himself up on the table towards Rose, gesturing at Morris as he does so. “He had a hamburger for lunch.”

Leaving through the side entrance, Jack is immediately hit with the smell and general hubbub of LA. The bright lights blind him for a second after the dimly lit club, and he blinks a few times before walking towards the street with a bounce in his step.

“That’s what I’m talking about!”

Albert makes a face. “The smell of Sunset Boulevard?”

“No,” Jack laughs, shoving him away and kicking up water in a nearby puddle, “what that girl said in there tonight. About our music. It’s like an energy, connecting us with people. They can feel us when we play.”

Crutchie and Albert snigger slightly, and he puts his arms around them and pulls them in by the shoulders.

“I want that connection with everybody.”

Crutchie shifts his weight onto his good leg. “We’re gonna need more t-shirts.”

They laugh and set off down the street, past a queue of fans waiting to get into their show. Jack pulls his hood up over his head, shielding his face, and Albert does likewise with his hat. Crutchie, ever the sweetheart, takes the two t-shirts he was holding and passes them to the girls at the back of the line with a quick smile. The squeals follow them down the street until they’re out of view of the club and into the back alley nearby, where the street dogs are sold.

Jack has to admit that the vendor is probably breaking a ton of health and safety laws, especially as he serves the condiments out of the boot of his car with all of the grease and dirt, but the food is good and he doesn’t mind that much.

A quick sizzling sound and curse breaks into his thought as Albert drops pickle juice on the battery cables.

“Man,” Al muses, “I can’t wait to until we eat somewhere where the condiments aren’t served out of the back of an Oldsmobile.”

Jack hears him briefly mention something to the vendor, who brushes it off, but his brain is too focused on eating right now to care.

“This is awesome you guys.” He turns to his best friends, his family, and grins. “We’re playing The Orpheum. I can’t even count how many bands have played here, and then ended up being huge!”

He holds out his street dog and the other two follow suit.

“Eat up boys, because after tonight, everything changes.”

All three of tap their street dogs together, and then simultaneously take huge bites.

It doesn’t taste quite right. But then, Jack thinks, this is LA, so it might just be slightly different meat to before?

Al voices his thoughts. “That’s a new flavour…”

“Chill man,” Crutchie, every optimistic, reassures him, “street dogs haven’t killed us yet.”

With every fibre of his being screaming at him to stop, Jack takes another bite.

He doesn’t remember much after that. There’s an ambulance, and a lot of bright lights, and Crutchie is crying. He feels helpless. He can’t even move to comfort his friends and that hurts him the most. He sees flashes of hospitals, people, nurses, Albert, Crutchie, nurses again.

And then pitch black.

As his eyes adjust to the dark, he can just make out the shapes of the others curled up together in the corner sobbing. Jack crawls his way over, holding onto them as if they’re the only thing keeping him afloat. He holds them until Crutchie is so quite he’s not sure if he’s awake anymore, and until Albert’s sobs turn into sniffles and then silence. All with one thought running through his head.

Shit.

Tag list!: @maggs-is-a-muppet @oof-musicals @my-musical-trashlife @fancy-worm-with-the-poyle-inside @owlscbooks @fandomscraziness22

[threeletterslife]

The Exam

→ [1/7] of the Society Series

→ summary: Three societies. Two dead lovers. One test. In a world that prioritizes intelligence and the ability to regurgitate textbook information, will you choose love and poverty or splendor and solitude? 

→ pairing/rating: taehyung x reader | PG-15

→ genre: 99.9% angst, 0.1% fluff (if you squint) | dystopian!au & utopian!au

→ warnings: profanity, death, mentions of tuberculosis and leptospirosis, blood, extreme poverty, extremely brief mention of cannibalism and overdosing, undiagnosed depression and mild anxiety, brief mentions of the afterlife and physical violence, this shit ain’t happy pple

→ wordcount: 21.4k

There's a strange stench that permeates the air in the city of Dystopia.

It is the odor of death. The dark, muddy soil reeks of decaying bodies, of rotting rats and excretions. Deteriorating child flesh even has its own distinct smell, but you've become so used to it, you don't really mind it as much anymore.

Every day is a festival for the unusually large rats that inhabit the city. With their matted-fur and worm-tails, the rodents feast on decomposing human bodies, ripping apart the dark, putrid meat and leaving dried blood splattered on the barely-paved streets.

Bodies are everywhere.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if a fallen child is dead or asleep in the towering masses of waste. There are too many orphans wandering lost on the streets with no bed or home to conceal them in warmth. There are too many people who never know when their next meal will be, or if there will be clean water to drink for the day. Hell, most of the huts in the dystopian city are on the very verge of crumbling down.

You're lucky.

Your home has semi-working electricity and plumbing. But every now and then, the lights will refuse to turn on and the pipes will leak—or even burst if it was a bad day.

Most citizens of Dystopia, however, roam the streets, homeless, until death finally whisks them away. Nobody knows what happens after death. But everybody knows it is better than Dystopia.

This place, this Dystopia, was home for your childhood memories. Shamefully enough, it was also your birthplace. But you don't live there anymore, thank goodness. You live in Purgatory now, a smaller city with slightly more opportunities and fewer rats.

But Purgatory isn't that much different from Dystopia either. Death still hangs over the heads of the weak, ready to take their hands and lead them away when the time comes. Purgatory is a wild place full of children and teenagers from ages ten to eighteen. They're there for one sole purpose: education. Rigorous education that may come with the price of death.

It's how the whole damn system works.

Every Dystopian-born must suffer ten years of life in that hellhole; if they are still alive by then, they are relocated to Purgatory where "equal opportunities" are given to all with mercy. At least, that's what the authority claims. Really, you see it more as a ruthless competition. It's not "equal opportunities" or whatever bullcrap the government was trying to sell to the people. You see it as a game of sharks and minnows—a game of exceptionally robust predators and abnormally frail prey.

Annually, every student who is eighteen in Purgatory is required to take an exam. An exam that determines their entire future.

Every year, the highest-scoring students—or student—are whisked away by the government with silk draped around their hunched shoulders, layers of soft mink coats keeping their frayed bodies warm and their dirty tresses bathed with the richest, fragrance oils. Then they are granted access to Utopia.

Utopia, the city of the rich. They breathe expensive air there, bathe in priceless tea and wear extortionate silks and furs. They deserve it. Because they're the most intelligent people in all three cities of Atna. At least, that's what the government says.

It is merciless when they throw every other eighteen-year-old who 'failed' the Exam in the city of Dystopia. You'd think they'd spare their precious Utopian-borns—the children of the men and women who proved their intelligence by reigning over every other student in Purgatory. But they don't. The Utopian-borns are dumped into Dystopia as well. Into a foreign place where the air is dead, baths are infrequent and clothing is for the greatly fortunate.

Yet that's rare. Most often, Utopian students always tie for the highest-score and are taken back to their luxurious birthplace. It's too advantageous for them. It's unfair. Unreasonable. They train from their birth until the last second before they leave the warmth of their Utopian homes for the Exam. Of course, they would score the highest.

One year, out of the hundreds of eighteen-year-olds who took the Exam, twenty-three of them made it back to Utopia. All Utopian-borns.

Still, a handful of Utopians are tossed into the slums—they are a disgrace to all of Atna for they had the advantage and didn't take it.

You've seen those sad individuals your whole childhood. They were the ones who weren't used to horrifying conditions. Consequently, they were always the last to eat and first to die.

When you were the adventurous age of nine, you and your best friend Jimin would sit outside the shabby, repulsive place that you called home and would watch the Utopian-borns straggling across the streets.

They wailed and begged as their eyes reflected one sole emotion: fear.

"I bet she's Utopian-born," Jimin huffs as he points at a girl frantically cramming her mouth full of scraggly weeds that had somehow sprouted from the fetid grounds. Both of you silently watch as her bloody fingernails pierce madly through the mud, uprooting the plants with surprising success. "Doesn't she know those are poisonous?"

You shrug, staring blankly at the girl. "No, she's not Utopian-born. Doesn't look over eighteen. Maybe she doesn't want to take the Exam." Taking Jimin's hand into yours, you sigh, "I bet he's Utopian-born, though." Your small finger points at a young man huddled up against a pile of rubbish, completely naked and rocking back and forth, as if that action would save him from the wraths of Dystopia. He had stripped off his tattered clothes and had unskillfully attempted to wrap them around himself to combat the harsh weather. A simple but deadly mistake.

A Dystopian-born would know better.

"He's going to die," Jimin says, cocking his head. "Let's go help him." He starts to tug you towards the unclothed man but you forcefully pull your friend back, eyebrows twisting downwards into a deep frown.

"Leave him." Your cold eyes stare right past the Utopian-born, gazing at the bright neon poster behind him. It reads Utopia, a wondrous place for deserving people.

And below is an image of a gorgeous, healthily plump woman in a spotless, white bikini, skin sparkling and well-tanned and her hands immaculately manicured. Her hair is loose, glossy and looks like it smells of flowering spring roses. She's holding a gleaming bottle of fizzing golden liquid in one hand and a handsome man's hand in the other. The man smiles brightly, revealing a row of pearlescent teeth as he boasts shiny, black sunglasses and wears a watch made of dazzling rubies and diamonds.

Behind the couple is a house—actually, a mansion made of polished glass with luscious trees decorating the purlieu and the pool filled with glimmering water tinted a light shade of azure. The sky is cerulean blue, and the clouds resemble cotton candy.

Everything speaks perfection.

These identical posters are littered everywhere across Dystopia. It is a painful reminder for the Atnatians who have failed the Exam—even more so agonizing for the Utopians who had been banished from their previous home.

The propaganda posters are the only clean, resplendent objects in the slums. But personally, you think they're revolting.

Your unsympathetic eyes trail back to the naked man. You take another glance at the stupid government propaganda poster behind him before you squeeze Jimin's hand. "Yeah, let's leave him," you repeat.

The pick-the-Utopian-born-from-the-crowd game abruptly halts soon after when Jimin comes over to your small hut one day, crying profusely, his tears leaving clean streaks on his dirt-covered face.

"He's dead!" he cries, fat droplets of tears dribbling down to his chin.

You frown in confusion, eyebrows knitting into a small frown. With the mortality rate of Dystopia, your best friend could either be talking about your neighbor from the next hut over or the other fifty bodies left dead and abandoned on the streets. "Who's dead, Jiminie?"

"T-That Utopian-born," Jimin whimpers, dirty hand reaching up to wipe away the tears obscuring his vision. Although there were many Utopian-borns roaming around Dystopia, you had a clear idea of who he was talking about. "The rats... they—"

You grab his filthy hand before it reaches his eyes. "Don't rub your eyes, remember?"

Jimin nods dejectedly, his head dropping low as his tears dripped to the floor, leaving wet puddles of brown dirt. "Sorry, Y/N, I forgot..." He sniffles, which didn't help the snot that was leaking out of his soot-covered nose. "But the rats..." he trails off, hand reaching up again to wipe away his tears. But he pauses, thinks better of it and tries to blink them away instead.

You nod, knowingly. "And it's not the first time you've seen that happen, Jiminie. Don't cry..."

Your friend whimpers, kicking the wet dirt beneath his feet. "But if we had helped him... The rats wouldn't have eaten right through his guts! They wouldn't have bitten him to pieces or drunk his blood!" he wails. You are silent, never great at solacing. "If we had helped him..."

Time is running out for both of you. You'd soon be relocated to Purgatory and you know Jimin is starting to get anxious for the both of you. He would cry in fear and grief for every dead corpse on the street, bite his nails hard enough to draw blood even though you would tell him not to, and try to help all the suffering Utopian-borns, despite your avid protests.

Jimin had always been too soft-minded, too kind. Death frightened him.

But you weren't afraid of death. Never have been. Never will be.

You are fucking terrified of death. It is the only occurrence that will keep you from scoring the highest, and as a seventeen-year-old, the Exam was looming closer than ever. You couldn't die now. Not after all the years of rigorous studying. You'd skipped nights of sleep, countless meals to get to this position.

To you, Purgatory would always be a second Utopia; for one, the conditions are immensely better than that of Dystopia, maggots no longer crawling in your food and clothes not as battered and ravaged by irritable rats or insects. This city is your one chance where you can prove yourself deserving to live in Utopia—to confirm that you can outlast, out-study and outsmart everyone in your year.

You eat, sleep and breathe your studies, something only a few students can manage to do. One of the only things that keep you motivated to wake up at the crack of dawn and open up a dusty book is the fact that no one's ever secured a perfect score on the Exam.

But you know you'll be the first.

You'll be the first and only person to obtain a perfect score. And thus you will be the only eighteen-year-old going to Utopia in your year.

It is a fantasy. A dream. A goal. But you thirst to achieve it.

In fact, you haven't left the library in weeks. You've practically been glued onto the same hard, wooden chair for what seemed like days now. You have also never ceased to flip the pages of your colossal textbooks. You're quite happy to say that the other students aren't studying as hard as you—most of them have given up by now.

Logically, it makes sense to surrender to the Exam.

Although you're given eight whole years to study in Purgatory, most students use that time to stuff themselves full of savory victuals, sleep in cots instead of in fetid mud and live without the shadow of death appended to their feet. Obviously, the conditions aren't as astounding as Utopia, but anything's better than the slums of Atna. It isn't worth it, they say. It isn't worth the eight years of miserable studying, only to be beaten by someone better (there's always someone better) and thrown into Dystopia without ever being able to live. But 'surrender' isn't in your vast vocabulary.

As much as you hate cheesy platitudes, you're in it (ahem, forcibly) to win it. Besides, your competition is dropping like flies on a scorching hot day. You suspect it's from that nasty tuberculosis that's been going around for a while.

There's only a year left before the Exam now. It's such little time for you to finish reading everything in that library, and such little time alike for the other students to live their last year to the very fullest in Purgatory, the downgrade of Utopia but the upgrade of Dystopia.

But especially for you, a year definitely isn't enough. You're just a tad bit off schedule—you were supposed to finish reading and memorizing everything in the library last year so you'd have two good years to review. Now you only have one.

It adds on to the multitudes of problems that no one truly knows what's on the Exam. They say anything in the grand library is fair game, but besides that, you don't know much. And because of that, you and what's left of your competitors have been reading everything in the library from novels to textbooks to published theses.

As a matter of fact, you're just one book and a page shy from reading everything in the damned library. Your eyes bore into the paper overlaid with equations and one too many graphs, forcing your brain to memorize every detail, every print and word. You know you shouldn't frown when you study. Someone you'd once loved had told you an unpretty, permanent crease would be etched on your forehead—but now you can't help it—frowning helps you concentrate.

Especially now. The library is usually dead silent except for the soft crinkles of paper as students flip the pages of their reading materials, yet you swear at least half of the students in the room have tuberculosis. There's heavy coughing every ten seconds, the infected splattering crimson blood on the thin, worn-out pages of the textbooks. And that's how the disease has been spreading.

They're going to die before the Exam. You swear they are—how pathetic of them to spend the last days of their lives cramming study material in their heads.

You don't care much for the infected, as long as they keep their distance from you. You don't know what you'll do if you catch the disease as well. But in your mind, nothing is worse than the mortality rates of Dystopia. At least no one in Purgatory dies from famine.

Still, there are never adequate treatments or vaccines and you can recall at least ten people who you haven't seen since tuberculosis first broke out. Not that you care, though. In the end, you're just glad you're not one of the diseased. You've always had a strong immune system, anyway.

You let out a soft sigh, feeling the urge to rub your dry, tiresome eyes but thinking better of it. Shutting the heavy textbook with a gentle thud, you place both hands on the wooden table, steadying yourself. You slowly close your eyes, relishing in the comfort of the darkness—you haven't slept in nearly three days, haven't left your seat to eat either. Your empty water canteen stares back at you, begging for it to be refilled. You swallow, your throat feeling unbearably scratchy, but you don't succumb to its desperate demand.

Now you only have one more book to read. Just one more and you'll be done. You'll treat yourself to an actual meal and a few hours of sleep (not too much because you still need time for review). With the Exam inching closer every minute, every second, you really don't have time to waste.

Water will have to wait for later.

Besides, you know for a fact that the last book you have to read isn't too long—just a hundred pages or so. You slowly open your eyes, vision slightly blurry as you force yourself to stand. Immediately, your legs threaten to give out and you have to stagger forward to use the dated bookshelves to steady yourself.

Step by step, you carry your barely responsive body to the special corner in the library that you haven't touched in the seven years you've lived in Purgatory. The unfamiliar, gray, tattered book catches your eye and you continue to wobble closer and closer to it. Family Studies, it should say.

Quite the ironic book to read about in a world where families are ripped apart by the government and their indecent tactics. But it's not like you have a choice. You need to get to Utopia—you've made promises...

You may be broken on the inside and out, but you won't let yourself break a promise.

Wearily, you force yourself to lift up your shaking arm to touch the book's spine. But you gasp, nearly jumping back with the little energy you have as your cold hand comes in contact with something warm.

Flesh, you finally register in your head. I've touched flesh.

Your head jerks up rather painfully, leaving your eyes struggling to adjust to the sight in front of you. A boy. A tall boy. His figure towers over you, and he frowns deeply, eyes bloodshot as he looks you up and down. In one hand he clutches a frayed brown blanket draped comfortably over his shoulders and the other stubbornly grasps the book—your book.

But you don't acquiesce, glaring at him as you tug the book closer to you. The boy glances your way tiredly, no emotion displayed on his malnourished, sculpted face. "Excuse me," he croaks, tugging the book closer to himself.

"Excuse you." Your voice comes out much raspier than you had expected, making you instantly regret opening your mouth to speak. But the desire to have the last book in your hands is far greater: "I need that." You pull the book back.

The boy scoffs—even that comes out as a dry cough that makes you flinch back just a bit. "I need it too."

You hate the parched feeling tickling the back of your throat, and you let out a little scream of frustration before instinct gets the better of you. You quickly slap the boy's hand, taking advantage of his surprise as an opportunity to snatch the book from the shelf. Once the book is safely cradled in your arms, you turn to the boy and give him the side-eye. "Well, I need it more."

With that, you attempt to hobble away with the best of your ability, but you fail when the boy grabs the back of your threadbare shirt, stopping you from moving any further. "Please."

He sounds so desperate, voice dripping with misery—something you were once so familiar with. His hands shake, grasping the fabric... You hate yourself for turning around to see his forlorn face. His eyes are full of suffering, of so much pain—that too is so familiar to you."Please..." he whispers again as his grip loosens on your shirt.

You're silent. It hurts. It physically pains you that the only human interaction you've had in months, maybe years, reminds you so much of him.

"Pleaseeee!!" Jimin drags out, a burst of giggles leaving his throat as he tugs excitedly at your arm. "Please! Let's go, let's go!"

You grumble, begrudgingly dragging your feet as Jimin pulls you towards unfamiliar territory. "I'm not hungry," you whine. "Can we just stay in the dorms?"

"We've got eight years to stay in the dorms, Y/N. Eight! Please? Just a few minutes in the cafeteria? I heard they serve actual food! Maybe if we're lucky, we'll get to snag some snacks!" Jimin exclaims, his cheeks tinged pink with elation.

"Where did you hear that from?" you mumble in protest before giving in to Jimin's persistence.

"The ones who failed," he answers lightheartedly. "I've been asking around."

"Oh."

You can't really say much more. There's nothing more to say.

The cafeteria is larger than at least ten Dystopian huts combined; there are rows and rows of rusty lunch tables and a long, metal countertop with a few baskets of bread on top. You and Jimin manage to salvage some before the rats get to it. You force yourself to ignore the angry squeaking and chattering around your bare feet.

The slices of white bread are only slightly moldy, which already makes it better than anything one can forage from your birthplace. You take each bite slowly, chewing steadily to keep the flavor on your tongue just a little while longer. But all too soon, it's gone. Though you'd denied it earlier, you are definitely hungry. Maybe even starving.

You look up to see Jimin swinging his feet back and forth, his hands grasping the side of the old bench, keeping his body balanced. He notices your eyes on him and looks at you, giving you a small smile. You smile back.

"This is already better than Dystopia, isn't it?" he says, small hand tentatively moving towards yours to encompass it. You nod your head in agreement. "We have eight years..." You nod again. "Then we'll be able to go back home."

You don't hesitate, a faint smile appearing on your lips. "Of course."

"Not dead, yet, huh?" you sigh, facing the boy next to you, scrutinizing his every movement. When he doesn't answer right away, you slam the textbook down in the middle of the table to get his attention—and to spite him, of course.

The boy scoffs as he glares at you through the tired slits of his eyes. Any sense of the weakness he had shown from practically begging you to share the book with him yesterday is gone. The feebleness might've been just an act—a sly trick to get you to help him. "Sorry but I plan on going to Utopia as well. That, we have in common," the boy bites right back. "Our only difference is that I'll actually make it there."

You blow air through your nose, prying open the previous book titled Family Studies and muttering death threats under your breath. You clear your throat before you speak again. "Yeah, right. Please shut up before I regret sharing my textbook with you."

"For your information, that's not exactly yours," the boy snorts. "It's the government's. And you've seen the shit that happens when you mess with them."

There's a sadder undertone to his voice that you pick up immediately. He sounds cocky but ruined at the same time—you would know because that's the façade that you had put up for yourself for years now. You can't stop yourself from asking the question that falls from your lips quite easily: "Why? Someone you know messed with them?"

The boy averts his eyes from you, looking down at his feet covered up in tattered shoes. "More like someone I knew." He shrugs, turning his head up so that his dark eyes pierce through yours. "But it doesn't really matter anymore."

Something stings inside. You wish you could say the same.

"It's only been a week," you giggle, watching Jimin stuff his face full of soup made of mystery miscellaneous ingredients. "Shouldn't you have gotten used to having enough food by now?"

Jimin pauses his vehement eating to give you a 'duh' look. "Silly, I'm going to store all the food now when I can. You know, before we have to go back. When's the last time Dystopia had meal times, anyway?"

"Never, of course," you laugh. The rats or some other pesky rodents chatter right along with you. But they only sound as if they are wryly laughing with you and Jimin. A bit embittered, you kick your feet in an attempt to shoo the rats away—or at least shut them up. "Too bad this place still has rats."

Jimin nods. "I've seen some of them around our food too." He makes a disgusted face. "Think about it. What if this mystery soup is made of rat droppings and piss?"

"Oh shut up. Don't be like that," you sniffle, turning up your nose in complete distaste. "That's disgusting."

"I'm only joking," Jimin chuckles, taking another spoonful of his soup, exaggerating the action and making you mock-gag in repugnance.

As annoying as he sometimes is, having Jimin around is something you always have been thankful for. It was everything to have a friend be by your side. You've seen what happens when people are left alone for too long. They go bat-shit crazy. Completely bonkers.

Being tossed back to Dystopia is inevitable; neither of you was going to stop it. Yet even just your best friend's presence is your very own incentive to wake up the next day with a hopeful smile on your lips. He matters so much to you.

"Let's have the time of our lives in Purgatory," he'd told you over and over again. So much so that you can still hear his voice today, tainted with hope and faith. "Then we can go back to Dystopia together."

You grit your teeth, catching your lip between them and biting so hard you taste blood. The strong taste of iron drives you to focus. You furrow your brows, staring at the pages of the textbook and reading thoroughly, mulling over every word in your head with careful precision. When your eyes reach the end of the page, you're just about to look up and ask the boy if he's done reading, but he's one step ahead of you.

The boy flips the page over and smiles at you smugly. You frown at him disdainfully, but without another word, you concentrate on the content once more. Until—

"Taehyung."

You sigh, reluctantly looking up at the boy. "What?"

"Taehyung. My name's Taehyung," he says. "Just thought you ought to know. There are 98 pages left in this book, so I just thought it'd be better to introduce ourselves. We'll be sitting together for a while."

You squint your eyes at him, pondering over his words. But he does make quite a good point. You suppose you and the boy—Taehyung—had gotten off on the wrong foot. Although he was kind of a cocky asshole, you guess it wouldn't hurt to at least tell him your name.

"Fine," you say, upturning your nose. "I'm Y/N."

"Cool." Taehyung grins. For a guy who's been living in unkempt conditions for several years, his teeth look pretty near to goddamn perfection. It's a little irritating if you do say so for yourself.

You're about to pick up where you last left off in the textbook when Taehyung scoots closer to you. You lean away, frowning at him as you shoot him a 'what the fuck are you doing' look.

He seems oblivious to your stone-cold glare. "Sooo, Y/N," he says. "What's making you study this hard?" he asks. "I thought I was the only crazy one here." He laughs wryly. When he sees that you're ignoring him and still reading from the damned book, he huffs and slams it shut.

"What the fuck, Taehyung," you spit out, jerking your head towards him. "Can't I study in peace?"

"Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to ignore?" he counters.

"Give me the book back."

"No." He grins, pushing the book away from you as he crosses his legs confidently, leaning back in his chair. "Answer the question. Please," he adds hastily. "C'mon. If we stay cooped up reading all day, we'll die before even getting to live in Utopia."

You let out a frustrated groan, but he's right in a way. You should take study breaks now and then—possibly to keep your sanity. "What's making me study so hard? Fine," you huff. "We all have our mad-person reasons. Happy?" But upon Taehyung's disappointed look at your vague answer, you let out a deep sigh. "And I made promises I don't want to break," you elaborate reluctantly.

"Promises?" Taehyung says. "Interesting... You look like you've been through some rough shit."

You scoff. "Me? Says you. You're Dystopian-born too, right?"

"I'm that obvious, am I?" He grins. "It's true though. I've seen bad shit in Dystopia."

"Yeah, well, I've seen the worst shit right here in Purgatory," you mutter. "So I think I win."

"Oh?"

You ignore him. "Give me back my book," you demand.

"First of all, it's not your book," Taehyung laughs. "And secondly, worst shit in Purgatory? Must be an interesting story behind that. Do tell."

"No."

Taehyung huffs as he leans back even further in his chair. "So you've lost someone you love, then."

You freeze. How did he—

Biting your lip again, you contemplate whether to answer. Finally, you let out a small, "Yeah. Two, actually."

"Damn, two?" Taehyung gawks. "Wow. Um, I'm sorry. You weren't kidding about the bad shit you've seen here."

"I really wasn't." Now you're definitely not in the mood to study. Not when Taehyung, single-handedly, in just a few minutes, reminded you of them. "It's dumb, but I use them and the promises we made together as an incentive to study. That's my mad-person reason," you confess.

Why does it feel better to tell someone else about yourself?

"That's not dumb," Taehyung offers, his eyes mirroring your own sadness in them. "It's good to have someone you love to be your incentive." He pushes the textbook back towards you. "Sorry for pestering you. You can study now if you want."

You nod curtly as you quickly open the book to the page you had left off. It seems that Taehyung does have the smallest bit of sympathy in him. You suppose he's not a completely horrible person (as you had thought before).

Sighing, you try to read through the sentences on the page, but you find yourself reading the same phrase over and over again. Damn. Your stomach flips and you begin to feel a little queasy as melancholy washes over your head. Shit. Now you really can't concentrate.

"You're, okay, right, Jiminie?" you beg, frown lines appearing on your forehead as you take both of the sick boy's hands in yours, watching his tense face relax ever-so-slightly from your soft touch.

"It's probably just something I ate. I'll be fine!" he manages to answer enthusiastically. "I'll throw it all up by tomorrow and you'll see me stronger than ever!"

He was wrong.

As the long days rolled by, he got sicker and sicker. Most of your week was spent in Jimin's room. It became a daily routine to watch him throw up whatever you suggested he eat. It became a reoccurring attempt for you to try to calm his sweltering fever. Every day you were more exhausted than the last. And so was he.

You were losing hope, but you tried not to show it. You knew he was dying, but neither of you mentioned it. You were losing your best friend and you couldn't do anything about it.

No one cared either. Everybody turned a blind eye to the ten-year-old boy suffering in overwhelming pain. They either had been preoccupied with studying or didn't want to catch whatever Jimin had. To them, Jimin, your light and life source was nothing but another body to be tossed in the graveyard at the end of the day.

And just like that, he passed away.

You can still recall the misery reflecting in his eyes, his quiet whimpers, his delusional words. You can still remember him. Quite clearly, too. He didn't know who you were the last few minutes before he blinked half-way and never woke up again. The moment you knew he was dead, you'd cried, clinging to his body and letting out the sorrow, the weakness, that you had hidden from him when he was alive.

To the ten-year-old you, his death was a mystery.

But it was leptospirosis. You know that now, after years of flipping the pages of those medical textbooks. It was a rare disease from animals, but mostly rats. Those damn rats. You wish you can kill them all.

"Those fucking rats!" Taehyung slams his fist hard on the wooden table, immediately stopping the persistent chattering of the damned rodents. "I swear to god, they're one of the worst things about Purgatory, other than the goddamn Exam itself!"

You nod in silent agreement, sighing as you play with the leftover crumbs of your breakfast. "I'd even argue that they're the worst things to ever exist. Besides the Exam."

No matter how annoyingly vocal Taehyung is about his pure hatred for rats, it feels good to have someone to talk to while eating your breakfast. You haven't had company in years.

Taehyung lets a smile loose, a boxy grin that has some sort of weird way of making you feel calm. It's impossible to believe that he's supposed to be your competition when both of you have developed a friendship over the past several days. It wasn't easy for Taehyung to befriend you—especially since you've shut out every other person in your life since... since Yoongi. But he was persistent, and you admired that about him. So slowly, very slowly, you began to open up to the boy.

You told him about Jimin, and you have to admit, it felt fucking fantastic to have someone else mourn for Jimin—to have someone else besides you who didn't ignore his death. And now you're just beginning to tell him about Yoongi upon his stubborn urging.

"You should continue," Taehyung says. "You were telling me about your preteen boyfriend?" he asks with his mouth full of bread—his words are just barely discernible and you crinkle your nose in disgust.

"Gross. Haven't you read those etiquette books? Thought they would've taught you a thing or two about not talking with your mouth full," you huff. "And don't call him my preteen boyfriend. That sounds wrong. Not to mention... it takes away so much of the meaning of my relationship with him."

"Okay, okay, sorry," Taehyung says, but chewed up bread crumbs escape his mouth and land on the metal lunch table. You make a face. "But," Taehyung continues, paying no mind to your disgust, "at the end of the day, I just wanna know if all Utopian-borns are bastards or not."

You roll your eyes. "Oh, c'mon. Do you really think I'd love a bastard?"

"Well, you're quite unpredictable, dear," Taehyung swallows his food (thankfully) before he laughs. "You thought you were going to study alone for the rest of your time here. But look at you, with me, sharing a textbook."

"You better not tell me shit like 'you didn't know love when you were ten,' Taehyung," you say as menacingly as you can. "I'm not gonna tolerate shit talk. And besides, Yoongi was definitely not a bastard. He—" you pause abruptly. "Ah, shit," you say, trying to blink away the tears that had suddenly sprung upon your eyes. Your fingers grip the hem of your shirt and you clear your throat before you continue. "He died so he didn't have to deal with bastards."

"Oh, shit," Taehyung breathes when he realizes you're close to crying. "I'm sorry... You don't have to tell me about him if it's gonna make you feel bad. I was joking about the whole Utopian-born-bastard thing anyway."

"No, I want to tell you," you say. "I need to tell someone. I can't just pent these things up inside of me, Taehyung. Don't you know? I'm using you as my personal rant-listener." You grin at him, though your tears roll down your cheeks.

Taehyung looks confused at your juxtaposition of tears and happy grin. "Okay then," he says. "If you're really sure." He frowns, tilting his head. "I just don't get the part when you said he died so he didn't have to deal with bastards. He can't choose when he dies or not—"

"Oh, yes he can," you cut him off. "Think about it," you say as more tears trip down your face. Taehyung gives you a perplexed look, his confused eyes meeting your sad ones. You sigh. "You can choose when you want to die sometimes," you whisper in a shaky voice. "Intentional death."

You've lost your appetite ever since Jimin passed away. But you come to the cafeteria every day to pay tribute to your best friend, who had announced one too many times when he was alive that the cafeteria was his favorite place in the whole world. So you sit down by yourself on the lunch tables, staring at the bread but never reaching out to take it.

Without Jimin, your world is drained of color. Life loses its meaning. There is no point. You were supposed to go back to Dystopia as adults—together. That had been your one wish. Your only wish. And now it couldn't happen. Not when Jimin's not with you anymore.

Large men in spotless white suits had dragged his limp body off of the small cot as you were begging, wailing on the side. You asked them to bury him, to give him a proper memorial. But they ignored you, pushed you away to the side. They didn't even have the decency to respect him, to cover him up with a blanket or sheet. You had to watch his clothes collect dirt and his face drag in the mud as they pulled him by the legs.

Even after they'd yelled at you, you'd watched, followed them as they flung his body into a deep pit reeking of death.

They burn the bodies in the pit every Sunday; then the week starts fresh with an empty abyss for the dead.

You want to jump in the pit after Jimin. Maybe you can conveniently dump your body in the hole a few minutes before they set fire to it—maybe you can be with Jimin that way.

It feels like a knife in your heart when you think about his last few delusional words. He'd told you fitfully, in a full sweat, that he was in so much pain, but he'd rather be in pain than die. He was afraid of death.

You aren't. You are in so much pain, you want to die, unlike him. Ten years of life is enough, you decide. Whatever is waiting for you after death has to be better than what you are living in right now.

So you plan it out. You wait until Sunday, until five minutes before they're supposed to come to burn the pit of bodies. You're going to jump in. Find Jimin. Burn to death with him. Simple.

Not so simple.

You stand exactly three feet from the pit (you measured it yourself, with your own feet), thinking it would be better to have a running start of some sort. But your feet are frozen as well as your mind is. You just can't seem to get yourself to move. You've pictured yourself jumping into the pit at least a hundred times before, so you can't help to wonder why you can't seem to do it now.

It frustrates you. Your mind tells you to run, to jump, but your legs are glued to the ground.

"Gonna jump?"

You nearly lose your balance at the sudden voice that comes from behind you. You quickly whirl around to see a lanky boy with tousled black hair. He's leaning against the exterior of the common building, staring at you with cold, judgmental eyes. He's taller, bigger than you, so you discern that he must be one of those older kids. You scowl at him. "And what if I did jump?" you retort.

"Wouldn't recommend it, kid," the boy says. He laughs coldly. "First of all, they're not going to burn that shit for several hours. Do you really want to lay around rotting bodies before you die?"

"What if I don't care?" you answer defiantly, crossing your arms.

"What are you? Dumb?" The boy scoffs, leaving his place against the wall and starting to walk towards you as he casually stuffs his hands into his pants pockets. "Get out of here," he says menacingly, eyes narrowing and mouth set stern. "And don't come back."

You admit you're slightly scared, but you don't back down. "No." You glare. "I don't want to."

The boy laughs, shrugging. "It's always the dumb Dystopian-borns. You can't be more than ten-years-old. What's got you so suicidal, huh?"

You narrow your eyes. "I'm not dumb!"

"Hm... Prove it... idiot."

You fume, face turning bright red as you stomp your feet. "Shut up! Leave me alone!"

The boy laughs. "I will if you get out of my sight."

Angry tears slip from your eyes as you grip your fists tight. "I don't want to! I-I want to die! My best friend's down there. And I'm going to be with him!" you yell as snot runs down your nose and your cheeks are wet with hot tears. You feel pathetic. But you need to get your point across to this mean, older boy who isn't leaving you alone. "You can't make me leave!"

There's an uncomfortable silence that follows, yet you stand your ground and glare at him. But to your surprise, the boy lets out a small sigh and begins to walk up to you. He crouches down to your level and he wipes your tears (and embarrassingly a bit of your snot) with the sleeve of his frayed (but obviously high-end) sweater. "It's okay kid," he says. Before you know it, he's pulling you into a tight hug. "Stop crying, hm? It'll be all right, kid."

Nobody's ever hugged you like that before. Not even Jimin—because he knows how much you don't like physical affection. But you needed his hug; it was long overdue.

You hiccup, crying out the rest of your tears as the boy holds you into his arms. It takes you a few minutes to calm down, and when you finally pull away from the boy, you notice that your shirt is slightly wet as well. And not from your tears, but from his. You look up to see the boy's back turned on you, hiding his face from your view.

"Let's go get something to eat, kid," he says, and you can hear just the hint of tears behind his voice. And when he sniffles, it confirms everything.

Cocking your head in curiosity, you begin to follow him—

"Wait, wait!" Taehyung interrupts. "Before you go on any further, you need to address the elephant in the room, Y/N. Why the fuck is he crying?"

"Yeah, well, I didn't know then either," you say. "It's complicated. I mean, I only found out the reason way later. If you'd just let me continue—"

"Oh, sorry. Continue, then."

"Yes, thank you—"

"Wait, lemme interrupt just one more time," Taehyung interjects again. "Just one last question." You groan, but you nod, telling him you're all ears. "Exactly how much older is he than you?"

You sigh. "He was three years older."

Taehyung sucks in a deep breath. "Right... He's, uh, dead. But damn. You were into a Utopian-born that was older? You really broke all the boundaries."

You shrug. "I guess I always didn't really give a fuck about societal norms or whatever the shit people call it."

"And yet you're conforming to the largest societal norm in Atna by studying for the Exam," Taehyung points out. "Times have changed."

You smile sadly, shaking your head. "I'm only doing this for Yoongi. He made me promise... So, here I am, trying to fulfill his wishes. Will you let me continue now?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Anyways..."

Yoongi watches you devour the bread, but you're too hungry to care about his incessant staring.

"You should slow down," he says. "We don't want you to choke to death or anything—" he pauses, eyes turning wide before he mutters a "Shit, I gave her a fucking idea."

"I heard that," you say.

Yoongi visibly pales.

"It's okay," you assure him, setting down a loaf of bread to stare right back at the boy. "I feel better now. I don't think I've eaten for days."

"Damn," Yoongi mutters under his breath. "What kind of best friend was he for you to be this distraught over his death?"

"Distraught?" you say, blinking blankly at him.

He sighs, "Right, right, you're only ten. Distraught means sad. Upset. Depressed. All those fun words."

"Oh," you murmur. "Jimin was everything to me," you say shyly. "He promised me that we were going to go back to Dystopia! Then we could share a house and live together as adults..." you trail off, losing yourself in the figments of your wildest imaginations. "We were supposed to have so much fun in Purgatory..."

Yoongi cocks his head. "Kid, I think you liked him."

You frown at this strange comment, crinkling your nose. "Of course I liked him, he was my best friend."

"No, kid. You like liked him. Maybe you loved him. I don't know," Yoongi says, shrugging. "Think about it. Wait no, don't. Forget about him. Don't make yourself sad. Talk to me. What do you wanna do? Wanna go to my room? I have some stuff back from home there. You can play with them if you want."

You squint your eyes at the boy, staring at him suspiciously. "Why are you trying to be nice...?"

"Nice?" Yoongi scoffs. "I'm just, uh, I'm just trying to get rid of stuff that I don't need anymore. I'm definitely not being nice. So you better follow me 'cause I don't want a lot of things."

You don't buy his lie, but maybe that's a good thing. In your eyes, this boy is, indeed, nice and he's trying to help you take your mind off of Jimin. He even prevented you from leaping off the ledge and falling to your own death. You hope he sticks around.

And stick around he did.

Yoongi is bossy, straight-forward and frankly rude sometimes, things that Jimin totally wasn't. But he is also generous, thoughtful and emotional (on a good day), and that's all you needed to stick by his side.

He is so generous that in the first week that you met him, he gave you nearly a closet-worth's supply of thick sweaters and jackets for the upcoming winter. In that same way, he is thoughtful. You took the clothes gratefully, never once having held such expensive material before in your life.

On late nights when you slept over in his room, he always asked if you could tell him stories of your childhood. And you'd gladly oblige. That's when he got emotional. Though you never see him cry, you always hear it when you tell your stories. Yoongi tries to hide his emotions to the best of his ability, but frankly, he's a loud crier, so you hear him every time. But you let him think he's good at hiding his tears for the sake that he's your friend.

One day, though, you come down with some sort of throat sickness, and Yoongi practically orders you not to speak for the next 24 hours. He had his own medicine cabinet in which his rich parents gifted him before their only son was shipped off to Purgatory from their grand mansion. So you were getting the best treatment anyone in Purgatory could get.

Yoongi even offered to tell you stories that night. To repay you for being an amazing storyteller.

"I've always wanted to hear about Utopia," you croak despite having a painful burn in your throat. "I hate that place. But I want to know more about it."

"Stop talking so much," Yoongi sighs. "Do you want to get better or not?" When you're silent, (having passed his rhetorical question test in which the correct answer was to stay quiet) he smiles to himself and continues. "I hate Utopia too. It's not as great as it seems. You know that every Utopian-born is a slave to education? I think the moment I was born, I got tossed in tutoring. From six in the morning to eleven at night I was tutored. Seven days a week, no breaks. It's probably illegal, but my parents had a lot of copies of the books in the library in Purgatory. They made me get a head start on everything. After a while, you start to think about what the whole point of education is...

"My parents always told me that I was only suffering in my younger years—that I'd only have to suffer until I'm eighteen and if I scored well on the Exam, I'd be able to come back home safely and have the time of my life in Utopia. But I just didn't want to become a slave to education," Yoongi says. "I was sick of it. Sure, I'm privileged. Sure, I had everything I wanted growing up, but I didn't have one thing you Dystopians have—freedom.

"When you're studying all day every day, you don't get a lot of chances to make friends," Yoongi says. "I grew up with adults breathing down my neck and telling me to memorize useless facts. That was the closest thing to friends I ever got. I'm not sure if every Utopian-born is forced to live like this, but I can damn well infer it. Anyways, my parents aren't here now, so I can do whatever the fuck I want."

You laugh. "You don't want to go back home?" you say in your sick, gravelly voice

"I'm just tired, Y/N. I'm tired of everything," Yoongi exhales. "You'll understand when you're older."

"You're only three years older than me, though," you pout. "Do three years change that much?"

"Yes," Yoongi replies as a matter-of-fact-way. "I don't even want to take this stupid fucking test. But I also don't want to rot in Dystopia—no offense. I know I won't last there."

"Yeah, you won't last," you tell him with a giggle.

He huffs. "That's real comforting, Y/N."

"I know," you rasp. "Please tell me about Utopia, now. Are the skies really that blue? And does everyone have a pool? What do you eat there? Do you get your own room??" The last question throws you in a coughing fit, and Yoongi looks at you worriedly. He waits until you stop before he continues.

"It was always blue outside, yeah," he says, slowly, carefully as if he was taking his time to form his words to match his visualizations. "Sometimes we had scheduled rainy days for the private gardens and stuff," he says nostalgically. "I think I had about three pools in my home in Utopia, but I’m not sure if other families had them too. You know, I didn't get around much. Always stuck inside and studying." He sighs. "At least the food there was good. Way better than the crap we're forced to eat here. Barbecue ribs with generous amounts of sauce, slow-cooked potatoes in a bonfire, roasted lamb chops, fresh fruits and vegetables picked up from the nearby food-growing facilities... Caviar, licorice, cotton candy, chocolate, cakes, pudding... And if I ever ate bread, it was with fresh strawberry jam and smooth almond butter."

You don't understand half of the stuff he's saying, but whatever it is, it sounds delicious.

"I could talk about the great food there forever," Yoongi says. "The only thing I miss about Utopia is the food... It's really lonely there. I had my sleeping chamber, my pool room and my study room, but I was always in there alone. Whatever. Do you want to hear more?"

You nod. "Yoongi?"

"Yeah?"

"You cried when I first met you. Why?"

Yoongi visibly stiffens. Knowing him you expect Yoongi to wave off your question or ignore you altogether, but to your surprise, he doesn't.

"You made me feel bad," he confesses bluntly.

"Me??"

"It was just so strange for me to see someone else get upset over a friend..." he trails off. "You were going to die for him. You were going to leap into a pit because you loved your friend that much. You couldn't bear to think of a life without him. So you were going to die with him. And that just..."

"It was stupid, I know," you pout. "You don't have to say it again."

"It was stupid, yeah," Yoongi agrees. "And I'm saying it again because I can. But at the same time, it hurt me. You know, I made up my mind to jump that day too."

"You did??"

"Yeah and imagine my surprise and annoyance when I see some ten-year-old Dystopian-born in my way," Yoongi sniffles. "Pissed me off."

You huff. "Well—"

"And I was still pissed off at you until you told me you were going to do it to be with your friend," Yoongi says. "Do you know why I was going to do it?" You shake your head no. "Because I'm selfish and I didn't like my life and I didn't want to continue living in this hellhole by myself. Because I wanted to give up. And also because I didn't have a purpose to wake up to another day, but that's just one part of a plethora of other reasons. They were all selfish. It made me just... feel something when I saw you. And you were just willing to die for someone who wasn't yourself. Even though that's fucking stupid, it made me realize how I've never really lived before. And maybe you were the key to my first friendship? I don't know."

"Wow," you mutter.

"Is that all you have to say?"

"Yes, well, no? My throat's hurting again, Yoongi," you whine. "You told me to stop talking minutes ago."

"Oh, well, in that case, just go to sleep," he says. "You'll feel better in the morning."

"Thanks," you whisper against your cotton pillow. You snuggle in your cot below Yoongi's bed and let out a small sigh. "You're not that selfish, Yoongi," you say.

And you mean it. Yoongi's shown you nothing but generosity. He's shown you that he's caring when he tries to be. Even though he's unbelievably bossy sometimes, he does it for your own good. His quiet demeanor is a façade to the overwhelming emotions inside, and you can see right through it.

Yoongi doesn't answer for the longest time, so you wrap your arms arm yourself to preserve warmth and fall asleep. You wake up the next morning with an extra layer of blanket on top of you.

Taehyung begins to tap his feet on the ground restlessly, consequently making your chair shake underneath you. You try to ignore it for minutes, but the constant shaking is making it hard for you to concentrate on the textbook sitting between the two of you.

"Taehyung," you say.

"Hm?" he asks, his eyes boring into the pages of the book. "What?"

"Can you stop?"

"Stop what?"

"You're shaking my chair."

"Oh," Taehyung says. He finally looks up from his reading and makes eye contact with you. "Sorry," he apologizes hastily. "I didn't mean to do it... I just got nervous. This book is just... It's weird. I mean, when was the last time we put emphasis on family?"

"Never, of course," you say. "I barely even remember what my parents look like."

"Really?" Taehyung's eyes are large as he stares you down with curiosity mixed with just the slightest bit of pity. "Do you miss them?"

"No."

"What? Really?" Taehyung gasps. "You really don't care at all?"

"They're not prominent figures in my life," you say. "It was always Jimin. And then when Jimin died, it was Yoongi..." you trail off. "I do regret not being close to my family. I don't think I said goodbye when I had to leave to Purgatory."

"God, well, that's harsh."

"I know. What about you? Were you close with your family?"

"Oh, very," Taehyung replies. "I had three older brothers and one younger sister. My sister and two brothers didn't make it out in the world. So in theory I only had one older sibling."

"I'm sorry," you say.

"It's fine. It was in Dystopia. Too many people die so the deaths start to become irrelevant," Taehyung shrugs. "I miss them, though. My brother's dead now, but I miss my parents."

"Dead?"

"He tried to start a revolt in Purgatory eleven years ago," Taehyung says. He frowns, shaking his head in disbelief. "I didn't think he was that dumb to actually go through with the rebellion. It was a man-slaughter, by the way. Everyone in his year was killed."

"Everyone?" you say. "Even to me, that sounds severe."

"Yeah, well, it was easier for them. Assumed that everyone in that year was a rebel. And rebels deserve to die, apparently," Taehyung says. He grits his teeth, fisting his hands in slow-coming anger. "You do know why they have the fucking Exam, right?"

"To choose which people are worthy of being in Utopia?"

"That's part of the reason," Taehyung says. He leans into you so suddenly that you gasp quietly. "The government does it to weed out the feeble-minded ones. Haven't you heard rumors? In a few years, they might just exterminate Dystopia and Purgatory altogether. There aren't enough resources to keep everyone alive," he whispers with urgency, and you can feel his hot breath on your cheeks. "So they're trying to grow a stable society with highly intelligent individuals. They want to get rid of the excess. The unworthy. They do it by hosting the Exam."

He looks satisfied at your rather shocked face and decides to give you some space, leaning away and taking away the warmth on your face.

"They're going to get rid of Dystopia?" you whisper. "And Purgatory? That's not fair to the people living there. They're gonna close off Utopia forever? That's bullshit."

"It's rumored." Taehyung shrugs.

"Is that why you're studying so hard to go?" you say, cocking a curious brow at him. "To avenge your brother?"

"Maybe," Taehyung grins. "I mean, I'll see what I can do."

"You shouldn't," you tell him with a frown. "They're gonna kill our whole year because of you."

Taehyung raises an eyebrow at you. "You know what they're doing is wrong," he says. "Don't you want to right the wrong?"

"No," you say. "I don't. I'm not going to risk my life or any other lives to fix this stupid system. The only fool-proof way to beat them is to beat the Exam—by that, I mean get a perfect score. Think about it. It's a huge middle finger to the government. Imagine if only one person out of hundreds gets to go to Utopia for scoring the highest, and, you know, assuming that only one person gets a perfect score because it's that unheard of. If that keeps up year after year, Utopia will die. They'll be underpopulated. The government will realize the system is flawed with time."

"That would take years and years. And a lot of assumptions to make," Taehyung scoffs. "You're talking about one person from every fucking year having the will and intelligence to score perfectly. Statistically impossible."

"So what?" you say. "You think a bloody revolution will solve everything?"

"A bloody revolution would obviously take less time than what you're thinking of," Taehyung says. "There are people fucking dying out there. There are people eating dead bodies. One bloody revolt can do a lot for the future."

"It won't do a lot for the present, though," you argue.

Taehyung sighs. "You know what? I'm sorry we even fucking got into this damned conversation. Whatever. Let's just finish up the book."

You clench your teeth but you don't say anything, merely nodding to show your agreement.

For the next thirteen hours, it is completely silent. After the small argument, neither you nor Taehyung feels the need to speak to the other. There is obvious tension and awkwardness between the two of you—like it had been in the beginning. You try to ignore it, immersing yourself into the contents of family studies, no matter how tedious you found it. Night rolls around and both of you end up skipping dinner.

Breakfast the next day is skipped as well.

By the time lunch comes, you and Taehyung have finished reading and reviewing the last book in the whole library. He slams the textbook shut and slides it across the table. The sound isn't as jarring as you expect it to be. So you just blink your dry eyes and try to steady yourself to prepare to stand up from your seat. Maybe you should leave Taehyung alone for a while... Maybe he doesn't want to talk to you anymore. And maybe you shouldn't hang around him... He could get you killed. He could rope you around in his master plan that his older brother had left with loose ends. You don't want to die; you don't even want to think of the possibility of death.

The only way you can beat the goddamn Exam is to be the only person to score 100 percent. And you're going to accomplish that. For years you've set your mind on this one single goal. Sacrificed food, water and sleep for it. You're not going to let it slip from your hands this easily—not when you're this close to it.

You wobble away from the chair, never looking back at Taehyung as you try to walk away from the table.

"Wait."

His tired voice echoes in the nearly empty library and it rings in your ears. You stop walking but you don't turn around.

"What, Taehyung?" you say through gritted teeth. Though you try to hide the slight waver in your voice that would indicate your exhaustiveness, it shows quite obviously.

"Let's grab lunch together. Please," he says—no, pleads.

God, he must know how much that word affects me. He knows about Jimin, so it probably wasn't so hard to use that knowledge to his own advantage.

After contemplating for what seemed like minutes, you finally turn around to face Taehyung. It surprises you when you meet his eyes almost immediately.

"You didn't finish telling me about Yoongi," he says. "I hate cliffhangers."

It occurs to you that both of you are too proud to apologize over an argument; in fact, this was Taehyung's way of apologizing to you without uttering the words, 'I'm sorry.' Your apology would be something similar.

You nod. "C'mon," you say. "Let's go to the cafeteria."

For two whole years, you were the happiest you've ever been with Yoongi. He made you almost forget about Jimin, but you made sure you honored your dead best friend by visiting the pit every now and then. It had been the last place you'd seen him.

Yoongi likes to come with you when you go to the pit. He's been getting anxious these days when you're not by his side.

Actually, you notice that he's been acting a bit strange. In the past few months, he began lecturing you about famous inventors and world leaders. He taught you the locations and capitals of countries you didn't know existed. He's been telling you the events of history as if he'd lived through them himself. The most annoying part was when he tried to make a damn math problem out of everything.

You only assumed that the pent-up knowledge inside his head was finally getting to him and he had to let it out to someone before he exploded. So you went along with it. And you suppose that sometimes, the lessons Yoongi taught you were enjoyable.

Until it got to the point that he began to quiz you on the material you learned from him.

You groan, eyes fluttering open to greet the morning sunlight that floods through the faded curtains in Yoongi's room. You had a rough night with a bad dream. You've never been this glad to finally wake up from your sleep.

Aside from the sunlight, you're also greeted by Yoongi's loud voice the moment he catches you awake. "Capital of Senegal?" he demands, pointing at you as if you had just committed a crime.

You squint your eyes at him, frowning as you stifle a yawn. You're still cranky from having a bad dream (that you can't remember now that you've woken up), so without so much of the slightest blink of an eye, you tell him to "Please, stop."

Yoongi snorts. "No, seriously," he says. "What's the capital of Senegal?"

"I dunno," you lie even though there's no way in hell that you don't know at this point in time because Yoongi's been making you memorize the world capitals for weeks now. But frustration starts to bubble up inside of you. You thought Yoongi would know a thing or two about maintaining personal space. Making you answer stupid geography questions the moment you wake up for six days in a row was downright mean and he deserves to hear a mouthful from you. "Yoongi what the hell is up with you?" you huff. "What does the capital of Senegal have to do with anything??"

"It's Dakar!" Yoongi yells, throwing up his hands. "Fucking Dakar, Y/N! Is that so hard to remember?"

"Why does it even matter?!" you yell back at him.

"I'm trying to help you!" Yoongi shouts. "I'm helping you learn, goddammit!"

"Why would I have to learn??" you say absolutely confused out of your mind. "You know how much you hated being stuck in tutoring. Well, I hate it too!"

"Oh, shit," Yoongi curses, collapsing on his bed with his hands buried in his face. He realizes that you'd just made an extremely valid point, and it puts him to shame. "I was just trying to help..."

"What? Help me pass the Exam?" you snort half-jokingly. "Yoongi, I want to go back to my home, Dystopia, with you."

"No, Y/N," Yoongi says. "I'm not going to Dystopia."

"Then wha—"

"I've been thinking, Y/N," Yoongi cuts you off, patting the spot next to him for you to sit. You do, rubbing your eyes and trying to tame your bed hair as you wait for him to continue. "I've been thinking a lot..." Yoongi says, "about the future. I've thought about every scenario in my head, and I don't think I'll ever be content."

"Aren't you happy with me, here?" you say. "I thought we were having fun..."

"Sooner or later, Y/N, I'll have to take the Exam," Yoongi says. "I'll fail, as expected. I'll be tossed into Dystopia and I'll have to wait until you come back home. But I'll most likely die in less than a year so you'll never actually get to see me again."

"Don't say that!" you shriek. "Don't even—"

"I'm obviously not going to make it in Dystopia. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and waking up in this dingy room in Purgatory every day disgusts me. Think about how horrible it'd be for me in Dystopia when I can't even stand it here. Then the only solution left is for me to go back to Utopia," Yoongi explains. "And that's not going to happen because I don't intend on learning new material anymore. I'm not a scholar. Was forced to be, but never wanted to be. I give up."

"You're giving up??"

"I'm giving up."

"But Yoongi..." you breathe but no further words come out of your mouth. You don't want to put words in his mouth, but you're scared of what he's thinking of doing to himself in the future. Yet you don't have the guts to ask him about his plan out loud.

"I know, Y/N," Yoongi sighs. "But I'm not bringing you down with me."

"What??"

"You're going to Utopia, Y/N," Yoongi says. He's so nonchalant with an atrocious statement that you wonder if he has a concussion. But when he's staring at you so intently, you realize with a heavy heart that he's dead serious.

"It's too late, Yoongi," you protest. "I would never beat the Utopian-borns... I'm already two years behind the game, and if you factor in the time the Utopian-borns have studied, I'm twelve years behind!"

"It's not too late," he argues. "Think about it. Utopian-borns like me—unless they're batshit crazy—aren't trying as hard anymore. Their parents aren't there to supervise them, and they're probably insanely cocky about how much they already know."

"What's your point?"

"You can easily beat them with willpower," Yoongi says. "And I already tried teaching you some stuff that I remembered too—whether you were paying attention is solely on you, though."

You huff. "I was paying attention," you say. "And that's impossible. I'm not a genius, Yoongi. Intelligence is genetic. You told me so yourself."

"I did," Yoongi admits, "but it doesn't matter how innately intelligent you are. What really matters is willpower. And I have none. But you have a lot. I'm just saying, Y/N. Utopia... it's not really a life for me. I don't really give a shit about education and being intelligent. I don't really give a shit about anything. But I think Utopia is a life for you. It's a life you deserve."

"I can't just accept what you're telling me, Yoongi," you say.

"Yes you can," he says. "I want to leave soon, you know. I don't want to distract you from your studies... And besides, Purgatory's food fucking sucks. I bet they have better food in the afterlife."

The afterlife. It's then when it truly dawns on you of the atrocity that your friend would commit to himself.

"You can't just kill yourself," you scoff, twisting your body towards Yoongi in complete bewilderment. "What about me? I never agreed to any of this!"

"You've wanted to go to Utopia the moment I started to tell you about it," Yoongi says. "You think I wouldn't know? I'm helping you get there."

"But I don't want to be alone!" You sniffle, chin pointing to the ceiling so the tears that are starting to well in your eyes dry away. But it's no use. The more you think about being abandoned again, another person you genuinely cared for leaving you into the afterlife... it makes you feel broken.

"Well, I don't really want to live," Yoongi says. "We're all selfish. It's human nature."

"I thought you cared about me!" Your voice rises two octaves. "We were supposed to spend the rest of your time in Purgatory together! You can't just leave early because you feel like it! What am I going to do without you??" You're sobbing now, the tears running down your face in fat droplets that blur your vision.

"Hey..." Yoongi murmurs. "Y/N..." He gives you some space to cry, to let out the worst of your emotions. Then he encompasses you in a warm hug in which your face is up against the soft material of his sweater and he pats your back comfortably. "You'll get over me."

"I won't," you whimper. "That's a promise."

"C'mon don't waste a precious promise on that," he whispers.

"I will so waste a stupid precious promise on that," you whisper back. You hate him for doing this to you. For telling you that he was going to leave you so you knew what was coming—now you were dreading the moment he was going to abandon you instead of relishing in his presence, his embrace, his warmth.

For hours, the two of you bask in complete silence. You've calmed yourself down to the point that the tears roll down your face sporadically, but not in steady streams anymore. Yoongi runs his fingers through your hair, an act that he only does to ensure you that everything will be all right. It's rare that the two of you are ever this close in proximity, and you want to cherish this moment before he's gone. But curiosity pulls at the strings inside you and you just have to ask—

"W-When are you going to do it?"

"Hm?"

"When are you going to commit suicide?"

"I'm not going to tell you."

You pull away from Yoongi, scowling at him. "Why not?"

"You'll try to put a stop to it," he says. "I need to get through with this, Y/N. You can't change my mind."

"I want to say I hate you, but now I feel like I need to be nice to you," you confess, running a hand through your hair in confusion.

Yoongi smiles, shaking his head. "Act normally." He hesitantly reaches out for your hand, and when you give it to him, he holds it perfectly—not too tightly nor not too loosely. "Just promise me one thing." When you don't answer, he turns to you, squeezing your intertwined hands for emphasis. "Get to the top for me, will you?"

"I can't promise tha—"

"And please don't frown when you study. You're gonna get a permanent crease on your forehead."

"Fuck, Y/N," Taehyung chokes, blinking away a tear that was starting to become too heavy for his eyes. "That's it? You let him just... leave you like that?"

"I feel like I should've put up a bigger fight too," you admit, playing with what's left of the bread crumbs on the lunch table. "I should've helped him. Nursed him back into a healthy mental state. But what did I know? I was fucking twelve then. I didn't know shit about mental health or psychology."

"You know now at least," Taehyung offers.

"I'd rather not know," you say. "Now that I know that I could've helped him... it just feels worse." You let out a deep sigh that takes the heavy weight off of your chest. "He overdosed about four days later. They found him before I did... And since then, I've been alone, studying my ass off."

"I can't help but admire your determination," Taehyung says. "You honestly can't beat human willpower. Yoongi's right."

You smile, shrugging nonchalantly. "I just want to keep my promise with him... And maybe I want to live in glory for the rest of my life, but who am I to blame? Everybody wants that life."

"Everybody deserves that life," Taehyung says. "No one should have to go through near-death experiences to get to it."

"Life's never fair," you say. "Deal with it."

Taehyung snorts. "I know. I'm trying." He pauses, placing a pensive hand on his chin and looking off into the distance as if he were thinking hard about something. "Hey, you know, the best way to retain information is to repeat it out loud or teach it to others."

"That's exactly what Yoongi made me do," you say. "All those random quiz questions throughout the day... I didn't appreciate it then, but I'd sure appreciate it now."

"Then we can be study buddies," Taehyung declares. "We'll quiz each other. We have about a year left before the Exam. We'll review every concept in the whole damn library together. Two heads work better than one!"

"Aren't we supposed to be competitors?" you say. "I'm looking to get a perfect score, Taehyung," you grin. "If you can't keep up with my rigorous schedule, you shouldn't even be proposing this plan to me."

"Oh yeah?" Taehyung cocks an eyebrow as he grins right back at you, revealing his perfect teeth and boxy smile. "Bring it on, Y/N."

Bring it on? Oh, you'll bring it on, all right. Taehyung won't even know what hit him.

Having someone else to study with you doubles your competitiveness, which is a feat in it of itself because you are definitely more competitive than at least one hundred of your peers combined.

Every day, you've been trying to wake up earlier than Taehyung to get to the library first. The only problem is, he's been doing the same as well. You thought you had him beat when you sauntered into the library at 4 a.m. feeling quite refreshed after an hour night's sleep, but it turned out that Taehyung never even left the library. He'd grinned at you, practically staring into your soul with bloodshot eyes and croaking, "I win!" so victoriously that you really had to accept his triumph over you.

But when the two of you start to play a little game of who-can-stay-awake-for-longer, Taehyung has to put a stop to the madness when you start to mumble jumbled sentences in Latin after he asks if you need some water.

You and Taehyung look out for each other almost by habit at this point. It's become a routine for you to wake the other up if you were the first to awake. Now morning trips to the library are done together, and you have to admit it feels much better to be able to walk side by side next to someone who is willing to babble his head off to wake you up a bit more.

Dinner is skipped Mondays through Fridays to make extra time for review. On Saturdays, you and Taehyung indulge in the full three meals that Purgatory has to offer while also finishing up your studies. But Sunday, Sunday is the holy grail of the week. No studying, no library, just you and Taehyung taking some time off (for once).

Surprisingly, you'd come up with Special Sundays, after Taehyung had a huge mental breakdown over plumb-forgetting how to graph polar curves on one typical Saturday night. And the special day has stayed since. Neither of you wants to get rid of something that is the only non-study related activity of the week.

Most Special Sundays are spent in either Taehyung's room or your room. Taehyung prefers your room because you have extra blankets that Yoongi left for you, and as winter comes by, any additional coverage is very much appreciated.

This Sunday, however, you managed to convince Taehyung to hang out in his room—only because his mattress is softer than yours and you've been getting bad back and neck pains these days.

"By the time I'm twenty, I'll be suffering from a fucking herniated disc," you tell Taehyung as you groan, shifting your position on his bed for what seems like the hundredth time. "I feel so fucking stuffy. Like I need to crack my back but I can't. Don't even get me started on my fucking neck."

"By the time you're twenty, you'll be in Utopia and the special doctors will be all over you to treat Atna's very own princess," Taehyung snorts. "They'd do anything to keep the perfect scoring girl alive and well."

"Princess my ass," you laugh. "I'd like to wish. How's the cot, by the way? Kinda feel bad about making you sleep there while I take your bed."

Taehyung shrugs. "I don't mind. I honestly don't even feel a difference," he says without skipping a beat. "And we don't want your back messing up your chances. On the day of the Exam, it'd be worse to have your body betray you than your mind."

"I'd literally fucking cry if my stupid back is still like this before the Exam, Taehyung," you say. "All these years I spent with my nose buried in a book... Only to fail because my body couldn't handle it."

"That's the worst," Taehyung sighs. "But if you stretch every day, it might get better. Honestly, we need to start taking care of ourselves better. We need to reserve time to rest... to take our minds off of studying. Even if it's only one day per week."

"Yeah," you agree. "You know what's fucking sad though? We're still talking about the stupid Exam even now. It never escapes our heads."

"We're slaves to the system," Taehyung bitterly murmurs. "What do you expect?"

"That's true," you say, wincing as you try to shift your position on the bed again. "I don't expect much at this point. Not from the people who've turned the library into a battlefield and the students into soldiers."

"The Exam is the war," Taehyung says. "Losing the war means death, mostly. I see no difference."

"We are so depressing," you sigh. "But it's all true."

"I know," Taehyung says. He turns over on his side to look up at you on his bed. "You ever think about the worst-case scenario?"

"You mean like... we don't make it to Utopia?"

"We?" Taehyung smiles. "So you think we'd get perfect scores together? What happened to being competitors?"

"Oh, shut up," you snort. "We're a team. I thought it was obvious. And I am not talking about not making it to Utopia. We are not going to self-sabotage months before the fucking Exam."

"You're just going to ignore the chances? You're going to ignore the chance of failure?"

"Yes!" you say, turning on your side to face Taehyung. "Of course I am. Do you really want to lie here talking about failure? We shouldn't even plant the thought of that in our heads right now. It's all about victory. We're the smartest, most capable people in our year, so if we don't get to Utopia, no one will. Understand?"

Taehyung belts out a laugh that has you frowning. "Your confidence deserves a gold medal sometimes," he says. "I do understand you..." he continues, "but only to a certain extent."

You scoff, "Oh, come on, Taehyung. What happened to the cocky bastard I met months ago??"

"That was such a mask behind the real me, Y/N," Taehyung laughs. "I thought you knew that by now. I'm fucking terrified of failure and even the slightest thought about failing makes me want to crawl in a hole and just... vanish."

"I swear to god, Tae, if you talk about vanishing like that again, I'll seriously make you want to vanish," you threaten him with the most menacing voice you can muster up. "We're already victors to this stupid game, winners of the war. Don't you dare think otherwise."

Taehyung smiles, eyes twinkling when he realizes you'd called him by his special nickname (that he kept trying to get you to call him) for the first time. "I'll try not to," he says. "But I'm not making any promises."

"Well, that's still good enough for me."

Four months until the Exam.

You're both physically (your back pains are gone) and mentally (you've always been) ready. But your friend is another story. As more days pass, the more anxious Taehyung begins to feel. He's never able to sleep, so he steals a couple of library books back to his room every night to read while everyone else is salvaging every hour of shut-eye they can get.

His insecurities are catching up to him. And you've always been quite loud-mouthed and confident, so you don't understand him very well. Yet, you're a team, and you do not leave team members stranded.

Motivational pep talks are not really your thing, but they have become your thing these past few days. You walk Taehyung to his room from the library every night, telling him that he had nothing to worry about—that he was going to do superbly well on the Exam. Sometimes, you feel like you're repeating the same phrase over and over again to him, but Taehyung reassures you that whatever you say helps him calm down.

But the mental breakdowns are becoming more and more frequent. Taehyung can't seem to sit still for ten minutes without starting to shake his leg and vibrate the whole table. He has to stop reviewing the Exam material to catch his breath, wipe away his tears and relax the tensed muscles on his face.

You let him take his time. You're always there for him to lean on, to help him catch up on the study time that he missed. And he's forever grateful to you.

"I don't think anyone's been this understanding of me," Taehyung sniffles as you pat his back comfortingly as he blows his nose on a scratchy napkin you handed him before. "Back home, my brother used to tell me to man up when I started to have my panic attacks. He was always the mentally stronger one of us."

"That wasn't very nice of him to say that," you remark. "It's normal to feel uneasy, especially at a time like this. The Exam is four months away... Not too close but not too far either..."

"God. I wish I wasn't so anxious all the time," Taehyung sighs, crumpling up his tissue and pocketing it. "I wish I was like you. Not afraid of losing... Not afraid of failing... Just so confident all the time."

"You can be like me," you say. "Just stop worrying so much."

"Easier said than done," Taehyung scoffs. "You're going to Utopia for sure. There's literally no doubt, Y/N."

"You're coming with me," you argue. "Not to avenge your brother's death or whatever. But just to enjoy the wealthy living since we both deserve it at this point."

"I'm not a charismatic leader," Taehyung shrugs. "I would've never been able to help start a revolt like him. I'd really like to go with you to Utopia... If we both got in, do you think we'd keep in touch?"

"Of course!" you exclaim. "We kept each other company in the loneliest of times. Have you seen anyone else in our year who's serious about taking the Exam making friends now? Everyone's too busy thinking about competition."

"What did I say?" Taehyung grins. "Teamwork works, and two heads are definitely better than one."

"Very true," you smile. "Remember when we fought for that book? The very first time we met?"

"How could I forget?" Taehyung laughs. "I thought you were going to murder me with that look of yours, honestly."

"Oh, wow. I'm not that scary, am I?"

"Oh, yes you are," Taehyung argues. "Do you know how hard it was for me to literally act tough in front of you in the beginning? So you wouldn't take me as some kind of wimp?"

"You acted tough for me?" you giggle, resting your hand on your cheek as your elbow sits on the table. You stare at Taehyung with an amused look on your face. "So you're just actually a big ol' softie?"

"W-Well, I wouldn't call myself a softie per se," Taehyung blushes. "I'm just uh..." he trails off. "Damn, Y/N. You put me under the spotlight."

You shrug, grinning as you watch Taehyung squirm under your intense gaze. Maybe you're a little mean, but making him blush is pretty funny. Teasing him is even funnier.

"It wouldn't be the first time. And definitely not the last," you say with a mischievous grin playing on your lips. Taehyung huffs, but his face looks much more relaxed than it had been several minutes ago—even the redness of his eyes are slowly fading away. He looks much better. He looks ready. "Hey, wanna go back to where we left off now?" you say. "If you're feeling better?"

"Yeah, sure," Taehyung smiles. "Thanks."

Goddamn. His smile is insanely contagious. It must be those perfect teeth and that boxy smile.

"No problem," you manage to murmur, feeling yourself start to blush thinking of Taehyung's immaculate smile. "Um," you hesitate, "yeah, so as I was saying before about Einstein's theory of relativity..."

Three months.

Something fishy is going on here. The closer the Exam looms over your head, the more you expected yourself to become miserable—stressed about the last-minute study material you could've forgotten over the years. Yet you find yourself rather relaxed.

It occurs to you, however, that you're only this relaxed because you have to be—for Taehyung. One of the two of you has to show strength to help the other. Pretending to be so strong-headed and confident (even when you fell into the familiar pit of self-doubt), helped you actually become confident in your knowledge and predestined success. There's really nothing to worry about, you tell yourself and Taehyung. If it's not the two of us, then it can't be anyone else.

The more you comfort Taehyung, the more he opens up to you, and the more you open up to him. Your friendships in the past have always been a little lopsided—with Jimin, you constantly comforted him, cared for him, and with Yoongi, he had been the one to take care of you. For once in your life, you had a relationship in which you both gave and took; Taehyung is your balance. The in-between of Jimin and Yoongi.

The platonic relationship with Jimin is mirrored in your relationship with Taehyung, but sometimes blush creeps up your cheeks when Taehyung teases you back or when your hands graze each other. So maybe you're not completely platonic with him.

And maybe you're just missing someone to love.

"Do you think we'd be happier if we just... never studied for the Exam?" Taehyung whispers to you as you lie side by side on your bed. The midnight moon is bright enough to illuminate just a sliver of Taehyung's face as he stares at the ceiling of your room pensively. "We would be hanging out... never going to the library... Making friends..."

You hum thoughtfully. "I don't know," you say. "I guess maybe we would be happier—just for the eight years we're in Purgatory, anyway."

"That's right," Taehyung says. "That's a good point, actually. I feel like what we're doing right now is right. We're suffering now to make gains later. And..." he trails off. "And... um, if we don't make it, at least we'll know that we tried."

You nod. "Yeah, I guess. It would be better than being tossed back into Dystopia and wondering for the rest of our lives what would've happened if we did study for the Exam."

"Exactly," Taehyung says. "I think it's crazy that we only have three months left," Taehyung says. "But weirdly... I feel less stressed than before. Maybe your optimistic preachings are getting to my head," he laughs quietly, nudging your shoulder playfully.

"Me? Optimistic?" you snort. "That's the first."

"It's true," Taehyung muses. "My anxiety isn't as bad as before, and I'm pretty sure you had a part to play in that."

"In three months, you won't have any anxiety ever again," you reassure him. "You won't even need to hear me babble on about optimism and self-confidence."

"And we'll be having the time of our lives in Utopia," Taehyung breathes.

You smile to yourself, nodding silently. The two of you let the silence consume you, letting Taehyung's last words echo in your head; it's a good way to end the conversation—on a positive note. A lasting note of hope and faith.

It's then when you feel something warm on your hand. It takes you a moment to realize it's flesh. It takes another moment for you to realize it's Taehyung's hand. When you don't flinch away, he quietly almost hesitantly encompasses your hand in his. Delicately, your fingers intertwine and lock perfectly together.

Immediately, your cheeks heat up but you refuse to speak about it. Reassurance floods through you as the two of you lay side by side in the comforting darkness of your room with your hands held tightly together.

And neither of you speak until the sun peeks out from the horizon to paint the skies with another morning, another day. You don't need to talk to Taehyung to know he's thinking the same thing as you.

We'll have the time of our lives in Utopia.

Two months.

The last-minute crammers crowd the library so much that there is a line to enter it. You and Taehyung found a very effective way to battle the sudden influx of students, though. Every day, the two of you enter the library as early as three in the morning (to ensure that little to nobody was there) and take six to seven books with you, hiding them under your jackets and sweaters.

Studying in your rooms is much better.

There are less judgmental eyes, fewer chances of catching a stupid cold that's been making its way through the younger kids in Purgatory and you and Taehyung can lounge on the beds when you get tired of sitting straight.

Two months to the Exam is shockingly close, so close that your back pains have been plaguing you once more. Taehyung tells you to stop slouching when you sit, but you find it hard to sit straight and read the tiny text of the textbooks. So you end up ignoring him.

But on some days, it hurts for you to turn your body, your back aching to the extremity that you started believing one uncalculated movement could leave you paralyzed for the rest of your life. It's on those days that you wish you listened to Taehyung earlier. You push on though, too stubborn to admit to Taehyung that he's right and too impatient to try to fix your pain at such an urgent time.

Except you're not too good at hiding your discomfort and Taehyung catches onto you.

"We should take a break," he says, closing an astrophysics textbook and practically tossing it over his head.

When you hear the loud thump of it hitting against the wall, you gasp. "Tae! You can't just throw the fucking book. We're not even supposed to have these in our rooms!"

"Maybe that was a bad idea," Taehyung says, fidgeting his hands. "A little too late now, though, isn't it?" He shrugs. "We need a break."

"I'm fine! I swear!" you say. "We'll study for a few more hours."

"Your back's killing you, isn't it?"

You scoff. "N-No!"

"You stuttered."

You groan, wincing quietly as you try to sit up straight. "I'm not gonna die because of this. I think I can keep going."

"If you don't fix that now, you probably won't be able to sit down for four hours to take the Exam," Taehyung tells you. He takes your book and throws it over his head, making you grimace when it thuds against the wall. "I'm gonna loosen your back muscles!" he declares.

"What are you gonna do? Step on my back and make it crack?" you snort. When you see that Taehyung actually looks like he's contemplating it, you quickly say, "Please don't."

"Don't worry. I'll try not to make it hurt," Taehyung grins. You look at him so threateningly that he has to raise both of his hands defensively. "Oh, c'mon! I'm trying to help."

You give him a nervous look. "So what? You're gonna give me a massage?"

"It'll help!" Taehyung says. "Just get all comfy and lay flat on the bed. Stomach on the covers, please."

The mere thought of his hands roaming on your back makes your face heat up. God, this is going to be intimate. Maybe that's why Taehyung suggested it... and maybe that's why you're actually complying with him.

Hesitantly, you situate yourself on the bed, laying your face on your arms. "Just my back," you tell him.

"Yeah, of course," he says. "I have credentials, technically."

"Oh?"

"I found a magazine about it," Taehyung says. "So I'm very much qualified."

"Oh god."

You hear Taehyung rustle behind you and you try to twist your body to see what he's doing but your back prevents you from moving. In frustration, you ask, "What are you doing?"

"Rolling up my sleeves and staring at your back. Why?"

"Why the fuck are you staring at my back?"

"I was trying to figure out where it hurts," he answers, "but I guess I could've just asked you instead."

You snort. "God, Tae. It honestly hurts everywhere. But especially around the shoulder blade area."

You can just imagine Taehyung nodding professionally, with his sleeves rolled up and his hair slicked back to prevent stray strands from poking at his eyes.

"Okay, I'm gonna put pressure there," he says. "Deep breath out..."

You obey him, closing your eyes and blowing air out of your lips, simultaneously relaxing your body. The moment you feel his hands on your back, goosebumps checker your arms. No one's ever been this close to you; no one's bothered to be this intimate with you.

"Feel good?" Taehyung asks.

He sounds closer to you than you expected him to be, and your breath hitches quietly. "Y-Yeah," you stutter. "A little lower."

Taehyung listens, rubbing your sore back with such care and calculated pressure that you have to bite your lip from letting rather embarrassing sounds from escaping your mouth. You don't realize how tense your body was until Taehyung calls you out. "You're so tense, Y/N," he remarks, his hands dealing with the clumped muscles on your back. "Try to relax."

You're red-faced, unable to admit to him that if you do as he says, you might just let out a moan and it'll really be game over then. You are not going to embarrass yourself in front of him because Taehyung would never let you live that down. And if you're really going to spend your days in Utopia with him, you'd rather not let him have any memories he can use to tease you.

"I am relaxing," you lie through your teeth. But when Taehyung gets to a particularly sensitive part on your back, you hiss through your teeth. "Ow..."

Taehyung immediately stops his ministrations. "Do you want me to stop for a second?" he asks with so much worry laced into his voice that you almost feel guilty for making him question himself.

"No!" you exclaim. "I mean, no. I'm fine. I guess my back was much worse than I thought..."

Taehyung laughs. "Well, if I do this for you occasionally and you stretch every day, you'll be in good condition again."

"Thanks," you mutter. "Really, Tae, I mean it."

You can just imagine the boy grinning ear to ear behind you. Though you expected him to say something cocky or silly, you received silence in response. "Tae?" Gritting your teeth, you try turning over on your back, which was easier than expected—Taehyung's massage had already done wonders.

With a little oof, you flip over to finally get a good look at Taehyung. "Cat got your tongue??" you tease him, raising an eyebrow and gazing at his rather blank face.

"No... no," he answers right away. "For a second I thought..." he trails off. His handsome face morphs into a look of worry, of nervousness.

"You thought...?"

"I thought I..." he trails off again, much to your impatience.

"Oh, come on, Tae," you sigh. "Spit it out!"

The boy grins, shaking his head. "For a second, I thought I heard you moan, Y/N. Enjoying yourself a little too much, aren't we?"

Okay, you had not expected that. The color quickly drains from your face and your mouth drops open rather unflatteringly. You sputter to think of an excuse, any excuse that would whisk you away from the embarrassment consuming you at this moment.

"I'm just kidding," Taehyung says as he nearly falls over in a fit of laughter. "You should see your face!"

"That's not funny!" you yell, sitting up on your elbows and glaring at the laughing boy.

"No, it was definitely funny," he says, grabbing your hand and helping you sit up. The action brings heat to your cheeks and you have to look away. "Oh, c'mon," Taehyung whines, "learn some humor, Y/N."

He must mistake your embarrassment as anger. You'll play along.

"You can literally shut up," you huff.

"Damn, you're not very scary when you pretend you're mad," Taehyung says, grinning mischievously at you.

"I am not pretending!"

"You're still holding my hand, Y/N," he teases.

Oh shit. He's right. That's the second time that's happened in one month. Is it strange to seek physical comfort? Or is it strange to feel so comfortable with Taehyung? "I-I," you stutter embarrassingly, unsure if you can even finish your own sentence when Taehyung interrupts you.

"It's okay, Y/N," he says. "I don't mind holding your hand."

You gape at him in shock—so much so that you're sure you don't look too attractive at the moment with your mouth hanging open and your eyes bulging.

Taehyung tightens his grip on your hand as he tugs you closer to him. His eyes sparkle with something you recognize as mirth, which is funny to see in a student's eyes just two months before the Exam.

Hm. You like the way his warm hand encompasses yours, and you adore the way he stares into your eyes as if he knows you and cares for you.

Before you know it, you're breathing out a rapid, "I don't mind holding your hand either."

You didn't know it was possible for Taehyung to grin even wider but sometimes even you're wrong.

One month.

This is the official crunch time. The time when existing contenders of the Exam become vicious and violent to ward off competition. The time when those who never cared for the Exam begin to host parties to live their best and lasting moments in glee. The time when some cocky Utopians begin to study—they think they're so above everyone else that they only need one month to prepare.

But you and Taehyung relish together in the time left in Purgatory together. You'll see him again in Utopia, but Purgatory is the place where you met him and got to know him. It's special, no matter how much you hate the dingy library and cramped dorms. It's special because, without the given situations, you would've never even met Taehyung. You would've spent the last year in Purgatory alone, haunted by the thoughts of Jimin and Yoongi. You couldn't have survived. Or maybe you could've. But Taehyung's helping you survive with a huge smile on your face. And happiness has never been so close to your fingertips.

Your hands are intertwined with his larger ones as the two of you stand against the wall of the building, staring into the empty pit of the dark abyss.

At this point, you're not quite sure where you stand with Taehyung, but you don't care as long as he's here to comfort you every day and you're there to hold his hand.

The cozy wool of Yoongi's sweater keeps you warm in the brisk night air as does Taehyung's presence right next to you. You look out at the pit, and for once, your stomach does not sink with misery. Paying your respects to the dead loved ones has never been this peaceful before.

"Do you think they're watching over you?" Taehyung whispers, judging you softly as he gazes up at the sky dotted with nighttime stars. "Maybe they're wishing you the best on the Exam."

"I actually have no idea..." you say, looking up at the sky with Taehyung and squeezing his hands. "But I miss them."

"You'll reunite with them one day," Taehyung tells you.

"Yeah," you say, "I definitely will."

"In the meantime, I bet Jimin's having the best time eating good meals and getting good sleep on a comfy bed..." Taehyung trails off as he looks at you. "And I hope Yoongi found his happiness by now."

You nod to yourself. "Me too, Tae."

"Only a month left, Y/N," he answers. "And strangely, this is the most peaceful I've been in my whole life."

When you look up, you find that Taehyung's already staring right back at you. A small smile stretches across your cracked lips. "Trust me, it'll be even more peaceful on the day that we're finally admitted into Utopia. We're in this together, right?"

"Definitely," Taehyung says. "I'm not nervous anymore. Not since you convinced me that I don't have to be afraid."

"Still gonna start a violent revolution?" you whisper. "Follow in your brother's footsteps?"

"Not now, not ever," he answers. "The system works. Why would I bother changing it when the people who truly deserve it are going to Utopia? I'm not brave enough to revolt... And I'm not putting you at risk for my dead brother."

"Thank you... Tae, that means a lot," you say. "Do you ever think there will be another revolution, though?"

"There are always revolutions," he replies. "There will always be more revolutions. Not everyone can always be completely satisfied with the authority's actions. It is what it is. Even if I have to take the brunt of it."

"You won't," you tell him. "We'll be long gone in Utopia before that happens."

"Y/N..." Taehyung mutters. He turns you around to face him, studying your features before pulling you in for an embrace. "I know you don't like it when I talk about this... but," he pauses, unsure. Yet he takes your silence as the cue to continue on. "In the case that we are separated after the Exam... In the case that something goes wrong... we... we should just continue on with our lives."

"And ignore whatever separated us?" you murmur against his shoulder. "We won't have to worry about that though. I told you not to worry. We're going to Utopia."

"I'm saying, just in case," Taehyung whispers. His hands run through your hair as he rests his chin on your shoulder. "But I'm sure you're right. We'll be in Utopia in no time."

You hum, basking in the warmth of Taehyung's arms. "Of course."

One week.

The library is swarming with teenagers in your year, desperately fighting over books and arguing over facts. It's funny only because you and Taehyung had once been in that state of animosity. It seems such a long time ago, though.

You and Taehyung lounge about in your room, reiterating textbook information out loud to each other over and over again so the material is ingrained in your memories. After a while, it occurs to both of you that you know too well about every book in the whole library. It's no use regurgitating the same information repeatedly when you already know it. So the two of you spend more and more time talking about your futures.

"Do you think they'll let me work as a family counselor when we get to Utopia?" Taehyung asks as he tosses another textbook against the door to your room.

You laugh when he hits the target on the door and shrug. "I don't know, honestly. Do you think they even have family counseling there?"

"You're right," Taehyung scoffs, shaking his head. "We know so little about the place we want to be in so badly."

"Maybe the more we know of it, the less we'll want to be in it," you say. "It's like that thing... that saying..."

"Ignorance is bliss?"

"Yeah, that," you say. "I'm sure we'll have good things to do in Utopia, though. Whether there is a family counselor position or not."

"But I guess we'll have to find out in a week."

One day.

You feel sudden unrest in the air. People are biting their fingernails so hard, they bleed. Others are pulling out their hairs. Some are picking at their scabs.

You and Taehyung hold each other the whole day, whispering little facts here and there to ensure complete memorization. You would be lying if you said you weren't the slightest bit nervous. Yes, you're intelligent, yes, you deserve to be in Utopia and yes, you've been diligent for years... but Taehyung's right. There are some scenarios that might just happen.

Maybe you and Taehyung earn perfect scores along with six others. Or maybe you and Taehyung earn the same scores as fifteen others. Or maybe you and Taehyung don't earn the same scores at all, leaving you separated forever.

You try not to dwell on the negativities too much. After all, it's no use to think of such thoughts anyways, they'll only distract you while taking the most important test of all time. Positive thoughts, only.

Tomorrow will be the very last day in Purgatory. For four hours, you and the hundreds of other students in your year will take a life-changing test. The Exam results will be kept confidential for a painstaking two hours after the final student finishes the Exam. Then men in white suits will whisk away the highest-scoring ones without another word. You will know when you didn't score the highest. Because the men in white will not give you a second look. They will walk past you like you are the scum of the earth. You've seen it happen; you've seen how much that can break someone.

You swear that you will not be broken. You will be the victor who is escorted out with the men in white. You will be accepted into a wealthy society. You promised Yoongi. And Jimin would've wanted to see you like this.

Most of all, you and Taehyung are in this together.

You visit the pit with him in the dead of the night one last time. There are already a few dead bodies piled up in the dark abyss and the stench of death protrudes up your nose quite uncomfortably, but you manage to ignore it. This will be the last time that you will see the last place you saw Jimin and Yoongi. If it weren't for them, you wouldn't be here, so confident about acing the Exam with another man you see your future with.

When you close your eyes, you can imagine your ten-year-old self standing at the edge of the pit, contemplating jumping to be with Jimin. You can see Yoongi scoffing at your stupidity before taking you into his arms and reassuring you. You can see your ten-year-old self crying. You can see a younger version of Yoongi crying. And every year after Yoongi's death, you've visited the pit by yourself. Until this year. Until you met Taehyung. And now you're not so alone anymore.

"Are you tired?" Taehyung asks, placing a warm hand on your cheek.

Your eyes flutter open immediately and you shake your head. "No, I was just thinking. I don't think I'm going to miss this place, but I'm going to miss the memories I made here." You fist the fabric of your sweater—Yoongi's old sweater, which is surprisingly still pretty large around your frail, petite frame. "It's too bad I don't really have a token of remembrance with Jimin..."

"He was all of your childhood," Taehyung soothes you. "I'm pretty sure you don't forget your childhood best friends."

"That's true..." you sigh. "God, I really don't want to forget anything that happened in my life. I need to remember all of this," you gesture towards you and Taehyung. "So we can recall it in the future."

"You'll remember us for sure," he says. "How can you forget? When you'll see me every day, pestering you for the rest of your life?" Taehyung teases, poking at your cheek playfully.

You roll your eyes. "Fun."

"Damn right," he coos, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. "We deserve the fun."

"I know," you say, smiling at his unfiltered flirtiness. "C'mon," you tell him, grabbing his hand and dragging him into the building, "we should sleep early today."

"Good idea," Taehyung giggles. "To getting perfect scores tomorrow!" he yells to the sky, his eyes squeezed shut as he dwells in the last few euphoric moments of being in the fresh, night air before being tugged into the dorms by you.

Your heart flutters when he grins widely at you, revealing his row of pearly whites. Damn. You used to hate those too-perfect teeth, but now you love them as much as you... god, as much as you might love him.

To getting perfect scores tomorrow indeed.

One hour.

One hour before the Exam, everyone is lined up to enter their own private room, which is barely a room at all from what you've heard. The space is hardly enough to fit a desk, but it's decorated with bright fluorescent lights and spotlessly white walls. Apparently, it looks more like a mental asylum than an Exam room.

Some may be sensitive to such a small, suffocating place, but you don't really mind. As long as the information is in your head and you don't come down with amnesia in the middle of the Exam, you're fine. You're more than fine. You're going to win this thing—with Taehyung of course.

You and Taehyung hold each other's hands, strangely not as nervous as the jittery teens around you. It's strange for the two of you to be in silence for so long, but it seems fitting in such a loud environment. You probably couldn't hear each other even if you did speak.

There are peers who are already crying. Those who are missing because they jumped into the pit the night before. Those who are physically unwell and have failed to take care of their bodies. Those who look confident on the outside but their eyes brim with fear and uncertainty. And then there is you and Taehyung—radiating confidence.

Taehyung squeezes your hand when the men in white come into the halls, starting to drag the students away by random to shove them into the private Exam rooms. The process takes forever, according to the others, given that there are hundreds of students and hundreds of small rooms.

"It's hilarious how they haven't come up with a more efficient system," you whisper to Taehyung, shaking your head in disdain. "You'd think after taking away the smartest people in Atna that they'd somehow make this process less time-consuming. But they didn't."

"What?" Taehyung whispers back, looking confused as he sees you talking but he can't hear a single word.

"It's hilarious how—" you stop yourself, "NEVER MIND," you say, raising your voice. He wouldn't be able to hear you even if you did yell. And you weren't going to risk a sore throat before the Exam.

Taehyung nods at you, squeezing your hand. The two of you are reduced back into a state of silence as you watch your peers being taken away before you. The men in white are getting closer and closer, and for the first time, you're nervous. You've waited six years for this moment. Four hours are going to decide your future.

Taehyung must sense the tenseness building up in your shoulders because he places his hands on them, wordlessly telling you to relax. You thought in the last moments, you'd be comforting him, but you suppose it's the other way around.

The tables have turned.

The two of you are closer to the men in white than ever. Both of you are going to be whisked away any second now. Taehyung turns you to face him and hands you a tiny ball of paper, grinning.

He mouths something that you do not hear over the incessant roar of students, but you can make out exactly what he says. 'I'll see you in Utopia.'

The small amount of pressure on your shoulders is immediately lifted. 'I'll see you in Utopia,' you mouth back, tightly clenching your fist around the tiny ball of paper he had given you. He gives you a bright, reassuring smile before a man in white takes him away. You watch him leave, mirroring his smile and letting out a deep breath.

When a man in white finally whisks you away into your cramped Exam room, you can't help but feel reinvigorated. Even if your desk is shaky and your chair squeaks when you shift in it, you're absolutely hung up on the fact that you need to finish the Exam as quickly and carefully as possible to read whatever Taehyung had written on the small piece of paper.

The countdown commences, the camera in the room zooms in and out to check if you were keeping your integrity... the Exam booklet sits in front of you.

God, you're so ready.

Confidence surges through your body. You're going to make it out alive. You're sure of it.

Well, that wasn't so bad at all.

You don't want to brag, but the Exam was a piece of cake. The questions were never about understanding the material—instead, they focused on the specifics. The stuff you couldn't common-sense your way out of. The stuff that you either knew or didn't know. But you're a strong memorizer so the questions—even the oddly specific ones—were easy.

The men in white already took your Exam booklet away to score it. Now you're forbidden to leave the testing room for two hours while they grade it. But it's boring in here.

Your neck is a bit sore from looking down at the paper and your fingers ache from gripping your pencil. Maybe once you get to Utopia, Taehyung can give you one of his insanely therapeutic massages?

There's nothing really to do in the room except stare at the camera that's still watching you or counting the number of cracks on your desk. You contemplate for a short while whether to open the note Taehyung had handed you, but you don't want to risk an accusation of dishonesty.

If you're accused, you're likely to never be seen again.

So you make use of your time and doze off. After taking the Exam, you realize that there's no doubt you scored extremely well (you might've even gotten a perfect score!) and all the nervousness you had over the past several years (which wasn't that much) have vanished into thin air. You're confident enough to sleep.

In your dreams, you see Jimin, Yoongi and Taehyung. The four of you are best friends in a world that looks like Utopia but isn't. There is no Exam that determines your whole future. There is no Purgatory, no Dystopia... No horrible education system. No rats... No pit... It's a utopian world that's better than the Utopia that you know today.

And you're only woken from your heavenly dream when there's a knock on your door. It opens before you can stay anything and a man in white gestures for you to walk out of the room. Rubbing your eyes and shaking away your drowsiness, you obey him. The man closes the door once you are out of the room.

Left and right of you, there are hundreds of students standing outside of their rooms. The tension, the nervousness in the long hallway could be sliced with a knife. But you don't contribute to the sea of worries. You lean against the door, waiting for you to be whisked away, waiting to meet Taehyung at the end of the hallway. Waiting to be driven away in some grandeur vehicle.

You wait for only two people to be taken away. Or maybe there are others who scored a perfect score? No matter. At this point, you only care if you and Taehyung made it.

Everyone holds their breaths as the men in white start to walk through the halls. You see Taehyung ahead of you, already giving you a silly look and smiling confidently at you. You breathe a huge sigh of relief before turning your head to watch the men in white.

So far, they haven't taken anyone from their stance in front of their Exam rooms. Your heart beats loudly in your chest when they come closer and closer to you. God, they must've passed at least two hundred people to get to me. And still no high-scorer.

You and Taehyung have an enormous chance now.

You hold your breath as the men in white come closer and closer.

Any minute now...

You grit your teeth, tensing your shoulders when they're so nearby, if you reached out to them, you could touch their white suits. Your ears ring, drowning out the cries of the students who were standing behind you and were left stranded by the men in white.

Closer and closer and closer...

Your nails dig into your skin.

Closer...

You nearly scream in victory when a man in white stops straight in front of you. He nods in your direction and then places a hand on the small of your back to escort you away.

You can feel the burning eyes of jealousy digging daggers on your back as you begin to walk. But you can't help feeling like royalty. This is the moment you've been waiting for. You've been selected. You've scored the highest. You're going to be Utopian.

Taehyung catches your eye and gives you a huge thumbs up from afar. You're grinning from ear to ear as you begin to approach him. As soon as a man in white officially deems that he is coming with you, you're going to proudly hold his hand and walk through the hallway like you owned all of Purgatory. You're going to spend the proudest moment of your life with him by your side. Knowing that you made it through with him. And then you're going to read his note in the vehicle, on the way to Utopia. You have it all planned out in your head. It's going to be wonderf—

Wait.

The man in white who is escorting you is not slowing down, and the other men around you aren't looking to stop either. Wait.

You're going to pass Taehyung at this rate. Wait a fucking minute.

You suddenly break out in cold sweat as you and the men come closer and closer to Taehyung.

There's no way.

He had to have done extremely well. He has to come with me.

Taehyung looks a bit taken aback as well. His eyes reflect fear and the worry lines pressed on his forehead indicate no less than that.

You don't lose eye contact with him as the men continue to escort you down the hallway.

"Taehyung," you murmur when you're directly next to him. "Taehyung!" you yell. Your voice echoes eerily across the corridor.

"Y/N!" Taehyung yells back.

He's behind you now. The men won't let you stop walking.

"Taehyung!" you scream again, trying to turn around to look at him. "Tae!"

"Don't turn around, miss," the man escorting you speaks gruffly.

"There's been a mistake!" you cry. "Tae-Taehyung is supposed to be with me! Taehyung!"

"Don't make this difficult," the man answered. The hand on your back suddenly seems threatening.

"Y/N!!" Taehyung shouts again. His eyes brim with tears and he sinks to his knees.

"Get up!" someone yells at him. "Stand up, boy!"

"Y/N!" He ignores the command, sobbing with his hands reaching out for you and eyes pleading for safety, for your comfort.

You twist your body around, shaking off the grasps of your escort as you yell his name so loudly that your voice echoes across the vast expanse of the hallway.

"Behave," your escort grunts with gritted teeth as he tugs you away, gesturing the other men in white to block your view from Taehyung.

Tears stream down your face as you beg the men in white to let you see Taehyung one last time. They don't budge. It's not until you hear the beatings and Taehyung's agonizing screams that you try to kick the men's shins and escape. But they catch you, hoist you up and carry you away.

You thrash, scream, "Please don't hurt him!" but the screams, grunts and kicks never stop. You always thought your walk down this hallway would be glorious—the glory only lasted for a few minutes. You were supposed to walk down here hand in hand with Taehyung. Now Taehyung might be dead for disobeying orders.

You were supposed to be draped in silk and mink coats. You were supposed to be spritzed with sweet fragrances and treated like a princess. But everyone—even your peers—look at you with what you recognize as pity. Or maybe even disgust.

They must think you're crazy for not being thankful for being a high-scorer on the Exam. Some would kill to be in your place right now.

You hadn't expected—after your eight years in Purgatory—for your journey here to end like this. You're embarrassingly carried across the shoulder of the man in white, forced to dangle over him like a dead animal. You can feel the scrutinizing gazes of your peers. The ones who didn't get chosen.

It strikes you that you're alone now.

No more Jimin. No more Yoongi... And no more Taehyung.

You squeeze your eyes shut, praying for another person who scored the same as you. Maybe you'll find a new friend? Maybe you won't be alone again.

But the hallway ends and opens up to a door and you're still the only person the men in white have escorted. Your heart sinks. You're alone.

They shove you in a shiny black vehicle where the inside is air-conditioned and smells of roses. There are unfamiliar snacks in elaborate wrappings and ice-cold fizzy drinks around you—all for you—but you aren't hungry. The tears won't stop.

Were the riches and wealth worth the loneliness that will consume you for years to come?

You are a legend. A model figure. A genius.

The first to ever score 100% on the Exam. You're dragged from here to there, paid by the richest of Utopians to tutor their young children before they're sent off to Purgatory.

Frankly, you're upset at the lavishness of Utopia. There is always more to eat—so much so that one-fourths of every meal goes into the trash. The people here put ice cubes in their water to cool it. In Dystopia, there was never enough to eat and water was scarce. Purgatory never had a diverse array of food, and water was always lukewarm.

You're not sure if you belong here.

You miss Taehyung more than ever these days. Your new home is far too large for one person. You feel empty, cold inside. Even basking in the sunlight shining through your gold-rimmed window isn't enough to warm you. You tug the sleeves of Yoongi's sweater over your hands. Even after all these years in Utopia, you can't get accustomed to the fancy, frilly clothes here. You like Yoongi's old, frayed sweaters much better. And it's your only token of remembrance of him. You feel like you did him well because after all, you kept your promise. But Yoongi was wrong about one thing: the life of a Utopian did not suit you.

You can't help but think back to the days of Dystopia—of you and Jimin. Taehyung's right, you never really forget your childhood best friend. You've written down all of your memories about Jimin in a black leather-bound journal, which you keep out in the open by the window sill. On harder days, you like to read through the entries to refresh your memories and recall the stories that make you laugh or tear up with nostalgia.

The magnificent garden outside your home looks empty despite the plethora of flowers and colorful vines that sprout and bloom across the expanse of the healthy, verdant grass. Sighing, you clutch the silver locket resting between your collarbones. You've been wearing the necklace ever since the day you were first admitted into Utopia.

Inside the locket is a neatly folded up note. The piece of paper is old and crinkled and it has obviously been ripped out from a textbook called Family Studies. Taehyung's writing is etched onto it in black ink. You've read over the note so many times that you know exactly what it says by heart.

Y/N,

I was saving this to tell you in Utopia, but I can't wait for that day, even if it's tomorrow. I need to tell you now that I love you. Thank you for being by my side. Thank you for dealing with me. Thank you for calming me down.

You're welcome for those back massages. You're welcome for listening to your stories about Jimin and Yoongi. You're welcome for being by your side. I do it so much because I hate seeing you lonely.

Utopia will be great, Y/N. I think we'll live a great life there, don't you think?

I just want to say that if anything happens, we need to continue on with our lives. Because whatever the Exam decides, we deserve the results.

Nevertheless, I'll see you in Utopia, Y/N~

You tear up every time you open up your locket and study Taehyung's handwriting and his last words to you. Of course, you love him too. And it kills you that you don’t even know whether he's alive.

How cruel it is to live in such a wealthy place but feel worse than you had been in Dystopia and Purgatory.

The Exam is a curse. There is no way you could've beaten it, but you'd very much rather be hauled back into Dystopia with someone you care about than being stuck in this fast-paced, artificial world with no one but yourself.

It dawns on you horrifyingly. You did not beat the Exam. You did not win. You survived it.

And for the rest of your life, you must suffer the casualties.

—masterpost

—masterlist

[anoriathdunadan]

Where the Stars are F***ing Strange

Pairing: Aragorn-Estel-Strider / OC Rating: Explicit Genre: Modern OC in Middle-earth, reader insert, gender neutral reader, 25th Gray Companion, copious references to The Princess Bride (because why not?) Warnings: so much swearing, canon levels of xenophobia and violence, character death, feral chickens Summary: Plucked like a fish out of water, you try to make the best out of a bad situation in Bree. Then, one day, this Hozier-looking dude showed up at The Pony.

Chapter 23: Fish in the Underworld

In which our fish is on the run.

And so that’s what you do.  You run.

His fist dug into the strap to your pack at your shoulder, Estel pulls you along back toward the Road, but then, slipping behind the pen of pigs, doubles back once out of sight. You stumble on your feet attempting to keep up with his god damn fucking long legs, but he somehow keeps you and your potatoes aloft.  He may be used to ducking and weaving between tumbled stones and overturned rusted out wheels and pots and clumps of weeds, but you are not.  It’s all you can do to keep up with him and breathe at the same time, much less ask him what the fuck is going on.

He yanks you down into a facefull of wet grass behind the overgrown remains of a hut.  You have no freaking clue what he saw that you’re avoiding but down you stay, breathing as silently as you can, the beating of your heart in your ears drowning out anything you might hear around you and your nose full of the smell of wet earth and decaying leaves.

Fuck but the potatoes are a lot heavier than they were this morning.

When you stumble, unable to get your feet beneath you, he practically lifts you up from the ground and off you go again.  You would think he would be making for the woods behind the village, going for any kind of cover you can find, but he doesn’t.  Instead, you’re making straight for the populated side of town, slipping from stone wall to brush to clump of trees until he pulls you behind a ring of stone from some long gone house to the opening of a rotted out bushcamp shelter and there, dropping to his knee, he digs about in the dried grass of its floor with his fingers.

“Help me,” he commands, speaking low.

You do what you can, given that you have no clue what he’s trying to accomplish, and then he brushes aside wet leaves to reveal a mold-stained and half rotted lid.

Oh.  Shit.  We’re hiding.  Okay.  Okay.  You got it.

You tear at the grass until he can worm his fingers beneath the wood and lift it from the ground.  A quick glance within and he jerks his head at you to go first.  And so down you go, slithering over the edge and bringing half the soil at the rim with you while things skitter away from the light.

God it smells awful.  Some old abandoned well, or cistern, or cesspit, or cellar, it was lined in stone, though it’s mostly mud and mold at this point.  Fuck.  Oh yeah, something got trapped in here and died all right.  You can see it sandwiched between the wall and the floor, or, well, what’s left of it.

You huddle crouched on your heels as Estel joins you, brushing the dirt and torn up roots into the cellar with you and tugging dried grasses to fill in and lay over the rim.  He pats around in the dark and then wedges a rock between the edge of the hole and lid so that the thinnest stream of light and air seeps in.

He peers out the crack through the entrance into the shelter, crouched in the dark and, with what must be long practice, eases his sword silently out of its scabbard.  The light slides along its edge as he brings it up.  You keep very still, but you can’t hear anything other than Estel’s harsh breathing and the wind in the grass and the occasional murmur of voices and a sudden bark of laughter across the Road.

You’re about to question whether maybe you’ve both gone a little mental and the paranoia’s gotten to you and you’re wondering why you’re letting your butt grow damp and cold when you’re crouching in a conveniently located, abandoned root cellar with a six plus foot merc who could take Harvey out without breaking a sweat, but then you hear the thud of footsteps overhead.  Estel jerks back away from the light and deeper into the shadows, his arm flung out over you and sword pointing at the opening.

Shit.

You keep really really really still, breathing through your mouth, which you were doing anyway because of the smell, but now you’re doing it really really super slowly.

The thudding of footsteps fades and then comes again, closer this time.  Shit!  Fuckers must be huge.  You can feel the vibrations of their footfalls against your back.

“Naught of sign here, either,” comes a voice with the clipped accents of the south over rustling in the dead grass.  Someone else swears something you don’t quite catch and there’s panting and suddenly the light goes out as a shadow slides across the opening.  You hold your breath, your heart thudding in your ears.  Every muscle in Estel goes rigid and he lifts himself silently from his crouch, tightly wound and ready to spring.

“Agh!” comes the exclamation and the sound of someone sniffing then clearing their throat and hawking spit.  “He’ll have our heads should we lose them.”

“‘We?’” comes the first voice as other footsteps thump overhead and then fall silent.  “He’ll have Harvey’s head, here. ’Twas not I who said they’d returned to the Road to Chetwood.”

“Och!” comes a voice you know well, the rat-bastard doing what a rat-bastard does best, whining about how it’s not his fault.  “You asked, what direction, they ran, and so, I told ye,” he pants out.

“Shut it, you muck-spouted fool.  Had you not let that fish of yours slip from your grasp we’d know where that misborn Ranger is or, at the least, is like to be found next.”

“’Tis you who’s a fool,” says Harvey and there’s scuffling and a foot lands at the crack of light, before shuffling away to sound of grunting.

“Unhand him!” comes the command and silence falls. “You are untrained and unskilled enough, have you naught of good sense either?  Come now, he’s one of those Rangers.  He’s made for the wood, like he’s done afore.  Knows it like he were born there. He’s wood crafty and nigh as canny as a bloody elf, laying low and biding his time.”

More scuffling and then they rustle through the grass, moving off.

“So shut it, both of you, or you’ll be but fodder for one of his traps.  Go on, you!  Leave him be!  There’s naught for it but back to the camp and face the chief,” says the same voice, growing softer as they head toward the Road.

Estel licks at his lips, taut and listening long past the point at which you lose track of them.

You’re about to pluck up the courage to ask what the fuck is going on when he abandons the thin crack out into the world, easing himself about to sit beside you and laying his sword on the floor of the cellar.  Your eyes have started to get used to the dark and you can see the faintest outline of his face against the light.

He rubs his hand on his breeches.  “You are unharmed?”

He takes in a long breath when you nod.  He leans his head against the wall, closing his eyes, frowning unhappily and clenching and unclenching his fist.

“Don’t,” you say.

“Hala -“

“Don’t,” you repeat, more insistently, because fuck that noise.  “I’m not Ruby,” you say, keeping your voice low, and his eyes flash open and gleam in the dark.

“Nay, you are not,” he says at last, and dabs gently at his nose with his wrist.  It’s reddened and already start to swell.  “I bear the evidence of it.”

“Sorry,” you say again but he shakes his head.

“It will heal.  A small price to pay for the time you bought us.”

“Are they the men who attacked you back in the spring?” you ask and he nods, moving his sword aside and easing himself out of his pack.

“Aye, I was able to slip away ere they discovered me at the inn,” he says with a grimace as he opens his pack and reaches within.  “They are of the same company, or some who have joined up with them since last we met.”

“So I guess they’re not holed up north of Bree after all,” you say.

“Come, quickly, we should make ready.”  He taps at the strap to your pack, urging you to follow his example before returning to making two piles of things he has pulled out of his pack, the second noticeably smaller than the first.  “They are too large a force to linger on the Road without drawing notice, but will have made camp someplace close by.  Their chief is most like to command they return and be more thorough in their search.  We were lucky this once.  We must be gone ere then.”

You shift to your knees and shrug yourself out of your pack, mindful of how full it is and easing it around you.  Yeah, you suppose you can make better time if you’re not trying to haul the weight of a preschooler around on your back.

“Are they the ones who killed Ruby?” you ask, taking a literal shot in the dark.

“Yes.”

He tugs at the drawstrings to your pack now that you’ve got it off your back and sitting in front of you.  He starts pulling out potatoes and setting them in a pile and you join him.

Well.  Fuck.  Poor Ruby.  Jesus.

“And slaughtered all my kin of the homestead north of Bree who took her in,” Estel says, a flat, grim look on his face.

Jesus!

You stare at Estel.  His lips pressed thinly, he tosses a couple potatoes onto the pile but holds onto the bag of fish leather, adding it to his own smaller pile of a bag of wheat and rye berries and nuts and other calorie-dense foods.

“Why?” you blurt.

He stops and looks over at you for a beat before he turns back to your pack with a grimace.  He works quickly.  “Revenge, mayhap.  To draw me out from Bree ere I was fully healed, most like.”

Fuck.

God.  No wonder he’d been such a hot mess when he’d returned that first time, sitting at your hearth all hollow-eyed and spitting invective.  Fuck, and no wonder they’re after him.  He’s been Rambo-ing them up one road and down the other since the spring, picking them off and making them pay for what they did to Ruby and his kin.

Shit.

“We shall keep to the woodlands and proceed southeast as swiftly as we can.  They have some skill of woodcraft but we have few choices and must rely upon the cover the trees provide.”

Okay okay.  All right.  Through the trees, then, it is.

Last potato out and Estel’s hand withdraws from your pack after feeling about the bottom and you grab his wrist.

“No,” you say, panicked, your heart suddenly in your throat.

“Hala, we must leave all behind that can be spared.”

“Not this.” Tears start up in your eyes and you blink, hoping to hide it, but his voice softens.

“You shall have another,” he says, because, yeah, he’s got the roll of finely worked leather with the kit of scissors and blade and brush in his hand.

But, fuck, you don’t want another set.  You want this one.  The one he gave you as a gift.

“Hala,” he says when you’re frozen and can’t let his wrist go, cuz fuck your heart hurts, “we must go, now.  I would not part you from your phone, but let this go, I beg you.  I did not give you this for it to imperil you at the cost of even one moment, one last burst of effort that could save your life.”

Finally you nod and let go of his wrist, and he sets the leather bundle atop the pile of potatoes and divides up the pile of hearty, easily eaten foods left over into each pack.  You’re sure he’s going to turn and you’ll pull your pack back on over your shoulders and climb out of the hole behind him, but he stops, examining your face before his hand comes up to cup your cheek.

Oh good.  What now?

“You must promise me somewhat.”

Ah, fuck.  Here it comes.

“Should they come upon us, you are to run,” he says, pinning you with an earnest stare to end all earnest stares.

God damn it!  You knew this was coming.  “No,” you say, but this time it isn’t accompanied by tears.  It’s clear and distinct and definitive.  You’re furious actually, but the fucker keeps on going as if you hadn’t spoken.

“Keep to the cover of the trees and proceed east by southeast -“

“Fuck you, no.”

“- until you reach a river. You will know it.”

“Fuck you,” you whisper hoarsely, shoving his hand off your face. Mr. ‘I Have to Go It Alone’ Strider can go fuck himself.  “You can show it to me yourself.”

“It is deep and swift-flowing,” he goes on with that same even, patient tone as you yank the ties to the top of your pack closed.

“I’m not a fucking idiot,” you say.  “I’m not going to go out of my way to take any of these guys on, but I can handle myself and it’s about time you let somebody watch your back for you.”

“Stay to the shadows.  Should I not join you ere dawn, make your way as quietly upstream as you can and I shall follow behind and find you.”

You jerk your arms through your pack and settle it on your back.  “Get your fucking pack on,” you say.  “We’re leaving.”

“Hala,” he says, not moving an inch, weary and, fuck, frightened, “I am not saying you are unskilled, but it is one thing to face an opponent in a tourney-”

Fucker.  You made State six years running, the last two going on to Nationals, and that’s not counting the self-defense camps you helped run at work.

“I was good enough to get you,” you say, nodding at his bloody nose, “and that’s not the first time I’ve fought you off, by the way.”  Not that you’re going to tell him about your unorthodox method of breaking that chokehold he had around your neck way back when, but, you know, still.

“I beg you, please do this for me.  It is I they want,” he says, and fuck, add helpless and grief-stricken to the mix.

God damn it!

Fuck.  Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

“I will find you,” he says, his tone all gentle because, yeah, now you are crying.

“And what if they hurt you again and you can’t?” you ask and he huffs a sharp sound.

“They had the advantage of surprise when first we met,” he says.  “They shall not have it again.”

God damn overconfident, arrogant, competitive motherfucker.

You wipe at your face.

“Do you understand better why, then, I would wish you to know more of me ere you make your choice?” he asks.

You nod, cuz, yeah, you do.  You knew it before, but you get it now.  But, still…

God damn him.  And he’s looking at you with that mix of weary pride and fear and… sdjlrhKVJHCSRKVFuck!

This time it’s you who starts the kiss.  His voice catches in his throat with a soft grunt when you pull him in by the back of his head and put your mouth on his.  There’s nothing tender or soft about it.  It’s a hard press of lips.  He’s fucking yours and they do not get to take him from you, god damn it!

“Okay,” you say.  “Let’s do this.”

~*~

You make it until about an hour before sunset.

The wind turned east as the day progressed and the clouds drifted over the tops of the trees in banks of white and gray until midday when the sky cleared.  The shadows grow long, reaching over the meadows and hills of rolling gold and green, and still you keep going.  Estel keeps you within arm’s reach and going at about a slow jog at the most. It’s not fast, but it is steady, and he’s careful not to wear you out too much at a time, taking breaks every so often to catch your breath.  Fuck.  You’ve never run a marathon, but shit, if this is what it’s like, you don’t get why anyone would ever want to put their body through something like this if they didn’t have to.  Fucking miserable.

You drop to the forest floor behind the trunk of a fallen tree.  Ow.  Fuck.  Damn it.  You lift a cheek off the ground and brush away the rock that stabbed you in the butt.  This last dash was uphill this time, winding through stands of short leafless trees to taller growth of pine and oak.  Even Estel is winded in this last push.  He leans over with his hands on his knees, pulling in long breaths before rising to his full height and striding about to scan the area around you while he breathes deeply.

Damn, your legs hurt.  You rub at your shins, digging your knuckles into the tendons above your ankles.  You don’t dare take off your boots, but you squeeze your toes and then stretch out your foot, hoping to relieve the cramp in the arch on the left.  God, what you’d give for a pair of running shoes.  No fucking arch support and slick leather bottoms do not make for good running mechanics, or skin along the back of your heels.  Fuck, now that you’ve stopped every raw place beneath where strap and belt and tie rubs against your damp clothes starts burning.

Estel wipes his arm across his forehead and comes to a stop next to you.  Well, you’re not cold anymore, at least.  In fact, you’re sweating about as much as Estel and the breeze stirring the rattling leaves overhead is a relief against your neck.

“How much farther until the river?” you ask and then go back to drawing in lungfuls of cool air.

“Ah,” he says, still breathing heavily through his mouth.  You don’t think you broke his nose, but it’s definitely too swollen to breathe through and he’s, yeah, damn it, he’s going to be sporting a bit of a black eye any minute now.

He turns about and squints at the snatches of the horizon to the east glimpsed through the trees.  “One, mayhap, two hours, at our pace,” he says, his voice all nasally because, shit, obvious reasons.

God.  You’re going to owe him, well, something really big, after this is all over.

He reaches about and unlashes his waterskin from his pack, pulling out the wooden plug and letting it dangle on its string before leaning back his head to take in a mouthful.  He hands it to you when done.

Fuck.  Blessed, blessed water.  You let it sit on your tongue and swish it about your mouth before swallowing. Estel eases himself down to sitting beside you with a groan he keeps locked behind his teeth and stretches out his legs.

You try to hand the waterskin back to him but he shakes his head.  “Finish it,” he says and yeah, that’s not much swirling around in the bottom of it so you take another sip before pressing it back on him.

“Dude,” you say, dropping it on his chest when he attempts to refuse it, “the only thing left is backwash.  It’s all yours.”

He slaps his hand on the waterskin before it slides down his chest.  “What is ‘backwash?’”

“You know,” you say, gesturing in a loose circle, “that last bit of, you know, whatever, in a bottle, when you drink out of it, probably like half your own spit.”

He draws in air and then lets out a long breath before he takes a muffled sniff and wipes at his forehead, a brief smile flashing on his face before he glances back down the hill through the trees.  “Ah, that is new to me.  Indeed generous of you.”

He lifts the waterskin and shakes it over his mouth to get the last of it and you bang on his nearest pec with your open hand.

“Only the best for you, bud,” you say and he finds some way to swallow and chuckle at the same time.

“We will eat somewhat at our next rest,” he says, grinding the wooden stopper back into the waterskin’s neck and you nod, leaning over your outstretched legs before your hamstrings lock up.  Oh god, that feels good on your back.

“Hala?” he asks after he has secured his waterskin to his pack, hiking up a knee and looking like he’s all set to push off the ground and get to his feet.

“Fuck no,” you say, but when he’s up and extending a hand down to you, you take it anyway.  You push off and he pulls and you’re on your feet.

“Come,” he says and pulls you over by the shoulder so that you’re next to him.  He peers out through the trees at the shadows that deepen upon the hills.  A ghostly coin of the moon floats in the blue sky about a hands-width above the horizon to your left.  He nods at it.  “We shall follow the river and press on throughout the night while we have the light.  Once the moon has set and it is at its darkest we shall take some sleep.”

God almighty.  Fuck, you hope you can keep up with him.  You’re going to have to.

“There,” he says, stooping and pointing to a spot in the hills below the moon.  You squint and try to follow his line of sight.  “See you the light upon the water?”

When you grimace, squinting and peering more closely, he tugs at your neck so that his arm points over your shoulder and he is pressed close to the side of your face, his skin tacky with sweat and his beard scratching your cheek.

Oh!  There it is.  Nestled at the bottom of a hill and surrounded by trees along its bank, the faintest spark of light.  Shit, that’s a river all right.

“We shall take our next rest when we reach this point, at the base of the ridge there,” he says, turning you to the right and pointing along a dark line cut into the side of a hill across the valley at your feet.  You’ll be taking the long way around to keep to the trees, but there it is.  One more rest, one more dash, then the river.

“We must tarry no longer,” he says in your ear, his thumb rubbing at the base of your neck, “but take heart, when we reach the end, I shall draw the water and heat it myself for your bath.”

For some reason, it’s this that gets to you.  You sniff and blink and swallow, but still it takes a moment before you can talk.

I mean, yeah, you’re going to need it.  God help you when you wake up from this nap he’s planning in the wee hours of the morning.  You’re going to be so stiff and sore after this he’s going to need a shovel and a wheel-barrel to get you up and moving.  But, shit, the two of you are running from men who want to kill him and the thing that���s most on his mind is breaking the plan down into achievable stages so it isn’t so overwhelming and giving you something to look forward to at the end.

“Yeah, yeah,” you say, “you just want to watch,” and it startles that huff of laughter from him that you were going for.

Giving your shoulder a squeeze before he lets you go, he says with the barest hint of a smile, “Let us be swift, then.”

With that he looks back over his shoulder, squinting into the glare of the sun through the trees behind you, frowning uneasily, before he turns his back to them.

“Come,” he says and points down the hill and to the right through the stand of pines and off you go again.

Down the slope you trot, skimming so close past stands of tall pines their needles brush at your hair.  You try to keep your eyes on the ground, keeping to dry patches or clumps of grass as much as you can.  God knows you don’t want to be the one to leave a clear boot print in the mud for them to follow.  Estel veers off left, dragging you with him.  He curses low, pressing for greater speed when you come upon a meadow of tall grasses the color of straw, skirting about the edge and taking you deeper within the trees.

A shadow passes across you and you glance at Estel as you run, his face grim.  He’s reaching for you and then you’re face down in the bracken behind a fallen tree sliding and inhaling leaf litter, Estel’s body bearing you down and knocking the breath out of you in a huff of air. The faint sound of something skimming through the air to rattle through the branches echoes in your ear.

Shit!

What was that?

You don’t have to wait long for the answer.  Estel’s already strung his bow.  He leaps to his feet, plucking a dark blur out of the air as it speeds over your head and nocks and pulls in one smooth motion, sending the arrow back like a fucking boomerang.

What the fuck!  What the fuck!

The next second, Estel pulls a bundle of arrows from the quiver at his hip and shards of wood explode and clatter against the trees about you as he shoots them in quick succession.  There’s a strangled cry from just beyond where you’re hiding and then shouting.

Shit!  Shit shit shit.

“Get up!” Estel yells at you from where you’re cowering, curled up in a ball trying to protect your head from the shrapnel, loosing shot after shot, the arrows disappearing from his fist like something snatched them from him.  “Hala, now!”

Fuck!

Somehow, you’re on your feet.  Jesus Christ there’s a lot of them.  They’re spread through the woods, flickering light-dark as they cross the trees’ shadows, running down the hill toward you, the red westering sun behind them and throwing their shadows before their feet like they’re giants, the glint of metal in their hands.

“Hala! Run!”

Oh god.  Your feet are rooted staring at them.  You couldn’t move even if you wanted to.  And, god help you, you don’t want to.  Leave Estel? Like this?  Fuck no!

And then Estel has you grabbed up by the front of your tunic.  He shakes you sharply and your teeth clack in your head.

“Do not be a fool!  Go!” he shouts and practically yanks you from the ground and tosses you further down the hill.  “I will be right behind you!”

With that he turns away, drawing his sword and shouting something too distorted for you to make out as you scramble to keep your feet beneath you.

You’re halfway down the hill, slaloming through a pile of leaves and reaching out to keep your balance before you clock that Estel is not anywhere near right behind you. You’ve left him back there, the clang of metal and shouting growing distant behind you.

No!  No no no no nonononononono.  God damn, motherfucking fucker!

And yet your legs keep carrying you farther away.  The sun sets, lighting the trunks of the trees about you a deep crimson.  The sky darkens.  The moon bobs in the sky beyond the stark black limbs of the trees overhead.  Your throat burns with the strain of pulling in air.  There’s a roaring in your ears and you think it’s the rushing of your blood and your tongue is a wad of dry wool in your mouth and you’re hobbling and limping and clutching at the cramp in your side that just will not fucking go away and fuck your body is going to give out any second and collapse on you and then you break through the trees and the ground disappears from beneath you and you careen down a trench of bare soil and rock onto gravel in a hail of stones and dirt.

The moon sails in the open sky.

You gape at it, there bright amidst a sea of stars, twinkling and sharp against the black.

The rushing in your ears drowns out all thought as the ground moves in a whirl beneath your feet.  Dizzy and sucking down air, down you go onto your knees and water splashes, spattering your hands and face and soaking through your pants and tugging at the hem of your tunic where you’re kneeling in the shallows.  The surface shimmers with the light of the moon and water roars and chatters over a bed of stones.

Oh.

Oh god.

The god damn, fucking river.

The river you could have escaped to from Bree weeks ago with no one the wiser, with a whole load of potatoes on your back, with Estel’s gift tucked safely beneath them, if only you’d had the balls to do it.  The one Estel could have taken his time and followed you to and found you waiting for him, instead of dragging you with him and slowing him down as he fought for his life.  The one you couldn’t miss as long as you set out and kept the hills to your right.  But no, you didn’t, did you.  Good job there.  Had to wait for Estel so he could hold your fucking hand like you were a god damn child.

That river.

Shit.

[bigowlenergy]

stuck + lightening

can only describe this as phantom_cringe_comp_ft_electricity.mp4. no angst only Stupid

au where ghosts are feral cats and danny is a tiny menace who keeps needing rescued by the local ghost shelter no details no thoughts head NOT empty full of chaos

X

Since parking his ass firmly on the threshold of death, Danny has done some truly stupid shit. Pulled a couple fast ones on the universe. Did some sick pranks. Partook in a few shenanigans. Had a little fun now and again. Enjoyed himself, even.

So it is only fair for the other end of the stick to smack him in the face eventually.

“Ms. Genevieve, please let me out,” He begs the old woman as she edges her walker around his prone form. She shakes her head sadly at him, huge white curls swaying in pity.

“If you didn’t want to be caught, you shouldn’t have been fooling around, brat.” She says fondly, continuing on her merry way.

“I’ll carry your groceries!” He pleads, wiggling the end of his tail that’s outside the net and trying to track her with his head hanging off the curb. It’s all he can do. Everything else is frozen tight, like he’s full of power and will burst if he moves. He could probably move if he tried really hard, but electricity and Danny have a complicated relationship at the best of times, and even thinking about it too hard right now makes him keen in distress. Ms. Genevieve hasn’t had her hearing aides at a decent volume for the last five years, so Danny feels zero guilt for the half wailing whine that tumbles out of his throat as she abandons him.

It’s not like she knows it’s him - as in, Daniel Fenton, 14 year old human boy who talks to her at the grocery store and engages in egregious amounts of community gossip - but it still stings. Mostly because she’s, like, the third person to walk by so far. The first was Robert Sanchez, harried mail carrier and owner of the most prized weed whacker in town. Then it was Susan Lee, a middle school kid who snapped some pics and ran. People he only knew tangentially, but still.

The garage across the street squeaks as it opens, and Danny waits for the car to finish parking so he can yell at them. Jennifer Yakult makes eye contact, then just blinks and raises Magni from his car seat. Mickey climbs out the passenger side and does a double take. Pulls his phone out of his pocket and crows, loud enough for the entire block to hear,

“Better than a bug zapper, Phantom?”

Danny’s mouth cannot drop open in affront because he is petrified by a ghost animal trap, so he just yells back instead.

“This is harassment!”

Mickey just laughs and keeps his phone up and oh, oh Danny is so going to turn his chair intangible during third period tomorrow, just watch. His mom calls for him to get in the house, heartlessly ignoring the helpless ghost stuck under a ghost trap like a blanket on the concrete across the street.

Okay, now he feels kind of pathetic. Danny musters the willpower to curl his fingers into the netting his hand is caught in and oop. Nope. A weak current of electricity courses through his body like a wave cresting. Fills him to the brim with static. Peaks around his core. Leaves his vision whited out when it fades away softly. His ectoplasm is a nuclear generator and Danny is just surface tension.

Whenever he surfaces, he’s too whacked out on power to notice the shadow hanging over him. He’s also purring. Again.

“Again, Phantom?” A voice bubbles up from a million miles away. Just turn it off, he thinks fuzzily, too overcharged to speak. But maybe he managed it anyway, because the trap shuts off with an abruptness that chokes him.

The fishingline-fine netting should feel like nothing as it’s dragged off him, but in his hypersensitized state it feels like being dragged through concrete. Someone grabs his arms and peels him off the sidewalk, depositing him gently on bare earth and - oh. His keen cuts out instantly.

Danny wriggles his whole body into the gloriously cold and electrically grounding earth like the stupid little ghost worm he is at heart. Phases into the soil and squiggles around in it until he finishes discharging the excess. He still feels like he could power the entire town as a backup generator, but less because he will explode otherwise and more as a side hobby.

Once he feels stable enough to not humiliate himself further, he peeks his head out of the ground. A good sized chunk of Mr. Jhan’s lawn is burned to the quick and a bit torn up from his claws. A squad of GIW are on the sidewalk, snickering at him. One holds a camera.

“You’re welcome, Phantom.” One coos. Danny hisses halfheartedly at them, his whole face burning cold in embarrassment. He flees.

 -

 Danny is not a stupid little baby ghost who can’t handle electricity any more. He’s seventeen! Guiding current and discharging excess power flow is second nature to him now.

It just makes this situation all the more embarrassing.

“We’re almost done, sweetie,” His mom says, petting his hair gently. Danny kind of wants to cry from humiliation. He’s so overcharged that he can’t help the overemotional response to being petted by his mom when he feels this bad, and the nonconductive hazmat helps a little. Everything is too bright and fuzzy, and being upside down doesn’t help with the disorientation any. A whimper slips out at another jolt of movement above him.

“Two more left, Danny-o!” His dad cheers, moving back into his line of sight briefly. He edges around the tree to angle the clippers at another branch. They’re mostly charcoal by now. Tucker sneezes, ash smeared on his cheek, a loop of Danny’s overlong tail laying paralyzed in his hazmat gloves. He’s the only one who can stand still enough to make non-painful contact with Danny in this state, so he’s on detangling duty. Danny loves him so much right now.

“Do you want some dirt?” Sam asks, sounding partially sincere and also like she’s trying not laugh at him but she’s also totally laughing at him. Yes, Danny wants the goddamned dirt. He’s never wanted anything in his entire afterlife so badly.

“Shh,” His mom says, patting his forehead lightly. It feels like his entire body is a bell and her hand is the clapper, which silences Danny’s pissy hissing immediately. Sam pours soil on the frozen loops of his tail and it’s the best thing Danny has ever felt. It’s so good? He loves her, too.

Another jolt jostles him and he hiccups and gets hushed again. The branch that falls too loudly beside him practically disintegrates on contact. The thicker end smolders a bit.

“Alright, last one! Everybody ready?” Tucker begins releasing the loops of Danny’s tail he’s been supporting, which distracts him from everybody else clearing the area. Doesn’t distract him enough to ignore the fucking firetruck.

The final snip to freedom rings out and Danny slides out of the downed tree with agonizing slowness, feeling every tiny twig brush against his skin like needles. He hits the earth and oh, sweet, sweet relief.

He phases into the park soil completely and just. Stays there. Directs the excess electricity out of his overclocked body until he feels stable enough to surface.

He does so invisibly, silently groaning when he finds his parents talking to the chief firefighter. Again. The downed tree is a husk of charcoal and soaking wet, like a sad, abandoned campfire. He really did a number on the grass. Everything smells like smoke and ozone.

Why couldn’t the lightening have just killed him?

[setoandjewel]

Stranger Danger

Ajax is a character I use intermittently but he’s not really a canon character, he just has nice interactions with young Gabriel.

Story: Non-canon. Every kid has that day they get lost at the shops, but for Gabriel it’s a lot more scary than he thought

//////// = time skip

If I just creep down the smallest bit.

Gabriel inched forward and felt the ground sloping beneath him, as the platform of a shoulder gave way to the slippery slope of the completely vertical chest, and directly beneath the young boy, the unstable bag of cloth that was the pocket.

“Hmm, you think this would look good on me?” Seto asked, having filed through a few t-shirts and remaining on one black one. Gabriel mumbled out some kind of bored half response, gripping the fabric his father wore and biting his lip as he prepared for the final jump, he would land in the pocket and then ask for some ice-cream as a reward for his bravery and-

“Hmm, I think I’ll try and find some new robes instead.”

It all happened so quickly. The giant’s action of hanging the shirt back up, twisting on his heel with the arm still outstretched, them dropping it without a thought, had Gabriel thrown from the shoulder, his scream caught in his throat as his lungs were crushed and stomach left far behind. His father…he walked away without noticing, supposing the child had dozed off again. A gram lighter and none the wiser as Gabriel landed hard in a pile of discarded shirts, his light weight and the thick fabric meaning he miraculously survived.

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

The child caught his breath after a few tantalising seconds of being unable to even inhale, lips soundlessly mouthing cries as he saw the figure that was his dad disappear into the crowd. The crowd of giant monolithic people, shoes capable of crushing him flat stomping past without second thoughts as to who was stuck alone on the floor without his daddy. Gabriel’s whole body hurt with a dull pain, his arms and legs were okay, but he whimpered and curled up knowing there was nothing he could do except lie there and cry.

“Daddy…Daddy, where are you?” The child whimpered, screaming when someone brushed too close to the pile and sent him tumbling along with the fabrics, leaving him on the cold tiles and still alone. On the ground that shook with every step that anyone took. Gabriel soon realised he couldn’t move from beneath the rack, because the sheer amount of foot traffic meant it was a fact that he would get fatally trapped beneath a boot if he moved.

What did daddy say to do?

“I can’t…I can’t-“

Gabriel winced at another set of footsteps approaching along with the sound of mumbled singing, the pillar-like legs in pressed black pants settling in front of him. He backed off with a terrified squeak into the dust and dirt of the unswept tile, blocking his ears as the hangers grated along their steel runner, the giant seeming content with rearranging clothes. Another peek let Gabriel spy a bright red top above the pants, along with looming arms moving and sorting at a practised pace.

Who was he?

“Shit. Customers never learn how to hang up their clothes.” The man muttered after catching sight of the pile that had saved Gabriel’s life, the boots stepping towards it as the grating stopped, replaced with a hearty sigh. “Ah, can’t stop yourself, Ajax.”

The human fled further away as the legs bent and the rest of the giant’s body came into view, a scowl on his thin features as the clothes were tucked into the crook of long and freckled arms. That’s when it hit Gabriel, he must’ve been a worker at the clothes shop.

“See those red people, they work here. They know where all the toys are if you want to go check some out later.”

A tuneful hum of the current song halted, the self-proclaimed Ajax pausing in a half-crouch, head cocked toward the sound he knows he heard. It was like the cry of a very small child, easily dismissed as the squeak of a wheel; the chirp of a far-off baby. But something told him it was more than that, and he looked down upon hearing it again.

The creature who made the sound was small, only around 2 and a half inches tall, with dirty knees and arms hugged around a frail form, hair dusty and face upturned to expose large and wet eyes. He was a human, a child.

“H-Hi…”

“C-C-Can you p-please help me?” There was an absolutely minuscule sounding sniffle, and Ajax set his hands on either side of it, a finger extended to nudge the form and watch him recoil with a push at the digit. He was real, there was a real-life child standing before him and asking for help, he wasn’t going mad! Tears dripped down Gabriel’s cheeks and onto the tiles without being wiped away.

“P-P-Please don’t h-hurt m-m-me.”

Ajax blinked a few times, his hands retreated and rested on his knees as he gave an apologetic smile.

“Oh, kid, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. My name is Ajax.”

“I’m Gabriel. And I need to f-find my d-d-daddy Mr Ajax. I…I l-lost him.” Gabriel sobbed, backing away when the hands approached a second time, because he knew that not all giants were like his daddy, not all giants were kind and wanted to help him, in fact, he /really wanted/ to have only his daddy at that moment. But he was alone and weeping in front of a total stranger.

But Ajax’s thin fingers only cupped beneath his feet, hands forming a bowl that held him secure but still against the ground, not attempting to box him in at all. The towering young man gave a lopsided grin, his pale blue eyes shining as a thumb moved to rest a little awkwardly on his apparent client’s back, feeling his heart skip a beat when the defenceless kid responded by whipping around and latching on, burying his face into the pale skin.

"I'll be glad to help."

“T-T-T-T-Thank y-you, Mr A-A-Ajax.”

“It’s just Ajax.” With an attentive look conquering his features, Ajax stood and brought his hands to his chest, watching wide-eyed at the figure smaller than he’d ever seen, so dependent on him. He didn’t care if people were asking for his opinion on the summer sales, this, Gabriel, was his priority. He’d never held a human before, never expected the slight weight the fragile figure had, or the hammering heart he could feel against his finger. But /he/ found the poor kid and would help find his father too.

“You just hold onto me and everything will be okay. We’ll, we’ll find him together, kid.”

“Ok-kay.”

“You see, we have these big speakers and they broadcast all around the store, and…

////////

"My son? Gabriel, is he here?"

Ajax perked up from behind the information desk, watching the figure fiddling with a gummy snake from between the protective walls of his crossed arms do so as well. The man had said Gabriel. He had said son. And by the way his charge hid behind his arms further only confirmed the fact; the mystery man had been found.

“Over here sir.” 

Ajax called, watching a taller man in a t-shirt with shoulder-length brown hair approach them, looking distressed as eyes an unnatural grey colour picked him apart. The employee only opened his arms to reveal the bashful figure, scared that he’d get scolded for running away as well as being equally excited that his father was standing before them.

“I’m so-“

“Gabriel!”

Ajax watched as his new friend was practically snatched from him, Gabriel left with the ‘room’ spinning as the hand squeezed him tight into his chest and fingers became unyielding forms that pinned and smothered him against his giant. The moment he was set free he was given a thorough inspection, limbs swiped over by the warm pads of fingers to check for injury, before kissed his little boy once on the head.

“I’m so sorry, Gabriel. I wasn’t thinking, and I didn’t even notice and you could’ve been hurt, and I was panicking and looking for you and, I’m so, so glad that you’re okay and I found you. I’m so sorry I left you, cap.” The torrent of apologies only ceased with a sigh of burden, the child is given a much softer hug where he draped his arms partway over his father’s quivering shoulder, fingers at his back only supporting his weight.

A look to Ajax had the redhead simply wave his hands in a ‘go on’ motion, Gabriel nodding as he was brought to face his father once more. He had to tell him, he had to say it was his fault in the first place so his Daddy didn’t feel so bad.

“I-It wasn’t your fault, daddy. I was t-t-trying to get into your...your p-pocket so I could imp-p-press you. And I ssslipped and-d fell and-Mr Ajax f-f-found me and he was n-nice for a g-giant.” Gabriel crawled forward to hug into Seto’s chin, feeling the expression sitting above him shift at the new information. “He help-ped me, but it-t was all m-my fault in t-t-the first place!”

“Ajax.”

Was the only thing the sorcerer echoed, hand and Gabriel lowering down to chest height so the giant could march over and grab the man’s hand, shaking it with genuine gratitude and feeling.

“You brought my son back to me,” 

Seto looked down and saw his son had already latched onto him again, snuggling as he found himself at/home/ again. The lines on his hand were familiar, the way he was held was familiar, the smell of his shirt and sound of his voice were the things he’d longed for the entire time they were apart. He didn’t need ice-cream now, he was perfectly fine with a father to hold him high and away from thundering feet. Where he was /safe./

“As a father I could never thank you enough.”

“All in a day’s work, sir. I couldn’t leave the poor kid alone when it was clear he needed his father.” 

Ajax played the humble card, but Seto wasn’t buying it and fished around in his pocket to pull out some money.

“But I have money, or I could put in a good word for you for another job. Whatever you want, just let me repay you properly for saving his life.”

Ajax blushed and gave his trademark crooked smile, swallowing the gummy worm he’d been chewing and scratching the back of his neck. He had been meaning to find a new job at the pet shop...or maybe the daycare was still hiring.

“A reference, would /really/ do me some good, sir.”

—

If you enjoyed please like and reblog as it gets my work out there, and if you’re interested in more with my characters, you can follow!

Thanks xx

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

Kira (12)

CHAPTER 12: Truth Lies in The Eyes

Loki x fem!Reader (Kira)

Series: Will contain fluff, smut, bloodshed, violence, anxiety, tears and the cries of my wilted soul.

Chapter content: okay. So...this is both happy and sad. This is haad.

Warnings: Flirtation. Confessions. Blood.

Word count: I went back to office today and clearly it’s going to take some time time to go back to normal. I’m more concerned about mom though. SHe had her entire day set around grandma. I really need to find something where she can invest her time but I’m not able to think of something

MASTERLIST & Taglist in bio, my love

It is not always that you wake in the morning with the feeling of having experienced a luxurious sleep in not the softest but clean-smelling sheets, not the most expensive but a snug mattress, sounds of birds chirping outside the window, a warm arm resting over your chest, the warmth of the comforter keeping the cold currents at bay while dust bunnies float in the sun rays blessing the room with the most delicate glo-

Now, wait a second.

Loki tries to stir and open his eyes before pausing dead where he lays when he feels your arm rest over his chest while your head lies insufferably close to his own arm, clinging to it. Within the intoxication of sleep, he is reminded of the nights when he would cling to his mother as a child whenever there was a nightmare that prevented him from sleeping. That thought brings out a tender afterglow on his face when he takes the opportunity to wonder if you think him as your safe space- even if it's unconsciously so.

He watches your light breaths, your brows devoid of that unspoken stress you always seem to carry around with you. It's an upgrade for him to watch you sleep in a thunderstorm to waking up to you sleeping in the most peaceful morning. That heavy snoring that's building up reassures him that you are having a trouble-free sleep till a loud thud jerks you awake and forces Loki to pretend to still be sleeping.

"Kira! I'm headin' out. Jane's here!"

Your slumber-laden eyes try to find anything that can tell you what time of day it is and who called out your name before slamming the door so loud. But all you get is the surprise of finding yourself almost lying over Loki- your one arm resting on him while the other arm latches onto his, drool all over his bicep- thankfully covered by his t-shirt- where you lay with your mouth open.

Cursing yourself, you try to wipe away the wetness as discreetly as possible, slowly freeing your hand from under his arm, mouthing a sorry and getting up from the bed to tiptoe to the bathroom, shutting the door and cursing 'shit' loud enough for Loki to hear and smile with his eyes still closed.

.

"So, you know she's out on a date?"

"Mm-hmm."

"With Billy Russo?"

"Hmm."

"And you are...?"

"...eating my brunch?"

Solaris thwacks Loki with the newspaper, making him give out a sarcastic 'ouch' without even twitching while she tries to burn him alive with her stare.

"How thick can you be?" She snaps.

Loki wrinkles his brows at her before going back to his newspaper. "I don't know what you're talking about, Solaris," he simply states, relaxing into his chair.

"Do not 'I don't know what you're talking about me', Loki. I've seen the way you look at her. I'm just surprised someone as meticulous as you has to be shown that you have a thing for her." Solaris throws her napkin on the table and takes one good sip of her wine.

Loki's eyes go away from his paper to her. He sighs and folds the paper neatly before picking up his glass of wine. "What makes you think I don't know what I'm going through?"

Solaris can't help but cock a brow at him. She is contemplating her thoughts but everything is ending up in her hitting him with a newspaper again. "Then what the fuck are you doing sitting here?"

Loki takes in one measured sip of the juice. "Solaris, it's not for me to choose who she likes. I cannot decide for her."

This makes her tilt her head with a faint smile and narrowed eyes. "Really? And what assurance can you give me that you will be fine once she makes Russo her choice."

The juice is twirled a bit as those ocean eyes are fixated on them before contents are gulped down. "I've been fine till now, haven't I?"

Solaris chuckles. "Oh, Loki."

"What?" He is genuinely confused at the humour she's finding in this context.

"Why do you think I left Wakanda when I decided to be your ally?"

.

"I thought you changed your mind."

The glow on Billy's face melts you a little. It is heart-warming to see him light up when he sees you walk into the cafe that oddly seems to be deserted for a place that's housing thousands of people on the last day of the expo. Billy takes you to the table by the lake, drawing out the seat for you before settling down opposite you.

"Best seat in the house. With an equally amazing view. Though clearly not as beautiful as the one sitting in front of me," he declares, making you let out an uncomfortable smile.

A violin plays a sombre melody at a distance on the platform by the lake- you're guessing just for you. Waiters bring out entrées, setting them down the table and disappearing just as they came. Not at all creepy.

"I took a little liberty in deciding the menu. Really wanted you to try the best," he mentions before getting up to open the wine.

"Oh, no. I don't-I don't drink wine," you state quickly, not wanting him to waste something so seemingly expensive on you who didn't even know the first thing about them.

"Something else, then? Mojito? Caipiroska? A long Island?"

"I'm good. Thanks. Really."

Minutes pass as Billy pulls you in his conversation, making you giggle- and eventually laugh- as he narrates his past days and the horribly humourous decisions he made.

"Wow," you chortle, "I am surprised you are even alive right now, Russo!"

"Trust me, so am I," he chuckles.

You pick at your ravioli, the smile still plastered on your face while Billy is studying you intently.

"I really wish I had more time to get to know you, Kira. I've never seen someone sit through my stories as you did today," he giggles.

"Well, I'm sure we'll meet on another such expo or big event soon," you add with a smirk.

His head now rests on his fist, his dark eyes staring at you with some melancholic emotion till you ask what he is looking at.

"What do you think of me, Kira?"

You stop chewing to gulp down your food, having not really expected that question. "I think you're charming, Billy. You really know your way around people. And you certainly know how to treat a woman good. Which comes to me thanking you for lunch today. It was amazing but you didn't have to put so much effort into it. Though I'm guessing this is quite normal for you."

That's when you see him blush.

"I-It's not," he stutters, moving his hands through his hair, catching your eyes by the nervous movements. "This is the...erm...first time. For me."

"Oh." You don't have much to say to that.

"Well, if it helps, it's the first time for me too," you simply shrug.

"No," he exclaims.

"Yeah, no need to pretend."

"No, I am serious! How have you been single till now?" Billy is genuinely interested to know.

"Well, clearly I can't ever think of teaming up with Loki for a business," he states, making you furrow your brows and scoff, "he simply does not know what he's missing out on."

"Hey, I'm still is assistant!"

"My point exactly!"

"W-no! You idiot! That's not what I meant! Oh, my-I'm sorry for calling you an idiot."

"I appreciate the honesty, darling," he asserts before both of you burst into giggles.

"So..." Billy continues once the laughter dies down, "have you ever considered working anywhere else?"

"Hm?"

"Working with something else. I'm sure you had something in your mind before you ended up at Sun Corp."

You take a swig of your juice to avert your gaze. "Not really. No. I just had a few hobbies. But that's what they're. Hobbies."

"So, you like it there? At Sun Corp?" Now Billy is trying to avoid your gaze.

"Mm. It's g-"

"Would you like to come with me?"

The eye-lock is momentary but you know what he is trying to say. And you, on the other hand, sit there mouth agape, processing his words and all the possible scenarios inside your head.

"Billy...I-"

"I'm sorry to interrupt the lunch, Mr Russo," a familiar voice calls out from behind you. You turn around to watch Robert giving you his signature smile. He clearly has no idea what timing he has. "May I have a word with you, ma'am?"

You're scraping the legs of the chair before he has even finished his sentence. You excuse yourself and walk away, knowing Robert would never interfere with your personal time if it wasn't something very important.

"Everything okay?" You ask him with genuine concern. Robert doesn't stop walking. So, clearly neither can you. He takes out a folder from his jacket pocket and gestures you to have it.

"The Adachis are clear. They're an honest business. Showered with respect even from the Yakuza."

You open the file and look through the findings; which are as normal as a family with constant scrutiny and wealth can be.  "That's amazing. But why are you running by me? I'm sure you have a direct line with Loki."

Robert wets his lips and analyses the surroundings out of habit. "This is your project. I'm just contributing. My work is to dig up dirt and hand over the worms to the person who knows what to do with them."

You raise your brow at him. "...okay. Weird analogy but okay."

Robert's phone chimes and he takes it out to see the incoming message.

Call it a stroke of luck or misfortune, for you see the screen open to find a picture of the man- too familiar to go unnoticed- with the caption 'the job's done', right before Robert taps it close and returns his attention towards you.

"Why don't take the file and go over to the chalet? I'll meet Loki there in...five minutes?"

Robert nods and turns around to walk away, leaving you with a million questions inside your head.

"Everything alright, Kira?"

Billy's voice is too close to you, and if that's not enough, you feel his breath right on the hairs on your ears, forcing you to turn around and look him directly in those heavy pupils.

"Yeah, everything's fine. I just have to go take care of something," you state as casually as you can.

"Is it necessary to go?"

You blink and open your mouth to speak but then your eyes get stuck to his. The crisp blackness of those eyes wanting to engulf you inside them and keep you here forever; wanting to play with you more, already hearing you call out his name.

And something hits you at that moment.

"Yes. It is... necessary to go," you hear yourself saying, "Goodbye Mr Russo."

.

"What about those two companies you were looking at earlier? Anvil Corp and-"

"Kira hit a dead end with those two. Though we could consider investing in-"

"Don't invest in Anvil Corp."

Your sudden announcement through the front door is a surprise for both Solaris and Loki who sit on the breakfast table discussing their potential market as well as investors.

"Kira," Solaris turns to you, "why do you think that? Russo has a gold star business."

You try to catch your breath all the while trying to stay poised. Your eyes catch the confusion in Loki's before going back to Solaris. "I don't trust that man. I wouldn't want you to trust any part of your hard-earned business with him."

The faint brakes in your voice are clear to Loki's ears. His instincts are broiling up, knowing something happened.

"The Adachis on the other hand-"

Your words are interrupted as Heimdall walks in and stops to stand by you.

"What." Loki isn't very happy to see him for he usually is the bearer of bad news.

"The Adachis want to talk business with you."

Loki, Solaris and you look at Heimdall as if they heard it wrong the first time. "Apparently Megumi loved something about you two. So she's willing to get into business with you...two."

"Him and Kira?" Solaris wants to be clear. Heimdall nods.

"Wow. No mention about me?" Solaris asks sarcastically, to which Heimdall simply shrugs.

Everyone looks at Loki and he simply shares a thoughtful look with them before taking in a lungful of breath, turning everyone to the metaphorical edges of their seats.

"Alright. Let's talk to the Adachis today and sign it," he declares, getting up and buttoning his jacket.

Everyone seems delighted with the idea. Everyone except you. Loki seems to notice it better than anyone. You seem happy but the joy does not seem to reach your eyes.

"What do you think?" Loki asks you once everyone's gone to pack up their stuff and the two of your remain to get your things in order.

"About what?" you ask him. You truly seem to be missing in the room.

"The business deal."

"Oh! I think it's great. I don't think there would be a better company to tie up with. Except the Stark Industries, of course."

"Kira I-"

"Yeah, I know you have your issues with Tony. I get it," you raise your hands in defeat.

Loki smiles and goes back to putting your jacket- the one he wore- into your bag, while you stand there with your back to him, contemplating your next few words all the while trying to fold your trousers.

"I have a question to ask."

Loki looks up from your luggage. "Shoot."

"Will you ever let me know before you make a decision that affects me in some way?"

Now he's confused.

"Like affects you and me in some way. Our work relationship...in some way."

Loki does not know what you're thinking, but all he can think about is this morning when he made the choice of letting you sleep over his arm while he enjoyed the unspoken comfort you brought him. Was that creepy of him?

"Of course."

"Really?"

"Yes."

Something inside you cracks.

"Thank you for being honest with me."

.

"Everything okay?"

The meeting with the Adachis where Tony and Pepper where present seems like a trance. Everything had gone smoothly. Now, you sat in the jet on your way back home.

Loki's home, you found yourself correcting your own thoughts.

"Yeah," you whisper, never turning to Loki, instead looking out the window at the orange and pink hues that dusk was painting on the clouds, "everything's fine."

"You have been quiet through the entire trip," Loki states, his hands busying themselves in the magazine in front of him in order to pull up a nonchalant pretence. He even noticed how you'd not touched your meal nor caught a shut-eye throughout the flight.

The captain announces over the speaker to fasten the seatbelts for the landing

"Why does that bother you so much?"

The sting in your voice reaches Heimdall and Robert in the back, who share a look with each other before turning towards an equally confused Loki.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Harrison Wardwell."

The name brings a torrent of realisation over the three faces, like washing away a mask of intimacy for you.

"I'm guessing by the looks on all of your faces, you know exactly what I'm talking about. What did you do with him? Got him demoted? Sacked? Or something worse?"

The plane tilts for the landing. What is worse than the fear of the height right now is the fact that your voice does not rise even once.

Neither of the men speaks.

"None of you have the right to avenge me. None of you. And you, Loki Odinson, have no right to make decisions for me. I hope you understand that by the time this plane lands."

The plane hits the tarmac and goes the length of the runway before coming to a halt- the runway journey seeming like an eternity for these men- when you're the first one to unfasten yourself from your seat and get up.

"Kira, listen to me," Loki nearly commands, taking your arm in his light grasp.

"What did you do with him?" Is all you ask him.

He cannot look away from your eyes because you are holding him there, forcing the truth out of him. And for all he knows, he's already lost you.

"He's been fired."

"And?"

"..."

"And!"

"He will be charged before the end of the day."

Your arm slips away from his grasp and he watches you walk away, not knowing what to do.

"Kira!"

His voice falls on deaf ears.

"Robert," he declares, sending the man down to escort you. Anger rages through his blood at the chutzpah you display by walking away from him.

How dare she?!

You walk out the exit.

I am above her.

Your strut shows no sign of doubt.

She is supposed to do as I say. She is supposed to live as I tell her to!

You disappear from his view, leaving him standing there with Heimdall telling him to do the same.

Then why does it hurt?

.

"I need to go to the office."

Robert looks in the rearview mirror at your face looking out the window. He is waiting for you to ask him or say something that would indicate how mad you are at him.

You do look at him finally. "I can take a cab if you don't feel like it."

Maybe not yet.

The car is driven to the office building devoid of conversation. You get out without any word about when you might come back. Robert gets out to escort you in but you refuse. He tries to reason with you but the request is just words in the wind as you walk inside the building.

The night has already fallen and the summer loo has turned into a full-blown chilly fall wind. Robert waits in the parking lot, pacing to and fro-not really bothered by the chill- looking at his watch and his surroundings. You were not supposed to know. This was not supposed to go this way. No matter what reason he comes up with, in no scenario are you content with the outcome till he realises it really was not their decision to make.

A tired sigh leaves his lips and his eyes close in a small prayer. The faintest sound from one direction catches his attention. He looks at that side of the parking lot but is disappointed that it's not you. It's no one really. The corner is dark, dimly lit by the lamps in the centre of the lot. Your reaction really has him on edge right now.

He takes in a lungful and starts to walk in the direction of the sound to see if there's anyone there. But the clack of your boots is easily recognised by him, forcing him to turn in your direction and escort you back to the vehicle.

"Kira," he calls out for you softly, watching your six- well, the entire three-sixty, really- while trying to get you to talk to him, "I beg you to please listen to me just this once."

"I think enough's been said and done, Robert," you spew back, never turning around or slowing down your pace.

"Kira, please. If you've ever considered me a well-wisher, a friend, you need to know it wasn't Loki's fault. He just wanted t-"

You do turn around. You turn around enough for Robert to see the faint crisp dust bunnies of the chilly night lined up right to face your chest and later your back in a faded red hue.

"Is that what you people do? Protect him fr-"

You turn around for him to not let you finish your words when he is looking at you with an expression you cannot place within the next few seconds while he grabs you in an unbreakable hold, forcing you down with him. You turn around to fall down when you hear something like a cracker going off in the silent night as Robert lands over you, his arms still securing you.

You can feel the gravel scrape your arm and leg. You can hear the sirens go off around you. You can feel the floodlights sting your blurred eyes. You can sense the heaviness upon you as you try to get up and move Robert to help him up.

But nothing in the world readies you for the wetness over your chest that comes from the red colouring Robert's shirt before gathering into a pool below the two of you.

[locienne]

Waterworld 2: Electric Boogaloo

Kevin Costner – I mean Waterworld – turned his face towards the horizon. The salt breeze hit him full in the face, but instead of finding it an unpleasant sensation, he relished it. He’d spent his entire life on the wild seas and had grown, not only accustomed to his wet habitat, but fond of it even. As people once lived off the earth alone, he lived off the sea, and was grateful for any bounty he received. He turned the rudder with an orange, muscley arm. As his shitty raft made a gradual arc towards the east, the sun glinted off the scalp to be seen underneath the sparse hairs of Kev- I mean, Waterworld’s – head.

‘I wonder what adventure I’ll find past the horizon,’ Watercostner pondered to himself. It was the sort of fanciful thoughts he only indulged in after a good haul. The breeze rustled through his little lime tree, and the citrus scent that it brought made him smile.

He hoisted his sails and battoned down the hatches, as was befitting a sailboat – even one as fuckin’ l337 at his was. The wind was faint, but strong enough to carry him on his way. There was a settlement three days East, or so he’d heard. He would be able to trade some dirt and urine, then feast like a King while they threw their dead bodies into shit water, or whatever it was that non-gilled people did.

Though he was bound to come away with a good haul, his heart was still heavy with the thought of interacting with the non-mutant heathens. He felt probably a lot like Magneto does around all those basic bitches that aren’t mutants. You see, our surly and unlikely protagonist had something that set him apart from most people. He wasn’t like other girls. Kevinworld happened to have gills, a rare mutation that only came from at least like 3 generations of OCs living on the post-apocalyptic waterscape. One might think that gills would be an envied trait, incredibly advantageous in a world void of land. Yet those with this specific trait were widely hated and reviled.

That was why he grew his sparse hair long and awkwardly combed. If anyone saw his ear gil-ginas, well, he shuddered to think what the reaction would be. The wind started to kick up, and Kevinwatercostworld settled in.

The settlement was a dirty place, and had he any choice he would have avoided it like the plague they were no doubt cultivating. But he managed to force a smile, when a handsome man approached him.

He was the most handsome commune-farer that Kevin Waterslide had ever seen. His sparse hair caught the breeze, his 7:14PM o’clock shadow dusted his jaw, and his eye-colored eyes caught the light transcendently.

‘Water you doing?’ he thought to himself with annoyance. ‘He’s just a gill-less person who can’t swim and breathe at the same time and shit.’

“Hi,” said the guy in a deep baritone that made WorldofWater shiver sexfully. “The name’s Gil.”

“Gil”, he repeated back to him, in that weird quasi-southern drawal he picked up from god knows where. He stroked his almost-beard and eyed him up and down. His heart rate increased ever so slightly which caused his gills to flap. He blushed and thrust out a not-webbed hand and informed him, “I’m Seaworld. I came here to trade my urine and dirt and precious limes for some potable water and penicillin.” Gil grasped his hand in a firm, uh, grasp, and shook it firmly.

‘Come on outta there you big, nasty animal you,’ WatersMcCost thought at Gil’s cock. But instead he listened to what Gill had to say.

And what Gil had to say was, “Cool.”

Then he winked, and Kevin Waters’ gills throbbed painfully. ‘Stop it,’ he scolded himself. “I’ll only be a few hours, but then I have to leave for a plot point.”

“What’s the hurry?” Gil purred, leaning in close. “Because that urine smells great, and I feel like you’ve got some orifices I’d like to put my phallis into side of.”

Well, maybe he could put that plot point off a litter longer. After that Gil took Watercrest to his boatroom, and fucked his gills, then fisted his gills, then fucked his ass which produced its own lubrication. Gil spurted so much seamen inside of him, that Kevin was worried the worm babies would be born.

But then they kissed, and started talking about getting married.

Fin.

[sick-raven]

Ghosts of the Present - Chapter 6

Chapter 1 + warnings

AO3

Previous chapter

Chapter 6

Nygma’s plan was amazing, simply superb! He created a set of traps not even the biggest geniuses could solve! Sharp spikes, electric fences, guns, that all wrapped neatly behind puzzles and riddles. Not even the greatest detective will get to him!

Great victory for the Riddler! He could celebrate now, but he decided to keep it for later. He will dance to mock the Batman! He will show all of them his superiority! Jump on his grave! Livestream it to all homes, to the whole world! He could almost taste the victory. The Riddler, man who took down the Bat!

“Nygma!”

Edward turned around, shocked.

“W-What?”

Dark shadow was approaching him, held him at gunpoint.

How!? Impossible! Nobody was supposed to get here!

He yelped as Banshee held the gun to his neck and pinned him to the wall. There was blood all over her face, not hers. She was muddy, bleeding, shirt on left arm torn, clean cut under the tear. She had maniacal look in her eyes.

“B-Banshee, you shouldn’t be here,” he stuttered.

“I had a baaaad day, Nygma, you better talk,” she hissed. “Where is the League?”

“I-I don’t know, I wasn’t told!”

She painfully pushed the gun more to him. He chocked.

“I really…”

“You are the genius; you better start using your brain!”

“Agh! Killer Croc knows sewers u-under Narrows! They wouldn’t ask for his help anywhere else!”

“That’s still miles to search.”

“I can’t give you more, Banshee, I don’t know, I swear!” he wheezed.

She clenched her teeth angry and took away the gun. Edward stumbled, holding his neck. The fear left him as fast as Banshee let him go, instead anger caught him. She ridiculed him in front of his mental audience!

“You bitch, you will pay for this!”

“Shut your trap, Nygma, your puzzles are stupid.”

***

They caught up with her at toyshop. Bad for them – her arsenal was there, hidden properly in the backroom. Miranda got out with just a few bruises. She was considering her options.

How to get out of the city fast and unseen?

Where should she go so the League won’t find her?

Now they knew she was alive, will she ever be safe?

Two guns, some bullets. A dagger, a sword. And five sound mines. She was horribly underprepared for anything. Running is the best option.

Hunted forever.

“No,” she whispered. “No, it’s not worth it.”

Khulan will never stop the hunt. Master was the most headstrong person in existence. Failure wasn’t an option and Miranda being alive was evidence of Khulan’s mistake. She will want to erase Miranda under any circumstances.

Master must die.

So must Jonathan.

Now in the sewers she started to doubt her decision. Whatever she was going to do, results were the same. Miranda will die here. If she doesn’t drown in shit, she will get killed by the League, or eaten by the Croc, or her body will just give up after long torture.

She carried on anyways. Stank of sewers was horrible. Narrows were the worst part of the city, so she imagined even the sewers will hold this prime. A ghetto, full of drug dealers, addicts, poor people, everyone in one big pile of misfortune and dirt, couldn’t have nice sewage. And at the top of that all, like the king of the hill – Arkham Asylum.

Whatever curse left Arkham, it rooted in Narrows, making it worse every day. Miranda kept away from Narrows unless work called her here. Not that she was a coward; she just considered it stupid to walk into shark’s mouth willy-nilly.

Or Croc’s mouth.

After what felt like forever she reached an enclave with something looking like a nest, and smelling like rotting butcher’s shop. Pieces of furniture, newspapers, feathers, that all almost neatly built into bedding. Miranda coughed, the source of the smell was pile of rotting bodies in the corner. Ha, not a butcher’s shop, but the butcher.

“Croc!” she shouted. “Where are you?”

Is that your plan?

Do you have better one, reason? I’m listening.

…

I thought so.

She walked at the end of the tunnel. No signs of giant crocodile. He might be anywhere in this maze. So might be the League. Fucking hell, Europe would be beautiful this time of year. She would visit vineyards in France and then Germany. She’s heard that Bavaria is great. Sun, meadows, booze, no stink or dark places. She’d drink whole day, she would sing and get to know new people. This time she would find someone who isn’t paranoid. Someone normal. If anyone normal would have her.

Disruption of the water caught her attention.

Second later a monster leaped from the depths, maw ready to gnaw Miranda alive.

Miranda jumped out of the way. Croc hit the wall and stayed visible out of water. Yellow fish eyes staring right at her. He growled. Miranda had to convince every nerve in her body to not start shooting.

“Waylon Jones,” she said and kept her distance as Croc drew nearer to her. “I’m sorry to disturb you. I am looking for the League.”

“What’s in it for you, fresh meat?” he grumbled.

Woah, a compliment! What a gentleman! Maybe she could date cannibal crocodiles!

Focus!

“I’m looking for Scarecrow.”

“Of course you are.”

Miranda contemplated her surroundings. Croc has been trying to corner her slowly. So far she always slipped to side tunnel, but this dance cannot go on forever. Act, Miranda!

“I want to kill him. Do you wanna tell me where he is?”

Croc had no interest at all. Drool dropped from his mouth.

“And the League too. Imagine the amounts of meat when I am done with them!”

“Mmm,” agreed Croc eyeing her.

Yeah, no…

“Tell me where they are, or I will blow your fucking brain out!”

“I won’t.”

He jumped her again grunting loudly. Miranda stumbled on wet bricks, took out the gun and shot at that bloody, monstrous face. Croc screamed and fell into the water.

“The bigger they are…”

He disappeared.

“Fuck!”

Miranda looked around dark muddy water. Where is he? Did he swim away? Is he waiting?

Carefully and slowly she moved. What now? What were here options other than being a lunch?

Lunch?

Gun still ready she made her way back to the nest. There was one clue she needed to investigate. The rotting bodies kept there were in different stages of decay. Bright vests of sewer workers were drenched in blood and moved as worms ate the meat. Next corpse was police officer – wait, no. The uniform of the freshest corpse has visible A on it. Miranda looked closer. Arkham guard.

Arkham? Could the League operate under the asylum? Jonathan once told her the building had very deep foundation, reaching into a cave system hidden under the city. Rumours were that the founders of the asylum went little crazy themselves and used the underground for a lot of weird things.

Splash! Water behind her rose in wave and Croc grabbed her by shoulders. Miranda ducked and slipped away, Crocs claws cut her. She yelped, ignored the bleeding and shot at him again. Croc laughed as if the bullets were just annoying flies.

“You are trespassing, meat!”

Miranda gasped for breath and ran. One lady ninja is faster than one giant crocodile, right?

Waves following her spoke different.

“Fuck!”

Ladder! She jumped on it and started climbing.

Giant hand caught her leg.

“No!” Miranda slipped, stopped her fall by hanging by the elbow. Screaming. Croc was pulling hard, claws deep in her meat. He will tear her leg off!

In last effort, she activated the mine and threw it. Croc screamed in shock. In the tunnel the sound echoed of the walls. He let go off her leg. Miranda climbed out, the noise followed and then it end abruptly as Croc destroyed the bell.

Street! Fresh air! Miranda stumbled out, on the verge of fainting. Run! Hide! She got to the closest dark alley, blood oozing from her leg. Fuck! Way to alert whole League, Miranda! Banshee, but this time, you will be the one dying! Stupid bitch! Couldn’t you make your weapons any louder?

She tore off her sleeve and patched the leg. That stopped the worst bleeding. Miranda sat by the wall fighting the pain. Her body burnt, her leg pulsated… And you want to face the League like this? You are insane!

She couldn’t stay at one place for long. Moaning, she got up, limping through the street. Her wound made her an easy target, but sword on her back stopped anyone from bothering her.

Somehow, she made it to the asylum. No assassin was waiting at the gates of the area. There were three buildings connected to each other, all in typical Gotham style. Dark, broody, only thing missing was rain, evil lightning, and Adams family.

No wonder Jonathan liked to work here. It was perfect environment. Fear inducing. Patients had to hate it.

Fuck Jonathan, he can die!

Miranda climbed the fence, not sure where she wants to go. The property was silent, eerie in cold air. What now? Will you just walk and demand they let you underground? Elevator ride to hell!

Calm down. Take it one step at the time.

Step one – find a guard.

Step two – make them take you down.

Step three – don’t die.

Miranda limped to the entrance. No way she can hide herself effectively like this. For a while maybe. Not properly.

Behind the glass in the office sat a guard. She was well built dark lady and she looked at Miranda intensely. The closer Miranda got, the worse feeling she had. Right at the glass she understood why.

The look was empty. Pupils dilated. The guard was drugged.

“Hi,” tried Miranda.

Nothing.

“I am from the League, understand?” she continued.

“Yes,” agreed the woman.

“Take me to… my leader.”

Guard smiled and opened the caged door with a buzz. Miranda amazed by the situation followed. “Wait,” she realized. “Do you have something for pain?”

Ten minutes later they were in the elevator and Miranda could finally stand at least bit straight. She couldn’t believe her luck, but she didn’t celebrate just yet. Drugged guard was evidence of the League being here. Down, down, down we go to the belly of the beast!

The light of the elevator buttons showed the last floor – basement, but the elevator kept going. Miranda swallowed, throat stiff. The lower they went, the more terrified she got.

The door opened.

Any fight Miranda had, left her. She sighed and leaned her back on the elevator wall.

“Welcome, Miss Bradbury,” said the Demon’s head. “I’ve been expecting you.”

***

“Sit down.”

In silence she did what the Demon’s head ordered. Ra’s sat across her. They walked here through foundations of the asylum. Long pillars and cat walks brought them to this cave that was already turned to sort of living quarters. League members were breaking a wall at the far end in perfect rhythm as if they all attended a music seminar.

They didn’t even bother taking her weapons That’s what she was for them. Useless. Safe. This broken tool won’t hurt anyone. Definitely not the Demon’s head.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” he started.

“Hardly.”

“Master Khulan agreed your hunt with me, you can say I know you better than yourself.”

Miranda rubbed her eyes. “And?”

“I wanted to see the legend herself. You survived the survival’s curse and avoided us for a decade. I must say, I am disappointed with your approach.”

“I didn’t come here to impress.”

“Why did you come?”

“To kill Khulan.”

Rhythmical beating of hammers and pickaxes echoed through the cave. Ra’s looked their way from time to time in anticipation. This closely he looked like friendly uncle. Miranda smirked under that idea. Friendly uncle ready to destroy your soul.

“Curious, isn’t it, what is one person ready to sacrifice for their goals,” Ra’s said eyes pinned on the wall. “You came here ready to die just so you reach peace.”

“And you?”

“That’s it, isn’t it? Why did I come here?”

“To destroy the city.”

Ra’s smiled. “If only life was this simple.” He turned back to her and she realized he is… old. The wrinkles around his eyes got deep, the whites were ugly yellow colour, his lips pale and cheeks lost his shape. Ra’s al Ghul was dying.

“I will let you fight Khulan. Under her own rules.”

Next chapter

[archivalwrite]

hope im here before worm is BUT ALL OF THE HEADCANON ASKS DO IT!!!

🙠 ⊰ RANDOM QUESTIONS 

                                                ———— ( headcanons ) ———— 

What do you like to drink on a hot day?

already answered !! xx

What do you like to drink on a cold day?

❛ ah shit, this one is a bit more important. unlike hot weather, cold weather really does affect me in my day to day life. hence the layers.. well on days like that, i usually carry around a thermos or two of simple hot coffee or even hot chocolate. anything to keep myself warm, yknow? ❜

What was the last thing you ate?

❛ mm, i think it was? a corndog or a simple steak chunks. yknow, something meaty or bloody. ❜

Hear any good jokes lately?

❛ depends what counts as a good joke. i know a pretty bad one though that makes me chuckle- ❜ ahem ❛ what did the fish say when he swam into a wall? dam-❜

What do you feel like when you’re in love?

❛ in love? hm… i don’t know, i suppose you feel flighty? bubbly? like being around the person of your affection makes you feel unspeakable amounts of joy. i’ve never…. i’ve never been in love, so i couldn’t tell you how it is to be like that. doubt i ever will be able to tell ya how i feel when in love. ❜

What is something that warms and comforts you?

❛ …. my parka. or well, it did, before it… — let’s just move on. ❜

What is something you can definitely do without?

❛ ugh, honestly? i can definitely live without tuna, it’s nasty. ❜

Got an antagonist in your life?

❛ … … … … … … … . .  ❜

❛ the prince .. ❜ 

Do you wear hats?

❛ yeah sometimes. kind of an odd question though ❜

What’s a fear you have?

❛ …. that’s a loaded question. i suppose the first fear that comes to mind is- .. is my fear of closed spaces. closes, wrapped snuggly in blankets or in the trunk of a car ,, or more specifically, being trapped in a coffin 6 feet below. mean, guess it makes sense, since that’s how i woke up, right?  ❜

Anything you wish you could have done differently in your life? 

❛ not died? is that an option i can chose? ha,,,, hm…. i don’t feel too comfortable about this question because what i want to say is rather, scathing. unfair, one could say. ❜

What’s something you wish you could do?

❛ hmm, good question. i suppose i wish i could remember my past, know if brian is my actual name or what my life was like. know why i know and speak other languages despite barely being able to multiply 4 by 13. which is 52 by the way. i checked. ❜

Do you like children?

❛ yeah, course i do. i don’t want any, i don’t want kids, but i like em. ❜

Have you loved and lost?

❛ no, no can’t say i have. ❜

What would a terrifying nightmare for you be like?

❛ oh, guess it would be back in the box, unable to get out and any break in the wood i made, just caves dirt in on me. nothin big right, but horrifying.. ❜

Got a favorite food?

❛ blue rare steak- or even just raw steak. i’m drooling at the image of it. ❜

What kind of music do you listen to?

already answered ♥ XX

Is there anything you simply cannot stand?

❛ when people do not respect consent. like the princes constant attempts to marry people around the school despite people telling him no. it’s exhausting. ❜

Mornings or evenings?

❛ evenings. i prefer evenings over mornings, can’t explain why. ❜

What would be your dream house?

❛ easy, a small cottage in the woods, one main story with a loft, where my bed, a desk and bookshelf is. downstairs has a small kitchen, and a fireplace, with a small sitting area. it’s got it’s own heating, the outside is has ivy crawling up the walls, around the small bay window looking over a distant lake. there’s a small covered area on the side, where i can cut firewood and store it so it won’t get wet in the winter and fall. when people come over, they can go down the small path to the lake, the small dock where i can fish. it’s quiet, i get all the space i need and,… it’s a free hunting ground. ❜

What is a smell that’s absolutely horrible to you?

❛ perfumes, inceanse, body spray the likes.candles are slightly on the list as well. anything with a heavy smell usually affects me, since i can be kind of sensitive to smells. zombie biology i’m guessing.. ❜

Any bad habits?

❛ oh uh, well, i suppose i could say i smoke, that’s a pretty bad habit right? since it can affect people around me with how addicitive it can be, though i am trying to quit. mm i sometimes disappear without a trace and don’t contact people set pieces of paper on fire and drop it into the sink. there’s been a few times where i pick at my skin too. not to really hurt myself, but because i can. ❜

What would be an average day for you?

❛ an average day? hm, wake up, fall out of bed, get ready and head out for school, pet the cat i found sleeping in a tire, i call him lugnut, do school shenigans with oz, vicky and amira. after school im either in the library with faith for a tutor session, on the stage in the auditorium to practice lines with liam, or on the pitch with scott and the wolfpack. then i head home, and once again, day depending, i go to work after an hour. then i go home, eat then go to bed. exciting i know. ❜

Are you wanted by law enforcement?

❛ wouldn’t you like to know weatherboy? ❜

Do you have people you can count on when things get tough?

❛ damn fucking right i do! oz, vicky and amira. they’ve been with me since year 1. don’t think i would have gotten this far without em. course i also got people like scott too, scott’s pretty much someone i can count on, no matter what. ❜

[sssuperbartola]

Drastic Measures - Part One

kinda angsty, kinda lemonish at the end, a drizzle of comic stuff and a lil’ bit of softness on the side. Enjoy!

Rated K+ for language 

“Motherfucker!”

If she hadn’t already recognized the blaring voice from across her home’s backyard, then the cacophony of stuff being slammed on the ground from just outside her house definitely proved who was awake in the early hours of the morning in the whole house, if not in all the neighborhood even.

Dragging a long sigh of exasperation, Kagome slowly rose from her soft pillows to then sit on her side of the futon she and her loving, caring - and currently loud husband - shared, then proceeded to mentally prepare herself for the imminent tasks: wake up her brain and give her hanyou a piece of her mind on how to not wake up people.

Not a single ray of sun had made its way into the house yet, the air still lingering with the fresh but humid smell of the previous night, a mixture of wet grass and stingy resin which broke through the only wooden window of that section of the house. A light chill suddenly shocked Kagome from her last ounce of slumber and, securing the front of her yuka, she stood up from her beddings and waddle on cold feet towards the fire area to see if she could start a fire. All the while, the noises from outside never ceased, but they were more and more replaced from lewd curses and shouts.

“Why won’t you fucking stay up!? Ahhrg! Goddammit, piece of shit wood!” Inuyasha kept going, then proceeded to slam something heavy on what one would assume were logs of trees.

Kagome deeply inhaled some air to calm herself before she got herself to throw a shout as well. She halted her steps as soon as she glanced over the other side of the room where the suikan of Inuyasha’s firerat laid all crumpled and tangled on the floor. Kagome rose a curious eyebrow at the unusual sight, it was not like him to be separated from his only piece of clothing he ever wore, especially if he had to go in the crisp air of the morning like today. Another cold draft broke through the frame-built wall and Kagome had to suppress a small whimper while she miserably attempted to fasten again her night yuka; as she glanced again at the firerat, she resolved that, since he didn’t probably need it, she might as well make some use of it while she waited for the house to heat up. After all, he was the one with demonic blood, a bit of cold won’t kill him unlike her.

Circling the fire pit in the middle of the room, she quickly bend to grasp the fabric and then just as quickly draped it over herself, her small frame not even managing to fill in the large sleeves of the suikan but that was not a problem at all for Kagome, given that now it was five times warmer than before. She loved to wear his firerat from time to time, and so did Inuyasha, who always felt a spike of pride when seeing her wife adorned in his coat, even more, if it was just his coat she was wearing. It was a habit she picked up during the quest of hunting shards, especially after a rather violent battle where she almost got herself dangerously hurt. Inuyasha would sit close to her and wordlessly take his firerat and put it on her as if to protect her ins his own way: by simply being there. She collected the long sleeves and deeply inhaled the fabric permeated with Inuyasha’s scent and surrounding Kagome in her favorite smell in the world: musk, rain, fresh leaves, and something remarkably him altogether in the shape of a grumpy man with adorable ears and a golden heart.

The overwhelming sensation Kagome was immersed in almost made her forget the reason why she was there in the first place, but another yell from the man outside quickly made her regain her original mood.

“Don’t you fucking dare fall do-! OH COME ON!” was the last thing she heard from him before a loud cluttering of several objects all falling at the same time. A few spare seconds of silence were the only break allowed to Kagome before the madness started again.

“For once that I go to buy some wood, I just had to buy this low- ass quality, worm-eaten shit of wood?! “You will avoid so much work buy just buying this one”, they said! “Best woods you can find” MY ASS!”. The situation was degenerating yet again, and Kagome had enough. It wasn’t just the fact he woke her up with his enthusiastic speech with a shed of wood - it wasn’t the only reason at least. What irritated her was how reckless he was with his mouth and his actions, and most importantly, the outcome of those two combined. Kagome didn’t think of herself as a prudish woman, in her life she had had her slips of the tongue on many occasions, whether it was about an argument with her mother, her friends or a very specific person and his tactless shenanigans. However, there was a fine line between losing one’s temper and just causing chaos just for the sake of it, something she didn’t approve that much of her husband right now.

Collecting the exceedingly long piece of red cloth, she then marched to the backdoor which opened to their little green space right outside the house. As she lifted the mat covering the entrance, she was greeted with what she could only describe as a homicide scene.

Scattered on every single corner of the garden laid several chunks of broken wood, some more intact than others, but still heavily damaged. Spots of dirt and soil currently replaced the once healthy green of her beloved garden, and she swore she has never those rocks last time she went outside. But regardless of the hell of a nature surrounding her, there he was, Inuyasha, the cause of this disaster standing right in the middle of it, swinging left and right a rusted-looking ax ready to crumble to pieces. Kagome slowly took in the destruction in front of her, her eyes wide and mouth open in silent shock as ire started to boil in her veins. She took so much time preparing the soil to harvest their vegetables, she cared so much and he annihilated it. Her eyes snapped to the half-demon in front of her. Breathing heavily, he looked completely disheveled: his torso was completely bare, having discarded his under kosode a while ago,  and covered in a light layer of sweat, while his hair was barely held in a failed attempt of a bun. On another occasion, she would have ogled at that picture but right now all she wanted to do was to literally jump at him and kill him.

He didn’t notice Kagome’s presence behind him, which gave the woman an opportunity to observe him before going for the kill.

“I can’t fucking believe it, these pieces of wood are complete shit!” Inuyasha huffed while reaching for another of his victim. He placed the log in the middle of a flat rock he used as a pedestal, looked at it and, with a hand on his hip, gripped his ax more tightly. “Those vendors were fucking lying about you” he pointed at the piece of wood with the cutter, tone threatening, “and I, like a fucking idiot, believed it. God fucking damn it, Kagome is going to kill me, and all because of those fuckers”. As soon as he said those words, a cold voice reached him from behind.

“Oh do you now, Inuyasha?”

He froze on the spot at the all too familiar sound of his wife’s voice. Eyes wide in pure fear, he slowly put down the ax not wanting to move any further. However, Kagome was not having it. 

“Inuyasha”, she called back, her tone leaving no room for objection. He loudly gulped and, with a dreadful chill crawling on his back, he all too slowly turned around to face the inevitable. If Inuyasha had to choose a moment in his life where he seriously dreaded death, he would probably say it was this exact moment. His eyes locked with Kagome’s and all words died instantly on his lips. She was fuming with rage, he could tell that. He could feel her aura whirling with such anger he thought he could touch it with his hands. He didn’t even register the fact she was wearing his firerat, but could spare only a brief glance at the way her arms crossed on the fabric, her right index tapping nervously on her forearm. He has never seen so angry, and that’s telling a lot given their past arguments. The silence between the two was becoming too heavy for Inuyasha, who wished her to stop throwing daggers with her eyes. He deeply inhaled through his nostrils and was about to say something, anything! but he immediately regretted that.

“Ka-”

“What the HELL did you do to the garden!?” Kagome exploded, making him wince and lower his ears completely flat on his head at the loud yell. A few seconds of silence passed and he tried to answer her but with no avail.

“Kagome, I ca-” “I don’t give a rats-ass about your excuses! Look at this mess! It looks like some wild youki just fucking dismantled our backyard! What were you thinking of doing?!” Kagome angrily inquired more, her control clearly lost.

Inuyasha was was so scared he almost didn’t even register the series of curses she blended with her scolding. Tentatively, he tried to step closer to her, his arms gradually rising towards him as a peaceful sign of surrender, the last thing he was was to upset her more than she already was. “Kagome, just let me explain-” “What’s there to explain?! You thought you could test that excuse of wood you bought, that I understood pretty much, what about the rest of the fucking garden!?!” she argued back, and Inuyasha decided it was better to make a step backward. That move though resulted fatal for him, since she took that as an invitation to come closer to him, and he did not want that. He quickly put his arms forward to stop her from moving, “ I-I guess I went a bit…uh, over the top..b-but I swear it wasn’t my intention-” “Oh, well why, Inuyasha, I didn’t think of you like a casual gardener in your spare time! And it’s a work of arts, too! Were your taking inspiration from a bloody battlefield perhaps!?”

“Listen, Kagome-” “No! Now you listen up.” she cut him off abruptly, an accusing finger pushing at his chest. His eyes zeroed to that single finger as if it could trespass him like a sword. He quickly glanced back at her with full attention, since his life was apparently depending on that.

“I can get over the fact you woke me up with your shouting at an inanimate object, I can tolerate you cursing around for every goddamn reason, I can even understand the fact you are clearly angry at those vendors who gave you bad wood, but destroying our backyard, that we spent so much time preparing for planting our food, without any consideration of how I might feel, to just smash wood at random, that, sir, I won’t let it pass. At.All.” With every word she spat, she kept poking and poking at his chest until he was touching the stone pedestal with his ankles. He glanced briefly at his back before looking back at her, with no idea of how to get out of that situation. 

“Kagome, I’m so, so sorry”“Oh you better be, mister.” she urged on, “I expect you to pick up everything and make this place look twice as beautiful as before you step foot in it”, she came so dangerously close to his face he had a hard time breathing. 

“If I came back and see even just a strand of grass out of place” she gritted to him, her finger picking at his skin, “You better watch out because I won’t be so kind then” she whispered, but the threat behind those words made it way scarier. He stepped back to get some room to breathe but his feet met the hard pedestal and so he stumbled hard on his butt while looking up at Kagome’s figure. She regarded him one last glare, before quickly turning around and stomping back inside. If she had a physical door instead of the mat, she would have slammed it on his face, but that was the feudal era. After stepping into the house, she stood in the living room again, taking deep breaths to regain some sort of posture after the scolding of her life. She didn’t know how she said those things, but she couldn’t always be the understanding, soft-spoken girl all the times, not since her husband liked to put their house upside-down. That was a desperate situation, and in those cases, the only thing to do is calling for desperate measures.

She felt too hot all of the sudden, and only then she remembered she was wearing Inuyasha’s firerat, and so she quickly undressed before reaching the fireplace and make some breakfast for herself, since her husband would not join her anytime sooner.

Outside, Inuyasha was still left sprawled on the grass, mouth agape in shock, still unable to process the fury that had just left him. If anything, he was just glad she didn’t purify his ass on the spot, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t about to.

His hand unconsciously reached for where her finger dug on his chest, rubbing gently as if to shoo any wound that wasn’t there. His heart raced into his ribcage, adrenaline going crazy in his veins and all he could think about was the fire in Kagome’s eyes, how resolved she was with asking - no, demanding him to what she said, and the power she emanated when she came up to him, even if she barely reached his shoulders.

She was fuming, she uncontrollable, she dominating, she was…

“So damn hot” he breathless said, a smirk making its way on his face while amber eyes hid a spark of promises.