#it's not that you redeemed yourself after what you did to wonderful book characters

[jessilynallendilla]

So just read Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects and....I have some thoughts

I’ll put it out right now this book has child abuse, child sex abuse, rape, self-harm alcoholism, drug use ect.

Oh and there will be spoilers

This woman Camille is just a few months out of the psych ward and her boss who knows she has problems with her mother and hometown has her go back there for a like a week and stay with her mother to cover what is apparently the brutal serial killings of preteens cause they need the story before it breaks

This town is just awful it’s like Smallville’s evil twin

No character is redeemable, just awful people being awful to each other, even the murdered girls, they had violent streaks like biting and stabbing people in the eyes  

Camille’s childhood just sucked, you know those mothers who just don’t love their children, yeah that was Camille’s childhood. She wasn’t a perfect little doll for her mother so didn’t get mother’s love and it got worse after her younger sister died and Camille spirals into self-destructive behavior of cutting, promiscuity ect at 13

Camille is sympathetic because of it but she is also just an awful person making assumptions about people, calls a man sexist for thinking it’s a crime for a drunk teen girl to be gang raped, sleeps with a drunk kid who’s barely legal and has a girlfriend, goes to a teen party and does drugs with her younger sister and weirdly sexualizing things especially her 13-year-old sister  

Adora their mother is a narcissist who wants the conceptual doll like perfectness of a daughter and also the attention and praise of being a doting mother whenever her children are sick and wants them needy of her. All attention needs to be on her like playing up a thorn prick by having layers of gauze wrapped around her hands by her beta husband. Even personal relationships can’t happen naturally without her being in the middle so Camille couldn’t even get close with her stepfather. There’s absolutely no sympathy for Camille and her state either, there’s the faux care but when seeing how Camille can’t wear certain clothes without showing her scars just gives a nasty are you happy with what you’ve done to yourself.

And the sister, the sister, Amma is just A LOT, her mother dotes on her if she acts like a needy child and dresses her in frilly little girl dresses. Yet out of her mother’s eye she drinks, does drugs, gets with older high school boys, sets up her blacked-out friends to be gang raped, knows how to manipulate those around her. She makes Azula and the Heathers look like Sunday school kids. My question is her mother only gives her flowered dresses, so where is she getting super short skirts and tube tops, where is she getting these drugs she hides in her bra, and she learned to manipulate by acting pitiful and childlike, so how did she learn to be promiscuous flirt. And this is a small conservative town so no one’s seen her around like this and called her mom about her13-year-old daughter going around dressed like that and flirting with older boys.

That’s the whole thing about this awful town full of awful people, they see and know awful things are happening and do nothing.

So, the murders, these girls have been having their teeth pulled after they were killed, and they weren’t assaulted so everybody is wondering why and who dun it. Well over the course of the book it’s revealed Adora has Munchausen's by proxy and if you read you’ll remember how she was all doting as her children where sick and she’s insistent they take medicine that makes them sick. And she tried to get close to these two girls because she wanted to turn them into perfect little darlings, and they weren’t having that, one even bit her. So, with all this circumstantial evidence, a damning diary and a tox test on Camille Adora is arrested for the murders of her daughter and these two girls.

Well, the book isn’t over yet, Amma was more fucked up that anyone realized, you see growing up alone with a mother whose conditional love and attention you’ll only have if you play your role is threatened by someone, the solution is to get rid of that someone. So, this is all revealed when Amma was sent to live with Camille, she made a friend that Camille made the mistake of liking and who is later killed by the same MO as the two other girls. Over the book Amma’s dollhouse is brought up several times, how it’s an exact replica of Adora’s house and it’s brought up several times that Adora’s room has ivory tiles, you can’t get ivory anymore, but ivory is bone and during the house search those teeth weren’t found.  

So, yeah, generational trauma is a bitch.  

Everyone Thinks That We’re Perfect~

Please Don’t Let Them Look Through The Curtains~

D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E~

I See Things That Nobody Else Sees~

If you can get past all the weird sexualization and just the general awfulness of all the characters you might enjoy this book, it’s only 250 pages, you can get through it in an afternoon. I give it three stars good concept but needed some reworking to make the experience more pleasant, but this was Gillian’s debut novel and I haven’t read any of her other work to know if she improved or everything is awful nihilistic cynicism is just her writing style.  

[acecroft]

We were hoping you'd change your mind. The Alienist | 1x10 Castle in the Sky

[wandaswifeyforlifey]

Hey could I request a Brie Larson x r where they meet at the set of Avengers endgame and they both have a crush on each other and their co stars make fun of them and they just blush and it's really

A/n: Thank you for requesting this! I try to write them within 24hrs of either the request being sent or me seeing the request so sorry if this is a bit later. I do most of my writing at like 12-5 am so some of it might be shitty lol. I love doing requests tho and will always try my best to make them work for your taste.

Word Count: 1048

Warnings: None really, just pure fluff

Ship: Brie Larson x Reader

"You better get up soon or you're gonna be late!" Called Scarlett from downstairs. Scarlett and you had met on the set of one of your first movies and quickly began to hang out more and more until you decided to be roommates. You had finished shooting Avengers: Infinity War about 2 months ago and were exactly 2 weeks into filming Avengers: Endgame which you were pretty excited about because you would get to film with some actors that you never had before.

"Coming!" You shouted back. Sadly, you weren't quite adjusted to the earlier mornings yet which definitely wasn't helpful considering you would be doing tiring work all day. You dragged yourself out of bed and headed downstairs for breakfast.

"Hey sleepyhead," Scarlett smirked at me as she cooked her omelette.

"Any news that could redeem my mood this morning?"

"Well… you are filming the 'female empowerment' scene today. You've got to be pretty excited to be acting with some new people, right?"

"Oh yeah! I completely forgot about that. I've got to admit Scar, that has perked me up a bit so thank you."

"Wow, you don't need to sound so surprised." She laughed.

You made yourself a coffee, had some cereal then went to have a shower. You put on a comfortable outfit considering as soon as you get on set you'll get your costume and makeup done.

Once you arrived you were swarmed with people filling you in on the scenes and telling you where you needed to go but they were all talking over each other so you understood nothing. Thank god I have my assistant, you thought to yourself.

*2 hours later*

You had your hair and makeup finished when you heard a knock on your trailer door.

"Come in!" You called while wondering who could possibly be seeing you when your assistant was on their break and you were already prepared to film.

"Hey, Y/n? I'm Brie. I just wanted to introduce myself before we started shooting."

You were just looking at her with pure adoration as the most beautiful woman you had ever seen stepped in.

"Y/n?"

"O-oh, yeah, sorry, hi." You cleared your throat because you noticed you were staring. "So I assume you're doing the all-female scene with me?"

You moved along your sofa so that she could sit down next to you.

"Yeah, actually and I'm super excited for it. I think it's brilliant to team up all the female superheroes."

"I could not agree more! But it sucks that Natasha isn't in it."

"Wait, she isn't?"

"No, I was chatting with Scarjo this morning, because we share an apartment, and she said her character wouldn't be in it."

"Oh are you and Scarlett, like, a thing? Because it would be totally fine if you were and I just didn't know your were interested in women and-"

"Hey, hey slow down," you laughed, "no me and Scar aren't a thing but I am interested in women."

"Me too! I don't really like to use labels because I find them too constricting though."

The conversation died down but not in an uncomfortable way, more in a content way. You stared into each other’s eyes until Brie said:

"Anyway. I should really get going. I haven't even got my makeup done yet." She spoke hurriedly and quickly left the trailer. You weren't sure how to feel about her sudden departure but deep down it hurt you a little. Why would she leave so quickly if we were having a nice time? Did she find it uncomfortable? I really hope the conversation ended positively in her books too, you thought.

You shot a couple of scenes before the all-women scene and took a break just before it to talk to Scarlett.

"Hey Scar, have you seen Brie? She came into my trailer to chat a bit and it seemed like we were having a really nice time but then she just left all of a sudden."

"Uh, no I don't think I have since our second scene but it sounded like you had a good time, eh?" She smirked and nudged you. You knew she noticed how concerned you were about Brie.

"Fine, maybe I thought she was really pretty and sweet but I don't know how she feels."

"Well from the glances she sent you during our first and second scenes I’d say she likes you back.”

“I never said I liked her, ok? I just said I thought she was amazing and charming and attractive and stuff.”

“That’s literally the same thing.”

You rolled your eyes.

“I need Y/n and Brie over here please? You guys are going to be opening the Female Avengers Unite scene so we’re just going to give you a little run-through,” shouted Joe Russo from across the set.

“Oo-ooh you enjoy yourself, Y/n.” taunted Scarlett. You playfully stuck your tongue out at her as you walked over.

*Once shooting was done for the day*

Yet again you heard a knock on your door as you were just finishing packing your stuff up to leave.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me, again,” announced Brie as she stepped in. This time though, she wouldn’t make eye contact with you and seemed to be rather nervous.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, it's just, um… so Scarlett told me how you felt after I left and I felt pretty bad so I just thought I should come back and apologise and tell you that it wasn’t your fault, it had nothing to do with you. I promise.”

“Oh no, you don’t need to apologise! I’m so sorry if I made you uncomfortable in any way. I absolutely didn’t mean to.”

You saw the heat rise in her cheeks.

“To be perfectly honest, I didn’t just come here to apologise. I came here to tell you the truth. Okay… I just need to get this off my chest. I think I have feelings for you.” She looked at you hopefully, only to have a blank stare in return. You weren’t sure what to say. You were so overwhelmed with excitement and happiness that you just stood up and hugged her. Burying your face in the crook of her neck you whispered, “I want to stay in this moment forever.”

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[women-loving-art]

Alice Pike Barney Natalie at Seven, 1883 / Natalie and Missa, 1890 / Natalie Barney in Fur Cape, 1896 / Natalie with Necklace, c. 1900 / Lucifer, 1902

Some of the paintings that Alice Pike Barney (1857-1931) made using her daughter, Natalie Clifford Barney (1876-1972), as a model. 

“As the year [1900] closed, the fallout from Quelques portraits-sonnets de femmes [Natalie Clifford Barney’s lesbian poetry collection] caused a major break in the Barney family. It had taken months for word of the book to develop a strong buzz, but by now many people had read or at least heard about it. 

Natalie had been dropped by a few Washington society matrons, meaning that they refused to receive her in their homes. At least one family friend approached Natalie that summer, begging her to give up, for the sake of her parents, the course on which she was headed.

In response to her critics, Natalie claimed that she didn’t care whether or not Madame so-and-so deigned to greet her on the street. As she once said of Colette’s first husband, Willy, “Not everyone is capable of knowingly creating a bad reputation for themselves.”

There was a certain hypocrisy to the way Natalie was treated. [...] Discretion (or, if you prefer, sexual hypocrisy) was considered a duty. Among Natalie’s past and future conquests were socialites who, though they preferred the embraces of women, led ostensibly “normal” lives. As long as they married, had children, did charitable work, and managed fine homes, nobody much cared what they did behind closet doors. In the end, Natalie’s greatest sin was not that she was a lesbian, but that she refused to be quiet and ashamed about it. 

One day, Albert Barney [her father] picked up the society gossip journal Town Topics and read a small but fatal headline: Sappho sings in Washington. With that single headline, his world exploded. Highly intelligent and far from naive, his suspicions about his beloved daughter had long ago turned to certainty.

The Town Topics piece, entwining his daughter’s name with that of a perverted Greek harlot, fulfilled his worst nightmares of scandal. The fact that his wife had contributed the artwork to Natalie’s book [three of the four women who modelled for her were her daughter's lovers] constituted a double knife thrust to the heart. How, he wondered, would he ever live this down? 

The timing and exact circumstances of what happened next are impossible to pinpoint. The entire episode wasn’t one that anyone in the family wished to  remember, let alone document. It’s telling that Alice, who scissored from the newspapers each mention of her girls for permanent inclusion in her scrapbook, didn’t bother to keep the big Sappho Sings article.

What is true is this: Albert stormed into the editorial offices at Ollendorff in Paris to buy, and then destroy, the remaining copies and all printing plates for Quelques portraits-sonnets de femmes. His action doubtless accounts for the book’s extreme rarity today. 

He then brutally pulled the blinders from Alice’s eyes about the meaning of the poems in Quelques sonnets. He berated her ceaselessly, and would until his death, for having so naively contributed paintings of Natalie’s lovers to the book. 

The revelation about Natalie’s sexuality stunned Alice. The evidence had been there for years, obvious to all, but she had been in complete denial. Now, forced to accept the truth, she was shocked and sickened. For perhaps the first time ever she was unable to apply the laissez-faire philosophy that had defined her approach to life. 

In early January 1901 the Barneys boarded a ship to New York, leaving Natalie behind. Though weakened by illness, he constantly lambasted Alice, enumerating her countless sins, the greatest of which was the evil inherent in Natalie’s character. As usual, she endured the abuse by politely ignoring him. Deep within, however, she was awash in conflicting emotions. She loved and admired her daughter, but was horrified by her lesbianism. Late in January, she made her feelings clear in a letter that must have devastated Natalie:

It has come at last. Your father is quite crushed by this and really very pathetic. How perhaps you, through your disregard for us and your callousness, may remember my disgust when you would speak of this forbidden sin—and realize that every right-minded decent person is condemning you and us—as they would of the greatest evil... I am too sick and ill to write more. I used to feel sorry for Mrs. Hoy when people said things of Mattie—and how small her sin was—if true—compared with yours, which you broadcast about, as if being evil is not bad enough.

But you must in every way, to every person, make yourself a horror and a danger... Your only chance to redeem yourself is to change your life and writings and remember that in no way can you defend yourself—or reply to this [Town Topics] article... For there is not the slightest loophole. You have closed every escape. [...] You have done a bad thing—a sin against law and mankind and I can only hope that your ideas have shocked and horrified instead of converting.

It took months for Alice to accept Natalie’s nature, but eventually the truth brought mother and daughter closer. No longer engaged in subterfuge and lies, Natalie’s new relationship with Alice was easier, friendlier, and more honest. After her initial repugnance, Alice tried to see Natalie’s sexuality as simply part of her nature—a nature similar in many other ways to her own. “How much of myself I’ve passed on to you,” she wrote years later. “You’re cultivated and I—not—but we’ve got the same traits, grabbing here and there, dashing from this to that. So much of the monkey in us.”

There would be many times in the future when Natalie and Alice didn’t get along, but at its heart their relationship remained strong and loving. Each took pleasure in the other’s accomplishments. “I’m terribly proud of you,” Alice would write; or “I can’t express my admiration, my child.” They would collaborate in writing plays, visit each other, and always, no matter where they might be, there were the affectionate letters. 

Only once, many years later, did Alice reveal the pain that Natalie caused her. It happened when Natalie made a casual observation. “Mother,” she remembered saying. “You have so happy a temperament that I cannot imagine anything that has ever been able to cause you more than a passing sorrow.”

Alice drew back as if struck. She appeared embarrassed, and looked away. Natalie laughed, curious to know what could possibly have shaken her mother’s legendary equanimity, but Alice remained stubbornly and uncharacteristically silent. 

Growing uneasy, Natalie pressed for an answer. Alice hesitated, gazing back over the years to a moment of sorrow so great that it obviously pained her to recall it now. And then, slowly, she faced her daughter, staring with profound sadness into those ice-blue eyes. “You,” she muttered, almost as if speaking to herself. “You...’”

— Suzanne Rodríguez, from Wild Heart: A Life, Natalie Clifford Barney and the Decadence of Literary Paris 

[opaljm]

blood runs pure (m) – pjm

➻ written in collaboration with @fitaelity

➻ female reader x jimin

➻ harry potter!au + death eater/pureblood/slytherin!jimin + half-blood/gryffindor!reader + enemies to lovers

➻ genres: minor fluff, tons of angst, minor smut, romance

➻ length & status: 28k words ; complete

➻ rating & warnings: 18+; brief mentions of death, violence (there’s dueling/fighting/killing scenes), torture (Cruciatus Curse; in one scene: chains/starvation/captivity/etc.), smut (steamy kisses, cunnilingus/light nipple play/fingering/multiple orgasms/penetrative sex)

➻ summary: The 2nd Wizarding War was underfoot, with you and Jimin falling on opposite sides. This however, was not enough to stop the two of you from falling in love with each other over the course of your final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry. AKA this is a story of Jimin’s transition from the Death Eater’s perfect Pureblood poster child to the more redeemable man that you fell in love with.

➻ disclaimer: Also, I’m pretty sure we never made Jimin use the word “mudblood” but I’m sorry in advance for any of you who might get offended by the toxic and discriminatory behavior that Jimin sometimes exudes, but please keep in mind that this is a redemption story that is meant to follow and explore the growth of Jimin’s character and that he ultimately does realize the wrongs of that kind of behavior. um this was too long to edit rip, so we didn’t yolo.

⋆ my masterlist ⋆ interview ⋆

It was only to be expected that Park Jimin would have been the unlucky person to get that unfortunate letter, which essentially cursed him, delivered to him on that stormy August day by a completely drenched and sad looking gray owl. He had shown his worth, he supposed, shown that he could be trusted and put in that position of power. Perhaps the Lees, a pair of brother and sister Death Eaters who had been given positions on the Hogwarts’ staff by the Dark Lord, had whispered in Headmaster Snape’s ear that Jimin had spent the entire summer finishing an internship at the Ministry of Magic, a job which had been painstaking acquired by his father through transferring huge sums of money and exchanging many favors, under the tutelage of Jimin’s Fifth year’s Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Choi Jonghoon.

Perhaps the Lees, knowing how Jimin had reacted emotionlessly to the Muggleborns stripped of their Wizarding status in the courtrooms while he transcribed the trials during his wretched summer internship, had thought that Jimin would be an excellent choice to keep the students in line during the school year.

Or perhaps, the decision had been made by the Dark Lord himself, after he had met with Jimin and declared him worthy of championing the Cause. That meeting had ended with Jimin facing the long and painful ordeal that had ended with him getting branded with the gruesome serpent, that was the infamous mark of the Death Eaters, on his left arm. It appeared that that event and his new title had awarded him yet another one, the position of Head Boy at Hogwarts under the Snape administration.

In any matter the deed was long done; Jimin was now tugging his trunks across a train station which was much emptier than it had been the past few years that he had been studying at Hogwarts, fully aware that he had to play an important role in how the school year unfolded. His trunks were half filled with things Jimin was sure would have been contraband had this been any other year: books on the Dark Arts (and on torture), vials filled with disgusting potions with torturous and sometimes painful effects, and the Hand of Glory which allowed Jimin to spy and get around without being detected.

After Jimin heaved his trunks onto the Hogwarts’ Express and pulled himself up as well, he was pushed unceremoniously by a girl who was not looking where she was going. She was pressed against his chest, in the narrow hallway of the train, and looked up to gaze into Jimin’s dark brown eyes with her sparkling ones. He recognized her to be you; your name was Y/N and you were a Gryffindor in his year. He had never bothered interacting with you or acknowledging your presence before, but he knew that you had a Muggle father and a witch for a mother. His lips curled into a snarl, “Get off me you disgusting Half-Blood, before I transform you into the vermin that you share your blood with.”

“I am— I am sorry, Park. It was an accident,” you whispered, removing yourself from Jimin as quickly as bodily possible. You turned around to head back in the direction you had come from, deciding that it was better to hold your bladder until you finally arrived at Hogwarts than to risk running into more terrifying Purebloods who could scare you into wetting yourself, and no doubt thought they had free reign to do as they pleased now that the Dark side had taken over.

Once back into your train compartment, which was empty since the people who used to be your only true friends at Hogwarts were Muggleborns who had both had gone into hiding, you sank down into your seat to and dropped your face into your hands as you sobbed. The only reason you were attending school was because you and all of Hogwarts’ students were being forced. Under a new law, a Hogwarts education was now mandatory for all witches and wizards between the ages of eleven and seventeen in Great Britain. This was a poorly constructed scheme, by the Dark side, that would allow them to grab the Muggleborn students as soon as they arrived at the station to strip them of their wands and throw them into prison. For this reason, many of your Muggleborn classmates had chosen to ignore the law outright and elected to go into hiding. Your own father, whom you had not seen since you were five and whom had remarried another Muggle, had been forced by your mother to go into hiding with his new family. You hated being here since you doubted that you would learn anything at all to help you pass your NEWTs, which you thought were going to be rigged and ripe with cheating now that you were living in He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s playground, or anything that would help you become a better witch who was more adapt at performing magic and living in the Wizarding world as an adult. You wondered if the two new professors at school, the Lees, who were in charge of teaching the new Dark Arts class, that was replacing Defense Against the Dark Arts, and, the now forced graduation requisite: Muggle Studies, would be throwing you into detention at every possible opportunity, not only because of your so called ‘tainted’ blood but because you were a Gryffindor like most of the insurgents who supported the Chosen One’s cause.

At that very moment you made a promise to yourself. It was not a promise to succeed nor was it a promise to enjoy your last year of Hogwarts; it was a promise to survive and get the hell out of there as soon as possible and to escape to America where the Dark Lord’s reign had not yet quite reached.

…

The next time you interact with Park Jimin, it was because of what had happened in a Dark Arts lesson. You had honestly promised yourself to slip under the radar as much as possible, but there were just some things that you were not willing to compromise on: your morals, for one. The professor, Lee Seunghyun, had brought into the classroom a group of ten First Years on whom, he declared, you all would be practicing the Cruciatus Curse. You, knowing the ill effects that mispronounced and improperly casted spells could have, refused to utter the curse at all and stared at your First Year sullenly for the entire duration of the lesson, with your wand hanging from your right hand, as the child burst into uncontrollable and unstoppable tears in front of you. Professor Lee, being outraged by your act of defiance, said, with a dark scowl, that you would have a month of detention where the Unforgivable Curses would be practiced on you instead. He gave you the options of a month of detentions where he would use the Imperius Curse on you or a month with the Head Boy who would practice the Cruciatus Curse on you, which you had so valiantly refused to cast in class. Given the lecherous stares that Lee was sending your way, you knew you did not want to be placed under the Imperius Curse by him as that would allow him to control you like a puppet so you decided to take your chances instead with Jimin and the promise of torture.

On the unblessed Saturday that you had detention with Jimin, he stalked into the, otherwise, empty classroom at seven in the morning instantly throwing a venomous glare at you for ruining what would have otherwise been the first morning he could have slept in instead of having to run around the castle punishing students and being forced to keep them in line. “Y/L/N,” he barked, “I see that you have refused to use the Cruciatus Curse in class. What exactly did you think we would be learning in that class?”

“I didn’t know that we would be practicing on people,” you muttered. Jimin gave you a look that suggested that he thought you were an idiot of the highest order. You were inclined to agree, after all it was the Lees who were teaching, was it not. “I thought it might have all just been us studying the theory and not practicing anything.”

“Did you think, perhaps, that we were still getting taught by Choi Jonghoon?” Jimin laughed hollowly, “At best you could have hoped that you would be practicing on rodents or spiders and not humans. But as you can see, that is not the case.”

You stared at Jimin in surprise, “I thought you were a fan of Choi. You were in the Inquisitorial Squad and I know what you did this summer.” You wondered how Jimin could sleep at night after enduring trial after trial where Muggleborns were treated like vermin and stripped of their wands and Magical status as he stood by emotionlessly and was, all the while, transcribing the details of the cases in meticulous detail.

Jimin scoffed, “No one is a fan of that ugly toad. He pretends to be a Pureblood, related to the Kangs, and makes up lies about his father being a former member of the Wizengamot, as though my family has not worked at the Ministry for centuries. We know he has a Muggle mother and a Squib brother; her father used to scrub the floors at my grandfather’s office. I got that internship because she cannot afford to make enemies of the Parks. There is no lost love between us.”

“Are— are you going to be practicing the curse on me now?” you asked, kicking yourself in your head for sounding terrified.

Jimin stared at you; his dark brown eyes felt like they were piercing through your soul, “You are terrified of me.”

“N— No, I am not,” you protested half-heartedly.

He ignored you, “You are afraid of me and yet you chose to have detention with me. Why is that Y/L/N?” His eyes bore into yours as a thought about Lee Seunghyun being a disgusting piece of scum flitted across your mind. Jimin’s face contorted with disgust as he said, “Never mind. I’ll practice the Cruciatus Curse on you now.”

You moved to the center of the room, standing there uncertainly as you shifted your weight from one foot to the next. Meanwhile, Jimin enchanted the desks and chairs to be pressed against the walls. Though you did not expect him to, he spelled a dozen cushions to appear out of thin air and pad the floor. “Y/L/N do you remember our fourth year Defense Against the Dark Arts class?” he mused.

You had forgotten that you had shared classes with the Slytherins that year, which had also been the year when the Triwizard Tournament had taken place. “What about it?”

“You will see,” Jimin muttered before he pulled his wand out of his pocket and raised it in front of him, “Crucio!”

Immediately, the most excruciating pain you had ever experienced filled your body. You felt as though every single one of your bones was being splintered into a million shards. Your blood felt like it was on fire and like it was going to burn through your body and drip down to the floor before engulfing your seemingly melting body. You vaguely wondered if this must be what being in hell would feel like, if you were a Muggle who believed in a single superior deity, as you just wanted to die so that you no longer could feel the pain.

When you came back to your senses, you saw that Jimin was staring at you from where he was sitting cross-legged on top of a desk, his hand was on his cheek and he muttered, “You have a very low pain tolerance, Y/L/N, that will have to change.”

You croaked; your vocal cords were abused from you screaming your lungs out when you had been under the spell, “Why will that have to change?”

He gave you another look to suggest that you were an idiot, “How will you survive Y/L/N if you cannot withstand the pain? You need to build your tolerance up. And then perhaps one day, you can make your mind strong enough to resist and convince yourself to throw off the spell.”

“Why are you helping me?” you whispered.

He stared at you, “Am I helping you or am I telling you what you should have realized already? It is common sense, Y/L/N. There are a lot of times that you will be forced to endure things you do not wish to, but it is up to you to use those experiences to shape who you are. In any case, I highly doubt you will succeed since you were only under the spell for ten seconds, yet you screamed like the world was lit on fire. I find no harm in telling you anything; I highly doubt that you will be able to use the instruction I give you to your benefit.”

…

A few days after your first detention lesson with Jimin, you were reminded of the lesson you had in your fourth year with Professor Jung Jihoon. Well, he turned out to be a Death Eater named Baek Yoonchun according to The Boy Who Lived, but you digressed. There had been a lesson where he had covered the Unforgivable Curses. In the first lesson, Jung/Baek. had brought out three spiders on which he had used an enlarging spell so that you would all be able to see the effects of the Unforgivable Curses on the doomed creatures as he performed them. In the following classes, he would use the Imperius Curse on classmates until they could throw it off. Only two people had been successful, and it had only been for a few seconds; one of them had been the Chosen One, and the other, although it had been for a split second in contrast to the long interminable minutes the Chosen One had held it off,— the other had been none other than Park Jimin. Something told you though, that if anyone tried to place the Imperius Curse on Jimin now, they would not be very successful unless they were a very powerful individual or one who had used the Dark Arts to increase their magical prowess.

For the second detention, you showed up early with extra padding on your body because last time, even with Jimin’s precautions, you had ended up with bruises. This time, Jimin was even later than before, skidding into the room with an incorrectly buttoned shirt and hair that was drenched from his shower. “I am surprised you came back for more pain,” Jimin gasped, out of breath from his sprint, smirking sardonically to reassert his dominance. “Are you a masochist Y/L/N?” he asked as he magicked the blinds to open so that the morning’s light could be let in.

“No,” you answered. “But I hardly have the choice of not showing up, Park. This is detention. And there will be far worse penalties than this if I were to not show up.”

“I suppose,” muttered Jimin as he took a step into your personal space, “Have you prepared?”

“How am I supposed to prepare for the pain?” you asked, tilting your head upward to look Jimin in his dark stormy eyes.

“Strengthen your mind Y/L/N,” Jimin replied, “Your control over yourself has to be stronger than the person’s ability to perform the curse. You see, they have to really mean it when they utter it. Perhaps you will get lucky and they will utter it carelessly, in which case it will be easier for you to throw off the curse. But perhaps, they are a formidable witch or wizard who is extremely good at performing the Unforgivables; your mind and control over yourself has to be stronger than their ability to execute magic.”

“I don’t understand,” you murmured.

Jimin stepped even closer which caused you to take a step back; his eyes scanned your face, stopping on your lips for a brief moment before returning to your eyes. He finally responded; “Are you able to cast a corporeal Patronus?”

“I did. Once,” you answered.

Jimin looked momentarily stunned before he was able to collect himself, “In theory, if you have a memory that is so inexplicably happy and bound to your mind that you would never forget it, you could even scare off an army of Dementors with your Patronus.”

You felt like you were beginning to understand Jimin; you needed to be so attuned to yourself, have such strength and control over your mind that you could shake off even the strongest mental spells on yourself. “I see.” You said, “I am ready to be Cruciatized.”

Jimin scoffed, “One is not ‘ready’ to get Cruciatized but, fine, I will perform the curse on you now.”

…

On your last detention with Jimin, he was distracted; it had to be rescheduled to a Sunday, and he had arrived past ten. Jimin looked worse for wear with the bags under his eyes looking more prominent than ever, his cheeks appearing to have been hollowed out to the point of no return, and his collarbone sticking out sharply from underneath his sweater. And perhaps it was because Jimin’s mind was not entirely on making you endure the Cruciatus Curse, that you were finally able to throw off the spell for twenty seconds, screaming out, “Jimin! Jimin! I did it!”

Jimin’s control on the spell was snapped as his wand hand jerked at your unexpected outburst. He glanced down to where you were sprawled inelegantly on top of the cushions, your legs were still twitching slighting from the onslaught of torture, “And so you did,” he said monotonously, before his eyes shifted to the windows where he appeared to be looking for some type of disturbance in the skies.

You sat up. Your sides were screaming at the movement. You, then, braced your hand on the ground as you moved to go on your knees before you were slowly able to contort your body until it was able to stand upright. Your entire form was aching in response to the constant shifting. “For some reason,” you gasped breathlessly, “I presumed that you would be more excited about my success.”

Jimin’s eyes cut back to your shape, “Well you presumed incorrectly,” he answered coldly, “We are not friends; nothing you do excites me. However, it does not surprise me that you thought our relationship was changing to anything more than executioner and victim, given your background,” the last part was said scathingly, “but at least something was able to get into your thick skull before you went back to living your meaningless existence.”

There was a sudden rush of hot unwanted tears flooding your eyes; they were probably a delayed effect from the Cruciatus Curse you had been forced to endure, you tried to convince yourself. “I see,” you mumbled thickly, trying to hide the fact that you were now in tears from your voice, “Well, I will be going now. Goodbye, Park. If we are fortunate, we will not be crossing paths anymore now that the detentions are over.”

As you left the classroom, the door shutting after you with a loud click, Jimin finally looked behind himself and let out a heavy sign before unceremoniously grabbing his left arm and pushing up the sleeve roughly to look at the snake emblem that was throbbing and pulsating across the stretch of skin that covered his forearm, the sight of it making him want to upend his breakfast. The Dark Lord was angry and Jimin feared that a summoning was near in his future.

…

You did not see Jimin again for a very long time. When it happened, however, you were grateful for it. You had turned to spending all of your weekends at Hogwarts wandering around the place. Visits to Hogsmeade village had been banned while all clubs and sports teams had been coerced into disbanding after Headmaster Snape had reinstated Educational Decree no. Twenty-Four: “No student organizations, societies, teams, groups and clubs may exist without the knowledge and approval of the Headmaster.” He even went so far as to forbidding students from residing in each other’s companies in groups of three or more. It was like Choi had taken over Hogwarts, once again. And after dealing with the mess that Choi had left behind on your OWL examination year, you were less than enthused to deal with it while studying for your NEWT examinations

With so much being forbidden to the students, you took to spending your time looking for hiding places in the castle; the less you were seen by the new Professors, and the new wave of students running around with badges from the reinstated Inquisitorial Squad pinned to their chest, hell-bent on punishing students and making their lives miserable, the better.

It was on one such weekend that you were wandering around the sixth floor of the castle when you came across a space that looked like it used to be a medieval torture room. However, it looked as though it been recently been put to service again since, when you scanned your eyes around the room for a second time, you noticed that there were three students tied to stakes with cursed chains that were covered in black ichor that was turning their skins greenish and diseased. Bile started to rise up in your mouth as you watched the unconscious forms writhing and twitching intermittently. An overwhelming sense of horror and disgust overtook you as you immediately began to wrack your brain trying to figure out how to release the poor students from their bindings.

You decided against pulling at the knots that held them captive; you knew better than to let your bare hands come into contact with the chains since you had grown up around magic your entire life and had been taught better. You decided to, instead, test out all the spells you knew that would normally work in situations like this: concentrated unlocking spells, targeted explosive spells, and advanced transfiguration spells that would hopefully transform the harsh metal cuffs into something softer and more harmless, like putty, that you could easily break them out of.

The students did not notice your growing despair as you began to wonder if they were dying, after all, you had no idea how long they had been in that state or how many days they had gone without food or water, or even access to the facilities. After close to half an hour of struggling, wracking your brain for everything you could possibly think of, you sank down onto the dirty and dusty floor of the formerly unused room. You wondered if perhaps, you could come back here with food to simply keep them company until they woke up, if they woke up, and then you could offer them the food to see if they could keep anything down.

As you hastily got up to hurry along to the Kitchens and then return to the Sixth floor with a cornucopia of food, you belatedly realized that you never thought to ask the other Professors for help: not the head of your house, Professor Kim Taeyeon, or even the Headmaster, Snape. It was probably for the best, you decided; you did not know how much authority or sway they had over the Lees, even the Headmaster, and you did not want to get them into hot water with the Dark regime. A visit from the Dark Lord, or any of his followers, was the last thing that the students at Hogwarts needed.

The school’s kitchens were located on the basement floor of the castle, near the Hufflepuff common area although you did not know where the exact location of the Hufflepuff’s dormitories was. However, you did know where the Kitchens were; in your Fourth year, you had had to sneak down to the Kitchens with your best friend Im Nayeon to get food for the party the Gryffindors were having after the Chosen One had saved his best friend from potential drowning during the second Triwizard tournament. You had used it in your Sixth year, too, when you were always too busy completing the assigned coursework from your NEWT classes to go to the Great Hall during the assigned mealtimes.

You had not visited them once, however, since the current school year had started, and you did not know if there were now watchdogs watching the entrance to the Kitchen to stop students from sneaking extra meals. Thus, you decided to play it on the safe side and be a little more cautious as you used the castle’s most deserted hallways and secreted shortcuts to get down to the basement level. The password to enter the Kitchens had not changed as you quickly found yourself watching the painting of the bowl of fruits swing forward to reveal the portrait hole for you to climb through after you had tickled the plethora of fruits in a specific order to gain access inside.

Inside, however, the house elves were more subdued than you had ever seen them. They worked quickly, and efficiently, without conversation and did not pay any heed to your intrusion. In fact, they ignored you so blatantly outright that you began to wonder if they had been forbidden from communicating with the students. You still needed food, despite the setback, so you approached one of the elves and asked for a basket of food: fruits, bread, cheese, slices of meat loaf, chicken strips, roasted potatoes, and flasks of orange and pumpkin juice. The elves went to work hastily preparing your basket, piling up food in the hamper so high that you did not see how it would be possible for you to drag it up seven floors. You asked one of the elves, the one who looked slightly nicer than the others, and had been the first to spring into action, fixing up the food for you, if he could transfigure the basket for you so that it would be small enough for you to slip into the pocket of your black school robes. You figured that a simple enlargement charm later would be enough to return the food to its normal size later.

As you passed the head of the hallway that had led you to the Kitchens, you did not notice that there had indeed been a watchdog that was guarding the entrance. Fortunately for you, that person had been Jimin. And as he watched you traipse up the stairs, with a suspecting scowl gracing his face, he decided he had nothing better to do than to follow you to your destination.

Jimin burst into the room where you were watching over the three unfortunate students just after you had transformed the basket of food back to its normal size. “What are you doing, Y/L/N,” he panted breathlessly at your back; he had not known that following you would mean he would have to trek across half the castle. You jumped in surprise at the intrusion.

“Oh, hello Park,” you said glumly. “I don’t know how to free them,” you sighed as you gestured towards the captive students whose names you did not know. All you could see were the badges pinned to their school robes and their ties that dangled limply from their throats. They were two Gryffindors and a Hufflepuff, so you did not expect Jimin to care like you did. “I don’t understand what they could have possibly done to merit this punishment.”

Jimin strode towards you, his gaze flitting between the students who were chained to the crosses like some sort of pagan sacrifice to the gods. “You should not be here, Y/L/N, you will only get into trouble if you are caught. You cannot afford to be on the Lees’ radar.”

“I know that,” you muttered bitterly, “But I can’t just leave them here. I don’t expect you to understand. You probably don’t even have a fully functioning conscience. But I can’t, in good faith, leave them here like this. I have to try to help.”

“Leave the food here,” Jimin said abruptly. “Leave it here. I will ensure that they receive it. But you simply cannot be here Y/L/N. You are making it worse for everyone. If you get caught trying to free them, which I doubt you know how to do successfully, it will have disastrous consequences, not only for you but for them. And what of me? The castle is alive, Y/L/N. There is not a thing that happens within these walls that can be kept a secret. Once it is revealed that I found you here and did absolutely nothing about it, I will be in a heap of trouble as well. So, I am begging you, Y/L/N, use your brain for once. Don’t think with your goddamn heart, which is all you thickheaded Gryffindors know to do, and leave the situation to me. I will deal with it. And I know how to cover up my own tracks.”

“Why can’t I stay and help you?” you asked, feeling suspicious of Jimin and not trusting him to actually deal with the situation adequately.

“You cannot be my accessory, Y/L/N,” Jimin sighed exasperatedly, “Especially since you cannot cover your own tracks. How else do you think it is that I was able to follow you up here without your knowledge?”

“Fine,” you relented, “Get the job done Park, I am– trusting you,” you muttered, uttering four words you never thought you would use in relation to Park Jimin.

Jimin waited five minutes after you left to summon his house elf, Chimmy, into the room. “Master Park,” the house elf, in the pale-yellow pinstriped pillowcase, greeted, bowing deeply, “How may I assist you?”

“Go to my dormitory and bring the spell book with the purple leather cover and the silver gilded pages. Bring two of the potions in my potions case too. The pale blue one with the aluminum stopper and the lavender one with the rose quartz screw,” Jimin said, furrowing his brows deep in thought.

Once Chimmy was back with the potions and the spell book, Jimin grabbed them from the house elf swiftly. He slipped the potion vials into his pocket and flipped through the spell book rapidly; he was looking for the section on magical entrapments and bindings. He soon found the spell he had been looking for, four pages into the section, and marched towards the first unconscious student. The spell was a nonverbal one, so Jimin pointed his wand at the cuffs that were entrapping her, stiffly and recited the spell in his mind. The spell miraculously worked and freed her left hand from the chains. He then went to perform the spell at the bindings at her feet and other hand, moving to catch her when she fell forward after being freed completely. He sat her down, propped against the wall, before he went to do the same thing to the two boys.

It was then that he brought out the lavender potion from the folds of his robe. It was a healing potion, one that he had brewed in Professor Kim Heechul’s class last month. Most days Professor Heechul did not give them any real instruction anymore and instead told them to feel free to make whatever they desired; Jimin used the opportunity to brew potions that would be useful in a variety of situations, especially since Professor Heechul had made the all of the supplies in the Potions’ cupboards available to them. With a few drops of his potion on the surfaces of skin that had been affected by the black ichor, they began to rapidly heal before his eyes.

The pale blue potion was a rejuvenating one that would hopefully wake the three from their stupor. But before that, Jimin had to figure out what to do with the students; he could not just free them to send them back to the masses that roamed the castle when they were wanted personnel. They would only be brought back here or transferred to even worse holding quarters. Not only that, but with the Headmaster’s potion-making prowess, they could be force-fed Veritaserum and reveal that it had been he, Jimin, who had freed them.

He was thinking about how to get the three of them out of the school grounds without being undetected when he remembered the story that Kim Hanbin had told him of being trapped in the Vanishing Cabinets in the Room of Requirement in their Fifth year. He was pretty certain that that had been the way that Min Yoongi had gotten the Death Eaters to storm the castle the previous June, although he had not exactly been privy to his plans. He wondered if there were other methods of escape that could be sought in the Room of Requirement.

With his mind made, he took out the final potion from his pocket and dropped it underneath each of the three’s tongues. When they all awoke to see their Head Boy glaring at them for being put in this situation, they were all understandably a little scared. Jimin shoved the basket of food in one of their arms and told them to follow him through one of Hogwarts’ abandoned passages to the Room of Requirement that was located one floor above them.

In front of the Room of Requirement, Jimin strutted across it three times thinking, “I need a way to get out of the castle,” resolutely. The door that appeared, was one that Jimin was unfamiliar with, a small one made completely of brass with engravings of fairies and other woodland creatures covering it that seemed to be moving across the planes of the door as though it were enchanted. He unceremoniously pulled the door open and shoved the three of them into the Room of Requirement before sealing it and falling to the floor in exhaustion, his back pressed against the now empty stretch of beige wall behind him.

…

It would be too much to hope that no one had noticed what Jimin had done. Two days after he had led the insurgents to freedom, he was called into a meeting with the Lees and the Headmaster.

They asked him what he had been doing on that Sunday, more specifically, why had he left his post in front of the entrance to the Kitchens. They did not believe him when he said that he, feeling that he was going to collapse from exhaustion had felt that the best course of action for him would be return to his rooms to get some, what he felt was very deserved, rest.

They asked him if he had been anywhere near the sixth floor on Sunday. Jimin determined that the Lees were bad at interrogations as he skillfully waded through their questions. Even worse, they were far too impulsive, making rash decisions as they got exceedingly angry from their poor control of their tempers and their inability to get Jimin to revealed what they desired. They wanted to perform the Cruciatus curse on him to torture him into giving up what they thought was the ‘truth.’ When they were told that they could not perform such a spell on Jimin by the Headmaster, who reminded the Lees who Jimin’s family was and their power, they wanted, instead, to shove Veritaserum down his throat. This was also ruled against by the Headmaster who refused to supply the Lees the potion to use on any of his students.

The Headmaster instead suggested that he should apply Legilimency on Jimin and navigate through his mind. With a smirk at the Lees, Jimin readily agreed to have the Headmaster search through his mind. He insisted that he had nothing to hide and that he felt more than comfortable with the Headmaster probing his mind for the truth.

As he stared into Headmaster Snape’s eyes steadfastly, Jimin attempted to clear his mind and paint the scene of him walking from the kitchen straight to the opposite side where the dungeons were and where the Slytherin rooms were located under the Great Lake. He began to add in details: the temperature getting lower, the air feeling increasingly muggy, the gray of the stone walls as he passed through them, his black leather shoes with wooden soles making an echoing sound every time they hit the cobbled floor. He painted the picture of him stepping in front of the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room, of him uttering “Ophiuchus,” under his breath so that the stone wall in front of him was split in half, revealing a gigantic room.

The Common Room had seaweed colored walls; it was decked out with heavy leather furniture with iron arms, large side tables and ornate chairs. There was a truly massive silver chandelier hanging from the ceiling that looked as though it was made of nothing, but ropes of silver wrought snakes tangled with each other. Jimin stopped to stare at a tapestry in the vision that he was painting. He gazed at the woven masterpiece that has Salazar Slytherin, himself, directing a monstrous Basilisk into battle, before swiftly cutting across the room to climb up the stairs on the boys’ side to go to the uppermost landing, letting himself into the special dormitory reserved only for the school’s Head Boy. Jimin smirked as he imagined himself undressing and slipping in between his bed sheets while he was completely nude. For a moment his brow was furrowed, in the present; his gaze stopped on his bedside dresser, in his mind, where there was a piece of paper. It was a schedule of his Head Boy duties; Saturdays are clearly marked to oversee Y/N’s detentions in the morning.

He felt the Headmaster’s foreign presence retreating from his mind, and then heard Snape say snidely, “Mr. Park is telling the truth. Now if you two are done wasting my time, please excuse yourselves from my office.”

The Lees, chastised, rushed towards the doors, no doubt in a hurry to complain to the Chos or the Mins, someone higher up than they were, to report on their behalf to the Dark Lord a complaint about Severus Snape. Jimin moved towards the exit himself, his legs woodenly shifting towards the Lees when the Headmaster’s voice interrupted his thoughts silkily, “Mr. Park I would like to talk to you about your Head Boy duties.”

Jimin stopped in his tracks, and turned back to Snape, “Of course, Headmaster.”

“Take a seat Mr. Park,” Snape drawled, as he swept through the room, his hands tinkering with small magical artifacts. Jimin sat sullenly in front of the large desk Snape had left. His eyes traveled the space in front of him which was decorated with portraits of Hogwart’s previous Headmasters and Headmistresses. Majority of the paintings were empty, with only a murky backdrop remaining in the portraits that their owners had vacated. He saw that the previous Headmasters, including Lee Sooman and Park Jinyoung as well as Albus Dumbledore, were still in their portraits. The last wizard in question was smiling kindly at Jimin while he waited for the current Headmaster to lecture Jimin about how he had known Jimin was lying.

When Snape opened his mouth however, Jimin was surprised: “You need to become more proficient at Occlumency, Mr. Park. A Squib could have waded through your mind and discovered the truth with ease,” he snarled.

“I am sorry Headmaster,” muttered Jimin inclining his head in shame.

“You are entirely unprepared to ever go against the Dark Lord, should he ever seek to look in your mind Park. It is fortunate that you are not against the regime I suppose. But you still do have secrets you want to keep in under the wraps,” Snape drawled, tapping a long forefinger against his jaw.

“Severus, stop being so harsh,” Dumbledore’s voice rang out from the portrait, “I am certain that Jimin has an aptitude for Occlumency.”

“If he does, I have yet to see it,” sniffed Snape. “Park, you are now required to come to my office every Friday at 8pm, unless otherwise specified, for Occlumency lessons. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes Headmaster,” Jimin replied quickly, as he inclined his body into a fast, respectful 90 degrees bow.

“You may now leave,” Snape said, waving his hand in a careless gesture of dismissal, prompting Jimin to stand up and swiftly exit the room without a backwards glance.

…

It was November when you and Jimin crossed paths again. You had been, once again, on the hunt for the perfect location on the school grounds where you could seek solace and hide from the horrid conditions that had befallen on the inhabitants of the castle. You knew that Quidditch had been banned and thought that this would mean that the Quidditch pitch would be deserted and unkempt since it was no longer being maintained regularly.

The weather on that November day was a little chilly and you decided to seek refuge in the commentator box from the harsh and biting winds. When you had finally reached the top of the steps and swung open the worn-down wooden door to the little office, you found that it was already occupied. The Slytherin Head Boy that you were becoming too well acquainted with, despite your best efforts, was crouched on the messily nailed wooden beams that made up the floor to the office. His nose, red from the cold, was almost pressed against the glass wall he was looking into, out at the Quidditch pitch. His silvery gray hair was a windswept mess on top of his head, and he was bundled into a thick winter coat in Slytherin green, his Head Boy badge was pinned to his chest, and a well-used and well-loved Firebolt laid next to his booted feet.

“Sorry,” you muttered when he looked up at your intrusion, a sharp blast of wind entering the room notifying him of your entry. “I did not think that anyone would be here right now.”

Jimin straightened up and brushed off the dirt and dust from his charcoal gray pant legs. “Were you, too, looking for some place to seek solace?” he asked, not unkindly.

“These days I don’t feel welcome anywhere in the castle,” you admitted, “I had hoped to find some place that I could be alone for a bit and seek respite.”

“It has been hard,” Jimin agreed, “And you feel so entirely alone in the world. You don’t see a point of continuing to move forward.”

At that you turned your head sharply to face Jimin and gaze into his eyes, searching for you don’t know what, in his expression. You had not thought that Jimin could have also been having a hard time. He was a Pureblooded Slytherin was he not? His parents were even rumored to have Pureblood fanatical inclinations although they had never been tried for being Death Eaters themselves. The people who shared the same beliefs and principles with him were the ones that were in power.

But then you thought of the Jimin who had taught you, though unwillingly, how to throw off the Cruciatus Curse and to make the most of your punishment instead of treating you like you were less than human and just torturing you mercilessly for the hell of it. You thought of the Jimin who had helped you free those students. Perhaps there was more to Park Jimin after all: more to the Head Boy than the mask that he had chosen to don for all of the castle to see.

“It would be a shame if we had to give this place up,” you replied looking around the tiny mostly wooden and glass room, “I am content with sharing this place with you Park, for us to escape to when we have nowhere else to go.”

…

The winter holiday meant that on the first week of December, Jimin found himself packing up his school trunk with a large stack of textbooks in order to stay on top of his winter coursework over the holidays. He also put in his trunk a bundle of clothing and an odd amalgamation of things he was no longer regularly making use of to drop off at home in exchange for the new crap his parents had likely bought him to replace them.

Dragging his trunk with him to the front of the school, he boarded a Thestral drawn carriage. After the events of the spring and summer, he could unfortunately see the ghostly skeletal winged horses that pulled the school carriages.

The carriages could fit four but when Kim Taehyung, Jeon Jungkook, and Choi Yeonjun tried to enter the one Jimin was cozied in, he kicked the door shut in their faces and rapped his knuckles against the roof of the carriage to urge the Thestrals to a trot in the direction of Hogsmeade Village.

Jimin was not looking forward to patrolling the halls of the Hogwarts Express or conducting a meeting in the Prefects’ compartment with his co-Head Jennie Kim. He was exhausted and in no mood to talk to anyone. All he wanted to do was to get a little shut eye on the train ride before his parents picked him up to take him to the Mins’, where they had been invited for dinner, no doubt with countless other Death Eaters, and left his luggage to be dealt with by their house elves.

Dinner had been nothing special. The Dark Lord had not been there but his devoted servants Cho Sanghee and her husband, Cho Haseul, had been. Jimin knew them to be related to the Mins through Yoongi’s mother but as he watched the Chos strut around the Min Manor with satisfied expressions, that hinted at their cruel manner, on their decidedly ugly and inbred faces, that were a result of marriages amongst the 28 Pureblood families of England for the past 1500 years, Jimin thought he caught glimmers of contempt on the facades of Yoongi’s parents. Their son Yoongi sat blank faced throughout the dinner, much like Jimin, not joining any of the Death Eaters in conversation, and spent the entirety of the meal mindlessly prodding his dinner with his silverware.

Fortunately for Jimin, this was the most contact that he had to make with the Dark Lord’s most fanatical supporters for the duration of his winter holiday. His parents had apparently convinced the Dark Lord that Jimin was too busy with his NEWT studies, Head Boy duties, and post-graduation preparations to be of any use to him in the hunting down and capturing the outlawed protestors and vigilantes. But the Dark Lord took that to mean that Jimin was ready for even more grooming for a position in the Ministry of Magic after his culmination from Hogwarts. He wanted Jimin to follow Yang Hyunsuk, the Imperiused former Head of Magical Law Enforcement that had replaced Seo Taiji as the current Minister of Magic, around and keep watch to make sure he was not acting out of order.

It was two days after Christmas Day, that Jimin, who had flopped down in his bed at two o’clock in the morning after a long day of observing the Minister at the Ministry, had received your Christmas present. The owl that came to his window and rapped not five minutes after Jimin had finally been able to rest his eyes, reminded him of the owl that had intruded into his life that rainy summer night a few months ago and had changed his live irrevocably. This owl like that one had plumage that was a mixture of dark gray and black feathers, and unlike its long-lost cousin who had been drenched from the rain, had only the barest coating of snow covering its coat. Tied under its talon-ed feet, was a beautifully wrapped gift in black paper with silver stars that was tied together with a thick ribbon of Slytherin emerald green. The ribbon had a card attached to it. There was no name of the sender, but on one side the return address in Ilkley was visible. On the other side of the card, all that was written was, “I hope this gift finds you well. Happy Christmas, Jimin.”

Somehow, Jimin had instantly known that the gift had been from you. He supposed that you had omitted your name and entire address because you had been wary of the gift falling into his parents’ hands. Carefully pulling apart the wrapping paper, Jimin found a thin golden box within, the kind of box that typically used to hold jewelry inside. His guess had been correct: within the box had been a thin silver chain with a tiny circular disc that was maybe a tenth of the size of a Knut and had a J engraved in the middle and one emerald stone next to it.

He immediately took the necklace out of the box and unclasped it to adorn his neck. It fell to the top of his sternum and was low enough that it could be hidden by the collars of most of Jimin’s shirts. He wanted to Apparate to you immediately and ask you why you had given him a Christmas gift when he had given you nothing but the pain from more placements of Cruciatus Curses than either of you could be bothered to count.

His gaze dropped to the golden watch adorning his left wrist. It had stars instead of clock hands and had been given to him by his parents on his seventeenth birthday. Time had gone by swiftly as Jimin had examined your gift and it was now three in the morning. There was no way that you would be awake at this time if he had gone to bother you. Jimin could not find it in himself to rouse you out of bed to answer his questions though they were pressing him. He simply gave your pet owl some treats before ushering it out the window and going to bed himself. He would go visit you after he had arranged someone to take his place to trail the Minister and had secured a few days off for himself. Hopefully, if Jimin was successful, he would be able to have a real vacation until school started up again after the New Year began.

…

Apparating to the Ilkley parish in West Yorkshire, Jimin appeared out of thin air to stand on a meadow in the Northern English countryside. A thin coating of snow covered the field that Jimin was standing on and across from him, he could see a wooden fence caging in sheep to keep them from wandering over his way. It was likely that your mother was the Secret Keeper of your home so Jimin would be out of luck in trying to find you unless you went outside your home. He was confident in his belief that you would; after all, instead of staying cooped up in the Gryffindor dormitory, where you were undoubtedly the safest in the castle, you always chose to wander around.

After walking around the village for a bit, where it appeared that both wizards and Muggles lived together, Jimin noticed that everyone was rather subdued and stuck to themselves. The wizards were wary of interacting with the Muggles they shared their community with, fearful of being looked upon as Muggle sympathizers. And the Muggles stuck to themselves, suspicious about strangers after the increase in missing persons and inexplicable rise in deaths and murders all over Britain. Walking into a small but tidy ice cream shop, Jimin was reminded of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour’s in Diagon Alley. The ice cream parlor had been boarded up and remained closed since the Dark Lord had gotten his followers to drag off the owner, but in Jimin’s youth it had always been his favorite place to grab a cold treat with its extensive collection of eccentric and tasty ice cream flavors before he rushed over to Quality Quidditch Supplies to stare at the window displays of the newest professional broomsticks.

This shop did not have the multitude of flavors that Fortescue's did, so Jimin asked for a two-scoop cup of basic vanilla and plain chocolate. With his purchase made, he walked out of place to go find a seat at the park he had passed by earlier. Sitting on the slightly damp black iron bench, Jimin realized that getting ice cream on such a cold day was probably counterintuitive. However, as the creamy vanilla dessert dissolved on his tongue, and he tasted its rich and sweet flavor, he realized that sometimes good things have to hurt for you to understand and appreciate their value.

The park was not entirely deserted and as Jimin sat there watching families of Muggles build snowmen with their children and create snow figures on the ground with their bodies,  he saw a lone female figure wearing a fluffy white Sherpa coat with a scarlet and gold scarf wrapped around her neck.

For someone who had Muggle blood, you certainly did not know how to blend in with them. You stuck out to him so obviously, with the crimson and gold of your Gryffindor scarf acting like a beacon amidst the white of all the fallen snow that was surrounding the village. He doubted that you knew he was here now, in West Yorkshire, looking for you. He stopped twenty paces away from you, indistinguishable from the other patrons of the park with his dark long overcoat and his black hair that was tucked under a dark gray newsboy’s cap. You looked so peaceful, sitting on the icy metal bench as you took in the view of the frozen lake before the two of you. Unfortunately, Jimin could not let you remain in your serene state of tranquility. He had pressing matters to tend to that concerned you.

Hearing the loud crunch of snow beneath boots coming towards you, you looked up curiously and let out a quiet gasp when you saw Park Jimin standing before you. He stood wordlessly before you, glaring at you intensely as he took you in from head to toe. Clearing your throat nervously, you stammered, “What are you doing in West Yorkshire Park? Somehow, I imagined you living somewhere more refined and stylish like Surrey or Buckinghamshire.”

“Oh,” murmured Jimin letting out a low throaty chuckle, that made your face pinch with anxiety, “I’m visiting.”

“I wasn’t aware you really had living family outside your parents,” you muttered almost inaudibly.

Jimin raised an eyebrow at that, “Oh I am not visiting family, Y/L/N.” The same low snarky chuckle came again, “I am visiting the girl who thought it would be appropriate to give me the Christmas gift of an engraved locket.”

Your face burned so hot that not even the biting cold of the winter day could soothe your flushed cheeks. “My apologies Park. I did not mean to make a big deal out of it. I just wished to thank you. That is all.”

Jimin’s face hardened, his facial muscles tightening until there was a severe and harsh look on his face that had nothing to do with the weather, “You wished to thank me Y/N? For performing the Cruciatus Curse on you more than a hundred times? How unusual.”

Looking down, focusing your gaze on Jimin’s waterproof expensive Chelsea boots, which were undoubtedly steel-toed given Jimin’s personality, you forced yourself to reply to his needlessly cruel words, “N-Not for that Jimin. For what happened after.”

Jimin frowned, “Everything I do, is to save my own hide, Y/N. You can’t.”

“I can’t what?” you asked, your eyes watering from the sting of the cold weather, and something more, “I know what I can’t do Jimin.”

“Then why did you send me the gift?” he asked rudely.

“So, what if I did, Jimin?” you bit out, “Why did you come for me afterwards?”

“You know why,” he grated out, “I had to find out why.”

“Are you sure?” you asked looking defiantly at him, you gaze locked to the hollow of his neck, “Is that why you are wearing it?”

“You are a masochist,” Jimin whispered coming towards you, answering the question he had asked you at the beginning of that first detention. As you moved to stand up, he grabbed you behind the neck pulling your face close to his. As you moved towards him, your eyelids flickering shut and your lips moving towards his expectantly, you felt the most unpleasant sensation of everything pressing at you from all directions all at once. The pair of you were enveloped in darkness as your body felt like it was being compressed into a narrow tube with your limbs contorting to fit inside. Within seconds it was over, and you found yourself with Jimin standing outside of some place that was definitely not West Yorkshire, as you were standing on the cobblestones in a rather untidy alley.

“You,” your voice was filled with rage, “Where did you Apparate us to?” You could not believe his audacity. Immediately, you were reminded of how he was a Slytherin and in the back pockets of the Death Eaters that ruled over Hogwarts presently. Giving him the gift had been a mistake. Had he Apparated you to your doom? Was he going to turn you over to the Ministry and claim that you were an Undesirable? You had tried your hardest to slip under the radar and hide your sympathy for the Chosen One and his cause.

Jimin appeared unaffected by the caustic bite in your tone, “Paris. You wanted to be romanced by a man who is clearly not right for you. You’re obviously a glutton for punishment,” his voice rang out as he started walking.

You could not control your feet to keep from following him. You could have just as easily Apparated home, but for some reason you did not. “I’m not a MASOCHIST!” you protested as you chased after Jimin.

When you caught up to Jimin, the Slytherin looked more at ease and more carefree than you had ever seen him. He had tucked his dark gray cap into his coat’s pocket and had let his usually severe hair, that was normally stiffened by gel, get ruffled by the wind. His hair looked so soft, and there was a rosy flush on his cheeks that made you notice for the first time, the light scattering of pale freckles across the plump planes of his face. His thick plaid scarf dangled loosely around his neck instead of being meticulously wrapped around his neck and tucked into his coat. He raised an eyebrow at you roguishly when he noticed you staring at him with your mouth open in amazement. “What?” he asked lightly, “Close your mouth Y/N. You don’t want a Doxy to fly in it.”

“You look–” you paused, stopping before you had almost blurted out beautiful. “Different. When did you dye your hair back to black?” you said instead.

You tried to convince yourself that you were imagining that slight look of disappointment that appeared on his face before he opened his mouth to reply to you, “Apparently silver is an unprofessional hair color.”

“Is it?” you murmured, sneaking your hand around his right one and grabbing a hold of it.

Jimin stopped so abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk that the other passersby had to step around the two of you. He looked down at the joined hands, seeming to wrestle with something within the confines of his mind. After a moment, he seemed to have come to a decision. His hand tightened around yours and he picked up his pace, pulling you gently along with him. You thought he had forgotten that you had asked him a question until he answered five minutes later, “My parents want me to work as a Junior Assistant for Minister Yang when I graduate from Hogwarts.”

You frowned, realizing the harsh reality of the world the two of you were currently living in. Jimin was expected to go to work in the Ministry of the Magic after Seventh year was over. You did not think that he was a Death Eater, but as a Pureblood he would have to undoubtedly keep up certain appearances. Would Jimin be helping the Ministry pass even more laws that ensured the disenfranchisement of Muggleborns and other magical beings? As for you and what you would be doing in the spring after graduation? Your father had gone into hiding in North America, although your mother would not tell you where exactly, fearing that you would break down under one of the Lees’ extreme punishments and reveal it. You thought your mother would want the two of you to join him and his family; to create a new life for all of you there, where the effect of Europe’s warfare was still minimal.

“Do you want to go to the Louvre?” Jimin asked.

“I didn’t know that you were interested in Muggle art, Park,” you replied.

Jimin rolled his eyes, “I’m hardly going to take you to the Museum of the History of European Wizardry, Y/N. The point of this trip was to feel free to be ourselves without having to constantly look over our shoulders. Unfortunately, that means that we have to surround ourselves with Muggles. But I didn’t think that you’d mind.”

Your face tightened, a fraction, in displeasure. Park Jimin was such an asshole. He probably was not even aware of it half the time. You tried to convince yourself that this part of his character could be worked on and fixed. He had been raised to be an annoying bigoted asshole. You knew there was more to him, or else he would have never ‘debased’ himself to spend time with you and to see you as a romantic interest.

As you two walked closer to the Musée du Louvre, its glass pyramid structures came into view. You sighed wistfully, when would you have another chance to be in Paris again? If Voldemort’s plans moved on to France after he was done razing England to the ground, there was no saying that the impressive and centuries old structures of France would remain standing afterwards. You were just wishing that you could take a picture of yourself in front of the museum as a permanent record of this day when Jimin pulled his hand off of yours to reach into his front coat pocket to take out a small black pouch. You looked at him curiously. What was Park up to now?

He pulled his entire arm into the tiny pouch which made you gasp in mild horror before you realized that he most likely had bespelled it with an Undetectable Extension Charm. One would think that by now you would be used to sights of magic in front of you, but it still managed to surprise you every single day. From within the cavernous confines of his bag, Jimin pulled out a clunky Polaroid camera that made you stifle a small giggle when you thought of your father and his impressive Canon cameras. “Do you want a polaroid of you in front of the Louvre?” he asked.

Reaching for his hand and dragging him to a place where you were sure you would be able to capture both the massive building and the impressive pyramids behind you, you replied, “Only if we are both in the picture.”

Hours later when you were lying in bed at your mother’s cottage, able to hear her tea kettle making a loud whistling noise that carried its way into your room, you recounted the events of the day. You thought of the wine Jimin had stolen, since the two of you were still not adults in the Muggle world (you had left a 20 euro note at the register without him noticing) and the warm cheesy corniottes wrapped in newspaper you two had shared as you stared at the self-facing Polaroid he had managed to get the two of you in front of the Lourve. The tiny Y/N in the image was smiling brighter than you had in the past two years and the tiny Jimin’s smirk in the image could almost be mistaken for a smile if you squinted. Jimin had written in his spiky tiny handwriting on the white border of the Polaroid, “12/28/97 – I long to feel this calm for the rest of my life.”

Sighing, you sat up in bed and turned to tuck the photograph inside your pillowcase. You did not see how you and Jimin could ever have more than that one magical day in Paris, without magic, between the two of you. When the term started up again and the two of you returned to classes, you would have to pretend that the other did not exist for either of you, once again.

…

 You were a fool in love. That was the only thing that could explain why you had helped Jeon Jungkook graffiti the castle walls with red paint. The rebellious Gryffindors and you had taken to seeking out in the middle of the night to inscribe Dumbledore’s Army, Still Recruiting and other incendiary remarks that had irritated Headmaster Snape to no end. Sometimes you felt a little guilty. The others were putting their lives on the line because they truly believed in the cause and were fighting for all magical beings, no matter their background. And while you did believe the same, you were not as passionate or outspoken as your House mates. You were doing it to get the attention of the antisocial Head Boy who had gone back to pretending that you did not exist the moment the two of you had stepped back on to the Hogwarts’ grounds after the New Year’s holiday.

It was like Jimin no longer cared about you; that one miraculous day in Paris was so buried in the deepest fissures of his subconscious that he could not call it up to the surface. You had half the mind to Stupefy him and drag him to the Headmaster’s office where you had heard that Snape kept a Pensieve. Perhaps when he was forced to watch your memories with you, he would finally be forced to admit that what the two of you had shared on one of the last days of 1997 had been something special.

When it was finally time for the Easter holiday, you were forced to admit that perhaps you had to give up on Park Jimin. The war still waged on and the Light side was losing badly. You tried to keep up to date with the current events by listening to Goldenwatch radio broadcasts but the punishments for conspiring against Voldemort kept escalating. Kim Yerim had never come back after the Christmas holiday, taken because her mother, Irene, was a journalist who had become too outspoken on her publication, Red Velvet. With radio frequencies being controlled, the magazine Red Velvet being out of print, and every way of communication being watched, it was hard for anyone to keep up with the war in real-time. News of the Light side was hard to come by; the Dark Lord and his followers were doing everything they could to have their opponents scared, ignorant, and divided.

Every time you took a stand against the Headmaster or his minions, you were afraid for your mother’s life. What if the army of Snatchers, the wizards and witches that were not given the distinction of being worthy enough to be Death Eaters, which included the likes of the werewolf Kang Jihwan, came for your mother? You would never forgive yourself if your mother was attacked by werewolves, giants, or other dark creatures because of you. Furthermore, when the Lees started to chain students again, like the ones you and Jimin had saved, a Ravenclaw had gotten caught trying to release them. The torture they had put the male through had terrified you, even more so because his fate had been so close to being yours.

You had lost weight due to all the duress you had been under. All the students at Hogwarts were looking worse for wear. Easter could not come soon enough. And when it did, you were careful to leave the things that you could live without behind in your dormitory so that the Lees did not get suspicious of you leaving Hogwarts forever. The moment a student left, they were hunted down like a criminal. The crime? Not complying with the compulsory school attendance that the Ministry had decreed. When the time came for you to lug your trunk onto the Hogwarts Express, you found yourself reminded of the first day of the school year, when you had run into Jimin and almost pissed your robes. How things had changed so drastically in only a few months, you thought wistfully. Now you would do almost anything to run into him, to grab his attention.

Jimin was right, you thought bitterly, you were a glutton for punishment and absolutely a masochist. He was a pureblood enthusiast though he appeared to be mellowing and not so steadfast with retaining the Death Eater’s fascist ideas anymore. But it was embarrassing the way that you had fallen for a male who had literally compared you to vermin not so recently. To be fair, it was not like you used to have a good impression of Park or had held him to a high standard either. But sometimes you hated yourself for falling for someone who was literally associated with people who murdered people like your father for fun. It was a game for them. They got off on Muggle-baiting.

With your thoughts spinning around your mind like a turbulent tornado, and upsetting your stomach, you thought that maybe it was for the best that you had not caught a last glimpse of Park before you left him forever.

…

While you sat in a train compartment towards the end of the scarlet Hogwarts’ Express trying your best not to remain calm and nonchalant, so as not to raise suspicions about your intentions to drop out of school, fearful of getting hunted by the armed wizards that would be guarding Platform Nine and Three Quarters, Jimin sat alone in the Prefect compartment behind the teachers’ cabins. He had long kicked out the other Prefects and the Head Girl, removing them at the beginning of the trip, with them knowing better than to argue with Jimin and against his actions. Although it was rare for the Head Boy to lose his temper, it had been known to happen a few rare times in the past, and everyone at school was aware of how dangerous and volatile an enraged Park could be.

Jimin had spent the last two months going over to the Headmaster’s office late at night to practice Occlumency. Although he had thought he was improving, every lesson had ended with the headmaster snarling at him and calling him incompetent while throwing jabs at Jimin’s family tree. And if Professor Snape truly was right and Jimin was no better off than he was when he had started, then it had all been for nothing. Even more so for naught, because Jimin had been having a growing sense of unease and unsettlement, as the Lees whiffed around him every single day with increasingly harsh attitudes that were revealing of their suspicion surrounding Jimin.

He had no idea what was making them watch over him so carefully. He had no way of knowing if he had done anything to cause them to be wary over his motives, but it was exhausting trying to keep up the façade. The Dark Arts and Muggle Studies bored him, and although he could have gotten away with skipping half of the lessons earlier in the school year, citing boredom as his excuse, that was no longer the case as the Lees expected him to show up promptly to each lesson and put a hundred percent of his concentration into their teachings. The siblings also did not believe that he had prior knowledge of necromancy or curses like Fiendfyre, and thus felt that they were teaching him things that were truly worth knowing. That part was debatable; no one needed such an extensive overview of the Dark Arts. Every lesson left him feeling worse for wear mentally, physically, and emotionally. He would often find himself ducking into the girl’s bathroom on the second floor, where only the Moaning Myrtle could be found, to throw up the contents of his breakfast or lunch hunched over one of the many porcelain bowls. The Dark Arts were disturbing and criminal. No wonder they were outlawed, thought Jimin bitterly as he remembered the ordeal that was the winter term. Even more so than that, he remembered the portrait of Albus Dumbledore telling him, after one of his many Occlumency lessons, that every time Dark magic was used, it left an irremovable stain on a person’s soul. The previous Headmaster had cautioned Jimin’s usage of Dark Magic, telling him to only use it in the situations where he saw no other options. Jimin had scoffed at his providence at the time, but with every lesson with the Lees, he grew further apprehensive about the state of his soul and its uncontrollable deterioration. It was a little reminiscent of Dorian Gray who Y/N had told him about during their momentary bit of solitude away from the War a few days before the New Year.

Speaking of the two irritating nuisances in his life, before he had boarded the Express, Lee Seunghyun, the Dark Arts professor, had slipped a sealed, presumably cursed, envelope into Jimin’s hand. The note apparently contained directives from the Dark Lord on how Jimin was to spend his Easter holiday. If anyone other than Jimin broke the seal, they would be inflicted with whatever curse or hex the Dark Lord had bespelled it with. And with the Dark Lord being such a formidable and powerful wizard, even the Lees had not risked it and tried to see what was within the confines of the envelope. Now, Jimin bitterly took it out of the folds of his black school robes, slipping one of his fingers underneath the triangular flap to break open the dark green seal with the Dark mark imprinted on it. Within it, Jimin found a curt missive detailing his duties for the spring vacation which included rushing off to the Min Manor the second that he set foot on Platform Nine and Three Quarters. Apparently, the Dark Lord would not be there, but Mins would give Jimin further instruction.

Because Jimin was loathsome to ever fall asleep in a public space and leave himself vulnerable to threats, he decided instead to rest his forehead against the cool glass of the train and watch as the trees and hills went by in a heavenly green blur and slowly turned into the gray and polluted landscape of London. Once at the platform, after he had transfigured his luggage to be a size that he could easily slip within the deep pockets of his coat, he Apparated a tenth of a mile away from the Min Manor. The narrow lane that lead to the entrance of the Min Manor had on one side of it, the formerly neatly manicured hedges that made up the perimeter of the Min property and on the other, wild low hanging brambles. As he approached the wide driveway at the end of the lane, thick high iron wrought gates suddenly became visible. With hardly a sidestep, Jimin confidently rose his left arm, the one disfigured with the emblem of the Death Eaters and went straight through the metal as though it were as thin and vaporous as smoke. The spell that the Dark Lord had casted over the entrance was similar to the magic which made up the protective barrier at the King’s Cross station.

The air within the manor was stiff with an almost grim and hostile silence surrounding it. When it was broken by the shrill cry of what Jimin thought was a screaming infant, he almost jumped in the air at the unpleasant intrusion. As he walked towards the magnificent dining room that the Mins had used to hold extravagant gatherings in the past, where Purebloods used to dance and rejoice in their wealth and magical abilities, he was once again struck by the change to the formerly grand home. The centuries old stunning furniture that furnished the room were pushed against the walls, harshly stabbing into the soft gilded silk wallpaper. The giant fireplace was unlit, and the room was filled with an uncomfortable chill. At the head of the table sat Min Yeonsoo, cradling a baby bundled in a clean swath of fabric with a spiteful look on her face. Jimin’s classmate Yoongi was nowhere to be seen. He had had a higher position with the Dark Lord than Jimin had and had stopped attending classes after Christmas. Jimin had to wonder however, if the reason Yoongi was not at Hogwarts was because the Mins had let the Golden Trio escape, and the Dark Lord had wanted to exact his wrath and displeasure on them.

Before Jimin could clear his throat to reveal his presence, Cho Sanghee entered the room in a furious flurry of billowing dark robes. She looked gaunter and more maniacal than ever, causing Jimin to take a step back. He quickly uttered a prayer begging the heavens that Sanghee was not the one who would be telling him why he was at the manor, but luck was not on his side.

With a crazed screeching laugh that raised the hairs on Jimin’s neck and instantly put him on guard, Sanghee crooked a long filthy fingernail at Jimin, gesturing at him to come closer. Stifling a shudder, he obliged her, stopping well over five feet away. “The Dark Lord wants you to take of a delivery for him little Park.”

Jimin clenched his teeth in response to the address but did not retaliate, knowing better than to antagonize the Dark Lord’s most devoted servant when he himself held such a low position in the Dark Lord’s eyes. “Of course, Mrs. Cho,” he murmured, “And where is this package I am to deliver?”

“I’m so glad you asked little Park,” cackled Sanghee flicking her unruly black curls away with an indolent sweep of her wand, presumably this was a wand that Sanghee had repurposed, or rather stolen, away from one of the Snatchers after the Golden Trio had absconded with hers. “The Dark Lord wishes for you to look over this package and deliver it to Snape at Hogwarts at the end of the week. It is right behind you, little boy.”

With sinking feelings of apprehension and doom, Jimin turned around and swallowed the scream that was struggling to escape from the confines of his throat. Nagini, the Dark Lord’s massive serpent, was slinking towards him through the air, trapped in a giant magical orb of her owner’s creation, no doubt. Jimin was not terrified of snakes. How could he be, as a Slytherin? That being said, there was something unnatural about Nagini that held Jimin back from ever relaxing in her company. The snake had an unignorable intelligence that seemed to be far greater than all the other snakes that Jimin had ever seen. And with the Dark Lord’s ability to converse with his pet in Parseltongue, Jimin had no doubt that Nagini often acted as a spy for him.

He felt trapped within his own skin; this was no ordinary task that was being asked of him. The Dark Lord wished to spy on Jimin and then to spy on the Headmaster. “How is it that the Dark Lord wishes for me to transport Nagini to Headmaster Snape,” Jimin murmured, “I can already imagine the panic on the train platform if I tried to board the Hogwarts’ Express with her in tow.”

A sharp voice cut across the room, “You will not have to deliver Nagini to Severus at Hogwarts,” Yeonsoo bit out acidly, “you merely have to deliver Nagini to his home.” She looked down at the child in her arm with contempt before maneuvering the babe around so that she could use her right hand to write down the Headmaster’s address on a scrap of loose parchment. The question clung to the back of Jimin’s throat, but he bit it down. Whose child was that? Did Yoongi get into even more trouble than Jimin had previously thought?

Jimin walked towards Yeonsoo so that she could easily slip the note into his open palm. After he retrieved it, both sisters walked away from him, leaving him alone in the formal dining room with Nagini. Furrowing his eyebrows as he thought of how to transport her to his home, he decided to just walk out of the manor for now. Nagini had been able to glide through the air of her own volition before, so he hoped that the snake would choose to follow him as he left the room. In times like this, it would have been convenient to have been a Parseltongue, he supposed, but as that was a mark of the noble house of Slytherins, and the Dark Lord was all that remained of the ancient house, he highly doubted that there would ever be more Parseltongues. The thought of someone procreating with the 72-year-old dark wizard made bile rise up in Jimin’s mouth.

Once he had made his way back to the outskirts of the Min property, he finally had the chance to look at the address that was on the now tightly crumpled ball of parchment due to his clenched fist. The Headmaster lived in Spinner’s End, which was unusual as Jimin had never come across the name once in his studies of the magical geography of Great Britain. Deciding to worry about that later, Jimin stood in place with his right arm wrapped tightly around his wand as Nagini slowly glided to a stop right beside him.

“I hope this works,” Jimin muttered to himself, before raising one arm to place his hand flush against the wall of Nagini’s cage before attempting to Apparate the two of them to the edges of his family property in Surrey. Fortunately he was successful in his endeavors, and as he slowly walked up to the front of the mansion, he was trapped within his swirling thoughts as he worried over not only Nagini watching over him, but owling the Headmaster to arrange for a time that he could drop by with Nagini, and most importantly, how to warn you to stay away from Jimin and maybe to escape from England and not come back. He could convince you that he would follow you after graduation, but you had to get away. Now, more than ever, Jimin knew with a sense of deepening doom, that the Dark Lord’s takeover of Britain was almost complete. It would not be long before he attempted to off The Boy Who Lived to end their wretched tango and moved on to extend his control and reach over the entire European continent.

He delegated Nagini to the empty bedroom at the end of the hall from his. The two rooms were both on the west wing of the house but far enough apart that he had a little privacy. But even that was not enough to shake away Jimin’s fears. Sometimes at night while he laid in bed, he thought that he heard the serpent’s heavy slinking body moving down the hall past his bedroom. His fear grew that one day he would happen upon his owl’s carcass or that of Chimmy’s.

…

The one weeklong break from school felt both unendurably long and ephemerally fleeting both at once. He had penned two short missives to both you and the professor but thus far had received no reply from either of you. The unbearable monotony of his days, as Jimin was fearful of Nagini reporting to the Dark Lord about his whereabouts if he ever left the Park mansion, were only punctuated by the meals that Chimmy served to his room (his parents were both off gallivanting across the countryside torturing Muggles or something of that sort so he rarely met them in the formal dining room for meals together), him taking out Nagini to the manor’s extensive gardens to hunt for her meals, and the unending revisions and studying for the NEWTs Jimin was currently preparing for. It seemed catastrophically ridiculous that the NEWT and OWL examinations were still taking place while the entire country as a literal warzone.

Unfortunately for Jimin, you responded to his letter before Jimin could drop off Nagini at the Headmaster’s. With your letter, where you had told him you would meet him near where he had eaten ice cream last time, you had included three chocolate eggs that, were closer to the size of dragon eggs than chicken’s eggs and, had on them messily scribbled icing depicting Firebolts, Bludgers, and Beater’s bats. You were always surprising Jimin with your gifts and generosity. For someone who had never received anything without stipulations, it was a welcome change for Jimin to receive your presents which did not have any strings or conditions attached to them.

Thus, midway through the holiday, Jimin found himself taking his neglected Firebolt out of its case and electing to fly out of the windows framing his bedroom’s walls rather than to come across Nagini or his parents (who would occasionally show up as mysteriously and unexpectedly as ghosts) in the hallways, if he had chosen to leave through the front door.

The brisk breeze was a welcome presence to Jimin, after being stuck indoors for a majority of the week. He swept through the air on his Firebolt, taking sharp dives and turns, whooping spiritedly as he flew by miles above the buildings in the uncongested sky that was wide open and free, aside from a couple of birds that flew by doing their own thing.

He once again stopped at the long open meadow he had Apparated to last time. As this was a Muggle neighborhood, he decided to transfigure his broomstick to the size of a matchstick he could slip into the breast pocket of his light linen shirt before he took off on his walk. He found the ice cream shop much more easily this time around and decided to get a cup with a single spoon of vanilla ice cream for himself. For you, he got a two-scoop cup of peanut butter and berries n creme ice cream. Once he reached the park, he sat again on the same iron wrought bench from last time, placing your cup besides his thigh as he splayed his legs out and took a bite of the rich vanilla ice cream. He was not going to focus on how he was recreating the last time the two of you had spent time together and how he was making slight changes so that this time would be better.

Like clockwork, you once again appeared in front of him. Stifling a wince, he noticed how you looked at least a stone lighter than you had been last time. Your face was sharp with harsh angles and your cheekbones were jutting out making your face lose the soft round planes that it had had previously. The chocolate eggs you had included with your letter had made Jimin hopeful, but now, looking at you and the hard glare you cut across his figure, he realized that he had to make up for more of his mistakes than he had realized.

“Why are you here Jimin?” you bit out caustically, “What was so important for you to say that you could not say it with a letter.” You were surprised with how easily his owl had found you in Austria. Returning to an empty cottage and a letter from your mother that she was running off to Asia to hide, you had been country hopping to places your mother had not been to confuse the Snatchers that were no doubt tracking your every move and attempting them to prevent them from figuring out your final destination, or capturing both you and your mother. You were mad at yourself for being swayed by Jimin’s letter and coming back to England. But in the end, you had decided to meet up with him if only to convince Jimin that you were still living in West Yorkshire and to throw off the Death Eaters from your trail. Casting a casual look around the park, you attempted to quiet the furious beating of your heart, although no one had realized it yet and raised any alarms, you were technically on the run and you felt very unsafe being back within the borders of England.

Jimin stood and placed the now slightly melted ice cream in your hand, the creamy brown, purple, and white colors were already running into each other and muddling the appearance of the dessert. With a bemused furrow of your eyebrows, you curled your hand around the cup and stabbed the plastic spoon through one of the scoops, dipping a spoonful of sweet, warm, ice cream into your mouth. “Perhaps we should have this conversation somewhere that is not as crowded,” Jimin murmured, walking away without pausing to see if you would follow.

He led the two of you to one of the communal fields that the sheep were grazing on before he turned sharply to gaze deeply into your eyes and say without so much as a preamble, “You need to leave England now.”

You stopped dead, choking as the melted ice cream went down the wrong pipe. That was certainly not what you thought he was going to say. You had thought, after the chocolates and notes were long gone and all you had was your regret to accompany you, that Jimin was going to lay into it today and detail all the reasons the two of you could not be together. After all, he had ignored you pretty thoroughly for all of 1998 thus far. You had thought that had meant he had changed his mind. “I beg your pardon Park?”

Jimin frowned when he noticed you using his last name, distancing yourself even further from him. “I am worried about the future Y/N,” he mumbled.

“You want me to leave? Right now?” you asked, seeking for more clarity.

“As soon as possible Y/N. I don’t want you to get hurt. You have to stay safe,” Jimin bit out vehemently.

“And why is that?” you asked, not giving into him so easily. You wanted Jimin to grovel. You were tired of always being the one who felt out of sorts when the two of you were together.

Jimin sighed. His dark brown eyes fluttered shut as he whispered, “I think I am falling in love with you. I don’t even know that I know what love is, and yet, I am convinced that it is the emotion I feel for you. I know we cannot be together, but all the while, I still long for a possibility that would allow for us to be together.”

Your cheeks felt like they were burning as your blood surged into them, making them a mottled red. You had thought you were infatuated with Jimin. Or perhaps, suffering from some type of Stockholm’s syndrome because like it or not, all of you were forced to attend Hogwarts and Jimin, outside of the few Gryffindors you talked to, was the only person who had noticed you and was kind to you, at times. But never had you considered that it might be love, anytime you got close to feeling anything of the sort, you had thought you were getting brainwashed. Not by Jimin per se, but you had thought that Jimin had had an unreasonable power over you when you contrasted him with all the other Purebloods and Slytherins that inhabited Hogwarts. But now that you knew how he felt about you, you were inclined to believe that you had also fallen in love with him. After all, it was being reciprocated, was it not.

Perhaps the reason why you took that step towards Jimin and tiptoed to meet his lips had a lot to do with you being a Gryffindor. After all, a move like that required a lot of courage, it was perhaps misplaced, but all the same it was courage. The male inclined his neck to make the kiss easier for you to lose yourself in, and you felt yourself getting swept away in his full pink lips. Jimin was a marvelous kisser, he met every swipe of your lips with his own thoroughly, even if he was moving at a patient pace. Slowly though, you felt him get bolder, wrapping his muscle corded arms, bulky from playing the Beater position, around your waist and pulling you deeper into his hold. When he bit your bottom lip to trick you into opening it so that he could slip his tongue into the kiss, you got daring as well. You tiptoed even further, pressing into the warm glorious heat emitting from his body, and reached up into his hair to do what you had always longed to do: to slip your hands into the long straight strands of his dark hair and luxuriate in its softness. You fisted his hair in your grip, your nails raking against his scalp, causing a pleased sound of contentment to escape from Jimin, as you tried to kiss him more soundly. When the two of you finally broke apart minutes later, Jimin was running his tongue over his swollen reddened lips as he looked down at you with want and you were leaning against his solid, reassuring frame, pressing your forehead against his chest as you attempted to catch your breath.

“Do you want to go for a ride on my Firebolt?” he asked abruptly.

You raised an eyebrow as you bit back a laugh, “Very forward Mr. Park.”

Jimin flushed crimson, “I actually flew my broom here instead of Apparating. I wanted to experience the freeing feeling of being in the air rather than getting suctioned into nothingness as I reappeared in a different location.” He patted along the front of his pale linen shirt, feeling around for something before he took out a tiny matchstick from the breast pocket triumphantly. Laying it flat on his left hand, he poked at it with his wand, uttering an enlargement spell as the stick grew to be the full-sized Firebolt you had seen only once before.

Quirking an eyebrow at you daringly, Jimin smirked as if to say, “So? What are you waiting for?” Unfortunately, Gryffindors had never been ones to ignore the ribbing of Slytherins and so you found yourself easily sliding behind Jimin as he sat on his broomstick, waiting for you to get comfortable before he kicked off into the afternoon sky.

You sat on the Firebolt with your arms wrapped tightly along Jimin’s waist and your chin resting on his shoulder as he expertly flew the two of you across the long expanse of cloudless British skies. Striving to impress you, Jimin would often take swift turns and break into complicated moves, maneuvering the two of you into various types of dives and even asking you if you thought you could hold onto him tightly enough for him to attempt a Wronski Feint. You had thumped him soundly on his back and told him you would immediately Apparate off the broomstick if he attempted any more dangerous Quidditch formations.

Subdued into submission, Jimin took you two on a relatively peaceful ride as you were left to wonder why he played the position of the Beater on the Slytherin Quidditch team when he was obviously qualified to play one of the positions that required more dexterity like Chaser or Seeker. When you asked Jimin why he had not played as Seeker he laughed and said that the Mins had paid for Yoongi to be given that position and it would never have been so easily relinquished to him. He also had bitterly added, that by the time Sixth year had rolled around, and Yoongi had left the team to work on his plan to have Death Eaters invade Hogwarts, the team had become accustomed to having Jimin be their star Beater who would always give the Gryffindors hell and did not wish for him to change positions.

You clung to him even more tightly after his admission, feeling sorry for Jimin as he was always surrounded by people who would not allow him to truly be himself. You also were a bit surprised at how readily Jimin had admitted Yoongi’s hand in the events that had led to Headmaster Dumbledore’s death. As Jimin felt your tightening grip around his middle, a soft smile graced his face and he slowly declined the Firebolt as he prepared for the descent to your destination. He stopped in an alley besides a row of townhouses that went down the entire length of the street.

Raising an eyebrow as you attempted to fix your windswept hair, you asked, “Jimin where are we?”

With a smile Jimin responded, “Give me a second,” as he searched his pockets for a scrap of parchment and a self-refilling quill. After biting at the nib of the quill to free the ink, Jimin quickly scrawled down an address in his thin spiky handwriting. “Memorize it,” he muttered, “I’m the Secret Keeper.”

You quickly memorized the lines: Park Jimin’s residence is 0613 Amaranthine Street, London. As soon as Jimin had seen you wordlessly mouth the sentence twice over, he set it on fire with a small incendiary spell. As the two of you made your way out of the alley, Jimin took your hand in his and gently pulled you along to the front of the houses. In front of the two of you, you could see 0612 Amaranthine with its beige exterior and 0614 Amaranthine with its gray walls, however, as you visualized the words on the paper that Jimin had written, 0613 began to materialize between the two homes, pushing them out of the way until it stood before you in its shining white and navy glory.

“So, this is where you live,” you muttered, following Jimin up the walk to the front door. As soon as Jimin’s hand touched the door handle, he was able to push it open with ease since the door was opening as though Jimin himself was the key.

“Not yet,” he uttered, looking back at you as he toed off his shoes at the entrance. Apparently Jimin liked to have a no shoes allowed household, which surprised you. You had always thought of him as the severe type of person who was meticulous about everything right down to the clothes that he worn. “It’s the bachelor lodgings my parents got for me for after graduation. But since I’m still splitting my time between my parents and Hogwarts, it’s been empty for months. Apologies in advance if it’s a little dusty.”

“No this is fine,” you answered him, stepping out of your own shoes and walking deeper into the foyer. You liked the welcoming airy style the house was made up in. The pale colors and expansive windows everywhere provided the home with tons of light that made it appear spacious and inviting.

Jimin let you go through the rooms of the house without interruption. He knew you were touring it trying to gain further insight about him but unfortunately, the home did not have a lot to offer. When his mother had asked him for his opinion on the furniture and décor, Jimin had delegated Chimmy to furnishing the place. You seemed to come to the same realization as Jimin after you finally paused your tour in the master bedroom, turning to face him with a wry expression.

“Are you hungry?” Jimin asked, not knowing how to make things move smoothly for the two of you.

While that day in Paris had been amazing, Jimin could not recreate it by being in public with you now. He was certain he was getting watched by the Dark Lord, although he did not know to which extent besides that of Nagini, but he knew he would be safe here at Amaranthine Street. The home had the same level of protection and security that the Park mansion did; it had been historically used as the first-born Park’s bachelor pad until they got married and moved back to the family mansion. Perhaps the two of you could play Wizarding board games or something, Jimin did not fucking know. He had never really dated anyone, choosing to spend most of his time with the opposite sex cozied in broom cupboards or deserted classrooms for heated make out sessions.

With a mocking laugh, you pulled Jimin into you, “I hardly think you brought me to your home when there’s no adults to sit around and eat together Jimin,” you murmured, threading your fingers through his thick black hair and pulling him down for a kiss.

With slight groan, Jimin deepened the kiss, his teeth nipping at your warm plush lower lip as he strove for the dominance that you, as a Gryffindor would not give him so easily. You fought against Jimin’s warring strokes of tongue and lips against your mouth, not wanting to relinquish your control, as he roughly held you up to elongate the length of the kisses. You were sure that without Jimin gripping you, you would have sunk to the floor as you felt strangely boneless.

Deciding to give you a respite and a chance to catch your breath, Jimin moved his lips to trail heated open mouthed kisses along your jaw and throat with firm pressure from his plush lips as he maneuvered the two of you so that you were pressed up against a wall. Your eyes closed at the pleasurable nips and pecks, the warmth from Jimin’s form taking over you as your senses his scent washed over you. The slightly bitter and sharp scent of orange blossoms that was so quintessentially evocative of Jimin filled your lungs as you ran your hands over his muscle corded back. Playing as the Beater had bulked Jimin up; he had enticingly broad shoulders and thick veiny arms that were holding you up while he did not even break a sweat. As your fingers slipped under his linen shirt and fluttered against his back, Jimin stilled. Shaking his head slightly, he accidentally scrunched his nose at you when he attempted to wink, rather, both of his eyes shut close for a second. Fixing his grip on your thighs, he pushed you even higher and tighter against his body as he maneuvered the two of you towards his bed, which fortunately had clean sheets due to Chimmy coming back and maintaining the house weekly.

As you toppled onto the bed with Jimin falling over you, you gasped, your breath getting knocked out of you although Jimin tried his best to keep from crushing your frame with his body. You had been wearing a pair of white jeans shorts and a pale blue baby-doll T-shirt to battle the early heat of the English spring, and Jimin was now taking advantage of your easy to slip off clothes to unbutton your shorts and slip them down your thighs as he caged you underneath him. The shorts hit the hardwood floors with a resounding thud when Jimin tossed them behind the two of you.

You started to blush when you realized that you only had your daisy printed cotton panties and T-shirt, that had already been sliding up your stomach, to shield you from Jimin’s gaze. With a light laugh, Jimin murmured, “Come on Y/L/N, don’t get shy with me now. You wouldn’t want me to tie your hands up so that you wouldn’t cover yourself now, would you?”

You glared at him, his palm was lying comfortably on top of your clothed mound, hardly realizing the overpowering effect he had on you. If Jimin crooked his finger into the juncture between your thighs, he would find the crotch of your panties soaked from your want. “Aren’t you going to take off your clothes Park?” you bit back.

Jimin scoffed, “That’s a little too easy isn’t it?”

Instead, he hooked his forefinger to the ribboned edge of your panties, pulling it almost entirely off your body. At the last moment, he had gotten distracted by your glistening rose petaled folds and had left it dangling from your left foot. He took out his wand to summon a large selection of cushions and pillows for you to prop your ass on. It was weird having your head resting against the bed’s mattress while your ass was elevated to be level with Park Jimin’s mouth. In fact, just now, he was propping your thighs on his shoulders as he moved closer to your heated core, wanting the sopping wetness of your femininity to be flush against his eager mouth.

As his tongue stabbed through your highly responsive cunt, brushing against the nerves that lined the walls of your hypersensitive core, your nipples stiffened against the cups of the built-in bra of your shirt. In frustration, you found yourself pulling off the material entirely to let the cool air in the bedroom wash over your hardened nipples. Jimin paused in his overzealous adoration of your cunt as he stared at you writhing against his cream-colored bedsheets. “Touch yourself, Y/L/N,” he murmured silkily, “Do it Gryffindor, or I won’t let you come.”

Hesitantly, you moved both of your hands up to cup your breasts. They were heavy and swollen from desire, spilling out of your palms. But staring Jimin down, you rolled your nipples in between your thumbs and forefingers, letting out a loud moan when you pinched them both simultaneously. Deciding to reward you, Jimin added a finger into the mix as he continued to eat out your pussy enthusiastically. You had never had anyone pay such fervent attention to your own pleasure before. The Gryffindor boys that you had usually hooked up with were all focused on the main course. And not only that, but they were all the “one and done” type, never checking to make sure that you had come, much less bothering to give you multiple bouts of pleasure.

After Jimin had brought you to your first screaming orgasm, he knocked the pillows out of the way so that you were in a more comfortable position. He made his way up your body with deep punishing kisses that were full of teasing love bites that you knew would leave your body dotted with bruised purplish hickeys and marks afterwards. Having finally reached your face, he threaded his fingers through your messy unbound hair, pulling your mouth tight against his for a kiss with a deep growl. His body pressed against yours, his heavy cock finding your hidden softness easily, pleasurably unyielding against the juncture of your thighs. He rocked his hips as he deepened the kiss, your lips meeting his feverishly as the two of you battled for domination, your tongues intertwining frantically as moans and pants slipped out both of your lips. His hard, persistent erection had your pussy aching for it, and you found yourself rolling your hips and grinding your enlarged and overly sensitive clit against the hard metal zipper of his pants, eager to have the thick throbbing length trapped against the zipper within you.

Deciding to ignore Jimin’s snarky comment about it being too easy from earlier, you found yourself unbuckling and unlooping his leather belt from his pants so that you could free his cock. You could feel Jimin frowning into your kiss, so you distracted him by sucking his tongue in between his lips as you clenched your fingers around his pants and underwear to push it down past his hard ass cheeks so that you could finally free his monstrous cock. You immediately put your hand on it, wrapping your fingers around it, eager to finally feel the warm heat of his long smooth length. His balls felt huge in your palm as you gently tugged on them causing Jimin to let out a loud moan that had him instantly grabbing your hands and quickly pulling them over your head as he held them tightly in the grip of his left hand. With his dominant hand, he pushed off his pants completely, kicking them off the bed. “Don’t test me Y/N. Or I’ll take my pleasure and not even think about giving you yours.”

You protested loudly at that, causing him to let out a husky laugh, “Okay, okay, vixen, I’ll let you have your pleasure and take it too.”

Still holding your arms above your head, he sank to his knees in between your widespread thighs. His dark brown eyes sought yours as he fought to hold your gaze, staring into your eyes resolutely while he gripped his reddened cock in his hand and maneuvered it to the entrance to your pussy. The head of his cock was glistening with precum as it sought the slit that led to your empty womanhood. After a moment, he succeeded, his thick unyielding cock forcing you to surrender as he easily slipped in between your folds. He started slow, with shallow pumps, testing your limit before he increased the force, jackhammering you with hard, vehement thrusts.

Your lovemaking had been a zealous and passionate affair that had left the two of you breathless in rapture besides each other after the tingling aftershocks of your orgasms had subsided. You played absentminded with the cuff of the left arm of Jimin’s long sleeved shirt as he rested beside you with his other arm thrown over his eyes. Unlike him, you were not exhausted after the sex. If anything, you felt even more energized. Your mind was running a mile a minute as thoughts flitted across your head with incredible swiftness. For one, you kept coming across a number of questions that you wanted to ask Jimin now that you two had irrevocably changed the nature of your relationship. Your eyebrows furrowed as you grew stuck on what Jimin’s middle name was. Your eyes flitted across his form, getting caught on the bit of his forearm that had become exposed after you had been fiddling with his shirt’s cuffs. The pale skin was marred by a dark inky tattoo that you could not fully see since the majority of it was still covered by his sleeve.

Growing curious, with a sinking feeling of premonition that you did not understand fully, you reached once more for his left arm. You paused with your hand wrapped around his wrist before you decided to bite the bullet and shove up the arm of his shirt all the way up to his elbow. The tattoo that was revealed had you gasping in horror and backing away from Jimin in a rush. Jimin’s eyes snapped open at the sound and he stared at you in confusion when he saw you backing up against a wall with your shirt clutched to your chest as you attempted to find the rest of your clothes and wand so that you could get out of there.

“Y/N, what’s wrong?” he asked getting up and trying to approach you. Your eyes inadvertently flickered to his left forearm, where his sleeve was still pushed back, as you moved away even more, your eyes sweeping across the room desperately seeking your wand.

“What are you looking at?” Jimin asked, his gaze following yours until he caught sight of his revealed Dark Mark. “Y/N,” he whispered, pleadingly.

“No!” You shouted, when he once again tried to get closer to you. “Stay away from me, you Death Eater! I can’t believe I trusted you,” you cried hysterically, as you finally found your shorts and quickly stuck your legs through them, slipping them on over you, sans underwear.

“Y/N, I can explain,” Jimin begged, holding up his palms in surrender.

“No, you fucking cannot!” You grated, slipping your hand into your shorts’ pocket, finding your wand in the back right pocket. Before Jimin could blink, you let out a roaring scream, belting out “Stupefy!” to stop and Stun him in his tracks. As Jimin quickly went down with a thud, you could not find it within you to be remorseful.

You hurriedly slipped your T-shirt over your head as you ran down the hallway and down the stairs to jam your feet into your shoes. You opened the front door with a resounding bang and thought that Jimin should have just been thankful that you did not have an evil or vindictive bone in your body. It was a good thing that you were not a pyromaniac like Choi Soobin, because in all honesty you had been two seconds away from setting the entire house on fire with the FiendFyre spell, the Lees had taught, with him still in it.

You ran down the street until you made it back to the alley that Jimin had landed his Firebolt in earlier and quickly uttered the Apparition spell once you were fully enmeshed in the shadows of the buildings making up the alley. This time you would be running away to somewhere that no one could find you, not the Snatchers, nor the Death Eaters, and especially not one Park Jimin, whom you now considered to be dead to you.

…

It took Jimin four hours to wake up from the powerful Stunning spell you had hit him with. He had found himself lying on his back on the hardwood floors of the master bedroom to 0613 Amaranthine Street with a pounding headache and a large bump on the back of his head. Although he was disoriented, the memories from before slowly came back to him and his heart sunk with devastation when he recalled your reaction to the Dark Mark that was marring the length of his left forearm.

He stayed on the floor, with his knees up and tucked under his chin, resentfully suffering through his splitting headache until Chimmy came to him long after night had fallen with a bowl of kimchi fried rice and eggs for dinner. Sullenly, he asked Chimmy to Apparate them back home, not in the mood to fly the massive distance when he still felt so queasy. Once at home, he bitterly walked past the room that housed Nagini behind its door, and rushed towards his own bedroom, in no mood to make conversation. For a second, he was tempted to take his wand to his arm and use it to cut through the mark and destroy it, but something told him that the Dark Mark was more than just a tattoo, that the Dark Lord had somehow bound all his servants to himself, and that his control over them would linger even after the Dark Mark was cleaved. The only thing that brightened Jimin’s mood was the folded letter waiting on the top of his bedsheets. Written in the Headmaster’s spidery script was a missive that told Jimin to bring the giant serpent, that was currently slithering around the Park Mansion, to Spinner’s End tomorrow at noon.

As Jimin got ready for bed later that night, his chest ached with a resigned sense of emptiness. Although he had not exactly come to terms with losing you, he did get the feeling that the end was near. There were no seers or oracles in Jimin’s family; the gift of foresight was not one that was passed down in Jimin’s family, yet he could feel with clarity and conviction that the culmination of the war was coming rapidly. He knew that Kim Namjoon would not be content to remain in hiding for much longer, and that when he was ready (and Jimin sensed that that might be soon if the events that had taken place at the Min Manor were anything to go by), he would come for the Dark— no for Voldemort, and end the wretched limbo that the entire country was stuck in, waiting for the two to finally kill each other.

After breakfast the next day, Jimin found himself Apparating to the address that Yoongi’s mother had written down. As Jimin found himself walking through the riverside town, that was slightly modernized from the time that the city had attempted to gentrify it and then left abandoned, when no one new moved in, and was now broken down and depilated, he found himself wracking his head around the oddities of Apparation. Nagini floated besides him covered by a Disillusionment Charm cutting through the air easily while Jimin had to watch his step on the loosened and upturned pieces of gravel and stone on the cobblestoned street. It had been plaguing his mind all night as he drifted in and out of a fitful sleep, it was strange that wizards could Apparate to locations they had never been in as long as they could imagine the destination with excessively detailed clarity, and Jimin was wondering if the laws of Apparation would still hold true if he attempted to Apparate with a person in mind as his ultimate destination and not a physical location. His musings eventually brought him to the row of houses where the Headmaster lived. The bricks were old and worn down, the iron fences rusty and bent, the board of governors that set the salary for Hogwarts’ instructors were obviously not paying Snape a livable wage.

As Jimin walked up the steps that led him to the front doors of the Headmaster’s home, the disgusting stench from the filthy river went under his nose as a gust of wind carried the smell with it. At his knock, the door opened up a crack, so that Jimin could see a sliver of Professor Snape’s face and soulless black eyes looking back at him. Hidden behind the door, Jimin knew the man was armed with his wand in his hand. With furrowed brows, Snape threw open his front door wide enough so that Jimin and Nagini could pass through.

Expecting this to be a simple drop off, Jimin did not step too deep into the house, lingering at the entry way. As Nagini freely floated through the air in her bulbous entrapment moving deeper into the home, now visible as the professor had removed Jimin’s Disillusionment Charm with a simple sweep of his wand, Snape turned back to Jimin.

“Thank you for the delivery, Park, but your job is now complete,” he murmured. “You should focus on your studies. The NEWTs are coming up. Stop running after the Death Eaters’ coattails, hungry for approval and admiration. Leave the tough jobs for the adults, boy. Enjoy your youth while you can.”

Jimin glared at him, “Focus on my studies? I don’t think good grades will serve us well now Professor, not while the Ministry is under his control. He already had me keeping watch over Yang Hyunsuk. I think my future has already been decided and is far from under my control.”

Snape’s eyes sought Jimin’s, hard inky black ones seeking his warm chocolate brown eyes. Jimin could feel the Headmaster prodding through his mind, invading it. He tried to put up a wall to keep Snape from learning too much, but he was still weak from being Stunned the previous day. Snape’s presence in his mind felt overpowering and unwelcoming but the Headmaster did not linger in it for long, only sharing a thought that could be heard with a booming resonance within the walls of Jimin’s consciousness. You are a fool if you think that the Dark Lord will win, Park. Stop now before you ruin your future irreversibly. He left Jimin’s mind as quickly as he had entered, cutting their shared gaze and walking deeper into his home, following in the path Nagini’s aimless drifting. “Do you wish to stay for lunch?” his voice rang out to Jimin as he walked into another room.

“No thanks, I’m good,” Jimin grunted, still clutching his abused head. Suddenly, why Voldemort had chosen to watch over Snape with Nagini made sense to Jimin. There were larger things that were afoot than Jimin had the privilege of being privy to. It was better, like Snape had said, for him to back off while he still could. He would just ask his parents to plead his case so that he was no longer deeply enmeshed with the goings, comings, and doings of the Death Eaters. “I’ll just be going now,” he called out, exiting the home speedily.

Perhaps he could move to South Korea and find work in the Department of Mysteries in their Ministry of Magic. If he became an Unspeakable, he would never be allowed to leave the country as well and he would be guarded at all times both by the spells that bound Unspeakables from ever revealing confidential information and by the country’s Department of Magical Law Enforcement from ever leaving the country. Although Jimin would never be getting his happy ending with you, he would be damned if he was going to let Voldemort or the Death Eaters rule his life anymore. He would study the Asian magical archives until he found the way to get rid of Voldemort for good, if Namjoon failed to be up to the task.

…

For all its glitz and glamour, America was boring. You came to that realization by your second week in Brownville, Nebraska, a small town that was home to about 500 muggles. Your mother and you had settled in the same large farmhouse that your father had rented out for his new wife and your half-siblings. But even the tension between the two great loves of your father’s life, past and present, did not provide enough diversion from the boring mundaneness that encompassed life at Brownville.

There had been several rules that your parents had both implemented once you had joined them. Amongst them were absolutely no speaking of magic or life in England, no performing of magic, and no use of magical objects. Your pet owl had been moved to live in the barn that took up the back of the property your father had rented, and you were only allowed to visit her with treats in the dark of the night. As it was, you thought your pet was already diverting back to her more undomesticated side as she was preferring the small rodents, she could hunt on the property, to the owl treats you placed out for her.

You were grateful that the adults had given you the large open structure of the attic to be your room, where you would often stay up for most of the day, only coming down for meals, avoiding everyone else in the house. Your half-siblings, who were much younger than you were confused and resentful of the move to Nebraska and blamed you for it although they did not know the details as to why. Your father had never felt the need to tell his Muggle family that once upon a time he had fallen in love with a witch and, with her, had had a daughter who was also a witch. After all, being a Muggle himself, the chances of one of his newer children being able to perform magic were minimal to zero.

As April came to an end and May began, you had resigned yourself to fully living a life as a Muggle and had even considered the benefits of such a lifestyle. For one, the Muggles had increasingly advanced as a society and had come up with inventions that were, in your opinion, just as magical as the things that witches, and wizards could come up with. In fact, you were highly impressed by televisions and telephones. One evening, in between looking through catalogs for different tutoring services you could pay for to acquire a GED, you were trying to set up the black box television set your parents had surprised you with in your attic bedroom. You were struggling with the antenna when you felt a burning sensation the size of a Galleon against your chest. The DA coin you had attached to a chain, to dangle from your neck, was warm to the touch, lightly heating your skin with its summons. Jeon Jungkook, the de facto leader of the group since Kim Namjoon, Jung Hoseok, and Kim Seokjin, the three members of the Golden Trio, had gone on the run, was using it to summon members of Dumbledore’s Army to fight.

Immediately jumping up, you grabbed your wand where it was hidden, tucked inside one of your many pillowcases. Before you could get too excited, you noticed that you were still in your pajamas with a robe hanging off your frame haphazardly and mismatched socks covering your feet. As you hurriedly threw off your clothes to pull a pair of jeans over your legs and a sweater over your pajama shirt, you searched the top of your messy desk to find a scrap of paper you could write on, to let your mother where you had gone. Knowing that there was a chance that your note would fall into the hands of your half-siblings, you were careful to be vague. You wrote quickly with your pen running across the page, blotching the sheet with spots of ink. You wrote: Mother, I had to do it. I had to leave to show the strength and perseverance of Godric’s friends. I’ve gone to meet Hogwarts to do what has to be done. It is my time now to do what you had done 20 years ago. I love you Mother, never forget that.

Blinking back tears, you prepared yourself to Apparate straight into the Hog’s Head pub, as you tried to resign yourself to the idea that there was a chance that you would not be coming out on the other side, alive. But you had lived the entire year as a shade. In all honestly you were a little embarrassed of yourself. Proud, brave Gryffindors did not act like this. It was time for you to stand up for what was right. It was time for you to defend all the Muggleborns and everyone who had been persecuted and treated like vermin as He-Who-Must, no, Voldemort forced his will upon everyone throughout all of Britain.

If you died, you hoped that your mother would be able to sleep at night knowing that she had raised a strong and fearless daughter who defended and protected those who could not fight for themselves. As you hurried through your room, looking for what else you might have needed, your eyes got caught on your Gryffindor House badge tittering on the edge of the nightstand. Grabbing it swiftly, you stabbed it through the fabric of your sweater before raising your wand in front of you and Apparating to Hogsmeade Village.

Once you found yourself in the bar, you were immediately pushed to the side as the large group of people that had congregated tried to squeeze everyone in the small space. As your gaze flickered over the wizards and witches who had all come together to help Namjoon fight Voldemort, you thought you even saw members of the Order of the Phoenix and students who had already graduated in the mix. As you stood there awkwardly and alone, watching Kim Kibum get tackled by Lee Taemin as the two of them started to talk over each other, you thought you heard Kibum yell when Taemin announced that he did not have a wand. Further away, you saw Bang Sihyuk quietly talking with Kang Hyowon and Kwon Dohyeong, who had gone by PDogg and Slow Rabbit on the Goldenwatch broadcasts, about how to get the younger students safely away before the main fighting began. Adora was talking to Shin Donghyuk about how to defend the castle and block off the exits and entrances to the school, waving her wand around to cast a three-dimensional diagram that floated above their heads and changed to depict her plans.

You were so overwhelmed, taking in everything that was happening all around you at once, that you did not notice your best friends Nayeon and Jeongyeon until they both barreled into you, hugging you tightly. The tears threatened to overtake your features once more, but you held it in, knowing that you had to stay strong so that you could fight with a clear head. “I’ve missed you two so much,” you mumbled into their hair.

“We’ve missed you too,” Jeongyeon said, grabbing your hand and squeezing it tightly in hers.

“But it’s okay,” Nayeon declared, “We’re together now. And we’ll fight together too.”

You nodded energetically at that moving towards Mr. Bang who was gesturing you all over to get into orderly groups to go upstairs and exit into the castle, one group at a time. Once you were rushed up the stairs to a room, the likes of which you had never seen before at Hogwarts, since it had been designed by the Room of Requirement, you all were furtively pushed out into the corridors to make your ways down to the Great Hall where everyone was gathering so that Hog’s Head would have enough room for all the wizards and witches that were traveling to Hogwarts to fight.

The Great Hall was looking more haphazard and disorganized than it had looked the night that Azkaban’s prisoner had escaped onto the school’s grounds and the Dementors had been dispatched. All the tables were filled, there were First, Second, and Third Years who had been pulled out of bed in their pajamas sitting only feet away from battle ready, hardened witches and wizards who were all still holding up their wands up in a fighting move. Even the castles ghosts had all congregated at the Hall, looking at Professor Taeyeon who was speaking at the front of the room, on a raised platform where the Professors’ table usually was. Behind her, the other Professors could be seen, Kim Heechul, Eric Nam, Lee Sumni, and Tiffany Young, with the members of the Order standing behind them.

Professor Taeyeon was explaining that the evacuation of the students would be taking place immediately, “If you are of age, you are allowed to stay behind and remain to fight if you desire,” she continued as Nayeon pulled you down to sit next to her at the Gryffindor table.

As you stared at the Deputy Headmistress who was speaking about how the Headmaster had taken a permanent leave of absence, her voice was drowned out by a terrible inhumane voice that rang out through the space, chilling and clear: “I know that you all are preparing to fight. But you must know, your efforts are in vain. It is futile to go against me. You cannot fight me and expect to win. I do not wish to kill you. I respect the institute of Hogwarts greatly, the instructors and what they teach and represent. I do not want to spill any magical blood. I have a great love for our kind.”

Screams had erupted across the Great Hall, as panic-stricken students clung to each other in fear, their fearful gazes darting across the room trying to make sense of where the voice was coming from. Voldemort continued, “Give me Kim Namjoon and no one will get hurt. Give me Kim Namjoon and the school will be left standing and whole. Give me Kim Namjoon and I will reward you for your labor. You have until midnight to give him up, after that I will offer no mercy to a single soul.”

Silence overtook the entire Hall, broken minutes later when Jennie Kim stood up on the Slytherin table and shouted, “He’s right there,” pointing to the entrance to the Great Hall where Namjoon stood next to Yeri. “Get him! Someone quick! Before we all have to die for his actions!”

All at once, there was a rush of sound as people began to push up against the House tables. You stood up with the Gryffindors, reaching for your wand as you all stood to face Jennie face on to defend Namjoon from her. The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws had stood up with you all, also reaching for their wands, targeting the table that was at the far left of the room who all had students that were stiffly sitting down. You tried to see if Jimin was with his mulish Housemates, but you could not see him anywhere. Now that he had gone back to his natural black hair, it was no longer easy to spot the Head Boy in a crowd.

With an acerbic, tight bite to her words, Professor Taeyeon grated, “Miss Kim cease your foolishness. You will be the first to leave the Hall, if the rest of your House could follow. Ravenclaws, once the Slytherins leave, follow them.”

The tables were slowly vacated, with only the adults who wished to fight remaining behind. To the absolute surprise of no one, the Slytherin table was completely deserted. The Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables however had about half of their Seventh Years still staying seated. However, when it came to the Gryffindor table, everyone was reluctant to leave their place, with even the First and Second Years putting on a brave face as they nervously clutched at their almost brand-new wands. Professor Taeyeon had to abandon her post at the platform to come and deal with her house, shouting, “Huening Kai, Kang Taehyun! Get going! You two absolutely cannot stay!” when the two were reluctant to part with the Chasers of the Gryffindor quidditch team: the Choi’s, Soobin, Yeonjun and Beomgyu.

As Professor Taeyeon took care of the Gryffindors who were leaving, arranging evacuation protocols with the Prefects, Mr. Bang took the stage to order you all to take up post all over the castle. You listened to him with your mind drifting wondering about Jimin. Would he be allowed to leave with the students or would Voldemort force him to return to the castle to fight after midnight when the school inevitably did not give up Namjoon.

…

As you were getting ready to fight, Jimin was getting ready too. He had slipped away in all the ruckus, casting a Disillusionment Charm over his form. He had to find the Headmaster. He did not believe what Professor Taeyeon had said. He needed to find the Professor to know if there was a way for him to get rid of his Dark Mark. He had no idea the magnitude of its power but he knew that if he wanted to make a break from the Death Eaters, it would have to be a clean one. He could not risk being in the fray, getting attacked by both the Light side and Voldemort’s followers who would both be seeing him as the enemy.

He stalked through the halls, walking through the halls determinedly, seeking the Headmaster’s studies where he knew that Professor Snape would be, licking his wounds after his brawl against Professor Taeyeon. Soon, he was in front of the gargoyles that would split to reveal the way to the Headmaster’s rooms. But what would the password be? Surely Snape had changed it after Taeyeon had attacked him to keep her from accessing it. Wracking his brain, Jimin’s memories paused on the portraits of Headmasters, past, cheering him on as he struggled to fight against Snapes attacks on his mind, striving to improve his Occlumency. His focus kept lingering on the portrait of the Albus Dumbledore with the sparkly vivid blue backdrop. “Dumbledore!” Jimin shouted, hardly pausing to feel the full extent of his astonishment before rushing up the stairs, into the circular chamber, where Professor Snape was slumped over his chair like a comic book villain, rubbing the pads of his fingers into his temple.

“Professor!” Jimin blurted, “You have to help me. Please. You’re the only one who can.”

Snape’s gaze flickered to Jimin distractedly, his eyes were glazed and unfocused, “I am a little busy Park. You could not have come at a more inopportune time,” he grated, standing up and clutching at his left arm, which must have been burning as hotly as Jimin’s if not more so.

“Is there a way to get rid of the Mark? Please Professor,” Jimin begged.

For a second, there was the cunning clarity, that Jimin knew Snape to have, taking over his person as his beady dark eyes focused on Jimin. “Come here Park and roll your sleeve up.”

Jimin rushed forward, swiftly shoving up the left sleeve of his school robes to expose the Dark Mark that stood out against Jimin’s pale skin with its black ink to Snape. Wrapping his clammy pale hand around Jimin’s wrist, he pulled Jimin’s arm forward, and with a whispered, “Sectumsempra,” cut a controlled gash over Jimin’s arm, going over the path he was tracing with his wand. The pain was blinding. It lacerated through Jimin’s flesh, cutting right to the bone, creating hemorrhages and causing Jimin’s vision to go white at the blood loss. As it cut through the ink of the Dark Mark, however, with the pain Jimin felt a sense of release as though his link to Voldemort was finally being broken. As quickly as he inflicted the curse on Jimin, Snape muttered a songlike chant, incanting the counter-curse. His wand was tracing the same path it had made earlier, only this time it was in reverse. The blood flow seemed to stutter and stop and then Snape was repeating the counter curse a second time and a third to stitch the flesh back up.

A disgusting mottled patch of flesh took up the entire length of Jimin’s arm, it looked like someone had dipped a sword into acid and ran deep horizontal lines through his skin, with the healed lines standing up in ridges against his arm, but the mark was entirely gone. The pain however lingered. If he was to fight in the war after this, he would have to be careful not to reveal that he was already nursing a wound.

“I can give you Dittany to ease the pain, however it is unlikely that the scar will fade. I had to use a dark spell on a mark that was already created by dark magic. We are just lucky it worked,” muttered Snape, getting up to go to the potions cabinet at the opposite side of the room where he kept his stash of powerful and intricate potions.

As Jimin stood still staring at the long white scars that had the heterogenic patterns of chemical burns, waiting for the Dittany to kick in, Snape rushed to the window on the far side of the chamber. Instantly he flung the two panels of glass open and stood at the sill, peering down eight floors to where the green of the Hogwarts’ lawn was still visible in the dark of the night. Without so much as a pause, he instantly stepped off of it, causing Jimin to yelp, thinking that he had just watched his Headmaster plunge to his death after a suicidal jump. Rushing to the window, Jimin could see in the distance a huge bat-like figure flying through the air, rushing towards the darkness that laid beyond the outer perimeter walls of the school grounds.

However, Jimin could not stay here forever. He had to get out to where the fighting was taking place. He had a job as the Head Boy of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to serve them to the best of his abilities. And that meant, that whether the Lees or Voldemort had intended when they had given him the title, that Jimin had the duties of being a good leader for the students, along with protecting the castle and its inhabitants, and doing anything else that was asked of him. As he made his way back into the fray, he saw Death Eaters fighting with students half their ages, some of their hoods and masks having come off in the heat of the moment.

The corridors were filled with a rainbow of brightly colored bolts as each side hurled defensive spells at each other. The Death Eaters fought with no compunction, having the Unforgivable Curses spill from their lips, with each wave of their wand. Jimin went through the crowd, running swiftly, sending targeted Stunning spells through them, aiming at what could have even been his own parents under those disguises. But suddenly, the air exploded with a deafening blast. The corridor cleaved itself, the walls shattered into a million fragmented pieces and the roof began to cave in. Jimin coughed at the sudden explosion of kicked up dust and plaster. He did his best to get out of the rubble, pitching his arm under the shoulder of a struggling student with a cut on his forehead and a tear in his black school robes. The boy’s red tie looped around his neck, tightening like a noose.

Once they had made it to the edge of the corridor that had not been impacted by the explosive spell, he was finally able to look at the person whose life he had saved. Kim Taehyung stared back at Jimin in confusion, wiping the back of his left hand across his mouth to wipe away some of the blood from a cut lip. As his brows furrowed and his mouth opened with the beginnings of a question painting his lips, a terrible scream from a female could be heard as a gigantic spider, the size of a Volkswagen beetle crawling in through the monstrous new hole in the wall that made the outside of the castle visible.

Sprinting away from each other, the two shot spells over their shoulders at the spider. None of the spells seemed to have an effect, as the spider crawled its way in, however when it was struck by both of their spells at the same time, it flipped in its back, struggling to make itself upright again. Jimin dared to look back into the direction of the hole. He yelled, “It brought its family,” as he sprinted away.

Soon, both students, members of the Order, and Death Eaters were all running, all attacking the spiders with jets of red and green lit spells, as they ran to save themselves. As Jimin reached the end of the hall where the staircases were, he took flight, leaping over the railing of the walkway to the moving stairs that were shifting ten feet below it. As his heart jumped to his throat, as he made himself a vulnerable target flying through the air for both Death Eaters and Hogwartians, he wondered if you were here too, or if you were long gone, hidden wherever it had been that you had fled to, making a new life for yourself away from war and political uprisings. He thought maybe it would be safer for him to fight out in the open on the Hogwarts’ grounds where there were not as much landmarks that could be weaponized to explode or collapse, crushing and hurting everyone in its path with its debris.

As Jimin made his way towards the ground level of the castle, running and leaping from staircase to staircase, He crossed paths with several Death Eaters who would give him a nod of acknowledgment before turning their backs and targeting Jimin’s classmates. Was it unchivalrous of Jimin to attack them when they had their backs turned? Perhaps. But Rome was not built in a day and Jimin could not unteach everything he had been taught. After all, he was not a self-righteous Gryffindor, he was a cunning Slytherin who took the chance when he saw it.

Jimin had finally neared the bottom floor, he took the stairs four at a time as he hurried to get out of such a vulnerable position. The staircase that connected all of the stories of the castles were death traps for not only the people using them, but the ones underneath or nearby them. After direct hits from powerful spells, they were liable to collapse into giant pieces of stone and marble that could crush the crowd below it or plunge the ones on it to a painful death. His mind’s musings came true a moment later when someone screeched “Glisseo!” causing the stairs under his feet to flatten to a smooth ramp, making Jimin who had been rushing down the steps to hurtle down it so quickly, unable to control the momentum his body had gained, that shots of red and green light went over his head, narrowly missing his body by a hairsbreadth.

As Jimin lay at the foot of the staircase, resting his weight on his hands as he struggled to get the feeling back in his legs, the shattering sound of glass being blasted erupted to his left. With a quick glance, Jimin was able to see that the Slytherin hourglass that kept track of their house points had exploded with only part of its bottom half remaining. The tennis ball size emeralds were spilled, the gems rolling around haphazardly, causing everyone to trip and slip over them. Jimin could not help but think of the previous June when the previous Headmaster had died, and the Gryffindor hourglass had gotten shattered in the carnage that the invading Death Eaters had left behind. The magic of Hogwarts worked in mysterious ways, often revealing omens that had grim outcasts. Had Headmaster Snape fallen and died?

With his heart pounding so furiously that he could not hear anything but the rush of blood moving behind his ears, Jimin ran towards the front doors of the castle. Everywhere he looked, there was chaos and destruction. There were enormous spiders climbing the walls freely, their pincers snapping erratically as they looked for victims to envenom and eat. The giants that Voldemort had created alliances with had come now, to play. They were attacking the castle with their monstrous clubs, sending the stone bricks that shaped the castle flying.

As soon as Jimin stepped onto the grounds, an unearthly chill entered his body. The air was frozen around him. His heartbeats slowed and quietened until he could no longer hear them, feeling leaden and immobile. Dementors. Those malevolent wraiths glided through the open sky of the castle, their multitude covering the brightness of the full moon that shown over all of the grounds. Already, the dark morose thoughts began to permeate Jimin’s minds. He was never going to be able to gain penance for his sins. He would never be able to make up for what he had done, and for what he had not done as he stood by and let terrible things happen. Headmaster Snape was most likely dead. There was no way that Kim Namjoon could beat Voldemort. It was futile, it was all futile and perhaps Nagini was the key. But as long as she remained in her enchanted protective cage, there would be no saving for the rest of them. They were all damned and doomed to die in this pointless futile fight. Voldemort would soon discover that Jimin had forsook him and would torture him until he could break into Jimin’s mind with ease and destroy everything that Jimin loved or cared about. And what about you, Y/N, Jimin would never be able to ask for your forgiveness or be given the opportunity to make up for his mistakes. His breath came out in smoky white vaporous streams, he tried to raise his right arm to create his Patronus, but it would not move.

He had resigned himself for the Kiss from the Dementor that was closest to him, and seemed to be targeting him specifically, when a massive silver tiger, soared over his head, joined by its mercurial companions, a silver squirrel and hare. The Dementors scattered, backing away from Jimin, but they still caged him in.

“Come on Park!” came the shout of Jung Hoseok from his right. “I know you can do this. You are easily the most brilliant wizard in our Year, excluding Namjoon.”

“Just think of a happy thought,” murmured Jeon Jungkook, coming over to Jimin’s left. “Come on, I know you’re not as bad as everyone paints you out to be. I saw you targeting those Death Eaters back there. You can do it Jimin. We will fight and we will win.”

A happy thought? A memory, uninvited, came rushing forward.

“Are you able to cast a corporeal Patronus?”

“I did. Once,” you answered.

Jimin looked momentarily stunned before he was able to collect himself, “In theory, if you have a memory that is so inexplicably happy and bound to your mind that you would never forget it, you could even scare off an army of Dementors with your Patronus.”

The memory of you had a bitter sting to it. Jimin knew that he would never have his happy ending with you; he was undeserving of it. And yet, it was you and the memory of that one magical day in Paris that had the silver stream of magic shooting out of the end of Jimin’s wand, casting a fully corporeal swan to join the others. As the four Patronuses glided through the air, protecting their owners. The dementors finally dispersed, fracturing away from each other.

Jimin turned back to his classmates, people he had barely spoken to over the past seven years. “Thank you for saving my life,” he muttered gruffly.

“Yeah well,” said Kim Taehyung casting an unimpressed glance at Jimin, “An eye for an eye and all that. But I’m not convinced, Park. So, don’t expect me to save your life again.”

…

The fighting had continued for hours. Voldemort’s voice had come once again, bodiless and macabre, thundering across the space. An unwelcome and unnerving sound that licked the ears of everyone, making them shudder, as it spread the news that he would be giving them an hour to dispose of their dead and to heal their injured before he would be entering the fray and fighting himself, killing everyone in his path until he got Kim Namjoon.

You had been patching up Kim Seokjin’s arm with bandages. There was only so much your healing spell could do and the school Healer, Madame Shin Suran, was being stretched thin, having already enlisted a group of students to help her take care of the wounded. The healing and rejuvenating potions had long run low, even after Professor Heechul had added to the infirmary’s supply. That had been when it had happened.  

The Death Eaters were lining the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Accompanying them at their backs were the Dementors and giants. They walked with Voldemort in the middle, it was the first time that you had ever seen the terrible evil that he was. The sight that met your eyes was far worse than you could have ever dreamt of him to look like. He made a tall figure in his voluminous dark robes that revealed a rail thin figure as he cut through the lawn, sweeping forward. He could have been seven feet tall and was entirely deserving of his boogeyman status with his bone pale skin and demon red eyes, the glint of which you could still make out 20 yards away. As he neared, you were able to see that he was completely hairless, with not a strand on his scalp or even his brows. The hairlessness and slits of his nostrils made him look terribly similar to a frightening serpent.

When Voldemort had crossed to be what he deemed was sufficient amount away, he stepped to the side, revealing the school’s groundskeeper Hagrid to be holding a bundled figure in his arms. Your heart stopped as your eyes cut on the tear tracks that had been left on Hagrid’s cheeks. You had the terrible feeling that it was Namjoon in his arms.

“NO!” bellowed Taeyeon letting out an unearthly cry of anguish, “NAMJOON.”

“Namjoon!” you heard the shouts of Mr. Bang and Mr. Kang, who you knew were like fathers to Namjoon join in. Hoseok was being restrained by Seokjin and Taehyung, yelling desperately for the male he considered to be as good as a blood brother to him. You could even feel tears streaming down your own face. With Namjoon dead, all hope seemed to be lost.

“SILENCE!” bellowed Voldemort. “The Boy Who Lived is finally dead. And at my hands. Hagrid, why don’t you put the boy where he belongs, at my feet.”

Hagrid placed Namjoon’s crumpled form on the ground. He looked so broken and small that bile was rising up in your throat. You had to swallow it down as you bitterly sniffed at the injustice.

“Do you see this?�� Voldemort asked, circling Namjoon’s body, prodding it with the toe of his shoe and a maniacal smile painting his face. “Do you finally understand, you deluded fools? He was never anything more than a boy who counted on others to sacrifice themselves for him! But he, himself, never had any skills or strength. No, that is why I was so easily able to kill him with a simple snap of my wand.”

“You’re lying! He beat you!” Seokjin yelled, grabbing his bandaged shoulder with a wince as he talked back to perhaps one of the most vile and deadly wizards in existence. However, Seokjin’s retort was able to do the job. The Silencing Charm Voldemort had casted over the castle’s inhabitants broke and they were able to shout and protest once more.

Voldemort once again hit them with a Silencing Charm, this one more powerful than the last. His voice got even louder, “Kim Namjoon was killed while he tried to escape the grounds like the coward that he is, leaving the rest of you to die for him. He was killed while his self-preserving ass tried to flee for safety…”

Voldemort’s voice trailed off as a figure burst out from the line of Hogwartians, charging towards him. It was poor Jeon Jungkook who had idolized Kim Namjoon and seen him as his best friend. None of the other Gryffindors had thought to restrain him as well. With a laugh and a sweep of his wand, Voldemort easily disarmed Jungkook. “Ah, young Jeon Jungkook. How poorly misguided you are. Why do you defend that dirty Half-Blood whose blood is tinged with the filth that comes from his Mudblood mother? You are a Pureblood yourself, young man. We could do with your kind, Jeon. Brave, spirited purebloods.”

“I would never join the Death Eaters,” Jungkook bit out caustically, “Dumbledore’s Army forever!” His call was meet by shouts from the crowd, including yours, who Voldemort seemed unable to control with his Silencing Charms.

Angered, Voldemort turned to Jungkook, “If that is how you want to play things, young man. We will do it your way.” With a powerful wave of his wand, Voldemort incanted a nonverbal summoning spell. A deformed brown bundle swept through the air, falling onto his outstretched arm. It was the Sorting Hat, “There will be no more Sorting at Hogwarts. You all will be united under one House: the noblest one of them all, the House of my ancestor Salazar Slytherin.”

He then pointed his wand at Jungkook, instantly immobilizing him in a rigid, upright position, “Jungkook here will show you all what happens when you attempt to go against Lord Voldemort.” The hat was shoved onto Jungkook’s head forcibly with another snap of his wand, and then with a third flick, Voldemort had caused the Sorting Hat to burst into flames while still atop Jungkook’s head.

Just then, there was a disruption from the Forbidden Forest when two giants seemed to be attacking each other. All at once, commotion reigned and pandemonium struck. The giants laid into each other, hitting each other with powerful punches and kicks that shook the ground with so much force it felt like unnatural earthquakes were occurring. The castle’s protectors were no longer held by the power of Voldemort’s spells and both sides rushed towards each other. Voldemort had lost his grip on the situation and now everyone was attacking each other.

From the sidelines, Jimin had been watching impartially, but when Voldemort’s focus was no longer on Jungkook, he rushed forward. It felt like he was the only who saw Jungkook break free from the Body-Bind Curse that had been placed on him. The enflamed Sorting Hat fell off his head as he shifted, falling with its pointed tip facing downwards, and Jimin was able to watch as Jungkook thrusted his arm into the hat pulling from within its depths the glinting ruby encrusted handle of the Sword of Gryffindor. Jimin rushed forward towards Jungkook, staring at him with panic-stricken widened eyes. Jeon, look at me dammit, he thought as he ran forward. There was still ten yards between them when Jungkook’s eyes met Jimin’s and Jimin hit him with the powerful burst of his own thoughts, Behind you. The snake. Use the sword.

Jungkook swung the sword around purposefully, he caught sight of the snake that was now slithering around freely since Voldemort had thought that Namjoon was dead. With a single powerful stroke, Jungkook brought the sword down, beheading Nagini with one fell swoop. Voldemort let out a shrill unhuman cry at his pet’s death. Charging forward towards Jungkook and Jimin purposefully.

All at once, the two of them were fighting the evilest and most powerful wizard that was alive, struggling to hold their own even in a two on one match. When a killing spell narrowly missed Jungkook, singeing the top of his already static and burnt hair from earlier, a voice bellowed behind them.

“Stop, Voldemort!” shouted Namjoon, who apparently was not dead after all. Jimin did not take the opportunity to check where the voice had come from since Voldemort had not ebbed his assault on the two boys. “It’s me that you want so why don’t you come and finish the job!”

…

At the end of the duel between Kim Namjoon and Lord Voldemort, only one of them remained standing. Fortunately for everyone, that had been Kim Namjoon. As the people of Hogwarts dealt with the aftermath of the battle, rushing to put the remaining Death Eaters who had been alive into custody, Bang Sihuyk had been temporarily instated as the Minister of Magic; apparently Minister Yang had fallen during the battle which Jimin could not feel himself feeling at all torn about.

Jimin’s parents had been amongst the ones who were being rounded up. They had attempted to implicate him along with themselves when Jimin had scoffed and said, “Me, a Death Eater? Hardly, Mother. Why on earth would I have dueled against Voldemort himself then?”

His mother had been shocked into silence while his father had sputtered at his disrespectful tone and how Jimin had had the audacity to call Voldemort by his name. But now, Jimin was wondering throughout the castle looking for someone. He needed to see you, to make sure that you were alright. His new friend Jungkook had assured him that you had returned to Hogwarts to participate in the battle. And according to Jungkook and his friends, the last they had seen of you you had been alive. However, they had all seen you before the second bout of fighting had started. However, Jimin had made his way through all of the fallen bodies, from both sides, that were laid out on the courtyard, both as a type of penance and to make sure that you were not among them. Jimin would remember the faces of all of the dead for the rest of his life, taking care to never be prejudiced or intolerant ever again.

He was finally making his way into the Great Hall, where the separation of the Houses no longer persisted, and everyone was sitting at whatever space was available next to their family members, strangers, or even other magical creatures who did not have a drop of wizarding blood. It was a strange but welcome sight of equality and tolerance. After his rounds about the tables had taken him past Yoongi and his parents who were sitting in a corner all to their own feeling awkward and distant, he finally found you. You were sitting in between two girls and talking to them animatedly.

Clearing his throat nervously, Jimin asked, “Y/N can I talk to you?”

You turned around, your eyebrows almost disappearing into your hairline at your surprise. After debating about it, for what seemed to Jimin had been long interminable moments, you nodded and stood up. The stroll the two of you were on led you eventually to through the castle out towards the Quidditch pitch.

Jimin finally spoke up after the lengthy silent walk. He stopped in his tracks and turned to you, “Y/N, if I could. I would redo everything, from our first meeting. I’m so truly sorry for everything I put you through this entire year. I hope you can feel the depths of my sincerity.”

You stared at him wordlessly. After a moment you parted your lips and said, “I wouldn’t.”

Jimin stared at you in shock.

“Jimin I wouldn’t change a single thing about our history, as painful as some of those moments have been. The moments we shared cannot be undone, the things we said cannot be unsaid. But I understand what you are hinting at. You want us to have a fresh start,” you carefully gauged Jimin’s reaction to your words.

He had been initially panicked when you had started to talk. But now, he bit his lip before saying softly, “Yes please, let us start anew once more, Y/N.”

With a soft smile gracing your lips, you reached out your hand towards him, “Hi, I’m Y/N.”

Jimin met you halfway, his arm stretching forward, and his fingers wrapping your hand in his grip. “Hello, Y/N,” he murmured, “I’m Jimin. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial - No Derivatives 4.0 International License

©OPALJM 2020 ©FITAELITY 2018-2020

[linkspooky]

hey, can you share your thoughts and opinions on dazai osamu's no longer human?(just the book and not in connection with bsd) i read it, i liked it, but i couldnt really relate to it. so im wondering if i should read the setting sun or not. what do you think abt this book?

I don’t think books really need to be relatable to be impactful, but context can help you understand it. In general my advice is the best way to understand a book is to read more books like it. Always, read more books. 

Sure, I can write a repsonse to the text though. The book, not the anime. (Ignore the picture of Dazai, he’s just there to look cute.)

The biggest and most important idea in No Longer Human (Ningen Shikakku).  The most literal translation of the title being  (人間失格)  "Disqualified From Being Human. I bring this up, because use of the character in the title has specific meaning.

人 (hito) : human, person 人間 (ningen): human Generally speaking, 人 is used for people, while 人間 is used for humans as a taxonomic classification. 

Much like English, the fact that a person is a human is usually a given, because in our world, we call those who are humane “people,” and only humans can be humane. Just like you wouldn’t usually count humans with “three humans” and say “three people” instead, the usual way to count three humans in Japanese would also be 三人 instead of 三人間.  “Human society” is 人間社会, etc.

Or to shorten  人 (hito) : human, person 人間 (ningen): human, biological.

So, there’s an extra nuannce there in the translation. The title of the book uses “ningen” as in the sense of taxonomical classification. So, it’s like saying “disqualified from being considered as a part of the human species.” 

I go this far in my intro because most consider Dazai’s work to be a response to Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, (he name drops both Dostoevsky and the novel itself). Both of these novels portray society as a whole as an antagonistic force to one individual, who is considered an outsider to that same society. There’s a lot of similarities between the protagonists, both Raksolnikov and Yozo are terminally ill, show signs of mental illness, and both are characters who show incredible self-awareness and moments of self reflection while at the same time being unable to connect to the feelings or identify with the people around them in any healthy way. 

To connect back to my little rant on the translation of the title though, what could disqualify a person from being considered a human being? Well, they could commit a crime for instance. Then they’d be classified as a crimminal. 

Both protagonists of both novels are crimminals in a sense. However, that’s about where the similarities end. NLH is centrally about the main characters egoism. Society matters so little in NLH, society is just something that hangs ominously in the background to the outsider. 

Now there’s another novel by Dostoevsky that similiarly is recorded in a journal format, and is mainly about the main characters Ego.  Notes from Underground is considered to be one of Dos’s first existentialist novels. Existentialism (to oversimplify) in a sense of what does existing in this world mean? 

That’s why I say the central conflict is not with society itself, but rather within the character’s own head. The outsiders of society only exist within their own heads. Their main challenge is not to grapple with society, morality and law like Raskolnikov but rather to figure out what is inside their own heads and what they live for. 

Which is why the protagonists of both novels are terrible egoists. Their main personality trait is their egocentrism, or rather their inability or unwillingness to try to see or understand the feelings or experiences of others. They are first person narrators who only see the world from their own point of view, but they are not objectve narrators. The only thing they can see, the only thing they can relate to, the only thing they can convey is their feelings to the reader. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald writes a similiar novel from a similiar point of view in This Side of Paraidse, which shows the journey of one young man born into a rich family who grows up to not only lose the love of his life, but also to squander all his fortunes at the end of the story. However, Fitzgerald drops all pretense on what the story is about. The chapter titles are things like, the romantic egoist, the egoist considers, narcissus off duty, all the way to the egoist becomes a personage. 

The book ends like this. 

He stretched out his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky.

“I know myself,” he cried, “but that is all.” 

It’s an egoists journey to developing a personality. To way oversimplify again, ego is yourself that exists in your own head, personage is what you show to others. At the end of This Side of Paradise, the main character gains himself, while at the end of NLH the protagonist loses himself. It’s the same journey but in reverse, it’s a net loss, it’s tragic. 

NLH, This Side of Paradise, and Notes from the Underground are all about egoists who are aware of their own feelings, but aren’t aware of the feelings of others. They’re all ridiculously self absorbed individuals. That’s actually, like, the unreliable narrator trick of the novel. 

Yozo is sympathetic yes, he’s an outsider to society, but at the same time Yozo is not the helpless, miserable victim he portrays himself as. He is not the victim to a cruel society, one he comes from a place of privilege and two he becomes a perpetrator. Hence, the whole... crime and punishment allusions. It’s this added complexity to Yozo that’s what makes the book as brilliant as it is. Yozo is someone who is both victim and perpetrator, but he only sees himself as a victim and the story he tells paints him exclusively as a victim. 

But Yozo’s central problem isn’t society its himself. His conflict and greatest obstacle is always his own ego. The reason we read the book biographically, is because we see him grow up, or rather fail to grow up. As a kid he is sympathetic, as an adult he’s a pretty serial user of people. 

Yozo constantly asks for sympathy, but at the same time he’s not really one to sympathize with others. When he tries to commit suicide with a woman, he reports these events with no remorse at all. 

I removed my coat andput it in the same spot.

We entered the water together.

She died. I was saved. 

He seems real broken up about it. 

That’s also a pattern that repeats again and again with Yozo. If you want to see the real nature of Yozo’s character you should see how he treats both women and children. They exist to make him happy, to soothe his misery, and when they don’t he leaves them. 

Like, out of context. What does this sound like. 

What a holy thing uncorrupted virginity is, I thought. 

I had never slept with a virgin, a girl younger than myself. I’d marry her.

The few times we do meet outside characters we see that Yozo is someone referred to as a crimminal, but refers to himself as a victim. 

“Don’t be cheeky now, I for one have never been tied up like a common crimminal the way you have.” 

I was taken aback. Horiki at heart did not treat me like a fully human being.

If you read No Longer Human as a response to Crime and Punishment, you could even read the many women that Yozo falls into flings with and then promptly abandons as a response to Raskolnikov and Sonya. For Yozo, each woman he meets is his Sonya, they are meant to redeem him and bring him peace, and whn they don’t he leaves. Yozo someone missing the point that, Raskolnikov loved Sonya because he sympathized with her circumstances and suffering while Yozo really only ever cares about his own suffering. 

To bring the discussion back to Notes from the Underground. It’s a story divided into two parts, that really doesn’t work without the second part of the story. In the first part, as we are just fed the main character’s thoughts he looks like some kind of revolutionary philosopher. Then in the second we follow the character though a day in his life and he’s just sort of... socially awkward. He’s not some brilliant thinker, he’s just an outsider who can’t connect with others, like Yozo. The second part is necessary to underwrite the first because in the first part of the journal he looks like a champion, and in the second he’s just pathetic. He’s just some guy. Notes from the Underground also has one of my favorite lines in all of fiction. 

"They won't let me ... I can't be good!" I managed to articulate; then I went to the sofa, fell on it face downwards, and sobbed on it for a quarter of an hour in genuine hysterics. She came close to me, put her arms round me and stayed motionless in that position.

The protagonist encounters a young prostitute name Liza, he tries to save her at first, but then turns around and starts to treat her terribly and has a mental breakdown in front of her that ends in this line. She finds him pitiable, and comforts him in that moment. 

However, after this moment of comfort he then he goes back to treating her terribly once more. He yells at her, and she grows tired of him. He pays her and she leaves and that’s the end of that relationship. 

See it’s a moment that’s simultaneously, a moment of human connection, but also it shows how the protagonist regards other people and why he can’t connect to them. If you only use other people to comfort your loneliness, you’re going to end up alone either way. The same way the Narrator uses Liza, Yozo chronically uses women. 

However, at the same time. 

“They won’t let me... I can’t be good.” 

Is what I consider the most striking lines in all of fiction. It is both an avoidance or responsibility, and at the same time an utterance of the baisc human desire to be good. It's always everyone else's fault, the problem is with other people. Yet both Narrator, and Yozo want to be good people, they want to connect with others. 

Yozo and the Narrator are crimminals. They are bad people. (A person who has committed a crime isn’t necessarily a bad person but..) However, being a crimminal does not disqualify you as a human being. They are still people who are suffering. The secondary goal of a novel like Crime and Punishment is to show St. Petersburg as a city where everyone is human, and everyone suffers, good and bad people alike. Yozo and the Narrator are miserable, and there’s humanity in that misery. You don’t have to even connect to their feelings, isn’t it bad to see a person suffering? Doesn’t that elicit an emotional response because nobody wants to see other people suffering and in pain. That’s the basic humanity in these characters. Yozo and Narrator aren’t inhuman. They’re just like... normal people. They are anxious, avoidant. They are terminally insecure. They’re socially awkward. They understand themselves better than other people. Those are all just normal human sentiments shared by everyone, it’s just Yozo and Narrator are so egocentric they act like they’re the only people in the world.

Yet the same, just like the moment Liza sympathized with a man who treated her terribly and only saw her as a prostitute, people still sympathize with miserable people and want to ease the suffering of others. That’s why Dazai writes stories for miserable people.

I am writing a tired story for young readers,

not because I want to be different,

or because I am unconcerned with young readers’ tastes.

I write it rather because I know it will please them.

Young readers are tired and old themselves these days,

and my story can bring them no discomfort and no surprises.

It is a story for those who have lost hope.

                                                                       (Osamu Dazai, Of Women)

[eldritchamy]

I watched “Happiest Season” and no it fucking wasn’t.

Here’s a review so you don’t have to suffer like I did: if I wasn’t watching it as the host of a movie night, I would not have made it past 20-30 minutes in.

It was very uncomfortable to watch.  I feel like I just spent two hours on a plane with a crying baby.  Except the baby was a homophobic rich white Republican that I was forced to campaign for.  All of the people I watched it with, including myself, found it stressful, anxiety inducing, and deeply unpleasant.  The first thing I did when it was over was warn my best friend not to watch it.

90% of the movie is rich white straight people drama forcing lesbians into the closet.  It’s not fun.  It’s not happy.  It wasn’t enjoyable.  At all.  Watching this was an uncompromisingly depressing and miserable experience.

It was marketed as a romantic comedy and it was neither of those things.   I feel repressed for having seen it.  

Every relationship in this movie is toxic and hard to watch, with the sole exception of two other characters who aren’t part of the family both having much better chemistry with Kristen Stewart’s character than her girlfriend.

Aubrey Plaza playing Gay Aubrey Plaza one of two redeeming things in the movie and she’s in it for about ten minutes, and even one of her scenes was hard for me to sit through (the awkward and dubiously written drag bar scene)  The other 90 minutes are agonizingly drawn out and unbearable.

If you are determined to support this movie because god knows we need more (and MUCH better) representation and we live in a hellscape where money is the only way to ask for such things, press play on it and then take out your headphones and go read a book instead until it’s over.

For your own sake please do not watch this.  

I genuinely can’t tell who it’s even FOR.  If anything about this movie resonates with you, I am SORRY to hear that, because you are probably the lesbian daughter of a very rich white man running for office as a Republican, and watching any of the rich housewife reality shows probably gives you PTSD because those are the kind of people you grew up with.  

And even IF that is the case, spare yourself the trauma of watching your own life and watch something else instead.  This movie will only hurt you.

Nothing about the experience of seeing this was worth it.

Plot spoilers ahead.

The plot is as follows:

Abby (Kristen Stewart) loves her girlfriend Harper (Mackenzie Davis).  But she does not love Christmas.  After a night out together, Harper asks her to join her when she visits her family for the holidays.  Abby says yes, and gets her gay male friend John (that guy from Schitt’s Creek) to cover pet sitting for her. While running a few errands with him, she goes to pick up an engagement ring which looks completely unattainable for a woman who makes a living as a pet sitter.

When they are almost to Harper’s family’s home, she awkwardly brings up that she lied about coming out to them earlier in the year.  They still don’t know she’s gay and they have to make sure the family is perfect and scandal free because her dad is running for mayor or something and one of his donors? campaign manager? is going to be there.  So they have to pretend Abby is her straight roommmate.  They fight about it before Abby very reluctantly agrees.  This is a pattern that repeats until Abby can’t take any more.

The family is like upper-class-Republican terrible.  They are AWFUL people.  The parents treat their children like trophies in a display case, and the children all feel forced into brutal competition with each other to see who the parents will actually be proud of.  One of Harper’s sisters (Jane) is actually an okay person who does nothing wrong, but she’s an aspiring writer who has spent 10 years not finishing her book and she’s played like she belongs in a different movie, and it feels like she’s meant to be seen as the useless layabout sibling, in a cruelly funny way.  

The other sister is a nightmare of a woman (Sloane? I think?) played by a completely unrecognizable Allison Brie.  She’s a lawful evil cutthroat monster who is straight up VICIOUS to the other two, and is especially terrible to Harper, because neither of them even see Jane as competition.  Her own family is the thing she uses to try to be worthy of her parents’ pride and affection.  

The dad is focused entirely on his campaign and is more or less indifferent to all of them unless they aren’t “presentable” and “scandal free” enough to keep his potential donor/campaign manager satisfied, in which case he “expects better of them” until they behave.  The children are like 30.  

The mom is maybe the worst of all of them.  She’s invasive, ignorant in that forceful way where she doesn’t give a shit about anything except her own bubble of reality that she thinks she’s living in and blows past any contradiction to it like it’s not even there, nitpicky about what everyone’s doing, is willfully out of touch with everything she’s told (Abby’s parents died when she was 19, and she spends the movie acting like she thinks Abby grew up in an orphanage made of dirt and never had a Christmas before).  And she will not leave the two of them alone.  She insists it’s ridiculous for two grown women to share a bedroom and gives Abby a room without a lock in a basement that’s bigger than my whole house, while Harper’s room is upstairs.  Everyone is constantly barging into Abby’s room with less than two seconds of notice, which leads to the kind of tension and awkwardness you’d expect.  The first morning, Abby wakes up to Sloane’s children staring at her.

Abby is clearly MISERABLE.  And so are you, because you’re watching this movie.  Abby and Harper are constantly pushed apart by the family, and Harper pushes Abby away while pretending to be perfect and straight for her family.

Her family invited Harper’s ex boyfriend, who thinks they should rekindle things.  Super fun thing that I always love to see in my lesbian media.

While out at dinner, Abby and Harper have another mini fight in the bathroom.  Harper promises she had no idea Connor(?) was going to be there and that there won’t be any more surprises.  They walk out of the bathroom, right into Harper’s OTHER ex, her first girlfriend Riley (Aubrey Plaza, who literally just plays herself and is the only good thing about the movie).

This is the first 20 minutes.

There’s a party that leaves Abby feeling isolated and pushed away.  She goes outside to make a phone call.  She makes regular texts and phone calls to John for support and advice throughout the movie.  He’s terrible at taking care of fish, but he’s genuinely a good friend to her and it’s clear he cares about her a lot.  It’s probably unfair not to say his friendship is the second redeeming thing in the movie.  After Abby gets off the phone with him the first time, Riley comes out from around the corner and tries to be nice, saying she could relate to what she’s going through.  Abby kind of closes off from her and she takes the hint without any fuss and leaves her alone.

The movie slogs on with compounding stress and anxiety and a moment when Abby is LITERALLY forced to hide in a closet and pretend she was sleepwalking on her way to Harper’s bedroom at night.  It MIGHT have been an attempt at a joke?  I’m genuinely not sure because I did not come close to laughing once in the entire 100 minutes of this nightmare.  Harper instead sneaks into Abby’s room while she’s awkwardly trying to get away from Harper’s mom.  That’s where the gifs of the sneak-snuggle from behind the door come from.  Enjoy the gifs because everything that wasn’t giffed is not worth seeing.  Harper spends the night there.

Bright and early, Harper’s mom comes knocking on the door, trying to open it and barge in again but Abby blocked the door with something heavy claiming it was to “keep her from sleepwalking again” (her excuse for being in the closet) while Harper frantically gets almost-dressed and hides behind the door as BOTH parents come to bother them, and the evil sister’s children see her partially dressed through the crack in the door.

Later that day Abby has to go shopping for a present for the “White Elephant” Harper didn’t warn her about.  She bumps into Sloane at the mall, who dumps her kids off on her before quickly leaving.  The kids very intentionally frame Abby for shoplifting by putting a necklace in her bag, and there’s a really awkward and uncomfortable scene with her being interrogated by overly forceful mall cops who are yelling at her.  When she finally gets back to the house, Harper’s entire family now thinks she’s a criminal.

Abby spends the night alone during another (campaign?) party that Harper told her she’d probably be happier getting left out of, and she bumps into Riley on the street and gets to talking with her, still more frustrated by Harper and her family.  She says she needs some alcohol, Riley takes her to a drag bar which gave me really bad vibes and bonds with her there, telling her a bit about her relationship with Harper.  They dated secretly (obviously) in their first year of high school (which implies she knew she was gay before she dated Connor, and used him as a cover).  They would sneak each other romantic notes.  When someone found one in Harper’s locker, she threw Riley under the bus completely, outed her, and said she was obsessed with her so she could go on pretending to be straight.  They bond a bit and seem like they could be friends, at a minimum.  They have a few more scenes together over the next hour (yeah there’s still that much movie left, and if you’re wondering how it could be that bad, you’re welcome for the warning, because I was wondering that too) and they have better chemistry than Abby and Harper by miles.

Eventually Abby becomes so miserable she checks the movie-specific version of Uber to try to go home by herself, but it’s running at holiday rates so it would cost over $1000 for her to leave.  She’s still tempted to do it, and calls John again for advice and says she feels awful, completely alone, and with no way out of this horrible situation.  He gives her some more friendly support.

Abby still needs a White Elephant gift, but has no way to go by herself because Harper drove them there.  So she calls Riley to go with her.  They spend a day hanging out together while Harper is doing some other thing with her dad’s campaign, and Abby makes text excuses to Harper, who then immediately sees Riley and Abby walking by on the street together.  Before she gets a chance to run out and say something, she gets interrupted by something I thankfully don’t remember (I long for the moment this is true of the rest of it).

Riley and Abby bond some more but nothing romantic happens.  The plot only wants them to be good friends, even though their chemistry is really good.

At the end of the day Abby comes in and Harper immediately almost starts a fight with her but they get interrupted again somehow.

I have willed most of the next 20 minutes out of my mind, apparently.

There’s yet another party at this gigantic house because I hate the rich, Abby and Riley talk more.  This is the one with the really gay outfit.  Abby admits to Riley that she was planning on proposing to Harper, but at this point it’s like she’s a completely different person and she can’t tell who the real Harper is.  Riley says it’s probably both of them.

SURPRISE JOHN IS HERE.  He comes in the front door and calls for Abby.  After Abby’s last phone call he arranged for his therapist to do the pet sitting and he drove all the way here just so he could take her home.  Seriously, John has incredible Good Friend Energy.  Yet more awkwardness ensues, while John mixes some awkward flirting with Connor into his poor attempt to come off as straight.  Abby then walks right up to Harper, says “we’re done” and goes to grab some things to leave.  Harper follows her into the room and tries to get her to stay, Abby says she can’t take the hiding and the general misery, the whole experience has been terrible and she’s not sure if Harper is the person she thought she was.  Harper argues for her to stay and says she’s caught between being afraid of losing her family if she comes out and knowing she’ll lose Abby if she doesn’t.  She promises to come out to them as soon as the holidays are over because Abby is more important to her.  They kiss briefly and realize Sloane is in the doorway.

Sloane tries to run to tell the rest of the family because burning Harper’s reputation forever means she’ll be the one their parents love most.  They fight in the many hallways of this stupidly enormous rich people house (this is when “Stay out of it, Sappho” happens) and on the way to ruin her sister’s life Sloane finds her husband making out with another ....campaign person? in the pantry and or closet which is big enough to fit two people inside.   Now Harper has something to use against Sloane.  This family is fucking horrible.  Sloane gets to where everyone else is first, and outs Harper.

Harper tries to swear she’s not gay, and sees Abby watching her.  She silently turns and walks out the door with John.  Harper then grabs a giant painting that Jane spent 100 hours on for the white elephant and smashes it over Sloane’s head and yells at her before falling apart.

Abby and John have another heartfelt conversation where John asks how she came out to her parents, and she said they loved and supported her.  Then he said his dad kicked him out on the street and didn’t talk to him for thirteen years.  He says everyone’s story is different, and Harper was still going through hers, and it was a hard one.  I THINK he acknowledges that if Abby doesn’t feel like she belongs in that story, she shouldn’t force herself to?  But that might have been wishful hindsight.  Abby comes back into the house to grab her things and leave, Harper comes out to her family right in front of her, Abby says it was too late and leaves anyway.  Harper is crushed and the rest of the family starts to see how fucked up they all are.

And then in the span of 7 fucking minutes the parents realize they were shitty to Sloane and Harper and the only reason Jane turned out okay is because they gave up on her, they give a minimal apology to their children, who also realize they were shitty to each other, and then it’s the next day and Abby is there with them, Harper has the ring on her finger, and everyone is magically happy now because the dad turned down his campaign advisor who said she could still work with him if he kept Harper’s “problem” a secret.

Jane’s book becomes a best seller and she’s friends with John now, because he was the only person who seemed genuinely interested in her passion.  He sits next to her at her book signing.  The end.

No, I’m not kidding.

As soon as it was over, I thought, wow that felt like a rushed happy ending that got slapped onto the end with nothing building up to or deserving it.

After further consideration, that gives it too much credit.

Because honestly? after the first hour and thirty five minutes of this hell, Abby and Harper being together at the end is not even something I would consider a happy ending.  I wasn’t satisfied at all.  It DEFINITELY felt like Abby ending up with Riley would have been a better movie.

If I had been told beforehand that a lesbian romcom starring Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis, and featuring Aubrey Plaza as Gay Aubrey Plaza would have been an absolutely miserable experience that was hard to sit through and nothing but unpleasant to watch, I would probably have been shocked and disappointed.  

But at least I would have not seen this movie.  That is my gift to you.  Please do NOT watch this.

It was marketed as a romantic comedy and it lived up to neither of those claims.  Absolutely terrible movie.  The happiest season of all is one where you don’t watch this stressful, uncomfortable disaster.

[orsuliya]

Song Huaien is a good boy!

Book spoilers did me dirty. That’s a fact. Ever since I peeked at the last chapters of the novel, I’ve been convinced that Song Huaien was going to go rogue sooner or later. And so I looked upon him as one does upon a ticking bomb, watching him closely for any signs of rot and obvious mwahahahaing.

And that… might have been wrong of me. It’s not like The Rebel Princess ever treated any character’s novel journey as sacrosanct (see: Su Jin’er, Wanru, even Zitan). So what gives? Well, just look at the ever-precious Liu Duanduan. Wouldn’t you want to steel your heart in advance…?

And then the supremely astute @dangermousie came along and made me reconsider what could be done in the scant remaining number of episodes in order to deliver a satisfying ending. I trust The Rebel Princess, so it will be a satisfying ending, 12 cut episodes notwithstanding, and I’m choosing to ignore any contrary opinions! So what could be done? Well, getting rid of Song Huaien’s rebellion and conflict with Xiao Qi seems to be one of the most viable solutions, whether by design or by leaving it on the cutting-room floor. Okay, I’m sold, I thought at once, jumping without thinking as I’m wont to do. But does the drama itself support that?

Why, yes, I believe it does!

What are the actual visible signs of Song Huaien’s potential villainy? There’s the corruption/negligence thing, a pronounced liking for finer things in life and an unrequited love for Awu. That’s it.

The corruption scandal, if it can even be called such, what with Potato suppressing any further investigation attempts, is the biggest strike against Song Huaien. It’s clear that he’s somehow embroiled into unsavoury dealings, but the extent of his guilt is never shown. While I don’t fully believe his story about the birthday gifts being delivered during his absence and accepted without his express permission and/or knowledge, there is also nothing to suggest he’s been explicitly on Xie payroll, secret documents non-withstanding. The record book alone is no proof of guilt – why, the Xie might have simply noted that gifts of certain value had been given and received, not in exchange for a specific service, but rather as a start of a beautiful relationship. You get the drill. I believe if there was a solid proof of Song Huaien doing explicit harm to his own in exchange for Xie money, Xiao Qi’s reaction would have been much harsher.

As it stands, Song Huaien’s guilt is a matter of conjecture. There’s the birthday gift, which Xiao Qi cottons onto really quickly, which confirms that it may have been noted in the Xie secret books. There’s the fact that he may or may not have known about it and may or may not have chosen to keep it. I’d say he did know, if only after the fact, and that he originally meant to keep it. There’s also the damning fact that Song Huaien was the man taking care of logistics from the Ningshuo side. And he did his job really poorly, since multiple deliveries of substandard grain and clothing somehow made it through. But was it out of maliciousness? Was there ever a conscious decision on his part to let things slip? Not necessarily. It looks bad, sure. But let’s not forget that dealing with the capital sharks may be a first for Song Huaien, regardless of his previous experience as a procurement officer. Whatever his experience, it was either at the very end of the supply chain or it was mainly related to supplies coming from the area closest to Ningshuo. The former wouldn’t have prepared him for his present duties. And as for the latter, I think that the Ningshuo province has its own rules and ways, which are in no way comparable to the shark pond that the capital undoubtedly is. What’s more, Huaien really seems to buy into the illustrious capital life; it would not surprise me if he delegated a few things that should not be delegated simply because he was busy taking it all in!

So, intentional crime or crime of negligence? I’d be inclined to vote for negligence. It just fits what we know about Song Huaien up to that point, it fits his current circumstances and it makes Xiao Qi’s reaction quite reasonable.

The second strike against Huaien’s integrity is his love for the finer things in life. But then, is it really such a damning thing? Many of the Ningshuo soldiers must have experienced the same thing upon their arrival into the capital. Here they are, heroes and patriots all, having spent their whole life either on various battlefields or in decidedly non-luxurious circumstances. Why, they must be quite happy if they get enough to eat, which they do only because they have an honest general who cares about them very much. Other armies are not as lucky! And then they are shown all those useless noble scions, some of whom might nominally be officers despite barely knowing how to hold a sword (and even those swords would be ceremonial ones, so mostly useless). I don’t know about you, but I’d be bitter. Some of Xiao Qi’s closest clearly are, although he tends to shut that down very quickly. Also, covetousness is not a crime as long as Song Huaien is not actively taking bribes or jockeying for profit. And there is no proof of that. His manor and his title are both given to him without him ever asking for them. If he appreciates that… well, that is also not a crime and he doesn’t even gloat openly! As it later turns out, he took both as his due, believing that his talents were seen and duly appreciated outside the Ningshuo army.

Sooo… Nothing out of ordinary on that count. And seeing that at one point Song Huaien offers to use his savings to repair the ailing military budget – whether from guilt or from sense of duty – speaks to his advantage.

Now, let’s take a look at his unrequited love for Awu. I mean, is it any wonder he falls for her? I am half in love with her myself, so I totally get it! What matters is what he does with this love. Quite surprisingly, there is no attempt at coming between her and Xiao Qi. Why, Song Huaien actively tries to help their marriage by convincing Awu to return home from the temple. No hesitation there! And while he might realize he’s actually in love very late in the story (by this point it’s obvious to everybody), the realization itself changes very little. He gets very determined to go through with marrying Yuxiu, that’s it. Still no attempts to make a move on Awu. Even that flower he brought back from the Imperial Mausoleum was not an overly romantic gesture – she asked and he did as she asked in order to make her happy, nothing more. There’s also a genuine attempt to get over her. He goes to Yuxiu on their wedding night and despite the initial haziness on the matter, he seems to know quite well she’s not Awu and does his best. Although that bro slap in the morning… Let’s believe he did his best there too, the poor awkward thing. He gives her an actual hug when he comes back from Jiangnan! Progress!

What finally buried the theory that Song Huaien might rebel in order to take Awu away from Xiao Qi was his convo with Wang Su in episode 55. I was so afraid (just as I was afraid on his wedding night) that he might do something stupid. Like asking for Awu’s hand or betraying his romantic intentions towards her. But no. While Song Huaien tells Wang Su that he wants/needs to find Awu, there’s no romantic intent there, only duty towards Xiao Qi’s wife and respect towards a woman who has earned it many times over. If there is anything else, I just can’t see it! Why, during this whole conversation Song Huaien is more broken up about Xiao Qi than about Awu!

Whether Song Huaien manages to get over his love or not, there is no sign he was ever going to do anything about it, not while Xiao Qi lived and perhaps not even now that he’s supposed to be dead. Moreover, he made every possible effort to suppress his emotions out of sheer guilt and feeling of brotherhood towards Xiao Qi. Marrying Yuxiu might have been a bad, bad choice (although I still hope for the best), but it was a choice made for the best of reasons.

So that’s it, right? Well, wrong. Even with all of the above there was still a possibility for him to go the villain route. Except… he actually seems to be redeeming himself in leaps and bounds. Once away from the capital, Song Huaien seems to throw off the capital’s thrall and becomes the best version of himself. Jumping into stormy waters in clear disregard of any danger? Working tirelessly towards a common goal and for the good of the people? That’s pure Ningshuo stock, no moral rot in sight! Now, why would the narrative have him getting back to his old self only to make him regress again?

There’s also no real reason for him to ever go against Xiao Qi. If that was going to happen, I’d have expected at least some signs of bitterness and jealousy to have shown up by now. And yet there’s nothing, at least not towards Xiao Qi. Who, might I add, really does his best to mitigate any potential bitterness in the bud. Just look at the way they resolve the corruption scandal! And I’m not talking about Xiao Qi burning (or not burning?) the incriminating page. What got my attention is what their conversations over the matter boil to. Which is: Listen, brother, I get that you’ve been having some issues, but get your shit together. And please, take care of yourself. I don’t want you to get in trouble, so please remember that there are people watching your every step. No overt accusations, no anger in sight, maybe the slightest bit of sternness, but heavily undercut with roughly expressed care. And it’s the same with their confrontation over Awu. I know what’s going on with you and my wife, but I 100% get it, mate, so take a moment and decide how to proceed from here. Even if Song Huaien was actively seeking a reason to hold a grudge, it would take a truly rotten seed to find one. And a rotten seed Song Huaien is not.

Now, let’s wrap it up by going over Wang Su’s suborning of Song Huaien in episode 55. It’s really something special, as well as the main reason I’m choosing to reject any possibility of SHE/XQ showdown.

Wang Su waylays Song Huaien on his way out of camp. Song Huaien is clearly very emotional at this moment and not really inclined to stop for anybody. Why, I think that he was fully prepared to go through Wang Su if needed. It is also quite probable that his decision to leave for the capital was made on the spot, once he heard about what happened to Xiao Qi, Awu and his comrades. Yet he stops and listens, if only because Wang Su – Awu’s brother and Xiao Qi’s brother-in-law - should be his natural ally in his quest to clear Xiao Qi’s name. As he proclaims to be by announcing his willingness to join Song Huaien on his journey to the capital.

Wang Su (or rather Daddy Wang possessing Wang Su’s body) takes full advantage of Song Huaien’s state. First he breaks out a prop, Awu’s favourite wine. It does not work as well as it could have and I’d say that at this point Song Huaien remains quite astute as to Wang Su’s weird behaviour. His first outburst shows he’s got little patience for games. Awu is your sister and Xiao Qi your brother in law, he reminds Wang Su, who seems very controlled for a man with much more obvious ties to this whole situation than Song Huaien. Wang Su skips around the issue by taking out his ace card, the Empress Dowager’s order. Predictably, it takes Song Huaien off-balance and incites a sense of debt, if not gratitude. An excellent opening from the shapeshifting Daddy Wang! Then Wang Su makes an attempt at aiming Song Huaien at the Empress Dowager… and it doesn’t work. Song Huaien doesn’t care about his own life half as much as he cares about Xiao Qi. Cue a mournful soliloquy! There is no way a man this broken about his brother’s death is going to try to kill said brother in the 13 episodes remaining (less, in fact, since they will not meet until 59 or 60 at the earliest). There would be no build-up! The only way I can see this happening is if Xiao Qi went against Song Huaien first and in a deeply personal way. Which we know he would never, so...

Wang Su makes a brave attempt at corralling Song Huaien’s grief and turning it to anger, for all that he may say that anger will not help anyone; it doesn’t work and self-blame enters the picture. If only I was with him leads to a startling realization: all those honors and the brand new posting were just a ploy. Now, this realization could lead to two different results. Song Huaien could plausibly become bitter towards Xiao Qi –  because of whose very existence his own talents weren’t truly recognized and he himself became a pawn. But there’s nothing to suggest that’s true. It’s more likely for Song Huaien to turn his bitterness over his wounded pride towards the Empress Dowager in particular and scheming nobles in general. Which is what I think he does. There is also a possibility of guilt: he bought into this whole noble life fairytale… and this is what partially facilitated him being turned into a pawn. It may be just wishful thinking, but I expect that in the future Song Huaien will be more wary of unexpected meat pies falling from the sky, however tasty they may be.

Just a moment later Wang Su offers him a meat pie. He’s going to help him take revenge! And Song Huaien swallows it whole – at least for now. This is where a truly interesting thing happens. Song Huaien, a general in his own right, a true hero and a man who’s been acting as Wang Su’s equal while in Jiangnan… folds and takes to a subordinate position like a duck to the water. Tell me what to do, he seems to be screaming with his eyes. And when Wang Su starts to use the word we, there’s a palpable sense of relief in Song Huaien’s whole demeanor. What’s more, he’s not reacting to the idea that he still needs to jump through some hoops in order to become a Wang minion. I’m not sure you’re ready to become my ally, lies Wang Su, knowing very well Song Huaien’s is already in his palm. Where’s the ambition? Where’s the slightest sign that this man may be capable of going for the throne for his own sake and against his brother? I don’t see it!

The Wang family is used to needing to pay their allies in hard coin (or titles, or favours), that much is clear, because that’s what Wang Su tries next. The title of a count is too lowly, he says and then dangles a princely one in front of his victim. If Song Huaien was really as hungry for honours and wealth as some of us were expecting him to be, he’d be all over that. But he’s not. He gives it due consideration, but, if anything, this proposition seems to bring him back to reality. There are no free meat pies to be had and he’s just remembered that. But since this is the best – and likely the only – proposition/offer of help he’s going to get, he seals the deal anyway.

There’s still some reluctance, though. Why, Song Huaien needs to rationalize this decision by reminding himself that Wang Su saved his life and that there’s revenge to be taken since he’s alive (as Xiao Qi is not). Not very eager to take part in a coup, is he? And then he actually makes getting justice for Xiao Qi a condition of this alliance! Finding Awu is the second one, but as I’ve already said, there seems to be no romantic intentions there.

And that’s it, the deal is done. So now, can anybody tell me how is this Song Huaien supposed to go against Xiao Qi? He’s more likely to go for a hug once he sees him alive!

There is no reasonable way to leave in Song Huaien’s conflict with Xiao Qi. There’s just no time and no real build-up to that! The only way to have him go rogue is to have a timeskip with Song Huaien doing a 180 in the meantime. And somehow I just can’t see it happening. But I guess we’ll have to see about that!

[100books]

30/100

Daisy Jones & The Six

The book follows via interview the many things that happened between a band that broke up abruptly without anyone knowing the reason behind it, until now.

We get too hear from each band member what it was like to be on the band, the things that happened, the way they felt and why they ended the band.

I don’t know why people don’t talk about this book more, I know The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is the most famous book by the author, but I think it should be Daisy Jones & The Six.

The characters of this book feel so human and so vulnerable to us, Daisy made me feel the way an empowered woman with a lot of issues can make you feel. Camila was just amazing and was everything I’d like to be as a person (except for the mom part), Karen was just so powerful and Simone such a good friend. I was tearing up while reading this book because the author did such a good job in portraying relationships between women, they weren’t fighting with each other, they all just had very complex feelings.

Daisy specially had her complex feelings she shared with Billy, Camila’s husband, it was killing them slowly but it made them as good as they were.

What I definitely loved the most was the great portrayal of women and the portrayal of love in a light we rarely see it, not as a wonderful perfect ever after, but as a raw, have-to-work-for-it way, it was everything and more than what I expected of this book. I didn’t expect to get so attached to the characters or to feel so emotional to see the different relationships or to feel so happy to see women of different life paths all living happily in the end.

I’m quite picky with the books I give five stars to, but I think his book deserves it. It might also be my most annotated book, so I’ll try to chose only my favorite quotes to end this review without writing the whole book. I also want the audiobook now, I feel like it will be interesting.

« I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse.

I am not a muse.

I am the somebody.

End of fucking story. »

« Men often think they deserve a sticker for treating women like people. »

« And you can’t put it in your heart if it’s not there.

And you can’t pull it out of your heart if it is.

And it was in Camila’s heart. »

« I think you have to have faith in people before they earn it. Otherwise it’s not faith, right? »

« I wore what I wanted when I wanted. I did what I wanted with who I wanted. And if somebody didn’t like it, screw ’em. »

« if you redeem yourself, then believe in your own redemption. »

« I used to care when men called me difficult. I really did. Then I stopped. This way is better. »

« It’s like some of us are chasing after our nightmares the way other people chase dreams. »

« It hurts to care about someone more than they care about themselves. »

« Art doesn’t owe anything to anyone. »

« I wish someone had told me that love isn’t torture. Because I thought love was this thing that was supposed to tear you in two and leave you heartbroken and make your heart race in the worst way. I thought love was bombs and tears and blood. I did not know that it was supposed to make you lighter, not heavier. I didn’t know it was supposed to take only the kind of work that makes you softer. I thought love was war. I didn’t know it was supposed to … I didn’t know it was supposed to be peace. »

« All I will say is that you show up for your friends on their hardest days. And you hold their hand through the roughest parts. Life is about who is holding your hand and, I think, whose hand you commit to holding. »

« You’re all sorts of things you don’t even know yet. »

🌟🌟🌟🌟

4/5 stars

[prettywordsyouleft]

Bonding Session

Summary: The kiss scenes in the dramas you watched never left you truly satisfied. Sharing that knowledge with your new housemate ended with taking a turn that definitely changed your view on how someone should kiss.

Pairing: Do Kyungsoo x reader

Genre: roommate au / flirty fluff

Warnings: none

Word count: 1547

“Kiss him! Kiss!” you chanted, hands clutching at your thighs as you leaned forward towards the screen. “Oh, ohhh!”

The couple who you were berating for taking so long to inch their lips together stepped close enough to do so, your heart now fluttering with anticipation. The feelings had been built within them – and within you – and finally, finally you would get your long overdue kiss scene in episode 10.

Their lips met and instantly you deflated, throwing yourself back into the couch, slapping your leg with your hand in annoyance. “That’s not a god damn kiss, that’s a lip press!”

You didn’t know how many Korean dramas you had watched now. Hundreds no doubt. You knew all the formulas and you were certain of what to expect in most storylines. Still, even though most kiss scenes were a letdown in your books, you loved the cliché romance and the build up of it all. You enjoyed the surprising times where actors like Ji Chang Wook gave it his all and you wished nothing more than to be kissed like that. Heck, with some actors, you’d even be inclined to lip press with them. And yet, it annoyed you that they threw away a good opportunity to kiss properly.

Each and every time.

“I swear someone needs to go there and teach them how to kiss!”

“I suppose you assume that should be you?” your roommate Kyungsoo calmly stated, and for a moment, you tore your eyes away from the screen, blinking slowly in recognising he was still there. Of course, he was. You had begged Kyungsoo to watch this drama with you, calling it a bonding session since you had been living together now for two months. You were still learning all about him and this was a great way for him to get insight into who you were as well. However, in reality, it was mostly just you screeching about the happenings on the screen and him quietly observing both you and the drama. You weren’t even sure he was enjoying himself.

You let out a small laugh. “Well, at least I’d kiss them properly. That scene was so steamy and then they dropped it with simply pressing their lips into each other. What a shame!”

“Do you even know what a steamy scene is? You’re watching a show that is entirely unrealistic. How does any of this happen in real life?” Kyungsoo mused, shooting you a side glance. He then shook his head. “I’m concerned you don’t know what real romance is if you sit here and swoon over things like this.”

Gaping incredulously, you shifted along the couch on your knees to poke Kyungsoo in the chest. “Excuse me?!”

He smirked. “I’m only stating the truth, Y/N. What boss is going to fall in love with someone that ridiculous?”

“I’m… I’m like her!”

Kyungsoo shrugged, folding his arms across his chest. “Don’t go fantasising about your boss anytime soon.”

“Oh my God,” you breathed, pushing him again with annoyance. “You know nothing about romance!”

“And why do you say that?”

“Because they clearly have a bond and it’s obvious they like each other!”

“Despite how he treats her? Come on, even I had hoped you’d have higher standards than letting a man that infuriating into your heart.”

“He has some redeeming qualities,” you bartered and Kyungsoo scoffed.

“His abs, right?”

“Hey, I like arms!” you blurted out and pouted when you were done. You decided you would stop watching the show with Kyungsoo after this episode. You didn’t need him bashing your cliché romances. Nor did you need to defend your love for them. You already knew they weren’t realistic.

That was the point. If all that was shown on TV was like real life, you wouldn’t need to watch it. Being able to escape into another world was worth it to you. It meant you could enjoy the emotional rollercoaster ride that came with someone else’s love life.

Since yours was nonexistent.

Moving back to your side of the couch, you reached for the remote to stop Netflix from rolling onto the next episode. Kyungsoo flicked his attention to your face and you could see the ghost of his smile still tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Why did you stop it?”

“It’s clear we like different shows,” you announced glumly and sighed. “You don’t have to watch it with me anymore.”

“I don’t?”

You shook your head. “I don’t want to bore you any further.”

“Who said I was bored? If I didn’t want to watch it, would I have sit through the last ten episodes?”

He had you there. Still, you shot him a look. “You made fun of the story.”

“You did too. You were annoyed that they didn’t kiss properly,” he pointed out and you nodded whilst throwing your hands up exasperatedly.

“Well, they didn’t! That isn’t a real kiss.”

“So what is then?”

“What do you mean?” you questioned warily, watching as he moistened his plump heart-shaped lips. You blinked again, wondering if that was a forewarning to another speech about your lack of realistic romantic notions or if he was thinking along other lines.

Coughing awkwardly, you reached forward to gulp down some of your drink from the coffee table, washing away the brief image you had. Kyungsoo cocked his head to the side, resting back into the couch and watched you intensely. “You seem so full of opinions about kissing yet where is the proof?”

“How can I give you proof?” you chuckled weakly, shaking your head. “I’m just generalising. You could go there yourself and kiss her better than he did too!”

Kyungsoo smiled with immense satisfaction. “So you did just think about me kissing, huh?”

“What?! No!”

“Then why did you grow embarrassed and reach out for your drink hastily?”

You cursed him inwardly for being so observant. “I was thirsty.”

“I bet you were.”

“Okay, I’m going to start the next episode now!” you announced, thumbing the remote control buttons quickly and turned your attention back to the television screen. You cringed; the other thing that annoyed you about Korean dramas sometimes was the replay from the last scene at the start of a new episode. You were acutely aware of your heart thumping away in your chest and this time, it wasn’t because you anticipated their lacklustre kiss.

Kyungsoo moved swiftly, shifting across the couch so fast that you didn’t even have a chance to react until you felt his lips upon yours. He didn’t move them immediately and you almost laughed against his mouth at the fact that he was mimicking the couple onscreen. When he was certain you weren’t about to baulk on him, he started kissing you properly.

Your eyes fluttered shut, responding to his earnest approach with equal measures. You reached out to wrap your arms around his neck, a hand threading through the strands of his hair as you breathed him in.

Now this, this was a kiss. It took your breath away and had you begging for more. The temperature between you rose and you were soon flush against him, his chest heaving along with yours. You vaguely heard the characters behind you talking to one another yet it didn’t trigger you to stop.

You were too wrapped up in your own kiss scene.

When you finally separated from the kiss that truly trumped all kisses you had ever witnessed, you watched Kyungsoo closely. His eyes were blown with lust, though you could see that some of his boldness had overwhelmed him. He retreated a little, still touching you, just not fully pressing you into the couch anymore.

He cleared his throat noisily. “So uh, how was that?”

“Hm?”

“You know, for a kiss. Does it match up to your scale?” You shook your head, smiling softly. “No.”

“Oh.”

Leaning into his space, Kyungsoo caught you easily, his hand encircling your wrist as your palm pressed into his chest. “It exceeded it.”

“Really? I thought you lived for these dramas?”

“Oh I do, but I never said they could kiss well. That moment we just had though, I’m sure would rival even the best actors in the industry.”

Kyungsoo chuckled. “As long as it gave you all the feelings you were hoping for then it was good enough.”

“Should we turn off the drama or?” Glancing at the screen and feeling disconnected from the characters now that you had your own potential love interest sitting next to you, Kyungsoo shook his head. You frowned and then gasped when you came to a hasty conclusion. “You didn’t just do all that to tease me, right?”

“I’m not that cruel. But let’s keep watching. According to your statistics, there will be more kisses before they start hugging instead of passionately embracing each other, right?”

“Well, yeah…”

Kyungsoo took your hand away from his chest, instead linking his fingers with yours, knowing that you had exclaimed earlier on how that was one of your weaknesses in these shows. He shot you a smirk. “We have some kisses coming up to watch out for, since we need to outdo them, right?”

You grinned. Maybe watching dramas with Kyungsoo was a good way to bond with him after all.

_________________

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[buffyversefanfiction]

Slayer of Slayers

Warnings:I do not own, nor do I claim to own any of the copyright or characters within the Buffyverse which includes but not limited to the television shows Buffy and Angel, as well as the Darkhorse comics series’ continuation.

15+ Strong to moderate violence, Graphic to mild descriptions of gore, and torture, sexually charged scenes, sexual innuendos, mild to strong language, and practices of witchcraft.

M/M, F/F, M/F, GEN, OTHER +

PART FOUR LINK HERE

Part Five - Parental Guidance Advised

Theo Frey, the slayer of slayers, was now a vampire, a vampire unlike any other before him, one that sired themselves, and along with his new undead status, he found his slayer strength, speed, and healing, was now matched with his vampire side making him even more powerful than ever before, all working towards Drusilla’s grand plans which were created after she had a vision of the vampire/slayer hybrid bringing about the end of days.

Drusilla and Theo traveled to the outskirts of New York, in the middle of nowhere, located deep within some woods, arriving at an abandoned asylum which Drusilla had claimed to be her home for many years now, the first place she took Theo after his parents died, the place in which Theo first met the love of his life, Tobias. “The future is a funny little thing not once did I see the death of my darling Tobias in any vision and now it’s the first and last thing, I see every day.” Drusilla sadly revealed to Theo, as the two walked down a hallway within the abandoned asylum late at night. “Well, it would have been good to get a whole heads up about becoming a vamp myself before it actually happened, but I guess I was not on a need-to-know basis with that one.” Theo slyly snapped at his fellow vampire. “It was you and Tobias who chose to go off on your own create your own paths and become number one targets for all slayers,” Drusilla replied. “Everything was meant to happen the way it was for you to become the best version of yourself, a version strong enough to kill your birth mother.” “Did Tobias always know? That I’d one day become a vampire?” Theo could not help but wonder, as he began to wonder whether falling for Tobias was all just a part of Drusilla’s plans. “No, he did not…you two were truly destined to love each other it is with great sadness that your love story with my beautiful Tobias has come to an end but sadly it does not surprise me either,” Drusilla revealed to him, before going on to say. “Buffy will stop at nothing to slay us all, yet where was she to slay the monsters who took the ones that raised you?” “Buffy and Angel will pay for abandoning me in fact I am already putting a plan into action for them both but let me make myself clear when I say I will not be waiting as long to take revenge for Tobias,” Theo promised her, much to Drusilla’s delight. “Now why do I still feel the same?” “Well, another little hitch has occurred it seems you still have your soul,” Drusilla answered him, both looking as shocked as the other. “I do not know why that pesky thing is still in place, but I am not worried about it, some of the biggest monsters in the world still have souls after all…now please do tell mummy what you have planned for other mummy and naughty daddy?”

After being M.I.A from the slayer world as well as her friends, loved ones, and all real-world connections, Buffy Summers had taken to a cabin in the woods, in the middle of nowhere, the perfect place to get lost and forget about the rest of the world, and for one whole year she had uninterrupted bliss as she attempted to get over the loss of her son, but as she sat on the steps of her cabin porch and felt a sudden change in the wind nearby, she knew her perfect isolation was about to be intruded and after a blast of lightning struck the nearby grounds it became abundantly clear that her best friend Willow had found her. “I told you not to come looking for me I told you when I was ready, I’d come looking for you,” Buffy told the red-headed witch after Willow appeared from out of the ripped air that the lightning strike had just caused. “But it is good to see you again Willow…I’ve missed you.” “We found him, Buffy…” Willow said with great sadness, knowing the story she was about to tell her friend would only cause her more hurt but also knowing she had to be the one who Buffy found out from. Willow sat Buffy back down on the porch, sitting next to her, and went on to tell her everything she knew about Buffy’s son Theo, the revelation that he was somehow a slayer like his mother, that he was seeing a vampire just like his mother, but that was where the similarities ended as she went on to talk about Theo hunting other slayers before being captured and possibly killed by Buffy’s former watcher Rupert Giles in self-defense. Willow made it clear that they had no idea who he was until it was too late, that despite not knowing who he was they fought hard for his redemption, and how she believed that despite it being unlikely, that Theo Frey had somehow survived and was still out there somewhere. She hugged Buffy as she cried, listened while she shouted, advised her while she tried to make sense of it all, and stayed with the blonde-haired slayer until she was ready to act towards the shocking revelations. “He’s been hiding in plain sight this whole time, living a life before our very eyes…god knows what he has been through, what I was not there to protect him from.” Buffy cried as she tried to come to terms with the news about her now fully grown son who was just born over a year ago. “And now he could be gone again…” “I have several covens working on locating him, Faith’s headed to Los Angeles to speak to Angel about it all and get him involved in finding him too,” Willow confessed to the slayer, trying to give her some positive news. “We are going to find him; I know he is still out there I just know it!” “Oh god, we told him his son was dead and now he might actually be.” Buffy realized as she felt the weight of lying to Angel for all this time.

Angel sat behind the desk in his office within the Hyperion Hotel looking through the books he had gathered through the years as he searched for information on the latest demon he and Illyria were hunting when he was surprised to hear the front door to the Hyperion Hotel being opened thanks to his advanced vampire hearing and so he rose out of his chair, grabbed a hold of a nearby knife and walked into the main foyer of the hotel where he was shocked to find Faith stood there waiting for him. “You can drop the weapon big man it's only little old me.” Faith said to the vampire with a soul, before the two walked into his office, as the slayer slowly began to prepare herself for telling Angel the truth, fearing it would change their friendship forever. “Thought you were held up at slayer rehab trying to mend the boy slayer’s broken ways,” Angel replied as he placed his knife back onto his desk table. “Do not tell me he’s already redeemed and ready to be put back into society.” “Far from it actually,” Faith answered nervously. “The thing about Theo is, well he kind of, sort of, turns out to be your long lost son, the miracle child you had with Buffy who we kind of told you was dead…there is no better way to say this than we kind of lost him through a portal last year and told you he died because well Connor…but he’s back all grown up just like Connor and sort of evil again like Connor.” “You guys told me he was dead, you told me he was dead!” Angel snapped at the one slayer he believed would never keep something from him, especially not something like this. “I help you capture him, we could have killed him, and all this time he was my son? How that hell is that even possible?” “Well, the good news is he wound up in the past and not a hell dimension.” Faith told the vampire reluctantly, feeling his fury over the lies that she helped tell, even if she believed it was for his best. “None of this is good Faith! You lied to me! You, Buffy, and Willow told me he died! I mourned the loss of my baby son, I blamed myself for not being enough to protect him, I blamed her.” Angel shouted in disbelief, infuriated to learn his son had been alive all this time. “Where is he now? Where is Theo?” “Okay do not get all murder and Angelus like on me but Giles sort of shot him multiple times then he swan dived out of a window into deep waters but hey on the plus side Willow is pretty sure he’s still alive…” Faith quickly responded, making sure she gave him all the information needed as she wished for this conversation, and for her friend’s anger, to come to an end, despite knowing this was only the beginning.

The several covens working on finding a location for Theo Frey through magical means had finally got some results, questionable results, as they informed Willow that the male slayer was in his hometown of Riverborn, of all places, Theo had headed home, and despite the gut feeling that this was most definitely some kind of trap, Willow revealed her covens’ findings to Buffy and the two best friends quickly headed for the Californian small town located rather close to their own hometown of Sunnydale, or where Sunnydale once stood. “This place is giving me all the wrong kind of Sunnydale vibes which only serves to convince me even further that we are walking straight into a trap,” Willow told her blonde-haired friend, as she and Buffy walked the streets of Riverborn, late at night, in search of the Frey family home, where Buffy’s son once lived. “I do not care if he wants to trap me or not the point is he wants us there which is a step in the right direction for me,” Buffy admitted to her, as the two stopped outside of an abandoned home, the tell-tale signs of its boarded windows, and the decaying build revealing it to be the former family home of Theo and his adoptive parents. “I hope this was a happy home to grow up in…I hope his life has not all been as twisted as the recent years we know about.” “Well, if it was not, it is not like I could have done anything, you know with the whole fact that I thought my son was dead this entire time.” Angel snapped at Buffy, appearing from behind the slayer and witch. “Angel…I can’t begin to apologize for everything I’ve put you through, that I forced Willow and Faith to put you through, so I’m not going to, not yet anyway.” Buffy told the vampire with which she shared a child, as his eyes never left the view of their son’s former home. Willow quickly informed Angel of the plan which she and Buffy had made while on their way to Riverborn, hoping to avoid as much awkwardness between the two as possible, as she revealed she would wait outside ready to cast any spells needed if Theo had not come alone so that the two could focus on trying to get through to their son, and after a few minutes of talking things through it was time to put their plans into action.

As Buffy and Angel walked through the front door of Theo’s family home and into the living room he once shared with his adoptive parents it became abundantly clear, by the photos in frames placed above a cozy fireplace, that the people who had raised their son truly loved him like he was their own, and for a brief moment, they found comfort in that knowledge, until their minds began to wonder what happened to them for this once loving home to become so empty and for their son to go down such a wicked path. “All I wanted for him was a normal life, a normal home, and to be safe,” Buffy told Angel as tears formed in her eyes, while the slayer and vampire moved into the kitchen where they found a sinister-looking Theo gleefully awaiting their arrival as he held a crossbow in his hands ready to fire at any given moment. “Before or after the monsters that you were supposed to slay took everything away from me.” Theo sarcastically replied to his mother, finally meeting her for the first time after all these years. “The blood-stained carpet in the living room is where I found my mother on my sixteenth birthday…oh the irony, and here is where I found my father.” “Theo I am so sorry!” Buffy cried, seeing nothing but hatred for her in her son’s eyes, beautiful eyes which he had gotten from Buffy’s mother, with his facial structure very much like Angel’s. “You seem different!” Angel stated to his son, realizing something had changed within him since the last time they met when he did not know Theo was his son. “So, the cat is clearly out of the bag about who I really am. That’s good it’s going to make this so much more enjoyable!” Theo declared revealing to them both that he knew exactly who they were and that he hated them more than anything else on this planet. “Theo, you have got to know I had no idea that you were even alive. I’d have stopped at nothing to find you otherwise.” Angel promised his son, hoping to explain his absence to Theo, that he was not to blame for not being in his life. “I thought I had lost you forever I had no clue where you wound up…I should’ve looked for you, but I hoped you were better off without me.” Buffy confessed as Theo kept the crossbow firmly pointing at both of his biological parents, seeming untouched by their words. “I do not want answers, you idiots.” Theo scoffed at them both. “Answers are what some lost boy looks for as he longs to be found but I’m no lost boy and I found myself a very long time ago. All I want is revenge!” Theo did not wait for either Buffy or Angel to reply before shooting two arrows in their direction, arrows which Angel managed to catch, one in each hand, before it made any damage towards him or Buffy as Theo quickly scurried out of the kitchen ready to play a game of hide and seek, a game he intended to not only win but to use as another trap for the two people he blamed for everything wrong in his life.

Angel took to the upstairs of Theo’s family home while Buffy went down to the basement, figuring if they took both options to where their son could have run to, then he would not be able to get away so easily, and as Angel reached the upstairs hallway, he found himself walking into Theo’s bedroom which looked like it had been kept the same way since he was last in it. Angel scoured the room where he found shelves filled with books, a desk filled with awards, and a picture by Theo’s bed of himself and a friend, which he did not know at the time was Ruby Moon, and as he continued to look around his son’s room he realized Theo once lived a happy life in this home, which is exactly why they were brought here because Theo blamed them for his happy life coming to an end. Although Angel’s search led to nowhere, Buffy’s search was going much better as she reached the bottom of the basement stairs to see Theo stood there, having ditched his crossbow, for a shiny blade. “I was hoping you’d be the one to find me first, mother and son, slayer versus slayer, you’re going to be my biggest kill.” Theo boasted to a horrified Buffy who was left unnerved by her son’s desire to kill her. “I do not want to fight you, Theo, you are my son and I love you,” Buffy replied cautiously, fearing she would have no choice but to go head-to-head with her own son. “I’m a vampire just like daddy now, did I forget to mention that? So, if you think you’re going to win against me then I have to tell you I’m a lot stronger than when I went up against your friends.” Theo confessed to a stunned Buffy, who realized her son had died before she even got a chance to meet him and at the hands of Giles, nonetheless. “You’re dead?” Buffy answered in complete shock, blaming herself for her son’s doomed fate. “But you still have a soul…” Angel announced as he appeared at the top of the basement stairs and began walking down towards Buffy and Theo. “I don’t know how it’s possible, how you are a vampire, and yet somehow you are still you but the fact that you’ve kept your soul is very much evidence that you are not as evil as you want us to believe.” “Or maybe my soul is so damned the devil himself does not want it?” Theo replied to his father, eager to debunk Angel’s theory about him. “I am the first vampire in history to ever sire himself I guess that means the rules are different for me and although there are two of you, I like my odds considering I am both vampire and slayer.” “I am not going to fight you!” Buffy repeated herself, refusing to lay hands on her son. “I will,” Angel stated before going on to say. “If I have to beat the good back into you then I will.” Theo charged towards Angel swinging his blade multiple times in his direction, Angel managing to avoid being cut before knocking the blade out of Theo’s hands leading to the two vampires going head-to-head in a brutal and bloody fight. Angel managed to hold his own against his son Theo for some time, but it was not long before Theo began to get the better of his father but not because of his new undead status but rather because Angel was holding back, and Buffy could see that, so as Theo threw his biological father to the floor Buffy rushed across the basement floor and picked up Theo’s knife. “Stop it now!” Buffy shouted at her son as she placed the knife against her son. “If you are so damned determined to kill your parents then start with me. “Buffy…” Angel muttered before being knocked out by a killer right hook punch by Theo, who left his father unconscious on the ground as he began to walk over towards his mother. “Do not think that I will not kill you right here right now!” Theo told Buffy as he placed his own hands on the blade pressed against Buffy’s chest. “Then do it! If it is going to make you happy then do it!” Buffy pleaded with her son as tears began to form in her eyes. “All I have ever wanted is your happiness…” Theo pushed the blade into Buffy’s chest ever so slightly, just enough force so she could feel the blade but not enough force to break the skin, and he stood there with a knife

to his mother’s chest for what felt like forever to Buffy but in likelihood was less than a minute, before Theo threw the blade to the ground, unable to kill his own mother. “I do not remember what happy feels like anymore,” Theo admitted honestly, his words making Buffy realize how truly broken he was, much to her own horror, and as he began walking up the stairs leaving both Buffy and Angel in the basement, Buffy could not help but feel responsible for her son’s fate, vowing to save him from himself even if it did lead to her own death.

[raisondetempete]

Monochrome Obsession (Yandere Wu Chang x Female Reader) Part I

There will be three parts, with the third part being a non-consensual lemon (I do not condone these actions). All the parts are finished, but the third part is not typed (I handwrote everything). I’m working up the courage to type it.

Edit: The third part is now out!

Edit 2: If you like my writing, check this out

I’m reposting this from my Wattpad so if you see it there, it’s not stolen. Story under line

Link to part II Hopefully I did this right

Link to part III

(y/n) - your name

(e/c) - eye colour

(f/g) - favorite genre

Character Index:

Margaretha - Female Dancer

Martha - Coordinator

Helena - The Mind’s Eye

Fiona - Priestess

Naib - Mercenary

Wu Chang - Black and White

Fan Wujiu - Black

Xie Bi’an - White

Aesop - Embalmer

Vera - Perfumer

Kevin - Cowboy

Andrew - Gravekeeper

Luca - “Prisoner”

You’ve been in the manor for about a month now. Although you’re no longer considered “new”, you don’t go into too many matches. Partly because you’re still inexperienced at matches but mostly because you’re anxiety peaks in matches.

There’s a match today and you’re determined to participate. Margaretha was supposed to participate in the match, but she sprained her ankle while practicing her dancing. So, Martha gathered everyone in the dining hall to decide who would replace her.

“Alright everyone,” Martha said, clapping her hands to get everyone’s attention. “As everyone knows, Margaretha is unable to participate in today's match. The other three survivors are Helena, Fiona, and Naib. Any survivor would do as the kiting, saving, and decoding roles are covered.” Determined to redeem yourself and to help calm your anxiety, you raise your hand.

“Umm… May I join?” you ask. Martha, slightly surprised, nods. “Just be a bit cautious as you’re still inexperienced.” Nodding, you signal that you understand. Walking over to Helena, you place your hand on her shoulder.

“Hey,” you say.

“Hi,” she responds in her usual quiet voice, “I’m surprised you volunteered to join today’s match.”

“I wanted to try and get over my anxiety.”

“I understand. I had the same problem when I first got here. I think everyone did. The anxiety lessens with experience.” After saying that, she squeezes your hand reassuringly.

“We have about an hour until the match begins. You should get ready,” she says. You thank her and go into your room to prepare for the match.

You were known as the Reader. Particularly good with decoding, you would probably become one of the best decoders in the roster with more experience. However, as you spend most of your time reading, you’re not very athletic. Plus, the book you carry with you is a bit heavy, so it weighs you down significantly. As a result, when a hunter comes by, you try to hide instead of running.

What's your ability? You can see the actions of everyone in the match, including the hunter, 10 seconds before it happens using the book you constantly tote around. Unfortunately, the book takes a while to recover so you can only use it every couple of minutes.

The hour before the match flies by quickly. As you walk to the matching room, you’re legs begin to shake.

“Deep breath in (y/n). Deep breath out (y/n),” you mutter yourself as you reach the room. Fiona and Helena are already seated. You take a seat in the middle of them.

“Where’s Naib?” You ask.

“He’s getting his elbow pads from his room,” Fiona replies, fiddling with her metal ring. You bob your head and engage in a conversation with the two while waiting for Naib to come back.

Naib soon comes back and sits in the chair closest to the door.

“The match will begin in thirty seconds,” The host’s voice booms from nowhere.

‘I guess the hunter was already here then. I wonder for how long?’ you wonder. A sound of glass breaking is heard and your vision goes black.

The sound of glass breaking is heard as your vision returns. It appears you’re by the pier in Lakeside Village. The sound of Helena’s cane is heard and you can vaguely see everyone’s outline. Apparently, the hunter is Wu Chang. You haven’t had any matches with him yet but you’ve heard stories from the other survivors. Wu Chang is made up of two people. The white version is more docile than other hunters and mostly patrols the area while the black version is incredibly aggressive. Due to the Black’s aggression and White’s huge hitbox, Wu Chang is a feared hunter among the survivors. You really don’t want to encounter him.

Before running over to the cipher machine nearby, you turn to see where everyone was. Helena is over by the shore cipher, decoding. Fiona is far behind you, working on the cipher within by the boatshed. Naib is in the cornfields. You open your book to see who the hunter will go after first.

Fiona is hurriedly decoding the boatshed cipher, wiping the sweat off her brow as she focuses, while Helena works on the shore cipher. Naib is working on the cornfield cipher but will quickly be interrupted by the smirking mercilessly Black form of Wu Chang.

You call out to Naib that the hunter is going to attack him, hoping that the winds present in Lakeside would carry your voice across the map. As you run to the cipher to begin decoding, you hear Naib call out a thank you. Unfortunately, Wu Chang must have also heard you because a bell sound is heard before Naib is hit.

“Crap,” you mutter to yourself.

“Don’t move! I’m coming!” Fiona calls out. A light bell sound is heard, meaning a cipher has been completed. Helena sure is fast. You continue decoding until a female scream is heard out. Fiona.

“Continue decoding!” she yells out. Helena hits her cane again, revealing Fiona chaired nearby. Naib, seeing you, runs over to you.

“Can you quickly heal me,” he asks, gesturing to the cuts on his arms. By the time you are able to heal him, Fiona likely has less than half a minute left before the rocket chair sends her back to the manor. Naib equips his elbow pads and dashes off. You continue decoding and finish the cipher. Unfortunately, it seems Naib wasn’t able to make it in time. Fiona’s screams as she blasts off are mingled with Naib’s as he is hit. Helena hits her cane once more, revealing Naib by the cornfields and Helena decoding the shack cipher by the shore. 

Your book has recovered by this point so you open it. 

Naib runs around the windmill by the shore door, heart beating wildly. Unfortunately for Naib, White teleports using his umbrella. Unwisely looking fearfully behind him, Naib runs headfirst into Black. Naib screams in terror as the grinning Black hits him.

“Naib!” you scream. “White is going to teleport to you when you go around the windmill!”

“Thanks (y/n)!” Naib yells back. You smile, happy with yourself that you helped in some way. You run to the barely started cornfield cipher and begin decoding. A light bell sound is heard, meaning Helena finished her cipher. Great! You were half done yours. Your happiness fades away seconds later as Naib screams as he is hit.

“Just a bit longer Naib! I’m almost done!” You call out. Helena hits her cane, revealing her by the ship exit gate and Naib limping in pain, Wu Chang right behind him. Before the vision of the two fades, you see Naib vault a window, thinking Wu Chang isn’t far behind him. Unluckily for Naib, it’s a slow vault. Wu Chang hits him as he’s vaulting, resulting in a terror shock.

“Keep decoding! I’m saving him!” Helena calls out.

“Helena! Don’t!” you scream out, only to be met with silence. You fearfully keep decoding, not knowing what else to do. A feminine scream pierces through the night soon after. You try decoding faster, hoping to at least assist Helena with Borrowed Time.

“Keep it up, Helena!” Naib shouts from his place in the chair. 

“I’m almost done decoding!” you also shout out into the night. Just as you're about to pop the last cipher, a bell sound is heard. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t mean someone's done decoding. Helena manages to hit her cane before being downed, almost as if she knew it was inevitable

“Come on… Come on…” you mutter, decoding faster than you’ve ever decoded before, not even checking if Helena was picked up. You finish decoding and a siren is heard.

“Yes!” you shout. A fizzing was heard.

“She was chaired!” Naib yells as he flies through the air. You freeze. It was just you and Helena left and Helena was already chaired. You don’t even know where the dungeon is. You hold onto the cipher, shaking intensely. This was exactly what you didn’t want to happen. No matter what you did, you were screwed. Maybe you could save if…

“The hunter has detention!” Helena calls out, interrupting your thoughts.

‘There goes that idea,’ You bitterly think to yourself.

“Don’t save me! Open the door!” she replies.

“But what about-”

“Just do it!” Helena’s usually calm and quiet demeanor is replaced by a firm tone. Begrudgingly, you head towards the cornfield door.

Just as you reach the door, you hear Helena’s terrified scream as she blasts off into the night. Trying to ignore your anxiety-ridden thoughts, you start entering the code for the door. A blast of red light besides you is your only clue to start running. You head into the cornfields, only looking back to see Black stalking after you, long hair blowing in the breeze behind him. You huddle in a corner of the field and bite down hard on your right hand in order for the scream bubbling up in your throat not to release.

Soon after you crouch, you hear the footsteps of Wu Chang near you, his eyes glowing a scarlet red. You dig your fingers hard into your palm to the point where blood is nearly drawn. That’s when he enters your vision. Black is walking vertically towards where you are crouching, sighing as he goes. In a couple seconds, he’ll be upon you. You hold your breath, not knowing what else to do.

Then, he looks directly at you. Your pounding heart stops as you see black spots in your vision.

‘I’m going to die. I’m going to die,’ you keep repeating in your head. Blood spurts from your hands from how hard you are biting/digging in to them. Black comes towards you and…

Completely ignores you.

He walks inches by you, his long braid almost hitting you in the face. You don’t dare to even turn your head to see where he is going. You only dare to move when the purple glow from your chest has completely disappeared. You run back to the cornfield gate and continue putting in the code. The gate quickly opens and you dash through. As you disappear into the night, one thought echoes in your head.

‘He saw me so why didn’t he down me?’

Over the next few months, you began to see Wu Chang in matches frequently, they being the most common hunter you see. Thus, when you were chosen for a match, everyone assumed the hunter would be Wu Chang.

As for your interactions with the Black and White hunter, they’ve been acting odd towards you. There’s only been one match where they’ve hit you. Instead, they would just stare at you for a bit before walking away. Even the bloody thirsty Black never made a move to hurt you.

The one time they hit you was about a month ago in the Red Church. There were three ciphers decided and you were the last survivor left. You tried looking for dungeon but quickly got crows. You started sprinting towards a random direction but White quickly found you. Scared, you tried to run in the opposite direction. Sighing, White hit you with his umbrella… well, “hit” isn’t the right word. He more bruised you on the arm, applying just enough force for you to be considered injured. You ran to the cemetery and hid. White quickly caught up to you, siphoning your soul. He stopped right before your soul was fully siphoned. Unfortunately, he was now right in front of you. He had “hit” you again on the other arm, making you downed. He picked you up carefully, as if he were holding an injured baby bird, and brought you to the open dungeon. He then let you struggle free from his arms. Before you had jumped into the dungeon, you let out a small “Thank you”.

Now, you’re lazing on your bed, reading a (f/g) book when there’s a knock on your door.

“Come in,” you softly call out. The door opens, revealing Aesop. Aesop has been your closest friend during your stay at the manor. You quickly bonded over your mutual social anxiety. Although you thought his fascination with dead bodies was weird at first, you eventually came to accept his interests. There was even a time when you thought you had heard him say that you were better than his dead bodies.

“What is it?” you question.

“We have a match with Vera and Kevin in ten minutes,” Aesop replies, gesturing to his embalming case.

“Let me just get my book,” you say. You run over to your bedside table, grab your book from its place on your bedside table, and run over to the waiting Aesop. You walk down together to the matching room.

When you both arrive to the table, Kevin is chatting animatedly to Vera, much to her annoyance. Trying to get away from the awkward situation, you and Aesop decide to sit as far away from the duo as possible. Seeing the two of you arrive, Kevin and Vera confirm into the match.

“Are you ready?” Aesop whispers into your ear.

“I think so,” you say, looking down at your slightly shaking hands. You still haven’t gotten over your nervousness in matches. Even Andrew and Luca have gotten over their original nervousness despite coming to the mansion after you. Aesop looks at you and squeezes your hand reassuringly. You look back at him but you can’t see his expression behind his mask. You both confirm. You hear glass breaking and your vision goes black.

When the sound of breaking once again reaches your ears, your vision returns. Looking around you, you realize the map you’re in is the Arms Factory. You shiver as an ominous feeling hits you in the face. This is your least favorite map. The eerie feeling emanating from the abandoned factory has always creeped you out. Today, however, it wasn’t the factory giving you the feeling of dread.

This match is no ordinary match.

You don’t know how you know this. It was just a gut feeling. You open your book to see where everyone has ended up.

Aesop is standing idly around in the factory, grey eyes darting around wildly. Once he sees the glowing cipher machine, he runs over to it and begins typing away. Vera is out in the open as she clacks away on the keyboard, running her hand through her brown hair as she does so. Kevin is decoding the cipher in the outside room, spitting onto the ground every now and then. Cackling, Wu Chang appears from the back left entrance, a smirk on their face growing ever wider.

“Kevin! Wu Chang is behind you!” you call out.

“Thanks baby girl,” Kevin coos from the distance. You repress a shudder and head into the factory to meet up with Aesop.

Aesop is already decoding when you get inside the factory. You run over to the cipher.

“Umm… is it okay if I decode with you?” you question. Aesop, being uncomfortable around others, has a slowing decoding speed when others decode with him.

“Yeah. My decoding stays normal with you because I’m comfortable around you,” Aesop replies. You beam at him as you begin decoding.

“Keep decoding. I’m going to place my coffin,” Aesop says. You nod as you continue decoding. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Aesop go out the door to the right of you. A loud grunt is heard from Kevin, signalling that he’s been hit. Aesop returns soon after and assists you with decoding. You both quickly finish decoding the cipher and decide to split up, with you going out the left door and Aesop going out the right.

You find a cipher out in the open and begin decoding. A nearby grunt fills the air, signalling Kevin just went down.

“I’ll be there in a second! Let me finish this cipher,” Vera’s voice pierces through the fog as she finishes her cipher. You then see her sprint across the plain in the direction of where Kevin’s yell came from.

“Keep it up Vera,” you encourage her as she runs past you. She shoots you a smile and keeps running. You hear the snaps of Kevin being chaired as a faint purple glow covers your chest. Taking that as your signal to leave, you run off to find a different cipher. When you’re running, you hear Vera’s scream.

“Good job getting terror shocked,” Kevin’s sarcastic voice carries through the mist.

“Shut up!” a very pissed off Vera snarls back as she’s taken away.

“Aesop, where are you!,” you call out as softly as you can.

“Over here,” a whisper to your right replies, so faint that you wouldn’t have heard it if you weren’t paying attention. You run over to the right where you find Aesop huddling behind a wall.

“I’m going to save Vera while you decode,” he mutters to you.

“Before you go, let me use my book so I can help you.” You open your book and begin to read aloud.

“Aesop is running to the chaired Vera, panting slightly as sweat trails down his temple. Kevin’s terrified shout fills the air as he flies into the air, doomed to another round of the accursed game. Aesop is almost within eyesight with the chaired Vera before getting hit by the White Guard. (y/n) has returned to her cipher only to find its been abnormaled, returning it to it to 25% decoded,” you read out.

There is a moment of tense silence before Aesop speaks.

“(y/n), I would suggest you do a cipher as far away from Vera and me as you can. Focus on decoding. There may be a way to get a tie,” Aesop rapidly tells you, his tone commanding.

“I understand. Go save Vera,” you sigh, feeling useless and worried for Aesop. Aesop squeezes your hand, noting your dark mood.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry,” he says before kissing you tenderly on the forehead before running off, leaving you gaping you gaping after him. What breaks you out of your stunned stupor is the feeling of the darkness around you increase tenfold.

“Aesop!” you call after him but he’s too far away for him to hear you. You sigh before you run to a far away cipher and begin decoding. While decoding, you hear Aesop getting hit before saving Vera. Vera is quickly downed and chaired.

“Thank you soooo much,” her bitter voice shouts as she blast off.

“Focus on decoding, (y/n),” Aesop calls out, his voice echoing through the foggy surroundings. You don’t respond, not wanting to give away your location.

You’re about halfway decoded when you hear someone getting hit fairly nearby. 

‘They’re probably not going to chair him as he placed his coffin,” you think, only to be quickly proven wrong when you hear the sound of someone being clipped into a chair.

‘Why…’ you think before you see the faint image of an umbrella flying through the air in the direction of the factory. They know where his coffin is!

“Aesop! Watch out!” You shout, not caring if Wu Chang hears you anymore. There’s a tense moment of silence before a blood curdling scream pierces through the silence, resulting in you missing a calibration in surprise. Aesop is a quiet person. What could cause him to scream like that? You once again hear the clanking of someone being placed into a chair. That’s odd. When Aesop comes of his coffin, he has the trait “Borrowed Time”, allowing survivors to go down for thirty seconds. The odd thing was that he went down almost immediately, something that shouldn’t happen…

You try to focus on your calibration. Unfortunately, due to you missing a calibration, you were ¾ decoded. With Aesop being chaired, you likely have half a minute at the most to decode.

“Aesop! Do you want me to come save you?” you call out. No reply.

“Aesop?” You nervously call out again as you decode, fear, cold as ice, spreading through you. Only the creaking of the factory answers you. You try to speed up your decoding but the knot of dread in your stomach easily distracts you. 

When you’re almost finished decoding, your heart begins to beat out of your chest. Literally. Not taking any chances, you hide behind a nearby wall. Footsteps approach the rapidly whirring cipher before a kick is heard and the whirring slows down to a near stop. Didn’t they just use abnormal? You check your book to see if it’s ready to be used again. There’s a minute left before you can use it. Your book and abnormal have the same cool down time so how come Wu Chang was able to abnormal your cipher?

It’s then you hear the distinct fizzing of a rocket chair blasting off. You’re doomed. As Aesop flies through the fog, you decide to run as far away from the cipher as you can. You quickly heard the slow pace of footsteps behind you. No matter where you ran, how far away you got from him, a strong purple glow remains around your heart, never wavering in the slightest. You were curious to see how far they were behind you so you looked back, only to run first into a… pair of legs? You fall to the ground, letting out a little squeak of pain when you hit the ground. Heart pounding wildly--and not because the hunter was close--, you look up. Black stands over you, purple eyes staring into your own (e/c) eyes.

He shoots you a smirk before purring, “Hello (y/n).”

“What the… I thought you were behind me,” you mutter, feeling numb from defeat. Black chuckles darkly before moving closer to you. You back up everytime he moves closer to you, making sure to keep your eyes on him so that he wouldn’t try to hit you when your back is turned. As he takes another step towards you, you take a step backwards only to run into another pair of legs. You confusedly staring at the still smirking Black in front of you before looking up, only for your heart to drop. White is looking down at you, his mouth forming a serene smile.

“Y-You two can-” “We can separate of course, my dear (y/n),” White cuts you off.

“M-My dear? What do you mean?” You question. Black gives you a grin.

“Angel, we’ve fallen in love with you,” Black declares. You mouth drops open. You slowly turn your head towards Black then back to White. White chuckles before clearing his throat.

“My name is Xie Bi’an and this is my friend Fan Wujiu,” White tells you.

“Umm… nice to meet you Shi.. Fa…” you stutter out, having trouble trouble with both of their names.

“I believe the survivors call us Black and White? You may call us that as you seem to have trouble pronouncing our names, love,” White replies to your feeble attempt.

“Back to business,” Black begins. “As we have fallen in love with you, we’ve decided to take you with us to the hunter’s side of the mansion.”

‘Is that even allowed?’ You wonder to yourself. 

“I’m sorry but I can’t go with you. I like being on the survivor’s side of the mansion with the others. Plus, I only just properly met you,” you hesitantly retort, trying to choose you words carefully as to not offend them. However, it seems your attempt was in vain as their eyes darken at your words.

“We’ve been in matches with you for months and you say you don’t know us?” White growls, hands gripping his clothes tightly in anger. 

“Do you honestly prefer the over us?” Black snarls as his lip curls up in disgust. Then, they both pause.

“Do you prefer him over us?” They menacingly mutter in unison.

“Who do you mean?” You question as you start to shake.

“That fucking Embalmer! I saw what he did to you,” Black spits out.

“Aesop? I don’t have any feelings for him…” you reply. But do you? It seems that the two of them notice your uncertainty as the dark aura around them grows in intensity. You look around for a way out of this tense situation. Fortunately, you see a window in the wall to the left of you. Hopefully the dungeon is nearby.

You step away from White towards the window and Black, causing him to raise an eyebrow. Without any warning, you sprint towards the wall and vault it, luckily getting a fast vault.

“I’m sorry but I don’t return your feelings!” you call behind you as you run away. White sighs as Black scales the window, scowling. You run behind a wall, making sure no one saw you. As your book is recharged, you open it.

(y/n) dashes towards the factory, pleading for luck to be on her side for once. Black and White are hot on her trail and rapidly gaining. (y/n) reaches the side of the factory and sees the open hatch.

You finish reading and eye the distance between you and the factory. According to the book, it’s likely you’ll be able to reach the dungeon before they catch up to you. Taking a deep breath before exhaling, you make a break for the factory. 

Your rapid footsteps are quickly accompanied by two sets of larger footsteps.

“(y/n), you’re making us rather angry. Please give up now,” White soothes you, as if he’s talking to a troublesome child.

“We won’t punish you… much,” Black sadistically laughs. You try not to let your anxiety take over you but it’s hard. You reach the outside of the factory and head to the right. Just like the book said, the hatch is in front of you! You begin to run over but fall to the ground as blue light, accompanied by a bell sound, reaches your feet. No! You try to quickly get up only to be scooped up by a strong pair of arms covered in black robes.

“Let me go!” you shout as your body flais around, desperate tears falling from your eyes. Black snickers before bringing his wildly grinning face to yours.

“Gotcha~” he purrs. Your eyes widen as you try to move your head away from his. Black only shakes his head and adjusting you in his arms so that he has a free hand. He takes your chin and brought you so close to him that your noses are almost touching. Being so close, you can’t help but admire his handsome appearance. His mostly ash-black skin contrast perfectly with the one patch of bone-white skin over his right eye. His glowing yellow eyes stare deeply into yours taking in every detail of your face just as you’re doing to him. When you’re finished looking at him, Black’s ever familiar smirk grows.

“Like what you see, Doll?” Black purrs, bringing his face, if it’s even possible, closer to yours. You let out a small squeak and blush slightly at the close proximity of the two of you.

“Angel, what a little seductress you are. Teasing me with that red face? How lewd of you. Well, I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” the tall man murmurs half to you and half to himself. Before you can ask what he means, he smashes his lips on yours. Immediately, you begin to squirm, pursuing your hands against his chest. Black only laughs, the vibrations reverberating on your skin. After a minute or so, he pulls away, leaving you gasping for breath.

That was your first kiss. As you’re a naturally introverted person, you have few friends, much less a romantic relationship. To have something so special and important taken from you sends you further into an abyss of depression.

You feel a breath on your left ear as you’re transferred into another pair of arms.

“I have to agree with Fan. You are quite the hidden temptress. Making me so jealous as you give all your attention right in front of me,” White hums into your left ear before lightly blowing on it. You let out a squeak of surprise at the foreign feeling, causing an amused smile to appear on White’s face.

You peer at White between your eyelashes. He has the exact same facial features as Black, all the way down to the height of his cheekbones and the vibrant purple colour of his eyes. The only difference between the two is their skin colour is inverted. White’s skin is a bone-white colour except for the patch of ash-black skin over his left eye, the opposite side to Black’s patch.

White, noticing you watching him, laughs softly before gently taking your chin in his hand.

“You don’t know how envious I was when I saw Fan take your first kiss,” White whispers lightly to you. “I’ll have to be the first in taking something else then…” You blush scarlet at his implications. You wouldn’t have expected a comment like that from White. Black definitely but not White. Maybe he isn’t the person you thought he was.

White laughs airily at your confused expression before softly placing his lips on yours. The kiss is different than the kiss with Black. While Black was rough and sloppy with passion, White is soft and caring, effectively conveying his deep love for you. If you weren’t in your current situation, you would’ve enjoyed it. It’s hard not to become putty in his hands.

After a couple of seconds, White moves his lips away from yours, his glowing purple eyes boring into yours.

“Ah. It was even better than I imagined it to be,” White sighs.

“W-What are you going to do t-to me now,” you stutter, scared out of your mind. Black and White look at each other before turning back to you, wide grins on their faces.

“Doll, we’re following our original plan: taking you with us,” Black slyly purrs.

“I’m so happy, darling! We finally get to be together,” White cheers and clutches you closer to him, burying your face into his chest. However, he softens his grip once he realizes his white robe is getting wet. He pulls you away from his to see your red eyes and tears flowing down your (s/c) cheeks.

“Good job Xie. You made her cry,” Black groans, rolling his eyes before taking you from White.

“I-I don’t want to sob go with sob you,” You sob. Black and White’s eyes darken.

“Unfortunately for you, angel, you don’t really have a choice in the matter,” Black growls.

“Love, we can’t let you go. We love you too much,” White says, reaching out to reassuringly cup your face. You shy away. A look of hurt crosses his face as he retracts his hand.

You begin to struggle again, causing Black to groan.

“Angel, I didn’t want to do this to you,” Black sighs.

“What are you talking about?” you nervously ask as he carries you inside the factory to a series of pipes.

“This is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you,” Black murmurs before putting you on the ground, taking your head in his hands, and hitting your head against the pipes. Pain blossoms in your right temple as your vision fades into nothing.

You’re awakened by something shifting besides you. You open your eyes to find darkness. You try to feel besides out to find out what’s besides you only to find your right hand in a firm grip. Your eyes quickly adjust to the darkness and you turn your head to the right.

White’s sleeping face is inches from yours, softly blowing air onto you as he firmly clutches your hand. He’s dressed in white traditional Chinese pyjamas. You then feel a squeeze around your chest, making you turn your head to the left only to jolt in fear.

Black’s intense eyes stare deeply into yours, overseeing you. His arms are wrapped possessively around your chest. He’s wearing the same clothes as White except the colour is black instead of white. You open your mouth to scream, shout, or just to do anything to let them let you go or for someone to hear you and rescue you… well, you are, presumably, on the hunter’s side of the manor. None of them would ever even think about helping you.

Black unwraps an arm from around you and covers your mouth with his hand.

“Shh. You wouldn’t want to wake him up. Plus, I want more time alone with you,” Black huskily whispers into your ear, resulting in you letting out a muffled squeak. You hear a low chuckle behind you as two arms wrap around your waist. 

“I was already awake, love. I was simply enjoying your presence beside me,” White murmurs into your other ear. Black removes his hand as you open your mouth to speak. 

“Umm… may I have some personal space?” you question.

“No,” they reply in unison, instead hugging you tighter.

“Darling, why don’t you just enjoy our time together?” White murmurs into the crook of your neck.

“There’s no chance of you escaping us,” Black purrs, his chin resting on top of your head. 

“After all,” they say in unison.

“We love you”

[sagesparrow394]

Nerdiness

Fandoms: Sanders Sides, Hazbin Hotel

Characters: Logan, Patton, Virgil, Janus, Roman, Remus, Emile, Remy, Valentino

Relationship(s): Moxiety

Summary: Hazbin Hotel AU. Go here if you want a preface of who’s who and see the character designs

When there’s a surprise guest at the hotel, Patton gets all hands on deck to make sure the guest gets a proper welcome. However, things get put on pause after he heads to Logan’s room and finds something out about their spidery friend.

Trigger Warning: themes of sexual assault and abuse

—————

It had been a very normal, very quiet day at the hotel. Emile was running around the lobby, dusting and cleaning the cobwebs that had been woven by spiders overnight. Janus was drinking cheap wine behind the bar, though insisting, “It’s soup. It’s too early for alcohol.” Roman was wandering around absentmindedly, checking on things and occasionally picking on Virgil, who was in charge at the time as Patton was out, pinning up posters anywhere he could to advertise the hotel.

And, though it seemed to everyone else that these posters would be a lost cause, given how most demons had initially reacted to the idea of the hotel, they apparently weren’t.

For, at around midday, the front door opened. And in stepped a demon.

He was a bat demon, wings folded behind his back, and two black bat ears poking out of his hair. He wore a black jacket, white shirt, and black skinny jeans. He was texting on his phone as he stepped in, one of Patton’s posters in his other hand.

“Hey, babes, this is the ‘Happy Hotel’, right? I wasn’t too sure, since the sign says ‘Hazbin’. Might wanna update the flyers.”

Virgil looked up from where he had been sitting on the couch, eyes widening. He went to get to his feet and welcome the demon, but before he could, Roman was already welcoming them in

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, welcome to the Hazbin Hotel! I’m Roman, I run this fine establishment.”

The bat demon raised his eyebrow. “I thought that Lucifer’s son did?” He paused. “Wait, Roman? The Radio Demon?”

“I work with Patton! He owns it, but I’m helping him run it. And so is that boyfriend of his, I guess...”

Virgil rolled his eyes, going over to the bat demon. “Sorry about him. Just come on over to the reception and we can check you into a room, Mr...?”

“Just call me Remy, babes.”

Virgil led Remy over to the counter, where Janus pulled out the guest book, blowing the dust off of it. He opened it to the first page, where there was only a single line filled in: ‘Logan “Angel Dust”.’

“Angel Dust’s still living here, huh? Thought you’d have kicked him out after the whole turf war thing,” Remy said.

Virgil sighed. “Trust me, I wanted to. But Patton insisted he deserved another chance.”

“Yep, I did! And I think it was a good idea. I mean, he hasn’t joined any turf wars since then, has he?” Patton was standing in the doorway.

“He’s still an addict and offering his usual ‘services’. Remember he invited us to his strip show a week or so back? Still a sex worker,” Virgil shrugged.

“Come on, now, this is a sex worker positive environment!” Patton said, wandering over. “And the whole point of this hotel is to help people who are sinning, not kick them out for sinning. I’m sure, with our help, he’ll make progress and be clean from drugs in no time!”

Janus scoffed. “His stage name is literally the drug he’s addicted to. I doubt it’ll be that easy. Plus, just because you’re sex worker positive doesn’t mean those guys up in Heaven are.”

“Well... we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Anyway... who is this?!” Patton turned to Remy, grinning from ear to ear.

“Remy. Nice to meet ya, gurl.”

“You too! Oh, you’re going to love it here! Now, I’ll show you to your room-“

“Actually, think I wanna get a tour first, see what facilities and stuff you got here. Plus, I’d quite like to meet Angel, I’m a bit of a fan of his.”

“Oh, sure! In that case, I’ll go get him. Verge, Ro, while I’m gone, why don’t you show Remy around?”

Virgil raised an eyebrow. “Um, I think it’s better I go with you, Pat-“

“Sounds wonderful!” Roman grinned. “Come on, we must get going, there’s so much to see!”

And with that, Virgil found himself being pulled away by Roman, Remy following behind. Patton smiled as he watched them go, before turning and heading to the elevators. He headed up to the floor Logan’s room was on, before heading down the corridor to the room.

When he arrived, he knocked on the door, but didn’t wait for a response, immediately opening it.

“Logan, you’ll never believe this, but we have another guest! It’s so exciting! And they want to meet you, so let’s head down... stairs...” Patton trailed off, blinking in disbelief.

Logan was sat on his bed, Fat Nuggets curled up to his side. However, the thing that caused Patton to be surprised was what Logan was wearing and what he was doing.

He was wearing glasses, which wasn’t new. When he first moved into the hotel, he’d explained he mostly wore contacts, but would trade them for his glasses in the privacy of the hotel as they were more comfortable. Along with the glasses, though, he was wearing a baggy sweater and jeans - a far cry from his usual tight suit that showed off his body.

And he was reading. A very thick book, and by the looks of the cover, a scientific one. In fact, there was a cardboard box on the floor beside his bed that was filled with books and... academic papers?

Logan looked between Patton, and the book in his hands. “Uhh... It isn’t what it looks like. Books... get me hard? This is all for sexual purposes?”

“Logan...” Patton spoke slowly, a smirk pulling at his lips. “Are you... a secret nerd?”

Logan sighed. “... I’m not gonna be able to get out of this am I? Fine. Yes. I admit it. I am a nerd. I like astronomy and science and math and all that shit. But you can’t tell anyone, okay? This stays between us, no one can know.”

Patton’s smile fell. “Why not?” He came over and sat on Logan’s bed. “You shouldn’t hide your passions and the things you enjoy. You should express yourself and embrace them!”

Logan scoffed, folding his arms. “In case you’re forgetting, I have a reputation to maintain. I’m seductive, alluring and sexy as all hell. ‘Nerd’ doesn’t exactly go along with that. People won’t exactly want to accept my services if they think I’m just gonna ramble about quantam mechanics for the whole time. And not just because they’d think I’m boring and lame. It’s what Val told me: I’m already hotter than others. People feel like shit if they think you’re both hotter and smarter than them. If it gets out I’m smarter than the average demon, people won’t pay to be around me because I make them feel bad about themselves. So, it’s much more profitable to just play dumb all the time, as then they think they have at least one thing up on me.”

“So... to get work... you need people to see you as lesser than them?”

Logan shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much. That’s how demons are.”

Patton frowned. “That isn’t fair at all! You shouldn’t have to be forced to hide part of yourself. And even if you weren’t smart, that fact shouldn’t make you lesser than others.”

“Eh, I do what I have to. And I still get to enjoy my nerd shit in private. It’s not too bad.”

“It is, Logan. It really is. You shouldn’t have to live a lie like that.”

“Well, I do, and there’s nothing you or I can do about it, okay?” Logan snapped. “If I were open with this shit and Val found out, he’d-!” He paused. He took a deep breath. “Just go, Patton. And don’t tell anyone about any of this.”

“But-“

“I said go.”

Patton sighed. He reached over and gave Logan a comforting pat on the shoulder, the other flinching. Then, he turned and headed to the door. He gave Logan a comforting smile, before gently closing the door behind him.

Logan sighed, gently hugging Fat Nuggets. His eyes drifted to the mirror. As he watched, someone appeared behind him in his reflection.

In the reflection, Valentino slipped one hand up Logan’s sweater and the other into his pants. Logan tensed, trying to remind himself this wasn’t real. Just a hallucination.

“Angel... what did I say about these kind of things?” Valentino smirked, looking down at the reflection of the box of books and papers.

Logan didn’t respond, just hugging Fat Nuggets closer in an effort to comfort himself.

In the reflection, Valentino slid his hand further up Logan’s sweater until it came out the other end and gripped around Logan’s neck. “I don’t like you thinking you’re better than me... Your intelligence doesn’t mean shit, especially in our industry. Give. It. Up.”

Logan shook his head, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, his reflection was normal again. Valentino was absent from it.

Logan sighed again, leaning back on his pillow as Fat Nuggets licked his cheek. After a moment, he pulled out his phone.

Logan: Meet me at the drug vending machine outside the store. I need some fun to distract me.

Remus: You got it, Lo!

Remus: But won’t those hotel guys be mad at you? They weren’t exactly happy last time we went out and tore shit up together.

Logan: I really don’t care right now. I just need some fun. See you in ten?

Remus: Fuck yeah!!!

Logan pocketed his phone, before getting to his feet. He put the book he’d been reading back in the box, which he then took to his closet. Once it was hidden away, he took off his clothes and replaced them with his usual blue and white striped suit. Then he went over to his dresser, taking off his glasses and putting them away, and then placing in his contacts.

Once he was all changed, he picked up Fat Nuggets. “Let’s see if Janus will look after you again while I’m out.” And with that, he left the room, heading to the elevators and down to the lobby.

In the lobby, Roman and Virgil had just finished giving Remy the tour and returned. Patton happily welcomed them back.

“So, what do you think?”

Remy nodded. “Pretty nice place you got. Being ‘redeemed’ seems like a pretty good bargain to live here. Feels like I should be paying hundreds.”

Patton smiled. “I’m glad you like it! Now, um, about meeting Logan, that’ll probably have to wait. He’s, uh, dealing with some stuff right now.”

“Are you sure about that?” Roman asked. “He’s right over there!”

Patton turned around and, as Roman had said, Logan was there, stepping from the elevator.

“Oh, Logan! Why don’t you come and meet our new guest! Apparently they’re a fan of yours!”

“Sorry, but it’ll have to wait. I’ve got somewhere to be.” Logan headed over to the front desk. He leant against it, giving Janus a wink. “Think you can look after Nugs for me again?”

Janus groaned. “I’m not looking after that fucking pig agai-“

“You will? That’s great! Here you go, make sure he’s treated well. Daddy’ll see you later, Nugs.” Logan handed the pig over to Janus, before turning away and heading to the door.

“Where are you going?” Virgil asked, folding his arms.

“If you must know, I’m meeting up with Remus.”

“Remus?! The guy who dragged you into the turf war that ruined our reputation the last time you hung out?! No way in hell are you meeting up with him!”

Logan huffed, turning back to the others. “Two things. One: he didn’t drag me into it. I joined willingly to pay him back for helping me out. And two: that wasn’t the last time we hung out. Remember that time last week I invited you guys to my show and literally all of you no showed? Remus came round after, and he and I hung out for a bit. It was perfectly calm, no destruction.”

Patton raised an eyebrow. “He came here? How come none of us saw him come in?”

“He climbed through my window. Now, I’m not letting you guys stop me from seeing my best friend. You don’t have the right to. So, I’m heading off.” And with that, Logan turned and left the building, the door slamming behind him.

“He’s in a good mood...” Janus muttered, setting Fat Nuggets down on the counter and opening a bag of chips for him to munch on.

“That might be my fault...” Patton chuckled awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. “I walked into his room before he said I could come in, and found something out that he’d wanted to keep secret.”

“He has secrets?” Virgil asked.

Patton nodded, before whispering. “He’s a super smart nerd.”

Janus scoffed. “Logan? Smart? No way.”

“He is!” Patton nodded. “He was reading a sciency book, and owns a bunch of academic papers to read for fun. And we only have those in hell to act as torture devices! He just hides it because he thinks it’ll ruin his business if people think he’s a nerd. Y’know, since nerds aren’t ‘sexy’. I tried to tell him he should embrace who he is, but he wouldn’t have it.”

Virgil shrugged. “Well, what do you expect? I think we all know he’s stubborn as hell. C’mon, lets go show Remy to his room. We’ll deal with Logan when he gets back.”

Patton nodded. “Okay... Well, Remy, it’s this way! Come on!”

-

“-and of course there’s a phone here for room service! You can decorate however you want, as well! So... what do you think?”

Remy nodded, sitting on the bed. “It’s perfect, babes. Thanks a ton.”

“No problem!” Patton smiled. “Let us know if there’s anything we can do for you.”

“Will do,” Remy said as he pulled out his phone as it buzzed. He chuckled. “Looks like Angel Dust - or, I guess Logan, since you all seem to call him that - is having some fun.”

He held up his phone for Patton and Virgil to see, the former sighing and the latter groaning.

On the screen, Katie Killjoy and Tom Trench were discussing a series of destruction and explosions that was going on across the pentagram. And the footage from the scene clearly showed the ones behind it were Logan and Remus.

“Well... at least it’s not technically another turf war?” Patton shrugged as Virgil held his face in his hands.

“We’re ruined....”

“No, we’re not. It’s gonna be okay. Remember, Verge, we have Remy here too, and I’m sure more guests will follow. And it’s not totally Logan’s fault. I’m probably the one who made him upset to the point he decided this was the only way to get his feelings out. In the future, I’ll wait until he says ‘come in’.”

“That may be true, but it doesn’t change the fact he needs a healthier coping mechanism that doesn’t involve blowing up the whole city.” Virgil sighed. “And all this because he doesn’t like the fact people know he’s a nerd...”

-

“So, why’d you want to come wreak some havoc?!” Remus called as threw a molotov at the building across from the one he and Logan were currently standing on the roof of.

“Patton walked in on me reading,” Logan explained, throwing a bomb at a store a couple of buildings down. “He knows I’m a secret smarty pants. He promised me he wouldn’t tell anyone, but I really doubt he’ll keep that promise. Knowing him he’ll accidentally let it slip. He’s probably already told his boyfriend. I just wanna make it clear, in case it does get out, that me being a nerd doesn’t make me any less of a force to be reckoned with. Oh, also, you mind taking some pictures of me for Insta? Also gotta make it clear being a nerd doesn’t change the fact I still look flawless.”

Remus laughed, pulling out his phone. “No problem. Don’t worry, Lo, if I hear anyone talk shit about you, I’ll make sure everything they own gets blown to smithereens!”

“Thanks, babe.”

“No problem. Anything for my best friend. Now, lets go! We got more places to destroy!”

And with that, the two of them ran off, jumping from building to building, and tossing bombs everywhere they went and Remus occasionally snapping photos. And Logan made sure to ignore his phone ringing in his pocket.

[imagine-loki]

strangers

TITLE: strangers CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 1/? AUTHOR: hiddlemediddles ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine being a psychologist set to question Loki during his incarceration in Stark Tower. Initially, he scoffs at the prospect of a ‘psychological examination’. However, Loki grows quite attached to you and complies to each and every programme you have in store for him. RATING: MATURE NOTES/WARNINGS: Hullo! The only warning I can give is that my wonderful self has had her hormones flying around. Time to channel them into something useful.. such as writing some Loki.. I’m going to stuff the whole Y/N and Y/L/N faff and just give you a name. Also, it’ll be less of a psychologist but more of a counsellor - but a bit of both really. With regards to POV, I want to say that despite the fact that I use ‘she/her’ pronouns to refer to the character, I want it to be as gender neutral as possible to accommodate to you all, though I am conscious that the vast majority of you will be female readers. I have written from a male perspective before for Loki as I am very passionate about more LGBT representation in writing, but this particular fic will be she/her despite the second person 'you’ narration. Please do message me (I’m hiddlemediddles) if you have any queries - I love messaging you guys and it makes me so happy to know there are beings out there in this chaotic world who have the time to read my Loki fantasies… !! Hope that all agrees. Brilliant - let’s gooo! - The task seemed simple enough. Redeem an evil mastermind from continuing to think like an evil mastermind. You had done it countless times before, with men that were.. admittedly… a lot less problematic than this one. This Loki that you had been assigned was a tough one. Not only that, but he was an alien. Or a 'god’, as these spies liked to emphasise that he was. God or alien, it didn’t matter too much. A patient was a patient.

But this patient was going to be a tricky one. He had attacked New York on a whim with an army of extraterrestrial beings, murdered countless people in that attack.. all under the control of what they explained to be something called an 'infinity stone’. A stone which had taken control of the man’s mind and driven him close to the brink of sheer insanity. Now these stones were all destroyed before some purple alien got them, this Loki was experiencing the aftermath of that stone. They said he was still deranged, but a lot less deranged than what he had been a month ago. That was at least partly uplifting. “Think you’re up to the task?” Nick Fury asked. “Yes. As ever.” You said, lamenting how strong they had made your tea. Being British, these things were of paramount importance after all. “It’s settled then. We will inform Loki that he is to see a counsellor slash psychologist tomorrow morning at 11am. Shall we call it.. an introduction?” “Yes, if you like. But how will this all be conducted? Without me being in danger of a premature death?” “He will still be contained in the glass cage. The one designed for the Hulk. You will be on a chair on the other side of the glass. You will be able to hear each other perfectly well. We will be observing the exchanges as they are held in this area. In the future, we hope that it can resemble something more.. relaxed. If we are all in agreement that he has improved during this.. rehabilitation, let’s say… then the cage will no longer be necessary.” “Right. Brilliant. I suppose it all depends now on whether he’ll cooperate.” “Miss. Croft, you are one of the most qualified people of the job. Isn’t it in your expertise to prompt cooperation?” he asked sceptically. You smiled at Fury as though he were an old friend. “No need for formalities. Call me Robin, don’t bother with the Miss. Croft rubbish. And I don’t prompt cooperation. It’s more like.. inviting it. Some people close off, others respond. Human nature is a bit like that, Mr. Fury.” With everything settled, you left a half full cup of tea at the meeting table of Stark Tower and proceeded to shake the hands of multiple men. Mental note: hand sanitise. Immediately. “Robin Croft. A pleasure to have met you.” “Yes. You too, thank you. See you soon.” You said hurriedly. Perhaps a bit too hurriedly. You were desperate to get back to your apartment and shaking all of these hands was driving you towards becoming infuriated by the whole situation. Who needed an entire board of governors to discuss Loki’s rehabilitation anyway? They did, apparently. At last, the breeze of the autumn air ruffled your hair as you stepped out of the stuffy Stark building. Thank goodness. Realising that the apartment wasn’t too far to walk, you abandoned the idea of a taxi. Very expensive and often (but not always, thankfully) driven by a misogynist ready to make comments about women wearing suits. You adjusted the lapels on your own light blue suit as you made my way to your apartment. Thankfully, heels hadn’t been on the menu today. Flats. The most wonderful sensation to the feet. After having met with multiple clients, you felt just about ready to collapse into bed. Hot chocolate and a book first. Something daring, adventurous. Anything to spark the flame, even if it was fictional. Admittedly, you revelled in reading dark, mysterious heroines with troubled pasts. Even better if they were women. But they were often men, which was also wonderful. Women, men, non-binary. It was all wonderful. As long as they were mysterious, dark pasts and had a sharp jaw. That sharp jaw.. You hauled myself up the stairs, feeling like going in the lift would be some kind of capitulation. Once you made the first flight, you cursed myself for being so foolish. The lift would have done perfectly. Ah well. Soon enough, the slippers were on and the book was out. The hot chocolate nearby too, of course. Just how you loved it. Just as you had lamented Stark Tower’s attempt at making a cup of tea, you felt the pangs of dejection at your lack of foresight. The bloody wine. You had completely forgotten to pick up a bottle - the sequel to the hot chocolate. Another night. You flicked open the page with the bookmark. It would continue from that part in the story when the two lovers are separated for some annoying reason and the sexual tension is rife. You sighed as you read the detailed descriptions of yearning, longing, sexual frustration. You read the descriptions and felt no affinity to them at all. Of course, you could relate to the sexual frustration, but there was none in your life at the moment. You were satisfied. Heaven forbid that a man or woman came and ruffled this contentment. You had hoped the days of lusting after human beings had passed. But it never does pass. You hoped earnestly that whoever was to come and screw up your life by your falling desperately in love with them was not coming soon. Thankfully, the job was rather straightforward (mostly). No strings attached, just bringing human beings back to the world where they belonged and into society again. Nothing more, nothing less. Socially. things were nice. A few nights out every now and then with friends, but nobody had caught your eye in a long time. It didn’t matter as you enjoyed your own company far too much to let it go so easily. So willingly.. or unwillingly. The story progressed. The man was being… the man.. by withholding some essential piece of information that the woman would become frustrated about. I groaned at the predictability. Couldn’t they just have sex already? Perhaps you were sexually frustrated after all. Hmm.. one night stand. But how the hell will you schedule that in now with that new client? That.. Loki. You sighed. A new client that will likely be the most demanding of them all. But you weren’t a world expert psychologist for nothing. Years upon years of work had led to this. Led to a branch of the government, the spy service of all places, having employed you as the gateway to Loki’s redemption. How hard could it be? A few meetings and he’ll be on his feet. On his feet and walking amongst the people of earth. A valued member of society. At least, that was the goal. ** Waking up bright and early, you were gathering the questions you had prepared for the man. Right.. 11am. Ready. Ready to face a murderer, madman.. Asgardian? Well, a madman controlled by a.. stone. A magical stone. You prided yourself on your punctuality and made it at Stark Tower for quarter to eleven. Fury led you towards the door which would take you directly to Loki inside his glass cage. A shiver rippled across your spine. Whether it was excitement or fear, you weren’t sure. Either way, it was definitely anticipation. Just before 11, Fury let you in. “Good luck.” he said. The doors opened. x

[edwardsvirginity]

And now... I introduce my best friend to Eclipse! 

--0000000--

[riley’s first appearance]

Friend: who's that

mike?

(the rest of the commentary for the movie is under the readmore!)

--0000000--

[bella reciting the opening monologue: some say the world will end in fire…]

Friend: wow…drama queen

--0000000--

[Edward and bella in the meadow]

Friend: is this real or is this more of her crazy headspace

--0000000--

Edward: marry me

Bella: I have an English final

Friend: wow……. Rude

--0000000--

[Charlie grounding bella]

Friend: charlie…. is the only sane character tbh lmfao

he knows an abusive relationship when he sees one

--0000000--

[Edward sabatoges bella’s truck]

Friend:  Y I K E S

A B U S I V E

this is not romantic lol

--0000000--

Renee: I just want to make sure ur making the right choices for you

Friend: she's NOT

--0000000--

[renee gives bella the quilt from all their trips]

Friend: awwww

except she's selling out her fam for bloodsuckers

--0000000--

[all the cullens wait for Victoria in the forest]

Friend: is it whatshername

the redheaded bitch

--0000000--

Friend: i'm just gonna say….alice and carlisle are the only valid vampires

Me: whyso?

Friend: idk anything about jasper and emmett, edward is weird, who else even is there

--0000000--

Me: [pauses movie because a spider has appeared by my head and I’m freaking out]

[it lands on my laptop and I scream and close it]

Ok… we can resume

Friend: what happened?

Me: [explains]

Him: ? ? ? why didn't you kill it?!

Me: killing it requires getting close enough to touch it, and that's Too Close

i don't kill spiders

anyway

Him: what?!? lmfao

you don't kill spiders

Me: killing them is too scary

Him: i'd rather kill it and know it's dead than wonder where it is

wow

me: i just scream until someone else comes to do it for me

him: that's a lot to take in

--0000000--

[jake confronting Edward about being on their territory]

Edward: I was trying to protect u by not telling u abt Victoria

Friend: mmmm yikes

bella just needs to move tf back to florida

this is….Too Much

--0000000--

[bella goes to lapush]

Friend: tbh i like his pack

--0000000--

Leah: if ur here to torture jake some more u can leave

Friend: oooooh

burn

--0000000--

[movie introduces imprinting]

Friend: tbh i think that whole concept is insane™ and i dont get it

bc it like absolves you of your own…actions

& removes the other person's choice

it's really fucking creepy

--0000000--

Friend: also it would be soooo weird to be able to read people's thoughts

Me: i know it would freak me out

i would hate being able to hear everything my packmates thought

Friend: i don't need anyone else to know how horny i am

--0000000--

[Jacob arguing with bella about the cullens]

Jacob: theyre not even alive

Friend: "they're not even alive" y i k e s

--0000000--

[riley creeping in bella’s house]

Friend: man i'd be sleepin with a shotgun lmfao

& like 12 dogs

--0000000--

[Edward yelling at bella abt bella disappearing with jake]

Me: he’s so overprotective

Friend: she needs it tho

Me: because she's such a danger magnet?

Friend: um….yeah

& she is a fucking damsel in distress

she has no power of her own :((

--0000000--

Friend: he's so…ugly

me: Edward?

Friend: yeah ……….

--0000000--

[Jake appears shirtless]

Edward: doesn’t he own a shirt

Friend: “doesn't he own a shirt"

LMFAO edward voicing my thoughts

--0000000--

[Edward kissing bella before passing her off to jake, who immediately hugs her]

Friend: the way they …. fight with each other by using her body :|

--0000000--

Friend: what do native americans think of this?

Me: [explains]

Friend: so what is the redeeming quality of these movies exactly lmfao

Me: they’re… fun?

Friend: i guess

like indiana jones

racist trash, but fun(?)

--0000000--

Me: I hate his sideburns in this movie

Friend: don't think they're that bad

his whole face tho is not great

especially pale af

--0000000--

[nonconsensual kiss scene]

Jake: ill fight until ur heart stops beating

Bella: u wont have to wait for long

Friend: YIKES

--0000000--

[Edward and Jake fighting post-punch]

Jake: she’s not sure what she wants

Friend: Y I K E S

--0000000--

[Carlisle bandaging bella]

Friend: carlisle is so hot

i wanna marry dr. carlisle

the way he medicines everyone up…

wow

 [..]

edward is useless

seduce Carlisle

 [..]

edward's been alive 100 years and hasn't become a doctor??? c'mon

--0000000--

[Rosalie killing her rapists]

Friend: LM FAO

love that

W O W

that's a more interesting story than bella's LMFAO

--0000000--

[Rosalie trying to convince bella to stay human]

Rose: there’s one thing you’ll want more than Edward… one thing you’ll kill for… blood

Friend: ohhh….

SHE REAL

--0000000--

Friend: & also bella's assumption that Edward is That Great

she's 18….. she hasn't even TRIED college boys

 [..]

has she even had sex with anyone, ever?

--0000000--

Friend: Evil Dakota Fanning is ….. scary af

--0000000--

Friend: i'll say what i want about stephanie meyer being a fucked up mormon…. but her music taste is p good

Me: she didn’t do the soundtracks

Friend: ummm…i remember stephanie meyer specifically thanking Muse in her books

in the "acknolwedgements" section

 or did you, the twilight princess, not read that part

--0000000--

[graduation party]

Friend: I feel like there should be a twilight spoof..

where a high school girl has to choose between dating a furry and a goth

bc that's what this feels like to me

--0000000--

Friend: he freaks me out

the beefy one

--0000000--

[training scene]

Friend: jasper's kinda sexy too

well, everyone looks good next to robert :|

--0000000--

[jasper’s backstory]

Friend: jasper was a confederate soldier?!?!??!

what?? lmfao

confederate vampires? thanks i hate it

--0000000--

Friend: didn't he have like a life and morals before becoming a vampire or

i mean i guess he's a confederate so maybe not but

--0000000--

[jasper’s backstory]

Friend: he just listens to her lmfao

his Evil Mexican Bruja

--0000000--

[about Victoria]

Friend: she should just make someone sexy a vampire and fuck them tho

she has the power here

--0000000--

[about Jacob]

Friend: is there a REASON he never wears a shirt?

--0000000--

[Jake trying to convince bella she has feelings for him]

Jake: you can love more than one person… like sam, Emily, and leah

Friend: thruple!

that's the only resolution here

jacob & edward need to fuck each other and get over it

there's too much tension between them

--0000000--

Alice: you and Edward will have the house to yourself tonight

Friend: oooooo

Alice: you’re welcome

Friend: LMFAO

alice is a bro

--0000000--

Bella [immediately after the scene with Alice]: hey dad, I was wondering

Friend: hey dad… i was wondering. do you have any condoms

--0000000--

Bella: dad I’m a virgin

Friend: not for long….

--0000000--

Friend: but like honestly it's all so deeply unclear to me

he has like no blood, right?

HOW does he get hard

Me: he’s always hard

Friend: i don't think that's how that works

--0000000--

[Edward and bella in edward’s room]

Bella: I wanna ask u something

Friend: "can we fuck"

--0000000--

Friend: i feel like "becoming a vampire" is just a metaphor for "losing virginity"

--0000000--

[Bella tried to jump Edward]

Edward: bella…no

Friend: ???????????

they already kiss and stuff?????????

Me: yeah

i think he's worried he'd like. fuck her to death

idk… her vulva is delicate i guess

 Friend: they could do some Other Stuff

Me: yeah i know

edward is just…. too old school to understand anything but piv

Friend: fuck her to death…with his flaccid vampire dick

 [..]

this is so………Weird

?????????? sex is not a sin

--0000000--

[Edward talking abt how he would have courted bella in 1918]

Friend: ???????????? i dont believe that at all

people fucked in the 1800s

edward is a fucking weirdo

[Edward starts his grand speech]

Friend: Ew

this is…. a Lot

tbh it's Not Sexy that he can't adapt to a more feminist era

[Edward proposes]

Friend: this is…… a Lot

he Keeps Asking

[bella accepts]

Friend: she's only saying yes because she's horny!!!!

--0000000--

Friend: also….tbh it's sad that these vampires have to deny their instincts and have no control over themselves

like ….maybe they should just be euthanized

 Me: :O

Friend: is it fair to deny them their nature???

we don't force tigers to be vegetarians

what is the difference

Me: because… they're sentient and intellectual and can decide for themselves not to eat humans

Friend: i'm not sure i buy that

Me: you think they're not smart enough to make their own decision not to eat humans?

Friend: it seems like they have to be rehabilitated to deny a very natural instinct that they have no control over

are the cullens themselves a metaphor for mormonism?

 Me: yeah but carlisle CHOSE a vegetarial lifestyle… no one forced it on him

Friend: i guess

but at what cost

lmao

--0000000--

[tent scene]

Jacob: I am hotter than u

Friend: LMFAO

--0000000--

Friend: why didn't they bring more blankets?????

how fucking cold is it

Dumbasses

--0000000--

[Edward and jake arguing over bella]

Friend: idk bella….

i'd rather fuck a hot wolf than a freezing rock hard PussyDestroying Vampire

those wolves are HUGE…. huge dicks im sure

--0000000--

[Edward talking about how he doesn’t want bella to be a vamp to jake]

 Friend: i feel like they're Bonding

over their inability to control this woman lmfao

--0000000--

[jake and Edward fighting over bella]

Friend: bella is not that interesting? ? ? ?

--0000000--

Edward: if you weren’t trying to steal bella I might actually like u

Friend: wow

THIS is where they should fuck

t h r u p l e

look deep into each other's eyes

--0000000--

Friend: she'd warm up if they were having sex

--0000000--

[post tent scene]

Friend: she's not even wearing a hat rn

bella…what the fuck

--0000000--

[Edward and bella talking about being engaged, jake overhears]

Bella: it’s the 21st century

Friend: yeah, it is the 21st century…. marry them both

--0000000--

[bella asks jake to kiss her]

Friend: what the FUCK is happening

--0000000--

[bella and jake making out]

Friend: she's not even wearing anything warm

--0000000--

[battle]

Friend: carlisle…. kung fu master

Me: renaissance man

Friend: only breaks the hippocratic oath when absolutely necessary

--0000000--

[confrontation with riley and Victoria, Edward trying to convince riley to turn on Victoria]

Edward: think about it riley.. .you’re from forks… you know the area

Friend: "you're from forks… who would want that"

--0000000--

[Carlisle healing jake]

Friend: god…..my sexy, classy dad

… so smart….. so kind

--0000000--

Bella: I’m not normal

Friend: bella….you are SO normal

the reason every middle school girl read these books and thought they were like bella is bc you are just THAT normal

--0000000--

Edward: I guess we should start planning the wedding

Bella: no… something more difficult first… more dangerous

Friend: is she still talking about her virginity

[ladyofmaidensandwine]

Of Saints and Sinners

Part Three of the All’s Not Fair in Love and War Series

Square Filled for SPN Dean Bingo: The Bunker

Characters: Dean Winchester, Fem! Reader, Sam Winchester, Charlie, John Winchester, Fem! Reader

Wordcount: 1,674

A/N- I know this one’s a bit short and rather late- sorry it took so long, luvs- but I did feel that this chapter wasn’t meant to be particularly exciting and was more about the reader coming to terms with herself and her new reality.

Summary: Dean has a surprise for the reader, and the reader struggles to reconcile two very different versions of herself while still trying to accomplish her mission.

              The Bunker, it was called. Massive, endless corridors and halls of identical wooden doors, a windowless stronghold built of solid stone and hidden behind the outer wall. No one got in, or out, without the King’s explicit consent, and the building felt too familiar to you. Another prison. Dean had made a begrudging man allow you to select weaponry of your own from the armory, and then had the seamstress follow your guidelines to create a new wardrobe for you, as your cover had been blown wide open when you’d been forced to fight. The wounds had mostly healed, and would undoubtedly scar, and while everyone felt the safety of the Bunker would protect them, you had doubts. You had seen things that no wall of stone could keep out forever, and eventually, you would have to leave.

            No matter where you went, a fully-armed escort of at least four men accompanied you, but not for your safety. For the safety of the civilians. Dean had promised John wouldn’t be able to execute or imprison you again, but how far did his word go, against the commands of his King? You waited for the inevitable heavy iron shackles, and that dark and silent cell haunted you in sleep. You couldn’t enter small or crowded spaces still, and the lack of windows in the stronghold made it hard to breathe sometimes, but you would never give King John the satisfaction of seeing you crumble. You trained, let them see what you were capable of if provoked, you studied maps as often as you dared, tested your mental capacity by memorizing as much of the politics of the kingdom as you could, learned and plotted and planned, and marked the days before you would make your move.

             Dean had been absent, but his brother kept an eye on you. He never made to approach, but you knew he was there. On nights when you couldn’t sleep, you’d sometimes find him in the library, not a word spoken between you as you kept to yourselves and read your respective books. Those nights you sometimes faced with equal parts excitement and dread. The game was fun to play, a strategic balance of moves and countermoves, testing one another’s resolve, but it could mean precious time wasted in your search. 

            You’d been playing games since the moment you revealed yourself, one identity shed in favour of a completely new one, a person more palatable to the court, and one you hoped would gain the trust of the Royal Family. No one knew who you were, beyond your reputation, except for Dean. You wondered which part of your long-buried past he’d managed to uncover. Did he know who you were, where you came from? Did he know why you’d been captured so long ago?

               Dean returned quietly, and you hadn’t known he was back until he was at your door, looking weary but determined. “Where were you?” You asked, not bothering to greet him. He entered the room and shut the door behind him, taking a seat at the end of your bed. “It’s good to see you, too.” Dean replied, raising a brow your way. You scowled deeply, and had to seriously refrain from chucking a brush at his face. Dean huffed, and glanced around the room. “Father sent me to hunt them down. Gather information about the attack.” He answered. “What did you find?” “They came on Crowley’s orders. To take over the throne.” Your eyes narrowed, suspicious of the information. “What is it?’ Dean questioned, pine coloured eyes searching you for an answer. “Nothing concrete. This feels a little too aligned to be coincidence, though. I was rotting in that cell for a good long while before His Majesty deigned to drag me out, and soon after, Crowley plans a coup, forcing us to retreat here? There’s more at work here, I know it.” You said fiercely, pacing the room as you spoke. Dean’s face was grave, eyes intense and solemn. “If this is all a part of some grandiose  scheme, then we will uncover the plot and put an end to it. Y/N, look at me,” Dean requested, laying a warm hand on your shoulder as you met his gaze, “we will figure this out. Together.” Somehow, you believed him.

                  The Bunker offered privacy, which meant you and Dean could escape prying eyes and endless questions and people demanding your attention. You’d taken to sparring in one of many training rooms available, teaching Dean how to throw knives as accurately as you did, while Dean furthered your capacity in unarmed single combat. He’d attempted going easy on you until you’d broken his nose for it, and since then, the two of you spent almost every day together, fighting or trying to discover Crowley’s motives. There were eyes and ears everywhere, but you were no longer in hiding- you wore what pleased you, no more dainty lace and demure pastels, and while at first you seemed agreeable and a pleasant lady like any of the other court women, you no longer hesitated to put those who would speak against you wrongly in their place. It was the most honest and like your true self you’d been in many years, and with Dean, all those fortified walls and concealing masks fell away even further. He made it so easy, so simple, to be Y/N and Dean, just Y/N and Dean, not an assassin and the Crown Prince, a killer and a soldier, just two people enjoying the company of someone who understood.

              “I have something to show you.” Dean said, pushing aside a heavy tome of the records and lineages of King John’s court of nobles. You tilted your head, raising a brow in a silent question, but Dean didn’t answer, only gave you a knowing smirk and an extended hand. “Do I get a hint?” You asked, taking his hand and letting him lead you from the library. “No. Close your eyes.” Dean instructed. “What?” “Don’t you trust me?” He asked teasingly. Your eyes narrowed. He was up to something. “At the moment, no, but generally, yes.” You replied, smirking back when he gave an unamused expression. “Y/N.” Dean said, annoyed. “Dean.” You mocked. “You may be the most obstinate woman I have ever met.” He sighed. The Prince eyed you with a look of both determination and exasperation, the kind of face you’d watched him give Prince Sam at least a dozen times before. “Then perhaps you’ve met your match, Your Majesty.” You quipped, but closed your eyes without further refusal. Dean huffed a laugh, his calloused palm rough but warm against yours, a small smile gracing your lips. You had glossed over it in jest, but it was true- you did trust him. And that terrified you.

               You stared in stunned silence. A room with rows upon rows of artwork. Sculptures, and carvings, sketches, acrylic portraits and landscapes, watercolor paintings, oil, pastels, charcoal drawings, murals and mosaics. Your breath was caught in your throat, eyes wide as you absorbed the myriad of colours. “Is it to your liking?” Dean asked lowly, sounding nervous. You don’t reply, stepping slowly into the first section of stunning oil paintings, the most beautiful art you’d ever seen. Paintings of mermaids and things almost human, with eyes that held that lifelike quality a painter could spend years trying to get right, the shadows so well done, you could swear the paintings move. “I don’t- I have no words.” You said in awe. “What is this? Where did you get all this?” “My ancestors, the Men of Letters, collected the best artwork in all forms they could find for centuries. It’s stored here, but no one ever actually looks at this gallery. I- I noticed you admiring the paintings in the palace, and I thought perhaps you might find some interest in these,” Dean muttered, ears turned red, “and it has been too long since the room was used, anyways.” He deflected from his observation of your love for art, but you were not distracted by attempt. “Dean,” you said, catching his attention with the use of his first name, “this is quite possibly the most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me. Thank you, truly.” You said sincerely. “Don’t thank me, Y/N.” Dean said, something almost bitter and regretful in his tone. “There are supplies, should you want for them, towards the back. I should be going, but I-” He stopped, seeming to reconsider his next words carefully. “I hope you won’t mind if I stop by later.” He said slowly. “I should be quite offended if you don’t. Until then, Your Majesty.” You said with a curtsy, Dean sighing, but with a grin to match your own. “M’lady.” He bowed, smirking before exiting through the grand doors.

               Dean was good to his word- there were countless supplies, easels and paints to last you your entire life, but though you had once delighted to spend hours attempting to perfect the colour and texture of a cloud with careful and decisive brushstrokes, that place in your heart that had been bursting with life was empty. You stared blankly at a canvas, and wondered where the girl you once knew had gone. The girl who brandished sticks of charcoal instead of knives, the one whose hands were streaked with a veritable rainbow rather than deep crimson, the one that had been kind, the girl that had been so alive. In your heart, you knew that girl had gone into Hell, and someone new had crawled out. And yet, sometimes you thought there might still be that part of you that had loved fiercely, and lived freely, little flickers of a painted scene in your mind’s eye, a stirring in your heart that called for joy. And as you explored the vast collection with Dean, you wondered if an artist’s imagination and a lover’s gentle hands could redeem an assassin. If maybe there was still a part of you worthy of redemption.

TAGS-

Forever Tags-

@justagirlinafandomworld​

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All’s Not Fair in Love and War Tags-

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