#leave my divorced frog alone okay?

[feelingtheaster99]

And now Rapunzel’s being mean and emotionally manipulative and rude to Gerard and I CANNOT stand it

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hi! Top 5 NPCs for ffxiv? :>

Joint 5: the bunny girlfriends - Debroye from the bread quest in EW and Lilja from Bozja in Shb :) Debroye is fighting the good fight for flavour and that hardly needs expanding on after the build up Archon Loaf had in the MSQ as worldbuilding for Sharlayan. Lilja is just a badass bimbo nerd who is good enough to work at the Ironworks but cool enough for shiny nail polish and sunglasses in a warzone. They're small characters who you only meet doing side content but they have strong personalities and they get to rep viera girls who are just kinda nerdy and weird. I am disproportionately affectionate to both of them.

4: Gerolt... I think I've just spent too much time doing relic weapons... He's just awful in a really funny way and I wish him all the best and do all I can to ensure he has a better lot in life, and then one expansion later he is once again in deep drinking debt but saying the realest shit while creating incredible artworks. Also he's sort of 1/3rd the parent of the aforementioned child Frog has so I guess I need to at least get child support in the form of the first free weapon of each quest. The AU version of him and Mowen in the relic crafting tools thing actually really moved me and I'm not ashamed to admit it :')

Anyway in terms of "this guy!!" he's so up there and I'm always thrilled to see what Scenario he's in now. Over the long course of the game he's made an impression...

3: Ameliance. I'm certain she's a mob boss controlling everything from the shadows.

But seriously, no. The twins really are favourites but in terms of Top NPCs I'd been wondering about her the whole time since they do make mentions of their family and writing to mother etc and expectations were high, and getting to know her was so utterly wild because the plot demands on her from all directions of her family - her husband, her father in law, her children, the servants she hires who include the hired goons Alisaie brought to the Coils of Bahamut... Like. She is a character who had to be retroactively constructed from everything that has been said in a way that Fourchenault didn't need to be because his template is clear: He's the Son of Louisoix and burdened with cursed knowledge and the weight of history from immediate family and long lineage of being related to founding fathers of his city; he's EASY to write. Now imagine up the woman who MARRIED him, and has stayed married to him. And is going to stay married to him since the twins dealing with divorce doesn't seem like a probable plotline given the emotional directions of the broader story. Okay, now let's imagine a real woman with actual desires and personality who can fit into this puzzle piece.

Fucking Ameliance.

How on earth they convinced me she's real is a feat of writing I am in awe of.

2: Urianger is so important, like. Leave me alone, Il Mheg got me good because ffxiv seems to get everyone eventually, and now I'm nonbinary and he's my nonbinary icon :') SIGH. A Process Has Occurred. I could say more but honestly, I think that sums up that he is important to me.

1: Erenville............. Listen, I own multiple David Attenborough merch people get me because they know it's an easy gift. I had been a kid who sat and poked rockpools and puddles and I put snails in a jar and and of course picked up frogs in the garden. You introduce a character whose job is Animals and especially claims to be an expert in frogs??? He would have been at least with the bunny girlfriends on this list if this was his only contribution to the story. (And I would have enjoyed my feud in peace.)

Instead he's a fascinating guy who stood up for his workers, has leves where he's commissioning presents for gleaners, happily goes against authority to be helpful from the jump.... And NOW we get more content where we get to see him being a grumpy snarky bastard who is the only rational person in Sharlayan AND apparently has been neglecting being the only rational person in Tural too so off we go to see that in action???

I'm marrying him I'm marrying him I'm marrying him...

[howtoliveinparis]

Why Do Men Hate Women?

This has nothing to do with Paris, but I wanted to recommend it because I think it is an important read, and I feel like everyone should read it. As a female writer, I tell my stories from a female point of view. No offense to my male readers. I haven’t checked my Google Analytics in years so I could be wrong about my audience. This is not meant to be exclusionary. 

While I think women need to read the book, I believe men need to do better, and I hope men read this book as well. How do you combat #NotAllMen? You become that man that says maybe rape isn't good, maybe domestic violence is actually bad, maybe women should have equal rights, and hold your friends accountable instead of being complicit in their misogyny. 

Actually first let’s back track and start with how I discovered the book. I had been talking to an English guy named Jake. I honestly don’t know how long, maybe a few weeks. It was summer, I was traveling, and I wasn’t really interested in getting to know someone. I had just broken it off with someone and I was indifferent to dating and men. But he was good looking, 6’5 (inceptioned), and his Hinge profile gave no indications he was off. Yes, we learned nothing from Ted Bundy. In addition his prompts were thoughtful, in comparison to French men who can’t be bothered. There was nothing outwardly saying "I'm a misogynist".

Because of my previous relationship I learned about “red flags” to look out for. I’ve actually adopted an annoying habit of spotting them and cutting and running. It leaves a lot of the men I date perplexed, and unfortunately it is a lot (‘you have to kiss talk to a lot of frogs'). But I don’t just ghost, which is immature and lacking in empathy, I try to let them know why I’m ending it. 

This really is how we should act towards men. Women need to get out of the (outdated) idea that they need to help men become better. It's not your job. 

I know I cannot exactly lecture women on how to be. Everyone has their reasons for being unwilling to let go of someone. I’m not over my ex. Sadly I still miss him, and I still love him. This is also why I don’t really care and can walk away from anyone easily.  I will not tolerate less than what I think I deserve. 

But women being happy alone really is the end for straight men. More and more women are learning they are okay alone. If I have to read one more think piece on the sadness of “lonely men” I will scream. It’s like writers are gaslighting women into staying with men who cannot accept accountability or make changes to their shitty characters. 

Statistically unmarried women thrive more than their married counterparts. Men are happy in relationships, women are not (according to research). 70% of divorces are initiated by women. Women are tiredt. 

Back to Jake Hughes. Our first conversation went well. We talked for a good 6 hours (maybe 7, however long my flight was). It was like a game of tennis, a message a minute, and to me that's the hallmark of something to pursue. Who doesn't love banter? 

But after our initial meeting, I became increasingly perturbed. It was little things at first. He would say things, and instead of the usual allowing them to slide, I put my foot down and called him out. 27 is too old to be that callow. But he would always turn it around on me. It didn’t even make any sense, how he always made the argument about me, but I knew this was a form of manipulation so I told him I wasn’t interested in him, and left it at that.

He became incensed. He called me a misandrist (a term only MRAs would know) and claimed I wasn’t giving him a chance, and I never did. He tried to gaslight me. At first I was like ‘maybe I hadn’t given him a chance’ and I tried once more, but he was just not a good person. The manipulation tactics and the things he would say were 🚩🚩🚩.

After I let him know there was no future, he would continue texting me, even if I didn’t answer. When I asked him to stop, he said he was just giving me what I wanted (because I like a clingy, needy texter, but the thing is I need to like the person in order to like it). 

I very maturely wrote him a nice text, which he laughed at saying people don’t text like that (as if manipulation wasn’t enough, periods and grammar are for losers). I believe I very nicely, and clearly, explained my reasoning for ceasing to speak to him. As it had only been a few weeks, I didn’t understand the aggression. You would never guess a guy like that would be a raging misogynist psycho. Again we have learned nothing from Ted Bundy. 

While Googling something pertaining to him I found “Men Who Hate Women” by English author Laura Bates. The book is a little skewed as Bates is English, and talks with an English point of view about a threat facing all Western men, but most importantly in England. However it was apropos because “Jake” was English and lived in England. I don’t know if Jake was an Incel (he wasn’t a virgin) but he did say he didn’t like English girls because they all looked like sluts so… maybe just a run of the mill misogynist. At the very least something from the manosphere. 

I went into the book thinking Incels, PUAs, MRAs, etc. were sad sack virgin losers who couldn’t get laid, but Bates says most men of the manosphere are white, educated, middle class western men. I’m not sure why this surprised me as the reason I now suffer the effects of emotional abuse and PTSD/trauma were at the hands of an Oxford educated, 6’4 white male Grammar school boy. One expects a certain level of intelligence from that set, and one would be wrong. 

Christian was (maybe still is) an avid YouTube, Insta, and Reddit user, and YouTube, Insta, and Reddit are perfect gateways to Manosphere ideologies and Incel forums. His hatred of women, and his belief in male superiority and dominance, stems from his mother so it’s easy enough to explain his viewpoint away. Hatred of your mother is pretty standard fare for an evolving hatred of women.

He was like Paul Bethany (another misogynist) in A Very British Scandal. The misogyny starts small (like when he proudly proclaimed all women are dumb bitches), but grows bigger ("you need to be fucked so you'll stop being a bitch"). There are little things like “if my wife gave me a daughter I’d leave” (his general need for dominance by even controlling the sex of his future offspring) because he considered women weak and inferior. These ideas weave a thread to eventual misogyny and male dominance, which leads to control, which will spiral to bigger issues. 

But we love them right? So these opinions he espouses are brushed off as “he doesn’t really mean it, it’s a joke, that's just his humor”. He doesn’t really think like that because he loves me. I love him and I know he’s not really like that. I see the side others don’t. My love is enough. With me he can express his vulnerability and be open. Blah, blah, blah. All things we tell ourselves that make it okay. 

Believe me I tried to be a safe space for Christian. I trusted him implicitly. I felt secure with him, I told him things I've never told other people, I wanted to be that for him too. 

The truth is I was never his equal. How could I be? I was just a 'dumb bitch'. A woman. 

We should not let anything go unchecked, especially if it’s in regards to negative views of our own sex (women). Ever. If a guy says anything to you, always, always, always, call it out. If he can’t take accountability and learn, and in turn change, leave him. We have to be the change we want to see. 

Bates details how the indoctrination into misogyny starts. It’s not always so simple as the guy is ugly, or short (heightcels), or bald (baldcels), or any of the reasons men usually hate themselves, because at the end of the day it really is hatred for themselves. There’s even a group for men with small wrists and a ginger incel group (a totally British phenomenon). The ginger one is called gingercels. Yes, it seems absolutely bonkers, but then again so is hating someone for their hair color. The hate manifests to a point that it turns into something deeply unsettling. This can only lead to not just dire consequences for women, but to society as a whole. 

Bates went on to list one mass killing event, and then another, and then another, showing how these are (intentionally hidden) portrayed in the media. One paragraph after another paragraph and I was like “oh my god when will it stop?”. Some of them I had never even heard of (the ones in Canada and the UK), and I had no idea they were misogynistic acts of violence because the media never said so. How naïve we all are. This Manosphere movement is so pervasive, it exists everywhere and we don't even realize it. 

I am not a violent person, I can’t think of any situation where I could hurt someone. They say everyone is capable of it, but it’s not within me. So reading all of these men killing random strangers (even other men), wives, children, even random women working out in gyms, all under the guise that “women are evil and will not give them their god given right to sex”, so they can hurt anyone they like. This insanity exists and it’s only going to get worse as more women choose to be single (which they already are). 

By far the one that left me with a pit in my stomach, and really they all did, but the chapter titled Men Who Don’t Know That They Hate Women was truly eye opening. It makes you wonder if any men in this world truly see us as human beings. And if biologically they are missing the part of the brain that can accept accountability for anything. What is wrong with men? Why do they hate us so much?

I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to read this book. Don’t let the title fool you. It’s not an indoctrination into misandry (thanks to Jake for teaching me that term). It’s not trying to get you to become a man hater. It tries to answer the question above. It exists to open your eyes to the world we inhabit. 

If anything it could stop you from meeting some of these truly vile and disgusting men, or if you’re a mother, help you understand these pervasive and sinister groups trying to reek havoc on the minds of your boys, getting them to succumb to groupthink by way of Instagram meme accounts and YouTube rabbit holes. Please stop it before it starts. This in turn saves women by stopping men from killing us, and raping us, and hating us for simply existing. 

After reading it I felt disgusted, horrified, and exhausted. I had to take breaks while reading. This is not just a fringe group on the internet. This book showed these are fast growing groups of men that walk amongst us. It’s your mailman, the security guy in your building, the dude behind you at the grocery store. They are everywhere. This is a group that thinks rape should be legal because they are “entitled” to women’s bodies. If that’s not an attack on womenkind I don’t know what is. If that doesn’t scare you I don’t know what will. 

If you can’t buy a copy, please check your local library: https://g.co/kgs/Ud3ouC

And a word from Ben Hurst who is doing his part with the Good Lad Initiative (mentioned in the book, now called Beyond Equality):

Ben Hurst • TEDxLondonWomen • "Boys won’t be boys. Boys will be what we teach them to be":

https://www.ted.com/talks/ben_hurst_boys_won_t_be_boys_boys_will_be_what_we_teach_them_to_be?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

[ohshitmomitsawritingblog]

Yay I found another blog that does headcanons for naruto!! I’m so excited I hope this is an okay ask but can I have headcanons on what it’s like to be sasuke’s twin sister? It’s okay if you don’t want to

You know I was going to delete this but this got my brain cranking along like the rusty little train that it is, so—

What it’s like to be Sasuke’s twin sister?

One word: exhausting

I think having a sister would’ve totally changed the trajectory of Sasuke’s life - that is to say, especially if she survived the massacre, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Sasuke’s twin would’ve been inherently integrated into shinobi life and inundated with expectations of what it is to be a Uchiha without actually being apart of it like her brothers.

Given their parent’s dynamics, I imagine she’s given mostly domestic responsibilities and is expected to carry and represent their nuclear family in civilian settings. There’s no real expectation of her becoming a shinobi, but that’s also because Fugaku probably doesn’t think a lot about his daughter. Given what we see with how he treats Sasuke, I just can’t really fathom him valuing any extra children, but especially the ‘youngest’ girl.

This man does not respect women I’m SORRY.

The misogyny is located in the jowls.

If Sasuke is the spare, his sister is the spare’s spare.

Sasuke both scorns his sister (either for her attempts at training without approval or disapproval, or for her being domestically trained, or both) and loves her greatly.

His sister loves him and scolds him ruthlessly - a trait that sours over their lifetime together, but is fostered by her lack of fear and complete awareness of who she is, who her older brother is, and what her twin brother will be.

Despite Sasuke monopolizing much of his time to training from a young age, there’s always some twin time - they eat lunches together, they wade through ponds in the spring to catch frogs, and take walks in the woods surrounding Konoha.

Often in their younger years, they’ll huddle under covers at night and conspire about the future. Travel, fantastical dreams of being some undefined best at something, their secret wants and needs.

There’s the dynamic before and the dynamic after their clan’s demise: Sasuke intermittently snubbing her yet always coming to her defense like the little sweet little boy he was, and then the mutual, slow divorce of anything either could call closeness.

She activates her sharingan less in a fit of rage and more while driven, blindly, by her own fear. A boot that is not Itachi’s digs into her back with a cruel twist. She gurgles and chokes on her own blood and the world washes out and away and yet is a perfect picture in her mind upon recall.

They can’t speak to each other, and they can’t talk. Nights where either tip toes into the other’s room after a nightmare or sleepless silence are ruined by either finding themselves on the knife’s edge of a gut churning memory. Black eyes and black hair repel them both from seeking out comfort. The familiarity is alienating and painful, disconcerting on good nights, terror-rage inducing on the worst.

She stops cooking. Sasuke learns how to clean. Their only interactions are when he stiffly asks her how to make something or how to fix a torn sleeve. Little questions tailored to the end goal of complete independence. She can’t even snark about how ‘these things aren’t silly now, are they?’. They weren’t, but now they don’t have a mother nor a father nor aunt nor uncle to teach them anything else. They rely on her knowledge because, what else do they have?

They both drown, and they can’t save each other. Both are made more aware of their own suffering by seeing it in their perfect mirror image. The companion they’ve always had since the womb is now a source of agony, and yet the empathy they hold for one another is powerful. It causes them to avoid each other unless they are home or at school. They sit on opposite ends of the classroom. They skip or make meals at odd times to avoid the feeling of waiting, or of playing house with all the important toys having gone missing. It’s a sham they both resent.

They want to go home. They don’t believe in building homes out of other people, let alone each other. So where is home?

His sister starts to cook again when they’re ten years old. She realizes that her brother, who is taller and wider and more muscular than her by then, weighs less than her. She cooks him udon and leaves a note that even if he eats it cold, he still needs to eat.

The bowl is empty and washed the next morning.

His sister becomes a shinobi for many reasons, but mainly, she simply refuses to allow her idiot brothers to play at blood sport while she buries her head in the sand.

There’s also the matters of: her idiot brother and his pride that will inevitably get him murdered, the constant implications that she is only good for marriage, and, eventually, the deep knowledge that she doesn’t want her eyeballs ripped out.

Their early ninja days are spent more or less the same to the ones leading up to it. They’re rarely home, with conflicting schedules and assignments that leave them bone tired when they are.

Slowly, though, her brother changes. He smiles more. He cooked for her, once or twice. He gains weight. Like a murky, undefined shadow, she mimics.

I think they start to reconnect. They don’t since at the sight of each other anymore. Sometimes they even hug. They both have a certain kind of hope that is fragile and newborn, stumbling on fresh legs. They try very hard to be the family they need, for a moment.

Sasuke’s stay in the hospital during the chuunin exams is only a hiccup, a way for her to integrate, even a little, into the world of team seven.

Kakashi-sensei is a strange man, but he’s kind, too. Like her brother, she warms to him quietly. Sasuke seems to trust him, and that’s good enough for her to throw her own sense of trust in the pot.

Of course it all comes tumbling down rather soon after, doesn’t it?

[leatherbookmarking]

I need more on your Su Minshan wife and child oc for reasons! (I once had thoughts on a post canon lxc going a bit depressed mad and escaping to Moling Su to try and find out why jgy trusted sms so much more than him, when that broke, and I just have a lot of feelings about post canon Moling Su and need to hear yours)

SORRY @ragless for replying to this ask (checks) 70 years later! i was being myself which is a very time-consuming activity.

ANYWAY yeah post canon moling su is super interesting because they’ve got, what, nothing? aside from teleportation talismans, which. is a lot. but also everyone hates them now and their sect leader is dead! and also sort of left his disciples in the burial mounds as soon as things went a little bit pear-shaped, so like, thanks, zongzhu! i really wonder what those disciples did later, like, did they bring them along to yunmeng, were they like, ok, we’re out, bye!, something else? so yeah, this is my jam.

and lxc going there, trying to find answers? get to know those people? get to know who su minshan was and why jgy picked a traitor over er-ge? dear god i can FEEL how reading such a fic would feel like, oh, one hell of summer holidays!!! god. god. love that. if you have a post on that, i’d love to know more!!

WIFE AND CHILD OCS in which i am like mxtx here because they still don’t have names. i’ll have to name them at some point, but nothing’s coming to me. welp. anyway, i was thinking -- why not make them both salty underdogs who bond about that? or maybe not even that, maybe they’re met by a sheer accident! perhaps barely established sect leader su was passing by another small sect’s house, and they had an unmarried daughter, and they were like, okay, we can work with that? except the daughter is older than sms and actually divorced, but sms really isn’t looking for love, what he needs is a helping hand, any, even just one (1) literal hand, so like, yep, there we go.

also hm that got rather long so i am going to put a cut right there

and as much as i love a previously underappreciated and unloved character finally being someones #1, here i’m interested in a... subversion? not exactly, of that. there’s no big romance, they don’t even gradually fall in love after getting married, slowly discovering that the other one is a good, sensitive person! no, they’re primarily partners. the wife is here to get out of the parents’ house and finally have her own place, he is here to establish a sect and also have his own place. they’re both black sheeps of the society, more or less, either because her husband didn’t like her or because he was scared and wanted to live, and they’re shitty reason to look down on someone, so they end up bonding anyway. once they’re a bit more established, they even have a daughter and i already love her, because she has her father’s narrow lips and her mother’s narrow eyes, essentially becoming the most suspicious-looking child ever devised. and she’s a frog girl, because frogs are cool.

now, about their situation post canon -- did sms even think to leave a letter, saying his wife and child and disciples didn’t know about his Schemes, and thus shouldn’t be judged for what he’s done? or maybe he knew no one would care about that anyway -- you don’t need to punish or be violent towards someone to ruin them, just not paying attention is enough? who are his disciples and what do they think? there has to be a reason why they’re in moling su and not, say, somewhere else, even if that reason is ‘well, they’re locals, so’. do they abandon the sect and try to join one that’s... not even more powerful or richer, just ‘less looked down upon by everyone and their grandma’s dog’?

the daughter, who’s like 5-7, is simply missing her father. what about the wife? does she have a too-late realization that she was in love with her husband, actually? or maybe she wasn’t, but loved him in her own way, and she’s both furious at this asshole for leaving her alone with all this mess (he didn’t even survive! he didn’t even go to fucking dongying with lianfang-zun, they both died! what’s the fucking point! how can you fuck up that badly, minshan!!!) and sad because there used to be someone living with her, sharing her bed and dinner table, and now he’s gone?

and now, the teleportation talismans, the masking spell etc? and here i will allow myself a digression, because: people say he’s a bad cultivator, but like, he’s unremarkable next to hanguang-jun, and who isn’t! wwx says in the novel himself that his cultivation is high. he knows his sword forms and guqin tunes, and i will never be not in awe of the guqin trick in burial mounds went. do you even just fucking play Evil Music in front of Music Masters Clan -- LAN QIREN, BABEY!!! -- and they don’t notice a thing because they think you’re just Bad? poetic cinema. poetic cinema. also, about that: in the drama, he uses a mask instead of a masking spell, but i’m really into the concept of someone who’s been ignored, feels unnoticed and invisible next to hanguang-jun™, dabbling in cultivation methods that use exactly that. i think i’ve mentioned somewhere at some point eloped xiyao using talismans/spells/something that doesn’t cover your face or alter it in any physical way, but makes it so anyone who looks at you has absolutely no idea what you look like. the epitome of unremarkable and ‘uh, they looked... normal?’. i think that would be super neat for moling su to develop. WEAPONIZED ‘eh, nothing special’.

anyway: so moling su have all that, except is it a known fact, or do they know su minshan just happened to vanish at some point? because i think teleportation is a very neat trick that can both help and make someone’s life hell, and su-furen would probably have a problem, because: should she take care of stuff, educating the disciples and essentially serving as a sect leader/regent (even though she’s not the best, either at cultivation, talismans or general sect-leading, she was a wife and that’s a separate soup of duties to fill), or should she look for (yet another) husband, for her own security and safety of her disciples? what about her daughter, though? she knows what people are like, she can’t just trust them to treat her well.

ETC, ETC, I JUST. it’s so interesting!! i accidentally gave myself moling su sect feelings, lol. also, i have this cracky idea of su-furen committing Microaggressions to the chief cultivator his excellency hanguang-jun, ranging from raising her eyebrow by one mm after something he’s said to using teleportation to butt into his night hunts, deal with the thing and quietly go home, and like. who would it be. jiang cheng. jiang cheng being kinda torn between (BIG SECT LEADER SCOFF) and ‘fuck, okay, that was entertaining, do that again’.

i don’t know how comprehensible this post was, but!! thanks for the ask, i got to ramble lol;;

[cowandcalf]

10.13 - Spoilers

This was such a pleasurable episode, light and playful, full of love, banter and I have to admit, Lou rocked it out with his part. He made me laugh and I had a great time watching it. The absolute darkness sneaked in with Adam but first, I wanna talk about that final scene in Steve’s living room.

That final freaking, awesome scene made me almost combust with this silent, hardly-believable joy when you‘ve found a treasure. I really, really melted down my damn couch. All the McDanno-we’re-so-stupidly-falling-for-each-other hints, what the hell? Whoa! I’m living for this!

Did you see the look exchange that happened there with Steve and Danny? Okay, Danny talks to Luke and his failed marriage and how Danny’s survived the trauma. He’s a divorced man and Luke‘s about to become one. Danny‘s leading the talk and Steve’s listens. But then... then Danny says to Luke like:

„...and you know look...“ (and Steve lifts his gaze and looks at Danny) „I guess you, you don’t have to, uh, go through this alone...“ (and Danny‘s eyes drift over to Steve‘s, their look meets) „when you ever wanna get together, have a beer, give US a call.“ ...And Steve’s smile lights up his whole beautiful face and he looks straight over to Danny!! Like he’s anyway expected Danny to meet Luke alone but Danny just goes from ‚we‘re a package deal‘ together or none...and Steve smiles with so much happiness at that realization that he’s with Danny like it’s the most natural thing...seriously. There’s SO MUCH love hoovering in the air.

And when Tani comes by Steve’s she enters and Steve goes with introducing her to Luke and then: „This is Danno.“ with so much tender affection it makes me gasp.

And then...Steve wants to know how Tani feels because Junior has been spun up, deployed, been called for reverse duty and he knows how hard it is. SEALs leave and the beloved ones stay behind. It’s the first time I hear him talking about „it’s hard to leave too“ and „that’s a tough message to get.“ And „If you wanna talk about it I‘m aviable. You should call me.“ and I‘m going all silent. Steve remembers the people he had to leave being in active duty and when he had to leave Danny going on a mission. And it kind of hit me unprepared.

And all the other amount of stupidly great moments. I mean...holy shit!! Season 10 blows my mind. All the McDanno love, all the proof. I’m dead.

Oh, man...I almost forgot Adam. There’s not much to say: Being oyabun? His birthright? A child of a frog is a frog...Head of the yakuza? WTF ADAM???)

[army-author]

a monster crush (and how to survive it), pt. 1

❝ It’s rumoured that a monster lives in the forest behind your house. But you’re far too old to believe in monsters... And yet, since Taehyung believes in them, you’ll keep on following him into the forest, despite the warnings. But as you continue playing games, your imagined monster begins to bleed into reality, with Taehyung pulling you closer to truths you’d rather leave uncovered. Slowly, you’re led to the realisation that love is perhaps the most dangerous monster of all… ❞

➝ pairing: taehyung x feminine reader

➝ word count: 12.0k

➝ genre: angst, horror, fluff, childhood friends au

➝ warnings: mild mentions of blood and injury; mild swearing; mentions of divorced parents. future parts will contain mild horror; gore; mentions of death and killing; implied smut

➝ author’s note: it’s been a while :’) it’s nice to be writing again!

↳ part one | two

[October 2018]

What do you fear most?

You never know how to answer that. Your fears are constantly changing, as you fix on new terrifying possibilities. It’s not a question you like to dwell on for long.

Love is certainly high up on your list of fears - or more specifically, the fear of losing love. That’s because you know how precious love is, how hard you have to fight for it.

But you know how to survive it, the rush and crash of emotion.

If you were to ask your younger self what she feared most, she would have given a much different answer, not yet familiar with love. Maybe she would have said monsters. Because monsters are scary. Like love. Just as intangible and unexplainable. Or maybe she wouldn’t have said monsters. Since monsters don’t really exist. Only the most childish believe in monsters, and you were too grown-up for that. Even at eleven years old.

***

[October 2010]

The forest is claustrophobically close. 

That’s the impression you get when you step out of the car, parked in front of your new house. It’s your first time seeing it, and you instantly dislike it, particularly the way the forest branches clamber over the fence into the garden beyond the red brick building you’ll be forced to call home. Maybe the grey clouds of October make it look worse than it really is. Probably not.

“Nice, right?” your father says, as he follows after you, slamming the car door behind him, “Slap bang next to the forest. You’ll have lots of fun exploring in there, won’t you, Cub?”

You shrug in response - a commonplace for you. At the age of eleven you have decided that shrugging in response is better than a simple answer with your dad. He’s known you long enough, he should know what a shrug means.

He should also know that you don’t like the pet name Cub. It’s too childish.

“Wonderful,” he goes on, not noticing - or choosing to ignore - you brooding in front of the car. His voice is dripping forced positivity. He doesn’t want to move either. You know that. Still, he’s trying to make the best of it. You’re refusing to do the same. “Look,” his tone is still insistently chirpy, “There’s even some kids your age here. You’re going to make loads of friends.”

You detach your eyes from the house, and the intrusive forest, glancing in the direction your father is looking. Down the street, a boy about the same age as you is tearing up and down his driveway on a bike he seems to have outgrown. You give a sniff, your eyes lingering on him. His legs bend too much when he pedals, the frame clearly made for shorter limbs. With his knees stuck out like that he looks a bit like a frog. “Cool,” you say dully to your dad, not wanting to seem too invested. You want him to know that you’d rather be back home. Back home you already have friends your age. You don’t need to make any more.

“Why don’t you go say ‘hi’ to him?” your dad asks, as he digs a hand into his pocket, and fishes out his keys to the new house.

Not giving him an answer, instead, you walk down to the edge of the pavement, and balance on the cusp of the curb, kicking at a small stone there, watching it clatter down to the gutter by the road.

A few houses down from you, the boy on his bike has stopped, leaning heavily over the handlebars. He’s watching you intently with dark eyes. His gaze connects with yours, and you dance your eyes away, staring instead at the great, grey sky expanded above you.

“Go on,” your dad calls too-loud from the steps to the house, “He’s not going to bite.”

You wince. The boy might have heard that. Glowering over your shoulder, you watch your dad, as he walks back to the car, and unlocks the boot, to retrieve one of the few boxes you stuffed into the car - to tide you along until the moving van brings the rest of your things. Much quieter than your dad, you hiss, “I know! I just- maybe I don’t want to say ‘hi’, alright?”

“Why not?” your dad straightens up from the boot, two boxes stacked precariously up to his chin, supported by one hand. A line creases his forehead as he furrows his brow. You hate how old he looks when he does that.

“Because,” you say, which is answer enough. Because. Because. Because.

“Okay, I get it,” your dad says, turning his back as he walks to the house, voice moving away, “He’s a gross, yucky boy, right? Cooties and stuff. I get it.”

“No, you don’t!” you call after him, voice raising louder than you’d like. He’s already through the door. Left alone on the tarmac, you only have the trees behind you to keep you company, and the boy in front, his stare burning into you.

You pretend to ignore him, turning your back and walking down the curb, arms outstretched to keep yourself balanced on that long grey line that runs the edge of the road.

You get a few steps forward, before: “Hey!”

Stumbling, surprised, you slip off the curb, stepping forward a few paces to catch yourself again, balance restored.

Turning to the source of the voice, you find the boy on his bike, now just behind you. His legs are stretched out in front of him, allowing his long limbs to balance him on his too-small bike.

“You scared me,” you say, accusing. Your cheeks are red from the embarrassment of a barely prevented fall.

“Sorry,” the boy licks his lips, before breaking into a smile, “It was kind of funny though.”

“Was not!” Your cheeks are burning redder.

“Right. Sorry.” The boy’s smile breaks down, restrained by his teeth, biting down on the soft skin of his bottom lip.

You stand in silence, fingers twirling the hem of your jumper, while the boy keeps staring.

“Could you stop doing that?” you ask.

“Doing what?”

“Staring.”

“Oh. Was I?” his eyes dart away, as if he’s suddenly conscious where his gaze has been all this time. His attention turns to the sky instead. “I’m just curious about you is all. You’re moving in there, right?” His head makes a jerky movement to the house, which your dad is exiting again, to grab more boxes from the car. When he sees you talking with the boy, he gives a thumbs up and a big smile. You frown back, embarrassed.

“Yeah,” you turn back to the boy. You stare at his feet, so you don’t have to look at him, or at your dad.

“Cool!” the boy’s voice is distorted by a grin. “I’m Taehyung, by the way.” He sticks out a hand for you.

You look at it suspiciously, but reach over, and give a quick shake, muttering your name as you pull back quickly.

“It’ll be nice to have someone my age so close by,” Taehyung says, “All my friends live a few blocks down.” He makes a vague gesture down the road, where the housing estate branches off into other housing estates. “Now we’ll get to play loads.”

“What makes you think I’ll play with you?” you ask him, looking back up, getting confirmation of the smile you had suspected he was still giving you.

“You don’t want to?” the smile slips off, “I just thought - since we’re neighbours…”

His mouth curved down makes you feel bad. “Well,” you pretend to consider it. “Maybe we can play together. I just thought we should make sure we can get along before we decide we’re friends.”

“We’ll get on just fine,” Taehyung reassures, his smile returning. He really does smile a lot.

“You think?” you squint at him, as the wind picks up around you, stinging your eyes.

“Of course,” Taehyung’s cheeks pink a little, “You seem nice.”

You wonder how you gave him that impression. All you've done so far is bluster off your embarrassment with scowls and suspicion. You make a decision to try to be nicer, like he seems to believe you already are.

“Your house is so close to the forest as well,” Taehyung goes on, steering the conversation to a new topic, “That’s cool.”

“Is it?” You turn to look at the forest, where the branches drape over your fence, stretching spindly fingers towards your lawn. “I don’t like it being so near. The branches take up too much of the garden. And on the other side of the fence it’s so… overgrown. It’s kind of creepy.” A shiver runs through you, as another gust of wind comes along.

“That’s just it,” Taehyung explains. His feet leave the tarmac, kicking up in excitement, his bike wobbling precariously, until he rights himself again, both feet planted firmly on the ground. “There are loads of stories about the forest. It’s really exciting. I guess you haven’t heard about them, since you’re new though.”

You’re intrigued now, but you try to hide it. “Oh. Stories?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung’s eyes glimmer. “There’s a - a something living in there.”

“What kind of something?”

“That’s just it,” Taehyung says, “Nobody knows. People keep on going in there, trying to take photos of whatever it is. But it never shows itself. It just leaves small traces. A footprint. Broken branches in its path. A small animal fallen prey. Some people say it’s just a fox, or a dog gone wild. Other people think it’s some kind of bigfoot, or something like that. But other people think it’s a monster.

“That’s ridiculous,” you scoff, covering up the shake in your voice.

“Maybe,” Taehyung gives a shrug, as he leans closer to you over the handlebars of his bike, “But there’s got to be a reason behind all the things happening in the forest. Personally, I think it’s a monster.”

You raise a sceptical eyebrow.

“Although, of course I don’t really know,” he adds quickly. “But I’d love to go in and see for myself.”

“Why don't you then?” you ask.

“I’m not allowed,” Taehyung’s head sinks lower, chin almost grazing his forearms, dangled across the bike handlebars. “Mum says it’s too dangerous in there.”

“You could probably get in from my back garden,” you blurt, before processing what you’ve said.

“You think?” Taehyung perks up, “Could I? Would you let me?”

You shrug. “Sure. If you wanted. I could go with you.”

At that, Taehyung gets off his bike, letting it clatter onto the pavement, wheels spinning, as he leaps across to hug you, lifting you momentarily off the curb. “Thank you! See, I knew you were nice!”

***

[One Day Later - October 2010]

Taehyung’s in your garden. It’s a play date - at least that’s what your dad calls it. But you hate that, it sounds too childish.

Outside, the air is cool - the sort of cold that only happens in the confusing slip between autumn and winter, when you don’t know how many sweaters to put on to stay warm. The sun is high above, piercing down through an empty sky that saps it of any warmth.

“Your garden’s really cool,” Taehyung says, tramping up and down along the lawn to inspect everything.

You simply watch him, unsure what makes it more exciting than any other garden. Still, Taehyung seems excited by it.

“Look at how close the trees are!” Taehyung makes his way over to the fence, where the tree limbs reach down to clatter against the wooden slats.

“Yeah, too close,” you say, “Dad says he’ll have to get them cut down.”

Taehyung’s face falls. “But I like it how it is now. It’s like the forest is trying to climb into your garden to say ‘hello’.”

A shiver trickles down your back. You don’t like the idea of the forest saying ‘hello’. “Whatever,” you toss your head a little, to throw off the goosebumps, “It doesn’t matter. They’re just trees.”

Taehyung isn’t listening, moving up and down the fence. “I wonder if we can climb into the forest from here,” he mumbles, reaching out to test one of the low hanging branches.

“Careful, Taehyung,” you warn, as he pulls down his weight on the branch.

His hand stretches out, moving further up the rough bark, to a sturdier portion of the branch. From where you stand, he looks like an extension of the tree himself, with his hand twisted around the plant, like he’s a part of the tendrils, holding it together. Without hearing - or heeding - your warning, he pulls back, and his feet leave the lawn. His feet scramble on the fence, his other hand reaching to get a grasp higher up the branch.

His method of climbing doesn’t seem at all safe. A dark pit forms in your gut, but you bite down another warning.

In this clumsy way, he makes his way to the top of the fence and balances there haphazardly. He grins down at you, mouth boxy, “We can make it from here. Come on.”

There’s an uncomfortable jerking in your stomach. Your mind darts back to the monster Taehyung mentioned, and the small animals that have fallen prey in the forest. A thousand reasons not too follow after him burst into your head, clashing like fire bells. The forest looks dark. The spindly trees look dry, and dead, and ready to fall. The air’s just too cold to go exploring today. And besides, it’ll be time for dinner soon, and your dad will be calling you back inside.

“Come on,” Taehyung repeats, stretching out a hand, “I promise it’s not scary.”

“I’m not scared,” you counter, because you're not. In the same way he did, you clamber your way up the fence, ignoring Taehyung’s proffered hand, because you can do it yourself.

From the top point of the fence, perched, wobbling, you can see the forest much better. Your eyes pierce past the dark tangle of trees, baring their brown leaves. The ground is carpeted in shades of autumnal death, throwing up a thick, mouldy smell, that clings in your nostrils. The trees stretch out, thick trunked, with scraggly thin branches, creeping roots leaving tracks through the soil, like it’s been broken up by an earthquake.

The air here feels oddly heavy, and difficult to breathe.

“Let’s go then,” Taehyung grins at you, before his smile whips away from you and he drops down to the ground on the other side of the fence.

The fall is further than he expected. He stumbles at the bottom, crashing to his knees among the decaying leaves.

“Taehyung!” you stifle your shout, not wanting to alert your dad in the house. You scramble down after your friend, using the scratching branches to slow your fall. “Are you alright?”

Taehyung squats up on his hands and knees, and laughs up at your concerned face. From where you’re standing above him, he looks a bit like a dog, on all fours. Bouncing up again, he wipes his dirt crusted hands on the back of his jeans, sending dead leaf debris floating in the air.

You hold your breath, and wait for the air to settle.

“Let’s go!” Taehyung points towards the forest. You notice spots of red on his jeans at the knees, where he fell, but before you can ask him if it’s sore, he crashes forward into the tangled brush of the forest, arms swinging by his side.

You wait behind him, eyeing the point in the forest where the dark branches bleed into blackness. But when Taehyung casts a glance over his shoulder to check if you’re following, you only smile back, pushing off your uncertainty as you follow after him.

“I can’t believe we actually got in,” Taehyung says to you, bouncing along on his toes as he walks, pushing his way through the tangle of scrub that blocks your path. It’s clear no human has walked this way in years. “What if,” his eyes shine as he glances back to you, “We actually figure out what’s been killing things in here?”

“Isn’t it obvious it’s just some kind of animal?” you ask, “Like - I don’t know - a fox, or something?”

“Well, that’s just it,” Taehyung says, continuing down his created track, pushing through the clumped branches with his whole body, “Occasionally people find carcasses on the outskirts of the forest. But the weird thing about them is how neat the killing is. If it was another animal, it would probably just eat most of it. But these animals have been found bleeding out from a small slit.”

A cold slithers around your ribs, into your heart. You feel cheated. Taking Taehyung into the forest in search of a fox, or some other small animal seemed fine. But something about the image of forest animals, bleeding from neat cuts, leaves a bad taste in your mouth. “You didn’t tell me about that part.”

“Oh.” Taehyung seems nonchalant, “I didn’t think it was that important.”

The imagined monster that Taehyung has told you about suddenly seems so much more real. You can picture it, standing over it’s prey, a small rabbit, a neat line of blood spilling from its cleaved throat. The monster is a black shape to you, hunched unnaturally. It’s eyes glow red, it’s pointed teeth drip crimson. It seems too real now.

Something brushes against your back. Yelping, you leap forward into Taehyung’s back. A glance behind you confirms the branch that hit you, springing back and forth.

“Sorry,” you pull back from Taehyung again, “Only a twig.”

Taehyung turns to you, and closes the distance again, stepping towards you. His brown eyes are concerned as he searches his face. “Are you... actually scared?”

You shake your head quickly, hair sticking to your wet lips as you do so.

“We can turn back if you want.” Taehyung says, his voice hollowly low.

Firmly, you reply, “No. I’m fine.” A smile has you believing it too.

“Alright then,” Taehyung seems satisfied, turning to the path ahead. Reaching behind him, his hand stretches out, his slender fingers dragging the air behind him. They search around, and you realise he’s offering them to you, so you stretch out, your pinkie brushing his. The warmth of his fingerprint against your own sends a shock through you. Feeling you there, he grabs and holds on tight. The tips of his ears are pink in the cold. Hand in hand, he leads you on. You follow behind, arm stretched out to his own, your feet falling into his footprints in the dead leaves.

As you walk, you occasionally check behind you, making sure you can still see the reassuring shape of your fence, and the house beyond it, through the twisted trees. Pressure is increasing as you step on, pressing against your lungs and ears. It’s the same feeling you get when a storm is brewing, with electricity crackling in purple clouds. But the sky is eerily clear above you. The only sound is your own footsteps, and the occasional crack of twigs as you push through the trees that grow too close together. This empty air feels unnatural. You look around, searching for something else living - birds in the trees, squirrels nestled in the nooks of branches. Nothing. You and Taehyung seem to be the only breathing beings here.

Except... that doesn’t feel true. There’s something else breathing here. The whole forest seems to breathe, blowing out the heavy smell of it’s own decay. The stench is growing stronger as you and Taehyung venture deeper.

You press closer to him, bending you arm in an awkward position, so you can still keep his fingers in your own. He’s looking around, neck twisting, eyes eager. He’s monster hunting - that’s what he says.

When you look about, you’re only searching for animals, birds, or squirrels, or maybe a hedgehog. That’s what you say.

Since monsters don’t really exist.

Your attuned ears pick up a rustle behind you. Your heart stops for one throat-tightening moment.

“Taehyung?” your voice comes out strained. You don’t recognise it.

He steps on and your hand slips from his own. He pulls his warmth away from you.

There’s a pressing mass behind you, you sense it, like the tightening pressure on your own chest. It’s the same crushing feeling that comes from contained thunder and lightning. You turn to look behind, slowly, slowly.

Behind you - nothing.

Just the empty forest. The trees stretch back indefinitely. You’ve lost sight of your house in the tangled undergrowth.

Your breath rushes back, lungs dragging in the still air.

“Taehyung? Did you hear something just now?”

There’s no answer. You’re suddenly aware of how silent it is. Your breath is the only sound in the unshifting air.

Turning back, you find he’s gone.

“Taehyung?” You spin, scanning around. “Taehyung!” Your voice echoes emptily off the trees. Nothing. Your heart throws itself to your throat, thrashing painfully there.

Behind you, there’s another rustling sound. Close this time. Your brain stumbles over itself, imagining all it could be. A wild dog. A bear. A crazed serial killer -

- a monster?

It’s moving closer, crackling through the dead foliage. The twigs snap like broken bones.

You close your eyes. Perhaps this is how you die. Stupidly following after the boy with the too-small bike, and the too-wide smile. All because he let you hold his hand.

Past the black of your closed eyelids, you sense more black. It’s pressing closer. You breath it in.

And beyond that, comes a low, gravelly voice, put-on. “What’s a little girl like you doing in my forest? Don’t you know better than to wander into a monster’s lair?”

Suddenly, an arm is wrapping around your throat, and pulling you in for a tight hug, and Taehyung’s low, gravelly voice breaks into the tone you know, giggling into your ear. “Did I scare you?”

“You brat!” You poke him with your elbow, shoving him off.

“I did, didn’t I? I did scare you!” He’s triumphant.

You fold your arms across your chest, hoping it will slow your racing heartbeat. “Did not!”

“Did too!

He dances around you, kicking up dead leaves as he sing songs, “I got you. I got you. The big bad monster got you. Now I’ve got you, I’ll eat you, ‘cos that’s what monster’s do. I’ll roast you and toast you and throw you in a stew!”

“If you’re going to tease me,” you huff, “Then I’ll just go home. This isn’t fun anyway.” Turning, you swing back on your heel, and push your way back through the forest, following the path you beat away on your way here.

“Aw no, don’t leave!” Taehyung’s whine follows you.

You ignore him, moving on, until you feel a hand around your arm, fingers warm through your jumper.

Pulling against him, you try to keep moving, but Taehyung’s persistent. His arms tangle around you, pulling you closer. You fall back into his chest with a thud, his arms holding you steady against him. His voice is breathy. “Sorry, really. It was a joke!”

“I didn’t come here just to have you make fun of me.” You try to shrug him off, hoping your anger will translate into your limbs as you throw him off. He stumbles off you, backing a few paces to catch his balance.

You swivel back on him. Your lips are raised in a snarl that’s bordering on tears. You don’t know where they came from. “I don’t like this, Taehyung. You dragged me out here, but I didn’t want it. I want to go home!” Your voice is louder than you meant.

Taehyung cowers against the heat you spill; you’re half-scared, half-furious that he would push you being scared at all.

“Please don’t be angry…” his voice is small, “It’s just a game…” Softly, feet rustling the leaves, he slinks away from you, moving around. He’s circling you, making you twist your neck to keep your wild eyes locked on him. “It’s just a game. A rhyme we sing. Everyone at school knows it.” He picks it up again, humming softly. “I got you. I got you. The big bad monster got you.”

You shake your head, eyes watering with the cold. “I don’t care if it’s just a game. I don’t like it.” The pooled water clumps at your eyelashes and spills over. You don’t understand these tears - you were angry a moment ago. “I don’t like it…”

Taehyung stops circling, eyes trained to your cheeks, wet and red with embarrassment. You wipe at them with the sleeve of your shirt.

“I’m really sorry,” Taehyung’s face is defeated, the smile that seems permanently painted there slipping off. His stupid song seems to continue bouncing off the onlooking tree trunks. “I thought we were both having fun,” he goes on quietly, “Look, it’s okay. Let’s just go home now.” He reaches out a hand, but you instinctively pull back from him, still fuming beyond your wetted lashes. His fingers trail empty air where you were.

“No.” You want him to go. You don’t want him to see your anger, or your tears. Girls your age don’t cry like this. In the dark brown of the dead leaves, you crouch down, knees pulled up to your chest. With your arms wrapped around your thighs, you can bury your running nose in your sleeve, and shut out Taehyung with your closed eyes.

Beyond the dark of your eyelids he sounds distant. “Can I make it better?”

You shake your head, face rubbing on the fabric of your jumper.

Silence trembles through the air. For a hushed breath, you think maybe Taehyung has gone away - left you alone in the dark trees. But when you pry yourself from your jumper sleeves, face sticky from tears and from snot - from the cold - you see his shoes on the leaves in front of you. You refuse to look up any further. Giving a sniff that won’t rectify any of the dried damage on your face, you croak out, “Go away.”

You don’t know if you want him to obey or ignore you.

His shoes hesitate for a moment, shifting from left to right, stirring leaves. You hear an intake of breath, as if he’s going to say something. But nothing comes. Instead, his feet are turning, and he’s walking away from you. 

You watch as he follows the path, back the way you came, leaving you among the dirt and dead leaf smell. He’s really going.

Seeing his retreating form is enough to push up your anger again. He’s doing exactly what you asked, and you hate it.

“Wait!” You jump to your feet, leaving flaring in the air around you as you race after him, “Don’t leave me!”

Your desperate hand catches his sleeve, and he looks back with a grin. “See, I knew you didn’t actually want to stay here by yourself!”

Blushing, you let go of him again. “Well, of course I knew you weren’t mean enough to leave. Even though you are a jerk.”

“I’m a jerk?” Taehyung pulls you back to himself, wrapping an arm around your shoulder as you walk back down the trail you've broken through the tangled branches, following your own lingering destruction of fractured twigs.

“The worst kind of jerk,” you say, not fighting Taehyung’s arm off of you, legs feeling slightly weak, and in need of the support he provides. “You’re-” You sift through your mind for the worst word you know. “You’re an asshole.”

This makes Taehyung laugh - a deep, throaty sound. “My mum tells me not to say things like that.”

His laughter continues on, hiccuping out, shattering the chill of the air. The sound sets off a warm glow in your stomach, so you say it again: “Asshole.” The laughter you win for this satisfies you with burning cheeks and tingling fingertips. You’ve completely forgotten you’re angry with him as you laugh along. The fence is ahead of you, promising safety, and the uneasy emptiness of the forest is forgotten.

The rustling in the branches is only the wind.

Taehyung gives you a leg up over the fence, grunting that you’re heavier than expected. Fighting back a retort, instead, you give him a hand up to join him at the top. Perched, balancing on the wooden slats, you take one last look into the forest. The air is still, no breeze to stir your hair. The weather’s always so changeable in autumn. Maybe the wind comes and goes in gusts.

You drop down to the green grass in your garden, and Taehyung hums as he climbs after you: “I got you. I got you. The big bad monster got you. Now I’ve got you, I’ll eat you, ‘cos that’s what monster’s do. I’ll roast you and toast you and throw you in a stew!”

***

[One Week Later - October 2010]

Before you’re ready for it, school creeps up on you, and you find yourself being forcibly dragged out of bed at seven in the morning, with your dad telling you to get dressed.

You were given a few days of getting settled into your house before starting in your new school, and you’d taken the time helping your dad out where you could - holding his hammer and screwdrivers while he reassembled all your Ikea furniture. But now those few free days are passed, and the awful reality of primary school is kicking you in the shins.

As your dad drives you to school, you watch the edges of the forest flash by the window in a wash of black tree-trunks and brown leaves, complaining, “But Dad - term’s already started and everyone will already know each other. I don’t want to.”

“I know, Cub,” you dad is distracted as he indicates and turns down one of the many junctions that twist through your small town. For a place not even big enough for its own cinema or leisure centre, it certainly prides itself on its complicated streets, corkscrewing in and out of housing developments in a maze of red brick. “People transferring school is totally normal,” your dad continues, now on a straight bit of road, so he can give you his attention, “You won’t be the first one in your school to go through this. And the teachers will be very understanding of you missing work.”  You were entering into school almost a month and a half into term. Your dad had tried to move in the summer, so that it wouldn't disrupt your school work, but your old house had taken so long to sell, that you’d had to leave off until mid-autumn.

Thinking back to your old town just makes you sad. It pokes at memories of old friends, and your old school, and your old house, free from creepy forests in the back garden. Your old house makes you think of your mum as well, back when she lived with you and your dad, and smiled at you when you showed her your school work.

But that smile had left her, back when she argued with your dad every evening after they thought you were asleep and couldn’t hear them. You’d lie, eyes wide open, in bed, and hear her high-pitched voice float upstairs.

After a year of that, your mum had given up. Instead of trying to fix what was happening with your dad, she broke it more. A few months after the divorce was filed, your mum was gone. And a few more months after that, your dad accepted a promotion, and announced you were moving. He didn’t need to tell you that he wanted to get away from the memories. You tried to accept it, and go along with whatever he wanted, even though every instinct dug in its heels. It’s not fair. You want to keep your friends. You want to stay in your old school. And you want to keep the memories of your mum.

Still, you’ll swallow down this bitter newness as best you can - new town, new school, new friends. Even if it occasionally comes up to choke you into complaining. You never can keep your feelings bottled. So you give a toss of your head, to get your hair off your face, and look out the window as another red brick house rolls past the window. “I just don’t want to go to school. Couldn’t you get me to skip a year, since I’ve already missed so much this term?”

Your dad chuckles, “Nice try, Cub. You know that’s not possible.”

It was worth a shot.

There’s a break in the red brick houses outside, spilling into the green metal bars of a fence running round a gravel football pitch, and beyond that, your new school, in the town’s favourite red-brick brown. Your stomach slips down to your feet as your dad pulls into the drive, and searches for a parking space.

Then you find yourself walking behind him, heading for the reception office, tugging down on the scratchy sleeves of your jumper. This school’s uniform is definitely more ugly than your old school’s. Your gaze fixes on your black shoes and dark blue tights as you wait in the office, your dad talking to the receptionist.

She’s directing her attention to you, you realise, and stick a smile on your face, pretending to listen as she explains what class you’ll be in, where you’ll find it, what topics you’ll be learning about, and a list of more information you’ll forget in a few minutes.

Your dad smiles, giving a thumbs up, and then you’re watching his face behind you, as you leave the office, the door swinging closed on him.

Walking through the school corridors, you’re shocked by how eerily similar it looks to your old school. Maybe there’s a secret rule that all schools have to be built the same.

The receptionist is going on about new refurbishments the school has gone through, but you aren’t paying attention, still trying to pick your stomach up from your feet, and force it back into it’s usual spot. The corridor feels suddenly larger, the walls higher, the floor stretching further. Your breath hitches in your chest as the receptionist stops outside a classroom, and says: “Right. This is you.”

She knocks on the door, and there’s a sharp, “Come in!”

You swallow the saliva stuck in your mouth as the receptionist announces you to the teacher. Stepping into the classroom, your feet move mechanically, leaving you floating without your body outside the door.

“We have a new pupil joining us today,” your teacher, Mrs. Lee you think her name is, says. She sounds far away. You dig your nails into the palm of your hand as she turns her glasses to you, “Why don’t you introduce yourself?”

You turn to the class, sucking in a breath, and there, sitting at one of the back tables is Taehyung. He grins and waves.

Releasing the breath you hadn’t realised you were holding, you smile back, and give your name easily, as if you’re only talking to him. Before you know it, you’ve gone through all the necessary introductions and explanations, and your teacher is asking you to take a seat. Taehyung points wildly to the chair across from him, where two desks have been pushed together to make a table of four. The other two students at the table smile politely as you sit down, and Taehyung announces, “This is my friend. We live close to each other.” His eyes are smiling at you, as he leans across the table and whispers, “We’ve also been out exploring the forest together.”

This get you an appreciative look from the other students. You get the sense you’ve even accepted, as the boy beside you leans over and says, “I’m Park Jimin. And you can borrow my felt tip pens whenever you want.”

You’re going to be okay.

***

When the bell rings for break time, Taehyung tackles you in a hug. He’s been bouncing in his seat since you sat down opposite him, and kept on trying to talk while Mrs. Lee shushed him. Now that the rest of the class is spilling out into the playground, he can talk as loud as he likes:

“Hey!”

“Hi,” you reply, quieter than him. Your voice is more appropriate indoors.

“I haven’t seen you since last week,” he says, as you try your best to walk to the classroom door, with him strung around your shoulder, “I thought a monster really did get you.”

You give a small shrug, slightly restricted by his arms.

His voice is smaller, “I thought maybe you didn’t want to my friend after what happened.”

“That’s not it,” you say quickly. You don’t want to lose him now. Not when he’s the only person you know at this school. “I’ve just been busy,” you go on, “You know, settling into the new house and stuff.”

“I see. That’s good,” Taehyung nods his head in time with your steps, “I thought I really had upset you.”

“Only as much as I would expect from an asshole like you,” you joke.

There’s a disapproving ‘humph’ behind you, and you look over your shoulder to see Mrs. Lee behind you, with her cup of coffee. You clap a guilty hand to your mouth, fighting back a startled laugh.

Taehyung’s arm around your shoulder tightens as he drags you away quickly, pulling you down the corridor and out the doors into the harsh autumn sunlight. You both crash into laughter as the doors swing shut on your teacher.

Crouching over, to recover from a particularly violent bout of giggles, you groan, “Oh no, she hates me already…”

“Mrs. Lee hates everyone,” Taehyung grins, giving you a wink.

You smile back, excited to be talking with him again. And also surprised to find yourself feeling that way. But before you can say any more, Jimin is running up, and dragging Taehyung away, pulling on his arm. “Tae, we’re going to play tag! Come play too!”

You bite down on your bottom lip, as your one hope of friendship in this school is pulled away. Your arms hang useless by your side, feet dragging. You suddenly feel very awkward and conscious of all your limbs, and what they’re doing.

 Taehyung pulls back, and turns to you again, “She can play too, right?”

Jimin’s eyes finally fall on your, low-lidded lashes giving a sweeping examination. “Yeah, sure.” He wrinkles his cold-nipped nose, turned pink, “You’d better explain the rules.”

“I know how to play tag,” you inform the boys, as Taehyung links his arm around yours, pulling you towards the edge of the playground.

“Not our kind of tag. Our tag has special rules,” he says.

Jimin swings around to face you, walking backwards as you approach a large climbing frame at the end of the playground. It’s domed metal frame cuts an odd shape in the ground, hanging with a honeycomb of ropes. Beyond this is the green metal fence that blocks off the school grounds, and beyond that is bare earth, running back into the forest. It’s branches fracture the empty sky. “The rules,” Jimin announces, “Are that you can’t get caught by the monster. Reaching the base of the climbing frame, he swings himself up onto one of the lower ropes, perched, wobbling in the breeze.

His arm still threaded through your own, Taehyung’s grip tightens on you. “Oh wait, I forgot,” he says, turning concerned eyes on yours, “You don’t like the monster stories do you. Maybe we shouldn’t play?”

Your mouth feels dry, despite the dampness that hangs over the earth - a promise of autumnal rain. “I mean, I think monster stories are stupid,” you say, tipping your head to the side, “But I don’t mind playing with you.” You sense Jimin’s gaze on you, as he eyes you from his spot, dangling lithely from the climbing frame.

Beside you, Taehyung takes a breath, but you pull away quickly, and step up to the climbing frame, wrapping a hand around the rough rope, hard and thick to support the weight of a child. Before Taehyung can say anything about you being scared, you blurt, “Just tell me the rules.”

“Alright,” is all Taehyung says instead, and you suck in a breath, turning back as you lean in on the climbing frame, eyes finding his. The image of you crouched, crying in the forest, acting half your age, is a secret between the two of you now. “That area over there,” Taehyung points just behind the climbing frame, “Is the forest. The person who’s ‘it’ is the monster. They stay in the forest, and can’t come past the climbing frame. If you get caught, you have to go and stand by the fence until someone rescues you.”

You nod to show you’re listening.

“The aim is to reach the top of this climbing frame,” Taehyung goes on, “Once you reach the top, you win.”

Your face is probably a picture of confusion, since Taehyung goes on, “You’ll get it once we start playing.”

“There’s one more rule you forgot,” Jimin adds, “When the monster catches you, they have to sing the song, otherwise it doesn’t count.” His eyes light up, excited, glorying in the thought of it.

“You know the song, right?” Taehyung’s mouth moves slowly around the words as he half whispers, half sings, “I got you. I got you. The big bad monster got you.” His eyes are almost black in the dull sun.

A heaviness settles in your chest, the same feeling you felt in the forest. You push it off, bouncing on the balls of your feet. “Alright. I got it. Let’s play.”

You find yourself bundled into a group of your classmates, along with some younger children, whose eyes gleam at being allowed into your grown-up games. Jimin goes around the group, pointing, “Eeney, meeney, miney, moe.” His finger falls on Taehyung, who grins, before letting out a deep growl that sends the smaller children screaming.

Taehyung flashes you a smile of white teeth, dark eyes half-closed, before he runs off for his spot by the fence. The game has begun.

You hang around in the safe area, watching for a while, as one child after another attempts to reach the climbing frame, only to be tagged by Taehyung, and sent to the fence. His voice singsongs around the playground. “I got you. I got you.”

Soon, you’re one of the few left standing, most of your classmates lined up along the fence. Jimin’s among them. “Come on,” he calls over to you, reaching out an impatient hand, flapping at empty air, “Come rescue us!”

Taking a breath, you step over the threshold between the climbing frame and the safe area of the playground. You’re in Taehyung’s territory now, and you’re fair prey. His eyes light on you, a devious grin splitting his face. Suddenly, you’re running as fast as you can. The playground is nothing but a whirl of colour. Your breath catches in your ears. You can feel Taehyung behind you, his laughter coming out shaky. It heats the air behind you. You keep running. Jimin’s ahead, cheering you on. His arm is outstretched. You reach out, brush his fingers, and he’s darting to rescue the other classmates that have been tagged.

But Taehyung’s still closing in on you. You twist away from his outstretched hands. A spurt of energy pushes you further from Taehyung, choking up laughter. You won’t look back. The climbing frame is ahead. You can make it. You can reach the top.

At the base, you hoist yourself up into the mesh of ropes, feeling them scratch at your hands. Below you, Taehyung is scrambling into the web, wobbling the ropes you’re resting on.

From across the playground, you hear Jimin shout your name. “You can make it!”

Taehyung’s a fast climber. You scramble further, but the cold has numbed your fingers; they grasp feverishly at the ropes. Taehyung’s voice hums, “I got you. I got you.” His hand is reaching. You feel fingers clamp around your ankle. Looking down, you see his wide grin. “The big bad monster-”

There’s another wobble of the ropes. He tugs at your foot. The rope slips through your fingers.

The song goes unfinished as you topple down. You’re aware of the sky stretching out in front of you, and then comes the playground dirt. Taehyung’s body is underneath you.

The sky is upside down from this angle, the playground hanging at the top of your vision.

Below, Taehyung gives a groan, “Got… you…”

A set of high-heeled shoes steps into your sight. Sitting up, the world tips itself the right way up, and you find Mrs. Lee standing over you.

“What happened here?” You wince at her tone.

“We were playing and we fell off,” you explain in a small voice, scrambling off Taehyung, as he sits up. A group of students has gathered around you, Jimin’s concerned eyes finding yours from behind Mrs. Lee.

She looks unimpressed. “You shouldn’t be playing so recklessly.”

“It’s just a game,” Jimin tries to justify from behind her, “We were just playing tag, and Taehyung was the monster, and we were trying to get away from him, by getting up the frame, and we’re normally careful. I just think there was a strong gust of wind. It’s normally really safe…” He trails off, taking a breath as Mrs. Lee’s brows furrow down, meeting with her eyelids:

“Jimin, I don’t want to hear about this monster. The school has already talked to your year about these ‘monster’ games you insist on playing. And you know what we say about them?”

“They’re not allowed,” Jimin finishes for her, hanging his head.

“Correct,” Mrs. Lee nods, “I want no more mention of monsters.” She turns her attention back to you and Taehyung, still on the ground. “You’d better go to the nurses office to make sure you aren’t seriously hurt.” Her voice softens as you stand up, wincing when you notice the large rip in your new school tights. “I know you’re new here, so you don’t know the rules yet. But make sure these boys don’t drag you into believing their silly ideas about monsters.”

“Yes, miss.”

As you push through the crowd of students, heading to the school nurse with Taehyung, you can finally fall to laughing, out of hearing of your teacher. Taehyung’s face contorts into a frown as he imitates: “No talking of monsters. No playing about monsters. Don’t even think about monsters.”

You squeal with laughter, and he breaks character for one quick grin, before continuing, “You’re thinking of monsters, aren’t you? How terrible of you! You’ll be expelled for that!”

You only give him a shove, and he stumbles away, pretending to be hurt by your gentle touch. Not letting him get away, you run after, catching him again, with an arm around his shoulder.

When you first met him, you had your doubts about Taehyung - but now, wrapped around him, you decide: you like him.

***

[Two Weeks Later - October 2010]

The rule is, not talking about monsters. But that’s only inside school.

So, when the bell rings, signalling the end of class, you can burst out into the stark chill, and run home, dropping your school bag at the door, before dashing outside again to play with Taehyung. In the street outside your house, you can talk about monsters all you want.

Your dad’s normally content to see you outside, murmuring the normal warning, “Be careful, Cub,” over his copy of the local newspaper, bold words reading: ‘Another local pet found dead in the forest.’

That’s how your past weeks have gone: spend outside in the cold sunshine, Taehyung chasing you around the block, growling the song that’s grown so familiar - “I got you I got you.” - until you eventually tire, and let him crash into you, pulling you in for a hug.

Occasionally Jimin will join you, bringing his friend from the dance club he attends - an older boy, named Hoseok, who's something of a mystery, graduated into the grown-up world of junior high school.

And so you end up by Taehyung’s side, as you always are, when Halloween comes around, bringing with it dark murky clouds to mist over the half-smile of the fat crescent moon.

You’re at Hoseok’s house, a few housing developments down from your own. His garden borders the forest, like yours does. Taehyung brought you over, letting you ride on the back of his small bike, your feet dangling to scrape on the tarmac as he zigzagged down the road.

Now you’re sprawled out on the lawn of the back garden, looking up at the moon, and eating candy that Hoseok managed to plead from his mum.

You hadn’t gone trick or treating this year, feeling a little too grown-up for it. At least, that’s what you said. The idea of going out in the dark, with the possibility of a monster in the forest, was too scary. Eating sweets with Taehyung and your other friends is just as fun.

As you unwrap a packet of Love Hearts, offering one to Taehyung, Hoseok decides: “We should play truth or dare!”

You’ve never played truth or dare before, only seeing it in high-school movies. It’s another cool, grown-up thing that Hoseok does, that you don’t.

“Yeah,” Jimin nods enthusiastically ay the idea. He seems very eager to go along with all of Hoseok’s ideas.

Hoseok bites down on a grin, gazing around your small circle. “Okay, Taehyung first.”

By your side, Taehyung beams across at him. His face is strangely lit, moonlight muddled with streetlights.

“Truth or dare,” Hoseok prompts, and Taehyung blinks:

“Oh. Um… truth.”

At this, Hoseok and Jimin catch each other’s gaze, eyebrows raised. You don’t know what that look means.

“Okaaay,” Hoseok draws out the word, “Is there anyone you like right now?”

“Like?” Taehyung’s brow furrows, “I like all of you!”

“He doesn’t mean it like that,” Jimin looks embarrassed. He seems to like acting particularly grown-up around Hoseok, as if he’s in high school as well. It’s clear Taehyung’s being too childish for him. “Like, who do you have a crush on?”

Taehyung’s mouth parts around a silent ‘o’ shape. His shoulders squash down, like his spine is trying to take root in the lawn, as he mumbles, “No one.”

Hoseok and Jimin share a knowing look, smiling, and you get the sense you’re missing out on some inside joke.

Taehyung’s eyes flash, panicked, to your own - whites around his irises wide and wild in the moon. Then he’s looking away again. It all happens so fast, you think maybe you imagined it. Your chest constricts. “No one,” he repeats firmly.

Hoseok cocks an eyebrow. “You’re sure? It’s okay if you do like someone. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

Taehyung shakes his head, hair falling into his eyes. “Crushes are weird… and yucky…”

“They’re not yucky,” Jimin pipes up, “Having a crush is grown-up.” He looks to Hoseok for support on this, and Hoseok’s lips rise in amusement:

“Yeah… grown-up…”

Hearing Hoseok say ‘grown-up’ makes you realise how childish it is to think about appearing that way. No matter what you do, you’ll still be the ‘younger ones’ to him.

“Let’s move on,” Taehyung says, his shoulder’s hunched. He turns to you for help. “You’re next.”

“Oh,” caught off guard, you answer impulsively, “Dare.”

Hoseok and Jimin share another look. They have something bad in mind, you know it. Jimin’s not so subtle glance between you and Taehyung confirms it. He opens his mouth: “You and Taehyung should k-”

“Go into the forest!” Taehyung blurts out, cutting Jimin off. “I dare you to go back into the forest tonight.”

Cold claws its way up from your throat to your mouth. The sky looks further away, with moon wavering beyond the clinging clouds.

Taehyung’s eyes search you own, an apology written there, and he opens his mouth, like he’s gong to take it back.

You suddenly understand what you need to do. Before he says anything, you stand up, “I’ll do it.” Whatever Jimin had in mind, it would have been worse than this - Jimin’s unspoken dare was going to break something. Possibly Taehyung.

Hoseok and Jimin are silent, watching you. The whites of Jimin’s eyes are milky, stretched wide.

“Are you sure?” he asks, his lips plumping in a worried pout. Even Hoseok looks uncomfortable, dark eyes scanning the deeper darkness of the forest behind his house.

“It’s no big deal,” you shrug at them, “I’ve gone into the forest before.” You’d believe your own words if your dry tongue didn’t cleave to the roof of your mouth as you spoke them.

Taehyung stands up beside you, mouth hanging open uselessly. His hands waver, as if to catch you - stop you.

“Well,” you swallow thickly, trying to dispel the uneasiness settled at the bottom of your lungs, rattling like phlegm, “Might as well get this over with.” The smile you give if painfully forced.

You march across the grass towards the fence. In the moonlight, the branches beyond look like they’re made of silver, hazy in a light fog that’s falling. You hear the thump of feet behind you, grass squashing below shoe soles. A hand catches around your arm, pulling the fabric of your sleeve. You glance behind you, to find Taehyung, his mouth opening and shutting, as he searches for the words he wants. Beyond him, you can see Hoseok and Jimin, lounging on the grass, watching on.

“Uh,” Taehyung quickly lets go of your sleeve again, stealing back his warmth. “You - you don’t need to do this.” His eyes are insistent, deep, dark pools. “I know it scares you. So, I’ll take back the dare if you want.”

You keep your face blank. “It’s fine. I really don’t mind.”

He considers this, eyes searching your own for the trace of a lie. You know he’ll find it there if he looks long enough, so you drag your gaze away. Continuing to linger, he finally says, “Alright. But I’ll go with you.”

Pausing, you catch off your own denial. You know you should do this yourself, to prove a point. But the idea of having Taehyung by your side tonight is a much louder thought than your own billowing pride.

So, with a small nod, you let Taehyung’s hand slide down your arm to your hand. His skin is hot against your own, his knuckles hard under your fingers.

Casting one last look back to Jimin and Hoseok, you give a nod, and then joke, “Well, if we’re not back in fifteen minutes, I guess you can start planning our funeral.”

Hoseok only manages a small smile. Jimin’s solemn.

You turn your back on them, and facing the woods, step forward. The empty air echoes silence in your ears.

By the fence, Taehyung helps you over, and then scrambles after you. Your second time crossing the fence is easier, and you can’t help but smile when you manage to land on your feet on the other side. Through the gaps in the fence, you can just make out the slivers of Hoseok’s lawn. No going back now.

Taehyung’s hand finds yours again, and with his reassuring warmth pressing his shape in your skin, you push on, into the dense foliage.

The forest is dark, trees throwing black shadows on the ground. But behind you, the moon is bright, casting blue light that throws your long shadow in front of you. The grounds is fractured into a collage of dappled moonlight, and deep dark, meaning you can’t quite distinguish what lines on the ground are tangled roots, and what are just shadows. You reach out a hand in front of you, swimming through the air, to find the branches you can’t see, pushing them away.

Your progress is slow, hindered by the clawing twigs that scratch at the palms of your hand.

Breaking the silence here feels irreverent to the somber dark. You find yourself holding your breath, scared of the shattered silence of a shaky intake of air. All you hear are your soft footsteps - sounding loud to your ears that strain for any sound that isn’t you or Taehyung.

After several meters, Taehyung stops, pulling on your arm. “Okay,” he whispers, “That’s far enough.”

“I can go further,” you say. Now that you’ve made it over the fence, it doesn’t seem so bad. You’re not scared.

“You’ve done the dare now,” Taehyung insists, “It’s fine.”

But from here you can still make out the dark shape that’s probably Hoseok’s fence. “No,” your whisper is firm, “This barely counts. We need to go further.”

Taehyung’s hold on your hand tightens, and he lets you pull him forward. “Alright.”

Something whispers on the air - just an echo of his words. Alright. Alright. Alright

You press on, listening carefully - for what, you’re not sure. Not a monster. Those aren’t real.

But on Halloween night, in the scattered moonlight, your imagination seems to seep into reality. Maybe monsters can exist at certain times of the day - when the moon is high, and the shadows are long, and the air hangs still, the earth holdings its breath until the danger passes.

You quicken you steps, pulling Taehyung along. You need to go further, prove that you’re not afraid. The silence dissolves with the crack of the branches around you as you move quickly. You’re almost running now. The thump of your feet is a reassuring, steady rhythm.

Then, the trees stop.

You’re out of the thick tangle of branches, standing in the open.

You drop Taehyung’s hand, and spin around, taking it in. You’re in a small clearing, the trees pushed back into an almost perfect circle. The ground is warped by the roots that stretch out towards the centre of the empty ring, like cracks in a bloodshot eye. The air feels even heavier here, a pressing wetness in your chest. Here, the silence buzzes around you - filled with the impossible possibilities that could break this quiet.

On the other side of the clearing, comes an impossibility - something moving in the trees, setting them swaying. There's no wind to mix the stale air.

Behind you, Taehyung is still. You know he’s seen it too.

Your feet are melded to the ground, the dead leaves that litter the ground melting like molasses to trap you in your shoes.

Something’s tugging on your arm. You’re aware of a voice - Taehyung’s - calling, “We need to go. Now.”

Now! You snap back to yourself. Your legs are moving, pushing you away from the clearing, and the swaying branches behind you.

The forest is roaring around you - the sacred silence now broken by the air rushing past your ears, as you pull yourself through crashing branches. These trees are living, breathing, reaching out to hold you back. Below your feet, the roots are snakes, slithering to trip you up. You keep moving.

Suddenly, the wind picks up again, thudding into you, to steal the breath from inside you. It stains your cheeks with colour, and rattles the trees behind you. Beyond that - maybe - there’s something else there. It’s throwing itself through the trees towards you, gaining on you.

You fight on, tugged along by Taehyung. His breath is tearing from his mouth, echoing around the branches.

There, ahead of you, is the fence. Close. You push forward, breath coming in sobs. There’s something dark and terrible behind you. You feel it. It presses down on you, a black feeling, like water that’s too deep. It weighs you down. You can barely move. Your legs are lead.

“Come on. Come on,” Taehyung’s sharp grip on your hand is almost painful. You focus on him. He leads you on. You both crash to the fence, and Taehyung practically throws you over, scrambling after. You fall to the lawn on the other side.

Sitting up, grass and your own hair caught in your mouth, you look back to the fence, where through the small slits in the wood you can see the forest thrashing violently, trees throwing their limbs in contorted shapes.

You shriek, and scramble backwards. There, through a gap in the fence, you see the glint of an eye.

Grabbing at Taehyung, who’s still on the ground, you pull him up, and stumble out: “Something - something’s there.”

You chest rises and falls, fast. “Come on,” you beg Taehyung to move, tugging him along. Snapping up to his feet, he starts running again, hand warm and slick with sweat inside your own. You stumble beside him, head ducking to the ground as your sprint forwards.

Hoseok and Jimin stand up. You barely register them as you pass, only shouting, “Run!”

Taehyung drags you out into the front garden, down to the curb, where his bike is lying, abandoned. He picks up the handlebars, and mounting, doesn’t need to probe you to climb on after him, hugging your arms around his waist, and lifting your feet off the tarmac. He pushes off, pedalling furiously.

You don’t know what direction he’s heading. You don’t care. You just need to get away. As fast as possible.

His hair is blowing into your face, the smell of his sweat filling your nose. You clutch him tighter, urging him on with a muttered prayer to the heavens. With heart hammering in your throat, you glance behind you, to check if you’re safe.

And there they are: two gleaming, white eyes, almost blinding. They’re bounding closer.

“It’s still there!” Your scream is snatched from your mouth, as Taehyung’s bike swerves.

The monster’s getting closer. You can hear it’s thundering growl, throbbing through you. “Taehyung!” you warn.

He can hear it too. He turns his head to glance behind. The bright eyes shine blinding behind you, beams cutting through the air. Taehyung swerves again.

The monster lets out a horrible screeching.

A horrible screeching of wheels. Taehyung collides with the curb, and you’re thrown off the bike. Your forehead smacks the hard tarmac. You roll into the middle of the road, right in front of the two bright lights of a car.

They stop just in front of you, filling your nose with the cloying smell of burning rubber.

A middle aged man is climbing out of the car, shouting, “What the hell are you kids thinking, riding in the road in the middle of the night with no lights? You could have been killed!”

You can’t concentrate on what he's saying. You’re only aware of a thumping pain in your head - the point where the curb had connected with your forehead. Maybe it’s bleeding. Your hand goes up to check the warmth there, sticky. The world is slowing fading to black...

***

“What on earth were you doing?” you dad is standing over you, his lips pulled down. His disappointment is spelled out in the creases on his forehead. “I thought you were mature enough to go out alone at night, and then I hear that you were almost hit by a car?”

You’re sitting in the emergency room, still unsure how you ended up there. Hoseok’s mum is here as well. A nurse herself, she’s insistent you stay here until a doctor checks for concussion, despite your assurance that you’re fine.

You can remember everything that happened before you blacked out just fine. The bright lights of the car. The warmth of your blood. Taehyung’s bicycle wheels left spinning, as he jumped off to run to you.

Where is Taehyung? It’s only you, and your dad, along with Hoseok’s mum, and Hoseok who got dragged along as well, looking pale and shaken.

“I thought I taught you better than this,” you dad goes on, and you feel your cheeks burning, aware of Hoseok’s eyes boring into you, beside his mum. You wish your dad wouldn’t tell you off in front of others. “What would have happened if you’d been killed?” your dad goes on. You drop your eyes to the hygienic white of the floor. You don’t want to see his tired face.

“Please, Dad… I’m sorry…” your voice is hoarse.

Still, he goes on. Maybe he knows how much this hurts to hear, maybe that’s why he’s doing this. “I trusted you, Cub.” The nickname stings when it’s said in that tone.

“Don’t be angry,” Hoseok’s voice picks up, “It was our fault. We were playing truth or dare.” His mum rounds on him, suddenly fierce. “What did you do, Hoseok?” You didn’t expect such force from such a tiny woman.

“Nothing,” his voice is quiet, “We were just playing close to the forest, and-”

“The forest?” Hoseok’s mother snaps, “You went to the forest?”

Hoseok shakes his head quickly. “No! We were just near there.”

“You know you shouldn’t get close to the forest,” she says.

“But, Mum,” Hoseok’s voice is whining, “Our garden’s so close to it. Don’t you want us to go outside at all?”

“Maybe, if you aren’t responsible,” his mum goes on.

You’re glad when a nurse appears, telling you the doctor’s free to see you.

***

The car journey back from the hospital is silent, alone with your dad. Streetlights roll past the window, passing you into light, and out of it again.

“Please,” your dad says at last, “Just tell me what was going through your mind to make you do that?”

You look over to his profile. You can see a small triangle of stubble on his chin, where he’s missed while shaving. A pang of guilt sweeps through you.

“I said I was sorry.”

“I know. And I’m not asking for an apology. I’m asking why you did it.”

You don’t have an answer.

“I just-” Your dad sighs, “I got scared tonight, you know. When Hoseok’s mum called me, telling me you were hurt, my heart stopped. For one terrible moment, I thought I was going to lose you, baby Cub.”

Maybe if you start crying he’ll see how bad you feel, and stop doing this. But you feel empty, dry of any tears. You're too exhausted.

“Promise me,” he says, hands tapping the steering wheel for emphasis, “Promise me you’ll be more careful. I don’t want to have to be strict with you, but if you’re going to put yourself in stupid situations, I have no choice.”

“No…” you can’t fill your voice with the anger you want.

“I’m sorry. But, from now on, until you can show you’ve matured, you’re under house arrest.”

This is the first time you’ve been grounded. “That’s not fair,” you bluster, hating how childish you sound.

“Sorry, Cub. It’s only for a little while. Until you show me you can be responsible.”

You twist your neck to stare out the window, huffing.

“Cub…” you dad’s tone is soothing. You won’t accept it.

“Don’t call me Cub,” you mutter, “You know I hate it.”

When the car finally pulls into your drive, you thunder upstairs and throw yourself into your bed, burrowing under the duvet where your dad can’t hear your frustrated scream.

***

[One Week Later - November 2010]

By the time that you get back to school after the Halloween holidays, you’re a class celebrity, with a large bruise on your forehead as your claim to fame. Everybody wants to get a good look at the damage. Jimin has been circulating the story of what happened, but it seems to have contorted out of his control since it left his lips. Now you’re being asked if the car threw you far when it hit you, and how long you were in a coma for.

You can’t say you mind all the attention you’re getting.

At break time, you manage to get a seat alone with Taehyung, in the corner of the playground, by the flower bed, planted by the primary fives, as part of their biology assignment. Its the first time you've seen him since Halloween.

“Are you okay?” This is the first question Taehyung asks when you sit down beside him, extending a packet of skittles to you.

You pick out a small handful, all reds and purples, and speak as you chew, “Yeah. I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

“Oh, good. Good.” Taehyung’s face shows the opposite of good. “I was worried,” he admits, “I haven’t seen you since the accident.”

“Sorry about that,” you mumble.

“You’re… not mad at me, are you?”

“No,” your denials bubble up at once, and get clogged in your throat. “It’s just- my dad grounded me. So I can’t come out to play with you.”

“Oh.” Taehyung’s response is soft, “That’s good. I mean, about not being mad. Not about being grounded.”

You nod, quiet. You knew what he meant.

Something feels different here. Maybe it’s the silent guilt from Taehyung, having crashed your head into the curb. Or maybe it’s-

“What actually happened that night?” Taehyung asks what you’ve been wondering.

You hesitate. “I- I’m not sure.” You run your mind over the events that led to you crashing off the bike. It all feels hazy, clouded over in a fog of adrenaline. “I think,” you say at last, “That there must have been something that scared us in the forest - like a squirrel or something. And we were both so on edge already, we were ready to be scared by anything.” This answer feels right. You give a nod when you finish speaking, proud for working it out.

Taehyung isn’t convinced. “It was bigger than a squirrel…”

“A fox then,” you say, “I don’t know. It was dark.”

“There’s definitely something out there,” Taehyung says, not accepting your explanation.

“Something?” you wrinkle your nose, “Like a monster?”

Taehyung’s face is grave.

“You don’t really believe that, right?” you ask. After almost getting hit by a car that night, you don’t want to believe in monsters anymore. The real world is scary enough, without unknown forces, beyond your understanding.

“How else do you explain what was in there?” he asks, “It was more than just what I saw… it was a- a feeling. Like something strangling my heart.”

You remember that feeling too. “That’s just fear, Taehyung,” you soothe, reaching across to find his hand, and giving it a squeeze - because it feels like the right thing to do. “Nothing more.”

He stares off to the fence circling the playground.

“It’s just a game,” you remind him, “You said so yourself.”

He’s silent.

“Just a game,” you lean closer to him, and in a low singsong voice, you hum, “I got you. I got you. The big bad monster got you.”

This breaks a smile on Taehyung’s face. He finishes for you, “Now I’ve got you, I’ll eat you, ‘cos that’s what monsters do. I’ll roast you and toast you and throw you in a stew.”

You both laugh as he trails off, heads falling towards each other. You come to rest at his shoulder, finding space in the crook of his neck. He goes on humming. His tune circles around you, and your smile slips away again. You get the sense that your imagined monster is slinking closer to reality, bleeding into the real world. You’ll fight it back. At eleven years old, you shouldn’t believe in these things anymore - and you certainly shouldn’t go out hunting for them. Some things are best left in the dark of the forest.

Taehyung’s song keeps on, pulsing through you, where you rest your head close to his throat: “I got you. I got you.”

I got you.

I got you.

[To Be Continued]

author’s note: thank you so so much for reading! :’) I hope you enjoyed this, and are excited for the next part! It feels good to be writing again. Please let me know what you thought of the story so far! 💖

[gavetawrtes]

okay i am literally in the process of leaving my job rn, college only starts in February and i want some plots so pls check out the plots here under the read more and if anything sparks your interest pls like this so i can message you or just message me !

mumu

something based on friends ?? a tiny thing where we get 3 characters each and they can be heavily based on the friends character or just a little bit ? then we can have like relationships between them . friendships ? old flings ? siblings ? different dynamics for each of them and threads with more than one at the same time. they always go to the same coffee shop together or they are always in each others apartment. a has a thing for b but b is oblivious and b has always been bffs with c and so on. honestly it can be so much fun and so pure ? pls i deserve nice things

oKay but like wizards in a wizarding school ? ? i would say hogwarts but that world is a mess right now so we could make our own lil world? where like we decide the subjects and the kind of magic and all that. it could have aspects from any magical world we want like idk hogwarts house or like different types of magics ( physical, natural, Illusion, healing, psychic ) from the tv show the magicians. and honestly whatever else we want ? we can throw our lil characters into it and populate this little world with tiny plots like ‘our houses are eternal rivals and i intend to crush you at this quidditch game but also pls go to the winter formal with me bc you are the prettiest person in school ?’ & ‘my family has been historically amazing at physical magic but i’m really bad at this. you seem amazing pls teach me so people will stop making fun of me’ & ‘i didn’t know magic existed and now i do and this is all new to me how is the frog talking and why are you not scared at any of this ? ? ‘ && ‘whhy do you think it’s cute to be the skater punk version of magical world and fly standing up in your broom ? you could seriously get hurt ? and see there you got hurt. what do you mean ?  help you with healer magic ? no i don’t want you to get expelled but we should call a teacher !’ and honestly whatever else you can think of 

okay but like a group of high school friends and their older selves ?? ?  ?? ??  like we could set all the high school threads in the 80s ?? ? ? ?? ? and have different personalities ? and then we also have threads like in 2018 years later when they see each other again in the high school reunion ? just ? pls? the high school sweethearts who signed the divorce papers three years ago and we are doing both the thread in which they fell in love and the one where they see each other again for the first time after the divorce. the high school rebel who became the local sheriff and the girl he loved who used to be the biggest nerd who had a thing over their last summer. we are doing both their wild adventures and them seeing each other again for the first time bc she moved back with her parents. the two best friends who remained best friends for all those years and they are seeing all of those people again and it’s just like ‘oh man glad this didn’t Help to us’ and we can have them as teens bickering and making fun of their teacher and them years later at the bar like ‘i miss having adventures like we used to’ there are so many possibilities ? for like people who grew disillusioned with their lives ? or people who got really successful . ? people who stopped talking altogether ? people who remained friends forever ?? ? plspls it could be so nice

Okay but a group of old immortals/wizards/witches ? something a long the lines of the originals but they are not all siblings or the hogwarts funders but there is no school involved. like they have known each other for centuries and they have been friendly-ish. they probably got a hand in many important world changing events in history and like maybe they have to come together and stop the apocalypse every 500 years or one of them call them all up and it’s like ‘hey guys so skarsgård is going all ruler of the world again and i can’t stop him alone bc he is more powerful than me so could you pls? help me?‘ ? ? ? ? there are so many possibilities. we could play with different types of characters like ( one wizard who spent the last 100 years in a hole on the ground and he is just done with humanity while there is another one traveling around and trying to write a beautiful book about humans and life but it lowkey sounds like a fake deep tweet ) or like hundred years old relationships where they go ‘making me jealous in 1954 didn’t work why do you think it’s gonna work now?’ or smth like ‘baby we have been together for 3 centuries and you still make me blush’ OR OR  we could get more into plot like half of them go ‘i’m done with saving humans every hundred years. maybe skarsgård is right and we Should rule the world’ while the other half goes ‘what ? no humans are amazing? our job is to save them ’ and just those super mega powerful wizards fighting each other ? pls we could go in whatever direction you want just pls let me play incredibly powerful wizards

the PTA group ?? i love playing older characters but also like there are so many possibilities and it could be legit funny and full fluff and angst like ? we have those two married characters who are a perfect couple but maybe they are not that perfect ? the single parent who is just really Trying but is always late ? the divorced couple who is only participating bc the other is and they wanna show how much Better of a parent they are ? the teacher who loves to do all of this and is honestly worried about everyone drama ? the teacher who Had to sign up for this bc it was given to them as a punishment after they didn’t something and they are just standing there like ‘why are all of you so extra? just go home. you know this is optional now?’ everyone getting involved in each other’s business ?? ? everyone being lowkey friends ?? ? dR a Ma also all the supportive parents going to the kids games and the kids just being super happy

a greek god mumus ??  maybe we pick two ships and develop them like ( idk hera & zeus and hades & persophone ) or we just pick around the characters we wanna play. and we can have like all of them stuck in the real world, stuck in a human body. zeus wanting to fly to be an eagle to go somewhere but being stuck to earth. being the biggest asshole in the face of this earth but also not being able to let hera go? ? not knowing how to function properly when she is not around. and maybe idk maybe in this life hera doesn’t stick around. maybe in this life the only reason why they are still legally together is because he didn’t sign divorce papers, maybe she is done with him and done with trying when he clearly doesn’t give a fuck. maybe in this life she is a wedding planner and when people ask her to plan their marriages she gives them advice on knowing when to be forgiving and when to stick up for yourself. hades is the leader of a biker gang but he is mostly really quiet and chill and he has three pit bulls who just hang around him and do nothing of true harm ?? and the only person you can actually be terrified of is his wife ? ? bc even tho logic dictates otherwise it seems like she sets fire on the concrete she walks through and makes plants grow when she passes by and it baffles every existing human ?? and hades being ‘listen man i would forgive your betrayal but my wife i mean, she kinda asked me for your head and i can’t say no….’ chris evans a poseydon, poseydon as a surfer dude ??  as a guy who works/owns an aquarium and understands the animal there in a way that doesn’t make sense to anyone else ?? who has the biggest pools for the animals to swim around, even if it makes looking at them harder for whoever is vising, bc all those animals have been raised in captivate and they wouldn’t survive in the ocean but he doesn’t want them to feel stuck ? he wouldn’t know what he would if he couldn’t swim around  in the ocean and he just wants them to feel free even if he can’t free them. ?? there are so many ways in which things can go ? i mean honestly i’ll shower in headcanons pls gimme.

this is the last one i promise but a plot with a bunch of criminals maybe ex-navy/army who work together. maybe based on the losers ?? where you got like the leader of the group who makes dubious decisions when there are woman involved and the stoic explosions specialist who knows the leader so well that the moment the leader flinchs he goes like ‘imma take over now. okay? okay.’ maybe you got the gun slinging asshole who makes inappropriate jokes and the person who is just Too Qualified to be around this sea of idiots. maybe they were all framed for the same crime and they have to live in the shadows hiding in a city in the middle of nowhere pretending they are normal civilians. maybe they were all trying to save someone and it backfired and they wanna go back to their lives but how  ? ? idk there are so many possibilities just pls.

1x1

muse a is hopeless romantic that may or may not be more in love with the idea of love itself than he has ever be with anyone. he quits relationships as soon as they get a tiny bit complicated but he is always talking about ~~~~ soulmates ~~~~. muse b the girl who is way too generous and helps everyone out of the kindness of her heart but expects way too much from everyone. she is always falling in love with people and breaking her own heart by thinking they care more about her than they really do. — now close your eyes and imagine. .. . there is so much potential for angst and fluff ?? ? like he prepares overly dramatic moment in front of everyone and like serenades her ? paints her as his muse and puts it up in galareis ? but also one fight and he talks about breaking up bc that is not true love ? while she is there just interested in the tiny things ? in the days at home with him alone and the way they make each other laugh ? she is such a simple girl and they make each other so happy and he just Can’t see it ? ? ? pls 

muse a is the overly responsible single father/mother had to take care of themselves and his son/daughter ever since they can remember. they Cannot Relax because they must do 110% percent at all times for his kid. muse b is the mother/father of three who laughs way too easily and embarrasses his/her kids dancing in public and cracking bad jokes but they are so bad with time and like doing the Simplest things… — now just .. .. just picture. ..  the two of them meet at a school thing and become friends like maybe everyone talks about the two hottest dads in school getting together maybe they are talking shit about Sharon who doesn’t tell her son no and they bond bc ofc they do. .. and it’s totally like pfffftt pfffffffffff we are just friends .. . expect ‘i knew you would forget your kid’s lunch bc i know you so i packed one for your kid too’ and ‘yeah i know you have a kid but i have a babysitter and we are going out bc you are not Allowed to stay inside another Saturday’ and ‘ofc i’ll go with to the game’ and ‘yes we would love to spend the holidays with your family’ and ‘we are just two bros chilling on a hot tub 5 feet apart bc we are not together. the fact that i wanna kiss you doesn’t change anything.’

characters i would love to play in any plot

okay, so here is the thing, i have two characters. they are super wealthy brothers. one is your local asshole i’m too cool for feelings. he is in his 30s and he goes around partying and making bad decisions and he made himself a successful businessman on his own just to spite his family bc they said he couldn’t do it. 99,99% of his decisions are made either based on anger or just so to feel good. the other one is your local golden boy. he is everything his family ever wanted him to be, and he was a child prodigy type who graduated college super young and has never acted like a child. he is his early 20s. 99,99% of his decisions are made based on what he thinks people want him to do and he just wants to please everybody if you would let me play them in literally any plot  ( preferably like some tiny mumu, i have two characters, you have two characters type of thing ) i’ll literally give the sun !! or cookies !! or anything really omg !! they also have a younger sister so maybe you could play her? ? or you could play some character who is dating the younger brother is starts to fall in love with the older and drama~~ or it could be some two character that you would like to play? like any two characters you wanna develop and we figure out a plot? pls? thanks

[marvelousbirthdays]

Happy Birthday, that-wimpy-cowboy-doll!

July 21 - Shieldshock, something fluffy and/or smutty. If there’s a way to incorporate the prompt “fireflies” I would really appreciate it. For @that-wimpy-cowboy-doll

Written by @backwardsandinhighheels

Steve had always had trouble sleeping. When he was younger, it had been the asthma, then the war. Now, he figured he’d spent long enough asleep. Most nights were spent in the gym or running around the Avengers Complex in upstate New York, hoping to exhaust himself into resting.

This time, after his workout, Steve went to rehydrate and found the small fridge of sports drinks empty of his favourite flavour. It was restocked every morning; from a quick glance at the time, he had several hours to go before that. Mentally shrugging, he took the stairs to the common area.

Somewhat surprisingly, the room wasn’t dark and deserted when he got there. The couches were bathed in a soft blue light from the wall-sized screen Tony had installed. Frowning, he tried to remember if there had been a movie night he’d missed, but the room was empty. On closer inspection, he spotted someone underneath about four blankets, their face in shadow. Figuring them to be asleep, he went to turn the movie off and was halted by an irritated female voice.

“Touch that remote at your peril, mister.”

He withdrew his hand quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t realise you were still watching.”

“Of course I’m still watching.” A hand emerged from under the blanket pile to pat the couch beside her. “Sit down and stop looming.”

“Let me grab a drink first. You want anything?”

The hand indicated a mug in front of them. “Nah, I’m good.”

He took two bottles of sports drink from the fridge, draining one immediately, and carried the other to sit on the couch.

“You want a blanket?” she asked, tugging at one of hers.

“Sure.”

She dragged some excess blanket off the floor and flicked it over partway over him. Grabbing the hem, he pulled it the rest of the way and leaned back to regard the screen. “Thanks. What are we watching?”

“The Princess and the Frog - have you seen it before?”

“Should I?”

“Yeah, but I'm not surprised you haven't, it’s totally underrated. It’s in the classic 2D Disney style, but only came out a few years ago so it turns some of the usual tropes on their head.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well for starters, it’s the Prince who is the useless one who needs to be rescued. Look at him!”

“Tiana does look like she knows what she’s doing,” he agreed.

“Oh, absolutely. But she’s got some stuff to learn too, and ooh, I love this song!”

They watched in companionable silence, Steve tapping his fingers to the infectious rhythm of the music. “Do you normally watch movies at this time?” Steve asked as the credits rolled.

“I’ve always been a night owl, but working with Jane has done wonders for divorcing me from any semblance of a normal sleep schedule. Now I sleep when I can and watch movies when I can’t.”

Jane. The only Jane he could think of was Dr Foster, which would make his movie companion - “it’s Miss Lewis, isn’t it?”

“You sound like my old teachers - most people call me Darcy - but yeah, and you’re Captain America.”

Steve groaned. “I suppose I deserve that. How about I call you Darcy, and you call me Steve?”

A snort of laughter from her direction. “Okay, you've got a deal, but it does seems almost, like, sacrilegious. I studied you in school, you know.” She nodded towards the TV. “You’re like a real life Sleeping Beauty.”

“Wrong fairy tale, but I get the gist.”

Though he couldn’t see her clearly, he would swear her eyes narrowed. “You have seen Sleeping Beauty, right?” Her hand retreated inside the blanket to retrieve a phone, the light from the screen illuminating her face for the first time. “Oh, it only came out in 1959.”

“Would you recommend it?”

“It's not a bad movie, but the music isn't as good at this.” The last part of her sentence was overcome by a massive yawn.

“How about you show me sometime?” he suggested, fighting the urge to yawn himself.

The phone screen flickered on again as she pulled up her calendar. “Hmmm. Same time tomorrow?”

Steve smiled. “Looking forward to it.”

They fell into a routine over the next few months, though it was an informal sort of thing when they were both available. Sometimes he'd be out of the country on an assignment, sometimes she'd be at a conference with Jane, but more often than not, they'd spend a few hours together watching a movie.

After that first night, they stopped planning them in advance. If either one of them was late, the other only hung around for a while and Steve found himself cutting his late night trainings short to make sure he would catch her. The conversations after the movies began to grow longer and longer, until one or both of them would fall asleep on the couch.

Of course, one of those international sporting events started, and Rhodey monopolised the big screen to watch games at odd times of the day. Steve entered the common room one night to find a bemused Darcy hovering by the door.

“Hey Darce, what’s up?”

“Oh, you’re here! I was gonna put the first Star Wars on but -” she gestured helplessly at the oblivious Rhodey. “Shall we go and use one of the screen in the conference rooms?”

“How about something different?” Steve suggested. “It’s pretty warm outside, you want go for a walk? There’s some place I’ve been meaning to show you.”

Darcy shrugged. “Sure, let me grab a hoodie.”

Together, they left the facility, quickly leaving the manicured lawns behind. Her shoulder brushed his as she pointed out astrological phenomena Jane had studied. With his better night vision, Steve had to keep steadying Darcy as she stumbled in the dark. Of course, her focus on the night sky didn’t help her balance one bit.

“Where are we going?” she asked after a while.

“Not much further,” he promised. “I think. It should be just about here. Look around.”

He could tell the moment her eyes adjusted, because she let out a soft gasp. “Oh look, fireflies!” Darcy spun, eyes wide. “They’re everywhere! How did you find them?”

“Late night running, and I come here to draw sometimes, during the day. Somewhere to be alone and think.”

She faced him, frowning. “And you brought me here? Don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful and I love it, but this is your place. Why would you share that with me?”

“If I told you that you were my Evangeline, would that make it any better?”

Darcy's eyes went wide, then welled with tears. “Of course it would! That changes everything.” With a decisive nod, she pulled him forward to kiss him.

[life-in-a-labrynth]

I was listening to a podcast this morning (Armchair Expert, can’t remember the guest’s name), and she was talking about infidelity. Her point was this:

In the past, people would get married once and stay together for life. You were part of a family. In modern times, for better or for worse, people prefer to have a slew of partners before settling down and meeting “the one”.

When we find “the one”, they’re supposed to be our end-all and be-all. The culmination of all those other relationships. Perfection. And when that person betrays us by cheating, often times, that’s the end of the relationship. They violated something sacred.

“You were supposed to be my love. How could you go into the arms of someone else?”

Let’s be clear, infidelity is an awful thing. But it wouldn’t necessarily break up relationships in the past (at least not to the extent it would now). In the past, you would stay together, and the idea of divorcing over infidelity... well, it just wouldn’t happen. Not until, as she says, laws in the 70s allowed women more freedom to divorce their husbands. I don’t know the veracity or details of this, but I believe her.

In any case, love has transformed in recent generations. I think we have higher standards. I think it’s wise to have a lot of relationships when you’re young so you can really refine what you’re looking for. Sadly, a biproduct of this is that you can give up on someone great... like Rachel Reichman... well, maybe that’s a whole other can of worms.

So the story you tell yourself is that each relationship is basically a progression. “You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince”. And at the end of your story, your struggle, your plot, call it what you will, you find the love of your life, and want to spend the rest of your days together in monogamy and security.

So when one partner violates this story, the other is aghast. It’s not only a violation of marriage or relationship vows, it’s a violation of their story.

Bah. It sounded better in my head. But I think there’s some truth there. People process their lives by looking at them like stories. I’ve heard this from various intellectuals... it’s hard to qualify. Can we really say this is the case? That’s something I’ll have to look into. I never questioned it much, because it made so much sense to me.

So, where does this bring me? No one cheated on me. But this is about Dawn, and me feeling like she betrayed me by loving me so intensely in the beginning, then leaving me over trivial reasons. My narrative, that I told myself so many times, is that I finally found the one. It took me so many years and so much heart break, but this was the end. I finally found her. I can be safe and secure and loved at last. I can have good company and someone to proclaim my love to.

And it was Dawn. Someone so wonderful and perfect in every way. From big things, like intelligence, philosophical discussions, romantic sensibilities, being gorgeous, down to little things, like loving video games and the same movies.

So suffice to say, when she left, I was in shambles. I kept crying and saying, “she was supposed to be the one”. She was part of my story. I had such high expectations. I think the larger point is that there’s incredible ego involved with this. Not in the sense that I think I’m better than someone... more that, I’m the center of the universe, and so if this very important piece of my story was taken away from me, it’s a devastating betrayal.

Argh. I know it sounds immature. “You can’t always get what you want”. That’s minimizing it. I wouldn’t be like this if finding romance and security wasn’t literally the most important thing in my life.

Ohhhhh... this is bad. You’re going to find someone. You’re going to get married. You’re going to get bored. Your gaze will turn elsewhere.

But doesn’t that just mean that “I haven’t found the one?”

No such thing. The story you’re telling yourself is fiction. That’s why you need to be happy alone. You want to just give in and say “well that’s just not how I am, it’s a flaw I will admit to, but I’m helpless to fight against it.”

sigh. So many thoughts. But I’ll say that I’ve never met someone I thought was the love of my life and had plans to marry them, only to get bored. I have gotten bored in past relationships... but not in relationships where I legit felt in love with the person. so THAT gives me hope. Only reason I got bored in some relationships is because I was never in love to begin with.

Certainly long term relationships will lose their luster, and they will get boring. That’s a truism. But there must be a different between a thing losing its luster, i.e. you taking it for granted maybe, and getting so bored that you begin to resent the person and you just want to be alone, because being alone and lonely is more comfortable than being lonely around someone. I can be myself when I’m alone and lonely.

Arrrgghhhh this is all very bleak.

I’m losing my site. I keep trying to circle back to the point where I need to tell myself... it’s just a story. My goals for romance are just a story. That doesn’t mean it’s important...

But it IS important. It’s important to me to find love and security. Just because I process life like a story doesn’t make it any less significant.

I don’t know. sigh. Okay, fine. That’s granted. But the point is, maybe Dawn isn’t part of my story. Maybe that’s okay. You can move beyond “letting go of Dawn” and head into “Dawn is not part of my story.” I feel like that’s a little easier. Somehow, the former means giving up. The latter seems like conceding, but admitting that just because she isn’t the end of my romantic struggles and lonely search, doesn’t mean someone else won’t be.

[alphacrone]

OMGCP Heartbreak Fest Reveal!

title: anything for one more hour of light TW: major character death; vague mentions of bus crash, violent/traumatic deaths, and afterlife; ambiguous ending pairing: zimbits

On AO3 Here

Bittle was laughing just before the bus crashed.

Ransom and Holster were in the aisle, wrestling, just moments before. Lardo was perched on Shitty's lap, rolling her eye at their antics. Nursey and Dex were arguing, more playful than malicious, Chowder hanging over his seat to chirp them both. And Jack-

Jack watched it all fondly, heart feeling light despite the loss they were leaving behind. These were his friends and, in this moment, he wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.

Bittle turned to him then, eyes bright in the neon lights of the highway at dusk, and Jack's heart skipped a beat. Bittle was laughing, warm and joyful and lovely, when somebody screamed and everything went dark.

Jack woke up at the Haus with no memory of how he got there.

Though he came to slowly and groggily, the moment he remembered the crash Jack leapt from his bed, stumbling out into the hall. Without a second thought, he burst into Bittle's room, heart pounding wildly.

Bittle was asleep on top of his covers, wearing the same sweatpants and t-shirt he'd had on before-

"Jack?"

Bittle rubbed at his eyes, sitting up slowly. Jack hurried to crouch next to him, eyes raking down Bittle's body, looking for any sign of injury.

"Did we crash?" Bittle asked, voice hoarse.

"I think so," Jack said, brushing Bittle's hair away from his forehead. There was a faint scar there he'd never noticed before,  but no visible injuries. Bittle' cheeks grew pink and Jack pulled his hand away quickly. "I don't really remember what happened after, though."

"Me neither," Bittle said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "Is everyone okay?"

"I don't know," Jack admitted. "Let's go check." He held out his hand and Bittle took it, letting Jack hoist him to his feet. Jack was reluctant to let go, but he did, leading Bittle into the hallway and down the stairs.

To Jack's immense relief, Shitty, Lardo, Ransom, and Holster were all seated at the kitchen table, staring intently at Ransom's phone.

"Oh, heavens to Betsy, I'm glad y'all're alright," Bittle said with a sigh. "I was so worried."

Lardo hopped up to wrap her arms around Bittle's chest, hugging him tightly.

"You two slept so long," Shitty said, standing to do the same to Jack. "We were afraid something might be wrong."

Jack squeezed Shitty tightly. "The frogs-?"

"Haven't heard from 'em," Holster said, gesturing to Ransom's phone. "None of our phones are working."

Bittle pulled away from Lardo, brow knitted together anxiously. "I'm sure they're okay."

"You two don't remember anything after the crash, do you?" Ransom asked, tearing his eyes away from the phone screen.

"No," Jack said. "I was hoping one of you might."

"This isn't standard procedure," Lardo said quietly. "For injured players or potential concussions. They wouldn't just drop us off in our beds."

"Maybe that's what happens when your team manager gets knocked out," Holster said, half joking. "No one's there to enforce procedure."

Shitty chuckled weakly, but Lardo's frown deepened. "Something's off," she said quietly, more to herself than to any of them.

"The weather sure is nasty out there," Bittle said, peering out the kitchen window. "So dark and gray."

"Still not used to real winter, eh, Bittle?" Jack chirped. But when he looked outside, Jack had to agree: the sky was unnaturally dark and gloomy, even for early spring.

"Hello?" Someone called from the entryway. "Anybody here?"

Bittle was out the door and throwing himself at Chowder before Jack could even turn. When the rest of them filed after him, Bittle was hugging Chowder tightly, rambling incoherently.

"Yeah, we're okay, too, Bits," Nursey chirped. "No need to worry about us."

Bittle made an indignant noise and threw his arms around Nursey and Dex, squeezing them with as much might as he could muster.

"Someone left you guys flowers!" Chowder told the rest of them. "I checked the tag but it wasn't addressed to anyone."

"It's probably for Bitty," Ransom teased. "From one of his many admirers."

Jack frowned. He hadn't known Bittle was being courted-

"Oh, shush," Bittle reprimanded. "Stop makin' fun of me, I could be concussed again for all you know."

"Not making fun of you, Bits," Holster said with a grin. "We happen to know several eligible bachelors who think you're a- Ransom, what's the exact phrase?"

"Stud muffin? Sex god? BILF? That's 'Bitty I'd Like to-'"

"I was gonna say cutie-patootie, but I think I like BILF better."

Bittle's face turned a fantastic shade of red and he shook his head. "They're probably from one of Jack's fangirls."

"Nuh-uh," Shitty said. "If it was, the tag would be addressed to the Most Glorious Ass in North America."

"Who cares about flowers?" Lardo snapped, hands on her hips. "Why did we wake up in our beds? Why don't our phones work? What happened to the rest of the team?"

The room fell silent. Finally, Jack couldn't take the uncertainty anymore, so he said, “Alright, let's just head to Faber and talk to the coaches. There has to be a logical explanation for this. Maybe something

happened to the closest cell tower. Maybe the flowers are from one of Bittle’s boyfriends-”

“Hey!” Bittle squawked.

“-but we won't know anything if we just sit around here.”

“Aye aye, captain,” Shitty chirped, gripping both of Lardo’s shoulders and squeezing until she relaxed.

They filed out of the Haus, into the oddly dark morning. Jack took up the rear, only a little happy when Bittle hung back to walk with him. He resisted the urge to take Bittle’s hand, despite the anxiety in Bittle’s eyes.

“Are you feeling okay?” Jack asked as they walked, keeping his hands shoved firmly in his pockets. Ahead, Ransom was giving Holster shit for not changing out of his bathrobe before going out in public. Behind them, Lardo just shrugged at Shitty, who wore raggedy sweatpants and nothing else.

“Yeah,” Bittle said after a moment. “I mean, I feel okay. But...things just seem off, don't they? I mean, did you see the number of flowers on our door? It's weird.”

Jack nudged Bittle with his elbow. “It's weird how many admirers you have?”

Bittle rolled his eyes, holding back a smile. “ Stop, oh my gosh, let me live, Jack Zimmermann.”

They bickered across campus, though Jack was unnerved by how few students he saw. It was a Saturday morning, but they'd seen only a couple souls at a distance, and one girl who passed them on the bridge without looking up from her notes.

They ran into no one from the team as they walked, and Jack didn't even bother pulling out his phone. They would get to the rink, talk to the coaches or use their landline or something .

When they approached, Bittle stopped dead outside Faber, eyes wide and face deathly pale.

There, on the western wall, a memorial had been erected. Bouquets of flowers were piled around the candles and pucks and the dozens of photographs that had been left there. Jack’s blood ran cold when he saw his own face among the frames. The others were there as well and...and no one else. Just the nine of them, the nine who'd woken in their own beds with no memory of the aftermath of the crash.

This was their memorial. They were-

“Dead,” Bittle whispered, shaking violently. Jack wrapped an arm around his shoulder, pulling him in close. “Jack...I think we’re dead.”

“Oh,” Lardo whispered from Jack’s other side. “That...that explains…”

They all stood there in silence for a long, tense moment.

“Is this some weird joke?” Holster asked loudly. “Are we being punk’d?”

“It's not funny,” Chowder said, wrapping his arms around himself. “This isn't funny-”

“I don't think anyone’s laughing, C,” Nursey said softly. “I think this is legit.”

“I can't be dead!” Dex shouted, hands gripping at his hair. “I haven't paid off my student loans!”

“I think that's a moot point, Poindexter,” Lardo said sharply.

“Well...fuck,” Holster said, shoulders deflating like an old balloon. Ransom leaned against him, eyes wide and panicked.

No one else spoke as they stood there, staring. They didn’t move for a long time,

They gathered in the kitchen after they returned to the Haus, everyone clutching at someone else.

“I can't believe we’re dead,” Chowder whispered. “Cait- she must be-”

“Dead,” Nursey repeated. “Just...dead?”

“So you've finally figured it out.”

They all turned, startled to see two girls standing -- no, floating -- in the doorway. They both wore odd clothes, like things Jack remembered from his early childhood. They were both very pretty and wearing quite a bit of makeup and were so young...

“The sorority ghosts,” Holster said, mouth agape.

“You have to be shitting me,” Ransom hissed. “Ghosts aren't real!”

“Um.” Lardo gestured to everyone in the room. “Rans. Buddy.”

“Go towards the light,” the blonde one said.

“Excuse me?” Bitty asked.

“The light,” the brunette said. “When it comes to you, go towards it. If you don't, you'll be stuck here like us.”

“We’re not sure it'll ever come for us again,” the blonde added sadly, leaning against her friend. “Take the chance when you have it.”

“Where does it lead?” Ransom asked tentatively.

Both girls shrugged. “But it has to be better than living in a frat house for eternity,” the brunette said. “Right?”

No one dared answer, and eventually the girls left them alone in their silence.

Their parents came to the Haus in a flood. The Birkholtzes and the Oluransis -- who'd never met in person before -- spent hours in the attic, crying and telling stories about their boys. Ms. Dupre (Shitty’s mother had retaken her maiden name after the divorce) came by alone and quietly packed up Shitty’s things, not seeming to notice the weed stash or condom wrappers. She didn't speak to anyone, and left quickly, as if she could feel Shitty’s presence there.

The Bittles were all smiles, forced and polite, until they were shut up in Bitty’s room. Then Suzanne crumpled to the ground, and Coach couldn't do anything but stare at Señor Bun, perched on the beside table. They said nothing to each other as they worked, not even looking up from their hands. 

Bittle cried the entire time his parents were there, and long after they left, face pressed into Jack’s arm.

And then the Zimmermanns arrived. Jack stood in his room and watched as his parents wiped at tears and touched his stupid books like they were him .

Jack couldn't bear to see his parents cry. He was right there! Why couldn't they see him? Why couldn't they sense him?

Screaming in frustration, Jack snatched the coffee mug from his desk and chucked it at the wall. It flew across the room and shattered; his mother screamed, and his father nearly fell over in shock.

“That mug…” his mother whispered, grasping at his father’s shirt. “Honey...Jack?”

“I'm here!” Jack shouted, trying to grab her by the shoulders. His hands slipped through her, though, of course they did. She shuddered, lifting a hand to ghost over the places he'd been.

“Sweetheart, are you there?” She asked, voice small, broken.

“Alicia,” Bob murmured. “It was just a cup.”

“Right,” his mother whispered. “Of course.”

They packed Jack’s belongings in silence, though every few seconds Alicia’s eyes would dart to the broken mug on the ground.

Neither of them cleaned the shards before they left, and Jack sat next to them for a long, long time after.

“Chowder tried to talk to Farmer this afternoon,” Bittle said as he joined Jack out on the reading room. “It didn't work, obviously, but he did learn that they're holding a memorial service for us tomorrow.”

“No one else died in the crash, right?” Jack asked, leaning back against the roof shingles. “Just us?”

“Yeah,” Bittle said softly. “Nursey’s been pretty torn up about it. Dex, of all people, is with him right now. Chowder told me he needed to be alone, especially after seeing his parents, but I think he's gone to try and communicate with Caitlin again.”

Jack thought back to the mug shards on his bedroom floor and could relate with Chowder's plight.

“Ransom and Holster are in the attic doing Lord knows what. I think Lardo is grilling those sorority girls for answers, specifics and, well...Shitty goes where she goes.”

“You're good at keeping track of people,” Jack said, wishing he could feel heat coming from Bittle’s body as he sat close. But they grew colder the longer they were ghosts; Bittle hadn't blushed once today, despite Jack’s teases. “You should've been a manager. Or captain.”

“Right,” Bittle scoffed. “Like I'd be a good captain. The captain who couldn't take a check.”

“It's not about skill,” Jack said firmly. “It's about heart. You try your damndest at every practice, every game. You've come so far. You love this team and these guys. I'd vote for you.”

Bittle looked up at him sadly. “Thanks, Jack. Guess it doesn't really matter, though. Never gonna happen anyway.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Maybe it was something about this weird, limbo world they were in, or maybe it was because he'd never really looked until now, but the stars were so beautiful here, far more visible than when in the city proper.

“I’ll never play in the NHL,” Jack eventually said, voice soft. “After everything…I guess I’ve been living on borrowed time, anyway…I guess I was never meant to be anything more than this.”

“More than what?” Bitty asked, a bit petulantly. “More than a successful NCAA captain? More than a big, strong, handsome son who made his parents proud? Who excelled at the sport his father loved?”

“Bittle,” Jack said softly. “Your parents were proud of you.”

“No they weren’t,” Bitty murmured. “They loved me, but they weren’t proud of me.”

“Bittle-”

“Jack,” Bittle said sharply. “You were so much in life. You worked so hard, you accomplished so much. Be proud of yourself. Just for a moment.”

“I am,” Jack mumbled. “And you should be proud of yourself, too,” he added petulantly.

They fell into silence again. The stars seemed brighter, bigger, closer.

“I’ll never have to come out to them,” Bitty said eventually, voice trembling and watery. Jack didn't have to ask whom he meant. “Even if they find my vlog, at least I never had a boyfriend to disappoint them with.”

“Bittle,” Jack started, but he didn't know what else to say.

“I’ll never kiss anyone,” Bitty said, staring down at his lap, his voice cracked and small. “God, I died a closeted virgin. How sad it that?”

“It's not,” Jack murmured. They'd drawn closer to each other, faces only inches apart.

“Will you...will you kiss me?” Bitty asked, eyes rimmed red and puffy. “Please, I don’t want to leave without ever being kissed.”

And, well, Jack couldn't say no to that.

He leaned over slowly, watching as Bittle’s eyes grew wide, then fluttered closed. They’d never really been this close before, close enough that Jack could count the faint freckles on Bittle’s nose. He pressed their lips together chastely, for a brief moment, and pulled back as something clicked in his mind.

They surged together again like waves on a stormy sea, crashing until they mingled together like salt and foam. Bittle wrapped himself around Jack, and Jack could feel the ways in which they were no longer living: no warmth under Bittle’s skin, no heartbeat fluttering against his chest. But Jack savored this moment, this last moment together, and pretended he could smell the vanilla and cinnamon on Bittle’s clothes, could taste the sugared fruit on his tongue. They were nothing but winter air and memories, but Jack held on tight and forced regret from his mind.

“You fool,” Bittle whispered as Jack kissed down the column of his throat. “We could’ve- could’ve had time .”

“I know,” Jack murmured, bringing a hand to Bittle’s face. “But we have now. This.”

“I think I’m in love with you,” Bittle said sadly. Jack kissed him again tenderly.

“Thank you,” was all he could think to say in response. Bittle nodded, half-smiling, and Jack hoped he understood.

The stars above grew brighter and brighter until the dawn came. He and Bittle were there to greet the sunrise Jack knew would be their last.

They stood towards the front of the crowd at Faber for the memorial service. For once, the larger guys didn't have to worry about blocking someone’s view.

The rest of the team sat in the few rows of chairs before the standing crowd. Ollie wore a neck brace and Wicks had a cast on his arm. A few of the other guys sported obvious injuries, and the few missing ones Jack suspected were still in the hospital.

Next to the team sat the families and a few friends. Farmer, March, and April sat in a huddle, the older two stroking Farmer’s hair as she held back tears. Only Coach Hall stood at the podium, and Jack wondered vaguely where Murray could be. Had he been injured? Was he with the injured boys? Did he blame himself for the freak accident?

Coach Hall cleared his throat and said a few words, wavering and thick. He quickly departed the podium and, to everyone's surprise, John Johnson stepped up to take his place. After a moment, he began to speak.

"I didn't see this coming," Johnson said softly, shaking his head. "None of us could have predicted that these nine lives would be cut down so early, before any of them could fulfill their character arcs-"

His voice broke, and Jack stared in horror as John Johnson let out a small sob. He'd gotten along with Johnson, and John has really taken a shine to Bittle last year, but no one had been particularly close to him. Who knew he'd cared that much about any of them?

And that's when Jack knew it was all real. He was dead. He would never grow old. He would never play hockey again.

He would never wake up to Bittle's smile.

"They were too young," Johnson continued, wiping at his eyes. "I know this is a fan-derived universe-" Johnson paused, looking around at the crowd. "In another world, they will all grow older. They'll find themselves, graduate, start careers. They'll fall in love." Johnson looked straight at Jack, just for a second, then looked away. "But in this world, we can only hope they'll find some peace and strive to keep their memories alive.

"And if they're here, if they're still with us, I just want to say...I'm sorry." Johnson looked straight at them, gaze unwavering and sure. "I'm so, so sorry."

Someone in the audience wailed. Given the tears in Bittle's eyes, Jack wagered it was his mother. He wrapped an arm around Bittle's shoulder and kissed his head.

"Be at peace," Johnson said with finality, voice thick with tears. "Thank you for the stories you've left us, the memories."

As he finished speaking, a light shone through the windows of Faber, growing brighter and brighter and brighter-

“That’s it,” Ransom said softly, gripping Holster’s hand. “That’s the light.”

“It’s now or never,” Nursey said, his voice too calm to be real. “I think we have to follow it.”

“Where?” Dex asked, sounding small and young. Jack realized with a jolt that the frogs were all just 18, barely adults.

“Beyond,” Holster said with a shrug. “Eternity. Nothingness. Whatever you believe in, I guess, or...maybe nothing like what any of us believe.”

“So we just...go?” Chowder asked, face crumpled in anguish. Bitty reached out and took his hand.

“We’ll do this the way we  do anything else,” Lardo said sharply, taking Chowder’s other hand. “As a team .”

That sparked something in them all, linking hands until they stood in a long chain. Jack took a deep, shaky breath, holding Ransom’s hand on one side, Bitty’s on the other.

Noticing the anxiety, the fear on Bitty’s face, Jack nudged his arm and gave him a small smile. “Don’t be afraid, Bits,” he said softly. “I got your back.”

Bittle chuckled, soft and broken, and stood on his tiptoes to press a kiss to Jack’s lips. “I wish we could’ve had more time,” he whispered hoarsely. “I wish- I wish we-”

“I know,” Jack said, his heart breaking a little. “But we have now. We have this moment.”

“I wish I was alone, here,” Bitty said, shaking as the light in front of them grew brighter. “I wish I was the only one facing this, the only one who died. But I am so, so glad to have you all by my side.”

“Here, at the end of all things?” Holster asked, a goofy grin on his face.

“Shut up,” Ransom murmured, but he was smiling fondly. “You’re not allowed to quote movies when we’re about to cross over into God-knows-where.”

“We might as well get it over with,” Lardo said, though Jack could see her shaking as hard as any of them, face drawn and determined. “Whatever happens, just know I love you idiots a whole lot. A stupid amount.”

Shitty kissed her softly. Next to him, Nursey pressed his forehead to Dex’s, whispering something Jack couldn’t hear. Bitty leaned against Chowder’s arm, tucking his face against the bright teal of his Sharks sweatshirt for a moment to hide his tears. Chowder cried freely, his eyes not on the light but on Farmer, who sat with her arms wrapped around herself.

“Alright, team,” Jack said, squeezing Bitty’s hand tightly. “Let’s do this.”

Shitty laughed softly. “Aye-aye, Captain.”

Following Jack, the rest of them walked forward, towards the light. Jack turned, just moments before, and met Bitty’s gaze, piercing and sad and full of love, before everything turned white.

[i-may-have-a-point]

Japril Foreshadowing??

I don’t know if any of this makes sense, but I took a look at some possible examples of foreshadowing for Japril going back to season 10 through the present.  I really just needed to write this down for myself because when I am overanalyzing something, writing it down makes it clearer.  Anyway, here are some thoughts if you are bored and need something to read...

I know that most Japril fans are going crazy with the lack of any kind of resolution to their relationship after Japril the Sequel.  I, like most of you I’m sure, have been rewatching old episodes of Japril while I wait for them to admit they are sneaking off to on-call rooms again.  During my rewatches I was thinking about all the foreshadowing that we can see now that we know what comes after old episodes. So, I wanted to see if I could find any foreshadowing that will give us more of an idea of where they are headed. I mean, you guys really already know what I think because of my 13x16 review, but I’m sure most of you won’t mind if I talk about Japril just a bit more.  

In most seasons, we get a pretty good idea of where Japril’s storyline is headed for that season in the first few episodes.  For example, in 10x03, the episode where April gets her board results for the second time, we have awkward Japril with underlying hints that they still have feelings for each other.  And that pretty much explains all of season 10 for them, several awkward moments filled with sexual tension leading up to them admitting their love for each other.

In 11x01, April tries to convince Jackson to be Owen’s friend because Cristina just left and he is sad.  They have some cute, funny moments, but also a really telling moment when April asks Jackson, “What if it were me who had left?”  And of course, that is a summary of season 11.  We have cute, funny moments at the beginning of the pregnancy that turn into sadness, and like she foreshadowed, April leaves.  

But it was 12x02 that really caught my attention.  I think this episode parallels Japril’s story in season 12 closer than the previous seasons. At the beginning of the episode Jackson is pissed at April, just like he is for the beginning of the season.  We pretty much only see pissed off Jackson until he heals Kamal’s hands in 12x06 (and we got that hug!).  Jackson and April don’t communicate well in season 12 (shocking) but the “bubble” that April is in represents the barrier that is between them through the whole season.  She literally cannot get to him through the glass, so she has to wait for him to come to her.  Just like in the whole season, she tries to get to him, to talk to him, but she has to wait for him to come to her.  He finally does, but he tells her he doesn’t know if they are worth fighting for.  And we see that represented in the middle of the season.  He gives up on them.  He divorces her and walks away.  In the bubble, she tells him that she will fight for both of them because “I won’t break my promise to you.”  And we see the theme of broken promises come back in 12x11 (and JTS).  So, although Jackson didn’t say what she wanted him to when he came to see her in the bubble, we do see them at least begin to communicate. They are on completely different pages, but they are talking. This happens again in 12x07/12x11.  Sure they talk, but they still see things very differently.  We also see that their feelings for each other are still strong (and thank God because hot sex on the counter).  But we already knew that their feelings were still there, right? Because 12x02 already showed us that.  In 12x02 April openly admitted she still wanted to be married to Jackson, but the audience wasn’t so sure about Jackson.  Until that moment in the OR.  He is operating on a patient, the OR phone rings, and he is told that April may be in trouble.  One of the many great things about Japril is how well Jesse and Sarah communicate emotions with their eyes, and this was one of those scenes.  He has on a surgical mask and his scrub cap, so all we can see is his eyes, and we are still able to see that his heart breaks at the possibility that April is not okay.  And then he runs.  Literally runs to her.  So, when Jackson thinks April is hurt, he runs to her.  We see this again later in season 12.  In the finale, when Jackson knows April is not okay, he runs to the ambulance, just as he ran to her at the beginning of the season.  Jackson may have been angry with her, but when April truly needs him, his instinct is to be there.  

So, what does any of this have to do with season 13?  Besides the fact that we aren’t getting any Japril scenes, so we might as well watch old ones?  Well, I think that since early Japril scenes in many seasons often foreshadow how their story will go for the entire season, I decided to look at 13x02 to see what if there may be foreshadowing there as well.  (Insert rant about beautiful scenes of them with Harriet that were cut from 13x01 here.)  

Going into season 13, Japril really could have went several ways.  We got the adorable family scene in 12x24, but that doesn’t mean anything in Shondaland.  The first scene we get with them is when Alex brings Harriet in to the room and tells Jackson and April they can take her home.  April, of course, can’t go home because her incision has reopened.  This was an important decision on the part of the writers.  In real life, April would have had to spend extra time in the hospital, but I am surprised this actually happened on the show.  The first hint of Jackson’s feelings for April are in this scene. When she says, “Harriet’s going home, but I’m not,” Jackson is noticeably bothered.  And I don’t think that is because he is worried about taking care of a newborn alone.  His first thought is that April is upset to be separated from her daughter and he doesn’t know how to fix it.  

Then we see Jackson taking the baby home and April being a typical emotional new mom.  This scene is set up as comedy to contrast the Alex drama, but it is also pretty important for Japril.  We get to see their playful banter again, “birds and dogs?” which comes back later in 13x03 (April drops the diaper bag and runs to the ER) and 13x07 (Jackson teasing her about how “amazing” her date was).  I also like that we see Jackson still respecting April’s wishes for Harriet because he knows they are important to her.  The first thing he did was change her into that yellow frog onesie because April asked him to.  

And his instinctive concern for her comes out in this scene as well. “I’m not going anywhere when you’re this upset.”  Jackson has showed that this is true over and over again.  When April is upset, he is there for her.  He continues to show this when he calls to check on her.  They are divorced.  His daughter is home with him.  He has no reason to check on April - except that he wants to.  Because again, if April is upset, he is there.  “You’re still crying?”  But she pushes him away.  He made his decision.  He didn’t want to be with her, so she is trying to let him go and move on.  That’s what he wanted so she is giving it to him. And this foreshadows her trying to move on in 13x07 by going on a date.  She doesn’t want to go on a date, but she does it because she thinks she should be moving on.  Not that he is really about to let her.  

This scene also begins the pattern of Japril reminding each other that they are not married all season. “We’re not married.”  But they are really reminding themselves, because in their hearts, they still feel married.  

Jackson has obviously been thinking of how he could help her and what she needed when he went home.  “We’ll fly your mom out…I’ll get a baby nurse…” But like most of the season, she pushes him away.  “So I’m just supposed to let you cry then?”  He can’t handle her pushing him away when she is hurting.  He needs to help her.  And that is not a feeling that exes generally have for each other.  But they aren’t married, right?  And even with as little Japril as we have gotten this season, we have still seen this theme of Jackson needing to make sure April is okay in other episodes, particularly in 13x04 when he tells Ben that he gets up with Harriet every time April does to make sure she is okay because she is recovering from surgery.

I absolutely love whoever decided to have April sing to Harriet.  And maybe Harriet really needed her.  Maybe she couldn’t sleep.  Or maybe this was Jackson’s way of checking on April again and helping her be a part of Harriet’s first night home.  Either way, it’s a great scene.  And the lyrics of the song are perfect for Japril’s situation.  April has faith, strong faith, but she is going to continue to push him away because she has to “pick her heart up off the floor.”  The divorce really hurt her.  And it will take a “strong man” to change her mind.  The camera showed Jackson when she sang that line. I think that was intentional.   I think this scene is foreshadowing 13x04 when Jackson finally speaks up and tells April he doesn’t want her to move out.  Jackson rarely voices his feelings unless he gets to a breaking point, so for him to tell April that he wanted her to stay is significant.  He has to say something at this point or she will leave.  He has to be “strong” because she doesn’t think he wants her anymore.  In her eyes, this is all about Harriet, but in this moment, we see it isn’t.  

Yay for Richard Webber, right?  He always has the best words of wisdom.  So, when he tells Jackson, “Be persistent.  Kepner’s family,” Jackson really listens.  And he is persistent about taking care of her.   April says herself in 13x16, “And you haven’t stopped taking care of either of us ever since.”  I don’t think Jackson needed a reminder that April is his family, but it was a nice reminder to the audience that he sees her that way.  And we get to see them being a family in a couple moments later in the season, particularly at the end of 13x06, when they leave work and triple check Harriet’s car seat.  They are absolutely a family in that moment.

I think the scene that sets up their story for the rest of season 13 the most is the last scene of 13x02. Jackson did not have to ask April to stay with him.  The writers made it seem like there was no other option, but that is only because they wrote it that way.  They easily could have had her mom show up or a nurse come in to help, but they didn’t because if they are being true to Jackson’s character, he wouldn’t have been okay with those other situations.  As he has shown countless times before, if she needs him, he will be there.  He wants to take care of both of them.  He wants April in his life and in his home. Yes, they have things they need to work through in season 13, “I know that we need boundaries,” but they doesn’t change how they feel.  This is another rare moment when Jackson says what he is truly feeling.  “I think you and Harriet should come live with me.” So, I’m wondering if this last scene foreshadows the end of the season.  Hopefully Jackson says what he is feeling to April before the end of the season.   And hopefully him asking her to live with him at the end of 13x02 parallels them still living together at the end of the season.  If past seasons are any indication, I think this could be right. Or maybe I am way overanalyzing the show…guess we will find out soon enough?  Either way, thanks for reading another one of my ramblings.  

[yourhollywoodsong]

For the Girl who is Lonlier on Galentine’s Day than Valentine’s Day

I always dreamed of love. In the movie of my life that played out in my head, the greatest, most noble part was always the pursuit of true love. I remember having a dozen crushes by the time I started 2nd grade, every time a boy was nice to me or played with me. I dreamed of first kisses and magical prom nights. Every night I wished on the first star I saw for true love, for the boy I liked at the time to like me back. I wanted the fairytale. When I was 16, I got my wish. I fell promptly, terrifyingly, thrillingly in love with a kind boy who made me laugh and treated me like a princess. My boyfriend and I have been together for 3 years now, and I truly couldn’t be happier. Except that I could.

Not with my choice of a partner. He continuously proves himself to be the most supportive, loving, considerate person I’ve ever met, and my heart never fails to bubble up with happiness at the sight of him. However, in my great pursuit of a true love, I find myself without a friend to turn to at this happy point in my life. As a child, I was quite as enthralled by the idea of a group of best friends that I would keep forever as I was with the thought of a Prince Charming. And though today I have succeeded in my quest for romance, I find myself lacking in the department of bosom friends. It’s certainly not for a lack of trying. Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve attempted to make friends with any girl who smiled at me. Moving around from school to school growing up, however, did not leave me room to maintain a life-long best friend. It’s easy enough to find playmates in a few months of living somewhere, but hard to maintain deep and meaningful friendships. On those rare occasions when I did have the chance to build up those friendships however, I found myself disappointed. This, I cannot blame on a childhood spent on the move. I’ve long feared that it was my own lack of charm with other girls, my own social stumbles, or some other unnamed quality that made me unappealing to women in general. Consequently, I spent my formative teenage years attempting to be as friendly, affable, and likable as possible. I had stumbling blocks- over-eagerness and a hot temper to name a few- but I felt I succeeded overall in my pursuit of amicability. Indeed, for one brief shining period, I believed it had finally won me my heart’s desire. I found a group of 4 or 5 girls who were funny, flattering, and always wanted to hang out. We had the suburban high schoolers’ adventures; exploring woods and parking lots and malls, spending our little money on late night snacks and trips to the movies. We documented our camaraderie well, with snapchats and polaroids and shaky iPhone videos. We captured our little pack singing loudly in the car, shouting at the tv, goofing around target, playing with our frozen yogurt, all while giggling raucously and making up ridiculous inside jokes. In truth, it was a very funny and bright period in my life. Indeed, I doubt there was ever a stretch of time when I laughed more. However, like every bright summer, it ended. I made a misstep somewhere in the complicated dance of female friendship. I missed a sign or signal, a mistake that consequently led to that dreaded, quiet, terrible path of expulsion from that most sacred sisterhood. It comes in silent, slow degrees. Like the frog slowly dying in the steadily boiling water, I didn’t realize the danger until it was too late. There were veiled comments, secret group chats, trips I was mysteriously left out of. I was frozen in agonizing despair. Somehow, even in the distance that grew colder and wider every day, I couldn’t bring up my fears without being made to feel paranoid and narcissistic.

This was my first real foray into heartbreak. Never, in all my romantic childhood imaginings of being betrayed, widowed, or martyred, did I ever dream that my great devastating loss would come at the hands of a friend rather than a lover. My exile was as scarring as any breakup, without the benefit of a sympathetic group or person to comfort me in my heartbreak. This was the period when a bitter resolution entered my heart: I would no longer seek out that fabled group of loving girlfriends I was sure did not exist. I was as jaded to friendship as my thrice-divorced aunt is to marriage.

My resolve lasted longer than my skeptical parents and boyfriend expected. I entered college and proceeded as planned into my education without throwing myself at any girl who was friendly towards me. In fact, it was during this liberating year of self-seclusion that I discovered a great gift; I was comfortable being alone for the first time in my life. And I enjoyed this new found freedom for all it was worth. Indeed, it’s a gift I’m still thankful for in times when I spend days at home without reaching out to others. I discovered more about myself and my habits, and truly I am grateful for that time in my life. It made me realize that I am a stronger and more independent person than I had previously thought possible.

However, the thrill of my solitude wore off in time, and I began to feel the loneliness of my current state. My resolve to forgo friendships with other girls softened, and I decided it was time for a risk again. However, if I was going to plunge back into that depth of estrogen, I wouldn’t do it toe by toe. I would submerge myself in the deep end, and go from there. The summer of my sophomore year, I joined a sorority. It was not the magical meeting of soul sisters I may have envisioned, but it was the right choice for me. Once again I had girls that waved and smiled if we passed on campus, girls who invited me to the library or to lunch. I hadn’t realized how much those things had been missing from my life.

Today, I have a few female friends I am happy to accompany to the gym or invite to brunch. However, though I am at peace for the most part with my return to the world of girlfriends, I do still feel lonely from time to time. Today of all days reminds me of that loneliness. The Instagram posts of girl gangs and brunch squads serve as a reminder to me that, though I’m happy where I am, I’m still at a point where I cannot say I have a best friend. I have plenty to be grateful for; I have a family that loves me, a future that excites me, and a school that offers me opportunities. Come Valentine’s Day, I know I will receive a bouquet of flowers and spend an evening with the one I love. However, as much as I applaud the rise of Galentine’s Day and our culture’s progressing celebration of women, I also know I will spend today on the outside looking in. Maybe next year things will be different. Today though, I am a little sad, and that’s okay.