#me when i try and explain the complexity of it all to new friends who ask me about it curiously in a couple words without making myself seem | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

phoward89 · 3 months

Text

Masterlist

Stepcest, Stepson!Coryo x Stepmother!Reader, Sub!Coriolanus, Switch!Reader, Crassus Snow x Younger!Reader

WARNING ⚠️ Coriolanus Snow is a warning in and of itself. Crassus Snow is a cold hearted asshole, but he's a hot asshole... Stepcest, older man/younger woman, arranged marriage, cheating, affairs, secrets, cussing, secret love child, Coryo is a bit selfish and too ambitious, Crassus decides to try and be a better husband/father

Part 4:

Dinner has just been served, so you're gathered around the dining room table with Grandma'am and Coriolanus. Crassus isn't home yet, but you're not worried about his absence. He'll be home any minute. He always walks in around the time dinner's served.

In fact, you're expecting to hear the door open and your husband's footsteps echo against the marble floor at any second. Like you've been hearing every single night around this time since you moved into the Snow penthouse; became a part of the Snow family.

You’re picking at your food with disinterest while listening to Coriolanus brag about the praise he received from Dr. Gaul during his internship earlier in the day.

“Dr. Gaul wants me to help her conduct an experiment on a new test subject.” Coriolanus smiled proudly, icy eyes sparkling with excitement.

“Oh, I hope it's nothing too ghastly. Some of those science experiments can be atrocious.” Grandma’am says while cutting her chicken with such grace. Truly, her manners were from a time once forgotten- a time of gentleman and cavaliers. “Why, I remember when I was a girl our science teacher made us dissect frogs. Can you believe that?”

And suddenly the sound of the phone ringing fills the air.

Ring, ring, ring…

“I'll get it.” You announce, removing your napkin from your lap before standing up.

Coriolanus just nods before telling Grandma'am, “Oh, Dr. Gaul won't be having me dissecting frogs. Her experiments are more complex than that.”

Yea, the mad scientist will probably be having him dissect the latest drugged and numbed body of a district test subject turned mutt.

Ring, ring, ring...

You quickly make your way into the sitting room, which was closer to the dining room and had a phone in it.

Ring, ring, ring…

“Hello, Snow residence. Mrs. Snow speaking.” You answer in the polite way you've been instructed to take phone calls for the family. Yes, the Snows are an old and highly regarded family so answering the phone has to be a polite and professional affair.

“Y/N, it's me. Crassus.” Your husband says over the phone. Of course, the phone in the sitting room isn't a video phone, but a simple standard phone, so you can't see his facial expressions.

The video phones are in the living room and in your husband's study. Why, who knows. You really don't care either. Not like you talk to a lot of people on the phone anyways.

Sadly, the few friends you had drifted away from you once you married Crassus shortly after graduating the Academy. Apparently, your ‘friends’ didn't want to associate with you anymore because your husband's a middle-aged man; a cold-hearted war hero. Yes, you suppose that your husband intimidated your ‘friends’ just by his presence and that's why they all drifted away.

Sometimes your brother calls you to check in, but, sadly, he's too busy with his life as an Officer in 12. And your mother rarely calls. You don't know why, but for some reason you being married and a mother doesn't quite sit well with her despite the fact that she signed off on your arranged marriage contract.

Your brow furrows at hearing your husband on the phone. Shouldn't he be on his way home right now?

And as if he could read your thoughts, Crassus tells you, “I’m calling because I'm going to be late for dinner.”

Why?

As if he heard your mental musing, he explains, “I let my secretary leave early. It's his anniversary and he's taking his wife out for dinner.”

Of course, your husband lets his secretary leave early to celebrate his anniversary while you've never celebrated an anniversary let alone a birthday with Crassus. Hell, the only reason you celebrate holidays with your husband's because they're federal and all of the government buildings are closed for them.

“So, I'm afraid I'm not quite sure what time-” Crassus began to say, only to cut himself off mid sentence when he heard you sniffling over the phone.

Crassus couldn't help, but feel as if he's the reason you're sniffling. He doesn't know why, but it sends a pang to his cold heart. He's sitting at his desk, clutching his phone; listening to your sniffles turn into soft sobs and he has no idea how to deal with it. Crassus isn't a man that's a natural comforter; in fact he's naturally stern and aloof.

“Petal?” Crassus asks, the new pet name slipping from his tongue before his mind could think better of it. Before he could utter your name.

Petal? Since when does your husband use pet names with you? Are you hallucinating? Is your baby blues making you hear things? Wiping your tears, due to your rollercoaster emotions brought on by the baby blues, you compose yourself and tell Crassus, “I'll have your plate placed in the oven for you. You can reheat it whenever you get home.”

You didn't even give Crassus a chance to respond, just told him, “I'll see you whenever you get home. Bye.”, before hanging up on him.

Instead of returning to the dining room, you opted to spend some time with your son in his nursery. Since Cassian's sleeping, you decide to just sit in the corner rocking chair while watching him.

Cassian was such a precious baby. Over the last few days he's started to settle easier; sleep a bit longer. He's a good baby; doesn't cry too much- just when he's hungry or his diaper’s soiled. Little Cassian Xandros is also a very happy baby. Even tho he's barely a week old, you swear he smiles at you every time his icy eyes (Snow eyes) lands on you- his mom.

You're not sure how long you've been in the nursery for, but you know it's been a while because Coriolanus enters the room with a frown maring his prominent and flawless face.

“You never came back to the dining room after answering the phone, mommy.” Coryo tells you, closing the door behind him and striding over to you.

“I wasn't hungry.” Is your excuse. Well, it wasn't an excuse per say. You truly did lose your appetite considering you were picking at your plate before Crassus even called. You're blaming that on the baby blues since you're feeling a bit melancholy.

“You can't skip meals, Y/N. You're a nursing mother; you need all the strength you can get to properly feed our son.” He chastises while towering over you.

Sighing, you remind your lover, “As far as legality’s concerned, Coryo, Cassian's my son with Crassus; he's his father while you're the older brother.”

Coriolanus' handsome face contorts as his baritone echoes out darkly, “Don't throw that minor inconvenience into my face. Despite what legal papers say I'm the baby's father and as his father I want what's best for him, which includes you eating properly in order to nurse him.”

The University student's berating sounds harsh to you. Perhaps it's because of your baby blues or perhaps it's because he's making you feel like he's attacking your abilities as a mother. But whatever the reason, his lecture has tears springing to your eyes. Tears that you just can't control.

Coriolanus' face skews up in bafflement. He can't understand why you're breaking down in tears over nothing. He's just having a conversation with you. And he's noticed that this isn’t the first time you've been weepy and dismal for no good reason.

Yes, over the last few days while coming and going from the penthouse, Coriolanus has noticed that you've been a sniffling, melancholic mess. But he can't figure out why. You have him and the baby he decided to give you, you should be happy- no, not just happy, but grateful for those things; not boo-hooing when you think you're all alone.

Frankly, the golden- haired devil with a halo of curls is tired of your tears. They have no merit. At least not in his mind.

Taking long, quick steps over to the baby's crib, your lover picks up the newborn, causing him to wake up with a loud wail of a cry, and storms over to you. Literally shoving the baby into your arms, Coryo callously orders, “Stop your mindless weeping.” As you soothe your baby, you're hiccuping while tears still continue to stain your cheeks. “You have me, who loves you, and the baby I gave you; there's no reason for you to be so out of sorts, mommy.” The platinum blonde tells you, trying to get you to see how unwarranted your cries are.

But before you can even explain that it's not your fault, that according to Grandma'am you have the baby blues, Coryo sees himself out of the room with the excuse that he was homework to do to ensure he's still the top of his graduating class.

When Crassus gets home, his mother's up and waiting for him. “Crassus, I'm appalled and ashamed that you never came home for dinner.” Grandma'am chastised her only living son as soon as he set foot in the main room of the penthouse, briefcase loosely clutched in his large hand.

“Mother-” The cold and stoic man begins, only for his mother to cut him off with a firm and motherly, “Don't mother me, Crassus Xanthos Snow. Not when you come home 2-hours later then you should; missing dinner and quality time with your family.”, while rising from her seat and marching over to her son with as much speed as her old arthritis filled bones will let her.

“I called Y/N and told her I'd be late. Didn't she relay my message?” Crassus asks- using the question as his defense against being late.

“She received the call while we were gathered in the dining room for dinner; she never returned after your call.”

Great…him coming home late made you so sad that you couldn't even rejoin the family for dinner. Were you crying so badly that you couldn't control it; that you felt the need to eat perhaps after everyone else was done as a way to hide your sadness from them? Oh, hell, did he screw up not coming home for dinner?

Fuck!

He's a horrible husband.

A horrible, shitty, cold-hearted husband that doesn't know how to treat his wife, who’s 2-decades younger than him. But, despite being a cold, indifferent husband towards you he doesn't want you crying at the drop of a hat and being sad.

His first wife seemed so happy to be Mrs. Snow; she even seemed to smile a bit brighter when she shoved him out the door for work- and that was back when he was stationed in District 12 as the Commander and only came home to his Corso penthouse in the Capitol on furloughs. How is it that his late wife, Demeter, was never saddened by his absence while you are? You both married him at similar ages, both knew what was expected of you- being a proper socialite housewife of the respected heir of an esteemed founding Capitolite family, so what was the difference between you and her? Why is it that you're a mess, crying your eyes out, because he's emotionally cold and unavailable while his first wife wasn't bothered by it; didn't seem to mind his cold-hearted and stern ways?

Were you more emotional because you took after your father, Javani, more than your mother, Helenium? Were you more of an introverted, kind-hearted, sunshine and roses type then he originally thought? He remembers that Javani Halvir, his late best friend and your father, was very introverted and only opened up around those he was truly comfortable with, that he truly didn't have a mean bone in his body- hence why he got along so easily with just about everyone he crossed paths with, and that he always looked on the sunny side of life.

Oh shit…

If you truly have a personality like your father's then your marriage to Crassus is probably slowly killing you since he's not doing anything to make you feel comfortable. Maybe he should've looked harder to find you a suitable match with somebody younger and less jaded? But, truthfully, Crassus jumped the gun and married you in fear of General Byzantine (the former Commander of 2 that was on the rebels' side of the war before siding with his friend Strabo Plinth and joining the Capitol against the rest of the rebellion and ending the siege around Capitol City) using Strabo Plinth’s money to seduce your mother's soul into allowing him to have your hand in marriage. He knew that Javani would roll over in his grave and haunt him from Elysian if Crassus let Byzantine get his grubby, lecherous hands on you.

Giving her son a motherly whack on the arm, the type all mothers use for scolding, Grandma'am gives Crassus a much needed lecture on his skills as a husband. “Crassus, I draw the line at you missing dinner tonight. You're not a very caring or attentive husband to Y/N and maybe before my new grandbaby came I could turn a blind eye to it, but I can't do it anymore. You need to be more understanding and considerate of your wife's feelings, Crassus. She's a new mother to Cassian; her entire life is now devoted to raising the child that you gifted her, she deserves a husband that at least pretends to care about her and his newborn then one that blatantly doesn't.”

“Mother-” Crassus tried to dig himself out of the hole that was his mother's scolding, but was cut off by her snapping, “Crassus, I'm ashamed at how you're treating your wife. Being a new mother's very taxing on her; she needs your support, even if it's just faux support.”

“My first wife wasn't like Y/N; she didn't need my attention and support so badly.” Crassus points out as a weak way of defending his shitty actions as a husband.

“Demeter, bless her heart and rest her soul, was nothing like Y/N.” Grandma'am told her son. Not waiting from him to make a reply, the elderly woman explained her remark with, “She was a youthful, vapid, vain girl that viewed joining our family by marrying you as a way to get out from under her parents thumb. According to Pluribus, she batted her eyes and powdered her nose at you while plopping herself down at your table while at his old nightclub. She wanted a marriage, but was too insipid to truly want anything past the successful husband and the perfect family that includes a male heir to coddle and spoil."

Grandma'am grew to care for her first daughter-in-law after living with her for so long, since Crassus didn't take her on base with him, but she never saw her as having what it took to be a true Snow. She always thought the young lady was lacking something since she always seemed a bit dull, despite being a gentle-soul.

“And Y/N’s like her father, Javani.” Crassus stated what he'd only just realized a few minutes earlier.

Grandma'am patted her son on the cheek, a small smile gracing her lips. “It took you long enough to see it, my boy.”

Now, in Grandma'am's opinion you have what it takes to be a Snow. You're a lovely girl, very well rounded. But she's afraid that if her son doesn't support you during your baby blues then you'll turn into a former shell of yourself.

Grandma'am, unlike you, had the support of her husband during her boughs of the baby blues. Hopefully she can get her son to be benevolent towards you.

After Crassus placed his briefcase in his study, he went to your shared bedroom only to discover that you weren't there. He knew that the only other place you could be was the nursery. He made a mental note to go to the nursery to see you once he was finished showering and dressing in a pair of fine silk pajamas.

So, that's why when you're in the middle of singing your son to sleep with a pre-Panem song that you remember your father tucking you into bed with before the war: Cat’s in the Cradle, Crassus walks into the room.

Your husband quickly realizes that you're smiling at the baby cradled in your arms as you softly sing to him. That you seem genuinely happy. Crassus can't help, but to wonder if the only time you're happy and not sad is when you're spending time with Cassian.

“And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon. Little boy blue and the man in the moon.”, You softly sing, only to be interrupted by your husband's deep voice saying, “I think he's asleep and it's time for you to join me in bed, petal.”

Nodding, you stand while holding the baby close to your chest. The sight reminds your husband of a fierce lioness with her cubs. “Did you get your dinner from the oven?” You ask while bringing your baby over to his crib.

“No.” Crassus shakes his head. “I thought-” He began, only to be cut off by you flatly telling him, “You should eat before going to bed, Crassus.” Placing Cassian into his crib, you add in the rhetorical question of, “It wouldn't be good for the breadwinner of the house to get sick from malnutrition, now would it?”

Crassus assumes that you ate once Grandma'am and Coriolanus were done eating in the dining room, so he doesn't ask you to join him in the kitchen for his meal of leftovers. No, instead he just nods and tells you that he'll join you in bed once he's done eating.

And when he does join you in your shared bed, well, you're already fast asleep. So, he quietly joins you in bed- making sure not to disturb you. Like his mother said, you're a new mother whose world revolves around your son; you need as much rest as you can get.

But as he lays his platinum curls on his pillow, he realizes that you look peaceful in your sleep. He can't honestly say that he's even seen you look so content before.

And for some reason, unknown to him, he wanted to see that look of tranquility on your face during waking hours as well.

Leo Davis stepped off the elevator and went over to his desk. He was 15 minutes late, but he did have a very passionate night celebrating his anniversary with his wife last night. A celebration that started at dinner and ended in the bedroom of their modest apartment that they're paying too much rent for. And as soon as he sat down at his desk, the door to his boss's office flew open.

Oh no, was he in trouble for being late? Crassus was always in the office way before the official start time of 9 o’clock, so did he know that Leo just arrived? The secretary was scared to death of being fired for being late as he watched his boss emerge from his office. The imposing man, who was well over 6 feet tall, walked over to his employee’s desk with his coffee mug in hand.

Coming to a stop at Leo's desk, Crassus took a sip of his coffee and asked, “So, Leo, how was your anniversary with your wife last night?”

Leo Davis nearly choked on his own spit. Since when does the General Crassus Snow want to know about his personal life? The man was always shutting down all attempts at conversation that even remotely seemed to steer towards personal things, such as family. If it wasn't about work, a coffee, or a good order then Crassus didn't talk about it.

“Well, did you have a nice time?” Crassus asked as Leo just looked at him wide-eyed, like a deer caught in headlights.

“Oh, yes, yes, we had a nice time.” Leo nods, nearly tripping over his tongue as he answers his boss. Holy hell, he still doesn't believe what's happening. That his boss is asking him about the details of his anniversary.

Deciding to not look a gift horse in the mouth, the secretary smiles and tells his boss the details of his night. Well, the details that are safe for work that is.

“You should bring your wife to Palace Arms for your anniversary. You'll have to make a reservation and it's located in the Denver Palace Hotel, but it's worth it for a special occasion.” Leo advised his boss, just to be friendly. Perhaps being friendly will get him a lesser workload. Eh, wishful thinking never hurt anyone.

Nodding, Crassus simply says, “I'll keep that in mind.” He knows that since he didn't do anything with you to celebrate your last anniversary that the he'll have to make up for his lack of interest with the upcoming one. So, he truly means it when he says he'll keep the prospect of taking you to the Palace Arms for your next anniversary in mind.

Before seeing you crying in the corner of your shared bedroom, Crassus would never ask for marital advice- and from a lowly employee as well, but now all he wants is to make you happy. He wants you to stop crying so much; wants you to stop being sad. He also wants to know what to do to change things, so that's why Crassus straight up asks his secretary, “Leo, how do you make your wife happy?”

“What?” Leo asks, wide-eyed and taken aback. Did his boss really just ask him that?

“My wife's been sad lately and since you seem to be on good terms with your wife, I was wondering, how do you make your wife happy?” Crassus asks, explaining his previous question in length, before taking another sip of his coffee.

“Um, I suppose I make my wife happy just by doing the little things for her.” Leo answers while wishing he didn't accidentally leave his travel mug of coffee at home on the kitchen counter. He could really use some right now.

“What are the little things you do for her?” Crassus asks, clearly oblivious to what ‘the little things' means. The man was cold, stern, and indifferent by nature. He wasn't one to make gestures out of care of love. So, yes, he really has no idea what his secretary's talking about.

And that was the moment that Leo Davis knew he was doomed to be General Crassus Snow’s personal marriage counselor/advisor. Oh, how the stars seemed to play a cosmic joke on him, huh?

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smoochkooks · 6 months

Text

—chapter twenty: this hope is treacherous

this is a part of my an ode to a broken heart drabble series.

pairing: jeon jungkook/reader genre: unrequited love, best friends to (?), heavy angst, smut

word count: 2.4k words summary: it is not a sign of maturity, to cling to someone’s drunken words so much. but for a while, you did.

previous || next

Jungkook [Thursday, May 3rd, 05:32 pm]

How did it go? Soojin says everything’s fine between you

Want to grab bulgogi on Saturday? Same place as usual

Jungkook [Saturday, May 5th, 01:05 am]

Is everything alright? You haven’t been answering my texts

Jungkook [Saturday, may 5th, 03:45 pm]

Can I call you?

Two missed calls from: Jungkook

Jungkook [Wednesday, May 9th, 9:33 am]

Are you sick? Do you need something? I can drop by later today after work

I’m worried

Why are you not responding????

YN?

You [Wednesday, May 9th 06:15 pm]

Jungkook, sorry I have been MIA this past few days. I needed some time to think and I decided I want to keep some distance between us from now on.

Jungkook [Wednesday, May 9th 06:23 pm]

What are you talking about? I thought we were good.

Did Soojin say something to you?

You [Wednesday, May 9th 06:25 pm]

No, nothing happened. Soojin accepted my apology and she decided to move on, as I think we all should.

It was solely my decision and I need you to respect it

One missed call from: Jungkook

Jungkook [Wednesday, May 9th 06:26 pm]

You won’t even answer my calls?

Come on YN, this is ridiculous

Jungkook [Wednesday, May 9th 08:15 pm]

Fine. I’ll respect your decision. Can I at least talk to you in person about it?

Please

“You’ve been staring at your phone for the past ten minutes, babe. Jungkook’s not going jump out of it, you can calm down for a sec.” Dahyun says from her place on your couch.

It’s Wednesday and Wednesdays for Dahyun are reserved for self-care, which often means trying out new face mask recipes she saw on TikTok. And since, as she stated a long time ago, “You’re my bestest friend, ever, ___” you are obligated to take part in it as well. If you refuse to participate, you should gear up for the Cheong Dahyun’s wrath.

That’s why you’re currently soaking your feet in a mixture of soap, bathing oils and a secret ingredient Dahyun doesn’t want to disclose, with a hydrating sheet mask on your face.

You lock your phone and throw it to the other side of the couch. “I should probably just ignore him completely.”

Dahyun rips off her sheet mask in a way too dramatic manner and turns to look at you. “And let that she-devil win? Fuck, no!” she blurts out.

You snort. “She-devil?”

“I would call her the b-word but I’m trying to cut down on derogatory terms when referring to women, even those who deserve to be called that,” she explains, massaging her neck with the sheet mask’s oily residue. “Anyway, I think you should tell Jungkook the truth. She’s manipulating both you and him!”

“If a say a word to Jungkook, she’s going to write a post on her social media and not only expose me, but also accuse of having an affair with him.” you reason.

“Just tell Jungkook she’s threatening you. He’s going to see right-through her bullshit, leave her alone and be with you,” Dahyun shrugs like your predicament isn’t complex at all, and motions for you to take your feet out of the water. She tosses you a white towel and hands an opaque container. “Now put that onto your feet. Girls on TikTok are saying they will feel like heaven. And smell like lavender too!”

You scoop the cream onto your nail and sigh. “It’s not that easy. She is his wife and he loves her, of course he will take her side. He might not even believe me,” you say. Your eyebrows involuntarily rise, inhaling the cream’s scent. “It does smell like lavender.”

Dahyun makes ‘I told you so’ face before replying, “You’ve got twenty years of friendship on her.”

“And unrequited crush, and a whole book about it.” you point out.

“I forgot how complicated your life has become these days,” Dahyun says, shaking her head. “So what? You’re just going to give up? Ignore his messages, calls, don’t answer the door when he’s on the other side, hide in the bush when you’ll randomly see him on the street and only contact him once a year for his birthday?” she asks.

Initially, your plan was to wait a few weeks after your confrontation with Soojin and eventually things would get back to normal, slowly and steadily. You’re used to being on stand-by, after all. But that was before you actually met up with her to talk. Before she’s threatened to reveal your biggest secret to the whole world. Variété would never grant you another book deal after such scandal. You would be ruined for good and blacklisted by every single publishing company in this country. You can’t risk your career like that. Not now, not when you’re already working on your new book and this time you decided to release it under your real name.

You think about your parents. What would they think about their daughter? Surely they would feel disappointed. Lastly, you think about Jungkook. If you let Soojin get away with her threats, you might lose Jungkook for good. And that would slowly kill you.

“Okay, fine. I will try to talk to him about it.” you finally decide.

Dahyun claps her hands. “I knew it! Gosh, You’re down bad for this man, aren’t you?” she asks, grinning.

“Stop teasing me or I’m going to cancel our next self-care Wednesday.”

She gasps. “You wouldn’t. I have gua-sha massages planned for that day.”

“Try me!”

You [Wednesday, May 9th 11:08 pm]

Okay. We can talk in person

Jungkook [Wednesday, May 9th 11:09 pm]

I’m visiting Busan this weekend. Soojin has a business trip so I’ll be alone

Would you like to go with me?

You [Wednesday, May 9th 11:12 pm]

Busan is fine by me. I missed my parents

I will take the train though.

Jungkook [Wednesday, May 9th 11:13 pm]

See you there

“There she is! My lovely daughter!”

It’s the first thing you hear after getting off the train at the railway station in Busan. Your mum hugs you tight and plants a kiss on your cheek. “Your dad couldn’t leave work earlier today so I’m picking you up instead,” She puts her hands on your shoulders and eyes you carefully. The smile she was wearing just seconds ago leaves her face. “I can tell you haven’t been eating well! What have I told you? You need to eat or you won’t have any energy!”

There it is. The world could be on fire and your mom would still worry about you not eating enough. Twenty-something years have gone by, and she’s still relentlessly reminding you to do so.

You roll your eyes, as you always do. “What did you make for dinner, then?” you ask, opening the car’s trunk and putting your bag there.

Your mom’s mood instantly lights up. “Chicken soup and jajangmyeon, your favorite,” she answers and starts the engine. “By the way, Jungkookie is also at his parents’, he arrived yesterday. Why haven’t you come with him?”

“I had a meeting at the publishing company that I couldn’t postpone,” you lie. “I’m meeting him later today, though.”

“I can’t believe my daughter is going to be a published author so-hey, you idiot! Who gave you a driving license?!” she yells. The young driver raises his hand in apology and your mom huffs. “It’s always the young ones! Anyway, do you know that Jungkook never visits his parents with that wife of his? I’ve only seen her once, during their engagement party for the whole family. You know which one, they did a big barbecue in the backyard. She seemed nice then, but a bit too standoffish, don’t you think? She comes from money, right?”

“Yeah, her parents own a company in Seoul that distributes vegetables and fruits all over the country. They also export, I think.” you reply, staring at the busy streets of Busan. You would probably rather talk about sex with your mom than discuss Jungkook’s marriage life, but your mom is a busy-body and loves gossip too much to let that slide.

To say the last, Soojin’s father is a big name in the industry. Jungkook told you once that he had to attend a dinner with Soojin and her parents, hosted by the minister of agriculture. You remember how much Jungkook worried he might not fit in the family. Soojin grew up with a silver spoon in her mouth, attending private schools and going on vacations overseas. The summer after they officially had started dating, Jungkook worked two jobs so he could afford to go to Thailand with her. What was a standard for Soojin, was a hard-earned commodity for Jungkook.

Your mom whistles. “No wonder she doesn’t like coming here to Busan. Too posh for that, ha! And especially now, with two extra people in the house. Oh, ___, they are such cute babies! Everyone is head over heels for them.” she says, beaming.

You smile to yourself. Junghyun, Jungkook’s older brother, got married four years before him to his high school sweetheart and few months ago she got birth to twins. Knowing Jungkook, he’s probably spoiling them with presents every time he visits.

And speaking of the devil, you notice his car immediately as your mom pulls up to your driveway. With a heavy sigh, you brace yourself for what’s to come.

Four years ago, Junghyun’s wedding party

“So, my dear brother, when am I going to dance at your wedding?”

Junghyun was clearly drunk, his speech slurred as he wrapped his hands around Jungkook’s shoulders and gave him a loud kiss on the cheek. You giggled, positively buzzed yourself.

“I’m twenty-one and I just got back from the military. Let me live a little.” Jungkook grumbled and shoved his older brother away.

Really, it had been a little over two months now. His hair had grown into a nice length, the buzzcut long gone. He had gotten more buff, his dress shirt holding for dear life in some places. He’s matured, no longer a nineteen-year-old who had just finished high school but a grown adult.

Truth to be told, you missed him terribly.

Junghyun sat next to Jungkook, opened yet another soju bottle and poured a shot for each one of you. “To my beautiful wife Mina. I love you, honey!” he shouted and downed the alcohol. You could see Mina from across the room shaking her head with a soft smile playing on her lips. You grew up watching them fall for each other more and more with every passing day. If soulmates existed, Mina and Junghyun were definitely destined to be together.

“What about that birdie you’re dating now, huh? Sodam or something? Huh?” Junghyun asked, poking Jungkook in the ribs teasingly.

Jungkook’s already flushed cheeks, reddened ever more. “Her name’s Soojin and we are not dating. We went on one date,” he said sternly. “Besides, she’s out of my league. Her parents are super rich. Do you know she’s been to Paris this summer? She probably doesn’t know how cup noodles taste like!”

“She doesn’t know what she’s missing, then.” Junghyun shrugged his shoulders. He poured himself another shot of soju and looked at you, then at his younger brother, his face weirdly serious all of a sudden. “You know what I think?” he asked.

“I haven’t gained the ability to read your thoughts yet, hyung.”

Junghyun smacked Jungkook’s head. “Aish, who taught you to speak like that to your hyung?” You knew that, from the way Jungkook was biting his lips to refrain from laughing, that he wanted so badly to answer: “You did!”, but he decided to let Junghyun continue his drunken monologue. “I think that you and ___ will end up together one day.”

You tried to conceal your surprised expression with a chuckle. “Me and Jungkook? Please, I wouldn’t stand his ass.”

“Hey!”

Junghyun shook his head. “I’m serious. Best relationships, the ones that last years and years, are made out of friendship. Your partner should be your best friend! Look at our parents! Look at me and Mina! We’ve been friends throughout the whole middle school, tiptoeing around each other before one us decided to finally make a move. And now we’re married.” he said, his gaze longingly fixated on his wife. You dared to glance at Jungkook, thinking you’d find him amused by his brother’s drunken speech, but he was looking at Junghyun, not a hint of smile on his lips. “I think that it might take you a while to get there but eventually, I’ll dance at your wedding. And I’ll be really, really happy to do so.”

It is not a sign of maturity, to cling to someone’s drunken words so much. But for a while, you did. You replayed that moment over and over again in your head. You thought about Jungkook, his stoic expression while listening to his older brother. How he did not protest. How maybe, he could too imagine that happening. But then he went on another date with Soojin, and another. Started working extra hours to afford her lifestyle. Years gone by, and for some unknown reason, you still hold that memory close to your broken heart.

#jungkook smut #jungkook angst #btswritingcafe #networkbangtan #ksmutclub #bangtanarmynet #bts smut #jungkook x reader #jungkook x you #an ode to a broken heart

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violetrainbow412-blog · 1 year

Text

Wishes fulfilled [S. R.] birthday wishes pt. 2

Spencer Reid x fem!reader

word count: 7.7k

summary: After an unfortunate event, Spencer questions what he really feels about his childhood best friend.

contains: best friends to lovers, a little angst at the beginning, conflict over feelings, mostly fluff

A/N: A anon suggested there be a second part for birthday wishes and I thought, why not? You can read it as a standalone or as a continuation, tell me what you thought! this makes me very happy:)

The months passed and very soon the Christmas season arrived. There were some allusive decorations courtesy of García and she had even placed a small tree in the meeting room with symbolic gifts under it, one for each member of the team that they could open after Christmas Eve. It was a month full of warmth, love and delicious hot chocolate, but criminals in the United States didn't seem to adhere to that rule so the BAU continued with business as usual.

“She was Abigail Jones,” Garcia began, projecting an image on the conference room screen of a woman who must have been in her thirties. “She was found dead yesterday in her apartment in Las Vegas, in the area of Downtown, with multiple signs of violence, sexual abuse, and a completely disfigured face…” when she said this, she turned away from looking at the photo, with good reason, as it made even the strongest members feel nauseous.

There were two other victims, the same mobile phone and in scattered areas of the city. They were single women, who lived alone and although they didn’t seem to share traits in terms of their socioeconomic level, they were extremely similar physically and that is why Spencer's stomach turned when he realized how much they looked like you. A call to Hotch's phone interrupted the presentation and they all waited for the exchange to end, until after exchanging a few sentences the man spoke.

“It was the police chief. There is a new victim, they just found her in the Summerlin area, in an apartment complex on Pennwood Avenue.”

“At Pennwood?” Spencer asked, turning completely pale as she heard the area where the attack had taken place “Who is she?”

“They haven’t yet identified the body, but she has the same characteristics as the other women”

Everyone was shocked to see the doctor get up from the table and leave the room without giving any explanation, apparently to make a call from his phone. Aaron set the departure time of the jet and after that some members approached the young agent to try to find out what was happening. He seemed very worried, with the device pressed firmly against his ear and his gaze lost.

“What's wrong, Reid?”

“I'm calling Y/N,” he explained, feeling his breathing begin to quicken. “She lives in those apartments.”

The rest of the team seemed to understand, then, the concern that had overcome the man due to the information they had just received. They were also profilers and even with the little that they knew you, they knew that you fit perfectly into victimology, so it wasn’t difficult for them to connect both dots to realize what Spencer's fear was.

The first call had no answer, other than the answering machine, so he called again, again and again until panic took him in its clutches like prey.

“Dude, calm down.”

"She doesn’t answer!" Spencer practically sobbed, feeling like everything around him was spinning and a second later collapsing into Morgan's arms.

"What's going on?"

“Reid fears that the woman they just found is Y/N,” JJ explained to her boss. By this point the entire team was already gathered around the man, sharing the worry that was tormenting him and thinking about the possibilities of everything. The trip to Vegas was longer than usual trips, which didn't help in the least.

Spencer felt a chill when he tried to dial your number again and, just like before, he only heard your pre-recorded voice.

“Okay, listen,” Hotch said firmly, as he approached Spencer and grabbed his shoulders to get his attention. “I'm going to ask the officer to call me as soon as they identify the body, until then I need you to calm down. Do you know if Y/N has any particular signs with which they can tell us now if it is her?”

“Huh, she…” he stammered, struggling to put two coherent thoughts together to answer, “she has a… a mole on her belly, I think. It’s small and red.”

Under other circumstances the team would have mocked him, asking him how he had that knowledge or something along those lines, however, the situation was too delicate to allow for jokes.

“Okay, get your things so we can leave as soon as possible. And again, calm down,” Hotch said firmly, pointing at the agent. “It's not her, Reid. I know it"

Spencer tried to do what his boss had asked, but he kept dialing his cell phone every two minutes hoping to hear a response. He tried to calm down by telling himself that the chances of that body being yours were very low and trying to find in his mind some statistics that would corroborate this, but fear barely allowed him to understand the situation enough to know any information at that moment.

Obviously he was the first to arrive at the jet and he didn't stop trying to communicate with you, until he saw Aaron walk through the hallway with an expression he couldn't decipher.

"She…"

“No,” the man responded immediately. “The victim's name is Olivia Anderson. She’s not Y/N”

Hearing this he let out a breath of air and took a couple of steps until he reached the opposite one, to wrap him in a hug of complete relief. Hotch responded with warmth and a murmur of 'I told you so', which was interrupted by the arrival of the rest of the team.

Even though you still weren't answering the calls, Spencer was able to feel calmer during the flight, enough to analyze various aspects of the case that allowed him to offer valuable contributions for the future. When delegating the commissions, the unit chief was condescending to him and asked him to go to the last crime scene, so that with some luck you could meet and he could make sure that you were okay.

When they arrived in Nevada, the snow greeted them and Spencer adjusted his scarf tighter as he got into the car that Morgan would drive to the crime scene. The walk wasn't long and once there Derek motioned to his partner when the officer arrived to talk to both of them, as if he were permitting him to enter the building instead of staying. Spencer didn't hesitate to practically run inside to look for your apartment, and when he finally found the door with the number 17 he knocked frantically, but when he didn't receive a response he only became more frustrated.

Where the hell were you supposed to be?

He felt a vibration in his right pocket and almost dropped the device from his hand when he answered the call, without even looking at the identifier.

"Hello?"

“Reid, come back here,” Morgan spoke. “Y/N is with me.”

The agent didn't have to say it twice for Spencer to go down the stairs with the same speed he went up them, almost tripping on the way, and when he came out he looked for you in every direction. The snow and the tide of law enforcement personnel blocked the view a bit, but when his eyes finally met yours, you smiled and waved your hand to get his attention. Spencer ran, again, towards you, until he crashed into you in a hug. You were smaller than him and you fit perfectly against his body.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked in an angry voice, separating himself from you so he could look at you, but without letting go of your waist “I called you at least thirty times and you didn't answer, do you have any idea how worried I was?”

“I, huh… I left my phone at home and I'm just getting back from work, I had no idea what happened. Morgan already told me that there was a homicide.”

“Did you know her?”

“She's my neighbor,” you muttered sadly, looking toward the entrance of the building. “Oh, Crash, this is so horrible. She was… she was very good and kind to everyone. She didn't deserve this."

“I want you to go in there, pack some changes of clothes, and come back here, okay?”

"Why?"

“You will stay with me in the hotel until the case is over,” he ruled, with a tone that gave no room for opposition. “I need to work right now, but while you do what I asked of you.”

“But… I can't just leave my apartment like that, and what about my job?”

“I will talk to your boss and if he refuses, I will charge him with obstruction of justice or I will assign you an escort if necessary, but you are not going anywhere alone.”

You knew perfectly well that, although Spencer was a valuable member of the unit, he didn't have the power to do that, but because of the confidence in his voice you doubted for a second if he would be able to ask someone higher up in the bureau's hierarchy for that favor. You had rarely heard him speak like that, with a mixture of anger and concern, and he had never ordered you to do anything in your life. But he was doing it now, he was giving you specific instructions that wouldn't take no for an answer.

“Reid, we need you here” you heard Derek say from the other side.

"What's going on? Why do I have to leave here?”

“I'll explain everything to you later, okay? For now you go and get your things to call a taxi” he said, a little less agitated than he had spoken at first. Then he, in an unexpected act, gently kissed your forehead “Wrap yourself up, it's freezing out here.”

Although you had more questions, you knew that he was working and that you couldn't interrupt him just because, so you went to your apartment and grabbed a small suitcase to start packing clothes. Your phone was, as you expected, on the kitchen counter and you checked that he wasn't exaggerating with the number of calls he made to you.

When you left there was already a taxi waiting for you, so he just gave you the address of the hotel where the team was staying so you could get there. It was a picturesque place with lots of cheerful Christmas decorations, with a friendly guy as the receptionist. He already seemed to be aware of the agreement and after you checked in, he guided you to the room, where your friend would also be staying.

You didn't understand why it was necessary to keep you there and you hoped that he would call you at some point to clarify the situation, but he didn't. Since you had brought your laptop with you, you took the opportunity to continue working and it wasn't until a couple of hours later, you didn't even know how many, that someone knocked on the door. You didn't open it until you asked who it was and recognized your friend's voice, seeing him standing with his briefcase slung over his shoulder and a tired smile.

“Hello,” you sighed in relief, greeting him with a hug and then pulling him inside. You let him put down his belongings and sit on the bed, while you stood in front of him. “Do you want to explain to me what is happening and why I am here?”

“There is a murderer on the loose”

“That seems obvious.”

“There is a murderer on the loose who killed your neighbor, with characteristics surprisingly similar to yours, both physical and personal” he added and it took you a moment of silence to understand where the matter was going “I just didn't want you to be near there because he could come back"

“Do you think I'm in danger?”

“I don't know, but you're the kind of woman the unsub likes. I wasn't going to risk you”

You nodded your head softly, from your position of crossed arms.

“And what does your boss think about this?”

“He didn't know,” he confessed to you and you opened your eyes widely. “But I told him on the way here and he said to just try to stay out of trouble or Strauss would call him out on it. It's just that I... panicked, okay? When the police found Olivia's body they had not identified it and… I was afraid that it was you”

Suddenly all the calls and his face contorting into a grimace of relief when he saw you made sense to you, because at this point you hadn't even realized how much you and Liv shared. But Spencer had done it, that was his job after all.

“But I'm fine,” you said reassuringly, as you knelt in the space between his legs and met his gaze. “I’m safe, okay?”

“Did you see anything suspicious in the last few days? Anything that can help?”

“I don't think so, I spend all day at work” you lamented “I'm sorry.”

“Don't worry,” he reassured you, giving you a tired smile.

You knew your friend and you knew beforehand what stress did to his body, like those horrible migraines he had started to get or the dark circles under his eyes, and now his body language was screaming at you that something was still bothering him.

“You should sleep,” you suggested, reaching out with one of your hands to place it on his cheek. Spencer didn't complain, instead he closed his eyes and turned his head slightly so he could rub his skin against your outstretched palm.

It took you by surprise when, just a second later, he leaned down to grab your waist and help you get up from the floor. You were about to ask what he was doing when he maneuvered himself again until you were sitting on his lap, your legs dangling next to his and his arm wrapped tightly around your lower back.

“So we're cozy now, huh?” you scoffed, trying to mask with a smile the blush that had already spread across your face at the position the man had placed you in.

Spencer was a great lover of physical contact, contrary to what many might think, although this depended a lot on the person he was with. It had taken you months of effort to get a handshake and only as the years went by did, he begin to enjoy hugs with you. But after so much time you had gotten used to it and that's why the man became all clingy with you, after all it wasn't very common for you to see each other, which didn't bother you at all.

However, him holding you like that felt completely different than usual. You had only felt those butterflies in your stomach when, on his birthday, you had been so drunk and tired that you ended up sharing a bed. You had to admit that you liked him more than you should, waking up sheltered by his body, between a tangle of limbs and feeling the rise and fall of his calm breathing; and when the thought of having more nights like this crossed your mind you suppressed it immediately, feeling tremendously guilty about it.

But this wasn’t a product of alcohol or fatigue, but rather Spencer had done this of his own free will. His hair curled at the tips and you took the opportunity to gently brush some pieces off his forehead, while he watched you in complete silence.

“I don't know what I would do if something ever happened to you.”

His confession was barely a whisper that tickled your cheek, said with such sincerity that he took you by surprise. You couldn't measure the fear that had brewed in your best friend's chest that morning and that's why you couldn't understand his need to have you physically close, as he wanted to make sure you were there with him and not brutally murdered on a bed in the morgue.

A sigh of tenderness left you and you immediately pulled him close to you to hug him, feeling your hip fitting into the curve of his stomach and his face close to your neck, like he always did.

“Is that why you are like this? Baby, you don't have to worry about me. I already told you I'm fine."

“I know,” he murmured. “But I can't help it.”

“Well, you'll have to try it.”

“How do you want me to try something like that?” he exclaimed, separating from you so he could look into your eyes, and keeping the minimum distance between you two “I can't. I will always worry about you, you are my…” the words were cut off, because he didn't think there was a word that encapsulated well enough what you meant to him, but also because he was momentarily distracted by your lips; why was he getting distracted by them?

“Best friend in the whole world and sole owner of your heart?”

“Something like that,” he responded, laughing for the first time that night, and as he did so his face only moved closer to yours. He was strangely nervous about your presence and didn't know why, so he didn't help much when you leaned against his body so he could hold you better. Spencer just hoped your ear couldn't pick up the increase in his heartbeat.

“We should be able to stay like this forever,” you muttered absently, and although you didn't mean to be serious the words hit the man worse than they should.

For a moment he contemplated the possibility of actually staying with you forever and then he realized it wasn't an idea he disliked. From an early age every time Spencer thought about his future you were in it, but he hadn't thought about the role he wanted you to play. You had been friends for so long that he didn't believe there was anything more to your relationship, however, he was very wrong.

Was holding you like that awakening something in him that he didn't think was possible? Or was it the fear of losing you that made him realize that he would rather die than spend a life without you? No book or statistical study gave him an answer to what he was feeling and, to be honest, that terrified him.

He knew that you had tried to have a relationship with several men throughout your life, but none of them had managed to progress beyond a few months, due to one reason or another. However, Spencer wondered how long it would take for you to finally find love and if he could stand to see someone become your priority. It's not that he was jealous or possessive, just that he had been used to being someone important in your life for too long to accept the change from one moment to the next. He would always be happy if you were happy, but it made him sick to think that you would end up marrying someone completely unworthy of your affection and admiration; someone who didn't deserve the best woman of all. And as if it were an epiphany, Spencer realized that he wanted to be that man.

He needed it.

“We have to sleep,” he murmured, gently patting your back, because he was afraid that if you stayed like this any longer his mind would travel to some other inappropriate ideas. “Sleep on the bed, I'll sleep on the floor.”

“The bed is big enough”

“It doesn't matter, you use it,” he murmured. You had already stood up and were playing absentmindedly with the long sleeve of your blouse, without stopping to look at him.

"But…"

“I don't want to have this discussion today, okay?” the man had already taken some pillows and was spreading a sheet next to the bed. You, resigned, climbed up to the mattress and remained to kneel on it, watching your friend arrange his place.

“How many days will you stay here?”

"We don’t know yet. With some luck it will only be until tomorrow."

“You should visit your mom,” you murmured. Among so many emotions, Spencer had barely had time to think about Diana, at least until now that you had mentioned her, and he felt a pang of guilt. “It's almost Christmas, it would be a nice gift.”

“I think you're right,” he smiled. Things were ready and although he enjoyed talking to you now he felt extremely tired, so he just wanted to go to sleep. “Rest, okay? We’ll talk tomorrow"

“Good night,” you replied, smiling tenderly at him. An unexpected urge to lean in and steal a kiss grew in Spencer, which he tried to shake off of himself.

Without saying anything else he walked to turn off the light and then came back to lie down on the blanket, trying to sleep. When he was about to get it, he felt your arm fall over the side of the bed and your hand groping for any part of his body you could hold. In the end it was his hand that held yours and he couldn't see your blushing cheeks when he left a kiss on the back of it, nor his mischievous smile.

He knew when you had fallen asleep by the decrease in the strength of your grip, but although he tried to imitate you he couldn't do it. His mind continued to be tormented by the impulses that had invaded him that night, trying to find what reason was behind it, but also wondering how bad it would be to carry them out.

A little defeated, he got up from the floor, but not before carefully placing the hand that was holding you on your chest, and he went to see the landscape through the bedroom window. Snowflakes were falling and the lights of the casinos illuminated the view, reminding him that Las Vegas never slept, adding to these the colorful Christmas trees installed everywhere. In his family Christmas wasn’t celebrated conventionally, as it was just him and his mother having dinner ordered from a restaurant. There were gifts, they were almost always books or objects related to science, but he didn't make sense of the idea of warmth and love that revolved around the holiday. Until one time your family invited him to celebrate, he was finally able to understand that Christmas magic that everyone was talking about and from then on it was his reference for the celebration.

After staring at the window for a while he focused on the vision of you lying on the mattress, sleeping in that strange position that you always used to, and he asked himself how many years it was that he had been in love with you and how it was that he had never noticed it.

He let out a sigh that showed resignation, but also tremendous fear, and finally retraced his steps to pick up the blanket and pillows from the floor. He climbed onto the bed, knowing that he wouldn't be able to sleep otherwise, and he lay down next to you, trying not to make any movements that would disturb your calm. The last thing he saw before falling into morpheus’s arms was your peaceful face, and even when he slept his dreams were filled with your smile.

The unsub was successfully caught, just as he had predicted, the next day and that was when he could breathe easy again. You were no longer in danger, outside of the usual danger that a woman from the United States faces, so you could return to your normal life without any problems.

Once you were back at your apartment Spencer said goodbye, promising that he would see you again soon, and heeded your advice about visiting Diana. He asked Aaron if he could stay in Vegas, after all the Christmas holidays were right around the corner and he made the excuse that he could come back if a new case came up. When the boss granted his request he wasted no time and headed to Bennington Sanitarium while the rest of the team headed to Virginia on the jet.

When he arrived good news about his mother greeted him, all referring to the improvement she had with the new medication, and when the doctors' report was finished they took him to the room where she was. Diana was reading to another patient and Reid smiled lovingly at the sight, a smile that was reciprocated when his mother noticed his presence.

“My child, I didn’t expect your visit,” she murmured, while she received the man in her arms.

“There was a case here and I decided to stay with you for a few days, if that's okay with you.”

“Of course it's okay with me, do you think I wouldn't want to see you?” she smiled, patting his face and hearing him laugh.

Both of them moved to her bedroom where they shared stories that she hadn’t read in the letters or that deserved to be deepened now that they were together. Her mother talked to her about how she had been feeling, some workshops she had taught and new people who had joined and she had befriended. He was very happy to see Diana so happy and lively, contrary to other visits where the circumstances had been more unfortunate.

The talk was interrupted by a nurse bringing dinner to Diana and a portion of contraband for Spencer, who was extremely grateful. In the middle of the silence of dinner his mind returned to you and when he looked at his mother, he knew that if anyone could give him good advice it was her.

“Mom, can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course,” she replied, pushing her food aside so Spencer could sit on the bed with her “What is it?”

“Well, huh… I guess you remember my friend Y/N, right? My God, of course you remember her” he answered himself, knowing that he was always talking about you in his letters “The fact is that I… I have felt weird with her since my birthday.”

“Weird how?”

“I don't know, like… different,” he murmured, not knowing if that would be the right word for the nature of his feelings.

“You don't want to be her friend anymore?

“Quite the opposite, actually,” he murmured nervously. He considered it prudent to explain the situation that had arisen from the case and about your stay with him during these days, so that his mother could understand the fear that he had suffered, before continuing talking “And last night when I got to my room and she was there I felt… I don't know, I don't even know how to say it. I only felt enormous relief to see her well and I wanted her to always be well."

“Well, you grew up together. It's normal that you worry about her, you guys are almost like family”

“But I can't see her like that,” he interrupted her. He hated her comparison, because he knew what brotherly love was and it was definitely not how he felt about you “I think I'm in love with her. No, I know I'm in love with her. And I… I'm scared”

Diana's attentive eyes studied her son and Spencer didn’t know how to interpret her silence, until he felt his mother's hand placed on her knee and saw a smile appear on her face.

“Oh, my boy… Why are you afraid to love?”

“I am not afraid to love. I'm afraid of not being loved”

That was. Spencer wasn't afraid of having those feelings, but rather he was afraid that they wouldn't be reciprocated. If he confessed things to you, he risked having the greatest romance in his life or being cruelly rejected by the best friend he had ever had.

Diana cupped her son's face with both hands and gave him a compassionate smile.

“You are, for more years than you can think,” she exclaimed, with complete confidence, and the man frowned in confusion.

"How do you know?"

“A mother notices those things, son,” Diana laughed. “Even one like me.”

Would his mother be telling the truth? He wasn't the best at reading social cues and that was clear, so he didn't know the difference between friendly behavior and one that held another interest when it came to you, but he doubted for a second if Diana was the best person to interpret those signs. He didn't even entertain the possibility that you had feelings for him, I mean, you were so pretty and funny and cool and he… well, he was just him.

“Are you going to tell her?” she added, noticing that he had remained silent.

"I should?"

"Sure! If not now, when will you do it?”

"But I…"

“But nothing,” she interrupted him. “I want you to go find her and tell her.”

"Now?!" Spencer screamed, feeling his mother get up and push him to the exit. “But mom…”

“When will you be in Las Vegas again?” she pointed out “I'm not going to leave here, you can come back tomorrow.”

"But it's too late"

“So what, Spencer? “Do you think I don’t want to see you married before meeting the creator?” Diana insisted and the man opened his eyes widely in a mixture of surprise and amusement. “The sooner the better. Go tell her, come on. And it would be better if you come back tomorrow that she will accompany you.”

Spencer watched her from the hallway for a few seconds and at the woman's security he felt a certain emotion, letting fear be replaced by pure motivation for the first time. He nodded and took a couple of determined steps toward the exit, but then he stopped and turned to wrap his mother in a tight hug.

"Thanks, Mom. I love you”

“I love you more,” she smiled. “Now go.”

Spencer left there completely determined and took the first taxi he saw to take you to your apartment, with his heart beating like crazy all over his chest and his mind busy searching for the words with which he would profess his feelings for you.

Inside your apartment you let out a squeal when you heard the microwave announcing that your reheated food was ready and you rushed there to return as soon as possible to see David Tennant's hottie in a trench coat. You had to admit knowing Doctor Who, at first, had been against your will, but now it was an acquired taste that you quite enjoyed and accompanied you on your sleepless nights. After a few seconds you returned to the living room with your burrito in your hand and just when you were about to play the Christmas special when someone knocked on your door, startling you a little.

“Mrs. Jensen, is that you? I already told you that I haven't seen your cat around here” you half shouted, without opening the door, but there was no response “Hello?”

“It's me,” said a fairly familiar voice. You thought you were wrong so you opened the door just a little and through the chain lock you could see that, indeed, it was your friend.

"What are you doing here?" you asked, opening the door fully. “I thought you were going back to DC.”

“I changed my mind” he replied and until then you noticed that he was holding a bouquet of tulips decorated with a white bow, which he extended in your direction for you to take. That only added to your confusion.

“Wow, I… Thank you?”

“Can I come in?” He asked timidly and as soon as you scooted to the side he walked into the apartment, not looking at you.

"Everything's fine?"

"No. I mean, yeah…” he stammered, looking you up and down. You were wearing thermal pajamas with a Christmas print and you were without shoes, with a messy bun holding your hair. “Did you like them?”

"What?"

“The flowers,” he pointed out.

"Oh yeah. They are beautiful” you smiled, looking at them carefully. There was a good number of red tulips, some open and others were just a small bud. “What are they for?”

“I didn't want to arrive empty-handed,” he lied. “I got them at a flower shop near here, a very sweet old woman sold them to me.”

“Well, thank you, then,” you smiled and he responded in kind, but then he didn’t speak again. You were just observing him, not figuring out what was causing his strange behavior. “Do you want to sit down?”

The flowers ended up in a vase on the counter in the kitchen and when you returned he was already sitting on the couch, legs together and hands on his knees.

"And how are you?"

“Well, I was about to eat something while watching the Doctor Who Christmas special,” you told him. You expected him to start ranting about fun facts or the story or the actors or anything, but he just smiled at you understandingly and stayed silent. “Is your mom okay?”

“Yes, she is. I was having dinner with her a while ago, but... I thought I'd come here because I want to tell you something important."

Oh, you thought, there's the real reason for his nocturnal visit.

"Yeah? What is it about?" you asked, slightly worried about whatever he had to say.

Everything he had thought about in the car seemed to have been erased from his memory and now Spencer didn't even know where to start. He had only confessed these kinds of feelings to two people in his life and neither of those times had turned out well, so he didn't know what to expect.

“Okay, I'm going to tell you, but you have to promise me that you will take it in the best way, okay?” he asked and you nodded. "And this won't change anything between us if you... if you don't agree with what I'm going to tell you."

“Hey, you're scaring me,” you joked nervously, but when you didn't hear him laugh your fear became genuine. “Is something wrong? You know you can tell me anything.”

“It's not a bad thing. Well, not unless you want it to be.”

“Well, tell me then,” you encouraged him kindly, with a smile that provided him with the courage he needed.

You were so pretty and he just wanted to kiss you to death.

“We've known each other for practically our entire lives, right?” he began “I still remember the first time I talked to you. And I don't speak figuratively, but I really remember it, it's one of the things from my childhood that my brain didn't throw away. I had been watching you from the window because you went out to your yard to spread a blanket to play with dolls and cars and all kinds of things. Sometimes you jumped rope and other times you kicked the ball and all I could think about was how you could have so much fun being alone. I mean, I was just reading and studying things with my microscope and you know, nerdy things” he murmured, letting out a short laugh “Until one day you knocked on my window and asked me if I wanted to play with you.”

“My mom told me to do it,” you confessed, “Well, I suggested it, but she encouraged me to do it. It always made me sad to see you there and I thought you were just too shy to come over and play.”

“But no one had ever done that. Include me in some activity, I mean. Everyone made fun of me at school or called me weird, but not you, not even when I deserved it. It made me happy that a girl like that wanted to be with me and even though you had too much energy, somehow I could keep up with you. When we grew up I thought you would just get bored of me, but that wasn't the case and even when I was promoted in grade you stayed in contact with me. You were there when mom got worse and I had to send her to that sanatorium and yet your family treated me like I was your own family. You have always been there for me and you have made me feel less alone in the world, and I don't think I have ever thanked you for that.”

“Oh, Crash,” you smiled, a couple of tears gathering on your eyelids. “You don't need to do that. I have done everything because that is what friends are for.”

“But I don't want to be friends,” he said immediately and your expression changed to a worried one at that moment. The silence between you made you imagine the worst, but it was only because he was gathering the courage to continue “To me you are something else.”

Your face contorted into another grimace, but this time one of surprise and confusion.

"What do you me…?”

“I'm in love with you,” he spat. This time all his years of training were of no use as he tried to decipher your expression. “And it's okay if you don't feel the same way about me, I'm not asking that of you. I just want you to know that the day I got here for the case I... I was going crazy at the mere thought of someone hurting you. I didn't realize that you meant everything to me until that moment and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. That night I just wanted to hold you and keep you safe for the rest of our lives and although I don't have much experience, I think that's what love feels like. I have always loved you, only now it is a different love. And I'll understand if you don't feel the same way about me and I just misinterpreted things, but please, if that's the case, just let me stay your friend because I don't think I can handle messing things up. I don't ask you for anything more than that, that whatever you feel, things don't become uncomfortable just because of what I just told you."

There were a few seconds of silence and then he finally dared to look at you. You were stunned, with your gaze lost and your lips parted. Years of friendship passed before the man's eyes, who interpreted your lack of conversation as a rejection of his feelings, and he felt his heart break a little. From the beginning he was aware that this possibility existed, but now that it had materialized, he realized that perhaps he wasn’t ready.

But then your eyes met his and he felt your hand reach out to his, which was already shaking slightly.

“Your hands are cold,” you observed, sliding a little on the couch so you could take both of his limbs. Spencer followed your movements carefully and could see how you brought both hands to your lips to place a kiss on his knuckles.

“Is that all you have to say?”

“I actually have too much to say, I just don't know how,” you confessed.

“You don't have to lie to avoid hurting me. I already told you, it's okay if you don't feel the same."

“Spencer Reid,” you said sternly, thus forcing him to look at you. “Stop saying that.”

“So it's not like that?”

“Of course not, why would you think so?” You mumbled, really waiting for a response that never came. You watched him carefully, trying to memorize all his features, while you reflected on how much he had changed in front of your eyes and how he was still the same scared little boy from the window.

“Because… I don't know, there has never been someone who loves me the way I am.”

“Oh, Spencer,” you murmured condescendingly, “I've loved you since you were an ugly kid with glasses who couldn't stop talking about science, what other proof do you need?”

He definitely wasn't expecting that answer and that's why he started laughing; not like a soft laugh, but a loud, euphoric laugh.

“Why do you call me ugly kid?”

“You were!” You defended yourself, accompanying him in his joy. You had probably ruined the most romantic moment of your life, however, it was worth it to see the man laugh like that. And after all you were still his best friend, it was your job to joke like that “And yet I liked you, you can't imagine how much. Then you grew up and became this perfect prototype of a boy and you were so focused on your studies that I thought you weren't interested in me, at least in that way. But you were my friend and I was happy like that, I always have been. I tried to bury those feelings because I was also afraid of ruining things, but now you come to tell me all this, and I just don't believe it."

"Are you serious?" he asked, trying not to get overwhelmed by the fact that you had just called him perfect and that you were confessing to him that you had been feeling what he was feeling since you two met. When you nodded, another laugh escaped him as he thought that, after all, his mother had been right.

He had to take a moment to digest the situation. You loved him, you really did, and things weren't ruined. He felt foolish thinking about how long you had been keeping this quiet and how he hadn't noticed, but he concluded that if he had found out at another time he probably would have freaked out and things would have ended very differently, a result he would regret for the rest of his life.

Your hands were still joined and Spencer began to rub his thumb against the back of them, feeling the luckiest to see you smile at him that way and knowing the reason for that expression.

“Is that why you brought me the tulips?” you exclaimed in a sweet voice. You should have sensed it before but only now did you realize that detail.

“Yes, I wanted to surprise you,” he replied, quite satisfied with himself. “I thought about them because, in fact, in the language of flowers, tulips symbolize hope, sincere love and prosperity, but depending on their color the meaning can be transformed. Red tulips, in this case, are ideal for a statement and express unconditional love.”

You let out a gentle laugh, feeling nothing but tenderness at his reaction.

“There's my usual boy,” you said with a proud tone, reaching out to leave a loud kiss on his cheek. Something in Spencer stirred when he heard you call him yours and that desire to kiss you returned, this time with more intensity than before.

"And then?" he asked in your direction. With your eyes you asked for a more complete explanation of what precisely he was referring to “Do you accept me? Do you accept my love?”

“Of course I do,” you replied obviously, giving him that confirmation he needed.

“And if I asked you something serious for us right now, what would you tell me?”

You looked at him for a second, looking for a sign of lying on his face, but when you didn't find it, you smiled, your cheeks completely blushing.

“I would tell you that I would have liked to be more prepared. I'm in pajamas and I smell like a burrito, I think I've looked better."

"It doesn’t matter. "I can take you on a date later, in a nice and elegant place, like you deserve," he murmured excitedly, stopping holding one of your hands to place it on your face. "But only if that's what you want."

“I do, handsome,” you smiled, sliding your hand to surround his wrist. “It's the most definitive yes of my entire life.”

You had dreamed of this moment for a long time, but you had never believed it could come true and now that it had, your heart was overflowing with joy. He was smiling from ear to ear and you suddenly realized that his eyes traveled momentarily to your lips. You saw him swallow, undecided about the next move, so you decided to save him a little effort and reached out until your lips collided with his.

You took him by surprise and although at first it felt strange to be doing that with him, almost as if it were wrong, after a couple of seconds the contact relaxed and you knew that you no longer wanted to kiss lips other than his.

With every second he caressed you in a deeper and more needy way, very different from what you had expected, even his hands took you firmly by the waist to keep you as close to him as possible. He tasted like years of mutual longing and mint gum and it had you completely giddy. You separated only when it was vital to take a breath and then you continued kissing, already addicted to a drug you had just discovered.

“You're so pretty,” he sighed against your lips, allowing himself to compliment you now that he knew you reciprocated. “So, so pretty. And so sweet to me” he recited between kisses, each one gentler than the last “You are perfect.”

“Reid, stop it,” you asked him, feeling nervous from hearing him talk to you like that and feeling him kiss you like that.

"Why? That's what I think. I've always thought so” he smiled, separating himself from you just to enjoy the sight of your beauty, and then he gently caressed the side of your head “I love you” he said.

Your cheeks already hurt from smiling so much and yet you managed to give him that vision again, and how could you not? The man of your dreams was telling you that he loved you.

You leaned in again to kiss him, this time more briefly and delicately, and then you looked into his eyes.

“I love you too” you confessed.

And both of you knew that you didn't need anything more than that.

taglist: @navs-bhat @reidwritings @tricia-shifting14 @spencerslove

people who might be interested: @stephsycamore @andiebeaword @tothecar @reiderwriter @babymetaldoll @zuckker-blog

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #dr spencer reid #matthew gray gubler #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #jason gideon #JJ #penelope garcía #david rossi #emily prentiss #spencer reid x you

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solarwonux · 11 months

Text

Business Proposal || knj (8/?)

pairing: namjoon x f!reader || ex friends to lovers!au friends to lovers!au

Genre: fluff, angst, smut, slow burn, fwb!au, non idol!au, unrequited love

Warnings: slow burn, angst, fluff, flirting, semi-edited

Rating: mature, 18+

w.c: 7.0

Synopsis: Namjoon is living on borrowed time, and it’s time to cash in. His father is months from taking his last breathe and his life long dream is to watch his oldest son say “I do.”

A/n: I hope you enjoy, I will add all the extra links later. Please please please let me know your thoughts you have no idea how much it helps me. Enjoy!

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10 years ago.

You have circled around Dionysus Lake at least three times, in a failed attempt to calm your nerves. In all honesty you aren’t sure why you’re so nervous, it was a simple tutoring session with your friend's brother. Yet, the hammering in your heart and the pressure around your neck was impossible to ignore.

You know this has nothing to do with you finding him attractive. You can find someone attractive but not be attracted to them. Hence Jungkook. You know it has nothing to do with the fact that his meeting place of choice was the one cafe that was slightly out of the budget you set aside for iced coffees on the weekday.

What you do know is that it has everything to do with the fact that this is something new. A little hiccup in your perfectly curated daily routine. From now on every Tuesday and Thursday you will be meeting up with Kim Namjoon at seven o’clock at Serendipity Cafe. Who by some miracle will hopefully have you understanding the PEMDAS rules that you’re hundred percent sure we’re taught wrong to you. No more will be your days in which you stay at HYBE U’s seven floor library, cranking down on research or polishing essays after math class. No more will be your days that you decide that maybe it was time for some me time, and enjoy a nice long relaxing bath with different bath salts, bath bombs, and candles in an attempt to relax your racing thoughts and aching muscles.

No, now you have to squeeze in a half an hour walk after your algebra class to give yourself a breather. So, you don’t have to face your friend's brother all frazzled and annoyed that you have successfully sat through a math class without understanding a thing. Really, your nerves are really due to the fact that you don’t want to seem incompetent; but is it your fault that you’ve had incompetent math teachers or lack of math teachers throughout your academic year? It’s not your fault they couldn’t explain complex terms in a simple form. Or that they took advantage of the system to get close to younger children. You were cheated out of a decent understanding of math because the academic system simply worked against you.

It’s a thought you have been turning over and over in your head since you woke up this morning. You’ve been trying out every other excuse in the book.

“I’m sorry they had us do flawed computer programs in middle school instead of actually teaching us something.”

“You see I couldn’t really do my math homework growing up because I had ballet class at four until eight.”

“I’m actually really smart I just don’t understand how the fuck I have to apply an exponent when there’s a parenthesis involved.”

All of these excuses were dumb. A mask for the actual truth. Math was uninteresting, impalpable. It stayed constant and lacked excitement because you couldn’t see the puzzles laid out before you. That, and sometimes you sneakily read a book in the back of the class or whispered about the next big boy band with your equally as boy crazed friends Shalimar and Ruth.

Still, after your third wrap around Dionysus lake, you’ve decided that if questioned you’d just come clean.

“I’m stupid and I absolutely have no idea why we have to have letters and numbers mingle with each other.”

Hopefully he'll appreciate your honesty and grow a soft spot for you. At least that’s what you hope for. And you keep hoping for as you steadily approach the large wooden doors of Serendipity. There’s still about ten minutes until seven, but you figured you’d get there a bit early to grab a good seat. One in a section that’s quiet but not too quiet because the last thing you want while you sip on your peppermint tea is to be consumed by your overwhelming thoughts while you wait for your tutor.

You approach the counter, gripping the leather strap of your purse, going over your order in case you stumble upon your words due to pressure.

“Welcome to Serendipity whe—oh hey you’re Kookie’s girl.” The man behind the counter says in awe. While you cringe at the fact that you’re being referred to as Jungkook’s girl. You remember the doe eyed man referring to the man now wearing a button down with what seems to be condoms printed all over it as Hobi. Though his nametag states that his name is Hoseok. You try not to dwell on it for too long because he’s looking at you curiously. Probably wondering why you haven’t greeted him back or placed your order.

You shake your head, circling your moon shaped bag back to the front of your body, attempting to hide your discomfort. “Oh, hi, um, Jungkook’s just a friend.” You swallow, while he smiles in acknowledgement.

“I see, things are complicated. I get that.” He brushes you off before turning to the iPad in front of him. Before you can counteract with a ‘no it’s actually very simple, we share classes and he’s unfortunately picked me to annoy.’ He speaks up and gets right to the point. “What can I get you cutie?” He finishes, looking at you through his bangs.

The heat in your body erupts. No guy has ever been this forward with you but you’re positive this is just part of his customer service training. If he ever had one. Either way he’s talking you up and making you feel seen, which you assume is a specialty of his and probably why the cafe is crowded with many young adults.

With a grin you say. “Just a hot mint chocolate latte.” You nod in assurance before opening up your purse and taking out your wallet. When you fish your card out and go to swipe it across the reader a hand stops you. Startled, you look up to find Hobi or Hoseok smiling wide at you.

“No need, it’s already paid for.” He takes his hand away and gives you a white buzzer instead.

You furrow your brows in confusion. How has your drink already been paid for when you’ve just entered? You aren’t complaining, you did just save some money, but that small amount of happiness doesn’t mean that you aren’t confused.

The cashier seems to read your confusion and he chuckles, running a hand through his hair. “Namjoon paid for you earlier when he ordered his drink.”

“What?” You glance down at your phone to see the time. Did you get it wrong? The two of you agreed on seven, and you even confirmed it this morning through a quick text just to be sure. So, why does the analog clock on your phone read 6:55, and Namjoon has possibly already been waiting for you.

You curse under your breath and quickly put your wallet in your purse before turning around to look at the almost empty cafe. There’s only a couple of people occupying the circular tables. All of them fully immersed in their books or laptop screens. Namjoon is nowhere in sight. You look back at Hoseok—you’ve decided to refer to him as such since it’s what’s on his nametag—and he laughs at your confusion.

He lifts up a finger signaling up, “he’s on the second floor, got here about an hour ago.”

His statement doesn’t do anything but worsen the panic already coursing through your veins. Maybe you did misinterpret the time, still it wouldn’t make sense because wouldn’t he have texted you by now asking where you were?

“Um thank you…”

“Call me Hobi.” He waves a hand in front of your face. “Any friend or special friend of the boys gets the privilege to call me Hobi. Plus Hoseok—” He points to his nametag with a boney finger. “Sounds too serious.” He shrugs.

You nod your head. “Thank you Hobi.” You rush out the acknowledgement and turn around and speed walk to the industrial style spiral staircase.

It’s a dizzying journey up, but once you make it to the final step you spot the man that has your nerves at an all time high. He’s sitting in the far corner next to a floor to ceiling window. His back is hunched as he types away on his laptop. Today he’s ditched the beanie and you can see his dark brown hair. A few strands of his bangs sneak their way behind the thick rims of his black glasses. He’s wearing a simple gray long sleeve, with black sweatpants. He looks relaxed, the opposite of what you’re feeling because the thing you hate most in the world is keeping people waiting.

With quick steps you approach the table, halting when you get to the front of a chair. “I’m sorry, I thought we agreed on seven.” You rush out instead of a proper greeting. In a quick motion he lifts his head and takes off the earbuds inside his ears, and you feel like more of an idiot than before because of course he would be wearing noise canceling earbuds.

“Hey, you’re here. Did you order something? I told Hobi that I would just pay for what you wanted.” He grins and stands up, extending his hand for you in a handshake.

You put your hand in his and feel a shiver run down your spine when his cold one meets your clammy one. “Am I late?” You tilt your head to the side.

Namjoon shakes his head, and lets go of your hand before sitting down again. “No, you’re right on time. I just got here a bit early to get a head start on an essay due by the end of the week.” He reassures you, and finally you can let out the breath you had been holding in.

You feel calmer now. Relieved. You set down your stuff on an empty chair and take the seat directly in front of him. You place your white buzzer in front of you, tracing the circular ridges. Now, that you’re not in such a panicked state you can finally show your gratitude to his selfless actions. “Thank you for the drink, you didn’t have to pay for it.”

The busy man smiles and waves his hand in front of his face to brush you off. “It’s no big deal, Hobi gives me discounts anyway.”

“So, I’ve heard.” You whisper recalling the first night you met him a week ago. Since then, Jungkook snuck his brother’s phone number to you the next day at the library. He didn’t say anything, he just passed by you with a green drink from the only smoothie place on campus and a sticky note saying:

Text Namjoon, he’s forgetful. -JK

It took the whole day to muster up the courage but finally you sent a simple text regarding your name and the fact that his younger brother had been the one to sneak you his number. In case, he assumed you had gone through multiple deep dives on the internet to retrieve it. Thankfully, Namjoon didn’t question it and just replied with a simple greeting. Then the two of you got into a brief conversation that lasted about two days because you’re also forgetful and forgot to reply to his messages. Basically coordinating a plan further than the one you had discussed the first time you met.

It was strictly business. Yet, a part of you felt a little happy that you were meeting and talking to somebody new.

Just as you’re about to take out your small notebook and pen from your purse your buzzer comes to life, filling the spaces of silence in the air surrounding the two of you. Namjoon’s eyes tear away from his computer screen, and you’re about to stand up when he beats you to it. He quickly grabs a hold of the noisy device saying, “Don’t worry I got it,” and he disappears down the stairs.

You’re now sitting by yourself, wallowing in your over consuming thoughts. Most of them involve the story Jungkook told you about his very eventful weekend while the two of you were walking to your math lecture earlier today. Truly, it was so odd knowing that he had run into Taehyung at a club in the rich part of town. The two of them stayed together the entire night and even brought home two girls to Taehyung’s apartment. Thankfully, he didn’t share further than that, but he did share that he was in love. In which you rolled your eyes so hard it gave you vertigo.

In the few months that you have known the man. He has claimed that he has been in love with every single girl he’s slept with. Which surprisingly, given his flirty nature was not a lot. What was surprising to you was Taehyung being at the club. It’s not out of character for him, but Saturday nights were always spent at Jimin’s one bedroom apartment catching up on life, and binge watching One Piece. When his text message came through on Saturday evening saying that he wasn’t feeling very well and skipping out. You couldn’t help but feel a little sad because you hadn’t seen him in a while.

Taehyung was always out and about, chasing every new adventure he could grasp. He called it inspiration for his art, but you always knew there was another underlying reason. One he never cared to explain because in all honesty it only made sense to him. He was a tough book to get through. Sometimes it keeps you questioning why you even have a soft spot for it. Though, you suppose it is the backstory the two of you share. Still, you couldn’t help but feel a little bit hurt knowing he had chosen to not ditch you but Jimin as well.

The night wasn’t a bust and you managed to finally make a significant breakthrough on the anime. Twenty episodes in one night was something that needed to be awarded. It did feel a bit awkward when it was just the two of you. It was as if there was an invisible ceiling slowly crushing you, because on Saturday for the first time ever the two of you found yourself stuck. Nothing to talk about. No updates on life, only the sound of the anime doing its best to fill the void of Taehyung not being there that the both of you unspokenly felt.

It made you question a lot of things. Like was it maybe time to finally part ways? A chilling thought that sent shivers down your spine and one you pushed so far into the back of your head. One you really don’t want to think about now, especially when you’re about to succumb yourself to a full extra hour of torture. Otherwise known as: College Algebra.

“Hobi says that if you take a picture of his latte art to tag him if you post it.” Namjoon voices, placing a small tray in front of your open notebook. A white mug with a beautiful Jack O'Lantern drawn in white foam decorates the top of your warm decaffeinated latte. It’s impressive, surely puts all those swans and hearts to shame.

“He’s a big fan of Halloween, and he always says that fall time means it's Halloween everyday.” Namjoon finishes with a chuckle, as he takes the seat in front of you again.

You laugh a little, fishing out your phone from the pocket of your jean jacket. “I can get behind that.” You say as you click on the camera app and snap a couple of pictures.

Unbeknownst to you, Namjoon is watching as you rearrange the contents on the table. To get the right aesthetic for your perfect picture. He can’t lie, it's a little endearing, seeing somebody so excited over latte art he has grown accustomed to seeing. It’s something he will definitely spill onto Hoseok before he leaves. His friend was crazy talented in many areas and he hates that instead of sharing all his passions out with the world. He’s stuck running Serendipity because his grandfather wanted the neighborhood's hub to stay in the Jung family. When he should be out in the world sharing his clothing designs with anyone who’s willing to listen.

Namjoon’s thoughts are interrupted by your extended hand, holding out your phone for him. “What’s his instagram?” You grin, and his eyes make their way to the small phone screen. A beautifully taken picture, showing off the spooky pumpkin with a caption reading,

Halloween should be all year round @--

Namjoon lets out an ‘ah’ before taking your phone and quickly typing out his friend's handle. He reads the caption again, double checking to see if he made any mistakes, Halloween should be all year round @uramyhope.

He nods in approval and hands you back your phone. Deep down he feels a surge of something foreign. He can’t necessarily put his finger on it but regarding Hoseok’s statement when he first met you last week, when he asked both his brother and him for your number. He feels a little strange, knowing that he’s basically given the two of you a way to start communicating outside of him and Jungkook. Knowing the aspiring designer, he won’t miss a beat, and that makes him feel a bit odd.

He shrugs it off though, pushes away the churning in his stomach, concluding that it was because he chose to consume caffeine so late in the evening. He looks back at his computer screen, while you type away on your phone. He continues to ignore it, saves the document on his computer two times before closing the lid. He pushes it aside, and clears his throat, catching your attention.

Quickly you lock your phone and stuff it into the pocket of your jacket. You look over at Namjoon, his hands clasped in front of him and a scowl prominent on his face. It resembled the same one he transformed into the first night you met him. When he coldly stated he was done with blind dating thanks to his mother and step brother. Though, this time it does feel less intense, probably due to the fact that he knows you’re just here to be his tutee and not his future wife.

Still, it lets you know that time was ticking and it was finally time to get down to business.

“How have you gone on this long without understanding the basic principles of algebra?”

Namjoon is serious. He means business and you’re about to pull out the hair from your scalp.

“Maybe because I never had a permanent math teacher, they’d all leave in the middle of the year.” You pout, crossing your arms in front of you and slumping down in your seat.

He lets out a sigh before sliding your notebook to his side of the table. The metal spiral scratching against the wooden surface, letting out an unpleasant noise making you cringe.

“That’s a good excuse.” He says, grabbing his red pen and making all sorts of marks along the paper. You don’t need to know what steps you got wrong while solving the math problem. You know exactly where you went wrong. It was the second you signed up for the class even if you didn’t have much of a choice.

You groan, throwing your head back. “It’s not an excuse. My eighth grade teacher left in the middle of the year because she got pregnant, my ninth grade teacher unfortunately was diagnosed with cancer. Then my tenth grade teacher was accused of being a pedophile so he was fired an—“

“Okay,” Namjoon cuts you off, setting down his pen on top of your notebook. “I understand, your school was just shitty at keeping teachers around.” He grins, placing the notebook in front of you again. “But did you ever do your math homework?” He tilts his head to the side in curiosity.

Unfortunately you’ve been caught. “No,” you whisper, dragging your fingernail down the spiral.

The sound he lets out tells you enough. He’s proven his point with the sarcastic hum that escapes his mouth. “In my defense I had dance practice everyday after school from two to four and the ballet from five to eight.” You add but it does little to prove your innocence. Instead, it makes you look guiltier or maybe not you but your parents because who would choose an extracurricular activity over academics. Especially when they knew their daughter was absolute shit at math. They did try though, but even the math tutor they hired back in high school could not get through to you.

“I see,” he puts a pensive hand on his chin leaning back. The look he gives you makes you feel small. You can’t tell if he’s judging your upbringing or the you now who can’t seem to understand the simple PEMDAS rules.

“Your problem isn’t even that bad. It’s easy to fix. You know what each operation does. You just get confused with the order along the way.” He leans forward, picking up the pen and pointing to the problem you just finished doing. “You know to do parenthesis first, but then you forget that parenthesis don’t really go away. That’s your first mistake.”

It’s like a lightbulb has suddenly flicked on inside your head as you watch him solve the problem while thoroughly explaining each step. Writing out every single step even if it was unnecessary, but it helps.

“So the answer should be seventeen and not twenty-two.” He finishes, and the puzzle slowly starts to connect itself before your eyes. The steps are laid out perfectly and neatly. The parenthesis stay until the equation is factored to the lowest it can go. And you’re about to jump across the table to give the man before you the biggest hug. He’s the only one who's been able to point out what you’ve done wrong your whole life and then explain it easily.

You lift your head up, wide eyed and say “oh, that makes sense.”

Namjoon laughs, almost as if he’s relieved but also disbelieved. You start to feel bad because for the past hour he’s been trying to explain to you the basic principles in every way possible. And it was only until he explained it to you in baby terms that you finally understood. You’re about to apologize, but instead you’re left stunned by his next words.

“I’m giving you homework for the next time we see each other on Thursday.” He hums, flipping to the next page. Your eye twitches a little at the thought of math homework. If you never did it while you were in school and getting graded for it, why would you do it now?

“Homework?”

He hums, and begins to write down a bunch of different math problems. He can sense that you’re about to fill him with different complaints, so he speaks up. “Do you want to pass math class?

“Yes, but do you really need to give me homework?”

“How many hours were you in dance class growing up?”

“I don’t remember like five hours, but what does that have to do with you giving me math homework.”

“What were you doing for five hours?” He lifts his head, handing you your notebook. You take it looking down at the ten perfectly curated algebra problems.

You want to throw up.

“Practicing.”

“Exactly, and how are you going to pass math?”

You huff, seeing exactly where his question was heading. Proving a point or whatever. Jungkook did mention his brother was a bit of a smart ass. Now you’re unfortunate enough to be at the receiving end.

With a grunt you close your notebook. “Fine, I'll do the homework.”

Namjoon smirks, tapping his ear, leaning in further into the table. “No, I want to hear you say it please.”

You stuff your small spiral notebook into your purse, snatching your special pink mechanical pencil from his side of the table. You spent too much money on it to let—your stupid math tutor who is now giving you homework to make you suffer—steal it.

“I need to practice math.” You mumble, zipping up your bag, and putting it over your shoulder.

Namjoon laughs, letting his red pen fall against the wooden table with a clank. You roll your eyes before standing up. At least your suffering was amusing to someone.

You cross your arms in front you waiting for his laughter to die down. When it does he looks at you, watery eyes from joy and you feel a slight tug in the inside of your chest. You push it to the side, convince yourself that it’s just the irritation bubbling up inside of you.

“Are you done?”

He nods, shuffles around the table to put his stuff away. “How are you getting home?” He questions, standing up and hoisting his vintage messenger bag over his shoulder.

You shrug, “the bus.” You state, pulling up your phone to check the bus schedule. If you can catch the next bus that comes in ten minutes then you’ll still be able to get home with a couple of seconds left of daylight.

“I’ll go with you then.” He states firmly, standing up abruptly and walking past you. It leaves you no room to argue against him.

You’re quickly starting to realize that once he says something firmly enough to be believed as the truth. There is absolutely no room left for a final say.

And they call you stubborn…as if.

The bus arrived a minute late. A minute that felt longer than what it should’ve felt. The two of you were the only ones standing side by side under the dim light of the bus stop.

It’s one thing to be in the same room as your tutor while the only thing the two of you talk about is math. It’s another thing to have him offer to walk you home. There’s no conversation. There’s no way to start a conversation. The only thing you really know about him is that he’s still studying, he is Jungkook’s step brother and he’s a philosophy major. The only philosophers you knew off were the ones from Ancient Greece. All the readings for your Introduction to Modern Rhetorics course that you were assigned to do were somewhere buried in the back of your mind.

You don’t want to start up a conversation in which you know you won’t be able to keep up. You remember very little about the readings and somehow the things you do remember blend into one another. So you can’t differentiate between what one philosopher said and what the other said.

Instead, Namjoon and you walk in silence. At a safe distance but close enough to still feel the presence of the other. Then you stand in the bus stop. Neither of you sit on the cold metal bench because it’s still not cold enough for them to turn on the bench warmers. And when you see that the bus is a minute late, you start to feel the slightly awkward air around the two of you get thicker.

You’re about to bite the bullet, take the embarrassing moment for some sort of small talk when the bright blue bus turns the corner. You watch it approach the stop fast. At least that’s what it feels like and soon enough the driver opens the double doors to welcome the two of you.

Surprisingly it’s not full. There are a few people occupying the seats, but there’s enough room to not feel like you’re being squished upon one another. Namjoon lets you enter first. Once you click your transit card against the reader you scan the rows for an empty seat. And of course, there’s two left in the far back. You walk to it quickly. Pass the exhausted bystanders and take the seat against the window.

After all, you will be here for the next twenty five minutes. Though, it’s not only occurred to you that you don’t know where Namjoon lives, until he takes up the seat next to yours. You want to ask if he’s going out of his way or if his place is along this route. But you don’t want to pry too much. You’ve only just met him officially. You also don’t know what you would do with yourself if it does turn out that his place is out of the way. Probably, apologize profusely for being such an inconvenience.

To save yourself from the discomfort you sights upon the buildings outside the window. Your daydreaming only lasts a few seconds when you feel a light tap against your shoulder. In a quick motion you turn your head to face the man sitting next to you. You tilt your head in question and he opens his mouth to speak.

“What’s the deal with you and Jungkook?”

The question feels like you’ve been hit by whiplash. It’s not the first time you get asked about it. Your longtime friend Jina has brought it up a few times, but you always reply with the same exact answer. “I guess we’re friends.” You shrug.

Namjoon hums in acknowledgment, nodding his head. He looks ahead for a few minutes before looking back at you. “Are you sure?”

Now, this question takes you aback. Nobody’s ever questioned your honesty. At least until now.

You quirk a brow and nod. “Yes, we share a few classes and sometimes we study together. But it always feels like I’m there to study and he’s just there to talk because he never shuts up.” You rant.

“Ah,” he chuckles, moving his head in confirmation. “That sounds like him, when he was younger he never talked, but then he turned fifteen got a little confident because he found out a few people found him cute and he just never stopped talking then.” Namjoon reveals, making you smile. “He also talks in his sleep.” He adds, smiling when he hears you let out a giggle.

Suddenly, it doesn’t feel as awkward as before. It feels a bit simpler. And you find yourself leaning into his aura a little more.

“I think he likes you though.” He adds, making your eyes grow wide in surprise. Maybe you’re dumb or you just don’t understand flirting thanks to the two very unserious relationships you had between the transition of high school and college. But from what you do know is that Jungkook holds no romantic feelings or a liking towards you. That’s something you’re very confident in.

“I don’t think so.” You scoff. “He would be stupid if he did.” You wave him off, and look out the window. You catch his reflection in the glass. He’s looking down at you, smiling in amusement. It somehow makes your cheeks get a bit hot and you divert your gaze down to the metal border of the window.

“He sat me down on our couch last night and laid down some ground rules.” He speaks up, looking ahead again. He lifts his hand and starts, “I’m not allowed to let you out of my sight, I have to be nice to you, and Hobi is not allowed under any circumstances get your number, which somehow I failed at doing.” He shrugs and counts with his fingers as if that proves his statement.

You stare at his hand before looking up at him again, you’re at a loss for words. Your thoughts are all jumbled up. Somehow you know tonight you won’t be able to sleep. You will now be questioning every single interaction you’ve had with Jungkook in the past few months.

Clearing your throat you say, “that doesn’t mean he like…has feelings for me.”

He lifts his hands up in defense. Your tone is harsh and he finds it amusing. He continues, “don’t shoot the messenger, I’m just relaying information on something I’ve observed.”

You finally turn to look at him. Your eyebrows are drawn together in a scowl. “No offense but your observation is stupid.” You cross your arms in a huff, pouting like a child. It makes Namjoon laugh loud enough to turn heads, causing you to look at him alarmed. It only makes him laugh harder and when you’re about to reprimand him, the automatic voice sounds in the speakers of the bus. It announces your stop and you scramble quickly to press the bright red button to stop the bus.

This shuts Namjoon up, he looks around, biting the inside of his cheek before nodding his head in confirmation. “This is your stop,” he voices just as the bus comes to a halt.

You nod, taking out your bus card from your purse and standing up. He copies your movements, makes his way to the card scanner and places his card against it. He doesn’t wait for you to exit he simply does and stands outside on the sidewalk, hands in his pocket. You scan your card and take the leap of faith from the bus stairs to the sidewalk. You land next to him, thanking your lucky stars for catching you and finally you voice out the question that’s been dying in the back of your throat.

“This is not your stop is it?”

“It’s not but, I promised Jungkook you would get home safely.” With that he turns on his heels and escapes the light of the stop, appearing again a few feet ahead underneath the street light. “Are you coming?”

“Do you do everything Jungkook says?” You grumble. The argument in which you state that you’re a big girl who is more than capable of walking home by herself escapes you. Only because when you’re finally standing in front of him. His head towering just a few inches above yours, it finally hits you. The jolt that springs in the pit of your stomach. The tug inside your heart that will have you up all night because it feels like a terrible case of heartburn. And the seed, his soft gaze plants inside of your mind.

It’s a mistake, a big one and you’re now regretting taking up Jungkook’s offer to have his brother tutor you. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen at all. The slow cascade down the wall you’ve built surrounding your emotions. You can feel it crumble already, ready to run down a dead end street, because that’s what it feels like. Whatever you’re feeling inside.

“I don’t.” The soft timbre of his voice brings out, you’re thankful it helps you find your way back down to the ground, but you’re not a fan of the way it paints goosebumps across your arms.

He continues, “I don’t want him to lecture me for not looking out after his friend.” He emphasizes the last part, combining it with a wink. You know what he is implying and you can’t help but feel a bit of the drink you had an hour ago threatening to make its way up your throat.

“You’re not going to give up are you?” You walk past him. It’s best to have him a few feet behind than right next to you. The space gives you time to regain yourself, yet it doesn’t last because in seconds he’s right next to you. His arm is so close. It almost brushes against yours. Thankfully it doesn’t but you can smell his cologne. It’s soft, and warm. Like fresh laundry on a sunday morning. It makes your insides burn and you know that from now on you will be looking for that scent everywhere so you can call it yours.

Namjoon shakes his head. “I’ve never seen him this protective over someone apart from his mom.” He whispers now, and the lower his voice gets the lower it sinks inside of you. “You must be special to him.” He concludes.

“I think I’m just the first girl who's never kissed his toes and finds him annoying.” You halt in front of a street light, and he stops with you. The little man signals red—do not go. You turn your head from side to side questioning your safety. If you run now, you will likely still be alive but most importantly away from the man next to you. Honestly, you’re a bit confused. When he was talking about algebra the only thing you could focus on was how to get from point a to point b while solving the problem.

Now that the moon is dim and the streets are emptying out. The only thing you can think about is how soft and ethereal he looks. Nothing like how when you first met him, but something straight out of a modernized fairy tale. It’s hitting you unexpectedly and you begin to wonder if it’s because your exhaustion is finally settling in, making you delusional.

“That could be true, but I think that you’re here to stay for a long time.” He chuckles. The little man switches to green and he takes the step.

“Why do you say that?” You walk fast to catch up to him. You realize that he is blindly following you and you to him. Sure, you’re almost home, but he’s leading the way as if he knows where he’s going. As if he’s done this before with you and has been doing this with you his entire life. It doesn’t do anything to calm your beating heart.

He stays quiet. He keeps on walking, stealing secret glances your way to see if he’s still at the same pace as you. It stays this way until you stop in front of a cute town house. The door is decorated with an autumn reef. The worlds ‘welcome fall,’ take up the entire circumference. There’s a red bell on the handle, to signal when someone is home since the doorbell has been broken ever since you could remember.

You’re home. But for some reason it had already felt like you were home.

“If it’s not Kook then it’s Hobi. Plus I need to make sure you pass math.” He voices.

You look at him, tilting your head in confusion. Until your mouth widens in a silent ‘oh’ recalling the question he had failed to answer a minute ago.

“I think your brain has been corrupted by reading into things while you do your research.”

He chuckles, “again don’t shoot the messenger, it’s not surprising though.” He shrugs, “My brother never shuts up about you, and Hobi hasn’t stopped asking for your contact information since you first walked into Serendipity a week ago.”

You roll your eyes, turning away from him and pressing your palm against the keypad of your house. It lights up, showing numbers and you quickly enter the code, wait for the little lock to signal it has been unlocked and you turn the knob.

Before you walk in you turn to face him again. “I won’t argue with you against the whole Hobi thing. But I know Jungkook doesn’t have feelings for me. If he did he wouldn’t tell me about all the dates he’s gone on and ask for advice whenever he has relationship or situationship problems. Plus he says he’s in love with someone he met this weekend.” You reason.

Namjoon takes his hands out of his pockets, raising his hands in defeat again. “Fine I’ll drop it, but I do think he finds you special. That’s all.” He states firmly and once again you’re reminded of that tone. He’s gotten the last word and you won’t bring up another one because if not then you’d be walking a tight circle around each other.

“Agree to disagree.” You smile, taking one step inside your house. “I’ll take your word for now. Thank you for walking me home. You didn’t have to even if Jungkook asked you to.”

He buries his hands into his pockets and grins. “I also wanted to.” He takes one step back. “Good night, I’ll see you on Thursday.” And with that he turns around, starts his way down the same path that led the two of you here.

Home.

You’re left astounded. In a rush to feel comfort once again, you hurry through the door, slamming it behind you, pressing your back against it. For a moment you’re scared your parents might find you in this state, wallowing in feelings you can’t begin to understand. Then you remember that they were at dinner with their friends, and you’re thankful that you still have some time to regain yourself.

Namjoon’s words cut deep. Not what he said about Jungkook. You know as well as you know your name that romantic feelings between the two of you are nonexistent. But you also know that he said he wanted to walk you home.

Chivalry might not be dead but the bar is low, because he wanted…he wanted…he wanted to wa—

Beep.

Your phone goes off signaling a message. With all the ditzyness a girl with a school girl crush can have. You fish out your phone with a haste, what if it’s him.

Though, that thought dies as quickly as it was conjured. It’s not him, but it’s a notification that in the same right births a little flame inside of you. Maybe not as bright as the one Namjoon left behind, but it has the potential to grow into something more.

uarmyhope wants to send you a message.

Your smile gets wide when you swipe across the notification. It opens up to your Instagram and it quickly directs you to your DMS.

You open it, and you feel a spark when you read the few choice words that were chosen. They’re simple but they’re enough. And they’re the start of a long night of getting to know someone else.

Your next latte is on me cutie.xx

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funhouse-mirror-barbie · 4 months

Text

I’ll be writing a critique of the way Blitzø and Stolas’ relationship was handled more at length, but I wanted to stop and take a moment to look at this scene from the new episode, “Full Moon”:

This is the sort of power and control that Stolas has always had over Blitzø.

It does not matter that Stolas has never threatened to take away the Grimoire before, or that they were “friends” as kids, or that he offered Blitzø a few months off, or that he’s been nice to Blitzø in the past, or that Blitzø actually does have feelings for Stolas.

When you are in a situation where you cannot say no at the risk of losing your livelihood, you cannot give true consent.

This is the very BASIS of their relationship. It has always been the basis of their relationship—a quid pro quo relationship where Stolas holds all of the power.

I have seen countless people go over and explain in great detail why the full moon deal was not truly coercive, or a quid pro quo situation, or how it was completely consensual.

And it’s just not. It is sexual coercion where Blitzø cannot give meaningful consent. Because if he refuses Stolas, he’s at risk of losing everything.

I want to clarify that my criticism here isn’t with this writing decision. I’m not trying to say anything along those the lines of “because this fictional character did a bad thing the story is bad and people who like the character support sexual coercion!!” That’s not what I’m saying at all.

I am bringing all of this up because my criticism is not of this writing decision, but because of the framing of the Full Moon deal and of Stolas and Blitzø’s relationship.

The narrative often frames Blitzo as if he is the one who has wronged Stolas by not prioritizing Stolas’ feelings and needs above all else. Or, it frames both Stolas and Blitzo as being equally in the wrong for the conflicts in their “relationship”.

This framing, and the extent to which fans try to justify it as being ANYTHING other than what it actually is—Stolas coercing Blitzø into a relationship where he has no power and is at the risk of losing his livelihood—is baffling to me.

This framing, coupled with the writer’s absolute refusal to ever have Stolas held accountable for his actions (including Stolas still not actually apologizing for the situation he put Blitzø into—he acknowledges that the relationship being transactional is wrong, but does not acknowledge that he was wrong to coerce Blitzø into that relationship. He says “…it isn’t right…it never was”, not “What I did wasn’t right, and never was”) is why I can’t consider St0litz to be just a “complex” or “messy” relationship.

It don’t think it can be, because it’s not a relationship. Not a real one. It’s a transaction, where Stolas treats Blitzø like a sex object. And whether that was the intent or not, Blitzø’s reaction above and saying that he would do anything to keep the grimoire makes it really hard for me to see St0litz in any other light.

As a final note, I’m not saying that you can’t write dark relationships, or have complex and unsympathetic protagonists. You can ship whatever you want! You can have characters that sexually coerce and abuse others, you can write every dark and twisted thing your mind can come up with.

But it’s very clear that Helluva Boss’s writers want to frame Stolas as being the wronged party, and the one who we are supposed to sympathize with—and you just can’t have it both ways.

You can’t act like you’re writing a complex love story between two very complicated and real people, when the relationship that you’re describing is so utterly one-sided and unbalanced.

#funhouse convo #media criticism #media critique #helluva boss critical #helluva boss critique #helluva boss criticism #media conversation #I feel like if hardcore fans of St0litz see this #they will say that blitz wasn’t afraid of losing the book but afraid of losing Stolas #and like. that’s a fine interpretation if that’s what you want to believe #and I’m sure they’ll say I’m ‘media illiterate’ for my interpretation #but media literacy isn’t looking at the writers intent first and making that intent fit into what’s been written #it’s analyzing everything that’s been written and portrayed in the context of a story #and coming to your own conclusions from that #and it’s about a whole bunch of other shit man idk #i’m just very tired #stolitz critical

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rageprufrock · 25 days

Text

Superposition | The Devil Judge WIP

Just a sneak peek into the inevitable outcome of me finding out that I can write a story about a 17 year age gap.

After the fire, Yohan wakes up every morning knowing that Isaac is dead.

Elijah wakes up every morning convinced her father is alive.

It's the crush damage of new grief each day, too big for her tiny body and too heavy for her to carry. It's worse than all of Yohan's years under his father's belt; it's not until he loses Isaac and Heejin, until Elijah cries herself unconscious in his arms, that Yohan realizes that his father had been a clumsy jailer, that for all his cruelty he'd been a blunt instrument compared to all the ways suffering can visit itself upon a person.

It's a miracle Elijah is alive, surviving multiple complex fractures and then delayed treatment. They save the flesh and bone of her legs, piece her back together with literal pins and needles. Her x-rays are difficult to look at; the scarring across her ghost-pale skin is worse. She hurts, in a relentless way that is at first impossible to explain to a child, and then is so ordinary she goes quiet with it, turns it inward. She stops crying. She's too weak and immobile for her once-infamous tantrums. She goes quiet instead. She throws books, toys, anything that Yohan brings into her beautifully appointed private room to try to distract her.

"It will be hard, and it will take time," her doctors say, with an infuriating paternalism, as if their performed empathy could dampen constant burn of searing fire across Yohan's shoulders, cut into the shell of him. "But she's young and she's resilient—she'll surprise you."

For the first six months, Yohan spends his limited waking, functional hours desperately trying to hold back the flood with his bare hands. He wakes and he's in too much pain to function. He sleeps and his doctors adjust his pain management regimen. He wakes and he tries to comfort Elijah. He sleeps and he dreams about the skin grafts he's been informed are needed. He wakes and he calls Lawyer Ko. He sleeps when he knows Isaac's Social Responsibility Fund donation is canceled. He loses hours and entire days in the labyrinth of the hospital, winding between the VIP ward and the children's wing, meeting with Elijah's orthopedic surgeon, her occupational therapists, the revolving cast of nurses that transport her from procedure to scan to bedside. He arranges Isaac and Heejin's funeral, and ends up back as a patient when Elijah's meltdown at the gravesite has him tearing one of his barely healed graft sites trying to contain her flailing arms, to swallow all of her screaming pain into the bottomless well in the base of his spine.

It's eight months and six days after the fire that Yohan hears Elijah laugh again.

***

Later, he'll get a comprehensive readout from the hospital grapevine, but the day he meets Gaon for the first time, all he knows is that he's been summoned by the terrifying peds nurses because Elijah and her new friend have committed some kind of juvenile crime.

Yohan's not ignorant to the fact that Elijah is a nightmare child, but he's still a little confused about how a five year old who is—frankly—abysmal with her new wheelchair is any kind of threat to society. He fetches up at to the pediatric OT clinic fully prepared to act like a complete entitled asshole about this, because while Elijah is a monster, she's his monster and therefore completely innocent of all sin, original or otherwise.

Except halfway down the hallway there, he hears the sharp cackle of Elijah's laughter, a goblin shriek of pure wicked joy. It lands like a punch, like a blessing, it leaves him lightheaded.

When he rushes the door, it's to find Elijah in full glory, giggling so hard she can't speak. Her hair is tied up in a series of tiny ponytails that frame her face like a lion's mane, her face is covered in marker, and she's clutching a filthy orange cat to her chest.

"Kang Yohan-sshi," says one of the nurses, who is trying and failing to look severe, from the way her mouth keeps wobbling and her voice is trembling. "As you can see, we have a situation."

"I—where did she get the cat?" Yohan asks, faint.

Another nurse, who is making no effort to hide her grin, says, "Apparently, they found him behind a trash can in the garden and snuck him into the hospital."

Yohan slants his eyes toward her. "They?"

"I'm really not sure how you missed her very obvious partner in crime," the nurse tells him, actively laughing now, and when Yohan turns to look again—turns to see anything other than the miracle of Elijah's smiling face—he sort of understands her point.

Because sitting next to Elijah is a skinny teenaged boy wearing Elijah's headband, all of his short hair pushed back and sticking out like a massive frill around his thin face, his nose colored black and whiskers drawn across his cheeks. He looks less embarrassed than he probably should be, and more incriminating, he's holding some contraption made out of stolen hospital supplies that looks like one those little fishing toys for cats—a single inflated glove hanging from the end—that the fat orange on Elijah's lap keeps reaching for with outstretched paws.

Standing in the doorway, surrounded by staff and other parents who are barely containing their hysterics, the whole thing is even more batshit. Nurse Woo Yeji, the iron fist of the pediatrics ward, is looming over Elijah and the kid on the ground, hands on her hips as she booms out:

"Kang Elijah-sshi, give me that creature immediately."

Elijah narrows her bright little eyes. "Oh no," Yohan mutters.

"My cat," she declares, her chin stuck out in defiance.

"He was so sick and skinny, we had to rescue him," the boy chimes in, with the admirable application of a pair of doleful, sweet eyes. It might be more effective if his face wasn't covered in washable marker and he didn't have a purple heart drawn over his left eyebrow.

"That cat is at least 4 kilograms overweight," Nurse Yeji tells them both, unmoved. "And let me say: Kim Gaon, I thought you had better judgment than this."

The boy, Gaon, takes the comment with the ease of long familiarity with disappointment, but Yohan still sees his eyes go briefly flinty, briefly cold, before he pastes on a smile and says, "I rode my motorcycle into a wall. If you thought I had good judgement, that's your own fault."

"Yah! Kim Gaon!" the nurse yells, which just sets Elijah off again into pealing laughter.

And from the back of the room, Yohan watches the way this mouthy kid, this little punk, glances over to his niece, watches how the fake grin on his face dissolves for something softer—something run through with tenderness too old for his years.

***

Kim Gaon is 17, orphaned, and a frequent flight risk from the group home he's been remanded to with both his parents dead. In the 13 months since his father had died by suicide, and the 10 months since his mother had followed, he's been picked up by the local cops at least a half-dozen times: for smoking, for drinking, for fighting. Yohan looks up photos of Gaon's once-happy family, reads SNS posts mourning the closure of their family restaurant, the police reports about the suicides, the note in Gaon's hospital file that notes that he's going into arrears for his parents' funeral costs. Kim Gaon's social worker talks about him with a sort of resigned apology, approaches Yohan's interest like another black mark in the boy's service jacket. She looks at Yohan's suit and briefcase, takes his business card and calls him Lawyer Kang, spills the whole of Gaon's history, reassures Yohan that however self-destructive, however volatile, Kim Gaon's never displayed any violent tendencies toward children, that Lawyer Kang should feel free to reach out immediately if he feels concern that Gaon has become Elijah's friend.

"If you'd like me to speak to him, to tell him you're not comfortable with him spending time with you niece, I completely understand," his social worker says.

Kim Gaon has been treated for two different STIs and tried to kill himself with a motorcycle three months ago. The only people he has left in the world are a childhood friend from down the street and Judge Min Jeongho, who used to eat lunch at the Kim's restaurant every day.

Kim Gaon is 17 and entirely alone.

Yohan smiles at her. "No need," he reassures her. "I'll handle this on my own."

***

Too much of Kim Gaon's character reference is ultimately hearsay. Yohan doesn't trust himself, exactly, but he trusts his judgement, so he watches quietly from the sidelines, collecting data. Yohan hears all the nurses talk about how Gaon is achingly polite, how they can't understand how such a nice boy could be such an evident wild child he would ride motorcycles with reckless lack of self preservation. He watches Gaon do other peoples' homework, quizzing them on Joseon history and showing a middle schooler who's learning how to write with his left hand trigonometry. Kim Gaon plays Smash Brothers with a flock of elementary school kids and ruthlessly kicks their asses every single time.

The Kim Gaon that's considered a neighborhood menace, the one sends his teachers into a blind fury, that's the protective armor. Yohan knows from defensive adaptations.

But being a nice kid isn't the same as belonging in Elijah's life in any meaningful way, Yohan acknowledges, and spends a pointless day drafting soul-killing discovery motions and wondering why he's devoting so much time to this distraction. Maybe it's how Elijah's sleeping through the nights better, communicating her pain and what she needs better. Maybe it's how she tells stories about her friend Gaon, and it briefly feels as if they've traveled backward through time, that Yohan's watching her for the night, hearing and becoming deeply invested in all of her day care drama.

"Elijah-ah, why do you like Gaon so much?" Yohan asks her one night, midway through the intricate ritual of her bedtime routine.

From her bed, Elijah says, "Gaon is funny and cats like him and also his parents are dead, so someone has to take care of him," and without missing a beat, points her sparkling princess wand toward the closet, commanding, "Check there, too."

Yohan climbs off of the floor where he'd been checking under the bed and goes.

"Would you want to see Gaon even outside of the hospital?" he asks her, doing a careful four-point inspection of the closet: more clothes than one child could ever wear, 200 pairs of shoes, a stuffed sheep the size of a horse—no monsters. "Closet's clear."

Elijah makes a considering noise. "Gaon-oppa said he was a really good cook, so I want to eat his food," she decides, and shy now, she waves Yohan toward her, tiny hands flapping. "Samchon, come here. I want to tell you a secret."

Yohan cherishes every secret he has with Elijah. Since she was born, he's kept so many for her: that she stole a cookie, that she's really really not scared of thunder, that she loves her uncle best, that church is boring.

"I'm ready," Yohan promises, and sits at the edge of her bed with his most serious expression.

Elijah looks left and right, as if there are spies around every corner, before she cups her hands around her mouth and Yohan curls over her so that she can whisper:

"Sometimes I forget I'm sad about Mom and Dad, but Gaon-oppa says that's okay because I never forget that I love them."

It lands somewhere in Yohan's soft underbelly, in the forever ache of his scare tissue. He looks down into Elijah's solemn little face, her riverstone eyes, and he wonders what kind of benevolent God allows this—forces children to patch one another's broken hearts. He used to wish that he would have died instead, that he could trade himself for Isaac, for Heejin, but he's comforted Elijah through too many nightmares of his own death to entertain it any longer. Love's always been a chain, whether wrapped around his wrist with a cross or trapping him in his father's house.

"You will, you always will," he whispers back.

"And they love me, too, of course, in heaven," she tells him, with the haughty confidence of a spoilt only child, who'd grown up with three adults circling around her in constant adulation.

"And I love you here, on Earth," he says, and does not add, your grandfather loves you, too, from where he's burning in hell.

Elijah goes suddenly quiet, thoughtful and a little distant, and Yohan waits patiently until she says at last, "Gaon doesn't think his parents love him in heaven."

Yohan stills. "Did he say that?"

"He told his friend, the unni that visits sometimes," Elijah reports, and staring dead into Yohan's eyes, she adds, "I was hiding behind a curtain listening. He also said he can't be her boyfriend."

"Okay, well, time for little goblins to go to sleep," Yohan says, because he absolutely cannot start laughing about this because somewhere out there, in the beautiful hereafter that Isaac so fervently believed in, he would be furious if Yohan encouraged this kind of behavior.

***

For all Yohan's been investigating the mystery of Kim Gaon, he's wholly unprepared to be confronted by the reality of the boy while sitting in the hospital cafe at half past five, working his way through a stack of files for court the next day.

"Kang Yohan-sshi?" comes a voice, and when Yohan looks up, it's into the shaggy bangs and thin face of the boy who makes Elijah laugh, standing awkwardly at the edge of his table.

"Ah," he says, flipping his pen across his knuckles. "You're Kim Gaon."

Gaon's eyes round. "You recognize me?"

"The nurses tell me you're friends with Elijah," Yohan says, and waves at one of the empty chairs at the table, shuffles a few folders around to make room. "Please."

It takes more than a little maneuvering for Gaon to take the offered seat, between his backpack and his crutches, his leg still in its cast, and Yohan offers him a steadying arm, takes his bag, helps shift the table this way and that way. Gaon looks mortified the whole time by these small courtesies, stumbling over thank yous and apologies. It tells on him in ways Gaon can't possibly know, but that Yohan can't possibly ignore.

"What brings you to my temporary office?" Yohan asks, when he's sure the kid isn't going to tip over and break anything else, and is only in immediate danger of blushing to death.

Gaon squares his shoulders, and taking a deep breath, says, "I wanted to talk to you about a cat."

This is how Yohan learns that the orange furball that he's first seen that day in the OT room all those many weeks ago is a stray that's been named Gam, and that Elijah's youthful enthusiasm for petty hospital-based crime has undergone a metamorphosis toward more elaborate heists.

"Not that I don't admire her ambition, but I'm pretty sure you'd notice the yowling lump in her sweater when you pick her up from OT," Gaon says, still nervous and too polite, darting wary little glances upward at Yohan. "I tried to talk her out of it, but she started arguing about how cold it was going to get and I had to admit defeat."

Yohan feels the corners of his mouth curl up, reflexive. "There's wisdom in recognizing when you're beaten," he says. "And I appreciate your letting me know."

"Sure," Gaon says before going quiet for a long measure, some unfinished sentence still hidden behind his lashes. Yohan's patient, waits him out, and is rewarded when a half-minute passes and Gaon says, with a brittle courage and poorly concealed vulnerability, "I—I'd take him with me if I could. I like Gam. But the house where I have to stay won't allow pets."

Yohan can hear a universe in between the confession here: that Gaon must have been worried about the cold weather long before Elijah even noticed, that he'd tried to find an answer all on his own. Yohan feels, tugging in the hollow underneath his breastbone, a hurtful recognition of a younger version of himself, all those raw edges fraying, and maybe—sitting here—he can understand a little of Isaac's quiet sadness, the way Yohan had carried all his suffering alone, as a matter of course, without ever trying to ask for help.

He looks at the slope of Gaon's shoulders, the wrinkled collar of his school uniform shirt, his terrible haircut, the little divot of a piercing in his ear. Yohan thinks about the sunburst of Elijah's laughter and all the terrible things he's willing to do to sustain it; it's strange to realize he hadn't anticipated something so easy, something that wouldn't hurt at all.

"Do me a favor," Yohan sighs.

Gaon's head darts up. "Um—if I can?" he says.

"Back me up when I tell her that I thought long and hard about this, and that I'm going to be a strict taskmaster about this cat," Yohan says, with a rueful certainty that there's no way in hell that Elijah is going to buy this narrative, because it looks like the sun is rising in the brightness of Gaon's eyes, the pink happiness of his too-thin cheeks. This kid couldn't lie effectively if his life depended on it. In this light, Gaon looks a little like Isaac, if Isaac was too thin and too hopeful, all gamine pleasure; it makes Yohan feel his bones creak just to look at him.

"I will, I absolutely will," Gaon promises, smiling now and still shy, but so achingly sweet that it makes Yohan want to buy him hot chocolate, to tell him he's done a good job, to ask if he's eaten dinner.

He forebears, and starts packing up his work documents instead.

"Come on," he tells Gaon. "If I'm going to make a fool of myself trying to trap a feral hospital cat, you're coming with me."

Yohan ends up scratched to hell and back, his hand-tailored wool trousers covered in mud, while Gaon laughs at him with a wide-open happiness that makes something in Yohan's chest feel too big for his rib cage. He decides not to think about it in favor of fetching Elijah from her PT and ferrying her down to his car, where Gaon is waiting for them both, a sulking Gam zipped into the front of his hoodie like an uncooperative child. His smile could light every building in Gangnam. Elijah's shriek of pure joy when she spots him leaves Yohan half-deaf for the drive home, and so the warm patter of Elijah and Gaon talking in the backseat rolls over him in indistinct syllable noises until he drops Gaon off at his group home and helps him to the door.

"Thank you, for today," Gaon tells him, starry and still rosy, covered in cat hair.

"Elijah's already drawing up plans for shared custody, so don't be a stranger," Yohan warns.

He'd been ordered by Elijah to participate in an exchange of contact information with Gaon because everybody in the car had a unique and unaddressed relationship with the trauma of abandonment, and so of course Gam could not be suddenly bereft of one of his humans.

"I won't, I promise," Gaon swears, and nods back toward the car, where Elijah is holding Gam up against the window and waving his paw at them. "You should get her home."

Elijah talks nonstop during the drive out of the urban density of Seoul into the forested beyond where their family home is perched on a melodramatic cliff above a lake. Yohan hears about her nurses, her rivalry with another little boy in OT who sounds like he has a world-ending crush on her Gaon-oppa, and listens to the way Elijah sometimes stops mid-sentence when Gam meows at her and then replies, as if she can understand cat.

Whatever is bubbling in his veins, its too violent to be the warm kindness of joy. This ferocity feels like some holy gratitude, feels like the way Isaac used to talk about God. Yohan has never any good at faith, but he thinks—to himself, so loudly he hears it over the roar of blood in his ears and the chattering happiness of Elijah, vividly alive—he thinks, thank you, thank you, to whoever is listening: to God, to fate, to fortune, to the fucking cat—to Gaon, waving at Elijah with both hands, a smile on his face and Gam curled close against his chest.

#the devil judge #wip #fanfic

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lykegenia · 1 year

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So something has been bugging me for a while now about A and N’s backstories, and while I know not everyone will be as pedantic as me, as someone who loves history and has done a lot of writing, I feel that if you’re going to write a story about vampires and give them a specific time and date of origin, then there should be a certain level of research that goes into making that background authentic. I'm not saying that Mishka didn’t do any research. It just seems that in order to keep the vibe of a happy, mellow fantasy some of the less savoury aspects of A and N’s upbringings have been left out, and it's a shame. To be honest, it feels a bit disingenuous, and it feels like an opportunity got wasted.

Let me explain (long post got long, it's 2am)

Let's take A first, since the problem is simpler here.

A is the child of a Norman lord and an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman, born in the first generation after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. A says that these were turbulent times but that their parents had a happy marriage. Which. While I’m sure a lot of unions in that time period made the best of it, I can’t help but feel this description strips away a lot of the context of what was going on at that point in history - and removes some of the complexity about A’s thoughts on love and relationships.

Basically, after he took control of the throne, William the Conqueror stripped many Anglo-Saxon lords of their lands and titles so he could give them to his Norman buddies instead - with the added bonus that it left the Anglo-Saxons without the means to raise armies against him. The sisters, daughters, and widows of the dispossessed Anglo-Saxons were then forced to marry these new Norman lords to legitimise their power, not infrequently after all of their male relatives had been slaughtered. It’s not as if Anglo-Saxon women weren’t used to being used as political chess pieces, but the years after the conquest were brutal. It’s why William had to build so many castles. The point that I’m trying to make is that even if A’s mother was content enough in her daily life, due to the power imbalance between her and her husband, it's very likely she had little choice in the matter. She may have seen a lot of her family killed for political reasons, with the knowledge that – in an age where women had very little protection outside of their paternal household – she might be next if she made too much of a fuss.

It would be fascinating to see what effect that tension has had on A 900 years later, or even to get an acknowledgement of how much times have changed, but we don’t. We don't see how their early years affected them, how they view relationships formed naturally instead of via political contracts. And I really, really wish we did. There is so much potential there.

But A is not the one keeping me up past 2 in the morning. It’s N, and the utter detachment their backstory seems to have from the period in history they lived in as a human. And it all stems from the fact that they came from the English nobility in the late 1600s.

See, the bulk of the problem is that English inheritance law at the time heavily favoured primogeniture, where a man’s wealth would go to his first-born son. Some dispensation was made for widows and other children, but the estates, assets, and most of the money had a very clear destination.

For one thing, this makes it kinda weird that N’s stepfather would have needed an heir before he could inherit, because except in extreme circumstances everything would have gone to him anyway. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the worst part of the problem, it’s just annoying when there are more plausible reasons for him marrying a woman already pregnant with another man’s child (old family friend wanting to save her from disgrace, needed the dowry to pay off gambling debts, there was a longstanding betrothal between them that would have been tricky to get out of, etc.).

No, the bigger problem with N’s backstory vs primogeniture is firstly that at the time the English aristocracy was racist af (still is tbh) and given his pretty obvious mixed-race heritage, no court would have agreed that Nate was a legitimate son (this is for a very special reason that we will be coming back to). I say Nate specifically here because primogeniture requires the eldest legitimate son. Nat wouldn’t have inherited at all, as women in that period passed from the guardianship of their father (or other male blood relative) into that of their husband after marriage, and only gained any kind of independence with widowhood. If N had been an only child, maybe they would have been treated as a special case, but unfortunately Milton exists: the eldest legitimate son who by law will inherit everything.

Now here’s the thing. Your average aristocrat in the 17th century is very obsessed with lineage and keeping the family line unbroken. He would not, therefore, send his legitimate heir to sea to be shot at or drowned before he can carry on the family name – that joy instead goes to any other sons who need their own profession, because again, they will get very little. Nat would have had a dowry, but would never have been expected to make her own living, so I'm going to focuson Nate for this next bit.

In Book 3, if you unlock his tragic backstory Nate tells you he joined the Royal Navy after Milton went missing so that he could go look for him. And, well. This is where his backstory as Mishka tells it completely falls apart. For two reasons:

1. Even in the modern day, you can’t ‘just’ join the Navy, and you certainly can’t just jump straight to being a lieutenant – it takes years of training and after a certain age they won’t take you because they won’t be able to mould you easily enough into a useful tool. For most of the Navy's history, the process was even more involved. It wasn’t an office job you could just rock up to and then quit if you felt like it, it was a lifetime commitment. Boys destined to be officers would be sent to sea as early as 12 to learn shipboard life, starting at the bottom and moving up the ranks. These were gained by passing exams and by purchasing a commission – which is why you generally had to come from wealth to be an officer at all. Once you get to lieutenant you're responsible for a lot of people, and might be tasked with commanding any captured ships alongside the daily running of yours - it was not an easy job.

2. Even as a lieutenant (one rank below Captain, with varying levels of seniority) it’s not like you can just go where you want. In the 1720s British colonies already existed in India, the Caribbean, and up the entire eastern seaboard of North America and into Canada, and the Navy was tasked with protecting merchant shipping along these seaways (and one trade in particular that we’ll be getting to, don’t worry). Nate could have ended up practically anywhere in the burgeoning empire. He would not have been able to choose whom he served under, and would not have been able to demand his superior officer go against orders from the admirality to chase down one lone vessel because he thinks another one of the admirals might be a bit dodgy. It could not have happened.

Besides these impracticalities, there’s a far easier way for the child of a wealthy man to get to a specific point on the far side of the globe to look for their lost sibling, which is the route I assume Nat took sine she couldn’t have joined the Navy (yes she could have snuck in but she’s specifically in a dress in the B2 mirror scene so). All they'd have to do would be to charter a ship and tell the captain where to go, which is the plot of Treasure Island. It's quicker, less fuss, with less chance of things going wrong. It's even possible in the age of mercantilism that the Sewells had some merchant vessels among their holdings that could be diverted for the task. Why go through the hassle of joining the Navy and potentially ending up on the wrong side of the world when you can just hire a ship directly?

If Nate does have to be in the Navy (and let’s face it, it’s worth it just for the uniform) then it's far more plausible is that, as the illegitimate son who would not inherit because of racism etc, he got sent to the Navy as a boy and rose through the ranks to become a lieutenant. When he got news of Milton’s disappearance not far from where he was stationed, he begged his captain to go investigate in case whatever happened turned out to be the symptom of a bigger problem. Like pirates.

I like this version better not just because it makes more sense, or because it keeps Nate’s situation re: inheritance closer to Nat’s and therefore makes their stories more equal, but also because it adds a delicious amount of guilt to Nate’s need to find his brother. We know his entire crew died looking for answers, because he was selfish – that’s roughly 100-400 lives lost because of him, and we know that sort of thing eats at him.

So that's one side of the story, but if Milton wasn’t in the Navy, what was he doing on the other side of the Atlantic in the first place? Well, this is where we come to the biggest elephant in the room regarding N’s backstory as a member of the 17th century English aristocracy and potentially as a naval officer: the Atlantic Slave Trade. If you are wealthy in 17th century Britain it's more than likely that your wealth comes either from the trade itself, or from the products made with the labour of enslaved people. If you are wealthy, you want to protect your assets from attack by pirates or foreign powers so you don't become less wealthy, and that is what the Navy is for.

Regardless of N’s own views on slavery at the time – and any subsequent changes in opinion – it’s likely their family owned or had shares in slave plantations in the Americas. As distasteful as it is, it makes far more sense that Milton was on a trip to check the family’s holdings when his ship - specifically a merchant vessel - went missing. From a pirate perspective, a merchant ship would make a much better target than a Navy vessel, being slower, more likely to have valuable cargo, and less likely to have marines or a well-trained broadside.

It's not surprising that Mishka left out the subject of the slave trade given her tendency to skirt around darker subjects and general blindspot for racial politics, but it is nuance that, if it was there, would create a more grounded and coherent backstory for N that doesn’t have quite so many holes. Like with A being the child of an invader and his war bride, we could get some deeper thoughts from N about their place in the world - How do they feel to have grown up so privileged when others who looked like them were regarded as literal property? How did they feel being part of the system that made it happen? Did it inform their compassionate nature? Is it still a source of guilt or someithng they've tried to make up for?

I'm not sure where I was going with all of this. It's late, my sleep pattern is fucked. The tl;dr is that giving the vampires' backstories historical context would make them feel more multifaceted and would give opportunities for character growth that are instead missed because of a desire for a more sanitized version of the past.

#thank you for coming to my ted talk #the wayhaven chronicles #twc #a du mortain #adam du mortain #ava du mortain #n sewell #nate sewell #nat sewell #it's annoying because it’s such a small tweak in the grand scheme of things #If she didn’t want unfortunate implications she could have made N from a century later when the navy was actively trying to stop slavery #A could have been from a 50 years earlier to tie his whole family’s demise into the subjugation of the english after the battle of hastings #or a century later when the two courts had mostly integrated #mishka made choices #they deserve to be given more substance than mere aesthetics #you can tell it’s late I’m using long words

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selfaware-bungou-stray-dogs · 5 months

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How are you doing? I hope you are feeling well.

Is it possible for a teen power or denji like reader? And if you would like maybe the reader also has the same past as denji or power from chainsaw man. You can choose whoever you want to do. I also really enjoy your posts! Thank you! And reminder for you to not overwork yourself. Please take care of yourself and make sure to take breaks. Stay safe :)

I am doing well, thanks for asking. I am glad, that you liked my posts. Enjoy ☺️

Denji! Teen! Reader

Self-Aware! Platonic! BSD Characters x GN! Platonic! Denji! Teen! Reader

Description: There was something strange with Their Guiding Light.

Warning: OOC. Slight-Spoilers to Chainsaw Man (Denji's Past, Fate's of some Characters, Makima mentioned, No Nayuta). English is my second language.

_______

You put your finished homework in your bag, trying not to damage notebook pages. Your handwriting became better, your reading skills proved and, recently, your math teacher praised for all the progress you have made.

Life became... normal.

As normal as a devil hybrid's life could be. Especially, if said hybrid had to take care of a cat and seven dogs, go to school and safe people from devils at their spare time.

Your fingers brushed against a chainsaw cord.

Pochita... Aki... Power...

Would your life ever be normal again?

If someone asked you if you blamed your father, for what has happened, you would say "I dunno"

If it wasn't for his debt, you won't become Devil Hunter, worked with Yakuza, had your heart fused with Pochita... Won't meet your friends. And Makima...

This situation was complex.

Really complex.

And you didn't want to think about it.

Not now. Maybe, later.

For now, you have some reading exercises.

You stand up and took new Bungou stray dogs manga volume.

With your phone near (to look a meaning of words you don't know), you start reading it.

________

🐾Their Guiding Light was really emotional and kind. And each time Guiding Light decided to say something good about them...

"Kunikida is so serious! It's cool and funny at the same time. I wonder if he could help me with math homework." Little Light was practically vibrating, rubbing against Kunikida's cheek.

"I would like to make some bombs with Kajii! Sounds cool!" Little Light was purring, curled on Kajii's head.

"Oh! Fyodor is so smart! I wanna be as smart, as him, one day!" Everyone try to hold back their laughter, looking at Little Light, who were "hugging" Fyodor's face.

🐾 But there was something, that makes them worried. They guessed, that you were a teen. And, for some reason, you have some troubles with reading. You were slow, re-reading some words, and taking your time.

🐾 They were worried, because they were afraid, that Their Guiding Light were bullied because of their reading habits. It was another reason for them to get to the real world faster. To protect you from bullies.

______

You were having lunch on a school rooftop. It's not like you can't eat at the school's cafeteria.

But, if Chainsaw Devil Hunter are needed, you need an easy way to get to the battle. Without being noticed.

You were ready to take a first bite of your food, when the school building started to shake.

Another Devil (you really didn't care about what kind of devil it was), was on a run. You put your lunch box down. Time to get to business.

You didn't notice, how your phone screen became white.

You pull the chainsaw's cord and jumped.

---------

When you returned to the roof, you saw a group of shocked BSD Characters.

______

🐾 Yosano checked fifteen minutes, checking your face and arms, making sure, that you weren't hurt. During check-ups, BSD Cast explained everything to you.

🐾 Your life became even stranger.

_________

🐾 You have a huge family right now. And a protective one.

🐾 When you were moving into the new house, some Devil Hunters (who knew about your Chainsaws) tried to stop them. It took one "F*** off, they are my kid now" from Fukuchi to stop them.

🐾 Chuuya became a second owner for your dogs. Fukuzawa became a second owner of your cat.

🐾 Kunikida and Poe are tutoring you. You wanted to improve your math, writing and reading skills.

🐾 Mori and Yosano will always run a medical check-ups on you, after your transformations.

🐾 Fitzgerald bought every merch with your Devil Form he can find.

🐾 You told Ango, Ranpo and Ayatsuji and Power's last request. They try to help you find a new Incarnation of Blood Devil.

🐾 Kids now attending the same school as you. After you defend them from bullies, they created a fan club of you. Not to Chainsaw Devil Hunter. No, to [Y/N] [L/N].

🐾 Life didn't become less chaotic. But, it became warmer. And more homey.

#self-awarebsd #self-awareau #bungou stray dogs au #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd anime #bsd x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader #platonic

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lady-arc-art · 7 months

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THEORY: “Welcome Home, my son…”

For a while I wondered why puppets are used specifically to help tell the story of this ARG? Then it was brought to my attention from another Welcome Home fan that maybe there are some parallels to the story of Pinocchio. In versions of the story, Geppetto had a real son that passed away and from his grief he created a wooden puppet that looked like his son, who would later become Pinocchio.

I also think it kind of is that way because there’s a big emphasis on family and children/babies in this update. With Howdy’s family coming over for the Homewarming, Julie and Frank trying to get everyone to be quiet so they don’t wake up the flowers and bugs that are hibernating (which is something parents do when they don’t want any loud noises that could wake up a sleeping baby), and the commercials targeted towards children, also Frank singing a lullaby and Wally singing a song about children going to a place called Toy Land and never leaving.

Then it hit me, sorry if any of this sounds fanfic-y or if I’m reaching a bit, but this is what think could be going on.

In the early-mid 60s, Ronald Dorelaine was a children’s entertainer, specializing in puppetry. He ran a troupe with some of his other puppeteer friends called “The Playfellow Puppets” and they would put on little puppet shows as part of the children’s theater slot at the local community centers.

The cast of characters included (and in order of creation): Julie Joyful (she was the first created since she’s a simple hand rod puppet), Frank Frankly, Eddie Dear, Sally Starlight, Howdy Pillar, and Poppy Partridge.

Since a part of me feels like almost everyone else was created before Wally and Home also it would make sense if Poppy was kind of “new” since she’s the most complex puppet to operate.

Ronald Dorelaine had a young son who would often tag along during his father’s performances, and his son’s named was Walliford, but sometimes his dad would call him “Wally.” Walliford was very fascinated with his father’s work and the characters he created, and one of his favorite things to do was draw and paint, hoping that someday he would create something when he grows up just like his father. Walliford even helped Ronald come up with a new character for “The Playfellow Puppets.” Barnaby B. Beagle. A blue dog that was inspired by one of his son’s drawings.

Which would explain this.

Ronald’s puppet shows started becoming so popular that it even started gaining attention from producers of a local tv station (sort of similar to PBS) where they offered Ronald the idea to turn his puppet show into a television series. Ronald took up on the offer, and the show began to develop. However a tragedy would soon happen….

Ronald was a heavy smoker (hence why there is a a big emphasis on cigarette ads in the recent update):

One day when trying to discard a cigarette before Ronald had to leave the house (possibly to go to a last minute meeting with the producers that would be helping him develop his new tv show). However he was unaware that the cigarette was still lit, and it set a fire to his home. Ronald was safe because he wasn’t in the house at the time of the fire, but his son Walliford was nowhere to be found and his body was never recovered so he’s presumed dead.

(Probably hinted at when Home’s eyes turned red in the commercial compilations)

I also think maybe Eddie’s puppeteer was a witness or somehow involved with this incident (possibly because he agreed to watch Walliford while his dad went out) since I noticed during his breakdown, everything turned bright red and Eddie looks like he feels guilty about something, hence why he’s sweating and Home appears to be starring him down as if he did something.

From his grief and in order to cope with the loss of his son, Ronald created a new character as a tribute to him. Wally Darling, and from there the plot of the show changed. The show would now be about a neighborhood, all of the previous characters would be neighbors with Wally Darling, who would now be the lead of the show. Ronald also added some traits that were present in Walliford, such as his love for art and his friendship with Barnaby (who was Walliford’s favorite of the group) for the new Wally character.

Then for a last minute edition, Ronald included a sentient home for Wally to live in. The Home was meant to keep Wally the puppet safe and to watch out for him, which was something he wasn’t able to do for his son.

Hence why the title of the show changed to “Welcome Home,” since to him he wanted it to feel like his son now has a second chance at life and he’s finally back home where he belongs. Almost like saying “Welcome home, my son.”

However none of this was enough for Ronald, even though he created a new character to keep Walliford’s memory alive, it was hard for him to find a puppeteer to play Wally because it wasn’t the same. All he really wanted was his son back and he would go to whatever means necessary even if it means going to the extreme. He later came across “the entity” and made a wish for Wally Darling to become real (like how Geppetto wished for Pinocchio to be real and The Blue Fairy brought him to life). And with that his wish came true. Wally was now sentient without the use of puppeteer.

I kind of believe this to be the case because Wally to me feels like the odd man out, everyone else feels lively and zany since they’re real people, while Wally just feels like a blank slate, with the way he speaks sounding very monotone. Here there was a bit of an innocence to Wally since he’s always learning things for the first time and asking questions about certain concepts and feelings, since he was literally a puppet brought to life and “the baby” of the group. However the producers, and parents watching the show didn’t think it was odd since they thought Wally was like this since he was meant to be a character that children can project themselves onto.

However what everyone didn’t know is that the entity that helped bring Wally to life manifested it’s way into the show possessing The Home puppet, and since Wally had no one attached to a real person playing him, the entity used Wally as a vessel to carry out their agenda. Day after day, the show started to go more and more off the rails, but what was really happening was through Wally the entity started to brainwash each of the puppeteers into believing that they were the actual characters, possibly by using the sleeping pills advertised in the commercials, or there was foul play on Ronald’s end and he gave all his puppeteers the sleeping pills to “put them out of their misery.”

By 1974, Ronald tried to put a stop to the entity, and he had no other choice but to end the show and destroy all the evidence that it ever happened. Ronald himself also began to slowly disappear from the public eye and he hasn’t been seen since then.

For years “Welcome Home” has gone on being a lost media, until now.

That’s not the end of story, because it turns out the real Wally Darling, Walliford Dorelaine, is actually still alive, but he has amenesia from the incident and he was no memories of his previous life. Doesn’t know what his real name is (it probably started with a W) or who his parents were, which is why he was never brought back to Ronald. By the time Walliford grew up, his friends started talking about this mysterious puppet show that was on TV years ago called “Welcome Home” which was kind of like Sesame Street, but they all thought it was some kind of urban legend. Then suddenly Walliford started getting all these tattered artwork and pictures of merchandise from the show they were talking about, and he showed it to his friends and together they formed The Welcome Home Restoration Group to try and uncover the mysterious Welcome Home show.

Walliford however started experiencing strange feelings both physically and mentally. There were times when he doubted if the show was even real, but whenever he did have any doubt, he had dreams and hallucinations of Wally Darling trying to communicate with him through the phone and he also starts seeing all these strange video clips from the show itself sprinkled throughout the website that he and the team built. The team however started growing concerned for Walliford thinking that he “lost his mind” so they kindly tried to distance themselves from him while they are trying to rebrand the site after seeing that Walliford was trying to communicate with what he believed to be Wally Darling haunting the site, before they shut it down.

This only caused Walliford to create his own website with his own evidence, since it seems like his own restoration team is starting to mistrust him, and now he’s going to get to the bottom of this all by himself.

But what they all don’t know is that Walliford’s connection to “Welcome Home” goes much deeper than that, as it’s in his blood.

#welcome home #welcome home arg #wally darling #barnaby b beagle #julie joyful #frank frankly #eddie dear #sally starlight #howdy pillar #poppy partridge #welcome home theory #welcome home puppet show

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clanwarrior-tumbly · 1 year

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Hello! IDK if you can do this, but how about a FNAF DLC platonic:

Ruined Eclipse (or Sun and Moon separated) with a creator! reader, something like a reunion parent-child, they recognize the reader because of an old guest record, the first one they ever had. As they were created by them

"I still can't believe you almost shutdown the entire MXES system..."

"Yeah, me neither. But who decided that the avatar should look like some...creepy rabbit? I was honestly more scared of that than anything."

".....I'd rather not talk about it. Let's just keep moving."

"Vanessa's right, we're getting close to the daycare." You chimed in, keeping a hopeful smile on your face as you shone the flashlight down the debris-ridden path.

Coming back to the ruined Pizzaplex was something you never even dreamed of doing. After helping Gregory, Vanessa, and Freddy (or at least what's left of him anyways) escape this awful place...you thought that the best thing to do was to implement an advanced security system.

One that ensured nothing, especially the machine you all called the "Mimic", could get out and wreck havoc.

Of course, you felt bad for leaving all the other animatronics behind, including Freddy's bandmates. You had plans to come back and retrieve them once Vanessa confirmed that the widespread system virus was cleared.

Then a mysterious earthquake struck and basically left the complex in ruins.

Fortunately the security system remained intact, as it was her idea to put all of it into the AR world where reality couldn't damage the nodes.

And for a while there were no problems...

Until they began shutting down one by one, and Vanessa discovered that a new user had been paired with the VANNI network thanks to the mask she left behind.

That user?

Gregory's friend: Cassie.

Somehow the Mimic managed to contact her and pretend to be him, instructing her to "save him" by turning off all the nodes. And it was interfering with all of your attempts to reach her.

Even worse?

MXES kept sending out alert signals to the animatronics--which is what it's programmed to do in order to keep anyone from touching the nodes..

But considering the horrible state the Glamrocks were in the last time you saw them, you were almost certain they're hunting Cassie like a pack of wolves, driven by anger rather than a glitch or security protocols.

Luckily you were able to access her walkie-talkie before she could shutdown the Entity itself and free the Mimic, explaining that Gregory was never there to begin with.

You, him, Vanessa, and Freddy eventually came to her rescue, taking a backup of MXES before escaping the pizzaplex for the last time.

Or...

At least you thought that would've been the last time you've ever seen that place.

Cassie recognized you as the creator of the Daycare Attendant and mentioned that he was active and....didn't try to harm her after she managed to reboot him.

That piqued your interest.

You didn't think he'd be functional still, let alone harmless towards her.

For a few days you kept thinking about it and how much you missed seeing that ray of sunshine/moonlight..

Next thing you knew, you were back here with your friends to seek him out. Gregory proposed finding a new body for Freddy--or at least batteries from the recharge stations to keep his head active.

Since you're already here, you might as well take a shortcut to Superstar Daycare.

"Can I ask you something about him, [y/n]?" Cassie spoke up.

"Sure."

"...was he meant to have some third mode? Because when I rebooted him, he didn't act too much like Sun...and he definitely wasn't acting 100% like Moon, either."

"....oh my gosh.." Stopping in your tracks, you stared at her with wide eyes. "You managed to put him into Eclipse mode??"

"I....guess..? Is that what he's called?"

"Yes! That was his default mode for his theater performances! I thought it was lost forever, but....wow." You laughed softly. "I have to see him now."

Eclipse was a name you thought you'd never hear again.

Originally, you had created him as a stage performer in the Pizzaplex's early days, developing his day-night cycle function as a neat little schtick for the children. He was meant to tell stories and switch between Sun and Moon to act out a thrilling "good vs evil" battle.

Alas his performances didn't get nearly as much attention as the Glamrocks, and you were sorta coerced into coming up with a new idea lest he was scrapped altogether.

You decided he'll become a daycare manager to help with the recent uptick of patrons accompanied by toddlers.

You led a small engineering team to help program him with new information, including a guest record that you tested out first, and he adjusted to his new role very well. He became popular even quicker than before.

The only issue during maintenance was the light-sensitivity switch couldn't be removed...not even by you. For whatever reason the DreadUnit didn't have that information on file.

You've tried everything in the book, even attempting to reverse-engineer how you made it originally. But you couldn't remove it without compromising Eclipse's entire system.

It's like it was somehow integrated permanently into his software, rather than being a physical mechanism you put in with a wrench and screws.

You knew for a fact you didn't design it that way.

One of the newbie engineers who doubted your skills tried fixing the problem themselves, taking Eclipse to parts & services without your permission.

Then there was a blackout, and they nearly got maimed to death after he abruptly switched into Moon and attacked them inside the "protective" cylinder.

The incident had been covered-up since, but you never did see Eclipse (or that coworker) ever again.

There was just Sun and Moon now, with neither half remembering anything related to their original form.

As painful as it was...you had to accept it, knowing that it would be too risky (and costly) to perform any further maintenance on that mechanic. You just continued overseeing his duties as daycare attendant.

But things kept going downhill from here.

You felt like your beloved creation had turned into a walking nightmare, considering the amount of complaints you've had over him making toddlers cry while they're getting picked up from the daycare.

It didn't help matter where the blackouts became more frequent in there, too, triggering Moon to come out often; management's solution was to shove a bunch of backup generators into the play areas and call it a day.

They didn't wanna waste a single dime more on any problems relating to the Attendant or his attraction, making it clear that you'd only repair him if he needed cleaning.

And they threatened you with termination if you mentioned anything about Eclipse to the guests or coworkers.

It was so unfair.

The incompetent engineer who only had two months of animatronic repair experience took your creation and broke him--being let off the hook with a mere slap on the wrist and all their medical expenses paid...

While you're stuck dealing with the consequences.

Neither Sun nor Moon blamed you for anything that happened, but you still felt like you failed them.

Like you failed Eclipse.

You eventually resigned, unable to deal with it anymore, although you still thought about him all the time and visited the Pizzaplex, hoping he was doing well.

Maybe he'd forget about you as he continued receiving an endless number of guest names to add to his database. He probably erased your name since you haven't been back in such a long time.

Perhaps..that was for the best.

Yet now you were here once again among the ruins of the mall, holding onto the tiniest bit of hope that he was still alive.

It seems you haven't fully let him go just yet.

..........

As the doors to the daycare eerily creaked open, you made the brave decision to go inside alone while the rest of the group kept a lookout for trouble.

Gregory and Freddy, of course, had their reasons not to enter that place. Neither of them knew for certain if the Attendant would remember them...and how Moon chased down the brunette at the end of every hour.

He'd rather not relive the horrors of trying to navigate through the darkness and turn on those stupid generators.

You looked all around, frowning at the ruined state of the daycare you helped build. But at the same time it filled you with such nostalgia.

It's a miracle anything was left standing at all.

"Hello? Eclipse?" Your voice echoed throughout the seemingly empty attraction.

A few seconds later, you got a response that made your heart swell with joy.

"Hello, friend! Welcome to Superstar Daycare!!"

In the blink of an eye, a familiar face floated down in front of you with a smile. You stepped back and took a moment to look over the animatronic, seeing he had parts of Sun and Moon blended together as one.

And somehow, he was able to stand despite only having one intact leg.

At first you had no idea what to say..

But no words had to be spoken, as Eclipse's petals clicked and shuffled as he leaned in closer. From his eyes came a holographic scanner that swept over you once, and once it vanished he stepped back, shocked.

"[Y/n]...my creator..?" He whispered. "You...have returned?"

You nodded, smiling as tears formed in your eyes. "It's me, Eclipse. I'm back."

You couldn't help opening your arms up to him, and he embraced you tightly in response, nearly crushing you. Although some of his endoskeleton components and loose wires poked your sides, you didn't care about that, being too overwhelmed with emotion to worry.

He was okay, and he didn't seem to hold any ill-will towards your abrupt resignation.

That's all that mattered right now.

"Oh it's so, so good to see you!! How have you been? Is your boss giving you a rough time? Am I due for maintenance??" He was rambling a mile a minute, and you just chuckled and shook your head, letting him go.

"No, you're just fine, buddy. But listen, there's..something you need to know-"

"Of course, of course! Could you just give me one moment? I'm almost done cleaning up this place!" He looked around anxiously. "We'll be open in an hour so I need to do one final sweep!"

"Eclipse-"

"I pinky swear it'll take only a second! And then-!"

"Eclipse. I command you to stay put and listen."

Before he could leap out of your sights, your firm tone of voice made him freeze and stare at you, completely unmoving.

Even you were stunned that he was still programmed to obey you, but at least it makes what you're about to tell him easier.

You cleared your throat, awkwardly clipping your flashlight to your belt before finally speaking. "Cleaning up the daycare is...no longer necessary."

He tilted his head like a curious cat, looking rather troubled. "No longer...necessary? Why? Did I do a bad job? I hope not...I-I was just...trapped in a long sleep!"

You nodded. "I know, but during that time...an earthquake hit the Pizzaplex, and now it's too dangerous for anyone to come visit."

"..huh, so we're closed...forever?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry, Eclipse.."

"I see..." Slowly, but surely, he was processing this news. Although he perked back up with a smile. "But it must be somewhat safe..since you came to visit me!"

"Cassie told me you were still here." Your smile returned, relieved he was taking it better than you initially expected. "I heard she helped you...and Sun and Moon when you needed it most."

"Cassie....? Cassie...ohhh, the little girl who made us whole again!!" His eyes flashed with recollection. "She was such a sweet kid! Is she alright? Is she safe?"

"She's safe, and she's just outside the daycare. Along with Vanessa and um...Gregory."

"........"

"L-Listen, I know you two had a bad history together.." You began, cautious as he just stared blankly at you. "But I promise he's not-"

"Who's Gregory? I don't recall his name being in my records.."

'Ah....so Eclipse doesn't know him. Thank god.'

"Oh! That's okay. He's a great kid, too. I'll have to introduce you to him." You extended your hand out. "Come with me. Let's get out of this place. He needs our help finding a new body for Freddy since his original one got destroyed by the STA--earthquake."

Internally you cursed yourself for that near-slip of the tongue, although Eclipse didn't notice at all and joyfully took your hand, eager to help a kid in need.

He let you lead him out of the daycare like a parent and their child, never letting your hand go even for a moment. But you weren't complaining.

In a way, you were his parent.

You did create him, after all.

And now you've finally reunited with him.

#clanask #fnaf x reader #five nights at freddy's x reader #fnaf ruin x reader #ruin x reader #fnaf eclipse #fnaf daycare attendant #platonic #fnaf security breach x reader #fnaf sb x reader

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