#one of whom is actually in charge while desperately pretending not to be

[secondbeatsongs]

saw that there was fanfic for Taskmaster, and I'd never seen the show so I was like "oh, that's interesting, I wonder why there's so much fic for it?"

but now, having watched three seasons of it? I get it. jfc. I fucking get it.

that dynamic sure is something, huh?

[juszar2]

At This Age...

At this age a false persona, stalker obsession and a do anything completely immature and resentfully jealous "personality" is indicative of what the -it- has always been. To have such a feeling of contempt for a woman since she was a youth and make it to this age and openly on social media pursue that woman, critique the attributes of that woman to include her entirety, boast your goals to damage the life of that grown woman, to create artwork regarding and to insult that woman, narrate your attempts to pursue that grown beautiful woman's spouse when it are homosexual since its youth, where back then it obsessed the same way over the woman, to approach and proposition/solicit anyone near to or in the life of that woman including the beautiful woman's spouse, to focus its life on that woman because it never had a life other than cocaine sales and reported use, finger sex in elementary, full sex by middle school, sex with anything both genders middle or by high school to include fiberglass and plastic prosthetic penises and maybe animals even to include ramming its tongue and mouth in the crotches and vaginal canals of females and those females who live as men, while posting about actual feminine females who better watch out cause ya want em calling some babe, and how the simp low spouse of the beautiful woman must not know if he decides to rebuff your advances of asking and probably nearly begging for him to allow it to finally- as it has over its life fantasized about this young girl who grew into a beautiful smart capable woman... Slither into her life. The hatred but actual obsession that it demonstrates as it asks about that woman's sex lifer over her life, asks about her kids, asks about her career, asks about her finances, asks about her property, asks about her cars, asks about her relationships with others, asks about All things concerning this woman it is obsessed with. Now this is likely increased because it heard the woman was skilled in her career and family and all things undertaken. While it has not risen to anything positive and its internal compass allows it to be felony charged, foul mouthed, snakish, fake in its emulation of the woman whom it heard certainly was light and positivity. Its real truth seeps out as it does all of the deeds listed here and more. It looks for those in and around the woman's life to con. This 20 years ago would have been low and gross, still now is indicative of what it is entirely. I'm pretty sure that it will result in it having made a mistake to harass, stalk and obsess over the beautiful, dignified woman. Targets are not responsible for this trash at all. But the desperation obsessed feel when their lives have been trash and they see a positive woman that is opined to be such. Rather than find a woman that they CAN have, who will pretend manhood on some nights like it likes things, or different man who will be as weak as a woman...that is Not in relation with the beauty it stalks and is enemy to, it instead embarks on all that I have listed here in desperate search of life, one that is not its true self. Just because it is severe about the beautiful young girl turned beautiful woman. (illustrations, posts and deeds over time...available). Yes, I know he is weak sorta easy clearly as it is enemy, it all fits its M/O. Not understandable to me because for life.. Lawyers, doctors, engineers more at the gym, grocery, Lowe's, Home Depot, gas station have pursued. But then they see quality, light not menacing low and trash...so I see why that would not be the case for this gentle-woman. When it would speak and talk about who it hates/obsesses over, pus**, being a coloring book and more. They'd know. All of its efforts to infiltrate, con acquaintances... They'd know. Even if it sprinkled in praises to god, and those they "love"- in order to relay that it is a loving (not jealous, menacing, classless, and gross), put clothes on and smiled, they'd still know. And so a toilet weakness and trashiness. Counseling about how you actually look for a life in life should be its pursuit.

[autobots-and-their-crazy-kids]

Cody Burns: The Techno-Organic! 💙

@geluatekurama Here’s Your Gift! :) 

Ever since Optimus Prime and Charlie Burns revealed to the Rescue Bots as well as the rest of the Burns Family about how the police officer and the Prime first met, things haven’t been the same… 

Apparently, Charlie isn’t Cody’s biological father and Cody isn’t truly a human.

About a decade ago, Optimus discovered a crashed space-pod, that had one surviving sparkling still in their protoform. 

Even though he wanted to, there was no way the Prime and his team could take care of them all. 

So with the help of the American Goverment, Optimus meets up with a retired former agent and her husband to take care of the sparkling. 

That retired agent was Charlie Burns’ late wife and that sparkling was Cody, who became techno-organic after being exposed to Charlie’s DNA to hide him from the Decepticons. 

After hearing this, everyone had different reactions to the truth. 

The Rescue Bots were shocked (and in Heatwave’s case; upset) that Optimus would keep something this important from them, but it would explain the special connection that all the bots have with Cody. 

Kade and Dani are angry at their Dad, on Cody’s behalf. 

Graham knows that their Father had his reasons for keeping this secret for so long, but he’s still pretty disappointed.

Meanwhile, Cody be hurt and sad that his Dad never told him this, even when he learned about the Rescue Bots, Autobots and Decepticons.

The little cyborg needed space from his family, so he decides to stay at Frankie’s place for a while.

Frankie and her father are fascinated with Cody basically being an alien cyborg, but they understand that Cody would rather talk about anything else.

After spending the weekend at the house of the Greens, Cody returns to his home and after having a long talk with his family, he and his older siblings decide to forgive their father and Optimus.

After all, they were only doing what they thought was best for Cody and even though Charlie didn’t create Cody, he is still his Dad.

And no matter what Cody is or where he came from, he’s always gonna be a part of the family.

From then on, all the Rescue Bots help Cody train with his cybertronian powers (with Optimus Prime checking on their progress).

All Cody can do so far is blast light beams, but it’s enough to impress everyone else, especially Frankie.

Eventually, Frankie asked her genius Dad to make some power armor (with a built-in jetpack) for her to train with as well, so she and Cody could be their own team in the future.

Both his family and the Greene Family still see him as the same Cody he always was.

However, the Rescue Bots have started to become more affectionate and protective of him then they already were before, especially Blades.

Back on Cybertron when Blades was a medic, he had a fondness for sparklings and always wanted to have one of his own, but he’s never had a proper chance.

Learning that Cody is a sparkling has given Blades an opportunity to take care of one.

Honestly, all the attention and affection doesn’t bother Cody.

In fact, he loves it. 

Even the giant kisses that Blades places on his head.

It’s great to have all the eyes on him for a change.

After a few months of Autobot training with the Rescue Bots, Optimus arrived with Bumblebee so the golden, beeping bot could give Cody some special Autobot training.

Meanwhile, Optimus gave Heatwave some Autobot Warrior training of his own, both as a reward for protecting Griffon Rock and an apology for keeping the true reason why Optimus kept them on the island a secret.

Then once Bee has left, the next week Optimus brought along a giant green bot named Bulkhead to train Cody.

And the week after that, Optimus brought a female blue bot named Arcee as Cody’s new teacher.

And for the final week, Cody was visited by the medic Ratchet, whom taught him how to heal other bots instead of new combat skills.

Once the training was finally all over, Cody and Frankie were ready to go out into the field with the rest of the Burns family again.

Cody had to tell the rest of Griffon Rock that his combat mode is simply armor that he wears, similar to Frankie’s.

Nobody else knows that he’s a cyborg, similar to how the Rescue Bots must hide from the humans that they’re sentient aliens.

People aren’t ready for the truth yet.

But Cody is completely okay with this.

Because to be honest a part of him isn’t ready to reveal the truth to everyone either.

He wants to pretend to be a normal human for a little bit longer.

However, the world seems to ignore Cody’s wish, when a Decepticon appeared and began attacking Griffon Rock...

What’s makes the situation even worse is that the Decepticon is a triple-changer and Optimus Prime is nowhere near Griffon Rock!

With having no other options, the whole Burns Family evacuated the island, while the Rescue Bots tried to take down their giant foe all by themselves.

And even though Cody and Frankie wanted to help, the Rescue Bots insisted that they go on the boats with the others.

The Rescue Bots all managed to hold their own against their enemy for a while.

Unfortunately despite trying their best, the Rescue Bots had almost no idea to handle this something of this threat level.

Even with the training Optimus had given Heatwave, facing an actual Decepticon in combat (especially one of the size of a fragging mountain) is much more different and difficult.

As Cody gazed at the battle from the seas, he knew he couldn’t stay on the sidelines anymore.

With Frankie secretly carrying Cody back to Griffon Island using the jetpack mode of her armor, Cody ran as fast as could towards the battlefield.

Boulder was unconscious and Blades was trying to heal some of his wounds and wake the green bot up.

While Heatwave and Chase are still desperately trying to hold off the deceptive beast of a machine from causing any more damage to the area.

Seeing his family suffering so much trying to protect their home, filled Cody’s spark with courage and anger.

With a deep, long breath, he summoned his sword and charged at his foe.

Time to put all that training to the test…

[brellhal96]

It’s... pretty complicated

CHAPTER 2 

FORMALITY 

Chapter 1

General summary: College dramas in the life of a third-year student who decides to start, not a relationship, but something with a renowned professor.

Summary: After going out for some time comes the time to define with certainty what is going on between you two.

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x FemReader

Word count: 5454  

Warnings: Content only for over 18s, mentions of insecurity, a bit of nervousness and unprotected sex.

Notes: Sorry to delay in uploading the content, it is somewhat short but I hope you like it, I am open to any comment or suggestion, thanks for reading me.

Not my GIF, credits to whom it may concern.

It had been two months since you started dating Tom, things were going quite well, both managed to be the perfect team in almost everything, you had even finished the project for which you had started to have this relationship.

After a few days when Tom insisted, you agreed to have a key to his apartment, being honest you loved the action but you didn't want him to think that things were going too fast or that you were too invasive, but he really wanted you to have it, so you agreed. He also already knew your apartment, quite smaller than his but still cozy.

”It's pretty cute" Tom looked at you from the dining room while you were on the living room floor looking like a 10-year-old girl learning to use acrylics.

” I feel like it's not completely good " You watched the painting from different perspectives, you prepared it for the university culture week where students compete in various areas such as music, dance, poetry, and even painting.

"Don't be so modest, it's perfect” he stood up and went to the kitchen for paper towels to start cleaning up all your mess.

”You know you're dating with a perfectionist, " you laughed as you saw that all your legs, hands, even your face were full of paint, but you felt pretty, just wearing one of his shirts and your sneakers.

"Oh come on, in that case you wouldn't go out with me, I'm a mess” Very carefully began to wipe your face full of paint.

"Yes, but you're my mess" You accidentally took his face and stained it just like you "And sometimes disasters are prettier than perfect things"

” You're totally beautiful Y/N " Both smiled as you shared a look of complicity and mutual desire.

He carefully began to slide his hands down your legs, at first with the intention of cleaning up the mess of paint that was on your body, however with the rubbing of his fingers on your thighs as he lifted the shirt showing part of your body more than necessary, both knew that this would not just end in a routine cleaning.

For a moment as his fingers touched your skin directly you came closer to him and slid your hand down his neck, right in the places where you knew he would fall under your charm.

After a gaze of complicity, he began to kiss your legs with too much lust , that you could only end up lying on the floor with a curved back, you thanked internally that the only thing you wore under that shirt was lingerie easy to remove.

"Fuck, I want you all the fucking time, this is starting to worry me." With force he spread your legs and kneeling right in front of you he began to unbutton his shirt while you from the ground watched him with your restless breath.

"I told you, you're dating with a fucking perfectionist." You wanted to start unbuttoning your shirt, but with a sharp look and a quick move, he took your hand from yourself, even put your hands over your head with one of his hands as a sign that you couldn't move them.

"This time I command" In a sense excites you even more that position of took full control even over your movements and he saw it through your eyes.

With the intention of generating more desire in your eyes and heat in your body with a delicate touch and taking care that the fingertips slide down all your legs I remove your underwear. You moaned with the touch and put your hands in your eyes as you began to tremble.

” I knew you were excited by my touch, but not so much, " he roared in a voice so deep that you knew that with just this you began to get wet like never before.

"Please Tom" You bit one of your hands while throwing a look of complete need, he saw you for a few seconds with the intention of making you see that he was in charge this time, but still he could not resist to please you.

"Your wishes are orders" He took your legs and placed them on his shoulders as he began to lick your stomach while two of his fingers were inserted inside you so your back curved again just with the entrance. The kisses as well as the rhythm of his fingers began to get more and more desperate, you knew that your moans began to get stronger with each crossroads, and just as he inserted the third finger you felt that you would cum

” You must wait" he roared as he withdrew from you leaving you with half-breath. ”Fuck, even needy, you look perfect."

He began to lick and kiss your entrance at the same time as he played with his hands between your thighs and hips, you could only give sudden pulls of his hair while with the other hand you covered your moans.  

”I can't, not anymore" You begged for your release as tears began to come out of the huge climax you were feeling.

"Do it for me" Fiddled a little with your hip as you cum completely feeling an overwhelming release.

After a few seconds you managed that your breathing would stop being so heavy while he was still looking at you with your legs on his shoulders.

"Are you going to stay watching me all day or better I call the pizza boy" You smiled provocatively, you knew it was a bit of a joke "the pizza guy" was a guy who was still a high school student but was a delivery in his spare time, or that's what he told you the other night that he started wanting to flirt with you, until Tom came on the scene in a certain way marking his territory, which didn't bother you at all, it made you laugh.

At the comment Tom bit his tongue and arched one of his eyebrows showing you that you wish you hadn't said that. Quickly he undress you completely, and seeing him take off his belt you knew you would need a few days of rest before you had another round.

He leaned over you carefully, placing his axis right in the middle of your entrance, for seconds (which seemed microseconds) you shared a gaze of mutual lust, as if you were two boys who after so many years of being forbidden to touch each other, could do it now.

He began to enter you and you started to tremble, so when he completely enter you he place your hands on his neck so that you hug him while he began to increase his pace, as it was always quite delicate in these moments, he always pretended a position of superiority and domination before you but dealing with the full moment, in sex always he cared that you feel comfortable and protected.

"Are you okay?" He calmed the rhythm a little while he saw you in the eyes, your hip in front of the action came closer to him, you could contain him and he realized.

"Yes" In the middle of moans and altered breathing you answered half-heartedly ”Go on, please"

His rhythm became quite strong, even his groans were deeper than you had heard before.

"Just fill me of you," you whispered in his ear as they avoided losing consciousness in full mutual orgasm you had.

”Fuck" he replied as you felt as you flooded with him, even at some point you felt as you faded away for a few seconds as he also arched his back over you.

After a few minutes while you were both lying on the floor, carefully he lifted you up and took you to bed while you were dozing in his arms.

"Please don't paint again just with my shirt on” You smiled while he was setting you up to sleep “Or actually, yes, do it again”

"Your wish is my command, isn't it?" You kissed him and then fell asleep.

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

The week went quite well, Monday after the great sex you two had, you went to leave your painting for the cultural week contest, you did not make any expectations actually, there were very good paintings, but it would make you very happy to win.

They began to exhibit all paintings and it was very nice that Tom went to the exhibition as if he were another teacher reviewing school activities, but only took a photograph of your paint while you watched him from afar, because you decided to go at the same time to tour the exhibition although in a certain way with their necessary distance, sharing looks from time to time.

On Friday of that week the results were given and it was quite nice when they told you that you had won the first place, you did not believe it, Jared and Diane accompanied you to receive your first place bun while they took photos for the gazette of the following week.

"So, my number one artist would agree to have dinner with me tonight?"Tom kissed your hand already in his apartment while you ate something in the kitchen in incognito mode.

"Tonight?" You laughed when you pictured yourself with your cheeks like a hamster full of children's cereal that Tom had bought specifically for you.

"Come on, it'll be fun, I promise” He took the box and as your ideal partner he also filled his mouth with children's cereal.

"Okay, but where are we going?”

"That'll be a surprise," he winked at you.

"Mmmm" you pouted " but should I go formal, casual or a bit of both?" You caressed his hair as he hugged you around the waist.

”This time it will be formal" He smiled in the form of complicity, as if this had been planned for quite some time” And that's why I bought this" He gave you a gift box with a rather strange logo on the lid, but you knew it was clothing, you had seen it on some boxes of your mother's clothes.

"Hey, you weren't supposed to do this” You pout again, I knew you kind of didn't like me spending on you.

"Just open it, I feel like you're gonna love it”

When you uncovered the box it was a beautiful evening dress, black color, long with opening in one of the legs to make it look more beautiful, with an open back.

"It's ...“ You held it in your hands feeling the fine silk between your fingers, it was a very nice dress "It's perfect" The emotion in your eyes was reliable, you had never worn such a dress before but whenever you saw girls in them, they look beautiful.

"Well, then we have to prepare because the reservation is at 10:00”

"You're a cheat, you should have told me before”

"I wanted everything to be a surprise”

Both will dress up, at the end of the day you looked like a perfect couple, so elegant and mature, even as if they were married, He watched as you modeled for yourself the dress in front of the mirror even without believing how beautiful you looked.

”I could admire you all night" he said as he leaned against the door frame.

”I really love it, thanks a lot" You smiled shyly, it was the first time you wore this type of clothing, something totally out of your comfort zone.

"Come on, a long night awaits us" You never thought it would turn into a long night.

When you arrived at the restaurant it was pretty cute and elegant, it was far from the university, it drove an hour to get there, which was very good, so no one would see you together and it was completely worth the long trip. It had city view with outdoor balconies, jazz background and quite cozy despite so much formality. The waiter was very kind and you knew of the existence of food that you completely ignored.

Everything was going perfectly well until you heard how behind your back someone greeted Tom as they waited behind you.

"Tom?" He sounded like a rather pleasant voice of a mature man, but the presence behind you was two people.

The moment he greeted Tom his instant nervousness reaction was quite obvious, you even noticed that he passed quite strong spittle.

"Mike, hi" You could actually analyze his reaction pretty easily, but it wasn't that obvious to other people.

"Long time no see" Now the woman was the one who spoke, you were very curious to see who they were but you did not want to turn to look.

Tom stood up and shook the man's hand, that's when you decided to look back.

The woman was Tom's age but the man looked older, they were tall, quite formal, he was wearing a perfectly cut black suit, clearly tailor-made, she was wearing a dress came quite low-cut and cute, she was blonde, thin, you were actually overwhelmed to see how perfect the two of them looked together, not as a couple, but as a royalty father and daughter.

"Well, aren't you planning on introducing this pretty lady?"The man saw you from above, you were still sitting and you looked at Tom who also saw you a little worried, you knew that it was because nobody knew about you, literally nobody.

"Sure, sure, she's Y / N” You stood up and shook hands with both of them while Tom held you by the waist.

"Wow, you had the secret well kept Tom" The blonde smiled as she stared at you "You like young girls" you felt that her comment was quite direct and not with a good intention exactly.

”This is Mike and Tara, my friends" Tom saw you trying to tell you that everything was fine.

"Nice to meet you" You smiled shyly as you waited for the atmosphere to relax a bit.

”We do not want to disturb your dinner, so we withdraw" The man clearly noted that you were not very comfortable with the new presence.

"Oh come on, we could have dinner together, would be a good idea, don't you think?"The blonde didn't take her eyes off you, which made you feel quite uncomfortable so you preferred to keep your eyes only on Tom.

"Come on, Tara, I'm sure they already have plans.”

"And we haven't seen each other for a long time, or would you mind?”

Tom cleared his throat and saw you, actually your look was in the sense that it wasn't bad if he said yes, only you asked that he wouldn't leave you alone at any point.

"All right, let's have dinner.”

Actually Mike was a kind and gentlemanly man, you could tell he was self-confident and quite handsome actually, where as Tara was a strange woman, she was attractive, but her attitude towards you made you feel strange.

“And how was your new job? I heard you plan to publish a new book” Mike addressed Tom very kindly while they were waiting for dinner.

"Well I think I'm doing pretty well, the classes help me reinforce everything I already know, even to learn more, and I plan to publish the book in a few months, right, honey?" He took your hand and kissed your knuckles which made you feel very comfortable but just as nervous, it was the first time that someone knew about you two and you had no idea if you were to be trusted in they.

"Yeah, sometimes he lets me read his sketches and they're pretty good, I swear," Mike nodded, it was pretty easy to hold his gaze, quite the opposite with his partner.

"It's good to see you found a nice lady Tom, I thought I would never know anyone who could stand you "Mike joked and you smiled broadly" He's like a son to me, take good care of him please " Tom had never told you about them before, which made you feel something bad being honest but you thought it was for something. Faced with all these comments, Tara kept a cold and quite serious look.

"And how are you doing with the project?" Tom seemed pretty comfortable with the talk, and it made you feel included, so you didn't mind the sudden change of plans at all, at least until now.

"How do you think we are doing with the project, Tom?" The woman sounded very defensive.

"Tara, please don't start" Mike noticed his attitude " It's getting a little complicated with some issues with permits and stuff, but in the end it will be achieved"

"I'm glad, you know I'm sorry I can't help you, I just needed time since the last project we had" Tom saw the table very thoughtful.

"Quiet is fine, we all deserve our space"

The dinner continued something nice, the woman at some point also relaxed and stopped being defensive during the dinner, however that changed in the bathroom.

"I have to go to the powder room, I'll be back in a second," You got up carefully as you examined the place for the baths.

"I'm coming with you, I know where they are," The woman noticed your reaction.

It was a little awkward going there together, but you told yourself that your prejudices were most likely, so don't take her personality so seriously.

"You and Tom look so cute," She retouched her lipstick while washing your hands.

"Thank you, I think we get along very well"

"How many years does he take you?" She saw you from the mirror.

"Ammm" you weren't sure you answer that question.

"Oh sorry, how curious I am" Her comments were completely defensive "I never thought he liked that kind of girls" she smiled mocking.

"Well, it turns out that he and I have a relationship mature enough to be honest" You weren't going to let her make you feel bad, you didn't even know her.

"Relax, with Tom things are only for a while, or at least how did he ask you?" Your gaze reflected how bewildered you were. "Oh, I'm so sorry, he never asked you to get engaged, did he? or at least something similar, that's right, just tell him you like him, he ask you for time, and then he shows up with another girl eating while wondering what you did wrong" Bingo, her comments were of spite, but at the same time your insecurities began to emerge, it was true, he never asked you to be something formal.

Without saying anything you decided to get out of there, but before entering the door Tara spoke to you again.

"Girl, I'm not saying this out of hatred towards you, even if it sounds like that, just be careful with the decisions you take," she licked her lips finishing touching up her makeup.

When you arrived at the table you felt different, as if you could not look at Tom, you were no longer hungry, you decided to ask the waiter to take your plate and bring you only a glass of wine. Does he see you as something for a while? Or did he want you two to be something else?

"I think we should go Mike, tomorrow is work day" Tara gave you a look but no longer aggressive, even seemed to apologize somehow.

"Well, we left them then, it was a pleasure Y/N "Mike kissed your hand" and I hope you won't disappear for years again" he told Tom seriously.

"I promise" Tom stood up and hugged him, they actually looked like father and son, with Tara shaking her hand.

When they finally left you felt an uncomfortable emptiness.

"That was pretty weird," Tom ordered the dessert, though you really didn't want it.

"Don't tell me" you were looking at your glass of wine "Why didn't you ever tell me about them?”

"I never thought it was necessary, actually, it is a stage that I do not like to remember much" He looked you "They're just friends from the past"

"Should I worry about what they know about us?”

”Not at all, they're both trustworthy, Tara might be a bit strange but she wouldn't do anything to hurt us" That made you think that then he had something with her, you unwittingly, frowned your eyebrows tightly "It's everything okay?" Tom bent his gaze trying to find yours.

"Yeah, it's nothing, I'm just tired” you saw him for a few seconds but looked down immediately afterwards.

"If you want we can go home, and there we eat the dessert”

”I think it's perfect." You pretended everything was fine.

During the journey you, you spent thinking about everything told you Tara, you didn't know if it was legit, but somehow that happened to you, you weren't introduced as his girlfriend (which he had never before been necessary in reality) but in a certain way by what Tara had to see that, even asked yourself if you could call him your boyfriend officially, if it is the kind of boyfriend would present with your parents and friends, you realized you had many things to talk about, but you didn't know if it was the right time.

When you arrived at the apartment the first thing you did was go to the bathroom to process a little everything that had happened, when you returned Tom was waiting for you in the kitchen with dessert on a plate and two forks.

"Chocolate cake, as I promised you” He had told you a few days ago that he would make you taste one of the best cakes in town

"I hope it's as good as you promised” You took one of the forks and started eating, but you didn't even notice the taste, your mind was somewhere else.

“So, what do you think?" When Tom asked you clearly, he pulled you out of your thoughts and he realized.

"It's Okay" you smiled without seeing him.

”Don't like it?" Tom seemed disappointed actually.

"No, it's delicious actually, I just don't feel good.”

"What's wrong?”

"Nothing, don't worry”

"No, tell me what's going on, please Y/N" His look showed real concern.

"I don't want to look crazy, you know, let alone upset.”

"You know I would never think that of you”

“It's just, I got to thinking that, I do not know, are we that kind of relationship that presents itself to your friends, family or even parents at some point?“ Tom seemed a little confused, "I mean, I know our relationship is pretty strange and complex, even if we're not something formal, you know" Your hands started shaking unintentionally.

"Hey, what do you mean we're not formal?”

"Yeah, you know, you never asked me to be your girlfriend or something, I guess that's why we're not a couple formally, which is fine if we agreed now, I understand, but ..." You fiddled with the fork in your hand and Tom smiled absurdly.

“You know, I never believed that it was necessary and I'm very sorry, sometimes the age difference makes us look at things a little bit different” In that he was right, sometimes he thought as your grandfather, that made you laugh, “I don't want to sound now like crazy” I look at you intently as he smiled from the side, “I love you Y/N, I love you like you have no idea, I had never before felt that someone understood me this way, and I know I sound like a lunatic by the way in which we met, but you're cute, smart, strong, witty, perfectionist, and you are the most wonderful woman I have ever met in my life" You felt faithfully that he was serious. “So, if you want it, yes, when relevant, you know, for all of this to the university and our professional relationship, I would love you to meet my friends and family, I want to warn you that it will be something strange, but it will be well,” He hug you very strong and you adored the feeling of peace that he conveyed being in his arms “And if you wish, I could meet your friends and family”

"I didn't want to look like I was pressuring you, please don't think that.”

"Never my love, I would never think about it" I kiss your forehead " Just tell me why did you suddenly think about this? For Mike and Tara?" Oh God, you didn't know whether to tell her about your talk with Tara in the bathroom. You hesitated for a second until you decided not to lie.

"Did you have anything to do with Tara?”

”Wow, that was direct “Tom smiled as he sat right in front of the kitchen counter” It's pretty weird, but we never had anything serious you know, she and I went out a few times and then she told me that she was interested in me, but to be honest with you I didn't feel it was her, so I told her that I didn't want anything, which I think that hurt her“ You knew he wasn't lying, you knew it from the tone he had in his voice" So when I finished working with them, by the way, Mike was my professor at the university with whom I started working immediately after graduating and because of whom I met Tara four years ago, I decided to leave, at first because I needed my own time and work on my projects and not only school or work, even personal, and on the other hand I also thought that the best thing was to leave Tara, I no longer felt comfortable"

”I'm sorry, I didn't think it was like that."

"What did she say to you?" He smiled without really taking it too seriously.

"Nothing, only that you had something temporary and you had left without explaining”

“Well, no, actually when I was I don't I lied, I told them what I just said just a second ago, and Mike can confirm, and I'm going to be completely honest, I dated with her for some time, but from the beginning I told her that my intentions were not going beyond something passenger and I thought she had understood” he sighed for a few seconds “With you I don't feel the same, I know what that is for a person to play with you and I hate that people do that, I don't know why Tara told you those things, but I swear I with you I feel very happy and for you I would do anything, I swear " Her look gave you a full sense of tranquility and mutual trust.

”I trust you" You took his face between your hands and you nailed a deep kiss "You know, I love you too" you felt your heart burst with love, it was the first time you told him "And I appreciate that you have the confidence to tell me about this" For a moment you held each other while he stroked your hair.

"By the way" Took the slice of cake and knelt in front of you "Let's pretend this is happening two months ago with two weeks please, do you want to be my girlfriend?" For a moment you thought I was joking so you just laughed "Is seriously, I mean, I don't have a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates but I do have a slice of cake, delicious cake, so, what do you say?" When he said he was serious you didn't believe it, it seemed kind of strange in reality but at the same time it flooded your heart with happiness.

"Yes, I would love to” He stood as he held your face between his two hands and kissed you deeply "I would love to be your girlfriend”

"Well, you were already my girlfriend, but let's comply with the formality" He put the cake on the table "this dinner was really weird”

"And dessert is not going to be enough for both of us" You smiled as you took the cake as if you were going to devour it all by yourself.

”Or we can have some other dessert" Oh not that tone of voice, again sex in the kitchen, last time you had to clean everything up, but you certainly smiled boldly just thinking about it again.

"Or, we could try to see if there's anything in the fridge” You ran to the fridge but skillfully caught you by the waist keeping close to him.

"Are you sure?" He turned you firmly by the hips so your back was stuck to his body while your abdomen was right on the kitchen counter, you felt like the heat between your legs began to increase, you appreciated bringing slippers, that helped you a lot for these things.

"Or show me what else we could do" You bit your lips as you placed your hands leaning against the bar.

"With pleasure" whispered in your ear while with his legs he opened yours and made you lie a little more on the bar, quickly raised your dress to the waist and seeing your garters you felt like he got even more excited than he was already, hearing how he undressed from just imagining it you moaned, so immediately that he could tangled your hair in his hand, while with the other he prepared to give you one of the best nights of your life.

Your legs bent completely when he entered you without warning, so you felt as if you were going to fall at that precise moment, with agility he hugged you from the waist holding you while with his same legs he prevented you from closing yours.

”Ask for it" he roared as he took a rather slow pace which made you moan for more at the time.

"Please, please I need you," you moaned as you held with one of your hands his arm that held your hip over the bar.

"You don't know how fucking good you make me feel” he leaned a bit on you so he reached deeper, which made you feel like in fucking heaven, always came to make you feel much better than last time in sex, and that excited you.

"Make me yours, only yours" you begged as your legs began to tremble more and more and your knees felt that at any moment they would give up.

Your heels squeaked on the floor while his belt grazed your legs still hanging from his waist, the onslaught was getting faster and deeper, you couldn't help but moan at the touch of the metal buckle between your legs, even unintentionally you stuck your nails in his arm at every touch.

"So that's why you wanted me to wear this dress so easy to handle" You smiled full of lust as your back curled still over the bar.

”I swear I didn't, but when I saw you with him I couldn't help but want you with all my strength"

At one point you felt like you couldn't take it anymore, the heat all over your body was uncontrollable and when you intertwined his hand with yours you felt like you couldn't want more.

"Come and get me" pressed your hip against him as you felt the orgasm take over both of you from one second to the next, again the kitchen would be a mess but whatever, it was completely worth it.

Her moans and yours together for you were a way to make your orgasm feel a thousand times better, even her hand touching your belly made your legs tremble more than normal.

When you two were done, you were together for a few seconds, but when he let you go, your legs accidentally won, and you almost fell.

"Wow wait" he carried you to the couch where he laid you down with him. "Are you okay?" His voice sounded anxious

"Relax, I'm fine" You smiled still trying to regulate your breathing again " Only I don't think the dress it's okay” You laughed completely when you saw it was dirty than it was more obvious there could be about you right now.

"I guess it goes away" Both laughed when they realized how funny this was.

"Fuck, why are you so perfect?" You kissed him while you laughed.

"I hope that when I meet your parents they will think the same”

"I assure you, yes” you smiled, but you imagined how strange that is going to be when it happens.

[mrstaeminlee]

Mission Complete Ch. 1

You had two goals in life. One: Complete your squad training without dying. Two: Fuck Levi Ackerman

Pairings: Levi/f!reader

Warnings: Swearing, eventual smut, lmk if I need to add anything~

You really had no idea what the fuck prompted you to join the military. Maybe it was to find some redeeming grace in the eyes of your dying mother, maybe it was because you wanted a life with as much stability as one could muster, maybe it was because you just fucking hated farming.

Whatever it was, you wished to any God that would listen that you would have buried it in the ground along with the countless friends and family members you had lost to the Titans.

The first week of the cadet corps was everything you knew you would hate and more. Between the foul smelling breath of the commandant threatening to make you puke up the bread you had managed to steal, to working your body to the point of sneaking away from one on one combat to puke behind the bushes, after seven days you had almost decided that maybe digging in the dirt for the rest of your miserable life wasn't so bad.

There was only one thing stopping you from making your own walk of shame to the wagon of regret.

Levi Ackerman.

AKA the man you fantasized about every night when you managed to find enough strength to finger yourself below the covers.

He was a couple of inches shorter, true, but you were willing to break your rule of not fucking anyone shorter than you for him.

You had only see him twice in your life by complete chance, the first had been when you happened to be by the gates in time to see the Scouts returning from what was undoubtably another failed mission, and you decided that what the hell, might as well have a look at Humanity's Strongest in the flesh. Granted, it hadn't been his best day; his green cloak was splattered with what could only have been the blood of his comrades as it didn't look as if he had a single scratch on him, but he looked like a god, albeit one that had just gotten his ass kicked out of heaven. His eyes seemed to be sunken in, and even from how far away you were you found yourself shivering from the intensity of his dead gaze. You weren't sure what possessed you to lift your hand as he eyes moved through the crowd, looking for whom, you didn't know, or what possessed him to raise those eyes to you, but you found yourself lost in haunted silver as you gave a soft wave. The way he seemed to look straight through you, not even seeing you even as you stared at each other, was enough to convince you that you needed to do whatever it took to see this man again.

You enlisted the start of the next week.

The second time was completely by chance.

Everyone was desperate for military recruits, and desperate times called for desperate calls to important people to make appearances in front of people that were well, not very important.

Erwin Smith, Dot Pixis, Nile Dawk, Levi Ackerman, Hange Zoe, Rico Brzenska, and even Darius Zackly graced the entrance ceremony of the new Cadets, and you thanked whatever bone in your body made you a teacher's pet because you had a front row seat to the man that had plagued your thoughts every single day in the past week. His appearance was brief and he didn't speak, just stared at the fresh faces, some cocky, some blank, but mostly terrified new recruits, and you could have sworn that you saw a tinge of sadness hidden in the silver, as if he could already foresee the deaths of everyone in front of him. He followed after Erwin immediately after the blond gave his speech about thanking you all for making the decision to serve humanity and you fought the urge to roll your eyes. 'I'm not doing this for humanity, I'm doing this for dick,' you thought as you signed your life away to this shit camp for the next two years.

How one man who was fucking shorter than you managed to convince you to trade the next 728 days, 14 hours, 37 minutes, and 15 seconds of your life for physical and emotional hell was beyond you, and yet here you were, standing proud and slightly hungover from the pre-graduation celebrating you did with Eren, Mikasa, and Armin the night before. They hadn't initially been your first choice in friends, but Armin was nice to you from the start and once you very quickly learned that flirting with Eren in front of Mikasa was not in your best interest, you had decided that they were alright; especially when Eren's Titan form had been revealed. If anyone was going to have to get close enough to keep an eye on Eren, it would be Captain Levi.

The very man you were thinking of walked on the stage along with Nile Dawk, Dot Pixis, and Erwin Smith as the three took turns giving their pitch. You hadn't made the top 10 but were happy for your friends that were, you were content with your place as 13th. In a class of over 500, you still considered it a win, and if your parents were still alive you knew they'd be proud. As the remaining members of the top 10 who had opted to join the elitest MP's went off to talk to Nile and the other scared fucks ran off to sign themselves to the Garrison regiment, you and around a hundred other members stayed where you were and you licked your lips, forcing your heart rate to calm itself. 'Calm down, you can't work your way up to fucking the strongest man in the world if you die of heart attack before-'

"Listen up you little shits."

Oh my God he was speaking you've never heard his voice before it's so fucking-

"Most of you are going to die. Are you prepared for that?"

Ah, so Humanity's Strongest was a sweet talker.

"Erwin is making me come up here and talk, so we're all going to pretend that I'm saying some meaningful bullshit. But here's the truth: If you aren't strong, you will die, and it will be painful. Imagine the thought of seeing your childhood friend's entrails being slurped up like spaghetti by a Titan, while the entire time he's conscious enough to reach his hand out for you, and you are able to do nothing for him because you spent exactly one second hesitating, or you were a moment too late to draw your blades, or react to the threat. If that scares you, then do us all a favor and put down that half assed salute and sell your soul to the Garrison where you'll spend your days fucking the best whores for a discount if you're in uniform and getting drunk on the clock."

After his touching speech you and your now dripping panties decided that you had indeed made the right decision in selling yourself to the Scouts.

One month later

It was moments like these, where you weren't quite trashed but definitely more than tipsy, that you had never been happier to be part of the survey corps. I mean, you were in peak physical shape (you still couldn't believe you had abs. Abs!), you were hot, you were fit, and you knew Sasha Braus, who had managed to steal a few bottles of top shelf liquor from the higher ups.

You were also horny as fuck. It had been over a year since you'd gotten laid, and you were using the dildo you'd bought on your first trip back into town as often as you brushed your teeth (twice a day, you didn't fuck with cavities). You briefly thought about enlisting the help of one of your current drinking buddies but after seeing your choices you decided to leave it to old faithful hidden in your pillowcase. There was Jean, who albeit was pretty hot even with the long face but was so in love with Mikasa it made you want to vomit. Marco, who you were almost one hundred percent sure was gay; Connie, who held the sexual appeal of a pile of horse shit, although he was super nice. Reiner almost looked promising but you knew underneath those stocky muscles was a shitload of emotional baggage you didn't want, and Bertholt was head over heels for Annie of all people. That left Armin and Eren. Eren you already knew was out, while your slut senses told you he'd be a great lay, you weren't quite ready for your life to end at the hands of Mikasa. That left Armin. You tilted your head, staring at him as you sipped on your god forsaken concoction and debated fucking him or not. He wasn't outright sexy, but he'd filled in well during the two years of training and you had seen glimpses of his surprisingly impressive muscles under his white shirt. He might actually do. He'd be shy as hell and you would have to lead everything, not to mention he'd probably cum in less than a minute, but it just might-

“Did you guys know that Captain Levi is a virgin?"

You spit the mix of vodka, rum, and whatever mixer Reiner had put in all over the face of the person you had just considered fucking.

"I'm sorry, what?" You turned your attention to Christa, apologetically handing Armin a napkin and patting his cheek.

Christa blushed at the attention and scooted closer to Ymir, who threw an arm around her shoulders and gave Reiner her customary 'If you even look at her weird, I will gut you' look. "W-Well, recently I started helping out in the infirmary because they've been short handed. You all know, it's that time of year where everyone has to get looked at and they give us that sheet of paper to fill out with all of our personal information to keep track of potential diseases. I was in charge of filing the paperwork the day they brought all of the officers in, and on the paper they ask you how many sexual partners you've had and Captain Levi wrote 0. But you guys, you have to promise not to tell anyone! This is private information, if it somehow gets out that I told you this I'll get into a lot of trouble!"

Ymir chuckled, placing a sloppy kiss at the top of the blonde's head. "Don't worry about a thing sweet cheeks, if any of these miscreants here says a word I'll kill them for ya. But we don't have to worry about that at all, now do we?" She glared at each person in the room, who all looked as if Christa were a ghost, and slowly shook their heads.

Your life was changed.

Captain Levi Ackerman.

The strongest man in the world.

Rumored former thug of the Underground.

The person responsible for killing as many Titans as a hundred soldiers.

The person whose squad every scout dreamed of being on, was a virgin.

You screeched out a laugh before you could help it, the alcohol doing nothing to try and make you quiet yourself as you fell onto your back laughing, cup long forgotten as it rolled across the floor. The person who initiated your drive to join the military in the first place, the person you literally dreamed of fucking, had never gotten his dick wet.

Clearly, you had your work cut out for you.

If you managed to live through the sight of Ymir reaching over to punch you in the face to shut you up.

[fromthefishbowl]

Who are the blogs that are suspiciously silent on the recent scandal ? I would like to avoid them but I don’t really know who they are.

I honestly had to sit on this one for a moment, because I couldn't decide if it was bait or not, but... oh, well, it's not like I haven't received death threats in this fandom before, and with their Empress of Bullshit gone and not fueling and excusing their need to bully people by rambling about random shit what are the gonna do? Harass me? Ah!

Honestly, if you haven't noticed any changes in your dashboard, I feel like you don't have to worry one bit, but... the bloggers shrouded in silence are now (Imma be petty, because these people are ridiculous and think that writing fics makes the world a better place and actually fights racism while they have no problems siding with literal antisemites, people who believe in blood libel, and actual racism):

a certain artist who uses only Kermit icons and who, a couple of months ago, decided to trample over actual Italians and would write posts about Nicky's psyche because her being from Finland means she totes understands Italian culture and traditions and people - and yes, if you disagree with her you're racist and awful and how dare you! Don't you know Len told her she's right when talking about Italians as dirty, stupid, ignorant racists????;

a certain fruit without pit who nuked their blog twice to come back within a week and who has no problems befriending and defending antisemites and seeing them as their point of reference. When asked why they had quoted certain "passages" from Len and Lazaefair's Bibles, they didn't know what to answer nor were able to tell what those passages meant, and rather than coming to the realization that those people were using them as a way to promote their nonsensical bullshit, they got mad at the person asking;

a fleshy stalk from the family of the Polygonaceae, alternatively known as a very intoxicated metalworker;

a Persian woman who pretended that the writings of a Jewish American poet were ancient Persian sayings - girl, why? -. She is also behind the crumbling of two fandom servers in less than three months because she let racism run rampant and refused to take action against it;

the light that comes after the fifth but before the seventh;

a blogger who desperately tries to be the discourse version of Wicked Pact and named themselves after Andy;

and the best for least: our queen Lazaefair, of whom I can't give a shit saying the name of because she's created not one but two lists she put me and my fandom friends on! Apparently, for her I am a public enemy and need to be blacklisted because of all of my evil racism - racism she was never able to prove, because she creates lists and lists and lists but it's not like she actually reads the material, before incriminating it. And I know that you stalk my blog, dear Lazaefair, because I know that you talked about me in All & More and quoted me directly - so brave, uh? Never talked to me directly, but you and your little friends do wonders with vagueblogging - when you created that first list, and immediately blocked me when I brought up your antisemitism :) Maybe you should change your blog's URL to Silla or something of the sort, considering how much you like making lists about "dangerous material" and shit. In fact... I still have to understand why you, an Asian American who was raised Evangelical - and it shows, girl, it really does. The way you like to manipulate people using the same tactics as Evangelical pastors really shows - are supposedly in charge of this fandom. What do you know about the Mediterranean and the racial and cultural dynamics there, uh? But I guess we should ask Len the same question, considering that she grew up in the non-Mediterranean part of France and had to create a whole backstory because she knew her little theory was shit and no one would’ve listened to her if she didn’t pretend to be a minority. But I guess everything can be excused, if at the end of the day Joe takes it up the ass - even without the character development that makes fics not racist anymore, in your opinion -. Something something colonialism, something something history you “””learned””” from Wikipedia, right?

[gukyi]

the courtship chronicles | ksj

summary: dating has never been anywhere near your list of priorities, but kim seokjin is nothing if not determined. and when he comes to the rescue and accompanies you to your friend’s wedding, he decides to request only one thing in return: for you to let him take you out on fake dates and shower you in fake affection, and show you how much fun dating can be. he just needs to remember to keep the part where he’s been in love with you under wraps.

{friends to lovers!au, fake dating!au}

pairing: kim seokjin x female reader genre: fluff, comedy, and emotional hurt/comfort! word count: 20k a/n: big, big, big thanks to @aurawatercolor for commissioning me for this piece!! i honestly am so happy with this fic and even happier to give my main man kim seokjin the love and attention he deserves!!! this fic is pretty much slow burn from start to finish, so enjoy!

check out the post-script drabble here!

“You’re bringing a plus one, right?” Cynthia demands on the other end of the line, voice frazzled and breaths quick. “You better, because I already factored it into the wedding budget. There will be food meant for a plus one for you which I already paid for so you better bring one. I paid for it already.” She’s running in circles, trying to make her point. It’s clear she’s got an awful lot on her plate as it is. 

“Can’t I just eat their serving myself? You know I’m a growing woman,” you plead. Cynthia and the rest of her bridesmaids have been on your back about bringing a plus one ever since she got engaged. 

“No, you have to bring a plus one. Even if it’s your mom, Y/N, I don’t care,” Cynthia says. She makes to say something else, but then pauses. “Actually, I do care. Can it please be a date? Even like, someone you met off of Hinge. I don’t know. Not your mom. Don’t bring her. That would be only a little weird,” she corrects herself. 

“Weirder than some stranger I met off Hinge?” You ask pointedly. 

“No. At least they’re around your age. I want to see you applying yourself, Y/N!” Cynthia scolds. “Go out there and find a man! Pick him up off of the street if you have to! Anything!” She rallies. “Being single is cool and everything but being in love is just as fulfilling!”

“Of course you would think that, you’re getting married tomorrow,” you tell her, sighing. Can’t she just accept that you aren’t really looking for a relationship right now? And haven’t been looking for one since you graduated college three years ago?

“I love my future husband, thank you very much. We plan on leading a very full and extraordinary life with our fifteen dogs and eighteen geckos.”

“Okay, Miss We Bought A Zoo,” you tease. 

Cynthia laughs. “Pretty soon it’ll be Mrs. We Bought A Zoo, thank you very much!”

You hear a knock on the door, turning to check the kitschy cuckoo clock you had found at a flea market for five dollars for the time. It’s six on the dot.

“I have to go, Cynthia, Seokjin’s here,” you tell her, already making to hang up the phone as you head towards the door, using your shoulder and ear to hold it in place. “We’re making a family dinner for two, tonight.”

“Bring Seokjin! He’ll charm the shit out of my mom, I just know it,” Cynthia tells you. “Bring him! Tell him to clear his fucking calendar for tomorrow.”

“Bye, Cynthia,” you say as you reach out for the doorknob, twisting it to reveal your grinning best friend with a bag full of goodies on the other side. “I have to go.”

“Send Seokjin my love! I don’t even expect a wedding gift from him! His presence is enough!” Cynthia shouts, loud enough for Seokjin to hear everything despite the phone not even being on speaker. You hang up before Cynthia can say anything else to goad Seokjin into accompanying you to her wedding, sending an apologetic smile his way. 

“Sorry, that was—”

“Cynthia?” Seokjin finishes with a grin. You usher him into your apartment, letting him place his bag on your kitchen countertop as he pulls out two wine glasses to get the party started. You sigh, helpless. “Yeah, I figured. She’s getting married tomorrow, isn’t she?”

“She’s uber stressed, if that’s what you mean to say,” you correct, joining him in your kitchen as you start to unpack what he brought, countless tupperware containers filled with vegetables, meats, pastas. There’s even an entire bag of rice. Does Seokjin really think you have no rice in your apartment? Seriously? 

“I can imagine,” Seokjin agrees with a laugh. “Thank god you and I aren’t getting married anytime soon, right?” With a flourish, he produces a bottle of red wine you had been saving in your fridge for this very occasion, filling up half of each wine glass. 

“I’ll toast to that,” you say, smiling as you hold up your glass. Seokjin swirls the wine around in his own before holding it out. 

“Here’s to not being romantically involved whatsoever!” Seokjin hurrahs, and you laugh at his honesty as your glasses clink together, the sound echoing around your kitchen. “Who says you need to be married to prepare a kickass meal together.”

“You’re in charge of the meat,” you immediately tell him. You’ve never been the biggest fan of handling it. Vegetables are much more your speed. They also don’t get angry at you when you make a mistake cooking them. Besides, Seokjin’s always been the better food mediator between the two of you. 

“Like always,” he teases, giving you a nudge as he pulls the pots and pans from the cupboard beneath the counter and hands you one of the seventeen different cutting boards you have in random places in your kitchen. You don’t know what it is about them, but every single month you find yourself buying a brand new cutting board. They may as well be drugs. “You should really branch out and try cooking beef sometimes. I’ll teach you, hey? So you don’t have to be scared of it.”

“I am not scared of cooking beef,” you tell him sternly, flinching when Seokjin places the meat in the oil-slick pan and it begins to sizzle and pop. 

“If you say so, Y/N,” Seokjin singsongs. “You know, I’d make a pretty good teacher. I reckon I could show you a thing or two about cooking.”

“Okay, Mr. Cooking Is My Passion,” you say, scrunching up your nose. “Just because I can’t make a damn filet mignon does not make me a bad cook,” you tell him, “whose soup do you ask for when you’re sick and in bed with a cold? That’s right, mine!” You poke his chest for good measure, making him put his hands up in surrender. 

“Alright, alright, I concede,” he says with a laugh. “Your soup is delicious.”

“Thank you,” you say, proudly. “How about I make a couple of servings while you cook the meat?”

Seokjin blows a kiss your way. “Y/N, You know just the way to my heart.”

An hour later, you and Seokjin have whipped up an impressive set of dishes, from your homemade vegetable soup to his traditional bulgogi bibimbap, a small bowl of kimchi in the middle of the table accompanied by some sauteed vegetables and a serving of glass noodles. There’s enough to feed a family of four (one of whom could be a ravenous high-school football player) on your table, and yet, you and Seokjin never fail to finish it all. 

Seokjin takes one bite out of his bulgogi bibimbap and moans in delight, tossing his head back as he holds out two thumbs up, chopsticks clanging onto the side of the bowl as he drops them. “Wow,” he says loudly, patting himself on the back. “I’m amazing. Gordon Ramsey wants what I have.”

“There’s no way it’s that good,” you tease, even though it most definitely is that good. Seokjin is, without a doubt, the best chef you have ever met, the best chef whose food you have ever had the pleasure of eating. If he weren’t employed by a publicity company he would almost certainly be the owner of the best restaurant in the city. The New York Times would visit his restaurant and write a five-star review to be published in the paper the next morning. You take a bite of it yourself, chewing it slowly and pretending to ponder its flavor. It’s delicious. It’s never not delicious. “Hmm… it’s alright.”

“‘Alright’?” Seokjin shouts, slandered. “Just ‘alright’?” He slams a fist onto the table in anger. “This is blasphemy! It’s amazing!” Grabbing the knife beside his plate, he holds it under your chin dramatically, glaring into your eyes. “You better retract that statement, or else!”

“Or else what, Mr. Kim?” You say, desperately resisting the urge not to burst into laughter. Seokjin’s not doing much better, lips pursed tight in an effort not to cackle aloud. 

“Or else I’ll have no choice but to eat all of your bulgogi bibimbap for you!” He cries, reaching over with grabby hands to take your plate away from you. 

Just as he suspected, you hold on tight to your plate, refusing to let such good food go into the mouth of someone who has his own plate. It’s then, as you’re playing tug-of-war with your food, that Seokjin finally breaks into chuckles, hiccuping out his laugh as he concedes and lets you eat your food in peace. 

“Just as I suspected, peasant!” He says proudly. “It’s delicious!”

You put a heaping chopstick-ful into your mouth. “It really is, Seokjin. You always do such a great job.”

“I’m honored,” he says, bowing slightly. “Food is what brings people together.” He holds out a piece of kimchi in front of your mouth, and you eat it obligingly. “Speaking of bringing people together, what was Cynthia shouting about on the phone?”

“Oh, just her wedding, you know,” you tell him with a shrug. “The usual. She’s desperate for me to bring a plus one,” you say. Marriage is disillusioning her. She thinks everybody around her should have a love like her own. And while it is a wonderful, fairytale-esque thought, you just aren’t really on the same wavelength. You never have been. “She even factored it into the budget to guilt-trip me into doing it.”

“Why don’t you?” Seokjin asks, downing a spoonful of soup. “Going to a wedding alone can’t be too much fun.”

“I won’t be alone,” you protest. “I’m one of her closest friends. I’ll know a bunch of people there.”

“Yeah, but you won’t have brought someone who, by way of how plus-one’s work, will be obligated to be by your side the entire night. Who are you gonna dance with when Crazy in Love comes on, huh?” Seokjin points out. 

You frown. “I can dance by myself.”

“Yeah, but a plus-one would make it more fun! You guys can dougie, or whatever it is the cool kids do these days. Is dabbing still a thing?” He dabs, just to make a point. It’s cringey and awful and hilarious, all at once. 

“Stop, stop, you’re embarrassing yourself and I’m the only other person here,” you plead. “You and Cynthia are so on my ass about bringing a date, God. I just—I’m not really interested in anybody right now. Dating just isn’t my thing.”

“Has dating ever been your thing, Y/N?” Seokjin asks, even though he clearly knows the answer already. “I don’t think you’ve been on a date since sophomore year of college. Do you even know what dating is, anymore? Love?”

You roll your eyes. If there’s one person who’s a bigger hopeless romantic than Cynthia, it’s Seokjin. The man has an entire bookshelf of romance novels in his bedroom. He waxes poetic about falling in love every other day, about coming home to a significant other, a family, to cook for, to spend time with. He’s been on more Bumble dates in the past year than you can count on both hands and feet. 

“I know what it is,” you defend yourself, “I’m just—I don’t really believe in that, for me. I don’t ever see myself having it. I have friends. My family. That’s good enough. I don’t need romantic love.”

Seokjin scoffs. “What? You mean to tell me you don’t ever want to fall in love? Never ever? Come on, Y/N. Love is great! It makes you feel warm and happy, like one of those giant Costco teddy bears. Those are the material equivalent of love. Haven’t you always wanted a giant Costco teddy bear?”

“When I was five, yeah,” you tell him. “Listen, Seokjin, I get it. Love is great and amazing, I’m just not that interested. You and Cynthia have been trying to get me to go on a date for years and it doesn’t appeal to me whatsoever.”

“What about dating is unappealing?” Seokjin inquires. He’s determined. And you, the best friend, are weak. 

“I don’t know, having to meet new people, talk about yourself, try to see a future with them. It seems so tiring,” you say, sighing. Seokjin looks positively bewildered, because of course he enjoys dating—he’s so charismatic, charming, and outgoing. Even if a date goes poorly he still ends up with a new friend. “I’m just not that into doing that stuff.”

“Psh,” Seokjin says casually, skeptical. “I bet that if you just gave the whole dating thing a try, you might actually like it. You haven’t gone out on one in so long—maybe it’s different than what you remember. The last time you did it, we were all just college students.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” you groan. “How exactly do you expect me to ‘give the whole dating thing a try’, then? Last time I checked, I wasn’t particularly interested in anybody.”

Seokjin pauses, pondering for a moment as he taps his chin with his pointer finger. Then, like a smack to the face, it hits him all at once, and in his excitement, he pounds his fist right onto the prongs of the fork by his plate. “Ow, holy shit!” He shouts, excited nonetheless.

“Oh my God, are you alright?” You ask, a little concerned and a lot amused.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he assures you, rubbing the side of his palm. “But what I was about to say, is why don’t we go out?”

You sputter, choking on the soup you had just taken a sip of. “I-I’m sorry, what?”

“Why don’t we date? It’ll be fun!” He says happily. 

“Seokjin, we’re friends,” you say. 

He shrugs, carefree. “Yeah, sure we are. But think about it: since we’re already so close, you won’t have to worry about introducing yourself to someone new. You won’t have to go through the whole tell me about yourself thing, we can just jump right into the dating part! It’ll be fun and you’ll get to see what dating is like past the introductions. How about it?” He asks. 

He thinks it’s brilliant. 

You think it’s ludicrous. 

“But, Seokjin, are we actually going to date? Like, be a couple? Because I don’t know if that’s what I was really aiming for with our friendship today,” you say hesitantly. You love Seokjin, sure, but you aren’t in love with Seokjin. You’ve been best friends since college. Won’t it be weird if you suddenly start dating? And doing other couple-y things?

Seokjin waves a hand around like a nonchalant businessman. “No, we won’t actually be boyfriend and girlfriend, or anything,” he promises. “It’ll just be fake. Make believe! Think of it as a dating test-run. What do you say?”

“You sound too enthusiastic for me not to be worried,” you tell him tentatively. He’s like an energetic salesman. It’s a little frightening. There must be some fine print you aren’t looking at. Something that you’re missing. “Are you sure about this? Like, do you want anything in return?”

“Anything in return to help my best friend find love?” He asks, scandalized. “Of course not!”

You frown. 

“Okay,” he gives in, “maybe some more soup. I’m about to visit my mom and she loves it.”

“Why don’t I just come with?” You suggest. Seokjin’s mom is the second-best chef you’ve ever met. Somewhere along the line, Seokjin took what he learned from her and improved it ten-fold. 

“Even better! Mom’s been begging me to bring you around sometime. How about it, do we have a deal?” He asks, holding his hand out. 

You sigh. He’s your best friend, and all he wants in return is for you to visit his mom with him. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

“Sure,” you say, conceding. “Why not?”

Seokjin’s first order of business as your self-appointed brand new not-real boyfriend, is to accompany you to Cynthia’s wedding as your plus-one. He does actually find a wedding gift on such short notice—a fairly new cookbook from which he had memorized the recipes already, so it was no longer of use to him. Because of course, Kim Seokjin is the only person on Earth who memorizes the one hundred recipes in a book just because he wants to. Where does he find the time?

[May 18th, 3:18PM]

Seokjin: Are we wearing matching colors? Seokjin: Or is that too senior prom?

You: As long as you don’t show up wearing white you should be fine

Seokjin: >_> Seokjin: You know that if I wore white the groom would drop everything and marry me instead ;-)

You: Only because of your charm You: I’m wearing pastel pink! I don’t suppose you have anything in your closet to go with that, do you?

[Seokjin is typing…]

[May 18th, 3:20PM]

Seokjin: Oh, Y/N, you don’t even need to ask twice

An hour later, Seokjin pulls up to the curb outside of your apartment complex in his Volkswagen, which is every bit as charismatic as he is, right as you’re scrambling to tug on your most comfortable heels (as if such a thing could exist!), running late, as per usual. The ceremony begins at 5:30 and you and Seokjin were meant to leave for the venue at four. 

It is 4:19. 

Frazzled, you rush around your apartment movie-montage style, tweaking strands of your hair in the mirror in the hallway and nabbing your bottomless bag on the coffee table. It’s not even really summer yet, but your apartment doesn’t have air conditioning and it’s becoming more and more of a curse as the globe slowly warms multiple degrees over the years. The true loser of climate change, rather than the polar bears, the bees, and coastal cities, is you, who thought renting a place with no air conditioning would be just fine. 

Desperate not to open the door to Seokjin with your forehead dripping, you dab off the beads of sweat gathered by your hairline with the skirt of your dress—whatever, you were going to sweat in it at some point—right as you hear the first knock. 

Seokjin’s fashion choices are usually rather conservative. He does work a somewhat menial half-office job, so he can’t roll up to his desk wearing the exceedingly stylish and exceedingly adventurous clothing that Namjoon and Taehyung wear, which, in turn, limits his closet. Lots of plain or argyle sweaters pulled over dress shirts with the collars peeking out, lots of navy jeans, lots of white sneakers and loafers. The only clothing item Seokjin does experiment with is socks, of which he has an impressive collection, ranging anywhere from corgi butts to Santa Claus. 

You didn’t really know what you were expecting when Seokjin said you didn’t need to ask twice after mentioning that you were wearing a pastel pink dress. He does own a couple of pink things, but as far as you’re aware (and you’re pretty aware, considering you’ve been best friends with him since the beginning of college), it amounts mostly to his sock stash and a couple of sweaters, which he most often wears under denim jackets or over dress shirts. 

What you most certainly aren’t expecting when you open the door is to see Seokjin standing on the other side in a full-on suit, a light grey color that complements the peach in his skin tone perfectly. More so, however, you hadn’t at all anticipated for him to be wearing a perfectly-matching pastel pink dress shirt underneath, complemented by a rather obnoxious bow tie with red hairs littered all over it. 

“Wow, okay,” you say, blinking just to make sure that your eyes are working perfectly. “It’s May, why do you look like Valentine’s Day threw up on you?”

Seokjin opens his mouth to send a witty response back to you, but the moment he lays his eyes on you, it’s as if all of the words have fallen from his lips. He swallows, hands fumbling with the bouquet in his hand. “Don’t say that to me like you aren’t also wearing the most Valentine’s Day dress I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s a pastel pink midi dress,” you tell him, frowning. “At least I’m not wearing something that has cartoon-y red hearts all over it,” you accuse, pointing to his bow tie. 

Seokjin gasps, offended. “Hey! This is my lucky bow tie. It’s never steered me wrong when it comes to love.”

You scoff. “I don’t think Cynthia and her fiancé need your bow tie’s help today. Have you ever seen someone more in love with another person than they are with each other?”

Seokjin pauses. He sighs a little bit, like there’s something weighing on his mind he refuses to divulge. You won’t press. You may be best friends, but you aren’t mind-readers, and sometimes, there are some secrets that have to be kept even from each other. Yours is that when you guys were juniors in college and Seokjin was running late for class because he was desperate to find the last Pop-Tart in his apartment, you had actually eaten it the night before when he was in the bathroom. 

You wonder what his is. 

“You never know,” he finally says, “we could always use the extra luck, don’t you think?”

You nod, “I suppose. What’s with the flowers? You know you aren’t supposed to bring them to a wedding. They probably have enough flowers as it is.”

As if caught off guard by the flowers held in his very own hand, Seokjin turns his gaze down to look at the bouquet, a collection of baby’s breath, tulips, and carnations. “Oh,” he says, speechless. “Well, I was dropping by the flower shop anyway to bother Hoseok, and he said that they had some leftover stock that nobody wanted because they were a little smaller than the other flowers, so he gave them to me at a discount. They’re for you, I guess.” Like a nervous high schooler going on his very first date, he shoves them towards you, making you step back to avoid getting punched in the chest. 

“Seriously? You didn’t have to do that, Seokjin,” you say happily, pleasantly surprised at the bouquet. Sure, some of them are a little wilted, a little dehydrated, but you get flowers so infrequently (in fact, you don’t think you’ve gotten any since Seokjin sent you one of those singular rose grams during your first Valentine’s Day at college), that the gesture is as good as gold. 

“Eh,” he says, shrugging casually. “I don’t really have anybody else I would want to give them to.”

Gleefully, you take them from his outstretched hand and immediately rush to put them in some sort of vase. You, like the piece of millennial trash that you are, end up using a random empty mason jar you find in one of your kitchen cabinets. 

“What time is it?” Seokjin asks, looking around for a clock. 

“Late, we have to go,” you instantly respond, shooing him out of the door and darting down the stairs because the elevator in your apartment building is about four hundred years old and doesn’t even have a light bulb inside of it. You cram into Seokjin’s tiny white Volkswagen, which just screams hipster-mom-in-her-forties, and he speeds off at a velocity that tiny Volkswagen beetles were not meant to go at. 

Surprisingly enough, you make it to the wedding venue with a few minutes to spare, which you largely attribute to the fact that Seokjin was driving faster than some of the SUVs on the highway on the way over. He isn’t a bad or reckless driver. He’s just a driver with certain priorities that rank higher than the act of driving itself. 

“Ah, the smell of nervousness and love,” Seokjin says as you step out of the car, inhaling dramatically. “Smells like a wedding.”

“Smells like the ceremony is about to begin,” you say, and you both rush over the pebbled path to the entrance, giggling like a bunch of high schoolers as you stumble through the front doors very ungracefully. 

“Wow,” Seokjin says, impressed at the extent of decoration. Cynthia had been raving on and on about how she was aiming to have a sort of romantic, Impressionist art painting vibe to the wedding, lots of pastels, flowers, twinkling lights. “This is very impressive. One hundred out of ten.”

“Cynthia’s been planning this for months, so I’m sure she’ll be pleased to hear it,” you say, ushering yourselves into the main wedding hall as the rest of the guests file in from chatting outside as the clock ticks down. There are two seats close to the front that Cynthia’s saved for you and your plus-one, which she most certainly will be very happy to see you have brought with you, in the form of your best friend, Seokjin, of course. 

“Aren’t you excited?” Seokjin whispers as everyone settles down. “Can’t you feel the love in the air?”

“It’s not in my genetics to feel that sort of thing,” you retort back, earning a pout from your best friend in return. 

“Well, it’s in mine, and let me tell you, Y/N, it feels like love!” He exclaims happily. “You should be basking in it.”

“Are you?” You round on him. No point in not practicing what you preach. 

“Always,” Seokjin says, gazing at you happily. He seems so content, in this very moment, about to watch a ceremony that will bond two people together for the rest of their lives, devote themselves to each other, wholly and completely. “I’m always basking in it.”

Then, the officiant steps up to the microphone at the front of the room. Seokjin reaches his hand over to grab yours, letting it rest in his palm on his lap, and the ceremony begins. 

Going to weddings as a child, even as an adult to a fairly distant coworker, they’ve always felt so detached from you as a guest. Sure, the ceremonies are wonderful and you’re happy for the newly-married couple, but it’s almost as if you’re watching a movie and instead of being another character, you’re part of the audience. When you leave the wedding venue, when all of the dancing and eating and celebrating is over, you forget all about it, and you move on with your life. 

But knowing the two people standing up at the altar as more than just coworkers, or a distant relative, knowing them as friends, as near family, tints everything in a rosy pink. It’s the most beautiful wedding ceremony you’ve ever had the pleasure of attending. It’s humbling and real and unrehearsed, romantic and funny and meaningful all at once. It makes you feel warm inside, truly, truly happy for your friend and for what is to come in the next chapter of her life. 

Crying was pretty much unavoidable. It was mostly on Seokjin’s end—he’s not as close with either of them as you are, but he certainly loves love much more than you do—but some tears were shed on your end, as well. This is the sort of thing you’d want to talk about for years to come, even after you walk out, in the hopes that a constant reminder will prevent it from ever fading from your memory. 

As weddings go, the next part is the best part: free food. You get to your tables and Cynthia’s fancy (and expensive) caterers come whooshing around with bottles of wine and pitchers of water, filling up the glasses on your tables as the wedding party prepares to enter. You’re seated next to some other old friends from college, ones you recognize and ones you don’t, and ones that Seokjin is very happy to start chatting up the moment you take your seats. 

“Are you here together?” One of the men—you think his name is Nathan(?)—asks, pointing to the two of you. 

“No,” you say. 

“Yes,” Seokjin says. 

You both turn to glare at each other as Nathan—no, maybe Noah—furrows his brows, clearly having not received the response he was aiming for. Seokjin makes a bunch of aggressive and dramatic facial gestures to remind you that you two are fucking dating, remember? Even though it’s not actually real, and that was the part you were focusing on. The not real part. 

“We are,” you correct awkwardly, even though Whatshisface seems to have moved on from the topic. “He’s my plus-one.”

“I’m not as tight with the bride as I am with one of her closest friends,” Seokjin says jokingly, even though you’re the only one who laughs. 

“Yeah,” one of the girls chimes in. “You guys were best friends in college.”

“Still are,” you say, grinning. At least you don’t have to lie about that. 

“So cute,” the same girl says romantically. “I wish I could fall in love with my best friend,” she turns to the man she’s with who clearly doesn’t want to be here whatsoever. “You guys must be so happy.”

“It’s not always a walk in the park,” Seokjin warns, and you don’t have time to smack him in the chest and ask him what the hell he means by that, as the officiant taps onto the microphone to begin to announce the entrance of the wedding party. 

As each couple, each bridesmaid and groomsman, walk through the door, you can’t help but wonder why Seokjin said it wasn’t always a walk in the park to be together. Are you that awful to fake date? 

“Can I have everyone’s attention, please?” Cynthia’s father asks, tapping his teaspoon against the wine glass in his hand. “I’d just like to make a toast.” He turns to where Cynthia and her fiancé are seated, and he looks on the verge of tears. “For as long as I’ve lived, I’ve never seen two people love each other so selflessly. When they’re together, they make grey skies turn blue, turn night into day. All I can wish for you both is that you will forever be each other’s best friend, each other’s rock. There is no greater joy in life than to get to spend the entirety of it with your best friend. Congratulations, Cynthia and James. We are so lucky to know you both.”

Everybody begins to clap. 

Everybody, except Seokjin. 

You notice that his hands are resting in his lap, and when you turn to look at him, you see his eyes welling up, his smile soft and wistful. 

“You alright?” You ask quietly, giving him a nudge with your shoulder. 

Seokjin looks back at you like you’ve caught him off guard. “Me? Yeah.”

“You’re crying,” you point out. 

He shrugs, blinking to let the tears roll down his cheeks. “I just love that,” he explains. “Love knowing that some of us can be so lucky to spend the rest of our lives with our best friends by our sides.”

 According to the ancient law of weddings, the reception is where all guests are mandated to get out of their seats and boogie-oogie-oogie. At least, that’s what Seokjin says, when the food gets whisked away and the space morphs into a dance floor, tables in the center cleared as the bride goes to change in her mandated second dress, because one just isn’t expensive enough as it is. Seokjin just seems to know everything about weddings. It’s almost as if he’s planned one himself. 

“Just wait until all of the stuffy, traditional dances are over,” Seokjin whispers into your ear as Cynthia and her father share a dance. Seokjin looks like he’s about to jump out of his seat, desperate to get onto the dance floor. “You’ve never seen me dance at a wedding.”

“I’ve never seen you dance at all,” you correct, excluding all of the dabbing he did in 2016 when it was still a cool thing to dab. 

“Then you’re in for a real treat,” he says smugly. 

Sure enough, the moment the rest of the guests are invited onto the dance floor to drop it low, Seokjin is the first one out of his chair, and you, the second, begrudgingly dragged to the center by your over-enthusiastic best friend. He’s always been absolutely shameless in everything he does, which makes for high confidence and low embarrassment, two things you are certainly not the strongest in. Which is exactly why you end up side-stepping awkwardly like a geek at senior prom, while he uses every single one of his limbs to express his passion for whatever generic pop song is blasting through the speakers. 

Cynthia’s never been one for niche, hipster music.

“Come on, Y/N, have a little fun!” Seokjin encourages, grabbing onto your wrist and rapidly waving it up and down, making you shake. 

“You can have enough fun for the both of us,” you tell him, still just as aware of everybody else’s opinion of you as you were in high school. Some things really never change. 

“Impossible! Come on!” He says, and you have no idea what dance move he’s about to break into from his positioning, and then you suppose you’ll never know, because the song immediately switches to an acoustic one by Ed Sheeran, which is the most generic type of slow song you could possibly think of. 

“Grab your boys and girls, everyone,” the DJ says, a random white guy who definitely would prefer to make mixtapes in his basement than do this shit. “This one’s for love!”

You don’t even have time to take another step before Seokjin is grabbing your hand with his own and pulling you in close to him. He holds your one hand out and places his other on your waist, and instinctively, you rest your hand on his shoulder. 

When you went to senior prom in high school, your date was this terribly nervous friend of a friend, who asked you because you both didn’t have a real date to go with, and you figured it would be better to go with an acquaintance than nobody at all. And it was sort of fun, because you sat at a table with all of your friends and ate decent senior prom food, and it wasn’t in your stinky high school gymnasium but a fairly nice country club. But when the only slow song of the night came on, thus ensued the most awkward three minutes of your entire high school career. 

This is by no means an exact science, but you figure that the people you are closest to are the people you can slow dance with without it being terrible and awkward and awful. You did it with your parents when you were a little girl in the living room of your family home. You did it with Cynthia at two in the morning one night when she had just gotten dumped by this absolutely rotten boy. 

And now, you’re doing it with Seokjin. And it isn’t terrible or awkward or awful at all. You sway to the soft strums of the guitar and it feels just right. The feeling of his hand in yours, on your waist, of yours on his shoulder. There’s less than a six inches of distance and you feel as close as you have always been. Seokjin feels so natural. He always has, and you know that he always will. There’s no doubt when it comes to him, no regret. 

“Isn’t this nice?” Seokjin asks, grinning at you. 

“Only because it’s with you,” you say back with a smile. Seokjin beams. 

Later, when the slow dance is over and you make your way back to your table so you can watch your best friend make a fool of himself from a distance. Cynthia drops by, blissful. 

“I knew you’d bring Seokjin! He’s charming the pants off of my mom as we speak,” Cynthia says happily. You both crane your neck to see him teaching Cynthia’s mom the floss, outdated as per usual. 

“Yeah, I mean,” you say with a shrug, “who else was I going to bring?”

“He makes you happy, doesn’t he?” Cynthia asks. She looks proud. She deserves it. 

You turn back to look at Seokjin, on the verge of tears of laughter as Cynthia’s mom successfully flosses for the first time. He’s so wonderful. The light of your damn life. “Yeah. He does.”

When the fair comes to town, you don’t find out from posters stapled to utility posts and taped to traffic lights. Nor do you find out from word of mouth, from the two strangers in your favorite (slightly overpriced) coffee shop ahead of you in line. It’s not even your coworkers who mention it to you in passing one day because their eight-year-old has been begging them to go but they can’t because they have a dentist appointment.

It is, because who else would it be, of course, Seokjin, who texts you at 4:18PM on that Saturday and says:

[May 27th, 4:18PM]

Seokjin: I’m on my way over to your apartment to pick you up Seokjin: Don’t ask questions

And it is, in every possible way, the scariest thing you have ever received on your phone. Seokjin’s always been one for spontaneity, but ever since the two of you graduated and stopped feeling the urge to go out to McDonald’s at three in the morning, random activities have become less of a rule and more of an exception. But it’s a Saturday, which means you don’t have to go to work, and it’s near-evening, which means you’ve been sitting at home doing absolutely nothing all day as it is. And it’s May, which means that the sun only sets at seven at night and there is so much to be done in this wonderful weather. 

So, Seokjin’s on his way. 

You spend the next seven minutes (Seokjin lives approximately eight minutes by car from where you live, not that you’re counting, or anything) changing out of the yoga pants you’ve been wearing since you returned from work Friday evening and trying to make yourself look as presentable as possible. You don’t know where he’s taking you. He could be bringing you to an alley to murder you for your inheritance. He’s definitely on your will, that’s for sure. You want to look nice. 

Seven minutes later, you see his tiny white Volkswagen pull up outside your apartment complex as you’re slipping on some sandals. He hops out of the driver’s seat and scurries into the lobby, which signals to you that he is a man on a mission, and you are simply the best friend who gets roped along for the ride. He knocks on your door thirty seconds after that, and you linger for a few moments so as not to seem like you’ve been anxiously awaiting his arrival. 

“Let’s go,” Seokjin declares in lieu of a hello. He reaches out to grab onto your wrist, pulling you out of the door as you frantically make sure you have your bag with you, otherwise you’ll be phone-less, key-less, and lip-balm-less. Three equally terrible fates. 

“What? Now? No explanation, nothing?”

“I parked in the no parking fire lane with my blinkers on, which means we have to go right now. We also have to go because I am very excited about where we are going,” Seokjin elaborates, though it does nothing to clarify the situation at hand. Other than the fact that if you don’t get into his car right now, he’s got a ticket to pay. 

“But where are we going?” You ask again, as Seokjin and you scramble down the stairs to make it to his Volkswagen before the security guard in the lobby starts shouting at him for his illegal parking job. 

“The fair!” Seokjin says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Did you see it was in town?”

“No,” you say dumbly. 

“Oh,” Seokjin says awkwardly. “Well, it is, and I feel like we haven’t seen each other in a while—”

“It’s been three days.”

“—and we haven’t gone out on a real date yet, you and me.” Seokjin explains as you get to his car. Luckily, there is no angry security guard nor a ticket underneath his windshield wiper, so you slide into the passenger seat and he drives off. 

“Yes, we have,” you object. “Cynthia’s wedding counts as a real date.” He was literally your plus-one. What more could define the word ‘date’?

Seokjin scrunches his nose up in clear disagreement. “No, it doesn’t,” he argues back. “Cynthia was going to tear your arm off if you didn’t bring me with. That was a date out of obligation.”

“Aren’t all of these dates out of obligation?”

You expect some sort of witty response, but instead, you’re met with silence as Seokjin opens the driver’s side door, the two of you looking over the top of his Volkswagen wordlessly, each waiting for something. 

What? It’s not like you’re wrong. Seokjin is taking you out on dates to get a feel for what a real, blossoming relationship is like. Except this isn’t real, and your relationship is far from blossoming. It’s bloomed, already. Into an irreplaceable friendship. 

“Yeah, well,” Seokjin sputters, for once in his life, speechless. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, sitting roughly in the driver’s seat as you get into the passenger side, watch as he fumbles to put the keys into the ignition. “Don’t you want to know what a first date is supposed to be like?”

“You don’t have to take me on a fake first date just to spend time with me,” you tell him, the two of you facing forward, staring at the road in front of you as he drives. The radio is playing, some generic alternative rock song that neither of you are familiar enough to warrant turning up the volume for. Seokjin’s always preferred listening to the radio over his own music. Something about ambience while he drives. “We can spend time together wherever. Even if we’re just in my apartment.”

Seokjin’s wonderful and the best and one of the (if not the) greatest people you’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, but he doesn’t need to do all of this for you. It’s enough for him to text you in the morning to remind you to drink a glass of water before you eat anything to wake your body up. Enough for him to leave leftovers from your dinner nights in your fridge, so you can savor the taste of his food after he’s gone home. Enough for the two of you to be as you used to be, as you always have been and always will be. 

Seokjin scoffs, honking at a driver who sped through a red light. “Those aren’t dates, Y/N,” he explains like it’s the most obvious thing in the entire world. “They’re just ways that we spend time with each other.”

“So then what makes this a date? What’s the difference?” You demand. Seokjin’s not making any sense. Sure, you aren’t nearly as well-versed in the dating scene as he is, certainly haven’t been on as many as he has, but from your limited knowledge, you’d always thought that what makes a date is not the setting, not the time or location, but the person you spend it with. 

Arguably, that would mean that all of the nights and days you’ve spent with Seokjin could, by that definition, be dates, but that’s obviously not the case. You’ve always just been friends. 

“It’s a date because I say it is,” Seokjin declares. “You wanna know what makes a date? It’s when the two people—or more, depending on how you swing—decide that it is a date. It’s just a label.”

“If it’s just a label, then why are you making such a big deal out of it?” You ask. You know you’re being a bit annoying with all of the questions at this point, but who’s to say you couldn’t have spent the evening curled up in your apartment and called that a date as well? 

“Because,” Seokjin begins, sighing. His hands are gripping the steering wheel so hard, his knuckles are turning white. “Because,” he repeats, “if someone really wants to impress you, then they will make a big deal out of it. Because you deserve it.”

Eventually, Seokjin pulls into the giant open field designated for parked cars, and expertly squeezes into this tiny space between two absolutely massive SUVs, likely once filled with five children and two very, very tired parents. Sure, you both only have about six inches of space to shimmy out of his car, but it was a good parking job nonetheless. 

“Get you a boyfriend who can park as well as I can,” Seokjin says, patting himself on the back as you head towards the entrance. 

“Why would I need a boyfriend when I have you?” You tease back.

You wait for a cheeky response from Seokjin, turning to look at him when he delivers the blow, but it never arrives. Instead, Seokjin reaches a hand down to grab onto yours, and you walk hand in hand towards the entrance, wordless. He pays, which makes you angry, but he tells you that you can buy a funnel cake for you to share to make up for it, and that’s good enough. 

In movies and books, a fair is a very high-school event for people to attend. Lots of bright flashes of color, loud noises, and junk food, which are three things that society believes deters anyone over the age of nineteen from attending. You can’t name a single piece of pop culture that features two fully-grown adults eating cotton candy and sitting in a ferris wheel carriage. Because the moment you turn twenty, your back starts to permanently ache and noises louder than the sound of your refrigerator making ice give you a headache, of course. 

Seokjin, of course, has never been one to let the media define him. 

He lights up like New Year’s Eve the moment you walk through the gates. Like a child on Christmas day. 

There’s a difference between being immature and being youthful that people often fail to realize, confusing the two, or worse, thinking they’re the same thing. But there are sixteen-year-olds out there who are more mature than middle-aged adults, and there are middle-aged adults who still act like they’re going through puberty. Seokjin was immature when you first met him, the same way all college freshmen are, but over the years lost that mindset while still never parting with the youthful part of himself, the part filled with childlike wonder, with innocence and hopefulness. It has always been part of him. 

When Seokjin looks at the world, he sees it bathed in light, in color. He sees people in their most wonderful form. Sees every day, every moment, as something worth remembering. Sees the future as something worth looking forward to. 

You’ve always envied that about him. Perhaps it’s just in your nature, but you’ve always been jaded, a little cynical. 

A realist and a dreamer. 

And they always say that opposites don’t really attract. 

Here at the fair, Seokjin is more than prepared and willing to have enough fun for the both of you, even as you pull up to one of those impossible-to-win water-squirter games. He’s already pulling out his wallet to hand a couple of bills to the angsty-looking teenager behind the booth. 

“You know that these are totally rigged, right?” You ask, chuckling to yourself as Seokjin rubs his hands together with a wide-eyed excitement. 

“Just because they’re rigged doesn’t mean winning is impossible,” Seojin says confidently, taking a seat and gearing up to begin. You stand to the side, arms crossed, waiting to be sufficiently unimpressed. “What are you doing standing there? I paid for both of us.”

Before you know it, Seokjin is pulling you down into the seat next to him as the teen counts down, giving you a very monotonous three seconds before the bell rings and you have to aim weakly-pressurized water into the mouth of a faded plastic clown. 

You’ve never had the best hand-eye coordination. On multiple occasions, Seokjin has tossed you a fruit, a bag of rice, something non-dangerous and relatively large, and on multiple occasions, you fumble to grab it and it eventually ends up on your kitchen floor. It takes you about half of the minute you’re given to blow up the balloon to get your aim straight, and by then, Seokjin’s balloon could eat yours for lunch. 

“Pick up the pace, Y/N!” Seokjin teases, relishing in his lead. This is embarrassing, and you’re better than this. And yet.

“It’s working against me and you know it!” You defend yourself. Because their unfairness is the reason Seokjin’s about to win and you’re about to lose. 

“How can you say that when I’m doing so well?” Seokjin laughs, and his balloon pops the moment that the sixty-second countdown ends, an underwhelming blare of celebratory music playing through the speakers at the corners of the tent. 

A sad little “Better luck next time!” echoes from the clown in front of you, and you slam your water gun on the table as Seokjin gloats in your face, the teenager coming over to hand Seokjin his prize, looking dead on his feet. 

“What should I get, hmm?” Seokjin asks. 

The selection is pretty weak. A lot of Frozen merchandise, two-dollar stuffed Olafs and capes with Anna and Elsa’s faces on the back. A couple of nondescript stuffed animals, from glittery lizards to pastel teddy bears. What looks like a generic-brand Whoopee cushion. 

“You don’t want a stuffed Olaf?” You ask innocently. The design is a little off, so it looks like Olaf is staring into your soul, Mona Lisa-style. 

“Hmm,” Seokjin says, pretending to think about it. The poor kid looks like he’s about to faint from boredom, desperate for two fully-grown adults to stop acting like they don’t know what prize to pick from an amusement park booth. “How about the pink teddy bear?”

Very on-brand for him. The teen hands it to Seokjin and the two of you go on your merry way, Seokjin demanding the two of you go to stuff your faces with funnel cake before rounding out the night on the ferris wheel. 

“For you,” Seokjin says, holding the teddy bear out to you as the two of you stand in the surprisingly-long line for funnel cake. 

“Me?” You ask, eyebrows raised in disbelief as your fingers curl around the fluffy fabric. It’s softer than you thought it would be. 

“Yeah,” Seokjin says, certain. “To remind you of me.”

You grin, holding the bear close to you. Sure, it’s a little bit kindergarten, like the cute boy on the playground placing a quick kiss on your lips before the teacher calls everybody in after recess ends, but the gesture is more than enough. To know that Seokjin won something, even something as plain and inexpensive as a prize from a fair, and his first and only thought was to give it to you, well, that makes you happy. “I don’t need a bear to be reminded of you,” you muse. Not when there are pieces of your friendship lingering everywhere you walk, from your apartment to your old university to your mind. 

“Can’t hurt to know you’re always thinking about me,” Seokjin says, and it’s not greasy or smug or weird. It’s honest.

You laugh. “When am I not?”

Funnel cake starts with a black t-shirt and the two of you arguing over who’s going to foot the ten dollar bill, much to your dismay. Even though Seokjin had explicitly said that you could pay, since he covered your entrance ticket, he still makes a big deal about doing it himself in front of the poor funnel cake girl, who definitely doesn’t get paid nearly enough to watch two grown adults fight over a ten dollar funnel cake. Eventually, you get your way and successfully hand the girl a ten dollar bill and she hands you a paper plate piled high with funnel cake as you begin to search for an open place to sit. 

“Just because I said that you could pay for the funnel cake doesn’t mean I actually meant it,” Seokjin says with a frown as you scope out a place to sit. At evening’s peak, it’s nearly impossible, which leads the both of you to a curb next to a recycling bin piled high with plastic cups, stained with Coca Cola and Fanta, knees up to your chin as you crouch over a single plate of funnel cake.

“Isn’t this cozy,” Seokjin says with a grin as a burly middle-aged dad steps on Seokjin’s clean white sneakers to throw something away. 

“We’ve been in more cramped quarters before,” you say. One of the many instances that immediately comes to mind is when the two of you were trapped in a closet in a frat house for nearly two hours because two people on the other side were having sex, the entire time. It was a good bonding experience. The two of you got very acquainted with each other’s scents. 

Seokjin’s hasn’t changed. Still sweet, sugary and vanilla from all of the baking he does, and a little bit like raindrops.

You wonder if Seokjin thinks the same about yours. 

“You know I don’t mind where we are and what we’re doing when I’m with you,” Seokjin says, and it sounds like a line straight out of a Hallmark movie, cheesy and cliche and rehearsed. But it’s none of those things. Seokjin says it and it’s real. And it’s the sort of thing that makes you wonder if you’re ever as true with him as he is with you. 

“Even when we’re sitting on the ground and eating funnel cake next to a recycling bin in a fair filled with messy children and their deadbeat parents?” You ask. 

Seokjin nods, taking an enormous bite of funnel cake. “Yes, even then.”

“True love,” you muse. Very few people would you do this for. Seokjin is one of them. 

Seokjin coughs at the words, his whole body shaking, and the powdered sugar from the piece in his hands goes flying, like a tiny little blizzard, falling onto his skin, his shirt, his lips, and everywhere in between. Snowflakes. 

Funnel cake ends with Seokjin trying to wipe the white dust on the front of his pitch black t-shirt away with a napkin, and only smearing it further into the fabric, cotton turning sticky from the sugar. It looks like a cocaine bust gone wrong. It looks only slightly not-kid-friendly. 

“Am I addicted to cocaine or did I just spill powdered sugar on myself?” Seokjin jokes, much to the horror of a family passing by, the mom giving you and Seokjin an alarmed expression as she picks up the pace. “It was powdered sugar!” Seokjin calls after them, making the two of you laugh. “Or it was cocaine. Whatever you want to believe.”

“You’re too soft to do cocaine,” you tell Seokjin, a very strange sort of compliment. 

“Maybe powdered sugar, though,” Seokjin says with a laugh as you heave yourselves off of the curb, tossing out the paper plate and dusting off your hands, flakes of powdered sugar falling to the ground. “Ferris wheel?”

“Anything you want,” you tell him, letting him lead you towards the ride, lit up like a Christmas tree. 

It’s as if every possible holiday threw up on the damn thing, a jumble of rainbow flights flashing erratically as a generic carnival tune plays in the background, sluggishly moving on its axis. It couldn’t have been built before this century. 

You squeeze into the carriage, clearly built to fit a child and their father at most, let alone two adults who both don’t have a regular exercise schedule. In order to fit, you have to stretch a leg over Seokjin’s lap and lean so that part of your shoulder is against his chest. It’s… cozy. It’s most definitely not the most cramped either of you have ever felt. 

“This is the part where I pretend to yawn and then stretch my arm over you,” Seokjin says matter-of-factly, as if that particular action is a mandatory part of the date.

“Oh, is that proper first-date etiquette?” You tease. 

“Only for me,” Seokjin says, cheeky, and it’s the greasiest thing you’ve ever had the misfortune of hearing. Even so, you let him fake yawn, melodramatic and totally contrived, feel as his arm comes to rest on your shoulder, hand swinging down over your side. Instinctively, you reach up to grab it with your arm, letting the two of you sit like this as the ferris wheel creaks, slowly moving you upwards. “Aren’t you having the best first date ever?”

“It’s the only one I can remember,” you admit, especially since it’s still in progress. 

“That means it’s the best.” Seokjin grins. 

“And the worst,” you add on, making Seokjin laugh. 

Finally, finally, finally, you reach the top, overlooking the entire fair, lit up in the night in a warm pink and yellow haze. At this hour, only the teenagers are left, families having gone home for the night, and you can hear the cheers even from up here, hear the laughter and jokes and chatter. it’s a sort of ambience you’ve never had the pleasure of listening to before. One of an active night, filled with people, and you, far away enough to be out of the action but close enough to enjoy it nonetheless. 

“Isn’t this nice, Y/N?” Seokjin asks, the two of you looking out into the distance, wishing you could stay like this forever. “When we’re up here, it feels like I can forget about everything and just think about now.” If only you could stay like this forever.

“And what are you thinking about, right now?” You ask, head resting on his shoulders. 

Instinctively, his arm moves from your shoulder to your waist, tugging you into his side, letting you rest your legs on top of his own. Seokjin’s never needed to be more honest than he already is. He says what he means, and he means what he says.

It’s always been so easy when it comes to him. 

He lets out a breath, and you can feel his chest rising beneath your hand on his torso, feel the subtle beat of his heart beneath your fingers. 

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

He rests his head atop yours. “You,” he says.

Seokjin, a man of his word, holds up his end of the deal like he does everything else: honestly and fully. Little has really changed about your relationship dynamic—he still sends you good morning texts and reminds you that you need to drink your eight glasses of water (which you never do, and he consistently does because he’s an organized man with perfect skin). Still randomly comes to your apartment with two brown bags filled with groceries to last you the next two weeks. Still makes time for you.

But now, it’s all being done under the guise of courtship. Of what it’s like to have someone romantically interested in you. 

Of course, Seokjin’s not actually romantically interested in you, but he does a damn good job of pretending to be. For the sake of this whole thing. Seokjin still has one objective in mind: get you to believe in love again, and that all of these things he’s been doing, from taking you to the fair to dancing with you at Cynthia’s wedding, are means to accomplish an end. 

(The stuff in between, the texts, the calls, the visits, those are just part of your routine.)

It feels completely normal and totally unnatural, all at once. Like a new kind of relationship neither of you have really ever delved in before, toeing the line between friendship and this other feeling, one without a name. Seokjin will do something that you and he have always done, long before any of this was in motion, like ordering Indian takeout to your place unprompted, and then he will say that that’s what people are supposed to do when they’re courting someone. As if he is the end-all be-all of chivalry. 

Truth be told, you can’t wait for this to end, for things to go back to the way they were. You never did set an official fake breakup date (if that’s what it’s even called), but you suppose that that means that you can just call it off whenever you’d like. You don’t feel as though anything he’s doing is working. He treats you just the same. What is there to fall in love with, other than familiarity?

But Seokjin’s diligence makes you diligent, too, which is why you’re standing in your kitchen, outnumbered by vegetables (ten to one, which means they could definitely kill you if given the chance—and opposable thumbs), a gigantic pot on your creaky gas stove, boiling soup swirling inside. Even though your kitchen is nowhere near the level of organized and systematic as the Chopped set, it certainly smells like it. Your cooking can hardly compare to Seokjin’s (you roughly chopped vegetables and put them in broth, he makes kimbap for fun), but, like all other aspects of your life, he rubs off on you, one way or another. 

Seokjin seems to think that this transference of his personality will apply to how he feels about love, too. But time can only work so much magic, and ever since freshman year of college, for the seven years you’ve known him, it’s always been like this. 

You let the soup simmer on your stove as you begin to pack up the food scattered on your counter, unsure when next you’re going to use it, especially since your daily meals usually consist of leftovers and, if you’re feeling exotic, stir-fry. It’s then that you hear the knock on your door, and you don’t even need to think before you’re scurrying over to pull it open, revealing Seokjin leaning over to peek happily into your peephole.  

“Look who it is, for a change,” you say sarcastically.

“You mean your favorite human being in the entire world who is about to take you to see his mom and enjoy a nice home-cooked mom meal?” Seokjin corrects obnoxiously, making you laugh as you let him inside. 

“You blackmailed me into this,” you remind him, pointing an accusing metal soup ladle his way. “You convinced me that you’re doing me a favor by treating me like someone you’d want to court, and tricked me into making an enormous pot of soup for your mother!” A lose-lose situation. 

“I am doing you a favor,” Seokjin defends. “Don’t you love having a doting, attractive young professional taking you out to fairs and ordering you take-out? This is what the beginning of a relationship is supposed to look like.” Emphasis on supposed to. “Also, I accompanied you to Cynthia’s wedding after she had been talking your ear off trying to get you to bring a plus-one, so…”

A dirty, dirty play. 

“Fine, you win,” you concede. You did really appreciate him coming, especially so last minute. “I better hear nothing but pure, unadulterated praise coming from your lips when you eat my soup, or else.”

“I would have showered compliments on your soup even if you hadn’t sent me a thinly-veiled threat,” Seokjin says proudly. “What kind of a best friend would I be if I didn’t?”

Perhaps one that confused you a little less. 

You spend the entire car ride to Seokjin’s mom’s house (who lives forty-minutes out of the city) listening to him ramble on about how desperately his mother wants him to get married, settle down and have kids or a dog or two. The two of you still have half of your twenties to go, but the moment he graduated, Seokjin got a steady job and a nice apartment in the city, which immediately equates to marriage material. 

At least, that’s what his mom thinks. 

But those aren’t the sort of things that make Seokjin marriage material. You’ve known him for years. Ever since he first spoke to you, it was immediately obvious he was always the sort of perfect, dreamboat husband material that teenage girls fawn over, that characters in anime fantasize about. 

At the most basic level, Seokjin is goddamn attractive, and even if you’ve seen him in nothing but tighty-whities as a nervous eighteen-year-old, seen him with tomato sauce in his hair, seen him sick with a cold and strep throat, you can’t deny him that. He’d got the sort of looks that make people on the street take photos of him, thinking he’s a celebrity. 

But not only is Seokjin undoubtedly gorgeous, he’s an entire package. He’s an excellent cook, capable of impressing any and all parents, hilarious, charming and charismatic. Professional but never dull. He does his part in group projects, studies for his exams, listens to the music recommendations you give him even if they aren’t his style. The girls he dated in college knew exactly what they were doing when they went out with him. They were attempting to secure their future. It’s a shame none of them stuck, not like you, Elmer’s glue on his skin. 

Seokjin’s mom, the lovely woman she is, is under the impression that Seokjin became husband material when he graduated, got a job and moved to the city. But you know better than anyone—Seokjin’s always been husband material. Now, he’s just old enough that he knows he could be looking for himself. 

When you pull into Seokjin’s mom’s driveway, a little suburban home with a freshly-mowed font lawn and flowers by the mailbox, she’s already opening the front door and scurrying out, still wearing her slippers. 

“Eomma!” Seokjin says happily, getting out of the driver’s seat as she bounds towards him, the two of them wearing the same smiles on their faces. Like mother, like son. “It’s been a while.”

“Too long!” She chides, smacking him slightly. “You have to come and visit me more often. I don’t live that far away from you.”

“I’m busy, Ma,” Seokjin says with a roll of his eyes. “I have a job.”

“A job and no wife!” She exclaims, though her attitude immediately changes the moment you exit the car, pot of soup still warm in your hands. “Y/N!” 

She rushes over to give you a hug as well, albeit a much more careful one. She looks positively thrilled to see you. Seokjin’s mom has always liked you, even when you were an insufferable eighteen-year-old. They would invite you over for their Chuseok celebrations every year, and sometimes to their New Year’s Eve parties, if you were in the area over winter break. 

“No wife yet, Eomma,” Seokjin says. 

“You look so pretty, Y/N,” Seokjin’s mother tells you. She takes the pot from your hands wordlessly, refusing to listen to your protests as she shoos you both inside. 

The house smells of a home-cooked meal, savory and salty and sweet all at once, and you can see several dishes already laid out on the table. It’s both a familiar sight and scent, something you all too frequently experience whenever you barge into Seokjin’s apartment around mealtime. Seokjin immediately joins his mother in the kitchen, scrambling around to help her finish cooking, as you wait awkwardly by the table, easily the most inexperienced of the three of you. 

“Is this your soup?” His mother asks. 

“Yes, I thought to make some to bring tonight,” you say with a smile. Seokjin’s mother beams. 

“Delicious! Seokjinie always tells me how much he loves having it when he’s sick. You take care of him very well,” his mother grins. She places it on the stove, turning on the heat to warm it up. 

“Only because he does the same for me,” you say, sending a grin Seokjin’s way, one he returns instantly. 

The rest of the meal preparation (which doesn’t take long, especially with an extra pair of equally-gifted hands) goes by like this, Seokjin’s mother heaping compliments onto you as you stand there, helpless, watching as the two add the final dishes to the dining table. Seokjin dodges every question about his lack of engagement, always deflecting and shifting the topic to something you’ve done. Maybe this is why he wanted you around…

Finally, when dinner is ready, the three of you sit down, eager to pick up your chopsticks and dive in. 

“Seokjin’s father is away on business,” his mother explains after you note the empty place setting. “He sends his love!”

“I knew I was missing the dad jokes,” Seokjin says with a shake of his head. “Luckily, I can make up for them with my own.”

Seokjin’s mother laughs. “You must get a lot of this, don’t you?” She shoves an extra serving of fish onto your plate, letting it plop on top of the kimchi she had previously spooned onto the dish. “Eat, eat. I made it for you.”

“Oh, thank you,” you say with a smile. You’ll probably walk out of this house with a food baby the size of Jupiter. You always do. “And yes, but it’s nice. I like spending time with him.”

“Oh, thank God,” Seokjin says dramatically, a hand to his chest. “I was worried about that, for a second.”

“You two have always been inseparable,” his mother comments. “Don’t tell me this is why you haven’t married yet, Seokjin-ah.”

“What do you mean, Ma?” He asks over a mouthful of naengmyeon. “You know that I’m waiting to get married.”

Seokjin’s mother scoffs, shocked. “What? But Y/N’s right here! You two make an excellent couple.”

“Eomma!” Seokjin admonishes, even a little taken aback himself. You had no idea this was the secret plan his mother’s been plotting, all this time. It seems both you and him were just operating under the assumption that she was doing what all mothers do when their children are adults—dreaming out loud for grandchildren. 

“I’m sorry, did I misread something? You two are a couple, aren’t you?” His mother asks, positively bewildered. No wonder she’s been grilling Seokjin so hard about getting married. She had thought he was halfway there, already. 

You open your mouth to correct her, but your mind gets the best of you. Isn’t this what Seokjin wants? For people to think you’re a couple? For the true dating experience—are they, aren’t they? 

“No, Eomma,” Seokjin says, interrupting your thoughts. You turn to him, brows furrowed in confusion. “We’re just friends.”

Nobody mentions marriage, dating, or love for the rest of the meal. 

You excuse yourself to the bathroom once everyone is finished, Seokjin’s mother shooing you away from the kitchen sink, refusing to let you partake in any sort of clean up as the honorary guest. You’re glad to get away, the tension palpable and thick, looming over your heads, a reminder to all three of you that friends is all you have been, and friends is all you will ever be. Strangely enough, Seokjin had seemed the most disappointed out of all of you, even more so than his mother, whose dreams of grandchildren were crushed before her eyes. 

You wonder why. 

If Seokjin had been so adamant about the two of you calling yourselves a couple at the wedding, then why did he backtrack here? Was it his mother? Was it you? What could have made him change his mind?

As you walk back to the kitchen, you can hear the two of them having a conversation, hushed voices so as not to alert you. You take a step back from the entryway, hiding behind the wall to eavesdrop. 

“You must see the way she looks at you, Seokjin-ah,” his mother says. 

“No, Ma, that doesn’t mean anything,” Seokjin says, voice cold. 

“Yes it does, my boy,” she says. “Can’t you see it? The way she cares for you.”

“That’s just how it’s always been.”

“Seokjin-ah, please. You’re being stubborn.”

“Eomma, believe me, I know better than anyone else that we’re only ever going to be friends.”

“You don’t see it, then?” His mother’s voice is sad, helpless. “The way she loves you.”

You hear Seokjin suck in a breath, a deep, heavy inhale, weighed down by his thoughts. At that moment, you decide to round the corner, pretending like you haven’t hear a thing. 

“Y/N!” Seokjin’s mother exclaims happily. “Your soup was delicious. You’ll have to come over more often so I can keep having it.”

“I’ll have Seokjin send home a thermos with it,” you joke, lightening the tension you can still feel lingering in the air. 

“Ah, you’re too kind!” She says, sending you a warm smile. Seokjin hasn’t turned around from where he’s facing the sink, yellow rubber gloves up to his elbows as he scrubs the dishes clean. “Seokjin-ah, you must remember to bring Y/N more often. I love seeing her.”

“Yes, Eomma,” Seokjin says dutifully. When he finishes, he packs up the leftovers his mother is sending him home with, placing tupperware after tupperware into a plain brown bag. “Y/N, ready to go?”

“Yes, it’s getting late,” you say, the words stiff on your tongue. Seokjin seems closed off, bottled up. There’s something he’s not saying, and you can feel it weighing on his tongue. “it was lovely to see you again.”

“Of course!” Seokjin’s mother grins. “You must visit me again soon. I’ll be waiting!”

“Bye, Eomma,” Seokjin says as you head to the front door, pulling on your shoes as he opens the door. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Remember what I said, alright, Seokjin-ah?” His mother says, pulling him in for a hug. “You mustn't ignore what’s right in front of you.” You can’t help but wonder if maybe, you had overheard something you weren’t supposed to. 

In the car, you ask, “What was your mom talking about? When we were saying goodbye?”

Seokjin shrugs, nonchalant and calm. It’s so plain that it’s uncharacteristic of him. “Oh, nothing.” You hate not knowing what really lingers in his thoughts, rests deep in the pit of his heart. You want nothing more than to reach over and promise him that, no matter what, you’ll always be by his side. “She just wants me to look out for myself.”

Even on this clear night, the moon and stars visible above your heads, your mind (and heart) couldn’t be foggier. 

In your freshman year of college, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 had just been released on DVD, digital, and Blu-ray. Seokjin, the eighteen-year-old genius he was, had brought a projector to school that year, and so, one chilly November weekend, you and him set up in an empty lounge with a perfectly white wall and watched (spoiler alert) Voldemort get Avada Kedavra-ed at one in the morning. 

Ever since, monthly movie nights have been ingrained into your routine, even when Seokjin was in London for a semester in your junior year and you used a shady website so you could stream Netflix movies together. You think, that semester, you watched every Certified Rotten movie on Netflix possible, relishing in being able to joke about how terrible the films you were watching with your best friend. You almost thought you would break your tradition, just because of how difficult it was to organize. 

But still, you persisted. 

Of course, now, in the age of platform subscriptions and renting on YouTube, it’s a lot easier. Seokjin has a subscription to every movie-streaming platform under the sun, which means that by default, so do you. One of the many perks of having Seokjin as your best friend. 

As two mostly-functioning adults in the real world, this is how your movie nights typically go: you will alternate apartments as the designated living room of the weekend, the host is in charge of arranging a pre-show dinner, and the guest is in charge of bringing a bottle of wine as a gift. You eat dinner, drink wine, and watch a movie together, either on the couch, or, in emergencies, in bed. The host always chooses. Three years out of college and running, neither of you have been able to come up with a system more foolproof than this. 

Tonight, it is Seokjin’s turn to host, which you always prefer because he cooks dinner on his own instead of giving up and ordering takeout like you always do, and because his couch and bed are much more comfortable than your own. Not that you frequent his bed. Because you don’t. You just know that from your limited experience, it’s much more comfortable than your own bed. It’s probably his mattress. 

When you arrive at his apartment, his door is already cracked open, resting on the door frame as you can hear him whistling a tune you don’t recognize. Almost like he’s been expecting you, or something. 

“If you leave your door open like this, you’re gonna get robbed,” you announce, forgoing a hello as you barge inside, the apartment smelling of smokiness. “Whoa, what the hell are you cooking? Lava?”

“I accidentally set off the fire alarm,” Seokjin explains, back turned towards you as he bends down to pull something out of the oven. “That’s why the door’s open.”

“Oh, not because you were expecting a guest?” You tease, placing the bottle of wine on the counter as you join him in the kitchen. 

Seokjin turns around to reveal a baking dish with four chicken legs, drenched in a sauce that smells of spice and flavor, charred on the skin. Gourmet restaurants couldn’t even compare. 

“No,” he jokes. “I was gonna eat all of this food and drink this wine by myself.”

“Hey, that is my wine!” You shout, making grabby hands towards the neck of the bottle. Seokjin raises a single eyebrow, unimpressed, as he dishes up the food, two chicken legs a piece on some luxurious paper plates. “Fine, I guess we can share.”

“You know you can’t resist me,” Seokjin tells you, and you hate it, because it’s true. 

 As you finish up, washing the pots and pans as Seokjin puts away the various bottles of seasoning on his counter, some of which you can’t even name, he asks, “Couch or bed?”

You turn, scandalized, swatting him with a fork lathered with soap, “So forward!”

Seokjin rolls his eyes. “Ugh, you know what I mean. You know I don’t mind where we watch our movie.”

(So long as he’s with you.)

You give the two options not another second worth of thought. You’re in the mood to lounge around on Seokjin’s terribly comfortable mattress tonight. You’ve had a rough past week at work, and sometimes, if you complain enough, Seokjin will massage your shoulders as you watch the movie. 

“Hmm… bed, please!” You say like a child, wrapping up the dishwashing as Seokjin grabs his laptop from the coffee table by the couch. You skip into his bedroom, giddy and only the tiniest bit wine-drunk, Seokjin following like the heavyweight best friend he is. 

Seokjin’s bedroom space has always felt so familiar to you. Plants along the windowsill, shelves with photos of his family, an enormous full-length mirror for gratuitous outfit-of-the-day pictures. Even in college, it felt this warm, this cozy. When you knocked on the wooden door of his dormitory at midnight to go out and get McDonald’s, coming back and gorging out on your McNuggets, it felt like this. 

People always say that your bedroom should be your little sanctuary, a home within a house. But instead of your own bedroom giving you that comfort, it’s Seokjin’s. Here, more so than anywhere else, you feel safe. Warm. Loved. There’s something magical to it. 

“What are we watching?” You ask happily, jumping onto his bed and grabbing the nearest plushie to hold onto. Seokjin plugs his laptop charger into the nearest outlet and sets it up on a couple of pillows for optimal viewing pleasure, the two of you leaning against a mountain of pillows as he pulls up Netflix. 

“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, have you heard of it?” Seokjin asks, clicking play on the movie. 

You furrow your brows as you curl into him, letting your head rest on his chest. “Really? I thought you were gonna pick something cool, like Interstellar, or something. Not something my fifteen-year-old cousin loves.”

“First of all, your fifteen-year-old cousin has great taste,” Seokjin tells you, offended. “Secondly, just because this is a teenage romantic comedy doesn’t mean it’s any less cool than Matthew McConaughey in a spacesuit, okay?”

You’re still skeptical. The New York Times gave To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before a pretty decent review, but you have long outgrown your teenage coming-of-age romantic-comedy movie phase, even if you still quote Clueless regularly. As you’ve gotten older, your movie nights have transitioned away from young adult books turned into movies and more towards films that people like Lupita Nyong’o star in, movies with sad endings on purpose. So this is very out of character, especially for a movie junkie like Seokjin, who sends you weekly movie reviews of the latest indie divorce drama.

You snuggle in closer, accepting defeat. It is Seokjin’s turn to choose, after all. And you suppose, that after a long week of unforgiving work, you could use this time to unwind, mindlessly watch a movie geared towards high-schoolers instead of analyzing some unknown French historical drama. “Alright then,” you tell him. “I trust you.”

Famous last words. 

You always have a habit of putting your trust into your best friend at the absolute worst times. Example One: In junior year, when he swore that the new salad place on campus was delicious until you got food poisoning from their chicken. Example Two: The summer after you graduated, when he promised you that roller skating was “easy” and “fun”. Example Three: Two months ago, when he blackmailed you into letting him take you out on dates after promising to go with you to Cynthia’s wedding. 

Example Four: Right now, as you’re snuggled up together like two birds of a feather, watching two sixteen-year-olds agree to fake date for personal gain. And even though they’re high schoolers, and even though he’s going through with it to get back at an ex-girlfriend and she’s trying to recover from her disastrously-mailed love letters, it feels too similar to be something that Seokjin just happened to stumble upon. 

You turn to look up at Seokjin, the movie a distant hum in the background, hardly at the forefront of your mind, but he doesn’t spare you a second glance. Instead, he pulls you in closer, wrapping an arm around your torso as his fingers dance across your own, mindless. He doesn’t have a damn thing to say, a rarity in your relationship, letting the movie do the talking. 

I think it’s funny, the boy says as the two main characters sit in this absolutely ancient diner, you say that you’re scared of commitment and relationships, but you don’t seem to be afraid to be with me. 

Well, there’s no reason to be, the girl responds casually. Unbothered. 

Why’s that? He asks. 

She shrugs, nonchalant. Because we’re just pretending. 

You feel Seokjin’s grip tighten, feel his skin pressing against your own, the exposed part of your stomach where your shirt has ridden up. It’s almost like he’s afraid to lose you. The mere sensation, one you have felt hundreds, if not thousands of times before, sends shivers down your spine. 

“You cold?” He asks softly, pulling up the blanket that’s crumpled up by your feet, placing it gently over your bodies. 

You couldn’t care less about the movie playing in front of you. Not when Seokjin’s this close, not when he’s got his arms wrapped around you, not as you feel his soft breaths against your forehead, as he tucks you underneath a blanket. You’re frozen still next to him. You think that even your heart has stopped. 

Dozens of movie nights, but never one like this. Dozens of cuddle sessions, dozens of nights in. But this one feels brand new. 

Seokjin adjusts himself, turning in towards you. You can’t even feel yourself breathing. 

When did this start happening? You ask yourself. Why do your palms feel clammy? Why does his touch leave little embers along your skin? 

Traitorously, your mind responds, a question to a question. 

Hasn’t it always been like this?

Tuesdays have always been your least favorite day, because they’re Monday’s shitty cousin. They’re far enough into the week to have you not complain about it being the beginning of the week, but they’re too soon into the week to warrant any excitement about it ending. At least, when you wake up to go to work on a Monday, you know it’s a Monday. When you wake up to go to work on a Tuesday, you think it’s a Wednesday. Tuesday is the day of the week that wears a mask and tries to make you think it’s something else. 

After the printer jamming, salad dressing getting spilled on your pants, and your coworker losing his cool in the break room and breaking a cabinet door off of its hinges, you think that, when you get called into your boss’s office in the middle of the afternoon, there could be nothing worse for him to tell you. 

Instead, you walk out of his office with a brand new job title and a salary increase to match, positively ecstatic as you bounce all the way to your desk, whipping out your phone to text, well, who else?

[June 16, 2:43PM]

You: I GOT IT!!!

Seokjin: OMG SERIOUSLY?? Seokjin: CONGRATS YOU DESERVE IT !!!!

You: thank u jinie 8) now i can buy us more expensive wine for our movie nights

Seokjin: :D Seokjin: I’m so proud of you, you’re amazing!

And it’s the sort of text exchange that makes your heart soar, even more so than the promotion itself, because there is truly nothing more fulfilling than sharing your accomplishments with the people closest to you. 

You pack up later than usual that day, sitting at your desk for a little bit longer as you wrap up some emails and reorganize the space, determined to make it suitable for someone who just got a kick-ass raise. You’re leaning underneath your desk to gather your belongings, plopping your phone charger and a couple of nice blue pens into your bag, when you feel a sudden tap on your shoulder, scaring the absolute bejeezus out of you.

“Ow!” You shout as you bang the back of your head on the underside of your desk. Angry and in pain, you turn to face the asshole that’s just given you a bump on your scalp for the next week, only to find your expression lightening the moment you lay eyes on Seokjin, fresh from work with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Shocked and pleasantly surprised, you say, “Oh.”

“Don’t sound so excited to see me,” Seokjin jokes, rolling his eyes as he reaches a hand out to help you up. “You alright? I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

Rubbing the nape of your neck, you shake your head. “No, no, I’m alright. You just caught me by surprise. What’s all this?” You ask as Seokjin reaches his hand towards you, the flowery scent permeating the air around you. The bouquet in his hand is a collection of various pastel-colored flowers, baby’s breath and lilies, carnations and hydrangeas. 

“A congratulations,” Seokjin says in lieu of any other sort of explanation. “You deserve it.”

“You make it sound like I’m pregnant,” you tell him, grabbing your bag as you double-check your desk, making sure you haven’t left anything behind. 

“Oh my God, are you?” Seokjin asks, eyes wide. 

You laugh, shaking your head as you accept the flowers graciously, immediately holding them up to your nose. “No, I’m not, Seokjin. You’d be the first to know. But this is so sweet of you, you didn’t have to come to my work like this.”

“Well, how else am I supposed to pick you up for dinner?” 

Stopping in your tracks, you knit your brows together in confusion. “Dinner?”

“The reservation is at 5:45 so we’re already cutting it close,” Seokjin informs you, offering no explanation. “Come on. I had to pull a few strings to get this, so over my dead body will we arrive late.”

Seokjin reaches down to take your hand in his own, giving you no time to ask any more questions as he tugs you out of your office and into his little white Volkswagen, the scent of the flowers filling the air in between the two of you. 

When Seokjin somehow manages to get a parking spot a block away from the restaurant in question, your mouth practically drops open. 

It’s a cozy Lebanese place, complete with more plants you could ever dream of owning, and an outdoor patio decorated with warm fairy lights, lanterns hanging from strings above your head. It’s been ranked one of the best restaurants in the city for years now, and it is practically impossible to get a table (that is, unless you book a year in advance). 

“Seriously?” You ask, in awe, as Seokjin leads you towards the restaurant, the flowers resting safely on the passenger seat. 

“Of course,” Seokjin says like it’s nothing. “You deserve it.”

You aren’t a moment too late, the hostess happily seating the both of you at a corner table on the outside patio, the evening breeze sending flutters through your napkins as she hands you your menus and the wine list. 

“How did you swing this?” You ask, blown away as Seokjin grins. 

“Well, you know my friend, Yoongi?” He asks. You remember him, having met him a couple of times at Seokjin’s few-and-far-between house gatherings. He’s a dainty man with colorful hair who’s got the biggest alcohol tolerance you’ve ever seen. “He’s a food critic, so I had him do me a favor…”

“You didn’t have to do all of that for me,” you say. Seokjin probably owes Yoongi his first-born child, now. 

“But I wanted to,” Seokjin says firmly. “What kind of a best friend would I be if I didn’t celebrate something like this with you?”

Seokjin must know, after all of these years, that you aren’t one to make a big deal out of things. That you vastly prefer staying inside, curled up with a good book or an even better best friend, over going out and getting wasted, over eating at a too-expensive restaurant with portions the size of your fingernail, because that’s who you are. And still, he insists, because that’s who he is. Someone who thinks that everybody deserves a little celebration in their lives, a little love from the people closest to them. 

“You’d be my best friend no matter what,” you tell him, because it’s true. Because Seokjin has always been and will always be that person: the one you’ll never second-guess. “Even if you had gone home after work and passed out on your couch, you’d still be my most favorite person.”

Seokjin grins. “I’m your favorite person?”

“Well, other than Yoongi,” you tease. “After all, he did get us this reservation.”

“Can’t believe that I’m second best to a friend you’ve met like, twice,” Seokjin says, mock-offended. “How am I supposed to compete with that?”

“You’ll find a way,” you muse. He always does. It’s incredible—ever since you met Seokjin, you don’t think anyone’s ever quite stacked up to him. Nobody has ever compared. 

“I’m really proud of you, Y/N,” Seokjin says, the two of you clinking your wine glasses together to celebrate your promotion, celebrate the night, celebrate being together. “You deserved that position more than anybody else.”

“You don’t even know half of my coworkers,” you joke. 

“But I know you,” Seokjin reminds you. “And I know that you’re the most hardworking, determined, focused person I’ve ever met. When you want something, you get it.”

“What?” You ask, a hand reaching out over the table to caress his own, thumb rubbing against the back of his hand. “You’re like that, too. You’re honest and real and certain.” They’re traits you’ve always admired about him, things that you wish you could be but know that you’ll never compare to him. 

“No,” Seokjin says, with a shake of his head. “I’m really not. I wish, though.”

Seokjin’s the truest person you know. What secret could he be keeping? Why hasn’t he told you? Doesn’t he know that you’d care for him, stay by his side no matter what? Not a damn thing in the world could ever make you leave him. 

Your waiter comes around to take your order, and you and Seokjin order a variety of appetizers that you fully intend on sharing with each other. You’ve never really been able to keep to your own plates. There is something so genuinely wonderful about sharing. Afterwards, Seokjin launches into this hilarious story about some old college friends that he had recently heard back from, ones that you’d met once or twice during university but never cemented a real friendship with, unlike Seokjin. 

Quite honestly, you couldn’t care less for them or what they’re doing, but Seokjin is so animated, so vivacious and excited to be telling you about them, that his words are music to your ears. Nothing makes you quite as happy as Seokjin when he smiles, when he laughs, when he’s fucking effervescent. His joy brings you joy, and you suppose that that’s really what it means to care for someone. To love them. When even something as simple as being in their presence makes your heart feel lighter. 

In the evening light, illuminated by the warm flame of the lanterns littering the sky above you, the fairy lights along the fence that encloses the patio, the house lights from the building next door, Seokjin glows. The way his body bounces as he speaks makes it look like a yellow halo surrounds him, his gold jewelry glinting when it catches the light, shimmering. He looks straight out of a movie, straight off of a red carpet, warm brown eyes and an honest smile to match, charismatic and golden and real. 

The craziest part is that he’s always looked like this. Always outshined everybody, no matter his surroundings. Every day, you wonder how on Earth you could have gotten so lucky to have been able to meet him. How blessed you are to be his best friend. How fortunate you are to love him. 

When your meal arrives, the two of you take a break from laughing aloud in this ambient, cozy restaurant, likely bothering all of the people within a twenty-feet radius of your table, and dig in, only emitting the occasional groan of pleasure. It’s no wonder this restaurant has been ranked the best in the city for years on end. Every bite explodes on your tongue, decorates your taste buds. You won’t be surprised if, next time you go over, Seokjin’s recreating every dish you have tonight. He’s always had a knack for it, anyway. 

“You know,” he says over a mouthful of zucchini, “you’re my favorite person, too.”

Normally you’d say something cheesy and dramatic, something along the lines of a sarcastic I’m touched or even a self-deprecating At least I’m number one at something, but instead, you smile softly to yourself. You always knew you and Seokjin were entwined with each other, but it makes your heart flutter to hear him say it for himself. 

“I know,” you murmur. “I’ll never forget that.”

“I don’t know, I just—” Seokjin begins, pausing. It’s not the sort of stop where he’s trying to figure out what words to say. He already knows. He’s just waiting to see if they’re the right ones. “You know, it’s always been you, Y/N. A lot of my life has always been uncertain, but you—you’re the only thing I’m always sure of.”

Afterwards, Seokjin walks you to the door of your apartment, the two of you lingering in the doorway, him refusing to leave and you refusing to say goodbye. 

“Don’t forget these,” Seokjin says, handing you the brown paper bag filled with your leftovers, various to-go boxes filled with treats. 

“What? I thought you wanted them,” you say, eyes wide. “Don’t you want them as reference for a recipe?”

“No, it’s alright,” Seokjin tells you with a shake of his head. “I’ll remember.” 

“Are you sure?” You ask. Seokjin nods, certain. He’s got a steely expression to him, one filled with determination. There’s something he’s not saying, and you’re almost positive it’ll come out tonight. Maybe he knows that you ate that Pop-Tart in junior year. Maybe he’s about to get his revenge. To protect yourself, you smile, telling him, “I had a really nice time tonight, Seokjin. You didn’t have to do all of this for me.”

“I wanted to,” Seokjin repeats. He need offer no other explanation. “Any excuse to spend time with you, I’ll take.”

You laugh. “I suppose that that’s what this whole pretend-dating thing is about, right?” 

Seokjin’s face goes blank.

“What?”

“Well,” you say, shrugging as you reach out to grab his hand. “Dinner tonight, isn’t that the sort of thing you’d do on a date? That’s why you took me out to celebrate instead of just bringing over some wine and takeout. I have to admit, you’re pretty good at this whole dating thing. Must be why you offered, right?”

“Y/N, I—”

“All of those romantic things you said, us playing footsie underneath the table, getting the reservation from Yoongi, I mean. You’ve always loved pulling out all of the stops. You’re giving me such unrealistic expectations for dating, you know?” You chide, grinning as you toy with Seokjin’s fingers amongst your own. Looking up at him, he looks frozen solid, gazing at you with an unreadable expression. “Hey, is everything alright?” Your hand trails up to his shoulder, forcing him to meet your eyes with his own. 

They’re swirling in ink. 

And then, he leans down, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you in, and presses his lips against your own. Shocked, you gasp into his mouth, feel the heat of his lips on yours as he kisses you, fervent and desperate, like he’s got something to prove. You feel your heart race, dropping the brown paper bag by your side on your hardwood floor as he presses in closer, insistent. It’s as if your entire body shuts down at his touch, at the feeling of him against you, on you, surrounding you. 

Eventually, your mind comes to, flickering back to life after being entirely short-circuited, and you pull out of his grasp, pushing him away with your palms against his chest, gasping for air. 

“Seokjin, what the—”

“I’ve wanted to do that since I met you,” Seokjin tells you, and no longer does what he say sound like a line straight out of the Dating 101 Handbook. It sounds honest, and what once was something you treasured about him has morphed into fear, into words you dread coming from in between his lips. 

“No, that’s not—”

“What do you mean?” He asks, insistent. He takes a step towards you, and it makes you take a bigger step back. Being far away from him makes you ache, but being close to him is absolutely unbearable. It’s impossible to know which one your heart would prefer. “That’s how I feel. That’s how I’ve always felt.”

“I can’t—I need—” You stumble over your words, backing up into your living room, hand reaching out to the doorknob. You don’t know what you can’t do. You don’t know what you need. All you know is that your heart hasn’t stopped racing the moment his lips met yours, and that you aren’t sure what will happen if Seokjin stands outside your apartment any longer. “I just—”

“I know,” Seokjin says with a nod. His face is beet red and he looks just as breathless, sending your way a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I know that you don’t feel the same. But I just—I wanted you to know.”

“I don’t know what I feel,” you whisper to yourself, eyes boring holes into your shoes. “How could I?”

“Y/N,” Seokjin says, reaching a hand out. “I’m sorry—”

“No,” you interrupt. “Don’t apologize. Just—please, just go. Please.”

Seokjin doesn’t protest. Not as you shoo him away, not as you begin to close the door in front of him. 

The door is nearly shut, barely inches away from the door frame, when you hear him call your name. “Y/N,” he says. If you were any more heartless, you’d shut the door, let the last thing you hear from him be your own name. But you aren’t, and not once have you ever closed the door on Seokjin. Not now. Not ever. 

“Yes?” You whisper, terrified of what he might say but too desperate to avoid it altogether. 

You hear him hiccup. You don’t want to see him cry. 

“You’re my best friend.”

(Kim Seokjin prides himself for being a man of few mistakes. He has good time-management skills, triple checks his entire apartment every time he leaves, and only illegally parks in the fire lane when he knows he won’t get a ticket. He’s got great foresight, makes educated decisions, and generally feels as though everything he does will benefit somebody, in the long run. 

You always tell him that you envy how put-together his life is, how picture perfect it seems—stable job, nice apartment, meals prepped and ready to go in his fridge. And even if you aren’t nearly as obsessed with falling in love as he is (and he’s willing to admit that, at least), you tell him that it’s admirable that he has all of this time to go on dates with women he’s met off of Bumble or through a friend of a friend, making an effort to go out into the world and do something with his love life. 

The truth is, Seokjin has been on more dates in the past year than to work events in the evenings and on weekends, but he’s never seen the same person twice. Sometimes, he ends up with a phone number punched into his contacts and a promise to meet again as friends, but most of the time they pat him on the back after it’s over and tell him that they hope he’ll get over his ex soon. 

Seokjin hasn’t had a real ex, a real breakup, since sophomore year of college, when his long-distance girlfriend from high school told him she couldn’t bear to listen to him how much he loves his new best friend any longer. 

It doesn’t take a genius to guess who that best friend is. 

Seokjin’s always been sort of foolish, a little too forward at the best of times and terribly obvious at the worst of times. Always holding out hope that maybe one day you’ll pick up on all of his slip-ups, and he’ll stop acting like a bumbling idiot around you. 

Admittedly, he had gotten pretty fed-up by the time he invited you to dinner to celebrate your promotion. He rolled up to your office in a silk button down and a bouquet of the nicest flowers Hoseok could find, brought you to a restaurant you had been dying to go to ever since you moved to the city, and told you that you were the one constant in his life. And he thought that maybe, just maybe, you would realize. And he wouldn’t have to do everything by himself. 

It’s a wonder that you hadn’t figured it out. 

At least, not until you said goodbye to him, standing underneath the wooden door frame to your apartment, and he leaned down and kissed you. 

Seokjin is a man of few mistakes, but he’s almost positive that that one was the most costly. He had been psyching himself up in his head the entire ride home, telling himself I can do it, I’m gonna tell her, what’s the worst you could do? 

As it turns out, the worst you could do is reject him. 

Seokjin knows you don’t feel the same way. He doesn’t need to go on any dates, doesn’t need to read any more novels or watch any more movies to know that. Maybe you had known all along, you just never knew how to let him down easy. Maybe you were just hoping that if you never acknowledged it, it would go away, age like fine wine, bottled up for an eternity. 

But when he was standing in the flower shop, lingering behind the counter as Hoseok insisted he knew the perfect bouquet to make, there was a little spark in his heart that thought, maybe. Just maybe. 

“Think she’ll like it?” Seokjin had asked hesitantly, fingers curling around one of the petals of the lilies in the bouquet as Hoseok rang him up. 

“What do mean, of course she will!” Hoseok says. He has long been witness to Seokjin’s fruitless efforts to get you to see how he feels. “She’d be a fool not to realize.”

Seokjin’s never been sure if you were the fool, or if he has been, all along. 

“I don’t know, Hoseok,” he had said with a sigh, handing over his credit card. “I feel like telling her might be the wrong move.”

“Why? From what it sounds like, you two are really close,” Hoseok had asked innocently. He even shimmied in a tulip, squeezing it into the middle of the bouquet with nimble fingers. “Are you afraid she’ll say no?”

“I’m afraid I’ll ruin everything,” Seokjin had told him. He’d rather keep you close as a best friend than lose you entirely in the hopes of confessing. That has always been his priority. It always will be. 

Hoseok had laughed, disbelieving. Seokjin had bitterly assumed that he’s never been in love with a best friend. It sucks hard, but Seokjin was in no position to ruin Hoseok’s day by telling him that. “You won’t ruin everything, Jin. You’re a wonderful guy with a great personality. I think it’s worth telling her, you know?” Seokjin did not know. “Like, if you don’t, you’ll never know what could have been.”

And perhaps that was the reason that he leaned down to press his lips against yours. On the off chance, the miniscule possibility that you might feel the same way. His mother had been absolutely insistent that you were in love with him, and while he trusts his mother’s instincts, Seokjin’s known you much longer and much closer than she ever will. And you were never in love with him. Friends is all you have ever known with him. It’s all that the two of you will ever be. 

You’re lucky, Seokjin thinks as he sulks around in his apartment, having decided to give your relationship some space after he completely annihilated it the Tuesday prior. Unrequited love isn’t something he’d wish on his worst enemy. It’s a ray of sunshine surrounded by clouds. It’s the constant reminder that even though what you already have will never be enough, losing it entirely is a fate much worse. 

On the bright side, at least you still tag him in Facebook memes.

Seokjin gets a phone call from an unknown number that Saturday evening, as he cooks a meal for one and pretends that his apartment doesn’t feel bone-crushingly empty without you to fill up the space. He lets the phone ring all the way through the first time—he’s not in the mood to bait those scammy telemarketers tonight, and gets back to cooking. And then his phone rings a second time, same number, and suddenly Seokjin feels as though it might be something urgent. What if it’s a coworker whose number he doesn’t have? Oh God, what if it’s his boss?

“Hello?” Seokjin asks, picking up the call and holding his phone between his ear and his shoulder. 

“Seokjin?”

It’s Cynthia.

“Cynthia?” Seokjin asks, just to make sure he’s not wrong. “How did you get my number?”

“I looked you up on the White Pages,” Cynthia tells him. Oh, yes. He forgot that that existed. “I would have asked Y/N, but she would have gotten suspicious.”

“Oh, uh…” Seokjin hesitates, chuckling nervously. “Y/N? Have you, uh, spoken to her recently?”

Cynthia lets out a deep sigh on the other end, what sounds like a billion thoughts weighing her down. “Yeah, she and I had a girls’ night last night. My husband’s away on business.”

“Oh, how are you both doing?” Seokjin asks. He has the decency to pretend that he hasn’t been positively miserable the past few days.

“Wonderful, thanks,” Cynthia said. “Seokjin, did you kiss Y/N?”

“It was a mistake,” Seokjin immediately says. He shouldn’t have done it and now he’s paying the price. He has no idea how long it will take to repair your relationship, or, even worse, if you’ll just go back to the way it was before and pretend it never happened in the first place. “I wanted to tell her that, but I haven’t seen her recently.”

“Don’t,” Cynthia says harshly, making Seokjin jump a bit, wincing as some hot steam hits his bare skin. “Don’t tell her it was a mistake.”

“What do you mean?” Seokjin frowns. Isn’t that what you want? It’s blatantly obvious that you don’t really want a relationship at all, let alone with him. Seokjin doesn’t know what he was thinking when he thought he could change your mind. He was just being selfish. The chance to get to date you under the guise of guidance, and he snatched it up at the first opportunity. 

Well, look at him now. 

“She’ll be heartbroken if you tell her that,” Cynthia tells him, and Seokjin nearly pours boiling hot water all over his arm at the words. “You can’t.”

“What do you mean, heartbroken? She doesn’t want to date me. I’m the one in love with her. I’m the one who should be suffering,” Seokjin says into the phone, his heart starting to race. He wills himself to calm down, to act like everything is normal, but he can’t stop thinking about you. About what Cynthia had said. 

“No, you’re wrong,” Cynthia says. “You couldn’t be more wrong even if you tried. You might be in love with her but she loves you back. She does, I swear.”

Seokjin’s brain nearly short-circuits, the power sparking. “What?” He asks, too hopeful for his own good. “She can’t. I’ve loved her for so long, but we’ve always just been friends. That’s what she wanted.”

“She wants you, Seokjin,” Cynthia says firmly, almost as if she’s reaching through the phone to knock some sense into him. “She didn’t realize that she loved you until you kissed her. And then everything fell into place.”

“You’re lying,” Seokjin says, even though he knows that Cynthia isn’t. 

“Want to know why she hasn’t really dated anyone since midway through college?”

Is it the same reason Seokjin hasn’t, either?

“She was waiting for you,” Cynthia tells you. “She just didn’t know it.”

Seokjin’s about to faint. 

He can hear Cynthia smiling through the phone. “She’s always been waiting for you.”)

[June 21st, 1:22PM]

Seokjin: I’m on my way over to your apartment Seokjin: Don’t ask questions

You’ve long learned by now to listen to Seokjin, to never question his methods. And for once, when you receive a suspicious text out of the blue that says Don’t ask questions, you aren’t scared. You’re thrilled. 

The last time you went this long without contacting each other was when you were just starting to become friends in college, during orientation week where you met five hundred people a day and forgot all of them by the next morning. You and Seokjin eventually caught up with each other when you started seeing each other in the halls of your dorm, living onto a few doors down from each other. 

You didn’t want to be the one to initiate contact. Seokjin had kissed you and then instantly looked like he regretted the entire thing. He had been sitting on his feelings long before you knew that yours even existed. He deserved the space. 

You, well. Cynthia, the wise, wedded woman she is, seems to think that communication is key. Perhaps that’s why she’s been so successful in her love life. 

There’s a knock on your door six minutes after you received the text, the fastest he’s ever gotten to your apartment. 

When you open it, you find a familiar sight: Seokjin, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, a bouquet of flowers in his hand, and a nervous grin on his face, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet like a teenager about to ask his crush to the school dance. 

“Long time no see,” you tell him. 

“I missed you,” Seokjin says honestly. “I really, really did.”

“I did, too,” you tell him. It’s impossible to be away from him. You figured that out briefly when he went abroad in junior year, but were brutally reminded this past week what life is like without him to light it up. And it’s dull. Empty. Missing something. 

“These are for you,” Seokjin says. It’s an entire bouquet of tulips, red and yellow and orange and pink. The scent immediately wafts through the air, brightening up your sullen apartment. 

“They’re beautiful, Seokjin,” you tell him, pressing your nose against the petals as you take in the aroma. The flowers are gorgeous, but Seokjin, as always, steals the show. 

“I was going to bring takeout, but then I thought that you might have already eaten lunch,” Seokjin tells you. 

“Then we can do takeout for dinner,” you suggest as an alternative, fishing through your kitchen cabinets for a vase to put out on your countertop, filled with the tulips and carnations and lilies and hydrangeas. The bouquet he had given you on Tuesday is sitting in your bedroom, and you’re giving it all the plant food you can get your hands on, determined to make them last. 

“You want me to stay for dinner?” Seokjin asks, an eyebrow raised. 

It’s high time you were honest, too. 

“I want you to stay forever,” you admit, and it feels as though the dam has broken, like the first droplet has been spilled and the rest is soon to follow. “I can’t tell you how much I hated being away from you like this. Everything in my life revolves around you.”

“I think about you, every day,” Seokjin says as he comes up to you, joining you in the kitchen as you fill an oversized mason jar with water. “Scratch that. Every hour. Every minute, every second. You’re always on my mind.”

“I thought that was just how you were best friends with someone,” you tell him, feeling the warmth of his body as he stands next to you. “I thought that all of the kind gestures, the traditions, the words, that was what being best friends was. And it is. But I never realized that that was what being in love was like, as well.”

“I thought you’d never figure it out,” Seokjin muses, and it sounds so sad but he looks so happy. “I was ready to never tell you. I was too nervous, every time I’m near you I get all sweaty.”

“You were just going to be in love with me forever?” You ask, turning to him. The thought devastates you, the idea that he was willing to never tell you, to love you silently, for the rest of time. He would have never known what could have been, would have never allowed himself that luxury. And he was okay with it.

“I would rather love you on my own than lose you,” Seokjin tells you firmly. “You’re my best friend. That will never change.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” Seokjin interrupts. “I had made that decision. I was willing to live with it.”

“That’s what people do, isn’t it?” You ask, reaching out to hold his hand in your own, as you have done so many times before, and will do so many times more. The feeling never gets old. The spark never fades. “When they’re in love.”

“I don’t know how you never noticed,” Seokjin jokes, laughing more at himself than you. “I thought I was being so goddamn obvious. Any time I said or did anything that even slightly alluded to the fact that I was in love with you, I started panicking because I thought you’d figure me out. And you never did.”

“I think I just needed a bit of coaxing,” you tell him, hand reaching up to turn his face towards you, palms resting on your cheek. “I would have loved you, forever. I just needed you to tell me that you’d love me, forever, too.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Seokjin promises with a grin. “I’ll love you forever and a day.”

Seokjin leans down, big palms resting on your waist as he finally, fucking finally, presses his lips against yours. It’s soft and warm and cozy, the heat enveloping you as you hold his cheeks in your hands, let him push closer and closer, refusing to let you go. The feeling sends warmth through your veins, sparks a fire in your body that you wouldn’t will away even if you wanted to. Seokjin kisses you, and you kiss back, and it feels like a promise. With your lips against his, and his against yours, you tell each other, that you were meant to be together, and that you always will be. 

You had always wondered why you were never really interested in dating anyone. Never wanted to find someone new, a relationship filled with love and laughter and joy, never wanted to go out on fancy dates and tiptoe around each other, a nervous confession on the tips of your tongues. But now, as Seokjin giggles into another kiss he presses against your lips, you know: you already had exactly what you were looking for. 

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

↳ check out the post-script drabble here!

[fanficparker]

A GAME OF DIAMONDS AND HEARTS // H.O.

>> CHAPTER TWO

"The reward of sin is death? That’s hard." - Doctor Faustus, Marlowe

(Frenemies to Lovers! Mob AU! ) Harrison Osterfield x Fem!OC

Word count: 2.45k words

Warning: Swearing, jerk behaviour, keeping hostage, guns, blood and violence, sexual tension.

Synopsis: After the sudden death of his uncle and the eccentric multi-millionaire mafia king Lufian Clarke, Harrison Osterfield’s almost decent life is mostly devastated especially when half of what should be rightfully his fortune is transferred to their immediate rival for reasons he doesn’t know. What’s remaining is him trying to figure out how to deal with this collaboration of two rival corporations that don’t belong together and work on the side of the woman he never knew would ever be referred to as his partner in crime while they are dragged into a mess bigger than what they were trained to handle.

<< ONE [ MASTERLIST ] THREE >>

"Kill her."

Harry coughed. Twice.

"You know that's not possible," because if it was, wouldn't they have eliminated all their rivals already? The mafia was no easy business. It was equivalent to living on the edge without a rope tied to your waist to pull you back in case you fall off the cliff. Rather there was a rope tied to your ankle, waiting for the perfect opportunity to pull you down.

Harrison licked his dried lips as he rose from the desk, stepping closer to him. "Yeah and that's why Tom should be here, not you." He paused for a moment before mumbling: "Kid," amusement crossing his sharp features.

Harry's stomach rumbled with anger. Oh, and you are an obtuse twenty-four-year-old crazy old man who is also a big ass jerk.

He wanted to punch that grimace off his face.

The only reason he was a part of the mafia was that he believed in Clarke's philosophy, his ideology, his way of dealing with things but with Harrison on board, was it even the same anymore?

Harrison crossed the nineteen-year-old, barging into the door to exit the room. "Ask Tom to meet me in the car at seven. And until then I don't want a single soul near myself." He stated before putting a foot out of the door.

Harry expected to hear his departing footsteps but Harrison rather took a foot back, meeting the redhead's eyes with a steady gaze.

"And from next time," He warned, "knock before you enter." And with that he left, his footsteps echoing behind him.

All Harry could do was clench his fist.

***

It was a business agreement but it felt more like a marriage. An unwanted, forceful one. One where you hated your spouse to the moon and back and yet had to lose a part of your bed, life and love.

Why would you ever do this to me, Clarke? Why would you?! The anger and frustration bubbling inside his chest were too much to handle. He had left along with Tom and had captured one of Dino's closest men.

Dino was one of their new clients and had lately caused a lot of trouble from not paying the amount he owed to actually trying to fly off Europe.

If it was for any other day, Harrison wouldn't even bother handling Dino or any of his men by himself but today he needed a punching bag. A punching bag on whom he could pour all his pent up rage out. Beat his torment off another person's bones. That made sense to him.

He had dragged the man in the dark of the abandoned warehouse— the place Dino once used as a storage for his illegal weapons. The place he had tried to erase, pretend that it never existed.

Tom tied him to the chair for enquiry but Harrison was in no mood for that. He had already made up his mind. He didn't even let the man lift up his head to comprehend what was happening before Harrison's fist made a sharp contact with his jaw, knocking him to the floor along with the chair.

Tom watched from the side as Harrison grabbed the man's shirt, now dusty and violated with stains of fresh blood mixed with spit, establishing the chair back on the cemented floor with a thud. "Ask your boss to show up, will you?" He raised his voice several octaves as if to mock him for being so weak and helpless.

With blood sputtering between the guy's teeth, he tried to speak, "I--"

But Harrison instantly cuts in, circling around his chair, "Oh wait. What can you even do? You are useless for both me and Dino. That's why Dino left you here. He doesn't give a fuck if you live or die." He halted his steps and pulled the man's hair, sharply forcing his head back, jarring his neck, painfully stretching the muscles of his throat before spatting into his face, "You hear that? You. Are. Worthless."

And then he again swung his fist across his face, just this time he didn't stop. His knuckles throbbed with the sharp collision of bone against bone. His skin turned bright blue hidden by red. God, it felt good.

"We don't wanna kill him." Tom reminded, voice laced with disgust. This was brutal even for Harrison.

"I want to." He groaned, fisting his hands in the man's shirt.

"And here I wondered, Clarke's scion would be smarter."

His neck snapped at the voice. The source of the words— the silhouette emerged from the door, her heels hitting against the cemented floor as she strolled towards the blue light that filled the otherwise dark room.

Harrison recognised the voice well, he didn't need to wait for it to materialise into human form but he also didn't want to hear it, let alone see the person whom it belonged to. Somethings are inevitable, anyway.

"What are you doing here?" Tom was the first one to speak, his eyes focused on the woman who stood just a few feet apart from them, her shoulder-length dark hair sitting as a tight ponytail, high on her head, giving her the illusion of height.

She crossed her arms over her midsection, one foot slightly ahead of the other and let out a breath. "That's not a question, you ask your boss. Especially in that tone." Her words were sharp but not her voice or tone for that matter. For an outsider or an amateur, it would appear as if she was just there to ridicule the two boys. Yeah, in some way, it was true except for the 'just' part. Both Tom and Harrison were neither an outsider nor amateurs to read into that. They knew why she was here.

Harrison asked anyway, swallowing his boiling rage, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Her lips twisted into a half grin. "Well, you can ask that though."

The small laughter that followed her words made a muscle tick in his jaw. He was this close to snapping. Snapping to no avail. Snapping for vain. She had won. She had won his prize and there was nothing he could do to reclaim it. He couldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing that she got him. No, she didn't. He reminded himself. No one could.

"I just came to check on you guys. Also, considering the fact that none of you noticed me standing right outside this room..." She looked over her shoulder, pointing a finger at the door, "Anyone could have shot you dead right there."

"And oh my god!" She gasped upon turning back to the scene, her voice infused with fake concern, "What have you done to this poor soul?"

The tension that hung between them had managed to make the muffled cries of the fourth person inaudible to the three pair of ears in the room. Maybe because he was the rat rather than the conventional elephant, people were so used to address.

"He is my client," Harrison growled, low in his throat— a thinly veiled attempt at trying to keep things civil.

"Not just yours." She corrected, flashing a small smile in his direction, more of a grimace, walking towards the man tied to the chair. The two guys watched her with narrowed, questioning eyes as she removed her coat, the draping neckline of her red top doing the bare minimum to cover anything.

She slouched across his chair, wiping the blood from the corner of his lip, softly smearing it across his cheek.

"Is this bad boy bullying you?" She momentarily shot a glance at Harrison. The man nodded, too afraid and too injured to speak.

Clicking her tongue in disdain, she gripped his chin tightly, her nails digging into his skin as she pushed the chair to the back, supported only by one of her heels. He jerked in his bonded state.

She leaned near his face, her breath tickling in his ear. "Why not better start behaving then?" She whispered, her lips brushing against the side of his face. "I don't like pretty faces as yours harmed."

Her finger traced over his lower lip, her nail scratching his wound in ways more sensual than painful. "Will you comply?" Her eyes flickered down to his lips.

He nodded instantly and desperately. He was charged up; her scent was filling his senses. When her eyes were back to his face, his slid to take a peek at her cleavage, a mixture of fear and excitement dotting his sweltering forehead with beads of sweat.

"Good boy," she muttered and dragged her foot away from the chair, installing him back to where they had started.

"P-Please..." The guy managed to utter when she moved away, urgency evident in his voice. A triumphant grin got pasted over her face in response, making her laugh at his needy request.

Harrison could bet that the guy had a mild erection even in his blood ridden pathetic state. The scene almost made him puke. Where he was using force and blood, she was using her body, sex as a weapon. Definitely not his way of working. Yet, he failed to suppress the dull tightening sensation in his abdomen—and the part below it.

She walked up to him, pulling her hair down, brushing them with her fingers. Her laughter had long subsided but its residue was still echoing in his head. He hated that. He hated her.

"Doesn't it spark old memories, Osterfield?"

His face flickered with annoyance. It was in his best interest to ignore her words.

"Let's talk over at dinner." She offered, carrying her coat on her elbow. Yeah, they very much needed to talk even when he didn't prefer it. So, he walked out of the room, waiting for her to follow.

"You should seriously take him back to wherever you picked him from." She instructed Tom as if Harrison wasn't enough for him to deal with.

***

"We had a reservation," she smiled at the hostess, "by the name of Sandhya Omar." Harrison, on the other hand, was somehow managing not to kill. Her, specifically.

The hostess smiled back, taking a glance at the register in her hand, "Welcome, Ms. Omar. Let me escort you to your table." She smiled at Harrison too. He didn't appreciate the gesture.

She led them to a table perfectly designed for two, for a date perhaps, placed on a quiet, dimly lit balcony. Harrison removed his blazer, hanging it over the chair before folding the sleeves of his beige-coloured shirt over his arms and occupying the seat. The hostess dragged Sandhya's chair, letting her sit.

She mumbled a quiet thank you.

"A waiter will be here shortly." She informed and left. She didn't lie; not a minute had passed and the waiter was already there, passing them two menus and pouring clear champagne into their flutes. Before he could proceed to light the candles decorated over the table, Harrison interrupted:

"We don't need that."

"Of course we need that, darling." She cuts in, smiling so pleasantly at him, just like a cat would smile at a canary.

It was the waiter who smiled back, at both of them, actually. "I will come back for the orders when you both are ready."

"Thank you. We will take some time, though."

"No worries, Ms. Saan—dha—ya."

"Just call me Sandy, it's fine." She shrugged away his absurd pronunciation of her name. The waiter just passed her an apologetic smile, walking away, leaving them in solitude, surrounded by nothing but luxury and privacy.

"Talk?" Harrison began.

"What?" She pretended to be clueless.

It was a game for her.

Not for him.

"You wanted to talk."

"You don't?"

He wasn't having it. So, she simply rolled her eyes, choosing to initiate. "Okay... I will start," she let out a breath, "My mob wants me dead because they want what I have inherited."

Funny, they and Harrison were on the same page.

"And you walked here alone?" He quirked a brow.

She slumped in her chair, one foot crossed over her knee, "You see, I am not alone." Her hands gestured at him.

He snorted. Ridiculous.

"You seriously think that I want you any less dead than them?"

"Yeah."

"That's foolish." He leaned across the table, elbows pressing against the wood, "I'd kill you the second I'd get the chance." He stressed certain syllables, gritting his teeth in fury. His tone dripped scorn.

"No, you won't. You need me." She stated as a matter-of-fact, straightening her back.

"You wish." He replied quickly, scoffing at her misplaced confidence.

Her phone on the table vibrated, providing them with the much needed break from cocking their verbal guns at each other. The sneer on her face vanished in a heartbeat, quickly replaced by fear as soon as her eyes scanned the glowing screen. She tapped the dial on her watch before leaning across the table.

"Listen carefully..."

He didn't.

Her hands grabbed his collar, pulling his face closer to hers, tautly stretching the fabric of his shirt, "Your life is at threat too!"

Her eyes glanced at her watch again.

"Four minutes and they'll be here." The slight flicker of the candle burning across the table animated a dance of shadows on their faces, projecting the fearful vibrations in her stomach onto the surface. "For both of us," she clarified, their face centimeters apart.

He laughed pulling himself back, not considering her words any worthy of his contemplation, smoothening the creases she had created on his otherwise crisp shirt. But she was quick to pull him again, not allowing his eyes to focus on anything else but her.

"This is no drill, Harrison." She warned, her dark eyes cold and hard and locked on his blue ones.

"In four--three minutes, there will be a smoke bomb thrown below our table, and that's our only chance to escape. Take the left side, use the pipes to climb down as quickly as possible. A car will be waiting for you at the side of the street."

He squinted his eyes in disbelief, an expression of boredom covering his face. "Why would I trust you?"

She sighed, pulling a compact case, keeping it between them, the mirror facing his side. His pupils dilated noting the reflection on it. It was the reflection of a person, holding a sniper rifle, standing on the rooftop of the building across them.

A chill crept through his heart. Their eyes met again.

In a tone that lacked any hesitation and provided no explanation, she gave away the second part of the answer, "Because Clarke didn't die... He was murdered."

Yeah, people like Clarke don't just die.

____________________

_____________

…TO BE CONTINUED…

>> Send me an ask or just reblog/comment this post with ‘Tag me’ or fill this NEW TAGLIST to get added to the taglist of AGODAH.

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[juszar2]

The Points To Be Considered...

From this example of vile, fraudulence, detrimental, trashy, and the weakest in life the major points in this Sadistic filth is much like the Fatal Attraction movie or The Roommate. You have to look at the tone of obsession gleaned by these characters every day thought relayed by what they were putting on a forum, just like on a regular Tuesday as they lay where they dwelled and just thought of.... Me. And I was oblivious living my life disinterested certainly in any of them and trying to shake the ones idut myself in their presence. Hoping they'd recover from their scorn or sickness and forget me. I had some deviant ones laying somewhere studying my attributes and then yes... Posting about them. Or the other engaged in some false conflict born of jealousy obsession and scorn on a forum in a fight with me and I was not near, nor did I know. I knew it was a gross person, but had no conflict and so could not fathom that an over 50 admittedly yuck thief and treacherous fraud and yes... Community Center employee, would be doing this in my name. A full fight and conflict about me... But without my involvement or knowledge. Joined with a homosexual felony charged from my youth who'd set out to proposition my spouse who is a pretend white Trump supporter conservative intolerant of so much... Pretending religious values when really he took the bait of the black homosexual felony charged past jail time tatted and mentally troubled stalker who of course knows the thief fencer because birds of a feather.... As it begged him to get in the closet it came out of when I was a youth in order to imbed itself into my life. It questioned him about my life because I let this element in the community know not one thing about me and do not mingle. So to get info the homosexual bleeds the weak fraud spouse of info and the stalking the homosexual engaged in is severe to locate my life and follow me literally. Details I share but just not here. Stalking severe. It has pined over me, my attributes in severity. It says it wants shine and will be naked on forums, talking about women's bodies and at the same time me and how it had a little trouble but then could simp a scumbag. It does this in character and wants desperately for people to believe it compares to me. Skimping the scumbag fraudulent conservative is the very best it could achieve as it has been pining over me likely over my entire life since my youth. I found that this group was actually homosexual since that time. This part man who was in a relationship with a woman who lives as a man whom it proposition again... On a forum years ago and regularly would obsess over women's bodies. All while seeing just how weak and low life this spouse is and what he is made of... Almost nothing is what they found out. I'd known weak in every way with almost no manhood, I just didnt know low. This is the obsession that exploded in my life. The Rot mainly black low life type of females who witnessed from afar as I grew over my life, have always been opposites to me and often vocally aggrieved even as I don't know or want to know them. But... Having let this low male choose me as I remained in this City and State, something I never really wanted to do, has led the way for those Rot to after a life of shit and garbage for them... They watch in anger that I did not experience the same and they attack but in insidious ways that require a mule of such... A mark, a weak low life. The posts on the forum as this Rot attempted to relay how it was intentionally pursuing me and Simping a rot the vile details this kind posted are really fascinating. I wanted to make it through my entire life with that element and group doing their cocaine and or other drugs, eyes bulging out of its head, frequenting their strip clubs, sex with... Who and whatever.. All of that I wanted to never encounter in my life. But because I let this fraud scary low male into it and ended up having his kids...Some of the best excellence in society... Much like me, this low male was able to infiltrate my life and jeopardize me.

[somedayonbroadway]

Lilo and Stitch AU

Okay, so here’s my Lilo and Stitch AU for both @disneygirl626​ and @dragonflysobright-seethemfly​. I absolutely adore this one. It does involve baby Race and that’s always fun to write. And yes, Race and Jack are going to be from Hawaii.

Characters

Jack Kelly — Nani

Racetrack Higgins — Lilo

Crutchie Morris — Stitch

Katherine Plumber — David

Warden Snyder — Captain Gantu

Todd Kloppman — Cobra Bubbles

Henry — Pleakley

Weisel — Jumba

Okay so…

Somewhere up in space, far far away, there is a mad scientist who creates genetic experiments out of aliens that he captures from other planets, most of the time just after they’re born. This alien, Weisel (that's his whole name. He’s an alien) experiments for years before he is finally arrested after his latest experiment, experiment number 626. He is charged with the experimentation of a young child, stolen away from a family that was killed moments afterward.

During the experimentation, this young alien loses one of his legs. He adapts quickly, growing two more legs that he can retract into his body. This child is of a shape shifting species, his skin naturally blue and gold. After the experimentation, where he grew up as this species learns and adapts very quickly, he became erratic and dangerous, a means of destruction.

Having no alternative option, 626 (who was never given another name) is sentenced to be executed. He doesn’t fully understand this. All 626 knows is that he’s placed in a small capsule and needs to survive. So he does, fighting his way out and escaping in a pod as his kidnapper is placed in prison having witnessed the whole thing. Weisel is pleased with his creation, noting that 626 is randomly heading in the direction of Earth.

After 626 escapes, a bounty hunter, Snyder, loyal to the Galactic Federation, offers to hunt the experiment down and dispose of him, seeing 626 as a creature unworthy of saving. The head of the federation asks him to wait, asking another member of the federation, a federal agent who is an “Earth Expert”, to take Weisel and find the experiment without causing harm to Earth, with whom they were supposed to protect according to documents they’d signed a decade ago.

Simply living off of instinct (and maybe a bit of sadistic adrenaline) 626 crash lands on Earth, getting hurt by a truck, but surviving the crash easily with his modified strength and healing power. As the driver figures out he has to check and see what he’d hit, the alien catches sight of a puppy, cowering away from him in some nearby grass and transforms himself down to look like that animal, though his still has a streak of blue running down his back as the rest of him remains a golden shade. (He does look more like Stitch than an actual puppy, obviously. But he’s doing his best here.) The driver calls a local shelter and 626 lets himself be taken in, unsure of what’s really happening.

Meanwhile, Kaua’i, Hawaii, a young man, nineteen years old, is struggling to gain permanent custody of his six year old baby brother, as both of their parents had recently been killed in a car crash. Jack is having a hard time making ends meet with only a job as a waiter at a local luau to tie him and his brother over.

The baby brother, Tyler James, is an odd child. He’s socially awkward, having odd interests and thoughts about life. The kid has always had a rough time making friends, mostly scaring them off with weird facts about the island they live on and the ocean surrounding them. Though he tries to fit in, he often finds himself feeling alone, prompting him to make his own toy dolls and pretend that they’re his friends instead, worrying his big brother Jack who only wants him to be happy.

Every morning, Jack runs to work after dropping his brother, whom he affectionately calls Racer because of his speed and his love to run, off at the beach right across from his school. Race loves to explore the island, knowing the entire thing like the back of his hand. In the morning, Race likes to go swimming, feeding Pudge (a fish that he believes to control the weather) a PB&J sandwich, the same one Jack makes for him everyday for lunch. He knows he’s not gonna eat it, so he hopes it’ll keep the sun in the sky.

Dripping wet and all, Race goes to school, leaving puddles around him, making his classmates slip, only adding onto the hatred they held for him for being different. On this particular morning, Oscar Delancey, Race’s biggest bully, slips and blames Race for it. After a teacher finds them arguing, Oscar wrestling Race to the ground, being a year older and slightly bigger than him, they ask what happened and Race goes off on a rant about how he had to feed Pudge and how Pudge controls the weather. Oscar calls him crazy.

So Race bites him.

His teacher tells him he’d call Jack and Tyler cries, begging him not to as he’s often sent away from the other kids and he’s subconsciously getting tired of the isolation. Still the teacher insists, asking Race to wait outside.

Race runs away the second his teacher leaves him.

When Jack goes to pick him up, he finds Race gone and he immediately starts running home, knowing they had a meeting with their social worker that day and knowing what happened when Race gets into one of his “moods”. He nearly gets hit by a car. He kicks the bumper and screams at the driver, calling him a not so nice name and running off.

He finds that the doors to their house are bolted and nailed shut and one of their parents' old Elvis records is blaring throughout the living place. As Jack demands Race open the door, he peaks in through the mail slot to find his brother ignoring him. Frustrated, Jack starts threatening Race, like any brother would, telling him that when he got through with him he wouldn’t dare do this ever again, though both of them knew Jack would never lay a hand on the kid.

As he’s running around his home, trying every possible entrance only to run into one Todd Kloppman, introducing himself as a not so nice name, making Jack realize that he’d been in the car that had nearly hit him. Already horrified at this, Jack manages to play off the fact that he’ll have to let him in in a moment and he runs around the house, climbing in through an open window and prying the nails from the front door as quickly as he can to let the man in.

Upon walking into the house, Kloppman asks if Jack had left Race home alone and before Jack can explain, Todd finds Race practicing voodoo on the floor of the living room as Jack tries desperately to turn off the stove and the oven that Race had turned on, probably for no reason at all. Even after all of this, Race manages to tell Kloppman how well adjusted he was and how Jack fed him well. Trying to give him a silent encouragement, the kid accidentally tells Kloppman that he gets disciplined, implying that Jack had, at least at some point, hit him.

Todd then speaks to Jack alone, telling him that he only ever got called when things went wrong and then he gives Race a card, telling him to call if he was ever left alone again.

Race thinks nothing of it, hardly even paying attention to the man.

As he leaves, Kloppman informs Jack that this had not gone well and that Jack had three days to change his mind.

The second Kloppman leaves, Jack turns on Race and Race screams and runs, knowing he was about to be chased.

Eventually, Jack manages to set up a trap to catch Race and he holds him to him, not letting him run away, trying so hard to explain to Race why it was important for him to take these visits seriously. Race still doesn’t seem to get it, leading to another fight. Race locks himself in his room (well, not locks because he’s a child and his door doesn’t have a lock) and Jack throws himself down at the bottom of the stairs, trying desperately not to cry.

It only takes an hour for Jack to gather himself, heating up a plate of pizza for his baby brother and taking it to him, apologizing and holding Race in his lap while he eats, laughing with him a little as Race admits he likes Jack better as a brother than a dad. All Jack can do is kiss his head and hold him, unsure of what to say. Race calls them a broken family.

Before they know it, Race spots something in the sky, something he calls a falling star, but one that looks odd to Jack. Race calls the star and kicks Jack out of his room so he can make his wish. Jack sits just outside his door, listening to every heartbreaking word as Race wishes for an angel to be sent to him, one that wouldn’t leave him or make fun of him or treat him differently.

Little do they know, that shooting star is a fallen spaceship.

The next day, trying to make his brother feel better, Jack tales Race down to the animal shelter, telling him that he could pick out a pet and they would take care of it. Jack is only a little stressed out about funds but convinced himself that they could make it work.

Race goes back to pick out a puppy and finds a golden pup that’s laying all alone in the corner. He sees a lot of himself in this puppy that has a blue stripe running down his back and chooses him, telling the dog to follow him out. It does.

When they come out, Jack and the woman at the front counter are horrified at the sight of this deformed dog with a missing leg, but Tyler insists and Jack caves, unable to pass up the opportunity of seeing Race happy. So they take the thing home, unknowingly being watched and followed by two aliens who were after 626, now known as Crutchie by the odd little boy who named him.

Henry is the only thing that stops Weisel from harming Tyler to get to Crutchie.

Jack often lets Race wander around. After all, they live in a small town and he knows most of the people around. He gives Race a couple of dollars and tells Race to meet him at two. So Race shows Crutchie around the island.

Crutchie, who has been programmed to destroy, is looking for something to wreck, but finds nothing, as he’s looking for big cities who are already prone to bad things happening.

In the middle of town, Race runs into Oscar who immediately starts to belittle him only to get nearly bitten by Crutchie who ends up stealing his bike and trashing it, before they head to the luau to meet Jack.

The entire time they’d been exploring the island, Weisel and Henry had been keeping close and Crutchie knew it. For some reason he can’t explain, he feels the need to protect Race as well as himself. He likes Race and doesn’t want to hurt him.

The same cannot be said for Jack.

At the restaurant, Jack is able to feed Race for free twice a week so he often has lunch or dinner there.

At the luau, Katherine is up on stage, a fire dancer, entertainment for the luau. Jack is hopelessly in love with her but refrains from asking her out for the sake of fully adopting Race as his own. Race knows this and feels guilty for it. He tells Crutchie all about it, somehow knowing that Crutchie understands him. (How Crutchie knows English at this point is unknown, but like I said, he adapts fast).

While he’s working, Jack steps away from the table after begging Race to eat his food, trying to bribe him with dessert but only succeeding in getting Crutchie to hiss at him.

When Jack leaves, Weisel, against Henry’s warnings, tries to capture Crutchie, only resulting in chaos which Jack is blamed and fired for. Katherine tries to convince their manager to let Jack stay, but, unwilling to be humiliated in front of Race, Jack accepts it and scoops Race up, going home, Crutchie following closely behind them. When Race asks Jack if this was his fault, Jack brushes it off, telling Race that the manager was a vampire and that he wanted Jack to join an army of the undead. Race just shrugs and says he knew it.

When they get home, Jack loses it tries to remain calm but, after seeing Crutchie try and rip around the sofa, his anger catches up with him all at once as he tries to grab Crutchie and take him back to the shelter, getting a fight from both Crutchie and Race who’s never seen Jack like this before. Just as Jack gets Crutchie to the door, shouting that the dog hadn’t been there that long, Race counters that he hadn’t either and then he asks what happened to O’hana.

Jack breaks at that, missing his parents so badly as Crutchie calms down and Race rushes to hug Jack who brushes away his tears and promises that he’s okay, even though he couldn’t be farther from it. But he lets Race take Crutchie into his room to sleep where Race finds that Crutchie likes to build with his blocks and then destroy his own creations.

Watching from outside, Weisel is stunned by this, finding that Crutchie is still creating things, even though he may destroy them after. It goes against his programming.

The next morning, Jack wakes up to find Kloppman at his door, concerned about the job he lost and this new puppy that is untrained and seems to be causing nothing but trouble. Jack swears that he’ll find a job and takes Race out with him while looking, terrified the boy might get into more trouble without him.

Every potential job Jack might have is ruined by Crutchie who is still on the run from Weisel and Henry who are around every corner.

Even at the beach, where Jack finds there’s an opening for a lifeguard position, Crutchie manages to ruin it for him, chasing the people at the beach away. Jack is extremely dejected by this, but perks up when Katherine sits down next to him with two surfboards, offering him one as she challenges him to beat her to the water.

Jack scoops Race up on his way out and Race just giggles, loving it when Jack takes him surfing.

Reluctantly, needing to stay close to Tyler in order to ensure his own safety, he goes with them, despite his intense fear of water. To his surprise he ends up liking it and to Jack’s surprise, he ends up not minding that Crutchie’s there.

Jack loves being out on the water with Race. He used to take Race surfing with their parents all the time, always catching him in his arms when they wiped out. Race loves the ocean.

Seeing that Crutchie is out on the water and is in a vulnerable position, as he can’t swim and will sink instead of float, Weisel says that they’re going swimming, confusing Henry as they go to get Crutchie, managing to knock Jack and Race off of their board and get Jack hit in the head as they do, forcing Katherine to jump in and help them. When Jack recovers after a moment, Race panics and asks about Crutchie who did not resurface. But when Jack looks around for him, Crutchie breaks from the water and claws at Tyler who he ends up dragging down with him.

Jack dives down, kicking Crutchie off of Race and swimming him back to shore, coddling him as he cradled him to his chest and kissed him over and over again. (Jack does call Race baby. He’s always been really affectionate, even more so after they’re parents died). Katherine dives back down for Crutchie who she manages to save, though Crutchie awakes destructive and lashes out at Race, scratching into his shoulder.

When Jack looks up, he finds Kloppman watching them from afar and he asks Katherine to hold Race while he talks to him, trying to explain only for Todd to tell him that it’s over and that Race needs to be relocated to another family, asking for Jack to think about what’s best for the boy.

Unable to argue, Jack goes back to Race and holds him tight, carrying him back home as Katherine mutters that she thought they had a chance until Crutchie came along.

Crutchie follows them home. Race and Jack don’t even notice.

That night, Jack sits Race down in the hammock in their backyard and sings to him, giving him a flower that matches one that he holds in his own hand. The song he sings is one of a goodbye and Race doesn’t understand it as the wind carries their flowers away. But he leans into Jack and lets his brother hold him until he falls asleep.

That night, Race is frustrated when he wakes up in his own bed and hears the window open. Crutchie is standing there, ready to run and Race doesn’t seem at all surprised by this. He just tells Crutchie that he can leave if he wants. But if he stays, they’ll take care of him. He tells Crutchie that Jack’s really good at taking care of people.

But Crutchie does leave, regretting it only when he can’t find his way back to Race and Jack. What he doesn’t know is that Weisel and Henry have gotten fired by the federation and Weisel is excited to do things his way.

Still living on instinct, Crutchie flees unknowingly back towards the Kelly house.

In the morning, Jack is crying over his cereal when Race sulks into the room, upset that Crutchie left. Jack hugs him and tries to explain to him what’s about to happen, that they may never see each other again and that it was all gonna be okay. But Jack can’t get the words out.

He’s saved by a knock at the door which is revealed to be Katherine, telling him that she found him a job. So Jack runs into town, making Race promise not to open the door for anybody, hope filling his chest as he thinks maybe if he gets a job, they won’t take his brother away.

The moment Jack leaves, Crutchie comes crashing back, Weisel hot in his tail as Henry grabs the boy, trying to keep him out of harm's way. Unsure of what to do, Race calls Kloppman because he’s scared but Crutchie is protecting him.

Weisel ends up setting the house on fire.

When Jack hears the sirens after getting the job, he knows. He doesn’t wanna believe it, but he just knows. So he literally runs back home, Katherine right behind him.

He finds Kloppman carrying Race to the back of his car, shutting him in. And Jack loses it. He starts sobbing, begging Kloppman not to do this. He tries to explain that he’s the only one who understands Race and that Race needs him and won’t stand a chance without him. Kloppman asks him angrily if this is really what Tyler needs, pointing to a burned down house. He then tells Jack that it seems like Jack needs Tyler a lot more than Tyler needs him.

That’s what breaks Jack.

(Which, honestly… how horrible? This kid just lost both of his parents too and is now losing the only thing he has left and, I know they’re trying to do right by the underage child, but I mean… that’s so sad. No one took into account how Nani was feeling having to lose her entire family even though she was trying her best to keep what was left of her broken family. Anyway…)

He falls to his knees, letting Katherine wrap him up in her arms, trying to calm him as Jack begs Kloppman to just let him say goodbye even though Kloppman is insisting that he’s making this harder than it needs to be.

Unbeknownst to them, Race, a very smart little six year old, is listening to the whole thing, sobbing as he finally understands what’s actually happening. He unlocks the door that leads out into the woods beside their house and runs away.

He stumbles upon Crutchie who’s still running and Crutchie sees how broken he is. Reluctantly, he reveals himself to the boy, letting his true form show and scaring Race for only a moment before Race gets angry, realizing that if they hadn’t gotten Crutchie, he’d be able to stay with Jack.

While trying to run again, Crutchie and Race both manage to get captured by Snyder who was sent to hunt down 626. Snyder doesn’t seem at all bothered by the capture of an innocent little boy and states that he caught a snack for the road, though he locks him up with Crutchie who escapes easily and tries to pull Race with him before Snyder takes off, taking Race with him.

Realizing that Race isn’t in the car when he tries to drive off, Kloppman gets out and starts calling for him. So Jack runs into the woods to find him, knowing that Race loves to play hide and seek in those woods and knows it’s a place where he’s hard to find. So he rushes out alone, screaming for his brother to come back to him.

He sees Race get picked up by a monster and locked in the back of a spaceship. Terrified and confused, Jack screams out for Race, catching the attention of Crutchie who is immediately apprehended by Weisel and Henry. Henry sees Jack and apologizes, going to knock him out to try and get him to believe it was all just a dream, but Jack’s quicker than that. And he cries out about Race, demanding to know where he is. When they admit they know who Jack’s talking about he tells them to bring him back. Henry tells him that they can’t.

So Jack falls to his knees in pure agony, unable to handle another loss.

Crutchie kneels down beside him, saying o’hana. Weisel tries to pull him away but Jack stops him, asking Crutchie to say it again. So Crutchie does, promising Jack that no ones gonna get left behind and then telling Weisel that he’d go with him quietly if they went to rescue Race.

So they do.

Jack is not a good flyer, in case anyone’s wondering.

They catch up to Snyder, showing him that he in fact did not have Crutchie in his possession. When Jack sees Race who is struggling to breathe as they get high and high up, he starts panicking, trying to get to the top of the ship to encourage Race to jump down to him, but Crutchie doesn’t let him. Instead, he jumps from one ship to the next, putting Tyler on his back and getting Snyder to crash his ship while trying to fight him, only caught by Weisel at the last minute, avoiding death.

They crash land in the ocean and Jack is holding Race the whole time, even as they’re submerged in water. And then he swims them both back to shore.

Crutchie hugs Race and then goes to turn himself in, but Race then tells Weisel that it would be stealing if he did that because they bought Crutchie from an animal shelter which made him part of their family and he couldn’t do that.

Kloppman steps in to tell Weisel that this is true. Jack tightens his grip on Race, fearing that Todd might rip him away again. Kloppman explains that he used to work for the CIA, specializing in extraterrestrial activity. Then he offers Jack a second chance, explaining to him that he knew Race would be safe with Jack from now on.

Jack takes Race and Crutchie home, making their own little family with Katherine who he finally asks out on a date and things are just perfect for a while.

What do you guys think? Wanna see any scenes? Feel free to send me an ask!

For more Mood Boards and AUs, click here!

[ariainstars]

Love and War: Politics and Spirituality in Star Wars

As I followed the Star Wars saga closely last year, I couldn’t help noticing that its central theme is not Good against Evil, but Love against War.

More precisely, it seems like a long parable about a mind at war: the galaxy far, far away keeps struggling with different powers which, until now, never were balanced by a common ideology. 

  The Jedi: We Have No Personal Agenda (…do we?)

As we get to know the Jedi in the prequels, we can’t be but disappointed. The supposed keepers of peace, guardians of the Force, seem a bunch of elderly, stuck-up guys who are wary of anything coming from the outside. Their meetings take place in a place which even looks like an ivory tower.

We witness the first conflict in the saga in The Phantom Menace, which absurdly is kicked off by two weird-looking guys who seem interested in nothing but their economic power.

The irony is that in their own way, the Jedi do not seem more open-minded than them; though not interested in wealth, they do only think of themselves - of the status their rank as Jedi gives them. They are so convinced of being the “good guys” that they will not lift a finger to end a raging conflict, and they don’t care what will become of a weirdly powerful nine-year-old boy who just lost his only living relative, his past and the only home he ever knew. 

It is Padmé, who is not a Jedi and has no power in the Force, who takes matters in their own hands, to the point where she falls on her knees before the Gungans asking them for their assistance..

I have repeatedly heard the Star Wars prequels being criticized due to the seeming lack of agenda of the protagonists. Which is right - they basically haven’t. The only agenda everybody seems to have is to keep things the way they are so that their personal, comfortable situation won’t change. 

But the truth is that they are not aware of the power pulling at them: there is someone who is the mastermind behind all that happens during Anakin’s youth, and we can assume that he was at work even before the boy stepped onto the stage. 

It is Senator Palpatine who convinces the Queen of Naboo to plead for a vote of no confidence against Chancellor Valorum, which in the end leaves Palpatine himself in charge. It is he, again, who makes JarJar convince the Senate to give him emergency powers due to the surge of the Separatists.

Palpatine is repeatedly shown as being Evil incarnate. Absolute power is his ultimate goal. For him, it is all or nothing. There is nothing human about him, ever, as good as he is as posing as a mellifluous politician who only has the best ends in mind.

And on top of it, Palpatine makes it appear as if he only has the purest motives, leaving the dirty work to others: Anakin marches into the Jedi temple killing everyone…

…Obi-Wan cripples Anakin mercilessly, which gives Palpatine the chance to strap him into the armor and mask that he will hence need in order to survive at all.

  The End of Everything We Loved

The name “Devil” means “separator”. Palpatine’s influence leads to separate all people who ought to belong together: friends…

 …husband and wife… 

…brothers and sisters. When they first meet, Luke and Leia don’t realize for a long time that they are, actually, siblings.

Vader doesn’t recognize his own daughter…

…nor his son: during the trench run we hear him say “The Force is strong with that one.”

  The Jedi’s failure

Enter Anakin, someone with huge personal agendas. Anakin has known slavery, the pain of separation from his mother, the helplessness having to watch her die, the fear of losing wife and unborn child in a similar way.

Does that make him an evil person? We see Anakin struggle against his fears and his violence for years. His deepest impulse is to use his enormous strength in order to protect others, but he isn’t allowed to. He can only be active if the Jedi order him to, which leads among other things to the absurd situation of having to save Palpatine, i.e. evil incarnate, risking his own and his master Obi-Wan’s life; while he was supposed to toughen it out when his own mother, a woman who probably never harmed anyone in her life, was tortured to death. 

Instinctively, Anakin’s heart always told him who needed his help. But this generosity and protectiveness never was appreciated by the Jedi, to whom “the Code” came first of all.

But what is the Jedi code, looking at it, if not a strategy to detach themselves from the world?

No families of their own.

No possessions.

No close attachments.

How is anyone supposed to still see if someone is in pain, when he was trained from early childhood on to live in a metaphorical ivory tower? 

Though not actually evil-minded (they assuredly do not want power or promote terror), the Jedi are in constant denial of the truth around them. They witness Palpatine’s ascent over and over and never realize that the most powerful Sith Lord of all is sitting a few meters away from them. 

Because to the Jedi, “what can’t be doesn’t exist”. Palpatine may be a Sith, but officially, belongs to the Jedi. Count Dooku even warns Obi-Wan; the Jedi proves his denial again with his words “Impossible. The Jedi would have sensed it.” 

So, not wanting it but also not knowing what they were doing, the Jedi enhance the conflict. And the Skywalker family, whose founder had been fathered by the Force itself, is torn and kept apart from both Jedi and Sith. 

Now we could argue: who would want to cooperate with the Sith, to have them as part of a balance, if they are evil and never do any good? 

Do they, and do the Jedi only do good and virtuous deeds? 

Obi-Wan told Luke an outright lie pretending that Vader had been Anakin’s killer; convinced that it could end only if the son killed the father.

The supposedly evil Lord Vader is the one who finally tells the truth: he proclaims to be Luke’s father, which also unveils his old master’s lie. Luke is traumatized because the truth is the opposite of what he believed. Until this very moment he was in denial, convinced that he was dealing with his father’s killer; Vader had literally to cut off his son’s hand in order to create a dramatic pause which finally allowed him to say what he wanted to: the truth.

To believe that a deed like patricide could be a positive thing only enhances the absurdity of the situation and the depth of the Jedi’s denial. As Luke confronts Obi-Wan with his manipulation, the Jedi still does not take responsibility, beyond his grave.

The Mistake: Making Things About Oneself

So, we have seen that Evil is not always wrong and Good not always right. They are strangely connected by one common, capital fault: making things about themselves.

But we repeatedly meet people who are mature enough not to make things about themselves: Padmé, Shmi, Senator Organa, (dare I say it? even JarJar), Owen and Beru.

Luke’s meeting with Vader on Bespine is pivotal because confronted with the words “You are not a Jedi yet” Luke draws his weapon first, proving Vader right. He hates the man in whom he still sees his father’s killer. It is this hatred which could have pushed him to the Dark Side. Though unknowingly and acting out of possessiveness, Vader pushed his son away from the Dark Side by saying the truth and thus crushing Luke’s hatred for him.

Much later, as he tries to save his friends, we see that Luke has learned his lesson: he tries to convince Jabba diplomatically and draws his weapon only at the last moment.

Terrified that Vader and Palpatine might be after his sister, Luke lashes out one last time. Only when he sees his father’s robotic hand he realizes the trap he was about to fall into.

Forgiveness and love bring Vader down. Compassion has won. Peace ensues, the family is united.

But many years later, we see Luke fail making things about himself again: he fears the danger his nephew could become for everything he loves.

His moment of panic pushes his nephew to the dark side. As a long-term consequence, the young man will be the murderer of the man who used to be Luke’s best friend.

Ben adopts another name and joins Snoke; war flares up and pushes itself between the members of the Skywalker family again.

Han and Leia meet after a period of separation, each bemoaning the loss of their son.

Luke, guilt-stricken, has retired to a lonely island, away from everybody.

Only shortly before his death, Luke tries to reconnect: with his sister, his brother-in-law (symbolically through the dice), the droids, his nephew. The Skywalker family is getting closer again, hinting at a future peace.

  Conclusions

The absurd situation of this generation is that at the opposite ends of the conflict are two persons who despite their outward differences couldn’t be more alike. Kylo and Rey both are lost children, desperately searching for belonging and purpose. In the brief moment of their alliance against Snoke we can see that working together, Dark and Light side are indeed invincible.

So, must the Light Side win again in order to ensure peace? 

The Dark Side is the human Id, which is all about oneself. Its advantage is that being straightforward, the Id can’t lie. Anakin / Vader always told the truth, as painful as it was.

The Id is aware of the fact that it needs its other half to be balanced. Hence, the “bad guys” always struggle to dominate, possess and at worst kill the “good guys”. We constantly see a powerful Dark Side user (Vader, Kylo) being at his strongest while he is chasing his Light Side counterpart (Luke, Rey). 

The Light Side is the Super-Ego, the conscience, which at its extreme might push a person to give up his life for someone else. The disadvantage is its tendency to deny that it needs its other half also; to believe to be solely in the right. The Jedi (including Luke, the last and the strongest of them) often overlook vital truths: none are so blind as those who will not see.

Both Luke and Rey needed their Dark Side counterparts to confront them with the truth (“I am your father”, “Your parents are dead… filthy junk traders who sold you for drinking money”). As much as it hurts them, both need to know these truths because their false pretensions held them back from being who they truly were. 

That is why “balance” is so vitally important and the only thing that can save the day and make lasting peace. Because no one can pretend that he lives solely for others (the Jedi), and no one can exist long living only by himself and for himself (the Sith). Only acknowledging one another’s positive sides and learning to cooperate, the Force users can make lasting peace in the galaxy possible. Only when a common ground is found at last, the galaxy can finally be free of the Old Republic’s stagnation, the Empire’s tyranny and the turmoil of the Rebellion. 

Peace, at last, to people of good will.

[crossdressingdeath]

(1/3) It always amuses me how stans try to justify JC actions by his abusive upbringing while there were 3 children in that family and both others turned very kind and/or very moral and not at all like JC (and frankly, he didn't even have the hardest position in the dysfunctional dynamic). Or LXC and LWJ whose upbringing was even more screwed up with a LQ who was certainly playing favorites and wanting perfection, and yet this never draw a wedge between them or created any jealousy.

(2/3)LXC loves for LWJ to excel! Same with "but JC had it so hard rebuilding Lotus Pier, WWX was goofing off with the Wens"...JC was paying people to do that for him, yes, while WWX was trying to start from scratch a settlement over a mountain of corpses with a bunch of weak or old people and not to die of hunger comes winter. While separated from all his friends and hated as a monster by the cultivation world. "But JC was so lonely during the 13/16y, so that justifies him lashing out" And WWX

(3/3) was dead, killed by his brother and thinking that there was not a person left on his side in the end, and yet, that didn't make him act like a dick? Or athg else really, because everything that JC went through in the past, WWX did also, but in a worse way because he lost his parents young, lived in the streets, didn't have JC societal privilege or money and has to harness an unstable necromancy practice on top of that. And yet no one uses it as arguments to explain his actions, only for JC 

Honestly? While none of the Jiang kids were in a good position, out of the three of them... JC did have it the easiest. It was still awful for him, don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting his childhood didn’t suck, but given it was made very clear to JYL that her only purpose was to be married off to JZX so her mother could tie her bloodline to her best friend’s and WWX was treated like a servant at best... Yeah. If I had to pick, I’d choose having a distant father and dealing with a mother who’s constantly emotionally abusive over having a distant father and dealing with a mother who’s constantly emotionally abusive and being treated like a bargaining chip/treated like a servant and/or bastard and being whipped for actions that would get the rest of the clan a lecture at worst. Again, I’m not saying JC didn’t have it bad, but his siblings having it worse is... interesting, given neither of them decided to be dicks to Literally Everyone over it.

I do have to say, even though this is about JC, there’s nothing suggesting LQR was playing favourites with LXC and LWJ. He was strict, yes, probably stricter than he should’ve been, and LXC probably did get more one-on-one interaction with him, but given LXC was going to be sect leader/became sect leader at a young age that makes sense. This is not super important to the point of this post, but I do find it odd how often people make LQR out to be this horrible person who’s always awful to his nephews because he’s Strict when we... don’t actually know anything about how he raised them. I don’t like him all that much, and he probably didn’t do a fantastic job of raising them, but the man did try, and he clearly wants his nephews to be safe and happy (even though he has inaccurate views of what that entails...), and given how the parents/parental figures of the cast generally act he deserves some credit for that. Also the Twin Jades ended up considerably better-adjusted than most of their age group, which... isn’t saying much all things considered but it does say something. If nothing else neither of them seem to feel actively unsafe around him, so he’s definitely not the worst parental figure in this novel.

...I had a surprising number of thoughts on LQR there. Whoops, sorry about the tangent. Maybe I’ll make a post about him at some point. Anyway, yeah, LXC and LWJ clearly adore each other! LXC would be delighted if LWJ surpassed him at something! Same with Nie bros; they argue a lot, but there’s no denying that they love each other. That’s what insults and threats out of love look like; NMJ threatens NHS all the time, but NHS clearly isn’t all that bothered by it until JGY starts fucking with NMJ’s mind and the threats become more serious, which really isn’t NMJ’s fault. It’s because in the other sibling relationships both parties are invested in staying close. They love each other and want to be close for the rest of their lives! Meanwhile JC is obsessed with WWX outperforming him at Literally Everything, and WWX genuinely believes that JC is allowed to treat him the way he does and it’s fine and healthy.

And yeah, JC wasn’t exactly rebuilding Lotus Pier all by his lonesome with his own two hands. In fact, going by what we see all the rebuilding was done well before WWX left! And I don’t doubt for a second that WWX was involved in that process; I have very mixed feelings about the scene in CQL where he blows off his duties to go and get drunk, because on the one hand it does do a good job of showing just how bad his mental state is getting (and how JC refuses to acknowledge it despite WWX obviously being Not Okay), but on the other hand... I just can’t see WWX not throwing himself into helping JC with everything he’s got even while his mental state is coming crashing down around him. I mean, this is the guy who created an incredibly powerful weapon that even he couldn’t fully control, not knowing what using it would do to him, to help his brother win a war. I’m pretty much certain that WWX ran himself into the ground helping JC rebuild and run the sect... then when he found himself in charge of a small group of desperate people, scrambling to keep them fed and clothed and healthy, JC just abandoned him to deal with it on his own.

And the whole “Oh, but JC was so lonely, don’t you feel bad for him?” shtick. I hate it so much. If he didn’t want to be lonely, he should’ve considered that before alienating everyone in his age group and leading an army to murder his brother, the only person left who was willing to put up with him! It’s... really hard to feel bad for someone who’s brought most of their suffering on themselves through a series of generally shitty and frequently downright cruel actions with easily foreseeable consequences. If he got sick of being alone, he should’ve apologized to his peers for being a dick to... literally all of them and tried to make amends and strike up some sort of relationship. Or, if that didn’t work, go out! Meet new people! Try not to be as awful to them! Also, he’s a sect leader. If he couldn’t even maintain a positive relationship with other sect leaders, people who, let me remind you, he has to work with on a regular basis and several of whom are actually nice and friendly people, that is on him. If you are awful to people you will end up alone. And then JC decided to respond to learning that the people he was a dick to every time he saw them (and, in LWJ and NHS’s cases, caused the death of someone they cared about) wanted nothing to do with him... by whining about how lonely he was as if that wasn’t largely his fault. Like, he lost his family and that’s awful, but he could have had friends to help him through his grief, and it’s his own damn fault that he doesn’t.

WWX’s life was miserable. He had plenty of friends, yeah, but he spent years on the streets after his parents died brutal deaths; was raised in a family where he was treated like a servant and a scapegoat; lost everything in an event he was blamed for despite having nothing to do with the attack; had to sacrifice his incredibly powerful golden core (thereby losing his primary means of defending himself while on the run and drastically shortening his lifespan) to keep his brother from letting himself die; was thrown into a corpse pit for three months where he had to create an entirely new and experimental (and as such incredibly dangerous) form of cultivation and probably resort to cannibalism just to survive; had to fight a war almost immediately after escaping; spent a... good portion of time (not sure how long exactly because the MDZS timeline is more a suggestion than an actual coherent timeline) being treated alternately as a tame pet or a rabid animal and having to pretend everything was just fine while everyone tried to either control him or remove him and his brother very obviously got increasingly resentful of his skill and power; had to abandon his home, his family, and everything he had left of his old life to save a bunch of innocent people while everyone, including his brother, acted like he’d gone mad for not wanting to let them die horribly; had to go back to the corpse pit he spent three months in because it was the only place where they might be safe; accidentally killed his brother-in-law due to losing control after being ambushed on the way to a celebration for his nephew that he was invited to by people he trusted, almost certainly making him wonder on at least some level if that was why he was invited; lost two members of his new family who he clearly loved because of said accidental murdering; learned their deaths were for nothing and, when he retaliated against the planned attack that shouldn’t have happened because that’s what WQ and WN gave their lives to prevent, saw his beloved sister die to save him; and, after all that, lost the rest of his new family to a siege on a civilian population led by his brother. And after all that, his response was... to destroy the incredibly dangerous weapon he’d made because he didn’t trust the sects to not destroy each other and themselves with it and kill himself rather than risk losing control again and hurting anyone else. In the novel too; I don’t doubt for a second that WWX planned on dying in that siege, even if he didn’t expect destroying the seal to do it.

Take a look at that paragraph. All those things that happened to WWX. And in the end, he was kind. He was so, so kind, and remains kind even after thirteen years of being dead. He would have been well within his rights to go all “Then let me be evil” on the sects, but every time he attacked them they struck first, and most of the serious damage he did happened as a direct result of losing control of his experimental and mostly unknown new cultivation, which is a real risk even with spiritual cultivation; NMJ probably would have happily killed everyone in Qinghe if the qi deviation hadn’t gotten to him first, given how easy it was for him to attack even his beloved little brother. Everything bad that happened to JC is on that list, pretty much. Everything that JC suffered WWX did too, with some variations in the details (and of course dead versus alone for the same period of time). JC had the advantage of a sect at his back and a high rank by virtue of his birth, while WWX’s position was entirely reliant on JFM and, later, JC. And yet some people insist that WWX’s trauma doesn’t excuse his actions but JC’s somehow does. Now, some people argue it’s different because WWX was a mass murderer. Yeah, well, JC’s a fucking serial killer, and he doesn’t have the excuse of losing control due to using resentful energy to cultivate and being attacked by everyone he’d ever known and trusted.

...I’ve kind of lost track of where I’m going with this. Short version: I very strongly disagree with anyone who insists WWX’s trauma doesn’t excuse his actions while bending over backwards to argue that JC’s trauma excuses his.

[sierraraeck]

Prison (Pt.2)

BAU x OC Aundreya

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Summary: Prison arc reimagined. Aundreya goes to visit Spencer and gives him some advice on how to survive in there. Story thirteen.

Category: Angst.

Warnings: Cussing. Mentions of drugs and homicide. Someone gets stabbed.

Word Count: 3.4k

A/N: Just a reminder that this is all fiction and I don’t actually know anything about prisons.

Garcia visited him first.

Sure, she made the chart, but Derek, Aaron and Aundreya all agreed it was a good idea to have her visit first because there would be a lower likelihood that Reid would look disheveled or beaten up. They all knew she wouldn’t be able to handle that well, and for him, it would only make him feel worse to upset her.

Next was Hotch. He could help talk logical next steps. Then Derek because, well, Derek. They’d been super close since the beginning of time it seemed like, and he could try to get Reid to talk to him while helping him stay strong.

The prison buzzer went off and the line of prisoners were brought into the visiting room. Spencer immediately spotted Derek and relief filled his body. As he approached the booth, Derek stood up and surveyed him.

He had cuts below his eye, on his brow, and one even on his neck. He had bruises littering pretty much the rest of his face, the place between his temple and cheekbone swelling with a deep purple color. The marks on his throat were self-explanatory.

Spencer had never been much of the hugging type, but right now, all both men wanted to do was hug. All they needed to do was hug. But of course, now was the only time they couldn’t.

They both sat down and just looked at each other for a while before Derek started, “Kid-”

“I’m okay,” Spencer cut him off, but his voice was already shaky.

“We are making progress in our investigations. We all really miss having you around. Who’s supposed to give us all of the stats we need now?” Morgan said, attempting to lighten the mood.

Reid gave a soft smile at that, which was the best Morgan could hope for. “I guess you will just have to rely on Garcia to get you all that information.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“How is she, anyway?” Reid asked.

“She’s okay, actually. We are all having a bit of a tough time but we are all still keeping it together,” Derek answered.

“Good, good. What about everyone else?”

“Yeah, they’re managing. We all just really want you out, that’s all,” Derek attempted.

Reid gave him an incredulous look, “How are they really?”

Derek sighed. “JJ is worried, as we all knew she would be, Prentiss is deep breathing, but trying to keep herself all in the logistics of it. Rossi is helping everyone else, including Hotch who is just being Hotch. Level headed, linear thinking, determined Hotch,” Derek listed off. He would have mentioned Aundreya, except for the fact that she wasn’t exactly falling into the ‘somewhat-healthy-coping’ portion of the group, and he wanted to keep Spencer feeling positive without lying to him. But he knew the question was coming.

“And Chambers?” Reid asked, hesitant.

“She’s okay. Working hard but she’s doing fine,” Derek said, which was true if you were only looking at her from afar. She was composed, calm, and very determined to fix this. But no one was quite sure if she was sleeping or not. She seemed to be slowly withering away into a delirious state.

Of course, Spencer could read all of the context on Derek’s face and questioned, “Is that code for ‘she’s not doing well at all but is pretending like she is?’”

“Yeah,” Derek admitted. He couldn’t lie to Spencer, even if he wanted to, “How did Hotch put it that one time?”

“Struggling in silence,” Spencer answered. “Is she sleeping at all?”

The rest of them knew when to stop. They knew that at some point, after 24 hours awake had come and gone, they were so tired that continuing to work wouldn’t even be beneficial anymore.

Aundreya knew no such boundary. She worked until she passed out from exhaustion, and even then, set alarms to keep her awake. Everyone had tried everything in the book, but she wouldn’t have it. They all knew it was because she knew more than she was letting on, but they allowed her to chalk it up to ‘the message was left for me’ and no one argued. They say that love and fear are the two strongest emotions, both of which the entire team was using to fuel them, but she was running on an extra emotion. One that for her, was probably one of the most powerful. She was running on self-blame. Self-loathing. And once she went down that path, there was nothing and no one that could pull her back until the problem was solved and she could move past it herself.

“Not really,” Morgan tried to keep his answers as short and simple as possible.

“Tell her to take a moment and take care of herself. I’ll be fine for the few hours she sleeps,” Reid said.

“We’ve tried, but honestly, I don’t blame her. None of us are getting much sleep and for good reason. You’re not fine,” Derek said, and Spencer looked down, “And if I had the ability to go that long without sleep, just constantly trying to put things together to help you, I would.”

“I appreciate that,” he said shyly.

“So is there anyone in here you have made connections with? Anyone who can help you?” Derek asked. It was his main concern at the moment.

“Sort of, there’s this one gu-”

The buzzer went off again, signaling the end of their meeting. “Time’s up!”

“-we’re trying to look out for each other,” Spencer quickly finished.

“Okay, well just keep your head down. You are your first priority,” Morgan reminded him. He sounded like Aundreya, and it made Reid smile just a bit.

Spencer nodded and was shoved back in line and escorted out of the visitor room.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

When Morgan returned to us from the visit, I could literally feel the worry radiating off of him. He headed straight for Hotch’s office, and I tagged along solely based on the intense eye contact he gave me as he walked by.

I shut the door behind us.

“It’s bad, Hotch,” Morgan stated, “It’s really bad.”

“What happened?” Hotch asked.

“He’s taken a hard one recently. Maybe two,” Derek said. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was about to choke up. “You should have seen him. I’ve never seen him look so … broken.”

“Let me talk to him,” I said. Hotch was resistant to the idea because I was well known among prisons and prisoners.

“I still don’t know, Chambers,” he said.

“I’m telling you, I can help,” I pleaded.

“We aren’t going to do anything outside of the law,” Hotch said sternly, lowering his voice. As much as I wanted to convince him that wasn’t where I wanted to go with this, I couldn’t, because he knew me better than that.

“You’re right. We are not going to do anything of the sort,” I emphasized.

He gave me a knowing look.

“Come on, Aaron. Right now, all I want to do is talk to him. He needs someone with inside knowledge helping him out.”

“Hotch, she’s right. He desperately needs that sort of help right now, and this is our best avenue,” Derek spoke up.

“Fine. Go. Keep us updated. Derek, grab the rest of the team and have them meet us in the briefing room, we have a new case,” Hotch said, nodding at both of us, “But I don’t want either of you sharing this new information about Reid to anyone else. We need them in their best state of mind if we are going to continue to get work done.”

We both nodded and raced out of the room. I quickly grabbed my stuff, barely turning to wave to the rest of the team before scampering into the elevator.

The drive over to the prison was agonizing, by far the longest 25 minutes of my life. Luckily, I had already prepared myself for when I would get to see him, so I had everything ready.

When I walked into the visitors room, he was waiting for me.

I almost allowed my focus to be completely consumed by him, but there were multiple other jobs I had to complete. I scanned the room and identified all of the guards. Some I recognized, others I didn’t. Then I examined the prisoners and came up with the same result, but it was good to pin-point possible allies and possible threats.

I walked over to my side of the table and he stood up to greet me. I leaned over and gave him a hug.

“No physical contact!” one of the guards hollard. Spencer’s figure was stiff but I gave him a squeeze before I freed him, not even bothering to look in the guard’s direction, let alone apologize like I’d seen so many others do. I knew the rules. But I also knew my rules.

We sat down and the first thing I thought was that Morgan was right.

He had taken a hard one recently, and based off of his slight grimace at my embrace, the evidence wasn’t only subjected to his face. I think the worst thing about it was seeing his eyes; they were dull, a gray sort of brown. Not anywhere near the usual shiny hazel or chocolate I admired on the daily.

“So who was it?” I asked after I finished my survey of him. I refused to ask how he was doing. We were both tired of that question, especially since we both already knew the answer.

“What?” It wasn’t the opening he was accustomed to.

“Who or whom was it that marked up that pretty face of yours?” I rephrased.

“Darrell and his group,” Reid answered.

“Ah, Darrell. Fairchild, right?”

“Yeah. Ironic last name,” Spencer commented.

“No kidding. Derek tells me that there aren’t a ton of friends in here?”

“No, not really. There’s one,” he informed.

“We’re gonna change that, eh?” I posed it as a question but if things went my way, it was soon to be a statement.

“How?”

“First thing’s first, I need you to drop the innocent act,” I said matter-of-factly.

“No. I can’t do that,” he defended. It was the reaction I’d expected.

“I know you don’t want to, and I know that it’s one of the only things keeping you sane in here, but if you are going to survive for as long as it takes us to clear your name, I need you to do it.”

He leaned in. “What are you suggesting?”

I met him halfway, his gaze on me intent, “Own it. Your charge right now is murder. That immediately puts you on a higher playing field than a lot of the rest of them. Own it. You don’t ever have to admit to killing anyone, maybe you shouldn’t, but you need to act like you did. Yes, try to stay under the radar, but when you walk, walk confidently. Shoulders back, chin up, as if someone just reminded you that your title is Doctor Genius Spencer Reid.”

He smiled slightly at that and I pointed it out. “Exactly. You get a bit cockier whenever you hear it, so keep that in mind. Other thing, you need-”

“Time’s up!” the same guard from before yelled.

Spencer looked regretful as he went to stand up. I reached over the divider and grabbed his forearm. “Sit down.”

His eyes got wide. “What?”

“No physical contact!”

I didn’t release my grip on him and just stared him down with an arched eyebrow.

His eyes rapidly flicked between me and the guard. At this point, the straggling prisoners were just loitering, preparing for a show.

“You need to get in line right now!” a different guard yelled as he approached us.

Spencer turned to go but I held his arm down firmer and snarled, “Sit. Down.”

To my surprise, it was enough to get him to slowly lower himself back into the chair.

“I swear to god Reid!” the guard ramped up. It’s never good when the guard already knows your name within the first few weeks. “Lady, I need you to remove your hand from him.”

I didn’t respond. All I did was cock my head to the side as if I was cracking my neck, exposing my beloved tattoos there. I then lifted my other hand up and set it down on the table, the weight of the bracelets and rings making for a satisfying ‘plop’.

I smiled up at the guard whose fiery feet were now frozen in their path. “We’d like a few more minutes.”

He gulped. “Uh, ma’am we can’t-”

“You know what my name is so use it. Also, you can, and you will. Thanks,” I hissed, flashing another toothy smile and narrowing my eyes. The prisoners in the back looked astonished and I winked at one of the ones I recognized.

“Sure thing, Aundreya,” the guard said with a nod, carefully retrating.

I turned back to Spencer, and it looked like somebody’d hit him on the side of the head with a pan. The level of confusion radiating off of him was almost amusing.

“What just-”

“Not now. We have more important things to discuss.”

“You have got to teach me that.”

“Teach you what?”

“How to act crazy and disturbed while also being in charge.”

I laughed. “Oh, Spencer, you already are crazy and disturbed. We all are. You just have to hone yours in, that’s all. And after the confidence boost you are about to receive from inmates and guards alike, you just have to feed off of it and walk around like you own the damn joint.”

He was looking at me with the most focus I’d seen in a while. “What else?”

“Take these,” I said, handing over half of my bracelets and both of my rings. The guards were eyeballing them like their life depended on it.

He observed them, then looked up at me.

“Put them on,” I instructed. He did as I said and I wanted to smile at how fitting they actually looked on him. “Anyone tries to touch you, show them these. They will either back off, or ask you a variety of questions. All you need to tell them is that you know me and you know me well. A handful of the prisoners already saw us talking and a lot more will know by the time we are done.”

“What else?” he repeated.

“I wanted you to get a tattoo of my ring, but I figured that wouldn’t exactly be the avenue you’d like to take so make sure that the bracelets are always in sight. Never take them off and don’t let anyone touch them. Other thing: they’re gonna draw a lot of attention, so you have to start acting confident and you have to do it now. If you are timid with them on, people will talk and wonder if they are fake or if you are ‘unworthy,’ so be smart about it.”

“What do I tell people if they ask how I know you?”

“You have two options. Tell them the truth…” I started.

“Or?” He was always fast at picking up on how things worked. And here, everything had to be a lie.

“Or you tell them that I was the one who caught you. That you were causing problems for me and were able to track down a lot of my connections and I didn’t like that, so I decided to hunt you down. It took me a while and a lot of my effort to get you. During that time we got infatuated with each other because we were so evenly matched and actually enjoyed the challenge the other offered, that’s why I still visit you. Tell them I want to break you out and initiate you into my ring. Tell them I have eyes on you at all times and will personally pay anyone who hurts you a visit.”

“What? I don’t think-”

“Do you trust me?” I interrupted.

“Yes,” he replied without hesitation.

“Good. Then tell them that and they will leave you alone. I will be visiting you at least once a week, and will make sure to make a show of it every now and then. But if we are going to make this work, you have to utilize all of the information I just gave you. And please, for the love of Lucifer, own your crazy,” I leaned even closer to him and looked right through his eyes, enunciating each word carefully, “That is the only way this works.”

I pushed back out of my chair and he mirrored me. I placed my hands on his shoulders and pushed them back slightly. With my index finger I tilted his chin up. I hooked a hand behind his neck and brought him to me, whispering in his ear, “You’re going to get through this, Doctor.”

I released him and turned to walk toward the visitor exit. I peered over my shoulder at his gaze following me out. I gave him one strong nod before turning back around and leaving him with what I considered to be the best I could manage at the moment.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

Seven weeks and two days.

That’s how long Spencer had been in prison for.

Five weeks and six days.

That’s how long Aundreya’s bracelets protected him.

He did exactly as she said. He started to own his crazy. He started acting like he wasn’t as innocent as he claimed and he did his best to act confident while also keeping his head down. And she was right. Anyone that approached him quickly identified the chains he was now sporting and left him alone. They did draw a lot of attention though, and when he gave the false backstory of them hunting each other, becoming infatuated, her eventually winning but wanting to break him out to join her ring, it was like he immediately gained respect. He never thought he’d be so thankful for jewelry and lying.

But it only worked for so long.

Some of the guys thought that because Aundreya would be so caught up working cases, and because she’d ‘gone soft’ helping the FBI out, they could get back at her by hurting him. Surely she would no longer have the guts or the freedom to come after them. Plus, if she really enjoyed this new life, this fresh start, she couldn’t be caught ‘paying them a visit’ knowing how that ended, now could she?

Four cell doors didn’t get locked that night.

Must’ve been a security malfunction or something. At least, that was the explanation given the next morning.

But knowing Spencer’s luck, he was one of the four cell doors that remained open. The other three? None other than Darrell Fairchild and his two bloodhounds.

The small blade could have been smuggled in. One of them could have been crafty enough to make it. However it got there didn’t really matter. What mattered, was that it hurt like a bitch.

Twice.

The blade easily penetrated through his flesh, was brought out just far enough so that Spencer could see his own blood dripping from the blade onto his shoes, then plunged right back in. The second time came with a twist and a forceful yank upwards.

The rough concrete floor stung his knee caps and sent a wave of pins and needles up his legs. He put his hands over his stomach and had a wave of deja vu wash over him.

He’d done this before. Unfortunately, this time there wasn’t someone ready and willing to help him.

He looked toward his still open cell door, realizing that any evidence of Darrell and his possy being there was already gone.

Reid croaked out for anyone to help him, but no one came. He yelled a little bit louder, hearing a faint echo off of the concrete down the hall, but still, no one was around. Half crawling, half dragging himself toward the hallway, he continued calling out for help. His eyes drooped shut, collapsing only halfway out of his cell before he was able to identify the footsteps coming his way. His last thought was one of pleading, hoping that it was someone, anyone, who would help him. He wasn’t ready to die.

Taglist (open)

@justanothetfangirl

@kris-stuff

@blameitonthenight21

[ficsandcatsandficsandcats]

probably i just love to suffer but what about y/n having abusive relationships with her professor in Oxenfurt(secretly of course) but yennefer founds out and trying to help reader get out of this mess while also falling in love we need more yennefer love in this fandom ✨

Fandom: The WitcherPairing: Yennefer x ReaderWord Count: 1,851Rating: GTaglist: @heroics-and-heartbreak @whatevermonkey @mynamesoundslikesherlock @magic-multicolored-miracle  a/n: I went in a bit of a different direction here. I don’t write abusive relationships and I don’t do professor/student relationships but I do recognize that these things exist. I reference a professor/student relationship but I tried to do so in a way that was clear on where I stand about those power dynamics and the inability for true consent on the part of the student. This fic also ended up being much more yearn-y and angsty than anticipated but I hope you still enjoy what I wrote. Thanks!

Yennefer.

Dark hair and light eyes.

Magic and mystery.

Yours and nobody’s.

Yennefer who taught you to want more from this world. Yennefer who made you feel like you’d placed every single star in the sky. Yennefer who break your heart when she left, wordlessly, senselessly.

You knew she’d be standing on your doorstep but still you opened the door. You’d never been able to keep her out. Not when it mattered. Not when you needed her. And like it or not, you did.

She was the same as she’d been when she left. A little cooler and distant but those eyes still glowed and you felt your heart sway into a familiar hum of adoration at the sight of them.

“Y/N,” she said, a word she hadn’t allowed herself to think much less speak since the day she’d left. She didn’t know what pulled her to you but whatever the reason she knew better than to question it. There was no such thing as a coincidence and she wouldn’t fail you. Not this time, at least.

“Yennefer,” you replied, not bothering to put up a pretense of surprise at finding her there. You stepped aside and gestured for her to walk in and she followed, looking around the little house with a small smile. It was all exactly the same. There was a timelessness to this place that she loved. You had not stalled with time, though. You were older, the shadow of wrinkles playing about the corners of your eyes and lips. The eyes were still just the same, though, if a bit sadder than before. Her heart ached at this, knowing she was in part to blame. But there was no point in resting in regret.

“What brings you?” you asked.

“You tell me,” she countered. You sighed heavily.

“Yennefer you can’t just show up on my doorstep 10 years later and demand I tell you everything,” you insisted. She considered your words for a moment.

“And yet I am,” she replied simply. You shook your head, hating that you found her characteristic stubbornness charming. She had no right to charm you. And yet.

“Same Yennefer,” you said.

“You liked that Yennefer.”

“I used to like a lot of things.”

“You still do.”

Her words were more of a plea than a statement and you tried not to fall into your old role, reassuring her that you still did, of course you did, when you knew she wouldn’t offer the same reassurance in kind.

“Perhaps you have come to offer me congratulations,” you said, changing the topic, “I am to be wed.”

Yennefer’s heart lurched at the words and she forced her face to remain neutral but you felt the tension settle in the space between the two of you. You gave her a challenging look, daring her to be jealous or angry and hoping desperately that she’d rail against the news.

“That must be it,” she said. She walked into the little sitting area, taking up residence in what had once been her favorite chair. It had never felt right sitting in it though you’d spent countless hours crying there, nose pressed against the fading fabric, seeking the last traces of her scent before that too was taken from you with time. Everything had been taken but the love you felt for her. You followed her into the room though it bothered you that she fit so perfectly back into it as though no time had passed.

“Tell me about him,” she said, giving you a placid look of interest though blood rushed in her ears, nearly drowning out your words as you spoke.

“He’s a good man. Respected. A professor,” you said, ticking off the points your parents had recited when you were informed that you would be marrying him.

“Professor?” Yennefer asked, catching the detail you’d hoped she wouldn’t.

“Yes,” you said, eyes on the back of the chair, near her face but not actually looking at her.

“From Oxenfurt University, I assume?” she pressed.

“Yes,” you said.

“Y/N,” she said sharply and you finally met her eyes which flashed dangerously, “Is it Charles?”

You straightened your back and summoned all of your dignity, shooting her a defiant look.

“Yes,” you said, charging towards the conflict head-on, “Yes it is.”

“Your teacher,” she emphasized, glowering darkly.

“He isn’t anymore.”

“He was when it started though, wasn’t he?”

“He isn’t anymore,” you repeated, face growing warm.

“Did you do it to hurt me?” she asked. She’d warned you that your professor had been extra attentive, tried to tell you that time spent with him outside of class could only lead to trouble. But then she’d been gone and he was there to comfort you and make you feel special and ok. And then things escalated and it went from a lapse of judgment that you were warned never to speak of to a proposal of marriage that your parents charged you to accept. You’d successfully put it off for years, pursuing higher and higher levels of education for the sole purpose of extending the length of your engagement despite pressure from your parents and the professor himself. You’d run out of time now. It would happen soon. You’d hoped he would lose interest but the more you tried to push him away the more determined he seemed to have you. As a child you would have found this flattering, but you weren’t a child anymore.

“Did you leave to hurt me?” you asked, thoughts returning to the question Yennefer had posed. Now it was her turn to shift in her seat uncomfortably and form her answer.

“No,” she said, “I never wanted… I didn’t want that to be how it had to go.”

“How it had to go?” you echoed with a bitter laugh, “Please explain why it had to go that way.”

“I don’t have an answer you’ll like,” she admitted.

“Try an answer that’s honest, it’ll get you farther,” you retorted. She took a deep breath and you waited.

“I had an offer at a job. It was going to take me far away, it would offer me training that I could never hope to get here. If I told you… if I talked to you, or saw you, I would have turned it down. I never would have been able to go. So I left. I made a hard choice, perhaps the wrong one-”

“Perhaps?”

“I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t achieved some of the goals I set for myself. I’m not going to pretend to regret everything I did. But I do regret that it caused you pain,” Yennefer said.

You knew that wasn’t good enough. It was a bad sign of how things had been going that someone acknowledging causing you pain and regretting it made your hungry heart soar with gratitude. There was so much to unlearn from the unkind years that had passed but you would unlearn it if it killed you.

“You know that’s not good enough,” you said, though you wanted to pull her into your arms and tell her it was all forgiven, all forgotten, all erased if she would just tell you that she loved you still.

“I do,” she answered, “But it’s all I have to give right now.”

“The wedding is in one week,” you said, rising from your seat. She rose as well and followed you to the foyer.

“There will be no wedding,” she said bluntly, surprising even you who thought you couldn’t be surprised by her anymore.

“You don’t make that call,” you argued.

“I will if I have to. I will for you,” she insisted.

“Yennefer-”

“Tell me you love him and I will walk out that door, destiny be damned, and ride away forever,” she said. You looked into the violet eyes that met your gaze unflinchingly. You tried to say the words but you were tired of lying. You’d never been good at it and you never could like to her. You didn’t want to. And Yennefer always told you to never do things you didn’t want to do.

“If I try and leave him… I don’t know what will happen. And whatever does happen, he has the support of my parents. I am alone in this, Yennefer,” you admitted, fearful even as you spoke that your fiancé would appear from somewhere hidden and drag you to a chapel in an instant. Yennefer took a step forward, one hand resting against your face softly, tears coming to your eyes at the feeling of her touch after so many years left with only dreams and memories that could never compare to the real thing.

“No. You are not alone. Not in this, not in anything. And certainly not with him,” Yennefer’s voice dropped low and dangerous as she spoke the words and you feared for a moment that you’d incidentally sealed his fate.

“It’s easy to say that,” you argued, “It’s easy to pop by because destiny taps you on the shoulder and tells you to intervene but what about the other times? What if destiny tells you to leave again?”

“That wasn’t destiny,” she said, shaking her head, “That was just ambition. And I am still ambitious but I am also in a better place to choose how I pursue those ambitions. And with whom.”

Her hand fell to yours, slightly trembling but quickly clasping hers back.

“If I go with you, I cannot allow you to be my only source of support. I need to make friends. I need to earn my own coin. And I need to have my own life,” you said. There was a loud voice in your head screaming at you to be quiet, to accept the scraps she could offer, to cling to her for as long as you could. But you knew the voice had grown in a time when those instincts kept you safe. They couldn’t serve you anymore. You wouldn’t let them.

“Of course,” she agreed, “Does this mean you’ll come?”

You looked back at the little house. You’d built a life around this space, in this town. You knew the rules of this world and even if you didn’t always enjoy the game you knew how to play. 10 years before Yennefer had changed the rules, knocked the board over and forced you to learn a new game. But you had. You had done that alone. You could do it again. You would do it in a way that served you better.

“When do we leave?” you asked, heart in your throat as you answered. Yennefer smiled and began to move in for a kiss, pausing before she did and stepping back. You were grateful at her restraint because you knew you wouldn’t have it. In time, if it was right for you, you would taste her kisses again. You would know the soft warmth of her body against yours and you would share a love worth building together. But for right now you needed time and friendship, and she would give you both.

“Now.”

[thepandapopo]

Sylvix Week 2020 Day 1: Wedding

Synopsis: No matter what world or what timeline they exist in, Felix and Sylvain will always find each other.

OR

Byleth becomes an omniscient immortal goddess that lists her top three favourite SylVix weddings that span across a variety of alternate universes and worlds.

OR

You gave me a wedding prompt and I gave you a three for one deal.

Written for Sylvix Week 2020

AU in which all the canon stuff happens but Sothis is actually the goddess of multiple universes and when Byleth merges with her, she gets to see Sylvix reincarnated in world after world, but no matter what they always find each other. This is her POV recalling her three favourite weddings.

The pirate one was definitely inspired by Pirates of the Carribean because that scene was so ridiculous and all I could think about was how it was SylVix level dumb.

There are not many things in this existence that Byleth finds beautiful, not anymore at least. After living for centuries upon centuries and in worlds that one could only dream of, it was safe to say that Byleth had pretty much exhausted all there was to see in terms of beautiful things.

But one thing she will always watch over fondly and with such heart rending piety that makes her wonder if perhaps there is a god even greater than her, is the way Felix and Sylvain’s souls always find their way back to each other, regardless of what life, regardless of what world, and regardless of what circumstances shape them.

----

The first world that Byleth has the pleasure of attending their wedding is in her original life. It is the life that she remembers the most vividly and fondly, back when everything was so new and yet not because of the soul of the progenitor god that resides within her.

The cathedral in Garreg Mach is strewn with swathes of teal and maroon fabrics, hanging from the ceilings in graceful arcs interspersed with pristine white. Blue and Red Salvia pepper the towering columns in the empty pockets where the ivy parts way to reveal long expanses of white stone, restored over years of hard work and loving care.

At the base of the altar near the head of the room, Byleth stands tall and proud as the officiant of this historical event, the joining of two territories through marriage in the traditional sense, but also so wholly untraditional in the fact that it is a Duke and Margrave committing to each other in a gesture that has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with building a future free of unspoken rules and obligations.

“Stop fidgeting,” Ingrid hisses at Sylvain from her position as Best Maiden. She is a vision herself in her Gautier red gown that is just practical enough that Hilda and Annette didn’t have to blackmail her too much into wearing.

Across from her, Dimitri – Felix’s Best Man - is also staring at the shifty groom who looks like he is half a minute away from bursting into either hysterical laughter or tears. It’s a bit of an odd sight seeing the King of Fodlan not standing center stage for once, but just for today, he has gladly traded in his royal garments for a simple, but smart looking military style get up (not unlike their old school uniform) in Fraldarius blue.

And in the middle of all of them standing right by Byleth’s side is their very own Sylvain Jose Gautier, dressed in his finest linens with a black jacket lined with crimson fur and golden thread. Draped across his front is an expanse of teal cloth that sweeps back over his shoulders and billows out in a magnificent cape emblazoned with both the Gautier and Fraldarius crests. Although Sylvain has always looked noble in his own way, his roguish grin has always softened the edges of his appearance with a mask of carefree immaturity. Today though, he looks every bit the mature esteemed war general turned Margrave; his shoulders are pulled back and he stands tall even though they all know that there are more than a few individuals in the crowd who oppose this marriage. Standing next to him, Byleth can literally feel the air of assured confidence that a person exudes when they know that they are doing something so fundamentally right, that there is no way that it isn’t fate.

If anyone had told them that Sylvain would be the first person among them to be married, a trip to the infirmary for hallucination would have been the follow up course of action. But here, standing at the altar under the beaming mid afternoon sun streaming through the windows, there is nothing that seems more natural.

Even if Sylvain won’t stop fidgeting.

“Sylvain,” Dimitri’s eyes are wide with suspicion and dread, “you’re not getting cold feet, are you? Goddess, Felix will kill you.”

“Yeah, and not even the pretend kill either. He’s going to really, truly run you through with his favourite sword. That you happened to get him, might I remind you.” Ingrid elbows him again, the sharp pain a gentler reminder of what pain he might be subject to in the near future if he really is considering ditching his own wedding. In the middle of the ceremony. With hundreds of guests around them.

“No, I’m not getting cold feet.” Sylvain rolls his eyes and tenderly rubs his ribs where Ingrid keeps jabbing him. “I’m just… I don’t know. I’m impatient. We’ve been standing up here forever.”

And of course, in typical Felix fashion, he just has to be proven wrong when the massive oaken doors at the entrance of the cathedral open with a groan, just barely audible over the swelling sound of the music changing and the rustling of clothes as their guests stand to welcome in the other groom.

The first time that Byleth gets to witness Sylvain’s entire world fall apart and click back together like two perfect puzzle pieces, is when he catches sight of Felix, led down the aisle by a beaming Annette, and breathtakingly resplendent in all white.

Blown out pupils obscure burnt sienna as they rake over the vision that is Duke Fraldarius walking slowly towards him with what looks to be the most obnoxiously long dress coat ever tailed. It clings to his lithe form sinfully from his shoulders down to his hips in such a way that coax’s Sylvain’s tongue to swipe across his lips, before draping and flaring back in a style reminiscent of a bridal train. The very same golden stitching that weaves through Sylvain’s jacket also glows ethereally in Felix’s clothes, which only serves to emphasize the silky midnight waterfall that has been tamed and woven into a side braid. Atop his crown sits a golden circlet that dips and meets in the center of his brow, adorned with a topaz flanked by two garnet rubies.

It is the first time that Byleth prays to the goddess and thanks Sothis for allowing these two souls, who are just so right for each other, to finally, finally get the happiness they so deserve.

When Felix’s golden gaze finally flutters up beneath inky lashes to meet Sylvain’s, the air in the room charges with tangible electricity and chuckles murmur through the crowd as both Ingrid and Annette reach out simultaneously to stop their respective grooms from bolting towards each other.

By the time Annette hands Felix off to Sylvain, both men are staring at each other with such blatant reverence and awe that Byleth almost feels bad for clearing her throat and ruining the moment.

“Dearly beloved, thank you all for gathering here today to celebrate the union of Duke Felix Hugo Fraldarius and Margrave Sylvain Jose Gautier.”

Somewhere to her right, Annette stifles a happy sob and the couple share a small, amused smile.

“The most remarkable moment in life is when you meet the person who makes you feel complete; the person with whom you share a bond so special that it transcends time and space and is something so pure and so wonderful, that you cannot imagine a life or world without them. For Felix and Sylvain, that moment happened back when they were children and too young to know what love meant, but old enough to know how love felt. Many of you know their story already; some of you have had the privilege to walk along side them as they each wrote their tale. But what we all have in common today is that we get to witness the moment when they begin to write their story together.”

Later in the evening, Sylvain will tease Dimitri about how constipated he looked trying to unsuccessfully supress his tears while also desperately trying not to crush the small pouch in his hands that contained Sylvain’s wedding band.

“Now, I do believe that you two have written your own vows. Sylvain, would you like to go first?”

There is a beat after Byleth asks her question before Sylvain can escape the fogginess of his mind that is filled with thoughts of Fe, Fe, Fe and comprehend what is being asked of him.

“It’s in your breast pocket,” Ingrid hisses behind him.

It’s true. Sylvain can feel the folded piece of parchment tucked snugly against his chest above his heart, but there is something in Felix’s mesmerized gaze that stays his hand and sends it reaching instead for smaller, scarred and callous ones.

“Felix…” his breath escapes him like a prayer. “My darling and dearest Fe.”

Honey brown eyes shimmer with unshed tears and Sylvain feels his chest tighten, squeezing out the lyrics of the song his heart has long been singing, but never aloud.

“For a person who has always had a silver tongue, it’s a wonder how you manage to steal all the words from me every single time. I could still try to wax poetic about how lovely you are or how lethal you look with a blade in your hand, but I feel like if I do either or those, you might just stab me.”

A soft snort and misty glare confirm his suspicion and Sylvain lets out a watery chuckle.

“Do you remember the promise we made as kids? Back then, we didn’t really know what it meant to die together, but we promised each other that anyways because the only thing we knew for certain was that we didn’t want to live without each other.”

Sylvain’s lungs burn with the effort it takes to inhale through the sobs that want to escape him. The rapid thumping of his heart threatens to burst out of his chest, and it nearly overwhelms him before a gentle hand brushes away a stray tear that has managed to escape its confines. Unwittingly, more tears fall even as Sylvain grounds himself with Felix’s touch and forges on.

“Fe, I have loved you for a very long time, even though I may not have known it. I have loved you since we were young children and you would sit in my lap for hours as I read story after story to you. I have loved you since we were old enough to train together and you would trounce me spectacularly even though I had the weapon advantage and you were such a scrawny brat. I loved you even through Glenn’s death when you shoved everyone around you away, building up the walls around your heart that I wanted so desperately to see again. I loved you when we met again at the officer’s academy and I tried to drown my problems in women and empty dalliances, and even through the war where I was so terrified that you would die before I could ever confess my feelings for you.

But Fe… despite how long I’ve loved you, I vow to you today that I will continue to love you for even longer in the years ahead. Dying is easy, but living is so much harder, and so that is why I want to build on our promise and vow to always stand by your side and live the rest of my life with you. I have loved you all my life, Felix Hugo, and I cannot imagine what my life would be without that constant. It grows each and every day, filling my heart more than I ever thought possible. Goddess… I love you Fe. I love you so very much, my beloved, and I hope that one day I’ll find the perfect words to tell you that, but for now, before all these people, I give you my heart and soul because it has always been yours from the start.”

Sylvain’s heart aches with the raw truth and gravity of his words that are so filled with love, bursting from his heart and overflowing from his eyes only to be brushed away gently by the very man who encompasses his thoughts every minute of every day. But despite how shaky his breath is, Sylvain’s hands are steady as he slips the onyx band onto the ring finger of Felix’s left hand.

“Felix? Would you like to read your vows?” It is dead silent in the cathedral, save for the few sniffs and hiccups from their closest friends.

“Sylvain.”

Byleth can see the moment that Felix steels his resolve in the same way he does right before entering battle. Right now, Felix is fighting his own demons, but he is determined to win because he owes it to Sylvain to be just as raw and open as he has laid himself out to be.

“Sylvain. I… we both know that I’m not good at words, but I want to try, for you, because I know that sometimes the voices in your head try to convince you that you’re not worthy of love, and I want to shut them up once and for all by laying everything bare in front of all these people.”

It’s funny and honestly a little bit unfair, Felix thinks to himself, how Sylvain still looks so breathtakingly beautiful even while dripping snot and fully on ugly crying.

“I’m not a good partner, Sylvain. And before you interrupt me, just shut up and listen to the rest of what I have to say. I’m not a good partner because unlike you, I don’t know how to use my words to communicate my feelings. No matter how hard I try, it always comes out sharp and… and wrong. But even though I’m just so fucking awful at it, you somehow always seem to understand me.” Felix pauses to steady his breathing and blink away the tears that are beginning to blur his favourite view.

“I honestly never thought I could have this. I didn’t think there was a future for us because I was so sure that one day you would get fed up with me and leave. But you didn’t. No matter how much I pushed you away, or how many insults I threw your way even though what I really wanted to say was the complete opposite, you always stayed there by my side through thick and thin. And what’s more, you always understood what I was really trying to say.

I hate illogical things. I hate the idea of dying for someone or doing something I hate just because someone else happens to like it. But you… Sylvain, you make me want to do all of those things.”

Felix falters a little, swallowing the lump in his throat that wants to stop his closest guarded secret from slipping out.

“It doesn’t make any sense and it honestly frustrates me just how unwaveringly confident I am that I would die for you in a heartbeat. I would willingly go to those operas that you love so much even though I can’t stand them just so I can see that one smile that makes the world around me fall away. With you, I want to do the things that I’ve always shunned. I want to get married to you. I want to become your husband. I want to adopt children and raise a family with you. I want to grow old with you and spend our days sitting in front of a fire watching our grandchildren run around causing all sorts of mayhem that they probably learned from you.”

“So today, I will vow to you to live with you through whatever bullshit might come our way. I vow to love you until our dying breaths and beyond. But the greatest vow I will make you today, is the vow to lay down my blade and put to rest any lingering thoughts of becoming a mercenary because… because a life with you… loving you… I want that more than anything in the world. I love you, Syl.”

All around them, their friends beam at them through tears and, in Annette and surprisingly Dimitri’s case, elated blubbering. Felix wastes no time grabbing the ring from his king and slipping it onto Sylvain’s ring finger because one minute longer not being married to his favourite idiot is one more minute wasted.

No one cares that Byleth doesn’t even get to say her final line prompting them to kiss because they both lunge at each other at the same time, the crowd around them cheering and whooping, their voices echoing through the halls and much longer in Byleth’s memories.

----

Byleth’s second favourite wedding between Felix and Sylvain is unfortunately not one that she gets to officiate.

Instead, she’s busy parrying the downward strike of a soggy half pirate, half sea creature and returning a blow of her own and painting the floor beneath them a murky ink color as she cuts into its shoulder. Their ship has been boarded by Davy Jones’ and they barely have time to fire an SOS flare into the sky before they are overrun with the cursed pirates.

“Did someone call for backup?”

Sylvain’s hair is plastered to his forehead from the salty spray, but his crimson hair is still more than easy to spot from where it pops up from their starboard side where his own ship has anchored itself to the Aegis. His men let out a mighty battle cry as they dash across the wooden planks connecting their ships while others swing in from above on ropes hanging from the towering mast.

“You’re late, you fucking asshole!” Felix shouts above the sound of his handheld pistol firing straight into the face of an unfortunate pirate. The thick clam like shells around his body is explanation enough of why Felix is using his gun instead of his sword which he favors.

“Aw, Fe. Don’t be like that! You know I’d never ignore a distress call from you!”

“Then next time answer it sooner!”

Felix ducks when Sylvain jumps off the ledge over him and thrusts his own sword into an enemy that had been sneaking up behind him. Despite being rival captains of their own pirate ships, Sylvain and Felix fight like a well-oiled machine, slipping in and out of each other’s space and covering any blind spots that are exposed. It’s a bit odd seeing them fight in such a different style, but Byleth still admires the fierce skill in which Felix takes down his opponents while Sylvain always approaches more cautiously, using tactics and ploys that befit his strategic mind.

Absolute chaos reigns around the two of them and the clashing of swords peppered intermittently with the loud cracks of gunpowder igniting fill the air. The smell of the sea all around them is thick with the lingering smell of burnt sulphur and even more so the irony tint of blood.

“Are the two lovebirds bickering again?” Claude grins at Byleth as he sidesteps a tackle and plunges his blade through the back of the stumbling figure. His Golden Deer cape billows out as he turns and the bright yellow is a beacon of hope to the rest of their crew. Normally, Byleth herself would be wearing one as well, but she has been on loan from Claude and spending the past month or so aboard the Aegis with Felix helping him navigate some truly terrible waters.

“Yes. Although I do wish they would find a better time to do so.” Claude can practically hear her eye roll which just makes it all the more amusing to him.

“Byleth, you wound me! There’s never a better time for… well, anything really, than the present!” Sylvain laughs, but immediately grimaces when the body whose head he lopped off drenches him in black ichor.

Beside him, Felix looks at the new stains on his already disgusting pants and scowls. “Be more careful, you idiot! I can’t save you if you poison yourself by accidentally ingesting some of that toxic shit.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, regret burns through him and ignites his cheeks with flames.

“Oooh. Is Felix Fraldarius actually worried about me?”

“Shut up before I run you through with my sword.”

“You wouldn’t do that, Fe. Because you loooooove me.”

“Sylvain. I swear I’m going to-“

Suddenly a body goes sailing past them and Hilda stomps out from below decks where she has clearly fought her way out of. She points her axe menacingly at the two captains and if Felix didn’t just see her send a full-grown man six flying feet, Felix would have laughed. “If you’re not going to fight, then at least kiss already. We’re all sick and tired of you guys polluting the high seas with your stupid, angsty, rival love.”

“Well just because you’re bitter that your brother chases away all your-“

Sylvain doesn’t even get to finish his sentence before Hilda swings her axe in a side swipe. It’s only from years of fighting that the red haired captain is able to duck in time, letting the blade of the axe connect with a unsuspecting enemy instead.

“Okay, okay! Touchy subject. I get it.”

Thankfully, their squabble fades into the chaos as they double down to repel the ghostly abominations from their ships.

However, like all the other worlds and lives in which Byleth has known Sylvain, he just can’t seem to keep his mouth shut for very long and is calling out for Felix even while more enemies somehow appear from the depths of the sea, truly outnumbering them two to one now.

“Hey Fe! Marry me.”

“What?”

“Marry me!”

There’s an awkward pause, only punctuated with Felix quickly shoving his sword into an oncoming enemy.

“Sylvain, this is not the time!”

“Come on, professor! Things are looking kinda bleak and I don’t really want to die without having married Fe.” Sylvain grins and shoots another enemy over his shoulder without even looking. “and plus it would totally boost morale!”

“I’m not marrying the two of you right now. Felix hasn’t even said yes yet, for crying out loud!”

Seriously, Byleth thinks to herself, she is getting way too old for this shit.

“Claude! If you won’t marry us, then Claude can! He’s a captain too, right?” Sylvain shouts up at the golden garbed leader who is sniping people from the safety of the foretop.

“Consent, Sylvain! Consent is important!” Hilda screams.

Another enemy falls from behind Felix and he turns to face Sylvain who has the biggest shit eating grin on his face. “Well, Fe? What do you say? Wanna get hitched?”

There’s a beat.

And then another.

And then,

“Claude. Marry us.”

Sylvain’s smirk is bigger than the time he struck literal gold.

“Gladly!” Claude laughs and doesn’t even blink as he shoots down enemies left and right. “Deerly beloved, we are gathered here today to-“

“Fuck your deer puns! Just get to the important shit.”

Clearly, Pirate Captain Felix is a lot less patient than Duke Felix. Or perhaps it is more to do with their current circumstance than the actual virtue.

“Jeez, fine fine! Uncultured swine, the lot of you, truly. Do you, Felix Hugo Fraldarius, take Sylvain Jose Gautier to be your lawfully wedded husband? In sickness and in health, in scurvy and even at the bottom of Davy Jones’ locker?”

“I do.” Each word is punctuated by a sword slash and the enemies around their odd band of allies begins to thin.

“And do you, Sylvain Jose Gautier take Felix Hugo Fraldarius to be your lawfully wedded pirate booty husband? To treasure him more than literal treasure? To have him in all his grumpy glory and to hold him even when he threatens to stab you?”

For someone who is very likely to die in the next ten minutes and also covered in guts and ichor, Sylvain is incredibly happy when he chirps back a gleeful “I do!”.

“Then, by the power vested in me by the guy whose ship I stole after I killed him, I now pronounce you husband and husband. So fucking kiss already.”

It’s by no means their most glamourous wedding, but Byleth can’t help but remember fondly on the matching grins on Felix and Sylvain’s faces as they kissed in the middle of that god forsaken hell of a boat, looking for all the world like the two puzzle pieces that have always fit together perfectly no matter what color or shape they may morph into with the crossing of time and dimensions.

It is such a shame really, that their small moment of respite and happiness breaks when a terrified voice pierces through the cacophony of sound.

“KRAKEN!”

----

Byleth’s third favourite Felix and Sylvain wedding is one where she unfortunately doesn’t get to be there with them, no matter how much her heart aches. Instead, she watches them from above, in a space that no mortal (and honestly not even any god) can truly begin to comprehend nor describe.

“Close it, close it. Hurry the fuck up!” Felix’s voice echoes in the dilapidated church even though his voice is hardly louder than a whisper. “We can push the pews up against the door to bar it.”

Sylvain is exhausted and his chest is heaving from being on the run for the past day and a half, but he nods and gets to work anyways, heaving the heavy wooden benches over to where Felix is bracing his shoulder against the door in case any undead try to get in.

It takes a good while before either man feel safe enough to leave the door unattended. In a world overrun by zombies, there aren’t any second chances or lessons learned – one slip up is all it takes for death, or worse yet, turning into the undead.

When Sylvain’s heart and mind finally slow down enough to observe their surroundings, he wants to laugh at the absurd irony of it all. “A church? Seriously, Fe? I’m kinda surprised we didn’t burst into flames as soon as we crossed the threshold.”

“It was the best option. All the other buildings had too many entrances. This one only has the one door and all the windows are boarded up already.”

Felix is already unpacking their travel bag and setting up camp in a far corner away, tucked away from any line of vision from potential cracks in the boards or windows.

“It’s just, I thought you would automatically avoid churches; especially with how our parents tried to raise us.”

It’s a bit of a sore topic between the two of them, both having grown up as close family friend and their parents being extremely religious. Felix more so after his older brother died in the line of duty and Rodrigue fell to religion to cope.

When Felix and Sylvain came out as gay to their families, it was nothing short of awful. The Gautiers had immediately disowned Sylvain, and although he was expecting it – given their track record with Miklan who was also disowned for the same thing – it still hurt and left a large, gaping hole in his heart. Rodrigue on the other hand had only Felix left. Despite their differences, he was reluctant to lose the last family member he had, instead opting to pile brochures after brochures of conversion therapy camps on Felix’s desk until the metaphorical house of cards finally gave way to years of anger and resentment.

If either of them had known that would be the last time they would see their families before the world went to hell in a handbasket, Sylvain likes to think that maybe they would have tried a little harder to keep them in their lives.

“What’s wrong?”

Felix is looking at him with those piercing golden eyes that Sylvain adores so much. Right now, it’s the gaze that Felix uses whenever his curiosity is piqued but he knows not to push any boundaries. It’s because Felix knows when to push and pull, and how to follow the ebb and flow of his mind that Sylvain loves him with every fibre of his being.

“Just thinking,” he hums. He drags a dirt streaked hand through his hair and ignores the grimy feel of the sunset locks. “About how you’re the only family I have. The only family I want.” He clarifies when he sees the strange look on Felix’s face where he is stirring the can of soup over a pitiful fire.

They are silent for a while, letting only the wind whistling through the empty rafters overhead fill the gaps between them. If they were anyone else, the loud echoey hall would have allowed loneliness to slip its way into their space, but they’re not; they’re Felix and Sylvain, the two boys turned men who have always been at each other’s sides from diapers to survivors.

“You’re my family too.”

It’s only a whisper, but Sylvain hears the declaration clear as day and it sends his heart soaring to heights that are only possible whenever Felix is involved. So high, that a random thought manages to worm its way into his head and burrow itself deeper and deeper until Sylvain cannot help but blurt out:

“Have you ever thought about getting married? Us, I mean?”

Felix startles for a moment, staring at him with wide eyes and Sylvain can see the beginnings of a blush sneak its way up his turtleneck collar.

“What?”

“Have you ever thought about us getting married?”

“Where is this coming from? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a zombie apocalypse here.”

Felix isn’t wrong, but his flaw was that he could never really see beyond the immediate task. Which is exactly why they worked so well together – Sylvain, admittedly, was all about smelling the flowers and walking wherever his path took him, while Felix had the discipline and determination to focus in one goal and hound it with unwavering precision.

Instead of answer, Sylvain walks up to the altar at the front of the room and lays a hand against the podium, his fingers dragging through the thick layer of dust and debris, leaving behind a trail of shiny wood that peaked at him from below.

“I’ve always dreamed of marrying you, you know.”

The admission slips from his lips like a dew drop off a petal, slowly at first, but then falling to gravity and splattering on the floor between them leaving moisture pooling at the corners of Felix’s eyes.

“You… wanted to marry me?”

It’s unfathomable. It’s outlandish and impossible and all things incomprehensible but God, if Felix doesn’t want it with a burning passion that threatens to disintegrate him from the inside out.

“Want to marry you. Still do.” Sylvain flashes him that crooked grin that he loves oh so much. So much so that his heart rends every time he sees it and fills him with so much love that he finds himself uncharacteristically stepping off the metaphorical ledge and praying that he can fly with his next words.

“Sylvain. Marry me. Right here, right now.”

This time it’s the red head’s turn to gawk and splutter, and damn if it doesn’t fill Felix with a giddy smugness.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“You heard me. Marry me. We’re in a church aren’t we? Isn’t that all churches are good for?”

Sylvain wants to scold him and tell him that churches are also for praying, but bites his tongue on the bitterness that begins to coat it; Sylvain used to pray, but what’s the point when no one really listens?

(Byleth wants to go to them. She really, truly, does. But even a Goddess is not all powerful.)

Instead, Sylvain wordlessly extends his hand towards Felix and pointedly keeps his gaze to the crumbling statue of Mother Mary and the large cross that hangs ominously over their heads. When he finally feels familiar calloused hands in his, he pulls and Felix allows himself to fall into warm arms that have made him feel loved for so many years.

“Felix Hugo Fraldarius. Words cannot describe how much I love you. You’ve always been there by my side, through thick and thin, and honestly, I don’t really deserve you. But I vow to keep striving to become a person who is worthy of your love. I vow to live my life to the fullest everyday to become a better person for you because you make me want to be a better person.”

Each promise is punctuated with a chaste peck on the lips, each filled with more love than the last until Sylvain is murmuring his words against the plushness of Felix’s mouth.

“I vow to love you until the day I die and to protect you with everything that I am. You are my family, Fe. You are my home. And I will always come back to you – no matter where, when, or what world; I swear, I will always find my way back to you.”

Felix buries one hand in the collar of Sylvain’s fur lined jacket while the other tangles in his hair, trying to desperately pull him closer even though they are already pressed up against each other, chest to chest and hip to hip.

“Sylvain Jose Gautier. You’re an absolute idiot if you don’t know how much I love you.”

(“Fe, why are you insulting me during our vows?” “shut up.”)

“We’ve known each other forever and sometimes I take for granted just how much of my life you occupy until you’re suddenly not there, and all I’m left with is loneliness and a giant Sylvain shaped hole where my heart should be. I vow to never take you for granted ever again, because despite what you think, you are worthy of love, Sylvain. And you deserve to be happy.”

Something wet plops onto Felix’s cheek but he pays it no mind and continues with his vows, keeping his temple pressed against Sylvain’s jawline and his eyes closed.

“I vow to live by your side for the rest of my days so that I can remind you of that when the voices in your head become too loud. But above all, I vow to love you in such a way that lets you be the Sylvain that you really are, wholly and unapologetically so that you never have to hide behind a fake smile ever again. You are my home, Sylvain. I’ll always come home to you.”

When Felix raises his gaze to look at Sylvain, he cannot help but smile fondly at the teary, lovestruck expression on his face.

“You don’t have to cry about it, dummy.” He says, even as he raises himself on his tip toes to kiss away the droplets clinging to wispy lashes.

They stay like that for what feels like an eternity, clinging to each other in this space that they have made their vows and tied their lives together in the way that they should have long ago. They continue holding each other even as the night falls and the chill settles in, and into the morning when the tell-tale sound of unearthly groaning arrives at their doorstep.

“You have my back?” Felix asks completely nonchalantly as he unsheathes his katana and falls into a battle stance that he has long since mastered from after school lessons and then polished in real life survival.

Sylvain grins at his husband from his position perched on the highest ground available, his rifle and scope already set up and a variety of other guns, locked and loaded, littered around him.

“Always.”

----

Byleth dreads the day that Felix and Sylvain’s souls reach the end of their life spans and fizzle into nothingness, dissolving back to the void from which all souls are created and returned. But until that day comes, she continues to watch over them as they are born, and as they grow and fall in love over and over again.

Sometimes she will be allowed to step in and take a more active role in their stories, but in the times that she cannot, she knows without a doubt that they’ll be okay.

Because, after all, even if they weren’t soulmates, Byleth knows without a shadow of a doubt that Felix will always choose Sylvain, and Sylvain will always find his way back home.

XxXxXxXxX

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[theadrogna]

This comes under the heading of better late than never, and many apologies to @singledarkshade​ for the lateness of this response to the Dream Movie Challenge. So, we were given six actors from our favourite TV shows/movies, a wildcard actor, and a random item. We had use these actors and the object to create our own movie.

I give you a supernatural romantic comedy, starring Matt Ryan, Elizabeth Henstridge, April Bowlby, Taika Waititi, Ellen Page, and Woody Harrelson. With a special appearance by Merryl Streep.

Synopsis:

Max Webster is working as an investment banker in London, making huge amounts of money that support a lifestyle of clubs, bars and one night stands, until his boss and mentor commits fraud on a huge scale. Max is implicated, despite knowing nothing. He loses his job and not a single other bank in the city will touch him, meaning his career is effectively over and he’s rapidly going broke. Just when he thinks things can’t get worse, he is told that his sole relative, his estranged paternal grandmother has died and left him property in Brighton.

With nothing better to do and hopes that the property is worth something, Max heads to Brighton to tie up his grandmother’s affairs, dreading his time outside the capital and increasingly depressed about life. Upon arrival he meets Poppy Fletcher, his grandmother’s lawyer who was the one who contacted him about his grandmother’s death. 

Max discovers that his grandmother was the proud owner of the “Worst Wax Museum in Britain”: The House of Wax. Only a handful of the wax statues look like who they’re supposed to be and the rest are like someone sculpted celebrities that they’d never seen. The museum is barely making enough to keep it afloat. He begins to make plans to sell the museum and at least make enough to pay off his Grandmother’s debts. Enter Cooper Farnsworth, rich American businessman, on the run from the Mafia after a dodgy deal went wrong. He desperately needs to make money fast.

But Max finds out that his inheritance is rather unusual in a number of ways...

For starters, there aren’t many wax museums where Meryl Streep hands out advice and enjoys watching the footy on the night watchman’s TV when the punters have gone home for the night. But it isn’t just Meryl, all of the waxworks come to life thanks to an old book of magic that is powered by the signatures of the guests and the messages they leave. The less visitors there are, the less magic there is to keep the waxworks alive and things have been getting desperate lately until only a handful of the waxworks have the necessary magic to come to life.

The waxworks tell Max about how his grandmother desperately tried to bring in more people, but her failing health meant that everything fell apart. Max discovers how his grandmother loved the museum and also loved him, despite her outwardly cool demeanour. He had thought that she didn’t care that he left Brighton, but Amelia unearths the letters that his grandmother wanted to send but didn’t have an address to send them to.

Max realises that he can’t sell the wax museum after all, and he enlists Poppy’s help in finding a way to keep it going. In the process she also discovers the secret of the museum, and Max and Poppy discover that they’re falling for each other. Meanwhile Cooper is plotting to get Max out because the listed building is worth more than Max is aware, especially with some of the period features.

The finale has Cooper breaking into the museum to destroy the waxworks, but Steve, the night watchman sounds the alarm. Cooper accidentally starts a fire and there is a desperate fight to save everyone from melting. Max and Poppy rally everyone to deal with the fire, and Cooper is arrested for arson.

The publicity from the fire actually brings in more customers, Max updates the museum with new exhibits, deciding to focus more on local history and tell the stories of the people who live in Brighton. He’s cleared of any wrong doing at the bank and Poppy helps him sue for wrongful dismissal. He uses the payout to finance repairs to the museum and more and more waxworks come alive every night as the visitors pour in.

And Max never thinks about leaving again, because now he has a family, albeit one that includes Meryl Streep, Amelia Earhart and Margaret Thatcher but he doesn’t mind.

Max Webster (Matt Ryan): Max lost his parents when he was young and was raised by his paternal grandmother. The two did not get on and he left home as soon as he could for university and then the big city. He always had a love of risk taking and wanted to be rich, so he studied finance and got a job in banking. He spends his time closing deals in a highly stressful job during the day and then out on the town in the evening. He has very few friends, all of whom are from work, and he very rarely sleeps with the same woman twice. He has a very shallow outlook on life and everything is about money.

His life is changed by inheriting the House of Wax and discovering that his memories of his grandmother are flawed and desperately inaccurate. He deals with the unusual House of Wax that his grandmother created and his grief at her passing. He comes to realise that not everything in life is about the next deal or how much money can be made.

Poppy Fletcher (Elizabeth Henstridge): Poppy is a lawyer and is responsible for executing Max’s grandmother’s will. She’s the one who hand Max the keys to the House of Wax and sees the look of disappointment on his face. She is very efficient and competent, loves the town she lives in and knows everyone on her street. She mourns the loss of Max’s grandmother, and has no idea that she was anything but the eccentric, elderly owner of the House of Wax. She doesn’t like Max at first because of his attitude to his grandmother and his version of her doesn’t seem to be the same as the woman she knew.

She ends up spending a lot of time with Max as the property sale becomes more difficult and after a while, she realises that he’s not at all the image that he projects. She starts helping him to get back on his feet and renovate the museum. Then she discovers about the magic book and she realises that she can’t let Max deal with the situation on his own.

Florence Nightingale (April Bowlby): Florence doesn’t look like the picture that hangs next to her in the slightest. Even her period dress is somewhat suspect. She prefers to wear much more recent clothes and is doing online first aid courses at night. She’s slightly haughty and thinks she knows best.

She can see that Max is depressed and grieving when he arrives. She’s one of the driving forces behind getting Max to take better care of himself and to talk about how he feels. Once the museum is safe, she works at becoming qualified as a therapist and sees patients online, writing an agony aunt column for the local paper.

Amelia Earhart (Ellen Page): She likes to pretend that she’s actually the pilot that she was sculpted to be. She’s very much her own person though, feisty and fun loving. She has no idea how to fly a plane, but has a flight simulator that Max’s grandmother gave her and is a computer game ace. She has the high score and no one can beat her.

She is the first waxwork that Max discovers is alive and persuades him that he isn’t hallucinating. She takes him to see the others when she realises that he’s the grandson of the previous owner.

She ends the film playing games in esports tournaments and winning, much to the amusement and delight of her fellow waxworks.

Steve (Taika Waititi): The night watchman of the House of Wax. He’s always known as Steve and no one knows his full name. He never really seems to go home, he’s just there. Max is very confused by him at first, but eventually realises that he’s another waxwork. He was one of the first created and no one is ever sure who he was supposed to be, at the end of the film it’s discovered that he’s supposed to be Genghis Khan, but like most of the other waxworks he bears no resemblance to his original. He is quite protective of the museum though.

Cooper Farnsworth (Woody Harrelson): An American property developer who is interested in buying the House of Wax and turning it into flats. He moved to the UK, to get away from some people who didn’t like him much (actually he double crossed the Mafia). He gets increasingly desperate to buy the House of Wax when some of his former business partners catch up with him, threatening Max and Poppy if they don’t sell up, but he never finds out the real secret of the museum. He thinks he’s hallucinating when he sees the waxworks move and fight back during the finale. He’s dragged away shouting about moving statues and charged with arson.

Meryl Streep (herself): She is modelled after the three time Oscar winning actress and is the only waxwork who looks like she is supposed to. She’s something of a leader of the group, checking in with everyone to make sure that they’re doing okay. She’s concerned about the fading magic and trying to keep everyone’s spirits up. She offers very good advice to Max about how to run the museum, most of which Max ignores to begin with because he thinks he knows better. Later we see her taking on the museum accounts and running the financial side of the museum with Max listening carefully to her. He may have been a banker but those skills are very little use when it comes to book keeping.

Additional actors:

Arthur Darvill as David Bowie - Can actually sing, sounds nothing like David Bowie. Wants to be Major Tom and follows NASA on Twitter. Tom Ellis as Paul McCartney - Can also sing and taught himself to play the piano. Duets with Bowie to entertain the rest of the group. John Boyega as Frank Bruno - Hates punching people, is a total softy. Ryan Reynolds as Salvador Dali - He once tried painting and decided never to do so again. He prefers reading and writes poetry. Eccentric. Celia Imrie as Queen Victoria - Knows everything that there is about Queen Victoria. She misses Albert who hasn’t woken up for a while now due to lack of magic.