#self-assigned friend and self-assigned bodyguard respectively

[jerdyuri]

I've shipped meowztrosist and emriza (emma langevin x meowriza) and jerdriza is an excellent addition. I've never even seen them interact with her but i can SEE the potential. I think jawsh and riza would throw each other around like stress toys

omg YES. i've actually read your meowztrosist fic it was so good!! i'm such a big aztro fan lmao

back to the point though! back during the drama on sdmp a bit ago meowriza assigned herself jawsh's guard and troll defense, so she was patrolling the grounds around the cathedral and everything,, and at one point the three of them were just chilling inside the half-built cathedral and singing together and i haven't been normal about it since then

i might try to find where that happened again but i was watching meowriza's stream and i don't think the vod saved at all :( so i'd have to figure out if jawsh or berd were streaming at the time and then find it in there which is. a lot (i will be trying anyway)

[skzdarlings]

bodyguard: the first guard | part six | chan/reader

masterlist.

(part one of the previous story.)

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | tba

( read on AO3 )

A sequel to the Bodyguard. Miroh’s daughter is assigned a bodyguard of her own. The past is confronted when old friendships and new enemies are pushed to the brink.

pairing: bang chan/reader content info: the usual general content guide warnings for this stories including violence and abuse. explicit sexual content in this chapter: dom!chan, sub!reader, kinky play-fighting in a sexual scenario, hitting, smacking, chasing, pinned down, choking, taunting dirty talk, very rough play overall. content warnings: this chapter is very, very INTENSE on the violence front. graphic depictions of drowning, both voluntary and forced. explicit description of torture both physical and psychological, violence, fighting, drowning, choking, explosions.

chapter word count: 20,500 words.

enjoy <3

-

B E F O R E

Everything goes wrong. 

Felix should have known better than to rely on the enemy.  He is dependable in no regard except self preservation and even that only extends insofar as the most cowardly course of action. 

It was supposed to be a fight.  Felix did everything the way he was supposed to, everything according to plan, the way a proper soldier does.   Felix always follows through.  Felix always completes his mission. 

He played both sides.  He worked Miroh into a frenzy, suspicious of betrayals transpiring right under his nose in his own house.  He made the enemy think he stood a chance attacking Miroh, that he could knock him right off the playing board and claim all his assets in one fell swoop. 

Felix forgot the enemy was such a coward.  He was supposed to storm in here with an army, the way that Miroh does.  They were supposed to find Miroh’s regiment in chaos, everyone turned against each other thanks to his subterfuge and instigation. 

Miroh and his daughter are at each other’s throats.  The other soldiers take sides.  What should be a unified front in a run-of-the-mill acquisition mission turns into a self-sabotage as Miroh’s own team starts fighting each other. 

Miroh fights his daughter.  Felix knows, despite everything, there is a part of her that still loves, fears, or respects her father.  She doesn’t fight like she should.

Chris, however, does.  When Miroh knocks his daughter down, Chris attacks him.  Felix doesn’t worry because he knows Chris can win the fight and, besides, they are going to be rescued soon.  At that moment, everything is going according to plan.  Whether Miroh lives or dies is irrelevant.  Whether Felix lives or dies is irrelevant.  This is about Chris.  And Miroh doesn’t stand a chance against Chris, not with the full force of his fury unleashed like this.

 Miroh’s daughter just watches, stunned by how fast everything happened. 

She looks around like she expects to find answers in this dilapidated warehouse.   Her eyes land on Felix who has been standing to the side since the fight began.  Her eyes narrow as she looks at him, really looks at him, seeing what no one else sees. 

He swallows and braces his body for a fight.  She is a mirror of him as she stands, taking the exact same fighting stance.

“You told him I botched the operation,” she says.  “Why, Felix?”

“Because you did,” he answers simply. 

“I thought you were friends with Chan,” she says.  “Why would you compromise us like this?”

“Because I’m friends with Chan,” he answers with that same even steadiness, a calm that he absolutely does not feel inside.  But he is good with faces, blinking with innocence.  He tries to compel her to look away, to forget about him, that he is too young or too stupid or too innocent to really comprehend what’s happening.

She doesn’t fall for it.  She sees right through the mask and glares at him. 

He anticipates her swing, catching her punch when she hurls it at him.  They scrape back and forth but they are perfectly, frustratingly, evenly matched. 

“Why are you doing this?” she asks.  “Felix, it didn’t have to be this way.  I could’ve helped you.  I’m on your side.” 

“I can’t afford sides,” he says, shaking his head rapidly.  “I need to get out of here.  Chris needs to get out of here.  If you care about him—”

“You don’t know the first thing about that,” she snaps. 

She comes at him with even more fury.  Felix fights but his attention splits, glancing back at Miroh and Chris.  Miroh is calling for back-up on one of his devices, but he never stops fighting.  Miroh is a soldier, first and foremost.  Whatever else Felix thinks of him, that much is true and always has been.  Miroh is not scared of fight.  Miroh will jump right into the fray. Miroh will get his hands dirty. 

The enemy is not like that. 

It was supposed to be a fight.  He was supposed to storm in here with a contingency and fight the only broken house of Miroh.  In the chaos of that confrontation, Felix was going to escape with Chris.

But the enemy never shows his face.  He plants a bomb.  He detonates it at a distance. 

The warehouse is blown to pieces.  Half those fighting soldiers die on the spot and Felix is blasted backwards.  It renders him unconsciousness, though he doesn’t know how long he’s out.  Not long, he thinks, when he wakes to sunlight pouring in through a gap, ripped in the warehouse wall.  It was almost dawn when the fight began.  A new day is starting. 

He pushes himself upright.  He is covered in dust and gravel.  He coughs and sputters, getting on his hands and knees and crawling through debris and rubble.  He moves towards the light.  When he does, he sees Miroh’s daughter.  She is not far away, but she is trapped underneath something.  Pieces of the wall blew forward and there is a concrete block laying across her body.  She is alive somehow, tucked into a divot in the floorboards, but she is trapped. 

Felix, panicked, frantic, guilty, looks around for Chan as he stumbles towards her. 

He never reaches her.  Someone grabs him by the shoulder and yanks him backwards.  He sprawls onto his back.  A shadow blocks the sunlight.  It’s one of the enemy’s bodyguards. 

“The boss says you did a good job,” the man says.  More of the enemy’s men are infiltrating the place.  They don’t fight or pay any attention to the bodies.  They go right for the promised merchandise. 

Felix still can’t see Chris.  Miroh’s daughter is still trapped.  Everyone else is dead. 

“I – I—” Felix starts, but dust is cloying in his throat and he just ends up coughing.  He is dizzy, his ears ringing horribly.  The world shifts in a kaleidoscope of vomit-inducing colours as someone drags him to his feet. 

“Come on,” the man says.  “The boss wants to see you.  He says he has a job.” 

It is the last thing Felix hears before the sunlight is on his face, overwhelming him, and he passes out in the heat. 

-

P R E S E N T   D A Y

“Don’t kill him.” 

Those are your first words to Chan.  You know him by the way  his body braces itself after the shock has worn off.   Chan may not be the inhuman soldier you mistakenly believed, but he might be something even more dangerous.  Where his raw emotions meet his long-engrained instincts and deadly capabilities, fatality will ensue.  

You cannot afford that reaction.  You are here to save Changbin.  Changbin was taken because he defected, because he moved against Miroh, because he decided that you were more important than maintaining structure and keeping orders.  Changbin turning, you changing, Miroh falling: it all started the night the enemy died.  It all started because of something that began even longer ago. 

This all started with Felix. 

“I thought he was already dead,” Chan says.  His voice sounds steady but you see the tension in his form.  He is wracked with adrenaline.

“Me too,” you say. 

“Oh, you’re talking?” Felix says, looking at you. 

You suppose he saw the reports of your death. He must have been just as surprised to see you behind the mask.  Lack of expectation made him blind to recognition.

This is likely why he has not recognized Chan yet.  The fact Chan is still wearing the mask does not help, his face mostly covered, disguise foolproof to an unsuspecting witness - even despite the heated slash of his unmistakable eyes boring into Felix. 

But It has been many years.   And Felix thinks Chan is dead. 

With that thought, you say, “I guess we’re both ghosts.” 

Felix looks at Chan only briefly, seeing nothing but a soldier in a familiar uniform.  He gives your regulation combat gear a similar once-over.    His brow furrows as he scrutinizes you. 

You almost forgot this kid had such a sweet face.  Freckled and wide-eyed, you can see why so many people underestimated him time and time again.

Lee Felix is everything Miroh wanted to achieve with his program.  Maybe it is not surprising that the collapse of two major antagonists circle back to him. 

“What are you doing here?” you ask. 

He meets your gaze. 

“The same as you, I think.”  He hesitates, then continues, “I’ve been following reports.  When I saw what was happening, I looked for the closest base and just…  I decided to help things along.” 

Despite how innocently he explains himself, you do not question his capabilities.  You will not make the same mistake as so many others and underestimate him.   You know what Felix is capable of doing.  His only flaw is too much time away from Miroh’s operation, thus a lack of understanding for its inner workings.  He cannot do what you and Chan can do, but it is the closest anyone could come.   

That is not your question. 

“Why would you care?” you ask.  Somehow, Felix escaped from everything.  He might as well be a real ghost for all that his reappearance in this fight is incomprehensible. 

“Because.”  His defensiveness softens just a little as his mind goes somewhere else, far away from the violent chrome prison of Miroh.   “Because,” he says, gentler, “I want to find a place to… to rest.  To be home.  And I can’t do that, knowing what’s still out there.  I need to help fix it.”  He looks you over again, but it is different than his earlier judgemental regard.  Still scrutinizing, but thoughtful, as he tilts his head and really considers you.  “What I helped make,” he says.  “I don’t think I can go really home until I do something about it.” 

In the space of a breath, Chan draws a handgun.  He is so fast that you don’t even see where it was holstered. 

“Why do you think you should have any of that?” Chan says, punctuating with a threatening downward push of the gun.  “Give me one reason not to shoot you.  Seriously.  Just one.”  By his venomous tone, it is obvious no reason will be good enough.

You put a hand on his shoulder.   He tries to shrug it off but you hold firm. 

“Hold your fire,” you say, maintaining your cool outwardly despite the panic inside.

During the exchange between you and Chan, Felix gets one hand free.  He bites the tip of his glove and yanks it off with his teeth. 

Chan is quick to react, seizing him by the wrist like he expects Felix to attack him with one hand.  Chan is fixated with such a single-minded determination that he does not see what you see, what Felix was actually trying to show you.

A ring around his marriage finger, simple and unadorned.  

After a suspended beat of silence, Chan looks down.  He sees the ring too.  Most of his face is covered but you see the flicker of pain in his eyes, something like a slash across his brow.  He reels back as if a bomb detonated.  Instinct puts the gun back into his palm, the barrel at his adversary, but it shakes just short of imperceptibly.  You are not sure if the uncharacteristic tremor is inner conflict or pure rage.    

“This is my one reason,” Felix says calmly.  “This is my reason for everything.”

Even though you still don’t have all the answers, seeing that ring turns the world right-side up.  Of course Felix turned on the enemy, not out of ambition or cruelty, but love.  The thread of it runs through every action committed in the last few months, something you could not see despite its prevalence beneath the surface of your life.  None of this is happening because of the rivalry of two greedy monsters and the chaos they sowed.  It’s happening because of everything that somehow thrived in spite of it. 

So much makes sense now, looking at him, at that ring.  You think of the security footage being scrubbed after everyone died.  Felix was always good with computers and he probably worked well with the enemy’s high tech systems – certainly well enough to wipe them entirely.   It gave him time to run off with the other half of that wedding band.  You suspect the enemy’s daughter wears the other ring. 

Chan is staring at that ring like he wants to burn it, like he wants to cut the whole hand right off. 

Tentative, testing, you ask, “Did you kill them?”  

Felix ignores Chan.  He looks at you, his brow furrowing with confusion. 

“Who? Miroh’s agents?” he asks.  “Most of them are already running off and—”

“Not them, not here, not tonight,” you say.  “The enemy.  His men.  His daughter.  Did you kill them to get away to do – whatever it is you’re doing?”

He swallows.  Your suspicions are confirmed when you see the flicker of anxiety in his eyes.  It is obvious to you that he is lying when he says, “Yes, I killed them.  The enemy.  His family.  His men.  They’re all dead.”

“Not all of them,” Chan says.   His frustration returns and he digs the gun at Felix.    “I’m looking at one.”   

“Stop it,” you say sharply.  “I need him to answer me.”   

Felix is understandably stressed with an unknown hostile threatening him.  He overlaps with you, snapping, “Seriously, mate, I’m co-operating, what more do you want?” 

“I want to kill him,” Chan says with an exhale.  Though he is looking at Felix, you feel like he is seeing so much more than the moment as it unfolds.  The amount of emotion in his voice is uncharacteristic for him on a job.  He is  compromised by years of pent-up feelings, bursting inside him.  “I want to blow his fucking brains across this warehouse,” Chan says, putting the barrel right in Felix’s face.

He is so fast and deliberate.  You are worried he will act before you can even think to prevent it. Panicked instinct makes you blurt, “Chan! Stop it!”   

At the same time, Felix grabs the gun and uses the element of surprise to overpower Chan, just enough to safely yank the gun to the side.

Either the shouting or the grabbing triggers Chan’s finger because the gun goes off.  It fires directly at the ground and kicks back so violently that it skitters across the floor like an animal.  

The piercing howl of the gun leaves a ringing silence in the aftermath. 

The reverberation of Chan’s name seems deliver the fatal blow, landing with far more violence. 

Felix is breathing hard, adrenaline coursing from the attempted shot.  He stares at nothing particular, just catching his breath – chasing and catching, then stalling, stopping.  He holds it.    

He slowly turns his gaze onto Chan.  He looks at him like he is seeing him for the first time, eyes meeting the dark line of anger that stare above the mask. 

Felix’s entire face smooths out, softens, with recognition. 

“Chris,” he says, not much louder than a breath, somehow as piercing as the gunshot. 

Chan responds by choking him, a big gloved hand snapping out and seizing his neck, so fast and powerful it is a wonder he does not snap it on impact. 

“Don’t say my name,” Chan says, “you backstabbing—”

You drop onto your knees, grabbing Chan by the arm.   He doesn’t relent even a little.  You know you can’t budge him with anything but words, so you say, “Chan.  Stop.  I’m serious.  Please.” 

With an exhale, Chan loosens his grip, just enough for Felix to cough.  

Felix’s eyes are watery, his voice strained when he says, “Changbin told me you were dead.  I thought the enemy—”

“The enemy?” Chan asks.  “You mean your employer?  Your ally?  What enemy?  Aren’t we your enemy, Felix?” 

“No,” you answer firmly, interrupting a dazed Felix.  “Miroh was his enemy,” you say.  “Just like Miroh was our enemy.  Now let him go.” 

Chan clearly does not want to obey.  Release comes in increments, just a slack of the hand before he finally huffs and withdraws.  He swings back and stands.  He does not look down again, staring forward like a soldier in formation.

Felix rolls onto his side in a wheezing fit.  Chan must have hit him at a sensitive juncture – likely on purpose – because it takes him several gasping attempts to breathe again. 

When his shoulders stop heaving, you grab him, not violently like Chan but nonetheless aggressive.  It is enough to get his attention, his watery eyes turning up to you.   

He looks so young.  You and Chan are only a few years older.  Do you look that young?  You certainly don’t feel it, burdened with lifetimes, known and unknown. 

Then again, his eyes seem to show a similar burden within.  The band on his finger tells a story beyond what you know of the runaway soldier. 

“You have questions,” you say.  “So do I.  Maybe together we can both finally get some answers.” 

Felix looks over his shoulder.  Chan does not look down to meet his eye.  After a moment of staring without reciprocation, Felix nods curtly and looks at you. 

Felix holds out his hand to shake.  He winces in pain as he digs out his voice. 

“Agreed.” 

-

You need to get away from the facility.  It has been undermined but not shutdown.  You would not have targeted such a big base and you’re the true key to bringing down most of these operations.   Your classification was high so you can navigate with ease despite the removal of your logins and security clearance.  Chan’s classification was just as high if not higher, though very different.  Together, there are results.

Your attacks are carefully and meticulously planned breakdowns, accounting for every bone in the finger of the hand throwing a punch.  Felix’s attack was more like throwing an emotional swing at an adversary when their head is turned.  It is something that seems like a good idea until the head swings back around. 

You retreat.  

The tension between Felix and Chan is palpable.  You ran many jobs against the enemy and, even a distance, you knew Felix to retain a professional demeanour.  Around Chan, he becomes a little kid again.  You almost see your own reflection in Felix as you also become someone else around Chan. 

That includes a streak of newfound empathy.  You would usually disregard feelings, especially on a job, but that is not so easy anymore. 

You stop Chan outside the car, gripping his bicep while Felix climbs in the backseat. 

“You need to relax,” you say.

Chan has not removed the mask yet.  You can only imagine the intensity of his expression without it. Even with half his face hidden, his expression is burning.  That heat touches you, a twining flicker of a flame.  It is brief but it scorches somewhere deep as he looks at you with all that fire. 

The heat is doused with his ice cold voice. “Felix is the reason this happened,” he says.   

You come back to yourself, blinking to clarity.  You furrow your brow.

“What do you mean?” you ask. 

“This.  All of this,” he hisses.  You can hear his heavy breathing muffled in the mask.  “He sold you out to Miroh. He’s the reason—” 

His voice cracks.  A memory of him flickers through your mind, cast over him like a projection, those desperate eyes and that muted cry.  You glance back at Felix who is waiting patiently in the car.  His face is downturned, dark hair falling over his eyes.  He twists the ring around and around his finger.  When he looks up, that projection flickers over him too, an image of him in his teenage years, with round cheeks and shaggy hair, staring with the intensity of someone who has already seen too much.  He does not look apologetic and he does not look happy; he is just there. 

You blink back to the present, looking down at the dirt beneath your feet, feeling the nighttime breeze on your face. 

Truthfully, this revelation does not come as a shock.  Your deduction was made in the rolling tension, looking between them, recalling the timeline of events.  Even if Felix was not outright responsible, you suspected he was implicated on some level.  It is the only way to explain Chan’s strong feelings for his betrayal.    

Maybe it should fill you with a similarly righteous fury, but it does not. Maybe it’s because you don’t know what you lost. Maybe it’s because you can only picture an indifference in Felix.   Maybe it’s because of that ring on his finger, of everything that has happened recently.  You are not suffering the same visceral hatred as Chan, lost in his past. 

Now, Felix is alive, having escaped the clutches of the enemy, a man like Miroh, doing it for someone he cares about.  Now, he has willingly returned to right his wrongs, whatever he perceives them to be. 

Now, you cannot find it in your heart to hate him.  So much of that is because of the complicated man in front of you.  Chan has worked his way past your barriers in a few short days that feel like lifetimes.  It has given you a heart to follow.   

You wish things were easier, but wishing will not manifest another reality.  You can only touch him like a person, one to one, heart to heart, hold his angry gaze until it softens just a bit, and say, “I know.”

He exhales.  A lot of that anger tangles up with his grief.

“We were kids,” you continue before he can interject.  “We all made difficult decisions in impossible circumstances that not even a reasonable adult could navigate.   He wouldn’t have traded one enemy for another if it was truly self-serving.”    

This still does not register with any significance to Chan.  His eyes are slitted and angry. 

 “I don’t blame him for what happened,” you say in a firmer voice.  “And I don’t blame you.”

That hits him and it hits him hard.  His body braces and his eyes widen, jolting like he was electrocuted.    

“If you can’t trust him,” you say, tone gentler, “then trust me.”

Chan does not answer, only exhales again, dramatically with a droop of his shoulders.  He opens the passenger door and gets in.  Felix stares at him but Chan stares ahead.  The mask stays on. 

You take a breath to steady yourself then take the driver’s seat.  You set your destination further out of town, tucked away in some farmland you passed on your travels. 

When you leave the district, Felix gets alert.  His eyes are big in your rearview mirror as the highway lights flash golden over him.  You recall last seeing him at a distance, his hair a golden blonde, returned now to a natural darkness.  You think about how much you have changed in days and wonder how much he changed in years.  It makes you sympathetic to those wide eyes and the anxious twisting of his ring. 

“I don’t want to leave too far from town,” he says, meeting your gaze in the rearview mirror. 

“You’ll go wherever we take you,” Chan says. 

“I have to get home,” Felix replies. 

“It’s dangerous to be running missions on your own,” you say before a fight begins.  “Don’t you think?”

“I knew I could handle myself,” Felix says.  “And they were just… they were right there.  I couldn’t do nothing.  Not when—”  He looks at Chan and his voice drops even lower, like it hurts to speak.  “You blame me,” Felix says.  He sounds resigned already, like he expected this all along, that even as a ghost Chan would despise him.  “I’m the reason they captured you,” Felix says.  “Because I failed.  All these years, I tried – I waited – I –“

“Don’t talk to me,” Chan says.  “If it was up to me, you’d be dead.” 

Felix just nods. 

“So you’ve gone civilian for real?” you ask, steering the conversation.  “You think that’s where you belong?”

It’s not an empty question.  You do not have time to consider what will happen after you rescue Changbin and take down the operation, but a civilian life has not crossed your mind.  Fighting back-to-back with Chan makes you feel like your life’s purpose is realized, especially now that it is in the employ of your own heart and not Miroh’s greed.  You cannot fathom the life course that Felix, of all people, has chosen. 

“I know exactly where I belong,” he says.  “I belong with her.” 

Chan turns his head, just a bit, clearly listening.  It makes Felix speak even more earnestly, incapable of lying under that attention. 

“When I – when I was kid,” Felix says.  “I – I guess I sorta idolized anyone I could.  I was – broken.  I needed something whole to hold.” 

Chan turns away and Felix looks down, down at his ring like it is telling a story to him. 

“It wasn’t like that with her,” Felix says.  “She, uh, she actually hated me.”  He laughs, the sound of genuine humour piercing through the tension in the car like a lightning bolt.   “She was, uh, she was – she was broken too, I guess.  We were different, but… we were the same.   I never made her an idol like that.  She was – she was just a girl.”  He looks out the dark window.  His voice is a little lower.  “It became love anyway,” he says.  “I – I never wanted that before.”  He looks towards Chan again, a more frantic edge returned to his voice as he says, “If I knew then, what I know now, about everything, about – about how to be a person, I – I would have done things differently.” 

There is a long moment of silence.  The car hums and the highway lights roll over and over. 

Chan finally says, “It’s too late for that now.”  

It is undoubtedly not the reply that Felix wants to hear, but it is a reply, and that is enough to make Felix release a held breath. 

When you reach your destination, tucked away from the chaotic world, Chan promptly leaves.  Felix steps out of the car but doesn’t follow, taking the hint as Chan stalks towards a distant treeline and melts into the darkness with a practiced ease. 

Felix turns as you approach.

“What happened after I left?”  he asks.  He looks over his shoulder but Chan is either gone or impossible to see.  “From the outside I couldn’t – I didn’t know – all I could do was – wait and—”

You let him stutter for a minute, to see what words will he find.  You are surprised when he looks between you and the trees and makes a gesture.

“Are you and him…?” he asks. 

Internally, you are surprised and it makes your heart skip.  Externally, you maintain a stoic demeanour. 

Blinking, you ask, “Why?”

That seems to answer the question without answering.  Felix nods, a repeated bobbing of the head.  He swallows before speaking again. 

“I – I want to know that he’s okay,” he says. 

That might fracture your stoic regard.

“Was it for him?” you ask.

“I thought I could save him,” he says, and laughs without humour.  “I was stupid about it.” 

“It’s not stupid to want to save a friend,” you say, that stoicism undoubtedly splintered.  You sigh. “You just have to understand that Chan has been through something that we can’t really understand.  I know Changbin told you he was dead.  That wasn’t entirely wrong.” 

“It was that bad?” Felix asks.  He doesn’t wait for an answer, shaking his head.  He runs his fingers through his hair, movements jittery and anxious.  “Of course it was.”  He is then struck with a flicker of awareness.  He looks at you very directly, tilts his head at a questioning, curious angle.  “Where is Changbin?” he asks, looking upset in a different way, marked with anger. 

You recall the mission with Changbin and the enemy’s daughter.  At the time, everything was an attempt to draw the enemy away from a rare offensive strike as he tried to move in on Miroh’s territory.  You were behind the scenes of it, sending Changbin after the daughter, luring away the enemy and also luring Felix back to Miroh.  It might have worked if Felix was not determined to rescue the girl.  He slipped through Miroh’s fingers a second time. 

At the time, you were confused like everyone else.  Felix’s motivations were befuddling at the very best.  No one knew why he left.  Now you know he left for Chan, no doubt striking a dangerous deal with the enemy to rescue him, a foolish bargain that would have seen like a life preserver to a drowning little boy.   You are certain that after a time, Felix would have been smart enough to realize it.  So the only thing more perplexing than why he left, is why he stayed. 

The ring on his finger answers that question.

“Does she know you’re out here?” you ask.

The question captures his full attention, forgetting his previous query.  He stares back at you.  He looks like a predatory creature with his hackles raised, bristled and stiff and alert. 

“Yes,” he finally says.  “She didn’t like it.  But yes.”

“Smart girl,” you say.  “Makes sense… considering who her father was.”  

As fast as Chan pulled that gun, Felix is in your space, every inch on guard. 

“Leave her alone,” he says, all that boyishness gone in a flash.   Though you do not doubt his honesty in some ways, you know Felix is good with faces.  Under his mask is a soldier, bodyguard, and now it seems lover, and you are not which will be more dangerous. 

You raise your hand in surrender.   

“You want to know what happened to Chris,” you say, placating.  “Miroh took him.  That man—” You also look towards the treeline, seeing nothing in the pitch.  “That man is someone different now.”

Felix looks there too.  You think the sadness in his face is genuine. 

“What happened to the enemy?” you ask.  The events of that night have haunted you.  It is the reason you are here today.  “Did you take him out on your own?”

“No,” Felix says, slowly facing you again.  “No.  It was no one important to the enemy.”

You stare at him with obvious disapproval for such a vague answer. 

“It wasn’t an enemy,” he clarifies.  “It was a friend.  Her friend.  He came back for her as soon as he could and he helped us get away.  He was just a civilian.  Not a soldier, not an enemy.  He just did it for a friend.” 

You fall silent as you recall the dream where a weight is lifted off your chest, where you can breathe after so long caged, of Changbin peering down at you with all that concern. 

“Why’d you turn against your father?” Felix asks. 

Heart thumping, you say,  “For a friend.”   

Some of the tension leaves him, his stiff posture slackening.  His face is flush with recognition. 

“You don’t know where Changbin is, do you?” he asks.  “That’s why you’re out here.” 

The heaviness of his tone makes you pause.  You let yourself linger in a momentary what-if, if you learned all this sooner and did something to help all of you, but that thought leads nowhere helpful.  It has happened.  Like Felix, you cannot change the choices you made when you did not know better, when you were surviving in impossible circumstances.  You are doing something now.  

You let your honest emotion show when you say, “I think he was waiting.”

“For what?”  

For me, you think.  “For things to change,” you say.  “And now they have.”

“Now they have,” Felix echoes. 

You think you understand him.  Not like Chan, not like Changbin.  You look at Felix and see someone still struggling with himself, lost and grappling for answers.  He is quiet under the immensity of the night sky, the range of feelings inside him just as vast.

“I’m looking for him,” you say.  “All this – it’s because of him.  He gave himself up to save me.  I’m going to get him back.  I’m going to bring an end to all of this.  It will never happen to anyone again.” 

Felix straightens, once more on guard, but he is not antagonistic.  He is on your side of the fight and you believe he finally sees that. 

“Do you know anything about him?  Anything at all?” you ask.  Felix got a better look at the military base before it went to ground.  Maybe his perspective will offer some insight beyond what you gleaned from the research facilities.  “I don’t know where my father put him,” you say.  “But I know he’s out there.  I know he’s still in Miroh’s web.”

“What makes you think he’s still alive?” Felix asks, brow furrowed. 

“What made you think Chan was alive?” you retort. 

“Okay,” Felix says, chastened. “I did release some prisoners at the base, but Changbin wasn’t there.  I would’ve recognized him this time.”  His earlier anger towards Changbin seems to dissipate.  He regards you with eyes that look more than a little guilty.  “I thought he died with the others, you know,” Felix says.  “I didn’t – I thought this whole time—”

“Trust me,” you say, with a humourless laugh. “You don’t need to tell me about the past confusing you.” 

Felix takes the empathy at face value, nodding.  He idly adjusts a hip holster while talking, gaze elsewhere, moving through his recollection. 

“I only really talked to one of the prisoners, yeah,” Felix says.  “They were all in bad shape but he wasn’t thinking clearly.  When I got them out, he thought I was there for him.  He thought he was being sent back somewhere ‘worse.’”  

“Worse?” you say, with a drop in your gut.  You have firsthand knowledge of the kind of torture that Miroh is willing to enact on its allies, never mind its enemies, so you can only begin to imagine.  It may lead you to Changbin after all, now that he is classified as a turned asset and enemy to Miroh.  “Worse how?” 

“I don’t really know,” Felix says.  “He just said he didn’t wanna go back to the white room.  It didn’t mean anything to me.  Does it to you?”

It shouldn’t mean anything.  White room is a vague description that could describe any plain interior at any site.  It sounds like the empty ramblings of a traumatized prisoner, disjointed thoughts that could describe any facility on any base. 

And yet –

When Felix says those words, in that context, that way, with all that uncertainty and pain in his eyes – you see a flash in the back of your mind.  You let yourself drift towards it.  It is not screaming cold like other memories, memories that send you hurtling through the dark.  It’s quiet.  Empty.  You see an impossibly bright white room.  There are no windows or doors, at least none that you can perceive.  It’s the opposite of the Cell, of those tunnels, of that well.  It’s not endless black.  It’s a shock of white. 

It’s nothing.  How can nothing feel like something?

“Do you know it?” Felix asks.

You shake your head, the brightness dimming as the real world and the dark night settle around you. 

“No,” you say.  The little twinge behind your eyes starts to pound.  “Maybe.” 

There is a beat of silence between you, enough confessions made to the dark to satisfy for now.  It has been a long night. 

Felix sighs, his long exhale feathering the hair over his forehead.  He turns to the trees, looks across the farmland, then up at the too big sky. 

“He doesn’t want to see me,” Felix says. 

There is a bone deep sadness to Felix, all in his eyes and the slump of his shoulders.  And that is just what he is letting you see.

“It’s complicated,” you say in lieu of anything more comforting. 

You understand that Chan blames Felix for what happened in the past.  At the same time, you don’t think that is where Chan’s problem truly lies.  You remember his words at the motel; not wishing you were someone else, but wishing he was.   He can accept you have changed, but he cannot accept that he has too.  Whether it was against his will, to survive, to keep you alive, he had to become someone else.  It must make him as alien to himself as your elusive past is to you presently. 

You have all made mistakes in desperation.  And now Felix is here, the past gone, a ring on his finger and a future ahead.  Chan does not have that.  He wants to be the boy who did no wrong and protected everyone.  But through his mistakes, your mistakes, Felix’s mistakes, he can’t be anymore.  He hasn’t been for a long time. 

Felix gets to go home because it’s ahead.  Chan can’t do that because it’s behind him.  Maybe he does hate Felix for the part he played, but you know he hates himself and his own circumstances more.  

“Can you – can you –”  Felix stammers.  “Can you just – tell him please – that I’m sorry for how it went down.”

“He knows, Felix,” you say, believing it honestly.   You have come to know Chan.  You believe that beneath all the pain and resentment, he knows it all comes down to Miroh. 

Felix nods.  He lingers in that thought for a moment, casting his eyes towards the sky.   His shoulders fall. 

“This isn’t over yet, is it,” he says, more an observation than question. 

“Not quite,” you say. 

“If you—”  Felix looks at you again, dark eyes earnest.  “If you need help...  Find me.  Seriously.  I want this to be over for good.”

You accept his proffered hand and shake.  When you try to withdraw, he holds on. 

“I’m sorry to you too,” he says.  “I don’t know what happened after I left, but…” 

You wish it was as easy as blaming Felix.  If this was about one foolish boy and one childish mistake, then everything would be so easy to fix.  But you know better.  You squeeze his hand and nod, reflecting his emotions like a mirror. 

“I know who my enemies are,” you say. 

He nods and finally drops your hand.  Another moment passes, the night breeze blowing between you, then Felix says it is time for him to go. 

“I know where we are,” he says, looking across the deserted farmland.  His eyes settle on some distant fields, sloping into a distant wood.  He looks at you again and nods.  “I think it’s for the best I get myself back.  Good luck.”

He has only taken a few steps when you ask, “How will I find you again?”

He looks at you.  For a second, there is a flicker of a friendly soul, life in his eyes as they crinkle with a smile. 

“Hmm, if you are who I think you are,” he says, “you’ll figure it out.” 

You take that as a confirmation of trust if nothing else, that he turns his back and walks away without fear you will pursue him with any reactive violence.   When he has crossed over the border of the property, disappearing down a path, you turn the opposite way to where Chan vanished.  With a sigh, you seek him out. 

Of course the impossible man chose the absolute creepiest part of the property to sequester himself.  It is difficult to see, even for you, as you pick up your feet to avoid tripping over spindly roots.  You realize the overgrown trees are a former orchard, though the fruit is long since rotted, the thick branches bare. 

“Chan,” you say, an edge to your voice.  “Chan, he’s gone.”   

Something cracks behind you.  You turn, mouth open with a remark that flitters into breath because he isn’t there.  Not even a moonlit silhouette interrupts the darkness. 

You turn back around and almost jump right out of your skin.  Chan is standing there, stanced like he has been waiting for hours.  You thump him on the shoulder, cursing. 

“Sorry,” he says, more automatic than sincere.   

He is still wearing the mask, still braced with so much tension.  You are standing close, close enough that if you were a target he would already have a hand around your neck.  You think of the number of people over the years, subject to that exact moment; the number of times he would have stood there, just like this, appearing out of the shadows and striking.

You think of how he got there.  You think of why he stayed. 

“Are we going?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow.  That exact expression was the first one he really gave you, the first hint he was more than Miroh’s soldier. 

Maybe you have a heart now, or something like it, but it is still woefully inadequate when it comes to function.  You do not know how to express the mess of feelings inside you.  There is no instant healing for the years suffered between you, but you wish you could make him understand that you are not afraid, that you mean it when you say you choose this Bang Chan, not in spite of everything but because of it. 

“He wanted to save you,” you say.  Before he can form a retort, you continue, “I know you didn’t ask him to save you. You didn’t ask him to make any bargains.  But he wanted to do it, not unlike what you did for me.” 

“That’s different,” he says quickly.  It sounds almost like a huff, like a punch in the gut. 

“I know how it feels, to be both you and Felix,” you say.  “To not like or understand yourself.  Do you think I don’t understand?  Do you think I’m scared of you in the mask?”

His shoulders lower and he looks at you, lifetimes of emotion in his eyes. 

“I don’t think you’re scared of anything,” he says.  “You never have been.  That’s what terrifies me.” 

“Chan—”

“I can’t lose you again,” he says, walking right up to you, an inch from your face, yet so propelled by adrenaline that he seems unaware of his own proximity and desperation.  “I can’t,” he says.  “Seeing Felix, it – it freaked me out, okay?  It put me back there again. For years, I –  I felt like if I could – if I could get back at him – for betraying my friendship – it would somehow undo it – it would be like it didn’t happen – I don’t—” 

He seems to remember his mask all at once, abruptly reaching up to rip it off.  His arm swings down to his side, mask loose in his fingers.  The sudden reveal of his whole face makes your breath catch, as if you haven’t been staring at him for days, as if he hasn’t engrained himself in your consciousness like he never left. 

You stare at each other, hardly any space between you.  His voice is heavy, his shoulders slumped, like gravity is pulling him straight down past the earth, like it’s a fight just to stand there. 

“I don’t want those things to have happened to us,” he finally says. 

“I know,” you whisper back.    

“I’m so scared of fucking this up,” he says, with a hiccup of a laugh, arms hanging limp in a helpless slouch.  “So fucking scared something is going to happen.  If not Felix, then – then anything – then—”

You place a hand on his chest, palm above his racing heart.  His breath catches, adrenaline still coursing. 

“Well.”  You smirk and it feels more natural than a smile.  It helps you dig your honest feelings out of your chest, buried so deep, sifting through your fingers like sand until you seize your beating heart and feel it come to life.  “We might be a couple of disasters,” you say, “but we’re here, together, in spite of it all.  We’ll figure it out eventually.” 

You trail your hand down his chest, past his side, fingers loosely tracing the top of the mask.  You hold his gaze the entire time. 

“You found me once, didn’t you?” you say.   “I trust you to do it again.”

“I didn’t,” he says, laughter walking the edge of a cry.  “I should have.  But you were the one who spoke to me in that van.  You were the one who asked for help. You were the one that found me. I didn’t do anything but follow.”    

“Is it too much to ask you to continue to do that?” you ask.  “At least a little longer?”

He leans towards you, almost like he is falling, that gravitational pull leading straight to you. 

“Always,” he says.  “I go wherever you go, remember?” 

He said that before, that first night when he comforted you.  He says it now with a laugh, though it comes up like it pains him, an ache in his chest.   

You think he might have sworn that promise a long time ago.   

“I want you,” you say firmly.  “Not the little boy you were, not just Miroh’s creation, but all of this, all of you.  I want your anger and I want your fear. I want the only guard who could fight me in that ring.  I want the only agent who was able to chase me down.”  You hold his gaze even when the intensity makes you sweat, uncharacteristically nervous with a twist in your gut that is so much more than lust or camaraderie.  “I need the only person I could have ever asked for help.” 

He exhales through his nose, then smiles a weak smile. 

“Are you sure?” he asks, shakes his head, laughs dryly.  His exhale is shaky.  “Because… honestly, baby…”  The pet name rolls thoughtlessly off his tongue, natural in his honesty.  He looks at you without any masks, eyes soft where they meet yours, jaw clenched with some baser instinct.  “Because I – I’m really fucking angry.”

“Good,” you say.  “So am I.”

You don’t think anyone has ever looked at you the way Chan does.  Your father saw a soldier, your subordinates saw a commander, Felix saw a complicated ally, and Changbin saw a lost friend.  When Chan looks at you, it feels like he sees all of you at once, every layer down to the bone, and that should be terrifying.  That much exposure should make a soldier run for cover, layer on every piece of armour you can get your shaking hands on. 

For some reason, he looks at you, and you just want to strip that armour off, piece by careful piece, and see what you will find in the reflection of his gaze. 

You think he feels the same.  It’s all you want, and it’s all so much, and you let yourself feel every tingling reverberation of that passion before you step away. 

“Come on,” you say.  “This fight is far from over.” 

You anticipate his next move but your breath catches anyway. 

Chan pulls you back, straight into his arms.  The mask hits the ground with a clatter as he grabs you by the neck, a gloved hand cupped carefully around your jaw.   He drags you into him and kisses you even more deeply than that last teasing kiss.  This kiss does not merely say, I don’t want to be your friend.  It does not merely say, I want to be more.  

It says, I want to be everything. 

And he hands everything over, and you take it, and you give everything back with your hand buried in his hair and your mouth open against his.

With a thousand more questions to ask and a mission to complete, but with information and honesty and hope – the fight ahead does not seem so daunting. 

-

You look at Chan in the passenger seat.  He is sprawled out, stripped down to a compression shirt that is far less bulky than the protective combat layers.  It should make him appear smaller, but his presence continues to fill every space he occupies.    Even where he does not literally touch, you feel him. 

He idly turns the mask over in his hands.  His eyes are ahead, over the dashboard, focussed on some distant point.  He has sweat through some of his hair product so his dark hair falls to frame his face a little more.   He pushes some of it back and you have to remind yourself to look at the road and not his hands, the corded veins when he flexes and moves his fingers, or his lips when he takes in a breath, or his thighs when he slouches and lets his knee fall against the console. 

Failing your mission because of a car accident would be a little preposterous, so you clear your throat and look ahead.  You feel him glance at you, but you refrain from looking back. 

“Can I ask you something?” you ask, using the excuse of concentration to avoid eye contact. 

“Yeah?”

“Promise to tell the truth?”

“You know I will,” he replies.  

He knows the question will not be too serious.  You agreed to discuss the mission parameters when settled at the new hotel.  You explained that Felix gave you information but it needs dissection.

So he must expect the halfway teasing lilt when you ask, “Is there a part of you – even a small part –that feels, hmm, a little shallow satisfaction that you wound up with Miroh’s daughter on your side despite everything he tried?” 

Your phrasing is a little convoluted but he sees right through it, brow quirking up. 

“Uh-huh…  Is that what you’re really asking me?” He looks dramatically contemplative as he throws your teasing back at you. “Or did you mean – Do I feel like I got back at the bad guy by fucking his little girl?” 

“I’m not little,” is your flustered retort. 

His laugh is a breathy snort.  You feel him look at you again.  When he does not elaborate, you surrender to your desire and glance his way. 

His tongue is poking into his cheek, his eyes narrowed but not with frustration, just a combination of scrutiny and amusement at whatever he finds. 

“What?” you ask.

“Nothing.”  He sits back again, leans his head on the headrest, smirking to himself.  “It’s just… that’s not the first you’ve asked me that question.  Why are you asking me now?”

“Why did I ask you then?” you blurt.  You are asking him now because you are trying to goad him into opening up on some of those darker or angrier feelings.  Was it for a similar reason you asked before?  It gives you a sudden tether to that past version of you, still a stranger, but maybe not so different. 

“Then,” he says.  He loses some of that jovial edge, looking a little more serious as he falls into recollection.  He rubs the back of his neck. 

“You can tell me,” you say when he lingers on his thought, words so clearly perched on the tip of his tongue.  “Really.” 

You are expecting any number of dramatics.  You are not expecting him to giggle. 

“You fell for me first,” he says. 

“No, I didn’t,” you reply automatically.  You have no idea if it is true or not, but you instinctively balk at the suggestion.  Even though your intimacy with Chan feels so unique, no doubt propelled by that complicated history, you still only know yourself as someone pragmatic and distant.  You cannot picture yourself at any age stumbling head-over-heels for some boy, even one with dimples like that. 

“Ohh no, you definitely did,” he says.  “Sorry, but you were allll over me—”

You thump him on the chest.  It’s a good solid thwack in the middle of his giggles. 

“Hey, hey!” he says.  “You asked.”

“You’re lying.”

“Now, now, come on.  I wouldn’t do that.”

 “I regret asking.” 

“It can’t be that hard to believe,” he says, tapping his chin with exaggerated pensiveness.  “I thiiiink… and correct me if I’m wrong… but I’m preeetty sure it was you who came onto me this time around too…” 

“That – I –” You laugh at your own stammer, so startled that you can’t help but break. 

He giggles some more, a tittering heeheehee that seems very incongruous in his black uniform with a combat mask on his knee.

When the laughter softens, he sighs a little.  He looks at that mask, absently runs his thumb along the frame. 

“It was a fair question, at the time,” he says.  “I think you knew how I felt.  How at first it wasn’t – it wasn’t really serious for me.  Not like that.  I was a bit distracted with, you know, life sucking.” 

“Fair enough,” you say, snorting in amusement at describing the child soldiership special-ops program as simply life sucking.  Diluting the power and dramatics is oddly cathartic, the laughter leaving a pleasant warmth in your chest.   It makes you brave enough to ask, “What changed?”

He looks at you, maybe gauging your wellbeing.  You both know the reconfiguration reports warn that too much sudden recollection can trigger a breakdown.  But there is a separation here, the girl in your past just a story on his tongue, even if you do like the way he says her name. 

“Uh, actually, it was seeing you with Changbin,” he finally says.  His posture gets defensive with his vulnerability, an arm slung across his chest. He idly scratches his shoulder while he talks.  “You were friends.  Really friends.  I didn’t – I didn’t really know how you managed to be friends, to be honest.   I never – I mean.” 

He huffs like he is frustrated with his own inarticulateness.  You wait, eyes on the road, taking some of the pressure off.  He eventually sighs. 

“The first program,” he says.  “All those kids – I only knew them for a bit, then they were all gone.  It was just me.  Then they brought in the next group.  I think a part of me was always waiting for the day something would happen to them too.  How can you really learn to care about people if you know everyone is just gonna be taken away from you?” 

He picks up the mask again.  He looks at it while speaking. 

“The other part of me wanted to care,” he says.  “Really fucking badly.  I don’t know what it was, though.  The trauma, my reputation, something about me, but I—”  He puts the mask down, looks out over the dashboard.  “Even before I put this on, before I made that deal with Miroh – I didn’t really belong.  People respected me, kinda, I guess, or were scared of me.  Yeah, lots of people have been scared of me.  And maybe it was actually easy to become that guy, maybe it was in me all the time.  Because even back then, it was like I always separate from everyone else.  I still am.  It’s like – it’s like there’s just this glass wall around me.  Sometimes there’d be moments, people, like with Felix for a while, where they’d look at me and I’d look right through it and forget it was there.  Then the light would hit the glass and I’d remember I was different.  Separate.  Alone.” 

He pauses but it doesn’t feel like he is waiting for an interjection.  Truthfully, you don’t know what to say. 

“You and Changbin,” he says, punctuating by smacking the mask against his thigh.  “You guys were different, yeah.  Didn’t matter what they tried to do you.  You stuck together.  You – you had it just as bad as me because you were Miroh’s daughter but you never let it – never let him – never let any of them tell you who you are.  And I just remember one day, I was looking at you.  Really looking.  You were with Changbin and you were patching him up after a fight.  You were both beat to hell and back but you were laughing together and I – I just thought—”

His voice gets softer, like the words are too fragile to speak. 

“I thought,” he says, “I would give anything to have you look at me like that too.” 

His words leave a stunned silence in their wake.  He eventually tries to deflect the tension with a laugh, smiling  at you, but with a smile that does not reach his eyes. 

After the words have washed over you and after the jumbled mess of confusion that is your consciousness sifting through it, you say, “Glass coffin.”

“Excuse me?” he asks. 

“Sorry.”  You shake your head.  “Just – that’s how I’ve felt.  Buried alive in a glass coffin.  Not myself, not who I was a month ago, not the girl I can’t remember.  What you said made me think of it.  I – I understand you.  I’ve been—”  Your breath catches unexpectedly.  “I’ve been very alone for a long time.  I – I don’t think I noticed, somehow.  Not until Changbin was gone. Not until you were here.” 

The car gets a little darker as you leave the highway, streams of endless light replaced with the occasional streetlamp.  The darkness makes the honesty flow a little easier.

“Is that weird?” you ask, your own voice soft and unfamiliar to your ears.  “For it to hurt more after it already happened?”

“I don’t think it’s weird,” he says.  “Then again, I’m just as insane as you are.”

You almost choke on your laughter, so abrupt in the midst of seriousness.  He laughs too. 

“That’s true,” you tease.  “Why the hell am I asking you?” 

“Because you’re insane, remember?”  He makes a tsk sound, shaking his head, all playful.  “Wow, now she’s forgetting things that happened just a minute ago.” 

“You’re awful,” you say, but laugh nonetheless. 

“Seriously, though,” he says.  “I get it.  I get you.”   

There is a beat of silence as the conversation settles around you.  You breathe a little lighter.

Then Chan says, “Also, yeah, it is kinda hot to bang the boss’s daughter.”

“Bang Chan.”   You smack his chest again, a little harder, but he just giggles like a naughty schoolboy and swats your hand away.   “Seriously?”  Your voice breaks as you try and fail to restrain laughter.  “That comment?  After all that?” 

“Hey, don’t ask questions you don’t want answered, ya know?” 

“Bang the boss’s daughter,” you grumble with faux-irritation.  “You and Felix have that in common, you know.”

“Fucking you?!  Jesus, what the hell did I miss when I walked away?”  He looks at his bare wrist as if checking a watch.  “You weren’t there long.  He’s a bit quick off the mark, eh?”

You thump his stupid chest again while he chokes on his maniacal laughter. 

“Going after the boss’s daughter,” you clarify.

That breaks some of his giggles, face twisting up with his surprise.  His mouth opens and closes as he looks for words, mind going a mile a minute while he computes this revelation.  He finally says, “Wait… what?” 

“The ring on his finger?”

“Yeah but – the enemy’s daughter?  Felix?  And after giving me a hard time for going after you and oh my god, serves him fucking right, I really am going to kill that little—”

His threats sound a little more light-hearted, at least you think.  It is tinged with some truthfulness, but at least it’s all out in the open this time. 

“I’m trying to imagine that story,” you say, steering the conversation to the side.  “I can’t imagine us in that scenario.  I don’t think I would’ve been waltzing around with a mopey bodyguard in any world.”

“I wouldn’t be mopey.”  He amends, “I wouldn’t be that mopey.”  Then he thinks about it a moment longer, eyes on the road but mind farther away.  “Yeah, you’re too much of a fighter,” he says.  “I would’ve had my hands full trying to keep you on the sidelines.” 

“You wouldn’t have stood a chance.” 

You are teasing him but he does not retaliate.  He nods with utmost seriousness.    

“You’re right,” he says.  “I mean, look at everything they did to you, and you still chose to be you.  I think no matter what world we were in, you would find your way back into the fight, and I would follow you.” 

You know he fully believes every word or he would not say it.  You can’t find a decent answer.  You doubt there is one. 

“It kinda freaks me out,” you say.  You strum your fingers because your hands are getting clammy on the wheel. 

“Freaks you out?” Chan asks, looking at your hands then your face. 

“I’ve always been very… restrained.  At least as far as I can remember.  I don’t let people in.  With you—”  You look at each other across the car.  “It’s like I don’t have to try to let you in.  You’re already there.”  You look back at the road, releasing a shuddering breath.  “It makes it easy to feel things I usually wouldn’t, or to do things I usually wouldn’t do.” 

You think about that first clumsy kiss, how badly the need consumed you when you never cared about kissing before.  You think about everything you are feeling right now, looking at him, sprawled in the passenger seat. 

“I’m not used to trusting people this way,” you say. 

He puts a hand on your knee.  It is a comforting touch.

“It’s not quite a joke that I’m a little insane,” you continue.  “I’m in pieces up there.  I know that.  I also know that when we’re together, it feels—”

You cut yourself off.  There is no word to describe it. 

“Yeah,” he says anyway.  “It does.  I know.” 

The conversation reaches its soft conclusion just in time.  You have reached your destination. 

This city is a veritable concrete jungle.  You can only go so far off the beaten path, so this place is more of a hotel than a motel.  The building is configured in a towering horseshoe, wrapping around the small parking lot where you and Chan sit in a quiet car.   You stare up at the building, most windows dark with the late hour.  You have some time before dawn. 

“Are you tired?” you ask. 

His hand is still on your leg.  You sit very straight when it moves, gliding inward, curving around your inner thigh.  His gaze rests there until you look at him, then his eyes flick up to yours.  He holds the eye contact as his pinky brushes the fly of your uniform pants. 

“No,” he says.  “I’m not tired.  The opposite, really.” 

“Still feel like a fight?” you ask, voice a little breathier. 

“Maybe,” he says, dimple appearing with his smile.  “What did you have in mind?” 

-

You slam Chan onto his back in the middle of the training mat.  

The hotel has a small gym, though it is closed after hours.  The building has minimal security and no one on patrol.  It is easy enough to rework the security camera so it plays a loop of a previous ten-minute interval, making the room look empty to anyone who deigns to double-check.  It is on the underground level, below all the rooms, so it won’t wake anyone up.

Daylight is hours away.  You have plenty of time to tire out that relentless adrenaline.   

“Not bad,” Chan says, letting his head drop back.  He laughs which is not the usual response from an opponent on their back.  Of course, he is not a usual opponent and he never has been.

He pushes himself up on his elbows, grinning at you with far too much cheek.  Teasingly patronizing, he says, “Ya get in a little more practice, buddy, and you’ll almost be as good as me.” 

You shove him down again.  He goes without a fight, just a little oof, giggling as he lands on his back again.  You move from straddling his legs to hovering above his abdomen, knees planted on either side of him. 

“You’re holding back,” you say. 

“Yeah, ‘course I am,” he answers simply. 

There is a little tussle between your hands as he tries to grab your waist and you shoo at him.  He gets past in the end, gripping your hips and moving you like you are weightless.  Even your clenching muscles do little to stop him, a startled breath spilling out of your lips as he moves you a little lower.  Now his hips are between your thighs and it is easy for him to bring your body down while he rolls up. 

You are in your compression shirts and bulky combat pants.  It means his hands feel hot on your waist, the touch immediate through the thin material, but there is a substantial layer between your lower halves. 

You still feel him, half-hard since you dragged him out of the car with a sparkle in your eye.  You both know where this is heading, speaking in that silent conversation you mastered in just a few short days.  He just needs to smile a particular smile and something inside you sparks. 

You lean forward, planting your palms on the floor.   It puts a slope in your spine, his hands feeling the curve of your hips as his playful gaze darkens, shadowed in the concentration of his brow.  You bring yourself down just enough to touch, the material of your pants crinkling where you press together, but nonetheless feeling him against you as you slowly drag your body along his. 

“What if…” you say, your gazes locked, “I don’t hold back?”  

His eyes roam your face.  He puts his tongue in his cheek, looking thoughtful with the quirk of his eyebrow.   After a thoroughly studious moment, he meets your gaze again. 

“You’d be at a disadvantage,” he says.  “I’ve seen you fight without holding back.  I know all your tricks.” 

“What?  In the ring?” you ask.  “I wasn’t at full strength then.” 

“No,” he says, voice a little lower.  “Before that.  We’ve fought before.  I promise, you came at me with everything.” 

You can tell from his face that the memory is not so pleasant.   No, not at all.  Yet he is very preoccupied with the pleasure around him right now, the tantalizing taste of it, your body in his hands, your face so close to his.  You keep looking at his mouth and he keeps looking at yours. 

“Everything,” you say.  “I see.”  Your brush your nose against his and it is so sickeningly sweet that it shocks him more than a smack.  His eyes get wide and you get the upper hand, grabbing his wrists and pinning them beside his head.   “And did I win that fight?” you ask. 

His hips rear up.  With a sharp buck, he moves you, gets his hands free.  In a spin too fast to compute, and a flail of muscles you can’t hope to overpower, you end up on your back. 

Chan pins you down, hips still between your thighs, both your wrists clasped in one of his hands.   He pushes them above your head and holds them there, then he swoops down so his mouth floats just above yours. 

“What do you think?” he asks. 

“I think,” you say, remarkably coherent considering the proximity of his mouth, “that last time we truly fought, we probably didn’t have a choice.”  You wrap your legs around his waist and he lets go of your wrists.  You put your hands on his shoulders.  “This time, we do.  And this time—”  You snap up, knocking heads, startling him.  “I’m asking you not to hold back.” 

In his surprised distraction, you roll out from under him then spring to your feet. 

“This time, you have a choice,” you finish. 

He turns onto his back, sitting with one knee curled up to his chest, the other leg stretched in front of him.  It is a casual pose, looking to all the world like a normal young man for just a second as he sits and lounges and considers you. 

Then he stands.  He holds your gaze captive in his own, his eyes a slash of heated determination. 

“You sure that’s what you want?” he asks. 

“You know it is,” you say without hesitation.  “How many times do I have to tell you?” 

“All right,” he says, lip quirking into a half-smirk before he wipes his face to a stern neutrality.  “Let’s fight.”  

You circle each other, measuring, walking the perimeter of the square mat. 

“Don’t underestimate me,” you taunt.  “Believe me, bigger men have tried.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, shrugging one shoulder in a casual stretch.  “I watched you shoot your daddy off a roof.  It would be stupid to think like him, no?” 

You are not expecting him to take the bait so unflinchingly.  It makes your heart skip beats, adrenaline already spiking before the fight has even begun.   

Chan still looks nonchalant, like he is waiting for a conversation rather than an altercation. 

He is like you.  A part of him is always braced for a fight.  It’s never really over.  You can’t control it.

You can control this.   You can hand yourself over, willingly, safely, and for the first time he can let this scene play out the way he wants. 

He strikes first, anticipating you are too smart to make the first move.  His primary feints are predictable, the initial throws little more than empty threats.  He is not holding back on defense, effortlessly dodging your retaliation, but his offense is still restrained. 

You get him behind the knee.  Your arms lock and you swing around, footwork frantic in its quick shuffle across the mat.  You manage to get your hands around his neck as you sweep a leg out from under him.  He barely stops his descent, twisted at an awkward angle. 

“I told you,” you say, panting, your breath fluttering through his hair.  “I’m not scared of you.” 

“You should be,” he says. 

He pulls himself out of the vulnerable position with a degree of strength that only the First Guard could possess.  He turns you with a single-handed yank, then his whole arm is around your neck and your back is trapped against his front.   He drops onto his knees and takes you with him, letting you struggle to no avail in his one-armed hold.  His other hand comes up to your face with an almost tenderness, fingers brushing your forehead, knuckles sweeping your cheek. 

“But I know you’re not,” he says.  “You’re as crazy as me, right?”

He pushes forward, lays down with you pinned under him.  His arm is still around your neck, bicep at your throat, his hips rocking into yours with blatant suggestion.

His lips brush your ear.  It makes every part of you get tight with anticipation, even your eyes squeezing closed, your throat cloying, breath catching.

“You’re not like most people anymore,” he asks.  “Daddy’s girl prefers a monster, doesn’t she?”

His free hand works its way between your body and the mat, tugging at your pants with more dexterity than his brute strength would suggest.   He gets the waistband low on your hips, gets the zipper all the way down, and fits his hand inside.  

Your hips buck instinctively, at first away, then giving into his palm when he grinds it against you through your underthings. 

“Hmmph,” he says, a bit of a laugh, finding you wet through the fabric.  “That was easy, huh?” 

You do have a strategy, despite what he thinks, hoping to lure him into letting his guard down when he shifts focus. 

Unfortunately, that is easier said than done.  You are used to disregarding your body’s cries, but that is when it screams in pain.  As it turns out, pleasure is harder to ignore.  

When he touches you, even with a barrier in the way, it is like something primal speaks to something raw and needy inside you.  You see stars, either from his grip, the tightly pinned position, or the way it doesn’t even matter there is fabric between you and his fingers because it is so wet that it feels like he is touching you directly – and it feels so good that you want to bury your face in the mat and forget about everything else. 

“You’re not seriously trying to make me come,” you say, voice rough if not still taunting.  “How is that a plan?” 

“That’s not the plan,” he says, but he doesn’t stop rubbing torturous circles, doesn’t do anything when you shudder under him.  “The plan is to fuck you, right here, right now.”  He presses his hips into yours, makes sure you can feel the weight of his promise. “And I’m not stopping until all these little noises turn into you finally begging for my mercy.” 

“Oh,” you gasp, thoughtlessly, not thinking straight on the cusp of an orgasm. “Fuck.” 

“Say that one more time?”  he says.  “What do you want me to do?”

He kisses the back of your neck.  It’s worth a thousand words. 

“Fuck,” you say, though it comes out like a squeak.  All that pleasure crests with his kiss, chaste and short as it is.  You throb against his fingers, that aching desire lingering even after he takes his hand back. 

You just barely seize control of your faculties when he lets go, leaving you sprawled facedown so he can kneel behind you.  He has your pants worked partway down your backside when you manage to throw an elbow back.  True to your words, you don’t hold back, winding him long enough to work yourself free. 

You don’t get far.  You are back on your feet for only seconds before he is on you.  He lets you get a few jabs in, then his hand is around your throat and he is walking you backwards into the wall. 

Even so, he holds up a hand, cupping your head so it doesn’t hit the wall with any force. 

“You wanted to fight,” he says, keeping that grip on your throat as he turns you around, your palms and cheeks to the wall.  He drops his other hand, working your pants the rest of the way down your thighs.  “You lost,” he says.  “Now be a good girl, bend over and take it.  I know you can.” 

It is hard to think when he starts fucking you.  Your mind often drifted during sex, even good sex, thinking about the next act or even what you would be doing later.  Despite your life being even more complicated now, you can’t think about anything else when he is inside you. 

You can’t do anything about your mind, but your body is a different story, as it seems to open for him in a way you did not know was possible.  You don’t think anyone else ever held your throat so right, ever kept such a secure hold, ever felt so good draped over you while finding somewhere inside you that made your whole body sing. 

“Chan,” you whisper, voice already shot. 

“Mm,” is his grunt of a reply. 

His pants are unzipped, slung slow, but not as low as yours so the material is rough against your bare skin.  You feel hot.  I is a relief when his hands start to gather your tight shirt and lift. 

You let him, though it means he pulls out for a second, getting his balance as you adjust. 

You take the opportunity and get away, even though you are more than half-naked with your upper layers removed and your pants partially down.  You yank them back up, panting as you cross the room.

He laughs, tugging up his own pants again.  His tongue is basically hanging out of his mouth, but he is not short of breath.  He runs his hands through his hair as he crosses the mat, every inch of him confident and determined. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks. 

His swings are taunting, you realize, faking when he is going to grab you, making it impossible to tell when he will. 

“You think you can get away that easy?” he asks.

It breaks the scene a little, or maybe makes it better, but you smile just a bit.  It is genuine, but it doesn’t distract him for long.   You get one good punch before he is dragging you both to the ground again.  He puts you on your back with a breathless shove, straddles your waist and grips both your hands in one of his. 

“Ah-uh-uh,” he says, grabbing your jaw with the other hand.  It stops your squirming, his thumb circling your lips.  He taps your cheek with the suggestion of a slap, just enough your heart kicks faster even while everything else gets softer.  “That’s better,” he says.  “Very good.  I got you.  Who needs a daddy like that when you got me?”

“Jesus,” you say, with a small helpless laugh.  “I don’t think we have time to unpack all that.” 

He laughs too.  He halts himself by jabbing his tongue into his cheek while he shakes his head at you. 

“Oh, I’m just getting started,” he says.  It feels like his hands are everywhere, waking every nerve as he skims your waist and front.  He cups the curve of your chest, tormenting you, far too swiftly pushing all your most sensitive buttons.

You are squirming again, bucking under him while he moves his mouth over you, lips and teeth and tongue, marking his path.  He goes lower, then flips you in a quick manoeuvre, your clothes just as quickly lowered.  His mouth is on you from behind, then his fingers, so much of his hand, up on knee behind you with his arm flexing in each downward thrust. 

“You’re not even trying,” he says.  “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

You make a sound, halfway between a grunt and a moan.  Resisting him is not easy but it has nothing to do with his strength and everything to do with your resolve.  You want his hands and mouth and everything else, want to lay there like that while he takes you apart and puts you back together again.  You want to remove all your armour. 

He gets you off with his hand, works you open so thoroughly that when he lets go, you are left clenching and trembling with need for more.   He gets the rest of your clothes off, takes a second to remove his shirt.  In that second, you get on shaking legs. 

You already know you won’t get far.  Even when you throw your head back, knocking into his, you expect him to recalibrate faster.  He is behind you, shirtless and hot and hungry, his pants low, every muscle throbbing and aching with the same exertion as yours. 

“Not so fast,” he says.

He turns you to face him and picks you up like it’s nothing.  He lines you up with the precision of an unfaltering marksman and gets back inside you by bringing your body down onto his cock.  The swiftness and ungiving strength is a surprise in itself, a yelp squeaking its way past your lips as he fucks you in his arms, in the air, using nothing else for support.  

With no other leverage, you can only cling to him, just him, filling the space of this room with everything he is, filling all those empty places inside you and making you feel fully satisfied for the first time that you can remember. 

He gets on his knees after a bit, not so much from tired muscles as sheer desire, wanting you in a better position so he can really fuck you.  On your back then side then front, his arm across your shoulder blades as he holds you down and drives into you with all those pent-up feelings. 

His hand is on the nape of your neck when he comes, not pressing or squeezing, just holding you there.  He doesn’t hold back in the pursuit of pleasure, lets himself feel it all, makes a sound you want to always remember as he drapes himself over your back. 

The world is quiet in the comedown, just the sound of heavy breathing.  A little laughter when he kisses your neck.

You are not sure if your aches and pains are from the earlier confrontation or from that exchange, and that makes everything hurt less, subsumed in the memory of something better, those bad feelings strangled by the good. 

You get back to the room and shower.   You keep your hands off each other long enough to get clean, but no longer than that.  When you are back in the bed, supposedly to sleep, he is back on top of you and you are pulling him into you.  It’s different than downstairs, but also the same, you and him, whatever that means or will mean.   He says your name while he fucks you, slower and so deliberate with every breath and bite and kiss. 

He lets you roll him over, put him on his back, lets you sit on top of him and take control for precious moments.  He doesn’t last long like that, staring up at you, bare face screwed up with pleasure and desire.  His lips form the shape of your name even when he can’t find his voice anymore. 

“Please,” he finally speaks again.  You’re not sure what he’s really begging for, but you give him what you have and it must be enough for now.  

He sits upright before he comes, wraps his arms all the way around you and holds you tight while rocking up into you. 

“Please,” he says again, eyes closed, leaning his face into your hands when you run your fingers through his hair.  He is already sweating again, his face hot under your hands. You hold the back of his neck, keep him pressed against you, his face against your shoulder. 

“It’s okay,” you say on an exhale.  “I got you.”

A shiver moves down his spine.  He rears up hard, digs his fingers into you with a possessive need, and comes with your name on his lips. 

-

It is tempting to sleep through the day, but every second of every minute is imperative.  As each day passes, there are less hours until Changbin is potentially relocated or put through experimental testing far more grueling than what has so far been described.   An overslept morning could be the difference between finding your friend or not.

Despite a lingering soreness – not all of it strictly unpleasant – you climb out of bed to dress for the day.  Chan stirs when you do, like always, though he allows himself a moment of uncharacteristic lethargy.  He groans when you open the curtains and the sunlight slashes across his sleepy, squinting eyes. 

“Rise and shine,” you say.  “We have a lot of reading to do.”

The heavy research element of strategizing is hardly ever glamourized the way a good right cross can be.  That is probably fair.  It is far less exciting to sit around a table for hours, a pot of coffee between you, skimming line after line.  

“I want to go back over everything from before,” you say, to a bleary-eyed Chan who has only had a few sips of coffee and still looks like he has one foot in slumber.  He really looks so different when scrubbed clean, face so soft and open.  His curly hair is a bit of a mop, a messy tendril falling over his forehead as he leans down to look at some text.  His flannel is buttoned askew and you have to resist reaching out and fixing it. 

“Are we looking for something in particular?” he asks.  “You said Felix mentioned a prisoner.”

“Mm,” you say, already diving into research.  Some of it is physical paperwork that you pilfered but most of it is stored on your stolen tablets.   You rifle through papers and scroll at the same time. 

“And what is that?” he prompts.  He shoves a coffee cup at you for good measure. 

You sit straighter to take a sip. 

“Right,” you say.  “I just have this feeling in my gut.  I’ve had it since last night.  Really unsettled and uneasy.  It doesn’t feel like general anxiety or anticipation, not like bracing for a fight.  It feels like – it feels like it does when I remember things, small things, in confusing fragments.” 

He straightens at that.  You have not told him much about the dreams.  He knows that you have nightmares, obviously, as he is the one tending to you when you inevitably wake from them.  You have not spoken the details aloud, though.  Some of those images are horrendous.  Speaking them makes it tangible in a whole new horrifying way.  To compound it, articulating the jumbled fragments conjured by your subconscious is a trying endeavour, to say the very fucking least. 

“Just…”  You take a breath, shake your head.  “Just look for any mentions of a white room.”

“A white room?” he repeats.  “That might be a little vague, don’t you think?  Lots of labs and rooms are white and kinda sterile?”

You are not entirely sure if the picture in your head is a true memory or a fabrication, perhaps one exacerbated by some similar but buried recollection.  You just know that picture is vivid, terrifyingly evocative.  You can see it so clearly.  That room is beyond sterile; it is washed completely white.  It is a bone scraped clean.  Not a scrap of humanity clings to the surface. 

Your perspective revolves around the room.  You are in the middle of it.  No windows, no visible doors.  No way in or out.  It feels like absolutely nothing came before it, and nothing more could come after it.  It is the opposite the Cell which was a pitch black torture room.  Confined, endless in its depth.  This is huge and blinding white brightness.  It makes the dark feel like a comfort.   

You slip so far into that white expanse, you forget where you are.  For a second, you are there, like you never left.  It’s all you see.

“Whoa, whoa—” Chan’s voice yanks you firmly back to reality. 

You realize only then that you are tearing up, one lone tear escaping down your cheek.  You have no idea why you would be crying.  The pain does not come from somewhere you can pinpoint.  It’s a hollow ache, like an echo of someone else’s pain. 

Chan is poised to stand, tense where he sits across the table.  He looks at you with justified concern.

You wipe your tear quickly, shake your head and take command of your body again.  You sit straighter, shuffle some papers and clear your throat.

“The white room,” you say.  “Or any white room that stands out as peculiar.  Felix said a prisoner was there, presumably semi-recently because he was still shaken from it.  He described it as worse – worse than the holding cell at the military base.  It makes me think it could be something worth looking into.  If it’s worse than the usual holding cells, and if it required so much clearance that neither of us have heard of it, then it might be somewhere that Miroh held higher risk enemy prisoners.  Changbin fits that description.” 

Chan releases a breath of his own. 

“It’s a good enough lead for me,” he says.  “Better than the big fat nothing otherwise.” 

Though his words are confident, he still looks at you warily.  You don’t completely blame him.  You would be equally startled if he began crying for no seeming reason. 

“It’s fine,” you say, as reassuringly as possible. 

“You were crying,” he says, tone a bit dry.  

“I just…”  You shake your head.  “I just don’t want to make this about me right this second.  This is about Changbin.  It has to be about him.”

“Okay, okay,” he says, putting his hands up in surrender.  “White room.  Research.  Changbin.  Got it.” 

You get to work with minimal interruption after that, stopping only to get some food then continue. 

Before, you were looking for descriptions that fit Seo Changbin specifically.  Prisoner transport, asset delivery, any movement between bases and facilities.  Now you are just looking for a room, anything that matches the description.  From there, you analyze its recent activity to see if it fits the timeline. 

One mention seems to fit the bill.  The description of the white room is vague but the closest match so far.  The recent incident also matches the story that Felix gave you. It describes a prisoner who was recently held, some low level gangster who ran jobs for Miroh but tried to sell information to some competitors and was subsequently brought to heel.  Records show he was recently relocated.  He was removed from the white room because a higher priority asset needed storing.

The timeline works.  Changbin would be a priority above anything or anyone else, a unique soldier and the biggest danger to the operation.  It makes sense he would be a held in a bunker so secret that not even two top clearance agents like you and Chan would know about it. 

This went all the way up to Miroh. 

 “Definitely the best lead we’ve had in a while,” Chan says, scanning the document in front of him.  “Explains why there’s no trace of him at the places that would usually make sense.” 

“Yeah,” you say, an edge of frustration to your tone.  “The only problem is where the fuck is this place.” 

You can picture it in your mind, but it is just a blank room.  It could be in any building in any city. 

Even though you have tracked and traced every mention of this elusive room, its precise location has not been disclosed or even hinted in any document.  Its vague existence is referenced here and there, and even then only in the most classified briefings.  Wherever the intel is hiding, it’s even higher classification.  The kind of thing that Miroh would have overseen personally, like the First Guard’s operations. 

“This secret could’ve died with my father,” you say.   You picture his broken body in a heap at the base of a building with his name on it.  You picture Changbin in a similar heap and it makes your stomach turn. 

“There’s people keeping these logs,” Chan reasons.  “They’re clearly still working.  If we can figure out who they are, then maybe—”

“And how long is that gonna take without my father’s clearance?” you ask, letting that frustration burst out of you.  It feels like he is back, like he never really left, your father lurking around every corner and putting obstacles in your path.  Every step forward, he yanks you back.

You thought you ran off his map but maybe you have been confined in a single room this entire time. 

“We’re back to square one,” you say.  “He is the only one who had all the answers.” 

“It’s still a good start,” Chan says, trying to sound more comforting than argumentative. 

“What if we don’t get the information in time?” you ask.  “Or spend all this time chasing it and it isn’t even the right place?  Or it is the right place but he isn’t in it at all.  And then he gets moved anyway and—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Chan says for the second time today.   

It has grown marginally easier to temper your most volatile emotions, corralling them like you would an animal.  It is still uncomfortable, this out of control feeling, watching that animal ran rampant with no clue how to truly tame it for good.  It is unpredictable at the best of times. 

“All right,” Chan says.

He goes to the sink at the little kitchenette while you prop your aching head in your hand.  He pours some water into a glass and brings it to you.  He kneels down, pats your knee consolingly while handing you the water. 

You take the glass, cool in your palm.  Your waking thoughts and half-reminiscences float in a swirling vision in the blaring expanse of your mind. 

You put the drink down. 

You have been skirting the edges of one report.  Since learning the reconfiguration was about you and not Chan, you have not really touched the files.  In some ways, you hardly need to revise them, as the evocative images are still so clear.  Some of that might be your own memories, peeling off the walls of your mind in broken scraps. 

You have not returned to the file.  Not until now.

You do what you should done when the instinct first struck.   There is a connection between you and this room and there is no use denying it.  Maybe you can use it for something good instead of just more hurt.

Chan looks at you with continued concern, still on one knee in front of you.  You skim the reconfiguration report, looking for the description of a white room, ignoring everything else. 

Unsurprisingly, you find it.  It is such an innocuous description, noted in the footnotes.  You would have skipped right past it when reading the first time.  It is the kind of thing anyone would skip over if they were not looking for it. 

It appears you were brought to the white room – which they call the downtime room – after the major reconfiguration tactics were administered.  It was used as a resting place, or a holding cell, or something.  Somewhere quiet and empty where you were left to rot, consciousness no doubt seeping out of your ears. 

You would have already been out of your mind.  The transport route would not have registered to you.

So you would be willing to bet they did not try to obfuscate or hide it from you.  Not in that state. 

“Maybe we do know someone,” you say, “who knows where the room is.” 

You look down at Chan, his eyes still full of concern.  It is shadowed with the crease of his brow, obvious confusion taking over his face. 

“Who?” he asks. 

Your heart is racing, and maybe breaking, because you don’t want to see that face filled with pain again.

“Me,” you say. 

It takes a second to land.  He blinks at you then shakes his head, smiles like he is laughing at himself for misunderstanding.  He looks up at you, hopefully.

“What do you mean?” he asks.  “You think you know where it is?” 

“In a way,” you say.  You glance at the text, finding it hard to hold his gaze.  “They brought me there when it was over.  According to the reconfiguration notes, I’ve been there a few times over the years, during the sessions where they, uh, fixed me again.” 

You try to laugh but nothing is funny anymore.  Chan slowly stands and your gaze lifts to him.  He doesn’t look away from you for a second. 

“I don’t really follow,” he says, but you think he does. 

“I think it’s in my buried memories,” you clarify, once and for all.  “If I can access them, maybe I can find out for sure.  Maybe we can find the room.  Maybe we can find Changbin.” 

“Okaaay…”  He finally turns away.  He paces a little, crosses the kitchenette.  He rakes his fingers through his messy hair.  “Okay,” he says again, does a little jump and shakes out his limbs like he is warming himself up for something intense.  He looks at you, finally.  “Um, look, not that I don’t want you to get your memories back, I mean – sure.  Great.  You know?  But, uh, how exactly do you intend to do that?” 

That is the crux of it.  That is why your stomach is turning over itself, your heart splitting.  That is why Chan is looking at you like that, braced for the absolute worst even though you haven’t said any of it out loud. 

“The report says that too much recollection at once can trigger a breakdown,” you start.

“Okay,” he interrupts.  “Breakdowns are not good, though.  You know that, right?  Like, I don’t have to explain how you having a massive breakdown would be a very bad thing?”

“Maybe,” you say.  “Maybe not.”

“M-maybe not?” he repeats, eyes wide.  He comes back to the table and sits down.  He grabs your hand that is loosely resting over the report.  “Baby,” he says.  “I told you before, hurting yourself won’t save him.”

“This is not the same thing,” you say, shaking your head.  You let him squeeze your hand again, a silent pleading in that mute conversation you exchange with your eyes. 

 You try to smile.  It still doesn’t come easily.  You wonder if it ever really did. 

“In my dreams, there’s a lot of cold water,” you say.  “I feel like I’m lost in a current, getting thrown every which way.  I see flashes of memories.  They don’t feel like me anymore, but I’m in the middle of them, like if I just reach out my hand I can grab them and put them back inside me.” 

You look at that cold glass of water.  You extract your hand from Chan’s grip and gently wrap your fingers around the glass.   

“I get them sometimes even when I’m not sleeping,” you continue.  “I know it’s all in there.  And I know it all started because of Changbin.  He smashed through that glass, Chan, and now it’s all pouring out and taking me with it.  I can’t just swim back and seal myself inside again.  Maybe the way out is through.” 

“What exactly do you want to do?” he asks. 

“I want to put my mind back there,” you say.  “I want to feel everything I have been running from.  All the bad.  All the anger.  All the fear.  I don’t know if it will work.  Maybe nothing will happen and I won’t remember a thing.  Maybe it will get worse and I’ll forget even more.”  He winces at that, his shoulders dropping.  You let go of the glass and touch him.  “But there’s a difference this time,” you say.  “I’m doing this by choice.  I’m doing this with you.   I trust you with everything that I am.”

“And what exactly,” he says even slower, “do you want me to do?”

“I can’t exactly drown myself,” you say. 

He gets quickly to his feet and turns away, rubbing his face.  You stand as well, your chair scraping across the hotel room floor. 

“Drown,” Chan says, seemingly talking to the air because he doesn’t look at you.  “Drown,” he repeats.  “You want me to – you want me to drown you.  Drown you?”

He spins around to face you, expression contorted with horror, hurt, and anger. 

“How can you—” he says.  “How can I—”

You step around the table and approach him slowly.  He doesn’t balk or push you away, though he is breathing heavily.  His skin is warm, even through his flannel when you lay a hand on his chest.  You guide him a little closer. 

“Like last night,” you say.  “It’s different, Chan.  It’s you.  It’s me.” 

“This is insane,” he says.  “What if it doesn’t work, like you said?  What if you get worse?  What if—”

“I’m not leaving him behind,” you say.  You picture Changbin on that roof, clasping your hand.  That scarred palm is resting on Chan now.  You turn it over and look at it, his eyes straying there too.  “I don’t know what happened before,” you say.  “I don’t know what will happen in the future.  But right now, my friend is sitting somewhere and he thinks he’s alone.  But he’s not.  I’m not.  You’re not.”  Your voice gets shaky.  Those tears come back, pouring from somewhere buried inside you, cold and rough as it comes out of you.  “This is my choice,” you say.  “I want to do this.  I’m not scared.” 

“I know,” he says.  He releases a breath and drops forward.  He wraps his arms around you and presses his forehead to yours.  “That’s why you terrify me.” 

You laugh through your tears, wrapping your arms around him too. 

“I’m insane,” you say.  “Might as well use it to our advantage.” 

“You’re lucky I’m insane too,” he says. 

He speaks with a lighter voice.  When you withdraw, his face screws up with sadness and he pulls you back. 

“Just – a little longer,” he says, cupping the back of your head and putting it on his shoulder.  You can’t see his face like that and you think that’s the point, knowing he’s crying just by the way his chest rises and falls.  “Just – just a second,” he says.  “Please.”

Oh, maybe that was his pleading last night.  Just a little longer. 

“Okay,” you say.  You hug him tightly.  The back of his stolen shirt crinkles in your hands.  You have nothing to your name, but you have each other, and you hold on tight for as long as you possibly can.    

-

You get ice from the hotel machine, bucket after bucket dumped in the bathtub.  Chan starts running cold water while you strip down to your underclothes and a t-shirt.  You sit on the bed, listening to the water in the other room, closing your eyes and fighting to recall all those fragments.  They are all sharp to the touch, jagged edges, truly like shattered glass.  If you touch the memory at the wrong angle, it makes you bleed with an agonizing pain. 

Your hands are already shaking.  You put them between your knees, trying to steady to them.  You look at the sunlight coming through the window.  You remind yourself this is not like those dank, dark rooms.  This is not Miroh.  Everything has changed. 

The water stops running.  Chan appears in the main room again.  He looks as wan and sick as you feel, but he nods resolutely, sharp as a salute. 

“Ready when you are,” he says. 

You stand and follow him into the bathroom.  The tub is filled to the brim with ice cold water.   It looks nothing like that dark and dirty well in the facility, but a chill moves down your spine nonetheless.  You see that well, remember peering down in the darkness.  It looked like it never ended.  You can see the bottom of the tub through the ice. 

Just like last night, you told Chan, reminding him of every chase and fight between you.  You put yourself very literally in his hands, just like you are doing now.  It was a recreation of real danger, just like now.  But it was safe, and you were fine, just like now, just like you will be. 

He drags the footstool from the chair in the main room, places it beside the tub.  He sits there, one hand swirling around in the water to get used to it.  You can see him shiver. 

You stand over him, looking down at the water, at his hand moving around and around.  He looks up at you. 

“You don’t have to do this,” he says. 

“I know,” you say.  You reach down and touch the water too.  It is so cold that it burns.  You are built to withstand extremities, so this will not have the same lasting damage that it would on a regular person, but that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt the same way. 

You straighten.  Your fingers tingle, dripping cold. 

“I’m going to try and fight you,” you remind him.  “It’s just instinct.  You have to keep me down there, take me right to the edge, as far as you possibly can, then bring me back up.   You have the timer ready?” 

He is going to push you to the limit, again and again, replicating the drowning torture in a hope it will tap into the part of your brain that correlates those memories with that feeling.  He is to do it within a certain timeframe or until you pass out, whichever happens first.  After that, you will take a few hours to recuperate.  If it doesn’t work, you will try one more time later tonight.  After that, you have to consider it a failure because he isn’t doing it a third time.  You agreed.    

He nods a bit too emphatically now, clearly wracked with nerves.  He stripped down to a sleeveless shirt so you wouldn’t be grabbing the flannel sleeve when you inevitably start to fight back.  It will be the body’s response to attempted drowning.  It’s why you can’t do this to yourself.  It’s why no one else could possibly do it to you, because you would overpower them. 

Besides, there is no one you trust like Chan.  You put a hand on his shoulder and remind him of that fact. 

“I trust you,” you say.  “Whatever happens—”

“Don’t say goodbye to me,” he says, his eyes lowered, gaze far away. 

He doesn’t raise his voice.  He doesn’t have to.  You are utterly rapt, looking down at him, at where he wanders deep into his thoughts.  He pulls himself out eventually and lifts his head, gazes up at you. 

“You said goodbye once before,” he says.  “You’re not doing it again.  You’re going to come back to me, okay?  In – in any condition.”  He sucks in several jagged breaths as he visibly tears up, words escaping on a gasping stutter.  “I – I – I don’t care if you never get better, yeah?” he says.  “I don’t care if we’re messy and dealing with this for the rest of our lives.  Just come back to me, okay?  Just – just promise you’ll come back.”  

You pull him against you, let him bury his face against your middle while he breathes hard.  He holds you for another long moment then composes himself, surfacing with a deep, heaving breath.   He shakes his head then nods towards the tub. 

“All right,” he says.  “I got you.  Always.” 

“I know,” you say.  You touch his face, tilt it up to look at you.  “Thank you, Chan.  Chris.  Everyone you are.  For everything you’ve done.” 

“You know, you’re actually the only one who refused to call me Chris,” he says, laughing through his tears.  “I think you just did it to annoy me.”

“I am pretty annoying,” you say, gesturing the tub. 

“Definitely not the time for jokes,” he says, but laughs a little anyway. 

You pat his cheek, give him one last watery smile, then you step into the tub. 

Even that first descent is a mind-numbing shock.  Inch by inch you submerse yourself, feeling like you are sinking into a tub filled with all those sharp, jagged edges of glass.   You look down, panicking for half a second because the water is swirling red and pink.  It makes no sense but you must be literally bleeding.

Then the image splinters and you realize you are not bleeding, not now.  You are remembering a different motel tub – your blood swirling in a pool at your feet moments before Chan walked in and scooped you up, carrying you to safety.

He is still here now.  He says your name.  He says, “Easy.  You’re okay.  You’re safe, all right?” 

You nod, closing your eyes.  You listen to his voice.  Maybe it is the sound, or maybe the physical pain, but a rush of tears are already rising to your eyes.  They stab as ferociously, pouring down your face.  It feels so hot compared to the water of the tub, almost like a stream of blood. 

“It’s okay,” Chan is saying.  “I’m going to grab you now, okay?” 

You nod, eyes still screwed shut.  His hand comes around your neck, just a gentle grip at first, letting you get used to it.  You have felt that touch a few times now.  It sends a familiar spark of heat shooting through you.  You remember your name on his gasping lips, remember his mouth open on yours.  You remember that dream of a kiss, warmer, hotter, more loving than anything you had ever encountered before.  Your first real kiss.  You see it for a moment, see him, younger, looking at you with hopeful anticipation as your eyes flutter open. 

“Chan,” you say. 

“It’s me,” he says, tightening his grip on your neck.  “I got you.  I’m right here.  I’ll count you in, then it’s up to you.  But I have you, all right?  You’re safe.” 

Your eyes are closed, but you still see him, young and smiling softly.  His hand is on your face, warm where your tears fall. 

“Three,” he says.  “Two.  One.” 

-

It crashes over your head, a torrent of freezing water.  You scream in the darkness, flailing desperately, but the well is narrow and you only succeed in bruising yourself when you try to splay your limbs out. 

The darkness is not a void, not pure pitch, but cast with a pearly, luminescent sheen.  It starts to swirl into a dizzying mess the longer you are down there.  Then it starts to fade, true darkness creeping in at the corners. 

You are yanked out abruptly.  There is light, hot and sickly yellow, burning on your ice cold skin. 

“Stop,” Chan is saying, crying, a blubbering mess that makes him sounds ten years younger.  He is already young.  He’s barely past eighteen.  “Please,” he says.  “This is my fault, don’t—”

You open your eyes to look at him.  It feels like peeling skin off iced metal, your eyelids fighting every inch of the way.  But you manage, barely, looking at him through the water dripping off your forehead.  

He is prostrate on the floor, completely horizontal, a short chain around his neck clipped to a hook on the ground.  He can’t even turn his head.  He can only stare ahead at you, staring back at him.   

There is something around your neck too.  It keeps you in a strangled state even though you are out of the water.  The vice tightens when you aren’t floating, so you don’t really get a proper breath of air.  In fact, you’re not sure if it’s worse in or out of the water.   

You don’t have much time to think about it, because you are plunged back in, the sound of his shouting disappearing in the blurring whirl of bubbling water. 

You are yanked back out, and you are grown, in a hotel bathtub, gasping and clawing at the feeling around your neck.  You get a breath, only just, then you are back underwater. 

You see Chan again, grown, in that hotel gym last night.  You feel him, hot and heavy, holding you tight against his body.  You roll out from under him, jump to your feet.  He laughs and smiles, you smile back, and you run at each other.  You raise your fist to throw a punch you know he can deflect—

Except he doesn’t.  The punch lands and it lands hard.  He falls onto his back and there is no training mat to soften the impact.  He smashes down onto a concrete floor and you just watch.  There is a sickening crack, and it objectively grosses you out, watching him cry out in pain.  But you don’t feel anything, do you?  No.  You just know you have to fight him.  You just know he is everything that is causing you pain.  You hate him, you hate him, you hate him.  He’s the reason you’re here.  He’s the reason everything feels like ice. 

“Stop,” he says, pushing himself up despite the blood slipping down his face.  It isn’t the first hit.  You’ve already broken his nose.  You’re not sure if his face is red because of you or because he won’t stop crying, as if this isn’t all his fault.  “You don’t want to do this,” he says.  “You don’t want to hurt me.  You don’t, you can’t—”

You run at him again and he finally defends himself.  He doesn’t attack, but he blocks shot after shot, letting you move around the fighting space.  It looks like a cage, or a prison.  Someone is watching on the other side.

“With a daddy like that—” Chan teases, and you laugh on the hotel mat.

You don’t land on a mat.  You land on the floor when Chan sweeps too hard and knocks you down.  He panics, immediately drops down beside you to check that you are all right.  You slam your fist between his eyes. 

“She’ll kill you if I ask,” your father says, circling the iron bars, watching Chan as he backs up like he is watching a wild animal.  You might as well be, running on pure instinct, watching with predatory eyes as he backs right up to the bars. 

Your father stands behind him. 

“You will, won’t you?” Miroh asks you.  “If I put you on a mission right now.  You’d do exactly what I say.  You’d even hurt him.” 

“This isn’t you,” Chan says, ignoring him, looking at you, though nothing is gazing back.  He says your name and it might as well be a made-up word for all that it is meaningless. 

You’re Miroh’s daughter.  Nothing else matters. 

“I’d fight back if I were you,” Miroh says, patting Chan on the head before simply striding away.  Over his shoulder, he says, “It’s you or her.  The choice is yours.” 

You run straight at Chan.  His eyes get wide and he throws his hand out to stop you. 

It catches you around the neck and you are drawn out of the water.  Hot yellow lights, hotel gold, then back under again. 

You are swinging back, throwing a punch, but you’re not fighting Chan.  It’s someone in a mask, his face fully covered.  You push and kick and punch, going around and around in circles, a perfect match like you were built exactly the same way by exactly the same person. 

Felix takes off the mask and disappears over the balcony railing.  You chase him and he swings back up, kicking off your mask.  It clatters across the metal walkway.  You tackle him and you both fall off the balcony edge. 

You land on your back.  Felix is on top of you, reeling back his arm.  You dodge the punch, rolling out from under him.  You are both younger, both in the black uniform of Miroh. 

“Why are you doing this?” you ask.  “Felix, it didn’t have to be this way.  I could’ve helped you.  I’m on your side.” 

“I can’t afford sides,” he says, shaking his head rapidly.  “I need to get out of here.  Chris needs to get out of here.  If you care about him—”

“You don’t know the first thing about that,” you snap. 

Your emotions make you clumsy.  Felix easily catches your flying fist and twists it around.  Your whole body follows, then the ground is rushing up to meet you. 

There is blackness all around you, whether your eyes are opened or closed.  You jump when a hand reaches through the dark.  You reach out too, trace your fingers over a familiar brow, down a cheek, his jaw, his neck.

“Chan?” you say. 

“I’m here,” he says, wiping your tears, comforting you.  “I’m always here.  I’ve got you.  It’s okay.” 

Then his hand is gone.  His face disappears.  You swing your hand through the shadows and scream his name but he isn’t there anymore. 

You’re completely alone in the darkness.

An earth-shattering eruption shudders all around you, blowing through the black with a burst of grey fog.  When it settles, you are in a warehouse, the wooden ceiling partially obliterated from the explosion.  You are trapped under rubble, only alive because you managed to fall in a slight dip so the concrete block across your body is not fully crushing you.

It will, though.  You can’t breathe.  Your chest is being compressed and you are dizzy, your ears ringing, and you can’t hope to budge the concrete block at this vantage.  Even though you are stronger than other normal eighteen year olds, you are not fully superhuman.  Maybe Chan could move it, but Chan is gone.  Your father’s men grabbed him.  That was the last thing you saw before the explosion. 

Maybe he’s getting away, you think.  Maybe they’re all getting away. 

Even while dreaming it, you know it isn’t true.  It was stupid to think you could take on your father.  The inevitable reckoning found you.  It’s all over.  You didn’t save anyone.  Not even yourself.  You’re going to die like you lived, trapped under the rubble of your father’s fortune, all alone in quiet pain. 

“Hey!”

You hear a voice at a distance.  It only just barely pierces the ringing in your ears so you aren’t sure how close it really is. 

“It’s me,” the voice says.  “I’m coming!”   

You can’t keep your eyes open.  You can’t breathe like this and your body is getting colder and colder.  You feel a presence even though you can’t see who it is, your eyes too heavy, the block on your chest heavier and heavier still.

“Wake up,” says the voice.  “Hey, wake up.  Please.  Please wake up.”

It feels almost impossible, like pushing that weight off your chest, but you peel your eyes open slowly.  There is dust in your eyes and in the air, the grey smoke of the explosion still puffing around you.  Your eyes water to clear the worst of it. 

Through the dust, smoke, and tears, you see Changbin, all his sharp, young features, swallowed up in his black uniform.  The blast must have shot some debris his way because he’s bleeding, a thin streak of blood on his forehead, a line of red spilling down his cheek. 

He ignores it completely, leaning down, tapping your cheek some more. 

“It’s me,” he says.  “Hold on.  Keep your eyes open.  Don’t go.  I promise I’ll get you out.” 

“Changbin,” you croak.  You watch as he sits back, frantically measuring the concrete block with his darting eyes.  When he grabs a corner, you rapidly shake your head.  “Stop,” you say.  “Stop, you can’t move it.” 

“I can,” he says.  He tries to laugh, somehow manages to joke at a time like this and says, “I’m the strongest and best looking one here, princess.  Don’t insult me.” 

“Changbin, it’s too heavy,” you say.  The force of it is bearing down on you more and more, all your father’s greedy hopes shoving you further and further into the ground. 

It’s going to kill you.  It was always going to kill you. 

But it doesn’t have to kill him.

“Changbin, go,” you say.

He is leaning against the block, lining up like he intends to shove the whole thing with his shoulder.  His head whips down to look at you, his face twisted up with disgust.

“No,” he says firmly. 

“Changbin,” you say just as firmly, because the block doesn’t budge.  It was never going to budge.  “Changbin, look.”  You nod towards a light where the explosion ripped through the wall, where the enemy’s men came pouring in and ran right past you.  “You can go,” you say.  “For good.  It’s a way out.  They’ll just think you’re dead.  They’ll leave you behind, that’s the rule, that’s what they do.  You can get away.  Just leave me.  It’s fine.  This is your only chance. Go.  Go now.”

He pauses for a second.  He looks over his shoulder at where Miroh’s men are still scrambling, then he looks towards that light.  He knows you’re right.  He knows that if he gets up now and runs, they won’t catch him.  They’ll leave him for dead.  He can get away once and for all.

He stares towards that light for a long moment.  Then he looks down at you.  He changes position, wraps an arm over the block and puts his weight against the side. 

“No,” he says again.  “I’m not leaving here without you.” 

He pushes the block.  It scrapes the ground, pushes you a little deeper.  For a second, it hurts so much worse, then he gets his shoulder under it and takes the brunt of the weight.  With another grunting heave, he straightens out and shoves it off you completely.  It makes a horrible screeching sound as it moves across the floor, but you’re free. 

You can breathe all at once, sucking in a huge lungful of air.  Changbin leans over you, gathers you up into his arms and pulls you into a sitting position. 

“You’re so stupid,” you say, choking on a sob.  “I hate you.”   

“I know,” he says, wiping the tears and dust off your face.  “Love you too.” 

“Stand back, soldier,” one of your father’s men appears, stepping out of the smoke like a monster.   He multiplies, more of your father’s back-up arriving one by one.  They circle you and Changbin. 

You nod at your friend.  There is no winning this fight.  Not today.  Not like this. 

Relenting, Changbin steps back.  One of the men grab him and push him to the side, redirecting him away.  He is promptly forgotten in his supposed insignificance. The rest of them keep a circle around you.

Your father crosses through that circle.  He looks down at you.  You remember seeing emotion in his eyes, once, enough that he could be furious, enough that he could be hateful.  Now there is nothing.  He looks at you like he would look at a pebble in his shoe.  Disappointing but mostly inconvenient. 

“Take her,” he says. 

Someone grabs you by the neck.  You are pulled to your feet, faster, higher.  You get a glimpse of Chan behind your father, face beaten bloody, limp body held up by another guard. 

“Chan!”  You try and move towards him but the grip on your neck tightens. 

You can’t scream in the circle of that vice.   Whatever sound you want to make disappears in the ice as you are plunged back under water.  You open your eyes in the cold, look through the darkness until there is light, until everything is whiteness all around you.  No windows, no doors.  Beyond sterile.  Cold.  Empty.  Nothing before or after.    

Then you are pulled back up.  You realize the white walls were the sides of the hotel bathtub.  You suck in a desperate, shuddering gasp of a breath.  It goes right down to the depth of your lungs, pulls you up from the inside out. 

Chan says your name. 

You open your eyes and see hotel bathtub faucet.  Chan’s hands are on your arms rather than your neck as he hoists you out of the water.  Like that first night, he bundles you in a towel.  He says your name again, touches the side of your cold and clammy face. 

It takes you a minute to find his face, his real face, living and warm and right now.   

He stares down at you with his familiar dark eyes, breathing hard like he was the one exerting himself. 

“You were right,” you say in a hoarse voice.  Despite everything, a laugh bursts out of you.  It hurts, it hurts like burning ice, but then it feels so much better. 

“About what?” he asks. 

“I did always call you Chan,” you say. 

Then you collapse in his arms, your eyes closing.  A torrent of memories come flooding back. 

[cburambles]

Lil' analysis of the Rufus/ Elena scene crumbs in Rebirth

I'm doing this for fun but organize my thoughts and keep tracks of things I've noticed about them while also giving some food for thoughts if there's people interested in that ship.

Here's i'm gonna analyze the scenes.

I will later write about design & symbolism , their arcs, their personnalities, relationship & how they perceive each other ,what Rebirth add to the rest of the compilation as well what road can we can potentially expect for the story of Rufus & the Turks in part 3 in general.

The Mythril Mines scene:

Here, we get get a great way to establish her character. Elena is the one who is curious and asks questions while the others try to not think about their orders much. As someone new, she also has an unique POV as the mysteries unfold in front of her.

It's also a great way to show that her superiors don't tell her everything, which may cause problem in the future as Elena is a self-righteous & rather independant person who sometime disobey orders.

They also did a great job showcasing her ruthless side & also sublty hint what drives her.

The helicopter scene en-route for the Gold Saucer with Palmer:

Here, Elena is shown being not scared to use Rufus' authority to shut up a member of the Board. Despite the space program being shut down, we still have to remember that Elena is a new employee & that Palmer is her senior by decades & used to be a friend of Rufus' father. Despite the hierarchical difference, Elena's is pretty assertive for a new employee & doesn't hesitate to borrow Rufus' authority to have Palmer stop complaining & contesting Rufus' decision to send him there in a sassy manner.

The Gongaga proto-relic sidequest:

After you're done with one of the Gongaga VR mission in the Turks facility, Elena is shown without hesitation ushering Rufus & him acknowledging her. We see that she's not scared of him & both of seem to have a respectful & cordial relationship.

I noted the interesting composition of the shot tho.

First, they didn't have to animate this. They could just had have Rufus says his line about the player performance & then leave. But they still wanted to showcase that little moment between the two of them for some reason.

Second, the way the camera zoom-in on them while putting Rude on the foreground but almost push him out of the frame as he's watching them, as if the devs really want you to pay attention to that interaction.

Third, Elena is the rookie. Thus the one who should address Rufus directly should be her seniors. However, Rufus & Elena address each other directly, with the latter talking to him confidently.

This also happens right after we see Rufus complaining about Tseng wanting to assign him bodyguards & saying he didn't need any so you would expect he would be annoyed that the babiest Turk would try to usher him away or have him ignore her. We saw how he can get with Heidegger in Remake not calling him "Mr.President". But he doesn't.

Fourth, it's clear here there was a whole switcheroos between roles due to Reno's jpn VA passing away.

In this mission, Rude & Elena address you as if you were Reno (Rude call you partner & Elena reffer to you as "senpaï" .

Reno however, already has a lot of experiences after all this years working for the Turks. My guess is that originally, those VR missions were destined to Elena.

It makes more sense, to prepare her to what the Turks' life is. VR Rufus is also already president too. If you do well during that mission, Rufus is willing to offer you whatever you want. Would that mean he made such proposition to Elena at one point? (is this how she got her pink gun which has strangely a white belt on & black buttons & is studed with diamonds?)

The flight to the Gold Saucer with Rufus:

During that scene, we're shown that Elena is curious & independant, making her a great intelligence officer material. The second she learns about the Promised Land, she decide to study the subject in the hopes to understand it better & the significance for Shinra. She then admit that it was actually a good idea to let Aerith run around so they can follow her.

It immediately switch from her to Darkstar waking up & curiously looking at Rufus. People who played the game in english however may have missed out an interesting audio detail: In the japanese dub, you can understand the reason why Darkstar woke up as you can hear Rufus do his signature (satisfied) "hmph" and him chuckling to himself while looking at window. It's even more audible in the french version as well.

D waking up & looking at Rufus curiously make it feel like it's an unusual occurence. Maybe he's just thinking about something & laugh to himself but it's also likely the game is implying Rufus was silently listening to her.

It's interesting because he is rarely framed that way. Most of the time he's the center of the room & the conversation, leading it. He addresses his employees & doesn't give more info than what's necessary. Even with Tseng, he often has his back to him & only turn around when he needs to make a point or when something intrigue him.

Added to that, letting Aerith go to follow her was Rufus' plan. Elena basically indirectly complimented him, which could be the reason why he's chuckling to himself. We never got to see him reacting this way to someone until now. For comparison, Heidegger compliment him when he decide to fire Sister Ray during chapter 4 & he didn't get any reaction from Rufus. But he's seemingly happy to get Elena's approval?

The chapter 12 tussle & rumble with Elena, Rude & Rufus.

For a start, we have to talk about how stupid this plan is as the Turks & Rufus could have just stolen the keystone, either by using Rufus'authority or burglarize the place while Dio & Avalanche were looking away. Rufus didn't also have to be there. Shinra is on the brink of a war but he instead decide to go on a trip ( it probably took a least 1 or 2 days for them to go from Midgar & reach the GS) I may have my speculations on why he's acting this way tho.

Rude, Elena & Rufus have beef with Avalanche so we can assume they went with that plan to settle their grudge by beating the shit of each other. However, the plan at first seemed to be for only Rude & Elena to fight, not Rufus. During the battle, you can hear Rufus calling Dio. It's a scripted event that only happen when you stagger Rude or Elena during the second phase of the combat (and there's chances it is Elena due to her weaker constitution). Did Rufus get protective of the Turks, which is what pushed him to suddenly participate?

Then there's the scene where he appears in the arena. While the duel between Cloud & Rufus is the main event, it's interesting to note we just have a quick zoom out on Cloud's face to show his reaction while it lingers more on the Turks & in particular Elena. There's a quick scene where Tseng calm down an excited & likely worried for his master, D. Then it switch to Elena asking what he's doing. Rufus notice her as his head turns toward her.

Elena is the most on focus while Rude in the background is blurred.

And we get this kind of smile from Rufus who's still looking at her while waving to the public. He looks softer than usual.

Then his face immediately switch to this when he turns to Cloud.

He answering her by making a show of himself. And then it's switch again to an annoyed & worried Elena. Once again, she's the point of focus while Rude is blurred.

Rufus then tell them to go join Tseng. And here we can see that he's addressing Elena (when he should address Rude) directly as his eyes are turned toward her & then turns back to Cloud while Elena can't help herself but emit a defeated sigh.

Here we're seeing that she stays herself around Rufus, trying to contest his decisions & everything. Not scared of him & not scared to show her annoyance at her boss' dumbass behavior.

Added to that, Cloud is seen asking the two party members who fought with him until now to leave him for that 1 on 1 fight. One of these two party members always turns out to be one of his love interests.

Once again, we're shown he actually pays attention to Elena, thought Rebirth is actually not the only time this happens. That whole exchange remind me of that moment between Reno & Rude in TKAA:

Which could explain as well Rude's reaction to Cloud being like "oh, poor you!" when Rufus is revealed to be alive in Advent Children. The game weigh even more on the idea that Rufus is emotionnally immature and insecure. Like Evan.

And Rufus' attitude is pretty Evan like in the way he takes risks while Elena is often compared to Kyrie by the fandom. Elena & Kyrie are fierce, morally ambiguous women who cause trouble to their group but also can be shown to be level-headed at times. Kyrie also chide & tries to confront Evan about his reckless side. Both of them could almost be considered as darker versions of these two characters. If the brothers have similar tastes in term of potential partners, well…

I think it's also interesting to note that Rufus is far more pissed about losing than during the first duel in Remake, added with Cloud poking at his insecurities.

The departure to the temple of the ancients:

This is a really interesting scene as it's a great way to show the group dynamic & Elena's potential importance after the company's crumble post- Meteorfall. Here, Elena is shown openly critisizing Rufus' decision to send them & a nice chunk of the army to the Temple of the Ancients, knowing the risks.

Rude, Reno & Tseng are shown being fine going along with whatever orders Rufus give them while Elena has her doubts & interrogations and rightfully so. Sending so many people there is a reckless move & she ended up being proven right. ( I could go on a tangent on how Elena could be a great partner to him due to the way she questions things. There's a difference between loyalty & sycophanty. And from the first scene with the Board or even Sister ray, what he needs is loyal people with enough backbone to challenge & give him the right advices. Which is what Elena represents)

However this were my beef with the english localization is coming in & how people who rely on it may have missed some nuances to the whole exchange:

In the eng version, she goes on how Rufus accompagnying the expedition is a bad idea but on brand with his character.

However in the jpn & french localization when Rude tells her Rufus is coming with them, Elena ask what he means & Reno says it's expected of him/it's not surprising. Elena says it's dangerous but that also that she doesn't dislike Rufus' decision to come with them, which is peak tsundere attitude.

While I think her eng VA did a great job overall, the direction also constantly make her sounds aggressive, even during moments when she's not.

So yeah the first version is just a statement on Rufus' behavior.

The second version give nuance on how Elena perceive Rufus. Yes, it's dangerous for him to do that but it also help her settle down a bit. She likes the fact he is participating in this.

It's also a great way to show why he has so much sway with the Turks, as Reno, Rude & Elena enjoy some of thrills that come with the job and Rufus is the same.

The compilation always frustrated me with the way their relationship has interesting tidbits but was often glossed over. I was surprised with the way Rebirth depicted these two as I considered myself lucky if we actually got them together in the same frame but we instead got a few interactions & them reacting to each other in a way that is pretty informative about their own characters but also how their dynamic would work.

It's pretty close of the interpretation I had always had for Ruiri/Rulena/Rufena: the type of ship that belong in the power couple category, similar opposites who challenge each other in a way that support them due to their strong personnalities & position while navigating thru their professional & personnal life with a fun dynamic to boot.

[eorzeashan]

Sort of turning over thoughts in my head (and you've all seen enough of me yelling about swords lately) but even without the Inquisitor story, Eight and Talos already go way back -- before Talos ever meets the Inquisitor, Eight was often pirated from Intelligence to be Talos' bodyguard whenever he stumbled across dangerous knowledge or artifacts that would put a target on a humble archaeologist like him. they're good partners and good friends, and at first, Eight was not happy about being pulled into nonsense work for other branches, but as Talos tends to get wrapped up in situationsTM while gleefully chasing that spark of knowledge, things got rather...exciting and he found himself conscripted more and more on his expeditions (which he himself ended up liking and fostering his own fascination with the world which Talos studied). It's but one of the reasons why he expresses less derision towards Force-users compared to his other agent siblings.

This dynamic doesn't stop even when Eight is assigned to spy on Lord Zash (as my way of justifying him in the Inquisitor story) and even further beyond, where reuniting in the Alliance if the PC recruits both of them at the same time triggers a little cutscene where they happily point each other out, sort of like SCORPIO and Kaliyo.

I've also decided that whether in his own timeline of KOTFE/ET or a different Commander's, Eight's sword is one that he and Talos discovered on yet another scouting expedition to ancient ruins looking for Jedi remnants. They were too late to save the Jedi who sent the distress call from a remote planet of Je'daii ruins, and so unexpectedly ran into a trap of Zakuul Knights everywhere who had also intercepted the signal and lay in wait to try and capture the Outlander, but as Eight does, he protected both of them well enough-- but the situation was dicey enough that they had to hide in the Je'daii village.

Further discovery and Talos' nosey self revealed the site of many a Je'daii forge and one lone sword hidden under centuries of ash and dust, but Eight would note that it appeared to be unfinished, left on a whetstone all by itself. No sword guard, a misshapen piece strung together by wire above where the collar is supposed to be...it appeared the Jedi they'd come to rescue had spent all their lonely months trying to restore it. By this time, all the heavy fighting has long since snapped Eight's own vibroblade in two, so he takes it with him. It turns out to be the key to making it off-planet, as the original smith of the Je'daii sword made it as a lament to his people's descent into war and their own inability to find another way, and so left it as a gift to the future in the hopes that one day it would be used by someone unfettered by their mistakes, who walked the in-betweens and retained the strength that the smith lacked in their life. Eight's heart resonates with the force imbued into the blade, unbeknownst to him as this is, as he simply marvels at the craftsmanship and remarks that whoever made it put love and care into forging it, and decides that he'll be its custodian out of respect for the life that this one Je'daii lived. Talos urges him on to keep it and recreate the way it was used (mostly for his own anthropological studies), but also as a secret gift to his long-standing bodyguard of an agent who still walks with the soul of a warrior.

There's a lot of ruminating on the Force and the past during this little arc, and Eight is a bit starry-eyed by the thought that the Sith and the Jedi used to be one, like a confirmation to his dream of living side-by-side to both these respective cultures. He and Talos emerge from the gauntlet with a newfound appreciation for being tourists in this strange history, as well as the knowledge that someone from thousands of years prior could feel the same way you do now.

Anyways, long ramble aside, I really liked the idea that Eight's sword is still a Je'daii sword which opens his eyes to a bit of their storied past since he has little to no experience with Jedi but needs to understand them in his own way as well in order to truly live as part of their secret world. Like the red sageo cord on his belt dyed in the blood of Sith, I thought it'd be nice if he carried another's object of grief and unfulfilled wishes on his back like that.

There's something about ancient history and touching it as someone who has no relation to it that really speaks to me, and the idea of non-force users taking up their legacy is sweet, imo. Like we'll take care of you even when you're long gone. It's the kind of love that you don't really see between the Force-sensitive and Force-blind in-game.

And a sword must be used. It has no use without a wielder, even if its very existence is a question that cannot be answered on whether the world is better off without a weapon that can only be used for violence, good intentions aside. That sword was created to answer that very question, of which its blacksmith could not answer themselves and hoped for another to take up the blade in their place.

In that blade, Eight sees himself.

[dedahblog]

Ichigo and Rukia + other characters in akatsuki no yona AU drabble

(a tribute to one of the best blech blog bleachlists)

Disclaimer there's no IR. Basically Ichigo interacting with other characters.

If you're not familiar with Akatsuki no yona, all you have to know (to understand this drabble) is that it's a reverse harem. The main character is a princess and her right hand is her bodyguard childhood friend. She was destined to be protected by 4 humans who have dragon powers totally devoted to her.

Most of the fanart I saw about this AU had Rukia as princess Yona. It pains me to say it but I can't find 4 people who would devote their souls to Rukia unconditionally (only Ichigo and Hanataro).

Since Ichigo has such a wide canon fanclub in blech universe, I think he would be the best situable as the prince in this AU while Rukia is his bodyguard.

This is meant as a funny drabble, basically me assigning members of Ichigo's fanclub

So, Ichigo and Rukia went on journey to search for the fours dragons as the prophecy said. However, they couldn't find anyone. They learned later that the dragons are actually selected members of Ichigo's family and friends who were judged to be his most trusted companions and the people who love him the most. They were chosen by an oracle and bestowed with their respective powers.

•Keigo is the green dragon :

Keigo : I can't believe it !! This is the best day of my life ! Now, you don't have any reason to leave me behind iiiiichiiiiiiiiiig-

**Ichigo violence on Keigo**

Ichigo : try me

Yuzu is the yellow dragon

because I'm baised : I'm saving her reputation from that shitty ending

Ichigo : This is ridiculous ! The big brother is supposed to protect the little siblings. I don't give a f about the oracle. You stay home yuzu. I won't depend on you on such a heavy task. I'm supposed to be the adult here !

Actually I think nearly cutting my fingers while making a salad on my 6th birthday was by far worse. I had to make sure not to soil the clothes with my blood while washing the laundry later. However, I know you're worried about me handling this responsibility so I'll go talk to the oracle myself. Hey do you want me to cook something before you leave?

Yuzu : Oni chan, it's alright. I mean fighting is scary but nothing was more frightening than having my fingers burnt when I was five when I had to make a cake and I couldn't reach the oven properly.

Ichigo : N-no I mean you don't hav- Okay you can come

Yuzu : Really ? Alright !!. So what do you want for lunch ?

Ichigo : It's okay. I'll make it myself. I'll teach you self defense and how to use your new power but you don't have to protect me

Yuzu : Onichan !! you're the best!!

Ichigo : Please don't say that

Byakuya is the white dragon

Because I'll never forget how he gave his friends and family a run for their money by not doubting Ichigo one second in the fullbring arc.

Ichigo : ... what the hell ?

Byakuya : If I was chosen for such a quest, then I have to honour the Kuchiki name.

Rukia : It's not that suprising, Ichigo. Nii-sama has always cared about you. Actually yesterday he even asked why you didn't come with me to the Kuchiki ceremony

Byakuya : Rukia, there is no need for this unessessary talk.

Ichigo : Please, don't say that while blushing.

Uryu is the blue dragon

Uryu : What does this even mean ?! This must be a mistake ! It has to be !!

Ichigo : ...

Uryu : Kurosaki ! Say something !

Ichigo : Gross

Uryu : For once I agree with you. What am I even doing here ?

Orhime can't understand herself

She's supposed to be sad. The oracle basically implied that her feelings towards the boy whom she would love for five lifetimes were fake and she knows she isn't. Orhime knows she's supposed to protest at least demand an explanation but in reality, she's enjoying Ishida's reaction a little too much.

Orhime : Wow, Ishida kun you really like Kurosaki kun ?

Uryu : Inoue san ! You too !! This has to be a mistake ! Honestly, if it wasn't such a dangerous quest, I would have suggested that you take my plac-

Orhime : I like that side of you

Uryu : W-what d-do you mean by that ?!

Orhime : (⁠◡⁠ ⁠ω⁠ ⁠◡⁠)

(She went to the oracle the next day)

Oracle : Inoue Orhime. I know. You are going to question why I didn't choose you as Ichig-

Orhime : Can I be the dragon of the blue dragon ?

Oracle : ... what?

Orhime : This is such a dangerous quest ! Someone has to protect him so he can keep Kurosaki kun safe so I sug-

Oracle : .... Inoue orhime

Orhime : yes

Oracle : you know I'm the oracle, right?

Orhime : of course!

Oracle : and I can read anyone's true feelings, right ?

Orhime y-yeah

Oracle This quest is not an excuse for you to bully Ishida Uryu

Orhime ☹️

[katana-no-neko]

The “secret’s out” fic that everyone in this fandom has written lol

rated T

~~~

"Thorn Princess," Twilight repeated. "I'm familiar with the name."

"As you should be," Franky nodded. "She's the deadliest assassin you can find in Ostania." Twilight flipped through the assignment file. "She's a contract killer; gets her job and takes care of it, so to speak. She doesn't seem to have any political motives of her own, but the same can't be said for her clientele. Intel says her target tonight is a Westalis politician in Berlint for a diplomatic conference."

"And my assignment is to stop his assassination before it can happen, I see." Twilight skimmed through the pages again. "No visuals on the Thorn Princess?"

"She's quite good at going unseen. All the agency knows is that she's got dark hair, reportedly."

Twilight nodded, not bothering to question the odd stress Franky had placed on 'the agency'. He gave one last look before closing the case file and moving to leave.

"Last thing," Franky said, pausing to formulate his words. "Just... Make sure you look before you leap on this mission."

Twilight quirked an eyebrow. "Of course I will, it's always tactically advantageous to assess the situation before jumping into the fray, if it can be helped."

Franky let out a short laugh. "Of course, Twilight." The spy handed the case file back over and turned to head home and prepare for the mission. "Hey, I lied, one last thing!" Twilight paused, quirking his eyebrow again. "How's it going with your wife?" Franky snickered with a wink.

Loid's cheeks took on a slight tinge. Franky had found out that the Forger couple had recently discovered each other intimately, and he took every chance he could to tease the spy about it. Loid supposed he could deal with it though, as Franky had given his word that the agency wouldn't find out through him.

The spy coughed, "Everything is quite alright with her." And Franky didn't need to be a spy to understand that that was Twilight code for "Yor and I are still madly in love".

~~~

As Twilight mopped a hallway in his custodial disguise, he kept his eyes and ears closely attached to room 508 of the luxurious hotel the politician was staying at. The spy glanced at his watch. 21:56. Thorn Princess's target was due back in his room at 22:00, according to the itinerary the agency had procured. The entire rest of the day, the politician would be tailed by highly trained bodyguards and surrounded by civilians, so the only time Thorn Princess would have to attack would be at the end of the day in the privacy of his room.

At 22:03, Twilight began to wonder if Plan B (the plan he'd put together should the politician fail to arrive at his room) would need to be set in motion, before he heard a tipsy laugh from the stairwell, as well as a more feminine chuckle, most likely from the politician and the assassin, respectively. No doubt she was disguising herself as a 'lady friend'. Showtime. He ducked into a corner to remain out of their line of sight and pulled his cap lower to hide his already masked face and got to work mopping again. As the source of the laugh came through the stairwell and into the hallway, Twilight spared a glance to confirm it was his politician, and then took a look at the woman.

Oh my god.

Oh my god!

It took every ounce of self-control not to break character.

He listened carefully as he heard his wife laugh at something the politician said. Very fakely, he might add, though it must not be obvious to the other man, because soon he was unlocking his suite's door and leading Yor Briar Forger inside.

Twilight's mind was racing as he analyzed the situation.

Yor was here, with the politician, in his bedroom. She was either cheating on him, or she was the Thorn Princess. And somehow, he just knew there was no chance in hell it was the former, even trying to push aside personal feelings to look at the situation through a logical lens. Puzzle pieces began clicking into place. Her occasional long nights out 'with girls from work', whom he knew she disliked. The blood stains he'd seen on some of her clothing. The scars he'd seen on her body.

Loid wondered how his life had gotten to the point that it was more logical for his wife to be an assassin than having an affair.

And that was when he remembered he was supposed to be stopping the Thorn Princess (his wife!!) from assassinating her target.

Twilight immediately dashed to the room, not bothering to drop the mop, and slammed the door open with a powerful kick.

What greeted the spy was a wide eyed, stunned Yor standing in front of the window, bathed in moonlight, blade poised to take the life of the (currently unconscious, passed out drunk?) politician he was meant to protect.

Beautiful was his first thought. Shit was his second, because he remembered he was still in disguise, and it didn't take long for Yor's instincts to kick in and attempt to silence the, what she assumed was, janitor who was witnessing her crime.

Fortunately for Loid, he was quite skilled at self defense and managed to deflect her blade with the mop he was still holding. The sharp blade nearly sliced right through the wooden handle and Twilight set to disarm her as soon as he could, using every ounce of agency training he had to grapple with his wife, heat pulsing through his veins in an odd way. He would worry about that little tidbit later though.

She had him backed against a wall, but he managed to swipe a kick at her, causing Yor to stumble and giving him the chance to hit her raised wrist with a strong jab of the mop. Her hand spasmed, she dropped the blade, and Twilight took the moment to reach his hands around her, grab each end of the mop handle and pull it against her back, pressing her against himself. Both assassin and spy were breathing heavily.

She only took a moment to be surprised by the action before she was grabbing another, much smaller knife out of her garter belt and moving to swipe against his neck, her mouth opening to say her line.

"Wait-" Loid gasped out in between his pants, dropping the mop and grabbing the hand of hers that was poised to end his life. Her eyes widened at the voice. He finally tore his mask off, gazing at her while she stared back at him, recognition swimming into her eyes as she dropped the knife, it stabbing into the ground with a thud.

"Loid?" she whispered, confusion laced in her voice.

The spy turned them around so that her back was against the wall before he grasped her lips in a feverish kiss, adrenaline (and arousal??) still pumping through his veins. She eagerly returned it, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders. It was after Loid broke the kiss to catch his breath again that Yor finally spoke again. "Why are you here? What's going on exactly?"

"You're the Thorn Princess," he stated matter-of-factly. She looked away from him in shame and nodded shortly. He gently took her chin and turned her back to look at him. "And I'm Twilight the Spy." Her eyes widened and her brows furrowed. "And I'm going to have to ask you not to assassinate him." Loid used his head to gesture toward the floor where the politician (who yes, was still breathing, he confirmed with a glance) was still laying after passing out.

She jumped slightly at the reminder of her target before shaking her head and looking back at him. "You're a spy. That makes a surprising amount of sense..." she said quietly, pondering in much the same way as Loid had done upon his own realization from earlier. "Master spy and deadly assassin... What a pair we make..." she paused, collecting her thoughts. "What does this mean for us?"

"I still love you very very much, Yor. It would be illogical to condemn you for the blood on your hands when I have plenty on mine. So as long as you're okay... Nothing much has to change."

She paused for a moment, heart telling her to return his sentiment, but anxiety still lingering plenty. "Can I ask... Why are you a spy?" Yor asked.

"You can," Loid nodded. "I..." He paused, not used to admitting his backstory out loud. "I grew up in a world torn apart by war and conflict. My family was killed when I was still a child because of it. Now that Westalis is beginning to see peace again, I'm doing what I can to keep it that way. To keep another Ostania-Westalis war from breaking out." He paused again, thoughts going to his daughter. "To make sure no child ever has to cry like I did."

Yor could see the raw sincerity in his eyes. As good a liar as he seemed to be, something told her he was being truthful at this moment. She leaned up and pressed her lips softly against his again. "I love you too," she assured, stepping back. "And I'll trust you. I won't kill him," she decided, picking up one of the knives that she'd dropped earlier. "If you say he shouldn't be killed, then I'll trust you."

Loid picked up her other blade and handed it to her. "Thank you. I know how being a Westalian spy probably looks to an Ostanian, but I promise, I'm trying to do the right thing, the good thing, through the work I do. I want to make the world a better place."

Yor smiled. "That sounds just like you. And if it means anything, you've definitely made it better for at least two people - Anya and I."

Loid kissed her. "That means everything." His heart thumped loudly with the overwhelming love he felt for Yor in that moment. "Because you two mean everything." They both smiled as they kissed again, before Yor suddenly went rigid under him. "Yor? Are you okay?"

"If you're here, and I'm here... Who's with Anya!?"

~~~

The pair rushed away from the crime scene (banking that the politician wouldn't recall anything he may have seen before passing out) and darted to their apartment. The speed at which Yor yanked the door open nearly took it off its hinges, and they ran in to find Franky on the couch watching some cartoon, with Anya curled up beside him, sleeping soundly.

The informant laughed when he saw the couple's faces. "You guys should really start coordinating your jobs," he commented, standing up carefully to not wake the child. "Cuz I ain't a babysitter."

Yor and Loid both sighed in relief that Anya hadn't been left home alone. "Thank you, Franky. We appreciate it," Yor told him, deciding not to question how much he knew about tonight as she moved to bring Anya to bed.

Franky nodded in response to her, then unabashedly held his hand in front of Loid for some cash. Loid rolled his eyes, but dug his wallet out nonetheless. "Hey," he started, while Franky counted his payment and decided it was sufficient. "You could have warned me my wife was my target tonight."

"Heh," Franky smirked. "That woulda taken the fun out of it."

[lassieposting]

💘 for violent?

send me 💘 + A SHIP and i’ll tell you—

This got uhhhh really long whoops sorry

where they first met and how

Vile shows up to a battle Mevolent is fighting and just. Joins in.

Mevolent doesn't personally spot him, but several of his officers do - Vile has no colours on his armour, so they have no idea which side he's on, and he doesn't seem to care very much which side the men he's killing are on either. He's after the big prize - the Sanctuary general leading the opposing side - but anyone who gets in his way is fair game, no matter who they support.

One of Mevolent's men reports this after the battle is over, because it's strange enough to warrant a mention: the Necromancers have hardly left their temples in a hundred years, why is this one showing up now? Mevolent dispatches some people to round up the stranger and bring him in (which makes for a lot of very uneasy soldiers), but they find him loitering around outside the camp and he surrenders without a fuss.

When he's brought to Mevolent, Mev has had some time to bathe and get changed and is lounging around in a bathrobe with a glass of wine. He asks some questions, Vile answsrs them. Mev idly mentions that Vile seems very confident for a man who killed some of Mevolent's own soldiers - ordinarily, this would be something Mev would execute him for. But Vile tosses the enemy general's head at Mevolent's feet - ("Killed a few of theirs, too.") - and essentially prompts, do you want me on your side, or theirs?

Mev takes him.

how long their ‘flirting’ phase was before feelings got involved

Actually - from the first time they meet.

At some point, Mevolent prompts Vile to take the helmet off - it's rude not to, how is he ever supposed to trust a man he's never seen? And Vile knows it's a risk, but he's also fairly sure Mevolent never saw Skulduggery Pleasant up close anyway, so he does as he's asked.

Mevolent lets himself have a minute to be shocked. He was expecting another Baron. But Vile can't be any older than Nefarian, which means he's absurdly young to have that much power. And he's pretty, even if there's something...a bit off...about him.

(His first thought is that he's talking to Vile's reflection. He dismisses it almost immediately, but he knows something isn't right. He doesn't know that he's picking up on Vile needing A Lot of practice to get his fake body to look properly alive; he's a bit too pale, keeps forgetting to blink, he's unnaturally still...it's all a bit uncanny valley.)

He starts flirting shortly after that. Just a little bit, to see if Vile leans that way or if he's visibly uncomfortable. He hooks up with China occasionally and has Serpine in his bed whenever he wants him, but he's always after something new, and Vile's arrogance and lack of deference is as refreshing as it is irritating. It's not love at first sight or anything though - all he's after is another notch on his bedpost.

who asks who out and how ( with a sign? spelled out on a cake? just a simple ‘will you go out with me’? )

They never actually discuss it, they just sort of...accidentally fall into monogamy? Their relationship begins with casual sex, stress relief on Vile's side and a novelty (someone who regularly tells him no and makes him work for it) on Mev's. As they realise they actually get along very well outside the bedroom, it becomes more friends with benefits. But somewhere along the line, Mevolent stops and realises that he hasn't shared his bed with anyone else in over a year - and he hasn't minded. His primary hesitation over getting married to Serafina is whether consummating his marriage will upset his lover, when all that should matter is the political power and money she brings witj her. And he realises that somehow, without his noticing, Vile has become more important than Mevolent ever intended for him to be.

who proposes first

It's. Less a proposal, and more a discussion. Sometime after Serafina's death, Mevolent starts getting social pressure to marry again. Mothers are starting to fling their daughters at him at every opportunity because they all want to be the mother of the new queen. And he doesn't want to do it again, have another political marriage that will definitely cause problems between him and Vile. He's in a position of considerable power by this point and his inner circle has been made aware of his sins thanks to Serpine, so he decides that fuck it, he wants to go public with their relationship.

Vile lets him - on the condition that it's not a big public spectacle. So Mevolent combines their family crests (called "impaling") which is what happens with married couples - so instead of having a banner with Mevolent's crest hanging in the Great Hall, it would be half his crest and half Vile's, joined together in the same shield (escutcheon). He has to have a crest drawn up for Vile, of course, but it's a quiet way of making it Very Clear that he's off the market.

if they keep / kept their relationship secret or let everyone know right away

They're a secret for the better part of fifty years. Mevolent is taking a big risk getting involved with a heretic, so he doesn't want to chance being open about Vile until he's completely confident in his victory and his power as ruler of the world. Vile is absolutely fine with this arrangement - not because he cares what people think, but because it's court custom to fawn over Mevolent's favourites to try and curry favour with him, and being the highlight of a social event is Vile's idea of hell.

where the proposal happens and how ( kiss cam at a baseball game? on a hillside surrounded by ducks? at a disney park? )

Nothing quite that romantic. Mevolent is over 1000 years old, and in ancient Ireland, if a couple decided they were married? They were married. There was no need for a ceremony or vows or a priest involved. They might announce it to a few witnesses, just to make it Extra Valid, but even that wasn't necessary.

That had changed quite a bit by the time Vile was born, but if Mevolent says something is legal, it's legal, because who's going to stop him? And he knows that's preferable to Vile, because he hates being the centre of attention. The sort of big extravagant ceremony he had when he married Serafina would have Vile running for the hills.

It's not valid in the eyes of the church, of course. Vile is a heretic - the church barely considers him human. It takes balls to say no to Mevolent, and it's not usually a wise idea, but that is just a little bit too far for the Faceless Priests, and they turn him down.

(He accepts it with good grace once he realises they really won't be pushed. Convincing Vile to say vows in a church of a religion he finds ridiculous would be. A Challenge™ anyway. He's learned to pick his battles over the years.)

Once they've decided "okay, we're in this for the long haul, guess we're married now" Mev takes off to one of his summer palaces for a month to "supervise repairs" and takes Vile with him "as a bodyguard", which is common enough that nobody bats an eyelid. They're long since back from their honeymoon by the time anyone realises that's what it really was.

if they adopt any pets together

Mevolent, like any self-respecting monarch, keeps horses.

Animals can sense death, so Vile is unsettling to them by nature. But he spends so much time around them that they eventually get desensitized to him. He's been a big rider all his life, surrounded by horses and riding and hunting since infancy, and he knows a lot about all things horse.

Mevolent starts feigning interest in the horses when he's trying to get Vile into bed, as an excuse to run into him and start talking. But he was born a peasant, raised a slave, and has only ever really seen the horses as a status symbol, proof of how far up he's come in the world, so he's not prepared for...quite how horsey real gentry can be. He tries to start a casual chat about maybe breeding this stallion with that mare, complete with a clever double entendre about how sometimes couples who don't look all that compatible on the surface have the most explosive chemistry, flirtily asks what Vile thinks, and Vile...infodumps all things horse-breeding at him for four hours straight. Which was not what he was expecting, but the enthusiasm is actually pretty endearing.

who’s more dominant

The short answer: Mevolent.

The long answer: It's complicated.

In bed, Mevolent dominates because Vile lets him. He gets off on the power exchange, microdosing the subby side he had as Skug by handing control over to someone he trusts not to hurt him. It's also part of how he tries to deal with his trauma - subconsciously reenacting having his control forcibly taken away when Serpine was torturing him (by willingly ceding it to Mevolent) but with a different, more enjoyable result. He still makes Mev work for it, though - he won't just roll over without a playfight first. That's part of the fun.

Outside the bedroom, their power dynamic is all over the place. Mevolent is Vile's boss. Vile is Mevolent's bodyguard. Mevolent is 600+ years older. Vile has been through hell and takes no shit from anybody. Mevolent is Vile's benefactor, as a heretic living in a theocracy that would burn him alive again. Vile is the most powerful Necromancer in known history.

It's a constant struggle for control between two very dominant personalities, and they thrive on it.

who’s more protective

They both have shades of this, even though they know the other can handle himself.

After the war is more or less over, and the affair is still going strong, Mevolent essentially assigns Vile to be his bodyguard. It's a good excuse to be together all the time, but Vile takes it seriously, and he's good at it. He's the one who warns Mevolent about Aby's assassination plot, and he also foils Serpine's bid for Mevolent's throne - he might have gotten the better of Mevolent alone, because he took him by surprise, but Mev and Vile fight as a team and cover each other's weak spots, so once Vile arrived, Serpine had to cut and run.

Mevolent is protective too, but he's less sensible about it. He sends Vengeous to investigate the draugar, even though Vile would've been the obvious choice - if nothing else, he has the ability to shadow-walk out of danger, which Mevolent would've known would be useful. But he sent Vengeous in blind, and took Vile to safety instead. On top of that, Vengeous is methodical and organised in a way Vile could never hope to match - he actually would've been more useful to Mevolent during a large-scale evacuation, just as Vile is perfect for one-man in-and-out recon missions. But keeping Vile safe was more important.

how long it is before they sleep together ( can be as in ‘had sex’ or as in ‘shared a bed’ )

Vile joins Mevolent in early 1854, they first have sex in late 1854 and first sleep together while Vile is recuperating in early 1855.

Mevolent marries Serafina in 1856, so their early years are full of drama.

if they argue about anything

"But really, do you think the gods will punish me for this [relationship]? Oh, stop laughing. I'm serious."

"Perhaps? How tragic. No Faceless heaven for you. Not that you'd enjoy it anyway. Nobody will fuck you once your face is all melted. You wouldn't cope."

"Do you have any idea how tempting it is sometimes to just have you executed?"

"Then nobody would be fucking you in this life either."

(They've been having this argument for 200 years.)

who leaves more marks ( lipstick, hickeys, scratchmarks etc. )

When they're really going at it, Mevolent tends to leave little finger-bruises where he's been holding Vile up or pinning his wrists. Vile is the one who leaves scratchmarks. And he actually bites - mostly Mevolent's bottom lip, when he's pissed off about something. Mev doesn't mind though - if they're in the mood for rough, they both enjoy a good power struggle.

On a soft day, it's just hickeys from both of them, but Mevolent also gives Vile several sigil tattoos, so (aside from the fact that they're invisible until they're used) he definitely leaves more marks.

who steals whose clothes and how often

Vile - mostly to doss around their rooms in when he can't be bothered to get dressed or they'll be fucking again shortly so there's no point. He also steals Mevolent's shirts and robes if he's injured - the good thing about having a partner so much bigger than you is that everything is baggy as hell. Perfect for hiding bandages or not chafing a healing wound.

how they cuddle ( spooning? facing each other? )

Vile's a burrower. He likes to get as close as he can, to steal as much body heat as possible, and bury his face in Mevolent's chest/neck/shoulder. It's a leftover thing from Serpine's dungeon - protecting his face while he snatches at sleep so he can't be woken by a sudden kick or punch to a vulnerable area. He's also that horrible gremlin partner who will use Mev's skin to warm his cold hands/nose/feet on.

Mevolent often absentmindedly plays with Vile's hair while he's waiting to fall asleep, just as something to do while he's thinking over anything he has to do the next day, etc. So he'll doze off with one hand tangled in the curls and the other resting on a hip or thigh or back.

what their favourite nonsexual activity is

They have A Lot in common. They're both big readers, they both like tactical games like chess, they spar together and teach each other battle tricks, they both like to ride, they both enjoy music and poetry and culture. They're also that couple who like to be antisocial together - Mevolent will get on with his paperwork at his desk, and Vile will be on the couch with a book, and they'll sit there in silence together for hours, just being companionable.

how long they stay mad at each other

Long enough for angry sex. That's usually how their fights get worked out.

what their usual coffee / tea orders are

Mevolent got a taste for green tea while he was campaigning overseas during the war, and still prefers it now. Vile drinks a bitter black atrocity, and anyone with sense won't speak to him until he's had at least one in the morning.

if they ever have any children together

I do have an AU where Mevolent decides he does actually want an heir, and they end up raising Caisson together - or rather, Mevolent raises Caisson dubiously assisted by Vengeous and Serpine, and Vile claims hs wants nothing to do with "the brat", but can't help sticking his nose in every five minutes because he has residual Dad Instincts and Mevolent is doing it wrong. Any family where Lord Vile is the responsible parent is probably not going to churn out a particularly well-adjusted child, though.

if they ever split up and / or get back together

Nope. They go into it as a casual thing, very much expecting it to fizzle out once one or both of them has had their fill. Two hundred years later, they're still together.

what their shared living space is like ( messy? clean? what kind of decor? )

A very grand, opulent goth baroque palace. Mevolent spent a lot of his youth in medieval France, and he was highly influenced by extravagant court style. He likes to be surrounded by beautiful things, and his home is no different.

(Yes, material wealth is a sin. No, he's not sorry.)

He likes rich, dark colours and fabrics, ornate furnishings and dark wood and disturbing religious artwork. He also indulges his own vanity every now and then by commissioning religious artwork of himself - including an exquisite stained glass window in the Great Hall, which Vile scoffs at for a year or so and then gleefully flings Abyssinia through.

Most of the day to day running of Mevolent's household is down to a small army of servants, which poses some problems for him early in his relationship with Vile. A maid will slip into his room early in the morning to light the fire so that the room has time to warm before he has to get up for morning prayers. Another servant delivers his breakfast, and for quite some time he has a valet who helps him dress. Any of them could see Vile in his bed and let the secret out.

Luckily for Mevolent, for all his faults, he's a good boss to work for. He knows all the servants he interacts with by name, and asks after their families. He's well-liked, and although the servants know about Vile a long time before Mevolent's inner circle, it's Serpine who spills the beans, not one of the workers.

if they have any ‘couple traditions’ ( buying a new mug for their collection every year? baking every friday evening? )

They have a rather warped version of a regular date night.

When Mevolent is interrogating Valkyrie, and she thinks she hears Skug coming to save her, three things are really notable:

1) Mevolent knows those footsteps too, and he smiles when he hears them. So not only is he happy to see Vile, this is probably something they do at least semi-regularly - interrogating interesting or high-profile prisoners together. Either Mevolent sent for him, or he knows Vile is too curious to not come look in on an interrogation.

2) The fuckin? Horny shadows? Mevolent has just died a violent death here, Necromancers are confirmed to be able to sense the lingering echoes of death and pain and anguish, and Vile's shadows are like mmmm tasty. This is where the headcanon comes from that he's rabid horny for recently-resurrected Mevolent. And Mev knows he does this, just soaks up all that energy, and he doesn't care. Love is letting your SO get a bit high on your agony vibes every day, I guess?

3) Vile comes to stand right beside the throne, without so much as a hello. This is...considerably more informal than the relationship Mevolent seems to have with Vengeous. In fact, for some reason Mevolent seems to treat Baron very unkindly in Leibniz - Vile is still very much a general and Mevolent's personal bodyguard, but Vengeous has been demoted to prison guard in all but name. When Mevolent starts investigating the draugar, he sends Vengeous into a situation that will very likely kill him, but takes Vile - the most powerful Necromancer alive and a living nuclear bomb of power - with him when he evacuates the city and flees for safety, even though the logical move would've been to reverse those assignments. Vengeous is clearly not personally close with Mevolent, but their synchronicity, constant proximity and the way others speak about them (like Serpine's lapdog comment) imply that Vile is.

This is actually the scene that made me start shipping them in the first place.

who falls asleep first and who wakes up first

Vile isn't a great sleeper - he has nightmares, and he'll often get up several times in the night for water or to go onto the balcony for fresh air or to quietly freak out in the bathroom for half an hour. But he sleeps better once he's sharing a bed with Mevolent. Mev generally runs hot, and he actually quite likes to be close, so he's A-OK with Vile burrowing into his side or under his arm and leeching all his body heat. When he's warm and feels safe, he has fewer nightmares, and he's more likely to get a decent amount of sleep.

Mevolent doesn't always wake first, but he does get up first: he goes to morning prayers, and leaves Vile to sleep in because he's a rotten little heretic.

who’s the big spoon / little spoon

Mevolent is the big spoon. Vile was freakishly tall for most of the centuries he's been alive - the average height of an enlisted soldier in the 16th/17th centuries was 5'5 - 5'6, and 25% of recruits were under the required height to use a musket (5'). So having someone he can sprawl out over who makes him feel small and protected is a novelty.

who hogs the bathroom

Vile. He has long-ass baths because he likes to nap in the warm water. He gets cold easily because he's technically dead and making his fake body thermoregulate takes focus he often just doesn't have, so he just sprawls out in a hot bath or in front of the fire like a fuckin lizard under a heat lamp

who kills the spiders / takes them outside

The servants. They live in a palace. There's an entire staff dedicated to cleaning and tidying and keeping the entire massive building shipshape. Neither of them have to lift a finger.

[ad1thi]

pepperony

1. Coffee shop AU: Who is the barista, and who frequents the coffee shop?

Pepper quits her master’s degree in business to come take over her mother’s coffee shop after her mother falls in. Nobody told her that part of the job description was helping Tony Stark run his company.

(she thinks she deserves a raise)

2. Highschool/College AU: Who is the straight-A student, and who’s the back-row slacker?

Virginia Potts is President of Student Council, Co-President of the Debate Club, Founding Member of the SGA, and would really like to ram the back of her heels into Tony Stark’s eye. Politely of course. Because nobody should be allowed to miss what is basically the entire of the school year and still do swimmingly in their final exams. Not when she slaves away for hours.

It’s unconstitutional is what it is. She should know. She wants to be President of the Country one day. And she’s never going to get there if Tony doesn’t give up his relentless campaign to make everyone call her Pepper.

(no self respecting US president was ever called Pepper)

3. Rivals to loves AU: Who takes their rivalry seriously, and who is half in it just to push the other’s buttons?

Pepper would like the ground to open up and swallow Stark whole. Tony is just trying to work out a way to communicate his feelings without pulling her metaphoric pigtails.

(if you were wondering, he’s failing spectacularly) 

4. Enemies to lovers AU: Which one switches sides?

MOB BOSS ANTHONY CARBONELL i rest my case

5. Soulmate AU: Who is eager to meet their soulmate? Who absolutely does not want to meet their soulmate?

Tony has dreamed of meeting his soulmate ever since he got his soulmark at 4. He doesn’t know when he’ll meet them, or where, but he makes it a point never to reject someone - just in case they might be the one. Pepper has no such hang ups, and is incredibly happy to continue the rest of her life with her soulmark covered up and hidden from the world.

6. Single parent AU: Which one is the single parent? (Alt. if they’re both single parents: Which one is open to starting a new relationship from the start? Which one is never planning on finding love again… Until they meet the other and are instantly smitten?)

SINGLE DAD TONY STARK x PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER PEPPER POTTS ft complete ray of sunshine Morgan 

7. Doctor AU: Which one is the long-suffering doctor? Which one is the patient?

out of all the things they covered in her residency, somehow her Attending missed Tony Stark; patient extraordinaire. 

8. Bodyguard AU: Who is the bodyguard? Who are they protecting? Which one is secretly pining for the other?

After whistleblower Virginia Potts releases thousands of documents showcasing the under-the-table weapons deals going on in Stane Industries, her life is torn apart overnight and within the span of a weekend - she finds herself in Witness Protection, while the FBI is building their case against currently missing CEO Obadiah Stane. Agent Anthony Carbonell is the man assigned to keeping her alive.

9. Pirate AU: Who is the pirate? Who is the member of the royal family who did not sign up for this?

Pepper is used to striking fear in the hearts of sailors across the seven seas. Tony just really misses his bed, and wonders if the pretty Captain would like to join him there sometime.

(he hasn’t realised that he’s being held captive on a pirate ship yet. Or, more accurately, he’s realised and decided he doesn’t care)

10. Childhood best friends AU: Which one was super obviously in love with the other the whole time? Who was oblivious until they were older?

Some things were just universal truths. The sky was blue, the grass was green, and Tony was in love with Pepper. That was just the way of things, and he was content with it never changing, with keeping it close to his chest - locked up under chains and swallowing the key.

(Well, content might be pushing it. More like resigned)

send me a ship for OTP asks

[songofclarity]

Out of sheer curiosity, what do you think of Wen Xu. Any HC?

Two Wen Xu asks came in back-to-back and I could probably have answered them both at once, but I'll use your daring moment of sheer curiosity to focus on headcanons/theories I have for him, Anon~!

Similar to Su She, who caused problems while lurking in the background, I think Wen Xu, who also caused problems while lurking in the background, is our guy who has been inciting several other rising conflicts between the Qishan Wen and the other sects over the years. He doesn't need explicit orders to do this, mind you, because he is simply doing what any self-respecting son of the Qishan Wen Sect would do. Just like the Twin Prides look to the Jiang motto of Attempt the Impossible and the Twin Jades look to the 3,000 Lan rules, Wen Xu is also guided by Clan tradition:

The Wen Clan used the sun as the motif of their clan, signifying that they could "compete with the sun for radiance, match the sun in longevity." (ch. 17, ERS)

The sun, however, is beautiful and warm and radiant all on its own, which means he doesn't have to play nice with the other sects if he doesn't want to. In fact, it goes against policy to treat the other sects as equals! Therefore, with him being the predominant Wen outside Nightless City, it seems apt to assign these events to him:

1. Monopolizing all the prime Night Hunt locations and excluding the other sects, which made the other sects resent the Qishan Wen even more

Remember Jin Ling setting up those 400 golden nets? That's expensive and entitled! I imagine Wen Xu was our first Jin Ling, except rather than using 400 golden nets it's Wen Xu and his friends and Wen favorites who are staking claims on all the best sites. They're having a fun time and everyone else can cry about it! Remember that guest cultivators love being with the Wen Sect! It likely comes with plenty of favors, and Wen Xu as Wen RuoHan's eldest son had much to offer to gain and keep their support for the Qishan Wen.

2. Pushing the Waterborne Abyss from Qishan into Gusu Lan territory, making it a Lan problem and making the other sects resent the Qishan Wen even more

I headcanon that this event is what eventually prompted Wen Chao to daringly declare that he killed the Tortoise of Slaughter. Did Wen Xu declare that he had killed the Waterborne Abyss (which would sound absurd since the only known way to defeat it is to drain the lake and keep it dried out for years)? Or did he own up to how he simply got rid of the problem? Either way, he made Qishan safe, which is what any cultivation sect is supposed to do for their region.

The Qishan Wen are good to the Qishan Wen and the common folk beneath them. It's really only the other sects that take issue with them and see them as a threat.

*Please remember that the Qishan Wen Sect isn't an empire. They aren't trying to take over the world. They are simply seeking dominance and prominence, with all the power and prestige that comes with it.*

3. It's canon that Wen Xu led the attack on Cloud Recesses, that he accused QingHeng-jun of something to validate this assault, that he ordered Lan WangJi's leg broken when he stood in their way, and that he is responsible for the death of QingHeng-jun (whom I headcanon died due to critical burns from the fire)

The big question here is what, exactly, was Wen Xu/the Wen accusing QingHeng-jun of? It could be something real: neglecting his duties or even something to do with Madam Lan, since we really don't know her backstory. Or something overblown: having two sons who wear clouds on their ribbons, and clouds block out the sun, and those two sons did better than the Wen in the archery competition, so it must be an anti-Wen conspiracy, etc etc. (Wang LingJiao had to learn that logic somewhere!) The latter appeals to me the most, and highlights how Wen Xu was a role model for his little brother. The difference being that Wen Xu had experience handling other sects without getting everyone killed.

Frankly, that Wen Xu destroyed Cloud Recesses and got their Sect Leader killed and made their second Sect Leader go missing and all the other sects let him get away with it just reinforces, to me, that he has indeed been up to no good for a long time and that he is incredibly strong in his own right. Although Wei WuXian comments that the Wen Sect has a higher proportion of weak and incompetent disciples/subordinates, I headcanon that Wen Xu is not one of the weak ones.

But also Wen Xu is not bloodthirsty. He did what he needed to do and the only one left dead was the one that the Wens had a undisclosed problem with: QingHeng-jun. Wen Xu is strong but he has restraint. He never pushed anyone into a corner which could incite a rebellion, which was Wen Chao's mistake.

Until Wen Xu finally did push too hard:

4. It's canon that he went against Wen RuoHan's speech which effectively said to leave the Qinghe Nie alone. By ignoring how Wen RuoHan said that Nie MingJue would not bend, he pushed the Nie into a corner and bit off more than he could chew and got himself beheaded

All the Wens appeared to agree that the Sunshot Campaign was just an act of arrogance on the part of the other sects. The Wens did not take it seriously during those first three months, and therefore neither sought to squash it out or defeat it.

Wen Xu is what proves them wrong when he gets himself killed.

But what was Wen Xu doing in Hejian!? I headcanon/theorize that he was trying to end the Campaign on his own terms. Wen Xu was used to winning and used to the sects capitulating to Wen power and presence. Cloud Recesses was already destroyed and Lan XiChen is no threat, Lotus Pier was conquered and the Yunmeng Jiang were annihilated, and the Wens expected the Lanling Jin to come crawling back to them when things got too rough. This left the Qinghe Nie as the last foe, and thus Wen Xu went on his own prerogative to take Nie MingJue out and claim dominance for the Qishan Wen once more.

RIP Wen Xu

I don't say all of this to somehow make Wen Xu look evil--the Wens aren't evil and I don't understand why some readers want to dumb down the whole story by shoving them into a little evil box--although I guess I headcanon him as having a big head and being something of a bully lol. He's just being the same kind of pompous rich kid like Jin ZiXuan and Jin Ling except he has actual power and authority to back it up. The Qishan Wen are the biggest, richest, most powerful sect. He is the one who will one day inherit it as he is Wen RuoHan's oldest son. So he is both simultaneously protecting the Qishan Wen name as well as reinforcing it's power. He is endearing himself to his father by "fixing problems" and "taking care of unruly sects" before the problem even reaches Wen RuoHan's ears. Considering what we see and hear from Wen RuoHan, and how Wen RuoHan fails to make decisions he's not already being ushered into by a third party, Wen Xu and others are very much pro-actively promoting the Qishan Wen on their own terms.

Wen RuoHan is thus very happy with this loyal and righteous son of his! And it leaves Wen Chao striving to follow in Wen Xu's footsteps.

I headcanon that Wen Xu is much older than Wen Chao, like at least 10 years older if not more. (Who knows how old Wen RuoHan is? However old or young I want him to be at any given time! lol) This puts their relationship in a funny/annoying range of Wen Xu being the big brother but also old enough to pull the adult/parent card. Wen Chao has poor cultivation and he's the baby, which is why he gets Wen ZhuLiu as a bodyguard while Wen Xu, who is arguably quite strong, just gets to run around with his subordinates. Wen Xu is the jock big brother who pushes Wen Chao's buttons and it looks like they hate each other--but I also headcanon that Wen Xu likes seeing Wen Chao succeed in whatever dumb thing Wen Chao decided to do today and Wen Chao wants to grow up to as respected and powerful as Wen Xu (and Wen RuoHan) one day. They are not adversaries although there is competition and conflict between them.

And, as I mentioned before, we get Waterborne Abyss vs Tortoise of Slaughter competition between them. Both of them don't believe it! Father, he is not that competent!

Wen RuoHan laughs it out and disagrees, because he appreciates that both his kids are doing amazing feats. (Are they though? Are they???)

Then there are headcanons of Wen Xu and Wen Qing! Their families were close because they are family and their parents were BFFs! I have yet to decide if I want Wen Xu or Wen Qing to be older. Da-ge or Da-jie? One idea I like for them is that they were close as children, but maybe grew up and went their separate ways a little. That Wen Qing never renounced the Wen Sect makes me hold fast that she did love her family and clan, even if she didn't agree with what they did for their sect. Wen Xu wasn't a bad guy even if he did bad things. (She disliked Wen Chao but maybe she liked Wen Xu a little more lol)

I headcanon Wen Ning's outstanding archery involved Wen Xu giving him some hands-on assistance. (Da-ge? Da-ge...!) Like everyone else in the Wen Sect, I headcanon Wen Ning would have also wanted to impress Wen RuoHan and be noticed by him, too. They didn't keep it a secret from Wen Chao on purpose, it just turned out that way especially since most of the work was done by Wen Ning. (Wen Xu was at the discussion conference but he didn't watch the archery competition, instead teasing it was for babies in order to make Wen Chao cross. Wen Xu likes Wen Chao but he needs to grow up!)

There are also headcanons about his mother, but that's a whole rabbit hole of its own lol My main headcanon is that Wen Xu and Wen Chao have the same mother, but she had difficult pregnancies that resulted in them being born years apart. Madam Wen and Wen RuoHan had wanted a large family and sadly only had two sons. Wen Xu did not grow up short on affection, which resulted in him wanting to protect the Qishan Wen name even more.

I headcanon that Wen RuoHan is a good father and his relationship with Wen Xu was very good, although of course it does not come without it's own difficulties and conflicts at times. (Considering how terrible all the other fathers are, statistically there should be one good one, right?)

There are other random headcanons I could throw in here but I will finish this off by saying I don't have a solid headcanon on who is Wen Yuan's father, although I can see the poetic appeal of it being Wen Xu. Wen Xu burned down Cloud Recesses and said the Wen would help the Lan grow from the ashes. Wen Yuan grows up there as if reborn from the ashes by help of the Lan, given a new name and family, too.

(That Wen Chao is explicitly given a wife in canon makes me headcanon him as Wen Yuan's father though, as I also like Wei WuXian protecting Wen Chao's son for my own dark delight~)

I also tend to think of Wen Xu as someone running around and playing around and not quite ready to settle down. But Wen Xu with a wife and a family of his own? I would love to see it!

[cloudbattrolls]

Thrixe’s Relationships

Primary Relationships:

Mikiel Giacho (#Icebreaker) - Your moirail. Somehow, he went from your sparring partner to your friend, and then to more than that. You understood why he hated the supernatural perfectly, and you were thrilled when he started including you in the highblood culture you’d always been forced to stand outside of due to your position and your bloodline.

You hardly dared believe he actually wanted your company...but as time went on, it became clear he did. He may be quick to anger and particular, but those are part of why you’re pale for him. He’s passionate and knowledgeable and you have deep respect for him, and think he deserves to appreciate his own talents more.

Then you fell in pale with him, and you were so worried he’d hate you for it.

He didn’t.

You’ve never been so happy.

Ullane Wistim - Your former boss. You were coworkers on polite terms before her promotion, but after the two of you got assigned to Alternia with you as her bodyguard...well, she made her distaste for the supernatural very clear. At first, you didn’t blame her - you have no love for it either - but as time wore on and you proved your reliability her refusal to not treat you with suspicion and resentment became frustrating and exhausting.

After things hit their lowest point during the Akalimiya incident, they improved when you returned from your stint in Gaia’s prison. It hasn’t been an easy road between the pair of you, but thanks to your friend Glasya, things have gotten a lot better. You count her as a genuine friend now, and are glad for it.

Lusien Avalon - Your first real friend and your closest one. At first you felt at odds with the lighthouse keeper and their casual attitude toward the eldritch, feeling it dangerous and ignorant, but as you talked to him more you started to understand his point of view and realized you shared hobbies in common. Just being around them calms you down, and you’ve learned a lot from them about the supernatural. 

You love to watch the stars, paint, and fish with him, and you feel horrible about the harm you did to his town, even if it got repaired. You long to see him again, but until then, messaging will have to do.

Glasya Elliss - Your other best friend. Glasya is strange, no doubt about it, but they’ve been kind to you despite seeing you at your worst after the Vernrot incident and taught you many things. You feel a closeness with them you find hard to describe - it’s nothing like quadrants, but it feels deeper than an ordinary friendship. You worry about her sometimes, but you know she can take care of herself, and you’ll be there if she ever can’t.

Zanzul Varzim - Your older signmate. You only met her recently, but you already feel comfortable around her, and not just because of your shared bloodline - that made you wary at first, but she’s proved she can be trusted. You can be your full self with her, and she with you. You can’t wait to spend more time with her.

Other Relationships:

Cipher Tegiro - They’re creepy. You know you have no room to talk, but they still weird you out, and not because of what they are, just because he’s bizarre and untrustworthy, no matter what Ullane says. You guess he’s not actually that bad, but still.

Lonnen Alfira - Your second biggest regret. You hurt his body and his feelings, all while you were trying to do the right thing, protect someone like you’ve always been best at...but at least you’ve learned from your mistakes since then, and you wish him well, wherever he is.

Katrin Rissah - At first you weren’t sure about her, given that Ullane essentially blackmailed her into taking on her clinic job, and then you got annoyed when she kept stealing your lunch (and Ullane didn’t do anything about it). But once you confronted her, the two of you came to an agreement and she’s actually good company, if a little awkward. Still, she’s a cooperative painting model and she enjoys your food, so the two of you get along and you consider her a friend.

Cheran Zaurok - You like him, even if you don’t know much about him due to how quiet he is. He seems like a decent guy, despite being a flesh-eating undead. You were more than happy to cut down the gang members who came after him and to defend him to Ullane when he’s done nothing but be a loyal employee.

Amprus Dorzuh - The odd ghost who accompanied Xrumon to the clinic. You only became aware of their existence when they insulted you and you realized you could hear them - you’d never heard a ghost before, but you guess that’s the result of being more in tune with your powers. She’s actually pretty funny, even if her pranks are kind of annoying sometimes. You’ve taken to see if you can prank her back and get her to laugh at your jokes.

...at least, you used to. Now they hate you for what you did to Xrumon, and you can’t blame them.

Sochet Izzanu - You can’t really blame her for her animosity toward you, given you took her gun without her permission (though you did return it) but you hope restoring her youth and vitality has ensured she won’t come after you again. You appreciate her help in taking down the Siren, and wish her well.

Friday Lovely - You like Friday even if she’s a little much sometimes, a little too eager to use you for science, unlike Ullane’s clinical professionalism.

Priori Poster - You don’t have much of an opinion on the clinic’s part-time mechanic, but it’s odd how she’s started hanging around Xrumon of all people. What are they up to?

Maidel Juzuxt - The two of you aren’t quite friends, but he’s skilled, steadfast, and you trust him with important things. You talk sometimes when he’s around the clinic teaching Linnae, and despite him always being a little nervous around you, she doesn’t seem to bear you any ill will.

Etuuya Vannyn - Ugh. You wish you didn’t have to deal with them at all - you see why Ullane hates this disgusting creature and their endless irritating remarks - but unfortunately, their assistance in learning to use your powers is something you sorely need, so you exist in a wary state of truce with them.

Xrumon Arigah - Your biggest regret. You felt so sure at the time you were doing the right thing for everyone’s sake, especially Ullane...but then she banned you from work for a week and you came to realize what you did was deeply wrong and an abuse of your powers. You don’t like him or trust him, but you wish you could have been friends and that you hadn’t taken away his voice, even temporarily.

Celise Shoket - You don’t hate them like you hate Vallis, but they’re annoying, and their denial of their actions isn’t something you want to deal with. You didn’t mind their questions, but their lack of manners is obnoxious, and if it weren’t for Vannyn you might’ve been tempted to do something about them. Unfortunately, the worm swarm likes them, so you can’t lay a finger on the teal.

Teagan Kejibi - A man you met when you put up an ad wanting to meet with someone to practice your mental abilities. He was helpful and cooperative, if a little strange. You hope he’s taken up writing again.

Vallis Reyleh - You loathe him more than anyone. A nosy, rude, and utterly vile mud stain of a troll (and he’s hardly a troll anymore) who you would love to see dead for insulting Lusien and vivisecting you, but you’re sure he’s just as hard to kill as you are now. More’s the pity.

Hannah Descur - A quiet, cursed surgeon at the clinic who you befriended, despite their differing opinions on the supernatural. You feel for their situation and wish you had a way to help them, but accept that’s unlikely and have resolved to cherish the time you have with them until they turn into a mindless beast. 

Sefalo Argovi - A friend of yours you met on a beach, who’s unfortunately possessed by horrorterrors. Still, you try to support her as best you can, even with her memory issues.

Linnae Ishimi - You have a bit of a flushcrush on him, but more importantly, he’s a good friend. You admire his skill with animals and magic very much, and delight in turning into a dragon alongside them. 

Akalimiya (Progenitor) - She ate your brain like the horrible alien she is, and yet...and yet you can’t bring yourself to completely hate her. She was strange and terrifying and very alone. You wish her well, wherever she is now, hoping she finds her children and rebuilds with them.

[cosmicangst]

can you assign books to psycho pass relationships like you did with musicals?

this is a great chance to rec my favorite romances! i shied away from tragedy and dourness and opted for empowered characters and hea’s (or otherwise emotionally satisfying endings)

if you like shinkane, you might vibe with:

the fire and thorns trilogy by rae carson – ya fantasy with latinx-inspired cultural elements centered on a coming-of-age story of an underestimated but savvy queen. it’s more focused on her journey but it also features her star-crossed relationship with her knight commander who serves as her personal guard and pines for her from afar.

the vampire academy series by richelle mead – one of the few unironically good things that came out of the vampire/paranormal-trend after twilight. the series is about a confident young woman who is training to be a guard for her best friend, a half-vampire princess. part of the heart of the story lies in this friendship but the other is in her romance with her russian mentor who is too serious and self-denying for his own good.

the winternight trilogy by katherine arden – russian medieval fantasy series featuring a rebellious misfit, vasya, who is outcast by her village because of her independent spirit and her ties with magic. this is less romance since it primarily focuses on vasya’s maturity as she becomes a warrior bent on saving her country from itself. but i had to add this one here because the (very koschei-esque death and the maiden) complicated romance she has with a frost demon king made me want to tear my hair out the same way as shinkane.

jane eyre by charlotte bronte – governess who has strong principles and a sense of self matches with a morally dubious byronic antihero blah blah old newsss

the governess affair by courtney milan – historical novella by my favorite romance author. i'm a huge historical romance reader but out of all of the ones i’ve read, a good portion of milan’s works strike me because the protags are not ducal or royalty and are truly ordinary people just trying to get by. the hero here is an enforcer who works for a duke and the heroine is a former governess seeking restitution for crimes the duke committed against her (cw for past rape but it’s only mentioned briefly and respectably as a plot point)

best of luck by kate clayborn – contemporary about a sheltered, kind woman who wins a lottery ticket and seeks to further the education she missed out on using the money. it's a “my best friend’s brother” kind of romance but i chose this one because the couple explores a dynamic echoed in shinkane: underestimated woman with a hidden spirit who falls in love with a wanderer who keeps moving because of his ghosts.

girl gone viral by alisha rai – contemporary interracial romance between a wealthy recluse suffering from anxiety disorder and ptsd and her faithful, tight-lipped bodyguard who is dealing with his own demons and has loved her for years. the seemingly unrequited pining and the mutual support are the highlights here.

ginaka

uprooted by naomi novik – fantasy stand-alone about a plucky, young woman who is chosen by the feared “dragon” as a sacrifice in exchange for her village’s well-being against the encroaching evil of the forest in their borderlands. the dragon mentioned is actually just howl jenkins if he was a prickly bastard who constantly underestimates the heroine. his ill regard slides off her like water on a duck’s back honestly she can’t be bothered lmao eventually when he realizes how compatible they are as partners, they start to work together to fend off the wood.

unraveled by courtney milan – uptight magistrate hell bent on doing his duty meets his match against a strong-willed seamstress who is just as stubborn in getting past his defenses as he is in putting them up. honestly, this remains like one of the hottest romance ive read that’s not an outright erotica

the duchess war by courtney milan – yes another milan but shes my fave i picked this one not necessarily because the characters have a likeness towards ginaka but because this is one of the few to feature a virgin hero with a genuine but also tender look into the development of a sexual relationship between two characters who are matched by their intellect rather than on their looks

north and south by elizabeth gaskell – i saw a text post that described this book as pride and prejudice for socialists which is apt lol i was going to pick p&p because darcy himself is someone who seems to be a curmudgeon asshole from a distance and is actually just misguided and proud but compassionate and socially awkward. so here’s a lesser-known pick with a similar archetype

the flatshare by beth o’leary – contemporary about two roommates who never see each other but begin an epistolary romance through post-it notes they leave around the flat. the heroine is bright and friendly while the hero is more reticent and sensible. (cw for stalking and emotional abuse)

love lettering by kate clayborn – contemporary between an artist who is passionate about her job and a business man who is decidedly not. i enjoyed this because it’s a book about mistakes and second chances. heroine is earnest and sometimes misguided while the hero is not necessarily a grump—just stoic and awkward.

you deserve each other by sarah hogle -  a fun, light-hearted enemies-to-lovers of an established couple who realize that they might have rushed into an engagement without really getting to know each other. a battle of wills ensues on who gets to be the one to break things off but in the process of showing their true colors, they end up falling in love again. the core theme’s ultimately about breaking off from the constraints of other people’s expectations and reaffirming your authenticity. very ginaka-esque

well met by jen deluca - contemporary centered around the off-the-wrong-foot relationship between a spirited young woman and the too-serious high school teacher/director of a renaissance fair. the hero’s probably the closest in all of the romances ive read that’s most like gino

kougino

the soldier’s scoundrel by cat sebastian – one of the things i’m always wary about lgbt+ historical romance is the reality of history barging its ugly head. however, what i love about cat sebastian is that she really couldn’t give a shit like her books are grounded but they’re always optimistic. this one centers on the love story between a privileged and lonely former soldier and a private investigator with a sketchy reputation. kind of veers into enemies-to-lovers territory but the slow burn is honestly what makes it

second chance by jay northcote – hero a is a single father who escapes with his daughter back to his hometown where he reunites with his childhood best friend, hero b, who could not return his feelings at the time. what i loved about this was how honest their conversations were namely with hero a’s transition and issues of acceptance as a trans man and hero b’s alcoholism and depression. the story isn’t necessarily fluffy but it’s definitely not angsty at all. it’s a tender, uncontrived love story between two aging men with a shared history.

chaos station series by jenn burke and kelly jensen – sci-fi with kickass worldbuilding and a found family to cry over. at the heart of it is a second chance romance between two damaged soldiers who’ve been fucked over by their government and the war. i’m a huge sucker for us-against-the-world dynamics and this reminded me a lot of st*cky too believe it or not lmao

bad judgment by sidney bell – mystery/crime (one-sided) enemies-to-lovers between hero a seeking vengeance and hero b who is the bodyguard of a sketchy and dangerous asshole. this is not a fluffy read at all, probably the most intense out of all my recs but the slow burn is mariana zapata levels just with proper pacing and less purple prose (cw for violence and rape attempt)

a gentleman’s position by k.j. charles – historical with a king and lionheart dynamic. privileged and self-possessed noble denies himself his fixer/valet whom he’s loved for a long time because of class differences. the groveling here is simply chefs kiss

the wolf at the door by charlie adhara – shifter romance!! special agent paired with a werewolf to solve a string of murders. agent suspects his partner but is also incredibly attracted to him. this one has a nice blend of mystery/suspense and romance.

him by sarina bowen and elle kennedy – college hockey romance featuring “oh my god they were roommates” about two jock best friends who “ruin” their friendship with a one night stand. such a fun banter-y book that highlights their compatibility of being “bros” as much as their sexual chemistry of being lovers.

kunikara

gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir – recommended this before and i’m still in the middle of reading but i am having such fun with this one. it’s really a gift to find a loveable lesbian protagonist who is just genuinely cool and propped by gorgeous world building and plotting. what's really winning me over though so far is that the two women have intense chemistry but they are singularly fascinating characters individually. they are strong-willed and cutting and the instances they open up to each other to be tender are so well-earned

the lady’s guide to celestial machinations by olivia waite – the historical ff book of last year. it centers on an aspiring astronomer and the widow of a scientist. homophobia and sexism are very much present in the book but the core of it is just so soft and caring. like there’s no contrived drama or stupid misunderstanding. any conflict is just borne organically from the characters’ natural conceptions of their reality and their pasts.

and playing the role of herself by k.e. lane – seemingly one-sided love featuring an aspiring actress who gets a role acting alongside her more established and beautiful co-star. yayoi's anxieties in her relationship with shion echo so much in this book. but the care and love the two have for each other are undeniable and transgresses any fear or anxiety

tipping the velvet by sarah waters – aka cunnilingus (no im not kidding). this is less of the romance genre and more just a straight historical bildungsroman with lesbian romantic relationships. the main relationship centers on a girl who falls in love with a drag king performer and becomes her dresser. they become friends and fall in love, however reality interrupts. someone on goodreads described it as a dickenesque maurice but with lesbians and they would be exactly right.

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor jenkins reid – a confessional framed by a young journalist interviewing the elderly glam diva, evelyn hugo. the main core is evelyn’s journey as a willful cuban woman in hollywood who didn’t like that she was cuban or a woman. worse that she wasn’t afraid to be unlikable and strong-minded. the main emotional drive is the connection between the interviewer and evelyn but i had to include this here because evelyn’s relationship with the true romance of the story is heartbreaking and lovely (cw for domestic abuse and period-typical homophobia/biphobia)

the dark wife by sarah diemer – hades and persephone if hades was a woman! this retelling reinforces persephone’s agency from the original myth by emphasizing it alongside hades’s own affirmation of her journey. the other best parts about this is recasting demeter as less controlling and more protective for her own good reasons and zeus as the rightful villain that we know him to be.

proper english by k.j. charles – historical murder mystery set in edwardian england where sensible heroine meets her friend’s fiancée and initially dismisses her as being an airheaded pretty face but quickly falls in love. love a good u-hauling couple!

[jimlingss]

The President’s Son [19]

Chapter 18 - Chapter 19 - Chapter 20 [Finale]

➜ Words: 4.1k

➜ Genres: 100% Fluff, Slice of Life, Bodyguard!AU

➜ Summary: Kim Taehyung is the President’s son, mischievous and playful, and infamous for being a troublemaker. When everyone’s given up, they call for you to be his personal guard. There’s no other choice when your dad’s assigned you to it and surprisingly Taehyung doesn’t mind either. Maybe because you happened to grow up with that brat.

Your dad always taught you that if things fail, you do them over and over until you succeed.   Such a lesson was taught after Taehyung’s eighth birthday party where it was discovered you were scared of sparklers. The sparks always got too close to your hand and you feared it would harm you, that your clothes would catch fire. But your dad found out and every single day for three months, he’d come home and light handfuls of sparklers for you to hold until you got over your fear.   You’re not so sure shock therapy works — on the one occasion it did, but you took away the message of perseverance.    And now you want to try again, especially considering that last time didn’t go as planned.   “You want to go out for drinks?”   You smile, nodding once. “I really want to thank you for helping out with fixing my dad’s roof. I kind of feel guilty that I called you right after a shift—”   “What did I say?” Seokjin laughs, petting your hair before letting his arm drape to his side. “You can call me anytime you need, chickpea.”   Infectious giggles bubble out of your throat, reduced to a school girl that would be a humiliating sight in front of anyone else. “Then let me take you out for drinks properly this time.”   “I’d love to.”   Finally. Without interruption. Just you and a senior you massively respect.   But of course, the plan only lasts for ten minutes.   Taehyung discovers you chatting away and loops his arm around your shoulder, pulling you too close to his chest and too intimately, leaving Jin to quirk a brow. The attention is only diverted when Jimin hears the invitation and self-invites himself. You can’t deny it when he had helped as well.   Naturally, Taehyung joins too without even asking. And somehow, Jungkook ends up part of the group after catching wind of it.   What was supposed to be between two people is now five. But you can’t find it in yourself to be upset or defeated. It’s not a failure when you’re happy they’re all joining.   “Are you sure your house is safe, Jeon?”   “Rest assured, boss,” he uses the name mockingly. “If I was planning to kill you, I would’ve done it a long time ago.”   “And you would’ve died trying.”   “He can’t take on two.” Taehyung nudges the bodyguard who grins boyishly, already liking the sound of the plan. You exchange expressions with Jimin, not impressed whatsoever while he sheepishly smiles.   The front door unlocks and everyone shuffles inside, taking off their shoes.   Jungkook flickers on the foyer light of his town house and instantly, everyone’s cowering with their backs towards the walls and their eyes pinned forward into the darkness, except for Taehyung.   Seokjin’s footsteps are deathly silent and he walks into each room, intruding in Jungkook’s space like it’s his own. He is a shadow in the void, stalking unknown dangers. And in the meanwhile, Jungkook pulls down the curtains and Jimin locks the door behind him. Each person scopes the area for safety.   “No one was following us,” you note while assessing the space, more for practicality than admiring the decor.   “No one’s inside.” Jin comes out of the bathroom with a nod.   Jungkook stops peeking out of the blinds. “Looks like it’s safe.”   Taehyung sighs. “Is this really necessary? You’re acting like I’m the president.”   “Priorities first,” Jungkook says with a shrug. “And the priority is your safety.”   “Can’t skip out on responsibilities with our team leader right here.” Jimin smiles, his footsteps padding over to the fridge.    Jin slumps onto the couch, peeling off his jacket to throw haphazardly and putting his feet up on the table. “You shouldn’t be skipping out on any responsibility regardless if I’m here or not.”   “Why don’t you just make yourself at home.” Jungkook frowns, unamused and he kicks his senior’s feet off of his coffee table. In this space and at this time, no one has authority over anyone else and that includes Taehyung — everyone’s equals with one another.   “What the hell is this.” You walk over to the counter, swiveling on your heel to glare. “You got hard liquor, Jeon?”   “Only the best.” He grins and comes trotting over proudly. “Captain’s Morgan, Jack Daniel’s, the likes. What more could you want?”   “I was thinking something lighter.”   “Nah. That’s lame. Go hard or go home.”   “Well, we better get started then.” Taehyung flops down on the soft sofa too, sinking into the cushions. “You got any snacks?”   “Do I have any snacks.” Jungkook scoffs, personally offended. “You’re in snack haven, thank you very much.”    He grabs the bottles and Jimin brings glasses over. Everyone crowds around the coffee table in the small living room, sitting on the floor together as drinks are poured. You passingly wonder if this is what it feels like to have a group of friends — in the movies where the main character’s in college, it seems like people drink together often. It’s a nice and warm experience.    While the alcohol is disgusting on your tongue and has a way of burning as it travels down your throat, it makes you feel fuzzy after a while, relaxed. Your head becomes lighter and it seems words stream out with more ease.   But it’s still less effective to you than it is to Taehyung. Your stomach is steel while he seems to already be loopy by smelling it, tolerance endearingly low and cause for concern.   “So, how long have you been together?” Jungkook breaks your trance, running his thumb over the rim of his glass as if he tries to emit a ringing sound from it — it doesn’t work.   You don’t know who he’s talking to until he glances at you. “What?”   “You and Taehyung.”   He says it simply and with a lopsided smirk.   Immediately, your neck cranes towards Taehyung, fast enough to get whiplash and you exchange a hardened look with him. “I didn’t tell him!”   “I didn’t tell him either. I swear.” Jimin glances back and forth, alarmed as he reads your expressions and the blonde beside you.   “Wow, you told Jimin, but not me? I’m offended.” Jungkook laughs and leans back against the couch. “I’m assuming it happened somewhere after the whole hostage situation or was it earlier than that?”   “Is it true, chickpea?” Jin eyes you and finishes his drink, pupils still flickered above the rim.    You drown them out, narrowing your stare into Jungkook’s. He smiles with those doe eyes of his that are far from innocent. If no one told him….. “How’d you know?”   “I picked up on it.” He shrugs with a pout. “ It’s pretty obvious, y’know. Doesn’t my job require good observation skills? Plus, you two aren’t very good at hiding things. Pretty bad actually.”   “I….we’re….” You’re fiddling with the hem of your sweater, bringing your knees to your chest. Everyone’s waiting for an explanation — Jimin who watches carefully, Jungkook who’s much too curious and Jin who’s shocked. Taehyung waits as well, patiently, to find how you want to label your relationship. His eyes are piercing, intense, and it makes you swallow hard. Suddenly, the empty glass in front of you is the most interesting thing in the room. “...pre-dating.”   “The hell’s that?”   “We’re giving it a trial run before doing anything serious. We figured it would be….safer and better if we wait until Taehyung’s dad isn’t the President anymore. Less conflict of interest. Less chance of news outlets drawing attention to it. Fewer issues all around.”   “That’s really responsible,” Seokjin says, genuinely touched that you both gave so much thought into it.    Jimin sits straighter, bright smile directed to his superior. “That’s what I said too!”   “That’s dumb,” Jungkook corrects and deadpans. Then he releases a sigh held in his chest, lolling his head to the side. “You know there’s no such thing as pre-dating, right? You’re either dating or you’re not. You’re together or you’re not. But whatever. Do what you want. Label it whatever you want.”   “Don’t listen to him,” Jin chides with a scoff before turning to you with a softened smile. His hand lifts to plop on top of your head much to Taehyung’s dismay who swats it away in a petty manner and pulls you close to him. It makes Jin laugh. “Never thought this day would come. But I’m happy for you, chickpea, as long as you’re happy.”   “I’ll admit, I for one, always thought you liked Jin,” Jungkook exposes without regard.   “W-what?” You’re left sputtering, face heating. “He-he’s just someone I really respect.”   Taehyung scoffs, arm extending to drop on the couch right behind you. “You wish, Jeon. She much prefers me. I’m not just eye-candy or for one night. I’m the guy you introduce to your mom. I’m the real deal.”   “Psh.” The boyish bodyguard snorts. “Sure. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself, Kim.”   At this point, Taehyung’s ready to fight Jungkook to the death. But Seokjin steps in, clarifying, “Y/N and I are just close since we’ve known each other for so long.”   “She knew me for longer,” the man beside you counters, cocking his eyebrow upwards.   Everyone ignores him. “When I met her, she was the size of a pea. Or like a baby chick.”   “Is that why you call her chickpea?” Jimin asks and he nods, shifting to you with a smile.   “I met you when you were what...six?”   “I think so?” You’re unsure yourself. “I was in kindergarten.”   “Wait,” your partner interjects, hands in the air. “ You knew him before you knew me?!”   He’s beyond offended. Taehyung did, in fact, not know you for longer.    “Yeah, I was brought to my dad’s dojo. He was a student there.”   “My parents put me in taekwondo,” Jin says with a smile while Jungkook hums and pours more drinks for everyone, sobering up too quickly for his own liking. “They put me in a whole bunch of activities, like soccer and piano. But I liked taekwondo the best.”   Your jaw goes slack. “You know how to play soccer and play piano?”   “Not that well.” The older man is sheepish, scratching the back of his neck.   Jungkook quickly adds, “I know how to play drums.” Except no one pays him any attention except for Jimin who tells him that’s super cool.   In the meanwhile and as you’re swooning, melting into your spot at the idea of Kim Seokjin being talented beyond your own imagination, Taehyung’s not impressed whatsoever. What he thought was his leverage against the man has been ruined.   Taehyung thought he got to you first. He was your childhood friend. But goddammit! It was Seokjin who was always there without him even knowing.   “Why didn’t you tell me that you knew him before?”   “It’s not that big of a deal. We only saw each other at most...three times a year?”   “Oh.”   “Drink up, folks.” Jungkook shoves a shot into your hand. You look over to the man beside you, jean-covered thigh brushing yours, but he practically inhales the alcohol before you can tell him otherwise. You drink as well, coughing afterwards from the bitter taste. Even Jungkook sharply inhales, brows twitching for a moment before he sets it down, unaffected. “When’d you meet Taehyung?”   “I was in grade...three?”   “I was in grade two,” Taehyung comments with a smile, relaxed again. He’s no longer threatened by Jin’s presence, not like he was legitimately worried earlier. It’s all in good fun...mostly because he knows you too well. You like him the best regardless of what you might say or do — he’s confident on it.   Taehyung’s not wrong either.   “I played with him, well, more like babysitting.”   “You did not babysit me,” he defends with a playful scoff.   You alter your words, choosing them carefully. “I had to keep him...preoccupied while my dad and his were working. Like three to five times a week.”   “Did you get paid?” Jimin asks and you reply with a ‘not really’ while Taehyung shouts a ‘why would she?!’   “Well you do now,” Jungkook chirps, cheeky in the way he says it.   You raise both your brows and glass, taking a drink to it. He laughs happily, pouring you one while Taehyung glares, not particularly entertained with the way the conversation was heading.   But thankfully, Jimin clarifies, “You two are childhood friends then.”   “That we are,” Taehyung chimes proudly and with a giddy giggle. “We were best buds.”   “Well…..”   “Weren’t we?”   “Sure.” You grin and reach over to lightly pinch his cheek. His skin is already pink before you’ve touched it, but when you do, it’s warm beneath your fingers.    “Ugh, don’t be gross.” Jungkook groans without really meaning it. He pours himself another glass, liquid sloshing the sides of his cup. “I don’t need this public display of affection in my house.”   Jin’s smiling at you while Jimin’s shy. But Taehyung revels in it and to piss Jungkook off, he loops his arm around your shoulder, pulling you in to lean on his chest. You comply, not bothered whatsoever. Maybe it’s the liquid courage that seems to dull your sense of shame.    “You went to school with Y/N, right?” Jimin inquires with a hum, words beginning to slur together. “I think you mentioned it once or twice.”   “Yep,” Jungkook answers. “We went to the same high school together. We never talked much though. We were just classmates.”   “He was a shrimp,” you laugh out, the picture in your mind too funny to you. “I should find the yearbook and bring it for everyone to see!”   “Don’t.”   Jungkook’s warning doesn’t faze you. “He had a bowl haircut and wore clothes way too big for his size.”   “Hey, better than you. Everyone was scared of you. For a while there’s a rumour going around that you couldn’t talk at all. No one had ever heard your voice.”   Taehyung nudges you gently. “Something things never change, huh. Miss. Scary-Pants frightening children from day one.”   “I just didn’t talk much back then,” you mutter in defense.   “Everyone goes way back with Y/N then, except for Jimin,” Jin notices.   “Don’t worry, Chim. I like you the best.”   The boy in question grins, beaming brightly. “Thanks, Y/N.”   The night continues, stories being told and exchanged. There are tales of Jungkook moving to the big city, Jimin’s first day of work and how he nearly soiled his pants getting lost in the Blue House, as well as Taehyung talking about his attempt of running away at age seventeen.   There are more drinks passed around for one another, games played until everyone’s brought to the same level of drunkenness that Jungkook’s satisfied with.    You feel warm from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, finding laughing and giggling too easy. You don’t remember the last time you smiled or spoke so much.   But when it’s all done and over, you’re laying beside Taehyung on the floor. The lights are off, Jimin passed out about an hour ago and Jin taking the couch, falling back after trying to go home and finding it too difficult to do so. Jungkook’s a log on the floor as well, dead asleep by the television.   The sounds of snoring fill the small space while you’re still wide awake, as well as a certain someone.   “Did you have fun?” You try to whisper and stay quiet, but it fails as giggles bubble up your throat, ticklish from how close he is to you.   “Yeah.” Taehyung grins. “I had fun. Did you?”   “Yeah. I’m glad.” You reach out, happily taking his hand to hold it. He laces his fingers through yours and you smile infectiously.    There was no better place than here, surrounded by your closest friends and laying right beside him. You could see part of his face with the moonlight shedding through the gaps of the curtains and your eyes run along the slope of his nose, his cupid’s bow before lifting to his lashes.    Kim Taehyung doesn’t seem so lonely anymore.    And you’re relieved, heavy weights lifted off your shoulders, your chest lighter than it was before without the worry. And for you, while you’re still troubled every so often, it isn’t hard to speak what’s on your mind anymore — and it’s not just from liquid courage that prompts honesty.   It’s difficult to pinpoint your emotions, but you know it’s here. even if it’s overwhelming.    “Hey.”   “Hmm?”   “Where do you think we’ll be in a year,” you murmur, eyes flickering downwards where he squeezes your palm. “What do you think we’ll be doing?”   “I would’ve graduated by then. We’d be together.”   “You think so?”   “Yeah. I think so.” Taehyung smiles softly, the corners of his mouth pulled. “Hopefully my dad won’t run for a re-election.”   “And if he does?”   Taehyung hums a low note, soothing and enough to lull you asleep. But you keep your eyes peeled back, hanging onto every syllable that leaves his rumbling voice. “Then we could leave. If you want to. We could go to someplace else where...they wouldn’t know me…..they wouldn’t know you. It wouldn’t be dangerous. Or bad. You know? There are good art schools in other countries….I think you’d qualify for their police force if you tried or maybe join the WWE or whatever.” Taehyung laughs quietly. “Maybe you can even be an ambassador for our country or work at the embassy….”   You grin. “I thought you said you never wanted to leave.”   “Yeah, I said that.” The man sighs, eyes fluttering. “Cause I was scared that there’d be nothing if I came back. No one would remember me. But...I’m not scared no more. You’d be with me no matter what. Dad would be here. And Kook and Jin would be too. There’d be something for me here.”   ���Okay.” You nod, squeezing his hand again before curling against his chest.   “Hmm? Okay, what?”   “Okay, let’s go. If we have to.”   Taehyung smiles against your hair, nuzzling into you. “Really? You’d come with me?”   “Yeah, why not?”   “We’d have to rent a place together and stay together all the time.”   “Good. I can protect you that way.”   He giggles, giddy at the prospects of the future. “We’d basically be married.”   “Sure.” You shrug, reveling in his pleasant scent of lavender and baby lotion. “Whatever you want.”   “You always give in to me,” Taehyung murmurs. “I feel like I push you around too much.”   “Only cause I let you.” There’s a big distinction of being forced and giving in, one that took you a while to learn. “I don’t mind it.”   “Are you sure?”   “You already asked me and I already said yes, dumbo.” You pull away slightly, reaching up to press a kiss against his mouth, one with too much tongue and saliva. You can taste the alcohol on his breath before pulling away.    Taehyung pouts. “I’m not the dumbo, you are.”   “No, you are.”   “No, you are.”   “Hey.” A few meters away, Jungkook rolls over. “Can you guys shut the fuck up?”   The two of you apologize before laughing and lest Jungkook moves to kick you both in the shins, Taehyung pulls you to his chest to muffle the sound. Eventually, your eyes bat thrice, lids becoming too heavy to resist….and you’re gone.

The world is bleary, blurred at the edges.   But as he blinks twice, his vision clears and he sees you at the table, sitting with your legs crossed. Your head is dipped low, neck probably hurting with how it’s bent. Yet, you continue relentlessly, small hand gripping the pencil that’s working hard against the paper, scratching lead into the surface. It moves in a flurry, fast. You’re a hard-worker even at eight years old.   Taehyung glances in the full-length mirror by the display case of plates and antiques left for decoration. He tips his head to the side as he studies his own reflection — big eyes looking back at him with overflowing cheeks. He’s less than four feet tall, dressed in long pants and a yellow shirt with a cute dog face on it.   He turns back around.   “Dumbo, what are you doing?”   “Working,” you mumble and he approaches, finding multiplication worksheets in front of you and you’re doing them rather quickly without needing to count on your fingers or mull over it for too long.   Suddenly, Taehyung’s eye catches the dinner table. Twisting around, there are two dark-haired males sitting without their feet touching the ground. Their legs are swung straight out, bouncing.    And Taehyung realizes this isn’t a memory at all — it’s a dream.   Jungkook’s doe eyes are even bigger and rounder than before, his lips in a permanent pout. The kid glances over beside him and his sticky fingers grab for the bag of candies, ripping it away from Jimin’s grasp. The latter child is stunned for a good ten seconds before bursting out into hysterical sobs, fat tears rolling down his cherub cheeks.   “He stole it from me!”   Jungkook digs his hands in, bringing it to his mouth and chewing the candies in his cheek. He blinks, completely aloof to the frenzied kid beside him who’s having a complete mental breakdown.   “Jungkook, don’t steal.” Footsteps pad out from the room down the hall, a taller and older person from the rest walking out. But despite seeming to have a good head on his shoulders and carrying himself more maturely, Seokjin’s still a child, not much older than the rest. “It’s okay, Jimin, we’ll get you another one,” he tries to placate and comfort in a smooth timbre.   Jimin’s curled fist raises to rub away at his eyes. “Really?”   “Really.”   “Really, really?”   “Triple really.”   A gooey smile spreads into his face and he quirks his head to the side. “Okay! I’ll share right now then!”    Despite Jimin’s compromise, Jungkook has no plans of letting go of his snacks any time soon.   Seokjin turns, looking over. He smiles and walks up slowly with arms behind his back before coming to lean over you. “Doing math homework, chickpea? Need help?”   You shake your head furiously. He stares. “Are you sure?”   Jin’s getting too cozy for your liking, too close. Taehyung watches curiously as you climb up onto your feet, steps scattering noisily. He expects you to dash down the hall, but instead you go right behind him for protection. Taehyung feels the way you grasp onto his shirt in fistfuls, and he grins, standing straight and boldly as your shield while something blooms inside his chest, making his tummy feel fluttery.   You peek out timidly from Taehyung’s shoulder.   “Okay then,” Jin smiles gently, not taking how you shied away from him to heart. “Tell me if you need it.”   “’Kay.”   Taehyung didn’t need to steal you away. You naturally came to him. And his heart is soaring.   After Seokjin leaves, Taehyung turns around to gaze at you. You were too cute — he wishes he didn’t bully and tease you as much as he did back then. “I thought you wanted Jin to help.”   “No.” You shake your head, smiling coyly before your finger pokes at his arm. “I want you to help with my maths.”   “I’m bad at math.”   “That’s ‘kay. I like you better.”   “Really?” His lashes bat, quirking your head to one side.   Your cheeks are puffy, big and swollen. “Yeah. You’re my favourite.”   He grins, so big that it hurts. Taehyung leans down and holds your hand, lacing his fingers between the gaps of your own. You watch the entire time, fascinated. Then, you look at him again with another sweet smile, a chortle that tinkles. “That’s good. You’re my favourite too. I like you.”   “How much?” you ask.   “A lot. Enough for me to love you.”   You’re made shy, bashful and giddy all over. “I love you too.”   Taehyung’s shaken awake by his own consciousness. Luckily, he’s not looking at Jungkook’s toes when his eyes open — he sees your sleeping face first. Through sleepy vision etched in blurriness, he watches the way your soft breathing leave through your parted lips, the way your lashes are sprawled against your skin, how your chest heaves up and down ever so gently.   Taehyung pulls you closer, nuzzling into you.   He goes back to sleep with a smile. If he knew at seven years old he would’ve been with you like this, past Taehyung would’ve been ecstatic for the future….

[multific]

The Italian and His Wife

Santino D’Antonio x Reader

Summary: What if Santino needed John for another reason than to kill his sister? 

 John just arrived back home from his mission, yet there stood a man in front of his door. A man he knew from way back.

Santino D’Antonio, the head of the Italian mafia.

The appearance of Santino gave John a bad feeling. He didn’t want to go back to his old ways, yet he felt that the Italian wanted just that.

“I retired, Santino.”

“I know. But I need your help.”

“I don’t do that anymore. I’m asking you not to do this.”

“You leave me no choice, John.” said the mafia boss as he pulled out the marker from his pocket and placed it on the table. “Remember the night I helped you on that night, John. You wouldn’t be here without me.”

The two men sat in silence. John looking back at Santino and with a heavy sigh, he gave a small nod.

“I’m not saying that I’m in. I didn’t come back. But I will hear you out.”

“I don’t know who they are. But they did the worst thing that someone can do to a man.”

“What? They stole your car, too?” asked John with a hint of joke in his voice, but when the Italian kept his face serious, John realized that the matter in hand was more than that.

“They attacked my wife, John. Their plan was organized, they got in without any problems, I suspected that an employee of mine must have been one of them. I wasn’t home, had a meeting. They got into my room and if it wasn’t for her personal bodyguard who happened to be there, she would be dead. Do you know how it feels like to watch a video of the woman you love the most get hurt and you know you just can’t do anything? I have cameras in my home, except inside the bedroom, I watched her fight for her life, run, scream, and plead. I watched as a man dragged her by her hair down the hallway. I watched as my most loyal man got killed just to save my wife. She barely made it, John. And now, all I want is revenge. I want nothing more than to see the man who hurt my Y/N, suffer.” the fire in Santino’s eyes were so intense, John felt the heat of it. He felt bad for the man before him. John didn’t know that Santino had a wife. And given Santino’s position, it was obvious that she would be a target. But who would be such an idiot to attack a man like Santino? Santino had such power and was to be in the high chair sometime next year. Only a lunatic would do something like that.

“I want you to find those men and kill them all, but their boss is mine. I want you to bring him to me. If you do so, we are even and I’ll forget you.”

John thought about it for a long moment, if Santino kept his words, he would be left alone finally. Santino looked sincere, so he agreed on the job.

***

The next thing John knew, he was already in a car rolling up to Santino’s personal home. The house looked more like a mansion, flowers and plant everywhere in the garden, a small pond in the middle of it and the house itself had a soft Italian flare to it.

“My wife made the plan for the garden, she likes to design and decorate.”

“I never knew you had a wife.”

“Well, we have been married for almost three years now. But now, I love to brag about her to almost everyone. People need to know just how amazing she is.”

***

You were currently sitting in the library with two bodyguards at the door and all curtains closed.

After the horrible event of the previous evening, you were left with a broken wrist and twisted ankle. You were very shaken up by the events and the fact that you had to watch Marko getting shot. He was a close friend and bodyguard of yours and Santino’s.

You can still, recall every detail of the night. The men’s voice still echoing in your head as he yelled at you. You were still shaking as you thought back, no one could calm you down. They had to rush Santino home, and once he got you to take some pills and pulled you into his embrace, only then, you finally calmed down.

In the morning Santino said he knew someone who would take care of your attackers. And only about an hour ago, he left to get him. You could tell that he wasn’t happy at all to leave you alone, but he eventually got into the car.

You can only imagine what kind of monster of a man he would bring home to find those bastards. If one thing Santino never joked about is you. The two of you met when you still worked as a waitress in a restaurant. You weren’t assigned to the side of the restaurant where rich people went, so you were minding your own business, cleaning and serving customers. You first saw him when he came into the restaurant, of course, he not only caught your but every female and some male employee’s eyes. He was handsome, his clothes screamed luxury and wealth. But his gorgeous green eyes only met yours when he looked around. It was like you put a spell on him, he couldn’t look away.

You heard from your boss later, that he asked for your name and he warned you about him saying that he’s not the kind of man you want to be associated with.

The second time you met him was by pure chance, it was your day off and you went out to get some fresh air and do some shopping. You always enjoyed window-shopping. And since you couldn’t afford expensive pieces of fabric, you always just looked at them, mesmerized by the colours, shapes and design.

You were looking at the new pair of Christian Louboutin’s admiring its full potential when you heard him call out to you.

It started as a simple conversation. You didn’t want to get close to him. You wanted to listen to what others said and keep your distance from Santino.

But in the end, you couldn’t. The dates he took you, the places, the atmosphere, everything was just perfect. He, himself, always dressed in a suit, and when you questioned it, his simple answer was.

“Well, I have to look somewhat presentable next to a Goddess like you.”

That’s when you fully and unconditionally fell for the man.

Others saw a scary mafia boss who they should never mess with, but you saw his true self, the caring and kind man.

You were able to see behind his façade and see him for who he truly is. And he was thankful for that. Once he admitted to you that he was afraid he’d die without knowing what true, pure love is. But thanks to you, now he knew. And right after that, he asked you to marry him.

That is how you find yourself sitting in his office room that he had at home, right in front of John Wick. If you had to admit, John was quite a handsome man himself, not as handsome as your husband, but still.

Santino explained to you who John was and what he did in the past. One thing you agreed on with yourself is that the men who worked in dangerous fields were just too good looking. Take Santino, handsome, kind, caring, Italian, beautiful green eyes and he’s the mafia boss, then John, John’s handsome, determined, collected, intelligent, and you saw him from the back, he was surely a strong man, yet he was the best killer that’s out there, the Boogeyman himself.

John asked you questions or if you noticed anything about the man that attacked you. And even though you really hated thinking about it and recalling it, you knew that this was the only way to find them.

“I remember that one of them had a neck tattoo, it was the number 22 if that means something. They didn’t talk, I cannot tell the difference between guns and they all wore black.”

“I’ll look at the footage now.” said John and Santino turned the monitor to him. You never saw the footage, you never wanted to.

As you let out a long sigh, Santino grabbed your hand and kissed the back of it.

“You don’t have to watch it, Bella.”

And with a nod, you left the room. You truly felt like a coward, but you just couldn’t. There are enough images in your head, you didn’t need to see it from another angle.

About an hour or so passed and you were ready to get under your warm sheets, into the comforting arms of your husband and sleep your worries and demons away. You got out of the bath and now were brushing your hair when Santino came into the room. He looked just as tired as you.

He came behind you, put his arms around you and pulled you into a hug while he buried his face into your neck, taking your sweet scent in.

“I’m so sorry.” he said and you felt your heartache. You placed your hand onto his hair and began to stroke it, you knew it will calm him.

“We already talked about this in the morning. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I still feel responsible. You got hurt because of me. I promised you when we first met that you’ll be safe and I broke that promise.”

“Hey. Look at me.” you turned around and looked into his eyes. The once confidence filled eyes had so much doubt and fear in them. “I’m here. I’m fine. I’m alive. And I love you so much. If John Wick is as good as you made him sound like, this job will be nothing to him.” he let out a small laugh.

“John Wick is better than what I made him sound like. He will be done with a job like this in less than a day.”

“See? And that is why I’m not worried. Those men tested your abilities, and now, everyone will see and learn that they shouldn’t play games with you, Santino. They will learn to respect you and fear you.”

“You always know what to say, My Love. I will make sure that no one will ever look at us the wrong way. But to see that happen to you, it’s like my heart is being thorn out, the worst torture.” he hugged you close to himself once again. Feeling your heat and being able to smell your sweet scent comforted him.

“You should delete that footage. We learnt from it and it will never happen again.”

The rest of the evening, you didn’t talk, well not in full sentences that is.

While John Wick was out there, shooting and fighting for his freedom, you and your husband made the sweetest love that you have ever made.

Santino showed so much passion and love through his actions, he showed you just how happy he was that you were there, alive and well. But of course, he minded your injuries and wasn’t rough, only when you asked him to be.

A night filled with love, passion, deep breathing, moaning, skin slapping and affection.

That night everyone around the world learnt that no one messes with Santino D’Antonio and his wife, and if someone tries to, they won’t live long enough to tell the tale.

***

The next day, John came back with the man behind the plan. An old rival of D’Antonio.

As John watched Santino make the man suffer, his screams echoing through the basement, John could only think of one thing, why would anyone want to mess with the Italian and his wife?

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[lynne-monstr]

Tka!shadowhunters au or shadowhunters!tka au?

lol i have no idea what this grew into but here were are with a king's avatar shadowhunters au. buckle up, because this got a little out of control.

ye xiu – born into an old and respected shadowhunter family. head of the institute. he comes back from a rare assignment in the field to a secret trial already in session. his trial. the whole thing is a sham and before the night is over, he finds himself deruned and on the streets. he has no idea how or why this happened to him, but he’s going to find out and he’s going to get his life back. in the meantime, he’s forced to survive in the mundane world on nothing but his wits and his fighting ability.

(no one in the downworld or even the institute knows he’s been exiled because his twin brother ye qiu was quietly brought in to take his place. The ruse only works because ye xiu is reclusive enough, even within his own institute, that most people don’t notice the difference in personality)

su mucheng – weapons master at ye xiu’s institute. a close childhood friend of his, she secretly keeps tabs on demonic activity in his area and gives him a heads up if there’s trouble. the ye qiu ruse lasted less than .5 seconds around her, but she was convinced not to take her knowledge public in case there were hidden enemies within her own institute.

chen guo and tang rou – vampire clan girlfriends leaders who offer ye xiu sanctuary. at first they’re more amused at having an ex-nephilim in their debt but when ye xiu saves their life during a daytime ambush, it’s the start of a true friendship between them.

han wenqing –alpha werewolf and longtime friend/rival of ye xiu. one of the first after su mucheng to suspect that something isn’t right at the institute.

his suspicions start when his position as alpha is challenged and he doesn’t get a mocking text from ye xiu about the incident the next day to ask whether han wenqing ended up naked in a park somewhere (that was ONE time. ONE time after ONE fight.).

their tempestuous correspondence is more a way of checking in on each other than anything, but they’d both die before they ever admitted it. han wenqing isn’t worried and doesn’t care (really. he doesn’t) but he resolves to find out what’s going on.

yu wenzhou – high warlock. a childhood injury stunted his magic, rendering it inaccessible for years until it turned feral and unpredictable and escaped its inadvertent bindings. to this day he has trouble taming it and can only wield it with intense concentration and long, drawn out spells to contain its explosive nature. the spells are all of his own devising, the result of years of study on the nature of magic. he’s considered one of the foremost experts on theoretical and experimental magic in the world.

huang shaotian – shadowhunter and self-proclaimed nephilim sword saint. former student and current friend of ye xiu. currently on long term assignment as the latest in a long line of bodyguards to high warlock yu wenzhou, an arrangement that’s lasted between his institute and yu wenzhou for over a century. it’s his job is to fight off attackers long enough to give yu wenzhou time to set up his painstaking yet devastating spellwork.

his initial resentment at what was supposed to be a punishment assignment (too much chatter and backtalk to his group leader) has long since faded. he never expected to find a partner, let alone a home, at yu wenzhou’s side but he did and he’ll fight anyone who tries to take it from him.

ye qiu – newly named head of the institute using the name ye xiu. furious about his brother’s derunement and his own part in the deception of covering it up but couldn’t afford to refuse and risk his own exile. struggling to balance his new responsibilities as head of the institute while secretly digging into the institute’s records to try and discover the real reason his brother was deruned so he can bring ye xiu home. the corruption he finds only makes him dig deeper.

he’s nearly beheaded by weapons master su mucheng on one such evening, which is when she confronts him about not being ye xiu. both of them are suspicious of each other until they realize they’re working towards the same goal and decide to join forces. su mucheng recommends bringing in her old friend to help, another shadowhunter on an assignment that’s taken him outside the institute’s walls, and hopefully outside its corruption. she’s sure he can sneak away from his duties to the high warlock when he hears about ye xiu’s predicament.

tao xuan – an old family friend of the ye brothers, and ye qiu’s current advisor. he knows ye qiu is looking into the reasons for his brother’s deruning and he’s already making plans to deal with it.

[reynesofcastamere]

Thrown Gauntlet[Ω]

(A/N: Sooooo....I’ve decided to start another series of fics that I will be marking with [Ω] in the titles: To disinguish them from both the main series (which I am still working on) and the [β] drabbles (which are all over the place in terms of timeline, setting, universe, etc.). Essentially a very self-indulgent AU where Savage, Maul, and Feral all get adopted by Clan Wren. This installment takes place in 20 BBY, so Ahsoka is around 16 and Maul is about 34. However. I want to state outright that the dynamic is intended to be a verrrrry slow build and that nothing romantic and/or sexual will be occurring between Maul and Ahsoka until MUCH later. If what I’ve described does not sound like your personal cup of tea, then by all means, feel free to give this fic and/or series a pass. This is getting a bit long, so to sum up: No trigger warnings, Obi-Wan is an Incurable Flirt, Rex is Flustered, and Maul is about 100% Done With Everyone’s Nonsense. Unbeta’d)  The Jedi Temple is buzzing. Not literally, of course, but Ahsoka can feel a strange vibration in the Force. Excitement, or maybe irritation? There’s definitely quite a bit more whispering amongst her fellow Jedi and the clone troopers she passes on her path to the east hangar. Master Anakin had told her to pack for a long trip, which she can only assume means they’ve been assigned another mission and he’s withholding the details so as to ‘surprise’ her appropriately. Typical Skyguy.

She spots Rex near the door, sans helmet. “Good morning, Captain.” A proper salute, quickly returned, though her tone is light. “Morning, Commander. And-er, yes, it certainly is.” He actually seems to be fidgeting a bit, and his face- “Rex, are you...blushing?” “N-no. No. Just-ah...Finished up my workout routine. Took more out of me than I expected. You know how it is; One day you’re all shiny-new and the next you feel older than General Yoda.” “Reeeeexxxx....Come on, whatever it is can’t be that bad.”

“The Clawbirds arrived about an hour ago. Captain Wren’s refusing to do much of anything until he finishes repairs on General Skywalker’s ship.” Rex caves, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “Master Anakin can’t be too happy about that.” Ahsoka observes, knowing just how...particular he is about his personal projects. “Should I be worried?” “Er...maybe? It’s kind of a toss-up. Depends on whether M-” He begins, before a subtler voice cuts in. “Captain, there you are. I was hoping to speak to you.” The speaker is a male Zabrak with soft golden-yellow eyes and skin, the latter of which is liberally patterned in brown markings. Unusual enough, but he’s also clad in full Mandalorian armor, helmet tucked under one arm and carrying what looks like field medic gear along with the standard jetpack and arsenal of weapons. And he’s glowing; a defined Force signature radiating Light and positive energy like a solar lamp. How-? “Medic Sergeant Wren. They are still getting along, right?” “Oh yes. He’s in a much better mood than last time. Apologies, am I interrupting?” “Thank the Maker. And no, um. Commander Tano, this is Medic Sergeant Feral Wren.” Rex looks like he’s in danger of heatstroke with how red he’s gotten. It’s not hard to see why, especially when Feral gives a smile that could melt half the ice on Bahryn. Rather than salute her, he stretches his right hand out so that they can clasp forearms briefly, a greeting from one warrior to another. “It’s a pleasure, Medic Sergeant.” She smiles back. Ahsoka can’t help it. He’s just...She’s fighting the urge to hug him like some kind of stuffed animal toy. Which is bizarre and will most definitely not be happening anytime soon. “Tano...Oh, you must be ‘Snips’. It’s almost a shame Savage volunteered to help the younglings train, we’ve both wanted to meet you for some time now.” Wait, what? “Tranyc’vod [Sunny(star-burned) brother] Anakin hasn’t been able to call as often, but he’s very proud of your accomplishments.” Feral remarks, genuinely pleased even as her head spins with the implications. Her Master has a lot of explaining to do. “Speaking of which, I’d better not keep him waiting much longer. I look forward to talking to you again, though. See you later, Captain. Maybe you should ask the Medic Sergeant about those stamina issues you’re having?” She can’t resist ribbing Rex as she departs, watching him splutter as Feral, like any good medic, starts making inquiries about his ‘condition’ while looking him over. And placing a hand on his chestplate, apparently. Huh. Maybe her friend’s obvious crush isn’t quite as one-sided as she’d thought. Ahsoka navigates her way through the semi-organized rows of ships. Even if Anakin’s presence in the Force wasn’t abnormally strong, she doesn’t need to focus to find him. Not when he’s talking loud enough to be heard across half the hangar. “-last time, it’s fine! You’re just being paranoid, as usual.” “Every ship I have been forced to borrow from you has either crashed, suffered a critical malfunction, or was confined to the scrap heap mere hours after landing. No one is setting a foot on this poorly-constructed death trap until I am absolutely certain it won’t spontaneously combust mid-flight.” And that must be Captain Wren. He sounds...irritated, to say the least.

“My ships run perfectly, thanks. Must hurt that Mando pride, knowing a Jedi is a better pilot and mechanic than you, Captain.” She’s not quite within visual range yet, but she knows her Master is smirking. “How sad that as a Jedi, you cannot recognize your own failings, General. Perhaps you should conduct a survey of your ‘victims’ instead of this poor attempt at distraction. Mir’osik adiik be’kyorla hut’uun![Dung for brains child of (a) rotten coward!]-” “Ouch. What, did one of your horns get caught in the hydraulics?” “Hilarious. Make yourself useful by grabbing a towel, or something from Kenobi’s closet. I’m coming out.” “Ah, Captain Wren. I thought the general ambience had improved. What were you saying about my clothing?” She hadn’t been aware of Master Kenobi’s presence before this. Either he’d used a secondary entrance or had been waiting for his chance to join the exchange while the captain was busy. “Kenobi.”

“Oh come now, surely you can muster a more polite greeting than that. You’ve been away so long I’ve had to listen to recordings just to remember the sound of your lovely voice.” “Perhaps I will address you with respect when you learn to stop leering at me, besom [ill-mannered lout].” “Busted. Again.” “You’re not helping, Anakin.” Ahsoka rounds a corner and-Oh. Wow. How far down do those-? She blinks a few times, just to be sure of what she’s seeing. Yep, there is a very shirtless Zabrak with the kind of muscle definition that would make scores of artists weep standing with his back to her and wiping his face off with a towel. She desperately hopes that her jaw is not hanging open as he turns his head to survey her with one vibrant yellow tourmaline eye. She honestly doesn’t know if she wants to draw closer or back away in that moment. His presence in the Force is not a benevolent, harmless light, but rather a controlled fire that sparks and issues dark threads of smoke. This...Ahsoka doesn’t understand what is going on, and it’s starting to make her uncomfortable. “The spy finally shows herself.” He remarks, assessing and dismissing her as a non-threat within the span of a few seconds, continuing to wipe off whatever type of mess had been spattered on him. “Don’t mind him, Snips. Someone shoved a shock baton up his ass years ago and the medics never found a way to pull it out. Tragic, really.” Anakin Skywalker grins, arms loosely folded across his chest and leaning against the outside of his ship. “Ahsoka, this is Maul. We’ll be working with him and his people for the forseeable future.” It clicks suddenly where she’s heard both his name and that of his group before: Captain Maul of Clan Wren and his company are the only Mandalorian supercommandos who will actually work with the Jedi Council. At least, when they’re not busy with bodyguard or mercenary jobs. Part of that involves what is referred to -with some awe and a lot of fear- as ‘running the gauntlet’, a mandatory training course for any Padawans or Knights posted to or intending to spend a considerable amount of time in the barely-civilized regions of space. It’s been suspended since the war started in earnest, but if they’re going to be sticking around for a while...Well, the implications are pretty serious. And Ahsoka has somehow managed to ogle one of the most infamous hardasses this side of the Mid Rim. Fantastic. Really. Maul disposes of the stained towel and turns to face her properly, Ahsoka’s gaze staying determinedly on his face as they grip each other’s right forearms. He doesn’t pull back after a few seconds as Feral had, hand locking in place as he seems to peer into her soul.  “I will say this once. We are not like our evaar’la vod’e[young brothers]. We are not subservient to you, and I do not accept excuses or blatant disrespect.” A pause and a slight increase in pressure, just below the threshold of inflicting pain. “Are you ready, Ahsoka Tano?” “Yes, Captain.” She answers with a certainty that she can feel in her very bones, and is rewarded with the hint of a wry smile when he lets go. Well that’s...something. Master Kenobi clears his throat pointedly. Right. Mission briefing first. Sort out her feelings later. Still, she can’t help but look forward to whatever comes next. (A/N: *cracks knuckles* Well, that’s the first installment. A little vague on the details, but I’m hoping to elaborate on what’s been hinted at here relatively soon. The name of the supercommando company comes from the Legends novel Maul:Lockdown by Joe Schreiber. And yes, for fellow Rebels fans who are reading this thing: In this AU, Sabine and Tristan get three badass Zabrak-hybrid uncles and a fair amount of adopted cousins. (Which is entirely Savage’s doing.) I do believe that Anakin is a gifted mechanic, but also couldn’t resist the running joke of ‘Skywalker’s ships/anything he tinkers with only work for him and Artoo’. Cheers!) 

[kkachi95]

New canon information from The Rise of Kyoshi

Alright, so I’m little bit over 42% through The Rise of Kyoshi and I’m HOOKED.

This book does a lot of worldbuilding and the new characters are well-developed.

I’ll be consolidating new information I find from this book on this post. I’ll keep updating the list as I progress through the book!

SPOILERS, obviously

1) KYOSHI

Kyoshi was abandoned as a child by her parents, who were leaders of an underground criminal organization.

Her mother was a rogue airbender hailing from the Eastern Air Temple. Yep, you heard it right, Kyoshi is half air nomad. Her mother apparently became a master at young age and fell in love with Kyoshi’s father, an outlaw, while traveling. Kyoshi’s mother modified her arrow tattoo into a serpent and her airbending ability lost its power due to her attachment to worldly concerns. She compensated with a pair of fans, which Kyoshi inherited.

Kyoshi’s father is from a family lineage that traces back to Royal Theater School in Ba Sing Se. Kyoshi inherited her make up and headdress from him.

Kyoshi was very tall even in her young age. In her teenage years, she is constantly described with terms like “giant,” “massive,” and “towering.” Since she’s taller than most men, I’m going to assume she’s at least 6 ft.

She spent her early childhood as a street urchin in Yokoya and was neglected by the villagers until she was discovered and taken under the care of an air nomad named Kelsang, who was a companion of Avatar Roku. She was, and still is relentlessly bullied by other children in Yokoya.

Kyoshi is initially very shy, non-confrontational, has very low self esteem, and inept at earthbending. Kyoshi is extremely strong for her age as she lifts a man by his neck without any trouble. Also, she has distinct freckles!

She is an extreme clean freak with a constant urge to “maintain order and minimize clutter." She starts out as a serveant assigned to clean up after the (misidentified) Avatar.

I believe Kyoshi is 16+ years old in this story.

Kyoshi’s outfit has chailmain armor underneath it, and she started wearing gloves after suffering major lightning wound on her hands.

2) KYOSHI’S COMPANIONS

As a teenager, Kyoshi has two friends: Yun and Rangi, who are both her age. I won’t go too much into their plot.

Yun is the ‘misidentified’ Earthbending Avatar who is a former street urchin. He is said to be handsome, playful and flirty. He has brown hair and jade green eyes.

He is extremely talented in earthbending and is loved by everyone. He ships Kyoshi and Rangi but also flirts with Kyoshi too (and basically everyone)

He was discovered ‘late’ as the Avatar and genuinely wants to do his best as the new Avatar.

Rangi is a Fire Nation noble girl who is sworn and honor bound to serve as the Avatar’s bodyguard. She is military-trained in the Fire Army Junior Corps. She is intimidating and hot-headed, but also very protective of her friends.

She is said to be beautiful, with delicate skin, porcelain doll face and jet black hair. She has a “charred rasp” voice and “dark bronze” eyes.

She is the "straight man" character of Kyoshi's entourage and takes things very seriously, but she's also the unintentionally funniest character of the group. She eventually becomes Kyoshi's swon bodyguard and depite her best judgement, she's dragged into many questionable situations by Kyoshi. Rangi is definitely my favorite new character. Think of her as a more sane, less murder-y version of Azula.

Her nickname: topknot, hairpins, and hotwoman

Rangi’s mother, Hei-Ran, was a companion of Avatar Kuruk, who gave up her commission in the Fire Nation Army, then later her position as headmistress in the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, to teach the Avatar. Hei-Ran and Rangi are said to be spitting image of each other.

Kyoshi is romantically attraced to both Yun and Rangi.

Kirima is a young female waterbender from the outlaw group Kyoshi’s parents founded.

She has wolf-like features and piercing blue eyes. Kirima is also said to be lithe and light on her feet.

She’s easy-going and likes to tease people, especially Rangi.

Wong is a huge male earthbender in his 30s from the outlaw group Kyoshi’s parents founded.

He is very tall, thick, and has smooth, clean shaven face. He has a very prominent protruding gut and isn’t the most loquacious type.

Lek is the youngest male Earthbender member of the group and is said to be 14-15.

He is from the Si Wong desert and was brought into the group by Kyoshi’s parents, whom he thinks very highly of. This caused Kyoshi to resent him initially.

He values his family and likes to tease other people just like Kirima. Lek has very precise control of small earth projectiles, which he uses as bullets.

Lao Ge is an old, mysterious Earthbending assassin who is said to be hundreds of years old. He pretends to be a drunken fool and only Kyoshi knows of his true identity.

He travels with the group and goes off on his own to kill people he deem unworthy of living. Kyoshi asks him to be her Sifu.

3) THE AVATAR CYCLE

Avatar Kuruk died at the age of 33. He was said to be one of the greatest Pai Sho players in history and a highly-skilled bender, but lacked leadership and diplomatic skills. He spent his time traveling around the four nation seeking pleasure. He was also one of the best hunters to have ever lived.

Two of Avatar Yangchen’s friends and teachers died protecting her from the enemy.

Each nation has its own way of discovering the Avatar and identifying a toddler’s ability to bend

Being the Avatar’s companion was considered to be an honor beyond reckoning that only few got to experience. Those who taught the Avatar held massive influence over the world.

Period between the death of the previous Avatar and discovery of his/her successor is often filled with political turmoil. The Rise of Kyoshi is set in a politically turbulent time as Kuruk died in young age and the new Avatar was discovered much later than usual. This led to the rise of many opportunist criminal factions.

4) BENDING

Unlike the show, bending is openly depicted as being LETHAL in this book. People are impaled, burned, crushed, buried, sliced, and so on.

Seismic sense is a skill shared by all earthbenders, not just Toph. Most people’s skills are extremely rudimentary, though.

‘Dust stepping’ and ‘mist stepping’ are abilities practiced by certain earth and waterbenders to create floating platforms that move with them, which allow them to run through thin air. Rangi mimics this move with firebending after having witnessed it.

Firebenders have naturally warm bodies and they can project heat, which allows them to do things like increasing a room’s temperature by several degrees.

Firebenders' "inner fire" allow them to resist poison.

People in the Fire Nation identify bending ability of their children by placing a bowl full of highly-flammable materials to see if their children can resonate with it. This is done as early as possible to prevent accidental fires as young children don't have good control over their flames.

Lightning bending is a skill so rare that people thought it of it as a folktale or a long lost knowledge. Barely any living witnesses who can confirm its existence exists.

Airbender are seemingly immune to the weather.

5) EARTH KINGDOM

Earth Kingdom is highly fragmented and has multiple kings. This is attributed to Ba Sing Se’s failure or unwillingness to actively assert control over the continent. 

Bandits and pirates plague the countryside. Small settlements and towns have to form militias and fend for themselves as the official Earth Kingdom military seems to neglect their plight.   

Earth Kingdom’s Northern and Southern dialect are said to be so different that they might as well be different language. People of the Si Wong Desert barely share any culture or custom with rest of the Earth Kingdom.

Beifongs were known for their wealth even in this era.

Kyoshi Island was originally known as Yokoya. Farming yields little and people scrape by to meet end’s meet. People here are said to wear blue clothes despite their earth kingdom heritage. Kyoshi was left here as a child and initially grew up as a street urchin because the villagers neglected her for being an outsider.

6) FIRE NATION

Apparently, firebenders are notorious for always talking about honor.

Fire Nation was involved in a conflict with the Earth Kindom in the distant (?) past.

Fire Navy is the most capable Navy in the world.

Royal Fire Nation Academy for Girl holds Agni Kais and there are many “accidental” kills.

Firebending instructors used to maim their students for insubordination.

Hair is heavily linked with honor. Losers of Agni Kai would shave parts of their head bald as sign of humility but would leave the top knot alone since it’s considered sacred. It was never touched except in circumstances akin to death.

7) WATER TRIBES

The Souther Water tribe is said to be poor, undeveloped, and vulnerable. It’s significantly behind the rest of the world in terms of development. Southern Water Tribe doesn’t have a legitimate Navy because it doesn’t have trees necessary for shipbuilding. It is a peaceful nation, though it is involved in a territorial dispute over an island with the Earth Kingdom. It’s ruled by multiple chieftains.

“Tui’s gills!” - Water Tribe equivalent of ‘Oh my god’

8) AIR NOMADS

Air nomads are regarded with great respect and reverence for their wisdom and spirituality.

Head nomad of an air temple is referred to as an Abbot.

9) DAOFEI (BANDITS)

Daofei plays a huge role in the story. A vast underground criminal scoiety with its own code of honor run deeply throughout the Earth Kingdom, which is "too big to police" for the Earth Kingdom Army. 

As mentioned earlier, Kyoshi's parents were leaders of a prominent Daofei group and Kyoshi herself officially swears her Daofei vows to learn bending skills from her parents' old colleagues. Kyoshi absolutely despises Daofei, though.

Several years before the novel’s start, these bandits staged what is known as the Yellow Neck Rebellion, which is an analogue of the Yellow Turban Rebellion (184–205 AD) during Han Dynasty China. In real life, the rebellion led to the tumultuous time period known as the Three Kingdoms Period, where various warlords fought over control of China.