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harrish6 · 7 years

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Healing What Has Been Broken - Chapter 10 - Same AU, Different Skeletons

I will be using QuantumTale in this story, I do not own the AU at all by the way, it belongs to it’s respectful owner along with the other AU’s unless stated otherwise.

You can find all the different Quantum AU's online, that way I don't have to explain how they look in this long butt chapter.

There are very few different timelines/copies that branch off from their respected AU, not like the original Multiverse where you got PTA!Sans, Teacher!Sans, Scientist!Sans, and Highschool!Sans and many others for example. But this is one of them, where the younger version got the power to time travel making a different timeline/AU.

I also think these kids are very adorable.

I had trouble deciding on what AU's to use for this Multiverse I'm not going to lie. But I think I picked some good ones! Having said that, they may be OOC or just different from the Original Multiverse as there are different rules and things in this Multiverse.

And don't worry, we will be seeing other AU's in the Original Multiverse. And Error and the others may either run into them or see them later on. But that is for way later, like way off from where we are right now in this story.

Also, Error doesn't always have the words 'Error' surrounding him. In this story they pop up when he is distressed or feeling very intense emotions.

I imagine the characters like how blogthegreatrouge on tumblr draws them. So they do have lips in this story. I just wanted you all to know so you don't question why I put that they have mouths or lips.

This is more like a introduction and some background information to all the different AU's in this Multiverse, so not a lot of action or dialogue. We will get more of that in the next chapter. But there will be some very violent/messed up memories from Error in this one. And we will see everyone's first thoughts to seeing Error and Error seeing them - Null's and Void's reactions will be little in this as it focuses on Error and his thoughts. They will have more of a part in the next chapter -, so this chapter will be a long one.

Notes at the end of the chapter.

-Start Chapter-

It hadn't taken long to get everything packed up. Soon Error was in his coat, bag around his shoulders and holding both kids in his arms. Of course it took a lot of convincing - Not listening and doing it anyway, the proceeding to ignore all the protests - to make the others let him wear the bag as they felt it would be too much weight for his bones.

He wasn't stupid, if he is going to be walking into a trap then he is going to keep the kids close at hand so he could run at a second notice if need be. He's played this game way too many times to not know what to do or what could happen.

"Are you sure you don't want any food to go, you haven't had any at all!" Toriel fussed, hovering around Error and the children. "I could wrap something up for you!"

Twitching Error just stood still while Toriel eventually gave Skull some food to take, she then turned back to the children with a smile. "Please take care of yourselves. And come visit when you have the chance!" And then she leaned down and gave a kiss on their little cheeks much to their confusion and surprise.

"W-What was that?" Null asked, rubbing his cheek while Void gushed, also rubbing his own cheeks. Their SOUL's warming at the touch.

Toriel gave a bittersweet smile. "That was a kiss children." She glanced to Error, who also looked slightly confused and dazed. "It is something one gives to show affection, love, for one's family and friends. It can also help one feel better after they have been hurt."

'Feel better?' Remembering how his Daddy screamed, banging his face on the floor, and clawed at it too, Null knew that he was very much hurt. More then he has ever been. 'But I can help Daddy feel better?' Toriel giggled when a glint entered Null's and Void's sockets. She knew where this was going.

Just when Error was about to walk to where Ink and Skull stood, he felt little lips on each side of his cheeks. He could feel himself starting to glitch at the feeling worming it's way into his SOUL. 'Wha.....WHAT!?'

Ink didn't know if he should laugh or cry at the sight of the dark skeleton glitching, looking so confused and weary at a simple kiss on the cheek. He was about to go and lead him to the portal when Error did something that surprised him. Error took in a breath, making the glitching fade, then quickly gave a peck on each kids covered heads. "THERe! NoW cAN We GO?"

"Yeah, this way." Skull chuckled under the bags and boxes of food. 'Man, Tori doesn't do anything in halves does she?' "Call me Skull, as you are about to see a lot more Sans's." Skull muttered to Error. Error just gave a short nod, he knows what it is like to see so many Sans's in one place after all, and started walking after him. But 'Skull' was a new one he had to admit.

Slowing down, Error peeked at Toriel. "GoOD BYe." Then quickly hurried out, missing the look of affection that Toriel made after his bashful goodbye. "Good bye child, I hope you get the help you deserve."

'I will make sure that happens.' Ink could feel the DETERMINATION coursing through him as he went after the other skeletons. Turning around the corner, Ink was met with the sight of a snickering Skull, who had a dark gleam in his sockets, and a confused trio of skeletons. Error scooting away slowly, watching the shorter one warily. "Skull?...Did I miss something?" Ink questioned, not really knowing if he wanted to know. The last time he asked him that question, well, let's just say he had a few nightmares over the next year over the answer he got. 'The Mob life is definitely not for me!'

"Ah, nah." Skull shook his head as Ink made a portal to the Multiverse. "I'm just picturin' all the others reactions to our new friends here." Seeing how Error flinched back, a worried look on his face, Skull was quick to reassure him. "Don' worry pal! No ones gonna hurt ya! They'll have to get through me to get to you." Skull couldn't help but promise, and seeing the bewildered and disbelief look he got in turn made him want to shoot someone.

Ink shivered, smile freezing at that image. "Lets....lets cross that bridge when we get to it." 'Because I know once we get all the details things are going to go to shit. A broken and scared Sans, and that's only physical damage! Once everyone sees him they are going to be asking for someones SOUL. And that's only after the more affectionate ones try to take care of him.' Everyone is always over protective over the new AU's and who are in them as they rarely get new ones. But they are also protective in general, as there are not many who understand them and what they have to go through. It does not matter where the new glitchy Sans came from, only that he is hurt. As the Judge, they have a certain protective streak in them to protect those who need it.

Sure they have fights at time with others, some getting hurt and feelings broken, but no one breaks another's bones for fun. What was the point when they are all mostly in the same boat? Besides, they try to help each other as much as they can.

"Now, here we go! We have a very long day ahead of us." Ink sighed, stepping through the portal. "Come on! The others are waiting!"

Snorting, Skull waited for Error to go in first. Skull hated to think it, but he had a thought that the taller could run at any minute even if his ribs were falling off. "I have to warn ya, some of the others are....colorful and quite the characters if ya catch my drift."

Now that should have worried Error, but Error has seen some shit. He had seen that Virus take over more bodies he can count as for some reason he likes to come and bug Error from time to time, seen the AU's that only have hurt and suffering in them - He destroyed those ones as quick as he could, not wanting them to be in pain like he was. Error could still remember one Sans that had flowers growing out of him thanking him for finally ending it all just before he turned to dust. That was the only time he destroyed the whole thing, all the AU's, or different copies that Ink made you could say, connected to it and the original flower AU that Ink created. He would not let them suffer like he had to. The worst thing? All of those Flower covered Sans's thanked him, looking relieved once they figured out the destroyer came to kill off his AU completely. The original one even cried in happiness once Error told him every one had been destroyed before he willingly gave up his SOUL. When it was all said and done Ink showed up only to have Error laugh in his face when he said he loved this AU. That was the worst lie he had ever heard from the beloved creator. - and he has seen so much destruction that he is almost numb to it.

It will take a lot for Error to start genuinely worrying for his own SOUL. And the only way he can see himself worrying is if this is a trick that Inky made up and there is another army waiting for him on the other side. And that's mostly because of the kids in his arms. So without another thought, Error stepped into the colorful portal.

-Multi-Void-

Error had no idea what he expected of this 'Multi-Void'. He had never heard of one before, only the Anti-Void. But they both had the word Void in it, and unless it is the Void in his arms, then he expected it to be the same or almost the same. He expected nothing but white and the normal voices to greet him, not a huge house surrounded by a beautiful garden filled with colors and not even a whisper of the Voices. Ink gave him a bright smile as Skull lightly stepped through, trying not to drop any of the food.

"Wow~" Null gave a gasp at the sight of the big house - A mansion to be honest- and turned up to look up at Error while Void gushed at all the new colors surrounding them. "Are all buildings like these?!"

"NO. REmEMbEr ThE StORE?" Error muttered, looking all around paranoid. Null gave a soft hum in answer. "tHIs iS rEAlLy dIFFeReNT FrOM thE aNTi-VoiD...hOW cOME i DIDn'T gEt soMEthING lIKe THis?" 'Oh, I remember why. Because Fate hated me and I can't create anything like Ink can.' Not hearing any of the usual screams was new, but a welcome change. He didn't want the kids hearing what they usually had to say, he didn't want them to turn out like he was. A filthy glitch in the system.

"They are all probably waiting out back in the backyard." Ink gestured for them to follow him before walking on. "There is a playground there for the kids to play on as we talk, and there is a huge table for us to sit on." Ink started explaining. But Error and the children just looked confused.

"What's a 'Playground'? Does it hurt?" Null worriedly asked up to Error. Error just shrugged. "i hAve NO idEA...BuT i WoN't LEt yOU gET HUrt. HaViNG sAId tHAt, Don'T RUN oFF wIThOUt ASkINg mE fIRSt. wHO KNoWS wHAt cOUld haPPeN." Error decided, looking a insulted Ink up and down, while Null gave a quick agreement. Skull couldn't help but chuckle even if it was a sad thing that they never played on one. But maybe his AU didn't have one? But Error had no idea how right he was, who knew how the others would react, or even themselves, once they got all the facts.

Before Ink could explain further, they were at the back of the house greeted by the sight of other skeletons. And said skeletons froze in whatever they were doing to look back at them once they noticed them. Seeing the new baby bones in the arms of a dark glitching skeleton was not what they were expecting.

The first thing Error noticed, was there was not a army waiting for him. The second thing, there was only a few here. There are hundreds of original AU's, and that's only if you are not counting all the copies Inky made Counting them you would get into the six or more digits. It was hard to keep count when Inky created everyday and Error had to concentrate on doing his job 'There is no way this is everyone...Are some hiding and waiting for a ambush?' Error slowly glanced around, trying to see if anyone was hiding.

"We have found the different Monster and the new AU baby bones." Ink moved over so all the others could see the trio as Skull went to the outdoor table to sit the food down. "Let's get the introduction over so that we can move on to the more important discussion."

Error narrowed his sockets looking all of them over, confused out of his mind at how bizarre they all are, while Ink pointed at them. "This is Error, and the two little ones are Null and Void." Ink made a motion with his hands to cut off the questions at those names, about why they are not called Sans and Papyrus. They could get to that later. "Error." Ink started to point at another Sans. "Let me introduce you to them, okay?" Ink asked gently. When Error gave a nod, he continued.

"This is Undertale!Sans, we call him Blue." Blue had to look up at this new Monster, but so did most of the others. Seeing all the cracks in his skull, the way his eyes were always searching for danger made him relax his body to show how meant no danger to him or his kids. At least the kids look better then before, and with some very fancy clothing too. 'After what that version of Gaster did to them, they deserve it.'

Error watch the little Sans, Blue give him a lazy smile. He looked like Classic, but was much smaller then him. Only coming above his knees while Classic came to his collar bone. Same clothes, same smile, but different look in his sockets. He can still see Classics empty smile and sockets looking down at him as he screamed for Mercy. "Hey there. It's nice to see ya safe and sound after what happened in that new AU." Before Error had time to really think on that a copy of Classic - because what else could he be? - was actually happy to see him, Ink moved on.

Ink pointed to a more edgy short skeleton, only a few inches taller then Blue. "This here is UnderFell!Sans, his nickname is Red." Red knew that this skeleton was not once to mess with. In his AU, you respected and feared the Monsters with marks and survived getting said marks. Those marks just meant that they survived hell once, and that they could do it again and take you down with them. And with how it looked like how his skull could cave at any moment, and looking like he wasn't at all in pain, made Red sweat. "H-Hey pal....." 'Please don't let this Monster meet my Bro anytime soon! I can see Fell wanting to fight just to see how strong this guy is!' And after the last time Fell tried that, he had started a fight with Razz making both Maple and him have panic attacks, Red did not want a repeat of that scenario.

Seeing a sweating UnderFell!Sans was nothing new to Error, it seemed to him that they never stop sweating. So Error just gave a glance over. Everything but the height and anger. The original UnderFell!Sans, Edge, came about to his stomach and was not afraid to try to rip off his arms. Error can hear the bones popping and creaking in protest as he pulled and pulled.

"Then we have Reaper!Sans, we call him Death to be simple. He doesn't talk much." Seeing a tall grim reaper made Error blink. Death stood behind Blue and Red, but was making sure not to touch them in any way. Death could sense the others magic, and this Monster's magic was screaming in pain and calling for a death it will never get. And Death could sense that this Monster has been touched-no, practically scared by death. He could feel magic like his own on the other Monster in certain places, mostly around the neck area. That confused him. He has never touched another beside his Brother, as it would kill anyone, and though he could try in the Multi-Void he did not want to chance it. It was a nightmare just thinking about it, what if they died after leaving? Because he can't touch them when they are out of here, they will surly die. With a touch he could kill anyone, besides his Brother of course, so how can this Monster want death but know he can't get it?

How can he have touched a Monster that he never has met until today, and this Monster still be alive? Death has touched him and yet he still lives? 'Can...Can I touch him and him not die from it?' This excited and worried Death to immense degrees.

A tall, the same height as him which threw Error for a loop, black cloaked death with his scythe strapped to his back. Reaper came to his upper ribs, and never lost that damned teasing grin as he made joke after joke about death. The one who laughed and made death puns as he tried to carve them into Error's bones. This one was so sad-no depressed! Error tried to connect the one who he called 'Hipster Death' to this silent sad Death, and he was having a bit of trouble doing it. Death's face was forced into a sad little smile, eye sockets dark and half lidded, and his whole body just seemed to droop.

And this also worried Error. There was no copy of ReaperTale, and for a good reason. Gods always made everything complicated, just look at him and Inky. And Error was not in the mood to fight off all those Gods unless he had too, they were harder to dust compared to young AU's or even just normal Monsters in a fully grown AU. It also helped that there was only one, the original AU, so that means Error had no reason to start a fight with Reaper. But for some reason Reaper hated him, probably for making his job harder as Error has to kill off a lot of Monsters and humans everyday. He always did hate his job from what Error could tell, but then again so did Error. 'Did Inky make copy after I fell?! But why?!' Error is now unsure of what is going on, and all he can do is hope that this isn't a disillusion from falling into the VOID.

"EchoTale!Sans, and we nicknamed him Echo." A Gaster!Sans, one that is a head taller then him, and Error could only sigh in relief that this one is wearing a white sweater underneath his jacket. He never did like how G would wear nothing and show his ribs, spine, and whatever else to the world without care. Error could remember when G had lifted up his shirt and creaked a few of his ribs slowly over his pained screams, smirking all the while. At least this one is the same height as the Original, but with extra clothing, it was a more nicer surprise, and Error had a feeling that he wasn't going to get many of those.

Looking this new Monster up and down, Echo knew that he had been through hell. He may of had the creaks/scares on his face, but that was from Gaster. And while Error's wasn't as deep as his, and could maybe heal up if he got proper care, there were a lot more of them on his skull then what Echo has. And that's not talking about the mental scares that Echo is sure that he has. No one comes out with those many wounds and not have at least some mental scaring. "Hey there handsome." Echo couldn't help but tease, throwing the very confused skeleton a wink even as others glared at him. But it through him for a loop when the other didn't blush, just mouth the words as if not understanding them.

"Ahem!" Ink cleared his throat, throwing a glare at Echo, before going on. "UnderLust!Sans, he goes by Hearts." Error had no idea if he should start running now or just end it here and now. But at least this one, while wearing the same clothing, is not the original one, Lust. This one came up to his middle rib, Lust had came up to his chin. Shivering, Error could only think on what Lust had threaten him with, with a lustful expression on his face looking down on him. Error thanked all his luck that the other Sans's and Papyrus's actually took pity on him and stopped Lust before he tried anything. That was the only Mercy he got that day.

Now, while his home was a lustful one, it was also a loving one. It was a way of life to show physical affection and attraction, one that Hearts and his Brother, Compassion, had grown up with. Many think that with a name like UnderLust, all there is sex happening. And while that is a main part, lust doesn't always mean sexual desire. It can also mean a strong desire for something. And it's not like the kids themselves do the sexual part, they are just very affectionate. Showing love, hugging and giving innocent kisses to one another. And Hearts SOUL went out for this broken Monster. Just by looking at him, Hearts knew that he didn't get a lot of positive affection, if any at all. 'But, at least it seems like he can give it to some extent.' Hearts thought to himself, watching how this Error held the two children close. And that means that he wasn't all too lost or out of touch. "Hello~" Giving a flirty wink with a kind smile, making the taller one flinch back for some reason, Hearts made sure to keep his usual flirting light, very light. "Echo is right! It's nice to have a handsome Monster around~"

Ink hurried on when Error started to glitch more, worried that he would have another breakdown. "And here is UnderFresh!Sans!" Error's mind halted, his glitching freezing in shock. "This here is Fresh." Slowly, Error turned his head around to look at Fresh. The Virus, after taking over a body, usually used magic to keep his height the same. And that was usually around Error's own height. But this one came to his shoulders, had a different hat on - this one didn't have a spiny thing on top, it was a normal hat - and different bright colors that made his clothing. And the Virus sure didn't have his own AU from what he could remember, Ink didn't like him for possessing his creations. 'What the hell is going on here?!' Error's mind tried to come up with any logical conclusion as to why this is happening. He came up with nothing.

"Whut up my raidcal bruh!" Fresh chuckled, bouncing on his heels. "You sure are lookin' fine today~" Fresh couldn't help but join Hearts and Echo's flirting attempts, it was pretty funny in a bittersweet way that the other skeleton just looked confused by the flirting. And Fresh noticed the way he watched him, like he was a snake about to strike at any moment. So Fresh made sure to make himself look unthreatening as possible. Give his best goofy grin, make his body relax, and his movements slow. 'But it's weird...' Fresh thought confused. 'It's like he knows me, and that he expects me to hurt him or something...' That worried him a bit.

"You know MobTale!Sans, Skull, and here is UnderSwap!Papyrus. Just call him Honey." Skull chuckled at Ink's threatening face, daring the others to try and flirt, as he walked into the line to stand by Blue. Throwing a very much out of the loop Error a wink.

"Sup'?" Honey gave a tired smile at the nervous look he got from the other. All he could think was, what if this had happened to his Brother? What if this was Blueberry standing right in front of him, hurt? What made Error look at his face and flinch away like he is expecting to get hit right here, right now? 'Did his Papyrus even help him? Is that why he is looking at me like that? Did....Did his brother hurt him?' Honey could only hope that Error's brother was a kind one, if not then there was going to be some important discussions that need to happen if you catch his drift. Ignoring Ink's warning look, Honey gave a lazy wink with a lazy finger gun. "Nice to meet ya."

Error had no idea why they kept blinking at him with only one socket, but it isn't hurting him so he allowed it. But looking at the face Honey, one who looked just like the original one, Stretch, made Error tense up. After he, in a fit of loneliness and madness, destroyed the original Swap AU and kidnapped Swap, Stretch has had it out for him. Even if all he and Swap did was knit and watch UnderNovela, and even then eventually gave back the human SOUL and restart his whole AU so he could get everything back so that Swap could live freely away from the Voices in the end, after everything he did Stretch made sure to pay it back ten fold when he got his hands on him. Error knew he deserved it all, but it was nice having someone with him, to talk to him or just stand by him, even if it was a short time. So he doesn't regret it no matter how many times Stretch creaked his skull, trying to make the tougher boned skeleton's skull cave in.

"I will drown you all in pink paint! Bright pink with glitter, if you don't stop! " Ink hissed lowly at the innocently smiling skeletons, only smoothing out his face when Null and Void whimpered, making Error scoot away with a weary look on his face. Ink cleared his throat again, a light colorful blush dusting his face. "Ahem! Sorry about that....Next we have SwapFell!Papyrus, just call him Maple."

Finally, a Monster that never did much to him. Error looked at him curiosity, he was like Honey in a way, looking just like the original. Slim, the original SwapFell!Papyrus, had never really done much to him. In fact Raspberry - or just Rasp - the SwapFell!Sans, has done more to him then Slim has. Sure, Slim had snapped his leg off a few times, but Error's been hurt in worst ways. In fact, one time Rasp had been so close to breaking all of his bones when they caught him on a low day. - Error was in the middle of having a major panic attack, that Virus had tried to touch him one too many times, glitching wildly and having trouble breathing when he wasn't looking where he was teleporting to get away from said colorful Virus. He had meant to go to the Anti-Void, as he was in a copy of the original UnderSwap, but instead landed in SwapFell where the brothers found him. Rasp laughed at getting one over one of the strongest out there. Error only got away when the panic faded by the intense pain he was getting from having his bones snapped in half. He had to drag himself into the portal after firing off his blasters to get them away from him. - And with his magic, and with him being apart of the balance, he always was able to get his leg back on in some way. They may hurt for a long time after, but Error had gotten used to it.

Maple had no idea what to think on this new Monster. He was interesting to look at that was for sure, but it was telling the he was covered all the way from the neck down. He knew what it was like to be beaten and cover up the injuries. Before He and his Brother, Razz, knew about the other AU's, Razz was not the nicest of Brothers. But after seeing all the different AU's, and how they were treated in theirs, Razz had lighten up. It made Maple wonder what kind of AU this one came from, because he was not from the new AU. 'Is it kill or be killed? Or maybe it is something much more sinister?' Maple pushed his disturbing thoughts away, he had time to ask later. He just gave a nod in greeting, making Ink beam at him in thanks.

"There we go!" The 'Why can't you all be like this?!' was left unsaid, but very heavily applied by the way Ink eyed the others that went before. Ink growled at the smiles he got in return. 'Those little shits!' But he had other Monsters to introduce, so he went on instead of hitting the others upside the head with his paint brush like he wanted to. "And then we have HorrorTale!Sans, we just call him Murder for....obvious reasons." Ink glanced to the side at that, worried that Error would freak out. But to his shock Error actually looked more at ease at that.

Seeing the Sans covered in blood, no matter that he was taller as he was to his neck while the Original HorrorTale!Sans, Horror, was just under his hips. He knew were he stood with the other HorrorTale!Sans's. Horror has tried to kill him more times then he can count along with Dust, one time he even tried to eat him alive for giggles. But it wasn't because he hated him for being the destroyer, he just did it for fun. The only reason he and a few others wasn't at that final fight was because they had sided with Nightmare, and Nightmare and his gang would not help Inky or Dream with anything even if they begged. That and Nightmare still had hope that Error would join him one day, even if he still tries to kill him with the others. Error could admit that he had a weird relationship with them all, one that he questions everyday and made even Inky stop and question from time to time.

How did Error know this? A long time ago, Inky one time came to fight him after he destroyed a HorrorTale copy. But he walked in one him cooking with the Original HorrorTale!Papyrus, Scream, with Horror trying to chew off his leg. And by that, Error meant that Horror was clinging to his leg and chewing on it just because he wanted to. Not because he was angry that Error destroyed a copy of his AU, he never cared about those things, said it just made Error taste better. Error is still not sure what that means. All Inky could do was stare at him as he stirred a pot that was filled with blood and other things that Error did not want to know - Scream screeched out orders and whined that Horror should help more like Error was, asking why he couldn't be such a wonderful cook like Error was. That was the first time in a long time that his SOUL felt warmth in it that wasn't from pain. It wouldn't be until he found the two baby bones that he would feel that again. - and ignoring the pain as Horror went to town on his leg Error just ignored the stunned colorful skeleton. - Just mindless chewing on it, drool going down his leg. But Error noticed that he went to chew on a different part before any of his bones could bleed or break. - Inky slowly backed out and left, never bringing it up again. But Error could tell that he wanted to with the way he would look at him. The worst part of all of this? Error is still not for sure how Scream got him to cook with him, or how after they cooked Horror decided to not to try and chop his arm off like he usually does every time he sees Error. But then again, he never understood much of anything.

When Murder's name was mentioned, Murder waited for the freak out to start. Quite a few other Sanses and Papyruses had freaked out when they first saw him and his Brother, Blood. But to his shock, the darker one just gave a nod. Not a lick of fear or anything in any of the new ones faces. The kids not caring as long as the older one doesn't. Just acceptance. Murder didn't know if he should be relived, insulted, or even a bit worried. Because he was one of the violent ones, and was not a pretty sight to look at with the broken skull and blood staining him. So for this Monster to not be afraid, then that either means he is a fool - and by how his stance was Murder did not think that was the case. - or he has seen worse. And judging by his appearance, Murder is banking on the latter. But Murder knew he would have to invite this guy over, Blood and him rarely get company in their own AU for obvious reasons. They also get stared at when they go to visit others even now years later. If this guy doesn't care it would be a nice treat for his brother to make a new friend. Murder just gave a nod back, he would have to keep a socket on this one.

Ink decided it was probably best to get the more bloodthirsty ones out of the way, so he pointed to the next one that was stained with dust. "DustTale!Sans, it is not too far off to call him Killer." A tall DustTale!Sans, one that was the same height as Murder, gave a creepy grin to Error. Who only gave a quick nod in response to the others shock.

Dust was actually the same height as Classic. And luckily there wasn't too many other DustTales. Error and him also had a very unusual relationship, and Dust was also in Nightmare's team. Dust wanted to, well, dust him for his EXP as Error had tons of it for being the destroyer. But soon it became a twisted game to them. Dust seemed to find amusement and joy every time Error would bat him off or when he was able to break a bone or leave a mark on Error. Error never cared, it was just one more person trying to kill him, at least this one wasn't personal. One time Inky had accidentally showed up in the middle of one of those games, soon trying to stop Error from hurting Dust when he saw the two fighting. Only Inky got one hurtful shock when Dust stabbed Inky for interrupting their game. Error could only watch in numb shock when Dust kicked Inky away and bent down to whisper something, knife pointing to Error. Soon Dust let Inky leave and turned back to Error to finish their game, he never mentioned what he said to him, neither did Inky later on, but Error didn't want to know. Dust was probably staking his claim to be the one to kill him.

Killer wanted to laugh at the calm nod he got, and not out of amusement. He could practically feel the others EXP and LOVE, but it fluctuated. He had a lot of questions for this strange Monster. Killer wasn't sure that he would get a lot of EXP from this Monster if he actually dust him, as he can feel the glitches - and wasn't that a whole another set of questions that needed to be asked? - and fluctuations in the stats. He can't see them, but boy could he feel them. It was more then all of the Monster's here combined, that much he could tell without looking. Once you start killing for things like EXP and LOVE, you start to get a sense for these things without looking at the other stats, but never for sure until you see them. Maybe he could kill the Demon for him? Although he doesn't like asking for help, he is not above it if it finally gets rid of that demon. Looking the other up and down, Killer could tell this was going to get interesting from here on out.

"Nightmare!Sans, but he likes being called Misery." If Error was drinking something, he would have done a spit take. There was no way that this Monster was Nightmare, no way in hell. Misery came to Error's cheeks, and looked like a normal skeleton with purple eyes. A black suit with white and gold like Dream's, but no cape or gloves, with black boots and a golden crown with a crescent moon on it. No gooey black skeleton that Error remembered, and that freaked him a little, but confusion rained over that fear like a waterfall.

There was only one Nightmare, he was the Yin to Dream, the Yang, like how Error and Inky were. Error is still not for sure why Inky made a AU like that, as he had to have a general idea of how it would form. Maybe he wanted to see if they would turn out like him and Error? Well, it did. And Nightmare was aware of the balance, more because Error told him about it one day after a poisoning attempt -What can he say? He was bored and in pain, also delirious from the poison helped too. - Nightmare could do what he wanted in a sense that Error could not even if they were alike. Nightmare knew this and keeps trying to make Error join his side to kill off the others, but Error lost that anger that Nightmare has a long time ago. He is still not for sure why he still asks for him to join even years later. It should be obvious now that he wasn't joining.

And this skeleton, while the same height as Nightmare, looks nothing like him. All Error thought was that there better be a good explanation for all of this. Error had no idea what was going on anymore, and that was beginning to confuse the heck out of him. The last time he was actually was this confused, just plain confused and not being confused about his pain or why it was always him, was so long ago that he forgot why he was confused in the first place.

"Hello." Misery could feel the misery coming off of the other skeleton, wrapping itself the other like a blanket. There is a reason he is called Misery, not because he likes to bring it but because he can feel it. He could feel the negative emotions poring off him, crying out for help. It hurt just being near him, Misery could only think what it would feel like if his SOUL was out. Nightmares give fear, but also courage and a healthy does of humbling and common sense. Misery can usually tell what ones fear is just by looking at them, or at the least their SOUL. But looking at this one, Misery for the first time can not see any fears but see all the misery in him. 'Does he have no fears?' Misery narrowed his sockets in question. 'Or has he faced all his fears, therefor having nothing left to fear?'

"His Brother, Dream!Sans. But just call him Daze." Daze gave a cheerful smile, waving excitedly to the children and bigger Monster. But if you looked closely, you would be able to see the slight bittersweet edge to it. He could feel the children's love and happiness, having their dreams come true by the Monster holding them. But he could also feel the tiredness, the apathy mixed with confusion and a little edge of protectiveness from the one called Error. It made him want to bring out the one's hopes and dreams, but Daze fears that he may not hold too many happy memories if any at all. Daze fears what he would see in those dreams, and that has never happened before. But there is also another problem, Daze has never seen this Monster's dreams, never heard of Error. 'Have I failed as the holder of dreams? Have I actually missed a Monster?' Daze breathed out a sigh, still keeping his smile in place. 'Or is there something else at play?'

Seeing a taller Dream made Error want to laugh, hysterically. Daze was only a few inches smaller then Misery, while Dream was about the same size as Inky. The two brothers were standing close, closer then Nightmare and Dream would ever think of doing. In fact, they wouldn't even be in the same AU let alone in breathing distance. Hell, Dream wouldn't be in Error's breathing distance unless it was too fight.

Dream has a rare hatred for him, and has told him many times during there fights that Error was devoid of dreams and happiness. Error just let him as he felt bad about destroying his AU, it was a original after all and had no copies. It was one of the many he had destroyed when he was lost to the madness and anger inside of him. - Dream screamed that he was worse then Nightmare, that he was not even a Monster as he couldn't feel and just destroyed. He was not a Monster, but a demon. That he shouldn't exist. Error laughed in his face even after he was punched in the cheek for doing so, because there is no point in preaching to the quire. There was no point in screaming when the other person already knows it is true. - Being near Dream was supposed to make one happy, it just made Error more mad or just more tired as he couldn't feel such wonderful feelings. Error couldn't remember the last time he was truly happy. Maybe a spark of lightness or excitement while he watched UnderNovela, but not true happiness.

Maybe he is a demon. Or maybe Fate has formed to be this way as to not get too out of control like Inky. Error has no idea, only that he has lost the will to truly care a long time ago about things like dreams and hope.

"Here is Genocide!Sans, we just call him Geno for short." Ah, someone Error has fought before he lost all his anger. He can remember the red lasers from the blasters and his string tangling everything up. Error knew he reminded Genocide of the human in his AU and what they have done to his AU, so therefor he wanted him gone. But this Monster was different. Same clothes, even same injury, but different look in his sockets and height. Genocide was to Error's chest, this Geno was to Error's neck. And Geno did not look at him with disgust, only interest. In fact this Geno did not seem as sad or depressed as Genocide. And while Error knows there is a Genocide!Papyrus, there is only one of them. 'Why is there more then one? Well, there a lot of different AU's and copies.....So it is logical that there could be more then one Genocide!Sans....Right?'

Inky actually did not see Genocide coming, he broke the mold you could say. Soon after that, the Papyrus one happened, but only those two. For some reason Inky keeps them away from each other, maybe so they don't get anymore ideas? Error never knows what was going through his head, nor did he want to understand.

All Geno wanted to know the minute the new Monster walked up to them was if he like Geno. No blood was seeping out of him, so that was a positive. 'But then again, he is wearing a black trench coat.' Geno looked at it, trying to see any stains before giving up. But those scares and marks on his skull were telling, at least the kids were okay. No marks to see on them, only some fading bruises that would go away with some more Monster food and rest. Error though needed a whole lot more then that, and that's only going by what Geno can see. Questions bounced back and forth in his skull, so many things he wanted to ask and know. But he had to wait, only for a little bit more. Because to Geno it was like looking in a broken, dirtied mirror. He was seeing what he himself could have become if he didn't have the others while he lost more and more HoPe at the genocidal runs. He was looking at a Monster that was hurt, broken, and so close to giving up. All Geno could do was give a small smile and a little wave.

Later Geno would realize that Error had given up a long time ago, only that he finally decided that enough was enough and do something about it when he fell into the VOID.

"DanceTale!Sans, we just call him Hip-Hop, or just Hop for short." Ink's smile stayed on, even as his eyes were glaring daggers at Hop when he gave a teasing wink with a smirk. "Hey." 'Why is almost everyone's first reaction is to flirt with the physically hurt, and maybe mentally and emotionally - Ink then remembers Error's 'little' breakdown in Mobtale - scratch that. Hurt in every way skeleton?' Ink just thankful no one has tried anything more then a few sweet words and winks, he had no idea how Error and his kids would react to all out flirting. 'But then again,' Ink mentally groaned. 'I can see one of them messing with him eventually and then everything going to hell.'

Ink decided that he really needed some new friends. Too bad he was stuck with them for the most part.

Error could see the differences between Hop and Dance. Hop had on a hat under his hood, his jacket slightly more open, and he stood to about to where Error's mouth would be. Dance had no hat and his jacket was zipped up as much as it could, and he stood about to Error's nose holes. Discarding that wink - which he still doesn't understand why they are doing that. Has Inky implanted a new greeting in these new copies and AU's while he fell? - Error took in a deep breath. There had to be a logical explanation for all of this, he just had to come up with one. 'What has Inky done while I was gone?! This Ink has never seen or heard of another Ink, so has Inky just stopped creating after a while?' Error lightly snorted at that thought. There was no way in any hell or heaven that Inky would stop creating.

Hop hid his face with his hat after winking. Usually he was too shy even to do that, but after seeing how tense the other was, he wanted to try something to make him get a bit looser. Hop gulped feeling the others eyes search him, his face starting to turn blue. He hated being the center of attention, so why did he do that? 'Because he looks like he has never felt relaxed and safe before.' Hop realized, peeking up at Error's confused expression under the brim of his hat. 'And everyone should feel like that everyday.'

"Here is OuterTale!Sans, he picked Orbit to be his nickname." Error blinked down at Orbit, who to his lower stomach. It was the same height as Outer. A Sans that never touched him. Oh, Outer helped the others take him down, but he never physically hurt him. Error supposed that Outer did that in thanks, as Error favored his AU and never touched it or any of the copies as of yet. Error wouldn't hesitate to destroy one of the copies if he had to, but he had others that were newer that he wanted gone before they grew. So Outer just helped Ink in the background, gathering information and telling Ink when he was in any OuterTale.

So in the end Error didn't have any problem with him, but he always knew that a metaphorical knife was pointed at his back whenever Outer was near or Error was in his AU. Eventually Error just stopped going, it always ended in a fight with Ink. But he really missed the stars.

You know the saying; if you are not apart of the solution, you are apart of the problem. And Outer was a problem for Error even if he never threw that punch that Error knew he wanted to.

Orbit gave a small smile with a light nod in greeting, watching the new three fondly. Seeing those babybones brought memories of happy times with his Father, Gaster. Not every AU had a nice Gaster like he had before he was scattered. But he was happy that these two had found their new Father, their protector. And this one wouldn't be scattered anytime soon as he was in no way a Gaster. But, Orbit glanced to all the injuries the tall one had, he may just be dusted by all his wounds if they fester longer. He hoped these little ones had a better time then all the others with parents, but looking at how Error kept them close, Orbit knew he didn't have anything to worry about for them.

He just had to worry about Error himself when everything is said and done.

"And finally we have the Quantum AU's and their different Timelines/AU's." Error's SOUL stilled when he followed Ink's pointing finger down and was met with the sight of children - practically babybones to him. Luckily Inky never found out he would never kill off a AU with children, or at least a whole lot of children in it. That was why he left KinderTale alone and never even glanced at it. If he did, Error could see Inky making a whole lot of kid AU's just to break Error's SOUL even further by making him dust them.

But the point is, is that this AU/Timeline does not exist from what Error could remember. There was even a little Fresh, which made Error clinch the kids tighter to his chest. He was sure he would have made a note of a AU filled with kiddie version of everyone. Even if it was just to stay away from it. 'What is going on!? Maybe because I was gone Inky decided it was safe to make kid AU's?!' God, Error hoped that was the case....Then again he also hoped he was wrong so he didn't have to listen to the dying screams of children as he dusted them and their family and friends to make room for others. 'I'll make sure to get rid of others to make sure I don't have to do theirs...' Error hated Inky just a bit more for doing this to him.

"QuantumTale!Sans is T.K, QuantamFell!Sans is Cherry, QuantamFresh!Sans is Peace, Quantum!Echo is Gaz, Quantum!Space is Cloud, QuantumSwap!Papyrus is Orange, and QuantumScare!Sans is Tick." Error just watched blankly as he pointed to each child, he had no idea what was even going on any more.

All the kids just looked wide eyed up at the new Monster, - some thinking he looked scary, others thinking he looked cool - trying to get a peek at the new kids. But said babybones were hiding their heads in their Father's chest. There were so many new faces they had no idea what to do! 'Don't worry, Daddy will protect us!' Null thought to himself as he gave a nervous gulp. 'Everything will be fine!'

"And that's all the AU's!" Ink turned a gave a grin, only for it to fall at the look he got in return. "Is...Is something wrong?"

"tHiS iS ALl tHE Au'S?" Error shook his head. "thErE iS nO WAy tHAT iS tRUE." Who did this Monster think he was playing? Error has seen way too many AU's to even consider that was true.

"It is." Ink slowly shook his head in disagreement. "Null's and Void's AU is the newest one. the last one we got before them, all the Quantum AU's, happened years ago."

Error felt his SOUL stop. He really just wanted to lay down and scream, because this has reached a whole new level of 'What the HELL is this shit?!'. "BUt tHE lAsT TimE i KEpT cOUnT thERe WeRE tRilLiONs, AnD thAT wAS YEaRs AGO."

Ignoring the shocked and confused looks, Error closed his sockets tightly as to fight off the tears that wanted to come.

He should have just teared up his SOUL and been done with it - Oh he forgot, he tried that once. His SOUL just came back together eventually. Maybe he should have broken all his bones - Scratch that he's done it. Error quickly went through the things he has done to try and end his life throughout the years, accidentally or otherwise.

Drowning? He just floated in the water until he got bored and swam out. It took five days until he swam out by himself.

Starvation? He has no need to eat, hasn't eaten in years.

Hanging? Quite a few others have tried to choke him out throughout the many different fights and has snapped his neck before, it never killed him.

Electrocution? He has been stung with over a million volts, it had only singed his clothes and his bones.

Bleeding out? He has been stabbed and cut so many times it isn't funny, and has never treated the wounds. If he was going to die from that, it would have happened years and years ago.

Hell! Even the Grim Reaper has failed to reap him and his SOUL no matter how many times he has tried to do it!

There were so many other methods that failed him, and now even being scattered across time and space has failed him. So what else was there?! He had no idea what was going on!

He let himself be lead to the outdoor table numbly by a worried Ink, not hearing all the different mumbles and scattering of feet following behind him.

Error was just so tired of everything.

-End Chapter-

My LONGEST chapter ever! I feel so accomplished.

Now everyone has been introduced, not counting the brothers. I wanted to get this done and out of the way, and give them their first impression on each other. Now that this is out of the way, we can get to everyone finding out what is going on and just who Error is. And about how many AU's there are, and some more memories from Error.

We will learn more about all the different Sanses and Papyruses with their respected AU's later on, and what makes them act and be so different. With no Error or creator Ink, it has caused them to form differently and be different as a result.

We also got to see some of Error's memories, and some Error viewed as happy - or at least not as bad- moments when a person looking in - like OM!Ink or even a normal person - would see it as very unhealthy or even not a positive at all. Even Error questioned these moments, but in the end just stopped caring. It's not like it will kill him, so he just goes with it eventually. He views them as, not friends or even allies, but as Monsters that he has a small fondness for no matter how many times they have tried to kill him.

And we will eventually have a chapter that will show the OM side and how things are going. And more chapters on them as they eventually figure out what Error's job is, that they need him back, that he is in fact alive, and how to find him and get him. But for right now I am focusing on Error to get the ball rolling.

#Healing What Has Been Broken #Error Sans #Forced Destroyer Error #Papa!Error #Null #Void #My OCs #Harrish6 #Fanfiction #Fanfic

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baepsaetan · 7 years

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Nothing Planted, Nothing Gained (Namjin)

Summary: In which Namjoon is a student struggling through university with the help of his roommates Hoseok and Yoongi. Tae, Jimin and Kookie are their take-out swiping neighbours. Jin is a stranger who brings flowers into all of their lives.

Genre: Fluff, University!AU

Warnings: N/A

Length: 9.6k words

A/N: Just a lot of fluff and puns and flowers. Namjin is cute and so is Yoonseok, and everyone involved approves.

Sprawled out on the lumpy brown couch, one leg slung over the arm rest, using Hoseok as a precarious pillow instead of the couch backing with its numerous uncomfortable spots, Namjoon switched channels with a lazy flick of his fingers across the remote. Next to him Hobi stirred, a faint complaint rising in his throat but never actually voiced. Rules were rules after all, and they’d already watched three episodes of Hit the Stage. It was Namjoon’s turn to pick, and he’d be damned if he missed another Friends re-run so Hoseok could leap out of his seat and attempt to copy every other move of the contestants on the show. (He already knew at least 80% of the steps anyways, and that number was probably being stingy.) His roommate settled down after a moment and Namjoon leaned into him more, knowing he was taking a risk (Hobi liked to jump up unexpectedly) but too tired to care.

As Chandler, Joey and Ross bickered their way through some crisis or another, Namjoon let his mind wander. He was going to have to go back to the university today – he’d forgotten a textbook he needed to complete his paper – and despite living on campus, he was dreading it. You could call it sheer laziness, but with Sunday being his only day off from school and his part-time job, the thought of hauling himself over to McCaig Tower to grab something so minimal was irritating at best. Thus, his butt was still planted firmly on the couch, with no intention of leaving any time soon.

There was a shuffling of feet from down the hallway, which suggested Yoongi had finally reanimated enough to get out of bed. Sure enough, the pale man slouched through the living room, kicking aside the boxers sitting behind the couch, and crossed into the kitchen without a word. He reappeared a minute or so later with a bowl of cereal in his hands, which he proceeded to eat whilst staring blearily into space.

“Morning hyung,” Hoseok greeted cheerfully from the couch, utterly unfazed by the grunt that Yoongi gave in response.

Actually, Namjoon was a bit surprised to see him around so early in the morning; it was only ten, and given that he’d probably fallen asleep at five or six, it was odd he’d woken up. There was no point in questioning Yoongi about it – he didn’t feel like trying to translate monosyllabic replies – so Namjoon turned back to the TV, a comfortable silence settling over the three roommates. He’d lucked out with these two, though honestly, he couldn’t have imagined two more different people. At least - despite the glaringly dissimilar personalities - they all got along well. Oh, there were arguments, but they’d been living together for two years now and had more or less figured out how to fix problems as they arose.

Unlike the three idiots across the hall. A slight frown pulling across his mouth, he glanced at their door as though he could see through it and into the absolutely chaotic mess that belonged to the freshmen who’d moved in a few months ago. In and of themselves, he didn’t mind them. They were funny, usually helpful and an enthusiastic bunch altogether; having parties with them had proven to be an altogether fun experience. But when they fought… Namjoon had literally never heard such a cacophony of complaints and insults and strung out arguments. Last night, if the thin walls of the dorms spoke true, they’d been fighting about who’s turn it was to do the dishes.

Amateurs. That’s what schedules were for.

“Yoongi-hyung?” Namjoon asked, twisting to observe their oldest roommate, who was looking more and more alive with every spoonful of sugar he shoved into his mouth. The producing major raised an eyebrow with the plastic spoon still hanging from his mouth; he was awake enough to answer questions, it seemed.

“I ended up putting in my earphones to block them out. How long were Taehyung, Jungkook and Jimin fighting for?”

A shrug of small shoulders, but after he’d finished slurping up the last of the milk, Yoongi answered. “Tae tapped out around two, and I think Jungkook and Jimin gave up around three. Good thing too. I was about to go over there and break all their damn dishes so they wouldn’t have anything to fight over.” Not an entirely idle threat – Yoongi was something of a terror when he was working on a project, especially by the end when he was running on a few hours of sleep at a time – but Hoseok let out an explosive laugh like he’d made the greatest joke in the world. After a second, Yoongi grudgingly smiled, the expression lightening the strained lines of his face and diminishing the painful bruises under his eyes.

“Seriously,” he muttered, but without heat, and disappeared around the corner to put his dish away.

Namjoon smiled too, fond and pleased, grateful all over that he’d gotten these two as roommates. Hoseok could draw Yoongi out of all but his worst moods and he kept their apartment reasonably clean, and Yoongi was great at planning their foods and necessities and made party playlists like no other. The two got along so well it was amazing they hadn’t taken further steps, and honestly it would probably make things a little easier for the both of them if one of them finally confessed. Less heart eyes and more heart action. Or at least some kind of action that involved two people instead of just one. Well, as for Namjoon… he broke stuff, settled arguments, made sure his actions were discreet, and tended to treat the others more than he treated himself. All in all, not a bad deal.

There was a knock on the door, and Namjoon had just enough time to regret his kind thoughts before Hoseok vacated his solemn duty as cushion and bounded off the couch. A wild flail wasn’t – quite – enough to save himself from falling off the battered sofa with his support gone, but it was enough to knock the remote flying. It hit the floor at about the same time as Namjoon did, the taped back cracking open on impact and scattering the batteries in separate directions with a metallic clatter.

There was a mixture of two familiar voices – Yoongi drawling, “Aish, Namjoonie,” from the kitchen and Hoseok’s bright voice saying, “Yo, what can we do for you?” from the door – before Namjoon managed to get his limbs under control and sit up from his awkward sprawl. He was just in time to catch a lightly frank reply. “Well, I’m your new roommate. Kim Seokjin. It’s nice to meet you!”

Hoseok’s confused choking sound was audible even from across the room, and Namjoon hurriedly got to his feet as Yoongi practically skidded out of the kitchen, both pairs of eyes fixed on the unexpected visitor. He was more than partially visible even with Hobi in the doorway, broad shoulders doing a great job of taking up space, and even as Namjoon strode forward the visitor leaned around Hoseok, gave an extravagant wave. Seokjin didn’t seem particularly perturbed by any of their reactions, not Yoongi’s suspicious squint or Hobi’s wide-eyed stare or Namjoon’s puzzled observation. If anything, he seemed to get brighter as they all crowded the entrance. At least, he smiled at them all.

And Namjoon swore to God that if the boy hadn’t been holding a potted plant under his arm, a massive suitcase leaning against his hip on the other side, that smile, set on full lips against a breathtaking face, would have been attractive enough to make him forget where he was. Alas. There was a suitcase. And some kind of flower.

Clearing his throat (because even if he couldn’t forget, he could still lose his breath a little) Namjoon gently edged Hoseok more to the side. “Hey,” he said, still struggling with his confusion and… other things. “My name’s Namjoon. Kim Namjoon. This is Min Yoongi and Jung Hoseok. I’m sorry, did I hear you say you’re our new roommate?” As far as he was aware, they weren’t up for a new roomie this semester (or any semester if Yoongi had anything to do with it. And considering he was the one who filled out all their housing forms every term, he kinda did) and yet there was an easy certainty in Seokjin, a confidence that gave Namjoon a few doubts.

It wasn’t like the housing department hadn’t ever screwed up before. Hoseok still wasn’t fully recovered from the toilet incident, and Namjoon had only just managed to stop those movers from dumping a towering cabinet into their living room because “housing said it was supposed to go there.” Maybe this time they’d neglected to tell the current tenants of a new roommate?

Seokjin laughed, a sound that came from his whole body and made something in Namjoon’s stomach tighten. “Yeah, you heard right. You guys look a little startled. Is it the plant? I promise I’m not into that kind of potting.” A delay of half a second and then Hoseok snickered, bouncing on the balls of his feet while Namjoon felt an unintentional smile curing up the corners of his mouth. Seokjin lifted up the flower tucked under his arm, proudly displaying it, and said, “See?”

Indeed, it was definitely not a pot plant (not that Namjoon would know anything about that). He knew about as much as the next city boy about flowers, but it had dark green leaves that were covered with purplish fuzz that looked like velvet. Maybe… it was a fern of some kind? The only other thing Namjoon knew was that his skin was itching just looking at the thing, and that contact with it would probably result in spectacular rashes and hives. There was a reason (besides their inability to keep anything besides themselves alive) that their apartment was a plant-free zone.

“It looks great,” Namjoon agreed neutrally, “but, the thing is -”

“We’re not supposed to have another roommate.” Yoongi’s first words were overly sharp, making Namjoon wince inwardly as the first signs of insecurity drifted across the soft panes of Seokjin’s face, his wide eyes giving a few rapid blinks. Either Yoongi realized his tone was too harsh or the shifting Namjoon felt somewhere behind was Hoseok giving him a surreptitious kick, because the short man shrugged and added, “I mean, housing is a bunch of colossal screw-ups. Not your fault if they made a mistake. Which room are you supposed to be in?”

Free hand curling into the baggy pocket of his light beige sweater, Seokjin took out a crisply folded piece of paper, smoothed it out and squinted at it for a few heartbeats before proffering it in much the same way as he had the plant. “Apartment 352,” he said, blinking hard enough that his face scrunched cutely.

Shoving down the soft sound that was hovering far too close to escape, Namjoon shook his head slightly, ignoring Yoongi’s relieved sigh. “352 isn’t ours. It’s across the hall.” He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not, but he had to admit he was a little curious about how their new neighbor had managed to miss the large, cheap plastic numbers to the right of their door that said ‘351’.

For one second Seokjin just stared at him, his delicate eyebrows drawing down in bewilderment, before he pulled back the paper, holding it protectively close to his chest. “Oh,” he said in a rather small voice, and Namjoon wasn’t sure why he looked so crestfallen. Something about him – the confidence from before, maybe - made it seem like he wasn’t often deflated. Seokjin’s eyes flitted to the side – probably looking at the numbers – and his already pink face abruptly flushed red, eyebrows furrowing deeper. It looked like he was struggling to hold something back, but the struggle didn’t last for long. Abruptly he burst out in an indignant rush, “Yah! Should I call myself blind? Why does your door say 352, then?”

Several moments of startled silence passed before a sneaking suspicion made Namjoon glance at Yoongi, seeing the same suspicion stirring on his roommate’s face. “You don’t think they…?” Yoongi began in a tightly foreboding voice, and Namjoon shook his head.

“They better not have.” Except, as he leaned around Seokjin with an apologetic murmur, one hand on the doorframe to balance himself, Namjoon already knew what he would see. Someone had taken the 1 in 351 and replaced it with a 2. The two was slightly crooked. And by “someone” he meant… Looking across the hall, sure enough, the younger boys’ room was decorated with a 351. It was with some chagrin that Namjoon noted that they’d managed to get their numbers straight.

Hoseok took one look at his face and chuckled. “They did it again, didn’t they?”

He raked his hand through his hair in a swift motion, turning back to the impatiently confused Seokjin. “Sorry,” Namjoon said. “I get it now. The freshmen across the hall… your roommates, I guess… they’ve switched our numbers before. When we ordered takeout, the delivery guy went to their door instead and since we already paid for it…” He still regretted missing out on that order of bulgogi, and after the amount he’d lectured them, and Yoongi had made idle observations about how easy it would be to hide bodies under the school field, he was a bit incredulous they’d be willing to do it again.

Apparently, he’d underestimated their love of free food.

Seokjin’s eyes had widened in something that was suspiciously close to delight, and even before Namjoon had finished he was snorting, a quiet sound that quickly grew into a full-fledged gasp that might have held a hint of relief. He’d probably thought they were playing a mean-spirited prank when they’d lied straight to his face. “You’re telling me my roommates are take-out takers? Inconvenient convenience food thieves?”

“You don’t have to sound so happy about it,” Yoongi grumbled while Namjoon clasped his hand over his mouth to hide the silly smile fighting – and winning – it’s way across his lips.

Seokjin beamed. “Sorry! It’s Yoongi, right? But anyways, I should go greet the grub grabbers.” There was something utterly unapologetic – even gleeful - about his expression as all three of them groaned, Yoongi covering his face with his hands, and he gave a little wave. “Sorry for taking up your guys’ time.”

Hobi matched the sunny smile after recovering from the spout of alliteration. “Don’t worry neighbor!” he exclaimed, grinning and sweeping out his arms. “Easy mistake to make. Do you need any help moving in? Your roomies are all young punks, they probably won’t offer to help.”

Not really true – Taehyung and Jungkook had nearly killed themselves helping Yoongi haul up the ugly couch they were now the proud owners of while Hoseok and Namjoon were working, and Jimin would have helped if he wasn’t taking an exam – but the comment had Seokjin shrugging and shaking his head with amiable ease. “Nah, nah,” he said. “This is all I have right now. Actually…”

He leaned around all of them, peering critically into the apartment, and Namjoon felt a prickle of embarrassment. From the door, you could see into both the kitchen and the living room, and into the hallway that led off to the room that Hobi and Yoongi shared as well as Namjoon’s own room. It wasn’t that messy, but they probably could have picked up the boxers on the floor, or thrown out the empty snack bag on the couch, and the near life-size Ryan doll in the corner was maybe a bit much.

Seokjin stared at the Ryan doll long enough to have Namjoon shifting, but then he seemed to snap out of it and rocked back on his heels, smiling. “I thought so. You guys have a balcony, right?”

“If you want to definite it as a balcony, sure,” Namjoon said dryly, looking over his shoulder at the sliding glass door in the living room that led out onto the “balcony”. The little ledge – maybe three feet of space – looked like it’d been added as an afterthought, just like the rest of the balconies on this side of the building, and it didn’t have a rail or anything. Namjoon supposed you could stand out there (before he’d quit smoking, Yoongi had done just that), but housing had strongly advised against it, and so did self-preservation. Falling from the third floor of an apartment complex would be a great excuse to skip exams, but it’d probably be a great excuse to skip the rest of life, too.

Their neighbor’s nod was so enthused he almost looked like a bobble head, and Namjoon had to hide his smile behind his hand again. “I thought so,” Seokjin repeated with no small satisfaction. “I saw it when I visited here last week to sign the papers and finish my living arrangements. That’s why I got this guy.” He waved the plant around a little wildly, and Namjoon hurriedly leaned away. Seokjin dropped his arm after a moment, eyebrows furrowing in complacent contemplation. “Are there balconies on the other side?”

It took them a second, the roommates exchanging considering glances, but eventually Namjoon shrugged. “I don’t think so. I don’t remember seeing a door in your room.” Maybe the already lackluster balcony plans had fallen through along with the budget by the time the builders got around to the other side of the building. They certainly hadn’t fully completed the recreation room on the first floor, or finished painting the front lobby. He supposed that was the reason that these dorms were so inexpensive, and neither he nor his roommates were much inclined to complain about it.

Seokjin also took the news in stride. Broad shoulders giving a shrug, the university student tilted his head back and forth a few times before he abruptly seemed to come to a decision. “You don’t have any plants, do you?”

“No,” Hoseok replied, glancing back into their apartment. “Namjoon-ah is-”

“Then you can have this!” Quite ruthlessly, Seokjin was abruptly shoving the flower into Namjoon’s unsuspecting hands despite his muddled protests, and there was a fragmented moment in which Namjoon struggled desperately with the smooth pot before it began to slip from his fingers. He had just enough time to have some partial vision of a future in which the pot was broken on the floor, the flower dead and Seokjin never spoke to him again, before Hoseok was abruptly there, smoothly rescuing the plant just as it dropped out of his grasp. The leaves brushed against the skin of his arms and hands as Hobi pulled it up and into his steady hold, and Namjoon could practically feel the welts that would be springing up in the next few minutes.

Yoongi snorted. “You’re giving it to the wrong person, Seokjin. Namjoon-ah is-”

“Really clumsy.” Still recovering from the near-drop, Namjoon barely managed to interrupt his hyung in time, and he wasn’t even entirely sure why he did it as Yoongi shot him a sharp look. It was just – Seokjin was beaming, an energetically, utterly unreserved amusement shining in the flush dusting his round cheeks, in the wide darkness of his eyes, and Namjoon didn’t want to have anything to do with dimming that harmless happiness, even if he was allergic to most flowers. Even if having flowers around wasn’t exactly convenient.

“I can see that,” Seokjin giggled in reply to Namjoon, a surprisingly high pitched sound that jumped into a squeaking note that was… it was damn adorable, honestly.

Namjoon blushed stupidly, smiling in sheepish apology and only vaguely appalled at how hot he was getting. “Sorry,” he said, voice dropping lower in an embarrassment that had nothing to do with almost letting the pot fall. “Promise I’ll be more careful next time. Uh… are you sure you want to give us this?”

Part of him was hoping Seokjin would change his mind, but another part of him was relieved when he nodded firmly. “Yeah, I am. I was going to get more, anyways. I love flowers,” he confided with an unabashed smile, another quick laugh. “Just take care of it, okay? You should put it out on the ledge while it’s nice out; it doesn’t need much more than watering, though if you got a trellis or a hanging basket for it, it would grow better.” His concern for the plant was blatant, and Hoseok’s grip became tighter, almost like he was imagining Seokjin’s horror if he were to be the one to murder the flower.

The sigh he heaved seemed to be pulled from the depth of his being, and Yoongi flicked one hand, dismissive. “We got it. Don’t worry, even Hobi can’t mess up watering a flower.”

While Hoseok gave an indignant exclamation, Seokjin smiled at Yoongi, his soft eyes blinking gratefully. “Thank you,” he said with simple gratitude, so sincere that Namjoon had the novel experience of seeing his hyung blush, just faintly, and jerk his shoulders in the universal sign for “don’t mention it”.

Taking a deep breath, their unexpected visitor threw back his head, looking at them for one more moment. “Well, it was really nice meeting you. I’m sure we’ll see each other again. I hope we do.” Namjoon wasn’t entirely sure if he was imagining the way that Seokjin looked just at him when he said that last bit. He probably was. His psych classes taught him more than enough about wish fulfillment in the human psyche, and wow did he wish Seokjin was just saying that to him.

“Yeah, please don’t be a stranger, stranger!” Hoseok insisted. “You can come visit your flowers.” He gently shook the plant, just enough to make it sway like it was waving goodbye, and the grin he and Seokjin shared could have given a storm cloud second thoughts about its chosen profession.

Yoongi was less warm, but even he managed a pale smile. “Keep those kids in line, will you?” he asked, angling his head to indicate the door across the hall. “They could use a hyung to set a good example.”

Utterly without negative judgement, Namjoon still wasn’t entirely sure Yoongi was putting his faith in the right person, but Seokjin nodded, quite seriously. He then reached out, carefully pried the 2 off of the wall beside the rest of the numbers where it had been stuck with several pieces of tape folded on the back. Lifting the number high over his head, his voice taking on a stern cast, Seokjin said, “I’ll tell you this, seriously. The second I became their roommate, their number was up!”

“Haha!” Namjoon couldn’t stop the startled laughter that broke sharply from him at the ridiculously stupid, clever joke, and though he clapped his hand over his mouth to stop the sound, the damage was done. Seokjin laughed too, loud and brazen, and a second later Hoseok burst in, making Namjoon drop his hand, and then they were all laughing so hard it was impossible to scale back the hilarity. In the midst of the uproar Yoongi muttered something that was probably unflattering and stalked back into the dorm, disappearing into his room, but none of them could be very apologetic.

When they finally got a hold of themselves – Seokjin with hiccupping gasps, Namjoon with tears of amusement in his eyes, Hobi with bright red cheeks – Namjoon wiped hastily at his eyes, straightening up a bit. “Ah… ah, thank you, Seokjin. It was nice meeting you, too. And don’t mind Yoongi-hyung too much. He has a lot of work to do right now.”

Unsurprisingly, Seokjin didn’t seem the least bit offended. He didn’t seem to take much of anything too much to heart. “It’s fine. I’ll have a lot of school work to do, too, so I understand. And just so you know – most of my friends call me Jin.” His head tilted, full lips curling up into a cute expression. “You can call me that, if you want.”

Namjoon stared at him before hurriedly clearing his throat. Jin. He liked that. “Okay. Jin. Got it. Feel free to stop by later if you need anything; we’re usually around on Sundays.” He almost held himself from saying anything more, but then he felt Hoseok’s finger poking him sharply in the back, and with that prod, Namjoon brushed his hand over his hair, added, “We’d – Umm, I’d love to talk again, if you’ve got time.”

“Great,” Jin said immediately, with what seemed to be real pleasure. “I’ll get everything settled and see if I can’t drop in later. Until then, Hoseok, Namjoon…” With an enthusiastic wave, the boy wrestled his suitcase around, began to tug it over to the dorm across the hall. Namjoon waited until he’d made it to the other apartment without being flattened by his bag before he closed the door, a fluttering nervousness in the pit of his stomach.

As soon as the door was shut Hoseok set down the plant on the plastic folding stand that served as their dining room table, chuckling softly to himself, seemingly unaware of his roommate’s reaction. “That was funny. Yoongi-hyung’s face when he thought we were getting a new roommate… And ‘their number was up’… Ah, I think this will be good for the kids, too, having someone to look after them. What did you think of Jin, Joonie? Joonie? What’re you doing?”

Caught with Ryan in a headlock as he tried to drag the big lion through the living room, Namjoon froze, his eyes darting guilty to Hobi. “I – I’m just - uh…” Drawing himself up, he made his voice stop breaking. “I’ve been meaning to move him to my room for a while now. Yoongi-hyung’s always complaining that he’s an eyesore.”

With a puzzled little smile, Hoseok shook his head. “You know Yoongi-hyung doesn’t mean that. He thinks Ryan is cute.” A pause, and then a bloodcurdling (to Namjoon) understanding broke across his face. “Jin’s not going to care if he’s there, Joonie. He’ll probably think he’s cute, too.” When Namjoon opened his mouth to protest, Hoseok excitedly waved his attempts aside. “Yah, don’t lie! Why else would you have accepted the plant? You liiiike him!” The wiry boy swept up the plant again, danced around with the flowers in an energetic display. “Who would have thought?” he asked the deep purple leaves, and they almost seemed to dance as well. “Our Joonie has a crush! Wah, so, sooo cute!”

It took about five minutes for Hobi to calm down, and by then Namjoon had given up on moving Ryan and put him back in his corner (secretly praying Hoseok would be right about Jin not caring), and washed his hands thoroughly in the sink in the hopes of delaying the spread of his rash. That finished, he began to tidy up the apartment, starting with the broken remote. As expected, he was beginning to get a red stain across his hands, but it wasn’t very severe, and in light of everything else, it was pretty easy to ignore. Hugging the potted flowers to his chest, still almost vibrating with excitement, Hobi watched him at work before he said, “Although you know, Namjoon, I dunno what you’re gonna do with this guy. What if he learns you don’t like flowers?”

“He won’t learn,” Namjoon replied tartly. “He’ll just see a very well looked after plant and that’ll be it. Besides, I like flowers, I just… can’t take care of them.” His expression abruptly became calculating, and Hoseok paused in his fidgeting as Namjoon added, “I’m just so glad I have two wonderful hyungs.”

Wary and confused, Hoseok asked, “What do you…” His eyes drifted down to the pot, and abruptly he grimaced. “Oh.” It was his turn to look calculating. “You do all my turns at the dishes and I’ll water your plant.”

“I’ll take over one of your dish days and you’ll water our plant,” Namjoon corrected, and after a moment of consideration Hoseok grinned.

“Deal. Although remember I’m visiting my parents next week. You’ll have to get Yoongi-hyung to do it then.” Laughing, he opened the screen door. “Good luck with that.” Carefully he put the plant down, rotating it several times before stepping back to admire the way it seemed to immediately soak up the sun. “Ah, it’s kinda pretty, isn’t it?”

Namjoon stared at the velvety purple leaves, gently stirring in the light breeze, but he was thinking about a flushed, untroubled face, hearing a high and charming laugh. Running one finger across his lips, ignoring the itch of his hives beginning to break out across his hand, Namjoon smiled. “Yeah,” he agreed lightly. “Yeah, it is kinda pretty.”

—–

His books almost seemed to fight to spill out of his hands as he tried to balance them while unlocking the door to the dorm, but by some miracle Namjoon managed to open it without dropping any of them. His luck lasted for two steps into the apartment, and then they tumbled from his arms, hitting the floor with three separate thuds that made him wince. “Aish…” he muttered, bending down to pick them up. When he straightened, the first thing his previously distracted eyes landed on was…

Another pot with another set of flowers. These ones were small and a sunny yellow colour, the dark green leaves making a marked contrast to the buds. Even as he stared at them Yoongi came out of his room, headphones settled around his neck, a thick notebook in his hands. Without looking up from his notes, Yoongi commented, “Yeah, another one. He dropped it off about an hour ago. Is that the seventh or eighth one? I’m starting to lose track.”

Automatically Namjoon glanced out the screen door to the tiny ledge, where a plethora of plants were crowded, half of them climbing enthusiastically up trellises. (They’d needed to look up what a trellis was before heading to the dollar store.) The wild collection of colours wasn’t limited just to the deck; they’d managed to put two of them in hanging baskets, which Yoongi had somehow found a way to hook up, bringing the vibrant plants to just above eye level as well. They couldn’t really stand out there anymore, but as far as Namjoon was concerned this was a much better use of the space, anyways. He was already planning the best place to put this new addition.

Yoongi had torn his eyes away from his work, was frowning at him. “Ah, Namjoon-ah,” he complained. “Your face is going to get stuck like that.”

It took Namjoon a second to understand what Yoongi meant before it dawned on him. His unconscious smile was so wide it pushed up his cheeks, but he didn’t bother trying to tamp it down even as he became aware of it. Jin was just so joyful about the stupid flowers, he could hardly be faulted for smiling whenever he saw them. Even if he still couldn’t actually take care of them. He just wished he hadn’t missed Jin dropping by. Besides, for all that he complained, it was Yoongi who was in the process of making the little flower bed so that they could be moved inside more easily when it started getting cold out, and Namjoon hadn’t even asked him to do that.

“It’s nice to see you too, hyung,” Namjoon said instead, throwing his books onto the couch. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the recording studio? I thought you wanted to finish that piece with noona.”

Yoongi shrugged irritably. “I asked her if we could do it tomorrow, and she was fine with it. I wanted to…” He looked up abruptly from his notebook, eyes narrowing, and shook his head. “Never mind. How was class?” As he said it he shut the book firmly, threw it onto the couch to join the temporary graveyard of papers growing there, and headed to the kitchen.

Namjoon waited until Yoongi was out of sight before moving to pick up the discarded book. “Class was good,” he called as he flipped it open, fingers moving swiftly to find the most recent page. “Jackson distracted the professor into a thirty-minute discussion about the merits of humorous but informative social media posts versus merely informative ones, so he ended up postponing the test until next week.” Namjoon finally found what seemed to be the newest page (Yoongi tended to be quite methodical with his work) and a fresh smile broke across his face.

In neat, almost compulsively tidy strokes, the measurements for the indoor flowerbeds flowed along next to equally fastidious 3D rectangular drawings. Yoongi’s notes on each flower’s needs (collected by both him and Namjoon) littered the page, information about water and light exposure, and the page was titled, “Joonie’s Stupid Flowers.” He’d known Yoongi was planning on making the boxes, scoffing off the suggestion of buying them as being too expensive, but that he’d go to this length… It reminded Namjoon that he needed to buy some antihistamines for when they did move the plants indoors to avoid dying, but he’d get to that later.

“Jin was really disappointed that he missed you.” With a guilty start Namjoon belatedly snapped the notebook shut, and as he looked up Yoongi arched an eyebrow at him, a bag of snacks in his hand. The small man’s eyes went to the notebook and flitted away as though he hadn’t noticed it, but his expression was a bit stony as he added, “He asked me to ask you to head over there as soon as you got home. You’d better go rush over to your boyfriend.” Obviously, he’d decided the best defense was a good offense, and Namjoon winced internally.

Reaching up to rub at the back of his neck, Namjoon awkwardly proffered the book. “He’s not my boyfriend, hyung,” he said, though he was careful to keep his voice mild.

Yoongi snorted and ignored the offering. “Could have fooled me. You’re over there just as often as you’re here. More, maybe.”

If he’d thought Yoongi was anything but annoyed at him for snooping, that comment might have hurt and even been worrisome, made him wonder if he had been abandoning his roommates too much in the last few months. But Namjoon knew Yoongi, knew that tongue in cheek accusation for what it was – a distraction – so he let it go as best as he could as he sighed. “What, are you and Hobi-hyung getting tired of having the apartment to yourselves?” he asked, and had the slight pleasure of seeing Yoongi stiffen, though not from anger.

Jin had introduced flowers into their lives, but he’d introduced more than that, too. Finally, after literal years of mutual pining, Hoseok had only just recently confessed to Yoongi, and Namjoon was pretty sure Seokjin’s gentle nagging had been behind that. And, to hear Hobi tell it, Yoongi had stared at him for a long moment after he’d confessed before muttering something about stupid flowers going to his head. And then they’d kissed.

None of which Yoongi would admit to, of course.

“We’re doing fine,” Yoongi snapped, not quite managing to hide his blush as he snagged the book that Namjoon was still offering. “You shouldn’t keep Jin waiting. And if you want me and Hobi to take care of that ugly thing on top of all the others,” he jerked his head at the flower, “you’re going to have pay for my Beats the next time I need to buy a new pair.” In a huff, he strode back to his room, book in one hand and snacks in the other, and slammed the door behind him.

“Some people never change,” Namjoon commented lightly to Ryan, and took the lion’s silence for agreement. A fisherman’s hat had been placed on Ryan’s head at a jaunty angle, courtesy of Seokjin, and Namjoon readjusted it a bit as he (as always) tried to distract himself from his nerves. Not because of the confrontation with Yoongi; actually, that hardly deserved the name compared to the fights they’d had before. Yoongi would get over it, and he’d get over it faster if Namjoon slipped an apology note under his door coupled with an iTunes gift card, so that wasn’t a concern.

Hanging out with Jin, on the other hand…

Namjoon spent a few minutes in the bathroom, making sure he looked alright after two consecutive two hour long classes, tugging at the collar of his white shirt until it sat more snuggly at the base of his throat. He checked his slacks (he’d managed to knock over a cup of coffee during lunch, but it looked like he’d avoided splashing his pants or shirt) and then ran his fingers through his silver hair in a hopeless sort of frustration. There wasn’t much he could do about the mess it was in; any attempts to style it would just wilt in the heat, and besides, who had time for that? Jin hadn’t rejected him out of hand for it before, so logically there was nothing to worry about now.

He was really starting to hate how little logic had to do with liking someone. And also how “hate” could be a synonym for “love” in the right context.

Eventually satisfied that he wasn’t going to shame his parents with his appearance, Namjoon grabbed two packets of Crab Chips from the cupboard. They’d never stacked the cupboard with so many seafood snacks before – Namjoon hated them and Yoongi and Hoseok were apathetic at best – but Jin inhaled them like they were particularly tasty clumps of air, and since he often cooked big dinners for them and his own roommates, it was only fair to repay the favor. The fact that Namjoon could probably literally watch Jin stuff his cheeks to the bursting point with them for hours on end had nothing to do with it.

Finally he was more or less ready, and Namjoon didn’t let himself procrastinate even though the couch looked excessively inviting as an excuse to stay home for a bit longer. Quickly locking the apartment behind him (although with Yoongi in that mood, he pitied anyone who tried to break in) he crossed the corridor, one hand rubbing the back of his neck, and knocked on Jin’s door. A beat of silence, and then from somewhere within the dorm came a quick flurry of voices raised in argument, followed by several loud thuds and cursing. He could imagine well enough what was happening, and wondered in spite of his nerves who would win the contest.

It took a few more moments, but eventually the door was flung open, Jungkook partially turned to fight off Taehyung as the slightly smaller boy tried to dart around him in one last desperate bid. As soon as they saw him they both subsided, panting and glowering at each other in the friendliest way imaginable, and Tae complained breathlessly, “Wah, hyung, if I’d known it was you I wouldn’t have bothered.”

Namjoon laughed, shook his head. “Who’d you think it was?”

Jimin, who had his feet up and was watching something on the TV, answered in the sheepish silence that followed his question. “They ordered some video game console and it’s supposed to come in soon. Whoever signs for it gets to play on it first.” Well, that was one way to decide who got first dibs… he supposed.

“Jin-hyung’s in the kitchen,” Jungkook supplied helpfully before his eyes fell on the snack bags that Namjoon held. It was difficult to describe the extent to which his expression lit up. “Who’re those for, hyung?”

“One’s for you to share,” Namjoon replied, and tossed the bag to Jimin, who’d looked up at the mention of food. The oldest of the three caught the packet deftly, smiling smugly at Jungkook, but despite his expression he tended to be the fairest in distributing food. Jungkook would cheerfully taunt his friends until they keeled over from hunger, and Tae was so prone to zoning out he could eat the whole bag without noticing, or have Jimin and Jungkook take all of it without getting any for himself.

Pouting as he flopped onto the couch next to Jimin, Jungkook demanded, “Hyung, why do we get one bag and Jin gets one – oof,” that was Taehyung landing in his lap, the older boy eager to sit next to the food. “TaeTae, get off you stupid…” The fight was brief and indecisive; Jungkook managed to shift Taehyung more to one side, away from the food, almost poking out Jimin’s eye in the process, but Tae clung stubbornly to him and eventually he gave it up as a bad job. Refocusing, Jungkook grumbled, “I was saying, hyung, why does Jin-hyung get one whole bag to himself?”

Before Namjoon could reply, a lightly stern voice came from the kitchen. “Yah, I’m three times as attractive as all of you, so you get a third of a bag!”

Spreading his hands in a “what can I do?” gesture, Namjoon said, “You heard the man,” before trailing off into the kitchen. He may or may not have heard someone mutter, “Whipped,” in a voice that was suspiciously loud for something that wasn’t supposed to be heard, but ignored it with the rather dismal thought that you couldn’t be whipped if you weren’t attached in the first place.

The dispirited feeling fled as soon as Jin’s thick back came into view, the other male bent over something on the counter, and Namjoon paused for a moment to just stare. The way his broad shoulders tapered into thin hips with a Mario apron tied around them, the confidence and steady surety with which his beautiful hands flew across the food he was preparing, the constant mumbling to himself as he decided what he wanted to do… If Namjoon, four months ago, had been asked to create a list of his turn-ons, a broad back might have made the cut, but he’d had no idea he could enjoy someone’s mannerisms as much as (far more) than their looks, on a level that was almost physical.

It was ridiculous and wonderful, all at once. Namjoon supposed that pretty much summed up Jin in a nutshell.

He must have made a sound, a sigh or something, because Jin abruptly turned, half a potato in his hand, the rest already sliced on the cutting board he’d been leaning over. “Hey Namjoon-ah,” Jin greeted easily. “How did your exam go?” He said it as such an afterthought, but Namjoon found his lips curling up at the kindness of a friend remembering he was supposed to have a test today.

“Postponed,” he replied, trying to match Jin’s straightforwardness and feeling he failed. “One of my classmates got the teacher rambling, so we didn’t have enough time to do it.”

“Ah, so lucky,” Jin said, but approvingly, without any envy. “Will you want help studying again, then? You seemed to know everything even before we started, but…”

He’d had the material memorized since the class they’d been given it in, but when Jin had suggested studying together, Namjoon had been willing to pretend to forget everything he’d ever learned. Another opportunity was no different so, leaning against the fridge door to stay out of Jin’s way as he threw the snack bag onto the counter, he replied, “Sure, if you’ve got time. A little extra studying never hurt.” And a little extra time with Jin never hurt, either.

“Great! I’m not sure when I’m free but I can figure it out in a bit.” Turning back to the cutting board, Jin finished chopping up the potato, adding it to an already big pile growing next to him. “Do you know if Yoongi-ah and Hobi are free tonight? I was thinking I could make enough for everyone to come over.”

Still leaning heavily against the fridge, Namjoon cocked his eyebrow. “You didn’t ask Yoongi-hyung when you spoke to him earlier?”

With a vaguely outraged expression, Jin huffed, “I was going to, but he kicked me out before I could.”

“Kicked you out?” That seemed a story worth hearing.

Turning away, Jin picked up the next round of vegetables to be chopped. “Yeah. I thought my joke was funny, but he didn’t seem to agree. Suggested I got my sense of humor from a particularly dull stump.”

“Ouch.” Although, despite Jin’s affronted tone, Namjoon knew well enough that he wasn’t offended, or at least not as much as he was appearing to be. “I managed to piss off Yoongi-hyung today as well. Just glad I don’t share a room with him, or I might be sleeping on the couch. What was the joke?”

“Mmm, I was commenting that I hadn’t seen Hobi’s sunny self recently, he’s been so busy with those dance classes. And then I said, ‘A while ago I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. And then it dawned on me.’ That’s when he threw me out.”

Namjoon's chuckle rolled out, long and luxurious as he enjoyed both the wordplay but more so the thought of Yoongi’s face when Seokjin had spoken, and Jin glanced at him before joining in. Their laughter, low and deep, high and squeaky, mixed together to make a sound that was all mirth and no worries, and by the time they managed to get themselves together Namjoon’s sides ached, and Jin looked like he was regretting the pain in his cheeks as he gasped and tenderly prodded at them.

“I wish I could have seen hyung’s face,” Namjoon finally got out, and Jin nodded in an attempt at solemnity that quickly dissolved into another hiccupping laugh.

“Poor Yoongi-ah,” Jin said, smiling widely as he turned back to the food preparations. “I hoped he’d be a little happier once him and Hobi got together.”

Namjoon was smiling, too, fond and warm. “Oh, he is. Much happier. Now when he says harsh things, it’s more a habit than anything. Most of the time, anyways. I think he needs to remember how to let go of his prickles, but in the mean time he’s softening them, making them stab less. I guess it’s not as obvious if you haven’t known him as long.”

“Good,” Jin replied with a quick bob of his head, beginning to cut up the roots on the board, a quiet pleasure in his voice. “Speaking of getting together… that’s actually what I asked you to come here for.” For one second Namjoon’s breath caught, a rush of realization and uncertainty flooding over him, but Jin didn’t take long enough to give him time to come to any not-so-solid conclusions. Before the half-hopes drifting in his head could get anywhere near concrete, the chef continued. “I’m gonna go shopping on Sunday for some things, and I wanted to know if you wanted to go with me?”

His first reaction was disappointment, a clinging, dark sort of feeling that was hard to shake off, but then Namjoon noticed something. He was staring at Jin (of course he was), and despite being perfectly poised to bring the knife down, despite not looking at Namjoon at all, Jin had stopped chopping as he asked the question, and he remained frozen even now. As though he was waiting. As though he was… nervous, maybe? They’d never gone anywhere together before, just the two of them – even studying had just been in one of their living rooms.

Running his tongue over too-dry lips, Namjoon found himself nodding vigorously. “Of course,” he replied, almost hoarsely, and had to cough to get the sound to smooth away, wondering if he was imagining the way Jin’s broad shoulders seemed to abruptly loosen. He certainly wasn’t imagining that the knife started to rise and fall again. “I’d be happy to go with you. Where are we headed? What’re you picking up?” Maybe he could get some of the things his dorm needed, too, and save Hobi and Yoongi the shopping trip.

“Well we’re going to need more groceries,” Jin explained, and his voice was higher than usual, almost strained. “And I was thinking – if you wanted – well, I kinda wanted to drop by the Gardens.”

Namjoon paused. The Gardens. A vast, sprawling park filled with every conceivable kind of flower, every conceivable kind of pollen and spore and rash-inducing burr. Needless to say, he’d never been there, and had not up until this point considered going. Except Jin had turned around, was staring at him with playful expectation, and a hard ‘no’ was so far out of the realm of possibility it might as well have been an alien.

Well… he’d been meaning to mention this for quite a while now… Taking a deep breath, Namjoon rubbed his hand across his face as he began. “Uh, look, Jin-hyung, I’d really like to go shopping with you, definitely, and I imagine that it’ll be a great experience, but the thing is that I can’t really go to the Gardens with you.” Jin’s eyebrows furrowed with a confusion that could shortly become hurt, and Namjoon hurried on. “I mean, I’d really, really like to walk with you through them, but I -”

“Walk with me through them?” Jin interrupted, and Namjoon dropped his hand, jaw aching with tension as he waited for the other boy to get annoyed. Except… Jin didn’t seem mad, or even irritated. Just confused. “Namjoon-ah, why would you walk with me through a garden, full of plants, when you’re allergic to them?”

If he’d been sprinting and run straight into a brick wall, Namjoon couldn’t have been more floored. Eyes widening, his jaw dropping, he made a sound somewhere between a croak and a gasp. Namjoon’s mouth worked silently for a moment, trying to produce actual words, and with a great effort of will he eventually managed to spit out, “You knew?”

Jin’s nose crinkled as he laughed in a kind of bewildered amusement. “About your allergies? Yeah, I’ve known for – well, for a long time. Did you think I didn’t?”

“How did you find out?” Namjoon sputtered. It was rare – quite rare – for him to feel so solidly behind in a conversation, but in this case, he was thunderstruck. Jin knew about his allergies? Had known for a decently long period?

Idly waving the knife as he thought, eventually Jin shrugged. “I think Hobi told me? I dunno, I’d kinda figured it out before then? I mean, I never once saw you watering the plants or even touching them, and there was that one day when it was windy and all the pollen was everywhere and you took a sick day…” He shrugged again. “Honestly Namjoon-ah, it wasn’t that hard to realize.” He smiled, his head tilting in inquiry. “What’s the big deal, anyways?”

“I – I…” Blushing furiously, eventually Namjoon said, almost reproachfully, “You’ve still been giving us flowers, though!”

Seemingly utterly unaware of the contradiction, Jin nodded without concern. “Yeah. I mean, I can tell you like them, even if you’re allergic. When we were studying at your place for the first time, you looked at them all the time, and you were smiling, so I thought it’d be nice to get a few more for you. And Yoongi-ah and Hoseok-ah like them too, so everyone was happy.” His smile abruptly became brighter. “That’s why I like flowers so much,” he said in the exact same confiding tone he’d used when they’d met the first time, months ago. “Because they make me and everyone else happy.”

Namjoon stared at him, took in the peaceful smile, the ridiculous apron, the mountain of food he’d built up on the counter behind him. “Oh, hyung,” Namjoon sighed, and though the other boy blinked, he made no comment. “What about asking me to go the Garden?”

“Oh. That.” Now it was Jin’s turn to blush – it was a rare thing to see him get red from anything but amusement – and he scuffed the kitchen floor with his foot several times before he brought his eyes up to meet Namjoon’s abruptly curious gaze. Blinking hard, hard enough to make his face twitch, he began softly, a little more self-mocking than he usually was. “The Gardens has a big greenhouse aside from the grounds, a place where you can buy a lot of different kinds of flowers. That’s where I’ve been getting all of the ones I gave to you guys. I thought…” Another few hard blinks, and he jiggled his head indecisively before seeming to decide to hurry ahead. “I thought it might be cute – that you’d like to go and pick one last one. You know, for yourself. Or that maybe… we could pick it together.”

And he looked so sweet, so abashed, and Namjoon’s chest was so, so tight, overburdened with an affection that was simultaneously too heavy and too light, all the pressure of a storm cloud mixed with the gossamer freshness of a light shower, and he inhaled once, a desperate, soundless gasp that helped to loosen his chest. Reaching out, he carefully took the knife from Jin, ignored the way it almost seemed to jump from his fingers because it landed with a clatter where he’d wanted it to, anyways. Then Jin’s slightly smaller hands were tucked comfortably in his own, and Namjoon was grinning, easily, and there was very little that was fierce about the emotions churning in his heart.

“Of course we can pick it together,” he said, finding a sudden assurance in the warmth of Jin’s touch. “How else will I know which ones are hardest to kill?”

Jin’s smile was almost tentative (as close to tentative as he ever got), but when Namjoon gave his hands a gentle squeeze the expression became more pronounced, sincerer, with just a tinge of impish excitement. They stayed that way for a long moment, close but not quite brushing, connected only by their hands, and Namjoon would have been content to stay that way for at least an eternity if only a whining voice hadn’t broken in from the living room.

“Jin-hyung, we’re starving,” Tae complained. “When will supper be ready?”

Abruptly they were untangling their hands from each other, pulling at shirts that hadn’t been crumpled and smoothing hair that hadn’t been mussed. After a moment Jin picked up the knife again, shook it in the direction of the living room though no one in there would be able to see. “Dinner will be ready when it’s ready, you ingrates!” Jin called. “I slave all day to make you food and what does your hyung get? ‘We’re hungry,’” he mimicked in affront. “Oh, we want -”

“We’ll help you if you need it, hyung!” Abruptly Jimin was at the kitchen entranceway, beaming, and Taehyung and Jungkook crowded his ankles, all of their faces filled with a willingness that was probably too much to be fully true. Namjoon suspected they’d just already discovered the best way to stop their hyung from going on a full-scale lecture, but he was happy enough to lean on the fridge again and hope they ignored him.

Now that it had a distinct target, Jin’s knife waving became more energetic, almost to the point of being alarming. “Yah, you lot stay out of my kitchen!” he barked. “I already have a helper. Namjoon and I will get this ready, you just stay out of our way.” Exchanging glances that were definitely too close to smirks to be comfortable, all three of the dongsaengs inclined themselves in exaggerated, sweeping bows to both Namjoon and Jin before bounding away. Their snickers filled the living room, but it wasn’t exactly a bad sound, and out of sight, almost out of mind.

“Okay,” Jin said, abruptly all business, “let’s get to work. You can take over cutting for me while I get started on the sauce.” He left the knife on the board, and, caught off guard, Namjoon picked it up warily. Yoongi and Hoseok tended to do the cooking in their apartment when they weren’t living off packs of instant ramyeon, and he… was not entirely confident in his cooking skills. Giving a mental shrug, Namjoon was about to begin his appointed task when an abrupt and loud “-Wah!” right next to him almost made him cut off a finger. Jin was there, shaking his head and quickly getting behind him. “That’s not how you cut… well, anything, Namjoon-ah,” he said. “Here, let me help you.”

His arms settled around Namjoon, fingers resting lightly over his hands, and Namjoon could only credit his parents for raising him well enough that he was able to focus on the sharp blade in his hand instead of the warm body pressing against him from behind. Mostly focus. Pretty much focus. Jin’s hands were sure, guiding Namjoon through the motions with precision, and while Jin steered he talked, passionate and animated about all the ways you could prepare food. It was another special moment on top of an already impressive tower from today, and when Jin eventually broke away from him, Namjoon was too warm to be disappointed.

“Namjoon-ah?” Jin said, and, his eyes fixed on the roots he was now chopping properly, Namjoon made an inquiring murmur. “I just thought of something,” Jin continued blithely, his confidence apparently completely restored by working as Namjoon’s head chef. “We’re going to be picking out a flower together, right?” Now Namjoon did pause, glancing at him curiously. He had some vague notion of where this was going, but…

Jin’s smile was angelic. He proved Namjoon right a second later. “Does this mean we’re in a blossoming relationship?”

#boy group writers net #bangtanwriters-net #bts #bts fic #namjin #namjoon #jin #yoonseok #yoongi #hoseok #everyone shows up #the maknae line are hooligans #but i love them #i love everyone in this fic

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believermag · 7 years

Text

ELECTRIC BLUE

All photographs by the author.

Kim Wood on David Bowie

There are roughly ten blocks between the theater where David Bowie watched rehearsals for Lazarus, and the studio where he recorded Blackstar. In his last years, we both lived between them, on opposite sides of Houston Street.

My side is the Bowery, known in real estate speak as NoHo (North of Houston). On the street where I live—a two-block stretch of 3rd Street known as Great Jones—is a chandeliered butcher shop occupying the spot where Basquiat worked, and died, of a heroin overdose. Twenty years before his time, Charlie Mingus’ heroin-addicted presence on this corridor is said to have birthed the term jonesing.

I’ve passed a decade in Brooklyn, but never before now lived in Manhattan and love being a downtown kid, stepping through the door and onto crowded streets, passing CBGBs—now a skinny pants boutique I’ve never entered—on my way to buy groceries, or borrowing books from a library branch housed in the one-time factory of Hawley & Hoops’ Chocolate Candy Cigars—that Bowie lived above, in a modern penthouse perched atop the turn of the century brick building.

For twenty-four months, barring the occasional trip to Central Park, I’ve lived below 14th Street and in this time Bowie loitered here too, sipping La Colombe’s double macchiato, fetching chicken and watercress sandwiches at Olive’s, or dinner supplies at Dean & DeLuca. One day I’d catch him on the street, I figured, hailing a cab or taking out the recycling in his flat cap and sunglasses, and when I did my well-worn New Yorker discretion would be jettisoned as I tried, and likely failed, not to cry.

I didn’t, of course, know that for most of the time we were neighbors David Bowie was dying. Today I walk the familiar stretch of blocks to his building, eyes tearing, I tell myself, from the frigid, bone-dry air. At the front entrance, a group of fans stand gutted, surrounded by news trucks, generators, vulturing reporters.

A growing pile of daisies, tulips, roses, daffodils leans against the wall, along with a few photographs, a pair of silver glitter heels, a Jesus candle with Ziggy Stardust face. Tucked here and there are handwritten notes: Look out your window, I can see his light and We are all stardust and Hot tramp, we love you so.

Everyone here, news crew aside, feels known somehow, the mood is gentle, polite, quiet. Too quiet, I realize, when someone plays “Life On Mars?” from a tinny smartphone speaker. As the closing strings swell, a woman turns to me to say through tears, “I love this song!” All I can do is nod, “I know!” and take comfort among fellow kooks.

A pair behind me wonders aloud about a “world without Bowie,” and while I know what they mean—the way some people feel like a force and invincible—you could argue we’ve been living in such a world for a long while. David Jones-ing.

Three days earlier, on the night of Bowie’s 69th birthday, I danced in my kitchen to the foppish, falsetto, “‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore,” delighting in his rude lyrics and wild whooping. Later at a dinner hosted for the birthday of a friend, I commented on Bowie’s continuing fixation upon mortality, but also his energy, sly humor, return to form, exclaiming, not tentatively, “Bowie’s back!”

I was thrilled he’d finally slipped the ghost of what he called, “my Phil Collins years.” In one of the endless interviews now flooding my screen in text and video, he explains, “I was performing in front of these huge stadium crowds and at that time I was thinking ‘what are these people doing here? Why did they come to see me? They should be seeing Phil Collins.’ And then that came back at me and I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ It’s a certain kind of mainstream that I’m just not comfortable in.”

Like the divisiveness of fat and skinny Elvis, there were those of us who fancied ourselves glittering, androgynous, apocalyptic half-beast hustlers who bought drugs, watched bands and jumped in the river holding hands, and there were others, contentedly jazzin’ for Blue Jean.

When, in your Golden Years, your mentor of not only music but all things relevant—art, clothes, books, films—enters his Phil Collins Years, suddenly high-kicking in Reeboks and staring in Pepsi commercials, how not to feel betrayed?

I took it personally, coining the unforgiving term David Bowie Syndrome. As a burgeoning artist, I feared (a scaled-back version of) his creative arc with my whole heart—reaching the greatness of Bowie’s 1970s only to follow it up with Let’s Dance. To say nothing of Tin Machine. Like many old-school fans, I’d stopped tuning in to modern Bowie to keep my vintage Bowie flame flickering.

In my most youthfully caustic moment, I joked that Bowie’s personal Oblique Strategies deck—that famous stack of cards, creative prompts such as Ask your body, Abandon normal instruments, and Courage! allegedly used when Bowie and Brian Eno recorded Low and Heroes—should be made up of cards that all read, simply: Call Eno.

Unfair, untrue. Kindly allow this counterpoint mea culpa admission: I secretly love the ham-fisted, cringtastic video for Dancing in the Street.

On the third day after Bowie’s death I step outside, wondering if I’ll still hear his presence hum. Just feet from my front door I’m greeted by his face gracing one of two large posters advertising Blackstar. Well hey there, Mr. Jones.

They’re wet with wheat paste and like a teenage fangirl I consider stealing one, but then notice a smaller poster hung next to them, featuring the Sesame Street characters peering out joyously, encouraging me to attend an event entitled… Let’s Dance!

I accept Bowie’s cosmic joke, had it coming I suppose, and briskly hoof it to Union Square where at the farmer’s market I find apples, apple cider, cider doughnuts and not much else. My gloveless fingertips smart as I pocket change and consider the possibility that the visitation was an invitation to dance through the sorrow. A bit maudlin perhaps, but then, so was Bowie.

When I return home the Blackstar posters are gone. In under an hour someone has pasted them over with clothing and gym ads—leaving all the posters on either side for the length of the street untouched. Like Steppenwolf's Magic Theater, the message—whatever it was—had appeared and just as quickly vanished.

My feet walk me to Bowie’s memorial, which has exploded in a heap of bouquets, black bobbing Prettiest Star balloons, cha-cha lines of platform heels, disco balls, eye shadow, quarts of milk, British flags, drawings and paintings of Bowie’s many incarnations, fuzzy spiders, bluebirds, boas, vinyl copies of David Live annotated Forever in thick silver marker.

A giant orange tissue paper flower hangs from a nearby tree, electric blue eye at its center, petals edged in lyrics: Give me your hands, because you’re wonderful! Let the children lose it, let the children use it, let all the children boogie.

Here and there are tucked personal notes: You taught me that weird = beautiful, and: When I was a teenager I wished I could check off “David Bowie” for both my gender and my race. I still do.

“Taking away all the theatrics…” Bowie said, “I’m a writer. The subject matter…boils down to a few songs, based around loneliness, isolation, spiritual search, and a looking for a way into communication with other people. And that’s about it—about all I’ve ever written about for forty years.”

Perhaps, then, my “Let’s Dance” visitation was an anti-message, a warning against wasting creative juju by pandering for cash. Of course, Bowie made not a dime (relatively, and thanks in large part to shifty management) from his artistic era I find most inspiring. The seed of the fortune that brought him financial security was that very song. So what then?

When I return home, Bowie’s spot on the wall has been papered over yet again, all white this time, as though to say, as he has when pressed to interpret his lyric’s meaning, “nothing further,” “you figure it out,” “space to let.”

I rise before the sun, pull on bright turquoise tights and red clogs and walk the cobblestone of Lafayette Street in the dark. Collar up, breath ghosting, I feel as I secretly do in all such moments, like the cover of Low, or The Middle-Aged Lady Who Fell to Earth. Car headlights slide over me as I approach the memorial that is, it appears, being dismantled.

I quickly make the photograph I awoke imagining: my platforms meeting Bowie’s shore of flickering candles, cigarette butts, stray boa feathers, sea of glitter. Beside me a sweet lone man sorts out the dead flowers, shuffling handmade things to one side, candles to another, not tossing it all as I first suspected, but tidying up, preparing for another day.

What drew me into this frigid darkness, half dressed in pajamas? Perhaps a need to meet Bowie toe to toe, promise to honor the contract, all in, heart wide, funk to funky.

Put on my red shoes and dance the blues.

“I don’t think (the act of creation is) something that I enjoy a hundred percent. There are occasions when I really don’t want to write. It just seems that I have a physical need to do it...I really am writing for myself.”

Before Blackstar, the last time I know of Bowie creating under extreme duress is when making the album Station to Station—which coincidentally also opens with an epically long titular song wherein a man yelps from the darkness, singing with pride and pain about a fame that has isolated him beyond measure.

As the Thin White Duke, Bowie sings with bitter irony, It’s not the side effects of the cocaine! I’m thinking that it must be love! It’s well known that Bowie, living for a year (1975-1976) in his despised, self-chosen, wasteland of Los Angeles, had fallen victim to a kind of Method Writing, unable to escape in life the character he’d crafted to hide behind on stage.

Subsisting on a diet of cocaine, chili peppers and milk, he grew paranoid, hallucinating, allegedly dabbling in Black Magic and storing his jarred urine in his refrigerator. I was six years old at the time, living less than a mile from Cherokee Studios where Station to Station was in session, and smudging my mother’s brand new Young Americans vinyl with powdered sugar fingerprints.

He said of the following album, Low, “It was a dangerous period for me. I was at the end of my tether physically and emotionally and had serious doubts about my sanity. But I get a sense of real optimism through the veils of despair from Low. I can hear myself really struggling to get well.”

It’s the pale, shimmering hope that makes Low my favorite of all of Bowie’s offerings, but for Station to Station’s Duke of Disillusion it’s too late—for hate, gratitude, any emotion. It’s not, however, too late to lay himself bare in the work: there’s no reach for sanity, just a man collapsing while still directing, as the camera rolls.

Blackstar has been called a gift, and on “Dollar Days,” a song that describes his effort to communicate in the face of death, Bowie breaks the fourth wall to address this directly: Don’t think for just one second I’ve forgotten you/I’m trying to/I’m dying to(o).

I believe as an artist he had no choice, no other way to confront his circumstance other than to talk himself through it, put it in the work.

The profound generosity of Blackstar, and a vast swath of Bowie’s creative output, is that in this most intimate conversation with death, god, time, himself, we’ve been invited to listen in.

What makes a good death? Bowie withdrew from the public in the last decade and was characteristically silent regarding his illness, in this tell-all age (that owes him not a little for its status quo “tolerance” of Chazes and Caitlyns). He was also, in his time post-diagnosis, compelled to make his most raw and exposing work in years, and between the play and album, likely spent a long part of each day in their pursuit, while presumably also tending to his needs as a father, husband, friend, man.

In Walter Tevis’ book The Man who Fell to Earth—the basis of Nicholas Roeg’s film that inspired Bowie’s production Lazarus—stranded, despondent space alien Thomas Jerome Newton records an album called The Visitor: we guarantee you won’t know the language, but you’ll wish you did! Seven out-of-this-world poems! Newton explains it’s a letter to his family and home planet that says, “Oh, goodbye, go to hell. Things of that sort.”

Bowie’s seven-song swansong, Blackstar, is rather more generous, and from a writer notorious for lyrical slipperiness, layered meanings, a cut-up technique (copped from Burroughs) that spawned lines about Cassius Clay and papier-mâché, its text is frequently plain-spoken and direct.

Even my favorite frolic sounds a combative calling down of his illness, time: Man, she punched me like a dude/Hold your mad hands, I cried/She stole my purse, with rattling speed/This is the war. It would not be the first time Bowie referred to Time as a “whore.” (see: Aladdin Sane.)

In the title video’s most vivid sections, Bowie becomes god—less vengeful than dismissive—singing, from heaven’s attic, a swaggering takedown of Bowie himself: You’re a flash in the pan, I’m the great I am. (From Exodus: And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.)

His button eyes in both videos suggest a puppet, and so the presence of a puppet master, but I don’t read these images as signs of deathbed conversion. Bowie was a spiritual seeker who borrowed magpie style—in this case from Egyptian, Kabalistic, Christian and Norse iconography—to create a language to give voice to his fears and dark entries.

“If you can accept—and it’s a big leap—that we live in absolute chaos, it doesn’t look like futility anymore. It only looks like futility if you believe in this bang up structure we’ve created called ‘God’.”

In his last gestures Bowie answered not God, but himself, regarding the way he’d lived, and in particular, as an artist. The pulse returns the prodigal sons suggests that the characters he inhabited—some regrettable, but not irredeemable—are with him as he assesses the intentions behind, and perceived short-comings of, his creative offerings: Seeing more and feeling less/Saying no but meaning yes/This is all I ever meant/That's the message that I sent/(but) I can’t give everything away.

In his almost unbearably haunting last video, it seems we’re finally invited to meet David Jones, or Bowie playing Jones. Jones the man lies in bed, clutching a blanket with those mortal, frightened hands. Nearby the writer manically, fretfully reaches for immortality, while Bowie the performer, dutifully dances to the end.

“There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unspeakable, all those things come into being a composer, into writing.” “You present a darker picture for yourself to look at, and then reject it, all in the process of writing. I think that’s what’s left for me with music. Now I really find that I address things to myself. That’s what I do. If I hadn’t been able to write songs and sing them, it wouldn’t have mattered what I did. I really feel that. I had to do this.”

This morning I remembered where I'd seen the writer's austere, black and white striped costume before: the program for the 1976 Isolar tour, wherein Bowie self-consciously poses with a notebook or makes chalk drawings of the Kabbalah tree of life. Isolar is a made up word—and name of his current company—said to be comprised of isolation and solar.

I love this costume—a kind of artisan worker-bee uniform. There are satin kimono-sleeved ass-baring rompers for when its time to present the work, but when making it, roll up your revolutionary sleeves and get to it.

1976 saw the success of Station to Station, the premiere of The Man Who Fell to Earth and the recording of The Idiot and Low. It was not the most grounded time for Bowie personally (to understate it), but arguably his most vital creatively, and this nod to the continuum of creative spirit seems to suggest that the artist dies, but through the work, like Lazarus, rises again.

So what, then, is a Blackstar? Perhaps a marked man, a sly reference to Elvis’ song of the same name whose lyrics include, Every man has a black star/A black star over his shoulder/And when a man sees his black star/He knows his time, his time has come.

Although Bowie did not, as rumored, write “Golden Years” for Elvis, he did find (somewhat bashful) significance in their shared birthdays, took pains to catch his concerts, had his white jumpsuit copied to wear while performing “Rock and Roll Suicide,” modeled his own costume in Christiane F after Elvis’ ensemble in Roustabout, and perhaps his Aladdin Sane red/electric blue lightening bolt was inspired by Elvis’ signature gold one. Which is to say, he likely knew of The King’s “Black Star.”

Blackstar could also suggest the theoretical transitional state between a collapsed star and a singularity—a state of infinite value in physics, a metaphor for immortality.

I’m not a gangstar/I’m not a film star/I’m not a popstar/I’m not a marvel star/I’m not a white star/I’m not a porn star/I’m not a wandering star/I’m a star’s star/I’m a blackstar.

“Sometimes I don’t feel as if I’m a person at all...I’m just a collection of other people’s ideas.” Is Bowie simply claiming his right to throw off all mantles?

The car crash that is the documentary Cracked Actor opens with a reporter asking, “I just wonder if you get tired of being outrageous?” “I don’t think I’m outrageous at all,” Bowie throws back, miffed. The reporter persists, “Do you describe yourself as ordinary? What adjective would you use?” Bowie searches his brain for an appropriate response to the inane question and finally lands upon: “David Bowie.”

Or perhaps, as Isolar suggests, a Blackstar is someone hidden in plain sight. In an interview that seems more therapy session, with Mavis Nicolson in 1979, mostly drug-free and grounded Bowie speaks of the appeal of life in Berlin, whose physical wall seemed to mirror his psyche. Without referencing himself or the characters he’s inhabited, he describes an isolated figure who finds no home in the world, but instead creates “a micro world inside himself.”

When Nicolson suggests that as an artist Jones must keep himself from love, he rejects the idea outright, but when gently pressed about the demands of relationships in actual life and not “from afar,” he concedes, extending his arms before him like a shield, “No, love can’t get quite in my way, I shelter myself from it incredibly.”

The moment is so resonantly raw that the two break into manic humor, shifting to the story of his eye injury in a childhood fight over a girl, wherein he laughs and says, “I wasn’t even in love with her.”

In “Lazarus,” the dying Jones sings: everybody knows me now, and perhaps that is so, as much as it ever could be for a man who spent an artistic career in self-sustained exile.

And why shouldn’t David Jones have been—with the exception of a few deeply druggy years—free from the curse and blessing of being Bowie? What are we owed by our artists?

Blue, blue, electric blue, that's the colour of my room.

The Bowie song that forever circles my brain describes a writer waiting for the muse, describing the loneliness and blessing of the electric blue of creation. Vishuddhi, or the electric blue throat chakra of Hindu tantra, is associated with the vocal cords, communication, creative expression, one’s inner-truth.

For sixteen months I lived in Berlin’s Schöneberg quarter, around the corner from 155 Hauptstrasse and the apartment that song was composed in and of. I’d pedal my bike past and nod to the ghost Bowie inside, still wondering and waiting for the gift of sound and vision.

It’s the seventh day since Bowie’s death, the final day of shiva I’ve sat beneath his window. I’ve never much understood funerals, always felt they were for a “living” that didn’t include me, but this has been different.

Over this week I’ve shared glances with occasional bleary-eyed oldsters coming or going from where I’m headed or have just been–there have been no young folk to speak of and no platform boots necessary to recognize the kooks.

Today, from a block away, I spy a pair of women making the pilgrimage. The taller of the two—who for one moment I mistake for Patti Smith—has Smith’s hair, a floor-length bright blue shearling coat and an armload of exquisite orange, flame-tipped roses.

Trailing my comrades I think of Smith’s line in Woolgathering when, upon being given a dandelion, she asks, “What could I wish for but my breath?”

At Bowie’s door the energy feels less personal, dissipating. After the roses-bearers depart, a lone woman and I stand shivering before the diminished pile of offerings framed by narrowed police barricades: plastic-wrapped bodega flowers and a few handmade items, the most prominent being a cigar box shrine with a Halloween Jack eye patch and what seems a bunch of random stuff tossed in. The woman plays “Starman” on her phone, and rather than poignant, it’s just sad.

A years later follow-up to his first solo release, “Major Tom,” “Starman” takes the isolation of planet earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do and turns it into an anthem where a cosmic DJ messiah tells us misfits not to blow it, ‘cause he thinks it’s all worthwhile.

The 1972 Top of the Pops performance famously featured Bowie’s flirty finger wagging at the viewer, and casually intimate embrace of Mick Ronson, which blew the minds of much of Britain and beyond and marked Bowie as a more than a one-hit wonder. I silently give thanks to many, including Bowie, not to live in a world where a rock and roll arm thrown over a shoulder can cause a stir.

Over the song’s fade out the woman shrugs and says something about bears—at least I think that’s what I hear. I smile and nod remotely, then realize she’s drawing my attention to the carefully rendered Ziggy Stardust teddy bear—complete with lightning bolt and guitar—hanging from the police steel.

This bear abrades me for no good reason. A few young women pass by on their way into American Apparel. “That was David Bowie’s house,” one says over her shoulder, and the other makes an “awww” sound like she might at the sight of a teddy bear, or the memorial of that musician guy that died the way people do—other people, older people. As they pause to take a selfie in front of Bowie’s memorial offerings I turn and nearly sprint downtown.

I learned in this week of Bowie Internet inundation that he trailed these streets too, often at dawn, in solitude, but right now I need Chinatown’s chaotic, smashing life. I’ll buy those killer clementine from that vendor on the corner, I think, and eggplant, scallion and ginger for supper.

I weave among cardboard boxes of dried silver fish and lotus root, tourists linked arm-in-arm in matching New York pom-pom hats, Chinese grandmas pushing plaid shopping carts in (Harold and) Maude braids. A man exits a hallway, arms loaded with red-ribboned funeral flowers. A chef in a paper hat leans against a wall, smoking beneath a pumpkin-sized, spinning dumpling.

Beneath crisscrossing wires strung with giant, glinting snowflakes, I warm my hands on a cup of milky tea and wonder when we’ll get winter’s first snow. Glancing up to cross Mott (the Hoople) Street, I wonder when the city’s details will cease to conjure Bowie.

I tuck dragon fruit into my sack, humming “Starman”—whose chorus melody is plainly lifted from The Wizard of Oz’s “Over the Rainbow.” Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly/Birds fly over the rainbow./Why then, oh, why can't I?

In performance, Bowie sometimes coyly sung a mash-up of these anthems of longing for belonging. On “Lazarus” he sings, seemingly of his death, This way or no way/You know, I’ll be free/Just like that bluebird/Now ain’t that just like me.

Blackstar begins by naming the Norse village of Ormen. In Norse mythology, the rainbow bridge that connects this world to that of the gods is Bifrost, which translates as tremulous way. Tremulous—as in trembling—as Bowie does so heart-wrenchingly as he backs into the armoire and out of this world.

When he heard the call, David Jones, who could walk the streets of Manhattan undetected, slipped over the rainbow and into his own imagination.

But with generosity and courage it seems he did not fully recognize, David Bowie spent his life pulling back the curtain on the Great Oz, showing the man, his frustration and fallibility, questioning art-making and then making it anyway.

I fear in the end he imagined himself “a very bad man but a very good wizard,” when in fact the opposite was true. The droves of people gathered at his front door and around the world may have found the masks fascinating, but only as much as the man, and heart, behind them.

I imagine catching David Jones wandering past shop windows plastered with red New Year monkeys, beneath golden, swaying lanterns. I would thank him for Ziggy Stardust, whose hair my mother copied and Scary Monsters, whose poster graced my eleven-year-old bedroom wall. I’d say thanks for Low and Hunky Dory, which got me through hard times. Thanks for The Man Who Fell to Earth and The Hunger, Aladdin Sane and the Thin White Duke. Thanks for Diamond Dogs, Heroes, Lodger, Station to Station. Thanks for creating a soundtrack for my life and the lives of my favorite people.

Thanks for being a fierce, literate libertine, giving permission when I so badly needed it and inspiration always. Thanks, from the strange kids, for saying, No love, you’re not alone! You’re wonderful!

On the afternoon of January 10th, in what I later learned were the last hours of Bowie’s life, a double rainbow drew me from my desk and to the window. It arced across the skyline and ended at the Empire State Building, so strikingly that fire fighters in the station across the street took to the emergency dispatch microphone to exclaim to the neighborhood, “There’s a rainbow!”

As the first snow falls over Chinatown’s back alleys, I think: rainbowie!

There’s a Starman, over the rainbow, way up high, and he told me—let the children lose it, let the children use it, let all the children boogie.

Kim Wood's writing has appeared in Out Magazine, McSweeney’s, Tin House's Open Bar, and on National Public Radio. She has received grants from the Jerome Foundation and is a MacDowell Colony fellow. She is working on a book, Advice to Adventurous Girls, based upon the unpublished archive of a 1920s motorcycle daredevil. Her documentary film on this subject has screened internationally in festivals and museums including Sundance and the Guggenheim, where it double-billed with an episode of ChiPs.

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