#to have her be the most normal and kind hearted of my adult relatives?

[soldier-poet-king]

Like yes tokenism is Bad and does not count as queer rep, having a character on some mainstream primetime tv show be 'the gay one' is not progressive, having contestants on reality tv be 'the gay one' is not progressive, but also maybe it can still do some basic good in some cases.

My mother, a 50 something white Catholic housewife, was saying yesterday at the dinner table how disappointed she was that her fave team got eliminated from this season of the amazing race canada, and she said - in front of my kid brother even! - that the team had been a pair of drag queens. (Yes she did fall into the sassy black queer person trope in explaining this, but y'know, we're taking baby steps with her). And this isn't even the first time she's said smthn mildly positive about queer ppl! The gay intern from the later seasons of grey's anatomy? One of her favourites. Hallmark is even putting out terrible bland movies with generic white gay people instead of generic white straight people, and since she's seen every hallmark movie to ever exist, she's seen those ones too.

So. Idk where I was going with this. She still wouldn't say this stuff at the dinner table if my father were there at the time. But, I'm just. Hopeful? Yes it's (imo) terrible tv for middle aged moms, and often it's mediocre tokenism, but maybe that's a starting point and maybe it can still be a good thing. (It's not like someone like my mother is going to go start watching indie arthouse films or reading weird uncomfortable novels. If this gets her to reach out of her very insular bubble, I'm happy).

[construingseacats]

Umireread: Turn of the Golden Witch - Chapter 5: Guest of Honor  

Sat, Oct 4 1986 - 10:45AM

The following contains spoilers for the entirety of Umineko. Please do not read if you are yet to finish it.

I think there’s something to be said about how childlike wonder is torn away from us as we grow. The world is a wonderful place - there’s a fantastic tumblr post that makes the rounds occasionally about how something as mundane as going to a shopping mall can be an unending source of wonder, if you cast away the veneer of normality and complacency that usually clouds us when we go. Maria has been handed a cheap, mass-manufactured sweet that is utterly inconsequential to most people. And yet to her, in her fantasy - in the bliss of her youth - it is the greatest sort of treasure. And because she believes in that, it becomes her reality.

To talk about myself again for a second - with occasional exceptions, I tend to split up my working day by going out almost every time for lunch. Working in town centre, there’s no shortage of places to grab a sandwich or something slightly more exotic. Of course, this is an expensive vice; I argue that, as I don’t drink alcohol or smoke, this is an acceptable money sink that would be comparable to either of those. However, nonetheless, it is a money sink. I would save a fairly substantial amount of money by preparing my own lunches, or foregoing them entirely.

And yet… I hadn’t really thought about it until now, but reflecting on this scene in particular, there’s a sense of whimsy to it that hasn’t eluded me even as I approach 30. Perhaps it’s because eating out was a special treat when I was younger - growing up relatively poor, we could only really afford to treat ourselves to a restaurant once a month or so - but there’s a sense of joy and elation there that hasn’t been eroded by routine. It’s the wonder that you can feel by attending a shopping mall, but we choose not to. That’s something that I, personally, can’t put a price on. And I’d encourage anyone reading to also find their own way to obtain the greatest sort of treasure from the most regular of scenarios.

Eva Ushiromiya sees her chance to be a horrible person, and she takes it. Well, I suppose the entire family likes to deal with their own unresolved problems by taking it out on each other, at the end of the day.

Even if it’s only temporary, it’s nice seeing the adults being interested in Maria’s specific knowledge. Sure, maybe it’s insincere on their behalf, but to the kid who can’t distinguish the reality from the fantasy, that’s the absolute best feeling in the world. Being able to teach adults something that even they didn’t know feels great.

Criminy, Episode 2 is not letting up on this. I suppose that’s to be expected from the “Rosa” Episode, but still.

Rosa trampling on the hearts of everyone reading this Episode, old and new.

Hilarious subversion of the rose incident from Episode 1. Does it still count as dramatic irony if you’re lying about the truth by saying what happened in the previous game? I think it’s also worth highlighting this moment as another notch for suggesting that you should always be wary of what people say if it hasn’t been witnessed personally - we know that Rosa’s not telling the truth here, so what other falsehoods have we been fed thus far?

News just in: resident tragedy enjoyer loves how sad this scene is, and how much it hurts. More at 11.

Very funny moment where Kanon goes “wait a second, I know how I can fix this for you.”

I’m constantly amused by how much Nanjo just doesn’t want to be in this novel at all. Does not enjoy going along with the family’s nonsense, doesn’t want to talk to any of them, does not want to get involved with the murders. I know Gohda is a community favourite for not really having anything important to contribute to the story, but I’m kind of digging Nanjo for similar reasons.

“Worthless” male pride, you say? Interesting commentary.

It’s almost like the people you surround yourself with could cause you to perceive the sky as grey instead of blue.

I don’t have an awful lot to add to these Maria-Rosa moments, but I can’t not acknowledge them. It’d be a crime to skim over such potent writing, even if there’s little for me to add that I haven’t said already.

An island detached from common sense and reality, you say? Sounds like the perfect setting for a new generation of fanfiction.

I don’t necessarily think this is a “with hindsight” moment because it’s still fairly clear what is going on here - you tell a child to close their eyes and then swap out the candy while they’re not looking. One of the oldest tricks in the book. What I do find interesting is how this parallels the final choice in Episode 8 - how do you approach this scene? Is this just a trick, because of course it is, or is this magic? Whatever you choose here, will you still hold the same opinion 6 episodes from now?

Obviously, this scene is noteworthy since you can read Rosa’s reactions as being uncomfortable with the blackmail forced upon her (using the term blackmail tenuously since she could arguably have been bought out without much threatening). But, with that in mind, I wonder when exactly she was roped into this? The adults at the guest house did say that she had been gone for quite a long time - we just assumed this was due to her being stuck with Maria, but did she actually visit the secret room with Yasu during this time?

I’m sure she knows the inside of the mansion better than anyone.

The scene where Yasu as Beatrice meets Kyrie is really good, and I kind of wish we saw more of this in Umineko? I love the fantasy scenes a lot, but when you’re being presented with partial truths (that lean closer to fact than fiction) that are only slightly adorned with fantasy, they’re a lot more interesting to read than the ones that are drenched in outright fabrications.

Also, Yasu was born 30 years too early, she’d have made an absolute killing as an online voice actor with the way she can go between all these different personas without being found out.

Hey! New portrait!

One day I’ll be joining the hordes of Umineko fans by getting a giant framed picture of Beatrice for my house. I was kind of hoping that they would have been offered as rewards from the Umineko Gold Kickstarter… But we all know how that’s gone.

And so the reunion with Kinzo is delayed because he locked himself up in an anti-magic bunker. Of course, what we’re probably seeing here is Yasu considering the study as a base of operations, before realising that could cause some complications given Kinzo has been the opposite of alive for quite some time, and deciding to set up in the guest room instead where she doesn’t need to worry about dealing with matters arising from Krauss/Natsuhi/Jessica’s additional knowledge regarding Kinzo’s current status.

End of chapter! I kind of wish we had a meta section here for the moment when Beatrice’s piece arrived on the gameboard? It feels odd that Battler wouldn’t immediately jump on that with a “hey wait a second”. Alas!

[wackernagels]

prefacing this w personal meta on yang jian as a god but it’s actually just more meta on my yang jian esper oc:

i understand yang jian as someone who loves and cares very deeply, and also as someone who adheres strictly to a set of morals. and like most times these two things can coexist bc in most cases it is not a bad thing to care about others, etc. but if he has to choose between one or the other it almost seems like he is conflicted in the choice. to save his mother is a decision he made while acknowledging he would defy the most powerful heavenly figure if he does so. to imprison his sister is to follow heavenly law, but i imagine he did it with a heavy heart. he can be kind and loyal and devoted, but he is also a punisher, an enforcer of heaven’s will. i think he places a certain degree of trust in his superiors, which can just as easily be taken away for injustice or malevolence.

i think that’s probably why i stuck with him having an emotionally platonic d/s relationship. it doesn’t really matter who he has it with, so long as it’s someone who’s understanding and willing to support him. my concept for a tu’er shen esper just happened to fit the bill. tianhu isn’t quite anywhere in life either, but he’s not burdened by choices. he’s gone through enough to empathize with yulang but he has the space and time to be a source of comfort or offer him a break from his life. yulang’s not in a position where he should keep deep bonds if he doesn’t want to run the risk of having to destroy them, but there’s less of an obligation to physically be around in order to keep a friendship, as opposed to a romantic relationship.

yulang is still very interesting to me as a character who has basically been forced to mature too quickly. this is something that could have been touched on with characters like li ling or tang xuan who have been given power/responsibility at a relatively young age but it doesn’t appear that they’re struggling with it in any way. yang jian himself is a person who lost both parents and possibly a sibling as a young child, and it’s not unrealistic to think he would’ve carried the trauma into his journey to split the mountain. it’s not just grief and love for family but the fact that he should not have had to grow into the world to take their place. with the disappearance of her sister and the death of his bil yulang has instantly become the head of the family. he is the only one left who can take in xiang liu, who up until this point was more like a younger brother. to find his sister is to try and fulfill this desire to shift his responsibility away, to be distant from his nephew and make his sister return as a beacon of the family. (realistically, i’m not even sure if he’d even find her alive or in a state where everything can go back to normal. it’s been years since he started trying and there’s a good chance she’s already gone.). it’s selfish, ultimately, though he does care for her and want her safety. he does grieve for her and how she is gone from his life, but i think he tacitly understands that she would’ve rather have yulang look after his nephew than drop everything to try and save her.

the mature decision IS to make choices that would benefit xiang liu and yulang’s relationship with him, but it’s not an easy decision and yulang would find himself at times trying to go back from it. he’s been forced to grow up too early. though 21 year olds are adults, most of them aren’t adults who worry about jobs, benefits, or the future of other family members. most of them are still in this transitional phase of entering society and learning how to live off it. yulang was forced to speedrun this transition at 17 and though it is the selfless to fill in as household head, is it worth it? does he have to? he’s unable to experience several aspects of a quintessential early adult life bc he has taken up the weight of the family. does he deserve to grow up normally? would he even forgive himself if he abandoned the responsibility?

ollie is someone with similar experiences to yulang, the difference being that he has made a decision to abandon his role as an heir and reject the burden of his family to seek justice. it may have even been the only path he was offered. he was someone i considered yulang could’ve bonded with, but not right now. i don’t think yulang’s situation as i currently have him allowed him to meet and connect with ollie.

i also considered at one point putting yulang in the shadow decree as a sort of infiltrator, or perhaps someone who works there in exchange for the safety of the sister they stole from him. i eventually decided against it since the choice would distance him so much from xiang liu, becoming the result of a choice that’s so selfish the yang jian in yulang would have refused to go down that path in the first place. but possibly in a timeline where he goes off the deep end, almost if i want to go in the vein of lotus lantern (1999) chenxiang and yang jian, it might’ve been viable?

[glamrockerfredbear]

Can I request a platonic headcanon with sun and moon with a kid reader? Basis is this. You know how some kids will accidentally call and adult figure the have a positive bond with dad or mom?(I remember doing this to my favorite teachers before) well how would Sun and Moon respond to a child reader with a single mother accidentally calling Sun and Moon dad?

ANON I LOVE YOU THANK SO MUCH FOR THEI ASK Edit: tried to fix some grammatical errors so guys I was finishing this around 1 am

platonic child headcanons with 𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐩 / 𝐌𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐩

ﾟ｡.☆.*｡･• ✫*. ☆・* ☽ .‘ • .✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.☆.*｡･ﾟ✫* .

Sunny ☼

Another busy day at the daycare as parents flocked to drop off their youngest off to enjoy the nicer places of the PizzaPlex. And with the busy day came controlling the masses of hyper kids with painting pretty landscapes, monitoring the kids in the ball pit and so much more!

While this work would be mentally taxing on any normal employee, Sun is just MADE for this! Literally and figuratively. Sun’s energetic self can rival even the most energetic child at his daycare making it relatively simple for him to take care of them. And as for the much quieter and timid children? Well Sun can also switch into a much more relaxed if not calming daycare attendant checking on them frequently to make sure they’re happy.

One day, a rather relaxed day with the children either coloring Fazbear coloring books or watching a movie an employee put on to give Sun a bit of a break, a single mother came in. Sun was up on his feet as soon as he spotted them; his jolly steps barely heard by how light he was on his feet.

“Well hellloooooo! Wow a new friend! May I ask your name?” Sun crouched to the child’s height, causing the child to hid more behind the mother. The mother ran a hand through their hair before looking at the daycare attendant. “Please forgive them. I don’t really bring them to the PizzaPlex.”

Sun stared up at her, before nodding and gently stretching his arm out. I would say he smiled but, he’s always smiling!

“Hello little one! I’m Sunny! I’m here to keep you safe while your mommy’s busy. We can do so many fun things so don’t worry about being bored!” Sun gently took the child’s hand and stopped crouching but stayed hunched over the child; unsure if his full height would frighten the child.

You took Sun’s hand fully and glanced at your mom who nodded at the both of you before leaving off into the PizzaPlex. Sun guided you to the employee playing the movie, explaining how you’re brand new. Immediately the employee knew and with a softened tone, the two of them sat you on a comfy colorful beanbag. As Sun took his leave you grabbed his wrist kind of desperately that made him look at you.

“Can you…stay?”

Sun felt his mechanical heart melt. How could he refuse? After making himself comfortable he sat right next to you, enjoying the movie himself. He never knew that he’d enjoy being so…calm. Is this why employees always seemed so much happier when the PizzaPlex was empty? He could understand it so much better now with how no noises came but the little daycare jingle played, mixing with the soft murmurs of the children talking quietly amongst eachother.

After that day, you would become a sort of a regular, as regular as a parent spending a few bucks on the PizzaPlex could make it that is. And Sun would always have the most fun with you as you were extremely well mannered and very affection. Many times, Sun would find little drawings and candies at his feet. It was just sooo cute!

One time, after your mother gave you a toy hairbrush to share with the children so they could brush a dolls hair. However, you just used to to “brush” Sun’s little sun rays. He will admit, it was a little odd when you asked him if you could brush his hair, but it was very therapeutic for some reason. He even closed his eyes for a whopping 5 minutes!

It wasn’t even 2 months before you and Sun were like the best friends of the daycare! He seemed far more protective and concerned for you but that’s not to say he wasn’t concerned and protective of the other children. Employees would find Sun keeping you off more higher monkey bars and high points of the playground meant for the bigger kids. He’d also ensure you’d get a proper meal and drink, and even tried to make it as healthy for you as he possibly could. Poor Sun, doomed to pizza and burgers…

As your mom picked you up after a long day of sleeping, playing patty cake with Sunny and creating masterpiece after masterpiece for him, you turned to Sun and said,

“Bye bye daddy! See you!”

Your mom and Sun both sort of…froze together. Ensue awkward eye contact between the two of them. Sun immediately crouched next to you, “U-Uhm, sweet pie I- uh…” he couldn’t speak.

You made the chatterbox animatronic speechless, and honestly? Good for you that’s a pretty big achievement.

“F-Forgive me, Miss! I didn’t- Well-“

“It’s quite alright, Mr…Sundrop is that it? I understand you two spend quite a long time together so it was bound to happen sooner or later” your mother smiled at him, picking you up in her arms. “See you next time.”

“Y-Yes! Goodbye you two please come back soon!”

That day, Sun sat at the tall point of his little room. He spent afterhours coloring a new photo of you, your mother…and himself. A dad? Is that what you saw him as?

To be honest, Sun liked having you over quite a bit. You were very patient with his own energy and he was understanding of your emotions and your needs. You two were like two peas in a pod. He loved taking care of you and being so…fatherly.

Sun grew a new layer of protectiveness on you, taking a much bigger role of being more parental figure than a good friend at the daycare. He had a zero tolerance policy if you were bullied or mistreated and would grow mad if he saw it. Sun would take the role of monitoring your health as well, checking how well washed and treated your hair was based on your hair type, making sure your socks had no holes and that you showed no signs of malnutrition or neglect.

“You’ve become a different Sunny” an employee once noted which distracted Sun from his little checklist making sure you were healthy and happy. Sun nodded,

“Of course. I-…Well I care for them a lot. They see me as their papa and I want to be their papa as much as I can…”

Moon ☽

Okay so, you’re very much familiar with the daycare. Your mother often drops you off so that she could work at the PizzaPlex as a night guard with her colleague Vanessa, who was honestly a little mean.

That meant you would have to stay with the daycare attendant and would have to sleep at the daycare with his watch. You would always go to bed at his exact asks and would always wake up with little fuss so no problems with him.

But one night…you woke up in the middle of your nap. You shifted in your blankets and Fazbear pajamas with your eyes becoming adjusted to how dark the daycare was.

“Hello…? Mr. Attendant?” You called, standing up holding your Glamrock Chica plush. You couldn’t see much but dark shadows and even darker corners. It was pretty unnerving. But it went from unnerving to horrifying as two itty red dots light up.

“Naughty naughty…” came a voice. It echoed in the empty daycare. Your Chica plush was squished against your body as your breathing began to grow labored. You were scared and alone, and you didn’t know where the attendant went. But things grew from bad to worse as the red dots disappeared behind a tight corner of the playground. You made slow movements to the big wooden doors, afraid that they’d appear anywhere at anytime…

Your worst fears came to light as the red eyes came behind you. You quickly turned your head to see the moon staring at you!

But wait, you knew how to combat fear! Yes, your mom taught you a very secret way to take care of this tedious feeling; simply give silly compliments to the thing scaring you. So you gave it your very best attempt,

“Y-You have…pretty…uhm, you have a pretty face..?”

The daycare attendant then titled his head in confusion. He lowered his arms and let out a low hum. You could tell he wasn’t used to this attention. And you sort of, used this time to simply return to sleep. Yeah, you could say it was extremely awkward and unnerving but hey! On the bright side he didn’t murder you and let you resume sleeping!

The next time you woke up during bedtime, you barely shifted before you saw the bothered daytime attendant above you.

“It’s bedtime.”

You furrowed your brows, “Uh yeah, I know. But I need something to drink I’m really thirsty!”

He just scoffed before disappearing into the dark of the ceilings. Before you could call him stupid you had seen him climb down to give you some bottled water. Where did he even get this? And why did he get it so quickly? Rudely, the moon took you out of your thoughts with a stern warning,

“Drink then off to bedtime.”

You did as you were told. You told yourself in your head as you fell asleep, ‘I will never be friends with that loser.’

Ha. Jokes on you because the universe has other plans.

You woke up in a terror, screaming and flailing as tears trail your cheeks. You sat up as you had a death grip on your plushie. Your head violently turned to Moon, who quietly and cautiously approached you.

“What is…the problem?” He asked in a soft tone. You looked at the ground,

“I had a nightmare about the bad man again…He’s purple all around and really mean…” you sniffled and curled up into a small hunched position. Moon took this opportunity to sit next to you and put a hand on your shoulder. You could tell he was completely out of his element trying to comfort you; he was more used to punishing misbehaving children.

“Would you like to speak about it…?”

You nodded and he mirrored your hunched position with his knees up to his chest. You began your explanation of the bad purple man. In your dreams, he would always try to be ‘nice’ and ask you to follow him somewhere, a dark place behind some pizzeria and every time you would say no he’d grow angrier and angrier. And every time your dream would end, it end with him grabbing your arm and you are suddenly surrounded by a burning landscape. His hand is replaced with a rotten one, his bloodied corpse stuck inside some bunny animatronic.

You saw Moon shiver at the description of the bad man. He seemed a bit scared himself, which was funny since he seemed to enjoy scaring others. He then turned his head to you, “Would you like me to…stay with you while you sleep? To make sure the bad man stays away?”

You cautiously took his offer. You held onto his plastic chest as you fell asleep once again. But this time, the bad man didn’t come to get you anymore. You slept peacefully for once.

Afterwards, this slowly blossomed a beautiful friendship between the two of you. Moon would often put movies before your bedtime so you would fall asleep with some source of light and you would bring him drawn pictures of him; and every time it made his already permanent grin grow every time. You could tell he wasn’t really used to this type of attention but you wouldn’t take it away from him, since he kept the bad man away from you.

Your bedtime approached quite quickly, with the last of the company’s training sets nearing its end and your eyelids growing heavier. Moon gently picked you up, taking you to your decorated little corner of stickers, drawings and blankets and other goodies scattered around. He and you made it after he worried the floors would be too hard for you to lay on.

“Alright. It’s bedtime, I’ll just be watching the movie. Wake up in case you need anything.” Moon softly caressed some stray hairs out of your face. And tucked you into bed. You gave him a sleepy smile and without thinking you thanked him,

“Thanks dad…”

Moon stopped. You could always take him aback, it was like your specialty. You saw him as your dad? Oh god. What would your mother think? Would the others animatronics make fun of him?? Would Monty call him weird shit now if he found out?!?

Most importantly, how does he treat you now? How does he react to this??

After an hour of doing nothing but thinking, Moon turned to a company laptop. He grabbed it. And as the movie played in the background with the low volume and soft lights dancing in the background, Moon watched multiple videos of how to be more parental to a child. How to braid hair, how to comfort a child, how to tie shoelaces, anything he could see on the recommendations he clicked on.

I mean, if you saw him as a dad that would mean he would step up as your newest guardian right? He would ensure he’d do his very best.

[kuroopaisen]

tiny love || 12

➵ as tooru’s younger sister, falling in love with iwaizumi hajime is easy. your feelings aren’t ignored, either. this time, you both decided to tell your brother the truth. 

warnings: f!reader

wc: 1k

m.list | ch. 11 ↞ ch. 12 ↠ ch. 13

Last time…

“Hey, Oikawa?” Iwaizumi swallowed, his face a tad paler than usual. “We have something to tell you.”

✧ ✧ ✧

“We?” Tooru chuckled, a familiar playful lilt to his voice.

“Hello,” you piped up before he had time to tease Iwaizumi about who ‘we’ might be.

“Ah!” The phone burst with joy, a pleasant tinkle to the way Oikawa called your name.

Your stomach plummeted.

“So, what’s up?” Tooru sighed. “You’re not about to tell me that you need to borrow some money, are you?”

“When have I ever asked you for money?” You grumbled, your free hand teasing the fabric of your pyjama shorts between your fingers. God, it’s too normal; a typical back-and-forth between siblings.

It was a strange contrast to the dread settling in your gut.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Tooru chirped. Blissfully unaware. You were almost envious.

You braved a glance at Iwaizumi. His jaw was taut, his lips pressed thin.

You tightened your grip around his hand, as if you were trying to instil a modicum of strength into him.

“Yeah, well…” Iwaizumi cleared his throat, blinking a little faster than usual.

“You sound so grim,” Tooru chuckles. “Come on then, out with it.”

Iwaizumi’s face turned a shade paler, his jaw taut.

This was hard for him. That much was obvious.

But he was trying.

And it was as hard for him as it was for you.

Everything within you stung, a tempest of nettles and thorns that refused to give you any respite. You’d been doing this – whatever this was, whatever Iwaizumi was ready to call this fondness between you – behind Tooru’s back for so long now.

High school. Years of bitterness. Downplaying just how much you hurt in order to maintain peace. A peace which you’d shattered with your own hands, on your own volition, when you had every opportunity not to.

But what’s done is done. You weren’t about to make the same mistakes you had in high school.

You had to tell him. You had to assert yourself, to show him that you matter too. That Iwaizumi meant something to you. That you meant something to him.

“We’re dating.”

It blurted out of your mouth with all the clumsiness and inelegance of a newborn foal. You just wanted to get it out, to shift the horrible tightness in your chest, to breathe out the burning in your gut.

Deathly silence followed.

It was worse than you’d feared.

Tooru was never silent. Whenever he was, it meant something bad had happened. Stagnation. Rejection. Fury.

Those were the only things that could render Tooru silent.

You wondered if you should fill the space with something else. But, there was nothing to say.

All this tension, all this discontent, stripped naked in two words.

“Is this a joke?” Tooru’s voice was a razor, thin and sharp and cold. “Because it’s not very funny.”

Your brother had never spoken to you like this. You’ve heard him talk about other people in this voice – a certain Kageyama Tobio comes to mind – but the ire had never been directed at you before.

You bit the inside of your cheek.

God, you just wished you wouldn’t take it all so seriously – why did this matter so much? Why was it causing you so much stress? What was wrong with y—

“It’s not,” Iwaizumi said. “She’s telling you the truth.”

He no longer had a ghostly pallor. A familiar crease lined his brow. You realised, not without a hint of irony, that it’s the look he always had in the middle of one of his high school games. That was when his tenacity always shone through the most.

“I asked you to keep an eye on her, not fuck her,” Tooru hissed.

It was like everything you knew gave way beneath you, like the thin ground above a pit in one of those adventure movies.

You weren’t you anymore. You were her. Not a person on your own accord, but something to be coddled, ‘protected’, prevented from making their own decisions.

A grievance.

“That’s out of line!” Iwaizumi’s voice boomed, speckled with rage. “Don’t talk about your sister like that!”

“Don’t tell me how I can or can’t talk about her!” Tooru’s voice was just as sharp, just as blue-hot. “She’s my sister, you, you—”

“I’m right here, Tooru,” you hissed, the corners of your eyes beginning to sting. What were you, a doll? A pet? A cup of fine china that had to be handled with care?

You were an adult, a woman, and Tooru needed to—

“You stay out of this,” he barked.

“No!”

The word scratched against your throat like gravel. You sounded like a petulant child – something you’d told yourself to avoid in this call.

But that was all Tooru saw you as – a child who couldn’t make her own choices. A child that needed to be protected.

The horrible realisation comes to you with an underwhelming mundanity.

Tooru didn’t see you as an individual. Not in the way you wanted him to. You were just his baby sister, silly and stupid and easily misled.

“Don’t talk about me like that!” Everything you wanted to say was gone, no matter how desperately you tried to wrangle them. Any well-thought out defence, or explanation, or appeal to his reason… all of it, gone.

A pressure was building in your head, angry and persistent. You felt like you were going to explode, spluttering out of your seams. It was all slipping away from you too fast, running like water through your hands.

“I don’t want to hear anything out of you!” Tooru yelled. “You should know better than to fuck around with my friends!”

“My feelings matter too!” You shouted back. “You don’t own Hajime—”

“Oh, Hajime?” Tooru scoffed. “Jesus Christ…”

Your pulse pounded in your ears, every inch of your skin burning. This was the worst possible outcome. Nothing could’ve prepared you for this. Nothing at all.

“You don’t get to control who I do and don’t date,” you said, a waver running through your words.

“You know what? I’m not having this conversation.”

“Tooru—”

The end tone blared out its steady march.

He was gone.

It was over before it’d even begun.

The silence enveloped you like a shroud, dank and oppressive and suffocating.

Tooru hadn’t even given you a chance to explain yourself. Not properly. He’d just shouted.

He’d never shouted at you before – not properly. Sure, there were petty fights over meaningless things neither of you could remember, but there’d never been a true falling out.

But there you sat, an ache in your chest that felt wholly unfamiliar. A new kind of aloneness, an isolation wholly different from anything you’d felt before. It wasn’t like getting your heart broken by the boy you had a ridiculously big crush on. It wasn’t like moving to a whole new country, throwing yourself into a perilous unknown.

No, this was a new pain, one you didn’t know how to name. The insurmountable rift had grown even wider. Now there was no chance of reaching him.

Your chest ached with how tight it was, your eyes stung with a startling ferociousness, your head pounded to the rhythm of your racing thoughts—

“Hajime—”

His arms encircled you as you croaked out his name. He pulled you towards him and pressed a firm kiss to your forehead. You let yourself fall against his chest, your cheek coming to rest against the soft cotton of his shirt. He was warm, like he always was. Firm, warm, steady.

He was safe. You were safe.

You let the tears bubble out. You needed it. All that fretting, all that waiting, only for it to turn out like this? Maybe you were just the punching bag in some great cosmic joke. Something so trivial, so human, causing this much strife…

For the first time in your life, you envied all those people out there with distant relationships with their siblings – even the ones who regarded their blood relatives with contempt. At least, then, it wouldn’t feel so much like you were the one holding the knife. Maybe then, you wouldn’t be tearing yourself apart from the inside out over something you shouldn’t even feel guilty about in the first place.

God, this was so stupid. And Hajime… poor Hajime…

Iwaizumi didn’t say anything. But you knew. You knew he would hold good on his promise. He wouldn’t run away this time.

He hadn’t.

Your heart was breaking all over again.

But this time, you weren’t alone.

[dropsofletters]

the whisper in the obvious [bbh]

—summary: she hasn’t had enough time in her life to date because of her work. in order to fill the void of romantic intimacy and domesticity, she lurks online for brief videos or recordings to make her feel better. it works for a while, much more when she finds a man who does boyfriend roleplays—blue moon. it’s not like she’ll ever get to know him, right?

baekhyun doesn’t have much luck in romance. whoever he dates end up either cheating on him or turning their dates into the worst date of his life. growing older by the day, without someone by his side and a job that he hates, he creates a patreon account where he pretends to be people’s boyfriends…blue moon, he has called himself. it’s not like someone he knows will look him up, right?

they’re completely wrong, that’s for sure.

—title: the whisper in the obvious —pairing: byun baekhyun x reader —genre: friends who banter to crushes to lovers!au ; anonymous asmrtist!au ; technician!au ; doctor!au ; meet messy!au —type: fluff ; humor ; angst ; suggestive ; slowburn —word count: 18,768 —warnings: mentions of sex (though the act is never shown on the narrative on itself), alcohol, some descriptions of sicknesses and wounds but nothing graphic.

This is downright pathetic.

Aching limbs flail on each side of her body as she lays on her bed, splayed much like a star as her eyes set on the ceiling. Her earbuds let a manly, somewhat lighthearted voice breathe out words in a faceless manner, straight from a monthly subscription to a Patreon account. Had anyone told her that the only way she could ever get the relief of having a relationship when she became an adult was going to be through a man speaking softly into a microphone about how her day was and what she had eaten, giving vague answers whatsoever, she would have probably given them a laugh.

But life is laughing now, because time runs too quickly during the day when she works in the ER, and it has been well over two years since the last time she had any kind of physical touch with a man. Period. Most times, she doesn’t need it—what can be done by a man to her body can be done by herself much easier, but the kind of warmth that comes from a cuddling session after a tiring day and the endless conversations that come with having someone by her side that she wholeheartedly trusts, only to receive a kiss of comfort at the very end, has long died in her routine.

Now, all she has left is the company of some stranger that has a quite wide fanbase for his boyfriend roleplays—pathetic, she wants to call herself once again, but Blue Moon Whispers does the trick. She gets a boyfriend that she doesn’t have to talk to throughout the day, that cares for her like no one will and a plus, of course, that she’s not the only one that spends money on a man doing this for her.

Pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic.

Yet, she closes her eyes, tries to even out her breaths when Blue Moon speaks into the microphone. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.” He drags the last few words, a sigh following his statement before he chuckles softly. “My job is so boring. I’m really good at it, but…I don’t know, it’s not what anyone would want to do for the rest of their lives.”

She tries not to wonder about his workplace. Maybe, he’s a nine-to-five worker, or with that voice, he could be one of those telephone workers that pick up sex-lines calls in order to please other people. She could imagine it, there’s some mischief in his tone that tells her he’s not just quite as sweet as his voice recordings.

Humming, she tugs her covers up her neck, listening to more of what he says.

“But enough about me, how was work for you?” Terrible. Working as a doctor is far more difficult than studying for it, and she felt like tugging at her eyeballs when being in med school. Constantly being screamed at by specialists and being questioned by family members when she gives a diagnosis is not quite what she imagined, and her blood pressure is up the roof when she has to save someone last minute. Tonight, she had a patient with atherosclerosis have a heart attack and it was quite possibly the most stressful time of the day. The patient is alive, thankfully.

“I see…” Almost as if he has heard her internal rant, Blue Moon responds. “But I’m here to distract you, aren’t I?” His voice drops at that moment, pressing a kiss into the microphone that has a smile appearing on her features. Okay. Pathetic, has she said that already? She feels like a teenager at this point. “What do you want to watch tonight?”

Her voice gets caught in her throat when she thinks of the first show that comes to mind.

“The Rookie, right?”

Wait, how did he know what kind of show she wanted to watch?

Blue Moon was, quite possibly, the only man that had fit her just right…and that comes from someone who pays a stranger on Patreon to get her dose of domesticity. Her past boyfriends, though not many, always felt lacking. Assholes, for the most part, she adores someone who shows their true colors at the very end and they end up being the most rancid shade of poop-colored brown. The sarcasm is ever present, but all her past boyfriends have been close to pieces of shit, if not entirely so.

It’s not a surprise that she did not try again. Her thirties are only getting closer and she can’t bring herself to put her dating profile out there again. It’s scary, downright stupid and she knows that it won’t ever end well.

“Let me cuddle closer to you—”

Someone shouts her name at the top of her lungs in a sing-song tone, and she recognizes the deep voice quite well. Chohee, her friend and next-door neighbor, is the only person to use her spare key for whatever excuse she has inside her head and invite herself inside her apartment as if she pays half the rent. Just as her fingers fiddle to get her earphones out, sitting up on the bed with widened eyes, Chohee opens the door, pushing her long black hair off her shoulder.

“I brought some cheeseburgers—” At the steady rise and fall of her chest and her disheveled hair—in her defense, today’s day of work had been hell—, Chohee stops speaking. “Were you watching porn?”

What is easier in this ungodly situation of adult life, to admit that she’s hearing a man speaking into her ear while pretending to be her boyfriend, or that she is watching something quite relatively normal? “Yeah.” The latter is easier. She doesn’t want Chohee peeping into her stuff.

Chohee purses her thin lips coated in a glimmer of gloss. “Do you want me to leave you to it or…?”

Well, that option was awkward as well. She could’ve denied both. Shit.

“No, it’s fine. I—It’s not…It wasn’t…It wasn’t doing the trick, I guess.” Locking her phone, she pushes it underneath her pillow before patting the spot in front of her. Chohee takes it without much of a question on the tip of her tongue.

“I hate when that happens.” With that, Chohee tugs at her phone, trying to unlock it—and fuck, she really does know the password. “But I’ve been subscribing to OnlyFans accounts instead. There are some really cute guys there—”

Alert. Red alert. She can’t let Chohee look at the most simplistic of intimacy in the form of an online boyfriend, that only lasts a few minutes to an hour with her. “Uh, Chohee, you don’t have to.”

“No, girl, I have to.” Chohee says, splaying the plastic bag of cheeseburgers on the bed just as she’s reaching forward for her. The taller woman ducks back, trying to unlock her phone. “You haven’t been with a man in a while, I need to help you make your alone time as worthy as possible. I think—”

“Chohee, don’t check my phone.”

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I’ve seen dicks. You have definitely seen dicks.” Chohee rolls her eyes just as she takes her phone in between her fingers, but never does she once relent on letting go of it, tugging at it instead. “What’s the problem?”

“I just don’t want you to look at it.”

“But why are you so ashamed? It’s really nothing you should be embarrassed about—”

Between the tugging back and forth, her phone clashes against the flooring, enough to make her widen her eyes when she sees it falling face down. “Shit.” She curses, ignoring the apologies that rake from Chohee’s vocabulary when she lowers herself to pick it up.

The screen is broken and when her thumb presses on the button, the screen lights up in different colors of the rainbow, and she can’t even see the lock-screen.

“Is it broken?”

She scoffs. “Shattered. Broken. Destroyed. What’s another synonym?”

“In my defense,” Chohee says and the chewing that comes soon after tells her that she’s already diving into those cheeseburgers. “You were the one hiding your porn from me. Are you into feet or shit like that?”

She clutches her fists together. “I’m into men eating shit, that’s exactly it.” She replies sarcastically, turning around to watch Chohee staring at her with surprise. A sigh leaves her lips. “I’m kidding, but now I need to get my phone fixed. My patients and other doctors contact me through here.”

Her friend swats her hand in the air. “Baek can fix it.”

Oh, over her dead body.

Byun Baekhyun is Chohee’s best friend, annoyance on legs, too overexcited, the kind of child teachers had a headache for. Baekhyun has been in her life for more than six years, as long as Chohee had been—the man that drunkenly screamed her name at the top of his lungs during her graduation, or the one that almost ran over her foot at his birthday party when he was learning how to drive and didn’t know how to park backwards. Baekhyun, though great, is just the type of person she can’t stand for more than an hour. Let alone for fixing her phone.

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.” Chohee corrects. “You know he wouldn’t ask you for money just to fix your screen.”

“Still,” Something for free sounds excellent at this time where Chohee interrupted my time with my faux boyfriend and also destroyed my phone in the matter of minutes, but I have to deny it. “You know how Baekhyun is. He’ll probably be asking me a bunch of questions—”

“And?”

“I don’t enjoy people prying into my business.”

Chohee smiles at that, pushing her black bangs away from her small face. “He doesn’t do it with a bad heart,” She tells. “Part of me thinks Baekhyun just doesn’t like feeling lonely, so he speaks a lot just to…have attention. It’s the child in him. Let him.”

Somehow, guilt takes over my body. Maybe, I’ve been too harsh judging the man. “…Okay.” I breathe out, standing up and moving towards the bed, laying parallel to Chohee before taking a bite of her cheeseburger. “Tell him I will be at his workplace tomorrow morning. At like eight, I have a shift tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you tell him?”

Waving my phone into the air, I sigh. “Someone decided to break my phone.”

“Right…”

I can already tell it’s going to be a long week.

###  

An engineering degree could only get him so far. Or, if he had completed his time in that engineering program, he may have had his own office by age twenty-eight, or at least, would have had the opportunity for a better salary. Baekhyun had heard it from his mom that he’d regret dropping out of university, but only now does it really become something that he thinks of.

For one, the morning is too dimmed to let the turquoise on his chemise shine brightly—he has to wear the same uniform every single day, tucked inside his jeans, accompanied by a dangling presentation card on his neck. The picture comes from when he was twenty-three, when he started working here, but he has been a technician ever since.

When he opted for this job, he thought he’d be like the others. Spend one year or two here, then flee away for something better. That didn’t happen, and with each portion of his life slipping away from his fingertips, he’s left to find other ways to meet ends as he mirrors himself on the oldest phone technician at his work place.

Suhyuk, above his fifties, working here for more than ten years. His wife divorced him just because he had not moved on with his life, and his children buy Samsung just not to have him fixing their iPhones.

Not even Suhyuk is here at such an early morning. Had it not been for Chohee’s constant texts, he would’ve probably gotten to work a bit later.

Yet, someone is already waiting for him. Chohee’s neighbor, his friend-that-doesn’t-really-want-to-be-friends-with-him, seated on the sidewalk, with her back leaning against the glassed door of his workplace.

“You’re here early.”

She scoffs, standing up when he extends his hand forward. She is not exactly his type, but his eyes rake down her body for a fraction of a second longer than usual. She’s not wearing scrubs, that’s new. “No, you’re here late.” Her fingers point at the watch under her dark denim jacket. “We said seven thirty. It’s eight thirteen.”

Baekhyun runs his fingers through his black hair, playing with the keys dangling from his elegant and long fingers before starting to open the door. “Who is awake at seven thirty?”

“Everyone who has a job, douchebag.” There it is. The name. Baekhyun can practically count with his fingers the number of insults people have thrown at him—all in different occasions and under different circumstances, but the only one he doesn’t feel particularly offended by is the ones she tells him. Douchebag, she had started to call him on his twenty-fifth birthday, when she had eavesdropped on his conversation with Chanyeol about Scarlett Johansson’s tit—

“I don’t get it. Why do you keep calling me a douchebag?” Baekhyun questions, opening the glassed doors and letting his finger twirl against the switch until all the white lights across his workplace brighten the white, spotless place.

She moves behind him, following after his steps and responding with what he can judge as a smile on her tone. “You’re just one.”

“You’ve been calling me that for years,” He says. “And just because I said Scarlett Johansson has nice tits. I didn’t even say tits, I said breasts. I was a whole nerd about it and you called me a douche—”

She chuckles at his words, the melody somewhat foreign. Serious has taken over every portion of her life, and he thinks it has been years since the last time he has seen her actually grin with happiness. He gets behind the counter, taking the phone that she lends him before looking at the screen.

Cracked as cracked can be.

This screams Chohee.

“I know what you said, and it wasn’t breasts.”

Baekhyun looks up, fixing the rounded glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I know what I said.”

“I’ve read enough textbooks to have photographic and audible memory. You said,” She clears her throat then, making her voice a bit higher than her usual tone. That’s not his voice, he thinks to himself. “If I had to convert to a religion, it’d be Scarlett Johansson’s boobs. Can’t believe Ryan Reynolds dated her and I didn’t.”

Taking a small screwdriver between his hands, a smile takes over his features. Yeah, so he was drunk and he may have said that, but— “I said boobs.”

“Breasts, boobs, tits, fat with nipples, it’s all very douchey, if you ask me.”

“I was just saying something that I’m sure a lot of people think.” Baekhyun shrugs his shoulders, his frame looking slimmer on the oversized chemise. Definitely not very fitting for him. “Look me in the eye and tell me she doesn’t have nice boobs.”

“She does.”

“Well, then?” Baekhyun puts the screen to the side, kneeling down to search through his utensils. “It’s not cool that you don’t call me by my name.”

“It just rolls off easier. Douchebag.” She elongates the words then, leaning her elbows against the counter as she tries to connect her gaze to Baekhyun’s. The man stands up then, just as she continues with her train of thought. “As if Scarlett would have dated you over Ryan Reynolds.”

Baekhyun widens his eyes. “You don’t know that!”

“Of course, I know!” She replies. “Ryan Reynolds could break you in half with just one hand and you still think that she’d pick you?”

“I happen to have a nice body, too…you…”

“You’re trying to look for an insult?” With cheeks tinted red, he looks down at her phone, trying to work through the broken screen before his body jolts at the sound of her voice. “You can call me ‘bitch’ if you’d like.”

Wait. Pause.

Baekhyun squints his eyes, a strand of his hair curling against his forehead when he looks at her. “The real question is…do I want to die today?”

“Come on, I call you a douchebag, it’s only fair if you call me a bitch.”

Baekhyun shakes his head, returning to his work. “You’d kill me, and I’m not sure I want to anger someone who knows the human body better than anyone else.”

Truth is, Baekhyun has always thought of her as an ideal when it comes to success. Never giving up, even when her career will never let her stop studying. God, he can’t imagine how difficult it is to read as much as she does.

“If I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done so by now.” The somberness of her voice does nothing to him. He has heard that before, as wicked as it sounds. “Come on, call me a bitch.”

“I won’t—”

“Just once. I don’t want to feel bad.”

“I—”

“Baekhyun, this is the only and last time I’ll ask. If not, I’ll start calling you a bitch myself.”

“Okay, bitch, calm down.” He finalizes, laughter following his statement when he sees her lips parting in surprise. “You told me to say it!”

“That came out a little too naturally—”

Baekhyun squares his shoulders then, ready to throw a joke her way only to see her more annoyed. His specialty. “Maybe, I’ve had one girl or two asking me to call her that.”

She rolls her eyes at his words. “And then you wonder why I call you a douchebag.” She adds. “I can’t imagine one single woman who would like to date you.”

He can imagine a few, but that’s not something she knows about. Baekhyun has always prided himself on one thing—on his voice and his way of getting someone to like him. Only that it comes with a downside: he doesn’t know how to pick the right women. So, more often than not, his dates ended up in disasters, relationships tangled in cheating and of course, how to forget? The day he decided to create his own ASMR Patreon channel for boyfriend roleplays just because he needed some money, only to end up with over thirteen thousand faux partners.

These days, people have wanted him to venture more into a world of rated recordings…and truth be told, his mind wanders. Part of him thinks it would be easier, perhaps more profitable for him, and no one would even look at him or notice who he was. Another part of him feels far too embarrassed. Sure, one thing was recording himself, another thing was publishing it.

“…That’s because you have bad tastes.” Baekhyun conquers, using his screwdriver again before pressing his long index finger to the turn-on button. “I think we’re done with your phone…”

“Bitch.”

“Huh?”

“You were about to say my name.”

“I won’t call you a bitch.” A smirk appears on his soft, delicate face then, merging his features until the screen lights up in between them. The phone is working. “I think you like it a bit too much, huh?”

Maybe, there are some portions of life worth remembering and there is a reason why he is still a phone technician, because he gets to see her otherwise serious expression turn into a laugh when she shakes her head.

“I’d rather be dead than have me in your bed, Baekhyun.” She takes her phone in between her hands, opening her purse just then. “How much is it?”

By the time she is out the glassed doors, blending in her darkened colors with the light, blurring sky, Baekhyun realizes one thing…

She didn’t call him a douchebag. Maybe, it slipped her mind or perhaps, she was nervous when she spat out her last few lines.

Yet, it’s true. He could never imagine the two of them being together.

###

“I’ve officially found the girl who’s going to be in your Patreon with you.”

The Manager Complex, write it in psychology books or Baekhyun may sell it to psychologist in order to get some money, but the concept exists within Chanyeol. Once he had catched a glimpse of Baekhyun’s microphone set-ups and he had to explain the point of his Patreon to his friend, there was no going back. With an agenda on the side of his elongated body, and a professional look on his face, Chanyeol has taken it upon himself to ‘plan out’ his channel…and sure, he’s thankful, but it somehow makes him feel as if he’s a product.

Chanyeol takes a seat across from him on their usual diner. Pink tiles, black and white walls and red tables do make the place justice, but what keeps them there is the fried chicken and pancakes. To die for, and much more if they accompany it with some vanilla ice cream after.

“You have?” Baekhyun asks. He’s not entirely sure if he’s sold to the idea of recording himself with someone else, pretending to be a couple. After all, he’s meant to be the listener’s boyfriend, not with someone else, but more people have joined asking him to be accompanied for heavier subjects on his recordings and truthfully…he wants to expand his horizons a little bit, or he’s, at least, thinking about it. “You can’t just find someone you think is hot and not tell them I plan on recording our voices—”

“She’s more skilled than you, dumbass.” Chanyeol ties his brown hair behind his back, opening his almost-empty agenda before sighing. “I’ve set you up on a date to see where things head and whatnot, but she’s another ASMRtist…and she has done rated recordings, so I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

Oh. So, this is real.

Shit, he thinks it could be easy, but when he really ponders about it…there is this tinge of awkwardness and shyness that overtakes him. Sure, it would make his channel grow and hence, give him more money to spend at the end of the day, but he has to take a swig of beer to push down the bitter taste.

It feels void. People like him for pretending he is the nicest boyfriend in the world, borderline fake at times, but at the end of the day, they only want him to either give comfort or fulfill fantasies. None of them will understand him or want to be with him for who he is, or how he is. Loud-spoken, extroverted, sometimes pensive, mischievous with tinges of cheeky.

“Do I have to?”

Chanyeol looks up from his agenda then, playing with the edge of a piece of paper before shaking his head. “Record yourself? No, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, Baekhyun.” He closes the agenda in one go, his frown becoming more profound by the second. “But I do recommend you to go out on a date with her. She’s different from what you normally go for…and she’s cute. There’s nothing wrong with having fun with someone normal every once in a while.”

Looking around the diner, he spares a smile towards Chanyeol. “Okay, I will go out on a date with her.” With how busy he has been with the growth of his Patreon and his real job on top of that, he hasn’t quite gone out much…and that leaves him to take Chanyeol’s opportunity. If he thinks they are a match, then it must be true, right?

“You’re going to love her.”

“If you say so.”

“Cheers for you getting some after a while.” Chanyeol pushes his bottle of beer forward, only to have Baekhyun chuckling.

“Can’t promise that, but cheers!”

###

A thumping headache follows after every sigh that leaves her lips. Somehow, the isopropyl alcohol-scented emergency room does nothing to purify the utmost tiredness inside her body. Instead, she’s left sulking for the number of hours still left in her nightshift. It’s twelve at night and she, still, has to wait until three in the morning arrives to be able to go back home.

She hears a bag of food plopping against the counter, enough for her to lift her eyes ever-so-slowly. Seriously, she thinks she is half-asleep at this point, unaware if she is dreaming or wide awake. Seeing Jaebeom in front of her may be a dream; the second-year dermatology doctor smiling down at her. While he’s radiant, with his long brown hair cascading down his face and reaching his earlobes, wearing the typical white robe and his baby blue scrubs underneath, she has settled for her burgundy scrubs. The ones she wears every single day.

Truth is, everyone is talking about Lim Jaebeom these days. Even the nurses, for fuck’s sake. He manages to send a smile every few days, enough to have everyone going back to their jobs with hope dangling from their every movement, but the rest of the time, his mysterious persona and magnetism is what keeps everyone at the edges of their seats.

Including her. Of course, she’s included. Be damned the day someone decided to put a mole on his eyelid and not expect everyone to fall in love with it when he smiles.

The scent of sliced vegetables, soy sauce and noodles fill the air, enough to make her lick her lips. “Oh, you’re eating here?” She’s about to move away from the counter, make some space for him to splay his meal and sit down, when Jaebeom shakes his head, the waves of his hair moving with it.

“We are eating here. I don’t think I’ve seen you sit down since the morning.” Jaebeom starts to get the containers of Chinese food out of their confines, quirking one of his defined eyebrows in the process. He’s tranquil, he always seems to have his life put together. The envy. “You have a twenty-four-hour nightshift?”

“Oh God, no.” She groans at the idea. She already has had enough of those the past month. “I’m here until three. Or, until Dr. Jones decides to arrive.”

Jaebeom hisses at the sound of her voice. “So, until four.”

It’s common knowledge that Dr. Jones forgets to not turn off his alarm. “Thanks, Jaebeom, exactly what I needed.”

Though, he does bring her something she needed, giving her a pair of chopsticks and dragging a plastic chair towards her, just as he sits down. “I’ll wait here until then, if you need to.”

Dermatologists normally don’t have nightshifts. They’re only there if there needs to be some kind of abstraction of sorts. “You don’t have to. Besides, you shouldn’t be here on the first place.” She tells, looking over at his seated position, long legs extended in front of him, wide shoulders making her retreat her vision and glare back at his eyes instead. Concentration is key when dealing with a man like him. “Did you forget something or do you just enjoy to eat surrounded by emergency patients?”

Jaebeom slurps on his noodles, a few spots of soy sauce sprinkling against his lips. “Seventy-three old patient with a black head on her back the size of my index finger. I had to take it out because Dr. Kim is out for her wedding.” The specialist and the doctor in charge of the residency only now had the time to get married, in the middle of July, for fuck’s sake. “It was awesome.”

The gruesome smile on his face has her grinning back at him, aware of not showing her teeth just in case they are filled with vegetables and noodles. “You have some pictures?”

“You can bet I do.”

Jaebeom pushes his seat closer to her, until his robe is caressing the barely covered skin of her shoulder, pushing his phone towards her face to showcase an old, wrinkly back with a black head being extracted. “She said she got it because she couldn’t reach for her back for the last twenty years and did not wash there.”

“Typical.” Trailing her gaze away from his phone, she nudges his side. “Did it hurt?”

“Not that I know of.” Jaebeom replies, looking down at his food when he puts his locked phone face down on his thigh. “Rumor has it I have good hands.”

There is not a single ounce of mischief on his face, not until a longer second of silence finally settles on him when she tries her hardest not to look down at his hand and think of what he is even trying to say.

“Oh, fuck.” Jaebeom chuckles at his own words, borderline cackling when he shakes his head. “I didn’t mean it like that. I sounded like such a creep.”

“You didn’t.” She replies, trying to conceal the heat on her face. God, she really needs to get her mind out of the gutter. This is her coworker, a fellow doctor— “I happen to have heard that about you.”

Jaebeom tilts his head to the side, half-laughing at her words, as if amused. “You have heard things about me?”

Truth is… “Who hasn’t?”

Jaebeom pulls at some of the noodles with his chopsticks, pensive for a second before plopping them inside his mouth. Not before saying: “What have you heard about me?”

“Half of the hospital is in love with you.” She replies, as easy as possible. The least she can do is let him know that he really does look at good as he thinks he does. “Don’t even get me started on the nurses. I think they have a cult by now. They have started to care about their skincare routines because you told them to. And because they want to look young enough to be by your side.” Most of the nurses at the hospital are over their forties…but who knows? Jaebeom might be into that.

“Really?” He questions, looking down at his food. “I thought they were just being nice.”

“They were,” She accepts. “But they’re doing it because they kind of want to be your MILF’s.”

His nose scrunches up. “That’s a no.”

She shrugs her shoulders. “You never know, Dr. Lim.” She jokes around, only to have Jaebeom expanding his hands in the air, waving them along with the shakes of his head.

“I know one thing and that is that I don’t want those women anywhere near me in that way.”

Attentive of his speech, she hums. “Then, I’ll keep them away from you. I can save lives, what’s one more going to do?”

Jaebeom’s smile tightens at that, resting one hand over her forearm as she chews on her food. “I’ll have to pay you in some way.”

“Oh, no, no—”

“Let me take you back home.”

“You’re not losing hours of sleep just to take me home.”

She had not realized Jaebeom had finished his meal until he placed the empty container back on its plastic bag. “I’ll lose hours of sleep if I let you go home alone at three AM, you know?”

“You sure?” She asks, aware of the shyness in her tone as Jaebeom nods.

“I’ll be your little helper for the next of the shift.”

Somehow, that doesn’t sound so bad.

How can it sound bad when she has practically ogled at the man and swooned at his antics for as long as he has been working here? Perhaps, one year and seven months, even more…

###

He’s a creature of the night, in the way he blends perfectly well with the dark sky, almost colored like the Americano she craves to drink, with his tiredness completely noticeable but still, one with the crickets around him, making a symphony for him. His car is parked in front of her apartment complex, one much better than what she would have imagined—chic, not simplistic at all, coming from his hard work that will only pay off more with the passage of time.

The wind blows on his hair as she pulls her bag over her shoulder, desiring nothing more than to touch her bed, close her eyes and doze off to a world of dreams, white noise and no responsibilities at all. “Jaebeom, thank you so much for everything.” She breathes out into the air, voice lonesome in her approach, unaware of how tired she sounds. “You’re an angel sent straight from heaven.”

“Some say hell, but I’ll take it.” Jaebeom replies quickly, smiling at her with his gums before placing a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Get inside before it gets too cold.”

“Okay, I will.” She starts to walk towards the door, jotting down the password before looking over her shoulder. “I want to wait until you drive off, though.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You never know, Jaebeom. You could get into an accident. We’re doctors. We know this happens out of the blue—”

“You can always text me to check if I’m alright.” Lacking his robe, Jaebeom rests his hands on the pockets of his scrubs before sighing. “And if you really want to make sure if I’m doing alright, you can check up on me physically on Saturday. I’m free and my friend just opened a Thai restaurant downtown, so…we could meet there.”

She knows better than to think a one-on-one situation means a date. This could be colleagues having dinner together, just to check up on each other, but Jaebeom is not the type to go out alone with anyone. Not that she knows of, and gossip runs around the hospital far faster than stretcher-bearers should. If Jaebeom had been with one of the interns, the students or a doctor, either no one knew about it or he hadn’t, really.

“Ah…it sounds great.” She opens the door wider, slipping inside. After this, she doesn’t think she’ll have enough balls to wait for him to drive off. “You’ll text me the details and we’ll meet there?”

Jaebeom scoffs at her words. “I’ll pick you up.”

“Are you my chauffeur or what?”

“I’d consider myself your date for Saturday, but who knows?” Jaebeom waltzes towards the car, making her hide behind the door as a chuckle leaves her lips. “Maybe, I should ask one of the nurses.”

“Don’t you dare.” She threatens, lingering with a comedic tone.

“Oh, why?”

“You already asked me.” She replies. “And you have a date on Saturday with me.”

“Atta girl.” Jaebeom finalizes, opening the door of his car just as he waves his hand in the air. “See you at work.”

“See you. Good night.”

“Good night.”

Once she closes the door and walks up the set of stairs, she lets herself close her eyes tightly and squeal.

The Lim Jaebeom had just asked her out on a date. That has to be a golden badge after her drought period. Just as she moves through the stairs, she starts to think through outfits, ideas of conversations, anything that could make her first date in a while worth it, but the thoughts inside her head grow less fond of the silence when someone’s voice pierces through the air once she gets to her floor.

Spread in front of her apartment door, seated there, is Byun Baekhyun. The douchebag in all his glory. His hair is done a mess, he rests his cheek on his knees and he’s calling out her name as his eyes widen. Finally, he straightens his back, standing up in the matter of seconds.

Too polished for a simplistic night, he seems to be, with a white button down tucked inside a pair of lightweight jeans. “Why are you here so late?”

She huffs at his words, grabbing her keys with sloth-like movements before moving towards her door. “Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that? Why are you here so late and at my doorstep?”

“I need somewhere to stay.” Baekhyun’s voice sounds somewhat pouty and when she looks over her shoulder, ready to glare at the man with the rounded glasses and messy hair, she sees that he is actually jutting his bottom lip out. And is that panic on his face?

“Ask Chohee.” The reply is simple, tugging at her doorknob before the white door welcomes her apartment. Just as she slips inside, she hears Baekhyun pushing the door before she could close it at his face, but not inviting himself inside fully.

“Please.” He begs, his face far too close as his eyes twinkle with a tinge of sadness. “Chohee is asleep, like a normal person.”

“Ask Chanyeol.”

“He has a girl over.”

She rolls her eyes. “Of course, he does,” She mumbles, grabbing her doorframe with her free hand. It’s too fucking late after a nightshift to be dealing with Baekhyun’s dramatics. “Do what The Douchebag would to. Trademark copyrighted and all. Ask to join in and become part of a threesome. Chanyeol is a nice-looking dude and he’s blonde now. Fuckable enough.”

Baekhyun scrunches up his nose at the idea, shaking his head as a shiver goes up his body. “I’d rather have my dick sliced in twenty little bits.”

She raises her eyebrows. Okay, time to play. “I can do that. Medically speaking, if you need me to slice your dick—”

Baekhyun’s shoulders fall then, resting his forehead forward until it almost touches her shoulder. “Okay…” He raises his head then, speaking far too fast for her to comprehend. Typical of him. “Chanyeol set me up on a date and I was dumb enough to ask her to have dinner at my place but she is batshit crazy and she brought wedding magazines over and I didn’t have the heart to kick her out, so I told her I was going to go buy something and I ran away from there.”

Wait.

She tries not to laugh, but the irony of the situation has her tugging at the sleeve of his shirt, pushing him inside when a smile of relief takes over his dulcet face.

“So, you left a complete stranger inside your house?” She asks, plopping her bag down on the floor and moving towards the kitchen to wash her hands. Baekhyun follows suit after taking off his shoes.

“Chanyeol knows her,” He says, as if it’s rocket science. “Besides, I was hoping she’d just go in the morning.”

She hums, rubbing the soap more into her skin. “What time did you tell her you were going to buy something?”

“At nine…”

She gasps at that, looking over her shoulder to see Baekhyun seated by her kitchen counter. “You have been here for six hours?!”

“I didn’t know where else to go!”

Baekhyun may be the life of the party, a socialite through and through, but he can count his friends with the palm of his hand. She knows that. “She’s going to be there tomorrow.”

Baekhyun groans, covering his face. “How do you know that?”

“You’ve given her reasons to be angry, Baekhyun, and she was attached to you already. Now, she’s going to question the root of your relationship and become even more attached because she’ll want to fix what you destroyed and—”

“Oh my God…” Baekhyun trails his voice at that moment, running his fingers through his black locks. “When am I going to have a normal person as a date?”

Cackling, she pats her hands on a towel. The next step is having Baekhyun sleep on the couch, take a quick shower and be off to sleep. “When you become an average person, Baekhyun. You’re just too Broadway for your own good.” She says. “You’ve seen American Psycho? Now welcome Korean Douchebag.”

Though, she still moves towards the living room, opening one of the drawers in her coffee table to grab the blanket she keeps there, just in case. “Says the person that is home at three in the morning.”

Sighing, she remembers the awful nights of working. “I was working since the morning. I had a nightshift, but not a complete one.”

“And you came here all on your own?” Baekhyun must know about her lack of vehicle, because he immediately rests one hand on her shoulder, making her turn around once she has stood up. “That’s dangerous. No one should be out at this hour of the night.”

That reminds her, she should text Jaebeom to see if he’s gotten home safely. “Someone gave me a drive home.”

“Someone?” Baekhyun questions, grabbing the blanket when she tosses it at him.

“Uh-huh.”

“…A guy?”

“Yes, and I’ve got a date with him on Saturday.” She wants to shut out all questions that he may have, pointing towards her couch with an open hand. “You can sleep there until I wake up in the morning. I can’t promise breakfast or a comfier place because you definitely won’t share a bed with me, but it’s warm, at least.” She pauses. “I’ll take a shower and I’m off to sleep—”

“Wait!” Baekhyun says, a sigh ripping from her throat when she turns around to look at him.

“Yes, Baekhyun?”

Standing there, he looks a bit heartbroken, like a puppy after being stepped on or an old man bathed in rain after a car passed by him. Truth be told, Baekhyun is one of the unluckiest lovers she has ever met…and she’s one of them, for all she knows.

“And do you trust him?” He questions, pressing the blanket to his chest. “Doctors are trouble. I mean, Dr. House? Trouble. Derek Shepherd? Trouble. The guy who created Frankenstein? Definitely trouble.”

It seems like someone is worried that she may end up falling for someone who breaks her heart. “Listen, if you mention Dr. House and Derek Shepherd in the same sentence and comparing them to my date, you’re only further enticing me because they’re hot characters.” She shrugs her shoulders, only relaxing when she sees Baekhyun worried expression. “…But yes, I do trust him. I’ve known him for like, two years. He’s caring and serious and sweet. That’s all I have ever wanted on a guy.”

Apart from lack of headaches. She needs the type of love that doesn’t fall into boredom but that doesn’t have unnecessary drama.

“Okay, just…be careful, okay?” Baekhyun asks, and she nods, watching as the man plops down on the couch. “And thank you for not kicking me out.”

Little does he know that she would have never done such thing. “You’re welcome, douche.” She says, turning off the lights after saying her goodbyes with a last: “Sleep tight.”

Though, the light of her phone accompanies her when she types down on her phone:

To: Lim Jaebeom.

Text me when you get home.

Thank you for everything.

If I don’t respond it’s because I have fallen asleep.

And she doesn’t get an answer, at least, not one that she recalls.

###

Nine thirty in the morning and Baekhyun is ready to take off.

Though, his lips remain pursed in concentration, rummaging through her refrigerator for the umpteenth time only to come up with nothing. Seems like she hasn’t done the groceries and hence, he has nothing to prepare for breakfast. Still pretty much knocked out on her bed, Baekhyun doesn’t have the heart to wake her up and take her out for breakfast. Until another time, it may be.

Leaving a note on the coffee table about his whereabouts, he puts on his shoes, extending his arms over his chest once he opens the door to her apartment and closes it behind him. One thought crosses his head at that moment—apart from the quite clear hollow spot in his stomach that begs for food—and it is that he, probably, still has someone in his apartment. A stranger that wants to marry him, and sure, people in his Patreon must feel that same way, or some of them might, but Minjung is a whole another level…

Just as he’s about to take off, the door next to her apartment opens, welcoming the sight of a barefaced Chohee, with her hair high up on her head and a surprised expression on her face.

“Oh, I thought you were—” Just as Chohee is about to say her name, she stops herself. “What are you doing at her place?”

Baekhyun goes over to where Chohee is, resting his hands on the depths of his pockets. “My date decided to plan our wedding ahead and I grew scared, so I left her there and crashed at her place because you were probably asleep.”

“I was,” Chohee rubs her brown eyes then, pointing towards her place. “But I got up early to practice my tarot readings before breakfast.” Baekhyun knows where this is going, and he’s not quite sure he is against it. After all, he doesn’t know what awaits him at his place once he arrives. “Do you want to be my subject? I promise hot cakes and a lot of insight in whatever you want.”

Baekhyun snorts out a laugh. “If you can give me some hindsight on my love life, I promise I’ll be the first one to subscribe to your YouTube channel.”

With one hand placed on her hip, jutted out, Chohee exudes all airs of confidence. “Oh, honey, I can read you like a book.”

Chohee goes all out with decorations. Dreamcatchers in pink, walls a cryptic white, decorations in shades of the most gorgeous pastel colors. There is a pattern and a scheme here, organized to have her tarot space in the living room, with a shelf behind her containing endless stacks of tarot cards packages. Baekhyun is midway through his bite of his honey-coated hot cake when he watches her hands working on shuffling the cards.

“Spirits, what can Baekhyun expect from his romantic life?” Baekhyun can’t help but gape at the choices of words. He will never get used to the word ‘spirits’ whenever Chohee reads him. It’s freaky how she—almost always—gets something right and talks to these invisible creatures. Ghosts? Who knows? “What is Baekhyun’s love story—?” Three cards plop out at that moment, two reversed, one on its original position. Chohee tilts her head to the side, as if deep in thought. “Okay. Spirits, give me two more cards. We need to know Baekhyun’s—” Two more cards come out.

Baekhyun stops munching on the hot cakes, chuckling at Chohee’s expression. “That bad?”

“Horrid.” She explains, fixing the cards into their position. “From what I can see, you’ve met your match already. One of the many soulmates life gives us…” Chohee’s voice trails, as if rearranging her thoughts. “But dude, you fucked it up big time. I get the sense of speech being the source of your match’s disappearance, though not completely, but those feelings train took off long ago. Maybe, you were too silent and unapproachable or too loud and open. I think the latter.” She plays with another card deck, placing it underneath the first line of cards. “There will be a period of separation, but I’m not sure if it will be prolonged. I get an immense sense of indifference? I don’t know, Baekhyun, like she doesn’t care that you’re not together.”

That’s weird. Baekhyun would have never thought of going back to one of his exes. Too much of a hassle. “Is it one of my exes?”

Chohee shakes her head. “No, I think it’s someone you took for granted.”

“I never do that.” Pride swells his chest when he leans back on his chair, legs parted in the process. “I know when to take chances.”

“Not this time. You either get on the ride or it’s taking off without you, Baek.” She rearranges her cards then, clearing her throat.

Curiousness overtakes him. He can’t be the only person in this world who won’t find love, or that has to go back to one of his choices that don’t seem all too factual at this time. He spits out her name, as if it was the second word he learned growing up, and that’s enough to have Chohee frowning.

“I mean, it could be…”

“Not that.” Baekhyun shakes his head. Sure, when they first met, he had initially thought she was one of the greatest looking women he had seen, and he had taken his shot at the time, only to go completely ignored…but that was long ago, and he doesn’t think something would ensue between the two either way. From her part, at least. “What do you see in her reading?”

“Ooh,” Chohee perks up at that, shuffling the cards once again. “Spirits, what do you see in the love story of the second unluckiest person I know in what love consists of?”

Five cards come out almost immediately, taking him by surprise. “Wait, wow—”

“She also lost a match in the past. In her case, it seems like it was ignorance that took part on it.” Her long nail splay on top of one card, he can’t quite recognize it, but Chohee seems interested. “But someone else has come along. Perhaps tired from the eccentricity of past lovers, she wants tranquility…but I see a portion of miscommunication in this partner, too.” She hums in the process, but Baekhyun is long lost in his thoughts. How in the flying fuck is it that the mysterious doctor is the love of her life? Or, at least, one of her soulmates? Sure, she doesn’t believe in tarot, but Baekhyun does…and it’s almost impossible that someone he didn’t even know about is going to be part of her life for longer than intended. “Maybe Jaebeom really is the right choice for now.”

“Jaebeom?”

“The cutest dermatologist I have ever seen. He’s sexy and chic and he has this stare, ugh.” Baekhyun bites his tongue, not wanting to say anything about the fact that there are going out on a date and that, in hindsight, if his stare is enough to have Chohee rolling her eyes back, it may not come as a surprise that she starts dating him, for real.

Why does that bother him?

“And why do you think it’s him?”

Rearranging her cards, Chohee shrugs. “She has a tiny crush on him. Too sly to ever be noticed, but she likes him. She doesn’t do anything to get his attention, though, a complete waste.”

Baekhyun takes one last bite of his hot cakes, rubbing his hands against his pants before standing up. Truth be told, maybe he should stop being a complete douchebag—as she calls him—and take matters on his own hands. Minjung may have been trying to point out to something wonderful and while pushing people away, perhaps speaking too much for his own liking, he has lost the opportunity of living through romance. Hell, the only person he thought he could be sharing his solitude with now has a date and a possible love affair right at the corner.

“Thanks for the food and the existential crisis,” Resting a kiss on top of her head, Baekhyun sighs. “Bye, Chohee.”

The next thing he needs to do is apologize to Minjung.

### 

A ding of her phone accompanies her in the silent Saturday night. The swoosh of the wind against the windows of her apartment makes them creak thanks to their oldness, a reminder to bring a thicker coat with herself to her date, but her phone takes away her attention. Perhaps, Jaebeom wants to change plans, or he’s asking if she is ready for their date.

Lo and behold, she’s wrong about both options. A notification from Patreon takes over her screen when she presses down on it, a written post by Blue Moon taking most of her attention. She hasn’t had enough time to check up on his posts, or replay the ones that she had enjoyed the most. Turns out, life continues to move on its axis and if she does get this date to go somewhere profitable and good, she may not need of Blue Moon anymore.

Her eyes read over the post, surprised to see an emoticon at the end. He always uses those, even when his voice borders the depths of comfort when he speaks. However, her heart picks up at the idea that he is plastering on the post. A collab is coming soon, including a famous rated ASMRtist, and she can’t help but let her eyebrows raise.

Luck exists in some people, inherent to their souls, and though she doesn’t know Blue Moon personally, has not raked her pupils up and down his physique in order to judge him as her type or not, she’s sure she’d like him. Enchanting, somewhat funny, mischievous. Boredom is not part of his vocabulary, and he sounds extremely sweet in the process.

And now, she’ll have to hear her faux, online boyfriend roleplay guy get it on with another girl.

She gets out of the application before she can think any further about it. At the most part, she can just skip it. Someone like Blue Moon obviously gets a lot of people to like him, just from his personality alone, so she has no say in this. She either supports or she doesn’t. Besides, she has more important things to take care of, like Dr. Lim, for example.

To: Jaebeom.

I’m ready.

You can pick me up whenever.

Bring a coat. I think it’s going to be cold tonight.

From: Jaebeom.

I’ll be there in fifteen.

To: Jaebeom.

K. Drive safe.

With the passage of time, and the texts they have shared—as well as meals exchanged between the other—, that contact name will be shortened, perhaps sweeter with time, and that’s the natural movement of things. Who knows? Maybe, she won’t need Blue Moon anymore. She doesn’t seem to do so right now, and it’s probably for the best.

### 

Pieces of heaven sprinkle on his gleaming pupils, holding cups of ice cream on both their hands as they walk up the set of stairs that lead to her apartment. Cladded from head to toe in black, Jaebeom sports an elongated coat on top of a skin-tight sweater and jeans to match. What brightens him up is his smile, the tinges of sunshine in his speech and the pensive look on his face as she speaks to him.

“It’s funny how whenever we see each other, there’s always food involved.” She tells him, spooning the last few bits of her ice cream before plopping them inside her mouth. Jaebeom’s eyes trail down there, licking his own as he takes the empty cup from her hand to stack it up with his own, finished even before they got to her place.

“You reach the heart from the stomach.” Jaebeom instructs, only to have her chuckling in the process.

“Anatomy by Lim Jaebeom, and wronged, at that.” Her reply has a wide smile taking over his features, his eyes turning into half-moons when he nudges her side, grabbing her forearm before she could lose her balance.

“You’re such a perfectionist.” But truth be told, Jaebeom may just be trying to reach her heart through her stomach, just like he says. Two more stairs and they are in her hallway, the man following after her as she speaks.

“No, but seriously, thank you for picking such a good restaurant. I didn’t know your friend could cook so well.”

“Nah, he just owns it. He can’t cook for the life of him, he just has good tastebuds.” Jaebeom replies, just as she’s rummaging through her purse to get her keys out. “We could go there again.”

“Whenever you want. I’m down.” Her voice comes out softer than intended when she gets her keys between her hands, turning around to point at her door. “You want coffee to wash down the ice cream?”

Jaebeom runs his hands through his hair, his slim arms sadly covered by his layers of clothing. “Coffee at this hour?”

“We’re doctors. I think we’ve all had coffee at this hour.”

“True.” Jaebeom replies, giving one step forward before interlocking his hands together in front of him. “But I think I have something in mind that could keep you awake, since you’re so sleepy and bored during this date.”

Oh no, that’s what her words meant. She can practically hear Chohee smacking her in the head for being so goddamned stupid. Of course, drinking coffee means that she wants a caffeine intake, hence she isn’t feeling as energized. God, she should have offered tea—

“That’s not what I meant.” Jaebeom takes one final step towards her, wrapping his arms and hands around her waist to bring her closer, his taut abdomen flushed against hers, chest to chest as he looks down at her features.

He chuckles, his chest shaking with her own. “I know that’s not what you meant…” His fingers hook a strand of her hair behind her ear, his thumb caressing her jaw, her cheek, before settling on her bottom lip. “I’m just looking for an excuse to kiss you.”

Two years. Two years since the last time she had kissed a man, and even then, her last date’s kissing skills were not the best. Her heart picks up at the idea of touch, craving it because it’s him. The man she likes, or whom she feels attracted to.

“Search no more.” She whispers, resting her hands on each side of his face before pushing herself forward.

Fireworks are not there. They don’t explode right at her face, but tranquility is what she has always looked for. Chilled, relaxed, that’s more of what the kiss is like. Jaebeom takes his precious time to let the finger that was caressing her bottom lip trail down to her neck, grazing the column of her neck before deepening the kiss. Pressed to her door, she grabs him by the front of his shirt, bawling the fabric in between her fingers before she feels a small tug of his teeth against her lips.

He doesn’t take risks. He keeps it simple, sexy, classic. There is not a lot of playfulness, neither does it feel like it has a deeper connection. It is what it is, and that’s about it.

But why does it disappoint her, to certain extent?

He doesn’t say anything. Does not pull away to whisper sweet nothings against her lips, to compliment her or say how much he waited for this. Instead, he keeps kissing, his thigh in between hers, his breath fanning against her skin softly when she runs her fingers through his hair. A raptured moan never makes it out his lips, it rests on the back of his throat and he pushes it down. Bummer.

He pulls away, chest heaving, heart thumping softly while hers is rushing a mile per minute, until he dives in again, her left hand coming behind her to twist the key with as much expertise as she can to get the two of them inside when suddenly, her phone rings.

It’s not a ping. Not a text, but a full-on ring.

Jaebeom pulls away the slightest, stopping his hands on her waist when he says: “Do you want to pick it up?” His voice is hoarse, and even then, it doesn’t reach the depths of her soul. The most she does is make her crave for him, but it doesn’t get past physical need.

“Not really.”

Jaebeom chuckles, scattering kisses along her neck, making her giggle to herself. “Why not?”

“I’m busy.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m not doing anything yet.” The connotations of her voice are clear.

“So, let’s change that.”

When Jaebeom continues kissing her, she expects the phone to stop ringing, but just as the call is over, the contact starts calling again and that is enough to have Jaebeom pulling away again, bloodshot lips swollen from their make-out session, though shortly lived.

“It must be an emergency.” He whispers, and she hums in the process, opening her bag to take her phone out and read the contact’s name.

If someone had seen the devil while being in heaven, this would have been their expression. The one she sports when she sees that, out of all people, Byun Baekhyun is calling her.

He’s the devil. Jaebeom is an angel.

And she’s about to kill him to see if he’ll stay in hell or not.

“What do you want, Baekhyun?” Her voice comes out sharp as she speaks on the phone, sparing one glance towards Jaebeom, but the man is on his phone instead. He doesn’t seem to mind that she’s talking to another man while on their date. He just can’t be this chilled out, right?

Baekhyun has never sounded so serious, but he does at that moment. “I’m in the ER but I won’t get checked if it’s not with you.”

Her heart picks up for whole different reasons, straightening her back as she imagines all the horrible possibilities that could encounter Baekhyun in the emergency room. Her workplace. “Wait, why? Why are you in the ER? Is everything okay?”

“Would I be calling if everything was okay?” Baekhyun whispers for one second, awfully close to a voice she has heard, but she can’t quite pinpoint it when she is already strutting down the hallway, followed by Jaebeom calling her name and trailing after her step. “I broke something.”

“You broke something? Be more specific, douchebag.” Though, she fears what he could have broken. Was he in an accident of sorts?

“My fingers, I think. I’m not sure. I don’t want anyone to see me if it’s not you.” He hisses in the process. “It really hurts and I know you are in your date, but I think I’m about to die.”

Well, there goes the date to welcome Baekhyun’s dramatics. She doesn’t know why she entertains him, or why she is worrying so much. “I’ll be there in a few. Just…stay still and don’t scream or cry or anything like that.”

“Okay—”

She cuts off the call before Baekhyun could continue, running down the set of stairs as Jaebeom repeats her name.

“What happened?”

“One of my closest friends is in the ER and he’s stubborn, so he wants me to check up on him.” She looks over her shoulder at that moment, though briefly, an apology in her voice. “Jaebeom, I know this is not what you expected out of your date, but could you drop me off at the ER?”

A sigh rips from his throat, dangling his car keys in between his hands before humming. “Sure, let’s go, workaholic.”

When down the set of stairs, she presses a short kiss to his lips. No spark, but favorable in feeling. “Thanks, Beom.”

A new contact name arises.

###

Never had she expected to be in this position, holding a folder with Baekhyun’s information as she drags the blue curtains of his small consultation room open. Jaebeom trails right behind her, pulling the curtains closed when Baekhyun lifts his gaze, half-laying on the bed as if his entire body was writhing in pain and it wasn’t only his fingers.

Truth be told, worry overtook her with his call and on the way here. Calling him ‘one of her closest friends’ to Jaebeom had been quite the surprise, too. Never had she thought of Baekhyun in that light—he has always been the one that would never grow up out of the group, but now it seems to be completely different. Maybe, he’s that one leech she won’t ever be able to take away, or she actually enjoys having him suck up blood every once in a while. Metaphorically speaking, he’s just fun to be around.

“Okay, tell me the story and show me your fingers.”

Baekhyun is still looking at Jaebeom, scrutinizing each portion of him with squinted eyes. “Shouldn’t the consultation be private or do my fingers need a dermatologist?” Truth be told, she doesn’t think they do. When Baekhyun extends his left hand, she touches his index and middle finger, barely grazes them in their elongated yet reddened glory, and he hisses in the process.

Jaebeom places one hand on her back. “I think I’ll see myself off.”

She looks over her shoulder, shaking her head. “No, we can continue the date after if you want to.”

“I’m tired and I’m not sure if I want to be working at this hour.” Jaebeom finalizes, ready to finish the date, before he rests a kiss on the crown of her head, bowing his head towards Baekhyun. “Hope you get better, man.”

“Yeah, I sure hope I do.” Baekhyun is never this sharp with his words, but as it seems, he’s not in a good mood. When she tries to flex his fingers, they do. They’re not broken, that’s for sure, every portion of his phalanges feel as though they are in place.

“What happened to you, Baekhyun?” A rosy tone takes over his features when she asks that question, sitting up when a small whine leaves his lips as she continues to bend his fingers, testing their movements.

“You don’t want to know.”

“I’m a doctor now, of course, I need to know.” She tells him, pulling away and opening the folder to check through his information. “And for the embarrassment you pulled me through by both telling everyone in this ER that you wouldn’t consult yourself if it wasn’t with me and ruining my date, I need to know.”

As she’s checking the X Rays, she sees Baekhyun’s fingers, perfectly put in place, definitely not broken. It may be a strain or a tendinitis, it depends on what he was doing. “It’s embarrassing…”

“Could’ve been your dick that was hurting. That would have been embarrassing.” She tells him, trying to ease into his mind before sighing deeply, putting the X Rays down and looking into his eyes. Baekhyun looks like he had gotten ready in a hassle, gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt covering his body. Slippers, too. “Baekhyun, I won’t judge you. I really won’t. I’ve seen worse things. I can promise you this is nothing.”

Baekhyun looks over to the side, fixing his glasses on the bridge of his nose before clearing his throat. “I was with the date I talked to you about…Minjung…” He trails his voice, and she already knows where this is going. This is definitely a sex emergency. “And I don’t know, well, I do know. I was using my fingers…” Baekhyun covers his face, and she tries to stifle her laughter. Oh, she definitely knows where this is going. “Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing.” Though, a small chuckle follows after her statement, enough to sneak a smile away from Baekhyun.

“You sound like you’re laughing.”

“That’s just my voice.”

“You never laugh, what are you talking about?”

“Just tell me what happened.”

Baekhyun winces when he pushes his hands onto his face a little too harshly, left to look up at the ceiling as splotches of red and pink come up from his neck towards his face. Beet red. “It was supposed to be just me fingering her but…uh, she was a little too harsh and she wanted to ride my fingers, and I guess she jumped too hard and broke them.” He closes his eyes tightly, pursing his lips just at the same time that cackles leave her own. “Tell me they’re not broken. I don’t want to have broken fingers, please, it hurts a lot.”

“They’re not broken, douchebag.” There it is. The perfect title, but this time around, the douchebag was the one being played. She takes a pen from the table next to the stretcher. Clicking on it, she starts to write down the diagnosis. “I think you strained a ligament, that’s all. None of your bones are out of place and I don’t feel any substantial difference on your muscles. You can still bend your fingers and they are not particularly swollen. I’ll give you some medicine for that and I need you to ice it for as much as you can. Exercise them, too.” Though, she stops herself at that moment. “Just no fingering, okay? Keep those fingers for yourself.”

“Stop laughing.” He differentiates every word with a punctuation, and she smiles up at him.

“Why are you still seeing her, though?” She slides the prescription towards him, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear when she looks at him. “You said she was too pushy and you didn’t like it. I’m sure you can get other women to finger.”

“I said stop it!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop.” She rests his folder on his thigh, getting closer to him to speak in a softer manner. This is her patient and she can’t out what he had told her as so. “Baekhyun, really, stop seeing her—”

“I’m not telling you to stop seeing Dr. Fancy Eyes over there.” Baekhyun juts his chin towards the curtain. “Maybe, I just gave Minjung another chance because everyone has someone and I want to have someone, too.”

Handsome comes short for what she thought Baekhyun was when they met each other. She was twenty at the time, in Chohee’s birthday party, trying t stifle her laughter when he made a fool of himself in front of her. He was drunk, clearly, dancing and swinging his hips in the air as he spoke to her in the most typical of manners. They were younger then, and while she had grown—become more somber and serious with the day, Baekhyun still kept that lively personality of his, matched with some sprinkles of weightiness here and there. She can always count on him for a good stifled laugh.

“Okay, valid. You can keep seeing her if you want to.” She tells him, pointing at his hand with her pen. “But just take care of that, okay?”

She’s about to send him off when Baekhyun reaches for her forearm with his non-injured hand. When she turns around, Baekhyun’s face is serious, void of any of his usual jokester manners.

“Are you sure you’re into him?”

That question is unexpected coming from Baekhyun. At this age, she knows what she wants, but she isn’t sure if Jaebeom ticks off all the squares in her bucket list. “He’s nice. The spark is there.” She lies through her teeth. “He’s a doctor, so he’ll understand me better than anyone else…I think he’s great. And hot.”

Baekhyun nods in the process before sighing. “Haven’t you heard that you shouldn’t date doctors?”

“I have.” She says. “Mostly from you, for some reason, but I’d still do it.”

“Just look at Lee Jinki’s character in Descendants of the Sun—”

“Baekhyun, you give some examples that just make me want to date a doctor more.”

The man gets off the stretcher, standing in front of her before whispering: “He just looks like more of a douchebag than I am. I’m just protecting you.”

That voice. It sounds oddly like Blue Moon when he lowers his voice the slightest, and for some reason, she cringes at the thought. Yeah right, as if she could daydream and go to sleep to the sound of Baekhyun’s voice—

“He’s a nice guy.”

“He looks like he asks for blowjobs on the first date.”

“That’s up to me to decide.” Swinging her hips from side to side, she opens the curtains, only to hear Baekhyun scoffing from his spot.

“Please, not with him. He’s not the kind of person I imagine you with—”

“If you could get your crazy fingers inside someone and interrupt my date to save you, I can do as I please.” Playing around with Baekhyun is funnier than expected, much more when his face falls at those words, turning around to look at him. “Now, give me the keys of your car to drive us to a pharmacy to buy everything we need and then, we’ll stay at my place just so I can check up on you.”

Baekhyun tosses his keys towards her, trusting her with his car completely, and she can’t help but smile. The only man she thought she’d have over tonight was Jaebeom, but turns out that the one who stayed home was Baekhyun.

How ironic life is.

###  

Three weeks have passed since the last time she saw Baekhyun and she can say one thing…

Life is a little bit more boring without the man.

It’s funny how the complexity of their friendship is misunderstood, even by herself. When he’s there, she likes to annoy him—and he sure does back—, but when he’s gone, she misses him. Sure, she will never say it out loud, but she finds herself smiling at the thought of jokes that Baekhyun had let out in the air between them. Hence why she rushes towards Chohee’s apartment when seeing his car parked in front of her apartment complex.

She really needs to get a car for herself, she thinks on the way there. Stop procrastinating and become a full-on adult instead of taking the bus every time, but the thought washes away from her brain by the time she knocks on the door and it’s opened by Baekhyun himself.

As always, he’s wearing glasses, vision ruined as it can get, with his black hair messily falling over his forehead. This time around, he’s sporting a rose gold sweater to frame his nicely shaped hips, masculine and defined, just like his thighs. And just when she catches herself looking at his legs, she pushes her gaze to go up. A smirk is already plastered on his face.

“Look who’s here.” He says, opening the door wider for her to enter, but she shrugs her shoulders while passing by him.

“Look who is here,” She repeats, sparing him a glance over her shoulder when he closes the door. “Chohee better get some insecticide for all the cockroaches hanging around in her apartment. All the freaking time.”

Baekhyun crosses his arms over his chest, and since when has Baekhyun sported such a nice body? “You said cockroaches. I’m one cockroach, meaning that we’re a little family over here. And you’re in her apartment, too. So, shame is on you, you called yourself an insect.”

“Don’t get smart on me, douchebag—”

Chohee merges from the kitchen, holding a tray filled with cups of tea. “Don’t tell me you’re starting with your arguments this early on.” Right behind her, her bleached blonde boyfriend emerges. Haesol is a biology teacher, much different from what one would imagine from him, with thick glasses and oversized clothes, in love with someone who believes in everything spiritual but nothing physical. Couples have to be totally different in order to be together, at times. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were here, let me brew you another cup of tea.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” She waves her hand towards Haesol. “Haesol, you’re alive!”

“Questionable. Depends on what reality you’re living.”

“Or if we’re living at all.” Continuing with his train of thought, she splays herself next to Baekhyun, who has taken a seat in front of the coffee table with the tray of tea in between his hands. “Sorry I invited myself inside. I was missing you guys.”

Haesol properly sits on the couch, while Chohee excuses herself to go look for some cookies. “It’s okay. You help me accompany Chohee when I’m not here, after all.” In somewhat of a long-distance relationship, she doesn’t know how Haesol and Chohee do it. He lives two hours away, but given to his job, he can’t always drive back here.

“I’m the one that checks up on her.” Baekhyun instructs, taking a sip of his tea after giving Haesol his own cup. “She is never here. She says the incense makes her have allergies.”

“It’s too strong!” I reply, nudging his side before I see him holding his cup with his injured hands. “How are your fingers doing?”

“Great.” Baekhyun replies, a glimmer of blush appearing on his cheeks. “They’ve healed and I haven’t strained them any further.”

“Good.”

“Wait, you know what happened to Baekhyun’s fingers?!” Chohee peeks her head from the kitchen, her bangs falling across her eyes until she moves them away. “He hasn’t told anyone.”

The beam that appears on her features is almost unable to be stopped. Truth be told, she’s not entirely sure if she supports the baggage that comes with Minjung as Baekhyun dates her, but that moment of his life will always be funny to her.

“I do.”

“Don’t you dare tell her.” Baekhyun nudges her side, the scent of him taking over her, musky and mellow. Not too strong for her sensitive nose.

“Why can’t we know?” Haesol asks from his spot, as tranquil as ever, just as Chohee takes the seat beside him. A pillow for her, the kind of tranquil love she has ever wanted, with how he places his arm behind her neck for her to lay on.

She spares one look at Baekhyun. Bright. Shining. Explosive. He’s all the emotions at once, some that she can’t even comprehend and she doesn’t mean to find them out.

“I was his doctor, so I can’t really tell you.” She grabs his hand then, bringing his injured fingers up to her lips and planting a soft kiss on them. “I’d die before compromising these two fingers. You won’t ever get the secret out of me.”

The smile that appears on his face is compliant, wrapping his fingers around hers and giving a small tug before pulling away. “You heard her.”

Chohee sighs deeply, munching on her cookie before shaking her head. “Guys, keep fighting. I don’t think I can stand you two being real, normal friends.”

But maybe, the warmth that spreads on her stomach says otherwise. Being Baekhyun’s friend is not half bad when he looks at her from the corner of his eyes that way, as if his trust on her is never-ending.

###

The pressure of a new relationship’s happy ending is the worst nightmare to ever exist, much more when it feels nonexistent. The covers of Jaebeom’s mattress curl on each side of her face when she is laid down on it, her jacket long thrown on the floor, but what’s important here is the lack of movement. Even when Jaebeom does his best to enthrall her in a kiss, to wrap her up in his engulfing warmth when hovering over her, with his taste becoming one with her own, lemon chap-stick a memory that has long engraved in her brain…they’re stuck in the same position. In the same ‘we are but we aren’t’ dilemma that she is tired of living.

This would have been precious for her when she was younger. With his fingertips scalding the skin of her waist as he tries to pull her shirt away from her body. Boring, it longs to be, with the way attraction keeps them as just that. Just two people who find the other appealing for their bodies, but nothing else…and she doesn’t want that. The only thing she aches for in a partner is having a friend who listens to her but can also make her feel endlessly loved. And vice versa, of course.

Just as a sweet whisper of her name rests on her ear, giving her promises of what may come tonight, her mind goes back to the person she would wish to have hovering above her right now. Making her laugh, perhaps annoying her to bits, but still keeping that handsome face of his intact. Fogged-up glasses, certain fingertips and a lightweight persona. Though Jaebeom does an incredible job at bringing the moon down to this bed with his seriousness and overall concentration, it doesn’t feel like love.

It doesn’t get her going.

Maybe, she just needs a bit more time, needs to feel more of him or let herself be kissed by him, but then again, Byun Baekhyun comes and fucks it all when appearing inside her head. In just at this moment, and she doesn’t understand why. She captures Jaebeom by the cheeks, lowering him down to her mouth to enrapture him in a kiss, but it doesn’t matter how many times she shakes her head or tries to melt her tongue with his, Baekhyun still glimmers as a memory of the unknown inside her head.

What is he doing here?

Her mind must have taken up his name, caressed it in between thoughts and daydreams, because by the time Jaebeom’s hand is on her thigh, lifting it up to hook it around his waist, she breathes out anything but his name.

“Baekhyun—”

Wait.

What?

Her eyes widen, much more at the time that Jaebeom leans back on his thighs. A scoff leaves his lips when he lifts his eyebrows, an awkward smile taking over his features. “Baekhyun?”

“Jaebeom, I’m so sorry—” She tries to spit out, reaching for his shoulder just at the same time that Jaebeom stands up.

“That’s your friend, right?” He asks, earning a nod from head. She doesn’t know why she’s thinking of Baekhyun in such a light lately—the last time that she had thoughts like these about him was when they first met. It’s horrid to see one of her closest friends in such a manner when she’s about to get it on with whom she thought could be the other half of her next relationship. He runs his fingers through his hair, sighing. “Any valid reason why you just called me his name?”

Pushing her shirt up her body once again, she shrugs. “I didn’t mean it. It just happened—”

“You’re thinking about him.” Jaebeom reads her thoughts far too easily. Perhaps, she had let him see the biggest glimpse of it. “And if he’s the one that you want, I can’t do this.” He lifts his eyes to the dark ceiling, the navy walls blending with his dark attire.

What? One thing is coincidentally thinking about Baekhyun. Another thing is wanting him.

“I don’t want Baekhyun. He’s like a friend to me. Just friends.”

“Yeah, so why does he stay at your place whenever he has an issue?” Shit. Maybe, that does sound a bit wrong. As it turns out, Jaebeom doesn’t out his anger, remaining stoic as he speaks. “And why is he the one person you always talk about when you think of something funny? Why is it that you just said his name as we were on my bed—?”

Speechless, she licks her lips, standing up from the bed and taking her jacket in between her hand. “Because maybe, I’m just confused.” She replies, clearing her throat when she stands in front of him. Beauty grazes him, but he doesn’t feel like the man that will cause her butterflies for the rest of her life. “It doesn’t…it doesn’t feel like love with you, Jaebeom and I think that’s not really what you want, so it’s better if we leave it like this. I can’t…I thought I wanted tranquility, but I don’t want deafening silence, either.”

Jaebeom crosses his arms across his chest, looking over to the side, jaw pronounced in a sharp line. “Maybe, you’re comparing me to someone else.” He says. “Not to misunderstand me, I get you…it’s up to you to choose what you want in a man and if it’s me who you want, but…it’s difficult not to believe there is something else with Baekhyun.”

Shaking her head, she huffs. “We’re just friends. I tell you, I don’t know why he was inside my head—”

“You were thinking of another man as I kissed you, that has to be enough of an answer for you.”

It can’t be. Denial creeps up on her when she laughs, taking her purse in between her fingers and tossing it over her shoulder. “Think what you will. I think it’s better if I leave.”

Jaebeom nods, pushing his lips together just as she presses a kiss to his cheek. The touch is barely there, soft in comparison to the kisses they shared. “It was great having you, even for a moment.” He tells her, and she hums.

“Shortest moment of my life.” She replies. “But a good one, indeed.”

By the time she is out the apartment complex, her skin is bitten by the harsh wind, left in a part of the city much too far away from her home. She starts walking on wobbling legs, cursing the moment she decided to wear stylized heels to make her thighs look better, only to end up ruining it by calling Baekhyun’s name. Sure, it was clear that things with Jaebeom weren’t going anywhere, lukewarm, pointless and based in attraction only, but what was Baekhyun doing inside her head while she was getting it on.

Or almost, consequently.

The first person she decides to call is Chohee, but she’s staying at Haesol’s place for the weekend. She keeps walking, rummaging through her contact list, getting hold of some of her friends and getting denied equally. Sure, it’s Sunday, but most people should be home by now—

The letter ‘B’ surprises her then, and perhaps it’s the obsession of not wanting to continue walking and create blisters on her feet, but she calls him. Dials Baekhyun’s phone without a single ounce of guilt within her body, because it’s Baekhyun, he probably won’t answer—

“Douchebag on line, what can I help you with?”

“Mhm, things with Jaebeom are over…” She tries to avoid telling unnecessary details, tugging her pink coat closer to her chest. “And I’m in the middle of the street, away from home, cold and hungry. So, if you’re available…could you come pick me up? I can call a taxi if you’d like.”

“That asshole.” He breathes out, not knowing the complete story and how, in retrospect, she is the asshole in this story. “Don’t you dare call a taxi. Is there any store around?”

Her eyes scan the street before landing on a convenience store. Opened twenty-four hours. “Yes, a convenience store.”

“Good, stay there and tell me the address. I’ll be there in no time.”

###

He can’t physically understand it. Not a single braincell inside Baekhyun’s brain can’t begin to comprehend why someone would simply end a date with her when she looks good enough to break hearts.

Wrapped up tightly in a blanket, she brings the mug of hot chocolate he had prepared for her up to her lips, staring towards the screen as a new episode of The Rookie takes her attention away from him. Truth be told, Baekhyun was in the middle of a recording when she had called—thus, she wouldn’t know Sundays at night are the times he uses to record—, but he couldn’t bear to imagine how Dr. Lim, Dr. Fancy Eyes, Lim Jaebeom, could even think of finishing a date with the one woman that did not even blink at the sight of him.

Well, there are a handful that can’t stand him…but still, Baekhyun doesn’t know what Jaebeom was thinking.

“What happened—?”

Shame takes over her features when she munches on one of the small marshmallows that accidentally slip through her lips. A glare later and the few seconds of silence that follow after, he knows the answer she has repeated endless times since she has gotten here. “I won’t tell.”

With that, Baekhyun plops himself down harsher on the couch, crossing his arms over his chest just after fixing the glasses on the bridge of his nose. Sure, she may look like a daydream on his brown couch and blend perfectly well with the warmth of his home, but that doesn’t give her the benefit to do what she pleases in his house. “It’s just kind of stupid that I picked you up, drove you all the way here, made you hot chocolate, let you thirst over Tim on the screen and you don’t even dare tell me what happened between you and Dr. Douchebag.”

She quirks an eyebrow at that, sighing in the process. “I am Dr. Douchebag. Not him.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I get to be an ass sometimes, Baek.”

“Yes, but only to me.” He looks at her from the corner of his eyes, spreading both his hands behind his neck as he sighs through his nose. “You don’t have to tell me, you know.” His voice lowers, the same tone he uses when he is in the solitude of his home and records himself, trying to make others happy. Pathetic, ain’t it? “…But it’d be nice to know. The least I want is for you to suffer like I have,” He stops himself for a moment, giving her half a smile, no teeth. “And it sucks, to trust someone and have it once again not be the person you want or deserve, but you’re so beautiful inside and out that I truly think it’s his loss.”

Sure, he could tell anyone that she’s gorgeous. Plenty of times had he talked to Chanyeol about how adorable her smile was and how she could have him at her mercy with one twinkle of her eyes, but that’s not something he had told her since that night when they were twenty and he was a little bit tipsy.

She swears he was drunk, but he wasn’t. Vivid enough for him to tell the truth.

“It’s not his loss.” Her voice whispers, husky from lack of use. “Jaebeom is just…too tranquil. It’s good, but it’s not what I want. We can’t let relationships flow all the time. Sometimes, we have to take reigns. I need to stop wanting tranquil, voiceless, silent…because a love that is silent is a love that is not truly felt.” She scoffs at that moment, taking another sip of her drink. “I wish I was like you.”

His palm rests on her forehead, as if testing her fever. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what did you do with my friend?”

Finally, he steals a smile out of her, dizzy in the way she looks at him from below her eyelashes. “You have always been so honest about the people you like or love. Who you want to have sex with, who you want to date, who you’d marry…you always say it all and you let them know. You’ve gotten your heart broken, but you always cut ties first.” That way, he knows exactly just how wrong she is. Baekhyun has told everyone what he thinks, but not to her. He has never told her just how in love he is with the memories they have shared. In which he has made a fool of himself but still managed to get a smile out of the most serious woman he knows. “The first time I cut ties with someone is because I feel nothing for him.”

“You felt nothing for Jaebeom?”

“Obvious attraction, but who doesn’t?” She shrugs. “Look me in the eye and tell me the man doesn’t have the most gorgeous eyes you have seen.”

Those would be hers, but Baekhyun shakes his head. “Sorry. Got lost from the moment you told me you felt nothing for Jaebeom because those are the best news I’ve heard the past century.”

A chuckle leaves her lips. “Why?”

“He’s flavorless.”

“Totally not.”

“Totally yes.” Baekhyun corrects, playing around with the remote, given that they are not catching up on the episode anyways. “I always imagined you with someone better.”

“Yeah? I always imagined you with a hot ass girl with anime tits.”

“A-Men.” Baekhyun parts the word in two syllables, lifting his hands in the air as if to pray for it just to steal laughter away from her. “You take me as a boobs man only, right?”

“Scarlett Johansson told me so.”

“I look at other things apart from boobs.” Baekhyun says, shrugging in the process. “Even if they are not there, I can like someone.”

“Like what?” She asks, turning on her side and taking another sip of her drink. Cream gathers on her upper lip, and he takes the edge of the blanket to pass it over it to clean it up.

“Intelligence. Rationality. Profoundness. I want a woman who looks like she could never rule the world but has everyone under the sole of her feet. Including me, of course.” Baekhyun’s face is far closer to hers than intended, licking his lips when he looks into her eyes. “I want a woman who laughs at what I say but also knows that I’m more than just a joke on legs.”

Her eyes trail all over his features, before saying: “Those who don’t notice it, don’t know you.” She claims. “You’re far sweeter than you let yourself be known for.”

“Because I talk about tits and I make the magic leave?”

“Kind of.” She replies, a chuckle in her tone. “…And because you don’t realize just how great you are, so you go for whatever woman you think matches you. And you’re wrong. You only deserve the best.”

Heated up to the core of his heart, Baekhyun sighs. “Are you sure you’re not running a fever?”

“I might check. I’m giving compliments to the biggest douchebag I know.” She takes the last sip of her drink before smiling. “Or maybe, I just took your spot and I’m the biggest bitch now.”

Baekhyun pats her head, shaking his own in the process. “Say it. The baddest bitch.”

“I prefer to be the cutest bitch.”

“The most intelligent bitch I know.” Baekhyun replies, pushing himself away when a second too long of silence settles between the two. His hands end up on his waist, extending and flexing his back in order to ease his muscles. “Finish watching the episode while I go prepare the guest’s room for you tonight.”

And with that, he tries to control the beating of his heart. He knows better than to go back to some stupid, childish crush.

### 

Turns out that romance is complicated. It either speaks in screamed words or unintelligible whispers, but it’s never going to be any easier. She thought, for once, that going with the flow would bring her happiness and now, she can’t even face Jaebeom without feeling guilt creeping up on her, as well as embarrassment. They are colleagues, after all, and maybe, making out with him for hours to no end leaves little room for her not to think about it happening…but the worst part of it all is when romance starts to go crazy, randomizes a person and then, it settles them inside her heart.

Never would she have thought that she’d think of Baekhyun in such a light that she’d find herself smiling at the thought of him, texting him with more frequency and spending more and more time with him. Never would she have thought that there would come a day that she goes to sleep so fulfilled with the life she has, even when they are nothing, that she would not need Blue Moon—who, coincidentally, sounds a lot like Baekhyun, and maybe, that’s why she was so into him—. She doesn’t need someone to lull her to sleep, because she’s tired of the complete days she’s having. With friends, with work and most importantly, with peace for the decisions she has taken in life.

So, it comes easily to her to hover over that button, staring at nights spent with someone whom she doesn’t really know…and she doesn’t want to listen to anymore. After all, the romantic thoughts inside her head are taken by Byun Baekhyun, and she still has to fix that, because that definitely won’t go anywhere…so, it’s better to start by something easier.

Are you sure you want to cancel your subscription to Blue Moon’s channel?

Accept.

###

Within a month, she already feels like she’s losing her mind.

Why the fuck did she start crushing on Baekhyun?

The tones of the city remain as gray as ever, polished by concrete and the movement of people in monochromatic clothes, but in between what she knows—what she has grown accustomed to, there is some light. Seated by the glassed windows of the small café Chohee likes to frequent once Haesol is around town is this one man that beams with happiness, eyes twinkling behind his glasses. His back hunches in relaxation, toying with the straw on his cup of coffee. She knows it probably has too much caffeine and sugar for his slim, toned body, but there is nothing that ever stops Baekhyun from getting the same order. In between brown woodened tables with red tablecloths, he shines the most, sporting his favorite yellow hoodie, one to match his best friend’s bleached blonde hair.

Haesol finally manages to find his phone, patting his hand against the pocket of his red cardigan until Chohee cuts through the air, interrupting whatever he was meaning to say.

“Not so bad looking when you stop calling him a douchebag, isn’t he?”

Those words take her off guard, putting her hands up her chest as if to protect her heart. Chohee is gleaming, holding onto her boyfriend’s arm as they stand on the other side of the street, covering the sidewalk with their bodies. She shakes her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do.” Chohee confirms. “…You’ve accidentally reignited the old flame Baekhyun and you had the first night you met at my birthday party and now you realize that all that banter throughout the years was undying sexual tension?”

“Banter does not equal sexual tension,” She reports, lifting her index finger in the air. “That’s a wronged conceptualization of romance aiming to make people believe that love can only be fueled if there are arguments.”

“…You two don’t really argue.” Chohee shrugs her shoulders, pushing her long hair behind them. “You just play argue. You like calling him a ‘douchebag’ because it gives you a reaction and a reason not to fall for him. You’ve done it for years because you’re attracted to Baekhyun and it’s easier to believe that opposites don’t attract.”

Haesol tugs at his girlfriend’s arm, pulling her with him to cross the street. She follows right after the couple. “Honey, I don’t think you should be psychoanalyzing the situation. They’re both adults and she should know how to act up on her crush.”

Huh, for someone who is so quiet he can barely be heard, Haesol has some bite to his tongue.

“I am not crushing on Baekhyun.”

Chohee looks over her shoulder once they are at the entrance of the café. “Right,” She drags her voice, sarcasm dripping from every tone. “Because you’re in love with him.”

“Chohee, let it go.” Haesol reasons, opening the door to the café just as she scoffs.

“I am not in love with him. He’s a douchebag. He’d leave me with whoever has a bigger cup size than me, wouldn’t he?”

She knows he’s wrong. Baekhyun is not as stupid as she has tried to paint him out to be.

Which is why she tugs at the collar of her coral blouse upon seeing him waving his hand at her, dragging himself on his seat to make space for her. The way his hair, disheveled as always, curls against his forehead has her wanting to run her fingers through it, calm him down after a stressful day in a job she knows he doesn’t want, but before she could give him a smile—awkward, albeit—, Chanyeol captures his attention by showing him his phone and his grin practically erases off his face.

Weird.

By the time she gets closer to the duo, she gets a glimpse of their conversation. “Chanyeol, I won’t go out on a date ever again—”

“I’m not telling you to go out on a date with Minjung, but we need to find someone with a good fanbase to make some roleplay recordings with.”

The world stops for a few seconds. Actually, it feels like years have passed by right in front of her eyes when she realizes just what Chanyeol has freed into the world. It can’t be possible that the recurrent thought of how alike Blue Moon and Baekhyun sounded could be true. After all, Baekhyun wouldn’t be able to record himself and do boyfriend roleplays just because he feels like it. It shouldn’t—

Everyone has seated on the table, but she stays upright, finally returning to her senses when she awkwardly laughs. “Roleplay recordings?”

Baekhyun hums in the process, giving a small nod as his ears tinge in red. “Well, I need a bit more money and I started a Patreon account, where I do boyfriend roleplays. People want me to expand to rated stuff, but I don’t know, I’m iffy about it.” That’s the moment she lets her guard fall entirely. He doesn’t know it, but embarrassment takes all over her body. All this time, her mind had connected with the same man in different occasions, enough to have her shaking her head when she gives one step back. “Hey, it’s not that big of a deal. Do you find it weird?”

“You were Blue Moon?” Her voice comes out in a whisper, suddenly unaware of the people around her, when Baekhyun’s eyes widen by being caught, opening his mouth and closing it subsequently, babbling to find his voice.

“I—I was…” He says. “We—Were you a subscriber?”

“Oh my God,” She gasps to herself, placing her hands on top of her face to cover her eyes. “Oh God, I just did not subscribe to your Patreon without absolutely having no idea for months.”

Baekhyun chuckles awkwardly, lifting his hand to rub the nape of his neck. “I think you did.”

“I have to get out of here.” Aware of her embarrassment, she moves towards the door, hearing Baekhyun’s footsteps trailing after her.

“Wait, no. It’s okay! I just—It’s flattering!”

“For you, definitely not for me.” She replies, turning around just as she opens the door to the café, sparing him a glance before groaning deeply. “Shit, how couldn’t I notice that the similarities were there?”

“I guess you didn’t really think I would go for a job like that.” Baekhyun gives a gummy smile, biting his bottom lip soon after. “Can we just talk about this—?”

“Sorry, Baek.” Shaking her head, she clears her throat soon after. “I don’t think I’m ready to talk about this right now.”

With that, she closes the door behind her, perhaps choosing to ignore all opportunity she has had with Baekhyun, but what is she supposed to do? Admit the crush that she grew both on a faceless man speaking sweet nothings into her ear and her friend? It’s too much turmoil for just one afternoon.

###

Another card ends up under her boot when she steps inside her apartment. The thirteenth one since the last time she saw Baekhyun, coming daily for thirteen days straight. She’ll give it to him, the man is smart enough to keep her on the edge with these cards, but each and every single time, she folds them over and places them in her coffee table’s cabinet, there for her to read once she doesn’t feel like the world is falling on top of her.

It’s horrid. Awkward. Awful in a lot of ways. She can’t look at him in the eye and suddenly tell him that his voice was the one that calmed her down in so many nights but that past that, his personality was the one that captured her whole, made her dream of him and think him into her life as a memory she never wants to get rid of. For fuck’s sake, she lost the opportunity of having something with Lim Jaebeom just because she was absolutely head over heels for Baekhyun.

Her friend.

The douchebag.

When, all along, she has been the douchebag in everyone’s life.

Just when she closes her door behind her, she hears a thud and a whine following soon after. That timbre of voice makes her turn around, sparing a glance towards the door before peeping through the peephole. Much to her lack of delight—though, some relief washes over her—Baekhyun is standing by the door, wearing that terrible turquoise chemise that he uses for work and somehow, not angered that she has probably bruised his face when he holds the bridge of his nose between his index and thumb.

“Ouch!” He hisses, pulling his fingers away and sighing in relief when there is no blood. “You know, I know the ER is the best place to find you, but I’m not sure I want to break or strain any other part of my body.”

A smile appears on her face, though she tries to push it down, resting her forehead against the door as if that manages to make her get closer to him. “Baekhyun, what are you doing here?”

“Getting injured, apparently.” Baekhyun huffs out in annoyance, letting go of his nose to splay his hand on top of the door. She swears she hears his palm softly hitting the surface. “…I kept pushing notes under your door for the past thirteen days and I thought you were ignoring them, but you didn’t even read them on the first place.”

She’s not the best of people, what can she say? But it’s stupid to believe Baekhyun would ever feel anything back for her. They are total opposites, and he has already spoken about what he wants in life to her. He wants someone serious, intelligent, put-together. She’s a mess of misconceptions and unspoken words.

“I don’t want to get attached, Baekhyun.” She says, turning around to look towards the rest of her apartment, with her back leaning against the door. “I subscribed to Blue Moon because I wanted to feel less lonely. Well, I subscribed to you…and I spent months wishing I had someone like him, and then, I questioned why I wanted someone like you. Why, when being with Jaebeom, I could only think of you and only pushed him away by comparing him to how much flavor and spice and humor you brought into my life…” Her voice becomes distant, heat flaring around her face when she clears her throat. “And I painted a sky for me when I didn’t even know if you wanted to be a star in it. I suddenly realized just how stupid I was for thinking I had a chance, with Blue Moon or with you.”

Baekhyun stays silent for a few seconds, trying to twist the doorknob to no avail. “You really haven’t read the notes, have you?”

She sighs. “You don’t know how embarrassing it is to be in my position. I like you, Baekhyun. Fuck, if I want to be with someone, it’s with you and it’s pathetic—”

“Check the goddamned notes.” He says, calling out her name soon after. “If there’s someone who knows perfectly well how pathetic you feel, it’s me and truthfully, there’s no reason to.”

“You’re just saying it because you’re my friend.”

“No, I’m saying it as me. As Baekhyun. As the guy who sent you those notes.”

Her hands grab the pieces of paper in between her fingers, scrunching up her nose as she unfolds them. “What even are they, Baekhyun?”

“They are the thirteen times I didn’t tell you how much I liked you. From the moment I met you to now,” The more she reads through the letters, she sees glimpses of his mind through the years. From age twenty to now, Baekhyun had a whirlwind of emotions, never quite knowing what was a joke and what was meant to be much more. “And you always said I was a douchebag, not because of what I said about Scarlett Johansson, but because of what I said the night we met because you thought I was drunk but fuck no, I had never felt more sober in my life.” Baekhyun breathes out, just at the same time that she skims through the letters, getting in the information. In the past years, Baekhyun has liked her several times, getting over it only to move on to something else, but he always comes back to the same spot. “I meant every word and I mean it now. Don’t be embarrassed for liking me when I’m the stupid guy who has liked you for so long—”

She opens the door then, not caring if she’s a mess or the notes splay on the floor when her fingers caress the skin of his waist to bring him closer. Baekhyun feels like home, not too tranquil but rapid instead, a lake trying to move her off her boat as he grabs her by the back of the neck with one hand, digging his fingers on her hips to keep her closer. She molds into him as if made for each other, and maybe, they were, but she had always been too stupid to notice that there was more to Baekhyun than what he said.

In his silence, his whispers, his nothingness…that’s where he shined the most. When the jokes died down and all there was left of him was his sweet personality, though imperceptible at times, that was when she loved him the most.

When she pulls away, he leans in for a few more kisses, stealing a chuckle away from her when he continues to do so. “Did you just kiss me?”

“I guess I did.” She smiles, wrapping her arms around his neck to hug him tightly. “Shit, Baekhyun, you weren’t supposed to wait this long to tell me you liked me. We could have had our happy ending so long ago—”

With a movement of his legs, he swings the two of them side to side. “Well, it’s difficult to tell someone could like you back when they always call you a douche.”

“Sorry.” She pulls her face away, capturing his soft, thin lips in between her own before humming in delight. “But I’m not telling you go now, douchebag.”

He shrugs. “It’s never too late to start.”

###

The collar of his sweater fell off one shoulder, collarbones peaking out as he brought the same glass of champagne he had been drinking from up to his lips. Chohee dragged him along the masses of people in her party, wearing a tiara out of all things, as she spat out whatever nonsense she had inside her head of finding Baekhyun’s perfect match. Running a hand through his disheveled hair, he played along. It was not like he’d really find love in a place like this.

Though, when he saw her, dressed from head to toe in black, standing by a corner as she talked to Chohee’s new affair, Haesol, he thought he saw a glimpse of heaven. One of those angels that no one dared talk about because of their power, with a smile barely playing on her face, too difficult to get out, as she batted her eyelashes as softly as possible with every word she heard from Haesol. Her concentration was immaculate, unlike him, a little bit tipsy with flushed cheeks.

Chohee called out her name, one that he thought he would never forget, with her hand resting on Baekhyun’s shoulder. “…This is the guy I had been talking to you about, Baekhyun. We went to high school together and he’s been my sidekick ever since.” Chohee explained, and the woman was kind enough to extend her hand, stealing a breath away from him and settling a challenge on the top of his head when seeing her. He wanted to have her, but it was almost impossible—he knew this from just one glance. Difficult as difficult could get.

“Hi, nice to meet you. Chohee hasn’t stopped talking about you.”

“Well, I hadn’t heard about you but I wished I did.” Baekhyun spoke, taking a sip of his drink when he shook her hand with his. Soft, strikes of electricity going up his arm when they touched. “Nice to meet you, too. I’m Baekhyun, or your future husband. Whatever you want me to be.”

A laugh ripped from her throat then, continued by a wheeze, as she moved her hand away from him. “Okay, douchebag, that was smooth, but good luck with that. I’m not much of a dater.”

Baekhyun shrugged then, as if knowing something more. “Give me time, I’ll make it happen.”

And he did.

[qqueenofhades]

Re: the post you reblogged about Bush. I'm 21 and tbh feel like I can only vote for Bernie, can you explain if/why I shouldn't? Thanks and sorry if this is dumb or anything.

Oh boy. Okay, I’ll do my best here. Note that a) this will get long, and b) I’m old, Tired, and I‘m pretty sure my brain tried to kill me last night. Since by nature I am sure I will say something Controversial ™, if anyone reads this and feels a deep urge to inform me that I am Wrong, just… mark it down as me being Wrong and move on with your life. But also, really, you should read this and hopefully think about it. Because while I’m glad you asked this question, it feels like there’s a lot in your cohort who won’t, and that worries me. A lot.

First, not to sound utterly old-woman-in-a-rocking-chair ancient, people who came of age/are only old enough to have Obama be the first president that they really remember have no idea how good they had it. The world was falling the fuck apart in 2008 (not coincidentally, after 8 years of Bush). We came within a flicker of the permanent collapse of the global economy. The War on Terror was in full roar, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were at their height, we had Dick Cheney as the cartoon supervillain before we had any of Trump’s cohort, and this was before Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden had exposed the extent of NSA/CIA intelligence-gathering/American excesses or there was any kind of public debate around the fact that we were all surveilled all the time. And the fact that a brown guy named Barack Hussein Obama was elected in this climate seems, and still seems tbh, kind of amazing. And Obama was certainly not a Perfect President ™. He had to scale back a lot of planned initiatives, he is notorious for expanding the drone strike/extrajudicial assassination program, he still subscribed to the overall principles of neoliberalism and American exceptionalism, etc etc. There is valid criticism to be made as to how the hopey-changey optimistic rhetoric stacked up against the hard realities of political office. And yet…. at this point, given what we’re seeing from the White House on a daily basis, the depth of the parallel universe/double standards is absurd.

Because here’s the thing. Obama, his entire family, and his entire administration had to be personally/ethically flawless the whole time (and they managed that – not one scandal or arrest in eight years, against the legions of Trumpistas now being convicted) because of the absolute frothing depths of Republican hatred, racial conspiracy theories, and obstruction against him. (Remember Merrick Garland and how Mitch McConnell got away with that, and now we have Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court? Because I remember that). If Obama had pulled one-tenth of the shit, one-twentieth of the shit that the Trump administration does every day, he would be gone. It also meant that people who only remember Obama think he was typical for an American president, and he wasn’t. Since about… Jimmy Carter, and definitely since Ronald Reagan, the American people have gone for the Trump model a lot more than the Obama model. Whatever your opinion on his politics or character, Obama was a constitutional law professor, a community activist, a neighborhood organizer and brilliant Ivy League intellectual who used to randomly lie awake at night thinking about income inequality. Americans don’t value intellectualism in their politicians; they just don’t. They don’t like thinking that “the elites” are smarter than them. They like the folksy populist who seems fun to have a beer with, and Reagan/Bush Senior/Clinton/Bush Junior sold this persona as hard as they possibly could. As noted in said post, Bush Junior (or Shrub as the late, great Molly Ivins memorably dubbed him) was Trump Lite but from a long-established political family who could operate like an outwardly civilized human.

The point is: when you think Obama was relatively normal (which, again, he wasn’t, for any number of reasons) and not the outlier in a much larger pattern of catastrophic damage that has been accelerated since, again, the 1980s (oh Ronnie Raygun, how you lastingly fucked us!), you miss the overall context in which this, and which Trump, happened. Like most left-wingers, I don’t agree with Obama’s recent and baffling decision to insert himself into the 2020 race and warn the Democratic candidates against being too progressive or whatever he was on about. I think he was giving into the same fear that appears to be motivating the remaining chunk of Joe Biden’s support: that middle/working-class white America won’t go for anything too wild or that might sniff of Socialism, and that Uncle Joe, recalled fondly as said folksy populist and the internet’s favorite meme grandfather from his time as VP, could pick up the votes that went to Trump last time. And that by nature, no one else can.

The underlying belief is that these white voters just can’t support anything too “un-American,” and that by pushing too hard left, Democratic candidates risk handing Trump a second term. Again: I don’t agree and I think he was mistaken in saying it. But I also can’t say that Obama of all people doesn’t know exactly the strength of the political machine operating against the Democratic Party and the progressive agenda as a whole, because he ran headfirst into it for eight years. The fact that he managed to pass any of his legislative agenda, usually before the Tea Party became a thing in 2010, is because Democrats controlled the House and Senate for the first two years of his first term. He was not perfect, but it was clear that he really did care (just look up the pictures of him with kids). He installed smart, efficient, and scandal-free people to do jobs they were qualified for. He gave us Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to join RBG on the Supreme Court. All of this seems… like a dream.

That said: here we are in a place where Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren are the front-runners for the Democratic nomination (and apparently Pete Buttigieg is getting some airplay as a dark horse candidate, which… whatever). The appeal of Biden is discussed above, and he sure as hell is not my favored candidate (frankly, I wish he’d just quit). But Sanders and Warren are 85% - 95% similar in their policy platforms. The fact that Michael “50 Billion Dollar Fortune” Bloomberg started rattling his chains about running for president is because either a Sanders or Warren presidency terrifies the outrageously exploitative billionaire capitalist oligarchy that runs this country and has been allowed to proceed essentially however the fuck they like since… you guessed it, the 1980s, the era of voodoo economics, deregulation, and the free market above all. Warren just happens to be ten years younger than Sanders and female, and Sanders’ age is not insignificant. He’s 80 years old and just had a heart attack, and there’s still a year to go to the election. It’s also more than a little eye-rolling to describe him as the only progressive candidate in the race, when he’s an old white man (however much we like and approve of his policy positions). And here’s the thing, which I think is a big part of the reason why this polarized ideological purity internet leftist culture mistrusts Warren:

She may have changed her mind on things in the past.

Scary, right? I sound like I’m being facetious, but I’m not. An argument I had to read with my own two eyes on this godforsaken hellsite was that since Warren became a Democrat around the time Clinton signed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, she sekritly hated gay people and might still be a corporate sellout, so on and etcetera. (And don’t even get me STARTED on the fact that DADT, coming a few years after the height of the AIDS crisis which was considered God’s Judgment of the Icky Gays, was the best Clinton could realistically hope to achieve, but this smacks of White Gay Syndrome anyway and that is a whole other kettle of fish.) Bernie has always demonstrably been a democratic socialist, and: good for him. I’m serious. But because there’s the chance that Warren might not have thought exactly as she does now at any point in her life, the hysterical and paranoid left-wing elements don’t trust that she might not still secretly do so. (Zomgz!) It’s the same element that’s feeding cancel culture and “wokeness.” Nobody can be allowed to have shifted or grown in their opinions or, like a functional, thoughtful, non-insane adult, changed their beliefs when presented with compelling evidence to the contrary. To the ideological hordes, any hint of uncertainty or past failure to completely toe the line is tantamount to heresy. Any evidence of any other belief except The Correct One means that this person is functionally as bad as Trump. And frankly, it’s only the Sanders supporters who, just as in 2016, are threatening to withhold their vote in the general election if their preferred candidate doesn’t win the primary, and indeed seem weirdly proud about it.

OK, boomer Bernie or Buster.

Here’s the thing, the thing, the thing: there is never going to be an American president free of the deeply toxic elements of American ideology. There just won’t be. This country has been built how it has for 250 years, and it’s not gonna change. You are never going to have, at least not in the current system, some dream candidate who gets up there and parrots the left-wing talking points and attacks American imperialism, exceptionalism, ravaging global capitalism, military and oil addiction, etc. They want to be elected as leader of a country that has deeply internalized and taken these things to heart for its entire existence, and most of them believe it to some degree themselves. So this groupthink white liberal mentality where the only acceptable candidate is this Perfect Non-Problematic robot who has only ever had one belief their entire lives and has never ever wavered in their devotion to doctrine has really gotten bad. The Democratic Party would be considered… maybe center/mild left in most other developed countries. It’s not even really left-wing by general standards, and Sanders and Warren are the only two candidates for the nomination who are even willing to go there and explicitly put out policy proposals that challenge the systematic structure of power, oppression, and exploitation of the late-stage capitalist 21st century. Warren has the billionaires fussed, and instead of backing down, she’s doubling down. That’s part of why they’re so scared of her. (And also misogyny, because the world is depressing like that.) She is going head-on after picking a fight with some of the worst people on the planet, who are actively killing the rest of us, and I don’t know about you, but I like that.

Of course: none of this will mean squat if she (or the eventual Democratic winner, who I will vote for regardless of who it is, but as you can probably tell, she’s my ride or die) don’t a) win the White House and then do as they promised on the campaign trail, and b) don’t have a Democratic House and Senate willing to have a backbone and pass the laws. Even Nancy Pelosi, much as she’s otherwise a badass, held off on opening a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump for months out of fear it would benefit him, until the Ukraine thing fell into everyone’s laps. The Democrats are really horrible at sticking together and voting the party line the way Republicans do consistently, because Democrats are big-tent people who like to think of themselves as accepting and tolerant of other views and unwilling to force their members’ hands. The Republicans have no such qualms (and indeed, judging by their enabling of Trump, have no qualms at all). 

The modern American Republican party has become a vehicle for no-holds-barred power for rich white men at the expense of absolutely everything and everyone else, and if your rationale is that you can’t vote for the person opposing Donald Goddamn Trump is that you’re just not vibing with them on the language of that one policy proposal… well, I’m glad that you, White Middle Class Liberal, feel relatively safe that the consequences of that decision won’t affect you personally. Even if we’re due to be out of the Paris Climate Accords one day after the 2020 election, and the issue of climate change now has the most visibility it’s ever had after years of big-business, Republican-led efforts to deny and discredit the science, hey, Secret Corporate Shill, am I right? Can’t trust ‘er. Let’s go have a craft beer.

As has been said before: vote as far left as you want in the primary. Vote your ideology, vote whatever candidate you want, because the only way to make actual, real-world change is to do that. The huge, embedded, all-consuming and horrible system in which we operate is not just going to suddenly be run by fairy dust and happy thoughts overnight. Select candidates that reflect your values exactly, be as picky and ideologically militant as you want. That’s the time to do that! Then when it comes to the general election:

America is a two-party system. It sucks, but that’s the case. Third-party votes, or refraining from voting because “it doesn’t matter” are functionally useless at best and actively harmful at worst.

Either the Democratic candidate or Donald Trump will win the 2020 election.

There is absolutely no length that the Republican/GOP machine, and its malevolent allies elsewhere, will not go to in order to secure a Trump victory. None.

Any talk whatsoever about “progressive values” or any kind of liberal activism, coupled with a course of action that increases the possibility of a Trump victory, is hypocritical at best and actively malicious at worst.

This is why I found the Democratic response to Obama’s “don’t go too wild” comments interesting. Bernie doubled down on the fact that his plans have widespread public support, and he’s right. (Frankly, the fact that Sanders and Warren are polling at the top, and the fact that they’re politicians and would not be crafting these campaign messages if they didn’t know that they were being positively received, says plenty on its own). Warren cleverly highlighted and praised Obama’s accomplishments in office (i.e. the Affordable Care Act) and didn’t say squat about whether she agreed or disagreed with him, then went right back to campaigning about why billionaires suck. And some guy named Julian Castro basically blew Obama off and claimed that “any Democrat” could beat Trump in 2020, just by nature of existing and being non-insane.

This is very dangerous! Do not be Julian Castro!

As I said in my tags on the Bush post: everyone assumed that sensible people would vote for Kerry in 2004. Guess what happened? Yeah, he got Swift Boated. The race between Obama and McCain in 2008, even after those said nightmare years of Bush, was very close until the global crash broke it open in Obama’s favor, and Sarah Palin was an actual disqualifier for a politician being brazenly incompetent and unprepared. (Then again, she was a woman from a remote backwater state, not a billionaire businessman.) In 2012, we thought Corporate MormonBot Mitt Fuggin’ Romney was somehow the worst and most dangerous candidate the Republicans could offer. In 2016, up until Election Day itself, everyone assumed that HRC was a badly flawed candidate but would win anyway. And… we saw how that worked out. Complacency is literally deadly.

I was born when Reagan was still president. I’m just old enough to remember the efforts to impeach Clinton over forcing an intern to give him a BJ in the Oval Office (This led by the same Republicans making Donald Trump into a darling of the evangelical Christian right wing.) I’m definitely old enough to remember 9/11 and how America lost its mind after that, and I remember the Bush years. And, obviously, the contrast with Obama, the swing back toward Trump, and everything that has happened since. We can’t afford to do this again. We’re hanging by a thread as it is, and not just America, but the entire planet.

So yes. By all means, vote for Sanders in the primary. Then when November 3, 2020 rolls around, if you care about literally any of this at all, hold your nose if necessary and vote straight-ticket Democrat, from the president, to the House and Senate, to the state and local offices. I cannot put it more strongly than that.

[krreader]

BTS reacting to you not wanting to let your child go on their first day of school.

pairing: bts x reader fandom: bts warnings: / genre: fluff word count: 1.9k+

a/n: heeey my love, thanks so much for the request, I hope you like it ♥

kim seokjin

“Your first lunchbox ever,” Seokjin beamed from ear to ear as he handed his daughter the launch box that he had carefully prepared, with all sorts of snacks that he knew she loved.

“Thank you, daddy!” she was so excited that she was about to jump up and down... if it hadn't been for the party pooper in the room.

You.

“It's not enough, don't you think?” you grabbed it out of her hand and handed it back to your husband, “Why don't you make some more?”

“But.. I won't have time to make any more. School starts in thirty minutes, to make another one of these..-” but then Seokjin stopped talking when he saw you pull your daughter into your arms and place a kiss on top of her head.

This wasn't about the food, this was about you not wanting to send her off. This was about you wanting to keep her here for a little while longer, because you just couldn’t see your baby grow up so fast.

No, this had to be handled like pulling off a band aid.

Quickly.

“Alright, you two, you can literally cuddle in four hours again when school ends,” your husband took off the apron and shoved the lunchbox into your daughter's backpack, then he picked her up and carried your laughing daughter out of the apartment, “Off to school we go.”

He did it the right way. You wouldn’t have let her go otherwise.

min yoongi

“Wait,” when your daughter wanted to dash inside, you quickly knelt down before her and pulled her into a tight hug, “I love you so much, princess. You know that, don't you?”

“Yeah,” she smiled and wrapped her arms around you.

If it hadn't been for Yoongi, you wouldn't have let her go this quickly. He was the one that gently pulled her out of your embrace and sent her off with a kiss on her forehead.

And as you were getting up, your husband said: “I know how worried you are. Will she be okay? Will she do good? Will classmates be nice to her?” Yoongi wrapped an arm around your middle and pulled you close, smiling at your daughter as she waved to the both of you before disappearing inside the school building, “Let me remind you of what happened the last time someone thought they could wrong our daughter.”

How could you forget the girl that tormented your child for months, only for your baby girl to come home crying her eyes out one day because she couldn't take it anymore. You went to her mother the next day for a little chat, but that woman was so nonchalant about it.

“Let the children handle this on their own,” is what she had said.

But your husband had disagreed.

Let's just say... her mother had to look for a new job relatively soon after.

“Thank you,” you whispered as you leaned into him.

jung hoseok

Sending a child off to their first day of school was always hard. And you had made the mistake of, instead of thinking of all the positive things that could happen to him at school, you thought of all the bad things.

You hadn't even slept an hour last night. Overthinking as well as your newborn wanting to be fed again and again made you the tired and anxious self that you were now, as you were standing in front of the school with your son.

“You promise you'll tell us when other kids are mean to you, alright?”

“Stop scaring the boy,” Hoseok said as he shook his head, then knelt down in front of your son, “Don't worry. You'll find lots of friends and have a great time.”

“But.. what if..-” if you hadn't been holding the baby, Hoseok would have pinched your leg right then and there. But a dirty look shut you up just as well.

“I'll promise, mom,” you couldn't get more assurance than this and you unfortunately couldn't keep him any longer.

All you could do was watch him run inside to start a new chapter of his life.

“I know you don't want me to tell you this, but he's growing up,” your husband said, a lot softer now than the look he had given you before, “He'll be fine, though. We'll be there to support him no matter what happens.”

Guess you had to be okay with that.

kim namjoon

“Ah, you must be the famous Kim Seojun that I've been hearing about so much,” the teacher knelt down to be on an equal level with your son and grinned brightly, “Welcome to school, young man.”

“Thank you,” your son was a little shy, but you had raised him so well that he still bowed properly.

“Well, why don't you go inside then? There's already a few of your classmates in there getting to know each other.”

And see, Seojun would have done so in an instant. Because despite being wary of adults – thank god for that – when it came down to other children his age, he was the complete opposite.

It was you that tightened her grip on his shoulders that made him look up at you in confusion.

Your husband let out a chuckle and put his hand on your lower back, “It's okay, Seojun. Go inside. We'll pick you up once school is over, alright?” Namjoon placed his other hand on yours, squeezing a little for you to let go of your son.

You did so. With a lot of hesitation and worry as you watched your son run inside the classroom, the teacher following with a smile.

“Are you sure this is a good fit for him?” you suddenly asked as you shifted your weight from one foot to the other, clearly nervous, “The teacher.. doesn't he seem a little sketchy?”

“What?” Namjoon let out a snort, “He was perfectly normal and kind. And besides, we've spent months trying to find a good school for him and you loved this one the most.”

“Well, okay, but how about a different class? We haven't met all the teachers yet, right? Maybe... maybe there's someone else that could be..-”

Your husband turned to you and cupped your face in his hands with a small smile, “I know you're worried about him and as his mother, you have every right to be. But you don't have to be. We made sure that this is the right place for him to be. The teacher is great, the school is great and our son will be happy here. And if not, then we can still discuss other options. For now..-” Namjoon turned his head and waited for you to do the same. And when you saw your boy already sitting next to another boy his age, chatting happily, you let out a relieved breath, “let him be.”

It was hard.. extremely so. But your husband was always very rational, in every single situation in life. But even more so when it came down to your children. So you trusted him that Seojun would be okay.

park jimin

As soon as you entered the hallway and were face to face with the other parents, the whispering started.

“Oh my god.. isn't that Park Jimin? Former BTS member?”

“His son is in my daughter's class? Oh, how lucky she is. I hope he'll like her.”

“Wow, he's still so handsome. How lucky his wife must feel to be with him.”

It made you stop and, therefore, also stop your son from walking any further, since you were holding his hand.

“(Y/N),” Jimin whispered, not wanting you to cause a scene here.

“Maybe this wasn't the right decision after all,” you took a deep breath and looked down to your son, seemingly already ready to tell him that you'd take him back home, but then the teacher beat you to it.

“Ah, there you finally are. We've all been waiting for you,” the teacher quickly introduced herself, first to you two, then to your son, before she addressed you again, “I know that you must be worried. But your son isn't the only child of a celebrity in our class. We actually have 5 more, so he won't feel like an outsider.”

“See, I told you this was the right fit.”

But it was your son that convinced you like you needed to be convinced, “I'm going to be alright, mommy,” he said with a bright smile that made his eyes disappear just like those of his father when he smiled, “I'm a cool guy after all, right?”

That made all three of you laugh.

If he was so confident then maybe... you could be too.

kim taehyung

Nobody at this school knew that Taehyung was your son's father. You had tried to keep this a secret for his sake, so that he wouldn't get any unwanted attention, advantages or disadvantages.

So instead of walking him into the school building like all the other parents, the three of you were sitting in the car together.

“I'll get going now,” but when your son wanted to open the door, he couldn't, not even after trying multiple times, “Uh.. mom?”

Your hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly that they could see your knuckles.

Taehyung furrowed his eyebrows at that and turned around to look at why his son didn't get out. Seemed like the door was locked.

“(Y/N). Open the door.”

But you didn't say a word. In fact, you were glancing down to the engine and were seriously contemplating of just driving off with them again.

Home schooling was a thing, right? Nothing could happen to him there.

“Hey, what are you guys doing in there?!” the one that saved the day was actually Jimin. He knocked on the window, all three of you now looking at him, “Jungsik, come out, Haneul wants to go inside with you.”

The name of his best friend, the one that was in the same boat as your son, made you relax just enough for you to unlock the car. After that, you had no other choice but to let him go with a heavy heart.

It was only on your way home that your husband dared to ask.

“You okay?”

“Not really... but I think that's normal.”

Taehyung put his hand on your thigh and smiled, “It is.”

jeon jeongguk

You were so glad that Jeongguk had convinced his hyungs not to come today.

It would have been majorly embarrassing for everyone to see you on your knees holding your daughter, while you were sobbing your eyes out, just because you didn't want to let her go.

She was fine, she didn't cry at all, she was in fact so excited for this, that she barely shut her eyes last night. Right now, she was more worried about you, shooting her father an: “I need help with her,” look.

Jeongguk let out a heavy sigh and carefully pulled you away, “Alright then, I think that's enough,” then he whispered to his daughter, “Run, quickly, I got her.”

This might have been very mean, but he knew he had to do this. Otherwise you would have held her for the entire school day and she would have let you do so because she felt extremely bad for you.

“Oh god, she's growing up,” you sobbed into his chest.

“That's what kids do, babe,” your husband kissed your temple, “They become adults eventually.”

Maybe the wrong word choice, because that only made you sob harder.

[dreamteamspace]

MCYT subway au Part 3 because I’m a sucker for attention and the 2 ppl who made part 1 and 2 noticed me

Holiday Shift

- Everybody who works on the holiday gets double. Those that can’t work have to put their name on a list. Lowest entries and those that don’t enter need to work the shift. It’s Phil’s idea don’t ask

- George is the first to put his name there but Sapnap skribbles it out and makes sure everybody else gets their name in first. It’s his punishment for leaving Dream and him alone for rush hour when Karl was sick. Dream wasn’t all that mad but Sapnap Will Not let that shit slide

- Tommy gladly takes the oppertunity to not have to spend the entire day awkwardly hugging relatives and being told to keep their elbows off the table. Convinces Tubbo to join them, supposedly for the Money

- Dream: “So Karl did you put your name on the list yet?” Karl: “What list??”

- Shift staffing: George, Tubbo, Tommy and Karl

- George becomes the reluctant babysitter of what feels like three kids

- “Karl stop WASTING the bread we NEED THAT.”

- Tommy is told to go pull what they need for monday out of the freezer. Tubbo offers to come with him and holds his hand the entire time. They’re best friends your honor. Tommy promises Tubbo to make it up to him

- George does about 60% of the work on a four person shift. Swears to murder Sapnap on sight. Probably slaps a pastry in his face later

Promotion pt. 4: Taking Over

- Tommy begs Techno to join in support of Wilbur. Techno reluctantly agrees because he can’t really say no to Tommy and because he doesn’t really want to become manager anyway (too much paperwork and he’s fixating on the origins of vedgetables) 

- Tommy now adds #WilburForManager to his pogway stickers. Wilbur is also reluctantly Growing Soft in face of Tommy’s undying support

- Nobody knows why, but Quackity has the unspoken ability to make Schlatt give him sick leave or remove him from shift?? All Quackity has to do is point to his phone and give Schlatt a smug Look.

- Ppl are suspicious but really Quackity just has a video of Schlatt kissing a baby kitten in the face and talking to it in a high pitched soft voice

- Wilbur needs to visit extended family and leaves for 2 weeks. The day before he leaves is surprisingly light-hearted and Wilbur admits that Schlatt isn’t the worst manager imaginable. He lets them waste things sometimes and has yet to give anybody a cut for not showing up to a shift

- Dream can’t openly go against Schlatt, silently wishing he’d just put the milk in The Right Spot before his shift. But no. It never is. It’s always somewhere else. Always.

- Schlatt continues to place things in slightly different places than they belong and following his whim more than the rules. One time he didn’t order the dark chocolate cakes they sell because “Who likes those anyway”

- Phil is there more often to make sure Wilbur’s work is covered. The war continues to rage in stolen glares and misplaced ingredients.

- Bad and Skeppy are slowly genuinely growing concerned, watching the whole thing go down like a movie.

Promotion pt. 5: Adopted On Sight

- Schlatt tells Tubbo he’s doing great One Time because he literally saved Schlatt’s ass from being fired for the whole cakes thing by biking it to the nearest store that sells them and getting some

- Tubbo will now follow Schlatt around to ask him how he’s doing, if he did everything right, if he needs any help, how his morning went so far

- Schlatt does Not Know how to handle Tubbo and suddenly wishes for Wilbur to just Come Back and Take His Kid. Tubbo wishes him a good morning and good night every single day. How is he supposed to keep up his tough old man appearance like this

- Tommy is still on Wilbur’s side and purposefully makes Schlatt’s life just a little more difficult. Small pranks. Stickers on the cakes, wasting them. Writing #TommySupremacy on the sandwhich wraps with markers while nobody is looking. Taking 4 chairs to the back to stack them on top of eachother and stand on them to reach the ceiling. Being the teenager he is.

- Tubbo think it’s funny and that’s the main thing keeping him going really

- Schlatt confronts Tommy but with no results. He turns to Phil to ask him what to do and Phil is like, you don’t do anything. That’s just Tommy for you. Usually Wilbur keeps him occupied with the Dreamon hunting and now he has too much free time

- Quackity is using the blackmail more and more. Does he even work here anymore? When was the last time anybody saw him apart from looting the expired sodas? He’s the only one who can order avocados on a spanish site online that don’t cost their weight in gold

- But as it tends to be with good friends, Schlatt knows the amount of blackmail he has is enough to fill everybody’s need for drama here for the rest of the year. Also he can’t say no to Quackity

- Fundy recieves yet another apology card from Wilbur from Ireland, a whole postcard with a picture attached and a little doodle of a fox. He finally caves and forgives him, now refusing to do Schlatt’s work anymore.

- Dream is Popping Off. Nobody can stop him from working once he starts. He’s 2 months ahead on Literally Everything. Somebody help him

Promotion pt. 6: The Finale I promise

- Wilbur returns! Schlatt is THIS close to throwing in the towel

- Tubbo says he wants another sleepover, wanting to de-escalate the whole manager war. Tommy has to stay true to his promise in the freezer and they convince Wilbur together. Techno was on board before they even asked

- Unbeknowedst to them, the Dream Team + Karl wanted to stay in that night as well to sabotage Schlatt

- Both groups stare at eachother in confusion at first

-They combine their resources to figure out a way to sabotage Schlatt. Dream is growing increasingly quiet and unsure while Tommy stares at The Adults with dissapointment. Tubbo tries to get a word in about how Schlatt isn’t That Bad but they all yell over him. “The milk, Tubbo! Why can’t he put the milk back like a normal person!”

- Eventually Tommy pulls out his bravery and tells everyone to Shut Up

- Everyone stares at eachother

-Tommy: “How come you guys yelling over bullying somebody out of their work sounds less mature than when my literal nephews are screaming at eachother over 10 year old pokemon cards??“

- The adults stare at eachother even harder

- Dream shyly clears his throat. “From an outsider perspective, you know, uh, I should probably be fired for plotting against a fellow manager-“

- Wilbur finally finds his tongue. “Maybe this wasn’t the most... mature idea.”

- Everybody carefully agrees to apologize to schlatt and never speak of this again. Tommy has unknowingly gotten a lot more pranking rights

- They spend the rest of the night organizing the storage, hunting Dreamon, Dream telling them about that one time he ate a living frog, and taking turns playing some free racing game on Karl’s switch

- Lots of laughter, return to their shifts the next day

- They wait for Schlatt to come in to work and pull him to the back. Only Bad and Skeppy are already allowed inside while they keep the doors locked for anybody else

- Dream issues a formal apology to him and tells him everything, and Wilbur jockingly mentions they were really close to pouring food coloring into his rubber gloves as they try to laugh it off

- Schlatt stares at them

- “You know what? I quit. I don’t want to be the manager anymore. I feel like the dad of lord knows how many kids. Phil is some kind of angel. Wilbur please adopt Tubbo and Tommy again, as long as our store isn’t on fire I’m never going to complain about them ever again. Dream you might wanna phone Quackity.”

Insiders

- After a good, short era of peace within the establishment, the Drama Bois are getting bored and latching onto new things

- The bets on whether Skeppy and Bad are a couple or not are getting ever higher, especially as they’ve started letting them behind the counter. They figured out pretty quickly that they’re officially not together, but that just makes the betting all the more exciting. Do they like eachother? Are they hiding it? Are they just really good friends? Are they THAT oblivious or just really good at covering it up??

- Bad especially becomes good friends with Dream, George and Sapnap, and yet they’re all just as split as everyone else on whether he likes Skeppy or not

- Bad pretends to be but is in fact not oblivious to this at all

- Dream especially will often tell them they’re being VERY close to eachother or how cute they are next to eachother, revelling in teasing his friend, especially as Bad will sometimes start to get flustered while Skeppy manages to somehow stay 100% cool

- One day when a middle aged white woman is extremely unhappy with her order she starts talking down on George about being uneducated, and too clumsy for being useful at all, and how they should fire him. George asks her if he should just get the manager and she gladly agrees, only for Dream to swoop out of a back room, a good head taller than her, and sternly tell her if she can’t treat employees like human beings then he will ban her from the establishment immedietly. The woman stutters, takes her order and leaves, cursing something as she goes.

- Bad and Skeppy were sitting at a table nearby quietly the entire time, and Bad has this a-little-too-wide smile on his face.

- Dream murmurs something about having to go, but the seeds are planted. The idea has bloomed. Bad is ready to get his teasing revenge.

- Just as they’re closing, George puts away the milk that Dream left on the counter, telling Dream that he’s putting it away. Bad: “Wow George, that’s so thoughtful of you!” George: “???”

- Dream, softly telling George he can go home earlier and he’ll take the rest of the shift so George can catch up on sleep: “It’s okay, just go. I’ve got this.”

- Bad, just as George left, slurping his milkshake innocently while Wilbur and Sapnap are in earshot: “Awww, Dream! That was SO nice of you!”

- Dream, knowing exactly what this is for: “I’m just... nice to my friends!“

- Bad: “Really?! How many times do you let Sapnap go home earlier?” Sapnap: “You let George go earlier AGAIN?” Wilbur, having waited his entire life for someone to finally notice this: “George is getting so much favored treatment, Dream. But you’re really just good friends, right?“

- If looks could kill they’d all be dead at that point. Especially Bad, who continues slurping his milkshake as the chaos unfolds and Dream knows there’s no escape

@labbyyyyy @karlljacobs

[magniloquent-raven]

more of my trans billy ficlets here 💕

--

thing is, billy never wanted kids.

he didn't even like playing with the stupid plastic babies that out of touch relatives thought made good christmas gifts. the dolls stayed in a sad creepy little pile in his closet—shoved in the corner behind the laundry hamper—til he was ten, and his father started really cracking down on his be grateful for what you have campaign.

billy still insists that using his mom's hairspray to set them on fire counts as playing with them. but that particular argument ended with billy icing a black eye, peeking through the bathroom window to watch his dad lug what was left of his dresser to the dumpster across the street.

point is, billy's never had any interest in being a parent, not even playing pretend at being one.

and that was never really a problem, no guy stuck around long enough for it to ever be a conversation they'd have to have.

until steve.

and steve...steve was fucking born to be a dad, and billy knows it. even without knowing all about the botched dream of a white picket fence happy ending with his high school sweetheart, without having seen that wistful look in his eye when he talks about how he was going to take a shitty job with his dad and live out his suburban i-peaked-in-high-school fantasy, even without all that, it's still obvious.

because he's happy mothering his rag-tag band of ducklings, even though they're too old to be babysat now. because he lights up with the most precious fucking goofy grin when random babies wave at him in public. because he knows all the ways his parents went wrong, and he's exactly the kind of person who'd do better just to spite them.

but billy doesn't know if he's that kind of person. and he's not sure if he'd ever forgive himself if it turns out he isn't.

he's not sure what he'll do about it if steve ever asks, so he's been doing the only logical thing. avoiding the subject entirely.

which, obviously doesn't last.

they've been together for three years. they share an apartment. marriage and kids and all that normal adult couple shit is what mature people talk about when they're in committed relationships, apparently.

it started with a favour for a friend.

some girl steve works with needed someone to watch her toddler for a couple hours, and of course steve volunteered. would've been fine if he hadn't forgotten something at home and called billy to ask him to drop it off.

and, see, it wasn't like he meant to stay, the kid was just so fucking clingy, and took a shying to billy of all people.

and billy saw the little soft-eyed smiles steve kept throwing his way whenever the kid latched onto his leg or babbled at him in toddler-speak that billy had to pretend to understand. he noticed. he's can't stop noticing. can't stop nervously glancing at steve, anxiety threading itself around his heart, his lungs, til he's all tangled up in it, tied up, stomach lurching when it pulls and tightens. he's tense, and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

and it does. in the car on the way home.

"you ever think about having kids?" steve is trying so hard to be nonchalant that it's almost painful. he's tracing patterns on his jean-clad thigh, billy can see him out of the corner of his eye. he keeps his gaze locked on the road.

he should probably ease into it. maybe. he has no idea, actually, this is probably gonna be a shit-show either way. for one, brief, horrifying moment he wonders if steve would break up with him over this and he can't breathe for a second.

and when his lungs expand again what comes tumbling out of his mouth is—

"i'd be a shitty dad, steve."

he winces at his own tone.

"fuck off, you would not." steve's vehemence surprises him enough that he forgets not to look. steve's brow is furrowed, his jaw set in a stubborn pout.

billy chews his lip silently, fingers tight on the steering wheel. "what makes you so sure," he asks quietly.

"you're kidding, right?" steve huffs. there's a pause, and his palm lands on billy's bicep, warm and grounding. "i'm sure because i know you." he squeezes billy's arm, "and...max and i talk," he adds, voice soft.

"knew introducing you two was a bad idea," billy mumbles. "fucking gossiping behind my back"

steve snickers. "all good things, i promise."

"right."

"...mostly good things."

"hm."

"come on, she loves you and you know it."

billy sighs, a half-hearted grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "yeah."

"and so do i."

"...you better." his smile grows when steve slaps his shoulder. "yeah, yeah, love you too, jesus."

"you better," steve echoes sarcastically. after a quiet moment of slowly drawing circles up and down billy's arm he adds, "i doubt myself too, y'know. it's not like i have any idea how to parent, mine weren't around enough to help me figure that shit out." he snorts.

"oh come on, you parent the shit out of those dorky brats of yours."

"nah..." steve shrugs, his hand slipping from billy's shoulder. "i was just. there, i guess. not like they listened to me or anything. which was probably good, 'cause i gave shitty advice and swore too much."

"you must done something right, they're still around." he glances over at steve. he's not looking back, he's got his forearms folded across his stomach, fingers curled around his elbows, slouched in on himself. billy reaches over and slips his hand around one of steve's. "hey. every one of those kids looks up to you, and you fucking earned that."

the rest of the drive is spent in companionable silence. billy knows its not the end of the conversation, not even close. it's going to come up again later, but it feels less looming and terrifying now. it's hard to be too scared of what-ifs when steve is two feet away and fiddling with one of billy's rings with a soft smile on his face.

later turns out to be when they've settled into bed for the night.

when steve rolls over, tugging billy's arm until it's draped around his waist, and he wiggles around trying to get his pillow squished just right. and billy watches him with an amused smile. and steve grins back, for a second, before he bites his lip, and—

"so, i...do want kids. um. just to be clear."

billy sighs. "yeah, i figured."

"i know you'd be great at it, billy," steve says quietly, firm and gentle and so damn sure that billy almost wants to believe him. "and we'd make a real pretty kid"

"jesus, harrington."

"what? it's true."

billy huffs a laugh. "yeah." he shifts, sheets rustling around his legs. "i never wanted kids, you know. always fuckin...freaked me out. the idea of it." steve watches him quietly, a warm hand on his chest, waiting patiently as billy pauses. "still fuckin' freaks me out. but you...it's less terrifying when i think about doing it with you. maybe."

"yeah?" steve's grin is blinding, his whole fucking body curling into it.

"maybe. keep it in your pants, bambi."

steve kisses him, cupping his cheek and leaning in slow and careful. "it's okay if the answer is no. it's okay. i'm just..." he nuzzles a little, eyes falling shut and a soft, contented smile warming his face. "makes me feel all special that you'd even consider it. for me."

yeah it's starting to look like there isn't a whole lot billy wouldn't consider doing for steve.

he snorts, and kisses steve's nose. "yeah well, don't get used to it."

"mm," steve snuggles closer. "wouldn't dream of it."

[shoechoe]

why jolyne is an underrated jojo

so basically, i love jolyne and this is why

warning: spoilers for jojo’s bizarre adventure, stone ocean

Jolyne is a character who i think gets a lot of shit in the fandom that she doesn’t really deserve. she’s the one female jojo out of the eight so far, and the jojo fandom does tend to have a big sexism problem, in my opinion. she’s often called the “worst jojo”, and gets hated on for criticisms that i honestly don’t believe to be valid. her being in one of the weaker and less-liked parts doesn’t help with this, either (while i do personally think stone ocean is one of the less-good parts overall, it’s not at all bad, and the problems i have with it don’t have to do with most of the characters).

additionally, i see a lot of people who just think jolyne is “boring”, and ask things like “What’s so special about her? She’s just the girl JoJo.”

 So, here are some reasons why i think jolyne is pretty great

First: her stand, Stone Free

Stone Free is Jolyne’s stand with its ability being to turn its body (and by extension, jolyne’s body) into string. At first glance, this sounds like a relatively weak ability, especially compared to the previous jojos (Jotaro with his ability to stop time, Josuke with the ability to heal and repair anything except for himself, Giorno with his ability to create life from inanimate objects and eventually the extremely broken (but cool) Gold Experience Requiem). However, I find the way that Jolyne utilizes her stand to be incredibly interesting and versatile.

 She can use string to patch wounds mid-battle and recover from injuries quickly. She can use it as a rope strong enough to hold her weight. It’s fast enough that it can deflect bullets, just like a bulletproof vest. She can use it as a bridge to walk on top of bodies of water. She can swing from building to building and cling to walls. She can use them like handcuffs to chain her together with someone that she doesn’t want escaping her range. She can use them to detect movements and set traps, since she can feel anything that touches the string. The string can also be compacted together to become stronger. When fully compacted, it can hit with roughly the force of a small, extremely fast meteor. It can also be used like a spying device to transmit sounds however far the string goes.

 I think the culmination of this versatility comes in the fight against C-Moon. C-Moon has the ability to turn everything it hits inside-out, so a hit to the chest would normally be fatal. However, Jolyne evades this with her stand, by turning the affected areas of her body into string in a “mobius strip” shape.

Mobius strips have no “inside” or “outside”, so it can be continuously hit by C-Moon with no effect on her. This is probably the most unexpected thing Stone Free could’ve done with its ability without feeling like a deus ex machina. I found it to be very cool.

There is also the song that Stone Free is named after, which is the Jimi Hendrix song of the same name. Songs that Stands are named after tend to reflect their characters/abilities, and Stone Free is no exception to this.

The lyrics that stuck out to me in particular were: “Stone free, to do what I please Stone free, to ride the breeze Stone free, I can't stay I got to, got to, got to get away right now Yeah, alright 

Listen to this baby A woman here, a woman there, try to keep me in a plastic cage But they don't realize it's so easy to break Oh but sometimes I can, ha I can feel my heart kind of running hot That's when I got to move, before I get caught

Hey, and that's why, listen to me baby, you can't hold me down I don't want to be tied down I got to be free Aw!” This, to me, clearly represents Jolyne’s desire to be freed from her prison, which she calls a “Stone Ocean”. Also, her carefree nature and desire to be free from restraints, perhaps? She’s always been a delinquent that never follows rules, and thus gets judged and considered a “lost cause” by the adults around her for that. This also ties into the song, where Jimi talks about his experiences of being judged for the things he likes to do and the clothes he wears. “Everyday in the week, I'm in a different city If I stay too long, the people try to pull me down They talk about me like a dog, talk about the clothes I wear But they don't realize they're the ones who's square”

jolyne is a jimi hendrix stan

I also like the overall design of Stone Free (although you don’t see it a ton, due to it usually being unraveled). To me, it looks kind of like a surfer, wearing something you would see at a beach. That makes sense, as it ties in to the “ocean” theme going on in part 6 (Stone Ocean, the area in the final fight is an ocean, the prison being referred to as an ocean of stone, etc). And I also like how you can see little openings of string inside the shoulders, neck and arms. It’s all just nice attention to detail.

Also, it has shades.

nice.

Overall, Stone Free is a really good stand. I like how it’s utilized throughout part 6 (nothing it did felt like an asspull, unlike Star Platinum), and its song ties into the plot and Jolyne’s motivations nicely. It wasn’t underused, and while my biggest problem with Stone Ocean is probably the fights, watching jolyne work out how to use her string in the optimal way to defeat her opponents was pretty fun.

second: her personality

I legitimately love Jolyne’s personality.

(Jolyne knowing multiple types of ways to say “fuck you” is very in-character) 

She’s feisty, headstrong, quick-thinking, angry, tough yet also emotional, carefree, a rule-breaker, and honest, and while she is intelligent, you can tell that she’s also still just a teenager, with her dependency on approval, her tendency to be gullible, and the irresponsible things she tends to do without thinking them through properly (mostly just in the beginning, though). She has quips in battle and fun little scenes in-between the action that I found to be very entertaining.

jolyne is angry; to be fair, gwess literally tried to murder her. so fair enough.

the iconic tray jolyne

I’ve heard several people call her and characterize her as just being a “female jotaro” in terms of personality, which... huh? I didn’t see that in her at all. Jotaro in part 3 is stoic and quiet, and Jolyne is anything but that.

 Of course, they do share similarities as Jolyne is Jotaro’s daughter, but I don’t see how she’s just a copy of Jotaro. (I actually found it refreshing how Jolyne wasn’t just another “stoic” jojo, since we already had Jotaro and Giorno for that). It sounds like those people only paid attention to the fact that she says “yare yare dawa” and has the same stand cry as her father.

I also liked the chemistry she had with the main jobro of the part, Hermes.

 While I don’t like Hermes too much on her own (she has to be one of my least favorites out of all of the jobros, i’m regretful to admit), her interactions with jolyne are very fun. I like how they started off as sort of aggressive to each other due to the hostile environment created in the prison, but then quickly joined sides and became friends. and i loved the emotional moments they shared with each other, too.

this scene between them was so sweet

In particular, I thought the scene where they decided to defeat a stand user by throwing rocks was hilarious.

I also thought their interactions was easily the best part of the Underworld fight. 

if only hermes hadn’t been written out of the story throughout the entire middle part of stone ocean i wanted more cute hermes, foo fighters and jolyne moments

 But yeah, pretty much all of the scenes with Jolyne were entertaining to me thanks to her personality. She’s not quite as good as Joseph in terms of quips and gags, but she’s pretty far up there.

Also, her character design and aesthetic? On-point. I love how she wears clothes with webs on them, it gives me major spider-man vibes and fits her stand ability. Butterflies are often used in her outfits and to represent her, which I think is cute and fitting. It reminds me of Giorno’s ladybug theme in his outfits as well.

 I also noticed that she wears her prisoner jacket uniquely to the other prisoners.

 Instead of leaving it entirely open or buttoning it up completely, she only uses one button to compliment her outfit. I think that’s a nice touch.

 She probably has my favorite hairstyle in the series, and the heart on her chest is a noticeable continuation of the whole heart theme going on with the jojos- Josuke with his vaguely heart-shaped jacket opening, Giorno with a more tightened version of the heart, and Jolyne with the heart in the center of her outfit with a butterfly-dagger design added onto it to fit her aesthetic.

 Basically, she’s visually easily my favorite out of all of the jojos, with Josuke taking second place. Araki did a good here.

third: her character arc

Jolyne, at the beginning of Stone Ocean, started off as a delinquent and even sort of whiny. The absence of her father in her life caused her to become dependent on approval of those around her, and even commit minor crimes for attention. She fell into a trap that was set up for her, and ended up being falsely accused of murder and being sentenced to 15 years in prison for something that she was entirely framed for. A lot of people have criticized Jolyne for still being upset over her father being absent, despite being a “grown ass woman” (as one person i saw put it). First of all, Jolyne is 19 years old. That’s still a teenager, as far as I’m concerned. It makes sense that she would still have issues stemming from having a parent being absent in her life. Also, a lot of people have jumped to Jotaro’s defense, and while it does make sense that he would’ve needed to be absent from her life to keep her safe... to be honest, I think Jolyne still had a point here.

The conflict between Jolyne and her father shows off Jotaro’s biggest flaw in my opinion, which is his total lack of communication skills. He loves Jolyne and cares about her deeply, but needed to be absent from her life or dangerous stand users would likely have come after her when she was young and defenseless. However, this was never communicated to Jolyne. I think it makes perfect sense that she would feel bitterness towards Jotaro, who from her perspective never seemed to care about her at all, despite her needing that to have a healthy childhood. He didn’t even visit her when she had a fever at a young age that she could’ve potentially died from. 

Jotaro also accidentally comes across as rude and dismissive of Jolyne’s safety even when he meets her to break her out of prison, which probably only solidified the thought that he doesn’t really care about her in her mind.

jotaro not understanding feelings

A lot of people have criticized Jolyne as having her character being completely defined by her “daddy issues”. However, I feel like that takes up a lot less of her than people think it does. She does have a noticeable bitterness towards her father and it’s an important part of her character, but once Jotaro is put in actual danger and it’s up to Jolyne to save him, she noticeably matures almost immediately. after that, jotaro is actually out of the story for a while. her “daddy issues” are hardly mentioned at all, and she’s mostly just focused on recovering his stand and memory discs and saving him.

throughout the story, all of the enemies she faces helps her become stronger and accustomed to battle, and she meets several allies along the way (Weather Report, Hermes, Foo Fighters, Anasui, and Emporio. All of them are misfits in a way, just like her). In particular, I loved the Planet Waves fight, where she fights a dude three times her size who has the ability to cast down meteors wherever and whenever he wants. She gets injured, badly, but manages to pull through. It was definitely one of the better fights in the part.

Another moment showing Jolyne’s growth that i want to spotlight is something that Jolyne did during the Sky High fight, which was easily the highlight. She is so determined to defeat Rikiel and get to the priest that she sets herself on fire to prevent Sky High from using its ability on her.

I don’t normally get chills while reading, especially if it’s something like JoJo’s, but... wow. Jolyne is a certified badass.

near the end, when Jotaro has finally recovered and finally reunites with Jolyne, he notices Jolyne’s growth as a person.

This is what completes her character arc. In the beginning, she was immature, dependent, and a delinquent. Now, she’s matured, and unlocked the true Joestar in herself. This is a big reason why I like Jolyne more than I like jojos like Giorno or Jonathan. Don’t get me wrong, I love every jojo, but Jolyne actually had growth as a character, which would make sense considering all of the life-changing events she’s went through in such a short time (one of my main criticisms for Giorno would probably be that it would’ve been more logical if he did have more character changes, and it probably would’ve made him more interesting. especially considering he’s a fifteen year old boy joining the mafia. He’s not a “Gary Stu” or anything and i think that criticism is stupid, but I think it would’ve given him less of a “gary stu” feel to a lot of people. lol). I don’t think Jolyne in the beginning of the story would’ve been willing to set herself on fire just to defeat the enemy and save her dad. Now, the confirmation from her father on her growth is all the approval that she needs.

Then comes the very bittersweet ending. Jolyne sacrifices herself to let Emporio through to the new universe created by Pucci with Made in Heaven. This lets Emporio defeat Pucci, and gets sent to an alternate universe where Pucci never existed. Jolyne’s name is changed to “Irene”, she’s dating Anasui, and they all have no memory of Emporio. It’s very much a mindfuck.

 A lot of people absolutely adore this ending, and a lot of people absolutely despise it. I’m not here to discuss if this ending in general is good or bad, but I would like to say that there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding it.

First off, a lot of people have said that Jolyne is the only jojo who lost to the main villain. This is not correct, because Pucci didn’t “win” here. Her sacrifice allowed Emporio to go into the new universe that Pucci briefly attained, and after pucci’s death, the universe was recreated once more. All of the main cast gets put into better lives where they’re not dead or on the run from the police, and Emporio is the only one who remembers the events of the part. The Joestar curse is lifted (hence why the “jo” is taken from Jolyne’s name). If anything, Jolyne won, but at the sacrifice of her memories. And even if Jolyne did “lose”, so did Jonathan- arguably even moreso than her, because he only managed to hold Dio back for a little while instead of stopping him for good.

(I would also like to mention that a lot of people think that the Made in Heaven reset killed everyone- it didn’t. In fact, it only even messed with the part 6 cast, since it is specifically only a universe where Pucci didn’t exist. This does not effect any other part except for Stone Ocean and maybe minor aspects of Stardust Crusaders, because pucci didn’t have a hand in those parts.)

I would also like to bring up some snippets of Araki’s afterword at the end of Stone Ocean.

“Jolyne Cujoh, our protagonist, felt a deep void in her heart too because she was missing the paternal love that brought her to befriend the shady guy that caused her to be imprisoned, after causing a car accident. But what’s important is the progress she makes because of that, because of the actions she has to do to save her father she becomes the strong woman she is. If we look at this story as a telling of the protagonist’s growth, her story had ended.”

“Jolyne Cujoh’s memories might be different in the reset of the universe but her love and her feelings are still there, they became something eternal and I’m sure she’ll keep growing wiser and stronger.”

I believe that this would mean that Irene’s soul is the original Jolyne’s soul, and while her memories of the events of Stone Ocean aren’t there, she still has the feelings of growth and maturity that she gained throughout Stone Ocean. The growth is still there, it’s just the events that aren’t. Thus, her character development was not erased by the ending.

So, to sum it up: I love Jolyne’s stand, personality, design, and growth throughout the story. It’s very sad to me how underrated she seems to be as a character. While she isn’t my favorite jojo (that would probably be Josuke, but I have trouble deciding, to be honest), I probably have the most to say on her than any other jojo, and I think people should appreciate her more.

also, she better be green in the anime god damn it

[syn0vial]

important question number 3 what do you have on boba and sintas vel 👀 - lekkui

i have... some things! honestly, i wish sintas’s portrayal had been a little more solid in the EU. it varied wildly between writers and in certain comics, she had little more characterization than “beautiful, tough bounty hunter chick.” i hope if they revisit her in new canon, they give her a more nuanced, more consistent depiction. also i’ll be ignoring said comics for the purposes of this post bc it’s my blog and i’m too sleepy for salt right now

but yes, onto the bullet points!

for those unaware, sintas vel was a female kiffar bounty hunter who boba tried to start a new life with when they were teenagers. they both got out of the bounty hunting game and settled down on concord dawn, where they got married and had a daughter, ailyn. boba was 16 and sintas was 18 at the time.

one of the things i find most interesting about the two of them, especially when they were teenagers: ailyn was consistently the more logical and level-headed of the two of them, while boba was always more emotional and impulsive. tragically, it’s this impulsivity that leads boba to fuck up so badly and, ironically, to transform into the emotionally detached asshole we know later on.

but yeah, this dichotomy is seen pretty early on in a flashback-by-proxy, in which we learn that the whole romantic run-away-together-and-get-married-and-start-a-new-life-somewhere-far-away plan? 100% BOBA’S IDEA. 

in particular, we get the briefest snippet of an exchange where boba is trying his hardest to convince sintas that this would be a good idea. and, no exaggeration, it goes like:

sintas: “i mean, it’s kind of very obvious that you don’t know what you’re doing--” boba: “THINGS I KNOW: YOU’RE GOOD AT SHOOTING THINGS. YOU’RE PRETTY??? I TRUST YOU A LOT. see this is a good idea :)”

TEENAGE BOBA FETT: PURE OF HEART, DUMB OF ASS

anyway, boba fett and noted-morosexual sintas vel make their way to concord dawn. here’s some things we know about their relationship before everything went to shit:

nicknames! they referred to each other with the first syllable of each others’ names: bo and sin. very cute :)

they got married using a traditional mandalorian wedding vow. neither of them had any idea what the mando’a meant, bless their hearts.

as a marriage token, boba gave sintas a small red heart-of-fire gemstone tied on a simple leather cord. it was the best he could afford which, at the time, wasn’t much. however, it had significance to sintas as a kiffar; kiffars are near-humans whose members possess an unusually high occurrence rate of telemetry, or the ability to read memories from objects. heart-of-fire gemstones were said to be among the best for storing such memories.

SHIPPY FIC WRITERS TAKE NOTE. three words to describe boba in a committed relationship: PROTECTIVE. AS. HELL. absolutely unwilling to tolerate so much as a dirty look towards sintas. maybe even a little paranoid. kind of understandable given how much grief he’d already endured in his short life.

it didn’t save them

ok, fair warning, here’s the point where shit gets traumatic, so if you want to know nothing but the relatively happy stuff, STOP READING HERE. also, CWs for manipulation, sexual assault, murder, and imprisonment, bc nobody in this canon is allowed to be happy :(

last chance to turn back!

ok. onto the traumatic shit.

so! boba and sintas are doing fine. operation stop-being-teenaged-bounty-hunters-and-try-to-pass-for-normal is going pretty well! not only do they have their own functional little family unit, but boba has a job as a journeyman protector. basically think of them as like. mando frontier lawmen. and on top of that, boba has been taken under the wing of his superior officer and son of a local magistrate, lenovar. 

we don’t know much about lenovar (like, is that his first or his last name, for example...) but we know that boba and sintas trusted him and that boba in particular looked up to him as both a friend and mentor. 

however, lenovar was not what he seemed. once he had the young couple’s trust, he managed to get sintas alone and raped her.

in the aftermath, sintas performed some brutally pragmatic mental calculus: lenovar was a high-ranking journeyman protector and son of a magistrate. she and boba were two struggling teenagers with a baby, escaping checkered pasts. retaliating against lenovar would likely destroy them. which meant not only that she couldn’t retaliate against lenovar; she had to make sure boba wouldn’t, either.

so. how do you keep your extremely protective, impulsive former-bounty-hunter husband from flying off the handle and murdering your rapist?

you don’t tell him about it. you don’t tell anyone about it :(

argh just reading this i’m feeling salty that we get so little of sintas’s perspective on any of this. it’s all just “how did this make boba feel? how did it affect boba’s life?” and it’s like GOOD GOD. this woman is now maybe 20 years old, making the absolutely-gutting decision to keep her sexual assault a secret from her closest friend bc it’s the only way to protect her and him and their daughter from being steamrolled by the system. and like, nobody thought to expand on that? 

nope, we just get a comic where she’s needlessly sexualized and drawn to look young enough to be boba’s daughter despite the fact that she’s older than him and ugh

OKAY. enough salt. moving on.

sintas’s plan works for all of a year, at which point boba somehow finds out the truth. and everything goes straight to hell.

boba, finding out that sintas kept her sexual assault by lenovar a secret for a whole year (and remember, boba was probably continuing to work under and look up to lenovar during this time), is utterly furious. of course, he wants nothing more than to murder the shit out of lenovar and is only further enraged when sintas tries to logically talk him out of it. in his anger, he proceeds to verbally torch ALL the bridges in their relationship, at one point even cruelly questioning if ailyn is even his daughter. he then storms off and makes good on his threats to kill lenovar

in the aftermath, boba was branded not just a murderer, but the murderer of his superior officer—an even more serious crime. yet, despite repeated interrogations, he refused to say why he had done it, fearing that doing so would drag sintas down with him. he only insisted that he felt no remorse for killing lenovar and that lenovar deserved to die.

in the end, his efforts didn’t save sintas—the courts seized all of what meager assets they had, leaving them all penniless. boba was then exiled from concord dawn and wouldn’t see his wife and daughter again for fifty years.

after everything that happened, boba was a changed person. it’s as if that spark of optimism and dare-i-say goodness that had survived his father’s death was snuffed out, leaving only a cynical, angry shell, laser-focused on violence because it was the one part of his father’s legacy he hadn’t yet failed.

sintas and ailyn, meanwhile, struggled to pull themselves out of poverty, with sintas reluctantly returning to bounty hunting to support them. ailyn never forgave her father for abandoning them, which led to its own equally-disastrous tragedy some decades down the line.

moral of the story is to listen to your wife and don’t make her sexual assault all about your stupid need for revenge. like, i get that the rapist needs to die but maybe like... work with your wife and make it look like an accident? don’t be an impulsive fucking inconsiderate idiot? maybe realize that your wife probably just endured the most hellish year of her life to protect YOUR dumb ass?

honestly, as frustrating as teenage!boba is, you can’t even be that angry at him bc like... he and sintas were both victims reacting imperfectly to absolutely shit circumstances. lenovar is the real villain here.

never going to be over how tragic it is that these two kids tried so fucking hard to derail their villainous origin stories, only to be forced onto even more brutal tracks bc the one adult they should’ve been able to trust in their situation ended up being a predator :(

[sarahjkl82-blog]

Artistic Instinct- Chapter 4

Header thanks to the lovely @yespolkadotkitty

Summary: Marcus Pike and OC Anushka Pierce have been selected to work on a 5 eyes (Australia, Canada, NZ, the UK and US) intelligence team to track down art forgeries as a part of taking down an international white terrorism cell. Marcus is trying to escape his broken heart, Anushka is just trying to escape what the world expects of her.

Word count: 3,200

Warnings: Language.

Pairing: Marcus Pike x reader (OC)

This comes with a MASSIVE THANK YOU to the lovely @yespolkadotkitty , who read, re-read, pointed out the constant flipping between tenses and gave me the confidence to try to write something!This is the first thing I have written since angsty poetry as a teenager. Apologies if it is shit!

In art, there is neither past nor future. The art that is not in the present will never be.

Pablo Picasso

Chapter 4

What the fuck do people do when they wake up this early? 

You have been ready for hours. Being in a hotel room is seriously cramping your options for what you could possibly manage to do without irritating other people in the rooms surrounding yours- with the obvious options of singing at the top of your lungs or dancing like a fool not available, you settle on messing around with your hair. 

Now on your third hairstyle of the morning, having even taken the time to dry your hair from your shower (which in itself takes ages as you have roughly triple the thickness of a normal person’s hair), you attempt to plait your hair in a crown around your head. Whilst desperately trying to squeeze your eyes tight, trying to rid them of the sleep that had evaded you the previous night, you wonder how achy Marcus will be waking up this morning on the sofa and hope that he managed a more restful sleep than you, snug under the quilt. A small knock at the door comes and interrupts your daydream about that new boss of yours with the ridiculously soft brown eyes.

You arise from the bed, smoothing your shirt dress down over the generous curve of your hips. Giving your reflection a quick once over- no toothpaste, no major spots, no flappy bogies- you head towards the door. Opening it, there’s a sight for sore eyes- one besuited Marcus Pike bearing coffee-to-go cups and pastries from a boulangerie,a warm smile creasing his handsome features. 

“Oh, I could get used to this! You realise that you’ve set a precedent now, and I shall expect it every morning at work?” The genuine delight in your exclamation, as you swing the hotel door wide open, earns a chuckle and an even wider grin from Marcus. “Want to come in?”

“Oh, I don’t wanna  intrude. Enjoy your breakfast and I’ll see you in the lobby in half an hour?”

“I have a balcony that overlooks the square,” you gesture with a nod behind you. “Are you sure you don’t want to watch people go by?”

“Are you kidding me?! I was just making a mental note to ask Andy why he’d booked me a bigger bedroom but forget itt!” Marcus strides straight past you to the open French doors, letting out an impressed slow whistle as he takes in the view, “Wow!”

“How’s your neck?” You query with a raised eyebrow and a cheeky smirk as you blow the top of your coffee. 

Marcus grins sheepishly at you, rubbing the moustache that graces his upper lip, “Sorry about last night. I think the jet lag is kicking my ass. Thank you for putting the comforter on me- that was a kind gesture. I appreciate it.”

“I might be socially awkward and clumsy as fuck,” you flash the rapidly disappearing burn mark on the back of your hand with a roll of your eyes, “but I am human, Marcus.”

Is it your imagination, or does his gaze linger on you as he replies, “That you most certainly are.”

✪✪✪✪✪

Despite Marcus wanting to get a cab to Interpol HQ, you convince him to take the twenty minute walk along the river. Lyon has the typical bustle of a city in the centre but along the river, a peace descends beside the tree-lined water’s edge. Your eyes follow the water flowing in the Rhône- swollen and swirling in swift torrents after recent heavy rain. As you and Marcus fall in an easy step with each other, you try to ignore the somersaults your tummy is doing and spot that something seems to be bothering him, playing on his mind.

You notice how he doesn’t quite know what to do with his hands- swapping between rubbing the skin of his left hand between his thumb and index finger, and shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. His brow keeps furrowing, not really noticing the archetypically French buildings or beautiful ironwork bridges surrounding him. What could he be nervous about?

“Do you want to go over the agenda for this morning?” you gently inquire, wondering if it was the meeting that was bothering him. Feeling slightly bemused that a short catch up between bureaus should really put any fear into a former FBI agent.

“Also, I have another question- why did you bring me?” you add after Marcus fails to answer instantly, “Everything is translated four ways at Interpol, so you didn’t really need me for the language side of things.”

“They asked for you,” Marcus shifts his focus from his hands to your face. With a soft breathy laugh and a tender smile, he adds, “You obviously made an impression when you were here before. I can see how you would.”

“Pah!” You snort, spraying coffee everywhere as Marcus jumps to try to avoid the droplets hitting his white shirt, “That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good one! Shit, I’m sorry- did I hit you?” You spin towards him to check his suit and shirt.

“No, you’re good,” Marcus mutters softly as he blinks hard trying to ignore his enjoyment of your fingertips gently touching his tummy, being reminded of that small kiss on his forehead the night before, “Obviously you’re just giving my reflexes a workout this morning. I’m starting to wonder if you should be trusted with coffee,” he teases.

“I question how anyone deems me enough of an adult to trust me with anything on a daily basis,” you respond drily. “By the way, what’s been bugging you this morning? You’ve been fidgeting with your hands since we started walking.”

You hear Marcus inhale deeply and turn to see him furrowing his brow, pausing as if he was questioning whether to say it or not. “Why didn’t you go for my role in our 5 Eyes team, Anushka? You’re a highly qualified, intelligent and perceptive woman, who has so many years of experience and yet, you joined our team as an operative.”

Shrugging your shoulders and pouting your lips as you try to focus on the tumultuous water, you offer, “Maybe it’s at the risk of me staining or burning my team with coffee?” you say, lifting your eyes to his face with a sly, crooked smile. “It might be counted as abuse and apparently, it’s not acceptable as a managerial technique to torture your staff?”

“Yeah,” Marcus rubs his nose as he smiles, “I see that we’re gonna have to run a health and safety audit around you and caffeine when we get back to London- it’s two for two now.”

“Not true! I managed the one you brought to my room this morning!” You widen your eyes in mock hurt, waggling your index finger at your accuser.

“Ah, so you need something to eat at the same time,” Marcus deduces teasingly. “Balance the hands out?”

“Yup - food is definitely the way to my heart - and perhaps saving your suits too.”

Even though the fear of going back to your old workplace was sitting in your stomach like week-old petrol station sushi, being around Marcus permits you to settle into a strange type of comfort. His kind, non-judgemental and easy nature allows you to feel the easiest and calmest you’ve felt in forever- making you feel both confident and slightly unsettled by his loveliness at the same time. 

“I’ve been out of the field for a while.” The anxiety starts to rise in your chest as you try to make it sound like it’s nothing, swallowing those vicious emotions. “I have been teaching rookies for the past year and before that, I was put on administrative leave for eight months. Last…” you try to clear the lump forming in your throat, “Last Friday was in fact my last lecture so... It has been almost two years since I was properly in the loop.”

“I hope at some point, you feel that you can…” Marcus suddenly notices how your hands are balled into tight fists and your chest is taking shallower and shallower breaths. “Hey! Whoa, whoa,” He initially takes both of your hands in his but then folds your trembling, sobbing form into his chest, wrapping his arms around you. 

“Put your hands on my chest and feel how it’s rising and falling. You are safe. This won’t last long,” he guides you through the fear and panic, “I won’t leave you. You are safe.”

You pull away from him suddenly, a desperate look emanating from your eyes as you gasp through the tears, “You really should. I don’t deserve your kindness.”

Marcus says nothing as he pulls you back into his solid, broad form, wrapping his comforting arms around you.

✪✪✪✪✪

After what felt like an hour, but was probably ten minutes, of Marcus talking you through breathing exercises gently and nonjudgmentally, never digging for further information, the rest of your journey towards Tête d’Or passes in relative silence. 

Just the incessant hum of traffic, birds singing and the rush of water provide the soundtrack in the air, on which you try to focus your exhausted body and mind after that anxiety attack as you gain on Interpol’s Headquarters. It’s a sight that never ceases to amaze you- the centre that polices the world’s police forces with its monolithic concrete columns and mirrored glass exterior- both impressive and terrifying, with the ability to make any human introspective on being faced with their reflection in the reinforced glass exterior. The ridiculous juxtaposition of pretty flower displays decorating the entrance that would be better placed in the neighbouring park.

With three security checks including all the usual body scanners and metal detectors, you finally reach the other side and start in the direction of the allocated meeting room with Marcus at your heels. As you were heading towards the lifts to reach the correct floor, an unexpected warmth and pressure courses through your left shoulder. Looking towards it, you realise that he has put his hand there. He motions for you to come closer so you tilt your head towards him, allowing him an easy access to your ear. Speaking lowly so others cannot hear, Marcus leans towards you, so close that you can feel his warm breath upon your face, “There’s a bathroom over there. Do you want to go and freshen up before the meeting? We still have a while before go time.”.

Is there no end to his constant thoughtfulness? You nod numbly, still drained from the cortisol hit and head in the direction of the loo. Inside the utilitarian style of the bathroom, you sit down and rest your forehead in your hands- urgh, had they been this clammy when Marcus had held your hands? Feeling quite disgusted with your body’s natural reactions to the day’s anxieties, you get up from the toilet seat and head to the sinks where you flip the tap on full blast and dig in your bag for a tablet. 

Your fingers all feel thumbs as they tremble from the adrenaline, looking for the beta blockers that would allow your heart to slow its pace so that you can stop feeling like you need to hide from that sabre-toothed tiger that preys upon your inner weaknesses. Finding one, you push it out of the blister pack and pop it on your tongue, afterwards, using your right hand to scoop a handful of cool water to swallow it with. If only you were here with me.Oh, how I wish you were here, Jas.

You enjoy the coolness on your face and take several deep breaths before deciding to rejoin the living. Walking out of the bathroom, Marcus spots you re-emerging and starts to cross the hallway to meet you halfway, extending a bottle of water out to you.

“Protecting your shirt?” You smile weakly, not quite catching his eye.

“Thought it would be safer all round,” Marcus generously articulates, and you chuckle at his thinly veiled, but amusing hint at your clumsiness.

You walk alongside Marcus as you head off in the direction of where you’ll be having the meeting through rabbit warren of corridors and floors. Every now and then, you feel a small sideways glance from him. It feels odd to have someone checking in on you with no ulterior motive. It almost feels quite nice. 

“I know you won’t take me up on this, but, if you need an out, I can make up an excuse to cover for you,” he offers just as you reach the floor of the meeting. 

“I won’t take you up on it but thank you, Marcus. Thank you for everything this morning,” you touch his arm by way of thanks, noticing the tint of rosiness being brought to his cheeks, “You’ve made what could’ve been an impossible morning much easier, thank you.”

« Nush! Ça va chérie? Il y a si longtemps que je n’ai pas vu ton beau visage. » Nush! How are you darling? It has been so long since I last saw your beautiful face!

 A melodious voice rattles off as a rush of expensive perfume and a perfectly coiffed head suddenly wraps you in an embrace to “faire la bise”. 

« Coucou Nush! » a deeper voice adds, «On a entendu que t’as presque quitté la force mais quand on a vu ton nom dans cette nouvelle équipe, je pense qu'on a tous crié de joie. » Hey Nush, we heard you almost left the force but when we saw your name in this new team, I think we all screamed with joy.

Pulling yourself back from the flurry of kisses, you look into the faces of Élodie and Jacques. It is as if no time has passed at all but there is very much a notable absence looming in the room. 

« T’as crié de joie, j'ai organisé cette rencontre! » Élodie rolls her eyes, « On était tristes que tu ne puisses pas venir à notre journée de mariage mais on comprend complètement. » She uses the soft pads of her thumbs to wipe the hot tears that are falling silently down your face. « Est-ce que ce sont des larmes de joie ou de tristesse, ma petite? » You shouted with joy, I organised this meeting. We were sad that you couldn’t come to our wedding day but we completely understand. Are those tears of joy or sadness, my small.

« Tous les deux, » Both you sniffle, embarrassed at your emotions making such a clear display on your face again. What is he going to think of me?

“Sorry, excuse our rudeness, we should be speaking in English.” Jacques offers in Marcus’ direction.

Reaching blindly behind yourself, you go to pull Marcus’ arm forwards. In a clumsy twist of fate, your (now thankfully less clammy) left hand instead finds his. You notice that Marcus’ cheeks are as flushed as yours at the contact but neither of you remove your hands from the other’s. “This is Agent Marcus Pike, Agents Élodie and Jacques Panisse.”

Marcus offers his right hand to the French pair but Élodie brushes it away, instead diving in to kiss his left, then right cheek, “No, no, no! When in France, we kiss - especially an acquaintance or perhaps, friend, of Nush’s!”

“Are you sure it’s not just because he’s so handsome?” Jacques teases his wife.

“Smells as good as he looks, too - I’m impressed. London is hiring well,” she winks at her husband as Marcus squirms a little uncomfortably under Élodie’s brilliant spotlight, releasing a light chuckle, “So even though I can only dream of working on the team, can we try to keep each other in the loop as we keep turning up dead ends in regards to this case too? We may not be deemed as party to 5 Eyes level of information but we can offer our own francophone twist, non?”

“While you are here, do you have time for a short road trip?” Jacques asks you, ignoring his wife’s incessant flirting and trying to sweeten the deal, “Something that might pique your interest turned up in an auction house just outside of Grenoble this morning. A Soutine, possibly one of his series from the Carcass of Beef, arrived yesterday afternoon. They rang and asked if we could take a sneak peek to check that it is not a forgery.”

You tilt your head to catch Marcus’ eyes,  “What do you think, boss? Flight isn’t until tomorrow morning and it’s only an hour and a half there.”

“No harm in having a look,” Marcus agrees, “But we haven’t organised any car rentals.”

“Ah Marcus, we have had a people carrier since a little one joined us just over a year ago. Go back to your hotel after the meeting  and get changed into something that you don’t mind getting sticky or muddy from the backseat, and you and Nush can jump in with us.” Élodie runs a finger over the lapel of Marcus’ suit jacket as she speaks.

« Laisse t’il tranquille, hein? T’as les mains baladeuses! » Leave him alone, eh? You have wandering hands! Jacques rolls his eyes as he removes her from reaching distance of poor Marcus as you try uselessly to smother a giggle, “Marcus, I apologise for my wife and her inappropriacy around attractive men. Shall we pick you both up from your hotel around noon? Gives you time to change into something more comfortable and we can gather some materials to check the piece?”

“Great! We’ll see you then.” Marcus straightens up, grinning as he responds to Jacques.

As Élodie and Jacques seat themselves at the conference table, chattering between themselves in swift, teasing French, you gaze towards their shared tenderness. Marcus turns in your direction and tentatively reaches out for your arm, “How are you doing? You’re still a little grey- are you sure you don’t want to go back and just rest?”

“No,” you shake your head gently with a small smile gracing your lips, “Just a visit from a ghost of what might have been.”

✪✪✪✪✪

The conference room quickly fills with a mixture of faces- some well known, others new. Flurries of kisses, squeezes on your shoulder and small rubs on your back from the old colleagues, whilst the newer people stood back to read the situation. When you notice Marcus slipping back with the unknowns, you pull him back towards you- highly unsure whether you were doing it to show that he was, in fact, your superior or if it was just a case of needing the safety and comfort he offers you by standing in close proximity.

An older gentleman with a lifetime of experience etched into the lines on his face, wearing a plaid jacket with leather patches sewn into the elbows and a silk cravat tucked into his shirt, walks silently into the room allowing those present to part like the Red Sea. He walks directly to you, kissing you on your forehead.

«Ma fille. Tu nous as manqué,» My girl. We missed you. he lowly rumbled as he placed both hands on your cheeks, tilting your chin up towards him, «Ne t'inquiète pas, je ne le mentionnerai pas.» Don’t worry, I won’t mention him.

“Let us get started everyone,” he begins, switching into English as he commands everyone’s attention and gesturing towards the table, Pierre St-Vincent introduces himself and takes the head of the table. “Today, we will be looking at several recent world-wide cases of fraudulent art pieces and the links that they have to organised crime syndicates across the world.”

“When you report your findings, please introduce which agency you are representing.”

Marcus is the first to speak in his gloriously treacly baritone, sitting back in his chair causing it to creak slightly, “Good morning all - Agent Marcus Pike, formerly of the FBI art fraud department, now heading up a 5 Eyes working party, investigating forgeries and the links we have found to exist with white terrorism.”

You notice his eyes shift in your direction and a slight curling up of the corner of his lips, “Judging by the greetings you gave her, I think the majority of you know Agent Pierce, who is seated to my right, and you will understand the reason I will get her to fill you all in on our findings so far.”

A small, kind chuckle fills the air. “Entirely understood, Agent Pike,” Pierre has a gentle half-smile on his face, “Agent Pierce, on behalf of everyone in this room, it is a pleasure to welcome you back. You have been missed in these corridors.”

“Thank you, Sir,” inhaling deeply, you look down the table. So many pairs of eyes are upon you, awaiting your next comment.

Clearing your throat slightly, your mouth turns up in a slight smile as your eyebrow arches and your back straightens,

“If you could all turn your attention to the statistics in front of you…”

As you continue to speak eloquently, entrancing and captivating the room, you don’t notice the mixture of pride and adoration on Marcus’s face and how Pierre catches him with a slight nod of the head and a smile - the two gentlemen in total agreement.

My beautiful taglist: @astroboots @silverwolf319 @lunaserenade @danniburgh @leonieb @mrsparknuts @sirowsky​ @mouthymandalorian @the-ginger-hedge-witch @lv7867 @songsformonkeys

If you’d like to be added or dropped from the tag list or have any thoughts, thots or suggestions, please do get in touch! I don’t bite hard 🥰

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 31

First time reader click here

it's a mental breakdown *off-key kazoo*. One (1) incident of physical abuse from a parent. And Stephen Strange arc begins opening. Kind of angsty, but more of a filler chapter to resolve the parents-suck thing.

A couple of days was all it took for me to get back on my feet... Figuratively speaking. Neither Bruce nor Tony was particularly excited about me being up and about, I was carried to my desired destination point by one or the other on most occasions. Physically, my body grew tired very easily - I took a lot of sporadic naps throughout the day, more often than not falling asleep in someone's arms. Nobody minded, really - even Loki, who wasn't a touchy-feely person by any means, relented and acted as a body pillow for me when we crashed on the common room couch to catch up with the TV show episodes I'd missed.

Tony was very obviously on the verge of a nervous breakdown. During the few hours I had spent being chased by the Cursed Box Demon in my nightmares, all the leads towards the contractor proved to be cold. Natasha was the most irritated of them all - a late-night talk with Clint through the vent above my room revealed that she took it as a personal insult, unprepared for a simple merc to be so good at evading the world's most notorious spy.

Hulk kept taking over Bruce's body - eyes shining fluorescent green - at the times we were together, periodically clutching me to his chest with clumsy but careful movements. I pitied the mercenary should he encounter my gentle scientist - I didn't think Bruce would even attempt to hold back Mean Green. They seemed to have achieved some sort of symbiosis those days, switching between the two personalities in one body almost effortlessly. Circumstances aside, I was very happy that the tension and the persistent internal conflict inside Bruce had almost disappeared.

What made me upset was Strange. The sorcerer was behaving, well, strangely. He began avoiding all of us - his excuses of helping the search for the merc were flimsy, and Wong's long, deep sigh, when asked about the sorcerer's state of mind, spoke volumes. I suspected Stephen was either seething with anger or drowning himself in the sea of guilt; I had a hunch he was similar to Tony in a way that he hid his vulnerability behind an impenetrable wall of malice and sarcasm and dry wit.

Perhaps I was wrong. But the pent up frustration resulting from the conflict between my overactive brain and my uncooperative body had to blow - and my mother was the fire to my already short fuse. Somehow, she got ahold of the information that I was hurt indirectly because of the actions of the Avengers - and she had called the first available phone she found, which meant Pepper Potts got an earful of vitriol regarding Stark Industries, SHIELD, Tony, and everyone else, including my father. Stoic as she was, Pepper took it all with grace, replying politely to my mother until she hung up on the redhead.

Pepper placed an urgent call to Coulson immediately after that, making the already uncomfortable situation spiral into something truly disgraceful. It ended with strict orders for me to return home - not that anyone besides me and Coulson knew about it. I was a legal adult, I could choose to stay in the tower and my mother was told so on numerous occasions... Knowing her, I was well aware she wouldn't be above storming Tony's home with a small army of her lawyer friends.

Inwardly seething, melting with the anger sitting in the pit of my stomach like a sharp piece of ice, I managed to convince Tony to have Happy escort me home at the guise of gathering more necessities. Tony, being Tony, offered me to buy anything and everything I needed, but relented under my puppy-eyed pleading. It was getting harder and harder to lie to any of my men, the weight of it settling unpleasantly bitter on top of my already foul mood.

Happy grumbled in displeasure at being tailed by a nondescript black SUV - I knew SHIELD would have eyes on me 24/7 now, at least until they catch the rogue mercenary - but seemed to be happy at my general state of relative wellness in his own... Happy... way. Five-second side-grin and "Glad you're up and about, Princess," was probably the most I was going to get from the man who's nickname contradicted his personality. In my humble opinion, he should've been called Brick instead. He was built like a shit house, too.

The moment I stepped into the living room, wearing Wanda's spare sweats and Tony's hoodie, I took a slow look around the room and immediately knew this was it. Most of my anger had receded, courtesy of finally being able to get out of the tower and do something, but the ice in my stomach persisted. The smell of whiskey and cigarettes hit me like a wall, news playing on the TV doing very little to dissolve the viscid, tense silence.

"Sit down," My mother instructed me in the tone of voice she used on people in the courtroom - convicts, people who knowingly broke NDAs.

"I don't think so," I replied, refusing to give in to her bullying. I was being absolutely reckless, I knew it, and still it didn't stop me from standing up for my men. Logically speaking, it could have happened to me anyway, Avengers or not. The cursed box came along long before I'd even met Peter Parker or any of his rag-tag superhero friends.

"Fine," She turned around, steely eyes leveled on me. I was but a speck of dirt under her nails - for the first time in my life, I felt terrified of my mother. I knew what she was capable of. "Listen well, daughter of mine. I'm going to only repeat myself once," She started in that deceptively calm tone of hers. "You are to stop mingling with Stark and his... Company. Immediately. I do not want to hear any more of that Parker boy, either. You will not destroy your future and our family's legacy over some fling with a man twice your age. This little game has gone long enough and it's time for you to get back to reality."

The more she spoke, the higher my eyebrows rose. I was supposed to take orders from my own mother now? Something thin, something thin and crackling with electricity within me just snapped - like a live wire. The hairs on my nape stood up, goosebumps appearing all over my skin. "And what if I do not?" I asked, just as quietly.

I was not prepared for her reaction. One second, she was sitting on the couch and the other - my cheek was burning and my mother was standing over me, breathing the stench of alcohol and tobacco right in my face. I saw the whites of her eyes. "Then you are no daughter of mine. I did not raise you to be someone's cumrag and all this play-pretend scientist shit had to have ended in middle school. I hoped you'd grow up but apparently, you insist on being a baby," She was full-on screaming in my face, so rabid she was shaking.

All I could think of was... How wrong she was. How wrong she would be, her sad little world broken when she finds out just exactly how much I'm capable of. Long gone were the days where I timidly questioned my scientific contributions; thanks to my men - the same men she'd hated so much - I knew my value. I knew I could achieve the things that I wanted.

"If that is your choice, you have thirty minutes to get your shit and get lost. I will not have a whore of a daughter living under my roof," I had missed a good part of her rant; most likely, it consisted of nothing but meaningless insults anyway. After she'd finished, she gave me a shove towards the stairs.

It didn't bother me as much as it should, I think. My cheek smarted and somewhere deep inside, I knew that the eerie calm that had settled over me wasn't normal - on the surface, I felt only relief. The things I suspected all along, finally came to light - she didn't even perceive me as a human being, I was no more than a means to her end. A tool. A thing.

The waterworks started when I frantically shoved most of the shit I could fit in my three suitcases. Upset as I was, my scatterbrain did me a favor that time and I gathered most of the important things. Notebooks full of my research - projects that my mother had called a child's game, projects that could be patented in a week, add a tweak or two. With sudden clarity, I realized I needed none of her money. None of her... At all. In short, I was emotionally all over the place and at the end of it... None of it made sense.

I threw the credit cards with her name on them on the coffee table as I hauled out my suitcases, not sparing the bitch a glance. She was equally quiet, boring into my back with those steely eyes of hers. I felt my skin peel under her stare. In my distraught state, hauling and dumping the suitcases in my car was quick work. Detaching the house key and tossing the last things that connected me to her house on the floor at her feet was a spur of the moment decision; my mother was right, to some extent, and I still had childish tendencies. "You had no right to call yourself my mother in the first place. All you were was an egg donor with more money than you could make sense of. Enjoy your hoard, you damned dragon," I seethed, seeing her frozen in place with her arms crossed and chin held high.

Some part of me hoped she would apologize. That naïve, childish part - I knew my mother and I knew myself, and the trait that we shared was stubbornness. I sped out of the estate without ever looking back, driving aimlessly for a while until the honking coming from drivers around me began reaching alarming levels of volume; tears began flowing down my face at some point, all but obscuring my vision. I parked in the nearest place I could find, in front of a Waffle House out of all places.

Crying in a Waffle House parking lot, how pathetic was that. Logically, I knew at least five people had my back: Tony and Bruce, who surprisingly loved me back; Loki, who had become strangely clingy after my declaration - clingy in the best way. Together with Wanda and Peter, they made my heart warm and my eternally racing brain feel calm and safe.

I called my dad, he didn't pick up. I don't know what I expected of the man, but any and all remnants of my respect for him shattered, breaking into tiny little pieces as I helplessly banged my fists against the steering wheel in a fit of desperate rage. One look in the mirror and my already ashen complexion was made worse by red, puffy eyes and the blooming bruise on my cheek where my mother had slapped me. It was the first time she'd laid a hand on me; I wanted to throw up.

I sat in the car until my breathing slowed; completely and utterly clueless as to what to do. I had no home of my own, three suitcases worth of clothes and research that was useless without a lab to run experiments in, my car, and a small trust fund in my name. The recent incident with the curse box had left me mentally drained as it was, now, I could surely say that my head was empty: no thoughts.

And throughout it all, Stephen's avoidance crossed my mind. As if the self-loathing wasn't enough, as if my own blood, the people who were supposed to care for me, rejecting and ignoring me wasn't strong enough of a blow... The sorcerer's avoidance raised more anger within me. I didn't know why but the thought of him made me want to cry and seethe once again.

Logic gone out of the window, I typed in the Sanctum's address into my GPS with shaking fingers, figuring that if he wasn't willing to do the legwork, I will come to him myself and clarify things for all at once. The mixed signals were just a cherry on top of my sky-high problem sundae.

I banged on the door and it flew open immediately, a surprised sorcerer quickly turning concerned and panicky, noticing my general state of appearance. I was still wearing the same clothes and my hair was in disarray, my face looking somewhere between a coke bender and a manic episode.

"You," I stated darkly, taking a deep breath. "You need to tell me what the fuck is wrong with me and reject me, so I can move on already. And you," I poked the man in the chest, right above the fancy eye-shaped necklace, "Need to stop it with the mixed signals. Stop wallowing in self-pity. Whatever you are doing, STOP IT," My voice involuntarily raised in pitch from all those emotional rollercoasters I've been on that day. "Get back to being normal. Let me fucking live," I finished my tirade as the man stared at me, frozen and open-mouthed.

"I..." He stammered, eyeing me with concern. "What in the multiverse happened to you? What..?" He was so confused, pulling out his phone the moment I bailed my fists.

"My mother threw me out, my father doesn't give a fuck about me, apparently I'm a cheap whore with delusions of grandeur. You're avoiding me and everybody is waiting for me to blow up," I screeched, all but vibrating in my spot. "This is me blowing up. I want answers!" I demanded.

Strange recoiled from me, frowning and pocketing his phone. A deep sigh left him, the kind that made his whole body sag. He ran a careful hand through his hair before looking away and slowly pulling me against his chest, the door shutting behind me and keeping the cold out. I hadn't even noticed I was freezing; my feet were wet from the NYC winter slush and mud.

Stephen's embrace was warm and tender; I wanted to lean into it and push him away at the same time. I was so messed up, it was embarrassing. There was nothing acceptable about this situation - I felt guilty as soon as his face fell.

"Jesus Christ, baby," He mumbled quietly. "Sounds like you had one hell of a day. Let's go, I'll put on some tea," He rubbed soothing circles on my back, something that confused me - I just had stormed in and dumped a bucket of bile right on top of his head.

"I should go," I mumbled, yet had no real strength to move away from him.

"You're not going anywhere. I suppose I need to explain myself, too," He sighed, and despite his obvious discomfort, picked me up, letting my limbs to wrap around his torso like a monkey. I was careful to keep my weight off his hands, even if the trip to the fireplace room was short. As soon as I was placed onto the couch and my shoes were removed, Cloaky drifted over from a dark corner, urging me to take off my soggy hoodie, and wrapped itself tightly around me.

Turns out, semi-sentient cloaks were quite warm.

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub ​ @mostly-marvel-musings  @vozit ​ @littlegasps ​ @pilloclock ​ @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads ​ @hermione-grangers-wife ​ @individualistfem ​ @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby @cutenessloading @romeo-the-cactus @jelly-fishy-babie @mikariell95

[zeldasayer]

I transcribed and translated Pedro’s interview from GQ Germany for all of us. I tried translating as good as possible but bear with me, English is not my mother tongue. By @sixties-loser

Pedro Pascal, the star from “Game of Thrones”, “Wonder Woman” and “The Mandalorian” talks about becoming an adult, film, fashion, corona – and a painful surgery in the exclusive GQ interview.

It seems almost eerie how empty the streets of LA are in the sunshine. Meanwhile a new normality seems to be coming to Europe, most people in L.A. are still cutting their own hair. Many have not seen their friends for half a year. The pandemic is out of control. The reaction towards it too. Inviting someone into their garden for a “distance drink” can cause the same distress as suggesting to switch spouses.

Therefore, it was particularly surprising that Pedro Pascal immediately accepted. He accepted the drink, not to switch spouses. He is one of the rising stars and newcomers this year – if it wasn’t for corona sending the whole film industry into a forced vacation, there would most likely not have been time for said drink. After having his skull crushed in “Game of Thrones” followed the lead role as a DEA agent hunting Pablo Escobar in “Narcos” in 2015 and now he is stepping towards big Hollywood films. From the 1st of October onwards the Chilean-born actor will be starring in the blockbuster “Wonder Woman 1984”. Moreover, the second season of the “Star Wars”-series “The Mandalorian” on Disney+ starring him as the lead is going to air in October this year – but he will be underneath a helmet. Well, we all are under a helmet in 2020 in one way or another. We want to meet the man who a few years ago still worked as a waiter in New York, whose parents were political refugees who found asylum in Denmark and settled in Texas and whose son one day signed up for a theatre group in High School.

Then, the cancellation! While we were in the middle of fixing up the house and the garden for the drink with Pedro and organizing the fashion shoot, which was not easy considering the safety measures in L.A., his management called with an unfortunate message: Pedro – no, not sick with corona – had to get emergency surgery because of a damaged tooth and was lying in bed with a swollen face that was hindering him from speaking and taking pictures. The sun is shining onto empty streets. And our empty garden.

A few days later he nonetheless arrived at our front door without a swollen face but still with threads in his mouth. He was not chauffeured by a limo-service but he came with his own car – he even picked up his make-up artist. He is helping her carrying all of her utensils into the house and declares: “I’ve got time today!”. What a celebrity! It seemed like we did not want to ask him how he made it to the A-List of Hollywood but he wanted to ask us how we made it to the A-list. Pedro Pascal! Yes, what kind of a celebrity?

Pedro Pascal: Sorry for messing with your plans. The surgery was an emergency.

GQ: Really? We were wondering whether the swelling wasn’t the product of a secret visit to the plastic-surgeon. Apparently, they are drowning in work because of the quarantine in Hollywood.

PP: I have to disappoint you. A few days before our appointment I was rushing to the hospital with a fractured tooth and the worst pain in my entire life – a hospital in which treats people with severe cases of corona. I was unable to reach any dentist! Right in front of the parking lot a specialist called me back. The pain was hell despite the ten injections I got. The doctor said I was not an exception because a lot of people are grinding their teeth because of all the stress.

GQ: What are you most afraid of at the moment?

PP: How the government is handling the pandemic is worrying me more than the virus itself. This shortage of intelligent management of the crisis is a moral shame. The leadership crisis in this country is turning us all into orphans – destitute and abandoned.

GQ: How did you spend your time over the last few months?

PP: I spent it with frozen pizza and sweatpants in Venice Beach. I live in a rear house that’s in a family’s garden. Actually, there are a lot of good takeout places nearby but for some reason I just love pepperoni pizza from the supermarket.

GQ: That does not really sound like movie star-lifestyle. What does it feel like being suddenly stopped from top speed to zero?

PP: Regarding what is going on around the world one should hold back one’s own mental turmoil. I would be lying if I was saying that I am not disappointed. The whole team put a lot of heart and work into the production of “Wonder Woman 1984”. We had a lot of fun on set. I wished to travel around the world and introduce the film with the same lively energy.

GQ: You come from a politically engaged, socialist family that fled from the Pinochet-regime in Chile. What do you remember from that time?

PP: My sister and I were born in Chile but I was only nine months old when we first found asylum in Denmark. From there we quickly came to San Antonio in Texas where my dad started working as a doctor at the university clinic.

GQ: Texas is not known as a socialist utopia. How did you assimilate?

PP: San Antonio is not a Cowboy-town but very diverse with big Asian, black and Latino communities. I remember it as a romantic place, culturally open. The culture shock only came as we later moved to range county in California. There the atmosphere was suddenly white, preppy and conservative.

GQ: How were you received in California?

PP: I’m still ashamed of the fact that I did not correct my classmates when they kept on calling me Peter. I am Pedro. Even if I didn’t grow up in Chile the country and the language are still a part of me. I was very unhappy in that environment. However, I was fortunately able to go to another school close to Long Beach where I felt more comfortable. Through the theater group at that school I found my way.

GQ: Were you able to visit Chile as a child?

PP: Yes, when my parents made it to the list of expatriates that were able to travel to Chile without consequences. First, there was a big family reunion and then my sister and I stayed there for a few months with relatives while my parents went back to Texas. They likely needed a break from us. They got us when they were very young, had a buzzing social life and my mother was obtaining a PhD in psychology.

GQ: Was your mother a typical young psychologist who wanted to apply her theoretical knowledge at home?

PP: You mean, whether I was her guinea pig? For sure! I remember strange tests and sittings that were disguised as games where someone was watching me react to different toys. I cannot have been older than six but I was already aware of the dynamic. My favourite thing was being questioned about my dreams. That was a wonderful opportunity to come up with fantastic stories.

GQ: Was that your first performance?

PP: Of course! My mother worried about my strong imagination because I was living in my own fantasy world rather than reality. I hated going to school. I was always categorized as the troublemaker. At one point, the topics at school became more interesting and my grades also went up. There are so many kids that are unnecessarily diagnosed with learning disabilities without considering that school can be abhorrent. Why is it so accepted to be bored in class when there are so many stimulating ways to convey knowledge?

GQ: Considering al that has happened this summer around the world: Do you believe that we can seriously demand social change now?

PP: I Hope so. After lockdown, the first time I went out was to protest for “Black Lives Matter” on the streets. The energy was peaceful and hopeful until the police provoked severe conflicts. Nevertheless, we cannot run from problems like we used to this time and we cannot distract ourselves from them either. It seems like the pressure of the pandemic led to a new clarity: We cannot go on this way.

GQ: The “Wonder Woman 1984” Trailer revives the optimism of the 1980’s. From today’s point of view, it seems almost nostalgic.

PP: That’s right. You really are happy for two hours. The director Patty Jenkins created a film full of positive messages. We shot in Washington D.C., then in London and Spain – this sounds like I am talking of a past time.

GQ: Do you miss traveling?

PP: I’m just now realizing the privilege of just packing up one’s stuff and being able to fly anywhere. An American passport used to guarantee unlimited travel. And that’s why it the small radius of our lives is actually unimaginable. Over the last years I often retreated for a break after shootings because I was constantly on the move and overstimulated. My friends were already complaining I had become too comfortable. We all took social contact for granted and are only realizing now how dependent we actually are on human contact. Over the last weeks I often longingly thought about all the parties and dinner invitations I declined.

GQ: In L.A. people spend more time at home or nature than in other metropolises that are more geared towards public life. Could this city become your second home after New York?

PP: My Real Home are my friends. I have been a nomad since I was little and I do not have a place where I have put down roots. Up until not long ago my physical home was a place in between departure and arrival. Therefore, it was something I did not want to complicate through the accumulation of stuff. On the contrary: Without having read Marie Kondo’s book I have freed myself from excess baggage over the last few years and I lived relatively minimally.

GQ: Is there nothing you collect or something you just can’t throw away?

PP: Books! I even still have the literature I read when I was a teenager and when I was in college. Recently, I stumbled upon a box full of old theatre manuscripts and materials from my time at the New York University. I also cannot part from art easily, just like I cannot part from lamps or old photos. On the other hand, I can easily get rid of furniture and clothes.

GQ: Do you remember roles that were really only completely defined through the costume?

PP: Yes, I am particularly thinking about “Game of Thrones”. At that time I understood for the first time what it meant to be supported by a look. This is thanks to the costume designer Michele Clapton. She created very feminine robes and brocade coats for my character that nevertheless looked masculine when worn and I felt very sexy in them. Of course, Lindy Hemmings power-suits and Jan Swells bleached hairstyle for the tycoon-villain in “Wonder Woman 1984” were very important as well. At first I did not really see myself in the role because the cuts and colors of the 80s do not really fit my body. I’m more the 70s type.

GQ: Do you incorporate those inspirations into your personal wardrobe?

PP: In my free time I choose comfort over a cool look these days. Sometimes I miss the times when I expressed myself through a certain style. It is hard to imagine that I went to Raves as a teenage in the 90s; I was a real club kid with ridiculous outfits: overalls, balloon pants, football shirts and a top hat, like in Dr.Seuss’s “Cat in a Hat”. Later in New York I was hanging out with a group of people that felt it was very important to have a certain style. The fact that I am basically only wearing sweatpants everyday is actually tragic.

GQ: whoever plays roles in comic book adaptations becomes a bodybuilder and eats ten chicken breasts a day. You don’t?

PP:My body would not agree with that. It is hard enough to stay in shape normally. When you’re in your mid-forties you have to live with a lot more discipline. Up until before my tooth-incident I worked out with a trainer in my garden multiple times a week to keep the quarantine body in check.

GQ: Apart from the personal trainer, are you in a steady relationship?

PP: I am not ready for that yet. Maybe at some point I will be but until then I’ll let it be. I can’t even offer you absurd corona dating stories.

GQ: What would annoy you the most if you were your own roommate?

PP: I can be quite controlling. I have to conjure all my humanity to prevent myself from going through my entire film collection. When I don’t want something I cannot keep it to myself or be passive-aggressive, I always have to take it to the frontlines. Other than that, I tend to have tunnel view: when I am not feeling well I cannot imagine to ever feel better again. I have trouble relativizing my emotions or to wave off problems. Method-acting would really not be for me. This is why I try to only work on projects that feel good, where there is mutual support and encouragement.

GQ: When we were trying on the clothes earlier you spoke of a lack of self-confidence. How does that get along with a career like yours?

PP: Isn’t it interesting how these characteristics and circumstamces relate? Self-worth comes from inside but it is also influenced by what society values because we often internalise the public gaze. I have lived in New York for 20 years, I studied there and made a living by working as a waiter until my mid-thirties because the theatre and film jobs I got did not pay the bills. There were so many times I was almost there. The disappointment of having missed the perfect role or opportunity by a hair’s width can be crushing. When should you give up and what is plan B? That is a question that is not only on many actors‘s minds but also on many others minds who struggle for a living – no matter how much potential they have or how close they seem to be to the top. We are seeing now how our narrow definition of success destroys society. At the same time, we are realizing that where we come from and the color of our skin still decide whether we can exist with dignity.

GQ: What are the positive aspects of a relatively late success as leading-man?

PP: I feel like I can decide over my own life without the pressure of having to accept projects or to have to present a certain identity on social media. This is for sure also because I am a man. Regardless of age, Women have to try harder to stand out.

GQ: Life always consists of risk management – now more than usual. For what would you risk losing something?

PP: Generally, when you never risk something you might never get ahead. That is for friendship, love, work and creativity. I have to be ready to take risks for the things that really matter to you.

[insane-control-room]

Poison

[check out the gif vers on twitter :)]

Ao3 Link

The moment after Spy put his cigarette to his lips, Engineer stepped forward and wrapped him into a hug, holding onto him as though his life depended on it.

"Never do that again."

tws: temp death, minor violence, broken bone

Scout’s hearing was a little messed up as he was trying to wake up. That was relatively normal for him. What was not normal was the fact that he could hear other voices that he did not recognize in the slightest. The first few weeks at Teufort had a similar effect, and negatively impacted his performance more than he would have liked, but that made for a colossal swingback once he was able to get some proper sleep.

So hearing new voices that he was certain should not be there set off alarm bells in his head.

“Kid’s still asleep, I guess.”

Part of Scout was indignant at being called a kid, but the other part agreed with that gruff, low voice. Pretending to be asleep in a hostile situation could be pretty beneficial to him.

“Well, it doesn’t matter too much,” another voice hissed. “Grab him and go. We’ve already got his y factor, and that’s what does matter. The brat doesn’t matter at all, really, but we need him to get to what we want.”

Scout stiffened, but tried not to let it show, as he had been picked up by someone who might have been just a little smaller than Heavy. They carried him out of the hall, and he squinted at his desk to catch a glimpse of the time from his golden baseball themed alarm clock. He had received it anonymously on his birthday, and while none of his teammates admitted it, Engineer did inform him that the compound was actual gold, and not just painted. He felt a warm glow every time he saw the time on it, and this time, though stressful, was no different as he beheld the yellowish 3:41.

Too damn early for this, in other words.

Scout knew he was taken outside when he felt the cool air on his face. He immediately recognized the buzzing, spaztic sounds of sapped sentries. That in turn made him wonder where Engineer was, questioning why he had not fixed the problem, and decided firmly that he did not want to think about that too much.

“Good, you brought him,” a high pitched voice that Scout very much disliked giggled. “Now the real fun can start.”

Scout was unceremoniously dropped onto the floor, and he popped right back up, folding his arms and giving a dissatisfied scowl.

“Ey, careful with the merchandise, Mann,” he snapped at Olivia. She only smiled wider, contrasted by the green uniforms of her miniature militia. “I don’t need any of this crap right now. What the hell do you want with me?”

“Oh, I don’t want anything with you,” she clarified, unnerving Scout all the more. Something was dead wrong with that kid. She did not act like a child in the slightest. “I want something from him, and he’s being very stubborn and not talking!”

As she spoke, Scout’s blue eyes followed the general motion of her hands and felt horror bubbling up in him at the sight of Spy. His suit was torn and bloodied, one of his eyes certainly swollen, and his arms were bound behind his back, his ankles added by another length of material that Scout did not recognize at all.

Olivia followed his gaze and smiled again.

“That’s a special type of rope I had made just for him,” she giggled again. “Frank was such a sweetheart to create it to my specifications. The more he struggles, the tighter it gets. He learned his lesson, now, didn’t you Mr. Spy?”

Spy spat some blood in her general direction instead of answering, but Scout winced nonetheless, knowing the truth behind the silent reply. Olivia snapped her fingers, and one of her grunts kicked Spy in the stomach.

“No, no,” Olivia shook her head. “Enough of torturing poor Mr. Spy. We’ve got a new playmate!”

Scout, who had been backing away to run for help, spun on his heel and booked it. A grapple grabbed his back, and at least five Gs of pressure exerted on his spine as he was snapped back. It made him scream out. Spy stared down at the ground in front of himself, not trusting himself to keep his resolve if he watched. They both were aware that Scout yelled about every minor injury, but neither wanted to see him hurt any more than that.

“Now, we all know that your precious respawn is down,” Olivia booped Scout on the nose. “And I really don’t want to kill you. Neither of you. But you, running man, have a lot less keeping your string going.”

“Merde, he’s just a child!” Spy struggled to speak with his cut lips. “He has a whole life ahead of him!”

“Will you talk, then?” Olivia challenged, stepping over towards Spy. Scout was firmly held between two of her cronies. “I would really appreciate knowing where that Austrailium is.”

Scout’s eyes went wide. Spy’s functional one met his, and Scout shook his head slightly, agreeing with the older man. If Olivia got access to any of that rare mineral, then they might as well kiss their lives goodbye regardless of killer robots or not.

Spy went quiet again.

“Break his wrist.” Olivia casually tossed the instructions over her shoulder, and Scout barely had a moment to think before the men grabbed his arm and hand, then twisted. He screamed the whole way through and peaked at the snap, yet could not even press his injured hand to his stomach as he had been grabbed again. Sure, he had broken his wrist before, what the hell did you think the guards were for, just punching? but this was deliberately slow and painful. “Talk, please. Tell me where the Australium is, and then I’ll leave you both alone. If you don’t… well, I wonder what kind of running career a man with broken femurs and spine could have.”

Spy howled in frustration, the tears that had been in his eyes from pain rising up with the torrent.

“This is not-” he struggled to compose himself, accidentally tightening the ropes on him as he tried to get into a more honorable position. “Leave him out of this.”

“Well, you, no matter how hard you hurt, aren’t talking!” Olivia barked, making both lanky men wince with the sheer adultness in her voice, yet at least the words she said were a little childish. “And I need my answers! So I’ll hurt the ones you love most! I know how much money and effort you spend and struggle with this one. A few DNA tests helped a bit too, but you practically admitted it yourself a couple of times.”

Scout tried his best not to listen to the treacherous words coming from the mouth of a child. He and Spy were… complicated. Spy did care about him, in his awkward way, and did dote on him compared to the other members of the team (well, they all doted on him in their own ways), but Scout, he knew that there was an iceberg between them that neither wanted to address, especially not in this way.

“Just leave him alone,” Spy begged. “His mother would kill me.”

Olivia shrugged.

“Then you’d both be dead.”

Spy swore under his breath, shifting uncomfortably. Scout gave him a look, telling him through a puffed chest and slight smirk that he could handle this, no matter what. If Spy could handle getting his ass handed to him on the dirt, then Scout could too. Hell, he even died before. This would be an easy game in comparison.

“I will not tell you where the Australium is.”

“That’s a pity,” Olivia sighed, pouting. “Well, then break the little runner’s leg.”

“Whoa, whoa, settle down there, little Miss Mann,” Spy and Scout almost cried out of relief, Engineer, coming in without a single weapon aside a fancy looking wrench. His overalls had been hastily pulled over his t-shirt pajamas, and the bit of grease on his face told of a man who had repaired his machines before going on out. “Let’s talk this out like civilized folk.”

“Hmph, hello Dr. Conagher,” Olivia nodded as politely as she could. “I guess I could try doing that.”

“Well, if you ask me, none of us would be in any of this mess had people just opened their hearts and mouths a bit more,” Engineer smiled, though it was impossible to see where he was looking. Olivia sat down at a solid looking table, and pointed to the chair beside her. Engineer cautiously made his way to sit down, running on a wish and a prayer. “Don’t you agree, ma’am?”

She blushed, clearly not used to southern charm nor being spoken to so sweetly, and she tampered down her confused emotions by drawing the knife from under the table and swiftly stabbing Engineer’s hand right through onto the table, and a sapper went just as neatly onto his Gunslinger.

“Engie!” Scout shouted at the same time Spy gasped, “Ingénieur!”

Said man had no reaction to their concern. Instead, he stared at the wound for a moment, then at his no longer functional prosthetic.

“Well, shucks.” he commented, as if the situation was as mundane as finding out your trashcan had been toppled in the night by Soldier’s raccoon. “I walked right into that, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did,” she sniffed arrogantly. “And now, I can get back to the point.”

She punctuated the last word with a spin and slap to Spy’s already tender face.

“Hey, hey, don’t hurt ‘im,” Engineer protested. A bit of his blood started dripping down the table from his elbow. “He gave you his answer, he doesn’t want to talk. I dunno what you want, but it’s not worth killing two defenseless men.”

“Oh, you’d disagree if you knew what I was looking for,” Olivia sneered. “It’s only the most important thing in the world.”

“Love?” Engineer asked with absolute befuddlement. Spy, Scout, and Olivia all laughed at his bewilderment, making him flush with a touch of embarrassment. “Well, it was worth a shot….”

“It was cute,” Olivia smiled. “But no cigar. Just like that one’s wishes that you were his father.”

Spy’s eyes flicked to Scout and then down to the ground in shame. He knew that Engineer was a better father figure towards Scout than he ever had been; though with said man’s encouragement, he was doing a little better.

“Come now, it’s actually really funny!” Olivia insisted through giggles. “Scout doesn’t look anything like Dr. Conagher, and he’s not even a quarter as smart!”

“Miss, that’s just plain rude,” Dell scolded. “Scout’s brilliant in his own ways. If I was in a situation that needed quick thinkin’, I’d ask Scoot for help.”

Scout glowed at the praise. Spy smiled at the sight.

“Well, he’s also a quarter as ugly as you,” Olivia sputtered, confused by his parental nature. Engineer’s eyebrows shot up, and Spy felt a little bad for him as he noticed the slight tinge growing on his cheeks. “It’s a wonder that he’s got a fancy for you at all! After all, his tastes are much more… fabulous and expensive than you.”

It took a moment for all three of them to process what she was saying. The little blush that was on Engineer’s cheeks grew tenfold. Scout stared at Spy, who seemed so shocked that he lost the ability to close his mouth at all.

Then he closed it with a resolve so strong they heard it crack.

Or rather, his new cyanide tooth.

“Spah, no!” Engineer yelped, panic audible in his voice for the first time that night. “No, spit that out right now!”

Spy gave him a smile that struggled to hold in the froth that built in his mouth, and swallowed. Scout heard screaming that he did not know was his own until Engineer snapped him out of it with a hoarse shout of his own.

“Damnit Spy!”

Olivia was just as miffed, with all due honesty. With a viciously sharp scowl, she pressed hard onto Spy’s throat with the bottom of her dainty shoe, and when she was sure he was dead, spat on his body. Engineer muttered a curse, pale and with water building up on the inside of his goggles.

“He’s useless now. Let the others go, we’re leaving,” she huffed, getting into her limousine. She threw at Engineer his wrench, no longer caring.

“Damnit, damn, goddamnit,” he whispered, shaking. The two men holding Scout let him go on Olivia’s signal, and he ran over to Engineer, his own vision blurring from sheer emotion that he tuned right out of. Before he or Engineer even realized, the group of their assailants had left. “Pull out the knife, Scout, swift and smooth.”

Scout, not trusting his voice, nodded and did as he was asked. Engineer let out a shaky sigh as he flexed his sore blue fingers, wrapping them around his wrench.

“Grab onto me.”

Again, Scout listened. Engineer gave a last glance to Spy’s corpse and there was a bright flash of light, whisking them to home respawn. No one else was there to greet them.

“He’s dead, isn't he?” Scout asked quietly. The tears he had been holding in slowly started to drip down his face.

“He ain’t dead ‘til three coroners say he is,” Engineer tried his best not to snap, but those words scared him more than he ever wanted to admit. Respawn was a quick little trick to immortality, but only as long as it was working, and as long as the body was able to handle it. “I’m going ta try an overwrite. I need ya to spit on this.”

“Wh- spit? On that panel?” Scout’s sadness shifted suddenly to confusion. “Why?”

“Just do it, boy,” Engineer pleaded. “Do it and hope with all your might that I can get this ta work.”

Scout did.

Heaven help him, he hoped.

Engineer pressed buttons, shifted knobs, and slid the panel back into place.

A minute passed.

Then another.

Engineer slammed his fist onto the mainframe, yanking off his goggles, the tears that had accumulated splashing onto the floor.

“Damnit!” he sobbed. “No!”

Scout hesitantly patted his shoulder, and Engineer swooped around to hug him, crying into the young man’s chest.

“‘M so sorry, Jeremy,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

A warm glow hit them, and Spy groaned, rushing to rinse his mouth.

“Disgusting,” he huffed, and then Scout punched him, hugging him immediately after. Spy hugged him back gently. “Thank you for the warm reception.”

He stepped away to light a cigarette, and looked up to see Engineer’s stare.

The moment after Spy put his cigarette to his lips, Engineer stepped forward and wrapped him into a hug, holding onto him as though his life depended on it.

"Never do that again." Engineer whispered against his neck and shoulder. He was trembling badly, hands gripping tightly onto Spy’s suit.

Spy slowly hugged him back, ignoring the smoldering cigarette.

“I won’t.”