#what is with this epidemic of people who just straight up don’t look before crossing the street

[navree]

i hate being the driver who complains about pedestrians and bikers so i try very hard not to be but some of the pedestrians and bikers i’ve been dealing with recently…….they’re testing me

[letterboxd]

Wigging Out.

Choreographer and director Jonathan Butterell tells Gemma Gracewood about stepping behind the camera for Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, his love for Sheffield, and making sure queer history is kept alive. Richard E. Grant weighs in on tolerance and Thatcher.

Of 2021’s many conundrums, one for musical lovers is why the narratively problematic Dear Evan Hansen gets a TIFF premiere and theatrical release this month, while the joyously awaited Everybody’s Talking About Jamie went straight to Amazon Prime.

And yet, as the show’s lyrics go, life keeps you guessing, along came a blessing. There’s something about the film streaming onto young people’s home screens, with its moments of fourth-wall breaking where Jamie speaks straight to the viewer, that feels so important, given the content: a gay teen whose drag-queen destiny sits at odds with the less ambitious expectations of his working-class town.

Director and choreographer Jonathan Butterell, who also helmed the stage production (itself inspired by Jenny Popplewell’s 2011 BBC documentary, Jamie: Drag Queen at 16) agrees that the worldwide Amazon release is a very good silver lining. “I made the film for the cinema but, in 250 territories across the world, this is going to have a reach that—don’t get me wrong, cinema, cinema, cinema, collective experience, collective experience, collective experience—but it will get to people that it might not have got to before.

Jonathan Butterell on set with star Max Harwood, as Jamie.

“It feels as niche a story as you could possibly be. But also for me, I wanted it to feel like a universal story, that it didn’t matter where on any spectrum you found yourself, you could understand a young person wanting to take their place in the world freely, openly and safely.”

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, with screenplay and lyrics by Tom MacRae and songs by Dan Gillespie Sells, sits neatly among a series of very specific feel-good British films about the working class experience, such as Billy Elliot, Kinky Boots and Pride. The film adds some historical weight to the story with a new song, ‘This Was Me’, which allows Jamie’s mentor, Hugo (played by Richard E. Grant), to take us into England’s recent past—the dark days of the discriminatory Section 28 laws, at a time when the HIV/AIDS epidemic was still ravaging the community.

Hugo’s drag persona Loco Chanelle (played in the flashback by the stage musical’s original Jamie—John McCrea from Cruella and God’s Own Country), sports a wig that looks suspiciously like the Iron Lady’s unmistakable head of hair. Grant confirms that was Hugo’s intention. “His heyday was in the 1980s, so as a ‘fuck you’ to Mrs Thatcher, what better than to be dressed up like that, at six-foot-eight, with a wig that could bring down the Taj Mahal!”

Richard E. Grant as Hugo, getting to work on Jamie’s contours.

In light of the current pandemic, and the fact that the 1967 legalization of homosexuality in Britain is only “an historical blink away”, Grant’s hope is for more tolerance in the world. “Maybe Covid gives people some sense of what that was like, but with Covid there’s not the prejudice against you, whereas AIDS, for the most part in my understanding, was [seen as] a ‘gay disease’, and there were many people across the globe who thought that this was, you know, whatever god they believe in, was their way of punishing something that they thought was unacceptable.

“The message of this movie is of inclusivity, diversity, and more than ever, tolerance. My god, we could do with a dose of that right now.”

Read on for our Q&A with Jonathan Butterell about the filmic influences behind Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.

Hugo in a reverie, surrounded by his drag menagerie.

Can we talk about the new song, ‘This Was Me’, and the way you directed it in the film? It’s a show-stopper, with Richard E. Grant singing in that beautiful high register, and then moving into Holly Johnson’s singing, as you go back in time to show that deeply devastating and important history. Jonathan Butterell: It felt inevitable, the shift, and necessary. Myself, Dan Gillespie Sells, the composer, and Tom MacRae, the screenwriter, we created this piece together, the three of us, and it’s a film by the three of us. We lived through that time, we went on those marches. Actually, in one of those marches [shown in flashback], Dan’s mum—actual mum—is in a wheelchair, by a young boy who was holding a plaque saying “my mum’s a lesbian and I love her”.

That is Dan with his mum back in the day, and it all speaks to our stories and it moves me, I can see it’s moving you. It moves me because I lived through that time, and it was a complex time for a young person. It was a time that you felt you had to be empowered in order to fight, and you felt very vulnerable because of the need to fight. And because of that disease, because HIV was prevalent and we lost people—we lost close people—it was a difficult time. I wanted to make sure that that story kept being told and was passed on to the next generation.

It’s so important isn’t it, to walk into the future facing backwards? It still exists, that need to fight still exists. The conversation, yes, has moved on, has changed, but not for all people and not in all communities.

What would be your go-to movie musical song at a karaoke night? My goodness. There’d be so many.

I mean, is it going to be a Cabaret, a Chicago showstopper, or something more Mary Poppins, something from Rent? I think what I would go to, which is what I remember as a little boy, is Curly singing ‘Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin’. It’s such a kind of perfect, beautiful, simple song. That, and ‘The Lonely Goatherd’, because I just want to yodel. It would be epic. Trust me.

What is the best film featuring posing and why is it Paris Is Burning? It’s always Paris Is Burning. Back in the day, I was obsessed with Paris Is Burning, I was obsessed with that world. In fact, at one moment I even met [director] Jennie Livingston in trying to make a theater piece inspired by that. I lived in New York for eleven years and I met Willi Ninja. I just adored everything about him, and he would tell me stories. And again, it was so removed from the boy from Sheffield, I mean so far. That New York ballroom scene was so removed from my world, but I got it. Those two boys at the top of the film, I just wanted to be one of those boys who just hung out outside the club.

Harwood and Butterell on set, with Lauren Patel (right) as Jamie’s bestie Pritti Pasha.

What films did you and Tom and Dan look at to get a feeling for how to present the musical numbers? Actually, a lot of pop videos, from present day to past. There’s an homage, in the black-and-white sequences, to a little ‘Vogue’ Madonna moment. Pop is very central to me in this story because pop is what a working-class kid from a working-class community will be listening to. That’s in his phone, that’s in his ears. Not that many young people listen to much radio at this moment in time, but that’s what will be on Margaret’s radio, that’s what’s coming into the kitchen. And that was central to the storytelling for me.

Bob Fosse also really influenced me, and particularly All That Jazz and where his flights of imagination take him. I felt that was so appropriate for Jamie, and again in a very, very different way, but I could see how Jamie’s imagination could spark something so fantastical that would lead him to dance, lead him to walk on the most amazing catwalk, lead into being in the most fabulous, fabulous nightclub with the most amazing creatures you’ve ever met in your life.

For me personally, the film that most inspired me was Ken Loach’s Kes, because that is my community. Both the world in which Jamie exists—Parsons Cross council estate, is my world, is my community—and the world of that young boy, finding his place in the world with his kestrel friend, I remember identifying with that boy so clearly. He was very different from me, very different. But I got him, and I felt like Ken Loach got me through him.

Ken Loach made a few films set in Sheffield, didn’t he? But also, Sheffield is a setting and an influence on The Full Monty, The History Boys, Funny Cow and that brilliant Pulp documentary. So Jamie feels like a natural successor. It absolutely does. Sheffield’s where I grew up, it’s my hometown. Although I moved away from it, I always return. To have a chance to celebrate my community, and particularly that community in Parsons Cross council estate. If you’re in Sheffield and you’re in a taxi and you said, “Take me to Parsons Cross,” they’d say, “Well, I’ll drop you there, but I’m not staying.” Because again there’s a blinkered view of that community. And I know that community to be proud, glorious and beautiful.

And yes, that community, particularly through the ’80s, really suffered because some of that community would serve the steelworks and had three generations of unemployment, so they became disenfranchised because of that. But the community I grew up in, my Auntie Joan, who lived on that road, literally on that road, was a proud, working class, glorious woman who served chips at school.

Aside from Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, what would be the most important queer British cinematic story to you? (And how do you choose between My Beautiful Laundrette and God’s Own Country?!) You can’t. My Beautiful Laundrette influenced me so much because, one, Daniel Day Lewis was extraordinary in that film, and two, because of the cross-cultural aspect of it. I went, “I know this world”, because again I grew up in that world. And it affirmed something in me, which is the power and the radicalness of who I could be and what I could be.

With God’s Own Country, when I saw that film—and that was Francis’ first film, which I thought was extraordinary for a first-time filmmaker—I knew he knew that world from the inside, from the absolute inside. And I know what that rural community was like. I read that script, because we share agents, and I was blown away by it—again, because of the two cultures coming together.

Jamie Campbell, the film’s real-life inspiration, with screen-Jamie Max Harwood.

Richard E. Grant’s character, Hugo, is such a pivotal mentor for Jamie. What did you need to hear from a mentor when you were sixteen? Don’t let yourself hold yourself back, because I think it was me who put some limitations on myself. And of course I came from a working-class community. I was a queer kid in a tough British comprehensive school. And did I experience tough times? Yes I did. And did I deal with those tough times? Yes I did. But the song that speaks to me mostly in this is ‘Wall in my Head’, in which Jamie takes some responsibility for the continuation of those thoughts, continuations of the sorts of shame, and that’s a sophisticated thing for a sixteen-year-old boy to tackle.

I also was lucky enough to have a mother like Margaret—and a dad like Margaret as well, just to be clear! And I remember my mum, at seventeen when I left home, just leaving a little note on my bed. It was quite a long letter. She said, Jonathan, you’ve probably chosen to walk a rocky path, but don’t stray from it, don’t steer away from it. That’s the path you've chosen, there may be rock-throwers along the way, but you’ll find your way through it. That stayed with me and I think that’s what resonates with me. And when I saw that documentary, Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, I felt that that sparked the need for me to tell that story.

Sarah Lancashire as Jamie’s mum, Margaret New.

We need more mums and dads like Margaret, don’t we? We do, we do. And the wonderful thing is, Margaret Campbell will say it and I think Margaret New in the film will say it: she’s not a Saint, she’s an ordinary mum. And she has to play catch up and she doesn’t understand in many ways, and she gets things wrong and she overprotects. But she comes from one place and that is a mum’s love of her child and wanting them to take their place safely in the world and to be fully and totally themselves.

Related content

Eternal Alien’s list of films Made in Sheffield

Letterboxd’s Camp Showdown

Persephon’s list of films recommended by drag queens

Passion’s list of films mentioned by Jaymes Mansfield in her Drag Herstory YouTube series

Follow Gemma on Letterboxd

‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’ is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.

[goldenraeofsun]

However Improbable

"I'm Dean Winchester. I'm your new sober companion," Dean says, one hand flying out to stop the door before Castiel can shove it closed again. "I'm here to make your transition from rehab to normal life as problem-free as possible."

Castiel just stares at him.

Dean straightens, breathing in deeply. "I will be living with you for the next month and a half, be there for you 24/7, so if you need anything, I'll be there. I am not your maid, your personal chef, or your chauffeur, but I can help with cleaning or cooking or whatever you need, as long as we talk about it first to set boundaries."

Still, Castiel stares.

Dean can work with that. He's had reluctant, even angry clients. Some threw things (he only let that one go for the first day before cancelling that contract), and some just did their best to ignore him. Castiel, though, he hasn't even blinked since he answered the door of the swanky Brooklyn brownstone. That's a new one. Nobody ever looked at him like he was an alien before for five straight minutes.

Dean waits, but as Castiel says nothing, he asks, "Your dad did say I was coming, right?"

Castiel rolls his eyes. "Yes, my father sent me an email about your forthcoming presence in my life."

"Great," Dean says brightly as he roughly shoulders the door open and strides past Castiel into the foyer. "I figured I'd move my stuff in later today, but I wanted to meet you first. Find out how rehab went and what you think will be your main pain points over the next few weeks for me to look out for."

"I imagine my major pain point is my craving for narcotics," Castiel says dryly as he shuts the door behind him.

Dean frowns as he peers around the corner into a sitting room. Ceiling high bookshelves line the walls, and an old-fashioned map hangs above the empty fireplace. "Have you got anything more specific?"

"Not at the moment."

"Great," Dean says in a completely different voice. He inhales a slow, even breath. "Did your dad mention the terms?"

"The term being that if I relapse, I get evicted?" Castiel asks from behind him.

Dean turns.

Castiel is pulling on a pair of shoes.

Dean crosses his arms over his chest. "Going somewhere?"

"I have an appointment with a client," Castiel says in a clipped voice.

"What kind of client?"

"Did my father tell you what I did?" Castiel asks, straightening up. "Before I became another statistic in the opioid epidemic?" He opens the door, and Dean has no choice but to follow.

"Dude, the other term you're forgetting is that if you ditch me," Dean says as they take the stoop stairs at a slight jog, "the deal's also off."

"I am well aware," Castiel says, head tilting to him in surprise. "Did you think that was me trying to lose you?"

"Uh, yeah?"

Castiel rolls his eyes. "If that was the case, you would have been back at the brownstone, and I would have been in a cab five minutes away by now."

"Not exactly what I want to hear," Dean says sourly.

"Would you rather I lie?" Castiel asks, eyebrows rising as they cross the street. "I thought that would hinder your attempts at being a junkie babysitter even further."

"I mean, kind of-"

"Excellent, I'm glad we're on the same page," Castiel says before Dean can finish. He stops in front of the Impala. "Well?" he asks expectantly.

Dean stares. "How the hell did you know this was my car? How did you know I even have a car?" This is New York City, after all. Most people don’t. Most people aren’t the owners of pristine 1967 Chevy Impalas either.

"I saw you fiddling with the keys after you rang the doorbell for the first time," Castiel says matter-of-factly as Dean unlocks the doors and gets in. In the passenger seat, Castiel continues, "One had the Chevrolet logo on it. Tomorrow is alternate side parking in New York City, so most of my neighbors don’t bother parking on this side of the street today." He shoots Dean a sideways look. “It also wasn’t hard to put together your midwestern accent and the Kansas license plate.”

Impressed, Dean doesn’t say anything as he starts the engine. “Where are we goin’?”

“The Lower East Side.”

“For your mysterious client?”

“The NYPD,” Castiel confirms.

“Your client is the New York City Police Department?” Dean asks, confused.

“Unfortunately,” Castiel says, clearly finding the idea distasteful. “But nobody else has access to all the murders in the five boroughs, so I must offer them my services.”

“Which are?”

“My father didn’t tell you?” Castiel asks as Dean slows for a yellow light.

“Yeah, but I’d rather hear it from you in your own words,” Dean says evenly. “He said you were some kind of detective.”

“Typical,” Castiel mutters, “he always goes for the most dramatic explanation. I am a consultant. I just usually consult with various police departments - NYPD, LAPD, Scotland Yard - with the cases that are beyond their mediocre services.”

“I bet they just love you,” Dean says sarcastically.

Castiel settles in his seat, pulling out his phone. “Our relationship is very professional.”

Dean snorts as they make their way towards the Manhattan Bridge. His phone rings, lighting up his background picture of Sam, Dad, and him. He ignores it.

“You must be very proud of your brother’s legal accomplishments,” Castiel says, mostly out of nowhere.

“How did you-”

“Turn here,” Castiel says, looking up from his phone screen. “There’s an accident four streets up.”

Dean makes the turn, carefully navigating the Impala around a delivery truck, and Castiel sends him a long, considering look before saying, “I hope you’ll keep your singing practice for normal business hours.”

“What?”

“Your breathing patterns,” Castiel says, impatiently, “You were breathing from the diaphragm when you gave your little speech about your duties as my glorified helper monkey.”

“Who are you calling a glorified helper-” Dean splutters.

“I imagine you practiced your breathing before stressful performances, and this exercise naturally carried over to other stressful interactions - including with newly sober individuals.”

Dean blinks. He hadn’t realized. “I only played the guitar at first,” he starts.

“But guitar calluses interfere with the feeling in your fingertips, and it’s impossible to rise through the ranks of hospital surgeons with a guitar habit on the side,” Castiel says.

Dean’s face hardens. “I mostly sing in the shower now.”

Castiel nods once. “So as long as you don’t take luxurious showers at three in the morning, I don’t see a problem with us living together.”

Despite himself, Dean finds himself focusing on his breathing to calm himself down. The last time he scrubbed up for an OR was almost six years ago now; his bitterness and regret are old news. He's moved on with his life - moved across the country, got a new job, a new career. So instead, he asks Castiel, “How did you know about Sam, anyway? What, did he slap a Stanford Law bumper sticker on my baby when I wasn’t looking?”

Castiel waits until he stops at a red light to show him his phone - and Sam’s LinkedIn page. He smiles wryly. “Not everything has to be deduced, Dean.”

[threeletterslife]

01 | Ignis Fatuus

→ part 1 | part 2

→ summary: Who knew six grown men plus stupid Jeon Jungkook were so whiny? You're out here in a fucking zombie apocalypse for God's sake. They need to grow the fuck up. And while all of you are waiting for the zombies to eat your brains, why don't you play a nice game of rated-R never have I ever?

→ pairing/rating: jungkook x reader | NC-17

→ genre: 60% crack, 40% angst | apocalypse!au

→ warnings: profanity, depictions of blood, gore and death, sexual innuendos, crude humor

→ wordcount: 26k

cr.

Jeon Jungkook's taut thigh muscles are digging against your own, making you grit your teeth and glare at the rather annoying individual. The city bus bumps along with the dips on the street, pushing the man way too close to you. You can even smell his spearmint cologne.

"Jeon, I swear to fucking god if you scoot any closer to me, I'm going to swing your head off with my bat," you threaten menacingly, already tightening your grip on your beloved softball bat.

To your dismay, Jeon Jungkook gives you a cheeky grin before leaning his perfectly fit body on you, wrapping his arm around your shoulder with calculated subtlety. "Oh, Y/N," he chuckles under his breath, fingers dancing around the handle of his own baseball bat. "You forget that I also have a bat with me. Besides," he hums, squeezing your shoulder, "you and I both know your threats are always empty. I think you told me you were going to dislocate my neck at least a thousand times before. My neck's still fine, as you can clearly see."

You roll your eyes. "Whatever, Jeon," you mutter before leaning against his chest in defeat.

Your relationship with Jeon Jungkook is quite questionable. It would be weird to call him your friend, but even weirder to call him your enemy. Jungkook was... an acquaintance... who you merely got a bit touchy with at times. In a way, he was kinda like your fuck buddy, minus the fucking, of course. A friend with benefits minus the friend and benefits. None of that made any sense whatsoever. But that's just how fucking complicated your relationship with him is.

You'd first met the 19-year-old on the bus, catching him unabashedly eyeing you up and down. You boldly called him out for that. That bus ride was awkward because you'd spent the whole time tugging down your shorts and glaring at Jungkook, and he'd glared at you right back because apparently, he hadn't been checking you out that day. (He had been shamelessly ogling at the Victoria's Secret ad plastered on the wall behind the window of your seat.) But you didn't know that at the time, of course.

It was even worse when you got off at the same stop—at the practice field. But an unlikely 'friendship' had blossomed after that day. There was something about that Jeon Jungkook that was captivating to you, and there must be something about you that had captivated Jungkook. Ever since that incident, the two of you wordlessly saved each other seats on the local bus, and once at the field, he always walked you to your softball practice field before he sauntered off to play baseball.

Despite the constant bickering between the two of you, you swear leaning up against him, or having him wrap his arm around you feels natural.

You're just too damn stubborn to admit it out loud.

Looking up, you get an unobstructed view of Jungkook's sharp jawline, how his nose stands in all the right angles, and how his eyes sparkle when he—oh shit—your eyes meet his. Mission abort! Mission abort!

He caught you checking him out.

Oh god no. Your face flushes red, dreading what kind of saucy comment Jungkook would have for you.

But to your surprise, he squeezes you tighter, holding you close to him as his eyes are trained straight in front of him. "What in the world..." he breathes.

"What?" you mutter, confused. Your eyes trail up to follow his line of vision.

Oh, what the fuck.

"Isn't it too early for Halloween get up?" You frown, cocking your head at the mangled figure that's slowly limping its way towards the stopped bus. But one figure quickly becomes two, then, three, four, five, ten—twenty. All staggering towards the bus.

You can only seem to focus on the hoard of hobbling figures as your eyes follow their every jagged move. But one moment you're shaking your head in disdain at cheesy 'costumes,' the next you feel bile rushing up your throat.

One of the mangled figures hobbles up to an innocent pedestrian on the street and attacks them. And not like how a normal human being would do—not with fists, or some man-made weapon. But with decaying teeth. You see with your very own eyes a... a monster bite through the neck of a human—and although you are too far away, you swear you heard the crunch of bones. You most definitely see blood.

It's so horrific, the hairs on the back of your neck stand tall.

The innocent victim's screams are silent, mouth open, neck gashed apart by their attacker. Their blood is splattered everywhere and their eyes are glossed over. Lifeless. Dead. Soon to be undead.

Oh my god.

You jerk your head away, unable to look any further, placing your hand on your heart in an attempt to calm it down—no use. Your breaths become shallow and quicken as you grip your fists in order to keep yourself from vomiting and making the situation worse than it already is.

Oh god. Oh, fuck.

The images of blood and gore are sealed to your head. It's too real to be fake.

It pains you to realize that... that this is obviously not some Halloween get up.

"Fucking hell, Y/N... I don't think those are people," Jungkook says, holding you protectively in his arms. "They look a lot like—"

"ZOMBIES!" a man in a crisp, black suit shrieks, jumping up and running to the very back of the bus to where you and Jungkook are sitting.

"ZOMBIES!" the others on the bus scream in response.

"GET ME OUT OF HERE!" Suit Man hollers, curling up in the back seat as he rocks back and forth. With his neat and tidy suit, he definitely looks like he doesn't belong in a public transportation vehicle. In fact, he looks like he's never even used any public service. The kind of person who probably owns a private jet or something. "GET ME MY SECRETARY!" he shrieks.

He is not helping.

Another man stands up, crossing his arms over his chest. His dyed dirt blond hair sweeps just above his eyes and you can see his dimples when he presses his lips into a thin line. "Hey, bus driver?" he calls.

The bus driver grunts. "What?" he yells. His hands are shaking, but he's doing a hell of a good job maintaining a steady hand on the wheel.

"Maybe we should turn on the radio?" Dimples Man suggests. "We need some sort of explanation for this!!"

"Um, maybe we should, I don't know, drive away first???" another man suggests. He's clutching a Gucci messenger bag and nervously twists an Apple Watch on his wrist. He seems a lot like the younger version of Suit Man—except he was just born rich with a silver spoon in his mouth.

"The zombies are coming towards us!" Jungkook shouts. "Of course we need to drive away!" He squeezes your arm. "We need to get home, now!"

"You and your girlfriend can wait!" Suit Man hollers. "I want to go to my penthouse suite, first!"

"Why are you a priority?!" a man with puffy cheeks and plump lips argues. "We all have equal rights in a crisis! Cop in training!" he huffs, holding out an official-looking badge. "Bus driver, step on the gas!"

The bus driver rolls his eyes. "I do whatever the fuck I want on my bus."

Contrary to his unyielding attitude, he clicks on the radio and simultaneously steps on the gas.

Everyone lurches backward and some of the men who were standing fall down. For a few seconds, it's all chaos—shouts and yells bounce off the walls of the bus. All until the fuzzy crackles of the radio emit from the speakers.

Then, everyone becomes dead silent, waiting to hear what the news had to say.

But the radio static is so serious, you're unable to make out a lot of the words.

"... Inside... Not... Anywhere... Stay Inside..."

"What the fuck is wrong with your radio??" Suit Man complains.

"It's not my radio, you idiotic swine. The problem's not from my end," the bus driver snaps.

"Idiotic swine?!?! How dare—"

"Oh shut up, will you??" a man who had been quietly sitting down this whole time laughs. He twiddles a frying pan in his hands before he says, "Stay inside?? Don't you think it's too late for us to do that?"

Suit Man scowls, slumping down in his seat and grumbling about how important he is and how much he needs his secretary—who's apparently not answering his frantic texts and calls.

Abruptly, the bus driver swerves to the right to avoid limping zombies, but he manages to run some of the monsters over anyway. The bus hovers over the air for a few seconds, then crashes down on the road, jerking everyone in their seats.

You and Jungkook say nothing, you holding onto Jungkook and Jungkook holding onto his seat. But the others are more vocal.

"Hey, who taught you how to drive, motherfucker?!" Gucci Man yells.

The cop holds up his hands. "Are you even going under the speed limit??"

Oh my god. These men are driving you insane.

And just when you thought it couldn't get worse:

"No... Origin... Rapidly... Increasing..." the radio suddenly buzzes.

"Well, great," Dimples Man sighs. "Seems like the cases are multiplying out of nowhere. Maybe it's some kind of new virus. An epidemic, if you please."

"Oh, sit down, doctor boy," Suit Man yells at the tops of his lungs. "No one cares about the how. Right now, we focus on getting away from these monsters!"

Jungkook slips his hands into yours. The two of you look out the window to see the zombies chasing after the bus from behind. They're thankfully too slow to catch up to the bus driver's 85 miles per hour reckless driving, but they're not as slow as some movies depict them.

You watch the turmoil unfold behind you, disgusted and terrified at the same time. There are zombies trying to knock their heads against the glass to get into stores where trembling families are waiting to fight. Zombies biting the necks of victims. Blood spurting everywhere and painting the streets in crimson red.

You have to look away after some time.

It's too much to process.

The bus driver continues to make random twists and turns, making the bus lurch every which way every few seconds. The six men continue to argue, raising their voices over each other until you can't even make out what they're saying.

They're acting like babies, you think. You admit, you're terrified, which is exactly why you haven't said one single word out loud yet. Jungkook taps your shoulder, leaning into you. You catch a whiff of his cologne and strangely, it relaxes you.

"Hey," he whispers. "You okay?"

You manage to nod.

"Think this has spread to other cities yet...? Other states?"

Oh god.

The thought of that is horrific.

"I... I hope not... My family's in a state across the country though..." you manage to say in a low voice.

"Same..."

This time, it's your turn to ask a question.

"Do you think we'll ever get to our homes?"

Jungkook snorts in response. "Well, maybe not. I have no idea where that crazy bus driver's taking us."

And it's true, five different men are yelling at the bus driver to tell them where the fuck he's going, but the bus driver remains completely silent. Instead, he flips everyone off with one hand, vigorously steering the wheel with the other.

Everyone goes absolutely bonkers after that.

You've heard blaring fire alarms that sound like music compared to this.

"You have earphones?" Jungkook asks.

"Well, yeah..." you trail off. "But maybe we shouldn't listen to music now. We should save our phone batteries."

"Oh yeah, duh," Jungkook grins in a silly way. "My bad."

This is kind of the first time that you and Jungkook have been civil and kind of nice to each other. I guess it takes a whole ass zombie epidemic for that to happen.

You just try to focus on clutching onto Jungkook, trying to drown out the incessant yelling of the man babies.

And finally, fucking finally, the bus skids to a stop. But not in front of a house, but in front of a familiar-looking red and beige building. Your mouth drops open.

"TARGET???" Cop Man shrieks. "You brought us to Target??"

"Genius, aren't I?" the bus driver grins, leaning back from the steering wheel as if to admire his handy work. "This is my new home. The rest of you can leave if you don't like it."

Nobody moves a muscle.

You desperately want to go back home, but you have to admit, living in Target sounds pretty smart. Endless supply of blankets and food. A ton of gadgets to build when you get bored. At least one of the men on the bus has a brain. Thank god.

"I can't drive you guys home," the bus driver says a little bit more apologetically. "But you saw what's out there. I'm not going to waste gas getting everyone to their homes. And I surely don't wanna risk my life just to get you home, okay? I'm not your chauffeur. So you can stay with me if you like. Or you can walk home yourself."

"I can pay you to be my chauffeur," Suit Man mumbles.

The bus driver's ears perk up. "How much?"

"One grand."

"Ha!" the bus driver snorts. "You think I need money in a supposed apocalypse?? No thanks."

"I'LL PAY YOU THREE GRAND!" Gucci Man shrieks. "I-I'll call my parents! They always have cash on them!"

Frying Pan Man rolls his eyes way up to the ceiling of the bus and waits three dramatic seconds until he stares straight at Suit Man and Gucci Man. "Shut up, ya spoiled brats," he says. "Stop trying to bribe the bus driver and take his fucking offer to stay with him."

The others nod, agreeing with the Frying Pan Man's wise but snippy words.

Suit Man and Gucci Man shut up when they realize their wealth can't get them out of the situation this time.

"Well then," Jungkook sighs. "We all agree to stick together now, right? Nice group of people, aren't we?"

The last part sounds a tad bit sarcastic, but the others seem to take it as a compliment.

"First thing's first," Jungkook announces, "you there!" He points at the Suit Man. "Use your jacket to cover up that window over there. You!" He continues to point at the men, ordering them to place their jackets and bags over the windows. The bus driver manages to cover up the glass doors with a spare blanket he found in the glove compartment.

You just stare at Jungkook in awe. You're even more in awe that everyone is following his orders.

"If the zombies can't see us, they won't get us," Jungkook says very knowledgeably. "At least I think so. Just in case, we should all crouch down though."

"Are you serious? I'm not sitting my ass down on the bus floor," Suit Man scoffs.

"I'm wearing Gucci," Gucci Man complains.

The bus driver grins. "They scraped twenty pieces of gum off the floor only a week ago."

"I think we can all agree that we could've totally done without that information," Cop Man sighs.

Jungkook shakes his head in disbelief. "My god, would you rather die than get your pants a little dirty? Come on, Y/N." He tugs you down on the floor and the two of you sit cross-legged. "It's not even that bad."

One by one, the men follow you and Jungkook, sitting down, if not crouching, on the floor. Even Suit Man and Gucci Man obey Jungkook, though they have disgruntled looks on their faces.

"Now what?" Frying Pan Man says. "We wait this whole thing out? Until it's safe to get into Target?"

"I suppose so," Dimples Man says. "A little waiting never hurt anyone."

Suit Man rolls his eyes. "You would be terrible in the business world."

"I'm a respected med school student, thank you very much," Dimples Man replies curtly. "I don't need business lessons from you."

"Okay, okay!" Jungkook raises his voice. "You know what? Let's just introduce ourselves to each other. You know, ages, hobbies, whatever, I don't care. Just something the others can use to get to know you. We might be stuck together for a while. I'll start," he says. "I'm Jungkook. 19. I play baseball in college, and I'm pretty fucking good. Okay, who's next?"

Cop Man raises his hand politely. "I'm Jimin," he giggles as if his name itself is the cutest thing in the world. "And I'm the top-ranking cop in training," he says. "Oh yeah, I'm 21 years old. And I just got wasted two days ago when I turned 21."

"Yoongi," the bus driver says. "I drive this bus. 25. Next."

Everyone frowns at his short introduction but Yoongi shrugs.

"Hello, everyone," Dimples man says. "I'm Namjoon. I studied biochemistry in college, but I'm currently aiming for my M.D. I'm 24 right now, but I'll be 25 in a couple of months. It's nice to meet you."

Everyone mumbles their greetings back, but no one is really in a jolly mood.

"Well, I'm Seokjin, a worldwide famous chef," Frying Pan Man says. That explains the frying pan a lot. "I—"

"If you're so worldwide famous, how come I've never heard of you before until now?" Gucci Man snickers.

"Shut the fuck up," Seokjin answers simply. "I will be a worldwide famous chef. I'm interning at the esteemed restaurant, the Summit House. And for my 25th birthday, I got this lovely, new frying pan. I bring it with me everywhere because it is my lifeline."

You raise your eyebrows and so does Jungkook but neither of you says anything.

"I'm Taehyung, then," Gucci Man says. "I'm 23, but I'm already a law school student. Work hard and play even harder is my life motto. Also, I like expensive stuff."

That explains the Gucci.

Suit Man scoffs. "I'm Hoseok, but all of you must call me Mr. Jung because I'm 27 and I'm the respectful CEO of a rapidly growing business right in this city. I've been on the cover of Vogue twice this year alone. Any questions?"

"None at all, Hoseok," Yoongi snorts.

Hoseok scowls. "I just said—"

"Oh, shut your trap and let the girl talk," Seokjin chastises the businessman. You're starting to think Seokjin has a talent for shutting people up.

Well, great. Now everyone's staring at you. And it's only then when it occurs to you that you are the only female in the group. Oh god.

"I'm uh, Y/N..." you say. "And I... I play softball," you say, gripping your bat in your hand. "I'm 19 and I play for my college team."

"She's really good," Jungkook says. "Got that nice swing." He nudges your shoulder assuringly. It almost makes you crack a small smile. "Anyways, now that we all know each other a little bit better, let's be... uh..."

"Civil," you finish for him. "Let's please be fucking civil." You stare at Hoseok and Taehyung specifically.

"Fine!" Hoseok says. "Fine, then. Let's be totally civil trying to fight off uncivil monsters. Makes sense to me."

"We need to stay civil to stay calm," Jimin says, putting a hand on his hip. "My special cop training taught me how to stay calm in dire situations! I'll teach you guys a thing or two sometime."

"Oh god," Yoongi mutters.

"More importantly," Namjoon sighs. "If this is a zombie breakout, we'll need to start strategizing on how to stay safe. We'll need to gather supplies, make a hideout and find some weapons." He looks over at Jungkook and your bats, nodding his head approvingly. "Those will do good," he mutters. "But I'm afraid hiding out in Target might be a bit difficult. The building is large. Way too large for it to be safe..."

"Do you have any better suggestions then?" Yoongi says.

"Not as of now..."

"I say we go full-out," Taehyung declares. "Like we get cool leather jackets and sunglasses and make spiked bats and get guns!!"

"You mean... like in the movies," Hoseok scoffs. "Kid, hate to break it to you, but this is real life."

"Okay, but Taehyung might have a point," Jungkook says.

"Thank you!!" the law student exclaims.

"Yeah, maybe we can use some elements of what characters did in the movies and you know, apply it to our situation now," you say thoughtfully. "So we're not going into this catastrophe completely blinded."

"You read my mind," Jungkook smiles. You manage to smile right back at him.

"Whatever," Hoseok sighs. "I'm gonna call my secretary again."

Everyone else ignores him, opting to do their own individual activities.

Namjoon pulls a giant binder out of nowhere and begins to actively highlight things. It looks a lot like he's studying. In a fucking crisis.

You shake your head in disbelief. Med school students, I swear.

Taehyung taps away on his phone. Either texting or playing Candy Crush. You can't tell. Seokjin's sanitizing his precious frying pan while Jimin's polishing his official badge over and over again. In the far corner of the bus, it looks like Yoongi's dozed off.

The silence is awkward but it's much better than the complete ruckus before, so you let it go. Meanwhile, you take out your earbuds. It won't hurt to let some music distract you and calm down your spiked nerves.

"Hey, what percent battery is your phone at?" you whisper to Jungkook.

"23%, you?"

"23%?!" you gasp. "Why is it so low??"

"Forgot to charge it last night," Jungkook answers, ducking his head down in embarrassment. "Could not have been a worse timing."

"Well, I'm at 97%, so I guess we can listen to music on my phone." You plug in the earphones and hand one bud to Jungkook.

He takes it gratefully. "Thanks."

You feel much more relaxed when the music floods through your ear. If Jungkook doesn't like Beethoven's Sonata, he doesn't complain. And everything, just for a few songs, seems all right.

Until:

"Dammit! Godammit!!" Hoseok yells, flinging his phone to the side of the bus seat. "My phone's dead!"

There are annoyed groans everywhere, and you can just tell Seokjin's about to tell the man to shut up again when there's a loud bang! at the side of the bus.

Everyone freezes.

"Did you lock the bus door??" Namjoon hisses quietly.

Yoongi nods, clearly terrorized. "Just... everybody... Stay... still," he says.

He doesn't need to say anything; everyone's already become a statue. Even more so when the aggressive banging continues. You bite your lip to suppress a whimper and Jungkook hugs you in his arms. His heartbeat's rapid but he manages not to tremble, unlike you.

But when the banging is ceaseless even after a couple of minutes, Taehyung sighs. "Should we check it out...?"

"Are you fucking crazy??" you blurt, quickly lowering your voice when you realize you'd been rather loud. "If the zombies see us, they get us. I thought you saw the movies."

That shuts everyone up. Sweat starts to collect on everybody's foreheads but no one dares to move to wipe it off when the banging's continuing.

It sounds like zombies are head-butting on the bus' walls. Maybe they can smell humans. The thought riles up your stomach so you force yourself to bury your nose into Jungkook's shirt to take your mind elsewhere. He pats your back comfortingly in response.

The Chopin blaring through your left ear doesn't sound so comforting anymore—the pace is too fast, too allegro to fit in a terrible circumstance such as this one. But you try to focus on each note, concentrating on the keys rather than the beat. It drives your focus elsewhere, thank god.

And finally, eventually, the banging slows to a stop.

"Well!" Taehyung yells.

"SHH!" Jungkook shushes him. "We don't know if they're gone yet," he whispers urgently.

"Oh, right."

So it's completely still for a few minutes before Taehyung decides that's enough silence for him.

"This is very, very bad news," he grumbles.

"Really?" Seokjin snickers. "I thought it was good news."

Taehyung rolls his eyes. "My Apple Watch's about to die. So yes, it is bad news. I won't be able to tell the time anymore."

"That's the least of our worries, dude," Jimin says, shaking his head in disbelief.

Before another large argument breaks out, you cut in. "I think we should try to get into Target before nightfall."

You thought everyone would agree immediately, but you're hit with Yoongi's laconic, "Why?"

"What do you mean why??" Taehyung laughs at the bus driver. "Haven't you watched the movies?? Zombies get crazier during the night."

"Um, in Train to Busan, they don't," Namjoon points out.

"Okay, but in Minecraft, they do," Taehyung argues.

"But Minecraft is a video game, not a movie."

"Oh, whatever."

You sigh. "I just thought it'd be better to go now than take chances later."

"But this is real life," the bus driver says. "Getting out of this bus is taking a chance at this point. We might not ever make it to Target."

"Fine. Then I'll go and check it out myself then," you scoff.

I'd rather get mauled by a zombie than have to listen to incessant bickering in a small-spaced bus for fuck's sake.

"You literally have a death wish don't you?" Jungkook says. "But I'm coming with you."

"BOTH of you have a death wish," Hoseok says.

"OR, Yoongi can drive the bus closer to the entrance...?" you suggest.

The bus driver grumbles but he complies, never taking off the clothes covering the windows but managing to peek out of a small corner to safely drive the bus straight to the exit.

"If one of you gets bitten, you're not allowed back in here," he says.

"How comforting," you mumble.

"I guess it's just the two of us, then," Jungkook shrugs when no one else volunteers to go on the trip.

"Well you two do have the best weapons," Namjoon says, nodding at the bats in your hands.

"That's true..." you murmur. "We'll try to find a good spot to stay in... Or maybe just get some supplies..."

Now that you think about it, your own idea might be the cause of your demise. God, you might die just because you opened your mouth.

It's okay, you tell yourself. It'll be fine. I have Jungkook. He's... not that scared... right?

Namjoon convinces everyone to memorize a morse code knock so that the others can let you and Jungkook in when the code is knocked on the bus door. There is no other preparation.

Other than the time you completely winged a final exam back in high school, this is the riskiest thing you've done in your life.

Side by side, you and Jungkook creep out of the bus; the doors shut behind you as quickly as they had opened and the blanket drapes over the windows once more.

The coast definitely looks clear... for now. Warily, you and Jungkook step closer to the entrance of Target. That's when it occurs to you that Target has automatic doors.

You and Jungkook look at each other. With your eyes, both of you communicate something on the lines of 'so much for living here.'

It's a universal fact that zombies are stupid and can't complete simple human tasks such as opening doors. But if Target's doors are automatic... Well, then anyone can come in. Human or zombie.

The two of you creep into the store with caution, scanning from left to right to see any source of movement. Luckily, so far, the building seems empty. It just must be your luck that today happens to be a weekday and the time is barely before noon. Plus, you're in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and everyone was ordered to stay home. For the most part, it looks like this Target is abandoned. It helps calm down your rapidly beating heart just a little bit.

Still, the silence is eerie. Clutching your baseball bat, you try to make a mental list of the supplies you might need to take. From the checkout aisle, you and Jungkook each grab two plastic bags each.

"What are the top five things we need?" Jungkook whispers to you.

"Um, food, probably," you say. "Toiletries, for sure. Sleeping bags, maybe? Chargers... Portable chargers...?"

"What about water?" Jungkook says. "Maybe we should also get a first aid kit too..."

"There's so much we need!" you let out a frustrated sigh. "And I am not going back in here twice. Once is risky enough."

"Well, we definitely need food, water and a first aid kit. Why do we need toiletries?" Jungkook asks, cocking his head curiously.

"Oh, I don't know, because I bleed out of my vagina once every month??"

"Oh. Right. Forgot about that," Jungkook says awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. "So, um... we need food, water, a first aid kit, toiletries and..."

"A backpack," you finish for him. "We'll carry the backpacks out on our backs, fill two of our four bags with food, then one bag we can use for water and water bottles. The last bag for the first aid kit and the toiletries."

"Look at you, all planned out," Jungkook grins. You wonder how he's managing to smile in a crisis.

"I'm usually very spontaneous," you mutter. "But I guess it takes a zombie apocalypse to get me to plan ahead."

Your life's on the line. Of course you're going to plan ahead to avoid death.

Jungkook laughs quietly. "Me too, honestly," he says. "I think I can stuff at least one sleeping bag in the backpack. And maybe we'll get some toilet paper."

You nod. "A flashlight might be good too. We don't really need to get weapons, right? We're only trying to survive, not fight."

"We'd be crazy to get a gun," Jungkook snorts. "Have you seen the grown men we got stuck with?? Giving them a gun might be the worst thing we can do."

"Especially that cop in training," you say. "Idiots. The whole lot of them."

Making the youngest ones do the dirty work.

Conversation is sparse for the rest of the supply gathering. You and Jungkook talk minimally, rather opting to point and mouth words just in case zombies were sound-sensitive as they were portrayed in most movies. (But you're honestly not sure how well their auditory skills work, especially when they're so lacking in motor skills.) Still, better safe than sorry.

Canned foods pile in two heavy bags that Jungkook offers to carry. He also volunteers to carry the bag with the heavy water jugs and water bottles, so you let him, glad that Jungkook is polite enough to keep his manners during an apocalypse. The two of you find large duffel bags in the sports corner, which you sling both over your shoulder. A couple of sleeping bags find their way into the duffel bags. By the time you arrive at the aisle with all the feminine hygiene products, your arms are starting to hurt, but you don't complain because Jungkook's carrying things twice the weight of your luggage.

In fact, you shouldn't complain about anything at all. For one, you're stuck in an apocalypse with someone you know at least. You have someone to lean on. Someone who constantly offers to protect you. Someone you can trust. And you haven't had any run-ins with zombies so far. So you've been blessed.

You clamp your mouth shut and pick out a generous amount of pads and pantyliners, quickly shoving them into the duffel bags. "Let's go," you tell Jungkook who nods. His arm muscles are straining against the heavy weight of the bags and his knuckles are white but he stays silent.

All those times you ever insulted Jungkook, you want to take them all back right now. It only takes a crisis to get to know someone.

The two of you nervously, steadily, begin to walk towards the entrance of the store. It's a pity you won't be able to pay for the hundreds of dollars worth of stuff you're shoplifting. But you don't think money holds enough value in a situation of life or death.

For a split second, you worry that the other men have left. But you don't think they would stoop that low... right?? The thought makes the hairs on the back of your neck bristle. If they did leave you and Jungkook stranded in this vast Target... it's game over.

You nearly cry from relief when you see the bus still waiting loyally at the front of the store. Maybe you've underestimated the others.

"Coast's clear," Jungkook whispers. "I'll go first." He begins to creep forward the automatic doors, lugging his bags when you let out a whisper-shriek:

"Wait, stop!"

Jungkook whirls around, eyes wide and lips parted.

"The alarm might ring if you take items you didn't pay for," you whisper urgently. "Leave the stuff here, wait for them to open the door, then help me carry these and make a run for it."

"Well, that was close," Jungkook nods. "Good idea." He sets down his bags and steps forward cautiously. The mechanical whirring of the sliding door opening sounds too loud in the silence. You hold your breath as Jungkook carefully steps closer to the bus, hoping and wishing and swearing. When he knocks at the glass door in the morse code that Namjoon had taught him, you feel ready to burst from the stress.

Constantly, you look behind yourself. If a zombie appears, you'll have to save your life first and lose the supplies. Or maybe, you can carry the food and water first and leave the rest. Or you can try to fight the zombie off with your bat?? But your arms shake from carrying heavy luggage around the whole Target. Your aim might be messed up; you can't risk that, can you?

While you're scheming in your head, Jungkook's managed to get the others to open the door of the bus. The coast is clear now. You gulp.

If the Target alarm sounds and it wakes up any zombies that are nearby, you're dead. You can see the scared faces of the other men peeking out from the door. Jungkook bravely steps back, waving his hands as if to tell them to keep the door open. Then, he rushes back inside the Target, hoisting up the bags.

On cue, you grip your bags too—so tightly that your hands feel numb.

"On a count of three, okay?" Jungkook says.

"No, let's go now!" you whisper as you begin to dash headfirst out the automatic doors. The moment the bags cross the invisible line, the alarm blares. Your heart nearly stops at the racket, but you don't dare to pause. You don't cease your running until you've zoomed right into the bus, collapsing on the floor and throwing the bags away from yourself. Jungkook's right behind you, gasping for breath from the short sprint before whirling on you with a look of frustration on his face.

"I wasn't fucking re—"

"Shh!!" Yoongi says, draping the locked glass door over with a blanket. "We're going to stay very, very still."

You can hear the alarm still blaring in the background, shaking on the floor of the bus and clutching your hands together. Jungkook gives you the side-eye but he crouches down with you and holds you in his arms.

You shouldn't have left earlier, but you couldn't risk waiting for a second more in the empty Target, anticipating for disaster to come. Jungkook must've panicked with you too. But he can't stay mad at you for long, not with another crisis on its way.

"Uh, I think we should go right now," Taehyung whispers.

"Shh!"

"No, seriously," Taehyung says, lifting up the cloth off the windows and pointing.

Oh no. Looks like this is where your luck runs outs. Zombies are slowly making their way towards the entrance of the Target where the stupid alarm still hasn't shut up. If you don't leave now, you might drown in a sea of those monsters. And one rule of thumb—you never let zombies begin to hoard.

"Dammit!" Yoongi curses. "Hold on!"

The zombies are still several yards away, but Yoongi slams on the gas, lurching the car forward. There's no time to think. No time to talk. Yoongi tears away the cloth in front of his window and begins to drive with sickening speed.

"Where are we going??" Hoseok yells over the screams of the engine.

"To my house!" Yoongi screams back.

"WHAT??" the businessman shrieks. "WHY AREN'T WE RUNNING AWAY?"

"Running away attracts more zombies!" Taehyung says. "That always happens in the movies!"

"Does your house have a good kitchen??" Seokjin yells.

"Does it matter???" Yoongi yells back.

"Why can't we go to my house??" Taehyung shrieks.

"Shut the fuck up!" Seokjin tells him.

Yoongi continues to bump over mystery speed bumps (no doubt, bitten people) as zombies slowly try to follow the vehicle. But they're way too slow for Yoongi's speedy driving. He manages to throw them all off track as he drives away from the city.

And when there are fewer buildings and more grassy fields, things almost look... normal. As if you hadn't just seen a zombie apocalypse unfold in the city. Until you notice the blood splattered on the windows and the survival luggage that you and Jungkook had hauled on the bus. That's when you realize this is still very, very real.

But now that you've escaped the city, the roads are ironically smoother without the undead scattered on the ground. As a result, Yoongi begins to drive comfortably, the bus no longer threatening to tip over at every turn. Finally, it seems like the chaos has calmed down.

You take the time to apologize to Jungkook. "Sorry I just left like that," you say.

He shrugs. "It was stupid for me to countdown anyways."

And that was that.

He sits down next to you at the back of the bus as the other men (except Yoongi) crowd around you to ask questions about the risky trip.

"Were there zombies inside the store?" Namjoon says.

"We didn't encounter any," you reply. "But we're not sure."

"Do you think we could go back in there when we need more supplies?" the med school student asks.

"I mean..." you trail off, looking at Jungkook.

Jungkook shrugs. "We'll have to see, I guess."

"Make do with what Yoongi has in his house?" Seokjin says. "Hey, Yoongi, you got a big house??"

Jimin gasps. "You can't just ask people that, Seokjin! Hey, Yoongi, do you have eight bedrooms?"

You feel like facepalming. And if your hands weren't so wet with sweat, you would've done it too.

"Do I look like I'm made of money??" Yoongi scoffs. "I live in a one-bedroom house."

"One bedroom?!?!? One bedroom?!" Taehyung shrieks.

"Would you like to live outside the one-bedroom house?" Yoongi shrieks back.

Taehyung shuts up.

Sure, Yoongi's being extremely generous right now. He could've dumped all of you out the moment the chaos hit. But he had chosen to bring everyone along with him. Still... eight people in a one-bedroom house? You're not so sure about that.

"We'll make it work," the bus driver grumbles.

"As long as there's a kitchen," Seokjin says, "I'm all right."

Ten minutes later, following Yoongi's lead, everyone quickly piles into the one-bedroom house.

It looks modest but poorly decorated. A shaggy rug with mysterious stains, zero decor but a single couch and a small television is set in the living room. The only bedroom in the house isn't very spacious either, with just enough room to fit one full-sized bed and a couple of other sleeping bags on the floor. Yoongi keeps his humble collection of clothes in his bathroom sink. The bathroom is standard and looks barely used. But the worst part of the house is the kitchen, much to Seokjin's despair. There's more dust than counter space.

"I don't cook," comes Yoongi's simple answer when Seokjin gives the man a bewildered look.

And just like that, the house tour is over in a couple of minutes.

"Do you have a car?" you ask cautiously.

Yoongi shakes his head. "Left my bike at the bus parking lot." He shrugs. "But we have the bus."

You bite your lip. Buses use way more gas than cars do—you don't even have to be a mechanic to know. It might've even been better to have a bike.

Everyone is silent for the most part, taking in their new surroundings and unsure what to make of it. Yoongi collapses on the couch. "I have beer somewhere in my fridge. Help yourselves."

Hoseok makes a face—as if he's never had a cheap beer in his life.

You and Jungkook make faces because neither of you is of legal age to drink yet. Yet another reminder that you're stuck with actual adults.

Once those who want a beer get a beer and all the canned foods and water are stashed in the fridge, everyone gathers around awkwardly in the living room. With so much afternoon chaos, the evening seems eerily quiet. It's like all of you are waiting for disaster to strike again.

You, yourself, begin to think about your safety. The thing about Yoongi's house (no matter how small and shabby it is) is that it's out in the open without any other houses nearby. For one, that's a good thing because there's less chance that zombies will make their way out here. But there's also no barrier either.

And suddenly acquiring seven male roommates out of nowhere? Seven men you barely even know? Sure, you've spoken to Jungkook a lot of times, but never outside of the bus or the practice field.

But you guess you have to sacrifice comfort and privacy to survive.

Finally, when the silence stretches on for nearly thirty minutes, Hoseok speaks. "We have to talk about the elephant in the room," he announces.

Everyone raises their eyebrows.

"What elephant??" Jimin says. "Where's the important question? Did I miss something?"

"No," Hoseok sighs. "What are we going to do about the sleep situation?"

"What do you mean?" Yoongi scoffs. "I get the bedroom, everyone else sleeps out here." He gestures at the living room.

"At least four people can fit in that bedroom," Namjoon says. "I suggest you can choose who gets to sleep there."

"You have to take in count that we have a lady present too," Seokjin says.

"Shouldn't she automatically get the bedroom then?" Jungkook says. "And she chooses who sleeps in the bedroom?"

"That's not fair!" Taehyung says. "Why does gender matter in this situation?"

"Yeah, and you're only saying that because you know she'll pick you!" Hoseok scoffs.

"Well, I'm sorry I want to make her feel comfortable in a male dominant household!" Jungkook shouts.

You feel awkward, biting your lip and looking back and forth between Jungkook and the two other men.

"Um, if you'd let me choose, I'd have to go with Yoongi, just because it's his house, Jungkook and Namjoon..." you say.

"Goddamn!" Jimin exclaims. "What did I ever do to you??"

"Nothing!" you protest. "I'm just—"

"My house, my rules!" Yoongi shouts over everyone. "I get to choose! And I pick Y/N, Namjoon and Jungkook. That's final!"

While Jimin, Hoseok and Taehyung are grumbling, Seokjin seems rather happy. "I'm closer to the kitchen in the living room," he grins. "And besides, it doesn't matter whether you sleep in the bedroom or in the living room. You get the same sleep." He pauses. "Unless you get the actual bed."

"We can take turns with the bed," you tell the three other men.

"Nah," Yoongi says. "Never liked that stupid thing."

"I also prefer sleeping on the ground. It's good for my back," Namjoon says.

Jungkook shrugs at you. "You can take the bed."

You're left gaping at them. "Are you sure...?"

"Just take the offer before they change their minds, honey," Seokjin laughs.

"O-Okay."

"Now what?" Taehyung says, exasperated. He seems let down that he doesn't get to sleep in the bedroom. Nor does he seem keen on the idea of sleeping in sleeping bags. Hoseok looks equally annoyed.

You suppose you can understand them in a way. You don't exactly have many things to lose. In fact, now, you probably don't have to pay off student debt. But Hoseok and Taehyung, well, they're not used to living in cramped up places. It's not really their fault that they're being so whiny. But at the same time, you wish they can shut the fuck up and stop complaining.

"What do you mean, now what?" Yoongi says. "We're gonna sleep. I think I have an extra blanket or something..."

"Sleep?" Hoseok says. "It's barely 6 o'clock."

"Well, what else do you suggest we do? Go outside and hunt the zombies??" Yoongi says. "Excuse me, I'm gonna go to bed."

"Wait!"

Yoongi turns around and glares daggers at the rich businessman. But Hoseok doesn't budge. "Do you have a phone charger?" He holds up his phone, the latest model of the iPhone—the one that costs more than some laptops.

The bus driver cocks an eyebrow. He holds up his own phone in the air.

Everyone else gasps when they realize Yoongi's phone is a battered, out-dated Nokia. The model that is so old that you swear you had that same phone when you were in sixth grade.

"A Nokia?!" Taehyung shrieks.

Everyone pulls out their own iPhones in rapid succession.

"Oh, god," Namjoon mutters.

"I guess it's goodbye to our phones," Seokjin says. "A pity..."

"We should've grabbed iPhone chargers at Target," you sigh, shoving your phone back in your back pocket. A forgotten necessity...

"Yeah, you should've," Hoseok agrees.

You give him the nasty side-eye when he turns his back to you.

"Well," Yoongi shrugs, "it's not the end of the world. Besides, I think I have an iPhone charger somewhere..."

"You used to have an iPhone?? Why the switch?" Jimin says, twiddling his one iPhone X in his hands.

"No, never had an iPhone. I hate Apple products," Yoongi scoffs. "I'm a die-hard Samsung fan, but I had to switch to Nokia to pay the bills. I just had an ex-girlfriend who left her iPhone chargers at my house. I might find more than one if I dig around, I guess."

Everyone whoops with joy.

After a hunt that lasts for an hour, two pathetic, dirty iPhone chargers sit in the middle of the shaggy carpet while everyone else crowds around them.

"I call it first!" Hoseok and Taehyung say at the same time.

No one dares to argue.

"Now can I sleep?" Yoongi sighs.

"You don't want dinner?" Seokjin says.

"You're going to cook?" Yoongi raises his eyebrows.

"Well, I'll make do with the canned foods," Seokjin says.

"We should also probably try to watch the news or something," Jungkook says. "To see if they're calling for any survivors..."

The mood suddenly becomes dim.

Right. The past hour had been so busy that everyone had somehow forgotten about the zombie apocalypse.

Jungkook senses the mood and quickly changes the topic. "Just kidding. Let's play a game."

"A game?" Jimin says. "I love games!"

"Depends on the game," Taehyung says. "I call beer pong."

"I'm nineteen," you say.

"So? I took shots when I was eight," Taehyung argues.

You roll your eyes.

Amongst the commotion, Seokjin manages to sneak his way into the kitchen. No one really cares.

"Okay, then does anyone have game suggestions?" Jungkook says. "Just so we can get to know each other better. We don't know how long this will last, right?"

"I think I'm too old for games," Hoseok grumbles.

"I don't think I've played a game in my whole life," Yoongi says.

"Can I study for my exams?" Namjoon pipes up.

Jungkook sighs. He looks at you for some help but you shrug. If they don't want to play games, then they won't play games. You don't want to force them into it and end up having no fun at all.

"Maybe we should just let them do what they want," you whisper to Jungkook.

He gives you a look of incredulity. "That's it!" he yells. "We're all in a shitty mood, but you know what? I don't give a flying fuck. We're going to play fuck, marry or kill!"

Seokjin groans from the kitchen. He pops his head around the corner while holding a big container full of food in his hands. "Will the game mess with everyone's appetite?"

"What even is that?" Jimin points at the bowl.

Seokjin shrugs. "A bit of beans. A bit of corn. A bit of sauce. I don't even know, but it tastes good." He grabs some spare plates and bowls and sets them down in the living room along with an array of plastic utensils.

"Where did you even get the sauce and utensils?" Yoongi scoffs. "I swear I don't own any of that."

Seokjin grins. "I carry a good sauce and extra utensils everywhere."

And you have to compliment Seokjin's cooking skills because the mystery mixture is actually delicious.

"Um, hello??" Jungkook says while everyone else is scarfing down food. "Fuck, marry or kill??"

Namjoon looks up from his bowl. "That game's hardly fair."

"And why is that?" Jungkook cocks his head to the side.

"Y/N's the only girl," Namjoon says.

"That's true," Jimin pipes up. "We can't really play unless... you know, you suggest we fuck each other. No homo though, bros."

You scrunch your nose. "Yeah, Jungkook, that's a bit—"

"You got a better idea?" Jungkook says. "C'mon."

Yoongi grumbles. "I thought this game was supposed to make us get to know each other better."

"It will!" Jungkook says.

"Yeah, it'll let everyone know our sexual preferences," Taehyung sniggers.

Everyone groans.

"I agree with baseball boy," Taehyung says. "I used to play this game all the time. I'm hella good."

Hoseok frowns. "How the fuck can you be good at this game??"

Taehyung completely ignores the businessman and whirls around at you. You nearly spit out your food in surprise. "Y/N! Yes, you. Fuck, marry or kill? Jungkook, Namjoon and me?"

Everyone groans again.

"He's just saying that so Y/N can pick him to fuck," Jimin giggles.

"You're way too obvious," Seokjin snorts.

You sigh, shaking your head. "Well, I guess I'm killing Taehyung off just for asking me the first question." At that, Seokjin leans across from you and gives you a triumphant high-five. "As for fuck..." you trail off, looking between Namjoon and Jungkook. "I'll fuck Jungkook and marry Namjoon."

Jungkook gasps. "You've known me for longer and you'd rather fuck me???"

"Yeah, what does that have to say about your personality?" you tease.

All the men—except Jungkook—erupt in laughter. In just one sentence, you become the most popular person in the room, everyone complimenting you for putting Jungkook in his place.

"Y/N, you've officially become my new favorite person," Seokjin declares.

"Really?" you laugh. "Okay, then Seokjin. Fuck, marry or kill: Hoseok, Taehyung, Jimin."

"Ouch," Yoongi mutters.

"Ouch??" Jimin huffs.

"Ouch," Seokjin repeats. "I can't choose whether I want to kill Hoseok or Taehyung."

"Hey!" Taehyung yells. "Don't kill me again! Y/N already did that!"

"All the more reason for me to kill Taehyung," Seokjin sings. "I'm fucking Hoseok so I can get a limo ride or something from him the morning after. And Jimin's cute. I can work with that. I'd marry him."

"Yes!" Jimin yells, pumping his fist up in the air. "I'm husband material!"

Taehyung groans. "I've been killed twice," he mopes.

"Okay, then you try," Jimin says. "Yoongi, Seokjin, Y/N."

"I'm killing Y/N for revenge!" Taehyung declares but when he looks between Yoongi and Seokjin, he changes his mind. "No... wait, uh... I'm killing Seokjin for revenge! I'd fuck Y/N and marry Yoongi but it would be a sexless marriage."

"You only chose to fuck Y/N because she's a girl," Hoseok snorts.

"What?? She's hot."

"I'm right here!"

The game goes around in circles for hours and by the end, everyone is engaged in it. You win for getting the most marries. You also tie with Jungkook for getting the most fucks. Hoseok and Taehyung tie for getting the most kills. And Namjoon gets an honorable mention for being neutral in everyone's minds.

By the end, it becomes very clear that you and Jungkook are the most likable people, followed up by Yoongi and Seokjin (for knowing how to cook). It feels good to be liked by complete strangers. Normally, you wouldn't give a shit whether strangers like you or not. But... you might be stuck with these seven men for a very long time.

They're not so bad once there is nothing threatening their lives.

You don't mind being here that much anymore. With just a little bit of time, this place could feel like home. And these strangers can be your friends.

But right now, your first priority is to survive.

Okay, so, fast forward four months, and now your priority isn't exactly to survive. Pretty strange, to be honest. In over 120 days, things have taken quite a worse turn—the city is becoming more dilapidated and there are more zombies roaming about, but truth be told, you and your seven friends are doing just fine. In fact, you are doing great. More than great.

Now, your priority is to live comfortably. Ironically in an environment that prioritizes survival.

It's genuinely because of the advanced system Hoseok bestowed upon the household one faithful day. (He wasn't the successful CEO of a rising company for nothing.)

The businessman gave everyone a designated job to work depending on their skills. You think he especially thought of this system when Taehyung and Namjoon somehow managed to set the kitchen on fire back when kitchen duty was rotational. Seokjin had grieved for days because the fire left ugly burn marks on Yoongi's counters. And now the intern chef's the only one allowed in the kitchen. Seokjin faithfully cooks three meals every day—enough for everyone to have seconds. Enough to even have leftovers.

In turn, Namjoon takes care of all the medical stuff. He claims that he can cure anything except a zombie bite. When Taehyung challenges him that he can't cure all cancer, Namjoon gets unreasonably pouty and the whole next day, he decides to study. But he comes up with nothing, to Taehyung's delight. But to Taehyung's distress, Hoseok assigns him as Namjoon's medical assistant (only because Taehyung had ditched nursing at one point to pursue law). Now Taehyung's right back where he started.

But the two of them manage to get along. Sometimes. And they are responsible with the medical supplies. Sometimes. And they remind everyone to take their vitamin supplements. Sometimes. Namjoon's also crazy good at taking splinters out. That's an always.

Jimin's assigned to keep a lookout on the news through the rather spotty radio. So far, there's been nothing. But the cop in training is persistent and hopeful. Well, everyone is. You all hope that someone announces the apocalypse is over and there's a safety station not too far away from here. But the announcement never comes. No problem. You're in a situation where you're not that desperate—you can wait it out.

Hoseok gets to order everyone around and makes sure all the household duties are fulfilled. Strangely, after you get to know him for a while, he's actually a pretty chill guy. Just a little uptight when it comes to serious business. He's a huge scaredy-cat with a big heart and only becomes irrational when he's in fear.

Arguably, you and Jungkook are in charge of the most dangerous job. You are what everyone else calls the 'suppliers.' At least once every two weeks, the two of you hop on the bus with Yoongi (who drives) and go to Target to pick up groceries or anything else the others needed. The job is dangerous all right, but you and Jungkook haven't come across a major zombie attack yet, so the bi-weekly outings are a bit of a joke. (The two of you fool around in Target and spend a bit too much extra time in there than necessary.) But what can you say? It serves as a little escape from the cramped house!

Yoongi doesn't really have a job except to drive you and Jungkook anywhere you need to go. Hoseok decided to let him slack off—only because he sacrificed his house for the crew.

In four months, you're able to get to know the men better. In normal circumstances, you doubt that you'd ever come near a rich businessman. But here you are, cracking jokes with Hoseok every night. You wouldn't even have gotten to know a cop in training either. Or a law student. Or a med student. Or an intern chef who's actually talented. Maybe you knew Jungkook from before the apocalypse. But you never really connected with him on another level. Now, you know a lot about the seven men you're forced to live with.

A bit more than you would like, too.

You know that Hoseok likes his soup cold, which convinces you that he's a total psychopath, but whatever. Seokjin secretly likes to bake more than he likes to cook. Namjoon still studies for his medical exams (that are very obviously never going to take place) because he can't stand having nothing to do. Jimin's actually really insecure about his physique (despite his sassy and confident nature) and constantly needs someone to tell him that yes, Jimin, your ass looks fan-fucking-tastic in those tight jeans. Taehyung—you think—watches porn when everyone's asleep. So he might kinda be a porn-addict but you're not really sure. You don't wanna find out. And Jungkook... You know that he likes to read romance novels. Which you found out when he dragged you down the literary romance aisle in Target and suggested you save space in your bags so he could take some back to home base.

But no one else in the house likes to read, so Jungkook doesn't get his books in the end.

It's hard to believe that you're in the midst of a zombie apocalypse—especially with the comfortable way you're living—but still, you and Jungkook only try to take home what's necessary. To save time and space, of course.

A couple of months into living together, all of you had even celebrated Namjoon's 25th birthday. He didn't get a cake, but Seokjin managed to make cookies in five minutes in Yoongi's old microwave. The rest of the day was spent relaxing in the tight living room, playing what Jungkook liked to call 'family games.' Games that you should probably not play with your actual family (because of the level of inappropriateness), but games that bring friends together to the point that they feel like family.

So, in conclusion, the seven men aren't as horrible as you thought in the beginning. Sure, they have their strange and eccentric quirks, but it's refreshing to see so many different personalities in one house. You can't imagine how shitty life would've been if you were stuck with seven men with the same character as a doorknob. It's nice to live with people with such... unique personalities.

And at this point, they're like your friends—if not—best friends.

And best friends are not afraid to call each other out.

"WAKE UP YOU FUCKING SLOTH!" Taehyung screams.

You can hear Yoongi let out a dead groan from the bedroom. But it doesn't look like he's going to be barging out anytime soon.

"WAKE UP!!!!" Jimin shrieks.

Everyone covers their ears. Jimin's voice is definitely loud and shrill enough to burst someone's eardrums. But none of you want to find out, of course.

"I didn't haul my ass out of bed early in the morning to break my back cooking for everyone for you to not fucking wake up!" Seokjin yells. "Wake the fuck up!!"

From inside the bedroom, Yoongi groans. And then: "SHUT UP OR I'M KICKING EVERYONE OUT!"

You snort. Everyone else rolls their eyes, picks up their utensils and begins to scarf down the scrambled eggs.

Yoongi tends to get very cranky when he's woken by the sound of yelling. When the man is cranky, he makes empty threats that he never really means. Of course he wouldn't kick everyone out of the house. Though he doesn't like to admit it, Yoongi loves the company of the others.

The bus driver stumbles into the kitchen with his hair up in the air and his eyes barely open. "I hate you all."

"Really?" Seokjin smiles, handing the cranky man a plate of still-warm breakfast. "Love your hair."

"Shut up." Yoongi ducks his head down and begins to eat with vigor.

"Hey, chef?" Taehyung sighs, pushing his half-eaten plate of eggs away from himself.

"What is it, lawyer boy?" Seokjin says, crossing his arms. "Do you want escargot to go along with that? Or caviar?"

Taehyung is the designated picky eater of the bunch. But no one blames him. If you grew up eating filets and caviar, you'd probably be picky too.

"The eggs aren't salty enough," Taehyung says. "Do we have salt?"

"Nope, we're out," Seokjin says.

"Ugh," Taehyung groans. "I can't eat this. It tastes too bland."

Seokjin frowns. "Just appreciate what I made for you, you ungrateful swine."

Of course, it isn't a normal breakfast in the group if there isn't an argument. In the beginning, it had been annoying, but now everyone is so used to it, they let it fly.

"Y/N and JK? Can we get some salt today?" Seokjin sighs as he turns to you and Jungkook. "Someone's being a picky bitch again."

"Hey!" Taehyung says.

Hoseok just talks over him. "Anyways," he says, "Jimin, any new reports?"

"Nothing," Jimin sighs. "Radio's basically dead. Honestly, we might be the only ones alive in the whole state at this point."

"That... is not exactly statistically possible," Namjoon points out. "If you really think about it, the probability that—"

"Shut up, please," the cop in training says, exasperated. "Let us go one day without your lectures. God."

You and Jungkook give each other a 'here they go again' look.

"Can we have at least one day where we don't bicker like big babies?" Yoongi scoffs, throwing down his fork. He still looks half dead, his voice gravelly and deep.

Taehyung raises an eyebrow at him. "No, bitch," he answers. "The bickering is what makes us such a great motherfucking team."

"Actually—" Namjoon starts.

"Everybody just shut the fuck up and eat!" Seokjin yells.

Just like always.

This is a very typical breakfast in the household. Where everyone yells at Yoongi to wake up. And then the arguing commences up to the point Seokjin can't take it anymore and screams at everyone to shut their traps. That's when everyone obeys him (because Seokjin can be quite scary when angry) and eats silently.

After breakfast, Hoseok calls a meeting in the bedroom. You and Jungkook sit on the bed as everyone else sits around the floor; Hoseok stays standing.

"Look, guys," he says, "it's been four fucking months. We're lost."

You cock your head. Lost was the last thought in your head right now.

"At least we're alive," Jungkook snorts. "At least none of us have been bitten. At least none of the zombies have turned up around this area yet. At least—"

"Okay, okay, we get it, Jungkook," Hoseok sighs. "It's just that we're in a tricky situation right now. It's been four months..."

"Yes, we know," you say. "But haven't things been going smoothly? I mean, look, we have enough food, we're safe here and we're happy. What more can we ask for?"

Seokjin hums thoughtfully. "Well, Hoseok might be right, Y/N," he says. "It's only been four months, right? So the utilities are still working. There's still gas in the gas stations, the fridges are working... You know?"

Namjoon nods. "Exactly. But when will that run out?"

"When will the food run out? When will we have to live off of rationed canned foods because the fridges in Target broke? What if our fridge breaks?" Seokjin says. "We're in a tough spot."

"But we're not lost... yet," Jimin says, "right??"

"But we don't know when the doomsday will come," Taehyung sighs. "That makes this whole situation shittier."

It's not very often that the group sits down to have a serious conversation—it's not often at all that everyone can be serious in one setting. And it's a bit unsettling.

Especially when you had thought you were doing fine. But what would you know? You're only nineteen; you've yet to experience hardships that the others have gone through. So you know what the others are worrying about is valid.

"So what do we need to prepare for?" Jungkook asks.

"That's what I wanted to talk about today," Hoseok says. "How are we going to prepare for a potential zombie attack if we had minimal contact with zombies so far?"

"That's true..." you murmur. "Kook and I are the only ones who've seen zombies without a barrier separating them and us... But even then, they were several yards away."

"We don't know their weaknesses at all," Namjoon says. "We just know that once you've been bitten, you'll die and then become undead after some time. But we don't even have a specific number on that either."

"I mean, do you really want to find out?" Taehyung snorts. "Why would any zombie come around here, anyway?"

"But this is all a 'just in case' situation," Hoseok says. "We just want to prepare for the worst possible scenario."

There the businessman goes again, thinking ten steps ahead of everyone.

"I feel like we'll have the best solutions when we actually face the problem," Jungkook says. "We definitely don't feel threatened right now. We're not gonna get an effective solution." He shrugs. "I say we go with the flow."

"And wait until it's too late and one of us gets bitten?" Namjoon says.

"Have you ever heard of procrastinating?" Jungkook says.

Namjoon and Hoseok gasp like they've seen the devil.

"If we wait until we're threatened, we'll do ten day's worth of work in ten minutes," Jungkook says.

"And if we try to force a solution now, we'll probably do ten minute's worth of work in ten days. Or worse," you add. "Trust me, as a procrastinator, I would know."

"They kind of have a point," Seokjin says. "I guess if we run out of food, we can always... grow it? I don't know, we can be self-sufficient. There's always a solution, no matter how late in the game we find it."

"Are you saying we should wait until we're actually in trouble before taking action...?" Jimin says slowly. "Because that sounds dangerous... I mean, I don't uh, work well under pressure."

"I think we should invest in a gun," Taehyung says. "'Cause in the movies, they totally gun the little shits down."

"None of us knows how to shoot a gun," Yoongi says. "And I don't trust any of you with one."

"Hey! I'm a cop—"

"Cop in training, I know, I know," Yoongi says. "But I don't care. You get scared easily. You're gonna accidentally shoot one of us while you're at it."

Jimin can't argue with that.

"We can't live like this forever," Hoseok says, shaking his head disdainfully.

"Who knows? Maybe this will lead to the extinction of the human race," Namjoon says. "We might have to live like this forever."

"See? If we go on forever, then we won't have to come up with solutions right away. We'll make them up as we go," you say.

"Procrastinating is a horrible—"

But before Hoseok can go on a lecture-rant for two hours straight, Yoongi stands up.

"Well, I'm done with this conversation," he says. The man gestures at you and Jungkook. "C'mon, you two. Let's get to Target."

You silently thank Yoongi for helping you escape Hoseok's long life lectures. Swiftly, you and Jungkook grab your weapons—your bats—before cautiously stepping out of the house and climbing into the bus.

The bus ride to Target is silent as usual. Yoongi likes to drive in complete silence, observing the city's hollowed-out, empty look. Sometimes, zombies lurk about in the shadows, but they're always too slow to catch up to the bus. And they rarely swarm around Target for reasons that are so lucky that you don't even question it.

Once Yoongi's bus pulls up to the Target parking lot, you and Jungkook cautiously tug back the curtains draped around the windows to check if the coast is clear. Usually, it is. Yoongi always murmurs some sort of subtle words of encouragement before the two of you leave. But you and Jungkook never need it.

Swinging your bats over your shoulders and walking side by side in Target, you feel like you're the Harley Quinn to Jungkook's Joker. Not that the two of you are romantically close. Ew.

It's just that you spend a lot of time with him. Going on supply missions, sleeping in the same bedroom, listening to music together during otherwise silent bus rides... Jungkook's a great shoulder to cry on when an existential crisis hits you at 4 a.m. in the morning. He's always able to wake up and calm you down before the others are awoken from the sounds of you sniffling under the covers.

Granted, the two of you still tease the living hell out of each other, you think you make a great team with Jeon Jungkook.

Sometimes, zombies will creep into Target and roam about with their limping legs and horrible posture. You and Jungkook aren't very scared of them because at most there are only two or three at a time and that's a number you and Jungkook can easily beat with your bats. Plus, the two of you have trained short-distance running for years. You're fast. If you ever get in a position where you have to run for your life, you think you'll survive.

Besides, the zombies are stupid. There are too many ways to outsmart them. I.e. throw a noisy kiddy toy in the opposite direction and have them hobble towards it while you can run away. Seriously, how dumb can you be to let a zombie best you???

Despite being overly confident about your survival skills, you and Jungkook still take safety precautions. (It's always better to stay safe than be sorry.) The rule of thumb is that you're only allowed to carry one shopping bag each, which leaves the other hand empty to handle the bat.

Today's Target trip is just like any other. You get some salt for Seokjin and manage to salvage the gummy bear vitamin supplements that everyone raves over.

You're just about to call it a day and suggest you go back to the bus when Jungkook tugs at your shirt and points at the sports section. Your eyes fall on the baseball bats and softballs in the corner. Nostalgia hits you hard.

"Oh..." you breathe.

"Yeah..." Jungkook sighs. "When's the last time you even had a game?"

"It feels like it's been years," you sigh. "But probably four months and a few weeks."

"We should really start working out again," Jungkook says. "I heard it's bad for athletes to suddenly stop."

You snort. "Working out's the last thing that should be on our minds in the midst of a zombie apocalypse though."

"True." Jungkook grips his baseball bat in his hand and stares forlornly at it. "I really can't imagine trying to hit something that's not a ball with this bat."

He makes a sad point. "Me too," you agree with him. "I'd never want gross zombie guts on it."

"You know, I wish I could swing my bat and hit a ball right now," Jungkook sighs. "That's literally my only wish at this point."

"It's a risky wish..."

"I know..."

The conversation is sad—too sad for you to handle. Too sad to be talking about with fun-loving Jeon Jungkook.

"Whatever, right?" you say, trying to lighten the mood. "When all of this ends..." Even you can't finish your sentence. You find yourself wondering, but when will it end??

Jungkook pats your back. "When all of this ends," he continues for you, "we should come to each other's games."

You smile at him. "Promise?"

"Promise."

It's silly to be so caught up in playing a goddamn sport in the midst of an apocalypse. But softball had been your life, and it had been stripped away from you. It's worse to have to carry around your bat all the time—not to hit a ball, but for protection. Protection against monsters.

"We should go," Jungkook whispers, nudging you. He points his head in the direction of some zombies who had caught sight of the two of you in the sports aisle. Neither of you panic, but Jungkook grabs your hand anyway. "Wanna make a run for it?" He grins as if nothing is wrong at all. "It'll be like a mini-workout."

You smile back. Four months ago, you would've been terrified if a zombie was within even a twenty feet radius around you. But you've grown now. You're used to a couple of zombies. And Jungkook's never terrified, so you have no reason to be terrified either.

"Let's go!" you say, returning Jungkook's smile.

The two of you begin to dash away, hearing the inhumane moans of the zombies echo in your ears as you run not from fear but to exercise. Maybe you are living in more comfort than you've bargained for.

Survival just isn't a priority anymore.

"What the fuck happened to your arm?" Taehyung shouts the moment you and Jungkook walk into the cramped house again with Yoongi trailing behind the two of you.

"Who, me?" Jungkook says, turning his head to inspect his arms.

"No, Y/N," Taehyung sighs, rolling his eyes. "You have blood running down your arm, dude. Does it not hurt?"

Now that Taehyung mentions it, your right arm begins to throb with sudden pain. When you turn, you see a small gash coated with blood; the droplets are rolling down your arm in a dramatic fashion, but the pain is tolerable.

"DID YOU GET BITTEN?!" Jimin screams.

Yoongi rolls his eyes. "If she was bitten, she would've dropped dead." He picks up the plastic bags and carries them over to the kitchen as everyone trails behind him. "As you can see," he gestures toward you, "Y/N is fucking fine."

"I must've cut my arm on some cardboard or something. I don't know," you say. "We were running away from some of those creeps, so..."

"Are you okay, at least?" Jungkook says. "It looks like it hurts."

You snort. "I mean, it's only a cut. Hey, Tae, a little help over here?"

"Only a cut? Dude, nothing's ever only a cut in a fucking apocalypse," Taehyung says. "I'll take a look." He disappears into the bathroom to wash his hands and comes out holding the first aid kit.

While Taehyung treats your little wound, Seokjin begins to serve lunch—grilled cheese that's crunchy and flavorful and definitely not bland. Taehyung gives his compliments to the chef, which almost makes Seokjin break down in blissful tears.

But then the bickering commences as usual.

"I'm not trying to point fingers here," Namjoon starts, but he very obviously stares Taehyung down. "But I haven't touched my phone since the apocalypse began. Yet it seems like Taehyung can't get enough of his phone the whole day."

Taehyung takes a ginormous bite of his grilled cheese sandwich and shrugs. "It's important stuff," he grumbles with his mouth full.

"How, though? We've already established that none of our relatives are answering our texts or calls ages ago," Hoseok says.

"What could possibly be so important on your phone, I wonder," Seokjin says. He raises his eyebrows, but everyone already knows that he's suspecting.

Taehyung rolls his eyes. "It's good leisure time."

You make a face. "You've got to be kidding me."

"I can confirm it," Jungkook says. "He watches porn."

Taehyung scoffs. "You don't??"

"Well, jacking off is the least of our worries," Jimin adds to the conversation. "Though I'm sure it feels good."

Everybody groans. You especially.

"I can do whatever I want with my fucking dick," Taehyung announces.

"Please," you say, "can I eat in peace without having to think about dicks?"

"Thank you!" Taehyung says. "Everyone please shut up and eat Jin's delicious grilled cheese."

Seokjin smiles proudly. It seems as though Taehyung's learning a thing or two from Seokjin.

"I really go through the mill every day to cook for you guys and Taehyung's the only one who's complimenting me?" the talented chef sighs, shaking his head. "Don't be surprised if I accidentally spill dirt in your dish the next meal. Seriously, guys. I think I deserve some standing ovation or something—"

But before Seokjin can go on one of his famous self-esteem raising rants, you excuse yourself and make a mad dash to the only bathroom in the whole house. Even the talkative chef stops his ranting when you disappear behind the locked door so quickly.

Jimin's the first to speak. He giggles, "I think she's getting diarrhea from your delicious meal, chef."

Jungkook rolls his eyes. "You're an idiot, Jimin. She's definitely not taking a shit."

"I am not an idiot!"

"What are you trying to say?" Yoongi says, feigning disinterest, but he's obviously curious about your sudden escape to the toilet.

"It's her time of month," Jungkook whispers to the men. Their eyes turn large at the relayed news. "You guys better not get on her bad side in the next few days. Or let her be in a bad mood. Run it with me, guys," he says quietly. "She gets cramps in the first three days. She gets bad cravings on the fourth. After that, we should be safe. Anyways, just be especially nice to her. She wasn't exactly having the best day today."

"How the fuck do you know her cycle?" Hoseok narrows his eyes.

"I accidentally might've... um, grazed my hand against her ass one time um, and... I heard a crunch... Turns out it was her pad," Jungkook sighs. "It was a total accident. But I almost lost my head. Ever since then, I've been keeping track in fear for my life."

"Must kinda suck being a woman in these times," Yoongi says.

"Yeah, respect for Y/N for sure," Taehyung says.

"She's a strong woman," Namjoon nods. "I agree. Imagine trying to live with seven males you barely know in a world where there are so many dangerous predators—cough, men."

"I know, I know," Jungkook sighs. "I feel bad because she totally switched from pads to tampons because of me..."

"Tampons are better for active girls, anyway," Namjoon says. "I think."

"I never really notice when Y/N's on her period though," Seokjin says. "I mean, she doesn't have mood swings at all!"

"That's 'cause she has mood swings all the time," Jungkook snickers, bending the truth to earn some laughs from the boys. But it doesn't become very funny when:

"I can fucking FEEL you guys talking about me!" you shriek from the bathroom, and though the door is closed, everyone else can hear you loud and clear.

It becomes completely silent; the men suddenly become very invested in eating.

A few seconds later, you walk out of the bathroom looking a little peeved already. You sigh as you pick up your leftover grilled cheese. "Hey, Jin, can I get something warm to drink?"

"Warm water?" Seokjin says. "Of course, honey."

You raise your eyebrows at Seokjin's sudden sweetness, but you don't question it.

Meanwhile, Jungkook looks at the other men and gives them the 'I told ya so' look. Cramps 101, warm water helps ease the pain and so do hot packs, which unfortunately aren't available at the moment. Jungkook's done some extra research himself. Maybe on your birthday or something, he can surprise you with one of those cute animal-shaped hot packs or an extra supply of painkillers. (You never waste a precious Advil on period cramps, no matter how bad they get.)

The rest of the day, the men surprisingly keep quiet. And it's doing wonders for that headache that's creeping in. Normally, you try not to make a big show that you're on your period, so everyone tends to treat you the same. But today... well, it's almost as if they know they're walking on thin ice. You can't say you don't like this special treatment. Especially when dinner is actually civil for once, with no one calling others out or displaying horrible table manners.

It's even hilarious how after dinner, Jungkook takes you aside and very, very cautiously asks, "Hey... I don't know if you're down or not for family time today... but—"

You cut him off, laughing, "I'm always down!!"

On your cue, the group gathers around in the living room and Yoongi even offers you the single couch that he always claims is his. You gratefully take his offer and hug your pillow in front of you to keep your stomach warm. Jungkook sits next to you (as usual) but perches upon the couch arm.

"Anybody have a nice, tame game for tonight?" he says.

"Tame??" you say, raising your eyebrows. "Why tame?"

"Er..."

Luckily, Taehyung comes to the rescue. "Never have I ever!" he shrieks. "But the nasty version, how about that?"

"Tae—" Seokjin starts, but you interject.

"Nasty never have I ever!" you say, gripping your pillow tightly against your stomach. "Sounds like a plan! The ten fingers version please." Jungkook notices you biting your lip in discomfort and offers you his hand to take. Though you raise your eyebrows at him, you take his offer. No one else notices.

"Okay, I'll start," Namjoon says, crisscrossing his legs and looking smugly at everyone—almost as if he knew he had a good question. "Never have I ever had a friends with benefits."

"Oh, come on!" nearly half of the group screams.

"You've really never had a friend with benefits??" Jungkook gawks at Namjoon. "Seriously dude. Harsh first question."

"Don't have time for friends with benefits," Namjoon answers, grinning.

You, Seokjin, Yoongi and Namjoon laugh triumphantly as the others lose their marbles over already having nine fingers left.

"I don't have friends to benefit from," Yoongi snorts, looking proudly at his ten still-standing fingers.

"I'd get attached to the 'friend,' which wouldn't be good for my mental health," you giggle. "So no. Never had or never will have friends with benefits."

Seokjin just shrugs, grinning rather innocently.

"Fine. I'll go next," Hoseok grumbles. "Counterclockwise, right? Hm..." he trails off, scrunching his eyebrows. "Ooh! Okay, never have I ever sexted the wrong person. Almost did, once."

"Dammit, Hoseok!" Jimin yells.

"You sexted the wrong person?!" Jungkook doubles over in laughter. "How???"

"My ex's contact was dangerously close to my mother's," Jimin grumbles. "I had to do a lot of explaining that day."

"Oh my god," you deadpan. "I'm so sorry, but that's just fucking hilarious."

Jimin huffs, puffing out his cheeks and angrily putting another finger down to have a total of eight fingers left. "I'm losing now."

"Relax, you haven't gotten to zero just yet," Taehyung teases.

"My turn!" Seokjin announces, "and I got a good one. I'm gonna get everyone out." He puffs out his chest and smiles a devilishly handsome smile.

"I doubt it," Yoongi says, raising his eyebrow.

"Yeah, it's hard to get everybody but yourself out," Namjoon says. "Especially with more people. You're looking at getting seven people out with one statement. Not impossible but very unlikely."

"Okay. Bet," Seokjin laughs. There is a dramatic pause (wherein it's so silent you could probably hear a pin drop) before he speaks: "Never have I ever had sex."

The whole group goes berserk.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE A VIRGIN?!" Hoseok yells.

"I HATE YOU!" Jimin screams, now at seven fingers.

"HE LITERALLY STILL HAS TEN FINGERS LEFT!"

"HE WASN'T FUCKING KIDDING!"

Seokjin just relaxes and enjoys the chaos unfolding before him.

But the next round, Yoongi says something on the lines of "Never have I not had sex before." So Seokjin loses a point because of that—but not until at least seven minutes of arguing back and forth.

Taehyung, though, comes up with an interesting question that's very obviously targeted at you.

"OOH!" he giggles, eyes turning wide. The law student grins at you specifically. "Never have I ever held hands with the opposite gender during a never have I ever game!"

"What?!" you and Jungkook shriek in unison, but keeping your hands intertwined. Instead, Jungkook squeezes your hand in response.

"That was so obviously aimed towards us!" you complain.

"Oh, then go on, aim something at me, then," Taehyung giggles. "We're tied in points anyway."

"Okay, fine," you sigh. "Never have I ever had a dick."

"You just did not—"

"That's not fair!"

"I can't fucking help what I was born with."

You shrug. "Let the aiming begin. Sorry boys, I wanna win this game."

Even Jungkook looks offended that you had attacked him.

"If you're playing dirty, I can play dirtier," he grins. "Never have I ever had a vagina."

"You stole mine!" you complain. Jungkook just laughs and pats your hand.

"Never have I ever slept with a guy," Jimin says.

"Never have I ever played softball," Namjoon says.

"Never have I ever been penetrated," Hoseok smiles at you angelically. You want to slap them.

"Never have I ever inserted a tampon," Seokjin sings.

"Never have I ever worn a bra," Yoongi says with a shrug.

"Never have I ever held Jungkook's hand," Taehyung laughs.

"That's double-dipping on the last one!" you argue.

"Too bad!"

Now it's your turn. And you only have one finger left. Well, this took the disastrous route.

"Never have I ever kissed a girl," you sigh defeatedly.

Though everyone else puts down a finger, you're still losing big time. One more blow would mean you've lost.

Jungkook smiles, turning to you. "Ready for the finale?"

You roll your eyes. "Whatever. Bring it on."

"Never have I ever had a period."

"I hate you guys," you grumble, sinking into the couch and letting go of Jungkook's arm. "You really ganged up on me."

Though you've lost the game, you're not that mad—not as mad as you thought you'd be. When you see your friends laughing their asses off and high-fiving each other to celebrate your defeat, it ironically makes you feel better. Good to see them get along.

Four months ago, they would've done anything to rip each other apart in shreds. Now, it looks like they've gotten close to the point they'll gang up to spite you.

While clutching your stomach to numb yourself from the pain, you can't help but smile. They've come a very long way. Now they don't really seem like the annoying man babies you knew. Granted, they're still man-babies, but less annoying and slightly more caring and thoughtful. But you'll take any kind of man-baby as long as he respects you and his friends.

Being on your damned period makes you want to sleep in the whole day. Except you're in a zombie apocalypse and sometimes, you have to sacrifice your wishes for the good of the group. Which means, getting up when Seokjin calls for breakfast.

But it's just so hard to get up... You end up ignoring Seokjin and everyone else yelling at you to come eat. Seokjin has to knock on the bedroom door, telling you that you can't skip breakfast or else it'll be bad for your uterus. You're not really sure that's how it works, but since he asked very nicely, you comply.

Groggily, you slide out of bed and make your way to the restroom. You feel heavy, bloated and just plain gross. You quickly change your tampon, scrubbing your hands with soap and water before finally walking out.

Whoever's the last one to wake up usually gets to walk the walk of shame with everyone else yelling at them. But it's silent today.

The moment you join the group and Seokjin hands you your breakfast, Namjoon's considerate enough to ask you if you had a good night's sleep.

"No," you answer, gesturing towards your whole face. "I'm bloated. I have dark circles under my eyes. And I feel ugly."

"N-No, you're beautiful!" Jungkook says quickly.

You give him a look. "Don't lie."

"Do you want me to tell you that you are ugly and bloated?" Jungkook asks in confusion. "I mean, I'll do it if you want, you know."

Oh god. His ignorance makes you want to strangle him.

When Jungkook notices that he's stepped into a dangerous zone, he backs away. "I-I mean, no, I wasn't lying! You're always beautiful, Y/N. I swear!"

You huff but don't respond.

It's obvious that you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. You don't even know why you're so cranky today, but you guess you have to blame it on the fact that you're bleeding out quite uncomfortably. Apparently, your uterus is extra mad this time around that you didn't try for a kid again. And it's getting its revenge by releasing its wrath on your body, which aches about everywhere.

"It must be inconvenient to change your uh, menstrual... products every day," Yoongi says, supposedly trying to cheer you up. "I would be too lazy to do that."

"Yeah. It fucking sucks," you sigh. "Part of me wishes I just had an IUD so my period would stop altogether for a while... or at least lighten it. But then we wouldn't have a doctor to get it out of me after a few years."

Namjoon clears his throat, "Excuse me, I'm a—"

"No, you're not," you cut him off. "You're a med school student. Huge fucking difference."

Namjoon looks a bit hurt, but he dares not to say anything else.

"Whatever," you say bitterly. "Since we're on the topic, I need to get more tampons."

"At least use pads, Y/N... Much safer..." Namjoon tries.

"Yeah, pads are rad," Taehyung snorts.

"Period," Seokjin adds on.

"Oh god. Did you just make a period joke?" Hoseok groans, shaking his head.

"Why, yes," Seokjin grins. "Why yes, I did. I'm just going with the flow."

"Please shut the fuck up," Jimin says for you.

"I second that," you say. "And I'm not switching. Pads annoy the shit out of me. I don't wanna be more annoyed than I already am."

Nobody bothers to argue with you.

The day flows on as usual—with barely anything to do inside the house. The summer heat washes over everyone; it's nearly impossible to go outside because of it. Oh, and also, zombies. No one dares to step foot outside unless you, Jungkook or Yoongi have to get on the bus to get supplies.

But it's days like this where there's not particularly anything to do that makes this whole thing so much harder. The zombie movies make it look so easy, Taehyung points out.

And he's right. There's always so much action going on in apocalypse movies. Guns, knives, cults, blood and gore... But in reality, an apocalypse is much more... boring. It's a waiting game, really.

The eight of you just lie around, counting the fibers of the rug or daydreaming about how the world used to be. Jungkook manages to convince you to work out with him, so the two of you work on your core muscles, which ache by the time you finish because of the lack of use. You finish the work out much earlier than expected. It pisses you off that your stamina has dwindled down to nonexistent in just a few months. If it weren't for the stupid apocalypse, you'd still be one of the star players on your team. Now you're not even sure everyone on your team is still alive.

You call it quits and take a refreshing shower.

With your hair still wet and your clothes clinging onto your body, you lie on the bed right next to Jungkook whose eyes flutter open. "Back from your shower?"

"Mhm..." Instinctively covering your stomach with your hands, you turn your head to look at Jungkook. "I barely got through that workout."

Your friend laughs, clearing his bangs from his eyes at the same time. "You'll get better once we start working out more regularly."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know, though..." you sigh. "What's the point anymore?"

"The point?" Jungkook asks. He shifts his body to look at you, but you don't meet his eyes. "The point is to... survive... Right?"

"...I guess." You wince when your stomach cramps get worse. For some reason, the shower had left you with depressing thoughts and being skeptical of survival. "I dunno. What's the point of living now? We're just stuck in this house. It's cramped. We can't go outside unless we really need to... And I feel like absolute shit about myself. There's just no... purpose."

"Yeah, it sucks," Jungkook agrees. "But hey, you made a purpose by doing something you wanted to do yesterday. Remember? You finally worked out! And even during your period. You should be proud of yourself."

His enthusiasm and kind words make you feel a bit better. "I guess I did accomplish something pretty worthy today."

"See?" Jungkook grins. He sits up on the bed and smiles at you. "You did good."

You laugh, sitting up with him. "You mean, I did well."

"Literally no one cares about grammar."

"Oh, really?" you giggle, nudging Jungkook so hard that he almost falls off the bed. He grabs onto the sheets in a frenzy, and the two of you begin to laugh uncontrollably.

When the laughter dies down, you can't help but keep smiling at Jungkook. He must be having a hard time himself. (Either that or he's just a rock with no feelings.) But it's nice that he actively tries to make you feel better. Even if he jokes about inappropriate things all the time. Thank god there's someone your age living in the household. You doubt that anyone else would understand your PMS-ing and arbitrary existential crises as well as Jungkook.

"I'm sorry I've been such a grouch," you tell Jungkook. "If you guys were meaner to me right now, I'd stop whining. Coddling does bad things to my attitude."

"Nah, if I was bleeding out of my nonexistent vagina, I'd be pissed too," Jungkook says. "C'mon, let's go grab some lunch. I smell Seokjin's cooking."

During the meal, Hoseok sets down his silverware and sighs very loudly. "Everyone," he announces authoritatively. "This place is a pigsty."

Yoongi looks up from his dish. "Excuse me, this is my house. You can't say that."

Hoseok just rolls his eyes. "I'm just saying if I had my secretary, this place would be spotless."

"Well, your secretary isn't here though," Jungkook snickers.

"Thank you Captain Obvious," Hoseok glares. "We're still going to do some... summer cleaning."

Oh no. Everyone groans.

Once the dishes are washed and put away, Hoseok starts giving out the cleaning assignments. Seokjin is excited to get the kitchen. You get the bathroom (because your feminine hygiene products are there). Hoseok, Taehyung and Jimin get the living room area, while Yoongi, Namjoon and Jungkook get to clean the bedroom.

It's rather organized, but cleaning is not very fun. Back before the apocalypse, you'd probably clean your desk and room maybe once every six months. Or a year if you were particularly lazy.

Hoseok keeps yelling at everyone to "Put your backs into it!" Jungkook's ordered to scrub the floors and Taehyung gets to wash the rug. You just shut the bathroom door to drive a partition between the loud men.

But the repetitive scrubbing motions help soothe you. And you have to admit, it's a little bit satisfying to see all the muck wash down the drain when you scrub extra hard. However, after a while, it becomes a bit lonely to clean by yourself. Through the door, you can hear the others joke around and prank each other. Somehow, they're making cleaning sound fun.

You finish the last of your part in the bathroom and walk out with a PSA in mind. The men look up when you clear your throat. "Ahem, ahem. Please, for the love of god," you say, "put the fucking toilet seat down."

Jimin cocks his head at you. "But there are seven men and one of you."

"Oh, shut up!" Seokjin slaps Jimin. "Don't be a dick about using your dick."

"Uh, yeah, and it's just not fair that I have to clean up after your horrible aims," you say, shrugging.

"Oof," Jungkook whispers, nudging Taehyung and giggling.

"And I need to go to take out the trash..." you say. "...Anyone wanna come with?"

"Nah, Yoongi and I'll take care of it," Jungkook says. "You can stay and rest."

He doesn't need to say it twice. "Really? Thanks!"

While Jungkook and Yoongi go off to go to the local school to dump the trash, you decide to help Seokjin out in the kitchen. He normally doesn't let anyone around his precious workspace, but he found that you're significantly less clumsy than the other men.

The two of you end up making some soup from scraps and heating up bread. By the time everyone gathers around the living room with their bowls of piping hot soup, it's already dark out. Another day is nearly over.

And what better way to end the day than spend it with family time?

"I had so much time to think about this today," Jimin says. "What about twenty questions?"

"Oh, the thing where we ask twenty questions to come up with an object?" you say. "I'm down."

Everyone else mumbles their validations.

"I have a word," Jungkook snickers. "Shoot the questions." He downs his bowl of soup until there's nothing left.

"Okay, first thing's first," Namjoon says. "Is it alive?"

"No," Jungkook answers. "Is it not. The purpose of it is that it is not alive."

"Hmm..." Yoongi says. "Okay, then is it... um, a household object?"

"Well..." Jungkook pauses. "Yes?"

"Why'd you say that in a question?" you laugh. "Is it a weird household object?"

"Wait, that doesn't count as a question!" Hoseok says.

"Oh shit, sorry. I meant to say, have we ever used it in this house?"

"Um, I hope not," Jungkook snickers.

"Yes or no?!"

"No?? I think?"

"You don't know for sure??"

"I don't know if Yoongi has one of these! And if he uses it!" Jungkook says.

"Okay, fine. Then is it something essential to survival?" Yoongi asks.

"Oh, definitely not."

"Did you use it before the apocalypse?"

"Oh, hell no," Jungkook laughs. "But some of you might've."

"Some of us??" Seokjin says. "Wanna waste seven questions and find out who?"

"No!" everyone else choruses.

"So we know that it's kind of a household object, but we haven't exactly used it in this house... But some of us may have used it before we got stuck here..." Namjoon says. He hums thoughtfully. "Do you think it'd be smart to try to find out the general size of this object?"

Jungkook stifles a laugh.

"Why? Why was that funny?" Hoseok says. He narrows his eyes. "Hm, okay, is it larger than my hand?"

Jungkook laughs out loud. "I mean, it depends, really."

"You need to start giving better answers," Taehyung groans. "You're so fucking vague."

"So the size varies..." you say. "A shit ton of things have varying sizes!"

"I got a question!" Taehyung announces. "Would you typically let this object out in the open?"

"What kind of dumb question is that?" Yoongi rolls his eyes.

"What?? I'm sensing that this object is a weird one and I just wanna confirm it!!"

"No!" Jungkook exclaims. "Never. You would not wanna leave it out in the open."

"Money???" Namjoon guesses. "Do you guys think it's money?"

"How could some of us have used money before the apocalypse?" Hoseok laughs. "It's not money... We have to figure out which people would've used it before."

"Or we can ask where most people would keep the object," you say. "Here's my question, would it be in the kitchen?"

"Not typically, no. I also hope not," Jungkook says.

"Oh god, I can't help you guys now," Seokjin shrugs.

"Would it be in the bedroom, then?" Jimin asks.

"Oh, yes. Yes."

"What would you wanna keep hidden in the bedroom?" Namjoon scrunches his forehead.

Taehyung sniggers. "My mind is going places right now."

"Oh god," you groan. "Please don't—"

"Is it related to sex?" the law student blurts out before anyone can stop him.

There's a dramatic pause before Jungkook nods. "Yes."

"I KNEW IT!" Taehyung pumps his fist in the air victoriously. "It's a sex toy. I can feel it."

"Something that only a few of us would use..." Jimin trails off. "Is it for both sexes?"

"Um..." Jungkook says. "Yes? I mean, you would think it's for women... But I think some men would use it too... Aw man, I just gave you guys a huge hint."

All of the men turn to you. "What have you got for us?" Yoongi says.

You try to rack your brain. "Um... maybe a vibrator?"

"Is that your answer?" Jungkook says.

"Um, yes?"

"Nope!"

"How many questions do we have left?" Hoseok asks.

"Eight," Jungkook answers, grinning. "But I'm pretty sure you guys will get it right."

"Um... um..." you try to think, but nothing's coming up in your head. "I don't know! I don't really use toys in the bedroom!"

"I got it!" Namjoon shrieks. "I got it!"

"What is it??"

"Butt plugs!!"

Jungkook throws his head back to laugh. "N-No!!" he wheezes.

"Oh, wait," Seokjin says. "I think I know."

Everyone holds their breaths as he prepares to reveal the answer.

"A dilidio."

"A WHAT?" you nearly fall over laughing.

"NOOOO!" Taehyung screams, slapping his thighs and doubling over.

"Did you fucking mean dildo???" Hoseok yells, his face turning red as he laughs.

"Oh my god," Jimin giggles.

"I-I choked on my soup," Yoongi coughs, but he's laughing so hard it seems as if he doesn't mind.

"Oh no," Seokjin says. "I suppose I did mean dildo..."

Jungkook seems to be at a loss for words. He's laughing so hard that he's completely silent, his mouth open and his eyes squeezed shut as he gasps for air. "Y-YES!" he finally screams. "You guessed it!"

"Your word was dildo the whole time?!" you shriek. "And you thought some of us used it??"

"Wait, you never used one?" Jungkook gapes. "I thought all girls—"

"No! Not all—I am not talking about this in public!"

"I've considered it before," Taehyung giggles. "But I backed down before things got serious."

"Oh my god," Namjoon wheezes. "I almost lost my lungs thanks to Seokjin."

Seokjin just shrugs. "I'm just here for comedic relief."

"Did you really not know how to say dildo??" Taehyung says.

Seokjin laughs nervously. "I mean... it slipped from my mind for a second... C'mon I'm a straight male who's a virgin. Cut me some slack."

"Sure," Taehyung giggles. "...dilidio," he whispers.

That results in another loud friendly argument, and by the time things are settled and everyone's abs are hurting from laughing, Yoongi decides to call it a night.

You slip into bed after changing tampons and try to drift off the sleep. But the worst thing about being on your period is that sometimes, you get bad insomnia on top of cramps. Curling up into the mattress, you hold your stomach protectively as you try to count the sheep to bore yourself to sleep. However, in your visions, the sheep turn into mutated zombies, so you have to force yourself to open your eyes to get the hideous image out of your head.

Sighing, you turn over so you're on your side and facing the side that Jungkook's sleeping on.

"Still awake?" comes a hushed whisper from below the bed. You can recognize the silvery undertone of Jungkook's voice anywhere.

"Yeah, just some insomnia," you shrug. "And cramps."

"Sucks," Jungkook whispers.

"Yeah..."

"Want me to help?"

"What??"

Before you know it, you hear rustling and Jungkook slips under the covers with you. "Here, I'll big spoon you," he says. "Some extra heat might help, right?"

"O-Oh, y-yeah..." You're so caught off guard that you can't help but stutter. "Are you sure this isn't some plot to just sleep in the comfortable bed?"

Jungkook laughs quietly. "Something like that," he jokes. He puts a reassuring arm around you, and you can't help but flush when he whispers, "Comfortable?"

"Mhm... T-Thanks," is all you can manage. You're so caught up in the fact that you're spooning with Jungkook that you completely forget about your cramps. He smells like Yoongi's soap—clean and a bit minty—like his usual spearmint cologne. It brings back old memories of the Jungkook you barely knew but was still attracted to. The Jungkook you know now is infinitely better.

A part of you knows he actually, genuinely cares for you. But another part of you worries that he's just being nice to get into your pants. You're usually good at spotting the typical ding-dong-ditch boys, so you hope your good judgments about Jungkook are correct as well.

But what kind of bad man cuddles platonically with a girl to help her with her period cramps?? Exactly. Jeon Jungkook is a saint.

And that's the last thought you have before you drift asleep in his strong arms.

When you wake up, Jungkook's not in bed with you; nor is he in the bedroom. It seems as if it's just you and Yoongi left sleeping. The others must be awake.

Waking up without Jungkook next to you almost makes you feel like yesterday had just been a miraculous dream. But you know it had happened. Why else would Jungkook's sleeping bag be arranged so neatly? He'd definitely fallen asleep with you. The thought makes your cheeks blush and you try to shake the feeling away.

You rub your eyes, yawn and carefully maneuver out of the room, avoiding sleeping Yoongi. Making a quick stop to the restroom to change your tampon, you walk out, stretching your arms and yawning. The cramps seemed to have ceased early this time, so you're feeling much lighter and happier.

The others give you their salutations.

"Feeling better?" Jungkook says. He sits up from the single couch to let you sit down.

"Thanks," you say, smiling at him. "Yeah, the cramps are gone at least."

"Sounds good, Y/N!" Seokjin sings from the kitchen. "Can someone wake Yoongi up??"

"I'll go," Hoseok sighs. "I swear, that man could sleep through the world ending."

"He already is," Taehyung laughs.

You smile at Taehyung's joke, turning to Jungkook to see if he had found it funny too. To your shock, you see Jungkook already looking at you, smiling softly.

"The worst's already over, right?" he says. "Maybe we can snag some painkillers for you one day."

"Oh, we shouldn't bother—"

"Come on, lovebirds!" Namjoon says. "Breakfast's ready!"

"Lovebirds?!" you and Jungkook shout at the same time.

"As if you guys don't make it obvious enough," Yoongi grumbles, scratching his back and squinting at the bright lights. "Didn't you two play footsie last night in bed?"

"We did not!" Jungkook scoffs.

"Wait, does that mean I get to move into the bedroom?" Taehyung asks hopefully.

"Why would it be you? What about me?" Hoseok says.

"Yeah! And me??" Jimin argues.

"Whatever. Whatever!" you shout, effectively silencing everyone. "Let's just please eat breakfast."

After another meal consisting of everyone talking over each other and making hilarious jokes, Seokjin announces that he's in need of more eggs. More vegetables would be nice too.

You and Jungkook immediately stand up and Yoongi just groans. "Do we really have to go today?" he grumbles. "I just wanna stay home."

"You've been staying home for over a week," Taehyung says. "Hey, can I tag along this time? I'm not afraid of a couple of zombies."

"Why so suddenly?" Yoongi raises his eyebrows. "It's not a fairytale, you know. It's serious work."

"I mean, Y/N and Jungkook make it look so fun..."

"Yes, we're pretty cool, we know," Jungkook laughs, scrounging around for his baseball bat and picking it up. "We're every zombie movie director's dream."

"As long as you can run really fast, then sure," you say.

"Yes!!" Taehyung exclaims.

Jimin shudders. "I still don't understand why you would want to go outside into the zombie-infested world..."

"One wrong move could get you killed," Hoseok says. "It's dangerous."

You shrug. "We've survived every time. And besides, zombies are the lesser species. They're stupid. Slow. And incredibly weak."

"Careful. Don't get too cocky," Namjoon says. "You sure you need an extra pair of hands to carry everything?"

"The more people we have, the more supplies we can get at a time," Jungkook answers. "Tae can come and that's final."

Taehyung won't shut up about how cool it would be to have zombies chasing after him as he ducks heroically around obstacles and wacks a few of them with makeshift weapons. It's like his head's stuck in the movie world.

Yoongi ends up putting his earplugs in.

You and Jungkook patiently listen to Taehyung's fantastical visions, wondering if the two of you should break it to him that yes, being a supplier is cool, but no, it is not action zombie movie cool.

When Yoongi announces that you've arrived at the destination, Jungkook cautiously pulls back the curtains on the bus and then frowns.

"Yoongi, this is Costco, not Target."

"Yeah, I know," the stoic man answers. "Figured the eggs came in larger packs here. And they have a special section for their fruits and vegetables to keep them fresh."

"Fresh after four months?" you raise your eyebrows.

"You can see for yourselves," Yoongi answers. "If not, there's a shit ton of food there anyway. Thought we needed a little upgrade from Target."

"Right..." Jungkook says. "But we also don't know how many more zombies are roaming around here."

"Seems like none to me!" Taehyung exclaims as he scans the perimeter. "Uh, at least none on the outside."

"Well... we have each other's phone numbers just in case. Ringtones on silent, right?" you say. "We'll call you if we have any trouble. And you'll call us if you're in trouble too. Though I doubt it." You shrug. "The most zombies we might have to encounter might be ten. And we can take ten easily."

"Exactly," Jungkook says. "But we'll still exercise caution."

"Right," Taehyung says. "We must exercise caution."

"And try to talk in a low volume," you say.

"Then everything will be just fine," Jungkook says, puffing out his chest.

Five minutes later, things are looking out to be... quite... not fine. But it's also too late to back down. The three of you are already deep in the large Costco building, and though it looked like there were no zombies outside, there were a shit ton inside. All sleeping.

You try to signal Jungkook and Taehyung to go back to the bus just in case, but the other two are firm on going through with the mission. The three of you tiptoe carefully across the building, making sure to speak sparingly or stay silent altogether.

Unfortunately, Costco doesn't have plastic bags, so you end up having to carry the carton of eggs. The vegetable section stinks of rotten food, so you avoid it completely. There aren't that many fresh foods in Costco that you can hold without making a complete racket, so the three of you gravitate towards the canned foods sections once more. You admit, there are way more options in Costco than in Target, but you quickly find out that it's hard to carry multiple cans at once without a bag.

You ditch the canned foods and pick up boxes of waffle, pancake and cake mix. In the midst of choosing how many of these boxes you should bring with Jungkook, Taehyung interrupts the quiet conversation by whispering aggressively: "Look! Look at this!"

Jungkook puts his finger to his lips. "Not so aggressively," he whispers. He nods at the couple of zombies sleeping in the same aisle, just several feet away—the closest you've ever been to those limping monsters. And all of you know there might be tens and tens more scattered around the store. No one wants to find out what would happen if they all woke up.

Taehyung pouts and twirls around in—

"A leather jacket?" you say. "Where the fuck did you get that?"

"It was literally lying on the ground somewhere. Pretty neat, huh? Makes me feel like I'm the star of a zombie apocalypse movie!"

"That's half true," you say. "You're not a star in a movie... Also, that's a woman's jacket. See the details on the side?"

"I don't care! It's still fucking cool—"

"Shh!! Shut the fuck—FUCK!" Jungkook shrieks.

The zombies in the aisle have opened their eyes and have seen the three of you. They slowly get up from the ground and begin to limp toward you, but surely, gaining speed.

"Ohhh no, oh no, oh no," you panic, gripping Jungkook's arms and nearly dropping the eggs in your arms.

"S-Stay calm," Jungkook says, but his eyes are huge and he looks panicked. "Um... run!" he whispers.

Taehyung grabs an extra box of waffle mix before dashing away, catching up to you and Jungkook. The three of you dash for your lives. You take a look back to see if the zombies are still following you, but you wish you hadn't. There are way more than the two initial ones who had spotted you. Now there's a gigantic hoard of them limping after you.

And man, the movies got it all wrong! These motherfuckers are kinda fast.

Maybe they can't exactly run, but they can definitely speed walk. Your feet pound against Costco's floors and the impact vibrates from your foot to the top of your head. The bat wedged between your arms has never felt so useless. The eggs held tightly against your chest are threatening to crack under the pressure of your hold. But you don't care. You've never been more afraid in your life.

One or two zombies is a joke. But at least thirty?? Wanting to bite your neck off? No fucking thank you. You cannot possibly fight that.

The only solace you have is Jungkook, who constantly looks over to make sure you're next to him. Though you know he can run faster than this, he keeps his running at your pace, and Taehyung runs behind both of you because either he's willing to turn himself into a sacrifice or he's willing to prove he's not afraid of zombies.

It might be the latter.

There's no time to text Yoongi; you'll just have to pray that he'll be waiting on the bus, ready to zoom off the moment the three of you get on. But when you finally run out of Costco's confining walls, your heart sinks. Jungkook puts his arm out in front of you to stop you from running any closer to the hoard of zombies bumping their heads on the very walls of the bus.

But there's little to no time to think.

Taehyung gestures violently and leads you and Jungkook to hop into Costco's food court kitchen, where thankfully, the windows are open. Jungkook slides into the room first and double-checks that it's completely safe and empty before helping you in. Taehyung comes in last, just before the zombies spill out of the entrance of Costco. They look confused, wondering where their three meals have vanished off into nowhere. But they don't seem to mind, wandering off to the bus where the rest of their ugly monster friends are.

You're breathing hard, so hard that you can barely breathe. All you can do is clutch your carton of eggs and rock back and forth on the balls of your feet as you squat down on the ground. Even Jungkook, the brave, seems a little fazed as he tries to comfort your shaking body by patting your back.

Only Taehyung doesn't look affected at all. He shrugs, setting down the boxes of food and pats his newly acquired leather jacket. "Everything will be fine," he whispers so quietly you can hardly catch his words.

"I-It's not!" you manage to whisper. "Yoongi's on that bus! A-And... I—what if—"

Taehyung pats your leg, helping you put down the eggs. You just hold your bat—as if it'll save you from the at least fifty zombies waiting outside. "Yoongi will be fine..." he reassures you. "Things will work out."

Jungkook shows his phone to the two of you, and there are several texts from Yoongi that indicate not to go near the bus right now.

"Tell him that we're fine," Taehyung says quietly. "That we'll wait for the zombies to go away or something."

Thank god Taehyung's here. It always helps to have someone who is unafraid. Someone who is still able to think straight after being chased by a hoard of flesh-eating zombies.

You decide to check your suspicions and open the carton of eggs to find eight of them cracked and leaking. You don't know what washes over you, but you're suddenly crying silent tears. Something about being stuck in the Costco kitchen with zombies guarding the bus you're supposed to go into and not exactly knowing what the future holds for you is fucking terrifying. And even worse, you had one job. But you'd managed to crack the eggs.

Taehyung and Jungkook are surprised to see your tears—especially Taehyung because he had never seen your vulnerable side before. Jungkook just hugs you, and you try to focus on the scent of mint clinging to his hair, while Taehyung lets you hold his hand.

No one dares to speak after that.

The zombies are pretty far away, but you're not willing to take any chances when the kitchen is a closed space. There's nowhere to run. And you obviously don't want to stay here all night. Night is when the zombie numbers multiply—at least in the movies.

You try to take silent, deep breaths to calm your rapidly beating heart. Jungkook's chest rests against your back, and you can hear his thumping heart as well. You know that he's a lot more scared than he lets on. But he stays calm for your sake.

Meanwhile, Taehyung just looks bored.

He taps meme song rhythms against the back of your hand and frequently (but also carefully) looks out the window to check if the zombies are gone. But they are not. They continue to rack their heads against the walls of the bus, and there are so many of them that sometimes, with a particularly hard knock, the bus leans to the side.

Maybe they can smell humans...

You just hope if they can, they won't be able to smell you three. If worse comes to worst, you'll actually have to fight for your life.

It's been nearly five hours.

Your legs are sweaty and your thighs stick to the ground, and it's gotten so stuffy that you, Jungkook and Taehyung have all given each other some space. There's still not much to say and it's too risky to talk, though.

The silence is horrible.

You start to think about everything. All the people you've wronged. All the people who hated you and would probably kill to see you like this. All the people who love you and would be heartbroken over the deadly situation you've entangled yourself in. All the people who you loved and are dead now, after meeting a tragic, zombie-ridden death.

It's worse that you're still on your period, and you've still got the tampon in—for more than eight hours too. But you try to forget about it; it's the least of your worries now.

At this point, you're not sure if you should just accept your fate. It already feels like you've lost a big battle. Why not just give up? The five hours you've stayed cramped up in the small kitchen felt like five days.

The others must be worrying at home. And oh god, Yoongi... He must be even more terrified to be alone on the bus and surrounded by zombies.

"H-Hey..." Jungkook whispers, placing his hand on yours. "Maybe we should go now..."

"What??" you exclaim in a low voice. "What do you mean go now??"

"Jungkook's right. There're fewer zombies surrounding the bus," Taehyung says, he crouches down but levels his eyesight to the parked vehicle.

"If we can manage to push them away from the doors and get in..." Jungkook starts. "Um..."

"We'll be totally fine," Taehyung says. He's got a small smile on his face—not a hopeful smile but a confident smile. You wonder what it takes to be so unafraid and unbothered.

But they're right. What used to be about fifty zombies have dwindled down to a measly ten to fifteen. Possibly twenty-five since some of them might be out of your line of sight. But it's much better than fifty. Still...

This would totally be asking to get bitten.

"I've already texted Yoongi. He says he'll keep a close lookout for us, and when the coast's clear, he'll let us in," Jungkook says. "C'mon..." He squeezes your shoulder. "It's better to try now than later, right?"

"You two can swing your bats around like mad," Taehyung says. "And I'll just, you know, try to stay alive and hold the supplies."

You twirl on him, your mouth gaping. "You're not gonna fight??"

"Someone has to hold the groceries," Taehyung laughs. "It's better for me to hold everything so you two have more mobility."

"Oh god. Oh god," you mumble. "We're going to have to do it..."

"Duh," Taehyung snorts. "C'mon, it'll be fun. Like in the movies."

Fun?? You could think of a billion counterarguments, but you shut your mouth.

"Just pretend the zombies are that creepy sexist male baseball coach you had in high school," Jungkook says. "Does that help?"

"I'm not very imaginative—"

"Okay, the goal is not to beat them up, anyways," Jungkook says. "Just enough for us to get into that bus in one piece..."

"Right," you say with a curt nod. "Just enough to survive..."

"They're just a couple of idiots with mangled bodies," Taehyung grins. "We'll survive."

"Of course," Jungkook snorts. He looks over at you as if to check up on your mental state. Though you're screaming on the inside, you manage to put on a stoic look on your face.

"Okay, well I'm ready," you finally whisper, gritting your teeth. "We'll uh... yeah, survive..."

"Exactly," Taehyung says, he pats your back before beginning to pick up all of the supplies. "You guys got my back, right?"

"Sure," Jungkook grins. "We'll keep you covered."

You nod along, though biting your lip nervously. "So we're just going to... make a run for it?"

"We're not really in the position to make up a battle strategy," Jungkook shrugs. "I'll be in the front, you can be right behind me and Tae'll be right at the back."

"Sounds like a plan," Taehyung says.

It's a simple plan that seems to be effective, but there are still a million things that can go wrong. Jungkook grips his bat tightly in his hands before looking back at you. He looks a little apprehensive himself, but he offers a tight smile.

"On the count of three, right?" Jungkook says, he looks at you specifically. "And no running off before."

You manage to smile nervously. "Yeah..."

"One..."

You take in a deep breath.

"Two..."

You breathe out.

"Three!"

You hold your breath as you charge, right behind Jungkook. Your feet pad silently against the ground; your surroundings are blurred. You can only see straight ahead.

You raise your bat above your head, ready to strike. Your grip around it tightens.

The zombies are still oblivious, but there are so many of them. Your ears can't seem to comprehend sound anymore. Your eyes narrow in on the monsters, and you make a mental target of the ones you're going to go after first. It's almost in slow-mo. Right before two opposing sides meet in war and clash.

Jungkook lets out a muffled gasp when he hits the first zombie across the head.

It's enough force for the monster to stumble back and fall to the ground. The other zombies notice and begin to charge slowly. You hesitate for just a second, watching Jungkook lash out at the monsters to clear the way for you and Taehyung to get into the bus. Then with revitalized vigor, you move, swinging your bat with all of your strength at the nearest, blood-thirsty zombie.

It growls before flinging backwards. The impact of the hit has your arms shaking uncontrollably, but there's no time to pause and recuperate. In fact, there's no time for you to think. One wrong move can get you killed.

You swing your bat over and over again. Never hitting the same zombie twice. Knocking down as many as you can. Helping Jungkook protect Taehyung who has no weapons at all.

Blood splatters everywhere, but you don't dare close your eyes. And it's too much of a risk to scream. You pant quietly, sweating profusely but gritting your teeth and fighting for your life. Literally.

But the zombies won't die the second time around. They manage to stand straight again and hobble towards you and the two others.

"Y/N!" Jungkook hisses, hair wet with sweat and eyebrows furrowed. "Knock on the bus door!"

He swings his own baseball bat around, subsequently knocking down three monsters. He's offering you and Taehyung protection while your backs are turned.

Following his order, you frantically knock on the bus door covered by curtains. As soon as your knuckle hits the glass, Yoongi peels back the curtain, his eyes wide and lips parted.

You know he can see the hoard of zombies still trying to maul Jungkook. He gulps, his Adam's apple bobbing in the process. Nevertheless, in just a few seconds, the bus door opens.

"Hurry!"

Taehyung's the first one in, and you only stay to kick a zombie away from the entrance. Its hanging guts explode right on your shoe, making a disgusting mess.

"Jungkook!" you shriek.

He turns around, cursing as he knocks down more of the monsters.

You bite your lip hard enough to draw blood, looking between the safe insides of the bus and your friend struggling to fight the zombies. More of them are ganging up on him, definitely more angry that he'd tried to hurt them. There's no time to think at all. It's all instinct when you jump out, unexpectedly knocking one zombie over. But it creates a miracle domino effect.

Jungkook doesn't hesitate. He grabs your arm, turns around and runs toward the entrance of the bus. The moment your foot is in the door, Yoongi slams it shut.

Loud thumps can be heard from the glass as the zombies angrily protest against the loss of a meal.

Just when you worry that the glass might crack from their vicious head-butting, Yoongi gets in the driver seat and slams his foot down on the gas. The bus lurches forward, definitely crunching over some of the zombies and subsequently flinging you, Jungkook and Taehyung to the back of the vehicle. The gathered supplies fly every which way, but Yoongi continues on, jerking the steering wheel left and right to throw off the zombies.

Your heart is thumping so loud, you can't even hear the skids of the bus wheels against the concrete. Hell, you can barely even see straight.

Even after Yoongi pulls out of Costco's parking lot and continues to speed out of the city, you're unable to speak, completely frozen. And no one speaks another word until you can see Yoongi's modest home several yards away.

Safety is close.

The anxiousness is just about dissipating within you when—

"Oh, shit. Shit. Shit. Shit!" Yoongi curses, repeatedly slamming his foot on the gas pedal only for the bus to slow down, sputter and come to a complete stop. "Well, shit," he sighs, turning around to face you, Jungkook and Taehyung. "Bus broke down."

"Welp!" Taehyung sighs, standing up and brushing the dirt off of his clothes. He's got a few bloody smudges on his cheap Target t-shirt (he had to give up Gucci ever since the apocalypse), but he's in a much cleaner state than you and Jungkook. The law student shrugs, gathering up most of the supplies in his arms. "At least it didn't break down back at Costco."

"Do you think we can fix it?" you say, eyebrows furrowed. "And is it safe outside?"

"Zombies don't really come here... I think," Jungkook says, frowning. "Um, but I'm sure we won't be ambushed out there."

"We'll have to see if the bus is fixable," Yoongi says. "But I'm no mechanic." He looks more on the worried side, fidgeting with his hands. "Let's get out of here."

With your knees still shaking and head still light, you stand up, nearly wobbling over if Jungkook had not supported you. Yoongi carries the rest of the supplies, unveiling the bus door and busting it open. You and Jungkook carry your bloody bats, you especially distraught over the violent mess that had been made of your precious sports equipment.

Taehyung's the first one out, stretching his back leisurely before taking a look around the surroundings. "Zombie-free!" he exclaims. "Damn, look at the bus! Didn't know zombies could even bleed that much!"

You make a disgusted face at his comment. I definitely don't want to be reminded of fighting those monsters anytime soon.

Taehyung's right, though. The bus windows are splattered with now dried droplets of blood, and the sides are even worse, harboring the brunt of the zombies' remains. You have to look away.

Though there are seemingly no monsters roaming about in the vicinity, Jungkook ushers you towards the house as quickly as he can. It's not worth the risk. Not worth the extra trauma.

Before any of you can get to the front door though, it swings open with a very worried looking Jimin nearly in tears.

"I thought you guys were dead!" he screams, tugging everyone in the house before slamming the door shut. When he pulls back, Jimin's jaw drops open. "Blood?!"

"Oh god..." Namjoon gasps, quickly rushing over to check up on you and Jungkook. "Anyone bitten?"

"What the hell happened?" Hoseok cries. "We couldn't even call! Our phones died and you took the chargers!" He points at Taehyung.

"Oh, Y/N..." Seokjin gasps when he realizes you've started to cry. "Hey... hey..."

"We had a little bit of a problem," Yoongi says. "Went to Costco instead of Target. It's my fault... And they had to deal with it."

"It's cool, bro," Taehyung says. "Got this cool leather jacket out of it. But also almost died in the process."

Seokjin embraces you, making you cry even harder. The stoic façade that you had put up inside the bus and all throughout the afternoon had broken apart.

"I-It was," sniff, "n-not c-c...ool," you manage to get out against Seokjin's chest. "I... I've never b-been s-so... scared."

"You've made it out alive," Seokjin whispers, patting your head. "It's okay..." He pulls back and murmurs a quiet "Yikes," when he sees blood splatters across your face and even down to your neck.

"Y-Yikes?!" You cry even harder. Everything you'd been holding in for the last four months, all the times you missed everyone you'd known in your life, all the times you'd had a major existential crisis—it all comes crashing down on you. Leaving you broken.

Seokjin awkwardly holds you, not sure of what to say and do. The rest of the men seem at a loss for words as well.

Finally, Jungkook's the first to take action. He walks forward, wiping off the dried blood from your chin before sighing. "You're a professional zombie fighter," he says, crouching down to meet your eye level. "You were brave, calm and collected when you needed to be, and you survived. Plus, you saved me. You should be proud of yourself. You did good."

You manage to scoff amidst your tears. "Y-You mean," sniff, "that you did w-well."

"Yeah, whatever," Jungkook snorts. He just pats your back and helps you sit down on the couch in the living room.

"What's that about Y/N saving your life?" Jimin says.

"Um... well, how about we start from the very beginning?" Jungkook suggests, sitting on the couch ledge. "It's a long story."

"Man, it was bad fortune after bad fortune after bad fortune!" Taehyung exclaims. "Like literally, just when we thought we survived everything and could live to see another day, the bus fucking broke down!"

"Wait, the bus broke down??" Hoseok shrieks. "And eggs and what the fuck is that—cake mix—are the last things we got???"

When you look like you're going to start crying again, Namjoon cuts in. "Cake mix can last for months. And eggs are delicious!"

"We're doomed," Jimin groans. "How are we gonna get our supplies?"

"And the eggs are cracked," Seokjin says as he frowns at the opened carton of eggs. "Thirteen out of twenty-four."

You shake your head in disbelief, biting your lip to keep yourself from crying tears of frustration. Nothing had gone right today. Nothing at all.

"I'm so sorry," you mutter. "I was holding them so tight... I didn't think they'd..." You can't even continue on, losing your voice mid-sentence.

"Hey, no," Seokjin says. "I uh, didn't mean it like that. Um, I can still totally cook with what's left!"

He tries to lighten the downwards spiraling mood, but it's no use.

"You guys could've died," Jimin gasps, pressing a hand to his chest. "Like, Jungkook could've really been a goner."

"I can't even imagine myself being in a rocking bus," Hoseok shudders. "And zombies are the ones rocking it."

"I'm just glad no one got bitten," Namjoon says. "We were worried sick!"

"No, seriously," Jimin says, "we thought you guys died."

"Yeah, it felt like I was close to death," Yoongi snorts.

"Every day we're out here means we're closer to death," Namjoon sighs, shaking his head.

"Oh, man, I don't wanna die... and then become undead," Taehyung grumbles. "Then what's the point of dying??"

"Actually, though," Hoseok grumbles. "You're right. Would we still be conscious if we were bitten and turned into monsters? Or would we be stripped from our personalities and minds?"

"I'm not sure about you, but I personally don't think I have the 'I want to bite your head off' personality within me," Jungkook snickers.

"Ew, stop talking about death," Seokjin complains. "It's stinking up the whole place." He looks at you, Jungkook and Taehyung. "And you guys need a good shower," he says as-a-matter-of-factly. "I'll make some omelets for dinner. Jimin? Hoseok? Help me, please."

"Wait what about m—" Namjoon says.

"No," Seokjin says abruptly. "You're not allowed in the kitchen."

Namjoon pouts but he soon finds something to do in his study binder. Yoongi trudges into the bedroom saying he needs to sleep the terror off.

That leaves you, Jungkook and Taehyung amongst yourselves.

"You can go first, Y/N," Taehyung says, taking one look at the tears staining your cheeks and the state of your clothes. "You look like you really need that shower."

"Agreed," Jungkook says. "We might have to throw our clothes away too. The blood on it is disgusting considering that it's not even ours..."

"Wait... blood?" You freeze as horror dawns on you. "Oh no. Oh fuck."

Before either Jungkook or Taehyung can ask what's wrong, you dash into the bathroom and lock the door.

With all the stupid commotion, you had totally forgotten about your tampon. Cursing under your breath, you manage to get it out—though with a bit more struggle than usual. But no matter, right? It's out now. Albeit, it had been inside for way longer than eight hours.

But nothing feels wrong down there, so you shrug. You've lucked out; you just won't be as reckless again.

Hopping into the shower, you let the warm water caress your skin before scrubbing your body from head to toe. You leave the shower a bit early (so the others have warm water too), but you leave feeling more refreshed, alive and relaxed.

While Jungkook and Taehyung take their turns in the shower stall, you meander into the kitchen to help Seokjin. (Jimin and Hoseok had come up with elaborate excuses to not cook, leaving the intern chef to do everything.)

By the time everyone is gathered in the living room, dinner preparation is finished. Normally, there's a lot of chatter, but the mood is solemn today. Everyone eats in silence.

In the beginning, you're unable to conjure enough of an appetite to eat. But the omelet smells heavenly and watching the others scarf it down helps a lot. You're able to ignore all the horrible images of blood and gore and zombies from your mind, picking up your fork to finally dig into the food. The omelet is delicious, but you don't have the guts to compliment Seokjin's efforts. Even the normally talkative people are quiet, preferring to dine in silence to succumb to the somber mood.

You're not even sure family game time will progress like this. Everyone's too preoccupied with the fact that half of the group could've died today. From just a simple mistake. And the fact that you broke down crying multiple times has made everyone cautious of their word choice.

"...Maybe we shouldn't play a game today," Jungkook says, looking carefully at you to check your reaction.

You bite your lip. "I don't know... It's almost like tradition."

"I know..." Jungkook sighs. "But is everyone in the mood, though?"

There are quiet murmurs; no one's feeling like they have to outwardly voice their opinions, but everyone's nodding subtly. Even so, an awkward silence befalls upon the group. You fidget with your hands, unsure whether you should just go to bed or not. There's an unsettling feeling taking over your stomach, which you're pretty sure has something to do with the traumatic events that had unfolded earlier today.

Finally, Namjoon clears his throat.

"I never really told anyone this..." he starts, playing with his fork. "Um... but I guess I can say it now... Not that there's any way the secret'll get out..."

"Secret?" Hoseok raises his eyebrows. "Did you start the damned apocalypse?"

"Oh my god, movie plot twist!!" Taehyung gushes.

"What?? No!" Namjoon says. "It's just a small secret I've been carrying with me since I was six."

"Oh?"

"Yeah..." Namjoon sighs. "I know I'm supposed to be the face of intelligence, but I suppose I wasn't a bright child... Um, well... You see, when I was the ripe age of six, I genuinely thought the moon and the sun were the same thing..."

"No way," Taehyung gasps.

"Yes way," Namjoon shakes his head. There's a pink blush on his cheeks, signifying that he was already embarrassed. "I just thought people called the same circle in the sky different things depending on whether it was day or night! C'mon, I was six."

"Um, when I was six, I definitely knew the difference between the sun and moon," Jimin snickers. "That's like, common sense."

"Oh, I doubt you've never had a dumb moment in your life," Namjoon says sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"I've had plenty, actually," Jimin says—almost as if he's bragging about it—"you see, there was this one time—"

"Wait, are we just going to share our funniest secrets?" Hoseok cuts in.

"Yes!" everyone except him choruses.

"Anyways," Jimin drags out, "okay, so starting with the bad news first. I think it was back in high school or something. Junior year, maybe? I totally forgot we had a test in the middle of the week so, of course, I didn't study. Bombed that test. Like to the point that I was the lowest score."

"How can you have any good news after this?" you gape.

"You would not believe it," Jimin cracks a smile. "I got my test back and sure enough, I got a 43%. But the best part!!" Jimin pauses dramatically. "My class grade went up!"

Namjoon's jaw drops open and you wonder if it could've unhinged if he had dropped it any faster.

"What do you mean your grade went up after scoring a 43%?!" the med school student roars. "How low was your grade?!"

Jimin just grins. "One secret at a time, my man. One secret at a time."

"You think that's bad?" Jungkook chimes in. "I used to hold my breath in front of the microwave so I wouldn't get hit by the fucking electromagnetic spectrum microwaves."

"I'm pretty sure that's not how that works," Yoongi snorts.

"I know," Jungkook sighs. "That's why it's so embarrassing."

"Oh, really? I broke up with the love of my life because she didn't know who Gordon Ramsay was," Seokjin admits. "And now she's with a better man."

"Sucks, dude," Taehyung shakes his head.

"I know, it was some rough times," Seokjin shakes his head. "I really clowned myself on that one."

"It's okay," Jimin says. "Single people are superior people."

"That's what single people say to make themselves feel better," Jungkook snickers.

"It doesn't make me feel better. It's a fact!" Jimin protests.

"Where's the evidence, though?" Namjoon says. "Facts need supporting evidence."

"Oh my god, can we please go back to the confessions?" you say.

"Oh! I have a funny one from law school!" Taehyung volunteers.

Everyone shuts up and becomes all-ears.

"Okay, so in law school, sometimes, the prof cold calls you. You know, where they basically call on you in front of the whole fucking class to brief a case. Which basically means you're supposed to summarize the details of a case, right?" Taehyung laughs at his own memories. "But guess who didn't read about the case at all?" He pauses just a bit before declaring the obvious answer: "Me! That's who! Too busy getting hammered the night before. And guess who the fucking prof cold called? Also me!"

"Oh no..." you groan. "What happened?"

"I had no idea what the case was even about," Taehyung snorts. "So I made one up on the spot. A criminal case—just because those usually get so much more exciting. Everyone around me was confused as fuck. So was the professor. But I briefed such a good imaginary case that the prof let it go. I would've been the best lawyer ever if it hadn't been for this stupid apocalypse."

"What the fuck? Your professor didn't even get mad?" Jimin says. "What was the case about?"

Taehyung grins. "Oh, I put in a little bit of this, a little bit of that. A hybrid of a Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper and Zodiac Killer did the trick. Also the story of a heroic woman who escaped the mad man and made it alive to press charges. It was insane. I loved every single second of it, and I was making it up as I went!"

"Sometimes, Tae, I think you're a different breed," Jungkook says.

"I think we all agree with that," Hoseok says. "I mean, imagine having the nerve to completely disregard important college assignments!"

"Everyone makes mistakes!" Taehyung argues. "You probably did a couple of stupid things in your life. Why don't you share some with us?"

"I don't think I've done anything stupid in my life," Hoseok says. But he freezes. "Well, I was only thirteen then... It shouldn't count."

"Thirteen-year-old boys are idiotic," you say. "That's tea. Continue."

"I-It's not uh, very dramatic at all," Hoseok says, suddenly turning a bright shade of red. "It was no big deal, actually..."

"Spill," Jimin threatens.

Hoseok sighs. "Fine. One faithful day in junior high, I got in a fight with my mother. I told her I never needed her help with anything ever again. So she told me she wouldn't drive me to school that morning. I said I didn't care and proceeded to put on my rollerblades and skated to school to show that I was an independent young man."

"Where's the catch?"

"Um... I forgot to bring an extra pair of shoes to change into at school," Hoseok says. "But I didn't want to call my mom because that would mean I would've lost. I voluntarily walked in my socks for the rest of the day."

"I mean, at least you went through with it," Seokjin laughs. "I kind of have respect for that."

"Well, thanks," Hoseok shrugs. "I thought I was an idiot. Looking back now, I guess we all made stupid mistakes."

"Not all of us. Y/N, do you have something to share?" Taehyung asks.

"Hm..." You try to wrack your brain to come up with something. "Oh yeah. Once, I got fired from my barista job because some dude tried to hit on me."

"Why would you get fired for being attractive?" Jimin squints his eyes.

"Uh... Well, he was rude when he tried to get me to go on a date with him. Think he was some fucking incel or something. Super sexist. Anyways... I might've lashed back and said something that really made him get mad."

"What did you say?" Jungkook says. "Did you put the pig in his place?"

"Well, kind of. I did get fired for it," you shrug. "After I refused his offer to go on a date, he scoffed and told me he was too good for me anyway. And that a woman's place was in the lowly kitchen, so I was just on the right track."

"Woah," Seokjin gasps. "That is not cool. That is disgusting."

"How did you react?" Yoongi says, raising his eyebrows. "It's not easy coming back from something so rude."

"I think I have a special talent for that," you smile. "I told him, 'you are absolutely right sir, lemme go grab a knife while I'm at it.' He got really pale and called the manager. I lost my job."

"That's unfair!" Namjoon shouts. "And he didn't get in trouble whatsoever?"

"Nope," you sigh. "I had to starve myself for a few days just to save up money after I lost that job. Tough times."

"Oh, wow... I'm sorry," Jungkook says. "Some men are just not... it."

"I figured," you snort. "But I know how to put bad men in their place."

"I think you also know how to put good men in their place," Jimin whispers under his breath.

Next to him, Namjoon laughs. "As she should."

"So? Yoongi? Have you got anything?" you say, turning to the sleepy man who was mid-yawn.

Yoongi shrugs with a blank face. He begins to stand up, stacking everyone's empty dishes and taking them to the kitchen sink. You think he has nothing to share and is done with the confessions, but you're proven wrong when he comes back to the living room. He only pauses for a second to think. "I don't regret bringing the seven of you here the day the zombie breakout hit our city."

And then without a second glance, he walks out of the living room and into the bedroom, mumbling that he was tired and needed some sleep.

The rest of you blink at each other, unable to believe your ears. Usually, Yoongi is quiet and when he does speak, it's often without much emotional input. But this...

"That was weird," Jimin says. "He dropped the bomb on us and then just... left."

"I think it was sweet," you say.

"I agree," Jungkook smiles. "It was a nice way to end the night, anyway. Yoongi must've been so tired... I know we were out there fighting off the zombies, but he was on the bus, waiting and waiting, barely sure if we could get out alive."

"The stress probably got to him," Hoseok says. "We should all go to bed early. After today, we all need a good night's sleep."

"Yeah..." Namjoon agrees.

"Can I sleep in the bedroom?" Taehyung asks hopefully. "It's the only way I can actually get to sleep tonight," he pleads, though everyone knows he's lying through his teeth.

You and Jungkook look at each other, wordlessly communicating that the two of you would share the bed again. Your cheeks warm even at the thought.

"Fine," Jungkook answers. "But the bedroom policy's strict. No talking after lights out."

Taehyung laughs. "Don't worry. I'm so tired, I'll fall asleep before my head even hits the pillow."

You'd gotten in bed with Jungkook, him holding you tight in his arms and playing with your hands until he'd heard your soft, even breaths. He helps you calm down. Helps you escape.

But in the middle of the night, you wake up shivering violently. Jungkook is still embracing you and there is a blanket encompassing your body, but you are uncannily chilled. Almost as if you can't breathe. You struggle against the blankets, kicking them away, much to Jungkook's sleepy groaning protest. And when Jungkook complains too much, you end up kicking him out of the bed. You just feel too suffocated.

And when you wake up in the morning, you dash to the bathroom and vomit last night's dinner in the toilet.

The moment Namjoon sees you looking barely alive, he declares you need to stay in bed. You comply, trying to fight off that stupid headache you have. Crawling back under the covers, you attempt to focus your mind elsewhere to ignore the pain burning throughout your whole body.

Even Namjoon and Taehyung are stumped.

"It can't really be something you ate..." Namjoon says. "Because we eat the same things. If you caught it, we all should've as well."

"And we've had literally zero contact with other people, right?" Taehyung says. "Where could she have gotten it?"

Nevertheless, Namjoon rules your illness as the stomach flu—especially when you'd started to get severe diarrhea. No one else is allowed around you, even though Jungkook tries to talk to you from the other side of the bedroom door.

And for two days, you're given the stomach flu treatment. Seokjin cooks up rice in the kitchen to feed you and Jungkook and Taehyung follow Yoongi on a walking trip to a small but local convenience store to get some Gatorade and frozen bananas. Namjoon even finds some antibiotics that might work.

Although you feel like shit, you know that with your friends nurturing you and making sure you eat all the right foods and get proper rest, you'll be up and at it in no time.

Except on the fourth day, you pop a 103-degree fever with symptoms that include but are definitely not limited to delusion, fatigue, redness and irritation.

Namjoon sighs, looking at Yoongi's old, outdated thermometer. "I really hope this is broken and the numbers are far off."

You're almost in no state to react.

"She's burning up, though," Taehyung says. "We've tried everything..."

They sound worried and unsure of what to do next. But you can barely comprehend their words, head lolling tiredly to the side as you try to shut out everything in the world and rest. It's a hard thing to do too—your body feels like it's burning in the pits of hell and your head spins even though you're lying completely still. Whatever cold you caught, it's the worst you've had in your whole life.

When Jungkook worriedly peeks his head through the bedroom door, Namjoon crossly waves him away. He lets out a frustrated grunt, looking between you and Taehyung with a frown stretched across his forehead. "Maybe it's not... stomach flu...?" He says it like a question rather than a sure statement.

"These are stomach flu symptoms, though," Taehyung sighs, pointing at you. "What else are we supposed to do?"

"I'm not sure..." Namjoon trails off. "Stomach flu symptoms usually call for a low-grade fever. 103 is something else. 103 is..." he trails off. "That's really dangerous..."

"Is she..." Taehyung bites back his words. "Is she going to be okay?"

Namjoon looks at you again. He reaches over with a moist rag and pats it across your forehead to clean up the perspiration. "Y-Yeah," he says in his shaky voice. "She'll be fine..."

The mood is quiet and solemn. It's hard for the two men to watch you suffer, but they're supposed to supervise you, so it's their job to stay put and tend to your every need. But Jungkook suddenly barges into the bedroom with wild hair and crazed eyes. He's panting, sweating even.

"I don't think that's stomach flu!" he yells.

"Shh!" Namjoon shushes Jungkook aggressively. "Keep it down!"

"Not stomach flu??" Taehyung gasps. "How do you know??"

Jungkook tosses Taehyung a blue box, which the law student catches with quick reflex. "Read the fucking box, guys. Read it."

"J-Jungkook?" you groan. Your eyes flutter as you try to get a clear vision of the man. "Kook?"

He just shakes his head repeatedly, unable to walk any closer to you. "Y/N..."

Taehyung holds up the blue tampon box, frowning. "So you're saying she has Toxic Shock Syndrome?"

Namjoon gasps. "Oh god."

"According to the internet, Y/N's showing the exact symptoms of it," Jungkook says. "We have to get her to the hospital."

"We can't be 100% about that, though," Namjoon says. "TSS requires a medical diagnosis... you know, with medical equipment."

"The hospital has medical equipment," Taehyung points out.

"We'll have to figure out a way to get there safely, though," Jungkook says. "Because the damn bus broke."

The others begin to pour into the bedroom, all looking extremely stressed and worried. "I told her tampons were dangerous," Seokjin says.

"Not really," Jungkook sighs. "Apparently, TSS is rare... but like... it kind of happens when you leave the tampon in for too long."

You deliriously shake your head. "A-Am I... Gonna d-die?"

"No," Namjoon says firmly. "We'll get you to the hospital."

"Yeah, and the nearest one's about a five hours walk from here," Yoongi says, crossing his arms. "And the box label right here says that TSS is a serious disease that may cause d—"

"Shut up," Seokjin scoffs, giving Yoongi a meaningful glare. "Serious or not, we'll cure it."

"We should leave right now, then," Taehyung suggests. "I mean, look, she's been like this for four days..."

"Right now??" Hoseok says, raising his voice. "We're not prepared! It's a five-hour walk. And we don't even have a bus!"

"Hoseok's right," Jimin butts in. "We need to prepare for this."

"So we prepare now, rest and go tomorrow morning," Hoseok says. "It's a plan, right?"

"We??" Namjoon counters.

You manage to turn your head to stare blankly at Jungkook. "Is... everyone gonna go...?"

Jungkook kneels down and grabs your hand. "We're all going to go. I promise."

"What??" Jimin hisses. "I thought when we were saying we, we meant—"

Namjoon shushes him.

"It's okay..." Jungkook whispers, resting his forehead against the back of your hand. "We'll get you treated," he says. "You'll be okay..."

It's the last thing you hear before you fall into a painful slumber.

—part 1 | part 2

—masterlist

[searchingwardrobes]

Valentine Throwbacks: Day 2

This was written a few years ago for the 14 Days of Valentine’s Prompts on tumblr. This was for day three: the meet-cute.

Summary: Emma Swan doesn’t do “cute.” So when she meets Killian Jones for the first time, well, she meets ALL of him. Or what happens when gym employee Emma walks in on Killian in the tanning bed.

Making a picset for this fic was simultaneously fun and frustrating. Colin’s chest hair is one of a kind, isn’t it? ;) I also didn’t want this to be NSFW, so the tanning bed pic isn’t exactly as described in the story, lol.

Words: almost 3k

Rated: High T ? I mean, Emma accidentally sees him nude, but that’s about it. I just can’t bring myself to rate this an M because it’s overall just funny and cute.

Also on Ao3

Tagging the usuals: @snowbellewells @whimsicallyenchantedrose @kmomof4 @let-it-raines @teamhook @bethacaciakay @xhookswenchx @tiganasummertree @shireness-says @stahlop @scientificapricot @welllpthisishappening @resident-of-storybrooke @thislassishooked @ilovemesomekillianjones @kday426 @ekr032-blog-blog @lfh1226-linda @ultraluckycatnd @nikkiemms @optomisticgirl @profdanglaisstuff @carpedzem @ohmakemeahercules @branlovestowrite @superchocovian @sherlockwhovian @vvbooklady1256 @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @delirious-latenight-laughs @jennjenn615 @snidgetsafan @xsajx​ @itsfabianadocarmo @spartanguard @hookedonapirate​

Emma Swan did not work her butt off just to wipe things. She practically crawled and scraped her way into a meaningful life after getting out of prison. She worked multiple jobs, lived in her car, ate nothing but beans straight from the can, and when the misery was all said and done, she had a college degree in exercise science. But like any field these days everyone wanted experience, so until she somehow got some, she was relegated to wiping things. Wiping down the equipment, wiping down mats, wiping, wiping, and more wiping. And she only made slightly more than the teenagers at the reception desk and the college guy who made the smoothies.

Emma sighed as she grabbed yet another fresh rag after her boss told her the tanning machines needed . . . you guessed it, wiping. She was paying more attention to her internal raging about how much her life sucked than she was to her superior telling her which beds were occupied. She was pretty sure she said they were all being used except for bed three, so Emma went all the way to the end of the narrow hallway that housed the tanning beds and stopped at the last door. If she hadn’t been distracted and moody, she might have thought to knock. Maybe. Then again, most people locked the damn door.

Well, not this guy. He also didn't wear underwear to tan like most people. Nope, he was completely nude. He lay there, in all his glory, shimmering under the UV bulbs like the god Apollo or something. And the Greek god comparison wasn’t an exaggeration between the light shining on him, and the chiseled muscles, and the perfect . . . He was sort of like a living version of the statue of the David, but tanned and with lots of chest hair.

“Who’s there!” he called out.

Emma gasped, then cursed under her breath as she turned and left, slamming the door behind her. She sagged against the heavy oak door, her heart racing. She groaned and covered her face with the hand that wasn’t still clutching the bottle of cleanser and rag. Had she just stood there and stared at the guy? Oh god, she had.

Suddenly, the door behind her gave way and Emma fell backwards with a yelp. From her place on the floor, she looked up to see Apollo himself standing above her, smirking, wearing nothing but a pair of tight, white briefs. Did he look . . . pleased with himself? She suddenly realized she was clutching the bottle of cleanser to her chest.

“Like what you saw, darling?” he asked with an arched brow. He had a British accent. Of course.

Emma rolled her eyes at him as she struggled to her feet, irritatingly brushing off his attempts to assist her. “Please, I didn’t even look. Do you think I want to burn my retinas?”

His eyes, which were an amazing shade of blue, seemed alight with mirth as he regarded her. “Then why the blush?” He leaned towards her slightly, his encroachment upon her personal space made all the more infuriating by his lack of clothing. She took a step back towards the doorway.

“Oh great,” she snapped, “you’re that type.”

His brow furrowed, and for a moment he actually looked slightly hurt. “What type?”

Emma crossed her arms across her chest, despite the awkwardness of the cleaning supplies clutched in her hand. “Isn’t it obvious? I mean, seriously, who uses a tanning bed in the middle of the winter? Except for –“ she vaguely gestured up and down his person, “wanna-be Calvin Klein underwear models.”

It was his turn to scowl and cross his arms over his chest. His very appealing chest that Emma was trying really hard not to stare at.

“Or maybe some people do it for their health. You ever think of that?”

“Yeah right,” Emma bit out, “health of what? Your sex life, playboy?”

His blue eyes sparked with indignation. “Oh, you get an eye-full and you suddenly know me?”

Guilt pricked at her for a moment. She was in the wrong here for barging in without knocking. But his smirking and innuendos had her defenses up. “I know your type,” she told him smugly with a tilt of her chin.

“You walk in on me, and I’m the bad guy?”

He had a point, and she knew it. She took several more steps backwards into the hallway and turned on her heel, her ponytail swinging with irritation all its own. “Ugh, I’ve got work to do. Wipe the bed down, I get tired of cleaning up other people’s sweat all day.”

Emma half expected him to get in one last word, but as she marched away, all she heard was the slamming of the door to tanning room three.

***********************************************************

The week of her little embarrassing tanning bed episode, there had been a slight lull at the gym. It had been the last week of January, when New Year’s resolutions were waning and the cold weather dampened people’s motivation. But now people seemed to suddenly realize that Valentine’s Day was only two weeks away, and the gym was once again packed. Even the indoor pool had been in more frequent usage, so Emma’s boss sent her to check the chlorine levels. With the flu epidemic, they couldn’t afford to let germs spread in the warm water.

It had also been a week since Emma had seen “Apollo the sun god,” much to her relief. But when she exited the women’s locker room, into the pool area, there he was: his muscular back an appealing sight as his arms cut through the water. He was evidently an experienced swimmer as he turned off the wall expertly and did a strong backstroke across the length of the pool. Emma shook her head and cursed herself. Damn it, she was staring again!

Emma was leaning over the edge, a nice distance away from the tanning god, getting samples of the water in little test tubes. She was shaking the first one to get a result when she was sprayed with little droplets of water. She looked up, her eyes angry, narrow slits, to see him, treading water easily with a maddening grin on his face. The pool water made his blue eyes almost glitter like sapphires, and he looked unfairly sexy wet.

“I’ve been hoping to see you again,” he told her. “We didn’t exactly get off on the right foot. I’m sorry I teased you, I was just trying to help you see the humor in the situation. It came off wrong, obviously.”

Emma purposely ignored him, staring at the little tube in her hand and trying to remember what the hell she was looking at. He cut through the water towards her, and rested his arm on the edge of the pool inches away from where she crouched.

“I’m Killian Jones by the way,” he said. Emma pressed her lips together in frustration as she blushed for absolutely no reason. She still refused to look at him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him cock his head. “And this is the part where you say, hello, I’m Emma Swan.”

She jerked her head so fast, she almost dropped the test tube. “How did you –“

“I can read, love,” he laughed, gesturing towards her right shoulder.

Emma groaned as she glanced down at her employee name tag. She got hit on all the time at the gym, and had heard a million different pick-up lines involving her last name. But she had sworn off men since Neal, except for an occasional one night stand. But those were never men from work; too much familiarity.

“Some men would take your silence as off-putting,” Killian told her then with a smirk, “but I love a challenge.” Then he had the audacity to wink before diving back under the water.

Emma rubbed her forehead wearily as she stood. The water was low on chemicals, so she pushed the handsome swimmer/sun bather from her mind as she collected what she needed from the supply closet. She measured the chlorine as well as a small dose of shock and added it to the filtration system, then she headed back for the locker room.

Emma wasn’t sure exactly what happened next. There was a puddle of water on the tile floor deep enough to send her sensible sneakers sliding out from under her. Then her arms were wind-milling in empty air, and the pool water seemed to be rushing up to meet her. But before she could hit the water, a hand shot out and grasped her by the elbow. She was hauled from the pool edge, colliding with a warm, wet, very masculine chest.

Killian Jones chuckled as his other arm came around her. “Next time, don’t stand on ceremony.”

Emma blamed her shocked surprise for her delayed reaction in pulling away from him. “Please, Jones, don’t flatter yourself.”

He tucked his tongue into his cheek and waggled his eyebrows, “Remembering yesterday?”

Emma fumed as she gave him a disdainful once-over. “I’m just shocked you’re not in a speedo, mister tighty-whitey.”

Killian’s eyes widened and his gaze went from playful to irritated. “You wouldn’t even know I wore tighty-whities if you hadn’t walked in on me!”

Emma threw up her hands in frustration, resisting the urge to shove him. “It was an accident!”

He arched one brow. “Like you almost falling in the pool?”

Emma scoffed as she crossed her arms over her chest, “Who said I was falling?”

“Fine,” he spat out, “next time, I’ll just let you fall.”

He brushed past her then, grabbing his towel angrily as he marched towards the men’s locker room. Emma started to stomp her way in the opposite direction, but then decided she better tread more carefully on the wet floor.

Not that she had needed Killian Jones to catch her. She was just fine on her own.

********************************************************

Several hours later, Emma walked into her apartment and kicked her gym shoes off by the door. Her feet ached as she dragged herself over to the couch and plopped down next to her roommate. She groaned and Elsa laughed, handing her a slice of pizza from the pie resting on the coffee table.

“Rough day?”

“Yeah,” Emma muttered around a bite, “tanning bed guy showed up again.”

“Oh,” Elsa laughed, wrinkling her nose, “that must have been embarrassing.”

Emma waved her hand. “Don’t want to talk about it. I just want to stuff my face with pizza and zone out in front of the TV.” She narrowed her eyes at the screen and groaned, “Not this, Elsa, seriously?”

Her best friend shook her head as she chuckled at Emma. “Dr. Oz gives lots of good advice.” She poked Emma in the shoulder. “You should listen to him, junk food junkie. How you’re ever going to be a personal trainer when you eat like a fourteen year old, is beyond me.”

Emma smirked and lifted two fingers, “One, I was gifted with an amazing metabolism. Two, my clients will just need to do as I say, not as I do.”

They both laughed then and continued devouring the pizza. Emma’s brow furrowed as she tried to follow the show, since she had missed the first half. “What’s wrong with this girl he’s talking to?” she finally asked Elsa.

“Seasonal affective disorder,” Elsa explained, “lots of people get it in the winter.”

Emma snorted. “Is that a real thing? It sounds made up.”

Elsa shrugged, “I don’t understand it, since I love winter. The snow is so pretty, and the cold – I just don’t get why it bothers people.”

Emma rolled her eyes and tossed a throw pillow at her friends’ head, “Okay, you’re weird, we’ve established that.”

Elsa whacked Emma with the pillow then hugged it to her chest instead of giving it back. “Seriously though, it is a real thing. My friend at work struggles with it. I finally talked him into seeing a therapist, and Killian says it really helps him. Some things that help are physical, like –“

The blood had drained from Emma’s face as she choked out, “like a tanning bed?”

Elsa’s eyes widened, “Yeah, actually, and he swims in an indoor pool, too. Why?”

Emma groaned, dropping her pizza back to the box. She covered her face with both hands. “Please,” she muttered between her fingers, “don’t tell me his last name is Jones and that he has a British accent.”

“Yeah, he –“ Elsa’s words cut off as understanding dawned, “oh my god, you’re not saying he’s the tanning bed guy?”

Emma peeked through her fingers, “Yes, that’s what I’m saying. He introduced himself today – at the pool. Trying to be nice, actually.” She moaned as she lowered her head to Elsa’s lap. “I’m a bitch,” she whispered.

Elsa just gave a tiny, soft laugh as she worked the tangles out of Emma’s hair with her long fingers. “Well, so am I, that’s why we’re friends.”

*****************************************************

Emma hoped that good intentions justified quasi-stalking. She had to make it up to Killian for being so horrible, and she couldn’t just wait around to bump into him again. She pulled his account up on her work computer and learned his gym routine. Killian Jones was an extremely punctual person of habit. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he got to the gym at 5 am and left at 6:30. Emma didn’t get to her shift on those days until 8:00. But on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, he arrived at 7:00 pm and left at 8:30, which were the same days that Emma worked late.

Unfortunately, Elsa informed her that Killian had come down with the dreaded flu. By the time he came back to the gym, and Emma had figured out how to approach him, it was February the 14th. It wasn’t ideal to approach him on Valentine’s Day. After all, she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. But if she put it off any longer, she knew she would chicken out. So on Valentine’s Day, when Killian Jones exited the gym, he found Emma Swan leaning against his black SUV with a smoothie in her hand. (That had taken additional stalking. To ascertain the smoothie he usually ordered and which vehicle in the parking lot belonged to him.)

“A peace offering?” Emma asked, hating when her voice cracked a bit. When he just stood there with his mouth hanging open, she rushed on, “And an apology? For walking in on you and then. . .well, for being a bitch.”

That finally got a chuckle out of him. He shuffled forward, and for the first time looked nervous. He tossed his bag in the back seat then turned to her with a smile as he leaned against the car with his arms crossed. “What brought on this sudden change?”

Emma’s face fell, and her eyes lowered to stare at the cup in her hand. “Your friend, Elsa Arrendale? I’m her roommate.”

“Oh,” Killian said, scratching behind his ear.

“And she didn’t tell me much,” Emma rushed to explain, “just enough to make me see how quick I was to judge you.”

Killian nodded. “So she told you I’m a mess this time of year, huh?”

Emma smiled and shrugged, “Hey, not everyone loves freezing their ass off the way Elsa does.” That got another chuckle out of him. “And besides, I’m a mess pretty much year round.”

“Well,” Killian said with a long sigh, “I was too, for a while. Right after my Milah died, I could barely get out of bed each morning. That was five years ago.”

Emma frowned. “I’m so sorry. Who was she? Your wife?”

“Aye,” Killian answered softly, “she died in a car accident. This time of year. We were going out on a nice date.”

“Valentine’s day?”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head and a false grin, “my birthday, actually, end of January.”

“I’m so sorry, Killian. No wonder this time of year is so hard for you.” She bit her lip. “Can you ever forgive me for being such a jerk to you?”

He ran his hand down his face, and afterwards, he gave her a more relaxed smile. “Of course I forgive you, Swan. I do make an arse of myself at times, so I can’t really blame you.”

They shared a laugh at that. Emma cocked her head, studying him and seeing him in a whole new light. “You have Valentine plans?”

Both his eyebrows lifted, “Can’t say I do. Why?”

She shrugged, “How about I buy you a drink?” She shook the smoothie cup still in her hand. “A bit stronger than this.”

Killian gave her a sinful smile, cocked his head, and tapped his lips. “I’d say you owe me a proper apology, love.”

Emma wanted to scoff, to roll her eyes, but all she could do was smile as a blush crept up her face. “That’s what the drink is for.”

Killian pouted then, quite affectively. “That’s all I get? When this time of year makes me so, so sad?”

What Emma did next was partly to shut him up. However, she had to admit, it was also because she had imagined what it would be like to kiss him a thousand times since the tanning bed. So she lunged for him, the smoothie falling to the ground forgotten with a thud and a splash. She hauled him in by the collar of his shirt, her mouth hungrily taking his.

Because she could admit it now: Yes, she liked what she saw.

[mimssides]

Never Met You

Chapter 7: Peace

To fight for peace they need to lay down their weapons. To know peace, they need to recognize their enemies’ humanity. 

The throne room was deadly quiet. No one spoke, some almost didn’t dare to breath, as Logan Rayne and George Seymore stared at each other. The arrival of the king had been deadly quiet, the words exchanged cuttingly polite and superficial. Rarely Logan’s lips were pressed together so tensely in a smile. Rarely people could see King George force a grin for such a long time.

The formalities had taken up a good forty minutes at this point and Logan was glad that they had finally had moved on into the conference hall, where they would discuss the possible truce offerings. Janus was setting up the presentation of the current events at the shared boarder together with Jean Seymore, the older brother of the king who was acting as his right hand since he refused the throne years ago. The man was slick, sleazy and ruthless and Janus had expressed his dislike for him at least fifteen times a day since he had started working everything out with him.

Janus begins the presentation by giving a detailed account of the last few attacks and breaches that had happened at the north-eastern boarders in the last weeks and recounted all the reports of stolen and destroyed goods, the injured soldiers and the few hurt commoners who had been attacked by the forces.

Jean thanked him when he finished and began to add reports and sightings from the Raganian side of the conflict. Immediately he began to defend their people by putting the blame on the Theanan soldiers, who supposedly had irritated and mocked their soldiers until they simply had to react. It cost Janus all the nerves he had to not scratch his own eyes out because of the vibrant and ostentatious colours Jean’s lies produced.

“And thus, I thank the Theanan court for their attention and conclude my reports of the current events. I shall give the word back to His Majesty, the King of Theana,” Jean said with a slimy bow and stood down.

Logan had listened to all of it with a neutral smile. He had expected the outcome and had prepared for the situation. And now the time had come for him to answer and bowed his head as Jean retreated and directed his attention towards George who was sitting on the other side of the table.

He looked stiff, wearing a deep violet coat with furred rims. His coal dark eyes were pulsating with power and anger which was barely veiled behind his expression. Logan needed to be careful with what he was going to say and especially how he was going to say it.

Calm but not without vigour in his voice Logan began to speak: “Thank you so much for your intel, Advisor Seymore. I apologize for the inappropriate behaviour my soldiers displayed and will them have investigated and put into place as we see fit. I hope that could be an acceptable first step to overcome our differences.”

George raised an eyebrow. Logan kept his expression straight and continued.

“As for the claim of Vallée du Tournesol; as far as the reports go the people there do not wish to be part of Ragan, but I will of course allow you to question them yourself to make sure that my claims are right.”

“And if these claims are right, you will keep the valley?” George countered coldly. “There is no economic use of the lands for you. It's on the other side of the Blue Mountain range, hard to access and cultivate. What I am offering you is a relief of those barren lands. And we both know that the people of Vallée du Tournesol are culturally closer to my kingdom than yours. They have always been. It will be easier for me to deal with them than it has ever been for you.”

“I don’t disagree with those claims, Your Majesty. Yet I will listen to what my people wish for. Even if their wish to stay with Theana were a burden for the kingdom, we can and will carry it, as long that is so desired.”

King Georges jaw was tense. Logan kept on smiling calmly.

“But I have an offer to make to you,” Logan said and waved one his advisors from the side who came with a scroll and displayed it in front of the gathered court. “Since you are right with your claim that the Vallée du Tournesol is very closely linked to the Raganian culture, I have drafted a new arrangement on the duty system on the boarders, which shall allow both neighbouring regions to cross the boarders without fees and waiting lists. Like that your concerns would be addressed and it also would allow our kingdoms to have a more prolific exchange between our cultures.”

Logan paused and folded his hands on top of the table. He had thought a long time about this next offer and hoped that it would be worth the risk he was taking right now.

“Also, I wish to enter an alliance with Ragan. It would entail the help in food, water as well as epidemic crisis and the support of our army in times of war. This arrangement can be exclusive if you wish so and we would be willing to stop our talks with Sictes and Kainen immediately if you are considering this offer.”

There was mumbling among King George’s council. Logan didn’t watch them. Jean broke off the rest of the council and walked up to George. He whispered something in his ear. Logan did not watch him.

Logan only watched his fellow king’s reaction. His chest ached when he saw the cold expression turning to ice.

“Where is His Royal Highness?”

Logan sighed and looked to the side where Green stood. He was still under the command to look after Roman but had been allowed to attend to this meeting. At Logan’s look he bowed his head and stepped forward.  Keeping his head low but turning slightly towards the foreign king the Raganian council laid eyes on him.

“His Royal Highness, Prince Roman,” Green stated evenly, “was excused from this meeting by the Court Physician as was stated in the greeting formalities. He is not in the state to attend.”

This was a lie. Janus had fabricated this excuse for Roman to stay out of this because Logan, Roman and he knew that it wouldn’t take much for Roman to become angry and unreasonable in King George’s presence. And yet he wished in this moment that Roman would have been here, as George clicked his tongue dismissively and waved Green to stand down.

“There is no talking sense with a guileless commoner playing king like you, Rayne. This talk is over,” King George announced and stood up.

The urge to scream and shout rippled through Logan’s body. Instead, he just stood. Smiled. Thanked the king for his visit and let them be accompanied outside of the castle.

***

 Old men were talking over each other and fighting about what would be best for Theana. Why had █████ ever thought that would be any different after he would be officially been crowned ████?

 With a subtle sigh he blended their shouting out and looked around the room. This was his first meeting with the military leaders and advisors since the coronation and the first meeting without Royal Advisor Jove. █████ had let him retire as he became ████ so Janus was now taking over almost all of the tasks Jove had still been doing for him. The military meetings were the only exceptions, which Janus would not attend and █████ felt a bit forlorn in all of this without his Royal Advisor by his side. At least like that he would have someone to joke with or make funny faces at when no one was looking.

 Now he had to settle with staring at Logan Rayne. The young advisor was sitting close to General La Cour, who was being rather quiet as usual. By now █████ knew that Logan had gone to the Mercier Acadamy and was a commoner who had with the help of scholarships and a brilliant mind worked his way up to the position he was now upholding. He had faced many obstacles and █████ was admittedly even more impressed by him after each new fact he learnt.

 The meeting was reaching its end and █████ was listening to several of the military men fighting about how the boundaries towards Ragan had to be secured more fiercely, as he noticed Logan lightly clenching his jaw and fists. A spark of curiosity got enlightened in █████’s eyes and with a simple motion of his hand he stopped the discussion. Immediately all men looked at him but he did not pay them any attention. He was completely focused on Logan.

 “Advisor Rayne,” █████ said and motioned towards him, “you seem to have something to say. Please correct me if I assumed wrong but otherwise, I would like to hear what you think about the proposition to raise the security measures by our boundaries towards Ragan.”

 All eyes were on Logan now who for once did not look as neutral and well put together as he usually did. █████ talking directly to him in favour of listening to all the others who had been talking was not the diplomatic thing to do and Logan felt a few unflattering stares thrown into his direction.

 “Advisor Rayne? Would you enlighten me?”

 Logan snapped out of it and bowed his head towards █████ before he explained: “I do not think that upping the security at the north-eastern boundaries will be useful.”

 Commander Tama was about to interrupt Logan right there but stopped as █████ held up his hand again and said: “I want you to let him speak. He at least knows how to be straight forward with his opinions.”

 And that was all the push Logan needed.

 Confidently, he continued: “After the coronation we have had a calmer and more idle relationship with Ragan than we had in many years. To return to the tense atmosphere from before would be inefficient as we can trade many goods with them and profit from the cultural exchange. This is our chance to strengthen our relationships with them and offer them to lessen the duty fees as a first step. I also could see an exchange program between our academies and universities, since their education and research systems are developed quite well and we could learn a lot from each other.”

 █████’s ears rang. This man-

 “This has nothing to do with military strategy,” Commander Zhao said.

 █████ wanted to speak up but Logan came before him and retorted coldly: “The military strategies you are thinking of belong to war times. I do not wish to think of or reach war times under any circumstances. My concern is to the people of this country and not to its army or the warfare industries. The ████ has made a point to focus on the education system, infrastructure and health services, which serve the people of Theana as well. Why not use these new resources instead of outdated and inefficient strategies that will lead to unnecessary conflicts and the potential losses of lives? We have good people who can and want to protect our country. They should be put to use helping within our boarders instead of protecting us from a non-existent threat from the outside. What you are talking about will not help our people nor do I think is it what our ████ wants for his country. Or am I mistaken, ████ ███████?”

 With his legs crossed and his hand resting thoughtfully on his chin █████ watched Logan intently. Then he pulled his hand away and revealed a wide smirk to the surprise and horror of the council. Except for Logan, who had not yet seen what this smirk could mean and was utterly clueless to what was to happen next.

 “You are not mistaken, Advisor Rayne. Your proposals and ideas are more than welcome and I will have them discussed at the next meeting. You may present all those points to me and the rest of the council. Of course, you may gather whoever you need for a committee and tell me which people you need to realize your projects. Is this acceptable to you, Advisor Rayne?”

 Logan’s heart was almost standing still. Or maybe it was beating too fast for him to feel it beat anymore. He couldn’t be sure as he simply agreed with █████’s conditions and stood up as the ████ announced that the meeting was to end now. But Logan did not go outside. He stood still as the others left besides █████ who was looking at him with a coy smile. As finally all had left █████ walked towards him and Logan’s brain decided to function again.

 “I am honoured that you gave me this opportunity, ████ ███████,” Logan said quickly and lowered his gaze.

 █████ wanted to tease him that he had been able to look at him before but let it be as a moment went by and instead decided give him a little space by looking towards the door of the conference hall.

 “I am sure you will do a wonderful job,” █████ said gently and saw how Logan raised his eyes a little from the corner of his eyes.

 There was a bit more movement and Janus was looking inside the hall, as he had waited for █████ to come out, when Logan began to speak: “I do not want to be ungrateful for what you give me but why did you want me to speak? I had not said a single thing before.”

 █████ turned his head back to Logan. Their eyes met and something intense was laying in the air.

 With a smile everything shifted.

 “Who do you serve?”

 Logan blinked.

 “Theana’s people and you, ████ ███████.”

 █████ snickered and squeezed Logan’s upper arm who looked at him with big eyes. Playfully, █████ tilted his head and pulled him to his side. He began walking towards Janus, who had a hard time to not start groaning at his ████’s behaviour.

 “You put the people before me, Rayne,” █████ said as Logan’s mind was still short-circuiting, “which makes you a truly great advisor. One I would love to work with you a bit closer, if you were open to that?”

 At that Logan halted in his step and sputtered in a high-pitched voice: “Pardon me?”

 █████ threw him a confused look until he noticed the deep flush over his nose and began to right out laugh to Janus’s dismay and amusement.

 “Oh, not like that!” █████ cackled with a suggestive eye wiggle and let go of Logan’s arm. “I meant that I wanted to give you a position as my personal military advisor, since Royal Advisor J- Celer doesn’t fill that role. If you would be interested in that, of course.”

 Logan looked up, still with a brightly flushed face but a little less tension in his shoulders and replied: “Oh, I will consider it, as it is quite a big responsibility I were to carry if I agree to this offer. Nevertheless, I am very honoured by your trust. I promise I will do anything in my power to not disappoint your trust in me, ████ ███████.”

 As Logan bowed █████ looked over his shoulder to Janus, who simply shook his head. Why did █████ always have to choose the hard and unconventional path in life, Janus thought as he watched █████ look fondly back to Logan and let himself smile a little.

 At least his job would never get boring.

***

Logan was pulled into a follow up meeting. They were talking about the entry of the soldiers, the first locations which would be put under attack and if they were to wait for the Raganian court to officially declare a first date for an upcoming battle at the frontier or if they should do so themselves.

To Logan most of it was a blur. His head was spinning and his mind fighting with the realization that had failed to keep the conflict form escalating. Theana’s people would suffer because he had not been able to mediate successfully and so many innocent people might die because of it. So much would be lost.

After two hours of sitting with his council, Logan excused himself. Green was again stationed with Roman and Janus was overseeing the current military meeting, which left Logan unsupervised for the first time in weeks. Quickly, he walked through the halls, avoiding all the well populated areas and eventually ended up in a storage room in the proximity of the kitchen. He slammed the door behind him and paced around flour sacks and dried meats while panting and pulling at his hair.

Once more Logan began to feel faint and he hoisted himself on a chest. He didn’t understand and he felt the nausea come up again. Since weeks this had messed with his head and health and he did no longer know what to do. He had managed to keep Janus’s question away but he didn’t dare to go to the Court Physician now. Not when the conflict with Ragan was escalating. They couldn’t have a weak king. They couldn’t have a king who was about to cry in a storage room, because his head was dizzy, his heart ached and his lungs burned.

Yet before a tear could fall from his eyes, the noise from something falling off the shelf yanked Logan back into reality and he stood up immediately. He ignored the dizzy feeling and cleared his throat.

“Who is here?” Logan boomed through the small room.

The sound of a tiny whimper dissolved any spark of anger Logan had felt in the moment. Quickly he stepped around the shelves, looking for the source of the little cries. And soon he found what he was looking for. Behind a shelf full of jars of jams, between two potato sacks he found a little boy who he had seen once before.

Through curly brown locks little Patton glimpsed up to him, several food items pressed fearfully against his chest. Had it been anyone else who had hidden in this storage room with Logan, he had asked them how they got here, what they intended to do and then called for the guards. But it was Patton who was sitting there on the floor and Logan would not ask him those things or send him away. Instead, he slowly crouched down a little ways away from the boy. He made sure there was enough space for Patton to get past him if he wished to do so.

“That was a little loud, wasn’t it?” Logan said gently and watched Patton immediately relax. “I meant to ask who is here but it seems like I have found my answer between the potatoes.”

Patton giggled a little and carefully came out of hiding between the potato sacks. He wiped his nose with his arm and walked towards Logan. A bit clumsily, Logan sat down and Pat knelt down in front of him. Silently Logan watched as Patton put down five apples in a neat line. Next, he put a tissue on the floor and looked up to Logan with big eyes.

“I know I should not take things from the castle. It is forbidden and bad. But I was going to share with some other kids in the orphanage and these looked really, really, really good,” Patten explained bashfully and put two muffins and a cupcake on the tissue.

Logan was about to reassure Patton that he was not in trouble for taking two muffins and a cupcake from the kitchen when a growl cut him off. With a flushed face Logan pressed his hands over his stomach which growled again with hunger.

“You should not skip lunch, Sir Will Suffice!” Patton said decidedly and shot Logan an impressively scolding look for a five-year-old.

Taken aback and still embarrassed Logan replied sheepishly: “I didn’t skip lunch. I don’t know why I am hungry again.”

But maybe that explained why he was feeling a little dizzy and nauseous. His blood sugar might be too low.

“Maybe you’re growing!” Patton pulled him out of his thoughts. “That’s what Ms Anouilh always says when I am super hungry! It’s because my body needs food to grow and make me taller and stronger. Did you know that, Sir Will Suffice?”

Logan could not help himself and smile.

“I actually did know that. Yet I don’t believe that would be the case for me, as I have stopped growing a few years ago. But did you know that the body does not only need food to grow but also to have energy and function adequately?”

“So, you mean that you might be hungry because you already used all your energy? For the big meeting with King George?” Patton said with a concentrated frown.

Logan blinked. The public did know of the meeting but it was a little odd that a five-year-old would know of it. He was about to ask when Patton stood up and stretched his hand out for him. With big eyes he pointed to the side where Logan had come from and said: “If you are tired you should probably sit more comfortably! Come let’s go to your box! Mr Green would want that for you!”

Logan let out a brief laugh and got up with a grunt. He kept holding Patton’s hand and let the boy lead him around the shelves back to the chest he had been sitting on. As Patton wished, he sat back down and watched as Patton went forth and back between the shelves to gather his food and bring it over to Logan. Lastly, he brought the muffins and the cupcake and looked at them intensely for a moment before he eventually held one muffin out to Logan.

“I can share with you. We have enough food in the orphanage and I am sure I can come on another day to get some treats,” Patton explained and put the muffin in Logan’s hand as he didn’t reach for it.

Perplexed Logan looked down at the muffin and then back up to Patton. The boy smiled and took the other one in his hand and climbed next to him. Happily, he let his legs dangle down and held his muffin up as if he was toasting Logan.

“Bon appétit!” Patton said and Logan finally toasted back with his muffin and took a bite.

Before Logan knew it the muffin was gone and he realized that he had really been hungry and still could eat some more. As if Patton had read his mind, he looked at the cupcake and simply handed I over to him. There was more hesitance in the gesture than before and Logan took out the knife he usually hid in his boot. With a handkerchief he wiped over the blade and then cut the cupcake in half. With a grin he pushed one half towards Patton and took the other one for himself.

It didn’t take the two of them a minute to eat their halfs and Patton soon asked Logan to cut the apples into slices. Logan obliged and Patton watched fascinatedly how he was handling the blade. Logan took the opportunity to ask what had been on his mind.

“Did Mr Green tell you of the meeting of today, or was there another reason for you to be aware of it?”

“Mr Green told me!” Patton answered and took an apple slice. “I was with him last night and he explained to me that today was a very important talk between you and King George. It decides over the fate of this kingdom he said and that is pretty scary. I don’t know if I would want to have talks that decide over the fate of a kingdom. That’s really scary.”

Logan hummed and dried his blade from the apple remains. Quietly, he put the knife back in his boot and took a slice for himself.

“It is quite scary indeed. But it is my duty as king to face it nevertheless.”

Patton nodded and they ate in silence for a few minutes.

“Is there going to be a war?”

Logan gulped. He glimpsed over to Patton. He looked at him with big watery eyes and concern that should never be visible in a child’s face. Logan had failed. Failed protecting his kingdom and this child.

“I am afraid so, yes.”

Patton did not start crying. Instead, he dug his fingers into the fabric of his pants and balled his fists forcefully. Logan slid closer to him and put his hand on his back. Slowly, Patton leaned against his side and Logan just drew circles on his back. It was all he could do right now.

“Will Green have to fight in it?”

Tears began to drop from Patton’s cheeks and Logan gently lifted his face and wiped them away. His guard had gotten close to Patton over the past month. Green had mentioned Patton ever so often, always joy and fondness in his words when he spoke. Janus and Virgil, both had told him that the kid frequently visited him and how they played together close to the stables.

“I understand that Green is very important to you?” Logan asked softly and Patton nodded. “I do not plan on sending him to the front. He will stay with me but that will be dangerous as well, I’m afraid. But I will frequently remind him that he needs to be careful so that he can come back to you. Do you think that would help?”

Instead of an answer Patton shot forward and hugged Logan ferociously as a wave of whimpers and tears shook through him. Logan held him close. He could barely imagine the pain Patton was going through. Finally, this orphan had found the first real parental figure in his life only for him to lose him right away in a senseless war. How was this fair? How was this real? Logan didn’t know and pulled Patton on his lap to hug him properly. Patton didn’t resist and let his king hold and cradle him fiercely as he slowly calmed down.

Eventually, Patton was quiet but for a few sniffles. His head was laying against Logan’s chest and he listened to his heartbeat and a few grumbly noises Logan’s stomach made. Patton blinked and wiped his eyes dry. No more crying he decided and opened the little satchel he had been carrying with him. Inside he had Green’s surprise from yesterday evening. He checked if it was still there and then cautiously put the satchel down next to him and slipped from Logan’s lap.

There had been jam on the shelves and the whole kingdom knew that their king really liked jam. Quickly, he walked around and found the shelf with the jam in question and carefully took one jar out of it. He looked on the label but couldn’t quite make out if it was a picture of a strawberry or a raspberry. Both were good enough he decided and walked back to the chest and his king.

“Could you take out the spoon I have in my satchel Mr Will Suffice?” Patton asked and Logan opened it with a frown.

He seemed surprised when he actually found a wooden spoon amongst the clutter in the little bag as well as something wrapped in several napkins. Yet before Logan could ask Patton took the satchel back. He gave Logan the jar and then fished the thing in the napkin out of his bag. Very carefully he began to unwrap it and finally Logan could see what was hidden under it.

“Sugar cookies?” Logan asked incredulously.

Patton grinned and nodded. Quickly he motioned for Logan to open the jar and explained in the meantime: “Green made them for me yesterday! He said it was a gift because I have been so nice to him but I know that he just likes giving me things. He knows I don’t have a lot of stuff and I am very excited about anything that he can give me. So that is pretty cool. And because your tummy is still making noises, I thought we could share some! Did I bring raspberry or strawberry jam? I can’t see it on the label.”

Logan needed a moment to catch himself. He didn’t know why but his head somehow got stuck on the first sentence.

“Green bakes?” Logan asked with a flushed face and opened the jar with a pop.

Patton shot him a strange look and then took the jam out of Logan’s hand and began to scoop some of it on the cookies.

“Mhm, but he just started! He says he isn’t that good yet but I like it a lot! I know he tries very hard.  He has also told me to share things if I can. He says that it’s annoying but it’s more fun to share,” Patton explained and handed Logan a cookie with jam on it.

A bit of the jam got stuck on Logan fingers but he could not bring himself to mind. Instead, his mind clung on the picture of Green sitting in front of the stove, waiting for his cookies to bake and tapping his fingers on his knee as his patience ran out. But eventually, Logan managed to focus again and looked at the cookie in his hands. Just smelling the jam made his mouth water a little and he knew he could not resist the temptation much longer.

“You can eat it! I still don’t know if it’s strawberry or raspberry though,” Patton said and Logan glimpsed down to the jar between the two.

A fairly big picture of a raspberry was on the label and he told Patton as much. The boy took the jar and held it closely in front of his face. Logan did not comment on it but knew that he would have his optician visit the orphanage and pay for the glasses these children most likely needed.

When Patton had put the jar back down and took his own cookie, Logan toasted to him gently: “Thank you for sharing with me. I am sure it will be berry good.”

The joyous giggling from the little boy almost made him stop cringing at his own bad pun. When Patton had quieted down again, they began to eat their dangerously sweet sugar cookies and Logan felt himself being thrown into heaven. He definitely needed Green to hand the recipe to his cook so he could have more of those. He really wanted more of those.

As Logan took his third one, making sure to not take more than Patton, Patton said: “I think Green will be very happy that you like his baking. He talks about you a lot.”

Logan almost choked but managed to keep himself from doing so and asked: “Is that so?”

“Mhm. He says you are a very good king. Very kind and forgiving. I think he really believes in you. I think he missed you a little when he had to guard Prince Roman. He talked more about you then.”

Logan listened closely and stopped chewing when Patton gave him a very firm look.

“I think he likes likes you.”

Logan almost spit out his food, which Patton ignored and mercilessly continued: “And I think you should like like him back. He is very good at hugging and he knows the best way of how to clean pans now. I showed him!”

“Really?” Logan coughed with a squeaky voice. “That’s great, Patton.”

“Yah! And also, also you like to have him around too, right? That’s why you want him to stay with you for the big fighting! Because you don’t want anything to happen to him!”

A few moments with some more coughing from Logan passed. Then there was quiet. Logan sighed and slid from the chest down on the floor. He knelt down to look Patton directly in the eyes and cupped his cheek with one hand.

“Such things require time and devotion, Patton. Love of any kind needs to be cultivated and cherished. And to do that all parties involved need to devote time and effort for the others. And as king, especially in this situation, I have to be fully devoted to my kingdom. I have to be devoted to you. I have to be devoted to him to and make sure I will do my very best to lead us all through this crisis. I cannot simply choose to give all my time to him, Patton. I cannot be selfish in this position. Not when so many lives are at stake.”

The look in Patton’s face was heart-breaking. But Logan usually went with the truth and he would not make an exception here. Especially not with Patton who seemed to be far smarter and wiser than many kids his age. Or maybe Logan simply didn’t know that many kids his age.

“It is very admirable of you to wish him and me a happy ending, Patton,” Logan tried to soften his approach. “I am thankful that you care for us, but that is not your job. You are still a kid and should have nothing to worry about but your friends and what you want to play next, okay?”

Patton nodded. He didn’t seem convinced but apparently had accepted his explanation. Logan let his hand sink from Patton’s cheek and rested both of his hands on his shoulders. Patton’s eyes seemed so heavy and Logan felt himself almost cooing at the sleepy expression.

“Can you hold me? Your hugs are pretty nice too,” Patton said and stretched his arms out for Logan.

With a little chuckle Logan scooped Patton up and got on his feet. Like a koala Patton clung to Logan and began to drift off the second Logan began to walk around. Softly, Logan kept swaying Patton in his arms and felt him growing heavier and heavier in his arms. He walked back to the chest and sat down with is kid in his arms. Gently he adjusted his weight and Patton nuzzled against his chest.

“When the war ’s over, can you ask him?” Patton mumbled.

“Ask who what?”

“If Green wants cuddling, you silly!” Patton sleepily giggled and closed his eyes. “I think Green would love being held like this.”

Logan didn't think it was fair for Patton to be able to fall asleep after saying that and leaving him a blushing mess with a little kid in his arms. The image of Green in his arms, head on his chest and his hands tangled in his long hair felt almost like a memory instead of a vivid daydream and Logan had a hard time to ban the picture out of his mind again.

It helped that Patton snored tiny whistle snores and took Logan’s mind of thoughts and feelings for Green which he would not name at this point in time. He just kept focusing on the Patton in his arms and felt himself slowly feel heavier too.

Today had been a terrible day. He had a war at his hands, his people, his friend and family would be forced to fight for no reason but the stubbornness of a man who did not wish to listen to reason. So many children like Patton must be worried for their parents and trusted guardians who were going to fight for their kingdom. He had never wished for this to happen.

Enveloped in his thoughts Logan had lost track of time. He didn’t think of the fact that there was a meeting which he had walked out of, that there was Janus who worried about him constantly these days. He didn’t think of the fact that Janus could have started looking for him already and had told Green and Virgil to do the same as he had no idea where the king could be.

Logan didn’t hear the door opening as he watched Patton’s sleeping face. He almost didn’t hear the steps that were approaching. But suddenly he registered them and looked up. He had not expected Green to be standing there with his mouth wide agape and staring at Patton on his lap.

“Is he asleep?” Green whispered.

Logan found himself simply nodding and stood up. He noticed how Green looked him over and realized that he might look a little messy from his own agitated hair pulling and the snacking with Patton. He opened his mouth to excuse himself but the words died on his tongue when he saw the smile bloom on Green’s face as he looked closer at Patton.

So, Logan walked up to him and gently gave him the boy, quickly fixed his own hair and made sure that nothing was sticking to his face anymore. Green was preoccupied swaying Patton and waited until his king stood by his side before he took Patton’s little satchel and left the room with Logan by his side.

“How long have I been away? I had no indication of time in the storage room,” Logan said keeping his voice low.

“Close to an hour by now. The Royal Advisor got antsy,” Green explained and shot a look to Logan. “I don’t mean to intrude, so ignore that I even asked if I am out of line, but is there a reason why you were eating jam with Pat in there?”

For a moment Logan said nothing and Green expected that his question had been too intrusive.

“My blood sugar seemed to have dropped a bit during today’s events. Patton advised that I ate something.”

Laugher. Bright and loud laugher echoed from the wall and Logan stood still as he watched Green’s face light up. Something clenched in his chest but it didn’t hurt. It felt familiar and he wanted it to stay.

“He can get quite bossy, this little one! I hope he didn’t pressure you too much, Your Majesty.”

Logan shook his head and smiled at Green. He didn’t get to say more as Janus and Virgil appeared around the corner and asked what had happened. Logan didn’t go into detail and only vaguely hinted at Patton. He asked Green to bring him back to the orphanage and question him later on how he got into the castle undetected. Green agreed and Logan went back with Janus for his meeting.

The day kept on going with preparations and scheduling the next few days. Logan didn’t find time to do much but agree and listen to his advisors until it was already late and he headed back to his chamber. But there was still one thing left to do and he turned away around and got to Janus’s quarters.

He walked by his room, voices quietly talking from the inside and he rolled his eyes and headed to his office. As expected the light was on and with one knock Logan entered.

“Virgil I’m com-” Janus stopped as he turned around in his seat to see Logan stand there.

Before Janus could say anything else, Logan stepped inside and closed the door. He smiled at him and raised his eyebrows.

“I won’t keep you long. They must be awaiting you in your room,” Logan said and walked closer to his desk.

Janus shifted a bit in his seat but kept his face blank. It didn’t do anything to hide his embarrassment, not from Logan at least, but Logan was not going to point it out. Not when he had a favour to ask.

Janus crossed his legs as he waited and realized after a few moments that no request would come. Curiously he watched his king. His friend. Right now, Logan seemed not to wear the burden of the crown but the burden of a man and Janus wanted to know what that was.

“What can I do for you, Logan?”

Logan leaned against the desk and intertwined his hand in front of him. He almost looked sheepish.

“Do you think Roman still needs Green as a guard? Or could I have him back with me?”

Logan met Janus’s eyes as he asked but lowered his gaze when Janus didn’t say anything. He sighed and walked away from the desk. Maybe he was being foolish. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked.

“Why are you asking for my opinion? You are the king, Logan. You can have whoever you want as your guard,” Janus said.

He headed towards the door and looked over his shoulder to Janus. Why did he ask for Janus’s opinion? For his permission?

“Of course,” Logan said and opened the door to leave, “don’t stay up too long. They’ll be worried.”

Somehow that phrase didn’t sound like it had been meant for Janus.

___

Link for AO3, Taglist, Masterlist, and next Chapters are in my first reblog!

[arcticdementor]

Stefanie Gray explains why, as a teenager, she was so anxious to leave her home state of Florida to go to college.

“I went to garbage schools and I’m from a garbage low-income suburb where everyone sucks Oxycontin all day,” she says. “I needed to get out.”

She got into Hunter College in New York, but both her parents had died and she had nowhere near enough to pay tuition, so she borrowed. “I just had nothing and was poor as hell, so I took out loans,” she says.

This being 2006, just a year after the infamous Bankruptcy Bill of 2005 was passed, she believed news stories about student loans being non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. She believed they would be with her for life, or until they were paid off.

“My understanding was, it’s better to purchase 55 big-screen TVs on a credit card, and discharge that in a court of law, then be a student who’s getting an education,” she says.

Still, she asked for financial aid: “I was like, ‘My parents are dead, I'm a literal fucking orphan, I have no siblings. I'm just taking out this money to put my ass through school.”

Instead of a denial, she got plenty of credit, including a slice of what were called “direct-to-consumer” loans, that came with a whopping 14% interest rate. One of her loans also came from a company called MyRichUncle that, before going bankrupt in 2009, would briefly become famous for running an ad disclosing a kickback system that existed between student lenders and college financial aid offices.

Gray was not the cliché undergrad, majoring in intersectional basket-weaving with no plan to repay her loans. She took geographical mapping, with the specific aim of getting a paying job quickly. But she graduated in the middle of the post-2008 crash, when “53% of people 18 to 29 were unemployed or underemployed.”

“I couldn't even get a job scrubbing toilets at a local motel,” she recalls. “They told me straight up that I was over-educated. I was like, “Literally, I'll do your housekeeping. I don't give a shit, just let me make money and not get evicted and end up homeless.”

The lender Sallie Mae at the time had an amusingly loathsome policy of charging a repeating $150 fee every three months just for the privilege of applying for forbearance. Gray was so pissed about having to pay $50 a month just to say she was broke that she started a change.org petition that ended up gathering 170,000 signatures.

She personally delivered those to the Washington offices of Sallie Mae and ended up extracting a compromise out of the firm: they’d still charge the fee, but she could at least apply it to her balance, as opposed to just sticking it in the company’s pocket as an extra. This meager “partial” victory over a student lender was so rare, the New York Times wrote about it.

“I definitely poked the bear,” she says.

Gray still owed a ton of student debt — it had ballooned from $36,000 to $77,000, in fact — and collectors were calling her nonstop, perhaps with a little edge thanks to who she was. “They were telling me I should hit up people I know for money, which was one thing,” she recalls. “But when they started talking about giving blood, or selling plasma… I don’t know.”

Sallie Mae ultimately sued Gray four times. In doing so, they made a strange error. It might have slipped by, but for luck. “By the grace of God,” Gray said, she met a man in the lobby of a courthouse, a future state Senator named Kevin Thomas, who took a look at her case. “Huh, I’ve got some ideas,” he said, eventually pointing to a problem right at the top of her lawsuit.

Sallie Mae did not represent itself in court as Sallie Mae. The listed plaintiff was “SLM Private Credit Student Loan Trust VL Funding LLC.” As was increasingly the case with mortgages and other forms of debt, student loans by then were typically gathered, pooled, and chopped into slices called tranches, to be marketed to investors. Gray, essentially, was being sued by a tranche of student loan debt, a little like being sued by the coach section of an airline flight.

When Thomas advised her to look up the plaintiff’s name, she discovered it wasn’t registered to do business in the State of New York, which prompted the judge to rule that the entity lacked standing to sue. He fined Sallie Mae $10,000 for “nonsense” and gave Gray another rare victory over a student lender, which she ended up writing about herself this time, in The Guardian.

Corporate creditors often play probabilities and mass-sue even if they don’t always have great cases, knowing a huge percentage of borrowers either won’t show up in court (as with credit card holders) or will agree to anything to avoid judgments, the usual scenario with student borrowers.

“What usually happens in pretty much 99% of these cases is you beg and plead and say, ‘Please don't put a judgment against me, I'll do anything… because a judgment against you means you're not going to be able to buy a home, you’re not going to be able to do basically anything involving credit for the next 20 years.”

…

The passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 was a classic demonstration of how America works, or doesn’t, depending on your point of view. While we focus on differences between Republicans and Democrats, it’s their uncanny habit of having just a sliver of enough agreement to pass crucial industry-friendly bills that really defines the parties.

Whether it’s NAFTA, the Iraq War authorization, or the Obama stimulus, there are always just enough aisle-crossers to get the job done, and the tally usually tracks with industry money with humorous accuracy. In this law signed by George Bush, sponsored by Republican Chuck Grassley, and greased by millions in donations from entities like Sallie Mae, the crucial votes were cast by a handful of aisle-crossing Democrats, including especially the Delawareans Joe Biden and Tom Carper. Hillary Clinton, who took $140,000 from bank interests in her Senate run, had voted for an earlier version.

Party intrigue is only part of the magic of American politics. Public relations matter, too, and the Bankruptcy Bill turned out to be the poster child for another cherished national phenomenon: the double-lie.

…

Years later, pundits still debate whether there really ever was an epidemic of debt-fleeing deadbeats, or whether legislators in 2005 who just a few years later gave “fresh starts” to bankrupt Wall Street banks ever cared about “moral hazard,” or if it’s fair to cut off a single Mom in a trailer when Donald Trump got to brag about “brilliantly” filing four commercial bankruptcies, and so on.

In other words, we argue the why of the bill, but not the what. What did that law say, exactly? For years, it was believed that it absolutely closed the door on bankruptcy for whole classes of borrowers, and one in particular: students. Nearly fifteen years after the bill’s passage, journalists were still using language like, “The bill made it completely impossible to discharge student loan debt.”

…

The phrase “Just asking questions” today often carries a negative connotation. It’s the language of the conspiracy theorist, we’re told. But sometimes in America we’re just not told the whole story, and when the press can’t or won’t do it, it’s left to individual people to fill in the blanks. In a few rare cases, they find out something they weren’t supposed to, and in rarer cases still, they learn enough to beat the system. This is one of those stories.

…

Smith’s explanation of the history of the student loan exemption and where it all went wrong is biting and psychologically astute. In his telling, the courts’ historically sneering attitude toward student borrowers has its roots in an ages-old generational debate.

“This started out as an an argument between the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers,” Smith notes. “A lot of the law was created by people railing against draft-dodging deadbeat hippies.”

He points to a 1980 ruling by a judge named Richard Merrick, who in denying relief to a former student, wrote the following:

The arrogance of former students who had received so much from society, frequently including draft deferment, and who had given back so little in return, accompanied by their vehemence in asserting their constitutional and statutory rights, frequently were not well received by legislators and jurists, senior to them, who had lived through the Depression, had worked their ways through college and graduate school, had served in World War II, and had been paying the taxes which made possible the student loans.

Smith laughs about this I didn’t climb the hills at Normandy with a knife in my teeth just to eat the debt on your useless-ass liberal arts degree perspective, noting that “when those guys who did all that complaining went to school, only rich prep school kids went to college, and by the way, tuition was like ten bucks.” Still, he wasn’t completely unsympathetic to the conservative position.

…

This concern about “deadbeats” gaming the system — kids taking out fat loans to go to school and bailing on them before the end of the graduation party — led that 1985 court to take a hardcore position against students who made “virtually no attempt to repay.” They established a three-pronged standard that came to be known as the “Brunner test” for determining if a student faced enough “undue hardship” to be granted relief from student debt.

Among other things, the court ruled that a newly graduated student had to do more than demonstrate a temporary inability to handle bills. Instead, a “total incapacity now and in the future to pay” had to be present for a court to grant relief. Over the course of the next decades, it became axiomatic that basically no sentient being could pass the Brunner test.

…

In 2015, he was practicing law at the Texas litigation firm Bickel and Brewer when he came across a case involving a former Pace University student named Lesley Campbell, who was seeking to discharge a $15,000 loan she took out while studying for a bar exam. Smith believed a loan given out to a woman who’d already completed her studies, and who used the money to pay for rent and groceries, was not covering an “educational benefit” as required by law. A judge named Carla Craig agreed and canceled Campbell’s loan, and Campbell v. Citibank became one of the earlier dents in the public perception that there were no exceptions to the prohibition on discharging student debts.

“I thought, ‘Wait, what? This might be important,’” says Smith.

By law, Smith believed, lenders needed to be wary of three major exceptions to the non-dischargeability rule:

— If a loan was not made to a student attending a Title IV accredited school, he thought it was probably not a “qualified educational loan.”

— If the student was not a full-time student — in practice, this meant taking less than six credits — the loan was probably dischargeable.

— And if the loan was made in an amount over and above the actual cost of attending an accredited school, the excess might not be “eligible” money, and potentially dischargeable.

Practically speaking, this means if you got a loan for an unaccredited school, were not a full-time student, or borrowed for something other than school expenses, you might be eligible for relief in court.

Smith found companies had been working around these restrictions in the blunt predatory spirit of a giant-sized Columbia Record Club. Companies lent hundreds of thousands to teenagers over and above the cost of tuition, or to people who’d already graduated, or to attendees of dubious unaccredited institutions, or to a dozen other inappropriate destinations. Then they called these glorified credit card balances non-dischargeable educational debts — Gray got one of these “direct-to-consumer” specials — and either sold them into the financial system as investments, borrowed against them as positive assets, or both.

…

Smith thought these practices were nuts, and tried to convince his bosses to start suing financial companies.

“They were like, ‘You do know what we do around here, right?’ We defend banks,” he recalls, laughing. “I said, ‘Not these particular banks.’ They said it didn’t matter, it was a question of optics, and besides, who was going to pay off in the end? A bunch of penniless students?”

Furious, Smith stormed off, deciding to hang his own shingle and fight the system on his own. “My sister kept saying to me, ‘You have to stop trying to live in a John Grisham novel,’” he recalls, laughing. “There were parts of it where I was probably super melodramatic, saying things like, ‘I'm going to go find justice.’”

Slowly however, Smith did find clients, and began filing and winning cases. With each suit, he learned more and more about student lenders. In one critical moment, he discovered that the same companies who were representing in court that their loans were absolutely non-dischargeable were telling investors something entirely different. In one prospectus for a trust packed full of loans managed by Sallie Mae, investors were told that the process for creating the aforementioned “direct-to-consumer” loans:

Does not involve school certification as an additional control and, therefore, may be subject to some additional risk that the loans are not used for qualified education expenses… You will bear any risk of loss resulting from the discharge.

Sallie Mae was warning investors that the loans might be discharged in bankruptcy. Why the honesty? Because the parties who’d be packaging and selling these student loan-backed instruments included Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Chase, and Deutsche Bank.

“It’s one thing to lie to a bunch of broke students. They don’t matter,” Smith says. “It’s another to lie to JP Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank. You screw those people, they’ll fight back.”

…

In June of 2018, a case involving a Navy veteran named Kevin Rosenberg went through the courts. Rosenberg owed hundreds of thousands of dollars and tried to keep current on his loans, but after his hiking and camping store folded in 2017, he found himself busted and unable to pay. His case was essentially the opposite of Brunner: he clearly hadn’t tried to game the system, he made a good faith effort to pay, and he demonstrated a long-term inability to make good. All of this was taken into consideration by a judge named Cecilia Morris, who ruled that Rosenberg qualified for “undue hardship.”

“Most people… believe it impossible to discharge student loans,” Morris wrote. “This Court will not participate in perpetuating these myths.” The ruling essentially blew up the legend of the unbeatable Brunner standard.

Given a fresh start, Rosenberg moved to Norway to become an Arctic tour guide. “I want people to know that this is a viable option,” he said at the time. The ruling attracted a small flurry of news attention, including a feature in the Wall Street Journal, as the case sent a tremor through the student lending world. More and more people were now testing their luck in bankruptcy, suing their lenders, and asking more and more uncomfortable questions about the nature of the education business.

In the summer of 2012, a former bond trader named Michael Grabis sat in the waiting room of a Manhattan financial company, biding time before a job interview. In the eighties, Grabis’s father was a successful bond trader who worked in a swank office atop the World Trade Center, but after the 1987 crash, the family fell out of the smart set overnight. His father lost his job and spiraled, his mother had to look for a job, and “we just became working class people.”

Michael tried to rewrite the family story, going to school and going into the bond business himself, first with the Bank of New York, and eventually for Schwab. But he, too, lost his job in a crash, in 2008, and now was trying to break the pattern of bubble economy misery. However, he’d exited Pennsylvania’s Lafayette College in the nineties carrying tens of thousands in student loans. That number had since been compounded by fees and penalties, and the usual letters, notices, and phone calls from debt collectors came nonstop.

Now, awaiting a job interview, his phone rang again. It was a collection call for Sallie Mae, and it wasn’t just one voice on the line.

“They had two women call at once,” Grabis recalls. “They told me I’d made bad life choices, that I lived in too expensive a city, that I had to move to a cheaper place, so I could afford to pay them,” Grabis explains. “I tried to tell them I was literally at that moment trying to get a job to help pay my bills, but these people are trained to just hound you without listening. I was shaking when I got off the phone, and ended up having a bad interview.”

Two years later, more out of desperation and anger than any real expectation of relief, Grabis went to federal court in the Southern District of New York and filed for bankruptcy. At the time, he, too, believed student loans could not be eliminated. But the more he read about the way student loans were constructed and sold — he’d had experience in doing shovel-work constructing mortgage-backed securities, so he understood the Student Loan Asset-Backed Securities (SLABS) market — he started to develop a theory. Everyone dealing with the finances of higher education in America knew the system was rotten, he thought. But what if someone could prove it?

The 2005 Bankruptcy Act says former students can’t discharge loans for “qualified educational expenses,” i.e. loans given to students so that they might attend tax-exempt non-profit educational institutions. Historically, that exemption covered almost all higher education loans.

What if America’s universities no longer deserve their non-profit status? What if they’re no longer schools, and are instead first and foremost crude profit-making ventures, leveraging federal bankruptcy law and the I.R.S. code into a single, ongoing predatory lending scheme?

This is essentially what Grabis argued, in a motion filed last January. He named Navient, Lafayette College, the U.S. Department of Education, Joe Biden, his own exasperated judge, and a host of other “unknown co-perpetrators” as part of a scheme against him, claiming the entirety of America’s higher education business had become an illegal moneymaking scam.

“They created a fraud,” he says flatly.

…

Grabis doesn’t have a lawyer, his case has been going on for the better part of six years, and at first blush, his argument sounds like a Hail Mary from a desperate debtor. The only catch is, he might be right.

By any metric, something unnatural is going on in the education business. While other industries in America suffered declines thanks to financial crises, increased exposure to foreign competition, and other factors, higher education has grown suspiciously fat in the last half-century. Tuition costs are up 100% at universities over and above inflation since 2000, despite the 2008 crash, with some schools jacking up prices at three, four times the rate of inflation dating back to the seventies.

Bloat at the administrative level makes the average university look like a parody of an NFL team, where every brain-dead cousin to the owner gets on the payroll. According to Education Week, “fundraisers, financial aid advisers, global recruitment staff, and many others grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009,” which is ten times the rate of growth for tenured faculty positions.

…

Hovering over all this is a fact not generally known to the public: many American universities, even ones claiming to be broke, are sitting atop mountains of reserve cash. In 2013, after the University of Wisconsin blamed post-crash troubles for raising tuition 5.5%, UW system president Kevin Reilly in 2013 admitted that the school actually held $638 million in reserve, separate and distinct from the school endowment. Moreover, Reilly said, other big schools were doing the same thing. UW’s reserve was 25% of its operating budget, for instance, but the University of Minnesota’s was 29%, while Illinois maintained a whopping 34% buffer.

When Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice looked into it, he found many other schools were sitting atop mass reserves even as they pleaded poverty to raise tuition rates. “They’re all doing it,” he said.

In the mortgage bubble that led to the 2008 crash, financiers siphoned fortunes off home loans that were unlikely to be repaid. Student loans are the same game, but worse. All the key players get richer as that $1.7 trillion pile of debt expands, and the fact that everyone knows huge percentages of student borrowers will never pay is immaterial. More campus palaces get built, more administrators get added to payrolls, and perhaps most importantly, the list of assets grows for financial companies, whether or not the loans perform.

…

“As long as it’s collateralized at Navient, they can borrow against that,” Smith says. “They say, ‘Look, we've got $3 billion in assets, which are just consumer loans in negative amortization that are not being repaid, but are being artificially kept out of default so Navient can borrow against that from other banks.

“When I realized that, I was like, ‘Oh, my god. They’re happy that the loans are growing instead of being repaid, because it gives them more collateral to borrow against.’” Smith’s comments echo complaints made by virtually every student borrower in trouble I’ve ever interviewed: lenders are not motivated to reduce the size of balances by actually getting paid. Instead, the game is about keeping loans alive and endlessly growing the balance, through new fees, penalties, etc.

There are two ways of approaching reform of the system. One is the Bernie Sanders route, which would involve debt forgiveness and free higher education. A market-based approach meanwhile dreams of reintroducing discipline into student lending; if students could default, schools couldn’t endlessly raise costs on the back of unlimited government-backed credit.

Which idea is more correct can be debated, but the one thing we know for sure is that the current system is the worst of both worlds, enriching all the most undeserving actors, and hitting that increasingly prevalent policy sweet spot of privatized profit and socialized risk. Whether it gets blown up in bankruptcy courts or simply collapses eventually under its own financial weight — there’s an argument that the market will be massively disrupted if and when the administration ends the Covid-19 deferment of student loan payments — the lie can’t go on much longer.

“It’s just obvious that this has become a printing money operation,” says Grabis. “The colleges charge whatever they want, then they go to the government and continuously increase the size of the loans.” If you’re on the inside, that’s a beautiful thing. What about for everyone else?

[donttellpeterparker]

HSMTMTS Part 4

Summary: Coming into Junior Year things were going to be different. With my handsome and sweet Senior boyfriend on my arm, I could do and be anything I wanted, nothing was going to stop me... except... of course... maybe him.

Requested: Yes xx You must be hating how long this is getting xo

Word Count: 3k+

Warning(s)?: god fiNALLY SOME FLUFF BUt like with a lil angst whoops (Italics in quotation are lyrics), Written in third and first person which is something different, Yes this is following the script from the show so please no comments about how it's exactly like it because... that's kinda the point :)

Taglist: Open

MERRY CHRISTMAS BABES! HAPPY HOLIDAYS (And if you don't celebrate Christmas HAVE A BEAUTIFUL DAY <3)

masterlist

——————————————————

HSMTMTS

''Can I get you to move a little closer to each other?'' Mrs Jen smiled, directing both EJ and I closer as the other cast members looked on with questioning glances. I could tell what they where thinking. What's wrong with them? They're a couple, why is it so awkward? Aren't they together?

Answer, no we weren't anymore, not that it was anyone's business. I was so tried of being lied to and left with nothing, nothing but my own wild guesses. EJ tried explaining but I couldn't hear it, everything was lie. The play during the summer, the lead part I got, a lie. The last school musical part, also a lie. Even a present he gave me was a lie, a used lie by his ex-girlfriend. Annoyance didn't even cover what I was feeling towards him.

''Come on, guys, we are blocking this as a love story, not a SARS epidemic'' Mrs Jen tried to joke through the tension. I stepped closer towards him, EJ doing the same though trying to get my attention while doing so.

''Troy, once the intro begins, cross downstage and plant yourself at the piano. Gabriella, you slowly approach the piano, and rest an arm on it, naturally. Okie dokie! Now, Let's take it from 'Wow, now that's really nice''' Mrs Jen instructs. As per usual, Peter wasn't here so EJ filled in as his understudy. I was almost tempted to get Gina, my understudy who had been trying to steal my spot take this one.

''Wow, now that's really nice'' EJ states awkwardly, his enthusiasm stiff. I grimace as the piano softly began to play. This was going to be a long rehearsal.

~*~*~*~*

''How do people like that live with themselves? How do they sleep at night?'' I babbled on, holding the cup of coffee in my cold hands. My best friend sat across from me, holding her own beverage inside our favorite little cafe.

''Like a shark. Eyes open'' If I wasn't so down I'd probably laugh.

''We've been dating for, like, three months and I don't even know this person'' I exclaimed, throwing my hands to the side before returning them back to my cup, taking a sip.

''Sweetie, it's called a blind spot. Everybody's got 'em. Why do you think I flunked my driving test?'' She folded her hands forward now, smiling a little which caused me to smile softly.

''If he's willing to do that to somebody, how long before he tries to poison me?'' Again, asking aloud but was very grateful for the ears my best friend was lending me in my time of need.

''I'm gonna get us some food'' She stood up, sighing to herself as I was lost deep in thought. A few moments later she came back, snapping me out of it.

''These are your choices, a very sad-looking bran muffin or some really shriveled-up carrots'' I scrunch my nose up, not liking either. I glanced down at them, picking up the muffin packet.

''Don't look now, but you're shark's cousin is here'' I glanced back up and then pivoted my head around, spotting Ashlyn. I smiled softly towards her. Hoping for a smile back, she gave me a timid look instead, quickly retreating. I hop up fast, chasing after her.

''Hey! Ashlyn! You don't have to avoid me'' I call out, noticing her pick up her helmet from her bike.

''No. I'm not avoiding, I just decided to make a half-caff mocha frappe at home'' She faked a smile.

''Look, Ashlyn, no matter what happens between me and EJ, there's no bad blood between us. I mean, you might have some because you're related to him, but that's not your fault'' I chuckled, getting off track.

''Y/N, I really don't want to be in the middle''

''Wait, you're not. It's not like you knew what he did'' She instantly frowned. My awkward smile fell a little, realising.

''Oh. You knew what he did, and you knew about the hot egg? His ex-girlfriend?'' I asked.

''Not till today'' She responded, frowning herself at her stupid cousin. I sighed in relief.

''But, I'm not totally surprised''

''Are you totally disgusted?'' I asked a little incredulously.

''A little, but he's EJ. He tends to do the wrong things for the right reasons''

''No, you cannot possibly defend him'' I began, growing slightly annoyed.

''No, I'm not. I'm not. Look, I know what he did sucks, but he loves you... and he's hurting right now and...'' Ashlyn tried reasoning, feeling a little silly for even backing up her cousin in the first place.

''Yeah, and what? What am I supposed to do with that?''

''Find some way to forgive him?'' As much as I hated to say it, she did have a point. But it was not going to be that easy, he did a lot of unforgivable things. Why does he deserve a second chance?

~*~*~*~*

My thoughts consumed me again once I got home. I went straight up to my room and stayed in there, even missed dinner because I wasn't feeling very well. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about everything, I wish I could turn my brain off and stop. The only thing that usually calmed me down wasn't here anymore.

I didn't even bother checking my phone once I heard it go off.

''Hey hot stuff'' I answered with a smile. My best friend laughed through the phone, sending a greeting back.

''Just checking to make sure you're okay'' She was honestly the best.

''Yeah, I'm fine'' I lied smoothly, walking over towards my bed.

''You sure?'' She asked in a disbelieving tone.

''Uh, yeah. It happened, it's over, life goes on. Plus, I just blocked EJ's number, so... Problem solved!'' Sometimes she was the only person who could see through the mask.

''You know it's okay to be sad, too, right?'' I bit my lip, not wanting to cry.

''Yeah, I know''

''Y/N, it's okay to be sad'' I looked up towards my window, smiling sadly.

''Yeah. Okay, thanks hun''

''Call me anytime, okay?'' A genuine smile now coated my lips.

''I will. You're the best. Mwah bye-bye'' I sing-songed at the end before hanging up the phone. I soon found myself frowning again, my thoughts immediately rushing back in. My body fell backwards, landing on the soft pile of cushions underneath. I let my eyes wander the star-covered ceiling, humming to myself. A few seconds later I sat back up again, reaching out towards the end of my bed for my electronic keyboard.

My fingertips were already dancing across the keys, a melody softly beginning to form. It wasn't hard to find the lyrics to how I was feeling, using my heart as the words and my hands as the melody, everything fell into place.

''I found a boy, told me I was a star... Held the door, held my hand in the dark... And he's perfect on paper, but he's lying to my face... Does he think that I'm the kinda girl that needs to be saved?...'' I stopped myself once I heard the upstairs bathroom door open and close loudly, a voice echoing.

''Thanks Carol!'' I recognised the voice. My hands stilled. I quickly hopped off of my bed and walked over towards my closed bedroom door, opening it to leave the room. I closed it behind me and made my way down the stairs.

''Uh... hey mum?'' My words formed more of a question once I saw her prepping the sofa with pillows and a blanket.

''Hi, there'' She smiled, looking up to face me.

''Whose are those?'' I asked, gesturing down towards the boy-style sneaks near the bottom of the stairs. They looked like-

''Peter's''

''Why are they here?'' Teeth were biting my bottom lip.

''Because the rest of him is in the bathroom changing into pajamas, or whatever else I gave him to wear''

''Mum'' A soft whine left my throat.

''Hold on, hold on. There's something going on at home. It has something to do with his Aunty... Her and Happy are back in town, engaged. I already called her to let them know he was spending the night here'' She finished.

''Spending the night?'' My eyes widen. We both hear the door open from upstairs, our heads turning for a moment.

''Mum, I can't deal with any more drama today. Please...'' I begged. My mum stepped forward.

''Sweetheart...''

''I have had the worst day ever'' The words tumbled out. I hadn't even wanted to tell them anything.

''Sweetie, I'm guessing not as bad as his'' I glanced down, biting my lip.

''Yeah'' Soft footsteps tracked down the stairs. I turned around once my mum glanced up behind me with a warm smile.

''Hey'' Peter greeted my, eyes a little wide. I scrunched my lips together and nodded back at him.

''Well, I gotta say, that looks better on you than it does on me'' Mum jokes, pointing towards the shirt he was wearing. Even I smiled a little.

''Uh, It's kinda comfy'' Peter responds, chuckling.

''Well, so are my birkenstocks, but let's draw the line here'' The both of them chuckle. My lips only pursed in response.

''Yeah. Well... sleep tight'' Mum said softly.

''Hey, thanks again for letting me stay. Thank you'' Peter stumbled over his words, a small blush on his cheeks due to slight embarrassment. Mum just shook her head.

''Anytime'' She said before walking up the stairs.

''I probably should've called you, and asked how you feel about me being here. I didn't...'' He began once mum was out of sight.

''It's okay. You wouldn't have reached me. I turned my phone off'' I stayed still, rocking slowly on my spot. My feet stopped once Peter walked past me, looking completely exhausted. He headed straight for the couch but stayed standing, his eye looking distant.

''So, what's going on at home?'' I asked cautiously.

''I don't...'' Peter stammered, turning around.

''Well, if things ever get really tense, you know you can always hang here'' I threw my hands to the side with a soft laugh, trying to ease him a little. He sat down, eyes still looking straight ahead.

''I'm really scared'' Peter smacked his lips.

''I'm really scared this time'' Peter knew that his Aunt and Happy were getting close, dating even. But he thought she'd never look into marriage ever again, not since Uncle Ben... He was even a little mad that she would consider it, marrying someone else. Her and Uncle Ben were perfect, they raised him perfectly and in a loving home. When he died, he watched his Aunt fall into depression, barely showing any emotions for at least a year afterwards. The funeral was the second hardest day of his life, the first being saying goodbye to his parents without even realising.

Uncle Ben was his entire support system, his role model in life. He grew into a father figure, someone irreplaceable. The thought of his Aunt May going through all of that again scared the hell out of him. Peter never felt like he was going to accept Happy into the family, the spot was already taken and he couldn't see why May would want to add another.

He couldn't see her lose another person she loved, a person Peter may even love himself one day. Losing three parental figures was enough for a lifetime.

''It feels different already'' And they weren't even married yet.

''Oh, But... I mean, that's all it is right? Different? Doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad'' I tried to soothe, walking over to sit next to him. He turns to face me, eyes and face slightly red and blotchy. He had been crying.

''It's really hard to talk about it, you know? N-not with you, but anyone else, it's like...'' He trails off, glancing at me then straight ahead again.

''Well, you can always talk to me about anything anytime, okay?'' My heart was breaking for him. I know how much it hurt him to lose Uncle Ben, I didn't know him at the time but he spoke about him a lot, especially when we first started dating.

''I know, things are kinda weird between us, but, um, we're friends, right?''

''Yep'' Peter nodded, his eyes still on me. It was hard not to get lost in them. Every second passing I could feel myself being pulled back in, the thumping in my chest growing and growing. A warmth had settled in my stomach.

''You know that'' My voice broke near the end, softening. My eyes fell to his lips before meeting his eyes again. A breath hitched in my throat, the softest gasp leaving my parted lips. My chest was growing warm, heart beginning to beat a little faster. I still couldn't look away. Not when he was looking at me with a soft expression, his own eyes darting towards my lips then my eyes.

''Uh, do you need a pillow?'' I bounced up, glancing behind me then back towards him, trying to shake the overwhelming feelings. Peter sniffled, snapping himself out of it as well.

''Or... yeah'' Peter had to force his eyes away from her lips.

''Or no. No that's great'' He failed miserably. The feelings he had been pushing down for months rushing to the surface, spilling over.

''Yeah, thank you'' He was stumbling over his words, growing nervous.

''Okay. No problem'' My words sounded stiff and awkward but I tried to smile anyway. We just stopped and stared at each other for a second, not knowing what to do.

''Good night, Peter'' I spoke up, breaking the silence first. Without thinking, I lent forwards and wrapped my arms around him. It was a huge mistake, and I immediately tried to lean away once I felt the rush of tingles and the warmth spreading around me, enveloping me like a blanket. His arms circled around me before I could move.

Peter's features softened again, thankful for the comfort he was so desperately seeking. I exhaled, letting myself lose a battle with my self control. I hugged him a little tighter, almost needing it for myself. It was uncanny, the way my body was still responding to his touch so easily, becoming putty in his hands. With my self control dwindling by the second, I needed to retreat soon before I ended up doing something I'd regret.

But he was so warm and inviting and... intoxicating. I couldn't get enough.

My brain soon switched back on, pulling my body away slowly. I could feel my heart beating loudly in my chest, ringing in my ears. My mind forced me to look down, my self control slowly coming back.

But I made the deadly mistake of looking up, meeting his chocolaty, brown eyes. I was already done for. Peter must have felt it too, looking down at me as if I was the most gorgeous and fragile thing he ever saw. He instinctively bought a hand up to cup my cheek, swooping down quickly to close the small gap between our parted lips.

My heart was wanting to burst out of my chest, warmth radiating from his soft lips to my own, trembling ones. He held my cheek still, his other hand still on my waist not letting me go. Peter could feel it too, his heart almost leaping out painfully. His emotions are terribly heightened by his spidey-senses.

My eyes drifted close on their own, my heart winning a losing battle for the tiniest of moments. Self control what?

I pulled away swiftly, my eyes quickly opening to gaze into his. The same aww expression mirroring my own.

''You can't do that'' The tone was a little hoarse, it was even breaking a little.

''I know... I'm sorry'' His hand was still cupping my face. I needed to remove myself from here before I pulled him back in for another swee-

''I'll grab you some more pillows, these ones are quite flat'' I lept away as if I was just burned, my eyes going glassy as I bounded up the stairs towards my bedroom. My hand shut the door so fast, my breathing becoming irregular and slightly strained.

A lone tear left my eye and fell down, another one soon followed, then another. Before I knew it I was crying, crying over how painfully fast my heart was beating. Crying over the tingling warmth still dancing across my lips. Crying over the boy just meters away who had somehow broken my heart all over again.

After 10 minutes I managed to calm myself down enough to stop crying, my heart going back to it's original rhythm. I gathered the pillows and slowly walked back down the stairs, leaving me bedroom door open.

The pillows, blanket and my mum's clothes were neatly folded on top of the lounge, Peter nowhere in sight. My eyes were tearing up again, a pillow falling from my grip.

Again, I returned to my bedroom, willing myself not to cry. The keyboard was still on my bed, my mouth humming the tune again as I sat down, playing as I let my heart sing the words.

''And there's one more boy, he's from my past... We fell in love but it didn't last... 'Cause the second I figured it out, he pushes me away... I won't fight for love if you won't meet me halfway... And I say that I'm through but this song is still for you... All I want is love that lasts.... Is all I want too much to ask?... Is it something wrong with me?... All I want is a good guy... Are my expectations far too high?... Try my best but what can I say?... All I have is myself at the end of the day... But shouldn't that be enough for me?......''

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Wowzie up to 4! Here was an action-packed part! There was angst and softness and sweetness and tenderness and- you get the point xx Heart and comment what you think lovelies xx And please let me know if you guys are liking this, if not I'll stop writing parts xo

[tisthenightofthewitch]

Ghost’s Tobias Forge talks about being sued by Nameless Ghouls, spurned by the Vatican and immortalized in plastic effigy

When it comes to Swedish bands, Americans tend to think of pop icons like ABBA, black metal acts like Bathory, or the odd alt-rock band like The Cardigans, after which we stop thinking about them at all.But that was before the band Ghost began its slow yet inevitable ascent. Hailing from Linköping, a city in Sweden known for its ornate cathedrals, the bandmembers concealed their secret identities beneath elaborate costumery, a time-tested tradition fostered by bands like Kiss and The Residents. 

Occupying centerstage was Papa Emeritus, a skull-faced character fond of ghoulish corpse paint, a high-pointed hat and ornate papal vestments decorated with upside-down crosses. Standing stock-still at the microphone, his face frozen in a miserable scowl, the singer appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be hovering at death’s door or just beyond it. His bandmates, unceremoniously referred to as “Nameless Ghouls,” wore hooded robes and black masks, a look that soon began showing up at European cosplay conventions.

While this combination of corpse-paint, national origin and grinding guitar riffs led some critics to liken their sound to Swedish death metal, the keyboard-heavy liturgical vibe of Ghost’s early music arguably owed more to classic Pink Floyd.

That’s especially true of “Secular Haze,” the breakthrough single from their 2013 sophomore album Infestissumam. Following its release, the band put out the Dave Grohl-produced If You Have Ghost, a five-song covers EP that includes the Roky Erickson song of the same name, as well as renditions of Depeche Mode’s “Waiting for the Night” and, appropriately enough, ABBA’s “Like a Marionette.”

But 2013 also had its share of disappointments, including the ascension of Pope Francis, who was elected on the fifth ballot, thwarting Papa’s hard-fought and highly publicized campaign for the position.

The rest is history, of a sort. Following a series of European dates with Metallica, Ghost are now embarking on an arena tour of their own that will include an Oct. 1 concert headlining the Broadmoor World Arena. Their single “Cirice” won the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance, while their most recent album Prequelle and its single “Rats” were respectively nominated in this year’s Best Rock Album and Best Rock Song categories.

Along the way, the band has gone through a succession of Pope characters —  Papa Emeritus I, Papa Emeritus II, and Papa Emeritus III — who have since been replaced by the far more kinetic Cardinal Copia, who has more of a mafioso image and hyperactive stage presence. All four frontman roles have been played by Tobias Forge, whose identity was outed two years ago when four former Nameless Ghouls filed a since-dismissed lawsuit alleging unpaid wages.

Ghost have also undertaken a series of musical transitions that became especially obvious with last year’s Prequelle, a concept album that employs the 14th-century black plague as an allegory for our current troubles. While Forge hasn’t fully abandoned his band’s past sound, tracks like “Rats” veer toward the ’70s arena-rock sound of Def Leppard, Foreigner, and even Journey, with whom the band toured last year.

In the following interview, Forge holds forth on a wide array of subjects, including litigious ex-Ghouls, the Swedish anti-vaccine movement and his alter-ego’s forthcoming immortalization — alongside legendary artists like Prince and Jean-Michel Basquiat — as a Funko Pop! figurine.

Indy: Let’s begin by talking about the concept behind your most recent album. It opens with that really creepy version of “Ring Around the Rosie, ” which is always a good way to start an album about the bubonic plague. Was there any specific reason why you chose that theme at this particular point in history?

Tobias Forge: Well, I think there are important lessons to be learned from all chapters of history. The plague was an epidemic that wiped out half of Europe, and, we can assume, traumatized the Asian population as well. And back then, people in general were uneducated, they were superstitious, they were religious, they believed in hocus-pocus. So it must have literally felt like the end of the world was just going to happen tomorrow. And that is always an interesting concept. Because we know now that it was not the end of the world. You know, mankind persevered. So while I believe in environmental issues, and that there are a lot of things that can be done in order to make the world a better place, I also think there’s not as much doom and gloom as it may appear.

So what would you say are the lessons we can learn from that period?

I guess the most simple and most obvious one is that we can debate forever — all day and night — about what happens after we’re dead. But I can promise you that we do not know. We can hope for there to be an afterlife, or 72 virgins, or whatever else is on your wishlist. But there’s no way of knowing. And anyone who tells you that they know, they are lying because they want something from you, or they want you to believe in something. And so I think your time and your energy will be better spent trying to embrace life instead of being wary of death. Because life is fragile, and you don’t know if you’ll have another one.

And then there’s this myriad of human instincts that comes into play when apocalypse is near, and one of them is who’s to blame for this, that, and the other. Back in the plague days, as I said, there was this predominance of religious people who believed in hocus-pocus and were pretty uneducated and pretty fucking dumb. They believed that female sexuality was to blame for essentially God abandoning mankind. So while you had people dying off in droves, you also had these people killing women because they were good-looking or, in one way or another, enticed some sort of sexual arousal. And that was obviously the work of the devil, and while they were alive, they would interfere with the survival of mankind. But unfortunately, those kind of very uneducated and outright stupid people are still well-represented in the world, and it’s very important that we address that.

Since you’ve researched and written about all this, I’m curious what you think about your country’s decision, back in March, to ban mandatory vaccinations.

Oh, that’s a good question, but I don’t really have a good answer. But I do think that there is a dichotomy between what the population might need, and what a pharmaceutical company needs for its own benefit. I’m trying not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but about 10 years ago, there was an outbreak of a flu, and companies would have entire offices vaccinated. And, on first glance, it’s like, “That’s great how society and all these bosses and corporations came together.” And I’m aware that the number of people that actually came down with it was not that many. So was that because of this shot, or was it because maybe the threat wasn’t as great as they were saying it was? Because, more often than not, there’s an economic incentive somewhere for someone. But not being a biologist nor a chemist, I don’t know anything about stuff like that. So, as I said, I don’t have a straight answer.

On a happier note, Funko’s Papa Emeritus II doll came out last month…

Yes, speaking of monetaries. [Laughs.]

That’s right. And I have to say, I’m really impressed by how realistic it is, especially in the way it just stands there and doesn’t do anything. How does it feel to be immortalized in that way?

I don’t really see it as that. I mean, when I sort of regard anything that we have done, even a photo, I don’t necessarily think of it as me being in that photo. I’m just sort of detached from the character on the visual side, which is to my benefit, actually. I’m way too vain, so I would have had a problem if it was my face that we were working with. So having the sort of official visuals of Ghost is actually quite liberating.

I understand that you started out playing in punk and death metal bands. Was Ghost the first time that you got to indulge your pre-The Wall Pink Floyd side?

No, I have played non-death metal in other bands before. But when Ghost started taking shape, I think I just found a way to write songs that sort of tick both boxes — one box being melodic pop-rock, or whatever it is, and the other being sort of metal. It felt playful, and it felt intuitive and progressive, for lack of a more fitting word. Whereas in the past, it’s like the metal bands were metal, and the rock bands were rock, and they didn’t combine the two. So I definitely found it more effective, and way more fun, to do something in between. Your stage presence is way more kinetic these days, although pretty much anything is more kinetic than standing in front of a microphone and scaring people. But you’re reaching the point now where the choreography in a video like “Rats” is borderline Michael Jackson. Is that the result of having more personal confidence these days?

Yeah, I would definitely say that. There are critics of the band who feel that the less animated version in the beginning was better and more ominous, and that we should still be embracing that. But a lot of the cryptic nature of Papa I was due to being constrained by the costume and the size of the stage.

And now we’re playing bigger places, where there’s way more ground to cover and there isn’t a single cord onstage that you can trip on, so of course you have to move around, right? I mean, if we were onstage now for two hours with that sort of unanimated version we were doing back in 2011, people would be demanding their money back. It’s just part of growing. You can see the same thing if you look at a clip of the Rolling Stones from 1964. Mick Jagger is Mick Jagger, but he’s definitely not the Mick Jagger that you see in 1969 or 1972. It takes time to build that confidence and find your own way of moving around.

I know you campaigned really hard for the pope’s job back in 2013. And I think a lot of your fans were really disappointed when the smoke came up the chimney and it turned out you didn’t get it. Do you think that your losing out to Pope Francis was the result of Vatican corruption?

Sure, most things going on there are because of corruption anyway. So I’m sure that was one of them. Or it might also have been my lack of faith — or my lack monetary means at the time — that prohibited my exaltation within the ranks of the Vatican.

And finally, I have a question about that lawsuit. Do you think that if you’d given names to your Nameless Ghouls, they would have been less vindictive?

You mean, if I’d given them names instead of making them completely anonymous? Probably, I guess. It’s hard to say. Because with most people that are drawn to the performance stage, you do so with a certain inclination to be seen and appreciated. So maybe if our positions were reversed, I would have felt the same way. Until seven or eight years ago, I really wanted to be famous, so my idea of being in a band was definitely different from what it turned out to be.

I’ve been in charge and working on this full-time, nonstop, for 10 years. Other people in Ghost would work a few hours every day, and then, during the four months between tours when I was making a record, they weren’t really doing anything that had to do with Ghost. And since I was representing the band at all of the meetings, I was getting pats on the back and feeling like what I was doing was good. Whereas, if you had nothing to do with the day-to-day stuff, you maybe didn’t get the pat on the back that you needed in order to feel fulfilled in life. So, you know, maybe if they had gotten their name on there, and could at least be recognized in the street, maybe that would have changed things. But on the other hand, I’ve played with others who didn’t give a shit about that happening.

COLORADO SPRINGS INDEPENDENT

[monstrousaffections1]

Fire Root part 2

It was around two in the morning. Ridwan noted. Skimming over the clock in the car. Eyes flicking up to the rear-view mirror he slipped a glance at Sofiel in the back seat. Her shining eyes focused, a rare look of seriousness is upon her. She’s thinking. He looks to Sabbathian, who, as always, has a smug smile on his mug, head leaning back against the seat, hat resting over his eyes. Fingers laced together thoughtfully. His tail curled up in his lap, enjoying the heater. Ridwan smirks, and reaches over turning on the air-conditioner full blast. The serpentine demon jumps quite literally out of his skin and slams off the cold, with a hiss he turns on Ridwan, ire in his eyes. Sofiel yelps as she hits her head on the window when the car swerves for a moment. “Ridwan!” She yells, angrily. Both the Serpentine and the Wrath demon stop their tiff and look back at her. One look at her face says very clearly that she is not in the mood for any bullshit. Sabbathian gulps and leans back in his seat again, turning on the heater and adjusting to be comfortable, placing his hat back over his eyes, tail lashing out and slaps Ridwan in the face before curling back into his lap again. Sofiel sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “It’s like I’m running a day-care.” She mutters with exasperation. The red furred demon chuckles. Sometimes that statement wasn’t too far from the truth. “So, Why’d you send the kid?” He inquires, flipping on the indicator and changing lane. Sofiel raises a brow, she sits up straight, crossing one knee over the other, lacing her fingers together and she smiles. He has to keep from chuckling. ‘There she is.’ No one would have guessed that the girl they half raised would end up becoming their boss. Yet hear she is. Grown up and running the joint. It still makes him proud. “Well, obviously I was just being nice Ridwan.” She says, taking her cigarette holder and conjuring a flame on the end of her finger, lighting up the cigarette piece. “Ah c’mon Doll. I know you better than that.” He smiles wickedly as she chuckles, blowing a few devil tails. “Well, if you must know. I was expanding our business; the young people are the most easily to influence. Hehe, I figured she might suggest our brand to any of her… young friends that happen to be in the area.” She winds down the window a bit, letting the smoke leave the car, before winding it back up. She hesitates. “She’s also Lilith’s errand girl.” Ridwan blinks, and looks at her in surprise. “Sof. I hope you know what your doing. It’s not normally a good call to mess with other demon’s mortals. Especially a Prince’s mortal.” Her grin grows. “That’s the point. I don’t think Lilith knows the girl’s into Hellish Spices.” “Even more reason to be careful.” They enter a tunnel. Her gold tail curls around her ankle. “Oh please. If I was careful I’d have never become a demon in the first place.”  

 Olivia lays on her bed, buzzed. She chews a bit of Fire Root. Now this was what should have been added to yesterday’s coffee. She sighs, closing her eyes, Feeling the soft warmth spreading through her vanes. This is nice. She breaths out glowing sparks. A side effect from the natural growing relaxant. It doesn’t hurt. But it fizzles, and pops in her mouth, it only burns a little. Her muscles twitch and she jolts every now and then. It’s pleasant. She groans tiredly when her phone begins to ring. Reaching for it she picks up. “what…” she asks, nearly half asleep. “Olivia? That you?” she rolls her eyes behind her eyelids. Mason. “Who you think it is numb nuts?” she sits up, groaning groggily as she rubs her head. “What is it? It’s four in the morning.” She could hear the boy shifting around on the other end of the phone. “I’m just making sure you’re alive. Olivia you promised you weren’t going to work Devil’s Night.” “No. You asked me not to. I just decided to do so anyway.” “… we’re worried about you.” She rolls her eyes, this again. Standing up she walks out of her bedroom and into the kitchen, turning on a light. “Look.. Mason. I know you care. But I’m fine. Really.” She turns on the kettle, knowing well enough there’s no point going to sleep. ‘Really? Cause I feel like your lying. You do that a lot.” She snorts. “Touché” holding the phone between her shoulder and her ear she pours herself a coffee. “Look. It’s nothing. I just been having late shifts is all. I’m not getting much sleep. Like now for example.” She grits out. There’s silence on the other side of the phone, before they both bust up laughing. “Yeah, haha, sorry.. yeah, guess I am keeping you up.” She smiles, Mason and her have become good friends. He may be a year younger than her. But they mixed well. “It’s fine. I got two days off anyhow. Besides, I’m fine.” She can hear him sigh. “Fine.. just… come to church Sunday?” she thinks, considering. “Alright.”

Sitting on the couch she sips her coffee, sparks coming up with the steam. Yep. Fire Root and coffee is the best combination ever. Grabbing the remote she turns on the tv, seeing what’s on the news. She snickers, the usual things after a normal Devil’s Night. Missing people, vandalism, souls stolen. Gun fights in the street, motor vehicle accidents. As what normally happened on the one night of the year the Laws of Peace were lifted. Allowing all demons of every kind to go… well… demoning. Oh if only the Archangels knew how much Demonry was actually happening right under their noses. Olivia would know. She was in the thick of it. Demonry was the reason she had a roof over her head and a full belly. Sure Angels would help. For free. But then… well… ‘Their Conditions of Covenant would probably make me want to kill myself.’ She thought tiredly. Well, except for Gabriel, of course. He was chill like that. “And now over to Kate, for the Hell Spice Epidemic. Here’s to you Kate.” She blinks, staring at the tv. Hell Spice has been becoming quite popular with Mortals lately. Especially the young. Olivia stares down at her coffee, watching the sparks fizzle and dissipate. She drinks deeply. The Geese were still trying to find out what demons were responsible for handing out these drugs. “-another body has been found; twenty-three-year-old Mathew Jenkins was found dead late last night in his car. He is believed to have overdosed on Heart’s Desire-“. The black-haired girl rolled her eyes. The idiot should have known better. Anyone who’s anyone knows that Demon drugs were stronger than human ones. He should have been more careful. Going back into the kitchen she goes through the fridge. Ugh. Great. Nothing but a left-over pizza. 

Timothy smoked a cigar, blowing rings as he nodded his head in tune to a song on the radio. The gloom of the Spice House feeling, well, just as gloomy, but not quite as depressing. A full hundred years of glory. And now their small empire had all but vanished. Back down in the dumps. Among petty common criminals. His brows furrowed as he remained deep in thought. Remembering the good old days when they were respected. In fact the only thing that was probably keeping them from getting torn apart and attacked was the fact that not many knew of their current condition. He breaths out. Stress had done the Impish demon something terrible. A frown never really leaving his face now-a-days. He taps his claws in time to the beat. Ears flicking when he heard a car pull up outside. He opens his eyes, pupils dilating. That was either Sofiel and the boys. Or, it was trouble. He grabs his old but trusty tommy gun and flicks off the safety. Taking a last inhale of smoke he put out the cigar in the ash tray. He shuffles forward and drops off the seat. Curse his little legs. Tail raised he starts calmly over to the door. Counting his bullets. A jingle of keys. He relaxes, shoulders slumping. Eyes temporarily closing for a second in relief. ‘Thank God.’ The door opens and the trio enter. Ridwan shoving and arguing with Sabbathian who, by the sounds of it. Had accidently dropped a bottle on the other’s foot. Sofiel looked like she was about to have an aneurism from their bantering alone. Timothy relights his cigar, taking a puff. “The meeting not go well then eh?” he asks. The Demoness’s eyes brighten and she smiles widely, the façade she always wore in public. “Oh yes Darling! The meeting went splendidly!” She exclaims, doing a little twirl as she made her way to the kitchen. Timothy looks over to the clock. Five am. He follows her. “Not get the Turf you wanted?” She frowns and pours herself some cherry wine. “Not even close.” She takes a long sip before turning and looking down at the Imp. “They can sense our weakness. Lilith knows if we were as strong as we use to be, we wouldn’t be asking for permission to expand. But, alas, cursed is the Law of Demons.” She gestures dramatically. Rolling her eyes and taking another drink, before filling up the glass. Ah. Right. The Law of Demons. Law of Strength. Might is Right. Survival of the Sneakiest and most Manipulative. Souls equal power. Power equals respect. Respect is strength. Strength. Is doing whatever the hell you want. And no one will question it. Sofiel sighs and sits down on the kitchen chair. Rubbing her forehead. “How’s the little ones?” she asks, offering a tired smile. Timothy for once, one of the rare times, does smile a bit, a chuckle. “They’re sleeping. Ate all their dinner and Flint told em a crazy story bout the time you blew up the kitchen.” The woman laughs, the stress melting away with the reminders of their lacking authority. “Have you heard any word from Malakh? It’s been a month.” He shakes his head. “No. He’s not called you yet?” she sighs. “Oh dear.” He gently punches her in the shoulder. “Aye. Don’t worry, he’s a grown demon. He can take care of himself.” Sofiel was protective of all her children. Even when they had left home.

[qveensbury]

Try Not to Hurt Yourself

gift fic for @babyfairybaekhyun​/ @xheavenisnear​

Dadko/Momtara fic based on this post

AO3

The move to Caldera City was less than ideal.

It was the last possible thing Zuko wanted to do after graduating high school and finding life outside the Fire Nation.

But Iroh had been like a father to him. And when Iroh asked Zuko to be interim CEO and oversee business until a new one was selected following Iroh’s retirement, the least Zuko could do was honor his wishes.

The kids said they were fine. Kya and Iroh II (affectionately called Ni) were fighters, from genes they inherited from both sides of their family tree. Like water they adapted and like fire they charted their own path.

It didn’t mean Katara and Zuko weren’t prepared for the tipping point.

Moving from Ba Sing Se to Caldera City was an adjustment. They went from a mosaic of browns and beiges to a homogenous pot. Having supportive parents and an excited-to-see-their-grandkids grandma and great-uncle helped.

But life happens.

When Kya’s school called in the middle of the day asking both parents to come pick Kya up, everything was put on hold. 

The nice thing about running your uncle’s company was knowing the “family first” values weren’t only for display.

Zuko pulled the key out of his car’s ignition and responded to Katara’s text.

[[zuko: just parked. see you soon.]]

In all fairness, Zuko and Katara had their reservations about the school.

Fire Sages Academy: Equipping Tomorrow’s Leaders.

An elite school serving the city’s most prominent families.

Katara wanted the kids to keep attending public school. She wanted them to have a relatable experience and to stay as grounded as possible.

As the daughter of Uqsuaqtuq Bay’s mayor, she knew how important it was to know and stay connected to a diversity of backgrounds.

And Zuko, the alum of Fire Sages Academy, agreed.

But his family had so much weight in Caldera City and FSA knew how to handle high profile families. Administrators knew how to deal with parents and shepherd children and protect them from paparazzi and other predators.

“In addition to shielding the kids from any enemies my father or sister may have created, we don’t have to play with kid gloves on at Fire Sages. They know when a parent is throwing a tantrum versus starting a battle. We would have to walk on eggshells at the public schools here Tara. At least at Fire Sages, we don’t have to pull punches.”

For a while, it seemed like they’d made the right choice.

Zuko navigated his way to the principal’s office.

Kya sat in the lobby of the administrative wing. Through the glass above her head, he could see other desks and offices.

“Kya.”

Sitting up straight, she looked at him. Nearly Katara’s twin when she was fourteen, her dark eyes were the only striking difference.

“Are you okay?” Zuko asked in Inuktitut. They wanted their biracial children to know both of their ancestors’ tongues. And in a city where everyone was fluent in Japanese, Inuktitut was their secret code.

Kya snorted. “Mom asked the same thing. I’m fine.”

“What happen—“

“Mr. Ryuku!” An older woman startled as she walked into the small lobby. “We didn’t expect to see you. Let me tell Principal Nakahara.” She hurried back inside.

“Liar.”

“Kya!”

“It’s true! Mom told them you were coming. They think I can’t hear them but they’ve been trying to speed things up so they wouldn’t have to deal with you.”

A divot formed on Zuko’s forehead. “Me?”

“Something about how you were as a student or how you press teachers in parent-teacher conferences that makes them nervous. Like you’re unpredictable or…like…”

“Volatile,” he crossed his arms. A word he’d heard enough times at Fire Sages.

“Yea, I couldn’t think of the word in Inuktitut.”

“And you’re sure—“

“Mr. Ryuku, right this way.”

Before following the older woman, he nodded at Kya. She nodded back.

The fidgeting of the receptionist was one thing. The number of staff watching him walk by was another.

The walls were made of eyes.

When do you think the Ryuku kid is going to burst?

Letting go of a breath he’d been holding, Zuko reminded himself, Whatever. You’re here for your daughter. Let’s stay present, Zuko. Let’s provide support to our daughter and reduce the trauma she experiences here.

The receptionist opened the door for him.

“Mr. Ryuku, Principal Nakahara.”

“It’s Ryuku-Kuruk. I didn’t get a chance to corr— say so earlier.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” she mumbled before closing the door behind him.

“Mr. Ryuku, have a s—“

“Ryuku-Kuruk,” he leaned over kissing Katara’s forehead.

She didn’t move.

“R-right. Have a seat, please. I’ve already told your wife about the incident and the school has a pretty clear policy about being disruptive in the classroom.”

“Kya disrupted class?” Zuku’s eyes grew before his earlier expression of confusion returned. “That doesn’t sound like her at all.”

‘Well, there were several eyewitnesses and she doesn’t dispute the account. So—“

‘Why don’t you tell my husband what happened, Principal Nakahara.” Katara stood up, “Excuse me while you do. I’ll be right back.”

The shift in Katara’s career was the most notable visible change since moving to Caldera City. In Ba Sing Se, she served as a Councilwoman’s Chief of Staff. Katara was always in a pantsuit or sheath dress and sensible pumps.

Now, as a stay at home mom-slash-charity board of directors member, her wardrobe was far more relaxed. Sweaters and slacks, sundresses. It fooled people who assumed she was weaker than she looked.

If Katara’s taking a lap, this is bad.

After signaling for the principal to begin, Zuko folded his hands.

The principal cleared his throat. “L-like I said, Kya disrupted class. The history class was talking about the Hundred Years War.”

Tension wound up Zuko’s jaw.

The Hundred Years’ War that the Fire Nation slowly waged on the other nations around it. It ended when he and Katara were teenagers but reconciliation efforts were still needed between the four countries.

Katara and Zuko had had conversations with Kya and Ni about the war, especially because the children’s forefathers fought on opposite sides.

Zuko realized and understood the sins of his people. But not everyone had.

“The teacher says Kya raised her hand and accused him of burying facts.” The principal chuckled.

A scowl took root on Zuko’s face.

“When he asked her to mind her manners, she refused to stop talking. It made other students uncomfortable and Kya stood up on her chair at one point. Clearly, you can see how a teacher might have difficulty keeping the class in line after a stunt like that.”

Zuko’s phone vibrated. “Excuse me,” he mumbled.

[[katara: stall]]

“As I said before,” Nakahara continued, “we have a no tolerance policy on—“

“Was he burying the facts?”

“Excuse me?”

“Was the teacher’s lecture on the Hundred Years’ War one-sided?”

Chuckling, Principal Nakahara shifted, “I don’t see why that matters.”

“Is this the account Kya gave?”

“She admitted she disrupted the class and that’s all w—“

“Did you ask her why?"

“Honestly, Mr. Ryuku—“

Zuko crossed his arms leaning back.

“—we hope this won’t be a big fuss. Like I told your wife, this is Kya’s first offense. So we won’t need to take any action that would appear on her permanent record. We’re simply asking for her to apologize to the class and to write a formal apology to Mr. Katsura.”

“An apology?”

“M-Mr. Ryuku, we wouldn’t want to anger you.”

Zuko raised an eyebrow. “Come again.”

The principal cleared his throat. “N-now, see here. This is a pretty lax punishment considering we would want other students to respect their teachers. Principal Nakahara tapped a student handbook as if to make his point.

Zuko took the book and flipped through it. “What page is that policy on?”

Nakahara stammered. “I don’t recall.”

The occasional turn of the page filled the silence.

“So, there’s no policy?”

“I never sa—“

“Well, I don’t see it here.” Zuko closed the book.

“Let’s be rational. No need to let emotions cloud your judgment. Everyone thinks their child is perfect. No need for any t-temper.”

“You’re concerned about me? I think a teacher trying to silence my daughter’s concerns about a war that claimed the life of her grandmother is plenty reason to be angry. The fact that you won’t say what the teacher said or Kya said is pretty suspect. You don’t know where this policy is.” Zuko crossed his arms. “But you shouldn’t be worried about me, and quite frankly I’m livid. You should be worried about my wife.”

The door opened behind him.

“Did you fill Mr. Ryuku-Kuruk in?“

“He did.” Zuko pulled the chair out for Katara.

“Splendid,” she sat down, squeezing his hand to thank him. Opening the textbook in her hand, Katara flipped to the page where she had a bookmark. “Principal Nakahara,” she looked at him, “how would you describe the Fire Nation’s relationship with the Earth Kingdom during the Hundred Years’ War?”

“Well, the Earth Kingdom was colonized.”

“Huh,” she looked at the textbook, “here, the textbook for high school sophomores said they were ‘business arrangements between the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom.’ That’s strange.” She turned to another page. “What about the Massacre at the Southern Air Temple? Were those war crimes or a rare epidemic?”

“War crimes.”

“Hmm,” Katara read. “‘Unfortunately, an unknown illness spread affecting the entire monastery. There were no survivors.’” She pinned the principal  with a stare. “When I was in school, they taught us the Fire Nation had the monks face firing squads.”

“W-well.”

“I think,” Katara closed the textbook, “you have a bigger problem on your hands than a student bruising a teacher’s ego. While I can’t say I’ve made up my mind because I haven’t discussed this with my husband, I’m strongly considering pulling our children out of Fire Sages Academy. I want to raise my children to be responsible global citizens and that requires them to know an accurate historical account. Zuko, do you have anything to add?”

“No. I think we have a lot to discuss.”

Nodding, Katara turned back to Principal Nakahara. “In that case.”

“N-no, now. Let’s not be hasty—“

“Hasty?” Katara frowned. “You called us in for a conference about a disrupted class.”

“You can’t tell us what our daughter said, which suggests this was done without gathering the appropriate evidence,” Zuko said.

“We discussed all we could at this moment.” Katara stood up.

“Why are we paying these teachers to teach if they can’t control their students?”

“P-please—“

“I think we’ve heard enough,” Zuko stood. “Let’s go, dear.”

“I’ve already sent for Iroh. Let’s pick up the kids. Mr. Nakahara, good day.”

Principal Nakahara continued to call for them but they didn’t stop.

Ni sat next to his sister. His tawny skin was a couple shades lighter than his sister. He had his father’s chin and his mother’s blue eyes.

“Time to roll,” Katara handed the textbook back to Kya.

“What’s happening?”

“Mrs. Ryuku-Kuruk.”

“Mr. Nakahara, we’ll be in touch. Don’t worry.”

“C’mon kids.” Zuko beckoned his head.

Kya frowned but stood anyway. Crossing her arms, she led the way.

Ni took his mother’s hand, excited to get out of school early.

“Want to grab lunch?” Zuko asked in the elevator to the ground floor.

“Can we go to Bandit’s Keep?” Ni bounced on his toes.

“Hmm. How about we see if your cousins are free to go next weekend, sweetie?”

“Ok.”

“What’s going on?” Kya asked again.

“You’re not in trouble,” Katara said.

“Not with us anyway.”

“Your dad and I have to talk about what we’re gonna do.”

“But, you did the right thing,” Zuko looped his arm around her shoulders.

“We’re so proud of you.”

“I mean I only did it because I know you guys have my back.” She wrapped an arm around her dad as they walked out.

“Always love,” Katara said immediately. She hummed, “How about that place that does Earth style street food?”

“Yes, I’ve been craving cabbage rolls!” Kya said.

“Ok, it’s settled.”

“Don’t you have work, Dad?”

“I’ll go back this afternoon. You know I always have time for family.”

Kya nodded against her dad. “Can I ride with you?”

“Sure,” he handed her the car keys.

“Ni, why don’t you go buckle yourself in?” Katara unlocked the door for him.

They watched their kids get in their cars.

Katara sighed.

“Long time, Madam Prosecutor.”

She scoffed, “We almost made it a year with no issues.”

“There were issues.”

Groaning, she nodded her head. “Let’s talk about it later. I was serious about considering pulling them out.”

“If you want to, let’s do it. It’s gonna cause a splash but we gave enough lip service. It might be the bad publicity they need.” Zuko crossed his arms.

Katara snorted. “As if you care about prestigious Fire Sages Academy’s reputation. I wouldn’t bat an eye if they closed.”

“Kid gloves completely off, huh?”

“Completely,” she laughed.

“We raised some pretty impressive kids, huh, Mrs. Ryuku-Kuruk.”

“We sure did, Mr. Ryuku-Kuruk.”

A/N: Uqsuaqtuq means calm seas in the South Qikiqtaaluk dialect of Inuktitut; Ni means two in Japanese; title from Beyonce’s “Don’t Hurt Yourself”

[dontdietwd]

Day 67, part 2

I had my eyes closed as I sat on a rocking chair on the porch of the farm house. Everything was silent now, except for my own ears ringing loudly in stress. I breathed in, allowing my head to rest on the back of the chair, and out, slowly, my feet nudging the wooden floor to rock the chair softly. Otis and Shane had left for the high school, Maggie was gone looking for Lori, and the others were around Carl. I was a quiet moment, which I highly valued. I had to cool down, allow my body to return to normal, allow my brain to stop screaming.

I knew it wouldn’t last long. It never did.

The door to the house creaked open to let out both Rick and Hershel, who joined me on the porch. Hershel sat on the chair by my side and Rick stood on the railing, looking outside.

“Your farm is beautiful, Mr. Greene,” I said in a low voice, as if scared to mess up with the rare peace of the moment. “I can see you take very good care of it.”

“It’s been in my family 160 years.”

“I can’t believe how serene it is,” Rick said looking out. “How untouched. You’re lucky.”

“We aren’t completely unscathed…” the old man disagreed from his chair. “We’ve lost friends, neighbors. The epidemic took my wife and my step son.”

I nodded looking down, “I’m sorry… It’s like there ain’t nobody alive who ain’t lost someone these days.”

“It sure is, but my daughters were spared. I’m thankful to God for that. These people here? All we got left is each other.”

“Yeah… We know how it is. We, our group… We’re also al we got.”

“Let’s hope we can ride it out in peace until there is a cure.”

Rick looked back into the porch and his eyes met mine, we both thinking the same. Rick looked down and out to the field again as I tried to choose my words.

“Mr. Greene… We’ve been on the road for a while now. We tried shelter in different places. One of them was at the CDC, in Atlanta. The most important place nearby that’d be working on a cure,” I paused, making Hershel look at me, waiting for me to finish. “It’s destroyed. Blew up to pieces, we all nearly blew up with it. They had no cure.”

Surprisingly, he smiled. “I don’t believe it. When aids came along everyone panicked. One boy in town came down with that and some parents pulled their children from school so they didn’t have to sit in the same room.”

“This is a whole other thing…” Rick said shaking his head and he turned to face us in the chairs, leaning against the rail.

“This is what we always say, ‘this one’s different’. Mankind have been fighting plagues from the start. We get our behinds kicked for a while. And then we bounce back,” with a serene smile, he looked from me to Rick and back. “It’s nature correcting itself, restoring some balance.”

We exchanged a look again and Rick lowered his head, his disbelief in the man’s words clear.

“Well,” I started carefully, “I don’t believe it, Mr. Greene. I really don’t… But I’ll be more than happy to be wrong about it. I hope we’re wrong about it.”

Maggie came back on the horse with Lori by then, galloping across the same field I had run just a short while ago, the sunset painting a beautiful picture that ended up unobserved. I stood on the porch with Hershel as Rick went to meet his wife on the garden in front of the house, telling her what happened and holding her as she cried, and then leading her inside. I sat back down on the rocking chair, my throat painful at the sight of the mother’s desperation.

“Delivered your message,” Maggie told me as she climbed the steps. “You were right; he did not trust me.”

I gave her a little smile, “He was protecting the group… Takes his job very seriously.”

“He your guy?”

I huffed, “What? No… It’s – I don’t, he’s…” and I paused to get in control, and finally shook my head. “No.”

With a knowing smile, Maggie dropped it, “Did you eat already?”

“Just a glass of juice… Don’t know if I can stomach much more.”

Rick gave Carl blood once again and could barely walk after that, his face pale and sweaty, but still refused to sit when he and Lori joined Hershel and I in the dining room, so Lori could understand better what was about to happen. Later, I sat once again on a bench outside on the porch, under the shadow of the house. Maggie joined me, quietly taking a seat by my side. Sun had come down and still Shane and Otis had not returned with the equipment, the emotions at the house growing tense by the minute. Everybody knew what they might be facing out there and everything that could go wrong, but an unspoken agreement made us not mention it, and simply wait.

Going over everything that had happened today, so far, I felt like I’d been awake for days already. So much had happened! Improvised breakfast at the road, Andrea’s drama, the search on the woods, the corpse on the tent, the church bell and the hope it arose, the disappointment, the deer, Otis and the shot, the run and the farm and, finally, just minutes ago, realizing Mr. Greene was actually a veterinarian.

Craziest and longest day ever.

I smiled for a moment before starting to laugh, quietly, my shoulders increasingly shaking. Maggie turned to look at me, eyes a little wide, gob smacked.

“Sorry! It’s crazy, it’s just…” and I kept laughing. “It’s just that, you know, feels like a week ago but just a couple of hours ago, Otis –” and I paused to laugh a little more. “Otis said ‘go to Hershel, he’s a vet, he’ll help!’ and we were all like ok, well, a veteran!” I laughed more, just a little louder, and Maggie started laughing with me, understanding the line of thought. “We never thought vet meant veterinarian!”

We were still laughing softly together when a car appeared at the far, the low ruffle of the motor disturbing the silence of the farm.

“Is it them?” Maggie asked.

I stretched my neck to see over the railing, “Not all of them, we got more cars,” and I got up, squinting to try and see who was driving but the lights made it impossible. I wondered why just one car, where was everybody else, what had happened, and in a second a thousand scenarios crossed my mind, how unaware of things I was now and how uncomfortable that felt. Where was Daryl?

Glenn and Theodore hopped out of the car looking curious but calm and I sighed in relief. Seemed like everything was fine. Except for Theodore himself, who was wrapped in a blanket even though the evening was nearly as hot as the day had been and looked nearly white on his paleness. I stood on top of the stairs, waiting for them to approach.

“Holy shit, T,” I said as a hello. “You look like hell.”

He laughed and sounded high, “Gee, thanks!”

“He’s got a fever,” Glenn explained as they stopped there. “Cut’s infected. Daryl gave him a few of Merle’s pills, some antibiotic I guess.”

“Okay, come on, let’s take a look at it,” I gestured them to come up.

“You okay?” Glenn asked me as he came up and pointed at my eyebrow.

“Oh, yeah, just a twig, was nothing.”

“Did you close the gate up the road when you drove in?” Maggie asked them from where she was still sitting and both Glenn and Theodore looked past me at her, only now noticing there was someone else there.

“Uh, hi,” Glenn raised a hand lamely. “Yes, we closed it. Did the latch and everything. Hello. Nice to see you again, we met before, briefly.”

“This is Maggie,” I told them as the girl got up from the bench. “Maggie, Glenn and Theodore.”

Theo just nodded, his eyes nearly closed as if asleep, and Glenn waved again.

“Where are the others? Why only you two came?”

“Daryl decided they should stay one more night. Says he’s gonna put a sign for Sophia in case she comes back to let her know we’re looking and to wait there. Set some supplies too. They’ll all come in the morning.”

I nodded, the sense of pride I’d been feeling for Daryl showing it’s face once again.

“Look, we came to help,” Glenn kept talking. “Is there anything we can do? We got some antibiotics and painkillers, if Carl needs it.”

“Come in inside. I’ll make something to eat. You too Sam, is your stomach settled enough, you think?”

“Yes, it’s definitely better.”

We followed Maggie inside and she went straight to the kitchen. I gestured them both to follow me and stopped at the bedroom’s threshold, pointing inside. Glenn and Theo solemnly entered, their faces betraying the distress in seeing Carl lying there like that. Inside, Rick and Lori saw them and nodded their greetings.

“Uh… We’re here, okay?” Glenn told them nearly in a whisper. Whatever you need.”

Glenn was a sweetheart. Not for the first time I felt a wave of tenderness towards him. He was a gentle man, not much more than a teenager actually, he had to be what, nineteen, twenty tops? I felt like if I’d ever had a brother, I wanted him to be just like Glenn, if life had given me one.

Patricia came to stitch Theo’s arm, poor woman, I could see the worry in her eyes, her heart must have been aching right now, and she had to just do something as she waited for her husband to come back. I hoped he did, both he and Shane. I sat at the table with them and Glenn just paced nervously around us, because Theo was getting stitches, and many of them, with no anesthesia at all and man, that had to hurt. On the table, the sort of medication Daryl had found in Merle’s bag.

Damn, the man was a walking pharmacy! I wondered how he was coping without them now; withdrawal must be kicking his ass. Been through it, didn’t want to be on his shoes right now. And where the hell was he, anyway? Without a hand!

“Merle Dixon,” I heard Patricia say as is reading my thoughts. “Is that your friend with the antibiotics?”

Uh, tough subject. Glenn looked at me and we exchanged a second. He must have known it was hard to me to talk about it.

“No, ma’am,” he answered instead. “Merle’s no longer with us. Daryl gave us those… His brother.”

“Not sure I’d call him a friend,” Theo was able to groan out though his pain with the stitches.

“I would,” I said immediately and Theo looked at me, kind of an unreadable expression. “Merle was my friend, all things considered,” I paused for a moment to gain some drama and moved on, “Horrible person! The one you’d want away from you. But ended up being my friend after all.”

“Well, horrible person or not,” Patricia looked from me to Theo, “he is your friend today. This doxycycline might have just saved your life.”

“You know what Merle was taking it for?” Maggie asked as she held Theo’s arm in place.

“The clap,” Glenn answered quickly and caught himself. Every one of us was looking at him and I fought the urge to laugh at his awkwardness. “Uh… Venereal disease. That’s what Daryl said.”

“I’d say Merle Dixon’s clap was the best thing that happened to you,” Patricia declared and this time I did laugh, out loud, just a Maggie did.

“I’m really trying not to think about that!” Theo suffered just a bit more.

Glenn left the room then, apparently unable to take Theo’s pain and the needles and his own awkwardness anymore. Poor guy, this instant crush on Maggie was palpable. She really was very pretty, and nice. I liked her a lot. I was glad to see her follow him out just a minute later, as soon as Theo’s stitches were done and she could let his arm go.

“Your turn,” Patricia told me after Theo thanked her and stumbled out of the chair, all but dragging himself over to the couch.

“Oh, God… Do I really have to?” I whined a bit.

“Come here, let me take a look.”

I got up from the chair I was in and occupied the one Theo vacated. Patricia removed my eyebrow bandage and looked the cut over before saying, “Sorry to disappoint, dear, but this will be a three or four stitches. It’s a small cut, but it went a bit deep and eyebrows tend to bleed a lot, see this?” she showed me the bandage and it was all red in new blood that had come out after Maggie tended to it.

“Yes, I figured. Let’s get on with it then…”

It did hurt a lot, the needle and the stitches perforating my skin, I could feel everything. But I didn’t cry out as much as Theo did, I’m proud to say. I ended up being four stitches, and a much smaller bandage after it was done.

A while later, I was sitting on the porch with a bowl of warm oatmeal, made with milk, and with raisins in it – oh, the heavens! Breakfast food for dinner, and the sustenance, it was just amazing. I ate is fast, but still appreciated the flavor of every spoonful. I was already scraping the bowl then a car approached. I placed it aside and got up to recognize Otis’ old truck. They were back! I got up and ran down the porch stairs just as the others left the house to greet them back.

Shane got out of the driver’s seat and took heavy bags from inside the car, and he limped his way to meet us, breathless, his eye wide and not blinking. He was a wreck. Something had gone really, really wrong, and where the fuck was Otis?

“Carl?”

“There’s still a chance,” Rick told him as Hershel took the bags and handed them to Glenn.

“Otis?” he asked Shane, also noticing his absence.

Shane looked down.

Fuck.

He took another moment to answer, saying simply “No.”

Fuck! We had just got that family’s friend killed.

There was a stunned silence and, by my side, I hear Maggie take a painful intake of breath. Hershel looked around, lost, and after a moment said “We say nothing to Patricia. Not ‘till after. I need her,” and he grabbed the heavy bags on his own again and ran inside.

Rick went to Shane and hugged him, thankful. I turned to Maggie, who was frozen on her spot and touched her shoulder. When she looked at me her green eyes were filled with tears and her lips trembled.

“I’m so sorry… God, I’m so sorry, Maggie…”

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep6: Gozaburo Kaiba Just Casually Started WWIII And Only This One Guy Cares

Welcome to November, where we celebrate writing a 50,000 word book as if I don’t do that every single time I write about an episode of Yugioh. Hello, this is my season. It’s wordy season. I’m so freakin good at doing this. I can’t say most of what I’ve made is any good, but I CAN say at least I’m prolific. Do enough content to fill that bitter pit and walk right over it, that’s been my motto for the past 5 years.

Anyway, I had an awful flu this past week. (Everyone I live with had it so every bathroom was like ground zero) It was SO bad. I still can’t eat spicy food over a week later (Which is so hard for me because usually I can keep up with my Indian friends, that’s my spicy level--max spicy, please--but since this illness, my white taste genes went into overdrive and I tried putting pepperoncini slices in my sandwich and it set my mouth on fire. Pepperoncini. It’s v embarrassing.)

I did attempt to write this post. Unfortunately I never made it past this cap because I got VERY distracted by the emblem on Alister’s face, and how it isn’t proportionally adjusted to match the angle of his face, and it was like three paragraphs of just wanting to talk about it. And then at some point I got very distracted talking about how many empty glasses I was given at my place setting at this baby shower I went to during the flu epidemic, and it mattered a whole lot to me at the time, but I think, overall, was mostly just some sort of nonsense. The things I’ve spared you. 

(bro has just informed me that the 4 gold-lipped crystal goblets I was given at this baby shower was actually very distressing and a very big deal and that I should absolutely talk to at least someone about it, but maybe he’s just saying that to make me feel better, but I have no idea. I am too sick for sarcasm at this time but my god why was I given so many glasses????)

I straight up have no memory of if I’ve made this joke before. Maybe.

(read more under the cut)

Since it feels like 8 years since the last time I could just eat chicken without feeling like I consumed an entire Thanksgiving meal, a little recap:

-Alister pretended he was Pegasus to lure Kaiba and then, off screen, murdered everyone in Pegasus’ castle

-Pegasus got murdered by I’m pretty sure Mai (which is like...OK then...)

-Yugi and Co went on vacation by driving directly through San Francisco and peeking out the window and saying “yeah that’s enough for me”

-No adults, not even Roland, bothered to come with their kids this time, so the only adult of the entire crew--Pegasus--is dead

-Rex and Weevil are luggage

-The Eye of Sauron showed up and it was the end of the world but Yugi threw a dragon at it so I guess everything is OK now

-Monsters are real but they are hard to animate so we’ll just pretend like they’re causing havoc everywhere although most of the planet seems basically unaffected by this.

-The Grim Reaper is a friendly monster that hangs out in a Japanese park and that feels fairly on brand.

And I think that was all that was happening so far.

In a weird twist of fate, Mokuba is the only one in this room that isn’t trapped which sort of...if you’re the only one NOT kidnapped wouldn’t that also be a type of being kidnapped?

And we finally get to figure out why Alister wants to Murder Kaiba so bad and, spoiler, it reaches.

???

I’m gonna get more to the obvious problems with Alister’s devotion to murdering all the Kaibas in a bit but yes, Alister is in fact going to try and Kill Kaiba on this kid’s show because of Kaiba’s Dad, who is such a horrible and abusive person that Kaiba essentially drove the bastard out of Japan and straight to the bottom of the ocean.

Just kinda feels like Alister has been living under a rock...which, I guess he has been. He has been living in some weird Atlantis structure so I guess he never got the memo that Gozaburo Kaiba is hella dead.

So that’s what they’re up to. How’s Sausalito?

Um.

Huh.

So the North Bay is a really classic scenery. It’s rolling hills. It’s NAPA. It’s like...definitely not Arizona. California has a couple of mesas but they’re no where near here and the Monument Valley style Mesas really only exist in Monument Valley.

And I know it’s because the background artist for Yugioh is all horny for horny rock structures but like...this couldn’t be farther from the Bay Area in the way that it is drawn and it is such a shock after all the work they did last episode to research that Bay Area lore. Once they crossed the Golden Gate they were like “well no one will care about this part” which is true not only of Yugioh but also of real life Californian politics.

Anyway, I have been making a map, but unfortunately my original file will not suffice. time to fix it.

There we go. Now they’re in the right place. Just smack dab in Monument Valley, Arizona, smack dab in the middle of the Navajo Nation and so hypothetically, not even in the United States anymore.

While in the car, Yugi has just been anxious as hell the entire time, and just going “y’all I have a bad feeling I’m uncomfortable I have a bad feeling” while Joey and Tea just patiently stared at him flipping out in the corner. So...kinda like a normal trip with someone who has high anxiety/possessed by a ghost. I  kinda feel like this is every girls trip to Disneyland for me. There’s always one Yugi who’s like “no one said anything about CROWDS.” and you kinda just gotta let them do their thing. Just let them get it out of their system and hide in the bathroom when they need to hide in the bathroom and don’t fight it, they’ll be fine. Just hold their spot in line when they desperately look for a secret place to medicinally vape because there’s too many freakin children at Disneyland.

And it is HILARIOUS that Yugi is able to have this type of premonition but cannot figure out that they have somehow missed San Fransisco and have wandered into a DESERT.

Back in Pegasus’ California (an island that legitimately looks more like California than actual Yugioh California) Alister has decided to go completely off the rails and it happens so fast and without any warning.

the line is actually “This doll used to be my brother’s” which is a very different meaning but both are likely from weird ass Alister and this weird ass show, so I’ll leave the cap like this (although yes, this is what I thought Alister was saying for kind of a while until I recorded it for this blog and was like “oh shoot I heard the line wrong when I had the flu huh.”)

Man, RIP Noah, he would have been excellent this episode.

Honestly seems like just yesterday when Seto and Noah were pitted against eachother by a cyberdemon Dad-head floating in the sky, Mokuba was possessed for some reason and being used as a human shield, Tristan was a robot monkey, and Yugi was just shrugging at Kaiba from across the field like “Kaiba if you don’t play good you die--oh my gods, he died. Well that was bound to happen...again.” Man.

Alister should be their best friend, this is nonsense.

So lets do the math to 7 years before 2002.

I searched Wikipedia for wars during 1995 (they do have a list of 90′s wars) and looked for any that involved heavy use of tanks and their artillery fire (on big swatches of cities like this), inner city western architecture, temperate landscapes, and western clothing that match Alister and Mikey (AKA WWII vibes) and found out:

Nothing fits that description

UNLESS Alister and Mikey are time travelers from a WWII bombing in Europe. This is Yugioh. That could happen. Probably not, but youknow...it’s not too late for Yugioh to bring in time travel.

I mean if you don’t want to get super political in your cartoon just invent a world war I guess? We’ve already clarified that Gozaburo was Big Boss, so at this point I can easily see him inventing wars just to sell ships.

(I could probably add thousands of more deaths at this point but I have no idea where they are, if they’re on a tiny island or an entire country so I’ll just...leave the count alone but just now it’s implied that a hell ton of people died during this episode)

People going off about how Sesame Street is so amazing for talking about issues like you’re Dad going to prison while Yugioh was straight up talking about the intricacy of the War Economy. Yugioh being all “don’t forget kids, your good capitalist economy survives off of the undeserved bloodshed of civilians in other countries! Eat the poor!” and it’s like hot damn this heavy commentary came out of freakin no where.

Anyways, this is stuff most kid’s shows will delicately skip over but nah, Yugioh is going to go here, and they are going to steamroll directly through it with massive tanks.

So, lets kill this kid’s entire family and talk about the terrors of the World War of 1995 and all the war orphans who get recruited to become soldiers at the ripe old age of 9. Alister was 9 when he was recruited to be a child card soldier.

This kid’s show.

Alister is...basically Raiden, right? Like as long as we’re talking about Metal Gear, this kid is just one step away from cyborg implants and weird colored blood?

Better wear bright red when you visit the war crime scene, surprised Gozaburo didn’t invite like an entire photo -op crew to incriminate him even further.

Now we did look up “where the hell is Alister from Yugioh from?” (there is no answer) and we did find out a little factoid. In the Japanese version of the show, Gozaburo had bought the land and was just forcibly evicting Alister and his family from their home with tanks.

Which is wild.

He just straight up evicted an entire metropolitan city????

Like the dub did a way better job than the sub at this one, I’ll give them that.

It’s just so weird that Gozoboro just didn’t like...raise the rent like a normal bad landlord. Instead he was like “rather than gentrify my land and save me a ton of money, I’ll just destroy everything I just bought and murder everyone here” which is like...

...Seto did the world so many favors when he kicked out his Dad, right? Like Damn. I don't understand why Alister isn’t freakin worshiping Seto right now when his whole deal is “I must kill Gozaburo” and Seto’s like “yo I already did that. Twice. I didn’t even have to literally kill him either, I just embarrassed him so bad that he killed himself. His stupid tank company sells joke games now. I literally turned the man into a joke.”

Then again, Alister is on the green magic and like I think it alters your brain chemistry somewhat.

(How ripped did Alister get in this episode, by the way? The kid is like 16 years old or something so how did this happen? ...The perpetual horny line running straight through Yugioh, man. Look at it run. That 16 year old is drawn like he’s 28 and really into Crossfit and his crop top gets smaller and smaller like every scene.)

So like this is a very gray issue that I cannot believe they brought up in a kid’s show (like can you imagine if Scrooge McDuck had to face facts that his company murdered tons of people???), but also this is Seto Kaiba. Seto grew up in the system, so like he doesn’t need to be lectured to about dirty money because he was on the losing end of that not too long ago. Seto is himself basically a upscale war orphan since he was adopted by Gozaburo to continue the machine like a freakin maniac (a Solidus Snake, if you will) so of all the people on this show I don’t get why Seto would care about this. This is just how Seto views the entire world as either losing or winning and no reason to feel bad about it because he’s been both.

Also...Seto stopped the machine. Kind of. He was unaware that cards were the same thing as weapons, but at least he stopped the sale of huge child-stealing tanks.

So they play the game for a little while and Seto does kind of poorly as usual, and just when I thought this episode couldn’t get any weirder...

And just like that, Seto peaces out. Like he does almost every single time he has ever played a card game solo except for that one time he was playing Joey Wheeler. (Which was also one of the few times Seto ever won.)

Like I just want to remind you that this segment is in the same episode as WWIII and the tonal whiplash is pretty remarkable.

That’s right, we’re back in the Unnamed Monster World, which is not the Shadow Realm, and which I thought you could only access if you were dreaming and able to search through the puzzle maze.

Apparently this can just happen at any time and all that stuff with the guiding Kuriboh and Yugi and Pharaoh trying to find this place was just...them wasting time.

Again he ditches the legendary sword so freakin fast because who needs a sword when you have a dragon? Only this anime.

And that’s how Seto, who was absolutely going to lose this game, somehow just barely came to a draw.

So just to recap, Seto has yet to win a card game that he didn’t get prophetic help for via a hallucination or Yugi telling him what to do. Unless you count Joey and grandpa.

Then, the one last adult I forgot about, the driver of Yugi’s car, decides that it’s about time that he also died and left this show as adult free as possible.

THE HELL ARE THEY?

Also...maybe it’s the angle but the writing on that gas station looks a lot like kanji.

Yo, what if this is the backgrounds for a different show and they’re just sharing? I mean I doubt it because Yugioh had a good enough budget but...what if? What if that’s why they’re in Arizona?

Anyway, next time we’ll find out if this guy just drops dead or has been a Yugioh monster this whole time, and I think maybe both?

And if you just got here, this is a link to read all my Yugioh recaps in chrono order

[kariachi]

Me: *does jack-all*

My Brain: You should throw some open-ended teen pregnancy panic au into the world

Me: Why?

My Brain: Because I’m giving you words, bitch, use them.

~~

They hadn’t even known there was a full alien community living under Bellwood until they’d followed Kevin’s badge right into it. The dot on the map led them straight to what seemed like a shoddy apartment building, to a door on the third floor. The person who answered immediately had their hackles up.

“Argit,” Gwen ground out.

“Tennysons,” the alien replied with even less enthusiasm. He turned to look inside. “Yo, Earthboy, guests!”

“Is it Death?”

“No.”

“Then tell ‘em to fuck off.” Argit shrugged at them like this was only mildly unusual, putting up no more resistance than a huff when they pushed passed him. Ben, at least, paid enough attention to notice he had a knife on him.

Kevin wasn’t difficult to find, splayed out on one of the couches looking for all the world like he hadn’t moved in twenty-four hours. It was a pathetic look, that would’ve had people who weren’t already upset at him concerned.

“You stood me up,” Gwen said, standing by his boots with her arms crossed.

“Hello to you too, Gwendolyn,” Kevin replied, unmoving and seemingly uncaring.

“Ben needed our help.”

“Is he dead?”

“No,” Ben cut in, making his way over to the opposite arm of the couch and kneeling down by Kevin’s head. “Just had some, issues, the last few days. Turns out Big Chill was pregnant.” The laugh that came out of Kevin was painfully joyless.

“What a coincidence, so am I.”

Jaws dropped. Blinking rapidly, Ben reached out, half on instinct, to pat Kevin’s head soothingly. Gwen dropped her arms and gaped.

“What is this,” she said, face twisted in something between confusion, shock, and concern, “an epidemic?”

“I hope not,” Argit replied, breezing passed her and sitting on the coffee table. “I don’t know if you’d worry, but I’d rather not be responsible to getting rid of unwanted kittens if I don’t have to be. Bad enough I gotta look out for this ass.” Weakly, Kevin flailed an arm in Argit’s general direction. The alien very obviously let it connect.

“I hate you.”

“I know, that’s why you keep me.” The Tennysons turned to him, since Kevin clearly wasn’t in the mood. He shrugged again. “Found out yesterday. He’s not taking it well right now.”

Gwen resisted the urge to chew her lip. That certainly explained why he hadn’t shown up last night, and why he hadn’t called. The implication that he hadn’t moved since then was concerning though.

“Is he alright,” she asked. Meanwhile Ben nudged Kevin into moving enough for the smaller teen to slip onto the couch, before his head fell again into his lap.

“He’ll be fine,” Argit replied. “Been stressful lately, what with being back on Earth, having bills to pay, sucking at paying ‘em because he’s busy helping you guys fend off an invasion, working with Ben after their bullshit, all the shit with you, dysphoria, the health problems his powers give him-” He took a deep breath and released it easily. “He was due a meltdown anyway. Won’t be more than a few days before he’s back in top condition, dealing with the problem.”

“Or, you could be a good friend,” Kevin grumbled, “and kill me.”

“What have I said, buddy,” Argit replied, shooting Gwen a fondly exasperated look as he reached out to join in patting Kevin. “If you die, who’ll keep me alive?”

“If you loved me, you’d die for me.” Argit just shook his head.

“Get back to me in seven days and we’ll talk about it.”

Pushing Kevin’s feet aside, Gwen settled on the arm of the couch, unwilling to be out of the central group for the sake of sitting properly. The past twenty-four hours had already been rather intense, what with her cousin turning out to be a daddy (mommy? parenty? what was she supposed to call him here?) but this was a whole new level. That had been a few days of concern followed by, essentially, nothing. With this? All she could think about was how this was going to affect the fight against the Highbreed, how it would affect their relationship, how it would affect Kevin, affect everything. But then Kevin was a mutant and they were supposed to be prone to miscarriages and oh god that was a horrible thought why had she even had that what was wrong with her

Argit damn near yanked her off the couch by the arm, looking thoroughly unimpressed.

“Come on, Red,” he said, “make yourself useful before your loud-ass thinking disturbs Kev’s perfectly good panic attack.”

She was never going to admit it, but being forced to make some weird-ass alien tea and basically put together and entire snack tray with nothing but Argit’s exacting instructions was actually very soothing- very much like dealing with her mother, with no room for excess thought- and by the time they got back into the next room Kevin had fallen into what she was fairly sure was a nap. She hoped it was a nap, he could probably use one.

She, Ben, and Argit very carefully avoided any potentially relevant topics for the rest of the afternoon.

[pikapeppa]

Fenris/f!Hawke and the Inquisition: Adventure

Chapter 46 of Lovers In A Dangerous Time (i.e. Fenris the Inquisitor) is up! This is a short one, and my updates might be a little spotty for the month of December, but don’t be fooled; this is not the end.

Read here on AO3.

********************

Two months after Corypheus’s death...

Leliana shuffled through the parchment on the war table and pulled out one particular page of Harding’s report from the Storm Coast. “As you can see here, the earthquakes have gotten worse. One of the old tunnels by the shoreline collapsed completely three days ago. No one was killed, thankfully, but three people were injured. One of them lost his foot. And still the darkspawn are breaking through the seals.”

“Venhedis,” Fenris muttered. He rubbed his forehead, then looked at Josephine. “And the situation in Emprise du Lion?”

She winced. “Also getting worse, I’m sorry to say. We have been forced to pull back from the camp by the Tower of Bone into Suledin Keep.” She studied the notes on her tablet. “It would be best we could settle on the other side of Judicael’s Crossing where there is no red lyrium, but–”

“The dragons, I know,” Fenris said brusquely. He rubbed his mouth for a moment, then looked at Cullen. “Can we send some forces with the Chargers to take out the dragons?” 

“We can, certainly. But most of them have never faced a dragon before.” He gave Fenris an apologetic look. “That may be a matter best dealt with by more, er, experienced warriors.”

Like myself, Fenris thought tiredly. He ran a hand through his hair, then shot Leliana and Josephine a flat look. “So the bottom line is this: there are insufficient resources to deal with both the earthquakes on the Storm Coast and the red lyrium epidemic in Emprise du Lion. We can only cope with one at a time.”

“For now, yes,” Josephine said. “We can easily collect more coin through donors, but that will require–”

“–more lip service from the Inquisitor,” Fenris interrupted. “I know.” He sighed loudly, then rose to his feet. “Tell me who to write and what to say, and I will do it,” he told Josephine. To Cullen he said, “I will speak with Bull about the dragons. He and the Chargers could deal with them. That might lessen the urgency of the situation in Emprise.” Finally he turned to Leliana. “Focus our main efforts on the darkspawn. A blight epidemic is the last thing we need.”

The advisors nodded approvingly, and Fenris finally took his leave of the war room. But even as he made his way through Josephine’s office, he couldn’t stop thinking about all the matters they were simultaneously trying to juggle. When Cassandra was finally crowned as the Divine, her support of the Inquisition would make matters easier, but Fenris could openly admit to missing her pragmatic advice in Skyhold, especially given everything they were trying to prioritize. 

Cullen’s soldiers were coping well with the residual rifts and Venatori zealots in the far west, but those rifts would need to be closed eventually. Red lyrium was the constant bane of everyone’s existence, and Bianca and Dagna’s first joint report about lyrium was still sitting untouched on Fenris’s bedside table due to lack of time. Hawke was spending more time with Fiona and the free mages since Cassandra’s election as the Divine, and Fenris hadn’t yet rustled up the courage to ask what they were discussing in the mage tower. He’d been in correspondence with Empress Celene, who was ever grateful for the continuity of their cordial relationship, but his letter to Briala had gone unanswered as of yet, and Fenris was somewhat concerned that it had been intercepted en route. 

He heaved a heavy sigh, then poked his head into the rotunda. In the months since Solas’s departure, Hawke and Dorian had taken to spending more time here poring over notes and tomes and doing magical experiments. But the rotunda was empty at the moment, and Varric wasn’t at his usual mail-littered table. 

Fenris didn’t mind. He knew where they would likely be if they weren’t in the rotunda. He headed down the basement stairs, then made his way to the tiny library across from the wine cellar, which Hawke had recently taken to hunkering down in. 

Sure enough, she was there with Dorian, Varric, Sera and Cole. The room was lit by a scattering of magical lanterns that cast a cozy warm light over the scene: Hawke was barefoot and curled in an armchair with a large book, and Cole was perched on the arm of her chair while the others played wicked grace at the table.  

Dorian seemed to be questioning Sera about her use of alchemy. “Let me be sure that I understand this correctly,” he said. “You consider swathing yourself in flame or ice to be normal and ‘not magic’?”

“‘Course,” Sera said as she threw a card down on the table. “For one, it comes out of a bottle. For two, I mess up, I get burned.” She pointed her cards at him. “You mess up, your head chucks up a demon. For three?” She tilted her head and thought for a moment, then shrugged unconcernedly. “Bottle, little burned, no demons. So there.”

Dorian raised an eyebrow. “But that’s…” He waved a dismissive hand. “You know, if it lets you sleep at night, never mind.”

Sera stuck her tongue out at him, and Varric waved Fenris over. “Hey, elf. Finally found a second to play a hand with us?”

“Yes, at last,” Fenris said. He shot Hawke a quizzical look as he pulled out a chair for himself; she hadn’t greeted him when he’d entered the room, and her face was creased in a frown as she studied her book. 

He hesitated, then approached her instead of sitting in his chair. “What are you reading?” he asked.

She gave him a distracted smile before pointing to the middle of the page of Elvhen text. “This glyph here. I keep seeing slightly different variants of it, but I’m fairly sure they all say the same thing.”

Fenris narrowed his eyes at the glyph, then drew back in surprise. “It… it says ‘Solas’.”

Everyone looked up. “What’s that now?” Dorian said.

Hawke tapped the page of her book. “‘Solas’ isn’t a name. Not a proper name like Fenris or Dorian, at least. It’s an Elvhen word.”

Fenris leaned back and folded his arms. “‘Abelas’ was also an Elvhen word. Solas said it meant ‘sorrow’.”

“Exactly,” Hawke said. “I cross-referenced this with this charcoal rubbing that some scouts got from that creepy oasis place, and I think I know what ‘Solas’ means.” She leaned back in her chair and lifted her chin.

There was a brief pause. Then Varric leaned his forearms on the table. “Well? Don’t keep us on tenterhooks.”

She grinned and coyly lifted one shoulder. “But what if I’m enjoying the suspense?”

“Pride,” Fenris said suddenly. He looked at her. “It means pride, doesn’t it?”

Hawke wilted. “You ruined my big reveal. But yes, it does.” She raised an eyebrow. “How did you…?”

“Cole said it,” Fenris said. “He said that Solas calls himself pride.” He looked at the spirit. “That is what you meant, isn’t it?”

Cole nodded. “Pride, he says, but the other face is stronger and sadder still.”

Hawke and Dorian gave him a funny look, and Fenris folded his arms. “So what, then? Solas was a… pride demon?” He wrinkled his nose; that didn’t seem to make sense, given Solas’s normal and non-monstrous appearance.

Dorian seemed to agree. “He was a little too good-looking to be a demon, I would say.”

Hawke snickered. “Don’t let Bull hear you say that.”

Dorian scoffed and folded his arms. “The big lummox would hardly be threatened. My type apparently now consists of large and one-eyed horned men.”

Sera snorted and slapped her knee. “Horned! Yeh, he’ll horn you, all right.”

Dorian elbowed her, and she cackled and punched his arm. Fenris ignored them and turned back to Hawke. “If not a pride demon, then… a pride spirit?” he suggested tentatively. “Can that even exist?”

“But he wasn’t really that proud, though,” Hawke said. 

Varric, Dorian, Sera and Fenris all looked at her incredulously, and she widened her eyes. “What?”

Sera was the first to speak. “You daft? He was so pride-y. Such a show-off.”

Hawke grimaced, and Dorian gave her a skeptical look. “Really, Hawke, can you recall a time when he ever admitted that he was wrong?”

She gave him a skeptical look in return. “Can you think of a time when he ever was wrong?”

Dorian glanced at Varric, who simply shrugged. Hawke folded her arms. “Seriously, think about it. He knew everything about everything. Anything you asked him, had an answer.”

Fenris huffed. “Unless he was parrying your questions like a shield deflecting a…” He trailed off and peered at Hawke in alarm. She was suddenly sitting up straight, and her face was slack with surprise.  

“What?” he demanded. “Hawke, what is it?”

She looked at him with wide eyes. “Wisdom,” she said.

“Huh?” Varric said.

“Wisdom,” she repeated excitedly. “That’s what he was: a spirit of wisdom! That’s why he was so close with that spirit in the Exalted Plains. They were the same kind of spirit! And think about it – wisdom corrupted from its purpose to inform or pass on knowledge…”

“Getting smug, you mean,” Fenris said flatly. 

She tutted in annoyance. “Yes, okay, fine. If you stop just trying to share your knowledge and start being smug about how much you know, you become–”

“Pride,” Varric said.

They all looked at each other in nonplussed silence for a moment. Then Cole spoke. “Wisdom knows enduring is pain. He hurts for her, another of many he couldn't save. He carries necessary deaths.”

Varric chuckled. “If that’s not confirmation, I don’t know what is.”

Hawke smacked Cole’s knee in exasperation. “You loveable fool! Why didn’t you say that ages ago?”

Cole lifted his shoulders. “I can’t control them,” he told her. “Thoughts come through me, a clamouring call that I can’t catch, slipping soft and unshackled from my lips like the love that you place in his ear.” His eyes drifted to Fenris.

Fenris awkwardly scratched his neck, and Hawke laughed brightly. “Well, that sounds romantic, but it’s not very helpful.”

At that moment, Fenris detected the distinctive sound of heavy and rapid footsteps approaching from the stairs outside the library. It sounded like just one pair of feet, but Fenris wilted all the same. He had no doubt that it was a messenger coming to fetch him for some urgent thing or another.

Varric grimaced. “Uh-oh. Fun time’s over, huh?”

“Very likely, yes,” Fenris said ruefully. 

Dorian shot him a wry look. “Tough luck, my friend.”

Fenris grunted and waited tensely to see who was coming their way. To his enormous surprise, however, the person who appeared in the library doorway was someone he was actually pleased to see.

Hawke and Sera exclaimed happily, and Fenris gaped at the new arrival. “Cassandra?” he said incredulously. “What are you doing here?” Her face looked like absolute thunder, but the moment her eyes landed on his face, her shoulders fell in relief. 

“There you are!” she exclaimed, and she hurried into the room to join them. “Andraste’s grace, tell me that you need me to travel somewhere with you. I need to hit something my sword. Repeatedly.”

Varric laughed. “Looks like someone is taking to the Sunburst Throne like a bronto takes to an Orlesian dinner party.”

Cassandra groaned and dropped into a chair beside him. “The clerics are drowning me in preparations for my coronation,” she complained. “I must meet with everyone individually to hear their ‘concerns’.” She gave Fenris a desperate look. “Their concerns are endless and petty. Every old grudge is now mine to solve, yet I can do nothing until after the coronation. It is maddening!” 

Hawke elbowed Fenris. “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Fenris said wryly. He gave Cassandra a faint smile. “My condolences, Most Holy.”

She tsked. “Please, Inquisitor, I am not the Divine yet.”

Fenris chuckled, and Dorian grinned and folded his arms. “Dare we ask how you made it all the way here from Val Royeaux without being dragged back kicking and screaming?”

Cassandra pulled a face. “I told them there was an emergency – Inquisition business. Let them run about in a panic without me for a while. Better than my accidentally throttling someone.” She turned to Fenris once more and clasped her hands in supplication. “Give me a reason to travel with you. Please. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

“Of course,” he said readily. “We are honoured by your return.”

“Thank the Maker!” she exclaimed. “Quickly, then, tell me where we are going. We should set out as soon as possible before someone tells me that I can’t.”

Hawke clapped her hands and put her book aside. “Finally, time for a trip!” she enthused. “I still can’t believe we’ve been cooped up here for two whole bloody months.” She smiled at Fenris expectantly. “So? Where are we headed next?” 

Fenris frowned and thought about the war table map. There were those rifts out west that needed closing and the earthquakes and darkspawn on the Storm Coast, and the dragons in Emprise needed dealing with still. Then there was that odd creepy temple in the middle of the desert that seemed to scare away all of Leliana’s scouts…

Fenris ran a hand through his hair, then looked up at Hawke. She had a distinct glimmer of excitement in her eye, and Fenris knew the meaning of that look on her face: adventure. 

He bowed his head to her. “My decision is this: the right hand of the Inquisitor should decide.”

Her smile widened even more, rendering her even more beautiful, and she let out a throaty laugh. “Lady’s choice, you say?”

“I do,” he said. He sat in his abandoned chair at the table and folded his hands comfortably behind his head. “You know I enjoy following you.” 

Varric smirked and rolled his eyes. Sera crooned a playful oooh while Cassandra made a playful disgusted noise, and Dorian mockingly complained that Fenris never asked him where they should go. But Fenris ignored them all in favour of Hawke’s heated and mischievous smile. He might regret leaving Skyhold during such a busy time, and he could only imagine the mountain of paperwork and letters and complaints that he would have to manage upon his return. But an adventure with Hawke would be worth the inevitable hassle.

“All right,” Hawke announced, and she rose to her feet. “I know where we’re going.” She grinned at Fenris. “It’ll be useful in the end, but you’re also going to think it’s foolish. Are you in?” 

He smirked faintly. Trust Hawke to twist a necessary errand into some sort of humorous lark.

And that, of course, was the point: Fenris did trust her, with his warrior’s heart and his life and with everything else, including showing him a lighthearted time in the midst of the madness of their lives.

“I place my trust in you, Hawke,” he said. 

Her smile broadened, and she planted her fists on her hips. “All right. Tell Bull and Blackwall we’re heading out tonight,” she said to Cole. Then she turned back to Fenris with a grin. “We’re going to have some fucking fun.”

[lady-olive-oil]

I NEED SOMETHING WITH SAM TEACHING YOU HOW TO FIGHT OR SOMETHING OMG 🥰 I can’t wait for Sam and Khadi!

Sure! I’m so glad you’re excited for it and I’m excited as well for everyone to get into their story. So for this I decided to combine this with the one I was gonna do anyway. So here is I’ve Been Waiting, with Sam Wilson x Khadijah Donovan:

Another day, another chance to get my weight up in training. Normally I’d train with Natasha, but she’s on a mission with the Black Widows so I had the studio to myself.

I’ve only been at the compound for about a few years, 2 tops be exact, and the team feels like a family. I haven’t been a full Avenger yet and there’s one person in particular who I think is afraid to actually talk to me.

When it came to Sam, he was scared to even talk to me because I’m the head honcho's daughter. But now he’s always around, shamelessly trying to flirt and tries to spar with me but the timing is always off. Especially after the whole civil war epidemic and my training with the Dora’s in Wakanda. He was one of the few people that I could see myself hanging out with outside of work. Some could even say I might have feelings for the man, but that’s neither here nor there.

Doing my sets on the punching bag, making it swing a few times against the force of my hits, I felt an uneasy presence in the room. Without looking I roundhouse kicked my leg and was met with a smiling Sam, seeing as though he caught my leg.

“Wilson, you know better than to sneak up on me like that.”

Dropping my leg, he chuckled and shook his head. “Donovan, you know me better than that. Besides I like watching you squirm. Figured you’d need a partner.”

“In sparing? You know I can kick your ass right?” Arching a brow in disbelief I chuckled dryly, crossing my arms over my chest. I then went back at the punching bag, until I heard his remark.

“Doubtful.”

“What? You of all people, don’t think I can kick your ass?” Abruptly stopping my sets, I looked in his direction as he’d tape his hands up.

“I know you can’t, Donovan. I’d like to see you try though.” His hands were up in defense. “Hit me.”

“Sam I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Don’t worry sweetheart, you won’t. Hit me.” That struck a nerve.

“Alright fine. Where do you want me to hit you?” Popping my neck a bit, I rolled my shoulders and got into position.

He pointed to the left side of his face. “Right here. Try it- ouch! I wasn’t ready what the hell!” I punched him in that spot, catching him off guard.

“Pay attention. Never let your guard down, Wilson.”

He eyed me gently, getting into position again. “This time imma block it. Hit me in my chest, maybe you won’t- fuck!” I sent a swift kick to his right pectoral, sending him flying straight back onto the mat.

“Told you to be ready. Keto your eyes sharp and attention alert.” Snickering at him while offering a hand to help him up, but outta nowhere he pinned me to the mat.

The triumphant smirk on his handsome face, was one for the books. He was straddling my waist, having both of my hands locked with his just staring into my eyes like a mad man.

“Damn you got some pretty eyes.”

What was he doing? This must be a distraction tactic because I haven’t gotten a compliment in years. If I did I would always block them out and continue working. Time to use the training Natasha taught me.

“You think so? My mother says when the sun hits them, it’s like there’s specks of gold in them.” The sound of my voice was like a siren calling out to a sailor at sea.

I somehow managed to slip one leg out from under him, without him noticing.

“She ain’t lying, they’re really are pretty.” He was in a trance, a deep one at that. Perfect time for me to maneuver my way out from under him.

“Yes they are.” With a swiftness I slipped from under him, sent a swift kick to make him land flat on his back pinning him down instantly.

When he finally came to he chuckled and tried to get up. “You’re fast. I like you.” He jumped up quickly and tried to grab me, but I was too quick.

“Nice try Wilson. But I will always be one step ahead.” We were circling each other now, like a couple of hungry lions engaged in war.

A sudden shift in the room caused Sam to lick his lips seductively. This fool here.

“Teach me something.”

“Like what?” Curiosity got the better of me, as I crossed my arms over my chest.

He sucked his teeth, checking me out. “The head scissors.”

“You want me to wrap my thighs around your head and yank you down?”

“Yeah.”

Chuckling a bit with a sigh. “You’ve dreamt about my thighs around your head before haven’t you, Wilson?”

“Many times Donovan, many times.”

Blocking each other’s hits and blows, flipping each other over our shoulders, and landing on one feet each time, I was getting ready to do what he wanted. That was until he had me pinned against his chest.

He whispered gently in my ear. “Look at you, the little spitfire taking charge everywhere.” He made me look at us both in the mirror and kissed my neck a little. “Did you just squirm? Oh sweetheart got a thing for me huh?”

I elbowed him in the gut hard, twisted his arm and did the head scissor with a swiftness. “No I did not, and no I don’t Sam.” This time I straddled his waist and was at eye level with him, pinning him down.

The shift came back and I don’t know what happened, I just kissed him. There was no spell, no enchantment, nothing. It was as if I wanted to kiss him and part of me did. I was shocked when he kissed me back to be honest, because I never thought he would. His lips were softer than I thought they were, and his hands were firmer too as they squeezed my hips in the process

“Hey Khadi I’m back. We can- oh shit my bad.” The sound of Natasha’s voice caused us both to separate fast and scramble to our feet. “Tony and Stephan! You boys owe me $60 each!”

The collective noise of groans could be heard from down the hall as I felt my face heat up in embarrassment. Natasha sent a wink in my direction before heading down for debriefing.

“So, that kiss was something.” Sam’s voice got my attention this time.

“Uh yeah it was. Listen I can understand if you don’t want to be around me.”

“Not be around you? Khadijah I’ve been trying to get your attention since you’ve been here.” His confession threw me off my game but I felt a genuine sense of pride.

“Wait really? So you’re into me? The director's daughter?”

“Fury’s daughter or not, I have always found you attractive girl.” Placing a sweet kiss on his cheek, I headed out the training room with my bo staff in hand.

I left him dumbfounded, which was my plan all along. “So is that a yes to a date or?”

“Let’s just say, you gotta work for it Wilson.” Sending a wink and a smirk in his direction before I kept walking, I knew this was gonna be a fun ride.

He chased after me to catch up, thus draping his arms across my shoulder. “Hey! I just realized you called me Sam a while ago, and not Wilson. I’ll work for it, trust me.”

“I don’t doubt it bird brain.”

“Right back atcha, fire bender.”

A very fun ride indeed.

———————

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