#when this was pointed out to me I failed to digest the implications for like. five years. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sugaxjpg · 4 years

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ghosts just wanna have fun; m

⤷ When Jungkook discovered that he could communicate with dead people, the last thing he expected was that they would be there to give him romantic advice.

✓ Couple: Jungkook x Reader | Psychic!AU & MedSchool!AU

✓ Filed under: fluff, crack (so many ghost puns), light smut (and jungkook being a nervous virgin)

✓ Words: 20,062

Author’s Note: In which Jungkook is able to see spirits, but it’s just Taehyung and Yoongi giving him dating tips because he sucks at talking to girls. Hope you guys like it, because it has been on my WIPS for over a year and a half and I can’t believe it’s finally out there... emotional, really.

Also, huge thanks to @storytaeme, who proof-read this mess like a champ.

There aren’t many embarrassing situations that can overcome the fact that Jeon Jungkook found out about his psychic abilities as he was about to lose his virginity.

To say the least, that hadn’t been the most pleasant of scenarios to open the pathway to the afterlife. Really, there was no casual way that he could justify the scream that broke from his lips, or the dramatic spin he took as he turned around on the bed — which, ultimately, had him falling into the small space between the nightstand and the wall, with his legs up in the air, and his butthole fully exposed for both planes of existence to see.

Still, that hadn’t been the worst part. If those two pallid silhouettes had merely disappeared once he had seen them, it wouldn’t have been as traumatic — perhaps Jungkook could have found a semi-believable excuse about what he had witnessed — but no. Not only did the ghosts remain there, with their arms crossed before their achromatic clothes and eyebrows slightly raised in expectation, they continued their conversation as if nothing had happened.

“Oh, he was definitely going to put it in the wrong hole,” the shorter of the two murmured, clearly entertained at the idea.

The other scoffed. “What if he did?” he threw back. “Maybe he likes that, we can’t judge.”

Truth was that, one way or another, Jungkook couldn’t even figure out what he liked — he didn’t even get the chance. He was gone from his (ex) girlfriend’s place before his brain could even attempt to construct a plausible explanation, even less to digest what had preceded that unfortunate revelation. Now, the wrong hole would forever be a source of trauma for him.

And the problems didn’t exactly stop there. Ever since his cherry-popping session was interrupted, Jungkook hadn’t been able to move further than the first base, thinking that he would embarrass himself all over again or, worse, be frightened by a random demon passing by. Also, the constant mockery of his ghostly counterparts certainly didn’t help his concentration.

The worst part? Helping Jungkook was kind of their whole point. And they couldn’t even do that right.

Taehyung and Yoongi were their names — they told him right after the first night he saw them. Jungkook didn’t know what had happened in the afterlife that they had been punished with such a horrendous mission and, frankly, at that point, he was too afraid to ask.

“But I don’t need your help,” Jungkook had said after one particularly bad date, dramatically throwing himself onto his bed. The furniture creaked under his weight and he wondered if it would snap before his mind did. “I just want you to leave me alone or, I don’t know, help me with something else — something useful.”

The two ghosts were by his desk, looking at his class notes and, at that comment, Yoongi raised his eyebrows. “Useful? Like what?” He asked.

“I don’t know, solving crimes or something,” Jungkook mumbled, turning around so he would face the wall. God, he just needed two seconds alone.

Behind him, Taehyung laughed. “You don’t even know how to open a bra, and you're out there thinking of reopening cold cases? Give me a break.”

“Ouch,” Jungkook whispered. Maybe another time, it would’ve hurt his pride a bit more. That night, however, he was too tired to care. “For your information, I do know how to open a bra. You two just started whispering and it distracted me.”

“We were whispering to you the instructions on how to open a bra,” Yoongi responded. “Would you need those if you knew what you were doing? No.”

Jungkook sighed. “I just—”

“This conversation is done, we went over this already.” Yoongi interrupted. “You need us, whether you want it or not. You’re painfully bad at romance, Jungkook, even worse at initiating sex. I’ve never seen something like that before.”

At that, Jungkook rolled on the bed and faced them. There was only one light in his bedroom that was on — the table lamp — and its clear orange shade passed through them both in an odd mixture of contours and lines. “Maybe if I could do it myself, without you two buzzing around the place, it wouldn’t be so bad,” he responded, aggressive.

“Calm down. You were already bad enough when we arrived,” Taehyung told him, leaning over to see all the scattered pages on his desk. He frowned once he saw something he couldn’t quite understand, and quickly turned away from it. “Nothing changed much.”

“Right!” Jungkook sat up on the bed. “Isn’t that enough of a sign for you two to stop trying to help me, then?”

“No,” Yoongi said calmly. “That’s a sign that we have to try harder. And so do you.”

He sneered. “I absolutely don’t.”

“Yes, you absolutely do,” he said. “You know what? Grab your phone and get yourself a date with that girl you like from physiology class. Two weeks from now.”

There was a second of silence as Jungkook’s mind struggled to piece the idea together. He wasn’t even sure about who Yoongi was referring to, there were a lot of girls in his class. “What? Why?”

“Just trust us. She’s into you,” Yoongi spoke.

Taehyung nodded in agreement. “It’ll work out.”

Jungkook scoffed. “When does it, really?”

“This time, it will,” Taehyung said. “Really. Do it.”

“Fine.” He breathed out, reaching for his phone. “What girl?”

Yoongi looked him up and down. “You know what girl.”

With a deep breath, Jungkook scrolled over his contact list, struggling to find someone that he would have even the slightest chance with. Truth was, he has no fucking clue of which one of the hundred and fifty people in his class would even look in his direction, much less go on a date with him.

“You do know… right?” Taehyung asked, clearly worried. “We can’t really give you names, but you… know, right?”

“What? Oh, yeah, yeah! Sure I do!” Jungkook laughed nervously, clicking on a random name and opening a chat. “Here, I’m sending her a text right now. No reason to worry… no reason at all.”

“Good,” Yoongi said, distracted. “Now, if you need us, we’ll be watching Gone Girl with your neighbors. We already missed the start of the movie, and I’m pissed off as it is.”

Taehyung nodded. “Amazing movie,” he said. Jungkook pressed send and prayed for the best. “We should have more movie nights over here.”

Yoongi said something in agreement and, in a second, they were already gone. Jungkook was left alone in his bedroom, with the light of his lamp casting over his features the desperation that he was feeling inside.

“This better work,” he mumbled to himself. “You two better not be trying to embarass me.”

_____________

And then, two weeks later, Yoongi and Taehyung were laughing at him as his last failed attempt at romance got up from her chair and basically ran away from him.

Yoongi leaned back against the chair, his ankles crossed over the large table. If someone else could see him then, he surely would have received a few complaints about keeping the mall under semi-sanitary conditions. “Jungkook, I’ll tell you something,” he started, clearly amused. “You’re so bad at romance that I wish I was alive just so I could punch some reason into you.”

Taehyung, who had stayed mostly quiet during the painfully awkward interaction, walked beside Jungkook and chuckled at his distress. Still, he was focused on the other ghost, and the implication of his speech. “That amount of violence is the exact reason why you’re no longer alive, Yoongi,” he pointed out, then turned to Jungkook before he could smirk at the reprehension. “But really, that was awful. If I weren’t spiritually tied to you, I would’ve given up by now. You’re hopeless.”

“Completely out of it,” Yoongi added. “Do you even know how women work?”

Jungkook rolled his eyes, and reached for his phone: there was no way he would enter a discussion with those invisible pricks in a public situation without something to mask it. Not that it would have been the first time.

Yoongi materialized on the seat next to Jungkook, his head leaning against his hand. The boy was already used to those sudden changes of position, but that didn’t mean that he liked it. In fact, after Taehyung had appeared next to him during a particularly bad time — in which the incognito tab had already been opened, and a bottle of lotion already waited for him — he could never erase the intense panic of such experiences.

But of course, Yoongi knew that, and he used his discomfort for his own entertainment. “You can’t ignore us, kiddo,” he said slowly, clearly amused. “And you can’t ignore the fact that you’ll die alone, surrounded by cats, if you don’t start listening to what we have to say. We have been tied to you for a reason.”

“And the reason,” Taehyung added, “is to make you stop cockblocking yourself.”

With a subdued groan, Jungkook pressed his phone against his ear — an old trick that allowed for him to have a conversation without being seen as clinically insane by passersby. “You two are the reason why this date went downhill,” he told them. “You told me to say all the wrong things. You two set this up knowing I’d fail.”

“Oh, no.” Taehyung shook his head in disagreement. “The words were right. Your delivery was awful.”

“Western-movie-awful,” Yoongi added. “And if you want to change that, you have to trust us.”

“Trust you? Where has that taken me?” Jungkook questioned, irritated. “You’re the reason why I lost my first girlfriend and haven’t had another one ever since.”

Yoongi chuckled. “The girl from the first night? She never talked to you again after that, did she?” He asked, but, of course, he already knew the answer. “Damn, that was cringe-worthy. Butt in the air and everything.”

“No need to remind me, I was there.” Jungkook clenched his jaw, trying to control his demeanor. It wasn’t fair that there was not much that he could do to make the two men shut up — since they were, quite literally, already dead, he didn’t have many threats to utter. “And whose fault was that?”

“Technically, yours.” Taehyung shrugged. “We didn’t present ourselves to you, you just saw us all of a sudden. We were just as surprised.”

“Besides, you were the one that had the B.F.,” Yoongi added.

Jungkook raised one eyebrow. “B.F.?”

“Bitch fit,” Taehyung elucidated. “He watched White Chicks with your neighbors last night, don’t worry about it.”

Jungkook groaned, pressing his hand against his face. Of course — the cherry on top would be outdated pop references, as expected. Yoongi had always been quite fond of the classic ‘with great power comes great responsibility’, and Jungkook thought that the overuse of that quote would be the ultmost reason for his insanity. Nevertheless, he came to understand that it was nothing compared to movies like White Chicks or even Legally Blonde. He would rather hear Uncle Ben’s famous line a billion times over before Yoongi accused him of having a B.F. once more.

He took a deep breath and tried to focus on the environment around him. The murmurs and disembodied conversations around the mall had morphed into the sound of irritating insects, and he felt as if the earth could just open up and eat him alive. He probably committed a terrible crime in a past life to be stuck with Tweedledee and Tweedledum like that.

“Anyways,” Jungkook stressed, “it didn’t seem like the two of you were surprised that I could see you. You just kept… talking about me. And my ass.”

Taehyung chuckled. “You were the one with the ass up in the air.” He vanished, then materialized in the seat in front of Jungkook. “What were we supposed to do? Ignore it?”

“It was an easy target,” Yoongi spoke, then seemed to realize the words that had left his mouth. “Wait, I didn’t mean the double interpretation.”

“Why can’t the two of you just fucking help me for once?” Jungkook asked aggressively. In a nearby table, one old man raised his eyes from his vegan burger and stared the boy up and down in disapproval. Jungkook lowered his voice and switched his phone to the other ear. “This is unbearable. You two are only making it worse.”

With a gesture that Jungkook knew all too well, Taehyung used his thumb to point over his shoulder, towards the path that his failed date had followed. “That one wasn’t good enough for you,” he said nonchalantly. “We can tell. We know stuff.”

“Then why did you set this up in the first place?” He asked, exasperated.

“As DJ Khaled says, you played yourself,” Yoongi cited. One more reference and Jungkook would be the one joining the world of the dead. “It’s not our fault that you get nervous and can’t deliver the lines right. When have the two of us ever failed?”

“When you died,” he spoke back. “Or did you forget the stupid mistake you made?”

Yoongi hesitated. As much as he tried to play it cool, he wasn’t the smartest one around. In fact, his tragically premature death was all the evidence Jungkook needed to make his point clear.

During his living days, Yoongi was pretty invested in rock climbing. On a beautiful summer afternoon, just as the sun was setting over the green-bathed hills, one of his friends dared him to bungee jump from the same cliff they had just climbed, and were standing on. Of course, the man agreed promptly, saying that he wouldn’t back out from such a mundane task; stating repeatedly that the fall wouldn’t be so high up anyway. But that wasn’t the turning point: Min Yoongi, in all his adventurousness, quickly decided that his local shop was too expensive and that he would create his own bungee jump cord instead.

According to him, making the cord proved itself to be quite an easy task. He had gotten some help from his local adrenaline addicts and the final product was a very good copy of the factory-made ones. He measured the cliff twice just to be certain, compared it to the rope, and made sure to test the sustentation and elasticity as many times as he could.

Still, Yoongi had overlooked an imperative detail: he shouldn’t use a cord that was the same height as the cliff he was jumping from.

Needless to say, he only realized his mistake once he was already dead.

Yoongi scoffed at the memory, ignoring his hurt pride. He swore he could still feel his back hurting when he thought about that. “That isn’t the point,” he said. He often did that: changed the subject once he realized he couldn’t leave with the upper hand. “The point is that you keep delivering lines like you’re a bad boy in a South American novela, then expect us to perform a miracle on you.”

Jungkook frowned, lowering his head. “That’s actually so wrong.”

But the problem was: Yoongi was right, and Jungkook knew it. In fact, that had been the exact reason why his date had left him that night — the boy had misunderstood Taehyung’s advice to play off as a mysterious man, and instead projected his image somewhere between a psychopath and a person that had only K-dramas as a basis of how human interactions were supposed to work. Jungkook missed his attempts at romance the entire time, but the breaking point was when Yoongi told him to act as a bad influence because, according to him, girls dig a good bad boy.

Once again, Yoongi wasn’t the brightest mind when it came to risk-taking. That was why he was more dead than Jungkook’s bedroom.

Jungkook, however, did not realize his own errors until it was too late. He had chuckled at his date’s embarrassment, using his opening to delicately place her hair behind her ear. “I’m going to tell you something,” he started, voice swift and placid as a river. With his eyebrows raised and his lips vaguely forming a pout, he looked like an off-brand version of Handsome Squidward. “I’m not really a good influence, and surely not the kind of guy you’d like to get with. So why don’t you do me a favor and follow the simple orders I give you, uh?”

Her eyes had widened in a mixture of second-hand embarrassment and fear. From the corner of his eyes, Jungkook saw her reaching for her purse over the table. “No, thank you,” she was quick to say. “I don’t think this will work, sorry. I’ll see you around college.”

And that’s how they ended at that point. The point they always seemed to end up in.

“I think I need a break from all of this,” Jungkook said, closing his eyes for a moment of peace. “I have a huge test next week and I couldn’t even study for it because of all the preparation for this stupid date. Can you two just take a step back? Just for a little while. Romance can’t be all that I think about.”

As he opened his eyes, he saw Taehyung staring at him. He couldn’t really read his expression.

And, without an answer, the two of them vanished.

_________________

If someone asked Jungkook why the hell he thought going to medical school was a good idea, he’d simply say that, at the time, it made sense. After all, he had thought, he’d be some sort of super-doctor, since he had an exclusive VIP pass to the afterlife — just imagine how many people he would be able to help just by asking a friendly ghost what was wrong with a patient. It would be a game-changer. He could even find the cure of cancer if he tried hard enough.

But of course, he quickly realized that he should’ve thought further about his decision. Maybe being a detective would have made much more sense — it would have been a lot cheaper, that’s for sure, and he wouldn’t have to sit through almost twelve hours of classes every single day for a diploma that seemed to be too far away for him to care.

That particular class, however, wasn’t the worst one out there.

It was Tuesday, and Tuesday meant Pathology. Jungkook loved that class because the professor hated teaching it, so the students had to sit in silence for about three hours trying to read the textbook by themselves. The professor said he would be there to answer any questions, but he was mostly scrolling through his phone and interrupting students every time they tried to ask him something — “That’s in the textbook, just keep reading.”

Most of his classmates absolutely despised that subject, but Jungkook thought it was wonderful: he often learned better by himself anyways, and the lack of conversation during class brought him some sense of peace. Besides, Yoongi and Taehyung hated sitting in that quiet room for too long, so they mostly left after ten or twenty minutes of trying — and failing — to strike up a conversation with Jungkook. It was the perfect day.

Well, most days it was.

Just as he was about to move forward to the next topic — Adrenal Insufficiency and Addison’s Disease — , the boy felt something poking his bicep and he was quick to turn to his side. Instantly, he recognized your expectant gaze and something fluttered inside his stomach.

“Hey, Jungkook,” you whispered, leaning over your desk, “is tomorrow afternoon still up? I really need help in cardiac physiology. I kind of suck.”

He hummed in agreement, fighting against the nervousness that crept up on him. Jungkook’s palms started to sweat just by looking at you, he really was one step away from reverting back to his pre-teen days. “For sure. I’ll be at yours at five,” he managed to get out.

“Thank you so much,” you said, then moved back against your seat. “I owe you one.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled. If it had been anyone else, Jungkook would’ve had a stroke by then — after all, he wasn’t always invited to a girl’s place so easily. That’s someone that I have absolutely no chance with, he thought. So friendzoning himself made everything much easier. “Are you sure you don’t want to meet up at the library?”

“I can’t really concentrate there,” you answered. “But if you prefer, we could go.”

“No, no.” He shook his head. “Your place is fine.”

You smiled again, and Jungkook thought that maybe being shot wouldn’t hurt so much. “Thanks. See you at five.”

Jungkook nodded and turned around, facing his laptop. Just as he was about to restart typing his notes, he saw a known reflection at the corner of his computer. Oh, God, have mercy.

Yoongi’s reflection smirked from the back row. “Oh, man, she’s so into you.”

Jungkook shook his head in denial, eyes still glued to the PDF file in front of him. If anything, his classmates would have just guessed he was finding that subject more difficult than usual and, quite frankly, no one could judge him.

“No?” Yoongi raised one eyebrow, reappearing by his side with his hand supporting his cheek. Jungkook didn’t even need to look at him to know that he was just looooving the discomfort that grew inside his limbs. “I know those things, kiddo. It’s my job.”

From the front seat, Taehyung hummed in agreement. He had his arm placed over the chair, and seemed to find that entire situation a bit boring — maybe because he had seen it countless times before. “She definitely wants to get some of that,” he said. “We are proud of you, son.”

With a subdued sigh, Jungkook scribbled some aggressive words at the corner of his notebook, and showed it to the man by his side. “Look at this, Taehyung, he’s trying to convince us that they’re just friends,” Yoongi mocked, crossing his arms. “That’s cute. Just because you’re that oblivious, it doesn’t mean that we are.”

“Jungkook, we’ve been watching the two of you talk the entire semester,” Taehyung added. “Besides, Yoongi made me follow her around once. She’s definitely into you. In unholy ways.”

Yoongi nodded once again. “She wants to be your boo.”

“Was that a fucking ghost pun?” Taehyung’s nose cringed up in disgust, and Jungkook had to fight back the reflex of laughing at his reaction. “Awful.”

“At least I’m not the one who ghostwrote Jungkook’s ethics essay.” Yoongi threw back. “Yeah, and that was another pun. You’ve got no spirit.”

“You know what? Now I know why Jungkook can’t stand us anymore.” Taehyung smirked and, then and there, Jungkook knew exactly what was coming. “He can see right through us.”

The other ghost nodded. “Yeah, we’ve reached a dead end.”

Jungkook groaned in exasperation, hiding his face behind his hands. “This is torture.”

Next to him, you chuckled. “Come on, pathology isn’t even that bad. You’re good at this.”

“I know, I’m just tired.” He turned around to look at you, uttering the same excuse he had been using this entire semester. Not that it was an uncommon one, especially in the fifth circle of hell that was medical school. “I think I need to splash some cold water on my face. Wake myself up.”

You hesitated, staring at him as he stood up. Jungkook looked strangely pale, like he was about to throw up all over the classroom. “Is everything okay?”

Fantastic! My bachelor ghosts are just making me have a nervous breakdown.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” He said, almost stumbling over your chair. Some of your pens fell down, but Jungkook couldn’t even bring himself to get them. He’d probably just knock everything else over in the process, and he wasn’t even sure that he could stand back up after. “Shit— Sorry. I’ll be right back.”

Behind him, Yoongi chuckled. “Spook-tacular skills, as always.”

_____________

The sound of running water was all that entered Jungkook’s mind for a moment, his face feeling the coldness of the liquid as he splashed himself once, twice, trying to clear his thoughts. In the end, it was mostly in vain: his class was ruined, his notes were left unfinished, and he couldn’t get a second of tranquility anymore — not even in Pathology. If he weren’t canonized after his death, he would file a complaint for sure.

Abruptly, he closed off the faucet and the water stopped running. There was a heavenly instant of quietness, in which Jungkook followed the crystalline droplets falling from his hair to the sink, before Yoongi’s voice echoed behind him. “How you doin’, champ?”

Jungkook sighed and raised his head, looking at his ghost counterpart through the dirty mirror. “Is the bathroom empty?” he asked calmly.

“Hm? Yeah,” Yoongi said. “The ghost is clear.”

Just like that, his serenity was gone. “Yoongi, can you fucking stop? Your puns stopped being funny after the third attempt,” Jungkook asked, exasperated. He pulled some paper towels, and got even angrier at the way they fell apart in his hands. Good to know his college money was being used wisely. “Jesus. Where is Taehyung?”

“You know he hates toilet paper,” Yoongi told him. “Reminds him of his death.”

Jungkook considered the compelling idea of banging his head against the bathroom wall until he, himself, was part of the world of the dead. As he recalled very well, Taehyung had been a victim of Final-Destination-levels of misfortune: just because he had forgotten to take toilet paper to his camping trip, the boy had been forced to use nearby leaves. Those, as he would soon come to understand, caused an awful allergy on his lower lands, and the punctual bleeding was a sufficient opening for opportunistic diseases. The culprit? Some super strange bacteria that floated around the river. He was dead less than twenty hours after he came back home from septic shock.

Taehyung had endured, quite frankly, one shitty death. And, yes, Yoongi had made that joke a few too many times before.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jungkook realized. “What did I tell you two about chit-chatting with me in large public places? Especially my classes? I have to pay attention. And I have a test in two days, I need to be all here, and not thinking about other people.”

Yoongi giggled — almost childishly so — at the other’s anguished attitude. His teeth, a pallid shade of white, could barely be seen against the olive-green tiles that covered the bathroom walls. “You weren’t paying attention to the processes of intestinal inflammation, that’s for sure,” he teased, forcing himself to hold back his jokes a bit.

“I wasn’t even studying that chapter,” Jungkook mumbled.

Even Yoongi, who had a dense personality for such a diaphanous soul, could tell that the student was not in the mood for mockery. “Man, why are you so stuck-up? Taehyung and I are ghosts, but you’re the one with the dead sense of humor.”

Jungkook realized he needed a moment to think before he started yelling at nothing in a public bathroom. He really hoped the other stalls were empty, but he couldn’t be bothered to check.

“This isn’t about the puns. You two just don’t respect my privacy,” Jungkook said. This time, he was able to pull some good paper towels and proceeded to dry his face. “This has been going on for too long. Why don’t you two just vanish for some time?”

“Wish I could, kiddo, but I’ve got hours to clock,” Yoongi finally admitted. From the mirror, he could see the frown of confusion that was cast over Jungkook’s features. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m only following rules. Talk to the big guy upstairs if you want to complain.”

He threw the paper on the trash and shook his head in confusion. “I just don’t see the point of any of this.”

“You don’t have to.” Yoongi took a step closer. He often looked so unbothered — the two of them, actually — that Jungkook caught himself wondering which certainties they held, notions that would most likely be given after death. “Just do what we tell you to do.”

“That has only embarrassed me so far,” he said, turning around. “I don’t think I have it in me to trust in you two one more time. It has gotten me nowhere. Or, rather, nowhere good.”

Yoongi sighed. “Alright, let’s do it like this, then: You go and help Y/N with her cardio whatever stuff, and Taehyung and I just watch. We promise to shut up, unless you’re doing something seriously embarrassing. Other than that, absolute silence.”

Jungkook narrowed his eyes. “You promise you two won’t tell me what to say?”

“Promise.” Yoongi nodded. He looked very sincere. “We won’t talk to you.”

“I can live with that, yeah,” Jungkook agreed, leaning against the bathroom sink. “Sounds good.”

“Perfect.” He smiled. “Trust me, Jungkook. I only made one mistake in my life.”

Jungkook smirked. “And it killed you.”

“Not the point.” He raised one finger, clearly annoyed, then pointed it at Jungkook. “You’ll do great. It’s not like you’re gonna tell her about us or something.”

He laughed. “Yeah, that’d be awful.”

________________

But that was, ultimately, what he did.

To be fair, it was never Jungkook’s intention. He was completely sure that it would ruin not only his friendship with you, as it would also ruin his reputation, both as a student and as a future physician. Come on, how would he even explain that? How could he tell anyone that he not only saw two obnoxious ghosts, but that they were there to give him romantic (and sometimes sexual) advice? That’s insanity.

Spoiler: he didn’t explain it very well.

In the cosmic perspective, however, it was kind of Yoongi’s fault too. He had the problem of giving away too much sometimes, especially when he was alone and free from Taehyung’s scrutiny. And it was that extra bit of information that catalyzed the explosion that would become Jungkook’s confession.

For some reason or another, Taehyung hadn’t joined the two of them that day, as Jungkook crossed the campus towards your place. For the first time in a long time, their conversation — which was, again, masked by Jungkook pretending to be on the phone — was actually quite pleasant. Yoongi had told him a bit more about his life back in the day and explained that he was studying to become a lawyer when he died.

“I was thinking of dropping out anyways,” he said. “I just picked a random thing to study because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And, well, I kind of did drop off. Just not from the course.”

Jungkook could not help but laugh at the absurdness of it all. Sad coincidences aside, it was unusual for Yoongi to make jokes about his death. Taehyung was much more open about it, but Yoongi seemed to be very bitter because of the way and the time he passed. But of course, who was Jungkook to judge?

“You know,” Yoongi started after a moment of quietude. “Taehyung and I were pretty surprised that day at the mall.”

Jungkook frowned. “Hm? Why is that?”

The other man chuckled. “Honestly? Because you’re dumber than we thought.”

Seems like pleasant times didn’t last much between the two of them. “We’ve established that I can’t talk to girls, Yoongi, I know.” Jungkook really wanted to change the subject.

“No, not that,” he denied. “Let’s go back a little. Remember what we told you in your bedroom that night? To get the physiology girl.”

Jungkook nodded. “Yeah, what about it?”

Yoongi laughed, amazed that Jungkook still didn’t get it. “You called the wrong one, idiot,” he explained.

“What?” Jungkook paused in his tracks and, in a mindless reflex, forgot he was supposed to be talking on the phone, and looked directly at Yoongi, lowering the device away from his ear. “There is a right one?”

“Hey, pay attention to your surroundings.” Yoongi pointed at a couple that also stopped, confused at the man’s actions. Jungkook cleared his throat, trying to regain some composure after that minor instant of public humiliation, and placed the phone back against his ear. “Let’s keep walking.”

With his heart beating insanely fast against his chest, Jungkook did as he was told. His mind was flooded with fragmented thoughts, working around words that seemed so simple, yet held so much.

“Yes, there is a right one — and you’re going towards her right now.” Yoongi responded, placing his ghostly hands inside his ghostly pockets. Jungkook never noticed that he still used the clothes that he had on when he died, but Yoongi wouldn’t be the first one to mention. “So don’t make a fool out of yourself. Not this time.”

Jungkook swallowed dry, feeling as panic started to climb up his lower limbs, weighing down on his muscles. His throat was dry as a desert and forming sentences proved to be a far more difficult task than he had anticipated. The air around campus had suddenly become hot for an autumn day, unable to enter his lungs with ease. He really was two steps away from a full-blown anxiety attack.

Yoongi frowned. “You good?”

Jungkook licked his lips, only half aware of his actions. “Y-Yeah,” he struggled to get out. “Just kind of a bomb that you just dropped on me, that’s all.”

Yoongi nodded, uninterested. “Yeah. Get over it. It’s not a huge deal.”

Only, it was. For Jungkook, at least. What if you two were… you know? Meant to be? Like the soulmates kind of thing; star-crossed lovers. Like in the “we got married after two months of dating and we are still together after sixty years” kind of insane love? That was a lot to process, a lot to think about, especially when he was having like three different crises at once. It was a recipe for a disaster.

Jungkook really was dumb when it came to anything besides his textbooks, but not for jumping into those conclusions. Frankly, most people would’ve been a bit overwhelmed by that.

No, his problem would reside on his next thought: If you two were meant to be, you would understand if, for some reason, he had to tell you about his ghosts, right?

Right?

_______________

To be fair with Yoongi, he did keep his promise. The two didn’t interrupt your conversation once, even if sometimes the moment begged for it, and Jungkook was two words away from ruining everything. Strangely enough, things seemed to work themselves out — the horrible jokes that Jungkook uttered seemed to suit your sense of humor; the shy and nervous demeanor that plagued his dates slowly melted away. It was good — in fact, it was the best talk he’s had with someone in a long, long time.

The issue was that, as much as the two of them didn’t talk directly to Jungkook, they still talked.

“What was that thing that she said, you know, to her friends?” Yoongi mumbled, his words coming out as a vague connection of syllables being formed at the corner of his mouth. He had his arms crossed, and his legs pushed up on the couch. “You told me that.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung took a moment to think. He had one of his hands buried deep inside the pockets of his white pants, and the other on the back of the couch. The two of them watched the conversation that unfolded above your living room table, the two of you trying to make sense of a subject that seemed to change every five minutes. “It was like ‘homeboy can like, get it’... or something.”

Yoongi nodded, satisfied. “Nice.”

Jungkook cleared his throat, trying to ignore that comment. It wasn’t news that you were interested in him — that had been the only thing Yoongi and Taehyung had told him for the past few hours, but it was very, very awkward to know those specific details. He was sure he wouldn’t like you to know the private conversations that he had with his friends, even less about the things he thought about when he was alone. There was something extremely violating about that, but, no matter how hard he tried to convince them, the two ghosts didn’t seem to care enough to stop.

The giggle that came from across the table ruptured his thoughts. “Why are you blushing?” You asked.

“I’m… uh…” he struggled, suddenly feeling the heat that emanated from his cheeks. Wonderful. Even when he was just thinking about something, he still managed to make a fool of himself. “Just… thinking about some embarrassing things I did in third grade. The usual.”

“Yeah, I’ve been there.” You smiled, reaching for the textbook across the table, and flipping through the pages. “I ruined this entire science project once. It was something about the pollination of flowers, but I missed that class. Ended up coming back to a lot of roses around the classroom, and decided to take a few of them home to my mom.”

“Oh no.”

“Yep,” you nodded, looking back at him. Jungkook thought that he had lost himself in your eyes for a moment, a depth so engulfing that he couldn’t find the right words once he stared at it. He had never noticed how beautiful you were — or, rather, he had, but he had never stopped to think about it — and, now, it seemed as if that was the only thing that he could focus on. “Everyone in class was super pissed, the teacher even tried to suspend me.”

He shook his head, trying to imagine a mini-you justifying your flower thievery in front of the principal. “That’s insane, actually.”

“Kind of.” You shrugged, looking back at the book. You weren’t sure what you were searching for anymore, so you decided to close it. You two had been studying for almost four hours straight, you didn’t think that your brain could handle any more of that. “They didn’t really believe me when I told them it was a mistake. Guess no one even noticed my absence the day before, which is… somehow… even worse, now that I think about it.”

A giggle reverberated in your throat as you dove into those forgotten memories, and Jungkook followed you.

“Don’t laugh at child me, that’s so cruel.” You smiled.

“I’m not.” He shook his head. “I just thought you were cute. Still are, you never really stopped being cute, I mean. You’re actually really pretty now, like a woman—”

“I got it.” You placed your hands over his, and the shock of your skin against his seemed to spread throughout his entire body. He didn’t know if that was a soulmate thing of if he was just really horny. Probably a bit of both. “Don’t worry about it. You’re pretty cute too. Like a man.”

“Thanks.” Jungkook itched the back of his neck, trying to find the right words to build his sentence. Panic began bubbling at the bottom of his stomach, sinking its teeth into his flesh as his words left his throat. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something.”

It was the right time now: the studying was over, the conversation was flowing, you had told him that you thought he was cute — like a man. Now, he just needed to ask you out. Just that. That’s it. Three words. He had practiced: Wanna go out? That’s it. So casual. So playboy-esque. He could do it. No pressure. If you were the one, he didn’t have much to get wrong.

But, oh my god, what if he got everything wrong? I mean, how many stories are out there of couples who were destined for each other, but something happened and it pulled them apart forever? The wrong time, the wrong place — the wrong words. Jungkook wasn’t psychologically prepared to ruin something so huge with a moment so small. He needed to calm down and focus. Just get the words out. Everything would sort itself out after that. He had faith.

“What is it?” You asked.

Jungkook cleared his throat, his eyes still glued to the touch of your hand against his. Outside, birds were chirping, unaware of the absolute shitstorm that was about to ensue. “So…” he started, “I was thinking that maybe I could— I mean, you — I mean we could...”

You tilted your head to the side, confused. “Sorry, what was that?”

He blinked once, twice, fighting against the wave of sheer terror that had taken over his brain, whitening out his thoughts. He had the sentence ready, but he had forgotten how to form it. “I’m just trying… I’m just trying here to just…” He swallowed dryly. “I was just wondering if you would like to… I mean, if it’s not a problem—”

From the other side of the room, Yoongi groaned. “Just do it! You’re making eternity so much longer.”

And that’s when it happened.

Jungkook turned around and yelled: “You told me you wouldn’t talk, you asshole!”

The entire room froze. A horrible moment of bewildered reticence followed as the realization crashed upon him like a gigantic wave. He couldn’t have just yelled at nothing in front of you, like an absolute madman, could he?

Your eyes widened and you pulled your hand away from his. The lack of warmth was like a dagger being thrown directly into his heart. “Excuse me?”

Yep. He totally did that.

“Not you!” He was quick to turn around — maybe a bit too quick, too intensely. Even with nervousness clouding his vision, Jungkook could still see the shadow of fear and confusion mingling amongst your features. He had ruined everything, and that was all that he could think about. “I’m just... personalizing my anxiety...”

“Are you... alright?” You spoke slowly, measuring his actions. Jungkook had changed from cute-nervous to absolutely-unhinged-nervous; eyes widened and jaw clenched; hands gripping the wooden chair like his life depended on it. Maybe that study session was a mistake. Maybe you should’ve just googled an online class, like your best friend told you to. “It looks like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Taehyung chuckled. “That’s pretty funny.”

And, if the situation wasn’t already bad enough, Jungkook started to convince himself that perhaps it would be a good idea to come clean with you about his psychic abilities — maybe that was actually the only way that he could get out of that mess. If you were his soulmate, you’d understand. It’d all be okay. Yeah, maybe you’d be seriously creeped out for like the first twenty minutes, just like he had been, but eventually you’d understand what had happened. You two would laugh about it later, maybe when you were sixty, on your rocking chairs somewhere, staring lovingly at a cornfield.

Was he losing it? Probably. But he didn’t have the right amount of mental clarity to fully think about the consequences of his actions in that moment.

“I… did,” Jungkook spoke sluggishly, barely comprehending the trail of words that dripped from his tongue. His voice was much calmer, but he could still feel like his entire body was engulfed by flames. “I did... see a ghost. Two actually.”

You frowned. This afternoon couldn’t possibly get any worse. “What are you talking about?”

“Jungkook, don’t you dare,” Yoongi warned, but his voice seemed to come from miles away.

Slowly, as if he wasn’t really aware of his own body moving, Jungkook adjusted his position on the chair, looking down at the sea of handwritten notes in front of him. He wished that human interaction was as easy as the types of pulmonary volumes, or perhaps the changes of oxygen inside the hemoglobin. That he knew. That he could deal with.

“Ok so, have you ever watched The Emperor’s New Groove?”

You blinked twice, puzzled. “What?”

“The Disney movie,” he clarified, looking up at you.

You shook your head, measuring how long it would take for you to bolt out of the door and run away from your own apartment. Maybe you could get out and then call someone for help. You wished you had already taken Psychiatry. “I know what that is, Jungkook, but I just don’t understand where you’re getting at.”

“Maybe it’s in the TV series that came after the movie, I don’t know, but Kronk has these two little beings on his shoulders, a devil and an angel.” He cleared his throat, and looked back at the sheets of paper. It was so hard to stare at you now, when just seconds before, it had been so easy. “I kinda have the same thing, only, they’re dead people. You know, ghosts. And they’re not on my shoulders — that’d be pretty awful, actually.”

Taehyung mumbled from across the room, “I really don’t think this is a good idea, Jungkook.”

“You’re making no sense right now,” you said, worried about the effect that your words could have on him. “I think… I think it would be better if you left.”

“I can see dead people, okay?” Jungkook interrupted, exasperated. You had to understand. You were the right girl from physiology class, you had to understand.

“Okay, Sixth Sense.” You laughed nervously. Bad time for a joke, you thought, but the boy barely seemed to process it. “Listen, I can tell you’re not doing very well right now, so you should probably leave, maybe clear your head a bit. You already helped me a lot—”

“No, I don’t need that. My head is clear—”

“You know, there is a very good mental health clinic in campus, I’ve gone there already, and I think—”

“No! I don’t need mental health, it’s true!” Jungkook stood up, walking towards the couch, where the two dead men sat. There was an unspoken contest in the room to see who could be more flabbergasted at the boy’s actions, and you and Yoongi were in a close tie. “I can prove it.”

You almost choked on air. “You what?”

Jungkook pointed at nothing. “They’re here right now, I can prove it to you.”

Discombobulated, you shook your head one more time. Maybe if you did that enough, your chaotic thoughts would just fall out of your ears, and everything would be much clearer. Maybe that was a prank, maybe that was a full-blown psychotic breakdown. You just didn’t really know what to do from there. “Jungkook, I don’t think—”

“Come on, just show yourself to her!” He yelled into the air, more specifically at your white couch. You just wanted to study cardiology, how did it end up like this? “Give me a sign, I don’t know.”

Yoongi chuckled, completely amazed by the way Jungkook continuously broke the Dumb Records that he had previously set himself. No bonus in heaven would be worth dealing with Mr. Smooth Brain over there. He should’ve gone for the orphans instead. “I cannot believe you right now.” He stood up from the couch and sighed, utterly defeated. Maybe he could just get it over with, and then The Big Man Upstairs would show him a bit of mercy. “But I guess now there isn’t much to lose. I’m only doing this because at least it would make this situation a bit better.”

“How?” Taehyung asked.

“There’s a slight improvement between psychotic crisis and psychic abilities,” Yoongi responded. He walked towards the window, rolled his eyes at the pathetic presentation of supernatural phenomena, and pulled on the white curtains of your living room. “Here. Boo! Paranormal activity.”

“Did you see that?” Jungkook asked, excited.

However, instead of meeting a surprised gaze, he only saw panic and preoccupation swimming inside your eyes. “The curtain moving? Yeah. That was the wind, Jungkook.” You stood up from the chair, measuring your chances at escaping. He was getting more and more erratic, and you didn’t know where the situation could escalate to next. “You’re seriously freaking me out right now. You’re being really aggressive about this.”

“Yoongi, you’re worse than the spirits in Ghost Hunters,” Taehyung groaned, reappearing next to your living room table. “You have to be bold, that’s what I always say. Make a statement.”

Taehyung’s statement, of course, had been the biggest slap against a lamp that Jungkook had ever witnessed in his life. The ghosts had once told him that it took them a huge amount of concentrated energy to do something as little as move a napkin, so there was no way that Taehyung wouldn’t be exhausted after making that heavy piece of furniture fly against the wall, shattering into a million little pieces with a loud noise.

“What the fuck?” Jungkook asked. “That was so dangerous! She could’ve gotten hurt.”

He shrugged. “You asked.”

“What the fuck was that?” You yelled, taking your hands to your face. Was that shared hysteria? What did you just see? Maybe you were the one who needed fresh air and a shrink visit. “You’re pranking me, right? You have like a nylon string wrapped around your hands or something.”

Jungkook moved his head in denial, raising his hands up in a sigh of defeat. “I swear to God, it’s true.”

“I don’t… I don’t believe you,” you said, clearly terrified. Not at the idea of ghosts, Jungkook realized, but of him. That date surely couldn’t have gone any better.

Yoongi sighed and materialized behind Jungkook. Lost causes, Yoongi was surrounded by lost causes. “If you really want her to believe you, tell her we can say some stuff about her, but it’ll probably freak her out.”

“They are saying that they can convince you by saying some stuff about you.” Jungkook swallowed dry. Something inside him was screaming for him to just shut the fuck up and leave your building. If there was something he learned by being with the two undead pricks, is that they could always make a situation worse.

But desperate times require desperate measures.

You adjusted your posture. Trepidation was still very present in your face, but there was also a small spark of interest swimming somewhere inside your eyes. “I seriously doubt that.”

“I can show you,” he said. “Just… don’t freak out.”

“Fine.” You licked your lips in anticipation. “The name of my first pet.”

“Is this a password verification?” Yoongi groaned. He just wanted to watch Twitches later that day, but Jungkook just had to start a seance in someone else’s room. Again: the orphans would never. “Fine. It was Mr. Green, a tortoise she killed by leaving to dry in the asphalt.”

“It was a tortoise, Mr. Green. You left it on the asphalt and it died,” Jugkook repeated without hesitation.

You blinked twice, taking in the answer. “This is so fucking weird. How did you know that?”

“Yoongi told me.” Jungkook pointed over his shoulder, where Yoongi stared you down. Just by looking in that direction, you felt a shiver run down your spine. You were losing it. “He’s, you know, one of the ghosts.”

“I’ve never been so exhausted in my life.” You placed one hand against the chair, leaning against it. There was no use to keep that conversation going, and you both knew it — and yet, just like a politician lying, it just didn’t stop. “But you could’ve asked anyone that.”

It was Jungkook’s turn to become completely lost. “Why would I ask such a specific question? I don’t even know your friends.”

Behind him, he heard another loud groan. “I’m so done with this.” Yoongi placed his hand on his shoulder. “Let me talk, Jungkook.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” He asked.

Yoongi snorted. “We are all out of good ideas. But I think this is the best chance you’ve got.”

“Who are you talking to?” You almost yelled.

Jungkook looked back at you and, for some reason, the preoccupation in his eyes scared you even further. “Okay, this is going to be really weird, alright? But it’s not gonna be me talking.”

“What?”

“It’s like… a kind of possession,” he explained, gesticulating a bit more than socially acceptable. “It’s like… uh… One of them is going to use my mouth for a bit. Talk through me.”

You laughed, and there was a high-pitched sort of timbre to it. That might as well happen. “Sure, of course. What else? Exorcism live?” You asked.

“Just give me the permission,” Yoongi commanded.

Jungkook took in a deep breath, and clenched his hands into fists. He hated that part. “Fine,” he consented.

Gradually, the muscles around his mouth and throat grew numb, as if Jungkook had entered a dream, and his body was responding in autopilot. There was an awful pressure on his shoulders and a ringing in his ears as Yoongi accommodated himself around his body, reaching for control. That was the closest he would ever feel to being a ventriloquist’s puppet, and it was as bad as it could be.

Yoongi spoke through him with ease: “You told your friends last week that you didn’t care if Jungkook was a shy virgin who played minecraft because he was exactly your type. You also said that your average score in physiology is ninety-seven percent and you didn’t need any help. You just needed an excuse to stay with him. Happy?”

Jungkook inhaled sharply as the pressure on his body subsided, the numb sensation around his neck growing thinner by the second. “So violating,” he complained.

“How did you know that?” Your voice shook him back to reality. Both of you were reaching new levels of terror every minute. “Are you stalking me?”

That back and forth was starting to get exhausting. “That wasn’t me. That was Yoongi,” he tried once again. He was starting to think that the whole thing had been a bad idea.

“Well, fuck you, Yoongi,” you spat.

Yoongi scoffed. “Fuck you too, princess. Maybe you really don’t deserve this man.”

“I’m not saying that,” Jungkook whispered to him, then turned back to look at you. He wanted to hug you and magically erase your memories for that afternoon, but, in reality, he couldn’t even move his legs without feeling like he could fall face-down on the floor. He really, really, really hated possession. “I’m just… I’m sorry about that.”

“About what, Danny Phantom?” You asked, throwing your hands up in an exasperated gesture. And there it was: from panic to complete fury. That was all that you two needed at that moment. “About making me scared shitless, or about exposing me like this?”

He suspired. “Do you at least believe in me now?”

“Does it look like I believe in you, Jungkook?” You practically screamed. Truth was: neither of you knew that for sure. “I’m a woman of science, you can’t expect me to believe that—”

Taehyung groaned, walking closer to Jungkook. It must’ve been a world record how quickly everyone in that room got angry. “Let me talk,” he requested.

Jungkook sighed, defeated. How much worse could it possibly get? “Go ahead,” he said.

There it was again: the feeling of being under anesthesia, the weight of an entire other being pressed down against his shoulders. Good times. “Yesterday,” he started, “you masturbated to the thought of Jungkook, but you forgot to recharge your vibrator so you had to use your fingers and you complained the entire time. Explain that, science woman.”

Another deep gasp, and Jungkook was folding over, finding balance on his knees. He really felt like he couldn’t even think straight anymore, his mind covered by a thick fog.

You didn’t seem to be in a much different situation either. “I’m… gonna pass out.”

“That was so unnecessary, Taehyung,” Jungkook whispered. His mouth was terribly dry, and his hands were shaking. “You guys really don’t know your limits.”

“Taehyung? Who the fuck is that?” You screamed.

Taehyung crossed his arms. “Hey, at least she believes you now.”

“He’s the other ghost. The one with no sense of boundaries.” Jungkook stared at Taehyung, clearly pissed off. Maybe his voice would’ve come out a bit more forceful if he didn’t get thrown around by sadistic spirits. “I’m sorry about that.”

You shook your head, dumbfounded. “I need you to leave now. And take your ghosts with you.” You leaned over the table, and grabbed his notes, shoving them into a messy pile. Not that you were super worried about the integrity of the paper at a time like that. “This has really crossed like... every line.”

Jungkook licked his lips, trying to find the right words to say. Someway, he managed to get his legs firm enough so he could start walking in your direction. “Please, I didn’t mean to—”

You shoved the pile of notes into his backpack, and then the backpack into his hands. Before he could react, you grabbed him by the arm, guiding him towards the exit. “Thanks for helping me, Jungkook.” The door opened with a forceful pull, and you shoved him into the hall. “Never speak to me again. Bye.”

The bang of the door slamming shut was horribly loud, reverberating inside Jungkook’s chest for a moment longer. Now that the possession daze was starting to move away from his body, the boy could feel the traces of panic crawling inside him.

Jungkook dropped his backpack to the ground, and started knocking on your door. “Y/N, please!” He called. “I’m so sorry about everything. You have to believe me!”

Your yell came muffled from the other side of the door. “Go away!” you screamed. “Or I’m calling the cops!”

Defeated, he closed his eyes and placed his forehead against the wood. Now that the situation had already climaxed, the absurdity of it all was starting to become much more palpable.

How could Jungkook be so stupid? How could he think that you would act normally as you were exposed to the supernatural world? Especially in such distressing, violating ways. Even if you were his meant-to-be, his forever person, it would be ridiculous to believe that anyone would take all in that with ease. He really outdid himself that time.

“Let her be, you two can talk another time,” Yoongi spoke, leaning against the wall. It was possible to see all the places that the pain was starting to crack through his semi-translucent form. “Good attempt, though. I’d give you a star for trying.”

“This is not funny,” Jungkook mumbled, moving away from the door so you couldn’t hear him. The artificial lights above his head were sharp, buzzing mockingly. “You two keep saying that you’re here to help me, but you keep making stuff like this happen. If she really did like me, you just ruined everything.”

Yoongi raised one eyebrow. “Why do you care so much about that one?”

Jungkook glanced at him. “You told me she’s the one.”

He frowned, crossing his arms. “I told you she was the right girl from physiology class, not that you two were going to die holding hands or something,” Yoongi told him. “You filled the blanks yourself.”

“That’s why we don’t give away all those details,” Taehyung scolded Yoongi, looking at him up and down. Jungkook had never seen him so irritated before — at least not about serious things. “You know we could get in real big trouble if someone heard about that. Which, correct me if I’m wrong, it’s kind of the entire deal of heaven to know about stuff.”

“I know, I know,” Yoongi groaned, disregarding his preoccupations. Maybe Taehyung didn’t understand his galaxy-brain plan yet, but he was sure that the heavens would. Or at least he hoped so. “But I think there’s something else that we need to focus on. Jungkook wouldn’t care this much about the other girls he dated, even if it was meant to be.”

“Why are you two talking like I’m not here?” Jungkook asked, annoyed.

“Why are you talking to yourself like you’re not in a corridor of an apartment building?” Yoongi threw back. Without a second of hesitation, Jungkook picked up his backpack and turned on his heels, walking down the hall, completely done with them. “Hey, come back. Just tell me what’s the fuzz with this one.”

He didn’t look back. “Aren’t you two supposed to know? All-knowing and shit.”

“We want to hear it from you,” Yoongi pressed on.

Jungkook opened the heavy door to the stairwell, allowing for it to hit behind him. Taehyung and Yoongi passed right through it, of course, and kept following him as he quickly moved down the concrete steps. “Y/N is my friend.”

Yoongi hummed. “Go on.”

“Isn’t that enough for a justification? What else do you want from me?” He inquired, aggressive. The sound of his steps echoed like drums through the expansion of the staircase, and he hoped that no one else had been listening to his apparent monologue. “I don’t wanna ruin this friendship by talking about her masturbation techniques, I don’t know if that makes the situation super unique.”

Taehyung clicked his tongue. “You have other friends.”

“I care for her, alright?” Jungkook turned around abruptly, making the two ghosts stop in their tracks. Taehyung had almost lost his balance, but it wasn’t as if that could have any serious consequences for him.

Jungkook sighed, trying to control the anger that had built up so rapidly, and continued speaking. “I care for her more than other friends. Fuck, is that what you two wanted to hear? Besides, it’s not like I know anyone better than her. I didn’t even think I had a chance with someone like that until you told me. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s like… super hot when she’s mad—”

“Oh, would you look at that.” Yoongi grinned, satisfied. “Jungkook’s whipped.”

“What?” His eyes widened. “I’m not.”

“Why are you so red?” Taehyung asked.

Jungkook covered his face, feeling the heat of his checks emanating against his palms. “I’m not!”

“Okay, okay, calm down, tiger,” Yoongi raised his hands in a silent request for forgiveness. They were still a few steps above Jungkook, and the whole scene looked like something straight out of the Book of Revelation. “This is a good thing, we actually thought it would never happen. It’s not like you’ve been this introspective in what… five years? More even.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Yoongi sighed, and looked at Taehyung for confirmation. The other ghost nodded in a silent agreement, and Yoongi started to speak. “Listen, we’re here to help you, but we didn’t say everything,” he admitted. “We couldn’t, really, otherwise it wouldn’t be so... organic.”

“What?”

“Jungkook, you were desperate to lose your virginity,” Yoongi explained. “You still are, in a way. And that’s not a good thing, because you’ll get the first thing that moves and you’ll try to stick your dick in it.”

Taehyung chuckled drily, looking at a fixed point. “Which is not a good idea, believe me,” he spoke in a mumble, and Jungkook could not help but think that his advice came from personal experience. That, of course, was a story for other, less sober times.

“Is that why the two of you always interrupt me?” He asked, a bit offended. “Because those girls weren’t right for me? Like this is a purity cult or something?”

“Eh.” Yoongi did a so-so gesture with his hand. “Kind of. Not really. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you actually feel something for this girl, something beyond the thoughts that come from your lower head.”

“And she feels something for you too, even after that trainwreck that we just witnessed in there,” Taehyung added patiently. “Which will help us a lot in the long run.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.” Jungkook crossed his arms, stubborn. He really could look and sound like a child throwing a tantrum when he wanted to. “I still don’t get it. It wasn’t your place to tell me who I could or couldn’t be with, it’s not as if you guys are—”

“Jungkook, that’s enough,” Taehyung interrupted him. “You don’t think it makes sense? Stop and think for once in your life.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What did you say?”

Taehyung glanced at him. “Listen, we just saved you from months of wrong dates and wrong nights. We pushed away people who didn’t really care about you, who just wanted you to use you, or who would end up cheating on you anyways. Not everyone gets this privilege,” he said, completely done with that victim mentality. “So, for once in your life, be grateful. Be grateful for the bad dates, the embarrassment, the times that it didn’t work out. And, look, we are sorry for the way they had to go down, it wasn’t as funny as it seemed from our perspective. But if you didn’t have those bad dates, you’d have very, very bad months following them. So you’re welcome.”

“And all those bad dates lead you to the right person,” Yoongi completed, watching as Jungkook’s expression withered into shame. He was staring to get it — they could almost see the hamster in his brain start running. “Now, listen, we don’t know if this is the for-life situation, that’s not the kind of information we have, alright? Do I look like a seraphin to you? No. But does it matter? No. Most relationships aren’t the for-life thing anyways, but they are here to teach you something. And if the afterlife thought that there was something good for you here, who are we to judge?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung agreed. “Now, can you please forget about all those past people and just focus on her? Maybe shut the fuck up while you do that? I get that you wanted to get your dick wet, but there’s a time and a place for that.”

The boy sighed, and leaned against the red handrails. It took Jungkook a few seconds to speak out. “I feel like I’ve just been lectured by my parents,” he admitted.

Taehyung relaxed his shoulders. “Good,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to slap some sense into you for months now, but I didn’t really have the permission.”

“Feel better?” Jungkook asked.

He nodded. “Much better.”

“I’m happy for you,” he said. Jungkook ran one hand through his dark hair, pushing back the strands that had fallen over his eyes. “And about Y/N… There’s no way she’ll ever talk to me after this mess. I ruined everything.”

Taehyung nodded. “You pretty much did, yeah.”

“You took the worst case scenario and managed to make it even more horrible,” Yoongi said. “It’s pretty impressive, actually.”

“Thanks, that’s great.” Jungkook chuckled, humorless. He could always count on them for emotional support. “But, I mean… What do I do now? I mean, is there anything that we could do to save this?”

“Worry not, my child,” Yoongi smirked, crossing his arms. “Taehyung and I are masters of seduction, and we’re here to help you. Just trust us.”

“And before you say something,” Taehyung interrupted, raising one finger. “You never had the right girl before, so we weren’t really trying. I think we can find some real solid ground here.”

Jungkook breathed out, and looked down at the grey stairs. Yeah, it’s not like he wasn’t at the bottom of the well already. “Fine. One last chance,” he agreed, looking back at the ghosts. “Just tell me what I have to do.”

______________

Much to Jungkook’s delight, he didn’t need to muster up the courage to talk to you, because you did that first.

For the first time in their lives (and deaths), Yoongi and Taehyung actually did something right. Jungkook didn’t really know the details of their plan, all that he knew was that they would find a way to “make you see what you were missing” so that you would “come crawling back to him”. Which didn’t sound threatening at all.

Countless possibilities crossed Jungkook’s head — horror movie hauntings, Taehyung invading your dreams with claws for fingers, Yoongi with a wet wig crawling out of your TV — but, in the end, no matter how much he insisted, the two of them just wouldn’t say a word. Apparently, there was a lot going on backstage that Jungkook had no idea about, so he should just “take it easy” and wait for the sequence of events to unravel. Amazing. Now he knew how the characters in Final Destination felt.

“Just be patient, young one,” Taehyung had told him, thrown over his couch like a Victorian monarch. “All you need to know is that she will be back. Everything else it’s just… details.”

And, two weeks after the dormitory incident, you did.

There was a muffled thud as you placed your large books over the wooden table, and sat down across from him. The silence of the library didn’t allow for Jungkook to foresee your arrival, and to meet your gaze so suddenly was enough for his face to burn up in shame, his heart drumming against his ribcage. His sympathetic system really needed to quit with that bullshit before he collapsed.

“Hey,” you mumbled, seeming just as uncomfortable as he was. “Can we talk? You know what about.”

The boy swallowed dry, and leaned a bit forward. “Y-Yeah, sure,” he whispered back. “I’m really sorry, Y/N, I don’t know why I thought—”

“For how long?” you sliced his sentence short, making his lips fall shut.

Jungkook raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What?”

You cleared your throat, and shuffled on your seat. As much as the library was practically empty, neither of you felt courageous enough to use your usual voice tone — especially when dealing with that subject. “How long have you been able to, you know, see them?”

Jungkook took a second to respond, licking his dry lips and looking at the line of bookshelves as if seeking for the right thing to say. He felt awkward enough just interacting with someone from the opposite sex, but talking about the ghosts he saw? Hell, that bordered on a panic attack. Especially after the circus show that was that past study session. “Almost two years now, I think,” he finally answered. “But they told me they’ve been around for a bit longer. I just couldn’t see it.”

You shook your head in concordance, even if the information was everything but easy to understand. “That’s crazy,” you spoke. “I don’t know how you deal with it.”

Jungkook let out a dry chuckle. “Not very well, as you can probably tell.”

“I don’t think I can judge you. I didn’t precisely react well either.” You swallowed dry, wide eyes flickering on the world behind Jungkook. “Are we alone now?”

As much as he already knew the answer, he looked around just to check. “Surprisingly, yeah,” Jungkook responded, slightly suspicious. Yoongi and Taehyung were always looking over his shoulder and throwing him into messy situations, he couldn’t tell why they weren’t there when, quite frankly, it was their perfect shot at humiliation. Maybe they really were doing their jobs for once. “I don’t know why they’re not here. That’s weird.”

You shrugged as if to say that you wouldn’t know either. “What are their names again?”

“Yoongi and Taehyung,” he answered, then waited another second to see if he could feel their presence. Nothing again. That was really strange — they often responded upon being called. “Listen, Y/N, I hate what we went through. They had no right to say those things. I’m used to the privacy issues, since I have been with them for a while. But you aren’t, and I can only imagine how weird you felt hearing all that. I’m really, really sorry.”

You pressed your lips together which, Jungkook guessed, was a failed attempt to suppress the rubor that exploded across your cheeks. He couldn’t blame you, though, for there were limits that were crossed. “I’m over it if you are,” was what you forced yourself to say.

“I am,” he lied. None of you were particularly good at not telling the truth, and that was pretty obvious. But ignoring it was a start.

“Good, okay.” You cleared your throat, placing the palms of your hands against the pile of books. “Sorry for lying about needing help in physiology, and all that. I just needed an excuse to spend more time with you, as you know now. I guess it’s obvious that I kinda have a huge crush on you.”

“It’s fine.” Jungkook laughed, extremely relieved to notice that your last sentence was in present tense. “I kinda have a huge crush on you too.”

Honestly, even if it wasn’t for life, he’d have to give you props for still liking a guy that had had a borderline psychotic breakdown in your apartment, talked about your pet tortoise, and your masturbation technique, and still had the nerve to expose you to the supernatural world. It was a lot. Good on you for taking it like a champ.

“And,” he continued, “sorry for using my ghosts to expose your secrets. I just needed to find a way for you to believe me, and I had no idea about what they were going to say. I was pretty much in a frenzied state, I wasn’t thinking straight. It won’t happen again.”

“Apologies accepted.” You smiled, relieved. You were really beautiful, Jungkook thought in a breathless instant. He could look at you all day. “You know, it’s going to take me some time to get used to all that. I mean, I’m still not a hundred percent sure I believe in everything, but, I… My lamp flew across the room, and you told me things that you simply couldn’t know about. So, if it’s a prank, it’s a really good one.”

“I know how it is.” He nodded in agreement. “It was really difficult for me at first, too. I understand if you’d rather just stay away from me from now on.”

You sighed, looking down at your books — the two mammoth-sized volumes of Harrison’s Internal Medicine staring at you in mockery. “Weird thing is: I don’t really want to.” You crossed your arms and leaned back against the chair. Was that the sound of angels singing? Jungkook couldn’t tell. “I’d love to spend more time with you. Alone, if possible. And that counts both planes of existence.”

“Sounds fair, I’d love that.” Jungkook smiled. As he met your eyes, he was filled with a warm, rose-colored courage that he had never felt before. “Actually, I was wondering if, you know… you wanna do something? With me? Alone, of course. No ghosts. One of these days, I don’t know. If you’re not busy—”

You raised your eyebrows, interested. “You’re asking me out?”

He sighed, shoulders falling in defeat. “Trying, yeah. You can see I’m not the best at that either.”

Your smile grew a little. “That’s a big yes.”

“Really?” Jungkook stared at you like a lost puppy, his mind going completely blank for a second or two. The hamster in his brain was now somersaulting through his body, landing on his stomach and hitting him with a wave of nausea. “Wow, thanks. I don’t really have an idea of what we could do, though. Didn’t think I’d get that far.”

There was an instant of quietude as you thought for a moment, the space between the two of you permeated by the vague sounds of pages turning. “Movies?” You asked.

“Sounds great.” Jungkook smiled openly, his shoulders falling in alleviation. He didn’t know what Taehyung and Yoongi had done, but he was beyond thankful for it. Seemed like their sacrifices weren’t in vain, after all. “The film majors are doing this 2000’s marathon this week. I think this Saturday it’ll be either Mean Girls or 17 Again.”

“I’m in,” you spoke excitedly. “I’ll be there, just text me the details.”

Jungkook almost swallowed his own tongue as he watched you stand up, presenting him with a gorgeous view of thighs beneath the level of your skirt. “Great!” He exclaimed a bit too loud, his voice a bit too high-pitched, awakening his inner thirteen-year-old. He cleared his throat, lowering his voice another octave. “I mean, yeah, great. Thank you for… saying yes.”

“Thank you for asking.” You placed your hair behind your shoulder, and leaned in to pick up the heavy pile of books. All nine kilos of Internal Medicine.

“See you there,” he said.

You smiled. “See you, Kookie.”

Jungkook watched you walk away as if he was floating in a fever dream, completely unable to believe what had just unfolded. Did he seriously manage to get a date with you? Of all people? He must’ve been hallucinating. Maybe he ended up falling down the stairwell and died, perhaps that was his heaven, and he would—

Behind him, Taehyung sneered. “Kookie? You’re getting softer than your dick.”

Jungkook turned around so brusquely that the chair tilted back and, if it wasn’t for him holding down to the corner of the table, he would’ve fallen to the ground. “You two were there all along?” He whispered-screamed. Before he could land a sermon on them, though, he met the devilish smirk that was plastered all over Yoongi’s features. Oh no. No. The movies. “No, Yoongi, I know what you’re thinki—”

“Get in, loser, we’re going to the movies.”

_________________

Saturday rolled around and, with it, came your much anticipated movie date. Jungkook had spent the previous night tossing and turning on his bed, completely monopolized by anxiety, thinking about every possible apocalyptic scenario that could go down. What if he tried to take a slip of his drink, but ended up blinding himself with the straw? Maybe he would step on the wrong chord and set the entire college on fire. Or maybe he would trip, fall down on a poor girl, and kill her on the spot. That would be awful, you would never talk to him again after any of that — the imaginary disappointment in your face was like a punch in the gut.

Was he being ridiculous? Obviously. Did that stop his pre-date panic? Obviously not.

Still, with the might of a thousand warriors, Jungkook managed to drag himself to your date, his knees almost giving out beneath him when he saw you — he didn’t believe you would actually come, for some of him still thought it was all a sadistic heaven prank. Somehow, he blurted out a compliment about how good you looked while he was having a heart attack, and almost lost his consciousness when you smiled at him.

Yep, it would be a difficult night.

The movie marathon consisted of three 2000’s movies, and the two of you managed to arrive right before Mean Girls started, fumbling on your seats as the rest of the room grew quiet. The makeshift classroom didn’t look like a movie theater in the slightest, but it wasn’t as if you were expecting that in the first place — it was nothing more than an agglomeration of chairs and desks, combined with a few puff chairs and old couches scattered around. Much to your delight, you and Jungkook managed to grab one of those couches before another couple returned to their seats, and he could see that his ghost buddies had already found their own place on the empty chairs behind the two of you.

Surprise! None of the catastrophic scenarios in his mind actually came true. In fact, he had a great time with you, laughing at your jokes and sometimes flat-out stealing Yoongi’s commentary just to make you chuckle, which granted him a few mumbled complaints coming from the back row.

“Jungkook is so superior, don’t you think, Taehyung?” Yoongi mocked, and Jungkook was sure that he would be kicking his seat if he could. “So smart. So great. But can’t even figure out his own jokes. Has to steal them from a poor dead man. You’re a grave robber.”

Taehyung chuckled. “Hey, you’re helping him, at least. That’s our whole point here.”

“Grave robber!” he repeated, more aggressively this time. “I can’t believe you’d ruin Mean Girls for me like this. Not even hell would be so cruel.”

“How dare you say that about hell? If I get in trouble because you can’t keep your mouth shut, Yoongi, I swear to God—”

“Now you’re saying God’s name in vain, you heretic! That’s so much worse!”

Jungkook had to bite back a laugh as the two continued bickering behind him, only half aware of the scene in which Regina George glued her own picture on the burn book. He didn’t know when exactly he had done it — he had been so on edge the entire night that it was almost as if his own brain was instantly deleting his memories, but he had managed to curl one arm around your shoulders, pulling you closer to him. He was sure that you could hear the frantic heartbeat of his heart against his chest, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t think he could even get that far.

But he did, and even reached beyond that.

Once the screen faded to black and the credits started appearing, there was a resounding wave of claps in the room, cheering for the absolute cultural reset that was that movie. One of the students moved to the front of the room, explaining that they would take a ten minutes break, then would return with She’s All That. Apparently, 1999 was close enough to the 2000’s for it to be picked as well.

“Do you wanna stay and watch it?” He asked, fighting every muscle in his body not to smell your hair. He knew that it would be super creepy, yeah, but your head was right there and it smelled so good.

You removed your body from his chest, looking up at him. “I would love to, but I have to wake up early tomorrow to study,” you said. “Big test on Monday.”

“Sure, yeah.” Jungkook nodded, slightly let down. To be honest, he had completely forgotten that information until that point. Seems like he would have a lot to catch up on during the next day. “I’ll walk you to your dorm.”

You thanked him with a smile, and you two got moving.

The walk back to your place wasn’t exactly awkward, but it could have also been a lot better. The two of you talked about the movie animatedly, the subject that you had to study — an awful amount of gastric pathology to memorize — and, eventually, landed on your weirdest experiences during hospital rounds. You were in the middle of telling him how two toddlers (twins) managed to puke on you at the same time, and how you thought that was a sign of a telepathic connection between the two, when he felt the back of his hand brush against yours, and everything around him turned into static. Suddenly, it was all that he could think about.

Jungkook had already spent the entire date with questions flying around his head. When was the right time to pull you close? Could he hold your hand, or would that be too bold? Could you smell how sweaty he was? Or maybe his deodorant was too strong? If he ran away, trained to be an astronaut, and joined the Mars colonization mission, would he be able to avoid embarrassing himself again?

And, more importantly: would it be weird to kiss you goodnight?

Considering the fact that he had no clue how to read your body language, and that almost all of his romantic experience came from bad sitcoms and Twilight marathons with Yoongi, Jungkook didn’t judge himself suited to answer that last question. He didn’t know if he should hold your hand, he didn’t know if you were just being polite or if you actually had a good time. Again and again, his anxiety got the best of him. He should really get back to seeing his campus counselor.

“So… we’re here,” you said, holding your hands in front of your body. You had stopped at the entrance of your block, and Jungkook took that as a sign that you didn’t want him to go all the way back to your apartment. Fair enough. “Thank you for tonight, I had a lot of fun. We should do this again sometimes.”

“For sure, yeah.” Jungkook nodded, somewhat relieved that you asked for that. At least that was a clear sign that you didn’t completely hate him. “That would be great.”

You agreed and looked down at your shoes. The darkness of the night enveloped the two of you, only half of your features illuminated by the dim yellow shine of the nearest light post. Jungkook almost fainted when you stared into his eyes, with a faint blush painting your cheeks, and questioned, “So, you’re not gonna kiss me?”

Windows’ blue screen. Please, hold.

“I… I, uh—” Jungkook’s mouth felt as if he had just swallowed an entire desert, his brain fighting to keep his voice steady. Your eyes, so focused and expectant, felt like daggers against his chest. “I didn’t know if you wanted to,” he finally admitted.

Your shoulders fell as a tender smile curled up on your roseate lips. Jungkook thought you were the most beautiful thing he had ever had the pleasure of seeing. “I do,” you told him gently. His heart almost leaped out of his throat. “Do you want to?”

And that was the easiest question that he would ever answer. “Yeah,” Jungkook said.

You smiled. “Perfect.”

The boy barely had time to react before your hand was curling around the fabric of his shirt, and you pulled him towards you in a playful tug. Jungkook’s eyes stayed comically widened for a second after your lips met, but, soon enough, he allowed himself to melt into your embrace, his nervous hands landing on your waist, and his mind instantly calming down.

He kissed you slowly, carefully, almost afraid that, at the faintest of movements, reality would shatter and he would lose that moment forever. Of course, it didn’t, and he stayed on that instant a bit longer before, at last, he pulled away, slightly breathless.

“I should’ve done that sooner,” he confessed.

You tilted your head at him, fingers playing with his hair. “It happened at the right time,” you said. “Some things can’t be rushed. Especially the good ones.”

Just like that, he understood what Taehyung and Yoongi had been saying all those years. No matter how cliche it was, there was some truth to the saying that ‘what is supposed to happen, will’. And, the better that something is, the more work it will require.

But, as he kissed you again, Jungkook realized that it was all worth it in the end.

____________

The following months by your side were so amazing that Jungkook constantly brought back his theory that “maybe he was actually dead, and that was heaven.” And, if it was, he would make sure to shake God’s hand himself because, holy fuck, was he one lucky man.

Okay, maybe the first few weeks together were a bit painfully cringe-worthy, but he was really trying to pretend as if they didn’t happen. Jungkook didn’t really get the memo, and he had to slowly figure out how to behave romantically with you. He got it wrong the first few times — kissing you at the worst possible moment, or sending you a huge bouquet of roses during your microbiology exam — but, eventually, you guided him towards more neutral grounds. Then everything went smoothly.

Surprisingly, even the undead duo calmed down for a while. Yoongi and Taehyung were still around, since they had no other option, but were much quieter now, only making punctual remarks when Jungkook made a fool out of himself. Hell, they even left the room when things started getting more serious between the two of you, instead of giving Cosmopolitan-worthy advice, and that was a huge improvement.

But, of course, it wouldn’t be Jungkook’s life if there wasn’t a huge joke waiting just around the corner. Soon enough, another issue would present itself.

It came in the form of a warm mumble against his lips, and the vague — yet deliciously noticeable — rolling of your hips against his own. “Jungkook,” you called, breathless after a long make-out session. The two of you were on his couch, with you sitting on his lap, straddling him. “I want you.”

He froze. What else would he do? Jungkook was a panicked virgin. He knew that your intimate times would happen eventually — and he really wanted them to — but he didn’t expect that his mind would completely malfunction once he got so close, with his erection growing inside his pants and the softness of your breasts pressing against his torso. It was just a lot, alright?

And, lost amidst the tempestuous sea of his sudden despair, all that he could utter back was, “Are… Are you sure you want to do this right now?”

“Yeah.” You placed a strand of hair behind your ear. Jungkook thought that he could faint on the spot. It was actually a pretty common sensation with him. “You don’t want it?”

“No — I mean yeah! Yeah, I want it.” He choked on his words, looking down in embarrassment, only to meet the contour of your thighs. His youth leader had been right all along: temptation was everywhere. “I’m just… I’ve never done anything before.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” you tried to calm him down, placing your hands on his shoulders. The heat of your palms seemed to have some effect on the chaotic emotions that boiled inside him, for his muscles relaxed considerably under your touch. “I won’t pressure you, okay? If you want to take more time, it’s completely fine.”

“No, it’s not like that. I don’t feel pressured.” He shook his head, then looked up at you. You could almost feel the conflict inside his gaze, the mixture of anticipation and fear that you knew all too well. “I want you, Y/N, I really do. I’m just nervous.”

“It’s fine,” you repeated. “We don’t have to do anything now, and we can start slo—”

But he couldn’t listen to the end of your phrase, because a familiar voice damn near hollered from the other side of the room. “Taehyung, come in here! Quick!” Yoongi yelled, signaling through the door like he was controlling the air traffic. “He’s getting some! Jungkook’s about to get his cherry popped the fuck off!”

You tilted your head to the side, staring him down with preoccupation. “Jungkook? Are you okay?”

“The fuck! There is no fucking way!” Taehyung’s voice got louder as he yelled, signaling his growing proximity. “Call NASA right now!”

Jungkook sighed, throwing his head against the couch. Goodbye erection, and goodbye any chance of having sex that day. “Yoongi and Taehyung just showed up,” he mumbled bitterly.

You lowered your gaze and took a deep breath, then removed yourself from his lap. Jungkook hated the lack of heat, and he swore he would have drop-kicked the two if they weren’t in a different dimension. The certainty of death was all that he needed to know that he would get his revenge some day. “Of course they did,” you complained, fixing your clothes. “I love being cockblocked by cockless ghosts. Again.”

“Hey!” Taehyung sounded actually offended.

Jungkook turned around harshly, his voice bitter. “Can the two of you just fuck off? This is not the time.”

“So you two can fuck?” Yoongi grinned, then looked at Taehyung. “We should, actually.”

“Jungkook… this is too weird now.” You raised your hands in a silent bargain for it all to stop. You could deal with a few psychic sessions every once in a while, but being a voyeurism victim for ghosts wouldn’t be the way you wanted to spend your afternoon. “Let’s do this another time, okay? I should get going anyways. Big day at the hospital tomorrow.”

He took one of his hands to his face, massaging his temple. You got up from the couch, reaching for your backpack. “Yeah, okay.” The boy pouted, and you leaned in to give him a quick peck on the lips. Disappointing end for a night, to say the least. “Good luck tomorrow. Text me if you get an interesting case!”

“Thanks! I will.” You threw your backpack strap over your shoulder and started walking towards the exit. Jungkook couldn’t blame you for just wanting to leave that place as soon as possible, he was sure that the discomfort was much worse for you. “Bye, Jungkook! I’ll let you know when I get to my place.”

He opened his mouth to thank you, but you were already out the door. The lock clicked shut, and the silence became thick, mocking him. Even if he already had an actual girlfriend, Jungkook still found himself being left behind by someone that would never want to see him again — dick semi-hard and morale shattered on the ground. Seems like he always found himself back in that position.

Taehyung materialized on the couch next to him, hugging his knees. He was staring at the closed door, somewhat expecting that you would come back, but knowing very well that you wouldn’t do so. “Okay, I accept that it was our fault,” he said, oscillating his gaze towards Jungkook. “Sorry, man. We are like, super invested in this. There’s almost nothing interesting going on in the afterlife and this is, like, better than any TV show airing right now.”

Jungkook rolled his eyes, utterly exhausted at the mess that had become his life. He was done giving them sermons: it had basically turned into the world’s worst pastime and gave little to no results. “You know what? Just promise me you’re not going to show up next time.” He stared both of them down. “I don’t wanna be watched, that’s just weird. And I know that Y/N isn’t happy about that either.”

Yoongi shrugged. “Some people like it.”

“Yeah, I’m not one of those people,” he told him. “Guys, please. I know you two are as excited as I am about this, and I appreciate your... support, but I think this is something I need to do alone. In peace. Not being watched by spirits. That’s isn’t too much to ask.”

“He’s right, you know?” Taehyung said, looking back at Yoongi. “We should stay in our lane for now.”

The other ghost looked down at his feet, which basically morphed into the carpet beneath them. For the first time in two long years, he actually seemed like he was rethinking his actions. “Yeah, sorry,” Yoongi responded. “We got carried away. We’ll leave next time. Maybe try something when your neighbors are having a movie night.”

Jungkook’s shoulders fell in alleviation. Maybe not everything was doomed. “Thank you,” he spoke, then nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I’ll probably do that. When is the next one?”

Taehyung looked at Yoongi, then back at him. “What are the chances that you’re gonna get your virgin shit together by tomorrow night?”

___________

Slim to none, actually, but he had managed to (kind of) do it. Focus on the “kind of.”

Jungkook had spent the previous night doing in-depth research about sexual intercourse, and basing his actions in real-life situations. That meant that he stayed up until four in the morning watching porn. Not masturbating. Just watching it very closely and trying to learn what to do — like an actual serial killer.

“Do you think that this is… a good idea?” Taehyung spoke from the other side of his room, preoccupation plastered all over his face. The whole porn-science was funny for the first twenty minutes, and then it just ended up being terrifying. “You know that people don’t actually have sex like that, right? It’s all exaggerated.”

“Quiet!” Jungkook raised his finger after a particularly loud moan echoed, his eyes red and glued to the computer screen. The white light from his device was awfully sharp, bathing his figure and making his image border on demonic. It really wasn’t a good look. “I’m researching. I need to know what to do.”

“You look and sound like a maniac.” Taehyung walked closer to the bed, measuring his movements. After he died, he thought that he would never be afraid of any other living thing — but Jungkook had just proved him wrong. Against his best judgement, he took a peek at the screen. “No! Oh my— That’s not natural. That’s so wrong. You should know, you studied anatomy.”

“I’m not gonna do this tomorrow,” Jungkook mumbled, closing the video. Taehyung recoiled back to the darkness of the room like a vampire that had just been touched by the sun. “The plot was interesting.”

“You’re not even hard, man,” he said, pointing at Jungkook’s trousers. “This is like, really weird. You should stop before you have some problem getting it up tomorrow.”

“What are you trying to say?” He narrowed his eyes, paranoid. “That wouldn’t happen. I know what I can do.”

“You’re the medical student, take a look,” Taehyung insisted. “There’s research about that, pornography affects young men and women a lot and— Actually, what the fuck am I talking about? This is crazy. I should’ve left with Yoongi.”

“Wait, I just—” Jungkook closed his computer with a sigh. His hair was disheveled and his gaze was unfocused. It really was the oddest night in Taehyung’s life/death. “I just don’t know what to do tomorrow. I’m about to have an anxiety attack. It’s like the third one tonight.”

Taehyung pressed his lips together, the discomfort inside him being replaced by a warm sense of understanding. “Man, she knows you don’t have experience. She isn’t expecting a porn star performance, or whatever the fuck you were just watching.” He pointed to the computer, which was now neglected amongst the sea of blankets. “By the way, I’m a changed spirit. I hate you for making me see that.”

Jungkook would have laughed at his distress if he wasn’t too tired to do that. “Technically, you decided to look at it yourself,” he corrected. “But, yeah, I know she’s not expecting anything great. But I don’t wanna make a fool out of myself, you know? Not like it’s a rare occasion or anything.”

Taehyung shrugged. Being alive made everything seem so much more important than it actually was, he thought. “Lay back and let her take the lead, then.”

Jungkook furrowed his brow, his eyes widening at the idea. Of course! That was the big galaxy brain moment he needed all along. “Are you serious? It’s that simple?” He asked, hopeful.

Taehyung chuckled. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

Yeah. It was that simple. Who would’ve thought that those see-through idiots actually would have something intelligent to say?

Really, it was a time of miracles in Jungkook’s life. The following day, the planets aligned and, for the first time ever since puberty, everything went right for him: the class ended a bit early, his neighbors decided to watch two movies instead of one, and his place was perfectly devoid of any paranormal activity by the time you wandered into it.

He didn’t tell you that he had planned that entire thing before it happened — he thought it would be super strange to schedule his virginity loss out loud — and he was glad to see that everything evolved naturally. One hour and forty minutes after you arrived, you two were already at the same point that you had left the day before — only, this time, you two actually managed to get to his bed.

“They’re not here, are they? You’re sure?” You asked in between kisses for what should’ve been the fifth time.

“No, I asked them to leave earlier.” Jungkook’s hands pressed down on your hips, the sensation of your center rolling against his erection eliciting a sigh from him. Ha! Fuck Taehyung and his soft dick curse. “I actually… Before we do anything, I actually wanted to know if you could, you know, help me a little.”

You hummed, taking your face away from his. Jungkook watched as you licked your lips, your eyes dazed, and leaned in to place another kiss against his mouth. “In what way?” You asked.

“Just... show me what to do,” he said. “What you like, if I’m doing something wrong… everything.”

With a soft smile, you agreed, arms curling around his shoulders. “Of course,” you told him. “It’ll be my pleasure.”

That being said, you dove back to his lips, feeling as he both simultaneously relaxed and tensed up under your touches. Jungkook had evolved a lot in those past few months, you realized, since the early-dating version of him wouldn’t find himself in that position without turning into a stuttering, blushing mess beneath you. It was kind of cute, but you’d never say that out loud.

You felt his hands trailing up your back, underneath your clothes, his palms dwelling in the softness of your skin for a moment before, in a courageous movement, he decided to pull your shirt up. There was a short separation of your mouths as the piece of clothing slid up your arms, and collapsed against the floor in a puddle of cotton.

Jungkook sighed once he felt the lace of your bra against his hands; the softness of your breasts was something that he continuously daydreamed about. Now, without the barrier of your clothes, all that he needed was to remove that last constriction and he would be—

“Oh well…” He chuckled nervously, fumbling with your bra. “Sorry, I don’t know how to open this.”

You smiled at the embarrassment that danced around his features. “Relax, okay?” You said, moving your hands to your back and taking care of that problem yourself. You’d teach him about the magic of unclasping bras another time. “It’s fine.”

But Jungkook didn’t have time to think about an answer, for soon your bra was meeting your shirt on the floor. His reaction would’ve been the same if you just moved over and came back with a baby dinosaur in your hands — his eyes widening in amazement as he took in the image of your nude breasts, a small whimper perishing in his throat as he slithered his hands upward, cupping them.

Your breath stopped for a moment when he leaned in, reluctant, and enveloped one of your nipples with his warm mouth, his tongue delicately coming out to trace circles on your sensitive flesh. Jungkook groaned at the sensation, his cock becoming unbearably hard against his pants, and tilted your body over so he could be on top of you.

You curled up against the sheets, sighing in delight as the boy continued to work on your breasts, kissing and sucking lightly, taking his time. Every time you looked down, you could see that Jungkook was having almost as much fun as you, the small moans that dripped from his tongue vibrating inside your chest.

“Does it feel good?” He raised his gaze towards you, expectant. “Am I doing a good job?”

“Yes, very good.” Your hands curled around the roots of his hair. The action was gentle, but Jungkook shuddered under the sensation — every small movement proved itself to be a lot for him to handle. “You’re doing amazing. Is there something that you want to do, Kookie?”

The boy licked his lips, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed hard. Part of him (probably the sleep deprived one) still didn’t believe that you two were actually doing that — that it wasn’t just a figment of his horny imagination. No, it was real. You were right there in front of him, beautiful and devastating, caressing his hair as you waited for an answer.

“I… I want to make you feel good,” he said, wide-eyed and hesitant. His dick felt painfully hard being so constructed by his pants and, suddenly, he became aware of how clothed he still was. No wonder it was so hot. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”

Your lips curled up at his adorableness, one of your hands meeting his wrist. Patiently, you guided it down, and placed it on the hem of your pants. “Can you touch me?” You questioned. “I can tell you what I like.”

“Oh, please,” he almost pleaded, his hand already fumbling to open your pants. Much to his delight, those were a lot easier than your bra, and they were soon sliding down your legs with ease.

He took a moment to take in your form, eyes traveling up from your legs, to your hips, then all the way back to your breasts. As Jungkook met your gaze, he allowed for a suspire of relief to depart from his mouth, shoulders relaxing. “I’m so lucky,” he spoke, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

The smile that you presented him looked brighter than all of the stars above. “Come here,” you called, leaning against your elbows. “Give me a kiss.”

Obedient, Jungkook did as you requested, a grunt escaping his chest once you pulled him into a sloppy kiss, nails brushing lightly against the skin of his neck. He had goosebumps at the sensation, his hand moving by its own will, navigating down your stomach and towards your heat.

His fingers hovered, insecure, over the hem of your panties for a moment. Still, at the sound of his name being spoken against the kiss, he was overtaken by an ephemeral spark of courage. Soon, your panties were on the floor too.

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” Jungkook whined at the contact, his fingers dwelling just above your entrance. Inside his pants, his cock twitched at the sensation, his lower body already tingling with excitement. He didn’t know how he would manage not to cum in his pants, but he would have to find a way. “What do I do now?”

“Now...” you said, leaning your head against the pillow. “Move up and find my clit. Make all those hours of anatomy worth it,” you joked.

Jungkook nodded, but anatomy was much more difficult when he wasn’t actually looking at a certain part of the body — he was much more interested in watching your expression. Embarrassed, he did as you requested, trailing his wet fingers up until you told him to stop. “Right there,” you said, sighing once you felt his hand pressing down on it, starting to trace small circular patterns. “That’s it, baby, great job.”

His heart leaped at the compliment, and his actions became firmer. Jungkook thought he would go insane when he heard you whimper and cry out at the sensation, your hips bucking up against his hand ever so slightly. “You’re so hot,” he breathlessly confessed, his words coming in a hot puff of air against your neck. His digits slowly trailed down, towards your entrance, and he paused. “Can I?”

“Yeah,” you agreed.

Jungkook swallowed hard, adventuring one finger inside you. At the sensation of your walls clenching around him, he moaned, biting his lip. “God, you’re so tight,” he told you, adding a second finger. You raised your hips at the contact, hands curling on his hair. “I can’t wait to feel you around my cock.”

His mouth came back to your breasts, sucking and licking your flesh. Jungkook was a mess, you realized — pressing down his hard member against your thigh, whining against your skin as his fingers curled inside you, sinking into your wetness. God, you weren’t made of steel. “I want it,” you told him, and he didn’t understand your words for a moment. “I want to feel you, Jungkook.”

And he didn’t need anything else. The boy moved away from your body and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it on the floor alongside the rest of your clothes. It was no time for hesitation— he didn’t know how much of his precious alone time he had left. “Condoms.” He pointed at his nightstand. “Top drawer.”

You turned around on the bed, reaching for the furniture as the boy unbuckled his belt and clumsily removed his pants. The mattress bounced beneath you as Jungkook tossed himself around, finding a way to lose his balance as he threw his pants on the ground. Much to his relief, you weren’t paying much attention to it.

He was already panting — in a mixture of excitement and his pathetic effort to remove his pants — by the time that you gave him the condom. “Do you put it on, or do you want me to?” You asked.

Jungkook had trained on enough bananas to know that he could do it, but he wasn’t gonna let the chance to have you touching him down there pass. “You do it, please.”

You nodded, sitting next to his expectant figure. Jungkook’s chest rose and fell in anticipation, his muscles glistening with the small droplets of sweat that decorated his caramel skin. His cock was hard and heavy against the fabric of his grey underwear, practically calling for your care.

Attentively, you watched as his abdomen tensed up at the feeling of one of your hands pressing down against his clothed erection, delicately moving towards his crown. A gasp tumbled from his lips as you rolled your thumb against it, noticing the wetness that had already accumulated beneath your hand, and he rolled his hips against the pressure. Really, Jungkook was too precious.

“Please, don’t tease,” he begged, eyes following your every move. His cock throbbed in your hands, needy. “I don’t think I can hold it much longer.”

With a hum of agreement, you moved your hand away from his erection, and pulled his underwear down gently. Jungkook whimpered at the fiction, and the way his cock was freed from its constraints, bouncing back against his abdomen. The smallest of touches was more than enough for him to lose himself.

“Shhh, it’s fine,” you calmed him down, slowly (too slowly) rolling the condom on him. His hands clenched into fists next to him, grabbing handfuls of the white sheets. Okay, maybe you were being a bit mean. “Just tell me what you want.”

Jungkook closed his eyes for a moment, holding back a cry of frustration. “Ride me, please,” his words came out in a plea, his expression so permeated by need that you thought that he could cry if you teased him any further. God, everything was so perfect about him — the glistening in his onyx irises, the reddening of his lips as he bit down on them, trying to fight back a whimper as you placed yourself over him. “I— I need to feel you. I’m going crazy.”

There was no need for more convincing — again, you weren’t made of steel.

You sighed as you sank down on his member, one of your hands finding support against his pecs, as the other curled around his cock, guiding him inside you. Jungkook closed his eyes and threw his head against the alabaster pillow, his flower-like lips opening to cry out at the sensation. “Oh fuck,” he cursed. “Oh, baby, that’s so good.”

Seeing him like that, so submissive, so deliciously responsive to your faintest of touches, was, at the very least, extremely erotic. You loved to see the way he flinched and whined at the sensation of your walls clenching around him, his hands unsure of where they should be on your body. Awfully slow, you rose your hips from him, almost letting him slip out, before you shifted your weight back down, watching as Jungkook moaned out your name.

God, he was really about to fall apart.

Slowly, you began setting a pace, moving up and down on his cock. It was a lot slower than Jungkook expected, but it was just the right speed to make him appreciate every sensation of your body wrapping his own.

“Feels good?” you asked, a bit breathless. The sensation of him filling you up was even better than you had anticipated, and, combined with his shameless exclamations of pleasure, you didn’t think that you’d last much longer either.

Before he could answer, a tremulous sigh ruptured upon his mouth, reverberating just behind his teeth. Jungkook took another second to find his words, inhaling sharply. “So good,” he spoke, and you almost whined out at the lust that ornamented his voice. “Can you move faster? Please?”

Maybe in different times, you’d take your time to provoke him a bit more. At that point, though, you’d do anything he wanted you to. “Yeah,” you agreed, doing as requested. The sound of your wetness and the slapping of skin against skin was lewd, filling the room alongside Jungkook’s voice. “Like this?”

“Fuck, yeah, like this,” he cried out, closing his eyes in absolute euphoria. He could feel the movement of your asscheeks against his palms, the sensation enough to drive him insane. Jungkook was already amazed at the fact that he didn’t embarrass himself with premature ejaculation the second that you removed his underwear — but it didn’t mean that he didn’t get close to it. The second his hands squeezed your ass, he was positive he would end the game a bit earlier than the two of you would like. “It— it feels so good. Please, don’t stop.”

With a moan, you threw your body forward, placing kisses on the curvature of his neck, a sensation that quickly sent shivers down his skin. The new angle made his cock hit even deeper inside you, causing for you both to melt in pleasure. “You feel so good,” you told him, nails digging against his flesh. The knot in your stomach was all too familiar, and you knew that you wouldn’t take much longer. “I love having you inside me.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s good.” He mumbled, only half aware of the words leaving his lips. Jungkook’s eyes were dazed and unfocused, looking at nowhere in particular, his fingertips digging in your flesh. “You’re… you’re getting tighter.”

“Y-Yeah,” you agreed, voice coming out in a moan. “I’m close.”

He swallowed hard. “I can help,” he said.

Before you could ask what he was trying to do, Jungkook moved his hand back to your center, two of his fingers playing with your clit. You gasped at the sensation, eyes closing as you kept riding him, rolling your hips, feeling as he reached for every part of you. It was all becoming too much, the pleasure that decorated his features, the delicious friction of his body against yours, the frail moans that dropped from his tongue like honey. He was just too much.

With a faint call of his name — a melody that would be stuck in his head forever —, you finally crossed the threshold of your orgasm, and came around him; morphing into a trembling and moaning mess. Jungkook watched, in absolute awe, as your face was monopolized by bliss, your teeth sinking down on your bottom lip and your eyes rolling back.

He removed his hand from your heat, placing it on your waist. Using every final ounce of energy in your body, you continued riding him. Through parted lids, you noticed that his thighs were starting to shake, signaling that he, too, was close. “Baby,” the boy called out, his fingers digging to the sides of your hips. Jungkook was both trying to guide your movements, and hold himself back to reality. It was a beautiful view — the way his expression lingered somewhere between delight and distress; his hips mindlessly trusting up against yours. “I think I’m gonna cum.”

You breathed out through your nose, trying to ignore the pleasure that, now, was turning into sensitivity. It felt good, in a way, but you were more focused on his relief at that point. “It’s okay, Kookie,” you told him, “you can let go.”

He had been so polite the entire time, with his “please” and “thank you’s. So, of course, when you told him that it was okay for him to cum, he did just as you requested.

Jungkook came with gasping breaths and a trembling, high-pitched moan, holding on to you as he thrusted his last sloppy advances towards your core. His hands, weak, fell on the bed besides him, clenching the sheets; eyelashes fluttering down as he dwelled on the afterglow of his pleasure. You could stay there forever, looking at the pink shade that colored his cheeks; the beautiful mess that his black hair had turned into; or the tears of relief that accumulated at the corner of his eyes.

But everything has to end, even the most beautiful ones.

His tongue came out to wet his lips, and his eyes, still hooded, met yours. Not even the biggest minds in the renaissance could’ve thought of an image so perfect, so ethereal. “You’re so amazing,” he praised. “That was… amazing.”

You smiled and leaned in to place a soft kiss against his lips. His member slipped out of you at the action, and his arms curled around your waist, keeping you in place. “You did pretty well,” you mumbled as you lazily curled up against his chest. Jungkook’s body was a delicious source of heat, and you could really get used to that. “I see a bright future ahead of you.”

He hummed, caressing your hair. Jungkook could finally smell it without being creepy, so that was a big victory for him. “You did most of the work,” he said.

“That’s not an issue.” You nuzzled his neck, pleasantly feeling as goosebumps spread throughout his body. Always so responsive. “I’ll let you take the lead next time, if that sounds good to you.”

Jungkook chuckled. “That’d be great, yeah,” he agreed. Part of him thought about using a few tricks he learned during his late-night research, but he wasn’t super sure that it would be a good idea. Maybe he should keep that card up his sleeve for a bit longer in case he needed to surprise you later. “Do you want to spend the night? It’s kind of late to go back to your place now.”

The words fell from his tongue with ease, surprising the boy for an instant. He noticed that he was much more comfortable in your presence, like the pieces of the puzzle had finally fallen into place. Not because of the sex itself, he realized, but because of the vulnerability and intimacy that came with it. It happened just as it was supposed to.

“I’d love to.” You smiled, and placed a kiss against his neck. “But I’m going to kick you out if you start snoring.”

“Out of my own place?” He asked.

You sighed, voice filled by traces of your upcoming slumber. “Don’t you test me,” you spoke, wrapping your arms around him. “Medical school is killing me, I need some sleep. And I will get it no matter the price.”

Jungkook laughed at your tired words, one of his hands caressing your head in infinite delicacy. As he held to your body, curling so perfectly against his own, he knew that everything would be okay. And maybe he needed a good night of sleep too.

A few minutes later, as he started to feel the sensation of his consciousness slowly drifting away to the land of dreams, a bittersweet sentiment overtook his chest. There was an instant, even if ephemeral, in which Jungkook believed he would never see Yoongi and Taehyung again — after all, the two had already concluded their mission: Jungkook got the girl and there was nothing else left for them to do. In between two consecutive breaths, he felt both relief and solitude. Silence wasn’t as welcoming once he realized no voice could break it.

Though, his melodramatic moment was short-lived. Behind him, a known timbre cheered for him:

“I’m so proud, I feel like a soccer mom.”

2K notes · View notes

x0401x · 5 years

Note

What kind of relationship do Richard and Seigi have? At first it seems like both of them have feelings for each other, but then every interaction has the no homo vibes in it, so I can't really figure out what to make out of their relationship

I knew that was coming after the latest episode, omg. This is gonna be long.

Okay, it looks like the anime is making a lot of people confused, so I’m gonna be as honest as possible here. The animators seem to be trying hard to adapt as much as possible from the novel, but... they’re clearly attempting to keep it overly neutral when it comes to the implications that Seigi and Richard might be in love with each other. It doesn’t feel like they have bad intentions (I’d say they’re actually just worried about the DVD sales), but it’s obvious to me that they’re trying to please all audiences. Ironically, I think the anime is going to fail because of that. The novel has a large fanbase and maybe the studio was counting on that to make the anime a success, but without the intensity of the books, the story becomes kinda boring, and without the emphasis on Seigi and Richard’s interactions (which offer in-between breaks so that the reader can stop and digest what’s happening), it turned out a little too fast-paced.

To give full context, the novels provide a lot (and I do mean a lot, you guys have literally no idea) of material for this ship and for the characters. They’re also way more intense in every single aspect and there’s usually more emotion between the two. Each chapter could make at least two episodes, and the contents usually touch upon the subject of “love” in many forms, which eventually comes back to Seigi and Richard and their karmic connection. Seigi is also a bit more childish and Richard is way less aloof in it, which makes them more endearing and their exchanges more humane.

Even in the smallest details, the novel brings the readers’ attention to their bond in a way that even people who don’t like BL wouldn’t be uncomfortable. It’s all just very natural and unpretentious, so if it were any other novel, I would say that there’s zero chance of them being a couple, but... the author of this one is woke as hell, so nobody can tell what she might do. The point is: there’s just so much of these two in the books, and most of it has been cut out in the anime. The essential scenes can’t be cut out, though, and they’re usually heavy and full of meaningful lines. That’s why the anime feels so close yet so far. You suddenly see Richard and Seigi talking about how much they like each other, but you haven’t really been shown how they got there in the first place. That’s bound to confuse the viewers.

Just to give an example of how hit-and-miss the anime is, at the point where the story is right now, Seigi was dreaming with Richard every night in the novel. In the dreams, it seemed like Richard was about to kiss him, so Seigi started asking himself if he had romantic feelings for Richard. And whether he is actually in love with Richard or not is the biggest debate of the novel, in my opinion. But leaving romance aside, Seigi does love Richard. He just doesn’t quite know what kind of love that is, and defining it is one of the most persistent difficulties for him.

To answer your question now, the novels are still on-going and there are many things happening in it even now in the ninth volume, so believe it or not, it’s still unclear where Seigi and Richard really stand. The story is super slow-burn and it highkey feels like a love story, so it’s come to a point where it sometimes seems more likely that they might indeed end up together than otherwise, but you can never be too sure. Still, the Japanese readers all agree that the story is about the two of them cherishing and protecting each other regardless of what their relationship is, rather than about whether it should be labeled as romantic or not. The only thing that seems clear enough is the fact Seigi sees Richard as more important to him than anyone and anything else, and is pretty desperate to make him happy.

TL;DR: Does Seigi love Richard? Very much. Is it in a romantic way? God, I wish we knew.

#housekishou richard shi no nazo kantei #the case files of jeweler richard #richard

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utterlyinevitable · 4 years

Text

Stuck

Part 1: Was It | Part 2: Decisions

Word Count: 3.1k Warning: angst, a few curse words, toxic relationship and slightly nsfw at the end. Summary: Ethan and Becca have a lot to figure out. Just because she agreed to move in with him doesn’t mean she will or that their problems have magically vanished.

A/N: Thank you for the request, Anon and @aylamwrites. I’m sorry in advance, it’s probably not what you were expecting 🙈 I hated writing this for the LONGEST time but now I’m kinda proud ?

________________________________________

Just because Becca accepted his cohabitation proposal doesn’t mean all their problems will simply vanish.

Ethan Ramsey was never one to stick around - he never believed in love or running a mutually beneficial relationship past it’s course. Becca knew from the start he wasn’t going to be one to settle down and have that picket fenced family she’d always dreamed of. That didn’t stop her from wanting it and wishing he would change his mind as their relationship blossomed. She accepted their dissolution when she left that faithless evening, but three days later those piercing blue eyes brought her back in and locked the door behind them.

Against all the reasons to go, she stayed.

Rebecca Lao was moving into Ethan Ramsey’s bachelor pad. Even with the small disappointments every step of the way he never really let her down when it mattered.

He always does what’s best for me.

She moved most of her things into Ethan’s two bedroom luxury condo. The little detrimental voices in the back of her mind made sure to keep a fail-safe. Becca didn’t tell him she was holding onto her room until the end of contract in case things went south between them once more. If there ever was a day she needed a break she had four open arms waiting for her, and Ethan would be none the wiser. The distinguished diagnostician wasn’t asking her to share the bills, he was asking to share all facets of his life with her. And that at least made the charade easier.

The first few weeks were going well.

Then work got in the way.

The couple fought like hell in the middle of his large glass office once all the other members of the team had left for the day. They tried to keep a modicum of civility but he yelled, she screamed, they both said things they shouldn’t have and she stormed off to her place without another word. Becca hadn’t gone back to the apartment they shared in Back Bay for two nights.

This was a mistake, she thought.

She should have known moving in together wouldn’t solve their problems. It was a bandage on the dam ready to burst open. This was it. This argument was the last straw. Ethan shattered any sort of illusion she had with a few poorly chosen words. He opened the door to his heart but left Becca waiting in the foyer.

What was there to love about Ethan Ramsey?

She ran over all the reasons to leave him behind again, and again and again: the vexatious fights, never growing family, work always coming first... But the good crept up on her - The looks, the reassuring talks, snuggling as they researched cases late into the evenings, the way he simultaneously calmed every muscle in her body and set every one of her nerves ablaze. All that she felt for the prudent man - loving him, hating him, wanting him - were all tangled together like a ball of twine. She couldn’t have the sweet moments without all the complications.

She couldn’t have Ethan without utter heartbreak.

Standing out front of the swanky apartment complex she let out a languid sigh. She left him. She got to be the one to run away, again. Now here she was. As if she was a puppy on a leash, no matter how far she ran she’d always be brought back to him. She was tied to Ethan Ramsey in more ways than one could fathom.

I’m stuck with him…

Becca wandered into his apartment mid-morning to grab a couple of things before heading to brunch with Bryce and Kyra. She didn’t expect Ethan to be home.

Ethan sat on his couch slouched over a few files, trying and failing to absorb its contents. He was still occupying the spot he’d found himself in when he realized Becca never returned home yesterday morning. Their fight was ingrained in his mind - he regretted every word falling spitefully out of his gob. How could he have called her a liability? She didn’t deserve his tirade.

Though, he thought she was smart enough to separate demanding Dr. Ramsey from her Ethan.

It was a mistake, he kept telling himself, as if that small prayer would admonish it all.

Their professional relationship had seeped into their personal lives and the implications were all that Ethan feared from the start. It was disastrous. A promise of doing better - putting her first - all thrown away with a few hollow insults.

Becca tried to shuffle in as quietly as possible but Ethan was astute. His head whipped around as soon as her keys scraped against the lock. His heart raced a bit quicker and the pit in his stomach eased knowing she’s home and safe. With the longest click of the door, Becca creeped into the naturally lit threshold on the tips of her sneaker-clad toes. Ethan watched with bated breaths and she closed the heavy wooden door behind her, he didn’t dare move. Her actions were speaking volumes. She rested her forehead against the door, briefly letting out a sigh. Becca was turning on her heels to continue her stealth mission until...

Their eyes met.

Becca jumped in surprise and a wave of guilt washed over her for letting them get this far.

Ethan’s somber blues implored her. This time she didn’t look like a crying wreck with blood shot eyes, deep purple bags and loose fitting clothes. Becca was wearing high-waisted shorts with a grey t-shirt and white mary-jane sneakers, all subtly accentuating her womanly figure. Her chestnut hair was pulled into a tight bun, makeup expertly placed and her expression indifferent. She didn’t have any more tears to shed for their tumultuous relationship.

His stare bore into her, keeping her in place at the threshold. She fidgeted with the keyring between her fingers. He wasn’t supposed to be here. This was supposed to be a quick in and out with a few necessities. They weren’t supposed to have this conversation yet. She had nothing prepared.

Ethan sat there expectantly; his posture squared, waiting for her to make the first move.

She bit the inside of her lip. Becca needed to say something to break the tension and make this iniquitous return less awkward.

“Why aren’t you at work?”

Without breaking eye-contact he recited, “I took some time off.”

She folded her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at the piles of documents surrounding him, “Yet you’re still working.”

He motioned around them. “Got all this time on my hands, might as well finish off some files.”

“Right.” Becca shoved the keys deep into her back pocket and began taking a few leery steps forward. “I’m just gunna…” she trailed, pointing down the hall and fleeing to the bedroom.

She disappeared so quickly Ethan had to blink a few times to digest their first interaction in days. It was nothing and yet her body language said everything. He chucked his files from his lap and carelessly onto the glass coffee table. He mimicked her swift and discreet footsteps all the way to their bedroom.

Becca was quickly pulling clothes off hangers and discarding them into a bright pink gym bag as Ethan stood at the doorway with folded arms.

“I don’t want to fight anymore. Please can we put this behind us,” he sighed.

Becca knew he’d follow and demand an explanation, she just wasn’t ready for that. In truth, his angered words still stung deep to her core - he brought up things from her past which she thought they moved on from. How can you trust someone if they’re going to hold your past mistakes against you?

“Can you?” she spat.

“Rookie…”

Becca refused to look at him. If she looked over at the doorway she’d see that his arms hung at his sides, his rigid shoulders sunk and his ocean eyes were the darkest shade she’d ever seen.

“Go ahead, Ethan, call me immature and reckless and clueless again. Do it,” she spitefully challenged as she knelt down to shove the articles down into the small pocket.

“I didn’t mean it. You know that.” He began walking into the room.

“Doesn’t mean you can still say it! You don’t realize how your words affect people.”

Ethan made it halfway to her before the words stung him to a halt. His ears flushed red, the vein in his neck leapt to attention and the crease between his brows appeared, his blood started to boil much like it did the other night. “Your actions got us into this mess! Don’t you realize that? You need to take better care -” his fingers fatefully found the bridge of his nose. “Did you learn nothing from the Martinez case!?”

“How dare you.” Her head whirled around to give him the most menacing gaze she could muster for a few lengthy seconds. With a huff, Becca zipped up the packed bag and got to her feet.

“Where’re you going?”

She brushed past him, “To my place.”

“Your place? This is your place.”

“I still have my apartment.”

“Wh- Why?” He thought she was just crashing with friends, not that she actually kept her bedroom in a five person flatshare. Ethan couldn’t understand what that room had that he couldn’t easily provide. Not to mention there was more space here with him and she’d be saving money - what more did she need besides her own bathroom and someone to share the king-sized bed?

“For this exact reason.” Becca was just on the other side of the bedroom doorway when the next words spilled vehemently off her tongue, “Maybe you were right. We’re not compatible, Ethan.”

Her foot lifted to take another step. Ethan lunged to grab the back of her arm, forcing her to turn back to him. It was an impetuous move. This time he wasn’t being selfish or selfless. He was a man standing in front of a woman asking her to stay.

He spun her around with all his might. They were just two footfalls away from one another. His calloused hand holding onto the flesh of her forearm for dear life. Becca kept her eyes trained on the floor, she could not acknowledge him.

Ethan’s deep baritone voice was beseeching, “You may drive me insane but I wouldn’t change a damn thing.”

Becca squeezed her eyes shut as Ethan’s words jostled her. In the faintest of whispers she exhaled, “I’m losing my mind, Ethan.”

There in front of him was the woman he was meant to care for above all else. His best friend. His confidant. His destiny. Yet how did he regard her? Like an emotional yo-yo - pushing and pulling until there was no energy left to bring her back.

His voice was soft and shameful, “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t enough anymore.”

Delicately, Ethan’s free hand lifted her chin so he could view every telling feature on her expressive face. Her eyes were still closed showing creases in her gold eyeshadow and her matte nude lips pursed together. The foundation hid her freckles and he couldn’t tell if the pink on her cheeks was real or artificial blush.

“I shouldn’t have said those things, I know.” He caressed the length of her cheek with the soft skin of the back of his fingers.

He felt Becca tense under his hold. “This isn’t about that,” she shook her head just once.

Ethan became statuesque in his shocked state. His fingers stayed at her jaw, his supple lips slightly agape and his grip on her unwavering.

This is it. This is the conversation she didn’t want to have. How is she supposed to tell him?

Her face contorted; biting back the tears, biting her lip, and biding time before she gave the final blow.

“It’s everything.” She choked out “You can’t give me what I want.” Her doleful orbs finally fluttered open.

No amount of manifesting could change Ethan’s mind; he’s a stubborn mule set in his single-boxed ways. No amount of hope could bring her the peace she knew Ethan was incapable of giving.

His fingers twitched against her, his eyes never breaking their fixed stare. “How do you know?” he asked firmly and incredulously “You’re young, there’s still tim-”

“What’s next for us?” Becca blurted out, meeting his eyes. Her steely glare sent a nervous chill down his spine.

“I -“

“Marriage?” She questioned.

His mouth still hung open, no words or sounds escaping, giving Becca all the confirmation she needed.

“Kids?” she continued her cross-examination.

Silence.

Becca let out a light, afflicted chuckle, “Exactly…”

She wiggled free from his grip and moved away from his disconcerted form, her back just shy from pressing against the hallway wall.

“Becca-” Ethan grasped her hand mid-stride, keeping her in front of him. “We’re in this together - it’s just you and me. There is nothing I would rather do than give you the world.”

His hands flew to her cheeks, forcing her to look at him as he crouched down to her level this time. Brown met blue, both pleading.

“Whether you like it or not, Rebecca, you’re stuck with me. I refuse to lose you.” He knew what it felt like to have her walk out on him once and he was not going to be foolish enough for it to happen again. His heart trembled as his veins carried all of his regret, anguish, and a sliver of hope as he uttered the next words; “Please...stay with me.”

His breath was warm on her skin. His words were intoxicating. Becca’s eyes flit shut at contact.

“I…” She trailed. “I have plans.”

“Cancel them.” He replied definitively.

Becca was about to say something, but he stopped her protest with the touch of his desperate lips to hers.

Ethan moved his heady kisses from her lips, peppering them along her cheeks in a way he knew kept her from thinking straight, and his right hand found its rightful place massaging the muscle below her waist. “I love you,” he said as if those three words could absolve all their woes. His lips were just a hair away from her ear, begging, “Please let me make things better.”

And for tonight she let him mend their open wounds.

Becca let him ravish her skin with his debilitating kisses. Every touch and desperate caress helped her forget every fear she ever had for them, all patched up with his warmth. Her bag fell to the floor. His left hand tangled itself in her hair, holding her sturdy by the back of her head. She became clouded in wonted lust.

This...

Her arms frozen at her side - logic told her to leave. This was over.

Her body and spirit kept her in place, accepting of all he was willing to give.

Ethan’s lower hand burrowed under her shirt, hardened fingers danced over her skin before finding home at the small of her back. The tip of each finger cherished the little dimples at the base of her spine as Ethan’s tongue grazed her teeth asking entrance. Without a fraction of a thought she obliged.

Was she kissing him back? Or was she just letting him put her out of her misery?

Habitually, a few of her fingers traveled to knot his hair while the others went to leave a gauging bruise on his bicep as he nibbled her neck.

“Ethan…” she barely breathed with sanctity.

He pulled away just enough to take her in. His clouded, partially bloodshot orbs met her glassy dark brown. Both were about to fall apart at any moment.

“I love you.” A single tear escaped her.

Ethan kissed it away.

She tilted her head to nudge him with her nose, beckoning his lips back to hers. They met and she knew. She knew she was kissing him back as if he was the sustaining oxygen her lungs craved - she had no life without Ethan. He was her everything and she his. They just needed to find the balance.

They tore one another's clothes off there in the dimly lit hallway, discarding them without care. Their kiss was slow and wet, savoring. Tongues gliding. Hands roaming over their favorite spots. Ethan trailed his hands down her bare back in tandem, settling just below the curve of her bum. His lips followed the path down her front and Becca’s head lolled back against the cool wall. Just when she thought he’d touch her where she needed him most, he leaned to wrap his arms around her thighs, lifting her up to meet his height. A slight smirk graced Becca’s lips as she began leaving a trail of carnal pecks up and down his jawline before nipping on that sweet spot at his ear.

Ethan let out a guttural moan.

Their hearts rapidly beat in time as he carried them to the lonesome bed. He placed his love down with the utmost of care, climbing on top of her not long after. Their bodies found and appreciated each other once again; Trying to console and solve their problems with every move of devotion.

***

Becca lay across Ethan’s bare chest post-rapture, her index finger keeping time with each beat of his heavy heart. He rubbed soothing nonsensical patterns along her clammy back. She was back in this bed - their bed, full of his love while his mind was consumed by her. The way she was hanging onto him gave Ethan foresight. He needed to do better. Two decades of piety to his craft was nothing compared to the dedication and adoration he held for the woman beside him. It was time to be a better man.

With the midday sun shining through the open windows, he cut through their silence. “Might as well cancel our plans for this weekend.”

Becca rotated to look up at him with furrowed brows. Her makeup was smeared and Ethan could finally see every crease and freckle of her expression; her natural beauty is what made her the most exquisite woman he had ever laid eyes on.

“I could stay here forever,” he continued in his delicate tone as he tucked a few wayward strands of hair behind her ear, “Though Martha’s Vineyard is meant to be nice this time of year.”

She leaned up to place a tender kiss to his cheek. “We got all that we need right here.”

All the fights. All the uncertainty. All of it didn’t matter once she was cuddled in his impervious embrace. She would throw away everything just to stay in this feeling of infinite bliss a little longer.

________________________________________

Taglist: @ohchoices @dulceghernandez @aylamreads @binny1985 @ramseysno1rookie @interobanginyourmom @queencarb @perriewinklenerdie @rookiefromedenbrook @eramsey28 @choicesficwriterscreations @heauxplesslydevoted @schnitzelbutterfingers @purpledragonturtles @ramseyandrys @ermidc @mrsdrakewalkerblog @doilooklikeiknow @overwhelminglyaquarius @drethanramslay @edgiestwinter @rookieoh @lucy-268 @mvalentine @lilyvalentine @starrystarrytrouble @angela8756 @pitchblackstars @custaroonie @ezekielbhandarivalleros @sanchita012 @thegreentwin @openheart @tsrookie @adrex04 @togetherwearerapture @ramseyboo18 @the-pale-goddess

#open heart #open heart fanfic #choices open heart #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #oph #oph series #oph2 #choices oph2 #choices fanfic #ohsy #oph ff #ff

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eradicatetehnormal · 3 years

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LAST EPISODE WAS LIT!! Intial Thots of the Series and Rambling(not me sounding like a boomer)

Episode 12, My reactions to major events

Adam gets a suit: SCREW YOU ADAM >:( >:( >:(

race time!: KICK HIS A** LANGA!

the zone: GET OFF HIM ADAM! FOCUS LANGA, REMEMBER WHY YOU'RE OUT HERE GOING OFF!

Langa almost f*cking dies: LANGA NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Renga moment turns into flashback sequence: BECAUSE REKI IS THE MAN!

Langa being reminded of boarding with his dad and the JP VA's speak Engrish: Awww that's so wholesome. Hey at least these VA's can fully pronounce English words

Slight Adam redemption and acceptance: ...why?

Adam loses:YEAH SUCK it BOIII!!!

Langa jumps on Reki: BIG GAY MOMENT, not the one we wanted or needed, but that's to be expected *shrug*

Shadow's girl gets took: WHACK *adventure time lemon meme style U N A C C E P T A B L E

Reki teaching his sisters to sk8: this is SO cute, aw damn she sk8in boys

Langa telling his dad about his sk8 board and Reki: more wholesomy goodness uwu Langa and Reki racing: LOOK AT EM GOOOOO!

overall thots on episode: A decent finale, it did everything it needed to do. I'm still annoyed that Adam got off scott free for his actions, i'm there's some symbolism shiz going on but still, ehhhhhhh... Overall though, just a feel good episode with an epic battle, some gay moments, and sweet sweet wholesomy goodness. 7.5/10 a vibe.

Thots on series: A very feel good series. It caught me off gaurd because I'was just falling off shounen when I started watching this series and I generally don't watch a lot of anime anyways. Even so it kind of has this warm nostalgic feeling. It understood everything cool about shounen and why I liked it in the first place. This close bonds formed between two characters fighting for the same goal, a fun soundtrack, the happy go lucky characters, AND THE DOPE FIGHT (in this case skateboarding) SCENES. It also managed to keep itself interesting mainly off premise alone. There isn't much anime out there purely about something like skateboarding, surfing, rollerblading, or any of a sort, which makes since since it's more of a western sport. I'm not too sure how well it captured skating culture, but the skating aesthetic is captured extremely well with the amazing directing and animation. *chef's kiss* superb. The actual story, while nothing special, was very heartwarming and just kinda...Chill. It's just this half Japanese dude from Canada moving to Japan with his mom, feeling depressed, and meeting this cool dude who loves to sk8. Which then makes him love to sk8. Simple, to the point, digestible. And really, does it have to be anything else? The side characters are all great, my favorites being our favorite couple in an open relationship, Joe and Cherry. Their dynamic is just so much fun. The two are old friends who knew each other in highschool and would compete together in skateboarding competitions. They're always fighting and insulting each other, and if i'm being honest, it's hilarious. Miya is good too. He's an acceptional kid with a knack for boarding. Unfortunately, he got too good and so the homies peaced out on him. Fake friends... He has a bit of a cocky, sly personality. He's cute, I wish we got more of him in later episode. Shadow is just a big soft dude who wants to be a badass so bad. He just wants to get the girl but he couldn't. D*cks out for Shadow guys. For real though, he's enjoyable to watch, he just isn't as intersting as the other characters I just mentioned. One thing I gotta say about a certian character though...This...ADAM guy...I don't like him. He's creepy, had implications that project an evil stereotype, a legitmate danger to other racers, possible cultural appropriator, just an all around whack person. The worst part is that it rubs off on another character named Tadashi, who I dislike for continuing to follow this creepazoid. I will say I like the backstory between these two, but looking back on it, it made me just kinda feel bad for Tadashi because he thinks he can't give up on a dude that's clearly sick mentally. Adam needs to stay away from teenagers, then get jail time, then therapy. He's a danger and he either need to be taken away from the things he has, punished, and then reformed. //THE MEAT//

So the foundation for the entire series is the relationship between Reki and (almost called him ash) Langa. Honestly, it's a really good dynamic. Just a pure, healthy relationship between two boys, one of which introduced the other to a sport that would become his new meaning in life. Throughout the series, the two would go onto to inspire each other to keep improving and become each other's main motivation for wanting to skate in the first place. However this becomes too much for Reki and he sees how everyone Langa has surpassed him in ability. Reki then tries to catch up to him but fails, realizing he may never be as good as Langa. This causes him to stop skating for a while, as he's feeling too out done by everyone else around him. Though this arc is short lived, it causes for what I think is the best episodes in all of the series because it showed the possible weak point between Langa and Reki's relationship and showed a flaw in Reki's character being his inferiority complex. It also might have shown a bit of a flaw in Langa's character too, since it seems as though he is codependant on Reki and skating to be truely happy, as he just loses all motivation for skating without him their and his "heart doesn't beat as fast". Even though they didn't spend as long of a time as other anime would on this arc, it was still super satisfying to see them reunite and find their resolve together. The relationship between these two is simply very sweet.

All of this culminates into one easy message: Have fun bru. That's it. Just go, and have a good time. Anything that you love doing will be meaningless if you don't. Having fun is what relieves stress, what brings you and your friends close together, and what creates good memories. A dumb sounding message, but a good one to hear. It's suprising how much you forget this when you get older. You get so focused on being "productive", all you ever want to do afterwards is relax. It becomes this endless cycle of bordem that you can't escape from because it's devoid of any real joy. You're not doing the things that make you happy, you're just sitting in mental limbo. So it's nice to be reminded that it's okay, and even good to just, try to have fun doing something you love sometimes, and not have to take it seriously.

Have fun man. Sk8 is love. Sk8 is life.

Easily one of my favorites, low-key ranked as like my 10th favorite right behind revolutionary girl utena the series. A good time. 8/10

#sk8 #sk8 the infinity #rambles

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arcticdementor · 4 years

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Two years ago, when reviewing “The Benedict Option”, I wrote, “Almost all Dreher’s critics accuse him of crying wolf or being a Chicken Little at best … Meanwhile, I’m saying that Dreher is underestimating his enemy, painting an overly rosy picture, and not being nearly alarmist enough.”

This is still true.

“Wait, what? Totalitarianism! Gulags!”

I know!

Let me explain; I promise hope, this will be shorter than last time.

…

First, Dreher’s critics, while still far too blasé and insouciant about the end-game-level crisis racing straight for them, have at least started to acknowledge that something’s happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear, but that some greater degree of consternation and freak-out is now warranted.

But they are still far, far behind the power curve on this one.

As a friend of mine put it, “The single biggest problem is lag-seriousness. We are always just at best about grim enough for yesterday’s battle.”

That is where “Dreher’s Law of Merited Impossibility” comes from. “It will never happen, and when it does, you bigots will deserve it.” If it were possible, despite denials, and by pointing out a clear logical implication of progressive ideology – and even going so far as to supplement with the early appearances of those explicit proposals – to scare conservatives enough, early enough, to do whatever it takes to avoid it, then the impossible wouldn’t keep happening to them, over and over again.

But it’s almost never feasible to do this. It turns out this is the one impossibility. The frogs never jump out of the pot in time to avoid another scalding. The need is not to be grim enough for yesterday, but for today, so that tomorrow won’t bring your final sunset.

That puts Dreher in the position of a Cassandra.

…

In “Live Not By Lies”, Dreher seems to assume that something like faithful Christianity as we know it today is going to go through a profoundly difficult era of persecution, but still, its adherents having prepared for it, it will persist at some level despite intense suffering until, well, ‘deliverance’. Perhaps not in the Acts 12:3 sense, but then again, maybe so. How else?

…

That’s why even Dreher isn’t radicalized enough yet, because he doesn’t seem to fully grapple with the gloomy prospects for his tradition that is the clear implication of his own arguments about the overwhelming magnitude of the problem. That is: termination. Slow and steady and (mostly) gentle evaporation under the relentless heat of the sun until the last drop of water finally evaporates and the spiritual desert goes completely dry.

It would be like Travis telling the defenders of the Alamo that Santa Anna was sending a force in the morning that outnumbered them ten to one, that supplies were nearly exhausted, and reinforcements too far away to help. But with a tone of brutal optimism, “It’s going to be really rough boys, but if we’re tough enough, we’ll make it.” – “Um, rough? Well Travis, come hell or high water, I’m happy to make a stand and fight by your side. No rendirse! But to be frank, from the way you put it, I reckon it sounds like we’re all going to die.”

…

Now, before I explain why, let me get to the second piece of good news and commend Dreher for a wonderful second half of the book, which contained the inspiring and gut-wrenching stories of what it was like for people of faith behind the Iron Curtain to be the subjects of Communist anti-Christian oppression.

As I look over my notes, I see almost no comments or criticisms in that half. The testimonies speak for themselves. These harrowing and moving tales of triumphs of fidelity and perseverance in the face of the hardships and miseries of hard totalitarianism don’t need any gloss. The stories of these brave people deserve your study, and their memories your honor.

However.

What is both terrible and true is that a month later you are probably going to forget all their names, forget the details of their persecution, and come away with the same rough impression and vague understanding you already have. This is that Christians had it really bad in a place where Christianity was once all of life but had been evicted, that some of them nevertheless stayed devoted, and others gave the last full measure of devotion. Others resisted, and some of them even lasted long enough on the road through hell to make it through to the other side.

Though, in a way, it was lucky for them there was the other side: that didn’t happen everywhere. If the Soviets had then what the Chinese have now, likely there would have been no interviews or happy endings. You can’t even forget a martyr’s name if you never got the chance to hear about his martyrdom in the first place.

…

Alas, this is not really a manual at all, and regardless of whether Dreher is dropping some kind of Straussian signal with that, it’s surprising that few of his critics have noticed the problem.

An actual manual is more than just general rough guidelines; it has clear, specific, step-by-step instructions for how to accomplish some identified, well-defined task or troubleshoot typical problems. It cannot be a bunch of personal narratives, and, “Follow their lead; just be like them. Refuse to bend, like Benda.”

If one picked up, say, a survival manual, one would expect to emerge knowing how to start a fire and build a shelter. A beginner’s cookbook will at least tell you precisely how long to boil an egg.

What does Dreher tell us to do in an age of persecution? “Embrace Suffering.” “Choose a Life Apart from the Crowd.” “Reject Doublethink and Fight for Free Speech.” “Cherish Truth-Telling but Be Prudent.” “Cultivate Cultural Memory.” “See, Judge, Act.”

He doesn’t get much more specific. I think he believes he got more specific – “form small cells … read other books,” and the recitation of Solzhenitsyn’s Six Hard Rules on page 18 – but it’s not actually the case. “See, Judge, Act” is just a description of any rational decision-making process, and “Yeah, but this is Persecuted Christian decision-making,” doesn’t actually put meat on the bones. These are mostly motivation stimulants and abstract encouragements of the right general attitudes, but those do no a ‘manual’ make.

These are like ordering the military to “Be able to fight and win wars,” and then someone else develops the *actual* doctrine and writes the field manuals. These commandments, like the Decalogue itself, just raise a host of questions, “How much suffering? How far apart from the crowd? Which crowd? How do I identify doublethink? Fight for free speech how? Fight for hate speech too? Where is the line between prudence and paying so much lip-service I lose my soul?”

…

But how is some ordinary person who needs an actual manual supposed to live not by lies, if the famous, influential guy writing the admonition feels just as compelled by circumstances and prudence to live by omitting the lies?

There should have been at least one page that went like this:

You as a Christian are going to be strongly pressured to “wear the ribbon” and to say the following things which do not accord with the truths of our faith, and in order to live not by lies, you must be willing to sacrifice, suffer if necessary, and never say …

Never say what, exactly? Yes, integrity in general is a virtue, but obviously Dreher is talking about the Big Lies.

But in his book, there is a surprising paucity of actual lies. Isn’t that something? First it’s strange, then it’s puzzling, and then when you solve the puzzle, demoralizing.

My take is the answer to the puzzle of absence is Dreher’s actual manual, the one you are supposed to figure out. The most critically strategic task is to preserve precisely this kind of room for maneuver: the freedom to speak the truth and to condemn the lies. If you still can, if there is still some crack open in the window of opportunity, then you must band together and stop your opponents from being able to impose their rival orthodoxy on you, which forces that absence and omission and uses that dominance to call your lies truth and your love hate.

If you can’t do that, if you missed your chance to make that stand, then like the Alamo, it’s only a matter of time.

…

Otherwise, without the list of lies one lacks a clear idea of the threat one faces, and so vague guidelines are all that are left and there is no possibility of a manual with precise instructions. But with the lies, the enemy hears his own name like the aliens hear a scream in “A Quiet Place”, and then come down on you like a ton of bricks.

VI. From whence the cascade

Well, look, no sense getting some bricks in the face if one can avoid it, that’s just being smart and prudent. Though, inconveniently, it’s Dreher himself who quotes Milosz to argue against this kind of seductive logic.

Better logic would be to say that one can reason that the intended audience probably knows the lies already, and knows that they have been weak, acquiesced, and lived by them. They know what they are supposed to stand up for already, and they know they have failed to do so. They know who their enemies are, and they know they have failed to resist them. You don’t need to list the lies to send a signal to all these people that, by the very fact of this book existing, knowing that it is being digested by so many other people, they are not alone, and they can act differently.

But what the audience still doesn’t know is what to do about it. Dreher may not know either. Notice: a thousand Benedict Option startups have not bloomed. The Benedict Option was criticized as crazy and alarmist, but again, the ugly, gloomy truth is that it’s actually the hopeful, optimistic, and practically wishful-thinking take on things. Most likely, there is no such option.

…

The anti-audience already believes Dreher is far more of a kook and Chicken Little than his Christian critics do, and just a continuation of “The Paranoid Style In American Politics.” To them, Dreher can get in the back of the line behind the McCarthyists, “Eisenhower was a Commie!” John Birchers, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and low-status judgment-day-is-just-around-the-corner-all-the-signs-are-actually-happening prepper types. They are once again proclaiming the first half of the law, “It will never happen.”

And without the list of lies, their argument wins the day. It seems fully plausible and convincing. It sounds like this:

Oh look at these idiots going off again. Here we are, just trying to make sure love wins and hate loses. Our ‘radical ideology’ amounts to “Don’t be a bigot, help your fellow man, and keep your toxic hatefulness to yourself.” Everybody should be included, and nobody ought to be unjustly discriminated against. Simple, self-evident, human universals, really, do real, loving Christians really disagree so much with any of those? And because the white supremacist homophobes can’t think of anything else to say in response, the hide behind ‘Christianity’ as a pathetic rationalization for their simple irrational animus, and resort to inventing fantasies like gulags and torture rooms and KGB agents. Like *they’re* the victims! Delusional! What kind of creepy psychological problems do they have to really imagine that with all their wealth, comfort, freedom, privilege, and petty first world problems, that they are remotely spiritual kin with people who endured the worst suffering possible? Crazy!

Do you see the problem? It’s the ‘merited’ part of the law. Dreher wants to respond with the simple truth, “We’re not bigots, and we don’t deserve it.” The response would be, “Ok, let’s find out. What is it exactly that you are going to insist on believing or doing, that we would possibly think was worth throwing you into a gulag?”

He can’t beat around the bush with something general and evasive, “For being devout Christians.”

The response (at least from the rare one who knows anything about Christianity) would be as follows:

Look, we just think your religion is mostly a collection of mythological fantasies and superstitious prohibitions, but combined with a salvageable core of a worthy moral perspective that, like almost all ancient and traditional lines of philosophy, represents an incomplete and imperfect grasping toward the same ethical framework we now hold dear. That’s why Jefferson rewrote the bible, removing all those superfluous distractions. Following the actual bible seems kind of nutty and backward to us, but now that it’s in clear political retreat in terms of numbers and influence, and since most self-identified Christians don’t really seem to live like they take most of it seriously, we regard it as mostly harmless. So long as you keep it to yourselves.

So, nobody is going to throw you in the gulag for going to church. Or for believing Jesus is Lord, that he is the Savior of humanity and God’s only son, that he was born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary who in turn was immaculately conceived, that he performed miracles, made water into wine, multiplied bread and fishes, walked upon water, healed the sick, raised the dead, died for our sins, and was resurrected. That he saves his people by means of their repentance and confession to sin and commanded his followers to love each other and their neighbors and their enemies, and to spread his word and the gospel of the good news of their salvation to every soul.

Seriously now, is that not Christian enough or you? Are these not the central claims of Christianity? Is that not enough freedom to be a Christian?

And we aren’t going to do a single thing to anyone for any of that. Why would we even care? Maybe if proselytizing is done obnoxiously in an imposing manner and makes people feel unsafe and not included. But let’s face it, 99.99% of American Christians aren’t ever doing that anymore, so it’s kind of absurd to spook them, right? Now we will insist that you not discriminate against LGBTs, and not to teach people to hate them, and yes, you will indeed get merited punishment if you persist in doing so. But seriously, is Hate the hill you are choosing to die on?

As another friend of mine put it, “We do not want you to subtract from your faith, only to add to it. Just don’t be a jerk and you’ll be just fine.”

One simply cannot give this line of argument anything like an adequate response without getting right into the contrasts between what one believes and what one’s opponents believe, that is, between the truth and the lies. It’s a no-win situation. Without naming the lies, the progressives will suspect Dreher’s audience are closeted bigots. Naming the lies, open bigots. C’est la guerre.

Unlike in the Soviet Union, the progressives don’t see mere belief and worship as inherently threatening, and so aren’t interested in prison and torture for merely belonging to a faith, going to church, being a priest, and so forth. They look at ‘worship’ in “freedom of worship” in the same ’boutique’ manner that Fish explained as the way they look at culture in “multiculturalism”. That is, by definition, non-threatening to the imperialist program of imposing progressive orthodoxy on everyone, everywhere.

In other words, Fake Religious Tolerance, and Fake Multiculturalism. Fake, because it is precisely at the important friction points that the freedom or the multi ends. Now, as Winnifred Sullivan explained, whether genuine religious freedom is even possible in anything like our system is an interesting question, but the point is that one can’t have any coherent discourse on the subject real or fake tolerance, without identifying those points of difference.

…

Now, the approach Dreher has taken has been to say that, of course it won’t actually be ‘hard’ torture and gulags, it will be ‘soft’ totalitarianism. Dreher would have given his argument much more punch had he marshaled the parade of horribles of all the “never going to happen”s that are definitely going to happen, probably soon. Without getting into the lies, he could still have collected in one place the likely sequence of escalation of oppressive state policies and mob pressures which will be brought to bear against Christian (and other) holdouts in the mopping-up operations.

They’ll penalize or dis-accredit private school, take away homeschooling, have child protective services yank your kids away if you try, mandate offensively heretical curriculum on core moral issues, kick your kids out of athletic competitions and related chances for scholarships, boycott your businesses, commercially excommunicate you as unhireable, and ineligible to use the internet or transactions system, give your kids abortions or sex hormones behind your back, take away your guns, allow the mob to walk right up to your front door and smash your windows with impunity, and if you try to defend yourself, you’ll be the one who gets arrested.

To his Christian readers, that parade of horribles will feel closer and more plausible and real, thus helping to raise their alarm to more accurate levels. Some may reject these claims at first, but as they start coming true, one after the other, he will seem nothing less than, well, prophetic. Cassandra was cursed, but Dreher can build a track record.

The trouble is, while all these things will happen, unlike in the Soviet system, they will never need to be ubiquitous or even common, so they can always be rhetorically dismissed as rare aberrations. No one is going to publish a ‘study’ with some nice scatter plots showing the increase in the persecution index. In the contemporary media environment, one hanged admiral – a pizza shop, a cake decorator, an expelled student, a heterodox professor – encourages millions of the others, to just give in and side with the strong horse, the cool horse. You only have to hang one or two admirals a year, (only after groveling apologies of course) and soon enough, the whole Navy has surrendered, concludes that those admirals had it coming, and that they “weren’t being smart.”

…

The thing about hard totalitarianism is the fact of brutal oppression is inescapably clear to everyone. Sure, it will be rationalized and justified, but that people know it’s there if they step out of line is half the point. And if one is not enjoying being on the delivering end, the common human psychological instinct is to resent such domination.

‘Soft’ is totally different. People will still have choices, but if they choose ‘wrong’ in the eyes of the elites, then they will just be seen as weirdo losers and low-status pariahs, not martyrs. The flip-side of resenting domination is admiring, conspicuously affiliating with, and imitating the prestigious. People – your own fellow Christians too – will look at the refusal to pinch incense for Caesar the same way they look at a hermit’s refusal of all society. When you think about it, the hermit who could fit in if he wanted to is just persecuting himself.

…

The perception of dual loyalty would mean that you would be spied on, that your closest friends would be recruited to inform against you, and that you would hit an unacknowledged but hard glass ceiling in your career path, “Performance Assessment: A highly competent and reliable professional with unlimited leadership potential, but … does not adequately demonstrate he fully shares our values and commitment to progress. Pass over for promotion absent a critical personnel shortage in his field.”

And of course, you would never be told: a breeding ground for paranoia and self-doubt. Nevertheless, if you kept your head down otherwise, you could enjoy a normal life and even some measure of personal success and respect.

Sometimes, to remind people who’s boss, an ‘informant’ would be told to make up some baloney accusations and the local priest would get arrested and interrogated, maybe leaned on to make more false accusations of his colleagues. No one would hear about him for days. Then, usually, he was released with a stern warning to watch his back.

When he showed up again at services, what happened? His whole congregation would weep for joy and relief, hugs and handshakes for hours, invitations and offers of support. He would be a kind of minor hero, a kind of minor martyr, honored and dignified. There were thousands of such events in the second half the 20th century. That’s worthy suffering; inspiring, socially productive suffering.

XI. Live Hard

But what about someone who gets ‘canceled’ today? Most of the time, it’s the Big Meh, no welcoming arms and no heroic status in one’s reference social group. Without that, there is no utility in withstanding the suffering, because there is no power of example or remembrance. Today, if you are accused of ‘hate’, things are such that most of your fellows will feel obliged to act like they believe it, dump you like a bag of dirt, and avoid you like the roof over reactor number three.

Dreher and Benda like to use the example of “High Noon”. But try to imagine “Low Noon”, where, at the end, all the townspeople ganged up on the sheriff saying, “What the heck did you do that for, you psycho? Those guys didn’t deserve that! Now you’ve just gone and made trouble for the rest of us. Get the heck out of our town, monster!”

…

To throw this into even sharper relief, and to demonstrate the absence of a true ‘manual’, instead of ‘Christianity’, imagine that one is trying to preserve and propagate some even more unpopular views that, while one believes them to be perfectly true, are deeply hated by just about everyone. Any manual for dissidents necessarily works in general for any strain of persecuted dissent, and if it speaks to a particular kind of dissident, it is only because is it written in the language they are best able to comprehend.

Now, imagine a group of scattered people who were trying not to propagate Christianity and persevere as Christians, but as Confederates. Some kind of secret society that saw it all coming since Calhoun and had, against all odds, continued for two centuries to the present day, who believed in the lost cause as the right cause, hereditary racial slavery, and all the rest. What concrete advice does Dreher give that these people could use? What advice could anyone give them?

There isn’t any.

This hypothetical makes it easy for everyone to immediately grasp, at this stage in the game, that it’s an impossible task. The powers that be and 99% of society are fully committed and determined to thoroughly eradicating any remaining trace of those ideas and traditions. They can do it, they will, they are, they are almost done. Either the hypothetical Secret Confederates get nukes, or the protection of someone who has them, or (if they weren’t already extinct), their days are numbered. That’s it, game over.

XIII. Other Feet

The point is, the Soviet context is simply not the proper analogy for our situation. That ideas makes it seem like the familiar image of the Romans throwing Christians to wild beasts in some arena. But the right way to look at it is the other way around, once the Christians had won the upper hand.

The right context is something like Watts’ “The Final Pagan Generation”.

In late antiquity there were still sincere worshipers of Minerva and Apollo and Jupiter, continuing a religious tradition that went back, as it happens, about two thousand years. And then it ended. It’s a long story, and yes there was a fair amount of actual persecution as the shoe gradually moved to the other foot, but it wasn’t the key factor.

Gradually, there were fewer and fewer of these people, until there really was a last one. And when he died, the faith died with him; the chain linking 100 generations was broken, and the line went completely extinct. The last drop of water evaporated and the ground was dry. Now, no one praises Jupiter, because their great-grandparents praised Jupiter.

…

Dreher’s “Why Communism Appealed to Russians” is, unfortunately, typical progressive mythological narrative (i.e., widely-swallowed propaganda) and mushy-headed nonsense drawing a line from “poverty and oppression” to the allure of Socialism. The material circumstances of various populations simply do not constitute the proper explanation for how that particular idea – or any idea – spread and came to dominate.

…

If our own past is a foreign country, the past of foreign countries is too weird and alien to grasp without extensive immersion in its particular history. We are taught to think of tsarist-era exile in Siberia as a retroactive extension of the Soviet gulags, but it wasn’t like that. Siberia was like their Australia: a far away place you could send prisoners of all kinds with minimal supervision and the understanding that it was really hard to get back. You might even hope they would try to take a go at making a life for themselves out there like colonists, because you needed to populate the vast, mostly unpeopled wilderness.

So “exile” at that time was mockable as a kind of Siberian summer camp. Many of the Bolsheviks who experienced it were practically unguarded and made many successful and attempted escapes. Stalin wrote of his enjoyment fishing with Tunguses, horseback riding, and of fornication (and procreation!) with 13 year old locals like Lidia Pereprygia. Brutal, I tell you.

…

By page 41, Dreher admits that “Intellectuals are the Revolutionary Class,” but he might have just said ‘elites’. Major historical events and struggles between groups are always and everywhere a phenomenon of disputes between classes of elites.

But then a few pages later he goes off course, “To be sure, neither loneliness, not social atomization, not the rise of social justice radicalism among power-holding elites – none of these and other factors discussed here meant that totalitarianism is inevitable.”

Unfortunately, when you are dealing with a replacement religion on the rise, and all the elites believe either in the latest edition of it or the version of it from ten years ago, yes it does.

…

With Chapter Three Dreher gets into Progressivism as Religion, but instead of accurate anthropology, we get the enemy’s version of the story about themselves, which is, as in all similar cases, slightly less than perfectly reliable.

…

If one looks under the hood, one sees that what leftism is mostly about is “redistribution of stuff and status.” The political formula is a tacitly understood bargain to clients that offers, in exchange for political support, the use of state power to take from the enviable and give to those who envy.

…

Here’s another example of bad history:

The original American dream – the one held by the seventeenth century Puritan settles – was religion: to establish liberty as the condition that allowed them to worship and to service God as dictated by their consciences.

Actually, the Puritans immediately established a suffocatingly strict theocracy that did not tolerate heretics except by necessity, and in which ministers were public officials. Nathaniel Ward’s or Winthrop’s ‘liberty’ was the liberty to be a pious Puritan, and the lack of liberty to be anything else. If you were not a member of the church, you were officially a second-class citizen, and they would throw you out for anything. The Puritans did not give people freedom to make choices according to their consciences about living virtuously or not, see, e.g., Platform of Church Discipline (1648).

Most of this ‘liberty’ story was retconned in the late 18th century during the establishment of the popular mythology of American History. Once upon a time people like Rothbard thought that perhaps one day American society would come to be so confident and mature that it could replace the white lie mythology with the reality. No such luck. Instead we got a new religion that is just replacing it with a much more sinister and malevolent mythology. That’s how it goes. There is always a de facto state religion, and it will spread the myths it finds most useful.

…

Dreher does a good job in summarizing some of the claims of progressivism and “critical theory”, but he presents them as if they are to be taken at face value.

There is no such thing as objective truth, there is only power

Yes, you will hear this kind of rhetoric mindlessly parroted all the time, but it is by no means some kind of metaphysical principle consistently applied. It is little more than an opportunistic tactical pose and a weapon to be deployed only when convenient, just like any double standard. “Out truths are real, whereas your ‘truths’ are just useful lies you can shove down people’s throats and get them to repeat because you can intimidate and bully them into it.” The fact that one can’t tell which side is making that statement about the other is what gives that perspective its robustness.

Progressives believe in rule by (credentialed, prestigious) experts, a rule that is legitimated by appeal to superior knowledge of objective truth. Consider: “Reality-based community” or “Climate change is real. The science is settled.” None of that is compatible with the “no such thing” claim.

What about the “Myth of Progress”

It seems to flow naturally from the Myth of Progress as it has been lived out in our mass consumerist democracy, which has for generations defined progress as the liberation of human desire from limits.

No, just Christian limits. This is an important point, and I think one that Dreher resists or finds hard to appreciate, mostly because progressives usually want mandatory toleration for everything Christianity prohibits.

But progressives are not libertines and have their own comprehensive sexual morality that is in some ways even more restrictive than that of traditional religions. Is it not actually based on “live and let live,” “different strokes for different folks,” or the “anything goes with consenting adults” principle of volenti non fit iniuria, because in the progressive conception ‘true’ voluntariness and consent can only be valid in the absence of a whole host of pressures, undue influences, and power imbalances. Contra Dreher, this imposes all manner of limits on human desire, as one can witness watching any tribunal of sex bureaucrats on any American college campus.

…

XX. Woke Capitalism

At the same time, Big Business has moved steadily leftward on social issues. Standard business practice long required staying out of controversial issues on the grounds that taking sides in the culture war would be bad for business” – now not taking sides is bad for business. … A powerful coalition of corporate leaders … threatened economic retaliation against [Indiana] if it did not reverse course.

Somehow I missed the reporting about all the progressives who screamed in outrage at this corporate interference in our democracy.

Still, the reason they were able to make these threats is pretty obvious: no one was credibly threatening back. In a ‘manual’, Dreher would tell his readers what to do about this, but he presents it as a fait accompli and new normal Borg against which all resistance is futile.

…

The real issue is the surveillance, and the power of modern capabilities. Without going full ‘technological determinism’, my impression is that the reality of software eating the world coupled with the constant tracking and surveillance by all entities with the wherewithal and reach is inevitable and unavoidable. It is in the basic nature of technological change that once the capability is there, Pandora’s Box cannot remain shut for long. We are already well past the tipping point on that one.

Yes, all the big institutions constantly spying on everything you do for the rest of time is very creepy and disturbing. But if one is worried not so much about privacy in general but about persecution in particular, then from a more abstract perspective, there is really no reason to implicate ‘capitalism’ except as yet another mechanism by which powerful social coalitions can apply extralegal coercive pressure while circumventing the rules limiting direct state action.

If the state tolerates this, it is allowing an effectively collateral state to fill the power vacuum by abandoning the field of certain sovereign prerogatives. This is the real “parallel polis”, much like the mafia is a parallel government on its own turf when the official state is unable or unwilling to take it on. If the state does not protect its claim to a monopoly on all coercion, hard or soft, then someone else is going to pick up the coercion left lying around.

Then again, sometimes the state wants it that way. If the mayor needs an inconvenient opponent to disappear, he probably can’t ask his chief of police to get it done for him. But if he tolerates a Don, he can go to the Don. If the state is not technically allowed to persecute you directly, if it tolerates some persecutors, it can have them do the persecuting. In either case, when you pierce the veil, the rectified name for it is conspiracy. The tragedy is that the veil has countless defenders who will insist that if it didn’t come from behind the veil, no harm no foul.

…

Two decades ago, when we started to become aware of this problem, people guessed that a combination of (1) new cultural adaptations to avoid these hazards, (2) new generations being raised from birth to be familiar with the risks of the internet, and (3) an increasingly long track record of lots of people having their lives publicly ruined, would encourage people to “adjust trim” and be much more cautious and prudent.

Some people did just that, but, in general, it hasn’t turned out that way. It seems that psychological effect of the way we interface online – when it seems as if it’s just you and your screen in your own little virtual secret world – makes people feel too “alone and private” to keep their guard up. Unfortunately, if one assumes this isn’t going to get better any time soon, then one can only conclude that in a time of Christian persecution, ordinary people are going to slip up sooner or later if they touch networked devices at all, and if they refuse to do so, they will out themselves all the same. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

What that means is that there is no longer any possibility whatsoever of evading the notice of powerful people who are out to get you. From the perspective of any serious, capable, and determined state (cough, China) this is now a solved problem. There can be no secret meetings or clandestine samizdat printing operations or anything like that. Near the end of the book, Dreher advises, “Christians should educate themselves about the mechanics of running underground cells and networks while they are still free to do so.” As the Uyghurs would tell you, if they could, that ship has already sailed. The old mechanics are obsolete and no longer work, and there are no new mechanics.

…

Hard cases make bad law, but there is nothing but a hard choice to make about this undeniable situation. Either one embraces the principle of “they are private companies so they are free to do whatever they like and the state has nothing to do with it,” and accept, well, ‘extinction’. Or one says no, undermines the principles of free enterprise and private property, but creates a terrible state power that, eventually, can and will be used by ones enemies too.

On the other hand, all the undermining and regulation has already been done in every other possible way in every other industry and sector, especially all those rules insisting on equal treatment. Frankly, it’s bizarre to watch advocates insist on straining out the gnat of just this one thing that apparently crosses the line though it threatens half the country with political neutralization, when they are unable to summon up ten percent as much passion for having swallowed as many camels as there are pages in the Code of Federal Regulations.

Speech Is Special. You can’t argue to get it back once it’s gone. There can be genuinely free platform companies, or universally safe platform companies, but if companies are only free to the extent it is safe for our enemies to use the platforms to crush us, then crushed we will be.

…

“The essence of modernity is to deny that there are any transcendent stories, structures, habits, or beliefs to which individuals must submit and that should bind our conduct”

He says ‘modernity’ but my impression is that he means modern, secular, leftist progressivism. But if you are not a progressive, ask yourself, do they seem like they aren’t interested in making you submit and binding your conduct? Do they lack for stories with unfalsifiable elements that explain why they are entitled to do this?

The progressives imagine that they’ve solved for objective morality. There is no “dictatorship of relativism.” The Jacobins are not libertarians “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” They have a perfectly well-defined concept, and it applies to you too, without any right to define a different one, because error has no rights.

XXV. Velvet Samizdat:

Perhaps nothing helps to highlight the contrast between Soviet-era or North Korean-style Communist oppression and the current circumstances in America than the irrelevance of ‘samizdat’. Yes, there is certainly a fair bit of purging and memory-holing, removal of items from curriculum as well as chilling, suppression, and intimidation out there for present-day writers and publishers who wish to go off-narrative.

But all of it has a mostly prospective, deterrent character. The robust strength of the current system of opinion management is perhaps in no way better demonstrated than by the fact that there is mostly no problem with actual eliminative censorship of the past, with preserving cultural memory, archives, records, and so forth. Because none of that makes any difference.

All the old books are still out there, accessible to anyone, instantaneously, in their own language, and free, and one doesn’t have to go back very far before most of them have the “currently regarded as problematic” volume knob pegged to eleven. Don’t even get me started on Greek philosophy! But almost nobody cares, and it goes unread, and even more unread than one would figure correcting for our increasingly post-literate society. The ‘soft’ system is so much stronger than the ‘hard’, it is nigh invulnerably, such that brazen, obvious, and easily-disproven falsehoods can be printed without any concern on the part of the authors or publishers whatsoever, who know they’ll win prizes anyway.

The counterarguments will be allowed to exist, just not allowed to make a difference. They will never get any attention, buzz, or amplification from prestigious, cool people, and so can be ignored just as if they had been censored. This is deeply demotivating; why even bother? In a way, it’s actually better when your enemies know you’re lying and know you can get away with it. Show’s everyone who’s boss. No need for samizdat, no point.

…

Dreher is particularly inspired by the Bendas and their commitment to turning their home into a sanctuary, place of refuge, and the ‘parallel polis’ of an alternative community.

But Vaclav Benda had advantages. The Communist takeover of his country was recent and had been widely predicted. That meant there was still a large population of people who had grown up in the old days and were formed by that previous order to be loyal to pre-existing commitments, traditions, habits, institutions, and, most importantly, to each other. That includes Benda himself. His activities depended on being able to rely on the remnants of that inheritance, along with the nationalistic perception of a brutally oppressive *foreign* occupation.

But pressure and time wears down all things, and another generation or two of persecution, combined with the psychological enervation from a fully indigenous phenomenon such as that in America, and it would have been impossible.

Benda also lived in a time and place where physical proximity was essential and common. Today it is like herding cats to bring people together, and so the internet is now where all the “private home” discussions are had. There are plenty of virtual Bendas and little digital salons out there. They are a great source of consolation and solidarity for dissidents, and the quality of gallows humor is top notch. But mostly these venues have proven to be impotent and incompetent for any other purpose. Probably the last old pagans gathered around to drink and talk about their plight, and to joke and complain about those darn Christians as they tried to figure out if there was anything else to be done. There wasn’t.

XXVII: Man and SuperBenda

If one doesn’t have a manual, perhaps one can imitate a model. But can the Bendas be models? A model provides an example that an ordinary person can feasibly replicate. But the Bendas put the extra in extraordinary. Inspiring cases of astonishing and, frankly, naturally elite people with incredibly strength of will who are one out of ten thousand are wonderful to hear. But if that’s what it takes, then any project which relies on typical people following in their footsteps is altogether hopeless. Consider:

The Benda family model requires parents to exercise discernment. For example, the Bendas didn’t ops out of popular culture but rather chose intelligently which parts of it they wanted their children to absorb.

I am somewhat less than perfectly confident in the capacity of most ordinary Christians to exercise anything approaching this level of judicious discernment, including the abilities to both choose wisely and intelligently and also to maintain the strict discipline and constant overwatch needed to keep it going, day in, day out. “Be Like Benda” is a tall order, and if we’re being honest, too tall for too many.

This is a different context from the one in which one would encourage sinners to try to live more like saints, or to imitate the lives of the holy family, as every little step in that direction is an improvement. As it is in horseshoes and hand-grenades, so it is in holiness: getting closer counts.

But when it comes to resisting overwhelming social pressures, one has to clear tall hurdles, and if one can’t, one cannot move forward. Imagine you are in the ocean near the beach and someone spots a man-eating shark. Michael Phelps is there and can out-swim the shark to shore, because he is an extraordinary man. We all admire his prowess and we can try to imitate what he does, but in our cases it won’t be enough. Phelps is going to make it, but we will be shark food.

…

Near the end of the book, Dreher writes, “The culture war is largely over— and we lost. The Grand March is, for the time being, a victory parade.” Dreher has repeated this over many years, and I have been reading a similar lines for two decades at least, and it probably goes back long before that. In a way it’s true, and, depending how you define terms, it’s been true before any of us were born. But in a way it’s not true, because there is a great deal of ruin in a culture. As much as has already been taken, there remains so much more territory left to conquer, and it’s odd to say one has lost a war when the battles never end and new fronts keep opening up all the time.

It’s more precise to say that if non-progressives keep doing what they are doing now, following the conventional rules of the game, then like the Pagan, what they are giving up is the capacity to hold ground. That means the best they can do is slow down the advance and retreat and retreat and retreat until, one day, they are on the beach, backs against the ocean.

The real trouble with “Live Not By Lies” is that the encouragement of the stories (which are inspiring) and the instructions of the manual (such as they are), are simply not remotely adequate to arrest the trend of the progressive progression, which ends in The End.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to end like that, and it is still not too late to choose a different destiny. The bad news is that it would require measures far more radical than 99.99% of Christians and other non-progressives are currently prepared to accept. The proper task of a prophet is to expand that acceptance by making them understand they don’t have any better options. At least, not if they don’t want to end up like the Pagans.

#handle #book review #rod dreher #live not by lies #read the whole thing

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ivadeshin · 5 years

Text

Careful Steps (Essik/Caleb) (3/n)

(catch up over on ao3)

One can often determine how much a person values a topic by how closely they hold it to their chest. Essik notices the moment Caleb determines that it is safe to discuss his colleagues with Essik. And after one story, it is a deluge.

A mention of high-ranking officials trying to conceal their personal lives leads to a strange anecdote about Jester, the tiefling, encountering and exposing several such officials in her youth. A discussion of preferred methods of travel leads to a brief summary of Fjord, the half-orc, and how his previous experience with the sea was crucial just months ago when they had to travel by ship.

Caleb speaks of his colleagues warmly, almost without exception. Many groups of adventurers or mercenaries get along solely in order to secure wealth, or to complete necessary objectives. Essik is professionally and personally familiar with many. However, these defectors seem to defy one standard after another..

Essik listens to the anecdotes with interest.

Caleb’s new attire is not from Essik’s tailor near the Conservatory, but it is certainly an improvement. The maroon silk shirt has fine stitching, with some modest shards of onyx embroidered into the v-shaped neckline.

“The woman at the front insisted I would look like a commoner if there weren’t any stones anywhere,” Caleb is saying with some tension.

Essik is trying not to be distracted by the orange-blond curls of chest hair visible from the neck line. The line of his throat, the curve of his collarbones, are an even fairer cream than that of his face. It is. Deeply unique and distracting. “Your tailor was correct. I understand that men of the Empire often avoid even semiprecious gems, but here, such an absence would indicate an inability to afford it.” Caleb looks mollified, so Essik continues: “I assure you that onyx is neither particularly expensive nor ostentatious.”

“Thank you.” Caleb nods a few times, fingering the lapel of the new black coat and trying on a weak smile. “I did try to follow your recommendation, near the Marble Tomes... a bit too rich for my blood, I’m afraid.”

A euphemism for being unable to afford it. Essik bows slightly at the waist. “Please accept my apologies. My suggestion was clearly unhelpful.”

“Nein, no, it is fine.” Caleb actually laughs. “Trust me, I am used to not being up to snuff in places like that. And, while I was getting stared at in the lobby, I got to see some displayed outfits that looked nearly as good as your cloak and mantle!”

Essik is far too modest to beam.

His most recent cultural discovery has been about about the delivery of flowers.

Either by messenger or in person, they have additional value if they are a type particularly admired by the recipient. Essik, having little botanical knowledge himself, goes to his garden and points at the ones Caleb admired upon his first visit. His servant informs him of the genus and assures him that they are only moderately difficult to acquire.

Essik arranges for six bulbs to be purchased, and planted in the garden outside Caleb Widogast’s Rosohna house. Such romantic gestures certainly make more sense in a place like the Empire, where flowers are said to be much more plentiful and even grow by the fields on wild plains. But Essik is not a man without means, and his younger servant, Ruanill, happens to have an aunt who specializes in the cultivation of non-fruiting plants.

He sends Ruanill with special instructions to only plant the bulbs where the firbolg and/or tiefling will permit. Essik remembers that those two were absolutely responsible for that building’s... upgrades, upon moving in.

There is a knock on the library door, and Ruanill enters and bows deeply. “Shadowhand.”

Essik looks up from the codex on the desk. “I trust everything went well?”

“Mr. Widogast was not at home. The firbolg, Mr. Caduceus Clay, received the gift with deep gratitude. He requested that he assist me in the planting process.”

“Considering his appearance and the tree, I fail to find that surprising.” Which is to say, Essik does not mind the change in plans. The cultural texts mentioned nothing of who did the dirty work.

“Mr. Clay also... invited me in for tea, sir.” Ruanill sounds uncertain.

Essik straightens a little in his chair. This must be a misunderstanding. “You made it clear you were visiting as a servant of my house?”

“Of course, sir, I made it very explicit that the gift was from you and for Mr. Widogast.” Ruanill bows again, deeply, and rises slowly. “He... asked for my name, and upon receiving it, used it to ask me inside to take tea.”

After taking a few moments to ruminate over this, Essik sighs deeply. Ruanill has been reliable and steady in his employ, and does not deserve such bizarre treatment. “Was anyone else present?”

“No, Shadowhand.”

This sounds like another social blunder, stressful but meaningless. “And did you discuss anything of tactical interest?”

“No, Shadowhand.” Ruanill’s eyes reach the ceiling as he tries to recall. “Mr. Clay inquired about my family,” Essik cringes in sympathy, “and then, about the care of flowering Xhorhassian plants, and then, about my knowledge of you.”

This is alarming. Essik rises out of his chair to his full height. “Explain.”

Ruanill shrinks immediately. “I must assure you that-”

To be so low as to press one of his employees, who visited his home in good faith, bearing a gift, is unforgivable. Caleb has mentioned Caduceus’s gift for extracting information from subjects... “Was he asking about my movements? My contacts over enemy lines?”

“Shadowhand, his questions were that of, of a,” Ruanill trembles a little as he rearranges his headpiece. “Please forgive my inelegant wording. His questions were that of a working class mother. Inquiring about her child’s suitor.” Seeing no interruption, he continues: “Your temperament. Your interests beyond magicks. How much time you are given by the Bright Queen to pursue personal interests.”

Essik’s eyebrows raise in disbelief. “And I assume he also inquired about the salary, and number of rooms in my home? The value of my estates? How many royal festival gatherings I attend?”

“N-no, Shadowhand, although that is a known line of questioning in some lower households.” Ruanill squares his shoulders, reclaiming his courage. “If I may be so bold, I would theorize that the firbolg acts as a maternal figure to the defector group. These... casual digs for intel are an attempt to determine whether you are a suitable personality, not financial or societal match, to the human.”

Essik digests this. “A... an interview by proxy, perhaps.” And how can he know how he fared in an interview he did not attend?

“Yes, Shadowhand.” Ruanill bows his head. “It is common for such questioning to be aimed at someone who is knowledgeable about the suitor, but not motivated to lie for them.”

“He underestimated your allegiance.”

“I was not offended by the implication.” A beat. “The tea was very sweet and included honey. I believe Mr. Clay was satisfied by my descriptions of your loyalty, conviction, and work ethic. Is that... sufficient for the report?”

“...yes. Please take the rest of the day off. I am sure you are out of sorts.”

The firbolg is considered a very wise, if unusual, font of knowledge by the others among the defectors. Caleb has told Essik as much. Essik’s anxiety has shifted from concern that one of the defectors is a mole, to concern that one of the defector’s opinion of him may sway his human’s feelings on him.

#critical fic #shadowgast #shadowhand essik #essik #caleb widogast

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featherypromises · 5 years

Text

Rp transcription part 7: Holding On

When Taehyung woke up around half an hour later, he felt... somewhat better. Still feverish and achy, but better. He smiled slightly; the medicine must have been doing it's work.

He yawned and looked at his surroundings. He blushed slightly. He was wrapped up in Jungkook's arms, the younger holding on to him tightly. At the same time, his own arms were wrapped around Jungkook's waist.

For a moment, Taehyung thought about pulling away. But then he realized: he liked it here, safe in Jungkook's warm embrace.

************************************************

Jungkook was smiling in his sleep, the dreams were pleasant this time, they shifted and changed but one thing was the same in every dreams: Taehyung and Jungkook were in love with each other and were happy.

"Hmm..." he hummed contentedly and cuddled the smaller man peacefully. His face turned toward Taehyung as he dreamed and his lips pressed against the older man's temple.

*************************************************

Taehyung blushed profusely and smiled from ear to ear. He didn't care that Jungkook was asleep and probably wasn't aware of what he was doing. He would milk this for as long as it lasted.

*************************************************

Jungkook was only dimly aware as his nose began to make a nuisance of itself. It twitched and scrunched as it tried to dislodge the tickly feeling inside of it. He sniffled, trying to hang onto the beautiful dream where Taehyung was about to kiss him.

He sighed in half-waking annoyance, and went to rub his nose. His arms were tangled in something,... no, someone!

His eyes opened, showing Taehyung still tucked securely into his arms in front of him. In surprise and horror at what he was about to do, he sucked in a breath. This was the nail in the coffin for his nose and he hitched once, twice, and sneezed, trying to stifle without his hands. He managed to turn his head just enough to miss Taehyung but got their blanket instead,

"HH-Hih-Hghhsst! Ughh..."

He sniffled, feeling mucous on his lip. Gross.

***********************************************

Taehyung cooed slightly and handed Jungkook a tissue. "Bless you, bunny."

***********************************************

Wriggling one arm free, Jungkook took the tissue, blushing with embarrassment about the awkward situation and wiped his nose.

"Sorry, I really didn't want to wake you..." he mumbled sleepily. He put his arm still holding the tissue back around Taehyung and pressed back up against him in the same position he had been in before his lips pressed a gentle kiss onto Taehyung's hair. He hesitated and realized what he had done.

"Oh,..." he breathed.

*************************************************

Taehyung blushed his eyes widening. With a gulp, he decided not to comment on it, since the younger seemed embarrassed. "Y-You didn't wake me, it's okay," he said instead, "I was already awake."

*********************************************

Jungkook saw the blush and the gulp and in a much more alert state backed up and off of the older man.

"I'm sorry... I... didn't even ask..." he was ashamed of himself, "You probably want me to leave now...?" He couldn't look at the older man, afraid of seeing fear or worse, disgust, in his face.

He hoped that Taehyung wouldn't hate him, but he couldn't bring himself to hate what he had done, just how he had done it.

He sat on the edge of the bed looking at his feet.

***********************************************

Taehyung frowned. "Wha- No, Kook, of course not..." He said quietly. "Please stay..."

***********************************************

Jungkook was startled by this response and before he could second guess himself, he looked at Taehyung's face searchingly. His huge eyes questioning and wide.

"Really?..." the younger man asked in relieved uncertainty, "First I almost snot all over you, then I... kiss you without permission... I'm sorry for making you feel awkward about this."

************************************************

"Kookie, I don't find any of this awkward." He promised, sniffling thickly. "So please stay... I think I'd honestly die if you lea- EKSHHUH!" The sneeze burst out of him without warning, covering his hands in snot. He cringed and grabbed a tissue. "See? My body agrees."

************************************************

Jungkook smiled shyly at Taehyung and reached out to grab another tissue dabbing at an area that Taehyung had missed during clean up. He scooted closer and wrapped Taehyung in a backhug, resting his chin on Taehyung's shoulder

"Nope, not allowed. You need to live for a long, long time and I will be here for all of it if that's what you want."

************************************************

Taehyung smiled softly and nodded. "I-I do..." He muttered shyly, sniffling.

***********************************************

Jungkook was blushing furiously at that response. He had seen enough foreign films to connect some dots at the implications that phrase had. He couldn't think about that now...

"How are you feeling? You should probably have some juice at least... Rapmon-hyung said you need hydration."

************************************************

Taehyung sniffled. "Okay..." He reached over to the bedside table and took the juice. He took a sip and winced slightly since it burned on the way down.

*************************************************

Jungkook rubbed Taehyung's back with one hand and reached around him to press a gentle hand to Taehyung's forehead.

"At least your temperature seems more normal now,... Does your throat hurt?"

*************************************************

Taehyung nodded. "Yeah, a lot..."

*************************************************

Jungkook frowned and peered around Taehyung trying to see his neck, but couldn't quite manage it. Instead he brought his other hand up and lightly palpated the skin and muscle just under Taehyung's jawline and near his vocal cords. Definitely swollen.

*************************************************

Taehyung sighed. Jungkook's touch was quite welcome, since it soothed his aching throat somewhat.

*************************************************

Jungkook smiled as Taehyung relaxed into him as he checked him over. The man needed to eat something though. He puzzled for a moment over what would be easy to digest and felt good to sore throats...

"You should eat something, Tae... you were so dizzy earlier. You probably don't want soup again, but what about yogurt or some fruit?"

*************************************************

"Some fruit sounds nice." He cleared his throat. The longer he spoke, the worse his voice became. It was now to the point of a raspy, hoarse whisper. He'd soon be at the lost voice stage.

************************************************

Jungkook cupped his cheek tenderly and pressed his forehead to Taehyung's hair.

"Poor Tae... try to save your voice. I'll be right back, so no dying..." he leaned Tae against the pillows and waggled his pointer finger in a teasing "no" gesture.

He padded out to the kitchen in bare feet, and opened the fridge. He picked a banana, a few strawberries and a slice of melon. He got an apple for himself. He quickly sliced the fruit and slid it onto a plate. He considered for a moment before making another cup of tea for Taehyung. He had juice, but the tea would help his throat more. Options were never bad. He smiled and added lemon and honey like before. He brought the food and tea in setting the plate on the covers and the tea on the nightstand next to the juice. Taehyung still looked beautiful, sick as he was. Jungkook wished he had enough nerve to tell him that.

**********************************************

Taehyung sat up, rasping out a small thank you. He took the tea and sipped it, humming happily. From what he could manage to taste, it was really good.

************************************************

Jungkook sat down watching Taehyung immediately start on the tea. He was glad he had thought of it.

He grabbed his apple. He wasn't particularly hungry, but knew he needed to eat something. He bit into the apple and chewed, thinking about all that had happened.

Why was he so nervous about telling Taehyung about how he felt...? He supposed them both being sick and emotional didn't help, but he was deathly afraid of wrecking their friendship with possibly unrequited feelings.

*************************************************

Taehyung continued to sip at his tea for a while, his eyes slowly drooping closed every now and then only to snap back open.

*************************************************

Jungkook glanced over and saw the older man fighting sleep. He gently took the mug of tea and smiling, helped Taehyung to lie down.

"Poor Tae... this cold is really kicking your butt."

He pulled the covers up to Taehyung's shoulders and smoothed his hair.

"Good night... sweet dreams."

************************************************

Taehyung only managed a small, "Love you." before falling asleep.

***********************************************

Jungkook stopped, his apple halfway to his face.

Oh geez... he let the apple drop onto the bed, covering his now red face with his hands.

What the heck...?!?

He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.

He made up his mind then and there. He wanted this more than anything. If he failed, it wouldn't be because he didn't try. If Taehyung got mad, he would make it up to him and not bring it up again. He wanted this so much it hurt, but not knowing if Taehyung felt the same was worse. As soon as they were over the worst of this nasty cold, he would talk with Tae.

He found he had no desire to even try with the apple any longer and he lay down beside the man who had captured his heart and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

**********************************************

Taehyung woke up the next morning to hear the familiar sound of the members talking with each other. He smiled softly and sat up... He instantly regretted it.

His head started to pound, the world suddenly tilted, his throat burned, and his nose was blocked and stuffy.

With a groan, he fell back and buried himself under the covers with a whimper.

Taehyung was seriously ready to be done with this nasty cold. It was holding back the members' schedules and preparations, and not to mention it made him absolutely miserable.

************************************************

Jungkook was still sleeping. He had not slept all the way through the night. He had tossed and turned and sniffled and cleared his throat as quietly as he could, trying not to disturb Taehyung's sleep. He didn't feel feverish or nauseated, just very congested and tired.

His brain acknowledged briefly that there was noise happening nearby. Voices, maybe? And Taehyung moving around next to him... a small Tae-like sound.

"Huh...?" He mumbled, sleepy and not ready to be awake yet.

***********************************************

Taehyung tensed slightly. Oh yeah. Jungkook's here. And he just woke him up.

With a sigh, he got out of the covers and played with Jungkook's hair. "Sorry, Gguk, I didnd't meand to wake you." He rasped, voice thick with congestion.

***********************************************

Jungkook blinked owlishly and gave Tae a small tired smile.

"I-its,..." his voice cracked and he coughed harshly into his fist. Ow,... that stung his throat. He tried again, "It's okay, Hyug. I wasdn't sleebing very well adnyway." He sniffled but nothing happened, he was totally stuffed up.

"Dab it... I cadn't breathe." He sighed, "You too?"

**********************************************

Taehyung nodded. He demonstrated by trying to sniff. Keyword: trying. Nothing happened, apart from the fact that the effort sent him into a harsh coughing fit.

***********************************************

Jungkook frowned and sat up, rubbing his hyung's back and wincing as his eardrums slowly popped.

************************************************

"Did I hear the others? Or did I ibmagidne things?"

***********************************************

Taehyung rubbed his chest and sighed. "I heard themb too. So either we're awake really late or both of us are goig indsande."

***********************************************

Jungkook nodded, he looked around for the clock. Yikes 12:19? They did sleep late.

***********************************************

Taehyung rubbed his eyes and sighed. He gave Jungkook a small smile. "How are you feelig?" He asked.

***********************************************

Jungkook chuckled, but that quickly became a wet sounding cough as he struggled to catch his breath.

***********************************************

Taehyung cringed and rubbed Jungkook's back tenderly. "Not too good, huh?"

************************************************

Jungkook shook his head, and coughed one more large cough to clear the tickle in his throat, and winced rubbing his tender throat.

"Ow..." he muttered, before remembering yesterday's problems: "Is your fever down, Tae?"

************************************************

Taehyung shrugged. "I dond't know... I still feel kind of achy and cold..." He tried to sniffle again, but nothing happened.

************************************************

Jungkook scooted closer and embraced the older man.

"Sbpace headter Jugkook adt your service." He smiled and reached over behind Taehyung for the tissue box. He plopped them in front of the smaller man and shrugged his "you-might-as-well-get-it-over-with" at his hyung.

*************************************************

Taehyung sighed. "Finde but if I do this, you have to as well, okay?" He said, pulling out a few tissues.

*************************************************

Jungkook sighed, this was his least favorite part of getting sick. If there was a favorite...

Blowing his nose when he was this congested sounded like broken whoopee cushion and made his ears pop. Yay...

He took two tissues layering them, this was going to be so gross. He breathed in deeply through his mouth and closed his lips, forcing the air to find another way out. It hurt his poor ears so much he could almost feel it in his teeth. He blew, until he could breathe freely, a couple of tears getting caught in his eyelashes. He wiped them away with his sleeve.

************************************************

Taehyung cooed and rubbed Jungkook's back.

With a sigh, he took out more tissues and laid them across his nose. He readied himself and blew, instantly cringing when it made his ears pop and his nose burn.

He sighed when his nose was all clear and gave a hard sniff.

*************************************************

"Poor hyung..." Jungkook meant it. He sniffled and rubbed at his irritated nose unmercifully.

He sighed, pulling out a few extra tissues just in case, putting them next to his pillow.

*************************************************

Taehyung sighed and sniffled again. The action caused a strong tickle to bloom in his nose, and, without warning, he pitched forward. "Oh- Heh'EGHHSHuh! Heh'GHSHH!"

*************************************************

Jungkook jumped a bit, he smiled sympathetically at Taehyung and rubbed his neck gently. He noticed movement out of the corner of his eye by the door which was slightly ajar. He hadn't seen who it had been, but he turned back towards Taehyung, rubbing his own nose which twinged sympathetically. He leaned Taehyung towards his chest on a slight slant, and wrapped his strong arms around Taehyung's waist.

*************************************************

Taehyung sighed, a small grimace on his face. "G-Ggukie, I really d-don't feel good..." He whimpered pitifully.

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ladylb · 5 years

Text

The Liar and The Broken Balance

Also on AO3

Unable to tell Ladybug the true reason for her kwami’s illness, Master Fu wearily visits Chat Noir with these foreboding words…

“Chat Noir, you and Ladybug are in danger of losing your miraculous and I’m afraid to inform you this, but… it is your fault.”

🧂 😿🐞🐢 🙊🙈🙉 🐢🐞😿 🧂

Chapter 1

“Blech!”

“Eww, Plagg, why did you do that?” Adrien protested as he held his nose, Camembert smelled even worse when it came up half digested after all.

“Do you think that I wanted to lose my precious cheese kid?” Plagg protested, as he wiped his paw across his mouth as Adrien picked up Plagg’s trashcan and took it to the bathroom to rinse it out. Plagg floated lazily to Adrien’s desk, although he seemed to shake with excess energy.

“Are you sick or something?” Adrien asked when he got back.

Plagg sighed, “look at me kid.”

Adrien looked closely and was surprised that Plagg looked darker than usual, almost like his fur sucked in the light around him, and he was vibrating or something. “You look…different.” Adrien observed.

“Duhh, we’re sick Adrien and you’d better do something about it.” The kwami hovered over to him and poked the boy in the chest to make his point. His touch felt dark, cold and almost dead, as if Plagg’s powers were barely being contained...

“We?”

There was a knock at the door, “Adrien? Your Chinese teacher is here for your lesson.” Nathalie announced.

“Thank you, Nathalie.” Adrien replied. “hide Plagg, we can talk about this later.”

“I’m not hiding.” Plagg hissed as he proudly proclaimed. “He came here for me.”

“Plagg!” Adrien whispered irritably.

“Ah, Adrien. We have much to discuss.” Master Fu entered and closed the door behind him with a slight frown on his face.

“Master! Wha-what are you doing here?”

“I am here to tell you something Chat Noir. We, or rather you, have a problem.”

Adrien nodded. “What do you need me to do?”

“Essentially you must fix that which is breaking.” Then Master Fu gathered himself and announced gravely, “Chat Noir, you and your Ladybug are in danger of losing your miraculous…”

“What! Does Hawkmoth know who we are?” Adrien interrupted with a shocked look on his face.

“No,” Master Fu reached into his bag and pulled out a small pink kwami from his bag, “it’s even worse.”

“Sugarcube!” Plagg exclaimed and he zipped over to cuddle with the sick looking kwami.

“I-I told you not to c-call me that Stinky Sock!” Tikki muttered as she shivered and relaxed into Plagg’s offered cuddle. They both began to glow and Master Fu put them gently on a pillow on Adrien’s bed before walking over to Adrien’s couch so that they could talk.

“Is that Ladybug’s kwami?” Adrien asked, surprised that she wasn’t with Ladybug.

“Yes. I’m afraid that I will have to leave her here for an hour or two Chat Noir. Plagg will be able to help her to regain some balance. She will be able to return to Ladybug on her own, but must come back here for a couple of hours every night to combat the loss of balance that is still growing.” Master Fu sat down on Adrien’s couch and Adrien sat next to him.

“Still?” Adrien looked confused.

Master Fu sighed, “spending time together is only a temporary remedy and it only slows down the progression of their illness. Tikki has requested that they give you a chance.” Then without raising his voice he asked, “Plagg, are you willing to endure the pain that is coming so that your chosen may have a chance to redeem himself?”

Plagg answered, “if only because that is what Tikki wants, you know that I would say yes. He is a very oblivious boy Master, but I care about him.”

“Huh?” Adrien asked, confused.

“They are ill because they are unbalanced Chat Noir," Master Fu explained, "and if that balance is not fully restored, you and maybe even Ladybug will have to give up your miraculous to those worthier and more able to function in harmony together.”

Not catching the implication there, Adrien asked, “worthier? What have we done to not be worthy to be heroes anymore Master?”

Master Fu looked sad, “I must confess and I’m afraid to inform you this Chat Noir, but… this is likely your fault.”

Adrien looked astonished, “wha-what?!!”

Master Fu tried to explain. "It is probably due to your inaction that has done this. Tikki, Ladybug’s kwami, and thus your kwami, are ill, because Ladybug’s heart is troubled.”

Adrien looked surprised, “does that mean that she has a broken heart?”

Master Fu was thoughtful for a moment and responded. “in a way, yes. It was shaken because you chose not to speak the truth about someone in both of your civilian lives and the effects of that has hurt her. This person is both a bully and a liar, someone who has threatened Ladybug as a civilian and has seemingly carried out her threats.”

Adrien swallowed, overwhelmed that he had failed his Lady so, but he understood that he had a chance to redeem himself and must keep it together. Adrien could guess who the other culprit was, “Lila. I… I thought that accusing her would only make her worse and more dangerous, I guess Marinette was right.” He sighed, she'd been back at school for a couple weeks already, “I didn’t know that she was bullying anyone, much less Ladybug. Wa-why didn’t Ladybug fight back?”

“She tried, but she needed back up that never came.” Master Fu sighed as he pulled out Adrien’s lesson plan and placed it on his lap. “Unfortunately, Ladybug has lost faith in both Rena Rouge and Carapace as well because they also could have done something, but chose to ignore what they knew and chose to believe the lies that this Lila spouted instead.”

“How, how does Ladybug being threatened endanger our miraculous Master?”

Master Fu looked beyond Adrien with the sadness carried by all of his years. “The perfect pairing of a miraculous holder with the right person is a delicate thing. The perfect pairing of the Ladybug and the Black Cat miraculous is even harder, for they must be given to a pair that were meant for each other, soulmates if you were.”

“I knew it!” Adrien smirked.

Master Fu shook his head. “No, you must hear me out Chat Noir. It is this connection that has been weakened and thus the illness of your kwami and your bonds as a whole. All four of you are connected and those connections require balance, like Yin and Yang. It does not mean that you are meant to be a couple necessarily, perhaps only the best of friends, however,” the Master’s face looked pained as he cautiously admitted, “Ladybug has been hurt because she trusted your civilian self, and you were not there for her. You have been oblivious to her crush on you because of your infatuation with her heroic self, the side of her that she feels the least amount of connection to, especially of late.”

“So, I-I failed her?” He had to know.

Master Fu frowned, “those are strong words Chat Noir. Your Ladybug has lost faith in the civilian you, and thus unknowingly your heroic self too. Admittedly you did not know that she was being bullied, but still, your connection is faltering because you chose not to act. If nothing is done, your soulmate connection may be severed, and that means that your bond to your miraculous will be no more.”

- to be continued...

Also on AO3

- characters belong to the wonderful writers and creators of Miraculous Ladybug

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous #mlb #au #ladybug and chat noir #adrien agreste #plagg #kwami #mlb salt

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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 6 years

Text

Fic: skin

this is... a dark one, folks.

Summary: Set after 1.06: Jason Todd. The implications of the last twenty four hours finally come crashing down on Dick. He deals with it poorly.

Warnings: SPOILERS till 1.06. Self-harm, trauma, some body horror. Brief descriptions of consensual sexual encounters; nothing explicit. Dick’s not in a great headspace.

skin

Dick’s pretty sure he’s dying. His body hurts in too many ways to name, he shudders and strains at the apex of every breath, and—

he can’t—

he can’t move his legs—

“Ssh, Master Richard. Just a pinch, and then you won’t feel a thing.”

He blinks rapidly and tries to focus on the blurry figure that’s materialised next to him. But that only releases more tears, and he is ashamed and angry at the same time, because while Dick might only be a child, Robin can never be seen crying. “A-Alfred,” he chokes. “What’s wrong with me?” He coughs painfully; something tears at the back of his throat and he tastes metal.

Alfred says something that’s lost in the roaring in his ears, but he sounds profoundly, indefinably sad. Dick’s breath stops stuttering and seizes altogether, freezing in his chest like a block of ice. Nothing seems to exist outside of this moment—there is no future beyond this pain. There is no future at all, because what is he if he can’t run, and jump, and leap, and fight? If he can’t be Robin? Every minute worth remembering in his life since he was six years old has begun with him coiled like a spring, ready to burst into flight into the night air, but this moment? He’s splayed like roadkill, limp and broken, and it. won’t. stop—

There’s a sharp needle-point of pain at his bicep, startling him out of his own panicking mind, and seconds later, he tumbles into darkness.

It takes a little over two hours for Dick to drive from Clay’s house to the Chicago safehouse. Once he’s there, Gar figures out how to get him inside and upstairs. Dick can tell he’s itching to ask about Jason, but something in his eyes must’ve warned him otherwise, because he can barely meet Dick’s gaze in the elevator.

Kory’s lounging near the television; when she sees him, her eyes narrow, and she straightens. However, it’s Rachel that speaks first. “Dick,” she says, “you’re hurt!”

For a long moment, Dick can’t figure out what she’s talking about. It’s been a monumentally shitty day, but he’s pretty sure he came out of it unscathed. Physically, at least. He follows her gaze to where it’s transfixed on his arm, and spots the blood-spotted bandage wrapped around his forearm. Oh.

Oh. The tracker.

He hadn’t bothered stitching it up that morning; he hadn’t the time. He can imagine it now, gaping and leaking blood, fat and hard muscle peeking through. If he doesn’t close it now, it’s going to leave an ugly fucking scar; nothing like the perfect, unblemished skin the tracker left behind while going in. Wayne Tech had been working on subdermal implants to deliver medicine for chronic illnesses a while back; it would’ve been so easy for Bruce to appropriate their designs for port of entry to get the tracker in without Dick noticing a thing—

“Dick? Dick!”

He blinks. Kory’s shaking his shoulder, trying to get his attention. When did she get here?

“You’re cold,” she tells him, shifting her grip to his hands. They’re shaking, he notices. That’s weird. “Go take a shower and change. I’ll heat up some more of the frozen pasta from the pantry.” She tilts her head, and for a second she looks almost other-worldly, like a creature sizing up its prey. “Pasta’s okay, right?”

He stares at her, and Kory sighs.

“Is he okay?” Rachel asks, her voice trembling on the last word. Just a little.

“I’m fine,” Dick says, the words scraping through his throat like he’s not talked in a long while (like he’s been screaming). “I’m just, uh, going to take care of this and clean up.” He waves his left arm at them. It’s throbbing, but distantly, like it doesn’t really belong to him anymore (it doesn’t belong to him at all). “And pasta’s fine.”

He can feel Kory’s gaze on the back of his neck all the way to the bathroom.

“You’re beautiful,” Dawn tells him. Her hands and lips are everywhere, fingernails catching on his scars, her tongue soothing them in their wake. She climbs back up and kisses him fiercely, hair tumbling over his face. She smells of strawberry-scented shampoo and beneath that, the faint whiff of antiseptic. He grins, cards his hands through her hair, and flips them both—

--and Kory bites down on his nipple while reaching for his groin, and he arches above her with a choked-off groan. “Beautiful,” she whispers into his chest, guiding him inside her, and he’s so close, so embarrassingly close—

--when it’s over, he collapses, relishing the slide of sweat-slicked skin against his, close, intimate, content to just be. “So beautiful,” Wally tells him lazily, squeezing his thigh.

Dick needs to say something, but he never does.

In a distant sort of way, Dick’s glad that Adamson’s still tied up in the main bathroom; it’s too big, too exposed. Normally, he wouldn’t mind so much, but tonight he’s content with the smaller, more discreet version attached to the third bedroom. He strips and steps into the shower, leaning against the wall while the shower beats a steady pressure against his tense muscles. The soggy bandage around his arm peels half-off, hanging, and Dick removes it completely.

The incision is puffy at the edges and bleeding sluggishly. He thinks it’s still salvageable; if Bruce’s usual safehouses are anything to go by, every bathroom should have an overstuffed first aid kit. Dick probably doesn’t even need the lidocaine; he’s so used to a needle pulling thread through his skin that it barely registers anymore. He just hopes they have good quality suturing thread; his skin is weirdly sensitive to anything other than Ethilon—

He wonders if Jason has gone through this particular ritual yet. If he cried like Dick did the first time. Maybe not. The kid cares too much about appearing tough, and besides, he’s distilled a truth about Robin that Dick never figured out in over a decade: Robin’s a distraction to draw fire. A dummy. A body. It’s not the whole truth, but it is a truth—so of course Batman would need to track him at all times. Jason understood this from the get-go, so he got to know; Dick didn’t. It would’ve been so easy, so convenient, to insert that tracker in him when he was sleeping, or laid up with injury or illness, or even during sparring—

Dick’s shaking again, but it’s no longer distant. His stomach rolls with nausea.

Oh, god.

He had something inside his body for months, maybe years, and he didn’t even know—

He falls to his knees and vomits the half-digested remains of the grilled cheese he’d eaten at Clay’s before leaving. His shaking’s only gotten worse, and he retches and retches again until nothing’s coming up but stringy bile. He’s kneeling in a disgusting sludge of vomit and shower water and the shower that’s still beating down on him is hot enough to hurt, but all he can think of right now is: there’s more there’s more there’s more!

Because that can’t have been the only tracker, right? No, no, Batman is much too paranoid, and Robin is too valuable an asset (too much of a liability) to lose track of that easily. And Dick’s made it so easy, so trusting and open with his body—

He stumbles out of the shower, and rummages through his overnight bag for his electronic scanner. He passes it over every inch of his body, but it doesn’t detect anything. Dick can’t relax, though, because that doesn’t mean anything; Bruce could’ve easily built an upgraded tracker that his old scanner can’t detect. After all, he has all of Wayne Tech at his disposal and Dick’s got—Dick’s got—

(skin)

He settles on cold, slick bathroom tile and drags the first aid box towards him. He pulls out a lancet, rips open the sterile packaging. He positions the blade over an old, long scar on his right thigh—remembers how it was torn open with a rusty crowbar by some random thug-of-the-week who got in a lucky hit. Remembers Bruce holding his hand while he writhed and whimpered and Alfred slowly, painstakingly stitched him back together.

It’s as good a place as any to start.

Dick lowers the blade and makes the incision.

The night Robin lets Zucco die, he returns to the Batcave teetering on the verge of shock. He knows Alfred tried to get him to change out of his damp costume and come into the manor, but all he’s managed to get Dick to do is get his mask and gloves off and sit, shivering, on a stool, hands closed around a steaming mug of hot cocoa.

Robin waits while Dick quails.

Batman finally arrives and stands before him, a looming shadow. Dick opens his mouth, but no words come out. What can he possibly say after failing so spectacularly at everything he’s supposed to stand for? After feeling that sharp frisson of near-joyous vengeance when Zucco died in a hail of gunfire, still reaching to Robin for help?

“Dickie,” Bruce says finally, voice raw and disappointed and so, so sad. He reaches out to hold Dick’s shoulder, and something snaps inside of him at last, at long fucking last.

The mug falls to the floor with a resounding crash as Dick flees.

Blood’s seeping slowly from the gaping cut on his thigh. There’s no tracker there; Dick was quite thorough. Dick picks up the blade and moves to his other forearm. He’ll need to cover all the places he’s been touched; all the places where he stupidly provided easy access.

Before he can make the incision, however, a hand catches his, quickly, firmly. “Dick.”

Kory.

“I have to keep looking,” he tells her. It’s really important, but he’s feeling dizzy now, and she takes the lancet from him without much effort. The world wavers at the edges as she presses a towel firmly against the wound on his thigh and wraps another around his naked form.

He waits for her to say something (so beautiful), but all she does is settle next to him and pull him towards her. He leans in, closes his eyes, and shivers, and shivers.

#titans #my fic #spoilers #dick grayson #koriand'r #self harm cw

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arkus-rhapsode · 6 years

Text

My Hero Academia Chapter 209 Review

Well now, we’ve entered the home stretch of this arc. Going in to this last fight, I myself have a few jitters. Will this chapter cure that? Lets find out.

So we open on team Bakugou at the end of their matches, finding out it only took five minutes. Wow, we know Vlad is the one announcing so that must just be a real salt in the wound for his class. Though, I think team Tokage is walking away with minimal injury and no robo medics showing them out, so I just that’s a win.

So we get the teacher advice and performance reviews and with what Vlad tells team Tokage, I feel as if I need to address this. So last week, I made my stance clear, I was fine with Bakugou winning. As Vlad is saying here, their strategy failed as it was built around a different Bakugu, and they ended up spreading themselves too thin. Now, I will say though, what the fourth round lacked, is any reflection from 1-b. Oh sure, there was Tokage in the sky panicking, but unlike the other matches, there really was a lack of seeing class 1-b react and try to roll with this, even if it would be futile.

I know, let sleeping dogs lie, but I honestly was getting miffed at the tone of last week being, either “Bakugou is so great, you under estimated him,” or “Bakugou is an ass, and Class 1-b shouldn’t have been hyped at all.” So I’d like to say that I’m taking a middle ground and just saying as a fight it was great for Bakugou in terms of character development, but ultimately as an actual clash, it was sorely one-sided.

Speaking of team Tokage, them at least are pretty good sports over their loss. Kaminari is also on the side to congratulate Bakugou and of course needing to remind the shippers of his and Jirou’s relationship. Also, I’m assuming what Sero is talking about is when he lifted up Bakugou with his tape.

We see All Might congratulate Bakugou and he of course decides to act like a serious tsundere and act like this is nothing. Even though we know how he feels about All Might and thus meaning, he’s likely a little giddy on the inside. Also props to the comedy with Deku, that Bakugou’s anger at this point is just reflex.

We get that relationship progression scene with Deku and Bakugou, and don’t get me wrong, from a character stand point this is good, but from an average reader stand point, it feels like I’m watching the scene from the training before the license exam. You know, the one where Bakugou wondered if Deku was still going to try and surpass him. Granted this version is in a different context as we know Bakugou is now the one playing catch up with Midoriya in terms of being a hero. I’m just pointing out that this slow progression relationship definitely feels like it’ll take a while longer.

We actually do get a page that’s mostly blank, and textless to obviously add emphasis of just how important this moment was and is allowing the audience to digest it. Now I’m not posting it mainly cause I don’t wanna take up more space than I need with these reviews. But I wanna definitely that this is very appreciated in terms of pacing, because you have series like One Piece that pack itself with so much content you actually need just to have a chapter long breather rather than just a short single page one. It just really makes me happy to see that MHA is at a point where it can do this well.

We cut to team Monoma who Tokage is apologizing to because with her loss there is no way they can win. To which I’m going to take this moment and say yeah, you can’t. Alright this is just a mini-rant I have, but I really hope this match doesn’t end with team Deku losing and the final score being 2-2. That would be such BS, as what this arc is basically built on is A vs B, someone has to win or else you basically wasted almost 20+ chapters on this arc and it was all pointless. Now some have said that if they tie, class 1-b will still be around and this will clearly show them as a force on their own, as this arc will have gotten their characterization out there so we don’t have to shove it into the moment.

The problem is though, that still doesn’t fix the arc of being pointless. Say what you will about the provisional license exam or the gentle arc, but at the end of the arc, there was a point to each of them that was established and fulfilled. The class got licensees and Eri was free of Overhaul’s influence. That’s what the arcs were about, that’s what we got. But if no one wins and no one loses, then this entire arc was a big waste of time. What is the point of a fight if there is no winner or loser? I think we give shit to the Grand Magic Games in FT a lot, but the point of the arc was to win and get the guild’s popularity back, which it followed through on, and Black Clovers tournament was really a selection for the royal knights, which means that if the main character lost, there was still a pay off to it.

Now, if you go by saying that this arc isn’t about the fight and is more about Deku and Shinsou meeting and discovering what’s up with those visions of All for One’s brother talking to him, then this arc should’ve been altered. Because that would mean that only now are we doing what matters for the arc. There is basically no way to end this ultimately satisfyingly, because if team Deku does win, that ends this arc at 3-1, which makes class 1-a look like a group of jackasses who steam rolled class 1-b. But I’l take that over its a tie, I don’t wanna feel like I just wasted 3 months on this for just this fight.

Anyway, Monoma gives an impassioned speech that really shows a layer of his character that isn’t shown. While he’s often made a joke by his irrational hatred, Monoma is very much a theatrical man. Now I don’t mean that he’s flamboyant like Aoyama, rather he’s just a guy who sees the world a stage and is gonna bask in it. We saw this really early in the sports fest and a little bit with what he chose their culture fest project to be.

We end this monologue with Yanagi basically asking monoma what the point of this is, which means I already like her cause we’re actually getting some more characterization than we did with team Tokage.

We also get Shoda here, putting the pieces of their strategy togethe, telling us that their powers are techincal based. Likely meaning they aren’t directly combat based, but they all have skills that give them a lot of options.

Yanagi also speculates on Midoriya, calling him “hateful,” to which Shoda points out that Yanagi kinda speaks her own langue. Which is a cool trait that at first might seem like overlap with Shiozaki. However, when Shiozaki would act melodramatic it was out of religious vindication, Yanagi just has her own way of talking.

…Wait… What’s that? …Ahh, I’m getting word that a female character actually mentioned Deku’s name, thus she has been admitted into the Dekubowl.

We start more speculation on Midoriya and I think it’s coming from Shoda, showing that he’s clearly the analytical member of the team. Shinsou says that they need to beat down Midoriya first.

Now look, I actually really enjoy this as the way everyone is speaking of Deku and actually take him as a serious threat. Now I now there are some who have said, “team Deku should lose so that he develops from this.” To which I say, fuck off. Deku isn’t like someone like Natsu who basically could bamf his way through everything up to his fight with Gildarts, so when he lost it was a big deal. But Deku, dude loses like crazy and grows form it. Aside from the physical damage, the kid in the first few arcs barely got a win on his own, most of it was done with teamwork, with im learning for now he had to be the strategist. He didn’t finish at the top of the sports festival by Bakugou, he needed help against Stain, the first fight I think he won on his own was against Muscular, and let me remind you that destroyed both of his arms.

So I its only after 200 chapters, Deku is only now actually being treated as I’d expect a shounen protag to be treated, a massive threat. For the longest time his big quality was he had the heart of a hero, but that always ended with a shattered body. So he wasn’t really that powerful. And only now is is signs of progress really starting to affect other characters especially outside of class. So if Deku loses here, I’m gonna think that this wasn’t a big, “learn from loss character development moment,” I’m thinking it be a set back for him. Still team Deku could still lose if Mina, Mineta, or Uraraka get captured and as a whole they fail. Now there is a potential for Deku to fail, but I’ll talk about that in a little bit.

Also Shinsou asks Monoma that if they combine their quirks then they could pin down Deku. Now the images behind Monoma imply that potentially, Monoma would use copy on One for All and will end up destroying his body. Now That seems to be the implication, however there is the possibility that Monoma could also copy Shinsou’s quirk and then surprise everyone by answering him. But come on, we wanna see Monoma with one for all.

The teachers actually comment on Shinsou and wonder if he’ll pull through in this fight like he did the first round.

We cut to team Deku with everyone trying to figure out what their going to do, and unlike team Bakugou, they seems pretty downtrodden and realize that they don’t exactly have the same all-aroundness that team Bakugou had. However, instead of team Bakugou where Bakugou was the center of the team who protected and attacked, Deku is instead opting as a decoy, leet them focus on him, and then pick them off.

We also need to point out, they are laying it on thick with Deku’s quirk having some issues. If what ultimately screws up Deku is his quirk crapping out on him, then that’ll kinda fee like some narrative manipulation, but at the same time, one for all is such a strange quirk in this world, I wouldn’t doubt it could just screw up against Deku’s will. So we might have some flags going up with potential failure.

I love how even Mineta realized that Deku’s had character development up to this point. Anyway the match begins, but this isn’t the end of the chapter, oh no.

All Might needs to be excused after a call from Gran Torino.

We cut to the cell of All for One himself. He reminds us that Giantomachia has appeared. And unlike the league, this guy is loyal directly to him.

Welp, All for One knows about One for All and likely that vestige stuff. I mean,it’s not too much of a surprise at it came from All for One’s brother. Anyway, pants to be darkened.

Post Chapter Follow up: So I’m going to say, there’s nothing wrong with this chapter at all. Its a pretty standard breather chapter, but my greatest fears are more of what is to come than what has been actually in the chapter. Now I can’t condemn a chapter for not doing something that it isn’t time for, but as you can see the anxiousness is cranked up going into this.

On the positives, my personal favorite thing about this chapter is the character interaction in team Monoma. It’s something we sorely lacked from team Tokage, but now it feels like this making up for that. We see More to Monoma as a character individually, as well as Yanagi and Shoda really showing of what they’re like as characters. Nothing from Yui yet, but she could be like Bondo and that’s the point. As for class 1-A, this group of characters are pretty used to bouncing of eachother, so it’s nothing new. That said, I do enjoy the interactions regardless.

The continuing relationship of Bakugou and Deku is great and I’m glad Horikoshi is committed to the long run with this relationship. Also I’m just happy that we got some good pacing built around it without it feeling inconvenient.

Also appearance from All for One, which already makes this even better and furthers the Giantmachia plot,.

Final Verdict: 7/10

Good breather chapter

Awesome character interactions

Foreshadowing of future events are getting set

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shiningamongdarkness · 5 years

Text

Chapter 08. A horrible feeling

Shining among Darkness

By WingzemonX

Chapter 08. A horrible feeling

Be a homicide detective was always an obvious goal for Cole Sear. That was, after all, the perfect way in which he could fulfill the purpose that had led him to join the police force from the start. This achievement reached him relatively quickly, becoming one of the youngest elements to get it. A lot of it was thanks to his hard work, of course; but it would be quite stubborn of him to pretend that it was not also due to his unique abilities which gave him an advantage over other competitors.

If he had learned anything during those years he was leading, not only as a homicide detective but as part of the Philadelphia Police Department itself, it is that almost all criminals, not to mention people in general, had the instinct to run away ; or, failing that, attack at the first sign of danger. This behavior was very characteristic of animals; the one that was not so was the desire to attack, torture, and murder their peers for no reason, beyond wanting to do so, or a selfish and twisted search for pleasure and emotion.

Strangely, he had realized that those with this behavior were, in fact, less likely to flee. As he saw it, the violent and ruthless killers, even within their twisted way of seeing the world, were smart enough to understand that what they did was wrong; for other people, not for themselves. And although several of them could not fully digest all the implications of it, they used to accept with remarkable tranquility the fact that they were discovered and even celebrated about it.

Andrew Stuart, the son of a bitch who was chasing on foot at the time in the center, was not one of them. This coward, as soon as he understood why two officers had shown up at his appliance store looking specifically for him, threw a shelf to them and ran out terrified by the boarding area. Cole's partner, Tommy, went to the car, while Cole decided to run after the suspect. Although of course, to call him suspect for Cole was a mere formality; he already knew that he was guilty, and enough.

It was a little before 6 pm; the sidewalks were somewhat crowded, as several people had recently left their jobs. To Andrew, this seemed to matter very little to him, as did not matter to him the life of the innocent women who trusted him when they got into his vehicle during the dawns, in search of somebody that took them safely to home. He pushed everyone without the slightest hesitation to break through, even knocking them to the ground if necessary. A part of Cole wanted to behave himself that way, as long as he could reach that bastard as soon as possible. But, for better or for worse, he was a law enforcement officer, so he just went as far as he could, while announcing himself shouting: “Police! Off to the side!” That seemed to be enough most of the time for people to stand aside, between surprised and frightened.

He would not let him escape in any way. Not after everything he had done, and everything he had to pay for. Cole would catch him, and put him in the darkest and most humid cell he could find, but not before beating him as God commands.

Andrew turned out to have enough stamina and condition, but Cole also had it. It took him three blocks, but he finally managed to tack and throw Andrew to the ground. Both rolled; Andrew hit his forehead against the sidewalk, and it opened in a long wound. Still stunned with his forehead bleeding, he got back to his feet, and without thinking, he threw a punch at Cole. The detective dodged him by a few millimeters, but Andrew kept trying.

And there was the second common behavior: attack in a desperate way, fed by anger.

People surrounded them, but all were limited to watching the show. During the first punches, Cole only covered or dodged, but just when he saw the opportunity, he hit a straight right on his jaw, which made Andrew stumble back awkwardly. Cole could have taken out his gun and forced him with that threat to throw himself to the ground, but he did not do that. He felt a lot of satisfaction, more than he would admit, in being able to advance that beating he had thought of right now and with his fists.

Andrew was not as helpless as he looked. In their exchange of punches, he managed to give Cole a pair, of which the second almost knocked him down, but he remained standing.

Cole could see out of the corner of his eye how Tommy arrived and parked his beige Cadillac on one side of the sidewalk. Then he got off, with his gun in hand, but remained in that place, doubtful whether to intervene or not.

"Do you want help, friend?"

"No, thanks," Cole said, just before ducking to avoid an Andrew hook. "I have everything under control."

At first glance, it did not seem that this statement was right, but in the end, the detective managed to shoot the suspect behind a strong hook to the face, which made him turn on himself, fall flat on the floor, and stay there. Once there, Cole stood over him and placed the handcuffs on him, perhaps applying a little more force than required.

"Andrew Stuart," he began with a vengeance as he handcuffed him, "you're under arrest for the murder of Rebecca Snyder, and five other women whom I will name you shortly, I promise."

He lifted him and then pulled him violently towards the car.

"This is stupid!" Andrew exclaimed furiously; his face bloodied and bruised. "Based on what you are doing it?"

"Based on what?" Murmured Cole, apparently furious at the mere idea that he questioned such a thing. "How about six corpses buried in the same corner of the forest, all with enough of your DNA to send you to a death sentence individually?"

Andrew's expression filled with astonishment and amazement suddenly, trying to look at his captor over his shoulder as his firm grip allowed him.

"That, without mention the word of a witness" the detective added sharply, already being right next to the car.

"Witness?" Andrew exclaimed as if he did not know the meaning of that word. "What witness?"

"Rebecca Snyder, asshole."

"What?"

Before giving him enough time even to digest that strange response, the officer placed his hand on his head and lowered it suddenly intending to put him in the backseat. However, in the process he smashed his forehead against the top frame of the door, causing him to become even more disoriented than he already was.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did it hurt? My carelessness."

Cole pushed it into the car almost pushing it, and slammed the door hard behind him. The people, by then, had already begun to retire.

"Well done, Sear," Tommy said, almost scolding. "Do you think that enough time has passed since your last slap of ears for police abuse?"

"You saw it yourself, he fought it hard," Cole said, shrugging nonchalantly. "You will back me up, will not you?"

He added a wink of complicity behind his words, to which the other cop quietly sighed.

"While I can, my friend."

Tommy was ten years older than him, with a mustache of a somewhat old—fashioned style. In theory, he was supposed to be his senior, in charge of teaching him and taking care that he did everything according to the rules and procedure. In practice, Tommy turned out to be quite condescending with it. Although he was not so old, he seemed to share many of the old guard's thoughts, in which it was considered understandable, and even advisable, that they should treat the criminals as necessary. The difference between Cole and him is that Tommy most of the time he only thought about it, while Cole applied it to every opportunity.

The reason for Cole's actions, however, was not due to an attachment to old ways. While many of the homicide policemen saw everything in a rather cold way, without getting involved in a personal way and without seeing the victims as more than just corpses (something that was quite recurrent mentioned on the academy), Cole had a completely different perspective of each case. That perspective led him to get a vision on the matter that none of his colleagues could match.

That was, precisely, his happy advantage although many would see it as the opposite.

Tommy went to the other side of the car and headed for the driver's seat. However, Cole did not go to his respective place.

"Can you get ahead to take this idiot and process him?"

His partner turned to see him, somewhat confused by such a request.

"Sure. But, where are you going?"

"I have to take care of another business."

"Business? What business?"

Cole did not say anything. He just smiled and tilted his head a little to one side. That was enough to be understood.

"Ah, a business of that class?"

Again, he did not respond with words.

"I'll see you in a little while." Cole pointed out and then started back up the street. "Don’t miss that bastard."

"Of course not. Tonight, he will sleep in the shadows."

Tommy climbed into the car, turned on it, and then drove in the opposite direction.

— — — —

Once the adrenaline and emotion of the fight subsided, Cole began to feel the heat of the blows received in the face, and also of the hits provided by knuckles. Definitely, he was not in the best condition to go on a date, if that was the case. He would have to put ice on that wounds when he got home, and clean his knuckles with alcohol. But he did not care; to a certain extent, he was already used to it.

His destination was not very far. A few meters ahead of the scene of his fight, he entered a narrow, somewhat hidden alley. There was nothing in that space, beyond some trash cans and a fire escape stairs on the side of the left building.

He looked around, making sure there was no one, not inside the alley, as if outside. He took out a pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket. He put one in his mouth and lit it. From the first breath, he was already feeling more relaxed, and the pain eased.

He remained standing in that place, just waiting. The person who had gone to see was already there; he knew that. He could feel it in all his bones. It was a sensation between pain and tickling; hard to describe, and more to imagine.

A slight cold air snorted, touching his face delicately. Beneath his suit, his skin bristled. He released a thick puff of smoke into the air, and then turned to the side, further down the alley.

And there she was: Rebecca Snyder, with coppery hair in a tangle, and her face pale, except for the blows that had left brown and purple spots that stood out remarkably. Her long neck was marked by the prints of long and thick fingers that had left furrows on her skin when pressed with excessive force; the fingers of the same fists that a few minutes ago were trying to hit him. Her blouse was torn, leaving one of her breasts exposed, and her skirt lifted. Her thighs were stained with blood, drawing thin threads that ran down his legs to almost reaching her ankles.

Her sight was lost, set somewhere on the dirty floor of the alley. Her arms fell to the sides without the slightest force in them.

Cole, more than feeling scared or disturbed by such an image, every time he saw her he could only feel tremendous anger. If he could, he would have killed that bastard right there, and possibly he would have won a medal with it; not in that life, but maybe in the next. But he was a policeman, and he had to behave as such. He had joined the force precisely to help people like Rebecca, but even so, he must continue to follow the rules of the living.

He threw his cigarette barely started on the floor, and stepped on it with his toe. He kept his distance, waiting for Rebecca to turn to see him, but she did not. She kept looking at the floor, as if that ball of paper near her feet, moving slightly from side to side just a few centimeters by the wind, was something exciting.

"It's over, Rebecca," he informed her after a while, very softly in her voice. "I caught him. He will pay for what he did to you and the others. And he won't hurt someone else again."

She continued without reacting as if his words were distant murmurs in the wind that were not addressed to her.

Cole approached cautiously; the closer he came, the colder the air became. He raised his right hand intending to place it on his shoulder, but at the last moment decided not to.

"You can rest now. I will take care of everything else."

Then it followed a few seconds of complete silence and calm. Even the sounds of the street, the walk of people, the noise of the cars, everything seemed to have vanished.

Suddenly, Rebecca began to raise her face slowly and to turn it in the same way towards him. Her blue eyes, in those reddish and absent-minded moments, rested on the detective, to which he responded only with a modest smile.

"Thank you..." the woman whispered slowly, but still her voice resounded loudly in Cole's head like an echo.

Silence comes next, another breath of cold air, and then... nothing. The noise of the street and people returned, the usual heat returned little by little, and Rebecca Snyder disappeared without a trace. It would be the last time Cole would see her, or that was at least what Cole expected.

Already at that point, he did not remember when it had started. In his almost thirty years, looking back, it seemed as if it had always been like this: to be able to see and talk to the dead. What he did remember clearly was the moment in which he decided what use to give to such a singular quality. When instead of running away from that girl who had been poisoned by her mother, agreed to listen to her and prevent the same thing happening with his sister. He learned that way the spirits that came to him, for the most part, they did not intend to hurt him but fed by their own confusion and fears. They saw him as a beam of light that could help them, and he decided that within his faculties, he would try to be one.

Of course, not all the ghosts that came to him did it with good intentions. But over time, he managed to control even more his skills including understanding that they had much higher qualities than he had expected as a child. These qualities could help keep such entities away, or even invoke them if required.

But of course, Cole did not achieve all that alone; if so, he would possibly remain as the child hiding behind his blankets, in a false attempt to protect himself from beings he did not understand. But thanks in particular to two people, he managed to take the right steps. The first of them, surprisingly, was another ghost, and he was who encouraged him to no longer be so afraid of them. Cole knew the second person when he was about to enter adolescence; when the apparitions became much more frequent and much more dangerous.

That person, precisely, was about to call him.

Cole left the alley with the clear intention of lighting another cigarette. He had just placed it on his lips when he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pants. He hurried to get it out and saw displayed on the screen an unregistered number. But, besides that, it started with the code of another state.

He tried to remember which city the code belonged to, but it did not come to his head quickly, and the phone kept ringing. His immediate decision was to answer. It was not uncommon for people of unknown number to call him since he often distributed his presentation card among people he felt might need it. However, what was a little more unusual, was that these types of calls would come from outside the city... except for a particular case, which was the one that came to mind just after responding.

"Detective Sear," he answered firmly, as his years of police had accustomed him.

"Good fight, Detective Sear," he heard a woman's voice on the other end of the line pronounce; a very, very recognizable woman's voice. "Have you ever considered a career in boxing?"

A broad smile of emotion crossed Cole's lips.

"Eleven? What a surprise!"

He heard a small, modest giggle from the other side.

"That didn't sound sincere."

"Because it is not, I'm not really surprised. Were you spying on me? You won't be calling me just to scold me for the fight, will you?"

"Actually, it was a coincidence. And I'm sure that guy deserved that facial rearrangement."

"I guarantee you that he deserved that and more."

Again, some friendly giggles from both. Cole started walking along the sidewalk towards the headquarters, having the phone at every moment against his ear."

Jane Wheeler, Eleven for friends, ran a Foundation dedicated primarily to helping children like him. With her guidance, he learned to understand how to use better his skills; or, as she called it, his "Shining."

"I'm sorry to bother you so suddenly," Eleven murmured, once the initial greetings had passed, "but I need to ask you a favor."

"For you, I do whatever, you know it," Cole said to answer immediately. He did not work regularly at the Foundation, but he was always open to doing so as soon as the opportunity presented itself. "Any other Foundation child is frightened by incomprehensible phenomena for the rest of your assistants?"

"Something like that. But I suspect that it could be a case closer to the other type of phenomena that you tend to see."

Cole's right eyebrow arched with intrigue.

"Other type?"

"You know, those who are not precisely ghosts."

That single clarification was quite clear to him; he did not say it in words, but his silence indicated this to his interlocutor. Also, that made something more worrying about the reason for her call.

"It is a girl who has skills and behaviors that are quite worrying, in many ways. I assigned the case to Matilda Honey, one of my most trusted and committed collaborators. I think you've never had the opportunity to meet her before."

To Cole, the name did not come to mind; he would definitely remember someone whose last name was "Honey." It lent itself so easily to a couple of jokes that it could even be considered a boring challenge.

Eleven continued.

"She's a woman quite capable of anything, and I say it almost literally. However, she doesn't have the kind of experience you have with cases like this."

Cole thought a little about everything he had heard. Much of his attention had been left behind in the conversation.

"What do you think it is, Eleven?" He questioned with notorious seriousness in his tone.

Eleven took a couple of seconds before answering.

"I don't know for sure. It's more like a feeling; a horrible feeling."

"It's better not to take your feelings lightly, especially if they are horrible. What do you need me to do?"

"Originally I intended to ask you if you could take care of it, but Matilda expressed very strongly her refusal to leave the case. Even so, I would feel calmer if you saw this kid and gave your opinion to Matilda about her. And, if you can, support her in the following steps to follow."

"Sure, there's no problem. When should I be there?"

Eleven stammered, confused by the unexpected response.

"But I still don't give you all the details of the case. I haven't even told you where you should go..."

"Hey, I said I'd do anything for you," the detective interrupted firmly, "so I don't need any more details. Also, I just closed a complicated case, and I could use a short vacation. Just give me a few days to finish the paperwork, and see what dates I have to appear in court."

"You're all charming, Cole," the woman murmured with a warm tone. "Then we will be in contact to talk more calmly about the case."

"Sure, you always know where to find me."

Being about to cut, Eleven stopped him.

"Ah, one more thing, Cole. Try to be... careful with Matilda. You've never met anyone like her before."

"Why do you say that?" He asked, intrigued. "Does Miss Honey have two heads or can she blow up mine?"

"Unmistakably, she doesn't have two heads. About the other thing..." Eleven left the words in the air, leaving Cole a bit confused. "I think you two will get along, after a while. I leave you to finish your paperwork. We talk this night."

"Sure. Say hello to Mike by me."

When he cut off the communication, Cole stopped for a moment to meditate, standing there on the sidewalk. He sounded pretty sure a few moments ago on the phone, but actually, he was not so much.

He moved a little closer to a bench, and let himself fall into it. He took out his cell phone again and started dialing a number. On the other side, the person attended by the third beep.

"Father Michael," he said enthusiastically, though solemnly. "Do you have time to receive me later...? No, nothing terrible especially. It's just... a horrible feeling."

— — — —

After several days of meetings and agreements, Ann Thorn, with maiden name Rutledge, decided to take a night off on her business trip in Los Angeles and go to the Opera. And what better companion for a night like that than his beloved nephew, Damien? After all, those same meetings and agreements they had also occupied him; although not as much as she expected.

Damien was reluctant at first, but in the end, he hesitantly agreed. They both get ready right on time, and they climbed into the limo with Billy to take them to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. That trip, however, was a little silent.

Ann was a woman who was already forty—five years old, elegant and very good looking. She had long curly black hair that fell loose on her shoulders that night. She had put on a long black evening dress, with bare shoulders, and matching high heels. She was also retouching her lips with an intense red that stood out in her white face. She was, in a few words, a stunning woman, one of those who each year they live, they look even better.

"The critics had spoken very well about this opera," Ann commented just after finishing painting her lips. "Let's hope it's worth it."

"Yes, I'm sure you want to see it for the good reviews," said the boy beside her, with marked sarcasm.

Damien wore a suit of black coat and pants, a dark gray shirt, and a red tie with diagonal white lines. While his aunt did her thing with her lips, while both were sitting in the back seat of the limousine, he boringly checked his cell phone. There was a significant distance between them, which could hardly have been accidental.

Ann was the second wife of his uncle Richard, the older brother of his father. When he orphaned at a very young age, he remained in Richard and Ann custody. Time later, his uncle died in an accident when he was twelve, and since then he was in the care of Ann as his legal guardian.

But of course, much of that was lies, or at least almost nobody knew all the details about how his parents and uncle died, or who Ann Rutledge really was, or the purpose and means by which she had come to Damien's life.

"Occasional public appearances are sometimes necessary," Ann pointed out. "I thought I taught you that."

She then kept her mirror and lipstick, and immediately afterward she glanced at her companion.

"That tie suits you very well. You should use it more often."

"It works when I want to disguise myself as a clown," replied the boy with reluctantly.

His attitude was quite negative, and although Ann tried to hide her annoyance, it was indeed hard not to feel assaulted by her tone. That state had already lasted a couple of months. And although at times it seemed that everything was improving, abruptly they returned to the starting point.

The limousine approached its destination by North Grand Avenue.

"Leave us here, Billy," Ann pointed out, indicating the long stairs that led to the plaza of Los Angeles Music Center. The driver stepped aside, despite the red line, and both got out. First Damien, and then Ann, who had to get out without the help of her young escort, who still did not take his eyes off of his cell phone.

In any other similar case, that attitude would be a clear example of how deteriorated the current youth were. But that boy was not any young man, and his attitude toward her was due to more than youthful apathy.

On the sidewalk, there were many people, but from their position, they could notice that there was still more up in the square; all of them waiting for it to be time for the event to start.

The limo pulled away, and they both started walking toward the stairs. However, a voice behind them stopped them.

"Mrs. Thorn," said a tongue—in—cheek voice behind her, making the woman in black turn around quickly, and Damien did the same. Approaching by the sidewalk was a man of medium height, with a half—grown beard, striped shirt, jacket, and gray pants. And, perhaps most striking, a press badge hanging from the left pocket of his jacket. "You are Ann Thorn of Thorn Industries, right?"

Ann smiled gently, as she could. There were several reporters in the vicinity, some much more recognizable than others, even without distinctive badges on their chests. But that one, in particular, did not seem to be a show reporter. Also, Ann did not believe that many show reporters could recognize her so quickly on the street.

"If you want to know my opinion about the performance, you'll have to wait until after the end, boy," she said politely, and somewhat mockingly, and immediately set out to follow her progress; Damien followed her in silence.

"I'm not a show reporter, Mrs. Thorn," the reporter hurried to explain, creating some personal pride in Ann when she saw that she had been right. "I was waiting for you precisely. Can you give me just a second?"

"I don't have much time," Ann explained, as the three of them climbed the stairs. "The first call will be at any time. Besides, how did you know I would be here anyway?"

"With all due respect, but the CEO of a business consortium as big as Thorn Industries can hardly go unnoticed; especially if she comes with the young heir."

The man's attention focused on the boy who was walking beside the elegant woman. This one, when he felt his eyes, looked at him equally over his shoulder with his deep and cold blue eyes. The expression of the boy came to cause a slight jump on the reporter, for no reason.

"Damien Thorn, right?" He extended his hand in greeting, once they reached the bottom of the stairs. However, Damien did not return the address in any way.

"I'll get ahead of you, Aunt Ann," he said brusquely, and then walked away to the building on his own.

Ann looked at him for a few seconds, between surprised and annoyed; the latter was not sure if it was to his young nephew, or to the impertinent reporter who was bothering them.

"It will be quick," she heard the man say at her side with the same tongue—in—cheek voice as before, which did not do much to lessen her bad mood. "I just want to know your opinion about the rumors that hover in the financial sector, about your visit to Los Angeles is due to the possible purchase of Winston Motors by Thorn Industries."

From his position, the reporter could not see her face; and if he could see it, he might have thought twice before harassing her with such questions. Her inside boiled with the desire to take his stupid head and crashed it to the ground again and again until in her hands there were only bunches of flesh and bone. Unfortunately, that would be quite disturbing to the public relations of the company. So, instead of opting for that option, she decided to turn to him and smile normally.

"If I had something to say about it, why do you think I would tell you, dear? Especially if I consider that anything I say, or doesn't say, would cause a disturbance on Wall Street in the morning."

"You said it yourself," the reporter stressed, confident in his voice. "Sometimes refusing to deny a statement says much more than affirming it."

Surely he had felt brilliant for having done such a cunning observation. Ann continued smiling, but the option of the head and the ground seemed more and more tempting to her.

"If you didn´t come for that, why don't you tell me what is the real reason for your stay in Los Angeles? That could calm rumors and riots, don't you think?"

"Tonight, I only come to spend a nice time with my beloved nephew. And you're spoiling me." Ann straightened her comment, giving him a pair of friendly pats on his cheek. "You can write that if you wish. About Winston Motors..." She paused thoughtfully, tilted his head to the side, and then smiled confidently again. "No comment."

After saying that she began to move quickly to the auditorium, and even being him behind her, she could feel his proud smile, and how he took out his cell phone and called someone.

She could guess how he would take his refusal to deny as an affirmation. She could see the tomorrow business section of a local newspaper, with a new without stating anything directly, but between the lines would inform to the world that Thorn Industries would absorb Winston Motors, and even give some predictions and theories of what that purchase could bring to the future. The shares of Winston Motors would start to rise, and those of Thorn Industries might drop a few points, but it won´t be something out of the ordinary.

But in the end, everything would be just reverend nonsense. Of course, the president of Winston Motors and she already had an alliance, and of course, they had seen her leave and enter their building several times throughout that week and a half. But this alliance was many things, but not commercial; not in the conventional sense that inept reporters like that understood, at least. The principal heads of Winston Motors were part of Them; followers of the same cause, allies in matters that were much deeper and more complex than a business purchase, or any other idea that the mundane mind of that individual could conceive.

But there was no point in continuing to think about it; there were more relevant issues that still worried her.

Already inside the auditorium, an usher did her the favor of guiding her to their private box, in which her companion was already seated; again, with his attention on the cell phone. Ann wondered if he really was seeing something interesting or if he was just doing it to annoy her.

She decided not to show her annoyance, and instead just smiled and sat in the chair next to him. There had been too many fake smiles for an afternoon. The stage was on the right side of the auditorium, and the position was more than adequate to contemplate it entirely without problems. The seats had been provided by their friends of Winston Motors.

"The view is perfect, don't you think?" Commented the woman in black, but did not receive an answer; at least not immediately, although it was not as such an answer to her question.

"Was really a coincidence that we met that reporter?" The boy questioned with annoyance, without taking his eyes off the screen.

"What do you think?" Ann answered with an air of mystery. Actually, it had been a coincidence, but she considered a good idea to make him feel that she had some control over any situation. She just hoped he would not try to get in her head to verify it. "It would be good if you stopped shying away from the public eye like you have been doing these last months."

"I agreed to come with you here, or not? And it wasn't by of the good reviews. Also, I've been busy with other things to focus, more important than public relations."

"That's what I heard," Ann murmured with weariness in his tone. "Do you think it's the best thing for your image to be walking around in those places?"

Damien smiled, amused at the subtle questioning. Only that moment he finally turned off his cell phone and put it in his pocket.

"Of course you know it," he said. "I was wondering when you were going to mention it."

A few days ago, Damien had asked Billy to take him to a neighborhood on the south of the city, to look for a person. That neighborhood, however, was one of "those places" to which Ann referred so contemptuously.

"Don't get involved in my business. I know what I'm doing."

"And if someone had recognized you?"

"Someone like who? The councilors and the police sergeants who pass by there every two days?"

"It was not necessary for you to go yourself. You could have asked any of your men to take care of that... business for you."

"You mean your men; yours and Lyons."

Ann turned to see him directly, stunned by such comment.

"Of course not. You know that any of the members of the Brotherhood would do anything for you. Including us."

Damien smiled again amused.

"You will forgive me if I put myself some skeptical of that affirmation."

There was a small silence, in which the echo of the footsteps and the murmurs of the people who were accommodating in their places resounded. The second call occurred during that time.

"What do you expect to get together with these girls?" The woman in black questioned, abruptly.

"I still don't know exactly. But I'm sure it will be an enlightening experience."

"You expect too much from these worldly and low beings," Ann exclaimed with might in her voice. "These girls are not worthy of you, beyond prostration at your feet. All beings in this despicable world, even those who think they are special, are nothing but insects before you. Don't try to find your peers among them, when you are so above all of us..."

"Leave that already, will you, Ann?" He interrupted her violently, giving her a furtive look of anger. "I'm not in the mood for your nonsense."

Ann's breath cut as soon as he rested his gaze on her. Those eyes no longer reflected the boy's usual coolness and tranquility, but a genuine and deep rage; of that which, if it were a little bigger, would have had a disastrous effect on her person.

Damien turned back to the stage, and crossed his legs, adopting a posture that seemed to indicate that he was the only person in that box; or, at least, the only one that interested him, even if it was a whim.

Ann lowered her gaze thoughtful and subjugated. She had not been aware until then of the dire situation between the two. Everything had started just a few months ago, after that stupid Economy Congress in New Hampshire. A single moment of carelessness, just a moment of not paying attention to everything that surrounded him, to everything that could be a potential danger, and everything ruined. Before, she was confident about it, sure that eventually it would pass and would be something unimportant. However, everything seemed to indicate that it would not be like that. It was not something that he would forget easily and could bring horrible consequences.

Everything she had done and sacrificed for the greater good, for the rebirth of a new era, at risk of being thrown away by the intervention of a young idiot girl who did not know with who she was playing.

"If I have done something to offend you, my lord, you know I will do anything to regain your trust." She raised her hand then, intending to place it on top of his. "Anything…"

Before she could even touch his white skin, the boy quickly removed his hand from his back, as if that possible contact provoked disgust on him. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, with the same feeling he had just moments ago. He sat up straight in his chair and turned back to the stage.

Ann lowered her eyes, resigned. The third call came a little later, and the rest of the night fell in silent.

END OF CHAPTER 08

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

—The character of Cole Sear is based on the child protagonist of the film Sixth Sense of 1999, having at this time already around twenty-seven or twenty-eight years, in contrast to the nine he had in that film. The events of the film are respected as they are shown in it, without any change at the moment. The skills of Cole, however, will have some evolution compared to what we saw in the film, which later chapters will explain.

—The character of Ann that appeared in this chapter is based and inspired by the combination of two characters. Her role and relationship with Damien are based on Ann Thorn from the movie Damien: Omen II of 1978, while his image and personality are based on Ann Rutledge from the television series Damien of 2016, although both characters were never specified as the same. The main difference is that here it will be considered something younger so that it is more in line with current Damien's age. In addition to this, several of the events of Damien: Omen II will be taken and will adapt to the story, but in the case of the outcome that the character had at the end of that film, it will be changed.

#cole sear #sixth sense #Damien Thorn #the omen #Damien #jane eleven hopper #eleven #stranger things #shining among darkness #resplandor entre tinieblas #wingzemonx #fanfic

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