#5 minutes in i can feel it seeping into my bones in a bad way | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tundrainafrica · 3 years

Text

Title: Lovebug (10/14)

Summary:

“It might be a bug.”

“A bug?”

“Sometimes the developers of this application make mistakes. This is our first time meeting I’m sure so…Isn’t it a bit weird that we just met for the first time and it rings like this? And for two strangers to coincidentally ring each other’s alarms?“

Levi is the developer of the Love Alarm App and Hange is married to Zeke.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Notes: Feedback is very much appreciated :D

The floors of the motel room were wooden. And wood on most days was a good insulator.

Strangely though, signs of the beginning of autumn and maybe even the staunch hints of a coming winter seeped into the floorboards. Levi bent down, pressing one hand over the wood. The surface was cold enough to almost sting. It looked like sleeping on the floor could turn out to be more of a challenge than a moment of respite.

Still, it was something to consider. Levi sat cross legged on the floor for a few seconds longer to rehearse the gentle suggestion to Hange that he be the one to take the floor. They had been hesitantly discussing that topic for a while already, without reaching much of a conclusion.

When he was still vacillating internally between deciding and letting Hange decide, he started to realize he wasn’t productive at all. He didn’t know how to feel. He didn’t know what to do. Naturally, he didn’t know what to say either.

The door slammed open just a few feet away, close enough to rattle him.

“That felt good,” Hange sighed and she fell back on the bed. “Finally, I can lie on a bed.”

“See, isn’t it better to lie on a clean bed?” Levi asked pointedly. He had spent a good few seconds convincing her not to lie on the bed until she showered. Surprisingly, Hange was compliant.

But even after showering, Hange didn’t seem at all glad at his fastidiousness. Without a second look, she digressed to a subject Levi would have preferred she didn’t pursue. “I’ll go borrow a first aid kit and get some extra blankets.” She padded towards the door efficiently.

The room was small, and Hange’s strides were long and quick. That left no time for Levi to play clean freak or lecturer again and he chose that moment to lay on the cold floor.

Just for a little more practice.

It was a cheap motel room. There were only two pillows on the bed, one blanket and when he opened the closet door there was nothing much but two bathrobes and towels.

They had discussed the size already. They had considered a mattress but the floor between the wall and the bed was not big enough to squeeze one in. He stood up, walked one corner of the room, then the other, then he made a plan. They could request an extra blanket, a pillow and if he made his own little fort in that small gap between bed and wall, he could probably create some illusion that he was lying comfortably on a bed.

The door opened again and Hange sauntered into the room, one folded blanket on one hand, a first aid kit on the other. “Okay, let’s check out the wound.”

“It’s just a scrape,” Levi said.

“It wouldn’t hurt to get it cleaned up. ” Hange said with a no nonsense tone. She settled on the bed and tapped the empty space next to him. "Or actually, it might hurt."

Levi slowly and hesitantly made his way to the bed. There was something seemingly inappropriate about sitting on someone’s bed. The few times he had ever entered someone’s room, Levi had always been particular about avoiding other people’s beds for hygiene purposes, for personal purposes. It was their personal space after all.

But Hange was staring at him expectantly and with the bed behind her, Levi was thinking of the only one other person who had the privileges of sleeping with Hange. That blond billionaire monke----.

“What are you waiting for?” Hange interrupted, her voice a mix of impatience and possibly genuine curiosity. She tapped the bed again more quickly that time.

“I don’t need it,” Levi said. Really, he didn’t mind but when he was particularly aware that he had been standing awkwardly the past few minutes, he knew he needed to preserve some dignity.

“You’re scared of a little alcohol?” Hange teased.

“No, I’m not,” Levi narrowed his eyes in indignance. Then he started to think, he could look obedient or he could look like a coward. He decided obedience was better so he sat next to her, keeping a few inches between them.

As soon as he was settled on the bed, Hange pulled his injured elbow towards her in a very gentle manner. It brought with it a sensation Levi was sure he wasn't completely familiar with. A part of him wanted to pull away. Was that her first time touching him slowly and deliberately? Their first point of contact that wasn't borne of urgency or impulse?

Either way, Levi had to admit, it was an unfamiliar feeling altogether. He watched, just to make sense of it himself, the way Hange's hands ran lightly over the broken skin, the way she gripped a little more firmly along the area close to the wound.

She bent her head down and tutted a few times. “Looks like splinters might have gotten caught in the wound.” She went for the first aid kit, pulling out tweezers and some thick gauze. “This might hurt a bit,” she warned.

Sitting still turned out to be a difficult task. He was sure he had dealt with worse pains and he had never been one to be completely intolerant of discomforts. He liked to assume it was the current situation, the awkwardness and the heavy air that made it difficult to do something so simple as to stomach pain.

Pain before he even felt it. His body was not cooperating.

“Hey, I know it might hurt but stop pulling away or we won’t get it out.” Her voice was notably stern. She put her hands on his shoulders and twisted his body to her side. “Face me.”

It was an easy order to follow but it came with its own set of unpleasantries. Levi could only stare. Her gaze was as stern as her words of a while ago. Her grip on his shoulders had been hard and firm. For all he knew, she could have been his commander, his superior. And he couldn’t help but think, maybe she would have fit that type of position in another life.

When her face would soften into something more intimate, it didn’t in any way dwindle whatever respect he felt for her.

Hange didn’t go for the splinter quickly the second time. She bent over, pulled his elbow towards her more slowly. “If you need to, squeeze my arm.” To get her point across, Hange raised the arm that was holding his elbow up, pressing it against Levi’s palms.

He couldn’t help but note, her arms were a stark contrast to the cold floor beneath him, a welcome improvement to the blankets and bed sheets to his side. Her arms, her skin was very warm and he craved warmth. In a natural turn of events, he wrapped his fingers around her arm slowly at first, then all at once. “I won’t squeeze too hard,” Levi said. Had that comment been for him or for her?

Hange ignored him. “Let’s do this quickly. In one--”

Levi saw white then red in an unexpected turn of events. She didn’t count two or three. He didn’t even know he let out a taut swear until Hange let out her own response, a mix between a laugh and a murmur. “You really are strong,” she commented. “Humanity’s strongest.”

"Shut up." He let it out as a whisper, channeling his energy instead into the process evening out his breathing.

"Does it still hurt?" Hange asked.

"What? No it doesn't." It didn’t hurt. What made her think it did? Even after a brief moment of introspection, the answer wasn’t completely clear to Levi.

To Hange though, it might have been clear. She was looking at him expectantly and Levi surveyed his surroundings, focusing his senses on whatever signs she might have noticed.

A second later, she spoke up, answering that silent question between them. "You're still holding on.”

At that mortifying revelation, Levi pulled away.

But Hange only gripped harder. “I don’t mind. If it still hurts, you can keep holding on.” She paused for a second longer, her gaze still fixed on his. “And you can keep holding on until it stops hurting.”

Levi was a simple man and he knew nobody was supposed to enjoy pain. In a bout of what could have been uncharacteristic, he found himself searching for it. The stinging pain of the scrape eventually faded but that only made Levi settle for any remnants. An excuse to grip for a while longer maybe?

He found another type of pain, something similar to what a donkey would feel with a carrot dangling in front of it. The pain of having something within proximity yet completely unreachable. The pain of vacillating between trying to find a way to reach it and trying to find a way to get over it.

If he was in any more pain, he could have continued to hold on, for seconds even minutes longer. Soon, he let whatever primal instincts that were convincing him of that, take over.

He gripped hard.

Hange wasn’t helping abate his instincts. She gripped harder in return. Her nails were short but they were digging hard into him, her thumbs pressing all the way until he felt it down to the bone. “You know, holding on to someone can make you feel better, especially when you’re in a lot of pain,” she said.

“What makes you think anything hurts?” Levi challenged. As if to answer his question, his shaking hands, his firm grip gave way to a new set of discomforts.

Hange gave him a knowing look enough for Levi to acknowledge that maybe, he lost a little bit of control. “You seem tense,” she said. “Does anything else hurt? That was a bad fall a while ago… I think you cushioned it for me.”

“The grass was soft,” Levi reassured.

Hange nodded. “Okay…” She trailed off as if there was more to say.

But really, was there anything else to say? The room was just composed of dead air, a few pieces of lifeless furniture and an elephant, a large elephant. Fine. Levi had to admit, there was an elephant in the room. It was demanding to be comprehended, eventually resolved.

The way Hange’s eyes narrowed on him was a sign in itself, she might have been aware of it too. “Still...Does anything else hurt?”

In a burst of painful awareness, Levi twisted his arms from her grasp, another futile attempt to pull away. “You can let go now,” he said. It was a weak plea. In reality, he wished she wouldn’t let go.

A part of him was suggesting that maybe, just maybe, they were both a little crazy and someone had to play the part of the sane person.

Eventually, Hange seemed to have come to her senses. Or he could have been coming to his senses too. When everything was coming in blurs, he couldn’t be too sure who was actually in need of a smack on the head.

“Let me bandage up your elbow.” Hange rifled through the first aid kit.

There was a brief silence and Levi was clamoring for something to fill the empty air. “You seem to know a lot about first aid,” he commented. That was a ridiculous comment, anyone with half a brain could have pulled out a splinter and bandaged it.

“I took psychology in college... We took biology classes and there were first aid seminars,” Hange answered as if it wasn’t a stupid question.

The conversation had shifted to college classes and Levi was wondering how to comment about something so obvious and expected. Maybe talk about himself? “I took coding classes,” Levi said. Really, what else was there to say.

“I figured,” Hange said. That last comment didn’t look like it had disturbed the rhythm at all of taping the gauze to his elbow. It was a seamless sequence of movements and Hange’s hands didn’t stop moving, they flew over to the palms of his hands. “It looks like you have some scrapes here.”

There was a subtle stinging pain and Levi noticed, his body shook at the tingling sensation of her hands on his. He definitely wasn’t used to that much touch. And from her of all people? “You don’t need to bandage them.” They weren’t bad scrapes at all, just raw red.

Hange continued to run her hands over them, gripping a little firmer in areas where the skin seemed more intact. Instinct had Levi gripping back. And the few times when he pressed hard enough, he felt a twinge of guilt, as if he was the one invading personal space.

Hange let out a light chuckle. “Are you okay?”

“Why?”

“Your grip, it’s on and off,” Hange pointed out.

“Yeah, it feels weird.”

Hange didn’t respond immediately. Her fingers travelled all the way towards his wrist. “Don’t software engineers get carpal tunnel?”

“Yeah, maybe it's carpal tunnel,” Levi said. He had coded for long enough to at least be familiar with the bane of every software engineer’s existence. He had been an engineer long enough though to know that the tingling was most likely not carpal tunnel.

“You should take care of yourself more. It would be sad if someone like you had to retire early over a wrist injury.”

“Senior engineers don’t code as much anymore. We handle pull requests.” Was that the right thing to say to fill the air between them?

Hange wasn’t looking at him though. Her brows were furrowed, her jaws were stiff. She seemed too focused on his hands though to trifle herself with the responsibilities of senior engineers. “I heard there’s a way to check it out… if we flex your wrist here.” She gripped hard, her hands digging once again into his lower palms. The tingle, the thunder at his lower hand shook him all the way until his shoulders. In a bout of panic, Levi attempted to pull away again.

Hange’s grip could have been weak or Levi’s own pull could have been strong. That moment ended with a surprised Hange, looking right at him. She soon turned red. “You’re right, it wasn’t even bleeding. What was I thinking?” She looked away, seeming flustered.

“You should give back the first aid kit now,” Levi said.

“They said I can give it back tomorrow morning.” Hange looked away and shut the first aid kit with a click.

There was silence once again. A complete waste of time when there were too many issues, too many questions that needed to be resolved. When they were racing through his mind at breakneck speed, Levi had to admit, when overwhelmed, sometimes silence was the most natural response.

One at a time. “I can sleep on the floor,” Levi suggested.

Hange’s soft expression of a while ago immediately changed to something incredulous. “No you--”

“Or the car,” Levi added.

Hange opened her mouth, ready to say something else.

But Levi was quicker. “The back of the car isn’t as mud--”

Hange interrupted with a loud exhale which somehow had managed to convey a no nonsense massage. “Is there anything wrong with the bed?”

“Don’t you wanna sleep on the bed?”

Hange shook her head. “You’re the injured one.”

“It’s barely even a flesh wound. Besides you were the one driving,” Levi argued.

“You were the one who took the brunt of rolling down the hill.”

Could looks be effective in persuading? He stared for a while longer, fixing his eyes on hers. Hange returned his gaze with her own indignant one.

How long could they sit there just staring?

And as time passed, he started to wonder, how long did they sit there just staring. The weight of sleepiness eventually served as a reminder, they weren’t getting anything done. With the rain still pouring outside, the option of sleeping in the car was also out of the question.

Maybe giving in didn’t have to be such a climactic decision. “I’m going to bed,” Levi got off the bed and wedged himself between the wall and the bedside, pulling one pillow from bed and slipping it underneath. As long as he was careful not to hit his head on anything, he could make it work. “Good night.”

“Okay,” Hange said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll turn off the lights now.”

“Well, it’s better to fall asleep with the lights off right?”

Hange didn’t reply. Footsteps echoed across the room, there was a click and the room got darker, enough of a cue for Levi to close his eyes and relax as best as he could. He squeezed further into the gap, the wooden bed frame pressed to one side, the cold cement of the wall pressed on his other and just a pillow underneath, a blanket over him.

The sound of footsteps didn’t end there. There was a squeak, then a thump. The whoosh of blankets and the soft plop of a pillow. On the wooden floor.

Levi couldn’t relax just yet. “Hange, is there something wrong with the bed?”

“You tell me. Is there something wrong with the bed?” Hange asked from across the room.

“The floor is more comfortable for me,” Levi answered.

“For me too.”

“Okay,” Levi said. He had answered that way enough times to know, it carried some magic with it, enough magic to piss most people off.

Silence though was surprisingly a more annoying response. A very very long silence. No snores, no even breaths. Ironically, that silence was keeping him awake. Levi stood up, folded the blanket and slipped a pillow to his side.

“Where are you going?” Hange’s response was almost immediate.

“I’m sleeping in the car. I can’t sleep here.”

“The bed is comfier.” Hange stood up, waving a hand on the bedside.

“Who are you to tell me what’s comfy for me?” Levi turned towards the door and gripped the doorknob. He didn’t even have the time to turn it.

“If that's the logic you go by, then you can't tell me what's comfy either,” Hange said. “I think the rain is comfy. If you sleep in the car then I’ll sleep in the rain,”

“If you don’t take the bed, I’ll sleep in the rain,” Levi argued.

Hange was merely a shadow in the dark. He couldn’t do much to make out her face then but by god, she was annoying. “Take the bed,” she said.

“No.”

“It’s just a bed,” Hange pressed.

“I should be telling you that.”

“I’ve had more than enough comfortable beds to last a lifetime.”

“I’ve slept in enough shitty beds to be completely okay with sleeping on the floor.”

“Are you saying I’m not okay with sleeping on the floor?” Hange’s voice was more indignant than a second ago.

“Well, you’re the one who implied that maybe I’ve never slept on a comfortable bed.” That last sentence had been a chore to say. Levi’s eyes were dropping already then. He was in no mood to argue When he was just a little irritable, everything was sounding like an insult. “Take the bed,” he whispered. He still tasted venom.

“You look tired.” Hange’s voice softened, maybe mirroring his own. “You need it more than I do. Why don’t you wanna take it?”

“It’s your bed, you paid for the room.”

“I got us into this accident.”

There was silence again and Levi used that time to lean back against the wall then slowly onto the floor.

Hange took a deep breath. “I’ll ask again. Is there something wrong with the bed?”

“I want you to have it," Levi answered.

“I want you to have it too.”

From Levi’s vantage point, he couldn't completely see Hange. He heard her sigh though. Then he saw the way the shadow had made its way closer to the bed then the creak of springs sounded in the room then a light bounce. “You know, we can make this work. The bed is big enough for two people.”

“Two people who are married,” Levi clarified.

There was a soft rustle of pillows, then blankets. She moved to his side of the room, then Levi felt the pull of the blanket from on top of him, then the pillow from his hands.

No response from Hange had him particularly paranoid. His exhausted brain had him barely thinking. “People who are married to each other,” Levi clarified a second later.

“Levi, take the side nearer to the wall,” Hange ordered. Her voice was firm, intimidating, almost threatening.

Maybe it was a little scary. He was almost certain, if he didn’t force himself up, Hange could have probably come in and carried him herself. Better to spare himself the embarrassment and the unnecessary drama. He pulled himself up slowly, one hand then the other, made the painstaking trek to the edge of the bed and fell back onto the bed.

“Better?” Hange asked.

It was definitely an improvement from the floor, but he wasn’t going to tell Hange that. She had created a fort of pillows between them. He lay his head on part of it and took one deep breath and closed his eyes in hope that that could have been enough to have him fall asleep.

Before he could have even contemplated sleep, the bed bounced lightly. Then the scent of cheap shampoo and a hint of sweat wafted just in front of him. Levi opened his eyes, taking stock of the view in front of him. Hange had taken the space on the other side. Her hair wasn’t in a ponytail anymore and it spilled out, only a few inches away from his face.

She was staring right at him and they were close enough that Levi could make out her features even in the dark.

Her wide eyes. Her bright eyes. How could eyes be bright in the dark? Curiosity maybe? Amazement. Inquisitiveness.

In the dark, she could have been studying him and Levi could have probed for more hints by letting his own eyes travel over to her lips, then back to her nose, her forehead, for any other sign of emotion. He searched for a wrinkle on the nose or a crinkle on her forehead.

Hange seemed deep in thought. Her eyes were endless in the dark room and Levi eventually found comfort in just studying them, letting himself indulge in speculations that weren't reaching any particular conclusion.

And Hange wasn’t in any hurry to look away. Maybe she could have fixated at him for longer.

It wasn’t completely clear to Levi what exactly led to that point where their eyes and their noses were only a hair's breadth from each other.

That one tense moment was what pulled him back to his senses.

With no pillows left after creating the fort, they were both forced to rely on it to be some sort of headrest. Of all things, they ended up sharing it.

But Levi was perfectly comfortable without it. He turned onto his other side, pressing his back on the pillow fort, keeping his eyes fixed on the wall. He closed his eyes again.

With time and with some discipline, he must have dozed off. He had always been a light sleeper though. With just one bounce of the bed, then with the loud ring of the familiar emotion alarm that quickly faded into nothing, Levi was forced awake.

Hange was murmuring something to herself. It didn’t seem at all like she was asleep. The faint light that illuminated the room was a sign. Hange was most likely on her phone but Levi didn’t think it right to take a peek.

He fell on his back and stared at the ceiling, trying to make some sense of the flash of a second ago. In the dark, the light had come up as some sort of white. When Levi focused, when he squinted, he made sense of some color that tended to stand out among the others.

Red.

Curiosity was a powerful thing. Levi was sure if he didn’t ask then, he probably wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. “Hange, you okay?”

“Sorry, I forgot to put my alarm on silent,” Hange’s voice was toneless. The bright flashes betrayed whatever Hange could have been attempting though. The more Levi echoed it to himself, the weaker her own ‘nonchalance’ had started to seem.

“You okay?” He asked again.

“Levi, go back to sleep.”

It took him an hour or so to doze off again and maybe it had been Hange’s disturbed breaths that made it so.

Then he pondered for a while longer. If he had never asked in the first place, would he have fallen asleep much more easily?

***

"I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me."

There was a certain point when Levi completely gave up on sleeping. A point when Levi had looked out the window and decided there was enough natural light to constitute as early morning more than night.

He walked out of the backdoor, reader in hand, flicking the lights of the veranda on.

The smell after the rain, the early morning chill only accentuated the already peaceful atmosphere. It was the perfect time and place to let his mind wander, so Levi didn't hesitate to turn on his reader and will himself once again to fall back into the world of Regent England, Rosing Parks and Pemberley.

It was slow going but eventually, time started to pass strangely.

Days passed then months then years. Of course it would, Elizabeth was counting months as the story continued. Levi, the reader on the other hand was counting time in events, in plot twists, in beats.

With the final chapter finished, time stopped. The book ended with a satisfying epilogue but even after turning off the reader, Levi was silent, unmoving, his eyes still fixed on the screen in front of him.

But his mind was moving in all directions at once. He had spent a huge chunk of the last hour before sunrise leaning back on the sun chair and reflecting. How long had the sky been a comfortable blue? How long had the veranda lamp been spouting useless light before he turned it off?

Levi only thought it necessary to move when the backdoor of the motel room opened. By then, he had already completed the book and early morning sleepiness sat heavy on him.

“How long have you been out here?” Hange settled on the chair in front of him, placing her laptop on the table.

“Good morning to you too.” Levi followed her with his eyes.

Hange met his eyes and gave him a sleepy half smile. “Good morning.”

“I finished the book,” Levi said.

“How was it?”

“The ending was nice. There were some memorable quotes. It made me think…” About you? He couldn't be too sure what it made him think of. So he opted not to say his first thought aloud.

“I think a lot about the book too.” Hange booted up her laptop and started to aimlessly click at her mouse. “And I was thinking about it again last night.”

“What about?”

“Pemberley… Rosings, I was wondering how to explain everything to you but every time I try to figure out the right way, I end up just clamming up.” Hange looked like she was deliberately hiding herself behind her laptop screen. “I’m sorry for just avoiding the topic. I don’t think I’ve been in the best state to even discuss this in a while.”

“You think you’ll be able to talk about it soon?”

Hange shrugged. “Maybe.”

“What if I told you I wanted to talk about it?

“Then I’ll listen,” Hange said.

“What if we go back to your Pemberley? WIll you talk to me about it again?”

Hange paused for a second, her eyes wistful, then almost blank. She looked pointedly at his elbow. “It might still be wet.”

“It stopped raining. We’ll be careful,” Levi answered, keeping his tone as no nonsense as possible.

Hange didn’t respond immediately. She was looking at something on her laptop.

Levi used that few moments of silence to study Hange. Sleepiness seemed to be weighing on her as well. Her eyes were half closed, her shoulders dropped more than usual and he had half the mind to tell her to go back to bed. That is, if he didn’t see the strong intent in her eyes.

He tried to make a guess by the glare of the screen on her glasses and came up with nothing productive. “What are you doing?”

“You have app testing tomorrow right? We’re gonna have to be on our way home by mid afternoon at the latest. Unless you wanna do another overnight train…” Hange suggested, that last part seemed more like a warning than a suggestion.

Showing up for the app testing the next morning, more exhausted than he already was, seemed like a harrowing experience.

“What do you suggest?”

“There’s an airport near here, they have a few flights back to the city. I’ll book us two last minute tickets for later this afternoon,” Hange said.

“And the car?”

“We’ll drop it off there, I’ll pay extra for the cleaning.”

“How much do I pay?” Levi asked. Instinctively, his hands flew to his pocket. Of course there would be nothing there, his phone and his wallet were still in the overnight bag.

Hange shook her head. “Nothing, I dragged you out here. I messed up the car. I’ll pay.”

“I still owe you seven hundred dollars from last time,” Levi said.

“No you don’t. You won it fair and square,” Hange said with some finality.

It should have been annoying, frustrating, maybe insulting but Levi couldn’t help but be pleasantly surprised. Funnily, it had been months since the country club fiasco but Hange knew exactly what he was talking about. He stared at her for a second longer, as she rested her chin on the palm of her hand, muttering something about prices, schedules.

She looked up at him a minute or so later. “I booked tickets for a three o clock flight. If we leave the hotel at noon, we should make it in time.”

Levi checked the clock on his reader. “That will give us four hours to hike.

Hange nodded. “Believe me, that’s more than enough time.”

“She had never seen a place where nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were all of them warm in her admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!"

The view was definitely better with clear skies above him.

Hiking unfamiliar grounds, especially as a total beginner, usually consisted of looking up and down in unpredictable intervals. Sometimes he was watching the view in front of him, making sure Hange was a comfortable distance away. Sometimes, he was looking below, making sure he wasn’t en route to tripping on anything dangerous or embarrassing. One thing was for sure. When Levi looked up, he always made sure to get a good view of the horizon, to have that good balance between sky and landscape with every step up the hill.

Hange was muttering to herself and Levi realized that even when he had attempted to walk right beside her, he couldn’t make out what she was saying.

They eventually reached the peak and Levi saw an opportunity to survey his surroundings. Looking left, right then behind him, he was certain, they were on the highest point for miles around.

The question loomed heavily again. The scrapes, bruises and aches from yesterday were soft reminders. The visceral aftereffects of an all too unpleasant night were prodding more incessantly. Levi decided for himself, he deserved answers. He looked back at Hange.

Hange didn’t hesitate to meet his gaze. It was a little alarming that of all things he noticed in her expression, an abject surrender.

Would that give him the answers he needed? Most likely it would.

Still, it left a lump in his throat, a force that twisted his gut. He could get answers but would they be answers he liked?

Hange took a deep breath and fell back onto the grass. “There’s that line… when Elizabeth first steps into Pemberley after rejecting Darcy’s proposal in Rosings for the first time.”

She whispered it once and Levi considered sitting down next to her for a better listen. She repeated the line a little louder that time.

“It’s a small line, it’s not necessarily quotable but at least to me, it’s a really important one… Ever since I married Zeke… Ever since I read the book. When I had time to myself while climbing some mountain alone, wandering through hills and grassy lands along highways like some idiot, I’d repeat it again and again.”

Levi had to note, Hange’s Pemberley was in the middle of nowhere, situated along a highway, only accessible by climbing over a fence that probably wasn’t supposed to be climbed over or fitting through gaps between wires. Not a beauty for most people when actual reserves and hiking trails existed.

...a place where nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste…

Hange put one finger up to her chin. "That scene in Pemberley, I think that was the exact moment Elizabeth falls in love with Darcy and was that what falling in love was supposed to feel like?” Hange looked at Levi, her eyes were wide and it looked like she wanted something out of him.

Levi couldn't come up with anything on the fly so he didn’t respond and Hange only continued. “That wonder Elizabeth felt when she first arrived at Pemberley…” She paused there. Her expression from a while ago unchanged but Levi couldn’t help but notice a glimmer that hadn’t been there before, a depth. “Maybe that's that same wonder Elizabeth felt for Mr. Darcy.” She looked at him expectantly.

“And you see the wonder here… of all places?”

“Untouched nature, free nature is a very beautiful thing. I imagine that's what Elizabeth saw in Pemberley.”

“What does that have to do with love?”

“Love feels like freedom… And when people fall in love, maybe they start to appreciate it. Does the world suddenly get more colorful? Does it just suddenly become prettier? Or do we just get perceptive to it?” Hange asked. She didn’t wait for an answer. “So I thought to myself after reading the first time, was my perspective of the world supposed to change when I married Zeke? It didn’t at first. But I couldn't help but think, if I keep choosing to love, if I keep getting to know him and if I keep trying to be a good partner, maybe when I climb up the peak, study the horizon, I’ll eventually feel it. That freedom. That's why I climbed every single time.”

“Did you eventually feel it?” Levi had to tame his tone.

Hange shook her head. “I’m in a very comfortable marriage.”

“Comfortable is good,” Levi said, a hesitant attempt at validation.

“It is good. That is until I started to feel it, stronger emotions than I was used to. Colors were coming up a little brighter. I was noticing minute details in everything, then the minute details in certain people." Hange pulled her legs closer to herself. "I think that’s love. You meet someone and you think, ‘wow colors are so pretty, wow emotions can actually be very fickle yet powerful things,’ then ‘wow this world is such a beautiful place,’ ”

“Where does ‘love is a choice’ fall into this then?” Levi challenged. “You’ve been saying that for months.”

“It still is a choice, because choice is a part of freedom. And for me, ultimately ‘love is freedom.’ And slowly, I'm more and more convinced that I might just be right. When we’re suddenly feeling everything at once, when colors and emotions just suddenly get brighter and clearer, Isn’t that what freedom is supposed to be? Clarity and understanding?” Hange spoke fast and she spoke in messy ideas that Levi had to put in extra effort to comprehend.

He didn’t respond immediately and the pause she had allowed him had been too short.

She continued. “And I have a theory about your app…”

“You always have theories.”

“But I think this one makes a lot more sense,” Hange looked at him expectantly

Do you want me to ask what it is? Levi returned her stare with a silent question. Eventually, he caved in. “What’s your theory Hange?”

Hange took a deep breath, let out an exhale through her nose and spoke up. “You’re a great developer Levi. There’s no bug. Whatever algorithm you wrote up, it’s doing its job and it’s doing it extremely well. We broke down the application to emotions and just like the emotions alarm proved, when we’re with certain people, the emotions get clearer, they have more free rein to do what they need to …. To put it more simply… Do you notice, we see a lot more and we feel a lot more when we’re with specific people. And maybe that love alarm is only telling us who those people are?”

“Do you feel it with Zeke?” Levi asked. That had been a burning question for a while. In that staunch silence, he saw opportunity. So he grasped it, he said it once. Seeing the fire in Hange’s eyes, feeling the tension of a while ago loosen for just a brief second, he saw opportunity. So he said it again. “Have you felt it with Zeke?”

Hange looked up at the sky, squinting. “Sometimes, I guess. I can’t be too sure.”

“Why did you even marry Zeke then?”

“He was my first experience with love and relationships.” Hange shrugged. “I didn’t have a point of comparison. Back when I was younger, I didn’t think too far into love or whether it was supposed to feel magical or like freedom. Love and relationships were supposed to be comfortable, happy. " Hange looked like she could have said more. She turned to him, looking at him as if expecting some sort of feedback.

Levi didn’t respond and Hange eventually continued. “I thought about it, when we were working on the app. Then I read Pride and Prejudice again just a few months ago after I saw you reading it. Then I asked myself...When I didn't know what love was actually supposed to feel like, could I say I really had a choice?” She shrugged. "I guess since i know now, I have more of a choice."

Levi continued to reflect and he found himself stuck on two words: ‘clarity’ and ‘understanding.’ Maybe clarity, comprehension, understanding, the whole sea of experiences did happen at once.

The logical part of him liked to blame the placebo effect though for that annoying habit that plagued him. He was tracing the smaller hills over the green landscape, he was counting how many feet above the horizon the sun was at that point in the morning. He was picking out the different shades the greens, the yellows, the blues showed up in. He started counting colors and when looking at the sky became too uncomfortable of a sensation, he looked at Hange. Then he noticed, colors do reflect on people in small minute details.

Yet for some reason, the prospect of vindicating Hange was an unsettling one.

“What now?” Levi asked, in no mood to agree. Just yet. Maybe with time he could.

“Since there’s nothing to fix… we don’t fix the app,” Hange responded in the most anticlimactic of answers.

Levi wasn’t satisfied. “What about after that?”

“We focus on developing the emotions alarm, I do a dissertation on it then I work towards a PhD,” Hange continued.

“And then after that?” Levi pressed.

“The contract ends there. Is there anything else you want to do?” Hange asked.

There must have been something else. No, Levi was sure there should have been more to it. It was in Hange’s eyes, the intent underneath, the burning intent from a while ago. There was a characteristic way her eyes narrowed, a way they drooped as she spoke.

That morning, he had chalked it up as exhaustion. Looking more closely at that moment, it started to seem like resignation, abject surrender.

Talking about one’s own hopes and dreams wasn’t supposed to look like that.

There was one quote that hovered completely over that incomplete conversation between them. Somehow, in that moment of silence, Levi remembered it clearly. He spoke up. “I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.” The moment it left his mouth, he questioned the appropriateness. Who was he to assume that that was what Hange needed.

Hange answered with a question. “What else are we supposed to do after completing the app?” Her eyes were darting from left to right yet they were still very much focused on him. It was as if she was searching for an answer.

An answer Levi couldn’t didn’t even know himself. He brought up his developer persona, the mini dictionary in his head that came with it. “Customer support, QA testing, bugs will constantly show up.”

“Then I guess we’ll be working together for a while huh?” Hange grinned, yet there was something off putting about it.

Or maybe Levi was searching for something that wasn’t there.

Hange probably noticed it too. “We’re gonna have to leave for the airport soon. Let’s go back down,” Her voice was unbearably professional. Professionalism was the go-to, it worked for most situations but for once, Levi was wondering whether that had been the best thing to do.

Who was he to judge her though? Hange had always been the more eloquent one.

Then he wondered how long he had been staring at nothing. The landscape in front of him continued to gleam with different colors but Levi was focusing on the sky just above. There was a temptation to let whatever stone cold expression he was wearing then, falter.

“Hange.” In desperation, he spoke up as if that could do anything to stop his mouth from falling.

Hange spun around, her mouth half open, her eyes wide. There were things which still needed to be read into. “Are you okay?” she asked, her face shifted to something of worry as she gave him a once over, down to his bandaged elbow.

Suddenly self conscious, Levi clutched at his elbow, pressing the gauze deeper into him. The pressure gave way to a stinging pain. The pain served as some excuse to let out a wince, let his own expression fall into the mercy of whatever pain had edged deeper inside him. “After we finish the app, do you think you’ll be happy?”

Hange’s expression softened. “It’s my dream. I’ll be happy.”

“Not about the application,” Levi said. There were topics he wanted to bring up. When both their expressions had naturally shifted to something monotone, their voices into something reminiscent of a client and a business, Levi realized he was treading precarious grounds. He soon found a more appropriate word. “After the application… When everything after that is over… You think you’ll be happy?”

Hange stopped, a flash of comprehension in her eyes. Then sadness?

She spoke up. “We don’t ever know if we’ll be happy right? We just keep choosing and choosing and when the choices are already made, all we can do is find whatever inkling of happiness we can in them.”

***

The passenger seat was a mess and Levi saw that as enough of an excuse to sit on the backseat of the car.

Hange didn’t seem to care too much about her ass being caked with dirt. She had no choice but to not care anyway. After all, someone had to drive.

Levi liked it that way anyway. The whole trek down, they had been silent. He had found it difficult to look at her and maybe she had felt the same. The dirty passenger’s seat made it easier for Levi to suggest sitting in the back and when he was sitting on the backseat, he could pretend Hange wasn’t there. That the car was moving on its own or maybe somebody else was driving.

The ride seemed long, Levi didn’t bother to check his phone. Instead, he leaned forward on the driver’s seat and he let the car whirr. Sometimes it would rattle when the tires would hit some road bump.

Hange eventually broke the silence. “You were talking about adding more colors and about other plans. You feel like walking me through it?”

“Can we talk about it when we’re back in the office?” It wasn’t the best way to address his client. At that moment, Levi was in no mood to play a PR role. And he had never been good at it. There was a reason he stuck to back office work.

“There’s nothing much else to talk about right?”

There was a lot. The fact that Hange was even suggesting that there was nothing to talk about was almost infuriating. He was tempted to pick a fight. “Elizabeth said she would act only in a way that makes her happy. That’s an important theme in the novel.”

Begrudgingly. Hange acknowledged it. “It is. You wanna talk about it?”

“I just wanna know, what’s your take on love?” It was a miracle he even got that question out calmly.

“Love is freedom,” Hange answered with a tone of painful certainty. “Love is a choice and it will always be a choice.”

“What if you don’t feel it?”

“I’ll still choose to love.”

“What if you feel the love somewhere else? Shouldn’t you follow your emotions?”

“If I did that, I’d only be at the mercy of my emotions.”

“Then why do you like Pride and Prejudice so much. They end up together. You know they love each other?”

Hange sighed. “It’s a social commentary. It focuses on circumstances. In the novel, people married for money, for status, out of obligation. Elizabeth and Darcy were just lucky circumstances were on their side. Besides, fiction is merely wish fulfillment. Living reality isn’t as easy as writing. Too much of the circumstances can be out of control and people can’t really disconnect themselves from circumstances can they?” She paused and looked at Levi questioningly.

“And what? You don’t think reality can ever be wish fulfillment?” Levi asked.

“If circumstances were in our favor, maybe?”

“Our?” Levi asked. He was suddenly self aware, he was grasping at straws at that point.

“Hypothetical ‘our’, ‘our’ as in referring to anyone faced with that situation.”

“You didn’t have to specify it. I got it,” Levi said.

“Then why did you ask?”

“Sorry, it just took me a little longer to understand.” Levi only noticed it after the words had left his lips. His voice had deadened to a whisper.

***

I would rather we just lived here together, right Levi?

“This is gonna be our last scenery of green in a long time,” Hange said as she leaned back on the metal chair at the departure gate. How she still found value in small talk, Levi could never really understand.

“Cool,” Levi said, not looking up from scrolling through his timeline. There was temporal happiness at least in watching mindless videos.

“I would have wanted this to last longer. Maybe we could have hiked for an hour more if you didn’t have testing tomorrow.”

“That’s nice.”

“Imagine getting to live here,” Hange said.

“People live here. That’s why there’s an airport,” Levi said coldly. He looked back up at Hange. At that point, he was a little more confident with his deadpan expression. With time, the incomprehensible emotions of a while ago had whittled into something manageable.

“Sometimes I imagine being part of those people, just setting aside everything I’ve worked for, I’ve committed to… Just throwing it all away and living in a peaceful place like this..”

“You’re not the type to stay out of the action.” At that point, maybe Levi was just looking for a fight. “We’d get bored.”

“We?”

“We, as in, hypothetical ‘we.’” ‘We’ as in referring to anyone who probably considered living in a place like this.”

Hange pouted then looked away. “Let me imagine stuff.”

“Imagine something more realistic.” Why did that last word send a twinge of pain through him?

“Why do you care about what I imagine?”

Levi turned off his phone and dropped it beside him. “I’m just giving some friendly advice.”

“Doesn’t seem friendly.” Hange opened her mouth wider, ready to say something else.

Levi never found out what she had intended to say. The speaker sounded from just above them.

“This is an announcement for passengers of flight 232 bound for... ..I’m afraid the flight is overbooked. We’re looking for passengers who are willing to take a later flight in exchange….Any passenger who is interested should see an agent at the counter.”

Out of instinct, Levi looked up then searched his surroundings for any sign of volunteers. It wouldn’t matter to him. With an early morning awaiting him, he was one of the last people to volunteer. As he continued to observe the other passengers more closely, he realized a lot of them could have just been like him.

They were all eight-to-five employees or very busy people out on a weekend long vacation.

After a few more announcements, two people who sat up and made their way to the counter. Levi looked to Hange to see she was also very much invested in the current turn of events.

“Any more passengers willing to take a later flight?”

There was a moment of silence and somehow, Levi was starting to make eye contact as he scanned all the faces again. Any eye contact he made, ended with a pointed look, a silent push for him volunteer maybe?

And soon, Levi realized, the seat next to him was empty. Hange had stood up and made her way to the counter.

A minute or so later, Hange returned to the seat and gave him a light shrug. “I’ll be going on a later flight then.”

“You didn’t have to give up your seat,” Levi said irritably. Suddenly, he was self conscious. Why was he angry about her taking a later flight?

The speaker sounded. “Flight… is now ready for boarding… Passengers with small children...”

“I’m not as pressed for time as the other passengers,” Hange explained. “You have to be at work first thing tomorrow morning while I can take as much time as I need.”

She made sense, a lot of sense. To the point that just looking at her had been all too difficult, especially with a grimace trying to escape his lips. He looked away.

“Are you mad?”

“No, I’m not.” It wasn’t anger, that much he was sure of. Any other feelings weren’t welcome either. He wasn’t supposed to be feeling anything when the issue was so trivial. He bent over and started scrolling through his phone again, searching for anything that could make smiling much easier.

“We will now be accepting all passengers…”

“I’ll take you to the boarding gate,” Hange suggested.

Levi saw no reason to protest.

Besides, Hange could only take him so far. Their strides were small, their pace slower. He could have been mirroring her or she could have been mirroring him. And they were slow enough for some conversation to start between them.

As usual, Hange initiated. “What’s the plan tomorrow?”

“Zeke apparently secured a school for testing, got some students to volunteer.”

“He has those connections. That’s his brother’s school actually,” Hange said.

“Really?” Levi said. He was fine not receiving any more information though. He was completely disinterested since he had the whole day tomorrow to figure it out anyway.

Hange opened her mouth to speak.

Even before she could speak though, Levi had already interrupted her. “Petra will explain it to me during our meeting tomorrow. She handled the logistics of the testing.” He was in no mood for any more information dumps.

Hange grinned. Whether or not she had been bothered by the rude interruption, it wasn’t obvious. “You have an early morning meeting huh?”

“Yes, we do,” Levi said professionally.

Hange put both hands behind her back, letting her overnight bag dangle precariously on her free shoulder. She gave him a knowing expectant look, eyebrows raised, a tight lipped smile. “Make sure to treat her well,” she said.

Levi raised one eyebrow. “Are you shipping me with Petra?”

Hange looked back out the wide window then at the departure gate. “Maybe I am.”

Hange’s words were only goading something out of him. They served as a glaring reminder. Once again, Levi was hyper aware that there was something heavy between them and it had been there for a while.

The elephant? Some emotion, he couldn’t point out, was desperate to break free. It had him calculating quickly. The counter was only a few feet away and Levi could get there in two or three quick strides.

Then just like that, it pushed one sentence out of his mouth, a line he might just regret saying. "Hange, if I were to choose to fall in love with someone, I’d want someone like you."

He could regret it later. At the least, he appreciated the quick release that came with that one line.

A much awaited release that had him questioning: How long had he felt that stiff, that tense?

With a new found rush of energy, he went ahead. The stewardess ripped his boarding pass with one swift movement and Levi hurried through the entrance and made his way to the passenger boarding bridge, only sparing one last look.

Maybe he was terrified to see her reaction. A part of him stiffened up just imagining Hange’s face, indignance, fury? Then when he looked back and focused on her, he wondered why he had been nervous at all.

Hange’s eyes were wide, her jaw had dropped and at that point when their eyes met, she closed her mouth, and it grew into a smile. Then her eyes crinkled. Then she nodded.

You’re married. You’re supposed to be creeped out. He wondered if his eyes were sending that message.

A few strides later, he was sorry to have to board so quickly. He didn’t want to stop though, or risk only hinting that there might have been more meaning to those words.

But there was meaning in those words, enough for him to be terribly curious of Hange’s reaction.

He didn’t immediately board the plane and he stayed on the passenger bridge. The bridge had glass windows, and just outside was an airfield, and a good view of the passenger terminal through the wide window.

Hange was still standing there and she was easy for Levi to spot. Maybe because Levi had eventually gotten used to the fact that her hair, under sunlight seemed to glow with a hint of red. Maybe because under the right light, her brown hair seemed bright.

The more he looked, the more he realized though, to hell with all the excuses, she was Hange. That was all there was to it. He would probably be able to recognize her even from miles away.

Maybe she had been looking for him too. From a good many feet away, with glass windows, and an airfield between them, she still approached the wide window. She waved her hand, slowly the first few times. Then quickly.

He felt his lip tremble and he touched one finger to it. Was he sad? In an attempt to pacify whatever nagging feeling had settled inside him, he turned back to the entrance of the plane. Then he reminded himself, he was gonna see her again in the morning.

It didn’t seem to work. His legs were heavy and Levi fell back onto the window seat with a thump, a ragged breath followed. He let the pre emergency procedures lull himself to some state of half sleepiness. He opened the in flight menu for some distraction, nothing seemed appetizing.

They eventually took off and when they mentioned something about turning on phones again, Levi opened his, and stared for a little longer at the emotions alarm.

He was in no position to feel heavy. There were no circumstances that should have left him feeling desolate.

But the application would know. So Levi turned it on, making sure to keep his phone on silent. He clicked the ‘activate’ button. A blue dot flashed on the screen.

Sadness. Levi looked back out the window. The blue sky was clear, endless, dotted with only a few clouds here and there. The more he stared, the more he managed to immerse himself. Deep endless blue was a depressing yet immersive view. Out of curiosity, Levi put his phone side by side with the view, noticing he had picked a very similar blue.

A small victory. One thing, he entertained for just a split second. When he leaned back on the chair, his suspicions only confirmed, he ended up asking that question again.

Why was he sad? A part of him was consoling. Another part of him was reflecting. Eventually he figured out at least some inkling of it.

Why did he feel like he lost someone? But he didn’t lose anyone. Levi only had to open his inbox to see the words, ‘Safe flight’ and a few airplane emojis to know Hange was still very much there.

The blue feeling settled inside him and it made itself at home for just a little longer. Levi surmised, it may have been the fact that he had spent another good few minutes, searching for pictures of them on his phone only to notice, they never did take pictures together.

Of course, they shouldn’t. Why would they need to take pictures together?

I’ll find someone like you. The one that got away.

When Levi came to his senses again, he noticed he was going through songs of lost love, a road to recovery. Then after some further introspection, he had to admit, he was sad, a raw kind of sad.

And it fucking hurt.

The raw pain of the loss of a first love? A first love that didn’t exist.

He clarified further. A first love that never existed in the first place.

Can you feel heartbreak without having ever experienced a first love?

Halfway through the flight, after some long quiet reflection, Levi concluded, he had been completely and utterly duped by this shitty thing called life.

***

An alarm rang. Any other day Levi would have called it routine.

That morning though, it was annoying, terribly annoying.

The aftereffects of a long trip were still going strong. He could barely keep his eyes open, he could barely stand up. He was exhausted, at the same time plagued with unfamiliar aches and Levi was suspecting not all were physical.

He reached for the side table to turn off the alarm. Like all days, he had an hour and a half to get ready for work and brave the commute.

Staring at the screen of his phone for a while longer, at the application that was conveniently wedged on the dock, he contemplated sparing just a few minutes for a quick reading. Most days, he wouldn’t have. That particular day, he was exhausted, confused and something inside him was grasping for some sense of the world.

With one hard poke, he activated the emotions alarm. It flashed with a bright purple.

Sadness and Anger? He was almost appreciating how ‘the emotion alarm could revolutionize psychology and psychiatry.’ Somehow, having his emotions on display had helped him wake up a little faster, making sense of the fatigue. At the same time, it was just a little unsettling to see something so personal on his screen.

Blue. Sadness. Raw sadness that sapped at his energy reserves. Loss?

Red. Anger. At the unfairness of life maybe?

He entertained the possibility of creating some other piece of technology to explain it for him. He eventually brushed off that idea, silently laughing at the stupidity of it.

Stupidity had been a good distraction and that had been enough for him to pretend he wasn't completely exhausted and his emotions weren’t a total buzzkill.

Like always, he went through his routine of making the bed, showering, cleaning up whatever he could in the room before he left. He was bound for the same train station, on a different route.

Testing. A very stern reminder to himself. He had almost gotten on the wrong train.

It turned out to be a non-problem. Levi arrived at the school way earlier than he had expected. And he barely even had time to have breakfast. He made his way to the convenience store just outside the station, pulled a quick sandwich from the shelves and brought it up to the counter.

It was routine. Levi had done it too many times before yet something seemed odd.

It's a new environment. He thought to himself. He had been to that part of town before but not enough times to consider it routine.

His muddled mind thought up another excuse. I’m just tired.

Exhaustion, small changes shouldn’t have manifested as hyperawareness on his end.

But there was something unsettling about the cashier having stared at him for longer than he was comfortable. Strangers would never do that.

Do I have something in my face? It never came out as anything more than a passing thought. He wondered if his surprised expression had managed to ask the question.

Eventually, the cashier looked away. Coming to his senses, Levi realized it was a brief exchange and he could clock it off as nothing.

He never could completely shake off the feeling that he was being watched. Or maybe I’m just tired. And maybe fatigue just really happened to manifest as hyperawareness.

Conveniently, Petra was waiting at the school gates, laptop bag slung over her shoulder.

“You’re early,” Levi commented. Then he realized he had been a total idiot. They had a paper trail to prove it, he had agreed to meet Petra there first thing Monday morning.

“Have to make sure everything is ready,” Petra said.

Levi was grateful for that arrangement He didn’t know his way through the campus and it was a surprisingly wide one. Of course it would be large, they would be testing the application among hundreds of volunteers.

It was a mammoth event and he was too fucking exhausted to happily deal with it. For a while, he even forgot that maybe he was the mind behind the application. Logistics just wasn’t something he liked to trifle himself with.

As soon as they arrived in the empty gym, he settled on one of the chairs towards the corner of the room and booted up his laptop. His first instinct had been to check the workflow tracker. There was nothing there. Why the hell did he even think anything would be there? A desperation to keep busy with something familiar maybe?

“Do you have the file for testing?” Levi asked.

Petra nodded. “All loaded into the cloud. We have a download link prepared.”

Levi stared at the tracker for a while longer before deciding maybe doing nothing but watching people enter the gym was the most productive task he could come up with.

Watching people enter just brought back the feeling of hyperawareness. Some people were familiar, Eld, Oluo then Gunther eventually joined in. Then Erwin. There were others though, people who Levi barely recognized he tended to give him a look much longer than what people would usually give a stranger.

Since when did anger and sadness turn into paranoia?

“It looks like the file isn’t downloading to this phone…." Petra was rattling off details on support issues.

For Levi in his current state, conversations on the application were flying into one ear and out the other quickly.

"Are you okay?”

Levi turned to Petra. “Were you talking to me?”

She furrowed her brows at him, a worried expression on her face.

“I’m fine.” His response was automatic. “You need me to check what?”

Petra spoke up again. “Well...This phone…”

Levi reached his hand out to grab the phone from Petra. In a trick of fate, or maybe coincidence— no, Levi liked to believe it was coincidence— he noticed the flash of blonde at his peripherals, a brunette beside him.

Even before he could contemplate their identity— Hell, he probably didn’t need to—one of them spoke up. “Good morning Erwin! I hope I managed to get enough people for the app testing.”

“Mr. Jaeger, Believe me, this is more than enough people. We usually run calibration with fifty people at a time. It's honestly a pleasant surprise to see you here...You said you wouldn’t be coming... We're sorry we couldn't prepare anything better."

"No worries Erwin, What can I say? When my schedule frees up, I like to pay surprise visits to partners.”

Levi looked back at them fast enough to catch Zeke and Erwin shaking hands.

Only one hand though. Levi followed Zeke’s other hand. It was only natural he would, after all Zeke was holding her hand, clutching it tightly.

It’s completely normal for them to hold hands. But still he continued to stare.

It was a little harder to follow her arms, all the way up to her face. Was he scared to make eye contact? But eventually they did make eye contact. Comprehension dawned on Levi slowly as he met her gaze while starting to make sense of the conversation between Zeke and Erwin.

Zeke is here to test the Love Alarm?

Did you know?

As if to answer his question, Hange’s eyes widened, and she nodded her head subtly, very subtly. If Levi hadn't spent the last few months working with Hange on the application, he probably wouldn't have noticed the very slight nod, he probably wouldn't have sensed the deep panic in her demeanor.

With too many thoughts running through his head at once, Levi briefly lost touch with reality for a long few seconds.

It was Petra of all people who pulled him out of his trance. “Um… Levi… Sir… I don't mind you holding my hand but...could you loosen your grip a bit? It kinda hurts."

#levihan #levihan fanfiction

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luimagines · 3 years

Note

Subject 10-Mulan Link

You have now gained the accesses file page of the chain links case number #19835 Corrupted heroes for Subject #10

Current state: Safe

legal name: Link,last name unknown

Nicknamed: Mulan

Biological age: unknown

Chronical age: unknown

Hieght: Unknown

Weight: unknown

Visiting accesse time for subject Zero: Must be planned ahead of schedule time in order to have private meetings and clerance from head chief researcher Queen zelda and level 5 personal clerance

Physical description: Subject 10 is a short haired Hylian woman who wears a green tunic and knight gear armor.They have a well built muscular body and a ferret that rests around thier neck as well as scars and cuts around thier body.The most noticeable scare they have are three little cuts under thier chin and a long vertical cut across thier right cheek.

Information: Subject 10 first arrived at the castle carrying subject zero and subject 11 bloodied and badly injured with a broken arm and serveral fractured bones as well as stab/slash wounds.They came in as duplicates of four identical versions of subject 10 dressed variouse colors such as brown,cyan,yellow and green.Only one of the 4 sets had arrived at the castle with subject Zero and Subject 11 while the others fought off to keep back the “chain” while back up knights and town gaurds were deployed to apreheand them.Subject 10 is not placed under any containment but is required to come to the SCRPP research site to have check ups and testing as well as recorded interviews with research personales.Subject 10 refuses to have to go anywhere without her ferret campaion so all interviews and meetings are held with subject 10′s ferret either on the site with them or curled around subject 10′s neck.Subject 10 is in current possesion of the master sword and four sword as well as veriouse other items from the group(but not all for research purposes and other classified resons).They are to be informed of any drastic procedures that are to be done to any of the known subjects and participats of case file #19835.Subject 10 is one of the only subjects out of all the links who dose not show a red essence seeping out or show any signs of agression or possesive behvaiors for subject Zero. Research is still going underway to find out a way as to why it is and if blood or dna samples can be exracted from subject 10 in order to find a cure.

[interview recoding of subject 10 #1]

Dr.Jean: Now beining case file number #1983 dash 1 subject 10 interview of the anomalie the Curropted Heros. Time started at 10:89. Interview researcher personale Dr.Jean, tag number 893 of site 13 room A14.

Dr.Jean: Ok,lets start.Rember at anytime you start to feel uncomfortable we can stop the interview,alright?

Link: ok..

Dr.Jean: ok,lets start off with something simple.Subject 10 can you please state your name?

Link: Mulan.

Dr.Jean: I am sorry,let me clarify I meant your real name.

Link: oh,right..its uh,its Link.

Dr.Jean: Good,can you state your last name as well?

Link: I dont have one.

Dr.Jean: Are you sure? No documnets? Family? Anyway to file for one?

Link: Yes,I am sure.I dont have one.Thats it.

Dr.Jean: Right,right, *ahem* can you tell us how long you’ve know the links?

Link: We had all know each other for about a year and a half, and today would have been our second year together if…you know,had things still been normal with everyone.

Dr.Jean: how did you meet these people to begin with?

Link: I was out exploring the outskits of the forests behind my house one day and saw a bright light,so i got curiouse and followed it.I found a portal and went through it.I was transported to the guredo desert and wondered a around for a bit before I found the chain.it turns out the portal took me to a diffrent time period and there was some time,dimentional stuff going on and we were all gathered to fix it or something.

Dr.Jean: How did you meet subject Zero?

Link: Subject Zero? oh,do you mean [redacted]?

Dr.Jean: Link,please reframe from saying subject Zero’s real name during this interview.

Link: Fine.

Dr.Jean:thank you,pleas contiue.

Link: We first met them a few months after lucky came when [ audio connection has been temperarly lost]

Dr.Jean: Intresting and how did you feel about Subject zero?

Link: I didn’t think much of them, I thought that they were ok.they were kind of nice and everyone liked them,so I did too.But there was something just…off about them.

Dr.Jean:Off like what? Did you distrust them?

Link: no,no,no not distrsut or anything like that…just that something was not right…there was just something…..something WRONG with them,I dont know how to describe it, they were just not normal in a very bad way.But I ignored it and didn’t think much on it. I think they were just…diffrent.

Dr.Jean: Why did you help them escape?

Link: Because it was the right thing to do.I wanted to get them out of a situation where they were held captive and also keep the others from killing each other on who got to keep them.Its not that complicated. besides it my fault for not stopping this sooner.

Dr.Jean: How?

Link: What?

Dr.Jean: How do you think it was your fault?

LInk:[sighs] its…it was all right there I didn’t want to see it,I knew everyone was starting to act a little wierd but I didn’t want to take it that seriously,I didn’t want to think badly about my fami-friends..my friends…Until one day when they had gone completly overboard and uh…..I had found some of them beating down on a man after they were flirting with..with subject Zero…and to say that they looked like they were thugs when they were doing it would be too much of a understatement…They looked like they were having a good time doing it too.I swear when I saw them that day at the allyway they were not the heros I knew and travled with and as faw as i was concerned they were strangers-no,not even that,they were monsters…And the look on thier faces when I yelled out to them and they turned to me…it was like they were going to kill me right there and then……[Inhales heavily before exhailing shakingly] they weren’t normal….thier eyes….I don’t think I can really ever forget those empty vacant looks..it was like someone els was there…Since then things had started to get worse.

[suject 10 begins to pet her ferret at this time seeming to find comfort in it from thier stress]

Dr.Jean: Who were the ones that were there at the time of the incident?

Link: it was…I think Twilight,Four,Sky and Wild were all there.

Dr.Jean: Even Sky?

LInk: Yeah, him too.I rembered the second I started yelling and taring a new in asshole for them he just came up from behind the group and started to try to “calm me down” and explain how the shit I just saw wasn’t what it seemed like and yadda yadda yadda,typical gaslighting you know? But I wasn’t going to fall for some shit like that so I got the man out of there and to a medic, payed for all his expenses and reported them to Time and Warriors. Honestly I was so pissed off and in shock about it all that I had finally started notice and realize more and more things that were wrong about the group that I use to just keep ignoring.I still didn’t try to do anything serious about it though until the end of our journey.

Dr.Jean:What did you mean by noticeing things?

Link: …….just things….and looking back at it now should have been obviouse red flags but I never pressed for them.I think the first time I did it was with Wsrriors but he kept brushing me off saying things like “everyone is just protective of [redacted]” or “that you are looking way too into this” and when he did listen to me he would tell me that he’d keep a closer eye on the group.I suppose you can take a guess that, he did not, in fact, keep up the promis that he made.

Dr.Jean: did at any point in your adventures feel,were attempted to or successfully attacked or harmed by any members of this group during you adventures before the escape?

Link:No-well I mean yes but…[ exasperated sigh]…yeah….yeah there were a few…ok maybe a lot…But I guess the one that really stuck with me was when,uh,when Time held me up against a wall and tryed to cut my throat during a heated argument about…..them.

[Subject 10 reaches over to rub on a faint cut across thier neck]

[the ferret circles closer to her neck nuzzling it head into hers in an attempt to comfort Link]

Link: Aww,its ok little guy,I am fine right now.Don’t worry fluffy.

Dr.Jean: i am sorry if its too much but what was the argument about?

Link:…….

[subject 10 stays silent for a few minutes before speaking again]

Link: It was about if we should kill subject zero.

Dr.Jean: Then do you think we should kill subject zero?

[subject 10 stops petting fluffy and stares at the doctore without giving an answer for several more minutes]

Link:[a shallow exhale leaves thier mouth] …….I……..I….

[the sounds of sirens and alarms going off]

Annocemnet :There is a containment breach in the D -12 containment building floor,please all personels and staff go to the evacuation exits and safety rooms while special elit force knights handle the situation.Subject 4 case 19835- 1,2,3 and 4 cololrs have all escaped.If you see him or any of the colors they are to be neutralized and brought back to thier containment cells.All other staff do not ingage unless -

Dr.Jean: oh Hylia,looks like we’ll have to cut this short and we have to hurry and-wait where are you going! The safety room is this way! Link!

Link: [distant and muffled]I know,I just need to go out and kick a few stobbern little butts back in thier cells first-!

Dr.Jean: Link the elit knights can handle it you don’t have to-Link!! Link! Sir Link! Lin-!!

[audio ends here]

I am doing wind next

This is long, so I'll react as I read.

oh SHOOT THEY RAN!!!

MULAN USES THE FOUR SWORD!!

[REDACTED]?!?!!?

LUCKY!!!

AUDIO CONECTION TEMPORTARILY LOST!?!?!?!?!?

THEY GONNA KILL A GUY-KIL MULAN!!? SKY IS GASLIGHTING!?!?

TIME CUT THEM?!?!?

MULAN GONNA KILL SUBJECT ZERO!?!?!?

THEY ESCAPE!?!?!? THE COLORS ESCAPE!!!!

MULAN GOES TO FIGHT?!?!?

MY GIRL!!!!

OH MY GOD

#pinky replies #SCP LU #PINKY IS SCREAMING #pinky is screaming #i don't know which one I use anymore #violence #yall gotta let me know with tags #i don't think this was so bad in terms of being graphic....#but let me know because i can't think...#yandere #yandere linked universe #horror

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davidobitch · 3 years

Text

Traditions | Timothee Chalamet

okay so I’m well aware I don’t ever write for Timothee Chalamet but I really wanted to write this and it didn’t seem fitting for anyone else I usually write about?? I hope you like it even though the timing is like...18 days late...oops

I didn’t proof read this so my apologies if it sounds like a 5th grader wrote it.

anything written in italics is the past! enjoy xx

3 years. 156 weeks. 1,095 days.

That’s how long you’ve spent with Timothee. You love him with everything you have inside you but things haven’t been okay lately, not for the past year almost. Neither of you wanted this to be ‘right person, wrong time’. You both tried to fight for your relationship to work out and go back to how things used to be...but that was up until last month.

Timothee has been busy with his movies and you’ve been busy with your business. With the year coming to an end, you both and to get everything done before the new year. You tried not to think that this was the end. You kept telling yourself that it was only for this month then you and Timothee could go back to working everything out. But part of you knew that maybe this really was the end.

You were just getting home from a launch party when Timothee was getting ready to leave.

“Hi,” you said quietly, dropping your purse on the table, “Another shoot?” you kept your eyes on your boyfriend, watching him go over his mental checklist of everything he needed.

Timothee nodded his head, turning in circles looking for what was probably his keys. You glanced behind him, seeing them in the other room on the coffee table.

Passing by him, Timothee followed you with his eyes hoping you weren’t walking away from him without a goodbye. He heard his keys jingle in your shot and let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank you,” he breathed out, standing in front of you. His hand lingered on yours, letting his fingers trace your bones.

“Promise me you’ll be back tonight?” your stare was fixed on your intertwined hands, not wanting him to let go.

Timothee squeezed your hand before pulling away, “Of course. You know I’ll be here.”

You and Timothee always threw a New Years Eve party, it was something both of you looked forward to each year.

He gave you a quick kiss before leaving the house, letting silence seep through the walls. It hasn’t been long since you started staying at Timothee’s daily. It’s only been a year, if that, which ironically is when everything started going wrong in the relationship. Coincidence? Probably, but you refused to believe that. Most nights you couldn’t help but wonder if you moving in was the reason you guys started fighting almost weekly.

Shaking yourself from your thoughts, you started picking up around the place, wanting the house to be spotless by tonight.

You have sent Timothee countless texts reminding him what time people will be over and last minute things he needed to buy. It’s been three hours and you haven’t heard back from him. You assumed he was just getting caught up in shooting or discussing work stuff, but when another three hours passed by with no call or texts, you had a bad feeling he was bailing out tonight.

You texted Timmy again, another reminder of what time to be home and asking him to pick up the rest of the party stuff for you. You begged him not to be late tonight, or even just not show up at all. Time was slowly running out and you decided to just run out and buy everything yourself. On the verge of tears, you called Timothee and to your dismay...it went straight to voicemail. You tried holding in your cries as you left him yet another message, telling him tonight was make or break the relationship. It was either he shows up by midnight or you pack your bags tomorrow morning and move out. You didn’t care anymore as you let your feelings out fully for the first time in months.

You needed the drive home to clear your head and gather yourself before having to pretend your relationship is perfect.

It was just barely 9pm and you still had to hurry up and be ready by 10. You called a couple friends to come over early to help finish setting up so you can shower and look presentable.

“Thank you guys so much,” you said as you entered the kitchen where your friends were arranging the cups and drinks, “T’s been so caught up at work today. I just- I love you guys.”

“We love you of course,” your friend, Ashley says as she grabs a bottle of tequila and 3 glasses, “To a new year,” she says, raising her glass.

“To a new year,” you and your other friend say in unison.

The liquid burns as it travels down your throat, warming your entire body. You took another shot before going back to finish getting ready.

You picked out your best little black dress, wanting Timothee to see what he’s losing if he decides to not show up tonight. Your hair was curled, your face was glammed up, and you were ready to black out everything tonight.

You finished just in time for all your’s and Timothee’s friends to show up, letting the night begin.

You were about 5 tequila shots and 3 drinks in when the clock hit 11:45. You checked your phone seeing you had no calls or texts from your boyfriend. You were losing hope with every passing second and you didn’t care to hide it anymore.

You were on the balcony with your friends when your mouth started to ramble. “T isn’t coming tonight. Or at least I don’t think he is. He’s been gone for the past 15 hours and I’m pretty sure we’re breaking up tonight. Fuck we should’ve broken up a year ago. You know nothing has been the same since I moved in?” You took another drink before continuing, silently hoping your friends would cut you off any second now, “We haven’t had sex in god knows how long. I don’t get to see him for longer than 4 minutes a day. We tried so hard to make things work which was such a bullshit move.” You let out a shaky breath, knowing you were a couple words away from crying and that was the last thing you wanted to do tonight. Finishing off your drink, you closed your eyes and let the night breeze calm you down.

“We see more than you think, y/n,” Ashley says, pouring half of her cup into yours, “We just don’t say anything. You know we love you and we will continue to support you no matter what you choose to do.”

“And don’t give up on Timmy not coming just yet. He still has 5 minutes!” you sip on your drink, trying to remain optimistic. Olivia’s right, he still has time..but if he hasn’t showed up in the past 5 hours, he’s not going to in the next 5 minutes.

“I really thought he was the one, y’know?” you mutter into your cup, watching the liquid swish from side to side.

Your friends wrap their arms around you, pulling you in for a group hug. “Come on, let’s do a couple shots before the ball drops.” Olivia pulls you back inside and to the kitchen, placing 2 shot glasses in front of each of you.

“Cheers to 2021. A year of new beginnings and more memories than we will remember!” Ashley yells, bringing her glass up.

11:58. You knocked one of the shots back, allowing it to fog your brain.

“Cheers to y/n, for being the toughest bitch we know,” Olivia shouts as she raises her glass, you and Ashlet following her actions.

11:59. Another shot down.

You glanced around the room as there was 30 seconds left in the year. No tall, lanky, brown haired boy in sight. You wanted to cry and scream and run out of the house but instead, you grabbed the bottle of vodka and made your way to the balcony.

You caught your friends attention, shaking your head as if to tell them you’re fine but not to follow you. The glass door slid shut behind you as everyone started counting down.

“10!”

“Kiss me tonight,” you boldly said to Timothee, “None of our friends are single. We’re the only losers who have nobody. So be my new year’s kiss.” The first new year’s eve you and Timmy spent together. Your first year of being friends.

“9!”

“Are you going to force me into kissing you again?” Timothee jokes as he comes up behind you, almost causing you to spill your drink from scaring you.

“First of all, you can’t creep up on a girl like that!” you swatted at his chest before taking a sip of your drink, “Second of all, I didn’t force you to do anything.” Everyone around you was counting down, “Third of all,” just as the clock hit 12:00, you pulled Tim’s face to your level, gently pressing your lips to his, “absolutely.”

“8!”

You had spent the entire night by Timothee’s side. This was your first year spending New Years with just him and his hometown friends. You felt lost without your usual crew bullying you into kissing Timmy for another year. “What do you say we do this every year,” Timothee nuzzled his head into the crook of your neck, placing light kisses on your skin.

You let out a giggle, confused at his choice of words, “T we do this every year already,” you turned around to face him, your hands playing with the bottom of his shirt.

“No I mean as a couple. I want you to be my girlfriend,”

“7!”

“I love you,” Timothee drunkenly yelled in your ear, causing a bright smile to spread across your face.

“You’re drunk, baby,” you rolled your eyes. Neither of you have said the L word before and this wasn’t the way you expected it to happen.

“Maybe, but I don’t want to spend another year not telling you every day.”

“6!”

“Timmy!” you yelled over the music, wrapping your arms around his waist, “You have 5 seconds to kiss me or I’m finding another boy!” you giggled as Timothee turned around in your arms, grabbing your face and pulling you into him just as the new year hit.

“5!”

You were crowded into a small corner of your friends kitchen, having been forced to spend the night with them instead of your boyfriend. Timothee was out in New York for a photoshoot and couldn’t make it home in time for your “tradition”.

“I wish you were here,” you mumbled, making a pouty face at your phone screen, “Now I have to kiss Ashley this year and that’s not fun!” You yelled, hoping she would hear you from across the way. You changed your camera to face here, showing Timothee her middle finger in the air, “See, she’s mean. And so are you for not being here.”

Your eyes wandered to the time on the stove clock, seeing as it just hit midnight.

“Happy new year, baby,” Timothee says. You look down at your phone screen to see the facetime was over. Confused as to how the call ended but you could still hear his voice, you glanced up at your friends to see them all staring at you with giddy smiles.

“Can you turn around and kiss me already?” Tears blurred your vision as you quickly spun around and jumped into your boyfriend’s arms.

“4!”

“Please please please don’t hate me,” Timothee says as he wraps his arms around you. “I didn’t realize the time and I know I fucked up, but you know I wouldn’t miss this for the world, y/n” This was the first year he almost missed being your new year’s kiss and as much as you wanted to kill him for it, you knew it wasn’t his fault.

“You’re so fucking lucky you’re cute,” you said, shaking your head and pulling on his shirt, bringing his body into yours.

“3!”

Another shot in your system, trying to rid the memories of the past 7 New Year’s Eve nights. Your mind started playing games with you. Timothee’s voice was echoing all around you, like he was actually with you.

“2!”

“Baby,” you could hear Timmy say, but you tried to push it out of your thoughts. “Please don’t ignore me. I’m so fucking sorry,” You could smell his cologne behind you as a warm touch could be felt on your wrist. Your breath was shaky as you turned to face the man behind you, hoping this was reality and you weren’t drunkenly imagining this.

“1!”

“I’m here. I’m always going to be here. For the next whatever years, I’m 100% here. No more long days without you. No more missing date nights. This is my promise to you, y/n.” Timothee says, his eyes filled with liquid.

“Happy new year!”

You threw your arms around his neck, almost falling backwards as you crashed your lips into his. “I love you, forever.” you muttered against his lips, “Thank you, T.”

*****

“Why can’t we just spend this year at home with our friends like we always do?” you asked Timothee as he pulled you out onto the balcony with him. This year he took you to Paris for New Years Eve and as grateful as you were for this mini trip, you didn’t want to break tradition.

“Because like you said, we spend every year at home with our friends. It’s never been just us.”

Ever since he promised to put more time into the relationship, everything has been almost perfect. Of course you still had your occasional fight, but that’s to be expected and it was never over anything stupid. Well...most of the time.

“I guess it would be nice to spend it alone,” you leaned your head against Timothee’s chest as you took in the site in front of you.

The hotel room had a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower, dead center in front of you. You’ve seen the structure many times in the past but it was never this beautiful.

“I love you, you know that?” he whispers against your neck, his hands gently squeezing your hips.

You nodded but stayed silent, letting the music from inside fill the space around you. Timothee started to sway with you as your favorite song started to play in the background.

“I would love to assume it’s such a coincidence that Robbers is playing right now,” you smiled, teasing your boyfriend, “But I guess I should give you credit for planning this.”

Timothee takes your hand in his and spins you around into him as his other hand settles on your hip.

The two of you danced around the balcony together as your song went on and all of Paris could be heard counting down the end of the year.

“Last year I made you a promise to put more effort in. We had a hard year and I know I put you through a lot and I can’t apologize enough for that, baby. But here we are 365 days later, getting to have another new year’s kiss together. I thank you every day for forcing me to kiss you all those years ago ‘cause we both know I would have never had the balls to make the move.” Timothee’s voice was soft, barely even audible with all the other noise happening around you. “But a lot has changed since that first kiss. A lot between us but also with us separately. I never want to spend New Years, let alone any day, without you.” Timothee abruptly stopped moving and pulled away from you as fireworks were being set off all around the city. You pulled your eyes from him for a split second to watch the sky light up with different colors.

What you didn’t expect to see when you brought your attention back to him, was Timmy on one knee, with a ring being held up towards you.

“I’m making another promise to you, to love you forever, to always put you first. You’ve been my life for the past 6 years and even though we were together for only 4 of those years, I still couldn’t imagine you not being in my life. You’re my best friend. Mon amour. I want to spend every waking moment with you. I want you to yell at me when my socks are in random parts of the house. I want to have little mini versions of us running around and drawing on walls. When all my dreams come true, you’re the one I want next to me. It’s you, baby. It’s always been you. Marry me, y/n.”

Your hand flew to your mouth as you vigorously nodded your head. You didn’t give Timothee the chance to stand up before you fell to your knees in front of him, falling into his arms. “Of course I’ll marry you, T. You’re the only person I ever want to spend my life with. I love you so so much, mon amour.” You cried as you placed kisses all over his face.

#Timothy chalamet #Timothee chalamet imagine #tchal #tc #masterlist #prompt #imagine #timmy chalamet #timothee fanfic

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lexosaurus · 3 years

Text

I Love You

My fic for day 5 of DP Side Hoes Week (yes I’m a day behind).

Character: Jazz Theme: Hospital

This oneshot exists within my Everything Was White fic series [ao3]. You do NOT have to be following Everything Was White to understand this fic, this one exists as a prequel in the timeline and I give enough context in the text for anyone to be able to understand it.

Okay, enjoy!

---

Jazz sat on the armchair, her gaze blank. Hazy. She hadn’t moved since she sat down some time ago. Time moved without reason, and she wasn’t sure how long it had been. Her back hurt and her lips were chapped, but she hardly noticed her discomfort.

The only thing that mattered was the person laying on the bed before her.

The person she hardly recognized.

Four weeks. That’s how long he had been missing from their lives, that’s how long the Guys in White had him. Twenty-eight days on the dot.

She could never forget his eyes as he was dragged out the door. They were wild, desperately staring down their parents who were both pinned down by government agents with guns trained to their heads. He screamed, struggling against his captures.

But it wasn’t enough.

Because in the end, he was thrown in the back of a white van. All while Jazz stood on the stairs doing nothing.

She should have freed him. She could have helped. But she was too weak.

Too weak.

Her eyes stung, and she wanted to cry. Break down. Sob. But she had already used up her stock of tears hours ago, when she finally saw him for the first time since he’d be transferred out of critical care.

He was frail, tiny. Nothing but skin and bones. His body was scarred, torn, encased in gauze and casts. Doctors fluttered about, talking in hushed tones as they analyzed her brother’s body. They tried not to show it, but Jazz knew they were baffled by him.

There was talk about his injuries. He hadn’t woken up yet, at least not completely, but Jazz was already told of the more...drastic injuries.

The Y scar on his chest.

The paralysis.

The starvation.

No one knew what the permanent effects were going to be. No one knew how he was going to fair once he woke up. But there was one thing they all knew for certain, a truth that none of the Fentons had said out loud yet:

Danny was not going to be the same anymore.

She crumbled, allowing her head to fall into her hands. Apparently, she still had more tears to give. A sob tore its way from her throat, pulling with it a wave of emotions that Jazz had just spent the last few hours desperately trying to repress.

She was tired. So, so tired. And yet, this nightmare refused to end.

“Danny, I—I’m so sorry.” Jazz’s voice was raw. The naked truth was hanging right there in front of her, the consequences of her complete failure.

She should have been there for him during the ghost fight. The one between him and Skulker that ultimately led to his revelation right there high in the skies in front of the entire town. She could have helped him.

She should have known the Guys in White would then come surround their house and take him.

She should have tried harder to find him and break him out of the government compound. They tried so hard, but they couldn’t find the stupid building.

She should have practiced her questions better in court. Maybe then the jury would have decided sooner. She could have gotten him released before he was hurt so bad.

“I’m sorry.”

He didn’t respond.

“I love you so much, Danny. I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t respond.

---

“You alright there, son?” Jack asked. He tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

It didn’t seem to matter. Jazz doubted Danny even heard their father’s question. She was honestly questioning if he even realized they were in the room.

His eyes wandered around the room as if he were still trying to take in the walls of the hospital. He woke up four days ago, and yet every day had been the same blank wandering gaze.

Jazz hoped it was just the pain medication the hospital was giving him. She desperately clung onto the belief that her brother would snap out of it one day and would come home and he would be back to normal.

Back to how he was before.

“Your mother and I are going to meet with the surgeon.” Jack put an arm around Maddie, pulling her into his side.

Her face was white, streaked with red as if she’d been crying recently, and the bags under her eyes had never been so pronounced. But Jazz couldn’t blame her. After all, she probably looked more or less the same.

“Stay with Danny, alright? We’ll come grab you after.”

“Sure, Dad,” Jazz said, putting on a smile she hoped was comforting.

Her mother muttered something that Jazz didn’t catch, and then both parents were gone.

And Jazz was alone. With Danny.

Again.

She turned back to face him. The doctors had said that he’d sustained significant brain damage, and they weren’t sure yet how much communication he would be able to do. He was too drugged up still, too out of it.

He couldn’t speak, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t understand her.

Or maybe that was her hopeful side talking again. She shouldn’t get her hopes up. She would only be hurt in the end.

“Hey, Danny,” Jazz tried. Her voice was thin. Dry. She tried to wet her lips and spoke again. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I hope you’re comfortable. If you were wondering, you broke your spine. I mean, I’m sure you already knew that but—” Her voice cracked. “—you know. That’s why you, um, might be uncomfortable right now. It’s the brace.”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at her.

Just continued staring at the ceiling.

Jazz wondered if anything was going through his mind. If he had any questions. She would if she were Danny.

She tried to imagine the sort of things he would say. His voice, crackling through the throes of puberty, as he poked fun at her in that annoying way only a brother could accomplish. She tried to envision a world where he could still do that.

And she tried not to think about the fact that there was a good chance that she’d never hear his voice again.

“Your SCI was incomplete, you know. So there’s still a chance…” Jazz shook her head.

There she was getting hopeful again.

“Everyone really missed you, Danny. I—I really missed you.”

He blinked slowly. In her imagination, Jazz heard him say “I missed you too.”

“I love you.”

He didn’t respond.

---

“What band are we in the mood for today?” Jazz asked, scrolling through her playlist.

Danny was starting to come to. He seemed to be able to hold eye contact, albeit not for very long, and his minute facial expressions showed at least some understanding of what was happening around him.

Although, he still hadn’t spoken yet.

Jazz glanced brightly down at him. Now that she knew he was conscious of her presence, she couldn’t afford to show up at the hospital in sweats with her tear-stained face anymore. She had to be there for him. She had to be strong.

Maybe she had been too weak to help him before. Maybe back then, she had failed him.

But she would be damned if she wasn’t strong enough to help him now.

“What do you think? MCR? Blink-182?” she asked. “I got these band names from Sam, by the way. So if she lied to me about what music you listen to now, don’t blame me.”

Danny just stared at her with his owl-ish expression.

“Here, if you want, you can choose.” Jazz held her phone screen out in front of him, watching as his eyebrows scrunched up ever so slightly as he gazed up at the screen.

Jazz felt her smile falter for a split second before she pulled her phone away and straightened herself up on her chair.

She had to be strong.

“It’s okay, I’ll just choose one.” She tapped the screen and set her phone down.

The sound of over-compressed guitars filled the tiny bluetooth speaker on the windowsill, and Jazz beamed down at Danny, waiting for that tiny flicker of recognition to hit his face.

And, to her delight, some of the fog in his eyes momentarily lifted. He looked over to Jazz as if he were seeing her for the first time, the shock and disbelief seeping through the blank slate that was his expression.

Jazz was hardly able to keep the glee out of her voice. “You like it?”

His eyes flickered between Jazz and the bluetooth speaker. Back and forth again before settling back on the ceiling.

“Well, I’ll have to thank Sam for the recommendation later! She can’t wait to see you, you know. The doctors are only allowing family in your room right now, but maybe next week if you’re feeling up to it, Sam and Tucker can stop by. I don’t want to make any promises right now, but you never know.”

Danny’s eyes slowly traveled around the ceiling.

“Are you thirsty?” Jazz asked. “Hungry? Well, you’re probably not hungry. Doctors have been monitoring your nutrient intake a lot. I’m glad, too, because you have some color in your face again.”

His eyes shut, and a content smile twitched on his face.

Jazz couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked so peaceful.

“I love you, Danny.”

He didn’t respond.

---

Danny was home now. That should have been a good thing.

It should have been.

And it was. In so many ways, it was wonderful having him home again.

But in so many other ways, it wasn’t.

Jazz had been under some illusion that once he made it home, things would go back to normal. Sure, he would be in a wheelchair until his PT started, and he might not be able to turn into a ghost for a few weeks either, but her brother would be home.

Except, Danny never came home. Physically, he did. But mentally he was still trapped somewhere far away.

He was talking now at least. He’d started talking the week before he’d left the hospital. He wasn’t able to speak in full sentences, at least not without pausing, and he wasn’t able to really understand long sentences either, but this was a start.

Jazz wanted to hope that things would get better, but hope was a dangerous drug.

After all, even though he’d started speaking again, he still refused to talk about what happened to him. Anytime Jazz would try to bring the conversation up, he’d clam up and close off for the rest of the day.

And that hurt. It hurt so bad. She so desperately wanted to be there and support him, to help him talk through the trauma he’d experienced, but he just didn’t want to.

But that was okay. It had to be okay. She had to be strong.

She stood in front of his door, pausing only to compose herself before knocking.

He didn’t acknowledge her knock, but Jazz wasn’t expecting him too. He was trying to isolate himself, and Jazz wasn’t going to let him.

She’d already failed him once.

“Good morning, Danny!” Jazz bursted into the room, her voice chipper despite the fact that she hadn’t slept last night.

She doubted that Danny did either.

Danny was lying on top of his comforter, already dressed. Their mom must have gotten him situated before shutting herself down in the lab.

Their parents seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

“Come on, get up. I come bearing an activity!”

“Too early,” Danny grumbled.

Jazz ignored him, sauntering into the room brandishing a large, easy piece jigsaw puzzle she’d just ran out to buy that morning.

It was hard to find one for kids that wasn’t either a princess castle or a race car scene. Fortunately, the store had one on sale that had colorful, cartoon baby ghosts covering the image.

“Either you get up, or I drag you up. Either way, you’re doing this puzzle with me.”

“Puzzle?” Danny asked.

Jazz tried not to stare as he struggled upright, only swooping in to set his pillows upright behind him. “Yeah, puzzle.”

She set the box down in front of him, pulling off the lid and revealing the large pieces in front of him.

“That’s...so Boring.”

“Well, the doctors still want you avoiding screens for a little while longer. I figured this was better than staring at the wall.”

Danny eyed the box, his face impassive.

“Here, wait.” She went out into the hallway, grabbing a large piece of cardboard from the wall. “I brought something to make the puzzle on. Figured it would be easier than the mattress.”

“Okay.” He picked up one of the pieces, inspecting it slowly as if he couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

“So…” Jazz plopped herself down on the mattress next to Danny and put the cardboard over their laps. “What do you think we should do first?”

Danny gazed blankly down, his eyes trailing between the cardboard and the puzzle piece in his hand. He blinked, and then put the puzzle piece down on the cardboard.

“Okay, we can start with that one!” Jazz chirped.

“No…” Danny ran his hand through his hair. “No that’s not...need to sort.”

“Oh?” Jazz grabbed another piece from the box. “So what should I do with this one then?”

Danny gazed quizzically over at Jazz, grabbing the piece to inspect it. “Edge,” he finally said, setting the piece down on the opposite side of the board from the first piece.

“So we’re sorting the edge pieces from the regular pieces?”

Danny hummed, grabbing another piece from the box.

“Sounds like a good plan!”

They worked together in near silence after that, Jazz only stopping every so often when she could feel Danny’s attention slipping to ask him to help her sort a piece. It was almost cute how determined he was to complete the task correctly. It almost reminded Jazz of the quiet determination that would slip onto his features in the moments just before he transformed into Phantom.

Solving the puzzle was a whole different beast. If Jazz were honest, she wasn’t sure if they would have been able to finish in one sitting. Danny still tired far too rapidly throughout the day, and he still slept for more hours than he was awake.

But finally Danny snapped the last piece into place, completing their simple blob ghost picture.

“Nice job!” Jazz put her hand up for a high five.

Danny blinked, slowly processing the motion, before his brain caught up and he gave a little smirk, a tiny eye roll, but met Jazz’s hand all the same.

She put the cardboard with the now completed puzzle on the floor before sitting back against the fluffy pillows. Breathing out, she allowed herself to sink back into the cushions for just a moment.

She was so tired.

Her brain swirled, and she wanted to sink deeper into the darkness. But she couldn’t. She wasn’t allowed to.

“Are you asleep?” Danny asked.

“No.”

“Oh. Okay.”

A quiet trepidation settled over the pair. Jazz could feel the unspoken questions hanging in the air like forbidden fruit ripe for picking. But the apples were just out of reach, and she knew the branches wouldn’t sink lower until Danny was ready.

But he had to come home first. He would never be ready to tell her what happened until he finally came back to them. And Jazz didn’t know how long that would take.

“I love you,” Jazz said.

Danny didn’t respond.

---

Thanks for reading!

#danny phantom #dp side hoes week 2021 #everything was white #no beta!!#my writing #phicc #i'll probs go back like next week and actually edit this oneshot #but not rn during the event week

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particularemu · 4 years

Text

I Missed You | A Bang Chan Scenario

Word Count: 3857

Type: Smut

Warnings: Light choking at the end

Author’s Note: For my bby @channiesmixtape

I apologize, this is SO RUSHED, like yikes.

Sorry it took so long fam! Thank you for supporting my writing 🥰

Chan was a cruel man.

A very very cruel man.

The past hour or so you’ve been at the gym with your boyfriend. You two originally planned to do some couple’s yoga class, but the stupid thing was cancelled last minute because the teacher was either sick with the flu, or didn’t feel like teaching odd 20-something-year-olds how to balance on their significant other’s limbs while in difficult yoga poses.

Despite your silent internal protest, Chan decided to take the time and get some “much-needed” exercise. Honestly, you just wanted to go home and binge watch the latest K-Drama you and Chan started before he had to go on tour. The lazy bone was hitting you hard today.

Instead of sitting on your phone for the next hour, you decided it might not be a bad idea to get some exercise yourself. After all, you did eat a whole tub of ice cream last night for unknown reasons. Might as well hop on a machine to work off the extra calories you consumed while watching the latest Weekly Idol episode.

After walking around the gym staring at the intimidating machines for 10 minutes, you decided the exercise bike looked the least intimidating. You just get on and pedal right?

Unfortunately, about 20 minutes into your Stray Kids Spotify playlist, your knee decided it was time to burn like hell. Well you tried. A+ for effort.

Without anything better to do, you figured watching your attractive boyfriend work out was a good idea. Boy were you wrong.

Watching your muscular boyfriend work out was filling your head with some dirty thoughts.

With Chan’s busy schedule, you haven’t exactly had a ton of time to hump like bunnies, so you’ve been super horny for the past couple of weeks, for no apparent reason.

Chan had to travel for about a month. About 2 days into his absence you started to realize — wow, you guys had sex wayyyyy too much. You couldn’t even last 2 days without sex before you began to masturbate to the memories of his hands on your body. Of course the toys you had stashed under the bed in a lockbox helped dramatically, but none of them filled you up like Chan did.

“Back so soon?” Chan teased, flexing his arm as he lifted the dumbbell.

Your thighs instinctively pressed together, praying to the sex gods that you weren’t turned on enough to seep through your leggings. The last thing you wanted was the whole gym to see a wet patch through your skin-tight pants.

“My knee decided that exercise wasn’t in the cards today.” You shivered at a sudden breeze that slipped through the crack of the open door — mentally cursing those who opened it. You grabbed your hoodie, throwing it over your head and slipping your arms through the sleeves as Chan put the dumbbells away.

Chan stretched his hand out to you, inviting you to lace your fingers between his perfect ones. “Come on, let’s go.”

“I can wait if you have more to do.” You intertwined your fingers with his, leaning your head against his shoulder as he lead you to the door.

“Nah. I don’t want to stick around here if you’re in pain. You need to rest.”

“Alright you’ve convinced me. Let’s go home.” You giggled as Chan swung your hands obnoxiously while the two of you walked out the door.

---------

“Gosh, what’s the hurry?” Chan giggled as he stumbled into your small living room, practically knocking into the small table you had placed against the wall near the door. To be fair, you did kind of shove him into the room.

“Chan. It’s been a month since we’ve watched our drama. I’m going crazy here. I want to see if she’s finally going to get together with him.” You threw your bag onto the coat rack, flinching when the unstable piece of furniture rocked under the weight of your unreasonably large bag, making Chan giggle as he watched you steady the hunk of wood.

“Fine, fine. You could watch it without me you know.” Chan stepped on the heel of his shoe, slipping out of them with ease before sprawling on your dingy blue couch. He flinched a bit as the springs poked him in the side.

“Yeah, everything I own is falling apart. I did buy a new mattress though. Wanna binge watch it on my bed?” You threw your keys into a small bowl resting on top of the table next to the front door. Chan gave you that bowl when you first bought that apartment because you kept losing your keys and other important stuff like chapstick, pain killers, and your extra phone charger.

Chan sat up from the broken-down couch, laughing as the piece of shit groaned under his weight. “What did you do to this thing?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s like 87 years old. My grandmother gave it to me a long time ago, and from what my mom has told me, they did it everywhere.” You cringed at your own words. Probably wasn’t the best story to tell your boyfriend when you were hoping to get dicked down later.

Oh well.

Chan visibly cringed before hopping off the ragged couch. “Yep. Your room sounds lovely.”

You laughed, wrapping your arms around your boyfriend's neck. “You know… we could always do more than watching shows in there.”

“Oh really.” Chan’s eyebrow shot up in the air, a dorky grin tugging at his lips as you finished your proposal.

“We can cuddle.” You kissed his lips. “And kiss.” You pressed another soft kiss to his lips.

“I like the sound of that.” Chan smiled, hands sliding down your shoulders before linking under your butt and lifting you up.

You couldn’t help but squeal a bit as Chan lifted you off the ground, arms and legs wrapping around him as if you were a koala bear hanging onto a tree during a severe windstorm.

“I’ve got you.” Chan chuckled as he walked the two of you to your less than extravagant bedroom.

Truth be told, being in his arms like that made you feel safe. It’s been far too long. The entire month he was gone, you craved moments like these. You missed having his arms around you as you giggled over senseless things, watching your K-drama together, sitting in the recording studio listening to his new music. All those moments were replaced with 3 AM text messages and 5 minute calls before bed.

“I missed you.” You nuzzled your head into his neck.

“I missed you too baby girl.” Chan pushed the bedroom door open with his foot, chuckling when he saw your sheets. “I hate to ruin this moment, but I have to ask. Are those taco sheets?”

“I happen to like tacos a lot.” You giggled. “And they were on sale.” You added, making Chan laugh.

“I love them.” Chan nuzzled his nose against yours — the corny action making you fake-gag.

“Be nice to your boyfriend.” Chan laughed.

“No.” You retorted.

“Fine.” An evil grin made its way on Chan’s face before he tossed you onto your mattress, laughing with you as you bounced a couple times. His laughter died down a bit as he crawled onto the mattress, snuggling next to your body.

You smacked his arm, “Hey! That’s one way to ruin the mood.”

“Oh? What mood did we have?” Chan couldn’t stop his laughter. “Last I remember we were talking about your grandparents going at it on your couch.”

You mentally smacked yourself. Why on earth did you think it was a good idea to bring that up when you were hoping to have his fingers shoved into your vag.

That’s when it hit you.

“What if I strip for you?” Your eyes met his, noticing the slight blush tinting his pale skin.

“Are you seriously trying to convince me to have sex with you?” Chan’s hands ran along your side, making your body shiver at his touch.

You wanted more — so much more, and he knew it. His large hand lingered on hip, squeezing the soft flesh softly as he waited for you to say something — anything that would give him permission to devour you bit by bit. Despite his teasing, he wanted this just as much as you did.

“I was really hoping to get laid tonight.” Your voice shook slightly, confidence wavering as you tried your hardest to keep your composure. Frankly, you were ready to get on your knees and beg, but you were hoping it wouldn’t come to that.

Chan chuckled a bit before pressing a passionate kiss to your lips. It was as if time stopped, all that mattered in the world was his lips against yours. “That’s funny. I was hoping for the same thing.”

You moaned softly as Chan’s lips met yours once more, hands traveling up your torso to guide your shirt and sports bra up your body. Your lips separated to remove the unnecessary garments, only to connect once more when he tossed them across the room. Chan swiped his tongue against your lower lip, slipping into your mouth when you obediently parted your lips for him.

This kiss made up for all the kisses you two missed out on while he was gone. It was the perfect mixture of clashing teeth and tongue as you two felt each other’s warmth in a tight embrace. His breath ghosted across your skin as he pulled away from you, hands darting to the back of his head to yank his shirt off.

“Ugh, you’re perfect.” Your hands darted to his chest, fingertips feeling the taut muscles.

Chan just chuckled, eyes drinking every inch of your exposed skin. “So are you.”

Your heart nearly stopped when Chan swung his leg over your hips, piercing gaze watching your cheeks tint a rose color as he straddled you. His fingers fiddled with his belt buckle, unbuckling the damn thing at a painfully slow pace.

If you weren’t so entranced by his hands, you probably would have said something along the lines of ‘My grandfather moves faster than you,’ and thrusted your hips into his for effect. However, the way his hands looked as he threw the offending piece of leather across the room sent a wave of electricity up your spine.

Your heart panged against your ribcage as if it were playing an obnoxiously loud drum solo at a Metallica concert as your mind flashed with various images of Chan’s hands doing dirty things to your body. A moan escaped your lips as you imagined him sticking his fingers in your mouth before driving them into your pussy, fucking you mercilessly with his fingers as his tongue lapped at your slit.

A scene straight from a porn movie was playing in your head as you watched your boyfriend slip off his pants in front of you. Was that weird?

That doesn’t matter.

With each passing second, your underwear grew damper and you found yourself wanting him — and his hands — immediately.

Speaking of hands…

Chan’s hands were glorious. Your eyes followed their every movement, eyeing up the veins that scattered across his forearms. His knuckles were scraped slightly — most likely from today’s session with the punching bag at the gym. His fingers were the perfect length, and you knew what they were capable of. The thought if his fingers ramming into your g-spot sent a wave of excitement through you.

You were far too busy gawking at his hands to notice that he caught you staring.

“I knew it!” Chan’s excited voice startled you a bit, effectively turning off the dirty thoughts you were having and replacing them with pure panic.

“Knew what?” You looked away, cheeks tinted scarlet as you fiddled with your thumbs.

Maybe he didn’t actually catch you eye-fucking his hands?

“I knew you had a thing for my hands.”

“Shit.” The four-letter word slipped from your lips before you could stop it.

Chan laughed at your reaction, arms wrapping around his midsection as he fell to his side. “Why are you so embarrassed?”

“Hey! You laughing at me isn’t helping.” You swatted his shoulder.

Sure it was kind of embarrassing to admit that simply looking at his god-like hands would turn you on faster than the speed of light, but it was kind of nice to know you didn’t have to hide it anymore — not that you were doing a good job.

Chan’s laughter died down. “Sorry. I’m not making fun of you. I just don’t see it. What makes my hands so sexy baby girl?”

“Chris.” You rolled him over and straddled his hips, grinding your core into his growing cock. “I find everything about you sexy — including your hands.”

Your fingertips grazed along his chest, fingers dipping into each curve of his abs as you ground your hips into his again, hoping he would get the hint to quit teasing and fuck you already. “I want you Chris.” You slid off his lap, fingertips tugging at the waistband of his boxers.

Chan’s eyes darkened with lust — or was that your imagination? Nevermind, that doesn’t matter.

You were more focused on his hand palming his length through the navy blue boxers you were trying to remove from his body. The erotic sight making you more and more excited for what was to come.

It had been so long. You were dying to unwrap him.

“What exactly do you want baby girl?” Chan purred. “I bet you’ve had some amazing dreams about my hands.” He smirked when your face flushed red. Bingo! “Tell me, what exactly do you want me to do.”

His words sent shivers up your spine. Well, the boy already knew you had a hand fetish. Might as well have some fun and get him to do what you’ve been dreaming of. After all, you have been having the same exact wet dream for over a month. Having Chan there to fuck you senseless would be so much better than riding a dildo on the bathroom floor.

“Please finger me.” Your voice shook ever-so-slightly, all sense of pride leaving your body as you practically begged for his touch. Even though it was embarrassing to beg for his fingers up your coochie, you knew it would all be worth it in the end. Chan would do anything to please you. “I want your tongue.” Your hands rested on his hips, thumbs dipping into the evident dips near his hip bones.

A sinister smirk took over Chan’s features as he leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to your lips. “You’re such a good girl.”

His praise turned you on more than you’d care to admit — especially when it reminded you of how he praises your golden retriever. Despite that awkward comparison, you still love to hear his words of approval when you two are intimate.

You moaned as Chan traveled down your clothed body, quickly ridding you of your leggings.

“No panties?” Chan teased, shooting an award-winning smirk at you as he chucked your leggings across the room.

“It’s easier to not wear any with leggings. Then I don’t have to worry about panty lines.” You glared at him. “Just, get to work!”

Boys wouldn’t understand.

Chan couldn’t help but laugh at your passionate outburst as his hands ran across the smooth skin of your thighs. Your frustration was quickly replaced with pleasure when he opened your thighs, his warm breath ghosting across your core as his hands left you bare and spread before him.

“You’re so beautiful.” Chan’s lips pressed against your thigh quickly before he hovered over your center, tongue darting across his lower lip as his eyes drank in every dip and curve you had to offer.

Even though the words were nice to hear, you didn’t need him to utter those 3 little words. The expressions on his face as he took off your clothing, piece by piece, made you feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. His eyes always watched you with such wonder, hands always feeling the need to grab the parts of you that you once thought were horrible, a blush always evident on his cheeks when you were the most vulnerable to him, those were the unspoken words that didn’t need to be said.

You mean the world to me.

Without warning, Chan dove into your folds, tongue flattening against you as his fingertips pressed into your thighs. The overwhelming pleasure took you by surprise, making your back arch as a loud moan echoed through the room. Your head pressed into the pillows, hands tangling in Chan’s curly locks as his middle and index fingers entered your core.

The sinful sounds echoing in the room only heightened your pleasure — the sounds of moaning, sucking, licking, and slurping making your thighs shake around Chan’s head.

This was exactly why you guys couldn’t fuck in the dorms. It wouldn’t take long for one of the boys to hear the two of you and either A) ask you two to stfu and stop, or B) wonder if someone was dying. You two tried to fuck in the dorms once, but your voice (and Chan) betrayed you.

A harsh suck brought your attention back to the brunette between your legs. Chan backed away from your core, “Eyes on me princess.”

His big brown eyes watched every one of your reactions as his lips enclosed around your clit, sucking harshly, sending intense waves of pleasure through your body. Chan’s fingers curled inside you, hitting your g-spot with each harsh thrust.

The amount of pleasure you were feeling was indescribable. No vibrator could compare to the feeling of his fingers ramming inside you while his tongue flicked your clit. You couldn’t help but hope that he wouldn’t be gone this long again — even though you knew that wasn’t going to happen. Chan was an idol. Going on a world tour could take him away for nearly a year.

“Oh my God Chan.” Your whole body tensed as your orgasm approached, toes curling as shockwaves of pleasure coursed through you. It was as if a coil was tightening more and more with each pass of his tongue until it snapped.

A mixture of curse words and Chan’s name slipped from your lips as you reached your high, toes curling as your fingers let go of his hair to fist the sheets. Your thighs shook around his head as Chan’s tongue lapped up your juices, riding you through your orgasm.

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for that.” You panted, body shivering at the intense orgasm that was still making its way through your body.

Chan chuckled a bit, pulling his boxers off his body before hovering over you. He pressed a soft kiss to your nose, making you giggle a bit, before asking, “Can you keep going?”

His eyes held concern, which warmed your heart, but there was no way in hell you’d pass up having his cock inside you.

“Please keep going.” Your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him in for a kiss. “I need more of you.”

Chan pressed kisses all over your face before lining himself up with your core. “I’m happy to oblige.”

Your fingernails dug into Chan’s shoulder blades as he pressed into you — feeling every inch of his cock rub against your walls as his hips rocked into yours. Chan’s hands rested beside your head, holding up his weight so he wouldn’t crush you. You pressed your face in the crook of his neck, aiming to suck on his skin as he set a quick pace, thrusting into your heated core.

“No marks.” Chan commanded, the authority in his voice sending shivers down your spine.

“Yes sir.” You could swear you felt him twitch inside you at the title. Darn. You were really hoping to litter his pale skin with some dark purple marks. Then the whole world would know that he was yours. Then again… Perhaps he had a point. That could make for some bad publicity for Stray Kids.

Chan’s lips pressed against yours, giving you something to do with your tongue as he deepened the kiss. His hips slammed into you faster, gaining power with each thrust. You could feel his breath ghost across your lips as you parted for air. The new control you had over your mouth gave you the energy to focus on wrapping your legs around his waist, thighs squeezing him tightly as his hips ground into yours.

“I’m close baby.” Chan’s husky voice sounded strained as his thrusts became erratic.

“Choke me.” If you weren’t having the time of your life, you’d be embarrassed by how fucked out you sounded begging for his hand around your throat.

Chan groaned, hand immediately finding its way to your throat, pressing down firm. It was glorious, but you still wanted more.

“Harder.”

Chan quickly obliged, cutting off most of your air supply with his hand. The feeling of his fingers digging into your skin brought you to your second orgasm within seconds, a choked cry escaping your lips as you clenched around Chan’s cock, milking him into his own orgasm.

Chan released your throat, a deep moan echoing in the room as you tightened your thighs around his hips, forcing him to stay inside you as he hit his release. You could feel his cum coat your walls as he slowly rocked his hips against yours, helping the two of you ride out your orgasms. You repeated his name over and over as if it was the only thing you knew, arms holding him closer as you basked in the afterglow.

“I came inside.” Chan pulled out, running his hands through his hair, stress taking over any previous emotions he had felt.

You sat up and rushed to him, rubbing his shoulders to bring him down from his freakout. “Don’t worry, I’m on the pill.”

Chan sighed, relief flooding throughout his body as he sunk back into your embrace.

“Besides, even if I wasn’t, I kind of put you in a chokehold with my legs, so you would have had a right to freak out at me.” You giggled, running your fingers through his sweaty hair.

“You know, having children with you wouldn’t be so bad.” He mumbled.

You weren’t a fan of having kids in your early twenties, but hearing him admit that he wants kids someday warmed your heart. At least you knew if something were to happen and you got pregnant, you’d have Chan by your side. “Yeah?”

“You’d make a great mom.” Chan murmured, sleep slowly taking over the poor boy.

“I think you’re too tired to think straight.” You couldn’t help but tease him. He looked so tired.

Chan merely chuckled, pulling you under the covers to press your bodies together. “I am tired, but it’s true.”

You leaned your head against his chest, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat lulling you to sleep. The last thing you heard before you drifted off to sleep was Chan’s whispers, “I missed you.”

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sweetchup · 3 years

Text

Outrunning a Thief

Type: Chrollo x Reader

Prompt: Snow Goddess Day — The romance holiday of winter, celebrated all around the world. Traditionally, on this day females (though it can also be other genders) at a double number time (1:11, 2:22, etc.) will peck the cheek of their crush or lovers and run away. The males are given the task of having to find the girl before the next double digit and kiss them. This is a tradition based on the folktale Snow Goddess where a village man falls in love with the goddess of winter and has to find her to declare his love before winter ends and she disappears.

Author Note: Doesn’t Follow Canon plot. I hope you enjoy!!

(Prompts/Rules) (Holiday Masterlist)

“This is stupid. I’m not going to do this.” You groan sliding down the cold side of the brick chimney into a squatting position. The cold wind that flowed around the tops of the buildings pricked at your skin. However you couldn’t exactly feel it well, especially with the hot feeling of the blush on your face burning into your cheeks and ears. Putting your head down into your knees, you hear your younger half-brother, Killua, sigh for what felt like the 20th time that day.

“Come on (y/n). It’s not that hard. You’ve had to flirt with guys on missions before,” You let out a sputtering sound as you stand up from your spot. While you attempt to explain to Killua your problem, Kalluto comes over and clutches onto your leg in a way to somewhat comfort you. A strange act for the both of you, though you will admit it wasn’t un-welcomed.

“Y-yeah but this isn’t a mission Killua! This is the guy I like. It’s not th—“

“I found Chrollo.” Illumi montonly announces, pointing to someone in the crowded streets of the town. You are about to tell him to forget it when he sends a glare your way, “I don’t like the fact you like Chrollo especially since you are my precious older sister but don’t underestimate the fact I will drag you over to him and reveal to Chrollo all the secrets you like about him.”

Letting out an exaggerated gasp, you looked stunned at Illumi. “You wouldn’t do that to your older sister!”

“He would if it got you to stop telling us about you fantasizing about Chrollo’s abs— Hey! Don’t hit me! That actually hurt!”

“Oh, Killua~ I don’t think I hit nearly hard enough—!!“

“Big sis-sis.” You pause from putting Killua in a headlock to look over to Kalluto, “I think you’ll do fine, it’s Snow Goddess day after all. Though…”

Kalluto’s face suddenly goes dark, causing shivers to go up your spine.

“...If he doesn’t chase after you, I’ll just have to break his bones one by one.”

You gulp as you nod your head. Poor Chrollo, now you feel bad for having a crush on him. Your father already has tried to track him down once to kill him since you had a crush on him. Thankfully, your grandfather had decided to knock some sense into him.

“You better hurry, (y/n). It just hit 4:35. You have 9 more minutes.” You shake your head at Illumi as you finally decide to just go over to do it. Jumping down from the building into an abandoned alleyway, you make your way into the town center, slightly rubbing your eyes as you enter at how bright the sun is. You take a look around to try to locate your crush, Chrollo Lucilfer, also taking the time to look at other things around you as well.

Afterall, it was Snow Goddess day. It was the best chance to take. Especially since it was the romance holiday of the winter season, celebrated all around the world.

Traditionally, on this day females (though it can also be other genders) at a double number time (1:11, 2:22, etc.) will peck the cheek of their crush or lovers and run away. The males are given the task of having to find the girl before the next double digit and kiss them. This is a tradition based on the folktale Snow Goddess where a village man falls in love with the goddess of winter and has to find her to declare his love before winter ends and she disappears.

If Chrollo doesn’t actually like you back then oh well. Sure, you would have to stop your siblings from murdering him and will probably be eating cartoons of ice cream at home to calm your sorrow. But, eventually, you would get over yourself. In a couple of months, you would move on and laugh about the time you took place in this weird tradition. Just like how others do.

Finally locating Chrollo, you look towards the old town-center clock of the small city you were in, planning your course of action as you do so. Right now, you had 2 minutes and 30 seconds until it struck 4:44. Currently, Chrollo was peering at the market stalls with the other troupe members. You knew Feitan was somewhere around here but he didn’t see close to Chrollo so you didn’t have to worry about him stopping you if you got too close to the boss.

“Hey, Hey! Look who it is!” You let out a small laugh at Uvogin’s call towards you. “If it isn’t (y/n) Zoldyck!”

Once your name is announced, Chrollo quickly looked up from the book he was checking out at the stall. You were shocked to see that Chrollo wasn’t wearing his usual outfit today instead choosing to sport a pair of jeans, a comfy sweater and a black coat. He also chose to wear his hair down today with bandages covering his forehead tattoo. Though the unusual outfit had surprised you, you will not lie that it made your heart flutter to see him in casual clothing. While you walk over to Chrollo, said man gives you a curt nod and a small smile. “It’s been a while, Chrollo. How are you?”

Chrollo goes to speak but Uvogin cuts him off, clearly excited to see you after a while. This was oddly normal for you since all the members were usually happy to see you, especially if you were hanging out or helping their boss. Though, that was probably because you were a good friend of Chrollo, “Boss has been good (y/n). How come you are also in the same town as us?”

As you answer Uvogin’s question with a lie, you somewhat peek at the clock. Okay, (y/n). Only a minute left. You can do this. All you have to make sure you do is not bump into Uvogin or Nobunaga when you sprint away. That’s all you have to do.

“Oh, just a mission (y/n)?” Chrollo questions causing you to turn to face him. You laugh and give him a nod. Suddenly, however, something catches your eye. Bingo! You see that Chrollo had picked up a new book, yet this one was different with a clock built into the front. You could use this to not be seen suspicious to be looking at the time. “Hey Chrollo? What do these engravings mean on the cover?”

“Oh these? This book is based on the…” As Chrollo goes off into a tangent about the book’s meaning and history, you keep your eyes locked on the book’s clock. 10 seconds left. Slightly nervous, you move your feet slightly to a better angle to get ready to run.

5….

4…

3…

2.. “Hey boss! What are you doing?” Crap! You nearly fall over when Chrollo turns around as Phinks calls him. Though you quickly catch yourself and as he tries to answer Phinks back, you quickly grab the collar of his winter coat, catching the man off guard. Suddenly, the festive bells throughout the town ring begin to ring loudly, signaling the time of 4:44. With a beet red face, you quickly peck at Chrollo’s cold cheek before stepping away.

Without a second thought, and with your heart beating out of your chest, you make a run for it. Nearly running into Uvogin as you do so.

People watch intently as you run by them in the streets. Some of them cheer you on for your bravery while others say nothing and just give you a kind smile. It was weird that only now you understood why the tradition was so great. Sure you kind of understood before but no one ever told you the feeling when you saw other girls also participating, that looked and were probably so different from you. All of you couldn't help but greet and laugh at each other as you passed like old friends. Further filling you with a feeling of confidence. However, another thing not told that top every other feeling of this event was the colors. Oh, the colors from lights and ornaments and other decorations that seemed to mash and swirl and mix together as you ran by them. As if you were in a drunken haze. Everything just seemed so magical right now, almost too unreal.

As you make a couple of more streets down, now out of the town and into the start of a wooded area. Even though you know you aren’t technically supposed to, you stop. You can’t help but want to see if Chrollo was after you or not. Looking around behind you, you can’t see him. You actually couldn’t see anyone around you right now. Did you go too fast? No, that couldn’t be right. Chrollo wasn’t the fastest in the troupe but you were almost certain he was as fast as your dad. Your stomach drops as you continue to think. You weren’t nearly as fast as your dad, so…. he should have caught up to you by now, right? He actually should have caught you by now, you had already run more than 20 blocks or streets.

Then, does he not actually like—

You let out a scream as you are suddenly tackled into the snow. Some of which landing on your hair and eyes, blinding you.

Squirming, you try to get away from whoever tackled you as the cold fluffy snow pricks at your skin and seeps into your clothes, making you hyper aware of everything going on. When that is unsuccessful you go to try to kick the person off, thinking it was some other assassin or maybe a troupe member trying to kill you for attacking their leader’s honor, but stop short as a familiar laugh fills your ears. There was only one person you knew that had that laugh.

“C-chrollo?” You stutter out as said man wipes the snow off of your face. Now able to see, you stare up at Chrollo on top of you. His hair wispy and slightly out of place from running; he also seemed to be strangely breathing hard. He flashes you a grin before leaning his forehead against yours as he attempts to catch his breath. You giggle at the man’s silliness, “I don’t think I ran that much Chrollo.”

Chrollo chuckles at you, “I doubt you did but when you ran away, I was caught off guard and a group of ladies who were also running ended up…knocking me over. So, I kind of—”

“You lost me?!” You finish for him, your stomach hurting from laughing very hard. Tears from laughing so much hinder your vision and you attempt to wipe them away as fast as you can. Suddenly the laugh from Chrollo’s end goes quiet and you hear the snow crack around you as he moves.

Wiping one more tear away, you see Chrollo looking at your lips, only now realizing how close he is to you. You could even feel his breath slightly fan at your face when he inhaled and exhaled. You gulp when Chrollo flashes you one more grin before whispering, almost like a prayer, “I still have to kiss my Snow Goddess, don’t I?”

Quickly, you are about to nod in confirmation but it seems he doesn’t want to wait a second longer. Placing a hand on your cheek, he leans down and captures your lips in a kiss. Taking your breath away as he does so.

Huh, what a fitting kiss for the leader of the Phantom Troupe.

#hxh #Hunter X Hunter #hxh x reader #Phantom Troupe #chrollo lucilfer #chrollo

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imo-chan-imagines · 4 years

Text

『 Their best sexual characteristic | Haikyuu!! Headcanons 』

Part 5/?

Characters: female!reader, Miya Atsumu, Miya Osamu, Sakusa Kiyoomi

Tags/warnings: Haikyuu!! (anime), 18+, explicit descriptions of sex, headcanons, imagines

Attention: All characters in this series are aged up to be at least 18+

⚠️ 18+ CONTENT! MINORS: PLEASE DO NOT INTERACT ⚠️

A/N: These headcanons really are getting longer each time 😫 But I had a surprising amount of fun writing these ones. Hope you can tell that by reading them! Previous parts are linked at the bottom of the post. Thanks for reading! Please enjoy! ♡

Miya Atsumu

» His dirty talk

First off: that voice. I think y'all know what I'm talking about literally orgasmic

It's so deep, and smooth, and relaxing in a way that just gets you going. There's just something about it that makes you rub your thighs together if ya get me

And when he presses his lips close to your ear, his voice feels like he's caressing you all over yes all over

You basically get high off his voice. Cloud nine ☁️😍

He absolutely loves to talk dirty to you, telling you exactly what he's going to do to you, how pretty you look with your mouth around his cock, or how you're taking him inside you so well hnng

He's got a knack for choosing exactly the right words, and it gets your pussy dripping and aching for him

He always says about how your pussy feels like it was made for his cock

It fits so snug. Loose enough that he can fuck you whenever, but tight enough that he has to work for it

Astumu really loves teasing you – taking his time and priming you with his dirty talk, experimenting with just how close to the edge he can get you when he's hardly even touching you confident little shit, I love him

And it's pretty close

He's exactly the kind of guy to take over an hour making you desperate and horny for him, enjoying the view of your sensitive body squirming beneath him, craving some kind of release

Seeing you like that for him, all just with his words and the occasional well placed hands, boosts his ego to no end as well as making him literally rock hard, aye papi

And the sounds you make when you're a hot, horny mess~

Lord, he wants to record them on his phone and play them back full volume when he jacks off

Honestly, he just wants to record you in general. Take a video of you mewling for him. Maybe snap a pic from above of you with your top pulled up over your tits, nipples hard, thighs pressing together, and with the most desperate look on your face so he has it...you know...for later...

But he'd never actually do any of that without your consent, just to be clear

He'll do this until all you want – all your can think about – is having his cock inside you

And he can be ever so slightly mean and make you beg for it, with that cocky, lidded gaze and a faint smirk again – the little shit. But I love him

"What is it that you want, babygirl? I need to hear you say it. Don't be shy. Use those big words of yours."

But he'd never be so mean as to deny giving it to you. He always planned on fucking you until you can't walk please, oml

Besides, while he's been getting you all riled up, he's been getting just as flustered and desperate. He can just hide it pretty well because he relishes the process

And it's not all just talk, either. Astumu really delivers prime dick 🙌 let me tell you

But the dirty talk doesn't stop there

He uses that voice of his and those delicious words to drive you closer to your climax, his words getting cruder as his hips get sloppier, praising you to no end

He's not shy about what he thinks. He's incredibly straightforward about it

You're making him fucking horny? He'll tell you. Your pussy is the best he's ever fucked? He'll tell you flat out while he's pounding into you. He thinks you look beautiful stuffed with his cock? He won't even hesitate

Communication is key, ya know?

Astumu is a great sexter, too. He has you rushing home on a regular basis to get dicked down omw, lol

And he can't resist whispering dirty nothings in your ear in public, watching you twitch as you get flustered and needy he thinks it's really fucking adorable

The hottest shit since fire was discovered

But underneath that confident, teasing exterior, he's actually super soft for you

You mean the world to him, and his dirty talk is just a declaration of it. His little way of saying 'I love you'

And he's just as whipped for you and your pussy as you are for him and his cock

Awwww. Guys, true love is real 🥺

Miya Osamu

» He loves mutual masturbation

Is it a kink? A fetish? Yeah, pretty much

There's just something really fucking hot to Osamu about getting each other off/getting off in front of each each other

Like, stroke his cock while he's fingering you, and he's cumming in 2 minutes tops

Does it fully replace regular sex?

Nah. Osamu is still down to jump your bones, like, 80-90% of the time lmfao

But he's a pretty practical guy, you know?

He knows that people don't always have the time or the energy, or sometimes even the enthusiasm, to go ~all the way~ every single time

Even for a quickie which he is a fan of, tbh

So he sees mutual masturbation as a great alternative

You both get what you want, you get to do it together, and it really, really turns him on win-win, tbh

Plus, this way, he generally gets a better look at you while you two are going at it he loves a good view

He's a ~connoisseur~ if you will

Osamu is also really into thigh riding and dry humping not just for practicality, either

It's not uncommon for you to crawl onto his lap or thigh when he's busy at home and you're feeling needy, and slowly start grinding on him to get his attention

He might try and ignore you at first, play a little game of will-he-won't-he before he stops doing to whatever it was he was doing before and gives in to you

He'll never turn you away if you're desperate enough to start riding him like that. He's like, 'Damn, she really wants me, huh? 🥵'

Even if he wasn't horny before, he sure as hell is once you start rubbing yourself against him like that

He doesn't even really understand his fascination with all this stuff himself. Like, is it the fact that you're still wearing clothes? The extra friction? The intimacy? The neediness of it? Who knows 🤷‍♀️

All Osamu knows is that it makes his dick stand up faster and straighter than a patriot hearing the national anthem, lmfao, sooo....

He tries to let you do your thing when you're grinding against him like that, but his hands normally find their way to your hips and start firmly working you down into his crotch or thigh, harder and faster

He just can't help himself. The more he gets turned on, the more is hands wander they're kind of cold and it sometimes makes you jump or shiver

If he was being entirely honest, he'd admit how much he loves the feeling of your wet pussy sliding against him, or the feeling of your juices seeping through his trouser leg, making a beautiful, glistening mess but he's rarely that honest, unlike his brother, lol

Definitely the kind of guy to casually lick his fingers after making you cum around them 👅 he may or may not kiss you directly after

His face can be a little hard to read sometimes, but he gets this particularly hungry look in his eyes whenever he's turned on that sends a tingle up your inner thighs *eyebrow wiggle*

The proximity when you're getting each other off is a big win for him – the heat, the panting, the intensity, the little or not so little sounds that escape your lips~

It's all so steamy. It really gets his blood pumping to his diCK

When he's turned on, he gets a little blush across his cheeks that spreads to the tops of his ears you love seeing it from your vantage point when you're straddling him

One thing is certain, though, and that's that he wouldn't do this kind of thing with just anyone

There's something about mutual masturbation, thigh riding, etc. that's very intimate and personal to him, and he'd only do it with someone that he really loves and, perhaps even more importantly, trusts

It's an honour, my gal 😌 He doesnt open up to just anybody 🥺

Sakusa Kiyoomi

» His cum kink

So, a 'cum kink' is pretty vague, as it can mean literally almost anything to do with cum make sure you do you research, my peeps

But Sakusa has a pretty specific cum kink, and that's that his goes inside you

Doesn't really matter if it's your mouth or your pussy I'm not going to say ass, because I feel like that's a big no-no for him

He just likes it going inside you. Swallow it, hold it in by laying on your back with your legs up – whatever. All good to him

But!

It's not a breeding kink thing. It's actually surprise, surprise because it's cleaner. Less mess

Now, Sakusa holds great pride in being able to make you cum, and duh he likes the feeling of himself cumming. He just doesn't want it getting everywhere

Cum is a nightmare to clean out of stuff!! And he wears a lot of black, so it's not a good mix!!

Legit, don't get cum stains on black clothes, guys. 100% not a good time 😭😭

The reason for it isn't the hottest or most romantic thing in the world, but like I said before:

He loves cumming inside you

Just, for the love of God, don't let it all flow back out again please. If not for his sanity, then for your own, because he will fucking go off 😭😂

Condoms are normally a must again, for hygiene reasons

Wrap that shit up, my dudes

But if you get to the stage of your relationship where you're wanting to try going raw and maybe have a baby then~

Damn, this man is going to absolutely destroy your pussy 😩

And if you happen to have a little breeding kink yourself, then you're in for a treat, my gal~

He'll definitely play it up just for you, and will not shut up about how he's going to fill you up until you're fucked out and your pussy is stuffed to the brim with his cum

When you're done, he'll literally take a firm hold your legs and keep them up in the air to stop his cum escaping *sweats in breeding kink*

Rest in pieces if you have a bad gag reflex, because Sakusa enjoys deep-throating, and literally cumming straight into your stomach lmao, and he's a big boy, so prepare yourself

Again, no clean-up = ideal

He can normally be a little rough, but he is the GOD of hate/angry/frustration sex. Like, taking out his stress and frustration in bed just makes it even better

He can be a little iffy about giving you oral or fingering you, though. 'Tis a bit messy for his tastes

He doesn't like to make you do all the work, though. It makes him feel lousy

So one time he offered to finger you while wearing a pair of those latex gloves that doctors wear lmfao, gold star for Kiyoomi. He tried 😭

And I'm not even remotely exaggerating when I say he will outright refuse to have sex with you if you have a cold

Exchange of bodily fluids when you're ill is a big NOPE did you honestly expect anything else? 😭

This isn't even about his kink anymore. Whoops 🙃

♡°☆°♡°☆°♡

Part 1: Oikawa, Daichi, Kuroo

Part 2: Ushijima, Suga, Bokuto

Part 3: Iwaizumi, Akaashi, Asahi

Part 4: Kageyama, Noya, Tendou

#imo chan imagines #haikyuu!!#hq!#headcanons #imagines #smut #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu smut #haikyuu x reader #miya atsumu #miya osamu #sakusa kiyoomi #miya atsumu x reader #miya osamu x reader #sakusa kiyoomi x reader

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ofwolvesandbutterflies · 4 years

Text

call you mine

Pairing: Lee Donghyuck x Reader

Genre: fluff

Tags: bestfriends!au

Warnings: lil bit of language

Synopsis: Donghyuck hadn’t yet mustered the courage to tell you just how often he found himself staring at you for longer than he should have. He hadn’t found the words to say that he cared for you in ways that were inappropriate for just a ‘friendship’. But he was back at it again, missing you like you owned the other half of his heart, yearning for your presence like you were his oxygen.

A/N: happy birthday to the beautiful, the breath-takingly talented, the one and only, Lee Donghyuck! i love you with a whole half of my heart (the rest belongs to jaehyun whattt) you make me smile, you make me laugh, you inspire me. i wish you all the happiness and love and health in the world on your birthday!

// can I call you my own and can I call you my lover, call you my one and only girl // (x)

There it was again. The strange thrumming in the center of Donghyuck’s chest. Buried deep within the recesses of his heart, it seemed memories of you were begging him to let them resurface. And he rolled over, eyes finally opening as the grey of the early morning clouds painted the entirety of the sky. Glancing around his room, he released an inaudible sigh. 04:29

The sun had yet to come up.

He fumbled around for his phone in the darkness of his barely lit room. The chances of him falling asleep again were close to none, Hyuck knew this from experience. So as he lay there, the sound of his heartbeat filled his ears and he gave in. A foreign dampness surfaced around his eyes as thoughts of you poured into the empty cracks and crevices of his heart. The secret smile he caught on your lips every time he said something dumb. The color of your eyes and the way you’d stare at him when he spoke, laughed, cried, sang. The way you looked in his clothes, when the hem of his shirts cascaded past your knees and his sleeves fell way past your hands. Oh, he loved that.

He missed you. Donghyuck smiled to himself, albeit the bitter taste that filled his mouth when he found himself staring at your contact on his phone again. It was a picture of you. Not a selfie though. There you were, sitting on his lap in one of his large hoodies, a giggle frozen on your lips when you realized that he had had his phone out to record the fact you had laughed at the dumb joke Mark told him was much too cringe-worthy for anyone to even consider laughing at.

There was no viable reason he was missing you so badly. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t seen you in a while. No, he saw you just a couple days ago. And it wasn’t as if the two of you had broken up. Donghyuck hadn’t yet mustered the courage to tell you just how often he found himself staring at you for longer than he should have. He hadn’t found the words to say that he cared for you in ways that were inappropriate for just a ‘friendship’. But he was back at it again, missing you like you owned the other half of his heart, yearning for your presence like you were his oxygen.

Before his mind could convince him it was a bad idea, the sound of dialling filled the stillness of the room and increased the anxiety pumping through his veins. Shit. Had he really just pressed ‘call’?

“Hello?” your tired voice filtered through the phone speaker after a few rings and guilt flooded him at the possibility of having woken you up. “Hyuck?” you yawned when he didn’t immediately respond. “Are you there?”

“Oh-” a pretty pink blush bit at his cheeks at the sound of your low morning voice. “Yeah sorry, I’m here,” he mumbled. “Did I wake you?”

Your soft chuckle played through his phone and Hyuck swore his heartbeat sped up tenfold. “You’re good,” you said, the soft rustling of blankets reminding him of how soft your comforter was that one time he slept over. “It’s been hard to stay asleep recently.”

A grumble of sympathy sounded in the back of his throat. He was familiar with the struggle. After all, you had been occupying his mind recently. “Are you alright?” His voice came out low, concerned and he shifted in his bed, kicking off his comforter. The sound of a brief exhale came from your side of the line and it was a moment before you answered.

“...you wanna come over?”

Donghyuck’s heart jumped into his throat. “I can be over in ten if you need.” He half expected you to laugh at the giddiness he knew seeped so obviously from his response. But you didn’t. Instead, you stuttered, sounding almost unsure by his certainty.

“I-I… are you sure? You don’t n- I mean, I don’t want to be a bother making you get up so early in the morning, too. Yo-you don’t need to, I-”

He laughed, a deep sound so rooted in absolute assurance that you stopped spouting nonsense. “It’s no bother, Y/N. I’d travel the world to make sure you’re okay. I hope you know that.”

The silence he was met with made him realize the magnitude of what he had just slip. Fuck. He thought. Early mornings truly made for no filter. Finally, you spoke, the shy smile obvious in your voice.

“Well, I guess it’s good I don’t live that far away, right?” And the smile that bloomed on Haechan’s lips near rivaled the slowly rising sun.

“I’ll be over in a few.”

ii.

It was 4:56 when Haechan called you. Truth be told, you hadn’t been asleep at all. It was one of those nights where there really wasn’t anything preventing you from falling into the clutches of unconsciousness, but the whispering of night continued to call you, distract you. Exhaustion was settling into your bones as the night had gone on for hours and your mind insisted on waking you up every other collection of minutes. From food to television to the newest episode of that one show… Anything and everything was on your mind. It was fine, though.

Anything to distract you from Donghyuck. Once thoughts of him infiltrated your mind, there was nothing that could deactivate the ever present stream of cues and triggers that reminded you of him. A sliver of sun peeking through the cracks of your blinds could bring you back to the way his natural honey tinted skin gleamed in any natural lighting. The smell of freshly washed linen would hasten the slow jog of your heartbeat to a rolling sprint until you could no longer rid the thought of waking up, snuggled next to him as the credits of a movie played out silently. The fabric of your favorite black hoodie rubbing against the skin of your back could snatch your attention from anything and everything to the fading ghostly feeling of his nose pressed into your neck, breath hot against your skin, arms doing nothing but tightening around your waist.

And the moment the phone rang, your rigid body loosened. Your thoughts stilled, having been interrupted by the ringtone you had set especially for him.

Just as he promised, he was there within 10 minutes. A mirthful smile graced your lips when you heard the familiar knocking pattern. It sounded just like everything else about him when he was with you. Soothing. Gentle. Persistent. You padded down the hallway with bare feet, rubbing the remaining sleep from your eyes. You paid no heed to the early morning chill of the tile beneath your feet despite the fact your body was adorned only by one of his hoodies and the pair of panties you had fallen asleep in.

Gentle, tired, and filled to the brim with unadulterated adoration was the smile you were met with as you opened the door. The drab monotony of the white-ish clouds hovering over the brightening horizon did nothing to block the smile full of life found on Donghyuck’s precious lips. He was dressed in a light grey hoodie and large black sweat pants that dwarfed his figure. And for a moment, you gazed at him, drinking in the way his large eyes smiled back at yours, glassy with sleep. His soft hair stood, still tousled from sleep, straight up.

In that instant, you forgot that it was only 5 in the morning. But time was a social construct that slowed infinitely when you finally opened the door wider. It only took an instant for all the chill of the morning dissipate into nothing the second Donghyuck wrapped his arms tighter than ever around your body.

“Hey Y/N,” he murmured against the shell of your ear, deft fingers smoothing over your hair, your body, the fabric of his extra large hoodie draped well past your thighs. “Is now a bad time?”

A quiet chuckle reverberated in the husk of your chest and in turn, you buried yourself in the warmth only he could exude. “Don’t be ridiculous, silly goose. Being with you is never a bad time.” your words were mumbled, muffled by the thick layer of fabric separating your two bodies but you knew he understood. “Thank you for coming over,” you hummed, reveling in the steady beat of his heart. “I know this is kind of early.”

Hyuck pulled back far enough to shoot you a playful frown. “Don’t be ridiculous, Y/N. I was the one who called you this early anyways.” You smiled.

“Oh right, huh?” Another few moments in his grasp and you would have most definitely fallen asleep. But a gust of wind curled through the front door that had been left ajar by your early morning visitor and you made a sound of displeasure. Slowly, slowly, and almost reluctantly, you extracted yourself from his grip.

“Wait, what are you-” He spun about on his heels, watching as you stumbled around him to close the door. “Oh, nevermind.” Within seconds, your dear friend’s arms enveloped you again, this time snaking sneakily around your waist from behind. “I was like, what are you doing, trying to sneak away? I just got here.”

You giggled, resting your head back against his chest. “I was just closing the door, don’t worry.” The cool of the brisk morning air slowly subsided the longer your relaxed into his cozy embrace. Before long, the soft pattern of inhales and exhales floating from both of your lips fell into a type of white noise... a type of rhythm-less music.

“Right, because I was about to say…” his breath brushed down the exposed skin of your collarbone, sending an involuntary shiver down your spine. “Even with you right here, it was getting kinda cold.” You nodded in agreement as another giggle escaped your lips and you twisted in his arms to look up at him.

“Good thing you’re here.”

“Why’s that, princess?” Donghyuck leaned down, resting his forehead against yours in such an intimate gesture that you nearly gasped in suprise. His bated breath danced across your skin and in that moment, you were made aware of just how close his lips were to yours.

You tore your gaze off the boy before you, eyes bouncing off random things around the room to keep the blush threatening your cheeks at bay. “I don’t know... I guess, whenever I’m with you- you just- when you’re around, I’m always warm.”

iii.

Waking up at 4, jogging over to your house at 5, falling asleep with you in his arms, and waking up again at one in the afternoon hadn’t originally been part of his plan for the day. But as Donghyuck blinked the sleep away from his eyes to see you in one of his hoodies with your messy hair splayed over your pillow and your body nestled securely into his arms, he couldn’t find a reason to complain.

The curve of your lips twitched when he released an arm from around your body to brush a couple strands of hair from out of your face. A smile made its way up to his face when you woke, glancing up at him blearily. Warmth filled his belly as you gazed up at him through your wispy eyelashes, the upwards slope in your sleepy smile widening, the affection in your eyes glowing something fierce.

It took a second for you to realize this - laying beside him with Hyuck’s arms resting firmly around your hips - was not a dream, not just another wistful fantasy you had woven together from the solitude of your single-ness and had yet to wake up from.

The sun streaming through your blinds hit his mussed, auburn hair in such a way that it looked golden, like a halo, or a sun. One of his arms lay under your head like a makeshift pillow. His other hand grazed your cheek, tracing the outline of your face as you memorized the way he looked now - in all his lazy afternoon glory - beside you. And when the realization finally settled in, a slow, wonder-filled laugh left your mouth. Donghyuck propped himself up on an elbow, grinning down at you.

“What’s so funny, beautiful?”

“Nothing,” you shook your head, the nickname flying past your mind, smile still playing at the edge of your lips as you rolled over to hide your burning face in his chest. “I just… this was the best I’ve slept in such a long time that I almost forgot you came over this morning, so seeing you was like… Woah, who is this dream man laying beside me? Am I still asleep?”

Biting back a smile, he hummed thoughtfully and pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Maybe I should sleep over more often then? You could get more sleep and a hot man to wake up to each morning!”

You sat up with him, sleep drunk smile decorating your lips. Out of instinct, you found your hands reaching forwards to run your fingers through his hair, fixing all the silly little strands that stood up in all different directions. Had you been more focused on his face though, you would have noticed the light dusting of pink settling over his cheeks. You were so… close. And you felt so much like home. Donghyuck’s heartbeat pounded in his ears and he prayed you couldn’t hear it.

“I mean, honestly, though-” you giggled in response. “-my bed’s always open for you, if you’d like. I know I wouldn't complain if I woke to this every morning.” Redirecting your gaze down to his deep, chestnut colored eyes, you leaned forwards to bop the tip of his nose playfully, giggling again when he blinked in surprise. “Now come on, I’m hungry and I wanna go out.”

But as you pushed yourself off your bed, Hyuck sat, pondering your words. Would you really be okay with waking up beside him every morning? He ran his fingers through his hair, sliding out of your bed to follow you out into the kitchen.

God, he loved you. He loved the way you giggled, he loved the way your fingers felt in his hair. He loved the way you looked, wrapped his arms. He loved the way you gazed up at him through your eyelashes. Perhaps today was the day, then, he thought to himself. Maybe I’ll tell her today.

Having jogged up ahead, you turned, any ounce of exhaustion from before completely dissipated into thin air. You smiled, wrapping your arms - still draped in his hoodie - around yourself. Donghyuck had fallen behind, eyes glazed over in thought as he moved sluggishly after you.

“Hyuck, you bean-brain,” you called. He blinked the looming confession from the forefront of his mind and shook his head a couple times before realizing you had called him.

“’Sup beautiful?”

A pretty pinkish glow slid onto your cheeks just as a cheeky smirk fell over his lips. “I think I have some of your clothes in my closet if you wanna change.”

“Why?” he shot you a look before lifting his arm to sniff himself. “Do I smell or something? I could’ve sworn I put on deodorant before I ran over this morning.”

You rolled your eyes, wrinkling your nose as if you had smelt something dank. “Yes, you smell horrid- no, you smell fine, Hyuck.”

“Then why am I changing?”

“So you don’t look like you just woke up.” It wasn’t like he didn’t look good, large t-shirt crinkled from cuddling with you. Donghyuck looked more than good. He looked angelic. He looked inviting and soft. Your eyes traced his well cut figure, taking the time to study everything. There was something about him and the way he stood, the way he looked at you, the way that little half smile quirked the corners of his lips up... there was something about him that just screamed boyfriend... and a shameless blush burned at your features when you realized you had been staring, again.

“You look like you just woke up,” he pouted. “And I must say... you work it pretty well, cutie.”

“Oh, shut up,” you growled playfully, turning back towards the kitchen. “Just go change, okay? You want anything before we head out?”

“Just for you to put some pants on,” he called on his way back to your room. You snorted at his comment from your precarious stance atop a dining chair.

“Why? Your hoodie goes like almost all the way down my thighs.”

“Much as I love the way you look in my clothes, we can’t have other guys seeing what’s mi-” Donghyuck stopped, both physically and verbally right in front of your door. Shit, did he really almost say that? He had been mumbling, so there was a chance you didn’t hear him. Then, at the same time, part of him longed to call you ‘his’.

“What’d you say?” your disembodied voice carried through his panicked thoughts. “I didn’t catch the last part.”

“Nothing.” He sighed in relief - albeit a little disappointed - the simple action releasing all the tension in his shoulders before turning back towards your room. No, he sighed, shuffling through your closet, a smile still very much present on his face. Today was already as good as it was going to get. He was spending it with you.

Maybe not today.

a/n: part 2 anyone?

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bubonickitten · 4 years

Link

Summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Previous chapter: AO3 // tumblr

Chapter 15 full text & content warnings below the cut.

CWs for Chapter 15: mentions of Buried-related trauma (claustrophobia, etc.); a somewhat lengthy discussion of recurrent suicidal ideation (including some informal safety planning); panic/anxiety symptoms; mild self-harm (as a stim to distract from anxiety/intrusive thoughts); swears; mentions of starvation & restrictive behaviors re: Jon’s statement dependence (also some internalized ableism re: the substance dependence/addiction parallels); internalized victim blaming; post-traumatic stress reactions/flashbacks re: Jonah-typical awfulness. SPOILERS through Season 5.

Also, apologies in advance, but ADHD!Jon Went Off for several paragraphs at one point in this chapter and I (and by extension Martin) just let him run with it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Chapter 15: What Comes After

Jon sits on the floor with his back to the wall, waiting as Basira helps Daisy wash away nearly eight months of grime. Through the closed door and underneath the rapid drumbeat of water, he can make out a steady stream of murmured conversation, punctuated by the occasional sob or bitten-back groan of pain. The words are indistinct, but Jon doesn’t need to Know what is being said to guess the gist of it.

Eventually, the shower turns off. It takes several more minutes before the door opens. Even though Jon knows what to expect, he has to suppress a sympathetic grimace when he lays eyes on Daisy.

She sits hunched forward on the closed toilet lid, damp hair hanging limp around her face and dripping onto the tile floor. There is a sickly pallor to her skin, mottled with bruising and scrubbed-raw patches of pink. The clothes she’s wearing are her own – Basira never could bring herself to discard her things – but they no longer fit. Her shirt practically drowns her emaciated frame now, hanging loose off of one shoulder and exposing the hollows of her collarbone. The dark shadows under her puffy, bloodshot eyes might just rival Jon’s.

“Better?” Jon gives her a weak half-smile.

“Cleaner,” Daisy says hoarsely, staring listlessly at the floor.

“Your turn,” Basira says, meeting Jon’s eyes and jerking her head back towards the shower. “Left the shower stool in there for you. Clean clothes are on the counter.”

“Thanks,” Jon says, but he doesn't move. Part of his brain is telling him to stand; another, more reasonable part is just now realizing that sitting on the floor in the first place was probably a bad idea.

“Do you, uh – need help?”

“No,” Jon says hurriedly, “that – won’t be necessary.”

“No, I wasn’t suggesting –” Basira sighs, flustered. “I just meant that maybe you want to wait until Georgie gets here?”

Now that the adrenaline is fading, Jon’s skin is crawling with every moment the Buried still clings to him. Every slight movement sends loose dirt raining down onto the floor. He needs a shower.

“If you could just help me stand up, I should be able to handle the rest.”

Basira gives a curt nod, quickly recovering from the awkward moment, and hauls him to his feet. Steadying himself against the wall with one hand, he tests putting weight on his bad leg.

“Daisy still needs to see a doctor, and –” Basira frowns, watching Jon wince as he takes a step forward. “Are you sure you’ll be alright? You’re not going to – pass out and drown in two inches of water, are you?”

It wouldn’t kill me, Jon tries to say, wry and only half-joking.

“Not enough to kill me outright,” he says instead. When he feels that familiar static-laden filter slide into place in his mind, he freezes. Before the fear can properly move in, though, Basira’s voice cuts through his stirring panic.

“You’re alright, Jon,” she says, authoritative but without heat. “Just breathe through it, remember?”

Jon nods distractedly, shutting his eyes and focusing on his own breathing. It takes a minute, but the pressure eventually eases enough for him to hear himself think again.

“Are you okay?” Daisy asks, brow furrowed.

“Yes. Sorry.” Just those two simple words are a struggle to vocalize, but once he manages, the rest of the weight lifts from his thoughts. He glances at Basira. “I’m sorry, it just – slipped out, and –”

“It’s fine.” Basira looks him up and down. “I think maybe you should wait for Georgie, though.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s just my leg, and I’m used to dealing with that on my own.”

“I thought you injured your ribs.”

“Archivist,” he says with a shrug – a mistake, he realizes a moment too late, as it disturbs his injuries. He just barely manages to avoid flinching. “I heal quickly.”

The truth is, his ribs are unlikely to fully heal until he gets a statement in him. In fact, the last time, his weakness only started to fade after he’d taken a live statement. He’d rather not dwell on that right now, though.

“Hm.” Basira fixes him with a skeptical look.

“I’ll be alright, I promise. You should see to Daisy.”

“No,” Daisy says. Both Basira and Jon glance over at her. A noticeable full-body shiver sweeps over her, and Basira grabs a dry towel from the small stack on the counter.

“You need professional medical attention,” Basira says firmly, wrapping the towel around Daisy and adjusting it to cover her bare arms. “I’m taking you to A&E.”

Daisy ignores her, raising her head to look at Jon instead.

“I was thinking I could – stay, if you want?” She casts her eyes down again and her voice drops to a low murmur. “It’s just – the shower, it’s – a tight space, and – and it might…”

Jon bites the inside of his cheek. It’s true: the shower stall is tiny. Claustrophobic. The room itself is small and poorly ventilated; steam builds up within a minute of the shower being turned on, turning the air thick and stifling with humidity. The single dim light in the ceiling has a tendency to flicker; the bulb has been known to come loose from time to time, plunging the area into near-darkness.

It isn’t the Buried, but there’s enough here to bring the Coffin to mind on a bad day – and especially right now, less than two hours out of the place.

The last time, Daisy never could manage to use the shower without someone else in the room to keep her company. When Basira was unavailable, she would turn to Jon. Eventually, he got comfortable with her returning the favor. It became a routine, but…

“I’ll be okay,” he says again. Unconvincingly, judging from the way Daisy’s eyes narrow at him.

“Do you really want to be alone right now?”

“I…”

No, I don’t. I really, really don’t.

“Look, I’m not trying to make it – weird,” Daisy continues, fiddling with one corner of her towel. “It’s not like I’ll see you through the curtain. I just thought – maybe you could use some company? Don’t say ‘I’m fine,’” she says as he opens his mouth to respond. “Just because you can deal with it alone doesn’t mean you should have to.”

“Well, yes, but –”

“Do you not want me here? Because if you really want me to leave, I will, but –”

“No, I wouldn’t mind the company, honestly, but –”

“Then I’ll stay.” She looks at Basira, as if daring her to object.

Last time, she did object, Jon remembers. Now, though… Basira simply sighs.

“Fine. But,” she adds emphatically, giving Daisy a severe look, “I’m taking you to A&E as soon as Georgie gets here, and you don’t get to argue.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Daisy says with a tired grin.

“Liar,” Basira says, shaking her head with a fond, amused sort of resignation. “I’ll be just outside if you need me.”

As Basira leaves, Jon catches Daisy’s eye.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

“Thank you,” Daisy says at the exact same time. “For not leaving me.”

Their tentative, exhausted smiles are mirror images of one another as understanding passes between them.

Someone upstairs has a statement.

The Archivist Knew the moment she mounted the steps to the Institute. She was marked by the Spiral, the Hunt, and the Lonely in quick succession, but the Archivist can only barely make out the edges of the story: how she was pursued through a nonsensical, constantly-shifting maze of alleyways by a hulking thing that always stayed one step behind, never letting her escape but never deigning to actually catch her.

There was no one in that place to hear her screams. Now, all she wants is to be heard.

The Archivist can give that to her. It would be so easy, so right. She came to the Magnus Institute of her own volition, didn’t she? She’s here to give her statement. The Archivist can take it from her and preserve her voice and relive her story for the rest of –

Jon twists his fingers in his hair and pulls until it hurts.

“You need to sit down,” Georgie says for the third time in as many minutes.

“Just keeping warm.”

It’s not necessarily a lie. The perpetual damp chill of the tunnels seeps into Jon’s bones in spite of his three layers of clothing and Georgie’s scarf wrapped twice around his neck. Beyond that, though, fevered movement is the only thing keeping him from falling to pieces. If he stops or slows, it will become all the more obvious how badly he’s trembling and all the more difficult to ignore the hunger gnawing away at him.

“You’re not even pacing, you’re just – limping.” When he doesn’t reply, Georgie reaches out and touches his shoulder. “Sit. We have some time before Martin gets here.”

With a sigh, Jon finally capitulates, sinking into the nearest chair. Immediately, he starts to jiggle one leg, fingers tapping restlessly on his knees.

“Talk to me, Jon,” Georgie says, taking a seat opposite him. “What’s on your mind?”

“I… I don’t know. It’s – a lot, and…”

He trails off, unsettled at the sound of his own voice, shaking almost as badly as the rest of him. His mouth has gone too dry to comfortably swallow, and every passing thought feels blurry around the edges, too ephemeral to translate into the spoken word. The only thing coming through loud and clear is the need and the knowledge that he has the means to sate it, if he would only embrace it.

There are no words to describe the experience, nor does he wish to verbalize it in the first place. As for the rest of it…

“Of course now I can talk,” he says with a weak laugh, “I suddenly don’t know what to say.”

“Take your time.”

Jon hunches forward, allowing himself to rock back and forth in slight movements as he tries to gather his thoughts.

“I’m –” Hungry. Terrified. Exhausted. Weak. Hungry, craving, needing, wanting – “At a loss.”

“About why you can talk again?”

Yes. Sure. He can go with that. It isn’t a lie, and it feels like a safer topic than all the rest.

“In part. I don’t understand why I have my voice back, or what that means, and of course my mind is immediately going to the worst-case explanations, and” – now he’s started, he rapidly gains momentum, his speech growing pressured and frantic – “I should just be grateful that I can use my own words again, but I can’t just let it go, because when have I ever been able to just let something go, and –” He tugs on a lock of hair again, letting out a self-deprecating chuckle. “Unsurprisingly, I hate not knowing.”

“Well… how about starting with that? Give me some theories. Might help to get them out of your head for a minute.”

“Most of it comes down to… I don’t know – why now, I suppose? I don’t have an answer to that, which just makes me think – did I have a choice all along?” It’s a question that has been plaguing him for hours, sitting poised and ready to spring in the back of his mind, but as he finally speaks it aloud, a chill comes over him. His voice fractures like a crack spreading weblike through thin ice. “This whole time, was I just… not trying hard enough?”

“I don’t think –”

“It was the same with taking statements,” he blurts out, wide-eyed and wound taut. “When the others discovered what I was doing, I stopped, which means I – I could have done all along, and just – didn’t.”

“You implied before that you were sort of – influenced?” Georgie’s voice is thoughtful, not accusatory; her expression searching, but not judgmental. Jon can feel his shoulders relax just slightly.

“‘Influenced’ is one way to put it, yes. But not controlled, exactly – not quite. It was – instinctual, almost? And once a story starts, it’s sort of like – being in a trance, I suppose.”

“I remember you having a kind of… faraway look to you, when I was telling you my story.”

“It wasn’t like that in the very beginning,” he says, watching his fingers curl on his bouncing knees. “I don’t know when they started having that effect on me. I… didn’t even notice the change. Didn’t notice that I was physically dependent on them until I was traveling. Started to get sick the longer I went without them. And when I woke up… just reading statements wasn’t enough anymore.” He draws in a measured breath. Gathers his thoughts. Exhales slowly. “The first time, I was just shopping. I felt – unwell, hazy. Then he was there, and I just – Asked, before I even realized what was happening. The next time was just after Melanie stabbed me –”

“She what?”

“It was – sort of deserved,” Jon says, waving it off. He continues before Georgie can get another word in. “I felt – drained, after. Thought I just needed some air, so I went for a walk. Wasn’t long before I crossed paths with my next – victim. Didn’t realize until much later that I must have been… hunting, subconsciously. Like a fugue, almost. But just before I Asked, I had this moment where I – I knew what I was about to do, and I just – did it anyway. And then the third time was –”

“After the Coffin,” Georgie guesses. The look on her face is that mixture of sadness and pity that haunted Jon in their shared nightmares for so long.

“Yes.” Jon keeps his eyes downcast. “And the fourth time was after I – well, I tried too hard to Know something, and it sort of – took it out of me.”

“So the trigger is being injured, or weakened?”

“Maybe in the beginning. The last time, though… I was feeling weak, yes, but there was no specific incident that precipitated it. Basira needed me at full strength for a mission. So I Knew where I could find a statement, and I made sure to be in the right place at the right time.” He wrings his hands in his lap. “But the mission was just the way I rationalized it to myself. I was just hungry. I would’ve fed regardless, and reached for whatever excuse was closest to hand, and felt guilty later, and – well, rinse and repeat.”

“You didn’t quite answer when I asked before, but… is it an addiction, or is it sustenance?”

“It’s a… need.” Jon bites his lip in thought. “Feels like addiction sometimes, but the compulsion is worse than nicotine cravings ever were. And when I tried to stop, it – it wasn’t only withdrawal. I actually was starving. Still don’t know if it would have actually killed me, but…” He shrugs. “Suppose we’ll find out.”

“Jon –”

“But I – I need you to understand,” Jon says, jolting up straight in his seat. “I’m not making excuses. I’m done making excuses, there are no excuses, just – explanations. I was influenced, yes, and it often felt like being – enthralled, but I still… I knew that I was dangerous, that what I was doing was wrong. If I thought I couldn’t help myself, I should’ve told the others from the start and they would’ve done what was necessary. I always felt ashamed after, but I still – kept doing it, until I was forced to stop.”

He’s ranting at full-tilt now, breath quickening and heart stuttering in his throat.

“I didn’t just need it, Georgie, I wanted it. I – I liked it. It felt good. And I know for a fact that it still would, if I let myself do it again. I’ve seen the consequences of becoming – that, and I still…” His shoulders sag. “I miss it. I’m afraid I’ll never stop wanting it, I hate myself for that, and it changes nothing.”

“You’re hungry now, aren’t you?” Georgie asks gently.

Jon tsks and pinches the bridge of his nose. “That obvious, is it?”

“Mm.” She gives him a sympathetic smile. “You seem more jittery than usual. And you’re shaking.”

“Ravenous,” he says with a bitter laugh. “Worst I’ve been in – a long while, and it’s only going to get worse.”

He lets his gaze drift to the floor as he briefly debates whether to share the details. She should probably know what manner of monster she’s dealing with.

“Actually, ah – someone upstairs has a statement,” he says before he can lose his nerve. “She was writing it out just before we came down here, and I could See the shape of it, but not the whole story, and now I can’t See her anymore, and I – I need –” He runs a frustrated hand through his hair, scraping ragged fingernails against his scalp. “Christ, Georgie, it’s all I can do not to rush up there and rip it out of her.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“Not yours, either. Don’t,” Georgie says, cutting him off when he opens his mouth to launch into another tirade. “I’m not saying that you were justified in hurting people. But you didn’t choose to be… this.”

“I may not have wanted it,” he says flatly, “but I did choose it.”

“How so?”

She sounds genuinely curious, not confrontational, which keeps him from going on the defensive. Instead, the question gives Jon pause.

“I… I don’t know how to explain it,” he says slowly, frowning. “Just – something Jonah said to me, and it – feels right.”

“He said that to you?” Georgie’s eyes narrow as she watches him. “Those words?”

“Yes?” Jon squirms in his seat; sometimes, Georgie’s scrutiny is on par with that of the Beholding. “A long time ago. Before the Unknowing, even. When I realized that I was becoming something – not human, and confronted him about it.”

Georgie taps a knuckle against her lips, looking down at the floor in thought.

“Jon, I’m going to say something, and I want you to think about it – really think about it, don’t just discard it offhand. Alright?”

“Okay?” Jon says, apprehension flooding him.

Georgie takes a breath and looks him in the eye.

“Supernatural flavor aside, that’s just how abusers talk in order to groom their victims.”

Jon recoils as if struck and shoves the information away from him almost as soon as the words leave her mouth.

“Does it really matter?” It comes out far more harshly than he had intended, closer to a shout than a comment, and he cringes. “Sorry. It’s just – he had a point.”

“Jon –”

“No, I chose to keep looking for answers at every turn,” Jon says, gesticulating wildly. “I’ve never known when to just stop, no matter how many times people get hurt from it. I was a perfect fit for the Beholding, the perfect candidate for Jonah to do with what he will, and I – I still am. Doesn’t matter if I wanted this outcome. I still sought it out. Moth to a fucking flame.”

“Doesn’t mean you chose it, and it doesn’t mean you deserved what happened to you,” Georgie says. For some reason that Jon can’t quite pinpoint, the quiet confidence with which she speaks grates on his nerves. “And anyway, it seems to me you’re doing a decent job at controlling yourself now.”

“Yeah.” He huffs. “Only it took Basira threatening to kill me.”

“She what?”

“Not recently. In my future. It was warranted,” he says with a dismissive gesture. Then he sighs, slouching in his seat. “And I don’t know if even that threat would have stopped me forever. Didn’t have to find out. I managed to end the world first, and then I had all the fear I could ever want.”

The moment he stops speaking, his mind once again drifts to the statement ripe for the taking just upstairs. His bitter expression turns anguished and he buries his face in his hands.

“I want to kill the part of me that misses it. That might just kill all of me, but honestly, Georgie, I don’t – I don’t know if that would be such a bad thing –” He chokes on his words and looks up at her with wide, frantic eyes. “I – I’m sorry, I didn’t – I shouldn’t have said –” He takes a deep breath and forces assurance into his voice when he says, “I’m not suicidal.”

“I won’t be angry if you are,” Georgie says evenly, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not suicidal,” he says again, but he looks away as he does, unable to meet her eyes. “I don’t – want to die. I just feel like as long as I’m around, everyone – everything is in danger, and – what right to I have to make that decision for the world? It’s – selfish, and – I really don’t deserve a second chance, especially when part of me still…”

Jon swallows hard. Once again, he wonders if the woman with the statement is still here. He pinches the skin of his arm and twists. Noticing the tic, Georgie frowns and opens her mouth to redirect him, but he carries on speaking, undeterred.

“I think the only reason I chose to wake up again is because I needed to help Daisy and Martin. I think the only reason I’m still alive now is because I don’t want to leave Martin alone. Or – no, that makes it sound out of obligation or – or guilt. It's not that. It's – I – I want to be with him, I do. I actively want to – to have a life with him, just – live, be. If not for that, though, I… I’m tired, Georgie.”

Tired of hurting and being hurt, of watching and being watched. Tired of hunger and want and an existence that hinges upon the misery of others. Tired loss and scars and nightmares. Tired of having to settle for not wanting to die instead of wanting to live. Tired of just surviving instead of actually living.

“I’m just tired,” he says, putting his head in his hands again. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear this.”

“I would rather you talk about it than keep it bottled up.”

“I just don’t want you to think that I’m not trying to get better.”

“Recovery isn’t linear. I’m not going to leave just because you have bad days. It would be different if you were closed off, denying you have a problem, but… you’re not.” When he doesn’t answer, her frown deepens. Her next words sound almost affronted. “I’ve been suicidal, Jon, you know that. Why do you think I’d hold it against you? I know you can’t just flip a switch to make it go away. Why are you so afraid –” Realization dawns on her face. “I left last time, didn’t I?”

“I never regained autonomy in the nightmares, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to you before I woke up.” Jon shrugs halfheartedly. “You didn’t expect me to wake up. Then I did, and I didn’t have any of the complications to be expected from a six-months coma. Not even a coma, really, just – everything but brain dead. A corpse coming back to life – I think it was too much for you. You told me I needed people to keep me human, and by the time I took that advice there was no one left to turn to, and now I wasn’t human anymore. It kept me from dying, but you didn’t think it was a second chance.”

“I said that to you?”

“The, uh, last bit,” he says reluctantly. He doesn’t blame Georgie for leaving, but he can’t deny that her parting words to him on that day still sting, even now – a resounding condemnation that he can’t quite shake. “But you weren’t wrong,” he says, rushing to reassure her when he sees the horrified look on her face. “It wasn’t a second chance, it was just… the next phase of the Archivist’s development. Anyway, you were tired of watching me self-destruct, you knew there was nothing you could to do change my trajectory, and you didn’t want me to drag you down with me. Or Melanie. Her life had – has, I suppose – been nothing but misery since the day she met me. She was trying to get out, to get better.”

“And you?”

“I wanted to, but I just… couldn’t see a way out. I couldn’t leave, but I…” He bites down hard on his lower lip, struggling with his next words. “I don’t think I was choosing to stay involved, either.”

“And I thought you were.”

“You weren’t the only one. And it wasn’t an unfair assumption. I was” – am, his brain corrects – “in too deep. I didn’t” – don’t, he reminds himself –“belong in normal life anymore. I couldn’t” – can’t, he does not say aloud – “reverse the change. Even when I found out how to quit… I couldn’t just leave Martin here alone. Also, I know now that it wouldn’t have worked for me anyway.”

“It would’ve killed you,” she guesses.

“No such luck,” he says with a short laugh, then feels his blood drain from his face. He looks up and fixes her with a panicked, apologetic look. “Sorry, I – that was in poor taste, it’s just – that was what went through my mind when I first realized it.”

“It’s alright.”

Jon clears his throat, still somewhat shamefaced.

“What I mean is that I, ah, tried to blind myself during the Ritual. Turns out I heal too quickly for it to have any effect on my connection with the Beholding. Otherwise I’d have tried it again the moment I woke up in the hospital.”

Georgie says nothing. When he chances a glimpse of her, he sees no judgment or anger, just more of that familiar, gentle sadness. He has to look away again.

“I don’t blame you for walking away back then. You didn’t have the whole picture. Neither did I, but even if I did, I probably wouldn’t have given you all the details, and you knew that. I can’t fault you for not wanting to stay involved when you didn’t know what being involved would actually entail.” He looks up and meets her eyes. “Honestly, Georgie, even if you’d stayed, I probably would have made all the same mistakes. I would have continued putting myself in danger and downplaying it. I would still have gone into the Coffin, and I wouldn’t have told you where I was going beforehand. I would likely have distanced myself from you on my own, because I’d have convinced myself it was in your best interests without asking you how you felt about it. I’ve… changed since then, but at the time, I probably would have continued retracing the same patterns. You would have only gotten hurt, even if it wasn’t my intention.”

“Maybe.” She frowns, chin propped on her fist as she considers. “I can’t speak for a version of me that doesn’t exist anymore. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry you were alone.”

“And I’m sorry I didn’t realize how much I didn’t want to be alone until it was too late.”

“It’s not too late now, though,” she says with a cautious smile.

“No, I suppose not.” Jon’s answering smile fades as he gives her a serious look. “None of this obligates you to stick around, by the way.”

“I know.”

“I’m serious. I’m glad you’re here, but…” It’s more than I deserve, he almost says, but stops himself when he imagines Georgie’s reaction to that. “I don't want things to become – toxic, between us. If it gets to be too much, I’ll understand.”

“If it does, it won’t be just because you had a setback. Just – try not to wallow too much when you do, alright? You’re not good company for yourself when you’re like that.”

“Yeah,” Jon concedes on a long exhale.

Georgie sighs, a pensive look on her face.

“I think I may have given you the wrong impression before. When I made you promise that you didn’t have a death wish, it wasn’t because I was going to leave if you’re suicidal. It was because I don’t want to be lied to about it if you are. I don’t want to be blindsided by your self-destruction, or made complicit in it. It isn’t fair to me.”

“I don’t want that either,” he says softly. “And I – I wasn’t lying before, when I promised you that the Coffin wasn’t a death wish. I just… I thought…”

“You thought you could make the decision to live once and be done with it.”

“Sounds foolish when you put it like that, but… yes, I suppose so.”

“Would be nice if it worked like that,” Georgie says with a rueful smile. Then she sighs. “I’m not expecting you to get better overnight, and neither should you – especially when you’re still in the thick of it. I’m just expecting you to communicate when things get bad, rather than throwing yourself onto the nearest grenade as – atonement, or punishment, or some misguided belief that you have to earn the right to live. I won’t be a party to that. I can’t. I don’t… hold it against you personally, I get it, I’ve been there – but that’s why I can’t be around it. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“To be clear,” she says emphatically, waiting until he meets her eye before continuing, “I don’t mind hearing about those thoughts. I take issue with you acting on them with no regard for yourself or the people around you, and then minimizing the consequences. And that – that isn’t a value judgment. It’s just… watching you get trapped in that cycle, it takes me to a bad place.” Georgie chews on her lip for a moment, and then nods, as if coming to a conclusion. “If you were looking for a boundary, there it is. I know you can’t avoid danger entirely, but when you’re feeling like this, can you at least promise to talk to someone before making any drastic decisions? You have to let us know if you’re in a bad way, because it will affect your judgment.”

Jon lets out a long exhale. “I will.”

“Okay. I can live with that.”

“Thank you,” he murmurs, self-conscious.

“About your voice, though.” Jon gives her a quizzical look. “I thought it was wholly a supernatural thing, but…” She looks up at the ceiling, gathering her thoughts, and then adopts a delicate tone. “Have you considered that it might also be a – a trauma response?”

“I didn’t before.”

“And now?”

“I… I don’t know. It first started partway through the apocalypse. The more I experienced, the more the Archive asserted itself. I was still me, most of the time, but I was also – more, I suppose? It’s… complicated.” Jon rakes his fingers through his hair as he works on his phrasing. “The human mind was never meant to contain that… much. The Archive’s purpose is to – well, to archive. Every instance of fear and suffering in that place was a statement. Billions of them, every moment recorded live – and when I read or take a statement, I live it vicariously. My own experience of it is… an essential part of the recording process.” He blows out a puff of air. “So I had a lot going through my head at any given moment. The human in me couldn’t be conscious of all of it at the same time.”

“That’s… horrible.”

“Yes. And it felt right.” He rubs one arm absently, looking off to the side. “I don’t think I was meant to survive – the human part of me, that is. I was just one mind; I should have gotten lost in the multitude. And I did, sometimes, but… I always found my way back. Martin always called me back. If not for him…”

If not for him, Jon would have lost his sense of self in the Archive, given up and accepted the role assigned to him, much like he suspects Gertrude would have. When he lost Martin, Jon almost did lose himself as well.

“Either way, I was – above all else, I was still an Archive. I learned to compartmentalize, to an extent, but I was never meant to have my own voice. At some point, it got lost in all the noise. If I wanted to communicate, I could only use the stories hoarded away in the Archive.”

Jon frowns in consideration, actively weighing the most likely theories as he talks himself through the evidence.

“I… don’t think it was purely a psychological response,” he says slowly, gaining in confidence as he speaks the words. “I think it was a consequence of what I was in that place. The Archive was part of that world’s fabric, so to speak. But this reality operates differently than the one I came from. Its natural laws aren’t dictated by the Beholding. It has… less prominence here. Case in point, I’m significantly less powerful now than I was in my future.”

Georgie raises an eyebrow. “How powerful are we talking?”

“I was an apex predator among monsters. A direct conduit of the Ceaseless Watcher. Oh,” he adds offhandedly, “and I Knew everything.”

“What.”

“Well – almost everything. And not all at once. It was more that I – I was able to Know almost anything if I looked for the answer.” He allows himself a small grin. “Post-apocalyptic Google, so to speak.”

“Sounds… useful?”

“In some ways. It’s awful to say, but I miss it sometimes. Having control over it, mostly. I could stop myself from Knowing things about a person, give them more privacy. But I also couldn’t opt out of Knowing entirely. I just… had more control over what I Knew and when. And there were still things I couldn’t Know. The Beholding will hoard almost any scrap of information, but it has a clear preference for the horrific. It was utterly silent on anything related to an after – an afterlife, a reversal of the apocalypse, any sort of escape or release from the nightmare.”

“God,” Georgie murmurs, almost to herself.

“Jury’s out on that one, too.”

“No, I just meant –” Georgie pauses when she sees Jon smirk. “Oh, I see. You’re just being a smartass.” She shoots him a grin and nudges him with her foot. “What about now? Do you still –”

“I don’t have near as much control over it as I used to, no. I can remember the things that I consciously chose to Know then, but… that sea of knowledge, all those potential answers to any hypothetical questions – my access to it is limited now. And I’m Knowing things unintentionally again.”

“What about the Archive – the statements?”

“When I first woke up, it felt – the same as it did in the future. A sort of – wall of static that lowered whenever I tried to use my own words. It lifted in the Buried, because I was cut off from the Eye – from the Archive. I thought it would reassert itself when I came back – and it did for a minute – but now it’s…” Jon stares down at his hands, clenched tightly in his lap. “I still have recall of all the statements I already had archived. Not all at once, more like a – like a database, I suppose, but – they’re there if I look for them. The Archive is still there, and sometimes it slips through, but… it’s not as dominant as it was before. And seeing as I can speak at all, apparently state of mind is more of a factor than I thought. At least right now. Not sure about before.”

“Well,” Georgie says, “even if you have more control over it now, it doesn’t mean you always did. Sometimes circumstances change.”

“Maybe,” Jon says, his thoughts already beginning to stray.

Georgie sighs in exasperation.

“Just because there’s a future where things are better doesn’t mean you’re a failure for things being bad in the present. Jon, look at me.” He does, albeit reluctantly. “What you’ve gone through isn’t something that you just get over. It’s always going to be there. That doesn’t mean things will never get better. It just means that you need to make peace with the fact that you’ll have ups and downs. If you turn on yourself every time you’re struggling, you’ll never notice the moments of progress. And if you see every instance of progress as an opportunity to berate yourself for not achieving it sooner, then, well – I’m sorry, but things aren’t going to get better.”

“I – I know. It’s just…”

“Difficult. I know. I’ve been there.” Her expression softens. “I’m not trying to be harsh. I don’t expect one conversation to change the way you think. It takes years of practice to break that sort of pattern. But when you need reminders – and you will, and I won’t be disappointed when you do – I’m going to keep giving them to you. I’ll ask you to at least consider them each time before dismissing them outright. Does that sound fair?”

“More than,” Jon says, giving her a weak smile.

“Good, because I seem to recall you making the same request of me once upon a time.”

Did I? Jon thinks back and draws a blank. Not for the first time, he curses how unreliable his memory can be.

“Still,” he says, “I’m sorry to be such a –”

“If you say ‘burden’ or anything to that effect, I actually will be cross with you.”

“Noted,” Jon says with an embarrassed chuckle. “But – sincerely, I – I know that right now I’m –” Dead weight, he almost says. Volatile. Fragile. Tiresome. Untrustworthy. A walking doomsday button. Georgie gives him a warning look, silently urging him to consider his next words carefully. “Struggling,” he opts for. “But I do want to be there for you if you need me, in whatever way I can, so… open invitation to confide in me, or ask for help, or – or anything you need.”

“That was eloquent,” she replies with a teasing smirk. Jon rolls his eyes.

“Ironically, I think I was more eloquent when I was the Archive.”

“Eloquent in a poetic sense, maybe,” Georgie says with mock thoughtfulness, “but it didn’t lend itself to clarity.”

Another hunger pang rips through Jon's mind and he clenches his jaw, curling his shaking hands into fists.

“Hey.” Georgie prods his foot with hers again. “You ready to see Martin?”

“I, ah…” Jon gives a nervous laugh. “I want to see him more than anything, but I’m also – terrified? I know things won’t be how I remember them, I know I have to adjust my expectations, but I don’t know what to adjust them to, and I don’t know what to expect from myself, either, and…”

And the hunger is eating away at him from the inside out, an incessant undercurrent of need-want-feed running parallel with every other thought vying for his attention. He brings his hands to his face, puts pressure on his eyes, grounds himself in the ache. Almost immediately, his brain latches onto the words pressure and ground and suddenly he’s comparing the cravings to being buried alive, to drowning in noise, to being suffocated by the crush of stories that was – is – destined to comprise the entirety of his being. He’s being drawn over the threshold of that ubiquitous, baleful door in his mind: hated and feared, yes, but completing him all the same.

Guess that’s the thing about being the chosen one, Arthur Nolan’s words echo in the Archive’s halls. At the end of it, you’re always just the point of someone else’s story, everyone clamoring to say what you were, what you meant, and your thoughts on it all don’t mean nothing.

Jon tries to dislodge the statement, but there is no stop button to corral the Archive, and the story continues on: It seeds us with this… aching, impossible desire to change the world, to bring it to us.

There are hundreds of thousands of words pounding on the door now, none of them his own, an endless stream of them queuing up in his throat, cramming into his lungs – and with a painful lurch, he’s falling down, down, down –

Breathe, comes the familiar mantra.

On the one hand, he’s glad for how quickly and mindlessly that coping mechanism kicks in by now. On the other hand, he wishes he didn’t have so many opportunities to practice that it’s become so ingrained in the first place. There is something different about it this time, though. Usually, he imagines the command in his own voice, or occasionally Martin’s. Just now, he could pick out multiple tones, all overlapping: Martin. Georgie. Basira. Daisy. Himself.

The effect is potent. It allows him to walk himself back from the edge in record time. The hunger still scratches impatiently at the door, but he manages to tear his attention away from it long enough to remember where and when and who he is. When he glances back up, he realizes that only a few seconds have transpired – a storm so brief that apparently even Georgie didn’t register its passing. Instead, she’s staring over his shoulder. She catches his eye, raises her eyebrows, and nods, indicating something behind him.

“Well,” she says with a smile both amused and reassuring, “I think you’re about to find out.”

Another stab of panic shoots through him, shattering his momentary calm. Time stands still. When lightheadedness overtakes him and his vision starts to pixelate, he realizes that he’s been holding his breath. He lets out a juddering exhale, and turns around.

When he lays eyes on Martin, Jon is speechless all over again.

Martin startles when Jon’s eyes lock onto his, still unaccustomed to and unsettled by such direct eye contact. He immediately regrets that reaction when he watches Jon recoil and avert his eyes. The reflexive urge to vanish overtakes Martin then – and he feels himself begin to panic a little more when it yields no results. He had been accessing that power up until moments ago, when he dropped the veil; why is it out of reach now?

“Hi, Martin,” Georgie says, apparently unperturbed by the awkward atmosphere. “I was just keeping Jon company until you got here, but I’ll give you two some privacy now.” She stands, stretches, and brings one arm down to touch Jon’s shoulder. “I’ll be here for a while yet. If you need me, I’ll probably be in Melanie’s usual spot.”

Martin can see Jon incline his head slightly. If Jon sees her reassuring smile, he gives no indication. Georgie gives his shoulder another pat and starts to walk towards the ladder. Martin steps aside, giving her a wide berth – force of habit – and watches until the trapdoor closes behind her.

For what feels like an interminable moment, the stale air hangs heavy with silence. Martin stands rigid, mind drawing a blank. Could cut the tension in here with a bread knife, he thinks to himself, somewhat hysterically.

Jon, for his part, is staring steadfastly at the ground, utterly unmoving – and Martin’s heart wrenches painfully in his chest at the sight.

Of all the adjectives that could be used to describe Jonathan Sims, unmoving has never been one of them. When he’s not running his hands through his hair or scratching at his skin, he’s bouncing his legs, tapping his fingers, biting the insides of his cheeks, pacing, rocking in place – an endless rotation of fidgets and stims, flowing one into the next. When he’s excited, his eyes light up, intense and intelligent and impossible to break away from; he interrupts himself in his rush to translate his thoughts into speech before he loses them entirely; he’s a flurry of animated gestures and borderline manic pacing. Even at rest, his eyes are bright with questions and his hands flutter when he talks; even exhausted and lethargic, his mind is a hummingbird flitting from thought to thought with frantic abandon, eager to catalog every detail and cover every angle.

Sometimes, it’s vicariously exhausting to witness; most of the time, Martin is hopelessly endeared. In all the time that Martin has known him, the coma was the first time he ever saw Jon entirely still. Martin used to wish on occasion that he had more chances to just look at him. Up until that point, he’d had to make do with furtive glances and stolen moments when Jon was too engrossed in a task to notice Martin staring. In the hospital, Martin finally had a chance to really study him freely.

Stillness doesn’t suit him, Martin remembers thinking – and another piece of his heart chipped away.

Unconsciously, Martin finds himself studying Jon again now. He sits hunched forward with his arms folded tightly in front of him, a white-knuckled grip on each elbow, his narrow shoulders pulled in and forward. Judging from the predictably mussed state of his hair, he must have been combing his fingers through it nonstop recently. His lips are chapped and torn from chewing; the dark circles under his eyes seem to have shadows of their own. His multiple layers of clothing do nothing to hide the gauntness of his frame or the frailness of his wrists.

Jon is awake now, yes, but still he looks… distant. Listless. Too close to lifeless for comfort; too reminiscent of deathbeds and silent monitors and grey hospital linens. So Martin breaks the silence.

“Jon.”

He doesn’t raise his head, but his eyes flick upwards to gaze at Martin through his lashes. Sharp eyes, haunted eyes, more and more so with every passing day – and now, they’re downright bleak. Still, though, they’re beautiful: a rich brown, dark and deep enough to fall into, and Martin could lose himself in them gladly. Then, Jon breaks eye contact again, curling in on himself even further.

How is it that he manages to look more run down every time I see him? Martin thinks, and then he notices Jon’s hands, trembling in his lap now.

“You’re shaking.”

“Yes.” The word cracks on its way out, coming out as little more than a croak, and Jon clears his throat before trying again. “Just, ah – just hungry.”

“You’ve been back a few hours now, haven’t you eaten yet?” Martin replies automatically, the caretaker in him taking charge. “Jon, you were in there for over a week, you need to –”

“Not – not that kind of hunger.” Jon finally raises his head, but his eyes still dart away from Martin’s every few moments.

“Oh,” Martin says quietly. “Statements.”

“Yeah.” Jon scuffs one foot against the floor.

“W-well, I can wait, if you want to go record one?”

“No, I –” Jon clears his throat again, sitting up straighter in his seat. “I’d prefer to talk. If that’s alright with you. I’m – I’m sure you have questions for me.”

Martin considers. On the one hand, his instinct is to insist that Jon take care of himself first. On the other hand, he knows how stubborn Jon can be. Arguing about it wouldn’t change his mind, only waste time and ultimately leave him waiting longer for a meal.

“Yeah,” Martin says with a reluctant sigh, “I guess.”

“R-right. Well…” One end of Jon’s scarf trails in his lap, and he runs his fingertips over the weave, in the same way that one might pet a cat. “I – I’ll answer them as best I can.”

“Right,” Martin echoes.

“Would you like to sit?”

Martin nods wordlessly and takes a seat opposite Jon, but his mind goes blank again.

“Georgie said she explained things?” Jon tries tentatively.

“Sort of. She said she was working on an incomplete explanation herself.”

“Yes, that was – that was my fault. I was having some –”

“Speech difficulties, yeah. She said.”

“Which is also why my message to you was so…” Jon sighs. “I would have preferred to use my own words.”

“But did you mean it?” Martin blurts out. He feels his face heat in an instant and he has to look away.

“Yes,” Jon says quietly. Confidently, Martin notes privately, and blushes more deeply. “The sentiment was all mine. I know it may seem – out of the blue, from your perspective, but I – I meant it, all of it.” Jon ducks his head, but doesn’t look away. “I, uh – I still do.”

It’s Martin’s turn to break eye contact, keen to look anywhere other than into Jon’s eyes and the open, sincere warmth living there.

“I’m not the person you remember,” Martin says stiffly.

“Neither am I,” Jon replies, his voice softer than Martin has ever heard it.

Martin’s throat works as he swallows hard.

“I’m not the person you fell in love with.”

Jon’s expression softens and he gives Martin a beseeching look.

“I disagree,” he says, with more of his earlier assurance.

“I’m not,” Martin insists. “I don’t know what the me of the future was like, but I’m not – I’m not him. Whatever he did to make you fall for him, it’s – it’s not me.”

“Martin, I fell in love with this version of you,” Jon replies, his voice tremulous. “With every version of you.”

Martin just stares. Jon smiles at him: soft, sad, sorry, sincere.

“I – I know it’s difficult to believe. I treated you – horribly, and for so long. Took you for granted. Never gave you the respect or care you deserved. I… I don’t think I’ll ever stop being sorry for that.” He maintains eye contact, and Martin once again finds that he cannot look away. “I’ve never been… good at this sort of thing – putting words to how I feel. In retrospect, I was falling for you even before the Unknowing. I just – didn’t realize how much until I woke up and you weren’t there. There was a – an empty space where you used to be, and I couldn’t… I was almost too late. I almost lost you –”

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. Martin is startled to see the sheen to his eyes.

“I… I did lose you, eventually, and it nearly…” His voice is rough with held back tears. He clears his throat, and when he speaks again, there’s an intensity to his voice that Martin just now realizes he’s missed. “But not – not until much later. Not here. Not now. Not to Peter fucking Lukas.”

Martin lets out an amused huff at the venom with which Jon says the name. Jon looks up, tilting his head slightly – and Martin can feel one corner of his mouth turning up ever so slightly at the familiar mannerism.

“Sorry,” he says. “Just – don’t hear you swear much.”

“Well, he deserves it,” Jon replies, half-scathing, half-embarrassed.

“Can’t say I disagree with you there,” Martin says with a tired chuckle.

“About – about Peter.” Once again, the name sounds poisonous on Jon’s tongue. “He’s lying to you –”

A bolt of annoyance shoots through Martin at that.

“I’m not an idiot, Jon.”

“No,” Jon says hurriedly, his hands fluttering in agitation, “I didn’t mean to imply –” He breathes a heavy sigh, flustered. “I know that I – I underestimated you for far too long. But you’re clever, and capable, and you understand people in a way that I find endlessly impressive.” To his chagrin, Martin can feel himself redden at the unexpected praise. “You’re not gullible enough to trust Peter for a moment. I know that. And” – Jon grins at him with such open affection that Martin wants to flee – “last time, you outmaneuvered him so seamlessly that I – after seeing the look on Peter’s face, I think I fell a little more in love with you, impossible as it seemed.”

Martin’s face is on fire now, must be.

“I trusted you then, wholeheartedly, and I still do,” Jon continues. “I… I’ll respect whatever decision you make going forward. Even if it means you continue working with Peter. But,” he adds, licking his lips nervously, “I have information now that we didn’t have the first time around, and I – I’d like you to know the whole story. It could have implications for whatever strategy you decide on.”

“You’re talking about the Extinction.”

“Among other things, yes.”

“Is it a real thing?”

Jon lets out a long exhale, looking off to the side with a pensive scowl. Martin can feel himself smile at the sight of that oh-so-familiar crease between his eyebrows, a telltale harbinger of a Jonathan Sims dissertation. Resting his chin in his hands and leaning forward, Martin settles in for an earful.

“Yes,” Jon says after a moment’s hesitation, “but – it’s more complicated than Peter assumes. It’s real insofar as it’s a pervasive terror for large swathes of the human population. Justifiably so, I think it’s fair to say. And it’s possible that, given existential threats like global climate change, nuclear weaponry proliferation, pandemics, war, artificial scarcity, structural oppression and inequality embedded in society worldwide…”

He counts off on his fingers, the line between his eyebrows deepening as he builds momentum.

“And of course we have a twenty-four-hour news cycle inundating us all with that reality, and – entire genres of literature and film utilizing those apocalyptic themes… well, suffice it to say, the fear of a world without us might eventually reach a point where it could be considered on par with Smirke’s Fourteen.

“But Smirke’s taxonomy is also an oversimplification. The human experience is far too varied and complex to be split into neat categories. The animal experience, rather. It’s likely that the Fears have existed since before the advent of modern Homo sapiens, and if we consider the origins of the Flesh – it would be anthropocentric to assume that only the human mind is subject to them, and” – Jon shakes his head – “I'm veering off topic. Point is, the Fears bleed into one another. It’s why a Ritual for a single power was never going to work, why Jonah – Elias’ Ritual was predicated on bringing through all Fourteen at once. Or, case in point, perhaps Fifteen. The Extinction did have a domain of its own after the change, it was just… less sprawling than the others, and there were fewer instances of it. And no Avatars dedicated to it, as far as I could tell.”

Jon taps two fingers against his lips, leg bouncing restlessly as he ponders his next words.

“As for an Emergence, though… I really don’t think there is such a thing as a grand birthing event. The Extinction is already here, in a way. Many of the statements feature more than one Fear at a time, precisely because the boundaries between them are so indistinct. Some of the statements that Adelard Dekker collected – I do think that they contain genuine examples of the Extinction as a coherent Fear of its own, just… mixed in with other Fears. I imagine the Extinction’s trajectory might be similar to that of the Flesh – arising as times change, as more and more minds collectively experience that flavor of fear.

“It might be a quick evolution – similar to how anthropogenic climate change has followed an exponential growth curve, aptly enough – but I don’t think that the Extinction is or – or will be somehow more formidable than the other Fourteen.” His speech turns rapid-fire as he bounces from one thought to the next. “It can’t exist independently of the other Fourteen any more than the others can, so a Ritual on its behalf would collapse under its own weight. If there is a grand extinction event – well, when, I suppose; nothing lasts forever, the End claims everything eventually, time continues its slow crawl towards the inevitable heat death of the universe, et cetera –”

Jon is counting off on his fingers again. Martin shakes his head fondly.

“But it won't occur because of an Extinction Ritual,” Jon goes on. “There was an apocalypse where I came from, and it had nothing to do with the Extinction. Just… a very human flavor of monstrosity: the pursuit of power and personal gain, even at the cost of unimaginable suffering for everyone else.” He gives a humorless laugh. “Fittingly enough, though, it all started from a place of fear – of mortality, of subjugation, of the unknown.” Jon’s expression falls, and his voice drops to a near whisper. “And – and my own fear led me to the eye of that storm, so to speak. All of it can be traced back to that foundational fear of the unknown, can't it? The roots just… branch outward from there.”

Jon’s already trembling hands twitch abruptly, as if snapping something in two. He doesn’t appear to notice the gesture, too lost in his own thoughts. Before Martin can voice his concern at the shift in demeanor, Jon shakes his head and forges onward. He reverts to his previous hyperfocused, almost academic manner, but an undercurrent of anxious energy lingers.

“Anyway, I actually suspect that, much like the End, the Extinction wouldn’t benefit from a Ritual even if one could work. It thrives on the potentiality of a mass extinction event, not the fulfillment of one. The Fears will cease to exist when there are no longer minds to fear them. Of course, it doesn’t have to be humans, or any creature currently living. If something does come after us, the Fears will likely survive and adapt, but otherwise –”

Jon finally makes eye contact with Martin for the first time in minutes and stops short.

“Oh,” he says, sounding mortified, “I’ve been… rambling, haven’t I.”

“I don’t mind,” Martin replies, unable to fight back a smile.

“W-well, anyway…” Jon rubs the back of his neck, looking thoroughly embarrassed. “I don’t believe that the Extinction is the world-ending threat that Peter claims, so if you were planning on continuing to work with him because of that…” He shrugs. “Also, his plan for you was never about the Extinction. Not really. He was – is – genuinely worried about the Extinction, but his plan to stop it is to have the Forsaken destroy the world first. But it hasn’t been long since his last Ritual failed; he knows it will be some time before he can try again. His immediate plan is all about one-upping Elias, taking control of the Panopticon, and accruing power in order to increase the chances of success for his next Ritual attempt.”

Jon exhales another humorless laugh, and his voice takes on an odd, breathless quality as he continues.

“Not all that different from Jonah Magnus, really. His allegiance to the Eye began when he realized that his peers would continue attempting their own Rituals. His solution was to destroy the world before they could. So afraid of his own mortality that he was willing to subjugate the entire human population for his own benefit.” Jon folds his arms again, tucking them against his middle and leaning forward, as if trying to make himself smaller. When he speaks again, there’s a noticeable waver in his voice. “Somewhere along the line, he went beyond justifying his actions – jumped right to taking pleasure in them.”

Jon’s sharp eyes go unfocused. The rise and fall of his chest quickens.

“I’m sorry,” Martin says gently. He doesn’t know what else he can say.

“For what?” Jon asks, coming back to himself after an overlong pause.

“Georgie told me what he did to you. I mean, she didn’t go into detail, but she mentioned that he possessed you and used you to –”

“It wasn’t possession,” Jon interrupts, a desperate edge to his tone. “Not in the conventional horror movie sense. It was the same compulsion that takes me when I start reading any statement, just – more intense. I couldn’t – couldn’t control my body, but he wasn’t actually in my head, it just – felt like it, like he’d crawled into my skin along with his words. Then again, I –” Jon laughs, gripping one wrist with his other hand, fingernails digging grooves into scarred skin. “I suppose I was possessed in a way, in the sense of being someone else’s possession. Have been for a long time – haven’t belonged to myself since the moment he chose me, still don’t –”

Jon’s gaze goes distant yet again, and Martin watches with burgeoning worry as his pupils dilate and constrict with the fluctuation of his voice.

“…he posited a future where – humanity was violently and utterly supplanted –”

“– marked me as a part of that, without my understanding. Or consent –”

“Jon?” Martin says, apprehensive.

“– keep me in the dark just so I wouldn’t stop being useful – made me complicit in a thousand different nightmares, and lives ruined for the sick joy of some otherworldly voyeur –”

“– any future I might have had, sacrificed to his –”

“Jon, what’s –?”

There’s a singsong tenor to his voice and an intensity to his eyes now, reminiscent of the look he gets when he records –

Oh, Martin realizes. Statements.

“– I swear I could still feel those – eyes follow me – a grin of victory playing upon his lips –”

“Jon,” Martin says again, more insistently, reaching out on impulse to place a hand on Jon’s knee.

Cognizance flares to life in Jon’s eyes and his hands fly up to cover his mouth. He seems to struggle with himself for a minute, stolen words muffled beneath the hands pressed tight to his lips. He makes a noise that sounds almost like choking, or sobbing; he looks at Martin with wide, watery eyes, then takes a deep breath in. A quiet whimper chases the air out on his exhale, and Martin’s own breath catches in his throat. He’s seen Jon scared, but he’s never heard him make a sound quite like that – not while bleeding out from a fresh stab wound, not with a gash in his neck, not fumbling to apply ointment to a burned and peeling hand, not even with worms burrowing through his flesh and a corkscrew tearing through the tunnels they left behind.

“You’re okay,” Martin says, willing it to be true.

“I don’t – I don’t want to talk about him anymore,” Jon says abruptly, sharply. He winces and shoots Martin an apologetic look. “Sorry, that was – I didn’t mean to sound cross, I just –” He flaps his hands, lips moving wordlessly.

“It’s okay, I understand.”

Jon nods, but his breaths are still coming fast and shallow. One hand seeks out Martin’s, still resting on his knee; he grips it tight, fingers slotting between Martin’s like they belong there. The direct skin-to-skin contact sends pins and needles radiating up Martin’s arm, but he fights the impulse to draw back.

“We can talk about something else,” Martin says, forcing calm into his voice.

Jon inclines his head again, gulping down air. Even as his breathing begins to even out, the shivers coursing through him only grow more violent, the tremor in his hands becoming more and more pronounced.

“You need to eat something,” Martin says.

“N-no, I –”

“Yes, you do –”

“No!” The exclamation cracks like a whip and ricochets off the walls, echoing down the tunnel. Jon’s face crumples and he shrinks in on himself again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout, I –”

“It’s fine –”

“It’s not.”

“We can argue about it when you’re not literally starving. I’ll go fetch a statement, and –”

“It won’t help.”

“What do you mean?”

Jon brings his free hand to his mouth and bites down on his knuckles.

“Jon?” Martin says again, more sternly. “What did you mean?”

“I’m – not just the Archivist, Martin, I’m the Archive. All of the statements stored upstairs, I already have them, every single one of them catalogued in my head, and – re-experiencing them takes the edge off while I’m reading, but as soon as the recording stops, the hunger comes back even stronger, and I want…” Jon gives him a pained look. “Did Georgie tell you about…?”

“She mentioned something about you putting yourself under house arrest because you’re afraid of hurting people.”

“It’s necessary,” Jon says, almost defensively.

“What will happen if you don’t take in new statements?” Jon says nothing, and Martin sighs. “Jon.”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you starve?”

“I don’t know.”

“Please don’t lie to me.”

“I don’t know,” Jon says, pulling his hand away from Martin’s and rubbing his eyes furiously. “It feels like starving, but I don’t know if it will actually kill me. But I don’t want to hurt people just to keep myself from hurting. I don’t want to be like –” He cuts himself off with a sharp intake of breath. “I’ve caused untold suffering as it is. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

“There was a woman giving a statement upstairs earlier –”

“I’m not taking her statement.” Jon’s reply is automatic, almost like a practiced line. It sounds as if he’s trying to convince himself more than Martin.

“I wasn’t suggesting –”

“Her name is Tricia Mallory,” Jon interjects. “It’s her birthday next week; she’ll be twenty-eight. She has two cats, and a parakeet, and a girlfriend named Shona, who has an engagement ring hidden in the bottom left drawer of her desk –”

“Why are you –”

“Because I’m so far removed from humanity at this point that I need to actively, continuously persuade myself not to see other people as cuts of meat.” Martin would have preferred snappish to the resigned, matter-of-fact, tired tone in which Jon gives that confession. “Her name is Tricia Mallory,” he recites again, in that same rehearsed manner. “She lost her voice in a minotaur’s labyrinth. She’s finding it again, slowly, but it will never be the same. Her nightmares are horrific enough without adding another monster to the mix. I’m not taking her statement.”

“What about just reading her written statement?” Martin asks. Jon blinks, slow and catlike, and Martin can see the uncanny glint of hunger in his eyes. “Have you already heard her story?”

“No,” Jon says after a sluggish pause. “I don’t think her statement ever made it down to the Archives the last time. And the knowledge of its content didn’t consciously come to me after the change. There were – so many other statements in progress by then. So much to See.”

“So it would be something new for you.” Jon is silent, staring off into the middle distance, unblinking, glassy eyes riveted on something only he can see. “Would that be enough to hold you over for now? It – it won’t be live and in person, but at least it won’t be… I don’t know, stale?”

“I…” Jon’s pupils dilate. Constrict. Dilate.

“She’s probably left by now,” Martin continues insistently. “I can go track down the statement and bring it back here.” Jon looks as if he’s warring with himself. “Please, Jon. It’s just a reading. You won’t hurt anyone.”

Blood wells up on Jon’s lip where he’s been biting it. Eventually, he gives a tiny nod, his shoulders going limp as if in defeat. Jon needs to eat, but Martin wishes it didn’t feel so much like pressuring someone to break sobriety.

“Okay,” Martin says, fighting back the surge of guilt, “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Please don’t go anywhere, alright?”

“Alright,” Jon replies in a nearly inaudible whisper.

Martin tosses a glance over his shoulder as he leaves. Jon is eerily still again but for the persistent shaking. He looks small, and haunted, and lost; fragile, precarious, with a posture that brings to mind something broken and taped back together in slapdash fashion.

First things first, Martin tells himself, and tries to focus on the task at hand.

Once the trapdoor closes behind Martin, Jon buries his face in his hands.

That wasn’t how he wanted this conversation to go. Just judging from his demeanor, Martin has shaken off the Lonely more than Jon had expected, but still, Jon should be the one comforting him. It took the Martin of the future ages to acclimate to the idea that he deserved to be cared for, too; to unlearn the reflex to reverse any attempt Jon made to take care of him for once. Right now, Martin needs to be shown that care, and yet Jon can’t manage to redirect his one-track mind away from his hunger for more than five minutes at a time. Selfish, selfish, selfish –

The slow creak of a door cuts through the silence, and Jon’s blood runs cold when Helen’s playful lilt rings out behind him.

“Archivist,” she says with unrestrained glee. “Long time no see.”

Jon had been dreading the Distortion’s inevitable reappearance. He should have known that she would make her entrance when he’s at his most vulnerable. Like a shark to blood, he thinks to himself, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

“Brooding, are we?”

“Hi, Helen,” he manages, struggling to stay impassive.

It doesn’t matter; he jumps anyway, when several long fingers – too many angles; too many joints – curl around his shoulder. As if her touch was an unpaid toll, she removes her hand once he provides payment in the form of that momentary burst of alarm. Her headache-inducing laugh is made all the worse by the acoustics of the tunnel.

“Now, then” – Jon doesn’t look around at her, but he can practically hear her lips curl in a grin – “pleasantries aside, I believe we’re due for a chat.”

End Notes:

Citations for Jon’s Archive-speak: MAG 010; 134/111; 154/144; 098. And Arthur Nolan’s statement is from MAG 145.

I’m hoping Jon’s ramble wasn’t Too Much lmao,,, it is admittedly part self-indulgence (read: shameless projection) on my part, but also: ADHD is just Like That sometimes. I’m still navigating how to strike a balance between having something like that flow well and be, well, readable from an audience perspective, while also trying to capture the reality of how an ADHD ramble often does lack coherence from an external POV, because so much of the associative reasoning never gets verbalized (Thought Train Goes Brrr from Point A to Point Q and Does Not Show Its Work). All this is to say: I know that whole section is meta-heavy NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL TANGENTS. I don’t know if I achieved what I was aiming for, but it was fun practice. Hopefully the end result wasn’t too disjointed or too much of a slog. (I actually edited a lot out, believe it or not, lol.)

Also, in Jon's defense, he Really Needs A Snickers. And he hasn't been able to SPEAK FOR HIMSELF for months. He deserves a little infodumping, as a treat.

Thanks for sticking with me through the slower update schedule. We're back to full shifts at work now, so chapters are taking me longer to write. And apparently I've just decided all the chapters are gonna be 10k+ words now, whoops.

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fic

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