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#and get salty whenever characters who own a part of my heart and soul are subjected to bad shock writing

iiraven · 3 years

Text

Odyssey

Pairing: Poseidon!Armin x Reader

Genre: romance, smut

Warnings: slow-burn, minor character death, manipulation, stalking, possessiveness, Yandere behaviour, puppy play, piss play, body worship, throne sex, implied age-gap, oral(male receiving), hair pulling, collaring (without consent)

Word count: 9.8K

Synopsis: Armin’s quest for revenge leads him to you, daughter of a merchant and object of his infatuation.

Author’s note: thank you @bubbleteaimagines for hosting this collab and allowing me to join <3 Also, thank you @onyxoverride for teaching me how to write about pee!

Attack on Titan Masterlist

Present day:

If the river could speak, you wonder what it would say.

In the silence that surrounds the rushing of the water, you’re sure you would hear it. Sometimes, you’re sure you can hear it, but then you remember the dangers of trusting unfamiliar voices. Especially unfamiliar voices in a place like this.

No one goes near the river Shiganshina. And you forget the reasons why much too often.

It’s rocky, slippery, there’s no path to walk on, and the nymphs grow sharp teeth when men approach them, hissing and eyes glowing red. But that’s what makes it perfect for you.

Sasha first mentioned the river months ago, recalling the places on the island that her and her father avoided whenever they went hunting. You hadn’t paid much attention to it until days later, when Connie recounted with round eyes how Floch’s body was found beside the river Shiganshina, mouth full of water and eyes gouged out. You knew you needed to go there yourself.

A pearl necklace is what you stole. And under the guise of going to wash clothes at the well, you made your way south of your small island with only Sasha’s vague instructions and your intuition guiding you.

You could hear the ocean as you walked through the untouched woods, your heart hammering in your chest every time the waves crashed against the island’s cliffs. You weren’t allowed to see the ocean- you weren’t allowed to be around any large body of water, for that matter- but you still knew your island well enough to know that a step in the wrong place could lead you tumbling down the cliff.

You would die before you got to feel the water on your skin and that, you thought, would be the most tragic part.

As your feet began to sink into the muddy ground, you could smell the salty water, and a slight metallic scent behind it that only drew you in closer until you reached a clearing. It was small, crowded with foliage with only a few dead plants on the ground where you could only assume people had attempted to step foot.

And there was the river. It was small, its water emerging from underground before the tide pushed it to the edge of the island- to a waterfall. So loud that it could drown out any noise, any screams. You shivered. For a moment, you just stood back and watched. The water was was green, but so clear that you could still see the fish swimming beside the floating objects. Coins, silver, small statues, and whatever else hopefuls had tried to offer. You pulled out your own offering and whispered a short prayer before throwing the necklace in.

It could have been your imagination, but the water calmed. It was quieter. And, like that, you felt as if the river had opened up its arms to you. Strong arms that you have to be cautious not to spend too long within lest you get trapped.

Thankfully, you’ve learned to read the signs. You know when the river wants you to leave, when it wants you to keep your distance, when it wants to keep you close, and even when it wants you to bathe. Those are the special moments. It’s rare the river is calm enough for you to dip your naked body into, but surrounded by the cool water, you feel like you could stay their forever.

If the river could speak now, however, you’re sure it would tell you to fuck off.

Either that or it would tell you to come back when you have something more to offer its god than a single golden bead from your grandmother’s necklace. Only three are left on the thin string, though you think you might keep the last one to honour her death. After that, you’ll have to go back to offering coins and whatever other trinkets that will keep the god of this river sedated long enough for you to dip your feet into the cool water, maybe take a sip, and then return home before your father realises where you’ve been, much less where you’ve been unchaperoned.

The latter is hardly your fault. Sasha and Connie are too scared to step foot in the Shiganshina forest, let alone the river itself. And you can’t trust anyone else to accompany you, especially the servants whose tongue could slip at the drop of a golden coin. Your father would never forgive you for spending time in the territory of the God of the Ocean or- as he liked to call Armin- the destroyer of seas. And thus, being left alone seems to be the only way.

Well, that’s unless Mr Arlert decides to join you.

The owner of the stable who appeared on the island out of nowhere is the last person anyone would expect to be brave enough to spend time at the river Shiganshina. He mostly keeps to himself, only ever seen tending to his horses or immersed in scrolls of literature and poetry. And yet, he’s here almost as often as you are, almost as vulnerable as you are.

Despite his solitary nature, Mr Arlert has been quick to make himself adored. Mothers swoon over his charm, scholars constantly indulge in his curiosity, and sailors are fascinated by his knowledge of the world and its oceans. He’s no warrior, and already in his late twenties, but he’s still without a doubt one of the most eligible bachelors on Paradis. And, yet, to any marriage proposal sent his way, he declines with a polite “A husband is not what I am fated to become”. Even Annie Leonhardt- whose father Mr Arlert would constantly visit- had her heart broken. But no one blames Mr Arlert, of course, who was there to comfort Annie, to make her realise that she just needs to be a better person, that’s all. It’s not his fault her heart broke, Mr Arlert reassured.

Thinking about it now, you’re amongst the handful of women who haven’t been offered to the tall blond. And with that comes a sigh of relief as you drag your fingers through the water.

It’s not like you dislike him- the opposite, actually- but being with Mr Arlert is like taking the hand of an invisible man in the dark and letting him guide you.

His words constantly have your thoughts spiralling in directions that they shouldn’t be. Thoughts about leaving the island, thoughts about going to the ocean, thoughts about becoming a priestess. Thoughts you aren’t allowed to have.

You fate is bound to the home you were born in, a thick rope tied to your ankle, only letting you go as far as this very river. And Mr Arlert sits beside that rope, a knife in his hand, blue eyes staring into your soul, waiting. You’re not sure what he’s waiting for. But what you’re sure of is that to be taken away from the life you know of is an inconceivable fantasy. The unknown is a dangerous thing, after all.

The small island of Paradis may lie far away from the rest of the world, but their core values remain the same. A woman must grow up to either serve her father or her husband. Your fate has already been decided for you. And, frankly, if it means not having to share a bed with an old man who marries you for your dowry, you’re very happy with taking care of your father until the day that he’ll be put into the ground.

But then there’s always the third option. A woman who serves neither her father nor her husband will serve her god.

You had never been given that option by your god-hating kin. Simply suggesting a future as priestess would earn you at least five lashes, so why… why can’t you stop thinking about it? Your instincts have you blame Mr Arlert, but you know that your fixation began before he arrived on the island; all he’s done is vocalise your thoughts.

As a gust of wind blows the leaves and the salt from the sea gently caresses your cheek, you wonder who your god would be. Do you resonate with Pieck’s beauty, or Zeke’s creativity? Maybe. But as you look into your reflection, you know that your god is no other than Armin, the god of the ocean. The fates must think this is hilarious, but you just want to scream.

“It’s getting late. I wouldn’t want your father worrying about you.”

You jump at the sudden voice, turning around at the familiar face, leaning against a tree with a gentle smile.

“Thank you, Mr Arlert.”

His footsteps are so gentle, as are his apologies.

“You don’t need to thank me. I’ve come to invade your space, after all.”

“It’s not my space, it’s Armin’s. The god is only letting me stay here.”

He smiles a knowing smile, one that you would usually find patronising on any other man. But Armin is charming, too charming for you ever to think that of him. “I suppose you’re right.”

He comes to sit down beside you, taking his usual place at your right- the voice of reason. It’s quiet for a moment, before you remember.

“Lemnos,” you say.

The blond smiles. “I’m not named after a place.”

And you roll your eyes, as you’ve done every time he’s given you a useless hint. “That hardly narrows it down.”

“Well, I can’t make it too easy of a game.”

“You can’t make it impossible either!”

“It seems like I already have.” And you’re not sure if you want to wipe the smirk off his face or just stare at it.

“What about Tree?”

Arlert laughs. “No, but you have one guess left.”

“What?!” You sit up straight, eyes wide. Now you really want to wipe the smirk off his face.

“You have seven guesses, and in the eleven months we’ve known each other, you’ve used up six.” His explanation is calm and rational enough for you to almost convince yourself that the rule has been there from the start.

“Wait- wait. I never knew about this!”

“I thought everyone did. It’s traditional wager rules.” Mr Arlert’s tone is sorry, but you know he’s everything but. So, you cross your arms and pout, hoping that staring him down might at least give you the smallest chance of winning your wager.

He leans forward, mirthful and you feel a shiver go down your spine. “What is it, little puppy, sulking because you’re afraid you can’t win?”

You flush at the implication of your loss- “No- no not at all- no”- before registering his actual words are and only then can you feel the heat rise and you’re sure it’s doing you no service. “I know I can win!”

“I know you can too,” he assures you.

You frown. “Are you being sarcastic?”

It’s his turn to flush. “No, not at all! You can win- the water god favours you, after all.”

And although you shrug, his words stick. They always do.

Before you go home, you pass by Armin’s temple and place at the foot of his statue the remainder of your grandmother’s necklace.

A year ago:

Amrin knew how fickle the gods were and he thought that this knowledge made him impervious to those feelings. He watched how Eren jumped from woman to woman daily, how Reiner picked and chose his battles without a care, how every single fixation a deity would have never lasted more than a year. He thought of how stupid it was to spend a life of immortality indulging in such temporary pleasures. And he looked down on his kin for that very reason.

It was only after one argument too many that Armin finally let it slip. The god of the sea was usually quiet, offering soft smiles, casual conversation, and minimal conflict. That was his only rule: keeps quiet before the gods of the pantheon as he takes his anger out on the humans below. But that day, he forgot about his rule.

Maybe it was the years of silence that caused the Eathshaker’s outburst, or maybe it was just Eren’s bored expression as he talked about his mistresses in front of Mikasa. Armin couldn’t take it. Gathered at a marble table beside all the Olympians, he scowled and told them how stupid they all were.

“Don’t you realise? You’re all wasting your immortality by being so idiotic, so fickle! Everything you touch becomes a temporary pleasure, ruined by your inability to act like real gods.”

He should have stopped; he really should have stopped. But the crack in the glass bridge had been there for years, and now the shards of glass were dropping down into the sea. “You might as well be human!”

The room went silent. Eyes went wide, and mouths gaped, but the gods opted for silence. Every deity wanted to speak up, maybe even draw their swords, but they were more intelligent than Armin was in that moment, which was more unusual than one might think. He had never snapped so violently before. Armin may have been aggressive, but he knew his place. Knew when to be docile. Now, he felt like he could crumble Olympus itself with his rage and bury the Olympians with their dead parents.

The king of the gods, however, leaned forward. His emerald eyes were unmoving, devoid of emotion though his lips tilted into a monstrous grin.

“You’re just as fickle as the rest of us, brother,” was all Eren said.

When Armin lunged at him, knocking the fine glass off the table, it was Mikasa who pinned him down. Arms locked behind his back, all Armin could do was watch as mirth flooded Eren’s face, and the god of the sky laughed. The bastard laughed and laughed and licked the small wound on his hand from a shard of glass. It healed immediately. Even their pain was temporary.

And like he had been doing for the past millennia, Armin found solice in his only rule: if he couldn’t take out his rage on his brother, Armin would take out his frustration elsewhere.

His first instinct was to find a woman, but the thought of seeking out temporary pleasure, from a mistress no less, reminded him too much of Eren. So, he descended to earth, trident in one hand as the other gripped the reigns of his horse and they rode for three days and three nights. That’s all it took for the god of the sea to find what he was looking for- someone deserving of his hatred.

There are many humans like the merchant. But most of their hatred is silent. And when it’s not, blasphemy often falls upon deaf ears. The merchant just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time when his drunk rambles led him up on the deck screaming out Armin’s name like it was venom in his throat, until he could scream no more. He was drunk, but the merchant’s hatred for the god of the sea did not cease when he was sober.

And when Armin heard his name, the god wasted no time calling forth a storm to sink the merchant’s ship. He took care to ensure that the arrogant man watched each and every one of his men be swallowed whole, their bodies only resurfacing lifeless, before the storm calmed.

It took five days for the merchant to swim back to his island.

He never returned to the sea.

As the weeks passed, he relocated his home to help him stay away from any body of water and made sure that his family followed suit.

But Armin followed, and the merchant’s father died weeks later with saltwater water found in his lungs.

Unfortunately, that was not enough to sedate the god of the sea’s need for vengeance. Fortunately, it was not enough to sedate the merchant’s hatred either. The hubris didn’t leave him. Instead, it just grew and grew and grew until the merchant considered himself more of a god than Armin would ever be.

“Oh, oh.” Armin couldn’t help but smile as he watched the man urinate before his temple. “This is perfect, so perfect.”

Armin was going to show his uncaring brother how different he was from the rest of the miserable Olympians. As he stood above the island of Paradis, golden hair blowing in the ocean wind, the god vowed to begin his Odyssey. An eternal Odyssey. A journey that would last longer than the ten fleeting years he had with the Greek hero- a journey that would last longer than the universe itself.

And he knew exactly where to begin. A man’s most valuable possession: his child.

It was only after your grandfather’s death that Armin noticed you. When he first began watching the merchant’s household, under the guise of either a guest or a bird, he had been surprised to learn that the blasphemous man had no wife, nor children. Armin only realised his mistake one night, when you came to lay a blanket on the drunk man’s barely conscious body. The merchant had pulled you towards him, muttering apologies and you had wrinkled your nose before offering him a soft smile. “It’s okay, papa”.

A daughter sheltered from the world, it seemed.

The god had initially thought you were one of the servants. There were only two in the house, and your tasks were all similar. But as Armin began to watch you closer, he saw how you did have a life outside your home with friends, interests, men- a life your father was blissfully unaware of.

The merchant hardly left home- playing the part of the sick man- and you took care of him- playing the part of your dead mother- in a happy sort of agreement.

You didn’t speak about it to your friends, but you detested your doting role. Armin could tell. The way you wrinkled your nose every time your father walked through the door, the eye-roll when you were given a load of laundry. The god couldn’t help by laugh at how pathetic the merchant was that not even his only daughter- his lifeline- cared for him. The merchant didn’t know, of course. Your fake smiles and gentle hands were enough to deceive him, keep him sane. But Armin was going to break that pattern.

The merchant didn’t deserve the care of a woman. He didn’t deserve anything. So, Armin was going to take you away from him.

His initial plan was to kill you. Simple, efficient, quick. And then he thought of dumping your body somewhere far so that the search for you would break your father’s spirit even more. He hesitated, though, he wasn’t sure why, but he did. And then, you changed your routine.

After meeting up with the two individuals you called your friends at the Sunday market- instead of going back home- you carried on walking. Through the houses on the outskirts and into the dense trees, you almost stung your sandal-clad feet twice before reaching a river. The river had no god of itself, but you still threw in an offering and muttered. Stupid human. And then you sat beside the river and- nothing. Your routine was boring, obviously a ritual to let you escape from reality. Yet, he couldn’t tear away from you. The woman at the river Shiganshina was a different one than the woman who served her father. The one here relaxed her shoulders, cursed at the world around her, smiled- albeit randomly but it was real. He decided there that he would kill you tomorrow.

But when, the next day, you led him back to the river, Armin was lost in you again. Lost in your honestly, lost in your need to escape. He wanted to see more, he needed to see more. Metaphorically, of course. But when you began undressing, the pleated robes dropping to reveal soft skin and tender curves, the god of the sea realised that he wouldn’t mind literally seeing more of you. Armin had been with goddesses and nymphs and, hell, even Aphrodite herself, but never had he been this awestruck. He had to hold himself back. Even though the way you were bathing made it seem like you were worshipping him, water dripping from your body, wet hair hiding the swell of your breasts. Armin’s breath stuttered. He couldn’t reveal himself. He couldn’t.

So, he watched, and watched. Trying desperately to take in everything you were from a distance. Armin didn’t count the number of times he visited you before finally decided that killing you was no longer an option. He told himself that his change of mind was progressive. A practical choice to draw out his revenge into the most painful and convoluted Odyssey. To do that, he couldn’t kill you. No. He was going to take you for himself. Armin was going to turn the daughter of the merchant into a servant of the one God he detested.

Putting the thought into your mind was pathetically easy. As you walked past his temple on your way home, an echo of laughter emerged from the marble building. You paused for only a moment, but it was enough for Armin to catch the look in your eyes. It was one of longing, mixed with a curiosity that threatened to pull you in. But you seemed to catch yourself in the act and hastened yourself home.

And so, Armin’s true Odyssey began.

For his journey to progress, he had to meet you. Not as a bird or a horse or through glances as a guest. He had to meet you properly. This was the only way to draw you in, he told himself. The only way for you to submit completely and willingly.

Armin could have forced you too your knees, but he had to ensure that your father watched has his daughter chose Armin over him. And chose Armin you would. Every piece was in perfect place. The fates seemed to have woven a beautiful cloth of gold for the god of the sea.

What he failed to realise was that the cloth was in fact a snare- a trap which he will never be able to escape from.

Eleven months ago:

A short gust of wind had the pears in your thin basket tumbling down onto the rocky ground. You rushed after the fruit, crouching down to pick it up when a shadow appeared, and a hand reached out to pick it up for you. The sandal-clad feet were pale- paler than anyone living on this warm island and the robes a fine, ironed white. He somehow seemed to glow brighter than his clothes, and you purposefully let your fingers graze his as you picked up the fruit.

“Thank you,” you said, standing up.

You were hoping that he wouldn’t catch your staring. But even if he did, you couldn’t tear your eyes off him. He was lean, taller than you but not intimidatingly so and his eyes were like oceans that you found yourself staring into as he introduced himself as Mr Arlert. Just Mr Arlert. The new owner of the stables with a voice so soft, it took a moment before you remembered to introduce yourself.

“Y/N. And thank you, again.” It isn’t appropriate for an unmarried woman to be talking to a man on her own, but you couldn’t help but ask. “Do you have a first name Mr Arlert?”

His smile was contagious. “I do. But names are a powerful thing. I’m afraid I can’t give mine up freely.”

“Oh.” You scrunched your nose. “Can I pay for it then?”

You were dead serious, but the blond man laughed. How can someone look so pretty when they laugh? You wondered.

“I’m serious! I can pay you; name your price.”

Mr Arlert looked down at you, blue eyes twinkling. “I’ll think about it.”

“So, is that a no?”

“It’s a no, for now. One day I’ll tell you my name.”

He was sweet, so sweet, but you still gave him a sceptical frown, nose scrunching and eyebrows furrowing. Mr Arlert in turn gave you a sorry look before his eyes lit up and he pulled out from his brown satchel a small book of yellowed pages and a dusty blue cover, the gold embossing hardly visible. You nose only scrunched further.

“My name is in this story. It’s mentioned few times, but it’s an important one,” he said to you.

You took the book and flipped through the worn pages, immediately recognising the tale of Aphrodite and Ares. The lovers.

Why the challenge? You wanted to ask Mr Arlert but you knew the answer you your get would be too cryptic. Besides, you think, I like a challenge.

“How long do I have?” You asked instead.

“A year and a day.”

“And what will I get if I figure it out?”

At this, he pondered. But it seemed feigned, and you wondered, just for a split second, if the man had planned this from the beginning. But why? This was another one of your questions that went unanswered that day. Because before you could say anything more, Mr Arlert leaned forward and said, “Your reward will be divine”. And he walked away.

Nine months ago:

Life was well after Armin arrived. There was no other way to put it. Your father was confining himself to his room more often than before, and you were finding more opportunities to visit the river, leave the house and, eventually, you met the handsome baker’s son. Jean was kind, a gentleman, but not the arrogant type like most the men your age. You didn’t even feel too much guilt when you thought that spending a future with Jean- taking care of him and his home- wouldn’t be too bad. It’s quite pathetic that your life had been reduced to not being “too bad”, but the idea of marrying Jean sat on the comfortable line between reality and fantasy. Safety.

And then you were visited at the river.

Mr Arlert wasn’t even surprised to find you there, he had just smiled and sat beside you as you clenched your fists and forced yourself to smile back at him. You had always enjoyed him, his company, his challenges, but now it was like he was provoking you. The river Shiganshina was your river, your special place away from the hellscape that was the town. And now Mr Arlert had brought himself and his ordinary life into it.

You pulled your sandals back on, the crease in your brow evident. He clearly couldn’t get the hint. But before you could stand up, he spoke, and you paused.

“I wish I could jump in and swim away,” he said.

Curiosity got the best of you, as it often did with the man.

“The waterfall would kill you.”

The awkward laugh again. It had an effect on you so that your jaw couldn’t help but unclench. “If it means that I get to touch a waterfall, I wouldn’t mind, you know?”

You knew. You knew exactly what he meant. But you didn’t tell him.

“Didn’t take you as the suicidal type,” you said.

“I might get saved, who knows.”

“If you’re counting on me to jump after you, I’m letting you know I won’t.”

“I know,” he laughed. “I was thinking of more of a divine rescue.”

You finally looked at him, and- unsurprisingly- his blue eyes were glued to yours. What was surprising was his unwavering tone, his straight face. Mr Arlert was being serious. Why was he opening up to you this suddenly? So far, your interactions had consisted of him staring, you trying to guess his name, and him continuing to stare. In that order. You knew there was more to him, but it’s only now that you found yourself wanting to seek that out.

“You think Armin would save you?” You didn’t miss Arlert’s smile.

“I’m hoping I’ve gained his favour- done enough for him to allow me freedom via waterfall.”

It was your turn to smile. “You probably have, You’re at the temple often.”

“Thank you.” He blushed and you quickly pushed down the thought of how cute he looked. Sitting beside you, trousers rolled up and feet in the water, Mr Arlert looked more than cute. He looked like he belonged. You weren’t sure how that made you feel but, in that moment, you didn’t mind him entering your world.

“I think you would also be saved if you jumped into the waterfall,” Mr Arlert said.

You laughed. “Is that your way of saying I’m a nice person?”

“Something like that.” He paused. “I think Armin would appreciate your- uh- honesty. You’re like a priestess.” He laughs nervously at your expression. “You know, they have this personal affinity with the water and such.”

You knew exactly what he meant. How a stranger could read you so perfectly, you weren’t sure. But as you hid your smile between your hands, you wondered whether you were prepared to face the fear of the unknown. Maybe, with Mr Arlert, it would be a bit less unknown.

A few days later, Jean was announced missing. A search party was sent out and even Mr Arlert, on his recently acquired brown horse, couldn’t find him.

Present day:

Armin isn’t sure if he likes playing the part of the nice boy or not. Humans are simple creatures who praise him continuously and, without divine responsibilities, there is no need to take his rage out anywhere. But a god is who he is, and every day, he yearns to be seen as one. To be seen as one by you. He watches as you worship him, but you never look at him- not like you do the statues, or even the small river which you think is your only true connection to the god of the ocean.

You both want more, and you both know that, but you only ever admit it to each other when you sit beside that very river. There, in those moments, Armin feels a bit more like a god. Whenever he’s around you, he feels a bit more like a god.

He’s told you before, but your perfect honesty has made it easy for him to unravel around you. He wants to unravel around you in other ways, too, and he wants you to unravel around him. Armin can’t count the number of times he’s sat beside you at the riverside and wanted to do nothing more than to kiss those lips of yours, to press the hard cock that he hides inside of you and watch as your eyes roll back, and you call out his name.

But the God of the Sea is not Eren. Armin will earn you. And he’s very close to doing so. Not Mr Arlert. You have no interest in human men, that much is clear. You yearn for something more powerful. And you’re right. Only a god is worthy enough to stand beside you, lay between your legs, be in your arms. Mr Arlert is simply a means to push you to realising that the god in question is Armin.

In the meantime, he’s been nothing but patient.

It’s only when you come to his door one night, eyes puffy and red, that he lays his hands on you for the first time. He rubs your back as you cry and cry, fat tears refusing stop falling. You tell him about bout your father. About how, since he got better, he’s been refusing to let you out of the house, snapping at every moment and accusing you of being a filthy god-worshipper.

“He s-sai-d- he said we’re ‘gonna move away- said we’re gonna get as far away from the s-sea as possible.” You can hardly speak, though the tears have stopped, your voice still shakes violently. But Armin listens, he holds you close to him and repeats that everything is going to be fine.

You can’t stop thanking him as you leave, and he promises that his door is always open for you. “Whenever you call for me, I’m here,” Armin tells you. “Right beside you, always,” he adds as he watches you walk away.

He’s reached a new chapter of this Odyssey.

Present day:

You suppose your father’s death should have been expected. He was an old man, obviously depressed, and his only lifeline was his daughter who hated him.

You also suppose you should feel guilty. You don’t.

Familiar faces give their condolences and whisper questions of what is to happen to you now. You only pay heed to Sasha and Connie, though, who give you a soft hug before Sasha tells you that her family would be happy to take you in. You reassure her and everyone else that you have a plan, though your best friends are the only ones who seem to believe you.

“I heard Marie has a son who’s single, maybe they can-“

“You’re not actually talking about marriage here are you?”

“Well, the girl is all alone in the world, now! She needs a man to lead her on the right path.”

The old women are wrong, so very wrong. You don’t need a man. You’re fucking sick of men- sick of them all- everything they’ve created and everything they stand for.

What you need is a god.

The head priestess of Armin’s temple in unsurprised when you knock on her door with nothing but a bag and the clothes on your body. Those clothes are burned soon after, along with many of your other things, leaving your old life behind.

She tells you that you’re lucky there’s a place for you. The last priestess left running off with a man, “Which is a cardinal sin”, she makes sure to repeat every-so-often. The head priestess seems to hate men more than you do, sneering whenever Connie comes by.

Sasha and Connie are unsurprisingly shocked at your choice of work and even if they visit almost every day, they always tell you that they miss you. They think you’ve come the temple out of desperation- everyone does- and you let them believe. Because despite cleaning the marble floors or whatever other arduous duty you’ve been given, a smile is never far as you realise that you’re free from man. Indeed, explaining the truth to anyone would be far too difficult.

Well, except one person.

You’ve never missed anyone before. Not with your father keeping you so sheltered for most of your life. But as you push through the Head Priestess’ relentless schedule, you can’t help but miss Mr Arlert. He disappears after your father’s funeral, so you leave him a note at the empty stable with your final guess. You like to think he decided to follow his own path, you also like to think that he too wishes you were beside him, a guide in the unknown.

Present day:

The room is a box of marble, with a throne sat upon a dais at the centre and one fountain at every corner, each one sculped into a horse. The object of your interests, however, is the large bowl of water on the floor in front of the throne.

This is your initiation. You will emerge from this room not as an apprentice, but a Priestess.

You kneel down and lift the pot of clay to your lips. The head priestess kept on repeating how important it is to not put it down until you’re finished. So, you gulp the water down until you can see the image of Armin. You’re the one who selected the pot, with its faded paint depicting Armin and Hange’s fight for patronage of Sina. It’s a powerful image, but when you put the pot down, you come face to face with something very different. Armin is standing in a room-this room, you realise- and crouched down before him is a young woman, looking up in awe. It takes bit longer of a moment for you to realise that the woman is you.

Looking up slowly from the pot, the first thing you see is sandal-clad feet. Golden sandals, just as fine as the robes he wears, draped in perfect waves. The first word you think of to describe him is divine and it’s indeed accurate because-

“Mr Arlert.” Your voice is barely above a whisper.

But you know that’s not correct. The man- no, not a man- before you is taller than Mr Arlert, by a foot and a half at least. His muscles are more prominent that the stable boy’s ever were, strong legs visible through the large slit between the layers of fabric draped over the god’s figure. Half of his shoulder-length hair is tied back using a golden pin whilst the rest frames his perfect, perfect face. You can’t help but think that Armin looks nothing like his statues- no medium of art could capture the ocean within his eyes, glowing in the dull light of the room. Then again, the stories didn’t capture the way the god acts either.

“Armin,” you say, this time your voice louder.

Now, you know.

His sad smile is familiar, but there’s something there that never was. “Oh dear,” he says. “I’m afraid you’ve lost out wager.”

Armin can’t help but compare you to a puppy, with large eyes staring up at him from your crouched position and an expression a perfect mix of excitement, curiosity, and shock.

You reach out a hand tentatively, but it hovers in the air between the two of you once you notice Armin’s raised brow. But he doesn’t rebuke you for it. After all, it’s only your first encounter with the god. He can’t expect you to behave perfectly, to adopt the right etiquette- no, he’ll have to train you first. Like he would a baby mutt. The thought makes him smile.

“I’ll accept any consequences, my god,” you say. Your voice sounds so sure of itself, so unlike your usual ramblings, those that Armin could and would listen to for hours. Right now, though, the certainty, it’s laced with desire that sends blood rushing south. You don’t notice. You’re too lost in his eyes to notice anything.

When he places his hand on your chin to hold it up, he can feel you shiver. “Such a perfect little worshipper,” he says. “I couldn’t possibly punish you.”

Armin can swear he sees disappointment in your eyes before he turns around and walks up the dais. The marble of the throne is cold beneath him, but the sight of you looking up at him with such longing is enough to warm him up. Now, Armin is sure you’ve noticed his growing erection because you crawl towards the dais, not yet climbing it, but close enough to see and lick your lips.

“Let me thank you at least, Armin.” He almost groans at the sound of his name. God, he wants to hear you say it over and over.

“Come here.”

And you climb up the dais only to pause before Armin leans forward and grabs your hips. Two lips, as if led by an invisible string, meet. You kiss like you’ve been waiting years for Armin and, in a way, you have. His tongue is inside your mouth quickly and he’s kissing, sucking, letting his teeth gently graze your lips as he revels in the feeling of you. As your bodies lean against each other, you can feel his heart hammering against your own. His chest is stone, but his lips are so soft and your hands find his golden hair. It’s also softer than it looks, and Armin can’t help but let out a moan as you gently tug.

When you pull back, his pupils are blown. “Thank me, then,” Armin says, breathless.

Sitting between his legs, your hand is tiny compared to his cock, and you can’t stop staring at it. Long and somewhat slender, but veiny with a flushed red top- he can see you gulp before you take an experimental lick at him. Armin’s hold on your hair only tightens and you look up at him, doe eyed and seemingly innocent.

“Put it in your mouth, pretty girl,” he says, guiding your head gently. “So obedient- Yes, exactly, just like-ah- just like that.”

But he doesn’t need to push down- no- he lets you set your own pace only because you do it so perfectly, almost as perfect as the wet noises you make. Armin doesn’t have time to be surprised, he’s just able to react fast enough to suppress his own moans so he can hear your wet tongue caress the base of his cock, as your lips create the perfect o-shape to accommodate him. Your drool is everywhere in a matter of seconds- his balls are coated with it, and so is your lap, where the spit seeps through the thin white fabric you call a robe.

“Like a puppy,” he murmurs. And you look up quizzically. “You’re drooling over me like a desperate puppy- a puppy in heat,” he grunts. “You just want to please me, don’t you? ‘S alright, puppy, I’ll let you do that.”

If you could nod your head, you would. Instead, your cheeks burn, and Armin is so lost in the way that you look- not even able to take his entire cock in his mouth- that his hips begin to buck unconsciously. He hits the back of your throat, and you gag at the sudden impact, but he hisses and murmurs “What a good, wet hole. So good, good-”

The earthshaker is afraid that if he speaks any louder, his voice will slur into incomprehensible sultry sounds. But as you struggle to take his cock even deeper into his mouth, he lets out groans that go straight between your own legs. You moan around him, and the reverberations make his head roll back. God, you could stare at him forever. And he would let you.

“Look at me,” he says whenever your eyes go astray. “Look at your god.”

As his hips buck more violently, Armin can feel the pressure in his lower stomach, the impending orgasm and he wants to stop- wants to hold out the way he always has. But he can’t, it’s too much and he just cannot pull out of you. He simply pushes further and further into your tight throat, repeating your name like it’s a blessing. “fuck, puppy, ‘m going to- I’m going to cum down your throat. You want that, do you you’re your god’s cum- ah, fuck, ahhh”-

Pushing your head down to the base, both of his hands at the back of your head, Armin cries out you name and you can feel the warm liquid go down your throat, thick ropes filling up your mouth, some of it dribbling out. Armin reflexively pushes it back in your mouth, ordering you to swallow it all, to show how grateful you are. Of course, you oblige. But before you can even regain your breath, Armin suddenly pulls you off his cock. His pupils are dilated, and he wears an expression- anger? Shock?

“You’re not a virgin,” he hisses, teeth gritting against each other. His breath is frantic, uneven. It’s not a question and you begin to recognise his expression. Rage. “You’ve done this before.”

Fuck.

The God of the sea has his fair share of consorts and mistresses. Some of them virgins- though he never chases them the way Eren does- some of them not, but none have made him cum so fast. He would like to blame it on the year of pining, of restraint, but he knows better. It’s you. You do this him. You make him so wild, so willing, so pliant even.

In that moment, as he looks your worried face, so desperate to please, he thinks that he’ll never be able to let it go. You’ve consumed Armin and he wants to do nothing more than burn eternally. You must understand that- that you exist as his beacon, that’s where you’ll be your happiest, but those thoughts are too complex for a human. You, in your fragile state, can’t understand. It’s alright, he’ll just have to show you bit by bit that you’re his. But to do so, he must first take on the role he’s familiar with. That of the punisher.

“Who is he?” Armin snaps.

“It was only-“

“Who is he?”

You pause. Memories of nights spent together, huddled close and trying to keep quiet already fading. “Berthrolt Hoover.”

Armin’s shoulders relax, “I see.”

His breathing slowly goes back to normal, and, at the back of your mind, you know you’ve signed the young warrior’s death. But your worry is fleeting as Armin grabs you by the neck and hoists you over his knees, laying you down on your stomach effortlessly. “A priestess who isn’t a virgin?”

You look up as see Armin’s familiar sweet smile, but it’s laced with mirth that makes you forget the Mr Arlert he was before. You cry out at the first slap of his hand on your ass, more out of surprise than pain.

“I don’t think the people of Paradis will be very happy to hear that,” he says. “An unmarried woman giving herself away to a pathetic boy.”

Slap!

“I’m sorry!” you cry out. “It was a mis-”

He slaps you thrice.

“No excuses, dumb little puppy. I’m afraid you’ll have to endure this punishment.” His voice is deceptively soft, as if he is actually sorry. And when you look back up at Armin, his face betrays no malice. But it doesn’t show any cruelty either. Instead, there’s a fascination.

Armin has you sprawled across his lap, at his mercy and he is discovering you bit by bit. As a god. His cock twitches and then suddenly he tugs off the fabric of your robes and they disappear.

The way you squirm is half- hearted, and Armin has to laugh. “Embarrassed? Now of all times? I didn’t know you were such a prude. Or is this all just to compensate for the fact that you’re a whore in my temple?”

You shake your head, “I swear, I’ve never belonged to any man!”

Fingers trace the expanse of your naked body, soft enough to send shivers down your spine. “Oh? Really?”

“Yes yes, I swear, ah!” His fingers find your naked ass and they grab onto the flesh, massaging, groping, feeling you. Armin’s other hand rests on top of your head, stroking it gently and you’re so lost in his touch that you almost forget to speak.

“I belong to no man, I never have. Only you. It’s always been you, Armin.”

The god’s eyes widen, and he gently pulls you up from his lap only to seat you on it, upright and, this time, there’s so much more to admire. “You’re right,” he says. Armin captures your lips and this time, it’s longer, rougher. He doesn’t want to pull back, doesn’t want to lose the feeling of your soft lips against his, but his hands have already found your breasts and soon, his tongue joins them. You moan as he begins to lap at your breasts, leaving hickeys and spit in his wake as his finally finds your nipples and begins sucking them like a child as you whine and lean into him.

“You do belong to me,” he finally says, his voice partially muffled as he loses himself in the worship your breasts. “You’ve always belonged to me.”

And you can do nothing more than nod your head as your fingers tangle in Armin’s hair and you’re pulled into another kiss. His hand goes down your body, squeezing every single mound of flesh as if it needs to be touched so that when he finds your cunt, Armin can’t help but smile at how wet you are.

“Already, but I’ve hardly done anything to you?”

What a liar, but you don’t have a chance to tell him before he plunges a finger inside of you. “Oh, puppy, my puppy,” he groans at the contact the same time you moan, pushing your hips against his digits. “You like my fingers like that inside of you?”

“Yes, yes, I do, I really love them- it feels, oh my god, it feels too good!” you grip his shoulders, unable to do anything but desperately buck your hips at the smiling Armin. He knows what he’s doing, he knows that his fingers are giving you just that satisfaction, but it’s still not enough to bring you over the edge.

“Please Armin, please.” You squeeze his shoulders.

“Tell me what you want, tell me, I’ll give it to you- I swear.”

“I want to feel you, all- ah- all of you. I need to feel you inside of me!”

You’re not sure at which moment Armin removes his robes, but as he moves both of your legs so that you’re straddling him, your hands are on his bare, lean chest. The god’s nipples are flushed pink and pert, practically calling to you and you respond by brushing your fingers over them and watching him twitch ever-so-slightly in response. You withhold the urge to take them into your mouth, even as Armin rubs his cock against your cunt, releasing the sweetest of sounds.

He’s already leaking precum and it mixes with your juices so perfectly, his cock being dragged back and forth, only making you gush even more. “So messy,” he mumbles as he uses his tip to spreads your juices across your thighs. At this point, you can practically feel it throbbing, ready to be sheathed inside of you and the whimpers of your desperation echo against the temple walls.

When Armin slips inside of you, simultaneous gasps escape your lips. The god pulls your body closer to his as you throw your head back, stars in your eyes.

“Look,” he whispers. “Look how easily I slip in- it’s- it’s like your cunt is made for me.”

“Armin,” you whisper back. “Armin, Armin- ah- Armin.”

He sinks you down slowly, the stretch hitting every single spot that leaves your legs practically limp. The god is holding you up, whispering his own mantra that you can’t hear over your bliss. Once inside, your eyes look lock with Armin’s and he’s staring at you in a way he’s never done before. You’ve never seen pupils so dilated and the two of you stay like that as if making up for the moments when you should have been connected in this way. An eternity, it seems, the two of you have needed each other.

“I’m your god,” Armin finally says. “I’m your god and- hng ah-” He begins moving you up and down his shaft. “And I’m going to make you cum all over this cock- okay? All over your god’s cock.”

You nod your head pathetically as he lifts your hips and slams them down against his own. He is strong, ruthless in the way he bucks his hips up every time he lifts you from his cock, as if he can’t bare the empty feeling of not having your tight pussy clamped around him. At this relentless pace, you’re sure that the sound of your connecting bodies could penetrate even these marble walls. And yet, you don’t hold back. Thanks and praises spill from your swollen lips and Armin can’t help but lean forward and push his tongue between your mouth, as if he can absorb all of your word. “So good, so good, it’s- uah- I just want more, more of your cock, you fill me up so good!”

Armin can’t deny you. He pushes your thighs to your chest and picks up your entire body to fuck himself. He manoeuvres your body like a toy and as your tongue rolls out and your eyes become glassy, you begin to look like one too. The only sounds coming out of your mouth are incomprehensible, even as Armin attaches his mouth to one of your bouncing tits, you can only squeal.

“Such a good puppy,” he says between kisses. “Letting me use her holes like this. A god using a puppy’s holes- you should be- you should be grateful! Tell me, tell me you’re grateful!”

“I am!” you cry out. “I am grateful!”

“Good girl, good puppygirl.”

When Armin flips you over, you’re sat on his throne and he fucks into you harder, harder than he was doing before, and you swear his moans are louder too. He’s looking down at the movement of your stomach as if hypnotized by the way his cock disappears into you. And, in a way, he is. The fascination of being inside of you- just the idea even- is enough to make him want to cum.

The sudden position has him hitting new spots and the build-up is so fast, you hardly have the time to warn him. “Armin, Armin I’m cum-“

He grabs your face as you release around his cock, body spasming but unable to look away as Armin’s gaze burns through you. “Good girl,” he says. “Show me, show me how you cum. Just like that, just like that.”

He continues to plough his hips into yours and the spasms of your pussy leave him unable to hold back. “Inside of you,” he practically growls. “I’m going to cum inside of you- yes, yes, yes I am puppy. I’m going to cum inside of you and you’re going to show me how you take it yeah?”

You’re too far gone to even register the implications of what he’s saying, but he buries his cock in your warm walls and releases his cum inside of you with a heavy groan. “Just like that, just like that- I’m going to fill you up with my seed, puppy, my puppy.”

Armin feels like he’s emptied his balls- two powerful orgasms which leave his legs shaking violently. And yet, he pulls out of you slowly and stands back up to his full height, cock in front of your face. Almost instinctively, you rub your cheek against it, giving Armin soft kitten licks and he coos at you, stroking your hair. But he doesn’t push, he just holds his cock there and pumps softly as he stares at your fucked out face. Messy, covered in his spit, his hickeys, his bites, his cum- you look perfect, divine. Only one thing is missing. “I’m going to give you everything I have, puppy. And you’re going to take it, okay?” You nod and open your mouth for him and, immediately, a strong stream of pee emerges.

At the bitter taste on your tongue, your eyes roll back, and you spread your legs even wider, a welcome to the mess he is about to make. Armin accepts and angles his cock to release his pee over your chest, then your stomach, and then your already-throbbing cunt. He lifts a foot to rest on the throne and Armin doesn’t think he’s even seen such a beautiful sight in his life.

As if guided by an implicit will, Armin’s foot hovers on top of you and suddenly, he presses against your lower stomach. Your eyes snap back into focus as you whine out for him to wait, wait just a moment “I just had water,” you cry out. “It’s gonna- It’s gonna come out!”

But Armin simply grins. “Let it come out,” he says and presses his foot down harder. “Pee yourself dumb little mutt, be a good puppy for your owner.” The trickle that emerges is involuntary, but Armin’s grin is wider. “Yes, good girl, just like that. Let me see more, let me see more of you.”

The pressure that was holding the bowl of water back broke and you felt the warm liquid against your thighs before you realise what’s happening. Armin practically moans as he watches you whimper and struggle to hold your pee back as it spreads over the throne, the dais, and even Armin himself. He doesn’t stop until you’ve given it all to him.

You expect Armin to disappear.

You’ve given him everything. His goal is complete, you think, he has nothing more to do with you. But, as he has done many times before, the god surprises you. Armin’s body is heavy against yours when he collapses on top of you, but the weight is comforting. Despite the malaise of urine and cum rubbing against both of your bodies, you wrap your arms around the god of the ocean and hold him close.

Even as you close your eyes and lean your head back on the marble throne, Armin doesn’t leave you. Even as you open your eyes back up and see blue ones staring back at you, the look he gives you is so familiar and long hair in such unfamiliar disarray that you can’t help but smile.

He doesn’t ask why. Instead, Armin calls forth a stream of warm water from the adjacent fountain to clean the both of you. It feels like a fever dream the way floating droplets caress your bodies, and when Armin stands you up, his hands not leaving you, the perfume that suddenly envelops you is heavenly.

“Can I give you a last kiss, please?” you ask when your robe appears once again. And Armin leans forward to capture your lips, dragging his tongue on your bottom lip as if to taste you.

It doesn’t feel like a final kiss. You’ve had many of them- Jean, Sasha, Berthrold, your father, and even your mother, though you can’t remember it. This kiss is different. It feels less like a kiss and more like a promise, a vow. a shiver runs down your spine.

“I am your god,” he says and lifts his both of his hands slowly to wrap around your neck. “And you’re my worshipper.” You gasp as a cold sensation spreads around your neck, just below Armin’s fingers. It’s sudden, and heavy and when he removes his hands, yours fly to your neck and there’s a metal band there where there was none before.

“It’s sculpted from Hephaestus’ gold,” Armin says as he strokes his fingers along the metal. But he’s not looking at his gift, instead he looks at you.

“Armin- I- this is. But why?”

For the first time, he can’t read your expression. But it doesn’t matter. You belong to him. You always have, but now you know. And if it takes time for you to understand, Armin can wait. He’ll wait right beside you, always, always there to guide you.

“This is not the end of my Odyssey. My Odyssey is eternal,” he says before giving you another short kiss and disappearing, the warmth of his lips still present.

The gods might not all be fickle, you think, so you just smile sadly. But the gods are all selfish, so you touch the collar around your neck.

A/N: This is my first ever collab and I was- as still am- a bit insecure about how this story turned out so I appreciate all of your support ❤️. I would also like to apologise to my fellow history nerds for the historical inaccuracies.

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lovee-infected · 3 years

Note

haha, Malleus dies AU let's gooooo (imkiddingpleasedont)

“Tsuonotarou”

(A/N): I cried, I've been crying all day and I'll be crying for the rest of the month.

Pairing: Malleus Draconia x Gn! Reader

Warning(s): Angst, Mentions of blood, major character death

"T-tsunotarou-?" You stuttered out. Words came out of your mouth without you even feeling your mouth moving.. At this point, everything felt to bizzare to be even realistic. Your legs, your mouth. Green growing flames sorrounding you and burn all that was left from that hellish war to ashes but all you had on your sight was the wounded fae.

"Tsunotarou!" you screamed as you ran to Malleus, begging to heavens that you weren't too late.

You fall to your knees by Malleus's severely injured body. Unable to do a thing but to terrifiedly gaze at how his warmth of life was being slowly stolen by the cold embrace of death, blood rushing out of the huge wound on the left side of his chest and turning his clothes as red as bloody roses. You let out a choked scream, grabbing his almost, lifeless body by waist and pulling him to your lap. You stared at Malleus with your eyes half shut, trying your best to hold your heavy tears from falling.

There was nothing, you felt nothing. No pain, no joy, no fear. It was neither sad nor happy, you just couldn't feel anything at all. All you knew was that everything seemed unrealistic, so wrong.

No, this had to be a nightmare, this wasn't real. It couldn't be, it couldn't be, it shouldn't be.

Your body was shaking and your voice, trembling. You could see his lips being parted to say something but fail to realize what it was as your tears had totally blurred blurred vision.

Even as tears had clouded your visiton, you could see that was smiling at you, no signs of any fear or anger could be found in his mesmerizing emerald eyes. His smile was soft, just like the first time he smiled at you, you could still feel his sweet laughter being echoed through your ear from the first time he heard you call him "tsunotarou".

You could feel the pain in your chance growing wider as your memories with him are recalled to you, but you had to resist them.This wasn't the right time to cry, you must not. Malleus shouldn't see you cry, not now. You had to show him that you still had faith in him, that you still believe that he's got a chance to survive. You had to be strong in front of him but you couldn't. You couldn't be strong when the dearest person of your life was dying right in front of your eyes.

Your shaky hands took his hand and brought it to your face as you cried hysterically. Malleus was dying and you couldn't do anything but to watch! You thought he was unstoppable, practically immortal! You kept crying into his hand as your tears soaked his coated in dirt and blood hand. "You said I won't need to worry! You promised that you'll be fine! You p-promised-!!" you cried to the air.

Malleus wished he could've opened his mouth and say those words again, to confront you, to tell you those lies over and over and try to make you believe everything is going to be fine but the unbearable pain burning his chest turned his words into nothing but a bloody cough. He help but to feel guilty. Oh dear, who could've imagined that *this, would be the end of the cruel fae who was once the future King of valley of thorns...? Such a pitiful way to die...

"Child of man...please don't-"

"You promised to be the one protecting me when things went wrong! You told me that you'll be there whenever I needed you...!!" You wailed while choking up in sobs. words kept coming out of your mouth without you having any control over them, you didn't even realize that you were not simply talking but shouting at this point. You felt so heavy, so full of words. These were going to be your last words to him and no one even tried to hold you back from pouring your anger on fae, not even Malleus himself.

"I-I need you now, please. Please I love you tsunotarou don't leave me alone!" you screamed in pain and broke down in tears again. You brought your teary face to his, letting tears swell down your face and fall on his.

"My precious human, you don't have much time left. It's your now-or-never chance to make a a return to your own world...,don't waste it on me... go," Malleus whispered to you, his tone was still so certain strong yet filled with so much pain. And you knew that he was right.

Just a few meters away from where Malleus's lifeless body was laying, bloody screams and shouts of the students fighting could still be heard. The hall of mirrors had been destroyed, and the dark mirror's gate itself could get closed at any second. You could here Ace and Deuce screaming your name as they tried to find you through the crowd, it was your very last chance to return home.

"Your friends are calling, little one. D-...gah-!!" Malleus hissed as he squirmed in pain. "D-don't keep them waiting..." even yet, he was keeping his smile on. But even as his face could fool you his struggling for breath was telling you that he couldn't last for much longer...

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT THEM!" you said as you hugged tight to his face again. You ran your fingers through his messy hair, wanting to scream from the bottom of your chest and letting the whole world hear your pain. "I want to stay here with y-you, please, as long as I get to be with you no one else matters..." words become hard to spell as the your throat is clogged with pain. You couldn't talk, you couldn't see, you couldn't breathe. You'd never wanted life to be a nightmare more that you did now, you were begging to heaven to let it all be on, to let you wake up from this hell and find your beloved tsunotarou beside you; safe and alive.

"Here...with me?" Malleus said in a questionable tone but he wasn't really asking. His closed his eyes begun to let out a weak smirk as he continued to speak: "Happy endings... aren't for villains, child of man" he bitterly uttered before letting out another cough "You've got no future with me..."

His words ached your heart a lot more than you thought it may. Oh lords, just how badly you wished you could just grab his face and kiss all over it again and again while telling him not to say such things. But here you were, doing nothing but to silently cry as you held on to your beloved one's lifeless body. You couldn't save him, you couldn't do anything tobut to watch. Your hands wee holding him tight but couldn't do anything to take away the pain burning his chest or even stop him from bleeding.

"Yet..." malleus sighed "I used to wonder if you could you could be my... happy ending,"

Malleus's fragile smile had vanished, his face being totally experssionless now. The light of his glowing eyes was slowly disappearing, his breathes were cut shorter and his hands... colder.

"And...I was right. You indeed changed everything about my life" you could see a small drop of tearing falling down his eye as he spoke:"You brought light to me just when I'd given in to my darkness and before I could've realized... you changed me" a small yet, genuine smile begun to reappear upon his pale lips. He turned his head to you, his hand trying to pull a small strand of your hair away from your teary face. "You are my little angel, (y/n). You've always been..."

And before you could've realized, you were no longer the only one crying. Your finger slid between his hand, trying to hold it once again. He locks his fingers with yours, making you feel the warmth of all the times you two had held hands before. You couldn't tell why but, you realized that you were smiling through your tears. The pain was ripping your heart out, yet there was also a warmth, a hope.

A feeling of joy that made you want to smile at him back through the depths of pain and despair, just like the first time, when you were smiling at the horned stranger standing at the back of the ramshackle dorm. All those glamorous meetings, are held secretly in the dead of the night and not a single knew about them but you and your unknown visitor, your tsunotarou. Each and every of the memories you had besides him were recalled to you, and your mind drowned in him. His laughter, his eyes, his warmth. The love you two shared and not a single soul knew about it but you, all flashed before your eyes as you gazed through his emerald eyes again.

"(y/n)! There you are!" you heard Deuce's from behind as you could hear their footsteps approaching, yet you didn't care to turn your head away, your whole world was lost in the fae's eyes at the moment.

"I love you...Malleus" you whispered to him, not even realizing that this was your very first time calling him by name.

"As I love you," he replied.

You wanted to say something but it becomes hard to form words when your mouth refuses to work, when words get lost in a sea of murky thoughts, when the numbing darkness pulled you closer. Or was that Malleus pulling you closer? You couldn't quite tell anymore.

You brought your lips closer to his, feeling the last remaining of his lifeless breathes brushing against your face.

"Be it in this life or next," he murmured, his words low but soft against your skin when you squeezed his bloodied fingers in yours "I will find you again. I promise to you, I will."

And this time, he wasn going to keep his promise by all means...

You bowed your face down to his, whispering to him before your lips met: "Then I'll be waiting for you....once upon a dream"

You closed your eyes and felt his soft lips against yours, the kiss was filled with a deadly pain but also met a slight warmth of hope. You filled your entire existend being woven to him. The kiss was filled with the taste of coopery blood combined with your salty tears, yet so soft and sweet.

"(y/n)..." Nothing could make this moment any more euphric for Malleus than it already was, surrounded by beautiful, swirling trails of light, feeling utterly weightless and free, met by a dreamy kiss from the one and only love of his life, he wonders if his life had ever been this good. He could barely remember ever being so calm. Crying at such a beautiful moment seemed totally pointless. Why try to struggle against something so wonderful? Right?

You didn't pull back even as the fae's very last breathe got lost between the kiss and his eyelids fell shut.

At last, you'd given him the true “kiss of death”.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #mallues draocnia #Malleus's Draconia x reader #Twst imagines #twisted wonderland imagines #tw/blood #tw/death #angst

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kanene-yaaay-o-retorno · 3 years

Text

The Pink Pearl

Kanene’s Notes:

Soooo... I needed to improve my action scenes. And then this fanfic was born! :D)/

It has pirates and ghosts and pirate ghosts! :DD

Warnings, fun facts, random things and stuff:

* That fanfic was a bit inspired on that fabulous video right here.

* Contains: Angst, Cursing, Hypnosis, Implied death, Clear description of bein hypnotized, clear description of a ship burning to the ground, Hur/Comfort, Mild Comfort, Mystical beings, Magic, Happy ending, Hopeful Ending.

* This characters do not belongs to me. They all belongs to Thomas Sanders.

* Something around 3.500 words. -w-)b.

* You can also find this fic on AO3.

* Sorry for any spelling, pontuation and grammar mistakes! Any advice is very very welcome!

* Tô com preguiça de postar a versão em português brasileiro aaaa! Thankys for reading! Eat a snack, rest, watch that favorite movie you have been wanting to see again, take care and drink water! Byeioo!~

[~*~]

“I need help.” He tried to not grimace with how the words dried even further his hurt throat as they left his lips, shivering when a sudden breeze from night’s cold froze the sweat on his skin. Remy - at least that was what he said his name was, but trusting in a pirate word could lead you to not so pleasant storms - snorted, moving his cuffs and pressing their backs closer.

“Yeah, no shit.” His voice was raspy, tired, and not for the first time Emile wondered for how long he had been there, since his presence was already a constant when the amateur sailor’s boat had been plundered and he got captured, thrown on the darkest part of the ship and finding his company.

“That makes two of us.” The last part came out as a bitter whisper.

A peaceful wave hit the hull, making the ship stumble and rock under the moonlight that gazed pieces of their skin through a few cracks in the highest woods.

“No. I mean, yes, but…” Emile sighed deeply, tired awareness washing over him as the sailor realized the full extent of his next words. He rested his head on Remy’s shoulder, a move which led the other to untense his muscles and be more open to conversations.

They didn’t have much more time before the moon hit its highest spot in the sky and Emile wasn’t sure if they would make it to another full moon. Remy could only distract the crew so much. “I need your golden necklace.”

The other stiffed, breath hitching, stiff pose. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do.” Calm voice, free of any accusation, his brown eyes stared at the ‘ceiling’ picturing stars and constellations and the unstable clouds and how it feels when the salty breeze hit his skin freely. “I know it’s probably an important possession for you given how long you’ve been hiding it, and I’m really sorry I am asking for it but we really need a good offering.”

“Are you going to beg Neptune to save us?” Sound of fabric being ripped, the metal’s clicking making itself known. “He has islands and ships of gold being given to him right now, goldenfish. This may be a preciosity, but isn’t that worth it.”

Goldenfish: Breakable; Pirates who didn’t experience the true nightmares of surviving in the ocean; Naive; Fragile;

“If I’m going to go in a shit way, at least let a captain die with the last of his treasures.” His voice choked in the middle of the sentence, but both pretended to not notice it.

Emile felt dread fill his stomach, tightly closing his eyes as tears pricked their corners. Their captors never held their tongue, always discussing all their possibilities to get rid of their prisoners during parties and meetings on the main deck, voices loud enough to be heard by them both. Besides, the sailor was sure the crew wouldn’t stop themselves from making morbid remarks whenever Remy was called to ‘amuse’ them, even though the other refused to say anything to him when he was back, playing it off with some sarcastic sentences and ironic expressions.

(Emile attempted to be interesting one time, trying to pry their attention from Remy at all costs. His light-hearted efforts and humored puns were rewarded with nasty bruises and more chores to deal with. There were no sarcastic phrases that day.)

Still… It was the first time they talked about it out loud. Ignoring their eventful end made things more forgettable, easier to look away. But, now Emile was sure he wasn’t the only one sensing the impatience clouding and suffocating the air around them as the days went by.

Emile wished they had more time. “We’re not going to die and I’m not going to pray to Neptune. Not today.” Remy scoffed, yet listening. “I have a pink pearl with me, it can…” His sentence trailed off, his tired mind trying to find an easy way to explain his family situation. “Some spirits own me a favor.”

Emile had seen Remy’s eyes when he was dragged, barely conscious, to his prison for the first time. They were black and deep like the bottom of the Ocean, full of untold beauties and unseen mysteries. He could almost feel their glare on him.

“Do your spirits happen to be friends with the sea nymphs? The Thunder Damsels? Because that is the only fucking way we’re getting out of this.”

“They can help.” Emile stayed firm, trying to buckle their conversation out the way it was heading.

“Because…?”

“Remy, we don’t have much more time, please, give me the necklace.”

“Oh, of course, I am sorry for trying to know who my last possession is going to. What a bitch, am I right? Wait! Thinking better about it, why don’t we go up there and ask for the crew to help us? They’re full of gold, too!” He hissed. Because he couldn’t even shout out his irritation. Because it has been days since he last slept due his haunting nightmares, but the possibility of this being a dream freezes his blood and tights his throat. Because Emile’s hope was beginning to make its way to his soul and he knew how dangerous that could be.

“Ghosts, ok?! They are ghosts!”

Remy stared the wall in disbelief, seconds passing by. Emile closed his eyes.

“My stars, are you trusting our lives to haunting ghosts?” He barked a laugh, despair and astonishment dripping from his words.

But Emile didn’t laugh, seeming to shrink behind him.

So, Remy stopped, convincing himself that it was because of the coughing fit that hit him, molesting his dry throat, and not the soft heart he so fiercely denied to have.

Someone dropped a cup on the upper floor, curses immediately following suit. The sound made them both jump a few inches in the air, unable to stop the squirming, the shivering. The other’s whisper cut the silence.

“If you can’t trust me now, I don’t know when you will.”

Remy sighs, pressing their backs closer and lightly elbowing his ribs.

“Drop the pout, starfish.” As he got up, his chained hands maneuvered to grab his necklace from the hidden pocket on his boot, dropping it on the cold floor and carefully pushing it in Emile’s direction. “If this doesn’t work, I’m getting you back later.”

“Thank you.” The sailor’s smile only increased as Remy scoffed. Although, he didn’t have too much time to rest in the warm feeling blooming on his chest, quickly getting the pearl from his own hidden place. He gathered the two objects on his hands before sitting in front of a small hole he opened on the lower part of their cell, a glimpse of the ocean shining behind it.

Deep breaths. Ok. He could do this.

The well known chant sea flew from his mouth. It sounded like sunny afternoons and picnics, and nights embraced on the dimming dark, and soft hugs, and loud laughter with the feeling of freedom and dances around a wooden, crowned table. It was melodious, it was memories and his last shout of hope. His energy, his gratitude, his fear, his last chance, his last treasure, everything was offered.

The objects fell from his palms and were engulfed by the deep, incessant waves.

For a moment nothing happened and Remy regretted all his life choices, a not new habit of his, however at least this time he had a different reason, especially as Emile continued the tunes of that old song, apparently unfazed by the clear failure of his attempt.

Then Remy realized.

Besides his voice there was…quiet.

A life dedicated to explore and navigate the seven seas could be a lot of things. I could be dangerous, it could be difficult, lonely, adventurous, memorable, exhausting and even boring. But never quiet. There was always something. Always the melody of the waves carrying your ship, the wind slapping the sails, the mermaids whispering in your ears, a curse daunting your dreams… Silence could be present, but not for long and never as absolute.

But now…?

Now everything was quiet.

And that made a run shiver run across his spine, muscles tenses, instincts shouting. “Emile?”

The sailor didn’t respond, didn’t even stir as the temperature turned unbearably colder.

“Emile,” His dark eyes widened as his breath became visible in the air. “Emile, stop singing!”

“I already did.” He whispered, his stranger soft voice muffled, with something missing.

The ex captain noticed the truth behind his words as he concentrated. His senses could notice the melody coming from nowhere specific, echoing on the walls in a steady, patient pace.

A soft high pitched giggle cut the song. And, no, Remy did not shriek. Shut up.

“They’re here.” Emile’s voice was filled with something he couldn’t quite place, nor did have time as, in the middle of the room, a silhouette started to form, trembling and bending the light around it.

[...]

Aaron didn’t believe a lot of things, which, in itself, doesn’t mean that the amount of things he did believe was in any way whimsy.

Actually, he considered himself a very rational, plain figure. He believed in what he saw, touched and experienced. That is why he was on the nocturn security duty. His mind wasn’t easily fooled and his instincts were something he had plenty of capacity to control.

He prided himself on the moments of dinner and drinking, the hours of dawn when the crew would be a tad too drunk, playing and saying that, if any day Aaron stumbled on the feathered singer - because even on the fog of the rum, they knew best than say the name of the creatures out loud and pull bad luck onto their travel - he would be controlled enough to laugh at them, spit some curses and them navigate away while appreciating their nice melody in the background.

That was the memory which clawed on him as the mist involved the masts, swirling in a calm manner to the wooden floor, a whispering beginning to take over his eardrums. It was a song that made his bones ache and muscles tremble. He closed his hands on fists, nails tearing the epidermis to stay firm.

Even when a not-quite red, not-quite translucid figure appeared four feet away from him. Sitting in front a mesmerizing pitfire, carefully rocking the silver liquid in the golden chalice held firmly by his fingers, his lips parted, the chant pouring from them.

And the fire? The fire danced under his control, at each musical note it contorted and expanded, inch by inch, flame by flame. It got higher, vivid, swirling wound the translucid form who extended his hand and let the element run freely across his palm, petting it as if it was a domesticate, harmless animal.

The calm melody hit its climax, the high, vibrant note was prolonged, taking over the air, stealing all the attention and all the oxygen from the viewer.

He got up and the flames continued to travel from his hands through his body, burning his clothes which dissolved in brilliant ashes and left behind a gleaming trail of a completely new vestment being formed.

Under Aaron’s – mesmerized – attentive gaze long crimson sleeves involved his arms, crawling across his shoulders and leading the way to his chest, a warm white fabric shining under the moonlight, the fervent grooves that cut it in the form of limpid waves flowed through the petticoat from the gorgeous dress from the figure that couldn’t be named as translucid, anymore.

The song stopped.

The flames, much higher, much larger, raised like curtains behind the mysterious being, and his scarlet screaming eyes focused on Aaron, stealing his oxygen, again, and demanding – commanding him to show - every slight drop of his attention. His lips parted, one more time.

The song was back.

And he began to dance.

The fire accompanied the synchronized movements of his arms, also performing its own dance on the ship, spreading across the floor on the rhythm of his footsteps, sliding from the vestment’s veils and taking over all the space, climbing the ratlines, burning the masts, consuming the emergency boars and dancing together with the red figure and his frenetic melody, which overflowed and inundated everything around, attacking and drowning Aaron, who didn’t allowed his glare to deviated from the moves before him for one single second, all the others things being forgotten.

Beautiful. Everything was beautiful.

“And wouldn’t it be even more if you could dance with him?” A velvety voice – that wasn’t his – whispered on his mind in golden shades.

“Yes…” Aaron answered, hoarse. When did his throat get so dried like this? Why didn’t he realize it sooner? Why wasn't the oxygen coming back?

“Then go.” The gold thought was fast in cutting his line of thinking, leading him to focus one more time on the figure in front of him. “He will love to guide you through the steps.”

And Aaron agreed quickly, wondering how the other’s hands would feel under his touch. If they would be cold for his previous translucent state or hot just as the fire that accompanied him. He questioned himself if the flames would follow his pace, dancing with him, as well. He wanted. He wanted to be so beautiful like this. Maybe if he controlled the fire, maybe if he showed himself so skilled like this the being before him, he would be the one mesmerized. He would be the one to bow and to ask him for a dance.

He got closer and closer from the fire, extending his hand, about to pet it.

Perhaps…

A splitting pain spread like an explosion through the length of his arm and Aaron moved away with a scream, tears falling from his eyes with the painfully beat of his burned hand capturing all his senses, the song and dance disappearing from his mind.

And suddenly the frightened screams filled his eardrums. Sounds of pleas for help, of kicks and punches and wood crackling smacking him in an only one hit that destabilize the pirate, leaving him coughing and gasping and loud, so LOUD-

His eyes widened. Hot. Hot. Everything was burning. He was burning.

He wanted to scream. His throat was dry, but he needed to scream, needed to warn everyone, needed to-

“Rest.” The calm, velvety voice came back to his mind, offering peace, a safe space to where he could flee.

(An illusion made especially for him.)

However, he couldn’t. Everything was hot and burning and it shouldn’t be like that. He knew it shouldn’t be like that. This wasn’t normal. Wasn’t good. Screams. He also needed to scream. Because he was hot and the ship was hot and he was-

“-With a fever. You’re burning from sickness. Just a small fever isn’t something worth waking and alerting the others, right? You’re so clever, so strong, you sure can manage to ignore such futile, delirious dream alone. Maybe the rest of the crew wouldn’t be able to, but you’re braver. No one can ever fool you.”

Yes. This was true. He was intelligent, reasonable. That is why they always choose him to be on the night duty, because no one could do a better job than him.

A very known song begins to ask for his attention, one more time.

He can do it. He knows how to take care of the danger, so-

“-so there is no reason to worry, because there isn’t any danger here. It’s just a dream. A beautiful dream.”

His eyes rise and meet again with the dancer. Beautiful. So beautiful.

“Yes. That is true. Then why don’t you just relax and enjoy your wonderful, special dream?” The yellowish, velvet aura involves his body and suddenly the hotness stops to bother him, just like the ship dismantling in flames and the screams of help of the pirates locked on their rooms, terrified by the illusions taking form and life in the middle of the darkness.

The red eyes, for a second, focused on something behind Aaron, smiling, before finally sticking on his, the smile still on his expression as his hand went in his direction and rested on his forehead, a melodious tune following his acts.

“Sleep and dance on your dreams.”

And then everything disappeared in soot and ebano.

[...]

“Oh my stars!! Martin! It’s been so long!” Émile controlled himself to not laugh at Remy’s astonished expression – even if the shorter tried to hide it in a nonchalant behavior, - which proved itself to be simpler when the sky-blue ghost dashed until they were face to face, squeezing his cheeks and alternating between smiling at him and frowning at the number of old and new bruises that covered his skin. “You’re so tall now!! You kiddos grow up so fast!! Do these hurt? No worries! Roman, Remus and Janus are taking care of everything so we will be able to properly take care of you and your friend in a bit, okay? It’s been so much time since they saw you! I bet they also can’t wait to hear all the news!”

Picani stared deep into that shiny gaze, couldn’t help himself but smile back at Patton, a faint, almost erased memory of the blue figure helping him and his grandpa to make cookies in one of the docks they used to visit, they all whistling happily the known melody shining on the back of his mind. The memory was blurred, mostly consisting in laughter, songs and a warm feeling.

“Pat,” he gulped, mindless playing with the chains that locked his wrists on the walls of the cell, a frown in his face. Patton lightly hit the side of his own head, dislodging a bit his glasses’ frame, letting go of his face and heading to the keys poorly hanging on a rusty nail on the other side of the room.

(A constant reminder from the others of the freedom they could achieve if they only would be able to research the keys…)

“That is right, that is right!” He carried a happy aura on his steps, floating to them in a fast pace, unlocking their cell, kindly glancing at him and Remy, who eyed him for a few seconds before having his attention claimed by smoke descending from the cracks on their ceiling. “We should probably be heading out here just now!”

“Pat,” Emile tried again, holding his hand when the ghost freed him, ignoring the goosebumps running across his arms in a protest about the coldness of the other’s skin. His tune was careful. “I am Emile. Emile Picani. My dad gave me the pearl.” Patton’s smile faltered, a glint of understanding and something else taking over the gleam on his eyes. “It’s been twenty three years.”

“Oh,” he muttered, squeezing his hands back, eyes looking for something in his gaze. Something Emile couldn’t quite place. “oh, kiddo… I am sorry.”

Emile gave him a kind, sad smile.

“Me too.”

“You really grew up fast, didn’t you, kiddo?” Remy deviated his eyes from the scene, partly because the feeling of twist on his guts meant that he was probably intruding on a private moment and partly because his attention was again held by the sudden, growing hotness which didn’t cease to expand across the entirety of the ship. Muffled screams coming from all the places and nowhere at the same time. His body started to get absurdly antsy with adrenaline, sweat dripping from his forehead.

A flaming part of the ceiling fell in the middle of their cell, jolting the two from their conversation, the blue ghost blinking a few times at the flames.

“Ah.” He speeded his pace to free them from their cell, smoke and soot starting to paint and took over the air. “Well, guess this is our clue to get going!! Come on, come on! This way!”

“Fucking heck finally.” Remy only didn’t shout his displeasure due how hurt his throat was, however he made it sure his voice wasn’t low enough so the others wouldn’t be able to notice, even though none of them opted to point his reaction, deciding instead to nearly dash through the doors and stairs of the ship until finally arrive at the handrails, ignoring the way flames danced and deviated from them, a red figure smiling brightly at Patton’s direction when he waved, yellow eyes from another golden person staring them as if he could read their souls.

Remy ignored both as another ship arrived, medium size, well conserved and barely noticeable, his eyes feeling the urge to look at everywhere except it every time he tried to concentrate his efforts to capture all the details, but he kept himself firm, noticing how it doesn’t own any visible treasure, the only thing more catching being the navy fog covering all its extent, flowing in abundance from the form in the main deck, his hands moving with precise, fast gestures.

A dark purple ghost popped from absolutely nothing in front of them, inquisitive, wary glare.

Remy narrowed his eyes back, his guts screaming to not trust the wooden board thrown at their current position, making a not very secure path from one ship to another. The purple being smirked at his expression.

“V! We’re back.”

“Good. The princey and the snake right there are almost over and Logan is growing restless. Remus is already on his room, resting.” His face lost its softness when he stared right back at the humans. “Get in. Fast.”

Emile nodded, wanting nothing more than to leave this nightmare and maybe get a good night of sleep, but his arm was held in a warm, firm – yet gentle – grip.

“Is that bitch even safe?”

V’s smirk grew. “Define ‘safe’.”

“Things that I can touch and embark without fucking dying.”

“Death is inevitable,” the purple – V, as it seems, looked smug with his words, - any choice is just a pathway to this end.”

“I’m going to fucking show him the pathway.”

“Remy, please no.” Emile sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Think I can’t punch a motherfucker ghost? Fight me.”

“I know you can’t. Bring it on.”

“Virgil.”

“Remy.”

Patton and Emile said at the same time, with the same hard tone that made both of them deflate in a very similar way, still glaring dangerously at each other, but clearly putting more physical space between them. Emile patted the ex-captain hands, warm eyes.

“Can you go first so I can hold on your cape? My balance is not very good.” Because he realized, somewhat, how he was trembling and that holding him was the one thing assuring Remy that none of this was just another crazy dream.

He gulped, then nodded, his usual snarky remark already falling.

“If I die, no offer will get me out of your back.”

“Noted.” The sailor replied, chuckling lowly.

And then they both walked to their first of many future nights, after so many tears and tears, of being able to watch the stars and feel the sea’s breeze.

Safe.

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ddaenggtan · 5 years

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forever rain | knj | m

Being dead isn't anything exciting. Just a lot of walking the same halls of the same apartment day after day after day. Things change when the new tennant arrives, though. Kim Namjoon isn't anything you could have expected; not the way he's so careful and gentle with his plants because he breaks so many other things, not the way his friends joke that he's psychic because you refuse to let him get in the face one time, and certainly not the way he comes home after literal months spent moving things away from table edges for him and announces that he knows he's being haunted and he has some questions for you. You didn't know ghosts could fall in love, but he makes you feel alive again, like you're standing in the rain while thunder crashes around you. You should've known nothing good would come of falling in love with someone living, though. You should've known that heartbreak was the only way this could end...that the rain doesn't last forever.

part of the Love Yourself Collab, please please please go check out the other fics. Everyone involved is so freaking talented and I have been vibrating out of my skin with how excited I’ve been to read all of these.

pairing | kim namjoon x reader (unspecified gender, even!)

word count | 18.8k | cross posted to ao3

genre/warnings | ghost!reader, slight fluff, hard angst, literally the most angst ever it gets fluffy for a bit but litERALLY this is an angst fic, major character death, unprotected sex (idk what the etiquette for ghost sex is but you should still wrap it before you tap it fam), depictions of terminal illness (v mild), mentions of blood (several, but not graphic), major character death, allusions to violence, namjoon is a klutz whats new, depictions of terminal illness, major character death, i added that tag three times pls dont read this if you aren’t comf with mcd bc i literally tagged it three times so y’all would definitely see it, also probably have some tissues ready bc i cried while writing it so

a/n | this is, to date, the saddest thing i have ever written in my entire fucking life. formal apologies to this joon bc oh my god you poor soul. i’m not kidding when i say you might cry, because i’m a big baby wuss and cried while writing the fucking outline when i first decided to write this for the collab so like......rip my own heart. i was really honored when i was approached about the LYA collab, bc like,,,,,mE? WHAT? and i was really nervous because i’ve never been part of any collabs in any fandom ever, and to have to do something like forever rain and mono as a whole justice, like,,,,,,, *screaming* y’know?? so i went on mono lockdown and just had the whole thing on repeat and was like “alright. what emotions does this make me feel.” and i eventually settled on the loneliness and isolation that he expresses, and feeling like no one understands what you’re going through, but that ultimately the album as a whole and forever rain give off this feeling of like. things get better, you’re not as alone as you feel, and you just gotta get through the bad stuff to find the good stuff. basically i just got really in my feels about it and was like ‘lets make myself cry ahahaha’ and,,,i dID i cried several times while planning and writing and editing bc im a Soft Bitch and don’t read much angst for that exact reason lmao. so buckle tf up y’all, this a helluva ride!!

Of all the things you'd heard about death, all the different possibilities that existed in the world, the one thing you hadn't been prepared for was the boredom. You hadn't been prepared for any of it, really, too surprised by your own demise to plan at all, but even if you'd been able to, you don't think that this is what you would've counted on. An eternity - or however long ghosts existed - of being stuck in the same studio apartment you'd lived in when you died. The same walls, the same floor, the same view out the only window of the alley beside the building. It's boring and lonely and boring.

You've found more creative ways to entertain yourself as time passes. First, you started by figuring out just what being a ghost meant. You can't really communicate with anyone, haven't figured out how to make sure everything you say is heard, but you can manipulate objects pretty easily these days. The most difficult thing is becoming fully corporeal - completely visible and able to interact with things at the same time. It's hard enough to be visible, and you aren't really sure what the point of it would be when it would just scare whoever's living in your apartment; that's the last thing you want to do, run them off when they're the best source of amusement you've found.

You won't lie, you were a little offended when the first tenants moved in after you. It was difficult to watch your things get packed up and moved out by your friends, hard to lose all of the little things you loved in your apartment, like the shitty bead curtain you'd gotten as a gag gift or the photo collage of all of your loved ones. It's frustrating to not know how they're all doing these days; the one time you got brave enough to fuck with a laptop to check on them, you nearly broke the thing, and you haven't tried since. Still, it seemed cathartic for them to clear out your apartment, and it was a bittersweet sight, but you tried to focus on the positive side of it.

And then the couple moved in.

Not only did they fuck like rabbits - which is something you're going to stay pissed about, because there's no satisfaction to be had by you anymore, and it's the one thing you can think of that would be endlessly entertaining - but the couple was also grossly obnoxious. They had zero respect for your apartment , or you, and while one could argue that they didn't actually know you were there, it still made the sting of losing your entire life that much worse. You spent you don't know how many nights hovering awkwardly in the bathroom while they fucked, would constantly wander in to see them going at it on the kitchen counter at ass o'clock in the morning, and once you came in to see them tossing actual literal eggs at the ceiling like the absolute fucking weirdos they were.

So, naturally, you got a little mad. How dare they treat your apartment like that? They had no respect, but they were going to learn it real quick if they were going to live there with you, whether they wanted to or not.

They didn't last long after the first night of slamming cabinets and squealing hinges, but the thrown picture frame of their family was the conclusive end to their stay.

There have been others, since then. They haven't all been terrible, not like that first couple, but most of them have been sub-par roommates, and if you decided early on that if the rest of your immortal life is going to be locked in one shitty apartment with the absolute worst view in the city - because no one wants to see the drunken hookups and potential body dumps that take place in that alley - then you're at least going to share said apartment with someone nice to exist with.

You release a heavy sigh, staring at where your hand disappears through the shower wall. You've taken to testing the boundaries of the apartment again; you already know what the result will be, learned in the first few hours that you're stuck here, but you can't help trying when you get really bored. You just got distracted fucking around with the pipes in the meantime, because you're literally too bored to even focus. It's part of why you miss the last tenants so much, because you weren't ever really bored with them around.

A single mother and her two kids, crammed into a much-too-small apartment because it was all they could afford, and they were the light of your un-life. One a budding teenager that wrote angsty poetry who loved your trick of making things float around, and one an adorable toddler who adored playing peekaboo with you and coloring, and a mom that was too busy to notice anything out of the ordinary. It was like having a family again, made you feel useful when you could pull the meat out of the freezer for her to make dinner with or scratch a quick 'do your homework' on a steamy bathroom mirror. It was fun and it made being dead that much more bearable.

You really should've known that letting the toddler draw the two of you would be a bad idea, especially since there were several artistic liberties taken. It's not your fault the kid thought you'd look cool with fangs and bloody holes instead of eyes and claws that reached the floor. It was art, it was supposed to be a little different from reality. Still, you can't blame her for seeing the picture of her kid and 'my new best friend' and immediately calling the landlord. And a priest.

So, perhaps you gave the apartment a bit of a reputation. Maybe it's been a couple of months since the mom moved out and took your two buds with her. There might be the possibility that you've been the slightest bit salty about losing your friends and you've been extra-ghost-y whenever someone comes by to view the place in an attempt to make yourself feel a little better. Can you really be blamed for that? You just want a decent damn roommate for your life after death, and if that means putting the potentials through a little bit of a test, then so be it. You only feel a little bit bad for the landlord.

The creak of the front door pulls you from your thoughts, and the echo of a voice makes you narrow your eyes. Your first instinct is to slam some windows to scare off whoever's in your apartment, but you repress the urge. You'd die of boredom if you could die again, and whoever this is could provide a few hours' entertainment at the least.

You pop your head through the bathroom wall to see what's going on, and wow , who let an actual giant into your apartment? Fucking with the pipes could definitely wait for this guy.

"I know it's last minute, yeah," He says into the phone that's held carefully between his cheek and shoulder. His arms are loaded down with boxes and he's angled away from you just enough that you can't see his face, but he's tall and broad and wearing what looks like the world's comfiest sweater, and you want to badly to wrap yourself up in him. "But you know Joon needs the help. Don't pretend you aren't constantly willing to put off your thesis, I know for a fact that you went out to look at stationery with Tae last week, and everyone knows that's the most boring thing on the planet."

He's quiet, listening to the soft crackle of a voice from the other end. You slide through the wall completely, hovering as close as you dare to try and hear what the other person is saying. Tall, Broad, and Comfy scoffs.

"He can stare at one sheet of paper for at least ten minutes, Yoongi. Do I need to remind you of the time he spent an entire fucking hour debating which set of holiday scrapbook to buy because, and I quote, 'this one has the really nice rose pattern on it that would look great with the invitations, but, oh, look at the pinstripes in this one!'" His voice morphs into what you guess is an approximation of whoever Tae is, and you laugh at the high-pitched, nasally tone.

Tall and Broad spins, eyes narrowing as he looks around the room, and fuck , he's literally gorgeous. You've never seen someone more attractive in your life or your death and it would probably knock the wind out of you if you actually had breath. Comfy McGorgeous turns back around and sets the stack of boxes in the corner, continuing his tirade about Tae and stationery while simultaneously trying to talk Yoongi into coming, you assume, to help Joon move. You don't know who any of these people are, but they're already proving to be the most entertaining bunch that's ever graced these walls.

The door to your apartment flies open, making both you and Boyfriend Material whip your head around.

"Christ, Jin, you couldn't hold the fucking door open for us?" Someone grunts. Beauty Von Softness - or, Jin, as you should probably refer to him - winces and strides over to do just that as two more guys stagger in with a couch suspended between them. The second they're in the door they drop it to the ground and flop onto it, panting and sweaty.

"Listen, I was busy trying to get our resident hermit out of his cave to help us carry some of this shit," Jin spits back. "And you all know what it's like getting him out and about."

"Did you tell him that there's pizza after we're done? Because I've found that food is the best motivator for him," the guy closest to the door says. His hair is soft-looking and long and you wish you could pet it.

The other guy, the one who cursed Jin out and has the softest pink hair you've ever seen, laughs. "Jeongguk, you always think the best motivator is food."

"Well, yeah, because it is."

"For you, maybe. Other people require actual rewards."

"But food is a reward," Jeongguk mutters into the fabric of the couch. Jin tsks and smacks As Yet Unnamed on the back of the head.

"You're lucky I hung up on him when you bombarded your way into this place, or he'd definitely not come help us," Jin says as he leans against the back of the couch.

Unnamed starts to say something else but is cut off by someone running straight into the end of the couch. They all shoot to their feet, spouting apologies as the three of them maneuver the couch into the apartment properly.

"Sorry, sorry, Jimin distracted us from properly finishing our job," Jeongguk says quickly. He looks to the stranger with a small apologetic smile, and you're pretty sure if it were humanly possible, there would be actual literal stars in his eyes.

"Oh, it's okay, Jeonggukkie. I should've been looking where I was going." New Challenger walks straight towards where you stand, and you realize seconds before it's too late that he is not aware there is a massive stack of boxes in his path. Instinctively, you shove them to the side with your foot. Tall And Oblivious sets his boxes down without any trouble, none the wiser about any of it, and the three near the couch are too busy bickering in hushed whispers to have noticed you doing anything.

The newcomer straightens and turns to look at them all with a bright smile, and you think you might actually see The Light in the way his cheeks dimple. If you thought the other three were beautiful - which they are, no doubt about that, you're seriously wondering why the hell a bunch of supermodels are moving stuff into your apartment - then this guy is easily an Actual Fucking God or something. His brown hair is soft and shiny, his smile is warmer than the sun, and you're fairly positive that for the first time since you died, you feel goosebumps along your arms.

"Seriously, Namjoon, we should've realized you'd be up soon. You stay, start unpacking while we go get the rest of the furniture." Jimin shoves Jeongguk out the door while he's speaking, ignoring the taller's complaints, and Jin just shakes his head at the sight.

"Yoongi'll be here soon, he's finishing up another draft of his thesis. Hobi and Tae are stopping to get the pizzas and then they'll be here, too." Jin's voice is calmer than it was Jimin and Jeongguk, more soothing, and it makes you curious. Not only because of the tone change, but because you know Hobi, he owns the building and is the one who rented you the apartment when you first moved in. One of your favorite things to do is scare him when he comes by to make sure everything’s ready for a viewing.

"What? No, I said I was gonna pay for pizzas!" Namjoon looks distinctly more upset about this than someone should over not having to pay for pizza, at least in your mind, and it only makes you more curious.

"Yeah, but you also just moved out of your old apartment because it was too expensive, and had like an hour to load everything into a truck, so you're gonna let their trust fund asses pay for pizzas. We're seven adult men, and Guk could eat an entire horse and still be hungry. I'm not letting you pay for that."

Silence hangs in the apartment for a while before Namjoon gives a soft thanks to Jin. They share a smile before Jin makes his way back out. You follow each step, shadowing him all the way to the door before you're stopped. You lean your entire body forward, struggling against the invisible barrier keeping you inside, and the force of it nearly slams you back into the wall when you sag in defeat.

You aren't sure why you try anymore, but you know yourself well enough to admit that you're not going to stop until you can at least make it to the hallway.

Whatever you expected Namjoon to be like as a roommate, however unknowing he is about the situation, you don't think you could've guessed what he's actually like.

Out of the seven boys you saw the day he moved in, he's the only one living there. Not a complete surprise, considering it's a studio apartment, but you remember when there were nine people living there at one point, and there was barely room for anyone to breathe even if it had been pretty consistently amusing. Still, for one person, he's got a ton of stuff, and it's a shock it all fits. His bed is massive and comfortable and the best place to lay during the day because it's shoved between the brick half-wall and the large windows that take up one wall. The area's supposed to be for a dining table, you think, but you'd had your bed there, too, and the familiarity is nice.

His couch is small and old but manages to fit five of them, and it's a pleasantly jarring difference from the coffee table that looks like - and might actually be - an old steamer trunk. The exposed brick wall you love holds his mounted TV, a feat that took Jeongguk and Yoongi a solid hour and a half because they kept stripping the screws, and it's got one of those 8-cubicle bookshelf things under it that stores a frankly obnoxious amount of books.

He's got mugs for days, an adorable if odd collection of figurines and mini-statues scattered around the apartment, a strange obsession with some reclaimed wood shelf he's got hanging above his bed, but the absolute highlight of it all is The Wall.

It took them three hours to get it installed and set up the way he wanted, between the placements and the thick wooden shelf they’re perched on with supports and a small safety bar along the edge to keep them from falling off, but along the entire windowed wall and partway after it turns the corner runs a long shelf absolutely covered in plants. There are some elsewhere, like the one he keeps hanging from the bathroom ceiling and the couple in the kitchen, but most are on The Wall. Each one is in its own special pot, each a unique color with a name painted carefully along it, and most of them look half-dead. They're all distinct and unique from each other and they all surely have different needs and ideal conditions, but you'd never guess because Namjoon is so wholly committed to them all. He takes time every day to water them and prune them if he needs to, he checks on them constantly. He even reinforced the safety bar for the ones that sit beside his bed, so there was less chance he'd accidentally knock them around while sleeping.

It's fascinating, watching him tend to them. He's so careful and gentle, with absolute precision in every moment. He cares for his plants the way some people would care for a pet or a child. He doesn’t believe any of them are past caring for, slowly nurses all of them back to health and frequently turns up with more he’s saved from some department store. The most endearing thing, though, you decide as you sit curled among the haphazard blankets of his bed and watch, is the talking. It's every day, for as long as it takes him to care for the plants, and it's the cutest thing in the world. He's talking to some succulent as you just stare at him, filling the comfortable silence of the apartment with his soft, soothing voice, and you wish he could hear you when you talk back to him.

"I know they mean well, but at some point, I've just gotta live my own life, y'know? I can't study something just because everyone expects me to, and I can't pursue some dream just because people think I'd be good at it. I've gotta do what's right for me, don't I?" His tone is positive and bright, a contrast to the gloomy sky that casts shadows across the apartment.

You float over, hovering beside him to look at the plant he's lovingly stroking with his thumb. It's in a pretty periwinkle pot, with the name 'Mang' painted in careful but shaky black handwriting. It's not your favorite - that's the one in the bathroom that hangs over its light blue bowl, a quickly scrawled 'Koya' on the bottom - but it seems to be one of Namjoon's personal favorites based on how often he talks to it specifically.

"I think it's nice you do things for yourself," You tell him. He doesn't react, unable to hear you, but it's nice to hear your own voice after so long. You slide one of the plants - Chim, in a small yellow bowl - to the side and away from his elbow, and he doesn't notice. "You know yourself better than they do. You should trust yourself."

He keeps mumbling to Mang, something about everyone following their own dreams and doing what they need over what people want or expect, when you lay your hand over his.

Thunder cracks through the sky and the first raindrops hits the window as your non-existent skin hits his, and it's the most real thing you've felt in a long time. It's as if the scent of ozone and electricity is in the apartment itself, crackling in your hair and filling your nose with the overpowering scent of the sweet summer rain. You can almost feel the water hit your skin, the way the wind whips at your hair, and it's so intoxicating that you almost miss the sharp inhale from the man beside you.

He's not looking at his plant when you look up, but instead at the window in front of the two of you. You glance at it, and for a fraction of a second, you can see yourself in the reflection. The glimpse has you jerking towards it before you can stop yourself, desperate to know if something has changed. You haven't seen your reflection since you died, not in the mirror or the window or the toaster, and maybe, just maybe, it means something's changed.

Your hand stops against the glass of the window as you reach forward. You can't feel the cool of it under your palm, but it's no less a barrier for you as it would be for Namjoon. Something in you breaks as you watch the raindrops race each other to the ground.

"Ah, I forgot the forecast called for rain today," he mutters, eyes focused on the lightning that streaks by. He doesn't react when your fist slams against the glass, nor when you let out the scream that's been building in you for however long it's been since you died. You're so close, not even a hair's breadth from feeling something new yet familiar for the first time in so long, and you can't. You're still stuck in these four walls, unable to even reach the air outside.

You just want to feel the rain again.

You move dejectedly away from the window, ignoring the way Namjoon shivers as you pass. The temperature in the apartment has dropped considerably, you think, between the storm and your own mood. You can't tell, really. You haven't felt warm or cold or hungry or anything since you died that isn't the oppressive loneliness of life after death.

A dry sob tears itself from your throat and you hurry to hide in the bathroom as Namjoon turns to look around him. He mumbles something you can't hear and after a few minutes, he returns to tending to his plants, leaving you to your tear-less cries in peace.

It becomes quickly apparent to you that Namjoon should really have a roommate, if only to save him from himself. It takes a few weeks for you to realize this, but luckily he seems to narrate his life as he goes through it - which is overwhelmingly adorable to you, and you refuse to acknowledge that - and that means that you hear it every time he goes, "Ah, Namjoon, be more careful next time," or "Oh, shoot, that's not, fuck, I gotta buy more eggs now." It's painful to watch, even for you, and at some point, you just couldn't take it anymore. No one else is around to help, but someone needs to you, and clearly the universe means for you to be that someone.

It's a full-time job, protecting him from himself. You've saved countless mugs, pushing them farther away from the edges of counters and tables, and been just in time to shove bowls or vases an inch over so that his elbows glide harmlessly past them. It's almost exhausting, if you could get tired you would, but it's worth it, you think, as you catch the bookshelf under the TV as it tilts. You slide it gently to the floor, glad that Namjoon is distracted by how close he came to losing a toe to notice.

Because that's the other thing about this tree of a man: he's the most oblivious person you've ever fucking seen. It doesn't matter what it is you do, whether it's bouncing his spray bottle of water so it doesn't break on the hard floor or shake the counters so that the knife he's about to drop on his fucking hand falls the other way, he doesn't see a single fucking thing. You'd think he was blind if he wasn't so attentive to the way his plants grow. He notices nothing and you're glad for it because you really aren't sure what he would do if he knew you were going around haunting him just to keep him alive. You just want to help, want to keep the soft smile he wears more often around for as long as possible.

You don't dare to look into why you want that, too afraid of what you might find there.

It's also just fun to watch him and his friends, relaxed and unreserved. You never had many friends when you were alive, just a small handful that you really truly loved and whom you miss every day. Watching these seven boys fills you with nostalgia and a strange sense of joy because they really are some of the funniest people you've ever been around.

Like now, with four of them sprawled on the couch while Jeongguk and Hoseok make themselves comfortable leaning against the bookshelf under the TV - which has been bolted to the wall since it almost broke Namjoon's foot - and Namjoon watches them all from his bed since it's the only other place to sit. There are beer bottles scattered around and decorating the half-wall that separates the bed from the room proper, everyone is varying levels of drunk, and you're curled up close to Namjoon, leaning against the wall so you can stop him from knocking over any of the bottles nearby because you know him too well at this point.

"I'm just saying, I don't understand why they made him so over-powered in the new movies, because he's supposed to be some kid from Brooklyn! Giving him the high-tech suit essentially strips him of the friendly neighborhood persona that he's always relied on!" Jeongguk has been ranting for a while about the newest release in the Spiderman franchise - apparently, he's part of the actual Avengers now, which is a shock to you since the last thing you heard before you died was that the franchise was canceled until further notice or something.

"And I'm saying that if they didn't give him the suit then it would've made no sense how he was able to do those things," Yoongi responds. You're pretty sure he's just arguing to be contrary at this point, because you remember him telling Namjoon the other day that he prefers DC over Marvel.

"Garfield's Spiderman could do those things," you mutter, "And he didn't have a fancy suit."

"Okay, then how do you explain Andrew Garfield's version being able to do that stuff? He doesn't need the suit, he never has!" You preen at the way Jeongguk echoes your thoughts. "I'm telling you, I don't care how good the relationship with Holland's Spidey and Iron Man is, by giving him the tech and the advancements they did, they've undermined everything that Spiderman is supposed to be about."

"Jeongguk come off it, everyone knows Garfield's Spidey was just all bad writing. I mean, what kind of person can do all that stuff, realistically? He's the one that really needed the Stark suit." Taehyung's voice is slurred and quiet, definitely as drunk as the rest of them.

"What-! No! I could do half of that without being bitten by a weird science spider!" Jin scoffs at Jeongguk's words.

"Yeah, sure, Guk. The same way you can do that bottlecap challenge."

"Bottle cap challenge, and yeah, I could!" The youngest stands and you don't bother to hide your grimace.

"This isn't going to end well, is it?" You ask. No one acknowledges you, too busy finding something Jeongguk can kick the cap off of as the boy readies himself. He's steady on his feet but his face is red and he can't seem to stop giggling.

"If I do this, you gotta call me SpiderGuk from now on, okay?" He says. No one agrees, but it doesn't stop him from laughing again and doing a couple of roundhouse kicks to warm up.

"Okay, okay, Joonie doesn't have any regular water bottles, but we found a screw-top beer in the fridge so ya gotta use that," Jimin says as he stumbles over with said bottle. Jeongguk just nods, an adorable focused expression on his face. Jimin holds the bottle in the air, and you can already tell his grip isn't tight enough to keep the bottle still when Jeongguk kicks it.

The next ten seconds happen in slow-motion. Jeongguk's leg flies out to kick but his drunken body isn't able to handle the sudden shift in balance, and he slips. His foot hits the bottle slightly too low, and it goes flying out of Jimin's weak grip into the air. Everyone in the room watches as it hurtles straight towards Namjoon's face, and you react out of habit and instinct, catching it in one hand before you even realize you've moved.

Everyone freezes, staring at where the bottle hovers in front of Namjoon's face. You're the only one able to see your fingers wrapped around it. A shock jolts through you at the realization of what you've done and you drop the bottle as if it burned you. Fuck, they were all going to freak, then Namjoon would move out and you'd be stuck alone once more. You should've just shoved him out of the way, what were you thinking, you're so fucking stupid-

"Dude," Hoseok mutters from where he's perched on the arm of the couch. "Holy shit, Joon, you're fucking telepathic."

Yoongi rolls his eyes and smacks his chest. "Telekinetic, you fucking-"

"Holy shit, you've got fucking superpowers!" Jeongguk squeaks. "Do it again!"

Namjoon isn't even able to get a word out before there's a book flying at his face, and you panic. You can't catch it, too rushed, but you manage to deflect it so it hits the bed with a soft thump instead of braining Namjoon straight in the nose.

"Woah, you really do have superpowers," Jimin whispers. He lobs a bottlecap at Namjoon, and you catch it in your palm before letting it drop onto the half-wall.

"I don't have...what the fuck you guys," Namjoon insists. His eyes are as wide as saucers behind the thick glasses he has on. He looks freaked out and you want nothing more than to hug him. Your hand reaches out of its own accord, halfway closing the distance to stroke his hair before you catch yourself.

"Hey, levitate your plants," Jin demands. Namjoon looks panicked as he glances at the wall of plants, and you heave a sigh. With any luck, they're so drunk that they'll remember this as a strange fever dream, but you can't just let them keep throwing things at him. You crawl over to the wall, avoiding Namjoon as you do, and grasp one of the plants tight. It's a white pot with red polka dots, a simple RJ on the side, and it's fucking heavy. You only get it a few inches off the shelf before you're forced to put it down.

"Oh my god, catch this!" Taehyung throws a coffee mug straight at Namjoon's head and you panic again. You catch it, and you've decided you're fucking sick of them throwing things at him, so you lob it back and dart across the room to bounce it safely to the counter before it can break.

Everyone in the room stares at the mug and then looks back at Namjoon, who hasn't moved from his spot on the bed.

"Oh my god, you're a superhero," Jeongguk whispers, awe in his eyes.

"That's fucked up," Yoongi mutters, wincing when Hoseok elbows him.

"Maybe we should get some sleep," Namjoon says quietly. The others look like they want to disagree with him, and you have no doubt they want to explore the newfound 'abilities' of their friend, but they still start gathering trash together before they head out.

Namjoon lays awake for a long time that night, glasses folded and sitting atop the half-wall beside you. He's oblivious to the way you watch him, too lost in thought to feel the weight of your stare or the chill in the air.

"I don't understand," He says after a while. "I really don't, but there's got to be a reason for it." He doesn't elaborate, merely turns over and evens his breathing out until he starts snoring, but you watch him for most of the night. He's fascinating, this human, and you wonder what makes him so different from the others you've met.

He apparently decides to experiment. You've known Namjoon is intelligent since he first moved in and you saw his collectible encyclopedias, but you hadn't realized just what it would be like in actuality.

It starts simple. He'll toss something in the air and let it clatter to the ground. Nothing big, just little things like pencils or bottlecaps, and not far, just enough that his eyes narrow as he apparently tries to use his telekinetic abilities to manipulate them.

It slowly graduates from there. Next comes the way he stares at something across the room, hyper-focused on whatever it is until you notice and move it around for him. It's a guessing game, sometimes, trying to figure out just what he wants to move or how he wants to move it, but each time you're successful, he smiles so brightly, dimples on full display. Who wouldn't want to make him smile like that?

It's hit or miss, sometimes. You're only so strong, and while you've had a lot of practice, you still get tired. You lifted his bookshelf almost a full inch before blacking out. Next thing you knew, a couple of days had passed and Namjoon was staring at a coffee mug. That was a significantly less fun day; between losing time and having to catch coffee mug after coffee mug, you were exhausted and a little shaken.

So when he stops staring at things for extended periods of time, when he starts to go back to reading and scrolling the internet and bingeing all the completed shows that Netflix and Amazon had to offer, you're grateful for it. He still occasionally tests it out; he's always subtle about it, choosing to stare quietly until you notice and make whatever it is float around for a minute. Once you wandered around looking for him - a feat in a studio apartment - and found him just sitting on the bathroom floor, staring at a shampoo bottle.

You'd like to say that you don't move things entirely because he wants you to. It's a good test of your abilities and how far you can push yourself until it becomes too much, and it's always nice to have actual evidence that you still exist - in some form, at least - in the world. The validation that comes from seeing him smile every time you lift a pencil or slide a coffee mug to the side, it's not for any reason but the satisfaction of knowing that you have some kind of existence. Some kind of impact on the world, even if you can't be seen and can't leave the apartment.

It's part of why you start moving things around yourself more often; you're hoping he just blames it on his overactive 'abilities' if he notices because you really aren't sure what he would think otherwise. But you also know for a fact that just seeing that you have some kind of sway over the world still - over the things inside this tiny apartment - makes you feel just that bit better about being dead.

Which is why it's such a fucking shock when the door to the apartment slams open one evening just for Namjoon to slam it closed again and announce into the air, "So I know you're haunting me, please don't try to deny it, I only want to talk to you."

You freeze where you are, halfway through the closet door from where you were reorganizing his clothes because they made no sense and you were bored. He's looking around the apartment, almost desperate in the way he's searching, and you can't bring yourself to move. It's obvious he can't see you, and you aren't even sure if he's being serious, but the way he huffs and clenches his jaw before moving into the kitchen tells you that he probably is.

You follow him, curious, and watch as he pulls a small package out of his bag and starts ripping it open. You float the remains of what looks like gift wrap over to the trashcan, because you know Namjoon will forget, before going back to watching him. He's only a little careful as he cracks something in his hands and then slaps it onto the fridge, and you peek around him to see that it's some kind of words or something. There’s a wide variety, with no clear theme to them, as well as at least one of each letter of the alphabet. It's then you remember the throwaway comment Yoongi made during that night - "You need, like, poetry stuff, like those magnets that go on the fridge that people write that deep shit with, y'know? I'm gonna buy you one," - and realize that he'd followed through on his vow.

"Alright," Namjoon says, leaning against his kitchen counter and staring at the magnets. "First and foremost, am I really being haunted or is this some kind of hallucination?" His gaze never falters, doesn’t ever drift from the magnetic words now spread across his fridge doors. It takes several minutes to build up the energy and the courage to move closer to the fridge.

You don't look at him as you move the words around, but you can hear the sharp intake of breath. That's likely all the confirmation that he needs, but still you clear a spot and let the words ' I am here ' sit where he can see them clearly. You wrinkle your nose, disliking how formal it sounds, but you have to make do, you suppose.

"Okay," Namjoon breathes. "Okay, prove it. My brain could work this into a hallucination. How do I know you're really a ghost?"

"Seriously?" You huff. "What the fuck am I supposed to do that wouldn't work into a hallucination, dude?"

He gets fidgety in the few minutes that you spend wondering how the fuck you're going to prove that you're a real actual ghost to someone who clearly doesn't believe in them. His foot taps at the floor and he scratches at his hand, which only makes you want to wrap your own hands around his until he stops, much like your best friend used to lay her legs across your lap to get you to stop shaking your knee.

The realization comes in a flash, and you're moving letters around before you can stop yourself.

Face book, Park Jihyo, best friend.

Namjoon stares at it for a long while before he brings his phone out of his pocket and begins to tap at the screen. You don't get too close; you've got a history with shorting out electronics, and you aren't sure you want to know what your best friend is up to without you there with her.

"Okay," Namjoon says. "Okay, I've never seen her before, so I don't think my brain could work her into a hallucination. Okay. Alright. I'm being haunted. This is fine."

"Calm down, I'm haunting the apartment, not you." He doesn't react to your words, as usual, but it still makes you feel the slightest bit better. He stares at his phone for a little longer, and the curiosity burns under your skin, but you resist. You know from experience that if you try to get too close, his phone will stop working. Just like TV, the stereo, the laptops, everything. You've had enough experience with that kind of thing to know what will happen.

"Okay, Casper," Namjoon huffs out after several minutes of waiting. He looks up and his eyes dart around the apartment, and you wonder if he's just nervous or if he's trying to spot you. "Where are you right now? Can you make yourself visible? I mean, I know you're a ghost, but it feels rude not talking to you to your face."

You huff a laugh but reach for a coffee cup. You know you can't just make yourself visible at will; you've only done it a couple of times, to your knowledge, and none of them have been on purpose. It's even more difficult to make yourself corporeal and physical, harder than just manipulating objects, but you did it once. Back when the single mom still lived here, when her toddler was falling and you had no way to cushion the fall except with your own body; you still aren't sure how it happened, but you remember being able to feel the floor against your back and the warmth of the baby on top of you for a split second before you were gone again. You won't forget that any time soon.

You float the mug towards where you stand, holding it in front of your face long enough that when you pull it away, Namjoon's eyes don't follow it. It's a strange feeling; you know he can't see you, can tell by the way his brow furrows and his eyes slide around the space, but it feels like he's looking straight at you. It feels like you're being seen for the first time since you died.

"So, where are you from, Casper?" His tone is forcibly conversational, as if he's trying his best to keep himself calm. You roll your eyes and move the magnets to show ' here ' and he nods. "You're not gonna try to possess me, or kill me, or run me off, are you? No offense or anything. I figure you would've already at this point, but...cover my bases."

No. Am nice. I think.

"You think? You don't know if you're a nice ghost?"

Does anyone truly know if they are nice? You frown, trying to figure out how to say what you want to say with the limited words available. I can only try. It's still not perfect; there's more that you want to say, more that you want to be heard, but this has to do for now.

"I can accept that. Alright. Just talking to a ghost in my kitchen. Okay. This is totally normal." He rubs a hand over his face, and you're a little impressed. Everyone else that's lived here has freaked when presented with the knowledge that you're a ghost. Namjoon looks very much like his world is exploding, but he doesn't have the same fear and apprehension in his eyes. He's certainly coping better than the single mom.

"Are you the only ghost? Here, I mean, are you the only ghost here?" He breathes a sigh of relief at your 'yes.’ "Can you see other ghosts? Do you know any other ghosts?" The 'don't know, no' that you move around on your fridge seems to unsettle him a little, but there's a curiosity burning behind it that makes your skin tingle.

Can't leave, is what you say next, cutting off whatever question he was about to ask.

"You can't leave at all? The building, or the apartment?"

The second.

"Wow. You're really stuck here?" He looks around the apartment as if seeing it for the first time and sucks in a breath. "What do you do all day?"

Watch. He cocks a brow. You are... You hesitate. The word you need isn't there, everything that comes to you is too poetic or corny for you to actually say, but the weight of his eyes is heavy on your hands. Fun is what you settle on, but it's not right either. 'Interesting' isn't there, nor is 'fascinating' or 'lovely,' and you don't want to scare him off by telling him that part of the reason you watch him so much is that he's so full of life that you feel less dead when he's around.

He laughs at your words though and shakes his head ever so slightly. "Alright, well, I'm gonna shower, so just, don't...watch that?" You squawk at the insinuation that you would, quickly rearranging the letters to spell ' privacy' and making a large angry face out of the rest of the words. He's already turned away, though, and it makes you angrier.

You don't want him thinking that you would peep at him. You already make sure that you're facing the windows when he finishes showering, you've been determined to not be creepy since the day he moved in, and to have him think otherwise is like a slap in the face. You slam the mug against the counter and he startles, turning to gape at it. You carry it to where your words and make-do emoji sit waiting for him to notice them.

"Okay," He says quickly. "Okay, privacy, yeah, got it. You respect my privacy. Appreciated."

"How fucking rude," You mutter as you set the mug back down. You don't adjust the magnets as he disappears into the bathroom. You want him to see them, want him to be reminded of the fact that being dead doesn't mean you don't have basic decency.

You can't get him to shut up now that he knows you're there. He still forgets sometimes, mostly when he's talking to his plants or narrating the way he carefully constructs some origami creation, but more often than not, he's talking to thin air. He spends a lot of time perched on his counter, watching you move magnets around his fridge through the thick lenses of his glasses before he spouts off some other question for you to answer.

He covers the basics first: how old you were when you died, when your birthday is, your favorite color, what you were studying in school, and of course your name, though he insists on calling you Casper. You aren't sure why but you also don't get a chance to question it, because he hits you with more and more questions every day. Sometimes you don't answer because you can't, too limited by the poetry magnets to be able to really converse; sometimes you just don't have the energy to move the magnets around, but those are days are rare. The only times you use the tired magnet are when you find your limbs too heavy to move, weighed down with the memories of what it meant to be alive.

Those are the bad days, but his questions make them just a little easier.

"How do you move around? Do you just float everywhere?" Walking, but different. No weight. Soft.

"How are you able to manipulate things in my world? Are they different from things in your world?" Focus. Takes time. Same.

"Do you sleep at all? Do ghosts dream?" No sleep. Just existing.

"You don't eat, do you? Should I be stocking up on snacks for you?" No. Save your sustenance. "What was the last thing you ate?" Don't remember. "Huh. I hope it was something good." Same.

"Were you ever in a relationship?" Once. A long time before. "Do you miss them?" Not anymore.

"What did you do while you were alive?" School. "Oh, really? Do you remember what you studied?" Boring. Important then, but it made me forget to live. Not important now. Namjoon goes quiet for a long moment after this one, staring out the window at something you can't see. He nods but doesn't ask any more questions, and he reads for the rest of the night.

It only takes a couple of weeks for both you and Namjoon to get tired of standing in his kitchen fucking around on the fridge. His legs get tired and he gets distracted by his thoughts, and you can barely keep up with the rapid-fire questions you get.

So Namjoon buys one of those cheap cookie sheets with the slightest lip at the edge and dumps the magnets on that. He leaves it on the coffee table, usually, there for you to pick up if he asks something but out of the way for when he stretches out to nap lazily in the afternoon sun.

You like the cookie sheet more than the fridge. He watches you as you work out your responses, can see the way you start to move one word before moving another instead; it makes it feel more like a conversation.

It becomes a favorite pass-time of Namjoon's, curling on the couch and putting some sort of music on in the background and just talking to you. A lot of nights his questions stop with a lingering silence from one or both of you; yours because you don't have the ability to share the words running rampant through your mind, and his for reasons still unknown to you. Still, you've missed it. You've missed talking to someone, being heard when you speak, having someone ask how you are at the end of the day.

It's the little things.

"You said you can't leave, right, Casper?" Namjoon's curled up on his couch, tucked into the arm with a blanket thrown over his lap, a mug of something warm in his hands to combat the chill of the season, and some R&B track playing lightly from his phone. You knock your fist against the cookie once - a sign for yes that you'd both agreed on. "So, are you just always here then? You don't go anywhere else?"

"Fuck, how do I explain this?" You mutter. You stare at the magnets in front of you for a long time before rearranging them. Not always. Tired sometimes, disappear.

"Disappear?" He reads. "What do you mean? You just, what, stop existing?"

Don't know, you respond. Only happens when tired. When used too much of me. He hums an acknowledgment, eyes focused on where the cookie sheet sits on the couch between you. You? What entertains you?

"Everything," he answers without hesitation. "I'm trying to work through my stack of books I want to read and finish all the shows I'm interested in, but the guys would have my head if I didn't get out and do things like a normal person."

That's where you leave to?

"Yeah." He sets his mug - now empty - on the coffee table and settles into the blankets. He looks cozy and soft and you would wrap yourself up with him if you could. "I take a lot of walks, and bike rides. I like to see the river, the trees, all the animals that live there. The beach is always fun, I get to see all the crabs and whatnot that wander in and out of the ocean."

"I wish I could go with you," you whisper.

Fun is what you spell on your sheet.

"I guess," he mutters. "It's enjoyable, at least. I'll bring you some souvenirs, or pictures next time."

You let the sheet settle on the couch as he turns the TV on, setting up a drama that he's on recently. He doesn't say anything else for a few hours, waits until the sound of rain hits the windows and stifles the apartment in an otherworldly haze.

"How long have you been dead?" His voice lingers in the air. You've been expecting these questions, and you're honestly impressed he's held them back for as long as he has. That angsty teen hadn't hesitated a single second to start asking you questions.

A while. Years. I think .

"Do you ever get tired of being a ghost?" There's something in his voice that you can't place, something that tells you this is more than just his usual morbid curiosity. Every part of your soul - whatever's left of it, anyway - is screaming at you to lie to him, to tell him that no, being a ghost is great. You've never wished he could hear you more than this moment, when all you want to is wrap your arms around him and ask him why he looks so much older than he is.

Sometimes, you tell him. It is lonely here, and boring. Fun to be unseen, but unable to do much more.

He nods like that makes all the sense in the world to him, and he brings the blanket up around his shoulders. "Do you ever miss your friends, or your family?"

Would you not? He huffs out an unamused chuckle, nodding again.

"Yeah," He says softly. "Yeah, I would. Do you want me to help you check on them? See what they're up to?" The single knock that echoes in the room is deafening to you, filled with a hope that you haven't felt in years. You've never let yourself think about them for long; if you did, you don't think you'd be able to come back from whatever that place is that you disappear to when things become Too Much.

Namjoon pulls his phone closer and starts fiddling with it. He doesn't hesitate when he types in your name, and you feel an emotional blush fill you when you see that he doesn't even have to finish typing for your profile to pop up. You glance at him, the way his brows are furrowed behind his glasses and his tongue pokes into his cheek just a little while he concentrates, and you wonder how many times he's looked at the pictures of you when you were alive. How many times has he scrolled through, reading the words people shared after you were gone, scrolling through the grief and loss to get to the words you posted yourself, the little snippets of your daily life that you would give anything to be able to relive?

"Do I still look like that?" You wonder aloud. As expected, he doesn't react, just continues tapping at his phone.

You two spend the rest of the night like that, each curled at opposite ends of the couch while Namjoon slowly looks up your friends and family and updates you on each of them. Jihyo got married, to someone she'd gone on a date with a few weeks before you passed, and she's apparently trying to start having kids; Your mother and father aren't very active, but they never were. They both share pictures of you when you were a baby each year on your birthday, and more recent photos of you on the anniversary. They have a dog now. It's cute. You wonder if it helps them cope with the loss.

Your other friends are doing well, too; most of them are still figuring out their lives, but it seems like all of them are settling in their skin and finding comfort in who they are. They're out there, navigating the world and doing things they enjoy, meeting new friends and making new memories.

You stand by the window for a long time, cookie sheet of magnetized words pressed against your chest as if you can feel the cool of the metal against your skin, and watch rain drip down the panes as you imagine what your life could have been.

You can always hear Namjoon before you see him. He whistles as he walks down the sidewalk, his small way of letting you know he's on his way back from wherever he's gone that day, and today isn't an exception. Relief sags through you and you move away from the windows, let your fingers trail against the ceramic of the newest succulent he'd bought, and head towards the kitchen. The kettle is turned on and heating a few moments later while you pull a mug down from your cabinet and set it carefully on the counter where Namjoon will see it.

It's a regular routine, for the two of you. He heads out, usually in the early morning after turning on some music or a show for you, and when he comes back, you make sure there's hot water for his tea or cocoa or whatever he feels like drinking that day. The sound of his whistling gets louder the closer he gets, a simple way to let you know he's safe and he's home. You glance through the cabinets and quickly make a note on the fridge that he needs to buy more of his special tea blend soon.

The lock turns and you smile, waiting patiently as Namjoon saunters into the apartment. He sets something down on the kitchen counter just as the kettle starts to scream, and you wait while he pours the water and gets it ready.

"The cherry blossoms bloomed," He says. You grin. "They look great. I got some really nice pictures while I was there, I'll show you tonight. I was thinking we could try to finish Voltron tonight if you want. We'll have to go back an episode though, I think I fell asleep during the last one." You knock once against the counter beside you, and he turns with a wide grin to glance at the spot where you stand.

It's ridiculous for your heart to speed up in your chest, for the hair on the back of your neck to rise, for breath to catch in your throat; you don't have a heartbeat, you don't have breath, you're a shadow of the person you used to be, and yet...

And yet, seeing his dimpled smile focused so naturally on where you are, as if it's just second-nature, is like a breath of fresh air after years underwater. It smells like flowers, like dirt and earth and a new beginning. It feels like you're alive again, and you don't want it to end, but too soon he's turning away to finish steeping the tea. Something lingers in the air for a moment after but it's gone too soon for you to place it.

You both settle on the couch, Namjoon tucking whatever he brought home with him under his arm, between his body and the arm of his ratty old couch. Your cookie sheet is in its place on the coffee table, unneeded at the moment. You can't help the glare that you give it; the things you would give to be able to just speak and be heard are endless.

It rattles a little and you look away.

Namjoon is quiet as the show plays. He doesn't react when you move to turn the oven on, but he does laugh quietly and thank you for it when he goes to put his dinner in. He eats and you don't bother him, though the way he keeps his little package hidden away makes curiosity burn through you. Eventually, once he's eaten and washed his dishes and laughed at the way you rubbed them dry before setting them carefully in their places, he settles back into his blankets and turns on the music he loves so much.

He's got a book balanced in his hands and your cookie sheet rests on the coffee table, and you both just sit like that for a long while, enjoying existing.

"You remember your life, right Casper?" You thump lazily against the wall in response, eyes drawn from where you watch the gloomy sky slowly get lighter with the dawn. He isn't looking at his book anymore; he probably hasn't been for a while, based on the way the pages have migrated around his thumb, too busy staring at the wall across from him. "Do you remember your death?"

You hesitate. You've tiptoed around the subject before. He's always been too afraid to ask directly, and it's too painful for you to offer it freely. You thump against the wall once more, and he nods like he already knew the answer.

"Are they very different?" His glasses are falling down his nose and your fingers itch to push them up. Instead, you reach for your cookie sheet. He makes a sound in the back of his throat when he sees it moving, reaching under him for his package. "I forgot, I got you this. Thought it might be easier."

He sets it down and you slide the contents out of the wrapping easily. Inside is a small dry-erase board, complete with markers and eraser, small things that should be easy for you to manipulate. You beam at him; he can't see it, but you think he might be able to feel it because he perks up and smiles a little.

"You don't have to answer," He adds. "I was just curious to know if being dead is really as different as everyone makes it out to be." You nod and thump once against the board before you uncap a marker and start writing.

It's a bizarre feeling, after so long. The muscles in your hand don't ache, no matter how much you write, and you can't feel the smooth surface of the board under your fingers or the weight of the marker in your palm, but it glides against it cleanly and leaves a thick black streak behind.

It takes you a minute to write everything out, get it worded how you want. Namjoon doesn't interrupt you, just watches the marker move against the board and smiles every time you go to erase something that isn't right. Eventually you show it to him.

There are similarities. I'm still me, I still enjoy TV and music and books. Things are duller now, like there's a filter over them, and it's harder to do things. Like when you're in water, or mud, like that. Resistance.

"Oh," Namjoon replies, "That's not what I expected. It makes sense though I guess." His hand moves against his chest, rubbing lightly as he looks over your words again. "Is there anything you actually like about being a ghost?"

"Well, being invisible is pretty cool," You say, writing the words as you do. "And it's actually really fun being able to walk through walls and stuff, even if I can't go anywhere outside of the apartment."

"I'm sorry you're stuck here," Namjoon says. You startle a little, looking up at him. You think he actually heard you for a split second, but his eyes are locked on where you're writing your words out on the dry erase board.

"Yeah, me too," You tell him. He stares at the board for a long moment, chewing nervously on his bottom lip as he does. "Ask what you want to ask, Joon," You write as you say it.

"How did you die?" He blurts. You sigh and he jumps a little, looking fully at where you sit. You're shocked; you know that sometimes little noises cross over, like when Jin heard you laughing, but it's still rare. You can't figure out how it works, but you want to.

You write for a long time, letters small so they fit on the board. The whole thing is crowded together, looks like one long string of letters instead of the story it is.

There's a lot of violence in this neighborhood. You probably know that by now. People are always getting robbed or mugged or something around here. Someone tried to break into my apartment by banging the door down. It didn't work, luckily, but I got really paranoid afterwards. One night I was cooking, and someone's door slammed really hard. I spilled the water I was boiling, slipped. Blacked out after a while, and when I came to, there were police everywhere. I guess I hit my head harder than I thought, because they carted me away, and I couldn’t follow.

"I'm sorry," Namjoon says softly. "You deserved more time."

Yeah. The universe had a different plan, I guess. He smiles at that, and it settles the anxiety thrumming under your skin. Wouldn't have met you, so I guess that's a bonus. He rolls his eyes at you but he laughs softly, so you consider it a win. You doodle on the board then, simple little designs that don't mean anything beyond being able to see your effect on the world.

Namjoon sucks in a breath beside you and you look up at him. He's always been good about looking towards where you are, doing his best to make eye contact with someone he can't see, but he still always tends to look through you.

Not this time.

This time, electricity sings through the air as your eyes meet his. You don't know how, but you know he can see you. His eyes roam over you, taking in the crumpled sweater you were wearing with the stain you like to think is pasta sauce on the arm, the hair you can't ever really tame, the way you sit cross-legged on his old thread-bare couch with a dry erase board in your hands.

Neither of you moves. He looks torn between fear and amazement, every emotion in between flitting quickly over his features, and you're terrified that if you move, whatever spell that's been cast will fade. It had been so long since you talked to anyone when Namjoon slammed those magnets on the fridge, and the conversation has been a reprieve, but to be seen for the first time in years...

It's invigorating.

Watching Namjoon just look at you is something you won't ever forget, not for as long as you exist in the world. He looks at you like he's memorizing every detail, every hair and wrinkle and pore, and just knowing that he can see you fills you with something new.

"Namjoon...?" You call hesitantly. His eyes fall on your lips.

"Again," He says. Your brows must furrow, maybe you frown, you don't know because it's been so long since you've needed to pay attention to your facial expressions, but he notices your confusion. "Will you say something again?"

Breath you don't have catches in your throat, wraps itself around a heart that doesn't beat, but you smile a little. "I'm glad I met you."

Namjoon smiles. It's big and blinding and knocks everything out of you except for that emotion that's been sitting in your chest since the first time you watched him talk to his plants. You lean forward, and you can tell the exact moment you disappear, because his smile falls and his eyes unfocus. A whimper leaves your throat, but he doesn't react, and that may be the most painful thing that's ever happened to you.

"Can I feel you?" His voice is hushed but the words reverberate in your head. His eyes dart around, looking for any glimpse of you, and your hand trembles as you reach out.

Goosebumps raise on his cheek where your hand touches him and his breath stops for a moment, but he smiles again and leans into the chill. You bring your other hand up to cup his other cheek, your dry erase board lying forgotten on the ground, and Namjoon's eyes flutter closed.

"I think I might love you," You say quietly just before you press your lips to his. He doesn't react to your words, but he lets out a soft sigh at your kiss. Thunder cracks through the apartment, a torrent of rain unleashed on the windows, but you don't move.

The two of you sit like that for hours, until he starts shivering and his nose turns red, like it does when he forgets his scarf on the cold days, and his breath puffs in the air. When you finally pull away from him, he smiles, and the blush on his cheeks has nothing to do with the cold air that makes up your form.

"Yeah," He says softly, voice nearly drowned out by the storm raging outside. "Yeah, I can feel you."

If you expected things to change much after that, you were wrong. At least a little. Namjoon still disappears to go on his walks, you still start the kettle the second his whistles drift up to the apartment. He still asks you a million questions, but they're more normal now. Your favorite music, color, what you wished you'd done with your life, if you've been able to corporealize again recently, what you wanted to watch that night.

"Come on, Casper," Namjoon groans. "I promise you can do it." You huff and he smiles, clearly having heard it. You're tempted to just disappear somewhere, rattle some pipes in the bathroom or the kitchen so he thinks you're in there and leaves you alone, but he smiles at you again and you're weak for that dimple.

You grip the watering can again, doing your best to lift it and manipulate it the way you need to. It's heavy, and something about the metal makes your skin itch, but the more you struggle the more you're able to pour the slightest bit of water where RJ - a giant plant that you don't even know the name of - sits in the corner of the room across from Namjoon's bed. It's the twentieth-something time you've tried this today, and you're ten seconds from just giving up completely, but you can tell this is important to Namjoon.

He's been talking all week, between the late nights where you lay over his blanket-wrapped form and the mornings where he ducks out with a soft goodbye. He's told you everything about his plants that you think he possibly could, teaching you about them and showing you how to care for them. It's interesting, you won't lie, and it's always fun to see him light up when you recall something he's told you, but you're exhausted and every part of you is shaky, and you're more than a little worried of what might happen if you push too far again.

Still, Joon hasn't looked great lately, like he might be getting the flu, and you want to be able to help him with all the things he does in the house. You've already started doing the dishes and folding laundry, since those were the two things he was the absolute worst at, but you feel like you should be doing more.

"Good job, baby, I'm proud of you!" You grunt and let the watering can fall back to the ground with a loud thump that almost definitely has the downstairs neighbors cursing Namjoon's name. "See, and now we're done for the day! C'mon, we can put on Sens8 and cuddle."

He's on the couch before you can stop him, wrapping himself in blankets except for one lone hand that sticks out, expectant. You roll your eyes and sit beside him, close enough that if you had a body you would be cuddling instead of just sitting awkwardly beside him.

You know that this is just going to make your hand all pink and gross, right?

He just smiles when the board flips around to reveal itself and wiggles his fingers. "It's worth it," He says. "I'd rather be pink and gross than never get to hold your hand at all."

You can't even feel my hand, Joon, there's literally no point to this. He huffs and wraps his hand around the marker in your hand, shivering at the chill that runs through him when he does. He grins and gestures down to where the tips of his fingers are already turning red.

"Clearly I can feel it, Casper."

You're glad he can't see you, that you don't have a heart that beats or blood that runs, because if you did, your face would no doubt be red. You have no doubts that Namjoon would tease you about it.

He's quiet as you both watch the show; he makes the odd comment here or there, but his mood seems to have calmed some. When he first got back from whatever place he visited that day, he'd been anxious and jumpy and entirely too on edge.

"Hey, Casper?" He asks quietly. You slide a hand against his cheek to let him know you're there, and he leans into the chill again. "What do you think about me?"

You don't move for several seconds, hand still poised around his cheek.

"Like, your feelings. What are they? Will you tell me?" You knock once on the wall behind the couch. Your hand stays poised over your board for long enough that Namjoon starts to get a little restless. Words refuse to come to you. Every time you start to think you have a way to describe to him what he means to you, they disappear as quick as fog on a summer's afternoon. Frustrated, you let the board fall to the couch and scrawl a quick 'hold on' so he knows you aren't just ignoring him.

It's been weeks since you've seen what you're looking for, your cookie sheet with the word magnets having been basically forgotten in lieu of the more personal and convenient dry-erase board, but right now you know that if words won't come to you, you'll have to go to them.

You finally find it, shoved under several encyclopedias and magazines, and the noise you make is so triumphant that even Namjoon hears it. You curl back up beside him, careful to make sure the blanket is wrapped tight around him, and make sure he can see the words as you move them. It still takes a long time, constantly changing and rearranging and stacking to make sure it conveys the things you need it to convey.

You are like music. A symphony of summer days and peach skies with soft rain. You are a storm in the moonlight. I'm not lonely when I have you pouring around me. You make me feel alive again.

Namjoon is silent for a long time, and you wonder if you've gone too far. It's more poetic than you'd like, too frilly and fancy and emotional than you usually are, but they're the only words you have.

After too long, he exhales. It's heavy and deep and it feels like he's trying to expel more than just air from his body.

"You make me feel alive, too," is all he says, whispered into the softness of his blanket in a voice too small for his long limbs. He shivers, and you hear him choke down a cough, and then he disappears into the bathroom for a long time. When he comes back out, he doesn't say anything, just slides into the mass of blankets on his bed and lays his arm out across the mattress. You spread out across from him, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he looks through you and out the window where the rain is letting up.

"Looks like the rainy season is gonna last longer than everyone thought." You slide your hands around one of his large ones and just hold them like that. His eyes sink closed and something like relief stands on his face for a moment before it's gone, swept away by the peace of sleep.

You wonder what it is that he sees when he looks out the window. If it's the plain brick wall and windows of the building next door, or something more.

You aren't sure you want to know.

Namjoon's flu only seems to get worse. He leaves early in the mornings, as if he thinks you might not notice the way he coughs into his scarf just because the sun hasn't risen fully yet. He stays gone most of the days, and even when he apologizes quietly during the twilight when he slinks back in to the sound of the kettle screeching on the stove and his tea already waiting to be steeped, he still doesn't stop.

You've taken to playing blues while he's gone, mostly the old school stuff, digging out the vintage record player he has buried in the closet and setting it up on the coffee table. It’s the only technology you can use without shorting it out. You don’t know why, but it makes you grateful the record collection Namjoon keeps tucked away inside the coffee table that you’ve learned is in fact an actual steamer trunk that he salvaged and restored himself.

The music fills the apartment, distracts you from the oppressive weight of his absence. He knows you wait at the window for him, you told him that back when the two of you were first getting to know each other.

You're so fragile, you had told him. He had laughed at you, quiet and fond, and waited for you to explain further. You're so full of life and breath and possibility, and the world is so big and so dangerous. I'm scared you won't come back.

"Of course I'm going to come back," he told you. You didn't even need to tell him that you're afraid of what being alone might do to you, now that you're so used to his presence. You're being heard again, sometimes even seen, and you don't know if you can go back to the stagnant depression of solitude. "I'll always come back to you."

That was the first time you thought you might love Namjoon. The feeling has only gotten stronger, and now that you wait at the window with your eyes focused on that tiny section of sidewalk you can see at the end of the alley, it threatens to consume you whole.

You wait at the window for hours. You know because you glance at the clock every minute and a half, mocking you with every tick as it hangs limply on the bathroom door. The sun sinks below the horizon, the moon rises to take its place, and they switch again while you wait. The dawn paints the sky in beautiful shades of pink and red and orange and the faintest purple, but you can't appreciate any of it, because you're too anxious.

He could be hurt. He could be gone, and you wouldn't ever know until his friends came to pack his things. He could have left, too; maybe he finally decided that living with a ghost was just too much for him and just ran. Maybe he figured out that you love him, that you would move heaven and earth if it meant he was safe forever if only you could leave this apartment, and it was too much for him.

What if he knows about how you lay beside him every night? How you tuck the blankets tighter around him, cover him in warmth and comfort before settling on top of them and closing your eyes and pretending that you can feel his arm draped over your waist and his breath on the back of your neck. What if he felt you, that night you wandered into the bathroom while he was showering to write on the steam-covered mirror that he needs to buy more eggs soon and got distracted by the way he looked stepping out of the shower? What if he knows your stomach flipped at the long limbs and the hidden muscles and the sheer size of him? What if he knows the real reason you were quiet that night, the way you kept replaying the moment in your mind and wishing you had a body so you could have just touched him, at least.

It's closer to noon than midnight when his whistle echoes up through the window.

"Hey, I'm home," He calls as he enters the empty apartment. You're upset, but you're more filled with relief than anything because at least he's safe and he's here now. He makes a beeline for where the kettle is just starting to whistle, already reaching for the honey and the tea you set out on the counter for him, and you do your best to calm the storm of emotions inside you.

Did you have fun, wherever you were? You ask him, floating the whiteboard in front of his face so he has to acknowledge it.

"Yeah, I did," he responds as he stirs his tea. "Jin invited everyone over for some end of summer thing. I didn't feel too great at the end of it, so I just spent the night there."

Don't party too hard, you might remember how to have fun, you joke. It falls a little flat based on the grim smile Namjoon gives you. Are they gonna come over here again anytime soon? I've missed scaring Hoseok.

He lets out a real laugh at that. "I don't know, maybe. My birthday's coming up, after Jeongguk's, so they could definitely be planning something. I'm heading over to Yoongi's later to help plan for Guk's party. I might stay there tonight, so try not to worry, Casper."

I'll try, you tell him. You both know you'll stand at the window every second he's gone, but you don't want to tell him why. You don't want to tell him that you love him through a dry erase board, or some fancy poetry magnets. It doesn't matter that you may as well have already said so by telling him that he makes you feel alive again; you haven't said the words to him, he hasn't seen 'I love you' in the messy scrawl that is your handwriting on some stupid board, and therefore he doesn't know.

You don't know if you want him to.

He stays gone that night, as he said he might, and reappears the next day to shower and change before he vanishes again. The next time he shows up, he takes a bag with him when he leaves, which only worsens your fears. He stays gone for three days this time, doesn't apologize when he turns up again and just mumbles a soft hello into the air before he makes tea and sags into his couch. He's asleep in seconds, and as much as you want to scream at him, you can't bring yourself to disrupt how peaceful he looks.

When he wakes, he takes a shower and ignores the ' can we talk ' you scrawled in the steam. He packs a bag of fresh clothes and doesn't say goodbye when he leaves, just disappears and leaves you standing at the window with the pail in your hand, caring for the plants he isn't. The slam of the door sounds like nails in a coffin and breaks what little was left of your soul.

He shows back up nearly a week later, and the relief at seeing him again is overridden by the sheer anger at being left in the first place. You don't start the kettle when you hear his whistle, the quiet and hoarse tune of a familiar song barely reaching the window, but there's plenty of noise when he enters.

The cabinet doors are quaking with your fury, the lights flicker and threaten to burst, and Namjoon just leans back against the door. He’s soaked from the storm thundering outside, even his jacket plastered to his skin, and he’s shivering slightly, but you can’t see anything past the rage.

"Where the fuck were you?" You demand; there's no point, it's not like he can hear you, but the way he sighs makes you feel like he can, so you continue anyway. "It's been almost a week, you didn't even think to stop by for ten seconds so I know you're okay? I thought you were dead somewhere, you could've been, like, shot, or something, I don't know, just bleeding out in some ditch, and I wouldn't know! And what about all the plants? I know how to take care of them, sure, but do you know how hard it is for me to do it?"

Namjoon sighs again, the breath catching in his throat and coming out in a cough, but you don't pay much attention to it.

"Why would you act like this, Namjoon? What did I do, is it because of the things I said? Do you not want me to feel like this about you? Because this a damn good way of making sure I don't, I assure you, so by all means, just keep disappearing and leave me alone with the plants you decided to rescue and save!"

His cough gets worse and he just shakes his head, covering his mouth and making his way towards the bathroom.

"If you want me to hate you, it's too fucking late, Joon!" The slam of the bathroom door punctuates your sentence, and you quiet at the sound of continued coughing. You knew his flu was getting worse, but it's never sounded like that. Even when you were alive, you knew that the wet sound that's muffled by the bathroom door isn't what a cough should sound like. The lock of the door clicks, and it shocks you into movement because he's never - never - locked you out of anywhere. He knows it wouldn't stop you, knows it as well as you know that you'd respect that boundary if he set it, and yet here he is, locking you out even as he coughs up what sounds like a lung in the other room.

You hesitate at the door, torn between respecting his boundaries and knowing what’s happening. You want him to trust you, always, and yet you find your hand disappearing through the door before you can stop it. You stand like that for a long moment, just listening to the sounds of his wracking coughs; the sound of a crash echoes through the apartment, though, and you’re through the door completely in the span of a heartbeat.

Nearly everything that had been on the counter is scattered on the ground, Namjoon himself gripping the sides of the toilet as if he would fall apart otherwise. A single glance tells you that the crash happened as he turned from the sink to the toilet, and if his jolting shoulders didn’t tell you why, the sounds of his retching would. That isn’t what fills you with dread though; the disorientation, the vomiting, all of it comes with being sick sometimes, but the red staining the bathroom sink?

That’s not normal, and you know with every part of you that it’s the reason he’s been gone so much.

The temperature in the apartment drops with the sun, but your arms surround Namjoon as best they can. Goosebumps break out on his arms, shivers run down his back, but you don’t move away from him; he doesn’t say anything, just sits there with his forehead pressed against the cool of the porcelain. He stands eventually, ignores the way he passes completely through your body to rinse the sink and brush his teeth.

You let him stay quiet until you’re both on his bed; you’re pressed up against his side and running your hands along his forearms, idly wondering if you would be able to feel his heartbeat if you were alive.

“It’s not...it’s not gonna get better,” He says eventually. “There’s not a cure, just some things to draw it out and give me a little bit longer even if they come with more pain. I go once a week to see if it’s gotten worse, check how much longer I have. It’s why Hobi let me move in here rent-free. He pays the bills, says it’s the least he can do. I wanted to be closer to him anyway, so that’s a bonus, I guess.”

“I’m so sorry, Joon,” you whisper. Your board lies forgotten, somewhere on the couch maybe, you aren’t sure and can’t be bothered to pull yourself away from him long enough to find it. You don’t need it right now, though; he knows what you mean by the way the cold presses against his bicep with your palm.

“I didn’t want you to know.” You’re not exactly surprised at that; you’d figured as much. You just don’t understand his reasoning. “I didn’t want you worrying about me, or anything like that, like the guys do. They always look at me and it’s all they can see. Like they’re already mourning me, even though I’m still here. I didn’t want to feel like that with you.”

“I know,” you say. You don’t, not really. Your own death was sudden, a shock to everyone you knew; you didn’t get the luxury of saying goodbye, didn’t have the burden of knowing you would be gone soon.

The two of you sit in silence for a while, until you can feel Namjoon’s chest quivering under your palm. When you look up, he looks at you, really and truly at you , and he has tears in his eyes.

“I don’t want to die, Casper,” He whispers. You suck in a breath because he can see you, and you don’t even know why, but you don’t want to lose this moment. “I don’t want to leave all of this behind. I don’t want to leave you.”

“It’ll be okay,” you say softly. His brow furrows and a tear slides down his cheek. “I promise you it will be okay, Namjoon. It gets easier, and people remember but they aren’t stuck forever. And I…” You falter, and it takes his eyes meeting yours to make you realize he can hear you. And there’s only one thing you’ve ever needed him to hear.

“I love you,” You tell him. “I love you, and I will never forget you.”

He surges forward, lips meeting yours in a rush of air. You moan at the feeling of him against you, realizing that for the first time since you died, you can feel something under your fingers. His skin is warm against your fingers, his lips soft against your own, and when he reaches up to cup your jaw with his hand, he doesn’t pass through your form. Instead his hand settles heavy against you, and he moves your head to lick into your mouth.

Tears that won’t fall prickle at the back of your eyes and you climb into his lap before he can stop you. He’s still crying so you wipe away the tears before they can fall, pressing soft kisses to his cheeks, his dimples, his nose, every bit you can reach. A question sits at the back of your mind, and you can see it lingering in his eyes, but neither of you asks it.

“You’re so cold.” His whisper is nearly lost amidst the thunder that shakes the apartment, but it makes you smile a little.

“Warm me up?”

His chest is still quivering with unspoken sobs, but he nods. “Always,” he tells you. “I’m always going to be here.” It doesn’t take long to pry him out of his clothes, takes even less time for him to sink into you. It feels just like it did when you were alive, only magnified; you can feel him hot and warm inside you, can feel the beat of his heart in the firm muscle under your hands. His moans are quiet and hoarse but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

He keeps one hand on your waist and the other on your neck, holding you close enough that he can kiss whenever he wants. “You’re beautiful,” He whispers. “The most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.” You just press another kiss to his chapped lips and let him dig his fingers in hard enough that it would bruise if it could. When he’s close to his peak, he stops thrusting, just sits inside you as he grinds your hips down to his, and presses his forehead against yours.

“I love you,” He tells you, lightning casting his shadow across the wall for a brief moment. “I love you, I do, I wish-”

“I know,” you tell him before he can continue. “I know, Namjoon, I know, and I do, too. I love you, too.” He comes a few seconds later, the warm seed soaking into his sheets because it has nowhere to go. His warmth disappears from under your hands and his arms fall to his lap when the only thing holding them up is gone. All you can hear is your quiet sobs mixed with his and the rain against the window, and for the first time since you came back, you really, truly, wish you had died. There’s no point in being a ghost when you can still feel your heart breaking in your chest.

“Casper, are you ever scared?”

It’s the middle of the afternoon. Namjoon is sprawled across the couch wrapped in blankets while Lucifer plays in the background and you doodle aimlessly on your board. You don’t need it as often now; you’ve gotten better at focusing your energy into being heard, though being corporeal still eludes you. You don’t know how you did it that night, but you’re grateful for it.

“Of what?” You ask, looking towards him. He’s not looking at you or watching the show, just staring at the ceiling. He focuses at your words, lifts himself up into a sitting position. A shiver runs through him when his legs move through you, and you settle a weightless hand against his knee out of habit.

“I don’t know,” He replies. “Just...whatever comes next. If there’s something that comes next. Being forgotten. Being stuck here forever.”

You aren’t stupid; you know why he’s asking. The question lingers in the air, colors all of your conversations now, but the truth is that neither of you has the strength to ask it and neither of you knows the answer.

“Sometimes,” You tell him. “Sometimes I wonder what Jihyo is doing, if she ever had a baby like she wanted to. I wonder if my parents are still alive, and what they say if they visit my grave, what they tell me now that I can’t respond to them.”

Namjoon nods like he’s already thought of that, and he probably has.

“Most of the time I try not to focus on it, though. It’s not helpful, it only upsets me, and I don’t…” You trail off, unsure of how to word your thoughts. “I don’t know what might happen if I only focus on the negative. I don’t know anything about what’s true about ghosts and what isn’t beyond that I exist now, and I can’t risk becoming something bad. So I try not to focus on it. It’s easier when you’re here.”

He grins and blows a kiss in your general direction, and you pretend not to notice the blood on his cracked lips. He’s quiet for the rest of the episode of half of another.

“Have you ever seen a light?”

“What?” He doesn’t seem to hear you, and you repeat your question on your board for him.

“A light,” He echoes. “Like, the light.Y’know, the light at the end of the tunnel, ‘don’t go into the light,’ that thing.”

You hesitate at that. You knew what he meant, what he actually wants to know here. He’s easier to read now than he was in the beginning.

You watch him as he watches the space where you sit, curled up beside him on his couch. He can’t see you, of course, but he can see where the board rests in your hands. His gaze is heavier than it was when he first moved in; his cheeks are hollower, skin more gaunt with a grey tint that’s only made worse by the constant rain. The sun is just starting to break through the clouds, a brief reprieve after weeks of the dreary stone-colored clouds. It casts shadows along the walls, reflects off something in the window across the alley, and backlights Namjoon beautifully, casts a halo of light around the brittle brown hair you love.

Once, you tell him. Just once.

“Why didn’t you go to it?”

There are so many things you could tell him, so many different ways to answer such a simple question, but you find yourself lingering on the one thing you know is the ultimate truth.

Because I love you.

September comes with even more rain and a bittersweet atmosphere. Jeongguk spends his birthday at Namjoon’s apartment and then comes back a little over a week later, surrounded by the other guys and carrying enough food to last a few months. You stay curled on the bed, one of the only safe places for you to not mess with anyone or anything. Your board is tucked into the blankets, ready to be used but hidden from view just in case. You watch as Namjoon sits on the couch, tucked between Taehyung and Yoongi with both of them leaning into him as much as possible, Yoongi’s hands wrapped in one of his and Tae’s head on his shoulder.

The other’s aren’t far, leaning against the back of the couch and on beanbags they’d brought with them, all laughing as Hoseok does his best to act out whatever he’d been given in charades. He’s not bad at it - you’ve guessed the last few he’s done - but he is utterly ridiculous in his mannerisms. You know why; it’s the same reason everyone kept smiling when Namjoon refused all of the food he was offered, why Seokjin would crack a terrible joke whenever it got too quiet for too long, why everyone is resolutely ignoring the growing pile of tissues on the table.

It keeps a smile on Namjoon’s face, though, and a laugh in his eyes, and you can’t ever be anything but grateful for that.

Hoseok stumbles, nearly falling and whirling his arms to catch himself before eventually falling anyway. You laugh along with the others, grinning at the way Hobi pouts and rubs at his hip. You’re focused on the way Joon laughs, the way it lights up his face and brightens the entire room, which is why you see it first.

The tickle at the back of his throat quickly becomes a cough, wet and wheezing and enough to make him throw the blankets from his lap and stumble to the bathroom.

You’re there before he is, helping him slide the door closed and locking it behind him as he bends over the toilet again. The six of them are quiet in the main room, speaking in hushed whispers that neither you nor Namjoon wants to hear. You turn the knob on the sink, wetting a towel while you drown out the sound of voices, and letting a hand run over Namjoon’s back.

“I’m okay,” he mutters. You ignore the way his voice shakes, the way his lips are redder than before, the way this happens more often than before. Instead, you just press the damp rag to his neck and watch his eyes close in relief. When he stands and flushes the evidence away, you already have his toothbrush ready and waiting, and you stay as close to him as you can until he takes a deep breath.

“I’m okay,” He repeats. “I’m okay. It’s my birthday, and I’m okay.”

He goes back out with a smile on his face and a laugh in his voice, teasing Hoseok about the way he fell and reenacting it, even. When he settles on the couch, he urges the others to continue the game. There’s a brief moment of hesitation before Jimin declares that he’s next and pulls something from the bowl on the table.

You know you aren’t the only one that notices the way Namjoon’s eyes linger on the six men around him, but you are the only one that notices the way they also linger on his steamer trunk, the shelf with his books, the TV, the record player, the scrapbook of his life that they all worked on and Taehyung pieced together over the months, the plants on the wall that he had cared for. He looks around his apartment as if he’s looking at it for the last time.

As if he’s already planning who’s going to get what.

He finally asks the question you both have been thinking about, nearly two months later. His breathing comes in ragged pants, his lips stay chapped, and he keeps several blankets around him at all times to try to hide the shaking of his body. Your soft sobs echo through the apartment constantly; while you reheat the tea he doesn’t drink for the millionth time, while you quietly water and prune the plants he’s saved from death the way you wish you could save him, while you sit curled around him as he sleeps, soothing his coughs with quiet whispers.

Night has just begun to fall, the rain of the day turning into a soft drizzle, and you stare at him blankly, unsure how to process what you’ve just heard.

“Do you think I’ll come back?” He asks again, slightly louder. As if you hadn’t heard his shaky voice the first time. It’s not the question that floors you. You’ve been expecting this for weeks, months even. You’ve wondered it yourself as you prepare tea and ignore the sounds of him vomiting blood in the bathroom, as he disappears to the hospital and returns with a worse prognosis than before, as you’ve adjusted to the idea that you are dead and he is dying and you cannot do anything to help him.

You never would have expected the hope that his words carry though.

“Why does it sound like you want to?” You ask. Your voice is clear in the air and you’re glad for it, because this isn’t something you want to talk about through your board.

“Because I do?” His response is delayed and sounds more like a question than a real answer.

“Why?!” You demand.

“Are you serious, Casper?” His brow is furrowed as he sits up and lets the blankets fall away to sit haphazardly off the couch.

“Are you? Joon, why would you want to come back?”

“You’re seriously asking me that question? Why would I not? I’ve got so much I still want to do, I never thought I’d get the chance to after I got the diagnosis and now I might be able to. Why wouldn’t I want that?”

“Because it doesn’t work like that! You don’t get to just wander the world and fuck around, Joon, you’re dead.”

“Yeah, but you can still read and write and everything. I’d have all the time in the world to read the books I want to read, watch the shows I want to watch, write the music and stories and lyrics that I want to write.”

“Yeah, so long as it all stays in this apartment!” The light in the room flickers slightly with the force of your irritation. “You can’t do anything that isn’t in this room, Namjoon, you can’t use any of the electronics, you can’t read a book unless it’s here, you can’t write music unless it’s on actual paper, you can’t do anything.”

“Yeah, and I could make that work. Why are you so upset about this? I thought you’d be happy.”

“Happy? You think I’d be happy that you’d be stuck in these four walls forever, too? Why would that make me happy?” Namjoon stands, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head.

“Because I’d be with you! We’d be together, forever! Do you not want to be with me?”

“Of course I want to be with you, Joon, but not at the cost of you being stuck here. I don’t want that for anyone, certainly not the man I love.”

“And what if that’s what I want? What if I want to spend the rest of time with you? I’m already spending the rest of my life with you, I’m in love with you, I don’t want to leave you.”

“And I don’t want you to go, but Joon, why would I want you stuck here, too? This isn’t something fun. This isn’t anything that I enjoy.”

“Oh, so you regret it all then?”

“I didn’t say that, I just don’t want you to be stuck in a shitty studio apartment for who knows how long when you can’t fucking do half of the things you love! You wouldn’t go on walks, Namjoon, you wouldn’t go with Guk and Jimin to the movies, you wouldn’t get visits from Hobi, you wouldn’t get to shop with Taehyung or Jin, you wouldn’t get to drag Yoongi away from his thesis or celebrate with them when he finishes it! It’s not like being alive, Namjoon, you’d be dead and alone and in hell!”

“Whatever,” He mutters, shoving his arms into his coat. “Why can’t you understand for one fucking second that it wouldn’t be like that with you? I’d rather be stuck here forever than have to die in some shitty apartment and not even be able to touch the person I love.”

“Why can’t you understand that it’s still death? You’d be dead, Joon, your friends would go to your funeral and disappear from your life, and you’d be stuck staring out that window at that shitty alley for the rest of time. You don’t get it, you don’t how terrible it is to be stuck here and watch life pass you by.”

“Then why the fuck are you still here?” He asks. The door slams behind him before you can answer him, and your scream shakes everything in the room. You just barely catch one of the plants in the kitchen, a brown-potted one with ‘Shooky’ scrawled in Yoongi’s familiar handwriting, before it crashes to the ground. You return it to its place gently and huff another frustrated groan.

You wish you could explain it better, but you know he wouldn’t get it even if you could. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to be trapped between four walls and unable to do anything without massive amounts of effort. And he won’t, not unless he experiences it himself.

You’ve already watched him wither away. You’ve watched him become thin and sallow and a shadow of the Namjoon who first moved in, and you don’t know what you would do if he came back. You wouldn’t be alone anymore, of course, and you’d have him here with you, but at what cost? Namjoon was built for cherry blossoms and sunshine and the riverside. He would hate being trapped here even more than you do.

Still, you could have been more understanding of his view. You can admit that even being stuck in a shitty apartment wasn’t so terrible when you had Namjoon there to make you laugh or watch TV or read to you. It may even get better if he turned into a ghost; maybe you could hold his hands in yours, could feel him wrap his arms around you, could press kisses to his skin again.

You move to the window and stand there waiting. It’s not good for him to be out, even if the rain had stopped a few days ago and the forecasters promised it was the end of the downpours. He was still weak, you’d be surprised he even went anywhere to begin with but you know he likes to walk to calm himself down.

You worry for what feels like hours. You can’t focus on anything, not the way the sun starts to set, not the sound of cars passing or the neighbor leaving. You’ve worked yourself into knots by the time you hear his whistle echo up through the streets, nearly lost in the sound of some argument in the alley below you. You catch a brief view of his coat and smile when you see that he’s got some half-dead plant tucked under an arm. There’s the briefest glimpse of what looks like a Ca scrawled onto it, and your heart jumps in your throat.

You make your way to the stove, turning the heat up slightly too high so that it’ll be ready when he comes in. The arguing outside gets louder but you pay it no mind, pulling the honey out and setting it next to his favorite mug. You’re reaching for the tea when you hear something else. It definitely sounds like Namjoon’s voice, but it’s not in the hall or at the door like usual. It’s raised, like he’s yelling at someone, like it was just a while ago when he was fighting with you. A crash startles you and before you can even reach the window to see what’s going on, there’s a deafening bang.

You slam your fist against the window, watch the red mix with dirt, and the kettle isn't that only thing that screams.

“I think that’s the last of it,” Jeongguk says. His voice is scratchy and quiet, but it’s deafening in the silence of the apartment.

“Yeah,” Hoseok replies. His eyes are rimmed with red and his hands shake as he slides the last mug into a box. “Thanks for the help, Guk. I don’t, um.” He sniffles. “I don’t think I could’ve done it myself, y’know?”

“I know,” Jeongguk agrees. They’re quiet again, adjusting the things they’ve boxed and avoiding finishing what they’re doing.

“Oh, can you get that?” You don’t have to look to know what Hoseok is talking about. Jeongguk grunts an affirmation and makes his way over. It’s a strange feeling, having someone pass through you again for the first time since. His hands fly into the air as he tries to lift, clearly not having expected it to weigh anything.

His reflection in the window frowns, and he tries again, tugging on the pot.

“I can’t get it,” He says. “Do you think he glued these things down or something?”

“No,” Hoseok replies as he wanders over as well. “He used to pick them up to re-pot them, remember? And the others came up with no problem.”

“Well it’s stuck or something, you try.”

Hobi takes Jeongguk’s place and pulls hard at the plot, but your grip doesn’t waver. He huffs and disappears. When he returns, he’s got a butter knife in one hand that he does his best to slip under the pot. He tries hard to pry it up, so hard that you almost want to give in. You don’t though.

The knife clatters to the floor with as much force as Hoseok can put behind it, a curse following quickly behind it.

“Fuck it,” Hoseok says. His voice is shaky and you know he’s near tears again. “Just fuck it.”

“But that was-”

“You can try if you want, Guk, but I just-” He chokes back a sob, shaking his head and moving to pick up the boxes he’d set down. “I just can’t, okay?” He disappears out the door in a hurry, and you wish you could follow after him.

Jeongguk looks down at the small plant, with its painted periwinkle pot and soft leaves. He runs a quivering finger over the leaf and sniffles. He doesn’t try to lift it again, just stands and lets his tear soak into the soil.

“I wish you could come back to us,” He whispers. “We thought...we expected more time. It’s not...it’s not really fair, y’know? So if you can hear me, if you can come back to us, please do. Please.”

He turns and leaves, the apartment door slamming behind him like the lid of a casket. Your grip on Mang loosens now that you know no one’s going to try to take it. You’d watched them pack everything else up; you’d let them take the steamer trunk full of records, the shelf full of books and movies, the collection of mugs, the soft blankets, the ratty couch, the rest of the plants he’d cared for so tenderly.

Piece by piece they had packed Namjoon up and walked him out of the apartment, but this was the one piece they couldn’t have. This was his favorite and none of them knew how to care for it like you did, and you had to. You owed it to him. He deserved to come back to at least one familiar thing, never mind that you woke up not even a day later and it’s now been weeks. If there was one thing you wanted him to see when he got back, it was his favorite of his plants.

The sun glares into your eyes from where it shines down on the city. It reflects off something in the window from across the alley, would be blinding if you actually had eyes. You pay it no mind, focused instead on the remains of the broken brown pot down in the alley, the way you’ve pieced them together in your head a thousand times just to trace the word Casper with your eyes. You can almost hear his voice saying it, even now.

You whip around, eyes darting through the empty space of the apartment as your hands tighten around Mang.

All that rests there is empty space, mocking in its loneliness. You remember when he moved in, remember how it felt to test the boundaries of the apartment and wish you were free. The want is still there, to leave and never think of it again, never think of him. You know better, though. You could never escape the memory of him, the way he laughed and smiled and spoke. You could never abandon Mang. Not when he said he’d always come back to you.

You turn back to the window, cursing the sunlight with every other breath. It fades, slowly, into the black of night, before returning again, and again, and again. Days pass, each one feeling like years. Hoseok doesn’t appear to show the apartment, no one comes to collect the small periwinkle pot between your palms, and the ghost of his laugh echoes around you.

The sun blinds you again. You don’t even know how long it’s been, just that you’ve yet to move. Light glints off whatever hangs in the window across the alley. That's when you see it, a vague reflection in the weathered glass of a dimple and a grin, and warmth surrounds you.

“I told you I’d always come back, Casper.”

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lady-spieroles · 4 years

Text

The Lives we Live

There is little to no Mianite presence on Ao3 so I guess this fic will live on Tumblr for now.

Here’s a little 1500 or so word thing on my take of how Sparklez ended up joining Mianitian Islands. Though really it's more of a character study type thing. Bits of this were inspired by Chaggle’s comic “Wake Up Call” https://chaggle.tumblr.com/post/616415075016785920/wake-up-call including much of the dialogue between Tom and Jordan.

Enjoy!

He woke alone on an island.

Gods, he was so tired of waking alone on an island. What had gone so wrong after they’d jumped through the portal? It had been so long since that day, since that world, since he’d seen his friends. He’d woken alone that first new day as well. Instead of an island in the sea, it had been an island in the sky with no world below, forcing him to build the world from nothing. And then again in a world that was a vast desert, again with no choice but to start anew. Again and again, each world just slightly different from the last. Always alone. No friends, no resources and no Gods

He’d lived dozens of lives that way if not more. And then finally he’d woken in a world where he was not alone. It was a world of islands and oceans, water stretching endlessly on the horizon, odd but not unwelcome. He’d believed it to be another life he’d live alone but then by the Gods there had been others! Other people in this vast ocean world! He was sure he’d made a fool of himself at first but he was just so relieved to hear the voice of another person instead of the specters of memories of the ones he’d lost and left behind. Things had gotten better after that. Whatever Gods controlled his life must’ve had their fun letting him live alone because he found more and more people with each new life he lived. There were still lives he woke alone, but more often than not there was at least one other soul.

Some lives were short, some long. Some crowded with other people, some with just one other. There were stretches where he lived alongside the same person or people he’d met before. Those were the best, because they understood one another and what they’d all been through. He lived a life entirely underground, just him and one other man who he was becoming increasingly familiar with. There was a world populated by mysterious creatures to be tamed and trained and battled with. One life was spent as a king of a fledgling kingdom with dozens of people who knew him despite he not knowing them. The strangest was a world that had been populated by others like him for some time, he the newcomer to a world well-established and crowded with dozens of others, so much so that he missed his solitary life and moved far far away from the rest to get some peace and quiet. He saw many of those faces in the world that followed and made many new friends among them. For a time it was enough.

But even through all these lives, however long they lasted, some part of him missed the first long life he’d spent with people other than himself. He still, even after all this time remembered the day he’d woken on the shore of that strange land with its pair of strange gods. He remembered the adventures in that world with a nostalgic fondness. He’d lived so many lives since then, all fulfilling in their own ways and well spent, but nothing ever quite compared to the days he’d spent with those first few friends. That world, that life, was where he’d met Her. His Lady, his Goddess, the forgotten and caged woman who he would free from her shackles and devote the rest of his lives to serving. For he’d never forgotten her, not in all the lives he lived after. He rarely spoke to her or prayed, but kept her in his thoughts. In the worlds where he was alone his mind turned to her more frequently, wondering if she was watching him, following him across life after life, dimension after dimension. He had no doubts that she was able, but would she really care? Who was he but another man in another world in another life? Who was he to a Goddess whose consciousness stretched across all dimensions?

Which brought him to this new world. Alone again. It had been some time since he’d been truly alone. He’d had at least one person with him in most of his last few lives, usually the same man, who he’d come to view as quite a dear friend, who knew of the Gods despite not following any of them himself. X33N had been strange at first, he gave no further name and seemed to share some knowledge with Jordan himself. X33N knew of the Gods, knew of the world of Ruxomar and of many of the people who’d lived there before it had fallen to ruin. They’d met in that world they eventually realized, though X33N always felt as though he’d lived dozens of lives at once rather than in different worlds. He had recollections of being present and omnipresent all at once.

But this time, there was no X33N when Jordan opened his eyes. None of the friends he’d made in the last few lives. For the first time in a very long time he had no one. With a heavy sigh he got to his feet and brushed the sand from his jacket as best he could, straightening his glasses on his face.

“X33N?!” “Kara?!” “Anyone?!” He called out, despite knowing it was useless. “Alright. Just me then.” he muttered to himself, taking his first steps in this new world. “Though I suppose I always have you huh Milady?” The rhetorical question was said with a bitter twist to the words, jaded from ages spent without answer.

‘Always, my Champion’ Jordan stopped mid step at the voice that floated through his mind. No. It was impossible. She was gone. Ianite was gone from this and every dimension.

“Ianite?” He breathed, desperation tingeing his voice. A shrill beep chirped from his pocket in answer and he was suddenly aware of a weight that hadn’t been there a moment prior. Curiously, Jordan removed a small device with a screen. It was similar enough to communicators he’d seen before but why would he have this? Unless.

He tapped the button on the screen, trying to keep his hopes from growing too high.

“Hello?” The message scrolled across the screen in plain text. Clearly whoever had sent it had not expected to see anyone either. Jordan exhaled a sigh that was somewhere between disappointment and gratitude. He was not alone. He’d thought maybe, for a moment, that this would finally be the life he saw one of them again. The device beeped again and then a voice.

“Jordan?!” “Wait, Wait JORDAN!?!”

Jordan fell to his knees in the sand at the voice that came from the device. Tom. After all these years and all these lives.

“My DUDE! Where are ya at?!” “Dude.” “I called Mianite a Lil’ Bitch earlier.”

Jordan had yet to say a single word, a smile pulling at his lips and a tear in his eye. Tom had hardly changed at all.

“Then he killed me.” “Oh yea.” “Dianite also came to visit.” “The two fought for a bit.” “Then Dia killed me.”

The smile turned into a chuckle as the tear slid from his eye. Gods, he’d missed Tom. He’d missed them all, but Tom most of all.

“Jordan? You there?” Worry had seeped into Tom’s excited voice, he’d not been without his own struggles it sounded like.

“I’m here. I’m on a beach.” Jordan replied, trying his best to keep his own voice level, no need for Tom to know exactly how relieved he was to hear the other man's voice. If he was to live this life with Tom and if they were lucky, the others, he didn’t need to give Tom any ammo to tease him with already, no matter how overjoyed he was.

“I need your coords.” “I have no idea where I am.”

It was Tom’s turn to be silent, perhaps he too was as relieved to hear a familiar voice. Jordan didn't even want to think about the implications of what Tom had said. One thing at a time. Find Tom first then worry about what Gods may or may not be around in this world.

“I woke up on an island a few days ago.” Tom’s voice was rougher now, as though he’d cleared his throat several times trying to rid it of emotion. In the distance Jordan saw a series of small islands, perhaps that was where Tom was? It was worth a shot at least.

“Have you seen or heard from the others?” It was the question Jordan couldn’t help but ask as he returned to the water’s edge.

“Nope.” Tom said with a soft sigh. “Just me.”

Jordan let out his own sigh. So it was to be just the two of them. He didn’t want to be ungrateful, but part of him had hoped that this might be the world where they saw one another once more. He had Tom though. If no one else, they had each other.

Tom prattled on of what he knew so far as Jordan swam towards where he hoped Tom might be. Very little it turned out. Mianite and Dianite had turned up but had disappeared again soon after, doing little more than what Tom had already described. He was already working on a way to try and get Dianite to come back. Neither, it seemed had mentioned Ianite.

The first island he arrived at was empty, barely more than a sandbar. But just past it was a hilly island with a volcano, trees, and most importantly of all the silhouette of a man atop one of the hills.

Jordan dove into the sea once more with a renewed sense of excitement, pushing himself to swim faster, ignoring the burn of his muscles and the racing beat of his heart.

As he climbed out of the water, he saw Tom rush down from the hill to meet him on the beach. The other man had barely changed, the only sign of time was the new weariness in his eyes. The same weariness Jordan saw whenever he caught a glimpse of his own reflection.

“Tom” “Jordan”

They spoke at the same time, both overwhelmed and relieved in equal measure.

Jordan swallowed heavily then smiled, telling himself the warm, salty moisture that slid down his face was leftover seawater and not tears “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Tom’s expression mirrored Jordan’s own, green skin crinkling around obsidian eyes as he smiled. “It sure has been.”

“But hello, old friend.”

Find me on Ao3:

Selenejessabelle12626 for the tame stuff

Lady-Spieroles for the less tame stuff ;)

#mianite #mianite is back yall #mianitian isles #my writing #fanfiction #Mianite fanfiction #Captain Sparklez #captainsparklez #synhd #jordan maron #syndicate #ianite #dianite #origin story #words words words

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maxattack-powell · 4 years

Note

Top 5 male LI in Choices and why?? 😊

Yay! I get to gush about my boys 😁 thanks @carinacassiopeiae!

I think we all know what my first one is going to be 🤣 but I’ll put them all out there and play fair. Honestly, a lot of these are probably paired together for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place... no real 4th or 5th haha.

Top Five

1. Chris Powell

Why? TF was the first book I ever played in Choices and he was so sweet to MC when he first met (crashed into) her (“oh no, your outfit!” *runs to get napkins*)... I guess I fell for him haha. He wasn’t perfect at first, but he worked hard to right his wrongs and is very thoughtful/caring when it comes to his friends and family. He’s very understanding, tries ridiculously hard on things he attempts, and believes there is good in everyone. All of this reminds me of another great man, one Steve Rogers, aka Captain America. I love a loyal, honest Cap.

2. Ernest Sinclaire

Why? He’s basically Darcy lol. And I love me some Darcy. This poor guy has been burned, badly... though we don’t find out for quite some time. Which means his initial impression is rough, but when he starts to trust again and opens up, it’s breathtaking. I feel like he’s one of the best 180 character developments in Choices, because once you crack him open, he’s a completely different person. He’s so tender, so caring (the women/children!), so proud of MC and everything she does, so supportive, so devoted... *blissful sigh* He’s a sweet and proper Darcy man.

3. Adrian Raines

Why? Well, he’s an extremely complicated character. He was loving man and proud father, living a simple life and loving it... before he lost it all. Becoming a vampire changed that, but eventually he realized what he had become and hated it. So he worked hard to transform into a great man. He would sacrifice himself for the greater good if needed. He’s attentive, hyper aware, very smart and calculating, but most of all he wants to be good with a passion and that makes him honorable and trustworthy. I mean... Kamilah trusts him with her life - that says a lot.

4. Hayden Young/Damien Nazario

I know I typed two - but hear me out: I can’t choose between them, and here’s why...

Hayden - the way this man loves, and I mean MC, others and most importantly, life itself... is amazing. It’s indescribable. Sure, he’s not technically a biological man, but he has the heart and mind of one. A great one. Watching him experience life, more so after he gets woke, is a wonderful experience. It’s almost like seeing the world through the eyes of a child... so innocent, so pure. He understands just how fleeting life is, because he’s been fighting for his since he was first turned on. The pain in his eyes when he realizes he wasn’t a “real” man, but the way the fog vanishes from them once he learns to live and love again... it’s beautiful.

Damien - he’s just about Hayden’s polar opposite, but that’s only part of why I can’t choose between them. This man is real, like painfully real. He’s stubborn, he’s brutally honest, he’s blunt and to the point, but he also knows what’s right and he will die fighting for it. For them - because he knows how dark the world can be and he won’t let it get them if he can help it. But that’s what makes him so endearing, because he chooses to still let MC, Nadia and Hayden into his world despite all of that. Despite his frustrating past and failures. He knows what’s worth the risk, and he never gives up. Ever.

5. Liam Rys/Drake Walker

I know, another shared LI lol. I can’t choose because they are each ideal in different situations. Both are kinda perfect (to me) and here’s why...

Liam - he’s a prince for crying out loud. Disney has worked hard to make many little girls grow up wanting to be a princess. But besides all of that, the man is amazing. Being a political figure is difficult - but being a royal, yikes. Still, this man has such a level head, and talk about loyalty. He knew Leo wasn’t cut out for the job, but someone had to do it. He stepped up and sacrificed so his brother could be free, knowing what it would mean for his own life in return. Liam is loyal to a fault - to his country and it’s people, his family, his friends and of course (eventually) his love. Some of which never deserve it, but he gives it anyway. Look at how he cares for publicly sour people like Drake and Olivia - he can see the good in eveyone and he tries to be who others expect him to be while never losing who he really is inside. He’s fair, he’s just and he’s made of steel. He’s basically Superman.

Drake - in the beginning, this guy is salty, but he honestly has a few reasons to be. People can be rude, snobbish and down right shitty when they think someone isn’t worthy. But Liam could always see his true value, his true character just like Drake could see his. This man loves his best friend, and he knows the pressures Liam endures, so he sacrifices his own comforts, his own desires to stay close and be there for him. Whenever. Wherever. Dispite what others think of him. That is loyalty you can’t buy, and Liam knows it. Once you crack through Drake’s crusty shell, you are gifted with such a sweet and kind soul. He loves animals (horses yay!) and is ridiculously kind. He looks after MC even though he knows she’s supposed to be doing it for Liam - and even when he tells her he has feelings for her (or she tells him), he denies himself... because he loves Liam that much.

Honorable Mentions

Zig Ortega

I love this guy, and if it wasn’t for Chris, who kept me diamond broke and distracted with his blue eyes and cute smirk... Zig would have been a big contender. I feel like I still have so much to learn about him. I never gave him enough time because I was always guilty when I didn’t choose Chris lmao.

Ethan Ramsey

This man is an onion. Layers, upon layers, upon layers... I haven’t read through Open Heart many times, but I’m pretty sure I would fall for him pretty hard if so. He’s an interesting character, very intense while somehow incredibly soft. He just needs to be peeled...!

Logan NoName

One can assume he has no last name because he’s basically a runaway who got caught up in the auto theft world. It hasn’t been an easy life - he has scars, both physical and emotional, and they run deep. He’s good at this life, but it’s because he had to be. And he loves his crew, but that’s because it’s the only family hes truly ever known. He deserves so much more.

Flynn O’Malley

This guy is a pitbull. He fights for what’s right, and never lets go. He’s also very sweet, and insanely loyal. He’s also pretty sassy and I love his “John Bender” attitude haha. I’ve always been sad we only got to see him and the Veil of Secrets crew for one book...

Jax Matsuo

This guy is old school, in every way. If tradition had a picture next to it in the dictionary, you’d find one of Jax. He doesn’t forgive and forget easily, but I honestly don’t blame him. It’s hard to be cheerful when people are constantly trying to kill you off. Even so, he stands up for what’s right, he stands up for “the little guy” even if he doesn’t know them. He is justice.

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prettywordsyouleft · 5 years

Text

Beyond The Palace Walls - Part Six

Genre: royal au / fluff / adventure / self-growth

Characters: Jung Jaehyun x reader (feat. Ten, Lucas and Taeyong)

A/N: This story was started as a request but it didn’t suit the idol I was writing it for and it was too good to scrap. Originally, it was going to be a Lucas fiction but then I realised I was writing Jaehyun without realising it and so my bias one of them won it out.

Index: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Epilogue

The steady rhythm of the horse’s movement had settled some of your anxiety as it thundered along the path ahead. Although you had a lot to consider during the ride, you had to admit you were impressed with Jaehyun’s skills at knowing how to understand and encourage the majestic animal. You had often gone to the royal stables until you fell off one summer and your father put an end to your riding lessons. You enjoyed the rush of being back up in the saddle, in the adept care of Jaehyun as he and the bay horse navigated the twists and turns of the forest. It felt like the trees would go on forever, the greenery encasing you both in an endless world of fauna. After some time, the dense forest started to change. You noticed the trees were not as grouped together, and light filtered in, changing the deep hues of green into lighter shades, some sun-bleached with the way the light directly hit them. It was then that you smelt the difference in the air as well. It had a distinct saltiness that you were certain you could taste whenever you opened your mouth in wonder. It made you scrunch up your face and Jaehyun chuckled for the first time since you departed from the others. It was the first sign of anything towards you; the only sounds coming from the man that firmly kept you in place were to encourage the horse forward until now. His chuckle comforted you and you smiled, relaxing further into his embrace. You had missed him even though he had been behind you this whole time.

“It’s not far now.”

The track twisted once more and you gasped, seeing the vast blue up ahead. Your eyes soaked it in as it grew closer, and soon the trees disappeared as the ground turned to sand. Jaehyun slowed the horse down to a trot and then a walk, the three of you advancing towards the water at a leisured pace. Despite the race to get here, the calmness of your arrival made you forget about everything that had happened today. The waves rolled into the beachfront and then back out again, and you watched as some crashed against the others back further into the sea, yet as they reached the sandy shore it was gentler. The ocean was everything you had imagined it to be and more.

The horse halted and you glanced back at Jaehyun, his focus solely on yours. He smiled. “You’re finally here.”

“It’s beautiful,” you breathed and Jaehyun nodded, letting go of the arm he held around your waist. You realised then how tense your body felt and you glanced down at the ground, noticing Jaehyun shift his foot out of the stirrup at the same time. With help from him and the stirrup you made it down onto the ground and wobbled a little when it moved under you. You shot Jaehyun a grin and then stepped forward. It wasn’t the kind of sand you had ever experienced before. They were firmer, filled with fine gravel. This was soft and you sunk a little into it, watching as the grainy coloured beads encased your steps. It was delightful.

Jaehyun soon dismounted and led the horse to a nearby piece of driftwood, tethering it there before he came back to your side and grabbed your hand. You looked up at him expectantly.

“You need to take off your shoes for this,” he encouraged, allowing you to use him to balance on as you did so. Once his own boots were off, you set off towards the water, surprised when the damp sand changed from what you had been feeling run through your toes. This sand stuck to you as you walked along, and soon the water was right ahead of you. It felt childish, but you glanced up at Jaehyun to gauge his reaction. Would the sea be safe to step into? You had watched it roll in and out over the sand just ahead. Would you float out with it if you stepped in? Part of you wanted to, just so you could feel as free as the water was. You were reminded of Taeyong’s talk the other day about water, and how it moved around its obstacles. You decided, along with Jaehyun’s encouraging nod, that it would be safe to step forward.

Gripping onto his hand you edged forward, placing only the tip of your toes in. You gasped, feeling the gentle flow of the water. Soon, your whole foot was down, and you moved forward a few more steps after hiking up your skirt. A giggle left you as you jumped over a wave rolling in. Jaehyun’s hand left yours as you continued to play, the man watching you from his spot in the water near you, laughing at how innocent your play was. The water’s temperature was refreshing and you enjoyed the chill of it against your legs the longer you splashed around.

And then you got water into your mouth by accident, spluttering with how strong it tasted. Jaehyun genuinely laughed at you and you pouted, splashing water at him and listened to him gasp. You laughed heartily.

“Did you just splash me?” he asked, brushing the water off of his clothes. You smirked and threw another handful of water his way. Jaehyun groaned before skimming a bunch back at you. Your shrieks were noisy and your laughter was louder. You hadn’t played like this before in your life. You had never been allowed in water for long in case you drowned, and the one time Jane had splashed you in the bathtub as children, she was deeply scolded and you never shared again. You were transported to a place where your lost childhood was discovered, playing with Jaehyun until you were exhausted and soaking wet.

As you sat down on the sand in the sun to dry off, you started to wonder of the others. Were they okay? The chase for you both had clearly been led away from here, or else the guards would have stumbled across you both by now. You felt safe on this section of the beach but you worried if the others were. You were desperate to see them when dusk arrived. You wanted to share this magical environment with Jane, to hear her exclamations of such a beautiful place on Earth.

You missed Jane terribly.

“They’ll be okay.” Glancing over at Jaehyun then, he smiled gently and took your hand in his. “They promised they would come here. I believe they will.”

“Shouldn’t they be here by now though?” you asked hesitantly, leaning into his side. Jaehyun sighed. “What if-”

“I don’t think they would want you to worry, little bird.”

You smiled. “I half expected you to call me Princess then. I don’t know why.”

“I thought we agreed on little bird?”

“I feel like a lot has changed,” you admitted softly and Jaehyun didn’t respond. You looked over at his eyes, trying to decipher the expression within his gaze. His jaw was tight, and you reached over to touch him, gently caressing his cheek. “This beach feels like an escape from everything that’s happening.”

“Our own little world,” he agreed with a smile, turning to kiss your hand lightly before grabbing it in his spare hand. You sat for some time like that, feeling the warmth of both his hands around yours and watching the sun leave the sky altogether as the first twinkling stars appeared above. In any other situation, this moment would be the best time to kiss Jaehyun. To get wrapped up in your feelings that you now carried deep within your heart and to utter magical words that you hoped were caught on a shooting star.

But it was growing colder, darker. You couldn’t forget about Jane and the others no matter how much you tried. Even with his warmth, Jaehyun couldn’t keep you from shivering and soon you grew panicked. Any sound that happened around you made you flinch and you were on edge, no longer enjoying the beach.

“Should we search for them?” you asked and Jaehyun shook his head, his eyes wandering the place you were in. There wasn’t a soul in sight apart from you both and the horse he had since tethered near a patch of grass. But his eyes caught something and he let go of one of your hands, getting you both up before pointing.

“Let’s set up camp there. I can’t let you catch a cold with all your shivering.”

There was a cove nearby that blocked out some of the wind, and you helped Jaehyun gather bits of driftwood into a pile near the entrance of it. He set to work at lighting the fire, satisfied when it took. You resumed your seated position again, Jaehyun soon joining you when he was certain the fire would continue growing.

“Tell me something about you,” you asked, resting your head on your knees as you brought them up against yourself. You realised you didn’t know that much about Jaehyun yet. You knew of his character and his love for his friends, but that was it. You craved more knowledge; you wanted to know everything about the man who held onto your heart.

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything.”

Jaehyun was thoughtful for a moment and then nodded as an opening. “I have two older brothers and three younger sisters.”

“That’s a big family,” you said and Jaehyun nodded again. “Are you close with them all? I’m an only child so I don’t have any understanding of what it’s like to have siblings.”

“Mine… they live for themselves,” he slowly answered, turning somewhat broody. Had you asked the wrong question? You watched as he internalised over his memories perhaps, and then he looked at you. “My older brothers disliked me because like you, my Father favoured me.”

“He didn’t keep you locked up in a castle though,” you pointed out but instead of laughing as you expected, Jaehyun shrugged.

“It felt suffocating regardless.”

“I see.”

“My sisters didn’t really care for me because I was always off getting training of some sort.” Jaehyun stopped there, rocking in his thoughts for a moment. You bit your lip, wincing at your suggestion to ask about his life. Despite his hesitance, he seemed to want to tell you and you waited until he spoke again. “Eventually, I chose to leave which didn’t go down well with my Father.”

“Is that when you met Taeyong?”

He finally smiled and shook his head. “I’ve known him for many years, he helped me leave.”

“And Ten, Lucas?”

“I knew them as well,” he told you, his smile growing. “They were the only people I felt who cared to know the real me. They weren’t looking for something out of me other than friendship. It’s been, wow, three years now, since I left.”

“Why are you returning?” The question felt greedy to you. Logically, if he was happier away from home, you wanted Jaehyun to continue on that path. But there was a personal aspect to the question. You didn’t want him to return. It would mean that when you finally went home yourself, he would be in an entirely different kingdom. You didn’t like that. You didn’t want any further distance between you than the one you held now.

“My Father is ill,” he started and your eyes widened. “I thought I would see him before I can’t.”

“Oh my, Jaehyun I’m so sorry for-”

“I’m not,” he cut in, smiling again. He took your hand in his and smiled. “I’m glad I met you. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be returning home and taking up the role I don’t want to.”

“What role is that?”

Jaehyun paused, his eyes unsure. And then he frowned, tilting his head to the side. He was up in an instant. “Stay here.”

You bit back your protest, watching him head out silently to check if you were still safe here. When he returned, he wasn’t alone.

“Jane!” you cried, leaping up and running to your best friend’s side who cried in relief upon seeing you. Her tears mixed in with your own as you clung to one another.

“I thought I would never see you again!”

“Nonsense, you know you can never get rid of me that easily,” you remarked, smiling widely at your friend. You glanced over at the others. Ten winked as he came to Jane’s side and Lucas covered you in one of his bear-like hugs. You watched Taeyong examine Jaehyun avidly before they both relaxed and brotherly hugged.

You realised it then.

When you woke in the morning, you were nestled beside Jane sleeping peacefully. The cove was quiet apart from the sounds of steady breathing and you eased yourself up slowly, heading out onto the beachfront. You walked for some time, watching as the sun rose up in the sky. You loved this part of the day the most. When you returned to the palace you would be certain to witness many sunrises there.

You gazed at the morning waves crashing into the shore with more force than they had yesterday and grew mesmerised by their beauty. Water truly was something you now held great respect for.

You noticed a person up ahead and you approached him quietly, Taeyong’s eyes shifting from the sea when he noticed you. He didn’t smile but welcomed you at his side. “Good morning.”

“Did you not sleep well?” you asked, your own eyes moving over him. He had limped in last night and you wondered what had happened to cause him to be injured. He became aware of your examination and finally smiled.

“You’re just like him.”

“In more ways than one,” you agreed, and the older man’s gaze snapped to scrutinise you. He sighed heavily in resignation.

“He wouldn’t tell you,” he mentioned and you nodded.

“He didn’t.”

“How did you figure it out then?”

You didn’t know how to answer the question at first. Now that you understood who Jaehyun was, you felt as if you knew it all along. How you had foolishly viewed him in the beginning and how lovingly Marigold had appreciated him at your side. He was your saviour, but you were starting to wonder if you would become his as well.

“I feel like the tail of the secret was exposed to me long ago, but I only caught hold of it last night.”

Taeyong smiled again. “I was harsh with him. And you, too.”

“You are someone who guides people well in life, Taeyong. I don’t see you as harsh at all.”

“I do?”

You nodded. “You helped Jaehyun escape, to live a life he dreamed of, right?”

“Being cooped up never suited him.”

“Did he escape the way I did?” you wondered and Taeyong shook his head.

“No, he told his Father the truth. That he couldn’t stand living there any longer and craved to see more of the world.” Taeyong sat down then, and you followed suit, tucking your legs up under yourself. “His Father told him he had too many responsibilities to be so reckless. Jaehyun refused to believe that his life only meant one thing. He told him to let him go and he would return one day with the knowledge of the land. Eventually, his Father agreed.”

You nodded, smiling at how admirable Jaehyun was. You now wished you had understood your yearning to leave and prepared in a better way.

“He was meant to be only gone for a year. Soon that turned into another as we helped the people of the land. Then when Lucas’ sister was kidnapped, we ended up here.”

“His sister?” you repeated and Taeyong nodded. “Where is she?”

“She married a man in the village you live above. She’s very happy there.”

“Were you happy there too?” you asked hesitantly, watching him for his reaction.

Taeyong smiled sadly. “I never let myself grow fond of a place for too long, knowing my destination is back in our kingdom.”

“I see.”

“Will you return home soon?” He turned to face you, now watching you like you had him. You heaved a deep breath.

“I should.”

“I think he is in love with you,” Taeyong mentioned softly and you couldn’t help but feel your heart flutter. “Jaehyun has risked everything for you. I wonder just how far he’ll go.”

“He is destined to sit on the throne though,” you said, finally mentioning the unspoken secret aloud. It felt good to say it, to acknowledge Jaehyun as the missing Prince from the neighbouring kingdom you had heard of at the dinner table once from your Father. You wondered if Jaehyun would feel the burden of your knowledge and wish you had remained oblivious to his own status.

Taeyong nodded sadly. “His brother wants it more than he does.”

“Then perhaps we can let him,” you mused, smiling over at Taeyong. For a moment, he was still and then a smile soon stretched over his lips to match yours.

It was your turn to save Jaehyun.

_________________

Part 7

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tobrodachi · 5 years

Text

Nice! My otome game scenario is writing itself up, as expected!

Synopsis: Saito Sakura, a woman working as an author for the famous VN company “N*tr*pl*s” is currently the main writer for an otome game scenario coming up. One night, during The Crunch, she collapses and wakes up in her game world! However, she wakes up as Adelina Fugo, the main villainess/pain-in-the-butt for the commoner protagonist Petra Saenz. Worse than that, since the storyboard was never completed, she’s only got a general idea of where the story’s headed in each of the four main routes, and they all lead up to exile or death of her character!

“Well, worse comes to worse, this all serves as inspiration for when I wake up!”

Tags: Female protagonist, dense protagonist, otome isekai, her hands are rated E for Everyone, we going ham with this bois.

Chapter 01/??:

The Crunch, or how I learned to stop worrying and love coffee.

My name is Saito Sakura, a 28 year old Visual Novel writer for N*tr*pl*s who’s currently struggling to make ends meet. Got myself a nice little apartment over at the Narita prefecture, got enough money for my daily expenses, and I love my job. But if my life is so rose-tinted, then why am I struggling?

Because, and let me be clear here, having all of those nice things means absolutely jackshit when you’re pulling a month-long work into a single week. Especially if it’s the third day of said week, with the blinds closed unless I want to invoke the Mother Of All Headaches, and haven’t slept for the past 72 hours and counting; all while subsisting on a diet based of vending machine potato chips, extra-salty tuna onigiri courtesy of my juniors, and an ungodly amount of that sweet, sweet nectar known to mankind as coffee.

Thank you, God of Coffee, for allowing us mere mortals to harvest your beans for our gain. For giving us the inspiration to think of new and innovative ways to prepare your juices, so that we can pair it up with other produce. Milk for the stomach, sugar for the heart, and cinnamon for the soul.

Mmmmm, spicy~! Just the way mama likes it.

“Excuse me, miss Saito.” a voice I couldn’t identify called out to me in the middle of my coffee break, accompanied by a hand clasping my shoulder at the same time.

Rude.

I blinked to get the fog out of my eyes, and fixed my stare at.... who was him again? All I can recall right now are names of characters and places that don’t exist (yet!), and this self-important NPC comes to talk to--

“Please, go back home and take a rest, we’ll cover for you.”

!!!!!!

I take back everything I said about you, my most favorite intern! May you be blessed by the God of Coffee for anything you may need, without suffering from stress-induced gastritis until you’re late in your 40′s~

“Thank you, but I still need to finish at least some sort of idea for the Childhood Friend route, and I’m still struggling to find ideas for that.” My mouth replied still in auto mode, while brain-me was still off in lala land----

Saito Sakura, you utter and absolute fool! How dare you let your heart dictate what your mouth says!? Apologize to me, dammit!

“As expected of our senior! Please, keep doing your best!” My most hated intern cheerfuly replied as he waved and went back to his work station.

Noooooooo~! Please come back and give me back my well-earned freedooooom~!

As I took another sip of coffee in disappointment, my mind went back to think about the southern regions of the Patagonia, while my fingers started moving on their own to an invsible script.

After what felt like hours, I look at the clock hands, and they’re still at 10. Is it morning? Night? I lost count of the pass of time after my 20th cup (and trust me, I kept count), with my own sleepiness never quite leaving the edges of my mind. And now, even the center.

Can’t.

Think.

The only thing keeping me awake is that burning sensation in at the lower part of my chest that seems to be coming from my stomach, and the sheer sensation of my heart wanting to grow legs and jump out of me. What’s worse is that the burning sensation isn’t even calming down, but rather going up; but I’ll take this over not finishing near the deadline.

My sight blurs once again, and I try to focus back to the screen.

The screen stays blurry.

It’s alright, I can still type, even if I can’t see the keystrokes, it’ll just be that intern’s job to figure out what I wanted to write~

Except, well, my hands stopped moving. Huh, fancy that. I can’t feel my hands anymore drumming their beat against the keyboard, so at least I’m assuming so.

I look back at the still blurry monitor, and I can see it’s coming closer to my face, aaaaaand it just went up and above my head, and ow, now besides having this really annoying burning feeling in my chest, I now also have a killer headache.

But on the flip side, now I’m also feeling really, really, warm and fluffy and wonderful.

Maybe I’ll stay like this for a few more minutes....

______________

“-o sorry, I didn’t mean to do that!” A mop of brown curled hair doing its best impression of a person apologizing actually said to me while bowing down.

Wait, that’s actually a human person. Nevermind, carry on.

I scoffed and resisted the urge to yawn. Who does this girl think she is? Queen Anne? Puh-lease! Not with those clothes!

“Excuses, as expected of someone who doesn’t even know their place.” I replied, while picking myself off the ground-?

Wait, what was I doing on the ground in the first place? I find it unlikely I was taking a nap, I was just finishing admiring the great mountainous view of this campus---

Wait, that’s not it, I was in my office and then everything became blurry before---

I looked back at the talking mop herself, and she seemed even more apologetic than before. It seems she said something else before, but I didn’t pay attention to it. I gazed at my -gloved?- hands -whenever did I put gloves on?- and saw the silk fabric sullied by the gravel from the road. Seriously, a lady shouldn’t pick up herself like this!

“So, who are you supposed to be?” My voice sounds different- I ask to little miss mop over there, what a sorry view. But at least that question made her look up into my eyes.

Good, she’s got at least a semblance of backbone.

“M-my name--” She stuttered, aaaaaand what little respect she earned went down the drain. Doesn’t she have any self-respect? “-is Petra, Petra Saenz. I’m so sorry about---”

“Keep your mouth shut, and zip up your apologies.” I said -isn’t it rude, though?- haughtily because, again, how dare this imitation for a human try to go through life without affirming her presence?

I heard giggles around me, and turned my head to find my followers -wow, even a girl posse, nice- trying to hold their laughter at the situation. A quick glare fixed it, and they stopped the noises, clearly afraid of what may come. Good, it wouldn’t do to have anything else.

Turning back to the mop, she seemed even more cowed than before, as if expecting divine retribution, which may as well be what’s happening here.

“You’re talking to-” Saito Sakura, Saito’s the family name “-Adelina Fugo. Tennis Ace, Treasurer of the Student Council, and New York’s future Best Selling Author!” Wait, where did that come from?

Oh, wait, those were my goals when I was a kid!

But while those girls were nodding and clapping at my declaration, the mop looked more lost than ever, and this time I couldn’t even fault her.

“Uhm.... what’s New York?”

I’m asking myself the same here.

The other girls stopped clapping and looked at me expectantly.

I -want to rub my eyes and drink some coffee- pick up a flower-patterned fan I had hanging on my hip, before hiding my mouth with it.

“OOOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!” -damn, that felt good to do, even if it WAS hammy- I laugh before fanning myself.

“If you don’t know about it, then you’re not even fit to be in this school!” Can’t let them see me hesitate after such a blunder. My father won’t let me hear the end of it if he hears I backed down after such a ridiculous claim - wait, why would he have to hear it, I live alone - No, I don’t, I’m not even of age!

This is.....

so confusing......

A/N: Well, after reading one too many otome isekai web novels, I decided to try my hand at writing my own! If the synopsis catches your attention. I don’t know when I’ll update it, but I’m aiming for a once-a-month update schedule, both depending on response and my own workload.

This is still in its rough sketches, so the setting is bound to change eventually.

My first intention is to write a “transported to another world” where the protagonist lands herself in the middle of a visual novel she’s creating targeted towards women, where you can court any of 4 romantic interests, in this case boys. That, however, doesn’t mean that those won’t be her only options (if she ends up actually courting anyone).

Since I’m still worldbuilding, I wanted to get this introductory chapter out of the way before commiting to anything in the world.

I should definitely make a blog for this down the line

#Eox's otome game isekai #that's a tentative tag since I don't know if 'writer isekai' is taken

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momo-de-avis · 5 years

Text

So regarding the conundrum I was stuck in, which I expressed yesterday, I’ve reached a veredict. And I would actually appreciate some feedback because this is THE low point. This is where the line on the graph just falls down like a damn slope.

Keep in mind this is the structure: the character who wrote the letter, Etain, is already dead. The very previous chapter shows her death, and why it happened. It is mentioned she wrote a letter, and this would be the letter she sent that her betrothed reads.

Defeated, he fell on a chair, head stuck between his hands. All around him, the two continued to discuss—Flann as cautious as ever, Ewan siding with the younger one, pros and cons being listed, one eager to put together a party to assess his claims, stating that sending a few scouts couldn’t hurt, they should at least try. Flann agreed with the scouts, but not everything else—it was an unnecessary risk, they had to wait until they reached further north and secured a safe passage towards Dunmorrígain so they could contact the ó Conchobhair, with their aid they could then prepare an assault.

But the uncertainty in Seán’s heart grew, a flutter that propelled him to move in his seat like a restless child, hands up and down his body, between messing his hairs and slapping his knees, jittering leg evidencing his despair. I have to have faith, he thought, closing his eyes for a moment as behind him the two men continued to discuss the matter with a growing voice that was borderline a shouting contest. He had come to notice that Ewan and Flann tended to disagree on several matters, far too much than what should be expected of a clan bearing not two, but three leaders. It sometimes caused a fuss between their men, who seemed torn between the two and acted irrationally out of, perhaps, a lack of discipline. He hoped that wouldn’t be the case then.

Time passed; outside, the sounds of merry living dwindled, light decreasing as the sun settled in the horizon, and inside the tent, the fight ensued. Seán didn’t move, only occasionally turning back to say something he believed to be useful, though he was sure none of them paid attention to what he had to say. Then, a man came inside, holding a letter between his fingers and called for either of the leaders. Ewan and Flann exchanged a look, the former taking a step forward and leaning in to listen to the messenger’s whisper.

Ewan looked down at the letter, a layer of pallor cast over his face as he gulped in silence. His eyes skimmed the inside of the tent as if he sought for something, but they rested on him, on Seán. He gave a step forward, handed him the letter and nodded.

“For you,” he said. “From Alba. It just arrived.”

Seán’s hands trembled, his fingers barely able to hold the paper. The seal struck a chord of fear in his heart—the green apple of the ó Cairbre. His mouth went dry and he blinked repeatedly; there was a hazy sensation to the world, as if it swirled and moved despite his existence, outside himself, with no meaning, no connection to his soul, no relation to him whatsoever. It was a good sign, was it not? She had written him a letter—it had to be Etain’s words inside—and that meant she was safe. Yet something inside his heart sent a shudder of a horrifying anticipation, one he couldn’t quite explain.

He broke the seal. The letters danced on the paper when he unfolded it, and for a while, they seemed to bear no meaning. Do not come for me, no matter what happens. His hand waved in the air, found solace in covering his mouth when tears sparked in his eyes. I am lost, and this I have chosen with a clear conscience, now I only pray to Brigid that you find it in your heart to forgive me. A dash of pain, cold and brisk, stabbed his heart and shot up his head; for a moment, he thought he went blind, but was simply blinking. His eyes focused with difficulty, the words now contorting under the yellow tint of the lights that brought out their irrational shape and buried their crude meaning into the depths of his scarred mind. Am I to live, he will make me a prisoner and negotiate my life with Selena—I cannot allow that, my love. I cannot allow myself to put her in that position.

Both Ewan and Flann disappeared from his sight; all there was, was the irritating sepia tone of the air around him, the intense smell of burned wax and wood, and the clanging sounds of metal outside, cups clinking against one another as voices raged in roaring laughter. A distant, inconceivable joy he couldn’t place. He wasn’t there, but thrust into somewhere unknown, a black nothingness where Etain’s words stung his skin like a million needles.

I am told they’re only a day away as I write this. It is likely the ó Cinnéid will yield. They’re weak, have always turned where the money is and hide their tails between their legs like cowards. Do not trust them. Lugh knows I cannot, and I have accepted the fate of our city. Now, I have to accept mine.

The words became blurry. Seán wiped his eyes with the back of his hand when the tears came, blinked repeatedly at their stinging sensation. Protect her. Fight for her. A sob escaped his lips; his hand shivered, he could barely hold the paper. Stay with her, forever. Don’t ever leave her side. She needs you, my love. He crumpled the letter, though he didn’t mean to; he thought of throwing it away, but couldn’t do it. Etain’s very soul was contained in it, her very essence enclosed in the ink that stained it in those daunting words.

Tell Selena I love her, and how much it saddens me that I will never get to see her crowned. Perhaps my spirit will linger, and I shall walk by her side until her dying days. I certainly hope the gods are kind enough to grant me the gift of peering through the veils, if only to make sure her life is a gracious one.

Ewan’s hand moved, trying to reach for his shoulder in a calming pat, but Seán warded him away. The letter was clutched to his hand like an amulet—he couldn’t let it go. He opened it again, pressed it against the table to soften the creases of his impulsive gesture, a sense of regret so great possessing his heart he felt he was tending to Etain herself, muttering the words as he did so: I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my love, I am so sorry.

I left my wedding dress on my bed. Ever since the day I left the School, I longed to wear it. I chose the colour blue because it reminded me of the seas, the same that’s always scared you so much.

Flann tried to speak to him, but Seán told him to shut up. The map was now a deriding vision, a divine mockery. There was no room for the flashing memories that assaulted him—all he could think of was Alba and its gardens, the marble statues of Etain’s favoured place, sprinkled with apple trees and quinces everywhere as she hopped around merrily. Her giggle. The way her eyes crushed whenever she smiled, her cheeks pink as roses in puerile joy. Her golden locks swaying at the salty breeze, how graciously they framed her round face.

I keep thinking of the day I fell in love with you. That day you found me in the arena and I begged you not to tell the guards on me. We had known each other for eleven years, and I wondered: how could I have missed it? How could we have lived together as friends for so long and missed on the love that bloomed right there and then, so immediate it took me by surprise? How could we have shared a lifetime together and only find this joy so shortly before we parted ways? I wish I could return there. I wish I could stand in the School’s arena with you right now. I wish I was hiding behind a tree or under the benches as you pressed a hand against my lips to keep me quiet while the guards searched for us. I thought the School would tear us both apart if we let everyone know, but as it turns out, it was never in the gods’ plans.

The world, Seán, is more cruel than I figured. Alba was always peaceful. I had my stupid gardens and my ocean, and I had you. And all the while, our beloved Selena suffered. They taught us for eleven years the tools to survive in a world that isn’t ours. They kept us hidden and protected like precious gems, and released us into the world like tamed animals. You and I, and Selena, we don’t know how to survive in it. The three of us were always bound to inherit a war we didn’t start. That’s why you must always stand by her side, that’s why you must always fight for her. So that in one year, two years, eleven years, the next children won’t fear what we feared.

I love you, so much I understand now our fates are not bound together. I love you enough to take the fall so you shall stand. But I promise you I shall not fall alone. You’ve always said I was a better dancer than I was a fighter. I suppose the time has come for my last dance, my love.

“There has to be time for—” his words died on his tongue, sucked in by his own sobbing. When another pair of hands touched him, Séan pushed them away. “You have to go to Alba right now! You have to do something!”

And the world swirled, untamed, distant and disconnected. All he thought about was Etain, her garden, her quinces and apple trees; all he thought about the wedding that never happened, the mistakes committed in the past. Her joy, her smile, her giggle. Her bossy attitude, her imposing stance, the way she pressed her lips together when she wanted things done her way, how her eyes fulminated whoever crossed her. Her blind acceptance of Selena’s reveal, how she hadn’t flinched at the thought of her best friend being Lavinia’s daughter. Devoted and faithful, as she had always been.

Ewan’s hands held him down by the shoulders; this time, Seán didn’t fight him. His strength waned, his vision blurred. The letter shuddered in his hand, the words now indistinct. I love you, and please forgive me. They danced in his mind like a haunting, and images of Etain projected themselves in his mind as a last attempt to hold on to her. Stand with her, fight for her, don’t ever leave her side. Promise me. I promise you, he thought, but he couldn’t; if he promised her, that meant accepting she was gone, but there was still time, there was still a chance.

“I cannot—” tears ran down his cheeks. “I cannot leave her, we have to—” there had to be a chance, there had to be a chance at saving her, saving the city, saving Alba’s gardens; a chance at standing atop the walls overlooking the black rocks whipped by the white foam of the seas, as Etain leaned over with arms wide open, giggling. He had to see her again. “Please, I beg you, we have to—”

“I’ll gather a party,” Ewan said, his hands now holding his face. “We’ll leave in the morning.”

Seán nodded. There had to be a chance.

So yeah, my idea was taunting the reader with this idea of the character being obsessed with the possibility of there being a chance, because there isn’t. By now, the reader knows there’s no chance. She’s dead and the reader saw it.

(And then there’s one character left for us to see just how much this fucks her up)

#my writing #writeblr #also hey #I wrote this last night #very likely to be changed sometimes soon #but so far I think it holds

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bigboobshaunt · 5 years

Text

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Owain/Brady smut, a commission for an anonymous client

~2k words

Commission info

On Ao3

“’Twas a cold and stormy night when the lonesome hero staggered back through the deep, dark forest, breaching the town’s borders. The pungent blood of his enemies still dripped down his sword, being washed ever slowly by the falling rain, but the man did not concern himself with such trifling matters… he had to report his victory to the townsfolk, and he planned to see it through!”

“Is it time for my part yet?”

“Psst, no, not yet! I’ll signal it to you when it is, don’t worry!”

“Sorry, I forgot… yer stories can be weirdly engrossing sometimes.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, and I’ll even ignore the ‘sometimes’ part… but anyways, as I was saying! Ahem… The hero’s legs grow more and more tired, his muscles suddenly seem to weigh like lead... but he is unflinching in his walk. The deed is done, but his quest is not yet truly over before he notified the person who asked that of him in the first place...”

Conspicuously, Owain pointed his index finger at his lover, who cleared his throat before giving off his clearly rehearsed dialogue. “O brave hero with the dark countenance, is it you I spy in this humble church’s worn down gates? Have ya – I mean – have you returned safely from your task? Are the people of this small town truly safe from the er, Battling Brigands of the Bloodthirsty Beast?”

“Heeeey, you promised you wouldn’t laugh!”

“I promised that only IF ya workshopped the name a lil’ more. Didja forget?”

“I suppose you win this one, but... back to the story… Yes, your holiness, I have vanquished the great evil that assailed all of the honorable and fair people of this town! Never again shall you know fear like this. Never again shall you have to lock your doors at night, send your children away in the night, nor lock up your most prized of possessions… and for that I, too, am thankful. I wish, however, that I could say I was unharmed, but that is not so… Fate seems to have seen fit to brand me with this wound in my stomach, and I am afraid I am not long for this world… but it pains me none to go, knowing you shall sleep safely from now on.”

“Please, brave hero, don’t say things like that! Here… I can nurse you back to health, if you follow me to my chambers. I couldn’t bear to lose a soul as noble as yours, especially after such a great deed! I shall devote my all to you until you are safe from harm, just as you have done for us… and for me.”

Grabbing Brady’s left hand, Owain squeezed it and gently lifted it closer to his lips, placing the softest of kisses on the back of it. “O kind priest… your words touch me deeply, stoking the very fires of my soul which slumber in my chest. I’ll accept your offer on the condition that you allow me to stay here after I get better… I would like to help with rebuilding this church and this town. They should shine brightly, as warmly as its inhabitants and as beautiful as you.”

Though such effusive praise was being given to a fictionalized version of himself, Brady couldn’t help but to give Owain a small smile, added to by the pink coloration that began to show on his cheeks.

Tenderly, Brady let go of Owain’s hand and trailed down Owain’s body, undoing the buttons on his nightshirt with dexterous fingers, trained by years of violin practice.

“Impressed by my physique, I see? You needn’t say a thing – it is only within my obligations as a wandering hero to keep my body in top shape, and ensure that I am always ready for combat… I will once again be in peak condition after you finish patching m-” Owain stopped in the middle of his speech, surprised at the look his partner had given him.

Before he knew it, Brady had bridged the gap between them, and he kissed him voraciously. Feeling the healer’s hands cup his pectorals, Owain moaned into the sudden kiss, trying his best to match Brady’s sudden hunger for him.

“Heh… I’m not sure the hero and the priest would start off like this so soon, but I’m certainly not complaining,” Owain snorted, burying his nose in Brady’s neck, embracing him tightly and taking a whiff of the man’s scent.

“Ya don’t know how impatient the priest can get… waitin’ in an empty church, worryin’ ‘bout the hero… specially if he already had feelings for ‘im before.”

“Even with all of my practice… I can’t match up to your artistic touch. You’re a genius, Brady! Backstory! It’s exactly what this tale needs! A slow burn romance between its title characters… I am sure that I can make it happen...” Owain said, sweetly gazing into Brady’s eyes before they kissed again.

Fondling Owain’s plush chest with one hand, Brady used the other one to untie his own nightshirt, finishing that by pulling down his bottoms and freeing his desperate erection.

“Now then… shall I tell you of how I got said wound? I was there, right in the middle of the brigands’ hideout and I knew I must have been getting closer to their boss’ room. When the heat of battle subsided, and silence reigned, I walked atop the goons’ fallen bodies to reach a-”

Without warning, Brady pushed Owain down onto his back, and with a determined tug, he pulled down his husband’s undergarments, licking his lips at the sight of the exposed cock before him, as though he had just found an oasis after being stranded in a desert for weeks.

Leaning closer, Brady dragged his tongue down Owain’s body, starting at his shapely pecs and making his way down the toned, strong abs before arriving at his lower body. Brady wasted no time before pressing Owain’s well-endowed member against his face, nuzzling its length and giving it quick pecks.

Burying his nose at the base of it, where the cock met the balls, Brady sniffed his lover’s privates deeply, taking in their unique scent, which only served to heighten his own arousal. Taking one of Owain’s balls into his mouth, Brady sucked on it, closing his eyes as he tasted the wonderful, salty taste of the sac, which while he loved, he knew it couldn’t compare to another of Owain’s tastes that he hoped to try that night...

Looking up, he noticed how Owain’s face seemed frozen in surprise, and he knew he had to perform expertly and give his all to satisfy. Diligently, Brady wrapped a hand around the mast of Owain’s cock and pulled down the man’s rather tight foreskin, exposing the previously concealed mushroom head.

Vividly, Brady remembered a saying he had heard, that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach… and though he understood what it meant, he had to disagree. The way to hold their attention was definitely through the tip of his cock.

Drawing the head into his mouth, Brady gave it the most thorough of licks, covering all its surface with his saliva and then sucking on it with gusto. Owain’s cock was another of his favorite tastes, and he was determined to treat both himself and his beloved.

Making a show of it, Brady removed the head from his mouth with an audible pop, before giving the entire length of the member a lick – from Owain’s balls, covered with a dusting of blond fur, to the wide tip, which was perfect for spreading out his ass for the thick shaft to come whenever it entered him.

“Oh, Brady… gods,” Owain let out, cursing under his breath as his husband worked on his shaft with his lips and tongue.

Chuckling at the thought of having managed to get Owain himself lost in his roleplay’s script, Brady gave the slit atop Owain’s cockhead a final, teasing lick before he opened up his mouth to swallow more of its size.

No matter how often they fucked, handling Owain’s girth was never truly easy. Brady could feel tears escape the corners of his eyes as he fought his gag reflex. He was not going to back down now. Not before he showed Owain what he was capable of.

Working Owain’s shaft deeper into his throat, Brady massaged his own aching cock, his hand gliding much more smoothly once his fingers and his member were wet with pre cum. He moaned to the best of his abilities, given Owain’s member was still in his mouth.

Pulling it out almost felt unnatural, like his mouth did not feel right when Owain’s throbbing dick wasn’t in it. Not wanting to go without it much longer, Brady caught his breath and swallowed the wet member once more.

Throwing his head back, Owain grabbed a fistful of Brady’s hair, calling out to a multitude of gods when the man sped up his rhythm for bobbing his head up and down the thick shaft.

Feeling his own release draw near, Brady felt a surge of happiness course through his body as he conquered his own gag reflex, being met with a face-full of Owain’s musky dark blond pubes when he finally managed to deepthroat his beloved.

“Fuck my mouth… please,” Brady whispered when he withdrew the member from his mouth. Forcing himself to say such a naughty line may have been difficult for him in any other context, but it was made easier by how prompt Owain was to comply.

Still holding on to Brady’s gelled, spiky hair, Owain pressed the man’s face against his crotch and bucked into it, being careful not to start too roughly, but slowly building the strength of his thrusts until his balls began to slap against Brady’s chin.

Brady knew he would choke on Owain’s cock and then still thank him, had he been rougher to start with, but the tender approach his husband had, which extended to even something as flagrantly sexual as this, was yet another of Brady’s favorite things about his man.

The way Owain’s cock tasted and the way it twitched inside his mouth, coupled with the rapid nature of the thrusts and the physicality of them, the proximity to Owain’s skin and its scent… Brady could no longer resist and his fast stroking of his own cock lead to his seed splattering onto their sheets.

Pulling himself away from the middle of the swordsman’s muscular thighs, Brady gasped for air and stuck out his tongue, looking up expectantly at Owain as he brought himself closer to the tip of Owain’s cock.

Making a fist around his cock, Owain slapped it softly against Brady’s cheeks, only then noticing the drool that had dripped down the corners of Brady’s mouth.

Pointing his erection towards Brady’s tongue, Owain pleasured himself, feeling how much more sensitive Brady’s blowjob had made his member. He only needed to jerk his cock for a few dozen times before his seed landed on his husband’s tongue and on his face.

Swallowing the plentiful load, Brady used his fingers to find the remaining droplets, which he then licked clean. “So… do ya think I can improvise?”

In lieu of a reply, Owain extended his hand to Brady, pulling him into an impassioned, hungry kiss.

Afterwards, Brady rested his head on Owain’s plump, sweat-covered chest, hearing his beloved’s heartbeats slowing down to a steadier rhythm and feeling as though he was listening to the most calming symphony.

“You caught me… with my guard down this time… next time I’ll be the one who surprises you during roleplay. Mark my words… my love.”

Snorting, Brady sighed contentedly, drifting off to sleep with the most pleasant of smiles upon his lips.

#Owain #Brady #Udobure #FE13 #my writing #first fic of the year - I think I started off pretty well!

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imyourliquor-youremypoison · 6 years

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Marvel fic rec - Loki x OC, Bucky x OC (1)

You guys I have such good ones for this rec.

After Class, by Team Damon (68k)

She's a clumsy but intelligent student who's a little late getting her degree, and he's a young but grumpy professor with a past he's doing his best to move on from. Neither of them expected college to be quite this interesting, but nothing ever goes exactly according to plan.

We’re starting with the good stuff, people, the real good stuff. You know how many shitty Student x Teacher fanfictions there are out there in the vasteness of the internet? A lot. I have seen things I wish I could unsee. But this one is not one of those. This one is the best, the single most beautifully written piece of fanfiction with this trope. I cannot stress this enough, I am in LOVE with this story. It’s just long enough to be in-depth and have flesh, but it’s short enough to read in one sitting. It’s my go-to sotry that I read whenever I feel down, when I’m sick and bed-ridden, when I’m stressed out because of my exams and can’t sleep. It heals my soul to read such work of art.

Team Damon is an absolute sweetheart too, a true wordsmith, and there are more of her stories that will make it into this fic rec.

Blasphemy, by SheWritesThings (76k)

For Sam and Steve, finding Bucky was the easy part. But now two distinct personalities reside within him: Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier. Sam decides to call in an old friend: Sgt. Fox, a young war veteran and amputee, having suffered PTSD herself. Dodging SHIELD and Hydra agents alike, the trio struggles to bring Bucky back and eliminate the Soldier before time runs out.

Another masterpiece, not the last one of this list. It’s the first installment of a series (ongoing sequel is here) but I honestly don’t think it needs a sequel, it can be read on its own. It has a prologue-y feel to it, but I love it. It’s the first fanfiction I read that deals so seriously and thoroughly with Bucky’s PTSD, and it doesn’t shove a romantic relationship in our face. The author must have sent HOURS researching about PTSD to write this, I cannot fathom how much work it represents.

It’s so good, so raw, it really stirs something in you. Also if ableism is an issue you take to heart, this story is a goode example on how to write disabled characters, it’s just perfect.

Fate's Children, by theatrewraith (109k)

The Norns, fates of the Nine Realms, long ago chose a protector for each realm bound to keep order in their universe. Roska is the latest guardian of Asgard. When Odin asks her to bring Loki back from Midgard at any cost, she is set on a path of even greater importance. To assure Asgard's stable future, she must set the Jotun Prince on its throne.

One of those stories where you wonder how the hell this isn’t a published work. I can barely imagine the amount of research that went into the writing of this fanfiction, the world-building and attention to details is amazing. I have no idea just how much of what I read is inspired by true mythology and folklore, but it’s impressive still. More plot-driven than character driven. To my absolute sadness, it’s not very centred on the pairing HOWEVER it is one of the best Loki characterization I’ve even seen with my own two eyeballs (honestly Taika Waititi should take example).

Friends to Lovers to Complete and Utter Idiots, by Team Damon (39k)

They're just friends. The best of friends, really. But when she's secretly head over heels in love with him and he gets the bright idea to take their friendship to an entirely new and unexpected level, she knows she's playing with fire. She's already burning, though, so why not make it count?. Modern AU

Listen, I’ve rarely come so close to ripping out all of my hair, and I love my hair. The pairng drove me crazy. Team Damon just knows how to play with my feelings like nobody’s business. The title really says it all, but if you think it’s just another of the usual fwb story, you, my friend, are gravely mistaken. Because it’s more than that, it’s a jewel among jewels. It’s a diamond, alright? Read it, I swear to god, read it.

Stray, by MissMorwen (32k)

“Why did you come here?” “I needed to hide, needed to think.” There was a slight furrow in his brow again. “Think about what?” She tilted her head, trying to catch his eyes. He looked in her direction, but with an unfocused gaze. “The man, he – he knew me. And I knew him.” The knuckles on his right hand were turning white.

******** You know how the story goes: Fucked-up former assassin meets girl. Girl is a cliché vet with a tendency to help birds with broken wings.

I think the author says it all in the synopsis honestly. It’s just a fun, light-hearted Bucky fanfic. It’s a nice change from the more serious stuff, and it’s not too long so it’s a quick read, and it’s worth your time.

Illusion, by likeatumbleweed (155k)

Sigyn has an overprotective brother, an overbearing mother, and an overarching duty to Queen Frigga as her handmaiden. She begins a relationship with Loki, Prince of Asgard and second in line to the throne. It seems easy, but fate has so much more in store for them than they planned. AU. Pre-Thor through Post-Avengers.

Listen, this is the one of the best fanfictions I’ve even had the pleasure to read. All fandoms mixed together, it’s a fav. I will defend this fanfiction to the death, I’ve scarcely seen anything so beautiful. The prose is amazing, the pace is perfect, there is a balance between plot relevant scenes and self-indulgent fluff, the characterization is on point (Tony Stark, however short his appearance in the story is, has one of the best characterization ever).

It’s 155k long but I find it too short still. There is nothing I disliked about this story, I could write a eulogy about how much I adore it, I could write poems and songs about it, I- well you get my drift. AND because the author knows how much her readership loved the story, we got a bunch of additional oneshots to quench our insatiable thirst. I’m not going to review each of them individually but they are all great, and you will cry actual salty tears, trust me.

Interlude:

Chapter "10.5" of Illusion - Loki spends the night with Sigyn at her apartment, and things get a bit uncomfortable for her brother Edmund.

Unburdened:

Sigyn has had a stressful day; when she threatens to never return to the palace library again, Loki uses his considerable skills to change her mind.

Celebration:

Loki arranges for a private celebration of Sigyn's birthday.

The Better Part of Valor:

One morning not long after beginning her relationship with Loki, Sigyn is late reporting for her duties with the queen. When Loki (who has everything to do with her tardiness) shows up to take advantage of her embarrassment, Sigyn is less than cooperative.

Best Laid Plans:

Loki and Sigyn attempt to celebrate their anniversary, only to be hindered at every turn by extenuating circumstances (especially their precocious six-year-old daughter, Unna, who has a terrible grasp of the appropriate time to show off newly acquired magic skills).

Threnody for a Sparrow:

It's a lesson Loki has never wanted to learn...there are some broken things that cannot be fixed, no matter how badly you wish otherwise.

Monster, by IndigoUmbrella (70k)

“Have you ever asked yourself, do monsters make war, or does war make monsters?” -Laini Taylor

Probably the vaguest, least helpful synopsis in the history of synopsis, but hey, I’m here to tell you that it’s fucking fabulous, and you won’t regret reading this fanfiction. It’s not you usual girl meets boy story at all - this time the meeting is not accidental at all, all of their interractions have one sole purpose: help Bucky become himself again. And it gives a lot of weight to their interractions, the story is very serious, but not so much as to give you a headache either. I love it because it’s different, and it takes things slowly, there’s a lot of attention to details too.

Hell Bound (Sequel to Monster) (82k)

Start by pulling him out of the fire and hoping that he will forget the smell. He was supposed to be an angel but they took him from that light and turned him into something hungry, something that forgets what his hands are for when they aren't shaking. When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it.

Second vaguest synopsis of all time, but trust me when I say that the sequel is even better than the first installement of this trilogy. I can’t really say anything about the sequel without revealing what happens in the first part, so just read it for heaven’s sake. I’m telling you, it’s good.

From Darkness (Third and last part of Monster) - Ongoing

When did we lose our way? Consumed by the shadows Swallowed whole by the darkness Does this darkness have a name? Is it your name?

And last but not least, the third part. Equally vague synopsis. We officially have a top three guys. Haven’t read this one yet, but I wanted to post all three parts together.

Light & Sweet, by LooneyLockhart (182k)

Bucky didn't understand the concept of a coffee house giving away free coffee. From what he remembered, hardly anything in Brooklyn was given away for free when he lived there. And why wasn't the coffee house girl frightened by him when he struck fear in some of the most competent SHIELD agents? Learning to be Bucky Barnes again, he wasn't prepared for the curious coffee girl.

How the hell am I going to sell you this story?

It’s... a coffee shop AU. Except it’s not really an AU. It’s entirely set in the MCU as we know it, superheroes are totally a thing, everything is like the canon, but Bucky and the OC still meet in a coffee shop. It’s serious, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously either. It’s well written, like really. The OC is endearing, the pace is perfect for the story, the characters have a lot of depth, even the secondary ones get a bit of characterization. It’s a beautiful work all in all.

Honesty, by thearrowsoflegolas (91k)

The Winter Soldier has a new mission. Erin Jefferson is a young SHIELD biochemist who has just synthesised a serum that can make anyone tell the truth, and HYDRA wants it. The Winter Soldier is expecting it to be an easy job, and Erin is expecting to die there. What she's not expecting is to meet a man with light eyes and a dark past who needs her help.

This is the funniest Bucky fanfic I’ve read, and it’s awesome. I’ve never seen such balance between light-hearted moments and serious, down-to-business ones. It doesn’t take anything away from Bucky’s gravitas, but it rather offers a stark contrast with the OC’s bubbly personality, it’s refreshing and beautiful. And it’s fucking funny, you guys, it’s hilarious. Additionally it’s one of the only fanfictions I’ve read as the chapters got published, instead of waiting until it was completed.

#fic rec #marvel #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #loki #loki of asgard #loki of jotunheim #loki laufeyson #loki fanfic #bucky fanfic #loki fanfiction #bucky fanfiction #fic recommendation #fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic rec #fanfic reviews

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miximax-hell · 6 years

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There have been people, some truly wonderful souls, who have followed my blog during my long period of absence. For that, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don’t deserve that kindness. With that out of the way, hello! Once again, it’s been so long... And that’s exactly we won’t delve in the past now. Let’s get right to it!

Today’s miximax is one that can barely be recognised at all unless you’re specifically told who the vessel and aura are. So, just in case my handwriting is THAT awful, we’ll be talking about Sakuma’s miximax today! For him, I’ve chosen a wonderful character that is, quite literally, part of the history of videogames as a whole. After the news about a new Smash coming soon, the promise of Metroid Prime 4 for Switch, and the very successful (AND SPANISH) remake of Metroid II, it feels like a great time to bring Samus Aran into the battle! The coolest intergalactic bounty hunter there ever was makes for a very simple-looking miximax, but it was still quite tough to draw because of RUST. Ah well. No one to blame but myself.

Anyway, I think this deserves a proper explanation, so let’s see why these two make for a fantastic combo! For more on that, please check under the cut. As usual.

Well, you’ve made it this far, so let’s delve a little in the past now. ww Just yesterday, I finally finished writing my graduation thesis!! That means I’m finally free... for a little while. Just enough to enjoy half a month of debauchery AND SPEND TIME WITH MY GIRLFRIEND, WHOM I MISS VERY MUCH. Oh, and my internship ended about two and a half weeks ago, too. While I am free in that sense as well, I can’t say I’m a scriptwriter and game designer right now, which kinda sucks. But they might still hire me...! And I’m ruminating some exciting ideas of my own. I highly doubt the company I worked for will be interested in them, but, well, it’s worth a shot. And good practice, in any case. So, yeah! I hope you’ve all been well!

Anyway, let’s get right to it. A single paragraph of my life struggles was enough. ww

This is still a fairly small blog with less than 100 followers. And it will always be because of how niche it is. ww Not only that, but most of said (active) followers aren’t even friends of mine, but the aforementioned kind souls who, somehow, grace me with their presence here. That means that, for example, if I were to go on Twitter to talk about my projects for this blog (as I’ve done a couple of times in the past), only one or two of my friends would give a crap about it. And that’s assuming they see those specific tweets at all! Otherwise, the reactions I get are non-existent unless I’m specifically mentioning someone. And even that is far from being failproof. So, whenever I want to share my ideas with someone, develop them through conversation or brainstorm, there’s only one person I can rely on: my lovely girlfriend. She’s patient and super supportive of my work. Bless her soul. I’m so in love with her.

Anyway, thanks to how much I’ve ranted to her about SakuSamus, I’ve already typed down most of what needs to be said about why I think these two work so well together. I can also get away with mostly copying and pasting what I already told her over Skype and simply adjusting it a bit to make it more readable as a blog post and adding some extra details. ww So, let’s get to it!

Coming up with proper combinations for this blog can sometimes be a chore and require a lot of overthinking. However, as the wonderful @miyukiko would say, great ideas suddenly come to you sometimes. This had a bit of both. I'll try to skip the uninteresting bits of the creative process, but this is the important part.

Now that we've seen Sakuma in Ares and he's obviously won a lot of... prominence, if you may put it that way, it felt like a good time to take a closer look at him. Sakuma is a forward, and a pretty talented one, at that. When he becomes captain in the Ares timeline, though, his team comes to rely on him on a much deeper level too. Or so it seems, at least. To top it off, his descriptions in the original games say that he helps Kidou and acts as a strategist that coordinates the team. That’s pretty much the base we can build upon.

As a forward, he seems pretty thorough and tries to stay cool and calm, since that's the kind of soccer they play at Teikoku. And, from what we've seen in Ares, as a captain, he worries so much about his team's well-being and about being a good leader for them. You know, the usual "Am I fit to be captain?" thing that IE loves so much. ww

But there's a lot of bad stuff about Sakuma, too.

For one, despite his cool act, when he loses it, he loses it good. We all know how he reacted when he was part of Shin Teikoku and how extremely mad he would get with Kageyama, for example. Also, when he does lose it (and, arguably, even when he’s still somewhat sane), he's very self-destructive.

I think that's somehow linked to his fears: he simply doesn't want to be left alone. He panics when Kidou leaves Teikoku and, again, loses it completely. When his insanity reaches that kind of point, nothing else seems to matter, so he goes all out even if it can cost him his life. Or his legs, at least.

Related to that, and this is much more relevant in terms of sheer gameplay, he is extremely dependent of others.

He's supposed to be some super cool ace striker, but absolutely all of his shots are combo hissatsus no matter what timeline or age you’re looking at. Koutei Penguin 2gou and 3gou, Twin Boost, Death Zone, Deep Jungle... They all need 2-3 people, and, usually, Kidou's involved.

So, tough as it is to say, if Sakuma isn't by Kidou's side, he's subpar. And if he's all alone, he's basically worthless. And to add insult to injury:

He usually depends on people who aren't even forwards to score goals.

He is turned into a defender as an adult because, as I said, he's subpar as a forward if he's alone.

That makes Sakuma a very interesting case: in a universe that is all about the power you get from of your teammates, what he lacks is individuality. ...Especially when you consider that his only motivation to play soccer seems to be to play with Kidou. www

As he is, he's the absolute definition of support character. Pretty sad, if you ask me. (Oh. And many of his in-game hissatsus are very dirty and the referee complains more often than not about them. That counts too. ww)

So, here comes the difficult question: who can give Sakuma the strength, the individuality and, partially, the safety that he needs to be relevant without killing himself? After thinking about it for quite a long time, I felt like he could really use the power of Samus Aran.

(Not to go all BuzzFeed on you guys, but the answer would’ve surprised you if I hadn’t said it from the very beginning. ww)

On a technical level, Samus is strong af. Not only has she survived to and successfully finished every mission she's embarked on (as far as I’m aware), but she's pretty much exterminated full races, DESTROYED PLANETS and killed the same evil pterodactyl alien... thing that wants her dead like 11 times by now.

And what's more: she's done all of this completely alone. (Except maybe for Other M. I haven’t played that game yet, but it looked like there were more people, idk) All in all, she's a beast. But that's not all, of course. There are many heroes who go and do their thing alone. It could've easily been Lara Croft too, for example--at least in the original games.

Sakuma, as I said, seems to be driven by a will to be with Kidou and is very much dependent of other people. And when things go wrong and he loses it, he is... spiteful, to say the least. And I don’t know if you guys were aware of this, but Samus is 120% salt. I read a post about the hatred between Ridley and Samus that when Ridley was announced for Smash and all, but I sadly can’t find it right now. If any of you guys know that post, please let me know and I’ll add the link here because it was SO GOOD.

According to my limited knowledge on the Metroid Series, Samus fights three main things: metroids (you never saw that one coming, I'm sure), space pirates, and Ridley (who is the leader of the space pirates, but is not a space pirate because I, too, would listen to my Evil Pterodactyl Lord if he were to give me orders).

Long story short, the space pirates and Ridley killed Samus’s parents. She was adopted by people from a civilization called the Chozo, but the space pirates killed the Chozo too. And when Samus found a baby metroid that saw her as its mother, the space pirates and Ridley kidnapped the metroid and it eventually died because of them.

Samus doesn't fight for the greater good. Samus fights because she's fucking pissed.

But, unlike Sakuma, she uses that rage against the right people and in the right way: she is still salty as hell, but she stays cool, kicks ass, makes everyone go boom, and she's out. She does what Sakuma does, but better. Even when she's pissed. Oh, and she does things the way they should be done: with legal permission, without turning evil and stuff. And she's super respected and feared because of it, which is precisely what a captain and a forward should be like, respectively.

And the icing on the cake?

In IE3, when Sakuma has levelled up enough, he learns how to use Space Penguin. also, Samus has a visor thing that can replace Sakuma's patch and that sounded cool to me

Anyway, that would be the gist of it! As I said earlier, I’m not the biggest Metroid connoisseur in the world: I’ve only beaten Fusion and Zero Mission, and I’m currently playing Prime and Return of Samus. As such, excuse me if some other game I haven’t played debunks all I’ve said, but I haven’t found any traces of such a thing. ww

However, despite my few experiences with Metroid games, Samus is a character I love and have very fond memories of. This series represent what I love the most about the video game genre: that sense of continuous and hard-earned improvement that only comes from experiences that are constantly giving you new abilities (and even new looks) to reflect your progress. It’s similar to RPGs, a genre I love as well, but RPGs reward you more for personal progress and dedication, such as grinding for levels, and not (usually) so much for just pushing forward and defeating bosses.

Last (and least), for those who have made it this far, here’s a little something you might be interested in knowing: I’ve been inactive here, but I’m still constantly trying hard to come up with interesting ideas for miximaxes! And I think I have found some cool stuff for both Kidou and Shishido, so feel free to tell me on which of those you’d like me to work on next. They’re both very challenging to draw and fiddle with, but I’m always happy to shift my priorities in any way you guys want me to. ww

#Inazuma ELeven #Sakuma Jirou #Inazuma Japan #settei #info #miximax #mixi max #reasons behind the miximax #Inazuma Eleven Go #Inazuma Eleven Ares #Inazuma Eleven Ares no Tenbin

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haikyuu-imagines-and-others · 6 years

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May I request headcanons or a scenario for Iwaizumi and/or a character of your choice with the s/o as childhood friend who they gradually fall in love with? (The different stages of life)Thanks and have a nice day!😊 -Character anon

Oooh hmmmmm I think for this it will be headcanons since it’s asking for the stages of it all! Thanks for requesting! - Admin Satori

Iwaizumi Hajime:

Childhood:

You’d actually been friends with Oikawa when you’d met Iwaizumi at the age of 6

For some reason you preferred bugs over volleyball - so you found yourself going on a ton of adventures with the messy boy

Iwaizumi didn’t really think anything of it - bugs were WAY cooler than anything in his own opinion…. Execpt for Godzilla - he was badass

“There’s not a lot of people who like bugs…. But if you like them… then I like spending time with you.”

Soon enough, he considered you his best friend - apart from Oikawa, of course

Middle School:

He dropped his interest in bugs and lowered his excitement about Godzilla when he realized it wouldn’t really do much for his life

You found yourself bringing up his past interests now and then on the weekends so he could somehow keep that part of himself

“I mean… Bugs are for babies… But that beetle does look pretty cool…. Does it have pinchers?”

He likes that you bring that back for him - you give him that childlike wonder at the silliest things

Actually develops a small crush for you, but tries to brush it off with his portrayed ‘badass’ and ‘good senpai’ exterior

High School:

He can’t explain away the feeling of his heart beating so fast whenever he sees you walk down the halls - he knows he’s crushing hard now

Wonders how long he’s actually been thinking about you like this and assumes it’s just come on naturally

“But I can’t like them! They’re my best friend…. That’d be like… crushing on Oikawa! As if I’d ever stoop that low, to begin with…”

Pines over you secretly, wants to confess, but just doesn’t want to risk his heart being crushed upon sight!

There are a few times where he thinks you’re crushing on Oikawa, and it makes him so jealous he has to resist the urge to punch the pretty boy into next week whenever he sees the two of you talking

College:

FINALLY has the balls to confess to you - and makes sure it’s perfect, even if he thinks he’s going to be rejected

He internally hates himself for wasting so much time! The two of you could have been happily together by now and yet you weren’t because of his cowardice!

“I… I love you, _____… And I think I have ever since I learned you like bugs and Godzilla as much as I did… You’re one of a kind, and I don’t think I could ever picture my life without you in it… Please accept my confession of love.”

He’s OVERWHELMED when you accept his love, you accept his heart, and you give him yours in return

It’s nothing like his fears though - because the two of you had grown up together, you knew how to be around each other, you’d grown used to each other but were now given this new opportunity to learn a whole new side of the other - romantically ;D

Post-College:

He proposed to you straight out of college - like as soon as the two of you got your diplomas straight out of college

He’s never met anyone who knows him so well - besides Oikawa - that he could relate to in almost every sense

“How lucky am I to have met you… and been able to keep in contact with you… until I was smart enough to make you mine. Will you marry me?”

You have to remind him everyday that he was incredibly lucky because you were - indeed - a goddamn delight!

His love for you only grows every day, and he feels absolutely like the luckiest man in the world to have someone who loves him for who he truly is - deep to his core, to his very soul

Semi Eita:

Childhood:

Little boy was a hotheaded mess as a kid - always getting into fights and arguments

Mainly with you - about stupid kid things and pointless things

“The sun and the moon are the same thing, and you’re wrong if you think something else!”

Infuriating to the extent. But when the two of you weren’t arguing, you were watching tv, riding bikes, running around your neighborhood, or having snowball fights

It irritated the hell out of him as a kid that you’d pronounce the ‘ei’ of his first name as ‘ee’ - it was a shrill and annoying noise but you were the only one to call him that, he’d fight anyone else who tried

Middle School:

Seriously calmed down in school, not as many physical fights, but this boy has a sharp tongue and scares anyone who looks his way with a dirty look of his own

Especially whenever someone tried to insert themselves into your life.

“You can have as many friends as you want…. But I’m number one. Got it?”

It was playful kids stuff - but boy did that make your heart flutter in your little chest!

You’re pretty sure he’d scared away a good few young suitors by serving volleyballs to their face

High School:

How did he get even more salty??? Will seriously glare the hell out of anyone who looks your way

Finally can’t take it and confesses to you just so he can have you all to himself

“Look, _____, I’m not really good with this kind of stuff… But I like you. I think I always have, to be completely honest, but now I’m acting on it and I want to know what your answer is.”

Super blunt. Does not give a damn about being embarrassed or rejected - just wants a straight answer from the possible love of his life

When you admit your own feelings, he’s ecstatic and gives you his very rare, but very wide smile of happiness!

College:

Since you two are going to college - there’s only so many hours in the day and night to see each other - so he messages you every day to check in and chat

Super cute - super different over the phone than he is in person - a lot more emoji’s than you originally expected when you two first got phones in high school

“Are you going to be able to make it to my game tonight? You don’t have to come… if you have too much homework or whatever…”

When did he become a Tsudere??? You have no idea, but it’s super cute and you’re weirdly into it

Plus… You would never give up the opportunity to see his confidence whenever his spikes get shot like canons!

Post-College:

He takes longer than most to actually realize how completely integrated into his life you truly are

You two are already living together, have a cat and a dog, and even babysit your friends and family’s babies voluntarily before he realizes it

“______… I love you… I love you, a lot… And I can’t imagine ever being without you… So…. What do you say? Will you marry me?”

You point out changing your nieces diaper is HARDLY the time to propose but you agree nonetheless

He’s an impatient man… and you end up getting pregnant 2 months before your wedding ;; lol

#admin Satori #haikyuu!!#haikyuu!! headcanons #Iwaizumi Hajime #Semi Eita

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ikonislife · 7 years

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Preview!

Here’s a glimpse into what I’m currently struggling working on at the moment. The percentage is just how far along I think I am to finishing the story. I am planning out either a vampire or a mafia related short series right now. I got an idea written down and some part wrote out but I haven’t decide on which member I wanna be the main character. Send in your suggestion for who you think should be the protagonist.

I know a lot of these are on either Hanbin or Jiwon, which in a way I don’t like. I want the other member to shine too but some of these are requested so it can’t be help. Send in request for other members too guys.

Now that they’re officially back, I’ve seen an increase in activity on my blog which YAY THEY’RE BACK. Welcome anyone new, thank you for anyone that had been here for awhile and stick through my erratic upload schedule. I appreciate each and everyone of you.

What’s in a Name - 80% - Yunhyeong

The boy that left you lost for words and oxygen was now sauntering along side your love drunk self on a walk that was filled with small giggles and kisses on knuckles. He had smiled so brightly watching the wonder flooding back to your doe eyes the second your brain comprehended what had just happened. Hastily, desperately, you pressed your lips back onto his grinning ones just to be sure it wasn’t just some dream. He held you close for what seemed like an eternity, letting you reveled in the simple knowledge that you can kiss him whenever you’d like.

“How are you feeling, baby?”

“Yun…” Was all you managed to get out before shyly pressing your face into the crook of his neck in sudden mortification of what you had been doing for the past 10 minutes.

“Okay, missy. You can’t just shamelessly kiss someone then get all shy afterward like this.” He prodded your side and watched as your head shot up in laughter. You didn’t care how embarrassing you must looked as you basked in his laughter. Hand in hand, neither of you said much the whole way home but the way he looked at you, the way you looked at him, no words were needed.

Soulmate - 40% - Chanwoo

You had been so adamant that walking away was the right thing to do but now, you just want to see him. You want that mischievous grin to lure out your own. He never failed to make you laugh with his teasing words and playful gestures. Then when you had tired yourself out from laughing so hard, he’d hold you in his giant embrace and whisper words of the heart to sooth your aching ribs. With every heavy step, you’re less and less sure about the relationship that just ended an hour ago. If you have to strength to speak, you would say it was all a big mistake from the beginning. No you don’t regret ever loving him nor want to forget any of the precious time spent loving him. It was simply a mistake on your own part for letting yourself fall for someone that couldn’t be further away from you.

Tears prickling your eyes, a waterfall rushes out, then before you had realized, the sky is crying with you. Perfect. Of course it would rain, if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be a perfect drama setting. Fate is like an all powerful cosmic bitch that’s betting against you and him from the start. Like a herd of antelopes being chase by the clear, shapeless pack of wolves that’s roaring down from the sky, everyone runs for cover. Everyone except you. You collapse onto the bench of the bus stop, hands wiping the salty raindrops away. His words scream in your head with all its glorifying intensity, making your body winces, drowning out all the goods that had come before that moment.

“How do you know the person you’re with is THE one.”

Untitled - 30% - Hanbin

You were by no mean stupid… No, of course not. Maybe a little bit foolish but definitely not dumb. Simpletons might think it all means the same thing - stupid, foolish, dumb, all the same. Stupidity is a blessing in disguise. After all, you can’t be blame for if you simply don’t know something. Foolish however implies you do know better but decided to let yourself fall into the trap of life.

Your foolishness comes in the form of a 5 ft 8 man named Hanbin. He has the smile of spring. Whenever he smiles it seems as though the sun shine a bit brighter, the air crisper. The way he flashes his perfectly white teeth and those perfect dimples, man, you can’t help but swoon. Hanbin’s smile isn’t just as simple as an expression of happiness. It has layer, much like an onion for lack of a better description.

Professor 2 - 80% - Hanbin

Hardly able to pull himself off your body, he cough out a low apology before whispering for you to meet him in the office. Something rises in his chest. Something warm and wonderful. Something completely and utterly amazing yet he couldn’t help but feel strange. Was it simply you’re his rain after a long drought or is this the calm before the storm. Along with the magnificent rush, something sour, something indiscernible as your words ring out in his mind. You were preparing yourself for the worst but what is this “worst” you speak off. Blaming it on the drunken stupor you had put him in, he stumbles out the back door of the large lecture hall, heart excitedly watch as you exit the front.

Untitle Request - 60% - Bobby

“Wait, Ji-Jiwon. Don’t leave.” You barely stuttered out, hand nearly teleported itself to place a firm grip in his large veiny one. You had never hold his hand so tightly before. Oh the way his warmth dances on your cold skin, heating it up to match your fast drumming heart. You could feel the hesitation in the way he squeezes your fingers ever so gently, hoping to hang onto this moment just a bit longer before ultimately relaxing his hand. You frown a bit at the lost of his neediness, snaking your fingers securely around his slender ones.

“You don’t gotta pity me, Y/n. I’m a grown ass man. I’m used to getting reject.” He stood still and no matter how much you stare, how intense your gaze was burning at his back, he refuses to turn around. Although you had a feeling he wasn’t facing you on purpose, hiding away from potential heartbreak. He said those things as if your stunned, blank face didn’t affect him one bit but judging by the slump in his shoulders, it’s doing more damage than he’s letting on. His breath barely stable as his desperation for all contact with your soft skin to cease engulf the young man.

Always Mine (Just Go 3) - 90% - Hanbin

“It’s okay, baby. I’m never leaving, ever again.” was all he could whispers as the night cold paints you both with its brushes of frost. You both stand there, stealing each other body heat, bearing all the vulnerabilities of being hurt for each other to see. Your hands cling onto his back desperately under his jacket because even with the relatively thin material obstructing you from feel him, you’re still fearing he could just be another one of your figment of imagination, fisting up the material as tightly as you can just in case he’d dissipate if you let go. He says nothing but grabbing tighter onto your shivering frame because he knows you need this, he had his weak moment just letting it all go in your arms and now you need yours. He had long figured out that it would take all his life to earn back that seemingly unending trust you had for him back because well, he gave you a taste of his disappearing act and what will stop him from performing it again. He’s acutely aware that to you, the option of him just up and leave out of nowhere is all too real even if with all his heart and soul he’s certain, so certain that never again would he do it. He needs you too much, loves you too much to ever do something so hideously stupid ever again. It pains to even think he had done so much damage that your fear is that of him just walking away… again.

#iKon #Hanbin #Jiwon #Yunhyeong #Chanwoo

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anoldwound · 7 years

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interludes - Jaime/Brienne [ASOIAF]

Title: interludes Characters/Pairings: Jaime/Brienne Rating: R Word Count: ~1600 Warnings: Sexual content. Summary: It was something purer, though not in a boring way, like those songs with the virtuous maidens and their knights in shining armor. He was no one's hero, not anymore. But they had saved each other, in their own ways. Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me, and neither does the world they inhabit. A/N: This is part of the Made of Steel series, but can be read as a stand-alone fic. And I still haven't read A Dance With Dragons yet, so my apologies if there are any inconsistencies. Spoilers ahead for all of the books, kind of? (also at AO3) “All women are the same in the dark.” Jaime had heard this phrase countless times in his life, from fellow knights and soldiers, from sellswords and lords, from peasants and kings. He'd had no reason to doubt it – after all, he had only ever been with one woman his whole life. After Brienne, though, he now knew this statement to be patently false. Are they even touching these women that are supposedly all alike? he wondered. Or do they just stick their pricks inside and pump away, as though she is just a vessel to release their seed inside of? There could not be two women in the world more different than Brienne and Cersei, in almost every way it was possible to be different. Cersei was golden silk, a beautiful disaster, a frantic lover who liked to pretend she didn't want him when she wanted him more than anything. She was feeble fists beating against his chest while she moaned into his kisses and caresses. She was flames streaking across the sky, a fire that set the world ablaze, before a cold dagger pierced his heart and ended everything he thought was real, thought was good. Brienne was a slow burn. Hard and coarse, but underneath was a light that she kept from the world and hid behind layers of chainmail. Her strength carried him home, but her private gentleness made home anywhere he was with her. A shy maid that became not so shy under the sheets, and love love love was in her lips, in her rough hands, on her freckled skin that slid against his. Warm and inviting, like a hearthfire in the middle of the storm. There was no falseness. There were no lies. He had never known a greater truth than Brienne. No secrets, no hidden agendas, just them, and it was this that made their nights together something so unlike his nights with his sister. Everything had always been so serious with Cersei, even when they were children. Always the possibility of being seen, of being found out, and the air of danger that went along with it, lent their love-making a desperate and somber feeling that was impossible to truly laugh at, or to utterly surrender oneself to. With Brienne's defenses down, with her armor gone and her caution thrown to the winds, Jaime and her had... well, they had fun. She giggled when he tickled her, and he snorted with laughter when, on occasion, their bodies moved together in a certain way that made amusing noises. It was relaxed and joyous and, Gods, it felt free. They fucked whenever they could, with what little time they had. His good hand itched to explore her body. His mouth swelled at the thought of kissing her, on her lips, her fingertips, her ankles, between her pale and freckled legs. His cock loved the inside of her, almost as much as the rest of him loved just her. Never would he have thought he was capable of loving someone like Brienne, but oh he did, not in the same way he loved Cersei (no, no one could ever replace her, his twin and his better other half), but in a new way that was utterly... exciting. It was something purer, though not in a boring way, like those songs with the virtuous maidens and their knights in shining armor. He was no one's hero, not anymore. But they had saved each other, in their own ways. She was tapping him lightly on the shoulder now. “I want you,” she whispered in his ear. He slid out of his lion-skin and joined her. “You have me.” Her scars were like a map, a diagram of her battles and skirmishes. The ridges on her back from when she had fought so nobly and stupidly for his life, the purple plains of bruises on her ribs, the hills of sores on her backside. Her body was its own country, its own battered landscape, and his hand roamed it all, much to her apparent delight, as she clutched him so tight and sighed, sighed. Her blue eyes shone. He drowned in them. Jaime's lips found their way between Brienne's legs, and he saw the scar on her inner thigh where he had cut her what seemed a lifetime ago. He kissed it. He licked it. She shuddered. His tongue soon swirled around her cunt, and he relished in her quivers. Jaime tasted her, the distinct saltiness of Brienne of Tarth, his left hand reaching and playing with her breasts, fingers grazing and circling her nipples. She was holding back a whimper. He kissed and licked her cunt with urgency; he wanted to hear her, wanted it so badly that his prick was as hard as it could get. “I missed you,” she said. “I missed you, I missed you...” He smirked against her. “As I did you, my lady,” he said, looking up, her wetness slick against the sides of his mouth. * * * Sometimes Brienne wanted him so badly it frightened her. Her thighs would rub together as she walked, and that sunny feeling would fill between her legs as she imagined Jaime slipping his fingers underneath her kitchen wench skirts. Sensations that would leave her in a dreamy fog, longing for his touch, his lips against her, that delicious tingle across her skin that made her knees buckle. Brienne felt about to burst with desire, cooped up in the kitchens of the Gates of the Moon for weeks on end, and she gently rubbed against tables and chairs as she worked, quickly and softly. It soared her. She had never needed anyone in this way before, not even Renly, and it was a new and foreign experience for her, but oh how tantalizing it was, Jaime, his warm left hand and his cool golden one running up and down, across her breasts and down her back, kissing her, tasting her like she was a goddess upon an altar. It was like she had been rolled in honey and dipped in stars, stars that lit up so bright, on every pore, every freckle, every scar and every bruise. They could use me to guide ships home on stormy nights, she thought as she pleasured herself one quiet and lonely afternoon. Light shoots out of me like arrows. She wanted him on her, with her, in her. And he was, now, Sansa safe and retrieved and in the other cavern, his beard scratching at her mound. His breath was so hot, her head was spinning so high. Her soul was between her legs and rising, and pulled out of her in an exquisite aaahhh. The world always seemed different colors after she was spent. At times it was a deep, cool purple, or a burning orange, or a smooth and flowing blue . Right now it was the color of peaches, fading to white in the center. Little sparks seem to fly past the inside of her eyelids. She moaned softly with pleasure as Jaime's hand cupped her cheek. “Is my lady pleased?” came his teasing lilt. “She is.” A large part of her still could not believe any of this was real, or that it wasn't some kind of cruel jape. Jaime would never hurt me that way, she told herself, and that was true in some fashion, but sometimes, in her darkest thoughts, she wondered if she was merely a warm body for him to press up against and caress, now that she was willing and he was lonely. But then he would look upon her as he was now, his green eyes brimming over, and she was forced to acknowledge that such fears were unfounded. Gods be good if she knew why, but he loved her, even if he had never said so aloud. Of course, neither had she. She almost said it now, but something stopped her. Instead, she climbed atop Jaime and guided his cock inside her, and when he let out a choked gasp, she found herself smirking. The two of them made a strange pair. She wondered how long it could last. Some nights were so cold, and so long, and their toes and fingers and cheeks became so frostbitten they couldn't even feel them anymore. The winds were harsh and cruel, the snow and ice treacherous. Thoros of Myr had told them that the Long Winter was coming, and that the dead were rising in the north. She felt skeptical still, even after everything that had happened, but if he was right... But it was ridiculous to think of such things now, as she rode Jaime slowly, his deep groans thrumming in her ears. His fingers dug into the small of her back, urging her to go faster, and she obliged most heartily. She trembled and her hand slipped against his chest, so thin and covered with a golden lion's mane. Brienne could almost feel his ribcage, and she leaned over and kissed it, which sent a violent tremor throughout his body and a too-loud groan to escape his mouth. She rode him harder still, and kissed him to silence his cries, however much she reveled in hearing them, in the idea that she could make him feel this way – the former innocent maiden, the big and ugly wench who knew her way around a sword ring but had never known a man. It was impossible that a woman like her should be with a man like him, but here they were, Brienne of Tarth fucking Jaime Lannister, who was about to come and was pulling his cock out just in time to spill his seed inside her wolfskin blanket instead of her. As much as Brienne enjoyed the act of love-making (more, in fact, than she had ever thought she would), it was when her arms were wrapped around him, and he was kissing her neck and the two of them were slowly, slowly drifting to sleep, that Brienne's heart warmed and she felt like she was home. She suspected he felt the same way.

#fandom: asoiaf #ship: jaime/brienne

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