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jamespotterthefirst · 3 years

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Cariño (Ethan x f!MC)

Book: Open Heart, Book 3 Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Lilac Allende) Word count: 2K Premise: After their confessing their feelings to one another, everyone can see something has changed. Set in book3, Chapter 11.

Author’s Note: More outsider POVs. This girl loved them and will probably never stop writing them.

* “cariño” just means “dear” or “love” in Spanish

Grace

The placid, teal waters of the lagoon glimmer like a cluster of diamonds, blending into a breath-taking gradient with the pink swirls of sunrise. Grace attempts to take a picture, but a measly phone camera will never be enough to capture the splendor.

Instead, she takes in a deep breath, convinced such a view is worth getting up early for after a late night of drinking and dancing.

“Nothing… is… worth this, Ethan,” a breathless voice says from nearby, interrupting the silence on the otherwise deserted beach.

“Doctor Allende, I am shocked at you,” a male voice responds. “You know the benefits of regular exercise as well as any other physician.”

It's a young and rather attractive couple jogging down the shore. At least, the taller of the two figures seems to be jogging. The shorter, curvier one is slouching over, dragging their feet against the sand.

“Try to keep up, Lilac.”

As they approach, Grace immediately recognizes them from the previous night at Ines and Angie's reception. Their attractive features would have been enough to make them memorable, but what Grace remembers the most is the long, lingering looks they would cast one another from across the venue.

Now, they move side by side, the tall, handsome man clad in only swimming trunks, his broad shoulders and toned muscles glistening in the first glimmers of sunlight. The pretty brunette at his side wears a bright one-piece that has no right looking so flattering, her dark hair swaying in a high ponytail.

“Jogging isn't exercise. It's a form of medieval torture,” the young woman returns, panting after every other word.

“And you say I'm the dramatic one,” he returns with a chuckle.

Lilac, not listening, slows her steps until she stops entirely, hands on her knees as she tries to catch her breath. Ethan rolls his eyes but laughs nonetheless, retracting his steps to return to her side.

“Fine,” he concedes. “You win. No more jogging for today.”

At the words, the brunette recovers miraculously, straightening and shooting him a flirtatious smile. Her companion watches her, as though her unbridled delight is the most precious rarity in the world. When he seems unable to fight the urge any longer, he pulls her to him with a roguish half smile that has even Grace's knees trembling.

Without much preamble or regard for who might be watching, he kisses her, his hands moving to cradle her face.

Grace tries to glance away, giving them as much privacy as possible, but the stark difference from last night captures her attention entirely. At the wedding, there was something quiet and restrained about the way they longed for each other. Today, there is freedom and unabashed happiness in every movement, in every smile, in every small gesture of affection.

“Now will you take pictures?” Lilac asks him, adding a flutter of her lashes to plead her case.

“Was that your only motive for accepting my invitation to exercise? Pictagram worthy shots?”

“You're a Pictagram worthy shot,” she returns without missing a beat, pulling their bodies close again and sealing the coy statement with a kiss.

Ethan does not need much more persuading after that. Despite the groan he lets out, he agrees far too quickly for a man who spends the following two minutes criticizing social media.

At last, he willingly becomes the subject of many of his girlfriend's photographs, even following her directions of different poses. He visibly enjoys the role of photographer when it's finally his turn to take pictures of her. Grace doesn't blame him in the least since Lilac works that camera with captivating poses.

“Now us together,” Lilac says after a while. The words are rushed, as though knowing what the answer will be.

“Absolutely not. No more selfies.”

He takes many selfies with her.

“Excuse me,” Grace says after watching her struggle to capture the beautiful lagoon behind them. “Sorry to interrupt but would you like me to take your picture?”

Lilac appears delighted by the offer, accepting and smiling at Grace so brightly that she too would agree to arduous photoshoots if she asked.

“Alright, say 'cheese.'” Grace lifts the phone Lilac gives her, careful to include the beautiful scenery in the shot.

Ethan looks as though he'd rather be dragged off by a shark than to say the word.

A millisecond before Grace takes the picture, however, Lilac cranes her neck to kiss his cheek, murmuring something in his ear. Whatever it is makes Ethan's smile rival the rising sun on the horizon.

Tobias

Ethan peers down at the coral drink in his companion’s hand, his brow furrowed as though the mere existence of so much color in an alcoholic drink offends him. Tobias watches from the end of the poolside bar with interest, keeping his urge to laugh at bay. Such a visceral reaction to a fun drink is so characteristic of his ex friend that Tobias can hardly help his amusement.

“What the hell is that?” Ethan is asking her.

Lilac Allende is not as successful in biting back her own amusement. She laughs at once, as though she expected such a reaction from him.

“Sex on the beach,” she answers, her voice a husky little pronouncement that is meant to weaken the will of even the strongest of beings. Paired with a lazy, deliberate nail up his arm and the world renowned Ethan Ramsey doesn't stand a chance.

Tobias, still unnoticed by the couple, gives an impressed nod, respecting her game.

“I—” Ethan stammers.

He puts on a brave attempt at impassiveness after this but even Tobias can see the doctor’s ears brighten with color.

“You want to—” His voice drops an octave. “Again?”

“It's the name of the drink, Ramsey,” she informs him in a would-be innocent voice. It's promptly spoiled by her laughter at Ethan's utterly stunned expression.

“You're an unabashed tease, Allende.”

“Yeah, but you love me for it.”

Tobias pauses at the word, uttered so confidently. He almost expects a grimace from his old friend, maybe a hasty change in the conversation. But Ethan surprises him thoroughly by smirking down at the brunette, an expression of pure adoration on his face.

“You're right,” Ethan whispers close to her ear. His voice drops so low that Tobias doesn't catch what he tells her next.

Much to Tobias's continued surprise, the usually confident and vivacious young doctor blushes.

The couple spends the following moments murmuring words that are too low for anyone nearby to hear. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the content of their quiet conversation ranges from nauseatingly romantic to explicit.

They are interrupted by the arrival of one of Dr. Allende's friends, a short and exuberant resident whose name Tobias hadn't learned yet. After Ethan's reassurances that he will catch up in a few, they depart toward the beach where a group of grinning young doctors awaits.

“Never thought I'd see the serious and private Ethan Ramsey engage in PDA.”

If Ethan is surprised to see Tobias occupying a seat nearby, he does a masterful job at masking it. Unfazed, he simply stares at Tobias, willing him to get to the point.

“I knew you two were together thanks to the rumor mill, but I didn't realize it was this serious.”

Ethan narrows his eyes, the only hint of a reaction from him. For all of Tobias's suave swagger, the mistrust he sees in the other doctor's expression stings more than he'd ever admit out loud. He shouldn't have expected any less after all the years laden with dishonesty between both men.

Still, Tobias raises his hands in defeat, letting out a laugh that is not entirely genuine.

“Just trying to make some friendly conversation,” he tells him.

Ethan turns away to face the glass of scotch before him, as though it serves as a more superior conversation partner than Tobias. Knowing when to throw in the towel, Tobias takes his drink and prepares to move away.

“Things are… different,” Ethan finally says before Tobias can move.

It's not much but for Ethan Ramsey, that is as good an olive branch as he'll ever get.

“Lilac is…”

“Different?” Tobias finishes for him.

Even as friends, they were never poetic or sentimental. But Tobias understands the depth behind the single word without further explanation.

“I can see that,” Tobias continues with a small chuckle. “It's obvious to anyone that knows you that she's special.”

Ethan looks at him then, a flicker of surprise on his otherwise impenetrable expression.

“It's nice to see you happy.”

The words leave Tobias before he has any consciousness of forming them. He is shocked—far more than Ethan in that moment—to find he means them.

Naveen

The spell cast by a vacation in a beautiful, faraway place comes to a close as their departure time trickles near. Lamenting this fact, Naveen rounds the corner of the unfamiliar hotel hallway.

He knows better than anyone of the challenges that lay ahead for them as they return to Bloom Edenbrook. He also knows that most of those challenges will be endured by his protégé. What worries him the most is how Ethan will face the strife that is still to come.

Naveen’s steps soon come to a halt a few rooms down when the door to Ethan's room opens.

“...that we got everything, babe.”

Lilac Allende emerges, unaware of Naveen and speaking over her shoulder as she hauls her luggage into the hall. She pauses in the hallway, rummaging through her purse.

“So you decided on 'babe' then?” Ethan asks dryly, appearing at her side with his own suitcase in tow.

“You decided,” Lilac returns cheerfully turning to face him.

“How do you figure I did that exactly?”

“Last night, before we fell asleep. I informed you we had a very important decision to make,” Lilac recounts quite seriously. “I asked you what you wanted me to call you.”

Ethan nods, playfully feigning interest as though they're discussing the specifics of a particularly difficult case.

“I laid out all the possible pet names and you chose 'babe'.”

“I have no recollection of doing that.”

“I told you it was down to 'bear', 'lamb chop', or 'babe'.”

Much to Naveen's amusement, Ethan grimaces at the list of pet names, his expression growing more horrified with each one.

“Just call me your usual ones in Spanish.”

“Oh, I will, cariño. I have a whole list of those ready. Lucky for you, I’m bilingual so you’re getting both. Babe was the one that got the quietest grunt from you, so I assumed that's the one you decided on. But if you'd rather I call you 'bear', then I have no—”

Ethan, who had been watching her with such a lovestruck expression since the word “cariño”, calls her bluff in the form of a kiss. All pretense vanishes as Lilac melts into the kiss, smiling blissfully against his lips.

“We should leave now if we want to make our flight,” Ethan says, breaking apart with a sigh. “Here. I'll take these.”

He grips the handle of her suitcase, ready to pull it along with his own.

“Thanks, babe,” she says with a wink, emphasizing the last word.

Ethan rolls his eyes but smiles—a rare, genuine smile Naveen only sees when he's around Lilac.

“It's growing on you, isn't it?”

“Perhaps,” Ethan concedes. “Or maybe I'd let you call me whatever you want.”

Lilac laughs, delighted.

“I'd be careful in awarding Dr. Allende that much power,” Naveen says to make his presence known.

The couple turns to look at him, Lilac with an amicable smile and Ethan with a resigned sigh.

“Too late for that,” Lilac responds brightly.

At that, Naveen laughs in agreement much to Ethan's chagrin.

“Is there something you needed or were you just prying?” Ethan asks though not unkindly.

It is a rare sight, though a pleasant one, to see them simply be with one another, all guards down. By Naveen's observations, they are always the picture of professionalism at Edenbrook—at least to the public eye. But now, as they stand side by side, fearless and unapologetic in their affection, Naveen realizes his concern for Ethan was in vain.

“The reason for my visit seems pointless now,” he admits with a small chuckle.

Ethan raises his brows, unconvinced.

“Forgive the interruption,” Naveen goes on. Before he turns to leave, he offers them a barely restrained grin. “And for the record, Ethan, I would have chosen 'lamb chop.'”

Author’s Note: I finally wrote in my hc that MC calls Ethan babe ironically (and to annoy him) at first but they end up liking it as time goes on lol.

Thank you so much for reading this!

Thank you @aestheticartsx for pre-reading!

#ethan ramsey #open heart #playchoices #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey x mc #Ethan Ramsey Fanfiction #open heart fanfiction #choices fanfiction #My writing

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novantinuum · 4 years

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Intake (SUF one-shot)

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: Teen Audiences (TW: brief discussion of mental illness related topics like suicide ideation and intrusive thoughts.)

Words: 2800

Summary: Steven fills out an important form.

This is set multiple months pre The Future, and is a small glimpse into Steven’s journey to find a therapist.

If you read this and enjoy, I’d greatly appreciate your support through reblogs here, or kudos/comments on AO3 as well. AO3 link will be provided in the reblogs. Thank you! <3

____

His leg bounces with a restless fervor as he slumps in the waiting room chair, clutching the clipboard and pencil the receptionist gave him with a white knuckled grip. Gaze hardened, he takes a good long look at the other patients spread across the room, a few of them appearing equally as spent and fidgety as him, and hunches over the intake form so his answers will be conclusively obscured from their view.

He grimaces. Ugh. Why would a place like this lay out their chairs so close, anyways? Why even give people the option of being nosey? He may be stuck seeing this therapist Connie’s mom recommended because he’s all messed up in the head, but it’s not like he wants the whole planet to know about it. Goodness knows all of Beach City and Little Homeworld already does thanks to his little ‘incident’ a month back. That’s bad enough.

His chest almost feeling hollow as he sighs, he scrawls in his name, his birthday, his cell number, address, and an emergency contact (Dad, who left for the car to give him privacy after signing a few forms he can’t fill out as a minor) on the lines indicated. He leaves out his many middle names for once, all of them leaving a bitter taste in his mouth at this present moment. Briefly, he wonders if this will be a problem, as these past few weeks Dr. Maheswaran assisted his dad in finally acquiring legal documentation and health insurance for him, and per those records he’s officially ‘Steven Quartz Universe’ in the eyes of the law.

Eventually he shrugs, figuring the likelihood of there being another sixteen-year-old ‘Steven Universe’ here today to confuse him with is nearing zero.

Okay, what’s next?

He briefly skims over the next few passages— a bunch of legalese about the terms of counselor-patient confidentiality and when they might have to breach that for safety reasons— and signs where indicated so they know he looked over it.

Someone sitting two chairs away coughs. He can’t help but flinch at the sudden noise, and folds himself tighter in his own seat as he flips over the first page of the form and continues to read.

In a few words, explain why you’ve chosen to reach out to us today. How can we help you?

Steven frowns, fingers twitching around the shaft of the pencil as he contemplates how to respond. For whatever reason, the question “explain why you’re here” feels very blunt and antagonistic to him in a way he can’t quite ascertain. Like... in a “give the wrong answer, get booted right out the door” sorta way. He lifts his head, peering at all the humans spread across the room, each and every one with their own story, the central character of their own worlds. Some are texting on their phones as they wait for the receptionist to call their names, others are filling out forms as well. What brought these people here, he wonders? Surely there’s plenty of people having a worse time than him right now. Surely there’s people with real problems, people who are literally struggling just to stay alive from day-to-day. He’s not like that, right? Besides that one little wobble a month back, he’s been handling his problems on his own fairly okay. Hasn’t he? So what makes him selfish enough to think that he’s worth anyone’s time?

In his pocket his phone vibrates, knocking him back into reality. He yanks it out and switches it on to look at the new text splashed across the lock screen:

Dad: Hey Schtu-ball, just wanna let you know that I’m proud of you and love you very much. You’ve got this!

He stares at these words for a good minute, the kind sentiment— despite reading as a little hopelessly over-encouraging— filling the hollow space in his chest partway. Even if his dad’s been a bit overbearing in his affections this past month, it’s clear he means well.

So. Why am I here today, he thinks, reading the question over again. He folds his fingers up into a stiff fist, pulling his thumb across his knuckles. After licking his chapped lips and shoving his phone back in his pocket, he scribbles a hasty reply.

I feel really angry and empty and tense and just want to be better.

The teen pauses, allowing those words to echo over and over in his mind, to truly sink in. It’s such a succinct and to-the-point admission that he suddenly wonders why he ever doubted he was less deserving of aid than anyone else in this waiting room.

His countenance a little lighter now and his shoulders growing less stiff, he moves on to the next section.

To aid our counselors in providing you the best possible care, please rate the following statements on a scale from zero to four, zero meaning “not at all like me,” and four meaning “extremely like me.”

Steven’s eyes dart across the length of the massive table below these instructions, his previous anxiety rushing back into his brittle bones as if it’d never left. Each row is host to a short sentence and five blank boxes, numbered zero to four. Read it and rate yourself, right? Should be simple enough. But as his glance flits over these statements and he understands the sort of personal, probing questions they’re asking through them, he begins to mistrust his previous burst of optimism. Dread floods his system, making his cheeks flush bright pink. Heart pounding at the mere thought of people staring, he drops his head lower, successfully hiding most of his face behind the clipboard until he can coax that betraying glow into fading away.

In the end, this goes to prove that it doesn’t matter if everyone says therapy will be ‘helpful’ for him; reflecting on all this junk is still gonna suck.

Quietly, he takes a steadying breath and forces himself to read on, to crack open the hornet’s nest that is the depths of his crap brain.

1. I am shy around others.

He considers this for a moment. Shy. Historically, this has never been a word people would use to describe him. For years he reveled in the thrill of meeting new people, new Gems. His childhood eagerness to engage in fellowship with those around is half the reason Era 3 even exists. And he’s fine around people he knows. Like, on a rare good day he has no problem playing board games or watching cheesy soap operas with his friends. But to be fair... as of late, his eagerness to meet anyone new feels like it’s all but vanished. Is that being shy? Or is that just him failing to care for anyone beyond his inner circle?

With a small shrug he checks the box for one, and moves on.

2. I don’t enjoy being around people as much as I used to.

Hmm. Probably a three. People are unintentionally exhausting these days. He used to be energized by social interaction, and now it just leaves him sucked dry. Most days he’d rather stick to his room.

3. I feel isolated and alone.

The weight of the diamond embedded in his belly— something he normally barely notices— grows ever more apparent as he marks off a four.

4. My heart often races for no good reason.

Uh, yeah. What happened just a minute ago is a pretty good tell. Four.

5. I have spells of terror or panic.

Another four.

6. I am anxious that I might have a panic attack while in public.

Four once more. He holds his pencil tighter, squirming in his seat as he tries (and fails) not to think about the pale scars spread across his back, hidden in his hairline, and on the underside of his arms, indentations that once marked the base of the crystalline spines that jut out from between his scales.

7. I think about food more than I’d like to.

Steven pauses at this one. For once, he’s not sure he can say this statement applies to him. Truth be told, he only started caring about what he put in his mouth earlier this year, when he cut meat and fish out of his diet. And that’s not... a bad thing? It’s not bad to want to consider the impact your food choices have on the environment? He definitely didn’t choose to do so for self-denying reasons, and that’s probably what they’re asking about. He checks zero, and moves on.

8. I feel out of control when I eat.

He almost checks another zero, but then he remembers that day after the proposal... and the week after his incident. And he decides that even if he doesn’t consciously obsess over the food he eats, there’s still a few occasions where once he starts snacking he finds it difficult to stop. A one it is, then.

9. I have sleep difficulties.

This statement nearly makes him laugh. Does he have sleep difficulties. Hah. He doesn’t think he’s gotten a truly restful night of sleep since he sacrificed himself to Homeworld at fourteen.

A solid four. No question.

10. My thoughts are racing.

Four.

11. I feel uncomfortable around people I don’t know.

Hmm. Two.

12. I drink alcohol frequently.

The only alcohol he’s ever had is a tiny sip of his dad’s with permission at Garnet’s wedding reception, and it tasted terrible. He has no interest in drinking again. Zero.

13. When I drink alcohol I can’t remember what happened.

Zero.

14. I drink more than I should.

Zero again.

15. I have done something I have regretted because of drinking.

Another zero. It almost makes him feel better, just knowing there’s a decent number of lines on this paper that aren’t a carbon copy of his lived experience.

16. I feel sad all the time.

Aaaand back to “the story of his life.” Briefly, he wonders if ‘feeling sad’ is the same thing as feeling nothing at all. But then again, does the difference really matter? He checks the box for three.

17. I am concerned that other people don’t like me.

Three. Although honestly, he’s even more concerned that people continue to like him after everything he’s done.

18. I feel worthless.

Steven nibbles at the inside of his cheek as he reads this statement, memories automatically flashing through the pathetic events of the last few weeks, through all the days he barely crawled out from under his covers, all the days he didn’t even manage to brush his teeth or run his fingers through his greasy, knotted hair, all those awful days he couldn’t so much as play one of his video games without growing tired of it in minutes and taking a restless nap for the rest of the afternoon instead.

Four.

19. I feel helpless.

Two. Everyday affairs are a drag, but at the very least he knows he can fight his way out of danger in a pinch. He wouldn’t call that helpless.

20. I have thoughts of ending my life.

He freezes. Goes back, reads this line again. Reads it a third time to make sure he’s not horrendously misconstruing the prompt he’s been given.

(Tries not to think too deeply about the graphic images that flood his imagination some nights. It’s just stray thoughts, though. He’s fine.)

One, he marks, although his muscles can’t help but twitch as he shifts his wrist, as if deep down he knows he’s underplaying his answer.

21. I feel tense.

Steven gives a small snort under his breath. Yeah, he outright admitted as much earlier in this form. Four.

22. I get angry easily.

His grip tightens.

Four.

23. I have difficulty controlling my temper.

He swallows hard, his mouth feeling abnormally dry. He’s not sure he likes how blunt and probing this questionnaire is becoming.

Four...

24. I sometimes feel like breaking or smashing things.

His knuckles go white around his pencil, and he only barely resists the temptation to snap it in half as he feels a rush of hard light flow the distance from his gem through the veins of his arm. Geeze, it’s not like he means to break things! It’s just that all of his stupid powers are linked with his emotions, and whenever he gets even marginally upset now things start to splinter, crack in half, and inevitably end up broken. Just another sign he’s fated to ruin everything around him forever, and that his intent doesn’t matter. Why do they have to pry into this? He already feels terrible enough for thinking these things.

Three, he checks, his eyes damp, but mostly because he’s too scared what their response will be otherwise.

25. I am not able to concentrate as well as usual.

He takes a deep breath, coaxing his body to return to a baseline state. Eh. He’ll give this a two.

26. I feel self-conscious around others.

His glance skirts over the edge of the clipboard to monitor the four others currently spread out across the room. One’s rhythmically swinging their legs, another is still filling out a form like him, but sitting criss-cross on the chair, and the other two are quietly typing on their phones. Thankfully none of them are pressing an ounce of attention his way, (at least, not right now), but that doesn’t stop him from feeling like an exposed nerve. Three.

27. I am afraid I may lose control and act violently.

The raw memories hit like lightning before he can even think to prepare.

Flashes of Pink. Orange fragments, cold and slick in his palms. Thunder splits the skies overhead, each cacophonous sound manifesting in perfect synchronicity with his erratic heartbeat, with each tidal wave of thoughts gushing like a maelstrom through his head: SHATTERER, I’m a shatterer, I’m—

Feeling almost dizzy from the intensity of his heart’s pulse, he knows with full certainty that his cheeks are glowing bright pink again. All he can do is clench his fists, suck down whatever amount of fresh air his lungs will allow, and pray to the very stars themselves that it’ll fade away before it garners the attention of every last human in this place.

He checks the box for four, pencil marking so hard that slivers of graphite splinter off onto the page, and moves on before he can be cowardly enough to change his answer.

28. I have thoughts of hurting others.

His fingernails claw into the thin denim at his knee, limbs outright quivering as he stews in his seat, as he’s forced to reflect upon all the ugly, ugly thoughts that have flit across his awareness over the past weeks. Thoughts about one Gem specifically. He’s... always been angry, always harbored deep resentment... but ever since his most recent trip to visit Her, he hasn’t been able to shake this awful idea: a vision of him standing over the remnants of her gemstone, shattered, fragments spilled across the otherwise pristine floors of Homeworld. He... he didn’t do it when he had the chance. He wouldn’t do it, would he?

(Orange fragments, cold and slick...)

Would he??

And yet nevertheless, the thought tortures him with its frequency, makes him feel downright nauseous at every turn. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want to feel this way at all.

Four.

29. I am unable to keep up with my schoolwork.

Stop. Sharp inhale. Staccato, shaky exhale. Repeat, deeper this time. Repeat.

(He can no longer see neon pink reflecting in the smooth metal clasp at the top of his clipboard.)

Okay. Schoolwork.

N/A, he writes in one of the boxes, arm still trembling from the last two questions despite his attempt at cool-down exercises. Not applicable. He hasn’t even been to school, and dreads the inevitability of this therapist asking about that mess.

30. It’s hard to stay motivated for my classes.

N/A.

31. I feel confident that I can succeed academically.

N/A, once more.

And like that, the questionnaire is over. Steven is quick to hide his answers behind the front page, and slides the pencil through the length of the metal clip. He glances around him, drinking in his surroundings with pinpoint precision. Despite his earlier concerns, no one is maliciously staring. No one’s whispering. He internally wrestled with a few challenging subjects and what do you know, it didn’t end in an embarrassingly public meltdown. He— he wipes a stray tear from his eye with the butt of his palm— he took a solid step forward today.

Coercing his body to move, he pulls himself out of the cushioned chair and crosses the room.

“I finished,” he says softly, proudly, as he hands the clipboard and pencil to the receptionist. She smiles and accepts his hard-fought offering.

For the first time in a while, the smile he instinctively flashes back almost feels genuine.

I want to be better, he thinks. I will be better.

____

Notes:

This fic is loosely based on my own experience of the intake process, and the questionnaire I had to fill out. No two intake experiences are the same though, of course. This is merely one possibility. I also take personal liberties on the way I depict Steven’s struggle with mental health, and acknowledge and respect that no two fans’ interpretation will be the same.

Additional notes: -Steven’s still a minor, so he can’t actually sign contracts. I figure Greg signed a handful of forms beforehand as his guardian, and then left to allow his son a bit of privacy with filling out the questionnaire stuff. Since he's a teen, they're still giving him the full confidentiality clauses to look over so he's wholly aware how that works, though.

-To expand on a brief comment made in the midst of this, I headcanon that Steven cut both meat and fish out of his diet, and thus actually slipped up on his vegetarian diet when he was training with Jasper. I interpret this as further showcasing how the poor kid— due to being mentally vulnerable at the time and thus liable to coercion/unwise decisions— began to take actions that went against much of his established morality. He ended up sacrificing his dietary choices during those days, just like he briefly sacrificed his pacifistic views to fight Jasper.

-I also headcanon that the therapist Steven is going in to see after this isn’t the one he eventually sticks with and mentions as “my new therapist” in The Future. It’s totally normal and okay to try a few different people to find someone who you click with, after all.

Thank you for reading!

#su #su future #steven universe #su fanfiction #my writing stuff #okay the official crosspost #here you go #i keep switching how i post fics here hhh #i LIKE having the ao3 link in the post itself #but when i do that the fic almost never shows up in tags so *shrugs*

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springfieldblues · 4 years

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my long ass review for S32E03 Now Museum, Now You Don’t

warning: LONG because i rambled about history more than i thought i would

id been looking forward to this one because i like art history, especially after seeing how they tried their best to stick to historical accuracy in the previous episode I, Carumbus. this time however….they didnt try that hard. i dont know why i thought theyd go through that sort of trouble again LMAO

but its okay, i dont really expect the simpsons to be the paragon of historical accuracy or anything. especially in anthology episodes told through a particular character's lens (in this case, lisa, whos already feverish so whatever)

first i just wanna say that this is, i guess, less of a review and more of an accidental list of history fun facts. so im just gonna get my general thoughts out of the way first.

the episode was fun! to me at least haha. i mean it got me to think and do a lot of research on my own so that must count for something. besides a couple of really weird ones, the jokes were good. anthology episodes tend to be….not that good but i thought this one was one of the better ones so far. idk.

anyway on to lisanardo da vinky its the renaissance! jesus christ the italian accents in the beginning of this segment were annoying as hell but i also feel like that was the joke lmao. ill be real i kind of tuned out for a second there when grampa started rambling so idk what he said.

i told myself i wouldnt get nitpicky with historical accuracy if the jokes were funny (final edit: so that was a lie) but this meh bit with the pizza guys and mascots was really not worth ignoring the fact that its impossible for italy to have any tomato-based food in the 15th century (tomatoes were brought to europe from the americas in the 16th century, and pizza as we know it today—flatbread, cheese, tomato—originated in the late 18th century)

oh this next part was kind of legit tho. lisanardo, like the real leonardo, became andrea del verrochio's apprentice at his workshop. i loved this next bit:

"Whoever paints the sweetest cherub will have the honor of having MY name signed on their work. That's what great artists do!"

SO YEAH as it turns out, lisanardo painted the sweetest cherubs. the painting here is called The Baptism of Christ, and the real leonardo assisted verrochio in finishing it. specifically, he painted the cherubs in the corner.

this causes verrochio to quit and go someplace with less talented people: a music school (yes, verrochio did quit painting after getting owned by young leo and his mad angel painting skills. he never did anything with music tho, he was more of a sculptor)

alongside lisanardo, in mr largo-verrochio's workshop we have barticelli (botticelli bart), dolphatello (donatello dolph), ralphael (raphael...ralph) and mediocrito (no one that i know of. sorry milhouse) (and kearney i guess but they dont refer to him by name). botticelli and donatello are said to have also been apprentices at verrochio's workshop, but raphael came a couple of decades later so he couldnt have been there. and donatello was too old so that claim is a bit questionable. but anyway

it IS true that leonardo's peers envied him, to the point where he was anonymously and purposefully accused of being gay (a major crime punishable by death in 15th century florence) while he was still working at verrochio's workshop

we are then treated by what im pretty sure is the fourth time the show has used 'at seventeen' by janis ian, this time sung by a dejected lisanardo (man they really do keep making yeardley sing these days huh) who only wishes to be appreciated and not envied.

"I'll show them all! I'll show them all in a secret diary that no one will decipher for 400 years!"

some of lisanardo's future inventions. who wouldve known

so after barticelli, for some reason (revenge??? or something?? what was his plan here idgi) steals lisanardo's diaries full of blueprints of her inventions and takes them to mr burns who i have to assume is pope alexander VI here, they decide to use her inventions for war.

"With these, we can kill the most evil people in the world!! ....Slightly different Christians."

leo actually did this of his own accord. im surprised this is what they decided to do with lisanardo instead of talking about leo's love of nature and vegetarianism (not a single mention of that in this episode? come on...) then again, trying to do good only to end up indirectly making things worse is a very standard lisa storyline. i guess they didnt want to miss the chance to have evil pope burns (very fitting, especially for that era since they were all about money and controlling the people)

so lisanardo decides to leave for france, unlike the real leonardo who was more or less persuaded by his ultimate fanboy king francis I to move to france.

"Lisanardo, I have many questions. Why are you hitting yourself? A nerd says 'what'? And how is it possible that I am rubber and you are glue? Et cetera, et cetera."

that line may seem a little random, like hes just nelson saying nelson things (and i mean, obviously he is) but the real francis also "had an unquenchable thirst for learning, and Leonardo was the world’s best source of experimental knowledge. He could teach the king about almost any subject there was to know, from how the eye works to why the moon shines." so yeah, he did have many questions and lisanardo, finally being appreciated for her intellect, was happy to answer them all. its very interesting how lisa assigned this role to nelson in her retelling of da vinci’s life :^)

and so she lived the rest of her days in france, nat king cole's 'mona lisa' plays because duh, and they make a da vinci code reference because duh. and the segment ends. and not a single time did they show the actual mona lisa painting. the fuck?

(ngl i was fully expecting bart to say 'leonardo da vinky' for a second here)

so this next segment is about french impressionist painters, most likely the batignolles group, a name adopted by the early representatives of impressionism. its much more vague than the lisanardo segment since no one here is referred to by name (except moe, more on him in a sec) but i dont feel like it really matters in this case. bart is prrrrooobably claude monet but its hard to say, this segment is kind of a mish-mash of a lot of things. also i gotta say i really liked how lisa introduced the story to bart with an 'if you hate the formal study of art' and not 'if you hate art' because thats exactly my headcanon. i LOVE the concept of artist bart and whenever its referenced it just makes perfect sense to me.

anyway the segment opens in 1863 at the école des beaux-arts (back then it was actually known as the académie des beaux-arts), preserver of traditional french art styles. skinner reviews his students’ paintings one by one. praises the plain, unimaginative paintings depicting your typical european countryside landscapes. very run-of-the-mill (haha get it...cuz theres….a windmill) (although the real académie didnt approve of such basic stuff, they wanted artists to draw epic historical and mythological scenes) then he gets to barts painting and he gives him an F- because the painting made him think.

(the paintings in this scene arent real famous paintings as far as i know but they are inspired by real paintings enough to get the point across)

in comes barney dressed as bacchus as a model for the students to sketch, which i just loved:

barney: “You prefer robe open or robe off?” skinner: “Just cover your privates with this walnut shell.” barney: “Whoa!!! So roomy!”

skinner gasps in horror at bart’s sketch, which “looks nothing like him” and bart explains that “it shouldn’t; we’re making the art that we feel because we can’t compete with a camera.” damn, you go bart. take that, realism. draw what you feel!!

(also no, you didnt need to hold still for 17 hours for a daguerreotype. 30 min tops.)

nelson haw-haw of the week: FOIE-gras!

so here they are at the moulin rouge (“enjoy it before baz luhrmann ruins it” hey shut up. i love that movie), which wouldnt be built for another 26 years, but it is the most widely known gathering place for bohemians in the public consciousness so i can understand why they went with the moulin. nelson delivers this anachronistic line:

“This époque keeps getting beller and beller!”

which alludes to la belle époque, the golden age of france usually dated from 1880 to 1914. made me snort so ill let that slide

and heres moe! as henri de toulouse-lautrec, who was actually born a year after the year this segment is set in. yo moe szyslak he was just 1

toulouse-moetrec introduces himself as the chronicler of the demimonde (not an actual job). an iconic figure associated with the moulin rouge (largely due to his affinity for alcohol and prostitutes), toulouse-lautrec was also a painter, having illustrated a series of posters for the moulin himself. he simply had to be in this segment, anachronisms be damned, just because they decided to include the moulin. cant have one without the other.

and yes he did have a walking cane where he kept his liquor.

i love how everyone drinks absinthe in this place. theyre bohemians what else would they drink

toulouse-moetrec points out that barts paintings are the greatest thing hes ever seen (and hes seen like five things!) and that hes a genius. milhouse realizes that they should stop doing what the teacher says and use their own minds to instead...start doing what bart says lmao. to the easels!

next we have skinner hyping up chalmers about the art his students made for the salon de paris, an art exhibition that the emperor of france will attend. he assures him that none of these paintings will encourage debate, provoke thought or be out of place at a dentist’s office. when they unveil the art, theyre both SHOCKED at how scandalous the paintings actually are.

this reaction was kind of accurate. impressionism was severely rejected at the salon de paris, due to paintings not looking finished enough to them, they thought they were ugly and vulgar for depicting nudity in a contemporary setting (historical and mythological nudity was fine). these impressionist paintings were sent to the salon de refusés, which is. yeah. the place where they sent the rejects. the salon de refusés does not make an appearance but this scene makes a reference to it when the artists get expelled from the royal salon. also:

“What about our student loans?” “Oh they’ll be refunded. We are not barbarians, I mean, come on.”

(god if only)

so the painters are down because they want the emperor to actually see their paintings. toulouse-moetrec pipes in once again with an idea.

“There is one thing the emperor loves more than anything.” “France?” “No, he hates France.”

apparently the emperor really loves cheese, which makes sense since its napoleon III (who loved cheese) and homer (who loves cheese.) so the painters roll into the salon inside a giant wheel of cheese (obviously.) as lenny said, “Eh, you know French cheese. Very runny.” napoleon III chases after the wheel into a room, where the wheel falls apart after getting chomped on by the emperor. now that they got his attention, the painters proudly show the emperor their impressionist art, which he couldnt be more indifferent about because he just wants to eat his cheese dammit, and he awards them with the royal medallion just to kind of get them out of his way. skinner immediately starts kissing ass (as he does) until marge’s like ‘hey wait a minute. you expelled these students from the royal salon’ and an executioner immediately starts ominously measuring skinners neck.

“Uh, sir...is your tongue sticking out because you’re dead or because you’re mad at me?”

and thats the end of that lmao (gore in this episode, gore in the last episode, and next week we’re getting gore too cuz its THOH, what the hell is goin on)

we get a short intermission with maggie, who wants a story for her too! lisa tells her that renaissance artists loved to put babies in their paintings, especially baby angels.

here she is showing her The Triumph Of Galatea by raphael:

King David Playing The Harp by peter paul reubens:

and a very simplified version of pretty much any depiction of hell by hyeronimus bosch lmao:

not much else to say about this one, really. but i really liked that sky!

the last segment is about frida kahlo and diego rivera. or as bart puts it ‘the one about a fat guy whos wife is too good for him.’ i was REALLY looking forward to this one because i love frida and i thought itd be a cool opportunity for animators to go bonkers and do really cool shit with her art as inspiration…..but the segment is not about frida, its about diego and his selling out to capitalism. and its also yet another story with homer and marge drama. no funky cool animation here. sigh i guess i’ll take it

the story begins in 1929 at la casa azul, frida’s home (now museum dedicated to her life and work.) frida and diego are getting married. this courtyard definitely did not look this way yet back in 1929. also theres something very cringy yet funny about lovejoy saying spanish words the way he does, i honestly cant decide how i feel about that one

the writers know theyre being cringy with their gringoness so they go along with it.

moe: “Spanish for ‘best wishes’!” mel: “Spanish for ‘congratulations’!” bumblebee man: “Spanish for ‘muy bueno’!”

OH YEAH BUMBLEBEE MAN this is his new voice actor, eric lopez! hes not mexican but its still great to finally have a latino actor voicing a latino character and hes very excited to be part of the show so i hope to hear more of him!! im rooting for him

el barto/zorro makes an appearance which i am very confused about. he has jack shit to do with frida and diego and mexico in the 20s-30s. el zorro was set in the spanish california of the early 19th century. their use of the original theme song makes me think they just wanted to flex their disney privileges tbh

lets not talk about that that whole scene was bad

anyway diego announces he and frida are going to new york, without even asking her first. frida is obviously pissed.

“Don’t worry, as a woman, you’ll be treated with much more respect in America.”

so in new york, diego is having a bit of a business meeting with mr burns as one of the members of the rockefellers, who is commissioning him to draw a mural for the rockefeller center. its kinda funny how he refers to him and frida as socialists even though they were very much communists lmao its okay you can say it. ok so far, but then frida says ‘yes, we hate the capitalists! right now, a young socialist is being born who will take them down! mr. bernie sanders. i hope hes quick about it’ and that was a simple enough joke and couldve been left at that but then its immediately followed by this weird as fuck family guy-esque cutaway gag to bernie as a baby:

“Getting a cootie shot should not cost your lunch money. And if you don’t listen to me, listen to the Bernie Babies! What? Everybody’s got goons.” *larger babies start beating up this other baby* “I disavow that, and welcome it.”

this confused me so much that i had to ask one of my american friends to help me understand, but even she was like ‘uhhh yeah thats a weird joke,’ especially now that hes been out of the race for months (then again these episodes take almost a year to produce. i guess they couldnt be bothered to replace it with something more relevant.) whatever that was weird and confusing and unfunny moving on

frida is pretty irked that diego is going through with this deal. after all, it goes against everything they believe in. im not sure how the real frida felt about diego doing the mural, but she did feel a bit of rage during her visit to the united states, especially the obvious disparity between rich and poor. she hated having to interact with capitalists and found americans very boring. in this segment, frida seems to be acting more like the american communist party, which diego got kicked out of for accepting commissions from wealthy patrons. in any case, frida is pretty upset about this whole thing.

and finally we get the first and only kind of surreal frida moment. kinda. maybe. its more cartoonish than anything but im desperate ok

interesting how they felt like they had to add a “don’t smoke” in big letters after showing patty and selma flying away on their giant cigarettes. i wonder if this is something theyre making them do now? i remember hearing something about them toning down patty and selma’s smoking

diego comes home to frida, drunk as hell, followed by the marx brothers. i cant believe they didnt make a marxism joke come on it was RIGHT THERE. THE MARX BROTHERS. KARL MARX. COME ON

frida paints her feelings.

this makes diego realize that frida is a genius and he is not half the artist she is. he proclaims he will now show his awe of her by sleeping with other women, starting “an hour ago.” to which frida replies, “and i will start sleeping with other women, starting two hours ago.” yes this was pretty much their relationship. though im just wondering how the hell did diego not know frida was this kind of artist until now? i know homers an idiot but jeez. art was how frida and diego met, diego knew from the get-go that frida was an incredible artist. i guess the fame got to his head or something. again, homer just being stupid.

“well enough already, while the art is still deco, okay?”

its time for the mural diego painted, Man At The Crossroads, to be unveiled:

rockefeller examines it. good and great so far, and then...uh oh

“Who’s that fellow…? With the beard, and the bolshevik smile…” “That’s the founder of Soviet Russia, Lenin!”

“B-b-but he’s a communist!” “Oh he just attended a couple of meetings.”

rockefeller will not have this communist in the temple to capitalism that is the rockefeller center, so he orders diego to paint over it. diego stands his ground and refuses. despite rockefeller’s threats, diego says that theres only one person he wants to be proud of him no matter what and in true homer & marge fashion, frida is touched by this. they happily leave the rockefeller center.

now, the real story of Man At The Crossroads and the rockefeller center was actually not that different. as soon as the rockefellers found out diego had snuck in a portrait of lenin into the mural, they ordered him to paint over it, to which he refused. diego even offered to include abraham lincoln and even american abolitionists in the mural as a compromise, but the rockefellers simply did not want any references to communism whatsoever. they did not complain about the hammer and sickle, though. yes, they did know diego was a communist and hired him anyway. what did they expect? lmao. diego said:

"Rather than mutilate the conception [of the mural], I shall prefer the physical destruction of the conception in its entirety, but preserving, at least, its integrity."

so they decided to destroy the mural before it was even finished and they never talked to each other again.

diego then repainted the mural at the palacio de bellas artes back in mexico, this time known as Man, Controller of the Universe. this new version included even more communist leaders and a depiction of john d. rockefeller jr. drinking at a nightclub, right underneath a depiction of syphilis bacteria. cue nelson haw-haw:

this was the version they used in the episode also, since the original was, well, never finished and also destroyed. only a black and white photograph of it exists, taken by diego before it was destroyed so he could remake it.

right so, homer!diego then pulls a Barthood and finishes the episode with a large mural summarizing the entire episode. he says some rick and morty thing i didnt get because i dont watch the show idk idc

the end

ALRIGHT NOW ITS TIME FOR THE STORY OF VINCENT VAN MOE

#if you read all of this bless you #the imageless gdocs version of this is 8 pages long #hope you...enjoy?!?! these art history fun facts?!?!#dont let me do something like this again but also let me know if i should do something like this again #i was really only motivated to do this because im already passionate about the subject so idk if i could do it otherwise #anyway. this took me all day yesterday because the power kept going out #but im finally done #bye

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the-main-character-in-an-otome · 4 years

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This event story is called “Echigo Love Story,” where you can follow deepening relationships with Kenshin, Kagetsugu, and Kageie. I love the adorable folks at Echigo, so I was very excited about this series! And I absolutely loved Kenshin’s so let me know if you’d like me to write about that. But right now, I’m writing about Kagetsugu, since he doesn’t have his own route. After my little intro, I’m going to tell the event story in my own (biased) words with some brief translations here and there, since I don’t know if this has been translated or ever will be. Also I want to feel like I got my energy hearts’ worth out of it.

I was curious about Kagetsugu because he never seems to show much personality besides being “quiet” and following the others around. It looks like I unfortunately missed the actual love story, and this is the after-they’ve-got-together story. (But oh well.) He starts out pretty cute, but (warning) he does some stuff that I don’t really like, as if to assert his masculinity or express the desires he’s been “holding back,” which a lot of other characters do too, but I feel like this was a little much. I didn’t feel comfortable and I was more curious about the person he was before this story, since he and MC had a very pure shojo manga vibe.

Story:

So in a previous event story, MC and Kagetsugu, who are close enough in station and companionship that they speak to each other casually, became close friends after Kagetsugu comforted Mc when she was homesick by quietly staying by her side. They were friends and he always looked out for her. He even tried to friend zone her, but...eventually he couldn’t keep things the way they were:

“Is it okay that I like you too?”

“Then let’s be lovers from now on!”

And they’ve kissed only one time (important info to MC). Yeah, they’re cute babies who take things very slow. Anyway they’re asked to substitute for Kenshin at an aristocrat’s feast for the fall bounty. Mc has to prepare sweets, and Kagetsugu wants to help cuz he likes cooking...but he actually sucks at cooking, like Kojuro-levels sucks. Fortunately Mc gets the courage to ask him to leave it to her! Then there’s a weird part where there’s a rat (Remy from Ratatouille trying to fix Kagetsugu’s horrible dessert perhaps??)...

...and then she falls over on him, and then they just totally forget that there was a literal potentially unhygienic rat nearby, because they’re all like *kya so close and blushy*. Kagetsugu says something nice here though:

“It’s not that I don’t want to do these kinds of things with you,” (as she’s right on top of him and close enough to kiss), “but I’m thinking it doesn’t need to be now. So don’t worry.”

And she feels less nervous around him: “Kagetsugu-kun, you’re so kind. I love that about you.”

And then he is VERY CUTE and blushy. “You can’t surprise attack me like that, that’s unfair.”

...So okay, whatevs, anyway off the two of them go with some of MC’s finest sweets on a veritable honeymoon trip.

But when they stop at Rest Stop Town, they find that their room is set up for them as if they were a married couple!! They both freeze up. They like each other and all but they’re DEFINITELY not ready to sleep next to each other.

So Kagetsugu is like, “Uh, yeah, I’m gonna just...move the beds apart and...set up a screen between us.”

Mc: “You don’t have to go that far...”

Kagetsugu: “Yeah, I do. You’ve got such a nervous look on your face.”

And then they go to bed but MC is still nervous and can’t sleep. She calls for Kagetsugu but he seems to be asleep. Then she peers past the screen and...catches his adorable, boyish sleeping face! For some reason she crawls over and reaches out to stroke his face or something cuz he is just so darn cute, but then he grabs her arm and pulls her down with him saying:

“What are you planning? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to come near a man’s bed?”

(Personal opinion alert: ...I guess he was so cute that he just had to assert his masculinity. Sometimes it be like that in otome games, but I wish it didn’t have to be. It doesn’t seem very...loving.) Anyway he lets Mc go and she goes back to bed, but now she definitely can’t sleep.

When they finally go to meet the aristocrats, MC gets stage fright and freezes up in front of them. But Kagetsugu calmly swoops in and handles all the talking, surprisingly well for someone so quiet. They realize that whether it’s cooking or diplomacy, there’s things they’re both really good at. :) Then they go the garden, and Kagetsugu gets a leaf stuck in his hair. It’s v cute so Mc is like *huehue* and Kagetsugu is kinda *tsuntsun.* And then he’s like:

K: “There’s one on your head too.”

Mc: “Ah, get it off!”

K: “I cant.”

Mc: “Why?”

K: “Cuz I lied.”

Mc: “Hey, don’t make fun of me like that!!”

And then MC has a lovely cute gossip hangout with the aristocrat ladies and they eat her sweets and are like, “so tell us your whole entire loooove story, Mc! Are you and Kagetsugu together? How did you meet? Kyaaaa! ...You see, the reason we want to hear your story is cuz...we can’t marry for love.” And MC realizes that behind those gorgeous kimonos are women of a status that requires them to marry for political matches and money. (I actually loved the scene with the girls cuz it’s so nice to see MC with female friends for once.) Then Mc feels bad cuz she thinks she should feel lucky to be in love with Kagetsugu...but she wants to be touched by him more.

“You know, Kagetsugu-kun, I think you make me greedy.” She takes initiative and holds his hand! “I want...to touch you more.” He goes silent. Mc panics. “Um, but you can let go if you want...” She is about to let go of his hand but he grabs it.

“I won’t let go.” And then...! “Let me kiss you.”

And at last they have their second kiss! (Okay, warning, what comes next makes me a bit uncomfortable, so take care.) Kagetsugu doesn’t stop kissing her. He says something like,

“I’ve been holding back all this time, I can’t stop now.”

Mc: “Kagetsugu-kun, ah, I can’t breathe...!”

But he kisses and kisses her so much, that she actually starts to lose feeling and she nearly falls, but Kagetsugu holds her up. And yet he keeps kissing her, even when her consciousness is going out...

Anyway they come home to Echigo at last. The Echigo home team (Kageie, Yoshichi, Kenshin, Kanetsugu) welcomes them back. And Kageie sees them now holding hands.

Kageie: “So you guys really did become adults” *suggestive smile*

Yoshichi: “K-Kakki!!! What are you saying?!”

Kageie: “Dude, why are you the one blushing??”

Anyway the couple brings Kenshin some souvenir tea and Kenshin smiles at them like he totally sent them alone together on this trip on purpose, and then Mc and Kagetsugu have some tea in one of their rooms. Mc is distracted by how lovely he is. And they have their third kiss. (Our dear old Mc is still counting.)

The end.

Thanks for coming, if you made it this far, I really hope you got something out of this, even though you had to listen to my mixed feelings. (Bows) 🍡🍵🐀

#otome #otome game #slbp #voltage games #tenka touitsu love ballad #tenka touitsu koi no ran #japanese translation #fake japanese translation #slbp event #slbp kagetsugu #slbp kenshin #slbp kageie #retelling #opinion #long post

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squisherific · 4 years

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Rain Drop Chapter 6

A/N: *yells echoingly into the void* Helloooo therrrre… Man has it been a very long time since I made a tumblr post, let alone wrote any fanfiction. To those who are unaware (which is probably everyone), I had begun a story many years ago about Juvia’s past. It was called Rain Drop, and it has 5 previous chapters up on fanfiction.net

I'm so sorry to those who had liked this story. I both can and can't believe it's been 4 years since I last updated it (and 2 years since I’ve written any fanfiction at all). To be perfectly honest, I didn't think I'd ever continue this story. But something struck me the other day. I reread this fic, and the kind reviews from readers, and I just got the itch to continue, because I really, really miss writing, and I especially missed writing about Gray and Juvia. I can't promise I'm going to end up finishing this, but this is a step in the right direction? This chapter is dedicated to everybody who's ever encouraged me to continue this fic, and to anyone still reading. If there are people still interested in this story, I can not thank you enough for your patience. This is for you. <3

Chapter 6 - A Breezy Visit

Gray felt abnormally aware of his right hand as he made his way through Magnolia, and towards the outskirts of the town. He normally didn't pay this much attention to any particular one of his appendages. He just let them do their thing, and trusted all was well. But on this particular day, his right hand was clutching onto the left hand of Juvia Lockser, and his previous faith in his hand's abilities had all but vanished, resulting in his acute awareness of every bead of sweat currently collecting between his and Juvia's linked palms. It didn't help that he felt like every person they passed on the way to their destination was taking note of their clasp-handed position, and grinning amusedly to themselves as the two mages hurried past.

Why did I grab her hand? I didn't need to do that. She could just follow me to Gildarts' house. I could let go, and carry on as if nothing happened. But would she get upset if I took my hand away? She is holding it pretty firmly, so it would probably be pretty awkward if I just stopped holding her hand back.

These were the thoughts that passed through Gray Fullbuster's mind as he decided he would continue to hold Juvia's hand, not because he enjoyed it - definitely not that- but because he wanted to be emotionally supportive towards his friend, who was going through a rough time right now. Yes, that's why he'd continue to allow his sweaty palm to press up against Juvia's soft grip. He was a very good friend, and that's all there was to it.

"Gray-sama?"

Juvia's voice interrupted Gray's internal dilemma.

"Yeah?"

"Do you really think it's possible Gildarts-san will know something about Juvia's parents?"

"It's worth a shot. That old guy loves to reminisce though, so if we're not careful he might go off on a tangent, and we'll be stuck there until nightfall."

"Juvia won't mind, especially if he did have the answers Juvia has been seeking! Juvia would gladly listen as long as it takes!" she said, excited at the possibility that Gildarts could provide a window into her past at last.

Gray seemed a lot less enthused at that prospect of being stuck in Gildarts' place for hours into the night. But, if it meant keeping Juvia out of harm's way, and preventing her from going off on a hunt for a possibly dangerous Jose Porla instead, he would gladly suffer through Gildarts taking a long, and winding trip down memory lane. He just hoped they weren't walking into a dead end, because Gray had no back up plan to distract Juvia from her desired mission. He had promised Master Makarov he'd keep her safe, and even without that promise, it was something he always strived to do anyway. He could not fail.

They'd reached the far edges of the town, and Gray steered them slightly passed an overgrown forested area, before entering a slight clearing with a cobbled path which led to the S-class mage’s humble cabin. They both took note of the tufts of smoke coming out of the stout chimney, signaling someone was definitely home. They smiled at each other, glad to not have traveled there in vain, and headed towards the door.

Gray knocked a few times and waited.

At first there was no answer, but then a sound of what must have been several pots and pans clattering to the floor reverberated through the open window, before the door burst open.

Standing in the doorway, looking happily expectant, was the auburn-haired, and battled-scarred S- class mage of Fairy Tail. However his expression seemed to falter, and twist into one of polite bemusement at his surprise guests' presence.

"Oh! I thought you two were Cana finally accepting her dad's invitation to a home cooked meal," he said, gesturing inside.

Gray and Juvia peered behind him as the mess that could only be classified as Gildarts' kitchen came into view. He had clearly been attempting to cook, the lit fire within his home waiting patiently for the pot, which he had filled with some mysterious gloopy substance, clearly the subject of Gildarts 'home cooked meal.'

"Nope, we haven't seen Cana today," Gray said, as Gildarts looked hopefully around them, as if Cana was about to pop out of a nearby bush at any moment, to finally fulfill her dad's wish for more bonding time. "It's just us here," Gray assured him.

Gildarts, shaking off his disappointment, finally looked back down at them, giving them both a once over, his eyes lingering on their clasped hands. He grinned.

"You two out on a date?" a playful twinkle in his eye as he observed their flustered reactions.

Gray finally did let go of Juvia's hand at this comment. "No," he said, a little too insistently.

Juvia looked crestfallen.

"Now, now, that's no way to treat a lady, Gray!" He chastised him lightly, as he smoothly brushed past Gray to usher Juvia inside. "Come in,, come in! It's Juvia, isn't it? You're good friends with Cana. I'm sure she won't be too upset if I treat you to a meal in her place. Don't be shy, there's plenty to share. Do you like wine, Juvia?"

Juvia was gently directed inside the warm cabin, a look of bewilderment coloring her features, while Gray had the door slammed in his face, leaving him standing alone outside.

That perverted old fart, Gray thought angrily. He lingered there annoyed for at least a couple of minutes, hoping one of the two would remember he was still there, before knocking on the closed door again, this time much more aggressively than when he had first arrived.

Gildarts reappeared. "Can I help you?" he asked, as if this were the first time he had met Gray, and as if Gray hadn't arrived with Juvia only a few minutes ago.

Speaking of Juvia, Gray could now see she was sitting down with a cup of tea in her hand, likely having refused the wine offer from Gildarts.

Gray ignored him, and irritatedly walked passed Gildarts into the house to join Juvia.

"How rude," Gildarts muttered none too silently to himself, as Gray pulled up a chair next to Juvia, sitting down, arms crossed and scowling.

Closing the door behind him, Gildarts sat down to join them. Apparently after he had guided Juvia inside, he had put the pot filled with the mysterious substance onto the fire, and it was now bubbling away behind them.

"So," Gildarts said after a moment. "What can I do for you. Want some love advice? I've got lots of tips," his eyebrows raised suggestively.

"Stop messing around!" Gray spat, his face reddening. "This is serious, old man! Juvia is here to ask you about her parents!"

"Her parents…" Gidarts said, sobering… He gave Juvia a thorough appraisal, and seemed to go into concentrated revelry. "Oh man, were there any blue-haired ladies…."

"NOT YOU," Gray said quickly.

Juvia blushed.

"Juvia is just trying to find information about her parents. She doesn't remember who they were. Gramps clearly seems to have known them, but he won't tell Juvia anything, so we were wondering if maybe you had met them before, and could tell her something about them, " Gray explained.

Gildarts relaxed, leaning back in his chair. "I was going to say, imagine having two daughters who both happened to end up in the same guild I was a part of. What would be the odds, right?" Gildarts laughed, but then got suddenly serious again, as his eyes fell back on Juvia. He studied her, as she looked back self-consciously.

"You know, come to think of it, you do remind me of someone," he said.

"Juvia does?" she asked, a pang of hope in her heart.

"Where are you from originally?"

"Juvia isn't sure. She was left in an orphanage in Hargeon. The most information the people running the orphanage could tell her, was that an old woman had dropped Juvia off there when Juvia was one-years old, but Juvia never did find the identity of the old woman. She doesn't know if she was a relation, or not."

Gildarts seemed to contemplate this information. "Your last name is Lockser?"

Juvia nodded.

"Hmmmm, well I can tell you I don't know anybody with that name. But you do bear a striking resemblance to an old friend of mine."

Gray didn't like the way Gildarts emphasized the word friend. "Who was this friend?"

"A former member of the magic council. She was a gorgeous girl, dark hair, piercing eyes, really feisty," he said, as his eyes glazed over, clearly having traveled back into some kind of indecent memory.

Gray and Juvia were discomfited.

"Oii! We're still here you know," Gray jolted him out of his reverie.

"Relax," he said, catching a look at their expressions. "It wasn't that type of relationship," he assured them, sighing in a good natured, but dejected sort of way. "Not for lack of trying, of course. She was my friend's girl."

"Your friend?"

"Benny. Benjamin 'Fluid' Dackser," he replied, as he grabbed the bottle of wine he had offered Juvia earlier, and took a sip.

"Fluid?"

"He was a water mage."

Juvia's eyes widened at this information.

"Water?!"

"Yeah. So that was his nickname. Ol' Benny Flu Dackser," a sad smile crossed Gildarts' face. "Man, he was such a pain in the ass," he chuckled. "It's pretty pointless crashing apart water, you know? It just comes right back together again."

"He could turn into water? Like Juvia does?!"

"Yup, it was his specialty. Not a good match for me, as he couldn't help to remind me every time we had a friendly fight. And we were both always trying to impress Sylvi. He won her in the end, that bastard. Ah, we were so young then. Not even twenty."

"Sylvi?" Gray asked.

"Sylvia Loten. A talented ice mage."

It was Gray's turn for his eyes to widen. "Ice?"

"Not on quite the same level as your old master Ur, I'm sure, but really talented all the same. I might not have been able to do much against Benny, but she was more than a match for him. It was great watching that cocky, lovestruck fool get beaten down by her. But she must have liked his persistent approach, because they ended up married."

"Benjamin-san and Sylvia-san…" Juvia mused to herself "did they have any children?"

"I lost touch with them both after they went into politics. They never joined a guild either, as far as I know. Like I said, Sylvi was a council member, and so was Benny - youngest council members ever at that point. It all happened while I was out on a major quest. By the time I came back, years had passed, and Benny and Sylvi had…" he trailed off somberly.

"They died?" Juvia concluded, her face stricken.

"Yeah."

"How?" Gray asked, almost afraid of the answer as he looked over at Juvia.

"Supposedly drowned," he said flatly.

"Drowned?! No way!"

Juvia agreed emphatically with Gray. "Benjamin-san was a water mage, how could he have drowned?"

"Just because you specialize in a type of magic doesn't mean you are immune to it's dangers," he explained, his mood had darkened considerably, the wine bottle's contents now severely depleted as he went on. "But again, that's just what I heard. Their bodies were found off the coast of Akane beach."

"Was the drowning an accident, or…" Gray trailed off.

"I don't know. But let's put it this way, I doubt they suffered a boating incident, and they couldn't save themselves. Doesn't make sense. Not for those two," Gildarts admitted.

"Terrible," was all Juvia could think to say as the three let a silence fall within the messy cabin, the only sound being the bubbling contents of the copper pot in the fireplace.

Juvia couldn't believe there had been another water mage. She'd never met anyone else who could use water magic other than herself. And she had been able to use it for as long as she could remember. It wasn't something she had studied to learn, which is usually the case for mages. People aren't born knowing magic. But for whatever reason, Juvia could instinctively control water, and as used to be the case, there were things she couldn't control about it as well - that constant rain that plagued her for so long. Water had literally been tied into her emotions - her very being - whether she liked it or not. It was a rare ability. A rare magic.

And yet this Benjamin Dackser was also a water mage. And he died. She couldn't imagine this skilled water mage, someone who could best Gildarts, could be drowned - and his talented ice mage wife as well. How? Why? Juvia had so many questions. The greatest of all being, could these two people have been her parents?

"Gildarts-san?" Juvia began, breaking the silence. "You said I remind you of Sylvia-san?"

"Yeah…" he said, studying her again, "the more I look at you, the more I think you look just like her. Same eyes, same pale skin, you even act a little like her. She was real regal, you know? You are very similar. Except for the hair. Her's was a very dark grey, almost black," he recalled, his voice a little slurred from the wine he had been using to dull the pain of his somber recollections.

"What color was this Benny guy's hair?" Gray asked.

Gildarts simply pointed to Juvia's hair in response.

Juvia's heart skipped a beat.

"You think they were Juvia's parents?" Gray came right out and asked what they were all currently wondering.

The question hung heavy in the air.

Juvia's fists clenched in anxiety.

Gildarts looked from Gray to Juvia, a pained expression on his face. He shook his head. "I never heard anything about them having a kid… but, there's a lot I don't know. I was gone for so long. I would think people who were on the council with them would know a lot more about anything like that. I knew them best when we were all still just a bunch of brats."

"How long were they on the council?"

"Not long. A few years, I think. And that was nearly 30 years ago now."

"Who do we know on the magic council who would talk to us?" Gray pondered. "None of them have ever exactly been the biggest fans of Fairy Tail. Plus, so many of them who might have been on the council with Benjamin and Sylvia are now…." Gray's thoughts wandered to the mass murder at the hands of the Tartarus members.

Another heavy silence fell.

"Yajima-san?" Juvia said tentatively, recalling the tiny man who ran the 8-island restaurant she once waitressed at with some of the other Fairy Tail ladies.

"Oh yeah, Gramp's friend. He's ancient, and he was on the council for ages," Gray recalled hopefully. "We could take a trip out to his restaurant in Hargeon and ask him if he knows anything more about these two."

"Let's do so," Juvia agree immediately, so grateful that Gray had suggested they go to Hargeon. This meant he intended to continue to accompany her on this quest of hers. Her heart was so burdened at the thought of possibly finding out who her parents were, only to be left with more devastating questions about their awful fate, and how she might tie into it. So, Gray's companionship served to lift that weight considerably.

"Thank you so much, Gildarts-san. You've been such a great help. Your information was truly invaluable," she said in earnest, getting up from her chair and heading towards the door. Gray followed closely behind.

"Wait! You sure you guys don't want to stay and eat? The stew is almost ready!" he pointed back towards the now overflowing muck bubbling out of his copper pot.

"That's very kind of you, Gildarts-san," Juvia eyed the stew in trepidation, "but we really have much to do if we are going to be leaving for Hargeon soon. But thank you for your hospitality, and the tea!" she added, leaving the warmly lit cabin behind her. The sun was setting as she stepped out into the clear air.

Gray was about to join her when Gildarts caught a hold of his arm and pulled him back.

"Hey!" Gray said, alarmed as Gildarts leaned close to him, his grip vice-like.

"Listen," Gildarts said, his tone uncharacteristically dire, "if Gramps didn't want to tell Juvia anything about her parents, then he likely had a damn good reason for it, and that reason was probably that he thinks there's danger involved. And if Gramps thinks looking for information on her parents is dangerous, then it probably is. I've only heard conspiracy theories about Benny and Sylvi's deaths, but if even one of them is true, Juvia could be headed into some serious trouble. I feel for her, I do. But if Benny and Sylvi were her parents, then there's nothing left to find."

Gray considered Gildarts words of warning. He looked towards Juvia, who was waiting patiently at the end of the cobbled path for him to join her. He again thought back to that night at the guild, and how hurt she was at never having known her family. "Juvia has a right to know the truth. If I can help her find at least that, then I'm going to do so," Gray said firmly. "And if there's danger, I'll protect her no matter what."

A/N: When rereading the previous chapters of this, I honestly didn't think I could continue the story no matter how much I wanted to. I genuinely didn't remember where I was going with the plot since it had been so long. But, thank goodness I had notes for future chapters saved. ;_; Otherwise this chapter would not exist right now. Anyway, if anyone is still reading, please do let me know with a review. But if everyone has abandoned this story, as I once did, then at least I can say I enjoyed writing this again. ^_^

#gruvia #juvia lockser #gray fullbuster #juvia loxar #fairy tail #my fanfiction

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dontgotothenetherworld · 4 years

Text

boo! rewrite (lydia x reader)

so i wanted to rewrite one of my first fics, to see how much my writing has improved, and boo! was the one that stood out to me. if you read the original, i’m sorry. i’m changing basically everything from the original except for the concept because holy h*ck was that painful for me to reread.

reader is barbara’s niece, and she enlists adam, an english teacher, to help her with her essay. unfortunately, it’s the day that adam and barbara die.

2118 words

cw: femreader. brief reference to suicide.

your eyes glazed over the shakespearean english. you couldn’t figure out what anyone was trying to say, and you weren’t entirely sure that you cared enough to try. but you hadn’t bought a no fear version of the play yet, so that had to count for something.

your teacher claimed she could tell when kids just googled a synopsis and such to write their essay, but you weren’t entirely sure. you were also scared of this particular teacher, so you didn’t really want to risk it.

you made it three more pages before giving up. you checked your phone to be greeted by a text from your friend, “we sold out of the no fears. i tried to save a copy for you but my boss wanted to sell it. sorry and good luck.” they sent. they worked at a local bookstore. the local bookstore. the only one in town.

you began to panic. it was saturday, 3:57 pm, and your essay was due on sunday at 11:59 pm. shit. you would probably be able to finish reading the book if you started now, but still remains the problem of understanding it. and all that before you even think about writing an essay, where you have to convince your teacher that you truly get all the inner complexities of england’s greatest writer, as well as applying it to your own life. shit shit shit.

you bit the inside of your lip, somehow convinced that if you just sat there and tried to figure out how you were going to get all of the work done, that miraculously you wouldn’t have to do it anymore. because that makes sense. all you need to do to solve a problem is think up the solution. no further action necessary.

you sighed, and prepared yourself for the “i told you so”s that would inevitably come, as you texted your uncle, adam.

adam always made it known to you that if you ever needed any help in english, that he could help you, but you always told him, “english is my native language, i won’t need any help.” like the smart ass that you are.

”i have to finish a crib for the o'briens, so i’ll have to split my attention, but yeah! come on over!” adam replied. “but i will not write your essay for you, okay?” he sent after a minute.

”thanks, adam! i’ll be right over!” you texted him back. you grabbed your book, your laptop, and your keys, and you were out of there.

you always found it odd how the two sweetest people you knew had the creepiest house in town. the house practically begged to house some vampires, and while you were pretty sure that adam and his wife barbara weren’t vampires, a part of you always hoped they were.

you tried to figure out how they could be actually undead, while you drove to their house. you assumed that adam would’ve had to become a vampire first, because if barbara were a vampire, then that would mean that your mom would also be a vampire, and that just didn’t make sense. but then again, adam doesn’t seem particularly ancient. although if he was from, say, shakespeare’s time, that would make sense why he would understand his work so much. and adam is an ap brit lit teacher…

you shook your silly ideas off and parked in the maitland’s driveway.

even though adam said you would only have his divided attention, he pretty much abandoned working on the crib as soon as you walked in the door, already starting to explain the basic plot of the play.

barbara drifted in and out of the room, offering food everytime she did. maybe that was just further proof that she’s a vampire! wait, no. she would still have once been human, so she’d understand how often humans need to eat. also, shakespeare, not vampires! come on, you need to focus!

after successfully tricking adam into thinking that you had read the whole book, and he told you as many details as he could remember, he decided it was time for a break. you agreed. you needed a little bit of time to figure out how to best get him to write your body paragraphs for you. getting him to just explain stuff to you probably wouldn’t work, because he’s not the most concise person. and getting him to literally type them out wouldn’t work, because adam’s gullible, not stupid.

your aunt and uncle decided to show you around the house. they were in the midst of many renovations, and they wanted to show you what they had done so far, as well as what they planned on doing.

”oh, y/n, would you look at the wood on this banister? i know you don’t really care about all the little details like i do, but it’s just so gorgeous.” said adam.

you walked closer to the stairs, next to the couple.

unfortunately, that was the last thing you did as a living, breathing person. the floor gave out, sending the three of you into the basement. the fall killed you.

you were the first to catch on to that.

you came back as a ghost, because of course ghosts are real. and while the maitlands were screaming about the fireplace and how cold they were, you noticed that your heart had stopped beating. you noticed that your fingers were numb. and when you stopped breathing, you didn’t get lightheaded, nothing happened.

it had been a few days since then. there was a demon who offered to help the maitlands who came. but the maitlands didn’t allow you near him. one of the downsides to being dead is no sleep. you couldn’t lose consciousness if you tried. and you have. compounded with the fact that you were always drowsy, you were pretty sure that you were in a low level of hell.

you had taken to gazing longingly out the windows. you couldn’t go outside, lest you get eaten by a sandworm, whatever that meant, so you settled for this, hoping that the soccer mom walking her dog would look up and freak out when she saw you.

but no one ever saw you.

you considered seeking the demon out to ask him what actually happened when sandworms ate ghosts, but a flurry of moving trucks interrupted your thoughts.

the movers began dragging the boxes and the pieces of furniture into the house, as directed by a tall, bearded man.

you jumped up and glided down the multiple sets of stairs, to the front door.

as a new person walked in, you would scream, “boo!” as you crept up behind them. to no avail. no one as much as flinched.

you eventually gave up, and roamed the first floor. just looking for someone you hadn’t already tried to scare. sitting in the kitchen, was a red-headed woman. you said, “boo.” she looked up, like she had heard you, but then looked right through you. still invisible.

what’s the fun of being a ghost if you can’t mess with people? maybe you needed to just become a poltergeist. that could be fun, hurling cookie jars at these idiots. you chuckled to yourself at the thought of it.

you wandered into another room. a dining room, maybe? the bearded man from before was in there. you slipped a wine glass out of it’s box, and threw it at him. being a bad aim, you hit the wall about a foot to his right, but the point got across. the glass exploded on impact, making the man jump.

you smiled.

you turned around, to leave the room to find more people to torment, but the demon you were supposed to be avoiding was leaning in the door frame. “impressive.” he said.

”go away, lawrence.” you replied. he cringed at the name.

”what? don’t you want me to show you more ways you can mess with them?” he crossed his arms defensively.

”you’re a literal demon, so excuse me if i don’t trust you. and i’ve only just started throwing things at them, so i think i’ll stick to that for a while.” you glanced around the room for another way out, but there were none.

the demon grunted, and walked away, presumably to the attack to talk to your aunt and uncle again. you felt bad for them, but at least you didn’t have to deal with him.

you wandered into the living room, or was it family room? you never knew which was which and why they were two different rooms. but there was a girl, dressed in all black, flipping through a photo album on the couch. she looked to be about your age. this was definitely the first time you had seen her, so you decided to try to scare her using your old way, even though you were really itching to throw the candelabra that was on the other side of the room. you weren’t sure if that was from this new family, or from adam and barbara. it looked cool, though.

”boo!” you yelled.

the girl whipped her head around. her eyes found you immediately. “who are you and what are you doing in this house.” she demanded. she shut the photo album and stood to face you.

”wow you can both hear and see me, that’s a new one!” you exclaimed.

the girl narrowed her eyes.

”uh, i’m y/n. nice to meet you?”

”what are you doing in this house?”

”i- well, uh, this house used to belong to my aunt and uncle before the, um, died. and-”

”if you need to get any of their stuff, you better do it quickly before my dad gets rid of it.” she interrupted you. “but couldn’t you have done this before the house was sold?”

”you see, i was also in this house when my aunt and uncle died. all three of us were standing right about there,” you pointed at a spot a few feet in front of the girl, “and uh, we all died.”

”you’re dead?” the girl asked, her previous hostility turning to curiosity.

”yeah.”

”that is so cool.” she peered oddly at you.

”uhm not really. you’re the first person who’s been able to see me. i mean, i threw a wine glass at your dad earlier and that was kinda fun, but other than that… sucks, man.”

”oh.” the girl slumped over.

you walked closer to her, “what’s your name, by the way?”

her head bobbed back up, “lydia. you said you were y/n?”

”yeah.”

lydia poked your upper arm. “so you’re corporeal.”

”yeah.”

lydia blinked and looked around awkwardly. “does dying make you bad at conversations?”

”i don’t think so. all the other dead people i know are really chatty.”

”so it’s you that’s bad.”

”you are also involved in this conversation, lydia.” you snarked back.

lydia crossed her arms. “you said something about ‘all the other dead people’ you know. are you just talking about your aunt and uncle, or are there other ghosts haunting this place?”

”no and no? i’m not actually sure his dead or alive status, but there’s a demon here.”

lydia laughed. “a demon? that’s hilarious, tell me the truth.”

”you are talking to a literal dead girl right now, why would i lie to you?”

the laughter faded from her face. “you’re right. what does the demon want here?”

”i’m not really sure. he seems kinda gross, so i’ve been keeping away from him.” you wrinkled your nose, “but as far as i know, barbara and adam. that’s their names, by the way. my aunt and uncle. like, i keep accidentally overhearing him hit on them, and it makes me want to gouge my ears out.”

”yikes. that sounds awful. i can’t imagine what would happen if some weirdo started flirting with my dad. or just adults flirting in general is yuck.” lydia shuddered at the thought.

you went quiet.

”what’re you thinking about.” lydia asked.

you bit the inside of your mouth. “it’s just that… like, now that i’m dead, i’m stuck being sixteen forever. and i’m also pretty sure that i’m stuck in this house forever. so not only will there be no one ever to flirt with me, i have to listen to the adults flirt with each other.”

”if the demon is flirting with someone in front of their wife, i’m pretty sure that he’d flirt with you.” lydia suggested.

”i’d sooner rip his throat out.” you threatened.

lydia thought for a second. “well, it sounds like you need someone to fix that problem.” she said, softly. nervously.

@meangirlsx @meangirlmurphy @eliza-is-confused @boredomimi @book--butterfly

#beetlejuice #beetlejuice musical #beetlejuice broadway #beetlejuice fanfiction #lydia #lydia deetz #lawrence beetlejuice shoggoth #adam maitland #barbara maitland #charles deetz #delia #delia deetz #lydia x reader #lydia deetz x reader #fic

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monkey-network · 3 years

Text

Moonsummer: Prologue

Have you ever gone to such passionate ends for something eternally dispassionate to your problems? All the chaos, the hurdles, for something you’re never certain is real and doesn’t care to know you exist? Why must this be the most favorable punchline to the most cosmically despicable joke imaginable?

A sundial has been erected in the village square for over ninety-nine years. We only know this because of me, one of the few that bothers to keep track of how long it’s been and can somehow answer simply when asked. Not even the headman, who doesn’t look an increment over twenty despite being over sixty, ever cares to remember and sometimes asks me about it’s age whenever I go to visit him. I have to walk by it every morning, evening, and occasional afternoon and over time, I feel like it mocks me. It gets to stand there, useless to no one because no one else notably acknowledges it, perfect as it appears. The hardest stone, with gypsum fragments peppered in its base, smooth slate with barely a chip fallen from its circumferential edge nor of its gnomon. It looks so perfect, so flawlessly antique it almost sickens me that every time I walk out, nary a soul goes up to it to utilize it’s crafted purpose. [sigh] At the same time, who am I to quibble? What does this sundial do that I haven’t done for myself after over fifteen years?

I notably asked myself this as I luckily woke up today, dawn seductively making her way up to my consciousness once more. About as awake as a milligram of yeast is getting its heat, I steadily peer onto the floor boards over the edge of my bed. I was grateful enough to see the beam hit the 7th chalk line so I definitely could get ready easier than most of last week. I scanned the floor for any insects, content to only find a mere pillbug near a dust mite.

Then came the best part of the minute as I rolled over to see that she was still in bed, back facing me. A two by three foot slab of visible bronze skin, glistening from the oil I helped apply last night. I steadily inched my hand up to her left shoulder, with a tear creeping out as I felt the multiple scars that told me of the rapiers responsible for these. This adult back was an artistic yet historical horror, malicious marks that no one could bless away no matter the remedy because, personally, they tell a story I’ve yet to hear. They’ve constantly reminded me of how gutless yet scared I am to just whisper her the question, regardless of how open we’ve been after so long,

“Who are you really, Cassius?”

I pulled my hand back, thankfully she didn’t notice. I rolled back to shift a leg out the sheets, to stop quickly after feeling a damp, goopy cloth on the ball of my exposed foot. I was the right amount of tired to only take a deep breath in muffled revulsion as I immediately recognized the piece of fabric… that was used… to pleasure… my girlfriend.

After cleaning “that” off, I tiptoed into the kitchen to see the grain was in the pot ready to boil. I turned on the heat in the midst of getting the brown sugar and some berries from the bag on the other counter. A couple minute wait goes by, and I hear a familiar creak from the bedroom. Awaken, she has. I turn to see she’s fast as ever to appear before the door, leaning confidently on the frame as it appears she woke up in a snap and is ready to seize. The darkest crimson of her long hair being the first thing I see to ignore the fact that she’s still nude.

“A morning of morns, love,” she yawned out like a grizzly, “bubbling the grain?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to hide my smile, “something simple for today since we’re gonna be low on vittles for a couple days.”

“Pssh, you say that as if we get much else,” noting with a cheeky scoff, “Then again, this evening I’m certain me and the boys are netting some good ones. Boss said he’ll provide a catch just for me~~.”

“Sure, you should catch those clothes outside before somebody takes them like before.”

“Shit, you’re right! Gimme a sec.”

Cass went into the bathroom which leads to our clothesline outback. I began stirring the grain, taking in its charming warmth. Makes me grateful again that my “family” was as charitous to leave me enough for this old house. Still have regrets, but like this… well aged meal, I should be appreciative that things turned out well. Cass came back in, clothes tucked in her arm, and is still in the nude.

“Aren’t you cold? You gonna p-”

“Nope and nope right now,” she chipperly responded, “I’m in a pretty good mood after last night.”

“I figured with the evidence I stepped in this morning.”

“I thought you were gonna wash it before bed.”

“You said you would since I got to finish.”

“C’mon, you kne~ew I’m a heavy sleeper ‘specially after sex so this time it w-”

Before she could finish, I turned off the heat to slowly look towards here with a smile she knows can chip her confidence, if only for a second. She huffed, instantly lost the argument the moment our eyes squarely locked.

“Damn it... M’kay, I’ll make up for your squeeshy morning,” she slumped her way over to my shoulder with a cornered smirk, “only cause you bewitched me again and since you’re cooking this time.”

Cass slid her arm around my left side, now doing her typical cheek to cheek begging method, “Can I at least stay nude for just a little while longer?”

“Sure,” I said relievedly as we pecked lips real quick, “but clean your bowl before dressing.”

She plopped her clothes on her chair as I gave her the steamy breakfast and put the washed berries in the center of the table. She waited for me to sit down before digging in. She really was in a good mood, she’s always respectful to me but not as patient and awake as this morning. As we started talking about the happenings of the village and her job buddies, I wondered if there was more than the potential “good catch” this evening that had her in such spirit. I’m probably overthinking it, but I don’t know if last night was better than some of the others. It’s never like Cass is hiding something beside her past, but that has never been something I felt could be brought up and not feel too wrong for pressing. Again, it could be just me, but something about Cass’s spirit this morning made me feel different. Different, in a good way.

After eating, we cleaned our bowls. I went back into the bedroom to see the sunlight reaching the 2nd chalk line which means I was on schedule. I got dressed but I decided to not wear my vest today. Not sure why, but I just tucked my tie into my shirt since I didn’t have a clip. I walked back in to see Cass on the hay couch having her jumpsuit on but not fully zipped, still with no top on as she threw her hair back, revealing more of her rosy nipples before facing towards the kitchen.

“Got time to do my hair?” she requested over the shoulder, back once more facing me.

“Of course,” I said calmly, feeling at ease that the morning was running as smoothly as it was.

Sat down to methodically comb these dark red locks as she stared at the front door, I kept pace with braiding her mohawk just how she likes it. Firm up top but not tight all the way down. After a couple minutes, as I was nearing the end of the braid I noticed the scars again. I slowed down for a moment, intrusively imagining countless brutal events in a flash before recollecting myself to finish. I was thankful she didn’t notice the pause. She took a sec to appreciate the work before bouncing to do my hair. I faced the bedroom doorway as I felt those admittedly big hands of hers caress my hair gently before combing it out. I wanna say this is what I’ve come to love about her. A woman bigger than me, far stronger than I could ever do for myself, the body of someone that I can’t help but say was tormented, and she enjoys treating me with genuine grace. I know we helped each other out long ago but, deep down, I feel like she’s too nice to me after all this time. I’m not sure, I don’t know what’s happening with me this morning. I know I love Cassius, she loves me back wholeheartedly, so why does it feel like something’s out of place? Nothing is wrong, but something feels incomplete.

“All good,” Cass says, patting me playfully.

I shake my head, not only to feel the braiding but to wake from the daze.

“Thanks, hon’,” I said putting the braid over my shoulder.

I grab my satchel and Cass grabs her tackle box after finally putting her top on and zipping up her jumpsuit. We put our shoes on and headed out the door. Walking outside, I took in the fresh, cool air of the morning and for the first time in a long while, it felt like things were gonna go my way somehow.

Cass closed the door and whispered, “I know, right? Sex can make for a breath-taking morning.”

“Shut up,” I flusteredly giggled with a playful jab to the arm, “I’ll see you later.”

“Sorry sorry, see you tonight, Aussie.”

We shared one more kiss before she jogged off, waving goodbye as I waved back genuinely.

“See you… Cass,” I whimpered in awe.

I slowly let my arm down, standing in the same spot for longing than desired. I peered passionately at my girlfriend until she was the size of my pinky finger, then I started to walk to my job staring coldly at the ground.

The dirt felt right, damp but not muddy. The breeze felt complimentary to the gradual warmth of the sun, especially on my neck. I honestly couldn’t feel my steps as I went along, like I was just floating along as I felt empty. Not empty in a negative sense, but hardly any other thought I had stayed for more than a second. What came over me? Was I late? No, I kept track; I know I can’t be late? Was I malnourished? No, that breakfast still feels filling to me; ate two whole bowls of grain. Was it... love? More than before when I haven’t felt any different about her? I love her, I know I do, but what is convincing me otherwise? Not otherwise, but variably? Seriously, what other feelings could I have for that beautiful and outgoing and strong and polite an- OOMPH!

My mind played a gag as I somehow walked right into the square’s sundial, stumbling from the pain in the stomach before falling over onto the ground. I writhed for a bit before looking to see the sharp triangular tip of the gnomon spark for a moment. I instantly grew puzzled, so I got up and looked at the big instrument. It wasn’t long before I recognized something that I should have for the past fifteen years… the sundial was facing east. Nobody could even use this because it’s… always been positioned wrong. Something that looks so perfect, and yet could hardly do the one thing it was meant to do for almost a century.

That was when another thought occurred to me. A more deeper thought, one that stuck with me for the many weeks that I’d knowably work through to finally answer it with everything and everyone coming together:

How does time move forward?

#mnky writing #Moonsummer #long post #my story #feedback would be appreciated #fav

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origami10 · 3 years

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I’ve been thinking more about my adogan story again recently... I just regained access to files that were on my old computer, and apart from absolutely REEKING of the year 2008, I still think this story is pretty good! I think some of the names are in flux, and this would definitely get edited if I ever incorporated it into a larger story, but this is still a pretty good introduction to one of the characters, Flem.

More under the cut!

All around me I see nothing but walls. Barely anything I do is because of my own choice. Closing in around me, these walls show no hope of escape. Deep down in my heart, though, I know that someday I will find my own path.

“What’s the news for today?” I hear my mother say as I walk in the door. A bit weary from another long day at school, I call to her from the entry hall. “Well, I got an A on my astronomy test, and I did my classical literature presentation today, so I should have a grade on that by the end of the week. And I have Ultimate practice tonight for our competition this weekend. Oh, and there’s a geography bee at school next week that I’m going to participate in.” As I walk into the dining room, I see my mother rolling out pastry dough on the side table. She likes to work there because of the big window on the far side of the room. “Good work!” she says approvingly. “Keep up those good grades. You know your father and I expect you to attend the university in Ellayne once you’re done with school.” I begin to escape towards my room when she says, “Flem, dear, I need you to clean up your room right away, at least enough that I can close the door. The Prizerns are coming over for dinner in an hour. I want to show them around the house, so I need the upstairs to look nice for them!” I grumble inwardly. Couldn’t she just leave my room alone? I know it’s messy, but it’s the only thing left that I feel like I have control over. So my room is a mess, what’s new. My walls, too – what color are they, exactly? Plaid? It’s hard to tell under all the stuff I’ve stuck to them. And the doors, too, are covered with stuff. It’s hard to tell exactly where, or even if, there are doors to this room, once I move the stuff out of the way so I can close them. Hey! - It’s just like a loony bin. Wonderful. I should probably take some of that stuff down. It’s not that I like to save things, really, I’m just too lazy to sort through all the stuff covering the walls. How many years now has it been up? Especially that magazine article about frogs. That’s from research I did for my diorama, what, ten years ago now! Wow, ten years ago… maybe I should clean my room. Hmm. At least you can still see the windows. Why aren’t they covered like the rest of my room? Oh right, because I’m a vampire and I jump out the window every night to search for my PREY! … Just kidding! Though, hmm… that gives me an idea. Is there rope in my room? But how would I… Ah! That’s it! Now, is this bookshelf heavy enough?

A few hours after the Prizrens have gone, my doorway clean and my mother having shown off her only son of whom she is so proud, my plan is about to be put into action. I sit on my bed waiting quietly, but not patiently. How long can it take one person to finish in the bathroom before bed? I continue to sit, agitated. Finally I hear the latch on the bathroom door open, and the sound of my mother’s footsteps crossing the floor and descending the stairs. Now I have about fifteen minutes to make sure they’re asleep. I want to make sure they’re not paying attention to this side of the house. Finally, after fourteen long minutes, I peer out my window (the one that faces the back of the house) and see no sign of attentive life. Good! Now for my escape plan: I have already tied all my spare sheets together and tied one end around my bookshelf, so now I throw the other end out the window (okay, so it’s a cliché). I only have four extra sheets, so it’s a good thing my house is only two stories tall. I manage to lower myself out the window without event, though – oww – my arms will be sore in the morning. I leave the sheets hanging, and they ripple in the nighttime breeze. The white sheet on the end shows up a lot compared to the other dark blue ones, but I have to leave them, since I’m going to need them to get back in. Feeling proud of myself for getting this far but knowing I should still be wary, I sneak quietly into the thick bushes running along the inside perimeter of the garden fence. Then I crawl awkwardly through the conspicuously creaky loose board in the garden fence. I continue to tiptoe along the outside of the garden fence, just in case one of my parents should happen to be watching my every move… nah, I’m just being paranoid. But still… I take the last few cautious steps into the woods behind my house, then break into a run. “I’m free!” I say to myself. In my head, of course. No sense in waking my parents now. I begin to lope through the forest vegetation with an easy grace. Nothing can catch me now! Any potential pursuers would surely be caught up by the thick underbrush, but never would I, Lord of the Woods, King of the Forest, be tripped up by– whoa!! Thud. Uhhhh, my head….

In the blackness I come to consciousness without opening my eyes. Wait. Where am I? This doesn’t feel like my bed! I start to push myself up to get a better look at my surroundings when I feel a strong hand pushing me down. Oh no! With sleep-fuzzed eyes I can’t make out who it is. What if it’s one of those nomadic creeps who lurk in dark forests, waiting for innocent travelers?? What was I thinking?! “Lemme up! Lemme up!” I wail. “Okay, but you’re going to regret it.” I hear muttered. The hand goes away, and I sit up quickly. Too quickly. “Urghh…” My head feels like it’s being crushed inside a pipe wrench, and I close my eyes again. Now I remember why I’m lying down in the first place. “Be careful! Your life is in danger!” The same voice says. I was right! This was one of those forest creeps! Oh no, oh no! But the voice sounds oddly like a girl. “What are you going to do to me?” I say, my anxiety obvious in my squeaky voice. “Nothing! I’m not going to do anything! What are you, crazy?” (Definitely a girl talking). “Though your life is in danger, sort of. Aside from your life-jeopardizing stupidity (running through the woods in the middle of the night, what if one of those hermit creeps caught you?), you seem to have a bit of a concussion.” She lays a cool wet cloth on my forehead. Water drips down my temples, feeling especially pleasant on this muggy night. “Just close your eyes and keep them closed. Don’t move your head, but don’t go to sleep, either. I have to keep an eye on you for a couple hours and make sure there’s no brain damage. How ‘bout you tell me where you were going while we wait?” I’m not sure what to make of the prospect of staying here for a while, but my head does hurt tremendously, and it seems safe enough. She said she isn’t going to do anything to me, so I might as well answer her question. “I wasn’t really going anywhere. I was just leaving, I guess. I get so sick of my parents’ attitude, how they use me and my achievements to move up the social ladder. This is my first try at an escape.” “Sounds plausible. Want to know where you were really going?” She says, amused. How would you know if I don’t even know? “Okay,” I say uncertainly. “Right here! This is where you were coming all along. I wouldn’t have imagined it in this manner, though. Good thing I keep this place well stocked…. Anyway, my augury stones told me a couple months ago that you and I were meant for each other, so at the beginning of spring, I set up this little tree house to watch you from.” I let that thought sink in for a minute. “Oh no! Did you see the–“ “Don’t worry, I didn’t see the underwear dance. But with my sleep schedule, I don’t have much to do during the night, so I sent up shop, or camp, rather, and built this tree house. Figured you’d come by at some point. It’s not like my augury stones to disappoint me.” “So you’ve been watching me every night from early spring until now? “Mm-hmm. Just me and my trusty telescope.” Even with my eyes still closed, it’s difficult for me to imagine that she’s been watching me all this time. “Exactly how much do you know about me?” “Well, apart from my personal observations, I have your school yearbook, which I borrowed from a friend, and there’s always town gossip, and my rune stones of course. So by now I know an awful lot about you, more than you know about yourself, maybe. You’ve won every academic award your school offers along with many honors for activities outside of school, and your achievements have been recognized city- and nationwide. In a few years you’re planning to attend the university in Ellayne. You’re an outstanding Ultimate player, which I’ve heard is a difficult sport to play. Your room is literally wallpapered in good grades. You’re pretty cute, if I do say so myself; I’m partial to orange hair. You have time to do everything, more, and still get enough sleep. Some say you’re perfect.” I pause. I can’t tell where to begin downplaying what she just said! But as I search for objections, my mind draws a blank. It dawns on me that what she had said was not just gossip, but absolute fact. Horrified, I say, “But…but…nobody’s perfect!” “Flem, you are the living proof against that statement. After observing you for several months I’m quite sure of it. The only discrepancy is tonight when you introduced yourself to that rock down there. Think about it. Have you ever seriously injured yourself?” “No.” “Any broken bones or scars?” “No.” “Any grades below an A- ?” I wince inwardly at the thought of the A- I received last year in Introduction to Metaphysics, but that was the worst grade I have ever gotten. “No.” “I didn’t think so. Hmmm, we’ll have to look further into your inability to fail later. But you know, even with all my sources I couldn’t find out everything I wanted to know about you. Now that we’ve met, do you mind if I ask you some questions?” So far she seems like a trustworthy person, so I barely hesitate before answering her. “Sure, what do you want to know?” “Okay. I was confused about this Mayid relation of yours. Is she your cousin or your great-aunt?” “Actually both. My cousin Mayid is named after my great-aunt, and she also looks a lot like my great-aunt when she was younger. But my great-aunt Mayid lives in Meayno, and my cousin lives….”

After a bunch of questions Fennet stops me. “Hey, Flem, I really enjoyed listening to your stories, but I have to break it to you, it’s almost dawn. We need to get you home.” I feel temporarily astounded by the time warp. Then I realize I’ve done it again. I can talk for hours and hours about something that I know about, which includes myself. And I just have. Sitting up, I open my eyes for the first time since I blacked out. Then, for the eleventy-ninth time that night, I am amazed by the girl who sits before me with dark eyes set in an ivory face, adorned with dark orange and white-blond striped hair. After a long silence, she says, “By the way, my name is Fennet. Nice to meet you.”

As I pull the sheet rope up into my room, she says, “When your head gets better, come visit my tree house again. But leave those sheets tied together; I’ll be coming every night until you recover. I know you, but you don’t know anything about me.” She pauses. “And Flem, you know…” “What?” “We’re meant to be.” As I watch over the fence how she disappears into the darkness of the woods, I marvel at how easily I have found my counterbalance, my companion star, my equal and opposite other half.

#Flem #adogan #definitely the most self-insert of the characters #long post

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clansayeed · 4 years

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Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ― Chapter 10: The Elite

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ⥽

While struggling with nightmares of lives she’s never lived, a shadow from the past looming over her city, and the proposed idea that her life may just be a little bit too weird to handle alone, Nadya makes sure to tell herself that everything is perfect just the way it is. If only. When the self-proclaimed King of Vampires (and Maker of her sometimes-girlfriend and always-boss, can’t forget that little tidbit) Gaius Augustine returns intent on claiming Manhattan as the throne that was promised, she and her friends find themselves forced into the task of saving the world. But with millennia-old vampires and an Order of hunters on their heels as well as allies hiding catastrophic secrets at their backs… it won’t be an easy task. Too bad destiny didn’t exactly ask for her input.

Bound by Destiny II and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off, Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Destiny II tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Nadya finds a kindred soul in Taylor Hunter, who was also living a perfectly normal life before being shoved into the chaos of the supernatural. Later, the good news is the Amulet is still in the city. The bad news is they'll have to bid for it... and bidding wars here can be deadly.

[READ IT ON AO3]

“I don’t know guys,” she lingers just on the edge of the morning sunlight; already warm at her back, “I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable leaving you with the people who literally just tried to kill us.”

Unfortunately though they’re a little short in the way of other options. New Orleans is only gonna get hotter and sunnier and while ideal for a mysterious club, Flechette standing on its own and away from the rest of the crammed-together French Quarter buildings doesn’t lend to a safe return to the Graveyard Shift.

Still — Nadya has concerns and she’s gonna voice them.

“I think we’ll be fine.” Though Adrian could try a little bit harder to reassure her. But he’s been distracted ever since the de la Rosa vampires lowered their proverbial weapons. Given how he acted — how cold and cruel he was in the face of enemies — Nadya can’t say she wouldn’t be a little distracted in his shoes. “Whether we’re in her good graces or not, Gaius still poses a threat to all of us regardless. And Isadora seems quite keen on keeping her way of life intact.”

Lily’s boots catch and drag on the concrete under the soles. “Can’t say I’ll be getting much sleep, but she’s kinda our only choice in the way of, ahem, late-morning snacks.”

Nadya understands and offers her a consoling smile. Lily tries to return it, but when she feels the catch of her fangs on her lower lip she practically zips them up and throws away the key.

She’s seen Lily do some strange things with the blood bags back at the apartment. But Nadya has yet to actually see her… you know, and on someone’s neck. Nor is she keen to add it to the list of things she’s seen and been mentally scarred by.

Well if they’re okay with it she really doesn’t have a reason to keep doubting, then, does she?

Nadya peers over Lily’s shoulder to the main floor of the club. With the lights on the place is far less goth-chic but she doesn’t have to squint to see anything anymore, so that’s a plus.

“Keep an eye on him, will you? Just in case…” Nadya asks of them, prompting both vampires to turn and follow her gaze to where Cadence sits. He’s still hunched over one of the dark glossy tables, scribbling away at a piece of paper. Just like he’s been doing ever since Isadora managed to bring him back to consciousness.

After Cadence had separated Isadora’s psychic link he was out. Like… out out. Like actually worried the woman to the point where she was ready to close the club and run him to some local voodoo man out. And everyone was relieved when he finally came to of his own volition but there was no denying he had come back… strange.

Or maybe strange is just the feeling Nadya gets when she looks at him now. Maybe no one else feels it. Maybe she’s just lost a few more marbles.

Of course Adrian and Lily agree. Nadya gives each of them a hug farewell but right before she takes her leave the familiar sound of Isadora’s heels comes up all too quickly.

The woman stays well out of the way of the daylight, just like Adrian and Lily. She looks wearier now than when they first met. Objectively Nadya knows vampires don’t age. But Isadora looks like she’s trying to challenge that theory.

“I’ve called on someone to take you back to the Quarter safely,” says Isadora brusquely, “it may no longer be night but there are numerous factions within our borders that can act at any time.”

“Seems… inhospitable.” Adrian comments. He doesn’t miss the sharp look thrown his way.

“Perhaps. But at least we declare ourselves to our enemies.”

“And you’re implying…?”

“That I trust my allies with certainty. From what I’ve come to understand about your Council, that is not something you are familiar with.”

How has it been five whole freaking seconds and already every anxiety Nadya has about leaving is back with a vengeance?

But Lily sees this and waves her off. “Go while you still can. I’ve got this. You should hear some of the dirt Mari and Jax pull out during a fight.”

If she doesn’t leave now she never will, so Nadya mouths a final “good luck” and pushes through the doors out into the thick morning air.

Immediately she tries to fan herself with her hand, and all that does is push hot air at her.

“Yeah, it takes some getting used to.”

Nadya can’t help it — she almost jumps out of her skin in fright. “Don’tdothat!”

She rounds on the young man, who can’t be older than she is by a year or more, and who apparently finds it funny to give a poor girl a heart attack. If she had her purse she’d swing it at him. The stakes would at least leave a bruise.

He holds his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Though I’m gonna need some explaining on how someone that jumpy can hang out in Flechette all night. Doesn’t quite add up, you know?”

He has a point which is rude enough. Worse that he has an incredibly disarming smile directed right at her. Nadya busies herself with tying her hair up to cool off her neck. “After a while you learn to expect what moves vampires are gonna pull. People, though? They’re still too unpredictable.”

“You know,” he laughs, “that’s fair and valid. And pretty true, actually…”

He’s not passing her. And Nadya has the distinct impression if she starts trying to make her way back up the street he’d be right there at her side; tagging along.

“You’re the person Isadora called, then?”

“Taylor Hunter,” he finally introduces; they shake hands light and brief, “but if you didn’t know my name… how’d you know I was who you were lookin’ for, Miss Nadya?”

Nadya pushes up her glasses with a shrug. “Just Nadya, and… Your eyes. They don’t look human.” They’re too bright, especially taking into account he’s got the sun at his back, and shine far too many colors. Though if Nadya’s being honest she probably wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t met Garrus and Ivy beforehand.

Quickly Taylor ducks his head and Nadya wonders if she’s hit a nerve or something. He certainly looks red in the face. “Shit — really? My bad… They should go back to normal in an hour or so.”

Because she totally knows what that means? “Uh… okay?”

He jerks his chin back towards the heart of the city. “C’mon, we’re meeting a friend of mine to grab everyone coffee. It’ll be a fun story to pass the time.”

Talkative, isn’t he. And there’s a traitorous part of Nadya that knocks on her head one too many times with a hello, who the heck are you to judge missy but what Taylor doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

It’s admittedly very strange to be telling the story she’s telling with new faces taking in her every word.

“That went about as well as I thought it would,” Katherine announces while reaching over and plucking a bottle from around the other side of the bar, “seems like you were lucky, though, and caught Izzy in a good mood.”

“That’s her good mood?” Nadya can’t help but look skeptical. But judging by the looks she’s met with, Katherine isn’t exaggerating.

“Yeah yeah, de la Rosa’s got a chip on her shoulder, what else is new. What about this Amulet you were talkin’ about; does she have it?”

Taylor scrunches up his face and gives a backhanded smack to the solid chest beside him. It had taken Nadya a second to remember the other Nighthunter but once he greeted her by way of ‘muggle’ it was easy. Apparently Ryder hadn’t been putting on airs when he had shown up to Raines Corp. all devil-may-care and bad-boy. That was just who he was.

Not that she doesn’t recognize the somewhat melted look in his eyes when he pretends to be wounded — she’s seen it well enough when Maricruz thinks Lily isn’t looking. “Rook’, you gotta stop beatin’ on me in front of company.”

The man beside Nadya blows a mousy brown curl from his eyes with a laugh. “Feel free to ask one of us to do it.”

“No one asked you, Cujo.”

Katherine rolls her eyes. “Tell me I don’t have to apologize for them?”

Nadya just laughs and shakes her head. It’s been easier than she expected to feel comfortable around Taylor and his friends. They’re just weird enough to be funny. And, admittedly, she’s kinda enjoying not being the odd one out for once.

Too bad Nadya’s natural sense of worry doesn’t allow her to enjoy peace for long. “No — Isadora doesn’t have the Amulet anymore. She had to give it up to pay off some of her father’s debts, I guess?”

Ryder grunts. “Yeah, to th’Smoke.”

“And ‘the Smoke’ is a person?”

“Well… yes and no.”

All eyes turn to Vera, the friend of Taylor’s they had met up with on their coffee run. It’s still a bit weird for Nadya to constantly be pulling her shirt away from the back of her neck from sweat and see someone in full-length silk gloves — but since no one else is going to comment on it Nadya has a feeling doing so would be rude.

Vera is already hard at work pouring over ledgers of some kind; Nadya recognizes those kinds of spreadsheets from work. She carefully balances one black binder each on her knees. “I brought everything dated from last March. There’s just a lot to get through. But if you’re sure Isadora’s telling the truth I should be able to find it pretty easily.”

She looks up and offers Nadya a warm smile. “Don’t you worry, we’ll get it and have you an’ your friends back up to New York in no time.”

“Thank you,” and she looks around as she says it, “all of you, really. I don’t think I can say it enough.”

Though if the looks she gets are any indication… she might have already.

Unfortunately ‘pretty easily’ turns into one hour, then two, then Taylor is shaking Nadya’s shoulder gently out of a doze with a bemused little smile.

“Maybe you should get some rest? The research part isn’t the most interesting.”

“No, no I’m okay.”

“Then take another coffee run with me. I have to swing by work anyway… stretching your legs might help.”

His borderline-overly friendly attitude makes a bit of sense when one takes into account the weirdness of their mutual situations. On their way back from Flechette, Nadya had been hesitant to open up and dig into the nitty-gritty of it no matter how interested Taylor had appeared. But now, with a bit more time on their hands and more than the cliff-notes shared between them, she can’t help but feel relieved that she’s not the only one who feels like they tripped down the proverbial rabbit hole.

“Okay okay, tell me if you get this though,” Nadya pauses to swallow a bite of her pastry, “when there’s, like, a whole pile of crazy going on and everyone is all freaking out and yelling at each other and you just —”

“You just end up standing there because nobody bothered to give you any context?!”

“Yes! It’s so annoying!”

“Not to mention potentially fatal.”

“Oh don’t even get me started on fatal. I’ve never so much as jaywalked before and now I’ve come face to face with…” it takes her a second to both balance her coffee and count on her fingers but she manages, “four vampires, all of them over two thousand years old. All of which who’ve threatened me at some point or another.”

Taylor hisses through his teeth. “Big yikes.”

“That’s an understatement.”

Though she regrets bringing it up not a moment later. Not just because she keeps pushing that inevitable existential crisis down until their work here is done. But also because one of the four is Kamilah, and if she thinks about Kamilah she thinks about how much she misses Kamilah, and if she thinks about how much she misses Kamilah she might actually collapse into tears.

“You really care about her, don’t you?”

The needle scratches on Nadya’s thought-record. When she looks up Taylor has a furrow in his brow and a painfully sympathetic look directed at all of her being. Unsettling doesn’t even cover it.

She’s getting tired of people poking around in her head without her permission.

Though before she can get so much as a word in, Taylor seems to come back to himself. Where he was, Nadya can’t say, but she knows the signs when someone can’t entirely stop themselves from doing something. “Sorry,” he clears his throat awkwardly and won’t look her in the eye, “that was super outta line.”

“Yeah, a bit.” But what’s the use in denying it? “You’re not wrong though.”

“What’s her name?”

“Didn’t read my mind that far?”

Taylor shakes his head. “It’s not really mind-reading so much as… emotion-reading? Or like real-deal empathy, I guess. My father says it’s some unique halfling thing. Fae can share a lot more with each other than humans can, but because I’m not full on Legolas, I only get a part of the package.”

Nadya knows that look. She’s seen it in the mirror enough times.

“One of those bonuses you didn’t ask for.”

“Exactly. Not that it hasn’t come in handy,” he quickly backtracks, “I think it saved our lives back last year. But an instruction manual would’ve been nice — all I’m sayin’.”

Preaching to the choir. “Her name is Kamilah. She’s…” He can tell, though. Does she have to say it aloud?

When Taylor smiles at her it’s a sad thing. No, she doesn’t.

Although when might she have another chance to talk to someone who understands? Because she tried that with Kamilah — and they both know how that went. Not Adrian, or Lily, or even Jax could have even the slightest bit of empathy for what Nadya is going through against her will. And here’s Taylor thrown into her lap with a little bow on top; not only someone who gets what it’s like to be on the outs of all this supernatural crap but also a literal empath.

How can the universe begrudge her for taking advantage of that?

She inhales deep and shaky. “I—we—she and I kinda had a fight right before we left New York. I think it was our first one…”

Nadya remembers reading somewhere that therapy works because telling a stranger your problems is a lot easier than telling your friends; they don’t have any stake in your future, or have sides they need to choose. Well try telling a therapist about the secret group of vampires who run Manhattan, she had thought skeptically. Now, she takes that cynicism back.

While she recounts the events of her fight with Kamilah, Taylor just listens. He nods, and ‘hmms,’ and asks for clarification here and there but it’s more than just proving he’s listening. Nadya tries not to notice but the way his expressions change with her tone and words… he’s feeling everything she is. And boy, does she feel bad for him for it.

They end up walking around in nonsensical circles until finding their way to the only familiar place Nadya knows; Jackson Square. Taylor casually gets them to one of the old wooden benches outside the church. A small four-man jazz band plays off in the shade to a growing semicircle of tourists.

She sips the last dregs of her coffee cold and too-sweet. “I get what she meant and where she was coming from, I do. But I also can’t help but get this feeling like all that I saw in my visions were things she wouldn’t have told me no matter how much I asked… And I know why, obviously, but…”

But there are too many places in her whole explanation that Nadya’s said ‘but’ and even she’s starting to get irritated by it.

“You know,” Taylor swings an arm around the back of the bench, “just because you understand her side of things doesn’t mean your side isn’t just as important. You can fight with someone you care about and have both of you be right and wrong.”

“Then how do we ever stop fighting?”

He laughs dryly. “Oh, fuck if I know. Nik and I get into it constantly about his jobs. He’s always trying to keep me from helping him out but he’s probably more at risk when I’m not around. At least I have magic — even if I suck at using it right now. He’s smart, and strong, and really good at what he does… I just can’t help but worry one day that won’t be enough.

“I think there are a lot of things in Kamilah’s life she regrets; things she thinks will change your opinion of her — that’ll make you hate her or something. And a lot of relationships are like that. There’s just more baggage to sort through with you two.”

Wow, thanks genius. “I won’t hate her though. That’s what I can’t seem to explain right.”

“The best thing you can do is what you’re already doing. Keep explaining it, keep being there, and she’ll realize in her own time what that means.”

Nadya watches him carefully. “Is that what you and Ryder did?”

“Sorta — but we’re working on it.”

It was supposed to be a simple errand run but Nadya can’t shake the feeling there isn’t exactly a search party out for them. She’s not complaining! If the universe is listening she is not complaining. It just makes the return to their very dark, gruesome, and potentially apocalyptic reality all the more difficult. Luckily she’s getting used to dealing with difficult things by now.

When they finally return to the bar business is booming; thank god Taylor gives her a nudge to pick her jaw up off the floor or else she’d probably have offended half of the patrons. Can she really be blamed though? It looks like freakin’ Comic Con in here.

There’s a shrill whistle near the bar at the back and they both catch sight of Cal waving them over. “Everyone’s upstairs!” he has to practically shout over a gaggle of taloned women adorned in feathers, two of them seemingly in heated competition for his attention. “I’d head up but —”

“Oh no you don’t!” Garrus appears over his broad shoulders as if from nowhere. “You’re half the selling point of these sweet swamp shots, Bayou-boy. Sorry my not-so-mortals!”

Taylor and Nadya both watch with equally pitying looks as the fae pushes Cal into the fray. “One day he’s gonna realize I didn’t do him any favors getting him this job,” Taylor mutters close to her ear, and Nadya tries to throw up a sympathetic thumbs-up before they manage to get to the metal staircase and up away from the chaos.

There are way too many people in this apartment. Taylor takes this as an opportunity to literally fall into Ryder’s lap; Ryder is just forced to take it without argument or fight. But Lily has a spot saved right in between her and Adrian which Nadya takes all too eagerly.

“Girl, look at you,” Lily pinches her cheek, “you finally got some sun! Now lemme soak some of it up.”

While one vampire clings to her arm, though, the other is quite pointedly keeping his distance. Nadya turns and gives Adrian a cautious look. He smiles, she would expect nothing less, but the strain shows in little crinkles at his eyes that definitely weren’t there before.

Wordlessly she rests her head against his arm. Adrian tenses — she doesn’t take it personally — but relaxes in the same breath. Rests his hand on her knee in a silent thanks.

Movement draws Nadya’s attention to a small kitchen island where Katherine balances herself on a stool, and where Cadence stands beside her with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Hey Cade,” she gives him a little wave, “feeling better?”

The vampire looks at her… and that’s it. There’s still a bit of frenzied confusion in his eyes. Confused, she shifts her attention to Katherine — the huntress just shakes her head.

“Oh good, y’all are back.” Vera walks in from the adjacent room and offers a weary little smile. “Good news is we found the Amulet, and its still in New Orleans.”

But what sentence ever started with good news that didn’t include…

“And the bad news?” asks Taylor; his tone a tad too defeatist for Nadya’s liking.

Ryder growls. “The bad news is I gotta put on a fuckin’ monkey suit.”

The actual bad news is that the Amulet of Nero was put up for auction by the former Lady Smoke. And apparently no amount of money will convince the auctioneers to take it off the docket. “Trust me, Kamilah and I pooled together a substantial sum,” Adrian sighs, “and they didn’t even flinch.”

Vera nods. “If anything that only encouraged them further. Goblins are awful little sneaks but whatever business they sink their claws into is their reputation; they’ll live and die by it. In trying to buy out the Amulet you’ve shown something that could have easily been written off has the potential to get them a lot of money.”

Goblins — she said goblins. Okay. That’s a thing we’re accepting now. “So we need this thing to keep the world from ending and… we have to buy it?” In what world is that fair?

“Isadora has agreed to put her Family’s wealth behind our bid,” Adrian explains, “which should be more than enough for us to ensure we aren’t outbid. And this way we don’t attract Gaius’ attention by riling up the supernatural community. The less enemies we make, the better.”

He knows the question on the tip of her tongue. Nadya knows it, Lily knows it too. But she won’t ask it because their lucky streak has so far not been entirely consistent.

What if they already have Gaius’ attention?

They’ll burn that bridge when they get to it.

BEEP.

“Hey Kamilah, it’s me… again. Sorry, I let the last three messages go too long and I’m not really sure if they still send when that happens? So… here I am.”

Nadya looks down at her bracelet and sighs. She nearly loses her balance — heels and gravel walkways don’t mix well together — but manages not to sound like a total loser on the call. “At risk of this becoming the fourth mistake, uh, I’ll be quick. Adrian said he kept you up to date with what’s going on down here, so this isn’t... About that… I just wanted to say hi, and I hope you’re doing well, and… and let you know that I miss you.

“If I had a choice I wouldn’t have left things like we did. I think we both know that. And the second I’m back in New York I want to try and work this out. For… for us, y’know? And I think you do, too.” She sniffles. “You still have your read receipts on for texts. Anyway, gotta get going. Wish me—us—luck!”

She hangs up there because even for Nadya there’s only so many times she can make herself look stupid until she makes the turn from charming and quirky to downright annoying.

Four is probably pushing it.

She wobbles her way back to the others smiling a little too wide, but thankfully no one comments on it. Vera offers her a clunky gold ring but the second Nadya slips it onto her finger it seems to fit like it was sized and all. “Magic ring?”

“Magic ring.” Lily nods, delighted to be agreeing.

“Too bad Cal couldn’t come with this time,” Taylor elbows Ryder’s side gently, “he deserves the chance to not have to sneak through the kitchens.”

Ryder, however, doesn’t seem to share the sentiment. “I feel like a damn sellout,” grumbles the hunter as he adjusts the cuffs of his borrowed suit. Adrian raises an eyebrow his way. His suit is the one being borrowed, after all. “I said what I said.”

“Yeah, nobody cares.”

Katherine tugs up the top of her dress and brushes her hair away from her shoulder. “We get in, we bid, we get the Amulet and get out. Any more time wasted and someone, somewhere is gonna recognize someone and nobody wants that.”

She rounds on Nadya and Lily both. “Don’t go anywhere on your own, don’t talk to anyone especially the people who are nice to you, and I’ll tell you right now that none of these snakes can make your wishes come true.”

They don’t know whether to take her seriously or not. Lily’s laugh is a few shades shy of offended. “I think I know how to have fun.”

“This isn’t fun, baby fangs, it’s Persephone. The last time we were here Cade —” she jerks her thumb to the vampire; who quickly snaps out of his own little world and blinks in confusion, “— ended up nearly getting gored by a Minotaur in illegal cage fighting; a fight that was supposed to be carried by Cal’s prepubescent Teen Wolf baby brother.

“Everyone through those doors has been playing the game of money and power for decades, some for centuries. They know there are worse things to lose than your life.”

Nadya pulls Lily tighter and links their arms. “Read you loud and clear.”

Unfortunately threatening-if-considerate speeches aside, the likelihood that they’re going to be the reason something goes wrong is… statistically pretty high.

At least they do the noble thing and own it.

“Everybody ready?” Vera looks around, checks for rings, and smooths down the front of her dress. “Then in we go.”

Lily snickers in her ear as they all join the line to enter Persephone. “I’m having middle school field trip flashbacks.” She whispers, and pulls back to Nadya’s equally amused grin.

To say the inside of Persephone is beautiful is definitely an understatement; but it’ll have to do while Nadya tries to catch her jaw as it hits the floor and starts running. She thought Marcel’s castle was beautiful? It still is — but it was so obviously an antique; a relic from a bygone era. This is different. This is a kind of beauty not taken from one place or thing. It’s everyone; all the infinite colors and shapes and species of people that mill around her.

It’s kind of a shame that she’s come to associate beautiful things with how close to being threatened or killed she’ll soon be. It kind of dulls the spark of the place.

Nadya and Lily both crane their heads up, up, four floors up to the swooping ceilings above and their glittering chandeliers — which Nadya has an inkling aren’t made of glass at all but real magical energy in bright playful lights. All around the edges of the landings people gather, leaning and chatting and drinking in that uppity way people with money do. Like even all of this splendor bores them; everything meaning nothing.

A hand falls on her shoulder and Nadya has to stifle her yelp — unlike the first time Taylor startled her she now feels comfortable with reaching out and smacking his arm. “Stop giving me heart attacks!”

Judging by the bright and definitely inhuman glint in his eyes he definitely did it on purpose.

“It’s all kinda epic, huh?”

“Kind of?” Lily scoffs dramatically. “This is the single most epic place in the entire universe!”

Ryder passes them all and rolls his eyes. “You should see Toronto.”

But this time, all overzealous Lilyisms aside, Nadya has to admit she agrees. “It’s… a lot. More than I ever thought I’d see…” And she’s been seeing quite a lot these days.

“Come around next year for Mardi Gras, ‘cause this is nothing.”

At first Nadya doesn’t recognize the woman without the sheer veil over her features, but when Lily and Adrian don’t ask why a stranger is leading them up one of the swooping twin staircases she realizes Isadora’s sent one of her daughters to collect them.

Tony and an unfamiliar vampire stand guard on either side of a circular booth and table that looks like it was made for the de la Rosa Matriarch alone — sleek black stone polished so pristine Nadya catches the woman’s reflection before actually looking up at her face.

Adrian steps aside and allows Nadya to slide into a seat first. Isadora seems to barely notice them. Instead her attention is focused solely on a large piece of curling parchment that — nope, that’s not a trick of the light — the ink is actually moving like an invisible quill is scratching notes right in front of her face.

“Is that the registry?” Adrian asks, and Isadora slides it to him with a furrowed brow.

“Indeed. Word must have been leaked out by a few of their underground sources. The preemptive bids on the Amulet are starting to climb.” The vampire looks to Vera as she speaks. “Whatever has the new Lady Smoke interested enough to show her face around our nefarious sort is worth quite a hefty amount.”

Taylor squeezes Vera’s shoulder — it isn’t until he tenses that Nadya realizes he’s holding the gloved woman back.

“I’m here to help my friends,” she growls out in reply.

Isadora doesn’t look amused. “Try telling that to New Orleans’ elite.”

She’s been under the impression everyone was sticking together, but it seems the fancy-pants de la Rosa booth is for vampires (and human guests) only. But Taylor and Vera leave shortly after to where she spots Ryder cradling his flask like a security blanket in a far less fancy booth on the other side of the main floor.

Silently Isadora moves the barest inch; just enough space to fit both Cadence and Katherine on her side. Instead he clears his throat and volunteers to grab the drinks, and nearly runs into a pair of waiters in his haste to not be there.

Adrian rolls up the magic scroll and puts it aside. “How long until the first lot comes out?”

“It will be showcased at the hour,” Isadora raises a limp wrist with a black card in hand, “which won’t be long from now. Are you prepared for a bidding war? I do hope you brought a second suit.”

A stunningly beautiful fae approaches with a small wooden box. They unfasten the lid and allow the vampiress to slide the card in, offer up a “thank you for your contribution,” and go off in search of the next card to accept.

But second suit? Doesn’t that get Nadya’s attention. “Why would he need a second suit,” but why is she asking Isadora when Adrian is right there, “why would you need a second suit?”

He shifts in his seat uncomfortably. “From what I’ve been told, bidding wars here… are a little messy.”

The vampiress snorts softly. “Money is valuable, but this is New Orleans. If you made it as far as the interior of Persephone you ought to have more to offer than wealth. Bidding wars can involve anything from shows of strength to tests of skill and intelligence. Two centaurs had a proper race on the lawn once.”

The more words she says the less certain Nadya feels. It leaves her tangled up inside and actually holding her stomach with a groan.

“Please tell me you’re gonna offer up your business acumen.” And she actually physically can’t look at his apologetic face so Lily goes above and beyond and pushes it away and out of sight.

“That’s why we needed as much for our initial bid as possible.” Adrian tries his best to console her. “It’ll be fine. I’m sure it won’t even come to something that drastic.”

“I thought I told you to stay the hell away from me!”

She’s a tiny human and Adrian is a hundreds-of-years-old vampire, so he probably doesn’t find her shaking both fists at him to be a scary thing. But it makes her feel better and that’s all Nadya cares about. Well, that and the look of confusion-meets-panic Katherine throws her way.

“Was that —?”

“Scooch scooch scooch please and thank you!” Nadya forces the vampires to let her out and follows the Nighthunter as she rushes to the railing to try and find Cadence in the crowd below.

“Something’s upset you, I just want to help.”

“Being stalked is pretty damn upsetting.”

Thank god the railing is there to catch her because Nadya’s breath is knocked from her lungs. Adrian and Lily are at her sides in an instant and thank god for them, too, because they look just as shocked and that means she isn’t imagining things. She isn’t imagining that voice.

Katherine comes up alongside them, her grip white-knuckled and harsh against the ornately twisted metal bar.

Down below there’s a bar in the middle of the floor on a slowly rotating dais. Some of Persephone’s patrons skirt away from the display before it turns into a fight — and it looks like that won’t take more than a wrong word or touch. But most of them are greedy for more than money, hungry for more than fine wine and foods. They want blood; that’s why they’re here.

Cadence smacks Valdas’ hand away before the man can reach for him. He looks wild like a startled animal; backed up against the bar top and looking frantically for a means of escape.

“You’ve repeatedly ignored my requests not to come to my workplace, you send me flowers I don’t want and cannot refuse, and now you — you show up here, of all places?”

Valdas watches him with an uncharacteristic distress. “Cadence, you’re upset. You aren’t thinking clearly.”

“I’m thinking clearer than I have in years.”

The vampire practically spits the words through his clenched teeth. But that doesn’t make them any less strange in nature.

Valdas steps back. “And what, pray tell, has brought that on?”

In that moment Cadence’s frantic eyes find Katherine up above; his relief is visible even from a distance. Unfortunately the Trinity vampire is so close it can’t be denied. Has him turning to find the thing that managed what he could not in calming the other man in his fear—rage—mania.

He recognizes Katherine slowly then all at once; sweeping his eyes over the onlookers until they land on Nadya.

“Adrian,” she reaches blindly back behind her; feels his hand close tight and steadfast around hers, “I really hope you brought that second suit.”

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cupofteaguk · 5 years

Text

the maze to you

summary: turns out you won’t be getting the storybook soulmate journey you were promised when you have a dream of a boy named Kim Taehyung at a frat party.

pairing: taehyung x fem!reader

genre: soulmate au (the one where you dream about your soulmate) | angst

warnings: mentions of college parties, descriptions of an erection, i know it just says angst but it’s a happy ending :-) i would never hurt u guys :-)

word count: 9k

Ever since you were young, you dreamt about the promise of sharing your life with the person the universe deemed as the best fit for you: your soulmate. Given the type of world you grew up in, the type of world your parents and grandparents and every other generation inhabited before you, this isn’t a difficult notion to comprehend—the universe created soulmates and a pretty foolproof way of showcasing when the connection between aforementioned soulmates was established as well as a way of helping the individuals figure out how to gather clues needed to find each other.

It used the minds. Or, more specifically, dreams. The dreams didn’t allow soulmates to speak to each other through means of communication, however, and instead used dreams as a way to allow soulmates more in-dept glances into the lives of their other half. The dreams simply showed the experiences underwent during the day, allowing the soulmates to disclose information on themselves or do anything to share who they were in a way that could bring them together. Soulmates could do anything from sharing their city or pieces from their past or a house, drawing pictures or sharing names across sheets of paper—when trying to share one’s life story within the time frame of a few REM cycles, the sky was the limit on what people would do.

You know all about the extent to which people would go for their soulmate. After all, you like to think of yourself as the byproduct of many happy and determined people who would do anything to reach their partner. Things like sharing cities or writing names across the skin of their arm? Yeah, your parents use to pull shit like that all the time when they first started getting the dreams. They were so set on finding each other, so determined to meet as soon as they realized what was happening that they wasted no time. They found one another with ease, just like your grandparents and every other story you’ve been told since you were capable of understanding the idea of soulmates and love and the desire to have that in your life as well.

Ever since then, you would spend an endless amount of hours hoping and praying and wondering when your time was coming, when you were going to get your dreams and your signs from the universe that your soulmate was actually out there. Waiting for you. Just as you were waiting for them.

“The dreams will appear seemingly at the most random time,” Your mother says one afternoon as you’re resting your chin on the edge of the table, gazing up at her with wide eyes that only a curious and naive eleven-year-old version of yourself could possess. “My dreams appeared when I was fifteen—and the first glimpse I ever got into your dad’s life were the NASA and Apollo mission posters that lined the walls of his bedroom. I hadn’t even seen his face, but I knew he was the one for me.”

You’re not even sure if eleven-years-old is the appropriate age to start fantasizing, but that’s when you start wondering about what your first dreams would look like. During the younger years of your life, you hoped your future soulmate would have a palace, a field of horses in the backyard, look like a Disney prince—you know, the normal desires for a normal child estranged by the concept of Disney movies and happily ever afters.

However, as you grew up, so did your desires and ambitions and expectations for your soulmate. You grew up realizing that you didn’t want to realize anything for your soulmate—you didn’t need someone perfect. You, too, also wanted to see posters of your partner’s interests and passions lining the walls. You want to see someone writing their name across the skin of their own arm for you to see from the depths of your subconscious, you want to feel their desperation to meet you plagued within their body until they got to meet you.

You relay this to a friend on the afternoon of your seventeenth birthday, and Karly laughs.

“Seems a little over-the-top, don’t you think?”

“Easy for you to say,” You grunt back, placing your chin in the palm of your hand and scratching the back of your head. “You got your first dream last year, and you have nothing to worry about.”

That is true. Jung Hoseok was practicing dance in his high school practice room, twisting and turning and moving his body to a beat no one can remember—and that had been Karly’s first memory of his. And she has been in love with him ever since, even if they haven’t officially met yet.

“Oh relax,” Karly says, smiling soothingly, yet only wears the expression of someone whose heart isn’t entirely into the idea of consoling given that they can no longer relate to the current problem at hand. “You’ll get your dreams when you least expect it. And they’ll be perfect.”

Yes. Perfect in its own sense. Perfect like all the other storybook tales you’ve heard. Given that those sort of tales seem to follow all those around you, it should make the most logical sense for your own experience to mirror your friends, peers, and family, right? Right?

You get your answer at nineteen-years-old. In the day proceeding, nothing of significance had happened to you in the sense that you didn’t feel different. You had just gone to school, gone to work, finished your assignments, and moved on. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing to give away that perhaps you would feel different or better the following morning.

Karly had been right in saying that it would hit you when you least expect it.

It seems to hit you as soon as you close your eyes and you are immediately hit with a sense that feels like the world around you is no longer what you thought it was.

When you open your eyes, you’re at a party. The lights overheard are blaring, flashing all sorts of different colors that dance across the ceiling. There’s music, at least, from what you can tell. The music is loud, if the vibrations that thrum through your body is anything to go by.

Suddenly, your body moves of its own accord without any nerves or commands from the brain. It shifts on weight. You see hands that don’t belong to you, holding a questionably-colored drink you would never hold on your own. In the dream, you feel taller and bolder and dizzy and drowsy all at once, a feeling you are familiar enough with to know that it’s being drunk. But unlike you, who usually gets sleepy or nauseous if caught with too much alcohol in your system, this body is holding it well. Very well. So well that it can actually hold a conversation with a (dare you say) relatively attractive girl standing in front of you, all wide eyes and curving smile. Even though you’re pretty sure that you aren’t sexually drawn toward girls in that sense, there is still a suspicious loud pounding in your chest and a stirring in your lower stomach that makes you confused. The voices around you sound like background noise, low murmurs that you cannot make out. You don’t know what the girl in front of you is saying. You don’t even know what you’re saying.

But then, she takes you by the hand. You follow along, despite your consciousness standing alert at the change of pace. You don’t know where she’s taking you as she leads you down a hallway, into a room, before pushing you against the wall and pressing her pillowy lips against yours.

The sensation in your stomach increases in pressure, increases in desire, and you have no idea where it’s coming from and why you’re acting like this. You don’t do parties, you don’t make out with strangers—is your subconscious showcasing this to you to display that you’ve always secretly wanted to make out with girls the entire time? What the hell?

Your body continues acting on its own accord with its own mind, as if the actions have already been decided and you are simply mirroring the movements. Even though you have no control, you can still feel everything. From the way your hands dance over her skin, the blood pounding in your ears, the blood pooling down to—!

Holy shit. What the actual fuck?

Before your mind can ponder too much, you feel yourself getting pushed from the wall, onto the bed and falling onto your back. The girl returns, her hands caressing down your skin, tugging off the clothing of your lower half (it feels like jeans and underwear)—!

Your head lifts up slightly to watch her, immediately feeling like a deer caught in the headlights when your eyes land upon a dick. Like, an actual dick. From in between your legs.

Did… did you eat something before you went to bed last night? A mushroom? A brownie, perhaps?

You don’t have time to ponder that, because the girl tucks some hair behind her ear and leans over the junction between your legs, wrapping her lips around the tip and—!

The next time you blink, you’re staring right into Karly’s eyes. The latter is wearing a worried, panicked expression, with the crease between her eyebrows becoming more and more prominent the longer she stares at you. For some reason, your throat feels a little sore.

Karly must sense something from the way your hand automatically find your neck, because her grip on your shoulder tightens just a little. “Are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah,” You croak out, voice surprisingly hoarse. You cough. “What the fuck, did I catch a cold or something?”

Karly’s eyes are still searching your face. After a moment, she takes a step back, allowing you to straighten up on your bed and take in your surroundings. You look around, making a mental checklist of your current environment. Yes, same room. You look down at your hands. You’re relieved to find the same small, slender fingers, the way they bend to your will. You recognize the bruise on your arm from when you accidentally slammed a cabinet on it at work.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Karly inquires back, not entirely answering the question. “You were sort of screaming in your sleep.”

“Huh?” You turn to look at her. You flicker your gaze to the digital clock next to your bed. Seven in the morning.

“You were screaming in your sleep,” She repeats. “Had a bad dream or something? You look really out of it. Do you remember what you were dreaming of?”

“Um…” You trail off, closing your eyes and pressing your thumb against the bridge of your nose. Come to think of it, you do remember something. Bits and pieces. “There was a party of some kind and a girl—!” You cut yourself off, choking on your words because yes. You remember now. A little too clearly, if you’re being honest. “Oh my god!” You exclaim, turning on Karly wildly. “There was a dick!”

“What?” Karly inquires, furrowing her eyebrows and looking lost. “Like an idiot, you mean?”

“No, like an actual dick—oh my god, I had a dick.” You press your hands against your cheeks. “Oh my god, I remember now. I had a dream that I was a dude at a party, and I think I was about to hook up with some girl because she took my pants off and was about to—!”

“Okay, no, that’s fine,” Karly interrupts. “No need to go into detail.”

“Oh my god.” You repeat, moving to press the palm of your hands into your eyes. “Oh my god, what does this mean? I made out with a girl and had a dick—is my subconscious trying to tell me that they want me to be a dude? How does that work? I mean, the dick looked kind of weird, maybe that’s why I was screaming…”

“Y/N,” Karly cuts in again, reaching out to lightly grip at your forearm. This is probably both to calm you down but also stop you from going on another spiral from the confusion you’ve already experienced. And it’s not even eight o’clock in the morning yet. “I don’t think your mind is trying to tell you that specifically. I think that maybe…” She trails off, looking lost at her own words for a moment. “But that doesn’t make any sense…”

“What doesn’t make any sense?” You ask, tearing your mind away from your current frenzy of thoughts to hear Karly’s perspective of it.

Karly shakes her head. “The only explanation I can think of is that…” She presses her lips together. She angles her head to look up at you but she doesn’t look too confident or too comforting by what she’s about to say. “That guy… I think he’s your soulmate.”

“What?” You ask immediately, breaking out into a disbelieving smile. “N-No, that’s impossible. My soulmate wouldn’t… do that… to me…” You trail off, your heart pounding loudly in your chest. Yet, you have a feeling it has nothing to do the adrenaline from the dream anymore. Although you don’t want to admit it to yourself, the likelihood of that boy being your soulmate held a much higher probability than some hidden desire to actually be a boy yourself. It just makes more sense. It adds up. You have nineteen years worth of dreams under your belt, some abnormal sure but none of them ever came close to the one experienced the previous night.

And thinking about it, you remember the dream too vividly for it to be considered an actual dream. There are too many details you remember, too many sensations you can recall with the snap of a finger. It had felt more like a memory rather than a dream and you think that’s the biggest clue in giving away the fact that the universe had finally opened up the connection between you and your soulmate.

It takes you a second to realize that this was it. You’ve wondered about what kind of soulmate the world would gift you with, as you’ve wondered for the past eight years of your life. Despite the fact that you outgrew a large majority of your original expectations, you know that there is still a part of you deep down had hoped for a soulmate to meet some of the things you had been hoping for.

However, instead of posters of passion or the soft moments of a person’s life or anything really to give you that lightning strike instance of confidence in knowing that your soulmate existed and was living and was (to a certain extent) waiting for you—you get a boy who lets his dick get sucked by another girl, even though he should know about you. He must know. Maybe not about you specifically, but even just the world the pair of you lived in. He should know his soulmate is out there, waiting for him—that you’re waiting for him.

You are filled with a wide variety of different emotions in a short period of time. From anger to frustration to sadness to hopelessness. You close your eyes and clench your jaw, willing yourself to get over the brief pass of questions that wash over you.

You open your eyes, taking in Karly’s own concerned look. “You gonna be okay?” She inquires.

You sigh. “Not sure yet. I’ll just… give it time.” A weak argument, but you don’t know what else to do and you don’t know what else to say. And Karly knows that.

As it turns out, it’s hard to “give it time” when aforementioned it starts to make its presence more and more known in your life. You assumed that having to watch your soulmate (first-hand, literally) get his dick sucked by another girl had been a terrible enough sign from the universe that okay, maybe you weren’t going to be getting that fairy-tail happily-ever-after experience that everyone around you seemed to be getting. You try to be fine with that, you really do.

But when you have another dream of your soulmate hooking up with a completely different girl in a bathroom, it’s like salt rubbing in the wound. To make matters worse, it’s like your mind and body have already become accustomed to the nature of your dreams because you can now recall the voices and the whimpers and screams that echoed off that bathroom and if your brain wants to replay that girl’s moans or how she looked in the mirror one more time you might consider driving a fork through your head.

You consider this more and more as you sit in class, drumming your fingers impatiently on your desk, wanting nothing more than to pay attention to the lecture but knowing that the feat would be useless given the other much more pressing issue that take up much more of your attention.

You flicker your gaze up to the professor who is currently going on and on about supply and demand. The topic might be interesting, sure, and you probably need to know the minor details on the subject for the upcoming exam. But when you pull forward your floral covered notebook, it is done with the intention of documenting something other than Economics.

You flip open to a page in which only one line is covered with your script: soulmate.

Picking up your pencil, you start to write with only the occasional flickering your gaze up to the board to give off the illusion that you were paying attention. Instead, you write: hooks up at parties followed with two subpoints, first: ??? second: Irene, definitely Irene holy FUCKING shit, if his disgusting groans are anything to go by.

You continue on: likes drinking, cheap tequila is his favorite i think but also likes vodka.

You ponder for a moment, trying to recall the second dream. Definitely not to remember the name or face or moans of that girl, but to remember him. Him, being your soulmate. You write, long-ish kind of hair, maybe a mullet… has good eyebrows… a low sort of voice. You pause for a second, could be cute if he wasn’t a dick literally AND figuratively.

You think about it for one more second, name: tbd.

You sigh, unable to think about how it could get much worse than this.

But of course, the universe just loves to prove you wrong—and they do by making it worse. Much worse.

Your fourth dream starts just the same way. Lights, music, partying, drinking, bursting into a room with yet another unnamed girl who you know immediately will have moans that will ring through your mind for the next twenty-four hours.

You recognize the signs, you recognize falling right into the action of breathy groans and hushed gasps as your soulmate pushes his hookup against the door of yet another unmarked bedroom. “You’re so fucking hot,” He groans, hot and heavy, the sensation of her soft skin against the fingertips.

“W-Wait,” The girl protests, more like a high-pitched whine as teeth nip into the skin of her neck. “What about your soulmate? Don’t you have one? I-I haven’t had my dream yet but…”

You hear his laughter both in the open air and as a rumble through his chest. “Haven’t had the dreams princess. Even if I did, I wouldn’t care—guys like me don’t get a soulmate anyways so I don’t worry about it.”

You wake up with the air completely stolen from your lungs, your heart pounding loudly in your chest that you feel it thumping underneath your fingertips and underneath your skin. The words ring loudly in your ears, completely unlike a dream and more like a memory that plays over and over again behind your eyes like a movie. Even if he had a soulmate, he wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t care about you. He wouldn’t, and he doesn’t. He doesn’t care about you.

You swallow thickly, biting your lip and letting out a sigh. First you get a soulmate who carelessly sleeps around at a party, but then you also get a soulmate who doesn’t care about the system and doesn’t care you. It’s a comforting thought.

Karly walks into your room, hair in a ponytail, sports bra to show she’s just gotten back from her morning run. “You okay?” She inquires.

You throw your arms atop the covers and glare at your roommate as if she is the reason for your unfortunate position. “My soulmate is an asshole.” And you mean it.

It takes you five dreams of parties, of hooking up, of seeing five different girls, and reporting to Karly that you would jump out of the window of your apartment five times, when you actually get something different. When you actually get something real.

You wake up in your soulmate’s body to find him, surprisingly, in a college classroom setting. This realization is a total relief, given that you were beginning to worry that your soulmate was a college dropout or something monumentally worst. Yet, here he is. In class. Scribbling down notes with the occasional glance at his phone to show that he isn’t doing a complete 180 transformation between straight-A-student-with-a-pencil-up-his-ass and hooking-up-with-four-girls-over-the-span-of-five-days.

Class lets out a few minutes later, where a boy with bright orange hair and eyes that curve into half crescent moons is waiting. “Tae!” The boy exclaims, pushing himself off the wall as the two exchange a handshake. “How was class?”

“Long,” Your soulmate replies. The pair of them eat fast food from a corner restaurant on the edge of the college campus, a location that you’ve never seen before with its fancy architecture mixed with modern technology. It’s a nice school, you conclude to yourself, filling you with a little more confidence that perhaps this Tae isn’t as big of an idiot as you had previously assumed.

It’s the first time you catch a longer glimpse of his life, one filled with a relatively long list of classes that seem to go by like a blur. The breaks in between those aforementioned classes are filled with company such as friends and food and everything almost seems normal. You notice that he seems to love french fries with a special passion. He loves meat and vegetables and doesn’t pick any food out of his meals, always seeming capable of trying new things. You also get your first glimpse at his reflection. A real glimpse, allowing you to take in the twinkle of his eyes and the softness of his hair—you hate to admit that he’s extremely cute and extremely attractive. His hookups make sense. You’re sure that there’s a line of girls constantly waiting to flirt with him, to be with him. If you didn’t know better, you might be one of those people.

But you know too much, and this shows in the way you begrudgingly wake up the following morning. Although his face is pretty much permanently plastered in your mind at this point, you refuse to let yourself think too deeply about him. He’s still an asshole.

This thought is further emphasized in the sixth dream, where the first thing you notice after waking up in Tae’s body is the fact that he is hunched over a toilet. You can feel the ear-splitting headache, but you don’t process the pain. Taehyung, however, is a different story. You know he can feel the pain of this hangover, if the way he throws up into the toilet is anything to go by. Normal soulmates would probably feel worried or sympathetic, but you watch the scene barely batting an eye to the problem at hand.

If he wasn’t going to care about you, why should you give him the same respect? If he wasn’t even going to consider your life, your presence, your thoughts, regardless of if he has been getting dreams about you or not—then it wasn’t fair to keep everything entirely one-sided.

You absolutely hate your soulmate. You hate his mind, his arrogance and selfish nature, his cocky attitude, but you hate the connection you are forced to have with him the most. You hate that the universe has paired you with someone of this nature. It feels like a terrible punishment for something you hadn’t even done, taking away the dream you’ve had since you were young and delivering a silver platter of disappointment and a bright red ribbon with the statement I’M SORRY to your doorstep. The frustration is so palpable you can feel it on the tip of your tongue, in the bile of your stomach that fills you up instead of actual food.

“My soulmate is an asshole,” You grumble for what seems like the tenth time that hour and Karly gives you another sympathetic smile. “These dreams are seriously bordering on annoying. I can barely get a good night sleep nowdays because I’m always getting dreams about his hookups which feel like nightmares at this point.”

Karly slides you a cup of coffee, which you so desperately need in order to survive your upcoming shift. “I hope he gets his dreams soon so he can realize what a dick he’s being to you.”

You appreciate Karly’s sentiment although you aren’t too confident.

You slide your floral notebook towards yourself, grabbing the pencil that rests in the spiral and flipping open to the appropriate page, staring down at the statement that seems to glare right back at you, name: tbh.

You cross it out, name: Tae, but I think that’s his nickname… not sure about the full name.

When you crawl into bed that night, you wonder what kind of dreams will follow you, you wonder what Tae will have in store for you today. Would it be another drinking episode? Another hooking-up episode that will make you actually want to scratch the eyes out of your sockets? Or would you spend the evening in front of the toilet as Tae had done, emptying out his guts while you watched him do so?

Instead, you open your eyes and find yourself in a bedroom. But unlike the previous dreams, there are no pounding lights or loud music or questionably-colored drinks in hand. Instead, you’re sitting upon a twin-sized bed with bright blue wallpaper all around you. Only a few posters line the walls, pictures of musicians and groups flashing their instruments. Action figures lay on the desks and nightstand, one or two shirts flung off onto the floor. It doesn’t look like a bedroom you are particularly familiar with, one that you’ve spent the past few dreams becoming extremely comfortable with the scape of Tae’s bedroom. Rather, this looks like the bedroom of a little boy.

On the other side of the wooden door, there is a knock. “Taehyung, wake up! Come have some breakfast before I take you to school.” It’s a woman’s voice, slightly older and filled with kindness.

Taehyung. You have a feeling that this is his full, given, complete name. Taehyung.

Taehyung groans, crawling out of bed anyways and making his way into the bathroom—staring at himself in the reflection as you catch your first glimpse at Taehyung at the tender age of eleven. The youth is ever-present in his face, in his messy bed-hair and baby fat that still clings lightly to his cheeks. His rubs at his eyes, brushing his teeth, looking so endearing and like a neighborhood crush you could have had in elementary school.

It only takes a few minutes for the boy to get ready before he is bounding down the stairs and into the kitchen, where a man is seated at the table and a woman is just setting down a plate of breakfast food. “Good morning sweetie,” The woman says with a smile.

“Morning mom,” Taehyung greets back, sliding into the vacant seat and forking down the meal. You watch the way he watches his parents exchange their early morning banter, the way they look at each other and it hits you.

Soulmates. Taehyung’s parents are soulmates. Of course, this should have been obvious given that most parents and couples in general are soulmates from the dreams. But you had thought that Taehyung’s heartless nature about this notion would have sprouted from not having parents who were soulmates. Or just not having parents at all. Or a heart.

As you watch what Taehyung watches, you feel what he feels. He watches his parents and feels excitement. And hope.

You wonder what happened.

Time seems to move forward after that, because the next time Taehyung looks into the mirror, you notice that he is taller, more defined, just a little closer to the Taehyung you currently know yet still with a touch of youth to let you know that perhaps he’s still in high school. Even though you don’t have context of experiencing what he has gone through in the days or weeks or months, you can hear the thoughts that run through his mind.

The high school version of Taehyung is a dreamer. He’s a believer. He is so deeply enamored by the concept of soulmates that he wants to get his dreams as soon as possible. Through his desperation to figure out his soulmate, his search takes him to blindly date with anyone and everyone he sees, hoping and hoping that this more-or-less random girl is his soulmate. And every single time, either she got her dreams and left or he just didn’t feel the spark of a connection with her. And so he would break it off. But the mess he would leave behind has created a reputation that he never would have wanted beforehand. A reputation that Taehyung has a terrible, reckless, single behavior. A reputation that Taehyung doesn’t have a soulmate to begin with.

You watch as Taehyung goes to school, the way he steps onto campus and how whispers seem to circulate around him quickly like people are constantly monitoring his movements. You feel the weight of stares like hot irons on your back as Taehyung walks into the building.

“See you’re still alone there, huh Kim?” A voice sounds from off the side as Taehyung turns his head to see a group of boys near the lockers. You’ve never seen them before, but Taehyung’s thoughts start fluttering in and lets you know that these are the boys that bully him, as they have done for months now. Bullying and isolation is a pretty common feat in Taehyung’s day-to-day life but popular jocks, as cliche as it sounds, make it worse.

Taehyung doesn’t say anything, and you watch as one of the boys detach himself from the locker and approach him.

“Or did you find more company to fill the void in your life? Who was it this time? A slut, maybe? A neighborhood chick? You think they’re your soulmate either way, so maybe the title won’t matter—!”

Taehyung shoves at the boy, cheeks flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and humiliation dusting every part of his skin and you feel it deep in his bones. You feel the hopelessness he feels, the frustration at the world for not giving him an inkling of the soulmate he was looking for. You understand the sensation completely, which is why you are not too surprised to find that you start to feel bad for him.

The boy steps back, but the smirk doesn’t leave his expression. “I’ll take that as a no then, Kim.”

A pause, before another boy shows up. “Listen, Kim, don’t you get it? Boys like you don’t get a soulmate, because you don’t deserve it.”

With a shove that drives Taehyung into the lockers on the other side, the boys depart with one last laughter that seems to ring through the air.

Taehyung falls onto his bottom, bringing his knees to his chest and clenching his jaw tightly. You hear the thoughts echoing in his mind. If the universe wouldn’t give him a soulmate, then fuck. The boys were probably right. Taehyung would never get a soulmate, because he didn’t deserve one.

He would become exactly what they expected him to be, everything they scorned him against. It’s not like he had anyone waiting for him anyways. You feel the despair that he feels, the longing he feels.

You wake up with tears in your eyes.

“Kim Taehyung…” You whisper softly, blinking once, twice, letting the tears fall down the side of our face. “Why am I crying? My soulmate is a jerk…”

Taehyung has been getting really weird dreams lately about a girl with flower patterns on her notebook, her head in the clouds, and a twinkle in her eyes. He doesn’t quite remember how long the dreams have been occurring, but it feels like months. He doesn’t remember the first dream he ever had of you, but he figures out that when he was able to process the fact that he was dreaming about someone other than himself, something in his heart tells you it’s the same person he’s been dreaming about for those long aforementioned months.

At first, however, he doesn’t believe it—in neither the dreams nor the tiny possibility of purpose that your appearance in his mind is meant to serve. He doesn’t believe it. No fucking way.

After years of torment for remaining convinced over and over again that his soulmate was really out there, it’s hard to go back to that previous mindset. It should be only natural that his first instinct to the dreams would be complete deniability.

And he does a good job of dissociating himself. The dreams about you, for all he knows, could just be figments created by his consciousness. He barely lets himself ponder too long or too hard about the dreams, meaning he has a tendency to forget what happens or just pushes it to the back of his mind.

Then, the dreams seem to be projected onto him in fuller detail.

He starts to hear things.

“I don’t know Karly, he was hooking up with another girl though. Probably different from the first one—her name was Irene.”

Irene was the name of the girl from that house party a few weeks ago.

“My soulmate is an asshole.”

He sees the floral notebook in your classroom, the way your fingers flip through the pages until coming across one with the words SOULMATE scribbled across the top, followed by a bullet point list of items that seem specifically catered to an individual person. It starts with: hooks up at parties, first: ??? second: Irene, definitely Irene holy FUCKING shit, if his disgusting groans are anything to go by, likes drinking… cheap tequila is his favorite i think but also likes vodka, long-ish kind of hair… maybe a mullet, has good eyebrows, a low sort of voice, could be cute if he wasn’t a dick literally AND figuratively.

And then finally, at the bottom of the page, name: Kim Taehyung.

Following that dream, it forces Taehyung into the conclusion that you are indeed a real person who is undergoing a life that he gets to witness, and that perhaps he had been wrong to assume that the universe would never present him with a soulmate. And that if he’s dreaming of your life, then it’s likely to assume that you’ve been dreaming of his life.

Seeing the visual depiction, seeing someone spell out the fact that he really does have a soulmate is one thing. But hearing the next words in your voice changes everything.

“Kim Taehyung… Why am I crying? My soulmate is a jerk.”

The realization hits him before he even opens his eyes the next morning.

His soulmate, you, were crying because he was a jerk. And he has no idea how to reach you. And he certainly has no idea how to make it better.

“C’mon Y/N, it’ll be fun.”

“I doubt it’ll be fun,” You retort back, rolling your eyes anyways as you continue to move about your bedroom. Laundry day has just fallen upon you and you’re currently trying to put away all your clothes into their proper place. This wouldn’t be as difficult if Jeon Jungkook wasn’t in your room and trying to do everything in his willpower to convince you about this upcoming party in an university not far from your own. “It’s just gonna be more drinking in a different place. What is over there that you can’t get over here?”

“Uh, a break from our peers?” Jungkook speaks as if the answer should be obvious. “I’m tired of seeing the same people at a party.”

“Fuck off,” You argue with a snort. “You just want to hook-up with a girl who doesn’t know your name.” After all, there are thousands of people enrolled at this particular university. But word travels as does reputation, which is why it has become increasingly more and more difficult for Jungkook to quote “have a good time” with someone who knew about him.

You suppose Jungkook should be thankful to have a soulmate who proposed the agreement to allow both parties to have sex with other people—at least, until they found each other.

“Suppose I do,” He agrees with a grin. “Are you gonna come with me or not?”

You glare at him. “No!” You exclaim, deciding to remain firm about your decision. You’ve been to parties and although you enjoyed yourself to a certain extent, it wasn’t enough where you felt the need to drive off to a different college to experience a different kind of fun. It was all the same to you—you drank, you got drunk, you potentially threw up off the side of the road with your poor friend watching you. It was the same no matter where you were deciding to get drunk, even if it was honestly only once in a blue moon.

Jungkook’s grin turns into a pout. “Please, Y/N? I need someone to go with! I don’t want to go alone!”

You whirl around to look at him just as you finish tucking a shirt away into your closet. “Then ask another friend to go with you! I’m sure your usual crowd of partying friends would love to get drunk with you at a different university.”

Jungkook starts off the bed and approaches you. “Please? You know I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate. Besides, it’s been so long since we went out together. All those times you turned me down—you owe me one!”

His last words make you stop slightly because it’s true in a way. You had been meaning to go out to various house parties with Jungkook, but your schedule and own personal discomfort about too many parties have kept you away from the scene Jungkook enjoys too much. And because he’s one of your best friends, it’s definitely time that you follow through on the promise made many months ago.

You sigh, closing your eyes in defeat as Jungkook’s smile widens. “Fine, fine!”

And with that, you are promptly taken into a car as Jungkook drives out of the lot and down the street for the hour-long drive into the next city over towards the university holding this famous party Jungkook cannot seem to stop talking about. And he doesn’t stop talking about it during the drive over; however the conversation is also filled with other playful banter that you and the boy have developed over the years that you have been friends.

At the red light, Jungkook pulls his phone out from the cupholder and starts to scroll, answering some messages here and there and you pull down the mirror overhead to check your lipstick. You look over at Jungkook who is still in the middle of answering another text. “Anyone important?” You inquire.

He turns his head towards you but keeps his eyes on the phone for a few more seconds. “O-Oh no, it’s just one of my friends from the university. He’s asking when we’re showing up so we can meet up at the party.”

Your eyes narrow into a glare. “Yah, I thought you didn’t have other friends to go with!”

“Well,” He stammers, giving you a side-eye and shrinking slightly when you have a warning flicker in your gaze. “No other friends at our school—ow!”

“Jeon Jungkook!” You crow. “Please don’t tell me I’m gonna have to third wheel you and your boyfriend. I didn’t force myself into this dress only to be ditched as soon as we arrive!”

“Not my boyfriend,” He grits back. “And I won’t ditch you, okay? Tae is super chill, I’m sure the two of you will get along super well.”

You freeze slightly, your heart leaping out of your chest at the mention of the name that feels so foggy, it’s only as if you’ve heard the name in a dream. Or something out of your childhood.

Immediately, you find your mind points you to a direction that makes your blood run cold. But, that shouldn’t be possible right? Surely the name should be extremely common—what are the odds of Jungkook’s friend being your soulmate, the boy from your dreams who you determined to have hated with your entire heart and soul? There’s no way it’s him. The likelihood of that is rare. Besides, Jungkook just addressed the boy as ‘Tae’. Nothing more, nothing less.

The reasonable accusation of your overthinking nature gets you to relax a little. Yes of course. Tae is just a nickname that could stand for many different things and there’s no way for you to know what the other half of his name is or what his last name was. You’re overthinking it just because of a few bad dreams and a terrible taste in the back of your mouth.

That gets you to relax a little as Jungkook keeps driving and you keep talking until the pair of you arrive in the parking lot of the university. Jungkook parks right in the visitor’s parking area before the both of you step out and immediately start making your way across campus towards the appropriate area. For a boy who claims to have only been here once or twice, he seems to know exactly where he’s going, and doesn’t take long to find his goal.

His end goal is one of the houses on the fraternity road, one that is already blaring with the explosion of music that rocks the property. People are scattered both inside and around the house, balancing cups in their hands while conversing with their peers. Despite the unfamiliar atmosphere that plagues you—obviously, because you have never been to this campus before and hence have never been to this house before—there’s something different in this. You get a terrible sense of deja vu, like you’ve seen this place before either in real life or from a dream.

The uncomfortable sensation doesn’t go away, even as you and Jungkook step closer and closer to the house before emerging through the opened door. The music is even longer here as you see people left and right and at every turn. No one seems attracted to your presence, which is good. Jungkook had promised you the kind of evening where you could just let loose and have fun and that’s what you planned to do.

“Hey Jungkook, you made it!” A boy with a terribly, terribly familiar voice says from a few feet away. The voice makes your stomach drop suddenly as you turn your address from the view of the party to look around Jungkook and see who is now standing before him.

Your eyes widen, your heartbeat quickens, the time around you seems to slow down—all things that point to the conclusion that this evening would not turn out the way you had originally wanted.

That point is further emphasized when the boy catches a glimpse of you too and it’s like you’re seeing Kim Taehyung in the flesh. Actually, no, it’s not like you’re seeing him in the flesh. You are seeing him in the flesh. He stands before you, just as tall as you would have imagined, just as pretty and charming and reeking of sexual intentions. He’s continuing to act carelessly, pretending as if you don’t even exist.

It would be one thing to understand that perhaps he hadn’t gotten the dreams and was acting off his own accord—but the look he gives you as soon as the eye contact between the two of you is established and maintained leaves you little doubt that he thinks of you as nothing more than a mere stranger.

Surprisingly, he is the first one to find his voice. “I-It’s you,” He stammers, completely looking past Jungkook in order to further observe you.

You swallow thickly, unable to notice the way Jungkook flickers his gaze between his friend and you. “K-Kim Taehyung,” You return.

Jungkook shifts his gaze between the two of you, his index finger out and pointing from one to the other. “You guys know each other?”

Taehyung opens his mouth to say something, but you gather your wits back well enough so that the only thing you can muster is one last lingering glance on the boy in front of you, your soulmate, before you rip your gaze from his and walk in the opposite direction.

“H-Hey, Y/N!” Taehyung calls, ignoring poor and oblivious Jungkook, opting to brush past the latter in his attempt to reach you. “Y/N, please—would you just…” He trails off as soon as he reaches you, his fingers curled around your wrist. “This isn’t really how I pictured us meeting…”

“I’m surprised you even thought about us meeting at all,” You retort back gently, but harsh enough so the statement has some bite to it. “You know what you’ve been doing the past few months—I know what you’ve been doing the past few months. Why would you try to deny it?”

“I-I wasn’t,” Taehyung starts slowly, looking down to see the meeting point where his hand is wrapped around your wrist and a realization he has not felt with any other person seems to sink in. He tightens his hold around you, a gesture that forces you to lock eyes with him. “Look, I can’t control what I did in the past—up until a few days ago I didn’t even know you existed. Can you just, I don’t know, forget about it or something?”

Your eyes hardened as you pulled yourself from Taehyung. “That’s not fair of you to ask that from me. I’ll never be able to look at you the way you’ll want me to. I just… I can’t. Everytime I see you I’ll be thinking about those girls you were hooking up with, and it doesn’t matter if it was in the past and you can’t control it and you didn’t know about me or whatever—but it matters to me.”

He bites the corner of his mouth, knowing that perhaps simply asking you to disregard the dreams as if they were slips of paper one could merely throw away had not been the smartest thing for him as a soulmate to ask of.

“Okay, I’m sorry. Maybe that wasn’t the best way to phrase it,” He replies quietly. “But can’t you give me a chance instead of walking away from this?”

You only continue to stare at Taehyung, but something shifts in your expression. It’s such a gentle and subtle change that Taehyung almost doesn’t believe that it’s happening. But when he realizes that the glimmer in your eyes are from unshed tears and not a trick of the light, it feels like years of history crumpling down all around him. The feeling is weird, given that this is the first time the pair of you are meeting and conversing together. Although, he supposes, this is the touch of soulmates.

“You just… you aren’t the person I was expecting,” You whisper and Taehyung doesn’t try to stop you this time as you turn around and walk away towards the exit of the house.

Jungkook rushes next to Taehyung even though his presence has been more or less forgotten. “Wait, Y/N, are you leaving already? You just got here!” When you don’t say anything, Jungkook paces over to grab you by the wrist. “What the fuck are you doing? What’s going on?”

“Nothing!” You retort, pulling yourself from Jungkook’s grip. “I just can’t stay here.”

Jungkook gives you a hard look. “So you’re just gonna go back? How are you getting back?”

“I don’t know Jungkook,” You protest. “I’ll call an Uber or something. I just can’t stay here.”

Jungkook whips around to face Taehyung. “What did you say to her?”

You spare one last glance at Taehyung over your shoulder before you scoff at his lack of response, even though you don’t know what you want him to say, before you make your way out of the house.

Even though the last thing you want to think about, wonder about, or worry about is Kim Taehyung—the universe still grants you with him, as if to further prove that no matter how much you wish to reject him it would be impossible.

You never got to wonder what it would be to see you through the eyes of Kim Taehyung, but when you close your eyes you are immediately greeted with a sight that you only see through the reflection of a mirror. You see yourself, or as Taehyung had seen you. You see big doe eyes and a glimmer that you don’t normally see, you see a flush in your cheeks and a shock etched in your expression. You also feel the way Taehyung had felt when he realized who you were—you feel the quickening of his heartbeat and the increasing clamminess of his palms as you feel what he felt, that you were without a doubt his soulmate.

You feel the way his mind scrambles to come up with a reason to make you stay, anything to stop the look of disgust from creeping into your eyes. You feel the hopelessness and desperation he felt when you turned your back on him; but even more than that, you see what happens when you leave.

“What the fuck was that?” Jungkook inquires, whipping around to give Taehyung a suspicious look. “Oh god, please don’t tell me that you hooked up with Y/N and ditched her afterwards.”

“N-No, it’s not like that,” Taehyung returns back, even though Jungkook still looks doubtful. “We know each other though, and got into this huge fight—!”

“I can see that.”

Taehyung glares. “I need to make it up to her somehow.”

You see the way Jungkook is finally convinced to hand over the address to your apartment complex, the way Taehyung finds his own ride into the outer perimeter of your university with a bundle of something tucked under his arm. You recognize your complex, you recognize the stairs he takes and the floor he steps off of, the way he reads every single number on every single door and wait a minute—!

A knock startles you from your thoughts, your dreams, as you bolt up on the bed. Everything about your dream and the memories Taehyung had experienced felt so real it was hard to tell if the knock had been a figment of your imagination or something real…

The knock comes again from your front door. Despite the questionable hours (four in the morning to be exact), you have a feeling in your heart about who is standing behind the wooden frame.

Even though your mind is telling you not to do it, not to look through those doors and open a can of worms that could potentially complicate things even further, your heart is telling you something different entirely.

It is all your hearts fault, really, that you open the door and see Kim Taehyung standing on the other side of the door. He looks nervous, more nervous than you have ever seen him look or appear before—and you’ve been in his head as well as feeling his feelings for months now. You flicker your gaze down. He’s carrying a bundle of daisies, very pretty ones at that, and your own heart does the betrayal thrum of nerves in your chest.

You look back up at Taehyung.

“Um…” He starts when you don’t say anything. Yet you also don’t slam the door back on his face, so he assumes that you’re at least willing to hear what he has to say. “You’re probably surprised to see me here.”

“A little,” You admit. “But I also saw you coming in my dreams.”

“Oh—well, if you’ve seen my day, you must have also felt what I was feeling when I saw you for the first time.”

You avert your gaze. “Perhaps I did.”

“Then did you feel all the despair I felt when you turned your back on me? When you wouldn’t stay to give me a chance?”

You did, and your silence is all the confirmation Taehyung needs.

The corner of his lips quirk up into a shy smile, and he doesn’t look like the player or the fuckboy you had witnessed countless times in your dreams. He looks like Taehyung—the boy with soulmate parents, the boy who so desperately longed for his own half where he would give up anything and everything for the chance. He looks like the sixteen-year-old boy who was shoved into a locker because he believed too much. The universe has been hard on him.

Taehyung takes a tiny step forward. He offers forth the daisies, a flower you have briefly mentioned loving in his dreams. “Can you give me a chance to not be an asshole?”

You stare from the flowers to Taehyung’s pleading expression.

Why am I crying? My soulmate is a jerk…

“Y/N,” Taehyung speaks softly. “Give me the chance to not make you cry.”

Pretty big words coming from someone who has been making you cry since the beginning, even in the most subtle of ways.

Yet, this is what you’ve wanted since you were born. You and Taehyung would definitely not be like your peers or family or friends, but yet perhaps this would be different and better.

“Don’t be a jerk,” You whisper, taking the flowers from him.

Taehyung’s grin widens, breathless, and even though you are awake, it is almost like you can feel his heartbeat in your own chest. “And miss out on something I’ve wanted since I was ten? No way.”

#bangtan bookclub #taehyung x reader #taehyung x you #taehyung scenario #taehyung fluff #taehyung angst #bts scenario #bts fluff #bts x reader #traci writes

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makeste · 5 years

Note

How do you think Bakugo feels about Izuku choosing Deku for his hero name? Like, in meta form - BKG thoughts on the Pro-Hero name Deku.

disclaimer before I start: I don’t think anyone can ever really say for sure what Bakugou is thinking at any given time. least of all Bakugou himself, who doesn’t really understand what feelings actually are, and doesn’t know much about them in general except that they are his enemy, most days. but my point being that this is mostly just a lot of elaborate speculation on my part.

okay so first of all, when he first heard Deku announce it, I expect that he was surprised, and then confused. because from his point of view it’s a very strange decision. who the hell chooses their insulting childhood nickname as their hero moniker? we all know the story of the legendary hero Butthead*, who either lost a bet or underestimated the longevity of his funny joke (the details have been lost to the ages and are now the subject of much scholarly debate), and subsequently served as a cautionary tale to all young bros coming up through hero school and thinking of giving into peer pressure, having not yet developed the wisdom to realize that five seconds of class clown fame aren’t worth a potential lifetime of ridicule. but aside from him, the idea of someone choosing a name like “Deku” is pretty absurd. just. who does that?? for real.

*not an actual hero.

so I’m pretty sure that once the initial confusion passed, Katsuki then settled on his usual default of assuming that it must be Deku looking down on him again. because, you know. why bother listening to the actual explanation Deku gave barely two seconds later, when you could instead make a paranoid, irrational, and rather egotistical (because I mean, this does kind of make it all about him) leap and just assume your old childhood “friend” is mocking you yet again. that’s the Bakugou way, goddammit. good old inferiority complex constantly whispering that you’re not good enough, and you consequently being on the defensive all the time because you’re afraid other people will see it as well, and god forbid! cue John Mulaney “that’s the thing I’m sensitive about!!” gifs, etc. and Deku in particular has always watched him so insufferably closely, and Bakugou just knows it’s because he can see those weaknesses too. Deku knows. he knows. and Bakugou can’t fucking stand it.

anyway. so clearly if he’s picking “Deku” as his hero name, that must be his way of sending some kind of message, right? basically a big fuck you. clearly that’s the only explanation that makes sense. so fuck that, basically, and Deku can fuck right off, and god he’s the worst!! and so this is my best estimate of what Bakugou initially thought about Deku’s hero name. and unfortunately, given how stubborn and oblivious Bakugou remained about their relationship for a very long time, he probably carried on thinking this for quite a while.

but at some point this did change! and there are two parts to that. the first concerns Bakugou’s reluctant but nonetheless very real respect for Izuku as a rival. this is something that’s been growing steadily since their first fight at Ground Beta in chapters 8 through 10. that battle was the very last time Katsuki ever underestimated Izuku. when he lost to him, that put an end to any high and mighty thoughts he might have had about being superior. instead he grew even more wary of him and more obsessed than ever with comparing their progress and trying to expand the ever-closing gap between them (to no avail). which to be clear was not much of an improvement in regards to this being any kind of healthy relationship. but it does demonstrate that Bakugou has acknowledged Izuku’s power going quite a long ways back. and if you really want to get deep about it, he’s subconsciously been acknowledging it since they were four years old, and that’s precisely why he hated him for so long, but that’s a whole nother topic of conversation for another day.

anyway. so getting back on track, as I said, this is the first part of the gradual change in Bakugou’s opinion of Deku’s hero name. as his grudging respect for Deku gradually increased – and then rose very sharply and suddenly when he finally realized that Deku got his power from All Might, the hero they’ve always both admired – I suspect his thoughts on the name “Deku” started to change as well. and the other change, I think, probably came when he realized that Deku never was looking down on him. when they fought again at Ground Beta, and all of their suppressed and confused feelings were dragged into the light, and Deku explained – not for the first time, but it was the first time Katsuki ever really listened – that he chased after him because he admired him. oh. so this whole time, then… oh.

so then once he finally understands that, the name “Deku” definitely has to be seen in a different light. if it wasn’t ever intended to be some kind of weird burn on him, then that probably means that Deku was being honest all along, and it was just his way of telling the world “I am here”, and taking a part of his past that he’d once felt very badly about and turning it into something to be proud of. oh.

I don’t honestly know what Katsuki’s thoughts are on his past treatment of Izuku. I don’t know if he’s quite there yet where he’s ready to take a good long look at himself and acknowledge that he was a real shithead for a very long time, and that he bears pretty much all of the responsibility for what went on between them for so many years. I believe that he will get there, eventually, but he’s never been the type of person to do much reflecting and looking back. he’s always been more focused on looking forward. so even if he does acknowledge it, I think his way of trying to atone would be by treating Izuku better from here on out, not by dwelling over the past. he does owe him an apology for sure, and I like to think we may actually get it, particularly if the subject of quirklessness comes up in the future, or if the plot presents some kind of other in-your-face reminder that forces him to come face to face with it and acknowledge it. then at that point I think he’d apologize because if nothing else he’s not a coward, and to try and shy away from taking responsibility would be the cowardly thing to do. so yeah, I’m definitely holding out hope for this. but I also think that the bigger part of his apology to Izuku has to be his change in behavior moving forward. and in that respect he’s already made significant progress, so that’s great.

anyway, so the reason I bring that up is because I don’t think Katsuki often consciously thinks about the meaning of the nickname “Deku” these days, and what it actually means to him. Deku is Deku, mostly. it used to mean “useless”, and then at some point I think it just started meaning “Deku.” as in the person. just like he’ll always be “Kacchan” to Izuku. Izuku is “Deku” to him. it’s just how it is.

and I think the meaning of it has changed, for him, but not to “dekiru.” rather, it’s changed for him in the same way that his opinions on Deku-the-person have changed. I noted at the start of this essay that Katsuki isn’t really someone who’s particularly in touch with his feelings. and his feelings about Deku are a lot. and while he’s not usually someone to back down from a challenge, emotionally he might not quite be ready to start examining them all too closely just yet.

so for now, Deku is simply Deku. someone who formerly only ever pissed him off. but nowadays… maybe not so much.

anyway, so that’s my meandering rant about Kacchan’s thoughts on Deku’s hero name. in the end I went all over the place and didn’t really arrive at anything concrete! but I gave it my best go. thanks for the ask!

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #bakudeku #bnha meta #essay #makeste reads bnha #asks #bakugou meta

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sesskag1postchallenge · 5 years

Text

Ch9 - Operation Grandpup Drop (A SitBoy Discord Crack Fic)

Warning this story is M bordering NSFW

Chapter 9:

Slayer08/18/2019

"GAH!" Kagome tore herself away from Sesshomaru. "I can't believe this! I am leaving. Get sober Sesshomaru and see if you still feel that way!" She snatched up the incense and dunked it in a nearby glass of water and stomped out of the room and slammed the door.

imjaneees08/18/2019

Before Sesshomaru could pull Naraku's entrails out of him and decorate the halls with them, the door opened and Kagome walked in again, separating the two.

"Stop it Sesshomaru you can't kill my cry pillow I still need him," with that she started dragging the dark hayou by the hair again, all the while complaining, "I'm still not done with my much needed cry session. The girls just don't get it, you know? They keep saying endure this, you'll find a better person soon, all that sham and I just want someone to let me feel bitter. By the way your shoulder devil antics aren't working, just so you know."

Once again Sesshomaru is left wondering just how blue must his balls be before Kagome finally gets it.

Walter20508/18/2019

"Kagome, do you know who you're holding onto? Let him go and I'll be your cry pillow," came a familiar voice that Kagome hadn't heard in over a year. Turning in surprise, she saw Shippo standing in the doorway, now almost as tall as her and sporting five tails now.

"Shippo, you've returned from the demon fox academy!" exclaimed Kagome as she dropped Naraku and ran over to embrace her son.

"C'mon mom, let's blow this joint," said Shippou as he took Kagome's hand and headed for the door outside.

"Unfortunately Kit, Kagome may not leave the Castle just yet. She is still a potential suitor after all," interrupted Inukimi as she strode in to greet the new guest.

"Oh yeah? We'll see about that," replied Shippo as he readied a leaf spell. In reply Inukimi clutched her Inter-Dimensional Necklace and started a chant that would banish Shippo into a different realm for the duration of Kagome's stay at the Castle.

However Shippo was ready for this and yelled, "Fox Magic: Fox Counter-spell!", as he threw the leaf at the necklace. It struck and there was a loud flash and bright explosion as their magics intertwined with one another. When the light faded, Inukimi's Necklace fell to the floor before shattering into a million pieces that swiftly disintegrated.

"Little Fox, do you know what you've done?" asked Inukimi in a quiet cold voice.

"Yeah, I've stopped your attempt to keep my mother trapped here," responded Shippo in kind with a triumphant grin spreading across his face.

"You young little fool. You've trapped Kagome's friends and my husband in a place and time that they do not belong and have removed all of my spells warding the castle, including protecting the Shikon No Tama from that devil hanyou. Lastly, you have incurred my wrath," growled Inukimi as her eyes glowed red with the beginning of her transformation.

imjaneees08/18/2019

Everything happened all at once. No one had the time to react. Nothing went according to anyone's plan. The jewel once again pulled the rug from under everyone's feet, because there, whole and pure the jewel floated for a good few seconds before it darted off to go back inside where it belonged. Kagome had no time to even move before the jewel came shooting to her side, where it was taken from by Mistress Centipede all those years ago.

There was a bright, blinding light before it faded, along with Kagome's consciousness.

Stormie Like Weather08/19/2019

Suddenly the ghost of her favorite singer, Prince, was standing before her in a raspberry beret and a mostly unbuttoned sparkly shirt. "Welcome, Girl!"

Kagome thought she might swoon in her unconscious state, but that might be getting a bit pathetic. "P-prince? W-what are you doing here?!"

"I'm here for you, Girl!" He walked around her in the cloud-like room, "The Kami have decided to allow me to let you choose a future for yourself. Think of it as a new beginning, the Jewel of Four Souls will not be allowed to leave your body once more, in return for the sacrifice of responsibility, you get to choose which side of the well you'd like to remain in.

"W-what...?" Her hand clutched the spot where the jewel had just collided, "I get to choose?"

"And not without some insight!" Suddenly before them appeared a giant cauldron of water, Prince waved his hand for her to peer into it's depths. "Should you choose the future..." An image of her appeared at university, the image faded into a pregnant version of her in the arms of what looked like Sesshomaru in a suite with a man bun. "Remain where you are..." The picture changed to Kagome playing with Inuyasha's wriggly worm-dog baby. Sesshomaru was nearby rolling his eyes, pointing to his junk and the words, "We could have much more like-able offspring if you'd just fuck me!" He looked pretty ragged. She must have been waffling still. The worm-pup made a giggling sound and the image faded to Kagome in the middle of a wedding ceremony with InuKimi crying. She couldn't tell if it was out of happiness or misery.... "Or, Prince waved his delicate hand." The image shifted into her standing there in Prince's arms as well as men and women crawling at their feet, touching themselves.

"Oh my!" She flushed.

"Well," Prince wriggled his brows while running his fingers along his chest and downward, "What'll it be?"

imjaneees08/20/2019

Left eye twitching, Kagome finally snapped. She hasn't had one decent sleep since this whole debacle with grandpups happened, had her emotions played with, finally got the good crying she's always wanted ironically in the literal arms of the enemy only to get played again, the jewel went and screwed her over again, and now this Western bozo was trying to make her queen of all things sexual. Well she's had enough! No one is taking her v card without passing all of her criteria!

“I've had enough of you sex crazed baboons!“ and, brandishing the somehow nearby branch, she roceeded to thwack anything and everyone.

Stormie Like Weather08/20/2019

Prince put his his hands up, immediately morphing into an image on her mother, "Kagome, dear, calm down." She put her hands on her hips, "You know the Kami are just trying to make you comfortable, so be grateful. Now choose do you wish to be returned to the present or remain in the past, or if you refuse to make a decision the Kami will be forced to choose for you - like last time." Kagome swallowed hard, she didn't like not getting a choice last time...

Walter20508/20/2019

Before she could make her reply known her mother was suddenly ripped away from her, leaving her with an aching pain in her left side. Blinking awake, she looked around and discovered that the others had not been idle in the wake of her falling unconscious. Naraku had apparently gone on a rampage and abducted nearly every eligible human female and demoness plus a few taken ones.

From what she could see within his swirling cloud of miasma, Kagome was able to spot Inuemi, Sango, Eri, Yuka, Ayumi, and Ayame all trapped within his tentacles and those were just the ones she could spot. She also discovered that she was in a tentacle as well, as another zipped away from her with the jewel inside its mouth, leaving a small bleeding hole in her side that this time, wasn't being so quick to heal up.

As the blood stain spread amongst her towel, Kagome felt herself growing dizzy. But she heard howling in the distance and looking down, could see in the distance both Sesshomaru and Toga in hot pursuit in their true forms, the Band of 13 (minus Inuyasha, who must've still been recovering from labor) along with a few others riding on their backs.

Elsewhere Inukimi had caught the kit and knocked him out with her poison. She was going to spend some time with him in the dungeons at his expense for her entertainment but who knew? Perhaps she would settle for getting her pups out of him one day once he reached proper mating age, if he was still alive by that point in time.

imjaneees08/21/2019

Completely done with life as it was for the moment, Kagome, forgoing the pain on her side that wasn't as bad as the bleeding suggested, dragged herself on the tentacle holding her until she managed to reach Naraku.

"Okay trash boy, what sob story do you have this time around that made you want that jewel? Let's hear it," he did listen to her that one time, and never let it be said that Kagome wasn't a fair woman. Quid pro quo and all that jazz.

Walter20508/21/2019

"Sob story, you say? Hmm, perhaps you would like to help me out with this one my dear Miko. You see, while you and the others were cavorting around the sky castle I had finished assembling the jewel, steeped it in darkness, and made my two wishes on it, first being the old wish from Onigumo to have Kikyo and the second for me, Naraku, to become a full demon. And would you like to know what happened?" asked Naraku in a sarcastic tone.

"The Jewel didn't grant you your true wish. It never does, despite the power it offers, all it does is use people to get what it wants without giving them what they truly want so it can keep on existing," replied Kagome with a mixture of sad regret and pity.

"Exactly right as I've come to learn. Although I appreciate the tremendous amount of power it has given me, in doing so it has used me for its own devices and no one uses this Naraku, no matter who or what they might be. Now do me favor and reach out to touch the Jewel while praying," asked Naraku as his tentacle extended the Jewel to her.

Not sure what was going on, Kagome at least knew purifying the Jewel would be better than leaving it tainted so as she started praying her power came to the surface and upon fingertip contact purified the Jewel completely. Naraku brought to a point where it was between the two of them.

"In confiding its plans with me, the evil spirit within the Jewel, the entity known as Magatsuhi, told me how the 'heroes' would be able to destroy the Jewel, through the use of the one true wish. Hmph, bet he never thought that a villain such as this Naraku would be the one to utter it. I will be making my wish now, Shikon No Tama," said Naraku, causing the Jewel to began buffeting the both of them with power as fear overcame the evil entity within.

"Cease to Exist, Forever," both Naraku and Kagome said in unison, as she pleasantly surprised Naraku. The Jewel shattered into a thousand fragments that dissipated on the wind.

imjaneeesLast Thursday at 8:41 AM

It was over. Just like that. And with the most unlikely person to end it with too, Kagome though her life was full of ironies. She always thought she and her friends would have to pry the jewel from Naraku's pile of ashes but it seems like life has other plans. It was so easy too. She never thought it would end so easily.

"That was...far different from what I envisioned it to be. I can't really complain though," Kagome muttered. Then out loud for any and all to hear, "Okay, someone catch me because I just know I'm going to pass out again and this time, please don't wake me for at least another 8 hours." and she did just that

Walter205Last Saturday at 10:19 AM

Naraku smirked at Kagome's declaration, knowing that he already had her entangled in his tentacles. When the jewel had died it was like a fog had been lifted from his mind, having clouded his thoughts ever since he had come to be. He was absolutely still an evil minded little bastard but now Naraku felt like he was free to do as he pleased instead of just scheming to either get the jewel or torture his opposition to taint the jewel.

He had such plans for the little miko now...but even as she lost consciousness, she was surrounded in a blue glow. As Naraku watched in dismay, she disappeared, leaving his tentacle hanging empty. He took stock of his situation as he glanced around at his other captives. With the jewel gone he no longer felt the need to torture his enemies so he let Inuemi and Sango go, letting his pursuers stop to catch them while he held on to Kagome's three friends, who remained in his grasp.

Meanwhile, Kagome floated through a blue void as a trio of other worldly beings discussed her fate while she slept.

"What about her three friends? They are out of time's normal flow as well," asked one being.

"Leave them in the past. It was an abuse of her authority to take them into the past. As punishment she shall know only of their fates a few hundred years ago," said the second being.

"A harsh punishment to be sure, but harsh is needed when it comes to the treatment of the normal flow of time. Come, let us return her to the present and close down the portal until the next suitable crisis arises," said the third before the three of the them disappeared.

Moments later Miss Higurashi watched as a blue light burst forth from the well house and into the main house before flaring and dying in Kagome's bedroom as she was deposited still sleeping into her bed.

Stormie Like WeatherLast Saturday at 10:17 PM

Across town in the Port of Tokyo an ancient dog awoke the instant the magical power receded from the well. He ran trimmed claws through his short hair and pulled the frustration from his face. It was time to make the acquaintance of someone he had not seen in many a century.

Returning to the harbor, he moved his vessel into its place at the marina and dropped anchor.

Walter205Last Sunday at 11:55 AM

Sesshomaru returned the salute of Captain Takahashi as he walked down the gangplank upon leaving the deck of his flagship, the Guided Missile Destroyer (DDG) Kongo of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force's (JMSDF) First Fleet.

"I take it the maneuvers were a success, Admiral Taisho?" asked Kouga, disguised as he was as Captain Takahashi of the Guided Missile Frigate (FFG) Abukuma, one of Sesshomaru's most trusted subordinates.

"Yes, I believe we'll be in great shape when it comes time to conduct the RIMPAC exercises with our American counterparts. I look forward to upstaging Admiral Greenland once again," Sesshomaru answered under the human guise of Admiral Takagi Taisho.

As he left the Captain on the dock behind him, his aide attaché came running up to join him, briefing the Admiral on his current schedule. Another disguised demon, Lieutenant Takeda (Shippou) informed him of his schedule for the next three days, mostly meetings with various ship commanders and high command concerning the upcoming exercises.

"Are there any important meetings for me this evening?" asked Sesshomaru, but when Shippou nodded no, he asked the Fox to clear his schedule.

"I have an important meeting to attend in the old Edo section of Tokyo, an old acquaintance, non-service related. No need to attend or send guards, I'll just need a chauffeur, someone who knows the area...Ensign Hojo should do the trick nicely," ordered Sesshomaru. The young man had always been curious as to what happened to Kagome and her three friends ever since they had "disappeared" three years ago. Sesshomaru himself was curious as to the discrepancy in time as it had only been one day in the past since her three friends had initially arrived to the point that Kagome disappeared herself.

imjaneeesLast Sunday at 11:28 PM

Meanwhile, back in the Higurashi household, Kagome slept like a hybernating bear. It didn't help that somehow, sometimes in her deep sleep, her hands managed to reach out and grab something fluffy and long. Now it was twined around her, keeping her neck, arms and legs warm against the bitter cold. Humming in contentment, she buried her face against the fluffy thing. It was so warm and fluffy. It reminded her of Sesshomaru's mokomoko actually. On that note, it kind of smelled like it too. On that note, what was mokomoko anyway? Sesshomaru didn't seem to be the type to make fashion statements. Then again she's been wrong about him before.

Walter205Yesterday at 8:37 AM

In order to enter the service Sesshomaru had to get rid of mokomoko, but it didn’t want to leave its master’s side, so it had thrown a tantrum which had led to Sesshomaru casting it out onto the streets. For a couple of decades now hobomoko had been wandering aimlessly through the streets, but it held memory of its former master’s desires, so when the miko arrived back in this time, it knew sweet revenge was at hand. Even now the foolish girl embraced it closer as it prepared to sever her head with the Butchers Cleaver it held over her neck...

imjaneeesYesterday at 9:25 AM

Completely unaware of the danger she was in, as per usual, Kagome continued to snuggle her face against the soft fur. Dreaming of soft, innocent and cute puppies and kittens, she nuzzled and kiss the unstable fluff, "Who's a good puppy? You are! Oh yes you are! I'm keeping all of you now."

Perhaps, oh just perhaps, revenge can come in a different, more personal angle...

#crackfic #sesskag #sesshomaru #kagome #OnePostChallegeSitBoy

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merinorenee · 5 years

Text

Little Flower

A beautiful love that strives to be more than what the eye sees.

About: Seonghwa has the power of the earth. The forestation that makes the world gently flows through his hand and weaves at his call. He takes upon himself a love and shares the power. Until one day he fears that the power and life he gives her is unfair to his love, and so he lets her go.

---Little Flower---

"Don't cry my darling," he whispered, carefully cupping her delicate cheek with his palm, wiping away the solid streams of tears that fell. He watched her expression with furrowed eyebrows, as if he couldn't read her emotions entirely well.

The young girl looked at him with wide eyes. She was informed news that had hurt her heart, giving off extreme pain. One that would only hurt temporarily, however, as she would not be able to remember this moment or anything related to him again.

She reached and desperately grabbed at his cold hand. "Why? Why must I leave like this?" Thin, bright green vines were wrapped around her arms with small tiny flowers blooming in every other spot. Those vines were what tangled both her memory and her thoughts, keeping her from the real world he selfishly captured her from.

He let her go, watching as her entangled arms dropped to her side. "My little flower," he calls upon the dearest name he tended to use when he was upset. "I have been selfish for too long. It is time to give you back to those who loved you before I. Then, if you remember, you can choose to come back to me."

He had said those words, both of them knowing she would not be able to remember him after this moment. It was only to comfort the poor helpless soul he hid away. Yet his words didn't soothe her at all.

Without another word, he lifted his hand above her, a green glow surrounding her. It wilted away the green life connected to her, freeing both her body and mind from anything to for with him. A lasting tear dropped down to the plants, engraving such memory in his brain instead. Her eyes fluttered closed as the energy flowing to her was ceased, falling into his arms as she left consciousness.

~~~ [[MORE]]

It was in her blood. The tingly feeling she got when she planted the last flower in the garden was due to her passion. She believed that nature was buried deep in her heart and being with it was in her blood, almost like it was destiny for her to be connected to it.

Eunyeong proudly patted on the soil that protected the seeds of her soon-to-be blooming flower. She then reached for her water pail, pouring gently over the mound to water the plant. She smiled brightly, leaning back to admire the work before her. Rows upon rows of plants filled the garden over time, her days spent in the room was finally paying off.

Eunyeong stood to her feet, dusting off her hands on her work apron before gathering her tools and heading towards the white table. She placed down the tools, taking a last glance at the inside garden before heading for the exit, prepared to leave for the day and return the next.

The young girl was startled at the sound of the sturdy tree beside the garden crackling. It often did that when the temperature outside would cool off, but she was surprised since it was mid summer. She turned to it immediately out of concern, wondering if the tree was getting old and weak already. It crackled again when she neared, except this time much louder.

Startled, Eungyeong paused her movements. The tree had never been so loud before. She waited a few moments, wondering if she would hear it again, but was left to reluctantly leave after it went silent. She gave it a once-over before promptly turning on her heels and leaving for her home.

"I'm home!" The girl calls out, kicking off her shoes at the front door and peering into her lit home.

Her mother, bright and cheerful welcomed her from the kitchen. "Hello dear! How did it go at the garden?"

Eunyeong peered around the corner to see her mother eating a small sandwich at the island counter. "It was alright," she says with a shrug. She reaches into the fridge for a drink. "You know that tree beside the garden?"

Her mom nods. "The only tree near by it? Especially as old as it is?"

"That's the one." She sits on a bar stool by her mother, leaning over the counter and turning to her. "It was cracking loudly again. I'm worried its not just some birds in it this time, it might be breaking."

Her mother frowns. "Breaking? From what? No one even remotely heads towards that direction."

Eunyeong seems in thought and shrugs again. "Possibly the heat could be weakening it. As you know, not everything can be strong for very long. It's bound to start collapsing with its current condition, I just hope not on my garden."

The response received an eye roll. "That's your own fault for choosing to build it by a tall tree. You, someone who works with plants for a living should have thought that one through better."

She laughed before getting up, kissing her mother on the cheek and leaving towards her bathroom for a relaxing shower. A day at her warm work and hobby place caused her to build up a sweat. Eunyeong's favorite thing to do was sometimes a hassle.

The rest of the time her mind was full of worries about the tree. It would cause a lot of damage if it had fallen over on the garden center she spent forever on making it to it's current point. She didn't know how well she would be able to take it if she lost the precious thing she held so close to her heart.

Minding her concerns, she waited until her mother had gone to her own room before she crept downstairs. Eunyeong was careful of the squeaking wood floors, stepping where she knew was safe towards the kitchen for the door. She slipped on her shoes and a thin coat before leaving.

Although she wasn't willing to be caught outside so late, she would rather confirm there was no problem with the tree instead of speculating it. If she needed someone to take it down, she believed it was better to find it sooner than it falling and causing damage. As selfish as it seemed, it was the wisest choice she had.

The young girl used her phone light to guide her back to her garden not too far from home. She crept through warily as the last time she went out so late was when she was younger, unaware of the things that could jump out at her back then. Now, she was fully aware that something could happen if she was careful enough.

She let out a sigh of relief at the sight of her perfectly intact garden house. The tree didn't happen to fall down in the few hours she had left, much different from her worst images in her mind. Eunyeong had to laugh at her childish demeanor, flustered she was so caught up in her thoughts she had to leave late at night.

Eunyeong went directly to the tree and stroke the trunk. Her heart would hurt immensely, with no explanation she could give, if it was to ever come to the point she would have to cut it down. The thought of being the reason made her more upset upon seeing the tree again.

"Pretty thing," she mumbles, heart clenching like it always had when she encountered dying plants. The once strong and sturdy tree may have been weakening more than she had originally believed.

A noise in the distance caused Eunyeong to quickly turn away, heading straight back for her home after confirming her heart was still in place. She meekly waved to the plant as if it was a person, saying goodbye until the next day she would see it again. As she turned while walking, she noticed a small light blooming in the center of the tree.

At first she smiled, thinking it to be a light bug visiting the tree in her place. But, as it appeared to become larger, she was frozen in her place, feet rooted to the ground. The light was noticeable as it grew double the size each time she blinked. It became so blinding, she had no choice but to shield her eyes.

She squinted, heart hammering against her chest as she slowly peered under her arm to the light. It flashed suddenly before completely going out, a loud and solid sound echoing in the dark. Eunyeong yelped, falling to the ground and dropping her phone. The whole place had become pitch black, not a single sound heard.

The young girl fumbled in the grass for her light, the anxious feeling growing within her stomach. Her hand captured the phone and she immediately picked it up, shining the light back on the tree in disbelief. A giant hole had replaced the blue glow it had earlier, causing her to gasp in fear.

Bustling could faintly be seen below the tree. Eunyeong dropped her light onto the ground to find the outline of a person. A tall, dark male fidgeting on the sizzling grass beside him, attempting to lift himself off the ground.

Startled by his presence, Eunyeong let out a short and curt scream, announcing her place by accident in the process. The man's head snapped up, squinting into her flashlight. She caught sight of the green stripe, across his cheek that curled down to his neck and collarbone, and refrained from screaming again.

Seonghwa pushed on his arms again, causing Eunyeong to quickly squirm backwards on the ground as her legs were too numb for her to stand. He immediately leaned back to see the girl before him.

Eunyeong...

She noticed his eyes widen at the sight of her. He backed up into the tree, almost mimicking her actions. She froze, watching Seonghwa carefully with fear and curiosity residing in her green eyes. Her heart beat could be heard miles from their position as her mind raced.

But suddenly, tears fell from her eyes.

She hadn't noticed immediately, but a breath later she felt a running drop trace over her lips and soak in. Shakily, she touched her lips, all the while never looking away from the man.

He notices the tears, biting the inside of his cheek in desperation. "Please," he quietly calls to her. "My little flower, don't cry."

Her heart clenched tightly, restricting her breathing as the tears began to fall. Seonghwa watches from the distance, only wanting to be beside her to stop her pain. But this his fault, as she didn't remember him because he made it so.

Eunyeong started to back away again, but much quicker. She almost regained strength in her legs when Seonghwa suddenly shot out his hand for her, vines suddenly surrounding her and enlacing her legs. Eunyeong yelped again as the garden center door shot open, the Boston Ivy plant she had personally grown came hurling towards her and encapturing her hand, forcing the light to shine directly on Seonghwa.

She was once again frozen in her place, unmoving due to her own plants.

Seonghwa let out a heavy breath at the sight of her scared, bright green eyes dimly lit by the moon. He hadn't thought that she would be there, late at night and looking at the tree when he decided to visit again. She had never done it before, not since her memory had been erased.

He cleared his throat. "I want you to understand I'm not a threat, little one. I'm not going to harm you."

She bent her head to the vines before looking back to him in obvious question. "Who are you?"

Seonghwa pushed back his white hair, changing her attention from his face to the vines wrapped around his arm as well. She noticed the vines crept inside his black outfit secretly, almost like they were a part of him. Her eyebrows furrowed.

"What are you?"

He looked to her. "I'm someone. Not one of importance." He glanced to ground briefly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to meet you like this."

Eunyeong felt familiarity with his soft voice. Her heart was seemingly tighter the more he spoke, yet the tears had finally stopped. She still struggled to breathe properly.

"How did you...?" Her eyes flickered to the tree then back. Holding her tongue, she instead asked: "What do you want?"

He flinched at the tone of her words. His dark eyes seemingly got darker under her light. "I don't want anything from you." Then, pausing after a thought, he mumbles, "maybe I should take this memory away too."

Seonghwa's heart ached at the thought of his love forgetting him again. It had been his fault, truthfully, that he was put in such agonizing position. He had selfishly wisked her away from her home, family, life and wished for only her to love him.

It was ridiculous of him to believe she would never feel lonesome without her mother. Without her friends. When he had begun to realize his actions, it hurt him to the point his skin burned from the hate for himself. Eunyeong deserved more, he told himself, deciding it was best for him to let her go.

He wasn't normal. With the power to control nature and much more, he captured the woman he claimed to love. The plants surrounding her encased her into a world that hurt her. In the trust of her love, he killed those plants and erased the memory of him to set her free.

If only he managed to control the urge to secretly visit her...

Eunyeong's eyes suddenly glowed with a small hint of recognition. A flash of him lovingly holding her cheek had her shuddering under the loose vines. It made her swallow hard.

"Do I know you?" She questions suddenly, her head pounding relentlessly.

Seonghwa's head snapped towards her again, surprised by her words. She flinched at the quick moments, but he hadn't noticed. "What?"

She shook her head. "How would I..?" She mumbles.

Seonghwa.

The name whispered in the wind, causing her to repeat it. He heard it, heart fluttering at the sound of her calling his name again. This made him lean forward, practically begging to hear it again.

"Seonghwa?" She repeats, much louder and confident upon seeing his reaction. Her body jolts at the name, another memory flash entering her mind.

Seonghwa watched, realizing then that she was fighting the spell. She was breaking it, even under his strength he forced himself to give off. "Flower?" He cautiously says.

The memory caused her head to pound. She whimpered quietly, leaning her head forward towards the ground, wanting to hold it. "Who are you?!" She screams out suddenly, the tears starting to stream down again.

His hand reaches out to her. The plants weaken more so, eventually crawling back and releasing her. "Please, don't try to remember. You'll hurt yourself!"

Eunyeong screamed from the pain as his voice called out to her again. "What are you doing to me?"

"Im not-" he stops himself, clenching his chest as his heart squeezed tightly, similar to hers.

She held her head. One by one, images of him smiling brightly at her or them tenderly caring for plants crossed her mind. They all had so much intense emotion, her body shook violently.

"Eunyeong!" He cries out. Unintentionally, he called upon the awakening of the power he had once given and taken from her. The ivy he called off sprouted up around her as the ground shook. Several large trees shot up from underneath, tearing the ground and forming a wall around her. The ivy curled around the trees as they went high into the sky.

Seonghwa blinked in shock. His big doe eyes were possibly the largest he had ever had as he looked to the top of the trees from down below. On the top bloomed a large, glowing pretty pink flower bud.

He stood to his feet, allowing his powers to take him to the top of the tree and watch as the bud slowly began to reveal Eunyeong. Her eyes were closed, dark green lines similar to his own engraved on her delicate skin. He breathed heavily.

She fluttered open her eyes. They made contact with his, causing his heart to stop. "Seonghwa," she says carefully. Her hand raises slowly, calling upon half of his power he gave to her that allowed the ivy to listen to her. She pointed to him. "Jerk!"

He was startled as the ivy circled him tightly, holding him still as Eunyeong stood to her feet. "You took away my memory! You didnt even give me a chance to decide myself!"

Seonghwa blinked at her.

Eunyeong crossed her arms and stood. "How cruel of you to leave me alone for so long." Her hand went to head as the pain from earlier was still fresh.

"Flower..."

She glared at her lover. "Don't pull that with me. You are in deep, deep trouble mister. Wait until I tell Hongjoong."

His eyes nearly popped from his head. "Eunyeong, wait-"

She frowned. "I missed you, and I couldn't even explain why. I was hurting so much anytime I saw something that reminded me of you, but i couldn't just ignore it." She pauses to glance at the trees. "I missed my babies..."

Seonghwa laughs for the first time in awhile. "I'm sorry, my little flower."

She smiled brightly. "You better be. You now have to spend eternity making it up to me."

"So you remember? Me? Us?"

Eunyeong puts a hand to her heart, allowing a flower to bloom there. "I would eventually remember you in the end. Always."

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