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hardkuna · 3 years

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Completionist

› 𝙺𝚎𝚗𝚖𝚊 𝙺𝚘𝚣𝚞𝚖𝚎 𝚡 𝙵𝚎𝚖!𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

› 𝚗𝚜𝚏𝚠, 𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚕, 𝚠𝚊𝚡 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢, 𝚜𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚜𝚞𝚋/𝚍𝚘𝚖?, 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚍 𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚊𝚜𝚖. 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚋𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚢 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛 𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚘𝚛𝚜. 𝙰𝚐𝚎𝚍 𝚞𝚙.

› 𝟷,𝟿𝟽𝟾 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜

𝙺𝚎𝚗𝚖𝚊 𝙺𝚘𝚣𝚞𝚖𝚎 was a completionist. Every game, whether it be on a console, computer, or court, he would complete with precision. He was known to spend hours upon hours grinding for a single reward, opening every rooftop chest just for a single achievement. It was that same keen attention that let him play games for four to five hours at a time. A fixation to do every minor thing in order to reach a final prize. To get every single checkpoint along the way. Grueling work as it may be, relaxation dug its nails into the process with satisfaction following soon after. It applied to every portion of his life, a sweet hum of “we aren’t done until I reached my checkpoint.”

That’s how he found himself above you, holding a lighter to a paraffin candle. The room was filled with the sound of the burning wick and your small pants. Kenma knew you were waiting for something to start, your mind running through all of the different routes. You liked the games just as much as he did. There was comfort in the concentrated blare of the wick alone.

He never spoke much unless you acted out. He didn’t like when things seemed to glitch on him. That gentle complaintive whirr of wanting to be played until the end. Whenever it happened, Kenma would always want to restart until it worked again, properly. Lucky for him, tonight didn’t seem like one of those nights. At least not yet.

He thought you looked cute with one of his hairbands tied over your eyes. Not that it was necessary considering your fists remained balled over them. Teeth rolled the plump flesh of your lip between them. You were waiting for him to start, but his game was just loading. Anticipation for a new level curled around your insides.

The candle was raised slowly. The shift of his weight being the only warning as pretty white seeped from the side of the container. It started with a few drips, beads of wax splattering along your upper abdomen, just slightly between the valley of your bare breasts. The way your muscles reflexively recoiled at the sting causing the setter’s mouth to draw open in a delicate ‘oh’. So that’s the reaction he’d get from this one. It was a minor achievement, spurring a desire to see more of it.

A small bitten back sound whined from the crevasse your throat as your arched your back upwards. The lines left a vibrant sting before dying into a comfortable warmth. The trickle of each deviating lane danced its warmth down your sides.

Amber hues locked onto the steady stream pouring, creating drizzled lines that rolled this way and that to the curvature of your body. Like a level being conquered, he was glued to the screen that was your form in front of him. The way the hairband twitched, following the movement of the brows below it. The hitching of breath shown in your shuddering chest. Pretty. A small smile crafted onto his lips in admiration.

If you were a game, you’d be story based. Rich in lore, background, and texture. Rich in your soundtrack, which was thickened honey to his ears. Rich in visuals, leading his eyes to wander along the artistic crafting of your skin.

His hand reached out, the pads of his fingers a cool contrast to the warmth underneath them. The wax was soft still, but crackling with each upheaval of your chest. Gooseflesh threatened to pucker along your surface. His small smile flickered to daintily delighted. Everything for him was a game. An achievement. A reward for the time devoted for it. You were different. You reacted to him faster than any game. The way your thighs squeezed together at the slightest of touches a testament of the fact. You gave him things games could never. A sense of home and warmth and love and unwavering devotion. For each level of the relationship, he needed that second player to unlock it. You never let him down, you never disappointed. You silently challenged him in ways he never dreamt of before.

And now, as the tips of his fingers trailed across you, a new challenge was set in the soft mewl of his name. Carefully, he picked the hardened pieces off, lips tracing each reddened route upwards. The tickle of his breath along you triggered a roll of your hips along the thigh between your legs. Friction. You’ve been deprived of it for all too long. The first grind began the swirl in the back of your mind and the pit of your stomach. The fluttering of his lips, the caress of his hands over the warm sting beneath them, each slow and soft movement was calculated.

The tips of his fingers reached the underneath of your breast, sliding up onto them, allowing the buds to slip between with index and middle digit. Maintaining the steady-slow pace, the fingers came together, pinching the bud right where they joined. He reveled in softness of them. The bit of nerve that peeked between, his tongue met with a long and lavished lick. It didn’t matter if he tasted the salt of his own hand. The gasp, the buck of your hips at the muscle of his thigh, followed by the annoyed jerk of your chin made up for it.

You weren’t glitching out just yet, so he could keep his game going.

Kenma found his hands slipped down your body, down the valleys he’d found to trigger quick times if he pressed into you with just the right amount of pressure. Along the softened skin just at the outer edges of your stomach. Pressing slightly at the valley of your pelvis. The touch began to ghost before lifting. You whined again, lips curling into a pout while his pulled into an anticipatory line. He truly was a cat, ready to pounce at the movement of a mouse just before him.

His next checkpoint was his favorite one. One he savored whenever it was his turn to create the scene. The checkpoint where you beg for his tongue on you. You two were competitive to a degree and this checkpoint was the most difficult to get to. It involved beating a harder boss – your ego.

So, he leaned forward, pressing his thigh onto your pulsing cunt, letting you determine your own friction and pace. His lips met yours in a light kiss, cock twitching as you bit his lower lip hungrily. Your hands wound into his hair, pulling him closer in a desperate attempt to increase the friction of your swaying thighs. The slight friction caught on his length as well, the teasing of pleasure lapping at the underside of his belly. He let out a husked hum in response, slinking his hand to hold your chin between his thumb and forefinger. The other tugged the headband from over your hazy hues.

Heady and heavy lidded, Kenma toyed, “Do I need to restart the game or will you let me play?” Eyes searched each other in challenge before you conceded to him, slowly rolling so that you lower back rested on the bed once again. It was a painfully restrained motion and you knew he bubbled with glee at the quiver of your lip. The player in question inwardly breathed a sigh of relief as you gave him a moment of reprieve. The heart-beat strum between your legs fueled a summer fire in your gut, drying your throat to his next question, “Hm?” His head tilted, a playful glint in his eye as he watched you unwind.

“Please jus’ fuck me already.” The words came out in a strangled whisper. The gentle sting of the wax remained in the form of his torso pressing on yours, reinviting the claws of heat along the skin. You rolled your body to press into his, stealing another staved kiss.

Check Point: Reached.

Sometimes, Kenma could be the most expressive person. In that moment, you could see the excitement spread through the soft lift of his features. He moved down, dipping his head between your thighs. It wasn’t precisely what you had asked for, but was greedily indulged in all the same. Fingers spready your lips, his tongue running up flat, the tip expertly curling just beyond the entrance before flattening again and pressing onto the bundle of nerves above it. You were a muted sweetness, like warmed sugar water that he drank up like nectar. He could replay this level over and over. It was the one piece he didn’t mind working harder for. Feeling your thighs twitch and tighten around his head, the way your lips parted in moans with the thrust of his tongue.

It might’ve been silly, but he tended to get lost in it, nearly forgetting the angered ache of his own sex. What brought him back to reality was your feverish grip in his hair and the way your hips rocked. Breath caught in your throat, but the desperate way you moved begged for more and he humbly obliged. Two fingers slid easily into the slick, finding the rhythm and spot to make you hum a honey-thick sticky ‘nnn’. The coil in you burned at his touch, condensing like taught wires ready to snap. To spite the ache in his jaw, his tongue circled languidly in contrast to the quickened pace of his hands. If gaming taught him anything, it was excellent hand coordination. He panted onto you, exhaustion building from the effort. He knew you were holding it.

So, he stopped, sat back on his haunches and crossed his arms. His brows furrowed, creasing in slight frustration. He should have gotten you already. Twice at least by how your walls had half sputtered along his fingers. Kenma reached his checkpoint only to be met with delayed gratification.

If he couldn’t achieve it with his tongue, the very least he could do was forcibly snap that wire with what you had originally wanted. With that said, the blond motioned for you to lay on your side, pulling one of your legs up to his chest while the other remained between his legs. Flexibility was never entirely a problem for you, he found during the first few games. Arms wrapped around your leg, pinning it to him as the tip of his cock found its way to your sopping arousal.

He guided it in slowly. So slowly that your walls attempted to pull him in. Your cheeks grew a pretty pink, lashes shut, brows furrowing in concentrated pained pleasure. Kenma leaned his cheek onto your calf, “S-serves you right for holding onto it for so long.” The air in his tone was a smug matter-of-fact betrayed by the struggled stutter. From all the pent up teasing, the friction of your hips on his cock, your taste on his tongue, and now the butterfly-like flutter along his length as he rut into you, Kenma Kozume could soon claim completion. The withheld orgasms frayed the tightened wires in your core and from it, a lathered and lush howl escaped. The tight vice of you milked at Kenma’s cock, his own breath hitched as his strides stuttered. With one last thrust, thickened whips of cum lashed warmly at your walls.

As he pulled his sweat-sheened cheek away from your leg, slipping out of you in the process, Kenma flopped onto your chest. Both of you panted in near alternating synchronicity. His eyes slid shut, relishing in the sound of your rapid heartbeat. Your fingers shakily soothed through his hair, “Love you.”

“Love you too…” He peered up at you, then at the hand which lifted from your bicep with an audible stick, “I hate being sweaty… shower?”

“Hell yeah. Cold, though!”

“Disgusting, but fine,” The corner of his lips curled up as you flicked his forehead.

#🐱.kenma #🍯.hq #🥯.vagina holder #🔲.vaginal #⚔️.pain play/sadomasochism #⛓.dom-sub #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#hq #hq!!#haikyuu x you #haikyuu x reader #kenma kozume #kozume kenma #kenma x reader #kenma x you

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martellthemandalor · 4 years

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Fight or Flight - Part 2

Pairing: Frankie ‘Catfish’ Morales x F!Reader

Warnings: langauge, guns, blood, violence, alcohol, angst

Rating: T (teen)

Word Count: 4.2K+

A/N: Part 2!! Here we are after two weeks, which I’m impressed with becuase uni has been kicking my ass lately. Just a PSA that I mildly hate myself for writing this becuase I hate hurting Frankie. Thank you to @mylifeliterally for beta reading this! As always likes are appreciated, reblogs encouraged and comments are adored :)

If you haven’t already, read part 1 here!

Masterlist

GIF credit: @conveniently-available

Staying away from Frankie was working so far, the atmosphere between the two of you softening as your anger faded slowly with the distance. Everyone was happy with this, the boys starting to properly relax again in your presence and your relief at that knew no bounds.

Things were starting to feel like normal again.

Benny’s fight had gone… well you weren’t entirely sure how it had gone, but he was insisting that he had won and that was a good enough cause for celebration in the group.

The old squad had retired to Benny’s favourite haunt, a small Irish themed pub a few streets from the gym. There you were now sat, favourite beverages in hand, talking as if the last god-knows how many years hadn’t passed at all.

Ben had insisted that you weren’t paying for own drinks tonight, overjoyed that your good luck kiss had worked its magic on him. You certainly weren’t complaining, even if you did start to feel a little guilty as the other boys insisted that they pay for a few too.

Fish didn’t say anything to you but you clocked him slip his own contribution into Will’s hand, muttering something to him. Next thing you knew another bottle had been handed to you by the blonde.

A tiny wave of guilt washed over your stomach as you stared at the drink, offering your thanks to Will who simply gave your shoulder a squeeze in return. He knew it wasn’t meant for him.

The feeling quickly washed away though, replaced with that warm fuzz alcohol provided.

While it was true you had planned to lightly flirt with Benny at the start of the evening, you hadn’t expected it to be as enticing as it was to just… keep going. So, you did.

“So Benny, since when I was your good luck charm, hmm?” You queried lightly, nudging him with your elbow.

“You always were Athena, though honestly you’re more of a good looking charm than anything else.” He winked at you. It caused you, Will and Santi to groan in response.

“Come on Ben that was awful, surely you have better lines that from your other good luck charms,” You said.

“Ain’t ever been any other charm but you Ath. You gave us all our luck on missions and it continued into the ring. Wouldn’t want anyone else,” Benny confessed, all the boys nodding their agreement.

The sincerity of his words sent heat flaring to your cheeks. The boys had often joked that you were some kind of blessed, always knowing the best route out of a sticky situation, knowing when shit was about to hit the fan, knowing how to get everyone to safety even if they weren’t with you. You always said it was just paranoia and a lot of experience, but they insisted it was no joking matter how many times it had saved all your skins. All except… once.

“He’s right you know,” A quiet voice caused your head to snap from where you had been staring at your drink. “I know you don’t always believe it, but he’s right. You saved all our asses more times than I can count.”

Frankie. You stared at him, the heat from your cheeks now shifting to blaze a firefight behind your eyes.

“And yet the one time I needed you to save mine, my luck ran out? Is that it?” You snapped.

Frankie shrank under your gaze, refusing to meet your eyes. You watched his hands fidget with his bottle, fingertip skimming the rim. Then, calmly, in a move that you’d never seen before, he placed his hands flat on the table, keeping them still.

“Do you want to do this now?” He asked, his voice low, level, considered. “It’s been killing the guys to find out what happened to us, so do you want to do this now?”

They all were watching you now, four pairs of highly trained eyes bearing into your soul.

“Is that true?” You asked the group. The blaze in you never softening, the bite in your words not held back.

The answering silence told you everything, very clearly.

“You guys want to know what happened, huh? Is your curiosity finally getting the better of you now that we’re both here?” You sniped. It was all of them avoiding your eyes now, heads ducked away from your firing line.

“Hermana, you don’t have to-” Santiago started, cut off abruptly when you threw up a closed fist.

“No, I think it’s time we got it out there. I’m ready to talk. Frankie, honey, do you want to tell them? Or should I?” Fish squared his shoulders somewhat, but still couldn’t look at you. One hand had closed around his bottle again, knuckles white, gripping it so tight it looked as though it could shatter at any moment.

“Fine. Fish left me to die.” You let the words hang. And for a moment, nothing happened. Like the grace period between releasing the trigger on a hand grenade and the moment of devastation. There was silence.

The once light atmosphere instantly thickened as the words hit each of the boys in turn. It felt like smoke had filled the air around your table, swirling around you and choking up the boys before any of them had even thought of a response.

You pushed through.

“It was my last mission, before I was forced out of our company. We were out in the Rainforest, targeting some base camp. Shit went sideways. We all scattered and that was my call. Me and Fish ended up together, you know we always did. I kne- I thought, that he would always have my back.”

It was true. Frankie had always watched your six, more vigilantly than any of the other boys combined. A natural response, you thought, to being hopelessly in love with someone. It had certainly been the case for you. Your usual sharp surveillance turned up to eleven whenever he was near you on a mission.

“But on that day? That day he didn’t. We were being pursued, shots taken on us at every opportunity. I took out three of the guys behind us. Nine shots. Clean kills. No struggle.” You took a breath.

The squad was hyper focused on you, practically unblinking as you conjured the past into their minds. Even Frankie was staring at you now, mouth pressed into a firm line as he forced himself to pay attention.

He owed you that much.

“We’d made it to the hillside, one of our landmarks for tracking the distance back to the rendezvous. Things got real quiet behind us and I thought, stupidly, that we had somehow out maneuvered them. And then the rock-fall happened.” Your eyes fluttered shut for a moment. The memory of the gut wrenching fear so vivid you could practically feel it again, twisting and writhing deep in your belly.

“There were too few and they were too close together to be anything natural. I looked up and there the bastards were. I didn’t even think, just pushed Frankie off the path, down the shallow slope into the undergrowth. I just, wasn’t fast enough for myself I guess.”

You pulled up the left side of your shirt, showing the very obvious bullet wound scar that resided under your ribs. Benny’s mouth fell open, his hand moving towards you, only to swiftly clench into a fist on his thigh.

“I fell. Fell back off the ledge and into the undergrowth with him. Initially it was scrambled calls for med-evac and checking me over and telling me to keep pressure on it. My hearing started to go. Things got distant, but I could make out muffled shouting from above us. Then Fish called into his comm and gave me a look, I had no clue of why he was looking at me that way. Until he left. Left me there, bleeding out on the ground. Dying on the cold, damp earth.”

You cracked then, no longer being able to just play narrator, retelling it from some unfeeling perspective. It was becoming too real, too sharp in your mind as you replayed the event in four-D. You tried to quell the aching urge in your chest to gasp for breath by taking a long swig of your drink.

“I don’t know how long I lay there, in pain and on the verge of giving up, before med-evac showed up and saved me.”

Tears were threatening to roll down your cheeks, your head starting to spin as you battled to keep them at bay.

“Excuse me,” You muttered quietly, flying from the table and into the restroom.

The glass of the mirror was a glacier against your forehead, the smooth edge of the sink below you gliding under your thumbs as you anxiously stroked them across the surface. Your breathing was starting to even out as you used the sensations to ground yourself.

You thought you had been ready to talk about this, especially with the boys. Maybe it was because you had gone about it in a rather hostile way.

That was probably it.

You leant back from the cool glass, watching as your reflection shook her head at you.

“Get yourself together,” You firmly told yourself, “Go out there, apologise and finish the night on a high. Okay?”

The table had gone back to its normally bubbly ambience, the boys talking animatedly amongst themselves.

Your gut did a somersault. They all looked so happy, so carefree, even Frankie was talking happily with them.

You couldn’t stop observing him. The way he smiled and how his shoulders shake slightly when he laughs. His hands were gesticulating wildly when he spoke, the alcohol freeing them from their usual firmly crossed position.

Something flipped in you. The simmering anger that had flowed through your veins at the sight of him evaporated into lingering guilt.

All the tension, everything that had been off about the evening, it had all been your fault.

You took a breath and checked that you still had your phone and wallet in your pocket. You were just going to leave, let the boys have the carefree reunion they deserve.

Shit. Your coat.

Your coat was hanging off the back of the chair that your really didn’t have the stomach to approach right now. You considered making a run for it, just walking past and nabbing it. The problem with that is the boys would instantly notice.

No. Easier to leave it, you can just drop a text to Pope and tell him to drop it at your hotel room later.

You exited the bar quickly, hoping none of the guys saw, and started walking back to your room.

“You left your coat you know.”

Fuck.

Of course Santiago had noticed you slipping away. You stilled, and took a deep breath.

“I- I’m sorry Pope, I just… had to go.”

“You don’t have to apologise, Athena,” Santi spoke softly as he approached you. His arm looped into yours, and as you started walking the two of you fell instantly in step. “It couldn’t have been easy for you to tell us that.”

“No, I do. Not just for unloading that onto you about Frankie, but for being an asshole all evening. I put so much tension-”

“Ath, I promise you that there has been very little tension, things have been great this evening. Anything between you and Fish is between you two alone,” Pope gently squeezed your arm. “Will, Benny and I all knew that things wouldn’t be easy for you two tonight, so I promise you that any ‘tension’ you think you’ve caused was fully anticipated and did not ruin the night.”

The glow of the hotel drew closer with every step and 5 minutes ago the warmth and comfort would’ve been calling to you. Instead, all the warmth and comfort you needed was radiating from your best friend, his words gentle and reassuring in their very nature.

You looked over at him, at the face that had always greeted you on your worse days, and smiled with genuine affection filling your features.

“Thank you, Santiago,” You gave his arm a gentle squeeze, returning the one he had given before. “You always know what to say to me don’t you?”

“I’ve had years of practice, hermana,” He responded kindly.

Pope walked you to the door of your hotel room, even after you insisted that you were more than fine, and left you with a firm hug and a gentle kiss on your cheek. You believed that would be the last you’d see of any of the boys until tomorrow.

Settling in for the night, you were moments away from turning on the TV when a soft rapping at the door was about to prove you wrong.

You padded over to the door and peered through the peephole.

Fuck.

The latch on the door clicked as you opened it for your ex.

“We need to talk.” The words rushed from Frankie’s mouth before you even had chance to take a breath.

Standing for a moment, you studied the man standing patiently in the hallway. His hands were shoved in his pockets, cap pulled low over his face. His stance told you he was nervous, but his eyes betrayed a confidence that you weren’t even sure he realised he had.

“Okay.”

Standing aside, you held the door open and let him slip past you. You shut the door behind him, leaning against it as the lock engaged.

Fish stood in the centre of the room, smoothing down his shirt before taking off his cap and slowly rotating it in his hands. His eyes were steady on your face, waiting for you to make the first move.

The air between you was thick and heavy. The bed suddenly looked like the most inviting place in the room, so you moved to sit on it, positioning yourself at the headboard. You leant forward and patted the space of mattress at your feet, a quiet signal for Frankie to get comfortable.

There was no hesitation his part, swiftly moving to settle cross-legged at the foot of the mattress. Even now, when you both knew that this was going to bare more of your souls to each other than you ever had before, he was still giving you all the space he could.

“Where do you want to start?” You asked, your voice calm and almost, almost, soft.

“You first. Just, tell me everything, whatever you feel or have felt. Me and you, we were… we were never good at that, we repressed and tried to forget. Especially with this and it broke us. So please, please I want to know, I want to understand.” He was almost pleading with you.

Of everything Frankie had ever asked you, this was the most terrifying of them all.

He was patient. Sitting quietly while you gathered your thoughts, he gave no indication of wanting to rush you. He was right. The two of you had never been good at talking out your feelings. You both tended to bottle them up until they exploded in moments of anger or were thrown into sex.

After a few minutes of quiet searching, you finally formulated a script of your thoughts.

“I loved you with everything, Frankie,” You began, taking a deep breath before continuing. “My entire heart and soul, and do you know where it went? With every passing minute after you abandoned me, every second that I lost more and more hope of you circling back to get me, all my love for you bled out.”

Your hands curled into fists on your thighs, the gentle pinch of your nails digging at your palm grounding you from the rise of unbridled emotion. Frankie kept still, attentively listening to your every word.

“My heart shattered away, piece by piece, with every weakening beat and gushed from my wounds. Its out there, somewhere, Frankie. My love for you is stained blood red onto the jungle floor.” Your voice was starting to crack, the tremors in it impossible to ignore.

Frankie’s mouth fell open a little at that. You could see in his face that he was desperate to say something, but he chose to draw himself back, to keep listening to you.

“I thought getting shot hurt, but it was nothing, nothing, compared to the pain of you leaving me to die alone,” You croaked, your throat constricted with the effort of holding back the rolling tears. Tears which were starting to drip down your face regardless.

“You broke me, Frankie. I can’t date, can’t connect with anyone else. Even if I want to I can’t, because I have this constant fear that they will get up and leave me in the dark,” Your breath hitched as the script changed, a dangerous realisation fighting its way to the front line of your thoughts. “And I can’t date them because none of them are you.”

The reaction in Frankie was instant. Choking on air, his eyes frantically searched your face for any sign of a lie. When he found none, you watched as he forced himself to relax, a shaky breath leaving his lungs.

Your own body slumped against the headboard, the admission winding you completely. All your composure was gone. The puppet string that you forced yourself to follow had been severed. There was no room for acting alright anymore. Not tonight. Not with him.

“My turn.”

Frankie shifted on the bed, looking as though he was going to crawl up to you. Instead, he merely turned a little in order to face you head on.

“You deserve to know the truth. I deserve for you to let me do that. Okay?” He was coaxing you, gently.

Even now, after everything, he was still asking your consent.

Your consent to let him talk. Your consent to let him change your memories. Your consent to finally let yourself feel.

“Okay,” You said quietly, a nod accompanying the small sound.

“When you fell beside me, your clothes slowly darkening before my eyes, my first instinct was to call for Med-Evac. I followed our training, trying to stop the bleeding and giving our location over the comms. But, I… they…” Frankie paused for a second, an unsteady hand dragging down his face.

You leant forward, closing the chasm that lay between you and the man you loved just a fraction.

“I heard them shouting above us. Kill all survivors. It wasn’t good enough that they’d shot you, they wanted us, you, dead. I just knew, that if I stayed there, if I called in Medics, if I showed even one sign that either you or I were still alive down there,” He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight for a moment. His fists were closed too, scrunched up in the sheets that lay beneath the two of you.

You shuffled forward. Just a little.

“Dios. (“God”) They would have killed both of us. In those seconds between hearing them and calling off Med-Evac, my mind ran through every single possibility of how I could get you out there alive. I couldn’t lose you. I couldn’t ever lose you, mi petardo.” (“My firecracker”)

You tried to speak, but Frankie cut you off with a shake of his head.

“I made the only decision that I thought could possibly save you. Let them think you were dead. Leave you and make you seem like a lost cause and maybe, just maybe, you would survive this. It was the hardest decision of my entire life. I tried to tell you what I was doing, but I think shock had set in and you couldn’t hear me at all.”

The tears were escaping down his face now, all attempts at staying stoic failing as the tell-tale droplets fell. Your heart constricted at the sight, the urge to fly to him and wipe them away blooming deep in your chest.

“The look in your eyes broke my heart. You were so afraid and I knew you were about to become infinitely more so. Leaving you there was the worst thing I have ever done, in the whole of my life. If I could ever reverse it, if I could ever switch places. I would do in a heartbeat.”

Frankie’s face was glistening, but he made no attempts to wipe away the continuous stream of tears. It drew your attention to the fact that you too were still crying, unregistered droplets falling down your own cheeks.

Fuck. You wanted to reach for him. To pull him safely into your arms and apologise a million times over for how fucking selfish you had been.

The silence was becoming deafening, echoing in the cavern between you, ricocheting back and forth in a plight to be broken.

Then it was like the gaping space between you vanished. A lifeline was strung across, attached to both your hearts as you both opened your mouths and…

“I’m sorry.”

The words were spoken in complete unison. So much more than just an apology, it was an acknowledgment. Of what, you weren’t quite sure yet.

You tried to speak again, but Frankie spoke over you.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you the truth earlier. I should’ve fought harder to see you when you were so set on not seeing me. Not talking to me. I didn’t want to force myself onto you, into your space. I wanted to give you time to heal. But I- I left it too long. It wasn’t much later that I decided the best thing for both of us was to just let you go.”

Frankie’s silent sobbing was becoming more and more physical, deep, shaking breaths starting to wrack his speech. You found your heart starting to shatter all over again.

Fuck giving each other space.

You practically pounced on him, arms and legs wrapping round him as you buried your head in his shoulder. You told yourself it was because you were trying to hide your own tears. In reality you knew it was because right there is where you felt safest.

It was where you always were safest.

It took a moment for Frankie. It was like his brain stopped working for a few seconds. But once it fully registered that it was you in his lap, his arms circled your body, holding you tight to him.

You felt his face nuzzle into your hair, his tears beginning to dampen the soft strands.

“I was wrong, I was so, so wrong,” Frankie sobbed against you.

“No, shhh, no you weren’t,” You hushed, your hand coming up to smooth over his unruly curls. “I was. I was stubborn and hurting and unwilling to listen to anyone.”

“You were hurting because of me,” He murmured.

“No Frankie, I was hurting because of me. It was my decision to push you first, my decision to not let you see me.”

You pulled back from his neck, moving to rest your forehead against his. Your hands cupped his face, thumbs sweeping over the rosy apples of his cheeks.

“We… we both made mistakes. We both fucked us up. It’s like you said, neither of us were any good at talking out our feelings. This was just the culmination of that,” You breathed it out, the words fanning over his lips that hovered mere inches away.

“I still love you.”

The words were whispered. Barely audible if not for how close you were. A confession so short, yet still held the weight of a thousand bullets.

“I still love you too.”

The parroted words broke down every single one of the walls that you and he had built up over the years. All the heartache, the hating, the yearning, the supressed loving, it all disintegrated in a moment. None of it mattered right now, not now you both knew you had felt it all together.

“Can I kiss you?” Frankie asked. His now words bolder and more assured.

You nodded, momentarily biting you lip before pressing them to the familiar shape of Frankie.

Everything melted away, the room, the world, the past, all with the gentle brush of his lips against your own. It was unhurried, long presses of lips that slowly turned to languid passing of tongues. Relearning what the other felt like, tasted like.

When you finally broke apart, you spent a few minutes in comfortable silence. Your hands glided over each other’s body in the quiet, using feather-light and comforting touch.

“Can we try again?” You spoke the question with firmly shut eyes, afraid that his answer wouldn’t match the one you were longer for.

You felt his hand your chin, gently tilting your head up and encouraging you to open your eyes.

When you did, you found yourself looking into his dark chocolate orbs. The corners of his eyes crinkled just slightly in a way that let you know the smile he wore was genuine.

“Cariño, I want nothing more. But,” Frankie paused, the smiling falling from his face. He pressed his forehead to yours, rocking his head to the side slightly as he did. “We need to be better. Better for each other. We… we need to learn to talk shit out.”

You brought your hands up to move his head, bringing it down to rest in the crook of your neck, cradling it there.

“We will,” You promised. “We’ll be better. We’ll work this out.”

And as you sat there, holding your world in your arms, you knew that you and he finally had the second chance you didn’t know you had been craving.

TAGLIST

@din-damn-djarin

@phoenixhalliwell

@legili-mens

@jeeperky

@autumnleaves1991-blog

@arabellathorne

#Frankie morales #frankie 'catfish' morales #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales x you #frankie morales fanfiction #triple frontier fanfiction #santiago pope garcia #frankie catfish morales #benny miller #will miller #will ironhead miller #i killed myself a little with this i wont lie

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mcu-padawan · 4 years

Text

solace

Pairing: Obi-Wan Kenobi x gender neutral senator!reader

Description: Obi-Wan comforts you after a particularly stressful event.

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: panic attack triggers, canon typical violence, flashbacks, my attempt at making a fic of a scene that’s literally been replaying in my head for the longest sorry if it’s incoherent, my main motivator was the main scene and I didn’t develop much of a background oop

A/N: Had a pretty scary event happen last week that I don’t think I’ve fully processed and so it's still been lowkey in my head so I wanted to write this quick fic about how I’d appreciate Obi-Wan’s comfort 😪 Hope y’all enjoy! (PS I’m nearing a milestone so I might make a celebration soon stay tuned!)

— — — — — —

Your room in the ship is large and spacious. Certainly much larger than any of the other rooms on the ship. But at the moment you feel as if you’re confined inside a small room that just keeps on shrinking.

You are fighting hard to keep the tears back at this point. The overwhelming emotion of the events of the last few days are becoming too much, but you still try to keep your emotions in check.

I need to be strong, you think, taking a deep breath. If I’m not strong for my people, who will be?

Your hands are clenched at your side as you continue to pace. You decide that first you need to stop pacing, so you do. You stop, take a deep breath, and dry your hands on your thighs. As you wipe your hands down your thighs you feel the outline of an object in your pocket, an object that was handed to you by a certain Jedi Knight.

“What’s this?” you’d asked as Obi-Wan handed you what looked like a small out of order speaker.

“It’s an old fashioned comm link,” Obi-Wan had told you. “It’s linked directly to this comm link.” He showed you an identical device. “Use it to call me in case of anything. The comms are an older model, so they’ll only send a signal, not a specific message.”

You grabbed the comm link from his hand and looked it over, slightly confused as to why he’d given this to you. “How is this different to the comm I received earlier?”

Obi-Wan looked at you seriously, as if trying to communicate something else to you. “These comms are only connected to each other. Use this if you need me for anything. Nobody else.”

You’d nodded, a warm feeling settling in your chest. Now you took the comm out of your pocket, looking at the device. The device was simple, much more bare than the newer comm models. It had a single button on it, which you had to assume was the one that sent the signal to the other comm.

Your finger hovers over the button, slightly traces the outline of the button, but doesn’t press it. As much as you hope that what you and Obi-Wan have is more than just a bodyguard-assigned protectee relationship, you know that you know the code of the Jedi. No attachments. No attachments.

He said I could call him for anything, you think. But you can’t decide if needing someone to talk to constitutes as part of the anything he meant.

So you continue to pace, this time with one of your hands gripping the comm tightly. And as you continue to pace, the thoughts you had been trying to push away come rushing back, and the emotions back with them.

Suddenly you’re not in your room on a transport ship taking back to Coruscant. No, suddenly you’re back on a planet close to the Outer Rim which you had been sent to in order to negotiate a treaty with. The treaty was meant to help ease trade in your home planet, currently the major issue your people were experiencing. The lack of trade routes available to your planet restricted the materials that were able to be delivered to a planet that depended heavily on the agriculture of neighboring planets in order to feed its people. And so you had made the move to work on a peace treaty, despite the multiple warnings of your friends in the senate and in your home planet.

Instead of a peaceful arrival, you and your entourage had been met with deceit. You were welcomed to negotiate, but attacked as soon as you had let your guard down. You’d had to flee the planet, leaving behind any hope of a quick, peaceful resolution.

Tears blurred your vision again. You had almost died. A shot from a blaster had grazed your left cheek during your escape. Had you moved your head a second later...

You had almost died.

“Fuck this,” you say. You look at the comm in your hand and with only a second of hesitation you press the button. You expect a light or sound or something to inform you that the signal had been sent, but there’s nothing.

“Oh great,” you say and toss the comm on the desk in your room. You start making your way to bed, settling on attempting to catch some rest, though you are certain you won’t.

But then you hear a quick, silent knock on your door. Had you not been hoping for it, you probably would not have heard it.

You make your way to the door, opening it to find the only person in the entire galaxy you wanted to see. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Knight, stands in your doorway, his eyes filled with concern.

“I was beginning to think this comm didn’t work,” you joke, trying your best to keep Obi-Wan from noticing the emotion in your voice.

“Are you alright Y/N?” And for some reason, hearing him ask you if you were okay makes you realize just how not okay you were.

You shake your head, unable now to hold back some tears from falling down your cheeks. “I’m not,” you whisper.

Obi-Wan steps in your room, taking your hands and leading you to sit on your bed. He sits next to you, letting go of your hands.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he says, concern lining his brow.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” you say as you look down at your hands on your lap. “I just needed someone to talk to.”

“Don’t apologize Y/N. You know I’ll always be here if you need to talk. So tell me, what’s wrong?”

And you tell him. You tell him how much of a failure you felt like. A failure to your people, to the republic, as a senator. You were a newly appointed senator and had wanted to leave a print in your term. When you were younger you had taken note of the difficulties your home planet endured with depending on others for a majority of their source of food. But given the extreme weather growing their own crops wasn’t an option for many. So taking up this negotiation was a reasonable next step.

“But I should’ve seen it coming,” you said, your breath coming out shaky. You keep your eyes on your hands. You had not noticed just how much your hands were shaking until you feel Obi-Wan’s stable hands hold yours, his warm fingers cradling your hands in his.

“Love, look at me.” Your heart jumps at what he calls you, but it absolutely melts at the way Obi-Wan looks at you.

Understanding is what you are met with when you look into Obi-Wan’s eyes. Obi-Wan understands your pain, your feeling of failure, your fear of the future. Something you would’ve thought a Jedi was incapable of feeling, but it’s clear as day in his eyes.

“Listen, I won’t tell you to get over the feeling of failure. I know that no matter what I say, you’ll still feel as you do. But I will tell you this: failure is part of the process. It sounds cheesy, trust me I know it does, but you can’t learn if you don’t fail.” His words don’t heal your pain, but they warm your heart as you realize you’re not alone in what you feel.

“And I want to remind you of something else,” he continues. “This has taken me time to learn, but know that failure once doesn’t mean absolute defeat. You’re more experienced now, you know who you’re dealing with. You know the danger that’s involved. ” He pauses, moving to trace the healing wound on your cheek as a result of the blaster that narrowly missed your head. “And you’ll be able to formulate a plan to solve this issue once and for all.” Obi-Wan cups your cheek, his thumb wiping a tear away.

His face is close to yours, much closer than you realized, but you can feel his breath on your lips and you can’t help but bite the inside of your lip. His eyes briefly look down at your lips, then he looks into your eyes again. “And I want you to know that I’ll always be here to help you out with anything you need.” He kisses your forehead and you close your eyes, breathing in his scent and hoping the moment could last forever. But he pulls away (too soon for your liking) and leans his forehead on yours.

“Stay with me tonight, please,” your voice is just above a whisper, but you know he hears you. “I can’t sleep alone.”

“Of course I’ll stay,” he answers, his voice as soft as yours. “I’ll always stay.”

The night ends with both of you curled up with one another in your bed. Nothing else is said, you two just lay and sleep, enveloped in one another’s comfort.

~~~

Tagging some friends :)

@anakin-danvers @nobie @catsnkooks @captainrexstan @thedevilwearsbeskar @obirain @corellians-only @acciokenobi @goldenkenobi @hxldmxdxwn @jediforce @snips-n-skyguy0501 @anakinswhore @kaminobiwan @sweeetteaa @cherieboba @likeshootingstarsinthenightsky

#yay! a second fic!#I'm glad because i was fearful i'd only write one fic and just... stop haha #i welcome feedback!#let me know what yall think!#usernobie #userkarina #ayatlovesme #obi wan kenobi #obi wan kenobi x reader #obi wan kenobi x gender neutral reader #obi wan kenobi x you #aileen writes?!#my fic #my work

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rinharu-purple · 4 years

Text

Mr. Love MC’s Choice: Gavin

We fellow producers all have our favorite LI in the game for whom we save our gems and dates, replay their chapters over and over again, sucking our bank accounts dry during the process. And that’s what makes this game so fun! However in my opinion MC’s personal choice is Gavin. I will try to explain it as thoroughly as possible in this post. Obviously they are only my personal opinions at the end of the day so please don’t freak out if you beg to differ ^_^

There are spoilers ahead and this post is a long one, you were warned!

A big, warm hug and grandious thanks to @smallersocksx for proof reading so fast and sharing her ideas! <3 </p>

Up until now, I’ve always analyzed ships in subtopics, so this time won’t be any different so I will just dive right into it:

Body Language

The law of attraction between two people in a romantic way has some thumb rules, one of them is that when you like someone then you try to touch them at every opportunity. From all of our LI’s Gavin is by far the one with the most body contact to the MC (The main story only atm, I will come to his dates in a minute ;)). I think the anime speaks for itself, in every single Gavin episode and some of other LI’s episodes (ahem…ep 10 but also ep 11…ahem) Gavin and MC are always in an embrace or a meaningful “hands-on” moment…In the game MC and Gavin are quite often touchy with each other, MC seems to not holding her hands back every time she feels like Gavin’s hurt and reflexively touches him, she is also highly concerned about his hair since every time his hair get messed up by the wind, rain or hormones (swh ;)), MC doesn’t waste any second before correcting his hair. Every reunion they have results in MC reaching out her hands towards Gavin and surprisingly never other way around. Even in a perillious moment in chapter 22 when Gavin goes completely wild and unleashes his “beast-self” the first thing MC wants to do is embrace him. In chapter 24, at the very end among all routes, MC only tells Gavin that she’s missed him and hugs him. Chapter 27...again MC wants to check Gavins body for injuries and tends to them the second they are alone in a closed room. They both yearn for each other’s touch all the way, no matter in which narrative.

If I were to start counting Gavin’s touchy touchy moments on the other hand, then we have to prepare a 4 volumes encyclopedia because that male individual is all about touching MC. Another hint for their closeness is that MC makes notes on Gavin’s scent quite often, mostly related to his jacket or his embrace and while doing it, she always uses adjectives like “clean”, “distinct” or “unique”. Again in ch. 15 she knows its Gavin standing behind her even without looking, because she senses his scent: “A scent that I’d recognize anywhere”. Surely there are many scenes, where MC holds hands with another LI or makes a remark of their scent, but they are not at the intensity or frequency level that of Gavin’s.

2. The Setting

All four LI’s are representing a certain archetypes women are usually attracted to:

Kiro is a pop idol (target audience 13-15)

Victor is the young successful businessman with a high dominant demeanour and Mr. Grey-ish attitude (target audience 25 upwards or any 50 shades of Grey reader)

Lucien is a young attractive professor with a mysterious and enigmatic vibe (target audience 20-24)

Gavin is the misunderstood bad boy (high school) and later a righteous police officer (16-19 for the bad boy Gavin and 20 upwards for the righteous police officer, special agent, military commander... a pilot?! anything including a uniform fetish)

So, in the game, Elex could take any of these paths and develop it in a way that the chosen path becomes a true love story. I gotta admit, Victor’s story comes at times very close to being one. However, his never-ending bickering and belittling in his 90% of the time cold demeanour just make him lose major points. Plus, MC mostly goes along with Victor’s tone, even though she is a kind and friendly person, she bickers with Victor not because that’s her personality but because that’s the way she can cope with him. If only he were a little bit less domineering.. Which is why I never feel like MC and Victor would belong together irl.

Seemingly Elex and Mappa take Gavin’s way imo. Because…

In the main story MC loves all of the LIs in a different way and also has romantic feelings to each one of them to a certain degree, but when we look at it closely and read in between the lines of MC’s thoughts Gavin is a little bit more romantically portrayed than the other guys.

a) First of all Gavin had a crush on MC during high school cannonically: Even though Gavin only says that it was a farewell letter, MC says once that she wishes that she could’ve read that “love letter”. I will stop here with Gavin’s feelings because this post focuses on MC.

b) MC, too, was kinda into Gavin during high school because in Episode 18, when she goes to Loveland Hugh during her farewell tour before going with her ultimate sacrifice , she remembers Gavin in intimate things like “watching his athletic body” or “wearing men’s clothes-meaning his-”. Additionally she remembers taking note of his face shining in the sun in the very back of the line during her recital. Even before it all she was specifically interested in him. Her memories with the other LI s are comprised of rather friendly moments like flying kites together but when it comes to Gavin she once again thinks about more intimate elements. Not to mention that the game gives MC a farewell with Gavin. In her final moments she only thinks that for Gavin her grievance would be the hardest. In the End of the Abyss era (ch. 15-18) MC meets all of the LIs after their changes again and reacts to all of them with joy…surely, but only when she sees Gavin hovering above her in the helicopter it is again…drum roll…drama: “The next second I saw a pair of amber eyes…shining like brilliant skies” this girl is always romanticizing Gavin.

“-Can you hear me?

-Can you see me?

-See my heart pounding again at the sight of you?” (so are you saying that your heart wasn’t pounding before? oh ok ;))

Fast forward to CH34 where MC fights Leto for the final time and remembers our guys and again, while she remembers other LIs for their sacrifices and their protection of her, she remembers Gavin's warm arms...

c)The game takes his time and turns the half of a whole chapter into a date in chapter15 Ep 1-9. There is no other chapter in the game where MC spends time with any of the other LI’s in which there is only the two of them, whereas nothing relevant to the main story happens and they share solely many sweet, romantic and almost hot (when MC tries to dry Gavin’s face in her flat and realizes that she stands way too close to him, she then prepares herself to say something, but gets interrupted by the alarm) and again, MC is getting close to Gavin, not the other way around like Lucien pushing MC against the blackboard, that little sneaky Lucien (actually I could write a post with a masterlist of Lucien’s advances to MC:D).

d) MC’s premonitions revolve mostly around Gavin (when they are not about the whole world or the black queen). Her dream about the rooftop rescue, her Room 404 dream, her daydream in the office in 6-13 in which Gavin’s suffering and from which she wakes up crying out his name leading to Willow, Kiki and Anna remark on playfully how unfair it is to dream about Gavin and disregarding the other guys. She also sees his future in episode 15 twice! If I am not mistaken, she only sees Victor’s future once in her dream and a vague vision of him in ch 18 but other than that she has no premonitions about Lucien or Kiro. Besides in the anime MC uses her power unintentionally yet instinctively twice while having Gavin in mind in episodes 5 and 8. The third time, she uses her powers in this way is in episode 11 with Victor but he is not her driving force for this but she is driven by the imminent danger they both are in and she doesn’t particularly think about Victor at this moment. In the game it additionally happens in chapter 22 when Gavin is cornered by the mechanical arms and is in a tight spot, this sight makes MC have a surge of rage and to unleash her powers in a great magnitude. Gavin is Queen’s soft spot i.e. More importantly Gavin is a constant part of MC’s future frame. She has her visions about other LI’s past but when it comes to Gavin it’s only his future. MC doesn’t have visions about Gavin’s past, like, ever. While Kiro, Lucien and Victor are stuck in their pasts with MC, Gavin has made peace with his past, is living in the present and looking forward the future (one of his best qualities imo, not being stuck in the past). Ironically, it’s MC, who’s stuck in the past in Gavin’s case.

e) I will intentionally not delve much into S2 stuff, but one thing has to be in this post…We know that in S2 MC goes back in time and relives the last 17 years. During these 17 years she makes sure to spend her high school years close to Gavin. So given the chance to rewrite her past, she would choose to make good for the lost years that she regretted dearly in S1 (she gushes out about her regrets in S2 Late Autumn Date in detail). We are yet to find out more about the nature of their relationship during high school, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a “will they, won’t they” situation. Since the game wouldn’t put any of the guys in an ex-boyfriend role, that would be the most romantic frame possible.

3. How other people see Gavin x MC

f) In CH 36, the one before CH 37, where every LI gets the same intimate moment with MC, only Lucien and Gavin are getting close to kissing her to which MC doesn't show any rejection towards... She is the one accidentally kissing Gavin btw and this is the only time before CH37 that MC either accidentally or willingly kiss any LI on his face or near his lips.

g) In S1, MC only posts two pics with the boys in her moments. One of them is a selfie with Lucien and the second one is with Gavin, hugged from behind. No other LIs ever have a moment with MC. Neither on their accounts, nor on MCs.

It is always a good indicator to look at how other characters perceive a particular ship. For Gavin and MC, it is almost obvious that once they are standing side by side, others see them instantly as a couple. Sure, at the orphanage some children ask Lucien if MC is his girlfriend or that one actress threatens MC to stay away from Victor because he’s hers (btw what happened to her?) With Gavin however, it’s practically a running joke.

As mentioned above, her once daydream in the office with Gavin shoutout in CH 6-13 drew the attention of her co-workers, leading them to mock her for thinking about him too much even though her dream was rather a nightmare. Besides, Gavin is the one showing up the most in MC’s office and he also lift her up to his shoulders once in the Visiting Hours date and Homer took a pic of that hilarious moment.

Every time MC is at STF HQ, respectively, Gavin’s co-workers or subordinates too take note of her presence and in chapter 12 they are even caught red-handed by one of the agents as MC is busy “correcting” Gavin’s hair (because see point 1). Eli seems to be aware of the intimacy between the two and even probably assumes that they’ve done the deed, because in ch 12 he is surprised to hear that MC hasn’t seen Gavin’s wound yet. He presumes that she already saw him naked…oh Eli! Season 2 has even more eminent scenes, we just have to wait and see.

In chapter 15 when they deliver Perry to the hospital, they are mistaken to be his parents by the hospital personnel not once but twice! Needless to say, they don’t find it necessary to correct the misunderstanding. I mean Perry is, what, 6…MC 22, Gavin 24 but they automatically think that they must be the parents?! Sure thats common sense- wink wink nudge nudge ¬‿¬ -

In chapter 22 Shaw makes a comment on MC willing to go to where Gavin is with a “Really, all you do is following him, isn’t it?”. He uses MC to trigger Gavin in Airport date as well.

And of course, there is Minor…The ultimate number one wingman and the most original Gavin-stan! Minor uses everything in his power to bring them together both in the main story and in dates. He even calls her Sis-in-Law in public in CH 35 which MC doesn't reject. This doesn’t even need explanation.

Last but not least:

Their couple chemistry went viral lol.

Visually speaking, when they stand side by side, for me Gavin and MC look the most like a couple (Kiro is too childish and fashion icony compared to MC and Victor is too mature and business attire-ish making him look like her uncle rather than boyfriend, Lucien is the only one besides Gavin who actually suits MC visually). I am not saying that looks are the main indicator btw so don’t lynch me please ^_^

Come to think about it, MCs life is intertwined with that of Gavin's the most. Considering how she knows his father, brother and colleagues and spends so much time in "his world" whether it's at STF or NW. In the main story MC and Gavin have their favorite restaurants (ehm it's never souvenir due to obvious reasons 😉), share the same passion for music, have many common memories from high school and most importantly their world views are very similar. Both are prioritizing others safety over themselves and are compassionate for anyone who is in need. They are both ambitious and hardworking but not to the point of being power driven. Both are humble and finding hapinness in the smallest things. Maybe that's why they say the same things simultaneously or say the things the other would say simultaneously. MC and Gavin are highly compatible and have a harmonious, healthy relationship despite the conspiracy around them.

4. Anime

Okay okay, listen…Yes, the anime wasn’t the best adaptation and many of us were disappointed by the ending (including me), still, the anime makes a part of canon MLQC universe and no Gavin-stan should complain about the anime because the anime put canonically Gavin on a pedestal. In a total of 12 episodes, all guys had 2 episodes each BUT Gavin was actually blessed with 3 episodes and so many romantic moments to count…let’s count them anyways :)

Mappa introduces all guys in episode 1 so MC encounters them all in the first 25 minutes but she first meets Gavin in episode 2 and the two spend almost the entire time of the episode together, not to mention the extremely romantic first-fly scene in the sunset. As I mentioned in point 1, MC and Gavin are always in physical contact in any given episode. Anime made sure to portray every single interaction they have romantically.

They even went so far to mix Gavin scenes in other guys episodes (he offers her a ride to work in ep 3, she has an emotional moment with him after the first shooting misunderstanding while Lucien is standing right next to her in ep 4, Gavin is the one to catch MC mid-air in ep 10, this episode ends with them in their life and death embrace falling down in dawn… and then he falls on her in ep 11).

When it’s a Gavin episode MC has no romantic scenes with any of the other guys, let alone having any scenes at all. Its only about Gavin in Gavin episodes. Also, the storyline is edited in a way that between MC and Gavin a romantic story develops. Their meet cute conspiracy, their misunderstanding with Lucien, followed by the “drop the senpai” offer and finally that 5 seconds long gaze deeply in the eyes in ep 8 while holding hands.

It is really sad that the anime ruined this development in the final episode but taking into consideration that there might be a second season, they probably chose to make the change in Gavin’s character after the NW project remarkable.

Another point in the anime is that they kinda exaggerate Gavin’s Evol a little bit. During his stand-off with Lucien Gavin’s bullet cuts through Lucien’s shield and all in ep 8,11 and 12 there is a significant emphasis on the intensity and destructive power of Gavin’s Evol. I mean, whose Evol is the most upfront one in episode 12? We see Lucien using his Evol only twice, both very briefly, Kiro/Helios/Key and Victor even have to use guns to protect themselves and/or MC. Gavin’s shown using a pistole once at the beginning, after that it’s all turbines and tornadoes and just Gavin unleashed.

I think it’s an exaggeration because in my personal opinion, Lucien is actually the one with the strongest Evol, followed by Victor and then comes Gavin. Lucien’s ability to copy an Evol is simply the strongest trait one could have, sure it comes with the downside that he then doesn’t have enough time and focus to excel in any of those Evols, Victor can literally create black holes are you kidding me?! But because his Evol has its limits it puts him in the second place. But in the anime, Gavin’s Evol is extremely powerful and destructive and they also created some really cool scenes in which Gavin uses his Evol in various styles (accelerating his bullets speed, dodging a bullet, lifting MC in any and every situation, flying- obviously- and sometimes just overpowered destruction).

But in the anime in comparison, Lucien looks like a copy-cat of Evols and Victor like someone who travels through time to find out nothing can change the course of events (on a side note I will never understand why did Mappa toned down Victor so heartlessly, he is a powerful character and has countless sweet, emotional moments with MC).

5. Dates

I left dates to the end because they are highly subjective and don’t belong to the main story. NEVERTHELESS, Gavin’s dates include here and there some hints which may indicate that MC tends to like Gavin maybe just a little bit more. I will just add it as bullet points here since I’m pretty sure that the list will be enriched over time.

Slightly drunken date: Shouting out loud in public “Gavin! I’m crazy for you!”

When the Galaxy Falls Date: “...and in that moment, I make an eternal vow in my heart. To give all the blazing love and the most endless warmth to the person in front of me. Standing on my tiptoes, I carry a heart which is filled with courage to move forward, receiving Gavin.”

2 become 1 date “No matter whether the wedding is real or fake I only want to be your bride.” Here comes the Groom event where MC had a prob wedding with each and every LI but she actually only wanted to be Gavin’s bride (obviously Gavin’s heard her loud and clear since he’s bought a gem/ring right after) and that gem is brought up in…

The Returning from Afar Date - Thank you for silently watching over my mood. Thank you for always returning to my side no matter where you go. The white muslin drifts to and fro. My heart stirs, and I gently touch the muslin in front of me. Sunlight streams in. My fingertips brush the soft white muslin, tracing the word “Gavin” on it. I turn my head to the side, blinking at Gavin a little playfully. “This word - apart from it being your name, it also has another meaning. It’s “courage”. MC getting poetic, but who wouldn’t in that date (thank you @smallersocksx for reminding me and without @cheri-translates we poor Eng-server players would be left in the dark so thank you for translating season 2 for us!!!) but than MC verbally and literally makes her feelings clear in…

Late autumn date (2nd season translation by @cheri-translates) “I close my eyes, holding onto his solid arms. I lift my head to welcome his lips, savouring his unique breath. The person in front of me has shed off the roughness of youth, leaving behind only the purity of youth. He often makes me forget that he once used to be unrestrained like the wind. He has a body that is stronger than everyone else’s, a tough soul, a will that is as firm as steel, and a heart full of tenderness – it is soft beyond compare.

I cling to his waist tightly using my calves, wanting to brand every part of him into my heart.

“I want to bear his everything.”

Gavin: “Do you like it?”

“I like it…I like it very much…I like it so much that I don’t know how to prove how much I like it” “The rest of my life is yours, The years that we’ve missed out on are also yours” (whatever I have, I will give it to you. I will give everything to you, leaving nothing behind)

I rest my case

#mlqc #mlqc gavin #mlqc haku #mlqc bai qi #mlqc baek gi #mr love queen's choice #koi to producer #studio mappa #elex #papergames #mldd #analysis #tag your otp #romance #anime couple

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travllingbunny · 4 years

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The 100 7x11 Etherea

This is the episode we’ve been waiting for this whole season - and while I don’t think it’s the best episode of the season, it is certainly the most exciting one. It would be that just the fact that Bellamy is finally back on screen (and not just for a couple of minutes, but for an entire episode fully focused on him), and it was great to see him and have an episode fully devoted to him, and remember once again what an amazing actor Bob is and the presence and intensity he brings to the show. But it also turned out to be the first episode of season 7 that is a genuine game changer and that shocked the viewers with a twist that wasn’t entirely predictable.

Even though the fandom had been speculating on the so-called brainwashed Bellamy or “void Bellamy” or generally Bellamy that is for some reason the (temporary) enemy of Clarke, Octavia and the rest of the protagonists, and hoping for that storyline, with a Mockingjay-like possibilities for romantic angst between him and Clarke (especially after a photo of Bellamy in the white robe leaked early in the year, months before the season even started to air), the way it happened seems to have upset many of the fans )to quote a podcaster, “I was hoping for a brainwashed Bellamy, but not like this”). Probably because the show has Bellamy retain agency in his transformation and that it is indoctrination into a cult be more like real life and partially rooted in Bellamy’s own emotional issues, beliefs and needs, rather than taking the easier route of having him be Sci-Fi brainwashed, Winter Soldier style.

That said, I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about this episode and how good I think it is. The first half of the episode, Bellamy was very much himself, and it was focused on survival and trying to get off the planet, and the dynamic between him and Conductor Doucette - throughout the episode - seems to play into the familiar trope of two enemies, or people of opposing views, who have to spend time together, gets to argue, survive together, and eventually bond as fellow humans. This story would not be particularly interesting - not only have we seen it many times, but it feels redundant for Bellamy, who has learned to see the POV of his enemies, bond with them and see the common humanity in them, many seasons ago. It also would not have been interesting if Bellamy managed to change Doucette’s beliefs - which the audience already thinks are rubbish - as this wouldn’t tell us anything new about Bellamy and would only give development to Doucette.

But instead, what was really happening throughout this episode, under the guise of bonding with the enemy, was Bellamy’s spiritual journey - aka his indoctrination into Cadogan’s cult. The crucial part of it happens not just to his exhaustion and desperation in tough circumstances, or his companion offering him faith as a solution, but through something Bellamy actually sees in the cave, and his own visions a little later. This is where the episode becomes a lot more interesting - and also a lot more frustrating. I don’t think I’ll be sure how I feel about this until I see the rest of the season, and learn how some things from this episode are explained or followed up on. In particular, the explanation (or lack of it?) for Bellamy’s visions in this episode will pretty much determine what course the show is taking in its final season and what it is trying to be.

Whatever the explanation, the end result - which we see after Bellamy returns to Bardo - is disturbing and painful to watch. It is something we have never seen before - Bellamy himself trying to enforce a total abnegation of everything Bellamy Blake is. Which includes willingly repressing his feelings for his loved ones to the point of betraying them (and results in the most painful Bellarke reunion ever, and one of the most painful reunions of the Blake siblings). I don’t know if I’m fully buying such a huge transformation - which is one of my problems with the episode. But this is certainly quality angst, and means that the season has become much more exciting to watch.

Is it weird that such a big twist happens in episode 11, out of 16 episodes, after 10 episodes that have been mostly setup for the big plot? Yes, just like it is weird that Bellamy has been MIA before this. BTS reasons obviously affected this season a lot - if it hadn’t been for them, I think we’d have a similar storyline, but this would have happened much earlier in the season. Are 5 episodes enough to resolve this in a satisfactory way? Well, it’s certainly enough to resolve it - this is a show that has characters go from hate to love over the course of 5 episodes, has characters hook up/fall for each other after knowing each other for 2-3 episodes, the show that showed Hope’s entire 10-year relationship with her father figure in a 7 minute scene, and the show that just had this massive character transformation happen over one episode. Will it feel satisfactory and convincing - it could, if it’s well-written and if the show doesn’t waste too much time on the Sanctum plot and fully focuses on its two main characters now that one of them is finally back.

Starting from the beginning - this time, its Bob saying “Previously on”, in line with this season having different cast members saying those opening words in different episodes (Eliza in 7x01, Marie in 7x02, Luisa in 7x03, there was no previously on in 7x04, Marie in 7x05, Lindsey in 7x06, Richard in 7x07, no previously on in 7x08, Eliza in 7x09 and 7x10 - it’s a bit surprising that Eliza said it in episode 9 even though she wasn’t in it at all, but otherwise those fit characters that were strongly featured in the episode in question).

We also get yet another version of the opening titles - which start and finish with a shot of the Anomaly. Earth again makes a cameo near the end, just as it did in 7x10, though it’s in the shadow now so can’t be seen as clearly.

While 90% of the episode takes place on Etherea, it opens and ends on Bardo. The opening scene is the only one not featuring Bellamy - apart from a replayed memory. We learn that the MCap machine was damaged by Echo, and is only now operational again. Finally, a good explanation why the Disciples did not put Echo, Diyoza or Octavia - again - in MCap after they agreed to cooperate. Levitt is using it on one of the Disciples who were in the Stone Room during the explosion. I guess he was still recovering a week after, and now they are presumably trying to help him, since - as the other Conductor tells Levitt - he is suffering from PTSD. Hey, isn’t that the first time anyone has mentioned that word on the show? At least the Disciples have kept the knowledge about mental health issues, even if their ways of dealing with it are questionable at best. We learn that no one is being punished, not even for killing Anders, as the other conductor says. (Not even? Does she think that’s worse than attempted genocide? Hope didn’t even back down from it as Echo eventually did, and the two Disciples Anders called witnessed it. The Conductor may think that the consequence is more important than intent... But even so, she clearly thinks Anders’ life was more important than those of two other Disciples, who were murdered by Echo as a part of her torturing Levitt. I guess that “For all mankind” thing doesn’t mean you consider all of the people, or even all of the Disciples, equal...)

Levitt finds out what 99% of the audience was sure of anyway and goes “He’s alive!” Surprise, surprise. But Levitt, shouldn’t you say “They are alive?”? Knowing Levitt’s attachment to Octavia, he is talking about Bellamy, not about one of his colleagues, Conductor Doucette, who was also presumed dead. (Doucette, not Douchette - even though the latter would make for a good joke.)

Let’s think about why this scene exists (apart from being used as a sneak peek). Obviously it was full of exposition, but why was it important for Levitt to find out that Bellamy is alive at the same time as we learn about it? We could have just seen Bellamy falling through the Bridge to the planet of Etherea. I suppose the purpose is dual: 1) to learn that the Disciples indeed did not know Bellamy was alive and on Etherea, 2) to learn that Cadogan knew Bellamy was alive an on Etherea, at least a few hours to a day before his return, which may be important for the events of this episode.

One of the questions the fandom has been debating is, did Anders intentionally send Bellamy to Etherea to be indoctrinated? Since 7x05, I have believed that Bellamy was on Etherea, and my initial reading of the scene was that Anders made the decision to send him there - and that this was why Doucette started to beg him: “Please, sir, no”, as he wasn’t happy to be stranded there. Then I started second-guessing it, because it became increasingly obvious that Anders was dumb as a brick and unable to come up with any smart plans how to brainwash people (as we saw with HEDO - he just threatened them into compliance instead of trying to really change their minds). Now I think that sending people to Etherea may be a standard practice that Disciples do on very special occasions when they want to send someone on a spiritual journey/pilgrimage/true brainwashing that they can’t come back until they make a ‘leap of faith” (just like they use Skyring as a standard prison). Maybe this is not even something that most Disciples know, but info only reserved for Level 12s or even Level 13s. But the grenade attack was real and made Anders believe Bellamy was dead and the plan was off - as there is no reason to believe that anything before Bellamy’s last day in the cave was manipulated from Bardo.

However, that last day - with Bellamy’s visions - could have been, and it happened around the same time Cadogan would have found out from Levitt that Bellamy was alive and on Etherea. There seems to be no time differential (or too small a differential to matter) between Etherea and Bardo - just like there seems to be none between Earth and Sanctum, since Bellamy and Doucette retained their memories going from Bardo to Etherea and back, both times without a protective helmet.

Etherea, the planet

The promo for this episode made the planet look much worse and less survivable than it really seems to be. Apart from the grey filter* that the show is using to make it look worse and kind of drab and gloomy, it seems to be a perfectly nice planet, with vegetation and an OK climate - as long as you are not trying to get off the planet through the Anomaly and climbing the extremely high mountain to reach the Anomaly Stone. It’s funny that, aside from Nakara, every other planet connected by the Anomaly has better living conditions than Bardo. The Disciples obviously use Bardo just because of the facilities they’ve found there. But Skyring is a really lovely planet - its only problem is the time differential from the other habitable planets, but that would not be a problem if a big group of people just decided to live there and start a community. Sanctum is lovely, too - well, except for red sun toxin and killer insects and meat-eating trees. (Why have the Disciples mostly ignored it? Is it because of those things, or maybe they didn’t want to mix with the Primes and other Sanctumites? Or they just didn’t see a use for it?) And Etherea is another problem where people could decide to live, if they gave up going to other planets.

*The show uses different filters to make the woods around Vancouver look like different planets:

Sanctum - bright colors, lots of red during day, purple at night

Skyring - blue filter (nice planet)

Nakara - blue filter (frozen planet)

Etherea - grey filter

Earth - normal, except in S5 everywhere outside Eden - greyish yellow filter for a desolated post-Praimfaya Earth

But of course, Bellamy is definitely not interested in staying there and only wants to find a way off this planet, and Doucette, unlike Orlando, is neither serving a sentence he wants to see to the end nor is expecting the Disciples to send a team to retrieve him. This is another one of the “just two three four people on the planet” episodes, but this stay is just a few months rather than years, and spent in much harsher and most exhausting conditions during most of that time - because Bellamy never stops trying to get off the planet. There are parallels and strong contrasts to every one of those other situations:

Eden - The first few months of Clarke’s experience surviving on the desolated Earth parallel Bellamy’s months on the mountain - surviving in tough conditions (extreme heat in Clarke’s case vs extreme cold in Bellamy’s), physically and mentally exhausted to the point of breaking. There are even visually parallel shots of both of them walking with a stick or eating bugs. But the big differences are: after trying and failing to get in the bunker and after the Temple collapsed, Clarke had no way of getting off the planet or out of her current situation and reuniting with any of her loved ones. She could only survive and wait. She was all alone and only talking to Bellamy, who wasn’t there, to keep herself sane. Bellamy, OTOH, was actively trying to get off the planet and reach his loved ones all that time, and he had a companion - another adult with strong beliefs, who he talked to and who did his best to indoctrinate him. After those first few months, Clarke found Eden and met Madi, and the rest of her (mostly off-screen) life on Earth during the next 6 years was much more similar to Octavia’s life with Diyoza and Hope on Skyring.

The Garden - Unlike Bellamy, Octavia lived in a beautiful place and with someone who was already her friend and a child she came to look after, finding family she loved (rather than faith and abstract “love for all mankind”). Like Bellamy, Octavia kept trying to get off the planet and reach her sibling and her friends, which was equally difficult for a different reason, as the Anomaly entrance was deep under water (unlike Bellamy, she wouldn’t have actually able to leave the planet as she didn’t have a Conductor or codes for the Stone - but she didn’t know she needed them) - for 6 years, before she eventually gave up and settled for her peaceful life for the next 4 years and sending Bellamy a letter.

Hesperides - Like Bellamy, Echo, Gabriel and Hope wanted to get off the planet and reach their friends/family, but unlike Bellamy, they couldn’t get the codes and had to wait for 5 years, and, unlike him, they lived in lovely place. Like Bellamy, they had a devout Disciple as a companion, but there were three of them, which made it more difficult for him to indoctrinate them, no matter how much he wanted to make them Disciples, and they were the ones trying to manipulate him. They developed a friendship with him, as Bellamy did with Doucette, but while Bellamy saved Doucette when he didn’t have to anymore, Echo betrayed him and left him as expendable, and the other two eventually went along with it.

But Etherea is not just another planet for the Disciples - it is notable for what can be found in a cave on the way to the top of the mountain, which Cadogan apparently looked for and found, as a part of his pilgrimage - his own “40 days in a desert” - because, of course, he sees himself as a messiah (and, as we saw in 7x09, this is an important thing in the Bardo religion and something children are taught about in school).

Bellamy immediately learns all about Cadogan’s teachings - everything the rest of the characters took several episodes to learn about - by reading his book (”pocket propaganda from another false god”) and immediately pokes holes in it. He makes all the good points and lists most of the reasons why the Disciple faith makes no sense, including the fact that it makes no sense to be fighting for peace and end of violence by waging another war. Everything he says in the first half of the episode are things I would completely agree with. Which makes it all the more frustrating when he starts ignoring his own reasonable arguments by the end of this episode. One might say that the Disciple propaganda attacks both his heart - using his desire to find peace, an end to all the struggle and pain, and eventually, his love and memory of his mother, to ignore what his head is telling him - but they also eventually attack his head, by presenting what seems like actual physical evidence, and the end result is to ignore not just the rational objections he had, but also try to suppress his love for the most important individual people in his life.

He lists the people he loves - “Octavia, Echo, Clarke” - which is the first time Bellamy himself has used the word love for the latter two (and in fact, for anyone other than Octavia). BTW, notice that no one in the show has ever used the word “girlfriend/boyfriend” except Diyoza (when this was what she assumed Clarke was to Bellamy)? Maybe these words have fallen out of use in the post-apocalypse societies. The main characters usually talk about their “friends” or “family” (the latter not always being biological). Doucette later talks of "your family, your friends” and “your obsession with your sister and your friends” - where Echo and Clarke are both lumped into this category. Echo is not singled out as “your girlfriend” or in any other way.

Here’s the thing about Bellamy’s and Doucette’s dynamic: if this story wasn’t really about indoctrinating Bellamy, there really wouldn’t be anything there we didn’t know about Bellamy before. Of course he wouldn’t kill this random Disciple guy if he didn’t have to - and, in spite of what he tells Doucette at the start, it’s not just because he needed him to survive. Bellamy learning to see the humanity of his enemies and working with them and bonding with them is something we have seen many times: at first with Clarke, then with Lincoln, Indra, the Grounders, Kane, Echo. All the way back in season 2, he valued human lives, even from the enemy side: he opposed Murphy’s idea of killing the captive Grounder thief (while Finn summarily killed him), he angrily said he’d kill everyone in Mount Weather but then tried his best for that not to happen, after seeing the children there; even during his Pike-supporting days, he tried to persuade Pike and the others to spare the wounded Grounder warriors, in season 4 he talked Riley down from trying to assassinate Roan, and in season 5, he refused to kill the cryo frozen Eligius prisoners, and later convinced Madi to spare the Eligius convicts who were their PoW. And while Bellamy has been motivated, most of all, by personal love (particularly for his sister and Clarke), we’ve seen him save many people, including strangers or near strangers. That speech Doucette gave him about “loving all mankind” is something season 1 Bellamy needed to hear, the one who was focused just on Octavia and then just on her and the Delinquents, but Bellamy has had a massive character development since. Bellamy knows more about loving all mankind than Doucette or any of the Disciples do. Doucette says he “loves all mankind” including a total stranger - well, dude, didn’t you try to kill Bellamy at first? And the rest of what we’ve seen from Disciples is much worse. They talked the talk, but don’t walk the walk, unless they think kidnapping and torturing people and trying to break their spirit is “love”, And Anders definitely showed that he did not “love all the mankind” when he ordered a hit on Hope, or when he gave that speech in 7x10 about what disgusting “wild beats” all these non-Disciples were.

But unlike Anders, Doucette can talk in a convincing way and make decent arguments in favor of his faith to non-believers, rather than just preaching to the converted - or at least, he can appear to give decent arguments. He’s taking a page from The 100 fandom with the argument that Bellamy is so selfish and egotistical for... loving his sister and his friends and constantly fighting and sacrificing himself for them. (The 100 fandom loves making that same argument about Clarke.) Quite a skill, to make such BS argument sound convincing. He basically gives Bellamy a version of the “Love is weakness” advice - in this case, that “love is selfish” and leads to destruction and pain. And when Bellamy asks the rhetorical question, if that means that you shouldn’t love anyone - Doucette turns it around and talks of love for all mankind. But that “love” he speaks of is abstract and fake - it is impossible to love everyone. You cannot love total strangers, or people you simply don’t like - certainly not the same as you love your lover or friend or family member. You can, however, be compassionate, and value human lives,.Which is, in fact, something the Disciples don’t do, as we’ve seen on Bardo (but Bellamy has not seen it yet) - they just value lives as more soldiers for the cause. Their “humanity” is abstract - they are ready to sacrifice individuals for it (everyone except the Shepherd). Bellamy, on the other hand, has always been about valuing individual lives and saving them - be it Mel on season 2, or the slaves in season - and he managed to do it while also loving his sister and his friends. The Disciples and Doucette’s arguments present a false dichotomy. But, unfortunately, Bellamy still has deep guilt and self-loathing that he never fully resolved (even in season 6, he still talked about his many sins in 6x04), and he’s tired by always having to fight another war for survival, just to followed by another. (Which is similar to Clarke’s misgivings in 7x03: “I’m afraid that fighting is not what we do, it’s what we are” and Raven’s and Clarke’s conversation about guilt over having killed so many people.) The only time he didn’t have to always worry and/or fight were the years on the Ring, but he was still grieving Clarke and missing Octavia and motivated by going back down to reunite with her He knows what he’s capable of doing out of love - and he also has unresolved issues with the women he loves. In season 4, he lamented how pathetic he was coming back to his sister when she kept treating him badly, and in the 7x07 Ring flashback, he thought his love for his sister was his “weakness”. He’s certainly been hurt by her, finally rejected her and then later got to reunite with her, get an apology and forgive and make up with her. He and Clarke have also certainly hurt each other and forgiven each other, and that relationship is still unresolved. Bellamy himself admitted to Jo!Clarke in 6x09 that he was exhausted by their ups and downs and lack of resolution. And Echo... well, he should know exactly where he stands with her, but he didn’t seem happy about their relationship and seemed to want her to be Clarke someone else.

I can see why Bellamy started to envy Doucette his emotional calm that his faith and worldview seemed to bring him.

We got another Pike mention in this ep (and again, it was a reference to his positive role - as a teacher of Earth skills). The last time Bellamy made it was in 6x07 when he found out Clarke was alive. Pike was also a father figure to Bellamy - just like Kane, and now Cadogan. Bellamy has been called both a King and a Knight. Some of his biggest mistakes were when he chose to trust in a leader/father figure (the last time, it was Pike - who was, however, very different from Cadogan and his views on the opposite side the spectrum from Bill’s), and ALIE!Raven thought that one of the ways she could try to taunt him and erode his confidence was to call him a follower rather than a leader. Only she tried to convince him that he was in subjugated position to Clarke - which IMO was never true. They have always had an equal relationship (except when external circumstances made it otherwise - see, Kane and the adults taking the power away from Bellamy, while Clarke was able to take it back from Abby mostly because she was backed up by the Grounder Commander), and Clarke was the one who always tried to boost Bellamy’s confidence in his abilities as a leader. He was definitely a leader of his people in season 5 and season 6, and he works best as co-leader with Clarke (and vice versa). But even when Bellamy supported Clarke, he was questioning his decisions, even though he was rarely able to change Pike’s mind - he wasn’t blindly obeying and accepting everything, as he would have to with the Disciples.

Another factor in Bellamy’s transformation is of course the fact that he spent months in the cave - to the point of physical and mental exhaustion. Every time he and Doucette would climb the mountain, the peak where the Stone was would turn out to be even higher. Bellamy himself used two of the Greek myths to describe the task - Sisyphus and Icarus. A pointless task that results in having to do everything all over again (just like what he said about having to always fight another war), and a dangerous task likely to destroy you.

Bellamy was still insisting on reason over faith - “I believe in what I can prove” - but then he got to see the beings of light, as “proof”..

And here we come to the more interesting part of this ep and something that the show may or may not explain. I’m pretty skeptical about Cadogan’s views of what these beings are. How do we know that they have really “transcended” and become eternal or whatever, living on some kind of higher plane? No one has communicated with them, or have they? They are aliens, from our POV. Maybe that’s their natural state? Maybe they’re dead and this is just what remains of them? Maybe they died in a similar catastrophe as the Bardoans but one that was more about fire than ice, as Selina hypothesized in her review)? Maybe they are in agony? Sure, they look beautiful to human eyes, and fit the human culture’s idea of what spirituality and transcendence is like - but you can’t know that for sure. The frozen crystal giants on Bardo also look beautiful, after all, and that entire species died horribly

And then the second “otherworldly” thing happens after Bellamy finally agreed to prey - and he has a vision, involving Cadogan as his spiritual guide, leading him from a place full of weapons - swords and guns - to the place where he sees his dead mother, Aurora. It’s a beautiful and emotional scene, and I can’t imagine all the things Bellamy is feeling as she touches his face - including, probably, more unresolved guilt - over getting his mother executed (because he loved his sister and tried to make her happy). Aurora tells him Go to the light, Bellamy” and he looks at the figures of light - but we don’t learn what, if anything, he saw there .

I hope we learn that Bellamy saw something important - maybe something connected to the Judgment Day Becca talked about - that would explain the extent of his conversion, although it seems that it is mostly supposed to be a consequence of the fact that the storm stopped at the moment when he chose to prey.

The final step in his ‘spiritual journey’ is after that, when he barely managed to reach the top. After repeating the mantra “I am not afraid” (something else from the Blakes’ childhood - the same line Octavia was repeating on Bardo to resist the Conductors), he admits to himself “I am afraid”. In retrospect, a sign that he was broken, and started feeling that his past and his family were not enough to give him strength and faith. The jump from the top was described as a “leap of faith” by Doucette - which is kind of ridiculous, since it had nothing to do with faith, just with the fact that Cadogan was there and knew how the Anomaly worked, and the fact he was able to climb the mountain and leave is proof that the Anomaly worked properly.

(I wonder why the heck the Anomaly works so differently on different planets - in some cases you can enter the Anomaly right next to the Stone when you’re leaving the planet, and in others, you have to go back to the original entrance that’s somewhere else.)

Now, the visions may be explained in several different ways:

hallucinations - earlier, Bellamy found a family photo and recognized Cadogan, and he would know how Conductors and high ranking Disciples dress, he’s seen the white robe on Anders and Doucette

everything in the cave is real, and Cadogan has some sort of a telepathic connection to the cave (the true believer’s interpretation)

the brain implant/hive mind theory (by Selina again - I don’t believe in this one as there has been no evidence of it so far)

projections/hologram - see Jean’s theory that Cadogan used the hologram technology to project images of himself and Aurora (whose image is familiar to the Disciples from Octavia’s memories)

a combination of some of the above - the beings of light may be real, and Cadogan may have stumbled onto something but has again misinterpreted what it was all about; Bellamy’s vision of Cadogan was a hallucination or projection, but he also did see something real when his mother (again, possible hallucination or unexplained spiritual phenomenon) told him to look into the light.

It’s possible that the show will never fully explain what really happened here, just as Murphy’s vision of hell has never been explained.

The reunion

Up until this point, the episode doesn’t seem to show a seriously disturbing turn in Bellamy: we saw that he was starting to take the Disciples’ faith seriously and even to believe in it, and the first thing he does when turning up in the Stone Room on Bardo is look happy and relieved he made it, and hug an equally happy Doucette. So, he made a friend among the Disciples and will be the one telling Clarke and the rest: “We should take this seriously, they have a point, here is what I saw on Etherea...” - right? That would make perfect sense while not fundamentally changing who Bellamy is.

But no! Bellamy falls to his knees and calls Cadogan “My Shepherd” - which was one of the most painful scenes for me to see in all of the show, even more so than the later scene where he snitches on Clarke. There’s been a lot this season about “kings” forcing subjects to kneel - but instead of the “kneel or die” approach that Anders more or less used (while Sheidheda is using it in the most literal way possible), this is out of genuine belief. I don’t know if I’m really buying this massive transformation that we see here and in the next scene. It’s just a bit too much. Maybe information about what it was that Belalmy saw when he went ‘into the light’ would help explain it better.

Cadogan is happy to use Bellamy to convince Clarke to cooperate, and informs him: “Your friends are here, they have gotten themselves in some trouble”. Maybe this adds up to the reason why Bellamy is uncomfortable when he sees them a bit later, because they’ve been bad - but only some of them were (Echo with her murders, torture and genocide attempt, the others - not really, except Hope, someone he doesn’t even know yet). But when he comes to see them, he looks broken, exhausted and numb after all his experiences. And probably wary of giving in to the “selfish love”. (His friendship with Doucette is presumably in line with his new faith, but he seems to think his friendship with Clarke is not? Is that his relationship with Clarke actually involves love, real love for an individual?) After finally reuniting with the people he had been trying to reach all that time on Etherea, he doesn’t even look happy to see them. To quote Bellamy from earlier in the episode,Sometimes, Bellamy Blake, irony is funny. This is not one of these times.

Meanwhile, his friends are in Cadogan’s living quarters in house arrest. Conveniently, it’s just Clarke, Echo and Octavia there - plus Gabriel, but the focus is on Bellamy’s reunions with the three women he named as the people he loved earlier in the episode. Raven is not there, neither are Miller, Jordan, Niylah or Hope. (The last time Bellamy saw Jordan, Jordan was the brainwashed one. Hey, what happened to that storyline? Did it end up as a casualty of the rewrites?)

They’re discussing what to do, and Clarke has decided to basically sacrifice her life so the others could escape. We know that Clarke is a very selfless person, but the way she’s been increasingly casually deciding to sacrifice herself feels a bit disturbing - as if she’s stopped caring about her own life or hoping for happiness. At this point, her big character development would be to choose happiness and try to have what she wants. Even her “selfish” actions up to this point were mostly about trying to protect others. We haven’t even seen her show much emotion this season - as if she was on autopilot - except for her early grieving Abby earlier in the season, and moments when she’s silently grieving Bellamy,

Cadogan is there to offer the carrot rather than the stick, and being a drama queen, doesn’t Clarke and the others that Bellamy is there, but lets him in. They are massively surprised but don’t notice something’s off, or rather, they seem to assume he is just physically exhausted and in pain rather than mentally/emotionally off, as he silently looks at Clarke and Octavia and then Echo. Camera shows close-ups of the reactions of the people who love him: Clarke’s, Echo’s and Octavia’s reactions before going back to Clarke. (Probably because she’s the main character, in case people have forgotten, and her relationship with Bellamy is at center of the show), Octavia is happy and proud tries to hug her brother, but the Disciples pull out weapons. Clarke ignores the weapons, counting on her status/leverage, and hugs him.

She looks lovingly at him, with something we haven’t seen from her in a long time - happiness, that’s definitely not “best friend that I’m not attracted to” but “best friend I have naughty thoughts about”. (Only love can make you hug someone who must be smelling really badly at this point, considering Bellamy hasn’t washed or changed his clothes in over 3 months!)

This hug is different from any other Bellarke hug ever, since Bellamy is so numb, even when he hugs her back, but she is too happy to see him back to notice. And then when she takes the chance to also get him up to speed and tell him about the Flame - he gets an incredibly sad look on his face. He is not unemotional now - but he has decided he must ignore and suppress those feelings, betray her trust and tell Cadogan the truth, because his faith and the so-called “love for all mankind” comes first.

Everyone is shocked when he calls Cadogan “My Shepherd” and then beyond shocked when he betrays them - and camera again shows Echo’s, Octavia’s and Clarke’s reactions, going back to Cadogan, and then the episode ends on a close-up of Clarke’s shocked face. Because, you know, she’s still the main character. And finally, now we can hopefully have a S7 storyline that properly focuses on the show’s protagonist and utilizes Eliza’s talent allowing her to show a range of emotions. When Clarke believed Bellamy was dead, he was someone she could hold in her memory and try to honor it by saving his sister and girlfriend - but this is a whole new way of losing him, right after thinking she got him back, and means real emotional turmoil.

Bellamy has become a true believer and decided to stop being himself. And the people who love him will now have to deal with his loss - in another way - all over again, and try to save him. I’m torn because this storyline offers huge opportunities for a “power of love” storyline right out of a fanfic, but I’m uncomfortable with the idea that it may come at the expense of having Bellamy be manipulated and subjugated to a white megalomaniac villain in the last season. But I hope and expect we will see genuine character development and re-affirmation of who Bellamy Blake is. Now, there are a lot of things Bellamy doesn’t know yet and that have contributed to him drinking Cadogan’s Kool-Aid (he hasn’t seen Cadogan’s dealings with his family or Second Dawn, or what he did to Becca, or Anders’ actions on Bardo, or the way the Disciples mistreat their own people, and he doesn’t know about Cadogan’s mistranslation of the Bardoan text), but I don’t think the resolution of this storyline will be about Cadogan or what Bellamy knows about his religion. I think it will be Bellamy himself and his relationships. Clarke and Octavia had big character arcs in season 5-6 where they had to deal with who they are, who they’ve become and what they want to be negating everything he is. He needs to finally really deal with his self-loathing and guilt and he needs to gain back trust in himself, the Bellamy Blake that others loved and trusted and relied on. He needs to feel loved and decide that love is strength and a positive rather than just ‘selfish’ force. (And who can show him that? Hint: not his girlfriend Echo, whose love he would definitely see as confirmation that love is selfish and destructive, as it makes a person do things like murder, torture and attempted genocide out of revenge. Another hint: probably the same person who gave him confidence and made him believe in himself and grow as a person, multiple times, all the way back in season 1 and again in season 3 and season 4, telling him he was a person that other follow because of his big heart and the way he can inspire people. And third hint - the same person Bellamy was saving - her physical self - in season 6, will be the one who’ll have to save him, mentally, save who he is., in season 7.)

Rating: 8/10 (could go higher or lower depending on how the cave visions are explained and what the outcome of this plot is)

#the 100 #etherea #the 100 7x11 #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #bill cadogan #octavia blake #the disciples #the anomaly #bardo

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saltypicks · 3 years

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reviewing may’s comebacks (in june, because i have shit to do)

There were a lot of comebacks this month. I guess it's summer now? No idea, there's no summer in my country. The girl groups have started coming back in full force but are not impressing. The boy groups seemed to mostly go the groovy route and now I need an adjective other than 'groovy' to describe songs.

Not The End, Highlight

I'm so glad it's not a ballad. It's not bad.

You are so beautiful, SGO

Everyday I'm grateful for the retro trend and this is a great representation.

Gray Area, Hi Cutie

At some sections I like this song (the verses and the chorus) and at others I dislike it (the trap breakdown, the middle of the chorus). I complained about MAJORS' company having no money previously but Hi Cutie's company is bankrupt. Poor nugus.

Dreamcatcher and GWSN have far superior 'Red Suns' but this song is okay and I'm happy the girls look so happy to have some work (and hopefully some money) at last.

Today, CITI

A nice midtempo song. And no, I did not hear it first from a drama OST.

Make Up Your Mind, AILEE

Sounds like a Beyonce-type song.

MALO, SHAX

Apparently this is a drama OST (Imitation, to be specific. It's based on a webtoon). Basic boy group song but it sounds like it's from the 2010s or something, and that's a compliment.

Hot Sauce, NCT Dream

Initially: Um...at least Renjun looks good? Honestly I don't know what to say about this song. NCT is a group I stan so this will definitely grow on me but...is this really not an advertisement for hot sauce? Also the set resembles the set for SHINee's Atlantis in my opinion. Now: The shouting is annoying and unnecessary. Love Chenle's voice in this; it provides a nice contrast to Haechan and Renjun. Someone said the chanting should've been left to the rappers and I fully agree. Don't know about Jisung and Jaemin but Jeno and Mark would be a good fit with a chant. In my opinion the dance break isn't really needed but is it NCT without a dance break? Also, wtf are they wearing around their necks? Someone should inform the SM stylists that less is really more.

DUN DUN DANCE, OH MY GIRL

It's light and pleasant but if this song was a meal it would be a tiny appetizer that tastes good but doesn't satiate you.

WHATEVER, KEEMBO

I didn't think I'd like it at first but this is groovy and makes me want to dance while doing my chores.

Always, VAV

Song for the fans but if you need a VAV song to listen to I recommend Gorgeous.

Hurt, Baekhyun & Seomoontak

Hasn't Baekhyun been shipped off to the army yet? Anyway, love how dramatic this is.

Waiting for Victor, 015B ft. Dawon

Another great retro song! Also the singer is cute and her hair is cute as well. She reminds me of Chuu a little.

Uncertainty Principle, 015B ft. Dawon

I prefer their other song, but this one is retro as well and it's great.

척하면 척, 강혜연 (Kang Hyeyeon)

Trot that's kind of subdued but still danceable.

Badly, SURA

Loved it from the first second.

BLACK MIRROR, ONEUS

Then: Is it good enough to make up for No Diggity? I don't know about that, but this song is groovy and I'm somewhat okay with it. Doesn't have much replay value for me though. Now: Eh, it's basic groovy boy group song but I won't skip if it comes on.

Breathe Again, BLITZERS

Another boy group with a somewhat questionable name. This song is pretty good as a debut and it's somewhat memorable. I wonder if my rating increeased because of the guitars? District 9 was the same for me, but right now it doesn't interest me. I think this song will stay for a good while on my playlist though. I like the anthemic vocals in the chorus and this song needed more of that.

EASY, WJSN THE BLACK

The girls looked good but the storyline kept getting interrupted by shots of the girls. Yes, we know they're all visuals but I'd be more interested if there was actual action and plot. The song is good objectively but doesn't really interest me. Who knows? Maybe a few more listens will change my mind.

Outerspace (ft. Loco), Kang Daniel

Groovy and better than his last two releases.

Giant, Yuqi

So nice to hear Yuqi's voice on its own. The song was fine until the chorus crushed all my love for it.

Glass of Tears, HONG JA

Appropriately dramatic for a song named 'glass of tears'. It's good and if you like trot you'll like this one.

Taste of Life, Yang Ji Eun

What do you call this? Folk trot? Whatever it's called, it's good.

LOOK AT ME, ICU

OK.

WE GO, fromis_9

It sounds like the token girl group summer song. I don't dislike it, but nothing about this song stands out to me. Honestly with a mini-album called '9Way Ticket' I expected more, because it reminds me of Nine Muses' Ticket everytime I see it. The b-side 'Airplane Mode' is pretty good though and the other one, 'Promise' is a slow song but I don't really mind it, it's fine as background music.

Next Level, aespa

Umm...what is SM's plan for these girls? How can a rookie group from the big 3 have only 3 songs? And only one is an original? The song is not the best thing ever and SM surely can do better but at least it wasn't as bad as M.A.F.I.A. aespa deserves more than this.

Ring Ring, ROCKET PUNCH

Finally after Bim Bam Bum these girls have a title track I enjoy. You can't go wrong with covering Take On Me, can you? It's no Platonic Love or Sea of Moonlight, and it certainly could have done without the rubbish trap section but it's a bop anyway. Meanwhile, the b-side Ride is great and I hope they promote it. This song would be more enjoyable if their voices weren't so shrill in the chorus. High notes aren't a necessity for good songs.

Advice, Taemin

Not the best of Taemin but it's good. I love the fast tempo of the piano and the way it drives everything. Taemin's performance also elevates this song and I'm grateful he's leaving us with a good song before going on his two-year vacation.

RUB-A-DUM, TRI.BE

They're really going all out with this 'tribe' thing, aren't they? It sounds very Middle Eastern to my ears at times, sometimes it sounds African-ish and the other times it is just typical trap kpop. DOOM DOOM TA was better and more fun. At least they got the catchy catchphrase right. Blackpink in your area who? Tri-bee da loca! The b-side 'LORO' is not much fun either. The only difference is it's Latin-influenced.

Shadow, Dreamcatcher

Typical Dreamcatcher song slowed down by a lot. It's not bad, plus it's nice to hear Dami sing. Also what is it with Korea and zombies? With the MV the song sounds a lot better but the MV distracts me. Shouldn't zombies be mindless? How do they use tools and know martial arts? Or is it just my eyes? And can that tiny gun protect anybody? Are you sure that's not a toy?

The beginning of spring, E'LAST U

Not horrible but not for me either.

Oh MAMA, BLING BLING

One of the few new ggs in a while with unfortunate names. They've clearly upgraded in terms of styling and MV budget, but their song quality is no different.

Let Me Know, PIXY

Sonically it sounds nothing like their dark concept. Actually it does sound like a dark concept, if done by a boy group. It's not bad but it's not good. The industrial-like sounds in the back are interesting but the whole song is not.

Son of Beast, TO1

TOO rebrands as TO1 with this song. It's groovy.

HAPPEN, Heize

For the first time I like a Heize song. The MV is interesting too, the story was cliche but I liked the visuals and aesthetics.

FEVER, ENHYPEN

Rhis song was from the [BORDER: CARNIVAL] mini. I listened to that mini but I remember not really liking any of the b-sides except the outro and the intro, so this is a surprise.

My Flower, Kim Jaehwan

Nice upbeat song with guitars all over it. I like it.

Corazon Perdido, Yesung (Super Junior)

Initially I wasn't going to review this because I didn't even review the title track but the final moments of this song are beautiful and it deserves a mention.

Butter, BTS

The song is smooth as its title. The MV is fine except for that ARMY thing; I cringed so hard.

Bonnie and Clyde, Yuqi

Better than the other one.

Ride, ROCKET PUNCH

This is so great and I'm glad it got its own video, even if it was just a dance video glorified as a 'Special Stage'. Now if only I could stop chuckling whenever I hear "looks rike a lainbow".

Rush Hour, GAHO

Love it, especially the guitar strumming moments and the chorus when the electric guitar comes in.

GEMINI, AB6IX

Love how the vocals don't distract from the great instrumental.

FIRST, EVERGLOW

In a comment section someone said La Di Da was a fluke and I kind of agree. Everglow returns to their usual style (chanty chorus + catchy riff repeated over and over) and this song is in the same vein as Adios. I like the chorus but the rest of the song is hard to recall. Siyeon, Aisha and Yiren are the only ones who actually look good and EU needs more lines and her blonde hair back. Also why does kpop think that moving the camera around a lot creates the illusion of motion? All it does is make me dizzy.

Like It Hot, GWSN

Sometimes I like GWSN title tracks, and sometimes I don't. I don't think much of this song, but their album is great.

Je T'aime, Joy

I love you Joy but this is boring. If it was meant to be a lullaby then SM succeeded.

Burned All Black, Kim Jaehwan

His other song is a ballad which is somewhat pleasant. Well, it was until it slowed down in the first chorus.

Purple, woo!ah!

Still not one song from woo!ah! I like.

GGOMA, Tae Ho (IMFACT) and Choi Ye Geun

Loved Choi Ye Geun's Scarecrow so I was happy to see her again. The song is groovy but the chorus sounds somewhat...empty? Love the scat at the end, should've been longer. This is also a great example of a bright boy group song. See? Upbeat and bright boy group concepts don't have to be childish.

DIAMOND, Sparkling

Another Imitation OST. I honestly doubt that there are actual kpop songs as bad as this.

7days Tension, Weeekly

Ad song. Bright and the chorus is nice.

0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You), TXT feat. Seori

The angsty opening line caught my attention, then the verse after it dropped the energy. It picked up again in the chorus and pre-chorus, thankfully. It's very much pop rock, except there are no guitars in this. Doesn't stop the song from being good though.

Hello, Joy

I love Joy's voice as always but this song doesn't do much for me even though it's upbeat. A few more listens might change my mind.

Call Me, Omega III

Another Imitation OST. Doesn't do much for me, just like all the Imitation MVs. At least let us understand what your drama is about. Instead we get these random shots of what idols are supposed to be like? I don't know much about idol life but it's obvious these girls would be called nugus in real life, and I honestly doubt nugus have such nice living conditions.

No Answer, LA LIMA

Jiyeon from T-Ara is on this one. This and MALO are my favourites from the Imitation OST so far. The song is nice with a sleek catwalk vibe to it but like the rest the MV is boring.

Show Me, Tea Party

Are these the Omega III girls? Not sure but I think so. MV still boring, song doesn't interest me.

Let me go!, The Volunteers

Great rock song, I just wonder why it's all in English (I'm not complaining).

#saltypicks #kpop reviews #reviews #monthly reviews #may '21

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you-did-well-moon · 4 years

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The Warmth Provided (2)

Type: Fluff, Angst, Crack, college au, friends to lovers au

A/N: The second part is here!! Which means we only have one more part to this little series! Disclaimer, not all requests I receive will end up like as big as this. Lol y/n keeps on with her booboo the fool antics in this one as well. At this point, idk if Sungjin and y/n will even stay friend jk yes I do. Don’t be afraid to talk to me and enjoy!!

TW: Reader neglects herself, awkward situations, toxicity and unreal depiction of Sungjin

Part 1| Part 2| Part 3

You scrambled to bend down and look under the table seeing the whole time you had been touching and rubbing Jae’s leg which was right next to the actual pole. You quickly pressed your legs to the front legs of your chair. Shock made your chest tighten and a cold feeling settled in the pit of your stomach. You apologized to Jae through your fingers which you had slapped on to your mouth when you saw what you had done feeling your face grow unbelievably hot.

Jae was able to squeak out an accepting “it’s ok” to your insistent apologies, clumsily standing up and saying he had to go to class which you knew was a lie because you remembered he didn’t have class until hours later. He practically ran out of the cafeteria.

You sunk down in your seat burying your head into your hands feeling your body tremor with embarrassment and shame. You felt the need to be in your apartment snuggled into your bed and away from the other people in the cafeteria who you unrealistically felt were all staring at you although no one had actually seen what happened.

You were so sure that even if you were able to keep your feelings from Jae, you had just unintentionally still put a little strain on your friendship with the accidental game of footsie. You were so flustered and eager to get back to your dorm, you forgot Sungjin’s hoodie in the chair which had been next to yours.

Instead, Jae’s jacket kept you warm on the walk back to your apartment.

/-/-/-/

You pushed your face farther into the pillow pulling at your hair. No matter what you did, the embarrassing scene that had happened earlier that day kept replaying in your head, also filling your head with insecurities you had not had to face in a long time. You really hoped Jae had gotten over it and didn’t hold anything against you.

You weren’t even sure you could turn up to your wednesday sociology class you had with Jae when you were so embarrassed. You really felt like just staying in bed instead of having to face the consequences of your clumsiness, but no, you knew you had to face reality like the responsible adult you were.

You screamed into the pillow. Who were you kidding? You still ate Cheerios and drank Capri Suns. You were the farthest thing from an adult a person could possibly be. You sniffed feeling shame still taking route in your chest. Missing one day for that class wouldn’t hurt right?

A loud sound blared against the shell of your ear making you jump and gasp, making yourself sit up and fumble around for your phone which had been right next to your pillow. You jumped off your bed, the alarm on your phone being a reminder for the fact that you had agreed to meet up with Sungjin and Dowoon at the coffee shop a few blocks from campus next to a cute little antique store.

“I’m such a mess” you muttered, dragging yourself off the bed and taking a look in the mirror. You shrugged at your reflection deciding all you really need to do was brush your hair since it had been messed up while you tossed and turned wallowing in self pity on your bed.

You looked around for your shoes not finding them where they usually were at the foot of the bed before tripping on one of them when you remembered you had thrown them at the wall in frustration. Somehow you still managed to make life harder for yourself while crying about making life hard for yourself. You did not find any amusement in the irony of the situation.

You slipped on your shoes tying up the laces trying to make sure you wouldn’t accidentally step on them. What you were wearing was good enough to go out in public. It was a simple crop top paired with some ripped jeans and hightops. Simple, but you barely had time to finish your cheerios that morning so spending any more than five minutes on your outfit was out the question.

You brushed through your hair making sure there were no stray hairs sticking out from the top of your head or any other parts of your hair. Checking the time, and you realized you had around 15 minutes to get to the cafe, and the bus ride usually took ten minutes. You made sure you had your wallet, phone, and other essentials grabbing the closest jacket you could find (which was thrown over your desk chair), and you dashed out the door excited to see your friends and eat the yummy treats the cafe had to offer.

You also couldn’t wait to whine about what had happened with Jae knowing Sungjin would do his best to console you, probably more scolding than anything, and Dowoon would laugh at you. You didn’t notice you had taken Jae’s jacket until you were already on the bus, and Jae’s pine vanilla scent was the only thing your nose took in making your chest thrum with warmth.

You accepted your fate wincing and ducking your head, tugging the jacket tighter around you not having the nerve to take it off when it was so cold in the bus. Why couldn’t you just pay attention to what you were doing for once in your life. Now you were stuck with your crush’s jacket, the same one you had embarrassed yourself with, and the cologne was now the only thing your mind could focus on.

The scent that surrounded you made you feel a sense of peacefulness calmed by the notion of the comfort you always felt around Jae. He made you feel safe, but you wished he wouldn’t have the ability to make your emotions go into such a frenzied mess. Being in love was hard sometimes, but you guess it was worth it if it meant hearing his laugh, or seeing his smile.

You were snapped out of your love struck thoughts by the bus abruptly stopping forcing you to check which stop you were at only to rush to the doors once you realized you were at your stop, shouldering past people and muttering apologies you scrambled down the steps checking the time on your phone. You had gotten there with about two minutes to spare. Luckily, the bus stop was only two buildings down from the cafe, so you didn’t have much to walk.

In your short walk to the quaint cafe, you took some time to appreciate the sense of home the little town gave you.

The sun was sinking peeking out from the canopy of trees in the park just a few minutes away from the street you were on. People walked up and down the sidewalk laughing amidst their individual conversations, and the bushes lining some of the stores’ windows bristled with the fresh afternoon breeze. Purples, pinks, oranges, and yellows coloured the sky as the sun was starting to give way to the moon. You couldn’t stop the serene smile making its way onto your lips at the seemingly peaceful night.

You instantly spotted your two friends at the corner of the room closest to the bookshelf covering the wall it was placed against. You bounded up to the table smiling in greeting and putting your things down next to Sungjin.

“I’ll be right back, i have to go order” you were going to turn away but a hand around your wrist stopped you. “Don’t. I already ordered for you” You turned around confused at Sungjin. He knew your order and had memorized it a long time ago, but he hadn’t ordered anything for you in years. You opened your mouth to thank him, but your words died in your throat when you saw your best friend’s expression. His eyes were glaring a hole into a spot on the table, and his eyes were hooded with his lips pressed into a tight line.

You felt worried. You knew that look. He only got that look when he was mad at you. It didn’t really happen often. Last time it happened was when you lied to him about being at home when in reality you were walking home from the library very late on a cold night.

You wracked your brain for something you had done wrong but came up with nothing. You looked at Dowoon for help who was sipping on his drink with a pitying look in his eyes. He raised his eyebrows at you before gesturing next to Sungjin at the ramen hoodie placed there.

You squeezed your eyes shut feeling your chest dull with guilt. You peeked an eye open at Sungjin agitatedly shifting in your seat.

“How did you find it?” you questioned giving a small smile at the waitress as she came to leave your order. You poked at your food pouting because you just felt your appetite basically disappear.

Sungjin vaguely gestured at Dowoon, still not looking at you. You looked at Dowoon who shrugged. “I saw someone I know carrying it to the office, probably to the lost and found, and I recognized it. Took some convincing to the person, but honestly do I look like a thief? Especially that ratty old thing. Like hell i’d ever wear that.” Dowoon scoffed, truly unbelieving and dodging a paper napkin Sungjin threw at him.

“That ratty old thing is what you use as a pillow half the time punk. Y/n stop playing with the food and eat it like a normal person.”

You gave a wide eyes stare at Sungjin wondering how he knew you were doing something he could scold you for. You refrained from being too surprised. After All, at this point in your relationship he could tell how you were feeling just by a look in your eyes . You shoveled a big piece of your dessert into your mouth hoping it would save you from having to answer any questions or talking in general.

“I very specifically told you to give me my hoodie back yet you went and took it with you, even losing it! I mean you did the first thing I told you not-” Sungjin finally turned around to face you, tone like that of a mother before abruptly cutting himself off. You turned around, your mouth still stuffed from your dessert. You saw his gaze focus on the jacket engulfing your smaller frame feeling an icy kind of shame run through your body.

You shifted your body away as if trying to hide the jacket that quite literally hung off your body with how big it was. It was already big enough on Jae, and there was no exception with you.

“Why do you have his- Jae’s jacket? Since when are you so close he’s giving you his jacket?” his wobbly voice made you awkwardly chuckle taking a long sip of your drink.

“Well” you awkwardly chuckled, “I was eating lunch with him and his friends, and they noticed your hoodie and started acting really weird so I took it off. Then the cafeteria was really cold and I really couldn’t stop myself from shivering, and Jae tried giving me his jacket and while he did that I kinda realized i’m in love with him. Then, we sat down and I also kinda played footsie with him” somewhere along your answer you had started rambling, so to shut yourself up you shoved the entirety of what was left of what you had ordered into your mouth.

As you kept chattering, Sungjin’s eyes grew wider, and his mouth fell further open.

“It took you this long to finally realize you’re in love with him?” Dowoon’s genuinely amused question was drowned out by Sungjin’s whisper yell “You played footsie with him?” you winced shrinking in your seat. What was supposed to be soft bread now felt dry and harsh as you swallowed it.

“It was an accident” you nervously played with your hands “I thought his leg was the pole under the table” your eyes flickered up at Sungjin dumbfounded expression before going back to your empty plate. “That’s the part where you’re supposed to laugh,” you muttered.

“I really don’t understand how someone can have such a small amount of brain cells” Sungjin’s dumbfounded expression changed as he leaned in to the table putting his chin on his hand and looking out the window. You couldn’t see his face, but you took note of the sad smile on his lips. You knew your best friend, and you knew he was trying to play something off by joking around. Sungjin always did that. If he felt awkward or was trying to hide something, he joked around to ease whatever tension had taken a hold of him.

You felt trapped. You and Sungjin have always had so much communication in your relationship, and you always told each other what was on your mind even if it was a silly thought. You told each other everything, but these past weeks he seemed to be keeping so much from you.

Were you losing your best friend?

Maybe he had finally grown tired of you. Your insecurities stopped you from reaching out to him and asking him what was on your mind when a few days ago you wouldn’t think twice from cheering him up. You felt a pressure building up in your chest making it hard to breathe.

Dowoon’s low voice spoke up paired with an anxious smile as if he himself could also feel the distance enveloping the two close friends. “What else did you expect? This is Y/n we’re talking about '' You and Sungjin both laughed, but it was strained.

The rest of your time was filled with an unusual silence between you and Sungjin with Dowoon trying to make conversation, yet neither of you really indulged in Dowoon’s attempts at lighting up the mood only replying with small hums and chuckles.

You were too busy thinking about what could have possibly put such distance between you and your friend of years, and if you could fix the quickly diminishing relationship. Meanwhile Sungjin was too busy thinking of how he was already losing you and preparing himself for the inevitable point in time where you would leave him without looking back happily walking away in Jae’s arms.

You said goodbye to each other with tight lipped smiles. You guys had always said goodbye with a tight hug and a promise to see each other later.

On the bus ride home the pressure in your chest turned into heaviness weighing you down with uncertainty of what would become of you and your friend. No, not your friend. Your brother. Part of your family. You really didn’t know how you could live without him. You thought you were dumb. Would Sungjin really leave you like that? Without explanation nor reason? You felt stiff changing into your sleeping clothes and as you collapsed onto your bed.

He hadn’t even called you peaches.

You didn’t really get much sleep. Thoughts of having to face Jae in your class the next morning and thoughts of why Sungjin was acting so off tossing and turning in the space of your tired mind. You hoped maybe you could just sleep through the whole day not having to deal with your crush or your best friend. Your reasoning being that It was friday, and you deserve a break. You knew that was a stupid reason, but you had no energy to really think of anything. The uneasy feeling at the pit of your stomach wouldn’t lighten up no matter what you tried.

You would have to eventually face both anyways, and you knew it was absurd to avoid what would only fester and burden everyone involved the longer you let both situations be. You wished for time to turn back to normal when everything was normal. When you didn’t know you had totally fallen in love with Jae, or when you hadn’t done whatever you did to piss Sungjin off to the extent of him treating you so coldly.

You honestly didn’t really want to return to a time when you didn’t acknowledge the feelings you have for Jae. Knowing what the warmth feeling in your chest was when you were around him was such an amazing feeling and just being around him made you happy, but it was hard not knowing whether he felt the same or not. By association, your mind traveled back to earlier that day when you had basically felt him up and you groaned scrunching your eyes tugging your blankets tighter around your frame in search of comfort.

You tried thinking to a time when you had gotten any sign of him returning your feelings, but it was hard to come to any kind of conclusion when he acted so friendly with everyone. It was difficult to decipher whether how he treated you was any different to how he treated others. It was one of his qualities you had fallen for. Even if he is feeling uncomfortable himself, he always tried to make other people comfortable and his generous friendliness had never failed in him gaining many friends. He always put himself after others trying to make their days brighter by doing and saying all kinds of foolish things.

Jae lived to make others smile. It was one of his favorite things to do. He loved bringing happiness to those around him, but he also never failed in listening and offering words of encouragement to whoever needed it. You knew because he had done it all for you. He had made you laugh and lifted up your mood on multiple occasions, but he had also never failed to offer a hand of support when you needed it.

Looking at the time on your phone you sighed seeing you would have to get up in about two hours. You closed your eyes forcing all thoughts out of your head and being able to fall under the blissful blanket of sleep.

You woke up two hours later body feeling heavy with no energy at all and a faint tiredness making your limbs weak. You threw on some ripped jeans, a hoodie, and some converse after you got out of the shower. Your movements were slow and your feet dragged as you got ready for the class so exhausted you walked right past Jae’s jacket hanging off your chair which you had sworn to return today.You also forgot the important fact that the class you were going to was the one with Jae in it.

You didn’t even bother eating anything knowing your body would only feel weaker later from the lack of nutrition, and your stomach would push against your ribs in protest to your choice of not eating anything You were just too depleted in energy to really put any effort in taking care of yourself. You walked out of your dorm building simply nodding at people who greeted you too worn out to give your usual greeting and smile in return. You yawned the whole time you walked to the science building which was luckily not far from your dorm.

You walked sluggishly, at a much slower pace and vastly different from the bouncy stride you had on a daily basis. You were too beat to really pay attention to any of your surroundings with your mind set on autopilot not really thinking of anything but how heavy your shoulders and head felt. Everytime you blinked it stung with the need to shut your eyes for a longer amount of time to rest both your body and mind.

You fought to keep your eyes open, but even the chilly wind blowing against your face was not enough to stir any energy in you. The colorful leaves seemed monotone at that moment, their vibrant colors usually making you feel an excited little tingle in the base of your stomach, but today the colors just seemed to mock you with the vigor they danced and twirled with which your weary body could only wish for.

You entered your class with a huff shouldering your bag into a more comfortable position while searching for your usual seat. You froze when you remembered this class was Sociology. The one and only class you had with Jae. You could already see his fluffy blonde hair, and his hunched form in his regular seat to the left of yours.

You hung your head letting out a tired exhale simply accepting your demise. You walked down to one of the rows near the front groaning as you fell into your seat and immediately buried your head into your arms relishing in the nice feeling of getting to close your eyes. You felt someone staring at you and you tried ignoring it, but you couldn’t stop the prickling sensation at the back of your neck knowing who it was.

You slightly raised your head so only your eyes were peeking up from your arms meeting Jae’s worried eyes which instantly widened at the dark bags under your eyes and the paleness taking over your usual lively face. You shoved your face back into your arms, body slumping into an uncomfortable position.

“You look like-”

“Don’t”

“-hell”

“Gee, thanks Jae for your encouraging words” you mumbled into the sleeves of your hoodie too tired to really snap back with your usual sarcasm. It was silent for a minute before gentle hands were shaking your shoulder and a sharp voice was telling you to get up. You grumbled since you were finally falling asleep even in the limb numbing position you were in. You sat up slouching in your seat and pouting at Jae who simply rolled his eyes digging into his bag.

He took out your favorite snack and you figured he probably stopped by the convenience store again. He pushed the food towards you looking expectantly at it. You simply narrowed your eyes just wanting to curl into the warmth of your hoodie and sleep. Jae narrowed his eyes back at you tightening his jaw and crossing his arms. He pushed the packaged snack closer to you to which you simply clasped your hands together in your lap.

“Eat”

“No”

He tried once again, voice firmer. “Eat”

Your response was the same. “No”

“Y/n” You knew the call of your name was a warning.

“I’m not a child Jae” he slightly nudged your foot with his. “Then stop acting like one”

You stayed silent determined to get your way until Jae suddenly leaned closer making your breath catch. You avoided his gaze, but he ducked closer to look into your eyes holding the food with one hand and softly grabbing one of your hands to place the food into it. “Eat it. Please”

You shook your head letting out a small smile and ripping the packaging open. “Well when you say it like that” only getting met with an earnest “Thank you” when you put the first bite into your mouth.

“What about you? Have you not eaten” your words were muffled from the food in your mouth, but Jae just let a chuckle rumble his chest. “Aww is tough little Y/n worried about me?” you started choking, mouth set into a frown from trying to fire back with a comeback forgetting you were in the middle of swallowing your food at the moment.

He let out an airy laugh this time patting your back and fixing his glasses. “I’ll be fine Y/n, just eat loser. I don’t want to hear your stomach grumbling the whole class period, it’s annoying dude”

You let out a miffed grunt only making him laugh again as he settled in his seat. The professor finally came in immediately telling the students about how his dogs had eaten his books (covers and all), so we only had to take notes today while his new shipment of books got delivered.

You finished the snack feeling a little better with food in your stomach, and brushing yourself off. You didn’t notice that Jae had taken off his hoodie until he held it out to you. You looked at him confused and he mouthed “Pillow”.

You gratefully smiled at him giggling when he winked at you and whispered “I’ll cover for you” much alike to what you said on the first day of this class when you two officially met. You missed the slight tint to the tip of his ears when you snuggled your face into the soft fabric of his hoodie much more comfortable with something supporting your head. It didn’t take long for you to fall asleep, and you were so deeply asleep you didn’t feel when Jae brushed the hair from your face finger lingering on your cheek bone.

You didn’t notice the soft looks he gave you every once in a while slightly smiling at your peaceful expression while writing the notes which he would give to you sooner or later probably blackmailing you into going to the new barbecue place in town. If you heard him right now, you would laugh. He didn’t need blackmail for you to spend time with him.

He just didn’t know that.

Jae felt like he could breathe easier. Your cheeks were regaining some of their color, and the crease between your eyebrows had disappeared with your mouth falling slightly open. Your chest rhythmically rose and fell giving him the assurance you were having a restful and fittless sleep.

He knew you had trouble sleeping sometimes, so he was glad you were finally getting a nice chance to catch up on all the sleep you had lost. Jae briefly wondered what it would be like to wake up next to you, cute lidded eyes adoringly staring at him and giggles spilling from your pink lips as he playfully tickled you.

Jae shook away the thought clearing his throat to calm the pounding of his heartl. His torment was luckily cut short from the professor’s voice calling out the end of class.

He took extra time putting everything back in his bag, even putting your things back into your bag because he wanted you to sleep as much as you could. He eventually shook you awake with gentle hands heart fluttering in his chest when you slowly blinked your eyes at him stretching and thanking him. He offered to walk you to class which you took with some teasing.

“So there’s a party tomorrow the boys and I planned” he started off words feeling heavy on his mouth. Maybe this could finally be his chance.

You hummed before letting out a light gasp, “Ah, it’s one of those famous parties you guys have where you can only go if you were invited by one of the boys from the frat right?”

Jae slowly nodded his head turning to look at you. “Have you not gotten invited yet?”

You shrugged your shoulders pursing your lips. “Sure I have. Sungjinnie and Dowoonie have invited me a thousand times. I’m just not much of a party person”. You didn’t see the tick of his jaw when you said their names so affectionately before he shook it off with a goofy grin.

“Ah yes, what do you do? Sit in your room and watch Princess and the Frog for the millionth time” he scoffed nudging your shoulder with his.

You nudged him back harder causing him to stumble. “Hey! don’t hate on Princess and the Frog you fool. It’s timeless, so get educated before I force you to watch it until you’re so sick of it, you won’t even be able to look at a frog” your ramble made him throw his head back and laugh fixing his glasses as his eyes crinkled.

“Would you come if I invited you?”

“That depends. Are you inviting me?”

He stopped at a vending machine nervously swallowing but calmed by your usual teasing demeanor.

“I am” the lump in his throat didn’t allow him to say much more than that. “Then yes, I’ll be there” you had to bite your lip from smiling too widely ignoring the excitement floundering in your chest.

Jae couldn’t control himself, a wide smile overtaking his face as he got two drinks handing you one and ruffling your hair. “Great, I would have had to never let you eat my Starbursts again if you said no.” You rolled your eyes no longer fighting the beam on your lips looking at your favorite drink in your hands feeling nothing but happiness bubbling in your stomach.

He started walking away when you called out to him, your eyes shining mischievously. “You better not leave me alone. I get lonely drunk” His laughter rang around the hall while he turned his head to smile brightly at you. “Wouldn’t dream of it”

He turned back around apologizing to someone he almost bumped into. You clutched the drink in your hands, the smile on your face still not leaving. At that moment, you really did feel like you could run for miles if it meant having Jae smile brightly at you like he had just done. Your chest drummed with a light kind of elation. You had never looked so much forward to a party than you did for the one happening tomorrow.

You texted Sungjin when you got to your dorm.

You: im going to the party tomorrow

You: any advice??

Bob: I didn’t invite you?

You: Jae did…

Bob: Oh

Bob: See you tomorrow then

You stared at your screen confused beyond belief at Sungjin’s weird behavior blissfully ignorant of your best friend’s inner turmoil as he was given further proof he was “losing” you. You hadn’t accepted one of his invitations since the start of the year. You took a deep breath trying not to snap at him in text messages frustrated by his cold attitude. You simply decided you would confront him tomorrow at the party having enough of him acting so distant.

You would absolutely not lose your best friend. Not Sungjin. Not like this. You were interrupted by a sound notification from your phone.

Bawk Bawk: Plz get at least 5 hrs of sleep today nerd.

Bawk Bawk: I don’t want to be dragging around a zombie tomorrow.

You: Yeah yeah whatever mom

He simply sent a meme of Younghyun rolling his eyes making you huff out a laugh as you put your phone to charge being able to fall asleep at a much faster rate than normal.

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silverselfshippingchaos · 3 years

Note

How about "do you mind if we stay like this for a little longer?" for anyone you want? :0 (From the "touch-starved starters" post)

Thanks for asking, dear anon! I have a few ideas for this!

I present to you, Felix and Ash cuddles.

This one has spoilers for chapter 17 of Azure Moon, Dimitri's route, in fe3h. A few other characters *coughs in Sylvain, my very small platonic babe* make a tiny appearance too!

A few content warnings - slight blood, mentions of a death, hurt to comfort.

Felix felt weak. Felix hated feeling weak. It wasn't until now that he realized how exhausted he's been. You lost people in war, Felix knew that. But it hurt. It hurt so bad. It all happened too quickly. Just when he was beginning to speak to his father again, he left. Felix understood that it was for the good of the future, but his heart ached. It’s been so long since he’s felt this weak.

Felix remembers the scene clearly. Too clearly. The scream of the king and his uneven sobs, the horror on Ash’s face and how she burst into tears... He felt like he was going to throw up. Even the Professor seemed shocked. Without a word, he fled as fast as he could. He couldn’t bear to be there for one more second. Father...

And that’s how he ended up here. On his bed, still in the clothing he wore to battle. Still covered in blood. He felt nothing but exhaustion. He just wanted to give up. Glenn? Gone. His father? Gone. He stares up the ceiling, laying down in a position somewhat similar to a starfish. I’m so sorry... Felix has so many words that he wished to say to his father. Felix would always preach about how the dead are dead, the living are living, and that there needs to be a separation between the two. Everything hurt, and Felix couldn’t find it in himself to believe that his father was truly dead. That he died in service of the king. Like his brother. Now it was just him left. All alone.

Likewise, Ash was heartbroken. She had gotten fairly close to Rodrigue, Felix’s father, and had done as much as she possibly could to fix their broken relationship. She remembers the night after Felix and Rodrigue had their first small chat again after years. Without the harsh insults and the scarring words. And not just that. Ash had begun to look up to Rodrigue as a friend, perhaps almost even as a father. It brought her great joy that she had someone older and far more experienced at... just about everything to speak to when she needed it most. She couldn’t stop replaying that moment in her head - Rodrigue rushing to the king’s side, falling into his arms, and dying. It all happened too quick. She sighs, rushing out of her room, wiping the tears from her face. Where’s Felix?

She was stopped by a certain redhead, who seemed really concerned. It was Sylvain. She’s been rather close with him ever since she first enrolled at the academy 5 years ago. They got along exceptionally well, becoming fast friends. Ash was grateful to have him around, he was a great friend. And she was in no position to complain about his womanizing either, considering how hopelessly romantic she was. “Hey, are you... okay? I know he... was a lot to you.” He says quietly, his voice almost a whisper. “Need a hug? You look like you’ve been crying.”

“I... I’m okay. Have you seen Felix? I’m worried about him... Haven’t seem him at all since we got back...” She says, wrapping her arms around him. She couldn’t care less about his cold armor right now, all she needed was just some comfort.

“Felix... Right. I haven’t seem him either. He’s not at the training grounds, so I’d place my gold on his room or the rooftops. I tried talking to him earlier when you were...” He pauses, “sorting through your emotions. He was so... It’s been nine years since I’ve seen him act like that.” Sylvain gently strokes Ash’s dark hair, “It’ll be okay, you’re really strong. We’re here for ya, kid.” He smiles.

She nods, unable to stop her lips from curling upwards. “Thanks, buddy. I’ll... go looking for him. I’m really, really scared. He left so fast. I barely noticed... He and Rodrigue had just started talking again too... I’ve never really had to lose anybody in my life before. It’s so... hard. Feels empty.” She mutters.

“Unlike your mom last night, am I right?” Sylvain laughs softly at his own joke.

Ash snorts, “Hey! That’s my line! And then again, you usually go after the grandmas, don't ya?” She says in between fits of laughter. Even throughout all of us, Sylvain still was ever the jokester, and Ash found comfort in that. She loved cracking jokes, and it’s what she did best, but with her best friend is when she could really pull out her, erm, not so church-approved jokes. When she was upset, it was always a dumb joke that made her smile again, and Sylvain knew that damn well.

“Oh shut up!" He smiles, "I’m glad I could make you laugh, Ash. If you need to talk, you know where to find me. I’ll be at the stables, Horsey the Horse is probably hungry...” He sighs, giving her a small wave. Even he seemed heartbroken, and his easy smile didn’t quite reach his warm eyes like they always did.

Ash nods, “Ya know, I’m still not over the fact that you named your horse Horsey...”

“I couldn’t think of anything else, put a lid on it.” He chuckles, turning around and walking away. Ash couldn’t help but notice the small smile upon his lips fading away as he left. Rodrigue was always extremely kind to Sylvain, always approaching him with open arms. Especially throughout his childhood. With the torment of Miklan seeming never-ending, he was truly thankful for Rodrigue.

Ash takes a deep breath, brushing a stray piece of her black hair away from her face as she begins to make her way to the second floor of the dormitories. Her room has always been on the first. She recalls fond memories of sneaking out of her room in the head of night just to spend some extra time with Felix back when they were students. When there wasn’t a war going on. When their professor wasn’t the reincarnation of the Goddess. She still didn’t completely understand how in the hell that happened, but she knew better than to question it.

She finds her way in front of the wooden door, completely shut. She takes her hands out of her pockets and knocks firmly.

“Who is it?” Felix sounded so tired, so weak, his voice small and low.

“It’s me. Just wanted to... check in on you. Can I come in? Are you okay?” Ash asks. I hope he’s okay. I’m really worried.

“... Come in.”

Ash lets out a sigh of relief and gently pushes the door open. She sees Felix and stops. He looked soulless and empty, his father’s lance next to him. He doesn’t bother to look up at her, but he scoots over slightly on his bed to make room for his girlfriend.

“Hey, are you okay?” She says, cautiously walking towards him. He just shrugs. “I don’t know. I hate this feeling so much. I feel weak. It feels wrong to be upset because of how harshly I treated him, but...” He says, his voice lacking its usual venom.

Ash nods. “I get where you’re coming from, but you have a right to feel upset. He is... was your father. It would be even more odd to not feel anything. Can I sit next to you?”

He wordlessly nods.

Ash sits down onto the bed next to him, making sure to keep some distance from him. All she wanted was to make him feel safe and understood. Just like how he has for her so many times.

He moves his gloved hand to rest on top of hers. She turns to him, eyeing him up and down. He looked like a mess. His hair messy, likely from him tugging at it, and his jacket still covered in the blood from battle. “Wanna take that off?” She asks, “I’ll wash it later. I’m sure you don’t like the blood on it either, huh?”

He nods his head, removing his gloves and unbuckling the snaps of his jacket, shrugging it off his shoulders. Ash takes it gratefully and folds it, placing it to the side for later.

“... Do you think that if it were me, he would do the same? I know I shouldn’t, but what if it were me instead of the boar?! Would father still lay down his life...?” He rubs his temples in frustration. “My head hurts... I need to go train soon, can’t let myself get lazy.”

She reaches over and grabs Felix’s hands. She’s surprised by how cold they are, considering how long they’ve been in his thick gloves. “Felix... you’re shaking. I’m not going to put words in Rodrigue’s mouth, but I want you to know that he loved you very much, okay? He talked about you a lot when it was just us. He said that he was proud of the man you’ve become. And you’re not training. Just take a break, okay? You’re shaking, exhausted, and kinda going through it right now. That’s okay and all, but you need rest.” Says Ash sighing, her eyes darting from his pale hands to his eyes, which looked tired. Too tired. Felix pauses, like he’s trying to process the information. His eyes drift to his father’s lance, now propped up against his desk. Then he looks at the pile of letters on his desk. He had begun rereading all the letters from his father not too long before Ash arrived.

He sighs, “Fine then. I’ll rest. For now.” Ash smiles softly and squeezes his hand. He looks down at her. “You’ve been crying. Your eyes are doing that stupid puffy thing they always do.”

Ash shrugs, “Yeah, but that’s alright. Don’t worry about me right now, I’m okay. But right now, I’m worried about you. You seem very... out of it. I understand why, I just wanna help is all. I wanna be here for you. You’re always there when I need it.”

“Thanks.” Felix says quickly, leaning his head onto her shoulder. He hesitates. “Can I... have a hug?” He says quickly, almost embarrassed. “Hey, of course you can!” Ash smiles, wrapping his arms around him. She gently removes the hair tie from his hair, careful not to tug anything. She strokes his blue hair, which was now resting against his neck. Felix buries his face in her chest, his arms wrapping around her so, so tight. She places a small kiss to the top of his head, still running her fingers through her hair. It always amazed her how soft it was, considering their current circumstances.

She holds him tight, and soon enough, his whole body starts shaking, rattling with small sobs. He cries into her shirt, never letting her go for a second. She’s somewhat shocked. Ash has never seen Felix cry before. “P-please... Don’t leave me. I can’t lose anybody else.” He sobs, his voice uneven.

“It’s alright, Felix. It’s alright. I’m right here.” Ash says, gently running her hands up and down his back. He holds her close, sniffing.

“Do you mind if we stay like this for a while?” Whispers Felix, looking up at his girlfriend, who was looking right back down at him. A small smile finds its way to her lips. “That sounds wonderful, Felix. I’m here for you, you can let it all out.” She says. Felix looks into her eyes, which were so gentle, so warm. Up close, he notices just how brown they are. They look so dark from a distance, but he finds himself fascinated by their chocolate color. She gently wipes the tears from his cheeks, ruffling his hair,

They stay like that for a long time, not having a care in the world except for each other. Felix eventually moves his head to her thighs, finding them to be rather nice pillows. He thinks about how much she’s grown these past five years, and how she’s the most gorgeous woman he’s ever seen, and how he knows that this is where he wants to spend eternity in. Her arms. He feels warm inside. “Thank you so much.” He says, his voice no longer a quiet whisper.

"I love you, ya know.." She smile, gently stroking cradling his cheek in her hand. He chuckles quietly, amber eyes focused on her, his tears long dry. "Me too.."

"Oh?" She perks up, her usually playful smirk making an appearance,

"Well, I certainly hope you love yourself too. I mean, you are so gorgeous.." She holds his hand and plays with his fingers like how she always loved to do. They felt warm.

He scoffs, but Ash didn't miss the tinge of dusty red upon his pale cheeks. "Flattery will get you nowhere." He softly smiles.

She leans down, giving him a small kiss on his forehead and looks into his amber eyes. She’s glad to see him smile again.

She thinks back to him earlier.

Sylvain said that he hasn't seem him look like that since Duscur.

She feels a pang of heartache. "Well, it clearly got me into your arms, hm?"

“And I’m damn glad it did.”

He still wasn’t completely alright, and neither was Ash. They were hurting.

But they had each other.

#oho this one was lots of fun dear anon!#i love him so much :(#anon #answered #me x the boys #i lowkey kinda like how this came out??#touch-starved prompts

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polkahotness · 4 years

Text

SHORTAKI WEEK, DAY 4

FFN // AO3

Switch

Adjusting to Freshmen-life at Hillwood High School had proven to be more difficult than either Arnold or Helga had anticipated. As they watched their friends thrive in their new environment, both felt as though they were still struggling to find their place within clubs, classes, and cliques. Each day during the first few weeks was a rush to navigate through the unfamiliar hallways that were filled to the brim with bustling students who had long since learned the various shortcuts and routes to most effectively get to their next hour's class.

Arnold and Helga on the other hand, were still taking the less-direct paths which led them around corners and into one another on a semi-frequent basis. And while this collision was not something that the pair had never accidently done before, on this particular afternoon, it would prove to be an encounter that would forever change their young lives.

SMACK!

Right around the corner of the 500 and 300 wing, Arnold Shortman ran directly into Helga G. Pataki, both of their armfuls of textbooks, notebooks, pens, and other high school essentials scattering around them like confetti from a canon.

"Seriously, footballhead?!" Helga exclaimed as she began collecting her various items that had mingled with Arnold's on the floor of the hallway. "Personally, I would have thought that by now, you'd know how to use your own two feet properly!"

"Sorry, Helga," Arnold grumbled as he too began feverishly gathering his things as quickly as possible. The warning bell had already rang, and both he and Helga were sure to be late if they didn't hurry. "I guess I was just in a rush."

"I'll say," the young blonde responded while glancing up to sneak a glimpse at the boy who had stolen her heart ages ago and still possessed to this day. Her eyes lingered on the boy with the oddly shaped head for a long moment as he picked up his belongings, though her gaze brought heat to his skin causing him to look up and meet eyes with his feisty classmate.

"What?" the boy asked her while pausing momentarily mid-reach for his phone which lay face-down in its black protective case.

"What, what, Arnoldo?" Helga spat back at him while maintaining their eye-contact and reaching to grab her own phone.

"You're staring at me," Arnold noted while finally palming the phone and reaching back to shove it into the pocket of his jeans. Without leaving Helga's eyes, he reached towards the next item on his horizon—his Algebra 2 textbook, which he needed for the class that he was nearly positive he would be late to after his run-in with Helga.

Out of everything she had dropped, Helga's own cellphone was the least of her worries—her focus instead on the notebook that lay just head of where Arnold was squatting before her. Inside the pages of that notebook were some of Helga's deepest thoughts and strongest feelings regarding him and their complicated relationship.

He could never find out what was written on the lines of the papers inside.

Taking the phone she'd grabbed to cram it into the side-pocket of the zip-up sweater she was wearing, she soon snatched the notebook while silently breathing a sigh of relief that Arnold was none-the-wiser as to what lay inside. "Uh, newsflash—it's not me who's doing the staring here, it's you." Her retort merely triggered Arnold to exchange a blank look with the quick-witted blonde before he picked up the last of the items he had dropped.

"Whatever you say, Helga," he recited—a typical ending to a typical conversation with the girl he still harbored feelings for even after all of these years. Oftentimes he would lie awake until the early hours of the morning while staring ahead at the stars that shone brightly above him through his skylight. His mind would endlessly replay moments the two of them had shared since their fifth-grade trip to San Lorenzo and wonder where it was that they went wrong.

Could it have been that they were too young?

Had they simply not been ready?

And more importantly, was there still a chance to remedy what the pair had seemingly lost?

For Arnold, the answers to his questions lay trapped inside the mind of one Helga G. Pataki; the object of both his desires and absolute frustration. He could never seem to wiggle himself back into her thought process, no matter how hard he tried—and he had certainly tried.

As the two parted ways for the next hour that would begin in less than a minute's time, neither realized that the phone in their pockets could hold the key to unlocking the mysteries that either teenager ruminated over time after time. Perhaps it was in their accidental switch that they would find their answers after all.

----------------------

DING. DING. DING. DING.

Just as the bell let out its final ring, Helga slid into the seat of her English class. Panting from her jog after her crash with Arnold, Helga tossed the things she'd gathered in haste onto the top of her desk. Glancing her way, Phoebe immediately knew that something was troubling her best friend.

"Is everything alright, Helga?" She asked as their teacher continued talking in the opposite corner of the room to one of their fellow students. "You seem to be… discombobulated today."

"That's the understatement of the year," Helga answered while sorting through the compilation of things she'd gathered in haste just moments ago. "I swear to you, Pheebs, if I run into Arnold one more time, I might kill him. This is the third time in two weeks that he's almost made me late for class."

"Considering how often the two of you run into one another, I think it may be improbable to expect it won't happen again," Phoebe mused with a soft smile. She knew of the mutual feelings that Helga and Arnold shared for one another. She herself had engaged in dating shortly after the infamous trip to San Lorenzo, however for Phoebe and Gerald, their partnership had proven to be successful in all of the ways that their best friends' relationship hadn't.

Despite this, both Phoebe and Gerald never let go of the hope that their friends would one day reconnect in a way that would work out for the better. From their objective points of view, Helga and Arnold were perfect for one another. To them, it seemed that their friends merely lacked the motivation at being truly honest with one another; the real kryptonite that plagued and stood in the way of their seemingly imminent relationship.

"I don't know, Phoebe," Helga finally said as she softly traced the cover of her precious notebook that Arnold had once again almost seen the contents of. "You'd think the way the universe keeps shoving us together, something would have happened by now."

"But something did happen," Phoebe offered, though Helga was less than receptive.

"Yeah. In the fifth grade," she sneered before rolling her eyes and leaning back into the chair of her desk while crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "Maybe it's time to give up and face the facts. Arnold and I are just… never going to work. We'll be forced to run into each other for the rest of our lives… our feelings littering the floor in a mess of emotional debris we keep having to pick up and hide away like some kind of… goddamn racoon, or something. A crow, maybe. They collect things, don't they?"

The question confused Phoebe who was accustomed to Helga's nonsensical rants that typically revolved around Arnold only to jut off in another direction entirely by the end. "Y-Yes, they do, but Helga—"

"Honestly, it's fine, I guess," Helga continued as though she hadn't heard a word her friend had said. "So, we collect our feelings like objects. Big deal. If he isn't willing to show me his, then I sure as hell am not willing to show him mine." Seeing that their teacher was still conversing with someone across the way about what appeared to be a previous assignment, Helga snuck her hand into the pocket of her sweater to grab the phone that lay inside.

"That's all there is to it," she said while pulling out the phone and clicking the button on the side to illuminate the screen. "I'll keep my feelings to myself and Arnold—" Helga stopped mid-sentence as she stared down at the screensaver that looked back at her.

"Helga?" Phoebe called her friend's name with a twinge of fear beneath her voice. "Helga, what is it? Is your phone alright after your hallway mishap?"

"I don't know…" she uttered before holding up the phone for Phoebe to see, "because this isn't my phone. It's Arnold's."

Meanwhile, a hallway over, Arnold Shortman had yet to notice that the phone residing safely in his pocket was not that of his own.

Slipping into his seat at the moment the bell chimed it's final chime, he too was glad that he hadn't collected another tardy slip like he had as a direct result of previous run-ins with Helga. It always seemed that the two of them found one another at the intersection of the 500 and 300 wings—Arnold silently wondered why he kept taking that route when he knew their colliding was almost fated to occur.

Perhaps he did it because he wanted them to bump into each other.

Maybe he secretly hoped that one of these times, just once, Helga might not snap at him and instead spill her feelings rather than her notebooks, pens, and papers.

"Hey, Arnold!" Gerald whispered out to his friend from the next row, and Arnold turned his head to direct his gaze towards him. "Did you get my message?"

"Huh?"

Pulling out his own phone and holding it out underneath his desk, he wiggled it back and forth as if the action would further illustrate his question. "Your phone! Did you get my text?" His voice was barely a whisper and more of a calculated soft-shout. It was a good thing their teacher spent the majority of his time playing Sudoku behind his desk rather than paying any attention to the going-ons of his classroom.

"No, why?" Arnold responded while fighting with his jeans to take out his cellphone.

"Just check it, man," Gerald instructed before continuing to explain what the message said; alleviating the need to read the text in the first place. "We're meeting at Gerald Field after school today for baseball. You in?"

"Sure. Sounds like fun," he remarked before furrowing his brow. "But why didn't I feel my phone vibrate? You must have texted me right when Helga and I ran into each other."

"Ah man, again?" his friend said with mock surprise. "Mm mm MM. Arnold, I think the universe is trying to tell you something and you'd better start listening. Next time it may do something more drastic than ramming you into each other."

As Arnold finally freed the phone from his pocket and looked down towards the screen, his eyes widened in horror. "Uh… about that…" he muttered as Gerald eyed him curiously.

"What, the universe or baseball?"

"Both," Arnold answered before holding up the phone in his possession. "This isn't my phone."

"Then who's is it?" Gerald soon asked; Arnold clicking the button on the side to light up the screen which revealed a lockscreen with the image of a pink neon heart against a dark backdrop.

"Helga's."

"No…"

"Yes," Arnold insisted with a shake of his head. "Maybe the universe already took it up another notch…"

"Yeah, maybe," Gerald affirmed before shrugging his shoulders. "Or maybe it just doesn't want you to play baseball this afternoon."

"Gerald…"

"What?" He exclaimed as their teacher rose from their desk to finally make their way towards the front of the classroom to begin the hour. Apparently, he'd finished his latest Sudoku puzzle. "So, you gotta exchange phones with Helga. Big whoop. Use it to your advantage."

"Alright class," the teacher addressed the class. "Take out your textbooks and flip to page 2-0-2," he instructed as Gerald and Arnold followed suit; the football-headed boy setting Helga's phone carefully down to rest on his lap.

"What do you mean to my advantage?" Arnold whispered over while pulling out his algebra book and turning the pages to find the appropriate number.

"You know," Gerald muttered back while flipping through his own book. "Maybe we can hack in or something."

"To her phone?!" Arnold said loudly; a few stray eyes glancing in his direction at the minor outburst. Quieting himself, he leaned over to whisper back, "I'm not breaking into Helga's phone, Gerald. That's a breach of privacy. If she ever found out, she'd kill me."

"Yeah. If she found out," he soon responded. "And she won't."

"Oh yeah? How do you figure?"

Gerald shrugged his shoulders while thinking for a moment before saying, "I don't know. I'll talk to Phoebe."

"No. Absolutely not, Gerald," Arnold insisted as silence fell over the classroom at his words. Suddenly feeling a heat surround him at the countless eyes resting on him, their teacher included, a dark-red blush filled in Arnold's cheeks as he realized he'd been caught. "Sorry," he sheepishly told the teacher, who proceeded to begin explaining the latest in their mathematical lesson-plan.

Midway through his explanation, a wad of paper landed on the top of Arnold's desk; his eyes shooting over in the direction from where it came—Gerald. Picking it up and unfurling it, his eyes scanned over the words his friend had scrawled down for him to read.

After class, meet me by my locker. I know a guy.

Frowning at the two sentences staring back at him, Arnold turned to shoot his friend a glare before shaking his head and mouthing the word, 'No.' But even though he had no intentions of breaking into Helga's phone, a part of Arnold couldn't help but wonder what lay behind the screen and inside Helga's mind.

Could the secrets Arnold seeked really be locked away inside the phone precariously perched on his lap? And to what lengths was he willing to go to discover them?

----------------------

"Gerald, I really think this is a bad idea," Arnold stated as he walked by his side from their lockers in pursuit of the 'connection' that awaited them.

"Relax, man," Gerald reassured his nervous friend while giving him a slap on the back and using it as a way to continue pushing him forward on their mission. "Fuzzy Slippers knows a guy who knows a guy who's cousins with this girl who knows how to hack into anything. They call her 'The Giant.'"

"The Giant?" he repeated with heavy skepticism. "I'm assuming that means they're tall or something?"

"No clue," the tall-haired boy admitted. "All I know is we're supposed to meet her in the 100 wing by that cluster of lockers nobody uses."

"The 100 wing?" Arnold intoned with obvious bias. "Gerald, nobody uses that hallway except to go into the wrestling room from the side door. Well, and the cafeteria, I guess. And to do shady things…"

"And just what is it you think we are doing? We're breaking into Helga G. Pataki's phone. What's shadier than that?" he emphasized. "Besides, wrestling doesn't start until after school PLUS we've already had lunch… so right now during sixth period with two more hours to go before school's done… Man, it is the perfect meeting spot."

Not wanting to argue about whether or not they should follow through with his insane plan, the flaxen-haired boy moved on to ask a different kind of question just as they rounded the corner that led to the entrance of the 100 wing. "How long do you think it'll take?" he paused as though waiting for Gerald to tell him he understood what he was saying. To be more direct, Arnold reiterated himself. "You know, the hacking-in part."

"Shh!" Gerald shushed. "Keep your voice down, alright? We don't need everybody knowing that we're over here."

"Why not?" Arnold reacted right away. "We're not not allowed to be in this hallway. There's a bathroom down here, we could always say we're going there or something." The pair continued to walk in silence for a moment as the slowly made their way down the infamous wing.

"I just can't be late to last period, again, Gerald," Arnold let out and he dropped his head back in annoyance while he continued to talk. "Mr. Nelson is a stickler for being on time—do you know that he locks the door when the bell rings?"

Perking his head up, Gerald said, "You've gotten yourself locked out of History class?" before letting out a jealous scoff. "Man! I wish I could get myself locked out of that class. History blows and Nelson's tests are impossible to pass."

"I knowthat," he replied blankly before going on to stress, "That's why I don't think this is such a good idea! Who knows how long this is going to take."

"Shouldn't take longer than a couple minutes," A shriek called out; both Arnold and Gerald looking around themselves to find the source of the high-pitched voice. Emerging from behind the grouping of unused lockers, a small girl who barely stood at five-feet-tall approached the friends while pushing up her large glasses which were sliding down her nose. "Of course, that's all depending on the make, model… year."

"Oh, uh…" Arnold stuttered while fishing out the phone from his pocket once more and holding it out for the unassuming girl in front of him. "I don't know. It's just a phone. I think it's like mine… so—"

"Hold up," Gerald interrupted as the girl took Helga's phone from Arnold's hand to begin inspecting it. "You mean to tell me that you're 'The Giant?' The school's best hacker AND Ralphio's seventeen year old cousin?"

"Wait, who's Ralphio?" Arnold questioned, though his inquiry was lost in the girl's answer.

"All that you need to know, Gerald Martin Johanssen," the girl called him by his full name which immediately made him flinch with frightening surprise, "is that I can do exactly what you're looking for and I can do it for a small, minimal, and inconsequential fee."

"If you're looking for money, we don't have any, so—" Arnold began to tell her, though 'The Giant' was quick to dismiss him.

"I'm not interested in money," she stated before looking between the both of them. "I'm far more interested in secrets."

"Secrets?" the teenage boys repeated in unison as 'The Giant' nodded her head while gently tapping the back of Helga's phone against her hand.

"There's nothing more elusive than a good secret," she explained with a mischievous smirk. "And, as a hacker, secrets are a large part of my work. So. What secret do you have for me? One secret for one code, that's the rules."

Gerald and Arnold exchanged a look for a moment before the blonde softly muttered, "Gerald… I don't know if this is worth it."

"C'mon, man! Don't you want to know about the inner workings of Helga's mind?" He whispered back as though the girl ahead of them wasn't actively listening to their every word. "What happened to the bold kid running through the jungle to save his parents or fighting the man to save the neighborhood? Huh? Where's that guy, right now?"

"It just seems… wrong," Arnold replied while reaching up to rub at the back of his neck and stealing a glance at 'The Giant' who looked on in curiosity. "I don't think I should break into Helga's private property."

"Arnold," Gerald stated blankly. "You and I both know that she's probably doing this exact thing to your phone right this minute. I'll bet you twenty bucks that she's standing in the hallway, talking to Phoebe and trying to guess your passcode so she can look at whatever secrets you've got hiding in there."

He thought this over while trying to imagine what Gerald had so precisely described for him.

"And you know what?" he went on to say, Arnold's eyes shooting back over to his friend as he continued. "With how smart Helga is… I would also bet that she doesn't even need a secrets-dealing hacker to do it either."

As Arnold considered Gerald's point, across the school and downstairs in the 600 wing Helga was staring down at the locked screen of the phone she'd mistakenly grabbed nearly an hour ago. "Stupid football-head losing his phone…" she muttered before huffing out a deep breath and dropping her arm while still holding the cellphone tightly in her grip. With exasperation, she rested her head against the metal of the lockers she leaned against while waiting for Phoebe to finish grabbing her books for their next class.

"I'm going to need a hacker if I ever want to get into Arnold's phone."

"Helga!" Phoebe scolded before shutting her locker with the appropriate book she needed in her grasp. "You can't break into Arnold's phone. It's his personal property."

"So what?"

Phoebe frowned while knitting her brows together in an expression of great concern towards Helga's judgement. "It would violate his privacy."

Helga remained in control of her tone as she brushed off the objection. "He's not going to find out. This is Arnold we're talking about, here. The kid barely knew I existed up until that nonsense on the roof of the FTi building."

"I'm not so sure that I would agree with that, Helga, but to break into Arnold's phone is another issue of which I wholeheartedly disapprove." She shook her head more to herself than to Helga before softly squeaking out, "What about his trust?"

"What about his trust?" Helga repeated while emphasizing a different part of the sentence entirely which gave it a distinctly sour aftertaste.

With a tired sigh, Phoebe said plainly, "Mutual trust is something that, once broken, is nearly impossible to repair. Suppose that Arnold didn't find out right away. Helga, I know you are smart enough to realize that Arnold would discover it eventually. It could hinder your relationship should you already be engaged in one, or… think of the damage an exposed secret of that magnitude could have on a potential relationship between the two of you. Is that something you're willing to sacrifice so you can snoop through his phone and perhaps find nothing of significance?"

Groaning at Phoebe's opinion on the matter, Helga shot her a hopeful, yet irritated look. "You could get me in though," she stated rather than asked. At Phoebe's lack of response, Helga went on. "Arnold's phone. Hypothetically speaking… you could hack into it. Am I right?"

Chewing over Helga's assumption, she decided to hint rather than answer. "Possibly."

"And you really won't help me out with this?" Helga begged yet again, an ace hiding up her sleeve as she spoke. "You'd really make me sit in the library and skip my next class, OUR next class that WE SHARE together? Hmm?"

Trying to walk away from Helga as she grew more and more persistent, Phoebe couldn't escape her longer strides that allowed her to catch up with ease. Just within reach, Helga called out as they walked, "You want me to have to watch some long parade of videos which frustrate me SO BADLY that I end up going back to you and EXPLODING like some kind of wild ape?"

"Helga, please," Phoebe ordered from over her shoulder. She was angry at how right Helga was. Maybe it would be the smart thing to skip what was implied and simply unlock the phone. At least by doing that, Helga would leave her alone with all of this nonsense.

As she thought this over with each step she took, Phoebe continued to listen while Helga kept painting the grim tale of her eventual compliance. "Picture it. There you are. You're right there in the middle of the hallway while I'm bugging you even worse than I am now. And what do you do, Phoebe?" Helga moved from talking to one side in lieu of the other. "What can you do when I'm just jib-jabbin' away like a bird on your shoulder squawking and pecking at you as I chirp, 'Help me, Phoebe! Help me! Open the phone and help me!'"

Stopping mid-stride, Phoebe pivoted around to face Helga with an angry albeit bored expression dusted over her features.

As if silently telling her to continue, Helga took the imaginary cue and began speaking to the dark-haired girl with a mock sympathy so sweet, it could cause cavities. "I'll tell you what you do, Pheebs. You, being the kind-hearted, good, and true-blue friend that you are… you give in. And I'm sorry, but you know you will, I'm not wrong, am I?"

Phoebe knew she was right. Phoebe also knew that it didn't matter. Helga would find a way regardless of her assistance or not. Helga herself went on to express her exact thoughts, but with her own words. "The only person I know better than me… is you."

Catching the glare that was sent her way, Helga soon held her hands up in defense. "It's not a bad thing, I mean, criminy! I'm pretty predictable too, we both know that."

"I guess so…" Phoebe quietly agreed, and Helga swooped in to play her final card—the ace she'd been saving for this very moment.

"Look. Phoebe," the teen began before giving her friend an exaggerated shrug. "I'm just trying to give you a shortcut here-a one-way ticket to jump you and I to the end of this headache."

"But Helga—" she tried to stand her ground, the foundation feeling flimsy beneath her weight as she began to faulter under Helga's towering presence.

"Please, Pheebs? I'm so, so close here and if you do it now, you'll save us both a stupid-long process," She paused for dramatic effect while holding out her one hand as though using it to weigh the choices she was presenting, "OR, we can give it a go and do this pointless dance which, worst case scenario, you still don't help me and I just go reach out to the depths of the 100 wing and hire someone to do it for me."

Phoebe eyed the pleading young woman who stood before her. She didn't want to give in to Helga's cries for help, but she knew in her heart of hearts that by refusing to help, she was merely prolonging the inevitable. What were the ethical ramifications of denying her friend and forcing her to find another way? Could the method that Helga ultimately finds lead to something far worse than imagined? Worse yet than any threat the consequences of Phoebe helping right away may pose to the universe?

The scowl on Phoebe's delicate face hardened as she prepared to hold her stance. "Helga, I'm sorry, but I must refuse to parti—"

"Wait, hang on a sec, Pheebs," Helga stopped her from finishing as she held out Arnold's phone to look down at the bright screen. "Arnold just got a text message," she reported flatly, and Phoebe arched her brow.

Without thinking, she blurted out, "From who?"

Flipping the phone so the screen could face her four-eyed friend, Helga replied, "From me."

----------------------

"I can't believe you told her about the dress-up thing," Arnold noted with a small smirk. "Honestly, I'd forgotten about it."

"As you rightfully should have," Gerald countered with a lone shake of his head. "I mean, we looked fabulous—"

"Right?!" the blonde agreed with excitement before toning down his demeanor. "But, you know… not everybody needs to know about it."

"I just hope that those pictures never see the light of day… ever." The two shuddered at the thought, though Arnold maintained his for a few seconds longer. Turning to look his way with worry, Gerald crossed his arms over his chest before saying, "You don't happen to have copies of those pictures on your phone, now do you, Arnold?"

Swallowing hard, he merely grimaced while managing, "Well…"

"Arnold!" Gerald shouted while throwing his arms up into the air. "Come on, man! That was like… our secret! We don't need to advertise that little experiment."

"It wasn't that bad," Arnold insisted.

"We put on make-up."

"And it looked good,"

"I know that, okay?" Gerald stage-whispered back to his unphased partner-in-crime. "Don't you think I know we looked great? It was disturbing."

"Eh," he sounded while tilting his head back and forth to weigh out his answer before speaking. "I thought it was interesting. Kind of cool, actually. You really didn't think it was fun?"

"Sure, but I'm not admitting that!"

"You might have to, now," Arnold teased while receiving the other end of an intense glare. "Why be ashamed when we looked so good?"

"Because it was last month that we did that," Gerald explained while using his hands to wildly gesture about himself. "Maybe if we were six it would be cute but we're almost sixteen now and—"

"And we put on dresses that we found in the crawlspace at the boarding house," Arnold continued to say as Gerald desperately tried to hush him without success, "and then Grandma gave us her make-up which we then used to—"

"Arnold…"

"—make ourselves, as you even described with your own words—"

"C'mon!"

"—as 'fabulous.' We were fabulous and we were wearing dresses with make-up on. What's the worst that could happen?" He patiently waited for an answer that never came. After a moment, he gave Gerald an answer of his own. "The worst that happens is Helga finds them, or 'The Giant' leaks them and then everyone can be jealous at how good we looked. I'm not ashamed."

Slowly shaking his head back and forth, Gerald watched Arnold while humming his usual song. "Mm mm MM. Arnold, I've said it once, and I'll say it again—"

"I'm a bold kid?" Arnold offered, though it wasn't what had been on his counterpart's mind.

"Nah, we established that a while ago," He said before handing over Helga's phone which he'd been holding since 'The Giant' had returned it to us opened and free from a passcode. "What I was going to say was that this is your dad's fault." Waving a hand over where Arnold stood, he continued while contorting his mouth into a twisted sneer. "All of this? I blame Miles. Dude has no shame and neither do you."

Taking the unlocked phone and easily swiping his way to the 'messages' menu, Arnold let out a single laugh. "I may have no shame about wearing a dress, but I have plenty of other kinds of shame, and those are thanks to myself."

Opening his mouth to argue, Gerald stopped when he saw his friend's fingers begin tapping away on the screen. "What are… what are you doing?"

"I'm texting Helga," he responded, then paused to look up and out thoughtfully while musing to himself, "Well, I guess I'm texting me, but, you know…" Arnold's voice trailed off as his attention returned to the message he had been feverishly typing.

"Why?" Gerald asked. "I thought we were going to explore the inner workings of Helga G. Pataki's mind!"

"Maybe that's what you would do," Arnold retorted before hitting the send button and lowering the phone altogether. "I told myself that the only way I would go through with this was that when the phone was unlocked, I would text Helga so we could arrange a switch. That's all."

"Okay, so what did you text her?"

Helga:

I know you have my phone, Helga. And I know you're probably reading this right now. Guess I'll find out in a minute when the 'read' receipt comes back.

"Would you look at that," Helga remarked, "he just has me labeled by my first name in here. The only other contact like that is Gerald's. And his parents, I guess."

"You already looked through his contacts?" Phoebe asked while looking over at the screen she'd helped to unlock.

"Doi," was all she said before beginning her own message to send back to the name she recognized as her own. All the while, she imagined Arnold receiving her text and smiling that dopey grin at the words she'd carefully typed.

Footballhead:

Took you long enough to get into my phone. Geez, Arnoldo. I take it your giant-head didn't come with an equally giant-in-size and freakishly-shaped brain, now did it?

"That Helga," Gerald commented while looking over Arnold's shoulder as he began wording his reply. "Always the clever one, isn't she."

"Always," Arnold affirmed before tapping send once again; the two-minute warning bell resounding through the 100 wing that the two still lingered in.

Helga:

No such luck, I'm afraid. But how do I know that you unlocked MY phone before I unlocked yours? After all, it was ME who texted YOU.

DING. DING. DING. DING.

"Two minutes," Helga noted while looking up to the air above her as if the noise had come out of the atmosphere rather than the speakers in the hallway. "We don't have to switch back yet…"

"Why wouldn't you want to get your phone back? I thought you didn't want Arnold looking through your things."

Helga's fingers danced across the keyboard of the screen as her body instinctively began walking towards the destination of her next class. "Because, Pheebs, he's already in," she clarified before hitting 'send' and sliding the phone safely into the pocket of her sweatshirt. "Now, we're just playing a little game."

"And where does that game end?" Phoebe probed as they took off down the hallway towards the end of the wing where the science rooms were located.

"I'm not sure yet," she responded just as they passed the threshold of their biology classroom. "Probably in us switching our phones back and going our merry way. Maybe."

"Maybe?"

Footballhead:

You may have texted me first, Hair Boy, but that doesn't mean I didn't have PLENTY of time to peruse your contact list, messages, emails, and of course, your many, MANY pictures.

Both Gerald and Arnold widened their eyes at the message that stared back at them from the bright light of Helga's phone.

"So, that's it," Gerald stated in defeat. "We're officially screwed."

"She's bluffing," Arnold immediately announced before zealously concocting his next message. "If she got into my phone, she got into it because of Phoebe, right?"

"Probably, yeah. Why?"

"If she got in because of her," he theorized, "then that means she's with Phoebe."

"So?"

"So," Arnold reiterated, "there is no way that she would let Helga go through my all of my stuff while she's still around." Clicking 'send' with a light tap of his fingertip, he added, "I think I can keep her distracted through the next couple hours until school is over."

"Why wait until school's done?" his childhood companion wondered. "You two can switch phones back after this period is over, no harm, no fowl! Why wouldn't you do it right away?"

"Because," his words were slick with amusement at the question, "I'm kind of enjoying this."

"Enjoying it? What are you, crazy, Arnold?!" Gerald practically shouted as they started on their way to the period that they may be late to after all, though Arnold hardly seemed to care anymore, despite the constant warning from his friend. "You're playing with fire, man!"

"Not fire, Gerald… only Helga."

"Which is worse," he argued; Arnold instantaneously disagreeing.

"It's all going to be fine, Gerald, I promise," he tried to reassure with a confident upturn of his lips and a light pat on the back. "Trust me."

And so began the exchange of a century.

----------------------

Helga:

I don't have anything to hide, Helga. If you want to go hunting through my phone for some kind of blackmail-material, you won't find anything.

She stared at the words of Arnold's latest message that shone from under the table she sat at in the back corner of her biology class.

Footballhead:

Who's to say that I haven't already FOUND all of your dirty little secrets and am currently planning to expose you for the weird, football-faced dingus that you are?

Arnold suppressed a laugh before replying while typing with one hand at his side and out of his teacher's sight.

Helga:

I have nothing to be ashamed of that you can find on that phone, Helga. The things I'm ashamed of are words that were never said and feelings I never acted on.

Mouth agape, Helga fought the urge to let out a loud gasp in reaction to the words Arnold had so boldly sent across the airwaves.

Footballhead:

And what words and feelings might those be, exactly?

A half-smile curled up at the corner of Arnold's mouth. This was his chance to use an inconvenience as a blessing—a way to reach out to Helga by using the only means that she seemed to understand: written word.

Helga:

You know.

"Two words?" Helga muttered to herself as she finally was able to read the message that she'd had to ignore for nearly thirty minutes to do some lame science experiment. The bell would ring any minute and she would be free to roam the halls with Arnold's phone still in tow.

Footballhead:

Why no, genius, I DON'T know. Why don't you and your dumb head enlighten me?

Walking slowly out of his class at the bell's chime, Arnold seized his moment in the back and forth he'd been enjoying—a back and forth that he knew Helga was enjoying, too.

Helga:

I guess I could do that. Only on one condition, though.

Footballhead:

Name your price.

Helga watched the bubble on the message screen appear and disappear rapidly as Arnold worked out the perfect reply. Her hands sweating, Arnold's phone became slippery no matter how tightly she held onto it, and she waited with bated breath until his message at last appeared on the screen.

Helga:

Slausen's. Today, after school. You can even order whatever you want.

It was Arnold's turn to wait anxiously as Helga typed her reply, though she didn't make him wait quite as long for a response.

Footballhead:

And what is it that YOU happen to be getting out of this little, late-afternoon ice cream social? Besides your phone, that is.

Trying to hide his growing smile, Arnold knew exactly what it was he wanted to say next.

Helga:

I get the chance at trapping you in an honest conversation with the bait of free food. You get to eat, and I get to tell you how I feel and HAVE felt since that Summer of 6th grade when we grew apart.

Chewing on her lip, Helga debated her next choice of words before sending one more question that she knew she wouldn't be getting an answer for. At least not by way of text.

Even so, she knew that she had to try.

Footballhead:

Just how was it that we grew apart? Why DID you stop talking to me? Did I scare you off?

Sighing at the words he knew Helga had struggled to successfully send, Arnold decided to give her just enough information that it would only make her want more.

Helga:

Absolutely not. It was ME who scared MYSELF off. I chickened out.

Intrigued by his vague explanation, Helga wasted no time in answering.

Footballhead:

Why?

The one word that Helga had sent brought butterflies along with it. They gathered inside of Arnold's stomach to flurry and flutter in circles as he sent her what he hoped would be an invite she would finally accept.

Helga:

Meet me at Slausen's after school and I'll tell you.

Before she could tell him that she was interested in his proposition, another message popped up on the screen.

Helga:

And make sure you bring my phone. As fun as this has been, we should probably switch back before we go home for the night. What do you say?

The 'typing' bubble didn't have to float for long before Arnold received Helga's reply; the message once again containing only one word.

Footballhead:

Deal.

#shortakiweek #shortaki week #shortakiweek2020 #shortaki #heyarnold #hey arnold #the jungle movie #hey arnold the jungle movie #tjm #arnold x helga #helga x arnold #day 4 #switch #fanfiction #fanfic

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sondepoch · 4 years

Text

XIX: Saeran's Route (Y/N)

Where Futures Begin

Life used to be simple for you. Peaceful. But the Savior had other plans for you, and in moments, she ruined what you thought was your one shot at happiness. Blinded by anger, you escaped the Mint Eye, but that triggered a series of events that would bring you further into the world of brothers Saeran and Saeyoung. And further into the twisted world of your love for them.

MASTERLIST

Neutral Route: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | ✔

Saeyoung’s Route: 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | ✔

Saeran’s Route: 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | ✔

"We've informed the Savior of Mr. Ray's actions. Her holiness is already in her way to the dungeons to meet with him."

Those words echoed through your mind like a mantra as you desperately replayed them, searching for a way out of the situation. You'd been daydreaming when you were able to eavesdrop on the two disciples just outside the room you were in, more worried about them coming in than you were about the contents of their conversation.

But when they dropped the name Ray, you couldn't help but pull yourself from your thoughts and listen to their words.

And thank god you did.

He's captured. The very thought sent shivers down your spine. You remembered Saeran's determined stride forward when he left the room, and at the time you'd been confident that he would return to you.

But as minutes drew into hours, the seeds of panic in your stomach began to grow. And those disciples' words just reinforced your every fear.

He's captured.

It had taken you less than a minute to disconnect your body from the Elixir-removing machine attached to you, pulling out all the needles and tubes one-by-one until you were free from its grip. It had taken you another minute to search the room for valuables, whereupon you found Saeran's laptop.

But you'd been sitting for the past ten minutes fumbling over the lock screen, debating whether or not to push the Enter button that would determine your fate. If you'd guessed his password right, then all would be well. You could contact Luciel and Vanderwood—the former was certain to help—and use their involvement to save you and Saeran.

But if you were wrong, you were dooming both you and your lover in one fell swoop.

"My password is always the most important person in my life."

Saeran had told you that. He'd winked when he said it, and as soon as those words left his lips you were confident that you were the important person he was speaking of. But so much time had passed since then. So many tears shed. So many promises broken. How unrealistic was it for Saeran's password to switch amidst all those other changes?

One attempt remaining.

Who had wasted the second attempt? Back in Luciel's cabin, you'd attempted MC's name while trying to hack into Saeran's user. As soon as you realized that the password was wrong, you'd moved on, a small part of you knowing that wasting password attempts was the last thing you needed.

So where had the second attempt gone? You knew there were three in total, but who on earth...

Luciel.

You sighed. Of course it was him.

Luciel's attempt to trade you in exchange for his brother only proved his desperation to see Saeran again, however convoluted the process was. No doubt, his actions were messed up. But the lengths he was willing to go to for Saeran's sake only strengthened your confidence that he would be just as willing to break back into the Mint Eye to get the two of you out.

And I can't do shit to contact him unless I get into this laptop.

You let your finger touch the Enter key, applying no pressure with your index until you were thoroughly convinced that there was no other possibility. No other candidate. No other guess.

His password was the most important person in his life.

And it had to be you.

You pressed down, letting your finger jump back as if the laptop would betray you with a Locked-Out screen at any moment.

But then one second passed. And then two. And then three, and then you saw the loading screen of the Mint Eye as the colors slowly filled in from empty white to sickening green, and then you were in.

You were in.

A smile broke out on your face, despite the dire situation. Entering your name as Saeran's password had carried more weight than simply granting you access to his device. No, it proved his affection for you, the very affection that had seemed like it was failing these past months.

It proved that, despite everything, he still loved you.

And that maybe, he'd never stopped.

The gardens of the Mint Eye were bare. Not a single flower had been spared, and even the tall green bushes had been stripped bare of their ferns.

Above the two of you, the sun was shining proud and glorious. On a normal day, the light would have bounced off the petals to create a stunning effect, bringing the colors to life as they danced with every slight movement of the head.

But no longer.

"Don't feel sad," You murmured. You slipped your hand into Saeran's larger one and gave him it a comforting squeeze. But his blank expression only darkened, a stark contrast to the sunlit sky above you both.

"The Savior said that the ceremony would only require a few flowers." Saeran's mutter was barely audible, the boy unwilling to say the words any louder for fear of a wandering believer hearing them. It was a subtle protest, an angry fist raised to the magenta. The Savior had asked Saeran's consent in using the garden's flowers for the previous night's celebration, making it seem as if fewer than fifty would be picked.

But she had stripped the garden bare.

You said nothing to the boy next to you. You were committed in heart and soul to the Savior, the Mint Eye, and the magenta—you couldn't agree to his angry complaint with your leader's actions.

But it pained you to see him like this.

"Saeran," You called out softly. When he didn't respond, you moved to stand in front of him so that he was forced to look at you. "We can rebuild this. All of it. Together. We'll be here together forever, right? Even flowers won't take forever to grow."

For the first time that day, a soft smile bloomed on Saeran's lips. You couldn't be sure if it was at the prospect of growing the gardens back or at your mention of spending the rest of your lives together, but you continued on regardless.

"We can grow new flowers, too. Sunflowers in one corner. Daisies over there. We can even grow the blue roses you love so much, and we can have tulips, and lilies, and orchids, and a lilac bush, and—"

Saeran put a finger to your lips, silencing you.

"Shh. Any more and you'll run out of flower names." That much was true enough. It was only after the two of you had spent weeks replanting the gardens that you finally developed an interest in flowers. Up until that point, you hardly knew the difference between a poppy and a peony.

"But...thank you," Saeran finally said after a long silence. "If we can grow this back...I think that would be enough for me to be happy forever. As long as you're with me, of course."

"Of course," You responded, wrapping your other hand around Saeran's so that you were holding both. "I'll never leave you."

You smiled at the memory.

The gardens had grown back, fuller and lusher—and the next time the Savior requested flowers for a ceremony, Saeran picked them out himself to control the numbers.

Those gardens had been witness to so many promises between the two of you: mostly to stay at the Mint Eye together forever. It was a recurring theme in your conversations, as if the two of you knew that one day something might occur to tear you apart.

The fact that the 'something' would be the Savior herself was definitely unexpected. Not the Savior, Rika, you chided yourself while waiting for your connection to process. She saved no one.

You drummed your fingers on your laptop while waiting for the screen to load. Every second that passed furthered your fears. What if Luciel wouldn't pick up? What if he and Vanderwood had already left? What if it turned out to be MC on the other line instead of the men, and she cut the call before you could convey your message?

You bit your lip.

You'd already disrupted the connection between the Mint Eye's alarms and its triggers so that others in the system everything wouldn't be able to see any obvious changes; you'd blocked lower-level believers from having access to the main doors to stir up confusion; you'd released all of Saeran's files on the RFA and other projects. In short, you'd done everything you could possibly think of without doing the single most important thing: contacting Luciel and Vanderwood.

Pick up, damn it.

You glared daggers at the laptop. You'd saved this specific task for last because you knew that if they wouldn't respond, you and Saeran would be left with little chance to escape. They had to pick up. They had to. Surely fate wouldn't be so cruel as to completely desert you of hope?

You stared at the black screen, gazing hopelessly at it as if the object would feel sorry for you and would work faster. You were just about to give up on contacting the agents when the screen flickered.

There was no video connected, but you could hear the quiet buzz of the other side's audio. They picked up.

"Who is this?" A hostile voice shouted.

You sighed in relief.

Luciel.

"It's me," You responded, turning on your video feed so the redhead could see your face. You ignored how horrible you looked, opting to fill him in on the situation. "Listen, I know we didn't part on the best of terms but Saeran and I...need your help."

On the other side, Luciel and Vanderwood turned their screen on so that you could see their concerned faces. "Tell us how we can help," The brunette said, and you swiftly informed him of everything that had happened in the hours since separation.

"Shit," Luciel cursed, clenching his fists. You could see the anger in his eyes from when you told him about Saeran's capture, and even Vanderwood seemed to tense as you explained what the boy was probably being forced to endure.

"No time for that. I've disabled all the Mint Eyes defenses. I did everything I could do, without anyone noticing. But once Rika gets out of that dungeon, you can bet that she's going to get these disciples to triple check everything. We need you here as soon as you can get. Even sooner. There's no telling how long it'll be before..."

"Before?"

You swallowed harshly.

The Elixirs were what first turned Saeran against you, burying the real him deep in the sickly mask of his mint green eyes. And no doubt, the only reason Rika had even bothered to go down to the dungeons herself was so that she could hand-feed him the blue liquid herself.

There was no telling how long he would last.

"Before we lose Saeran." For good.

On the screen, you watched as Luciel banged a fist onto the wooden table. The sound startled you, and you regretted the fact that your volume was so high. In the momentary silence that followed, you strained your ears to check if there were believers outside.

Sure enough, you heard footsteps.

And they were approaching quicker than you'd like.

On the screen, Vanderwood must have noticed your fearful gaze as you watched the door. "(Y/N)? What? What is it?"

You pressed an index finger to your lips, holding your breath while waiting for your door to open.

One second passed. Then another. And then another. And the dread in your stomach seemed to fade. Still, it was far too risky for you to stay on this call. Even the slightest sound would draw attention to you, and that was the last thing you wanted, especially with Saeran already captured.

"I have to go," You whispered.

"Wait!"

You flicked your gaze back onto the laptop screen where you had been about to close it, meeting Luciel's eyes. The boy seemed abashed and hesitant.

Very unlike him.

"Ah, I just..." He seemed to sense the impatience in your eyes. "I wanted to say I'm sorry. For...trying to trade you for Saeran. And for getting you back into this hot mess when you'd been escaping it in the first place."

Despite the situation, you couldn't help but smile at the boy. Just like his brother, he was good at heart. How could you blame someone like that? "Don't be sorry," You murmured with a smile. "Get me and Saeran out of here and that'll be all the apology we need."

With those parting words, you closed the laptop, sliding it under the blanket as you tiptoed out of the bed. It was too risky for you to stay in one place.

You opened the door, instantly knowing your location based on the layout of the hall.

But that information would prove to be useless.

Because the moment you stepped out and turned left, you came face to face with a believer.

"I thought I heard someone inside," He said with a sneer, grabbing your arms before you could make any movement to escape. "Hehe, the rebellious councilgirl (Y/N), is it?"

You flinched as he studied your mint eyes and white hair, your appearance too different for him not to recognize you. In an instant, you understood the true motivation that compelled Rika to change the appearance of everyone in her council. It wasn't just to become the personification of magenta, or to adorn the namesake of Mint Eye. It was to forever bind you to the cult and to her, so that a single glance at you would be all it took to recognize your allegiance. It was to make sure that you had no escape, no way out, no shelter from this bloody hell.

You cursed, only thankful for the fact that you'd managed to contact Luciel and Vanderwood before getting caught.

Right, you thought as you felt yourself being dragged in the direction of the dungeons. Luciel and Vanderwood will save us.

They were probably already on their way, driving chaotically through the woods to get here as you'd instructed them. You'd given them everything you could, exploited every opportunity, opened every hole in the Mint Eye's defenses.

The only question left was whether they would make it in time.

MASTERLIST

Neutral Route: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | ✔

Saeyoung’s Route: 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | ✔

Saeran’s Route: 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | ✔

Word count: 2.4k

Notes: I didn't post this last night because I thought I'd be home by like 9 but it's now 5 AM and yeah I'm sorry about that >.>

Comment & Like

Next Update: 4/06/20

I do not own the rights to Mystic Messenger or any of the characters within it.

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smt4flynn · 4 years

Text

An Extremely Informal Text on Handsome Jack

Note: this is a repost of my essay on Handsome Jack that I wrote on tumblr prior to deleting my blog. I am posting it here for personal archival reasons.

Background:

As the title denotes, this is my long-winded take and look into the character of Handsome Jack from the Borderlands series. This is something I toyed with after replaying all of Borderlands 2 in its entirety.

I’ve also always found the discrepancies between all of the games in their treatment of Handsome Jack fascinating, and a small talk with my friend on my Twitter sparked this desire to write this, though the other reason as to why I wrote this is simply to get used to typing on my tablet.

The reason as to why I’m doing this background despite there already being a preface in the text is simply to speak about my own experiences and to what triggered the creation of this text.

The word count of this text is roughly 4300 words, minus the background and content headings.

Content:

Please use this to ctrl+f/cmd+f and shortcut to the topics you’re interested in. Bold are the ones where I talk about Handsome Jack’s character.

Preface

The Progenitor of the Series, Borderlands 1

The Sequel and Popularisation of the Series, Borderlands 2

The Black Sheep of the Series, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

The Arguably Best-Written but Jankiest of the Series, Tales from the Borderlands

Aside: The Characterization in Borderlands 1

The Characterization in Borderlands 2

The Characterization in Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel

The Characterization in Tales from the Borderlands

Overall

Disclaimer:

The following text deals with issues regarding intense child abuse and other dark themes, such as murder and implied torture. Reader discretion is advised.

Preface

Handsome Jack is one of the more well-known, but not by much in the grand scheme of fictional characters, villains in video game canon. Considered one of the more charismatic (if not the most charismatic) characters and villains of the Borderlands franchise by Gearbox and 2K, Handsome Jack is the character who marks a paradigm shift of the Borderlands series in terms of plot presentation.

Following his appearance in Borderlands 2, Handsome Jack marks the introduction of an overarching story within Borderlands 2 until Borderlands 3, with Borderlands: The Pre-sequel working as a prequel/in-between of Borderlands and Borderlands 2, and a sequel to Borderlands 2 to set up Borderlands 3 and, by coincidence, Tales from the Borderlands.

Though the focus of this informal text is not the radical change in story-writing from Borderlands to Borderlands 2, nor will it be an analysis of the plot as a whole of each of the available games but rather on the inconsistent characterization of the main driving-force behind both plot and popularity: Handsome Jack. Though a rather polarizing character, it is inarguable that the main thrust of the popularity is because of Handsome Jack… though the biggest inconsistent writing in the games can also be burdened onto him.

As a result of this, however, this text makes an extremely explicit assumption that the reader has played through and experienced all of the games available - including Borderlands 1. This text will not explain key plot points nor will it give a detailed mapping of the plot twists, beginning, middle and end, or of the character arcs in the game. Extra-characters, those that will have to be paid for, will be treated as canonical characters as well.

The point of this text is to focus on personal interpretations of Handsome Jack - this is not meant to be academic nor formal in any way, shape, or form. I will not be replaying the games and hunting down the EchoLogs, though I will refer to the Borderlands Wiki for only one instance of the EchoLogs which is the optional side mission Get To Know Jack. Despite this, I will still do my best to summarize Handsome Jack’s appearances in all of the games.

To begin, an introduction of Handsome Jack’s roles in each of the games as well as a summarization of them. If you wish to skip these, please search for the sentences “The Characterization in Borderlands 2/Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel/Tales from the Borderlands”, replacing the game title as necessary.

The Progenitor of the Series, Borderlands 1,

A revolutionary game at the time of its release and extremely dated now with the existence of Borderlands 2, Borderlands is a game mostly lauded for its gameplay and not at all for its lacklustre and barely noticeable story.

Though the game does have a story, it does not get the same level of detail and attention as the gameplay progression of the story. As it is an experimental beginning of the series, the game is bumpy and has mechanics thrown away or reworked and entire plot points rewritten, retconned, and changed for the sequel.

However, Handsome Jack does not appear in the game. Angel’s origins are rooted within Borderlands 1 unlike Handsome Jack, with her story being completely retconned from her being a satellite AI for Hyperion into the abused child of Handsome Jack in the sequel.

The initial intention with the reveal of Angel being the AI for Hyperion is a result of uncertainty; Hyperion, revealing to be the puppetmaster in Borderlands 2, is originally only a suggestion within the first game as the writer at the time admits his uncertainty of the direction he wishes to go with the game.

Though the writer of Borderlands 1 changes in Borderlands 2, and then later on Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel and then later on Tales from the Borderlands. There is a trend of writers changing. Keep note of that.

As mentioned prior, Handsome Jack does not exist within the actual Borderlands 1 lore, and Angel is not a human within that game either.

In Borderlands 2, it is retconned that he is the one who planned the original Vault Hunters arrival within Fyrestone but is unable to be heard due to being stopped by the then CEO, Harold Tassiter (last name given in Borderlands 2, first name in The Pre-Sequel).

The Sequel and Popularisation of the Series, Borderlands 2

Known as the one that brought Borderlands franchise to the mainstream, though not entirely, the Borderlands 2 game is considered a step-up entirely from its originator. The gameplay is improved, the story is better written, and there are better introduction to boss enemies and plot points.

Following the higher-budget release is the increase in voice acting. With the increase of voice acted lines are more frequent EchoLogs throughout the story, which allows the player character (shortened to PC) to feel less isolated from the non-playable characters (shortened to NPC) and the world.

Following the originator is, as well, a massive upgrade in the graphics and gameplay loop, with better downloadable content (shortened to DLC) and endgame material.

Handsome Jack features prominently in this game. Appearing in several trailers for the game [in both voice-over and animation] as well as becoming the main face, Handsome Jack is one of the most memorable characters in the game series, to the point that he still gets use, characterization, and plot relevance even after his death at the end of the game.

He is the main antagonist and the one who speaks to the PC throughout the entire game and attempts to endear himself while also making the PC hate him.

The Black Sheep of the Series, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

Developed by 2K Australia instead of the normal 2K itself, The Pre-sequel is the black sheep of the series. It goes back to some of its roots in Borderlands 1 by changing damage, health and shield numbers but also adds in new game mechanics that are either hated or liked by players.

Criticized for not necessarily adding anything new, The Pre-Sequel’s main goal is not to establish new gameplay loops (though some argued that the loop devolved) but rather to establish a branching point between Borderlands 1 and 2 and 3, and later on - by sheer coincidence - Tales from the Borderlands.

The other issue that The Pre-Sequel has is attempting to characterise Handsome Jack prior to becoming a CEO dictator.

Saddled with an extremely difficult task, the 2K Australia team has to struggle with showing Handsome Jack’s descent into madness while attempting to portray him as sympathetic and hilarious, the latter being the focal point of his character in his original appearance in Borderlands 2 and the former not applicable.

The story is considered inferior to Borderlands 2 and, due to its lack of success, the Pre-Sequel is unable to get much traction and releases only one DLC with others being cancelled. 2K Australia disbands soon after.

Handsome Jack’s role within the game is that he is a “tragic hero” protagonist as seen through the point-of-view of Athena, a recurring character from Borderlands 1 DLC who appears in The Pre-Sequel as a PC and its narrator and in Tales from the Borderlands as an NPC. Handsome Jack’s character is softened in The Pre-Sequel. More details on this later.

The Arguably Best-Written but Jankiest of the Series, Tales from the Borderlands

Published not by 2K, Tales from the Borderlands is the child of Gearbox and the now defunct TellTale Games, who are known for making dialogue-heavy, decision-based, and simplified adventure games.

Considered as one of the better TellTale Games as well as The Wolf Among Us and the original season of The Walking Dead Game, the game is a sequel to all of the prior games and works as a branching point to Borderlands 3. Though not the main protagonist of the game, Handsome Jack exists as a combined main-character with the protagonist Rhys and serves later on as antagonist to Rhys and deuteragonist Fiona.

Handsome Jack’s role within the game is to present an alternate route to Rhys: he is the dark-learning grey moral route of Tales from the Borderlands, where Rhys will have to struggle with placing his trust in Handsome Jack while keeping him hidden from the rest of the cast - especially Athena, in contrast to Fiona’s route where Rhys will place his trust in the deuteragonist and her allies more than he will in Handsome Jack, and may even confide about Jack’s appearance to her.

He suffers a second death as a result of this game, as well as softening his character up - though not as much as The Pre-Sequel. More details on this later.

Now that summarization of all of the Borderlands games are present, it is time to focus on the characterization of Handsome Jack throughout.

Aside: The Characterization in Borderlands 1

Even though I say that he has no appearance in Borderlands 1, Borderlands 2 makes a pointed effort to retcon it so that Handsome Jack is the cause of Borderlands 1’s plot. For that sake, this is only an aside and not an in-depth look.

Handsome Jack is still not yet Handsome Jack in this retconning. Though the game is post him abusing and isolating his daughter [and still doing it], Handsome Jack is still a normal programmer and is not yet rising to power.

His character is that of a unwillingly obedient programmer in the face of his company’s rules. Later on, he strangles Harold Tassiter and takes his place as CEO after his success on Pandora.

Though ambiguous, he does seem to have a mask on throughout the Get to Know Jack EchoLogs though it is not explained as to why he wears a mask or how he gets his scar in them.

The Characterization in Borderlands 2

The main meat of Handsome Jack’s characterization lies within Borderlands 2. His basic characterization can be summarised as “fascist with superiority/hero complex who thinks himself as the protagonist and everyone else the antagonist of the story.” His personality is immediately set in the intro cutscene of Borderlands 2 with the line (paraphrased), “You may think you’re the hero of the story but you’re not!”, Handsome Jack is the main driving force for the story and the characters.

With his drilling of the planet for Eridium causing severe changes to the land and massacre of several bandit settlements in Pandora, Handsome Jack is already set to work even prior to the PCs appearing in the game.

Handsome Jack already exists as a villain of the game for a few years, with him recruiting and hiring “Hunters” only so that he may take advantage of their work and then later kill them - hence the appearance of the PCs and their subsequent train crash.

Throughout the game, he antagonizes you on the EchoLogs and proceeds to deride and insult you, while also being the biggest and main source of humour in the game. Appearing as goofy and light-hearted at first and as someone who leaves most of the basic killing to his grunts, Handsome Jack is quick to escalate within the main story to reveal his heinous and despicable personality.

He is a ruthless and uncaring murderer who wishes to wipe Pandora clean for his own slate and is an oppressive CEO whose rules and regulations act as a dictatorship. The key point to take away from this game is that Handsome Jack’s character is irrevocably set in stone: he is a homicidal, narcissistic abuser with little regard for the life around him.

He is homicidal and power-hungry, and rejects all forms of criticism on his person and only cares for what he has to say and is quick to kill another person if they so-far as breathe wrong.

Throughout the game, there are side missions that reveal that he will also engage in human experimentation and essentially lobotomization through the use of his Eridium to understand its capabilities. All human [and animal] life, except for his own, are not even quaternary to his goal of “opening the Vault and controlling the Warrior.”

His relationships in the game reveal him to be cold and distant as well, even if there are not many; he is more than willing to sabotage Wilhelm despite the aforementioned character having been his obedient bodyguard for years upon years, and he is also almost unresponsive to the death of his girlfriend Nisha.

His relationship with Nisha in Borderlands 2 is ultimately bare-bones and she exists only to reveal that Handsome Jack views those close to him as “objects of his belongings.” Her relationship with Handsome Jack is implied to be built upon lust and arousal instead of actual romance. More details on this in The Pre-Sequel, with brief mention in Tales from the Borderlands.

A theme of “ownership” can be seen in his brief relationship with Mad Moxxi as well, where he “steals” her away from Mordecai and then proceeds to destroy her belongings (her arena in Borderlands 1) after she breaks up with him.

This reveals Handsome Jack as extremely possessive and vindictive, and shows a common thread of him not caring for his partners (whether in work or sex/romance) beyond seeing them as “objects that belong to him.”

Simply for the sake of mentioning it and having a complete set of his relationships, he also has a grandmother on Pandora - now dead thanks to him - that is his abuser, as she abuses him in the past using a buzzaxe.

For reference, the buzzaxe is the weapon that the Psychos - the main inhabitants and enemies of Pandora - use for combat. His parents will be labelled as “unknown” for Borderlands 2 and mentioned in The Pre-Sequel.

The only relationship he cares for is that of him and his daughter’s, though argument can and will be made that it is mainly for the sake of him wanting a battery charger for his Vault Key and her being his daughter is almost secondary.

Get to Know Jack implies an isolation and physical abuse of Angel which happens far before the events of Borderlands 1, as well as a dehumanization of her for the sake of his goals post his success in Borderlands 1.

Angel in Get to Know Jack is treated to verbal abuse and isolation from the rest of the world since her accidental murder of her mother thanks to her newfound and abrupt Siren powers.

She also has to be physically forced into a chair, which is implied where she resides for most if not all of her life, and also repeatedly physically restrained due to her inability to cope with her powers - which are referred to as malfunctions.

Handsome Jack is, unavoidably and inherently, an abuser to his daughter; this is a fact that is explicit and thoroughly indicated and explored in Borderlands 2, where Angel is in repeated pain and often punished for trying to talk to and help the PC.

This is also reflected in the curt way that Angel speaks to Handsome Jack in the EchoLogs, and mostly talks to him with a disconnect between him and her.

The PC ultimately euthanizes Angel before Handsome Jack, taking away the main source of his “battery” for the Vault Key. The death of his daughter then causes a change in Handsome Jack’s demeanour; he no longer makes jokes or playfully yet seriously insults the PCs. Instead, he is shown to become far more serious and spiteful of the PC, and begins to talk to them less and less as the game progresses past Angel’s euthanization.

Borderlands 2’s writing makes it clear that Handsome Jack is irreversibly a despicable human being; if not through his mass-murdering and massacres, then through his callous abuse of Angel, his human experimentation, his kidnapping and experimentation on Bloodwing, and then his subsequent display of said animal’s corpse in one of his major settlements being developed on Pandora.

Though the only “softness” to his personality is his humour, the game never once tries to imply that Handsome Jack is good or is capable of redemption. His ultimate punishment is his main fear, which is the Warrior being beaten by the PCs and he, himself, murdered at the hands of the “filthy bandits.”

The Characterization in Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel

Let’s backtrack. Actually, let’s both backtrack and head forward to the sequel. The Pre-Sequel, which as shown is both aptly and absurdly named, is the game in which Handsome Jack’s characterization becomes the most bizarre.

Aspects of his personality are still retained, especially his humour and his narcissism, though the second aspect is played for laughs and comedic purposes than an actual motivator for most of his actions.

As well, there is a sudden and radical shift in Handsome Jack’s role as a character: he is no longer the antagonist but the protagonist that the PCs are to root for and assist. For the sake of differentiation, I will be referring to the Pre-Sequel Jack as “Programmer Jack”.

The Pre-Sequel provides, or rather attempts to, an explanation for how Programmer Jack turns into Handsome Jack. It also attempts to explain how it is that he comes into contact with Wilhelm and Nisha, and to try and explain his hatred of Claptrap Units. T

he other explanation and main reasoning given for Handsome Jack’s scar is that Lilith is the ultimate cause of it through Deus Ex Machina.

In an attempt, however, to try and turn Handsome Jack into Programmer Jack, the protagonist, certain aspects of his character and past have to be retconned. The main retcon is the mask present throughout all of Borderlands 2 and the scar on his face that is revealed to the PC after they kill him.

Instead, Programmer Jack has a normal face - deliberately drawn as him smiling and happy versus Handsome Jack’s neutral expression - with no mask and scar to show for it.

The other retcon is his relationship with Angel. The Pre-Sequel goes through great lengths to not have Angel appear in the game except for optional EchoLogs. In her appearances in the EchoLogs,The Pre-Sequel has her sound happier and more informal versus her tone of voice in Borderlands 2 to try and imply a more normal and familial relationship between her and Programmer Jack.

Though Angel still speaks factually to Programmer Jack, the tone and atmosphere of her conversations with Programmer Jack is different from Handsome Jack.

Any mention of his abuse and isolation of Angel is largely unknown or unmentioned, or even perhaps written out of the canon entirely or shifted to become present at the end of The Pre-Sequel and set on the events leading up to Borderlands 2.

Programmer Jack is shown to be more human and emotional than Handsome Jack; whereas Handsome Jack’s introduction is the train explosion in the form of a dummy puppet and is meant to establish his hero complex, Programmer Jack’s introduction is the form of him in distress and under attack of Dahl soldiers to try and appeal him to the PCs as an “every man” who is biting off more than he can chew.

He is ultimately portrayed as harmless and unwilling to murder people unless absolutely necessary, shown in his murder of the mayor in self-defense who tries to kill him after he asks said mayor a few questions.

The game attempts to paint Programmer Jack’s enjoyment of the adrenaline rush after the murder as a red flag, though that attempt falls flat if the PC remembers that everyone in Elpis and Pandora love to murder people, including some of the Vault Hunters who treat murder as a sport and some of the NPCs who shrug off murder that doesn’t affect them.

The DLC character Aurelia is also essentially a female Handsome Jack, though that ends up being counter-intuitive as she thinks that Programmer Jack is “evil” by the end of the game despite an idle line revealing that she successfully kills an entire planet’s occupation due to negligence.

The other attempt of a red flag is when a Dahl war AI suddenly and abruptly has a heel turn and starts hating the fact that she is a war AI and that she has to murder people, and the PC is meant to feel guilty for the AI even though the lives of the entire moon is at stake. Programmer Jack is blase about the AI’s distress and prioritizes Elpis over the AI.

Ultimately, Programmer Jack can be seen as the “nicer” version of Handsome Jack - he is goofier, more harmless, at times helpless, and seems to genuinely care about the people on Elpis and fears for their safety thanks to Dahl’s meddling. His desire to find the Vault also stems from Zarpedon attempting to keep it a secret and a thirst for knowledge.

His relationships in the Pre-Sequel are also still developing; Programmer Jack’s response to Wilhelm is that of fascination and a want to have him as a bodyguard, to Claptrap a growing hatred, and Nisha a romantic disinterest but sexual attraction. Due to the make of the game, most of the interactions between him and Nisha show equality - though only in that they are both interested in each other sexually, and that Programmer Jack does not see Nisha as an object to own and keep.

His abuse at the hands of his grandmother is still mentioned, and the game implies his mother is negligent in that she gives Programmer Jack over to her grandmother before bailing on him. He also has a stalker in the form of Nakayama, a character that is introduced and dies only in DLC in Borderlands 2, who creates the Holo-Jack that will then be reused in Tales from the Borderlands.

The end of the Pre-Sequel states that Lilith punching the Vault symbol into Programmer Jack and thus severing his connection to the Vault and severely physically scarring him, as well as the dark choices he makes throughout the game, is the downfall of Programmer into Handsome Jack and, thus, a tragic hero made villain.

The Characterization in Tales from the Borderlands

This section will be kept deliberately brief. The Handsome Jack in this game is, plainly said, an interpretation of Handsome Jack by his stalker - Nakayama - who is in love with him. The Holo Jack in the Pre-Sequel makes a return here, though it is in the form of an AI projection being plugged into the machinations in Rhys’ brain where he can only be witnessed and seen by Rhys.

In Tales from the Borderlands, some of Handsome Jack’s characteristics make a return. He is murderous, narcissistic, humorous, and - most relevant - abusive. He is also shown to be possessive of Rhys in his route in Tales from the Borderlands, falling in line with how he views his relationships in Borderlands 2, though he is also shown to be more emotional similar to his incarnation in The Pre-Sequel.

He develops a camaraderie with Rhys in his route that ultimately results in him wanting to kill Rhys and “take over.” Though the reason as to why he wants to take over is uncertain, as his plan to take over Rhys’ body is flawed from a writing and character standpoint, something which is lampshaded in the final episode.

Holo-Jack also shows more response to Nisha’s murder than Handsome Jack does, and he treats her death as a genuine tragedy than an inconvenience. Though his reaction to Angel is in-line and the abuse is downplayed as it is being told through Holo-Jack’s perspective to Rhys.

The main crux of Holo-Jack’s characterization is in his developing relationship with Rhys, and thus his subsequent attempt at isolation and gaslighting of him, and focuses more on his fear of nonexistence and failure in the final episode when Rhys confronts him. Holo-Jack abandons his pride and dignity and reduces himself to begging and pleading to not be reduced into nothingness.

In contrast, Handsome Jack maintains his egocentrism and narcissism and proclaims himself as the hero still while screaming and shouting until he has nothing more to say, in which either the PCs or Lilith will kill him.

There is not much to say about Holo-Jack; he is the comic relief, occasionally shown to be menacing and terrifying, is far more emotional and reactive than Handsome Jack, but also carries some of Handsome Jack’s characteristics. Though Holo-Jack is more in-line with Handsome Jack, there is also a lot of disconnect between the two interpretations of Jack as the result of the softening of Holo-Jack’s character to make him more marketable and appealing to the PCs.

Overall,

Handsome Jack as a character suffers from a constant change in character presentation, most presumably in part thanks to rotating writers and the teams that develop the games with him as a main attraction.

With his original appearance in Borderlands 2 having him be a frankly dark and menacing character whose blow is lessened by the normally comic tone of the game and every appearance afterwards trying to soften him up, another aspect at play can be the marketability of the character.

The purpose of this text is not meant to insult people who enjoy all incarnations of Handsome Jack, nor is it meant to claim any superiority. The purpose of this text is to merely talk about and discuss a personal opinion and interpretation of Jack’s constant change in personality, and the issues of characterization as a result of it.

As the one who wrote this text, Holo-Jack and Programmer Jack are still enjoyable in their own rights, though Handsome Jack is the most enjoyable and interesting of all interpretations.

If you have read this far, thank you, and I appreciate you staying this far in spite of the length of this informal and personal text.

#Handsome Jack #Borderlands #meta #flynn essays #andro essays

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go--ask--alice · 3 years

Text

Ephemeris

Two

The last four days have been an absolute whirlwind and I have not gotten a single moment to stop and collect my thoughts! I still want to record the surprises that J had for me after the wedding before I forget all the small details. The business he needed to handle turned into a rather messy affair and our poor Johnny was shot in the shoulder lastnight. I haven't been able to see him myself but J assured me that this is not Frost's first time on the receiving end of a bullet and will make a full recovery in some time.

But back to the purpose of this entry!

Shortly after the ceremony J and I walked back together through the garden and into the house, and while Frost was tasked with preparing my next "surprise" these frenzied newlyweds did what I'm sure all newly married couples like to do. I am a bit embarrassed to put all the sordid details into writing though I have no shame in the acts themselves. But surfice to say that our union is one that was barely over before it was consummated, multiple times! Through some kind of miracle my dress remains intact though I can't say the same for the lingerie I had specially chosen to wear underneath. Thankfully my very meticulous husband had a new outfit already picked out for me to change into, I had no idea there was anything else happening beyond our small ceremony so moving forward I was going in completely blind.

J left me alone briefly to change into his own after-party outfit as he called it and judging by what he left out for me it was going to be quite the affair. The dress was very very short with a strapless top, it was pale ivory with gold and bronze beading along the bottom, and spikey stiletto pumps in the same pale gold as the accents on the dress. I felt a bit silly but I stood infront of the mirror for way too long just swishing my hips and watching the tassels at the bottom of the dress twist and shift around me. I was lost in thought when I heard a loud deep purr, I looked up and locked eyes with J staring at me in the mirror. He looked incredible and yet somewhat casual for a night out, he wore a pair of perfectly tailored black denim pants, a crisp white silk shirt, and a white and black suit jacket. He had replaced a tie with a few of his favorite gold chains, they laid perfectly framed on his chest by the silk shirt which was unbuttoned to just above his belly button.

When I questioned him as to what was going on he brushed me off with a sly smile and a wink before scooping me up and carrying me bridal style back down the stairs and this time to the front doors. Like the well oiled machine he is, Frost was there to open the doors at just the right moment so that J barely had to break his stride until we were on the front steps leading down to the long winding driveway.

Before us sat a car, not just any old one from J's collection but a brand new snowy white Lamborghini Aventador. Now I am not a huge car person but I have seen J fawning over this particular car for months now, just waiting for one to come off the assembly line so he could get his hands on it. I never would've expected him to pick white though and when I asked him about it he gave me his signature cackle and opened the passenger door. I'm sure I made an audible gasp when I looked inside! Instead of the typical purple, green, gold, etc interiors that are so expected in The Joker's cars I found lush black leather with cobalt blue accents. The accent lighting was also blue LED and instead of the traditional Lambo emblem on the steering wheel I could see a small blue rose. Later J gave me all the details and explained that it was a sterling silver and enamel rose in the same style as the rose tattoo he wore on his shoulder for me.

I must have looked incredibly confused! J came up behind me, wrapped his strong arms around my waist and resting his chin on my shoulder he whispered in my ear, "Is it not customary to give my bride a gift on our wedding day??" I quickly turned in his arms and kissed him with all the strength I could muster! Never in my life had someone given me such an extravagant gift! I had never even owned a car from the current decade let alone something as expensive and extravagant as this! He just laughed and motioned for me to climb into the passenger seat while he stalked around to the driver side. Once we were safely inside he pressed the glowing blue start button and we were off, to where I still had no clue.

Generally for safety when we travel even locally we have Frost drive us but I know how much J enjoyed being behind the wheel himself. He is a bit of a speed demon but let's be honest, your average Gotham City cop is not about to pull over any vehicle known to be associated with The Joker, so understandably I was nervous taking this new car out for the first time. He just cackled and hit the gas harder as we made our way downtown. As we jetted towards the city I became lost in my own thoughts watching the lights race past. I still can't believe that we pulled it off, we made it to the altar. I was fussing with the beautiful new wedding band that has now joined my sapphire engagement ring when J's low smooth voice cut through the silence. "Are you ready for your last surprise my little bunny rabbit??" He practically cooed at me which only made me melt into the leather seat even more. I don't think this man will ever stop having this kind of effect on me!

As we got deeper into the city I began to recognize the route we were taking. Unless he was just driving for the fun of it we were only a few blocks away from 'The Grin & Bare It' the very club I had snuck into a lifetime ago to try and see the enigma that is The Joker first hand. I still think about that night so often, replaying those first moments and the unabashed stupidity I possessed. At the time I thought it was bravery but looking back I had a death wish, suicide by Joker seemed the most fitting way to go. Crazy that the man I thought would be my end gave me a new beginning.

I snap out of my thoughts just as we roll to a stop. Usually when we go to the club or any of J's various businesses we always use the private entrance. I was about to question him when I realized that there was no one around, this time of night there should be a line forming around the block with fluorescent lights ablaze and scantily clad silhouettes dancing in the large windows that line the front of the building. This time there was none of that just a darkened sign and one lone light above the door. The club's head bouncer was standing in the same place as always though, arms crossed and stoic. His makeup was even there as always, all the bouncers has subtle clown makeup, his was a set of purple triangles around his left eye, the rest of the staff had green on their right eyes.

As excited as I was for whatever this surprise would be I was also a bit nervous and worried about being here with no one else around. Since being with The Joker I have become hyper aware of my surroundings both for my own safety but also for his. I would never want to compromise J for anything, I am too aware of the long list of people who would like to see my love dead and buried, law enforcement and other criminals alike!

I was brought back to earth again when I heard J growling under his breath and when I looked over he gave me a confused and annoyed look. I felt terrible and had to reassure him that I was okay just very confused. He insisted that I trust him and just let him lead the way, of course I trusted him but this was just a very emotionally charged place for me, which I'm sure he knew. I let him open my door and help me out of the car before leading me to the main entrance where he excitedly reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. With a nod to the bouncer the large double doors slowly opened and we walked in.

The sight before me was beyond my wildest imagination. The entire club was lit, the fixtures sparkling like gold and diamonds everywhere but what really pulled my attention was the hundreds of blue roses decorating the space. I couldn't have counted them if I tried! I stood there with my mouth open just staring as J let go of my hand and walked in a few feet before turning with his arms spread and the biggest most genuine smile I had ever seen cross his handsome face. Again I can only hope to paraphrase what he said in that moment.

"Alice, you know I am a man of tradition and there was no force on this earth to keep me from giving you a proper wedding reception. Of course, the problem with that is well.. I don't trust any one else near you.. buttttt that doesn't mean we still can't have a party!"

When he laughed it echoed through the entire room, a cacophony of my favorite sound in the whole world. We danced for what felt like hours! J even had all of my favorite foods delivered in and we dined like royalty. It was so exciting to spend time together in this club without fear or worry of prying eyes on us. We had been together long enough by now that I was a well known presence by his side. Not many details were known about me publicly but those who frequently did business with The Joker atleast knew he now had a mysterious blue haired woman at his side and you were not to speak to her unless spoken too. I sometimes felt alittle silly but it was so exciting being involved with J's business dealings and from time to time my presence really did help out in a deal!

Back to the night at hand though! We stayed until the early hours of the morning which is not surprising for us, time seems to lose some of its power inside these walls. I did have one final request before we left for home, I whispered a song title in J's ear and asked him for one final dance of the night. His face was confused at first but he quickly remembered and ordered the song be played. With my shoes long since discarded, he walked me out onto the very center of the main dance floor and pulled me close just as the music began to play. The song was 'If I Were a Carpenter' by Bobby Darin, these lyrics had a very special meaning to me and I know J felt it too. We let the song repeat about fours time, just lost in each other as he slowly and gracefully guided me around the floor. When the music ended for the final time he gather me up in his arms and purred into my ear. He whispered the most delightfully naughty list of things he planned to do me when we got home and while I was happy to go upstairs and let him get to work on that list right here he was right, it was time to go home.

This time it was Frost who drove us home, my shiny new Lambo had been taken back to the property while we were inside lost in our own little party. I curled up in J's lap like a sleepy kitten as we made our way back out of the city. Through the black tinted windows I could just see the first hints of daylight starting to creep above the horizon. I knew we would be awake for atleast another full day before I could get him to lay his head on a pillow and actually sleep. We would be heading out, what now was technically tonight, to the Penthouse for a few days and I knew there was a few very important meetings lined up over the course of the weekend.

-Alice

#ephemeris #joker x alice #joker #go ask alice #joker fanfiction #joker x oc #two

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