#and unlike the person you’re clearly pining for approval from

[candlewaxandp0lar0ids]

I Don’t Like A Gold Rush || Jungkook

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Summary: Jungkook is the golden boy, an excellent student, the star of you college's football team. Rumor has it, there's simply nothing he can't do. The same cannot be said about you, but you've never had an issue with that. You're happy with your small group of friends and your lack of talent in sports. And then, Jin befriends Jungkook, and you find yourself spending a lot of time with him. Before you know it, you've taken an interest in him — and you're sure you shouldn't. There's no way this can end well for you... right?

Also available on Ao3.

Word count: 17.3k

Genre: College AU, strangers to lovers, slice of life, mostly fluff

Warnings & Tags: discussed insecurities, alcohol consumption, reader almost has a panic attack at some point, shy jungkook, jungkook is bad at Feelings, Reader is bad at feelings too, mutual pining kinda, Jungkook has long hair, sfw, New Year’s Day themed.

A/N: I don’t know how I would name my stories without Taylor Swift. Anyway, this is more or less centered around the New Year (it was supposed to be more and then... it didn’t happen), and I hope you’ll enjoy it! Happy New Year everyone!

The first time you hear Jungkook’s name, it’s in the sentence “Man, is there anything Jungkook can’t do?”. You look up at your friend Jin from the book you’re studying. You have no idea who Jungkook is, but that doesn’t mean anything. Jin is always complaining about how you don’t know anyone on the campus, which you think is quite unfair.

…but then you really don’t know that many people on the campus.

“What’s going on?” you ask him, because he sounds extremely annoyed, and he shows you his phone. On it, there is a score for a basketball game. You think.

Your college is famous for its basketball team… Right?

“Uh-uh,” you still say with a nod, trying to make it look like you have any idea what you’re talking about.

“This kid is crushing it at school, the girls love him, and now this!” Jin complains, a little too loud, and shushing noises come from a spot behind you. You turn around to give the group an apologetic look. “I really shouldn’t have bet against him.”

Ah, there you know what to say.

“You really need to stop making bets. You never win them.”

Jin glares at you.

“And you are a terrible friend. You’re supposed to comfort me!”

“I’ll comfort you when you stop making the worst choices imaginable,” you mutter, going back to your work. Jungkook’s name, his supposed excellence, and that basketball match — if it even is basketball — leave your mind as fast as they entered it, without leaving a trace behind.

“So the school’s won another basketball game, huh?”

You look up at Namjoon who’s just arriving to the table, holding his tray in his hands. You know he can’t possibly be talking to you about that, so you’re not surprised when Jin appears behind him. That doesn’t stop you from throwing Namjoon a disgusted look.

“Really, Joon? Sports?”

Namjoon shoots you an amused glance from behind his glasses. It’s notorious in your friends’ group that you despise conversations around that subject. You hate anything that involves objects flying around and anything that’s played in a team, and, apparently, those are the only sports that people care about. They could discuss athletics, or swimming, which you wouldn’t enjoy but you wouldn’t hate, but that never happens.

“You were right, Jin. That Jungkook guy really is impressive.”

You tune them out. You don’t care about basketball.

“You’re talking about yesterday’s game?” Yoongi asks, coming out of thin air, and you sigh. You had been hoping you would have at least one person to talk to during lunch.

“Jungkook’s friends with Hoseok,” Jin says, leaning forward conspiratorially, which does get your attention. If that’s true, then that Jungkook guy can’t be a completely terrible person. Hoseok is probably the nicest person you’ve ever met.

That being said, he might have very low standards for his friends. You know him enough to appreciate him, not to judge his tastes.

“So I’m going to become friends with him,” Jin announces triumphantly, only to be rewarded by a chorus of groans and protests.

“But why, Jin?” you ask. “Please don’t talk about popularity. This isn’t high school anymore.”

“And that stuff was already stupid back then,” Namjoon adds, and you nod. You can always count on Namjoon to support you.

“And I hate people,” Yoongi says.

“And Yoongi hates people!” Namjoon immediately picks up. “Do you really want to make him go through that?”

You grin at the question. Yoongi’s misanthropy always comes in handy. Jin, however, is not amused, but he just shakes his head disapprovingly. He’s used to the three of you teaming up against him by now. Usually, it’s on academical subjects, but he isn’t phased by it anymore regardless of that. Not that there’s much that can phase Jin anyway.

“First of all, I said I was going to be his friend, not you lowly peasants, and second, he seems like a nice guy! Do I need another reason to want to make friends?”

You tilt your head.

“He’s protesting too much,” you say.

“I agree,” Namjoon nods. “That’s suspicious.”

“Very suspicious.”

“Come on,” Jin rolls his eyes, “do you really think that little of me?”

“And now he’s trying to guilt-trip us. Joon, can’t you analyze that conversation and figure out what it all means?”

“You know that’s not how literary analysis works, right?” Jin asks you, but you ignore him.

“Actually, it is,” Namjoon says, pushing his glasses back on his nose. “I’d say you were right with your comment,” he adds, looking at you. “I’d say… this is about parties.”

“You’re not going to actually believe—”

“Thanks, Joon,” you say, and the two of you high-five without looking at each other. Yoongi lets out an appreciate whistle.

Even if Namjoon and you aren’t being serious about this, parties actually make sense. Jin… isn’t quite a social butterfly but, unlike the three of you, he does enjoy people’s company to some degree. You know first hand that he’s been to a few this year — you had accompanied him for moral support — but they were pretty tame, and you’re aware that he at least wants to try some more intense stuff. The problem was that those were harder to be invited to. Hoseok could probably do something about it, but he tends to avoid parties on campus.

“Okay, then you should go for it,” you nod.

Yoongi and Namjoon, sitting on either side of you, approve. Jin looks a little surprised at your reaction.

“That changed your mind?”

“You said you wanted ‘the full college experience’,” Namjoon explains with a shrug. “If you think that’s part of it, we wouldn’t want to hold you back.”

“We will judge you for it, though,” Yoongi warns without batting an eyelid, pokerface perfect, and you laugh. You won’t be mean about it, of course. You just might tease him a little.

“Thank you,” Jin says. “I’ll do it, then.”

Good. If you’re lucky, it will be out of his system next time you all have lunch together.

Lady luck had never been on your side, for as long as you could remember. It wasn’t like you got the worst of things either, but usually, things that could go wrong, did go wrong. Because of that, you tried your best to remove those things from your path. Sometimes, though, you just didn’t manage to identify them.

And that’s why, when you hear Jin’s voice and look up from your food, being the first at the table as always, you see he’s accompanied by two people.

One of them has fluffy, dark brown hair, falling on either side of his face and in his eyes. He’s talking and laughing, and there’s something that you can’t help but identify as mischievous in his smile. The other is slightly taller, with jet black hair held up in a bun. He’s quiet, mouth opening for silent laughs when his friend jokes. Between them, there’s Jin, and you think that they look good together. All handsome, all holding themselves with confidence.

You had realized before that Jin felt out of place in your group, from an outside point of view at least, but it’s never been as striking as it is now, as he’s walking with people he clearly belongs with.

It makes you really thankful that he’s your friend.

“Hey,” Jin says, smiling widely, “these are—”

“You’re untying your hair before eating?” you say, looking at the guy with the bun who just sat opposite from you and took off his hair tie with a sigh. He looks up at you with wide round eyes, like you just caught him red-handed — doing what, you’re not quite sure.

That is the first thing you ever say to Jeon Jungkook.

“Um. Yes?”

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll get hair in your food?”

You know people find you too blunt sometimes, think you come off as aggressive, but you almost never intend for that to happen. In that case, you just think the logic here is a bit surprising.

“That’s… a good point, actually.”

“(Y/N),” Jin sighs, “let me introduce you to Jungkook” (he points to the man who’s now tying his hair back up) “and Taehyung.” (he points to the other guy, who’s flashing you a smile.)

“Oh,” you say, looking back at Jungkook. “You play basketball.”

He lets out an awkward laugh and avoids your eyes. Instead, he grabs his fork and focuses on it, twirling it in his hand.

“Yeah, I do— I do that.”

Huh. It takes you a second to piece things together, and you think Namjoon will be of great help once he’ll be there, but for now, one conclusion comes to you.

Jungkook is shy.

“I play basketball too,” Taehyung says, leaning over the table, grinning at you, and you can tell that it’s his way of swooping in to save Jungkook. You can appreciate that.

“She hates basketball,” Jin warns.

“That’s a strong word,” you say, but only half-heartedly, because, well, you definitely don’t like it.

“I think it works.”

“You think what works?”

Jin’s face falls while you grin. If Taehyung is Jungkook’s savior, Namjoon is yours. Your friend sends you a questioning look as he sits next to you, facing Taehyung. He gives polite nods to the two basketball players, like they sit with you at lunch every week, but you notice that he doesn’t quite meet their eyes. Namjoon is not particularly shy, nor a misanthrope like Yoongi, he just isn’t too comfortable around people he’s just met.

You and Jin, well, you’re perhaps a little too comfortable. Not everyone likes it.

“He says I hate basketball.”

“But that would imply you care about basketball.”

“Exactly.”

“And you don’t.”

“I know.”

“Which means you don’t hate basketball. As always, you’re wrong, Jin.”

Jin looks extremely, extremely done with you, but when you and Namjoon high-five, Jungkook laughs quietly and Taehyung nods in appreciation — for the gesture, not the debate.

That is the moment when Yoongi drops his tray on the table and sends a weird glance towards Taehyung and Jungkook.

“What did I miss?” he asks. His tone is a bit dry, and you see Jin’s shoulders straightening. He knows Yoongi is going to be the most difficult one to win over. Not that you’ve been won over yet, but you’re not that difficult. Usually, people don’t like you, not the other way around. You don’t blame them. You’re not sure you’d like yourself very much if you were in their place.

“Oh,” Jungkook says spontaneously, “we had a class together last year! You’re majoring in engineering, right?”

Yoongi looks at him. His eyes are shining with suspicion, and you can practically see the gears turning in his head. Knowing him, he’s definitely wondering why Jungkook would even remember him.

“Right,” he finally confirms, slowly.

There’s a moment of silence, which Namjoon breaks.

“I’m a literature major, by the way.”

“That’s really cool,” Jungkook comments honestly, with the same spontaneity he displayed earlier.

“And I’m in mathematics,” you say.

“Wow. I thought you people existed only in legends,” Taehyung says while Jungkook avoids your eyes. You decide that, yeah, you like Kim Taehyung.

“Don’t say that, I like maths,” Jungkook protests, voice soft, much to your surprise — and, judging by his reaction, Taehyung’s.

You were right, you decide. Jungkook is not a completely terrible person.

You didn’t expect it to become a routine, for Jungkook and Taehyung to eat with you guys, but it does, and as time goes on, other people join your little table. You’re not sure you like that. It’s clear that those people are orbiting around Jungkook, which, good for them, but you don’t see why you need to be there for that.

You do see that Jungkook is not completely comfortable with all of it. He’s good at handling people, good at making jokes and at laughing at the right times, you notice, but there is a stiffness in his shoulders more often than not, and it looks like he’s well-trained at it rather than enjoying it. It kind of reminds you of Jin, except Jin is not as quiet the rest of the time. Taehyung obviously does his best not to let his friend deal with things alone, which is sweet, but he can’t do everything for him.

You barely exchange a word with Jungkook during that time period. You’re usually trying to be forgotten when the table is buzzing with noise, finding refuge in Namjoon and Yoongi’s company. You thought Yoongi would be an ally in reclaiming what’s always been your spot, but it quickly becomes obvious that he has a crush on Taehyung’s friend Jimin, so he never complains about the recent invasion of the table by strangers.

You hear a lot of basketball vocabulary. More than you care for, to be honest. That’s one of the few moments when Jungkook’s face lights up and he gets truly excited, with an almost childish happiness. His demeanor changes, from shy to confident, and the transformation never ceases to amaze you. As soon as the conversation ends, his shoulders fall, he smiles awkwardly, and focuses back on his food or his phone.

You’ve met his eyes a few times in those moments, because he often looks around him like he’s afraid someone’s noticed. He averts his very quickly, though, so you’ve never said anything about it.

So, really, there’s not much that changes. You still only speak to your three friends — you think Taehyung is a good person, and you don’t think he hates you, but you don’t have anything to say to each other —, and sure, you have a little less space when you eat and more noise around you, but aside from that, it’s pretty much the same. You think that’s a relief. You’re not too fond of change.

Usually, you’re pretty decent at spotting it coming. You did miss it when Jin said he was going to become Jungkook’s friend, but other than that you’re able to do your best to avoid it. You don’t see anything coming the day Taehyung calls out your name, though. You look up at him from the book Namjoon is showing you, surprised. He has an arm slung over Jungkook’s shoulders, and Jungkook isn’t looking at you, of course.

“Do you think you could explain a maths-thing to Jungkook?”

You blink at him.

“What’s the ‘maths-thing’?”

“Does it matter?”

You raise an eyebrow, and Jungkook groans. You get the feeling that he didn’t really want Taehyung to ask you about it. He sends an annoyed glance to his friend, who is still smiling brightly at you, while pushing a lock of hair out of his face. His hair is tied, but this one traitorous lock always escapes.

“I’m struggling a little with probabilities,” he admits, glancing at you for half a second. “But I’m sure I’ll be fine once I can get my head back into it, I’ve just been training a lot recently and—”

“I can help you, if you want,” you say. “I’m not the most fond of probabilities, but it should be okay.”

“Great!” Taehyung says, patting his friend’s shoulder before Jungkook can answer. “You should do that then.”

“You’re sure you don’t mind?” Jungkook asks, actually looking at you this time. You meet his eyes, notice that he looks worried about it. You can’t figure out why.

“I really don’t,” you shrug.

He smiles at you, a small, hesitant smile, but a smile nonetheless. Probably the first one he directs at you. It’s a nice sight, you decide, and you smile back.

Jin’s sentence “is there anything Jungkook can’t do” takes all its sense on the day you meet Jungkook at the library to study. You don’t know what you expected. You never thought Jungkook was dumb or anything, but since Taehyung asked you to help, you thought he would have some difficulties, at least. However, as it turns out, he either understands immediately when you explain something to him, or he’s already understood it. He asks for some clarifications here and there, but all in all, you feel kind of useless.

“You don’t need me at all,” you say after a little while, and Jungkook looks up from the book with the worried wide-eyed look you’ve gotten used to.

“No, no, you’re doing a great job,” he protests. “You’re really helping me out here.”

“No I’m not. It’s obvious that you could do that all on your own.”

He deflates a little at that, looks away from you.

“You help,” he mumbles. “I have a hard time focusing when I’m alone.”

Oh.

That makes a lot of sense to you, actually. You’re good at focusing all of your energy on one thing, perhaps even too good, to the point where you easily get obsessed and become unable to take care of anything else, but even you need the right conditions for that.

“Okay,” you say with a nod.

Jungkook gives you an anxious look.

“So you don’t mind helping me out?” he asks, and there’s something in his voice that catches you, but you can’t tell what it is exactly. Maybe it’s the hope, or maybe it’s the fear. You don’t understand what he’d be afraid of. Worst case scenario, you would say no. That wouldn’t be the end of the world.

“We can work together,” you offer. “You can ask me if you need help for anything and I’ll just work on some other stuff.”

He seems relieved, and again, you just don’t understand it. It’s not like you’re his only option. There are plenty of people out there who could help him. Plenty of people who would jump at the opportunity of helping him. You know that, because he’s always surrounded by those people, and everybody in school seems to know him. Even when you walked into the library with him earlier, before you got to the table you’re sitting at now, a few students greeted him. You don’t see why he would attach any importance to you, specifically, helping him. You barely know each other.

“Thanks,” he says, and he gives you a small smile. For some reason, that makes you drop the subject. Instead of asking about it — which, knowing yourself, you probably would have — you shrug it off and reply with a nod.

The silence that follows feels comfortable, to you at least. You’ve never minded silence. Jin hates it, though. You get to work, watching absent-mindedly as Jungkook goes through the lesson he was working on. He does ask you a couple of questions, but it’s probably to make you feel like you’re doing something rather than because he actually needs it. You still answer them, and watch him grin, satisfied with himself, when he turns out to be right every single time.

“Are you coming to Taehyung’s party this week-end?” he asks out of the blue after about an hour.

You look up, surprised. The two of you haven’t exchanged much, and certainly have not talked about anything other than— well, other than maths. His eyes are on his notebook, as usual, and you don’t get any insight as to why he asked the question.

“I don’t know. Is Jin coming?”

“Uh, I guess? Taehyung’s probably talked to him about it.”

“Then I’m probably going.”

Jungkook mulls over your answer for a few seconds, twirling his pencil between his fingers, and you feel like you have to clarify, which is not an urge you have often. Usually, you let people decipher for themselves what you meant. That works very well with Namjoon, sometimes with Yoongi, not so great with the rest of the world. Including Jin, though Jin compensates with his impressive ability to interpret everything you say in his favor.

“We always go to parties with Jin. For moral support.”

For all that you tease him, you genuinely care for him. You know he wants you to go with him, so you do. It’s as simple as that.

Jungkook doesn’t look at you, but he still smiles at what you say, and it’s— it’s interesting. There’s something about his behavior that makes you curious, like you are when you’re trying to solve a complicated equation.

“That’s nice,” he comments.

“So… you’ll be there?” you ask. It’s taken you a long time to come up with that simple question. It often takes you a long time to find things to say to keep a conversation going. You’re pretty bad at it.

“It’s at my fraternity,” Jungkook informs you, glancing at you briefly, and you smile. This is exactly the type of party Jin wanted to go to. He’s probably happy about it. “The entire basketball team should be there.”

Great. People.

“That’s nice,” you say, because you have no idea what to add at this point. Jungkook simply nods, and the conversation dies an awkward death.

It’s another half an hour until Jungkook looks at his watch and starts putting his stuff back in his bag.

“I have to go to practice,” he tells you, clearly in a hurry. “Can we— Would you mind if—”

“We can do this again. If that’s what you meant.”

He gives you a bright smile, and that actually surprises you. He looks relieved that you finished his sentence for him.

“Thank you,” he says sincerely.

And just like that, he’s gone, practically running out of the library. For someone who talks as little as he does, he sure leaves a void when he goes away, you think, looking at the empty chair.

But you quickly shrug it off. You’re used to being alone. You like being alone.

Jungkook isn’t going to change that.

You realize very quickly that, while accompanying Jin to parties was never something you particularly enjoyed, going to this one was downright a mistake.

You have this unspoken rule, with your friends, that you shouldn’t stick together the entire time. You’re supposed to wander off, find something to do for yourself, maybe talk to some people. Get that college experience. You’ve never had a problem to do that, even if you ended up quietly sipping soda in a corner more often than not.

Here, though, you simply cannot shake off the fact that you don’t belong here, that this is not your scene. The people here are loud, energetic, garish. They make you feel like a black and white picture, like a silent movie. You want to run away, but you can’t. You don’t want to leave Jin, Namjoon or Yoongi behind, even if you doubt they’re having the same kind of problems you do. You’re pretty sure you saw Yoongi talking with Jimin, and last time you saw Namjoon, you think a cheerleader was holding him by the hand and leading him out of the room. You don’t know what Jin’s doing, but you’re trusting that he’s okay.

You walk around aimlessly, find Jungkook and Taehyung playing beer-pong with some people. Maybe you should be happy to see people you know, but you’re not. If anything, it only drives the point home even more to see them so comfortable: you don’t belong here. Your chest tightens, and you turn around. You need a little peace and quiet. You need to get away.

“(Y/N)!”

You jump at the sound of your name. No one’s said it since you’ve entered the house. No one knows you here.

Except Jungkook, who’s right behind you.

He’s more confident than usual, and you guess, based on his slightly hazy eyes, that it has a lot to do with alcohol.

“Are you having fun? How long have you been here? It’s nice to see you!”

He’s speaking fast, excitedly, and as he does, he runs his fingers through his hair, which he’s let down. It looks good on him, you decide, even as you reply to him with a tense smile.

“Hey, you should join us, we’re—”

“Do you have a closet somewhere?”

Jungkook blinks.

“A closet?”

“Yeah.”

There are probably very few things that are less weird than asking a guy if he has a closet you can get into because you’re on the verge of having a panic attack and you can’t stay outside surrounded by people a second longer.

Jungkook doesn’t say anything about it, though. He just leads you through the house and opens the door to a closet for you. You get inside without giving it much more thought, and he looks at you, puzzled. He’s actually looking at you, which you decide confirms that he is drunk.

“Do you— Are you waiting for someone?”

“No,” you say. “I just need a little break.”

He thinks about your answer for a while, probably longer than needed, and nods.

And then, he gets into the closet with you and closes the door.

Inside, it’s dark, with only a ray of light coming in. You can’t see his face, which doesn’t help you understand why he just did that. The space is cramped, and you can smell alcohol coming from his breath, can feel the heat radiating from his body, but it doesn’t bother you that much. It’s still better in here than outside.

“Why did you do that?”

“I thought I would keep you company. Like you’re here to keep company to Jin, you know?”

He’s drunk, definitely, and yet you feel genuinely touched by his words. You shouldn’t, because you doubt they hold that much meaning, but you can’t help it. You don’t need company, but that’s besides the point. His intentions are what matters.

“Thank you,” you say.

“It’s not a problem. You’re helping me with my maths.”

Your first reaction is to laugh at that, because it feels completely unprompted, but then the logic of the reasoning kind of appears to you.

“I mean it!” Jungkook protests. “You haven’t talked about how I’m good at everything or how I’m the one who should help you.”

You frown.

“You shouldn’t help me. You’re good at maths, but I’m better than you.”

It’s Jungkook’s turn to laugh, and just like his earlier smile, it takes you completely by surprise. It’s not one of those quiet laughs that he usually has. It’s light and pleasant, and you briefly wonder what his face looks like when he laughs like that. You kind of want to see it.

“You’re a scary person,” he tells you when he’s stopped laughing. “You always say those things directly. It’s like you don’t even care.”

You’ve heard that before. Well, you haven’t been called scary until now, but people have said that you were intimidating. You, personally, believe you’re the least threatening person to have ever walked this Earth. You couldn’t hurt a fly if you wanted to.

Jungkook makes some sense here, though. Your filter is very limited, and there are a lot of things you say that feel acceptable to you, and that other people… don’t think are acceptable. You don’t mean to do it. It just happens.

“I think you’re good at a lot of things, though,” you say slowly.

Jungkook lets out a long sigh and then you hear him sliding down to the ground. You hesitate for about half a second before joining him down there. You fold your legs, holding your knees against your chest while you wait for him to say something.

“People are always saying that,” he finally mumbles. “But what if I’m not that good? What if I fail one day?”

It’s strange. You understand what he’s saying, understand the feeling of pressure, but you don’t understand the emotions that should come with it. In your case, you know that no one holds you to a higher standard than you do. It can be unhealthy, the way you can torture yourself if you don’t meet the standards you’ve set for yourself, but at least you’re the only one you have to answer to. Obviously, it’s not Jungkook’s case.

“Then you’ll try again,” you say, because that’s what you do when you fail. “Or, if you think it’s not that important, you won’t.”

“But what will they say?” he insists. “What if we lose the next game? Or the one after that? What if I fail a class? I can’t get anything done these days.”

“You’ll be fine,” you say soothingly, half-wondering how you ended up here, comforting the college’s golden boy in a closet after fighting off a panic attack. “It’s not like you’re the only one in your team. People will understand.”

You think they will. You hope they will. They should.

“You would understand.”

It’s true, but then, you really do not care for basketball, and it’s not like you have that sort of expectations for Jungkook. You wouldn’t think much of it, if he failed at something tomorrow. If it was the maths test you’ve helped him with, you would be surprised, but that’s because you saw him studying and it was obvious he had understood everything, not because you think he can inherently succeed at everything he does.

Which you guess might be the heart of the problem here.

You reach out to put your hand on his shoulder. It’s not that easy in the dark, and you wonder for a second if you’ve grabbed something else, until you feel hair tickling your skin. Yup, you were right.

“You have the right not to be good at something every once in a while,” you say softly. “No one can be on top of their game all of the time.”

You hear what sounds like a choked sob.

“I like that they’re counting on me, you know? I like that I’m helping them out by playing. I just— I don’t know what’s going to happen when I stop being as good.”

He said when, not if, and that breaks your heart.

Without thinking about it, you slide your hand down his arm and grab his hand. You squeeze it in yours, gently, and then you inch closer to put your head on his shoulder. You remember reading that physical touch was good for people who were in emotional pain. You hope it helps him.

“You locked yourself in here with me because you thought I needed company,” you whisper. “There’s so much more to you than just being good at sports or having good grades. And if people don’t see that, it’s their loss. Because you’re a great person.”

He hums, but the sound is quiet, and it’s then that you realize how tense he is.

Shit. You must have crossed a boundary. You start to remove your hand, but he closes his fingers around yours, keeping you in place. He’s still tense, you can feel it everywhere his body touches yours. But he doesn’t let go.

“You mean that,” he says. There are so many emotions in his voice that you can’t identify them all. Relief, happiness, amusement… You don’t know where to start.

“I usually mean what I say.”

“I’ve noticed,” he says, and you can hear the smile that’s dancing on his lips.

He’s still not letting go of your hand, but you don’t mind. Staying here, with Jungkook, in this small closet is as good a way of spending your evening as anything else you could do out there.

So you stay.

“Where did you all vanish Saturday?” Jin asks, and Namjoon, Yoongi and yourself immediately find your food a lot more interesting. You exchange panicked glances that mean ‘did none of you stay around? This was poorly coordinated’ before finally daring to look up.

“I talked to Jimin,” Yoongi says, face as inexpressive as always.

“I played some beer-pong with Taehyung,” Namjoon says.

That leaves only you.

“I talked to Jungkook,” you tell Jin. That is technically true. It omits the part where the two of you were together in a closet, but if you said that, there would be a lot of questions you don’t really want to answer to. Somehow, you think you would be more embarrassed to tell them that there was nothing going on there than if you told them you hooked up with him. You’re not sure why.

“Jungkook disappeared for a long time,” Jin says, narrowing his eyes at you.

You do your best to keep a straight face while you poke at your salad. You don’t want anyone here to have the wrong idea, and you finally manage to put your finger on what you’re afraid of. Humiliation. You’d feel humiliated at having to tell them that nothing happened and that there is nothing Jungkook could possibly see in you. They would be nice to you, of course they would, but you don’t want to see the look in their eyes.

“Did he? Maybe that was after I left. I didn’t stay that long.”

That’s a lie.

“Really?” Jin asks, clearly skeptical. “I think I saw you there pretty late.”

Maybe when you went down to get some snacks and drinks to bring back to the closet. Damn Jungkook and his stomach.

“Well, that depends what you mean by ‘late’ and ‘long’,” you say.

That’s you calling Namjoon for help, and he recognizes your SOS for what it is. From the way Jin’s face falls, so does he.

“She’s right,” Namjoon comments, so nonchalant you would almost believe he’s doing it naturally. “What is ‘late’, really? Isn’t it always—”

“Please stop,” Jin groans, burying his face in his hands. “Just because you’re a literature major doesn’t mean you’re the only one who understands words.”

“Actually it does,” you say with a nod. “That’s exactly what it means.”

You start lifting your hand for a high-five, relieved Jin’s attention is off you, but he sends the two of you a dark glare.

“You two are unbearable. Don’t do that.”

“We have to,” you protest. You would hate to miss a chance to high-five Namjoon.

“No you don’t, you—”

“Actually they do,” Yoongi says, and your jaw drops. Yoongi never intervenes, and you had always thought that if he did, it wouldn’t be in your favor. “That’s exactly how gravity works.”

Jin looks like his soul has left his body. He only comes back to himself after you, Yoongi and Namjoon have all exchanged high-fives.

“I hate you,” he says, sounding terribly tired. “I hate every single one of you.”

“Sorry Jin,” you smile warmly.

“No you’re not. You’re the worst.”

Except he sounds fond, affectionate, and you laugh before going back to your salad. You miss the quick glances your three friends exchange after that. They’ve all noticed you eluding and changing the subject. They don’t want to rush you, know you would hate it and that it’s better to drop it.

But they’ve noticed.

Working with Jungkook on Wednesday afternoons easily becomes a habit, so easily you don’t even notice it until it’s something you look forward to during the week. It adds to the time you already spend eating with him and Taehyung. Jungkook is, slowly, starting to become a part of your life. It’s a thought you refuse to dwell on, because it sounds so strange.

The Wednesdays afternoons are something special, though. You and Jungkook don’t really talk at lunch, even if he’s clearly more relaxed around you now, which you suspect is the reason why you’re ‘Taehyung-approved’. On Wednesdays, you— Well, you don’t talk much, either, but it’s different. It’s a time that only belongs to the two of you. You like that.

You slowly find out things about him, his family, his life. It’s never the main subject of conversation, but it makes you feel like you’re solving a puzzle.

“My father wanted me to focus on my classes and forget about basketball,” he comments once. “But I could do both.”

It makes you laugh, because he says it with obvious satisfaction, but it also makes you wonder if there’s more to it. Jungkook doesn’t add anything, though, and you don’t want to probe into his life, so you don’t ask. After that, small pieces of the puzzle keep falling into place.

“My high school coach told me I could train more if I didn’t work so hard for school.” But he could do both.

“My friends said I never hung out with them anymore and that I shouldn’t work so hard.” So he did both.

It’s always the same story. People telling him things, giving him opinions on what the should and shouldn’t do, and him stretching himself thinner and thinner. It’s almost a miracle he’s still doing as well as he is, honestly.

But his tone changes when he talks about his former relationships. He’s usually light and genuine, sharing with you just because. It’s clear that, as much as the stories make you frown, he doesn’t have an issue with them, and you guess that’s all that matters. The first time he says something about an ex-girlfriend of his, though, he’s guarded, almost careful. He sounds like he doesn’t want to tell you.

“My ex said I worked too much.”

He doesn’t add anything. Whatever it was she wanted, he couldn’t do it and work. Didn’t manage to do both. After that, he doesn’t look at you for the rest of the day, like he did when you first met.

You never get a name for the girlfriend. He talks about relationships again, but you don’t even know if he’s always talking about the same one. You doubt it, though, and it only makes things worse.

“My ex wanted me to attend fewer practices.”

“My ex said I didn’t care enough to make time for her.”

“My ex dumped me after I lost a game.”

That last one hurts you, because you remember him crying in the closet because of that exact fear. You want to take his hand again, but you can’t dare to.

“She’s stupid for that,” you say instead.

Jungkook looks surprised first, because you never comment on what he’s telling you, then a smile slowly forms on his lips.

“If the only reason she was with you was because you won a lot of games, you’re better off without her,” you add.

“That’s what Taehyung said.”

“Taehyung’s right.”

Jungkook goes quiet for a little while after that, to the point that you look up, worried that you might have offended him. When you do, he’s looking at you, something you can’t identify shining in his eyes.

“Everything okay?”

He blinks like he’d just woken up for a dream, then nods. He doesn’t tell you that he hadn’t believed what Taehyung said — until you said it and he looked at you and thought that yeah, maybe he was better off without her indeed.

You’re surprised to run into Jungkook late one night, as you’re walking back to your dorm. It shouldn’t shock you — you do go to the same college — but you’re so used to only ever seeing him in the library or the cafeteria that meeting him outside is almost confusing. At least he seems taken aback as well, if the way his already round eyes widen is anything to go by.

Then, his surprised face morphs into a smile, and a wave of warmth hits you without a warning. You don’t get any time to think about it before he waves at you. His shyness is not completely gone, and you see him waver, hesitate, even as he’s walking up to you. You’re quick to close the gap between you, meeting him in the middle. Just in case.

“Hey,” he says, voice a little raspy. He has what you identify as a sports bag, slung over his shoulder, and you wonder what he was doing out so late. You were working at the library until it closed, which is far from being rare for you, but that obviously wasn’t his case.

“Hey,” you reply, smiling back. “Were you— training?”

Amusement flashes in his eyes at the careful way you chose your words, afraid to get it wrong. As he grew more comfortable around you, he also started making fun of you for not knowing the first thing about basketball. Strangely, you don’t mind that much.

“I was at the gym,” he says. “Practice was earlier today.”

“Oh,” is all you can muster. You don’t know what you’re supposed to do. Should you ask what he was doing at the gym? The answer would only leave you with more questions, you’re sure.

You’re still debating it when Jungkook clears his throat. He reaches for his ponytail and undoes it, shaking his head so the hair fall back into place. The sight is— interesting. Pretty. You’re not sure why you’re so fascinated by it.

“Do you want me to walk you back to your dorm?” he asks, slight concern in his voice. “It’s late.”

“Is it on your way back?” you question, frowning. You would hate to be a bother.

“No, but—”

“I’m fine, then. I do that several times a week, I’ve never had a problem.”

That was, apparently, not the thing to say. Jungkook only looks more worried now.

“Several times a week? That’s really not careful.”

“I don’t see a problem, there’s no one around.”

“That’s exactly my p—” He stops and shakes his head, but gives a look you’ve seen before. A lot. It’s a look that says ‘I can’t believe someone as smart as you can also be so stupid’, in those exact terms. “Expected value,” he then says, and your eyes widen a little. Maths! Great. You can do maths. “Let’s say there’s a 99% chance nothing happens. Your gain is still minimal.”

Well, you get to study late and enjoy a walk home alone at night, but you’re willing to humor him.

“But in the one per-cent where something bad happens…”

He doesn’t have to finish his sentence. You know exactly where this is going, and you let out a sigh. He’s not wrong. On that aspect, at least.

“Fine.”

He grins widely.

“I just beat you at maths.”

“You didn’t beat me, I—”

“I just beat you at maths!”

You roll your eyes, choose to let him have that. It’s not going to change anything to your behavior after tonight, because the day has not come where you’ll let probabilities rule your life, but, after all, you don’t mind sharing your night walk with him.

Jungkook starts showing up to walk you home whenever he can. It’s not every time, which you’re kind of thankful for — you like his company, but you like being alone just as much, and you need a healthy dose of that every week —, but it does happen regularly. You find him sitting in front of the library, freezing cold, and you take pity on him, buying him a coffee from the vending machine inside, seconds before they lock the building.

That’s how you find out he likes his coffee tasting as little like coffee as possible.

Sometimes, he joins you later, and you hear him jogging to catch up with you. You don’t have the heart to tell him that that defeats the purpose of everything he’s doing, because it’s absolutely terrifying.

As the days turn into weeks, the air becomes colder, and you start seeing Christmas decorations appearing over the campus. You don’t know who is in charge of doing that, but they must be excited about it, because tinsel and few strings of fairy lights start appearing around the campus at the end of November. Jungkook is delighted by it, and you enjoy watching his reactions. You’re not big on Christmas, personally. You enjoy the tradition, the gift-giving, spending time with your family — you’re visiting them briefly this year — but you mostly see Christmas as an excuse for all of that. Jungkook loves it, though, and you decide that his excitement makes you like the season a little more.

“Hey, we should make a stop,” he tells you one night.

You look at him like he’s crazy. It’s the middle of December and it’s already half past nine. You’re cold, it’s dark outside, and you want to go home.

“A stop?” you repeat.

“Oh, c’mon,” he says, and he has that wide, childish grin that you’ve seen only a handful of times. You haven’t learned how to resist it yet. “C’mon!”

You sigh. But you follow.

As it turns out, he takes you just a little way off your usual trajectory. Behind a building you’ve never really paid attention to, Jungkook leads you to a small basketball court. You eye the place suspiciously. It’s empty, well lit, but you never know. A ball might come out of nowhere to hit you in the face, as they had a tendency to do when you were in high school and playing for a team that had picked you last.

By the time you turn around to tell Jungkook that, okay, you’ve seen it, let’s go home now, he’s taken off his coat and pulled a basketball out of his bag. You don’t even want to ask. His grin is even wider than earlier.

“C’mon,” he says.

“Absolutely not.”

“Let me show you, okay?”

You want to say no but— It can’t hurt, right? And Jungkook loves basketball, and you’re his— friend or something, so you should try to take some interest in it.

You take off your coat and let him lead you onto the court. There, you watch him as he dribbles in what you guess is an effective way (you can’t know for sure, you’re barely able to catch the ball after it’s bounced once so your standards are incredibly low), and then demonstrates his ability to score a handful of times. It’s not that you’re not impressed — again, you can’t do anything with this unpredictable, devilish round thing — but you also can’t say this is a quality you think much of.

You liked it a lot better when he convinced you to let him walk you home by talking about the expected value.

“You want to try?” he offers, holding the ball out for you.

You would rather die.

But you take the ball from his hand and eye the basket like it’s personally offended you. That makes Jungkook laugh.

“You can get closer than that,” he says.

You hold back a groan, aim and, of course, fail. It’s almost a relief. You can cross that off your list, again, just like you did as a kid first, then as a teenager. You’re bad at sports, always have been and, considering the effort you’re putting into it those days, always will be. That’s something you can count on.

Before you can say anything, Jungkook’s caught the ball and is running back towards you.

“Okay, let me show you.”

Is he going to— No, he’s just demonstrating it. You’re kind of disappointed not to get your typical ‘guy teaching girl anything sports related’ moment, disappointed that he doesn’t come to stand behind you to show you like they do in movies, but you can’t unpack that right now. You do watch with some degree of interest as he shows you how to position yourself.

“So you really aim for the line above the basket, not the basket, okay?”

“If you think that just because I aim for something I hit it…”

He chuckles, then gives the ball back to you, and you sigh. This. This is why you hate sports. It’s not the one-off failure, that would be fine on its own. It’s the constant humiliation whenever you even try it. You’re going to fail this attempt, and the next one, and the one after that. You’re a lost cause. You’re fine with it, too, but you don’t particularly want to go through that again.

You do your best, though. Not because you think it will change something, but because you kind of want to prove that this isn’t all you. That, even if you’re trying your hardest, there’s just something that refuses to let you score or do it right.

“Wait!” Jungkook walks over to you, puts his hand on your back, and you freeze. “You need to straighten yourself a little,” he says, placing his hand between your shoulder blades, and you nod. His hand is warm and large, you can feel it even over your sweatshirt. “There.”

He removes the hand, and you’re left a little off balance without him by your side. You shake your head quickly, shoot, and, without any surprise, miss.

Jungkook is on the ball just as fast as before, but you’re as quick as him to grab your coat and put it back on. You’re already feeling warm all over, though.

“You don’t want to try again?” he asks, sounding genuinely disappointed.

Of course, you take pity on him.

“Maybe next time,” you say.

He gives you a bright smile, so genuinely happy, and you know that you won’t be able to deny him next time either.

Jin is the reason you’re here, and that is the version you will stick with. No, you didn’t want to go see a basketball game, even if Jungkook is playing. No, you didn’t feel the slightest bit curious about it. No, you would not be there if Jin hadn’t asked. It’s Jin’s fault if you’re here on a Friday night instead of being, well, at your place, likely doing something equally as unproductive.

You don’t even understand what is going on in the field. There’s a lot of running and throwing the ball, that’s for sure, but then, you’ve just learned that scoring from different places in the field and at different moments will not earn the players the same amount of points.

You don’t think you’ve ever seen your friends look at you with such consternation as when they had to explain it to you.

In that situation, you can’t say that you get much from looking at the field. You definitely follow Jungkook with your eyes, cheer and clap when he scores, and let out cries of disappointment with the rest of the crowd when he doesn’t, but truly, the only way you have any idea what’s going on is by looking at the score board. And the truth is, that score is a little too close for comfort.

You hate that it has that much of an impact on you, but it stresses you out. Your leg bounces on the floor, an habit of yours Jin hates, but he’s too focused to notice, which is only more stressful. Jin always notices, and if it doesn’t, it must mean that the situation is dire.

The remaining seconds are slowly ticking down. Jungkook’s team is ahead by only one point, which means that if the other team scores, they will win. You think. You’re not entirely sure, but for your defense, you’ve just heard about it. Jungkook seems to be everywhere on the field. Taehyung is his shadow, perhaps not as noticeable or as spectacular in his actions, but certainly effective.

Again, you have no knowledge of basketball whatsoever.

Jin grabs your thigh, and only then do you realize that something’s happened. The action was so quick, so smooth, that you missed it entirely — but maybe you were also kind of thinking of something else.

Someone from the other team — you don’t even know your school’s team’s players, you’re not going to learn the other ones — just made a break for it. Based on what you can tell, Taehyung blocked his path, pushing him straight into Jungkook’s arms. In a movement you cannot begin to comprehend, Jungkook takes the ball from him, without ever stopping his run.

After that, he’s unstoppable.

He crosses the field, looking almost like he’s dancing in the way he avoids his opponents, and, of course, scores.

The time falls to zero. The crowd stands up like one man, screaming and shouting, and you yourself find yourself jumping up to hug Jin. He hugs you back, but the two of you quickly separate, patting each other’s backs awkwardly.

Jin starts talking with Namjoon and Yoongi, but you tune them out — it’s not like you understand what they’re saying anyway — to look at the field. The players have lifted Jungkook on their shoulders and he’s laughing, holding on to them so he doesn’t fall, and you grin.

“Come on,” Jin says, “let’s go congratulate him!”

That sounds like a terrible idea, you think. You won’t be the only ones, as the crowd has already invaded the field, and you doubt you’ll be able to get very close.

You still follow him. You alternate between clinging to his arm and to his shoulders so you don’t lose him, and trust him to elbow his way through the crowd. You hear him apologizing profusely in front of you, but he does not stop. Slowly, you make it down. Once you’re off the stairs, people are not as compactly gathered, and you can just walk between them. Jin grins at you, and you give him a thumbs up. Yeah, he did good here. You can give him that.

“Hey, Jungkook!” he calls out.

Jungkook was talking with some girls, but he looks up at the sound of his name, excuses himself, and jogs towards the two of you.

And it is then, in the few seconds it takes him to get to you, that it hits you. Like a ton of bricks.

You had known that Jungkook was objectively attractive, of course. There was no ignoring that. But Jin was objectively attractive, too, and that had never changed anything between the two of you. With Jungkook, right now, it does. His skin is glistening with sweat, and he wipes his chin with his shirt, and oh no, you can see his well-defined biceps and the line of his abs, and some hair is escaping from his ponytail, and he’s grinning with a happy, proud smile, and his eyes are shining and—

Jungkook is hot. That’s your realization. You had been aware of it, technically, but it’s like it only clicks for you at that exact moment.

“You came,” he tells you with a bright smile, and you can feel your entire face heating up. You pray that it’s not visible.

“Yeah,” you squeak out. “Great, um, great game?”

It sounds like an interrogation because you have no idea if it was one. It looked difficult, but maybe that was because they played terribly today. You don’t know that.

Jungkook’s smile widens a little, and you know that he has you all figured out. He knows you don’t understand the first thing about this whole thing.

“Thanks,” he still says.

His chest is still heaving quickly, and it draws your attention to his— his everything. The way he’s leaning towards you as he’s trying to catch his breath doesn’t help either. You wait for Jin to say something, to save you, but when you look around, you realize the traitor has abandoned you completely.

Okay, he hasn’t technically abandoned you, he’s just gone to congratulate Taehyung, but it’s the same difference.

You hear someone else calling Jungkook’s name before you’ve figured out what to say. He looks around, then gives you an apologetic look.

“Sorry, I—”

“No problem, you should— I have to go anyway.”

This is not like you. You’re an awkward person, and you struggle in social situations, but you don’t usually trip over your words like that. You kind of hate it.

“Okay, so, um, I’ll see you…?”

“Wednesday, yeah. Or— before. At lunch. If you’re there.”

This is terrible.

“Okay.” Jungkook gives you one last smile, and then he’s off, and you’re standing alone in the middle of a crowd. Your chest is heavy and it feels painful.

You hate this.

It’s only after that that you start realizing how big of a part Jungkook now plays in your life. He walks you home at night sometimes. You eat with him once or twice a week. You study together for an entire afternoon on Wednesdays. He’s just— everywhere. And it’s not that it’s a bad thing, because the feeling you get when you see him is a pleasant one, but it is disconcerting. It’s something that you have no control over whatsoever and that’s not— that’s not good for you.

You realize how much attention you were already paying to him, too, which is even more annoying. The signs were there. You should have understood this sooner. If you had, maybe you could have prevented it.

Because that’s the thing. You know the situation is ridiculous. You believe Jungkook sees you as a friend, and you’re happy with that, but there is no way he thinks of you as anything else. That is not an idea you should even begin to entertain. You can handle rejection, you’re used to it in so many aspects, though it’s rarely romantic, but you cannot take getting your hopes up only for them to be crushed.

The thing is, you can’t help it at this point, can’t force your feelings back in. There is so much to like about him. The way he plays with his hair, the quiet laughs when he’s in public, the loud ones when he’s walking you home, the sparkle in his eyes when he asks you a question in maths and it turns out he already had it right, the look on his face when he talks about basketball,… There’s so much.

You briefly consider avoiding him, but that’s not really an option. You like being his friend. You see your feelings as annoying, pesky little things that have no business being there in the first place. You don’t even hate the rush that goes through you when you see him, the way just looking at him brings a smile to your lips that you simply can’t hold back.

But you really, really hate the wishful thinking. The hope.

The feelings are fine, as long as you don’t think too hard about it. As long as he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Because that would break your heart.

And it’s only a matter of time before that happens.

You really considered declining when Jin asked you to come to this New Year’s party. Your last experience had effectively convinced you that those new parties he was getting invited to were not for you. That was fine, to each their own, but that did mean you didn’t really want to go. He clearly didn’t need you there anyway. You didn’t even know why he asked.

But he did, and he insisted, and he gave you his best puppy eyes, and that’s the thing about Jin: he’s very, very good at giving puppy eyes.

So that’s why you’re there, wearing a red dress that’s way too flashy for you, leaning against a wall and staring into the void. You feel empty and, though you’re not alone, lonely. You’re surrounded by strangers, and there are people everywhere in the house, but you don’t know them, and you can’t just start a conversation with them. It’s not something you do, it’s not even something you want.

You haven’t felt the urge to lock yourself inside a closet yet, though, so you guess that’s an improvement compared to last time.

Looking around, you can see Jimin, perched on the counter, listening to Yoongi talk with a smile on his face. Jin is somewhere else in the room and, though you can’t see him, you sometimes hear him, so you know he has his flirting voice on. Namjoon is nowhere to be seen, but that’s probably a good sign. He always get lucky at those parties. You don’t know how he does it. It’s impressive, honestly. Hoseok showed up earlier, and everyone greeted him like he was a star — which is kind of accurate, actually, at the campus’ scale.

You know, of course, that Jungkook and Taehyung, as inseparable as ever, are by the pool table. You also hate that you know it, because now your mind is constantly wondering if it’s weird that you haven’t been there yet, or if it would be weird to show up. Neither, probably, because exactly no one cares except for you, but you’re the master of torturing yourself with useless considerations.

God, you hate having a crush. It’s just so— unpractical. You also hate that you didn’t see that one coming, and that you didn’t do anything about it until it was too late. Usually, you’re pretty good at nipping those kinds of feelings in the bud. Now, you can only wait it out.

With a sigh, you push yourself away from the wall to wander aimlessly around the house. You promised Jin you’d stay until midnight, and you intend to keep that promise. It’s not like there’s anything for you to do, but still, that way you can look like you’re doing something and look a little less weird. Or maybe you don’t. It doesn’t really matter anyway.

Passing in front of the room with the pool table, you realize that Jungkook is gone. Taehyung is still there, playing with Hoseok, both looking pretty wasted, but Jungkook has vanished. That’s not good. You don’t want him to spring up on you out of nowhere like he did last time. You won’t know how to react if that happens, probably fumble for words, and it will be very unpleasant and very embarrassing for everyone.

You consider finding another closet, then decides against it. There’s just fifteen minutes left until midnight, anyway. That’s not too long. You can just wait it out.

You slowly make your way through the house. No sign of Jungkook anywhere. Maybe he left. Maybe he’s already back to the pool table and you missed him completely. Maybe he’s locked himself in a room with a girl and—

Oh you hate this. You hate feeling jealous. You hate that you have no control over it, you hate that it makes you sad, you hate that you have no right to feel like that. Jungkook isn’t yours. He’s probably even considered you for anything. You should consider yourself lucky you’re even friends with him in the first place.

You do your best to push everything out of your mind. Alcohol has never looked more tempting, but you don’t want the hangover with the morning, so you ignore the inviting bottles of beer and walk out.

It’s freezing — of course it’s freezing, it’s December you idiot, is there anything you can do right tonight — and you shiver, but you stay there. The cold is both numbing and soothing, and while you’re mentally complaining about it, you’re not thinking about anything else, so that’s good.

The door opens and closes behind you, and you guess someone is coming out to smoke. You move over to give them some space, but just as you do that, a jacket falls over your shoulders. You jump at first, and then the warmth makes you sigh in relief.

“You shouldn’t go out without a coat,” Jungkook says, because of course it’s him.

“I feel that you’ve been scolding me a lot recently,” you chuckle, glancing up at him.

He pouts, buries his hands in his pockets. He’s obviously cold as well, but at least his shirt covers his arms.

It also hugs his muscles real nice, but that’s besides the point.

“That’s because you make very poor decisions,” he mutters, looking at his feet. “You have to realize that.”

“You’re right. I could have taken my coat outside.”

“You know that walking back all alone in the middle of the night is way worse,” he protests, and then you laugh, because that’s exactly what you wanted, and he goes quiet for a second. “Don’t make fun of me,” he mumbles, looking away from you again.

“I’m not,” you say, and you take a step in his direction so you can bump your shoulder against his. “You shouldn’t worry that much, but I think it’s nice that you do. I was just trying to get a rise out of you.”

“That worked really well,” he says, and he sounds surprised about it. You wonder if it’s because he usually doesn’t get angry for stuff, but you can’t tell for sure. “Hey, you—”

People start shouting numbers inside, and you turn around to look at them.

“It’s midnight,” you say.

“Five!”

You look up at Jungkook. He’s significantly taller than you. Not as much as Namjoon, but still.

“Four!”

Jungkook looks back at you, smiles, and it takes your breath away. His hair looks very good like that, you think absent-mindedly, with the way it falls on either side of his face.

“Three!”

It’s too late to go back inside now. It would definitely be a weird thing to do. Which means you’re here, alone, with Jungkook.

“Two!”

Your eyes flicker to his lips. You wonder what it would be like to kiss them. You haven’t let yourself even consider it before, but right now your brain isn’t functioning all that well. Probably because of how loud your heart is beating in your chest.

“One!”

You look back up and his eyes are wide and focused on you. There’s that same tension in his shoulders as when you first met him, except, back then, he couldn’t look at you, and now it seems that he can’t look away.

“Happy new year!”

You decide you shouldn’t think about your next move. You get on your tiptoes to plant a kiss at the corner of his lips, right at the border between friends and something else, but he leans forward right at that moment, and his hands cup your face, and then he’s kissing you.

It’s like an explosion. You don’t know what you should focus on. How warm he is, how soft and large his hands are, how his lips move against yours, how he tastes, or simply the fact that he’s kissing you, Jungkook is kissing you!

The door slams open, and the two of you move away in a jump.

“Happy new year Jungkook!” Taehyung shouts, obviously drunk, soon joined by several other members of the basketball team. If he’s seen what happened, he doesn’t say anything, and you doubt Taehyung would have that kind of control over himself.

Soon, Jungkook is surrounded and they start to drag him back inside. He gives you a brief, apologetic look, then follows them, laughing. You remain there, frozen, unsure of what to do. You take a hesitant step towards the door, only to see a girl planting kisses on his cheeks while he blushes. What gets to you, though, is the arm he’s wrapped around her, the way he’s tracing circles on the naked skin of her shoulder. It makes the gesture look… intimate. Personal.

You let out a brief, bitter laugh, that there is fortunately no one to hear. You feel confused, but mostly, you feel stupid.

Fuck that.

It doesn’t take long for you to drop the jacket onto a chair and find your coat. You wish a happy new year to Namjoon, when you pass by him on your way out, and he looks a little surprised, like he hasn’t heard the shouting. You don’t want to know what he could have been up to.

You’ve kept your end of the bargain, you think as you leave. Jin won’t be able to complain to you. You feel some petty sort of satisfaction when you step outside and find yourself alone alone, finally. You like this. You like being alone. You’ve never asked for anything else.

You give one last look to the party, then vanish into the night. You’re better off on your own anyway.

“I don’t think I’ll be coming,” you say, nonchalantly, as everyone around the table is talking animatedly about a party for the next week-end.

You had hoped it would go unnoticed in the middle of the conversation, but, unfortunately, that doesn’t go as planned. Taehyung turns horrified eyes towards you, Jin, Namjoon and Yoongi all look surprised, and Jungkook… You don’t know how to read him. There’s that surprise, as well, but then he looks down before you can tell anything else. Not that that changes much. He’s barely looked at you today.

You haven’t talked to him since New Year’s Eve. You had other things on your mind, and then he didn’t show up at the library last Wednesday.

“What do you mean, you won’t be coming?” Jin asks. “You always come to parties.”

You shrug. You don’t miss the alarmed looks your friends are exchanging, and you’re sure Namjoon can see through you. Because it’s not like you to do something like that, whatever reason you may give.

“I don’t like them. They’re too loud, and I can’t say that I really enjoy standing alone for half the night.”

“You could stay with us,” Namjoon offers.

“And watch you pick up a girl every time? No thank you,” you reply with a disgusted shiver.

“You could stay with me,” Yoongi says.

You give him a look, and he grimaces, backing down immediately. Okay. He can see why you wouldn’t want that either. Plus he’s pretty sure that Jimin and him are about to get it on after weeks of flirting, so it’s probably not a great idea.

“What about me?” Jin asks. He doesn’t sound as energetic as usual, his voice almost quiet, and you realize that he probably feels bad because of what you said. He knows you come to those parties because of him, so knowing you don’t have fun at all when you’re attending — you understand that he might feel responsible.

“I think I would bore you very quickly,” you chuckle. “You’re not going to get the fun you want with me. But it’s fine, really. I tried it, and now I know it’s not for me. I can just—”

“No,” Taehyung says.

You blink.

“No?”

“I’m taking this personally,” he tells you, looking you dead in the eye. “You’re coming to this party and I’m going to make you enjoy yourself.”

You’ve never seen him so serious, and you can’t help it. You burst out laughing.

“Taehyung,” you say softly when you’re done. “I appreciate that, I do, but I don’t want to do that anymore.”

Taehyung opens his mouth, then winces and closes it. You’re not sure what happened there, but he gives Jungkook an offended look.

“I’m sorry,” you add. “I’m sure your parties can be great, but—”

“I get it,” he sighs. “But you owe me.”

You’re not sure why, but fine.

“And you can’t say anything bad about those parties, to anyone. Ever.” In that moment, he looks almost threatening, and you blink, confused. He can’t possibly take it that seriously, can he?

Then he yelps and rubs his leg. He gives Jungkook another annoyed look, but Jungkook doesn’t even look up from his food.

“Leave her alone,” he just mumbles.

Taehyung rolls his eyes, but doesn’t add anything. He does give you a long, pointed glance, though, before muttering under his breath something that sounds a lot like “I won’t let that slander stand,” and you think that’s hilarious too.

When you risk a glance at Jungkook, his arms are folded over his chest, and he looks deep in thought. He’s chewing on his bottom lip, eyes focused on his meal, though he’s not touching it. It’s stupid, but the image of a child that has just been scolded flashes in your mind.

“Jungkook? Is everything alright?”

He jumps at your question, looks at you like a deer caught in headlights. Your eyes meet, but it’s extremely brief, and your chest tightens. This sucks. You thought the two of you had gotten past that now, and you hate that you lost what you had. It’s not like it’s your fault. He kissed you, and then he bailed on you first chance he got. Why would he do that, why would he risk it, if he was going to react like that afterwards?

“I’m fine,” he says with a tense smile, and you doubt it’s true, but you don’t know what you should ask him to confront him about it. You don’t want to talk about the kiss ever again. You certainly don’t want to do it in front of your friends.

So you jump on the first chance you get to leave the table. You don’t ask yourself if it’s a weird thing to do. It probably is, but fuck it, you’re weird, and everyone else can deal with it. You refuse to subject yourself to something unpleasant longer than absolutely necessary.

Except the looks you get are mostly concerned ones, from Namjoon and Jin. Jungkook does look up as you walk away, eyes following you almost longingly, and then he lets out a long sigh that catches Taehyung’s attention. He doesn’t say anything, but he narrows his eyes at him.

God. He really has to get everything done here, doesn’t he?

At first, you think that this is it. Your— your whatever it was that you had with Jungkook is over. You’ll see him around every now and then, and maybe he’ll give you a polite nod, though it doesn’t look like he would even do that right now, but there won’t be anything else. You’ll go back to being basically strangers, and it will be fine, because really, nothing happened there, right? You had a crush on him, he kissed you once, and then nothing. It’s fine. You’ll be fine.

Sure, it makes you a little sad. Sure, you catch yourself looking at him while he’s surrounded by girls who are all so much better for him than you ever were, and it hurts a little. Sure, walking back home alone at night is a little more unpleasant than it used to be, but that’s the thing. It’s only a little. You would almost pat yourself on the back for it. Congrats, (Y/N). You made it out before you got too attached. You probably avoided a world of hurt.

Because you know. You know that if you had gotten in too deep, it would have hurt like hell to not have Jeon Jungkook. And sure, it hurts right now.

But only a little.

You’re good. You’re safe. You know that Namjoon and Yoongi would nod if you told them about it. They understand, in a way a lot of other people don’t. You don’t think that Jin would, for example. He would tell you to take the risk, not understanding that people like Jungkook used to pick you last for their teams when you were in high school, not understanding that as far as you’re concerned, you’ve handled more than enough rejection throughout your life. But Namjoon and Yoongi… They’re definitely more successful than you in matters of the heart, but they would still understand. Not that you’re going to tell them about it, because it’s a stupid story, because there never was anything there, and because you’d feel really dumb talking about how you thought, how you hoped that— You’re not going to tell them anything. At least everything’s okay now.

And then, Jungkook appears at your usual table at the library on a Wednesday afternoon. He drops his bag on the floor and takes a seat next to you. You’re surprised to see him when you look up, too focused on your studies to notice him approaching. He has big, wide doe eyes, and he watches your reaction carefully.

“You’re— This seat isn’t taken?”

You shake your head. No. People rarely come here, and you don’t really study with people. Well, didn’t, you suppose.

“Do you mind if I sit here?“

“The seat’s free. You can take it if you want.”

You don’t know what to do. You don’t know how to react. This wasn’t supposed to happen. You never considered that Jungkook would— That he would—

“I, um, I like studying with you. It helps me focus,” he says, eyes flickering away from you. “So, if you don’t mind I’ll— Can I come back here on Wednesdays?”

You want to tell him that you can’t stop him, that he can do whatever the hell he want, but even though it’s on the tip of your tongue, you don’t.

“Of course you can,” you say instead.

Jungkook looks up long enough to flash you a smile, and you know. This isn’t over, and you’re not going to be fine. You’re probably going to feel crushed, sooner than later, and you could have stopped it all right now.

You think about Yoongi and how not like him it is to be doing what he is with Jimin. How he’s taking a risk. How it could oh so easily not have paid off.

It’s going to, of course. You just need to look at Jimin’s eyes when he’s talking to Yoongi to know that. But Jungkook doesn’t look at you like that. Jungkook doesn’t look at you at all.

And yet here you are. Taking that exact same risk.

God. You can be so stupid some times.

Jungkook glances at you quickly while you’re deep in thought, tapping your pencil against your cheek, and a small smile forms on his lips. He’s quick to glance away, because he would hate it if you caught him, of course, but the smile doesn’t fade.

He couldn’t have forced it to do so if he tried.

“You have to come to the next game.”

“Taehyung, hey, nice to see you to, I’m doing fine, I—”

“I’m serious, (Y/N). I know you hate basketball and everything that breathes, but—”

“I don’t hate you.”

“—this is really important and— Wait, really? Thank you. I feel that means a lot coming from you.”

“Is that how you see me? I don’t hate everyone, Taehyung.”

“Can you give me a list of people you don’t hate?”

“Well, you, Jin, Yoongi, Namjoon…”

“Jungkook?”

“…Sure. Jungkook. Why do you want me to come to the next game?”

“Because we might lose.”

“And I’m supposed to change that how?”

“You owe me, remember?”

“I— Because of the parties? Seriously? I need to sit through hours of you guys running after a ball because I don’t like parties?”

“I would really appreciate it if you could avoid describing basketball as ‘guys running after a ball’.”

“I would really appreciate not having to go watch the game.”

“Don’t you want to support your friends on the team?”

“Ugh. Fine. I’ll be there. Just— stop that thing you’re doing with your eyebrows. Why are you even doing that?”

“You’re so slow. How are you so slow? I thought you were supposed to be smart!”

“Taehyung…”

“Just be there!”

“I will.”

“You better!”

“Or what, what will you— Taehyung! You can’t just run off like— Well. I guess he could.”

You hadn’t thought sitting through a basketball game could become a more painful experience to you than it already was. As it turns out, you were wrong. It was so much worse when the people you wanted to win were losing. Despite yourself, you found yourself getting invested, standing up and shouting encouragements along with Jin and Namjoon, and protesting loudly when things didn’t go your way.

You were not cut out for this. Not because you still didn’t understand half the rules — you could have by now if you had made the effort of memorizing them — but because of the stress. God, how did your friends handle that regularly? How did the players handle it? You kept looking at Jungkook. You could tell how unhappy he was with the situation, could see the disappointment settling in. He also seemed to get more nervous as time went by, which didn’t help his performance, and his words kept echoing in your mind.

”I don’t know what’s going to happen when I stop being as good.”

You’re half way through the game and things are not looking good when Taehyung waves you over. You run to the railway, straining to hear him, and when you finally understand what he’s saying, you regret making any effort at all.

“You can’t possibly be serious!”

But he is.

“You owe me, (Y/N)!”

“I’m already— What’s it even going to do?”

“Trust me on that one, okay?”

You glare at him, but he’s looking at you with his beautiful brown eyes, and there’s nothing you can do against that. You sigh deeply. Your heart is beating wildly in your chest just thinking about what he’s asking you to do. Maybe it’s not such a big deal for him, that sort of stuff, but for you— For you it’s downright insane to even consider.

“Kim Taehyung,” you hiss through gritted teeth, “if this goes bad, I’ll kill you and plant your head on a stick outside of my door to warn my enemies not to underestimate me.”

He has the audacity to shrug at that.

“It won’t go bad.”

You look up. Take a deep breath. And call Jungkook’s name.

The gym is insanely loud, and it takes both you and Taehyung’s efforts, as well as a lot of waving, for Jungkook to notice you. When he does, though, he runs towards you, worry obvious on his face. He’s looking directly at you for once, and the intensity of his stare almost makes you shiver.

“Is everything alright?” he asks when he gets there, eyes scanning you quickly to make sure that you’re okay.

“It’s fine, I just—”

“What are you doing here? You hate basketball. Did something happen?”

You shake your head. You don’t know how you’re supposed to do this, especially when he’s looking so puzzled and when he’s questioning your sanity for showing up at one of his games. You glance over at Taehyung who gives you a decided nod.

Ah. Fuck it.

Leaning over about as far as you can go, you cup Jungkook’s face, and as his expression turns to one of surprise, you kiss him. If people around notice or have a reaction, you can’t tell, because Jungkook pushes himself against you and buries his hand in your hair as he holds you. There’s not much space left for thinking in your mind, instead entirely consumed by thoughts of him. He’s completely sober this time, and you don’t taste alcohol on his tongue. He’s also not going as slow, almost desperately kissing you back, one strong hand supporting you so you don’t fall over, and you just melt.

It takes everything in you to push yourself away. When you do, you’re breathless, and he’s staring at you with eyes even wider than usual. You’re pretty sure Taehyung would want you to give an encouraging speech right now, but you don’t want to do that right now.

“I really don’t care if you’re winning or losing games,” you say instead. “If you’re sad, I’ll be sad with you, but it’s never going to change anything in how I see you. But I’ll be here encouraging you.”

He grabs your hand, squeezing it tight.

“Promise?” he asks, almost childishly.

You’re not sure which part he’s referring to, but they’re all true, so you nod.

“I promise.”

He smiles, and then both him and Taehyung are running back across the field and getting yelled at by their coach, but even from where you’re standing, you can see their smiles.

You guess that means you’re not going to murder Taehyung.

“This is actually insane. How is Jungkook even doing that?” Yoongi asks in disbelief after Jungkook scored extremely impressively yet again, and you fidget in your seat. You’re very happy to see that, though you don’t how you feel about the smug looks Taehyung is sending you, but you don’t want—

“It’s the power of love,” Jin says, nodding like he just gave an essential truth to the meaning of life.

—this. You, very specifically, don’t want this.

“Jin,” you sigh, “there’s no such thing as—”

“Actually,” Namjoon interrupts you, “I think he’s right. The power of love is a thing, and I think this is a perfect demonstration of it.”

You gape at him, in shock. He betrayed you?

“Did you just—”

“Namjoon’s right,” Yoongi nods. “This is how the power of love works. You take love, and you turn it into strength.”

And then, him, Jin and Namjoon high five, and you gasp. Traitors. All of them.

But after that, Jimin says off-handedly “Maybe you should come and kiss me before my next competition” and Yoongi’s brain visibly stops functioning, so you consider yourself avenged.

After the match, you wait for Jungkook outside of the locker room. Jin insisted you should go celebrate on the field, but you had declined. It felt like the situation required something a little more private, so now you’re here, leaning against the wall, looking at your phone so you’ll seem busy, even if there’s nothing on there to occupy yourself.

You’re not the only one there, and that doesn’t help soothing your nerves. There are a lot of girls, all pretty and smiling. It makes you feel like a groupie, and you don’t like it. You’re relieved for a second when the door opens and the team comes out, but it doesn’t last long, because the girls are soon surrounding them. You remain where you were standing, watching the whole thing happen. It takes a few moments before you notice Jungkook’s bun standing out of the group, and it makes you smile.

You catch Taehyung’s eye first, and, after you’ve sent him a glare that you hope was threatening, he pushes Jungkook out of the group. At first, he seems confused, before he finally finds you. You wave at him hesitantly. He blinks a few times, his eyes wide, then walks towards you.

“Hey,” he says when he joins you. He’s towering over you. Usually, you don’t like that, and you’ve complained about having to look up at Namjoon more than once, but you don’t necessarily mind right now.

“Hey,” you reply.

Silence stretches between the two of you as you try to think of something to say. You should have prepared a speech, you know that, but you’re pretty sure you wouldn’t have been able to say it either.

“Taehyung told me he told you to kiss me,” Jungkook blurts out after a while, looking away from you, and you give him a surprised glance. “So, you don’t have to—”

“No, I wanted to kiss you,” you interrupt him, a puzzled frown forming on your face.

Jungkook’s head whips back towards you, and you just stare at him in confusion.

“Do you really think I would have kissed you just because Taehyung asked me to?”

“Well you— you came to the game because he asked you to, right?”

“That’s not the same—”

“Jungkook!” someone from the team calls. “We’re going to grab a bite to celebrate, do you wanna come?”

Jungkook sighs, then gives you a sharp look.

“You wanted to kiss me,” he repeats.

You nod.

“Why?”

You bite your lower lip, and you’re not oblivious to the way his eyes fall to your mouth when you do.

“And I’m the blunt one,” you mumble.

“Sorry, I–”

“No, no, it’s fine, it’s just— I wanted to kiss you because I like you. Obviously.”

Jungkook swallows, and you can see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He looks over his shoulder at his friends.

“You can go without me!”

There are some protests, but he ignores them to give you his entire attention. It’s… not an unpleasant feeling.

“You disappeared after I kissed you the last time,” he says.

“You left,” you protest immediately. “You kissed me, and then the second your friends arrived, you acted like nothing happened and you left.”

“I didn’t want to— I just— They’re really annoying about that stuff, you know? I thought it would probably be better if I talked to you after— ‘m sorry. I didn’t— didn’t realize it—”

You look at Jungkook, watch him fumbling for words, and it hits you like a ton of bricks, how much you do like him. Those words really don’t do it justice, and maybe you’re not quite ready to talk about love just yet, but you like him so much, so much it makes your heart swell, so much you don’t think what what he’s trying to tell you would change anything to it, and yet what he’s trying to say is exactly what prompts your realization. He didn’t want to hurt you. Wanted this to be private, for just the two of you, wanted to see how you felt about it. And maybe he went the wrong way about it, but it means everything that he was trying.

“Walk me home?” you ask.

Jungkook finally stops his rambling.

“Are you sure?”

Of course, he has to ask that now, after weeks of trying to convince him to let you walk on your own. Still, you smile and nod, and when you start walking side by side, you grab his hand. He freezes temporarily before grinning and squeezing your hand, pulling it into his pocket so you won’t be too cold, because the air of January is chilling.

“Congratulations for the game,” you say after a long, comfortable silence. You had almost forgotten about it.

“Thanks,” he chuckles. “I had some help.”

And then, he winks at you, and your heart misses a beat. That’s when you understand something you hadn’t even considered before: if Jungkook stops being shy around you, you’re done for. You’ll be the one constantly flustered.

“So,” you say, slowly, trying to keep yourself composed, “why did you kiss me?”

“Um. Same as you?” Jungkook’s confidence disappears, and he returns to his awkward self, and you see that, as much as you like it, you want him to be comfortable around you. But that doesn’t mean you can’t tease him a little.

“What do you mean by that?” you ask innocently.

He gives you a horrified look that soon turns to an offended one when he notices you grinning widely.

“You’re so mean,” he says, but he’s smiling too, “you’re the meanest person I know.”

You’re laughing at that point, as you stop in front of your dorm.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Fine,” he sighs dramatically. “I kissed you because I like you.”

It’s funny. You knew that was what he was going to say, knew it was coming, and yet it gets to you all the same.

“With you, I don’t feel like I have to be the school’s star, you know? I can just be— Jungkook. You don’t expect me to be anything else.”

He’s right. You like Jungkook. With his insecurities and his flaws. You don’t want him to perform for you, and you don’t care what he’s doing right and wrong. Just studying maths in the library with him makes you happy.

He eyes your dorm and takes a deep breath.

“I should go,” he says.

You hum.

“Yes, it would be a really bad idea if you came up tonight.”

But you’re not letting go of his hand, and he’s close to you now, close enough that you can feel his breath catching in his throat. It makes you smile.

“You’re so mean,” he repeats.

This time, instead of laughing, you kiss him, and it’s completely different from the two previous times. There is no uncertainty in this kiss, no surprise, no pressure, no fear. It’s perfect. Jungkook’s hand comes to cup your cheek, his lips soft against your own. His long fingers gently stroke your jaw as he keeps the kiss chaste and sweet. It only makes you yearn for more and when he moves away, you can see in his eyes that he wants more as well.

You just don’t think he wants it now.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” you ask.

“I’ll meet you for lunch,” he says solemnly, and it rings like a promise, which makes you smile.

When you move away, though, he doesn’t let go of you, and a pouty expression appears on his face before he releases you.

“I— Yeah. You should go.”

“You can come up if you want to, you know?”

He hesitates, rolls his lips together.

“I want to savor this,” he admits to you in a near whisper.

“Then I’ll go.”

“Yes. Good night.”

“Good night.”

You feel light and giddy as you walk through the door. It’s a nice and strange feeling, like you could just start floating any second.

You already can’t wait for the next day.

People are definitely weirded out by your relationship with Jungkook. Or, rather, by Jungkook’s relationship with you. You’re pretty sure most of the people who give you weird looks when you sit next to him and he wraps his arm around you, or when you walk hand in hand, wouldn’t pay attention to you if you went to class naked. But they all know who Jungkook is, and you guess it is weird to see you in conjunction with him.

They could ignore it and consider you mere part of the scenery when he ate with you, you suppose, but it is harder to do now. You’re not too fond of being the center of attention, to be honest. You don’t know how Jungkook does it.

What takes you by surprise the most is people being nice to you. That confuses you to no end, because you know for a fact they don’t care about you, not really, and you cannot fathom what they think they’re going to get out of this. You’re pretty sure there are a girl or two who are doing that to get closer to Jungkook, and some, you think, have decided to be nice to you because they think that if Jungkook likes you, you can’t be a total lost cause.

You don’t like that feeling. Not at all. You don’t like it when you’re going to class, you don’t like it during lunch, and you definitely, definitely do not like it when people rush towards you the second you get to a party.

Yeah, you’re giving Taehyung what he wanted, in the end. He said that both you and Jungkook owed him, because without him you wouldn’t be together, and you eventually gave in.

You thought it would be fine, now that you have someone to spend time with, but you understand with horror that your status has changed now. You’re not invisible anymore. You’re Jungkook’s girlfriendTM. Because of that, you spend much longer in the entrance making small talk than you would have wished to, and you’re stopped a couple of times while you’re desperately looking for your boyfriend to save you from this hell on earth.

You’re not surprised at all to find him playing beer pong with Taehyung and other guys from the team. He hasn’t gotten time to get drunk yet, so he’s quite impressive, but then again, they all are. That’s why they usually end up wasted.

The second he sees you, though, he abandons the game completely, and the smile on his face threatens to make your heart explode in your chest. Some of the guys turn around to look at you, give you a wave or a smile. Taehyung shouts a greeting.

“Hey,” Jungkook says, leaning in to press a quick kiss on your lips. He doesn’t like PDA all that much, but he never misses a chance to kiss you, and the thought makes you all giddy.

“Hey. Are you, um, having fun there?”

He shrugs.

“It’s not that bad. Wanna play?” He waits for your expression to turn to one of horror as you try to refuse politely before laughing. “Just kidding. Don’t worry about it.”

You let out a relieved breath. You know you and Jungkook are very different people, and you’re doing your best to take an interest in the things he likes. You’ve been learning the rules of basketball, for example, and though you still don’t believe you get the point, you like the way his eyes shine when you say something right about a game.

But you don’t take part in any of that stuff. Okay, you stop at that field that’s on your way home from the library every now and again, but that doesn’t count. It’s just you and him then, and you feel good and relaxed. You’ve even scored a couple of times now.

“Come on, I want to grab a drink,” Jungkook said, taking your hand in his, and you follow without protesting.

It’s probably your second mistake of the night: not realizing that getting a drink with and without Jungkook are two very different ordeals. On your way there, you get roped into several conversations. Those are fine. You can’t say you enjoy them, but they’re fine, and it’s not like those people are actually talking to you anyway.

What you genuinely dislike is that, when you’re by the table with the drinks, a girl starts openly flirting with your boyfriend. It’s not subtle, either, with the way she keeps touching his arm and how she laughs at his every word.

For a while, you just stare in disbelief. You know Jungkook is oblivious to that sort of things — probably one more reason why he likes how blunt you are — but you can’t believe her. You wouldn’t necessarily blame the girl for trying, either, if she didn’t know about you. Jungkook’s quite the catch after all, and you understand liking him better than anyone else.

No, it’s the fact that she’s doing it right in front of you, while Jungkook is holding your hand. It feels so— dismissive. So insulting. She’s not exactly saying to your face that she doesn’t take you seriously, but she might as well.

You watch incredulously when she puts her hand on his arm one more time. You don’t know how you’re supposed to handle that, so you just tug on Jungkook’s hand a little awkwardly. You’re pleased by how quickly his attention snaps to you, even while the girl is in the middle of her sentence. It’s a petty sentiment, for sure, but you can’t help it.

“Everything okay?” he asks. “Is it too loud in here?”

“Kind of, but—”

“Let’s find you a quieter place.”

He forgets about the drink he wanted to get, forgets about the girl, who he abandons there unceremoniously, gently pulling you through the room. Next thing you know, he’s carefully closing the doors of the closet he’s found for the two of you behind you.

“There,” he says, sounding satisfied with himself. “Better?”

You chuckle at that and, guessing for him in the half-light, you pull him towards you for a kiss. You press your body against his, pushing him against the back of the closet, and a groan forms in his throat. His hands tighten around you, sending shivers through your entire being, and you only lean into him more. You run your fingers over his chest, just to feel him tremble under your touch and he does, hissing with pleasure at the contact.

“Fuck,” he mumbles into your mouth. “Was that— was that what you had in mind?”

You shake your head, and he’s close enough to feel it.

“That girl was flirting with you,” you tell him.

“Oh. Are you sure?”

You are.

“So… are you jealous? Because that’s kind of hot.”

You laugh softly. Truth is, you really, really don’t want to be the jealous girlfriend, but Jungkook actually sounds happy about the idea.

“You really didn’t notice?”

There’s a moment of silence.

“I didn’t. Does that— Did it bother you, that she was doing that?”

“Kind of,” you shrug. “What about you? You’re— cool with that?”

“If it bothers you I don’t like it,” he replies simply, one of his hand leaving your waist to grab yours and squeeze it gently. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice.”

That makes you chuckle.

“How didn’t you? She would have made it barely more obvious if she had started undressing herself.”

Jungkook has an awkward laugh, and you can feel his breath on your face. He starts fidgeting, but then you press a kiss right at the corner of his lips, and he calms down, if just a little.

“It’s— You have to promise you won’t make fun of me.”

“I won’t.”

He hesitates a second longer, as though he’s trying to judge your sincerity by looking at you — except, of course, he can barely see a thing in here. You kiss him again, following his jaw, and he finally gives in when you start making your way down his neck.

“When I’m with you, it’s like my vision narrows on you,” he says, voice low. “I know everything and everyone else is still there, but I just think about you. Sorry, it’s really stupid.”

“It’s not,” you say, shaking your head, wondering if he can feel your heart beating stupidly fast in your chest, all because his words make you feel like nothing else ever has before. “But I’m— I’m kind of boring. That can’t be fun.”

“You’re not boring,” he protests. “You listen to people, even when you don’t look like it. You always look like you have a thousand things on your mind but you always make time for your friends, and when you’re studying here, you play with your hair.” He twirls a lock of your hair around one of his fingers before releasing it, as if to demonstrate. “You’re a very, very interesting person to look at.”

The only thing you can do is stay there, frozen in his arms, after he’s said that. You may be blunt, but Jungkook is honest. Devastatingly so. His vulnerability always shatters the walls that you’ve built around yourself, and you still don’t know how to react when that happens.

So you push yourself on your tiptoes to kiss him again, except this time it’s slow and gentle and you’re trying to put everything he means to you into it. The tip of your fingers are on his cheeks, your mouth barely moving against his, soft noises filling the closet. Jungkook remains still, letting you in complete control, like he’s afraid he could break you if he moved.

“Thank you,” you whisper when you pull away from him.

“For what?” he asks, breathless.

“For being here with me tonight, and for coming with me at that first party.”

“Of course. Any time.”

He lets himself fall to the floor, taking you down with him and keeping you into his lap once he’s done that. You rest your head against his chest. You hear the noises of the party still going on outside, but Jungkook is your island of peace in the middle of the chaos.

“I think I’m going to stop basketball,” Jungkook blurts out without a warning, and you look at him, surprised.

“Really?” you ask.

“Yeah. Really. I just— I don’t want to be doing that anymore.”

You think about it for a few seconds, then nod.

“You probably should stop, in that case.”

“People are… not going to be happy about it.”

“I’m sure Taehyung won’t be mad at you. Well, not for too long.”

He laughs softly, but his hold on you doesn’t relax, and you know that this was hard for him to even consider. You know it’s a terrifying decision to take, too.

“Thank you,” he says. “For being here with me tonight, too.”

“Any time.”

The truth is, you wouldn’t give that moment away for anything in the world, and something tells you Jungkook wouldn’t either. It’s not ideal, it’s not perfect, but you don’t believe there is such a thing, and you’re happy to satisfy yourself with the imperfect.

But any moment you can spend in Jungkook is as close to perfect as can be.

“I love you,” he whispers in your ear, and you think that he might feels the same way, which almost makes you burst with happiness.

“And I love you,” you whisper back.

Not perfect, perhaps. But close enough.

#jungkook x reader #bts #bts imagine #bts x reader #jeon jungkook x reader #jungkook imagine #jungkook fluff #bts fic #jungkook fanfic #jungkook #jeon jungkook #candywrites

[reachgirl]

On Buddie and them potentially being aware of their feelings

So we definitely see evidence of how Eddie might feel about Buck, how he clearly loves and trusts him. He absolutely relies on Buck a lot as someone who loves Christopher, as that person you go to who cares about your kid as much as you do. And he clearly doesn’t handle not having Buck around very well during the storyline that must not be named. 

He also looks at Buck like “you’re lucky you’re pretty”, a LOT. And he’s shown to think about Buck’s wellbeing and Buck’s feelings. For a guy who’s not usually great at ~the talking~, he seems to sense that Buck needs to hear him actually *say* things like that he trusts him, out loud. For Buck, someone who’s been told that he’s reckless and impulsive, not diligent, not reliable (and to be fair to Bobby, has been all those things at times, but is desperate to change that view of himself), to be told that he’s trusted - more than anyone else - with someone’s kid? That’s huge. And Eddie knew that he needed to hear that, he also knew that he needed to feel like part of something when Buck was depressed and hanging around at home after the truck bombing. And Eddie was the one who noticed Buck wasn’t around at the station. For Eddie, the fact that they “have each other’s backs” is so important, because, and it’s insane how this is not wishful thinking on the fandom’s part, he actually tells Shannon that she doesn’t have his back. So yeah, absolutely nobody is disputing that Eddie loves Buck.

And I’ve talked about how I believe that Eddie might be bi leaning towards more into men than women (his “not my type” and aunt pepa’s reaction to buck are the foundation for this theory), and his particular combination of upbringing, experience and location really messing with him admitting that to himself (Conservative religious culture, Texas, army, getting married young because of outside expectations). But many of the scenes we get from him could - FROM THE OUTSIDE - very well just show a guy who has a lot of love and respect (and occasionally some fond exasperation) for his best friend. Possibly more, but not in that active, pining way. Not like he’s truly aware of it, yet.

But Buck? He pretty much always looks at Eddie like he’s the best thing that has happened to him, ever, and he can’t believe his luck of getting to be around this man. The smile he constantly gives him, and - in seasons 2 and 3 - only him, is the actual “I want to sleep with you smile” from season 1 Buck. I don’t make the rules.

He constantly finds ways to help him out, reads up on things he knows Eddie is interested in or things that are for some reason something Eddie is dealing with (whether it’s baseball biographies or summer camp brochures), and absolutely always looks to him for approval anytime he does something well or remotely badass. Or even when he makes a joke. It’s almost like 95% of the stuff he does, he does so that Eddie will see.

He sees himself as part of Eddie’s family to the point of not feeling like he’s a guest at their house, he has proven he would actually die for Chris, and he spends much of his free time finding ways of making Chris, the most important person in Eddie’s life, happy. He shares in both the happy and the difficult parts of raising Chris, he gets involved in school problems, and he’s there for Eddie to talk through all the little things that come up when you’re a parent. Often times, with single parents, when the other parent isn’t around, the problem is that there’s nobody else in your life who shares the same love and enthusiasm or worry you have for your child. You could talk about everything relating to them for hours, but even the best meaning friends will at some point reach the limit of how interested they are. Not so with Buck.

But unlike Eddie, Buck is also aware, to a point, of how much he’s focused on Eddie. Where Eddie’s jealousy comes across as more spur-of-the-moment, not something he’s even aware of, Buck seems like.. he’s thought about how he feels about Eddie. Others definitely have. Maddie’s comment about his “man crush” aside, even a random christmas elf (long may she live) comments on it. Hen and Karen immediately agree Buck would invite Eddie, like, Karen knows about this even. Their reaction when Buck is acting irrational over how they might get Eddie out when he’s buried alive and most likely dead already is that reaction of “Oh fuck, this will break this person” that is usually reserved for the significant other or parent. Bobby definitely reacts to Buck in relation to Eddie the way a father would, carefully weighing being amused at how obvious he’s being, and concern over not wanting him to get hurt doing something stupid trying to save Eddie, or by falling for him when it might not be reciprocated. They all know that Buck’s a little (more than) smitten with Eddie. And Buck... of course he’s going to notice how his friends and family react. I think he’s been aware of it for a while and is constantly trying to navigate and balance this. 

Of course he hasn’t told his face about balancing anything at all yet, because look at that man’s face any time he looks at Eddie, look at that scene with the medal. He absolutely can’t help it. And sometimes it’s like he wants them to pick up on it - for example, pushing Maddie on the fact that he doesn’t consider himself a guest. And that’s completely understandable, sometimes you want people to pick up on something and maybe even comment on it (because their reaction reaffirms to you that maybe you’re not crazy) while also not wanting attention on that point. People are complicated like that. And Buck may be a himbo, but he’s complicated AF.

We get Buck being really weird about Eddie and Shannon in general - right off the bat. When Shannon shows up at the station and she and Eddie talk, Buck’s in the background and overhears that they’re sleeping together. He clearly struggles with this information, (and Chim possibly notices..) then he get’s real petty about them potentially getting married again (”Maybe you can get a discount”) - and he nopes out of the situation as quickly as he can - because he doesn’t want to risk saying anything snarky.

Then Chim and Buck go christmas tree shopping, and Chim comments on how Buck can’t let Eddie’s situation with Shannon go, and it’s true, he can’t stop himself. But when Eddie asks him for advice in front of the fountain (/metaphorical water penis as I like to call it), he’s suddenly all “I didn’t think it was my business” ... ok, sure, Buck. Then he basically tells Eddie to try and make it work with Shannon. In terms of character development, in a romance, this is the part where person A wants to be with person B but doesn’t think they have a chance, so makes the choice to try and settle for being their friend, which, heartbreakingly, involves pushing them into the arms of someone else.

Also, his kind of “oversharing” of Eddie’s situation with Ana to the rest of the team is, to me, a pretty clear indicator that the topic makes him uncomfortable and he’s trying a Ross Geller-I’m making Fajitas- “let’s show everyone how very completely normal I feel about this” approach, which.. it doesn’t.. work that well. And when does this ever work, it’s super easy to see through this, and it usually just serves to draw more attention to the fact that you’re uncomfortable with whatever is being discussed.

Buck also takes everything Eddie says to heart. Like, fucking takes it and will not let go of it. Half a season after Eddie tells him that he makes everything about himself, he breaks down telling Maddie he’s worried he’s making the situation with the old firefighter about himself again. During the kitchen scene (or “The actual how-to-guide of what to do when you thought the guy you have a crush on doesn’t reciprocate but then you have a fight and he really doesn’t handle being away from you so well so you kind of might as well see where being a little more openly flirty will get you”), Buck’s clearly thought about Eddie’s words from the grocery store fight, and he’s gonna call Eddie out. And maybe do other stuff.

Looking at what the writers are actually doing, to end the season, there’s the clawing at dirt of it all, Buck falling apart when Eddie’s buried alive. Buck being in almost all of Eddie’s memories when he’s close to dying. And Maddie’s comment about not wanting to set Josh up with Buck, which is innocent enough, but why throw that in on top of all of the above, if not because maybe what we’re actually looking at is that they’re setting up a sexuality crisis for Buck, and him realizing he’s maybe into Eddie, but Eddie not actually reciprocating (yet)? And say Buck is then somehow forcefully pushed to see the truth about how he feels, maybe by, i don’t know, coming across TK and/or Carlos on a call, and one of them asking him how long him and Eddie have been together? We might get Eddie with Ana, and a very long, drawn out process of Buck realizing what’s happening and trying to leave them alone, and Eddie being really confused about why Buck’s being like that. Then we would have two options (well, more, really, but these are two I like): 1) Eddie pushing Buck on that point and demanding an explanation and Buck just coming out with it because fuck it and sorry and please let me see Chris still 2) Buck’s sexuality crisis (or not crisis, if he’s always been pan/bi, which, look, nothing I’ve seen has disproven this theory) leading to him dating a guy and Eddie getting really jealous but not actually being aware of the fact what he feels is jealousy (because he doesn’t realize how he feels about Buck, see this whole essay you just read), and Buck being the one who confronts Eddie about why he’s being such a homophobic asshole about this, and Eddie straight up kissing him because he can’t not anymore.

#I wrote this during a work meeting #they definitely thought i was taking notes #wow guess i'm back in it aren't i #sorry #buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #9-1-1 #911 on fox #911 fox #911 season 4 #christopher diaz #bobby nash #hen wilson #karen wilson #chimney han #maddie buckley #josh russo #tk strand #carlos reyes #911 crossover

[clefairymuke]

daydream | chapter one

next chapter

pairing: armin arlert x reader

themes: college/modern au, slowburn, friends to lovers, mutual pining, fluff, smut

tw: recreational drug use, drinking, explicit sexual content

word count: 1705

The clock was obnoxiously loud with its endless ticking as you struggled to answer yet another dreaded short response prompt, your eyes threatening to trail over to the paper next to yours. You cursed your professor in your head, wondering who had the audacity to dub them "short answer" when answering every nit-picking facet of the question required at least a page-long essay to respond to the prompt in its entirety. The pen would soon break through the paper with how aggressively you were pushing it down. Against your better judgement, you allowed yourself to glance at your friend's paper. All you were able to read was the scrawled cursive "Armin Arlert" at the top before it was pulled from the table and started its journey to the professor's desk. Armin shot you a side eye as he threw his bag over his shoulder, and you returned a feigned apologetic grin. You watched as he waltzed confidently to the front of the room. Everything was so easy for him.

You sighed as he laid his paper on Professor Hange's desk and left. You knew he'd be outside waiting on the bench by the sidewalk when you finally finished; it was looking like he would be there for at least an hour. You tried to focus. What exactly had you learned so far in Biology 220? As far as you knew, the answer was absolutely nothing. After another while of pretending to think while actually berating yourself internally for your lack of studying, you did what you do best: you wrote down 200 words of absolute bullshit and hoped for a passing grade. It had put you through a year and a half of school -- you hoped it wouldn't fail you now.

It made sense for Armin to do well. After all, he was a biology major on the premed track. You, on the other hand, chose English on the form last minute in order to take the least amount of science and math possible. Learning that general education required sequences instead of singular courses had smacked you in the mouth. You erased the last word and fixed your handwriting three times before you finally decided you were finished, taking the paper up front to join Armin's and relishing in the sunlight hitting your face as you left the building.

"How'd you do?" Armin asked sweetly, perched on the nearest of many walkway-side benches along the campus. You saw a coffee in his hand. As you got closer, you noticed one for you sitting next to him. You smiled.

"I honestly think I did fucking awful. I haven't retained anything from Hange's class at all. She's not even a bad teacher -- I think it just isn't for me," you answered, taking a seat and lifting the coffee to your lips. It was your favorite.

He sighed, rubbing the back of his head. He'd had a haircut only the day before; he always toyed with the prickly hair on the back of his neck for the first few days after one. You wondered if he'd ever get used to having his hair shorter. "I've offered to help you, you know. I always say I'll start studying with you, and you always say we will. Then I end up studying while you lay there on your phone halfway listening."

"Well, midterms are over now. Maybe I'll let you teach me a thing or two before finals. What's important is that spring break starts now." For a moment you could see yourself and Armin laid out on the beach, sun soaking into your skin with the soft crashing of waves present only a few yards away; that was the definition of heaven. You saw Armin grin as he started to pull his bag over his shoulder in preparation for your walk to his dorm. A common misconception about your friend was that he was a stick in the mud; however, this was decidedly the furthest thing from the truth. Although he was perfect academically -- 4.0 GPA, active in student organizations, one of the way-too-happy people that shows the freshmen around campus each year -- he knew how to have a good time. Perhaps it was years of corruption from you and your other friends (Eren and Jean, in particular), but outside of a god-awful science class, he was easily your favorite person to be around.

The two of you walked side by side across campus, chatting idly about the party you both planned to attend that night and the long drive that awaited you come morning. It was the perfect weather out, a sunny and comfortable 70 degrees. Armin was dressed in an old-looking T-shirt advertising some bedroom pop artist you were unfamiliar with, making it more than noticeable how much he had filled out since he bought it. Khaki shorts hung a few inches above his knees. You had to look up at him when you spoke, quite the contrast to the many years your friendship spanned before. His eyes, though, were still the same blue, and that was unlikely to change.

When you arrived at his building, you trudged up the stairs behind him, grateful you would soon be able to sit down. Walking everywhere was not your favorite activity, but the campus was quite small, and driving would be overkill. You waltzed into the room as you did nearly every day, throwing a hand up to greet Eren. He had his arm thrown lazily around a girl you didn't recognize, his half-up half-down hair falling in his face as he nodded back at you with a smile, eyes half-open and glossy red.

You practically threw yourself into Armin's bed, which was neatly made aside from the plush blue blanket that laid across the yellow duvet. You were quickly underneath it, making short work toward comfort as you nuzzled into a pillow. Armin took the time to put his things away and change into loose-fitting charcoal sweatpants before taking a seat at your side, fiddling with a time-passing puzzle game on his phone.

"I think we should just stay in instead of going to the party and taking that trip. I'm pretty comfortable, and I have plenty of sleep to catch up on," you told him, the joke barely present in your voice. He chuckled, leaning back across your legs onto the wall behind him.

"You're required to come to the party," Eren called over to you, taking his lips away from the nameless girl's neck. "We promised Jean. And you're required to come on the trip, because we can't afford the Airbnb without your charitable contribution."

"Besides," Armin chimed in, looking over at you, "you were lucky your request off got approved. Think of the poor souls that are stuck behind the register at Barnes and Noble this week. They wouldn't want you to use their vacation in vain."

"When you put it that way. . ." you laughed, checking the time on your phone. "What time did Jean tell us to come?"

"Nine," Armin responded quickly, switching from his game to Twitter. It was only 4:06, according to the white numbers above the picture of you and Armin at your high school graduation. You had quite a bit of time to kill.

"Want to watch a movie?" you asked the blond boy at your side. You were already holding the Xbox controller before he could reply. You got on Disney+, arguably your favorite part of being in Armin's dorm, then tossed the controller toward him to choose. He chose, as he always did, some superhero movie that you would pretend to hate and secretly love. He looked over at you and grinned wide, pressing play.

As the opening sequence rolled, you figured it wasn't the worst way to waste time.

---

The party was lame in the best way. Of course, no one outside of the typical circle had shown -- Connie and Sasha, Marco, the current girl hanging from Eren's hip (Ellie, maybe?), Ymir and Historia, and Eren's sister, Mikasa. Or, at least, he called her his sister. She was adopted -- and desperately in love with him -- and you wished he would avoid calling her that for the sake of saving face. Watching her sit angrily next to him while he toyed with the girl's hair was almost as awkward as the way Jean sat next to Mikasa, beer in his hand and flirting without shame. Connie, Sasha, and Ymir spent nearly the entire party trying to convince Historia and Marco to try smoking on Connie's new bong. Between all of these preoccupied people, you and Armin were left sharing a recliner, passing a blunt back and forth and discussing the plans for tomorrow.

Jean's apartment was trashed in the way a 19-year-old boy's would typically be, soda and beer cans lining the tables and clearly visible dust on his furniture. If you squinted, you'd see he was using his U.S. History textbook as a rolling tray. Professor Erwin would be disappointed.

Your thoughts had begun to become fuzzier and fuzzier. You could tell Armin was feeling the same by the way he giggled uncontrollably at a stupid joke Connie made across the room, causing you to chuckle. He was pretty when he laughed, white teeth poking past his lips as his clear blue eyes squinted into almost nothing. It didn't help that they were already half-closed, pink and red lining his blue irises. You and Armin were social smokers, and drinkers, and what came with that was the unfortunate fact that you were both very lightweight.

You listened absentmindedly to the soft R&B Jean was playing, obnoxiously enough, from Pandora on his TV. Every time an ad played, you died a little inside. You found yourself thanking those that didn't come tonight. Eventually, when you were all in some way intoxicated, you all gathered to watch a movie. You had never heard of it, but Jean and Eren were big fans, which meant it was likely some action film with a bit of plot if you squinted at it.

Before the title screen, you had your head laid on Armin's shoulder, gently drifting to sleep.

This was peace.

#AoT #aot fanfiction #aot x reader #aot fic #snk #snk x reader #snk fic #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #armin #armin arlert #armin x reader #armin x you #au #college au #modern au #friends to lovers #slowburn #aot au #loss of virginity #fluff #smut #aot smut #college armin

[mypoisonedvine]

Love, Theoretically | Sebastian Stan x reader (Chapter 2)

read Chapter 1 here

series summary: having lost your husband, sister, and best friend all to the same extramarital affair, you ran away to a secluded villa in the Hungarian countryside to write and get a little time away from the life you’d left behind.  you were only looking for peace and perhaps some inspiration for your novel, but instead you found an unlikely connection with the immigrant repairman– even though the two of you don’t speak the same language.

word count: 2.3k (exactly the same as last chapter, i’m proud of myself lol)

warnings: just fluff and ~pining~ for now

thanks again to @evnscvll for making this moodboard-- and this series is for her 3k celebration challenge so def check out her writing!

You should’ve known that you wouldn’t be able to force yourself to write, but after a quick shower to wash off the day’s journey, you decided there was nothing better to do but sit at the desk and hope for inspiration.

Your husband had never been very supportive of your writing, which is why you had struggled to complete your latest novel.  He, like your publisher and many of your readers, wanted a sequel to your last book, in spite of the fact that you were adamant it was impossible.  It was a complete story, even if the ending was ambiguous.  There was no room for growth in the characters or the world of the story; just because readers wanted more didn’t mean that they would actually enjoy a forced product.

The publisher and your husband, however, shared a very strong opinion: the fans won’t care if it’s forced, and neither should you as long as it sells.  But, they weren’t writers.  You were.  And you knew there were different stories you needed to tell… if only you could find the words for them.

You were a few pages in when you heard the stairs creaking outside your closed door.  There was a quick knock at the door; you answered with an offer to come in.  

“I was just wondering if you wanted some coffee,” Mrs. Alberti explained as she crossed the room, standing beside you at the desk.  You nodded with a quick thank you as she set the cup and saucer down onto the wood.  “Oh heavens, he’s working on the house again,” she suddenly groaned, motioning out the window.  

You leaned over and nearly spit out your coffee when you saw Sebastian outside.  He was only wearing some much-too-tight jeans, driving a hammer down onto wood as the sun cast orange light over his body.  He was glistening with sweat, which was probably pretty uncomfortable for him but he looked damn good anyways.  

“Is he always… like that?” you shuddered.  

“Maybe I didn’t just hire him because he was cheap,” she shrugged, handing you a cloth.  “Go soak this in cold water and bring it to him, he looks overheated.”

You should’ve questioned why she was giving you chores, but you just took the rag and did as she asked.  He didn’t notice you walking out to him at first, but stopped when he did see you, waving quickly and setting down his hammer.

“For the heat,” you explained as you handed it to him.

“Ah, mulțumesc,” he nodded, accepting the rag with a smile.  

As he wiped the sweat from his face, you found your gaze trailing over his arms, down his chest and abdomen.  Jesus, how could this guy eat Mrs. Alberti’s cooking every day and still have washboard abs?  When you looked back up to his face, he was looking right at you with a grin-- oh shit, had he caught you ogling?  But then again, maybe he wanted you to ogle.  Why else would he be doing housework so… shirtlessly?

“Wh-what are you working on?” you asked him to break the silence.  He gave you a puzzled look.  “Er, the wood,” you motioned to the work he was doing, “why?”

His face softened with understanding.  “Construiesc un cadru nou pentru fereastră,” he explained, motioning vaguely to the house, “în partea de est a casei.”

“Right…” you nodded, realizing that you had no idea what he’d said.  Clearly you hadn’t thought this through.

“Aici, permiteți-mi să vă arăt,” he said, grabbing a board and walking past you, motioning for you to follow him as he slung the rag over his shoulder.  You figured you looked like a lost puppy trailing behind him like this.

He stopped when you reached the wall of the house, and grabbed part of the window frame; it creaked and moved as he wiggled it, clearly on the verge of falling off.  Then, he held up the new board he had been hammering and you realized that it was going to replace the rotting portions of the frame.

“A intelege?” he smiled.

“Da!” you answered, and he laughed.

“Cred că asta contează ca român,” he shrugged.

“It’s good you’re fixing the window.  I’m sure Mrs. Alberti appreciates everything you do.”

“Bătrâna îmi plătește rahat, dar sfârșesc trăind aici gratis.”

“Well, I should let you get back to it,” you decided as you stepped back with an uncomfortable smile.

“Nu te voi mai ține, sunt sigur că ești ocupat,” he said, and though you had no real way to interpret it, his tone didn’t seem to indicate that he was trying to stop you from going.

With a little wave and a heavy sense of god why am I such a dork?, you left him and returned indoors.

First nights in new places were always sort of surreal, but this was definitely less weird than the sleeper car of the train.  You’d felt like a proper stowaway then, but you had a stronger feeling of belonging here… even if you didn’t quite feel like you had any place to call home at the moment.

As you laid in bed and looked at the room turned on its side, you found yourself missing your room.  Your real room.  It had been designed and decorated somewhat meticulously, but most of all you missed the things about it that you hadn’t put that kind of thought into: the random earrings on your bedside table, discarded casually before you went to sleep; the layers of blazers and skirts draped over the chair in the corner; the still-slightly-visible coffee stain on the corner of the rug, even though you’d spent hours trying to get it out.

Meanwhile, this room was so obviously not a space that people lived in, but just a space people passed through.  Though nowhere near as sterile as a traditional hotel room, it had the same emptiness even with its personality-- specifically, a reflection of someone else’s personality rather than your own.

All that said, sleeping was pretty easy once you got yourself comfortable in the fluffy mattress, even if you were aware all through the night that you were not at home.  So aware, even, that you weren’t surprised at all when you woke up in the new space for the first time.  What you were surprised by was the sounds of heavy rain against your window, immediately dashing your plans for a morning jog.  As much as it seemed apropos to type by the window instead and soak in the moody weather, you decided to head downstairs for a cup of coffee first.  Already having forgotten where you had left off, you grabbed the pages you'd already written to reread with your breakfast as you slipped on some comfortable clothes and made your way down the creaky steps

Passing through the living area, it was impossible not to notice Sebastian sitting in one of the chairs, staring intently at a half-played chessboard.  Stopping for a moment to try to determine what he was doing, he moved a piece and you realized he must be playing with himself.

Against himself, you interrupted your own thought, he's playing against himself… important distinction.

“You play chess?” you asked, pointing to the board.

“Şah,” he replied.  

You pointed to the chair across from him.  “Can I join you?” 

“Luaţi loc,” he offered as he gestured to it as well, nodding in approval.  You smiled and sat down as he reorganized the pieces back to the starting position.

“Negru?” he asked, pointing to the black pieces-- “Sau alb?”-- he pointed to the white.

“Um, black,” you decided, pointing to them since they were already on your side anyways.

“Tu primul,” he prompted you, and you moved your pawn.  He moved his, and after that, it was long stretches of silence between moves.  It didn’t feel awkward anymore, though; even between two people who share a language, chess is usually a silent affair.

“Check,” you announced as your bishop came into range of his king.  He looked up from the board and gave you a puzzled look.  “The bishop, see?” you demonstrated, tracing a line through the air over the diagonal squares which led from your piece to his.

“Ahh,” he nodded, stroking his chin as he considered his next move.  It called additional attention to the shadow of stubble which dusted over his jaw.  

He maneuvred a rook in the path of your bishop, and you settled back into your chair and you pondered your options.

The next hour went by oddly quickly.  Not in a rushed way, just in a way that made you wonder how it had already been an hour.  

“Şah,” he informed you as his knight threatened your king.  You weren’t sure if it was supposed to mean ‘check’ or ‘checkmate,’ but since you were able to capture his knight with a pawn, it was definitely just a check.

Instead of mourning his knight, he grinned and moved a rook forward, capturing the aforementioned pawn and trapping your king for good.  You gasped a little as you realized you’d fallen right into his trap.

“Şah-Mat,” he declared triumphantly.  That definitely meant ‘checkmate’; you could tell by the smug look on his face as he crossed his arms and leaned back into his chair.

“You got me, man, that was sneaky,” you smiled.  Offering your hand for a shake, you looked up at him: “Good game.”

He grabbed your hand and shook it, squeezing just tight enough that you wondered if you were the only one noticing a certain energy to the air.  “Bun joc,” he replied with a nod and a smile.

He let go of your hand after lingering just a little too long, his fingers brushing over yours for an electric moment.

Now the silence was awkward again, as the two of you sat in the high-backed chairs, staring across the table at each other.

“So, you really don’t speak any English at all, huh?” you considered aloud.  He looked back at you vacantly.  “English?  Even one word?” you lifted one finger as a symbol.

“Halloo,” he replied-- apparently a broken attempt at ‘hello.’  You laughed a little.

“Yes, that counts!  Did you learn any English in school?”

“Televiziune,” he replied.  

“Ah yes,” you nodded, “I know what that is.  Television; I’m a big fan myself.”

“Puteți vorbi un singur cuvânt de limba română?” he asked you, raising one finger as well.  Turnabout is fair play, after all.

“You mean other than ‘da’?  Or ‘salut’?” you asked with a laugh.

“Pentru a fi corect, acestea sunt cuvinte,” he shrugged.

“Teach me,” you requested.  “Just one word.”  

You looked around the room, settling on a lamp.  “What is this?  In Romanian-- română?” 

“Lampă,” he replied.

“Okay, well, that one isn’t very exciting,” you frowned.  “Um, what about this?” you bent down from your chair, picking up one corner of the rug.

“Covor,” he answered, leaning down with you to run his hand over the soft shag.

“Covor,” you repeated, surely butchering it.

“Da,” he smiled.  Okay, maybe you didn’t butcher it so bad, or maybe he was just being nice.  

“Can you teach me more?” you asked, hoping it wasn’t too demanding.

“Uhhh,” he stalled, looking around the room.  Finally, he pointed to the fireplace.  “Vatră.”

“Vatră, fireplace,” you tried to memorize it as he said it.

You pointed to the window.  “What’s the window called?”

“Fereastră.”

You pointed to the stairway.  “Scară,” he informed you, smiling a little.  You hoped this wasn’t boring for him, because you were actually having a bit of fun.

You pointed to his feet.  He furrowed his brow a little and lifted one, grabbing his shoe.  You nodded; “Pantof,” he explained.

You grabbed your blouse and shook it a little, appreciating the puffs of cool air that rolled down your chest;  “Bluză.”

You pointed to him; “Sebastian.”

You already knew that, but it was interesting to hear the way he said it versus Mrs. Alberti’s pronunciation.  “Yes, that’s an English name too,” you told him, “but pronounced differently…”

You wondered if your name had another pronunciation or translation, so you pointed to yourself; “Frumoasă,” he said, a little slower, a little more thoughtfully.

“Is that the Romanian equivalent to my name-- or does it mean ‘woman’?” you asked.  He just smiled vacantly.  

“This,” you pointed to the book, “what is this called?”

“Carte,” he answered.  “Engleză?”

“Book,” you replied.

“...book…” he said slowly, contemplatively.

Suddenly inspired, you grabbed the loose pages of manuscript that you’d laid on the small table beside you.  “Book,” you repeated, flipping through the pages.  He seemed confused.  “My book,” you clarified, pointing back and forth from yourself the papers.  “I’m writing this-- that’s why I’m here.”

“Ah!” his face lit up with recognition.  “Ar trebui să scrii o carte!”

“Yeah,” you nodded.  “I’m a writer; or, I’m trying to be.  My last book did… better than my first, at least.”  

“Ce fel de carte este?” he asked.  You looked at him with confusion to indicate you weren’t sure what he was asking.  “Uhh, book… este--” he made a sad face, rubbing under his eyes like a cartoon character’s weeping-- “sau--” he fake-laughed.

You laughed, actually, at his charades.  “It’s a thriller, it’s crime--” you thought for a moment, then made the motion of stabbing someone with a knife. 

His eyes got wider.  “Este… erotic?” 

You choked a little, realizing that your hand movement was… more ambiguous than you originally intended.  “No!” you blurted out suddenly.  “No, it’s… crime, mystery--” 

You looked around and saw a magnifying glass resting on the side table by your chair; grabbing it, you held it to your face and gave your best quizzical look.

“Oh!  Crimă!” he grinned.  “Detectiv?”

“Yes, yes, there’s a detective,” you sighed satisfactorily, “and absolutely no handjobs.”

~

shamelessly tagging the people who liked chapter 1!  @mariahthelioness29 @navybrat817 @navegandoaciegas @mandalorianspace @2smittinkittin @maizyistrash @honeygingergemini​ 

#sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan x y/n #sebastian stan fluff #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan fic

[wyofabdoms]

Undercover I Do - Chapter 5

Characters: Javier Peña x female reader

Summary: While on an undercover assignment posing as a married couple, you are attacked and nearly assaulted. Upon waking, all you remember about Javier Peña is what you remembering seeing from two photographs of the two of you posing as the happily married couple. As you struggle to regain your memories, Javi struggles with his own feelings for you.

Rating: Mature (Eventual smut)

Warnings: fake/pretend relationship, married and undercover trope, temporary amnesia, hospitalization, blood and injury, swearing, awkward Javi, unrequited feels, mentions of sex toys, feelings, pining, 

Word Count: 3132

Notes: You're released from the hospital, and Javi sets up house. While doing so, he stumbles across a couple of things that make him feel all kinds of ways!

Read on Ao3

You were released from the hospital two days later under the stipulation that you were to rest and were not to return to any kind of active field duty until fully cleared by the doctor and his medical team.  Over the course of those two days, some of your memories had seeped back in, like figures appearing through thick fog and slowly taking form and shape.  But, it seemed to you, not any of the really important ones were returning.  You remembered now some specific events from the last two years of your time as an agent: big busts you had made, critical incidents that had ended badly for your agency, colleagues that had been lost in the line of duty.  You had been able to recall many details of your work against the worst of the drug cartels in Colombia from the last two years and even further back...but most memories of things from the past three or four weeks were still a grey void with nothing in them, not even shadows to hint at memories waiting there in the fog.

You were rarely alone at the hospital: if Dixon was not sitting at your bedside, then Javi was there in her place. Between the two of them, you had managed to scrape together some large pieces that were missing about your relationships: you had worked with Dixon earlier in your career in San Diego and when she had risen in ranks and earned a seat down here in the thick of things, she had brought you along with her.  You had the feeling that she viewed you as a bit of a protege and you felt confident that the memories you had of her support and backing of you were true.  Memories about your relationship with Javi proved to be a bit more difficult to get confirmation on.  While both Dixon and Javi were very willing to discuss and confirm anything you asked about your mentor, when you inquired or asked for clarification on your history with your husband, both agents seemed to hesitate for a moment before answering you.  Dixon was more guarded than Javi and the older woman would often change the subject as quickly as she could when you asked her about your husband.  You got a distinct sense that she did not approve of your marriage to the man you had been partnered with during your time here.

You remembered that was how you had met Javi; you had been assigned as his partner.  You remembered the earliest days of working with him: how he had flirted with you and you had rebuffed him, how there had been moments when your partnership had skated the line of something more.  But it was only the older memories that seemed to come clearly to you...the closer to present day you came, the emptier your memories became.  You had tried to remember when exactly your relationship with Javi had made the jump from work partner to life partner.  When and how had the two of you told each other how you felt?  And you had zero memories of a proposal, a wedding....no memories at all of how it felt to touch and be touched by the handsome man who spent hours sitting in comfortable silence next to your bed. You couldn’t bring yourself to ask him questions about those things...not yet.

Surprisingly, Dixon was the one who escorted you when you were released.  After the older woman saw you carefully buckled into the passenger seat of the car, you inquired as to why Javi wasn’t the one driving you home.  Dixon’s eye flickered behind her dark sunglasses, and she mumbled something about him getting your apartment ready for you. She assured you that he would be waiting at your home when you got there.

Your home.  For a moment, your stomach sank, thinking about how you would be going back to a place that was foreign to you but was supposed to be a safe haven, a refuge, the home you shared with a husband you were supposed to be in love with.  Would you remember any of it?  Would anything that you found there help jog anything loose in your memory?

You could only hope.

***

“Fuck!”

Javi growled as he struggled to keep a box from teetering off the pile of other boxes that it was precariously stacked on.  His hands were full of his clothes on hangers, halfway between the box he had just removed them from and the clothing pole in the closet.  He had been struggling most of the morning with lugging half of his possessions down the two flights of stairs of their shared apartment building and trying to make it appear as though he had lived in this apartment for longer than a few hours.  Both he and Dixon had agreed it would be best for her to return to familiar surroundings...but they still needed to keep up the premise that the two of you shared a life together.

Javi had never given much thought to domesticity.  The closest he had ever come was Lorraine...and the brief moment of introspection he had had when he had seen her those several years ago at that wedding.  Thoughts had crossed his mind then: what would it be like to have a wife, to wear a ring on his finger, to have promised himself to someone forever?  To have a future that was shared with another person?  To make important decisions with another person and not just on your own?  To have 2.5 kids and a house?  But he hadn’t spent too much time dwelling on it simply because none of that was really who Javi was, was completely unimaginable to him.  He had never once really thought that sort of life would ever be one he would want, much less be able to live.  And, quite honestly, he wasn’t all that sure that that kind of life was one that he deserved.

Now, it seemed, life was playing a little gag on him: turns out maybe there WAS a way for him to see if married life was for him...although he did hate the fact that his partner had had to be injured in the process.  

One thing he was certain of at the moment, though: if getting married and divvying up and combining possessions was as big a pain in the ass for real as it was for this farce?...Well, that was a strike against matrimony in his opinion.

At first he had merely grabbed a small duffle bag full of items; things he thought he might leave at a woman’s house if he was spending the night or a weekend: a change of clothes, toiletries, firearm.  But when he had let himself into her apartment two floors below his in their building, it had struck him that that wasn’t going to be good enough. 

Her apartment was lived in.  Unlike his own, which he realized now seemed a little sterile and cold, her’s was warm and (though not a word he often used in his vocabulary) cozy.  She had artwork on the walls, shelves full of books from all different genres...even a few board games and some well-worn records on the record player stand. He spotted a rolled up yoga mat under a bench beneath the window and a couple of handwritten recipes and smiling photos tucked under bright magnets on the refrigerator. Her bedroom smelled of lavender and soft vanilla; the bed was neatly made (again, unlike his own) and dirty clothes resided in a hamper rather than tossed carelessly into a corner. The spare room that served as an office housed neatly organized work related content and photo albums of people from home, holiday decorations stashed under the guest bed; her closet had her clothes neatly organized (by color, who knew!?). He had quickly come to the conclusion that he might need to put a bit more effort into this charade.

So he had proceeded to spend the next several hours being swept into a whirlwind of imagining what a shared space would look like if the two of them were actually married.  He had started with the few books he had in his own apartment; a few biographies, some car magazines and a ratty copy of “The Art of War” and “The Hobbit”.  He had jammed them onto the neat bookshelves in her living room before returning quickly with some of his own records: some Cumbia records and an Eagles album, which he shuffled in with her own Steely Dan, Creedence Clearwater and Three Dog Night. 

He didn’t have much to contribute to the kitchen besides a few bottles of whiskey and a bottle of tequila next to her own bottles of red wine.  He had pulled a photo taken when he graduated from high school from his wallet and placed it on the fridge next to one of her with her huge family.  He paused a moment to assess the contrast in the two pictures: her in the midst of her five older brothers and parents, all wearing matching Christmas sweaters...him standing bashfully and stiffly next to his dad, who grinned proudly at the camera, one arm awkwardly slung over a teenage Javi’s shoulder.  The bathroom didn’t take long, either.  He added his razor, a bottle of Old Spice, and his toothbrush and comb; he glanced into the medicine cabinet as he placed his deodorant there and eyed what looked suspiciously like a package of prescription birth control...his mind started to wander and he slammed the cabinet door shut, heading back upstairs to his apartment for another load.  

He had strong-armed his clothes still on the hangers into some file boxes to make them easier to carry down the stairs, then had hauled shoes, underthings, suits, jeans, and (what he had not really realized until this moment) a ridiculous amount of the same style shirt in different colors downstairs and was now trying to wedge them into one half of her closet, trying to make it look like they had been there for a while and doing his best to not become buried by the haphazardly stacked boxes.  Once the last set of shoes was stuffed into the closet next to a pair of sky high red heels he had never seen her wear before, (he was CERTAIN he would have remembered those) he opened the dresser to shove his socks and underwear into a drawer and gulped. Staring back at him was a drawer full of his partner’s bras and panties.  

For a moment he felt like a creep pawing through her underwear drawer, but he steeled himself and carefully nudged the sensible pieces of cotton material to one side of the drawer.  As the material shifted, he spotted a brief flash of red lace and something that could be black and leather, but he refused to investigate any further; he could feel his face flushing and his heart pounding harder.  He dumped his own underwear into the drawer and shoved it closed, sighing with relief and opening the next one; socks wouldn’t cause his mind to wander into dangerous territory nearly as badly!  He carefully shoved the rolls of clothing to the side to make room for his own once again and felt his hand hit something.  His breath hitched as he uncovered what was very obviously a vibrator.  Next to it was a tube of lube and a small box about the size of a deck of cards.  Try as he might, he could not stop himself from carefully tilting open the lid of the box...Javi was quite educated when it came to knowing his way around a woman, but he was clueless as to the purpose or use of the two small colored balls nestled into the velvet inside of the box...although he was pretty sure he at least knew where they were supposed to go.  

His mind clouded with images of his partner stretched out on the bed behind him, bringing herself to orgasm using these items and he felt himself harden in his jeans.  He let out a puff of air and carefully nudged the items to the other side of the drawer, reburying them beneath the socks as they had been before.  He piled in his own footwear, then shakily closed the drawer, still trying to blink away the images playing out in his mind.  He wondered what her face would look like as she came apart.  What did she sound like?  Did she cry out when she reached her peak?  What would his name sound like tumbling from her lips in the middle of her climax, what would she taste like…?

He stormed out of the bedroom, furious at himself for going down that path.  He felt like a pervert, getting so turned on after snooping through her personal effects.  He was angry at Dixon for insisting that they do this; but he was frustrated at himself, more.  He shouldn’t be going through her things like this.  He splashed some cold water on his face from the kitchen sink and trudged back up to his own apartment, pacing for a while once he got there, trying to both ease his erection as well as determine what else he should bring with him back to her apartment.  His eyes settled on the shoulder case that had been retrieved from the house that had been used in the undercover operation.  He pulled out the two framed photographs that had been next to “their” bed; the photos that she had referenced when she had first woken up.  He stared at them, thinking that if he hadn’t been present at the time they had been taken, he would have believed they were real, too...that they were actual photographs of two people madly in love with each other.  

Maybe…

No.  He stuck both pictures under his arms, grabbed another box filled with work files, tossed his favorite ashtray and lighter in the box along with one or two small tchotkes, a couple of coasters and a small plastic plant from the window sill, and made one more trip down the stairs.  He dispersed the items randomly throughout her apartment, thinking to himself that it at least gave a more unified image of two different people existing within the same space.  

He hauled the box of paperwork into her second bedroom converted into an office space and plopped it down on the desk, taking one or two folders and strewing them about the top of the desk, again in stark contrast to her own organized, neat piles.  It started to reflect their separate desks at work now, which he found convincing.  He sat in the desk chair for a minute and quickly shuffled through the small desk drawers, double checking for anything glaring that might be difficult to explain.  As he opened the bottom drawer, his eye caught a blue leather bound notebook.  Flipping through it, he saw pages and pages of writing in his partner’s familiar handwriting.  As he thumbed through, he was startled to spot his name on one page.  He carefully flipped back, scanning the writing and was surprised to find that it actually appeared quite often.  He turned a page and began reading from the beginning:

“Everything sometimes feels so incredibly heavy here.  The job, the humidity, the pressure of being a woman in this man’s arena.  I hate it!  I hate that I have to be strong all the damn time.  I hate that it feels like I can’t seek the same comforts as other women...even if I have insisted that it be this way.  I’m so grateful and proud of myself...most of the time...like 95.5% of the time.  The other times, I just wish I could let myself cry when something heartbreaking happens.  When someone says something scathing that hurts my feelings at work.  When I watch Javi go off to sleep with yet another woman.

Javi.  That feels so heavy all of the time, too.  I can’t seem to ever level myself out when it comes to him.  Some days he drives me absolutely insane and I want nothing more than to bash his face in with a paperweight.  Other days, I just want him to put his arms around me and hold me.  Not do anything or say anything, just hold me tight…because he is, truthfully, the only single person that I trust.  

And yet, am I fooling myself in saying that...in saying that I trust him?  Because do I really?  If I really trusted him, why don’t I just go to him?  He only lives two floors up.  Why can’t I knock on his door and fling myself into his arms and kiss him and feel what it’s like to press my body against his?  Why can’t I bring myself to do that?  Well...probably because I don’t really ACTUALLY trust him...not with that part of myself.  Javi is the man I want having my back in a shootout...but is he the man I want to be next to me every night when I fall asleep and every morning when I wake up?  I dream about him sometimes...about him being in my bed with me, but we’re usually not sleeping...we’re doing everything but.  I dream about it and then I wake up feeling empty because he’s not there, because it wasn’t real.  The emptiness is heavy, too...”

Javi clapped the journal shut, feeling his stomach churn.  He shouldn’t have read that and guilt thrummed through him.  These were her private thoughts; never meant for anyone else but her to read.  Once again he felt like an intruder and he loathed himself...Dixon...that asshole Ortiz...for putting both of them in this situation.  He dragged a hand over his face, growling low in his throat.  He looked down at the box at his feet, still open with a few files and the two photographs staring back up at him.  He reached in and took out one framed picture, sitting it upright on the desk: the “engagement” photo.  He took the “wedding” picture out and then tossed the journal into the box, carrying both items from the home office.  He carefully set up the photo on a bookshelf in the living room, then put the lid back on the box and headed back up the stairs to drop the box off in his apartment and lock up.  Before he left, though, he made sure to slip the freshly cleaned gold band onto his left ring finger.

His wife would be coming home any minute now.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8,  Chapter 9, Chapter 10,  Chapter 11,  Chapter 12,  Chapter 13

#javier peña x reader #javier pena x female reader #narcos #javi #pedro pascal fanfiction #fake marriage #undercover marriage

[pointnumbersixteen]

A Head Cannon Biography and Character Analysis and of the Captain, Part 5: Everything the Captain Does Wrong in the First Flashback of Reddy Weddy in Sixteen Points

Which finally gets us back to the flashback scenes in Reddy Weddy.

Is this about to be over 2,000 words shredding the command performance of my favorite character? Yes, it is, but I do it with all the love in the world.

I’ll start with the first scene, which starts out as a morning brief. It shows just how awful he is at the whole ‘leader of men’ thing. What did he do wrong? This is going to go on for a while. The TLDR version is: literally everything. There is not a single word or action of his in that scene that went right. And it had to be intentional, as Ben Willbond is an admitted military buff, he has to know what proper military bearing is supposed to look like, and he wrote the episode.

I should preface this with saying that I absolutely adore the Captain in this scene, with his silly, over-excitable and ridiculously awkward self. But the first time I saw it, the part of me that spent four years in the US army was screaming inside about how terrible his performance was as a CO. Just picture yourself as one of those respectable and sensible young military personnel sitting in the seats listening to him with the thought, ‘if the Germans come this is the guy that’s going to be responsible for me in battle,’ and try not to cringe just a little.

First, starting with a bit of background: morning briefs are torture. They are the most boring things in the world. Everyone hates them. They’re one of those situations when you can just feel yourself slowly dying. Good commanders know that and try to keep them as short as possible. Bad commanders who don’t mind that their troops are silently hating them the whole time go on a bit longer, but even then, I don’t think I ever sat through one that made it through more than five or six points. The Captain’s very first line in the episode states that he is on POINT NUMBER SIXTEEN (the absurdity of which gave me the handle for this side-blog). His subordinates are blank faced. They’ve probably been tuning this tedious BS out since point number four.  

Second, point number sixteen is, to paraphrase, “Why am I still hearing laughter after hours? We are at war. Fun is banned.” In a stern lecture tone. No, Captain, pet, just because the army probably sucked all the joy out of your life, doesn’t mean that no one is allowed to be happy in the military, even during wartime. My dear, actually you should be encouraging them to decompress however they can, as long as it isn’t inappropriate or interfering with their duties, because war is stressful, even if you’re not on the front lines. The military in general is stressful, even when you’re not at war. Joking and horseplay- as long as it isn’t the sort of thing that isn’t going to get anyone injured- is good for morale. And modern militaries have morale officers for a reason. At this point, the man in the middle of the front row breaks his blank face momentarily to give the woman next to him a ‘can you believe this crap?’ look.  

Third, the Captain goes on and backs this up by essentially saying (again paraphrased), “I understand you all are bored, I’m bored, too, this shit is boring, but this is where the army stuck us so we have to deal.” Which again is the wrong answer. That is precisely how NOT to motivate people to do their best. This is a situation where the officer should try to generate enthusiasm amongst his subordinates for their roles. Even if he wanted to provide a similar sentiment, the word ‘bored’ never should have entered the equation. Everyone is bored most of the time in the military, but it’s not something the higher ranks acknowledge, because acknowledging it helps nothing. His statement should have been something more like, “I understand that some of you are frustrated that you’re not serving in combat, but what we’re doing here in support of the war effort is important, and it will take all of us doing our parts, both out there on the front, and back here in England, to win this thing.”

Next, when Havers comes in with the message for him, he speculates out loud about it being an answer to his pistol requisition. He shouldn’t have done this, and gets two wrong points for it.

The fourth is because while I find his excitement about that pistol endearing, like a little boy hoping for just the right present from Santa at Christmas (and still pining for it 75 years after his death, as noted in the ‘going to the shops’ game with Fannie in s2e4), it probably comes off as foolish or childish to his subordinates. The gun he really wants to have probably should not be the first thing that comes to his mind when communicating with command. There’s a war on. There have to be at least one or two things that are more important.

The fifth is because you’re not supposed to reveal any of your command requests to your subordinates until you know how they’re going to turn out, and then only the ones that are approved, because if you reveal you’ve requested something and it isn’t granted, particularly something as simple as being issued a side arm, it starts to look like higher command doesn’t favor you or have confidence in you. Which in his case is probably true. But that’s not something he should reveal to his troops by way of letting them know he requested a fancy new side arm and then never received one. He might as well have put a sign on his back that said, “Command trusts me so little they won’t even give me a gun.”

Sixth, when he reads the actual message, he just blurts out something to the order of, “good god, France has surrendered.” Which is not how the other people in the room should have received that information. There should have been some sort of measured, more dignified, official sounding announcement. “It’s my duty to inform you all that unfortunately France surrendered to the Germans yesterday,” or something of the sort at the bare minimum. But no, he just blurts it out. Well, Havers asks him what’s wrong after the “good god” part, but he still shouldn’t have blurted it out.

Seventh, and after blurting it out, he doesn’t add anything to it. France surrendering was a disaster for the British during WWII. It meant Germany was coming for them next. This would have been the time to reassure his men- and women- that although things might look grim, he was confident that high command had a plan and would have everything under control and that there was no way Germany would make it across the channel and that even if they did, the army would be ready. But no, he says nothing of the sort.

Eighth, in fact, he says nothing else to the people who had been present for his briefing at all. After Havers enters the room, he has neither eyes nor words for anyone else. Which is not professional at all.

Ninth, the way he looks at Havers throughout this scene, his face lights up, his voice cheers, his whole demeanor changes. He might have well had a neon sign glowing above his head that screamed ‘I’M GAY FOR THIS MAN!!!’ It would have been the only thing that could possibly be more obvious. When, again, being gay wasn’t okay at all in 1940’s England, and particularly not in the army. I love how incredibly unsubtle he is about his attractions while he clearly thinks he’s being subtle, but that’s not the way it would have been viewed by the people in the room.  

Tenth, in his excitement, the Captain just drops the message on the floor. Drops. It. On. The. Floor. He doesn’t even bother to pick it up. Even Havers gives him a funny look for this one. I say again, I find over-excited Cap adorable. His subordinates probably find this ridiculous, though. And if this were a man who was in charge of me and he’d just been giving me a tedious lecture about not laughing at night as part of a sixteen point morning brief, I’d find him ridiculous, too. At best.

Eleventh, then he immediately scrambles to the window and looks around wildly like he expects the Germans might be marching up Button House’s driveway as they speak. Which is plain silly, as Havers has to point to him. It’s obvious to anyone with sense that even if the Germans are going to invade, it will take them a while to organize an invasion, and Button House is unlikely to be one of the early strategic targets. But the Captain seems to forget this momentarily in his excitement and ends up looking silly in front of his subordinates. I’m pretty sure a few of them are laughing at him in the back.

Twelve, the fact that the Captain is clearly ridiculously excited about this development at all is another point against him, because he shouldn’t be. Of course, he’s excited about the renewed prospect of getting a chance to actually fight (see the previous part of this analysis for why he desperately wants such a thing) but that excitement is not good look. He’s thinking about what it means to him personally, rather than what it means to the military and the country as a whole. Again, the fall of France was a disaster for Britain. It means they’ve lost all of the battles they’ve fought to try to hold back the Germans in France. It means they’ve already lost thousands of men attempting to hold back the Germans in France and for nothing. It means they’ve lost their main ally, the ally the spent years successfully holding back Germany with in France in WWI and therefore implies that this war is going to be even worse than WWI, which was already unprecedentedly catastrophic. It means they’re alone against Germany and there’s a good chance that Germany will be invading soon. So, when they get this news and the Captain’s reaction is over-excitement, that does not look good for him. Nothing in this brief looks good for him, of course, but he just keeps digging the hole deeper.

Thirteen, his officer’s bearing (which as I mentioned in an earlier post as one of the indicators before Reddy Weddy of him probably not being a very good officer, as he maintains it well in emotionally neutral situations, but once emotions enter the picture it collapses) starts out fine when he’s actually giving the brief and then goes downhill once Havers enters the room and by the time he’s at the window, his body language is just… what are you even doing? He’s practically bouncing. Also, Cap, why are you randomly shouting? And what are you doing with your hands? (I wonder if he started carrying his pointy-stick everywhere because he couldn’t figure out otherwise what to do with his hands.) Of course, all of this is because he’s a magnificent over-excitable creature, but still… not a good look as a CO.

Fourteen, when they show the rest of the personnel in the room during this part of the scene, you can see clearly on the faces of the two men in from to the left of Havers (at ‘I don’t think they’ll be here just yet, sir’) that they think the Captain’s behavior is a joke… they fix their faces back to blank very quickly, but it’s there. I imagine what most of the men under his command felt for him was either ridicule or contempt, sadly. I feel sad for him, because I want my poor gay son to be loved and respected. But he isn’t in this situation and he doesn’t seem to either notice or care about this.  

Fifteen, Havers has to remind the Captain that protocol states they’re supposed to lock down the estate at this point, as the British actually were expecting the Germans to invade after France fell. He shouldn’t have had to have been prompted, particularly not in front of their subordinates.

Sixteen, Havers also has to pretend that the Captain ordered everyone else in the room to go carry out the lockdown, when he didn’t, just shouted vaguely about it being a good idea. Havers then sends them on their way, as it’s clear that in his own excitement, the Captain seems to have forgotten that he’s the one in charge and supposed to be leading and commanding. But I suppose it’s good that Havers took the initiative to get everyone else out of the room as quickly as possible, as this has been literally only like a minute of time, and I’d hate to see how much Cap could embarrass himself in two minutes.

 And there it is. I made this sixteen points long as an illustration of just how ridiculously long sixteen points actually is.  

 I won’t cover the part where the Captain and Havers were alone at the end of this scene, yet, as I’ll include it with the next written bit, which is going to be my analysis of their relationship. That might be a minute, because we’ve reach the end of the parts I actually had significantly written out. I’ve only outlined the Havers relationship section.

#the captain #bbc's ghosts #havers #reddy weddy #the captain was terrible at being a captain #guys help i've put more effort into this analysis of a fictional character than i did for my senior thesis in university

[aveyna]

The Seal of Approval

SUMMARY: In which Nuru liberates a seal, Yong gets adopted, Hugo is a gay pining disaster, and Varian is the sole voice of reason.

Alternatively, Nuru partakes in the age old tradition of toppling a monarchy.

[NOTE] Apparently the desire to see Varian get slapped by a seal was strong, judging by my last post.

AO3 LINK

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“Can I at least take him for everything he’s worth?”

 “For the last time, no, Hugo. You cannot be rude to the king, you cannot antagonize him, you cannot make fun of his beard, and hell, you definitely cannot kill him.” Varian sighs. After their last run in with Donella and her goons, they had just barely made it to the kingdom of Equis. He is only so close to choking this brilliantly stupid idiot with those dumb goggles he refuses to wear like they’re intended to. “I’d like to sleep under a roof for one lousy evening.”

 “Oh, come on, hairstripe. If not thievery, can’t I commit a little murder?” Hugo whines, placing his arm dramatically over his eyes. “What else do I have to live for?”

 It’s during times like these that Varian almost wishes he could go back to the way he used to be, before he and the princess had made amends. His younger self would not have hesitated to kick this sorry excuse of an alchemist to the curb. He loves him, truly, he does. The same can be said for Nuru and Yong, but he has just about had it. He had left on this journey in-search of his mother, but instead, he was stuck on babysitting duty.

 Distantly, he wonders if this is how Eugene felt with his past failures on the hot water boilers. He visibly shudders at the memory.

 No, let’s not think about that.

 “Then die.” Varian glares up at the taller man who was currently leaning on him. Scowling, he removes the other arm that he had perched on-top of his head.

 “Don’t be so heartless,” Hugo laughs. He smirks at Varian, but it softens ever so slightly. It seems almost fond and gentle, but quickly, it is wiped off from his face. “Huh, you really do make for a very nice armrest.”

 “Glad that’s all I’m good for,” Varian grumbles, brows furrowed in annoyance.

 Yong jumps up, waving his arms erratically as if he needed to expend that much effort in garnering Varian’s attention.

 “Yes, Yong?” Varian asks, smiling pleasantly at his shorter friend.

 “You’re also pretty!” Yong says. The color from Hugo’s face immediately drains.

 “Wha—” Varian laughs, but it does nothing to dissuade the complete awkwardness of this situation.

 “That’s what Hugo always says!”

 “Haha, no, my dear Yong,” Hugo exclaims, speaking a bit too fast and loud. He had rushed over to the pyromaniac, clamping his hands over him. “He’s got it completely wrong. I never said you looked pretty.”

 “No, but I heard—” Yong breaks free Hugo’s grip, only to be interrupted.

 “Boys, boys, as entertaining as this may be, we’re drawing a crowd,” Nuru says, lips upturned in a half smile. Her golden eyes are lit up in mirth. Clearly, Varian can tell she finds amusement in his misery.

 He raises his head, and…it looks like her assessment was correct. Surprisingly, a large number of people had gathered, eyes boring into the strange group with varying degrees of confusion and judgment. Yong had immediately jumped at the chance to talk with some kids his age who were conspiratorially whispering to one another as they pointed towards Varian.

 Yong nods, easily blending into the crowd. His expression is resolute as he earnestly listens before turning his eyes towards Varian.

 His feet are nailed to the spot, unable to shirk away from the attention. He feels as if he is a fish out of water, but…he cannot move. His two so-called friends had an iron-clad grip on his arms. “Let’s hear what they have to say. Afterall, we wouldn’t want to disappointment Yong,” Hugo concedes in a mocking fashion.

 If I must suffer, I won’t do it alone, his eyes seem to say.

 “Varian, hey, Varian, guess what—!!” The pyromaniac looks towards his new friends before nodding in understanding once more. “They just told me something really cool! Apparently you’re famous!?”

 Immediately, his reality comes crashing down. With Yong’s well-meaning statement, Varian stumbles back as if he were scathed by boiling water. He has done many things he wasn’t proud of over the course of his life. Varian…he had been hurt. He had hurt others, but, here, in this time and place, this family that he has found…it will all come crashing down. It hurts to look at Yong’s bright expression with the knowledge that it’ll soon morph to one of contempt or even pity. He lowers his head, bangs shrouding his downcast eyes.

 “Hugo, didn’t Varian kidnap the Queen of Corona?”

 His head immediately whips towards Nuru, eyes wide in bewilderment. What in the world—

 “He sure did,” Hugo replies in a dispassionate tone. “What a hypocrite you are, goggles. You forbid me from stealing a single jewel, yet you get to commit attempted murder?”

 They’re…they’re not disappointed in me?

 “Way to hog all the fun for yourself,” Hugo lightly chides, glancing down at Varian in a condescending manner.

 Varian’s eyes are glassy. He feels tears begin to prick at the corner of his eyes, but he hastily wipes at his face. There is so much to unpack here. Does he even deserve their understanding?  Like his father and the king, he had been keeping secrets from his friends. They’d traversed across countless kingdoms and nearly died in the process. They had laughed, cried, shared good and bad moments, but for reasons unbeknownst to him, they still remain by his side.

 With everything they have done by merely staying by his side, he—

 Wait.

 How did they find out!!?

 Hugo adjusts his wire-rimmed glasses as he nonchalantly states, “Don’t shoot us that look, goggles. You’re acting like we kicked your raccoon.”

 At this, Varian’s initial agitation at the infuriating man returns ten-fold.

 “Why you—don’t bring Ruddiger into this!!” Varian seethes, standing up on the tips as he grabs Hugo by the goggles placed over his neck. His threat had come full-circle. Now, he is this close to murdering his fellow alchemist.

 Nuru looks between her two older companions. Earlier, she had found a disconnected amusement in their bickering. She had always been alone growing up; it was hard to find someone close to her age to forge a genuine connection with. But here, with these two moronic geniuses and a kid who would most likely commit grand arson in a few years tops, she felt…included, complete…as if she were not a princess burdened with a heavy task and instead, a normal girl.

 Still, it would be best to calm Varian before he gets a one-way ticket to prison. She cannot possibly understand how he thought they would never find out; the signs were obvious enough!

 “You would not believe how popular books on recent Coronian news are,” Nuru articulates, thinking back to her initial surprise upon finding chapters upon chapters on Varian’s initial [clearly not one-sided] betrayal of their princess and eventual redemption. Under most circumstances she would have had him thrown out of her kingdom, but she had seen his kindness first-hand.

 He had been abandoned when he was young; cast aside by those he had once admired. His problems were definitely more complicated than that, and its connections were deeply entrenched within the machinations of his kingdom and beyond, but—

 If he had gone out of his way to right his wrongs, she could tell he was a good person at heart, and certainly one she would not mind to have right by her side when traversing the great unknown.

 “You also talk in your sleep,” Yong mentions, eager to help out.

 Varian’s jaw drops, mind reeling at their confessions. Various expressions flicker across his face, but his words…clearly do not do his thoughts justice.

 “Oh, shit,” he says.

 Hugo playfully goads the shorter alchemist, attempting to rile him into another argument. “I thought you said no cursing around Yong?”

 The blue-eyed alchemist merely looks past the taller man and points. Curious, Hugo turns.

 “Oh, shit,” Hugo hisses.  

---

Underneath the sunny, brightly lit sky of Equis, Hugo…is confronted with his worst nightmare. No, even that would be too kind a word. Nothing can describe the complete loathing and disgust he feels at this very moment, not when he is face to face with the vilest person he has ever had the misfortune of encountering again. Even six years is not enough time away from this madman.

 Clearly, time had not been kind to him. Not that it had ever been, if Hugo were to be honest.

 Though…now he has a seal.

 That’s new, Hugo offhandedly mutters, staring at the seal wearing a lavish necklace and golden crown while…still hideous, actually shoots him, unlike this man glaring daggers at him.

 Nuru, however, her eyes…they are the brightest that they have ever been. She looks as if she had been struck by an arrow. Hugo looks at her, clearly disturbed at the princess’s…unusual behavior. “What. Is. That!?”

 She is shaking Varian’s shoulders, eyes filled with stars as gazes at the seal in an awed reverence.

 “A seal…?” Varian responds, somewhat worried by Nuru’s words, until…realization dawns on him. “Oh.”

 “He’s…majestic,” she practically shouts, smile impossibly bright. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life.”

 We’ve lost her, Hugo deadpans.

 “What are you four miscreants doing in my kingdom?” the king of Equis, Trevor, demands as he narrows his eyes at the four friends. Quickly, he looks towards the crowd, only to have them quietly disperse, but—

 Not without shooting another curious glance towards their pathetic excuse of a traveling group.

 “I’m sorry about my friends, King Trevor,” Varian murmurs, casting a small glance towards Hugo and the others, as if beckoning them to remain calm and quiet. He looks at Nuru, but she has clearly lost herself to this newfound discovery.

 “Clearly,” the king guffaws. “Wait, I know you from somewhere…”

 His attention immediately snaps towards Varian, who is doing his best to hide behind Hugo. “Save me,” he says.

 I’m sorry. You’re on your own, Varian. Hugo relents, glancing between the alchemist and king.

 “You must be mistaken, I—”

 “Yeah, you’re that alchemist from Corona,” King Trevor utters, voice laced in suspicion. “You’re not working for that fool, Frederic, are you? Trying to steal the secrets of my great kingdom—wanting to overthrow my rule and displace all of my people? Good, hard-working, law abiding people, might I add.”

 Him? Willingly work for the king? He’d rather die.

 Varian’s eyes crinkle in disgust. He may be on good terms with Rapunzel, but it doesn’t mean he wants anything to do with her father. “What, of course not!”

 At his words, King Trevor marches past Hugo, red cape swishing as he levels his eyes with Varian. “You’re lying. Trevor Jr., come here—!!”

 Hugo inaudibly chortles. He named his seal after himself?

 “Arf,” the royal seal states, slowly moving its flippers as it waddles towards them. Its movement is so languid that anxiety begins to fester among their group until…eventually, it finally reaches the king.

 “Go on,” he says, urging his pet seal towards Varian.

 It turns its head towards Varian as it stares into the alchemist’s blue eyes. The alchemist cannot breathe as the seal regards him with a contemplative expression…at least, he thinks the seal is contemplating.

 A moment passes, until, “Arf,” Trevor Jr. says once again.

 He raises a flipper.

 Yong’s hands are pressed to his face; smile impossibly wide as he awaits the royal seal’s verdict.

 “Arf,” the seal barks. The flipper comes down and a resounding slap is heard.

Varian cannot believe this. Did he…

 Did I just get bitch slapped by a seal!!?

 “Arf arf,” Trevor Jr. huffs, head raised high as he turns away from Varian. The king’s eyes light up with a mirthless glee as he clears his throat.

 “Trevor Jr. has spoken,” the king extrapolates. “He is displeased, and for this…you, Varitas, will be sentenced to death.”

 “Actually, his name’s Varian,” Hugo corrects, helping Varian to his feet after he had been knocked over by the seal. He shoots a look towards Nuru, but her hands are pressed against her face, sporting the brightest grin he had ever seen on the princess.

 He should be more sympathetic, but this is just too good to pass up. Sniggering, Hugo says, “Can’t believe a seal rejected you.”

 Varian glares at the older alchemist, but…screw this. He is too done with this day. All he wanted was one peaceful day. Just one, but instead, here he was…public enemy number one again…and Trevor Jr.’s surprisingly hard slap certainly didn’t help.

 He makes a move to retort, only for his words to be broken off by laughter.

 “I think he likes me,” Yong cackles, petting the seal, eyes starry in wonder and amazement.

 A whirlwind of thoughts goes off in his head; the weasel-like king seems genuinely conflicted, before casting a fond smile at the seal. He visibly sighs. “As much as it pains me to this say this, your execution…will be put off for now. Your little friend has gained the trust of Trevor Jr, so—”

 No.

 “He has gotten—” Time stands to a halt as Varian stares at the king in horror.

 Don’t say it, he and Hugo internally scream. Yong seems oblivious, but Nuru…she has lost herself to the cuteness of the seal.

 “—The seal of approval.”

 Varian cringes. “Just kill me now.”

 The taller alchemist merely pats his back in understanding. He, too, is visibly shaken by…the king’s choice of words. “Only if you kill me first.”

 King Trevor looks towards Yong as if he were an ant. “Feel blessed, child. I do not know why, but my Trevor Jr. has taken a liking to you.”

 “Do not disappointment him,” he yells at the sky, both fists curled into balls at his sides. “He is my baby; the only person in this world that I hold near and dear to my heart. Whatever Trevor Jr. says is the law.”

 “I’m Yong,” the alchemist exclaims an introduction. He looks up at the king in amazement. “Woah, are you two wearing matching clothes!? That’s. So. Cool!”

 The king audibly deflates, at a loss for words.

 “I like your beard; it’s fancy! Do you think I’ll get a fancy beard when I grow up?”

 No, no, please don’t, Varian laments. He had gone that route once upon a time. Those fingerless gloves, fanged bandana, the goatee. Yong should not commit the same mistakes he had committed in his past.

 “Oh, you do?” King Trevor says, twirling his mustache. “You never know, eh, but…probably. You look just like me in my youth. Just, nowhere near as tall. Or handsome.”

 “He does?” Hugo deadpans.

 “Of course he does! Can you not see the resemblance, boy?” the king barks. “We look exactly alike. Why, he’s practically the son I never wanted.”

 “Does this mean I have two dads now? And a mom?” The pyromaniac tilts his head in confusion. “I don’t remember them getting a divorce.”

 King Trevor pauses, contemplating Yong’s words for a moment. “I guess you do now.”

 “Well, eventually, I will need a successor, and seeing that I have no children, why not?” He glances at his seal. “If Trevor Jr. approves of you, who am I to judge?”

 Yong’s hands are clasped together, clearly ecstatic. The sight is so blinding that Varian almost has to shield his eyes. “Which one of my parents did you marry?”

 “Eh, who cares,” King Trevor dismisses.

 The pyromaniac presses his hands to his face, mouth forming a silent ‘o’. “Just wait until I tell my siblings!”

 “Follow me, Yoshi,” the king says, as he walks away from the other three teens. “There’s so much you must learn about Equis if you want to rule over my kingdom with an iron fist.”

 “Don’t you mean kind and just?” Yong says, eyes starry and impossibly bright.

 “Oh, silly, naïve Yoro,” the king chides. “You have so much to learn.”

 “Hold on, you can’t take Yong,” Varian exclaims in anger, placing himself between the Yong, the king, and Trevor Jr.

 A moment passes…complete and utter silence. The king raises his hand, but—

 “It’s fine, Varian!” Yong beams. “Guess this is my life now.”

 “No, Yong, it’s not fine—”

 “Trust me,” the shorter boy says. His expression darkens, but Varian must have been imagining it. “I need to make my father proud; I’m sure you understand.”

 The alchemist makes a move to run after Yong and the king, but Trevor Jr. had gotten in the way—lethargically following after the unlikely duo, but not before casting one final look of complete loathing at Varian. He shirks back on himself, the memories from the previous grueling minutes replaying in his mind.

 As he watches their retreating forms disappear into the distance, Varian makes a vow. “I’ll save you even if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

 “May the moon have mercy on his soul,” Hugo snarks, slightly concerned…but not for Yong. Oh no, definitely not for him.

 “I’ve met the moon,” Varian responds. “Personally, not her biggest fan.”

 ---

 Meanwhile, Hugo is waving his hand over the dazed princess. “Goggles, I think she’s broken.”

“I’ve never seen anyone so perfect in my life,” Nuru squeals, hugging Varian as she recalls the wondrous sea creature. “We don’t have anything like him back in my kingdom.”

 “Have…you seriously never seen a seal?” Varian asks, dumfounded.

 “When you grow up in a kingdom constantly bombarded by meteors, you…don’t get much in the way of wildlife,” Nuru responds, an intense gaze in her eyes as she jumps up. Resolutely, she looks forward, determination laced in her voice. “I’m going to rescue Trevor Jr. from that wretched king.”

 “You’ll start a war if you do that, Nuru.” Perhaps it had been the stressful day that he has had. Afterall, he was slapped by a seal, only to be nearly executed. Yong was whisked away by a king, and Nuru wants to steal a seal. Somehow, his only ally in this madness was the source of his many, many migraines. Varian leans in to Hugo, sighing as he closes his eyes in tiredness. “The king will be after our heads.”

 A luminescent blush forms on his face as Varian leans against him. The alchemist had always been oblivious to his attempts at courting him. That, or downright sadistic in his dismissals. He’d rather be turned down right then and there rather than holding onto false hope. Even if he were to tell Varian directly that he liked him, the alchemist, bless his poor, oblivious heart, would merely smile and say, “I like you too, Hugo. You’re a good friend.”

 But now, with Princess Nuru on the hunt for blood, and Yong somehow becoming royalty, he…can make his move. Finally, this will be his one and only chance. The perfect moment to ask the shorter alchemist out on a date.

 “No fair,” Nuru says, sticking her tongue out at Varian.

 Since when has she been such a brat, Varian wonders in sheer exhaustion and annoyance.

 “Worry not, goggles,” Hugo laughs, glancing over at Nuru as she makes a hasty [and certainly not discrete] exit. “She’s at that age when there’s only one thing on her mind.”

 “Homicide?” Varian mumbles, burying his face onto Hugo’s arm.

 “No. Well, yes, but aren’t we all?” the bespectacled man replies sincerely. “She’s partaking in the age-old tradition of over-throwing the monarchy.”

 “Oh.”

 “Absolutely right you are, hairstripe,” Hugo responds, squinting as he gazes up at the sky. Quite some time had passed; he’s sure it’s well past lunch with the insanity that they had been pulled into. “So….”

 “Sooooooo,” Varian says. “Want to grab a bite to eat?”

 “Hell yes,” Hugo beams.

---

 After breaking away from Varian and Hugo, Nuru had made off towards the castle. Certainly, it was not easy to miss—the sight of its gaudy walls was impossible to not see even from a distance. She was never one for physically taxing activities such as running across a large populated city, but with the powers of sheer determination and spite, she was ready as she would ever be.

 With a seal to save, Nuru knew she could accomplish anything.

 Sneaking into the castle was easy enough…surprisingly, or not. King Trevor did not have much in the way of military or police, but what he did have…were portraits of himself. A chill ran down her spine as she avoided the smarmy gaze of the portraits, who, while a fraction as annoying as the king…did not amount to much.

 “I’ll save you, Trevor Jr.,” she promises, as she crosses past yet another seal statue.

 Only the sounds of her nimble footsteps break the paper-thin stillness of the castle. For a place that should be brimming with life [especially as it is the daytime], she had not seen eye or flipper of any humans or seals. The lunar princess continues to walk in silence, but there it is. She detects movement at the corner of her eye.

 It is soft, quiet, as if…someone else were sneaking around. Could this be an ally or a foe? Both outcomes were possible in a kingdom with a king like Trevor.

 Nuru darts behind a seal statue, waiting quietly, anxious as to whom she will possibly see. She waits and waits…

 Another moment passes, but the mystery person never arrives.

 “Guess I was worried over nothing,” Nuru laughs, still feeling a bit uneasy and agitated over what could have been.

 “Hiya, Nuru!!”

 She certainly did not jump up in surprise at the sound of Yong’s voice. If anyone asks, she…saw a spider. Yes, that was it. That was definitely, most certainly the one and only reason.

 Somehow, without her notice, he had snuck past her…and has discovered her hiding place behind the gaudy [begrudgingly cute] seal statue.

 “What are you doing here?” they both simultaneously ask.

 “You first,” they both say.

 Yong beams up at her, hand pressed over his heart. “I want to make my father proud.”

 “Oh,” Nuru responds, struggling between her emotions of rescuing Trevor Jr., destroying Equis, and not disappointing Yong…which would be an inexcusable in and of itself. She’s about to say more, but the shorter boy merely pulls at her sleeve.

 “Are you planning to take Trevor Jr.?” Yong is not looking at her. Rather, his gaze is directed somewhere far ahead.

 “What if I say I am?” the princess inquires, arms crossed in defiance. Her loyalty towards him is great, but the seal…it beckons to her with its smart, inquisitive ‘arf’. “What will you do then, Yong?”

 He is silent. Nuru feels beads of sweat roll down her face in anticipation. Another moment passes, and then another, until…Yong beams up at her with the cheeriest expression she had yet ever seen on him or any other person. “Will it make my father proud if we release Trevor Jr. into the sea?”

 She narrows her eyes at Yong, searching his face for any signs of betrayal or trickery. But…there is nothing. Only a hint of mischief in his smile. “Yes,” she concedes. “I suppose it will make him proud.”

 At this, Yong cackles, hands raised to his sides as one would see on a mad scientist. Maybe…he has been spending too much time with Varian, Nuru notes, slightly disturbed and yet…impressed.

---

 Honestly, Hugo does not know what to make of this situation. They had been off in-search of the perfect sandwich shop [he wanted to spend time with Varian, but he wasn’t lying. It was well past three and he was starving], but…he got neither a date nor a sandwich. Instead, he was granted the fortune of sneaking into a stupid king’s castle and no lunch. He at least had Varian by his side, but…he really wanted food. Even a cracker would do at this point.

 He had originally thought the princess to be prissy and snuck-up like the nobles back home, but she had quickly gone above his expectations. Hugo could nearly cry at the proud feelings he felt as he saw her sneak into the castle.

 Nuru was completely insane. She was feral in her attempts to rescue this seal through and through, and he could not get any prouder.

 Truly, he was proud of her. He would very much like to shake her hand under any given circumstance and take her under his wing, but now…he is just irritated and very hungry. How long they had been wandering the corridors of this castle, he does not know. He eyes glance down towards Varian, and…yeah. The shorter alchemist definitely looks to be on edge, not that the [creepy] portraits the king had ‘decorated’ the castle with have done to help.

 Hell, they…had stumbled upon one room in-which King Trevor had taped his face on top of a family portrait…which he had somehow stolen(?) from the king of Corona. It was very, very creepy. He and Varian are both convinced that he is stalking the poor queen, but…that is a disturbing problem for another day. Faces blank, they both sped walked out of that room, eyes downcast underneath the watchful gaze of the Queen Arianna and his royal travesty, King Trevor.

 “Ugh, where do you think Nuru ran off to?” Hugo complains, cringing at yet another excessively ornate and gaudy portrait of the king.

 Varian shoots him a quick glance. “If I knew, we wouldn’t be here.”

 Their steps continue across the empty castle…really, the sight is rather eerie if Hugo were to be honest. Unfortunately, their luck had just about run out. Rounding a corner, there…are two guards sporting the official crest of Equis.

 “Great, just our luck,” Varian sighs. The guards seem to have heard their voices. Quickly, the younger alchemist grabs his hand before shoving the both of them into a broom closet. It’s rather small, and uncomfortable, but…hopefully, the guards will not think to look here.

 “This cannot possibly be your brilliant plan, goggles,” Hugo deadpans, trying no to stammer at how close they are.

 Varian merely rolls his eyes at the taller alchemist. “Oh, just shut up and kiss me.”

 Hugo locks eyes with Varian, mouth agape as the goggles he wears around his neck are grabbed until he is at eye-level with the alchemist. His mind is floundering. He cannot think, cannot speak, and Varian…his eyes had always been so blue. But, they almost seem to be glowing…or maybe it’s the theoretical sparks that he had always heard about literally igniting in his head. He had always prided himself on his persona—the suave playboy act that he had crafted for himself.

 And yet, all it took was for a smart, stupid, but surprisingly kind alchemist to undo all of his hard work.

 He makes a move to say something, but Varian merely glares past him.

 “Do you mind?” the shorter alchemist drawls, voice as sharp and scathing as a freshly sharpened knife. Hugo inwardly protests at Varian’s withdrawal, but he is still reeling. Had…Varian finally realized his feelings for him? Were his affections finally reciprocated?

 “Ahem,” a guard coughs into the crook of his arm, eyes averted from Varian’s icy gaze. “Sorry for interrupting you two. Uh, carry on……”

"Lousy teenagers,' Hugo hears them say.

Varian listens to their footsteps fade away before devolving into a fit of laughter. He wipes at his eyes, grinning brightly at Hugo as he helps him out of the broom closet. “I can’t believe that worked!”

 “Yeah, I’ll say,” Hugo responds, still clearly dazed. Wait…worked? Was this a setup!?

 As he listens to Varian drone on about ‘The Adventures of Flynn Rider’, his face must be undeniably crestfallen. All it takes is one look for the dark-haired alchemist to immediately shut up. Now silent, the duo continues to walk across the marble floors of the castle with only the gaudy decorations adorning its walls for company.

 Varian wants to break the silence somehow, but there’s something off about Hugo. His demeanor had soured, but it’s not even just that. He seems more agreeable and not at all his usual sarcastic self. There are no taunts or joking retorts. The bespectacled man merely seems to be lost in his own thoughts. It should be a welcome change, but considering everything that they had gone through this day, he cannot help but worry. He raises his head and reaches for Hugo, only to jump up in surprise at the large cacophony of wild laughter and screams coming from down the hall.

 Their senses are immediately filled with the bitter scent of smoke, and…yeah. Looks like they found Yong, and…judging by the sound of rushing water, they’d bet Nuru was there with him.

 Without giving it a second thought, Varian grabs Hugo’s hand and races down the hallway with him in tow.

 In other circumstances, Hugo would complain. But with Varian, he would follow him til’ the ends of the earth.

 “REVOLUTION!! FREEDOM FOR ALL!” Nuru cackles as she races down the hall with not just Trevor Jr. following her, but another seal with a slightly smaller crown. “We will not stand for this tyranny any longer, isn’t that right, Yong!?”

“Stick it to the man!” Yong pumps his fists into the air. He, too, has decided to partake in this bout of teenage rebellion. The hallway is billowing gray smoke, and they can hear the angered screams of…what appears to be the king.

 Varian stares at Trevor Jr.

 The seal stares back.

 ---

 Somehow, despite everything, they have finally made it out of the kingdom of Equis [relatively] unscathed. Varian is sure he may have lost a bit of his sanity, but…that would not be the first time it happened. And he is sure it most certainly will not be the last.

 As he looks back towards Nuru and her new seal brethren, he is sure of it.

 The kingdom of Equis may have sworn vengeance against them and their descendents for generations to come, but…Varian can live with that. But what he cannot possibly understand, however, is Yong’s toothy grin. It is unsettling with just how plain cheery this boy can be. If he could, he’d ignore it. But, Yong’s incessant wide-eyed gaze will not cease until he gets to say whatever it is in that strange, strange, terrifying mind of his.

 “Yes, Yong, what is it?” Varian sighs for the umpteenth time that day.

 Yong beams up at the alchemist. “Do you think my dad will finally be proud of me?”

 Why, I don’t know, Yong, he murmurs to himself. He had set King Trevor’s castle on fire, lied, cheated, and stolen his royal seal… “Yeah, I guess.”

 “Great,” Yong chirps. “Maybe now I’ll be the favorite child!”

 At this, the three older teens stop in the tracks, staring mouths agape at the would-be arsonist.

 “Dad hates King Trevor,” the short boy explains, grinning up at his friends. “Something about a fireworks deal gone wrong…”

 His sentence falls into obscurity. But, these are words best left unsaid.

 “Well, you’re my favorite,” Hugo quips, patting Yong on the head.

 “Agreed,” Nuru replies. “You can do no wrong.”

 Varian looks from Hugo to Nuru to Yong.

 He shrugs.

 Yeah, he can do no wrong.

#Tangled #Tangled the Series #Varian and the Seven Kingdoms #Varian #Varian Tangled #Hugo the Human #Nuru Tangled #Yong Tangled #Varigo #Fanfic

[icedthoma]

like, like you

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x Reader (x Todoroki Shouto??)

Summary: He’s the one who turned you down, so why is Bakugou feeling jealous when he sees you with Todoroki?

Notes: Multiple POV switches, also if this sounds kind of dead it’s because I died rewriting it after tumblr deleted my first version :)))

“If you keep pining after him, nothing’s going to happen!” 

You sighed and hugged your pillow closer to your chest, curling up into a ball on your bed as you looked at your pink friend from the corner of your eye. “I don’t know...maybe it’s better that way?” 

“Listen. If anyone has a chance with Bakugou Katsuki, it’s you,” Mina said. “You two are close friends, right?”

“If by close friend meaning one he doesn’t threaten to incinerate as much as everyone else,” Jirou said from where she was dealing Uno cards to Ochako and Asui on your floor. 

“Which is an achievement in itself,” Uraraka mumbled. 

“I say you should ask him out,” Ashido said. 

“Okay, I’ll do it!” you said, sitting upright on your bed and looking at your friends with shining eyes. 

“You will?” Asui asked. “You’re really going to do it?” 

“Yeah!” you said. “I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?” 

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

“What do you mean he said no?” 

“I mean I told him how I felt, asked him out to lunch this weekend, and he literally said no. To the lunch...and my feelings,” you said matter-of-factly. 

“You seem less...affected than I would think,” Asui said. Trust your amphibian friend to always speak her mind. 

“Hey, would you want to catch lunch with us instead over the weekend?” Uraraka offered. “That should cheer you up.”

You gladly accepted. “Thanks, guys. I should be completely over this in no time.”

one week later

“Is everything okay with Y/n?” Ochako asked, watching as you exited the common room with slumped shoulders. “She’s not her usual self.” You had opted to skip game night claiming that “you were tired,” which was so unlike you. 

You had seemed fine and acted totally normal when you and the girls went out to lunch that past weekend, but now it seemed that your emotions had only gone downhill from there. 

“I thought she was over him?” Mina hissed, glaring daggers at the boy in question’s back. “I feel so bad...” 

“I’ll talk to her,” Ochako said, and got out of her seat to go after you. 

“What’s up?” you asked once she had caught up with you, attempting to sound cheery and upbeat. 

“You’re clearly still hung up over Bakugou,” Uraraka said right away. “I thought you said you were over him?” 

“I thought I was over him,” you sighed. “I really did. It’s just...every time I look at him, I’m reminded of why I fell for him in the first place. And it was so embarrassing...” 

“We’re all worried for you, and hate seeing you this sad,” Ochako went on. “It’s not healthy to dwell in the past, you know?”

“Okay, fine! We’re just friends. Just. Friends. And I’m okay with that! I am thoroughly in the process of moving on,” you said earnestly. “Convinced?”

“Right,” Ochako said, even though it seemed like the only person you were trying to convince was yourself. 

Move on. Maybe you could do that. 

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

“She’s dating who?” 

“T--Todoroki,” Kaminari stammered, raising his hands defensively and stepping back. “Don’t ask me anything, I only heard it from Jirou! Why do you care so much?”

“That’s none of your business, idiot!” Bakugou bit back a snarl and stalked off. 

Even he would admit, he could have been...nicer when turning you down, and given more than just a curt no. He couldn’t get your slightly hurt expression out of his mind. But you always found it in yourself to assume the best of him and forgive him whenever he messed up. It’s what made him like you so much. 

But not, like, like you, of course.

Heading back to his floor, he noticed two figures in front of your room. You were standing with your back to your closed door as Todoroki stood in front of you. 

“Good night, Todoroki-kun,” you were saying, reaching up to cup his cheek with one hand. 

“Good night, Y/L/N-chan,” he whispered back, turning his face to press a soft kiss to your palm. You laughed and withdrew, waving goodbye as Todoroki left for the stairs that lead to his floor and room. You turned around and finally noticed Bakugou, who tried to act like he had just arrived and didn’t see you being so disgustingly sweet with Todoroki Shouto, of all people--

“Hey,” you said brightly. 

“So, you’re dating Half and Half,” Bakugou said, scuffing the floor with the tip of his shoe. 

“Yes?” you said, carefully studying Bakugou’s face for any hints as to what he may be thinking. Under your penetrating stare, he couldn’t meet your eyes and looked away. 

“Did he ask you out or--”

“I asked,” you said bluntly, not saying anything as to his sudden interest in your love life. “And he said yes.” His gaze snapped to yours despite himself, but there was no trace of spite in your eyes. “It’s okay, I understand,” you said unexpectedly. 

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing’s going to change just because I’m dating Todoroki,” you said, stepping closer to him and placing a reassuring hand on his arm. “We’ll still be friends, right?”

“Right,” he echoed dully. 

“Well, see you tomorrow!” you said, and as the door to your room shut behind you, Bakugou found himself staring at the space you had just filled. 

What just happened?

After that encounter, it seemed like you were always on his mind. He couldn’t get you out of his head. Even in class, whenever he would zone out for a minute or two, his gaze would unconsciously drift over to where you sat, always taking notes. 

That was when he began to notice things. 

Like how you would twirl your pencil between your fingers when thinking about a problem, getting graphite all over your hand. How you would tuck that ever-present stray lock of hair behind your ear with a shy smile every time you were complimented. How you would grab Todoroki’s arm so you could pull him down and press your beaming mouth to his cheek--

It was stupid, really, but it was at these times when he wondered what on earth you had seen in him in the first place.

But if he saw you kiss Todoroki one more time he swore he was going to throw up. 

Bakugou gritted his teeth and ran his hands angrily through his hair. Why did he care, anyway? Because you’re his friend, he reminded himself. And he did not like, like you.

So how could he explain how he was feeling something like jealousy every time he looked at you and Shouto?

Damn, maybe he did like, like you.

Figures that he would only realize it now.

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

Something was definitely up with Bakugou. He had always been an...aggressive individual, but lately he seemed to be even more pissed than usual, especially toward Todoroki.

Determined to get to the bottom of this, you tried to talk to him in homeroom. And at lunch. And in math. But every time, your attempts at conversation were always thwarted.

It made you wonder if he was purposefully avoiding you.

During dinner, (consisting of several bad puns courtesy of Kaminari) you saw Bakugou slip out of the dining hall early.

“Hey, guys, I’ll be right back,” you said, and headed after him. “There’s something I have to do.”

He was about to climb the stairs when you caught up to him. “Hey, wait!”

“What do you want?” Bakugou said stiffly.

“A conversation? I know something’s been bothering you, but--”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Go back to the dining hall.”

“But I’m your friend, right? You can talk to me,” you say. Bakugou’s face tightened at your emphasis of the word.

“Why don’t you go talk to your boyfriend instead?” he retorted.

That was it. You had been putting up with his attitude towards Todoroki, apologizing his actions away and always being able to forgive, but this is the final straw. 

“What is your problem?” you yelled, surprising even Bakugou with your burst of emotion. “You’ve been nothing but mean to Todoroki...and me! I don’t know what I’ve been doing wrong, or why you’re being distant!” 

“I-”

“Is this all because you don’t approve of me dating Todoroki or something?” 

“This is all because I’m in love with you, idiot!” he shouted.

You stumbled back, shocked. “No,” you said. “Don’t call me an idiot. I pined after you for months, and you turned me down. Now that I’ve moved on, you’re really doing this to me now?” You were almost on the verge of tears.  

“I...I didn’t know until now.” His voice is soft and broken, a tone you never imagined coming out of his mouth.

You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you cry, or the opportunity to comfort you. As you turned abruptly to leave, to just get away like he obviously wants you to, he called after you one more time. 

“So I don’t stand a chance?” 

You paused. “That’s the sad part,” you said with a bitter smile, not bothering to turn around. “You did once.”                  

#im living for that todoroki palm kiss okay #bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #mha x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #mha fanfiction #bnha bakugou #bnha bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #bakugou fanfic #todoroki shoto x reader #x reader #bnha x reader #todoroki shoto #angst

[notapaladin]

a little mystery to figure out

The rumors reaching Nezahual’s ears can’t be true. They suggest that Tenochtitlan’s Master of the House of Darts and the High Priest for the Dead are...together, and Nezahual’s met Acatl. No, Teomitl is clearly going to be pining forever.

He decides to visit his sister city, and learns much more than he really wanted to.

Also on AO3!

-

Not for the first time, Nezahual reflected that his life couldn’t get any better than this. He was a healthy young ruler with slaves to serve his every whim and his pick of lovely, inventive concubines to share his mat; he had only to wave a hand, and a dozen servants would rush to attend him. The mat spread out in his palace gardens boasted two thick cloaks and a deer pelt to cushion his reclining form, and above him a pair of noisy motmots fluttered like living jewels.

By his side, his current favorite concubine—Miyahuaxochitl—picked up a delicately carved rosette of fruit, studying it for a moment before popping it into her mouth. “Hm.”

He put an arm around her, pulling her a little closer. “Is it not to your taste?”

She thought for a moment and shook her head. “No, my lord, it is. Forgive me, I was only...thinking.”

“Oh?” It wasn’t an accusatory question—of course she was entitled to the contents of her own head, though he’d never been especially impressed by her sagacity—but she flinched anyway. He registered, belatedly, that he’d been using what his childhood playmates had called the “creepy snake face,” the one that supposedly made him look like a rattlesnake eyeing a bird’s nest. It wasn’t like he could help being curious, but when you were an agent of Quetzalcoatl, that apparently came with side effects. Oops.

At least she got over her unease quickly. “About the tales you told of your last visit to Tenochtitlan. Working with Teomitl-tzin and Acatl-tzin.”

“...Thinking about other men?” He smiled.

“Not like that.” As he hope she would, she shoved him lightly and pretended to take offense. “I was wondering how Teomitl-tzin’s marriage is going. I don’t like to think of anyone being unhappy in love.”

“His wife is the Guardian of the Duality in Tenochtitlan.” And absolutely the most terrifying woman I’ve ever met. Too bad Teomitl snatched her up first. We might have killed each other, but gods, I’d die happy. He twined a lock of Miyahuaxochitl’s hair around his fingers. “I’m sure it’s going fine.”

She didn’t seem soothed. Her gaze drifted over the sparkling water of the nearest fountain as she replied, “...Well...yes, my lord, but…”

“But?”

For a long moment, she silently traced meaningless patterns over his bare chest. It tickled, but not enough for him to be distracted from her words when she finally spoke. “It’s only that...you mentioned he seemed awfully close with her brother.”

“Acatl is his teacher.” But even as he spoke, his mind whirled. The pup is often angry—I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s his base emotional state—but when Acatl was accused of treason...gods, he was frantic, and not on his own behalf. And there’s the way he looks at him when Acatl can’t see him... Nobody looks at another person like that if they aren’t at least a bit infatuated.

Miyahuaxochitl had clearly reached the same conclusion far ahead of him. He mentally revised his opinion of her brainpower. “Mm. That’s...not the kind of closeness I mean…”

Anyone who could do the things she could with her tongue had no business blushing like that at a mere insinuation. And she hasn’t even seen them together. I swear the only time Teomitl wasn’t glaring at something was when he was looking at Acatl. “You really think so?”

She nodded. “I listen when the slaves talk amongst themselves. They all say that when those two were guests at your summer palace, they seemed...very close. And some of the merchants, too—rumor has it that Acatl-tzin never used to even step foot in the palace until he met Teomitl-tzin, and now he’s there all the time.”

He found himself remembering the last time he’d been in their combined presence. The bloodstained courtyard. The ghosts. The ahuizotls, all teeth and claws. And the way Teomitl had looked at Acatl, even with his sword drawn and visions of the Turquoise-and-Gold crown filling his head. Well. That would certainly explain a lot. I wonder if...no. If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I’d question whether Acatl even had blood in his veins. The poor pup is doomed.

The thought made him grin. There was, after all, a way for his life to improve—watching Teomitl splutter in impotent rage. “I think it’s time I spend a week in Tenochtitlan again.”

&

Pomp and circumstance were, of course, the prerogative of a Revered Speaker traveling to an allied city. But for once, Nezahual found himself curious as to what would happen if he took the subtle approach. Accordingly, his boat docked in the Atempan calpulli—if the memories of his spies served, Acatl had been from there—and he prepared himself for a nice, long walk on a sunny day. He’d even taken the steps of leaving his guards with the boat and most of his jewelry; they would follow an hour or so behind, to be ready in case he needed them. Meanwhile, in his least elaborate cloak, he could pass for a nobleman’s child instead of an Emperor for a day.

Ah, the sacrifices he made for the sake of information.

For being the domain of peasants, the calpulli really wasn’t as shabby as he’d imagined it would be. Children ran underfoot just as they did in the outskirts of his own city, and women called to each other as they spun thread and ground corn. He’d been walking for perhaps half an hour, heading deeper into the city, when he heard a name that gave him pause.

A group of women had gathered in an open courtyard to spin maguey fibers; one, middle-aged, sat down on the outside of their little circle and commented, “Saw our Acatl the other day.”

Acatl was a common name, but the degree of pride in her voice suggested he was more than just a fellow peasant. If he squinted, he thought he could make out a certain family resemblance—that girl shared his nose, and that woman had a precise copy of his jaw. Cousins, then. He made a production of stretching and leaning against the wall of the opposite house, for all the world as though he was fascinated by the birds in the tree branches above, and watched as a woman with red ribbons twined through her marriage braids perked up noticeably at her words. “Oh? How’s he doing?”

Their arbiter of knowledge grinned as she set her spindle whirling. “Seemed to be doin’ quite well for himself; had a nice new pair of silver earrings and all.”

Now that was interesting; Acatl was entitled to a degree of splendor as a High Priest, but her tone suggested he’d only recently begun to take advantage of it. Red Ribbons nudged the woman next to her. “Remember when he went off to calmecac and announced he’d stay on as a priest? His parents were furious!”

General sighs around the circle. Nezahual privately marked down Acatl’s parents as idiots.

A buxom woman in a flower-embroidered blouse muttered, “What a waste.”

Though this mildly blasphemous statement seemed to meet with some approval, the older woman let out a defensive huff. “Hey—he’s an excellent priest! Our Acatl, a High Priest!”

Flower Blouse sighed wistfully, a motion which did interesting things to her chest. “I know, Auntie. I’m sure you’re proud. But...he’s so handsome.”

There were collective nods. One girl clasped a hand to her chest and gazed wistfully up at the heavens, as though the mere thought of Acatl was enough to send her into rapture. Nezahual raised an eyebrow. While that is certainly an apt enough descriptor if you’re into older men, his personality...then again, I do seem to have a knack for running into him in stressful times. Stressful times he’d occasionally caused, but that was besides the point.

Red Ribbons looked thoughtful. “No wonder all the girls were so upset. Remember Huchimitl?”

A slender woman with her hair in a maiden’s plait smirked at her. “Just the girls? Because I remember your husband, when he was young—”

“Her husband, then? My brother, now! You should have heard him when he was at the boy’s calmecac, it was all Acatl-tzin this and Acatl-tzin that—“

“Girls!” Their auntie aimed a scorching glare around the circle, and all five of them suddenly found their spindles utterly fascinating. “You should be ashamed, gossiping like that about our High Priest for the Dead!”

The maiden was either brave or suicidal. “Auntie, you started it…”

“I was merely telling you what I saw!” She sniffed. “Ridiculous girl, it’s hardly my fault if our Acatl wants to finally take advantage of his place in the world—the Duality knows it took him long enough. Why, I remember when you all were young...”

Judging by the assembled eye-rolls and badly stifled groans, it seemed she was about to break into one of the dreaded When I Was Your Age speeches bemoaned by younger generations everywhere. Nezahual had heard his fair share as a child, and had no intention of staying and listening to this one.

Accordingly, he pushed off from the wall and continued on his way with a thoughtful hum. Clearly, Teomitl would have significant competition in the—vanishingly unlikely, he’d seen the way Acatl reacted to the suggestion of sexual intercourse—event of Acatl ever breaking his vows of chastity. Still, he mused. New earrings, for a man who never wears any. The pup must be trying very hard.

Hm. His last meal had been just after dawn, and he was getting hungry. The market should be packed at this time of day, and he had an excellent memory of a certain old grandmother’s tamales. He steered himself towards it.

&

Tenochtitlan’s main market was, indeed, packed. He felt the cacao beans and gold-filled quills wrapped in his cloak, gaze drifting over stalls selling jewelry and knives and caged animals. A woman on a spread-out blanket was haggling intently over the price of a caged parrot; her neighbor was trying desperately to interest a sacred courtesan in a length of orange cotton. At another time he might have bought both—he could always use a sacrifice to Xochiquetzal, just to be polite—but the smell of roasted meat was distracting.

He wound up buying two tamales, leaning against a tree to eat them just in time to avoid bumping into a porter with a load of bulky, fragile feather fans. Quetzal feathers predominated, a blazing iridescent green, but he spied bright blue cotinga and the delicate reddish-pink of spoonbill feathers as well. They were fit for a nobleman, if not the imperial court itself, and he wondered which featherworker’s shop had turned them out.

They were apparently quite impressive to the merchant manning a blanket full of wicker baskets, who remarked, “...Big order.”

The porter shrugged, adjusting his hold as the topmost fan made a bid for freedom from its carrying strap. “Oh, these? Straight to the Temple of Mictlantecuhtli.”

“Again?!”

“Yep.”

The merchant blinked slowly. “...Tlaloc’s green dick, who died?”

Another shrug. The errant fan hit the ground, and he swore as he knelt to pick it up. “Nobody important, so far as I know. At least, not recently.”

Given the way the merchant leaned forward, eyes gleaming as he lowered his voice, he’d come to the same conclusion Nezahual was rapidly arriving at himself. Such expensive feathers were either payments for services rendered, or...well. Payments for services you hoped would be rendered. Nezahual stopped chewing momentarily, the better to eavesdrop on the man’s murmur of “Must be a personal gift.”

That got a snort and a badly hidden grin. “Dunno why they bother. Acatl-tzin’s just gonna sell ‘em and give the proceeds to the poor anyway.”

“Pft, you have no romance in your soul—oh, I’ll let you go.” He’d spotted a potential customer, and beamed encouragingly at the woman who’d made the mistake of getting too close with intent to buy.

As the porter trudged off, Nezahual returned his focus to his lunch. They were really excellent tamales, spiced meat punctuated by the sharp bite of roasted chilies. He wondered if the woman who sold them would be interested in moving to Texcoco. It’s generally frowned upon to kidnap your allies’ citizens, but I might just risk it for more of these. It wasn’t like Tizoc would care, after all. Acatl might—the man was irritatingly principled—but a man who would sell that many expensive gifts to feed the poor probably wouldn’t complain too strenuously if one old woman got a new job in Nezahual’s palace kitchens.

He shook his head, biting back the smirk that wanted to escape. Poor, stupid Teomitl. That’s not a man that can be bribed onto your mat.

A pair of market girls passed by arm in arm, snapping their gum. He was about to tune them out, but their chatter snuck into his ears anyway.

The one in the pink blouse had a particularly chirpy voice; it would be just the thing to cheer him up after a tedious day, as long as she never brought up her current conversational topic again. “Did you really see the Master of the House of Darts down by the knife-seller the other day?”

Her companion—pale blue skirt, yellow makeup—nodded cheerfully. “Mm-hmm!”

A long, wistful sigh. “Mihmatini-tzin is so lucky.”

Blue Skirt puffed her cheeks out thoughtfully. “I wonder when he’ll take a concubine or two…”

That earned her a cheerful, laughing shove. “What, you think you’ll stand a chance?”

She was promptly shoved back, nearly colliding with a young man carrying a load of blankets as she cackled. “I just might!”

The joy in both girls’ faces was infectious, and Nezahual found himself with a genuine grin. Pink Blouse was smirking widely at her friend, showing off teeth that had been dyed a brilliant red. “You’ve got some competition, don’t you?”

“...Hm. I guess so. But...Teomitl-tzin’s really handsome.”

While Nezahual found himself regretting his decision to go incognito—neither girl had noticed him, and he was sure they’d revise their opinion of Teomitl’s supposed good looks if a better option presented himself—Pink Blouse let out a crack of laughter. “Hah!” Gum snapped cheerfully between her teeth as she added, “You’re not the only one who thinks so, I’ll tell you!”

He wondered who those people were—besides Mihmatini, who was proof positive that love made you blind and stupid. Nobody who looked that much like Tizoc could be that handsome, surely. Maybe on a foggy night. At a good distance. But before they could elaborate, he lost them in the crowd.

Both tamales were becoming distant memories, and he closed his eyes against the glare of the day to ponder his next move. Atempan and the markets had been enlightening, but they wouldn’t give him the answers he sought. He knew the palace would be his best bet, but there would be questions and politics and Tizoc there, none of which he especially felt like dealing with. At least not yet.

The Sacred Precinct was on his way, so he’d walk slowly. And if he engaged in the time-honored pastime of flirting with the next pretty girl he saw, that was absolutely besides the point.

&

It was mid-afternoon by the time he crossed over the canals to the Precinct walls, but the open plaza was as crowded as the markets had been. He kept his ears open and his mouth shut anyway. You could learn a lot from gossip if you were quiet. You could learn even more if you were Quetzalcoatl’s agent in the Fifth World, but he decided not to press his luck yet. His attendants were still keeping a significant distance behind him, and calling on the Feathered Serpent was something he preferred not to do in public. People always made such a fuss when your eyes rolled back in your head and spectral scales shimmered along your arms.

Ahead of him, one priest of Huitzilopochtli was huddling with another. He slowed his pace and pretended to be very interested in the sight of two sacred courtesans bickering.

The younger of the two priests was looking around warily, but his gaze slid right past Nezahual without seeing him. He clearly had different, worse problems. “...Quenami-tzin still seething?”

“Mmyep.”

“...I think I’ll take the long way back to the temple.” Nezahual couldn’t judge the priest for his wince; being under Quenami’s power had been bad enough for him, and he had been an Emperor since boyhood.

It didn’t take a genius to imagine why he was in a bad mood now. He remembered that load of feathers for the temple of Mictlantecuhtli, and smirked to himself. I can only imagine what he thinks of a peasant’s son accruing so many riches—and then to give them away! All because Teomitl thinks Acatl is one to be courted like a maiden.

The older and wiser priest nodded, but he was already distracted. The two bickering courtesans had descended to a screaming match, with vocabulary even Nezahual hadn’t heard employed in quite that way. It was fascinatingly undignified. “Good idea.”

“I mean, can you blame him?”

“It’s not Acatl-tzin’s fault that he—“

But Nezahual’s pace had slowed too much, and whatever wasn’t Acatl-tzin’s fault was lost when he nearly collided with a priestess carrying an armload of bloodstained grass balls. Since they had a regrettable tendency to roll all over the place when dropped, and since he had been raised with manners, he had to stop and help her pick them up. By the time they were finished, the priests had moved off.

He sighed. There was nothing for it; he’d have to enter the palace.

&

As he’d predicted, it was a unique form of torture. He’d met up with his attendants, so at least he was properly dressed for the obligatory good-to-see-you-glad-you’re-not-dead-yet audience with Tizoc-tzin, but having to listen to the man’s voice sucked all the pleasure out of what should have been a soothingly rote speech. It would take time for a proper banquet to be arranged, leaving him with several hours of free time he seriously debated spending in the women’s quarters. It would probably be worth it if he got caught. Tizoc was almost definitely not up to the task of entertaining a lady, and the women were sure to be bored.

He’d made up his mind to try it when he ran into Teomitl. Almost literally ran into, in fact; the man was striding through the palace corridors at his usual brisk pace, only to stop dead when he saw him. He was wearing the red cloak of an off-duty Master of the House of Darts and a frown.

After a pause just long enough to be insulting, he addressed him. Aww, he was learning politics. “Nezahual-tzin.” A stiff, perfunctory bow. “What brings you here?”

“Would you believe a diplomatic visit?” He tried for his most winning smile.

It didn’t work. Teomitl’s eyes narrowed, and when he drew himself up Nezahual realized that the man was still taller than him. Every line of his body screamed irritation. “...No.”

He paused for an instant, considering, and then let his smile widen. It had always been fun to needle Teomitl, even when they were children—the man was always so serious, so dignified. Of course there was a place for such things, but if the man was in love...it would be terribly amusing to watch that dignity crack. “It is! I heard some very...interesting things about your lovely city on my way here, you know.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Apparently Acatl-tzin’s very well-liked.”

Teomitl’s fists clenched briefly, then relaxed. Oh, he was touchy. “As he should be.”

And quick to jump to Acatl’s defense, as well—there’d been no hesitation in his words. Nezahual remembered the day they’d rescued Acatl from a traitor’s death; it had been the only time he’d ever seen Teomitl so frantic. Acatl had been oblivious then, and he was oblivious now. “A shame he hasn’t noticed. I’ve heard he’s gotten some expensive gifts recently.”

“Mm.” His jaw was tight, and he was resolutely not meeting Nezahual’s gaze. There was a faint tinge of red in his dark face.

Nezahual fought an urge to snicker. Allied ruler or no, they were presently alone in the courtyard and he didn’t particularly care for being punched in the face. The jade rod piercing his septum as a symbol of his rule was just as breakable as his nose was, after all. “Is he the sort of person who enjoys a bit of luxury? Do you suppose he’s the sort of person who’d then think kindly of the sender? You know him so well, after all.”

Teomitl sucked in a breath. “I suppose it’s none of your business, Nezahual-tzin. Good day.”

Then he stormed off, and Nezahual didn’t stop him. Baiting Teomitl was highly entertaining, but he’d had his try at that for the moment. Until the banquet, he’d enjoy himself in more leisurely pursuits.

The banquet, when it came, was fascinating to watch.

Mihmatini and Teomitl sat together, and he found himself studying them. She was radiant in feathers and jewels, but were her eyes tight around the edges? Did she suspect that her husband was besotted with someone else? It had been blindingly obvious to him even when he’d attended their wedding; he’d made it through the ceremony and half the feast before he’d had to sneak off to laugh himself sick. Mihmatini was an intelligent woman, but...well, love did make you blind.

Or maybe she’s just trying not to see it. Of course, all men took their pleasure where they pleased, but he imagined it had to be much different—much worse for the wife—when the one your husband had designs on was your own elder brother. But they weren’t acting as though anything was amiss; as the evening wore on, she leaned against her husband’s shoulder, and Nezahual strongly suspected she was holding his hand where he couldn’t see. If he hadn’t known better, he’d think Teomitl had never gone behind her back to overthrow his brother.

...Speaking of brothers…

He turned his gaze to Tizoc’s gilded screen. Tizoc had always hated priests in general and Acatl in particular; his attempt to get the man killed proved that. The part of Nezahual’s mind that was always turning over schemes and inspecting them from new angles wondered idly how he’d react if he knew his younger brother was interested in his greatest foe, if that was something he could use...but no, he wouldn’t sink that low. Teomitl was not an enemy he wanted to have when the man became Revered Speaker in his turn. And an enemy I’d have in truth, if I did something to jeopardize the life of his favorite priest.

Who, to Nezahual’s surprise, was in attendance. Apparently his unannounced visit was judged a significantly important occasion to merit the presence of all three High Priests. Acatl was seated between his fellows, wearing full regalia and an expression which suggested that if either man tried to speak to him, he’d drown them in their soup bowls. Next to him, Quenami was grinding his teeth; it appeared his foul mood had persisted all day, and Nezahual would bet quite a lot that it had something to do with the silver earrings in Acatl’s ears. They weren’t large or ornate, but they glittered where they caught the torchlight.

As he watched, Acatl turned his head in Teomitl’s direction, and their eyes met. Teomitl, caught in the middle of raising a soup bowl to his lips, flushed and set it down.

Nezahual tried very hard not to start cackling into his grilled turkey.

&

In the end, the confirmation of all those rumors was an accident. He really didn’t mean to eavesdrop. But he’d been about to turn in for his own mat when the idea struck him, and so before he could think better of it he was on his way to Teomitl’s chambers. Maybe the man would spill something interesting if he prodded him hard enough.

Teomitl’s chambers turned out to be occupied.

Very occupied.

To give them credit, they were trying to be quiet; if he hadn’t been actually in the courtyard and aiming for silence himself, he might not have heard them. But there was a very familiar rustle of cloth, and the distinct crackle of a thin reed mat, and then—

He knew that voice. He knew it very well, even though he’d never heard it like that.

“Ah, hah, Acatl…”

Impossible.

He sat down hard in the packed dirt, feeling his world rearrange itself to make room for the noises he was hearing. That was Teomitl, half-breathless with pleasure, and that was Acatl’s answering indistinct murmur, and that was the faint slap of flesh against flesh, and that was the steady rustling of reed mats under a man’s weight. He’d thought Teomitl pining, trying desperately to catch his dignified tutor’s attention. The idea that he’d succeeded...

He realized he faced a crossroads. He could slink away while they were busy with each other—undoubtedly the honorable choice. He could interrupt them—crude, dishonorable, and likely to result in severe physical pain if not immediate death.

Or he could sit down in Teomitl’s courtyard to wait.

He found himself waiting for a long time—enough to pick out the constellations above his head and develop a certain respect for Acatl’s stamina, but not long enough for him to fully pin down what he was going to say. It seemed he might owe Teomitl some sort of apology, which was a distasteful thought. He could bear it, though. Apologies, advice, perhaps some gentle mockery—yes, that was how he’d deal with this.

Eventually the sounds from within faded to a quiet conversation, and then to the faint rustle of someone getting to their feet. He glanced idly at the entrance curtain as its bells jingled, taking in the sight of a formerly-chaste High Priest making his escape from a lover’s embrace. The key word there being formerly; Acatl may have once sworn a vow of chastity and celibacy, but he’d clearly not so much broken it as shattered it to pieces and performed a merry dance on the shards. There were the faint marks of teeth in his collarbone and bruises at his hip, and his previously neat hair was in disorder.

Oh, and he was staring at Nezahual in open horror, such that Teomitl scrambled up off the mat and all but knocked him aside in order to take up a protective stance in the doorway. Any moment now, the open horror would transmute itself to outrage.

Absolutely nothing could have stopped his tongue. “You two seem to have had a very pleasant evening.”

Teomitl had clearly gotten as good as he gave; there were the beginnings of some fantastic marks on his throat. Much more important, however, was that his eyes had gone solid jade, and the air was starting to fill with the scent of the lake. “You.”

“Teomitl!” Acatl seemed to have shaken off his horror; now he laid a hand on his lover’s arm as though that alone would stop him from doing violence. Then again, he’d seen the man accomplish the same with words before.

“Acatl…” It came out in a snarl. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off Nezahual, who was beginning to feel some mild concern.

“Look, if you kill him, it’s a diplomatic incident and it’ll start a war with Texcoco!”

“...And?”

“And I think Tizoc-tzin will probably want to know why!”

Nezahual decided he could probably risk interjecting. Acatl was being reassuringly sensible about the whole thing, and Teomitl’s eyes were returning to their normal dark brown. “I heard some very interesting rumors in Texcoco. You’re lucky that Tizoc-tzin never thinks beyond threats to his person.”

He watched as Acatl and Teomitl exchanged uneasy looks. It was Acatl who spoke, with his gaze fixed on Nezahual; the air around him grew measurably colder, though it didn’t seem to affect Teomitl at all. “...Rumors?”

He’d had a lot of time to stitch together the day’s overheard conversations into a cohesive whole, and he discovered he was amused by the tapestry it presented. “You two, together, seem to be rather a...popular notion among the people of Tenochtitlan. Aside from Huitzilopochtli’s clergy, of course.”

Both men recoiled for a moment, their faces red, and then they spoke at once. “I—“

“—That is—“

He held up a hand. “I won’t breathe a word.”

Teomitl’s eyes narrowed, cold as the bottom of the lake. He saw jade reflections dance in their depths. “You wouldn’t be so accommodating unless you want something from us.”

He’d also had a lot of time to determine what that something would be. It seemed a simple favor, and one unlikely to cause offense. Not with what he’d seen. “...Should Tizoc-tzin’s death come with a reasonable amount of warning…”

He paused, watching the way both men stiffened. Acatl’s fingers twitched as though to take Teomitl’s hand before he visibly pulled himself back; Nezahual couldn’t help but smile. As though we don’t all know the useless craven isn’t long for this world.

“You let me tell him on his deathbed.”

Teomitl was still suspicious, but he seemed inclined to listen. “...Why?”

“Star-demons,” he said promptly. He’d seen them only at a distance, but the carnage—the bodies in pieces, such as he’d never even seen on the worst battlefields—had stuck stubbornly in his mind. And to know it was Tizoc’s fault...yes, he’d be very much pleased with the chance to make the man’s last moments that little bit worse.

“...I’ll give you that,” Teomitl muttered.

“Excellent!” He affixed a charming grin to his face. “So we have an accord. I must confess, I really hadn’t expected Acatl-tzin to be swayed by pretty silver earrings. I would have held out for solid gold—“

Through gritted teeth, Acatl snapped, “I think you should leave.”

Since he didn’t want to be an ahuitzotl’s dinner—an annoyingly likely scenario, given the way Teomitl was vibrating with rage—he left. Quickly.

EXTRA: Some Weeks Earlier

Teomitl’s life changed irrevocably over lunch, of all things.

He’d started showing up at Acatl’s house with tamales after a long, frustrating argument with the rest of the war council regarding preparations for the next campaign, when he’d only wanted to comfort himself with the thought that at least he could do one useful thing by making sure the man he loved remembered to eat that day. It had quickly become a routine. Hearing Acatl’s voice, seeing him smile...it was good. It was all he would ever get, but it was good. He’d become an expert at ruthlessly beating back the corner of his heart that still stupidly yearned for more. He knew he wasn’t going to get it.

Even if Acatl kept looking at him. And smiling. And laughing, sometimes, a half-disbelieving chuckle that made his heart do unpleasant things in his chest.

Acatl wasn’t laughing now. He’d seemed preoccupied all day, and barely picked at his food. Teomitl’s chest hurt, and he told it sternly to cease. If you keep doing this to me, he told his heart, I will have you removed. Today’s meal had been worryingly quiet.

Acatl broke the silence without looking up from his half-eaten tamale. “...I heard some...interesting rumors from my cousins yesterday.”

Teomitl swallowed. Acatl had a lot of cousins. Not as many as he did—he could still count them all and didn’t need a chart to figure out how they were related—but a lot. It was probably nothing. “Oh?”

“They seem to think your feelings for me are…” He trailed off, and Teomitl had the pleasure of seeing him blush. It almost distracted him from the heartstopping terror coursing through his veins. “...Not quite platonic.”

“Ngyrk,” he said intelligently.

Acatl dropped his gaze to the floor. “...I try not to give credence to gossip.” He swallowed visibly. “But.”

“But,” he echoed. Maybe if he prayed hard enough, the earth he sat on would sink into the lake. Or one of the gods—at this point he wasn’t picky—would strike him down.

Acatl drew a slow, hesitant breath. He still wasn’t looking at him, and Teomitl realized his hands were starting to shake. His own were only spared that indignity by balling themselves up into fists so tight that his nails cut into his palms. “...If...they were accurate…”

He managed to force the words out somehow. I am no coward. If he’s going to throw my heart back in my face, I can damn well meet it head-on. “If they were? What would you do, Acatl-tzin?”

“...I’d say we should be more discreet, for starters.”

We. His heart leapt, and this time he didn’t tell it to stop. He could barely breathe; the dread had faded, and pure joy was fizzling up to replace it. “Does that mean you—“

Acatl pushed himself to his feet, holding out a hand to help him up as well. “It means, I think we should continue this discussion inside.”

They didn’t wind up doing much talking.

#nezahual #teomitl #acatl #teocatl #obsidian and blood #paladin writes stuff

[hufflepuff-hugss]

Different (Bff!Fred and George x Bff!Reader)

Word Count: 1407.

Warnings: Swear words.

Request: 

Key: Y/N - Your Name.

The Story:

"Hey Y/N, um....I've been thinking these days. And I wanted to ask you something." The boy said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding eye contact.

"Yes?" Y/N turned to look at him, her heart thumping on hearing those words --- not sure whether in hope or fear.

"D-Do you want to go out with me?" the boy finally turned to look at her.

"Oh uhh wow, um, that was totally out of the blue--" Y/N started but before she could give him an answer, familiar red headed twins appeared in front of her.

"Hey Brent. I see you've got hold of Y/N now." George said slinging his arm on the blonde's shoulder. The boy looked fine but suddenly his expression changed to a frown when Fred slung his arm on Y/N's shoulder.

"Are you dating him?" Brent asked Y/N, looking pretty mad.

"Wait n-"

"Why didn't you tell me this beforehand?! I wouldn't have wasted so much time with you then! Ugh!" He brushed back his hair and stormed towards the Great Hall in frustration. It took Y/N a while to register what happened in front of her eyes.

"You're welcome Y/N." Fred said slinging his arm off her shoulder, "You owe us a Butterbeer."

"Oh my god. I can't believe-- he didn't even want to listen to me!" Y/N said furrowing her eyebrows.

"Yes Y/N, That was the cute and shy Slytherin boy you were talking about. He has been pining on you for a while in case you haven't noticed. And he just got out of a relationship where he was extremely over-possessive. I might hate most of the Slytherins' attitude but I'm happy for his ex, no kidding." George added to the conversation.

"I told you he's a pretty shady guy." Fred said now walking towards the Great Hall with them, waving back to Lee Jordan who was waiting for them in the Gryffindor table.

As they started digging onto their lunch, now discovering The-Boy-Who-Lived in their house, Y/N played the food on her plate with the spoon, looking at the twins and thinking about the time she first got introduced to them.

She was in a new atmosphere, being born in a muggle family and all of a sudden at the age of eleven she discovered that she was a witch. Trying to figure out how to go the train station, her parents met a red headed family who introduced themselves as the Weasleys. And there she came to know the twins who were on the first year like her. Ofcourse, their personalities differed a lot considering Fred and George were always up for pranks but Y/N wasn't. Well truthfully, she was a bit when she was the one providing most of the stuffs she could find for their pranks. Their friendship started from there in the station and now they were in their second year. The twins became her best friend, although they never voiced it.

Her train of thoughts got interrupted when she discovered Fred's hand slowly sliding towards her hand holding the spoon, and he said in a grieved tone, "I am sorry Y/N but I don't feel about you that way."

The people snickered at his comment around the table when she realized that she was staring too intensely at him. "Oh fuck off Fred." She said amused at the situation and finally started eating her food.

"Don't worry Y/N, you'll get a boyfriend." George said, "But after we get ourselves a girlfriend."

"Oh god I'm gonna die single." Y/N said sighing dramatically.

"Not with these amazing flirting skills baby." Fred said winking at her.

"Please don't." Y/N said cringing at his words.

As soon as they finished their lunch, they went for their next classes and got called by their Quidditch team captain, Oliver Wood, in the middle of it in an urgent notice.

"Okay guys I think it's high time you stop pretending and tell me what you did this time. We don't usually get called in the middle of the class. What did you do?" Y/N asked, a worried expression evident on her face.

"I swear I did nothing. Don't know about him though." The twins said simultaneously, pointing at each other.

"Oof--" Y/N sighed, "I'll see what I can do to lessen your punishment."

"We don't do anything without informing you Y/N." Fred said in a serious tone. He might not have said it out loud but it was pretty evident that they were both a bit upset.

"I didn't say I don't trust you. Your pranks pretty much put you in the first people to be suspected." She said after a while.

They didn't say anything but smiled, and then, like the good friends they were, started pulling Y/N's hair throughout the way to the meeting. And things took a better turn when they got the good news of including Harry in the Quidditch team on Professor McGonagall's recommendation that he can make an exceptional seeker.

Although it was supposed to be a secret, the news spread like fire and Oliver took no time in settling their schedules and training period--some of them early in the morning. And one such morning, after a heavy and boring lecture about their positions in the field from Oliver, when they were finally going to the ground for their practice, they ran into the Slytherin team.

"Oh wow look what we have here." The Slytherin Captain said snickering. "The loser team."

"We don't really have time and energy to talk with you." Oliver said moving forward to go to their destination but was stopped by the Slytherin team again.

"It is sure as evidently by how you play that you don't have any energy at all." The Slytherin captain commented again.

"And you sure as hell have a lot of energy to spare to move your huge ass teeth in that mouth of yours to talk such things early in the morning. Move over Rabbit, although rabbits are way cuter than you." Y/N said already annoyed and tired to fight after Oliver's boring lecture early in the morning.

"Shut your filthy mudblood mouth of yours. You don't even deserve to be here in the first place." Said a familiar voice, which she immediately recognized as Brent's. The Slytherins smirked at those words.

"Speak another word and we swear we will make your life a living hell in this place." George said in a deep tone. It frankly scared some of Slytherins as well as the Gryffindors as they never saw him this serious.

"Leave it." Y/N said pulling George's arm, "Not worth it." George, unlike Fred, was impatient and in some cases scarier than Fred which came out in the Quidditch matches, when he aggressively hit the Bludgers.

"If you don't have the guts to accept a rejection, you should keep this huge ego of yours in check. It doesn't suit you prick." Fred said pulling his brother's arm, although he clearly looked pissed off.

"Good thing that Y/N stepped all over your ego. And listen up, " George said moving forward while Y/N's and Fred's grip tightened on his arms, "stay away from Y/N from now on."

"Come on guys, let's go. We have a match to win." Y/N said now locking eyes with Brent.

Let's just say the Slytherins were too baffled by the twins' behavior to say anything back. They never saw them this pissed before.

As they walked towards the field an atmosphere of silence spread around, George finally broke it and asked, "Are you okay?"

".......Yeah. I'm almost used to the term by now."

"You shouldn't be!" Fred said frowning.

"I kind of don't care anymore so don't worry. Worry about George. He lost his temper, like wow--never saw him like that."

"He called you a mudblood. And in front of us. What exactly did you expect?" George said sighing.

"Joke it out I guess?" Y/N said chuckling, "And I swear, Angelina just found you super hot."

"Really?" George asked snapping his head towards her, his mood completely changed at her comment.

"Oh, I saw it too." Fred said smiling.

"No you didn't. You were busy being angry at Brent." Y/N said laughing.

"Atleast our flirting is working. You won't be single for long Y/N." Fred said smirking.

"Sure it's working. Last time you said a corny joke Fred, she left the room. But you're right, atleast I get to keep a boyfriend soon."

"As long as we approve Y/N." They said simultaneously.

"Sure." She said rolling her eyes and a smile slowly creeping up her face.

MASTERLIST

#fred x reader #fred weasley #george weasley #george x reader #fred and george #fred and goerge weasley #fred and george x reader #bestfriend #quidditch #hogwarts

[krasierisawesome]

Stay Near Me: Nomura’s Story

She remembered it clearly, as if it had happened yesterday. But it hadn’t. Things had changed too much, and there was no going back.

“Home is gone!” she roared as she charged the young trollhunter.

And home was gone. She’d failed them. She’d failed her mother, the strong changeling queen. She’d failed her people. She’d failed her best friend. And then, she’d failed Gunmar.

Not anymore. She wasn’t going to invest herself in a hopeless cause. The trollhunter, after all, was but a child. He would never be able to bring back everything she’d lost- everything she’d let go of.

But she could still hear her mother’s voice echoing in her head.

Stay near me, Nomura. If they see you alone, they’ll take you. Do you know what they do to young changelings who are left alone? They brainwash them. They’ll have you fighting out there with Gunmar and his son. Never let them see you alone.

She shook the voice out of her mind. It was too painful. It would begin to cloud her judgment.

She’d been a curious child, no question. She loved coming with her mother to tribunal gatherings. There were always so many different trolls there- so many people with different stories.

But they don’t respect our kind, she remembered. We’re the first people they consider when looking for recruits for Gunmar.

She couldn’t resist the freedom- the temptation- of having a story. She wanted to have something she could tell the younger changelings when she got back from the tribunal.

The tribunal, as a rule, was awfully dull. Many of the trolls there seemed to have an obsession with looking serious and sitting around talking. Sometimes, it took hours.

“Let’s see what the changelings have to say,” She remembered Usurna saying one day.

Nomura’s ears perked up. She watched as her mother stood up to talk.

“I speak for the changelings,” she said. “And I believe that what you are proposing is ridiculous. Kanjigar has only recently completed his training. He is not ready for-”

“But he has completed his training, has he not?” interrupted a voice.

The entire tribunal turned in the direction of the one who had spoken. Interrupting was very much frowned upon in the tribunal.

Standing in the doorway was the trollhunter himself. Nomura had never seen him before. She only recognized him because of the description her mother had given her: Large, Muscular, with skin a light shade of blue. He wore silver armor from his head to his feet.

“Kanjigar,” Usurna confirmed. “I’m afraid it isn’t a good time.”

“May I speak?”

Nomura could sense the wariness in her mother’s voice. “Darling, run and play.”

“But mother, you told me never to leave your side. If I do….”

“Go with Kanjigar’s boy,” she said. “He’ll watch you.”

Nomura glanced behind the trollhunter, suddenly noticing the figure behind him. She looked back at her mother, who nodded.

She got up and walked over to Kanjigar. “Mother says I am to run and play with your son.”

Kanjigar looked almost offended. “I will not have my son spending time with an impure!”

Nomura looked back at her mother, who was glaring angrily at Kanjigar.

“Excuse me, Trollhunter. If you wish to speak here, you will allow my daughter to play with your son.”

“Draal does not play!” he argued. “And I won’t have any changelings-”

“Father,” the boy interrupted. “I will be fine. You should speak to the tribunal.”

Kanjigar looked at his son, then at Nomura. “So be it. But don’t go far.”

They nodded and walked out.

“Your father is awfully protective of you,” Nomura pointed out.

Draal let loose a sigh. “Well, he’s the trollhunter. He protects everyone.”

Nomura slowed down. “Not me. He didn’t seem to like me very much.”

“It’s not personal. He just doesn’t trust impures.”

“Why?”

“Because you guys are deceptive. You can change form and pretend to be human. You can walk in daylight.”

“So he hates us because we can do things that he can’t,” Nomura concluded. “That’s hardly fair.”

Draal examined her face. “It’s not meant to be fair. You manipulate us, so we try to even it out by not trusting you. Maybe it isn’t fair, but it makes sense. Besides, my father has battled many of you in his time as the trollhunter.”

Nomura gave him a blank expression. “You’re awfully proud for someone who walks in your father’s shadow.”

He scoffed. “And you’re awfully confident for an impure.”

“A changeling,” Nomura corrected. “I am a changeling.”

“And I walk in my father’s footsteps, not his shadow.”

Nomura squinted her eyes. “I feel sorry for you.”

Draal blinked. “Excuse me?”

“It must get awfully old trying to be someone else. Don’t you want your own story?”

“What?”

“When you come home after a long day, don’t you want to have a new story to tell to others?”

“What is it with you impures and stories?”

“Changelings,”

Draal looked almost embarrassed. “Right. Changelings.”

“I want a story to tell when I get back home with my mother.”

Draal sighed.

“What is it?” Nomura asked.

“Stories are good. But isn’t it much better to have something to show?”

Nomura tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“My father told us not to go far, but they’ll be in there for a while. Why don’t we head down to trollmarket. I’ll show you around.”

Nomura’s ears perked up. “Can we? I-I mean will anyone mind?”

“Let’s find out,” Draal said, waving his hand for her to follow.

Nomura followed him down the path leading to trollmarket. She knew her mother wouldn’t approve, but she needed a story.

They don’t respect our kind, she remembered, but still she continued walking.

“Here we are,” Draal announced finally. “We’ve arrived at heartstone trollmarket.”

Nomura closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The air smelled of glog and pine needles. “It’s amazing.”

Draal scoffed. “It’s alright,” He studied her curiously. “But you can walk in daylight. Why would you find such a place as this to be amazing?”

Nomura considered this. “I supposed I’ve never actually walked in daylight before. My mother always says….” She paused, unsure of what to say.

Draal gave her a confused look. “What good are wings if you’re too afraid to use them?”

“What?”

Draal almost laughed. “It means that if you can do something- something amazing- you shouldn’t let fear stand in your way.”

The next thing Nomura could remember: She and Draal were running through trollmarket, making their way to the exit. Nomura was going to taste daylight. That would be her story. That was how she was going to feel alive.

When they reached the exit- the place under the bridge- Nomura felt obliged to touch the walls and the door.

“What now?” she asked, her voice slightly hoarse.

“Now you go through,” Draal explained. “I will not be able to follow. Unlike you, I cannot walk in daylight.”

Nomura opened the door, sticking her hand out into the human world. “I don’t know. Perhaps…….”

“Where is the light?” Draal asked. “It appears to be dark out there.”

Nomura’s ears perked up. “It’s the night. I love the night.” She turned to face him. “You can join me.”

Draal hesitated. “Perhaps not. I do not think-”

“Please,” she begged. “I don’t want to be on my own.”

Draal sighed, considering this. “I suppose we could, if we’re quick.”

Nomura grabbed his hand. “Let’s go.”

She remembered the look of wonder on his face as they ran through the streets. He had never been in the human world before either. It had been such an amazing night, but Nomura felt a sense of remorse whenever she remembered it.

They stopped at a building. Nomura thought it looked different from the rest, and it still had light streaming from the windows.

“What’s inside?” she wondered.

Draal inspected the door. “I’m not sure.” He peered through a window. “Perhaps we should see.”

Nomura jumped, trying to reach a window. “How will we get in?”

“I don’t know. If there are humans in there, they won’t like us joining them.”

“Hold on.” Nomura closed her eyes and felt herself transform slowly, carefully. She’d never done it before, but she’d always wanted to try.

Draal watched her in amazement as her figure shifted from that of a changeling to that of a wide-eyed young child.

“Please don’t run,” she begged.

Draal shook his head. His mouth hung open.

“What?” Nomura was surprised by the change in her own voice.

“It’s just….. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“But you’re not frightened?”

“No. I’m….not.”

Nomura smiled. “You can try it.”

The look in Draal’s eyes was pure excitement, but he shook his head. “I am not an im-” he stopped himself. “A changeling. Please, go inside. Tell me what you find.”

She was reluctant to go without him. She didn’t wish to be all alone, the way her mother had always told her not to be. But as it always seemed to do, curiosity triumphed.

The interior of the building was like nothing she’d ever seen before. People were arranged in rows of seats, all looking at the same thing.

It must be truly amazing if they’re all focused on it, Nomura thought.

Then, the play started. So many people, all knowing exactly where they belonged. They all had many different kinds of costumes, each with their own special kind of flare.

Nomura sat down on a seat. The lights that flew across the room didn’t come from the sun. No, they were much too focused.

As the play went on, Nomura saw something she knew she’d remember her whole life. A tune that she’d whistle before she did something amazing.

Peer Gynt is a little boy, who stumbles into a mountain of trolls. He faces a troll king, who tells him, “To thyself be true, and who cares what the world thinks?”

Nomura lost track of time. She sat still, watching the people jump and dance and sing.

If changelings did this sort of thing, Nomura thought. We could be so much happier.

So Nomura did not notice when the sun peeked through the trees. She didn’t notice when Draal frantically waved at the window, urging her to come out. She didn’t even notice when the play ended, and the people began streaming out the doors. She just sat there, humming the tune to herself, deciding how she could describe the story to the young changelings. The only thing that snapped her out of her daze was her mother’s voice in the back of the room.

“Nomura! What are you doing?!”

She turned around abruptly. “What?! Where is Draal? He said-”

“Child,” her mother snapped. “The sun is up! Draal was forced to retreat to trollmarket before he was turned to stone! He tried to get your attention, but you were too focused on watching stupid little humans dance around!”

“Mother, let me explain.”

“You should not have entered the human world, Nomura. What if one of Gunmar’s minions had seen you?! What then?!”

Nomura had no response for that. She was too angry to find words. Why did her mother have to be so unfair?

Nomura remembered that morning. She remembered the worry in her mother’s voice. The concern that she had mistaken for anger.

She remembered her mother’s words.

You will not come to the tribunal with me again. If I cannot trust you to stay near me, you will be left back home. Your brother will look after you.

But after the anger and embarrassment of that morning faded away, she was left with many unanswered questions. She was eager to learn more about the humans. The very fact that her mother didn’t approve felt like a bonus.

She chose not to tell the young changelings about the play. They would never understand such a human-like message. Instead, she told them about Draal.

“His father is the trollhunter,” she said proudly. But apart from that, she did not mention Kanjigar. To her, Draal was much more interesting. He seemed much more real.

When the time came again for her mother to leave for the tribunal, Nomura was left with her brother.

Her brother was twice her height, but only about two or three years older than her. He never wondered about what was in the human world, so when Nomura asked if he could take her there someday, he responded by rolling his eyes.

“There’s nothing good in the human world,” he told her. “Just a bunch of clueless bags of meat that all look alike.”

To this, Nomura did not respond. She stared longingly out the window of her house. Maybe Draal would come for her. Maybe he would find a way to watch the play with her. Maybe they could run away from their overprotective parents.

But Draal didn’t come. She sat by the window and daydreamed of having adventures like he would have someday. Her brother went on about his day. He ate, practiced kicking a ball around, then went to bed. But Nomura was left awake by the window.

Mother will be back in a few days, she thought to herself. And I’ll be right here. Nothing will have changed.

She didn’t know why the thought of nothing changing scared her so much. Perhaps it was because she never really was content. She was always looking for ways to change. When there was nowhere to move, it made her kind of claustrophobic.

Then there was a voice, coming from the shadows.

Nomura! Nomura, I’m here! We must run away, Nomura! Hurry!

The voice was but a whisper at first. She pricked her ears up, trying to hear it more clearly. Then, the voice became louder, till it was nearly screaming. It sounded scared, and urgent.

Nomura, hurry! Come with me!

First, it sounded like Draal. Then, it sounded like her mother. Nomura opened the window and peered out. “Hello?”

A pair of yellow eyes stared back at her. “Come, Nomura.”

“Draal?”

“Yes. You must follow me.”

“W-Why?”

“There’s a human child in danger. You must help me save her.”

Nomura was hesitant. The voice sounded kind of like Draal’s, but not quite. And were his eyes really that cold and hard?

“No one else will help her,” the voice continued. “She’ll surely die.”

Now Nomura was really suspicious, but she wasn’t about to let someone die. “Show me,” she said finally.

The figure was hard to follow. It moved fast, and it was hard to make out any features. The footsteps she heard led her all the way to trollmarket.

She stopped to take a breath. “Is the child here?”

The voice was silent for a few seconds. “No. Not here. Keep moving.”

At this point, Nomura was tempted to turn back. If she ran into her mother here…..

But she decided to keep running. The figure led her out of trollmarket and to the passage into the human world.

The voice went silent, but she could still hear its breath, steady and hollow.

“What now?”

“Go through the passage, Nomura.”

The voice sounded so much like Draal now, Nomura forgot to be afraid. “Will you come with me?”

The voice let out a tired sigh. “I cannot. Go, Nomura. You will know which house to enter.”

Those weren’t very clear instructions, but Nomura nodded and slowly walked through the passage.

The air was thin and cold. The sun streamed down in sections of pure light. There were no clouds in the sky.

Nomura had never really seen daylight before, but it was so beautiful. She wondered how her brother could find nothing interesting about the world above.

She walked for some time. She didn’t understand what the voice had meant. How could she know which house to enter? Where was the child that needed saving?

She examined each house carefully, searching for something that felt right. Nothing seemed to stand out.

Then, she came across a house with all the lights off. The yard was dry and gray, giving the entire house a gloomy feeling.

But apart from that, there seemed to be nothing special about that house. In fact, everything about it screamed, Keep moving!

As she was about to step towards the next house, she heard a baby cry.

She stopped abruptly and spun around. Sure enough, the baby was crying from inside the dark house.

The top-right window was shattered. The cry sounded as if the child was moving closer, slowly approaching the broken glass.

“Hold on!” Nomura shouted. She was startled by the fear in her own voice.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She was in her human form now, and she was positive she’d never make the jump with those tiny human legs.

She glanced around, hoping no one was near. “I’m coming!” she shouted up.

The baby continued to cry. Nomura tensed her muscles. In a flash, she was back in her changeling form. She felt cold and exposed, like anyone could see her now. She bent her legs and shot herself up into the window, tumbling onto the cold wood floor of the human house.

It was dark inside. The walls seemed to vibrate with tension. She felt as if she could hear the building’s heartbeat.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“Hello?” she called.

She heard the baby behind her, suddenly cooing contentedly.

“Hey there,” she turned around.

The baby was a girl, dressed in a pink dress. Her short black hair seemed to radiate beauty and darkness.

Nomura picked the child up. “Hello. You are a small human.”

The baby laughed.

“How did you get here?”

“She has touched the child,” A voice behind her hissed.

She spun around, cradling the baby. “Who’s there?!”

The same pair of yellow eyes peered at her through the darkness. “Hello, Nomura.”

“Who- Who are you?”

“You have done well, child. Very well indeed. Gunmar will be pleased with you.”

“G-Gunmar? Is this….his child?”

The voice laughed: A sort of cold, sharp cackle with no humor. “No. This is.”

Another pair of eyes appeared in the darkness. They were dark orange, with a specific kind of anger shining in them. A deep growl rose from the creature’s throat.

Nomura swallowed. “But why is the baby here?”

“Nomura!” Draal’s voice shouted from outside. “Get out of there!”

“Draal?!”

“It can’t be,” the first creature muttered. “He can’t walk in daylight.”

Nomura turned around and stared out the window. “Draal?! Are you here?!”

“Nomura, it’s a trap! Run, before they catch you!”

“But-”

The figure grabbed her, and she shrieked. She began to change form suddenly, becoming smaller. Her hair became shorter. Her skin changed tone. Suddenly, she appeared the same as the baby.

She tried to say, “What did you do?!” but it came out as, “Ga!!”

The figure picked her up, but the creature quickly snatched her away. “The child will work for my father now, Stricklander,” the creature growled.

Nomura changed back to her changeling form and kicked him in the groin.

“RAHHH!” the creature howled, dropping her onto the ground. “Impure!”

She crawled across the floor and to the window, tripping the figure.

“Get her!” one of them yelled.

She braced herself before leaping out the window.

She remembered how much the pavement hurt. Pain ran through her body like a surge of blood in her veins. For a split second, she seemed to lose consciousness. Then, she realized someone was pulling her through the streets, steering her towards the bridge.

“D-Draal?” she muttered.

“Run!” Draal said back to her, though he continued pulling her along as she drifted off. He was draped in a dark blanket to shield him from the sun.

She saw horrifying images that she knew she’d never forget- too horrifying to describe. She saw the pure, vile, piercing evil in Gunmar’s eyes. This was who she worked for now.

When she regained consciousness, she was in trollmarket. Draal was shaking her, shouting something she couldn’t make out.

“Wh-Where am I?” she muttered as her sight cleared.

Draal continued to shake her. “I knew they’d take you. You think you’re invincible! What’s going to happen next time-”

“You sound like my brother,” she mumbled.

Draal scoffed. “You almost died.”

She sat up, glancing around. Thank goodness, her mother wasn’t there. “I was fine.”

“As I said, you’re awfully confident for an impure.”

“Changeling.”

“Nomura, look at yourself.”

Nomura glanced down, but she didn’t notice anything different about the way she looked. “What?”

He handed her a horseshoe-shaped piece of metal. She felt her image flicker with uncertainty. She shoved the item back at Draal as she shrank into the form of a human baby.

Draal shook his head sadly. Nomura changed back into her changeling form, whimpering and panicking. “What did they do to me? What happened to my other human form. How did they-”

“You are linked to Gunmar, now,” Draal said, shaking his head with disapproval.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that wherever you go, he will be able to find you. You can’t hide forever.”

“But…”

“Nomura, I am scared for you.” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her again.

She stepped backward, squinting at him. “Why?”

Draal looked suddenly self-conscious. “I…….. I don’t want any of Gunmar’s minions coming into trollmarket.”

She blinked. “They won’t. They can’t.”

“Nomura, stop being so naive and-”

“Like I said, you sound like my brother.”

They stood there, glaring at each other for quite some time, as if they were two wolves silently battling for dominance.

Draal let out a soft, deep growl. Nomura tried to mimic it, but instead let out a high-pitch squeak.

“Draal!” A voice thundered behind them.

Nomura spun around, her eyes meeting Kanjigar’s.

“Father,” Draal muttered.

“What is the meaning of this? Where have you been? Why are you in the company of an impure?!”

This time, Nomura let out a real growl.

“Father, I apologize for-”

“I am a changeling,” Nomura interrupted.

Kanjigar focused his gaze on her. “Why does she think she has the right to speak?”

“Father, please-”

“Why do you think you have the right to push him around?!” Nomura demanded, ignoring Draal.

“Excuse me! You had better-”

“You are not excused,” Nomura said, tightening her jaw and squinting up at him.

Kanjigar clenched his fist.

“Nomura,” Draal began.

“Why do you let him push you around?!”

“Nomura!” she heard her mother’s stern voice.

Her ears fell. “M-Mother….”

“What are you doing?!”

“Mother, I had to…..” she trailed off.

Draal stepped forward. “Please, honorable changeling. Do not be angry with your daughter.”

For a moment, Nomura’s mother looked remarkably impressed. Then, her expression changed back to anger. “With all due respect, son of Kanjigar, this is not your concern.”

Nomura gave Draal a sad smile, and Draal nodded.

She remembered her mother’s harsh words.

All I asked was for you to stay with your brother for a few days. Was that too much for you to handle? Why can’t you just do that?!

Nomura was smart enough to know what it meant. She had failed. Her mother didn’t even yet know what had happened in the house- that she was now tied to Gunmar. She was not eager to explain.

But that night, she did feel a pulling sensation in her chest, as if a force was trying to tempt her away. She tried to ignore it, but as the days passed, it became stronger.

She remembered what Draal had said.

You can’t hide forever.

What if he was right? What if Gunmar had a way to get to her? What if she would spend the rest of her life as one of his minions?

The horrifying thought kept her in her room for days. She didn’t want to be pulled into Gunmar’s grasp. She didn’t want to be forced to fight against those she loved.

She remembered when Draal appeared at her window. She didn’t know how he’d gotten there, but he peered in with such concentration and concern that Nomura couldn’t help but smile.

“You’re still here,” he whispered in amazement.

“Of course I’m still here.” She tried to sound carefree and happy, but the dread came through in her voice.

“He’s been in your head,” Draal said, his expression turning very serious.

“How do you know?”

Draal glanced around nervously. “Come with me.”

“Wha- Now?”

But Draal had already started moving. Nomura climbed out of the window and followed him.

When they reached a wall, Draal stopped abruptly.

“What is it?” Nomura asked, eager to keep moving.

“It’s…..”

“Draal?”

Draal shook his head. “It was here.”

“What?”

“There was a way…..a way to save you.”

“How? What happened?”

A cackle arose from somewhere behind them. They spun around as the figure of Stricklander stood there, clapping slowly.

“Bravo,” he said. “You’ve fallen right into my trap.”

“Nomura, get behind me,” Draal said.

Nomura scowled at Stricklander. “How are you here?”

He gave her a cold smile. “Well, you see, you are now tied to Gunmar. He has sent me to retrieve you.”

“You’ll have to go through me,” Draal growled.

Stricklander waved his hand, and Draal tumbled to the side, unconscious.

“Draal!” Nomura shrieked.

“Please, child,” Stricklander muttered. “Leave him be. You shall be a good warrior for Gunmar.”

Nomura clenched her fist. “I’m not working for Gunmar.”

He let out a cold laugh that sounded almost insane. “You saw how disappointed your mother was in you. And now your friend is unconscious because he was trying to help you. You’ve failed your family. You’ve failed these people.” He lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “But Gunmar saw potential in you. You don’t need these people. They don’t accept you. You know that.”

Nomura wanted to argue, but found herself unable to speak.

He brushed his hand across her forehead. “We shall speak when you wake up.”

She tried to lash out, but her muscles fell slack. She collapsed on the ground and promptly passed out.

She remembered all the long days following. She was forced to work, forced to cooperate. When she failed to do a task, Stricklander would scold her. She had to be good enough- good enough for something. She had to do this right.

She had failed her mother. She had failed Draal. She had turned to the darkness, and now she was failing at that, too.

With a cry of fury, she leaped out and attacked the trollhunter.

#trollhunters #For the glory of fandom #Nomura #Fanfiction #Backstory

[daebakinc]

Mercy - Pt. 3

Please have mercy on me. Take it easy on my heart. Even though you don’t mean to hurt me, you keep tearing me apart.

Pairing: Jungkook x OC Genre: College AU, angst, romance, Summary: After a homework mix-up, you agree to tutor Jungkook in math in exchange for him tutoring you in dance. In more ways than one, you get much more than you bargained for. Previous Parts:  1, 2

Jungkook is too good a friend to drop you faster than a hot potato just because there’s a girl in his life. He still meets you in the studio every night, still devotes an hour to helping you improve the latest floor routine. He still settles close beside you to go over the day’s lecture and practice problems.

However, Jungkook is human and a male college student. Spending most of his time with his new girlfriend can’t be resisted.

           The minute the hour is up or the last equation is solved, he’s packing up and running out the door with a wave. He doesn’t come keep you company at work when he’s free. He doesn’t show up at your door on late weekend mornings to drag you to brunch. He doesn’t barge into your room to claim your bed for an afternoon nap.

           The sudden return of quiet to your life finds itself astonishingly unwelcome. It gives you too much time to regret not revealing your feelings sooner, to wonder what it’d be like now if you had. In your lowest moments, you find yourself bitterly thinking the only reason Jungkook hasn’t dropped you entirely is because he can’t afford to with finals coming up in less than three weeks.

           The instant you have that thought, you’re crushed with guilt. You know Jungkook isn’t that type of person to use you like that. You know you should be happy for him. You want to be happy for him because he’s happy. Knowing and being are different things though.

           You want Jungkook all to yourself again. Greedy and unreasonable, you know, but that’s the truth. You miss him. You miss what you had together.

           You have no problem with the girl herself. Jungkook brought her to your work on a casual date a few days after she asked him out. Isa, as she insisted being called, is pleasant and polite, not to mention classic ballerina beautiful. You said as much when Jungkook came back to ask you your opinion about her under the guise of getting napkins, eyes eagerly anticipating your approval.

          Between customers, you caught yourself looking over at their table. They did make a striking couple, both gracefully tall, his breadth balancing her slenderness. She made him laugh and smile the entire time. The stunned, adoring infatuation in his gaze spoke more clearly of his feelings than he would ever say. Even though the most affection they showed was holding hands, you were incredibly relieved when they left. Particularly when you overheard them making plans for the winter dance.

           Long before Jungkook, you resolved not to go. Getting dolled up, though work, is appealing, but you can do that any day you chose. You have other reasons. You spent too many high school dances shyly decorating the gym walls while your friends with dates swayed back and forth with their dates. At the end of each, the custodians swept up your abandoned wish that someone would ask you to dance with the confetti and popped balloons. If you want to dance, you’ll do it in your pajamas in the privacy of your own room without disappointment, thank you very much. No one is going to convince you otherwise.

          The night of the dance, you hide. You lock your door, turn off your lights, and put your phone on silent. Maybe it’s a cowardly thing to do, but you don’t really care. Most of your friends respect your choice not to go to the dance, but you know there will be some well-meaning souls who will try to drag you there. You’d rather not fend off their machinations. You’re just not in the mood to do it nicely.

           As predicted, some friends knock on your door and call your name. You stop typing and hold your breath until they walk away, saying something about you probably being holed up in the library. To foster that misconception, you ignore all attempts to call or text you. You’re feeling quite pleased with your own cleverness in avoidance when someone you aren’t expecting knocks on the door.

          Jungkook’s voice calling your name carries through the thin wood. “Are you still in here? You’re not answering your phone. I need help-”

           A suit never looked so good when you open the door. The glossy black fabric clings to his shoulders, his arms, his thighs. Power cloaked in class. His throat gleams healthy gold against the starchy white shirt revealed by his unbuttoned jacket. Three buttons on the shirt are undone, exposing the firm chest you’ve laid against so often.

           That reminder stabs your bleeding heart cruelly, but you keep your smile and flick on the lights.

           Jungkook gives you a grateful smile as he hustles past you. “Thank goodness you’re here. I can’t get this dumb tie to sit right and none of guys know how to do it.”

          When he turns to you, holding out the offending strip of fabric, his adorable confused frown takes over his face as he takes in your ragged shorts, messy bun slapped on top of your head like Pebbles, and worn to fuzziness hoodie you stole from him at some point. Yes, you are that much of a masochist.

          “Why aren’t you dressed? The dance is in thirty minutes. Don’t girls take ages to get ready? Even you should take longer than that.”

          “Jungkook, that is a sexist generalization.” You close the door and cross your arms. “I’ve seen some men take longer on their hair in the morning than I do in a week. And I’m not going to the dance.”

          “But everyone is.”

          In a tone of voice you’re sure your mother would approve of, you retort, “And if everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?”

          Nevertheless, you grab the bowtie from him and stand on tip-toe to toss it around his neck. Jungkook spreads his legs to make it easier for you. With his eyes level with yours, you can see the wheels turning.

          “Is it because you don’t have a date?” he asks. “I think I have a few friends going stag who wouldn’t mind taking you.”

          You cut off whatever else he’s about to utter by pulling the bowtie tight. Shame rises bitterly in your throat. You can handle a lot of things, but not him feeling sorry for you, as if you’re some poor penniless spinster to throw breadcrumbs to. Glaring, you say, “I do not need a pity date, Jungkook. If I wanted to, I could get one myself. I’m not going because I don’t want to, alright? Just leave it alone.”

          “Sorry,” he mumbles.

          His gaze falls to your shoulder as you finish off the knot. The expression on his face has you kicking yourself for kicking a puppy who just wanted to help.

          As you adjust the bow, you tap your finger under his chin. “Hey.”

          Jungkook’s eyes flick up to yours, obviously still cautious of being bitten again.

          “I’m sorry,” you murmur, smiling apologetically. “I’m just stressed with classes and all these end of semester projects. I didn’t mean to get snippy with you.”

          The return smile he flashes you shows all is forgiven. “Dancing is supposed to be good stress reliever, you know. Releases endorphins or something.”

          “Maybe for dance machines like you or people who like to dance.”

          “You like to dance,” he points out hopefully.

          “Only sometimes. Right now, I like the idea of getting on the Dean’s List.” Patting his cheek, you step back. You jerk your thumb towards the door. “Go. Have fun and don’t do anything stupid.”

          “You’re sure you don’t want to come?”

          “I’ll be fine. Promise. Go before your girlfriend thinks you got lost.”

          The sparkle that jumps to life in his eyes hurts more than you would ever admit even to silence. “Right. Thanks for the help. Study hard, teach.”

          Jungkook steps closer, sliding an arm around your waist to pull you in. You can smell the heavy spiciness of his cologne. Closing his eyes, he leans in and for a split second you freeze, your heart screeching to a halt. It drops to your feet like a deadweight when Jungkook’s lips press briefly against your forehead.

          You breathe out and then he’s gone. The door clicks behind him with a dull sound. It echoes in your hollow chest, ringing and ringing as you fight back the tears and dreams of what it would be like to go to the dance with Jungkook. They flirt mockingly in front of your eyes like a fairytale. But only princesses waltz into happily ever-afters and you’re no princess.

          Another realization harshly smacks you in the face: if you’re not a princess, you can never have the prince. You’ll be locked outside the castle gates, condemned to pine away to nothing like the nymph, Echo.

          That is not the ending you want. You realize there’s only one way to save yourself: you have to get over Jungkook. You have to remove him from the depths of your heart and replace him back to the position of a dear friend. Romantic love must return to platonic.

          You instinctively know the process will be unlike any pain you’ve felt before. Jungkook is nestled so close, it will be like carving out a part of yourself. But it must done. If you don’t want to lose him entirely, you need to get over him. By any means necessary.

  12/15: [Jungkook] Sorry I didn’t get to say good-bye. Thought you were leaving later. Have a good break!

 12/25: [Jungkook] Merry Christmas! Did you get that book you really wanted? Kinda hope not because otherwise the present I got you is useless lol.

12/29: [Jungkook] I got an A in Precalc! It’s all thanks to you, teach. Did you check your grades yet? You had to get an B in Intro too with such a great tutor. 😉

 ¼: [Jungkook] Hey. Did I do something wrong? You haven’t answered me at all this break… Hope you’re okay. I miss you…

 Today: [Jungkook] You back on campus? Stopped by earlier but you weren’t in.

             “I’ll make it up to you, Kookie,” you sigh, scrolling through the long page of texts from Jungkook, none of which you had replied to.

           It was just part of your effort to get over Jungkook during winter vacation. You didn’t cut him out from your life; you simply took a break from him. That meant you ignored his texts and calls. You hid him from your social media feeds. You uploaded your pictures with him to your Cloud so you could delete them from your phone.

           People say distance makes the heart grow fonder, but you hoped your case worked more like addiction. Remove the temptation and recovery is possible. One test of recuperation’s success is replacing the addictive substance back into the patient’s environment.

          However, this method is risky. Sometimes, it leads to relapse. It can make a compulsion worse, and that’s exactly what you’re afraid of. You almost have yourself convinced he’s just a friend again. Almost. There’s still that tiny kernel of doubt in your head that he’s still not, that you’re still in love with him.

          Nonetheless, you aren’t a coward. It’s not like you can avoid him forever either. You have to apologize for snubbing him all break. You’ve already practiced the excuse that you forgot your phone here because you were running late to catch your train. Hopefully he’ll buy it.

          No one says you can’t put it off for a bit longer though.

          Grumbling, you toss your phone onto your desk. It bounces on your coat and hits the small pile of presents there.

          Your gaze rests on the flat, rectangular box wrapped in Sunday comics. Amongst the presents for your other friend, Jungkook’s isn’t the biggest, nor the flashiest. Yet it’s the one you felt the happiest buying.

           It was one of the few times you’d been in Jungkook’s room that you’d gotten the idea for it. You were bored waiting for him to find the book he needed to return to the library and his open closet begged to be peeked into. When you did, you had to laugh out loud. Dozens of white and black shirts crowded the single rod like a monochromatic aesthetic enthusiast’s dream photo. Thinking back, you couldn’t remember him wearing a spot of color unless it was a jacket, a hat, or shoes.

           “Do you think you live in a 1930s noir movie or something?” you teased, flipping through the shirts. You wear more black than is healthy yourself, but at least it’s less than a third of your closet’s contents.

           “It keeps things simple and clean and I don’t have to worry about matching” he grumbled in sudden embarrassment, trying to close the closet door. “I do wear colors.”

           “Shades of gray don’t count. Blue jeans don’t either.”            “Why not?” Jungkook asked, noticeably perplexed. “They’re blue.”

           You laugh at his typical boyish attitude. “Jeans don’t count because they’re so common it’s like they don’t have a color.”

           Taehyung poked his head into the doorway in that moment. With a wicked grin, he suggested, “Check his underwear drawer. He’s got some interesting color choices in there.”

           Cheeks burning, you could only watch as an equally red-faced Jungkook ran after him shouting threats.

           A few days later, you bought the found, perfect present. The shirt wasn’t fancy or expensive like silk. It wasn’t cheap like one you get in pack of five from your local discount store. It was a relaxed button-up shirt with sleeves cuffed at the elbows. The material was relaxed with enough stretch Jungkook could dance in it without it restricting his movements.

          A blue too deep to be royal but too light to be navy, the tag called the shade ‘Winsor Blue.’ Hopefully, you’d thought, it would be enough of a baby step to slowly introduce some more hues into Jungkook’s wardrobe.

          The longer you look at the present, the more you get annoyed with yourself. You’re better than this. You pride yourself on your self-discipline. Once you decide to do something, it is as good as done. Facing Jungkook is something that needs to be done sooner rather than later. You need to know if your pains bore any fruit or if you’re right back where you were at the end of last semester.

          Groaning, you push yourself up from the floor. “Just do it, you big chicken.” You grab the present and walk out the door before you can change your mind.

          Your heart beats faster the closer you get to Jungkook’s room. Contrastingly, your footsteps slow, your body more in tune with your apprehension. You raise a hand to knock on the door, but it’s as if there’s a chain around your wrist, keeping your fist in the air. You lower your arm. Clutching the present to your chest, you just stare at the door.

          Despite all your pep talks, you are unsure your conviction will hold up when you see Jungkook’s face. You don’t know if you’re strong enough to not fall down the rabbit hole again.

          “Hi.”

           Jumping away from the door, you try to compose yourself when you see it’s only Hoseok. “Hi. Had a good break?”

           “Yeah. Wasn’t long enough, but you know.” Hoseok shrugs and laughs. “You?”

           “Same.”

           As he gets closer, his smile fades into a look of concern. “Are you okay?”

           “Yes.” Glancing at the door again, you realize you are nowhere near ready. “I’m sorry, but could you give this to Jungkook, please? I forgot… something.”

           Before Hoseok can answer, you push the present into his arms and hurry away.

          Once you round the corner, you sprint for the back emergency stairwell. You don’t want anyone to see your red eyes and trembling lips, friend or no. The door groans and slams behind you with a boom. By some miracle, you don’t trip as you run down the stairs, trying to outrace your own heart.

          When you reach your floor, you dig into your pocket for your keycard. Belatedly, you remember you left it in your room. Great.

          Now you’ll have to go out of the building and wait for some passing student to have mercy on you and let you back into the dorm. First though, you have to let the tears come so the student doesn’t run away before you can ask them the favor. You sink down onto the steps. The concrete is icy through your jeans. Blistering tears drip down your cheeks the second you collapse your defenses. You muffle your sobs in your sweater’s arms so they don’t echo. No need to broadcast your weakness any more than you already are.

          A quiet voice uncertainly calls your name from the landing above. Unable to control yourself, you look up.

          Unopened present in hand, Jungkook looks down at you. His chest heaves, pressing against the railing as if he’d raced down the steps. He very well could have. Being too wrapped in your own misery makes one deaf to all the thunder in the world.

          Too late you remember your tear-stained face. You hurriedly duck your head to wipe at your eyes with your sleeves. By the time you feel and hear Jungkook come beside you, your breath is steadier and your face mostly dry.

          He stops on the step above your seat, hesitating, unsure of what to do now that he’s found you. “Hey.”

          “Hey.” You’re distantly proud when your voice has only the slightest tremble to it. You keep your eyes glued on a bit of gravel on the ground in front of you, arms wrapped defensively around yourself.

          “Are you… okay? Hoseok said you looked upset about something. You didn’t even come in to give me this yourself.”

          “I’m fine.” Go away.

          He doesn’t. You feel him sit beside you, his legs stretching out into view. “I think you’re lying.”

          You mumble a non-committal noise.

          “You bring me a present, but you’re not even going to look at me. That’s supposed to make me believe there’s nothing wrong?”

          Cursing mentally, you sigh. You close your eyes to brace yourself. When you’re sure you won’t lose it, you push your hair from your face and look at him. He’s as gorgeous as before and your heart still thumps harder. You were right. You aren’t ready.

          “Fine, I’m not okay, but I will be.” You look away again. “It’s not your problem. Don’t worry about it.”

          Jungkook nudges your shoulder gently with his. “I’m your friend. How can I not?”

          You shake your head. Those words hurt more than you ever thought possible. It only makes your failure worse.

          Jungkook hesitates before speaking. Slowly, he says, ���You know how when you start working out, your muscles really hurt the next day? Like so much you can’t move and you have to grit your teeth to hobble around?”

          A wet chuckle bubbles out of your lips. You toss up your hands. “What relevance does this have?”

          “Hear me out,” Jungkook insists. “You know that feeling, right?”

          “Yeah.”

          “That lasts for days and weeks. Some days it’s worse than others. Then, so gradually you don’t notice, the pain goes away and you’re stronger. If you just stop and start, the pain is just as bad the first time and it’ll keep coming back. You have to push through it.”

          You drop your head back against the stairwell wall. The sooner he stops talking, the sooner you can run away to lick your wounds in peace. “I don’t understand.”

          “I’m getting to the point, I promise. The heart is a muscle too, right? If it’s hurting, you still need to use it.”

          “What are you talking about?”

          “Someone broke your heart, didn’t they? That’s why you’re crying. That’s why you never texted or called me back during break.” He looks to you for confirmation.

          Shaking your head, you start to reply, but he jolts upright suddenly.

          “Wait, did that guy from your work do something again? Say something to you?” Jungkook presses. “I’ll go break his nose right now.”

          “No,” you sniffle.

          “Good. Is it someone I know? I’ll go talk to him, or hit him, if you want. Hell, I’ll do it if I don’t even know the guy.”

          “Jungkook-”

          “You deserve better than crying in some cold stairwell. You know that, right? I really mean it. You’re great. Better than great. Look, I know we men can suck, and I mean majorly, but he’s not worth crying over if he hurt you. He shouldn’t have.” He ruffles his hair in frustration, like he blames himself for not protecting you. The irony isn’t lost on you. “Even if you’re hurting, you still need to get out there to help yourself get over this asshole. Don’t let his stupidity-”

          Unable to continue listening to his preaching, you burst out, “You’re the asshole!”

          Jungkook’s mouth drops open in shock, but it quickly twists into anger. “Why do you always get so touchy when I talk about love stuff?” he huffs. Pulling his legs up and slamming his arms on top of them, he puts some space between you. But he doesn’t leave. He mutters, “I’m just trying to help.”

          You let the silence hang in the air a few moments before you sigh. Softly, you confess, “What I mean is, you’re the asshole who broke my heart. Even though you never knew. Because, I love you.”

          A sound makes you look up. You see you did hear correctly. The jerk is giggling. You just exposed your heart and he’s laughing at you.

          Ashamed and humiliated, you jerk up. Eyes on the ground so you don’t burst into tears, you say in a wavering voice, “Goodbye, Jungkook.”

          “Wait.” Jungkook’s hand closes around yours and tugs. His intention clearly to make you stay, he pulls a little too hard. Your feet slip from beneath you and you fall backwards.

          When you land, you wish it was on the butt-busting concrete. Instead, it’s definitely not a place you want to be: Jungkook’s lap.

          He looks as surprised as you at your sudden position, but he instantly tightens his arms around you when you shift to get up.

          “Let go of me,” you mutter, still refusing to look at him. Your hands might as well be pushing against the wall.

          “No.” Jungkook pulls his legs up, further trapping you. You keep your chin tucked, face turned away towards the door. He leaves a long silence as he searches for what he wants to say next, finally settling on, “I’m sorry I laughed. I didn’t mean to.”

          You let him stew a bit before nodding. If all he wanted to do is apologize, he’s done it and now he’ll let you go. But he doesn’t.

          Jungkook continues, “You just surprised me. It was a knee jerk reaction. I never thought you’d-… you know. That you felt like that.”

          “Well, please forget it. I wasn’t going to tell you.”

          “Why not?” he asks, trying to look at your face.

          You shift uncomfortably in his hold. Guilt already nips at your chest. “I’m not a homewrecker. You’re with Isa.”

          “No, I’m not.”

          Your head jolts up, almost hitting his chin. He can’t be serious. “What? Since when?”

          “Like a week after break started.” Jungkook shrugs. “It just didn’t work out. We found out we wanted different things.”

          “Oh.” You study his face carefully for signs of regret or sadness in his face. Even though you don’t see any, you still sympathetically offer, “I’m sorry.”

          “It’s okay. She wanted me to give up Overwatch. She said it was distracting me from being a real dancer.”

          “Heaven forbid.” The sarcastic comment slips out before you can stop it, but Jungkook just nods solemnly.

          “Seriously.” He shyly glances at you. “Do you really like me?”

          “Yes,” you hurry to add, “but I’m not expecting anything, Jungkook. You don’t have to say you feel the same or anything. I just kind of sprung it on you and you’re probably still getting over Isa-”

          “I’m not. She was cool and everything, but not really for me. I just got caught up in an upperclassman being interested in me. Not being around her made me realize I liked the idea of her more than I actually liked her. Like I said, guys are stupid.” He chuckles in self-deprecation. Jungkook adjusts his hold so he can look you more fully in the face. “We can be pretty blind too.”

          You fidget nervously, but you can’t look away. “Really, Jungkook. You don’t have to say that.”

          “I know.” He stops and chuckles again. “I never would’ve thought I was the asshole honestly.”

          “Why not? You’re basically perfect. It’s really unfair.”

          Jungkook snorts. “You saw my test scores. You know that’s not true. You’re the perfect one.”

          “Am not,” you immediately retort.

           “You’re really smart and sweeter than you should be. And you remember that text Taehyung sent that first night we studied together? ‘Good luck with your pretty tutor’? He said that because he saw I had you saved as ‘pretty tutor’ in my contacts.”

          You bury your face in his shoulder in embarrassment. “Jungkook.”

          “And you’re right; it is new, but I don’t think it’d be very hard to…for us to start, you know… since we already know each other and are comfortable…so it’d be easy to start…”

          “Start what?” you prod. Your heart is pounding in your chest, churning your stomach too much to let you verbalize the words you hope Jungkook is about to say.

          He bites his lips ad looks at you through his bangs. “Start dating. If you want to, that is.”

          Just as bashfully, you nod and say, “I want to.”

          Jungkook smiles brightly. He squeezes you tighter to his chest until you bang on it when you can’t breathe. “Sorry,” he giggles.

          You smile back, too happy to believe it’s true. “It’s okay.”

          His smile quiets as he gazes at you. You never saw him look at Isa like this.

          Jungkook bends his face closer to yours. “Can I, um, try something?”

          Eyes glued to his too near lips, you breathe, “Yes.” You know what happens next.

          “Can I kiss you?”

          In reply, you close the space and kiss him first. Your mouths stay closed, but your heart still feels like it froze and exploded into a million pieces. His soft, warm lips stick to yours when you pull away, keeping the kiss short.

          Against your chest, his heart beats at the same hammering pace as yours. Jungkook is slow to open his eyes, as if they’re weighed down by decades of sleeplessness. A tint of worry is in them when he huskily asks, “Was that okay for you?”

          “More than okay,” you answer. If he wasn’t holding you, you’d be slumped in a puddle.

          “Then, can I kiss you again?”

          You don’t get to finish nodding before Jungkook’s mouth is on yours again. He doesn’t push, doesn’t rush. He kisses you deliberately, simply but devastatingly. It’s all you imagined and more.

          “Finally!” Taehyung’s voice blasts through the stairwell, followed by a chorus of male hooting and cooing.

          You and Jungkook jump apart and crane your necks upward.

Two flights above you stand Taehyung and Hoseok, flanked by Namjoon, Yoongi, and Jimin and Seokjin, two other of Jungkook’s friends you’ve met a few times. They’re all peering shamelessly down at you and yelling different versions of teasing congratulations.

          “Our little Kookie is all grown up and become a man.” Seokjin pretends to sob into his sleeve, but his eyes are all mischief.

          “Little Kookie’s about to kick your butts!” Jungkook shouts back. He starts to shift you out of his lap, but you cling to his neck.

          “Ignore them,” you whisper. “They’re jealous.”

          The indignation in Jungkook’s face transforms to smugness. “You’re right. They have every reason to be.”

          Jungkook tilts you backwards to kiss you thoroughly, but not before you see him send his friends a one fingered salute, causing more shouts and calls. Your lips tremble in laughter, as do Jungkook’s.

          Out of the corner of your eye, you see Jungkook’s present lying abandoned by his side, totally forgotten. It doesn’t bother you. You’re positive he likes this one much better.

#jungkook scenarios #bts scenarios #kpopwritingnet #jungkook #bts #jungkook college au #bts college au #bts jungkook

[shardclan]

The door of The Sundial opened gently and closed again with a quiet click.

Even that very conscientious, un-patronlike entrance did not ready Cloudwhyte for the sight of Arcanus seating himself  at the bar. Arcanus had regular personal time away from the queen of course, and he had been known to have a glass of celebratory wine on the appropriate occasions, but never a seat at the bar.

His face was screwed up in a sort of frustrated concentration, and lines were visible under his eyes.

"There are private booths," Cloudwhyte offered.

Arcanus shook his head. "If I wanted to be alone and think I would not have come here."

Cloudwhyte hummed impassively, but his eyes darted to his wife at the other end of the bar. She shrugged and nodded her head toward the barrels.

Before he could ask, Carnelian gave a gravelly laugh. "A refill for me and whatever the man likes on my tab."

Arcanus kept a straight face as Carnelian emerged from the darker end of the bar. Or at least, he thought it was darker. Instead Carnelian seemed to bring the shadows with him. He was like Enyi; one of those who had fallen into disrepair after the exodus from the old clan. The loss of his daughter Ismene had killed something in him. He went on long enough to see Opal punished, and ever since he had been digging himself a little grave at the bottom of a bottle every day.

The Sundial Brewery's completion had improved things for him if anything. They only gave him beer, and he was more than happy to sip the night away. Certainly he got drunk, but he never seemed to reach that threshold of having had too much. Penitence reported that Carnelian could drink the whole night without saying much of anything that wasn't a polite request for more beer. Which was frankly a greater cause for concern than him being rowdy.

Arcanus noted that in spite of the many signs of complete physical neglect, not the least of which was an impressive beer gut, Carnelian's eyes were just as dagger sharp as they had ever been.

"Can you afford to be that generous?" Arcanus asked.

"My pockets are deeper than you know," Carnelian assured him.

"Then I'll accept. Thank you. I'll take something light to start, Cloudwhyte. Whatever you recommend."

Cloudwhyte nodded and moved busily among his brews. He gave Carnelian the usual: Darkwoods Stout housed in barrels made from the black pines Carnelian was native to. For Arcanus, who he suspected might be a lightweight in spite of his mass, Cloudwhyte gave him Summerland Ale, bright and sun-colored with a hint of daffodils.

For a while, the two drank quietly. Even drunk, Carnelian wasn't the type to pry about anything that wasn't a case. And Arcanus wasn't exactly given to sharing.

The tension of the unlikely match up slipped away, until there was only the sound of Alchemilla cleaning the glasses. Merlot and Cassis came in with their usual high cheer, but when they saw the two men nursing their beers, they went about setting up for the evening quietly.

It was Ashes who brought the noise. He came in the sort of messy rush he always seemed to be in. Hair braided so hastily that loose strands poked out everywhere, clothes disheveled from running in them when they were clearly not made to be run in. Sweaty and out of breath, and above all: Loud.

"Are you okay," he fretted. "I heard you excused yourself after a briefing with the queen earlier!"

Arcanus winced. "I did. I'm alright."

"Really? That's not like you. And you're in a bar!"

"Ashes," Arcanus said patiently. "I know where I am. The debriefing was... It was bad. I'm sure the news will reach you and the other Tribunes soon enough. I just want to not think about it for a few hours."

That seemed enough for Ashes to re-contextualize the situation. His voice dropped to a whisper. "That bad?"

"That bad."

Ashes' curiosity was piqued, but it was clear he dreaded the actual delivery of the news. "I'm...glad you're alright then. I'll see you tomorrow?"

Arcanus gave a weak but sincere smile and nodded, and Ashes excused himself.

Carnelian chuckled. "He's not shy about worrying after you."

Arcanus frowned. "It didn't used to be that way. I think I scared him when we were reunited. I was terrified that I might've let my brother die for someone I was only barely sure was my charge at the time. I didn't keep my calm very well."

Carnelian shrugged. "He lost Willow, you nearly lost your charge and him. Nothing wrong with losing your calm after that."

"Were you there," Arcanus asked with a hint of nervousness. "Did you see her?"

"I was there for Ismene. I didn't care about the rest." He drained his beer. "But I saw Ashes' eyes when he was watching the pyre they both burned in. I'd always thought of him as a kid. He still kind of is, given that display he just made. But he's a different man than he used to be."

"So are you."

Carnelian side-eyed him, and held his pint out for a refill. When he was safely staring down at fresh foam, he immediately changed the subject. "What did the Umbra Wolf see today?"

Arcanus drained his own beer, but didn't immediately request a refill. He didn't want to think about it, true. He definitely didn't want to tell Ashes about it. But maybe the beer was working because suddenly nothing sounded better than getting it off his chest.

"Cannibals," he said bluntly.

"The Catoptria?" Arcanus raised a brow and Carnelian laughed darkly. "I'm drunk, not dead. I know who they are."

"They started stealing children."

The beer stopped on the way to Carnelian's mouth. "What?"

"All kinds. Bestealcian and the Gyre showed up with a bunch of them. Half dozen implings, few longneck kids, fledgling harpy...and a snapper." He held out the pint as Carnelian had, and was more than happy to half-drain the refilled glass before continuing. "All underweight, malnourished. Fed on gristle and bone meal and ground up things that could just barely be called food. But the snapper... I guess she figured if she was in a human shape they wouldn't eat her. They wanted the dragon. Something they could eat for days."

"...How is she?"

"They tried to force the shift. She turned out to be a witch. Powerful one. Lightning with an earth-touch. Survived a lightning strike. But too young to control her power and damaged herself. She's in critical condition. Haematica's doing her best,  but says it will be months before she can safely shift." He drained the other half of the glass. "She's so underweight and malnourished that her bones would definitely bow and probably break in a dozen places if she tried to take the full snapper shape. It's too dense for the condition her body is in."

"Gods..." Alchemilla whispered.

Carnelian turned to Merlot and Cassis, who were looking a bit sickly on stage. "Care to lighten the mood a little?"

They nodded, and after a brief chat, Merlot sat and tended to the instruments leaving Cassis to sing by himself.

Recommended Listening: Strangers

Arcanus folded his arms on the bar, and let the music gently alter his mood. It wasn’t Merlot changing anything with the emotional overwrite ability she had access to, it was just a well chosen piece. Something just on the edge of his emotional frequency, carrying it to a better place without being jarring.

Carnelian glanced over at him and smiled. “Can’t beat having a skydancer when it comes to reading the mood.”

Arcanus gave another weak smile and signaled to Cloudwhyte. “You have any of that Starmoss Mead you used to make?”

“Yeah, but fair warning it's going to taste different. Shifting Expanse star moss, not Starfall Isle. Easier to import, but the climate's different."

"I'll take it anyway."

The glass pint was scooped up my Alchemilla and replaced with a heavy wooden one. Some traditions never died.

The two drank quietly. Other patrons came in, but shied away from being anywhere near them. So they got to take their time and go undisturbed inside a shared force field of complicated thoughts.

"The girl," Carnelian finally said. "The snapper. Her family been found?"

Arcanus shook his head. "Gyre's had no luck turning them up, and that could mean a lot of things. Until she's up and can say one way or another, we're assuming she's an orphan."

"What about the serthis? What's the Queen doing about them?"

"She approved Bestealcian's presence on the rescue mission because she's not afraid to be considered an enemy of those miserable cannibals."

"That's it? She's not going to exterminate them?"

Arcanus eyed Carnelian curiously. He wasn't so inebriated he didn't notice that his drinking companion was becoming disgruntled. "You think they should be exterminated?"

Carnelian's jaw dropped. "Yes? What kind of question is that? Do they have to snatch one of our kids before we decide that's appropriate? It’s fine if they’re cannibals, let them devour each other, who gives a shit; but they’re stealing and eating kids."

"...You're going to crack your glass."

"Don't change the subject!"

"I'm not." Arcanus reached over, watchfully, and tapped Carnelian's whitened knuckles until he loosened his grip. "But I'm trying to have a good time here and you chopping your fingers up isn't something I want to deal with."

He went back to his own drink, and thought through the buzz about how best to put it. "The queen's not like you were. She can't just wander around whatever territory she likes making sure evil gets stamped out."

"She made this girl her problem."

"No, the Smoke Gyre made the girl his problem. He specifically came to Telos to request the Umbra Wolf’s help. Bestealcian made all the beast children hers, because it’s her job as the queen’s agent to do as Telos would do, and Telos wouldn’t leave anyone behind.

“If the clans in the Shifting Expanse and the Ashfall Waste want to hunt the Catoptria, I'm sure Telos will lend them her aid, but this isn't a problem she's going to go out of her way to address. It's a full territory away, and she only encountered this because we’re trying to ensure Trader’s Walk is safe. She can no more call a hunt on them than she could call for the extermination of wartoads because Azricai was nearly eaten by one."

Carnelian grimaced. "Gods, that did nearly happen... Look, I get it. Bureaucracy. It just feels like what needs to happen is right out in the open and we're just not doing it because of red tape. We have people who live outside the tape who could handle this."

"Person," Arcanus corrected. "The Umbra Wolf is very much inside the realm of bureaucratic responsibility. The Smoke Gyre not so much but he is only one dragon, and he generally works alone. He's good for many things, but killing an entire clan of serthis? That's not a one dragon job."

"What about Lutia?"

Now Arcanus grimaced. "She's outside the bounds, but every time she acts, the consequence will fall on the queen for not controlling her. I’m sure she’d happily kill them all, but the collateral that would certainly follow is hard to define." He glanced over and saw Carnelian’s furrowed brow. “How far are we supposed to go, Carnelian?”

“Far enough.”

“Gods, you sound like Penitence.”

Carnelian curled  a lip. “Don’t compare me to him, he’s got ice so far up his ass it hails when he spits.”

Arcanus snorted in spite of himself, but didn’t let his thoughts get pulled off course. “But your words are his kind. Why not make all the world’s problems our own? Ashfall and the Catoptria are two borders away, but we’re right on the edge of the Tangled Wood, and I’m sure you know intimately what evil things go on in the deepest parts of that territory. Should it be Telos’ job to burn the place down? Find all the rats in all their hovels and bring them to judgement? No. She does what she can. She deals with what’s directly in her path.”

“...I see.”

Carnelian didn't press the matter beyond that, but he fidgeted with the rest of his beer instead of drinking it.

When he finally left, he hadn't finished it.

#Flight Rising #C: Carnelian #C: Arcanus #Chapter: Broken Things #Clan Aphaster #Aphaster Stories

[astridthevalkyrie]

Too Late

She never approached him when she had the chance, so it should not surprise her that he fell for someone else. But why was that someone else her again?

I know I said I'd do a request, but I've had this idea stuck in my mind for a while…

All three of them hear him asking Heather to write.

And that is a punch to her gut, right there.

Because she thought that he loved her. He should be asking her to write to him while he's away, not Heather. Of course, her raven haired friend agrees cheerily, and Astrid thinks that maybe Heather doesn't even know how much Hiccup likes her.

She doesn't say goodbye to him.

She cries that day, for the first time in years.

Her mother frets, her father cracks jokes, and her little sister pouts. Little Ava is the only one she tells, because how could her sister even begin to understand what she was feeling, let alone spread the word that Astrid Hofferson was pining over a boy?

A boy who no longer has interest in her.

Really, Astrid fumes, this request is too much.

Of course Heather is aware of dragon boy’s interest in her. She doesn't deny him. She confesses that she harbors the same feelings.

Astrid wants to be mad at her, but Heather is too sweet to be mad at.

But this request is too much for her to handle.

Heather wants her to write instead.

To spell it out more eloquently, Heather is too nervous, so she asks Astrid to write to the boy she likes while he is away. The boy who Heather does not know is the object of Astrid's affections too.

She can't do it, she reasons, he is probably the type to be loving and wonderful with his words, and she'd only be breaking her own heart by pretending to be Heather.

She says no, she won't do it.

But one letter couldn't hurt.

Dear Hiccup,

How are the Peacables? I know you must miss the dragons, and Toothless certainly misses you. Astrid takes him flying sometimes, with the other tail. He pines for you.

I hope you're not wreaking havoc there. I know you - and that is probably exactly what you are doing. It's one of the reasons you're so endearing - you never like sitting still. Causing chaos is like a duty.

I could use some chaos.

Come back soon, Hiccup, please. I miss you, Toothless misses you, and Astrid misses you. The entire island misses you and your smile and your sweet ability to make everything better. Come home.

Sincerely, Heather

She cannot bring herself to write “love” so she writes “sincerely.” Heather has admitted that it is not love she feels.

Astrid has admitted it, in the night, when no one is listening.

She feels guilty for not checking with Heather first to see if she approves of the letter. Sneaky takes the scroll away, and Astrid thinks about how ridiculous she sounds to ask him to come back. He has to be there for half a year.

The guilt evaporates when Heather does not ask about it. Hiccup slips from her friend's mind as she gets more involved in Berk, enjoying her new home.

So when Sneaky comes back, she does not get Heather. She opens the scroll and reads it.

It is her Terror, after all.

It is her letter he is responding to.

It is her dragon boy.

Dear Heather,

You are right, I am wreaking havoc for sure. Just yesterday, I knocked over a basket of fish and now half the fishermen want to murder me.

But aside from that, the island is very bright and friendly. It is enjoyable here, although I long for home.

Tell Toothless I love him and miss him too. We are talking to the Peaceable chief about the dragons - but I won't bore you with the details of that.

I wish I could come back. But since I cannot, why don't we make it so that when I do come back, we know each other at a new level? There is so much I want to know about you.

What is your favorite dragon, after a Razorwhip, of course? How are you adjusting on Berk? And what is your favorite color? I am thinking of making another axe for you, kind of like Astrid’s, and I knew her favorite color was blue, so I designed it to compliment the shade of blue in her eyes.

Smithing and riding seem to be the only things I am good at. Thor knows these tribe meetings aren't my calling.

Sincerely, Hiccup

Astrid wants to cry, but does not. Her lip quivers, but it does not go beyond that. Her fingers curl around the paper as she clutches it tightly.

She never knew he had made her axe.

She lays down, pressing the letter close to her heart. He was so sweet, so thoughtful, so caring. Why had she never seen that when he had liked her? Why did she never sit down and try to get to know him?

She was a fool, that was why.

Dear Hiccup,

You are good at plenty of things. Smithing and dragon riding are no easy things to do, you know.

My favorite dragon after a Razorwhip, would have to be a Deadly Nadder. Stormfly and I had quite the connection, after all.

Berk is wonderful, I could only adjust to it nicely. Everyone here is so friendly, and the other riders are always ready to help me.

As for my favorite color...it may have been blue just like Astrid’s, but now I see it's green. Your eyes may or may not have something to do with the change of heart.

What is your favorite color? Tell me about your childhood as well, I want to hear about it.

I do wish you could come home, but I know that you have a duty. As do I. Just know that I'm waiting.

Sincerely, Heather

Dear Heather,

My favorite color is blue too. It seems funny that you, Astrid, and I all have the same favorite. Well, at least before yours changed to green. Thank you for the compliment, by the way. My eyes are flattered.

That was a joke. Or an attempt at one, anyway. I'm not good at making jokes. I'm not much good at a lot, no matter how much you say otherwise.

It was why my childhood wasn't so wonderful. I was not good at fighting dragons, and I was picked on. Snotlout was the worst. He has calmed down a lot since then.

Astrid never did anything. She didn't harass me, but she never helped either. I don't blame her, and I hope it doesn't sound like that. She has become a very close friend since then. I actually had a crush on her before, but it was clear she did not return those feelings, so I moved on.

Sometimes I wish she did like me back then. Maybe she would have stood up for me. And if the best shield maiden and the most beautiful girl on the island was vouching for me, what could anyone else say?

Sincerely, Hiccup

Perhaps he knows it is her. Is that why he tortures her so purely, so smoothly?

She had been right, she realizes, weeks later, his words only make her fall for him more.

Heather does not even seem to remember that he asked her to write.

But Hiccup says clearly that he no longer holds feelings for Astrid. And while that hurts like nothing else, she cannot change his feelings.

And even if Heather does not put the best effort into it, she is still interested in Hiccup. And she took an interest in him from the beginning.

Unlike Astrid.

The letters go on for ages, and it is like a splash to the face when she realizes he is coming home in a day. At the same day, his letter arrives, his last letter. Astrid savors it, holding it tightly before opening it and reading.

She wishes she hadn't.

Dear Heather,

I am certainly not joking, it is completely true. The twins really did cut off my father's beard, and he was not happy, to say the least. We are still not allowed to bring it up.

I must say, these past few months would have been unbearable if not for you letters. I love them.

And I think I love you.

Please don't freak out. I have not felt this way for long, and my intentions are innocent.

I just...with every letter I fall in love with you more. You are so different than what I'd thought, and I love this side of you I never knew. I asked you to write because I liked you, now I write to you because you've gotten me to fall in love with you.

You're spunky. You're funny. You must be the most supporting person I've met. I love you.

I love you, Heather.

Sincerely, Hiccup

Her heart had swelled with each word. Hiccup was in love with her.

But now it crashes down, because he says he loves Heather. Over the past few months, she has forgotten that he does not know who he is speaking with.

Oh Thor.

This was awful.

She had been playing Heather and Hiccup alike. Hiccup is going to ask Heather about the letters, and Heather is going to tell him she never sent them. They will both realize what she has done and they will both hate her.

Astrid bites back a sob. She's horrible. What has she done?

What has she done?

When the boat docks, everyone is there. Heather turns to her with a sheepish smile.

“I completely forgot to write to him.”

Astrid’s fists clench, but she does not respond, fearing that she will only make things worse. Her words are not to be trusted, she’s mucked so much up with them.

And even knowing she’s hurt two of her best friends, she is still feeling selfish. Selfishly happy, while minor, that Hiccup is in love with her. Not Heather. Her dragon boy loves her like she loves him.

When Hiccup steps out, she stays back and watches as Heather runs forward and embraces him tightly. Hiccup’s eyes light up so brightly, that Astrid’s head hurts, because she knows that he thinks this is her way of saying she loves him too.

It is much too late to go back now.

#httyd #hiccstrid #kinda sorta heathcup #i'll admit heathcup is really intriguing #their interactions are so cute #hiccup #astrid #heather #valkyrie stories