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un2-verse · 3 years

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BILLY — Kim Taehyung (2)

pairing: taehyung x f reader

genre: horror au, yandere au, saw/john kramer au

synopsis: News of a Sadistic Serial Killer nicknamed “Jigsaw” is spreading around town like wildfire… the nickname stemming from the puzzle piece he cuts from every victim’s body. No one knows who he’ll trap next but in a town full of delinquents and criminals, it could never be you. Right?

warnings: mentions of suicidal thoughs, abusive relationships, stalking etc. dont read if triggered. there are some ?? fucked up things in this but idk what to word them. but also mentions of self harm/self hating thoughts.

wordcount: 2.2k

a/n: unedited so pls forgive me for any mistakes and lmk if u want to be added to a taglist^^

series masterlist

part one part three

You’d spent a couple of hours in the café with Taehyung. Jimin popped over every now and then to talk with his best friend and to make sure you had everything you needed while there.

When you left, Jimin wrapped his arms around you as he bid his farewell, “It was lovely to meet you Y/N! Please, don’t be a stranger!” You simply nodded your head as you pulled away from the hug. You grinned back at him as he moved to Taehyung. You opened the door, carefully stepping outside to leave the boys with some privacy.

Once the door shut Jimin’s smile beamed, “so she’s the girl you’re always talking about, Flower? Right?”

“Yeah she is, thanks for that though man but, I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you later?”

Taehyung smiled as he made his way towards you, you looked up and he swore, he saw a hint of nervousness in your eyes, probably because it’s dark, he thought to himself. “Come on then, let’s get you home.” He held out his hand, you were quick to grab a hold of it. Taehyung intertwined your fingers as he tugged you back across the road, “it’ll take about twenty minutes, you gonna be alright to walk?” he glanced down to you.

Your heart warmed at the way his eyes smiled with him, “I’ll be fine, thank you.” He seemed happy enough with your answer as you fell into a steady rhythm. You felt a little conflicted, you may not know Taehyung well but he had an energy about him that made you wanna spill every secret you knew, you’d shared pointless stories while you were at the café, having learnt Taehyung was a family oriented person, he loved art and he was passionate about little subjects other people would deem small. Yet he had a warmth that you’d not seen in anyone else.

Fuck it, you thought, he’s shown nothing but kindness, you may aswell open upto him… atleast.

“I was in an abusive relationship.” Taehyung felt himself smirk but quickly wiped it from his face, he arched an eyebrow as he looked down to you, “it was my first too. It left me, fucked up, in a way. Not that I wasn’t already fucked up.” Progress. He squeezed your hand in reassurance, go on… “I’ve always been insecure and uh, uncomfortable with the way I look. After that disaster of a relationship, it left me worse for wear.” you kept your eyes on the road, you didn’t want to see the judgement on his face yet it didn’t stop you from carrying on, “I never told my friends or family about it. None of them knew I was struggling before it anyway so I’ve been letting it tear me apart.”

“Why tell me then doll?”

You risked a glance at his face. There were no traces of judgement or pity. Swallowing down your nerves, you added softly, “I had to tell someone. Even if that someone is a random person— who showed me kindness when I needed it.”

Taehyung felt his heart clench, she’s already trusting me… this was easier than I thought. “Don’t feel like you need to tell me anything baby,” I already know it all.

You felt your cheeks burn from the pet name, how could something so simple, affect you this much? God, talk about a schoolgirl crush. “That’s the thing, I don’t feel like I need to. I just, I want to.”

Taehyung presented you with his boxy grin, “Then you can tell me anything you want, whether it's big or small.”

“Thank you Taehyung.” It was like the sun had shone down on you, the simplest gesture meant the world. Here you had a person willing to talk to you about your darkest secrets. A person willing to listen. Someone who had no ties to your family, which made it easier for the words to flow from you, “It’s like, I was this happy, care-free kid. I smiled without forcing it and when I laughed… I felt free. I didn’t feel like I was losing my breath. Not like I do now, everytime I do so much as breathe, it's like these roots have twisted around my lungs and everytime a breath escapes, they crush them tighter. It’s like a reminder. You’re never fully alive. You’re never fully happy. Pain overrides any other emotion. I’ve learned that, after all those years. I used to think, I’d never accept it.” A solemn silence fell over you. The roots squeezed your lungs even tighter as you whispered, “I’m scared of living.”

“Flower, some people are anchored to this world by their feet, others by their fears. You don’t have to voice it, I know you’re scared. You have your fears. Your demons. The thing you were doing at the cafe; is destructive. Anything that harms you, is destructive. Fuck, it may only be something as simple as picking your skin but that can lead into bigger things.”

It already has.

“Taehyung, I know that. I knew when it started but it helps, it lessens my anxiety. You’re the only one to have picked up on it. My friends… they don’t notice. If they do, they don’t mention it.”

Taehyung scoffed, “You really think anyone on this planet is your friend?”

Your mouth was sewn shut. You didn’t want to admit it but, there was some truth to his words.

You walked home in silence.

That night haunted you. It forced its way into your dreams. It clouded your thoughts when Yoongi and Hoseok were with you. When you’d spent time together, you were vacant. A soulless body. It was like a poison had found its way into your brain, second guessing relationships and people’s motives.

‘You really think anyone on this planet is your friend?’

Why were you letting it get in your head so much? You knew your friends. They were the only ones you felt safe with. They were your friends for a reason, they supported you (albeit sometimes they had a sense of… tough love) but they always had your back.

You didn’t mention Taehyung to Yoongi or Hoseok. You felt as though that was something that should be kept between you and him. Plus, the duo would’ve felt betrayed and upset by the fact you had wandered into foreign territory alone and found company in a complete stranger-- especially after they’d warned you about the whole Jigsaw shit.

To save the arguments, you went about your life as usual. You helped out your Mum with the flower shop, the array of flowers made you realise how the simplest things were beautiful. That of course, didn’t include yourself. Rancid thoughts clouded what was once, a tranquil space. Those god forsaken roots hadn’t lessened. Breathing was still difficult— as was pretending that you were absolutely fine.

You avoided mirrors, a quick glance could wreck your entire mood. You hated people taking photos of you, it made you scrutinise every single thing.

My nose is too big.

My chin is too round.

My face just shouts ugly.

My legs are disgusting.

My stomach is embarrassing.

My boobs are weird.

Not to say, you didn’t have these thoughts on the regular. However, the more you eluded your appearance, the voices lessened. You could ignore the way you looked, forget it completely. Often convinced yourself you were a plain person. The stereotypical norm: someone that no one would look twice at. It helped you get on with everyday tasks, it helped you ease the anxiety.

After all, every flower must grow through dirt.

But how would you react? If you knew, he had all the pictures of you?

Tuesdays you worked at your Dad’s garage. You didn’t know much about cars but you enjoyed his company. As well as spending time with Hobi and Yoongi. You often found yourself pranking the former with Yoongi, little jokes that luckily, didn’t piss Hobi off too much.

Today though, you were late. You’d had to spend more time trying to find the more appropriate clothing… you didn’t want people to see the slashed lines of red that littered your body.

After you messily threw an outfit together, you made your way down to the garage. You found your eyes trained on the silver Nissan Skyline, mouth agape as you collided into something.

You felt hands grab your shoulders, “Watch where you’re going,” Yoongi brought his hands to ruffle your hair, “gotta be careful while we’ve got that here kidda. That fuckers expensive.” He released a chuckle as you rolled your eyes, softly elbowing him out the way.

Your dad was under the bonnet, a box of tools were scattered around his feet. Organised mess, your Dad was infamous for it.

“Sorry I’m late Pops, what do you want me to do?”

Not even a second later, your Dad turned to face you, “Ah darling, not a lot while we’re working on this. Can you go make us some drinks?”

“Yeah course, I won’t be too long!”

You passed Hoseok on your way to the little kitchen situated at the back, he sent you a wink as he shouted across, “Coffee for me kidda!”

Three cups were spread in front of you. Americano for Yoongi, Coffee for Hobi and Cappuchino for Pops. Just as you were about to shout the guys, a presence had situated itself comfortably behind you. Before you had time to turn around, a deep baritone voice addressed you, “You not gonna ask me if I want a cup baby?”

You felt yourself still. You knew that voice. The voice that was haunting your dreams, even your wake.

You really think anyone on this planet is your friend?

Taehyung watched the way your body tensed, your shoulders stiffened, your breathing altered. Hm, she’s nervous. How cute.

“What are you doing here?” the words passed your lips, delivered as though they were encased in thorns.

A deep chuckle filled the room, “What do you think I’m doing here?” Taehyung inched closer, the atmosphere was almost palpable. You felt the way his chest brushed against your back, a sudden chill shot through you as he brought his hand up— which grazed against your skin whilst he moved your hair from your neck. His eyes turned hungry at the sight of your goosebumps. Your heart raced when he brought his head lower, lips next to your ear, “You think I’m here for you baby?” I am… but you don’t need to know that just yet.

You spun around, squashed between the table and Taehyung. Heat radiated off of him, how can he be so hot? It felt like you were in a furnace (while face to face with the Devil.)

Fear stricken, you tried to fight through it. Don’t show him. Don’t let him see. With a sarcastic smile plastered on your face you retorted, “Of course you are Taehyung. You tracked me down using the information I gave you and figured out which Garage is ours.”

The sarcasm was practically dripping from your tone like venom. Taehyung felt himself stifle a laugh.

You just didn’t know. In all fairness, you didn’t know anything. How would you know that Taehyung had done exactly that, except he’d done it months prior.

He lowered his head to yours, your hands raised to push him away but Taehyung wrapped his fingers around each wrist and tugged them to lay between you before you even had the chance to nudge him. You felt like you were stuck in a Venus fly trap.

“I’m not some type of sicko, doll.”

You were just a naive, misunderstood, little girl.

“I’m getting my car fixed. Your dad’s working on it right now.”

Your body visibly relaxed, releasing a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “Oh, the Skyline? Wait, you have a car and made us walk back to mine the other week?”

“I didn’t make you walk for the fun of it baby, my car is literally in the shop so obviously it was broken.”

Only, the car was perfectly fine when you met him those weeks ago. He had made the pair of you walk so he’d have more of a chance to speak to you and to touch you. The only way he could follow you around without being suspicious, especially at your dads work, was to have a somewhat reasonable excuse (which resulted in him messing with the engine). He knew although you’d shied away from him that night, he could easily win you back around.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry Taehyung. I’m also uh, sorry about how that night ended.”

“Don’t sweat it, I know what I said came off a little... weird but I didn’t mean any harm.”

With an angelic smile on your face in return, Taehyung knew that soon, that smile would morph into a grateful one. After all, he was going to help you.

Until a person is faced with death, it’s impossible to tell whether they have what it takes to survive.

Live or Die.

Your choice.

He had first seen you out and about last year. However, he had first heard of you when the guys working for him had slammed a file onto his desk, Subject #13 was scrawled on the top. Filled to the brim with pictures of you and everything about your life down to the littlest detail.

L/N Y/N— D.O.B 03.11.02— 19 years old.

Phone number: XXXXX.XXXXX

Female. Lives with parents at: 171 Norm Street, Falfield F91 7DW. Was outcasted at school but befriended a Jeon Jeongguk [19 years, male. 92 Carriers Road, Cressage CY5 3EA. XXXXX.XXXXX].

Ex partner is Kang Jaehyo. [23 years. Male. Abusive and manipulative, laid his hands on Y/N multiple times leaving bruises and scars. Sexual abuse was also discovered. Have been broken up for 4 months. 13 Walkers Drive, Falfield, F73 1DL XXXXX.XXXXX]

Y/N has suicidal ideations (as well as 7 attempts). Self harms by “cutting” “punching” and “scratching”. Diagnosed with Depression and Anxiety Disorder on May 13th 2016. Works at Toret Garage and Letty’s Floral. Both places owned by parents.

The web of lies and deceit had barely scraped the surface.

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

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Intrinsic: Jameson in Therapy

Prompt from Anon: If you're still taking prompts... "Have you tried NOT doing that?"

CW: Noncon survivor discussing future consensual spice, Jameson’s masochism, frank references to noncon and pet whump, brief internal victim-blaming, world-building detail about WRU

Dr. Berger tucks a bit of graying hair behind one ear, smiling slightly at Jameson from her place in the soft armchair she uses during appointments. “Well,” She says, thoughtful, “have you tried not doing that?”

He looks up at her from where he sits curled up on the long sofa, knees to his chest, picking absently at loose threads across the knee of his baggy blue jeans. As always, she is careful not to let her eyes move to the places where hair is slowly growing back in over bald spots where the straps of a leather muzzle had rubbed, careful not to look at the scars he wears on every inch of exposed skin - she’d made the mistake of being caught looking, however briefly, and had discovered that the newest of her clients was deeply insecure about the visible evidence of his captivity.

She’d apologized, but it had taken time to develop enough trust to come back from her initial mistake. She would not jeopardize that now, after they’ve made so much progress and she’s begun to see a shift in how he talks about and relates to his new life, his world.

He even told her the name he chose for himself, and that he’s been telling the others in the house, one by one. Accepting that it won’t be taken from him like his original name was - that it belongs to him, and is his to share or not.

She would never, ever admit it, but... Jameson is one of her favorite clients to work with. He’s working so hard, every week that they meet he trusts more and more that the path he’s on is one that will move him forward.

“What?”

His voice is slightly rough - someone who has screamed enough to have permanent vocal chord damage, she thinks. She makes a note to speak to Jake Stanton about having a physician check on the potential for nodes or other issues that might pop up later. She’s not a medical doctor, but… well. She’s had a lot of clients with vocal chord damage in the sixteen years she’s been working in the pet lib movement, and you start to pick up on the little signs and symptoms they don’t necessarily declare out loud.

“My question is really just me being a little facetious, I won’t lie, but I do want to talk through the spirit of the question. When you mention feeling guilty that you are having a physical response to your housemate, that you are attracted to them and have been struggling with... well. I’d like to really dig in to where that guilt comes from. Now, I am aware that adjustment houses tend to discourage relationships between household members during their time in residence to cut down on the chance for conflict, but that’s not where your guilt lies, is it?”

He goes back to picking at the hole slowly wearing through his jeans. Dr. Berger waits, giving him the silence and time he needs to think his way through the question and the possible answers. After a long time, he says softly, “No. It’s not. I don’t give a fuck if Stanton wants me to hold somebody’s stupid hand or not.”

She has to force her smile not to widen, wondering if Jameson is aware of just how like Jakob Stanton he really is. No wonder they don’t always get along. “Okay. So can you talk to me about just what you sense of guilt, this worry you feel, is rooted in?”

She watches with some small surprise as the angry, defiant recovering Box Boy who has spoken frankly and openly to her about being maimed, injured, treated as an object, referred to as an animal... blushes.

“I want-... It’s not the, um, the response. That I hate.” He won’t look at her now, and he’s one who loves to stare her down whenever he thinks she’ll be shocked or disgusted by what he has to tell her. But this… this, he’s ashamed or embarrassed to say. “They’re fucking gorgeous, that’s... anybody would like them. It’s… it’s what I want from them that... scares me.”

“You are accustomed to a certain level of unwanted physical attention, it’s not at all uncommon in Romantic rescues to continue to feel sexual attraction and desire after freedom-”

“No. It’s. It’s not that I-... I know that’s normal. It’s… I want…” He shifts, uneasily. “I want… I want Allyn to hurt me.”

The last sentence is whispered. It’s not sharing a thought, it’s confessing what he feels is some kind of sin he is committing or intending to commit. Dr. Berger sometimes feels like a priest in a confessional booth, although she’s never been one to suggest atonement - no, fear of oneself is where the core of most of her clients’ pain lies, in her experience. Instead, she works on reconstructing the impulse or fear from its foundations, breaking apart the horror of its weight and reconfiguring it so it’s easier to understand.

To take control of, to direct.

She helps them to own themselves, not to fear the prospect but to see in it freedom they have always deserved.

Fear is the absolute last thing any of her clients should ever have to feel again. They have been taught to devalue and debase themselves, to fear what their bodies can be made to do. If she does nothing else, Dr. Berger hopes she is able to help them be just a little less afraid of the bodies they live in.

“You want your housemate to hurt you?” She asks, gently. “Do you mean in the sense of a serious injury, or…”

“No. Um. No, I fucking… I think about them, um. Hurting-... like… like they used to do. Biting me, or... or scratching... I th-think sometimes about Allyn h-holding a... never mind. Just. Hurting me. I’m-... made to be hurt.”

“You are made only to be yourself,” Dr. Berger reminds him, her voice low and without any hint of judgement. “We’ve talked about your captors before and how you were held. You believe that you were made into a masochist as part of your training, and so you’re frightened that your mind is thinking about your housemate in ways similar to how you were once forced to think about your captors.”

His nose wrinkles - he’s more dismissive than most of the language she uses, and early on delighted in insisting on using words like owner, handler, master. Things he thought might shock her. But Dr. Berger has heard nearly everything she thinks there might be to hear, by now. She only smiles slightly at his expression, jotting quickly down on her notepad a few notations.

Finally, he offers hesitantly, “I-I guess. Allyn is… good. They’re soft, and nice, and they’d never-... but I want them to. And it’s-... it would make-... them be like Robert, or… wouldn’t it? It’d be… treating them like… I don’t ever want to be what I was again, so why the fuck can’t I stop thinking about it?”

He is so rarely vulnerable. Dr. Berger doesn’t take for granted the gift he gives her by letting her see past the wall of anger and derision he has built to keep himself safe. In many ways, he reminds her of when she saw Jake Stanton after his own brush with WRU’s handlers and their methods. Bristling, defensive, and with wounds that cannot be bandaged. They instead need to be exposed to the light.

“Intrusive thoughts that contain elements of your captivity are absolutely normal. You are still in the early stages of making progress, and progress is never linear, Jameson. There is no starting line, no ribbon at the end of the race. There is only moving forward, bit by bit, even if sometimes we move back.”

“You mean I move back,” He says, sullen now. “You don’t do shit. You’re already fine.”

“Mmmn, that’s not… quite accurate. I actually see someone myself, you know.” Dr. Berger smiles at his obvious, visible surprise. “My mentor once told me he never trusted a provider of therapy who did not themselves seek it out. I have my own progress to work towards, just as you have yours.”

“Problems are probably real fucking different, though.”

“Well, that’s true.” She allows herself a warm laugh - and is rewarded when he doesn’t bristle or assume mockery like he used to, but relaxes and even gives her a very small smile in return. “But I would advise you not to compare yourself to others. Your situation, while not unique in some ways, is still unique to you. You’ve been through a kind of horror that no one else has - even if others have experienced some similarities, the traumatic events they experienced will never be entirely like yours.”

He nods.

“But-” She holds up one finger “That doesn’t mean we can’t use what we know as a framework, a foundation you can build your own way on. Think of an ancient Roman road paved into a highway in modern Italy, for instance. The foundation was there, a path laid by people who came through before. But you can take what you need and use it to find your own way. I know that you’re scared of your thoughts, I know that you are frightened of wanting to find gratification or satisfaction in pain because you think it means a return to how you were treated before, or that you are inherently changed in damaging ways by your captivity, but…”

When she trails off, he leans slightly forward “But?”

She chooses her words carefully. “Jameson, would you be willing to consider something that may make you a little uncomfortable?”

He looks at her, depths of feelings in his brown eyes, and slowly nods. “Why not? I’m already fucking uncomfortable. All the time.”

His thin shoulders under the oversized band shirt he wears make angles under the fabric as he shrugs, although in the time she’s been seeing them those sharp edges have already begun to round out, the lines of his jaw and cheekbones are softening.

She’s seen it over and over again, the physical changes reflecting the rebuilding of an entire life. It never ceases to amaze her, how hard each and every one of them works.

“Okay. This may be hard to hear at first but I think it will help you.”

Eventually he nods. “Yeah,” He half-rasps. “Yeah, okay. Just say it. Everything… everything else you’ve said has helped. Go ahead.”

“Okay. So, what I would like you to consider… perhaps what you see as an enforced flaw, a crack that was put into you, a danger you present to your housemate due to your conditioning and mistreatment… it might be in fact an intrinsic part of your sexual expression, and simply an aspect of your attraction to them, and the wish you stated to me to perhaps escalate your current relationship.”

He swallows. The color drains from his face, except for two spots of bright red high along his cheekbones. “What?” His lips barely move.

“Jameson…” Her tone dips, reassuring and soothing. “I know what you were told. I know you were likely given a series of half-truths and whole lies designed to engender dependence and teach you to loathe yourself and therefore disconnect from your body. But… that body? It’s very real, and it’s entirely yours. I think that we need to look into the possibility that you already had certain tendencies that were exploited and twisted. Those tendencies are not inherently unhealthy or damaging if you learn to pursue them in a safe environment.”

He blinks, once, twice, his eyes glittering.

She’s made a misstep and she knows it immediately, clear as the tears Jameson never allows to fall. She didn’t time it quite right. They should have spent more time working up to it…

“Are you saying I’m just-... like this?”

“Not the way you are suggesting,” Dr. Berger says softly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t express myself clearly enough. Please let me elaborate a little.”

“I fucking hope you d-didn’t mean that I’m-... that I’m just fucked up,” He says, looking away from her, down at the floor. She pretends she doesn’t see one hand go up to curve around the side of his neck, recreating some of the weight of the collar they are so often taught to rely on for a sense of safety.

“I absolutely did not mean that. One thing WRU excels at - one of the reasons they have been so successful - is that they utilize very effective techniques that encourage a sense of complicity and responsibility in the people they abuse and violate. I’m going to hazard a guess that you were told that you chose what happened to you.”

“I signed up for this,” Jameson whispers automatically, rote and robotic, without hesitation. At least, Dr. Berger thinks, she’s been doing this job long enough that hearing that no longer gets to her like it used to. “I wanted to be some rich asshole’s-”

“Yes. That. One way I think they are able to convince so many individuals so thoroughly isn’t only because of the standard methods of sleep and nutritional deprivation, the repetition, memorizing, the mistreatment… no, I think one thing WRU does is find in each of its victims a core truth they can exploit and cause you to fear in yourself, making you more vulnerable to the idea that this company is somehow saving or helping you by ‘making use’ of it. They find your weak point and use it to shatter you, but what WRU never realizes is that the very weakness they exploit is also often the same piece of you we can recover, that we can reclaim. In your case… Jameson, have you ever heard of consensual masochism?”

He’s hooked, she thinks, on this line of logic. On the lifeline she’s thrown him, something to grab onto. A way to begin to believe, in some small way, that he isn’t ruined. They all think they’ve been ruined, by the time she meets them.

None of them is.

“No, I-I haven’t. Does this mean… there are people like me who aren’t, you know, fucktoys-”

“Recovering Romantics,” She corrects, gently. “And yes. Masochism is a not-uncommon mode of expression that many people engage in consensually in the context of healthy sexual expression.”

He swallows, hard. She watches his throat move. Sees the look in his eyes, the minute changes in his expression. The hand pushing against the side of his neck slowly drops. She can see the gears turning within him, a shifting point of view maybe. She can see what he doesn’t want to speak out loud.

There’s another silence. This one is more comfortable, and as always she gives him all the time he needs.

“How-” His voice cracks, and he clears his throat, blinking rapidly again. His knees slowly uncurl and his feet, clad in old hand-me-down sneakers, find their way to flat on the floor. Without his ever-present scowl, he looks years younger. Terrified.

Hopeful.

“How can I-... how do I-...” He takes a deep breath. “If it’s just… part of me… how do I make it safe?”

@astrobly @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @raigash @moose-teeth @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @eatyourdamnpears @boxboysandotherwhump @vickytokio @whumpfigure @outofangband @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @thehopelessopus @butwhatifyouwrite @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump

#whump #recovery whump #referenced pet whump #recovering whumpee #wru #bbu #box boy #box boy universe #masochism tw #condtioning #deconditioning #jameson bb #dr. berger #trauma recovery #noncon survivor navigating consensual spice #referenced consensual spice #referenced noncon #internalized victim-blaming #whumpees in therapy

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snelbz · 3 years

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Light Up the Ice - Chapter 10

Summary: Aelin Galathynius has never really been into sports. Yes, she likes to keep in shape, and she works out, but watching people run up and down a field, trying to keep a leather ball away from each other? It’s always seemed a bit childish to her, and decidedly NOT a way for a grown adult to make a living.

Rowan Whitethorn has recently been drafted by the Terresen Staghorns, one of best teams in the EHL (Erilean Hockey League). And since he moved to Terresen from Wendlyn, it’s been hard for him to get more than 30 seconds alone from someone demanding a picture with him. Getting drafted straight out of college wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but he’s not complaining. Until he accidentally meets a girl. More specifically, until he accidentally meets his neighbor. She seems to have no idea who he is and for some reason, that’s refreshing. But will she still want to be with him once he shows her the truth?

Light Up the Ice Masterlist

My Masterlist

Tara’s Masterlist

Co-written with @tacmc.

Warnings: language, smut - this chapter is 18+.

Rowan’s phone rang for the third time since he’d made it home from practice less than an hour ago. He had two papers due in the morning and his professors didn’t give a shit if the Warriors were heading to the finals in less than a week. They cared about the history of Wendlyn and its allies.

His girlfriend, however, clearly didn’t give a shit about either.

He answered, his tone clipped. “Hello?”

“You never called me when you finished up.”

He pulled the phone away from his ear and sighed, before returning it and saying, “I’ve only been home for about fifteen minutes. Coach made me spend some extra time in the weight room.”

“You’re going to put on too much bulk if you keep going to the gym,” she said, pointedly. “You won’t get drafted into the EHL if you don’t have the speed, babe.”

Another heavy sigh. “I’m just doing what my coaches say, Maeve. They’ve gotten me this far-.”

“No, Rowan, you’ve gotten yourself this far, with your ability, not your coaches,” she said, and he could hear her getting into the car. “You need to quit going to the gym and focus on your puck-handling.”

When Rowan had met Maeve his freshman year, after Lyria’s accident, he thought dating someone in the sports medicine program would make his life easier. A good distraction from life and his feelings, but the longer they stayed together, the more Rowan regretted ever asking the dark-haired beauty out to dinner.

She’d been great at first. She was as interested in hockey as he was, so he didn’t feel like he was bothering her by asking her to come to his games. But as she inserted herself into his life in more and more ways, Rowan knew that they weren’t going to last.

“I’m leaving my apartment now, I’ll be there in just a bit,” she said, completely ignoring his lack of reply to her suggestions.

He sighed. “I’ve got a lot of homework, Maeve, I really think I should-.”

“You’re in college to play, baby,” she replied with a scoff. “You need to focus on your future, your studies are just a stepping stone.”

This was becoming a frequent conversation between the two of them. Maeve was adamant that Rowan should drop out and see if he could get drafted as soon as he could. Rowan knew that even if he was to get drafted early, one game, one bad hit, one concussion, one injury could end his career. He didn’t just study to ensure he could play for the University of Wendlyn.

He studied because he wanted a backup plan.

Maeve, as single-minded as she was, didn’t understand that. She didn’t understand a thing, not about Rowan, anyway. All she saw was a man that made her look good, a guy that was well-liked around campus and in his hockey community and their group of friends.

“I need to-.”

Maeve was already interrupting him. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

She hung up.

With one last heavy sigh, Rowan closed his laptop and prepared for her arrival.

Rowan pulled out his phone the moment she left. It was on his ear, ringing, as he checked the stovetop clock to see if it was too early to be drinking.

Brello answered on the third ring. “Whitethorn.”

“Hey,” Rowan began, hesitantly. “I-.”

“Did you see the new therapist?” Brello interrupted. “Havilliard mentioned you were planning on getting started today.”

“Aye, coach, I did, but there’s a minor problem-.”

He was cut off again. “You can’t get back on the ice for at least two games, Rowan, I’m sorry. Those are the rules. Just follow the at home therapy routine Dorian left you and you can come back to practice on Sunday.”

“The problem isn’t me not getting to play.” He rushed the words out, not meaning to sound disrespectful, but wanting to speak before Brello hung up the phone. “It’s with the new sports therapist.”

Silence met him on the other side of the phone. “Give her a couple weeks, Whitethorn. I know you were used to Sorscha, but even she says Maeve is highly qualified, and highly recommended.”

“I’m sure she is, but it’s more of a, ah, personal conflict,” Rowan said, pacing around Aelin’s apartment. He’d come back after Maeve was done. Dorian had left a note on top of the stack of paperwork he assumed was his therapy, letting him know he’d headed back to the arena and to call him with any questions.

Another pause. “A personal conflict?”

“Maeve is my…” Rowan cleared his throat. “Maeve is my ex, sir.” Brello was once, again, quiet on the other line. “Sir?”

Brello sighed, long and heavy. “Look, Whitethorn. I respect you, and you and I have never had any real issues. You’re a great player, and a great asset to the team. Because of that, you need to get the hell over your personal issues and keep your eye on the end goal here.”

Rowan closed his eyes. “But-.”

“You need to take the treatment being given to you or you won’t be playing any time soon and that’s final,” Brello said, his voice conveying one thing: that his words were very much final.

When Rowan didn’t answer, Brello’s voice filled the silence, yet again. “Is that clear?”

Rowan’s voice was strong but quiet when he replied, “Yes, sir.”

Brello hung up without another word, which left Rowan standing there, his phone still held up to his ear. After a moment, he pulled it away and looked down at it, at the ridiculously adorable selfie Aelin had set as his lock screen . He wasn’t sure when she’d done it, but he couldn’t help but smile as he looked into her gorgeous eyes.

He froze.

Shit. How was he going to tell her?

Good news, babe, I called the team therapist. Bad news, she’s my ex.

His phone lit up in his hand, taking Rowan by surprise. “Hey, man,” he answered, falling back on the couch. Which was a mistake. He immediately groaned.

Lorcan snorted. “I take it you saw Maeve. I have the same reaction when she puts her hands on me.”

Regardless of the fact that he loved Aelin, regardless of the fact that he could hear the joking tone in his teammate’s voice, Maeve was still his ex. And Rowan hated the feeling that rose in him at the thought of her hands on someone else’s body.

When Rowan said nothing, Lorcan followed, “That was a joke, asshole.”

Rowan cleared his throat. “I know, I was just thinking of how I’m going to tell Aelin.”

Lorcan snorted. “Tell Aelin? Tell her what?”

Rowan blinked, even though Lorcan couldn’t see him. “About Maeve.”

“Why the hell would you do that?” Lorcan asked, without missing a beat.

“Because I’ve learned my lesson about keeping things from her,” Rowan snapped. “Last time it didn’t work out so well for me.”

“Didn’t it?” Lorcan chuckled. “You got the girl, I think it worked out alright.”

Rowan was about to reply, about to tell him that Aelin wasn’t a prize to be won and that he was lucky as hell she decided to forgive him. But Lorcan cut him off. “On top of that, all it’s going to do is make the princess pissy and jealous, which is only going to make her hate hockey more. And I don’t see that working out well for you in the long run.”

Lorcan had begun to call Aelin the princess and Rowan sighed as he used the nickname. “Shit. I didn’t think about that.”

“Exactly. You gotta think long term. You tell Aelin that your ex is your massage therapist and she’s going to be so jealous, she can’t see straight,” Lorcan said, and Rowan could hear the beeps of the treadmill as he picked up the pace.

“Are you at the arena?” Rowan asked, praying that they weren’t having this conversation while Lorcan was around the rest of the team.

He sounded offended when he replied. “Hell no, I’m at home. You know I don’t run at the rink. But speaking of being at the arena, we need you there. Not in the box, not suspended on the bench, and sure as shit not on the injured list. You need to quit this dumb shit with the fighting.”

They’d had this conversation once before but rather than over the phone, they had been in person.

It ended in a fist fight.

Rowan sucked on his teeth. “I promise, it’s done with. Now that I have Aelin back, I just-.”

“Stop, stop with the mushy shit, I don’t want to hear about it.”

Rowan frowned. “You’re a jackass, you know that?”

“I do,” Lorcan said, between heavy breaths. “A fact that I’m proud of.”

Rowan just shook his head. “Of course, you are.”

“Be at the game tonight?” Lorcan asked.

“Yeah,” Rowan replied. “With Aelin.”

“Good,” Lorcan huffed. “Bond, keep her happy up in that box of yours. Keep Maeve to yourself. Trust me.”

Trust me. Those words from Lorcan Salvaterre typically didn’t sit well in the pit of Rowan’s stomach, but Rowan had to admit that this time, Lorcan had a point.

He just got Aelin. He didn’t want to ruin it with petty jealousy coming between them.

Besides, it was just a little, white lie.

Right?

When Aelin got home, she found Rowan on her couch, wearing a very nice suit, that was tailored to immaculately accent his muscular form, watching highlights from the games the night before. Her eyebrows rose as she took him in. “I already feel underdressed and I haven’t even changed yet.”

Rowan chuckled as she set her purse down on the kitchen counter. “If I didn’t have to wear this to games, I wouldn’t. Unfortunately, I don’t get much of a choice.” He stood and met Aelin in the middle of the room. “How was your day?”

“Insanely busy,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist and smiling up at him. “But that meant it flew by. So it was good.”

Leaning down to kiss her, he replied, “Good.”

She raised up on her tiptoes and met his lips with hers before pulling away and heading for her bedroom. “I need to get ready, come tell me about your therapy appointment today. You look like you aren’t hurting as bad.”

Rowan rubbed at the back of his neck, but waited until she had rounded the corner to answer. “Nothing of consequence happened. Got the massage, my trainer gave me some physical therapy exercises to do at night, and relaxed the rest of the day. Just like I said I would.”

Rowan walked into her room and found her in the bathroom, piling her hair into a messy bun on top of her head. She looked at him in the mirror and raised an eyebrow. “Nothing of consequence? You sure about that?” She asked, before reaching for her makeup bag underneath the vanity.

Rowan swallowed hard, the abrupt change in her tone having immediately put him on edge.

How had she found out? Lorcan was the only person he’d told about Maeve. Rowan was fairly sure that he hadn’t said anything, since Lorcan didn’t even want him telling her himself.

“No, nothing,” he replied. “A pretty boring day, honestly.”

Aelin ran a spoolie brush through her brows, but smirked and said, “Liar.”

Rowan’s blood went cold.

The smile on her face surprised him until she said, “You didn’t tell me Dorian was your trainer!”

He released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He chuckled and scratched at the stubble on his jaw.

“We’ve known each other for years,” Aelin went on, checking herself out in the mirror. “He’s such a good guy. I didn’t even know you knew him, which is ridiculous, considering how often I talk to Dorian.”

“Yeah, he’s great,” Rowan said, nodding along. No more questions, please, no more questions.

“Maybe we’ll see him at the game tonight.” Aelin reached up on her toes and gave Rowan a kiss on the cheek. “Let me change and touch up my makeup, then we’ll go?”

Rowan cleared his throat. “Sounds good.”

Rowan had hung his jersey on the door so Aelin could wear it, but after holding it up to her frame, it was agreed that it was far, far too big.

“We’ll get you another one from the Pro Shop when we get to the arena, get one in your size, yeah?” He chuckled, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she pouted about being unable to wear his.

She tossed on a light jacket and they were out the door. True to his word, as soon as they emerged from the stairwell leading from the staff and player’s garage, Rowan took her into the Pro Shop, much to the amazement of the crowd inside. They were hardly stopped though and a handful of minutes and one Jersey purchase later, they were all alone. The privacy of the box was a nice reprieve for Aelin. She was not used to being stared at for such long periods of time and she found she didn’t much care for it.

“Is this always how it is?” Aelin asked, as she sat her purse in one of the chairs. “Everyone being starstruck?”

Rowan shrugged. “Only when I’m here. I’m rarely recognized elsewhere. You know, unless they’re diehard hockey fans.”

“Which explains why I didn’t know who the hell you were,” Aelin chuckled.

Rowan grinned. “I liked that about you.”

Aelin smiled and walked toward the open end of the small room, facing out over the ice. The plush chairs were set far enough back that unless you were standing right on the railing, you couldn’t be seen. But the railing is where Aelin ended up and she whispered, “It’s so much to take in.”

The arena opened up before them. He knew exactly what she meant, but on a completely different scale. He’d ruined two hockey games for her though, and he wanted her to enjoy this one.

“Do you want a drink?” He asked, brushing a long, loose strand of hair behind her ear

“Yes, please,” she smiled. “A Jack and Coke.”

He nodded and pressed a kiss to her forehead, before placing their order on the small iPad on the counter. A beer for himself and her drink, plus miscellaneous things they could snack on.

“So what do you want to know about hockey? He asked, after they’d sat down on one of the many plush loveseats. The box could seat as many as twelve, but Aelin and Rowan weren’t complaining about their privacy. He wrapped his arm around her and drew small shapes on her shoulder as he watched his teammates warm up.

She shrugged, snuggling into his embrace. “I’m more of an ‘ask as you go’ type of person. I’m sure I’ll think of something though.”

Rowan snorted. “Fair enough.”

It wasn’t five minutes later that someone showed up with their drink order and appetizers, then politely left them alone.

Aelin took a sip from her drink as she watched the players skate gracefully around the ice. Aelin could faintly remember the last time she had been on ice skates, she couldn’t have been older than ten.

And she hated every second of it.

She had constantly fallen down and her ankles were sore as hell afterwards. After that, she had never wanted to go ice skating again. Even if she found the sport beautiful.

Hockey players skated in an entirely different way, though. They were brutal, ruthless, but still so graceful with every glide of their skate.

“You look mesmerized,” Rowan muttered, cup of beer tipped against his bottom lip.

“It’s…intense,” she admitted, trying to follow just one of the little black pucks sliding across the ice as the players warmed up.

“It is,” he said, focusing on the activity below. He watched as his line followed through the warm ups he did with them every night. It felt so foreign to be up here, so far from the ice, instead of with them.

Aelin’s hand rested on his arm. He tore his eyes from the ice and the figures gliding around.

“You really do love this game, don’t you?” Aelin asked, smiling at him.

He paused and gazed back out over the ice. “More than I can explain, Aelin. Hockey… It may just be a game to some people, but it’s my entire life. Everything I am, everything I have, I owe to this sport.” His pine green eyes caught hers when he turned back to look at her and he cupped her face with one hand. “You have no clue how much it means that you’re here with me, darlin’. Thank you.”

Aelin melted. “Thank you for asking me to come with.” He took her hand in his and she chuckled as she ran her thumbs over his knuckles. “I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have come to a hockey game with anyone else.”

Rowan snorted. “Fair enough.”

The game began and Aelin wasn’t ashamed to say that Rowan had to explain every little thing that happened.

When the crowd would cheer, she’d try to decipher what had happened. When they’d yell and boo, she’d try to observe the game. It didn’t help that she couldn’t see the puck, sliding across the ice at ridiculous speeds. More often than not, she’d have to ask what caused the reaction from the crowd. And the goal horn nearly made her spill her drink the first time it rang out, after Gavriel scored a goal on the power play.

He never acted like her questions were a bother, though he may hold up a finger to indicate he needed to watch for a second longer to process what had just gone down. But then he’d grin and explain what happened, or if it wasn’t in the Staghorns’ favor, his brow would crinkle and he’d tell her what went wrong.

Then he’d tell her what he would have done that would have kept it from happening and wink at her, and she’d shake her head, laughing quietly.

She understood the basics of the game, but after her third stiff drink in the first period, Aelin wasn’t really worried about learning the in’s and out’s. There was time for that at a later game and the way Rowan’s warm hand was resting on the inside of her thigh had her focused on something else entirely. His calloused thumb rubbed small circles into the denim of her jeans, but even that touch was enough to ignite something within her.

All the while, her own hand was resting on his leg. Through those expensive suit pants, she could feel his muscular thighs and every time something major happened, he’d scoot forward. The first couple of times, Aelin would write it off as something from the game, but she knew what lie beneath those silk-spun slacks, beneath the boxer-briefs.

Right before the end of the second period, Aelin turned towards Rowan right as he turned to ask her a question, and she felt it.

Rowan’s cheeks were heated. He stammered an excuse out. “There’s a lot of adrenaline running through me, Ace,” he breathed.

He was rock hard inside of slacks.

It may have been because of the game, he may have not been lying, but Aelin couldn’t resist.

“How private is this box,” she whispered, brushing her fingers along the definite bulge in his pants.

Rowan hissed quietly, his pine-green eyes went wide, but his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “No one can get in unless we open the door. No cameras either.”

“Hmm.” The response was quiet and Aelin went back to watching the game, sipping on her drink.

For another few seconds, Rowan watched her, all too aware of the ridiculous hard-on straining against his slacks. The regulation clock ticked down to 0:00 and as the players skated towards the benches for the intermission, Rowan was about to suggest ordering one more round of drinks, when Aelin slid off the couch, settled on her knees, and started undoing his belt buckle.

He didn’t dare move, didn’t breathe. He was perfectly aware of every one of her movements, perfectly aware of where her eyes remained as she unbuttoned his slacks, and moved down the zipper.

Rowan’s jaw hardened as those slacks slid down, just to the tops of his thighs. His cock stood proud.

Her hands were like ice, frigid, thanks to the arena being, well, literal ice, but he didn’t care. Not when her touch made him feel like he was on fire. She stroked him, slowly, carefully, but not like the other night, when she’d surprised him after the shower.

Her grip was more firm, and Rowan could see the lust in her own eyes.

“Does this happen every game?” She crooned, spreading his legs wider and scooting in closer.

His eyes fell closed of their own accord and he nodded. “Mostly all of them, aye.”

“Hmm.” Once again, a short, quiet answer. He didn’t have to press her through. She continued, “And you usually take care of it yourself?”

His eyes opened and he looked at her. He nodded once.

“Maybe I should come to more games then,” she said, smirking. He groaned softly, and she leaned and pressed a soft kiss to the tip, before looking up at him again. She was almost sure he wasn’t breathing, but his eyes… His eyes burned for her.

He cleared his throat, and his voice was husky when he said, “I can get pretty…rough after games, baby. What we do out there, it’s a pretty aggressive sport.”

Aelin ran her tongue along the underside of his cock, from the base to the crown at the top, which glistened with Rowan’s precum. It was practically begging for her lips around it. “What if I told you I like it pretty rough?”

Rowan had to fight the urge to take her then and there.

“Nothing to say to that?” Aelin crooned, her grin wild and mischievous.

“Wouldn't be the first time you’ve left me speechless,” Rowan answered, attempting a joke, but his voice was far too rough for humor.

“I call that a success,” Aelin breathed, her breath warm against the tip of his cock.

Rowan fell back in his chair as her lips wrapped around him, and he couldn’t stop his hand from slowly reaching out and gripping the back of her head, her fingers tangling themselves into her golden locks.

Twice now, he’d had Aelin’s mouth on him, and twice now, he felt as if the blood in his veins had turned to fire. He tugged on the strands and Aelin’s turquoise-and-gold eyes opened, finding him gazing down at her. As she bobbed her head, taking him deeper and deeper with each pass, a quiet whimper left Aelin and Rowan’s grip tightened on her hair, groaning as Aelin began to work him with her hand as well.

Rowan had the vague recognition of the teams retaking the ice and roar of the crowd, but his sole focus was the woman on his knees before him, worshipping his cock.

He began to hope that his words before had been true. Hopefully no one would walk in. Hopefully, no cameras would find a way to catch them. Then again, did he truly care?

No.

The feeling that swept through his body made him not care a single bit.

“Aelin,” he breathed.

He could feel her lips curve upward as she worked him.

He growled, “Fuck the rest of the game,” and pulled himself from Aelin’s mouth.

He quickly resituated himself and Aelin, bless her, had the foresight to sit back in her seat before standing up. She adjusted her hair and grabbed her purse, asking, “You don’t have to stay the whole time?”

“Didn’t have to come at all,” Rowan said, coming up behind her. He turned her around and tilted her chin up so that she was looking up into his handsome face. “But you do, so we need to go, and we need to get home as quickly as possible.”

Aelin blinked, staring up at him for a moment, shocked by how upfront his words were. The grin that graced her lips though, was one of wicked delight.

“Who says we need to go all the way back home for that to happen?” Aelin whispered, caressing his cheek with the palm of her hand.

Rowan looked around the box, even though they were alone. “Are you saying what I think you are, Galathynius?”

Her grin only grew more feline.

Licking his lips, watching Aelin, Rowan warred with himself inside his head. But he wouldn’t fuck her in a private box at a game.

Not the first time, at least.

He leaned down, his lips at her ear, and breathed, “I want to take my time with you - to learn…every inch of you. And this box doesn’t have the thickest walls. I don’t want to have an audience,” he added as he pulled back and let his lips just barely brush against hers, “when I make you moan, Aelin.”

#snelbz lui #light up the ice #toab lui #rowaelin hockey fic #rowaelin #throne of glass #aelin galythinius #rowan whitethorn #snacmc #snelbz tacmc collab

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hawkinsschoolcounselor · 3 years

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I kinda feel like Mike would accept his sexuality more than will tbh I think mike would act weird about it at first but I think will might take a little longer to accept his and be reluctant to admit his feelings for Mike I'd honestly prefer that then the other way around

Hm, I'm not sure. They're sort of in their own unique situations, each with unique challenges.

Mike's may be easier to overcome, so you might still be right. His biggest issue is a need to be "normal." It's a Wheeler family trait. We know Karen gave up on everything to marry the "perfect" man, start a family, and be the model housewife. We get shown time and time again how much she regrets it, and, if not for her love for her family, likely would have had an affair just to feel something. Nancy was well along that path, also. We saw Karen and Nancy butt heads over Nancy's choices up until Karen revealed that she was mainly scared that Nancy would make her same mistakes by giving up on everything that made her special in order to be what she was supposed to be.

I think Mike is long overdue for a similar moment with his mom. He was also on the path to becoming his parents. That point was heavily hammered home in season 3, including having him dressing exactly like both his mom and dad at parts. He gave up on everything that made him Mike once he got a girlfriend (well, minus the snarkiness), just like his mom. He also became lazy about the relationship, expecting that everything just work out on its own, just like his dad.

For Mike, I think the key point will be him seeing that he doesn't have to go down that same road. I know others have speculated on Karen and Ted getting a divorce. As much as I wouldn't like this, since Ted isn't really a bad guy, it's probably for the best for both of them. It would also be a potential wake-up call for Mike. A talk with his mom, and maybe Ted, as well, could help him see that being with someone for the wrong reasons only results in an empty, unfulfilling relationship. Were Mike to continue down that road with El, they would both find themselves unhappy eventually. Maybe Karen (and Ted?) would tell Mike that they still like each other, just not in a romantic sense, and that they're giving each other the chance to find real happiness. They could tell Mike that it's not about doing what other people say you should, but rather finding that special someone who makes you happy regardless of what anyone else says.

Now I don't think Mike will just magically decide he wants to be with Will after a moment like that, but I do think it would get him to start realizing that Will is who makes him happy. Will, on the other hand, has some heavy stuff going on.

Will has been bullied for being gay, including by his own father, for a long time. The very prospect that he actually is would likely be very upsetting to him. He may not even know just why Mike and El's relationship made him angry. Well, he probably knows, but he'd be in denial about it. He may still be trying to rationalize his feelings for Mike as friendship, despite all the contrasts with how he feels for anyone else.

The sad thing is that he has family who love him regardless of who he wants to be with. Joyce and Jonathan have both had coded conversations where they express that they are "so proud" of him and that he shouldn't like something just because he's told to. It's written as thinly veiled "if you're gay, it's ok" even if the characters themselves didn't specifically mean it in that way. They're going to love Will no matter what. Will is unable to accept that sentiment though, in one case because he was actively possessed by the Mindflayer.

Cracking the protective shell that Will has put up would be hard. I can see Mike coming to his realization first, but being rebuffed by Will. To him, accepting Mike's feelings would only confirm what everyone has said about him. He'd be conflicted, yes, and we'd probably see that, because he really is in love with Mike. But he hates that he's in love with Mike. In this regard, I think Will needs to have his own moment with his parents, one where he gets Joyce's approval and unconditional love, and one where he finally internalizes just what a horrible father Lonnie has been. The thing people sometimes forget is that what little we see of Will's perspective of Lonnie suggests that he wants his dad's love. He's disappointed that Lonnie isn't coming to take him to a ball game, despite not even liking baseball. I think Will coming to terms with himself is seeing that his dad's approval isn't something he should care about.

The key might be something as simple as having Mike and Lonnie in the same room. I'll let you all come up with your own scenarios.

This is all just one possibility, of course, but one that has evidence to back it up. We also have reason to believe that Will knows he likes Mike already, but just thinks it's hopeless. We also have reason to believe that Mike may have had something of an epiphany at the end of season 3. Of course, that can all be true alongside Mike thinking what he wants isn't important and Will thinking it'd be wrong of him to try and be with Mike. I think we still have a ways to go before they get together, but it'll be interesting to see how it happens.

#stranger things #byler #mike wheeler #will byers

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binniesthighs · 3 years

Text

hello stranger | reader x changbin |

a/n: we are getting to the “height” of the conflict, therefore the angst is gonna start amping up-just as a reminder! This fic talks about self worth and healing from past trauma so please read what makes you comfy! In this chapter, the majority is implied, but still, please read the warnings ahead of time :)

Part 4

Pairing: self insert, female reader x seo changbin, female reader x han jisung

Genre: strangers to lovers, fluff, smut, angst

Tags: (of this part) college au, rapper!changbin, rapper!jisung, establishedfwb!jisung, artist!reader, explicit language, fluffy growing feelings, mentions of food, hello yes I just wanna give this changbin a huuuuge hug

CWs: implications/discussion of past toxic realtionship, implications of negative self-worth and self-sabotage

Word count: 4.8k

Chapters:

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5

Popcorn flew into the air in slow motion and approximately four hundred multicolored skittles scattered the floor like the shattering of glass.

“Yes...yes...FUCK YES!!”

Felix launched his small body into the air with a victorious screech, turning his controller into a projectile. The clump of black plastic thumped into the torn up corduroy couch missing Chan’s arm by millimeters.

“HOW TO YOU LIKE THAT?? WOOOO!!”

Your friend took a victory lap around the tiny living room that was a mess of winter coats and boots with melted snow dripping to the hardwood floor.

“Felixxxxx, you made a mess!” Chan sighed out deeply and solemnly at the array of rainbow colored candies on the floor.

“I never win. You gotta admit the way that I finished that off was extra disrespectful. DID YOU SEE the way that I down-B’d you to pieces??? That was fuckin’ awesome.”

“Good job ‘lix.” You pulled a Twizzler by your teeth and dished out a little wink for him.

“Hey! I haven’t been playing for nearly as long as you two have. I see this as a complete win.”

“Well, Chan and I were at each others throats the whole time, so, we kinda killed ourselves off for you.”

“I still won!!”

“Alright, alright, good job.” Both you and Chan took turns patting his poofy blond hair.

“Ahhh our Lix’ is finally growing up.” Chan sighed, mockingly looking out in the distance to some far away place. “But...now you’ve gotta clean this up. Lucky you’re the one that paid for the Skittles, not me.”

In his fit of happiness Felix didn’t even care about getting down on his hands and knees to pick up the pieces like Cinderella.

Chan took a gulp of his electric green Monster. “Feels nice to have you back around here Y/n. It feels like it’s kind of been a while.”

“Mm, it has. You know how it goes, stuff gets busy and all that.”

“~And she’s been hanging out with someone else~” Felix’s words came out in a cutesy little song.

“You have?”

You slapped Felix right upside the head to which he whimpered out with a much more dramatic “owww” than was warranted.

It was likely a mistake that the two of you had kept Changbin a secret from Chan. Chan basically idolized him, and you felt that it was best not to...complicate things. Every other hour Chan would bring up one of Changbin’s songs, talking about him as if he was some kind of lyrical genius. He had half a plan to meet him at the last show, but had gotten too shy and pulled you both before he could get second thoughts.

For it to be so easy for you...it felt somehow unfair.

It was definitely a mistake.

“Who? Jisung?” Chan rolled his eyes a bit like he always would when spoke of that boy.

“No...” Your voice became small, then you shot deathly glares at Felix who tucked his tail in between his legs.

“Chan...”

Felix’s eyes widened to full moons once he had realized what you were about to do. You curled yourself up into a ball slightly, sweaty hands grasping at your controller.

“Its...Changbin.”

“CHANGBIN?” Chan shot upright from his seat. “Changbin?? Are we talking about the same Changbin?? Changbin-from-the-show-Changbin??”

“Yes.” You steadied your thumping chest.

“When did that happen??” Chan turned his body towards Felix who cowered into the mess of Skittles. “Did you know about this?”

Felix made a little grunt that could have sounded like either a “yes” or a “no”-- it was likely his safest bet.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew it would be kinda...like this...”

Your eldest friend sat back down his his palm firmly slapped against his forehead. “Sorry, I’m just having a hard time piecing this all together.”

“It happened after the show that one day. I was walking home and I fell and got kind of scraped up, then he took me back to his place...”

Simply bringing that night back up again sent you spinning into your pool of memories: and they had a particular tendency to make you just as flustered as the night when they had first occurred. There were dozens of little things about him that had stuck with you, even if you wouldn’t admit it out loud.

There was that stupidly confident smirk of his, that little scar on his chin, how his fingers looked in those silver rings, his hooded grey-black eyes, those faint little stretch marks on the backs of his arms, and the way that his Adam’s apple would bounce when you kissed into his neck.

“Well? Chan’s voice snapped you back. “Does that mean...you aren’t seeing Jisung anymore?”

“...Jisung?”

His name hadn’t occupied your thoughts for weeks, and you hadn’t taken much notice of it. There were unread text messages from him that had fallen to the bottom of you message list, and missed calls that you hadn’t returned. Creeping inside of you was a sick and sticky feeling: the kind that you pushed deep down inside yourself to the place where things would get forgotten.

You didn’t know what you wanted from Jisung.

It wasn’t the way that he would kiss you roughly and needily, or how he would take greedy hands to every inch of your body. It wasn’t how he would fill praises into your ears or shake a little when he would finish himself off on your belly. Months ago, it would be all you could think of, then immediately forget after it had happened. That was what made it easy.

Changbin wasn’t easy. He wouldn’t give himself up entirely to you just because he could. He made you earn him, and he made you seek him.

You belonged to neither of them.

In your lap, your hands trembled with a memory of long ago: snowflakes in your hands burning with the cold and your throat scratched from all the yelling.

“Y/n?” Chan softened.

A sob had caught in your throat which you swallowed down with effort. “I-I’m still seeing Jisung.”

“Wait, you’re seeing both of them?” Felix popped up from the floor. “You didn’t tell either of them?”

“I don’t need to. I’m not tied down to either of them.” You had said it as confidently as you could, almost like you needed to convince yourself.

Both of your best friends eyes carefully held yours.

“Doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t tell them.” Felix nodded.

Chan nodded too in agreeance.

“But we’re just fucking around?? Its not like I’m cheating on anyone.”

“Y/n, you’re missing the point.”

“What? Don’t I have the right to sleep with whoever the hell I want to? Don’t you think that it’s kind of backwards that I should keep everyone in the loop when I’m just--why would I--”

Chan’s hand snuck over to yours which had started shaking even more violently on your leg; you hadn’t even noticed. The sobs that you had held in your chest started to overflow, bubbling and spewing from your surface. They felt choked in your throat, and then burned hot tears in your eyes. Both of your friends got to work, scooting in right next to you and sandwiching you between their arms.

“You don't have to be afraid.” Felix whispered softly. He smoothed his hand down your back.

“I-I’m not.” You clenched the words between your teeth. “Why-why are you guys drilling me like this??” You squirmed a bit between them.

Chan hushed, “We’re not.”

“Then why does it feel--”

“--You're doing it again.” Felix simply sighed, and rocked the three of your bodies to the tune of your messy sobs.

Chan let out little “shhh” sounds. “Stop digging yourself in that hole Y/n. You know that you’re doing it. Its more than just messing around.”

A tangible and thick silence held the air where your two closest friends held onto you tightly, almost like you would slip away. You fucking hated them for reading you as well as they did, but you also fucking loved them for being as good at it as they were. Being sandwiched like this with them was all too familiar. They had also done it on that same night: the night when your world had collapsed. That night you had been so weak you could barely hold back.

“It’s not gonna happen again.” Chan said at last. “I know that you must think about it all the time, and I’m so sorry that you do. You’re never gonna be stuck in that alley alone again.”

Felix quickly added, “We’ll be there--even if it does--which it won’t.”

“Stop dragging yourself through it okay? I know it’s easier said than done.” Chan took his black sweater sleeve to dab at your tears.

You were completely engulfed in your friends love, the unconditional kind: the kind that would part the seas and walk through flames for you. You don’t know how you could have forgotten how it had been there.

“Maybe its one of them or the other, but, I think you should tell them. You don’t deserve to tear yourself up like this over it all. It’s not good for you, or for them.” Felix laughed a little. “We’re not blind you know.”

Fat, thick sniffles clogged up your nose. Your subconscious and consciousness mudded behind your eyes and those memories of both boys: Changbin and Jisung became indistinguishable. You had sought them out for different reasons, but you hadn’t known why. Now, it was all becoming clearer.

“You like him don’t you?” Felix took his turn dabbing at your eyes too. “I can tell.”

“N-no...”

Felix didn’t even need to say who “he” was for you to understand.

“No?”

“I just...go see him sometimes.”

You would. You would see him, think of him, call all the little things about him to your memory: that scar on his chin and the faint stretch marks on his arms.

Snot dripped down your nose and over your quivering lips and you didn’t even care.

That voice rang in your ears just as you had remembered it on that night when he had dragged you out there, alone, furious. You didn’t even know what you had done wrong.

"I don’t want it to happen again.”

The words tore from your lips freely, finally. The fear that you had held so deep inside, the fear that would plague your every other thought. The fear that kept you from answering questions or giving answers. The fear that brought your feet to Jisung’s doorstep and the fear that kissed away words on Changbin’s lips. A massive weight like heavy metal chains that had wrapped around your body started to loosen.

“How are you going to let yourself have a chance at something good if you don’t try, right?” Chan and Felix exchanged hopeful little smiles.

Felix patted your hair to fix where you had frizzed it between them. “You know what you need to do.”

╚ ——————————————— ╝

[11:18]

changbin: this friday? yeah, I don’t think that I have anything else going on.

its been a little while.

everything okay?

...

i’m sorry if i overstepped that night

you just looked

...

fuck

you’ve got me thinking of you all the time

╚ ——————————————— ╝

Snow fell on your walk to class. It was the same early morning one that you shared with Minho. These days, the two of you had seemed to have gotten much closer. Even though you hadn’t been over in nearly a week, Minho still talked to you as if he saw you there every day. He would complain about little things such as how the rest of his roommates would leave dishes in the sink or socks randomly on the floor.

What the two of you didn’t talk about much was Changbin. There was some unspoken understanding now that the two of you had promised. He didn’t want to know much and you didn’t want to tell him; and it stayed that way. It was odd now considering that you had been quiet before so he couldn’t hear.

Admittedly, that did give you a chuckle or two from time to time.

Today, the snowflakes gathered in clumps and hugged each other while they floated down the the ground where they would melt instantly. This was the kind of snow that wouldn’t stick around. For this, you were grateful. In the first week of February, you had just enough of winter and longed for the green grasses that would peek from the melting white.

The tip of your nose and ears were warm as you marched onward with eyes squinted from the flakes that would get caught in them. In some ways, you were thankful. During the lectures, you would often prefer watching the blanket of white dancing in the windows behind the professors head.

Something you still had to learn however, was picking the right shoes. Your toes were frozen in the same canvas shoes that Changbin had scolded you for wearing. You pulled out your phone the check the time: eleven minutes early. It was somewhat of a personal best.

You smiled with a little pride, missing the body mass that was walking right past you and collided with your shoulder.

“Oh! Sorry, I’m so sorry, I was--Jisung?”

“Y/n?? Holy shit--”

Heartbeats rang in your ears and you felt as if you could hear the very blood pumping in your veins.

“I-I’m late for class, I gotta--”

“--No wait!” Rather than looking angry as you expected, that wide smile of his spread across his rosy cheeks. “I’m just glad that I ran into you.”

“Jisung, really, I need to go--”

His gloved hand reached out for your arm. “I’ve been trying to reach you but I think something must’ve gone wrong with your phone. How are you doing?”

“How am I doing?”

“Yeah, I was kinda worried, it was like you dropped off the face of the earth.”

You clawed your arm away. “I’ve been fine.”

Jisung sucked at his teeth, “Listen, after your class, can we talk? I borrowed my roommates car--I can drive us back to my place--”

“--That’s what you want to do? Talk?” The simmering anxiety that washed over you turned into irate heat.

“Yeah?”

“No its not.”

You slung your shoulder bag high up your arm, and walked on.

“Stop stop stop.” Jisung threw his body in front of your path. “What’s been going on with you? Hm? Did something happen? What is it? Your-uh art or something? You still do that right?”

Jisung had seen your paintings decorating the walls of your bedroom and the sketches that piled up on your desk next to colored pencils tied up together by rubber bands. He had seen them, but he had never looked.

“Why the hell do you care so much?”

“Baby--” He scuffed after your determined steps towards the business building. “Listen, I-I missed you okay?” Jisung yelled into the winter air: “I missed you. Alright?”

“Jisung, it wasn’t me that you missed.”

He stammered, and huffed up those puffy cheeks of his. In one final attempt, he approached you carefully with those cute brown eyes that you would often let slip into your daydreams. He reached out for your cold hand and took it in his. Had it been several months ago, you would have killed for him to hold your hand like that.

“I’ve been doing some thinking lately, especially when I hadn’t heard from you. I just...got this feeling like had done something wrong and I couldn’t figure out what the hell it was. Now, I know that I did. I...don’t like seeing you mad like this. Tell me what it is? I wanna see you at my show next week. I just want things to go back to the way that they were.”

The way that things were.

The way that things were was simplier. Easier. Just like he was. Jisung didn’t ask questions and Jisung didn’t take you out to noodle places just because he he felt like it.

The way that things were would have been easier and his hand did feel pleasantly warm in yours like you had imagined.

“I have to get to class Jisung.”

╚ ——————————————— ╝

On that Friday evening when you marched up to the front door of Changbin’s apartment building, he stood hooded under the tin awning turned to rust brown with age. He huffed out a little under the dinky light of the old building, but as far as you could see, his cheeks and nose had blushed with pink. You wouldn’t have pegged him it for it, but he had draped a thick black scarf around his neck in the same place where he would usually display that thick silver chain. As soon as you locked eyes, he gave you a little wave with knees bouncing.

“Shouldn’t you be inside?” Your breath vaporized into thin, white, visible droplets in the air.

“I thought that I could meet you out here rather than have you wait in the cold. I realized I did that last time.”

“Oh. Uh-thank you...I guess.”

Changbin cracked out a little smile, then announced, “Come on, let’s get going.”

“Get going? Get going where? Did you want to get noodles again?”

He chuckled, then stepped out into the lightly falling snow. It tangled up in his curling locks and got caught in the fabric of his scarf. “Hm-no. Not this time.”

Changbin looked over at you with his stormy grey eyes, something that hadn’t come to you as easily as before. Something in him had changed since you had first met him when he was standing on that stage as if it was the edge of the world. Before, you had felt as if you were drowning in the way that he carried himself, or the way that his gaze would bear down at you as if to test your strength. The aura that you once thought to be crushing had now turned into something much softer.

“You coming or are you just gonna stand there?”

One of his hands which he had tucked into his parka coat wiggled out to beckon you behind him.

“Come on. Take it.”

“Wh--”

Changbin made the choice for you then shoved both of your hands into his pocket. “It’ll be warmer this way.”

You scoffed at the gesture: it was the oldest trick in the book. “Really? Is it?”

In the cramped pocket filled with lint, his thumb rubbed up against yours. You obliged, and he tugged you close to him with each and every finger interlaced between yours.

“See? Feels better now doesn’t it?”

Flecks of salt crunched under both of your shoes when you turned the corner lit by a single streetlight. Both of the fabric of your coats squeaked standing this close to eachother. His scarf was pulled up all the way to his chin, and his hair bopped with each and every step that he took.

“You’re not going to tell me at all?”

“Can’t you just let this happen? I’m trying to surprise you, damn...”

“...Surprise? What...?”

Changbin lead the two of you past another corner to a much busier street in the nighttime: it was bustling with cars and taxi’s and it was lined with little shops on each side that leaked out tantalizing smells.

“Are we getting food here?”

“Quit asking questions.”

Two more blocks, and Changbin’s hand tugged at you all the way down the stairs to the subway where he used his own card to swipe you both in. Down there the sides of the walls were dirtied with old newspapers and cigarette butts, and the walls were of an aquamarine blue hue.

“The subway? We can’t be going too far...right?”

Still, he said nothing while he brought you right over the the waiting area, and the two of you stood amongst the businessmen in their best shirts stained with food smears and beer splatters as well as the nurses still in their scrubs after a long day.

“I said stop to asking questions.” His sentence trailed with a bit of an edge. “Here, stay close.”

A group of particularly raucous businessmen fell all over each other in a little pod closest to you and Changbin. It was as if it was instinctual for him the way that he wrapped his arm around your shoulder to pull you in to his chest where you stood on the subway deck. A dank smell of wet coats and the sweating bodies under them wove to the air once you had entered and mingled with the rest of the passengers. It was rush hour, and the capacity of the subway was near limit, so no seats could be found. You had to bury your face partially into that scarf of his as he held onto one of the straps dangling from the ceiling of the car. Both of your arms wrapped around him in a type of hug as you clung to his frame to keep your balance.

“Only a few more stops,” He assured you.

The lull of the car drew a heavy and sleepy film over your eyes, and you found yourself nuzzling into his warmth and clinging to the fabric of his coat just a bit tighter. You had never guessed, but there was an odd sense of intimacy about holding on to one person on a speeding train in a crowd of people.

“This one.” Changbin nudged you lightly, then pushed a few bodies out of your way bodyguard-style at the stop. “Watch your step.”

He swept your hand back up into his, then he led the both of you to the staircase and the sound of the city that was much louder and obvious than it was at the stop by his home. His smug smirk only grew the higher and higher that you ascended.

“Now are you going to tell me?”

“You’re horrible with surprises. Changbin nudged you with his elbow. “I’m never surprising you again.”

The skin of your cheeks were once more assaulted with the bite of the winter, and it took you several moments to figure out where he had taken you.

“Look over to your left.”

Just past a hectic intersection, there was the soft glow of lights: the first ones that you could see were yellow-white, and they were all tangled up in the branches of tree branches: making them appear as if the leaves had never fallen, but were instead replaced by these luminescent ones. You looked further past them to the entire park which was illuminated by similar string lights of all kinds of different colors: green and red, blue, pink and orange. Every single tree in the park was decorated with them, and they shone upon the area in a rainbow of colors.

“Christmas lights?”

“The last ones that they take down I think.”

“I mean...I wasn’t expecting...this” You gestured to the sea of lights before you.

The stoplight across the street blinked on to the little “walk” symbol.

Confident as ever, Changbin didn’t falter. “Let’s go.”

╚ ——————————————— ╝

You followed after Changbin under the canopy of spiny winter fingers and the lights that were spotted in between them. The passageway of the park was lined with benches on the side of the path and little groups of families, friends and couples each passed pointing out at the whole display. Christmas had been long gone, but somehow it still existed here in this little corner and the joviality it held with it.

He motioned for you to sit and brushed off the remnants of snow caked on the wood.

“I’ve got one more surprise for you.”

“I thought you said that you weren’t going to surprise me anymore?”

“Well, you’re in luck because I planned this one already.”

From his pocket he took out what looked like a thin aluminum container with hinges on the side. The metal was cold in your hands when you popped it open and inside was a small sketchbook with dotted paper and a set of double-sided colored pencils.

“I thought...you said something about colors the other day and how you liked them so I thought you would like it here with all the lights and maybe you could draw it? If you want?”

“Changbin...”

The wooden pencils were of a waxy quality; likely the kind that you could get at a corner store but that wasn’t nearly what mattered the most.

“Thank you. I mean it. I’ll draw something.”

Your heart always skipped a beat the second that you brought your pencil to the paper, and this was no exception. Across from you, there was another bench, identical to the one you sat on, and behind it, was a tree wrapped in pink lights. You set to work quickly, copying the picture as best as you could, not even caring for the little mistakes you could make. Changbin watched you from your shoulder, but you had barely taken notice. Once you had finished, you scribbled your signature at the bottom habitually.

“Here, I want you to have it.” You tore out the page. “It’s a thank you.”

He turned it over in his hand, then lightly brushed his fingertips over the way that you and woven the tree branches together and how it looked like the bench was dipped in the symphony of multi-colored lights. Beyond the tree line, you had drawn a few of the skyscrapers crowning the scene which he traced over too.

“Wow...um, thank you.” He hid his tiny grin after shoving it in his pocket.

Together you both sat, saying nothing, but rather taking in the scene together just as you had done at the noodle shop. It was peaceful simply existing next to another human being like this.

Your knuckles cracked in your lap while you recalled Chan and Felix’s urgings looking over at Changbin while he too wondered around himself.

Its not good for you. Or for them.

The man next to you rose, “Do you want to walk around a bit more? Or--”

“--Changbin...I need to tell you something.”

“What is it?” Under the pink glow of the string lights, his skin appeared softer.

“There’s something--I haven’t told you something and...you deserve to know.”

“Know...what?”

His head titled, examining the way that your face had fallen and became twisted up in the words on your tongue. He reached out to hold both of your cold-bitten cheeks in his hands, rubbing his thumbs to soothe you. You thought to yourself, there was something oddly intimate about standing out in the open with him like this: bearing yourself as such for the whole world to see, and how the tip of your nose rubbed up against his.

The words stung in your throat with a pain like acid.

“During this time when we were...there was also-I was also--”

“--I know what you’re going to stay and I want you to stop.”

“What?”

Changbin scoffed. "I should have guessed anyway but, it’s not my place either since we never really said exactly what this is.”

Your voice wavered, “I’m sorry. I’ll understand--” your arms fell to your sides. “--if you don’t want to--”

“--I said stop. Do you need me to say it again? I don’t own you or any dumb shit like that, and you don’t owe me anything either. But, I appreciate the honesty though.” Changbin pulled your forehead to rest against his, exhaling out visible breaths. “What are you going to do now?”

Just as he had done before, he reached down, all the way down your arms to wrap them around his waist.

“I-I don’t know. But--I do know that, being around you is...different and--” You sniffled, “--I don’t want to give that up yet.”

“Okay then.

You held your eyes closed, but you could hear his one and only smirk in his words.

“I wouldn’t mind sticking around either--but--you know what this means then?”

“What’s that?”

“You’re coming to my show next week.”

“Ugh, fine. I’ll go.”

Both of your breathless giggles filled the space between you both.

Your chest shook with a sigh, the kind that had been trapped, or maybe just held in for too long.

His lips were cold under the array of twinkling lights, and he delved himself into you carefully with his focus on nothing other than you. The way that he kissed you was terrifyingly beautiful: as if you were the way that each of the colors from the lines you sketched intersected and became one with the other. The heat of skin and the tip of his tongue filled your mouth with his promises that he had been composing for you since he had met you, and you could finally hear it for the first time. He had never changed the way in which he had done it from that first night.

He kissed you like he loved you, and maybe he really did.

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juriyuna · 3 years

Text

Thinkin’ about Juri... Popular rep seems to be that she’s heartless and cruel, but that’s really far off from how she actually is.

I know she’s not sympathetic in the same way that someone like Ao is, but she’s not without her own problems, and I feel like that gets overlooked a lot? Maybe it sounds like a funny thing to say about someone like Juri, but having caught up on Arc 2, I honestly feel pretty bad for her.

To me, she reads like she’s dealing with some sort of untreated mental illness. She’s impulsive and impatient, she struggles to sit still and pay attention in class, she’s bad at time management, she gets annoyed/angry easily, and she has a very hard time controlling her emotions. (personally, the vibe I get is ADHD, but YMMV. I’m not a shrink; just drawing from experience.) She even outright calls this her “sickness”- she’s aware that she has some type of problem, but she really has no idea what or how she’s supposed to handle it.

Juri says she’s had a bad temper ever since she was a kid, which only got harder to manage as she got older. Her dad sent her to a nice all-girls school (that he struggled to afford as a single parent) to try to give her a shot at a better future, and she almost got expelled for acting out too much. So, in the hopes of making life easier for her father who she loves so much, she made her wish to Kyubey: “I want to endure more.”

... Unfortunately, instead of making her relaxed and patient, it ended up turning her into a ticking time bomb. Rather than having a bunch of minor outbursts like she used to, her anger and frustration now builds until it reaches a boiling point, upon which she has to expel it the only way she knows how-- through violence.

She doesn’t like being like this, either. She complains to a Torayamachi girl about it in her MSS, and feels bad about how hard it’s been for her and her dad to try to manage her issues. This is also why Yuna agrees to fight with Juri so often-- she knows what Juri’s dealing with, and that this is the only way Juri can calm herself down. She knows that Juri isn’t a bad person. She has a problem, and Yuna (being a very kind girl at heart) wants to help.

(And I imagine that Juri hating her bad temper is its own vicious cycle, too. Getting angry at yourself for getting angry is an awful neverending feedback loop to get sucked into.)

When Juri and Yuna have their first big fight in Crimson Resolve, and Juri loses (partly thanks to Ao attacking her), Yuna refuses to continue the battle because Juri is so badly hurt.

At which... Juri starts crying. I mean like full-on sobbing and yelling at Yuna, “You promised, Yuna! You promised me you’d accept... Juri the Great’s feelings...!!”

I just-- man. That’s... actually kind of sad?? She relies so heavily on fighting Yuna to burn off pent-up stress (especially in this scenario, where Juri also wanted a rematch for her first loss) that not being able to do that causes her to get so overwhelmed that it straight-up brings her to tears.

In a scene later on, while Juri is still recovering from her wounds, she gets upset and impatient and goes “fuck it; if i can’t fight yuna properly i’m just gonna march to toramayachi’s base and die a warrior’s death”. Ranka catches her and talks her out of it, but... jeez, the poor girl.

Killing other magical girls was a necessary evil to survive in Futatsugi- Juri herself says “it hurts to kill people, but we’ve gotta swallow that pain for tonight”. She doesn’t enjoy having to do it, but it’s either that or she dies herself because of the grief seed shortage. Times were rough-- and none of these girls could even talk to anyone about it, since nobody knows about magical girls. There’s no way you wouldn’t come out of that untraumatized.

She was a good friend to the girls in her gang, too- that’s part of what made it so strong. Even in the thick of her temper in Futatsugi’s gang wars, she says “I'll admit I did drag those girls into my own personal conflict. But I still see them as friends. I still care about ‘em.” Then at the end of CR, she offers memorial flowers where her friends died, and promises that she’ll make Futatsugi a city where magical girls never have to fight to the death again.

Ahh, I’m rambling all over the place at this point, but... Juri’s a good kid, deep down. When she’s in a better mood, she’s friendly, playful, and laid-back, though still prone to roughhousing. (She also loves romance manga, according to her intro scene in CR. Kinda cute.)

... Anyway, that was a lot of words to basically say “Juri needs therapy”. Emotional dysregulation is a bitch and a half, though, especially when you don’t know to deal with it (and I would assume especially when compounded with the effects of a wish like hers). She’s not a character who people typically seem to read that much into, but man... I love her a lot. She’s definitely one of my faves. I hope she can get some proper support one day. ;_;

#magia record #madoka magica #ooba juri #long post #idk if anyone will even see this but. i must share my thoughts

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shrinkthisviolet · 2 years

Note

⭐

I'm gonna talk about Morgan from this AU! Specifically her relationship with Thawne (well...some of it anyway 😂 I could talk about them forever)

If you've known me for a while, you know I love father-daughter duos. Zuko&Izumi, Daniel&Sam, Harry&Jesse...you name it, I am there

And that's actually how I came up with Morgan—partly as "what if Jesse had a doppelganger" but also... "what if Thawne had a child he had to raise?" Not a biological child, but one thrust upon him, one he never expected.

Because Thawne has had a rough go of it in terms of family life. And sure, Thawne would probably be a good father to Morgan if he absolutely had to, but Tina is Morgan's godmother, and she loves this kid, and it's so much easier to push the majority of childrearing on someone else, while Thawne focuses on what's most important to him: the accelerator, building up Barry as a hero, going home, etc. The whole reason Thawne didn't kill Morgan is because of Harrison's love for baby Jesse Morgan Wells, a love that doesn't sustain Thawne past those baby years.

Back when he was actively trying to be a dad to Morgan, he discarded her original given/first name, Jesse, because that was too much like "Jesse Chambers" for his taste, especially since Jesse Chambers is now Jesse Chambers Wells due to time shenanigans, and Thawne won't risk Morgan becoming a hero. A normal, civilian life will suit Morgan Wells just fine, in Thawne's opinion, and if she's more a McGee than a Wells or Thawne, he doesn't much care.

But then it turns out, Morgan is a genius. She's smart enough to skip two grades—not three like Jesse Chambers (Wells), but two, which is remarkable on its own. He takes an active interest in her again...or tries to. He still doesn't really know Morgan all that well, and his plan is still in motion and growing. So although he's slightly more involved (Morgan's living with him now)...he's still not all that much involved. At least, not until Tina finally chews him out, after which he does make an active effort.

There's also a part where she gains powers from the accelerator but hides this from her dad for a while. She has a brief vigilante arc, mostly before Barry but also during, and she goes by Sentinel or Sentry (haven't quite decided yet) during this. She does eventually tell her dad, and manages to talk him into training her. Thawne won't admit that he's impressed by how she's actually able to win him over—that rarely happens with him, and especially with Morgan, this is the only time it ever happens.

(and it's genuine too btw. Thawne didn't foresee Morgan becoming a meta or wanting to help out the Team. She was never even remotely on his radar in that way)

It's important that they're close by the time S1 is happening. If Thawne was a bad dad completely, the betrayal wouldn't hurt as much. But if Thawne was a dad who did love her but sucked at showing it a lot, who really tried when he wanted to but who never put her above Barry...hello conflicted feelings!! Thawne isn't a Harry kind of dad, where his love for Morgan is never in doubt for her...but she loves him, and in his own way, he loves her. And to some degree, she believes that, even if she fears (especially after S1) that this love is conditional (which it sorta is).

It's also why she hates Jesse at first, when they meet in person. Jesse is seemingly perfect: her age, but a year ahead of her in school; a dad who loves her and would destroy everyone and everything for her; a sweet disposition; loved by everyone...Morgan in comparison feels like she can't measure up. And she fundamentally doesn't understand why Harry is doing all of this for Jesse. What does Jesse have that makes her so special? What special thing does she have? Is it because she's not a meta? What is it, Harry?

Harry, for his part, has absolutely no idea how to go about answering that in a way Morgan will understand. But Harry&Morgan, and Jesse&Morgan, are topics for another post!

Ask me about my fics!

#eobard thawne #eowells #harry wells #jesse wells #jesse quick #the flash #oc: morgan wells #morgan & thawne #brotp: always so quick #fanfic ask game #director’s commentary ask game

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gamesception · 3 years

Text

The Promised Neverland is kind of really good, actually? I mean, yeah, I’m late to the party as usual, but I just binged the first season of the anime, and then the manga from that point on (the site I was on didn’t have any of the second season, but apparently it diverges from the comic and gets bad anyway, so maybe just read the comic to begin with). And, I mean, spoilers, obviously, but I’m going to get into some extremely major spoilers here so if you haven’t read it or if you’ve only seen the first season of the anime maybe skip this post and read the manga, but...

...

I’ve tried and failed to write a big long post about all the ways it’s so good, how the main three characters are each so compelling, how its pitch dark but not cynical or misanthropic, with mortal stakes but not gore-porny, positive and optimistic without being trite or naïve, how choosing Emma out of the main three to be the primary protagonist and viewpoint character keeps the story from becoming a masculine militaristic power fantasy, how the antagonists are treated as characters and not just monsters - even the ones that are literal monsters, about how the story never supports or glorifies the idea of sacrificing the weak so that the strong can survive, about how empathy and understanding and a chance for peace are extended to every single villain without putting a burden to forgive on victims and without ignoring the need to fight those who refuse the offer of peace and uphold the status quo, how the story opposes oppressive hierarchies at every turn - not just those the monsters use to control the human children at the farms, but also how the monster elites use access to human meat to controller the lower social classes of monster society, and even to an extent within the human resistance.

But there’s just way too much to talk about to get it all into one big giant post, and I don’t have the stamina for a big extended ongoing project right now - or else I’d return to one of the like 12 I have on hold.

But, like, to pick just one thing....

ok, so eventually we learn what the monsters are and why they eat people. They’re a weird sort of organism that can temporarily take on the characteristics of things they eat. Eat a bird and grow wings, eat a bug and grow an exoskeleton, eat a human and gain a humanoid body and the intelligence to become self aware, learn language, form societies - for a while. But if they go too long without eating people, then they lose their minds and revert to a bestial form. In order to save the humans, the resistance leader Minerva plans to wipe out the monster society altogether. After all, they literally have to eat humans to continue being people, there is no possibility of peace.

Protagonist Emma, though, has seen not just the horrific human farms and their cruel and corrupt rulers, but also their towns and settlements, their families and children. She was even saved at one point shortly after her escape by friendly monsters who opposed the farm system, and even though it seems impossible, she wants to save both the humans and the monsters.

A more typical show, at least among those with premises as dark as The Promised Neverland, wouldn’t take Emma’s side in this. She would be forced to ‘grow up’ and face the fact that she can’t save everyone. Her naivety would get someone killed to break her heart and teach her to be hard and cruel as if those things are virtues. Or, more likely, she wouldn’t be the viewpoint character to begin with, she’d be a side character whose ideals would get herself killed in order to elevate the male characters’ angst and justify their violence. Either way, the message would be “Emma’s ideals were unrealistic and could never survive contact with the harsh reality of the world.”

TPN instead takes Emma’s Side. She finds monsters who maintain a humanoid body and intelligence without eating humans, and they’re able to spread that trait to the rest of monster society while the humans all escape to the human world. Now, as much as I don’t like the grimdark ‘there is no peaceful option’ hypothetical version of the story, this development could have been handled pretty badly. Like, just reading it like that, it sounds like the story raised a big moral dilemma and then chickened out of it. But that’s really not how it comes off while you’re reading it, for a couple reasons.

First of all, Emma meets the non-human-eating monsters early in the story, long before we get the explanation of how monsters in general work. So by the time we learn that the monsters must eat humans to maintain their self identity, the audience already knows that there are exceptions and that an alternative exists. The story never sets this up to be a moral dilemma in the first place, so when the issue is bypassed it doesn’t feel like it’s undercut itself.

More importantly, though, is the thematic & metaphorical content. Because the monster society is a pretty explicit metaphor for unjust human societies, and monsters represent the people who make up such societies. Not just the aristocrats who benefit from the unjust society, or those who directly enforce and uphold it, but also regular people. People insulated just enough from the suffering and death that their lives are built on that they can turn a blind eye to it, but aware enough of their complicity in that suffering that they construct excuses to justify their part in it, and by proxy excuse those at the top who actually benefit from and shaped the society as it is. People living lives simultaneously just comfortable enough to keep them docile, but precarious enough that they’re too caught up with struggling to maintain the tenuous grasp on the lives they have to feel like they can work towards anything better. Monster society in TPN is a cage built out of the corpses of humans cattle, but built to imprison and enslave the monster civilians who eat them.

Hanging the story on the fantastical element of monster biology would divorce it from that essential metaphor while also endorsing an outright genocidal worldview, and TPN explicitly calls out the plan to wipe out the monsters altogether as just that - genocidal. It never even pretends to entertain the notion that the audience should accept that plan as the right choice, even while it doesn’t condemn Minerva for pursuing it. When Emma is proposing her plan to Minerva, the deal she strikes with him is ‘I will try to make my peaceful solution happen, and if I succeed then you cancel your plan to wipe out the monsters’. Minerva is eventually shown to be lying when he makes that agreement, but Emma isn’t, and note the if there. If Emma’s plan fails, then she - and thus the narrative - accepts that Minerva’s plan to save the children is still better than leaving things as they are, even if it means wiping out all the monsters. After all, the society IS monstrously unjust, and even the lower classes within that society ARE complicit in that injustice.

Minerva’s problem isn’t even presented as a matter of him hating the monsters too much to see a route to peace with them. The story doesn’t frame the conflict between Minerva’s and Emma’s plans as hate vs. love or revenge vs. forgiveness. It’s instead more of ‘hierarchy and division bad, mutualism/openness/relying on each other good’. The point is to show how Minerva’s role as a figurehead who believes he has to project strength to uphold the hope that the other humans have placed in him has worn away his ability to rely on others or to be open to alternatives they offer, leaving him with rigid and inflexible thinking.

So when Minerva learns about the monsters who don’t need to eat humans, he doesn’t see an opportunity for a better outcome - potentially even an easier outcome since he doesn’t have to make enemies of the entirety of monster society - rather he sees a threat to his plan to starve the monsters back into an animalistic state.

And if that whole subplot isn’t explicit enough, Minerva’s internalized need to project strength also results in his physical body wasting away in secret from a condition he believes to be untreatable, but the moment he finally breaks down and admits he needs help Emma is able to point to a solution, one that again doesn’t come across as a cop out because again it takes the form of another character the audience was already introduced to a long time ago.

In a story arc that the second season of the anime adaptation apparently cut entirely, wow the more I hear about anime season 2 the worse it sounds. And after the first season was so good....

...

Anyway, I tried to pick just one thing and this post still turned into a colossal gushing word cascade, and there are so many other elements to talk about. Like how The ‘Mothers’ and ‘Sisters’ are menacing villains with seemingly no empathy for the children, but when Sister Krona realizes she’s lost the power struggle with Isabella she leaves the kids tools to help them, and then when Mother Isabella realizes the children have escaped, she covers up the route they used in order to buy them a little extra time to get away. It’s these little touches - just as much as the short backstories that follow them - that show us how, while they might uphold the system out of fear for their own lives, and might have rationalize their part in it in order to live with the horrible things they’re doing, the mothers and sisters don’t actually hate the children. Knowing that makes it believable when in the end Isabella does turn on the system, and every single one of the other mothers and sisters join her.

The bit when the fighting is mostly over and she tells the Mother at the house “it’s over, now we can just love them” and the other woman breaks down crying is so sad and human, it makes me tear up thinking about it..

Like I said, all the villains are characters, not just monsters. They all have motivations for the horrific things they do - sometimes irrational, often selfish, but not even the most unforgivable of the monsters are just evil for evil’s sake.

Again, I’m rambling. It’s just... I’m used to these sorts of pitch dark dystopias being, for lack of a better term, kinda fashy in their messaging? Or at the very least deeply cynical and misanthropic and just kind of mean spirited. And TPN is so completely the opposite of that, in so many ways.

#tpn spoilers #tpn #the promised neverland #anyway yeah it's pretty good #though again apparently the second season of the anime falls of the rails #like from reading reactions today #it seems season 2 drops or completely flubs literally everything I go into in this post #don't watch it #i haven't #and feel better off for it #edited because I misremembered a couple things #like the 'we can just love them' line comes after the fighting not before #the point remains though

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bouwrites · 3 years

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Role of the Hero

It’s the Miraculous Ladybug/Tokyo Afterschool Summoners crossover. Daisuke goes to Paris.

I’ll be honest with y’all, if even one person asks me for more of this, or content like this, I may be forced to do it. I didn’t even get to the core conceit which sparked this crossover in the first place, so my inspiration bug for this is sleeping for now but one poke and I promise you it will be frothing at the mouth.

And honestly? I don’t know whether I want that poke or not.

Anyway here’s the story.

Ao3.

10043 words. Story under read-more.

Daisuke Ikusaba does not want to be here.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Paris at all, it’s just that he has friends and a budding career and… and Taurus Mask back in Tokyo.

Daisuke gently rubs the horns of the mask, hidden in the bag at his side. He caresses them like an old and precious childhood toy.

It’s okay. Right? He can do this. All his friends, even the Berserkers, are all just a phone call away. He may not be able to see them in person anymore, but it’s not like he doesn’t have contact with them anymore. And… and he can bring Taurus Mask to Paris! He has the mask, after all, so all he really needs is to look for an opportunity. Or, failing that, make one himself.

There has to be someone else here interested in wrestling. Daisuke Ikusaba might not be able to stand boldly and do something as brash as make his own wrestling team, but Taurus Mask can.

And he will. As soon as Daisuke is settled in. So… so he should probably… do that.

…He has to go into the school to do that, doesn’t he? His stomach flips as he looks up at the gates. It’s worse than his first day at Yoyogi. Back then, he at least had the wrestling team. François Dupont doesn’t even have one of those, much less one that Daisuke knows anyone in.

Pathetic as it is, Daisuke wants little more in this moment than to run around the corner and call someone who can give him a good pep talk. Wakan Tanka is good at those. Or Horkeu Kamui. How can anyone feel bad when Horkeu Kamui is there encouraging them? Hell, he’ll take Durza at this point.

Actually, Durza is a good idea. Not to call – oh god, no (What time even is it in Tokyo right now?) – but her whole deal. I’m an athlete! Daisuke thinks. What am I going to do, let some stone walls beat me? No way! I’m going to march in there and win at… everything, I guess? But I’m not that smart, so I’m probably out of luck with academics. And there isn’t a wrestling team, so…

So… I don’t know what I’m trying to win at, but I’m going to win! I just have to go in there and do it! Yeah. That makes sense.

With a deep, shuddering breath, Daisuke steps forward past the school gates. Even though it feels like they should come crashing down on him, they don’t. In fact, everything is a little easier when he’s inside, if only because he’s not standing outside the door like an idiot drawing everyone’s attention.

But marching through the school courtyard feels very much like winning right now, so Daisuke is going to take what he can get.

But though Daisuke has fewer eyes on him inside the school for his more casual behavior, he does not go unnoticed. What he doesn’t know – can’t know with this being only his very first day here – is that this François Dupont is far more different than his old school of Yoyogi than he expects.

Timid though Daisuke may be, Yoyogi is a school which caters to his interests. It is filled to the brim with athletes, all of whom want to get better, stronger, and encourage their peers to do the same. It is a place where rivalries are synonymous with friendships, and that common bond of athleticism connects everyone regardless of sport.

This François Dupont, however, has no such common bond connecting the students here. There is not the same understanding underneath every conflict, lighthearted or serious, and there is not the same passion that is generated from such a large group of people with similar interests.

No, while Yoyogi is a school where everyone wants to be the best, François Dupont is one where the contenders for that position are much fewer and far crueler. After all, at a school of athletes, even those with the greatest drive to be greater than everyone else desire just as strongly to do so on fair ground. It is not a fair assessment of who is the best, they believe, and thus a pointless victory if they cheat to get there.

The queens of François Dupont have no such moral inhibitions.

Chloé Bourgeois watches with… something like interest when a new student enters the school. Down her nose, from her perch on high up on the second-floor balcony, she sees an older-looking student.

He only catches her attention because he barely looks like a high schooler at all and might fit in better at a university somewhere. Asian, clearly, and darker-skinned. Chloé wrinkles her nose at the scruff of hair on his chin. He’s not the only student here with unfortunate hair on his face, but he’ll soon learn to shave it off, if only so that Chloé doesn’t have to look at it.

(She might consider leaving it alone, except her daddy asks her to play nice for a while, which means that he knows a new student is arriving, and if the principal takes the time to inform her daddy of something like this, it can only be because this new student will be in her class. And if he is in her class, then that bush on his chin must go.)

Oh, and the green hair – if he must dye it, can’t he pick a better color?

Hair aside, Chloé notes his physique. Muscles like that don’t come easy and aren’t just for show. Even though he dresses modestly (and he’s going to need to work on that… fashion travesty) there is simply nothing he can do to hide the dense muscle on his frame.

Sort of like Ivan. Muscle like that has its uses, and if the way he ducks his head and fiddles with his bag strap is any indication, he’ll be child’s play to manipulate.

Well, he’s definitely not a threat. That’s something. He looks stupid enough to be dragged into Lila’s orbit, though, which is… fine. Lila isn’t making any major moves against Chloé, and Chloé thinks she knows her place, but Chloé also knows better than to trust a liar and Lila’s eyes look far too much like Chloé’s own.

It’s only a matter of time before they come to metaphorical blows. Whether this new kid is worth crushing under her heel, or whether she should allow him to fall under Lila’s… that’s the real question.

Then again, Dupain-Cheng does have a way with the cowards, Chloé admits in the privacy of her own mind. If we’re not careful, he might get attached to her.

A morbid curiosity wells up in Chloé’s chest. This is the first real chance for Chloé to see how her rivals will play when a new actor steps onto stage. Goody-two-shoes Dupain-Cheng will definitely do everything she can to protect the poor guy, and Chloé honestly can’t imagine him being smart enough to see through Lila, so… she wonders just how desperately those two will fight.

Dupain-Cheng pisses Chloé off, yes, but Lila… if Chloé doesn’t know any better, she’d say that Dupain-Cheng is her weakness. Spite, hate, just a true loathing that Chloé can respect. Chloé isn’t that different, after all. But Chloé… she isn’t the kind of queen who needs everyone to adore her. That he fears her, that he will listen when she speaks, that is enough for Chloé. At least, for now. Whether Lila can suffer him befriending Dupain-Cheng with that hatred inside of her… Chloé is very interested in finding out the answer to that.

If she plays her cards right with this new kid, she might just find the key to getting rid of Lila once and for all.

And wouldn’t that be glorious? Chloé sneers and turns away. She’ll have her fun, definitely, but by and large… it will be more interesting to stay out of this for the time being.

Chloé glides to the classroom, passing Dupain-Cheng with a knowing smirk. Marinette, perturbed by the bully’s expression, can only pray that Chloé will leave their new classmate alone just for a day.

Harried, Marinette hefts the papers and binders in her hands and continues her dash to the principal’s office. As class president, she is meant to greet their newest classmate and show them around, though she’s yet to meet this transfer.

She doesn’t need to wait long. She’s still muttering through everything, consulting with the principal, when the door to the office opens and her new classmate steps inside.

Marinette turns to him with a smile on her face. “Hello! You must be the new student. Ikusaba Daisuke, right? I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng, your new class president.”

Daisuke is frankly surprised that she uses his family name first – he’s more than prepared for the fact that they don’t do that here. Is there a mistake on his paperwork? Do they think his names are switched?

He… isn’t sure he can correct them, if that’s the case. He might just be stuck with this. Not that it would be the end of the world, or anything. “Y-yeah,” he mutters. “That’s me. It’s- uh- nice to meet you.”

Her dazzling grin catches him off-guard. It’s… nice. It reminds him of Wakan, a little. It lets just a little bit of the tension fall from him. “I’ll show you around the school,” Marinette says, “and I can answer any questions you have as we go. Does that work for you?”

“Y-y-yes!”

Marinette smiles, and she cannot help but feel a little bad for this poor boy. He may be built like Ivan, but he’s clearly just as soft-hearted, if not more. She just hopes he’ll survive when the akumas start showing up. She hopes he knows about them, at least, though she knows simply knowing won’t prepare him for it.

Well, she’ll just have to do her civic duty and make sure to warn him herself on the tour.

But first, more logistical work. She’s his new class president and she has to help him get comfortable here at Dupont. Though her role as class president isn’t the same as the same title in the Japanese schooling system he’s undoubtedly more familiar with, she’s happy to help him in any way she can.

“By the way,” she says as they begin their walk around the campus, “what would you prefer I call you? I have another friend from Japan, and I just call her Kagami, but I understand if using your given name is a little too familiar for a stranger.”

Daisuke blinks in surprise. “D-Daisuke is fine,” he murmurs. “That’s how you do it here, right? S-so I’ve got to get used to it anyway.”

“That’s true,” Marinette admits, “but if you’d prefer something else, our class wouldn’t mind. Most of us, at least. I know Adrien still uses honorifics with Kagami when they’re in more formal settings. So long as you let us know what to say, we’ll all be more than happy to do the same.”

“That’s not necessary,” he says. “I don’t care much about that, anyway.” Ever since the transients showed up in Tokyo, that kind of thing has largely fallen to the wayside. This Kagami girl must be from an old family, or at least somewhere else in Japan. Probably the latter, if she’s been in Paris long.

Or from the Land of Wa. Yasuyori is such a stickler for etiquette. But Daisuke hardly expects to run into transients in Paris so that seems unlikely. (It’s… actually a little unsettling to see no transients around. He’s starting to desperately miss Yasuyori’s fluffy face. And Asterius’ horns…)

Marinette fixes him with a curious, earnest gaze, but concedes. “If you’re sure. Just let me know if you change your mind.”

Daisuke just can’t stop thinking about his friends in Tokyo. The hollowness in his chest aches keenly, but all he can do is gently touch the threads of rope around his wrist.

“Oh, and I don’t know if you’ve already heard or not, but I should warn you about the akuma.”

Akuma, Daisuke thinks. “I’ve heard about them,” he says honestly. He wishes he can say his friends are concerned about him moving to a place with weird things like akuma but… well, after what happened in Tokyo, akuma don’t scare any of them.

Then again, they don’t know I’m Taurus Mask, so they should be concerned, shouldn’t they? Unless… No, there’s no way. Only my soul brother knows my face.

It’s ridiculous to even consider otherwise.

“Oh! Good.” Marinette beams. “Well, if you have any questions or concerns, you can always talk to me!”

Daisuke eagerly agrees, sure that he’s going to need the help navigating a new place like this. Not to mention that, if he does decide to try to start a wrestling club, his class president is probably the first one he’s going to need to talk to. It’s good to establish some kind of rapport early on.

So, he does his best to participate in the tour, instead of running off to hide like he really wants to do. Marinette does wonders to make him a little more comfortable and distracts him by pointing out everywhere he’ll need to know on campus, and before he knows it, she’s leading him through the door of their classroom.

And the whole classroom erupts into chatters at once. Simultaneously, Daisuke is rooted to the spot, frozen and unable to draw breath with so many eyes on him, and confused by the complete lack of discipline here.

Sure, Yoyogi can be pretty wild, and Daisuke himself isn’t exactly a model of good behavior, but Yasuyori would be so disappointed in everyone here if he saw this. Just imagining Yasuyori’s disappointed face brings Daisuke nearly to tears.

The teacher makes everyone settle down, thankfully, and Daisuke somehow stammers through his introduction without bolting, then, as soon as he’s given permission, he darts to the back of the class to an open seat.

He sighs heavily as he sinks into his new seat. It could be worse, he thinks. I still wish Horkeu Kamui were here.

…I sound like a kid missing his dad, don’t I? Damn it, it was one time I called him that!

Mercifully, the lecture means that Daisuke doesn’t yet have to answer questions or field a room full of curious classmates. At least not right away. If there is one thing school is good for, it’s excusing him from social situations.

It’s too bad that this sanctuary only lasts until school ends, even if it also comes with math. To think that back in Tokyo, Daisuke could never wait for school to end. In Tokyo, the end of classes means club and guild activities begin. Here in Paris, Daisuke has neither a club nor a guild to be a part of.

He wonders if he’ll have the chance to escape or if his new classmates are going to ambush him. From the looks they occasionally send him throughout the school day, like Bathym eyeing up some new meat in the unranked arena, Daisuke has a sinking feeling that that’s not going to happen.

That’s why it’s no surprise when, after the teacher finally dismisses them for the day, Daisuke finds himself in a small crowd of classmates who want to talk to him.

It’s not hard, even when he’s just meeting these people and on the verge of an anxiety-induced panic attack, to identify the ringleader. While Daisuke thinks Marinette seems popular in her own right, she picks up from their tour that he’s uncomfortable with strangers, and keeps herself and a smaller group of their classmates away from him. (Bless her.) This other girl, however…

“Hello! My name is Lila.” She smiles sweetly, and genuinely. Daisuke unthinkingly rubs the threads of his Sacred Artifact around his wrist. “Your name is Daisuke, right? It’s so nice to meet you! I also transferred here not long ago, and everyone really went out of their way to make me feel welcome. If there’s anything I can do for you to pay that kindness forward, please let me know!”

Through his fluttering gut, Daisuke sighs with relief. At least they’re friendly. As much as he may want to avoid this kind of situation, he’ll never achieve his dreams if he can’t overcome this social anxiety. A group of friendly classmates is, logically, safe for him, as these things go.

So he grins, forced though it may be, and says, “Thanks! I really appreciate that. But you really don’t need to go out of your way for me.”

“Nonsense!” Lila says. “Nothing would make me happier than making sure that you feel as welcomed as I did when I started here. What do you like to do? We should all get to know each other better.”

When Daisuke hesitates, the other classmates in the crowd all start sharing their own answers. It’s really nice of them to do this, but way too overwhelming for Daisuke. He’s not going to remember much of what they’re telling him – he hardly even remembers everyone’s names.

Eventually, he has no choice but to answer himself. “W-well,” he says, “back in Tokyo, I was captain of the wrestling team.”

“Wrestling!” Lila exclaims. “Oh, no wonder you look so strong! Who’s your favorite wrestler?”

Daisuke blanches. This is the other reason why he isn’t looking forward to this question and answer “get to know each other” thing. Even though he’s known about this move for a while, he still hasn’t managed to figure out how to explain his near complete ignorance of broader worldwide trends.

Daisuke apparently takes too long to answer, because Lila starts talking about some famous wrestler who’s name certainly impresses a few of the more athletic-looking students around. Daisuke has, of course, never heard of them.

He chuckles awkwardly. “Sorry, uh… you might’ve heard that Tokyo has been pretty isolated for a while. I don’t know much about celebrities outside Tokyo, even in wrestling.” He smiles, satisfied at having answered without talking about the App War.

It will be such a pain to explain that to someone outside Tokyo. Daisuke doesn’t think he can even explain transients.

“I have heard about that!” Lila says. “Actually, I have a good friend in Tokyo. It’s been so long since I’ve seen them since they were trapped there by that terrible wall.”

The other classmates rush to console Lila, who is clearly the emotional type – already almost on the verge of tears just from mentioning that friend of hers – but Daisuke tilts his head.

Tokyo’s been cut off for his whole life. Sure, there are people who remember Tokyo before the wall, the transients, and it being cut off from the rest of the world, but those are old people. No one their age was born when Tokyo was isolated, so it doesn’t make any sense for Lila to know anyone from before the wall.

Unless…

No, there are no transients or Sacred Artifacts here. Lila being immortal or having some Sacred Artifact to make her appear younger than she is is an unrealistic thought at best. (The fact that both of those things are possible, and that Daisuke has seen them personally, notwithstanding, of course.)

Something’s off here. Daisuke’s gut says so. Daisuke may not be the most intuitive or intelligent person, and his Sacred Artifact may not work outside a battle zone, but he thinks that, after using his Sacred Artifact so much, he has some sense for this kind of thing.

To expose all forms of deception, unmasking all that which is concealed. That is the power given to him according to his Role. All in service of being like that man, the one who inspires Daisuke to take up wrestling. Of being someone who can touch the souls of others and wrest their true worth from obscurity. That is the Role of the Hero.

But without use of his Sacred Artifact, Daisuke cannot see the true self within Lila. She is lying about knowing someone in Tokyo, or at least knowing them for so long, but Daisuke can only assume that she lies in an earnest attempt to connect with him.

It’s sad that she thinks that’s necessary. Daisuke knows he’s shy, but he’s not unfriendly. If he could use his Sacred Artifact, he might glean some insight from what it uncovers in her – not that Daisuke ever used it for such banal reasons even when he could.

Still, Lila cannot possibly know that he is more social than his anxiety belies just as he cannot know that Lila has no interest in genuinely connecting with him.

Lila does, however, know that Daisuke is not so naïve as his shy, anxious new kid archetype implies. There is a certain look in his eye which Lila spots almost immediately. It’s a look she despises, because it’s the same look that burns behind the eyes of every single Marinette Dupain-Cheng Lila has ever met.

Of course, it’s only a gut feeling based on something as superficial as the glint in his eyes, so Lila is happy to give him a chance. But she knows to be careful with someone like him. She hopes he is meek enough to know his place, but that look in his eyes, the spark of someone who looks at problems not as obstacles but challenges… Lila’s gut tells her to watch him very closely.

It’s a quiet lie, a small one, and one that can easily be waved off as wanting to connect with him, but Lila sees how his eyes change. His reaction to the lie.

Firstly, that he recognizes it at all is a red flag. Though he’s not necessarily more perceptive than their other classmates, it does mean that he’s paying attention. That he’s looking for deceit puts Lila on the back foot from the start.

Then, it’s how he reacts to it. The raised brow, the subtle narrowing of his eyes, the look, not quite at her but into her, as if he is laying bare her soul and examining it like nothing more than a cheap, knock-off purse.

It passes. It’s only a moment, then it passes, but Lila notices it and puts Daisuke right to the top of her watch list.

He doesn’t say anything, though, which earns him some credit. It’s likely out of a mistaken belief that she’s just trying to make him more comfortable by fabricating things to have in common – a belief she will eagerly encourage if he does confront her in private about it – but he at least knows not to try to call her out. Marinette still hasn’t learned that lesson.

Even still, she will need to be careful around him. The feeling he stirs in her gut reminds her far too much of Marinette and her predecessors, the other problem children at previous schools and clubs Lila’s attended, so she is not yet convinced that pushing too far in his presence won’t turn Daisuke on her as well.

Despite his potential to be a problem for her, and also because of it, she can’t just leave him alone, either. He would quickly ally with Marinette, which Lila simply can’t allow. The other students have known Marinette longer than Lila – Lila’s influence with them is limited to an extent. She can manipulate and damage, but it’ll take a long game indeed to truly break those friendships. Daisuke on the other hand represents an interesting and unique opportunity for Lila.

She won’t let it slip through her fingers.

It’s a few days into his time at Paris when Daisuke encounters his first akuma.

He’s still walking home from school, on the phone with Gunzo in this short period between him being free and his friends in Tokyo mostly still awake (the problem with all his friends being athletes: they’re health-conscious, and so usually go to bed at a reasonable hour) when his phone alerts him with a chime that, after leaving Tokyo, he never expects to hear again.

His blood turns to ice, and intellectually he convinces himself for a moment that it’s the alarm for that app his classmates recommend to him, which alerts to akuma attacks. He hasn’t heard it yet, so maybe it sounds like the other alert.

But a quick check confirms that the Akuma Alert app is still quiet. The chime comes from another app. A much more familiar app. The App.

A battle zone has opened over his location. He opens the App and nearly drops it when he realizes that he is not the only App user in the city. At the very least, his map shows a few others nearby.

It’s at that moment, while Daisuke is still trying to figure out how and why a battle zone might open now, and when the App spread to Paris (It must be new, he thinks, with some relief, but even then, where are the transients? The gateways?) another alert chimes from his phone. This one is the akuma alert he’s been told to get, and it takes only a moment for Daisuke to piece that particular puzzle together.

(He only manages it because of the map.)

In the exact same locations, moving in the exact same directions, the map in the Akuma Alert app notifies Daisuke of Ladybug, Chat Noir, and an akuma moving nearby.

The heroes and this villain… they’re App users. Daisuke gasps, Gunzo is getting frantic over the phone, worrying over what’s happening, and Daisuke doesn’t have time to explain everything in detail. He stammers that he’ll call back later with the details and takes off at a sprint towards where the battle is located.

Pausing for a moment in an alley on the way, hidden from view, Daisuke takes a deep breath and pulls his mask from his bag. This is App business, whatever the truth of the situation, and so this is something needing Taurus Mask, not Daisuke. The Ranked Berserker, not the still-unknown wrestler.

The horns are still comforting. That’s nice to know.

But Taurus Mask rushes into this battle with a mission. He doesn’t particularly care at the moment of the specifics, he just needs to know why the App is here in Paris, what these heroes and villains think they’re doing with it, and why… why everyone remembers.

Ordinarily, when a battle zone closes, anyone who isn’t a participant – that is, those without the App – don’t even notice. Everything is reset as it was before, so of course, they don’t. It shouldn’t be possible for a city without a significant percentage of App users to have heroes based on it.

Well, Taurus is resolved to figure it out. His Sacred Artifact may not give him insight into the System which runs the App or this world, but what it uncovers in the participants can still give him something to work with. He has to use his power on either the akuma or the heroes, or all of them, and work with whatever information he can glean from it.

It’s a long shot. It’s not like using his Sacred Artifact ever gave him an edge understanding the situation in Tokyo, after all. But it is possible. Most likely, he’ll just memorize everything he can and call someone better suited to this to figure it out. His soul brother knows a lot of really intelligent people who can help, he knows.

Evidently, the heroes of Paris are competent at what they do, since the akuma is defeated just as Taurus manages to arrive. That’s one possibility out, then.

This isn’t going to endear me to the heroes, that’s for sure, Taurus thinks grimly. But I have to figure out what’s going on.

Ladybug picks up a red, black-spotted object, and Taurus thinks that if that resets the damage, it may also close the battle zone and disallow use of his Sacred Artifact. He can probably open one himself if he’s against these two, but to be safe he rushes in. “Excuse me!” he shouts, disarming them just long enough to slip in close enough to stop Ladybug from closing the battle zone if she tries to use that power of hers.

With their attention, he grins. “Sorry to interrupt!” he bellows, in a voice fit to MC this grand event. “Ladybug and Chat Noir! Fabled heroes of Paris! I know you, so allow me to introduce myself. I am…” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Taurus Mask!”

“…Um,” Ladybug tilts her head cutely as her jaw drops in utter bafflement. “Can we help you?”

“Yes!” Taurus says. “In fact, I am in need of information which only you and your dastardly villain possess!” Quieter, he adds, “…Will you please answer a few questions?”

Ladybug and Chat Noir share a look, neither knowing exactly who this strange, masked man is or what he wants. Eventually, Chat Noir says, “…I suppose we can come back after we recharge?”

A flutter of panic wells up in Taurus when he sees Ladybug rear up to throw her Lucky Charm into the air and trigger her other power. The System in place, while close enough to work with the App, is obviously at least a little different, and Taurus doesn’t want to risk not having access to his Sacred Artifact. These are heroes, but… frankly, he doubts they’ll just tell him anything that will help him figure out what’s really happening. “It will only take a moment!” he begs. “Just a few questions?”

Their jewelry, which Taurus has read gives them their powers, beeps, and both shift uncomfortable. “I’m sorry,” Ladybug says, again hefting her Lucky Charm, “but we really need to go. If you can wait a few minutes, we’ll hear you out, but-”

“No!” Taurus reacts without thinking, reaching out and snatching the Lucky Charm from her grasp before she can use her power. He can’t let her close the battle zone yet, but already his gut is sinking.

He has a moment for the two to recover from their shock, and uses it to put enough distance between them to react should they come at him. “I’m sorry,” he says, “but I can’t allow you to fix everything just yet! I don’t want to cause trouble, but I need answers before that happens.”

Both brandishing weapons now, the heroes glare at Taurus. “I’ll give you one chance to hand that back to my lady before I take it,” Chat Noir growls.

“Who are you?” Ladybug asks. “Why would you…?”

“I swear I’m not trying to stop you from doing your jobs,” Taurus says as placatingly as he can while still holding the Lucky Charm close like a football, “but I won’t take no for an answer. I need to figure out what’s happening, even if it means wresting the answers from you by force!”

The heroes narrow their eyes. Neither trust him. In fact, a shared look confirms to each other that they both suspect he is simply another akuma. It’s happened before, though this is extraordinarily fast for another one to show up.

Even so, Ladybug asks, “What do you want to know?”

Taurus sags a little, relieved that dialogue is at least open. But how to ask this? Frankly, he’s not sure exactly what he can ask that will help, their willingness to answer notwithstanding.

Ultimately, the App War was a proxy war for gods of other worlds. Participants, including people like Taurus and the transients, with their Sacred Artifacts, infused with the power of gods and the System of the world which they originate, battle to establish a hierarchy of belief. Which Systems come out on top… determining that is the point.

Taurus wishes he were smarter. Then, he might be able to pinpoint why this situation in Paris is at all like the one in Tokyo, but unfortunately, he is not.

But he knows that the heroes and villains here have magical jewelry which grant them power – Sacred Artifacts, perhaps? – but where does that power come from? Gods? Just maybe… that would make sense.

“Why does everyone remember what happens after you reset everything?” Taurus asks.

Ladybug, completely taken aback by such an odd question, shares another look with Chat Noir. “Why wouldn’t they?”

When Ladybug answers, it’s Taurus’s turn to be taken aback. Maybe something simpler? Something absolutely necessary to know. “Are you using the App?”

“The App?” Chat Noir echoes, face twisted into confusion. “What app? Are you just trying to stall us?”

No App? Then… why is a battle zone open? Can I use my…

Ladybug and Chat Noir jump when their Miraculous beep urgently once more. Ladybug growls. “We have to go,” she says.

Chat Noir nods.

Seeing them both turn to take off, Taurus quickly does some mental math. If Ladybug recharges, then she can summon another Lucky Charm. That’s what he’s lead to believe, anyway. If she does that, she can reset everything and close the battle zone regardless of if Taurus hold on to the one in his hand.

“You can’t!” Taurus shouts. Seeing that neither are going to wait any longer, he groans. “I’m sorry about this, but I won’t allow you to escape!” They don’t listen, of course. Chat Noir is already in the air and Ladybug already has her yo-yo on some far structure to pull her away faster than Taurus can stop her.

Which leaves him with only one choice left. He doesn’t want to use it, because he knows they’ll interpret it as an attack – not to mention the possibility of learning more than he should – but the chance of it giving insight into the situation here in Paris as it relates to the App War in Tokyo is too important to pass up.

Besides… he has a mask on. This mask which means to Taurus to fight on. To never hide in the face of fear. He’s faced plenty of Sacred Artifacts with this mask, so it’s not all that frightening to do this now.

“Role of the Hero!” Taurus shouts. Ladybug and Chat Noir pause, clearly realizing that he’s trying to pull something to stop them from leaving. “Rule of Accession! Engrave mine name of Taurus Mask unto thee!”

“Careful, Ladybug!” Chat Noir shouts.

Taurus really does feel awful about this. “Alight!” He raises the arm where his Sacred Artifact sits on his wrist. “Corona Borealis!”

Ladybug gasps as the cords of the Ring around his wrist unravel and whip about. She tries to dodge, but it happens in an instant. Chat Noir manages to get between them only to be wrapped up in the ropes of the Sacred Artifact as well as Ladybug.

Chat Noir winces, but looks around, surprised that he isn’t restrained. The ropes entwine around him and Ladybug, as well as Taurus Mask, but don’t restrict his movement.

They sort of remind him of the ropes around a wrestling ring.

Well, if they’re not stopping their escape, Ladybug and he really need to recharge.

“A warning!” Taurus Mask shouts. “This Sacred Artifact made from the thread of souls will expose all forms of deception, unmasking all that which is concealed!”

Chat Noir and Ladybug both feel their blood run cold. It can’t be, Ladybug thinks. There have been other akuma that could out our identities in one hit, but…

“Whether my opponent is underground or invisible, it will form the path to allow us to duel! As a wrestler, I will take what I seek from you! If you won’t tell me with words, I will simply wrest the answers from your souls! Within this space, a wrestler has only their body to fight with – no puny tricks! It will be a battle so heated our very souls wil- huh? Oh!”

Suddenly, Taurus Mask pales and stumbles back. “Two?!” he gasps. “I haven’t seen more than one since… no, they’re not inside of you… not like them… but that’s not normal! Are you… Exceptions?!”

Ladybug honestly has no idea what this crazy guy is on about. She and Chat Noir silently debate the ethics of just attacking him while Taurus Mask himself scrambles with the revelations he does not truly expect his Sacred Artifact to grant him.

He can see their very souls. No masks stand up to Taurus’s Sacred Artifact. Of course, exposing their souls gives him an idea of the identities behind the literal masks, too – in large part the reason why he hesitates to use this option from the start, since he of all people knows how important a mask can be – but thankfully the physical mask remains and he’ll only know for sure if he sees their souls without the mask on to compare. Even so, seeing the souls in front of him now gives him guesses – good guesses, he thinks. But still that possible revelation takes a back seat to what he’s looking for in the first place.

Ladybug, Chat Noir, each bear two souls. It’s not like Taurus’s soul brother, who carries myriad souls inside of them. Instead, the two souls each of these heroes bear are simply intertwined, not inhabiting the same vessel.

And that’s remarkable enough, but not all that dissimilar to someone like Musashi. What truly throws Taurus off is that the two souls paired with these people are… beyond him. It’s one thing to find burning souls of passion and determination – which these heroes surely have – but it’s another entirely to find souls so unlike even the transients Taurus has seen that it can only be something outside the scope of reality itself.

Taurus does not comprehend half the souls before him. He perceives them, certainly, but even as he peers directly into the true selves of the people behind the masks of Ladybug and Chat Noir, the remaining two souls float on the edge of his mind, teasing at him, enough to surely drive him mad if he lingers but too much to have hope of understanding from a glance.

It’s as if something, the sheer enormity and gravitas of them perhaps, just can’t be grasped by a mortal mind.

But that utter lack of comprehension tells Taurus more than enough. These souls belong to beings outside the structured System of the App. Exceptions, too powerful and game breaking to be allowed to participate, or even gods themselves. Anything else, save for a Rule and Role opposing his, he would see just as he sees the human souls before him.

If these gods are granting Ladybug and Chat Noir power through Sacred Artifacts – the Miraculous – and they’re fighting someone else powered by another god supplying another Sacred Artifact… then no wonder the App reacts. Taurus can’t know where these gods come from, whether they’re from another world or this one, and if they all come from separate worlds or the same one, but it’s clear that battles between these Miraculous are essentially the same as battles with Sacred Artifacts.

Proxy wars for gods.

Taurus is wrapped up in this same thing again.

(Is he complaining, though? …No. He is a Berserker, after all.)

Ladybug isn’t sure what’s happening, but she has a minute at most left before she detransforms and she doesn’t think she can escape with this Ring around them. Ethics of attacking a distracted opponent aside, she’s out of time. With a signal to Chat Noir, she leaps forward.

And gets a Lucky Charm smacking her in the face in response.

“You’re out of time, aren’t you?” Taurus Mask says, sounding surprisingly sympathetic rather than taunting as Ladybug would expect of an akuma. She also doesn’t expect him to bow deeply to her and Chat. “I’m truly sorry about that! My Sacred artifact revealed what I needed to know, so… you can have that back!” Ladybug, dumbfounded, picks up her Lucky Charm.

What does he know? Ladybug struggles with the dilemma in her mind, again frozen in the face of such an odd encounter. Does he know her identity? What is he looking for in the first place? What does that power of his really do – is he honest about that? What was he mumbling about after he used it?

She has way too many questions and no guarantee that she’ll ever see him again to get them answered, but she has no choice but to run immediately as soon as she sees that Ring he summons disappear.

Ensuring Chat Noir leaves, she takes off as well, not having the time to afford to stick around and listen as he monologues.

It’s not hard to escape, surprisingly. Taurus doesn’t chase them, and she has just enough time left to duck into a hiding spot just a short leap away. Even so, when she transforms back and Marinette can afford to spare thought to the strange encounter, she panics.

She knows almost nothing, but even without confirmation, there is a chance now – a significant one – that an akuma has just revealed her secret identity. Marinette has no idea what that strange power does exactly, but if Taurus is to be believed, she doubts her identity holds up against “unmasking all that which is concealed”.

What am I supposed to do?! she thinks. She struggles for breath, hardly even capable of voicing her racing thoughts aloud as Tikki eats. Clutching at her hair, Marinette trembles. “He knows our identities, Tikki! Hawk Moth has won! How could I have been so careless?!”

“Calm down, Marinette!” Tikki frowns sadly. “It’s true that, if he knows your identities, that’s terrible, but first thing’s first, you need to find him and stop the akuma!”

“That’s the other thing!” Marinette exclaims. Despite the evidence: that weird power he uses, the mask and name, stealing her Lucky Charm and unmasking them, something about this situation isn’t right. Hawk Moth can send out two akuma in a day, yes, but not two at once unless he’s powered up into Scarlet Moth, and Taurus’ color scheme is green, not red. “Are we sure he’s really an akuma?”

Is he an amok instead? But that doesn’t quite seem right to her, either…

“Well,” Tikki says hesitantly, “I guess there’s no way to be sure until you confront him. Either way, if he knows your identity, you shouldn’t let him just get away!”

“You’re right, Tikki,” Marinette sighs. It’s not much, but it’s direction. It’s something concrete that she can do to try to make this situation better, so she’s going to do it. “Are you ready to go?”

With Tikki’s confirmation, Marinette transforms once more into Ladybug to return to the spot where she last sees Taurus Mask. Chat Noir obviously has the same thought, since they meet up on a nearby rooftop just before the location comes into view.

Ladybug isn’t entirely sure what she expects – to find no trace of him is probably the worst and most likely scenario – but she knows for sure that this isn’t even on the list. Chat Noir sends a puzzled look her way, motioning for her to listen closely, and Ladybug hears Taurus Mask even before she sees him.

“…told him, wait until I, too, become a pro wrestler and can join you as a teammate!”

A gasp. Ladybug peers over the edge of the roof, only half-surprised to see Alya there pointing her phone camera at Taurus Mask while he monologues into a microphone. (Where the microphone comes from, Marinette has no idea.)

“What did he say?” Alya asks, leaning in eagerly.

“Great question!” Taurus melodramatically performs for the camera, determination and solemn fortitude pouring off of him like a physical force. “He told me this: if I really won’t give up on my dream to become a pro wrestler… I should fight on. He said I must never hide in the face of fear. That is when I will truly know my opponent. Only then can I touch my opponent’s soul.” Downcast, but losing none of his verve, he adds, “I may be hurt at times, but that is also how I will meet the ones I can truly call friends.” Brighter again, and nearly shouting into the mic with his enthusiasm. “He said that if I continue on that path, one day, I will meet the one who shares my passionate soul! My soul brother!”

Alya gasps again, grinning widely, completely into the story. “How touching! I think I might cry!”

Taurus laughs heartily. “Ha! That reaction… I kind of want to be your friend now. I cried, too! He gave me so much courage that I swore! I swore I would continue to train for that day!”

“Amazing!” Alya cheers. “The Ladyblog wants to know, Taurus Mask; are you still training for that day? Did you ever find your soul brother?”

Taurus Mask’s smile turns a little goofy, the faraway gaze and expression of someone reminiscing about something not present. “I have!” he shouts. “My soul brother is the only person in the world who can see under this mask of mine!” Taurus Mask ducks his head, so Ladybug from her perch doesn’t hear it, but he adds, “Though, I still get embarrassed…” He shakes his head roughly. “But that doesn’t mean my training has come to an end! On the contrary, it’s only the beginning! With my soul brother at my side, it’s just a new chapter in the saga of the future pro wrestler, Taurus Mask!”

“Okay,” Chat Noir says quietly. “I had my doubts, but he’s definitely an akuma.”

“We’ll find out one way or another,” Ladybug growls. This guy jumps in out of nowhere, possibly discovers their identities, and almost stops Ladybug from repairing the damage of the last akuma. Eccentricities or not, akuma or not, he’s not someone they can risk running around unchecked. “Come on, Chat.”

“Way ahead of you, my lady.” Chat Noir grins and pounces ahead of Ladybug, landing not far from the interview with characteristic lackadaisical flair. “Sorry to interrupt,” he says, “but I’m afraid Ladybug and I are going to have to hold an interview of our own.”

Some of the light in Taurus Mask’s eyes dies out when he sees them, but he makes no move to run, or even any motion to fight. “Ah…” he mutters, “yeah, I thought you would. That’s why I stuck around. I’m sorry again for what I did – I hope you’ll understand once I explain the situation.”

“We’ll see,” Ladybug says. “For now, Alya, you should go.”

Eyes darting between Ladybug and Taurus Mask, Alya quickly assesses the situation. “Of course, Ladybug,” she says.

Alya keeps her thoughts to herself for now, but she intends to speak with Marinette about this later. Having talked to him for a minute, and having interviewed akuma before, Alya can’t convince herself that Taurus Mask is on Hawk Moth’s side.

And if he’s not on Hawk Moth’s side… then she might have just gotten the first ever interview – and backstory to boot! – of Paris’ newest hero. She’ll sit on the footage for now, until things between the heroes get sorted out, but… well, whatever way this ends up going, this is going to be interesting, and this interview will remain valuable.

With one last parting look, and humor in her chest that her look needs to be reassuring for Taurus Mask – the poor guy looks ready to cry with Ladybug and Chat Noir looking at him like an akuma – Alya takes her leave.

Alone, Taurus Mask shrinks under the expectant, baleful eyes of the heroes of Paris. The air is thick and heavy, crushing him under its heel.

“Well!” Chat Noir says casually. “Curiosity killed the cat, as they say. Why don’t you start by telling us just what exactly that power of yours showed you, then go into the whole situation, hm?”

Taurus Mask yelps at the interruption of the horrible moment, and sighs as he considers how best to answer. “Simply put,” he says, “my Sacred Artifact creates a forum for a fair fight.”

Chat Noir hums. “That sounds very different from ‘unmasking all that which is concealed’.”

“No, it does that,” Taurus says. “There’s no room for deceit and hiding in a fair fight. A real fair fight is a battle where our very souls trade blows. It’s Rule is Accession, and with my Role of the Hero it manifests in the power to touch the souls of others, to raise them to courage and power just like my own hero did for me.”

“But it means you know our identities,” Ladybug confirms.

Taurus Mask winces. “Not… exactly? I know your souls, and the souls entwined with yours, but my Sacred Artifact doesn’t give me the knowledge of what that means. I mean… I do have a guess, and I’m usually pretty good at figuring that kind of thing out with this power, but… I can’t say with a hundred percent certainty or anything.”

Ladybug shares a look with Chat. Taurus Mask has seen their very souls. If he’s so much as stumbled across them as civilians, it’s likely he can puzzle it out, and he admits to having a guess. While it sounds like his power doesn’t literally unmask them to him, it surely does away with the glamour magic at play that protects them from others.

“Okay,” Ladybug says, “so are you going to explain why it was so necessary to figure out our identities?”

“I wasn’t trying to figure out your identities!” Taurus yelps. “But… I’m new to Paris, okay? That was the first akuma I’ve ever seen. Where I’m from, something… similar, but different was happening. That’s why I have my Sacred Artifact in the first place. But my Sacred Artifact doesn’t work outside of a battle zone, and if you reset everything, you’d close the battle zone, and I knew you wouldn’t just tell some random citizen what’s going on here, so I did the only thing I could think of!”

Something like this happening somewhere else? Ladybug knows it’s not impossible, especially given the power Taurus Mask himself demonstrates. It’s clearly not a Miraculous, not if he uses the power and then sticks around in an interview with Alya while Ladybug and Chat recharge, and he keeps calling it a Sacred Artifact… “What is that rope?” Ladybug asks. “Your… Sacred Artifact? What’s a Sacred Artifact?”

Taurus blinks. “…Oh, um… how to explain it… it’s sort of like your Miraculous, I guess. It’s an artifact of another world which holds the power of a god- I know it sounds crazy! But listen, aren’t your Miraculous the same? Except Sacred Artifacts apply their Rules on the world, just like gods, and your Miraculous are inhabited by gods rather than just objects with similar powers. Right?”

Chat Noir’s eyes widen, then narrow into slits. “How did you know that?”

Taurus ducks his head. “My Sacred Artifact revealed it to me. I saw your souls, but I also saw two others, ones I can only assume at this point are the souls of gods. And they were inside your Miraculous, so…”

Remarkable. He may not even realize the details, but Taurus Mask just casually discovered the kwami. Ladybug… honestly doesn’t know where to go from here.

“And you’re…” Chat Noir says, “not an akuma?”

“No!” Taurus says. “I just come from somewhere else where the System is a little different. I’m trying to figure out how things work here, that’s all.”

Chat Noir hums. “What do you think, my lady? He sounds genuine to me.”

He does sound genuine, because he is. Ladybug may not be able to see through deceptions and masks, but she finds herself believing Taurus.

After all, even if he also wears a mask, his definition of a fair fight includes baring his own soul, too. Ladybug just has a gut feeling that he’s not a bad person. The identity issue still worries her, but she’s willing to believe that he’s not going to purposefully cause trouble.

But she is still the guardian of the Miraculous, and it is her duty to keep the Miraculous safe. If Taurus Mask has even an inkling of their identities, she needs full understanding of the situation. So, she drags both boys off to a more private location and has a long, long discussion about where Taurus comes from, how things work there, and, once she’s satisfied, just a little bit about things here in Paris.

(She would not believe his story about transients for a second if he didn’t have pictures of himself – still masked, of course – hanging out with a hulking minotaur and many other, even weirder, people on his phone.)

(The App, however, neither Ladybug nor Chat Noir need much convincing of, though Taurus shows it to them, too. Once he explains the premise of the App, both heroes of Paris understand much better why Taurus Mask steps in to figure out why it’s acting up again so far from other players. They also understand why the kwami in particular intrigue Taurus, though he doesn’t ask for too many details about the gods in their Miraculous just yet, nor do they tell him.)

With all the details, or at least as much as either side is willing to share, out in the open, Ladybug is equally convinced of Taurus Mask’s good intentions as his inevitable interference in akuma attacks. He’s a man with a secret identity, a superpower, the literal Role of the Hero, and, based on his brief stories about his guild, not an ounce of self-preservation.

(He’s friends with a tiger that wants to eat him? And Ladybug thought Paris is weird.)

There’s no way that Taurus Mask won’t run towards the akuma when everyone else runs away, whether Ladybug and Chat Noir tell him to stay away or not.

Plus, there’s still the identity situation… At this rate, Ladybug is going to get a migraine.

“I think that’s enough for today,” Chat Noir says eventually. “We all have a lot to think about, so why don’t we go get some rest, get back to our lives, and continue this another time?”

Ladybug sighs. “That’s a good idea, Chat. I have a lot of thinking to do.”

Taurus Mask sags a little. “Sounds good to me. I don’t do much here except school yet, so just let me know if you ever want to meet.”

Daisuke Ikusaba is dreading going to school.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong, exactly, but he’s pretty sure that Ladybug and Chat Noir are his classmates (and what are the odds of that?) and he’s not sure he can handle walking in there, looking at them and how they act, and confirming it for himself.

He takes a deep breath to fortify himself enough to cross the threshold and shuffle all the way into his classroom to his seat.

Marinette walks in, passes off something to Rose that Rose is supremely thankful for, hands everyone a macaron, and summarily gets in a fight with Chloé over some mean remarks towards Kim and Daisuke just groans internally because yes, this is definitely Ladybug.

There’s just… there’s just no hiding it.

Then Adrien, whom Daisuke has only spoken to once so far, walks in, cracks an admittedly hilarious pun, snickering impishly to himself while doing so, then takes in the argument and jumps in to defuse it expertly, and Daisuke drops his head to his desk.

He really doesn’t mean to figure them out! He’s new in Paris! He only knows like three people outside of this classroom! Even if his Sacred Artifact told him their names and faces, that still shouldn’t mean anything to him! There’s just no possible way to predict that the heroes would be two of the whole twenty people he knows in this entire city.

It’s ridiculous.

“Utterly ridiculous!” Chloé shrieks. As Daisuke curls up into his desk, Chloé huffs, plopping (gracefully!) down onto her seat. She has no idea why Dupain-Cheng thinks now is a good time to start an argument. Honestly, she doesn’t think her comment about Kim is even that bad, considering all the other irons she has in the fire that she knows Dupain-Cheng is aware of.

But Marinette is not thinking about Chloé. While it’s true that her comment about Kim bothers her, and that she’ll always happily jump in to her friends’ defense, Marinette doesn’t think it’s strictly necessary in this case. It’s a minor thing, just a mean, off-handed comment that the entire class (Daisuke, who’s new, excluded) has long since learned to ignore.

No, she’s not testing Chloé here, she’s testing Daisuke. Because if Taurus Mask knows her identity, or at least has a guess, then that means he must be someone who knows her. If he’s as new to Paris as he claims, then Daisuke is a good match in timing, and he looks similar, as well. That said, the mask he wears covers significantly more than a simple domino mask does, so although he has no magic glamour protecting his identity, it’s still not something Marinette can identify so easily through looks alone.

But Taurus Mask is a hero through and through. Taurus Mask would never resist rushing in when conflict arises. Daisuke Ikusaba is a socially anxious, muscled ball of nerves. That Daisuke looks over at her argument, clearly noting it, but doesn’t so much as utter a word is, in Marinette’s mind, evidence that he cannot possibly be Taurus Mask.

There’s no way this shy kid sitting in the back of her class can monologue about his backstory and persona so easily to Alya and the whole internet. Daisuke Ikusaba and Taurus Mask can’t be anything but two entirely separate people, Marinette thinks.

But then who is he? Marinette grits her teeth, struggling over the question for the whole school day.

Daisuke isn’t much better, tossing around in his head whether he should talk to Marinette and Adrien about it, whether he should talk to Ladybug and Chat Noir about it, whether he should tell them his identity… but he can’t tell them his identity! It’s not even that he’s strictly against doing so. Being seen unmasked is like… like public indecency. To tell them who he is just feels wrong.

But he knows them, through no choice of their own.

But will he even be able to get the words out if he tries? Last time, the only time he’s ever done something like this, he could hardly say a word to his own soul brother out of sheer embarrassment – and they already knew! How is he supposed to deal with these two?

He suffers through the myriad options, none appealing enough to even seem plausible. Marinette suffers through her compromised duty and endless questions about who exactly poses such a great danger to her, and in the very front row, Adrien suffers through exactly the same thing as his lady, with more thought spared to still processing the App, the System from which it comes, and transients.

It’s a tough school day all around, but though no answers are apparent to any of them, all three share a determination to find the right answer regardless. After all, all three of them are heroes. For whatever reason, they’ve all honed the ability to see problems not as obstacles in their path, but challenges to overcome.

It may take some time to sort through everything that this clashing of worlds has thrown at them all, but they all feel the pressure of their Roles and cannot possibly act counter to them. They will figure it out. They will overcome those challenges. They will grow stronger for that effort.

And though forces oppose them, though they have villains within their school and without, they will fight on.

Each one of them, for many, many reasons, is afraid, but they will not hide in the face of fear.

Each one of them faces the possibility of being hurt. Physically in the line of duty, or emotionally to support that duty. But each of them also know through experience that that hurt is also how they will meet their greatest allies, the ones they can truly call friends.

#miraculous ladybug fanfiction #ml fanfiction #fanfiction #tokyo afterschool summoners

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otherworldly-healer · 3 years

Text

Raine sat down at her office desk warily examining the envelope that held her name on it. She had placed it there earlier after checking the mailbox. Taking a shower and getting into clean clothes after trekking through the forest all day was a more pressing matter. Then dinner, lesson plans, and a few chores stole her attention. After everyone else had returned to their rooms for the night she finally got around to investigating the letter.

She noted it didn’t have a return address. It was rare if ever that she got mail that wasn’t some sort of advertisement for a business or an announcement of activities at the University or other community hub. Most correspondence was much easier on the telephone or meeting in person, so whatever it was it must have been formal. She unfolded her reading glasses and turned on the lamp to begin reading.

Professor Raine Sage,

I've been told I'm better at expressing myself in written word than spoken, and I'm inclined to agree. Even so, I'm not looking forward to writing this; I haven't written a letter in some years, and our relationship is complicated enough in normal circumstances.

I'm writing several letters now as a contingency. In the event I should disappear from the island before I find the courage to say these things aloud, I've given instructions for them to be delivered. If you're reading this, then I am no longer in Spirale. I suppose it's possible that you're reading this letter while I'm still here, but as I've entrusted these letters to one of my dearest and most reliable friends, I won't bother entertaining the thought.

A part of me is grateful that I won't have to deal with the fallout when these letters are first opened. For that, and for everything, I am sorry. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that I will return tomorrow and have to face the immediate consequences. But there's no way to predict what will happen, and I'd rather have those difficult conversations than leave, potentially for good, without a word.

Out of all of Spirale's victims from our world, I chose to write to you because I trust you are the most capable of understanding my intentions.

In my wake, I've left a path of devastation almost as wide as Yggdrasill's. I can't excuse the things I have done, nor would I want to; to try would be an insult to every life sacrificed, and despite what you may think of me, I cannot accept such callousness.

And yet, I must try to convince myself that there is a way to atone - that I am not irredeemable. I must believe that I can make a difference. It's naive - childish, even - but if I consider my current actions as useless, what hope can I have to actually make a change?

If I can't undo the past, I will do what I can to better the future. That is what I believe. It has taken me six years since my arrival to put it into words, but I believe I have felt that way deep down for a long time.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to act on that belief in Spirale, at least for some time. And that brings me to the point of this letter: I want you to remind me of this.

When people leave and return, their memories are sometimes altered or erased. I believe it due to the nature of the differing timelines between the island and its targeted worlds, but that's all I can say. Ironically, I can't remember if I ever told you this. It's a very real possibility that, should I return at all, I will not remember any of the experiences here that have shaped me.

I can remember who I was when I first arrived. The thought of being like that again scares me.

That isn't to say I expect you to restore my memories, nor do I expect you to try. If I do return as the bitter, apathetic person I was before, I doubt you would be able to convince me anyway. I simply ask that you tell me what I have said here - that no matter how hopeless it must seem, I must try.

I won't burden you with any other messages, though you are free to tell the others what I've written here. I pray that we get the chance to meet again, even if it is while I am someone else.

Take care, Yuan Ka-Fai

She had to reread the contents a few times before fully processing what was written. Even then she felt a rush of conflicting emotion that she couldn’t quite describe. He was really gone? Just like that?

She couldn’t understand him. He would write to her because he felt she was the most responsible one? He didn’t say that he trusted her personally, just that he trusted that she could understand his intentions. It made some sense, admittedly, rather than burdening one of the younger members of the group. Still, she couldn’t help but feel weighed down by this task that he had given her. To always have to be the mature voice, to be composed and weigh all perspectives, felt a bit unfair. Yet she had never been one to ever vocalize that she was being overwhelmed. Yuan and her weren’t close. Would this task not be better served to someone else? Was she just a last-case scenario, in case others had disappeared as well? Surely that must be all.

She had had little reason to keep checking her phone during these eclipses. Ever since Genis had arrived, she had little reason to keep obsessing over who had come and gone from this island. And while she felt a stinging loneliness when Colette and a melancholy when Six had disappeared, they had come back the same people. In her experience it seemed to happen more often than not. She knew from prior conversations with Yuan himself that it was possible for people to come here differently—Mithos had once been from four thousand years ago, and many of her companions such as Sheena had come from different times in their Journey.

Of course it was possible. But she didn’t want to think about it. If she allowed herself to, that bubble of optimism that she’d been trying to build would surely burst again-- as fragile as it already was. She wanted to enjoy her time here to just be herself. She wanted to have a home and not have to be a historical figure, a leader for her race. Despite setbacks she was happy here; at times more content than she had ever been in her entire life. But time and time again the reality of this place threatened to take that all away. How long would it be before someone she was closer with would be spirited away back to their home plane? What if they came back, but had no recollection of ever meeting her?

No. No. No. I’m so damn tired of starting over! That’s all my life has been! Hit a dead end, regroup, turn on my heel, and set off again. Pretend that it doesn’t hurt. Pretend that it is inevitable. Right when I’d been foolish enough to begin to feel comfortable in this city.

Yuan had done it again. What a frustratingly cowardly man. Even going so far as to say he’d be glad that he wasn’t there to deal with the fallout of the letters. He would speak with her briefly and leave her with some worrying information while having no answers for what to do with said information. No plan of action. Just a looming threat to be wary of. Raine could feel anger welling up as she ran her hand through her bangs. Her fist pounded the table, rattling the cup set next to her on a coaster.

Of course after four thousand years he had never had answers before, why should she expect it to be any different now? A man of inaction. Indifference. And yet he still insisted that he had changed. Waver had insisted that his past didn’t matter in this place, but she couldn’t agree. Experiences and memories formed who people were. Yuan had admitted to his mistakes but she hadn’t known him well enough to tell if he had really devoted himself to changing. Besides her, how many of her companions had he approached and expressed his desire to atone? To build that better future?

She still had so much to say to him. So much to ask him. She hadn’t had enough time. As infuriating as it was, Yuan had been incredibly helpful with acclimating herself to the city. He was a straightforward voice that helped dispel confusion. She wanted to understand him better, but to the professor it felt like he was always trying to hide from her and the rest. Complicated was right. She had respect for him. She hated his guts. They shared more commonalities as half-elves that she cared to admit. Raine could never forgive how he hardened his heart to overlook the damage he caused through negligence. How turning into an angel had tainted him and his view of mortals as expendable. She was conflicted. In another time and place, she could have even seen them as friends with their common interests. It was just too hard to divorce him from his past actions in her mind. Not completely.

Yet…she had to admit there was a heart there somewhere deep down. She’d seen it, briefly, on more than one occasion. The one time that Yuan had let a glimmer of his emotions show. That one argument they had at the club. He was desperate to make amends. He repeated that wish here in the letter. To acknowledge how much of a hand he had in perpetuating the cycle of violence and hatred in Aselia. Even if those things could not be forgiven, at least he was not running from them. That alone proved that he had changed.

She didn’t want to believe that it was too late for anyone.

She needed to have hope that people could change if they wanted to.

She refused to ever let go of that plea.

In her eyes he wasn’t irredeemable. However, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still too scared to actually face any of them. Meetings were always sporadic, and they had spent a fair share of their time working in the same place avoiding one another. She’d said it time and again…adults were troublesome creatures, stubborn and often stuck in their ways. Deeply complex and entangled in their own doubts and fears. Her included. She had to have compassion for that.

“You better believe that I will hold you to that, Yuan,” she whispered. Raine let the letter rest on her desk, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her eyes stung as if forcing back tears.

No, I refuse to be upset by this!

...though it was much too late.

The half-elf closed her eyes and took a deep breath, leaning back in her chair and staring at the ceiling. Her hands curled around the sides of the letter, causing the page to wrinkle. “To write me of all people a last message. What are you thinking? It sounds almost like a will.” She reached over to her phone to check the contact list and…sure enough, Yuan’s name had vanished.

“If you come back with all of your memories intact, you’ll truly be sorry.” She folded the letter back into its envelope and took her glasses off.

“Whatever happens next, don’t ever stop trying. You’ve gotten too far to give up now.” But she was merely talking to herself. Her words would no longer reach him. Hopefully someday in the future she would have the opportunity to say that to his face.

#stormswake #wow pain!

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specterchasing-a · 3 years

Text

People Like Us || Morgan & Eddie

TIMING: Current

LOCATION: Morgan’s House

PARTIES: @mor-beck-more-problems & @specterchasing

SUMMARY: Eddie needs help accepting the truth about who he is, and who better to lend a hand than Morgan Beck?

CONTAINS: Internalized homophobia tw, domestic abuse mention tw (section is tagged)

Eddie learned Morgan didn’t pull punches the day he came across her picnicking among the headstones of Jericho Hill. She took one look at him and effortlessly seemed to understand what made him tick. At the time, he didn’t realize she went easy on him. He knew better now. After their last conversation, he doubted she wanted anything to do with him, or that she ever would again. Unfortunately, that didn’t change how badly he needed her help.

He pulled his car into her driveway and put it in park. Unsteady breaths staggered the rise and fall of his chest. “In through the nose, out through the mouth,” Eddie quietly instructed himself as he exited the car, flinching when the car door slammed shut upon its release from his hand. Moonlight assisted the mansion’s porchlight in illuminating the path to her front door. If it weren’t for the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, he might have appreciated the sleepy suburban ambience.

Eddie reached the door and raised his fist, hesitating at the last second. If he turned around now, he could probably still make it to his car before Morgan noticed it in her driveway. He swallowed hard, past the lump in his throat, and felt his eyes begin to sting with budding tears. Leaving now would only prove her right for calling him a coward. “Shit,” he sighed before finally knocking.

Morgan couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard someone knock on the front door. When Bex and Mina stayed, they had keys. Urk rang the bell or called out, blubbering, through the window. An unexpected knock on the door was the wrong kind of normal. Even the cats complained with tense ears and whiny meows. Make it go away.

“Yeah, I’m working on it,” Morgan mumbled. She hesitated before approaching the door, bracing herself for the worst, then decided that maybe there was no such thing in White Crest and flung it open only to find… “Eddie?” She was too surprised to keep the incredulity out of her voice. As far as she was aware they had nothing left to say to each other. She frowned, struggling to process. “Uh….can I help you?”

The sight of Morgan instantly inflamed Eddie’s precarious emotional state. He blinked as the budding tears started to blossom. More people had seen him cry in the past few weeks than he cared to admit, and Eddie wasn’t eager to add another name to the list. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like he had a say in the matter once a stray tear fled down his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “God, Morgan, I’m so sorry.” Eddie bled as much sincerity into his apology as he could muster, she needed to believe him. “I can’t do this.” He shrugged helplessly before his arms crossed tightly over his chest. “You were right about everything, and I want to set things right. With Bex, with you, with myself.” His teeth dug into the inside of his cheek momentarily. “But I’m scared and I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t have anyone else I can go to about this. Only one other person knows about me, and he doesn’t know Bex the way you do.”

Whatever hostility Morgan had been holding onto against Eddie melted as soon as she saw his tears. And then his arms over his chest, the way he seemed desperate to hold himself together when the truth was he couldn’t, his guilt, his hurt. Morgan had seen it dozens of times, almost half of them in the mirror when she was even younger than Eddie. She didn’t know what else to do but come out and wrap him up as best she could.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. You’re gonna be okay, Eddie. It doesn’t feel like it, but you will be.” She pulled away, searching his face to find his comfort levels, and gave him a little tug. “Come inside, tell me what you’re worried about, and we’ll come up with something, okay?” She gave him the softest smile she could; nothing was so bad if you could smile a little about it.

Morgan didn’t yell at him, or slam the door in his face like Eddie thought she would. Instead, she hugged him, and that wasn’t something he prepared himself for on the drive over. His throat tightened as he returned the gesture, arms wrapping around her as he grounded himself within the moment. Eddie didn’t receive much physical affection. Usually, he was the one dishing it out, but he appreciated the role reversal more than he could say.

She spoke to him in words of affirmation so kind he almost believed them. As far as he could tell, ‘okay’ was officially out of his reach and would be for the foreseeable future, but he decided not to argue. He caught her eye when she pulled back and he made an effort to smile, but the best he could do was purse his lips together. Eddie followed her inside, nodding along with everything she said.

“Thank you,” he said softly now that they were surrounded by the mansion’s walls. “Sorry, I didn’t get this far in my head,” Eddie admitted after a beat of silence. He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand and nervously ran his fingers through his hair. “What I’m worried about is essentially everything.” He didn’t intend to sound so dramatic, but his entire world was changing around him, and he didn’t know how to talk about that nonchalantly. “But, uhm, we can start with Bex. I have to tell her. I don’t want to, but I have to, and she’s going to hate me. I don’t have a lot of friends, Morgan, so losing her is gonna suck for me.”

Morgan led Eddie into the kitchen and started on some tea. The last thing he needed was to dehydrate while he was this tense. She smirked to herself, remembering that everything went wrong between them around a teapot last time. Maybe this could be a good do-over for both of them. While the water boiled, she put her hands on his shoulders and guided him to sit.

“Eddie,” she began, warm and gentle. “You’re getting a little ahead of yourself. Why, exactly, do you think Bex is going to hate you? For that matter, why do you think anyone who really cares about you will?” She brushed back his messy hair, sighing. After all these years, not much had changed, not for the kids she knew, at least. “Eddie Carridine, there is nothing wrong with being the person you are. There is nothing bad or ugly or inferior about the person you were made to be. Who told you that there was?”

Eddie didn’t take in much of his surroundings. Morgan’s interior design choices passed by in a blur on their way to the kitchen. He watched as she prepared a pot of tea, the parallel between tonight and their last meeting not being lost on him either. He hoped to actually stick around long enough to try it this time.

Morgan encouraged him to sit down, and Eddie obliged. His eyes, a little wider than usual, locked onto hers as she kept him from continuing on his downward spiral. The tone she used, the way she pushed his hair out of his face, it all felt so foreign. After Eddie learned to walk and talk, his parents never soothed him with gentle voices or gestures of affection. They preferred to let Eddie work through emotional distress on his own. They told him it would build character, but all it ever did was make him feel desperately alone. Having Morgan, someone he barely knew, do what they refused to without prompting left him feeling conflicted, but mostly grateful.

“Bex is going to hate me because I don’t think we can work through these kinds of differences,” Eddie announced, wishing he could keep the tone light. If he could, maybe the weight pressing down on his chest would start to let up. “Our relationships will be over and, I dunno, I feel like that might upset her.” Bex genuinely seemed to like him, which remained an overwhelming source of guilt.

As far as who told Eddie that being himself was a punishable offense, the list went on and on. “Do you have all day?” he asked dryly. Deflecting didn’t make him feel any better. A sigh slipped past his lips and he decided to take the question more seriously. “My parents, for starters,” he said as the lump in his throat returned. “They, uh, had expectations for me, still do, actually. And I really think this would be the final straw for them. Right now, the only reason I’m still on their insurance and why they pay my car-note is that they’re holding onto hope that I might still grow up to be a normal boy, with a normal wife, and normal kids.”

“Oh, Eddie…” Morgan sighed, brushing through the rest of his hair. “Normal isn’t a real thing. It’s an aspirational lie. No one’s normal. And, sure, you spend your time on YouTube and you can see dead people, but isn’t that also kind of what makes you amazing? Why shouldn’t this also be something that makes you amazing?” She focused on his eyes, willing him to unclench just a little more, to make this easier for both of them. “Also, not every breakup has to end in anyone hating anyone. There’s even a proud tradition in certain circles of staying friends with exes.” Also, Bex had the same secret as Eddie. But that wasn’t hers to tell.

The kettle raddled on the stove and Morgan went to attend to it. She reached for a jar of something ready-made and dipped a heaping spoonful into the infuser and started preparing their cups. “I want to get to the heart of this with you, I do, but I need to know what level of ‘last straw’ you’re talking about here. I mean, are your parents going to hurt you, if you tell them this? Do you need to secure some resources for yourself or have someone pseudo-indestructible around? Also--” She brought the tea to the kitchen island and slid it toward Eddie before climbing onto the stool next to him. “You still haven’t told me yet. What we’re talking around, what you’re trying to accept about yourself. It might help, if you can name it.”

Eddie wanted so badly to see normality the way Morgan did, but the idea of it seemed incontestably desirable to him in this case. All his life, his parents barely acknowledged his existence and he knew he should resent them for it, but he still craved their approval in spite of everything; in spite of himself. Just once, he wanted them to recognize him as something to be proud of instead of branding him a failure with every step he took.

“Amazing?” Eddie echoed quietly. The sudden commendation shooed away all thoughts of his parents. He looked up at Morgan like he expected her to take it back. “Most people just think the ghost thing is kind of weird.” His shoulders raised in a soft shrug. Ghosts gave his life meaning, but his dedication to them also made it more difficult to navigate. “Or fake.” Amazing. The word hung stubbornly in his mind as if daring him to believe what Morgan said could be true. “How can something that keeps me up at night be amazing?” he asked genuinely. Before he could take a leap of faith and try to celebrate instead of hide, he needed more answers.

“I’d like that,” Eddie said about staying friends with Bex. “I really do care about her, that part wasn’t a lie.” The calming way Morgan familiarized herself with his hair and seemed to know exactly what to say slowly encouraged him to take refuge in the safety of his time with her. He sniffled, but the tears in his eyes were drying. Breathing came a little easier now, which felt like a miraculous turn of events.

[DOMESTIC ABUSE MENTION]

“Not physically, I don’t think,” he answered honestly, his eyes following her as she tended to the tea. “Dad’s only ever lost his temper with me like that once.” Not a fond memory, but enough time spanned between now and then that Eddie could discuss it without unravelling. “I think they’d disown me though,” he added softly. He caught the cup of tea she slid his way and focused on the steam rising to meet his face instead of his parents. “I make good enough money, but I won’t turn down the other offer, if only for moral support.” He turned his head to face her as she sat down and made another attempt at a smile, this time with marginally more success.

[END OF DOMESTIC ABUSE MENTION]

The hint of a smile diminished when she probed for a label. Saying it out loud to Alfie hadn’t been easy, and maybe he’d been naïve for thinking it wouldn’t be hard the second time around. “I’m—” His eyes closed tightly as his head tilted to the side. He hated this, the way a three letter word felt like Mt. fucking Everest. “This is such bullshit,” Eddie announced with suddenly reopening eyes. He straightened up and took a breath. Try again. “I—I like guys, I guess.” The words shot out of his mouth faster than his usual speech, but he said it. And he didn’t feel sick. In fact, he felt kind of relieved. “One guy in particular, but yeah. I’m gay, probably. I dunno, something like that.” He winced at his convoluted confession, but he guessed it could have been worse. It could have been like the last time she tried to goad him into honesty.

Morgan ached to see how much Eddie craved comfort, like he’d been starved for it his whole life. He had the kind of hurt that didn’t show up on the body, the kind that she carried, that was so easy to delude yourself about. And how many times had her throat closed up when she’d tried to tell her mother, Sorry, everything’s my fault because I can only like girls! I’m a lesbian! It had been years before the words came easy to her. Eddie was only just getting started.

“Hey,” she said softly, reaching for a clean towel and leaning over to wipe his cheeks with all the care she wished for him. “It’s not bullshit. It’s hard, I know it’s hard. But you are one of the dreamiest gay boys that ever popped out of the rainbow, and we are all so lucky that you exist. Maybe even especially the boy you like. I want to hear all about him, but first, new plan: we’re moving somewhere comfy. You’re not a part of the family until you’ve had an emotional moment in the great room, so let’s get moving.”

She hopped off her stool and took Eddie’s mug and led him further into the house, toward the large plushy couch she and everyone she loved spent so much time on. “Also, I hope this goes without saying, but I will be there for support if that’s what you want. Just tell me when and where to show up. But, back to the main point: you’re amazing, and whatever happens, there’s no good reason for anyone to think differently. Especially because you’re gay. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we make the world go round in the most fabulous ways. But, conditioning, parents, society--there’s a lot of bullshit that keeps people like us from understanding that. When I came out to my mother, I was crying and apologizing because I thought I was literally cursing our family with my gayness. So as much as I believe in you, as much as I’m making this sound like some obvious truth--because it is--I can imagine why you might have a hard time believing it. But I don’t want to guess or project too much of myself.” At last, she settled down in her usual spot among the cushions, floating around them for how little she felt their presence. “So, can I ask you? Other people aside, because we can’t control other people’s choices, what about being gay scares you, or worries you or makes you feel...weird?”

Being called ‘one of the dreamiest gay boys to ever pop out of the rainbow’ managed to inspire Eddie’s first genuine smile of the night. Traces of sadness still lingered on his face, but he appreciated the break in tension more than he knew how to say. He didn’t know how to grapple with her saying people were lucky to know him, especially within the current context, it felt surreal. He wanted to thank Morgan in a way that showcased how much everything she said meant to him, but everything he thought to say fell short.

In the great room, he made himself comfortable next to her on the couch. A family of people like Morgan sounded too good to be true like most of what she said. Thinking about it reminded him of what she told him about the importance of hope, and Eddie decided there must have been some truth to it. As scary as it was to picture a brighter future for himself, it began to seem less like a lost cause.

“You apologized?” He didn’t mean to sound so shocked. Even though he knew better, it often seemed like self-acceptance came easier to everyone else. Hearing that even Morgan struggled to come to terms with her sexuality made him feel substantially less alone. Eddie considered her next question carefully by turning his attention inward, it wasn’t something he often did. Pleasing the people around him automatically took precedence over making himself happy.

“Thinking about it now, I guess most of what scares me has to do with other people,” he admitted. “Rejection, ridicule, judgment, harassment. Those are the big ones and, like you said, all of that’s out of my control.” Eddie took his first sip of tea now that enough time had passed for it to cool. His hands shook a little. “If all I had to worry about was myself, I…” he trailed off in contemplation. “When I’m alone with Alfie, he’s the guy I mentioned, everything else falls away. When I touch him or manage to make him laugh—that’s it. That’s all that matters; just us. And it feels… amazing until I ask myself how people might react if they saw us. Then I start to feel dirty or-or like I’m doing something wrong, kind of like I’m going to be punished for being happy because…. because that’s always how it’s been.” Eddie realized how true what he said was as he said it. “Being gay scares me because it makes me happy.”

Had Morgan apologized to her mother? “Oh, profusely. I actually thought, if I just kept apologizing, maybe I wouldn’t ever have to actually say it and potentially break what little good there was between my mother and me. But she gave me this impatient look, and I had to, so I did. And it was--” She paused, smiling sadly. “It was maybe the only time she was really sorry for anything she’d done. She uh...she took care of me for a little bit. And that was nice. But this was in 1999, and we had an implicit understanding to keep that part of me on a need-to-know basis. But, things are different, in some ways. Maybe not for your parents, maybe not everywhere, but here? So different. So much better.” She ruffled his hair again and tried to look ahead into something better, lighter than the world he was currently living in. What would he even look like if he was really happy?

“Eddie, I really, really mean what I’m about to say. And I am saying it as someone who was literally cursed with eternal suffering during her life. As a lesbian born in ‘81. As someone who knows all kinds of logic-mazes for explaining why happiness equals bad. Okay?” She took a deep breath and turned his face gently to make sure he was looking at her face. “Love itself is never wrong. And so any happiness that comes from love can never be wrong. And you, Eddie, are so worthy of love. The last thing you need to carry is shame for discovering love, which is one of the best parts of being alive. And the last thing you should do is starve your humanity from love because of other people. The people who are happy for you and your love are the ones you should build community with anyway.”

1999 sounded like a lifetime ago. For Eddie, it nearly was. With the current state of the world and the issues its inhabitants faced, he couldn’t imagine what it must have been like back then. A need-to-know basis, that’s how Morgan described the experience. Eddie shook his head sadly. Living like that must have been so draining. Even now, for all his fear and uncertainty, he knew how lucky he was to be alive now instead of then. If he’d been born alongside Morgan in the ‘80s, this conversation likely wouldn’t have been possible. Not with her, and not with anyone else, for that matter.

Looking to the past and acknowledging the hard-won fights of those who came before him, especially while sitting next to one of the veterans, an unexpected feeling came over Eddie. His journey, although he would be the one most affected by it, wasn’t only about him.

“It’s different because of people like you,” he said. “I—” Eddie felt a knot form in his throat. “Morgan, if it wasn’t for you, I don’t know how long it would have taken me to reach this point. Years, maybe? And that’s if it ever happened at all.” Harsh as she’d been, her words resonated with him and carried him through confessing to Alfie. “You saw me, really saw me, and refused to tolerate the bullshit. I think I understand why now.” He shifted to face her more fully. “I want to be more like you, Morgan. Someone who makes the world a better place by existing as is, not someone who hides for the comfort of people who don’t love them.”

Love, happiness, community. Morgan said the words and Eddie latched onto them for dear life. He knew better than to think this would be easy, or that his budding bravery would never again waver in the face of adversity, but he felt better equipped to face the future. “I think you’re right,” he ventured as a look of determination shone in his bleary eyes. “I mean, I want to, anyway, and that’s a start. It’s more than I had before.”

Morgan went still, completely bewildered. “I didn’t do much,” she admitted quietly. “I was too scared. I told myself I’d just make things worse all around. But, you know, everyone was kind of scared back then. It was never about some people magically not being scared. It was about not letting your fear trap you into a life so much smaller than what you should have. You--don’t need to be like me, Eddie. Especially not the me I was at your age. I--maybe it’s not fair of me, but I really just want to spare you some of the suffering I carried with me for so long, and the suffering of people I knew. I saw tiny maneuvers that I used to make when we were talking and I saw your hurt and I just wanted to make it stop for you.” She shrugged. “Don’t wait to find the love of your life until you’re at the ass-end of your thirties. I mean, if it takes that long, who cares, because it’s exactly as cheesy and gratifying as every song you’ve ever heard makes it sound and that is worth every star in the universe. But don’t wait that long to try! You are so young, and it is over so fast. What a waste to spend it hiding when you can be testing your capacity for joy?”

She beamed at Eddie and gave his arm a squeeze. “Deciding to is a really good start. All that’s next is doing it. Do you want to figure out what you want to say? To Bex? To your parents?”

Even with Morgan telling him he didn’t need to be like her, Eddie didn’t let her convince him. He wouldn’t argue and insist she accept his purview, that didn’t seem like it would do much good. Instead, he decided to show her his appreciation with his actions moving forward. She thought she didn’t do much, and he imagined it really did feel that way, but it got her to where she was now; teaching him how to love himself in a way no one had done before. Whether she knew it or not, he owed her immensely.

He grinned when she mentioned finding the love of her life. Eddie was grateful she did, and wondered if he might have too. He knew it was too soon to tell even if he and Alfie had known each other for years, but it didn’t hurt to play with the thought.

Eddie took a deep breath when she asked where he’d like to begin. “Bex, definitely,” he said with a confident nod. “I don’t want whatever my mom and dad have to say about it to throw me off before I have a chance to enjoy myself, y’know? With Bex, at least she won’t hold it against me for just… being who I am.”

“No, she won’t,” Morgan agreed. “She won’t appreciate being lied to, but she’s not a closed minded girl. I think being honest about why you did what you did and why you’re doing this now is a good step alongside, you know, ‘guess what babe, I’m gay’. It’s kind of awful, but coming clean is usually the fastest way to fix something when you’ve made a mess. Even if it also feels like the hardest.” And maybe Bex would have some relief and tell Eddie about all those ‘I love you’s she’d exchanged with Mina by the pool. But as much as that would give Eddie some comfort, it wasn’t hers to tell. And maybe he’d feel braver, going in prepared for the worst and finding his world still intact. “Although, maybe don’t be that casual and literally say that. Unless it helps you say it easier! Once the words have come out, you sort of have to keep going with them, and that can actually be as great as it is scary.”

Eddie’s head bobbed in agreement as Morgan offered advice. He wouldn’t let doubt trickle in and throw him off course, not yet. If she said Bex would understand, he trusted her. They lived together once, made art together, they had to have been close. Eddie momentarily wondered why that all came to an end, but now wasn’t the time to ask questions like that. In any case, it wasn’t his business what went on between Bex and Morgan even if he cared about both of them a great deal.

He breathed a soft laugh through his nose when she advised him against being as casual as her example. “I have… no idea what the easiest way to say it will be,” he admitted. “I try to plan it out in my mind and a wall goes up.” He made a sharp gesture with his hand to mimic the wall being built. “Maybe…” Eddie trailed off as an idea began forming. “Okay, what if you pretend to be Bex and we play out what might happen? I think I’ll do better with a trial run.”

Morgan snorted with laughter. “We, uh--” Could, but there’s no way I can prepare you for her not-girlfriend in the pool. “Yeah! Why not. Bex is not the most predictable girl, but I will do my best.” She took a deep breath and adjusted herself on the couch. “Hey, Eddie,” she said, doing her best imitation of Bex’s speech cadence. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something?”

Eddie straightened up and mentally prepared himself, but the second Morgan imitated Bex, he burst out in unexpected laughter. “Is that really what you think Mainers sound like?” he asked in a bubbly tone. “Maybe, just use your normal accent and I’ll rely on my imagination. I cannot take you seriously when you sound like that.”

“What? That was totally spot-on!” Morgan said, laughing in spite of herself. She shook out her hair and tossed it into Bex’s usual middle part. “Is this not the spitting image? I don’t have the height, but I’ve got the nervous puppy eyes.” Morgan demonstrated, and not too badly, but only because she already had that face in her arsenal long before she met Bex. “But, okay, okay. I am me and you are imagining me as Bex: Hey, Eddie. What did you want to talk to me about?”

When Morgan insisted her Bex impersonation had been spot-on, Eddie immediately shook his head defiantly. “You have natural puppy dog eyes, doing that doesn’t count towards your score. Let me show you a real Bex impersonation.” He took a moment to get into character. His hands clasped in his lap, his shoulders jutted forward slightly to give the impression of timidity, and his eyes widened with brightness.

“Oh, um, hi, Morgan,” he said, altering his voice to convey Bex’s signature nervous excitement. “You said—You said you wanted to talk to me, right? I was busy studying, y’know, about anthropology—” Eddie nearly made himself break character by laughing, but quickly centered himself. “But I… I want to hear what you have to say.”

Eddie raised both hands palm-side up and leaned back with a satisfied expression on his face. “And that’s how it’s done.”

When Morgan was herself as Bex and Eddie returned to being Eddie, the seriousness of the situation crept back up on him. “What I want to talk to you about is… well, us,” he started slowly. His heart picked up speed within his chest even though he wasn’t actually talking to Bex. “I haven’t been completely honest with you about… about who I am. I haven’t been honest with myself, either, but I want to change that, starting now. Bex, I care about you very much and losing you as a friend would wreck me, but I can’t be your boyfriend anymore.” The words flowed from him with surprising ease. When he talked instead of obsessively thinking about what he wanted to say, it came naturally to him.

“I’m gay, and I need to stop hurting both of us by pretending that I’m not.”

Morgan thought carefully, trying to think of Bex’s worst case scenario and some response that wouldn’t crush Eddie’s spirit. Empathy wasn’t always her strong suit, and this had been going on for a little while… “Oh. When you say that, do you mean, did you know that you were when you asked me out? And when we kissed?”

“Yes,” Eddie responded hesitantly. He needed to be as honest as possible and not allow himself to hide behind excuses. Even if he did, he knew Morgan would call him out. “At the time, I thought it might be something I could change or, at least, conceal by being in a relationship with you. I understand if you’re upset with me, but I… I really do care about you. I never should’ve wrapped you up in my self-loathing. You deserve better than that.”

“I...can’t believe you used me like that. I think...I’m going to need a little bit of time with this. All this time, I was sort of hoping you’d be one of the few people who wasn’t lying to me,” Morgan said, choosing her words carefully. “But I don’t hate you Eddie. I could never hate you. And I don’t want to stop being your friend. Are you--gonna be okay and all?”

Eddie appreciated Morgan’s commitment to letting things play out honestly even though it stung. “I’m sorry for being so selfish. I will try my best to make it up to you in the future, if you’ll let me. Once… once you’ve had time, of course.” At the very least, Morgan elected to have her version of Bex not cut him out of her life completely. It gave him a little hope. “Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna be okay,” he said softly, slipping out of the scene as he struggled a little under the weight of it. He knew he could do this, or hoped he could anyway, but it was hard. And it would be even harder when it really happened. “How was that?” he asked Morgan, not Bex, hoping she would accept that he’d reached his limit. After the past 24 hours and all they entailed, he was starting to feel the gravity of emotional exhaustion take its toll.

fadaMorgan beamed and drew Eddie tight into her arms. “That was good. That was so, so good. And you were so brave. And I need to tell you now, I don’t think it’ll be that bad. But I did think that you might feel better if you’ve practiced the worst-case scenario with her I could think of, and know it’ll be okay. And it will be. One way or another, I know it will be okay with you and Bex. Alright?”

Eddie melted into the embrace immediately. He appreciated how well Morgan already knew to take care of him. After years spent being touch-starved, moments like this were life-savers. “I’m glad you played it that way,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her. “Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.” Everything felt heavy, but he only needed to carry it a little further. “I trust you,” he said, meaning it with his entire heart. “I think I’m gonna be okay.”

#c: morgan #wickedswriting #people like us #internalized homophobia tw #domest abuse tw #// KAT AND MORGAN GIFTS #SPREAD THE WORD

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laceymorganwrites · 4 years

Text

Someone´s disaster

Word count: 1,624

Pairing: Atsumu x fem!reader

Warnings: swearing, unhealthy relationships and insecurities

Song: Someone´s disaster - Beach Weather

Summary: Atsumu is selfdestructive and you have way too many walls. It doesn´t mean anything, does it?

A/N: This was so much fun to write, please always talk with your partner about your inner conflicts, the relationship depicted in this isn´t healthy, I´m not romanticising anything, this is just from their pov.

General taglist: @newfriendjen

I've been searching for a drug like you Breathing in that Pollyanna youth Chasing down those melancholy hues Cause I've been searching for a drug like you

You were the kind of girl that was at every party she could go to. Provided that famous people would be there too. You didn´t really care how famous they were, it was enough for them to be in the spotlight.

It wasn´t so much that you craved their fame. You craved attention, craved people looking at you as if they loved you, even if it was just for one night.

Maybe it was fucked up, but you liked broken people. Seeking them out was like a game to you at this point and ironically you found the most to be famous and forced to attend parties they didn´t want to be at.

Broken people always seemed to attract each other like magnets, destroying each other even more and perhaps you craved that destruction too.

After all you didn´t believe in the good in people, having been betrayed and disappointed too much already in your life.

Instead people became shallow to you, you didn´t want to make any friends, not wanting to see them leave you like everyone else. Anything involving any sort of attachment and commitment scared you, love and any kind of romance especially.

It was easier to focus on your physical needs anyway, emotions were overrated and only ended up being a nuisance. Oh it kills me and there's no denying that I can't shake Cause I just wanna be someone's disaster And I can't break but I know you're trying And it kills me cause I just wanna be someone's disaster

Atsumu didn´t want to be at this party, he hated how fucking fake everyone was. Nobody cared about him and everyone was always so adamant to talk about themselves. Maybe that was a selfish thought of him, but then again, he didn´t want people to care about specifically him.

He wanted them to care overall. The thing that annoyed him most about those parties was that none of its guests needed to be there. And yet all of them crowded the place, thinking they owned it.

He came to hate those events, even his birthday. Hell, especially his birthday. Getting all those fake messages wishing him good luck and health and whatever. Those people were just messaging him to be able to tell their friends about it.

It made him sick to the stomach.

All Atsumu wanted to do on his birthday was hide in a hole and never come out again. He wished he could at least spend it with his brother, but their relationship hasn´t been the best lately.

Especially in the current season. He wasn´t at his best performance wise and everyone knew it.

They knew and still complimented him on it, as if he didn´t screw up his serves all the time, as if they weren´t inaccurate and sloppy.

Nothing infuriated him more than pretentious people, the people who called themselves his fans.

The thing that irked him the most was that they weren´t being honest, trying everything to be in the spotlight for a second and denying ever doing so. You've been looking for a wreck like me A perfect catastrophic harmony Falling in and out of symmetry Cause you've been looking for a wreck like me

Maybe it was because of that, that Atsumu noticed you straight away.

You weren´t really that outstanding in the crowd, you did what everyone else did too, mingle in the crowd and appease people who thought they were the most important in the room.

But unlike everyone else, you were being honest about it.

When Atsumu looked into your bored, lightless eyes, he felt a rush of adrenaline go through him.

He couldn´t remember when he last felt this excited.

Over the years he got really good at identifying red flags such as yourself, but he also realized that he was way into them.

Why deny that he craved the heartbreak? What good would it do him? Fuck, if it meant being wrecked by you, he´d go through hell if that was what it took.

Atsumu was bored of nice people, they were all so bland and he learned not to trust them because everyone always wanted something. And you always had to be careful with people who you couldn´t tell what they wanted.

After everything, Atsumu needed to feel something and sadly agony was the only thing that worked.

He couldn´t believe in the cheers of his fans anymore, not in the congratulations from his friends and teammates, well, he didn´t have friends these days.

But hearing that someone didn´t love him anymore? That he´d never be good enough? Now, that was something which was way too easy to believe.

In a weird way it made him feel at ease.

And you didn´t. At all.

You made him feel a kind of excited that he hadn´t felt in so long, he wanted you to break him in a different way, to break him only to put him back together and then smash his heart to pieces.

So when you suggested to get away from the party, he agreed without any second thoughts.

That night he had the best sex he ever had in his life and realized that it wasn´t nearly enough for him.

Oh it kills me and there's no denying that I can't shake Cause I just wanna be someone's disaster And I can't break but I know you're trying And it kills me cause I just wanna be someone's disaster

Before he met you, Atsumu only attended the parties his teammates invited him to, the ones that were mandatory. But now, he was at every single one just to meet you again.

He was desperate, greedy and in need for you.

When he finally found you, you just laughed at him, pointing out his miserable state.

You took pity on him and your arrangement was born.

The relationship with Atsumu was weird to say the least, he was more dependent on you, that much was clear.

In a strange way you found that cute, you liked being needed and Atsumu was always so honest with everything he did and said even though he didn´t notice it himself.

He was wide eyed and had a good soul, he was too kind to be fucked over by the world like this.

And you hated yourself for caring that much.

You never did before, but somehow he made it way too easy. It irritated you.

The two of you were just fucking every time you met, so why did you look forward to every stupid party now? And why didn´t you fuck anyone else like you usually did? Why weren´t you letting yourself get bored of Atsumu like usual? What was it about him?

Maybe you really pitied him.

Well, whatever it was, you didn´t want it to stop and you sure as hell didn´t want to think about it.

Because thinking about it would make it true, the truth only sent you running usually.

This time you wanted to stay and let him break you apart.

Somehow you looked forward to the pain, to the heartbreak. Because it would once again prove that it was always the same, that your intuition wasn´t wrong and that you should go back to your usual self and ways.

Atsumu didn´t make it easy for you.

I've been searching for a drug like you You've been looking for a wreck like me I've been searching for a drug like you Oh for a drug like you

With more time passing, it became almost impossible to be apart from Atsumu. Both of you never imagined that it would go like this, that whatever you had would last.

But it didn´t make any of you happy. It wasn´t enough. You were far too gone for that, you both were head over heels, but too stubborn to admit it, too scared of getting hurt and yet expecting it at the same time.

As if it was inevitable.

Today wasn´t the first time you stayed over after Atsumu insisted. You didn´t complain, even though staying over was the dealbreaker. Even though both of you promised not to catch feelings and stop seeing each other as soon as you did.

It was as if you forgot that other people existed too, though nobody else would suffice, you needed each other.

Every time you stayed over at his place, Atsumu made you breakfast and kissed you softly as if it was normal, like a dance practiced a hundred times.

And you didn´t complain.

Instead you felt safe and oddly comfortable. It was too good for your taste, you didn´t trust it.

Both of you didn´t, but neither of you said anything about it.

If you mentioned it, it would be over and that was the last thing you wanted.

So you just bathed in his company, enjoyed the way he held your hand, got excited when you watched his games.

He took you with him to his training because he hated being alone, but usually he just needed someone around, he didn´t care who it was.

But now it had to be you, nobody else would be what he wanted, who he needed.

Only you.

Bokuto had asked him one day if you were his girlfriend and without thinking about it, he had replied ´not yet´.

Girlfriend. That sounded nice. It kills me and there's no denying that I can't shake Cause I just wanna be someone's disaster And I can't break but I know you're trying And it kills me cause I just wanna be someone's disaster

#haikyuu #haikyuu imagine #haikyuu songfic #haikyuu scenario #haikyuu oneshot #haikyuu atsumu #miya atsumu #atsumu miya #atsumu x reader #atsumu imagine #atsumu oneshot #atsumu scenario #atsumu songfic #hq #hq imagine #hq songfic #hq oneshot #hq scenario #hq atsumu

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kinda-iconic · 4 years

Text

Goodbye, my Friend

Author’s Note: So, here it is... the fic that has had me in literal tears. I have loved writing this, truly I have, though I have to admit that it resurfaced a few sad things in its wake. I tried to make Amy’s reaction as realistic as possible, so I incorporated my own experiences with grief, as well as the feelings and thoughts that come along with it. I won’t lie, I was heavily inspired by Kamilah’s speech at Jax’s/Lily’s memorial, as it hit home with me; pain really is the price of love.

Summary: After the final battle with Rheya, the group try to come to terms with the loss of a good friend.

Tagging: @adrianadmirer @bloodboundismylife @raeylnnsmom @bbchoices @choicesfannatalie @mrsnazariowritesagain @luckyferrero @adriansbiss @octobereighth @mrskamilxh @kamilahslittlehoe @evilpluto @senator-adrian-raines-wifey@misterbitterapplesauce @small-lady-of-the-sea @hypno-bear-tini @tays-role-plays

Amy sits on the couch, the events of the past few hours replaying in her mind like a broken record on repeat. Everything she felt in that moment started to come back to her; the anger, the fear...

The pain.

I love you, Amy. You were the best...best friend...I’ve ever had.

Lily’s final words, permanently etched in her mind like they had been carved into wood, a painful reminder of a sacrifice that they should never have had to make. Her eyes remain fixated on her surroundings, her ears drowning out everything around her, including that of a familar voice, trying to lull her from her trance-like state.

‘Amy?’

Adrian takes a seat beside her, his eyes laden with empathy as they befall her. He places his hand atop of hers, giving it a comforting squeeze. He hesitates slightly, as if waiting for her to respond, but is met with nothing.

‘A…Amy?’

There is no response; she continues to stare forlornly at the coffee table, her cheeks blotchy and tear-stained. She remains like that for a moment before reaching up, wiping at the tears that threaten to fall, but it isn’t long before she pulls her hand away, noting the ash that has stuck to her wrist like glue. Her eyes widen as she catches sight of it, the remains of that night clinging to her skin, mixed with the dry remnants of blood and dirt. Her hands begin to tremble; Adrian is quick to notice, his brows narrowing in concern as he watches her. He sighs defeatedly, moving his hand to rest upon her waist; he pulls her closer to his side, his arm constricting around her, as if he’s trying desperately to reassure her of his presence.

‘I know that I cannot offer you a lot of comfort right now, but I…’ he reaches up, cupping her cheek with his palm, his fingers entangling in her hair, ‘I’m sorry, Amy.’ He looks into her eyes, his own glistening with tears. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

She starts to cry once more, her muffled sob escaping with a sorrowful gasp, her trembling hands burying themselves in her jumper as she folds her arms, trying with all of her might to quell her body from shaking as she weeps. He wraps his arms around her, holding her close to his chest as she cries into his shoulder.

‘She was…’ she sniffles, her breath hitching in her throat, ‘she was…my…’

‘I know.’

He pulls her further into his embrace, cradling her head as she tilts it downwards, nestling her face into his chest. He presses a hasty kiss to her forehead, tucking her hair behind her ear as she continues to sob, fresh tears falling onto his shirt.

‘Why did she… why did she have to…’

‘She did what she did to protect you,’ he runs his hand down her back, drawing soothing circles into the fabric, ‘to keep you safe.’

‘It… it should have been me.’

‘Don’t say that,’ he replies with urgency, his voice stern yet sympathetic, ‘don’t ever say that.’

She looks up at him, dabbing at the corner of her eyes with her sleeves.

‘But it’s true,’ she rests her head on his shoulder, blubbing softly, ‘I was the only one that could defeat Rheya, and yet I…’ she sniffles once more, ‘I let Dracula distract me from defeating her.’ Her breath catches, and she soon finds herself staring at her hands, ‘if it wasn’t for me, then she wouldn’t be-’

‘Dead.’

Amy closes her eyes, silent tears trickling down her face.

‘I miss her, Adrian,’ she inhales sharply, sitting forward; she hides her face in her hands, shielding herself from the reality of what happened, ‘I miss her so damn much…’

‘We all do,’ he runs a gentle hand through her hair, his voice calming and delicate, ‘Lily was a good friend to all of us.’ He sighs despondently, taking her hand in his own, ‘what she did, it was…’

‘Heroic.’

Kamilah stands in the entryway, her manicured hand clutching onto a glass of red wine. She slowly approaches the pair, her expression solemn; she takes a seat on the arm of a chair, gesturing at Amy with her glass.

‘I said the same about you once,’ she glances down at her lap, exhaling slowly, ‘when you sacrificed yourself for us.’

Amy smiles sadly at her, but it fades away as quickly as it came.

‘Yeah… and I didn’t really make much of a difference there, did I?’

‘You made all the difference,’ Adrian nudges her slightly, ‘you freed the city from Gaius’ control; you saved all of us.’

‘Did I?’ She turns to Adrian with suddenness, her eyes welling with tears, ‘five of us entered that Opera House, Adrian; five of us entered and only four…’ she gasps, her words catching in her throat. She pauses for a moment before continuing, her voice no louder than a whisper.

‘O…only four…’

Her bottom lip begins to quiver; she brings her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms tightly around them. She shuffles along the couch, falling onto Adrian’s lap, her head resting on his knee.

‘Hey,’ he whispers softly to her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, ‘it’s alright.’ His hand inches under the material of her top, rubbing her back to soothe her. ‘I know it might not feel like it now, but…you’ll be okay. It will get easier in time, I-’

‘Everyone says that,’ Kamilah and Adrian share a knowing look before turning their attention back to Amy; she remains motionless, her voice quiet and laden with sorrow. She continues to stare at the table, the waterfall of tears subsiding for only a moment. ‘But it never does; not really.’

‘Amy…’

‘You know it’s true.’ She sniffles, discarding her tears with the pad of her thumb. ‘It’s practically in the manual on how you deal with grief,’ she stumbles on her words slightly, taking a sharp inhale of breath, ‘people tell you that time heals all wounds and that…that you’ll move on as time goes by, but…’ she sits upright, meeting Adrian’s gaze, ‘I don’t want to move on, Adrian. I don’t want to forget her.’

‘You don’t have to forget someone in order to move forward, Amy,’ he smiles sadly at her, squeezing her shoulder in comfort, ‘most of the time, it is the memory of that person, and their impact on our lives, that keeps us going.’

‘But what if I do?’ she looks up at him, her brown doe-like eyes meeting his own, ‘she was such an important person in my life…’ she sighs, running an exhausted hand through her hair. ‘How could I possibly move on from this.’

‘You can’t.’

Kamilah places her glass down on the end table, her once stoic expression replaced with one of conflict as she makes her way over to her. She sits on the armrest of the couch, placing a gentle hand on Amy’s shoulder.

‘Lily meant a lot to you; she was your best friend. It simply isn’t possible to move on from someone that was that dear to you.’

‘Then why do…’ she whimpers, trying to regain her composure, ‘why do people say that?’

‘Because we hate to see those we care about in pain,’ she looks over at Adrian, who smiles sadly at her in return, ‘even if we know that what we’re saying isn’t entirely true.’

‘But wouldn’t that be worse?’ Amy glances up at Adrian, her eyes laden with vulnerability; he runs a gentle hand through her hair, resting his palm at the nape of her neck. ‘Isn’t it better to tell the truth? To be honest?’

‘Not if it’s at the expense of others,’ he kisses the top of her head, ‘sometimes it is better to be kind, even if that means you disregard what is right.’

She studies her hands for a moment, her mind lost in thought. When she speaks, her voice is soft and quiet, barely audible to the ear.

‘I…I guess that makes sense.’

He drapes his arm around her, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze.

‘Whatever you need of me, whether it’s words of comfort, or a shoulder that you…’ he stops himself, noting the strain that her grief has had on her, ‘I am here for you, Amy; always.’

She chuckles nervously, brushing the tears from her cheeks.

‘Thank you,’ she smiles; her head falls onto his arm, her delicate hands clasping onto his sleeve; ‘that… that means a lot.’

He moves her hair behind her shoulders, gently removing the strands that are stuck to her cheeks.

‘Anytime.’

Kamilah sighs; she gets to her feet, flattening out the creases in her blouse.

‘I should check on Jax… it’s getting late, and I want to make sure that he’s alright.’

‘How is he? He left very quickly after Rheya, and...’ Amy’s breath hitches at the mention of her name, ‘and you were the only one that managed to speak to him.’

Kamilah sighs, glancing down at her hands.

‘Jax and Lily were close; not as close as you were to her, but... they spent so much time working together in the Shadow Den. She was his right hand for over a year, so...’ she exhales sharply, shaking her head as if to rid herself of a bad memory, ‘losing another close friend so soon after Takeshi...’

She takes a moment to compose herself before continuing.

‘He needs us in his corner, and after everything Lily did for Jax’s clan, I... I should give them my condolences.’

‘Lily meant a lot to you too,’ Amy smiles sadly up at her, ‘please don’t focus on everyone else’s grief and forget your own…’

‘I’ve lived for two millennia, Amy; grief isn’t a new concept to me.’

‘But it can still hurt, right? Just as much as it did the first time you lost someone…’

She responds with a curt nod.

‘Of course,’ she gestures to Adrian, ‘just because Adrian has been around for nearly three centuries, it doesn’t mean that the grief he felt when you…’ she pauses for a moment, noticing the anguish in his eyes as she recounts the night Amy lost her mortality; she clears her throat, looking down at the floor. ‘I’m sorry, Adrian, I…I didn’t mean to cause you-’

‘It’s fine,’ he interjects, waving his hand dismissively; he turns his attention to Amy, taking her hands in his own, ‘what Kamilah is trying to say is that…’ he rubs his forehead, fixating his gaze on their joined hands, ‘just because someone has lived a long life, it doesn’t mean that the pain of loss doesn’t affect them. When you died, I…the heartache I felt was all too real. I felt the same pain when I lost Celia all those years ago. When I… when I lost my family.’ He smiles at her, faintly squeezing her hand. ‘Grief may not be new to us, but it doesn’t mean that it hurts us any less.’

She looks up at Kamilah, her sorrowful eyes regarding her in admiration.

‘Can you make sure that Jax isn’t on his own tonight?’ She sits a little straighter, ‘they may have joked about one another daily, but she was a good friend to him.’

‘Definitely,’ she tips her head in acknowledgement, ‘I’ll make sure to help out wherever I can; Jax has always been a ‘busy body’. I’ll ensure that he’s got something to keep him occupied.’

‘Thank you…’

She nods, turning her attention back to Adrian.

‘Are you heading back to your penthouse?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ he looks down at Amy, pressing a tender kiss to her temple, ‘I’d like to stay with you, if that’s alright.’

‘Really? You’d do that for me?’

‘Of course I would,’ he kisses the top of her head, his hand gently caressing her cheek, ‘I’d do anything for you, Amy… and if I’m honest…’ he wipes at the remaining tears with his thumbs, ‘I have a feeling that you don’t want to be on your own tonight.’

She nods, nestling her face into his chest. His arms constrict around her, pulling her into his embrace.

‘Are you happy to stay here? Or did you want-’

‘Can we go to yours?’ She sniffles, releasing a sharp breath, ‘I…I don’t think I can stay here tonight.’

‘Of course,’ he smiles at her with adoration, leaning in to kiss the tip of her nose, ‘do you want any help packing an overnight bag?’

She shakes her head.

‘I think I’ll be okay,’ she stands up, straightening her jacket, ‘but thank you for offering.’ She glances back at Kamilah, her sweet smile returning, ‘thank you, Kamilah… for everything you said…’

‘I’m glad I could help,’ she retrieves the glass from the side, downing the wine in a couple of gulps before turning back to face the others, ‘I’m always here for you in the case that you need words of encouragement,’ she tilts her head subtly in Adrian’s direction. ‘But if you want a hug or anything…mushy, I’d say that’s Adrian’s department.’

He chuckles softly, running a hand through his hair.

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘Please do.’

Amy starts to make her way to her bedroom, her footsteps light and delicate. She goes to pass Adrian, but before she has the chance, he grabs onto her hand, causing her to pause.

‘Adrian?’

He raises her hand to his lips, planting a soft kiss to her knuckles.

‘Pack enough for a few days. We can always come back for more.’

She smiles bashfully, regarding him for a moment before heading down the corridor. At the sound of her door closing, Adrian turns to Kamilah, his expression one of concern.

‘Amy can stay at mine until she is ready to come home.’

‘And what if she doesn’t want to come back?’ She folds her arms across her chest, ‘she shared this apartment with Lily. Whose to say that she’ll want to continue living here? Besides… apartments in New York can be expensive. Living on her own? It could just about bankrupt her.’

‘Well I’ll just have to ask her what she wants to do.’

‘Does she even have an option?’ She takes her glass over to the kitchen, placing it in the dishwasher. ‘This place will probably cost her most of her salary.’

‘I can help with that,’ he reaches into his jacket, retrieving his car keys, ‘I’ll cover her rent until she decides what she wants to do.’

‘You’d pay for her to live here?’ She looks at him quizzically, ‘you do realise that these apartments aren’t cheap, right? It’s cheaper than most, but it’s still rather pricey.’

‘Are you forgetting that I’m the CEO of a very profitable company?’

‘And you’d pay for everything? Her rent? The bills...’

He nods. She cracks a smile, chuckling to herself.

‘You’re smitten with her.’

He shrugs, reaching up to adjust his tie.

‘Can you blame me?’

‘I guess not.’

The pair remain in silence for a moment before Adrian speaks, his words tainted with a mixture of mischief and sincerity.

‘That reminds me…’ he stands abruptly, putting on his suit jacket, ‘I need to give her a raise.’

‘Just for being your girlfriend?’

‘No,’ he chuckles softly, ‘for all of the hard work she’s been doing.’ He checks his watch, patting his pockets as if to check that everything is there. ‘That being said…’

‘You’re insufferable.’

He smiles mischievously at her, ‘it’s taken you over two centuries to figure that out?’

‘I think I knew that from day one…pretty boy.’

‘Hey!’

She shakes her head, an amused laugh escaping her.

‘I’m going to call Jax; let him know that I’m stopping by.’

‘Tell him that we’re here for him.’ He walks with her to the door, his hands casually buried in his pockets. ‘Lily meant a lot to all of us, but this…I guess it’s hit Jax and Amy most of all.’

‘I have to agree,’ she opens the door, making a passing comment over her shoulder, ‘Lily had her moments, but I was rather fond of her. It feels strange to admit, but… I think I’m going to miss her trying to coax me into playing video games.’ She exits the apartment, spinning on her heel to face him, ‘though I don’t think that will stop Amy from asking.’

‘Knowing Amy, she’ll definitely keep that tradition alive.’

‘Well I hope she does,’ she narrows her brows in suspicion, ‘but don’t encourage her.’

A hearty laugh escapes him. He holds up his hands in surrender.

‘I won’t, but I can’t make any promises that the idea won’t accidentally ‘slip’ out.’

‘I should have expected that from you.’

He smiles at her in gratitude; he clears his throat, taking a careful step towards her.

‘Thank you…for what you said to Amy, I…’

She holds up a hand to silence him.

‘There’s no need to thank me, brother; our little Bloodkeeper needed comfort. I only did what any good friend would do.’

‘As you have done for me all these years,’ he lowers his gaze to the floor, his voice taking a sincere tone, ‘I… I honestly don’t know what I’d have done without you, Kamilah.’

‘Don’t get soppy on me, Raines; save the mushiness for your girlfriend,’ she places a comforting hand on his arm, ‘and look after her. She needs you more than ever right now.’

He nods.

‘That’s a promise.’

#choices: stories you play #playchoices #choices bb #bloodbound #adrian raines #adrian x mc #lily spencer #choices fanfic

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streets-in-paradise · 4 years

Text

Roadside Bet

American Gods and Percy Jackson crossover - Part 1

Word Count: 1767

Characters: Wednesday, Shadow, Eira ( Vanir demigoddess OC)

Relationships: Platonic.

Summary: Setted in season 1 of American Gods. Mr Wednesday takes his crew on a trip to New York hoping to recruit a powerful ally. Shadow starts asking questions about him and his curiosity unleashes a silly argument.

Warnings: Some ageists jokes, the camp half blood concept from Percy Jackson is interpreted in American Gods’s style.

Disclaimers: This serves as an introduction for my self indulgent attempt of writing fanfic including Sean Bean as Zeus in the American Gods universe. I couldn’t find fiction for Sean Bean’s Zeus and he’s so fine that I can't deal with it so I decided to include him in an idea I had previously in process for an American Gods fanfic. I apologise for any possible mistakes,english is not my native language and this is a translation.

Tags: @yerevasunclair. Our conversations about Sean’s Zeus inspired this. I’m tagging you in both parts. Thank you so much for the inspiration.

I hope you ‘ll enjoy this. Thanks for reading

With the exception of Wednesday's bad mood, the trip was not having any major setbacks. The old man was quite unbearable because he hated New York and its exorbitant modernity, but he knew that this was a trip he was obliged to take. If he closed the deal he set out to make, he would gain a powerful ally, perhaps the most powerful one available.

With only a few miles to go, he switched places with Shadow because he wanted to drive to relieve stress. Meanwhile, to alleviate the boredom during the break, he started to chat with Eira. The girl was sprawled out in the back seat listening to music on an old MP3 player dating from 2002. Shadow signaled her to take off a headset and pay attention to him. Listening to them, Mr. Wednesday rebuked her

“I told her to get rid of every modern toy before following us but she never listens. Eira!! Turn that rubbish off before I destroy it myself.”

“ Chill out, old man. This is ancient history technologically speaking. It doesn’t have wifi connection, or bluetooth, or anything. Nobody can try to track us through this, even the boy must have forgotten these things existed. It’s as safe as your car’s radio.” she replied in a tone that showed annoyance.

Shadow laughed, always amused to see the boss and his new co-worker arguing as a family. Wanting to pry into what she was hearing, he reached out to grab the earpiece she had taken out of her ear and placed it over his.

“ What’s that language? Greek, I think? “ he commented about the music

“Yeah, it 's greek. I’m getting ready for our next stop.” she explained.

“ Greeks? After what I experienced with the russians some time ago i thought we were going to New York to have a meeting with the japanese mafia or something like that. All your business partners seem to have a thing with extremely violent threats. “ he complained

“Don’t be so harsh with Bogo. Most people think he is scary and disgusting but i think he is great. He may be a bit of a psycho weirdo, he makes meat uncomfortable for everyone and sometimes he throws his cigarette smoke in your face but he is a very fun dude “

“ Bogo? Did you nicknamed him? He is a serial murderer who wants my head. “

“ We both live in Chicago, my mom tends to know everyone there and everyone knows her. I know him since i was a child, he is like a grumpy grandpa to me.”

That statement left him a bit shocked. Mainly because he did not imagine Czernobog being friendly to anyone or even being seen as friendly.

“ Do you know the greeks? “ he asked, taking the opportunity to prepare for what was to come

“ No, I never had the pleasure, that’s why I'm so excited. They do their own stuff by themselves, they don’t tend to be very cooperative with the rest. Need is what pushed everyone else to start cooperating and created the unstable bonds of solidarity you had seen so far. They have their own functional system, they don’t need help from anyone. Even if they were struggling i doubt they would ask for it or accept it.”

“ Very secretive people. How will we convince them to join Mr Wednesday? “

“ Let that to me, dear boy.” the boss interrupted . ”They never pick a side, not with us and not with the News. They are always pretending they are better than everyone else in that fake copy of their Olympus they made to themselves when all they actually have is a bunch of brats. If the big conflict starts they will have to choose one side and that’s where we enter.”

“I’m very curious about them "she added .” Their strategy is fascinating. They have a family business that keeps them standing for a very long time in conditions others would only dream to have. They adapted by being themselves without selling to the News.”

” So, greek mafia then? ” Shadow asked,curious and worried in equal amounts.

” Never call them like that ever again. That’s very insulting and they are famous for being very arrogant and easy to irritate. Theo will carbonize you if he hears you calling him a mob boss. ”

” Theo is their boss? He is the one we are visiting? ”

” That’s how we call him, nobody dares to use his full name in casual conversation so we picked a middle ground epithet between his tradition and ours. Names are powerful, Shadow. You don’t have to use them in vain. ” Eira explained. ” Honestly, I'm very excited to meet someone so powerful. Most of the still strong names out there had given up and sold their brands to the News but Theo and his people are still successful. They are living the lifestyle of the Old Country, or at least the closest copy they can get in America. Wednesday is salty because he was never able to agrupate our kind in a similar project. My work for him is the closest thing he got, I’m one of the very few children of his associates who got invested and that’s only because my mother kept me with her. I’m not precisely the rule, that’s why practically i grew up to be here now. ”

Shadow started to get severly worried .The repeated comment about the power of the people who were going to see kept him on his toes. He didn't want to get into any more trouble.

” Do you want to give me a list of stuff to avoid when facing this Theo? I’m starting to freak out a bit and I don't understand a shit of what you are saying except for “ he is powerful”. ” he asked her

” Don’t worry i will be there with you the whole time and i have more experience dealing with this sort of thing than you. Wednesday should have brought you to my mother’s home first instead of going straight to the russians when you visited our city. Don’t be scared, if you screw it up i will help you out”.

Wednesday did not missed the chance to give his own advice as well

” The best for both of you is to keep your mouths shut as much as you can. “ he warned. ”Smile, nod in agreement, answer only what it’s being asked of you in the moment. This goes especially for you, young lady. ” he concluded in an imperative tone.

” Why the sudden care? You didn’t when we were visiting others. Are you afraid of him? ” she teased.

” Never, how could you suggest that? I’m restraining you because I don't want you to shift the focus of our negotiation. Theo has a weakness for youthful maidens like you.” he replied, scolding her again.

” Then I should be the one negotiating with him.Wouldn’t be easier to convince him? ”

” They don’t make him particularly weak, they are his favourite distraction. He enjoys himself when they get affected by his charm. Our business is the war and nothing more. Less you talk, less chances of distracting him too much.”

Shadow was getting some entertainment with the discussion and intervened to give his opinion

” He doesn’t want this guy doing to you what he does to other women. ”he stated, mocking Wednesday. ” He wouldn’t admit it but he cares for you. He doesn’t want to see some horny old dude around you, thirsting over you and making you feel uncomfortable.”

” My concern is not her safety, it’s her loyalty what troubles me. She works for me, she represents me. I don’t want her to forget it in front of him.”

” Wednesday, he is older than you. ” Eira complained, trying to make him understand how ridiculous he sounded. ” Why would i care about him flirting with me? I’ll smile at him, pretend i’m pleased with his commentaries to keep him happy enough for you to close the deal and that’s all. It’s not the first time it happened, i’m used to casual flirting. Mad Sweeney had done it the few times we had seen each other, some others associates of yours do it sometimes. The people we see tend to get flirty, Shadow has experienced it as well. It’s part of the job. ”

” Mad Sweeney is a drunk loser, we are talking of real power here. Watch your steps and don’t embarrass me.” Wednesday insisted.

Shadow couldn’t stop laughing

” Is he truly afraid you would be seduced by a man older than him? He has to be kidding, he is one of the oldest men i ever meet so how old is the greek ? 95?”

” I may not be into the Technical Boy despite being closer in age terms to him than to most of the dudes we had dealt with but that doesn’t mean i’m into senior citizens. A middle ground is good, thanks. ” she joked, joining the mockery.

” You two are too young to understand some very important aspects of how things work here. I’m warning you before it’s too late.” Wednesday replicated.

” Whatever, thanks for the advice. I will have it in mind the next time an irresistable senior citizen shows up.You don’t know anything about my tastes in men and you are projecting your own crap on me. You may have a thing for girls of my age but not all of us get horny for grandpas. Some do and i don’t judge them but i’m not one of them.”

” Wait and see. ” the old man replied in the same mocking tone. ” I would like to bet. I did it when Shadow fought the leprechaun, now it’s your turn. ”

” We don’t have anything of value you may want.He just got out of jail and it’s not like mom would give me her Brisingamen just because i lost a bet to you. ”

” Shadow, are you in? ” the boss asked

” What would i win? ”

” If Eira feels condescendingly repulsed by the greek i double your weekly pay. If he charms her i discount a percentage .”

” If she doesn’t feel attracted to an old greek you duplicate my pay? Sure, i’m in. it is a safe bet, right?” he asked her

” He talks bullshit, i’m not interested. Go ahead.” she assured him

” I had never been happier standing in the middle of your silly fights. ”

The youngsters spent the rest of the trip making fun of Wednesday's ridiculous bet, sure they were going to win. The old man laughed in their faces, he was playing with them again.

Note: Theo is a name with two possible etymological origins, one greek and one germanic. A long time ago i read a theory that said the greek form Deos was associated with Zeus. I recently read that wasn’t the case but i still found it fitting for Zeus.

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taexual · 5 years

Text

HOLIC - 46 | jb x reader

pairing: Im Jaebum x Reader

genre: enemies to lovers au | roommate au

warnings: angst + some conflict resolution

words: 3k

disclaimer: i do not own the gif, please let me know if it belongs to you, so i can give proper credit

prev / next

You’d left a hundred voicemails. You'd called a thousand times. You’d sent a million texts. And yet, even despite your ruthless ambush, Jaebum – in an equally as ruthless manner – still did not reply to you. That was understandable, however, and, more than expected, really – but it still brought you great distress.

You didn’t know where he was and, after having stayed awake the entire night, trying to get ahold of him and waiting for him to return home, you suddenly weren’t too sure where you were, either. Your own room felt foreign and the apartment itself lost all of its’ familiarity.

Finally, at around five in the morning (or, in other words, about five centuries later), your phone rang with a text from Jaebum. You nearly gave yourself whiplash as you leaped from your spot on the bed to reach your phone that you’d left charging across the room.

His text was short and right to the point – he was simply letting you know he was with his friend – but the very fact that he had texted you lifted some of the heaviness off your shoulders. There was plenty more of it still there, though, and you crouched down, hugging your knees to your chest as you re-read Jaebum’s text message another dozen times.

You wanted to call Mark and Jackson to see if he was with them but then you paused. Jaebum obviously needed some space – and time – right now. And, although you felt like he’d left the apartment a long while ago, it was obviously not long enough.

You were dying to explain yourself but you also recognized that he needed to be away from you for a little while longer. The text he’d sent you sparked a new hope that this period of you and him being away from each other wouldn’t last long. You just had to endure it without losing your mind completely. The text had to mean that he knew you cared about him – even despite what you’d done – and he didn’t want you to crawl out of your skin with worry – even if that was precisely what you’ve been doing since he’d left – which, in turn, had to mean that he cared about you, too. But you knew that already – you didn’t need his text to show you that; his reaction when you told him about Jiho was proof enough.

You’d postponed the conversation so you wouldn’t hurt Jaebum and, predictably, you ended up doing so anyway.

Giving him some space was the right thing to do now, so you let him be. Until, a few hours later, you couldn’t take it anymore. It had started to feel like the more space you were giving him, the more place you left for his doubts to take over him. Soon, there would be no space left in his mind to hear you explain what had happened in the past few weeks.

But, just like before, no matter how much you called or texted, Jaebum didn’t answer. Shortly, he turned his phone off altogether. The phone could have died, of course, but still, hearing the operator announce that the person you were trying to reach was unavailable felt very personal. It felt like he’d turned his phone off specifically to avoid seeing your name on his screen.

You knew you called this upon yourself by not telling him earlier but knowing didn’t make this easier. If anything, the guilt you were feeling only seemed to magnify whenever you allowed yourself to think about how easily this could have been avoided.

Jaebum didn’t return home the whole night—this wasn’t the first Sunday night you’ve spent awake but it certainly was the most significant one—and, although your heart had already torn itself into the smallest pieces, you resisted and gave him the space he needed. You still called periodically and left as many messages as you could before your service provider got concerned, but you weren’t going out of your way to get him to respond to you.

By Monday afternoon, you were really only leaving him voice messages so he'd know that you really did care about him and you were aware of how big of a mistake you’ve made by not talking to him about this sooner.

By Monday night, however, you’ve started to have auditory hallucinations and lost count of how many times you thought you’d heard the lock of your apartment door click. Choosing to wait until nighttime, in case Jaebum would choose to return home after all, you sat patiently in your kitchen, doing anything and everything to keep your gaze from shifting to the door.

You wondered if Jaebum would have admired your loyalty – he’d have certainly called you clingy and, perhaps, even compared you to a dog waiting for its’ owner to come home – or if he’d have hated to know that you were still waiting for him to return even after what you’ve done. Frankly, you didn’t spend all of this time sulking – you got angry a couple of times, too. Sometimes, you’d think you didn’t do anything wrong – really, nothing happened between you and Jiho; you were just working on your career in the only way that was possible – but, immediately after, you’d find yourself admitting that this wasn’t even the real problem here.

Jaebum didn’t really storm out of your apartment just because you were working with Jiho and he hated the guy. He left because you worked with Jiho behind his back, purposefully dodging his questions about your work just so you wouldn’t have to admit the truth. Even after giving you a fair amount of openings – not that you needed an excuse to share the events of your day with him, considering your relationship status – you still stayed quiet, choosing vague words and plain silence as a way to answer his questions. It was a form of defense in a way and, consequently, a form of lying.

While you listened to Jaebum give you breakdowns of his day and updates on his career, you did not reciprocate and secretly cherished his carefulness – how many times did you thank God that Jaebum was so understanding and so willing to ignore your unusual behavior? – and that was so much worse than just lying about Jiho to him.

When your alarm clock rang the next morning, you got out of bed with a definite plan – you would seek both Mark and Jackson out to see if Jaebum was staying with either of them and you would do anything in your power to talk to him and explain. You could only give him space to think for so long before you drowned in your own thoughts and watched him to drown in his.

Before you could follow your plan – although, perhaps calling it a plan was generous; you really had no idea what you were going to say to his friends if they even agreed to help you – you still had to get through a full day of work at the gallery.

Having always dreaded to see Jiho there, you didn’t really expect today to be any different but a surprise awaited you on your phone when you picked it up to check the time after exiting your car outside of your gallery. It was a text notification from Hyojin, warning you about an article, evidently recounting the photography event you and Jiho had gone to on Friday night. Your stomach sunk before you even opened it, completely disregarding the message your friend wrote before she attached the link.

Instead of reading Jiho’s recap of the event – he’d sworn he would use your pictures for it but you ended up not taking any – you were forced to read through another pile of tabloid-like garbage that, predictably, focused completely on your relationship with Jiho.

Now, on the one hand, the article proved that Jiho’s publicity stunt was a complete success – you nearly suffocated when you saw a picture of yourself leaving the gallery and Jiho storming off after you, an ominous “young photographer couple” written in the description of the shot; clearly, you and him have been noticed – but, on the other hand, not a single sentence in the entire article even mentioned your aspiration to become a successful photographer.

Not only did the writers – tipped off by Jiho, no doubt – assumed that you and him were together but they also allowed themselves to speculate if, perhaps, you and him were going to be the next big artist-and-his-muse names in the world of photography. They even went as far as to compare you and him to Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick – which was right on point, considering that Edie was, really, one of many Warhol’s muses – further proving that they didn’t even consider you a photographer. At least, not in the literal sense of the word – they saw the camera in your hands and pointed it out in the description of another photograph of you by the entrance to the gallery. But Jiho was “the photographer” and, according to the writers, in the relationship hierarchy, you were either Jiho’s apprentice (the writers dismissed the possibility after merely toying with it for a sentence of two) or his muse. Not his colleague. Not a photographer. Barely even a person, really.

Beyond frustrated, you walked through the double doors of the gallery and, before you could toss your phone across the empty foyer, you caught sight of Jiho, talking to someone on the phone next to the staircase. You really considered strangling him for a hot minute but, after taking a few deep breaths, you decided to handle this like an adult – or, as close to one as you could get with your blood boiling and pulse pounding in your ears.

“Did you fucking read this?” you demanded as soon as you reached him, pushing your phone to his face. “This is the second god-damn time this happens.”

“Wh—I’m—l-let me call you back,” Jiho said before hanging up the call and putting his phone away so he could focus on yours. He squinted as he read the headline. “Oh, so we’ve definitely been seen, huh? That’s good.”

“That’s not good,” you disagreed. “And we were not seen at all. You were. I was your shadow if even that. Again!”

Jiho wasn’t listening to you as his eyes continued to scan the contents of the article.

“Your little stunt of leaving early worked out nicely, too,” he added in regards to the last bit of the article that recounted, in epic little detail, how you left the event early and Jiho “followed right after like a love-sick puppy”.

“It wasn’t—Jesus, how much money did you pay to get them to write this bullshit?” you asked, retrieving your phone after noticing that it didn’t bring the expected result – not that you knew what you were expecting; it was hard to imagine Jiho doing something other than grinning like a deformed jack-o-lantern.

“You think I paid for this?” Jiho’s eyebrows reached his hairline. “Wow, you must think I’m a millionaire.”

“What are you talking about? You knew so many people who were there—”

“So, I talked to them,” he said as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. Probably rolled his eyes, too, but you weren’t looking at him – you were reading the article and further fueling your anger. “I mean, some damage control had to be done, you caused quite a fuss there. I tried to give the others the impression that—”

“This is your fault, then!” you cut him off with a high-pitched shriek that he seemed to flinch away from.

“I’m not sure I understand what I’m being accused of, here,” he said as calmly as he could. The calmness was a façade, as you’ve already learned, and the veins on his neck were becoming more prominent by the second. “We needed exposure and we got it. What’s the problem?”

“What kind of exposure is this? You told me this wouldn’t seem like a romantic relationship. That they would focus on our professional relation instead of twisting it around to make it seem like—”

“Professional relationships don’t sell nearly as well as—”

“Sell?” you scoffed. “What are these people buying, exactly? That you’re a photographer? Well, they knew that already, I would hope. Or you’ve surely wasted the past years of your life.”

“Right—”

“There’s not really much else in there about me. Except that I’m—”

Seemingly having had enough of your endless tirade, Jiho crossed his arms over his chest, cutting you off, “maybe if you wanted there to be more descriptions of you, you shouldn’t have left early.”

“Oh, so they could have taken more pictures of us to strengthen their narrative of us being romantically involved? No. That’s not okay,” you shook your head, finding it difficult to voice your thoughts rationally and not start screaming. Screaming would have felt so nice. “These articles… they’re not helping anyone but you. Next week, they can write one about you and some other “muse” you’ve brought to a photography event. No one will give a shit about me. I agreed to do this to get myself more exposure as a photographer. Instead, I’m just a new toy you can play around with to get yourself more well-known.”

“Listen, you have this warped sense of how this works,” Jiho said. His patronizing voice made you clench your fists. “These things take time. You think you’ll get popular overnight—”

“Don’t tell me what I think!” you yelled, your patience wearing thin.

“Okay, alright. I’m sorry,” he said, not sounding one bit apologetic. He just felt like he was winning because you were suddenly shouting and he was still successful at resisting to raise his voice. “Let’s not talk about this here—”

You took a deep breath and closed your eyes for a second or two – purely a precaution so you wouldn’t punch him and get yourself fired – even if you were already one step away from quitting – and probably arrested.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” you said then. “This is the last article depicting me as someone’s rumored girlfriend.”

Jiho didn’t seem surprised to hear this.

“See, that’s good because, actually, I’m having second thoughts about this, too,” he said, the bitter tone of his voice dripping with arrogance and entitlement. “Clearly, you’ve got it in your head that you’re in a position to demand an exhibition when you’re virtually nothing in the photography world. You don’t listen to a single word I say and you have enough guts to give me ultimatums as if you know how this works better than I do. I don’t know who you think you are but this is not how any of this works. All I did was try to help you—”

You thought you could only recall one other instance when you felt this frustrated – and more than ready to either rip all of your hair out or to beat Jiho to a pulp – and that was when you met up with Suji and had to listen to her boast about her happy relationship with Jaebum. My God, what a pair her and Jiho would have made – both bull-headed, arrogant, and so unbelievably thick, it was a miracle they’ve gotten this far in life without getting all of their teeth knocked out.

“This was no help for me,” you said through clenched teeth and then unlocked your phone to see the headline of the article again. You pointed your phone at him as proof. “This was all for you.”

“It was meant to help both of us and the gallery we represent—”

“Oh, open your fucking eyes, the gallery’s not even mentioned in the article,” you groaned.

Jiho swallowed, an undeniable – and very well-executed – image of someone who felt wronged and disrespected evident on his face.

“This isn’t working,” he stated, then, obviously taking immense pleasure in having the ability to say this. He knew he was above you in this situation and he relished it. “I’ve lost count of how many rules listed in the contract you’ve broken and yet I closed my eyes, thinking it’d be worth it. I don’t really think so anymore. I think you’re too full of senseless pride and I’m afraid I can’t work with that. You told me you’d quit if we didn’t host your exhibition and, admittedly, that caught me off-guard and, perhaps, even impressed me. But I can see everything clearly now – you’re absolutely not the sort of artist we’re looking for.”

“What sort of artists are you looking for?” you asked, your blood hot and about to pour out of your ears in rapid squirts of burning rage. “Pushovers, willing to follow you around like newborn puppies? Fresh, vulnerable university graduates who lack the spine to tell you that what you’re doing is preying on their lack of experience and using them to your own gain?”

“I’m sorry if that’s how you feel,” Jiho said. “Unfortunately, this partnership is over. Don’t worry about the contract anymore. We’re not going to be hosting your—”

“Oh, good! Perfect!” you shouted before he could finish. “I never wanted to work with you in the first place.”

You turned around, walking away, but Jiho couldn’t resist not having the last word. He simply felt too proud to let you leave this easily.

“Hopefully you’ll continue to feel that way,” he called out after you, “because you can forget all about your dream of hosting your own exhibition.”

You didn’t want to turn around and say something else because it felt like admitting defeat but you couldn’t resist it. You’ve still had a few things you’ve always wanted to say to him and now was finally the time to stop holding yourself back.

“Fuck you,” you dropped over your shoulder, your expression – finally – calm. “And fuck that exhibition. That’s not what my dream is.”

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